Regardless of what should become of Antonella Barba after her sure-to-suck performance tonight on American Idol, the controversial contestant can take some comfort in knowing she is not without a backup plan: Girls Gone Wild's Chief Operating Titty Inspector, Joe Francis, has issued a press release publicly soliciting Barba's services to the tune of $250,000:
In honor of Zodiac, the long-awaiting release from director David Fincher opening today, the LAT has a little fun by taking some of America's other legendary serial killers and playing one of Defamer's favorite parlor games, "casting the CBS movie of the week." (Only in this case, it's something more akin to "casting the $85 million Paramount/Warner Bros. co-production.") Some of their choices are mind-numbingly obvious (gee, we guess now that you mention it, Vincent Gallo does kinda look like Charles Manson), and some we just don't really see (we're not getting Green River Killer from Kevin Costner, sorry. He always gave us more of a Scott Thompson-vibe.) But one pairing was so inspired, it instantly chilled us to the bone: Forgetting for a moment that Dahmer was about a half-foot taller than his red-carpet-stationed doppelganger, something about the glassy-eyed smile, the boyish good looks, the laid-back, charming demeanor that lulls you into a state of trusting complacency, instantly said to us "human pancreas in an empty Blue Bonnet margarine tub."
Welcome back to our ongoing effort to exhaustively chronicle the travails of Most Doable Idol, Antonella Barba, who has bewitched America by being pleasing to almost every sense (except the one she's supposed to excel at in a singing contest), while simultaneously starring in a seemingly never ending stream of leaked photos doing a variety of sorta-dirty, but not-really-that-bad, things. In today's chapter, brought to you by NinjaDude.com, Antonella appears to be enjoying a BFF moment, standing adjacent to a pink vibrator. Even more shockingly, Antonella herself is holding a box of MacAweenie And Cheese Penis Pasta Mix; we imagine the bachelorette's mac and cheese of choice should soon see a healthy boost in profits. Why each girl is posing holding a random object is not entirely clear—perhaps, moments before the flash went off, they were instructed to grab the single dorm room item they would bring with them to a desert island, sending the co-eds scrambling for the nearest stuffed penguin, personal massager, or box of phallic pasta they could get their hands on. Looking down upon the wholesome depravity is none other than celebrity savior Angelina Jolie, whose clearly visible, beaming headlights shine down upon the group like two dazzling, protective beacons from a nurturing Mother Earth.
· Hollywood Out of Ideas: Let's Turn Those Mildly-Amusing-At-Best Geico Cavemen Commercials, Which Themselves Are a Rip-Off of That Old Phil Hartman SNL Sketch, Into an ABC Sitcom Pilot edition! [Variety]
· Warner Bros. is turning the Valerie Plame-C.I.A. leak debacle into a feature. You can start plotting your dream cast now, but Warner is hoping Vice President Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby will all be played by Eddie Murphy, in his next Oscar-courting role. [Variety]
· With Grey's and CSI in reruns, Fox tramples the rest last night with Idol and strongly showing Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, leading the network to immediately explore possible spinoffs, including Are You Drunker Than Paula Abdul?, and Are You Gonna Eat That? starring Randy Jackson. [Variety]
· In an effort to "minimize children's exposure to violence," the FCC wants broader powers in regulating TV content. In other words the actual CSI decapitation would be subject to censoring, and not just the skullfucking that follows it. [THR]
· TV Land has hired Bill Clinton to address their advertisers at their March 23rd upfronts in New York, who is expected to tell the gathered crowd that in his moments of doubt, he would regularly turn to old episodes of Simon & Simon, where the wisdom of P.I. siblings A. J. and Rick would invariably guide him through his darkest hours. [THR]
Those of you who tuned into last night's edition of zeitgeisty, karaoke superstar contest American Idol know that our fearless leader Mark's tireless campaigning on behalf of long shot contestant Sanjaya Malakar was not done in vain, as another dark-skinned effeminate ended up being sacrificed in his place. Unfortunately, an energized Mark emerged from the taping ready to celebrate, and three hours, and six Disaronno Sours later, poor Mark found himself staring down the shaft of a West Hollywood Sheriff's Officer's Maglite, being asked pointedly, "Why were you speeding with your Bentley Continental's headlights off, sir?" The situation only escalated when Mark responded by clumsily lifting his fist into the air, Black Panthers-style, and slur-shouted, "SANJAYA NATION! Whoo!" Miraculously, the officer on duty was also a diehard fan (in fact the two had already become acquainted in a SanjayaFans.com chat room!), and so he was let go with a warning, and a pledge to swap whatever MP3s they could get their hands on.
Antonella Barba, the comely Jersey girl who managed to squeak into American Idol's top 12 female finalists, only to torture tens of millions with her ear-punishing rendition of "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing," has sparked a wave of internet controversy (funny how it always happens to the ones America wants to bang the most), involving a series of leaked photographs featuring Barba alternately sitting on a toilet and clutching her own breasts on a beach. A second batch of far more graphic photos then made the rounds (NSFW), this time of someone purported to be Antonella performing oral sex on a faceless recipient. Since then, the world's foremost blowjobologists have been brought in to authenticate the photographs. The verdict: It's not Antonella. Even co-auditioner and best friend Amanda Coluccio, after carefully examining the fellative evidence at hand, has weighed in:
· Sacha Baron Cohen sued again, this time because Ali G ran at the mouth about knocking up one of Cohen's childhood friends.
The latest in MirrenPorn: Buying a microwave! Hott!
· The Miramax party smells nice, but was pretty dead.
We refuse to believe Katherine McPhee's breasts are real until we're granted a Tyra Banks-level tactile test.
This just in: DeGeneres nervous, excited about her big night! Also: lesbian.
· Oh yeah, and so is Suze Orman.
· Fantasia flips off America. We're sure it was intended just for Cowell, not the whole country.
· Sacha Baron Cohen sued again, this time because Ali G ran at the mouth about knocking up one of Cohen's childhood friends.
· The latest in MirrenPorn: Buying a microwave! Hott!
· The Miramax party smells nice, but was pretty dead.
· We refuse to believe Katherine McPhee's breasts are real until we're granted a Tyra Banks-level tactile test.
· This just in: DeGeneres nervous, excited about her big night! Also: lesbian.
· Oh yeah, and so is Suze Orman.
· Fantasia flips off America. We're sure it was intended just for Cowell, not the whole country.
· Universal signs up Robert De Niro's Tribeca Prods. for two more years, allowing them to go forward with Little Fockers, the third Meet the Parents movie. They're planning to bring back all the main cast members from the previous installments—even Teri Polo, admirably choosing loyalty over the cynical temptation to replace her with a cheaper, middle-tier CBS sitcom wife. So far. [Variety]
· George Clooney and Cate Blanchett are in "negotiations" and "talks," respectively (don't mix them up or someone loses his job!), to voice characters in Wes Anderson's stop-motion animation adaptation of Roald Dahl story The Fantastic Mr. Fox. [THR]
· According to someone in attendance at Hillary Clinton's trip to the CAA Death Star yesterday, the senator was "incredibly well-received," especially after promising that if they use their evil influence to deliver her the Hollywood endorsement, she'd publicly support the Creative Artists Infant-Consuming Decriminalization Act the agency's partners have had trouble pushing through Congress. [Variety]
· Desperate producers hope that having Idol winner Fantasia Barrino announce she's taking over the lead in the the struggling Broadway version of The Color Purple while making an AI appearance last night might help sell some more tickets. [Variety]
· The unthinkable has happened: American Idol was not the most-watched show on television last night. Though they didn't directly compete, Grey's Anatomy actually pulled in the more viewers. Please immediately head for your place of worship and pray for salvation, as the end of days is surely nigh. [THR]
With the country once again infected with an uncontained outbreak of American Idol fever—we're sporting our Team Sundance T-shirts as we type this!— the savvy entrepreneurs behind the phenomenon have shown no shortage of creativity in capitalizing on America's seemingly insatiable hunger for finding tomorrow's Céline-Dion-ballad-belting, 1980s-jumpsuit-wearing superstars today. The latest brand extension: Idol Camp, where for a nominal fee (with scholarships available so that all those poor families who pin their entire futures on their kids making the cut can participate), your child can spend 10 intensive days on a Massuchusetts campus learning the fundamentals that will eventually give them that crucial leg-up on the approximately 35,000 other contestants they'll face when they reach qualifying age. Stunningly, actual "former Idols" will be on hand to coach your child to victory, and with a wildly diverse curriculum—everything from "Sing Sing Sing!" to "Idol Style" to the "Feel The Rhythm" drumming workshop ("Intro to Beatboxing" is pending)—they'll return with a newly acquired arsenal of performing skills, though sorely lacking in the self-defense training they'll need to avoid being pummeled by classmates who discovered how they spent their summer vacations.
· Is it starting to feel like ABC's getting a little desperate to squeeze the life out of its hits? They've now signed up Housewives creator Marc Cherry to a four-year, eight-figure deal to stay with the show through its seventh season, during which the only remaining unexplored plotline will involve Eva Longoria and Teri Hatcher waking up to find themselves trapped in each other's bodies. [Variety]
· Today in theoretical WGA strike saber-rattling: A Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. study says a strike, whether "real or de facto," would "not be good news for areas of Los Angeles County with exposure to the business." The LAEDC also recommends that studio executives who find themselves suddenly impoverished by a labor stoppage "burn piles of stockpiled scripts for warmth." [THR]
· The DreamWorks Obamamaia fund-raiser may have raised $1.3 million for Barack, Hollywood blood money the candidate's campaign has no intention of giving back, no matter how pissed off Hillary was by David Geffen's crack about the Lincoln Bedroom. [Variety]
· American Idol producers Nigel Lythgoe and Ken Warwick are tasked with trying to make the moribund Emmy telecast a little more exciting, a goal they hope to achieve by handing Paula Abdul a garbage bag full of prescription painkillers and then sending her out on stage as host and sole presenter. [THR]
· Rules of Engagement's early success following Two and a Half Men leads Var to postulate that audiences might be craving more formulaic, multicamera sitcom crap. [Variety]
The scene at Penn Station, where Radar sits alongside Mujer. Many Spanish-speakers are concerned about the heterosexuality of their babies, so this may be a savvy move.
· And we thought that McDreamy would never find true love.
· How many letters are there in "famewhore" again? Oh, more than two? Damn.
· Comedy Central's Insider blog is ready to throw down with the sure-to-be-hilarious Fox News Daily Show knock-off.
· We really don't have the heart to tell this guy that Ari Gold is just a fictional character.
· That trick where Simon/Paula/Randy pretend to be breaking bad news to a room full of Idol hopefuls never gets old! And now you can bring the fun home with this rejection kit.
· The comedy spec Space Invader, concerning a love triangle on a space station, is the beneficiary of the "Get me a fucking script about a crazy astronaut! Now!" frenzy gripping studios in the wake of the Lisa Marie Nowak story, selling to Fox Atomic (with Will Arnett attached to star) after receiving "several" bids. We assume that the first note for the rewrite will involve the addition of a set piece involving a malfunctioning adult diaper. [Variety]
· TV studios prepare for a potential writers strike by making a lot of noise about stockpiling scripts and accelerating production schedules of existing series, hoping their counter-threat of cutting short Kiefer Sutherland's hiatus might pressure the WGA to sprint to the negotiating table. [THR]
· Analysts and media companies alike are vexed about the maddening imprecision of measuring how many people are watching their "Dick in a Box" videos online. [Variety]
· Poison's Bret Michaels will star in yet another Flavor of Love spin-off, Rock of Love with Bret Michaels, for VH1. With Michaels and C.C. DeVille now both VH1 reality stars, when will Poison's overlooked rhythm section of Bobby Dall and Rikki Rocket finally get a chance to shine on basic cable? [THR]
· American Idol grinds the bones of its competition to dust, scattering the remains of its vanquished Nielsen foes to the primetime winds. [Variety]
Relentlessly upbeat and intermittently intelligible center American Idol judge Paula Abdul is still explaining (and using almost exactly the same words) how her slurred, nonsensical, and sometimes unconscious appearances on national television are the result of a somewhat sideways view of life, and not, as many assume incorrectly, a predilection for straight-up Xanaxtinis:
Last year brought us the death-masks formerly known as Kenny Rogers and Barry Manilow, but this year, rumors have been swirling about a ratcheting up of has-been guest star power on American Idol. According to Reality TV Magazine, the freakiest face of all just may be dropping by Idol's CBS Television City studios: Michael Jackson has reportedly been having clandestine meetings with the show's producers, and in a recent promotional conference call with the media, Idol EP Nigel Lythgoe, dropped this unsubtle hint into the proceedings:
Other CNN.com "story highlights" omitted for space in this AP commentary on the sadistic hook of the world's most popular TV program:
· 1/3 of judges likely tanked, helpless to wiles of crooning 17-year-old boys
· Contestants' self-appointed stage names (e.g. "The Hotness") often highly misleading
· Bush Baby aspirants likely to find themselves victims of Simon Cowell's merciless Bush Baby taunts: AP critic
· Parents often smoking from same delusional crack pipe as talent-free children.
· Jennifer Garner seeks to emasculate husband Ben Affleck by proving that at least one person in their household can carry a holiday-themed comedy, signing on to star in the remake of the 1945 movie Christmas in Connecticut for Warner Bros. [Variety]
· Warner Bros. and Joel Silver, who have been developing a Wonder Woman movie to be written and directed by fanboy-sainted Buffy creator Joss Whedon, are "quietly" trying to buy another Wonder Woman script, possibly to cover their asses in the event its writers decide to sue because their "getting it on in the invisible jet" scene is too similar to the one in the eventual WB product. [THR]
· Unfaithful co-stars Richard Gere and Diane Lane reunite for the Nicholas Sparks adaptation Nights in Rodanthe for Warner Bros. [Ed.note—Is today Warner Bros. Day at the trades?], in which they hope to recapture the carnal chemistry they enjoyed in their previous collaboration. [Variety]
· American Idol continues to destroy everything in its path. Interestingly, its Nielsen halo effect is now even boosting its lead-ins, bringing Bones its highest ratings in a year. [THR]
· In speculating about how moving beloved, but ratings-challenged, Friday Night Lights to a better timeslot might improve the show's chances of survival, Var invokes the name of Freaks and Geeks, the standard by which all beloved-but-ratings-challenged-series- that-were-killed-off-too-quickly are judged. [Variety]
If you stopped watched American Idol after the audition rounds, you'd be forgiven if you somehow mistook the reality colossus as the search for America's greatest schizophrenic. (Symptoms: "delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, grossly disorganized behavior, dressing inappropriately, crying frequently...") Once the parade of psychotics passes by our TV sets and back into the crazy jungle, however, the cream eventually does begin to rise to the top—whether through pure talent, or with the help of a story about one's father's botched murder-suicide attempt. Jennifer Hudson definitely fell into the former camp when she stumbled onto the Idol stage in Season 3, but perhaps her current dizziness from trying on Oscar gowns has given her temporary amnesia regarding just how long-range and accurate 19 Management's sniper-fire can be:
As much as we cherished the idea of Courtney Love perpetrating the first physical act of judge-on-contestant violence (excepting, of course, those moments when Ryan Seacrest gets handsy with the shoulders of inconsolable male contestants) as the newest member of the American Idol team, we knew deep in our hearts that a wave of denials about an alleged offer to join the show was in the offing. Idol mastermind Nigel Lythgoe's statement that he never made a recruitment pitch to Love has Us Weekly backing slowly away from yesterday's item, while Love herself, in her trademarked agrammatical fashion, rambles at length on her website about how Us molested her (we think; it's all so terribly confusing) in its quest for controversy [via Tabloid Whore] :
