Hollywood PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers. Send yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and let everyone know about the night you saw Keanu Reeves show up overdressed for a pajama party with a hammered blond on his arm.
Because it's Friday afternoon, and more importantly, because Brett Ratner's "protection" check just cleared, we're happy to pass along this unsubstantiated report of an unconfirmed catfight between Lindsay Lohan and Jessica Simpson at the Dime last night, an act of starlet-on-starlet near-violence incited over—get ready for it—Ratner's attention. Says our tipster:
God's Random Gossip Generator has produced its arguably greatest, most mind-melting work, as Fox 411's Roger Friedman reports that fauxteur-about-town Brett Ratner has been seen hanging around with starlet-passed-out-in-the-bathroom-stall Lindsay Lohan, both at the Chateau Marmont and at Ratner's swingin', grandparent-chaparoned bachelor pad:
The best part of inevitable blockbuster X:3 may turn out to be the publicity blitz that precedes the movie's release, if for no other reason than various press obligations have granted us unprecedented access to the endlessly fasincating mind of fauxteur Brett Ratner. In the last couple of weeks alone, we've been allowed to vicariously experience a day of unparalleled starfucking, gained some insight into Ratner's casting methodology, and in this recent, fan-submitted Q & A, learned a little bit about the director's hopes and dreams:
We nearly forgot to wish a happy birthday to celebrated director Brett Ratner, born 37 years ago on this very day. We spent some quality time on the birthday boy's new website trying to select the image that best commemorates this special occasion, and while a nice shot of him and mentor/waterbed wingman Robert Evans or one of a teenage Ratner chewing the scenery in a high school play seemed festive, the above behind-the-scenes photo (actual caption: "Brett shooting some ass on the set of "Money Talks") says the most about the man and his work in a single, utterly efficient frame.
The UK Telegraph recently asked four ostensibly representative Hollywood citizens (a director, a screenwriter, a wannabe, and a producer) to keep one-day diaries of their lives. In an absolute stroke of genius, they wrangled noted fauxteur and man-about-town Brett Ratner for the piece, whose day (a "busy" one, admittedly) plays like a name-dropping, starfucking version of the It's A Small World ride at Disneyland, a kingdom only slightly less magical than Ratner's. Some selections from his diary follow:
The ongoing X-Men saga has basically been one long, overreaching superhero allegory for growing up gay in an unwelcoming world: Imagine Brokeback Mountain, but replace Jack and Ennis' forbidden love with the mutant ability to singe sheep with their eye-lasers. With Hollywood's hottest new web presence Brett Ratner's third installment, X-Men: The Last Stand (you can view the trailer here), the metaphor reaches its natural conclusion: the "curing" of these mutant teens of what makes them different. In a roundtable discussion on SciFi.com featuring the film's leads, things got rather heated between Ian McKellen and co-star Hugh Jackman when Jackman argued that perhaps curing one's self of mutation isn't necessarily such a bad thing:
With the Oscars occupying most of our attention the last few days, we somehow forgot to recognize the launch of Brett Ratner Dot Com, the official online presence of the beloved fauxteur. Clicking through to the site's main page brings you to a black-and-white slideshow of Ratner in various directorly poses (note: the picture above is actually from the bio page, not an early storyboard for Rush Hour 3): Ratner with his arm around sour-looking After the Sunset star Woody Harrelson, Ratner and Diddy behind a monitor, Ratner standing near a camera and gesturing to something outside the frame that he will capture in forty takes and then turn over to his editors for salvage. On the whole, however, we have to admit that we're a little surprised at the site's classy minimalism; we expected something that more accurately represented his cinematic gifts, like a five-minute Flash montage of Chris Tucker screaming at the top of his lungs and firing guns in the air.
Admittedly, after seeing Brett "Wolverstein" Ratner's 2005 holiday card featuring the beloved fauxteur dressed up as some sort of ferocious hedgehog and standing proudly front and center with his X-Men 3 cast, the feelings were bittersweet. Yes, we delighted in Halle Berry's failed attempt at keeping a straight face, to say nothing of the clever Semitification of Wolverine's name inside. But these were merely the fuzzy reiterations of a scanned greeting belonging to someone else, someone worthy. So imagine our delight when we received our very own card in the mail today! We still have no idea how it found its way past the various security clearances at Defamer HQ, but who can worry about protocol when Brett is personally thanking us for his "29 mentions in 2005!" (Truth be told, if he had added the word "hacktastic" to the search, he would have found four more.)
Yes, this latest installment in our Hollywood Holiday Cards feature is a little blurry, but no amount of rubbing your eyes will change what you're seeing: Brett Ratner, the famed fauxteur currently shooting the latest X-Men project, dressed as some kind of mini-Wolverine at the center of his cast of mutants. (Click the image for a larger version.) At first, we thought that Ratner had wastefully demanded that his wardrobe department make him his own "Wolverstein" (the name of his character as revealed on the inside of the card) costume, conjuring images of the leather-clad director nearly beheading his DP with his claws while trying to demonstrate a needlessly showy camera move. But then we noticed how bunchy the legs of his pants seem around the ankles and figured he's just playing dress-up in Hugh Jackman's clothes, hopefully sparing the cast and crew unnecessary lacerations by their excitable director.
· US Weekly is the first to report that Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson, having hung in there long enough to live up to the 'for richer' part of their vows, decide to drop the charade and cash in their chips before finding out what comes next. Grocery check-outs everywhere are suddenly good for a laugh.
· Desperate Housewives' Eva Longoria finds seasonal references mixed with loud swearing serves as a handy substitute to paying for things. A greeting card craze ensues.
· A studio lot spy snaps a picture of George Clooney's adorable microcar; if he tried to squeeze his fat Syrianna ass into this thing, we think we may have an inkling as to how he ruptured his spinal fluid sac.
· New Line throws obnoxious sums of cash at Chris Tucker, Jackie Chan and Brett Ratner, hoping to once again bottle the Rush Hour magic.
· Brittany Murphy's lawyer sends us an angry letter letting us know how hard y'all suck at the Blind Item Guessing Game. Really, people, for shame!
In the dark places in our soul that we don't like to talk about at cocktail parties, we were secretly terrified that we might never again experience the unbridled, brain-smoothing joy of Chris Tucker shouting high-pitched expletives at a seemingly uncomprehending Jackie Chan while shit blows up around them. It seems that New Line is finally ready to shovel cash onto the raging fire of another Rush Hour sequel, locking up Tucker, Chan, screenwriter Jeff Nathanson, and, most crucially, visionary fauxteur Brett Ratner. Variety has the staggering details:
A reader recounts a tense moment yesterday at the world-famous Mickey Fine pharmacy in Beverly Hills (motto: "Sedating Hollywood's Biggest Stars Since 1928"), when a frazzled assistant was confronted with the possibility that his employer's drug-store needs might go unfulfilled:
· Louisiana's film and TV office reaches out to Hollywood: "It's a beautiful day in Baton Rouge...Unless you're shooting a film called 'Hurricane,' you won't want to come to New Orleans, but we have 54 other parishes." We're all relieved to know that those tax incentives were evacuated from New Orleans in time. [Variety]
· An ABC News crew tried to approach New Orleans' Charity Hospital for a story, but was turned away by gunfire. In a related story, the LA film and TV office would like everyone to know that their Hollywood friendly tax breaks are completely unarmed. [THR]
· The 32nd Telluride Film Festival, which takes place in Colorado, a state somewhere in America, unsurprisingly will host a number of American premieres. [Variety]
· Cheaper by the Dozen director Shawn Levy will attempt the impossible task of trying to fill Brett Ratner's enormously hacky shoes, taking over casino flick 21, a project Ratner abandoned to take a shot at ruining the X-Men franchise. [THR]
· Former Tom Cruise guard-dog Pat Kingsley is opening a London branch of her PMK/HBH flackery in October, making it easier for her to deny access to her clients should the British press get out of line. [Variety]
Fresh off wedding number seven and tired of scouring Hollywood for interesting guests for his satellite radio show, "In Bed with Robert Evans," the swinging, superannuated producer is taking it easy this week, merely sloshing over to the other side of the rotating waterbed and nudging the corpulent form contentedly napping in mongrammed silk jammies and cooing, Hey, Kid Terrific, you wanna be on the radio? You bet you do. When? This week. TheRobertEvans.com makes an announcement about the "seductive, man-to-man" action to follow.
