On the difference between the Big Apple and her old hometown of London, Geldof remarked: "The whole New York–minute thing is a lot faster. Everything seems a lot faster and more hectic, but London's always gray and miserable."

Source: Daily Intel | 8 Sep 2008 | 8:05 pm

Can ‘Australia’ Finally Convince Moviegoers That Hugh Jackman Isn’t Gay?

20th Century Fox sure hopes so! In a story in yesterday's Times, overcompensating executives at the studio hilariously describe Viva Laughlin–toplining, three-time Tony Awards host Hugh Jackman as "rough-hewn" and a "young Clint Eastwood." "There are not many actors who have an ability to pick up a Nicole Kidman, throw her on the bed and ravish her with believability," says Australia director Baz Luhrmann. Additionally: "He is also excellent with a cattle whip."

Australia (opening November 26) — in which Jackman stars as a virile cowboy who helps Kidman drive cattle across her land — offers a desperate Fox one final chance to prove to America that he can play a "classic leading-man" before next May's release of his superhero spinoff X-Men Origins: Wolverine (as you'll recall, the casts of previous X-Men movies have been filled out with more reliably macho actors like Ian McKellen and Alan Cumming). "I’m never that worried about positioning myself, and I don’t like labels personally or professionally. But this is definitely the straight-down-the-line, classic, old-school leading-man role I've been waiting for," said Jackman, who then belched, farted, and started a bar fight all at the same time.

A Wolverine Finds His Romantic Side [NYT]

Source: Vulture | 8 Sep 2008 | 8:05 pm

Review: `Women' makeover is all boutique, no bite (AP)

AP - Somehow, Diane English has managed to make the "Sex and the City" movie look like a documentary.

Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment Reviews | 8 Sep 2008 | 7:59 pm

Is ‘The Wrestler’ This Year’s ‘Little Miss Sunshine’?

Following an impressive, Gold Lion–winning showing in Venice and an "intense all-night bidding war," Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler has been picked up for U.S. distribution by Fox Searchlight for $4 million, the first big buy at the Toronto Film Festival. Variety reports that an Oscar campaign for star Mickey Rourke was "an essential component of the deal." [Variety]

Source: Vulture | 8 Sep 2008 | 7:37 pm

Star aligns with Fox on film

Front Page: News Corp. units launch joint venture -- Twentieth Century Fox and satcaster Star are launching an Asia-wide joint venture spanning movie production, distribution and marketing.

Source: Variety.com - Front Page | 8 Sep 2008 | 7:34 pm

Provocative art expected to raise millions

Read full story for latest details.

Source: CNN.com - Entertainment | 8 Sep 2008 | 7:18 pm

Michael Phelps, Naked But for a Wig

Kristen Wiig just ensured that we are going to make the season premiere of Saturday Night Live appointment television for the first time in, oh, roughly ten to fifteen years. Michael Phelps is this weekend's special guest star, and, like us, Kristen clearly appreciates his God-given talents. "He's gonna be naked in all the sketches I write, for sure," she told People. Yes. As if that weren't enough to win our hearts forever, she added: "There are some people that you can just picture with a wig on and it's funny," she said. "He's one of those people." Ha-ha, that is funny — wait, really? That's actually just weird weird. Maybe she meant with a Wiig on, and People misunderstand somehow? But if so, that would be downright filthy... We're definitely still watching though, either way.

SNL Star Gets Psyched for Michael Phelps [People]

Related: In Which We Appreciate Michael Phelps’s Chest

Source: Daily Intel | 8 Sep 2008 | 7:15 pm

Stern's fiancee not thinking about the wedding (AP)

AP - Howard Stern's bride-to-be Beth Ostrosky says her No. 1 priority these days is training for the New York City marathon. No. 2: planning her October wedding to the radio shock jock.
Source: Yahoo! News: Fashion News | 8 Sep 2008 | 7:06 pm

‘Mad Men’: What’s Matthew Weiner Driving At?

Last week, Don got a good look at the person in the mirror — and didn't like what he saw. This week, Don looks in the mirror and thinks he's figured out what's wrong: That guy would look a lot better in a Cadillac.

The Pitch:
Accessorize your life.

The Campaign:
It's arts week at Sterling Cooper: Accounts man Ken Cosgrove has written another "beautiful and sad" short story. It's about a golden violin that's coveted by museum visitors but can't play music. The blunt and inevitably correct Bertram Cooper provides the aesthetic criticism: "People buy things to realize their aspirations," he says, describing the Rothko he just purchased. "It's the foundation of our business."

During this Sterling Cooper Aspirational Arts week, everyone covets something in the hope that it will make him feel better. Unfortunately, everyone ends up feeling lousy, or at best melancholy. Except Cooper, who just bought that Rothko as an investment. And as we all know, Rothkos have broken auction records, so perhaps accounting is the true path to enlightenment.

Joan flashed that diamond ring — and now people hardly seem to notice her Jessica Rabbit figure anymore. She's jealous, so she fires Don's hot 20-year-old assistant — and then Mr. Midlife Crisis Roger Sterling saves her job, tempted, as he is, to possess a young woman who seems like the '62 model Joan. The closet case Salvatore becomes smitten with Ken Cosgrove, the office's horniest hetero (does Salvatore think he's overcompensating?). He invites the golden boy over for dinner with the wife and practically shudders when Ken lights his cigarette. After Ken leaves, all Salvatore can hold on to is Ken's fancy, filigreed lighter. Oh, God, will this end badly.

The comedian Jimmy Barrett got "everything I ever wanted" — a big TV show with his name on it — but it didn't fulfill him, either. He's still miserable because he'll always be "standing behind" men like Don. And because he knows Don is sleeping with Bobbi.

Which brings us to Don: Arts-wise, he's been invited to sit on the board of the Folk Arts Museum — purely for the social cache. As Cooper puts it, Don's joining the "few people who get to decide what will happen in our world." Great news — except, as usual, Draper is a half-step behind the culture, joining the stodgy upper crust of his elders, just as his young, cool-cat idea men are riffing on SDS' call to replace power with "uniqueness, love, creativity." (Note: You've got to love how Sterling-Cooper immediately co-opt SDS' lily-white idealism by selling coffee with a Latin tune about "coffee-colored girls.")

To celebrate, Don shops for a Cadillac Coupe de Ville and is buttered up by a slick salesman. After an abbreviated flashback reveals part of Don's missing life (he used to sell used cars!), he returns to buy the car without driving it — only caring for how he'll look and feel. Don puffs out his chest for a bit, but his first night out with the automobile ends awfully: Jimmy tells both Don and Betty, separately, that he suspects Bobbi's affair. On the way home, Betty pukes on Don's precious interior.

Little does the Cadillac salesman know that his flattering pitch to Don — "You'll be as comfortable in one of these as you would be in your own skin" — was actually a curse.

The Early Results:
For such a tightly structured show, this episode was a bit messy — what happened to the rest of that flashback? It also felt like the series' most-reflective episode yet. If any show is as self-consciously aspirational as Don Draper, it's Mad Men: the name-dropping, literati-quoting, jazz-humming, mid-century-design-flaunting critics' favorite. Are all these references to art and aspiration just Matthew Weiner's way of figuring out his own conflicted role in the niche of HBO-ish television? Is he feeling the pressure of building a show that's rebranding a whole network? Is he feeling the irony of a show that questions the absurd worth of a Cadillac, while selling BMW's during the commercial breaks? And is he implying that we are all Don Drapers, decorating our lives with his Show You Must Watch, much as these folks decorate theirs with Cadillacs and Rothkos?

Source: Vulture | 8 Sep 2008 | 7:01 pm

The For-Idiots, By-Idiots Guide to the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac Bailout

The only thing you read this weekend was the Styles section. The only television you watched: the VMAs. Hey, that's what weekends are for. Unless you're Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. He had a crap weekend: "I've never been through any situation which was as difficult, as stressful, as complex," he told Bloomberg TV today.

No idea what he's talking about? Yeah. That's what happens when news breaks on the weekends, and dealing with the avalanche of reports that follow a weekend announcement such as "The government is basically taking over the mortgage industry in a desperate attempt to save America" in addition to your usual Monday duties is a headache. Which is why, to get you caught up, Intel has compiled a short summary about what went down with mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while you were brunching.

Wait, So What Happened? Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced plans yesterday to take over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As we once told you, FNMA and FRE are not troubled farm children, but are in fact two giant mortgage lenders that were started by the government, went public, and then over the past year spun into total chaos and disarray as the mortgage market seized up over the subprime crisis. Back in July, the Fed offered them some money to solve their problems, but that didn't work out, and so now they've just decided to go whole-hog and bail them out. From now until, well, whenever, the federal government will ensure Fannie and Freddie have the capital to continue doing what they do (funding mortgages) and will guarantee repayment of the bonds and other forms of debt issued by them. Isn't that nice? It is … sort of.

Wait, How Exactly Do They Plan On Doing That? For starters, the Treasury Department has agreed to acquire $1 billion of preferred shares in each company and has pledged to provide as much as $200 billion to them as they are getting their acts together.

But they're not going to trust that money with just anyone. So they've replaced the companies' CEOs — the guys who led the firms into risky investments and failed to react swiftly during the first rumblings of the subprime-mortgage meltdown — with new ones: Herbert M. Allison Jr., the former head of retirement-plan manager TIAA-CREF and the finance adviser on John McCain's 2000 campaign, will take over at Fannie; and David M. Moffett, a former Carlyle Group executive and vice-chairman of U.S. Bancorp, will take the reins at Freddie.

They, in turn, will be managed by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which will make sure that they (a) don't make risky investments like the last dudes did and (b) will stay true to the companies' original mission of providing affordable loans to would-be homeowners.

Why This Is Good: Combined, Fannie and Freddie own more than $5 trillion of debt (including about 75 percent of mortgages) and have issued mortgage-backed securities to central banks and other investors worldwide, so the failure of either of them, as Paulson said yesterday, "would cause great turmoil in our financial markets here at home and around the globe." So it's good for the stock market, basically, because it's not horribly bad. The deal is also good for the consumer because mortgage rates will go down a little, or at least stabilize. And Paulson said yesterday that one of the things the new Fannie and Freddie will do is examine the fees they charge banks for loan securitization services “with an eye toward mortgage affordability,” and a reduction in those fees would be passed onto the consumer. If you already have a fixed-income mortgage, this doesn't help you much. However, if you're about to be foreclosed upon, the New Guard may make it easier for you to renegotiate for a cheaper loan.

Why It's Bad: Well, where is the Fed getting all this money? Us. We mean, not us personally, but also, yes, us personally. We are paying with the taxes eked from our pathetic miserable paychecks for this because a bunch of dickbag lenders encouraged a bunch of irresponsible borrowers to borrow money they couldn't pay back. Plus, if you are a shareholder or invest at all in mutual funds, you probably lost a bunch of money on Fannie and Freddie, which were formerly seen as "safe" investments. Boo. But then, it's better than total world poverty, so we guess we're for it. We're saintly like that. As long as it, you know, works.

Some other places where this is all explained better:
U.S. Seizes Mortgage Giants [WSJ]
Paulson Says Fannie, Freddie Crisis 'All Consuming" [Bloomberg]
Stock Markets Soar After Fannie/Freddie Bailouts [WP]
Fannie, Freddie, and You [NYT]

Source: Daily Intel | 8 Sep 2008 | 6:35 pm

Kat Dennings: Budding Screenwriter

"There was no dialogue for me, and director Peter Sollett told me, 'Just say something awesome before you do it!' So I said, 'Let's dance, douchebag!' and punched poor Michael. And it's in the final version of the movie. I'm ecstatic!" —Kat Dennings on her contribution to the script for Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist [NYP]

"Funny enough, the original title of the script was Windshield Wiper Man. That was just enough to make me not read it. For almost two months, it sat on my desk." —Greg Kinnear on playing the lead role in Flash of Genius [LAT]

"Like a fool I let 'em come to my house and I said, 'Anything you want, you get it.' And they took damn near everything except the house — and me." —B.B. King on donating memorabilia to the B.B. King Museum [LAT]

"The day we wrapped, he said, 'All right, I've played my last idiot.' So we told him it was sad that he wouldn't be working with us anymore." —Ethan Coen on George Clooney finishing his "trilogy of idiots" for the Coen brothers [NYP]

"ET was a much better piece of cinema than Gandhi, but I made important films." —Richard Attenborough [Guardian]

Source: Vulture | 8 Sep 2008 | 6:30 pm

Justin Timberlake's Southern Sensibility Comes to New York Fashion Week (Fashion Wire Daily)

Fashion Wire Daily - Justin Timberlake's Southern Sensibility Comes to New York Fashion Week Renata Espinosa September 08th, 2008 @ 00:03 AM - New York When Justin Timberlake took his bows at Roseland Ballroom on Sunday night, the applause from the audience wasn't for Timberlake's music, it was for his fashion collection.

Source: Yahoo! News: Fashion News | 8 Sep 2008 | 6:06 pm

Music Review: Metallica re-energized on new CD (AP)

AP - Metallica, "Death Magnetic" (Warner Bros.)

Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment Reviews | 8 Sep 2008 | 6:03 pm

Dakota Fanning Promises to Be Clean Teen

Fourteen-year-old actress Dakota Fanning made a pledge this weekend, to this reporter. It was consummated with a handshake in front of her mother, publicist, agent and pals.
Source: FOXNews.com | 8 Sep 2008 | 5:53 pm

Colbert's DNA to Be Sent Into Space

Comic's DNA will be put in a time capsule at the International Space Station.
Source: ABC News: Entertainment | 8 Sep 2008 | 5:47 pm

Police: Gary Coleman Hits Man With Truck

Unclear if Coleman intended to hit the man after arguing in a bowling alley.
Source: ABC News: Entertainment | 8 Sep 2008 | 5:39 pm

Publisher Denies That Mother Dishes on Britney's Virginity

Britney Spears' mother Lynne Spears does not "tell all" about when her daughter lost her virginity in her upcoming book, according to the book's publisher.
Source: FOXNews.com | 8 Sep 2008 | 5:38 pm

Stephen Colbert's DNA to Be Sent to Space

The comedian's DNA will be digitized and sent to the International Space Station, Comedy Central was to announce Monday.
Source: FOXNews.com | 8 Sep 2008 | 5:28 pm

Chris Brown Busy Writing for Britney

The winner of MTV's male video award has been working on songs for Spears.
Source: ABC News: Entertainment | 8 Sep 2008 | 5:23 pm

Halle Berry, Martha Stewart among stars at CK bash (AP)

AP - Halle Berry, in a body-hugging outfit, and her special man, model Gabriel Aubry, helped make Calvin Klein's 40th anniversary bash a New York moment.

Source: Yahoo! News: Fashion News | 8 Sep 2008 | 5:17 pm

Pop Tarts: VMA Host Makes Fun of Virgins

Sunday night's MTV Video Music Award host Russell Brand took several digs at young stars wearing "purity rings" to pledge their virginity until marriage — and "American Idol" winner Jordin Sparks wasn't having any of it.
Source: FOXNews.com | 8 Sep 2008 | 5:15 pm

Madonna Dedicates 'Like a Virgin' to Pope at Rome Concert

Madonna dedicated her classic hit "Like a Virgin" to the pope at a sold-out concert in Rome on Saturday, Reuters reported.
Source: FOXNews.com | 8 Sep 2008 | 4:52 pm

Football a touchdown for NBC

Front Page: Fox's 'Hole in the Wall' brings in solid numbers -- NBC dominated the first Sunday of September behind the premiere of "Sunday Night Football," while Fox received good sampling for its new unscripted show "Hole in the Wall."

Source: Variety.com - Front Page | 8 Sep 2008 | 4:48 pm

Fox orders Kevin Falls' 'Eva Adams'

Front Page: Pilot based on Argentinian telenovela 'Lalola' -- Fox has given a pilot order to Kevin Falls' take on the Argentinian telenovela "Lalola."

Source: Variety.com - Front Page | 8 Sep 2008 | 4:34 pm

Halle Berry Steps Out With Her Man for Fashion Week Party

Halle Berry, in a body-hugging outfit, and her special man, model Gabriel Aubrey, helped make Calvin Klein's 40th anniversary bash a New York moment.
Source: FOXNews.com | 8 Sep 2008 | 4:18 pm

Spears Sweeps, Brand Bashes Bush at VMAs

Britney won three awards; Russell Brand called Bush a "retard and cowboy fella."
Source: ABC News: Entertainment | 8 Sep 2008 | 4:09 pm

ICM expands rock roster

Front Page: Clients include Neil Young, Iggy Pop -- With an eye to expanding its rock music roster and international scope, ICM has acquired the concert booking agency M.V.O.

Source: Variety.com - Front Page | 8 Sep 2008 | 3:33 pm

Britney steals show at MTV awards

Read full story for latest details.

Source: CNN.com - Entertainment | 8 Sep 2008 | 3:30 pm

MSNBC replaces duo with Gregory

Front Page: Olbermann, Matthews now commentators -- MSNBC's decision to yank Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews from the anchor chairs of the cabler's political coverage is drawing an array of reactions from media watchers.

Source: Variety.com - Front Page | 8 Sep 2008 | 3:01 pm

Britney Spears Returns to MTV's Video Music Awards

MTV has set a high standard for the unexpected at its Video Music Awards, but on the show's 25th anniversary, the network instead settled for throwing its full support behind Britney Spears' comeback.
Source: FOXNews.com | 8 Sep 2008 | 2:28 pm

Fox Searchlight pins down 'Wrestler'

Front Page: Studio wins bidding war over Aronofsky film -- Distribs began digging into their pockets Monday as the Toronto Film Festival neared the midway point.

Source: Variety.com - Front Page | 8 Sep 2008 | 2:11 pm

Oprah Biased? Host Won't Interview Palin

Oprah Winfrey won't interview Palin on her show until after the election.
Source: ABC News: Entertainment | 8 Sep 2008 | 2:06 pm

Review: Weird-science thriller livens up fall TV

Read full story for latest details.

Source: CNN.com - Entertainment | 8 Sep 2008 | 2:01 pm

The Beatles pose in costume at the Odeon venue in London in 1964

The Beatles pose in costume around Christmas time at the Odeon venue in London in 1964. Memories of The Beatles from fans around the globe were revealed Monday in a major study reflecting the impact the...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 8 Sep 2008 | 11:33 am

The Beatles wave to a large crowd as they arrive in New York in 1964

The Beatles band members (from left to right) John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr wave to a large crowd as they arrive at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, United States, in...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 8 Sep 2008 | 11:33 am