AP - Most camped out overnight. Some spent two nights outside the San Diego Convention Center. They wore homemade T-shirts, made friends with fellow fans and talked about their allegiance to Team Edward or Team Jacob.
AP - Most camped out overnight. Some spent two nights outside the San Diego Convention Center. They wore homemade T-shirts, made friends with fellow fans and talked about their allegiance to Team Edward or Team Jacob.
Pervy money manager Jeffrey Epstein got out of prison yesterday, which means he can finally begin to put the last couple of years behind him and move on with his life, right? Not really. Since Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting underage prostitutes, he had to register as a sex offender yesterday, a status that will be with him for the rest of his life. (That could explain the not-so-happy look on his face in this photo.) Florida's sex offender registry helpfully allows you to sign up for alerts so you're notified if someone moves to a new location. Naturally, if Epstein ever decides to leave his Palm Beach mansion and return home to his 45,000-square-foot, eight-story townhouse on East 71st Street, we'll be sure to notify you immediately. Epstein's full "predator flyer" is below.
Reuters - Hard-core geeks, "Twilight"-swooning tweens, "Star Wars" nostalgists, pale-skinned comic-book collectors, SpongeBob SquarePants, costumed zombies, Oscar winners including Denzel Washington, Peter Jackson and James Cameron and perennial attendee Kevin Smith are descending on San Diego this weekend for the 40th edition of Comic-Con.
Phish is headed to the Coachella Valley for a three-day music festival all its own. The Vermont-based band on Thursday announced the location of its first big event since reuniting... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 24 Jul 2009 | 4:48 am
SAN DIEGO (Hollywood Reporter) - To stoke buzz for the sci-fi flick "Avatar," 20th Century Fox will take over as many Imax and 3D screens around the world as it can on August 21 to show 15... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 24 Jul 2009 | 4:05 am
• It's official: designer Esteban Cortazar and Emanuel Ungaro are parting ways. [WWD] • The 20 biggest scandals in fashionland. [Pipeline] • Amy Winehouse is planning to launch a perfume? Really? Please say this isn't so. [Grazia] • What t-shirt you decide to wear in the Hamptons makes all the difference, apparently. [NYT] • Manhattan is far thinner than the rest of the country. Simon Doonan (5-foot-4, 135 lbs.) on what it's like to travel to other parts of the country: "I'm appalled by people my age who can't get through the airport without a wheelchair." [NYT]
• The trailer for the new season of Project Runway is out. [Cut] • Sean Avery is teaming up with men's wear label Commonwealth Utilities. He'll "serve as a design collaborator and marketing pitchman." [WWD] • Model Erin Wasson has a bit part in Sofia Coppola's new movie. [F'gie] • Ulta is hoping to give Sephora a run for its money. [NYT] • The Wall Street Journal tackles cankles—and the plastic surgeons and gyms making money off of them—in today's paper. [WSJ]
Katie Holmes is so pretty, but is she a great song-and-dance gal?
Well, we'll leave that to you, but we can say this for certain—Mrs. Tom Cruise's shoulder shrugs and hat...
across the planet. "Star Wars in Concert" will feature a symphony orchestra and choir performing composer John Williams' music from the six "Star Wars" films. The performances will be... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 24 Jul 2009 | 2:58 am
SAN DIEGO - Seth Rogen arrived at Comic Con with a sweet ride. The "Funny People" actor stopped by the pop-culture convention's show floor to unveil the Black Beauty, a modified 1965... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 24 Jul 2009 | 2:55 am
Texas authorities released court documents Thursday detailing the items seized from the medical office and storage unit of Dr. Conrad Murray, the cardiologist who was with Jackson when he fell ill and died on June 25.
Reuters - Just because it happens to feature a bunch of cute, talking guinea pigs doesn't for one second mean that producer Jerry Bruckheimer's first foray into 3D isn't anything other than business as usual. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment Reviews | 24 Jul 2009 | 2:06 am
Front Page: Showrunner Ken Warwick reups in pricey pact -- "American Idol" exec producer Ken Warwick has sealed a rich three-year, eight-figure deal to continue as the showrunner behind Fox's megahit "American Idol."
Jon Gosselin may be the one being mauled by the "Lovebug," but it's Kate Gosselin's socks that got rocked off tonight.
Kate, officially queen of the world in her...
She claims the "Paris Hilton" we all see in front of the cameras is just a character she's...
Did Chelsea Handler get Kristin Cavallari to go off-script about The Hills? In the interview, the host of E!'s own Chelsea Lately finds out what the starlet plans to bring...
Reuters - "Hella Good." That's the title of the futuristic funk workout No Doubt performed early in its 90-minute-plus set Wednesday at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City, but it also effectively summed up the quartet's performance.
After four years of development, $200 million in production costs, and a thick shroud of secrecy, superdirector James Cameron (Titanic) showed Comic-Con fans 25 minutes of never-before-seen...
As if those awesome preview pics last month didn't get us excited enough to take a trip down the rabbit hole, along comes this new teaser trailer for Tim Burton's version of...
Front Page: Ticking clock spurs deals -- The Big Four nets and CW are finally seeing some movement in upfront ad sales for the upcoming season -- after weeks at a standstill.
Even when stuff is happening in Houston, it stays in Vegas.
E! News confirmed Thursday that Dr. Conrad Murray has been sticking close to his Las Vegas home as he has become the focal...
After the disappointing trailer for the sixth season of Project Runway, it's hard to imagine making more time or room in life for Project Runway, but Lifetime is going ahead with the All-Star Challenge, so we are going to try. Past contestants are coming back to compete again (it's like a whole new era of meta-reality-TV!) and the cast has piqued our interest. It includes Daniel Vosovic (season two), Santino Rice (season two), Jeffrey Sebelia (season three), Uli Herzner (season three), Mychael Knight (season three), Chris March (season four), Sweet P (season four), and Korto Momolu (season five). Eight people is half of a normal Runway cast. This special program was shot over a week earlier this month. The format is similar to regular episodes, but All-Star episodes are longer and include "a few more twists." The winner gets $100,000. Jeffrey is the only previous winner to join the cast. It's a shame winning the series didn't do more for his career the first time around. But it's probably a good thing his pursuit of fame hasn't reduced him to shilling for Starbucks.
Kidneys: If you were a regular New Yorker reader, you might think that people were clamoring to give them away for free. But in fact, they cost a pretty penny, especially, if you buy them from someone like Levy-Izhak Rosenbaum of Brooklyn, who was accused today of "enticing vulnerable people to give up a kidney for $10,000 and then selling the organ for $160,000," as the Times puts it, as part of the FBI's sweep of New Jersey. To be fair, the markup seemed justified to Rosenbaum. Selling a kidney on the black market is complicated! We know, because in the complaint filed against him by the FBI, Rosenbaum explained to an undercover officer how his business worked.
“Let me explain to you one thing. It's illegal to buy or sell organs…So you cannot buy it. What you do is, you're giving a compensation for the time… I am what you call a matchmaker . . . I bring a guy what I believe, he’s suitable for your uncle…We put together something--the relationship. The hospital is asking what's the relationship between [the donor and recipient.] So we put in a relationship, friends, or neighbor, or business relations, any relation…[you] wouldn't go to cousins because it's, they--the recipient is not going to be investigated, but the, the donor is investigated . . . . So if, if you start with family, it's real easy to find out if he's not . . . it's not the family, because the names and the ages and who is who . . . it doesn't work… I put together the story by seeing your uncle, seeing him . . . Could be, ah, ah, neighbors, could be friends from shul, could be friends from the community, could be friends of, of, of his children…business friends. The price with what we are asking here is a hundred fifty- thousand dollars… One of the reasons it's so expensive is because you have to shmear everyone.
Actually it was that expensive because Rosenbaum was pocketing close to all of the fee, but, you know.
Front Page: Ken Howard to run for Guild prexy -- Ken Howard's tossed his hat in the ring for president of the Screen Actors Guild as head of the Unite for Strength ticket, with the self-styled moderates aiming to strengthen their hold on SAG's national board.
What happens when you put a desperate real estate developer together with a discount clothing chain? You come up with the contest that Daffy's is kicking off today. The retailer is offering a one-year lease on a two-bedroom apartment at One Seventh—located on the corner of Seventh Avenue South and Carmine Street—for $700. (Daffy's claims the apartment would normally rent for $7,000 a month.) To enter, you have to stop by a Daffy's location and record a 30-second video explaining why you deserve to win. If you plan on taking part, you may also want to be ready to explain why your new living room is decorated with a giant "Welcome to the Daffy's Apartment" poster. [TONY]
Conan O'Brien's continued ratings meltdown and subsequent loss of power as a lead-in is now starting to affect his other Peacock-network chums. Not only did Craig Ferguson claim victory over Jimmy Fallon last week for the first time, but now even the perennially third-place finisher Jimmy Kimmel is eating Fallon's lunch! Last week, Jimmy Kimmel Live! posted its strongest ratings of the month and topped Fallon in total viewers for the first time since March. Is it time to push the panic button over at NBC yet? [DHD]
One of the big items selling at San Diego Comic-Con this year are these Team Jacob and Team Edward T-shirts, calling out the rivalry between Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner's supernatural...
Alabama’s Paper Route Gangstaz touched down nationally with last year's Fear and Loathing in Hunts Vegas, an uneven mix tape highlighted by some of the best stunt sampling we've ever heard — seriously, who knew Underworld's "Born Slippy" would sound so good reborn as a self-esteem-boosting hip-hop anthem? (Turning "Careless Whisper" into "Bama Getting Money" was pretty ingenious too.) Those cuts came courtesy of Diplo, who plucked PRG from regional-rap obscurity and will be executive producing their upcoming full-length. Diplo's not responsible for "Keyshia Cole," the first single off pre-album EP Rocket Fuel, which turns out to be no problem — with giant techno synths, Shawty Redd-like drums, and one bewildering nickname for what sounds like a very potent strain of marijuana ("We used to call it ether, but now we call it Keyshia / And if you got a cold, a blunt of this here will relieve ya"), PRG proves they're no one-trick pony.
Michelle Trachtenberg, otherwise known as Georgina Sparks, Gossip Girl's ball-shrinking antihero, has a new show in the works, NBC's Mercy. Thus, we at Daily Intel HQ have been fretting that, come September, the bitch would not, in fact, be back for a full season. But at last night's Guess-store party, Trachtenberg put those fears to rest by saying she plans on juggling the two roles — possibly forever. "Georgina's not going anywhere," she informed us. "She's always going to be an element of Gossip Girl," she said. "She's never gonna die. There's nothing you can do to kill her. It's like one of those horror movies where they're like, 'She's dead,' and then she wakes back up and is like, 'No, I'm not.'" So, what's in store for next season, now that the cast is out of high school?, we asked. "Well, for Georgina, it's her first time in college," Trachtenberg said. "So there is definitely going to be a lot of college drama. But probably no freshman fifteen."
We're in the wrong business. Gold-plated pacifiers should be our trade.
A day after the all-natural birth of her son, Kelis Rogers has successfully secured roughly $40,000 in monthly...
We've just heard from Black Sheep and Prodigal Sons designer Derrick Cruz that a solid eighteen-karat-gold honeycomb pendant was stolen out of a display case last night at the Bblessing (Capsule) event on the Lower East Side. The $4,500 one-of-a-kind piece features a hunk of honeycomb cast directly in gold and strung on a leather cord. It was part of his upcoming fall 2010 collection, ironically titled "Theft of Light." And there's a mysterious suspect!
Cruz describes:
"I left [the event] for my studio on Rivington and Essex to meet up with a suited local gentleman who wanted to purchase my Cottonmouth bolo to use as a belt buckle — he'd dropped by the show twice the day before inquiring about the work. My intern then left for a few minutes to get us water ... Well, the man never showed up at my studio for the transaction. Turns out before the show officially opened he was at the space looking at the case. He's our only suspect."
Intrigue! If you see a suited gent sporting a substantial honeycomb pendant on the Lower East Side this weekend, you know what to do.
It's no secret that there's been some considerable erosion of NBC's late-night lineup ever since Conan O'Brien took over the reins of the Tonight Show back on June 1. Needless to say, Napoleonic NBC honcho Jeff Zucker and his impeccably eyebrowed sidekick Ben Silverman are running out of fingernails to chew as they white-knuckle their way through the next seven weeks of a Jay Leno–less lineup. So, in an attempt to keep Leno top-of-mind, NBC has just launched a brand-spanking-new website with the tagline "Primetime had it coming" for the Jay Leno Show. On it, users can do mind-numbingly boring things like watch the construction of their new airplane-hangar-size set live via webcam or peruse Leno's storied collection of classic cars. However, the thing that caught our eye was the "Latest From Jay" section of the site, where the Chin corrals whoever just so happens to be standing around the set — random band members, hapless interns, and even construction workers — and subjects them to 90 seconds of monologue jokes he reads off note cards. We can only assume the Teamsters will aim to add a "No monologue" clause to their contracts next time they go back to the negotiating table.
"The enlarged orange beak of the toucan, which Charles Darwin speculated was “sexual ornamentation,” instead serves to regulate the tropical bird’s body temperature, scientists in the U.S. and Brazil found."
Yeah. So Darwin was a perv, basically. We guess we should have known. For instance, how you could look at the picture at right and think anything remotely dirty is beyond us.
FRAGRANCE
• Amy Winehouse may launch a fragrance as part of her image makeover, because who wouldn’t want to smell like hair spray, ciggies, and Camden Lock? [Grazia UK]
MAKEUP
• Is megaretailer Ulta set to overtake Sephora? The chain opened 68 new stores nationwide last year, and may be able to snag new customers with its deep discounts. [NYT]
• The secret to perfect foundation? Use a makeup brush, not a sponge, or worse, your hands. [Beauty Department/Glamour]
HAIR
• There’s nothing supernatural about sparkling like a vampire. Shu Uemura’s Full Shimmer line for hair adds glow to your locks. [Nylon]
PLASTIC SURGERY
• A California woman used a stolen credit card to pay for lipo and breast augmentation. She somehow thought she wouldn't be caught. [Daily Beauty Reporter/Allure]
The wonderful thing about the New York Times home section is that many of the pieces in it are not so much about the real estate, gardens, or interior decorations that appear in the pictures, but actually about the kooky characters that inhabit them. (Also, it has the fruitiest sensibility of any of the sections, including "Sunday Styles.") Today we get an example of one of these stories, with the tale of young Bradford Shelhammer and Ben Dixon, a pair of cute gays with impeccable taste who own an apartment and a lake house together that are filled with lovely furniture and artwork. The problem is, the couple — who had even set a date for their wedding — broke up and don't want to sell, so they are left in a limbo of primary-colored pants and chairs from the Dutch design collective Droog.
There are a lot of sad things about this, many involving real estate taxes, but they are most encapsulated by the following anecdote, which is told by Shelhammer in an audio slideshow accompanying the piece (another priceless aspect of the "Home" section). In it, he discusses a pair of silhouette paintings, pictured above, that he created of the couple:
When they were in our city apartment, they were facing each other, and it was quite adorable — we were staring at each other. And it wasn’t until we went to the house for Ben's birthday — which was the day we were to be married — that my friend Sandra remarked to me: 'The portraits of the two of you are facing opposite directions!' And they had been hung that way last year, and I don't know symbolically what that means, but it shook me.
See, last weekend, it was Dixon's birthday. It was also, as Shelhammer noted, the weekend they'd planned their wedding. (You used to be able to follow the progress of their engagement on the website "IHeartBenford.com" but that's long defunct.) Since some people had already bought tickets, Dixon held a big party at the lake house, and Shelhammer even came along to help host. The Times went along for the ride, to capture the awkwardness.
Part of the reason why they broke up, Dixon told the paper, was because Shelhammer would always blog about everything. "For me," he said, a vacation or a party was "real just for the two of us. It seemed like Bradford often needed to put it online for it to be real." Proving his point, a little, Shelhammer took to his blog today to review the Times piece, and to do some feeling:
And while some will see this story as sad, and yes, it can be very sad, still, it is indeed the opposite. It is a story about a shared love, of each other and of design. It is a story of how things change and how friendship remains. And it is a story of how life is rarely perfect. Not perfect, but beautiful and evolving,[sic]
Two hours north of New York City, right off the Taconic at mile marker 67, sits a little piece of my heart. It lives in a colorfully kitsch playhouse and it will always be where I've felt the most home. My mother always said I had an explorer's heart and I pick up and live wherever the wind, and my desire, take me. I've never really had a home. Not growing up. Not in my twenties. But there among those trees and on that lake remains my home. Hopefully, sometime sooner than later, Ben and his friends and me an my friends and his boyfriend and my boyfriend can all come together for a weekend there. Laugh all you want. I know we'll get there.
We'll farmstand hop and make elaborate meals and drink good wine and play Wii Fit and watch Hitchcock and Auntie Mame. I have hope of getting there. And so does he. In good time.
Shelhammer wrote that the Times approached the couple to do the story, not vice versa. We'll never really understand why people agree to open themselves up to this kind of coverage, really. But then again, we also don't understand how to own a home and fill it with tastefully chosen, distinctive furniture and artwork. Perhaps the two are related?
Karlie Kloss, Anna Wintour, and Lauren Santo-Domingo.
Today the New York Times confirms something we've known and held sacred in our hearts for ages: We are the thinnest county in New York State. Probably one of, if not the, thinnest in the country. Whereas 67 percent of the nation's population is overweight, only 42 percent of Manhattan's population is overweight. And sometimes — okay, all the time — being skinny is all that matters, especially in fashion. Screw job performance, screw health, screw a general state of happiness — nothing is more important than showing up at a party and being one of the thinnest people there. Besides, being thin leads to things.
“My mom always says, ‘The smaller the dress size, the larger the apartment,’ ” said one lifelong Upper East Sider, who said she did not want to be named because she disapproves of the maxim.
Frankly most of the rich people quoted in the Times article say equally obnoxious things. They all confess to being gym and salad obsessives, and their heights and weights are all listed in the article. But at least, unlike fashion models, these folks admit they put a lot of time, effort, and thought into staying skinny. Where as models "eat burritos and brownie pie all day" and "never exercise." Because that is even more obnoxious.
After Barack Obama sorta called him "stupid" at a nationally televised press conference, Cambridge, Massachusetts, cop Sgt. James Crowley is going on the defensive over his arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. He took to the radio this morning in Boston and said he would not apologize for his actions, because he had not done anything wrong. He declined to say anything bad about the president, but did comment that he thought it was "regrettable that anybody on either side of this issue would make comments," and said Obama was "way off base wading into a local issue before knowing all the facts." He also had this to say about the controversial arrest:
"He was cautioned in the house, meaning calm down, lower your voice," Crowley said. "Once we got outside in front of the general public and the police officers that were assembled there, two warnings, the second warning with me holding a set of handcuffs in my hand. It was something I really didn't want to do, but the professor at any point in time could have resolved the issue by quieting down and/or going back in his house."
Complicating the matter is the fact that Crowley, who has been accused of racial profiling by some (even though it was a neighbor calling 911 that pegged Gates for a burglar as he tried to get into his own home), has actually taught a class on the contentious law-enforcement issue for years. The class specifically explains how you don't want to single people out based on their culture or ethnicity. Also, one time he gave mouth-to-mouth to NBA star Reggie Lewis as he lay dying courtside at a game, but whose counting?
The White House, meanwhile, backed away from the firmness of Obama's comments today, saying they were "surprised" at the controversy over them. "I think it was a pretty straight forward commentary that you probably don't need to handcuff a guy, a middle-aged man who uses a cane, who is in his own home," Obama said. "Let me be clear," spokesman Robert Gibbs added. "He was not calling the officer stupid."
While watching (an Asperger’s Syndrome–afflicted!) Hugh Dancy romance Rose Byrne in Adam, out July 29, we thought to ourselves, Hmmm, that's funny, almost every actor we adore at this moment is British. Granted, every few years the media touts the British invasion of Hollywood, but today, evidence truly abounds. From Jim Sturgess to Ed Westwick, Robert Pattinson to Gerard Butler, there's a whole slew of gentlemen with delicate cheekbones from across the pond vying for our ticket-buying affection. Herewith, we anoint the best of the swoony new crop.
Hair ye, hair ye: Michelle Obama didn’t cut her hair.
Her hairstylist Johnny Wright reveals that he gave her an “tuck up,” which she debuted at a country music event at the White House Tuesday.
“No, I didn’t cut her hair,” he tells UrbanBeautyCollective.com. “There are two things I do. The UP-TUCK, like you are tucking something in. Then I do a TUCK-UP. The UP-TUCK is when I position a small ponytail somewhere on the head, and then I tuck the rest of the hair up under that ponytail. Then a TUCK-UP is when I take the hair and gather it all in the back and I twist it and I pull up and tuck. And that is what she got last night! A TUCK UP! Not a cut.”
Oh. My. F-word. God.
Here we were, bein’ all like “Oh, Michelle Obama probably cut her hair for a country music event this weekend,” but the truth was that you just had a “tuck-up.” That is NOT the same thing, as explained in that paragraph. And you never said a GOD DAMNED WORD. I have never been more disappointed in my government, and I remember that time Bush called a generic brand tissue a Kleenex, so I’ve lived through my share of controversy.
Us Weekly, for this story, you deserve the Journalism Award of Earth. Congratulations.
Stocks have been on the rise for the past 10 days or so. Today the Dow jumped 200 points, lifting it above 9,000 for the first time since January. Was it because of better-than-expected quarterly earnings? More encouraging unemployment and housing data? The result of increased confidence the recession is over and we're well on our way to economic recovery? Free free to take your pick. [WSJ, CNN]
With shoes having replaced bags as the accessory to change the look each season, Giuseppe Zanotti is the man of the moment. An ex-D.J., his rocker roots are clearly evident in his design aesthetic. Claiming Beyoncé, Gisele, and Kate Hudson among his many celebrity fans, his boots are made for watching as well as wearing! Here are five reasons we love Giuseppe Zanotti.
1. His shoes are so eighties, which makes them so right now.
2. Balmain designer Christophe Decarnin uses his shoes every season.
3. These are statement shoes — nothing timid about them.
4. They're equally great with jeans or a cocktail dress.
5. Always a bit tough, always a lot sexy.
Black Satin Knee Boots With Three Silver Buckles and Fringe, $1,975; Black Suede Crisscross Strappy Open-Toe Heels With Gold Grommet, $650; Black Leather Crocodile-Embossed Over-the-Knee Flat Boot, price upon request. Available at Giuseppe-zanotti-design.com and at Giuseppe Zanotti, 806 Madison Ave., nr. 67th St.; 212-650-0455.
Earlier today, the mayors of Hoboken and Secaucus, two state assemblymen, five rabbis and dozens of others were brought in by the FBI as part of of two-year corruption probe. The story of what exactly went down is still unfolding, and we're still getting to know the players. One of them, Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano, who was in office for just a couple of weeks before being accused of taking $25,000 in bribes, helped us by laying out his political philosophy for an FBI informant who posed as a developer eager to get his projects expedited in exchange for cash this past spring.
Back in April, Cammarano met the faux-developer at Hoboken's Malibu Diner, accompanied by his croney, local utilities commissioner Michael Schaffer, who assured the payee that when Cammarano was elected, he would be treated "like a friend."
"When we get elected, we put our friends on the boards so we know we get the — don't listen to these morons who say put this environmentalist on, they're all fucking kooks," Schaeffer said, according to the FBI complaint.
Cammarano elaborated: "Mr. Schaffer and I both see the world through the same lens, right?" he began.
In this election, hopefully, we, you know, we get to the point where I'm sworn in on July 1st, and we're breaking down the world into three categories at that point. There's the people who were with us, and that's you guys. There's the people who climbed aboard in the runoff. They can get in line ... and there are the people who were against us the whole way. They get ground ... they get ground into powder."
Well. They'll never be able to say he wasn't loyal.
On Monday, charming actress Katherine Heigl complained to Letterman about her exhausting seventeen-hour workdays in Shonda Rhimes's Grey's Anatomy sweatshop. Hilariously, in this week's EW, her co-star T.R. Knight tells Michael Ausiello the reason he left Grey's (and the security of a $14 million contract) was because Rhimes simply wasn't working him hard enough.
This fall, Knight was surprised to see his character George O’Malley all but vanish from the show — for the first nine episodes of season 5, he appeared on screen a total of only 48 minutes, compared to 114 for Sandra Oh's Christina. Still, due to what he calls a gradual "breakdown of communication" between himself and exec producer Shonda Rhimes, the actor chose not to ask his boss what was going on with his character. Instead, he simply asked to leave. "My five-year experience proved to me that I could not trust any answer that was given [about George]," he explains. "And with respect, I'm going to leave it at that."
He has the gall to complain even after being allowed to while away the hours relaxing comfortably in his trailer, as poor Katherine Heigl spent her seventeen-hour days arduously humping her dead fiancé in front of the camera. It's just rude, really.
Buzz Aldrin’s enthusiastic call for more space exploration on CNN sounds like either a narrator at the beginning of a new Star Trek series, or perhaps a mid-X-Files episode Fox Mulder monologue, but whatever it is, it makes the easily-won-over child-astronaut in me DEMAND that we resume exploring space immediately, no matter what the cost (we’ll make it back tenfold in magic space-gemeralds anyway, in my brain).
I don’t understand what he’s talking about or why, but it’s hard to disagree with the man’s adorable excitement:
After the jump, the TRUE STORY about the time I met Buzz Aldrin:
I was about six years old, and Buzz Aldrin was appearing at a bookstore in a Pittsburgh-area mall. I waited through a decent-size mob of people for about three or four minutes, finally made my way to the front, and managed to shake his hand.
“I want to be an astronaut when I grow up,” I said.
AP - "G-Force" has been billed as producer Jerry Bruckheimer's first foray into animation, which suggests his live-action films contain something resembling "reality" and "humans."
Why did Lydia Hearst decide to get down and dirty in the music video for Miles Fisher's cover of the Talking Heads song "This Must Be the Place"? "Miles is a good friend so I was willing to be a part of it," she tells the Observer. In real life, I am very conservative." Just as you suspected! [NYO]
Last night, and for one night only, fashion illustrator Richard Haines showed a collection of sketches at Envoy Enterprises on Chrystie Street. The exhibition, "The Line of Beauty," featured hundreds of drawings of hip rocker boys and chic men-about-town. Haines, who sketches stylish men he sees on the street, has recently worked on ads for the J.Crew Men's Shop and his drawings have appeared in their Soho windows. In addition to his well-dressed gents, Haines's show also included a full wall of boys in their skivvies. "A surprising number of people like to pose in their underwear," Haines explained. "I like doing those drawings because in the couple of hours it takes to sketch someone, we chat and I really get to know their story. That's one of the most fun parts for me." If you missed the show last night, which was part of Envoy's One Day Series, check out Haines's website, Designerman-Whatisawtoday.Blogspot.com, where he adds a new sketch almost every day.
Beyoncé's little sister Solange Knowles has shaved her head, as if making some sort of desperate cry for attention. Maybe her hair was always like this and she just wore wigs in the past, but going out sans weave was surely premeditated, and a significant fashion statement. It confirms the head-shaving trend — started by Alice Dellal, perpetuated by Amber Rose — has legs that won't quit. In the past few weeks we've seen Cassie shave half her head and Rihanna shave off the bottom part of her hair. Hair has gone the way of pants as the latest bullet point on Fashion's Endangered Species List. In times like these we must stick together. And be brave. [StyleWatch/People]
David Letterman's Late Show topped the Tonight Show in total viewers over the past two weeks — the first time that's happened since 1998, according to a CBS press release. Also, Letterman continues to make inroads with adults 18 to 34; over the past two weeks, he trailed Tonight in that demographic by the smallest margin since Conan became host. According to NBC's press release, though, Conan is up among viewers 18 to 49, so at least there's that. [TV by the Numbers, DHD]
I watched the Bill Maher / Larry Charles documentary Religulous off Netflix this week, and for some reason, the more movies I’ve watched, the more random Netflix’s recommendations have gotten. Last week’s “Hey, ever heard of The Godfather?” suggestion was nothing compared to this list of “Other Movies You Might Enjoy” based on my four-star rating of Religulous:
Documentary about worldwide religious self-assurance = The Fantastic Four? Huh? Two Nicolas Cage movies? Indef***ingpendence Day??? Because God created the universe, and Bill Pullman is in that universe? I’m confused.
After the jump, the recommendations get even weirder:
I’m a big fan of religious documentaries, like, you know, Van Helsing and Hitch. Also, Lethal Weapon 4, but ONLY #4, not those ridiculous Lethal Weapons 1-3, which weren’t religious documentaries at all. But I do definitely want to see S.W.A.T., that suggestion was right on the mark. (?)
(And as an epilogue to my Seven Samurai decision, 1) Turns out, my roommate already owned the movie on DVD, and 2) I still haven’t watched it. I’ll get the hang of this “watching moving pictures” trend one of these days…)
The trailer for the sixth season of Project Runway is out. And it looks like the production team is trying to hide that the season was shot in L.A. instead of New York. Missing are the glorious, sweeping shots of Manhattan, the designers trudging like ants through the summer haze, crowded by tall buildings. Instead we have the briefest of shots of the cast standing on a beach. Also, footage of a brunette who looks like she wears Lily Pulitzer playfully charging at somebody and screaming, wielding a roll of fabric as if it is a sword. Girlfest! No. Even the ominous music is missing. It feels so wrong. Lindsay Lohan also appears in the preview, which is the most exciting part.
Even though we have some fond (yet hazy) memories of the seminal nineties trashfest Melrose Place, we can't say we're exactly looking forward to the series reboot that the CW is launching on Tuesdays this fall (the new "Humpday," apparently). That said, based on this promotional poster the network just released, we think we might have a few beads on how things will shake out in the apartment complex that the beefy Jake Hanson built.
First off, we anticipate that the first couple of episodes will take a PSA bent and seek to shed light on the young woman from this photograph's dangerous case of scoliosis; her back is clearly bent at an unnatural angle, which is most likely why you can see Dr. Michael Mancini (original-series regular Thomas Calabro) hovering in the background. Secondly, we're guessing that the young gentleman in this poster is suffering from the after effects of amnesia; as you can tell, he remembered to take his shoes off before hopping in this pool, but forgot to take off the rest of his clothes. As anyone who (never) attended medical school will tell you, improper disrobing is among the most identifiable symptoms of memory loss. Lastly, the surprising amount of leaves strewn about the surrounding area of the pool indicates that the building's pool boy/super has mysteriously gone missing. If we know our Melrose Place, we're guessing the man-eating, redheaded vixen Sydney Andrews has something to do with it.
Got any interpretations of your own you'd like to share? You know where to leave 'em!
You know Pixar movies are all cute and adorable and whatnot, that is until someone has the bright idea of handing a real life Rat an array of tiny instruments and DEAR F**KING GOD IS THAT A SMALL RAT ORCHESTRA I HEAR PLAYING IN MY CEILING? Oh wait, no, that’s impossible:
Single Ellen, from Roosendaal, Holland, said her beloved pets — who cannot actually play the instruments — are “really talented actors”.
She said: ”They know exactly how to pose and both are really talented actors we have a really good understanding. They always know what I am saying.”
Well, if that’s the case I’m going to guess these rats think you’re an idiot, Ellen. An idiot with a penchant for finding adorably tiny instruments! As seen in this gallery — we like the sax and bass player combo the best:
"I've been to the White House five or six times over the years, but none of those times did I ever pick up an instrument," country music star Brad Paisley writes. On Tuesday night, he got to perform four songs in front of President Obama, who was sitting about 10 feet away from him.
A new poll measuring the attitude toward America around the globe shows huge jumps in our favorability rating over just a year ago, especially in France, Germany, Spain, Indonesia, and Mexico. In addition, almost every country (except Israel and Pakistan) is vastly more confident that America will "do the right thing" in world affairs. Hooray, now we don't have to pretend to be Canadian anymore! [Pew]
It's been two months since the city closed off a section of Times Square so it could set up a little oasis of calm in the middle of Manhattan. And already the Day-Glo lawn chairs are falling apart. Even worse: Tourists who have attempted to sit down on them report that they've been injured in the process. But at least they'll get to return to wherever they came from with a generous settlement from the city, right? [WCBS via Gothamist]
"Men have been imitating me for as long as I can remember. In fact, most of the impersonations I have seen have had a five-o'clock shadow." —Carol Channing is cool with Johnny Depp starring in her biopic [E]
"She really likes it. She laughed a lot." —Brad Pitt on Angelina Jolie's unbiased review of Inglourious Basterds [E]
"It's not real music. But my music guy, Breyon Prescott, said, 'If you don't do it, your R&B album will be in the grocery store in that little bin with the nail clippers and the flip-flops.'" —Jamie Foxx on deciding to use Auto-Tune [Pop Matters]
"I just go for it. Farting on a plane is an unrivaled act; it's primal almost." —Seth Rogen's farting-on-a-plane joke in Funny People is not really a joke [MTV]
"He and Andrew, like Josh and myself, are both really nice guys — with enormous egos and high-grade tempers. So while Josh and I could play these great friends, boiling under the surface would be, 'I'll kill you if you say the wrong thing to me.'" —Mark Duplass from Humpday [LAT]
"The judges hate me, but the people, dem (sic) love me. I hope La Roux wins." —Lily Allen is only popular with dem people, not the Mercury Prize judges [Twitter via Contact Music]
SALES STARTING TOMORROW
• Select styles are up to 50 percent off at Jeremy Argyle. Through 7/26. 160 Spring St., nr. W. Broadway (646-781-9050); F–Su (11–7).
• Cut-It-Out pieces are on sale for $60 to $200 at Eva. Additional merchandise is 35 to 75 percent off: The Henrik Vibskov cerulean-blue pants are $177 (originally $273), the C Neeon knit hoodie is $245 (originally $540), and the Black Label baby-doll dress is $99 (originally $297). Through 7/26. 355A Bowery St., nr. 4th St.; F–Su (noon–9).
• Vintage summer styles are marked down 20 to 70 percent at Lower East Side boutique Marmalade. Vintage sandals (originally $70 to $95) are 20 percent off as well. Through 7/31. 172 Ludlow St., nr. Houston St. (212-473-8070); daily, noon–9.
• Jackets, dresses, suits, handbags, and tops from Mike & Chris, Rebecca Beeson, Orthodox, and more are 70 to 90 percent off at Maven Collective's sample sale. Through 7/26. 41 Wooster St., nr. Broome St.; F–S (10–8), Su (10–5).
ENDING TOMORROW
• Dresses are $200 to $450, tops are $100 to $250, pants and skirts are $125 to $300, and gowns are less than $1000 at the Doo.Ri sample sale. Select shoes and knits are under $100. 39 W. 38th St., nr. Fifth Ave.; Th–F (9–6).
• Earrings, bracelets, necklaces, and more are 60 percent off at the Kendra Scott jewelry sample sale. 231 W. 39th St., nr. Seventh Ave., Ste. 909; W (11–6), Th (11–7), F (11–5).
Front Page: Extension keeps producer at studio through 2011 -- Sony Pictures Entertainment has extended its first-look deal with producer Michael De Luca for a second time.
Tyler Perry is known today as the first African-American to own a major film and TV studio. He's a pioneer whose own life story reads like a screenplay. Now a writer, actor, director and producer -- Perry's success grew out of a troubled home in a poor neighborhood in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Gosh, has it really been one year, 204 days, and seventeen hours since ABC last aired an episode of critically loathed, ratings-deficient, Vulture-beloved neanderthal comedy Cavemen? Sometimes we (briefly) lose track. And even though its makers never released that season-one DVD in stores like they promised (or even mailed us our own personal copy to watch and enjoy), there's still a very special place in our hearts for the zany misadventures of those cutup Cro-Magnons. Which is why it made us so happy this morning when Maura alerted us to the new 3 Doors Down (yes we know) video for "Let Me Be Myself," which extends the band's recent 30-second Cavemen-featuring Geico commercial into a full four-minute narrative on the plight of the modern-day troglodyte. It's basically a mini-episode of Cavemen and was enough to dull our pain, if only for a few moments (after we turned our speakers off, obviously). Enjoy.
Despite heavy pressure from Obama to vote on his ambitious health-care plan before the August recess, Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid said it won't be done in time. According to the AP, Reid will take the time to merge the version of the legislation already passed by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee with the pending Finance Committee version. Then, the whole Senate will tackle the issue after the recess. [Google/AP]
Billionaire financier Carl Icahn started blogging to great fanfare in February 2008. But while he got off to a very solid start, posting regularly about "shareholder empowerment" and corporate governance, the last few months have been a big disappointment for loyal readers of The Icahn Report. Icahn—who, as far as we can tell, holds the title of America's wealthiest blogger—hasn't put up anything new since April 16, and it wasn't even an original post, since it had been copied and pasted from the Huffington Post. What's with deal? Has Icahn given up?
Concerned that the legendary investor had decided to throw in the towel and give up the blog game for good, we sent a polite note to the email address listed on his site (carl@icahnreport.com), and asked him if he had any plans to return to the net. A couple of days passed and we didn't get a reply. So yesterday, we took a more old-fashioned approach, picked up the phone, and placed a call to Icahn HQ on the 47th floor of the GM building.
Unfortunately, we can't say that it cleared anything up. We spoke with Susan Gordon, Icahn's very kind (and "indefatigable") assistant, who assured us that she would pass along our pressing question to Mr. Icahn and get back to us.
We've yet to hear back. But we're still holding out hope that Icahn's absence is only temporary. And we know you are, too. So if you have a few minutes today, feel free to join the cause by sending an email yourself with a few words of gentle encouragement. Icahn has never shied away from using a little public pressure to get other people to do what he wants. Who says it can't work the other way around?
Last night’s 2 Hour Hell’s Kitchen premiere was easily the best scripted comedy to debut in the Summer of 2009. Chef Gordon Ramsay has clearly spent the last 3 months buffing up his pan throwing arm, and thangs were a-clankin’ last night as chickens were overcooked, shrimps were beheaded and then, sadly, left raw, and people who supposedly have been working in this business for year confused the fridge and the freezer.
Also new this season? The Super Soaker filled with testosterone which was then sprayed all over the men’s team. Like, for real, they’re pretty intense. Among others, there’s Van, a good ol’ boy from Georgia who seems like he’s all fun and games until he basically face rapes anyone who gets in his way.
And then, there’s Joseph. Ah, Joseph, you gorgeous, stupid son of a bitch. Joseph is a former marine from Long Island who ditched the blood pinning for some light chopping of this this and sautéing of the that.
Sure, the guy is pretty good-looking, but side note! He also ain’t nobody’s bitch. Last night, when Chef Ramsay called on him to announce the two men nominated for elimination, Joseph proceeded to pull out the script from My Cousin Vinny and play it to perfection, as in there were some very serious communication problems between the two. But rather than talk it out like gentlemen, Jojo instead tore his shirt open, ripped his own heart out, threw it in a pan and called Gordon Ramsay a bitch. He got all up in Gordon’s boilin’ hot grill, y’all!! That’s like inviting yourself to you own murder party, for real.
Here’s a clip of the event.
So will Gordon beat his fine ass? You’ll have to tune in next week to find out… but probably.
The Backstreet Boys’ ongoing attempt to prolong their ability to sleep with younger chicks has yielded a new single, “Straight Through My Heart,” which sounds so goddamn much like a song directly out of the late-90s, I’m convinced that the band must’ve frozen song sperm back in their heyday then thawed it out in 2009 and impregnated a recording studio with it.
An unknown music score by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart discovered in Nantes, France, in 2008. The International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg announced Thursday that it had discovered another two previously... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 23 Jul 2009 | 4:39 pm
A worker prepares the red carpet at the entrance of the cinema palace on the eve the 65th Venice Film Festival at Venice Lido in 2008. The European Commission approved Thursday a package of tax incentives... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 23 Jul 2009 | 4:04 pm
Actors Christine Schaefer as Theodora (L) and Bejun Mehta as Dedymus Peter Simonischek perform in "Theodora" of Georg Friedrich Haendel during the Salzburg Festival on July 21, 2009 in Salzburg. Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 23 Jul 2009 | 4:04 pm
Peter Jordan as Devil performs in Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Everyone during the Salzburg Festival on July 20, 2009. The Salzburg Festival, one of the world's most exclusive music fests, opens Saturday, with... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 23 Jul 2009 | 4:04 pm
Actors Christine Schaefer, as Theodora (L), and Bernarda Fink as Irene perform in "Theodora" of Georg Friedrich Haendel during the Salzburg Festival 2009 on July 21, 2009 in Salzburg. The Salzburg Festival,... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 23 Jul 2009 | 4:04 pm
Peter Simonischek, as Everyone (L), and Sophie von Kessel, as Paramour, perform Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Everyone during the Salzburg Festival on July 20, 2009 in Salzburg. The Salzburg Festival, one of... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 23 Jul 2009 | 4:04 pm
View of the stage setting of the "Seebuehne" (lake stage) made of two huge feet on the Lake Constance (Bodensee) in Bregenz, Austria, on July 21, 2009, as preparations for the Bregenz festival are underway... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 23 Jul 2009 | 4:04 pm
Visitors watch the stage setting of the "Seebuehne" (lake stage) made of two huge feet being finished on the Lake Constance (Bodensee) in Bregenz, Austria, on July 21, 2009, as preparations for the Bregenz... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 23 Jul 2009 | 4:04 pm
Hundreds of people attending Comic-Con in San Diego, California, will transform into the undead on Thursday. A "zombie walk" at the convention will celebrate the release of an upcoming zombie film.
Arbiter of British taste and former well we really don’t know what she does Katie Price has written a book! And judging by the title, Sapphire, we’re guessing it’s about the self-governing colony known as the Republic of Upper Volta in the landlocked West African nation of Burkina Faso. Well, that, or her giant navy brown plastits… the amazing synopsis:
Sapphire Jones doesn’t believe in relationships anymore – not since she caught her husband in bed with another woman. Now Sapphire only sees men on her terms which is why her current lover is younger than her, good looking, doesn’t place any emotional demands on her [so far, fingers crossed] and is great in bed. What more does a girl need? Sapphire puts all her passion into running her own business – a high end lingerie and hen weekend company.
She is doing well and life seems pretty good until she meets a very handsome, charming businessman who seems more than a match for Sapphire. Then things go badly wrong at the hen party she has planned for a soap star and tabloid darling. The evening is one that everyone will be talking about for all the wrong reasons and Sapphire faces front page headlines all of her own…Suddenly her business is in jeopardy, her well-controlled private life is falling apart, and in the middle of all this Sapphire realises that she is not immune to love after all, but has she left it too late?
Excuse me, I need to make a quick phone call.
“Yes, is this Mr. Newbury? Oh, it’s Caldecott… OK, well, no matter, because Caldecott! Have I got your next award winner. It’s the story about a gigando-whore-bot from Thong Island who has a colony of businessmen living in her vagina, that is, untilllllll– hello? Caldie?? (4 minute pause, then, deeper) Caldie?” — From my upcoming non-ficition entitled “The Story of How Caldecott Died”.
In the following gallery, Katie “Jordan” Price poses with her ghostwriters (we think!) at the launch of Sapphire in famed British department store Selfridges. For those of you worried that your own book’s launch party might be too droll, take it from Katie: Up the peen and boob count, give the attendees the clap, and you’re on your way to the New York Times Best Seller list! Or the clinic. (They’re right next door to each other, it’s confusing!!)
The world’s most famous rock n’ soul band, Hall & Oates, has shaped many a lifetime: A lifetime of laughter, of dancing, of parties, of making love in the moonlight. But back in 1990, Mr. Oates told someone very important in his life that “[He] Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)”, and made a decision that would rock the world of keytar owners all over the world. Today, however, fantastic news:
In 1990, John Oates made a huge mistake. After years in the limelight and countless hit singles, he parted ways with one of the founding members of blue-eyed-soul duo Hall and Oates.
No, not Darryl Hall. His mustache, better known as J-Stache.
But now, he’s back and finally getting the fame he deserves.
Indeed, J-Stache is a cartoon about John Oates and his stache. But not just any cartoon… like a really high quality, hilariously well made one. We’ve only been given a taste of this no doubt phenomenon in this Funny or Die trailer, but we’re going to go ahead and say that J-Stache will be our Planet Unicorn of 2009, if only for the Geraldo scene alone. “You and me Oatsie”:
His brain is waffles!! Also they could have called this “Boogie Nights: The Animated Series” because it’s basically the same thing.
Front Page: Almodovar, Solondz films among additions -- The North American preems of Pedro Almodovar's "Broken Embraces," Jacques Audiard's "A Prophet" (both Sony Pictures Classics films) and Todd Solondz's "Life During Wartime" are among eight special presentations announced Thursday by the Toronto Film Festival.
Summer offers lots of things to do outdoors, which is good for the many television viewers who complain about the quality of programming then. It's not that there aren't things to watch. On network television, there are plenty of repeats, reality shows and final episodes of series that have been canceled. But summertime viewing can be a wasteland.
AP - "Twenties Girl" (The Dial Press, 448 pages, $26), by Sophie Kinsella: In "Twenties Girl," chick-lit queen Sophie Kinsella introduces readers to Lara Lington, a 27-year-old Brit who sees something no one else can see: a ghost.
Sean Kingston's "Fire Burning" is shaping up to be one of the summer's hottest tracks, with more than a million downloads sold, and is the second best-selling song on iTunes this week. The Miami-born artist, whose real name is Kisean Anderson, shares his thoughts on his abilities on the dance floor and the leading ladies of pop.
A Star magazine reporter has resigned after admitting to a relationship with 'Jon and Kate Plus Eight' star Jon Gosselin. Source: FOXNews.com | 23 Jul 2009 | 9:37 am
• It's official: designer Esteban Cortazar and Emanuel Ungaro are parting ways. [
Katie Holmes is so pretty, but is she a great song-and-dance gal?
Well, we'll leave that to you, but we can say this for certain—Mrs. Tom Cruise's shoulder shrugs and hat...
Jon Gosselin may be the one being mauled by the "Lovebug," but it's Kate Gosselin's socks that got rocked off tonight.
Kate, officially queen of the world in her...
Did Chelsea Handler get Kristin Cavallari to go off-script about The Hills? In the interview, the host of E!'s own Chelsea Lately finds out what the starlet plans to bring...
After four years of development, $200 million in production costs, and a thick shroud of secrecy, superdirector James Cameron (Titanic) showed Comic-Con fans 25 minutes of never-before-seen...
As if those awesome preview pics last month didn't get us excited enough to take a trip down the rabbit hole, along comes this new teaser trailer for Tim Burton's version of...
Even when stuff is happening in Houston, it stays in Vegas.
E! News confirmed Thursday that Dr. Conrad Murray has been sticking close to his Las Vegas home as he has become the focal...
One of the big items selling at San Diego Comic-Con this year are these Team Jacob and Team Edward T-shirts, calling out the rivalry between Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner's supernatural...
We're in the wrong business. Gold-plated pacifiers should be our trade.
A day after the all-natural birth of her son, Kelis Rogers has successfully secured roughly $40,000 in monthly...
Us Weekly, as always, on top of 
I was about six years old, and Buzz Aldrin was appearing at a bookstore in a Pittsburgh-area mall. I waited through a decent-size mob of people for about three or four minutes, finally made my way to the front, and managed to shake his hand.
Billionaire financier 
The world’s most famous rock n’ soul band, Hall & Oates, has shaped many a lifetime: A lifetime of laughter, of dancing, of parties, of making love in the moonlight. But back in 1990, Mr. Oates told someone very important in his life that “[He] Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)”, and made a decision that would rock the world of keytar owners all over the world. Today, however, 
