Yesterday we brought you the news that Christina Applegate was free and clear of breast cancer, just a month after being diagnosed with an early form of the disease in one of her breasts. Today, during an interview with Good Morning America's Robin Roberts, Applegate revealed that she beat the disease by having both of her breasts removed. Says People:
· In what could be a dream match of creative team and quirky literary material, Joel and Ethan Coen will adapt Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union for Columbia, a "noir-style murder mystery in which a rogue cop investigates the killing of a heroin-addicted chess prodigy who might be the messiah" set in a Jewish settlement in Alaska. (Are we allowed to get pre-excited about this one?) [Variety]
· Though Ugly Betty was among the nine series ABC picked up for next season on Monday, the network ruined executive producers Marco Pennette and James Hayman's back-to-work party by dropping them from the show. [THR]
In the most stirring show of solidarity with the scribes' cause to date, YouTube's animal superstars have pledged to immediately shut down their viral pipeline of footage of virtuoso cats, X-Game-hopeful canines, and, most critically, hand-holding otters. For the love of God, Nick Counter and the AMPTP, make a reasonable offer before everything that is good and worthwhile about the internet disappears forever. (And don't miss the brief cameo by Carson Daly!)
We never expected the strike to yield its first casualty so quickly, but according to local news station KABC 7, a picketer was struck earlier this morning by a driver we'll have to assume wasn't particularly sympathetic to the Writers Guild cause. ("The guy basically said, 'Get the 'F' out of the way, and then hit the gas and just plowed into this guy," said an eyewitness to the incident.) The above footage from KABC's segment doesn't contain video of the incident, but does have a fairly unsettling image of the victim's sneaker lodged beneath the tire of the vehicular strike-breaking weapon. Beware, WGA members: it seems that not everyone is following the nonconfrontational approach to dealing with picketers urged by some of the Companies.
· Music round-up: Kinksi at the Echo; Pinback at Amoeba, The Starting Line at the Troubadour; night three of three for Spoon at the Henry Fonda.
· AFI's "100 Years...100 Stars" series screens Mae West's She Done Him Wrong at the ArcLight.
· Competing party-promoting outfits want your name on their VIP lists for tonight's Mr. Woodcock pre-release event at Mood, romising "special guest appearances" by unnamed members from the "cast, crew, and production."
With the announcement that gay-slur-spouting primetime orphan Isaiah Washington was placed into Bionic Woman foster care by NBC rock-star/case-worker Ben Silverman, the actor's mood went from a volatile Mad As Hell And Not Going To Take It Anymore to Quietly Vindicated, But Still Wanting to Break My Silence a Few More Times. After a recent Larry King Live appearance in which Washington reassured America of his enduring admiration of Gays, the actor went on to explain to Access Hollywood how the real villain—aside, of course, from mastermind T.R. Knight, pulling his pink puppet strings from on-high—was Patrick "McEvil" Dempsey:
