I'll admit, I tuned into CBS' new comedy 2 Broke Girls last night with much trepidation. Here is a show about two mismatched waitresses in a Williamsburg Diner—on CBS. It had the potential to do everything wrong. Surprisingly I was won over, but it's still doing everything wrong.
Who: The executive producer of Sex and the City, King helped channel the neuroses of single women everywhere into a mega-hit for HBO. He's since written, directed and co-produced the two Sex and the City movies that have hit the big screen.
The man to blame/credit for turning the city into one big set for the new Sex and the City movie is celebrating his birthday today: SATC director/producer Michael Patrick King is 55. Singer/professional trainwreck Amy Winehouse is 26. The rapper Nas is 36. John Gutfreund, famed '80s financier and Mike Bloomberg's old boss, is 80. Tyler Perry is turning 40. Renowned architect Renzo Piano is 72. Model Carmen Kass is turning 31. Actress Faith Ford is 45. Dan Cortese is turning 42. Actress Melissa Leo turns 49. And Ashley Roberts of the Pussycat Dolls is 28.
• Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and his new girlfriend, Helen May, first met during an Outward Bound trip to Machu Picchu in 2005, according to May's husband, Kevin Ward. "I'm just sorry my wife didn't find someone more substantial. There's way less there than meets the eye." [P6]
• Etta James says she "didn't really mean" the stuff about Beyonce; she's still "miffed" at Obama for not inviting her to the inauguration. [NYDN]
• Kelly Cutrone inked a deal with Bravo for a new reality show. [P6]
• Russell Simmons is reportedly dating model Julie Henderson. [NYDN]
Who would have predicted that Carrie Bradshaw would possess the resilience of a cockroach in a nuclear war? Nearly five years after the final episode of SATC, her teenage years are being dreamed up by Candace Bushnell, and last night Michael Patrick King announced there'd be a sequel to the movie. But as for Bushnell's new book One Fifth Avenue, now that the economy's collapsed, does its focus on wealthy uppercrusters and consumerism mean that people won't want to read it? Bushnell has thought of various ingenious reasons that they will!
Author James Frey turns 39 today. Another author who has dealt with a bit of controversy is celebrating, too: Jessica Seinfeld, the wife of Jerry Seinfeld, is 37. Restaurateur Stephen Hanson is turning 59. Sculptor Robert Gober is 54. Photographer Nan Goldin is 55. Emmy Rossum is turning 22. Actor Benjamin McKenzie is 30. Book designer Chip Kidd is turning 44. Blogger and former magazine dude Jeff Jarvis is 54. Literary agent David McCormick is 47. Ben Folds is 42. And two American Idol winners are celebrating: Jennifer Hudson is 27 and Ruben Studdard is 30. On Saturday, former Yankees outfielder Bernie Williams will turn 40, Stella McCartney will turn 37, Ben Savage will be 28, and Fiona Apple will celebrate her 31st. On Sunday: Sex and the City producer Michael Patrick King will be 54, Nas will celebrate his 35th, model Carmen Kass will be 30, and former financial titan (and Mike Bloomberg's former boss) John Gutfreund will be 79.
On a day when feminism in Hollywood swings wildly between pure gender-pandering and impassioned scrotum-punching, we're hearing about one developing project that could potentially split the difference: I Spit on Your Grave, a remake of the notorious 1978 rape-revenge film that made so many friends upon its initial release ("Attending it was one of the most depressing experiences of my life," Roger Ebert wrote in his original review).
Sunday LAT magazine readers were treated to a personal essay penned by none other than Sex and the City writer/director/inner-gay Michael Patrick King. The point of his story, we think, is how being true to oneself in show business often comes at the expense of being shitcanned by a superior who'd rather you be true to them. But we came away with another message entirely: That even the Man Who Toppled Spielberg can still harbor the kinds of career insecurities that would cause them to omit all the satisfying name-naming from their tale of comeuppance:
· Variety reports: "DreamWorks has fashioned a first-look deal for 'Sex and the City' writer-director-producer Michael Patrick King. The deal gives the studio first-look at King's next film project." Is that how those work? We always thought it just meant he gets to keep whichever outfit he wears out of the Barneys dressing room first. [Variety]
· Jon Cryer, William H. Macy, Leslie Mann and James Spader will star in Robert Rodriguez's family comedy Shorts, about a suburb thrown into chaos when an 11-year-old boy is "hit in the head with a rainbow-colored rock that grants wishes to anyone who holds it." [Variety]
· How I Met Your Mother showrunner Greg Malins signed a two-year, mid-sevens deal with Fox, the direct result of Malins having been hit in the head with a rainbow-colored rock that grants wishes to anyone who holds it. [Variety]
· British TV buyers left L.A. without committing to anything, noting, "Blimey! They've repackaged all the programmes we already got on the telly! Life On Mars? Bollocks." [Variety]
· Donnie Darko SequelWatch: Shut The Fuck Up and Dance host Elizabeth Berkley has signed on to play a "speed freak-turned-Jesus freak" in the blaspheming second chapter of the beloved cult classic, sure to bring down a rain of passenger jet engines upon the homes of all involved. [THR]
An early warning to SATC fans reading: potential spoilers lay ahead. That said, we have caught wind of one of the most intriguing (some might argue, the only intriguing) rumors regarding what to expect from the Most Important Movie Of The Year. It involves the possibility that one of the main Sex And The City characters, namely Mr. Big, will bite the bullet in the Cosmo-drenched show's big-screen debut. And director Michael Patrick King has been ingeniously coy when it comes to responding to all the death chatter:
The executive producer of Sex and the City, King helped channel the neuroses of single women everywhere into a mega-hit for HBO.
