· Ever since Neil Patrick Harris warned told the world back in February that he would be appearing as The Shoe Fairy on an episode of Sesame Street, we have been waiting with baited breath for the mystical unicorn rider to appear on our local PBS affiliate. Fortunately for all of us, our long wait is now over. And while we are slightly sad to report that this clip does not have him uttering the line "I am the greatest fairy in all the land" (that bon mot must've landed on the cutting room floor), we have better news to share. Prepare yourselves for ... a musical number! [Sesame Street]
· While we were excited to introduce you to young Levi Alves McConaughey earlier today, a closer look at the photos shows that America's youngest stoner is already developing some rippling abs! [Best Week Ever]
· In the upcoming remake of Friday The 13th, Jason Voorhees has a mullet. This does not bode well. [Friday The 13th Blog]
· Is the bloom off Joss Whedon's rose? We'll always love and revere him for BtVS, but after getting feedback from the suits at Fox about the pilot episode he shot for Dollhouse, he's going back to the drawing board to rescript and reshoot the whole damn thing. [Vulture]
· Thankfully, this season's TCA press tour has come to a close. THR's James Hibberd put together an easy-to-digest recap, which features this refreshingly honest description from the EP of the new Crash television series about how his show will differ from its Academy Award winning source material: "I didn't want the series to feel somber. Or didactic. Or heavy handed. This is a fun show. The show is not bleak. Or depressing." We're sure Paul Haggis would agree. [The Live Feed]
With the studios' post-final-offer, post-AFTRA-vote concession of $10 million in pay raises to SAG still having failed to bring the two sides together in a starry-eyed embrace, nervous Guild delegates are beginning to wonder if their president Alan Rosenberg—"The kind of guy that would trade heated words with his own clown mother, if it meant pushing his resolutions through!" whispered some—is really the man for the job. Now, a small resistance has sprouted from inside; calling themselves United for Strength, the celebrity freedom fighters spend all night mimeographing manifestos in the basement of a Fairfax Ave. Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. From the LAT:
[T]he dissident group is running a slate of candidates to fill 11 seats in the powerful Hollywood division that are up for grabs on the national board. In addition, the group is competing for another 22 seats for those who serve as alternates to replace board members who often are working.
The candidates include Kate Walsh and Amy Brenneman, the stars of "Private Practice"; Doug Savant, who plays the harried husband Doug Scavo on "Desperate Housewives"; and Adam Arkin, known for his role as Aaron Shutt in "Chicago Hope."
In all, nearly one-third of the board's 71 seats will be decided in the Sept. 18 election (the deadline for declaring candidacies is Thursday). Although Rosenberg has one more year in his term, the results could be pivotal in gauging support for his negotiating strategy and could change the balance of power in the notoriously fractious 120,000-member union."We think the current leadership has put SAG on a dangerous path," said Ned Vaughn, a veteran character actor and spokesman for the slate.
The unmistakable smell of revolucion is in the air. We can only hope that UFS clings steadfastlly to its ideologies, and resists the urge to indulge its crasser propagandist impulses by throwing an iconoclastic image of Adam Arkin in a beret on a T-shirt that will eventually make its way onto the back of a clueless frat boy who picks it up as a souvenir while on vacation in Cozumel.
After a nearly four-year partnership that has yielded only the finest in crossdressing minstrelsy and Cosby-kid jail-ho cameos, Lionsgate and Tyler Perry today announced a new development pact for the glitter-shitting auteur through at least 2011. According to a press release issued this afternoon, the deal picks up after the release of Perry's next two films — The Family That Preys and Madea Goes to Jail (infamously co-starring Keshia Knight Pulliam in the plum role of "Imprisoned Hooker") — and will keep the 'Gate in the lucrative Perry DVD business for the foreseeable future as well.
Re-upping with Perry was a no-brainer for Lionsgate, which has raked in almost $250 million from the writer-director-actor's films since 2005's Diary of a Mad Black Woman. And as alluded to after the jump by 'Gate production boss Mike Paseornek, the pressure is on as Perry joins Eli Roth as the genre cornerstones that will restore the studio to its Hostel/Crash-era greatness:
"Tyler Perry defines the bold entrepreneurial spirit that sets Lionsgate apart as a next generation studio connecting with audiences in new and exciting ways," said Mike Paseornek, President of Motion Picture Production for Lionsgate. "He is one of the most original, prolific and successful creative voices in the entertainment world today, and we're thrilled to extend this remarkable entrepreneurial partnership for another three years. The Tyler Perry franchise is a unique global phenomenon, and we're privileged to call Tyler a member of our Lionsgate family."
Translation: "Our rich uncle wears a frock." Alas. Nobody's perfect!
With all the unpleasantness swirling around Batman's swivel-accommodated head lately, we thought we'd delve way back in the Defamer stacks for a happier time in the life of Christian Bale. We didn't really find one, but we did find an old post about a guy who sold Bale-on-the-toilet sculptures on eBay. Just look how contented he looks there, perched blissfully atop his throne, decking Momzo the furthest thing from his mind. That's the Christian we'd like to remember. [Defamer]
Most of the time, the things that we recommend you To Do each and every day cost money to partake in. But now that everyone's coffers are drying up thanks to the rising cost of gasoline and food stuffs, we thought it might be a good idea to start recommending some things To Do that don't cost any money. After all, as a wise man once taught us, the best things in life are —wait for it— free. And because Molly McAleer is such a strong believer in this sentiment, she figured that she would demonstrate to you, the loyal Defamer readership, exactly how much fun can be had without spending any money at all. And so, with that, we invite you to experience the exuberance of Molls' Mattress Party 2008. Enjoy!
· Steely Dan at the Nokia Theater.
· Ink and Paint at the Academy Gallery.
· The Birthday Boys: Hotdoggin' at UCB.
While the real Amy Winehouse accrues skin problems in a paparazzi-surrounded North London townhouse, the newly displayed Wax Amy Winehouse is drawing in the crowds at Madame Tussaud's a few miles away. And what a ghastly treat it is: a massive, beehive-encrusted head on an emaciated, tattooed frame, posed artfully in that tender performance moment between lyric-belting and fan-punching. Best of all, she's drug-, alcohol- and scab-free, compelling her Mum and Dad to not only attend her unveiling but also plan a bold, back-door museumbreak for the ages. "You know, she's not been home for a right birthday in years," Mr. Winehouse was heard to tell onlookers, anticipating her big 2-5 on Sept. 14. "They can just make a-bloody-nother. Victoria Beckham, now there's a cunt to melt." Judge for yourself if she's worth it after the jump.
Before heading out on an adventure, headgear aficionado Samanatha Ronson asked gal pal Lindsay Lohan if she could leave the tophat she was wearing in their hotel room. Ronson said, "Don't try to steal my look, okay? I mean, how would you like it if I were to started to wear leggings?" Lohan said that she'd love it if Ronson started to wear leggings. Ronson smiled, but asked again if Lohan could take off the hat since it's her thing and it's a symbol of her individual freedom.
[Photo Credit: Splash Pic]
*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.
With news that the MPAA has given Kevin Smith's "hey—let's put on a sex show!" movie Zack and Miri Make A Porno—starring Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks and due for release this Halloween—a dreaded NC-17 rating, we turned to Defamer senior editor and resident Weinsteinologist S.T. VanAirsdale for analysis. The result was an iChat exchange we're seriously considering printing up and affixing to our fridge with a taxi-shaped magnet.
Note: STF = Straight To Flopz, the fictitious Starz sister-channel specializing in turkey-only feature film programming.
It's that time of year again, when Hollywood's biggest stars harvest their multiplex crops, drop the hammer on their mums and size up their places among Forbes's annual list of highest-paid movie stars. As we've come to expect, it's Will Smith's world, with the megastar and noted Scientology-school patron raking in $80 million since last June; the remainder of the list comprises mainstays like Johnny Depp ($72 million) and Leonardo DiCaprio ($45 million) along with slip-sliding shockers including Eddie Murphy and Mike Myers, each tied at $55 million thanks in large part to the Shrek franchise's enduring success.
We're troubled, however, to read for what feels like the the thousandth time that the ladies aren't quite measuring up:
In an era where risk-averse studio executives have declared men the more reliable movie stars—and the more desirable moviegoers—perhaps it's no surprise that they are also the medium's top earners. The reality: Hollywood's 10 best-paid actors out-earned Hollywood's 10 best-paid actresses 2-to-1 over the course of the year.Collectively, the big screen's leading men took home an estimated $487 million between June 1, 2007, and June 1, 2008, compared with the leading ladies' haul of $244.5 million.
However, in an even more revealing Forbes slideshow for the prose-impaired, we discovered that actresses fared much better in the "Ultimate Payback" category, which calculates the best gross-to-salary ratios in the biz. While a pre-Fred Claus Vince Vaughn ranked #1, Julia Roberts, Naomi Watts, Jennifer Aniston, Renee Zellweger and Jodie Foster cracked the top 15 as well. (That'll happen when you're relatively underpaid; top-earning actress Cameron Diaz is way down at #32.) Prepare yourself for Christian Bale's controversial post-Dark Knight ascent, followed by the touching, accompanying profile of how the strapping star went from clown's son to box-office powerhouse.
We'll admit to not having yet fully absorbed yesterday's news that Estelle Getty had shuffled off this mortal coil to the 1912-Sicily-in-the-sky. Stalled as we are in the early, "Why couldn't it have been someone from Empty Nest?!"-stages of the Kübler-Ross model, we hand you over now to YouTube video diarist fromthe60s. His lachrymal remembrance of "one of the funniest people I ever got to see on TV" is surely the most moving—if not the moistest—user-generated-video testimonial since Leave Britney Alone Guy beseeched us to leave Britney alone. We swear, without the courageousness of Young Gays Who Feel Too Much, there'd be literally nothing to do all day at the office besides work.
Luckily we had the Shirley MacLaine/Elisabeth Hasselbeck Radionics Smackdown to distract us from the true dark cloud hanging over The View's studios yesterday. Namely, the release of a new Sherri Shepherd interview in Born Again Diva Illustrated, in which she talked openly about her rough past of crack-addicted sisters, abusive boyfriends, promiscuous activity, and—most troubling of all—"more abortions than I'd like to count." On the show today, Shepherd acknowledged that she had admitted to having had "a lot of abortions." It was an announcement that landed with a thud, rendering even Joy Behar unable to produce an appropriate wisecrack ("Oh, honey—talk about Living Lohan!" Audience laughter...applause...) to lighten the somber mood.
Entourage star Jeremy Piven had a shocking trip to his local bank on Tuesday afternoon. Apparently, the ATM declared that the Pivs had insufficient funds in his account and spit out his ATM card. Piven told the ATM that wasn't cool and quickly re-inserted his card into the machine. Yet as soon as Piven put the card back in, it came back out. Pivs was about to kick the ATM when a bank employee came outside and said, "Oh, hi! The ATM has been on the fritz, telling everybody that they have insufficient funds and junk like that. Sorry for the trouble!" Piven then adjusted his suit jacket and declared that he's seriously considering joining a credit union.
[Photo Credit: Splash Pics]
*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.
Last week I did something I have not done in a long time: wait in line to get into a bar. (Hold the rotten tomatoes, that's the only perk this job has.) Actually, scratch that. I have NEVER waited in line to get into a bar. Clubs? Sure. But bars? Um, no. But this wasn't just any bar. This was Father's Office, the brand spanking new Culver City outpost of the Santa Monica hotspot. And as if to prove just how hot it was, there was not only a line, but also a velvet rope (!!!) and a doorman.
At least there was a wall with amusing quotations to help us pass the time, like this one by Humphrey Bogart: "The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind."
My co-waiters in line also expressed shock and dismay at the fact there was even a line (We're told it's even worse at the Santa Monica venue). "This never happens!" explained the girl behind me to her friend. "This is so weird." Yes, it was weird, but then so is Father's Office. It's sort of communal in its set up—most of the seating was outside with large, wide wooden tables designed for either large groups or several couples who love to have intimate conversations while sitting next to total strangers.
My friend and I, meeting in person for the first time (we are internet buds) experienced this conundrum. Inside, it was standing room only, but then, voila!, a space opened up, next to a couple that seemed to be celebrating a birthday. They invited us to sit there, and it quickly became nearly impossible to talk, mostly because the guy half of the couple insisted on shouting and laughing at the top of his lungs. Then, a third person showed up—the actual birthday boy, and it just got worse from there.
We took advantage of an empty table opening up and moved over, not before noticing that one of our former table mates had raised her arms in a "touchdown!" victory pose. Nice passive aggressive move. At least in NYC, people are openly rude and tell you you can't sit there just 'cause they don't want you to.
The lure of Father's Office lies in the quality beer and the food. The beer menu is impressive—there's even a $72 bottle, which, though I am not a beer person, I was tempted to try to see if it was so good it could make me a beer person. Alas, my pockets are not that deep.
Instead, I got something pale and lemony, a Hefeweiss. It was nice and smooth and I swear, was spiked with something because I felt pretty loopy afterwards (I only had one!). My friend went with an India Pale Ale and a Red Ale.
As for the food, my friend reported: "This is a really good burger." It looked good, but I had already eaten.
The garlic-parsley fries were yum, just skinny enough, too. I don't know about you, but I hate fat fries.
I had the Sobresada appetizer—three tasty nuggets of spicy sausage, manchego cheese and shaved onion on pieces of bread. Perfect snack.
All in all, Father's Office is a pleasant, if a bit chaotic, experience (you have to go to the bar to order, get a number and take it to the table, which means that if you and your friends drink at different rates, you end up waiting for the other person a lot). Next time, I would not only go earlier, but I would also avoid the Friday night rush. And, of course, cross my fingers that there's no line.
A veritable murderer's row of egos, tempers and divas, Defamer's All-Strop Team is on fire in recent weeks with heavy-hitters from Mike Myers to Edward Norton to Eddie Murphy digging new box-office holes around the country. But the heart and soul of the line-up, Jim Carrey, will get at least one more chance this fall to knock a bomb out of the yard with his forthcoming Yes Man; based on the memoir by British humorist Danny Wallace, the film follows the life changes of a downbeat man who decides to say yes to everything. The A-list set-urinator reportedly accepted no money up front for the title role, inspiring us to wonder exactly who is benefiting from the aggressive product placement spotlighted in this new trailer. Is Zooey Deschanel really commanding such lucre already? This has All-Strop rookie of the year written all over it. [YouTube]
We forwarded Matthew McConaughey's people your favorite suggestions of Bongo Romcom and Miller Chill, but it seems he chose to go the Old Timey Gold Prospector route, and named his son Levi Alves. The OK! magazine exclusive currently gracing Gelson's checkout aisles and 7-Eleven service counters reportedly netted McConaughey $3 million; paired with the earnings from his Beef Guild spots, this additional income allows the actor the freedom to pursue smaller passion projects like Surfer, Dude. Flanked on the cover by girlfriend Camila Alves and tiny, perfect Levi, McConaughey still manages to maintain sultry eye-contact with the camera, as if to say, "Yeah, I'm a dad. But I'm not dead. Catch my drift? Is anyone else's shirt chaffing them? Boy, I could sure go for a lobster roll. Is there a clam shack in the area?" McConaughey explained to the magazine how the delivery room was transformed into an flip-flop-devouring bongo-vortex:
"We found a great rhythm," Matthew tells OK! about the delivery of baby Levi. "Contractions started kicking in. I sat there with her, right between her legs. We got tribal on it, we danced to it! I was DJ-ing this Brazilian music."
"We ended up having an epidural because, on the large contractions, the umbilical cord was being compressed. They went in and tried the vacuum. This is where I learned — and no one tells you this — but having a baby is a bloody, pukey, sweaty, primeval thing! And I mean that as a beautiful thing. It is wild. But the vacuum didn't work, and the doctor said, 'C-section.'
"I said, 'Come here, little man. I saw the pecker and screamed that we'd been right all along about him being a boy. Then I brought him over to her [Camila],' Matthew said.
You'd think for $3 mil, they'd have forked over a couple shots of the beaming, shirtless new father, chest heaving and drenched in a variety of bodily fluids as he held aloft his bepeckered Prince Simba to the strains of "Drum Circle of Life." Oh well. We'll take what we can get.
The salad may provide me with enough energy to last rest of today's filming. But, my Blackberry is my Blackberry and I can talk to my husband. The salad is healthy and may be delicious; I think it's a chicken salad of some kind. But, I can talk to all of my friends and see what they're up to. I could find out if Ryan Seacrest really sleeps with his Blackberry under his pillow. I mean, I could do both, but my one handed typing skills are not as strong as I'd like them to be. Tony is good at it, though. Maybe he can teach me. I should message him about that. I think I'm going to do both because they take away my Blackberry as soon as I get within 5 feet of the set.
[Photo Credit: Splash Pics]
*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.
Three months is apparently an eternity in comic-book years: Just when we thought we'd gotten our heads around the impact of Iron Man's smashing success, it looks like that The Dark Knight's Batrocket into the box-office record books (another $24.6 million on Monday!) necessitates a whole new flurry of comics-centric development around Hollywood. And while Wired has a roundup of movers and shakers basking in collective geek glows of summer hits also including Wanted, Hellboy II and The Incredible Hulk, newly flush Warner Bros. handed off a chunk of the spotlight to slumping Bryan Singer just for the hell of it:
Warner Bros. has acquired Capeshooters, a comic book adaptation that will be produced by Bryan Singer's WB-based Bad Hat Harry banner.
Singer, who has directed films about virtuous superheroes with the first two X-Men, X2 and Superman Returns, is interested in exploring the darker side of the subject. He will only be producer on the project.In Capeshooters, two slackers become paparazzi who specialize in shooting covert videos of superheroes find themselves on the run after they stumble onto evidence that a revered superhero is actually a villain.
The competition for titles is such that Capeshooters isn't even a written comic book yet; ex-Marvel artist Rob Liefield is still developing the property for his own Image Comics, leaving Singer to twist in Valkyrie's wind a little longer while his return to form takes shape. No rush, Liefield — just as long as it can be made for $200 million and pushed back six months to a year, Singer can hit it out of the park.
How's this for an unlikely couple? Former CSI star-turned-drug-runner Gary Dourdan and the singer responsible for the most annoying song of the decade, James Blunt, have apparently pooled together whatever cash they have left in their respective bank accounts and gone on holiday together. While on an Ibizan vacation of sin, the heroin/ecstasy enthusiast and the notorious player teamed up to stage a far racier version of Miley Cyrus’ homemade porny photo spreads, as they posed alongside at least three topless prostitutes female friends who were overjoyed to fake anal sex and engage in a little lesbian chic foreplay for the paparazzi. The NSFW photos, including a particularly fun shot of the blondest, nude-iest girl for hire who appears to be delighted to have her head shoved towards the third wheel's crotch, after the jump:
While James' blonde co-star in grainy quasi-sex tape magic does admittedly have one hell of a (fake) rack, we fear this aspirational photo shoot most likely filmed in an effort to turn Blunt into the next Dirk Diggler and Dourdan into the next Buck Swope will flop — mainly due to that extraneous boat-climbing fellow with the overly tight Hawaiian trunks and Blunt's far-from-beautiful paunch.
[Photo credits: X17]
A crestfallen David Spade left Hollywood hot spot Coco de Ville after being mistaken for daytime talk show host Ellen DeGeneres ... again. While waiting for a drink at the bar, Spade was tapped on a shoulder by a woman and was told that the woman just loves her talk show and think it's really great that she's going to marry Portia De Rossi ("You've got to lock that down"). When the Rules Of Engagement star turned around, the woman's face turned bright red and she quickly apologized. After the incident, Spade held a mini conference with his amigos about creating a new look; Spade said, "It was okay when I used to get mistaken for a Hanson Brother or Owen Wilson or a Boz Scaggs roadie, but this Ellen comparison is happening too often."
[Photo Credit: Splash Pics]
*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.
We return you live to the frontlines of the Dark Knight Dark Publicity™ campaign, where the comely star of the highest-opening movie of all time—we swear we're looking for any photo that registers less than "sweltering" on the Bat-Hunk Meter, and coming up short— is facing down his most formidable foe yet: His professional clown mother, Momzo. Here's all the latest:
· The Daily Mail is reporting that Bale "flew off the handle" when his mother said "some outrageous things" about the actor's wife, makeup artist Sandra "Sibi" Blazic. He responded by calling her some very heated, un-Batmanly-like things, and was charged with Class 5 verbal assault, the least aggravated of all verbal-assault classes. (Class 1 is when you start entering the "You farty nincompoop!!!"-area. Thank god he didn't go there.) [Fox News]
· Other reports have the "lashing out" as being downgraded to a "push," or possibly just a "brush" inflicted on the mother. [THR]
· Bale reportedly lost his temper on the set of Terminator Salvation recently, telling the DP, "I will kick your ass!" in front of hundreds of people after learning a scene would have to be reshot. McWhy?! [TMZ]
· The incident isn't exactly doing any favors for the Burger King Dark Knight tie-in campaign, which encourages Whopper-lovers to "give in to their dark side" We couldn't find the ad online, but we did find a German one. Everything is funnier in German! Hat Batman Angriff seine Mutter und Schwester? Nur der Dark Knight weiß! [YouTube]
The independent-film slaughterhouse revved back into action this morning with news that Red Envelope Entertainment, the acquisitions and financing division of Netflix, shut its doors after three years. The division helped underwrite and/or release titles including the Maggie Gyllenhaal drama Sherrybaby, the Oscar-nominated documentary No End in Sight and Julie Delpy's directorial debut Two Days in Paris; it's last film appears to be the psychosexual Ben Kingsley/Penelope Cruz drama Elegy, opening next month.
Red Envelope boss Liesl Copland appears to be on her way out as well, marking roughly the 674th job lost in the indie sector in 2008. RIP, of course — but what does it all mean? And when, when will the carnage end?
REE had partnered with distributors like IFC Films and Samuel Goldwyn since 2005, at one point splitting acquisition and theatrical distribution costs in exchange for DVD rights and half the profits. As noted today in The Hollywood Reporter, that all changed this past January when Red Envelope pared back its operation; its closure Tuesday wipes out yet another player in the indie market following the dissolution of Picturehouse, Warner Independent and Tartan Films, with ThinkFilm, The Weinstein Company and Sidney Kimmel Entertainment on life-support close behind.
Bleak, huh? On the bright side, at least Paramount purports to still be in the game despite its overt genrefication last week. Take your silver linings — and your résumés, we suppose — where you can find them.
· Ever since Neil Patrick Harris 
Most of the time, the things that we recommend you To Do each and every day cost money to partake in. But now that everyone's coffers are drying up thanks to the rising cost of gasoline and food stuffs, we thought it might be a good idea to start recommending some things To Do that don't cost any money. After all, as a wise man once taught us, the best things in life are —wait for it— free. And because Molly McAleer is such a strong believer in this sentiment, she figured that she would demonstrate to you, the loyal Defamer readership, exactly how much fun can be had without spending any money at all. And so, with that, we invite you to experience the exuberance of Molls' Mattress Party 2008. Enjoy!
We'll admit to not having yet fully absorbed 
Luckily we had the 
A veritable murderer's row of egos, tempers and divas, Defamer's