The days of Bieber fever are over. Enter the Psy-chotic reign of PSY.

The Korean pop star hailing from Seoul stole the spotlight at the Video Music Awards, the American airwaves for the past week, and has even signed a deal with Bieber's manager, Scooter Braun, earlier this month. 

Released July 15, his international viral hit "Gangnam Style" is now the most-liked video in YouTube history surpassing LMFAO's "Party Rock." 

Since its debut, the video has acquired more than 229 million views, and is currently number one on the iTunes chart overtaking Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together."  

However, who is the mystery hip thruster who's gained Internet fame?

Well, he's sort of a rebel. He's had run ins with the laws and drugs, and also brushed off higher education for stardom.

Sure, America's rolling out the red carpet for PSY right now; however, the singer's been a big deal in South Korea long before teaching Britney how to horse trot on "Ellen." 

He's a South Korean rapper whose real name is Park Jae-Sang.

The 34-year old singer was born and raised in the Gangnam district of Seoul. 

PSY's been around for more than a decade.

According to his official Facebook page, PSY debuted in 2001 with his first album "Psy From the Psycho World."

His first song was titled "Sae," and guess what, it's also about sexy ladies. 

PSY has released a total of six albums.

"Gangnam Style" is featured on the rapper's latest CD.

Here are his albums in case you want to check them out:  

• PSY from the PSYcho World! (2001)
• Sa 2 (January 16, 2002)
• 3 PSY (September 19, 2002)
• Pssazip (July 24, 2006)
• Psyfive (October 20, 2010)
• PSY's Best 6th Part 1 (2011)

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"Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star Adrienne Maloof has listed her $26 million home, according to Zillow.

Maloof and her plastic surgeon husband Paul Nassif are divorcing, and have decided to sell their family home. The duo bought the home in May 2004 for $12.7 million, according to property records.

The house has eight bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, and spans nearly 20,000 square feet.

The home is completely gated in. As you drive up, you see a tiered water fountain.

The home is located in Beverly Park.

The grand staircase makes a striking entrance.

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There is something you should know about the upcoming, star-studded "Les Misérables"—opening Christmas Day—that makes this movie musical different than any other.

The Tom Hooper-directed film is the first of its kind to record actors singing live, as opposed to in a studio beforehand, which is usually the case.

Producer Cameron Mackintosh explains, "We've found an amazing group of actors [Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Amanda Seyfried] who are completely at home acting through music and the only way you can make that work is by capturing it in the moment."

The film's star Anne Hathaway adds, "It's going to be different for sure, this is the first time anyone's ever tried it like this."

But actor Eddie Redmayne, who plays the character Marius, explains it best:

Normally if you were making an old school movie musical, actors would go into a studio and record an album and then two months later we would arrive on set and they would play the playback and we'd mime alongside it. The problem with that is you have to make all of your acting choices three months before you've even met the actor you're working with. By recording it live, Tom [the director] is allowing us the spontaneity of normal film acting.

And we're calling it now, you'll be seeing "Les Misérables" and its actors at the Oscars this year.

Watch a first look of the famous play-turned-movie musical below:

SEE ALSO: Watch Lindsay Lohan as Elizabeth Taylor in this new "Liz & Dick" trailer >

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Before heading out of the office for the weekend, don't forget to print a few Emmy ballots to hand out to your friends during Sunday night's awards show honoring the year's best in television.

So do your research on this year's nominated shows and actors and then print your official Emmy ballots HERE.

We can't guarantee you'll win the betting pool, but at least you'll get kudos for bringing something to the party.

Now check out the best (and worst) of new TV this fall >

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Some actresses fight to get on the cover of Playboy. Others, like Jessica Alba, take legal action to avoid appearing in its pages.

Only rarely, however, does a Playboy cover appearance hurt an actresses' career.

Since Hugh Hefner published the first American edition of the magazine in 1953, hundreds of stars have been on the cover.

Some of the names are unsurprising (Pamela Anderson, Anna Nicole Smith), others like Barbara Streisand came as more of a surprise.

Marilyn Monroe was famously the first model on Playboy's cover and probably the single most famous woman to appear in the magazine. But she didn't appear in it the most.

This gallery ranks actresses by number of cover appearances over time, including international editions. 

[1 cover] 2007: Mariah Carey appeared on her first (and only) Playboy cover the same year she began recording her 11th album, 'E=MC²,' which earned her the title of solo artist with the most No.1 singles, surpassing Elvis Presley.

[1 cover] 2009: Chelsea Handler's first, and only, cover came out the same year she appeared on Maxim's Hot 100. Her cover also came out shortly after her second book "Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea?" was released.

[1 cover] 1978: Dolly Parton made her single Playboy cover debut the same year her 20th album, "Heartbreaker," was released.

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What do Dick Cheney, Lady Gaga, Bob Marley, and Hugh Hefner all have in common?

They've all been lucky enough to have a newly discovered species named after them.

From colorful fish to rabbits to innocuous wasps, here's a small sample of the animal kingdom's celebrity-dubbed denizens.

Lady Gaga the parasitoid wasp

Scientists in Thailand have dubbed a newly discovered species of parasitoid wasp (similar to the one pictured here) Aleiodes gaga, in honor of Lady Gaga. While the tribute's motivations aren't immediately clear, some suspect the researchers are just hijacking Mother Monster's popularity to attract attention to an innovative DNA barcoding technique used to validate the discovery of this wasp.

Hugh Hefner the bunny

Everyone recognizes the bunny icon made infamous by Hugh Hefner's Playboy empire, but few know that an endangered marshland rabbit (similar to our pal here) was named after the indefatigable ladies man. Hef's organization has donated charitably to researchers who are looking to ensure the survival of Sylvilagus palustri hefneri, once abundant in the southeastern United States.

Sting the tree frog

In the '90s, a species of tree frog discovered in northern Columbia, Dendropsophus stingi (similar to the variety seen here), was named after the Police frontman for his commitment to rainforest preservation. The Rainforest Fund was founded in 1989 by the "Roxanne" crooner and his wife, Trudie Styler, after they witnessed the destruction of the Amazon firsthand.

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One of Britain’s greatest spies of the Second World War, a secret agent who went by the code name White Rabbit, has been identified as the inspiration behind Ian Fleming’s James Bond.

He’s the dashing secret agent who surrounded himself with women, ruthlessly despatched his enemies and had a series of swashbuckling adventures.

It is not James Bond but a real Second World War hero who has now been identified as the inspiration behind Ian Fleming’s fictional creation.

A new biography of Wing Commander Forest “Tommy” Yeo-Thomas, one of Britain’s greatest secret agents of the war, claims the writer based the character of 007 on the spy and recreated many of his real life experiences in his novels.

Yeo-Thomas, who was known by the code name White Rabbit, was parachuted into occupied France three times – after one mission reporting back directly to Winston Churchill – before being captured and tortured by the Gestapo.

He was taken to Buchenwald concentration camp but managed to escape and reach the Allied lines.

His link to Bond is revealed in a document discovered at the National Archives, in west London, by historian Sophie Jackson during her research into a new account of Yeo-Thomas’ exploits, Churchill’s White Rabbit: The True Story of a Real-Life James Bond.

In a dossier of recently declassified documents, she found a memo from May 1945 in which Fleming, who also worked in intelligence during the war, briefs colleagues on the agent and his successful escape from the Nazis.

The two men worked in different units – Yeo-Thomas for the Special Operations Executive and Fleming in the Naval Intelligence Division – and this is the first time a connection has been established between them.

Miss Jackson, a former editor of History Magazine, said that the link – along with remarkable similarities in the characters of Yeo-Thomas and Bond, as well as echoes between the escapades of the real life and fictional spy – supports the idea that Fleming based his character on the agent.

“It shows that Fleming was interested in the case of Yeo-Thomas and had been following it,” she added. “Fleming picked up the story and was interested in it.

"On top of that, there are other significant parallels between Yeo-Thomas and Bond, in their personal life, their relationships with women and attitudes towards women and the way Yeo-Thomas acted as a secret agent. He acts in a way we think of fictional spies acting.

“Some of the sequences that Yeo-Thomas went through are things which are then portrayed in James Bond. And these were experiences that Fleming knew about.”

Yeo-Thomas becomes the latest in a long line of suggested inspirations for the character of Bond, including other intelligence officers of the period: Conrad O’Brien-ffrench, Patrick Dalzel-Job and Bill “Biffy” Dunderdale, Fleming’s brother, Peter, and even the author himself.

In support of her theory, Miss Jackson has detected several parallels between Yeo-Thomas’ war record and sequences in Fleming’s novels.

The most striking is the experience of the agent at the hands of the Gestapo, which was recreated in a scene from the first Bond novel, Casino Royale – as well as the more recent film of the same name – in which the fictional spy is tortured using the same techniques.

On an earlier mission, on a train containing lots of Germans, Yeo-Thomas had found himself having tea with Klaus Barbie, a notorious Nazi known as the “Butcher of Lyon”.

Taking the last seat in the dining car of the Lyon to Paris express, the agent realised he was sitting next to the notorious local chief of the Gestapo.

The Nazis were on the lookout for Yeo-Thomas at the time, but the agent, who was fluent in French, engaged Barbie in conversation and pretended that he was a supporter of the German occupation.

At the end of the meal he was uncertain whether the German had twigged who he was. But he managed to get away safely when the train reached Paris.

The encounter has echoes of a scene from the novel, From Russia, With Love, in which the Bond is on the Orient Express, and has dinner with an enemy agent, who is pretending to be an ally.

On another occasion, Yeo-Thomas adopted the identity of another man to evade detection, a tactic used by Bond in Diamonds Are Forever and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Indeed, several of the techniques used by Yeo-Thomas to repeatedly escape or evade his enemies – at various times, by hiding in a hearse, jumping from a train, strangling a guard or adopting disguises – echo tactics later used by Bond.

And like the licensed to kill 007, Yeo-Thomas always carried a weapon – even though it was contrary to SOE policy. He was also prepared to use it.

On one occasion, he was unable to shake off an enemy agent pursuing him through the streets of Paris. So he lured him to a bridge and hid in the shadows. When his pursuer arrived, Yeo-Thomas pounced on him and shot him at very close range, before tossing his body in the river.

He could also kill with his bare hands. In 1920, after volunteering to serve with the Polish army against the Soviets, he escaped from a Russian prison by strangling a guard.

Miss Jackson also believes the actual character of Bond was based on traits Fleming must have observed in Yeo-Thomas. The real spy was, like the his fictional counterpart, charming and attractive to women and was also surrounded by them – the main members of his personal cell were all female.

He was dashing, having worked at a French fashion house before the war, and had a tangled love life. He never officially married his partner, Barbara, who he met during the war – although she changed her name to his – because he was unable to obtain a divorce from his estranged wife, Lillian, who was living in occupied France.

After the war, Yeo-Thomas succumbed to recurring nightmares and illness, attributed to his wartime experiences. In this, he appears closer to the “darker” and more “psychologically troubled” Bond of the Fleming novels than the more light hearted depictions of the later films. He died in 1964, at the age of 62.

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Clint Eastwood’s baseball movie “Trouble With the Curve” failed to connect with opening day audiences  Friday, and the surprising “End of Watch” and Jennifer Lawrence’s thriller “House at the End of the Street” were battling it for the top spot at the box office.

It's a tight race, but the overall box office looks like It has the blahs again and it is unlikely that any film will crack $15 million for the weekend. Totals were running around 25 percent behind the same week last year.

“Trouble With the Curve” took in $4.1 million from 3,212 locations Friday, a soft $1,297 per-screen average. That projects to a three-day total of around $12.6 million.

Analysts had predicted the film would land in the $18 million range for the weekend, expecting the PG-13 Warner Bros. movie to get a boost from the buzz surrounding Eastwood’s recent speech at the Republican National Convention. His last film was Sony’s “Gran Torino,” which rolled up $148 million in 2008 after a $29 million wide debut.

Audiences gave it a “B+” CinemaScore, and the mature audiences the film targeted tend not to rush out on opening day, so Saturday and Sunday offer hope for a rebound.

Also read: Gyllenhaal & Peña: A Dangerous Good Cop/Good Cop Relationship in 'End of Watch' [4]

“End of Watch,” the R-rated cop drama from Open Road films, debuted with $4.5 million from 2,730 locations Friday and is looking at around $13.5 million for the three days. Audiences gave it an “A-” CinemaScore.

That’s a solid start for the film, which stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena and had a $7 million production budget.

It is battling “Curve” and Relativity’s “House at the End of the Street” for the weekend’s No. 1 spot. “House” also scared up around $4.5 million Friday, which puts it on pace for a weekend north of $12 million. Audiences gave it a “B” CinemaScore.

The weekend’s other wide opener, Lionsgate’s “Dredd 3D,” put up a dreadful $2.1 million from 2,506 locations Friday, which translates to a weekend of around $5.7 million, well below studio and analysts' expectations.

“The Master,” which last week posted the year’s biggest specialty release on five screens, expanded to 783 locations and brought in $1.3 million, a pedestrian $1,759 per-screen average that projects to a three-day total of around $4.3 million.

“Finding Nemo” was in line for the No. 4 spot with $2.3 million Friday that put it on track for a $7.8 million second weekend. 

Last week’s No. 1 film, “Resident Evil: Retribution,” brought in nearly $2 million Friday and is looking at around $5 million for the three days.

Earlier ....

This weekend will provide a heat check for Jennifer Lawrence, the young star of “House at the End of the Street," the thriller expected to challenge for the top spot at the box office.

If the low-budget PG-13 movie from Relativity delivers, and industry analysts say it will compete for the top spot with Clint Eastwood's  “Trouble With the Curve,” it will surely increase the buzz surrounding Lawrence -- and that’s saying something.

In January, Relativity shifted the original release from April 20, ostensibly to avoid a crowded schedule. But there will be plenty of competition this weekend, too. Besides Eastwood’s baseball film "Trouble With the Curve," Open Road Films is rolling out its police drama “End of Watch” and Lionsgate bows “Dredd 3D.”

The expansion of the Weinstein Company’s “The Master” -- which was the No. 1 seller for online ticket broker Fandango Thursday -- and the debut of Summit Entertainment’s “Perks of Being a Wallflower” highlight the specialty release lineup.

It’s a broad slate of movies but their target audiences are diverse, which bodes well for overall box office revenues.

Her turn as Katniss Everdeen in this spring’s blockbuster “The Hunger Games” made Lawrence the highest-grossing action heroine of all-time. She has been getting critical raves for her first film comedy role in “Silver Linings Playbook,” the David O. Russell film that won the audience award at the Toronto International Festival. And she already has the box-office hit “X-Men: First Class” and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for 2010’s “Winter’s Bone” under her belt.

Also read: Clint Eastwood's Chair Speech Could Boost 'Trouble With the Curve' Box Office [5]

Not bad for a 22-year-old. She even sings “All You’ve Got to Do is Fall in Love” by Benji Hughes in the new film.

Young women are the target audience for “House at the End of the Street,” which will be in 3,083 theaters. Elizabeth Shue and Max Theriot co-star, and Mark Tonderai directs. Relativity didn’t screen it for critics, but thriller and horror films tend to be review resistant.

Relativity sees it opening between $11 million and $12 million, but analysts have it doing considerably better, as high as $18 million.

“If ‘House’ does well, it will be seen as a big win for her,” Jeff Bock, senior analyst at Exhibitor Relations Company, told TheWrap. “But even if it doesn’t, no one’s going to hold it against her because this is a small film without a ton of traditional marketing behind it.”

Relativity has focused much of its effort on online and mobile phone promotions, including a partnership with Zynga, as it bids to expand the audience beyond the core young female demographic group with young males.

“Dredd 3D” is a remake of the 1995 movie starring Sylvester Stallone in the comic-based tale of a one-man judge, jury and executioner of the future.

Also read: 'Dredd 3D' Review: An Action Movie Not Smart Enough to Know How Dumb It Is [6]

Karl Urban straps on the helmet for the title role, as he fights to rid MegaCity of the menacing drug lord Ma-Ma (Lena Headley). Olivia Thirlby plays Judge Dredd’s mind-reading side-kick and Pete Travis (“Vantage Point”) directs.

The reviews has been strong for the film, rated R for its dark themes and lots of 3D violence. MetaCritic gives it a 68 rating, and 85 percent of the reviews are positive on Rotten Tomatoes, as are 72 percent of those on Movie Review Intelligence.

Lionsgate is trying to build on the fan boy buzz that began with a well-received Comic-Con screening in July. In addition to a robust online and social media campaign, the company has screened the film in the Toronto International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness slot and the Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, and at a number of regional screenings that featured the film’s stars.  

“Dredd” will be in 2,506 locations and on 2,700 screens, 2,200 of which are 3D. The studio sees the film doing between $8 million and $10 million over the three days, the analysts have it a bit higher.

The critics are also high on “End of Watch,” an R-rated cop drama written and directed by David Ayer, who wrote the screenplay for 2001’s “Training Day.”

Also read: 'End of Watch' Review: Compelling Drama From a Cop's Point of View [7]

Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena star as young officers who are marked for death after confiscating money and firearms from cartel members during a routine traffic stop. Anna Kendrick, America Ferrera, Frank Grillo and Cody Horn co-star. 

Eighty-two percent of the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes are positive, as are 69 percent on Movie Review Intelligence. MetaCritic gives it a 70 rating.

The analysts see it doing around $11 million for the three days, but Open Road acquired the $7 million film for much less than that and would be happy with a debut over $8 million.

The Weinstein Company is expanding Paul Thomas Anderson’s Scientology-inspired tale “The Master” into 788 theaters in 135 markets. Last week it posted the year's biggest specialty box office opening, taking in $729,745 from five theaters in New York and Los Angeles.

That was a $145,949 per-screen average, easily topping the year's previous highest, which belonged to "Moonrise Kingdom.” The analysts see “The Master” doing between $5 million and $6 million this weekend, which would land it in the top ten overall.

Summit Entertainment is debuting teen-targeting “Perks of Being a Wallflower,” which stars Emma Watson of Harry Potter fame, Logan Lerman (“Percy Jackson”) and Ezra Miller, in four theaters.

Also read: Emma Watson Sparkles in Trailer For 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' [8]

It’s based on a novel of the same name. Author Stephen Chbosky wrote and directs the film adaptation of the 1990s Pittsburgh-set tale, about an introverted high school freshman (Lerman) taken under the wings of two seniors (Miller and Watson).

Summit launched the trailer for “Perks” at the MTV Movie Awards in June and it became the most streamed piece of content from the show  Following the premiere of the trailer, the novel jumped to No. 3 on the New York Times' list of best-selling paperback children’s books – 13 years after it was published.

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Many celebrities managed to keep secrets out of the public eye--at least for awhile.

These celebrity fathers turned out to have children that surprised everyone. To their credit, most have acknowledged the children and have relationships with them today. 

But having a celebrity love child comes at a cost: there are multi-million paternity suits and six-figure child support payments. 

One tech legend later paid for his daughter to go to Harvard, and a singer still has a close relationship with his daughter today. 

Meanwhile, Clint Eastwood has children that he took decades to acknowledge. 

Jude Law

Law had a child with model Samantha Burke after a fling in 2009 but reportedly didn't meet the child until she was six months old. He has three children with his ex-wife, actress Sadie Frost. 

Gavin Rossdale

Rossdale fathered model Daisy Lowe, 23, when he was in his twenties. Daisy didn't find out her father's identity until she was 14. Rossdale is married to rocker Gwen Stefani and they have two children. 

Clint Eastwood

The legendary actor had a daughter with dancer Roxanne Tunis, Kimber, back in 1964, but he didn't publicly acknowledge her until 1996. Twenty years later, he had two children with flight attendant Jacelyn Reeves. He didn't publicly introduce those children until 2002.

Eastwood also has a 19-year-old daughter, Francesca, with actress Frances Fisher. Today, he is married to "Mrs. Eastwood & Company" reality star Dina Eastwood and they have a daughter, Morgan.

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"Good Morning America" weather anchor Sam Champion has come out of the closet after 14 years on the popular morning program.

But that's not all, the 51-year-old has also just announced that he is engaged to his longterm boyfriend, Brazilian fine-arts photographer Rubem Robierb.

This marks the first time that a co-host of a network morning television show has publicly identified as gay, although Champion's sexual orientation was always known to “GMA" staff, as well as his colleagues and competitors in the media industry.

The engagement news was first broken in a New York Times wedding announcement for “MSNBC Live” host Thomas Roberts and Patrick Abner last week.

The announcement broke—and buried—the Champion's news, writing:

Among the 170 or so guests at the reception was Sam Champion, the weather anchor at ABC’s “Good Morning America.” He took a turn on the dance floor with his partner, the photographer Rubem Robierb.

“We’re getting married New Year’s Eve in Miami,” Mr. Champion said in the spirit of the moment.

Mr. Robierb corrected him: “We’ll do it here officially, and then have a party in Miami.”

"The amazing response from folks all over the country was just incredible for us," Champion exclaimed today on "GMA." "Thank you for the Tweets, and the Facebook and just coming up on the street and saying the most wonderful things."

To watch Champion talk about his upcoming wedding on "GMA," click here.

The low key coming out follows a few months after CNN host Anderson Cooper went public with his sexual orientation and was done similarly to how "The Big Bang Theory" actor Jim Parsons came out this summer, with mention of his partner also buried in a Times article.

"Star Trek" actor Zachary Quinto also came out by discussing his sexuality for the first time in a New York magazine profile, saying of his role in the play "Angels," it was “the most challenging thing I’ve ever done as an actor and the most rewarding ... And at the same time, as a gay man, it made me feel like there’s still so much work to be done, and there’s still so many things that need to be looked at and addressed.”

SEE ALSO: Anchorwoman lashes out at viewer who called her a bad role model because she's fat >

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Politics are never more cinematic than the months prior to a presidential election. The two contenders, having been set up for a showdown, meet in a series of staged skirmishes before the final battle in which only one can be victorious.

There are false dawns, the rising under- estimated contender, and, as we may have seen with September’s jobs data, October surprises. It all ends with a party where the winner kisses the girl and triumphant music plays us out.

Check out the films >

For this reason, politics and movies can be a natural fit, encompassing both the most tried and true sports movie cliché's with the verbal thrust of a court room drama.

But Hollywood can also show the darker side of the legislative process.  For every underdog that challenges the system and wins, there are twenty Fausts selling their soul for power, and Hollywood loves corruption every bit as much as redemption.

As we head into the climax of this election season, TFT takes a look at 17 of the best political films that still ring true today both in their ability to inspire our civic pride and to rattle our faith in the system.

More from the Fiscal Times:

Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939)

Many films on this list are cynical, so it's equally important to show the ideal.  Though often thought of as syrupy and cloying, this film (much like Capra and Stewart's OTHER famous collaboration "It's A Wonderful Life") is actually far darker than its reputation.  Yes, the little guy triumphs over the political machine…but it's an ugly road to get there.

All The King's Men (1949)

If "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" embodies the American idea that an everyman can stand up to the political machine, then this film is it's dark mirror…showing that that machine will in fact corrupt every decent man it touches.

Advise And Consent (1962)

The U.S. Congress, deadlocked by partisan infighting, refuses to confirm a presidential nominee.  Political candidates are embarrassed by associations from their youth and past sexual indiscretions, while backroom deals and blackmail are used to promote agendas.  You might be surprised to learn that this is not a description of our current government lawmakers, but rather this 1962 political potboiler.  Mr. Decency himself, Henry Fonda, is the potential Secretary of State with communist associations, proving that in politics some things never change.

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One month after the release of "Battlefield 3" downloadable content "Armored Kill," Fox announced plans turn one of the games from the popular EA franchise into a television show. 

According to Deadline, the hour-long live-action show will be based on 2008's "Battlefield: Bad Company" following the types of guys you would never expect to fall behind enemy lines.  

Every character in the game is sent to join the "B" Company of the 222nd due to bad behavior from uploading a virus onto a military network to taking a joy ride in a helicopter. 

"Alias" executive producer and writer John Eisendrath, Sony TV, and Happy Madison are on board for the project. 

This isn't the first video game to come to the small screen. October 5, "Halo" launched its own live-action series "Forward Unto Dawn" following its title character Master Chief on Machinima. Weekly installments lead up to the Nov. 6 release of the game.

To get a better sense of the game, watch its trailer below: 

And, this is a look at one of the characters from the game, Private George Gordon Haggard, Jr.:

SEE ALSO: See whether audiences were "Taken" with Liam Neeson this weekend at the box office >

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Daniel Craig hosted this weekend's "Saturday Night Live" for the first time.

The "James Bond" actor, known for his action movies, opened the show by saying how excited he was to finally be doing some comedy.

"I'm thrilled to be doing a comedy show, because I love comedy. Lately I've been doing movies with not a lot of laughs in them," Craig said.

The rest of his monologue featured a "In Memoriam" video for all of the people he has killed in movies, such as a sound engineer for "The Adventures of Tintin" that he used to make an example of for everyone else on the crew.

This weekend's episode also included a fake promo about the "lesser known" Bond girls such as Diane Keaton (Vanessa Bayer) in "Never Die Twice Tomorrow" and Lea Michele (Nasim Pedrad) in "Hippopotopussy." 

Check out the funny clip:

SEE ALSO: The real 'Bond' girls then and now >

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It must be tough to get a job writing for "Community."

Take Jim Rash, for example. He's played the hilarious Dean Pelton for the past three years on the show and won an Oscar for his writing work on "The Descendants." Presumably, he'd be the most qualified person in the world to join the show's writing staff.

Vulture reports that Rash will finally be writing an episode of the NBC show, which debuts its fourth season on October 19.

There's been a lot of uncertainty about the show's future when creator Dan Harmon was fired earlier this year. A writing hire like this will hopefully help maintain some stability, as Rash has been there since the beginning.

SEE ALSO: Sarah Silverman gets a new YouTube Channel as the site expands original content >

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E.L. James' hot and heavy "Fifty Shades of Grey" series finally has a screenwriter, but it's not anyone who we'd expect. 

The film's official Facebook page revealed British "Terra Nova" creator Kelly Marcel will pen the highly anticipated screenplay of women's dreams.

Who is Marcel and how much experience does she have writing steamy, erotic love scenes?

From the looks of her IMDB page, absolutely zero.

The only script she has under her belt is Fox's shortlived "Terra Nova" dinosaur drama. 

She also penned the screenplay for 2014 film "Saving Mr. Banks," a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of Disney's "Marry Poppins" and HBO series "The Madonnas of Echo Park" which follows the lives of struggling illegal Mexican immigrants living in Los Angeles. 

And, it appears Marcel's into tweeting from the set, so we're sure we'll hear a lot more.

Marcel joins a "Fifty Shades" team that already includes Michael DeLuca and Dana Brunetti as producers.

SEE ALSO: What happened when Jay-Z rode the subway for his final Barclays concert >

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On September 30, I spent a geektastic day at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo.

I arrived early and got a look at many booths before they opened (later, they would be swarmed by thousands of attendees).

For much of the day I was one of several referees for the Classic Tetris World Championship. The whole day was a joy—a convention hall filled with classic games, from Atari to Zelda, with pinball in between. And, this being a Portland event, there were game-themed crafts everywhere. The expo organizers summarized the weekend like so:

• Over 3,000 attendees came through the doors over the weekend

• Over 160 arcade and pinball machines were on display for freeplay

• Over 70 retro video game consoles were set up to play

• There were over 70 vendors in attendance

• Our after-hours event was a blast with over 200 people dining and drinking until midnight right in the Mega-cade

Our live auction was packed with over 400 attendees. At the auction we raised nearly $900 for Portland’s Cat Adoption TeaI just want to emphasize that this event had a “Mega-cade” and it was, indeed, mega.

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Oregon Trail: This actually happened. In 2012. I have hope for future generations. (To the side of the mega-cade was a large area with various classic computers and game systems set up for free play.)

Atari 2600 Combat: This also happened, in a little time-warp area in the back of the hall. In the closeup you can see that the game is Combat. Remind you of your childhood much?

The Mega-cade was frankly more mega than these photos convey. Rows of pinball machines, standup arcade games, co-op games, and lots of driving games—all in freeplay mode!—made for a geeky paradise.

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Dressed in mini skirts barely covering their hips, the two girls took to the neon-lit stage and moved vigorously to the loud pumping pop music. Their job: to appease the wandering spirits.

As the temple facade in the background changed colour from the fireworks lighting up the Taiwanese night sky, the show climaxed with pole-dancing and striptease in front of an audience consisting of men, women and children.

"This is hard work but I need to make a living," said 18-year-old En En, out of breath after stripping for the crowd during the recent religious festival.

En En had just earned Tw$3,000 ($100) for her act, which began on stage, but ended as she mingled with the audience, letting men touch her for tips.

Folk religion in Taiwan is a unique mixture of the spiritual and the earthly, and one of its most remarkable manifestations is the practice of hiring showgirls to perform at festivals, weddings, and even funerals.

The girls work on "electronic flower cars" -- specially designed trucks equipped with light and sound equipment that can become a stage, allowing them to travel to performances often held in smaller cities and rural areas.

"The groups attract crowds to our events and they perform for the gods and the spirits to seek blessings," said Chen Chung-hsien, an official at Wu Fu Temple, a Taoist landmark in north Taiwan's Taoyuan county.

"They have become part of our religion and folk culture."

At 26, Chiang Pei-ying is already a veteran performer with nearly 20 years of experience, travelling across Taiwan with her father and two sisters for their family business to entertain audiences -- both alive and dead.

Chiang made her debut when she was in kindergarten because she liked singing and dancing on stage and has become a celebrity performer with her sisters, charging up to Tw$80,000 for a 20-minute show.

She said she enjoys her line of work, even if she has to deal with some odd requests from customers such as walking around coffins and singing for the deceased at funerals.

"I've watched this since I was little so it's nothing peculiar for me. Performing for the dead is just like performing for the living people," she said.

"They liked to sing when they were alive and their relatives thought they would have liked to have somebody sing for them in the end. For me, I get good tips and I hope I am accumulating good karma too."

Other performers, however, make much less money and tend to be more discreet about their job, especially those who still do striptease despite risking arrest.

Stripping nude is rarely seen in public now because it is a criminal offence, but partial stripping is still performed at festivals, private parties and funerals, people in the business say.

"Some people like going to hostess clubs, so when they pass away their relatives arrange striptease to reflect their interests while they were alive," said Chiang Wan-yuan, Pei-ying's father and a 30-year veteran in the business.

It is difficult to imagine a similar show going on outside a European village church, and some local critics have dismissed the practice, which emerged in the 1970s, as shocking and vulgar.

Others, however, see it as a natural extension of a traditional folk culture lacking in the sharp separation of sex and religion often seen in other parts of the world.

Marc Moskowitz, an anthropologist at the University of South Carolina, said the practice evolved out of the special Chinese concept of "hot and noisy", which brims with positive connotations.

"In traditional Chinese and contemporary Taiwanese culture this signifies that for an event to be fun or noteworthy it must be full of noise and crowds," said Moskowitz, who shot a documentary "Dancing for the Dead" in 2011.

He added most people who watched his work appeared to enjoy it and recognise this practice as an "interesting and unique cultural phenomenon," which to his knowledge is only found in Taiwan.

"As I watched these performances I came to appreciate the idea of celebrating someone's life to help assuage the feelings of grief," he said.

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Fandango's on a roll right now. 

The company just came off its best quarter in its 12-year history in July, reported record traffic on its site during the summer, and made three huge announcements since the end of last month. 

20-year Entertainment Weekly veteran Dave Karger came on board as Chief Correspondent September 27, to represent the brand at awards shows, movie premieres, festivals and more.

Four days later, former Disney digital executive Paul Yanover was named to the newly created position of president. And, on the heels of that news, the company announced three original online programs.

With two big names from different mediums, where does Fandango go from here in 2013?

We spoke with the new president last week to get a sense of the company's direction for the coming year.  

On his time at Disney and how being at Fandango will be a change: 

“At Disney, we focused on two things, managing a brand and creating a franchise. I've worked at a lot of different parts at Disney from specifically making movies ("Aladdin," "Beauty and the Beast"), to ecommerce and online media.  

So if you think about it in those terms, moving here, shares an aspect of both of those. Fandango is the consumer experience, everything from the service experience in terms of making the movie-going experience better, easier, faster and turning it into a destination experience. And, Fandango is an exciting brand to me, a brand that is so well established, and has so much room to grow."  

His outlook for Fandango:

“We’ll be looking to expand the brand. Our announcement with Dave Karger is an example of that and a concrete stake in the ground. We’ll be producing a lot more content viewable on multiple platforms.” 

How they will achieve those goals: 

"We will be looking at how we can broaden the online user experience and the total movie experience–how we think about movies, and how they fit into people's lives, more so then sitting in front of a screen at a theater. We're going find places where Fandango will be a value-add. And I think you can see that that value-add is going to demonstrate itself as a utility in social sharing, and a variety of experiences including mobile."

Among the new programming Yanover mentions are three series where Karger will put his movie and Oscar knowledge to use: "Fanticipation," a weekly show following box office films of interest to movie goers, "Honored," a countdown and analysis for awards season, and "Unsung," including the "unsung" heroes behind big releases. 

SEE ALSO: What fairly unknown screenwriter who will pen the 'Fifty Shades of Grey' adaptation >

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• Lady Gaga visited WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange Monday night at the Ecuadorian embassy in London—where he has been staying for months while his request for asylum remains in limbo. While Gaga was in London to promote her new perfume, rapper MIA tweeted at the singer, "if ur at harrods today , come visit Assange at the Ecuador embassy across the st. im there. ill bring TEA and CAKE." Looks like she took her up on the offer.
• Dreamworks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg now controls all super-voting stock after David Geffen converted his Class B Stock to Class A stock—which carries less voting power.

• The usually-super buff Matthew McConaughey looked like a shell of his former self leaving church in Austin with the help of his mother. McConaughey's drastic weight-loss is to play Ron Woodruff in the movie "The Dallas Buyer's Club," the true story of a man who contracted HIV through drug use in the '80s and has to smuggle life-saving medications from Mexico.

• NBC comedies "Community" and "Whitney" won't be premiering next Friday as originally planned. The network has postponed both shows for the moment with "Grimm" reruns set to air instead.
• Anne Hathaway has signed on to star in the Mindy Kaling-written romantic comedy "The Low Self-Esteem of Lizzie Gillespie" about a woman who's spent her life pursuing loserish men until, out of nowhere, she starts getting pursued by the hottest guy ever. 

• Richard Gere got told off in the Hamptons by a husband whose wife he was hitting on at Nick & Toni's restaurant. Also at the restauarant that night: Meryl Streep, Mike Nichols, Blythe Danner, Alec Baldwin, Liev Schreiber and Brendan Fraser.

• Ugh. Ke$ha is writing a book titled "My Crazy Beautiful Life," a picture-book memoir that will include the singer's "thoughts and reflections."

• Watch the first trailer for the new Bret Easton Ellis film "The Canyons" starring Lindsay Lohan and porn star James Deen:

SEE ALSO: Here's what the new Fandango president told us he plans to change >

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