Before we do this, promise us you're not going to cry, break expensive China, or throw your 98 Degrees records in the fireplace, OK? And just because the gun's already in your mouth, tempting you with sweet, hollow-point release from the pain you're about to feel, doesn't mean you have to pull the trigger.
E! has resorted to stunt-casting in its already meta-ridiculous Michael Jackson trial reenactment show, announcing that Jimmy Kimmel will play Jay Leno on tonight's episode. Will the late-night host strive for Leno-verisimilitude, strapping on a prosthetic chin and attempting to mimic Leno's trademark, high-pitched warble? Or will he have Cousin Sal sub in for him at the last minute, adding an even more heightened level of stunt-casting absurdity? In any case, E! casting department really outdid themselves this time, trying to make up for the disaster that was last week's reenactment of Larry King's testimony. After a loaner mummy from the British Museum got tied up in customs at the last minute, they had to resort to draping a flap of shar-pei skin over a pile of dried chicken bones to stand in for the veteran CNN host.
Slate's highly informative "Hollywood Economist" column looks at how the insurance industry secretly runs Hollywood (we wonder how the Gay Mafia and the Jews are going to take the news), explaining how Nicole Kidman's balky knees have wreaked havoc with insurers, and how Angelina Jolie was all but encased in a titanium cocoon to protect her during Tomb Raider:
Despite shocking new photographic evidence that suggests Phil Spector may have in the past threatened a woman with a firearm, prosecutors may be forced to drop the case and deport the defendant to Mars.
· Warner Home Video's "godfather of DVD" Warren Lieberfarb sues his former employer, claiming he was "hoodwinked" by the conglomerate into accepting the "magic beans" of worthless stock options from the conglomerate to compensate him for his role in creating the "Wondrous All-Purpose Opti-Platter" that revolutionized home entertainment. [Variety]
· 24 wins the key demo on the last Monday of the season for Fox, while CBS gets its first look at Two and a Half Men's reign of Monday night sitcom terror. [THR]
· Reality television Apocalypse-bringer Endemol girds itself for the day when people will no longer want to watch people gobble various unsavory parts of a horse's reproductive system, adding a scripted television division. [Variety]
· BBC staffers go on strike, halting almost all of the network's news and live programming, and having virtually no repercussions for anyone in the United States. [THR]
· Sylvester Stallone wants Robert Downey Jr. to star in Poe, a movie on the life of Edgar Allen Poe that he's written and plans to direct. Oscar-worthy scene: A montage demonstrates Poe's arduous preparation before penning "The Cask of Amontillado," where the author spent three grueling months in Siberia huffing ether and dragging huge logs behind him. [Variety]
In threatening to protest the new, "scandalous" Carl's Jr. commercial featuring celebutante skanktron Paris Hilton (in which a scantily-clad Hilton seductively washes a car, inserts a garden hose into her vagina, then fellates a cheeseburger as water sprays out of her ears like a fireplug in an economically-depressed area on a hot summer day), the watchdog group Parents Television Council demonstrates an admirable grasp of advertising principles:
Could a man this well-coiffed possibly pull a gun on a woman? We think not.
Revolution Studios head Joe Roth should know better than to bore people by describing his dreams, especially if the person he's boring is a columnist from the LAT and running a tape recorder:
Was Tom Cruise's appearance on Oprah yesterday really that strange? It was like any other hour spent with someone hell-bent on physically expressing their "love": there is sweating, uncontrollable yelping, wrestling, the liberal abuse of furniture, the twisting of bodies into extremely uncomfortable positions, more wrestling, and moments of seeming forced imprisonment. After it's all over, you can't look each other in the eye and there's an overwhelming urge to collapse in the bottom of a shower in the fetal position, gently rocking yourself into blissful catatonia as icy water washes the whole thing away. See? It's like any other Monday afternoon.
· Andy Towle of Towleroad continues his heroic work of chronicling the evolution of The Greatest Gay Cowboy Story Ever Told, Brokeback Mountain.
· Paris Hilton wins again.
· And we always thought that Gawker was written by a robot. Who knew? Actually, until we see her bleed, we're still not going to be convinced.
· "I'm happy with my life, and I love food." Thus spake Lindsay Lohan, whom we all should stop worrying about now.
· The hilarious Greg Proops hosts his Chat Show at Largo with writer/publisher/literary faith healer Dave Eggers. It's sold out (we found out the hard way), but there will be some standing room/bar seating.
· Mike "M" Doughty, late of Soul Coughing, plays the Troubadour. We apologize if the "late" makes him sound deceased; he almost certainly is alive.
· But this guy is definitely dead: Hollywood Forever cemetery, the hottest final resting place for dead celebrities this side of Hades itself, hosts a memorial and screening of the silent film The Black Pirate in honor of the 122nd anniversary of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.'s birth. You will rarely find yourself with such a perfect opportunity to make pirate noises in a graveyard.
Film is a visual medium, and Tom Cruise is perhaps the biggest film star in the world, so we're going to photoblog Cruise's Oprah appearance as fast as we can upload the images. Really, words would only get in the way.
Returning (yet again) to the Sunday NYT's unofficial Hollywood issue...Maybe we're just seeing what we want to see, but are these twin, prone images of writers John "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" August and Gigi "Stepmom" Grazer trying to tell us something? Something like, "Gay or straight, man or woman, on a bench or in the grass, Hollywood is looming just out of the frame, turgid member in hand, ready to have its sweaty way with you."
The Sunday NYT's pornucopia of Hollywood handjobs spilled over into the Sunday magazine, where screenwriter/novelist/Brian Grazer bride Gigi Levangie Grazer received the long-form profile treatment. Throughout her guided tour of the Hollywood Wife Lifestyle (plastic surgery consultations, nannys, "girls' nights," etc etc), writer Alex Witchel can't quite figure out how much of Grazer's "knowing outsider who still might get a brow lift" dance is genuine and how much is spin, as she identifies some Death-Star-level defense mechanisms:
At the time of this posting, there's only 89 days, 8 hours, and 51 minutes until agent Patrick Whitesell of Endeavor and local TV personality Lauren Sanchez dive into the heated, Olympic-size Infinity pool of wedded, entertainment-industry bliss. How do we know this? The happy couple's erected an online monument to their impending nuptials. Here's an excerpt from their proposal story, related by Lauren. SPOILER ALERT: She says yes, and the rock is huge:
