Yeah, we know what you're thinking, you sickos. Just like with the sale of No True Glory: The Battle for Fallujah earlier this month (Harrison Ford attached, natch)—even though we can guarantee no one will remember where or what Fallujah is in two years—we know you're in the "home office" storming your little brains right this second.
Christmas goes a bit ass at the box office, down $40 mil from last year's Christmas weekend—but still, can the studios really blame baby Jesus having his birthday on a Saturday for shitty turn-out, given our choices?
The LAT forces poor staff writer Mary McNamara to drive into John Travolta's fly-in community in Ocala, Florida. What, couldn't they get her a small plane? Travolta, like a loose marble, seems to roll to the corners of the country—his other residences are in Brentwood and on an island in Maine—but he keeps the kids' minds clean no matter where they alight:
Actually, gossip this week isn't so much actually "gossip" as it is "items placed in exchange for Christmas bribes and favors owed and/or actual press releases and human interest stories," but hell:
Your devoted and talented Defamer editor, Mark Lisanti, will be "on vacation" this week. (Incidentally, Mark writes this site all by himself, for those of you who think there's a team of crackheads over here at Defamer HQ. Nay! Mark does all the crack by himself! That's why his publicist would like you to know he is suffering from "exhaustion." Just like Whitney and Lil' Lohan! So fancy!) Anyway, I'm Choire Sicha, and I'll be filling in for him as we all vaguely pretend to work throughout this unholy week.
We wish all of our readers a very merry Christmas and happy holiday season, and we're looking forward to another year where you're far more naughty than you are nice. May your days be filled with back-nine pickups, three-picture deals, and temporary immunity from the next inevitable round of Miramax layoffs.
No one ever thought the movie would actually survive until Christmas, but Stillborn Before Halloween just didn't have the same ring to it.
The eminently quotable Jack Valenti has given us so much this year: tales of rape-thristy pirates, visions of evil elves, and controversial opinions on cinema. Continuing to give until it hurts, Valenti euthanizes Old Man 2004 and welcomes the New Year's bouncing baby with this memorable ghost story in Esquire's January "What I've Learned" issue, on newsstands now:
· Lindsay Lohan dumps Endeavor for CAA, who apparently provided her with a much more comprehensive strategy for the further marketing of her assets. Which is no mean feat, considering that Endeavor snagged her $3.5 million per breast from 20th Century Fox. [THR]
· HBO is on the verge of becoming the first network in history to top a billion dollars in profit. And all of this success without Good Morning Miami, Complete Savages, or Center of the Universe. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· For all of those kids who missed out on the whole Matrix thing: An upcoming Constantine videogame will allow players to feel the virtual "Whoa" of becoming Keanu Reeves. [THR]
· Please forgive us, but we must: Uma, Ulla. Ulla,Uma. Etc etc. (Oh, we feel so very unclean.) Uma Thurman may take over for Nicole Kidman in the film version of The Producers. [Variety]
· ESPN is developing a made-for-TV movie about legendary boxer Jack Johnson. Folly! How will they ever top Tom Sizemore's epic turn in Hu$tle? [THR]
Page Six reports that Viacom co-president/generously betoothed future despot Les Moonves has snatched up girlfriend Julie Chen from the set of The Early Show and taken her to Mexico, where he will in short order make her the first member of his galactic harem. After Moonves weds Chen, he's in a great position to sweep up through the Baja Peninsula, looting every town from Cabo to Los Angeles and seizing additional war brides from the newly subjugated population. We must applaud this strategic masterstroke and will beg for mercy when the invasion reaches LA's east side.
The LA.comfidential blog reports that Deep, that staple of Hollywood velvet-rope action, is closing its doors after New Year's and will be reborn with a new name and owner. Some of you will miss the go-go girls in their glass prisons hovering above the bar; others will lament the shuttering of their cozy little catacombs with the closed-circuit TVs, suitable for semiexhibitionist trysts. But the club's proudest moment might have been the poker scene from Ocean's Eleven, where Brad Pitt and George Clooney fleece some young poseurs (cameos by Joshua Jackson, Topher Grace, Shane West, and Holly Marie Combs), and which features this adorable, wink-wink exchange between Clooney and Grace:
We were worried that Fox would have trouble finding new ways to shock and sicken America with its reality shows. Where is there left to go after providing blowsy women with extreme surgical makeovers and then forcing them into a beauty pageant of the damned? Or taking away helpless children's mothers and replacing them with a new version, as the cameras dutifully capture every last moment of permanent emotional scarring? These turned out to be very silly worries indeed; Fox never fails to deliver the damaged goods. People are again up in arms over Who's Your Daddy?, a show whose money-shot is the reunion of a daughter and her biological father. The LAT reports:
The holiday season happily conjures images of decorated Christmas trees, flickering menorahs,..and Johnny Damon?
· How you can tell we're in the middle of the holiday news draught (besides items on Zellweger's falsies): Variety looks at the video game companies that won't let Hollywood make shitty movies out of Halo and Grand Theft Auto. [Variety, sub. req'.d.]
· Academy members report that many screener discs don't work, or worse, fail in mid-movie. Alexander's awards chances have increased exponentially. [Variety]
· The renegade film critics of San Diego choose abortion over wine, shaking off the Sideways peer pressure to name Vera Drake their film of the year. [THR]
· Comedy Central signs up Jimmy Kimmel sidekick Adam Carolla for his own talk show, which should somewhat dull the sting of losing the Late Late Show to Craig Ferguson. [THR]
· A judge dismisses the conflict-of-interest suit against SAG CEO Bob Pisano for being on the board of Netflix. This decision frees up SAG for the same kind of collective bargaining buggering that the studios recently gave to the DGA and WGA. [THR]
Today's Rush & Molloy column offers some preview items of behind-the-scenes Oscar wackiness from the upcoming book The Big Show: High Times and Dirty Dealings Backstage at the Academy Awards. This Whitney Houston anecdote reveals the chilling conspiracy by Oscar producers to ensure that the awards telecast remains totally devoid of entertainment:
· The Five Stages of Life After Hearing That Jennifer Aniston Has Been Photographed Without Her Wedding Ring: 1. The Publicist Denial ; 2. Wanting to beat up Brad Pitt for being a lousy husband; 3. Resolving to hit on Aniston as a test of the strength of their marriage; 4. Why, Baby Jesus, why have you rent asunder this perfect celebrity union?; 5. Blowing your brains out before you have to read about a break-up in People. [third item]
· Clooney in a Fiat, Cattrall tea bagging, Hoffman making a mockery of The Graduate: The commercials that no one wants Americans to see. [via Fleshbot]
· Who needs CGI when you can stage a plane crash scene the old-fashioned way? Not Spielberg, that's who.
· The inevitable, fake Britney Spears MySpace profile.
· WBWSJPW? (What bra would Sara Jessica Parker wear?) [via Drunken Stepfather]
