Some people's underwear cinches at the mere thought of foreign-language film snubs, "In Memoriam" montage omissions and other Oscar-night transgressions, but one eagle-eyed blogger appears to have found the sure-to-be-controversial Achilles' heel that could have — nay, should have — stopped the No Country For Old Men juggernaut in its laconic Texas tracks:
Even more disturbing than the chastity belt-like lock and key chain on the front page of Jamie Lynn Spears' website is the fact that it hasn't been updated since June 2007. Well that, and certain images appearing under the tab "Cool Stuff." Such as? A smiling Kate Hudson, a frowning Chad Michael Murray, and...an image of the Statue of David. Way to show your vast knowledge of both celebrities and iconic works of art, Juno Lynn! But is a photo of you showing off your empty uterus in a skin-tight dress at last June's premiere of Nancy Drew really the latest "News" you're offering your tweeny fans?
Are you famous, but famously uninformed? Been nursing your platitudes lest your pet cause found its way to the B-list in this election year? Help is on the way: In a press release distributed this morning, Creative Coalition executive director Robin Bronk offers her special brand of Earnest Celebrity Issue Counseling for all your 2008 campaign preening:
One of the last things Heath Ledger left us with is a video for Nick Drake's "Black Eyed Dog." An admitted obsession of the actor, Drake was a British folk music prodigy in the '70s who suffered from debilitating depression, eventually O.D.ing on an antidepressant at age 26. Until now, the video managed to avoid getting leaked on the web, and was screened only twice: "Labor Day weekend at the Bumbershoot festival in Seattle and a second time in October at 'A Place to Be,' an event honoring Drake held in L.A." Last night, Australian A Current Affair broadcast parts of the video.
After shelling out a reported $1MM to Nicole Richie and That Guy From Good Charlotte, People unveiled their Super! Exclusive! Must! Credit! People! baby photos of Harlow Winter Kate Madden today. And something about those droopy eyes and vacant glare do suggest that Joel Madden is indeed the father. Although we don't yet see any resemblance to Mama Nicole, Harlow is definitely packing junk in the...cheeks. But that's a good thing! For a close-up of the just-under-two-month-old sporting the grim expression of someone who knows that their life is going to turn into a True Hollywood Story, click through.
We'd like to begin this lovely Thursday morning with a quick introduction. We are excited to announce that, for the next two days, S.T. VanAirsdale will be helping us round out our coverage in a guest blogger capacity. Not only is he an incredibly well-respected veteran of the film blogging world, he's an all-around class act with a wit that's sharper than the new 17-blade Gillette Fusion. But rather than me going on-and-on about his credentials, I'll just turn the floor over to him:
· Somebody call Doc Brown, this is 1.21 jigga-WHATs of unabashed awesomeness. Keep your eyes peeled for the homey with the prosthetic leg; he puts Mucca to shame. [College Humor via AOTS]
· During the course of our day, we read a lot of truly shitty op-ed pieces. It's part of the job, we don't like to complain. While we normally shield these sorts of works from your eyes, we would like to share one of the more egregiously awful pieces we've read in eons with you now. Its title? "How utterly cool is Natalie Portman?" Barf. [MSNBC]
· "We've seen comebacks happen over and over again in the entertainment industry, whether it's John Travolta, the Spice Girls, or fictitious characters such as Indiana Jones or Rambo. Now it's Mr. T's time." So true. We pity the fools who don't read Mr. T's graphic novel! [Mohawk Media]
· We have to be honest, once we hit the 90-second mark in this video and realized that it's 22 minutes long, we stopped watching. That said, many tips have hit the Defamer inbox today telling us it's funny. So, there you go. Democracy in action. [Funny Or Die]
· And finally, we close the day with a bit of good news. The Elliott Smith wall on Sunset in Silver Lake has, thankfully, been untagged and restored to its pristine beauty. A tip of the cap to our friends at LAist. [LAist]
We rarely print email tips verbatim here at Defamer without the appropriate level of contextualization. However, in this instance, we find ourselves rendered speechless (wordless?) by the sheer insanity of this communique that came across the wires last night (something having to do with "braddd Pitt" and "Jen aAniston"). Anyone who wants to take a crack at either deciphering the contents of this missive or guessing who the author might be (full-sized image complete with 30pt. type after the jump), please feel free to do so in the comments. Meanwhile, we'll be busy changing our locks.
Only those of you with elephantine memories will recall the case of Charlene Richards, the nurse that was hired to watch over legendary television superproducer Aaron Spelling during his final, bedridden days. While under the employ of the Spellings, Richards found herself in hot water after she refused to ride the grumpy old man's baloney pony. She was quickly fired for insubordination, but she didn't go quietly. She filed a sexual harrassment lawsuit, during the process of which her team of legal eagles sent a questionnaire out to over 600 actresses (including Heather Locklear and Teri Hatcher) asking if they, too, had been forced to endure the come-ons of the doddering billionaire. Well, as you can assume, the Spelling estate was none too happy about the media attention this received (one headline read "Sex Scandal Rocks Hollywood"), and they consequently filed a countersuit charging Richards' lawyer with defamation. All of this preamble serves to set-up this note: earlier today, the California Appeals Court threw the suit out. And that concludes today's episode of L.A. Law. Now, if you'll excuse us, we must be going. We hear that Arnie Becker is throwing a raging kegger, and we want to get a few words in edgewise with Grace Van Owen before she gets sloppy. [THR, Esq.]
Craving a Pink's hot dog, but were hoping to wait until the lines creep up towards Sunset before making the trip? Then you might want to swing by on Friday or Saturday, as Fox has decided to extend the themed lunch promotions that have delighted patrons of the News Café for years (dating right back to their Late Show Starring Joan Rivers pulled pork sandwiches in 1986) to the general public. That's right: "the 'Wieners' Who Brought You There's Something About Mary and Dumb & Dumber" are pleased to provide the first 500 customers to arrive at the landmark tubesteak stand a complimentary "Unhitched Dog," along with your choice of Farrelly Bros.-themed condiments, including tangy There's Something About Mary hair-gel-onnaise. Enjoy!
Reports circulated earlier in the week saying Neverland Ranch, Michael Jackson's personal Touch Mahal, was in jeopardy: If the debt-ravaged superstar failed to pay the $24,525,906.61 required of him, the estate, including all "fixtures and appliances, furniture, and...merry go round type devices, any rides" on it, would be put up for auction March 19 at Santa Barbara's downtown courthouse. Now comes the happy news that the necessary financing is being drawn up, and that no auction will take place. Also, records show there was a release of lien on February 4, showing Jackson "paid off all or part of delinquent taxes to the state of California." Perhaps, finally, the rusted arms of the Great NeverClock will start up once again, the llama skulls and monkey bones will finally be cleared from the yellowed lawn, and the ghostly halls of Jackson's kiddie Valhalla will fill with the sound of children's laughter, their overjoyed host calling out, "Last one to the bottom of the IKEA ballroom in their underwear is a rotten egg!!!"
· If the Oscars left you wanting more, try checking out the And the Winner Is ... Awards Season Exhibit at the Hollywood Museum. There you'll find a wide array of props and costumes from this year's Oscar nominated films, like the oxygen-propelled cattle gun Javier Bardem uses in No Country for Old Men and John Travolta's plus-size lime-green dress from Hairspray. Unfortunately, the toupee Travolta wore on the Hairspray promotional tour won't be on display, but that's what your imagination is for!
· Looking to soothe a few savage beasts this evening? Try British Sea Power at the Echo, Stellastarr* (can't forget the asterisk!) at the Troubadour or Carina Round at the Hotel Café.
· Starving for an Office fix? BJ Novak will be performing tonight at Largo.
· McSweeney's contributor Dan Kennedy chronicles his misadventures at a major record label with his new book Rock On at Book Soup.
The revisiting of gladiatorial TV trends championed by '80s-plundering perfect exec storm Ben Silverman has proven to be a non-risk worth taking for NBC. Now, with news that a British edition will be following suit, American Idol sourpuss Simon Cowell has announced plans to produce his own version of the arena bloodsport. While details are still under wraps, industry insiders predict Simon Cowell's Gladiators will veer from the original in several key regards:
· Cowell and his co-judges can emerge from behind their desk at any moment and bludgeon a contestant to death with a Coca Cola-branded baseball bat.
How would you spend your days if you were a young millionaire college dropout with a failed fashion line and with not much to do aside from the occasional Vogue covershoot? If you're an Olsen Twin, there's one surefire way to pass the time and re-establish your street cred: write a Very Important Book! Everyone's favorite munchkin moguls are set to release Influence, a coffee-table book that's being published by Penguin's Young Adult arm. Following in the footsteps of powerhouse literary talents Nicole Richie (The Truth About Diamonds) and Paris Hilton (Confessions Of An Heiress), the tiny duo wrote a book in which they interviewed "the most interesting, challenging, creative people we know — the ones who helped pave the way for us and our generation." Who are these illustrious figures? Well, let's just say their tricks aren't for kids.
Poor Jennifer Aniston. After mustering up the courage to show up to a pre-Oscars party where she was supposed to finally come face-to-face with her man-stealing rival Angelina Jolie, the rug got swept out from under her when Jolie failed to show up for the event. But the glossies seem to be getting the angle all wrong. While Us paints Aniston as the victim (their hed: "Angelina Jolie continues to keep the power over Jennifer Aniston"), we have to disagree with their hypothesis. The tabs have relentlessly portrayed Aniston as a helpless single gal who can't catch a break, but the sheer fact that she dared show her face proves once and for all that Jen finally grew a pair. After all, for all Jolie's pre-show talk, when the time came for long-hyped matchup to go down, Angie couldn't walk the walk.
Let's play a guessing-game! A shamelessly link-whoring blogger has collected photographs of every fellow geek you've ever seen, and many you haven't. (We've put them together in a gorgeous tapestry of self-regarding dorkiness, in a shameless link-whoring exercise of our own.) There's a reason most of these faces are hard to recognize. If bloggers were hot, they'd be washed-up teen football stars, or on TV. Whereas the mainly pasty faces in this gallery are basically the nerds who got ignored in high school. Writes Young Manhattanite: "It's like Children of the Corn, except they killed all the black people and all the women... I feel like I've scanned past the same photo 352 times." Which makes this test particularly hard: even if you dispute the very notion of a famous blogger, see how many of them you can recognize. Your score, and ritual abuse of blogger looks, in the comments. We're working on the honor system here, so no cheating by looking at the original gallery, which has the names. Special bonus question, to sort out the empty boasters: we've sneaked a stray photo into the mix, of a priest arrested for indecent exposure; who is he? (Click for an enlarged view).
We didn't think there were many things that would make us want to replace our 60-inch LCD flat screen with an old-timey radio, but as Copyranter points out, this ad for celebrity chef-venturer and Top Chef guest-asshole Anthony Bourdain is probably one of them. We're not exactly sure what the context is for this particular nightmare, though we like to imagine Bourdain is affecting his best Gollum impression for the HD cameras as he pokes his head out of the world's largest vat of Shark's Fin Soup on the southern coast of Borneo. We only hope he's just peeling a celery stalk beneath that savory surface, and not taking a 1080p.
Not only is the Owen Wilson Comeback Tour doing far better than Britney's, but it now appears that he's gotten his old girlfriend back. Right on the heels of going back to work on Marley and Me with fellow marijuana enthusiast Jennifer Aniston, it seems that he's "rekindled his romance" with the woman who (allegedly) broke his heart, Kate Hudson:
