This morning, rehabilitation program quality-control watchdog organization TMZ.com reveals the results of their exclusive exit poll of an outgoing Wonderland Center resident, who claimed that the facility has devolved into a state of Lohan-induced anarchy since admitting its most famous drop-in client:
Perhaps the ceremony's only true highlight was Grey's Anatomy's star Chandra Wilson's acceptance speech for her Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series win (above, also presented with Spanish voiceover here), in which the actress, moments after a clip played featuring her admonishing co-star T.R. Knight for looking at her "vajayjay", thanked "those 10 cast members sitting over there, and the other one in rehab." Apparently, the requirements of Isaiah Washington's recovery program prevented him from attending the event with his colleagues, allowing him to avoid an uncomfortable moment backstage after the Grey's cast's TV ensemble award, when he might have attempted to demonstrate his speedy progress through Gayhab by repeatedly inviting Knight to join in an open-mouth display of healing.
Choke down this weekend's box office numbers, which go down as smoothly as a coffee cup filled with rusty nails:
· It's an honor just to get one step closer to not losing: The Dream is over. The entire snub call-sheet. "Like, yoicks!" " Playing the Oscar race card. Helen Mirren is a DILF with a secret allegiance. The Best Actress category goes full frontal.
· Welcome to the Mothership: CAA opens its new doors with an assistant-free flourish.
· Brad Grey's "uncouth and distasteful" Oscar petition was for naught.
· Isaiah Washington's apology tour ends at Gayhab.
· Fuck it. Harvey's good at this.
· Paris Hilton's last remaining secrets (hint: fat guy smothered in five kilos of blow) are finally yours, for a mere $39.97 a month. Also, she pleads no contest to alcohol-related reckless driving.
· SKG hearts Obama.
· Due to her busy schedule, full-time homemaker Katie Holmes turns down The Dark Knight.
· Nicole Kidman goes boom. What the grip saw.
· Enjoy this round-table discussion with this year's brightest Oscar nominees. And Brad Pitt.
· The Karma Fairy pays Joe Francis another visit.
· Dakota Fanning sees Hounddog as a sort of arthouse after-school special.
· Kirk Douglas fondly recalls his Nazi-stewardess-slapping sexploits.
· Scott Baio fondly recalls his corduroy-sofa-penetrating sexploits.
· Lindsay Lohan: Happiest she's ever been and totally in control!
· Your moment of only-in-Hollywood-Zen: 10-year-old filmmaker sues for creative control.
· The PR teams of Hollywood's favorite Democratic presidential contenders have taken their battle to the media: "Star Wars Heat Up: Hillary's Hollywood Rebound" counters "Obama Excites Entertainment Community." Also: Help name the Hillary fan club!
· Residents of the west side, beware the Beverly Hills Yeti. While frightening to look at, at least you know it won't eat you.
· Britney's Other Baby is spotted on Take Your Neglected Child to Work Day at her recording studio.
Friday
· Music round-up: of Montreal (sadly, they aren't) are at the El Rey, The Shins are playing a free show at Amoeba (get there early for parking!), Cold War Kids are at Spaceland, and Keane is at the Wiltern.
· Neal Pollack reads from and signs his book Alternadad at Skylight Books. Why couldn't we have had an alternadad, instead of conservodad?
Saturday
· Robbers on High Street play the Echo, Starlight Desperation are at the Smell, and Matt Ellis plays the Hotel Café.
· Celebrate the 50th anniversay of The Cat in the Hat with a party at Vroman's Bookstore, where there will be refreshments (hatburgers and catsup?), games (Pin the Hat on the Cat?), and "the mischievous Cat in the Hat himself will be making a special appearance." Also, a Cat in the Hat movie DVD burning!
Sunday
· Tongue & Groove, a "literary monthly" at the Hotel Café, features Burlesque dancers, Izzy & the Eskimos, and readings by Eric "Drew Barrymore's ex" Erlandson from Hole and David "Devo's new drummer" Kendrick.
· The Bacchae, Allain Rochel's update on the ancient Greek tragedy, replaces all the women with shirtless, hunky dudes, just the way the ancient Greeks had probably wished it was written in the first place. At the Celebration Theater.
· LACMA hosts a special screening of Children of Heaven, a 1997 Iranian film and Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nominee about a brother and sister and a lost pair of shoes. A Q&A with Loyola Marymount professor Amir Hussain follows.
According to a press release that just landed in our inbox (which confirms this earlier Slate story), it seems that the Academy's Executive Committee on Whether Or Not To Ignore All These Annoying Recommendation Letters About Why Brad Grey Deserves To Get A Producing Credit On The Departed has finally ruled on the Paramount emperor's appeal to get a piece of the Warner Bros.' film's Oscar glory, deciding to crush Grey's "uncouth and distasteful" double-nomination dreams. Even though he's now freed from the embarrassing possibility of having to brush by his own defeated Babel crew on his way to deliver a potential victory speech for a competitor's movie, he should still spend some time practicing suppressing the politically ill-advised urge to point to himself and mouth, "That's my movie, assholes," should the camera pan to him following the annoucement of a Departed Best Picture win.
While we've recently devoted considerable energy to speculating about the evil wonders contained within CAA's new Century City headquarters (our latest fantasy involves a Rube Goldbergian baby-delivering device that uses a series of pulleys, catapults, children's sandbox buckets, conveyor belts, trampolines, a three-floor domino-waterfall, and a ball-gobbling mini-golf clown's mouth to transfer fresh infants from the food-prep area to the partners' conference room table) and offering helpful suggestions about how rival agencies might bring down the Creative Artists Death Star before its doomsday particle cannon could be deployed to incinerate their competitors, turning their former Wilshire Boulevard neighborhood into a Guernica-esque tableau of massacred tenpercenters, we didn't had any firsthand reports of what the building is really like. Luckily, the Defamer Special Correspondent on Agency Architecture attended last night's open house, offering his thoughts on the CAA stronghold's design:
PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so send them in during lunch, cigarette, coffee, and bathroom breaks. Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and let everyone know about the night you mancrushed on Arrested Development's adorable Michael Cera so hard, you very nearly lost it:
· If companies like Time Warner are serious about a commitment to new media, then why can't Peter Bart get someone from TW on the phone who knows how to work his fucking TiVo? [Variety]
· In signing a new overall deal with CBS Paramount Network Television, CSI executive producer Ann Donahue reveals the softer side of CBS Corp.'s future galactic despot Les Moonves: "'Over the summer I had a family member (hospitalized) in grave condition,' Donahue said. 'Leslie, Nancy and Nina called me and not only offered their help, but they cut through a lot of red tape and saved a life. I will be at CBS for as long as they want me.'" [THR]
· NewsCorp is finalizing a deal to bring MySpace to China, but will have to make concessions to the government to bring the site in compliance with local regulations, like limiting each user to a single person in their friendspace (female friend requests must be immediately deleted) and requiring all profile comment to be approved by the Glorious Chinese Emoticon And LOL Censorship Board. [THR]
· Grey's Anatomy, which will finish the week as the number one non-Idol program on television, shows no ill Nielsen effects from the post-Globes Isaiah Washington fiasco, meaning that the slur-happy actor will probably still have a job once he completes his stint in network-ordered GayHab. [Variety]
Sienna Miller, aka The It Girl Who Never Really Was, sat down with the LAT in Sundance to promote Interview, her latest attempt at registering something beyond a faint ping on the public's radar. Directed by and starring Steve Buscemi (who, much like the rest of the world, had to admit he had no idea who Miller was at first), the movie tells the story of a nebbish war reporter who's reluctantly sent on an assignment to profile a tabloid-target. After Miller abruptly dismissed the reporter's "I'm exactly like my character/nothing like my character in my just-released movie" line of requisite questioning, a new area of discussion—the stigma of indulging too enthusiastically in Sundance gifting suites—was broached:
Upset that signature, troubled client Lindsay Lohan didn't opt for an inpatient rehabilitation program that might have afforded her a 28 day hiatus from having to explain every last one of the actress's media-attracting activities, embattled flack Leslie Sloane Zelnick is lashing out at reports that Lohan's frequent public appearances since enrolling in the Wonderland Center's casual, career-friendly "Drop By In Between Takes If That Works For You, OK?" recovery plan indicate that the actress is getting special treatment from the facility:
Today's WSJ chronicles how CAA has undertaken the daunting task of resuscitating the career of onetime actress and stay-at-home war bride Katie Holmes, whose last memorable role was that of "Glassy-Eyed Woman Clutching A Baby in the Window While Pondering a Series of Poorly Thought-Through Life Decisions" in the Bracciano production Tom N' Katie's Italian Wedding Spectacular, a much buzzed-about, but critically derided, foray into experimental theater. With Batman Returns follow-up The Dark Knight now officially out of the picture (both the Holmes camp and Warner Bros. seem to have their no-fault, "timing"-related story straight about why she won't be back to reprise her performance as Gotham City's most doe-eyed assistant D.A.), the agency is hoping that smaller, budget-conscious productions might throw their out-of-work client a lower-paid bone:
Unless you happened to be at one of the Sundance screenings for infamous Dakota Fanning rape-awareness project Hounddog this week, your experience of the controversial scene depicting the tragic despoiling of America's Preteen Sweetheart is probably limited to hysterical soundbites about its moral equivalency to the fellating of an aroused Martin Luther King Jr. statue and counter-soundbites concerning the tastefulness of its non-child-endangering execution. Should you wish to explore the matter further and become a better-informed critic (or defender) of Team Fanning's attempt to push her over the "adolescent hump" and into mature, Oscar-winner territory, Smoking Gun has obtained the relevant Hounddog script pages, complete with the subtle symbolism of quivering young hands being bloodily impaled on the rusty nails of lost innocence and punctuating flashes of dramatic lightning one might expect to find in such a scene. As we are fond of saying when we send you off to experience something that you should not actually enjoy: Enjoy.
