Turns out the cabbie zooming around Copenhagen telling any fare who'd listen that his son was the next Bond villain was right after all: Mads Mikkelsen, the loose-lipped taxi driver's son, has been officially cast in the role of evil genius Le Chiffre in Casino Royale, making him the rare Bond baddie to be arguably hotter than Bond himself (in fairness, Jaws did have a certain lunky sex appeal):
America's Most Suspicious Couple used the opportunity of the Sydney memorial service for media baron Kerry Packer to reassure the world that Life & Style's infamous break-up story is nothing but malicious fallacies. After he dumped longtime publicist Pat Kingsley, Cruise spent last summer flailing through the amateur guidance of publisister LeAnne DeVette, but now, under the protective wing of flack Paul Bloch, the star seems to be regaining his footing on the tricky terrain of media manipulation. Note how in the first picture the combination of light physical contact and Holmes' cradling of her swollen belly indicates some level of physical intimacy, but the neutral position of Cruise's free arm seems to balk at claiming responsibility for the life growing in the nearby womb. In the second photo, the couple embraces with their typical unease, giving Holmes the opportunity to flash her engagement ring and remind us that a contract (whether romantic or otherwise) is still in place. In just two surprisingly efficient images, the partners return to the uncomfortable status quo that is the hallmark of their public relationship, free of the tyranny of break-up gossip. All in all, a situation very nicely played by our favorite, suspect young lovers.
The family of a Bronx police officer mistakenly shot by another cop were somewhat stunned to find some of the cast members of drama Pride and Glory, including star Colin Farrell, standing outside the funeral with a camera crew, for what appeared to be a research field trip (see tiny photo evidence). The NY Daily News reports:
Before yesterday's announcement of the indictment of attorney Terry Christensen in connection to the Anthony Pellicano Wiretapping Trial of the Century, we'd never heard his name. Sure, we'd collected Scary Hollywood Lawyer cards like every other kid, and while we can recite the stats from
Bert Field's card from memory (lead the league in cease-and-desists for three straight years!) and tear up with nostalgia when we think of the pleasing sound Marty Singer's rookie card made flapping against the spokes of our Schwinn with the banana seat, we're pretty sure our incomplete set didn't include one for former MGM boss Kirk Kerkorian's longtime counsel. Today's LAT fills us in on Christensen's "in-your-face style," which helped elevate him to the "top tier" of "hardball Hollywood lawyers":
Being nominated for an Oscar does not automatically guarantee that you'll wear clean pants to the luncheon.
· Back by incredibly popular demand: Hey, unicorns!
When PETA's crazies take on Paris Hilton, we actually have to think for a second before taking sides.
You know it's a slow day at Page Six when...
· We knew it was only a matter of time before someone put the gay cowboy song into the gay cowboy movie.
The latest edition of Hollywood Momentum, the trade paper of the people who circle the important trade paper stories for their bosses, features a fine return to form for its Screamers section, where aggrieved assistants anonymously chronicle their tales of abuse. (And too frequently, the triumphant moment where they give their insensitive overlords the what-for, thereby earning their grudging respect. The Hollywood underclass thrives on tears, not hugging and learning!) Let the sympathetic, primal yawps of the exploited begin:
Choosing the gayest moment in American Idol history is like trying to choose your favorite Ken doll: There's just too, too many and they're all so, so gay. A decent case, however, could have been made for the events following the dismissal last night of 18-year-old Garet Layne Johnson, a tiny Wyoming cowboy who managed to inspire and/or creep all of us out a bit, thanks to his green world view and "aw, shucks" humility, not to mention his singing (like a tone-deaf, gay cowboy angel). When Garet got the boot last night, he crumpled into a ball and sobbed into the chest of his co-bootee, hunky cowdaddy Matthew Buckstein, who caressed him and told he had nothing to be ashamed about. As queer Idol moments went, it was a doozy: Clay Aiken once tried a similar maneuver on Ruben Studdard, but the velvet teddybear swatted him across the stage moments before contact.
Don't expect Johnson to just stumble off, though, mutilating Elton John songs into the sunset. This is post-William Hung America, where a strange little man with no discernible talent except for moving fairly easily in dangerously tight jeans can still manage to carve out a showbiz career for himself. The dream begins right now, right here, at GaretJohnsonOnline.com.
· We assume that if you don't attend author Eve Honthaner's signing of Hollywood Drive: What It Takes to Break in, Hang in and Make It in the Entertainment Industry at Book Soup, she'd say you just don't have what it takes to make it in this town, kid.
· Wednesday Night Happy Music Time: Jessi Colter (with Shooter Jennings) at the Viper Room; Archer Prewitt of The Sea and Cake at Spaceland; Bayside at the Troubadour.
· At the Hammer, “The Fifth World: Fan Films, and Fan Fiction” celebrates the phenomena of fan-created art. It's about time, because landmark works like "Kirk and Spock in an Intergalactic Bathtub" must not go unrecognized.
Just when we finished complaining that nothing spicy is going on in the Anthony Pellicano Wiretapping Trial of the Century, prominent attorney Terry Christensen became the first Hollywood lawyer indicted in the case. Christensen allegedly paid Pellicano to tap the phone of client/former MGM boss Kirk Kerkorian's ex-wife. Reports The Smoking Gun:
We'll be the first to admit that this week's blind item was hardly Casablanca's best effort. Still, you guessed (and guessed and guessed), and so the game must go on! Take another turn with One Vainglorious Blind Vice before moving on to your responses:
We're a little tired of waiting for the Anthony Pellicano Wiretapping Trial of the Century to yield some of the Hollywood-players-frog -marching-out-of-Kate-Mantilini's excitement we've been anticipating for months to finally materialize. Today, at least, we're tossed a proverbial bone as the NY Times reports that prosecutors are poking around an old dispute between Michael Ovitz, the former Most Powerful Man in Hollywood (and current Most Powerful Man in Line At Starbucks, If He Avoids The One In Brentwood), and Cathy Schulman, a producer who once worked for Ovitz at the now-defunct AMG:
There's something quaintly old school about Hollywood PR fluff machine Entertainment Tonight, whose "reporters" accept every word that tumbles from the mouths of their A-list fixations as celebrity gospel. They recently sent Jann Carl (cloned, we think, off a sample taken from Mary Hart's right ankle) to interview Tom Cruise about Mission: Impossible 3. The result was yet another Cruise-controlled conversation about the diminutive daredevil's fearless stunt work ("You prepare and you prepare, and even if things go wrong, you prepare so that it won't go that wrong. But I do feel the adrenaline!") But it was a bonus video with a nervous-seeming M:i:III director J.J. Abrams, made available on the ET website, that revealed perhaps a more candid glimpse at what's involved in directing a Tom Cruise vehicle. A partial transcript:
· Skeletal Viacom executive presence Sumner Redstone's son Brent commits legal patricide, suing his old man to dissolve National Amusements, the family's holding company. After Redstone has the traitorous offspring quietly disposed of for his treachery, he then confronts a touchy choice between adopting Viacom CEO Tom Freston or CBS Corp's Les Moonves to replace him in the family. [Variety]
Bambi II (note: the straight-to-video Disney sequel, not the adult-oriented exploration of how many cable repairmen can pleasure a horny housewife at one time) moves 2.5 million DVDs and videos in its 1st week. [Variety]
Writer David Benioff will Americanize the Danish film Brothers for Columbia, a deal that NY Magazine's Intelligencer says will earn Benioff $2 million. Not a bad payday for doing a find-and-replace to convert all the Janniks to Jacks. [Variety]
Jeff Goldblum is in final negotiations to star in the NBC pilot Seeing Red as a suitably "eccentric, brilliant" cop who can talk to dead victors—think Ghost Whisperer, but, you know, with Goldblum instead of Jennifer Love Hewitt's psychic rack. [THR]
Variety speculates that a press conference for the new 007 flick could contain an announcement about who's playing the next Bond girl, whether it's rumored frontrunners Eva Green or Olivia Wylde, or a surprise choice like Die Another Day director Lee Tamahori. [Variety]
USA Today's Oscar blog The O-Factor paid a visit to the Beverly Hills Hotel's Polo Lounge, where the stars escape for old school showbiz luxury wrapped up in a tidy, banana-leaf wallpaper package. In honor of the quickly approaching Academy Awards ceremony, "food and beverage manager Connie Richey" has worked up some creative alchemy and invented five original cocktails based on each Best Picture nominee:
Wherein we invite our readers to subject themselves to the extreme linguistic G-forces of humpy E! gossip-centrifuge Ted Casablanca's weekly blind item and guess the hopelessly obscured identity of its secret subject. We neglected to post this guessing game during yesterday's Cruise-Holmes excitement, but enough of you showed up on our doorstep with torches and pitchforks to convince us to run with it today. Stare at the stunning reflection of One Vainglorious Blind Vice:
Because we realize that some of you never leave your desks for fear of missing the freshest news on Tom Cruise's miracle baby or a memo announcing that your studio has just laid you off, the good folks at Gawker Media are embracing the technological revolution of "text messaging" and giving you the opportunity to be released from the tyranny of your computer screen. That's right, kids, while you're wolfing down that Caesar salad at the Newsroom or parking your boss's Lexus, you can receive a daily text message from Defamer or Gawker (or both, if you're crazy like that!) covering either the Hollywood celebrity/showbiz gossip or NYC celebrity/media dirt you've come to depend on to waste your employer's time. The service costs $4.99 per month per site subscription, which gets you 15-20 alerts a month.
You may recall Lyle v. Warner Brothers Television Productions, the case that blew the sitcom writer's room door wide open: A female Friends writer's assistant, fired after four months, sued the show for sexual harassment, claiming the show's writer-producers subjected her to a daily barrage of sexually explicit and racist comments (sample complaint: "69. [Executive Producer Andrew] Reich said that [Courtney] Cox's pussy was full of dried up twigs and said that if her husband put his dick in her she'd break in two.") After an LA County Superior Court judge initially dismissed the suit, the Court of Appeal ruled it should go to trial. The California Supreme Court began hearing arguments yesterday, and according to the LAT, so far they seem to be siding with the grotesquely overpaid, wisecracking white guys:
