AP - Anna Nicole Smith's lawyer-turned-boyfriend and a doctor surrendered to face charges that they conspired to provide the Playboy Playmate with thousands of prescription pills before her 2007 fatal overdose. A second doctor also is accused.
AP - Anna Nicole Smith's lawyer-turned-boyfriend and a doctor surrendered to face charges that they conspired to provide the Playboy Playmate with thousands of prescription pills before her 2007 fatal overdose. A second doctor also is accused.
Reuters - Activist investor Carl Icahn said he has no plans to push for a sale of Lions Gate Entertainment Inc in the current environment, but criticized the Hollywood studio's expenses for being too high and called its purchase of TV Guide "reckless." Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 13 Mar 2009 | 12:08 pm
ORLANDO, Fla., March 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Change, change, change -- it's all about The Change! Can you laugh about menopause? Yes, you can! Inspired by a hot... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 13 Mar 2009 | 11:55 am
'She's only been alive half an hour,' the 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall' funnyman says.By Eric Ditzian, with reporting by Josh Horowitz Russell Brand and MTV News' Josh Horowitz ride in an elevator ... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 13 Mar 2009 | 11:50 am
'We're gonna try to make it happen,' R&B; singer says of plans for a joint LP.By Shaheem Reid The-Dream Photo: MTV News The-Dream and Kanye West want to record a full album together, the... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 13 Mar 2009 | 11:50 am
AP - The nation owes not only gratitude but tangible assistance to the nation's military and their families, and she'll make that a focus of her time in the White House, first lady Michelle Obama says.
Michael Phelps insists he's more worried about the pain he caused family, friends and fans than losing money in endorsements after he was photographed inhaling from a marijuana pipe in... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 13 Mar 2009 | 11:39 am
HONG KONG, March 13 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- GigaMedia Limited (Nasdaq: GIGM) today confirmed fourth-quarter 2008 net earnings were in-line with market expectations Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 13 Mar 2009 | 11:30 am
Open Your Closet, Open Your Heart... QUINCY, Mass., March 13 /PRNewswire/ -- J. Jill invites women to open their closets and their hearts to help other women in... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 13 Mar 2009 | 11:30 am
BEGINNING AUGUST 25, 2009 WITH SCRUBS: SEASON 8 AND SAMANTHA WHO?: SEASON 2 BURBANK, Calif., March 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Nine of the latest seasons of some of the... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 13 Mar 2009 | 11:23 am
Sharpening its Focus on Sports Broadcast Business BEIJING, March 13 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- Xinhua Sports & Entertainment Limited... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 13 Mar 2009 | 11:00 am
Reuters - Anthony O'Reilly will retire from the helm of Independent News & Media and hand the reins to his son Gavin, ending the Irish tycoon's career with the fate of their flagship London Independent paper in doubt. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 13 Mar 2009 | 10:55 am
As the legendary Motown label turns 50, soul music is back and booming, ever since British diva Amy Winehouse hit world charts two years ago. "While the Winehouse phenomenon kick-started Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 13 Mar 2009 | 10:17 am
As the legendary Motown label turns 50, soul music is back and booming, ever since British diva Amy Winehouse, seen here in July 2008, hit world charts two years ago. Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 13 Mar 2009 | 10:17 am
British singer Seal performs in Los Angeles in February 2009. As the legendary Motown label turns 50, soul music is back and booming, ever since British diva Amy Winehouse hit world charts two years ago... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 13 Mar 2009 | 10:17 am
Actress Jennifer Aniston (L) and musician John Mayer arrive at the 2009 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Graydon Carter held at the Sunset Tower in February 2009 in West Hollywood, California. Aniston... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 13 Mar 2009 | 6:17 am
After a week of pointed verbal barbs, host Jon Stewart sat face-to-face with financial analyst Jim Cramer on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" and continued the assault Thursday. Stewart blamed Cramer and cable network CNBC for being irresponsible cheerleaders in the lead-up the the stock market meltdown.
Howard K. Stern won't be shaking the Anna Nicole Smith association anytime soon.
Along with two doctors who wrote prescriptions for Smith, Stern was charged Thursday with...
(Reuters) Reuters - Poison frontman Bret Michaels promises to tell all when he publishes his autobiography, "Roses and Thorns: The Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy to My Reality," Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 13 Mar 2009 | 4:10 am
Jim Cramer sure got his assets handed to him tonight.
On Thursday, in an extremely hyped culmination of a week's worth of finger-pointing, insult-exchanging and lamentation over the...
(AP)
AP - George Clooney led a parade of old favorites back to "ER" on Thursday as the medical drama nears the end of its 15-year run.
George Clooney scrubbed in to ER one last time.
Returning as stubbornly studly Doug Ross, Clooney slipped right back into character by gently persuading a grief-stricken Susan...
Whoa. Mucho story progress on tonight's installment of Grey's Anatomy. Check out a sneak peek above of next week's episode (wherein Izzie and the robot fight for the future...), and...
Alas, J.T. Thomas' offering to the dental gods couldn't secure a...
(Reuters) Reuters - Late Chilean novelist Roberto Bolano won the top fiction prize at the National Book Critics Circle awards on Thursday for his last novel, "2666." Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 13 Mar 2009 | 12:39 am
Front Page: 'Mysterious Travels' script being developed -- New Line's reteaming with Walden Media and ContraFilm for a sequel to "Journey to the Center of the Earth."
Front Page: 'Late Night' finishes first week on top -- Jimmy Fallon finished his first week as host of NBC's "Late Night" franchise on top, beating all cable and broadcast competition while also besting incumbent Conan O'Brien's season average.
Front Page: Network inks multiplatform deal with Cannon -- A major rebranding initiative, a new series, a feature film and the return of Nick Cannon -- those were some of the highlights Thursday from Nickelodeon's hourlong upfront presentation to advertisers in Gotham.
Singer Chris Brown has recorded a song with his reported girlfriend, Rihanna, just days after charges were filed against him for allegedly assaulting her, the record's producer said Thursday through a publicist.
Michael Phelps must have known, as he waded through the fallout from his too-candid camera moment, that he'd have to dive into a prime-time interview at some point.
In a poolside...
Years after battling it out for Michael Vartan's devotion in Monster-in-Law, Jennifer Lopez and Jane Fonda find themselves on the same side of a contentious coin.
A North Carolina...
(AP)
AP - Video-game controversies typically revolve around sex or violence. "Resident Evil 5" has plenty of the latter, but it's catching a lot of flack for a different reason.
Thanks to the entertainment industry, we tend to overestimate the talents of criminals. In order for the good guys to be heroes, the villains have to be super-geniuses. In real life, we have crooks like Bernie Madoff, people only marginally more imaginative than their victims.
When the Madoff story first broke, it seemed like a great HBO show was happening in real time. The biggest losers in this scam looked to be people who never deserved their riches in the first place — like faux-royalty Euros and silly Palm Beach hucksters. Perhaps you've heard the term "public-service homicide," used by cynical cops to describe murder cases in which one bad guy kills another. That's how Madoff originally seemed — a public-service Ponzi man.
But then the pain of charities and widows turned out to be real and deep and nothing to be cavalier about. Even many of the other victims were guilty of little more than misplaced trust. The biggest killjoy turned out to be Madoff himself. He provided almost no real entertainment value, and eventually revealed himself to be entirely uninteresting, or clever, or really anything much at all: Just a cipher, an empty vessel, a putz. The guy didn't even make trades. He had no game at all. He did almost nothing to disguise his con — like, say, posting a few months of decent-size losses — or put the hounds off the scent.
Fortunately for him, there were no hounds, but how could Madoff have counted on that for all these years? He just got obscenely lucky. His idiotically brazen lack of concern about being caught reminds me of the downtrodden neighborhood thug who used to set up operations precisely two blocks away from Trinity School on the Upper West Side in the eighties — he would leap out at us necktied little boys, seize the lapels of our blue blazers, and confiscate the two $20 bills that we had ourselves purloined off Dad's bureau the night before.
How about the Madoff family? The breakdown is probably 50 percent moron, 50 percent criminal. Good luck to those guys trying to stay out of jail. Ruth is a sad case; no more needs to be said about her other than pinning our hopes on a lengthy sentence. The Noel family let us all down. When their role first became apparent, it was possible to imagine Champagne-drenched tales of espionage and intrigue, with the occasional maniacal chase pursuits down the slopes of Courchevalle — you know, James Bond stuff. Instead, the whole lot of them are just incredibly dull and self-absorbed. The Noels' one lasting contribution to the broader cultural knowledge base is that the banking elite of Europe, the supposed custodians of the truest wealth on earth, have lost their cachet.
Over the next few days and weeks, there may well be another revelation or two. On the technical front, a thorough accounting of how much money was actually stolen would be fascinating. Remember, a good deal of it was returned to investors in the form of dividends and withdrawals. Bernie may have absconded with only a paltry few billion.
But even this minor satisfaction may be withheld. This story is done. Pity the publishers who made all those hasty deals for Madoff books. They may turn out to be his final victims.
One side effect of Jack White forming the Raconteurs was that bandmate Brendan Benson, an under-loved rocker in his own right, can now afford private school for his kids. Soon, the Kills’ Alison Mosshart — fronting White’s new side project, the Dead Weather — may be carpooling with Benson to PTA conferences. The new unit premiered last night at a tiny Nashville gig, which doubled as the grand unveiling of White’s Third Man Records' headquarters; the band also features Queens of the Stone Age’s Dean Fertita on guitar and the Raconteurs’ Jack Lawrence on bass. Where’s Jack, you ask? Behind the drum set! Still, the loose blues the Dead Weather zap out on “Hang You From the Heavens,” the first original cut they’ve released, is a natural extension of the burgeoning Jack White rock-and-roll empire. Mosshart, who actually filled in on vocal duties for an ill White during the Raconteurs-Kills tour last year, does a stellar job of channeling his playful, foreboding vibe. Lyrics like “I wanna drag you by the hair / and sell you off to the devil” don’t hurt.
Reuters - "Kings" helps make the argument for those who believe that irony is truly dead. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment Reviews | 12 Mar 2009 | 11:29 pm
Reuters - It was only a matter of time before they got around to revisiting 1972's "The Last House on the Left," a prime piece of horror-remake real estate that was well ahead of the "Saw" torture porn curve. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment Reviews | 12 Mar 2009 | 11:28 pm
Fashion Wire Daily - The Vuitton woman has an agenda: She doesn't need you and she wants to have fun. Her mother or grandmother was a famous muse with a French name, and the muses lived again Thursday afternoon, March 12 at the Louis Vuitton show in the courtyard of the Louvre in Paris.
Just when you thought that the Grammys couldn't possibly get any more thick comes this humdinger of an announcement. For some reason, The Recording Industry has decided to move the airdate of the 2010 Grammy Awards up a week, to the last week of January from the first week of February. In order to accommodate, they also moved the eligibility window up an entire month, which means that any record released after August 31, 2009, won't be eligible for a Grammy nod until 2011. Brilliant! [Pop & Hiss/LAT]
Are they sure? This is an object. And it's foreign.
According to federal aviation officials, a foreign object that was sucked into a jet engine was the cause of the emergency landing of an American Airlines flight earlier this week. Here are the first two sentences of the Post story about the discovery:
Mechanics and engineers suspect some kind of foreign object got sucked into the engine of an American Airlines jet that made an emergency landing at Kennedy Airport, airline officials said today.The mystery object wasn't a bird, the airline said.
It kind of feels like they turned and looked at us when they said that, doesn't it?
This season Gareth Pugh screened a video of his fall 2009 collection in Paris instead of putting on a runway show. New York fashion director Harriet Mays Powell chatted with Pugh after the screening. "By doing a video and not doing a show, that means we've been able to concentrate a lot more on what goes into the sale room," he said. "My clothes don't necessarily lend themselves that well to fashion shows." Watch the video to scope out his nipple-clamp necklace and find out how it sums up his clothes.
While other networks fill June, July, and August with reality shows like How Far Can You Throw a Baby? and Who Can Fart the Loudest? (surely these are in development somewhere), NBC wunderkind Ben Silverman has a plan to restore some semblance of class to summertime TV: actual writers! The Peacock just announced its schedule for the coming months and, astonishingly, it features scripted dramas like The Listener and The Philanthropist, along with mini-series such as The Meteor and The Storm. It's just a shame they couldn't have hired more writers to think of better titles.
Front Page: 'Last House' also opening wide on Friday -- The race is on at the weekend box office as Disney family adventure "Race to Witch Mountain" takes on holdover "Watchmen."
Is Nicollette Sheridan gone for good?
While Dana Delany told us earlier this week that Sheridan's final day of work on Desperate Housewives was Monday, show creator Marc Cherry...
• Fergie has new hair, which isn't nearly as exciting as Katie Holmes' extensions. And speaking of Katie, new pictures today reveal she was wearing stirrup leggings with her...
This must be her puh-puh-puh-poker face puh-puh-poker face (nah nah nah nah). Enjoy having that song stuck in your head all day!
MAKEUP
• Two bans on animal testing for cosmetics were made official today in Europe. One prohibits testing to determine how safe ingredients are, while the other bans products that were tested on animals. Though they go into effect now, they won't be enforced until March 2013. [Cosmetics Business]
HAIR
• Lady Gaga cut her hair and got purple lowlights. This woman shortens everything — bottoms, hair, the words "Poker Face" ... [Getty Images]
• Hairstylist Orlando Pita brought 12,000 bobby pins to use at the Christian Dior show in Paris. [British Vogue]
• Why hair turns gray: "Our hair cells produce hydrogen peroxide, and over time, it builds up, blocking the synthesis of melanin (which provides the natural color to our hair). So when our hair turns gray, it's like a bleaching process from the inside out." Great pickup line, eh? [BellaSugar]
SKIN
• Bless Tina Turner, who said, "Of course, I've aged a bit in the face, but not enough to worry about it. I have common sense enough to know that if I'm nearly 70, something has to happen." [Daily Mail]
The quirky mag lost its editor, a Canadian "business culture" magazine is headed online-only, and Joel Stein enters a brave new world — or at least attempts to.
• Canada's Unlimited magazine, a business and work-culture publication, has suspended its print edition. "Interestingly enough, the advertisers that had been committed to the print edition have all elected to move their planned expenditures to the online magazine," said Ruth Kelly, president and publisher of Venture Publishing. "That's incentive for us to explore some very innovative approaches to the website." [Masthead Online]
• Daily Intel alum Michael Idov quit his post as editor of Russia! magazine because he suspected they didn't have financing for 2009. (Publishers insist that they do.) [Mixed Media/Portfolio]
• A page-one Times story today rehashes the problems the newspaper industry is facing, declaring "no one knows which will be the first big city without a large paper, but there are candidates all across the country." But a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that only 33 percent of Americans believe that they would miss their local paper "a lot" if it were to fold. [Mixed Media/Portfolio]
• NPR is canceling all in-house newspaper subscriptions. Frugal! But not much in the way of standing in solidarity with the rest of the industry. [Romenesko]
• In an effort to "save print journalism," Joel Stein tried to insert product placement for Pom into his column — before his editors cut it. Instead, we get a video of Joel Stein working out. [Time]
"We were in the bath for so long we were shriveling up like prunes, it wasn't very sexy at all. But hey, I've had a bath with Keira Knightley — several people would love to say that I['m] sure." —Sienna Miller doesn't see the forest for the trees [Showbiz Spy]
"Do people with disabilities want to have sex? Of course. Everyone who is breathing wants to have sex!" —Mary Stuart Masterson on one of the themes of her directorial debut, Cake Eaters [MTV]
"I keep reading about ... [my] unfulfilled potential, that's a killer. They'll be able to name ten things about me or to do with me or someone I've been with before they'll ever be able to name a song and that really is quite sad." —Pete Doherty has finally discovered self-awareness, and he doesn't like what he sees [Contact Music]
“Now I’m more a Real Housewife than I ever have been before!” —Alex McCord on being laid off by Victoria's Secret [TV Watch/People]
"I'm 42. I have been in bands since I was 15. There gets to a point where you are stepping out in front of 100,000 people and your blood pressure doesn't change." —Shirley Manson justifying her move to TV, in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. [Sydney Morning Herald]
"We needed to get outside of our comfort zone. Brian Eno doesn't like U2 — he's not built to. So when we go and work with him we go through a slightly different filter, 'cause we're trying to impress him." —Bono might want to start finding new people he wants to impress [MTV]
GOOD COMIC BOOK NEWS: Mickey Rourke has signed on to star as a villain in Iron Man 2. Hopefully his heart condition won't prevent him from throwing a Ramjet at Tony Stark. (Film Drunk)
INDIFFERENT COMIC BOOK NEWS: The Avengers movie has been postponed for at least another year so that more upcoming actors have time to get famous and so they can be added to the ensemble cast. (EW.com)
IT TOOK TWO: Chris Brown and Rihanna recorded a duet together, which officially now counts as the second-creepiest duet ever recorded after "Baby It's Cold Outside". (MTV)
McCRACKPIPE: Interesting headline - "County, McDonald's reach deal on halting illicit drug activity". I was awfully suspicious of that new "$12,000 in Cash, Small Bills Preferred" Menu. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
EXCLUSIVE: This article, "EXCLUSIVE: EXCLUSIVE: Fergie Becomes a Brunette!" must be pretty damn exclusive. (Us Weekly)
On the same day we learn that the museum has just dropped $1 million on an Old Master, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced that it's eliminating 74 merchandising jobs — accounting for 27 percent of its full-time and 9 percent of its part-time retail staff — and that it'll likely need to trim as many as 250 positions before next July. This is all in addition to the 53 that were let go over the past year. [NYT]
Bank of America reported that for the first two months of 2009 it turned a profit, and it expects to do so for the rest of the year. GM withdrew its request for an additional $2 billion this month, saying it won't actually need it. Meanwhile, the S&P posted an 11 percent surge since March 9, marking the largest three-day gain since November. It's the weather, people. It's the weather. [Bloomberg]
South African Zoologist Kevin Richardson was spotted having an illicit skinny dipping session with one local lioness. She was supposed to be tending to her cubs while her lion was out huntin' and a'gather. So when she noticed the cameras around... she had no choice...
While designers hiked up skirt hemlines so high we saw panty flashes à la Paris Hilton, they didn't forget to hoist up shirts, too. The crop top came back, Kelly Kapowski–style. Cushnie et Ochs crafted a sheer short top with beads, House of Holland lifted up its colorful jackets to just below the breasts, and Roberto Cavalli layered crops over sheer long-sleeve shirts. And for a season that's usually reserved for layers and outerwear, so many navels emerged as a bit of a surprise. But with all this emphasis on thighs and cleavage, not to mention global warming messing with the temperatures, fall doesn't have to be strictly a cold-weather extravaganza. Click ahead to see more crop tops from the fall runways.
Front Page: Mogul amps up studio battle with latest move -- Amping up his battle with Lionsgate, Carl Icahn has offered to buy as much as $325 million of the mini-major's debt in what may be a prelude to a takeover offer.
We'll admit it, we've never really gotten the appeal of Dancing With the Stars. It's not that we don't respect the amount of practice it takes to nail a ballroom-dancing routine, but once you've seen Step Up 2: The Streets, everything else looks like a junior-high Sadie Hawkins dance in comparison (you know it's true). But to ABC's credit, each year they seem to pick at least one contestant who appeals to Vulture's highly refined pop-culture sensibilities. Last time around, that person was the daffy old hoofer Cloris Leachman and now, on this cycle, it's Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Although we were thoroughly mortified when we saw him enter the dance studio wearing black socks paired with shorts, that was nothing when compared with the pink feather boa he sported during his Bachman Turner Overdrive–scored routine on Tuesday night.
And now, in a twist that adds injury to insult, the Woz has apparently suffered a foot fracture that will limit his practice time and force him to wear a removable cast. He'll be able to compete next week, but still, total bummer!
Front Page: Google's Armstrong replaces Falco, Grant -- Time Warner has finally reshuffled the management team at AOL, showing Randy Falco and Ron Grant the door and naming Google senior VP Tim Armstrong chairman-CEO.
Move over Ed McMahon'sCash4Gold Ad, and take a hike "George Foreman", because there is a brand new, mind-blowing infomercial on the air, and it stars none other than childhood life coach Mr. T. The world's most famous mohawk is now hocking something else altogehter: The FlavorWave Oven. Just when you think "Why would anyone want to piss all over Mr. T's dignity?", we bring you the following ad, brought to our attention by comedianGreg Johnson*. It really hits its stride when he's presented with a FlavorWave Oven Medallion (a color photocopy gluesticked onto a chocolate chip cookie and hung from a bike chain):
We've been sad about the reported layoffs occurring at Sesame Street, the beloved, eternal public-television children's show. Could the recession, which started on Wall Street, have driven right through Main Street and really landed in the most precious Street of all? But this clip, of Elmo and a Sesame Street producer trying to retain control of an interview with comedian and Office creator Ricky Gervais, reminds us that in some places, there are always sunny days to sweep the clouds away.
I haven't tuned into Sesame Street in a long while, but judging by this clip of Ricky Gervais talking to Elmo about the "big three" off-limits topics, the show has gotten considerably darker in recent years.
Wait, this isn't Sesame Street, it's an unrelated interview. But it should be.
What happened to Kanye West's priorities? The rapper did not make an appearance at the Louis Vuitton runway show in Paris today, and this is his favorite label. After showing up at almost twenty runway shows this season for "fashion research" and recently designing a pair of red sneakers with Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton menswear, why the sudden no-show? We're thinking it has something to do with his live performance on American Idol last night. With Paris nine hours ahead of Hollywood time, there is absolutely no way he could have made the 2:30 p.m. show (it would've been 5:30 a.m. in Cali). But, really, American Idol over Louis Vuitton? Not only did he share the stage with thirteen karaoke hopefuls, he shared the spotlight with Kelly Clarkson. Contractual obligations ... they can be so heartless.
Front Page: Peter Rice to replace Peter Liguori -- The biggest surprise in Rupert Murdoch's reorg of the Fox lot on Thursday was Fox Searchlight prexy Peter Rice's shift over to the TV network side, as chairman of Fox Entertainment.
Jeff Bercovici over at Portfolio makes an interesting point: It's no wonder Ann Coulter is whinging over the fact that Obama picked Rush Limbaugh as a target rather than her — sales for her latest book, Guilty, are way off mark. A normal Coulter bestseller unloads well over 300,000 copies. Her latest effort is hovering around half that (still a huge number for any other author, to be sure). So: Expect more outrageousness and purposeful provocation in the coming weeks. [Mixed Media/Portfolio]
Lately on Lost, it seems like more characters have been — SPOILER! — brought back to life than killed off, so you knew the writers would balance the scales sometime. E! Online reports that a "major character" will soon be dispensed with and, hilariously, the newly jobless actor "found out after the script treatments were sent out to some of the crew ... so it wasn't the best timing." Dark UFO claims to have independently confirmed this, and they purportedly know which character it is — they've helpfully narrowed it down to five potential castaways (not Kate). Huge possible spoilers ahead!
According to E! Online's Kristin Dos Santos, these are the facts:
• A current series regular is getting killed before the end of season five.
• The character who will die is someone who is much-loved by many of you fans.
• This is a real leaving-the-show death, à la Shannon or Charlie, not a quick-fix time-travel death like Jeremy Bentham/John Locke.
• The character getting killed off is not, I repeat, not Kate Austen.
Dark UFO says it's definitely one of the following characters:
Ben
Sawyer
Daniel
Jin
Miles
As far as we know, of those five, only Sawyer and Jin are really "much loved," though Jin was just saved from death a few episodes ago, and we really can't imagine the writers killing Sawyer. Message-board speculation is that it's Miles, since his story line would seemingly be easy to resolve, and his dying "in the past" would be one way to explain his ability to talk with the dead, probably.
We, though, just hope the whole story's bogus and that ABC will keep all five actors employed through the end of next season. Don't J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof know how hard it is to find work these days?
Going to the European shows to pick out the clothes your retail employer will sell seems like the most fun business trip ever invented. But not this season, as buyers face a slew of new economically induced challenges. They are operating on truncated travel budgets and shortened timetables. They have less money to spend and are trying to get designers to lower prices. And then there's the pressure to not mess up, because if they don't do their jobs perfectly this season — which means stocking their stores with merchandise women will pay full price for — they're basically fucked. There is no nice way to put it.
We do not envy Rachel Goldberger and the extra-special pressure she's under as a buyer for Neiman Marcus, which yesterday announced losses of $509 million. While in Milan on her cheaper, shorter-than-usual trip, she didn't have time to go to any shows, but only showroom appointments. She was in meetings from 8:30 a.m. until 7 p.m. and then returned to her hotel for more meetings with her team. She spent her time in these appointments haggling with designers to lower prices and sometimes trying to convince them to change designs to make items more appealing to shoppers. It's like haggling for jewelry or sunglasses on the street all day. She convinced one house to eliminate a hand-painted floral detail on a sweater to get the price down by 10 percent and improve "dry-cleanability." Some fashion houses saved her the haggling. The Wall Street Journal reports:
At the showroom for the knitwear label Missoni, Ms. Goldberger was thrilled to hear that the Swarovski crystals that appeared on a dress on the runway would be replaced with plastic facsimiles. The substitution wouldn't change the look of the garment, but would lower its retail price by more than half, and make it weigh less.
Where the optimal signage in store windows for past seasons might have read "Think Pink" or "Fall Into Cashmere" this coming fall they could read "Think Cheap" or "Synthetics: Fall's New Luxury." That'd get us to poke around.
Cut spies have informed us that The Wall Street Journal's fashion blog, Heard on the Runway, is likely to go dark after Paris Fashion Week, which ends today. We read the blog every day and hope people in charge over there have the good sense to keep it alive rather than pour resources into stuff like this. But the number of posts has been dwindling since New York Fashion Week ended, and now the blog's fate remains uncertain.
So then I'm like, fine, Kate Middleton, let's break up - good luck finding another English Prince who isn't a Nazi, haha am I right Harry? Whoa, hey, lighten up guys... tough crowd, tough crowd... So...anyone from the Scottish aristocracy here tonight?
Talk about determined: The Hamptons rental season is off to what can only be generously described as a late start, unsurprising given today's skeptical real-estate market. But if the renters won't go out to the Hamptons, the Hamptons — or, rather, its brokers — are going to the renters. The Corcoran Group is opening its offices at 660 Madison to the public to host the first-ever Hamptons Expo next Thursday. (East End purveyors like Wolffer Vineyards and Lucy's are providing free wine and cheese.) Armed with leases to as many as 14,000 listings — yes, that many — 40 agents are Manhattan-bound to show off video tours, pictures, and floor plans of properties up for grabs in the North Fork, the South Fork, and Shelter Island. Corcoran president Pam Liebman says they wanted to be "proactive" about giving renters, many of whom are on the sidelines, "a jump start ... We want to show that there are good values out there." Interested? Here's your invite:
Twilight's Robert Pattinson is the latest hot motherf*cker to appear on the cover of GQ, and the Conde Nast Dandies clearly took hours and hours to make sure every strand of his perfectly dirt-besotted locks were in the correct "please do me now" position. And while the above R-Pattz photos definitely secure him in the hallowed halls of Hot Hollywood Ass, there is just something about his face that makes me think that this is playing in his brain on loop. Source: Best Week Ever | 12 Mar 2009 | 7:57 pm
Poor Heidi Klum finished shooting the sixth season of her beloved Project Runway last month in an awkward spectacle that concealed the designers we should have all known by now from the public, sending out their clothes to a collective groan of "Who cares?" She has offered a potential solution to get the show out of the courts and back on your set. "'I think that people should be demonstrating outside of (company co-chairman) Harvey Weinstein’s house,' she said. 'If it were up to me, (‘Project Runway’) would be on by now.'" We will go if Heidi leads us, chanting, with a sign she made herself, Seal in tow. [MSNBC]
As Judah will show you, yesterday could have been the sexiest day ever: Brad Pitt may be having an affair, a turtle found love with a shoe, and supermodels got naked(ish):
In one of its first major purchases since Thomas P. Campbell took over as director, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has bought an Old Master portrait of Pope Benedict XIV for just under $1 million. The seller was art dealer Adam Williams, who snapped up the painting by Pierre Subleyras — better known for an altarpiece at St. Peter’s in Rome — at a Sotheby’s auction in January. In a bidding war with an anonymous rival, Williams bid it up to $986,500, setting an auction record for the artist. (The Met didn’t bid at the time because it hadn’t raised funds yet.)
The Met’s newest acquisition, which could signal a change in its collecting priorities, is literally the talk of the fair at Tefaf Maastricht, the huge art-and-antiques fair that opened today in the Netherlands. (It’s the world’s biggest: think Art Basel Miami with Rembrandts, tulips, and tweed jackets.) For those who study power shifts at the Met — and that’s most of the art world — the purchase is a sign that Keith Christiansen, the Met’s curator of Italian and French paintings, may be consolidating influence under the Campbell regime. (The new director is an expert in Renaissance tapestry.) Just last month, Christiansen bought a work by Renaissance master Jacopo Bassano that’s already on view.
Painter Pierre Subleyras is little known in the U.S. but famous in Europe; the Louvre Museum owns several of his works. A star in Rome in the early eighteenth century, he was commissioned to do the somewhat studious “official” portrait of Pope Benedict XIV (the current Pope is Benedict XVI), but this painting is a later, more vibrant version of the man who became a patron and collector of his work.
The purchase comes at a time when the Met has publicly expressed some worries about money. Late last month, Met chairman James Houghton posted a letter to members regarding “The Global Economic Crises” on the Met’s website. It announced that the museum would be closing some gift shops, starting a hiring freeze, and added that “now, more than ever, your attendance ... and generosity are critically important to the future” of the institution.
That said, $1 million is pocket change for a great Old Master; in 2004, during the Philippe de Montebello regime, the Met paid upwards of $40 million for the “Stroganoff Madonna,” a fifteenth-century portrait by Duccio.
We've been following the escalating beef between 50 Cent and Rick Ross for quite some time, but it wasn't until now that shit got real, y'all! TMZ reports that 50 Cent is set to self-distribute a homemade porn tape starring himself and one of Rick Ross's baby mamas. Although we haven't seen the tape, we're betting it makes 2Pac's "That's why I fucked your bitch, you fat motherfucker" line to Biggie look positively quaint by comparison. [TMZ]
In a prelude to his Daily Show duel tonight, Jim Cramer was on Martha Stewart's show this morning sounding a little conciliatory, offering up a sympathetic glimpse into his very soul — perhaps in an effort to take the wind out of Jon Stewart's acerbic, piercing wit. "The reason why it's been so hard for me, the attacks, is that early on I patterned my show off of his, which is that you can do an entertainment business show," he told Martha. "And then suddenly to be attacked by a guy that's your idol makes it difficult." His idol. Your move, Stewart. [HuffPo]
This morning, Curbed directs us to an Open House NYC clip hosted by brokerage wunderkind Jared Seligman. Seligman, who now works for Prudential Douglas Elliman, is the 22-year-old who has found homes for the Olsen twins, Ally Hilfiger, Coco Rocha, Jessica Stam, and Lily Cole. So, as you can guess, he's used to dealing with top-of-the-line listings. But he swallows his pride in this video and tells you how you, a normal person, might better sell your middling property. To begin with, don't have any nasty broken washing machines, big bookshelves, or cluttery personal items. And if possible, get rid of those kids and all the junk that comes with them. You know, try to imagine you're a model, or an Olsen twin.
They feature characters such as hat-wearing cats, very hungry caterpillars, nice girls named Madeline and naughty boys named Max. The making of a kids' classic is a strange alchemy of skill -- a good story, strong illustrations -- and luck. It's not easy to appeal to three audiences: publishers, parents and -- oh, yes -- children.
With the Fug Girls wondering about the deeper truths surrounding Kanye West's constant companion, Amber Rose, it seemed high time that we take a good look at the woman. For the past two months that she's been gallivanting with her man at the shows, she's worn plenty of outfits that nearly upstage him. From the shiny red pants at the Narciso Rodriguez party to the catsuitlike onesie she wore to the Yves Saint Laurent show, the woman is eclectic, to say the least. Click ahead to get your fill of Spandex in her parade of fashion.
The inherent irony of American Idol inviting Kanye West to perform on a show that's purportedly all about finding America's next great singer was not lost on Simon and the rest of the panel of judges, as they were nowhere to be found when Ye performed "Heartless" on the show last night. While we'll likely never know why they opted to pass on front-row seats to the Kanye show (our bet is that they were getting their Rorshach on and fiendishly trying to decide which of the contestants were ripe for further humiliation), the simple truth is that they didn't miss much of a performance. Taking the stage clad in the sort of all-denim outfit that a roots rocker might wear at Farm Aid (including, bizarrely enough, a pair of Banana Republic jeans), Kanye wasn't able to match the emotional intensity he brought to his (widely mocked) SNL performance back in December. Consequently, he was never able to establish a true connection with the in-studio audience, who seemed content to save their shrilly shrieks for Kelly Clarkson's truly mediocre performance later in the evening. In case you missed it, we've got the full performance for you after the jump. VultureWatchers, what say you?
Alexander McQueen revealed his latest crazy/genius? Fall line at Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday, and critics went coo-coo for cocaine puffs, calling McQueen -- snootily -- enfant terrible. We thought "How bad could these outfits possibly b---OH MY HOLY SH*T F*CKER GOD."
Here are The 30 Scariest Outfits You Will Ever See. (Note: Not all of the outfits are hideous.)
30. The "Dead Swan Lake"
29. The "Leave Your Message At The Beep"
28.The "Katrina, Our Chef, Is Really Cooking In Her Scarf, and She's Whipping Up Excitement In Her Boots. Thank you Katrina. THANK YOU KATRINA."
27. The "Slimming"
26. The "Why So Glum, Lampshade Head Lady?"
25. The "Pole Position"
24. The "I Mourn Lucy"
23. The "Don't Mind If I Don't"
22. The "Sunday Brunch in Hell"
21. The "Leftover Mermaid"
20. The "Amish Fantasy"
19. The "I Might Wear This When It's Raining in Hades"
18. The "I've Got a Toof Ache"
17. The "Bordello's Lightbulb"
16. The "Thin Albert"
15. The "Cell"
14. The "I'm Still Big. It's the S&M Clubs That Got Smaller"
13. The "Let's Kill The Indians"
12. The "Tim Burton Already Did It"
11. The "Annie Hall"
10. The "Perfect Outfit For Meeting His Parents... Assuming His Parents Are Ravens."
9. The "I Don't See What You Did There"
8. The "Umbrella, Three Dollar, Three Dollar"
7. The "This Old Thing?"
6. The "Somewhere, 8 Horses Died For This"
5. The "Girl Next Door (To The Dead Whore Club)"
4. The "Next Slide"
3. The "I Just Came Back From Vacation"
2. The "It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing and there's this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. And this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. And that's the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and... this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video's a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember... and I need to remember... Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in."
1. The "Do You Take Credit?"
(With thanks to Intern Erin for her help!) Source: Best Week Ever | 12 Mar 2009 | 6:58 pm
Front Page: Ex-Nasdaq chairman 'sorry' for Ponzi scheme -- Saying he was "deeply sorry and ashamed," Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty Thursday to pulling off perhaps the biggest swindle in Wall Street history and was immediately led off to jail in handcuffs to the delight of his seething victims.
For the next three months as he awaits his June sentencing, Bernie Madoff will live in the fabulous Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan. How does it compare with the $7 million penthouse he's been holed up in for the past few months? It's worse! To set the mood: In 2005, an attorney for crime boss "Vinny Gorgeous" complained that the conditions inside were "inhuman" and "subhuman." In a similar vein, the defense attorney for convicted terrorist Wadih el-Hage called the jail "bleak" and "horrendous." So, yeah, this will take some adjusting. Especially since, in addition to coping with his new confines, Madoff will have a hard time making friends. "All the guys there will have wives or parents who are losing their homes or their jobs or who can’t send money to them anymore," prison inmate turned inmate adviser Larry Levine told Bloomberg. "Everybody’s going to be blaming Bernie." Maybe they'll ease up when Madoff tells them how he can get them double the return on each cigarette they invest with him.
Marvel has announced a release date for the fourth Spider-Man movie, but sadly, not enough time has passed since the last installment to make me forget that I have absolutely no interest in ever seeing another Spider-Man movie.
But if you're a fan of being underwhelmed, mark your calendars for May 6th, 2011:
At the tender age of 15, Johanna Jonsson debuted at Jil Sander's fall 2006 show as an exclusive. A season later, Calvin Klein put the stunner from Sweden on exclusive. The Daria Werbowy look-alike then bagged the Jil Sander spring 2007 campaign, booked the December 2006 cover of Italian Flair, and worked with Mario Testino for the fall 2007 D&G campagin. Jonsson even signed a lucrative fragrance contract with Marc Jacobs's Daisy. Then, at the height of her rising-star status, she decided to take a hiatus from modeling, indefinitely. Well folks, after a year, she's back with a bang, walking the Chanel show just yesterday. Surely, this is just the beginning of another booking avalanche for her.
Yesterday, at the show for his namesake line in Paris, John Galliano stepped out with white hair that curled at the sides in a fashion popularized by George Washington in the late 1700s. Whereas George powdered his hair, Galliano's looks to have been painted white or covered in Wite-Out. Always looking forward and taking risks, that Galliano — no wonder critics love him! It's the same style he showed in his fall 2009 menswear show, except while those models appeared to be wearing wigs, we have a sneaking suspicion this is Galliano's real hair. Before the New Year he tended to wear it down, cascading over his shoulder in silky blond ribbons. So what brought on his new penchant for updos? In the winter? If Michelle Obama's bare arms symbolize America's can-do spirit, John Galliano's hair symbolizes his industry's ability to defy the global economic crisis like Washington defied the trends of his time by wearing his real hair instead of a wig. Or maybe he is sick of us all obsessing over MObama and is trying to call attention to this nation's original Capitol Hill fashion innovator.
Reuters - Sotheby's will sell the contents of late Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace's weekend villa by Lake Como later this month, and expects to raise two to three million pounds ($2.8-4.1 million). Source: Yahoo! News: Fashion News | 12 Mar 2009 | 5:52 pm
Actor slamms the National Enquirer and other media outlets for reporting 'inaccurate' details about him nearing 'the end' of his battle with cancer Source: FOXNews.com | 12 Mar 2009 | 5:43 pm
I was recently involved in an argument about crappy cartoon show theme songs (it's a long story...well, it's a short story: my friends and I are useful people) that ended with me pleading "no one remembers Samurai Pizza Cats? Early 90s? Unwatchable but we watched it anyway, like every cartoon? Confuses the hell out of you when you sleep over your friend Jack's house and he wakes up every morning to this theme song playing on his tv alarm?"
Well, after two seconds of Googling, the theme song is stuck in my head again. Click below if you wish for the same fate:
After the jump, three additional observations about SPC (what the cool kids called it back in the day!) (Ed. Note - No one has ever called it this.)
1) Has there ever been a ballsier rip-off of a phenomenon than this cartoon coming out after Ninja Turtles? "What do the kids like? They like animals, so let's make the turtles into cats. They like ninjas, so let's make them "samurai." And they like pizza, so let's continue to include pizza and throw it in the title. BINGO! Hello hit kids' show, even though the kids who watched Turtles in the U.S. are like seventeen now!"
2) How was this level of animation ever deemed acceptable by anyone's standards? It's like, one crayon drawing every three seconds, it baaaaaarely fits even the loosest definition of what actually constitutes "animation." Someone could've filmed themselves manually turning pages in a picture book and it would've been less jerky and easier to watch than this show.
3) Why is the theme song a minute and a half long? "We just have too much information we need to convey to the kids before this show about cats who run a pizza place and also are ninjas begins - better make it ninety seconds. What do you mean, 'can we trim it to sixty?' You lose ONE SECOND off that song and I f***ing WALK." Source: Best Week Ever | 12 Mar 2009 | 5:00 pm
My Bloody Valentine, the eardrum-pounding, feedback-sculpting quartet fronted by elusive guitar hero Kevin Shields, has added a handful of U.S. live dates to coincide with its Coachella festival appearance in April. The band will play in Austin, Dallas, Denver, and Seattle in the week following its April 19 headlining slot in Indio, Calif.
While millions of men would give anything to take a bath with Keira Knightly, her co-star Sienna Miller says it was hardly a sexy experience Source: FOXNews.com | 12 Mar 2009 | 4:50 pm
Adam Lambert stole the show on Tuesday night when he wowed the audience with a flamboyant performance of Michael Jacksons 'Black or White' Source: FOXNews.com | 12 Mar 2009 | 3:11 pm
AP - Art and furniture from fashion designer Gianni Versace's opulent Italian villa are to be auctioned in London next week. Source: Yahoo! News: Fashion News | 12 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm
Jack White has formed a new group called The Dead Weather with The Kills frontwoman Alison Mosshart. White takes drum and vocal duties, while The Raconteurs bassist Jack Lawrence and Queens of the Stoneage guitarist Dean Fertita round the four piece out.
While Flo Rida's "Right Round" (featuring Ke$ha) retains the top slot on the Billboard Hot 100 for a fourth week in a row, Miley Cyrus is the big chart news this week, as her single "The Climb" crashes in at No. 6 in its debut week.
R.E.M. made a surprise appearance last night (March 11) at Carnegie Hall. The band was being honored with a tribute show that boasted 20 different performers interpreting R.E.M.’s vast catalog.
Phoenix came out on stage before 2 a.m., smoking a cigarette and wearing a disheveled dark suit, sneakers and his scraggly long hair and beard Source: FOXNews.com | 12 Mar 2009 | 12:55 pm
Five new shows have been added to Michael Jackson's London run, bringing the total to 50, according to Randy Phillips, CEO of AEG Live, promoter of the shows.
Howard K. Stern won't be shaking the Anna Nicole Smith association anytime soon.
Along with two doctors who wrote prescriptions for Smith, Stern was charged Thursday with...
Jim Cramer sure got his assets handed to him tonight.
On Thursday, in an extremely hyped culmination of a week's worth of finger-pointing, insult-exchanging and lamentation over the...
George Clooney scrubbed in to ER one last time.
Returning as stubbornly studly Doug Ross, Clooney slipped right back into character by gently persuading a grief-stricken Susan...
Whoa. Mucho story progress on tonight's installment of Grey's Anatomy. Check out a sneak peek above of next week's episode (wherein Izzie and the robot fight for the future...), and...
Michael Phelps must have known, as he waded through the fallout from his too-candid camera moment, that he'd have to dive into a prime-time interview at some point.
In a poolside...
Years after battling it out for Michael Vartan's devotion in Monster-in-Law, Jennifer Lopez and Jane Fonda find themselves on the same side of a contentious coin.
A North Carolina...
• Fergie has new hair, which isn't nearly as exciting as Katie Holmes' extensions. And speaking of Katie, new pictures today reveal she was wearing stirrup leggings with her...
