Green skin, black lungs: That's what smoking-in-film watchdog group the American Medical Association Alliance is accusing Universal of showcasing in The Incredible Hulk, and thereby encouraging its teen audiences of picking up the deadly habit in order to emulate the cool on-screen persona of William Hurt's stogie-loving army general. From their press release:
By now we agree that an opera is no real way to honor the legacies of either Brokeback Mountain or Heath Ledger, but at least an alternative arrived quickly. Or sort of, anyway — and only if you have a spare $1,500 (at least) to "invest": Amid Marilyn Monroe's pencil cup, fishnet stockings and other dustbin diamonds, an auction next week at Bonhams offers up Ledger's director's chair from the Brokeback set, bittersweetly redolent of oak, denim and, we hear, Canada.
With Angelina Jolie in her final trimester, the last few weeks have brought an onslaught of Exclusives! that turned out to be false terribles, Bloopers! from co-stars over-spilling details about the impending birth, and most recently, Intimate Details! regarding the exact coordinates and furnishings planned for the Chosen Two’s habitat. While all the murkiness adds up to a few simple assumed facts (the twins are girls, they will be born in France, and no, they have not been born yet), we still can’t help being fascinated with Brad’s inner architect distracting him from any fear he may be suffering regarding the fact that his nervously alluded to “soccer team” dream is kinda coming true. And when nerves and cold feet collide in the form of rumored disputes on how to decorate the girls’ nursery, there is only one person to solve the argument over “60s modern” or “classic European”: a psychic, of course. What “vibe” the all-knowing cosmic guide got from the pair, and an update on that Versailles monstrosity of a nursery after the jump.
Steven: The thing of it is, in this new internet era, you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. One second they're clamoring for the next Indy adventure...
Eddie: Well, no one was "clamoring" for another Axel Foley adventure, per se...
Steven: The next they're accusing you of having killed the franchise. Have you seen Crystal Skull?
[Murmurs of affirmation.]
Steven: I mean, it's not like it's even close to the worst of the four, was it?
[Beat. Crowd noise.]
Eddie: Hustle, Pau!
· Russell Brand contemplating the meaning of death on The Tonight Show is kind of like watching a debate about the existence of God between a Chinese Theater Johnny Depp impersonator and a St. Bernard. [Tonight Show]
· Judge Larry "Phil Spector Trial" Fidler flatly denies claims made at the end of Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired that he insisted the director's 1997 rape re-trial be televised. And for some light background reading material, The Smoking Gun brings us the original 1977 trial testimony. [Slate, TSG]
·The LAT's Sunday magazine staff are let go, with the paper's business department taking over operations—beginning with their ambitious relaunch issue, "Las Vegas: A Fabulous Place to Spend Some Weekend Dollars!!!" [editorandpublisher.com]
·We don't know about you, but there's been many a night when we could have used some tough-loving straight-talk from Emancipatia, the anti-drunk-dialing mammy thimble. Thank you for being a friend, Auntie Mance! (Scroll down.) [queserasera.org]
If you, like us, have been making involuntary smacking sounds in anticipation of tomorrow's premiere of Celebrity Circus—NBC's marriage of two separately wonderful things into a third, exponentially more wonderful thing—then this amuse bouche from the NY Post detailing the cast's various injuries and near-brushes with tiger-swat death is almost certainly going to get your salivary glands doing double-time:
After seeing Kate Hudson's appearance on Conan last night, we have a feeling that her surfer-haired son Ryder is destined to be quite the Hot Perv On Campus. Apparently that whole birds and bees discussion that every parent dreads has not only started far earlier at Casa Hudson than most households, but little Ryder is already pursuing an advanced degree in female anatomy by studying his mom's breasts. And after hearing what life was like for Kate as a kid living with kooky king and queen of long-term unmarried celebs Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, we’re not surprised that the 9-year old Ryder is already “obsessed” with things like boobies and the all-important, very profound question of why everyone “rubs up against each other.” The premature nympho chatter around Kate’s house makes perfect sense — Goldie and Kurt were those kinds of parents. Hear for yourself after the jump.
Remember when everyone with cable TV and a pulse was watching Trading Spaces? There wasn't a red-blooded American who didn't delight in watching Paige Davis, Ty Pennington, Vern Yip, Hildi Santo-Thomas and Frank Bielic counsel middle Americans on how best to redecorate their living rooms, kitchens and basements. Well, that glory run of basic cable besteverness all fell to shit when Paige Davis left the show (or was she fired?) back in 2005. And what exactly does that prologue have to do with the price of tea in China, you ask? Well, in this evening's installment of Defamer To Do's, Molls introduces us to her "brother", Zach, who still counts himself as a big fan of the show. Stick around to see and hear his thoughts on the pride of TLC; you won't want to miss this.
Kiefer OffTheMarketWatch. Reports suspiciously sourced, British-spelling-afflicted celebrity newswsire BANG: "The '24' star, whose divorce from Elizabeth Kelly Winn was finalised last month, is reportedly planning to marry his new girlfriend Siobhan Bonnouvrier. A friend of Kiefer's said: 'Now that Kiefer is finally divorced, everyone is hoping he will marry Siobhan. Kiefer is a changed man and Siobhan is just the right woman for him. She is an amazing woman and has transformed Kiefer in just a few short weeks.'" Congratulations to the hopefully happy couple! [BANG]
What appears to be a very highbrow and British tale about the split between Atonement director Joe Wright and his (now ex) fiancée, the strawberry blonde stunner Rosamund Pike, instead sounds like a neuroses-filled, laugh track-accompanied episode of classic Seinfeld material. Wright and Pike got engaged this past September, having met on the set of Pride & Prejudice, but due to calamitous series of unfortunate events involving wedding invitations, photos of the pair in a hot tub, and late night lap dances, the previously boring but gorgeous couple are making headlines for an engagement gone suddenly and horribly wrong. Details on the sordid, beyond comical story after the jump.
A visit from Uncle Regis is always a happy occasion for the ladies of The View, but things turned uncharacteristically ugly when, in a discussion about their slim Daytime Emmy chances, Barbara Walters suggested that since "we're just so happy, and since we have"—gesturing to Whoopi Goldberg—"this one," their outlook was sunnier, presumably from the days when the presence of Star Jones and Rosie O'Donnell turned off voters. Veteran panelist Joy Behar didn't quite read between those lines, responding, "I'll turn on you Barbara! I'll turn on you. She has to be kidding. I'll trip you. What—Whoopi's here so now we're gonna win?!" After some frantic earpiece pleading from the Viewmaster, things eventually returned to normal; but staying true to her word, Behar later extended one stiffened leg as Walters wandered into the studio kitchen for her post-taping cup of tea, sending the 78-year-old broadcast legend flying face first into a countertop and Splenda packets flying, and punctuating this premeditated act of brutality with the abrupt, five-word kiss-off, "There's your Emmy chances, bitch." [The View]
We learned back in April that racial profiling was among the reasons that Trouble the Water, this year's Best Documentary Winner at the Sundance Film Festival, had not acquired a theatrical distribution deal
more than two months after its Park City triumph. Nearly two months after that, the folks at Zeitgeist Films today announced their pick-up of the film for release this summer. "We are absolutely thrilled to have acquired this brilliant documentary which has a dramatic trajectory most narrative features would envy," Zeitgeist co-president Nancy Gerstman said about Trouble, which follows an African-American couple en route to new lives after leaving the post-Katrina ruins of New Orleans. All's well that ends well, we suppose: The film will open for an Oscar-qualifying week in Los Angeles and New York on Aug. 22; Zeitgeist previously won a doc Oscar in 2002 for Nowhere in Africa. [indieWIRE]
Until today, we'd tried our best to give Mutt Williams, aka Shia LaBeouf, the benefit of the doubt. Yes, he's kind of annoying and bordering on overexposure, but we thought there were at least two good reasons why he acts the way he acts. Not only did he used to be a hot-dog selling carnie, but his vagabond dad was fond of attempting to murder him during heroin-induced fits. Taking this into consideration, we thought it would be the right thing to do to cut the young man some slack. But after watching this video clip of Shia and witnessing what happens after he does a few too many tequila shots, we're left wondering if all the sob stories about being fed marijuana at age 11 can convince us to forgive this particular display of Frat Boy antics. Is our beloved Shia really just a borderline homophobic kid who can't shake his Echo Park upbringing no matter how many glossy magazine spreads he appears in? Judge for yourself after the jump.
It's easy to forget that for every Hollywood Power List, there exists its neutered companion, the Hollywood Powerless List, filled with familiar faces who happen to be suffering temporarily—or in some cases terminally—from a career on ice. The most complete of these is the Film Threat Frigid List, but on the eve of their annual Celebrity 100 ranking—that "factors in both total earnings and an ability to generate buzz, as measured by TV, print and radio mentions"—Forbes now jumps into the chilled-celeb-ranking fray with a slideshow showcasing this year's "Drop-Offs."
A tipster sends word today of trouble having befallen the Philadelphia set of Transformers 2, where an extra was reportedly thrown off the shoot for conduct detrimental to the blockbuster. To wit: Reginald Brown, a regular contributor to Transformers producer Don Murphy's dysfunctional message boards, had nabbed the plum role of "Man Eating Hamburger" in one of the film's action sequences. Then, under his nom de fanboy Hedgehog, Brown filed a dispatch from wardrobe:
The LAT undertakes an important sociological mission today, highlighting the basic costuming differences between two very different breeds of obsessive fanperson: The Sex and the City fan and the Flight of the Conchords fan. While one group leans towards unabashed label-whoredom and pricey slingbacks, and the other towards Little Joy-friendly ironic hipsterwear and All-Stars, they manage to find some common ground in the category of animal prints—though in SATC's case, they're covering Dolce & Gabbana cocktail dresses, and in FotC's, they're literally paying homage to the the ironed-on wildlife prints adorning Bret's sweatshirts.
