Reuters - Before "Sherlock Holmes" was a movie opening on Christmas Day, it was a comic. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment Reviews | 24 Dec 2009 | 12:23 am
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Before "Sherlock Holmes" was a movie opening on Christmas Day, it was a comic. Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 24 Dec 2009 | 12:23 am
(AP) AP - Latin Grammy winner Ramon Ayala was released from jail for health reasons Wednesday, but authorities said he remains under investigation for alleged ties to a drug cartel. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 23 Dec 2009 | 9:45 pm
File this under a Christmas bummer.
Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins have ended their run as one of Hollywood's most enduring power couples.
"Actress Susan...
AP - As theater critics compile their best-of-the-year lists (a practice beloved by press agents everywhere), let us go a step further and name just one candidate in a new category: strangest musical of the last half-century. OK, make that nearly 60 years.
• Golf Digest has decided to "suspend" Tiger Woods' monthly column. Will Condé Nast continue to pay him his $3 million-a-year salary? Unclear. [NYP] • The Balloon Boy parents were sentenced to 90 days (him) and 20 days (her) today. For what it's worth, Richard Heene says he's "very, very sorry." [AP] • Alexis Glick, one of Fox Business's first employees, resigned today. [LAT] • Fox will go ahead with Idol with or without Simon Cowell. Obviously. [THR] • Another humorless group is whining about MTV's Jersey Shore. [AP] • The feud between Time Warner/Fox over cable fees is getting nasty. [DF] • Jennifer Aniston, Julia Roberts and Mickey Rourke have signed on to present at next month's Golden Globes alongside host Ricky Gervais. [LAT] • A look back at the wars Rupert Murdoch has waged over the years. [NYM] • The trailer for Sex and the City 2 was released today. Yes, already. [EW]
If you're looking for very part-time work—and you hear snow is in the forecast—keep in mind the city will pay you $12 an hour to take a shovel in hand. Don't be surprised if you don't land the gig, though. With the economy in the shape it's in, the competition is fierce. [NYT]
Mediaweek.com - -Yesterday's Winners:
NCIS R (CBS), NCIS: Los Angeles R (CBS), The Good Wife R (CBS) Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 23 Dec 2009 | 5:13 pm
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Fox is near a deal to order more seasons of "American Idol" -- with or without its most popular judge, Simon Cowell. Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 23 Dec 2009 | 5:10 pm
Reuters - Fox is near a deal to order more seasons of "American Idol" -- with or without its most popular judge, Simon Cowell. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 23 Dec 2009 | 5:10 pm
MTV is getting more pressure to cancel its "Jersey Shore" reality show. The latest criticism comes from the New Jersey Italian American Legislative Caucus, which says the show promotes... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 23 Dec 2009 | 4:41 pm
Playbill - Andrew Rannells, Patti Murin and Curtis Holbrook will star in the Dallas world premiere of Give It Up!, the new Lysistrata-inspired musical from Tony Award-nominated playwright Douglas Carter Beane and composer Lewis Flinn. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 23 Dec 2009 | 4:40 pm
Clockwise from top left: Dolce & Gabbana, Sonia Kashuk, Black Opal, and Maybelline.
High-end makeup can seem outrageously priced — if you’re adding some new things to your collection, it can easily add up to a few hundred dollars. But what are you paying for? Is there really that much difference between mass and upscale brands? We compared a new four-color Dolce & Gabbana eye-shadow palette to drugstore brands with similar shades. Below, our rigorous testing and quasi-scientific analysis brings a clear winner.
Photo: Melissa Hom
THE CONTENDER: Dolce & Gabbana Smooth Eye Colour Quad in Stromboli, $59 at Saks Fifth Avenue
PACKAGING:
Nice-looking packaging, although it could feel more substantial; very handy big mirror.
COLOR & PIGMENT DENSITY:
Luscious, intense, and true on the skin; the gold was a rich, gilded swipe, not just a weak bit of frost.
BLENDABILITY:
Mmm, a pleasure to apply; silky and smooth.
FINAL CALL:
Only one complaint: major flaking. Gold sparkles ended up where they weren't intended.
Photo: Melissa Hom
CHALLENGERNo. 1: Black Opal Quad Eye-Shadow Kit in Golden Sunset, $5.50 at Duane Reade
PACKAGING:
Pretty generic, but at least you see what you're getting.
COLOR AND PIGMENT DENSITY:
Looks chalky; leaves you unenthused.
BLENDABILITY:
The shadow pretty much stays where your applicator first lands, and won’t budge.
FINAL CALL:
Maybe good for experimenting with a color, but it’ll never be a favorite.
Photo: Melissa Hom
CHALLENGER No. 2: Sonia Kashuk Eye-Shadow Quad in Striking Jewels, $9.89 at Target
PACKAGING:
Smart; the little window lets you see the colors, but doesn’t look cheap.
COLORS & PIGMENT DENSITY:
The deep green made our toes tingle — but that didn’t translate to the skin, where it barely showed.
BLENDABILITY:
You need to layer on so much just to see the color that blending is kind of moot.
FINAL CALL:
Requires too many coats. You shouldn't have to spend fifteen minutes just on your eyes.
Photo: Melissa Hom
CHALLENGER No. 3: Eye Studio by Maybelline in Copper Chic, $9.99 for .09 oz at CVS
PACKAGING:
Pretty standard.
BLENDABILITY:
Excellent; the colors work wonderfully together or alone, and blend effortlessly.
COLORS & PIGMENT DENSITY:
Very pretty and rich; impressive and intense hues that are true on the face.
FINAL CALL:
Who cares about the packaging? For $10, it's an absolute steal.
THE WINNER: Maybelline. For the shadow's quality and price, Maybelline's palette can easily hold its own against the similar option from Dolce & Gabbana.
"Tinsel, which comes from the old French word estincele, meaning sparkle, dates by some accounts to the 1600s and by others to the 1840s, when a silversmith started hammering silver, shredding it and putting it on a tree." [WSJ]
How many movies did you get out to the multiplexes to see this year? Five? Ten? 50? No matter what your tally is, we're betting it's somewhere south of 342. That's the number of films that a YouTube user named Kees van Dijkhuizen has compiled into the following seven-minute video. Your friendly Vulture editors try not to pepper our posts with too many superlatives, but believe us when we say that this is a pretty spectacular piece of editing work. And it even includes Gentlemen Broncos!
The show must go on—even without its snarky, British center of attention, apparently.
Despite the news from a seemingly solid source (it was the guy's brother, for...
NEW YORK - As theatre critics compile their best-of-the-year lists (a practice beloved by press agents everywhere), let us go a step further and name just one candidate in a new category: Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 23 Dec 2009 | 3:22 pm
Robert Franklin, the grizzled and awesome Santa Claus who works the South Street Seaport, takes his job seriously. "Mr. Franklin says there is a responsibility that comes with the job," reports the Times. "He even refrains from belting out too many 'Ho, ho, hos!' He explained: 'It has to be real. It has to come from deep inside. If I don’t feel it’s right, I don’t do it. You don’t fool the children.'” [NYT]
As we predicted last week, Susan Boyle's I Dreamed a Dream crossed the double-platinum barrier this week. Amazingly, her record sales rose for the second consecutive week (!), as consumers snapped up some 661,000 copies of her album of cover songs over the last seven days (up from 582K last week). This means there's probably a pretty good chance that Mom will have multiple copies of Boyle's record sitting underneath the Christmas tree. [Billboard]
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - To hear veteran actor Jeff Bridges tell it, he had the time of his life in his new movie "Crazy Heart" playing a drunk -- and so far, no bad hangover. Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 23 Dec 2009 | 3:09 pm
UPDATE: Murphy's body has been transported to Forest Lawn in anticipation of the Dec. 24 burial.
_____________________________
Sadly, Christmas is an afterthought for...
Israeli diamond/real estate mogul Lev Leviev purchased the former headquarters of the New York Times at the worst possible time: In 2007, he paid $550 million for the West 43rd Street landmark, or about three times what the seller had paid two years earlier. The Uzbekistan-born billionaire (and part-time mohel) had been planning to turn it into a "first-class" office building. But then the recession came along and Leviev's empire started to unravel. And so now he has new investors and a new plan for the massive space.
Leviev reports that he now plans to turn it into luxury shopping mall, which will feature shops, an exhibition space, "stylish bowling alley," nightclub, seven restaurants, and high-end hotel with 379 rooms, along with "26 penthouse condominiums on top." Well, that sounds a lot more recession friendly, doesn't it?
If nothing else—and if it ends up getting built, of course—at least Leviev can rest assured that visiting Russians are going to love his grand vision of a really chintzy Time Warner Center:
The company hopes to open a 50-lane bowling alley in October that will feature an 18-foot bowling pin at the entrance and seven distinct sections, each with a different New York-related theme, including Chinatown and Central Park. Each section will have its own décor, restaurant and costumed waiters and waitresses.
SKIN
• Scientists have created an anti-sunburn drug, designed for people with a high sensitivity to sunlight. The drug helps prevent cancer and strong sun reactions by mimicking the body's natural defenses against UV rays while also making the user tan. Doctors warn that the drug is strong and "not for cosmetic purposes." [Telegraph UK]
• A new pill that supposedly reverses the signs of aging may also come out soon. The product, developed by L'Oreal and Nestle, uses lycopene, the compound found in tomatoes, to protect old skin cells and promote the growth of new ones. [Daily Mail UK]
• Who needs to spend money on expensive skin creams this holiday season when leftover sweet potatoes and beer supposedly make a great face mask? [BellaSugar]
HAIR
• Sherri Shepherd wore a faux-mullet on The View this morning. She claimed it was supposed to go with her "Lakers look" (she was wearing a jersey). What? [Jezebel]
• Mary J. Blige has been taking hair cues from Rihanna with a high, blonde style. Do you like how it looks on her? [Beauty Counter/Style.com]
• The old Limelight nightclub is reopening as a marketplace in March and will include a J. Sisters salon, credited with first bringing the Brazilian bikini wax to New York City. Other beauty destinations in the marketplace will include organic skincare brand Soapology, Caswell Massey apothecary, and Japanese gold-infused skincare brand Cosme Proud. So, you can get a wax, and then rub gold lotion on yourself. [StyleList]
FRAGRANCE
• A preview of Beyoncé's commercial for her new fragrance, Heat, is out. If you can fathom it, she writhes with a bunch of oil on her breasts and barely any clothing. [Just Jared]
• Race-car driver Danica Patrick will launch a new fragrance in March called Danica Patrick for Her. The scent will retail for $29.50 to $54.50 and will be promoted at NASCAR and the Indy Racing League. No word yet on what it will smell like, but anything has to be better than Sarah Jessica Parker's new B.O. perfume. [WWD]
If the Jersey Shore stars are ever feeling a bit beat up from being trashed by fellow Italian-Americans, they should take a trip to see Cake Boss star Buddy Valastro at his Hoboken...
In this uncertain world, there are precious few things that we feel we can rely on and take for granted. Gravity is one. The availability of Oreos is another. And the fact that no matter how many episodes we watch, there will always be a Law & Order we haven't seen. Similarly, there are at least three celebrity relationships that have remained constant for the bulk of our lives: Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, Bon Jovi and Dorothea Hurley, and Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins. Today, we learn that one of those partnerships is no more:
"Actress Susan Sarandon and her partner of 23 years, actor Tim Robbins have announced that they separated over the summer," her rep Teal Cannaday tells PEOPLE in a statement. "No further comments will be made."
Since the summer. The world has been a different place, and we didn't even know. Goes to show you can't count on celebrities for anything. At least if gravity fails us, we'll know right away.
It's an eerie and tragic example of life imitating art.
In a dreadful case of bad timing, Brittany Murphy's sudden death on Sunday has forced the DVD rental company...
The wise and powerful Perez Hilton may have already declared Avatar to be a colossal failure, but other important figures in the Hollywood community are bravely bucking the tide and recognizing that the immersive 3-D experience can provide a quick boost to their bottom lines. But before you get too excited about the prospect that the public's embrace of Avatar means that more filmmakers will experiment with the medium, we have some bad (yet certainly not unexpected) news to share with you. Considering that there's a large discrepancy between the long lead times of the Hollywood product-development cycle and the need to deliver quarterly profits in the here and now, the near-term solution to get you and yours to shell out upwards of $16 for a 3-D ticket (instead of the measly $12 for a regular 2-D ticket) is to upgrade a bunch of movies that you've already paid to see a hundred times before using the shiny new technology.
According to Sharon Waxman over at the Wrap, there are already plans underway to re-release classic action pics like Star Wars, Jurassic Park, and even Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 3-D. Yes, that's right, fatcats like George Lucas — guys, mind you, who have not only convinced you to see their movies in the theaters multiple times, but also to buy their movies on VHS, DVD, special-edition DVD, and Blu-Ray — are exploring how much it would cost to convert the explosion of the Death Star into three (admittedly glorious) dimensions as a means of prying another $16 from your pocket. Translation? You can safely chalk another one up for commerce in its long-standing war against art.
Cameron Dang, the manager of Home restaurant, loves Marilyn Manson. He describes his style as Goth and wears a lot of black. The day our Video Look Book camera caught him, he wore a Comme des Garçons jacket and Gaultier pants. However, he said the next day you might catch him in a suit and tie. "You see me from the front and you get this image of this guy who might shank you," he said, before turning around. Watch the Video Look Book to see what he hides back there.
• Eclipse is out in just six months! Time to start getting excited as various stills from the film start rolling in. (And yes, we know this photo was in People's New Moon Special...
It's weird: When we look around, we see that all of the elements are in place. Snow? Check. Ice-skating tourists at Rockefeller Center? Check. An extra two pounds comprised of cheese and booze on our ass? Check. But it feels as though something is missing. What is it? Oh, yes: Crazed, bleary-eyed bankers pre-spending their disgustingly large bonuses. The social anthropologists at USA Today identified the profound and yet totally subtle way in which life in New York is different this holiday season from how it was in the olden days.
At Craft, the holiday party-givers are ordering $80 bottles of wine, not $150 bottles like they used to.
"We used to look forward to that (bonus) time of year in the restaurant business," [Craft's operations chief Katie] Grieco says. "As garish as it may seem, we'd still love for those people to come in and spend as much money as they want." She doubts it will happen, though. "On some level they're forever altered," she says. "Maybe that's the way it should be."
Gosh, that's sad. But take heart, Katie: We can't possibly be doomed to drink $80 bottles of wine at holiday parties forever. Not least because considering the way the dollar is going, wine is going to get much more expensive.
Does a new court filing hint at some of the friction that caused Courtney Love to lose legal custody of daughter Frances Bean Cobain?
Lawyers representing Frances' new guardians, her...
Did you hear what Prince William did earlier this week? He threw on a hoodie and pretended he was homeless for a night, camping out under a bridge in London so he could see what "life on the streets" is really like:
Prince William has spent a night sleeping rough to understand the plight of the homeless at Christmas. He stayed out in temperatures as low as minus 4c, lying in a central London alleyway surrounded by wheelie bins. The Prince, patron of the charity Centrepoint, said he was trying to 'do his bit' to help the vulnerable.
It's unclear how spending a night doing this actually helped London's homeless population. (And the prince wasn't in any danger, since he had a bodyguard who accompanied him.) But hopefully that won't stop New York City's similarly out of touch royal leader from following suit. We've even mocked it up for him, so he can get an idea of what it will be like! See below.
To prove to the world, once and for all, that she's not pregnant by way of Tiger Woods, Rachel Uchitel has given E! News this shot taken earlier this week in Florida that...
Can we tawk? Unfashionable stars beware! Joan Rivers, the mouth that roared on E! for 10 years, is coming back to bust badly dressed celebs in a series of awards-season Fashion Police operations....
It was bound to happen. Someone, somewhere was going to speculate that Tiger Woods was a sex addict, and the media — as insatiable for new Tiger stories as the golfer was for porn kittens in tube tops — was going to run with it. So when Drew Pinsky, host of VH1’s Sex Rehab With Dr. Drew, floated the idea on Entertainment Tonight — “It’s safe to say that sex addiction might be a part of his problem,” he told the interviewer — the theory got picked up everywhere, from CBS News to the Hindustan Times.
Have we really come to this sorry pass? Are we honestly saying that a pro athlete who married a swimsuit model is suffering from sex addiction if it turns out he’s strayed outside his marriage?
“If Tiger Woods is a ‘sex addict,’ ” says Richard A. Friedman, a psychiatrist and director of the psychopharmacology clinic at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, “then so is a substantial fraction of the American male population, given the high rates of self-reported marital infidelity in many surveys.” He adds that the term “sex addict” may have popular appeal, but it has “little scientific validity:” It’s not in the DSM-IV — the main compendium of diagnoses used by psychiatrists and psychologists — and surveys attempting to diagnose the condition ask lots of questions to which ordinary people could answer in the affirmative (Ever buy dirty magazines? Surf Internet porn? Feel like your sex drive controls you?).
In the wake of Bill Clinton's Monica travails, Chris Rock pointed out that “a man is basically as faithful as his options.” As the world’s most famous and extravagantly compensated athlete, Tiger was obviously in the same position as Bill: contemplating options for his delectation on a daily, if not hourly, basis. (“You see all these fat Republican guys going: ‘I would never do such a thing,’ ” added Rock in his same Monica riff. “I’m like, ‘Nobody’s trying to blow you.’ ”)
It should also be pointed out that few people labeled Bill Clinton a sex addict at the end of the day — just as few have ever applied the term to Madonna or Warren Beatty or Mick Jagger or Dennis Rodman. Sexuality is an essential part of their gestalts, inseparable from the drives that made them famous in the first place. Rather, the diagnosis seems to be reserved for those whose sexuality takes the public by surprise. (Like David Duchovny, for instance, or Michael Douglas, whose screen personas both rely on a certain impassiveness.) Tiger’s whole image — and sport — was about control. The second we learn he’s not in control, we decide he’s ill.
And there’s the rub. It’s much safer to pathologize the bad behavior of a cultural icon than simply call it what it is: fallibly human. Think of the Atlanta Braves’ John Rocker who told Sports Illustrated he’d sooner quit baseball than pitch for a New York team (“Imagine having to take the 7 train to the ballpark looking like you’re riding through Beirut next to some kid with purple hair, next to some queer with AIDS ... ”). The response of the Major League Baseball commissioner, Bud Selig, was to have him undergo psychological testing, as if racism and homophobia were sicknesses rather than ugly beliefs. It was shrewdly implying that Rocker was a victim, too — a puppet of bad genes, perhaps, or a damaging childhood that left him with gross, abiding wounds. The same goes for the label of sex addiction. It’s as appealing to the offender as it is to the public. “After all,” says Friedman, “saying you have a ‘sexual addiction’ sounds better than admitting you enjoy lots of extramarital sex.”
The nude model is painted as though she has no skin. Copyranter says maybe this is part of a spring 2010 zombie trend. We think maybe it's just an extension of the naked trend. We're wearing clothes for fall, but for spring we're supposed to wear underwear. Then designers will probably try to get us to go naked, and then the hot trend will be to go naked and skinless. [Copyranter]
Amy Saccosent out an email blast on Friday announcing—once again—that she plans to reopen Bungalow 8 in the near future. ("SAVE FEB FASHION WEEK FOR THE GRAND RE-OPENING OF THE NEW BUNGALOW 8 NYC!") Anything is possible. Although if she really is planning to bring the former hotspot back, it's probably going to look exactly like it did before it closed this fall. Sacco still hasn't filed for any of the city permits she would need to do renovation work on the West 27th Street club. As you can see below, she hasn't proposed to make any substantial changes to the venue since way back in 2002:
Jessica Simpson was spotted walking out of a building in New York yesterday with fuzzy rubber-toed snow boots, a fur collar, and a leopard-and-monogram Louis Vuitton handbag.
When designer Lily Raskind sat down to create her spring 2010 collection, she decided to edge more toward the sunny side of her line, Sunshine & Shadow. “This season is about fun, light, easy pieces,“ says Raskind. “I wanted to experiment with colors I’ve never used before, like red and orange. My line has been very print-heavy because the prints are so much fun for me to design, but solids are so wearable and I thought it would be a nice change.” The designer, who just moved to Seattle with her husband this past year, came to New York ten years ago and began making pieces at her home. The clothes, which are now sold at Barney’s, Jumelle, Bird, and Steven Alan, are all produced in the city, with accessories like her now-famous tie-dye scarves and color-blocked belts all made by hand in her Williamsburg and Seattle studios. A new addition for spring is the jewelry, which is all made in-house by Raskind. The handmade necklaces reflect the overall vibe of the collection with their bright palette and casual, yet unique, look. We got a glimpse of the Sunshine & Shadow spring look book, which combines Raskind’s signature graphic prints with bold, bright colors perfect for the warmer days of summer. Check out the collection ahead.
AP - France's top rocker and entertainment icon Johnny Hallyday has left a Los Angeles hospital after riveting France for some two weeks of hospitalization for back surgery. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 23 Dec 2009 | 1:15 pm
Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus opens with a scene in which a club kid gets whisked away in the tentacles of a giant, luminescent, intergalactic jellyfish, and that’s far from the craziest thing in the movie (which hits theaters in limited release tomorrow). Indeed, the craziest thing about it might be that it exists at all. As pretty much everyone knows, star Heath Ledger died halfway through production, and Gilliam was ready to give up when Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, and Jude Law joined forces to help him complete it, each filling in for Ledger during different parts of the film. (The actors are all donating their fees from the film to Ledger’s daughter, Matilda.) How exactly does it work? The film is about an ancient and immortal storyteller, Dr. Parnassus (played by Christopher Plummer), who carts around a traveling show featuring a magic mirror that allows people to enter his “Imaginarium,” a fantastical, storybook world where they find themselves faced with pivotal, life-altering choices. Along the way, Parnassus meets the young, mysterious, and charismatic Tony (played by Ledger), who helps him woo bystanders into the Imaginarium. At the time of his death, Ledger had shot all his scenes on the real-world side of the mirror. Now, when Tony goes through to the Imaginarium side of the mirror, he’s played by Depp, Farrell, and Law. The effect is seamless, and even Gilliam seems a bit surprised. The director met with us to talk about Parnassus, his frustration and obsession with movie reviews, and what scares him the most.
At a screening of the film last night, you told everybody to “Lower [their] expectations.” What was that about?
That’s my little joke. I do it all the time now. This thing has been built up so much in people’s minds. It’s just my way of saying, “Just stop. It’s just a fucking movie.”
You’ve said that very little rewriting was necessary after Heath Ledger’s death to make the film work so that his character could turn into Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, and Jude Law at different points.
Yes. Now that’s my advice to young filmmakers: “Always make sure there’s a magic mirror in your movie.”
How do you think the film might have been different, though, if Heath had lived?
I don’t know. How about that? Heath set up the possibilities in his performance. At one moment he’s speaking with an Australian accent, which then slides into a Cockney accent, and we understand that he’s a chameleon. He was always making stuff up on the spot, and I don’t know what he had planned. He had so much shit ready to play with. The only thing I can think of is that if Heath had played Tony all the way through, his character’s journey might have been more dramatic. Because we like him — so even as Tony becomes worse and worse and we find out more about him, we always keep hoping he’ll turn out okay. But he gets dodgier and dodgier, and by the end we realize what a complete shit he is.
It’s funny. This is a movie in which one of the characters is the Devil, and by the end of the movie, you realize he’s not even the real villain.
Exactly. The Devil actually has some principles. Tony struck me as a very modern man. He is principle-less. He’ll say whatever he needs to, and believe it. Tony Blair was always in the back of my mind. He dragged us into the Iraq War, because he believed in it. He’s like Harvey Weinstein, too. As the words actually leave his mouth, he’s convinced he’s telling you the truth. Years ago, I met [Death Wish director] Michael Winner. I don’t like his films, and I always thought he was a bit of a monster. But then I saw that he knows he’s a monster, and he understands his monstrousness. And he’s very charming and funny about it. So … I like him now.
We’re told that Doctor Parnassus controls the Imaginarium, but by the end he’s lost inside it, at its mercy as much as everyone else. Why do I get the weird sense that, as a director, you might identify with that?
I like to say that the movie is making itself. I start the film, and it eventually becomes something greater than me. All religious fanatics think that, of course. The difference is that they think they’ve got a God that’s in control and that he has got a real good plan, and I don’t actually believe that. With films, they just become what they’re going to be, despite themselves. There’s a scene in the film where we see the first time Parnassus and the Devil met: Parnassus is in a monastery where they’re telling “the Eternal Story,” and he thinks that if they stop telling the story, the world will end. And when the Devil forces them to stop, Parnassus realizes that there are other stories being told all over the world. He’s not the only. What we’re really talking about is an egomaniac: “Wow! Stories exist in their own right? Wow!” We’re all kind of like that. I’m like that.
That’s something that a lot of people seem to not get about your films. Yes, your heroes are often aligned with the imagination, but you make it clear that the imagination can also destroy you.
Exactly. The real struggle is between chaos and order. Chaos is the imagination. It can save you, or it can destroy you. I mean, Dick Cheney is a pretty imaginative guy. Look at Donald Rumsfeld’s belief system. These people became victims of the story they were telling, as much as one of my characters. I think that’s something that bothers a lot of people about my films. It’s not black and white. It’s not clear. And I think that can be scary to people.
So, what scares Terry Gilliam?
What scares me? I don’t know … I don’t feel particularly frightened of death. I guess I’m scared of my family dying before me. Simple things scare me. That I won’t get any more films made before I kick the bucket, that scares me. The end of the world doesn’t scare me. I am scared of becoming cynical. You have to have some level of optimism in your work, you have to believe it can make some kind of a difference. Otherwise, you’d probably lose your drive and your ability to work.
Have you ever lost that drive?
Every night! You know, Nietzsche was wrong. What doesn’t kill you does not make you stronger. It makes you really tired. But that’s such a weird, optimistic idea, that everything can be a learning experience, for the better. It’s a very American idea.
It sounds like you read your reviews.
Oh, I read all my reviews. I shouldn’t, but I actually go and find them and read them, and I go crazy. It’s like self-flagellation. I can’t help it. I mean, I’ve got critics I admire and those I don’t. I don’t particularly care if they like or dislike my movies, but the review — it’s gotta be intelligent. My old buddy Joel Siegel, who’s dead now, used to do this thing where he would use clips from a film as a straight-man lead-up to his joke. It drove me crazy. I said to him, “Joel, what are you doing? A lot of people work very hard to make these films!” Feel free to not like them, but to use them as the lead-up to a throwaway gag was really disrespectful. I think he stopped after that. These days, I actually prefer online critics: They have more time with a film, and they don’t have to worry as much about hard deadlines.
Doctor Parnassus is packed with so much story, and it comes at you so fast: Are you worried that audiences might not get it on the first viewing?
I have heard that it’s better the second time from just about everybody. You take in more of the story the second time. But I don’t think I’m particularly special in that regard. Maybe I’m being naïve, but I just remember movies used to be like that. You came to the theater, you sat down, and you focused on this. You didn’t have to multitask. Now, people are so used to television, they’re thinking, “Let’s go to the kitchen and find something to eat.” You have to work a little bit. I mean, you don’t go to a play and stop after twenty minutes or whatever. That said, maybe it’s just me. As a teenager, when I went to drive-in movies in L.A., everybody would be making out, and I’d be there saying, “This is wrong! I want to see the movie!” Needless to say, I was rather bad as a double dater.
When 2008 turned to 2009, the Seattle-based maker of those year-shaped glasses that people wear on New Year's Eve decided to end his glorious run, partly because business was down and partly because of "the aesthetic challenges of making a pair of glasses for 2010." But it turns out that 2010 won't be much of a challenge at all, really. One fix being used by other companies is simply making the '1' super wide. It doesn't look as good as a '0,' but we don't think looking good is a primary concern for people who wear these anyway. [AP via HuffPo]
Launch My Line contestant Patrick McDonald: "Today I left my apartment in the East Village and four construction workers walked towards me. I thought, oh my God, I'm in riding boots and patent leather and plaid and a red hat. What are they thinking? They said, 'You're the guy from TV. Can I take a picture on my cell phone to give to my wife? She loves you.' It's so nice." [StyleList]
Back in August, the Postreported that Bernie Madoff was dying of cancer. The Bureau of Prisons denied it, but the Journal reports today that Madoff was moved the prison medical center very recently. Could there be a connection? Or is he just experiencing side effects from all those Native American purification ceremonies he's been taking part in? [WSJ]
Debenhams in London hired models of various shapes to help men pick out lingerie for their ladies this year. "The idea was a huge success, with our male shoppers commenting on what a great idea the event was at this time of year," a Debenhams spokeswoman said. Well, of course. Women would be thrilled, too, if there were models in the boxer-brief section helping them pick out manties. But shopping isn't equal: Men get more free booze and more attractive people to look at. Fail, retailers. FAIL.
A Debenhams salesperson said:
“Sometimes they just point at someone on the shop floor and whisper that their wife is ‘about that size,’ or they just make a shape with their hands.”
Apparently, two-thirds of men don't know their partner's bra or panty size. Oh oh, we have an idea! Look at her underwear tags. No excuse, men.
But we think men are shopping in the wrong department for their ladies. Lingerie is a blatantly self-serving gift, and what woman trusts her boyfriend's taste in this department? He can't clear it with her friends because that would be too awkward. Instead, stores should hire People With Taste to patrol the shoe department and help men pick out fancy shoes for their girlfriends and wives. A great pair of heels is less obvious, can be less awkwardly cleared with the friends, and will result in more sex.
We know that the final health-care-reform legislation, whatever it turns out looking like after the Senate and House iron out their discrepancies (probably something very close to the Senate's version), is not the bill you would have concocted in an ideal world in which there were no Joe Liebermans or Ben Nelsons. We know that the political realities of Congress have made this bill tamer and more incremental than you would have liked. And it's okay for you to admit that to us. What's odd is when your defense of the bill includes statements like, "I didn't campaign on the public option."
The Internet is currently debating the veracity of that statement: On the one hand, the public option certainly wasn't one of the main planks of your presidential campaign; on the other, it was, undeniably, a part of your proposed health-care plan, and a program you would have preferred to see enacted. It all comes down to figuring out the true definition of "campaign on," a less-than-exhilarating exercise in which we'll politely decline to engage. Obviously, you're just trying to convince Americans, especially liberals, that they shouldn't be disappointed in the health-care-reform bill. But winning this argument, Obama, is like winning an argument with your wife — which is to say, you don't benefit even in victory. Sure, maybe you can convince her that you never technically promised her that necklace — but she still wishes you got it for her. Pointing out how consistent you've been may make you feel better, but it won't make her want the necklace any less.
The Huffington Post has compiled pictures of some of the worst Christmas sweaters, as seen on eBay. Apparently the latest advancement in knitted heinousness is gluing an actual stuffed animal to the chest region. So if you see someone dressed like this, you have two excuses to punch them. [HuffPo]
Rudy Giuliani announced yesterday that he won't be running for Senate in 2010 and is abandoning any plans to return to politics, so he can focus on his security business (see you in Rio in 2016!) and his law firm (now with offices in Kazakstan!). Rudy's speech, delivered in Conference Room E of the Sheraton Hotel (i.e. the basement), was hardly a triumphant moment for the former mayor. Per the Times:
If this was goodbye, an air of the desultory clung to it, as a man once seen as destined for high office stood in the basement of a Midtown hotel and endorsed another politician for another office—governor—once in his sight. From president to governor to senator, the list of powerful offices that the man, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, once dreamed of capturing is long, and his longing now seems likely to go unrequited.
Much of the coverage carried obit-like tones. Politico's take:
For such an outsized figure, Giuliani exited Tuesday in a modest and underwhelming fashion. He spoke at a moderately-attended news conference in a hotel basement and offered only the most practical reasons for turning down clear shots at the Senate and the governorship—elections that would have propelled him back to the national stage in 2012 or 2016.
And it couldn't have made Rudy very happy to see that no one cares about him much anymore:
In 2000, Hizzoner's withdrawal dominated the heat-seeking New York press. This year, his announcement, leaked last night, was met with a collective shrug in a city more focused on the holidays, Giants' playoff prospects and the Astor family saga.
The New York Post carried its story on his decision on Page 8. It ran on Page 26 of the Daily News. His longtime chief of staff, Tony Carbonetti, was absent from the event, as was his wife, Judith.
In all fairness—and in Judy's defense—Christmas is just a couple of days away. And have you seen the pre-holiday sales at Saks and Bergdorf Goodman? If Rudy had really wanted her to be there, he would have made sure the press conference took place before 10am or after 8pm when the stores are closed, obviously. So let's not go overboard.
Michelle visited the Children's National Medical Center in Washington to read Christmas stories to the wee ones. She wore a pretty red top with black slacks and swept her hair up. She couldn't resist a flower brooch, but at least it's not in the shape of a Christmas stocking. See the full look in the Michelle Obama Look Book.
"It was the most physically demanding role I've ever done. I trained in everything from riding bareback and martial arts to archery. I was okay with almost all of it except our trip to Hawaii before filming to experience a tropical environment like Pandora. Jim made us live for three days without technology and a minimum of creature comforts while we went climbing and digging in the dirt. I was almost naked for three days and as muddy as a dead rat. I finally went, 'I can't deal with this' and Jim said, 'Oh, come on, Zoe, suck it up!'" —Zoe Saldana on roughing it for Avatar [Parade]
"Yes, an old man on a player piano would perform it. We'd go down to the speakeasy and put hot potatoes in our pockets so we'd be warm as we walked home." —(Old woman) Amy Poehler on listening to the Chipmunks when she was just a young thing [MTV]
"I didn't make any demands in terms of the interpersonal connecting of body parts. I just did what I was told by the director. But, every time I kissed Hugh [Grant], I told him I was doing it for America." —Patriot Sarah Jessica Parker [Parade]
"Robert is a bit Sherlock Holmesian himself, so yeah, his brain works at 100 miles an hour. Actually his seems to work a lot faster than mine 'cause I don't always know what he was talking about. But yeah, so as long as I can understand what he's talking about then we were in agreement." —Guy Ritchie on Robert Downey Jr. [ComingSoon via Female First]
"It's definitely a place I would like to go, musically. Not electronic … you can do weird [stuff] with guitars too." —Julian Casablancas's next stop: weird music [NME]
"She's got those Viking genes. I'm serious. They live forever, those people. It's the Viking genes and a whole lot of salmon." —Mark Boal, screenwriter for The Hurt Locker, on Kathryn Bigelow [Envelope/LAT]
Yesterday, a special agent showed up on the doorstep of 47-year-old Queens resident Chee Thye Chaw carrying a suitcase Chaw had lost at the airport. The suitcase, the agent explained once Chaw identified it as his, had been opened by a customs official and inside they'd found sixteen rare Bony-tongue fish — a kind of fat goldfish that are considered lucky in parts of Asia — that Chaw had been carrying back from Malaysia. The fish were endangered, the official told Chaw, and he should expect to face charges under the Endangered Species Act. The twist? At this point, the fish in the suitcase were mostly dead, because they were discovered back in April and somehow everyone was sitting on their thumbs between then and yesterday. "This is bullshit," Chaw said, and rightly so. [NYP ]
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt stopping off for a bite to eat at a branch of Cafe Metro in Midtown on Sunday ... Reese Witherspoon arriving at JFK on Monday night and crossing the street yesterday ... Hugh Jackman, Dustin Hoffman, John McEnroe, and Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvistattending a Knicks game ... Ashlee Simpson shopping at FAO Schwarz and Barneys with her sister, husband and baby ... Dancing with the Stars' Derek Hough getting out of a cab in Midtown ... Naomi Watts checking her phone while walking downtown ... and Mary-Kate Olsen leaving her apartment clearly unprepared for the cold weather.
You know what those advertising people say: Sex sells. And sex plus weirdness confuses people, giving them a combination of weird boners and actual boners and weirdness about having the actual boners and generally making everyone feel a way they may or not want to ever be feeling. Maybe it sells, who knows. They say a couple long sentences.
Here’s your 2009 in Sexual Commercials (NSFW):
10. Save The Boobs PSA
We don’t care about saving womens’ lives but we LOVE BOOBS DON’T WE GUYS??? HIGH FIVE!!!!! I’m also against ASS CANCER yeaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!
9. Gisele Bundchen For London Fog
There’s a fine line between “spokesperson for” and “wearing logo as strap-on”.
8. Danica Patrick Godaddy Lesbian Strip
If I read these commercials right, that website’s just a dancing .gif of Danica Patrick’s vagina, right?
7. Padma Lakshmi For Carl’s Jr
The symbolism is, it’s a penis burger.
6. Pepsi Raw
Wooo!!! Slightly different Pepsi!!!! Here’s my boobs, buildings!!!
5. PETA’s Veggie Lover “Banned” Super Bowl Ad
OMG so controversial they’re banging vegetables this cannot be aired even though PETA was definitely gonna pay to air a commercial on the Super Bowl sex boobs sex!!!!!!!
A judge has sentenced Balloon Dad Richard Heene to 90 days in jail — for 60 of those he can work outside the jail during the day — and four years probation for exploiting America's emotions and wasting everyone's time with his balloon hoax last October. In addition, Heene will have to write a letter of apology to his community and the authorities for involving them in his delusional fame-whore stunt, perform 100 hours of community service, and undergo random drug-and-alcohol testing. But perhaps the worst punishment of all is that Heene is prohibited from reaping any financial benefit from the incident during the four years of his probation. By the time he tries to write his tell-all book, the general public will have long lost interest in the whole Balloon Boy saga, especially since they already did so about six weeks ago.
Romanian director Corneliu Porumboiu’s latest feature, the oddball detective story Police, Adjective, opened at the IFC Center this week, so we thought this would be a good opportunity to present his 2002 short, Gone With the Wine, which displays the same dry wit that has made the director’s features such hits on the art-house and festival circuits. Porumboiu’s films often take the form of a cosmic joke — for example, a very by-the-book cop finds himself literally confronted with the book at the end of Police, Adjective — and Wine is no different. A young man, intent on immigrating to England to get away from his constantly drunk family, takes off from his dirt-poor village one day, relieved at long last to flee the shackles of home. Needless to say, things don’t turn out as planned.
After spending seven months of a one-year sentence behind bars, Atlanta rapper T.I. has been freed from federal prison and will serve out the rest of his sentence in a halfway house. We anxiously await the innovations that he's going to bring to both the world of hip-hop and super-intense graphing calculators in the year 2010. [ArtsBeat/NYT]
A woman who told the Secret Service that she would "blow away" beloved First Lady Michelle Obama was arrested less than two miles from the Kailua home where the First Family will soon be vacationing. Kristy Lee Roshia, 35, has a weird habit of sending the Secret Service "rambling messages," poems, and love letters. She also once told them that "although her mission is to assassinate the president, she has no desire to hurt him." So ... yeah, she's a character. [AP via Google]
James Cameron has never shied from challenges. And, some would say, potential folly. After all, who starts working on a film — like he did with Avatar — before all the technology to create it exists? Avatar stands alone as a stunning achievement, but one senses that Cameron set out to best some specific effects standard-bearers, from lifelike CG characters to digital stampedes. Do Avatar's set pieces eclipse these earlier triumphs? In some cases, the answer is a resounding "yes" — other times, it is a progress-rebuffing "no." We pick the winners.
The Sex and the City 2 trailer is out. Finally! JK. In actuality, we were expecting the trailer to look exactly like the Bea ArthurSex and the City parody. Because, let’s face it: These women be old!
In fact, from the opening chords of Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind” (Ed. Note: Jay-Z, how do you sleep at night? On a solid gold California King waterbed, you say? I see.) to the final shot of our favorite foursome catwalking in the middle of an Arabian desert, a few things become clear. For example, the SATC writers are grasping at diamond-studded straws. Also, the women have clearly gone through menopause. No, really! All that talk about “things have happened” that you “never thought would happen in a million years”…? MENOPAUSE Y’ALL.
Long before company celebrators bench-pressed fax machines, partygoers performed competitive face-plants into ice water, or family members gathered around an aluminum pole to wield complaints at one another, the common people of ancient Rome began to act up.
How many homes did you build last year? Between your friendly Vulture editors, we have a grand total of zero houses that we have built not just in the last year, but in our entire lives. Still, that's part of the price that we pay for not having the same level of dexterity in our fingertips as the Edge, one of the best and most famous guitarists in all the world. And thanks to his continued employment in what many would argue is the biggest band in the world, he has the kind of coin to build not one, not two, but FIVE houses atop a "pristine ridge" in the beachside paradise of Malibu. However, his grand ambitions to build and subsequently move his family into these ecofriendly houses has been met with staunch opposition by environmentalists, and today he finds himself on the receiving end of stinging op-ed critique from Los Angeles Times reporter Steve Lopez (who, you may recall, was recently portrayed by Robert Downey Jr. in The Soloist).
Standing next to Bono for all these years, the Edge has clearly absorbed a lot of the U2 front man's keen ability to network with people who can help him accomplish his goals. As a means to help him achieve the necessary clearances to build his series of five homes in the Santa Monica mountains — which, by the way, already have the hilariously pretentious names of Clouds Rest, Panorama, Shell House, Blue Clouds, and Leaves in the Wind — he has built a website to help his cause. The site contains the following video, which, sadly, is scored with a George Winston–esque New Age soundtrack instead of the righteous guitar melodies he has built his career on:
Despite the Edge's attempts to sell his project that would sit atop a currently untouched plot of natural real estate as one of the world's greenest development projects, Steve Lopez objects to both the project and what he views as the Edge's "gag-inducing" video. After openly questioning how the Edge was able to get a number of ecofriendly political groups on his side (hint: $$$), he writes that "The truly green thing for the Edge to do would be to stay in the house he's in, and avoid yet another ego-propelled incursion into one of the great wilderness areas of the state."
So who's going to end up prevailing in this case: the people who want to preserve the natural beauty of Malibu, or the rock star with powerful ties to political-action groups and millions of dollars he can use to sway public opinion? Well, our feeling on it goes a little something like this: If you have to ask, you'll never know.
One of the few things that keeps us watching Sesame Street well into our adult years is the constant parade of hilarious celebrity cameos interacting with our genteel muppet brethren.
And the following clip is proof that this simple reason is all we need: Comedian Ricky Gervais singing a “Celebrity Lullabye” to Elmo. Why? Because nothing makes us LOL more than watching muppets in discomfort — which seems to be the running theme with these lullabyes (thanks again, Andrea Bocelli).
What really makes this clip? Elmo’s “Crazy Eyes.”
Ahead, an adorable clip of Jake Gyllenhaal with an muppety octopus on his head. The acting is Oscar worthy, no exadge.
If Jason Derulo hadn't been cut from his junior high basketball team he probably wouldn't have a single that hit No. 1 on the Billboard music charts this year.
This Christmas, when your family is sitting around a freshly glazed turkey, the yule log crackling on television, every clink of your fork against the plate growing louder and more deafening as your Uncle mistakes his whiskey for the gravy, and your Mother asks if the cherries in the stuffing were really necessary, and your husband or wife softly sobs into his or her hands thinking no one will notice, and even the dog (whom you’ve long suspected might be a genius) brings her a box of tissues and a paw on the shoulder… well, it looks like you’re going to need some killer Xmas tunes to drown out all the festivities.
And have we got the MIDI file for you. Check out this hypersexual tech version of “Oh Holy Night” by the second best band named Cream ever. Yes, that’s Sergio Cilli of “We Got That B-Roll” Fame(?). Also that may or may not be Matt Bellamy from Muse back there (it’s not).
And in case we don’t get another chance to say it…
AP - "Hidden Empire" (Tom Doherty Associates Book, 335 pages, $24.99), by Orson Scott Card: A favorite among sci-fi readers and video gamers, the prolific Orson Scott Card has taken on a topic closer to real life than usual — and with more of a Christian tone.
Danish films have been winning fans and prizes this year, with a broad range of hits from controversial "Antichrist" to budget documentaries about Burma.
The show must go on—even without its snarky, British center of attention, apparently.
Despite the news from a seemingly solid source (it was the guy's brother, for...
UPDATE: Murphy's body has been transported to Forest Lawn in anticipation of the Dec. 24 burial.
_____________________________
Sadly, Christmas is an afterthought for...
If the Jersey Shore stars are ever feeling a bit beat up from being trashed by fellow Italian-Americans, they should take a trip to see Cake Boss star Buddy Valastro at his Hoboken...
• Eclipse is out in just six months! Time to start getting excited as various stills from the film start rolling in. (And yes, we know this photo was in People's New Moon Special...
Does a new court filing hint at some of the friction that caused Courtney Love to lose legal custody of daughter Frances Bean Cobain?
Lawyers representing Frances' new guardians, her...
Did you hear what Prince William did earlier this week? He threw on a hoodie and 
To prove to the world, once and for all, that she's not pregnant by way of Tiger Woods, Rachel Uchitel has given E! News this shot taken earlier this week in Florida that...
Can we tawk? Unfashionable stars beware! Joan Rivers, the mouth that roared on E! for 10 years, is coming back to bust badly dressed celebs in a series of awards-season Fashion Police operations....
