We bring to you yet more news of unsavory comings and goings on the Sony lot, this time in the form of an all-employees-bulletin distributed on the company intranet, informing whoever keeps sneaking up to craft services tables to load up on illicit granola bars, purloined M&Ms, and stolen slices of soggy turkey wrap that the jig is up:
With legalized same-sex unions already labeled passé, Hollywood discovered its newest cause designed specifically to piss off Arkansas: live, televised, boy-on-boy fox-trotting mayhem. This fall, Lance Bass is reportedly set to join the cast of Dancing With The Stars and partner with a male dancer and cha-cha his way into America's hearts. You know, because he's gay. And it's edgy.
Old Dog, New Tricks: The heartbreaking vacancy of the old CAA headquarters, which drew nearly 20,000 Michael Ovitz-era mourners to like a sprawling, marble mecca to extinguished power, has been resolved at last. After haggling with a star chamber of landlords including Ovitz himself, Sony BMG Music Entertainment closed a deal Wednesday to relocate its West Coast headquarters to the 65,000-square-foot black hole at the intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica. Reports put the lease at $4 per square foot and "operating expenses of between $700,000 and $900,000 per year," which include inherited maintenance like office exorcisms, vintage employee execution chambers and a mysterious $370,000 annual allowance for something called "asshole removal." Security guards, maybe? Moving boxes? Your guess is as good as ours. [Variety]
Ballistic: Ecks Vs Sever star Antonio Banderas introduced his new fragrance, Blue Seduction, in New York City on Thursday afternoon. Banderas described Blue Seduction as smelling like a Sunday morning after a hot and passionate and steamy Saturday night. Or, as Banderas lovingly said, "Like every night and day at my home." \Then Banderas launched a diatribe about how, if women use his fragrance, it will awaken the lost passion in their relationships. Besides, he said, "I know a thing or two about the way a man would want his woman to smell." Banderas then paused for a breath of air and woefully admitted that he really had no clue as to how the perfume smells, it was just that Melanie was spending more money than she was allotted and he thought this would be an easy way to clear his Capital One balance.
If three makes a trend, then a new one is awkwardly dancing its way into Hollywood. First, Lindsay Lohan threw an 80s prom-themed party for her 22nd birthday, then we recently discovered some intriguing prom scene footage from that highly anticipated horny vampire flick Twilight, and now, Var is announcing that Miramax will produce a film based on “This Strange Thing Called Prom,” a piece published last month in the NY Times. Though we never had the (mis)fortune of going to one ourselves, due to prep schools’ distaste for tear-inducing, virginity-threatening functions, the infamous Prom Scene has always been a joyous go-to whenever a teen-themed movie needs a pretty way to transition into Act Three. Below, the five cinematic proms we wish we’d been invited to, from Buffy’s murderous rampage alongside easy rider Luke Perry to the moment Andrew McCarthy tells Molly Ringwald he loves her even though she’s wearing the ugliest dress in the history of ugly dresses.
It's not quadrupled DVD residuals, regular cocaine rations and guaranteed work for all. However, the major studios' new concession to SAG — $10 million worth of new pay raises — is exactly what we thought might happen after SAG bludgeoned nearly 38% of AFTRA voters into opposing its primetime contract. The deal was ratified anyway, but the majors aren't taking any chances, notes Variety:
Just when we thought we'd seen every imaginable prank comes this clip from Sci Fi Channel's Scare Tactics that should win Practical Joke of the Year Honors at the 2008 Punk'dies. In it, a woman delivers a ravenous, afterbirth-smeared devilmidget, sending an unwitting target into a fit of hysterics. It's possible she catches on after a few seconds, but she admirably never lets up on the screaming until the moment the Anton LaVey-ish midwife reveals, "You're on Scare Tactics!" and the world's most twisted mother pops her smiling head into the delivery room. In case you were worried about how the frightened woman fared, moments later, the entire cast was throwing back beers with her at a nearby pub, with the goodnatured actor who played the infant evil confessing to his frustrations that "Verne Troyer has my career."
As far as horror movies based on aberrant sexual practices go, we would have had our money on "Dirty South Fish Hook" as the trick to beat for pure, threatening perversion (think Teeth, but featuring two sets at once). But the UK thriller Donkey Punch has apparently beat it to the, well, you know, premiering in the Midnight section at this year's Sundance Film Festival and opening next week in its home country. Sadly, no American distributor has yet picked up the film, leaving us with only this trailer to tease us with proof that nothing avenges an orgasmic jab to the face like a gun-and-chainsaw murder spree. Those Brits! So... saucy! [The Chaser Blog via Videogum]
Our borderline obsession with Gwyneth Paltrow’s new look as a S&M fetishist during her Iron Man promotional Tour of Transparent Minidresses may have rubbed off on lookalike daughter Apple. But not the way you’d think. Rather than doing the typical copycat routine most little girls go through when their mom is hot, the 4-year old papier-mache donkey fan is not turning herself into a fashionista, but using little brother Moses as her muse. As Paltrow says, “She makes Moses cross-dress.” The question is: how far is Apple taking the tranny toddler theme, and does this mean little Moses is destined for an adolescence of boy-curious desires like his dear old Dad?
When you're a hooker, what does a salacious affair with a married, holier-than-thou governor whose last name makes unoriginal bloggers giddy with glee get you? Prison? A hefty fine? A case of the poon-scratchies? If you're a regular lady of the night, all of those outcomes are possible. But when you're Ashley Dupre, you also get your very own reality dating show! Yes, Hollywood is apparently following in the footsteps of – well, everyone – and jumping into bed with a high-priced call girl who overcharges for inevitably crappy hand jobs. (Producers, take note.) Upon hearing the news, potential contestants everywhere quickly formed a line and searched for fluffers when they assumed "try outs" for "dating show" meant something else entirely.
Dear Quentin Tarantino,
Okay. Until now, we’d tried to give Jessica Alba the benefit of the doubt. Sure, she’s impossible to watch in any movie she’s ever made, what with her amateur acting skills that include crafted facial expressions such as “I’m Happy, See, Because You Can See My Teeth!” and “I’m Sexy, See, Because You Can See My Bikini-Clad Butt!” And yes, she made pregnancy look like possibly the most miserable state of being, unlike all those other actresses who affected the standard Glow (see Naomi Watts and even Nicole Kidman, incapable of moving her face, yet still dewy and happy ‘til the arrival of her daughter Sunday). But after reading an excerpt from new mom Alba in next month’s UK Cosmo, we think it’s safe to say the actress, who insults all male actors, obsesses over her weight, and shows warning signs of early Husband Emasculation, is on her way to becoming the next Katherine Heigl:
With her name being dragged through Yankee Stadium's muddy infield, Madonna and family are doing their best to focus on work—husband Guy Ritchie hunched over Final Draft putting the finishing "Oi Oi"s on his lad-flick take on Sherlock Holmes, and she, jodhpurs-deep in rehearsals for her upcoming Sticky & Sweet Tour. (Not to be confused with Flavor Flav's Crispity & Crackily Tour.) But how, really, to top the mirror-tiled disco-crucifixion sequence from her last tour? By blowing herself up to several stories high and getting slutty with her most famous stunt-lesbian co-star, Britney Spears. From The Sun:
Spider Man star Tobey Maguire showed the paparazzi that they wouldn't like him when he's angry while attempting to leave Madeo in West Hollywood. The persistent flash from the cavalcade of paps enraged Maguire, but it was their relentless begging for Maguire's leftovers that really set him off.
It seems that Nice's favorite "very, very nice" patient and her well-appointed womb has taken a turn toward Grumpyville. Nearing the end of her seemingly endless gestation period, Angelina Jolie has grown tired of her hospital/hotel and its Michelin Star-less menu and has started demanding that salmon be brought in from other Clooney-approved restaurants. And, more ominously, reports have surfaced that Jolie has abandoned her strict one-shower-a-day regimen. A collective gasp...
As C. Montgomery Burns would say, "Ahoy-hoy!" Just a quick note on this lovely Thursday morning. We're excited to announce that Sarah Regan, of Prongs Of LA infamy, will be on board in a guest blogger capacity for the next two days. As is customary around these parts, I'll step away from the mic and allow Sarah to introduce herself to you...
They grow up so fast, don't they? But whose are they? That's the question we're posing on today's Defamer Celebrity SpawnWatch brain teaser. The answer is after the jump!
In between shots of her latest music video, Disney golden goose Miley Cyrus held a bubble gum chewing contest. Cyrus wanted to see who could stretch their gum out the furthest, but most competitors quit after the first round after realizing how gross it was. Yet, the Hannah Montana star trucked on and managed to get her gum all way from the beach to the Pacific Ocean with the aid of a few friends.
With today's Variety report that Robert Downey Jr. will star in a mildly distracted Guy Ritchie's upcoming Sherlock Holmes for Warner Bros.—by all accounts, a much more reverential take on the mythical detective than the Columbia comedy announced just last week starring Sacha Baron Cohen—we thought we'd celebrate this latest Elementary! edition of our ongoing The End of Ideas series by comparing and contrasting the two competing projects:
It didn't take a tendency toward political correctness or what roastmaster Katt Williams called his "n****r Spidey sense" to perceive the more over-the-top racism in last year's Comedy Central Roast of Flavor Flav. From the blacks-only mandatory dress rehearsal to the "flying monkey" gags to the $11 worth of damage wreaked during Williams's reputed plastic-plate-and-utensil tantrum, we're pointed today to an epic tale of outrage and, ultimately, handsome compensation for the evening that set American race relations back roughly five days. We've come back since then, however, thanks to the equal time of this recent Williams tirade live from Las Vegas. Still, the network brass got off pretty easy; Jesse Jackson clearly would have cut their nuts off.
