A just-about-perfect L.A. weekend is now over. Stir a little extra Hazelnut Coffee Mate into your World's Sexiest Assistant mug, and bite absentmindedly into some raspberry-jelly-filled box office numbers. We'll get through this:
Bringing to mind that little-known time when a snoring Anna Nicole Smith was briskly escorted from the Cannes premiere of Wong Kar-wai's 2046, chatter coming out of the desert has folks wondering what Britney Spears might be up to at the ongoing CineVegas Film Festival. This isn't quite like Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan hitting Park City to ostensibly promote their own films, after all; with four years remaining before Crossroads: The 10th Anniversary Cut makes the A-list fest rounds, Britney's attendance may have been purely incidental to the cinephile bedlam around it. Nevertheless, at least one observer (a fest juror, no less!) wasn't letting the celebritunity pass her by:
· The Obscenity Trial of the Century is already living up to its name.
·Steven and Sylvester have a few words of support for quadruple-dipping Eddie Murphy.
· Shia LaBeouf is embroiled in an illegal, Five-Fingered Mexican Roulette scandal in which slurs are spoken
· The Happening is finally Happening!
· Leo DiCaprio has a biopic problem, as evidenced by a recent call with his agent that went something like, "And it's called Father of Pong, and I simply must make this movie!"
· Katherine Heigl isn't interested in your gold trinkets. Give her something she can sink her teeth into.
· We can't seem to get, nor do we want, confirmation of Paul Newman's lung cancer.
· Kit Kittredge: An American Girl preps girls early for a life of dressing up for a night of popcorn and consumption-porn.
· On Celebrity Rehab 2, Gary Busey will bring Jeff Conaway back from the brink. If Rodney King doesn't get there first. Dr. Drew, meanwhile, dances with the devil in the pale moonlight.
·Jackie Warner and Elizabeth Keener share the love that shall not speak its name, unless you're making out at a gay pride parade. Then it speaks it really loudly.
·Thanks to a pushy message-board-nerd and extra, Transformers 2's "Oblivous Hamburger-Eating Man" might never make it to the final cut. Damn you, pushy message-board nerd!
·Forbes' Celebrity 100: The haves and have-nots.
·It's Smurf vs. Smurf in the World Series of Smurfs.
· We give up, Debra Winger? What did make that kid burst into tears in Terms of Endearment?
· Jessica Alba and Cash Warren are parents! Of a girl! A girl baby!
· Starz celebrates the awfulness that is I Know Who Killed Me.
· Has anyone seen Abigail Breslin's iPod Touch? The fate of the dancing-around -in-front -of-the- mirror- to-David Cook future depends upon it! [Tonight Show]
· Mike Myers admitted he developed a "man-crush" on Speedo-rocking Justin Timberlake while shooting The Love Guru. We've had a lot of "man-crushes" too in our time, Mike, and we find the best way to handle them is to have "man-sex" with the object of your "man-desires." [Us Magazine]
· The only thing crazier than the fact that Prince just turned 50 is the fact that Dr. Phil scored an invitation to his birthday party. No, Prince. Just. No. [ET Online]
·Tony Romo says rumors Joe Simpson sits at the end of his bed offering subtle directing tips for making camera-friendly love to his daughter are totally "laughable.” [People]
· Remember when Juno was attacked by an Alien facesucker? Well she finally had the baby, and it's soooo cuuuuute!!! [dreadwhimsy.blogspot.com]
Try as we might, there really is no fresh angle to report in the ongoing contract drama between SAG leadership and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers — the saber-rattling fuckers hate each other, and no strike-avoiding resolution is in sight before the current deal's June 30 expiration date. That said, a story is a story, so why not stimulate your interest (and ours) by adding your own fun invective and hyperbole to the mix!
Undoubtedly, if there's one thing that's weighing heavily on the minds of the fair citizens of our great nation, it's whether or not George Clooney's ex paid a trip to the rack-enhancer. Perhaps even more important than that is the question of whether or not said surgery was the straw that broke the Clooney's back. And while we never got a chance to ask her to answer these riveting questions in person, naturally, one of TMZ's most upstanding cameramen did. As you have come to learn, moments of levity and brevity like this populate each week's installment of Dirt Sandwich. This week, Defamer's resident sandwich artist Molly McAleer held all the salmonella-tainted tomatoes from this sammy and instead crafted a mouthwatering meal made up of only the finest, freshest and locally grown entertainment tidbits. Did Katherine Heigl diss the Grey's Anatomy writers? Are Audrina and LC still fighting? Will Cindy Margolis ever marry again? Remember kids, knowing is half the battle. Enjoy!
Like that old car wreck cliché, the John Mayer and Jennifer Aniston quasi-relationship remains shamefully impossible to look away from. So glance away we shall. After getting caught slobbering in pools, then attempting to trick photographers by making separate exits post-dinner in New York, the Cougar Queen and her cad were most recently spotted gazing into each other’s vacant eyes on Courteney Cox’s balcony. But last night marked a (Very Exciting!) turn of events in which the closeted couple boldly went where every closeted couple eventually goes: agreeing to be photographed side by side, smile to smile, with nary a sign of resistance. Where the so-boring-they’re-exciting couple grandly outed their union, and which enablers were present, after the jump.
You may recall the evening about a month or so ago where Molly McAleer got schnockered on Two Buck Chuck while compiling your evening To Do's. Well, after spending the entire next day in bed with after nearly overdosing on tannins, she swore never to drink Trader Joe's vino for the budget-conscious ever again. So what's a girl to do who's looking to catch a (legal) buzz? Well, it's the weekend and, as we all know, weekends are for Michelob. So rather than put together your weekend To Do's sober, Molls decided to slam a sixer of Fergus Falls' finest. The results are predictably sloppy. Enjoy!
It's been two days now since our relatively peaceful, reacharound-loving community has been rocked by "I Do Not Feel I Was Given the Material This Season to Warrant a Nomination"-Gate. For those late to the party: Gold Derby blog had noticed polarizing actress-figure Katherine Heigl's name missing from a list of contenders; approached for comment, she explained that she had knowingly compromised Emmy-nominating protocol—and by extension, the very fundamentals upon which this great country is based!—by gallingly withdrawing herself from Best Actress consideration. And for what? For what she deemed to be substandard character arcs for her character on Grey's Anatomy. (In Heigl's defense, in Season 2 she was curled up in a hospital bed with her expired fiance; this season, she had a brief dalliance with her gay best friend followed by a torrid affair with a homicidal caribou.) Still, according to one series insider who spoke to EW.com, the thanklessness is beyond belief:
Today’s news that Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon’s seven-year long marriage has just now “officially” ended invites all kinds of speculation on just why it took nearly two years for the divorce proceedings to finalize. Citing “irreconcilable differences” all the way back in 2006, the blonde duo split amid speculation that Ryan’s bad boy behavior ranged from publicly making out with current girlfriend Abbie Cornish on the Texas set of Stop Loss to an increasing level of resentment regarding his wife’s fast-rising star status. And while celebrity divorces do typically take longer than usual, considering how many more properties, cars, adultery allegations and cash they tend to have, we find the timing of this particular pair’s final John Hancocks a little suspicious given the past month's unusually abundant Reese-and-Ryan gossip flood. Is today’s news just a coincidence, or did each party's very public pictorial statements recently have anything to do with it?
Spider-Man star Tobey Maguire attempted to use whatever superpowers he has as an actor to get the Los Angeles Lakers to turn it around in the third quarter of their game on Thursday night. And while Jennifer Meyer, Maguire's wife, wanted the home team to maintain its lead as much as her husband, she had to explain to Maguire that he had no actual superpowers. Maguire told his wife that he's Spider-Man and everybody does what Spider-Man says. Meyer said, "Tobey, that was just a movie and this is just a game." Maguire quietly took his seat and said that the Lakers didn't lose when he came to game three with Lukas Haas. To which Meyer replied, "Well, maybe you should just marry him then. I mean, it's legal now."
We may not be the president of often smug, S&M footwear devotee Gwyneth Paltrow's fan club, but based on husband Chris Martin's recent cover story in Rolling Stone, we may consider joining based solely on her taste in men. The Coldplay front man, deemed "The Jesus Of Uncool" on the mag's cover, gives an interview that reveals that thoughts both homoerotic and apocalyptic (not to mention a severe case of Brad Pitt Penis Envy) are running through his brilliant but damaged head. Our favorite moments after the jump unmask Martin's incredibly forthright confessions regarding his assurance that Barack Obama will "fuck up" America for good, his lifelong love affair with "fantastic" boobs, and the apparent gay phase he went through while growing up. For example:
Likely to nobody's surprise, Defamer's interlude last week with Werner Herzog yielded far more than just a few minutes' worth of feud-worthy slaps at his contemporary Abel Ferrara, whose Bad Lieutenant Herzog is remaking continuing later this year with Nicolas Cage. We also had the opportunity to get Herzog's side of a story first reported two years back by the L.A. Times, in which Joaquin Phoenix credited eyewitness Herzog for relaxing him after the actor rolled his car in Laurel Canyon.
Calcifying Hollywood icon Warren Beatty, the legendary playboy auteur famous for having created some of the most lauded and influential films of all time (as well as having slept with approximately 48,000 aspiring actresses between the years of 1967 and 1979), received a lifetime achievement award from the American Film Institute at a gala reception held at the Kodak Theatre last night. Here's a round-up of the goings on:
· Jane Fonda, Dustin Hoffman, Diane Keaton, Quentin Tarantino, and Steven Spielberg were among those in attendance. Jack Nicholson showed up a little late, looking crestfallen behind his sungalasses as he congratulated Beatty on winning "eight times as many awards as he's made pictures." [ABC/AP]
· Beatty was upstaged by another "aging ladies man and charismatic charmer," Bill Clinton, who surprised the crowd midway through the tribute with a recollection of the time at the 1972 DNC, when he shyly asked Beatty to walk "100 yards on the beach" with a woman to win her vote. Not only did Beatty comply, he brought her all the 100 yards back first thing next morning. [USA Today]
In what may or may not be an irony of some kind, but should probably not actually be noted, because it's sort of ghoulish and in poor taste, political journalism superstar Tim Russert went out today with a Friday newsdump, that hallowed Washington DC practice of burying news no one wants to see. Earlier today, June 13, 2008, Russert suffered a fatal heart attack. While working, obviously. Because he worked a lot, and he always looked like he loved it.
The long-running war between the celebrity-obsessed activists at PETA and the tiny fur-obsessed Olsen Twins makes Cruise v. Shields scrap look like the Anglo-Zanzibar War in comparison. In the past, we’ve tended to laugh along as PETA got huffy at the tiny millionaires every time they insisted on draping themselves in the former coats of lions, tigers and bears during August heat waves, but a statement from the borderline bestiality fan group released today has us wondering which is worse: designing a (generally critically praised) collection including fur, or catty threats viciously aimed at the pair:
The body-ravaging horrors of movie-theater concessions aren't especially breaking news to anyone whose pores ever oozed yellow grease for two days after dropping $15 on one of those beloved Regal "Family-Trough" snack specials. But when couched in riveting metrosexual terms by Dave Zinczenko and the crew at Men's Health, the grim numbers yield a far more haunting context: A large popcorn with butter = 1,283 calories and 78 grams of fat; large nachos with cheese = 1,101 calories and 59 grams of fat.
