Army Archerd surprises us every couple of months or so with a scoop worthy of his 55-year reputation as "Hollywood's Original Blogger," or whatever Variety is calling him these days. Today, for example, the veteran gadfly brings word of a cinematic revival so towering, so ahead-of-its-time, so... smelly it could only emerge from the smoldering cerebrum of Brett Ratner:
It's time to salute David Letterman, who continues to do a great service for us, the non-Hills watcher with only a vague idea of what the hell's going on with that inexplicably popular program. Thanks to the Reality TV Catfight Reform Act of 2007, Heidi Montag was granted equal Late Show broadcast time to that of Lauren Conrad, whereupon she too was grilled by Dave on the ins and outs of their feud. Apparently, the MacGuffin propelling much of this season's warfare was a much-discussed, but yet-to-surface sex tape starring Conrad and her former lover.
Gwyneth Paltrow was certainly on a roll when it came to revamping her ice queen image with repeated appearances in bad girl ensembles revealing all kinds of T&A. And we did appreciate the fact that she earnestly tried to justify her new call girl look by explaining that she sucks so hard at the whole acting thing. But at last night's Iron Man premiere in LA, we fear Paltrow's hit a speed bump when it comes to comprehending exactly what "sexy" means. Last we heard, wide-legged jumpsuits showcasing only her clavicle and shoulder blades weren't topping the lists of most male fantasy outfits. But despite falling off the hotness wagon temporarily, Paltrow did manage to pose for a photo that won't exactly improve the week of drug tape-addled Angelina Jolie, baby mama to Paltrow's former fiancé.
After last week's caustic conflagration among film critics, we've been closely monitoring the heart rates of reviewers all over the country as even more fall away from the ranks. This week saw the departure of Matt Zoller Seitz, the New York Times contributor and House Next Door founder who stepped away to pursue filmmaking full-time. We wish Seitz all the best, because judging by this series of damning reader retorts to a recent MSNBC survey of criticism, his timing couldn't possibly have been better:
Project Runway host Heidi Klum took a break from the stress surrounding the show's recent game of musical network chairs and got back to her roots as a model. Klum picked up a shift as a mannequin at the Beverly Center Bloomingdales and found it refreshing to get back to the basics of modeling; making the clothes look good and wearable. However, Klum found it difficult to remain silent when people commented that the mannequin resembled her and often added "but less annoying."
When it comes to location shooting, Angelenos endure an uneasy relationship: This is, after all, Hollywood, and if you don't work in the industry, chances are someone on either side of you does. But productions have a way of pushing their luck—say, for example, by pounding on the door of your Echo Park home at dawn, demanding you move your car so that Val Kilmer can take a dump. Well, Dresden Graham—a 65-year-old retiree and innocent victim of Will Smith and his Seven Pounds-crew's own dump-taking needs—is mad as hell, and she's not going to take this anymore! Reports THR.com:
Grand Theft Auto IV is not so much the apotheosis of modern console entertainment as the first post-modern video game. While it provides the usual bloody entertainment, the latest installment of Rockstar's hit title is also a fully-imagined alternate world-complete with a witty satire of 21st century media. Serbian hardman Niko Bellic, the game's central character, can browse a self-mocking version of photo sharing site Flickr ("perfect for hopeless losers who like to spend days categorizing, alphabetizing and organizing their online galleries") and scour the missed connections on Liberty City's craplist.net ("sorry for checking out your 13-year-old daughter"). Most absurd of all are the mock cable shows-though they contend with their real-world equivalents. The newscasters of Weasel News are even more rabid than Bill O'Reilly and his colleagues at Fox News. If you have a friend with a Playstation, get them to show you I'm Rich, a celebrity show which in this episode profiles a cocaine heiress called Chloe Parker and as absurd as Paris Hilton. A campy British narrator-resembling that of the Daily Show's John Oliver-provides the voiceover.
Happy May Day. Why? Aside from May flowers, this month will finally bring some answers regarding all those conflicting box office predictions made in the trades weeks ago: will the upcoming back-to-back openings of Iron Man, Speed Racer, Prince Caspian and Indy 4 crush recession worries as Variety predicted? Or is the 19% decline in spring grosses only going to continue, as THR suggested mid-April? Well, the folks at Moviefone have provided us with a bit of guidance in the form of a poll measuring audience anticipation. And despite early rave reviews for Downey Jr.'s performance in Iron Man, the scores of kids aching for more Narnia adventures and testosterone-invigorating posters for Indy 4, it seems the majority of audience-goers only want to talk about Sex, baby.
Amid the blizzard of claims flying back and forth between Rob Lowe and the former nanny claiming "false terribles" comes further accusations made against the Allegedly Pervy House of Lowe: A second nanny, Laura Boyce, has filed a cross-complaint against the couple in which she accuses Sheryl Lowe of doing everything short of demanding an au pair ménage à trois:
· We continue with today's theme of leaked, bootlegged trailers of the summer's most anticipated blockbusters with the new Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, set to premiere before screenings of Iron Man this Friday. Dare we say, it's a vast improvement over the first. Indy's back, everyone! No, seriously. Indy's back—it just gave out on him. Medic! [indianajones.com]
· Is "closet chef" Jake Gyllenhaal planning on opening his own restaurant before he turns 30? Sign us up for one Dreamy-Eyed Tasting Menu with Naggy Girlfriend Wine Flight! [Big Hospitality]
· Good news: Roger Waters's pig has been found! Bad news: In pieces. Good news: Bacon for everyone! Bad news: It tastes like polyurethane. [MyDesert.com]
· Is Transformers 2 about to get a much-needed injection of menstrual-blood humor? One can only hope. [Cinematical]
· Hey—dogs into unicorns! [Archie McPhee]
· Oops...We almost forgot to salute our man Will Leitch over at Deadspin, who on HBO's Costas Now last night withstood a spittle-storm of invective from Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights and owner of a rocking set of he-breasts. [Deadspin]
It's usually fun when rumored flings between two unlikely stars are proven true, unless one of those stars happens to be serial dater Jennifer Aniston. Last week we reluctantly reported on stories linking Aniston to orgasmic crooner John Mayer, and as In Touch tells us today, the pair spent a long weekend together in Miami, where Jen's filming Marley & Me. Just another doozy of an I'll Believe It When I See It tale? Well, believe it, and see it, after the jump.
Extreme endurance artist David Blaine has certainly stunned the world before with his well-publicized stunts—from spending three weeks journeying through an (unfortunately impacted) Blue Whale's digestive system, to the time he was flash-frozen inside a block of carbonite atop the Arc de Triomphe. But it was the seemingly simplest of tasks that eluded him: breaking the world record for breath-holding, previously held by a centenarian fisherman from Tanzania rumored by villagers to have been sired by a frog. All that changed today on The Oprah Winfrey Show of all places, where the low-talking illusionist was deprived of oxygen for an amazing 17 minutes and 4 seconds. We've included video of the final two, during which an increasingly agitated Oprah grips the thigh of the monitoring physician beside her, asking reasonable enough questions along the lines of, "OK, his eyes just crossed, his skin turn blue, and he slowly floated to the surface. Is that considered a bad sign?"
· Jack O'Connell and James Ellroy present and sign The Resurrectionist at Book Soup. We will award Star Commenter Status to anyone who goes and gets video of the Demon Dog opining about what he really thought about Keanu Reeves ruining his screenplay (or, for that matter, what he thought about Josh Hartnett's wooden performance in The Black Dahlia)...
· Meanwhile, over at the ArcLight Cinemas, the AFI's Music Documentary Series offers up a screening of Cachao: Uno Mas, followed by Q&A with producer Andy Garcia.
· And if you are looking to hit a concert, try Seal at the Avalon, Mike Doughty at the El Rey (and this time, we definitely do not mean the Glass House) or David Garza at Largo.
Reichen Lehmkuhl, the square-jawed former U.S. Air Force recruit who found a measure of fame winning Amazing Race and later as Lance Bass's boyfriend, may at first glance seem to have it all: the calendars, the flight-themed, gay-man's jewelry collections, the underwear- model- search- winning boyfriend...Oops, not so fast, as a recent update to his MySpace page (the first place fans go to be informed of any major changes in his seemingly doomed personal life) suggests that yet again, all is not what it appears in a perfect universe filled with depilated abs and seam-compromised Speedo baskets. From PinkIsTheNewBlog.com:
Apparently all of Katie Holmes' recent naughty behavior has prompted loving husband Tom Cruise to reprimand her with a punishment that's slightly more severe than asking her to not only wash the dishes but dry them, too. After eating too little with bad influence Victoria Beckham and daring to consider a promising role on Broadway later this year, Cruise decided to step up her Scientology training with a fun-filled three-day vacation to Gold Base. And Canyon Ranch it is not. Gold Base is reportedly an isolated Scientology facility where "boot camps" are held. And as Star reports, yoga classes and colonics were not part of Katie's activities:
ThinkFilm today announced its acquisition of theatrical and DVD rights to the documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, which made as many headlines recently for its acclaimed Sundance run as for being dumped in New York and Pasadena for a week by its Oscar-craving original buyers at HBO. The cable network retains the broadcast rights, planning a June 9 premiere ahead of ThinkFilm's July 11 theatrical release. We know what you're thinking — a TV premiere before theatrical? But it's not that unusual, and it can only help in the awards push sure to come.
While most of our knowledge regarding AA and the 12-step program comes from the druggie movies we've seen over the years (Rush, Requiem For A Dream, Herbie: Fully Loaded), we're pretty sure one of those steps is to avoid jumping into new relationships minutes after leaving rehab. But as we learned earlier this month, Kirsten Dunst's rumored fling with Ryan Gosling suggests Dunst isn't a fan of following rules. And according to today's NY Post, Dunst has some very unique and romantic ideas when it comes to taking her new man out on the town:
In a blog post last month, before The Hobbit officially landed a director, Lord of the Rings veteran Sir Ian McKellen was more certain he would reprise his role as Gandalf than he was of his former castmates' sexualities. He was even surer in a recent interview with Empire magazine, in which the 68-year-old confirmed he was coming back for filmmaker Guillermo del Toro. "Yes, it's true," McKellen said. "I spoke to Guillermo in the very room that Peter Jackson offered me the part and he confirmed that I would be reprising the role. Obviously, it's not a part that you turn down, I loved playing Gandalf." And if McKellen's happy, then we're happy — especially when it means we don't have to further wrack our tired, beaten brains conjuring a suitable replacement. Thank God for small favors. [Reuters]
Beloved actress Reese Witherspoon took the news of Kate Hudson landing the cover of People Magazine's 100 Most Beautiful People issue rather hard while leaving the gym this morning. Witherspoon assumed that she was a shoe-in since she makes movies that people love and watch and dates the hottest guy in the game (Jake Gyllenhaal, obvs). Additionally, she's been told on numerous occasions that she's as cute as a button. It was then that Witherspoon began to wonder what kind of kinky favors Hudson did for the editors in order to land the cover.
Angelina Jolie has come a long way from her blood vial-carrying, lesbian sex-dabbling days as Hollywood's resident bad girl, but the potential release of a tape showing Jolie snorting and smoking heroin may do some serious damage to the soon-to-be mother of six's new reputation as a much hotter version of Mother Teresa. While Jolie has openly admitted to using all kinds of drugs in her past, her alleged comments and behavior shown on the tape in question may overshadow all those Yes I've Done Drugs But Drugs Are Bad comments she's made since:
