AFP - The Los Angeles Police Department is treating Michael Jackson's death as a homicide and is focusing on doctor Conrad Murray, entertainment website TMZ.com reported on Wednesday.
• A notorious group of "gem raiders" hit the Cartier in Cannes yesterday and made off with more than $20 million in merchandise. What probably should have been a tip-off that something was amiss: the robbers were all clad in Hawaiian shirts. [Telegraph, Sun] • Balmain may be getting into the handbag biz. [WWD] • Big things are planned for Fashion's Night Out, the extravaganza that takes place this September and is designed to get people shopping again. Anna Wintour's brainchild will "involve a cornucopia of in-store events, from parties to personal appearances by designers and celebrities, live music, fashion shows, freebies, charity tie-ins, and extended shopping hours." [WWD]
• Ron Lauder has stepped down from Estee Lauder's board of directors. His daughter, Jane, who heads up the Origins brand, will succeed him. [FWD] • Alanis Morissette has a line of jeans? Who knew? [Nylon, Cut] • Fashion tips courtesy of Vivienne Westwood. [Grazia] • The clearest evidence yet that we really are winning hearts and minds in Iraq: Instead of tending to disfigured war victims, Iraqi plastic surgeons report that they're busy giving out Botox injections and performing nose jobs. [LAT]
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Beyonce recently topped Forbes' list of the richest stars under 30, but she clearly is not hoarding the money: A ton of it must have been spent on her... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 15 Jul 2009 | 3:25 am
Reuters - Beyonce recently topped Forbes' list of the richest stars under 30, but she clearly is not hoarding the money: A ton of it must have been spent on her latest spectacle of a tour.
E! Online - After a two-year wait, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince opens in just a matter of hours. And, given the franchise's box-office track record, at just the right time.
Front Page: 'Hannah Montana' star to lead fairy tale -- Disney has acquired screen rights to the young adult novel "Wings" and will develop the bestselling Aprilynne Pike title as a star vehicle for Miley Cyrus.
Front Page: Brosnan, Clarkson, Moore set for 'Hunter' -- Pierce Brosnan, Patricia Clarkson and Julianne Moore will headline indie comedic drama "The Hunter," with Stanley Tucci directing from his screenplay.
Front Page: 20th Century Fox acquires comedy pitch -- In a high-six-figure deal, 20th Century Fox has acquired "Avon Man," a comedy pitch from "Hitch" writer Kevin Bisch, as a star vehicle for Hugh Jackman, with Bisch to script.
Reuters - Edinburgh International Book Festival director Catherine Lockerbie said on Tuesday she was resigning after nine years during which she helped make it one of the top literary gatherings of its kind in the world. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 15 Jul 2009 | 1:38 am
President Barack Obama took the mound at tonight's 2009 Major League Baseball All-Star game to toss out the ceremonial first pitch, and the southpaw passed one of the most grueling...
News of 27 year-old artist Dash Snow's death by a drug overdose spread with viral speed through the tight-knit New York art world this morning. Despite Snow's reputation for hard partying — a 2007 New York Magazine cover story by Ariel Levy described his work as depicting a "very debauched and drug-addled and decadent" Neverland — the news came as a shock to friends and associates whose most recent memories of him were happy ones.
Melissa Bent, of now-defunct New York gallery Rivington Arms, which showed Snow until Spring 2008, says her first reaction to the news was that it might be a hoax. "Many years ago someone told someone else Dash had died," she recalls. "I thought this was another death by Twitter."
In the immediate aftermath of Snow's death, many of his closest friends and colleagues were unavailable for comment, but those who were painted a picture of someone who had recently overcome addiction, and whose efforts at recovery perhaps made him more prone to overdose. (The cause of death is, according to Bloomberg News, under investigation by the New York City Medical Examiner's office.) Since returning from rehab in the spring, Snow had embarked on a relatively tamer lifestyle built around his daughter, Secret, who is not yet two years old.
Bent met Snow through artist Dan Colen, one of Snow’s closest collaborators, in July of 2000. “Ever since I knew him it was a struggle with drugs. There was always a struggle with him trying to clean up, and wanting to,” she said.
Snow’s relationship with Rivington Arms ended on acrimonious terms, but, says Bent, she ran into the artist in front of Café Mogador with Secret about five weeks ago. “He seemed great and totally clean. He had been in rehab a lot before that, in St. Barths.” Bent’s understanding was that he bad been “down there for quite some time, the whole winter.”
Clarissa Dalrymple, a curator, tastemaker and downtown personality who was close with Snow, saw him about three weeks ago. “He seemed absolutely terrific, not on drugs at all,” she said.
Reached by coincidence at the Menil Collection in Houston (Snow’s maternal grandmother is a De Menil, connecting him to wealthy art world royalty), where he’d gone to Texas to visit artist Mark Flood, Snow’s longtime friend and art dealer Javier Peres said: “People have misunderstood, because we haven’t spoken publicly about a lot of things. He comes from a complicated history. As a result he dealt with his life as best he could. And fought to survive as long as he could. The things he did to cope with the strain of his own life were often misunderstood as partying.”
Peres characterized Snow as a “doting father” to Secret. As part of the group show “Story Without A Name,” currently on view in his Berlin gallery, Peres is showing Snow’s 2009 “Secret & Jade Upstate,” a grainy video of the artist’s daughter and girlfriend frolicking in the rural upstate New York property of artist and friend Jack Walls.
“I wouldn’t say he didn’t love living, but living for him was difficult,” says Peres, who adds that to his knowledge Snow was alone at the Lafayette House, a hotel in Lower Manhattan, on Monday night. “To simply say he overdosed on drugs is insufficient because it wasn’t that simple. He died and there were drugs involved. He was complex and astute. He was very sensitive. Although he was only 27, he felt the pain of someone who’d lived a long life.”
Peres says the last time he saw Snow was when he was installing a group exhibition of work by Terence Koh, Jeff Koons and Mike Kelley at Mary Boone Gallery, in early April. “He photographed me and filmed me, we hung out, had dinner, he came to the gallery when I was installing.” Snow brought girlfriend Jade and daughter Secret to the afterparty at the Eagle. “He looked amazing,” says Peres. “He had gained 35 pounds. He was at his best. I think his body was as clean as could be, as clean as he had been in quite a while.”
“He seemed very happy and alive and his grandmother Christophe was there and it was celebratory,” says Boone. “I’m happy that’s my memory of him.” It was clear, she says, that Snow “had made changes. He was laughing and smiling and playing with his child and taking photos.”
Although one source, who preferred not to be named, says that Snow may have been avoiding his studio because it brought back bad associations, Peres says he’d been at work on several projects, including work for a presentation for Peres’s gallery at London’s Frieze Art Fair in October — work that, Peres says, may be complete at this point — as well as pieces for an upcoming exhibition at Berlin gallery Contemporary Fine Arts.
Snow was determined to kick drugs, according to Peres. “He looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘I’m going to kick this fucking thing. I need to. I want to.’ We were planning shows. He was in that mindset. He was doing the best he could.”
“The last time I saw him was less than a week ago,” says artist and close friend Aaron Young, reached in Miami. “He was with his daughter and [partner] Jade, in Soho, near my house. He seemed rejuvenated, and happy; we had a great conversation.”
“Dash was a huge inspiration for me,” says Young. “Sometimes people want to take shots at people who are privileged. But he made it all by himself.”
“He was a really lovely guy,” says downtown dealer James Fuentes, who shows the work of Snow’s wife (since separated) Agathe Snow. “He had incredible energy and it’s just really tragic and a loss for so many people in the art world. Everybody is just in complete shock, it’s totally awful, it’s still too fresh a wound for anyone to comprehend it.”
• Hell freezes over: Rocco DiSpirito says he's been in talks with restaurateur— and onetime enemy—Jeffrey Chodorow about opening a new restaurant. [GS] • The Standard Grill started up breakfast service today. [TFB] • New York isn't the only magazine with a "Cheap Eats" issue on newsstands this week. It seems Time Out New York has got one, too. [TONY] • The latest urban food fight: fruit vendors are now squaring off. [NYT] • It's Bastille Day! Here are a few places to go to celebrate. [GS]
• The Orchard bar on the LES is up for rent, if you're interested. [GS] • The Museum of the City of New York is opening an outdoor speakeasy. [NYT] • Comida on the UWS is the latest restaurant to close due to a fire. [Eater] • Where are April Bloomfield (The Spotted Pig) and Anita Lo (Annisa) right now? They're hunting wild boar in northern China, naturally. [TFB]
AP - "Best Friends Forever" (Simon & Schuster, 368 pages, $26.99), by Jennifer Weiner: Addie Downs and Valerie Adler became BFFs when they were both 9. Then something happened. And, as it goes with so many best friends, it was TTYN talk to you never.
New Jersey just ended. Atlanta's about to start. And now comes word Orange County will back for more.
Yeah, we're a little obsessed with Bravo's Real Housewives franchise,...
Visiting Dame Monica Mason, director of the Royal Ballet of London, met in Cuba Tuesday with dance legend Alicia Alonso, pictured in 2006, head of the Cuban National Ballet company, state-run media reported... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 14 Jul 2009 | 11:48 pm
With an August 21 opening looming on the horizon, the Inglourious Basterds publicity machine is just now beginning to gear up. This weekend saw the money-troubled Weinstein Co. pushing its messaging to bloodthirsty fans of Straight Dave's Steel-Cage WrestlingUFC 100, and now some of the long-lead magazine items are starting to show up. While Alex Pappademas of GQ wasn't able to convince director Quentin Tarantino to try on a pair of pumps or fondle Diane Kruger's feet, he did toss back a few mint juleps with the notoriously manic auteur at Los Angeles' Hamburger Hamlet. Over the course of a few hours, Quentin took on feeble film critics, talked about another potential Inglourious sequel, and spilled the beans on Brad Pitt's preferred method of smoking pot, all the while sweating profusely.
When Pappademas pressed Tarantino about the decidedly mixed reactionInglourious received at Cannes, Quentin claimed the reception didn't bother him at all. "I respect criticism," he said, "But I know more about film than most of the people writing about me. Not only that, I'm a better writer than most of the people writing about me. And I can write film criticism better than most of the people writing about me." He went on to add that his primary goal was "to get the biggest standing ovation of the festival, and I got it [...] Sometimes it's your time to be Elvis, and that was my time." We would've liked it if there had been some follow-up questions that alluded to the Elvis figure that appeared in True Romance, but that's probably another story for another time.
At another point during the conversation, the talk turned to a potential sequel for Inglorious Basterds (we can only assume this interview took place before the prequel hype went into overdrive). You see, Quentin apparently excised a major plot point from his final draft of the film, one that saw "a group of AWOL black soldiers making their way across occupied France."
But all this pales in comparison to the details of the evening that Quentin Tarantino convinced Brad Pitt to join the cast of Inglourious Basterds. Pitt spilled the beans back in May that the two had tossed back five bottles of wine during the course of their conversation, but at some point another substance entered the mix. Pappademas asked Quentin for clarification on this point, and Tarantino took the bait: "That was Brad. He did the fabrication. He can take a Coke can and make it — functional." Funny, we would guess that Pitt would've broken out that Honey Bear water pipe from True Romance for an occasion like this. We can only assume Angelina made him throw it away.
"Neither Lloyd Blankfein nor anyone else at Goldman Sachs has plans to celebrate our second quarter results," Goldman Sachs spokesman Lukas van Praag told Cityfile, in a response to their query about what the big man was doing tonight to mark the occasion of kicking ass. Ha! That is a lie. Or maybe not. We guess CEO Blankfein knew about these results before anyone else, and he probably already celebrated....
This recession we've been in has spared no one. Okay, no, that's not really true. Doctors are fine, and also celebrities, and the makers of Tamiflu. But the point is that no matter what our income bracket, the faltering economy has caused many of us to make changes in our lifestyles. For some of us, that means putting off retirement, or bringing lunch to work, or moving into a tent city. For others it means entering into a yacht-sharing partnership instead of purchasing their own.
According to Bloomberg, since "senior managers at firms including Citigroup Inc. and Morgan Stanley lost their bonuses last year," sales of luxury yachts have slowed. But some bankers have discovered the secret to buying a big-ass boat on a dinghy budget: time-shares! Take the Ocean Emerald, a 41-meter luxury yacht that comes with a seven-member crew and interiors by Italian furniture-maker Cassina. It normally retails for $21 million, but a group of bankers decided to go in on it. Now, each of them gets five weeks for a mere $2.7 million! And if anyone accuses them of being cheapskates, they have a ready answer:
“Anyone who has a boat knows that the big problem is that you pay all year and use the boat very little,” London-based businessman Niccolo Arnaldi, a stakeholder in Ocean Emerald, said on board the yacht. “Time-sharing is a way to have access to a boat you could never afford.”
Right? Yacht-owning = hassle. Everyone knows that. Of course, the sharing could get complicated. Like what if Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon accidentally book the same week? Think of the high jinks! Buddy movie?
We're still going through the couture slideshows, slowly clicking through the (full-screen) images, fantasizing about what we'd buy had we only money enough and fancy galas to wear them to. But last week wasn't just about the feathers, sequins, and false eyelashes — it was about shoes! The collections give us a bit of a glimpse of what could be up designers' sleeves come September. So what can we possibly expect? Booties and toeless boots for all! Check out the best shoes from the couture shows.
The strip that says "Calvin Klein" has to be down there somewhere ...
So we weren’t the only ones who noticed Jay-Z’s freestyle last weekend (since identified as the intro to Blueprint 3): Predictably, the Game has responded negatively to Jay’s brief mention of past tiffs (“I’m talking about despair, I’m talking about shame / I ain’t talking about gossip, I ain’t talking about Game”). “I’m So Wavy,” released over the weekend, has some not-so-nice, not-so-clever things to say about Hova, mostly knocking his relatively advanced age and his vague resemblance to a camel, with a brief aside to cast aspersions on the moral character of Kanye’s lady, Amber Rose. All the good stuff comes after the music cuts out, when Game goes on a quasi-rhymed rant. A few choice nuggets, presented without context: “Blueprint 3 gon' sell more cigarettes than it do records … now I know why the taxes went up on tobacco”; “What you fucking with ‘Ye for? 'Love Lockdown' my shit”; “You and Dame used to be tighter than giraffe pussy and shit.”
And despite all that, the best part of the resurrected beef is how it's already reverberated around political blogs, sparked by Foreign Policy writer Marc Lynch's "Jay-Z vs the Game: Lessons for the American Primacy Debate ... a story about the nature of hegemony and the debate over the exercise of American power." Yes, this is a thing that's happening.
The battle was over, but the nightmare was just beginning for Ben Steele. Steele, now 91, is one of the last survivors of the Bataan Death March in World War II. Steele's experiences were so brutal that he once wished for death. But Steele found an unlikely person to help him recover -- someone he once considered an enemy.
"Cut your finger? Hurt your leg? Start swearing. It might lessen the pain. Researchers from the school of psychology at Britain's Keele University have found swearing can make you feel better as it can have a 'pain-lessening effect,' according to a study published in the journal NeuroReport." You'll find some inspiration—not that you need any, of course—in the video above. Just be sure to turn down your speakers if you happen to be at work. [Reuters]
Armed robbers clad in Hawaiian shirts stole over $21 million worth of jewels from the Cartier in Cannes yesterday. That would be the Cartier near the Carlton Hotel, which is where Angelina Jolie and George Clooney stay during the Cannes Film Festival. A man wearing "colourful clothing including a shirt straight out of Honolulu," according to police, marched into the store, whipped out a handgun, and told everyone to lie on the floor. Accomplices then collected an estimated $21.2 million worth of loot and sped away on motorcycles. The robbery comes on the heels of similar heists in France; in May a lone gunman stole $9 million worth of jewels from Chopard in Paris, while in December robbers made off with $112 million worth of jewels from the Harry Winston store. Police suspect the Pink Panthers carried out the Cartier theft yesterday. They are known to rob with flair, like the time they painted a bench outside a store they planned to loot to keep people from lollygagging in their getaway zone. In 2005 they robbed a jeweler in St. Tropez wearing floral shirts and escaped on a speedboat. It's all so glam, minus the shirts. Couldn't they at least go with some Cavalli?
When we ran into Tom Arnold last night at the screening for In the Loop, a new comedy film about politics and war, we wondered what he would do if he ever became a politician and landed in the White House. "I’d be on that fucking Air Force One a lot," he confessed. "And if I wanted to go to New York, and people gave me shit for taking my wife on a fucking date, I’d tell them to go fuck themselves. 'Cause you know what women are like! You make them a promise — 'Hey, when I’m president, I’ll take you to New York.' Well, you don’t think you’re going to be president, but if it happens, you better take her ass to fucking New York." View our Party Lines slideshow for more.
Artist Terence Koh, who's been performing a four-hour performance piece in Manchester, England, in which he lies in the fetal position listening to his iPod, has announced a tribute to Dash Snow. Tonight, instead of listening to Nat King Cole's "Mona Lisa" on repeat as usual, he'll listen to "Cheree" by Suicide. "It is for one of my best friends Dash and that is our favorite song together and we used to dance to it together,” he explains in an e-mail to the Times. [Moment/NYT]
A 24-foot "basking shark" launched itself onto the shores of Long Island this morning in an obvious attempt to torpedo as many beachgoing humans as possible. "Basking sharks" are the second largest species of shark in the world, second only to whale sharks. They are toothless and usually remain near the surface, looking for plankton and other small organisms to eat. This biology was used by humans today to incorrectly assume that the beast — which they assumed to be dying from an unknown illness — was in Suffolk County on a peaceful mission. In fact, many human respondents tried very hard to save the shark and push it out into deeper water — only to receive mild thwacking from its fins and tail as a result.
Obviously, we do not buy this bunk about the shark being "harmless." Sure, it may not have been able to devour little Timmy with its gummy jaw, but a 24-foot shark could clearly take out an entire pack of skimboarding tween kids in OP rash guards if it got up its speed. And hello, it hangs out near the surface of the water and appears to be peaceful? You know what that sounds like? Dolphins and whales, the threatening sea creatures who have steadily been creating an unseen perimeter around New York Harbor for months now. Last week we predicted sharks would be the next to get involved in this animal-human assault. Now will you listen to us??
The Belfast Telegraph is reporting that Angela's Ashes author Frank McCourt is "gravely ill" with skin cancer melanoma and "may have only weeks to live." The Pulitzer winner, 79, was transferred to hospice care over the weekend. [Belfast Telegraph]
City employees paid Michael Jackson's dermatologist a visit late this morning…and it wasn't for crank calls or a checkup.
Los Angeles County Assistant Chief Coroner Ed...
We jump forward six months: Nancy has a big, pregnant belly and Uncle Andy is spending his days playing Ms. Pac Man — “It feels right, she gets me, we’re in synch, no words, just a gentle touch of my hand” — and working on a scraggly beard. The mayor asks Nancy to be Mrs. Esteban Reyes — they’re shacked up and in love again. Shane is even BFF with Ignacio. Celia’s wearing polyester and working in a sneaker store, while Doug, orange with spray tan, dresses up as George Hamilton, with a polka-dotted handkerchief firmly tucked into his breast pocket.
Once again, everyone’s spiraled into lunacy and we’re a little uneasy about it. We were looking forward to Nancy as housebound wife and mother, spending her days wearing expensive lingerie and baking in a giant kitchen while living off the proceeds of her husband’s mafia life. But we hoped too soon. After a visit from a mysterious, beautiful, and livid woman, Esteban withdraws his matrimonial offer and Nancy ends the episode rejected and likely back to her single life — only this time with a screaming baby and apparently no Uncle Andy. “When Esteban dies, and you’re once, twice, three times a widow, don’t expect Uncle Andy to stop by and make pizza eggs,” he tells Nancy in that giant kitchen. “You know what I’ll do? Send a note.” He’s referring to the handwritten good-bye letter she left on her pillow last episode. Andy’s mad, but we’re pretty sure — given that this show would be a shadow of itself without him — that he’ll forgive her when she comes crying for pizza eggs.
Doug cites a biography of George Hamilton, saying that his motto was something along the lines of “always do the dumbest thing possible” — for the sake of adventure. That seems to be Jenji Kohan’s theme this season. Just when we think our domestic drama’s getting cozy again, she opens a can of spray tan and changes everything.
Bad News for America: It looks like China is way, WAY ahead of us in our global race to create the GAYEST PETS ALIVE. You see, as the global economy is tanking, Chinese residents have discovered the simple pleasures of owning a pet. As a result, their pet industry is booming. (Also? Suicides.) The NY Timeshad this to say on an article about Chinese pets written last year (but almost definitely still current):
Keeping pets has become all the rage among the affluent in China, even though some Chinese still consume dog and cat meat.
Wait, sorry, what–
“We still eat dog, but not this kind of dog,” Liu Ming, a pet shop salesman said, pointing to a toffee-colored puppy with floppy ears on sale for about 500 yuan, or $70. “We eat much bigger dogs.”
Well, that’s comforting but–
Known as “fragrant meat,” dog meat is purported to have medicinal benefits and to improve blood circulation in winter.
Honestly, I wasn’t psyched about eating dogs unTIL I read that whole “fragrant meat” description. This sounds borderline appetizing, especially if the fragrance their referring to happens to be Dolce & Gabbana Pour Homme, in which case, fire up the BayBQ, andget the telescoping fork out, because dinner’s ready.
And if these AMAZING photos are any indication, it looks like China is differentiating “food” dogs from “throw a ball and play catch with” dogs by turning them into gay rainbow unicorns. A movement we think is both practical and smart, but one that is clearly not buttering up the terrified minds of China’s children. Reuters reports that:
Amid China’s current pet boom, dog owners are flocking to pet beauticians to pamper their pets with everything from shampooing to hair trimming, and nail care to hair-dye.
Looks like the economy is bad for everyone EXCEPT pet beauticians. Take note, med school grads looking for work.
So take heed, readers: Not only are their kids smarter and soon to be richer than ours, but now their animals are gayer?! Come on, America, we’re better than this.
Steven Soderbergh is clearly having one of those months. Not only did his Moneyball project fall apart mere hours before it was supposed to begin filming, but now it seems he's having major issues coming to grips with the commercial failure of Che. "You know, for a year after we finished shooting [Che] I would still wake up in the morning thinking, 'Thank God I'm not shooting that film,'" he tells the Guardian's Henry Barnes. When Barnes pressed him with the follow-up question, "Do [you] wish [you] hadn't done it?" Soderbergh replied, "Yeah." Yikes, we can't wait to hear Benicio Del Toro's response! [Guardian UK via Hollywood Elsewhere]
No deal has been reached between Michael Jackson's mother and his ex-wife over the custody of the late singer's children, according to a lawyer in the case.
• The seven Frédéric Fekkai salons across the country are offering free umbrellas to any client who comes in for an appointment when it is raining. [Beauty Junkie/FWD]
PLASTIC SURGERY
• Plastic surgeons in Iraq are now doing more Botox and nose jobs, instead of emergency skin grafts and amputations. [LAT via Daily Beauty Reporter/Allure]
MAKEUP
• Actress Emmanuelle Chriqui, of Entourage fame, says she wears makeup everywhere and all the time, including bronzer by Cargo and Nars and foundation by Armani. [Makeup Loves Me]
• Jessica Szohr wore copper and plum eye shadow last night at the Louis Vuitton celebration at the American Museum of Natural History. [Beauty Department/Glamour]
Front Page: Cate Blanchett to star in 'Indian Summer' -- Working Title has confirmed that it is developing a third installment of the "Bridget Jones" series starring Renee Zellweger. The British producer has also attached Cate Blanchett to star in helmer Joe Wright's "Indian Summer."
And you thought one of the silver linings of the economic downturn was that it was sending really silly companies out of business. Pet Airways, the "first-ever all-pet airline," took off from Republic Airport on Long Island for the first time today. The airline, which plans to operate in five U.S. cities, is now offering one-way tickets for about $250. The perks, however, are hard to beat. Pets get escorted to the plane by attendants who will check on the animals every 15 minutes once they're in the air. The pets are given pre-boarding walks and bathroom breaks, and there's even a "Pet Lounge" at the airport for "future fliers to wait and sniff before flights." If your dog has been begging to get away from his/her owner for little summer getaway, consider yourself fresh out of excuses. [AP]
Yesterday, Movieline's S.T. VanAirsdale considered the reviews, release date, Oscar prospects, and probable grosses for this week's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and boldly concluded that the film would be the Dark Knight of 2009. We think the analogy works (so far!), and for an additional reason: Do you remember walking out of Dark Knight (PG-13) this week last year and asking yourself how it managed to sneak past the MPAA without a more restrictive rating? Get ready to wonder the same thing about Harry Potter.
Potterphiles plotzed in January when Half-Blood Prince was branded with a PG, even after the last two entries in the series were given PG-13s. But we saw it at a screening last night and were once again impressed with everything Warner Bros. — the same studio behind Dark Knight — was able to get away with. As New York's David Edelstein says in his review this week, "It's not a larky kid-pic. We're firmly in the realm of English horror."
According to the press notes, the film earned its rating with "scary images, some violence, language, and mild sensuality." And all of those things were in there! In Harry Potter 6, we see the following (SPOILER ALERT!):
• A small girl is lifted by unseen forces and slammed, hard, into the ground.
• Someone else is zapped by a wand and falls out of a window.
• A boy is hit in the chest with a dangerous magic spell, leaving him visibly bloodied.
• One character (who is not old enough to drink in America) procures information from another by getting him drunk. The underage character gets the courage to do so by drinking a potion called "Liquid Luck," which basically makes him act drunk as well.
• A family looks on as its home is burned to the ground by Death Eaters.
• In a scene twice as intense as any Fear Factor challenge we've ever seen, a character bellows in pain as he's force-fed a gross-looking potion. (As we recall, FF was usually rated TV-14.)
• Someone is attacked in a dark cave by an army of terrifying Gollum-like creatures, one of which pulls the character underwater in an attempt to drown him. There's also a giant scary fireball.
It's hardly hard-core pornography, or anything likely to scar one of today's Internet-using teenagers, but it certainly makes for a more intense viewing experience than we thought possible for PG. Why does Warner Bros. seem to have such unbelievable luck with the MPAA? We don't know! Also, we're now more baffled than ever over Slumdog Millionaire's R rating.
Now that Kendra Wilkinson and Hank Baskett have tied the knot and returned from their romantic island honeymoon, she's spending more time updating her official blog.
Check out...
Even more so than usual, the name of the game at the 34th Toronto Film Festival will be survival of the fittest.
Creation, starring real-life loves Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly as...
City Councilman Miguel Martinez, who represents much of Upper Manhattan and a small portion of the Bronx, resigned today. He sent Speaker Christine Quinn a one-sentence letter, amid a widespread federal investigation into Council earmarks that is expected to bring charges against him in the coming weeks. According to the Times, Martinez is accused of helping direct up to $1.4 million dollars to a group called Upper Manhattan Council Assisting Neighbors, where his sister Maria Martinez serves as a board member. The organization was raided for documents in March by city investigators looking for evidence of misuse of public funds. The investigation — which has involved other groups and the offices of other Council members — has been ongoing for two years and has already pulled in indictments of two former aides to Councilman Kendall Stewart for embezzlement. A relative of City Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo has also been charged with embezzlement related to a nonprofit group, and nonprofit groups linked to Councilman Larry B. Seabrook have been subpoenaed under similarly shady circumstances.
Original Bachelorette Trista Sutter is putting her reality-TV experience to use for us here at Watch With Kristin, blogging about Jillian Harris' quest for the perfect guy. Take it away,...
Ten years after launching her fashion line, YaYa, Yael Aflalo decided she needed a change. So at the end of 2008, she and her partner, Chi Bui, opened a store in Los Angeles called the Reformation. This spring, just six months after the L.A. opening, the pair debuted a second location on the Lower East Side. "The Reformation is a double entendre," Aflalo explains. "It's named for both Martin Luther's Reformation, which was about a simpler approach, and for the idea of reforming clothes, which is what we do with vintage items." The designers find outdated pieces like slips and blazers and revamp them in their backroom sewing shop. The clothes are easy to wear, with surprising elements like front zips on dresses and lots of lace. Aflalo and Bui also design a series of original styles for the store, like loose-fitting pocket tanks, which they make from deadstock fabrics found while thrifting. They scour flea markets and estate sales in search of jewelry, belts, and shoes, which they rework and sell, with most items priced at under $200. All very cute and fun, but we wonder how their very L.A. style will fare in NYC.
The Reformation, 143 Ludlow St., nr. Rivington St.; 646-448-4925.
Channing Tatum is on the August cover of GQ, where he's tasked with promoting next month's G.I. Joe (oof).
All he has to say about that is "I hope it does OK." Costar...
Where's Smith Jerrod when you need him?
Taking a cue from her fictional counterpart, Samantha Jones, Sex and the City vixen Kim Cattrall has officially called it quits with her much...
One of my roommates recently moved out, taking his Netflix account with him, so yesterday, I finally took it upon myself in this Year of Our Lord Two Thousand And Nine to finally start my own Netflix account. This scary step into modernization brought me a unique, groundbreaking, and highly pressured question — what should be the first movie that I ever Netflix on my own account?
An old favorite, out of principle? A recent Oscar movie or blockbuster that I missed in theaters? A nagging recommendation I’ve been meaning to see for years? An all-time classic that I just happen to have never watched?
With too many factors for my mind to weigh, I took it upon myself to fill out the Netflix “Movies You’ll Heart” questionnaire, filling out two pages of genre preferences, then combing through page after page of assorted movies and rating them from 1 to 5 stars to give Netflix a better idea of my uniquely awesome taste in movies.
Finally, I clicked “Show My Recommendations,” and Netflix, with its newfound understanding of my brain’s intricate inner-workings, offered this personalized recommendation for Mr. Daniel Hopper:
The Godfather. The frickin’ Godfather. Because I enjoyed CITIZEN KANE. Netflix’s first personalized recommendation to me is that I watch one of the most obviously great films in cinematic history because I enjoyed one of the other most obviously great films in cinematic history.
That’s like saying “Oh, you like pizza? Let me recommend this other food you should try — ICE CREAM. You obviously like awesome things, and ice cream is also awesome.” Did Netflix really need me to fill out seven pages of information about my specific movie tastes to determine that I might want to watch The Godfather???
Unfortunately, I’ve already seen The Godfather (just call me “Mr. Films”!!!), and I’ve eaten ice cream, so I decided to forego Netflix’s recommendation and pick a first movie for myself, knowing full well this would be a symbolic decision I’d always remember. I still remember the first cd I listened to in my high school car’s cd player (Use Your Illusion II) and the first album I ever ripped to iTunes (Pet Sounds), so I wasn’t taking this decision lightly.
Ultimately, I decided that Netflixing an old favorite would be pointless, and there weren’t any obvious Oscar movies or blockbusters I’d missed in the past two years, so I would use my first Netflix to get an all-time great film that I happened to have never seen.
Without looking, I decided I’d go with the highest-ranked movie on the AFI 100 Greatest Films List that I’d never sat down and watched. Sadly, I didn’t have to go any further than Lawrence of Arabia at #5. However, even though I’d never had my own name on a Netflix account, I’ve borrowed my friend’s login when he’s been on vacation in the past, so I’ve experienced the Netflix faux pas of queuing up the film that you think you want to see instead of the movie you actually want to see — I once watched a History Channel piece about World War I, then immediately Netflixed All Quiet On The Western Front, sat on the disc for two weeks, then when my roommate came back, just threw it back in the mail. Lawrence of Arabia struck me as a sure-fire All Quiet sequel, so I passed.
I then turned my attention to a far greater authority — the unarguable IMDB Users Top 250 Movies list. I’ve obviously seen Shawshank Redemption, the apparent greatest movie of all time, and actually had to travel down all the way to the #14 spot to find my movie: The Seven Samurai. I loved Kurosawa’sRashomon but for no reason other than laziness have never gotten around to Seven Samurai, even though it’s almost as great as Return of the King (nooooo waaaaayyy!!!!) It’s borderline “Great but not ever getting around to watch it” territory, but dammiit, when it arrives tomorrow, I’m gonna see my name on the front of that envelope and watch the SH*T out of that frickin’ movie.
Or maybe I’ll watch Dark Knight on HBO for the seventieth time. And then again when it re-airs on the west coast HBO. But then right afterwards it is Seven Samurai time! Yayyy swordfights!!!!
What was your first Neflix movie ever, masses? Leave yer answers and any similar stories of self-consciousness in the comments.
Elizabeth Taylor, contrary to a New York tabloid report, was not hospitalized because of her grief over her friend Michael Jackson's death, according to her publicist.
Real-estate developer Harry Macklowe hasn't had much to laugh about in the past year or so, not after having to sell a bunch of buildings he purchased during an ill-timed spree, losing $50 million of his own cash plus what he owed to creditors and putting rather a dent in his reputation. But he could have a backup career as a stand-up comic! The website OldJewsTellingJokes.com got Macklowe to participate in one of their videos, and his comic timing is pretty good. The site's founder tells the Observer that he'll tell two more in the coming months.
Covers for September, fashion's most important month, have been booked. And they're decidedly blonde and actress-y this year. Charlize Theron will appear on the cover of Vogue (she last appeared on the cover in October of 2007). Mamma Mia actress Amanda Seyfried will appear on the cover of Allure. Kate Moss will appear on the cover of W, naturally. Jennifer Aniston will appear on the cover of Elle. Jennifer Lopez will appear on the cover of In Style. Ashley Olsen will appear on the cover of Marie Claire. And inexplicable perennial newsstand favorite Jessica Simpson will appear on the cover of Glamour. WWD notes:
The blonde music/tabloid star was in the headlines Monday as People.com reported that her relationship with Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo had ended, but no word on whether Glamour was able to include the breaking news in their cover story.
But even if Glamour couldn't squeeze in the major breaking news, they can always highlight Simpson's High-Waisted Jeans-Gate of January '09.
We are a little disappointed by the absence of divas on this year's September covers. Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Madonna, Kanye West, Britney Spears, M.I.A, Chaka Khan — we could go on. We're just not sure Lopez and Simpson count as divas anymore. Maybe half-divas.
AP - The mumblecore genre goes adult in more ways than one with "Humpday," a comedy about a couple of longtime buddies both straight men who decide to make a gay porn film together.
SpongeBob performs in Los Angeles, California in 2006. This week the world will reach a cultural landmark -- or maybe watermark is more appropriate -- as a lovable if slightly annoying cartoon character... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 14 Jul 2009 | 9:01 pm
It’s only now, late in the afternoon, that we’re coming to grips with what we saw on last night’s Bachelorette. Ed — the bachelor who left mid-season to save his job, and then returned last week after “thinking it over” (that is, we’re guessing, after getting downsized for being the doofus who left for a month to be on The Bachelorette) — starred in his own, real-life, long-format erectile dysfunction PSA, becoming the victim of what might be the most humiliating reality-TV experience in history.
Each of the three final bachelors was invited to stay in the “Fantasy Suite” with bubbly bachelorette Jillian (who, it must be noted, successfully bedded three hunks, on three consecutive nights, without even the blink of a fake eyelash). First up was Kiptyn, the front-runner, and then went Reid, the neurotic from Philly and our personal favorite. Reid and Jillian took a rose-petal-laden bath together, but embarrassing as that was, it didn’t compare to the experience of poor Ed. After a day of swimming, hugging, kissing, and introducing Jillian to his parents, he just couldn’t get it up. We saw the couple lying on the Fantasy Suite bed, oiling each other up with massage lotion, and then we cut to Ed, lying facedown, looking half dead. Jillian explained to the camera: “We were sunburnt and exhausted … and that ‘Oh my God, I want my hands to be all over you,’ that wasn’t there.” Ed elaborated: “I was very nervous, and it didn’t just happen. I couldn’t show her I really truly was in love with her.”
But the producers didn’t leave it at that. To prolong the drama, they clearly coerced Jillian into taking Ed aside during the rose ceremony to rehash the incident. “What happened there?” she asked him. Ed blushed. “I’m having a hard time adjusting to everything, but I’m crazy about you,” he managed. Satisfied (that time, at least), Jillian gave him and Kiptyn the roses, leaving Reid to think that he got kicked off because he couldn’t tell her he loved her (after five dates! Imagine that!). Poor Ed — he will forever be known, insofar as he is known at all, as the guy who couldn’t get it up in the Fantasy Suite, after two others successfully sealed the deal the nights before him. Maybe if he’s lucky there’s a Cialis commercial in his future.
Lucas van Praag, Goldman Sachs' head of corporate communications, was kind enough to get back to us a few minutes ago as to whether Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein had any plans to live it up given the firm's blow-out of a second-quarter. Alas, the Dom will not be flowing at Le Cirque tonight, it seems. Says van Praag:
Neither Lloyd Blankfein nor anyone else at Goldman Sachs has plans to celebrate our second quarter results.
Hopefully, Blankfein will take a moment or two to celebrate on the inside later this evening, right around the same time he puts on that romantic comedy he rented from Blockbuster and has been totally dying to check out for weeks now.
Yesterday, rumors surfaced that Target executives were freaked out by the scandalous nature of Gossip Girl, which is the inspiration for Anna Sui's forthcoming Target line. But Target executives say today that they're fully onboard with the show, rampant debauchery included, and will not rescind Sui's inspiration. Target will even sponsor the show's season premiere on September 14. Reps would not confirm whether Sui's Target line will appear in the show. [Stylelist]
The ongoing saga of South Carolina's philandering governor shall not die, not as long as The State keeps insisting on perpetrating acts of journalism. Today they uncovered the behind-the-scenes goings-on of the Sanford office while he was AWOL in Argentina. We already knew his staff had no idea where he was and couldn't get in touch with him. But now we can also glimpse how they handled the media's inquiries. The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza, for example, simply asked Sanford's communications director, Joel Sawyer, "Dude, is everything okay?" — to which Sawyer lied, "Yep. Slow news day." But he wasn't the only person blaming the media. Another one was fellow South Carolinian Stephen Colbert, who e-mailed Sawyer at 1:23 p.m. on June 24: "If the Governor is looking for a friendly place to make light of what I think is a small story that got blown out of scale, I would be happy to have him on." He signed off with "Stay Strong, Stephen." This was, oh, about one hour and eight minutes before Sanford admitted to his sordid affair. Whoops. In his defense, Colbert could have simply been feigning sympathy to snag an interview. We know how he likes to pretend.
Oh wait… oh PTL: It’s just her hat. Oh Grace, you’ve done it again. I don’t know about you, but a world without Grace Jones and her blade hats is a world I don’t want to know from or live in.
Make sure to check out more photos from Grace’s performance at the 43rd Montreux Jazz Festival, including more shocking circky saw hat pics, and Grace’s turn as a Pagliaccia that will haunt the deepest recesses of Seinfeld’s subconscious.
After signing with Ford Models last month, Amber Rose is getting to work. Confessions of a Casting Director posted two test shots of Rose showing her in, essentially, a bra and a pair of high-waisted jeans while leaning against the walls at Ford. Casting is step one. Actually booking a gig comes next. [COACD]
Hot on the heels of a big feature in yesterday's New York Times, HBO announced today that Sunday night's episode of True Blood set a series high, with 3.9 million viewers. Hung also reported a 29 percent increase in viewers from its debut two weeks ago, and the season-six premiere of Entourage managed to more than double the ratings the show got for its season-five debut last September. Guess this means we won't be hearing any more of those "HB-Over" slams for a while. [B&C]
The late pop icon Michael Jackson in London in March 2009. The promoter of Jackson's planned comeback concerts in London said Tuesday he was in talks with the late pop star's brothers and sisters about... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 14 Jul 2009 | 8:29 pm
• The New York Times Co. is selling its classical radio station WQXR to WNYC Radio and Univision as part of a "complex deal." One thing that isn't complex: The sale will pump a much-needed $45 million into the paper's coffers. [NYT] • Is Rupert Murdoch planning to buy the Daily News from Mort Zuckerman? That's what some are suggesting, although Mort is denying it. [DailyFinance] • McGraw-Hill shouldn't expect to make much from the sale of BusinessWeek. In fact, the company may be forced to give the magazine away. [FT] • Neil Patrick Harris has signed on to host this year's Emmy Awards. [NYDN] • Russell Brand will be the host of the MTV Video Music Awards. [Vulture]
• ABC News is denying that it paid $200,000 for the first sit-down interview with Joe Jackson. It just paid him for archival footage, that's all! [LAT] • Comcast will test out streaming shows from HBO and Cinemax. [AP] • Rumor has it Amazon may be looking to acquire Netflix. [LAT] • A new series on NBC will allow viewers to follow along as real, live terrorists are captured. Let's all hope Osama bin Laden is grabbed up as part of the show, so NBC's Ben Silverman finally has a success to boast about. [NYT]
Ali Wise, Briana Rasinski (inset, with Steve Garbarino)
In our mental cataloguing system, we'd filed the story of Ali Wise, the blonde Dolce & Gabbana publicist/socialite recently arrested for hacking into the voice mail of another blonde socialite with whom she shared an ex-boyfriend, under "romantic dark comedy."
But now it sounds like it might actually belong under horror.
This morning's "Page Six" introduced us to a third blonde socialite: Briana Rasinski, a "freelance fashion designer" who used to work for BlackBook and who also used to date Josh Deutsch, the Downtown Records founder who dated Nina Freudenberger and Wise and who some* suspect may be in possession of a magical, socialite-attracting wang. Like Freudenberger, Rasinski didn't know Wise, but she did reportedly receive phone calls from her "whenever they [Rasinski and Deutsch] appeared in public together," which is extremely eerie, in a One Missed Call kind of way. The alleged stalking culminated one night when Briana was due to fly to the 2007 Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, but bowed out.
Says "Page Six"'s source, who is totally Briana:
"A week before Briana was supposed to go, Ali called and warned her not to get on the plane. She ended up not going and breaking up with Josh."
Wait. What did she say to convince her to do that? "Page Six" doesn't say. But as urban legend has it, when someone claiming to be Ali Wise calls you and you don't do exactly what they say, you DIE. (Or, you know, you stop getting Dolce freebies.) Are you next?
By now anybody who has visited the High Line (especially at night) has probably heard about, or seen, the sex show that goes on nightly through the windows of the towering Standard Hotel. Of course, this is what hotelier André Balazs intended all along (how else to explain the transparent shower dividers?), and he's no doubt been thrilled by all the coverage (or lack thereof). Evidence of his delight comes today from the Standard Hotel's blog, where management is not only encouraging public sex acts, but is actually asking for evidence. They're asking for photos of sex in the Standard's rooms, like this racy Purple magazine shoot (NSFW). They almost make it sound arty:
Now, we're asking YOU, our Stan D'elovely amateur pornographers to send in your most erotic photos shot at The Standard, New York. You can email them to us, or you can upload them directly to our Facebook page by tagging the pictures The Standard, New York. Whatever you do, just make sure the shots are HOT and that you get them to us in whichever way you can. It's all about sex all the time, and you're our star. Cum on over.
Paris Kain of Abraxas Rex on the roof of his studio in Williamsburg.
Brooklyn-born jewelry designer Paris Kain doesn't limit himself to his precious, unusual line, Abraxas Rex — the oft-tapped runway collaborator is also a photographer, painter, and filmmaker. (His upcoming documentary, 008, is based on the life of his father, a former CIA assassin.) Launched in January 2007, Abraxas Rex baubles range from a $1,250 platinum-silver surfer pendant to a $16,000 custom-made crystal or meteorite-studded ring, and are sold at Barneys, Browns in London, and Colette and Rick Owens in Paris. After designing accessories for Calvin Klein in 2008, he was catapulted back into the glossies last winter when he collaborated with Alexander Wang on a spiky, futuristic jewelry line for the fall 2009 collection. Kain is also currently working on an upcoming collaboration with Rick Owens. We caught up with him to chat about dinosaur-bone dealers, street art, and bringing back forties gangster style.
How did you start designing jewelry?
The first ring I made was from a stone that I found on the outskirts of a monastery in Kyoto, Japan. Eventually I made a few prototypes for fun and they seemed to resonate with people.
What materials do you work with?
I use an alloy made from platinum and silver mixed together, eighteen-karat green gold, and stones found during my travels. I also incorporate meteorites from outer space and dinosaur bones.
Where do you source meteorites and dinosaur bones?
There was a huge meteorite crash in Siberia in 1947, and the majority of meteorites today are remnants from that. I buy meteorites from a Russian guy, and the dinosaur-bone guy is based in the Midwest.
What's the inspiration behind your accessories?
My dad, Paris Theodore, was an assassin for the CIA — the real-life Q. He used to make assassination devices out of Zippo lighters and walking canes ... crazy James Bond stuff. When I was growing up, he was making explosives and gadgets, and my mother was a master painter and enamelist. My line is named after Abraxas, the ancient gnostic god of light and dark — I think my childhood experience gave a duality to my work.
Abraxas Rex for Francisco Costa; Abraxas Rex for Alexander Wang.Photo courtesy of Abraxas Rex; Imaxtree
What kind of person wears your designs?
I try to make jewelry that's talismanic; something more significant than just aesthetics.
What was it like collaborating with Alexander Wang?
It was super-fun, he has great energy. He initially gave me a few points of reference that were important to him, like the Mad Max series, and I tried to represent that vibe.
Who are your favorite designers?
Jordan Betten from Lost Art, and Taiana Geifer of Taiana Design, who makes really amazing custom felt scarves and accessories. I'm drawn to the quality of their work; they don't use any machinery. I also respect a lot of other jewelry lines: Jill Platner, Lulu Frost, Manon von Gerkan, Pamela Love, Finn, Carolina Barbieri, and Bianca Pratt.
Where do you like to shop in New York?
I've actually had a lot of things made for me by tailors, like 1940s gangster-inspired suits by Michele Savoia and military-style jackets.
What trends are you appreciating right now?
I don't like trends very much. I think they degrade things that are great and make bad styles worse.
Any in particular that you're fed up with?
Ray-Bans, and skinny jeans on men.
What's something you're saving up to buy?
I'd like to buy more art. It's rare for painters and photographers to buy other artists' work. Sometimes I trade my paintings for other art, and sometimes I go to auctions. I recently bought a door with stencil work on it from the street artist Swoon.
What's something every guy should have in his closet?
A wooden bat, for emergencies.
Finish this sentence: I never leave the house without ...
Confidence.
I spent over an hour yesterday staring at my computer screen with a blank post open, trying to write something about the Entourage Season Premiere, then another half hour today without a single word written before realizing that my complete, empty gaze spoke more loudly about my current feelings towards the show than any dumbass jokey analysis I could’ve possibly thrown together.
The thing is, the premiere wasn’t a bad episode at all; there were a couple decent, nonthreatening dilemmas playing out, no real cringe-worthy lines, maybe two or three funny parts, Gary Cole as a regular now, no obligation-boobs, and no painfully shoehorned-in cameos of celebrities making fun of themselves way too lightly (the Leno appearance was surprisingly uninsulting, if already dated.) In general, it was a completely normal, acceptable episode of Entourage, but absolutely nothing about it was good enough, bad enough, or different enough from the past fifteen seasons of the show to be remotely noteworthy.
Which causes me to ask the question — not rhetorically, I’m asking literally — why should we still be watching Entourage?
I’ve defendedEntourage in the past; it began as a likable, original half-hour comedy about the inner-workings of Hollywood, quickly attracted a douchey audience demographic, then fell victim to people suddenly bashing it, partially because of the audience it attracted and partially because it didn’t live up to the standards of a meaningful, classic HBO series (which it never even attempted to be, it simply got popular). Into Season Three, however, I realized that I kept enjoying the show less week after week, with occasionally funny episodes more than offset by other occasionally horrendous episodes, until ultimately, I just couldn’t even pretend to care about the show anymore.
The show just entered its sixth season. In the previous five, Vince has been an A-list movie star and a wash-up and back again, Vince hired Ari, fired Ari, then hired Ari back again, the foursome moved apart then moved back together again, Eric started dating Sloan then they broke up and now they might be getting back together again — basically, there aren’t any possible plots left for this show to explore, unless Turtle and Drama have sex then Vince’s new movie does averagely.
Tuuuuuuuurtle!!!!!!
Watching the Season Six premiere, I found it hard to care about Vince attempting a comeback and Eric moving into his own place and acting weirdly around Sloan when we’ve already seen these things happen multiple times. I’m honestly just not sure what this show could possibly do to make me legitimately care about the characters again. Maybe if Ari started hurling d*ck jokes at Lloyd? Hehehehehehehe… he is so gay!
I suppose it’s odd to be allied with the angry masses who complained three years ago that Entourage is just a pandering, d-bag fantasy world (a half truth), but my loss of interest in this show isn’t based on a necessary decline in quality or increase in doucheyness over the past couple years; it’s just that Enotourage has continued to be the exact same show for longer than I can keep enjoying the exact same show, even when holding it to the minimal standards of “why not, let’s waste a harmless 24 minutes every Sunday.” I know people made this observation two seasons ago, but now it’s completely unarguable.
Bernie Madoff's prison sentence has been reduced from 150 years to 130 years. Or maybe it hasn't. But for whatever reason the Bureau of Prisons has the fraudster's release date listed for 2139. Math error or evidence Bernie's opened up his wallet and is now dishing out bribes to prison officials? You decide! [Dealbreaker]
The happiest man in New York today? That would be Lloyd Blankfein, the chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, which announced this morning that the bank reeled in a record $13.8 billion in revenue for the second quarter and generated profits of $3.44 billion. It's a big turnaround from a few months ago when the firm was holding out its hand for billions in bailout dollars, of course. But that's water under the bridge. And no one seems to be so sure how Goldman managed to do it. Blankfein attributed the big gains to "the combination of improving financial market conditions and a deep and diverse client franchise" in a news release today, whatever that means. But who cares how Goldman did it? The important thing is to go out and celebrate, right?
Unfortunately, how Lloyd and the gang plan to mark the big occasion is still unknown. We just put a call into Blankfein's office and asked if he had anything exciting in store for this evening. A big dinner, perhaps? A jaunt to Vegas? We didn't get any answers. A polite "no comment" was issued and we were advised to direct our questions to the company's PR department. We just followed up by email with Lucas van Praag, Goldman's global head of corporate communications. We'll let you know as soon as we hear back!
This is Yael Arad. She is something of a legend in Israel, as she is the first person from the tiny country to ever win an Olympic medal. A silver in Judo to be exact (More like JEWd– I’ll stop.) Because of this honor, Yael travels the country giving speeches about what it takes to be a champion (nevermind the fact that, technically, she came in second.) I was lucky enough to be on the receiving end of one of those speeches, as part of a program I took part in on my trip to the Holy Land.
The speech, it should be noted, took place during an unexplainable Romanian circus we were treated to involving people on stilts and failed Eastern European porn stars. Which explains the trapeze. But Yael pushed through, as only a champion can, even though her grasp of the English language was as loose as Kate Gosselin’s… pre-nup. **collar-pull**
Yael spent a conservative 15-minutes telling us about having to climb a mountain in Korea for 2 hours while getting stuff slapped to her back (the actually “stuff” was never specified, though we opined it might have been these.) At the end of story, after hearing about her climbing this same godforsaken mountain, we learned a very important lesson: She was super tired. And sweaty. And, like… really hot. Not so much inspirational as it was perspirational.
That being said, Yael did come prepared with easily the most brainfold-tingling Powerpoint Presentation every presented in Microsoft history. Check out the slide in the above photo, where Yael taught us a very important lesson regarding “The Love & Ambition of success in sport”. Pay close attention, kids: Need does not equal drive, and together, they yield “Bug”.
(4 minute pause) Pretty sure there is nothing more to add to this concept, so… The person who can offer the best theory as to what the HELL this slide means will earn a direct message from me on Twitter! (@michcoll, for those who care.) (Oh snap, unexpected Twitter plug!)
Lady Gaga stepped out in Manchester wearing the face of what appears to be a Sesame StreetMuppet Show character as bottoms. Should we be more thankful that she's wearing bottoms, or that the face on the bottoms is not of a cat? Update: The dress is look 24 from Jean-Charles de Castelbajac's fall 2009 collection.
AP - The sweet syncopations of Scott Joplin and the marvelous melodies of Irving Berlin can't bring to life "The Tin Pan Alley Rag," a soggy, inert examination of what made these musical masters tick.
Esther Klein's three grandchildren, ages 7 to 15, were coming over to her house, and she wanted to entertain them. So she rented a copy of Mike Myers's Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery from the Borough Park branch of the local library, and the four of them settled in to to watch the movie, a James Bond spoof in which the title character, a British spy whose catchphrase is "Do I make you horny, baby?" tussles with numerous villains, including one with the name Alotta Fagina. If you haven't seen it, the movie is pretty hilarious, and contains many funny lines about "shagging," "Swedish-made penis enlargers," and how there "really is nothing like a shorn scrotum." And then there's this one, our favorite:
Shall we shag now, or shall we shag later? How do you like to do it? Do you like to wash up first? You know, top and tails... whore's bath? Personally, before I'm on the job, I like to give my undercarriage a bit of a 'how's your father'!
Ha! It's wholesome fun for the whole family. Which is why Klein was shocked — shocked — when, after the closing credits, the screen suddenly filled with X-rated footage. Someone, it appeared, had recorded a porno over the library's tape!
And now her grandchildren were seeing it! Their baby eyes! Klein complained to her local assemblyman, Dov Hikind, who threatened to take away all of the library's VHS tapes in order to prevent this kind of disgraceful incident from recurring. After all, he told the Post, therapists have said that children can suffer psychological damage from viewing pornography. "It's pretty sick stuff," he added. Indeed. It's one thing to joke about a shorn scrotum with your grandma, but actually seeing one in the same room with her is another thing entirely.
This morning, before making my way upstairs to caress the hair of my favorite neglected blog while it sobbed in my bosom, I took a few minutes out of my schedule to make an appearance on It’s On with Alexa Chung (re-airing again today at 6 PM ET), MTV’s latest and greatest talk show featuring English personality Alexa Chung and a variety of guests. Today, I found myself getting my hair and makeup done — aka “The Tyra Carwash” — next to the legendary Kelly Osbourne. Kelly looked absolutely angelic, perfect skin, the whole deal, and was very friendly with the crew on board.
So there we were, getting shpritzed and glazed, when the topic turned to CNN. One of the makeup artists announced she was obsessed with CNN, saying things like “I would happily have Wolf Blitzer’s baby.” While most of us spend the next few minutes wondering whata baby like thiswould be like in human time, Kelly popped this question:
“What about the woman with the chokers? Who always says “PTL”?”
“I have no idea who that is…” I mumbled while getting navy brown foundation airbrushed to my cheekbones.
Kelly was frustrated. “You know, she starts every segment with “PTL! PTL!” She’s always going on about kidnapped kids…”
“NANCY GRACE” the entire room responded in unison.
“Yes, that’s her!” Mystery solved. Well… almost.
“What exactly does PTL mean?” I asked, curious about a new abbreviation that I could possibly use in every other sentence. It was then Kelly informed the room that “PTL” stands for “Praise the Lord.” Needless to say, I freaked.
PTL, That Is Such a Nice Choker.
“What?! I love that! That should be the new replacement for OMG. Like, “PTL, this dress is fabulous!”
The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. OMG seems a little too played out already, even earning a coveted spot in the adorable high school comedy 17 Again (which I watched twice on the plane yesterday.) As Fergie and probably Carlton from Fresh Prince would say, it’s sooo “two thousand and late“. We need something new, something edgy, something Nancy Gracey to really call out the big guy upstairs in a new and totally trivial and blasphemous way. And PTL is that something. For the Lord’s sake, PTL was even used in the name of a televised evangelical show The PTL Club, starring your favorite theives ever, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. It’s new AND retro at the same time! Plus, it’s got a certain “Gay Southernness” that we like in our abbrevs.
So get on board, today’s youth: PTL is the new OMG. Even Kelly Osbourne thinks so. Also? This will probably never catch on, but it’s worth a try.
And in other news, I managed to sneak “donkey punch” past the censors today. Ah, it’s good to be back.
A schoolteacher from southern England with no previous filmmaking experience is giving amateurism a good name by directing her pupils in a feature film fit for Hollywood.
Reuters - It may have had one of the wettest premieres in memory this week, but that did little to dampen critics' enthusiasm for "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", the sixth film in the blockbuster franchise.
Dolce & Gabbana publicist Ali Wise is facing a few felony charges for allegedly hacking into the voice mail of interior designer Nina Freudenberger. And there appear to be other victims of Wise's electronic crime spree, including a fashion designer named Briana Rasinski, according to today's Post. But Wise has at least one friend who's got her back: Stacey Bendet, the founder of alice + olivia. Judging by her comments, we're going to go ahead and assume that Freudenberger will not be asked to design the next home that Bendet and her husband Eric Eisner move into:
Two of the updates Bendet posted on Facebook yesterday:
who the hell new a spoofcard was illegal??? i mean its called "spoof". so nina freuenwhatever can create fake email accounts and identities and get ali arrested for using a spoof card? where is the justice in this world.
isnt it strange that nina freudenut started this whole case against ali wise the same week she opened a store? hellooooo press whore.
'Bruno', the alter ego of British satirist Sacha Baron Cohen, arrives for the Australian premiere of his self-titled movie at the State Theatre in Sydney in June 2009. "Bruno", the outrageous comedy about... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 14 Jul 2009 | 5:37 pm
I’m finally back from my yearly skin cancer retreat. And gigantic brown tumor moles aside, I really missed you guys. Being away on vacation was frustrating on many levels, given my addiction to meaningless news and online attention. So, did I miss anything? No? That’s good to hear…
MTV has tabbed Russell Brand to host the Video Music Awards for the second straight year in an attempt to replicate last year’s controversial controversy and generate online buzz about whichever intentionally over-the-line-but-not-really joke / scripted bit MTV greenlights then pretends to be shocked by…
“This year will be a controversy-free festival of love and discrete orgasms,” said the “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” star, who stirred plenty of controversy as host last year when he joked about the Jonas Brothers’ purity rings.
Personally, I’m for the move, and I’d much rather have Russell Brand screwing around generating ‘controversy’ than, say, Michael Phelps stiffly reading one-liners off a prompter.
NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg is excited too, adding this not-square-at-all quote:
“New York City’s music scene is second to none. Every night of the week, our clubs, cabarets and concert halls are overflowing with the latest and greatest sounds. The Video Music Awards showcase the best in music, production and art. The VMAs will bring even more excitement to the city that never sleeps, and they’ll give us a chance to introduce thousands of visitors to great music and arts attractions across all five boroughs.”
Bloomberg added, “Our city is like a Big Apple, and we are excited for the rock and roll stylings of Kanye West and the Green Day on music television awards show.”
Guesses about what joke/bit will go “over the line” and have everyone buzzing about it the next day in the exact manner MTV anticipated? I’m guessing something MJ-related…
AP - They carry "it" bags instead of backpacks, consider shopping a social sport and can burn through mom and dad's money, but the high-school girls of "NYC Prep" also can spot a bargain.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, seen here in June 2009, speaks at a press conference in El Segundo, California. Villaraigosa Monday hit out at critics who said Michael Jackson's family should have... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 14 Jul 2009 | 4:17 pm
A picture shows photographers taking pictures of the arriving guests at the "Festspielhaus" in the southern German city of Bayreuth in 2008. Germany's Bayreuth opera festival looked set on Tuesday to be... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 14 Jul 2009 | 4:17 pm
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band have added new U.S. concert dates to their 2009 Working On A Dream tour, which returns stateside in late August with three shows at the Comcast Theater in Hartford, Conn. The North American tour currently has dates booked through mid-November.
Front Page: Jon Amiel's biopic on Darwin kicks off event -- Jon Amiel's Charles Darwin biopic "Creation" will open the 34th Toronto Film Festival on Sept. 10.
Hundreds of fans gathered in London’s O2 Arena to hold a candlelight vigil for Michael Jackson. The world is now just two public MJ memorials away from getting the point.
The Sun UK ran an article about MJ’s alleged homosexuality with the headline “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough Exploiting The Sh*t Out Of This Dude For Months And Months After His Death.”
Spongebob Squarepants is celebrating his 10th anniversary of existence with a behind-the-scenes special airing tonight on VH1. Wait, VH1? Really? I guess they’ll have to digitally insert some fake, herpes-covered cleavage on Patrick.
Universal is releasing a re-cut, tamer version of Bruno to help boost audiences in the U.K. There’s still a talking d*ck, it just doesn’t yell quite as loudly.
Source reveals Romo was tired of Papa Joe's meddling ways - and didn't share Jess' desire to 'make babies' just yet Source: FOXNews.com | 14 Jul 2009 | 2:25 pm
People who abuse prescription drugs often do so believing the pills are safe because they are prescribed by doctors and approved by the Food and Drug Administration, addiction experts tell CNN.
It's been eight years since Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint first hopped on the Hogwarts Express, and the three have done little else since. Now that the ride will soon come to an end, the cast is trying to fathom a life without the Harry Potter films.
AP - The "Shin Megami Tensei" series may be the epitome of cult video-game franchises, barely known by most players but beloved by a small but devoted core of fans.
Wilco drafted a slew of high-profile guests for its Monday night show at Keyspan Park near New York's Coney Island, collaborating with Feist, Grizzly Bear's Ed Droste and Yo La Tengo during the encore of the performance.
A rare performance from folk icon Tim Buckley will see the light later this summer, when the Tompkins Square label issues "Live at the Folklore Center, NYC – March 6, 1967" on August 25.
Two weeks after Michael Jackson's death, administrators of his estate are temporarily authorized to reopen for business and negotiate, among other things, agreements relating to the singer's ill-fated "This Is It" concert tour.
• A notorious group of "gem raiders" hit the Cartier in Cannes yesterday and made off with more than $20 million in merchandise. What probably should have been a tip-off that something was amiss: the robbers were all clad in Hawaiian shirts. [
President Barack Obama took the mound at tonight's 2009 Major League Baseball All-Star game to toss out the ceremonial first pitch, and the southpaw passed one of the most grueling...
New Jersey just ended. Atlanta's about to start. And now comes word Orange County will back for more.
Yeah, we're a little obsessed with Bravo's Real Housewives franchise,...
City employees paid Michael Jackson's dermatologist a visit late this morning…and it wasn't for crank calls or a checkup.
Los Angeles County Assistant Chief Coroner Ed...
Now that Kendra Wilkinson and Hank Baskett have tied the knot and returned from their romantic island honeymoon, she's spending more time updating her official blog.
Check out...
Even more so than usual, the name of the game at the 34th Toronto Film Festival will be survival of the fittest.
Creation, starring real-life loves Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly as...
Original Bachelorette Trista Sutter is putting her reality-TV experience to use for us here at Watch With Kristin, blogging about Jillian Harris' quest for the perfect guy. Take it away,...
Channing Tatum is on the August cover of GQ, where he's tasked with promoting next month's G.I. Joe (oof).
All he has to say about that is "I hope it does OK." Costar...
Where's Smith Jerrod when you need him?
Taking a cue from her fictional counterpart, Samantha Jones, Sex and the City vixen Kim Cattrall has officially called it quits with her much...
That’s like saying “Oh, you like pizza? Let me recommend this other food you should try — ICE CREAM. You obviously like awesome things, and ice cream is also awesome.” Did Netflix really need me to fill out seven pages of information about my specific movie tastes to determine that I might want to watch The Godfather???
Without looking, I decided I’d go with the highest-ranked movie on the 
I spent over an hour yesterday staring at my computer screen with a blank post open, trying to write something about the Entourage Season Premiere, then another half hour today without a single word written before realizing that my complete, empty gaze spoke more loudly about my current feelings towards the show than any dumbass jokey analysis I could’ve possibly thrown together.
I’ve 
The happiest man in New York today? That would be 
This morning, before making my way upstairs to caress the hair of my favorite neglected blog while it sobbed in my bosom, I took a few minutes out of my schedule to make an appearance on It’s On with Alexa Chung (re-airing again today at 6 PM ET), MTV’s latest and greatest talk show featuring English personality Alexa Chung and a variety of guests. Today, I found myself getting my hair and makeup done — aka “The Tyra Carwash” — next to the legendary Kelly Osbourne. Kelly looked absolutely angelic, perfect skin, the whole deal, and was very friendly with the crew on board.
MTV has tabbed Russell Brand to 
