AP - More than seven months after Michael Jackson's death from an anesthetic overdose — and following days of heightened speculation — the pop singer's doctor will be arraigned Friday on a charge connected to the death, according to a person familiar with the planning.
AP - More than seven months after Michael Jackson's death from an anesthetic overdose — and following days of heightened speculation — the pop singer's doctor will be arraigned Friday on a charge connected to the death, according to a person familiar with the planning.
Nick Jonas of The Jonas Brothers stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live last night to promote his side project and the host was not gentle with the virgin tween idol. Kimmel's ex Sarah Silverman set the tone for her interview with David Letterman by kicking things off with a blatent lie, while over on The Daily Show Samantha Bee visited a retreat for disenfranchised men. Finally, Jimmy Fallon offered a fascinating look into the mind of his drummer Questlove. Watch our compilation to see what you missed.
AP - A bronze sculpture of a man by Alberto Giacometti has sold for 65 million pounds ($104.3 million) — making it the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction, Sotheby's auction house said.
Gnarly:Carrie Underwood will make her feature film debut in Soul Surfer, an indie drama about Bethany Hamilton, that badass teenage surfer who had her arm chomped off by a shark. Dennis Quaid, Helen Hunt, and Anna Sophia Robb will also star in the Sean McNamara-directed film, which is based on Hamilton's autobiography. Robb will play Hamilton, Quaid and Hunt will play her parents and Underwood will play a church group leader. As proud as Carrie must be about this transition into acting, she should know that Taylor beat her to it. [Variety]
House Party: Former Scrubs star Sarah Chalke has landed back at ABC in the network's pilot Freshman, which comes from Greg Malins, producer of How I Met Your Mother, and Arianna Huffington. The show focuses on a former high power business woman (Chalke) who wins a seat in Congress. Once there, the swirlies from Nancy Pelosi remind her what being a freshman really means. [HR]
Game Time: CBS has picked up a sitcom from hilarious former Daily Show correspondent Rob Riggle. In Team Spitz he will play a high-energy high school football coach. We're hoping that through the magic of TV he needs to add a young coach to his staff and finds a guy named Riggins. Because two Riggs are always better than one. [HR]
Magic the Sequeling: Disney is planning to have another go at the live-action fairy tale world with a sequel to Enchanted. Jessie Nelson is on board to write the script and Anne Fletcher (The Proposal) will direct. The original cleaned up at the box office, making $340 million internationally and helping give an actress known best as Katy from The Office her big break. [Variety]
The Found Writer: Columbia Pictures has found a writer for the next film in the Da Vinci Code franchise, The Lost Symbol. British scribe Steven Knight will handle the task of bringing this mammoth best-seller to the screen. In the Dan Brown thriller Robert Langdon goes to D.C. to decode the symbols of the Freemasons. Tom Hanks hasn't signed on to star but he's expected to. He's just needs to grow his hair out for a while. [Variety]
2. MARKETING The golden rule of stunt prostitution:
Titillation => Tit Price Inflation
Unigirl refused to reveal her true identity, thereby crippling her ability to market the goods. She refused media requests and advertised herself with a website that "30,000 people viewed." Natalie, on the other hand, granted interviews to anyone who would listen. She distributed nude photos, talked about her sex life ("everything but"), and described her auction as a feminist experiment. How could bloggers and pundits resist? And as Natalie's profile rose, so did the bidding. (There is a joke to be made about "media whores," but I'm not sure how to strike the right tone.)
3. KNOW YOUR NICHE It's the oldest business in the world, yet co-ed hookers continue to draw headlines and oodles of money. On the one hand, you've got the virgin/whore thing (without the icky pedophile stuff) since college girls are simultaneously Girls Gone Wild and nubile pillow-fighting naifs. There's also class snobbery: Since upper education is a tool of the upper class and upwardly mobile, college girl prostitutes belong (or will some day belong) to the same social class as their rich johns. What's more, Natalie and Unigirl portrayed their virginity auctions as one-time things—they'll go on to professional careers, respectable marriages, maybe even white picket fences. The fantasy that these girls are different (better, even, than Tiger's mistresses!) keeps their value high. [ABC] [Pic via]
(Reuters) Reuters - Hollywood studios lost a landmark copyright court case against an Australia internet provider on Thursday, when a court ruled iiNet could not be held responsible for unauthorized downloads of movies using its service. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 3 Feb 2010 | 11:43 pm
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Hollywood studios lost a landmark copyright court case against an Australia internet provider on Thursday, when a court ruled iiNet could not be held responsible for... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 3 Feb 2010 | 11:33 pm
Sometimes a film is so fantastic that it demands a sequel (The Godfather, Back to the Future). Other times sequels are churned out by studios eager to make a buck (Weekend at Bernie's II, Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood). Either way, as sequel after sequel is made there comes a point when a franchise goes from institution to joke. Operating under the generous premise that it hasn't already, The Fast and the Furious looks to be on the verge of slipping into joke territory as Universal has decided to make a fifth installment. Vin Diesel and Paul Walker have signed on for Fast Five, which will see the Dom (Diesel) and Brian (Walker) on the run from the law. It's actually pretty impressive that they've been able to keep the original actors involved. But that's the only impressive thing about it.
Seventeen years after his opposition to gays openly serving in the military led to the adoption of the original "don't ask, don't tell" legislation, retired General Colin Powell has changed his mind.
"Attitudes and circumstances have changed," Powell said. "It's been a whole generation" since the legislation was adopted, and there is increased "acceptance of gays and lesbians in society," he said. "Society is always reflected in the military. It's where we get our soldiers from."
Deadline hears that Disney has over 10 bidders for Miramax. What do you want to bet it's just the Weinstein Bros. calling up 10 times in funny voices? Hallo! My name ist Count Johan Rotterdam und my brother, Prudhum, und I am very interested in purchasing thees movie company. [Deadline]
Mo'Nique is hosting Shaquille O'Neal Presents: All-Star Comedy Jam. It will air on Showtime. Er, Sho'Wtime. [THR]
Everyone hoping that Congress would start looking a bit more like British Parliament has reason to be sad tonight. The White House has announced that it will not schedule regular question and answer session between the President and Congress. This is especially terrible news for anyone hoping to see this kind of brilliance in Washington. [HuffPo]
AP - Years of moviegoing have familiarized us with tales of city folk waylaid in country towns — quirky Southern backwaters and dusty desert holes. It turns out that the convention works especially well in, of all places, rural Denmark.
Evelyn Haas, a prominent philanthropist and widow of Levi Strauss & Co. CEO Walter Haas Jr., has died. She was 92. Haas' death Wednesday was announced by her charitable foundation, The... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 3 Feb 2010 | 10:14 pm
AP - CBS News chief Sean McManus said Wednesday that it's unfair to criticize Katie Couric's multimillion-dollar salary at a time news division jobs are being cut and that he expected the evening news anchor to stay at the network "for a long time."
AP - CBS News chief Sean McManus said Wednesday that it's unfair to criticize Katie Couric's multimillion-dollar salary at a time news division jobs are being cut and that he expected the evening news anchor to stay at the network "for a long time."
According to a post on their website, The Strokes are back in the studio with producer Joe Chiccarelli working on their first album since 2006's First Impressions of Earth. Not only that, but they're also promising to document it all with "video vignettes"! This is fantastic and somewhat surprising news considering the dreaded "creative differences" the band was going through a few months back. But for now at least, all seems to be settled and rocking has commenced. [Spin]
AP - Comic Jon Stewart told Bill O'Reilly that the "no spin zone" ringleader had become the voice of sanity on Fox News Channel, although "that's like being the thinnest kid at fat camp."
Jon Stewart ventured into enemy territory tonight, taking a seat across from Bill O'Reilly in the No Spin Zone for a little one on one. Their much-hyped conversation was fairly predictable, with O'Reilly vigorously defending the integrity of Fox News and Stewart shaking his head in disbelief. The whole interview was far less combative than we hoped. Stewart even offered O'Reilly a compliment! "You have become, in some ways, the voice of sanity here," he said. Of course, he followed it up by saying that's "like being the thinnest kid at fat camp." When the whole thing ended, there were two highlights to take away from it— Stewart's succinct summary of what's wrong with Fox at the end of this clip and O'Reilly's bizarre Pakistani accent. What was up with that?
With Hollywood week finally on the horizon, it's time to start predicting who's going to go the distance on American Idol.
So we're going to throw our proverbial money on the...
Is Lindsay Lohan a Clean House candidate?
The 23-year-old actress and tight-pants peddler has apparently let her clutter get out of control, according to an Insider teaser for an...
Reuters - The fact that first-time co-directors Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani used a mostly nonprofessional cast and shot "Ajami" on location, sometimes without a script, gives their film a raw, realistic power. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment Reviews | 3 Feb 2010 | 8:33 pm
File photo of a Kookaburra sitting on a railing in the Hunter Valley, Australia. Australian band Men at Work were found guilty Thursday of plagiarising children's ditty "Kookaburra" in their 1980s hit... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 3 Feb 2010 | 8:32 pm
The brains of the Republican Party, RNC Chairman Michael Steele, and the future brains of the Democratic Party, Harold Ford Jr., will debate "America's future" tomorrow night at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. The two men will walk away with $40,000 total while the audience walks away with something much more valuable—a preview of the 2016 presidential debates. [TPM]
Back in 2007, when HBO was still trying to calculate the cost of The Pacific, the upcoming ten-part WWII miniseries from Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, no one imagined the answer would dovetail so perfectly with the network’s current slogan, “It’s More Than You Imagined.” After a year spent shooting the epic period drama on location in Australia’s beaches and jungles and on the open ocean, as well as costly re-shoots and another full year of post-production, insiders whisper that the true cost of The Pacific could swell to $225 million.
The network brass and Hanks’ producing partner, Gary Goetzman, both insist their Band of Brothers follow-up about the war’s harrowing Pacific Theater was always budgeted at $200 million and hasn’t exceeded that figure. But regardless of which figure is accurate, the 2007 economy in which HBO okayed The Pacific is very much not the same one in which the miniseries will debut next month. “They may get screwed financially on the timing of this,” said one top television agent. “We’re all suffering from decisions based on 2007 projections but which turned out to be the 2009 shit hole.” HBO, however, maintains that they always knew this would be a risk. "Look, even when we greenlit it, it was an unbelievably ambitious undertaking,” says Michael Lombardo, the network’s president of programming. “It took some serious thought before we joined hands with the producers and jumped off the cliff."
In the past, pricey and prestigious projects like Band of Brothers found they could rely on massive DVD sales to more than cover their costs. Insiders say that since Brothers hit stores on May 11, 2002, it has generated some $700 million in DVD revenues, making it the top-selling DVD in the history of HBO. In part, that was because consumers were willing to pay for pricey box sets when times were flush: Who didn’t want to give their Greatest Generation-revering dad a video hagiography for Father’s Day?
But now, entertainment has tipped from a buyer’s market to a renter’s market. Purchases of Blu-ray Discs and DVDs were down 9 percent in 2008, and plunged another 13 percent last year, to $11.4 billion. So since HBO signed on for The Pacific, Americans will have cut their spending on DVDs by a whopping 22%. Considering The Pacific likely won’t hit video for another six months, who knows how much further the market could drop.
Rental spending, by contrast, went up 4.2 percent in 2009, to $6.5 billion, according to Rentrak Corporation’s Home Video Essentials. For studios and networks like HBO, that’s bad news: Hollywood hates it when you rent a DVD, but loves it when you buy one, according to UBS media analyst Michael Morris. He explains that, on average, if a studio makes a dollar when you rent a flick at Blockbuster, they make nine bucks when you buy that same movie at Best Buy. Lombardo, however, maintains that these numbers don’t necessarily reflect all DVDs. "People are still buying high-quality shows," he said, referencing the $61 million in DVD sales racked up by the first season of HBO's True Blood. "In fact, what they're not buying is that middle rung."
And HBO is likely not responsible for the entire Pacific budget. They usually raise the bulk of their shows’ budgets by selling off international rights. For example, their 2005 series Rome cost $10 million per episode, but $8 million of that came from international money. That said, HBO canceled that show after two seasons…for being too expensive.
Many also caution that HBO truly isn’t like regular TV, in that its production budgets can easily be said to be marketing budgets. Pricey bets on award-winning, high-quality original series and minis have been what help keep its relations with top talent excellent, its public image burnished with Emmys, and its subscriptions growing. From 1999 to 2005, HBO added 3.2 million customers. But as critically-beloved shows like Sex and the City and The Sopranos have dropped off its schedule, that growth has flattened out: In 2009 it had 29.3 million subscribers, which is only 600,000 more than it had in 2006, according to Adams Media Research.
Given how rapidly people are changing the way they consume entertainment — and how long it takes to produce and air an epic like The Pacific — HBO has to be wondering if it can continue to make Avatar-sized bets for the small screen. But while The Pacific is a big picture, Lombardo has an eye on an even bigger picture: the HBO brand. "We happen to be in a business where our programming decisions are not 100% about monetizing the program," he says. Okay, so maybe it’s not Pearl Harbor. But we wouldn’t spend the money on a ticker tape parade quite yet, either.
Reuters - Billed as a "coming-of-age comedy," co-writer-director Michael Mohan's first feature strains to make the central, loud-mouthed alcoholic, character relatable. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment Reviews | 3 Feb 2010 | 8:14 pm
We love a spirited political debate.
And since real politicians tend to avoid face-to-face exchanges whenever possible, we're pleased that Bill O'Reilly and Jon Stewart, two of...
Buried in a Variety story about a Korean 3-D conversion company is news that Paramount and Industrial Light & Magic are currently debating the merits of shooting Transformers 3 in 3-D. The question is whether the film's release date should be pushed back to account for the extra time needed to shoot with 3-D cameras or if it should be shot with regular cameras and converted in post-production, which doesn't really look as good. Once this debate is resolved, the question will become how Michael Bay justifies taking part in the "gimmick" that is 3-D.
Just four episodes into the fourth season of Big Love, HBO has decided to bring the show back for a fifth. Good move! Despite competition from the NFC Championship and the Grammys, Big Love's ratings are up 13 percent over last season. If you're still not among the Big Love faithful, it's time you check out our primer and start watching! [HR]
James Ray, the self-help guru who led a sweat-lodge ritual that killed three people last October, was arrested today after a grand jury indicted him on three counts of manslaughter. Before the incident Ray was an Oprah-endorsed best-selling author who drew large crowds to his spiritual retreats. Now he's headed to an Arizona jail where his bond has been set at $5 million. A couple weeks ago Ray defended his actions and asserted his innocence in an interview with New York, his first since the tragedy in Sedona.
Whoever invented Elizabeth Mitchell should get a medal, because they did a good, good thing. We just caught up with the adorable Ms. Mitchell for a quick debrief on Juliet's demise last night...
A great publicist is always prepared to take a bullet for his A-list client. And sometimes, the bullet is headed in his direction anyway.
Mel Gibson's longtime rep, Alan Nierob, said...
Let's get ready to have a debate on a prime-time cable news show!!!
It's not the first time our two combatants have met in the Factor's bright blue ring. At the height of the 2004 presidential election, Stewart sat down with O'Reilly. In that conversation, Stewart fought like a trained monkey—whenever O'Reilly tried to drill down, Stewart batted away his questions with silly quips, clearly unwilling to cop to any serious role. But that was before Stewart eviscerated Cross-fire, and before his brilliant bout against Jim "Mad Money" Cramer. Today, Stewart's a double-threat: A deadly combo of silly jokes backed up by the ability to go serious when he thinks something is hurting America. Bill O'Reilly, meanwhile, has been working out his shouting muscles nightly in advance of the match. (You will see they are very strong.)
Anyway: FIGHT! [Ding! Ding!]
Here's the full two-part interview, or scroll down for a blow-by-blow of the best parts. (And stay tuned for round two tomorrow):
O'Reilly starts with a jab at The Daily Show's audience, a bunch of Obama-lovers sitting "on their little bleachers" waiting to clap at Jon Stewart saying nice things about Obama. All this as a sneaky way to set up the question "how's Obama doing?" Point, O'Reilly
Stewart answers O'Reilly's with a thoughtful swipe: He likes Obama's regulatory mechanisms. (Which, that's what you like?) Opens up a big hole here for O'Reilly to drive an anti-Big Government rant into, but he went for the cheap shot instead, asking Stewart "Did your writers come up with that?" O'Reilly was in fact surprisingly non-combative when it came to Stewart's analysis of the Obama presidency. Point, Stewart
Jon Stewart pretended his hands were spiders after talking about Obama's health care bill. Point, Stewart.
We get to the perennial influence question: Does Jon Stewart have an influence on people? Another cheap O'Reilly Shot: "That is frightening... do you understand the implications of you being important in any context?" Stewart did the only thing possible to do with such a dumb question: made a joke out of it. Point, Stewart.
Now O'Reilly is seeing red. He's got a point in calling out "The Daily Show" for not making fun of CNN and MSNBC as much as they do Fox. (It is always annoying when Stewart tries to pretend he doesn't take sides.) Plus, O'Reilly making good uses of his imposing physical presence here—really using the space. Point, O'Reilly
Here's what Fox has done, through their cyclonic perpetual emotional machine that is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week: They have taken reasonable concerns about this president and this economy and turned it into full-fledged panic attack about the next coming of Chairman Mao.
Hollywood, it's all relative.
But even if there are lots famous families in Tinseltown, it doesn't mean you can tell who is related to whom.
So come on: We bet you...
Eminem is not spinning the same old track again.
The rapper, fresh from a heavily bleeped Grammy performance, is firmly denying reports that he and his two-time ex-wife, Kim, are back...
• CBS News laid off more than 150 staffers this week. Will Katie Couric be forced to take a pay cut when her contract expires next year? Some say yes; CBS News chief Sean McManus is denying the report. [NYP, Politico] • Avatar has dominated the box office for seven straight weeks now (and has officially bestedTitanic), but that may change this weekend or next. [LAT] • Janice Kaplan is out as editor-in-chief of Parade magazine. [NYT] • Nikki Finke says it will take "minutes" for Comcast to dump NBC CEO Jeff Zucker after its acquisition of NBC is approved by regulators. (Meantime, maybe he could explain why the Today show is propping up Scientology?) • An estimated 12 million people tuned in to Lost last night. [Forbes] • Time Warner reported fourth-quarter revenues and profits were up. [AP] • Fox and ESPN will challenge NBC for the 2014 and 2016 Olympics. [BN] • Does Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter hate non-white women? [DF]
Former teen idol Leif Garrett posted a $10,000 bond Wednesday after spending two days in a jail on a drug charge, a Los Angeles County sheriff's spokesman said.
Former Dawson's Creek star James Van Der Beek has a new girlfriend, a new job on the NBC medical drama Mercy and is the first to admit he had a bit of maturing to do since his days in...
BlueSwarm LLC freely admits its fundraising management software was built for Romney, the remarkably lifelike 2008 Republican presidential contender. Its pride is understandable from a marketing, if not legal, standpoint: the system attracted some favorable press during the campaign.
It's unclear how much, if anything, Whitman is paying to use the code. But other politicians are paying "astronomical rates" for BlueSwarm access, an anonymous tipster claims.
If you know more about this tangled web of software, politics and money, do email us.
A movie poster for "Avatar" at Fox Studios in Los Angeles, California, in 2009. "Avatar" has reached yet another milestone, smashing the North American box office record previously held by the 1997 James... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 3 Feb 2010 | 4:26 pm
South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford is looking to be the front-runner for 2010’s “Most Hilarious Worst Person” — way ahead of his 2009 ranking, thanks in large part to this nugget of journalistic wisdom from our daily scandal enema known as the NY Post.
But what did renew our faith that Sanford might be 2010’s Most Hilarious Worst Person is the following passage describing what he bought his scorned wife Jenny for her birthday. Did we say bought? We meant drew. He drew something for her. Please:
When Jenny Sanford, a former investment banker and Georgetown graduate, married the governor-to-be in 1989 at age 27, she was stunned by how cheap and unromantic he could be.
For one birthday “he drew me a picture of half a bike, and then for the next birthday or Christmas I got the picture of the other half a bike, and then he delivered a $25 used bike.”
For those of you who have trouble reading, here is a generous Dramatization that actually took the time to draw the ENTIRE BIKE:
My reaction would have been somewhere along the lines of “Aw, babe, you shouldn’t have,” and then promptly lighting myself and him on fire. It’s because I’m pyyyyassionate. Unless this was the bike I was given, in which case I’d twirl my mustache, slap him in the face, text Daniel Day-Lewis and ride my ass the eff out of there.
Feel free to leave your own nominations for 2010’s Most Hilarious Worst Person WITH examples, because this is going to be geniously hard to beat. (article via comedian Gabe Liedman)
Attention, indie-rock fans who love football and have an anachronistic hatred of sellouts: Refrain from clucking disapprovingly when you hear Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up” blasting during the Super Bowl this Sunday, because all proceeds of the band’s licensing of the song are going to Partners in Health's Stand With Haiti relief efforts. Making the move more personal is that the band’s Régine Chassagne has Haitian roots, which are referenced on the Funeral song “Haiti.” Now who’s excited to hear “Wake Up” during the Super Bowl?!? [Spinner]
David Keily, the Australian broker whose ogling of a Miranda Kerr topless photo shoot was captured on camera by a local news station and distributed via the Internet to basically the entire world yesterday, has been scolded and is apparently being investigated by his employers at Sydney's Macquarie Private Wealth. We'd say this is unfair, except it's obviously the guy's fault, as clearly he was unable to come up with a stirring speech about how In These Times one needs all of the encouragement one can possibly get, and after all Miranda Kerr is Australian, so therefore it is practically a patriotic act, and really if you can't talk your way out of something like this than do you have any business working in finance, anyway? No, you do not. Here is the video, in case you missed it.
ABC announced today that Lost's two-hour final episode will air at 9 p.m. on Sunday, May 23 (following another recap special at 8, obviously). The network probably would've aired it in its regular time slot on Tuesday, May 25 if that weren't also the night of the first half of American Idol's season finale, on which Simon is expected to reveal that he, too, is the smoke monster. [Live Feed/HR]
Actually, truth be told, we don't know anything about real estate, so don't go selling your gold doubloons (people still buy those, right?) and investing the proceeds in the housing market just yet. However, we do know that the house from the opening credits of Full House, located in San Francisco's Alamo Square, is on the market for the bargain basement rate of just $4.1 million! For that low, low price, you can own a piece of television history (and, most likely, be haunted by the ghost of Kimmy Gibbler!). Sure, we'd rather live in the manse from Silver Spoons or the Southfork Ranch, but, sadly, neither of those seem to be on the market at the moment. So for now, you should focus your efforts on being the winning bidder for this home and convincing Uncle Jesse to come to your housewarming party.
Rodarte made outfits for thirteen Olympians participating in the Games beginning next week. Ryan McGinley shot the sportsmen and women in their custom knits for The New York Times Magazine coming out this Sunday.
Rodarte designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy said all the costumes are quite different: "We built the looks knowing that the athletes needed to be able to keep the same range of motion in our clothing as they have in their normal uniform." Here you see Johnny Weir, mid-axel. Marvel at how the spidery knits cling to his curves like foam to the lid of your Starbucks cup, his captivating form in near-perfect suspension, the wrist flicked just so. A photographer once told us that you know you've made it when magazines don't feel the need to run a clear shot of your face, feeling rather that just your arm or blurred eyes speak loudly enough to the world. And so Johnny Weir arrives as another hump day draws to a close.
Though the future trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other 9/11 hijackers was moved out of New York City, for the past couple of weeks we've been privy to a preview of what that sort of trial might look like. In the same courthouse where KSM and his cohorts were scheduled to be tried, a jury just handed down a guilty verdict in the strange case of Aafia Siddiqui, a.k.a. "Lady Al Qaeda," a neuroscientist with degrees from MIT and Brandeis who was detained by Afghan police in 2008 after being found loitering outside the governor's compound with a purse full of chemicals, a recipe for a dirty bomb, and handwritten descriptions of a "mass casualty attack" and major sites in New York, among them the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty.
According to the complaint against her, the day after being detained, while in prison, Siddiqui managed to get a hold of an M4 rifle that had been left unattended, and ambushed the American team —two American soldiers and interpreters, and two F.B.I. agents— that had been brought in to question her. Shouting "God is Great," she fired at least two shots, but no one was hit.
During her trial over the past couple of weeks, the press made Siddiqui out to be a babbling zealot, and critics have lambasted federal judge Richard Berman for allowing her to turn the courtroom into her own soapbox. The Daily News editorial board warned that "long ago, Berman should have banished Siddiqui to observing the proceedings via closed-circuit television from a remote location — thereby achieving decorum and depriving Siddiqui of a platform from which to espouse a demented agenda that she has advanced quite effectively." And Michelle Malkin wrote, "she has used the civilian court system to shout anti-American propaganda and spew hatred against Jews, cause legal chaos, and make a mockery of the rights she has been granted." (At the start of the trial, Siddiqui told the judge in her case that she wanted the members of her jury to take a DNA test to make sure they weren't Jews. At the end, as the jury exited after issuing their verdict, she said to them: "This is a verdict coming from Israel and not from America.")
Truly, Siddiqui had trouble controlling herself, announcing that she did not trust her lawyers, and interrupting proceedings with loud, seemingly unhinged outbursts several times. By the time the trial was reaching its endpoint, even Siddiqui's own lawyers didn't want her to take the stand, but she insisted on doing so — and this is where the trial's most startling twist occurred: She put on an eloquent, carefully innocent performance. Looking impossibly tiny, swaddled in a loose-fitting tunic and flowing pants, she wore her silky white veil up to her nose and down to her eyebrows. (At one point, a five-minute pause was called so she could demurely drink water behind a wall, thus not having to pull down her veil to hydrate in front of everybody). Occasionally she would gesture her ladylike hands enough to dislodge her veil — she wasn't allowed to handle pins in order to secure it — but other than that, she was the picture of calm. Under cross-examination she bantered and she countered; at times, she even giggled.
"You can't build a case on hate," she told the jury at one point. "You have to build it on fact."
She called allegations that she'd fired the M4 at Americans "the biggest joke." "Sometimes I've been forced to smile under my scarf," she said, eyes crinkling at the mystified prosecutor. She had never touched an M4, she said. "The first time in my conscious recollection that I have seen one was in this courtroom." She giggled.
Siddiqui claimed that the purse had been given to her, and that the documents inside it were copied from a magazine, something she had been forced to do in the "secret prison." As for incriminating statements she made to her FBI security detail while being treated at Bagram Air Force Base, she thought they were giving her "an exercise to retain false information."
"That's how they played the game before," she explained. "It was standard practice of the fake Americans" — that is, the Americans at the "secret prison" — "for so many years. If I don't say what I've been told hundreds of times to say, it's torture." She smiled. "If I knew I was in the hands of real Americans, I would have offered to help."
The details of Siddiqui's whereabouts during those five years were not made any more clear during her trial. Two of her children are still missing — the oldest showed up with her in Ghazni, and officials are saying he's been brainwashed. But one fact is clear, guilty verdict or no: Siddiqui's disjointed performance — half crazed and half coherent — was enough to seriously muddy some already murky waters. Anyone watching this trial closely is bound to wonder how much perceptions will change when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — who some say is Siddiqui's uncle-in-law — gets in front of his own jury and is given the opportunity to tell whatever story he wants to tell.
There is no other way to explain aspiring California senator Carly Fiorina's latest political attack ad against fellow Republican and rival Tom Campbell. As Wonkette points out, you have to watch through the first 30 seconds or so, then you can skip ahead until about 2:20, which is when the real magic happens. And by "magic," we mean "extremely low-budget digital effects and costuming of the highest order."
Becca and Remy at Fashion Week in September of 2009, and Lauren Santo Domingo and Remy at Brian Reyes in February of 09.
High schooler Becca Shumlin, the daughter of one of Vermont's gubernatorial candidates, allegedly hacked into PR company BPCM's Fashion Week database. Her accomplice was her best friend, aspiring fashion designer and fellow high schooler Remy Renzullo. In a week when Kell on Earth debuted, revealing to the world the tech malfunctions (and meltdowns) that occur during Fashion Week, their story only suggests that planning shows is a task fraught with potential complications.
BPCM handles Alexander Wang, Preen, and Erin Fetherston, among other shows during Fashion Week. A source from the company told Gawker, "We were going through the guest lists of some of our tightest shows and saw that both Remy and Becca Shumlin were on ALL of the lists and no one knew how they got there." Tech wizards over there must have somehow determined the two had hacked into the BPCM database and added themselves to the list. When Gawker called Remy to ask if he was responsible he said yes, he was, along with Becca.
If that wasn't enough evidence to prove that these two really know what they're doing when it comes to getting into shows: They also appeared on the Sartorialist after Scott Schuman shot them at Fashion Week last season. Remy claims to have sold one of his dresses to Vogue contributor and socialite Lauren Santo Domingo. He was even snapped sitting front-row with her at the fall 2009 Brian Reyes show, looking anything but timid. In fact, they look like legitimate friends. Or cousins. Or something.
Kudos to these two for being not only brazen and fashion-hungry enough to crash the shows, but for venturing to the front row rather than cowering in the standing section. A rep from BPCM called Gawker, after their story went up today:
There's no way, she claims, that Remy and Becca could have gotten into the shows anyway: "We check our list so meticulously. I'm personally involved checking every single name on the list." She also denied our source's allegation that Remy had somehow hacked into the BPCM database. "It wasn't a hacking situation in any way shape or form. Somebody—probably an intern—tried to get them on a list, but we immediately saw it."
While we've never actually done it, we know people who have sneaked into shows fairly easily by flashing an index card and huddling past security with all the people waiting for standing section. So list-checking isn't always effective in keeping the riffraff out. And it's possible Becca actually received invitations to Wang, Preen, Cushnie et Ochs, and Erin Fetherston, as she claimed on her Twitter, perhaps they didn't "immediately" see their names on the list among many hundreds.
It was almost a perfect Fashion Week heist for the high school seniors. Becca's big mistake was sending an e-mail to BPCM asking for tickets to the Herchcovitch show before allegedly hacking the system. "I work as a freelance stylist, currently working with the future first lady, Deborah Shumlin, of Vermont for the campaign trail and hopefully elected office," Becca wrote. "In addition I have been signed on to contribute to a new fashion magazine, FUTURE." See, a political stylist doesn't go to the Herchcovitch show, of all things. And you don't even have to google "FUTURE" to know it's either made up or produced in the basement of some kid's mansion.
The kids may have been thwarted for now, but we have a feeling we'll see them at Fashion Week. They owe it to Fashion Week crashers everywhere.
As we wrote earlier, President Obama engaged in his second televised "Question Time" in the past week earlier today. The audience was friendlier this time, naturally, since Obama was visiting with members of his own party. The Democratic senators who questioned Obama seemed to be chosen based on their level of electoral vulnerability — Arlen Specter, Michael Bennett, Blanche Lincoln, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Barbara Boxer, the first five to ask questions, are all somewhere between "screwed" and "ehhh, not great" — and were more intent on advocating for their constituents, and hopefully making their local news, than on picking a fight with Obama. But that doesn't mean the whole thing was a waste of time. Our favorite part of this two-minute recap we've put together is when Obama mentions a joke about the GOP holding a 41-seat majority, and then stands there, serious as smallpox, as his Senate colleagues chuckle. Also, we learn that Evan Bayh wears sneakers with his suit.
Fashion publicist Alison Brod: "When the opportunity strikes to buy more than one of something, I can't resist. Hard to find pumps show up at Barneys in two colors ... I take two. Extra soft cashmere sweater in slightly different shades of pink? Two, in case something happens to the first. And maybe a third to leave in the Hamptons ... I wanted a discount on a dress last season, and because I am so accustomed to receiving discounts, I called the brand and asked about their wholesale minimum buy. I ended up going to the showroom and buying 11 dresses (again, multiples) just to save a few hundred dollars." [Madison Avenue Spy]
Jennifer Betka is a recent ex–New Yorker who landed in L.A., and hated it — at first. "The first year and a half I really hated it. And then about six months ago, I really fell in love with the weather like everyone else." But Betka still knows how to dress for chilly New York days, as evidenced by her Burberry cape and hat. She calls her style "a little bit classic, a little bit trendy," and looks to Europe for inspiration. Oh, Jennifer, you're still a New Yorker at heart. Watch the video to find out more about her style.
In Sweden, the spaying or neutering of dogs is considered akin to mutilation. Tail docking is also frowned upon, as it is in many other places in Europe. But here in New York, of course, dog owners pick and choose features of their dogs the same way they like to order off the menu in restaurants. A front-page piece in today's Times tackles "de-barking," an elective surgical procedure wherein the dog’s voice box is modified, leaving a raspy, wheezy sound in place of a full-throated bark. Featured is a dachshund-terrier mix called Nestlé, whose "vocal cords were cut by a veterinary surgeon after a neighbor in the family’s apartment building on the Upper East Side threatened to complain to the co-op board about the noisy dog." Ouch.
The Times talks to a few veterinarians who say they won't do the procedure anymore, because it's not medically necessary. Plus, it sounds horribly cruel. Subjecting a dog to major surgery just because you're afraid of the wrath of the co-op board? And how would you like it if you couldn't speak? It's easy to see why Nestlé's owners tell people he's hoarse, and another dog owner who spoke to the paper refused to give his last name so as to not be the "targeted by activists."
But many of the hundreds of comments that have since amassed on the story are sympathetic. One dog owner said she spent thousands of dollars and over a year trying to get her dog, a persistent irritant to her neighbors, to stop barking before giving in to her vet's suggestion to have the procedure. "I cried before and after the surgery," she said. But afterward:
[H]e was insanely, gloriously happy that he could go outside and bark his fool head off and no one cared. It wasn't simply that there was no change in personality or temperament — he actually went back to being the hilarious, outgoing dog he'd been before the neighbors started complaining.
Of course, the surgery isn't guaranteed to solve the problem with your neighbors. You know how people in co-ops are; they can always find something to bitch about.
HAIR
• Brad Pitt got his beard professionally trimmed by David Babaii, the same celebrity hairstylist who works on Angelina Jolie's locks. This is a man who really cares about his facial hair. [Us]
• The third season of Shear Genius, a reality-competition television show for hairstylists, premieres tonight on Bravo. Camila Alves is the new host of the show, taking over from Jacklyn Smith. Will you tune in? [BellaSugar]
FRAGRANCE
• Lara Stone stars in the new commercial for Versace's Versus fragrance. The 30-second clip shows her dancing in a room full of mirrors with flashing pink and purple lights in the background. Looks like fun! [Now Smell This]
• Paris Hilton shot the campaign for her tenth fragrance last week. The scent doesn't have a name yet, but for the ads, she dressed up as Marilyn Monroe. [Independent UK]
• Lancôme will release a new fragrance named Trésor In Love this March. It is described as a fresher, younger interpretation of the brand's Trésor fragrance. [Now Smell This]
MAKEUP
• Celebrity makeup artist Roxanna "Roxi" Floyd died last week at the age of 49. Her list of clients included Halle Berry, Whitney Houston, Mary J. Blige, Lauryn Hill, and Yoko Ono. She also worked on more than 60 covers for Essence magazine. [StyleList]
• M.A.C. released four new mini-collections as part of its larger Spring Forecast Collection, and each one is focused on a single color — pink, coral, plum, and amber. They are available now online. [Makeup and Beauty Blog]
Citigroup chief Vikram Pandit is blogging! Well, not exactly. But he does make an appearance on "The New Citi Blog," a site the bank launched earlier this week to try and convince the public—and Washington—that Citi has totally changed since the financial crisis unfolded and is now totally focused on making the world a better place:
Part blog, part chat room, the "New.Citi.com" site (which was launched Monday and can be viewed here) is filled with video testimonial from the bank's executives and low level employees about how the troubled bank is turning a corner.
The videos are highly scripted, with crisp sound and image quality and musical interludes featuring piano music evocative of a trailer for The Shawshank Redemption.
Not to be missed is the mea culpa from Pandit himself:
There's even an apology from the bank's CEO Vikram Pandit. "When you look at Citi and what we've been through in the past year, it's clear we made some mistakes coming into this environment and we have to acknowledge that and take responsibility for what we didn't do correctly. It all starts by making sure you take responsibility for what you went into and take responsibility for how you are goin' to get Citi out of this.
Pandit doesn't go into detail about the mistakes, but he's says the bank has "gotten its house in order" with a new management team and a new governance structure and is working to create a new culture of "responsible finance."
Kinman Chan, of San Francisco, was flying from Philadelphia to San Francisco aboard a US Airways flight, when he began acting strangely. At first, he was waving, smiling and making odd gestures to a flight crew member, according to a criminal complaint.
Then, he went to the restroom on the plane shortly after takeoff and began to scream.
When another crew member knocked on the door, Mr. Chan came out with his shirt untucked and his pants down, the document went on. All of the restroom compartments were open.
The crew member attempted to get him back to his seat, but Mr. Chan became aggressive and attempted to hit a female flight crew member.
She was able to dodge him, and “then grabbed Chan’s right arm, locked it behind his back, jumped into the seat behind him and put him in a ‘choke hold’ to restrain him,” the complaint said.
Seriously, is there any greater argument on behalf of pot decriminalization that the soaring upward trend in ridiculous news stories this would cause?
I’m tired of reading about “ooohhh, drunken stepfather beat this person,” and “drunk driver crashed into this…” We need more “This Person came out with his shirt untucked and his pants down”. Even the part where he tried to hit someone turned wacky and spastic! And a police report had to be written about this! The case really makes itself.
After Net-a-Porter and Neiman Marcus dropped Emanuel Ungaro for spring, the only places left to buy it in this city were Upper East Side boutique Vivaldi and the Ungaro boutique on Madison. However, the Awl reports that the Madison Avenue boutique is calling customers and telling them the store is closing. One such voice mail went like this:
"Unfortunately," the leaver of the voicemail said, "um, we're actually going to be closing our doors February 27th, so I wanted to invite you to our liquidation sale."
The Awl continues:
Last night, we called the store for comment. An employee there told me, after a bit of hesitation (and, obviously, after I said I was a reporter) that I was misinformed and that the store "was fine" and that they were merely liquidating the fall/winter inventory, you see. Not that the entire store was being sold off at 75% off and closing up shop in about three weeks.
So hear that? Everything at Ungaro is 75 percent off if you care to drag yourself up to Madison. This could be further fallout from the Curse of Lohan. Perhaps orders for the spring collection were even worse than expected upon Lindsay Lohan's arrival as artistic director, forcing Ungaro to downsize. Lindsay hasn't exactly increased sales for the label, but then again, she doesn't seem to be promoting it very well. In her eighteen-page photo spread in Muse, there are no fashion credits. (Not that she wears very many clothes in those photos, but still.) Also, she wore a dress by Alexander Wang to a Grammys function. It's a great dress, but really, Linds?
The idiotic "trend-tracking firm" that announced this past fall that New York had lost the title of "fashion capital of the world" has returned with another silly list. Global Language Monitor, which is based in fashionable Austin, Texas, says its "proprietary algorithm" has identified the "top 15 fashion buzzwords" of 2010, a list that begins with "Lady GaGa" [sic] and is followed by "leggings 2.0":
"The relationship between Stefani Germanotta, the girl from Yonkers, and haute couture may not be intuitively obvious, until you realize that Stefani would soon grow into one Lady GaGa," said Millie L. Payack, director and fashion correspondent of the Global Language Monitor.
Of course, if the firm can't spell Gaga's name correctly—or figure out where she's actually from (not Yonkers!)—you may want to take the rest of the list with a grain of salt.
Now YOU can be the owner of the HOUSE. That is referenced in the FULL HOUSE title! What’s so full? It’s this!! YOUR NEW HOUSE:
THE FULL HOUSE HOUSE IS UP FOR SALE! This is a huge real estate/pop culture scoop. If I had 1.5 million dollars laying around (instead of 1.3) I would definitely lay out the cash for this mansion. And then every time I’d walk into my own house, I’d cue this up while hugging my giant dog Comet like a doggie prom date:
Sadly, I’m saving up my cash to buy the house used in the classic film Mrs. Doubtfire and the appropriate doorbell.
That being said, if someone wants me to play Becky while living in the attic in some sort of John Stamos role play scenario, I’m game.
I know a lot of rich people read this here website, so the question is: Who’s in?
Stockbroker David Kiely was caught looking at pictures of GQ's essentially nude spread of Miranda Kerr on his work computer. Only it wasn't like someone walked by and was all, "YOU PERVERT THIS IS A VIOLATION OF CORPORATE CODE" and told HR. Kiely's boss was filming a TV segment behind him and his computer monitor was caught on camera. Now Kiely must meet with his superiors to determine his fate at the company. [Sassybella]
From February 19 through 24, you don't have to watch TV for a good part of the day because you can watch fashion shows live from London. London Fashion Week has decided to stream all shows held in the British Fashion Council tent at Somerset House live online. Those include PPQ, Basso & Brooke, and Topman, though you can view a complete schedule on London Fashion Week's website. Hussein Chalayan, Boudicca, Twenty8Twelve, and Danielle Scutt will also broadcast exclusive films online, though it's unclear what exactly that means. This is great — there's nothing better than watching fashion shows from home. Like during Fashion Week, when you've been at shows all day, and you come home mildly drunk at midnight and flip on Full Frontal Fashion to watch more shows for another hour. Because you're sick like that.
It’s the week before the Super Bowl – time for fringe companies to make an intentionally too-sexual ad that they never intended to air during the Super Bowl then putting it online and being all like “our company has too much HOTSEX for those SQUAAAARES on NERDivision, which is what we call television!”
The latest participant: GoDaddy.com, a useful website for registering innuendo on a lady cop’s boobs. What’s most surprising is, the ad isn’t even that sexual, or really anything. It’s nothing. It’s Danica Patrick and some people. But it’s BANNED! Which equals HOTTTTTZZZZZ!!!!! It’s so scandalous I might just masturbate to the word “BANNED”:
Incidentally, does anyone go to GoDaddy thinking “Awww man, gonna jerk off to some hot Danica Patrick lesbo action — Oh. There’s none of that. Well, now that I’m here, might as well buy some domain names.”
John Travolta arriving at the Palm steakhouse in Midtown yesterday only to find it closed ... Courtney Love heading into the Mercer Hotel in SoHo ... Alessandra Ambrosiowalking with husband Jamie Mazur in the West Village ... Jon Bon Jovishopping with wife Dorothea in SoHo ... Kelly Preston leaving the Plaza Hotel with her daughter and a friend ... Sarah Jessica Parkerwalking with son James in the Village ... Bruce Jenner making his way through JFK dressed in his finest track suit ... Chace Crawford on the set of Gossip Girl ... and Josh Hartnett hailing a cab on Hudson Street.
In a way, jewelry designer Heather Goldberg has Monique Lhuillier to thank for her collection of hand-knit jewelry. While Goldberg studied fashion design and art history at the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, Lhuillier served as her weekend mentor, overseeing the creation of a dress. Lhuillier recommended that one part of the dress — loosely knit and spangled with Swarovski crystals — be scrapped from the final product. After rediscovering it hanging in the studio later, that piece found new life as the prototype for Goldberg’s jewelry line, Shadowplay.
Though Goldberg interned at ThreeAsFour and Band of Outsiders during design school, the first necklace was most influenced by an image she found of a Vivienne Westwood sweater from the seventies. "It was full of holes, black and white, all messed up, and really cool," she says. "I had always experimented with knitting, and after seeing that sweater I started sourcing natural yarns." Today, Goldberg’s ethereal yarn-and-Swarovski pieces have a distinctly organic feel, inspired by algae, spiderwebs, rock formations, and gnarled trees. Goldberg has debuted two collections since November, and though they were quickly picked up by Debut New York and Eva, she’s still meticulously hands-on. Each necklace is handmade (some are also hand-dyed) and takes anywhere from four hours to several days to complete; all are also available directly through her website. Click ahead to see more of her creations.
• James P. Marden, the son of pharmacy mogul Bernard Marden, has picked up a townhouse in the West Village: Marden paid $4.125 million for a 2,200-square-foot, four-story building located at 39 Barrow Street. It's one of several real estate transactions for the family: Bernard Marden father sold his home in Wainscott for $11.2 million last year. And his former wife just recently sold her own penthouse for $11.5 million. [Cityfile, Avian Village Realty] • Jennifer Scully-Lerner, a Goldman Sachs executive and top Obama fundraiser, and her husband, fellow financial exec Richard, have picked up a new apartment on Fifth Avenue. The couple paid $3.575 million for a three-bedroom co-op at 1170 Fifth Avenue, which first went on the market for $5.2 million back in 2008. [Cityfile]
• New York Times reporter Steven Greenhouse and his wife, Miriam Reinharth, have paid $1.1 million for a condo at 134 West 93rd Street. [Cityfile] • Opera star Catherine Malfitano is bidding goodbye to her duplex loft at 79 Laight Street. The three-bedroom spread sold for $2.6 million. [NYO] • Celebrity photographer Timothy White has dropped the price of his loft at 448 West 37th Street. The 4,101-square-foot spread, which first went on the market for $5.8 million in 2007, is now listed for $4.495 million. [Real Estalker, Corcoran]
This is a Recap of the Lost Season 6 Premiere, “LA X” Parts 1 and 2. It contains a bunch of spoilers, unless you’ve never seen Lost, in which case, it contains a bunch of random English words that you would never expect rational humans put next to one another. Either way, don’t read it.
OCEANIC 815: THE SQUEAKQUEL
Jack wakes up on a plane. BUT IS IT OCEANIC 815??? Yes it is, we find out several seconds later. The plane hasn’t crashed, and Jack exchanges smalltalk across the aisle with Rose, who is a complete stranger to him because in this reality, he’s never actually been on the island. Or more likely because he just forgot Rose was ever a character.
Our first rotating “Lost” title screen of the year is introduced when the camera pans from Jack all the way deep into the ocean, Beetlejuice-style, and through an awful CGI’d shark (possibly cousins with the snake from Anaconda) before finally settling on our first big reveal of the season: The foot of the statue is underwater. Meaning, obviously, that in this reality, the island sank underwater and never crashed Oceanic 815. Either that, or the awful-looking sharks built a giant stone foot of their own, and Damon Lindelof has the largest testicles of any living human.
When we return to the plane, a series of “post-non-crash” vignettes take place:
Kate’s captor doesn’t allow her to use a knife and fork for her airplane dinner. Not because he’s worried she’ll stab him, but because airplane food is so bad, as he explains in a 9-minute standup bit that was cut from the episode (but will hopefully go online).
Boone (who is not accompanied by Shannon) strikes up a conversation with a still-paralyzed Locke, who regales him with clearly false antics about going on a weeklong “walkabout”, camping outside, hunting for his meals, catching a fish that’s THIS BIG (I’m holding my hands way out), and banging seven waitresses while running.
Charlie almost chokes to death on his heroin, but Jack saves his life. Charlie says he was “supposed to die,” and when the plane lands, Charlie is carried off in handcuffs and shoots jack a big ol’ Glarey Oldman.
Hurley declares himself “The luckiest man in the world” and adds “Nothing bad every happens to me! No-sireee Bob. Just call me Lucky MacGucky. I changed my last name to ‘MacGucky’ because it rhymes with “lucky,” which is what I am.” He and Billy Zane from Titanic then agree that Picasso will never amount to anything.
Most cryptically, however, is a surprise exchange between Jack and Desmond, who was never on the original 815, and who vanishes as quickly as he appears. Even though Jack seems clearly unnerved throughout the flight, he never expressly mentions anything from his island life until he asks Desmond, “Do I know you?”, a potential reference to the two sharing a brief conversation in a stadium years before, or possibly a fleeting memory of the island triggered by Desmond’s new reality. Will Jack be seein’ him in another life, brother? We’ll see.
After the jump, some missing coffin hijinx, the Other Other Others, and Terry O’Quinn is The Lockes:
LAND-ING OF THE LOSTS (WHO ARE FOUND)
After the plane lands safely, Jack is called to the Oceanic “Oopsie” desk and is informed that not only did his father’s coffin not make the trip to Los Angeles, but that it’s also completely missing. Locke introduces himself to Jack and prophetically suggests that Christian isn’t really “missing,” just his body is, meaning that whatever event resulted in Christian’s supernatural existence also made his body disappear, so he was never lost. Or possibly Oceanic is just a subsidiary of Delta Airlines (BOOM! High five! I just high-fived my monitor ’cause none of you drove over here to high-five me after I typed that.) Touched by Locke’s charisma, Jack offers to fix John’s unfixable spinal problem “on the house,” forgetting he’s a spinal surgeon and not a goddamn bartender.
Meanwhile, Kate takes advantage of her captor’s generous decision not to watch her pee and kicks him through the stall door, knocks him out on the bathroom sink, steals his gun and badge, and runs away. She then struggles to leave the airport, even though this is one of the easiest things a person can do; Osama Bin Laden could walk out of LAX while on fire and carrying seven strangers’ bags and not even get anyone to make eye contact. Nonetheless, she cuts in front of Flaming Arrow Milk Commercial Man and grabs a cab at gunpoint, speeding away into a life that assuredly won’t include any more legal troubles.
There’s a common thread to the Jack / Locke / Kate / Jin / Sun post-plane storylines: They’re all instantly just as treacherous as their lives were before Oceanic 815 crashed (aside from Jack & Locke’s budding friendship). If anything, the brief post-landing incidents just served to re-affirm Evil-Locke/Esau’s claim that “Locke was the only one who never wanted to go back because he was the only one who realized how pitiful the life he left behind him really was.” Silly Jack and everyone — you should’ve listened to the evil spirit man who had Jacob killed and is the smoke monster then said this thing after you already went back!
WHICH BRINGS US TO…LOCKE – REEEEMIX!
Locke’s physical entity now exists in three separate forms — the dead body (Oceanic 815 Locke who’s still dead), new Oceanic reality Locke (who’s still paralyzed), and the Terry O’Quinn likeness currently inhabited by Jacob’s unnamed peer, to whom I’ll refer alternatively to as Evil-Locke, Esau, The Devil, and Goofus (though I’m still predicting he’s not as expressly “evil” as he appears. But he is literally Goofus.) And why the hell not, he’s the smoke monster too.
Following the Jacob murder / burn / afterparty, Evil-Locke requests a meeting with Richard, but the shadiness of the request incites Bram and two of the other Ajira “good guys” to run into the statue and attack Locke, quickly realize he’s the smoke monster, and this sound effect occurs.
Locke tells Ben he wants to “go home”, then emerges from the temple, punches longtime acquaintance Richard, knocks him out, and carries him into the jungle past his own dead body. There’s still no indication of what this group’s power structure will look like; I guess it’s just Evil-Locke leading and everyone else begrudgingly following so they don’t get bashed against walls by smoke arms. Which reminds me — remember when the Smoke Monster told Ben to follow Locke and do everything he says? That was Locke telling Ben to do that! Whoopsie! Gotta cue up the sound effect again.
IT WORKED! WE DOUBLED THE SHOW’S CONFUSION
The cold open initially left me baffled, especially after I’d predicted with unusual conviction (for my Lost predictions, “conviction” means any prediction where I don’t write “maybe not, I don’t frickin’ know” between each word of the prediction) that there was no way the characters could possibly go back to their old lives and have no memory of the island, cause that would literally be discarding five years worth of the show and any relationships or stakes it’s painstakingly tried to build. So if Jack and everyone are on the plane, what happened to the Jack & Co. who detonated the bomb??
Simple: They’re there too!
All the time-travelers awaken from their big Dharma bomb-scuffle with their ears ringing and people at home adjusting the volume on their tvs, and after slowly realizing that they’re still on the island but in the future, they spread out to save Sayid, who’s been shot in the gut, and Juliet, who’s lying underneath all the metal that existed in 1977 including the Queens World’s Fair tower and multiple Cadillacs owned by Chuck Berry. Juliet asks Sawyer for a final kiss — Sawyer resists the urge to respond “You got it, Deathbed” — and dies shortly before she can tell Sawyer something “really important”, though Miles quickly whips out his ghost powers and confirms that Juliet was trying to tell Sawyer “It worked.” How does she know? A friend of mine suggested she’s a time-traveler like Desmond and has seen the future, which would also explain why she was suddenly adamant about setting off the bomb in the first place – put that in your theory pipe and smoke it confusingly.
With Sayid near death, Jacob appears to Hurley, admits he’s dead, and tells Hurley to bring Sayid’s body to the temple to save him. Hurley convinces his friends to oblige, even though Miles sarcastically remarks “Are we gonna sing ‘Kumbaya’ on the way?”, because as a dude who can talk to ghosts, he’s skeptical about magical things happening.
THE OTHER OTHER OTHERS…OTHER.
Before Jack, Hurley, and Kate can get Sayid to wherever the hell they thought they were bringing him (if they hadn’t gotten interrupted, would they have just been chucking his body against the walls, thinking “I guess this is what Jacob wants?”), the team is abducted by a bunch of strangers from the Indiana Jones Extras Commune. The colorfully-dressed newbies bring the Oceanics to a fully-built temple, thus introducing exactly what this show’s been needing: Even more characters. By the time Season 6 ends, Lost’s IMDB page is gonna look like Law & Order f*cked Magnolia.
This also means we have to come up with yet another new term for yet another new group of people. Some options:
- The Other Others
- Others2
- The Lost Boys (Peter Pan Ones, Not The Teen Vampires)
- Others From Another Brothers
- The Last Remaining Actors On Television
- Bonnaroo
For the sake of convenience, I’m just gonna type all six any time I mention them.
The new people are led by Dogan, a dude who probably appeared in the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie while I was sleeping on my plane, who addresses the captives in Japanese through a translator because he hates the taste of English on his tongue (sorry, English ladies). When Hurley mentions “Jacob sent us,” Dogan’s all like “gu-gu-gu-whaaaaa??????” and opens Jacob’s guitar case to reveal a wooden ankh, which he opens to reveal a series of Russian nesting dolls, which he opens in succession for ten more minutes before coming across a letter from Jacob that allegedly says “If Sayid dies, we’re all in big trouble.”
The newbies (including an alcoholically-generous flight attendant who recognizes Jack from the Oceanic flight) then take Sayid to their resurrecting pool and toss him in — when the Others2 revealed their vat of brown resurrection liquid, my friend Matt commented “This is where Coca-Cola is made,” which made me laugh and is also important — and even though Sayid starts to squirm after a few seconds, the guys holding him decide to go for a new record and keep him underwater for the entire hourglass, and Sayid dies again. When Hurley later mentions the minor detail that Jacob just died, Dogan is again like “How come no one ever tells me anything?” and sets off two sparkly fireworks, the traditional funeral service for biblically-named magic island people or anyone who dies on July 5th.
The fireworks turn out to be a signal to Richard’s group (or possibly even more characters elsewhere? Gosh I hope so!) and the respective groups scramble to post-Jacob-death action. The episode ultimately concludes with Glasses McTranslator of the New Others demanding a private chat with Jack and using force to get him to comply, but the scuffle is cut short when everyone looks over and realizes that goll-eee, Sayid’s alive again. Jack then says into the camera “I’m gettin’ too old for this s–” and the first “LOST” end-titler of the year interrupting him.
LOSTDS AND ENDS
– Why was Jack’s neck bleeding in the airplane bathroom mirror? A significant sign that things physically are different in the new 2004 reality, or just a red herring? BECAUSE BLOOD IS RED! Hang with me, folks, it’s almost over.
– The episode title “LA X” refers simultanously to the airport LAX and the alternate-future concept of “X” from the Earth X comic book series. I’d also like to point out that the punk band X has an album called “Los Angeles,” which is probably the most significant thing anyone’s ever written about this show.
– The “This Season On Lost” credits-trailer flashed the phrase “The Time For Questions…IS…OVER”, which is about as blatantly as the producers could possibly say “Seriously everyone, PLEASE bear with us, we’re really gonna do our best to answer this crap!”
– Overall, I enjoyed the episode, and was glad they didn’t cop-out and have Juliet survive all that stuff (one of my friends was apoplectic that Juliet was still breathing and probably would’ve left the room and possibly America if she’d emerged from that hole okay). But speaking of cop-out, we spent all summer debating whether or not the Oceanics would remember their past or not, and it turns out, they did both! There’s two or more of everyone now traveling through various time realities, so if this thing’s gonna resolve tidily, it just got twice as hard. I’ll give the show benefit of the doubt for the time being. Only on the two-of-everyone-existing thing, I mean — I’m still not buying the shark.
Season 6 Premiere thoughts? Favorite/Least favorite parts? Anything we missed? Season 6 predictions? Nostalgic exclamations about Boone or Charlie? Leave ‘em all in the comments.
Why do New York's bridges and tunnels have such boring names? Wouldn't it be possible to come up with something more creative? A few thoughts (and suggestions) via Quite All Right:
For a city as large and historic and important as New York we really don't have very good names for our bridges and tunnels. Just consider this. Of all the many passageways into and out of the city, the best names we could come up with, to name just a few, are the Lincoln Tunnel and George Washington Bridge and the Holland Tunnel? That's pretty weak in my estimation.
The Lincoln Tunnel will now be called The Ashley Youmans Tunnel. Calling it the Ashley Dupre tunnel didn't really sound dignified enough and that's not even her real name so we're going with Youmans. She's originally from New Jersey so it seems semi-appropriate and after having sex with former Governor Spitzer all she got was an weekly advice column in the New York Post. Surely she deserves more than that.
US film director Milos Forman (4th R) poses with the cast of his film "Hair", in 1979 during the Cannes International Film Festival. "Hair" makes its return to the Serbian stage Wednesday 40 years after... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 3 Feb 2010 | 10:31 am
Actor Christoph Waltz poses in the press room during the 62nd Annual Directors Guild Of America Awards on January 30, in Century City, California. Austria scored a hat-trick this year, with three of its... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 3 Feb 2010 | 10:30 am
Argentinian director Juan Jose Campanella poses during an interview in San Sebastian, in 2009. Argentina was feeling the euphoria of Hollywood magic on Wednesday after one of its films, "El Secreto en... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 3 Feb 2010 | 10:30 am
This morning, I Googled the word “Biblically” to double-check the spelling, and got these results:
As you may or may not expect, the top Google result for “biblically” is a question about whether or not oral sex is biblically wrong within a Christian marriage. The second Google result? The definition of the word “biblically”.
When people hear a religious word, they apparently ask these two questions, in order:
1. How are my genitals affected? 2. What does the word mean?
Parry Grip — the genius behind the Shopping Penguin jamand “That Skunk is Mad” — has put together what might be the catchiest jingle for an Apple product ever. It’s the Ipad theme, and frankly, has sort of convinced us to drop $499 on one of these catchy gizmos just to use as a tray to serve delicious nachos on.
Watch this now, then come back 4 hours from now to tell us you’re still singing it. But you ain’t mad, it’s a graet tune.
BONUS OPEN THREAD: Is anyone out there actually buying/has anyone out there actually bought an Ipad? If so… tell us everythingggggggggggg.
Here are ‘N Sync’s Lance Bass and Joey “Descriptive Last Name” Fatoneyuckin’ it up on the beach in St. Maarten. The two were horsing around as only former boy band members can, until Joey stopped momentarily to wash his board shorts on Lance’s ripping torso…
Hong Kong movie star Chow Yun-Fat attends a press conference to promote the film "Confucius" at a hotel in Taipei. The producer of "Confucius" has denied that US blockbuster "Avatar" was ordered out of... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 3 Feb 2010 | 8:21 am
AP - "The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea" (HarperCollins, 453 pages, $27.99), by Philip Hoare: A subject as big as the whale demands a book as broad as "The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea." Part memoir, part nature writing and part literary criticism, the book takes readers around the world for an exhaustive look at the mysterious mammal.
With Hollywood week finally on the horizon, it's time to start predicting who's going to go the distance on American Idol.
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Whoever invented Elizabeth Mitchell should get a medal, because they did a good, good thing. We just caught up with the adorable Ms. Mitchell for a quick debrief on Juliet's demise last night...
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Hollywood, it's all relative.
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• James P. Marden, the son of pharmacy mogul Bernard Marden, has picked up a townhouse in the West Village: Marden paid $4.125 million for a 2,200-square-foot, four-story building located at 39 Barrow Street. It's one of several real estate transactions for the family: Bernard Marden father 
