Grumpy Old Man: Al Pacino has purchased the rights to Philip Roth's latest novel The Humbling. Pacino will star in the book's adaptation, which will be directed by Barry Levinson. Buck Henry (The Graduate) is set to write the script, about an aging actor who's rejuvenated when he falls for a younger woman. The battle to star as Pacino's romantic interest starts now. [Arts Beat/NYT]
Wallyworld, Here He Comes: Mel Gibson is a very busy man. Just a day after news of his Viking pic with Leonardo DiCaprio surfaced, Gibson has assembled his team from Apocalytpo to produce How I Spent My Summer Vacation, a film that he both wrote and will star in. Gibson's handing the directing duties over to Adrian Grunberg, who was first a.d. on Apocalypto. Summer Vacation will start shooting next March in San Diego and Veracruz, Mexico. It's only described as an action drama, and though there don't seem to be plans to visit the Jersey Shore for his summer vacation, we're hoping Gibson will reconsider. [Variety]
If You Vanderbuild It, They Will Watch: Oscar winner Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park) is set to write a period piece for Showtime about the Vanderbilt family. The Vanderbilts will follow the Vanderbilt shipping empire starting with Cornelius Vanderbilt, once the richest man in the world. Joel Silver is also developing a Vanderbilt project for HBO as the two cable networks race to restore mutton chops to their rightful prominence. [Variety]
Miracle Whip: Jennifer Morrison (who still doesn't know why she left House), Matthew Modine and Elizabeth Franz have joined the cast of Broadway's The Miracle Worker. They join Abigail Breslin and Alison Pill in the story of a teacher who shows Hellen Keller how to communicate. Morrison and Modine will play Keller's parents and Franz will play Keller's aunt. We're going to stay away from the Hellen Keller jokes. [Variety]
Blood Suckers: Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz, the writers behind Thor, will write Damn Nation for Paramount. Yet another vampire flick, Damn Nation is an adaptation of a comic by Andrew Cosby. The story revolves around the survivors of an attack by "inhuman nocturnal predators" who are the last people left in the U.S. It sounds promising, especially if there's no vampire romance. [THR]
(AP) AP - Van the Man and The Queen of Soul are headlining next year's New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 14 Dec 2009 | 11:19 pm
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Before dawn even cracks Tuesday, the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. will have announced its Golden Globe contenders for the best films of the year, and... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 14 Dec 2009 | 11:08 pm
Reuters - Before dawn even cracks Tuesday, the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. will have announced its Golden Globe contenders for the best films of the year, and Academy Award prognosticators will be looking for harbingers of the Oscar nominations, which won't be announced until February 2. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 14 Dec 2009 | 11:08 pm
Pearl Jam, Aretha Franklin, Van Morrison and Lionel Richie are headlining next year's New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. The annual outdoor music festival is marking its 41st year.... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 14 Dec 2009 | 11:02 pm
Little Mason Dash Disick is already having trouble keeping up with his family.
Just a few hours after Kourtney Kardashian birthed a baby boy, sister Kim and mom Kris "Don't Call...
New York Times film critic Manohla "Movie Killer" Dargis would like you to know that any notion you have about her going soft is entirely untrue. In a wide-ranging interview over at Jezebel, Dargis rips into Hollywood for its treatment of women, both as fans and filmmakers, and uses lots of curse words along the way.
"Fuck them," she says, to Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros., two huge Hollywood studios that didn't release a single movie directed by a woman this year. She had equally harsh words for terrible romantic comedies ("the people making them have no fucking taste"), the Academy Awards ("the Oscars are bullshit and we hate them") and the great Paul Dergarabedian ("Fuck him. What an asshole."). She does, however, reserve some compliments for The Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow ("The idea that a woman can be a great action director is not is everyone's comfort zone. That's [Bigelow's] exceptionalism."). Go read the rest and then make sure you never make her mad.
The answer's yes if you believe a new study of President Obama's family tree done by Ancestry.com. The link goes back to Mareen Duvall, who emigrated from France to Maryland to work as an indentured servant in the 1650s. That makes Obama and Buffett seventh cousins, three times removed and entitles the president at least a billion in inheritance. [The Caucus/NYT]
(AP) AP - Having 10 best-picture nominees will be something different for the next Academy Awards, but it's nothing new at the Golden Globes. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 14 Dec 2009 | 10:12 pm
This morning on the Today show, Time managing editor Richard Stengel revealed the short list for his magazine's "Person of the Year." The prestigious award has gone to Presidents (Obama, GWB (twice), Clinton), businessmen (Ted Turner, Jeff Bezos), and you (you). Unfortunately, you missed the cut this year, but these six people didn't: Nancy Pelosi, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Ben Bernanke, President Obama, Steve Jobs and Usain Bolt. Of course, it wouldn't be Time without a gimmick, and this year's is the shortlisting of "the Chinese worker." But we're still holding out hope that a last minute push will get you the award. Really, you've earned it.
TIME Person Of The Year 2009: See The List [HuffPo]
It was a bad weekend for one Christopher Maurice Brown and things didn't get any better today. It all started when the 20-year-old singer made a trip to Walmart in Connecticut and noticed that his album Graffiti wasn't in stock. So, like any rational adult, he took to Twitter, writing, "the[y] didnt even have my album in the back… not on shelves, saw for myself"; and "im tired of this s—. major stores r blackballing my cd. not stocking the shelves and lying to costumers. what the f— do i gotta do."; Clearly Brown was upset, but he made no apologies, writing "i aint retracting s—." And then today, after Walmart released a statement saying that Brown is wrong on all counts, he deleted his Twitter account, proving that for all his faults, he knows when to shut up.
Chris Brown Exits Stage Twitter [E! Online]
For a few months now, anyone who has ridden the subway has likely seen posters from the Department of Health showing a Snapple bottle pouring human fat into a glass. The message: drink sweet things and you'll get fat. The ads are gross but effective. And also gross. Apparently the Department of Health wasn't content to only nauseate commuters though. It just turned that ad into a commercial and proved what you already suspected — anything nasty in a photograph is ten times nastier in video. Yuk!
Reuters - In this corner is Guy Ritchie, master of visual con-game action movies that tend toward all-style-no-substance. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment Reviews | 14 Dec 2009 | 8:37 pm
Reuters - The fourth-season finale of Showtime's "Dexter" was seen by 2.6 million viewers on Sunday -- blowing away all modern records for the cable network. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 14 Dec 2009 | 8:35 pm
You know how when you were a kid and your parents tried to scare you by saying watching too much TV would make you go blind? Well, they should have just told you that the TV might fall on you and kill you. According to the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Ohio, that's becoming more and more common. [AP]
Meryl Streep, blah blah blah.
Certain names you can count on come statuette season. We wanted to know what might surprise us come tomorrow's Golden Globe...
(Reuters)
Reuters - Robert Downey Jr. adds punch to the role of Sherlock Holmes in an action-packed movie that breaks with what its makers called "stuffy" screen interpretations of the fictional English detective..
Progressives across the country are growing increasingly frustrated with Sen. Joe Lieberman and now at least one group has decided to do something about it — attack his wife! Liberal website Firedoglake launched a campaign against Hadassah Lieberman on Friday to remove her from her position as "Global Ambassador" for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation because "of the inherent conflict of interest her continued presence brings." The site has called on celebrities who've raised money for the charity, like Ellen and Neil Patrick Harris, to help oust Lieberman, who has previously consulted for large pharmaceutical companies. The charity, so far, hasn't budged. "We have every intention of continuing our relationship with Ms. Lieberman in our mutual pursuit of a world without breast cancer," a spokesman said.
UPDATE 2: According to Courtney Love's attorney, Keith A. Fink, the singer did not lose custody of Frances Bean. Rather, the teen just wants to live with her grandmother right...
We thought Joey McIntyre was suspiciously missing from Twitter yesterday.
Turns out the New Kid on the Block (and avid tweeter) was busy celebrating the arrival of his second son with...
(AP)
AP - In some not too far-fetched parallel universe, Jeff Bridges really might be living the life of a boozy country singer.
Last night's season finale of Dexter was watched by 2.6 million bloodthirsty viewers, smashing Showtime's record for its most-watched original series. In fact, the last Showtime broadcast to draw as many viewers was a 1999 fight involving The Situation's newest admirer, Mike Tyson. [Reuters]
A Philadelphia man was charged with ten felony counts of terroristic threatening today after calling 911 several times this year and threatening to kill Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. Among Jeffrey Fisher's threats were "Kill the fucking mayor. I wanna kill him. We want this fuck dead. Kill your fucking mayor" and "Tell Commissioner Kelly he’s dead." Authorities think he suffers from mental illness. [NYP]
Oh, Jenny, you're having a bad year, aren't you? Gossip Girl's would-be Queen Bee can't even reign supreme in her own school—and the "petty megalomaniac" look...
Did sub-zero temperatures prevent you from actually leaving your apartment for the pursuit of nightlife this weekend? Don't worry: as usual, we've got you covered, with pretty photos from Friday through Sunday. Want to see Dr. Dog, Darlene Love, the Whigs, the Fiery Furnaces, Gordon Voidwell, Gwar, Blank Dogs, Mountain Man, Kaki King, Das Racist and Lee "Scratch" Perry do their thing all over town? Just click on through.
Rock star Courtney Love has lost custody over her daughter Frances Bean Cobain. Two legal guardians have been appointed to care for Frances Bean, Love's 17-year-old daughter with the deceased Nirvana front man, Kurt Cobain, CNN has confirmed.
According to Caramanica, Bieber wrecked shit at MSG on Friday, making everyone else there — including Taylor Swift, Jordin Sparks, Kris Allen, Usher (in a cameo), and John Mayer (especially John Mayer) — look old. He was “decimating the larynxes of thousands of tween girls,” and he did it all with a walking (and dancing, we assume) leg cast. So we ask: With the Jonas Brothers tragically fragmented, and no other (assumedly abstinent) youthful pop stars at the ready, is it time for the Bieber-pocalypse? Just in case, we’ll be monitoring the situation.
20-Year-Old Fogy Cedes Audience to 15-Year-Old [NYT]
Nylonobtained a first look at Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's latest fashion line for JCPenney, Olsenboye, named for their Norwegian ancestors and hawked on cupcake trucks. All items cost under $50, and include high-waisted minis, blazers, and hoodies — everything you need to host a sophisticated cupcake-baking party ... although there is the somewhat out-of-place neon graffiti tee, which reminds us of Louis Vuitton's Stephen Sprouse collection. See more of the line in the slideshow.
While Fox seems to be pretty confident that young men will turn up in droves to see Avatar this weekend, there is still a lot of work to be done to try to convince women both young and old that they should skip seeing Sarah Jessica Parker in Did You Hear About the Morgans? and instead go see a movie about blue things in outer space. Hence, the Fox publicity team sent James Cameron to spend some time chatting with Hoda and Kathie Lee on the always kooky fourth hour of the Today show this morning. Sadly, Kathie Lee seemed to be properly medicated and didn't try to challenge the HMFIC to see who could pound back a bottle of Chardonnay in the shortest time or anything.
However, Hoda did seem to irk Cameron ever so slightly when she referred to the Na'vi characters in Avatar as "the tall blue folks." This spurred Cameron to take a bit of a critical potshot at the Fox marketing team for failing to get the word out to the fairer sex about his film. As he explained it, "I don't think we've been able to convey the emotion [of Avatar in the trailers to women]." So if the film fails to deliver in the under-25 and over-25 female quadrants this weekend, you can expect that someone over on Pico Boulevard will be getting their butt chewed out come Sunday afternoon.
AP - In the opening scene of his meandering one-man play "Juan and John," Roger Guenveur Smith plays himself as a boy in 1965. He is frozen in horror while witnessing a startling incident that, one day, would provide the inspiration for his new show at off-Broadway's Public Theater.
• The New York Times and Wall Street Journal are feuding once again. [DF] • Thanks to a $200 million investment in new printers, Mort Zuckerman's Daily News can now print any page of the paper in color! Exciting! [Crain's] • Does the fact Glenn Beck is a highly paid pitchman for a gold company explain why he promotes it on Fox News show every night? Probably! [NYT] • MSNBC is changing up its daytime lineup a bit, just so you're aware. [NYT] • Despite the recession (and $12 tickets), film attendance was up in '09. [LAT] • The New York Film Critics Circle announced its yearly picks today. [AP] • Congress is devoting (wasting?) $30 mil. to battle music/movie piracy. [THR] • Disney's The Princess and the Frog dominated the weekend box office [THR] • CNBC has poached the WSJ's Nikhil Deogun as its new managing editor. [NYT] • Sarah Palin's book tour is over. "Now what?" Good question! [LAT]
Spring 2010 sweats by Yigal Azrouël, Alexander Wang, and rag & bone.
The Washington Post's Carolyn Hax received this letter from a troubled Manhattanite:
So I've been casually dating this guy from work. There's so much chemistry between us, he's funny and smart, and I think I'm starting to fall for him.
But something he said at dinner irked me — he made some comment about how un-sexy sweat pants are, and how if the person he's dating ever wears them, it's a "deal breaker."
Well, so far he's never seen me in sweat pants. But I wear them; they're comfortable around the house. I asked, "What if a person is feeling sick or just lounging around their apartment?" He made a grimace that said, "Still not okay." I just feel unsettled now. He does pay a lot of attention to what I wear and suggests clothes that will make me look better. Personal quirk or red flag?
Confused in Manhattan
Though Carolyn penned a perfectly wonderful response to this distressed lady, we have one of our own, because sweatpants are a topic that is dear to our hearts.
Dear Confused in Manhattan,
Unless this guy rescinds the comment (and if he truly is funny, maybe he was just being sarcastic and this was lost on you?), you have no choice but to dump him. Maybe immaturely by means of electronic communication. Because come spring, you're going to want to wear sweatpants with heels and leather vests and stuff out on the town, possibly on dates. And you will look damn sexy doing so, but if this guy can't see that now, he has no business being in your good company or engaging in verbal communication with you.
You might argue that maybe he would be fine with designer drop-crotch sweatpants by someone like Alexander Wang instead of non-drop-crotch KMart sweatpants. But if he's renouncing the garment outright to you, that implies he thinks you are a non-drop-crotch designer sweats kind of girl. We can't have that, obviously. (And for the record, designer sweats are cheap at sample sales.)
Also, this guy sounds like a total phony. You know if he were at home with swine flu he would not be curled up in front of Oprah wearing his Brooks Brothers slacks and his Tucker Blairturquoise polo. Okay, maybe he doesn't wear sweats in this situation, but he probably wears something worse — like a lobster-print thermal onesie from Tucker Blair. If he lies to you about wearing lounging garments, think of what else he could be lying about. One day you might wake up to a text message from him on December 24 that's all, "Sorry, I can't come to Christmas at your parents' house because I forgot this is the weekend of my Fire Island Nudist Club retreat in St. Barts."
Lastly, no one should tell you what to wear, so we'll relay to you this true story: This one time, a lovely girl went to dinner with her significant other and his parents and wore Alex Wang sweatpants, with heels, and other dressy-ish stuff. This being a preppy family, there were comments made that weren't relayed to the lady until later, like, "She wore SWEATPANTS? To DINNER?!" At which point the lady told her man, "Sweatpants are stylish, and get used to them because I'm going to be wearing them all spring. This is how I express myself." And he said, "I love you how you are." And they have relished the awkwardness and irony of the garment — together — ever since. If that's not love, what is?
Chris Brown is no MechanicalDummy. Not anymore, anyway.
Following in the footsteps of Miley Cyrus, the beleaguered R&B artist has shut down his Twitter account, a day after...
Front Page: Director takes on adaptation of Broadway musical -- Universal Pictures has set Kenny Ortega to direct "In the Heights," the bigscreen adaptation of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical.
We've never been onboard with A-Rod and Kate Hudson's romance. We don't know why, exactly, but their being together just never made any sense to us. Like we just could not get inside their heads, if you know what we mean. Every time we tried we just got like, a terrible, hollow, buzzing sound. It was like the sound of pure emptiness, if emptiness had a sound. Which is why we welcome the news, first proffered by Bonnie Fuller's Hollywood Life and confirmed by the shoe-leather reporters at Us, that the pair is officially over. What happened?
According to Hollywood Life:
A-Rod partied at Wall Lounge in the W Hotel Friday night, Dec. 11, “with two women,” said our source. “He was acting VERY single, and Kate Hudson was definitely not there.” Another insider confirms that Alex was with other women in Miami.
Well. We know Kate and A-Rod must not be sharing our joy in this — no one likes a broken heart, and famous hearts break harder than normal ones. But this was the right thing. We trust they'll soon find more appropriate partners, like Chace Crawford and Jamie Jungers, respectively.
Are A-Rod and Kate Hudson over?
It certainly looked that way to one source who saw him at a special Armani Exchange dinner in South Beach this weekend.
"He flirted with a...
A Los Angeles Superior Court commissioner granted control over 17-year-old Frances Bean Cobain to Kurt Cobain's mother Wendy O'Connor and his sister Kimberly Dawn Cobain.
If that commercial of a guy guzzling liquid fat wasn't up your alley, maybe this video of a woman munching on lipstick (to illustrate the point that "women consume seven pounds of fatty lipstick in their lifetimes") is more your style? It seems there's a nasty PSA for everyone today! [HuffPo]
Courtney Love's mental and physical state has yo-yoed more times this decade than we care to count, but most would concur that she seems to be in a pretty good place these days. Which is why it's so surprising to hear the news that Courtney lost custody of her 17-year-old daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, just today. No details seem to be available as to what triggered this action, but next time we see her in the bathroom, we'll be sure to ask. [People]
Last month's auction of Bernie and Ruth Madoff's personal property was pretty successful, raising close to a million bucks for the victims of the giant Ponzi scheme. Now there's a fraudster who is looking to make a buck by promoting auctions full of fake Madoff merchandise. A gallery that planned to auction off art work this weekend in Connecticut that it claimed once belonged to the couple—including one that featured phony paintings by Chagall and Picasso—was shut down after the state's attorney general vowed to take legal action. [ConnPost via AMM]
Love it or hate it, glitter always manages to creep its way into our beauty closet season after season. Makeup artist Pat McGrath gave models red glittery eyes for Prada's fall 2009 show, and beauty brands often bedazzle their products for the holiday shopping bonanza. Here, six takes on sparkle ranging from subtle shimmer to full-on disco drama.
Avatar’s personal Undulating Curve of Shifting Expectations has seen it jerk dizzyingly from groundbreaking savior of Hollywood to looming disaster/fodder for Titanic jokes, and now back again: The reviews are good! The special effects are mind-blowing! It’s totally better than The Phantom Menace! But here’s one thing we did not realize: According to Vanity Fair’s Michael Hogan, Avatar might just lead to a “meaningful climate deal.” Basically, he’s wondering if the marvels of the lush “megafauna” of Avatar could finally spur us into taking real action against global warming and saving our own little planet. Wow! Now is there anything James Cameron can’t do? [VF]
In a bathing suit. (Maybe?) That's what he told us at last night's Osteria del Circo dinner for Robin Wright Penn, star of The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, before he told us to schod off:
NYM: I hear you're working on a movie about the Palestinian conflict? JS: We're done. NYM: You wrapped? JS: We're done, I'm done. The movie is finished. I'm going to take a vacation now for a little while. NYM: What are you going to do for vacation? JS: I'm going to go swimming. NYM: What are you doing for your holiday? JS: None of your business.
Heather Graham, perhaps reliving the heyday of Boogie Nights, resurrected her character from the film at the premiere of Sherlock Holmes in London today. Swap out the boots for roller skates and voilà! (Her entire look is by L'Wren Scott.)
It was only last week that Alex Rodriguez gave Kate Hudson a "$39,000 white-gold ring set with pink sapphires and diamonds" as a way of thanking her "for her support during the World Series." But maybe it was a parting gift? Hollywood Life is reporting this afternoon that Rodriguez and Hudson have split up. [HollywoodLife.com]
We like to think that if Daily Intel Chris, a Yale grad, was here this week he would have shielded us from the pictures of Skull and Bones society members that, uncovered by Facebook's privacy snafu, are now on Gawker. That he would have distracted us from them by spinning spine-tingling stories about lavish dinners in which S&B members toasted each other's fabulousness with blood drunk from the skulls of kids from the local community college. But no. He is all "I'm dealing with a personal issue this week" (read: "I have to be on a juice diet in case I get invited to be on the Today show"), and so we're forced to regard these pictures from the page of one Haruko Castro, which reveal what the storied Skull and Bones really is: a bunch of dumb college students doing dumb college kid stuff. We have to say, this is the first thing in this whole saga that's really pissed us off. Next they're going to show us pictures of a Freemasons meeting, shots of the Texas Book Depository and the grassy knoll that prove without a doubt the identity of JFK's shooter, and the exact contents of Lady Gaga's pants, and then there will be no great mysteries left in America.
Ohhhh soccer, your low scoreyness never ceases to amaze me.
I’d make a standard joke about soccer being too low-scoring and lacking excitement and etc etc, but I’m not sure I need to — here’s a clip of a goalie jumping off the field and peeing behind a billboard in the middle of a game:
World Cup? More like, Toilet Bowl!!!!!*
*(Not actually the World Cup. Also this means nothing.)
RAW Natural Beauty put out a video to remind potential customers that women consume quite a bit of lipstick in their lifetimes. Seven pounds on average, in fact. If lipsticks are about .12 ounces per tube, that means women eat an average of 933.33333333333 tubes each, which just doesn't seem right or humanly possible. But if you think that's gross, the video, in which a pretty girl gorges on lipstick and various other sundries in her vanity, is even grosser! It's kind of like the Saw movies — you want to watch the whole thing but it's nauseating enough that maybe you won't after all.
In addition to the 9/11 plotters set to be tried in lower Manhattan, Justice Department officials are also thinking about bringing in other accused Al Qaeda figures from Guantánamo Bay to stand trial in Brooklyn's federal courthouse. The two sets of trials probably won't happen at the same time, though, because that would just be too much fun! No, it's actually a security thing. [NYT]
All the revelations about Tiger Woods' mistresses over the past couple of weeks has been very bad news for the big brands that paid out millions to sign Woods up as their spokesman. Enter DeWitt Stern, an insurance company that is now capitalizing on Woods' troubles with what it claims is a totally new type of policy: "reputation risk insurance." Now when the face of your wholesome, family-friendly brand gets arrested in a seedy motel room with a crack pipe and with a tranny hooker, you'll be fully protected! The press release is below.
Tiger Woods Scandal Shows Need to Protect Brands and Advertisers from Sudden and Dramatic Losses
NEW YORK, Dec. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- DeWitt Stern, the 110-year-old risk management and insurance brokerage firm specializing in insurance products for the entertainment, arts, and advertising communities, today announced that it will introduce "Reputation Risk Insurance" into the marketplace at the beginning of the new year. No other insurance product of its kind has ever been available, DeWitt Stern says.
DeWitt Stern's Reputation Risk Insurance will protect brands, corporate entities, and advertisers against losses incurred from reputational crises. DeWitt Stern's Reputation Risk Insurance will compensate policy holders for both the cost of crisis remediation and actual loss of revenue following public relations crises. DeWitt Stern has been developing the policy in consultation with Vorhaus Communications, Inc., a leading crisis and reputation management advisory. It is expected to be available in the first quarter of 2010.
"The Tiger Woods scandal shows how quickly reputations can become tarnished in today's fast-paced media environment," said LeConte Moore, a Managing Director at DeWitt Stern's New York City office. "All the planning in the world cannot protect a brand manager against the unforeseen. Reputation Risk Insurance will provide those forward-looking brand managers and advertisers with a smart and attractive way to protect their investments."
"Reputation is arguably a company's single greatest asset, and in the era of instant information, it is more vulnerable than ever," said Scott Brady, a Managing Director at DeWitt Stern's Los Angeles office. "This industry first will enable companies to protect an asset previously ignored by the insurance industry."
DeWitt Stern's Reputation Risk Insurance will compensate policy holders for:
* Lost sales; * Crisis management fees; * Lost advertising campaign expenses, and * Pre-committed and incurred endorsement fees.
Lloyd Blankfein wasn't physically present at today's meeting in Washington, but Obama did his best to remind the Goldman Sachs CEO who his boss was: that is, God. In his remarks after the meeting, the president paraphrased a passage from the Bible's Gospel of Luke, "Parable of the Rich Landowner," which Bethany Maclean also quoted in her recent Vanity Fair piece. "From those who have been given much, much will be demanded." “America’s banks received extraordinary assistance from American taxpayers to rebuild their industry,” Obama said. “Now that they’re back on their feet we expect an extraordinary commitment from them to help rebuild our economy.”
First Pauly D tells us he'd go full frontal for Playgirl, and now one of the young ladies of Jersey Shore reveals she's ready to strip down, too.
"If Playboy approached me...
Awesome news, people who don’t know how to type a celebrity’s name followed by “topless” into Google: Tara Reid is on the cover of this month’s issue of Playboy!
“Massive Double Issue”… hehehe, I get it! [It is boobs!]
If you’re like me and have a fetish to see naked celebrity photos of people we’ve already seen naked but are now slightly older, then I’m sure you’re also eagerly looking forward to buying this issue. And by “buying,” I mean, finding the pictures online in three seconds, closing the window, and proceeding with our lives.
Karlie in two separate stories in the November issue of American Vogue.
If you've been reading your Vogues in 2009, you probably don't have to do a model tally to guess that the magazine featured Karlie Kloss more than any other girl. But some bloggers over at Fashin who really, really love models did just that: They counted the number of appearances of models in various international editions of Vogue to determine who "won" 2009. Karlie appeared more than any other girl in not only American Vogue, but the combined pages of that magazine, Australian Vogue, Brazilian Vogue, Chinese Vogue, Spanish Vogue, German Vogue, Italian Vogue, Mexican Vogue, Japanese Vogue, French Vogue, Russian Vogue, and British Vogue. Karlie is only 17. When we were 17, our greatest accomplishment was surely something awkward and nerdy like getting a 5 on the AP biology test (and look where that got us!) or having our braces off (much farther!). You?
Here are the top twelve Vogue models of the year in descending order:
Congrats to shady money manager (and convicted felon) Jeffrey Epstein, who scored a big victory in court today:
Jeffrey Epstein's penis cannot be examined by lawyers for women who say the billionaire sex offender abused them, a Palm Beach, Fla., judge ruled Monday. The shape of Epstein's penis is not relevant to the civil cases against him, Circuit Judge Donald Hafele ruled. If it becomes relevant, Hafele said he would reconsider the request.
PLASTIC SURGERY
• The Italian government plans to introduce legislation that would make it illegal for girls under age 18 to get breast-enhancement surgery. Officials decided to create the law after an increase in the number of cases involving accidents during operations. Should the U.S. follow suit? [Telegraph UK]
HAIR
• Salma Hayek swapped her long locks for a sleek and shiny new bob. What do you think of her new style? [StyleList]
• American Apparel CEO Dov Charney sent out an e-mail to all employees informing them of how they must groom their eyebrows, suggesting Brooke Shields's brows as a template to follow. So lamé leggings are okay, but overly tweezed brows aren't? [Jezebel]
• Not only is the protagonist of the new Disney movie the first black Disney princess, she's also the first one to have curly hair. [Time]
• The cast of Jersey Shore shared their beauty and hair secrets with People (because everyone's just dying to emulate them). While Nicole, a.k.a. Snooki, admits to wearing full makeup to the gym, the best token of wisdom comes from D.J. Pauly D, on hair: "It takes me twenty-five minutes to get it right. Greatness takes time, and this hair right here is greatness." Our brain hurts. [StyleWatch/People]
NAILS
• While hand sanitizer is great for preventing swine flu, it turns out it's not so great for your nails. Waterless sanitizers are the biggest cause of increased brittleness in nails, as the alcohol in the products dries them out. But be careful when using moisturizer to combat the problem — fragranced hand lotions can cause the same problem. [Beauty Brains]
• Here is a roundup of all the green nail polishes inspired by Chanel Jade (which apparently chips quite easily). And unlike Jade, the alternatives are easy to find. [FabSugar UK]
Have you seen New York City's new anti-obesity commercial, which features a man gulping down a glass of what appears to be human fat? It's totally disgusting and incredibly silly, but you can see it here, provided you're not eating/drinking right now and you're not squeamish. [NY1]
If Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren's Barbados wedding cost $1.5 million, we can only imagine what the golf champion paid for the now MIA wedding ring.
And it's probably safe to...
Tara Reid is still around and posing on the January/February cover of Playboy.
Quick Tara Reid recap (it's been a while, we know): She starred in American Pie, The Big Lebowski...
From porcelain white to sun-kissed tan to a darker brown, the pink gloss works for almost any tone.
When the megawatt Easy Lover gloss from Nars landed on our desk, it was love at first sight. (And we rarely feel that way.) The Day-Glo pink was sexy and dramatic, but still intimidating since we were under the assumption that a powerful color (sheer or not) like this could only flatter a select few. However, after glossing up various co-workers, we discovered that this tube of shiny heaven gave everyone a pretty pout. Here, proof that a serious hot pink is actually universal and looks good on various shades ranging from porcelain to dark brown.
$24, available January 15 at Saks Fifth Avenue (611 Fifth Ave., at 50th St.; 212-753-4000).
Change isn't easy. Just ask Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and Morgan Stanley chief John Mack, both of whom were unable to personally attend a meeting with the president in Washington today after their US Airways flights were delayed because of "fog."
Both men are accustomed to flying private when they somewhere to be. How were they supposed to know that most commercial flights in this country are invariably delayed, and that it's always a good idea to set aside a little extra time when you have an important meeting to get to, just so you still manage to make the appointment if there's a delay of some sort? (JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who is already besties with Obama and didn't need to bother with appearances, took his corporate jet. And got there just fine.)
Both Blankfein and Mack still managed to take part in the meeting, albeit via conference call. ("Well, I appreciate you guys calling in," Obama told them when they joined by phone. "I'm sorry that the flight got held up.") But, really: Isn't this the sort of thing that you'd expect to have happen, considering the last time they showed up at the White House in person, all they got was a lousy glass of water?
A promo for NBC’s new weeklong singing competition “The Sing-Off” aired last night that included the actual tagline:
“It’s American Idol meets Glee!”
I can’t tell if it’s sad or actually refreshing that NBC isn’t even pretending to come up with stuff on their own; they’re literally promoting their new show by saying “It’s just like these two other popular shows on this other network! We didn’t even try to make it not exactly like those, so if you like them we swear you’ll like ours too!”
Some upcoming NBC show ideas:
“SCI” — It’s CSI meets CSI: Miami!
“Dancing With The Two And A Half Men” — It’s Dancing With The Stars meets Two and a Half Men!
“Transformers Barack Obama” — It’s the box office smash Transformers 2 meets popular prez Barack Obama!
Here’s a preview from “The Sing-Off”, proving once again that a Capella doesn’t need more than 30 seconds to make me go from “this is impressive!” to “that’s enough of this”:
Dazed & Confused, clearly in tune with what the world not only wants but needs in the New Year, has selected Courtney Love for the January cover. She's coming out with a new album early next year, and one lucky reporter got to spend a few days with Courtney at home in New York, which may or may not compare to the time she forced intrepid party reporter Mike Vilensky into the bathroom with her for a cigarette at the It Might Get Loud premiere in August. Yelena Yemchuk shot Love for the cover and an editorial inside the magazine. Have a look at those whimsical NSFW photos in the slideshow. If this woman can ever be called pixieish, this might be it. Step aside, Gaga. Here's to 2010, the year of Courtney!
"Page Six" reported today that Lindsay and her family members are selling their used clothing on LohanHouse.com. Where is the money going? Who knows, but does it matter? We weren't patient enough to wait for the site to load so we could do some Christmukkah shopping ourselves (it's probably inundated), but Jezebel has a look at some possible gift options for you. Such as Lohan's Stella McCartney boots for $500 or her Converse sneakers for $35. Though you can't put a price on Lindsay's foot musk. [Jezebel]
AP - "The Morning Show Murders" (Delacorte Press, 312 pages, $26): Al Roker sticks to what he knows — morning TV_ in his first murder mystery, "The Morning Show Murders." He begins by introducing a protagonist named Billy Blessing, a cooler version of Roker himself.
This has got to be my favorite episode of Friends:
(via Urlesque)
This was my reaction while watching the above video:
Wilford Brimley is only 75 years old, by the by, meaning he filmed those oatmeal commercials when he was 19. And the motherf**ker can still rap!! Source: Best Week Ever | 14 Dec 2009 | 11:40 am
Front Page: '30 Rock,' 'Mad Men,' 'Family' on top -- NBC's "30 Rock," AMC's "Mad Men" and ABC's "Modern Family" led the way with three nominations each.
SNL’s been having one of its better seasons in recent years; a lot of the opening sketches have been clunkers, but the videos and Weekend Updates have been solid week-to-week, and there’ve been a number of really amusing, ridiculous writery sketches littered through the later parts of the episodes. Plus a full season without weekly 17-minute election-related cold opens has been a welcome plus.
That said, this week’s Taylor Lautner episode was, much like January Jones’ a couple weeks ago, definitely an off-week. Lautner himself was fine, and there was nothing particularly painful about the Twilight references or his monologue, but the show as a whole just didn’t have a lot of high points, and I found myself leaning towards the fast-forward a bit more than usual.
As for highlights, I did enjoy this three-part ad campaign by the PGA Tour to retain interest in golf without Tiger Woods; it’s definitely a little long, but I imagine the third segment is exactly what’s going on at the PGA offices right now (seltzer!):
Thoughts on SNL: Lautner Edition? Leave ‘em in the comments.
AP - "Too Much Money" (Crown Publishing, 288 pages, $26), by Dominick Dunne: You didn't think the grave could possibly silence one of the most famous chroniclers of the rich and famous, did you?
I wasn’t willing to give up on A&E’s Steven Seagal: Lawman after the first episode, mostly because it’s a show about Steven Seagal riding around Louisiana arresting people, and the show did perk up a little. The COPS-style live action sequences remained borderline lame; one segment involved the cops rushing to the scene of a burglary, surrounding the house, and Seagal explaining every possible point of entry and escape, before eventually realizing that the burglar had already left the house (spoiler).
Another sequence involved the cops rushing to a scene of a possible drug deal, confronting a kid who lied about his first name, sending a drug-sniffing dog through the car and finding nothing, then booking the kid for outstanding traffic violations (and ultimately releasing him). Until Seagal constructs a crude silencer with a 2-liter bottle and tape and shoots someone through a door with it, like in On Deadly Ground but even more real, I’m not sure the action portions of this show will ever truly meet my expectations.
The reason Episode 2 was better, though, was the same reason anything is ever better than anything: The addition of dogs. Half the episode involved Seagal training his security dogs to maul the crap out of an actor posing as an intruder.
It’s like The Dog Whisperer meets Under Seige, minus most aspects of Under Seige and boobs (dog part starts at 3:13):
After the jump, Seagal teaches his killer dog to play (thanks for this happening, universe):
Forget aboutbuying your own B-roll… now you can make your own. With the help of British comedian Matt Berry’s Guide to Film Making that is! Berry really walks you through every step with the patience and fortitude of the great masters. Trust us, within 2 minutes, you will be your home town’s most revered director!!
Oh, and if you’re new to this whole “Funny or Die” concept, allow British Britty Little Britain stars Matt Lucas and David Walliams to wolk you frough thah proe-cess, aftah thah jamp.
AP - "Nanny Returns" (Atria Books, 305 pages, $25), by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus: Seven years ago, the best-selling novel "The Nanny Diaries" introduced us to Nan Hutchinson, an intelligent and compassionate nanny. Through her eyes, readers watched wealthy New Yorkers focus on their social lives and neglect the emotional needs of their children — including little Grayer, the son of Nan's employers, Mr. and Mrs. X.
A schizophrenic man has admitted punching singer Leona Lewis (pictured) in the face during a book signing, an attack which left the pop star "completely devastated". Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 14 Dec 2009 | 9:30 am
Tiger Woods and the woman whose rumored affair with him launched the golf great's astonishing fall from grace may have been just a few miles apart this weekend, Fox411.com has learned.
Reader Angela in Sacremento passed along this delicious and surely nutritious treat… folks, cleanse your palette for a spoonful of jam named after everyone’s most beloved crack addicted mayor… it’s Marionberry Jam:
Sorry, we meant “Seedless Preserves.” Not to be confused with Marion Barry’s Jam of course:
You can purchase Marionberry Jam, as well as an entire array of Marionberry related products (BBQ sauce? They have it.) over at YourNW.com.
And if you were wondering what to buy former Mayor Marion “Guy Who Has Everything” Barry, might we suggest this deluxe basket? Or crack… either way, his reaction will be this:
International consulting firm Accenture has severed its ties with Tiger Woods, officially ending their prominent ad campaign, “Make really really really smart decisions with Accenture”.
Rumors are swirling that Tiger and Elin Nordegrenmay be talking to lawyers in preparation for a possible divorce. This really came out of left field, didn’t it?
The Hurt Locker kicks off this year’s annual December “movie that wins a bunch of minor awards to get Oscar’s attention but hopefully not too many so the Oscars vote against it just to be random.”
Mel Gibson is directing a period piece about vikings, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. How is this not a Scorsese picture?? I’m sure the article meant to say “Martin Scorcese will be directing in a plastic Mel Gibson mask”.
The History Channel is planning a scripted eight-hour miniseries about the lives of the Kennedys. I wonder if an entire episode will unexpectedly center around the Kennedys’ reaction to Sterling-Cooper.
AP - "Why Architecture Matters" (Yale University Press, 273 pages, $26) by Paul Goldberger: Not long after completing his iconoclastic Glass House in 1949, architect Philip Johnson traded barbs as revealing as the see-through walls.
Little Mason Dash Disick is already having trouble keeping up with his family.
Just a few hours after Kourtney Kardashian birthed a baby boy, sister Kim and mom Kris "Don't Call...
Meryl Streep, blah blah blah.
Certain names you can count on come statuette season. We wanted to know what might surprise us come tomorrow's Golden Globe...
UPDATE 2: According to Courtney Love's attorney, Keith A. Fink, the singer did not lose custody of Frances Bean. Rather, the teen just wants to live with her grandmother right...
We thought Joey McIntyre was suspiciously missing from Twitter yesterday.
Turns out the New Kid on the Block (and avid tweeter) was busy celebrating the arrival of his second son with...
Oh, Jenny, you're having a bad year, aren't you? Gossip Girl's would-be Queen Bee can't even reign supreme in her own school—and the "petty megalomaniac" look...
Chris Brown is no MechanicalDummy. Not anymore, anyway.
Following in the footsteps of Miley Cyrus, the beleaguered R&B artist has shut down his Twitter account, a day after...
Are A-Rod and Kate Hudson over?
It certainly looked that way to one source who saw him at a special Armani Exchange dinner in South Beach this weekend.
"He flirted with a...
First Pauly D tells us he'd go full frontal for Playgirl, and now one of the young ladies of Jersey Shore reveals she's ready to strip down, too.
"If Playboy approached me...
If Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren's Barbados wedding cost $1.5 million, we can only imagine what the golf champion paid for the now MIA wedding ring.
And it's probably safe to...
Tara Reid is still around and posing on the January/February cover of Playboy.
Quick Tara Reid recap (it's been a while, we know): She starred in American Pie, The Big Lebowski...
A promo for NBC’s new weeklong singing competition “The Sing-Off” aired last night that included the actual tagline:
I wasn’t willing to give up on A&E’s Steven Seagal: Lawman after the 
