lists

Three Reasons Why We Don’t Think Mary-Kate Olsen Needs To Go ‘Back To Rehab’

Molly Friedman · 07/09/08 01:15PM

The upcoming issue of Star breathlessly reports that Spencer Pratt Attack ringleader and excellent on-screen kisser Mary-Kate Olsen might be headed back to the floral pastures of celebrity rehab any day now. The mag's sources cite a quasi-recent “collapse” outside an LA club, ongoing depression over her “lover” Heath Ledger’s sudden death, and brewing tension between MK and her more low-key twin, Ashley. But, as we pointed out earlier this month, the twinset’s more rebellious (and interesting) half is on a roll. After appearing on her first Elle cover solo, starring in a critically praised indie movie and, of course, teaming up with David Letterman in a campaign to destroy everyone’s most hated reality villain, Mary-Kate hasn’t shown any signs of crumbling. We took a closer look at this alleged collapse, the odds that Ledger and the itty bitty billionaire were in any way involved romantically, just how grave the tiny twosome’s differences are, and came up with three reasons why we don’t buy it.

Diamond-Spotting: Cameron Diaz Latest Star Teasing Us With Rumor-Sparking Sparklers

Molly Friedman · 06/26/08 07:55PM

Shouldn’t single actresses know by now that giant diamonds worn on a particular finger shouldn't be flaunted in public? Cameron Diaz was photographed sporting an ostentatious sparkler yesterday in Santa Monica, suspiciously displaying the gory piece on her engagement ring-reserved finger in a very blatant manner. But considering she’s just barely started dating former cokehead/Jennifer Aniston ex Paul Sculfor, and has been linked to half a dozen other canoodling partners in the past few months, we’re not jumping on the “Diaz Engaged!” bandwagon quite yet. The notoriously anti-paparazzi actress might have just wanted to fuck with her camera-flashing enemies. Still, whenever a star makes the decision to debut a big ol’ gem there, it’s proven tough to gage those inevitable engagement rumors’ validity. We looked back at celebrity diamond-spotting of the past, from the most firm denials that led to splashy weddings, to the sure things that turned out to be false alarms, after the jump.

Top Ten Worst Kissers In Hollywood: From The 'Icky' To The 'Sweaty' To Tongues That Taste Like 'Kitty Litter'

Molly Friedman · 06/25/08 07:00PM

We've already heard enough stars insisting that those sex scenes we find either major turn-ons (Mickey Rourke force-feeding Kim Basinger strawberries on the kitchen floor in 9 1/2 Weeks) or majorly eye-scarring (Heather Graham faking her way through grainy limo thrusts in Boogie Nights) are totally perfunctory while filming. With the massive crew surrounding them, the sudden lighting checks, and simple fact that they've gotta feign spontaneous heat take after take, we've leaned towards taking their word for it. And as it turns out, no matter how big the star or legendary their prowess in the bedroom, even simple kissing scenes with the most gorgeous A-listers around range from "awkward and sweaty" to "slightly icky and sort of wet." Where Tom Cruise, Angelina Jolie, Harrison Ford, Leonardo DiCaprio and more rank on the list of Worst On-Screen Kissers after the jump.

Matt Damon Joins Fat Actors Prestige Club

Richard Lawson · 06/25/08 01:12PM

Good Will Hunting actor Matt Damon has been spotted sporting some packed-on pounds while filming the movie The Informant. His character is, I guess, supposed to be just a "regular guy," meaning his abs aren't toned and washboarded and he maybe eats a cheeseburger every now and then. As actresses tend to ugly up their faces and put on prosthetic noses and teeth to get serious acting cred, it seems that actors often have to let themselves go in the waistline. I'm sure that says something about standards of beauty for men vs. women, but that's a whole exhausting topic that ends with yelling and a lot of Betty Friedan quotes. So instead we'll take a look, after the jump, at seven other guys who bulked-up for movie roles, with some mixed results.

Three Reasons Why Madonna Will Never Have 'Incredible Sex' With Guy Ritchie Again

Molly Friedman · 06/24/08 04:20PM

The seven-year itch has reportedly struck the unusually long and strong union between Madonna and Guy Ritchie, but news of the split isn’t exactly sending anyone into shock. It was only three years ago when Madonna practically divorced her frostylocks husband on television, telling the world in an MTV documentary that she “wanted to end everything,” and that Guy hadn’t lived up to whatever S&M-loving, hotel room-wrecking ideal she’d “imagined him to be.” But we’re not so sure the soft-spoken director of speedy-spoken indie flicks was necessarily the problem child in this couplet. Considering Madonna’s behavior over the past year or so, scented ever so slightly with desperation and Justin Timberlake’s ass cheeks, we came up with three of the most likely reasons we think the love story went sour:

The 50 worst Twitters ever

Owen Thomas · 06/19/08 03:20PM

A compilation of the most impressively bad brain farts, misguided social-media outreach efforts, user-generated meltdowns, and episodes of Twittering-under-the-influence. [Inside CRM]

How Time's 50 best websites make money (if they do)

Nicholas Carlson · 06/18/08 03:20PM

Click to viewWhy is Microsoft so panicked over Google-Yahoo? Time's list of 50 best websites provides an anecdotal answer. Of the 50, 18 rely on Google ads for their income. Only one, UrbanDictionary.com, uses Microsoft ads. Yahoo doesn't fare much better — only brokering impressions for Rate My Professors and its own site on the list, Yahoo Answers. Below, find Time's entire list and how each site apparently makes its money (if it does at all — seven are run by volunteers).

AFI Recruits Storied Cineaste Jessica Alba To Deconstruct Film's Greatest Treasures

STV · 06/18/08 03:00PM

Everybody loves lists, right? Especially those mystifying annual tallies compiled by the American Film Institute, which lumps together 100 films by style or some other vague calculation of merit upholding AFI's profile in cultural irrelevance. Its latest list mixes things up a little, however, featuring a who's who of talent ruminating on the 100 best "genre" films — from Westerns to sci-fi to mysteries, 10 at a time. But for every Clint Eastwood commentary about The Searchers or Roman Polanski insight about Chinatown, we've got Sean Astin chiming in about Judgment at Nuremberg and Jessica Alba weighing in on... well, we've assembled the greatest hits after the jump. Let it suffice to say that Annie Hall is closer than you might have thought to Alba's self-described, "stomach-turning" neurosis and that Cher is... yeah, she's the best. [AFI]

Five Tragic Tell-Alls From Celebrity Kin Looking To Cash In

Molly Friedman · 06/12/08 11:45AM

Time to mark your calendars: Lynne Spears, mother of Britney and Jamie Lynn, has an official September release date for her memoir about raising two of the world’s most tabloid-friendly children, Through The Storm: A Real Story About Family And Fame In A Tabloid World. In the book, Spears will supposedly take the Dina Lohan route and disguise motherly resentment as motherly love and “express her love for her children and tell their stories through a mother's eyes,” according to the publisher, who specializes in “inspirational books and Bibles.” But how rosy and cozy can the tome’s description of family life be with a title referring to said life as a “storm”? And given the nature of celebrity family members' tell-alls in the past, coupled with the assurance that this will not be “a parenting book,” we certainly hope Lynne follows in the footsteps of Nancy Aniston and Virgie Arthur by revealing a bit more dirt than the rote "Britney And Jamie Lynn Were Perfect Angels" tales (given the fact that they’re, um, not these days). We took a closer look at five of the most trash-talking tell-alls from stars’ estranged and/or envious relatives to whet our appetite in the meantime:

What Do The 'Gossip Girl' Spin-Off And 'The Facts Of Life' Have In Common? (Hint: It's Not Mrs. Garrett)

Molly Friedman · 06/11/08 01:00PM

Despite less-than-stellar ratings and only one season in the bank, the creators of the hormonally charged, red lipstick-laced Gossip Girl are already hard at work on putting together a spin-off. As THR reports, producers will use the original books’ It Girl series as a blueprint, in which the social-climbing, scandalous and date rape-prone Jenny Humphrey character (Taylor Momsen) is shipped off to boarding school to clean up her act — just as the show’s main character, Serena Van Woodsen, had been punished for bad girl behavior like sex with BFFs’ boyfriends and being an über-lush by spending a year in the supposedly rigid countryside enclaves north of Manhattan. As the producers spin their wheels hoping that GG network CW bites, we took a look back on the Boarding School For Bad Boys And Girls phenomenon on television to get a sense of how ridiculously and erroneously Hollywood writers have been depicting these New England pastures in the past:

Best Promo Ever: Punching Employees In The Face

Hamilton Nolan · 06/06/08 03:17PM

There's a new list of the top 40 publicity stunts of all time out, and we've found what is—without a doubt—the most worthwhile of them all, from just two weeks ago: a production company called Action Figure produced a techno-scored, super slow-mo, two-minute video of all their employees getting punched in the face. Really. This should be a mandatory stunt for many of America's top corporations. Its power can hardly be described; just watch it, after the jump.

Which Of These Five Fantasy Couples Is Really Gay?

Richard Lawson · 05/27/08 03:00PM

The speculation today over actress Lindsay Lohan's possible sapphistry got us wondering about other celebrity gay rumors. If you believe Sex and the City, people whispering that you're a secret 'mo means you've finally arrived. If you believe former NSYNC band member and current slacks and defeated, lonely expression wearer JC Chasez those rumors are annoying. And what if, like Lindsay, you're rumored to be dating another celebrity? What does it all mean?? After the jump we'll take a look at LiLo and SamRo and other *possible* couples, like Matthew McConaughey and Lance Armstrong, who are rumored to be sharing a charming little flat in downtown Sodom.

Hamptons Memorial Day Weekend

Hamilton Nolan · 05/23/08 11:29AM

We've put together a quick and dirty list of the hottest spots in the Hamptons this Memorial Day weekend, which starts for us incredibly soon. If you are rich, famous, or fabulous, you will no doubt go to at least one of these clubs. We will not. So please send us reports, as well as info on upcoming Hamptons parties this summer so we can put together our full calendar. After the jump, where to blow money this weekend:

Are These The 25 Funniest People in America?

Richard Lawson · 05/21/08 03:48PM

EW.com lists their picks for the 25 funniest people in America today. They make some great choices (Kristen Wiig, Amy and David Sedaris) and some not so good ones (Diablo Cody and Augusten Burroughs? Really?) Some of the ordering is off, too. Diablo is funnier than Dave Chappelle? Amy Poehler and Will Arnett in Blades of Glory are funnier than Conan? I think not! We're glad that David Cross made it on, but what about the whole Arrested Development team? Sure the show has been off the air for a couple of years, but they're just as "current" as No. 6 pick Chris Rock, aren't they? Take a look at their list and tell us who they missed. One of our picks is after the jump.

Ten of Our Favorite Commencement Speeches

Richard Lawson · 05/15/08 02:37PM

Earlier today, in honor of the season (and Larry Tribe's "thank your parents for boning" NYU speech, at left), I shared my favorite commencement speech and asked for yours. We got some responses, people citing writers like Kurt Vonnegut, comedians like Jon Stewart, and captains of industry like Steve Jobs. What makes a good speech? There doesn't seem to be any one rubric. A successful speech can be a serious person being funny, a comedian with gravitas, a writer getting loopy, a businessman thinking deep. I guess the only essential "rules" for success are obvious: don't be boring, be insightful, and be as honest as possible. Hey! That sounds like graduation advice. After the jump, find ten, in no particular order, of our (and your) favorite commencement speeches.

Top Five Most Cringeworthy Facial Hair Moments In Cinematic History

Molly Friedman · 05/13/08 06:15PM

We didn’t think it was possible, but the insanely dateable John Krasinski is not looking so hot these days. Due to an upcoming role in the Sam Mendes-directed Farlanders, John is sporting a nasty beard that resembles something one of the Geico cavemen would wear. And while we’d never judge an actor for tossing out their razors for months for the sake of their craft, this terrible beard inspired us to take a look back at the most cringeworthy facial hair in cinematic history. From one actor’s frizzy salt-and-pepper rat's nest to one mustache’s journey inside another man’s taint, our top five lie after the jump:

The Five Most Dangerous Countries for Bloggers

Pareene · 05/08/08 03:19PM

Internet nerds became terribly excited recently when Twitter sprung a man from jail, but it's worth noting that in most of the world, blogging is much, much more likely to send you to to clink. While there are a number of bloggers whose eternal imprisonment—possibly in the Phantom Zone—we fantasize about daily, we grudgingly admit that throwing bloggers in jail for blogging is probably bad. So as a public service, we're here to tell you where not to blog if you value your freedom. China and Iran probably get the most press for their blogger crack-downs, and Malaysia just arrested a blogger this week, but if there's anything we learned from skimming the site of the Committee to Protect Bloggers, it's this: don't Tumblr in Egypt.

Top Five Classic Celebrity Paparazzi Attacks (As Inspired By Sienna Miller's LAX Handbag Assault)

Molly Friedman · 05/07/08 01:15PM

Casual nudity enthusiast Sienna Miller became an official card-carrying member of that elite group of celebrities who unleash their hate of paparazzi by way of physical assault. As the Daily Mail reports, Miller swung her pricey purse at one pap's face yesterday at LAX, possibly because he was a resident of Pittsburgh, or maybe she simply mistook him for Jude Law (as the pictures show, there is a resemblance to the nanny-loving baldie). But Sienna's moment of outrage prompted us to recall our all-time favorite When Celebrities Attack moments in time, from Woody Harrelson's caught-on-tape choke-hold to Justin Timberlake and Cameron Diaz's romantically executed freakout years ago. Our five top picks after the jump:

Today in Lists

Pareene · 04/28/08 02:43PM

Today, the UK Telegraph unveiled its "50 Most Influential US Political Pundits" list. Though only entries 50-41. This merits a Drudge link? The rest of the entries will apparently be revealed as the week drags on. We anxiously await learning who some center-right Brits think pull our strings! Meanwhile, Nerve today posted the more satisfying "Top 10 Rich People Who Look Poor" list, so we figured we'd just combine them and present the Top 2 Influential Political Pundits Who Look Poor.