After men wielding sledgehammers and metal rods recently destroyed the shanty home in Mumbai that he and his family were living in, Slumdog Millionaire star Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail has found himself a new place to hang his hat. Thanks to director Danny Boyle and producer Christian Colson, Ismail and his family just moved into a brand-new apartment valued at some $50,000. [HuffPo]
Until now, any attempt to read LeBron James’s intentions for 2010 have relied on subtle clues: He’d wear a Yankees hat, or maybe hint at staying home to Obama supporters, or maybe hang out with a guy wearing an I [Heart] New York shirt. But Knicks fans willing to sacrifice another losing season because of the prize that may await next summer aren’t going to like this: ESPN’s Chris Broussard reports that LeBron recently told free agent Trevor Ariza that he would be in Cleveland beyond 2010, in a failed attempt to recruit the former Laker.
Let’s stay calm and first look at the positives: Broussard’s source is an unnamed “person close to Ariza,” which is vague enough for LeBron to deny saying it without having to call someone a liar. And the source said Ariza considered it a recruiting tool, so even he doesn’t seem convinced that LeBron meant it. If James is looking for a technicality, he has a player option to extend his current contract one year through 2010-2011, in which case he wouldn’t have been lying when he answered “Of course” to the question of whether he’d be in Cleveland after next season. And of course, Ariza didn’t wind up signing with Cleveland, so perhaps that nullifies the whole thing.
If this is true, though, and LeBron really has made up his mind — well, that would be bad, not just for the Knicks’ long-term chances, but for the psyche of their fans. There are still plenty of other free agents available next summer — Chris Bosh, Joe Johnson, Steve Nash, Dwyane Wade (maybe) — but LeBron was going to be the savior that instantly turned the Knicks into contenders. Sure, he may not have decided to come here next year anyway, and there’s obviously no guarantee he could turn them into winners, but at least we could hope those things would happen. And pinning that hope on Chris Bosh just doesn’t feel the same.
Could Andy get any better? More lovable, irreverent, funnier? He has had the best lines and plots as he’s fallen for Nancy — which is sort of perverse and inexplicable, but actually quite heartwarming — and doggedly looked out for her when nobody else will. He’s been expressing his vulnerabilities and answering the phone, even when it’s meant missing out on a little lovin’. It’s like we’re watching Uncle Andy grow into just plain Andy. Which is why the end of this episode is so exasperating and heart-wrenching.
Now, Nancy: For all those viewers who have been lamenting the loss of our pretty domestic goddess, she’s back, thanks to our appetite for chubby babies. (Even “a Mexican baby,” per Celia.) She’s wearing those floppy feminine tanks while potting fragrant, nutritious plants, hanging vintage-chic mobiles, and disciplining her errant, drug-dealing, gun-wielding nihilist of a son, Shane.
Meanwhile, Doug and Silas are setting up their medical marijuana business. Silas is getting serious, trying to sort out his life — he’s switched roles with Shane, who has a stellar moment robbing his “titanic loser of a teacher who jacked the wrong kid” — and Doug is painting a self portrait for his “blue balls period.” The two erupt into a glorious fury of name-calling — “man boobs,” “bad Dad,” “girlfriend deporter,” says Silas before punching Doug in the mouth and then hugging him softly. Doug: “Sorry, sometimes I think I’m retarded in the mouth.” As we watch Shane devolve and Andy evolve, we see Silas and Doug play out their father-and-son issues. It’s touching and hilarious and refreshing to see these characters actually moving somewhere.
Celia, who is squatting in Nancy’s garage, ends the episode hurling abuse the likes of which we haven’t seen for an entire season — through the cancer and the coke habit and the getting kidnapped, tied up, and abandoned by her daughter, we've almost felt bad for her. But she’s back, too, blackmailing Nancy with photos of the dead body that she just saw sealed into a barrel of acid. “I’m staying in your garage for however long I want!”
It’s the usual battle between good and evil, between slugs and flowers (Nancy’s plants died), between a selfish pregnant women and a downtrodden bitch, between a loser teacher and a guileless goon. “Why is fucking Armageddon always coming on me?” asks Nancy. And here’s where Uncle Andy shows his wholesome colors: “You do it, you do know that. You have to know that it’s all you,” he says.
But he has a plan: No need to abort the chubby Mexican baby. Here’s where his well-intentioned but less-than-wholesome brilliance comes in: He mans up — or down, depending on how you see it — combing his hair, donning a cardigan, and screwing his dead brother’s overly imaginative, ridiculously nostalgic ex-girlfriend all for the 100-plus-thousand dollars that has been left in his bro’s name. All … for Nancy. Who left a note on her pillow for Andy and packed herself and Shane off to go live with the Mexican mafia father of her baby. And Andy says: “These are dark waters you’re swimming in, even for you, Nancy.”
• The final tulle gowns at the Christian Dior Couture show yesterday required two ushers to help the models get through the door. (See a complete slideshow of the collection here.) [Fashionologie]
• Many retail chains are stocking 15 percent less inventory. [WWD]
• Designer Anand Jon will not be granted a new trial in Los Angeles even though one of the jurors reportedly hit on the designer's sister. Jon was convicted of rape and will be sentenced next month. [NYP]
With his first-ever narrative screenplay, for last year's The Wrestler, former Onion editor Robert D. Siegel showed us the tragic, improbable beauty behind Mickey Rourke's lumpy, disfigured face — but can he work similar magic with a more traditionally handsome star, like Patton Oswalt? Signs point to yes! Witness the trailer for Big Fan, Siegel's directorial debut — about a creepily obsessive New York Giants supporter so devoted that he declines to press charges after the team's star linebacker brutally assaults him — which scored strong reviews at Sundance this year for Siegel and Oswalt, whose previous filmography would not strongly indicate an ability to portray Travis Bickle (Manohla Dargis called him "terrific and fearless"). Yes, this certainly looks darker than his role in Ratatouille.
AP - Michael Jackson's body will be taken to the singer's star-studded memorial in downtown Los Angeles, adding to the spectacle that promises to be among the biggest celebrity sendoffs of all time.
AP - Michael Jackson's body will be taken to the singer's star-studded memorial in downtown Los Angeles, adding to the spectacle that promises to be among the biggest celebrity sendoffs of all time.
AP - Michael Jackson's body will be taken to the singer's star-studded memorial in downtown Los Angeles, adding to the spectacle that promises to be among the biggest celebrity sendoffs of all time.
The rise of President Obama as the first black president has ushered in an uncomfortable era for the nation's casual racists. While the urge to entertain friends and colleagues with historical stereotypes and hurtful prejudices has clearly become irresistible, what happens when that desire conflicts with one's duties as a GOP office-holder, strategist, or activist? When is it appropriate to compare President Obama to a monkey, or make a quip about his presumed love of watermelons, for example? The quandary is only heightened by our new age of social media, in which private jokes can easily become public. As they continue to navigate this moral gray area, most Republican Party members are erring on the side of ... erring — making or endorsing racially tinged or outright offensive jokes via e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, and old-fashioned paper, then awkwardly apologizing once they've made an ass of themselves. The latest example involved Young Republican vice-chairman Audra Shays, who posted an approving comment after a friend's dubious joke on her Facebook page last week, but it's a cycle that's steadily repeated itself since Obama emerged in last year's campaign.
For next autumn-winter, it will be "close-fitting silhouettes, sexy but gentle, with something going on at the back, bare shoulders under scarves which highlight them, black tone-on-tone embroidery... the classic repertory of the house, what is left, the hard disk."
Badges that read "Christian Lacroix Forever" are being handed out at the show. We couldn't agree more.
We've all heard stories of some of the skeevier things that actors and actresses have to do in order to land roles in major (and even minor) motion pictures, but this one might take the cake for sheer hilariousness. According to Jason Solomons of the Guardian, when Megan Fox initially met with Michael Bay to discuss her role in the first Transformers pic, he asked her to wash his Ferrari. And then he filmed it! Sadly, the footage of said screen test seems to have been permanently misplaced. [Page Six/NYP]
For his 10 p.m. talk show this fall, Jay Leno's new stage is apparently being built large enough to occasionally accommodate pieces from the host's massive collection of classic cars. NBC thinks this will make his show "the place" to advertise automobiles on TV. Before you start laughing, The Hollywood Reporter notes that such a strategy worked in the fifties — just like the concept of advertising on television! [THR]
List of Staples Center celebrity attendees grows, but performers have not been confirmed.By James Montgomery Justin Timberlake Photo: Chris Jackson/ Getty Images With just hours to go before... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 7 Jul 2009 | 2:19 pm
Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton says Michael Jackson's casket will be taken to the downtown Staples Center for the singer's star-studded memorial service. The addition of the... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 7 Jul 2009 | 2:15 pm
The Michael Jackson memorial service at the Staples Center on Tuesday will be a star-studded affair, with singers Mariah Carey, Usher and Stevie Wonder among the participants, according to an announcement released on behalf of the Jackson family.
Well Done:Zach Galifianakis’s name is being kicked around in connection with three movies: Due Date, about a slacker who hits the road with an uptight businessman, and Say Uncle, both from Todd Philips, and Man-Witch, which had Jack Black attached at one point, about a man who discovers he has supernatural powers and subsequently attends an all-girls witch school. There is no attachment from Galifianakis, but the movies are currently floating around Hollywood with his name in order to attract other cast-members. Ladies and gentleman, Zach Galifianakis is on the A-list. [HR]
Remake-a-thon: It won’t ever, ever stop: Baywatch, originally purchased by DreamWorks in 2005, is back on the big-screen track at Paramount. Jeremy Garelick, who most recently did an uncredited rewrite of The Hangover, has been brought onboard; he’s shaping it up as a broad comedy in the vein of Police Academy, with the plot centering on two regular Joe lifeguard candidates trying to make it alongside all the sexy vets. That, surprisingly, does not sound terrible. But, for the record, if they remake Pacific Blue, we’re quitting life. [Variety]
Stuck in the Middle: In more-heartening adaptation news: HBO is producing a one-hour drama based on Jeffrey Eugenides's Pulitzer Prize–winning novel Middlesex, which centers on the family history and complicated identity of Calliope Stephanides. Donald Margulies, who will write the adaptation, has a Pulitzer of his own, for his 2000 play Dinner with Friends. Rita Wilson, who will executive produce, does not have a Pulitzer, but can boast of the next best thing: a crucial supporting role in Runaway Bride. [Variety]
Beauty and...:Peter Krause has joined the cast of Beastly as the materialistic father of a popular teen (Alex Pettyfer) who plays a cruel joke on a secret-witch classmate (Mary-Kate Olsen) and is then transformed into a monster of some kind. Krause, a veteran television actor, will surely get the respect he so richly deserves when he shares the screen with an Olsen twin. [Variety]
Mackie on Stage:Anthony Mackie has joined The Bacchae, the Shakespeare in the Park production that will follow Anne Hathaway’s Twelfth Night. Mackie will play Pentheus, the king punished for his refusal to worship Dionysus. Seeing as Dionysus is pretty much the god of partying, it sounds like Pentheus is totally the king of Bummertown. [Variety]
All Alone:Beau Bridges has joined the indie thriller Columbus Circle. The movie stars Selma Blair as a reclusive heiress who hasn’t left her fancy Manhattan apartment in nearly twenty years; her world is shaken up when a detective (Giovanni Ribisi) comes to investigate a homicide next door and a couple (Jason Lee and Amy Smart) move in. Bridges plays Dr. Raymond Fontaine, one of the few people Blair’s character communicates with. [HR]
This morning in the Anchorage Daily News, Sarah Palin reiterated her explanation that "paralyzing" and "expensive" ethics charges were behind her decision to step down as governor of Alaska. "I'm not going to let Alaskans go through a year of stymied, paralyzed administration and not getting anything done," she said. "I'm going to let [Lieutenant Governor] Sean Parnell take this and we will see that things will let up," she said (wearing a Cabela's fishing bib as she stood on a Bristol Bay beach, on a family fishing trip). The evidence seems to bear out her logic: Just yesterday she was hit with another ethics charge from a fellow Wasilla resident — her sixteenth. The complainant claims that Palin has given herself an illegal raise by working from home in Wasilla and accepting per diem travel payments — even though she's been within a 50-mile range of her Anchorage office. It sounds like the kind of low-key expense fuss that state politicians often face, but resolving it will cost the governor's office time and money.
Summer outerwear can be tricky, with the heat and humidity making most jackets too heavy or bulky. But Madewell's Workwear Blazer is the perfect seasonal fix. Made from cotton and linen, this navy-blue striped piece is light enough for even the stickiest of days. The jacket is fitted throughout the body, but the sleeves are loose enough to roll or push up, and the patch front pockets are a great for stashing keys, lipstick, and cash. Best of all, the slightly shrunken waist adds the perfect tailored touch to a summer dress.
$145 at Madewell, 486 Broadway, nr. Broome St.; 212-226-6954 or Madewell.com.
Now You Can Shop for Ingredients and Create Your Own Dishes With the Infamous Kitchen Matriarch EDISON, N.J., July 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Fresh from the harvest in... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 7 Jul 2009 | 2:00 pm
Fans in Asia planned to stay up into the wee hours, bars across Europe were holding Michael Jackson theme nights and television stations from Sydney to Paris were clearing their schedules... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 7 Jul 2009 | 1:58 pm
Fashion Wire Daily - It's perhaps not the greatest compliment one can give John Galliano but it's a revealing one  models probably love to wear his creations more than any other designer, as they did with pride and passion in the Christian Dior haute couture show on Monday, July 6, in Paris.
It's been a very rough month for Glenn O'Brien, the former editorial director of Interviewwho was ousted from the mag in early June and slapped with a lawsuit shortly thereafter. He is, however, still alive. You're excused, though, if you may have thought otherwise given it's O'Brien's photo that accompanies an obituary of former Beatles manager Allen Klein on the Hollywood news site, The Wrap. (It looks like a Google image search led the site to this story, although neither of the two men in the photo happens to be the deceased.) Oh, new media! [The Wrap]
Michael Jackson fans who were unable to secure tickets to his memorial service may still be able to watch the event live at their local movie theater. Source: FOXNews.com | 7 Jul 2009 | 12:49 pm
AP - "Slumdog Millionaire" child star Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail and his mother moved into their new home Tuesday, leaving behind a corrugated metal slum shanty for four solid walls, doors that lock and an indoor toilet.
(From left) British actors Oliver Phelps, Bonnie Wright, James Phelps and Tom Felton pose during a photocall in Paris to promote the release of the movie "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince". The stars... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 7 Jul 2009 | 12:11 pm
A Chinese girl reads a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at a bookstore in Beijing, 2005.The stars of the sixth Harry Potter film were set to walk up the red carpet in London for the world... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 7 Jul 2009 | 12:11 pm
Actor Daniel Radcliffe receives a portrait on the wall of fame at Tony's di Napoli in New York City, February 2009. The stars of the sixth Harry Potter film were set to walk up the red carpet in London... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 7 Jul 2009 | 12:11 pm
AP - Paula Abdul says she has been invited to remain as an "American Idol" judge and that she's optimistic that she'll be able to negotiate a new contract.
Some of Michael Jackson's family members apparently wanted to say their goodbyes under the moonlight.
Less than 12 hours before Tuesday's funeral service and blow-out memorial...
Reuters - About 400 years on, Shakespeare comes to this: high school antics drawn with intermittent charm -- in crayon. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment Reviews | 7 Jul 2009 | 4:33 am
Reuters - From "Project UFO" in the 1970s to "The X-Files" in the 1990s to Fox's "Fringe" today, matching government agencies and mysterious objects/events of magical/alien origin has become a subgenre all to itself. That's because it's really screwball comedy: Opposites attract, cause sparks, repel and hopefully make ratings and audiences jump. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment Reviews | 7 Jul 2009 | 4:32 am
Reuters - There's a word used in Hindi films to mimic the sound of blows during a particularly ludicrous action scene: Dishoom! -- as in: "Biff! Pow!" The madcap "Kambakkht Ishq" has plenty of dishoom. It's also entirely lacking in wit. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment Reviews | 7 Jul 2009 | 3:36 am
• In the market for a $40,000 dress? Better jump on a plane to Paris. Haute Couture Week kicked off today. [AP, Vogue UK, Independent, FWD] • The situation at Christian Lacroix, which filed for bankruptcy a few weeks back, is getting bleaker by the day: The company may be reduced from 124 employees to 12 if a buyer doesn't materialize soon. [WWD, Cut] • The JCPenney at the Manhattan Mall opens in a mere 25 days. Don't forget to update your cousins in Omaha so they can mark their calendars. [Racked] • Roberto Cavalli claims he never pays attention to costs ("I don't know anything about the financial crisis"), thinks Dubai is "a city for the future," and says all he really wants is to be loved. So, yes, he's human. [Times UK] • Elle's Joe Zee is now tweeting, just so you know. [Twitter]
• Tara Subkoff has been diagnosed with a benign brain tumor. Jeffrey Deitch will host a silent auction to raise money for the cause on July 15. [Cut] • Anna Wintour attended a recent performance of Twelfth Night with Hugh Jackman and says they're working on a (mystery) project together. [NYDN] • The Wall Street Journal explores skinny jeans for men today. [WSJ] • Marion Cotillard will appear in new Dior ads, shot by Annie Leibovitz. [WWD] • Lady Gaga cleans up nicely for her new spread in V, no? [Pipeline]
How much is the Michael Jackson memorial event going to cost people in taxes?
—Michaela, Sylmar
Most of the obedient serfs close to the memorial aren't saying how much...
Melvin Price registered for the Michael Jackson memorial ticket lottery in England on Friday and jumped on a flight to the United States over the weekend.
Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan (pictured) makes his debut as a producer this month, marking a growing trend for stars in India's Hindi-language film industry to get more involved behind the camera. Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 7 Jul 2009 | 2:29 am
Comic actor Arshad Warsi (pictured) is working on his own project after failing to secure mainstream backing. Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 7 Jul 2009 | 2:29 am
Anil Kapoor (pictured), recently seen as the quizmaster in the Oscar-winning film "Slumdog Millionaire", has produced "Short Kut: The Con is On" through his company Anil Kapoor Films. Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 7 Jul 2009 | 2:29 am
Kareena Kapoor (pictured) is said to be negotiating to buy the rights of a French film she plans to produce. Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 7 Jul 2009 | 2:29 am
Front Page: Thesp joins Olsen, Pettyfer, Hudgens in 'Beauty' -- Peter Krause has joined Mary-Kate Olsen, Alex Pettyfer and Vanessa Hudgens in "Beastly," the CBS Films adaptation of the Alex Flinn fantasy novel. Shooting is under way in Montreal.
Front Page: Actress will costar with Kevin Spacey in film -- Virginia Madsen will star opposite Kevin Spacey as his ex-wife in indie comedy "Father of Invention."
His friends. His family. His neighbors on the pop charts and in Hollywood. They've all had their chance to offer very public goodbyes to Michael Jackson—and now it's your...
Forget Kill Bill, how does Kill Adolf strike you? That's roughly where Quentin Tarantino's head is at as he cranks up his latest campy remake an international genre flick. Brad Pitt stars...
While the drama regarding his estate, his children and the circumstances of his death aren't likely to rest for months to come, it's time for Michael Jackson himself to rest in...
Internet travel agency Expedia.com has seen an uptick in bookings to Southern California airports as Michael Jackson fans and funeral goers flock to Los Angeles, California, for Tuesday's funeral.
Front Page: How will rating affect Warner film? -- After two recent PG-13 outings, the latest "Harry Potter" film is back to PG territory -- so is that good news for Warner Bros.?
New tracks from Whitney HoustonandAir are floating around today, but your Right-Click offering is, instead, a not-particularly-well-recorded a cappella freestyle recorded at a Jay-Z show in Vegas this past Friday. Why? Well, it’s not because the mini-verse seems to have reignited two beefs you were either utterly unaware of or utterly uninterested in. No, we’re presenting the snippet because … well … Jay sounds pretty fucking good, huh? Post–Kingdom Come, new music from Hov has fallen all over the Undulating Curve of Shifting Expectations, and the run-up to Blueprint 3 has been no exception (the highs of “Jockin’ Jay-Z,” the lows of “D.O.A.”). But now Jay has us firmly back in the psyched-for-BP3 camp, thanks mostly to this line: “As far as street guys, we was dealing crack / that’s how the game goes, I don’t owe nobody jack / grown men want me to sit ’em on my lap / but I don't have a beard and Santa Claus ain’t black.”
• A kitchen fire destroyed Anita Lo's Annisa over the weekend. [SE] • A roundup of restaurants that just opened, or will be open shortly. [Eater] • Adam Platt reviews Marea in this week's issue of New York and doesn't walk away all that impressed: "For all its impressive, even dazzling qualities, it feels less like a labor of love than like one of ambition and duty." [NYM] • A rebuttal from Josh Ozersky: "Adam Platt is out of his mind." [TFB] • The owners of the River Café have filed a $3 million lawsuit over damage they claim was caused by Olafur Eliasson's "Waterfalls" art project. [NYP] • Despite a last-minute petition, Joe Jr.'s closed its doors yesterday. [GS] • The Health Department may take away the permits of as many as 500 street food vendors after investigators found evidence of "widespread fraud." [NYP] • Joey Chestnut took top prize at the Nathan's hot-dog eating contest. [NYDN]
You know you've hit the network-television summer doldrums when you're asking questions about a series finale that won't occur for another ten months or so. But when you consider that the networks are half-assedly rolling out dreck like The Superstars and The Great American Road Trip, it's no wonder our brains have already started to obsess over the finer details of what the Smoke Monster on Lost really is. Speaking of which, at a recent BAFTA event over in England, producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse actually answered some questions about how the sixth and final season of their show is going to play out. Of course, they are far too seasoned to leak anything too secretive or too awesome, but Cuse "let slip that the mysterious ‘smoke monster’ would become 'an interesting character in and of itself.'" Hopefully this means that Smokey will get his own origin episode, complete with flashbacks, flash-forwards, and the surprise reveal that Gilbert Gottfried has been tapped to voice the previously voiceless Smokey, but that's just rampant speculation on our part. So, what else did they say?
Sadly, there wasn't much else in the way of specific plot details, as the duo preferred to keep the focus more on the feelings they're aiming to instill in their viewers. “Bittersweet comes with the territory,” Damon Lindelof said. “The ending we’re aspiring to is fair. As a viewer, whenever you have five minutes left, there’s an intense sadness.” So does that mean major characters might die off? Michael Emerson, the actor who plays Ben Linus, thinks that's a definite possibility. He recently told Michael "Raisin Bran" Ausiello that "I don't think Lost will have a happy ending. It's the end and I think we are going to start seeing more casualties. I would put money on major characters being killed. I believe it will be a sad ending to the show — or at least bittersweet. I think it will definitely be a series finale for grown-ups."
You got that, Lost obsessives? Surely you'll be able to make something out of the clues that the ending will be "bittersweet," "intensely sad," and "for grown-ups," right? Our only guess is that this means they'll be bringing back Paulo and Nikki.
Kal Penn is writing his own ticket in Washington, D.C.
The 32-year-old actor, fresh from killing himself off of House, on Monday reported for his first day as an associate director in...
E! Online - Which Grey's Anatomy castmember might be appearing less than usual on season six of the hit ABC drama? Is an original Gossip Girl pairing over for good? And when will the Stackhouse siblings finally reconnect on True Blood? We've got that scoop and much more in this week's all-new Spoiler Chat:
As if Michael Jackson's funeral in Los Angeles tomorrow did not already sound like enough of a clusterfuck, its organizers have just announced the service's starry and totally random-seeming lineup. Appearing alongside the eulogizers whose invitations sort of make sense (Stevie Wonder, Al Sharpton, Brooke Shields, Smokey Robinson, Berry Gordy, etc.) are Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson, John Mayer, and Britain's Got Talent finalist Shaheen Jafargholi. [Idolator]
Hank Greenberg is a big fat liar, and also a jerk, lawyers representing AIG said of the company's former chairman and chief executive in the last day of a trial over whether Greenberg's private company looted $4.3 billion set aside in a trust for AIG compensation. “He fabricated evidence,” lawyer Ted Wells told the jury in his closing arguments: “He lied from the witness stand. What he told you is not credible evidence. Mr. Greenberg gave you false testimony repeatedly.” He added that Greenberg displayed an “audacity of arrogance” and an attitude “that I can walk through the raindrops ... These aren’t small lies,” Wells said. “These are big lies. There’s a certain arrogance, almost as if I can say anything.” [Bloomberg]
When Daria Werbowy started modeling, she went through eight months of rejection in New York, Paris, London, and Greece. She was ready to quit, but her dad encouraged her to give it another shot, since she had hoped to raise money for art school. So she returned to New York, landed a Prada exclusive, and fervent demand for her hasn't stopped since. She pulls in an estimated $1 million from her Lancôme contract alone, which she signed in 2004. That has enabled her to scale back her schedule, which she has no complaints about. She just took three months off to sail across the Atlantic with her family. She tells the Telegraph they saw whales and dolphins and went through storms and it was amazing! Naturally the whales prompted her to think about her life in an existential way.
I'm asking more questions about life in general. It's like, "Oh my God, there's a whole world of things to learn about." So I'm just taking it easy.' She's considering studying philosophy or psychology and has also been spending a lot of time in her New York flat, painting and sculpting. 'Whether that'll ever evolve into anything I don't know. I'm still trying to search for what will be next.' Although she won't say what's in the pipeline, the work offers keep flooding in. Does she ever ask her agency to back off? 'I… they just sort of… Yeah, I tell them that a lot, actually,' she says, laughing. 'I shouldn't lie.'
Werbowy also wants kids. And when she has those kids, she wants to take them sailing "for the first three years." So might she give up her fabulous glamorous life for something more normal in the near future? We hope not, but you never know.
Rats! Damon Lindelof announced in an official Lost podcast over the weekend that Y: The Last Man graphic-novelist Brian K. Vaughan will not return as a writer and co-producer on the series next year (he's purportedly "left for greener pastures"). Vaughan joined the show midway through its disappointing third season, and was a driving force behind its awesome fourth and fifth ones. We can only hope that Vaughan will find a loophole allowing him to assume another writer's physical form and contribute to next year's finale. [/Film]
Front Page: Wimbledon, golf competitions score big -- The biggest names in tennis and golf helped deliver stellar ratings Sunday as auds wound down from the holiday weekend by taking in some nail-biter sports action.
Despite efforts to keep people from profiting from Tuesday's public memorial service for Michael Jackson, scalpers online Monday were asking as much as $9,000 per ticket to the free event.
For well over a year now the economy has been in terrible decline. Last week, unemployment in the U.S. reached 9.5 percent, surpassing analysts' expectations and causing the the vice-president to admit the administration "misread ... how bad an economy we inherited" (emphasis ours). On any given day, the world's brightest economic minds can be found harshing each other on the Internet, or issuing blistering commentary from the safety of their paper caves, prompting us, the citizenry, to pitifully ask ourselves: Wait, what the hell is going on? Who is in charge here? Who, if anyone, will lead us back from the darkness and into the light?
At last, it seems, there is such a person. A figure willing to stand up to say "Enough is enough; stop the vicious cycle of blame!"
Lydia tells Social Life magazine:
Obviously this is the worst financial crisis this country has seen since the 1930's. I think it's human nature to want to point a finger and blame someone for what has happened. But, in this case it is hard to do. Do you blame the government for relaxing lending standards and encouraging every American to own a home? Do you the banks for creating such outrageous mortgage products to take advantage of the economic environment? Do you blame the individuals and families who followed these incentives to borrow beyond their means? Is Wall Street to blame for pushing our financial system to the brink, or are regulators at fault for not reading the signals all along?
Pointing a finger can often be fruitless and ignores the human aspect of this crisis. Blame only gets you so far. People's lives have been ruined. Jobs have been lost, homes have been seized, college funds and retirements have been destroyed. I'm interested more in what can we do to fix the issues on hand.
As Vaclav Havel's famous 1990 inauguration speech, in which he declared "None of us is victim, we are all co-creators," ushered the Czech people into a new era of moral responsibility, so we hope Lydia's words, as recorded by Social Life, will inspire Americans to bloodlessly revolt against the small-minded finger-pointing our government has in fact encouraged. Call it the Lingerie Revolution.
And also?
SL: Do you have any pet peeves?
LH: People who talk with their mouth full, it's like "raised by wolves." Bad table manners are just something that I find inexcusable. In fact, bad manners, period. What ever happened to people saying "Please, Thank you, and Excuse me?"
If skinny jeans had a poster boy, it would be Zac Efron.
Once upon a time, the Cut took a male friend shopping because he desperately needed shirts that weren't plaid and short-sleeved, pants that didn't catch wind, and shoes that didn't display a logo. After a quick trip to Uniqlo, slim jeans and solid, better-fitting tops were obtained on a budget. Said friend looked 30 pounds lighter! He maintained the makeover for, oh, a week or two before going back to his baggy, patterned, logo clothes. But recently, over a year after the Uniqlo excursion, the Cut noticed something about said friend on a recent trip to a bar: He was wearing the tightest outfit he'd ever selected all on his own. His jeans were dark and they fit close to the body. A skinny-jean-phobe would have surely called them "tight." The Cut nodded in approval. Finally, we realized, average men are beginning to understand the appeal of the skinny jean, something Pete Wentz, Kanye West, Zac Efron, and Justin Timberlake understood long ago. But clothing makers are still working out the kinks, fit-wise, in man skinnies.
Doug Black has found himself in a tight squeeze more times than he cares to remember. One day, he got caught in the rain without an umbrella and was unable to run. When his colleagues sat in a circle, the 23-year-old English teacher from Portland, Ore., couldn't cross his legs. And when he tried to jaywalk, while in Beijing for work, he couldn't hop the median divider with his friends.
"I had to walk half a mile down the street on my own to use the crosswalk," he says.
His jeans were too tight. But he has no plans to buy a looser style. "Discomfort comes with the territory," he says.
But not for much longer. Recognizing the profitability of this apparel category (sales of men's jeans that cost $50 and up rose 8 percent in the year ended April 30), labels are reacting with more forgiving styles. So get ready for "four way stretch" man skinnies by True Religion. Seven for All Mankind is cutting pants with more room in the crotch and thigh. Gap is making slim-cut man denim with more fabric in the thigh and knee area. More from today's tremendous Wall Street Journal article:
Ioan Rosca says it took him three months to break in a pair of skinny jeans made by William Rast, the fashion line started by pop star Justin Timberlake. "It was a little hard to move at first," says the 19-year-old college student from Irvine, Calif. He bought the jeans a waist size bigger than he normally wears to get them to fit and says he walks a little slower in them. For his efforts, he still gets some teasing from his male friends. "They say, 'You kind of look like a chick,' " he says.
Well then! Sounds like William Rast has quite a bit of work to do.
Scores, the strip club on East 60th Street, closed its doors at the end of 2008 after running into some financial difficulty. (Its West Side location was shuttered last May after it got caught up in a prostitution sting operation.) But it's back in business and under new management. And it's in desperate need of publicity, clearly, since it just offered Heidi Pratt a job at the club.
The letter the club's general manager sent to Pratt earlier today:
Dear Mrs. Heidi Pratt,
As the nation watched you and your husband brave the jungle on "I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here" and continue to brave the ups and downs of "The Hills" and Lauren Conrad, we would like to take this time to present you with an opportunity that will allow you to be center stage-and have a lot of fun while doing so.
Allow me to introduce you to SCORES, the renowned and famous New York City based gentlemen's club, well known for being a favorite hang-out local for notorious radio personality Howard Stern, NHL player Sean Avery, Russell Crow, Owen Wilson and Madonna. A Hollywood hot-spot in New York City for such A-list celebs and couples, much like yourself. As we took note that you will be posing in Playboy soon, we thought you may be interested in dabbling in yet another adventure that will most definitely expose your softer side.
As we recently re-opened after a short hiatus, SCORES would be honored to have you dance at our club on the main stage each night for five days, upon which, we will offer you a fee of $25,000.
Best, Ed Norwick
Sadly, Heidi and Spencer have already declined the offer. Presumably that's nothing that adding an extra zero to the offer can't change, though.
Peaches Geldof: “[I]t’s obvious I’m not dressing for men. I don’t want to be sexy, I’m, like, covered in tattoos. I have piercings. I’m just grungy and weird and not what is socially accepted as being beautiful, and I think that’s cool.” [Times UK]
We've never met them, and probably never will, but we can't help but love Russian billionaire Andrei Vavilov and his actress wife, Maryana Tsaregradskaya. First they bought into the unfinished Plaza Hotel, then sued when they saw the results of the renovation. After getting countersued, they persisted in their public attack on El-Ad, the new Plaza owners, eventually getting other prominent owners to back out. Then, after settling, the couple bought into the Plaza anyway. Now, after all of that, the pair turned around and made the most expensive single-apartment purchase so far this year — in the modern, Plaza-overshadowing Time Warner Center. According to the Times yesterday, they picked up "a five-bedroom penthouse on the 78th floor of the south tower" for a whopping $37 million, the highest price scored on this island since last September. In exchange for the glamour and history of the Plaza, the Russian duo will get 8,300 square feet, fourteen-foot ceilings, and the entire glass-encased 78th floor to themselves. As they look down into the top of the Plaza, with its "attic-like" apartments and "large unattractive drainage grates," we're sure their wounds will be soothed.
A rarely seen portrait of Michael Jackson is on display inside a Harlem luxury car dealership. Macky Dancy, a partner at Dancy-Power Automotive, said the oil painting titled "The Book" is believed to be the only portrait for which Jackson sat.
Top row: Cool Reserve, Rich, Dark, Delicious, and Beyond Jealous. Bottom row: Dance All Night, Dry Martini, and For Fun
Beauty editors have been besides themselves ever since they first caught glimpse of Jin Soon Choi's six new nail-polish shades for M.A.C. Jin Soon (of the renowned Jin Soon Natural Hand & Foot Spas) created complex and fashion-forward colors — these aren't fire-engine red or a nice neutral beige. For Doo.Ri's fall 2009 show, models wore Jin Soon's Beyond Jealous, a blackened blue-green that makes fingertips look like pieces of licorice. Dry Martini is a perfect fatigue green, while Cool Reserve is a chalky, dirty gray-lavender. The colors are incredibly rich, the polish goes on thick, and seems to last forever (our mani lasted for almost two weeks). The colors hit stores August 27, but we anticipate a waiting list and a quick sellout.
• All the crazy fanggirls attacking Robert Pattinson in New York City are scaring him back to London and ruining the fun for everyone.
• This would be the red-band...
REUNITED: Onetime real-life 90210 couple Kellan Lutz and Annalynne McCord, celebrating the hunkster's cover of Social Life magazine at a Hamptons party with Real Housewives of New York City...
Clearly, this singer's not afraid to show some skin!
When she hit Vegas during the Fourth of July weekend, she must have forgotten to pack a bra.
Instead, she wore some...
It seems 30 chimpanzees at the Chester Zoo in England escaped their enclosure and found their way in to the kitchen yesterday. We can only hope that in the coming days some footage of this is released, because… damnit, if 30 monkeys performed a daring jailbreak and went (yes, I’m going there) bananas in a kitchen and we don’t get to see it, there is no justice.
Just listen to the zookeepers description:
Mr McGregor-Reid said: “Somehow or other they got into the kitchen – it must have been the smell of the bananas or something like that.”
“It was a bit like an old-fashioned chimps tea party… they’ve certainly had a ball in that room that’s for sure.”
The zoo director said chimpanzees got through “lots of food” during their sojourn to the preparation area.
I’ll settle for some old-timey black and white footage of monkeys baking cakes, because that’s what I picture it looking like anyway.
Coco Rocha clearly gets some of her fun personality from her dad. The model posted a video on her blog that features her doing a lip-synching duet with her father, Trevor Haines, to a tune from the Jungle Book. They share the same nose squints, jazz hands, and sense of humor. And after Papa Coco does the running man followed by an imitation of a monkey, you're bound to crack a smile. Our family videos are never this adorable.
Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison last week. Exactly where he'll spend the remaining years of his life, however, has yet to be decided. It will be up to the Bureau of Prisons to pick out an appropriate facility for the fraudster. But Madoff is still hoping to have a bit of a say as to where he ends up and even hired a prison "consultant" by the name of Herb Hoelter to help him find just the right place.
Hoelter, whose previous clients include Ivan Boesky and Mike Milken, says that while Madoff's first choice, Otisville Correctional Institute, was rejected by the judge, and he doesn't qualify for a cushy Club Fed facility that other white-collar criminals have been sent to in the past, he's hoping Madoff does not have to spend the rest of his life at the "Supermax" prison in Florence, Colorado, which is reserved for the worst of the worst. But as long as he doesn't get sent to the Supermax, Hoelter reports that almost any other institution will be a step up from his current home, the Manhattan Correctional Facility:
"Anywhere he goes is likely to be better than where he is now, unless they throw him into the Supermax... He will be able to get exercise. He will be able to do something that makes him productive. He may be able to tutor other inmates."
So if you were hoping that Bernie would get to spend his remaining days sharing his tips and tricks with a younger generation of incorrigible con men, you'll be pleased to know it still remains a distinct possibility.
Bloomberg magazine spent over 5,000 words making us kind of like Gerry Pasciucco, the former Morgan Stanley vice-president currently in charge of winding down AIG's financial-products unit, but then comes this: "He said goodbye to his wife at their Georgian-style home in Greenwich, Connecticut, and drove his black Porsche Cayenne along the winding Merritt Parkway for the 15-minute commute." [Bloomberg]
[Twelve Hollywood Executives are sitting at a long, rectangular table in a giant, ornate boardroom. The room is totally silent; only the faint noise of a ticking clock can be heard. Finally, after four hours of silence, one executive speaks up.]
Executive: THE A-TEAM!
Head of Table: Already in production.
[Two hours of silence]
Executive 2: Transformers?
Head of Table: …
[Night Falls. Executives sleep in their chairs. Sun comes up. Full day of silence. Cycle repeats for two more days. Finally, another executive speaks up.]
Executive: T.J. Hooker?
[Hushed Silence]
Head of Table: Gentlemen, we’ve done it again. Start shooting on the T.J. Hooker remake immediately.
[This Song begins to play - not from speakers or any recording devices, it just happens. Confetti, champagne bottles, confetti covered with champagne, and champagne bottles filled with confetti come pouring out of the ceiling. Everyone at the table is promoted. The following Monday, the process resumes.]
Man, she was so well dressed before all those politics of personal destruction.
In Friday's press conference announcing that she'd step down as governor a year before her term ended, Sarah Palin made a point to mention the ethics charges that bogged her down in office. Fifteen probes took up her time, her money (she's $500,000 in the hole in legal fees), and $2 million in taxpayer resources. "We've won!" she crowed, going on to lament the cost of her victories. "That's money not going to fund teachers or troopers — or safer roads. And this political absurdity, the 'politics of personal destruction' ... It's pretty insane — my staff and I spend most of our day dealing with this instead of progressing our state now." It's a fair point — some of the ethics charges were dubious at best (our favorite is the "job interference" claim filed by "Edna Birch," who is not a resident of Alaska but in fact "a busybody character on the British soap opera Emmerdale"). The AP has a comprehensive list of the charges, and they really run the gamut. All but one of them — ironically, a charge that she inappropriately sought gains in order to pay her legal bills — have been dismissed.
Palin listed a number of explanations for why she decided to quit. But her lieutenant governor, Sean Parnell, told Fox News yesterday that the time and expense of the ethics charges was the most compelling reason he could detect. The charges have clearly been on Palin's mind. She's never been one to let attacks roll off her back. From the start of her vice-presidential campaign, she directed staffers to devote time and energy to quashing untrue or extraneous blog rumors. This weekend, she directed her lawyers to preemptively block stories about a federal investigation that wasn't even happening. And frequently in between, she's peppered the "mainstream media elite" and "liberal blogosphere" and those old "politics of personal destruction."
For the past three days, the Internet has been awash with theories of why Palin has stepped down, and in all likelihood the real reason is a combination of many things. Whether you like it or not, of course it would be miserable to be Alaska governor Sarah Palin, constantly exposed to scrutiny and attacks of the legitimate and illegitimate sorts. But if those ethics charges were really a key element to her stepping down, what's the takeaway? That the very politics of personal destruction she has so often railed against are, in fact, a very effective way of toppling your enemies? That making up unprovable accusations is a quick, inexpensive, and easy way to push aside a politician you don't like? Forget 2012 — that's just a bad lesson for us all.
Authorities in Italy are trying to crack down on the 'Ndrangheta, Italy's largest organized crime unit, based in Calabria. According to the Telegraph, the 'Ndrangheta is infiltrating Milan to an alarming degree, "flooding the streets with cocaine, muscling in on public works contracts, and investing some of the proceeds in the city's famous fashion business." Fashion and cocaine? They don't say. The group is thought to supply Europe with 80 percent of its cocaine supply. Up to 10 percent of Milan residents are cocaine users, while consumption of the drug has risen 40 percent in the last ten years. The Telegraph reports:
The cocaine habits of the fashion world, of course, go back considerably longer than that. But Mr Nobili told The Sunday Telegraph that more direct links between the fashion industry and the Calabrian mobsters were emerging.
"I'm not going to name names at the moments, but we're looking some people in the fashion world," he said, noting how some prominent fashion figures appeared to have been able to afford luxury new palazzi despite the recession.
"What they (the Calabria) do is make their money illegally, then invest it in legitimate business."
And we thought weed was the new cocaine. What were we thinking? Weed is the new acetaminophen.
Mayor Bloomberg's new campaign commercial features him chatting up a bunch of cops next to a squad car. The problem? The uniforms and police car identify them as officers from the 27th Precinct, which doesn't exist in real life, but happens to be the fictional precinct depicted on Law & Order. Naturally, Bloomberg's primary challenger, Bill Thompson, is using the incident to score political points. Per a spokesman: "The make-believe police precinct in Bloomberg's ad fits perfectly with his five-borough plan and policies... All fantasies." Of course, Thompson is still clinging to the fantasy he actually has a shot at unseating Bloomberg, so it looks like everyone concerned is living in a fantasyland of some sort. [NYDN]
AP - They may call it the Stratford Shakespeare Festival but it is one of the Bard's contemporaries Ben Jonson who gets the most unexpected and satisfying showcase during the first half of the renown repertory theater's 2009 season.
Front Page: Judge gives charge to attorney, family friend -- From the Jackson family's perspective, it must have been a major disappointment Monday when the judge gave control of Michael Jackson's estate to attorney John Branca and music exec John McClain.
The trailer for Megan Fox’s new horror film Jennifer’s Body has hit the internet, and as mentioned, it is “From the mind of Diablo Cody.” For some people, that phrase alone is frightening enough to keep them away from this film, but I say the Juno writer should go ahead and start clearing space on her mantle for another Oscar… not for Best Screenplay, though. The Academy is changing the rules again. Any movie with Megan Fox automatically gets a trophy this year.
(WARNING! This trailer features some coarse language and adult situations.)
People wait on line at the Michael Jackson Memorial Service ticket pick-up area held at a parking lot at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, California. The Jackson memorial service is to be held at the Staples... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 6 Jul 2009 | 7:58 pm
Donte Zierway, of New York, shows his wrist band and tickets to members of the media near the Michael Jackson Memorial Service ticket pick-up area held at a parking lot at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 6 Jul 2009 | 7:58 pm
A man holds two tickets at the Michael Jackson Memorial Service ticket pick-up area held at a parking lot at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Out of 1.6 million people who took part in an online auction,... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 6 Jul 2009 | 7:58 pm
In case you missed it, the ghost of Michael Jacksonappeared at the Neverland Ranch during a Larry King segment on CNN this weekend:
However, a handful of bold Youtube commenters are skeptical, arguing — get this — that the video above is not, in fact, an actual live video of Michael Jackson’s ghost. Here’s a random sampling of these outrageous, nonbelieving Youtube comments:
Whatttt??? Fake??? Did you not see the ghost of Michael Jackson in that red box??? How else can you explain that?
I guess we will never truly know if this was, in fact, live video of the ghost of Michael Jackson.
As thousands gathered in Los Angeles to say goodbye to a star who had been entertaining since he was a little boy, it was hard not to notice the children in the crowd.
• It looks like Vogue is finally taking note of the recession. The July issue features a $40 Gap hat and $50 pair of J. Crew shorts. Ouch. [NYT] • The Transformers sequel topped the box office once again this week, raking in $42.4 million to edge out Fox's 3D movie Ice Age by a smidge. [THR] • Some retailers have been covering up the new issue of GQ featuring a semi-nude Sacha Baron Cohen. Not that GQ minds the "controversy." [NYT] • Casey Kasem counted down the hits for the last time this weekend. [ABC]
• Sarah Palin's lawyers have threatened to sue news outlets that suggest Palin stepped down as governor because she's under federal investigation. [Politico] • Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen is back in the news. He's teamed up with Ben Horowitz to launch a new venture capital fund. [Fortune] • Allen Klein, music manager to the Beatles and Rolling Stones, has died. [EW] • The Department of Justice is looking into whether large telecom companies such as AT&T and Verizon have been abusing their market power. [WSJ] • Little people have petitioned the FCC to ban the word "midget" on TV. [B&C]
Kara DioGuardiaccidentally got married on Sunday, forgetting that American Idol isn’t in season and thereby forfeiting the chance to use the wedding as free show promotion:
American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi wed longtime boyfriend, contractor Mike McCuddy, Sunday in Prospect Harbor, Maine…
Pastor Scott Nurse, Sr. – who officiated the ceremony at the Prospect Harbor Methodist Church – told Us their wedding was “very sweet.”
“They are absolutely in love with each other,” he told Us. “When I told him he could kiss the bride, everybody cheered. It was a very close, small family-type service.”
Why are you getting married now, Kara? You’re supposed to wait until the week before the next Idol season premieres so you can grab tabloid covers, circle the talk shows, and exploit your ceremony to promote the project you’re involved with. Don’t you know how shameless promotion works? This is Celebrity 101 stuff we’re talking about here.
I mean, are you just getting married because you enjoy one another’s companionship?? That’s pretty damn selfish.
You better get pregnant and deliver a baby with a f*cked-up name during Idol Season 9 or your celebrity status is officially revoked.
• The buyer who paid $37 million for Gerhard Andlinger's penthouse at the Time Warner Center—setting the record as the biggest real estate deal in 2009 thus far—has been revealed. It's Andrei Vavilov, the Russian financier who agreed to buy two penthouses at the Plaza last year for $53.5 million, but ended up suing the developer after his wife wasn't pleased with the "attic-like" ceilings. (As part of a settlement, Valvilov agreed to purchase just one of the two apartments, and he's since gone into contract to sell it.) Hopefully, Vavilov's wife is happier with her husband's latest acquisition. The full-floor, five-bedroom penthouse on the 78th floor encompasses 8,300 square feet and comes with 14-foot ceilings. [NYT]
• Italian movie mogul Vittorio Cecchi Gori has gone into contract to sell his penthouse at the Trump International for $18 million, potentially making it the largest foreclosure sale in Manhattan history. The new buyer won't be able to move into the 5,500-square-foot apartment—which Cecchi Gori bought from Donald Trump for $10.4 million in 1997—anytime soon. The Italian producer gutted the penthouse and it's currently uninhabitable. [NYT] • The former Greenwich home of Rockefeller heir James Stillman Rockefeller has sold for $22.5 million. The 19,000-square-foot mansion, which Rockefeller sold to a financier for $13.4 million in 2007, went on the market for $23.9 million in May. [WSJ] • Architect Lee Harris Pomeroy has dropped the price of his duplex penthouse at 285 Central Park West for the fifth time since listing it for $16.5 million last year. The nine-bedroom apartment is now listed for $7.75 million. [NYO, BHS] • The Harlem mansion built by Barnum & Bailey co-founder James Bailey has dropped in price for the second time since going on the market for $10 million in November. The 12,000-square-foot home, which was reduced to $6.5 million in April, is now listed for $3.5 million. [NYM, Stribling]
Plenty of familiar faces were in the stands at Wimbledon over the weekend, including Justin Timberlake, Ben Stiller, Kate Winslet, Scarlett Johansson, and even Henry Kissinger, who "appeared to have trouble staying awake" at yesterday's men's final pitting Andy Roddick against Roger Federer. The most awkward juxtaposition in the crowd: Ralph Lauren, who was seated next to Woody Allen and his wife Soon-Yi, and directly in front of Russell Crowe. According to British press accounts, Allen looked "grumpy" sitting in the stands wearing a "flowerpot hat." Lauren and Crowe didn't look all too happy either, although that may have been because they were forced to sit next to a man wearing a "flowerpot hat." [The First Post, AP]
Eight of the 13 entries on Forbes's new list of "America's most troubled luxury neighborhoods" are located in the tri-state area. The worst of the worst: New Vernon, New Jersey, which ranks No. 2 on the list, just ahead of Alpine, NJ. The East End makes a strong showing as well, naturally: Sagaponack and Amagansett come in at No. 4 and 5, respectively. [WSJ, Forbes]
Reuters - The Paris haute couture shows opened with pared-down collections and sober comments Monday, as the financial woes of designer Christian Lacroix forced even the world's most extravagant fashion scene to face economic reality. Source: Yahoo! News: Fashion News | 6 Jul 2009 | 5:20 pm
I usually hesitate to make fun of other writers (unless they’re factually incompetent), partially because the Gawker sites and Huffington Post already have that territory covered, and partially because 99% of what I write is also nonsense (oops! Ignore that sentence — please keep coming to the site, loyal readers!)
Sometimes, though, I read something that just makes me laugh out loud (no time to abbreviate) and I just have to call attention to it on BWE, and the New York Magazine review of Public Enemies falls squarely into this exclusive category. The whole review isn’t ridiculous, but the following paragraph is the most hilariously forced, unnecessary Michael Jackson reference in the history of posthumous praise:
But the best rejoinder to Public Enemies is Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal video, which I watched again after the singer-dancer’s inevitable, untimely death. It’s a tommy-gun gangster fantasia with a touch of Guys and Dolls, and it’s everything Public Enemies isn’t: madly inventive, genre-bending, a passionate tribute to the artist as outlaw-loner. The video reminds you why the gangster has become an existential hero in pop culture: It’s how he seizes the space.
Ok. Couple things:
The author is essentially arguing that Public Enemies isn’t as good as Michael Jackson’s 20-year-old “Smooth Criminal” music video. Regardless of anyone’s opinion of Public Enemies, how are the two even the slightest bit comparable? Because they both involve people dressed up as gangsters and moving around?
Could you imagine if Michael Jackson hadn’t died last week and a critic randomly compared a full-length film to a two-decade-old music video because it kind of involved gangster people? “Sure, 28 Days Later had some action, but it failed to capture the unwavering, zombie collective mind the way the breakdown in the Thriller music video did. I think we can all agree this is a relevant comparison.”
Yes, we all loved Michael Jackson’s music videos — they’re timeless, they’re classic, they’re legitimately artistic, etc. — but I think we can find other comparisons for Public Enemies that don’t reek of extreme “must get this MJ-tribute in there at all costs” desperation.
Mariah Carey, Jennifer Hudson, John Mayer, Lionel Richie, Smokey Robinson, Usher and Stevie Wonder are among the confirmed participants at Tuesday's public memorial service for Michael Jackson at Los Angeles' Staples Center.
It seems that at yesterday’s Wimbledon finals the rest of Hollywood ditched out and forget to tell Woody Allen and Russell Crowe. The two men ended up sitting a row apart, and judging from this photo were avoiding the inevitable “we’re both famous, I guess we have to acknowledge each other” conversation.
If they did even talk, I see it going one of two ways:
Russell: “I’m a big fan, Mr. Allen. I’d love to work with you one of these days, mate. Shall we discuss it over some beers?” Woody: “Well, I just so happen to have a script about a neurotic undercover cop in Brooklyn who plays by his own rules but can’t seem to work out his relationship with a sexy but equally neurotic dental hygienist. You’d be perfect.”
That, or:
Woody: “Hello, Russell. I loved your work in 3:10 to Yuma. I’ve actually been working on a script about a Jewish cowboy–” Russell: “Can it, nerd. Either watch the match or I’ll pound your face. And give me Scarlett Johansson’s number. I don’t care if she’s married.”
Front Page: Paramount pic wins holiday weekend -- Paramount’s “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” won the July 4th weekend race at the domestic B.O. over 20th Century Fox’s 3-D toon “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.”
AFP - Designer Christian Lacroix has had his back against the wall since the fashion house which bears his name went into administration early last month.
The United States may have missed its chance to re-claim Wimbledon, but this July 4th Weekend was still a victorious one for the stars and stripes, as 25-year-old American Joey Chestnut won his third straight Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Competition, setting a new world record with 68 hot dogs consumed in 10 minutes, which is also the number blah blah bleeh bla doo de dah dee Kirstie Alley!!!
The next time someone tells you that the United States isn’t the greatest, most perfect nation on earth, show them the video below and they’ll have no choice but to immediately concede:
For the record, Chestnut is still only TWENTY-FIVE years old. Time to do more with your life.
AP - "The Shimmer" (Vanguard Press, 336 pages, $25.95), by David Morrell: Football-sized lights hover over the dark horizon outside Marfa, Texas, bouncing, shimmering, even changing colors. Some can see them, others can't. Theories abound as to what they are, but no one seems to know for sure.
Panic at the Disco guitarist Ryan Ross and bassist Jon Walker are leaving the band "to embark on a musical excursion of their own," they announced today.
Some of Michael Jackson's family members apparently wanted to say their goodbyes under the moonlight.
Less than 12 hours before Tuesday's funeral service and blow-out memorial...
How much is the Michael Jackson memorial event going to cost people in taxes?
—Michaela, Sylmar
Most of the obedient serfs close to the memorial aren't saying how much...
His friends. His family. His neighbors on the pop charts and in Hollywood. They've all had their chance to offer very public goodbyes to Michael Jackson—and now it's your...
Forget Kill Bill, how does Kill Adolf strike you? That's roughly where Quentin Tarantino's head is at as he cranks up his latest campy remake an international genre flick. Brad Pitt stars...
While the drama regarding his estate, his children and the circumstances of his death aren't likely to rest for months to come, it's time for Michael Jackson himself to rest in...
Kal Penn is writing his own ticket in Washington, D.C.
The 32-year-old actor, fresh from killing himself off of House, on Monday reported for his first day as an associate director in...
• All the crazy fanggirls attacking Robert Pattinson in New York City are scaring him back to London and ruining the fun for everyone.
• This would be the red-band...
REUNITED: Onetime real-life 90210 couple Kellan Lutz and Annalynne McCord, celebrating the hunkster's cover of Social Life magazine at a Hamptons party with Real Housewives of New York City...
Clearly, this singer's not afraid to show some skin!
When she hit Vegas during the Fourth of July weekend, she must have forgotten to pack a bra.
Instead, she wore some...
It seems 30 chimpanzees at the Chester Zoo in England 
[Twelve Hollywood Executives are sitting at a long, rectangular table in a giant, ornate boardroom. The room is totally silent; only the faint noise of a ticking clock can be heard. Finally, after four hours of silence, one executive speaks up.]
Kara DioGuardi 
• The buyer who 
I usually hesitate to make fun of other writers (unless they’re 
