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Hollywood PrivacyWatch: Doomsday Edition! 12/4 — PARIS HILTON at Gil Turner's on Sunset at like 2am last night. Wearing torn stockings, purchasing Red Bull, the New York Post and three slimy packets of Oscar Meyer Bologna. Classy. [Hollywood PrivacyWatch is written by and for Defamer readers; send your sightings to tips@defamer.com.]
· Jay Baruchel, NDG's greatest contribution to cinematic dick humor, is indeed in talks to play the title role in a live-action, NYC-set version of The Sorcerer's Apprentice for Disney. It also stars Nicolas Cage as the sorcerer who leaves for a few hours while his underling plays around with his magic wand, then commands an army of marching tissues to clean up the mess. [Variety]
· We're going to devote exactly as much space to this story about a Romancing the Stone remake as that idea deser [THR]
· Lorne Michaels will produce a movie based on a recent NY Times article about a child food critic who "charms his way into posh eateries." The similarities to Ben Lyons end there, we're afraid, as the little tastemaker doesn't then insist on barging into the kitchen to have his photo taken with Gotham's celebrity chefs. [Variety]
With so many layoffs going down today, it's a good time to take a look at how, exactly, a layoff memo should be written. Actually, any time you're critiquing a flood of layoff memos is by definition a bad time. But we'll disregard that for the moment. People need to be let down in the proper way, lest they get justifiably angry enough to put managers up against the wall. After the jump, we analyze five elements of today's memos that illustrate everything you corporate flacks need to know about firing people like us:
Our ongoing Pop Culture Doomsday stroked the infant cheek of awards season this morning when the hooded, cloaked cultists at National Board of Review anointed Slumdog Millionaire as their Best Picture pick for 2008. It's just the latest setback today for Paramount, which, with one notable exception, will chase the bitter aftertaste of rolling layoffs with an ice-cold glass of Button-Snub Ultra.
As you may have already heard, a staggering 850 people were laid off from Viacom today. Torrents of blood washed down the halls of MTV on both coasts, with added security in wading boots posted on every floor for "observation" (translation: making sure downsized employees don't try to swipe a promotional copy of Trivial Pursuit: TRL Edition on their way out of the building).
When the Great Pop Culture Doomsday concludes, none among us will have houses left standing, let alone refuge, succor, or our Blackberries. In that sense, then, Real Housewives breakout NeNe Leakes was ahead of the curve by getting evicted from her mansion, but she is not going to take the attendant bad press lying down! Patiently, NeNe waited for Bravo himbo Andy Cohen to stop blogging about whatever "trashy hookaaa" he was fixated on, then hijacked Cohen's blog to release an official statement on the matter:
We weren't kidding yesterday when we expressed relief at teen-sex romp The Reader having supplanted Twilight as the movies' hottest new youth movement. Still, after Twilight's massive 62% box-office plunge in its second week of release, and with the only the random, pot-gorging snapshot of Kristen Stewart to replace that long-running plague of EW covers, we can't help our sniffling, lonely-ish concern at the edge of the black hole where Twilight used to be. But thankfully, we've found the one place in the world where the vampire romance remains a holdover — and how!
Lapdance Inferno! The two most pole-reliant professions came together as firefighters put out a blaze at the World Famous™ Body Shop strip club on Sunset this morning. No cause has yet been determined for what might have started the blaze, but we think we have a pretty good clue. UPDATE: Police have announced they are looking for a "stripper of interest" in the case named Nikita. Anyone who might have seen the Megan Fox-sexing exotic dancer in the last 24 hours is asked to call local law enforcement immediately. [LAT]
The Horror: The Hills continues to rapidly spin off any supporting character with a hint of intelligence, and so it is that incredibly fearsome People's Revolution head Kelly Cutrone will be getting her own series, produced by Project Runway refugee company Magical Elves. "Think of it as The Wizard of Oz meets Stephen King meets Rhoda," explained Cutrone. That's the doomsday logline spirit, Kel! [Page Six]
The 850 layoffs at Viacom today—including hundreds at MTV—are claiming the livelihoods of tons of hardworking people who did their jobs well without ever receiving fame and fortune. And just like when a jumbo jet crashes with hundreds of souls aboard, the first question is: "Were any celebrities involved?" You know you were thinking that, you heartless swine. Well (according to an unconfirmed rumor from an inside tipster), your third-favorite MTV correspondent-for-life, John Norris, was laid off today. After the jump, we've got other reports from the Viacom scene.
End of Days Day continues here at Defamer with a proud e-alert belched from the bowels of the Fox network's Century City headquarters, informing what's left of the world that cartoon kingpin and deeply closeted spray-on hand-tanner Seth MacFarlane has been named EW's Smugest Smartest Person in TV. Fox couldn't be prouder of the money he makes for them, according to their press release:
Sure, the gates of pop culture hell have been flung open today, but we're going to fend off Cerberus (he's been barking outside Defamer HQ all morning, and with three heads, it's a little noisy) until we get our Arrested Development movie, dammit! Today's update comes courtesy of one of the show's stars, who not only confirms involvement in the film but offers word of a start date, marvelously slams a current network series, and gives tentative comments on the Michael Cera imbroglio.
Hollywood PrivacyWatch: Holiday Travel Edition! 11/26 — Day before Thanksgiving, the hellmouth of the Southwest terminal at LAX — Starbucks and the CPK that gave me food poisoning that one time and some vendor that touts itself as "Organic." Picture this — MARIO LOPEZ. Alone, toting an overstuffed plastic bag and nondescript rolling luggage. He is... shiny, like his own wax sculpture came to life. Shock of all shocks, he's shorter in person and not nearly as buffed out as People Magazine would have you believe. But Mario travels in comfort, not style. Running suit. Velour. Midnight blue. Wow. [Hollywood PrivacyWatch is written by and for Defamer readers; send your sightings to tips@defamer.com.]
The pungent scent of hot sulphur at Defamer HQ this morning can mean only one thing: Grammy Hell is bearing down on us, heralded as well by hosts Taylor Swift, LL Cool J and the rest of the wailing demon legion populating last night's first-ever primetime nomination special at the Nokia Theater. And what did their baleful cries portend? We're gonna get more Coldplay performance art!
As many times as we heard it from that filthy, bearded man standing outside the Farmers Market with a big sign (Alan Rosenberg—is that you?), we never really believed the Pop Culture Apocalypse would soon be upon us. Well—we guess we were wrong! Try not to panic as its four horsemen—Nicolas Cage with a suspiciously luscious head of wizard-hair, Jay Baruchel conducting a broom army, Russell Brand getting his naughty bits scrubbed by an Oscar-winning manservant, and Rowdy Dwayne Johnson—ride in after the breaking of the seventh remake, followed thereafter by the arrival of the beastly Endtime Ruler (Kathleen Turner). Your coverage awaits!
· There are no words. [via BWE.tv]
· The LAT reviews the second phase of L.A. Live: "It actively discourages any of the activities we traditionally associate with the use of collective space in a city: talking, reading, sitting under a tree, even pausing with a friend for a cup of coffee. Anybody who tried to do any of those things in the L.A. Live plaza, which is filled with both yelping video displays and security guards, would look not just out of place but foolish." Quick! Run to the parking structure before we go blind or are forced to interact!
· No one knows the double indemnity facing "macho, non-metro actors" who take on gay roles better than Sean Penn.
· Natalie Portman's vegan shoe empire crumbles.
· Yo—Emily chick, with the bangs and the cats and the little black tunic? You're busted. [via BoingBoing]
· We see ET finally had the decency to drop the "In The Head"-part from their exclusive headline. Stay classy, guys.
· Only three more days to get your sleighpass for LASantacon.
· Which reminds us—it's time to pick up this year's Christmas Tree!
Attacked By the Photoshop Monster: Lost producers today unveiled their second, more elaborate cast photo for season five, suggesting that the castaways will have all moved into an overgrown (yet rent-controlled!) Williamsburg loft. To judge from the empty Dharma beers and kicked-over TVs, they've just thrown quite a rager! Click through for massively full-size. [E!]
The Teenagers Fuck phenomenon has seen some compelling discussion this week, a desperately needed change from the fanged chastity that so overwhelmed us during the build-up to Twilight's tween windfall last month. And while a new essay in The Guardian suggests young men in particular are a more sophisticated lot since the days of Porky's, another critic of one upcoming film has a different phrase for that: Child pornography.
