It's time to start thinking about which movies are going to steal away your entertainment dollars and save you from the corrosive effects of the summer air. Choose wisely (i.e., in a fashion that makes our predictions look somewhat less pathetic).
Hollywood PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are sent in by our readers. Send yours to tips@defamer.com (putting privacywatch or sighting in the subject line helps make sure they don't get lost in our inbox) and let the world know that Mischa Barton's got a lot of junk in the trunk for a skinny chick.
· In our infinite mercy, yesterday we spared you a reprint of the press release announcing Revolution partner Rob Moore's departure for a post at The New Paramount as president of worldwide marketing. Today, your luck has run out, as we're compelled to direct you to the trades stories about the move. [Variety, THR]
· NBC Universal revenue is up 35%, yet we still don't know anyone who's seen more than two episodes of Joey. We're not sure that last sentence tracks, and we don't particularly care. Welcome to Friday! [THR]
· NBC orders midseason drama The Book of Daniel, starring Aidan Quinn as a pill-popping Episcopalian priest (Catholics are way too controversial) who talks to Jesus, forsaking the godless path taken by rival CBS. In other news, UPN gives Steven Guttenberg a job on Veronica Mars. [Variety]
· More nominations analysis: Emmy voters are sick of procedurals. [THR]
· ABC once again fills the summertime Nielsen void with a successful premiere for Brat Camp, a higher-quality version of just about every Sally Jesse Raphael episode ever shot. [Variety]
Today's LAT examines the Job-like trials that fauxteur fashion plate Michael Bay had to endure (budget problems! an abbreviated shooting schedule! torrential downpours sent by a God who's obviously not a fan of his work!) to finally ready The Island for release. In the course of recounting the various obstacles he surmounted during production, Bay once again touts the film's philosophical and ethical underpinnings ("I wanted people to leave the theater saying, 'If I could own a clone, would I?'" a query previously discussed at length here), perhaps to demonstrate that his struggles were for a higher purpose than the frequent detonation of futuristic-looking shit. However, the Times saves Bay's most troubling existential mind-fuck for the final paragraph:
When Michael Jackson was felled by a "severe flu" in the middle of his child molestation trial, we speculated that he was preparing for the worst by buying time to "fake his death, gather the seeds of a new, utopian Neverland society from the talent roster at Nickolodeon, and escape to the secret colony he’s prepared on the dark side of the moon." As it turns out, Jackson may have had a far more rational plan for self-preservation in the event of a conviction:
Yesterday's Emmy nomination for Desperate Housewives in the comedy category immediately provoked debate about whether the show belonged in a group with Scrubs, Will & Grace, Raymond, and Arrested Development, especially among comedy showrunners whose babies are about to snuffed by the ABC juggernaut. When we saw this Reuters piece on the debate this morning, we remembered that we'd engaged in virtually the same, serious discussion of proper Emmy genre-slotting with Jessica Coen, the esteemed mediawhorerunner at Gawker, via IM:
A mysterious man called Page Six for advice on how to sell the "authentic, 14-minute" Colin Farrell/Nicole Narain (and just like that, the former Playmate is famous—look how easy it is!) sex tape and described the hot, amateur action to the Sixies. The column then dutifully passes on the movie trailer version:
· Christian Slater's got some fight left in him yet, refusing to admit to any grab-assing activities.
· Hey, unicorns!
· "Freddie Highmore, the actor portraying Charlie Bucket, will fall on hard times in his adulthood and star in the porno movie Charlie and the Bukkake Factory: 84/1" Over at Oddjack, blogging's Matthew Tobey handicaps Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
· American Idle does a nice job of fantasy-casting the movie version of Dallas, even if the imaginary above-the-line budget would be ridiculous.
· Thanks to Defamer's slut-loving readership, Los Angeles has pulled neck-and-neck with Bangkok in Gridskipper's World Sluttiest City voting. Now it's time to demonstrate your full might and show the world that L.A. is the most slut-friendly municipality anywhere! Feh on your readily available comfort women, Bangkok, our fine city has legions of aspiring actors willing to do whatever it takes to be cast in Big Brother 6!
· Three for Thursday: The Dwarves at the Troudadour; Gemma Hayes at Largo; Kinski does double-duty, giving it away for free at Amoeba at 7pm before heading to the Echo.
· It's opening night for David Auburn's play Proof at the Flight Theatre, giving you a chance to get a look at it before your life is changed forever by the big-screen version with Gwyneth Paltrow.
· Today's Bastille Day? Who knew? If you've got $75 to burn, Mix will serve you a five-course meal and some champagne to help celebrate. Assuming, of course, that you don't have something against the French.
Despite the effort the Defamer Special Correspondent on Celebrity Jurisprudence expended pressing his ear to the courtroom door, he was unable to come away with any advance snippets of Diaz's testimony. Instead, like the rest of our Hollywood-obsessed nation, we had to wait for a report to hit the wire services. The AP capably sets the scene:
Let's reveal your guesses for this week's Blind Item Guessing Game before we lose any more of today to such idle, wildly speculative pursuits. Take one more peek at One Nearly Hairless Blind Vice:
Defamer's Special Correspondent on Celebrity Jurisprudence has finally arrived on the scene at the Cameron Diaz "Sexy" Photos Trial, joining a legion of other bored reporters sitting outside of the downtown LA courtroom and waiting for Diaz to emerge following her testimony. One photographer who spoke to our man-on-the-scene placed the odds of actually seeing Diaz at "slim to none," as she entered through some sort of private entrance. The SCoCP did manage to get scolded by someone who demanded that he delete pictures he'd snapped of courtroom sketches depicting Diaz on the witness stand "gesticulating with her left hand, palm facing upwards." The Special Correspondent's afternoon's highlight so far is a close call with an angry bird who buzzed by his head "four or five times" in an attempt to "peck [his] skull" as he walked through the parking lot on the way to the courthouse. Surely, this is some sort of harbinger of the swift justice awaiting the photographer who may or may not have tried to sell pictures of Diaz's uncovered breasts using a forged model release.
Even with The Wedding Crashers opening tomorrow, Thursday has been somewhat lighter on Owen "The Butterscotch Stallion" Wilson news than the promotional orgy of yesterday's wall-to-wall Stallion gangbang. Luckily, a reader with basic cable and the constitutional fortitude to withstand MTV's TRL teeny-bopper onslaught is able to momentarily patch the gap in our coverage, recounting Crashers co-star Vince Vaughn's (perhaps unwitting) nod to Wilson's equestrian legacy:
Wherein we invite our readers to snorkel in the murky, gossip-infested waters of humpy E! gossip Cousteau Ted Casablanca and guess the identity of his weekly blind item. After a week recharging his linguistic powers at the supposed site of the Tower of Babel (the region has a pretty hot club scene, we hear), Ted delivers the goods, chronicling the activities of a womanizing actor who secretly prefers his private ladies to be barely-legal dudes. Float placidly in One Nearly Hairless Blind Vice:
· Want to read Var and THR's coverage of the Emmy nominations? Of course you do! [Variety, THR]
· Also, the nominees seem pleased just to be recognized! [THR]
· Our pals at CollegeHumor.com have pacted with The New Paramount. Congratulations, guys! You'll be remaking Van Wilder for them in no time at all. [Variety]
· Recipe for instant mediocrity: Take one C-list actress (Jordana Brewster), add a little horror franchise prequel (Texas Chainsaw Massacre), and sprinkle in some Michael Bay production (Platinum Dunes). [THR]
· Peter Berg continues to work. [Variety]
The Cameron Diaz "Sexy" Photos Trial, in which prosecutors allege that photographer John Rutter tried to shop topless photos and a video of a 19-year-old Diaz using a release with forged signatures, began yesterday in star-starved fashion, but at least the world now knows the amount considered a "discount" for pics of Diaz's bare, pre-fame torso:
Diora Baird, "busty Guess model," upcoming Playboy cover girl, and Wedding Crashers cast member (we're not going to stretch it to "star" until we actually see the movie), is a fast learner. At an "intimate lunch" at Koi, Baird demonstrates her knowledge of Hollywood's time-honored casting system to NY Daily News JV gossip column The Lowdown:
The Emmy nominations were announced early this morning (we don't get out of bed for less than a bald, naked guy holding a sword...that didn't come out right, did it?), and, as expected, Desperate Housewives, the just-entertaining-and-different-enough-to-be-wildly-overrated Sunday night dramedy, cleaned up with 15 nominations. Canny ABC made sure to submit it as a comedy, ensuring that it wouldn't stomp all over their Lost (12 noms) in the drama category. But here come the catfights: Only Marcia Cross, Felicity Huffman, and Golden Globe winning, Vanity Fair photo-shoot lightning rod Teri Hatcher were nominated. As we type, snubbed fringe Housewives Eva Longoria and Nicolette Sheridan are being fitted for smaller trailers and furiously exercising their hair-pulling muscles, primed for a weave-yanking throw-down the first time Hatcher raids the wardrobe before her less celebrated co-stars.
