Earlier, we didn't mean to suggest that veteran character actor Christopher McDonald actually is an asshole. Actually, he seems like our kind of guy. But we do agree with Cintra Wilson that McDonald is truly gifted at the on-screen portrayal of assholes; he's the Gielgud of silver-screen tools. A reader sends us a touching, real-life McDonald non-asshole experience:
You can thank us on Monday for these fearless, eerily-accurate predictions.
George Lucas is out of control. Not merely satisfied to digitally violate the original Star Wars trilogy into his up-to-the-minute, inferior vision by jamming in extra characters and effects wherever his evil computers allow, Lucas is spiffing up his first film, the little-seen THX 1138, for a "director's cut" showing at New York's Guggenheim museum in September. Is he really this bored? Georgie, why don't you save your processor cycles for making Harrison Ford looking less than 80 years old by the time you finally get around to making Indiana Jones 4? While you're at it, maybe you can digitally erase that whole Calista Flockhart thing.
Remember Brown Bunny? The one that Roger Ebert said wasn't even as entertaining as footage from a camera crammed up his ass? And then because of Ebert's bad review, Vincent Gallo put a curse on Ebert's colon? The Brown Bunny that's got a graphic depiction of Chloë Sevigny swallowing Gallo's tan snake? Yeah, that one. Hey, pretty soon you can see it in New York and Los Angeles; it just got a distribution deal.
Cybele of the Fast Fiction blog thinks she's sorted out all of this Andy Kaufman rising from the dead confusion. Kaufman's back, sure, and he's even blogging—but not at the poorly-written, fake press release floating Andy Kaufman Returns. No, Kaufman's a lot cleverer than that. He's Rance, everyone's favorite pseudonymous, supposedly A-list actor/blogger.
When Mel Gibson isn't getting propositioned by mysterious European backers to take over Disney [Ed.note—The Vatican!] or counting the piles of cash from his Jesus snuff film, he's quietly getting TV shows onto networks' Fall schedules. He's got Clubhouse on CBS, the story of a batboy for a major-league baseball team, and Savages on ABC, a sitcom about a single dad raising five boys. Page Six asks if ABC's pick-up of Savages is a kickback (we're resisting the "payback" joke) for his Diane Sawyer interview at the height of the The Passion of the Christ controversy. There might be something to this—we don't know if these shows have enough torture opportunites for the vaunted "Gibson touch" to make them hits.
Yesterday, DreamWorks issued a press release praising the opening day sales for Shrek 2, which set the rather arcane box office record for a "midweek opening of an animated feature." Thanks for the info, DreamWorks! We were tossing and turning all night, wondering if you had a better Wednesday than Finding Nemo. Hopefully we'll open the trade papers this morning and see a full-page ad declaring, "DreamWorks is thrilled to report the hours of kundalini yoga have finally paid off! We actually got our own dicks in our mouths!" This, of course, would include a picture of DW head Jeffery Katzenberg executing the maneuver that so few actually pull off without severe spine damage.
After an hour-long struggle with the rabbit ears on our console television, Defamer has confirmed that there is indeed a television network called "UPN," and that the network announced its Fall schedule at the upfront presentations to advertisers in New York today. Trying to break the perception that the netlet is merely an outlet for Star Trek DVD outtakes and post-Urkel urban fare, the apparently pro-bulimia UPN is running two cycles of its hit America's Next Top Model during the upcoming season. ANTM will also run twice a week, allowing you to see more painfully skinny chicks per half-hour than an Olsen Twins straight-to-video marathon.
Writers Erik Lindsay and Scott Donnelly are suing The O.C. creator Josh Schwartz, saying that the boy-wonder showrunner reneged on a verbal agreement to develop a series called The Pointes. They say Schwartz then flipped the idea into the Fox juggernaut that all the kids are crazy for. No, not American Idol. The O.C.! Stop urinating in your agent boss's coffee and pay attention! Expect the obligatory round of denials from both Fox and Schwartz's reps shortly. These things are nearly impossible to prove. And if Aaron Spelling didn't already have more money than God, he would sue the lot of them for stealing his idea for 90210 and making it, you know, good.
From today's Rush & Molloy column, on Lindsay Lohan's oft-discussed cleavage: "I'm 17!" she moaned. "I would never get [breast implants]. I just wear fantastic Victoria's Secret bras. It's kind of funny. I guess if [the tabloids] are going to bring attention to me, might as well bring it to my boobs."
The number one rule of blogging is "Learn to subsist on a cat food and Saltine diet." The number two rule is "Give the people what they want." And the people in Defamerville have been clamoring to guess some blind items from other gossip rags. So, to satiate your need to take entertaining stabs about gossip too juicy and legally risky to carry celebrity names, here's E!'s humpy gossiper Ted Casablanca's blind item from this week's column, "One Butcher Blind Vice":
Apparently, people are so stupid that they'll believe anything just because it's on a website. [Ed.note—To wit, sending Defamer 20 dollar bills will make your dick/breasts bigger, one inch or cup size per bill.] Despite this press release, issued by a site called PRWeb that will distribute ANY press release, and this blog, Andy Kaufman is still dead. The rumors of his return have gotten enough traction that Internet rumor debunking supersite Snopes has been compelled to declare the Kaufman talk false. Although the more we think about it, the more we want to believe that if Kaufman came back, he'd be a blogger. We really are the busboys of the new millennium.
Gactor [Ed.note— Openly gay + actor = "gactor," we identify them so that casting agents don't do anything insane like cast them as a straight love interest.] Rupert Everett tells Dark Horizons that he'd like to play James Bond, but keep the character straight. He thinks Bond fans would "burn down MGM" if a gay actor played the hetero icon. We think the world is ready not just for a gay actor playing Bond, but for a gay Bond, even if just for those famous, subtly suggestive names of his love interests: Johnson Teabag, Homme Bangor, Remington Steele...the possibilities are staggering.
