In a playful attempt to circumvent the gag order that may prevent potential witness Jay Leno from making jokes about the Michael Jackson child molestation trial, Leno has been interrupting his monologue to hand off his trademark softball material to a series of similarly unfunny (but legally unhampered) peers, like Brad Garrett and Dennis Miller. According to NBC, however, Leno's hilarious workaround is totally unnecessary:
Page Six's Paula Froelich gives her agent/BFF Ari Emanuel and his agency a healthy plug in today's column:
It's way too early for us to even attempt to wrap our minds around the Writers Guild inside baseball that's been brought to our attention, but here's a quick summary of what we can piece together as we rub the sleep from our eyes: WGA West president Dan Petrie Jr. signed (forged is such a harsh term) the name of WGA East president Herb Sargent on his report card before showing his unacceptable algebra grade (when will these writer types start applying themselves to their math homework?) to the judge that's mediating their current financial dispute.
Moments ago, Gawker HQ back in NY received a call from The Firm, trying to make sure a delivery was completed. A messenger then arrived with some flowers and the above note allegedly sent by Fred Durst (whom you may remember, from reports as recently as an hour ago, is suing Gawker Media). We just placed a call to The Firm to find out if this was really from him or the funniest prank we'd ever seen, and they confirmed that the note is legit. Looks like Denton gets to keep his $80 million. (Not that we'll see any of it.)
· NPR-approved writer Elizabeth McKenzie reads from her short fiction collection Stop That Girl at Book Soup, providing you a good opportunity to get nostalgic for your salad days in the MFA workshop.
· LACMA hosts a screening of The Ballad of Jack and Rose, in which director Rebecca Miller directs hubby/movie-star Daniel Day-Lewis, as well as non-spouses Catherine Keener and Beau Bridges. The site says it's sold out, but hey, it's not like the ArcLight, where the theaters are guarded by well-dressed ushers authorized to use deadly force.
· Bring your voting stub from today to Ben Forat’s Studio City Hand Car Wash, and they'll reward your civic responsibility by cleaning your Hummer. Participating in local politics has never been so rewarding!
In this month's issue of GQ, Russell Crowe says that the FBI informed him of a plot to "culturally destabilize" America by kidnapping him in early 2001:
When things on Wilshire Blvd. are quiet and agents aren't busy stealing each other's clients or switching allegiances in the middle of the night, the Agent Dance likes to pause for reports on other agency-related action. A Defamer operative submits this fresh intelligence about a couple of hot deals going down at Paradigm:
· Clear Channel takes steps to conquer China, where they hope to defeat communism by replacing government-controlled radio stations with 24-hour broadcasts of Linkin Park. [Variety]
· Quentin Tarantino has lost his mind: QT considers writing and directing a new installment of the Friday the 13th series. [THR]
· OK, now Fox is just making shit up: Fox greenlights lifestyle makeover series Who Wants to
Live Forever? for at least four episodes. At the end of each show, one lucky contestant will be beheaded and submerged in a vat of liquid nitrogen until science advances enough to grant them immortality. [Variety]
· Oh the humanity of pilot casting! Dennis Hopper, Rob Estes, Regina "I'm in Everything" King, Brent "Lt. Data" Spiner, Joely Fischer, Jennifer Esposito, Brooke Burns, and—gasp!—Dan Cortese, all hard at work on shows you'll never see. (Except for Hopper, who's in a Jerry Bruckheimer project. We'll never get rid of that show.) [THR]
· Bruce Willis will star in 16 Blocks for Avi Lerner's Millenium Films. Obviously, none of the parties involved have read the script. [Variety]
· Bored with appearing in roughly 65 percent of the commercials currently in rotation on network television, Sarah Jessica Parker signs a television development deal with HBO. [THR]
After the sister of the accuser in Michael Jackson's child molestation trial took the stand and revealed Jackson's extravagant gifts and the sharing of Diet Coke cans that may or may not have contained Jesus Juice, it was time for "John Doe's" brother to give his testimony on Monday. Things quickly got creepy:
The LAT's Patrick Goldstein profiles producer Avi Lerner, who's graduating from Steven Seagal/Jean-Claude Van Damme straight-to-video fodder to big-budget movies with Bruce Willis, John Travolta, and Nicolas Cage that will occupy a nicer shelf at the local Blockbuster. Lerner reveals the first rule of producing in Hollywood: Reading is overrated.
Attention all Sony staffers: Do you find yourself tense and burned out from a day of making movie-widgets for your corporate Japanese masters and need a place on the lot to decompress? Finally, a chance for relief:
After all of the attention we paid to the slow-motion trainwreck that was the months-long publicity onlsaught for Fat Actress, we thought it was only fair that we actually watch it one time. So we checked it out over the free Yahoo feed (did you think we have Showtime? When we want to watch attractive lesbians make out, there's this thing called the internet) and stared, mouth agape, as Kirstie Alley rolled around on the floor of her bathroom and emitted what must have been a high-pitched distress call to the Lifetime Network, a siren begging to be placed in a basic cable movie about the dangers of overeating.
· You see, Moonves, if you don't greenlight my pilot idea for a buddy comedy about a Viacom executive bent on world destruction and the blogger that's obsessed with him, I'm going to write a particularly nasty joke about the preternatural whiteness of your teeth. Also, to the Weinsteins: We have maps of where the bodies are buried. Leave the three-picture deal on the doorstep. We kinda like the Satan part, though.
· All things considered, Nick Carter's DUI mugshot isn't half bad. He purdy.
· We have a sidekick down! Repeat, a sidekick is down!
· Now blogging at Gridskipper: Evil Hungarian blog overlord Nick Denton. We give him two days before he starts whipping himself for being too slow to post, though he may delegate that duty to Lockhart.
· Hey, Theo, where are you going with that foam sex cube? Hold on, we don't want to know.
· Own your very own Jackson matrimonial artifact, before it becomes Exhibit A. You can almost hear it mocking the institution!
Going to Hollywood clubs packed with B-and C-list celebrities is a potentially dangerous experience; on a night like Friday at Spider Club, the careless reveler could easily find themselves on the wrong end of a Scientology conversion spiel given by a Masterson, struck by one of Bijou Phillips' flailing limbs, or performing unspeakable acts in a dimly-lit booth with Fez, unlikely cocksmith to a generation of starlets. Luckily, responsible venues provide an adequate security detail to mitigate a patron's risk of one of these unpleasant outcomes. A reader reports:
· Hollywood Life critic Stephen Farber's Reel Talk screening at the Landmark Westside Pavilion features Woody Allen's new film Melinda and Melinda. Co-star Radha Mitchell will be there, ready and willing to handle all of your questions about Will Ferrell.
· Learn something about the part of the east side that's not lined up outside the Echo based on a rumor of a Beck show: The Latino Urban Forum’s James Rojas discusses how Latinos utilize urban space in East Los Angeles at Gallery 727.
· 50 Foot Wave plays the Viper Room (a venue that lost countless cred points for being featured prominently in Be Cool, but we hear from Intern Y that the Wave is "fabulous"), while the Lovemakers do it for free at Spaceland. By "do it" we mean "perform music," but if you're a groupie, they almost certainly won't charge you for the lovemaking.
First Denise and Charlie, then Katie Holmes and Chris Klein, and now Shannon Elizabeth and some guy. Who is Shannon Elizabeth again? Oh, that's right, we just remembered why we care: She was the naked one from American Pie. The heartbreak in Hollywood never ends, somewhere an angel loses its reproductive organs, etc etc.
