Our closely watched forays into Lindsay Lohan Sex Tape Authentication (and Eventual Debunking) elicited a response late Thursday from representatives for Lohan ex Calum Best, whose D-list member was absolutely, positively, most certainly for sure not the one serviced in the discredited cell-phone short. He should be so lucky — or so his handlers say:
More grim news from the week's obituary pages: Producer Bill Hayward, one of the unheralded principals who got Easy Rider on the road to cult immortality (and about $40 million in box office on a $400,000 budget), reportedly committed suicide March 9 in "a trailer where he lived" in Los Angeles County. A coroner's account reveals the cause of death to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the heart. Hayward, 66, is the latest of a snakebitten Hollywood family to meet an untimely demise; drug overdoses previously claimed both his mother, actress Maureen Sullavan, and his sister in 1960. [AP]
The extremely well respected actor told reporters last night that while he may often play God in the movies, he does not actually have a God complex. While he does appreciate people coming up to him on the street and talking about prior work, it's just that he doesn't have all the solutions or answers to your problem. Freeman said that there's only so much he can do. He also appreciates it if people quit asking him to be their outgoing voice mail message.
Another day, another lawsuit against Lord Oprah. According to TMZ, an audience member who recently had her dreams come true by being allowed to sit among the teary-eyed, wild and crazy women who plunk themselves down in Winfrey's studio day after day, has been brutally trampled by her fellow Oprah-loving fans during a taping:
While having yet to really deliver on her post-incarceration pledge to feed the hungry Darfricans of Rwandonia, Paris Hilton did finally manage to make it to the African subcontinent yesterday, accompanying boyfriend Benji Madden to Johannesburg as he toured with his band Good Charlotte. Once there, she refused to step foot out of her Range Rover caravan until handlers agreed to "show me some African orphans like the one Madonna bought or whatever," at which point Hilton was whisked to the Jacaranda Children's Home, where she signed a stack of photographs featuring the humanitarian star of The Hottie or the Nottie striking a seductive pose in a white bikini. (A gesture which only confused some of the younger children, who proceeded to gnaw on the headshot, assuming it was was some kind of flatbread ration.)
Arguably the Judd Apatow of the '80s and currently the movies' equivalent of J.D. Salinger, prolific writer-producer-director John Hughes dropped out of filmmaking in 1991 after helming eight movies and developing stories and characters for nearly two dozen more to come. But now, in a symbolic Easter-weekend resurrection perhaps possible only in Hollywood, the writer Hughes and producer Apatow share above-the-line credit for the latest doomed Owen Wilson vehicle, Drillbit Taylor:
· On The Ellen DeGeneres Show today, Margaret Cho explains how she avoids the knife in favor of the needle. [Ellen]
· HBO orders a pilot from the Mr. Show guys. [THR]
· Is the Guitar Hero party over? [Idolator]
· Squint a little and you'll get a picture of what Jakeypoo Gyllenhaal will look like in his 50s. [ONTD]
· You'd think someone 81-years-old with the wherewithal to build himself a "suicide robot" from the ground up would have something to live for. Also: Wouldn't it be more accurate to just call it a "murder robot?" [Times Online]
· Behold the one Jared Leto poster that will not be adorning your 30 Seconds To Mars-groupie daughter's wall. [moviesblog.mtv.com]
Angela Bassett received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame today, and if her emotional speech doesn't get you right there, well, you're probably the CEO of a major media corporation or something: "Today my cup runneth over. I am crying now, I cried yesterday and the day before. Who would have thought that a little girl in pigtails from St. Petersburg, Florida, would grow up to find herself gazing at a star with her name on it, on the Hollywood Walk of Fame? This day is so, so special to me." Photo: Getty Images [Yahoo News]
The second Owen Wilson film to hit theaters since his suicide attempt last August, the new comedy Drillbit Taylor, is likewise the second consecutive — and for his employers, hopefully the last — film for which Wilson has skipped doing publicity and promotion. To wit, while John Horn and Gina Piccalo acknowledge in today's LA Times that the teen bully-bodyguard film will probably find its adolescent boy market without Wilson doing the print rounds or baring his soul to the likes of Barbara Walters, their Great Moments in Publicity Awkwardness timeline suggests that date may need to occur sooner than later:
The Moment of Truth—the bold Fox reality experiment that promised to pulverize real lives into a fine confetti by hooking average Americans up to a lie detector and having them answer brutally personal questions about their crotch-stuffing and philandering habits—has failed to really deliver on its promise.
In case you hadn't heard, Oprah's Big Give special, which aired on ABC March 2nd, was a hit in the smashiest hit kind of way. The debut attracted 15.7 million viewers, which HuffPo claims was the highest rated primetime show that week aside from American Idol. While it's no surprise that anything Oprah does is bound to reel in a massive audience, her latest profitable stunt may have been formulated under unethical circumstances. A Boston mother of four named Darlene Tracy is claiming Oprah stole the idea from a pitch she'd laid out for Oprah's producers, a nearly identical idea called The Philanthropist, "in which contestants are challenged to help the needy." And now she's taking legal action. But after reviewing the history behind these series of unfortunate events, we're putting on our thinking caps (boy were they hard to find!) to try and figure out whether or not Darlene has a case or not...
· Music Round-Up: Proof that your band name is half the battle Vampire Weekend are at the El Rey, The English Beat (to whom the Vampires owe a great debt of gratitude) are at the Henry Fonda, Film School are at Spaceland, and Eskimohunter with Low vs. Diamond are at the Troubadour for an all-ages show.
· A Prairie Home Companion comes to Royce Hall, but if you're looking for a Lohan hoedown, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment.
· Beat poet Michael McClure reads from his first-hand observations of Bob Dylan as part of the Talking Dylan ongoing exhibition at the Skirball.
Sure, they might be successful and talented and, at times, capable of brilliant work, but aren't Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter taking the whole "eccentric artist" look one step too far? There's a difference between looking crazy and looking like a bum from Santa Monica who is bundling up for a long winter's night. One has to wonder if their child will rebel by embracing sports and wearing clothing from Abercrombie & Fitch.
There was little that could have come from Brad Grey's testimony at the Anthony Pellicano trial today that would have matched the sensationalism of the last bombshell to emerge from this ongoing saga of backdoor Hollywood intrigue—i.e., the Chris Rock: Accused Rapist tapes. Still, there was plenty of opportunity for another Moment, the diminutive studio emperor having a sizable axe to grind with Garry Shandling, who pulled no punches on the stand in a brutally frank testimony against his former manager. (It would surely have included some waterworks had the Larry Sanders Show star not years ago had his face pulled tighter than a conga drum, effectively sealing every one of his above-the-neck mucus membranes tighter than Tutankhamen's tomb.) As it turns out, Grey did not use the opportunity to take some public jabs at his nemesis, instead delivering straightforward statements relieving himself of all knowledge of Pellicano's shadowy surveillance methods:
No sooner did the Universal logo appear onscreen than straight men around the world shrugged at the sight of the new Mamma Mia! trailer, a glittering, sensory-overloading hint at this summer's forthcoming tribute to the revolving institutions of ABBA, Meryl Streep, and general gayness.
After the chilling lessons of last night's South Park, in which paparazzi and handlers carried on mistreating the surviving bottom-third of Britney Spears's blown off head as if nothing at all was wrong, we thought we'd take this opportunity to instead focus on some of the more exciting and positive things going on in her life. For one, Britney released an album this year! It's called "Blackout," it's available on iTunes, and mark our words when we tell you, this thing is going to pop up on more year-end Top Ten lists than you can shake a stick at. (We wish we were even kidding.) Moving along:
Who was that unseen member-haver defiling Charlotte York Goldenblatt in those naughty photos that wound their way round the internets earlier this week? Page Six identifies him as Eric Stapelman, Davis's boyfriend in the early '90s "who is now the executive chef at Trattoria Nostrani in Santa Fe." The penetrative gumshoes over at BestWeekEver.tv did some further snooping, and turned up a picture of Stapelman— a total Harry placeholder if we ever saw one. [NY Post, BWE.tv]
We haven't associated sexiness with Brooke Shields since...well, scratch that. Even her so-called hot Calvin Klein ads never really did anything for us in terms of fantasies. As pretty as Brookie may be, her Amazonian stature and broad shoulders never put her at the top of our dream girl list. But during her appearance on last night's Late Show, Shields did her very best to not-so-subtly assure the masses that she is, indeed, one sexy mother. Feigning surprise that Dave just happened to have a copy of her latest spread in this month's Interview, in which she poses for scantily clad photos, Brooke proved that it's possible to accept compliments even when no compliments are actually given.
