Reuters - Mirroring the Oscars, Britain's top film awards the BAFTAs pit 3-D blockbuster "Avatar" against low-budget Iraq war drama "The Hurt Locker", directed by former husband and wife James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow respectively. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 19 Feb 2010 | 3:05 am
Reuters - Mirroring the Oscars, Britain's top film awards the BAFTAs pit 3-D blockbuster "Avatar" against low-budget Iraq war drama "The Hurt Locker", directed by former husband and wife James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow respectively. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 19 Feb 2010 | 3:05 am
Reuters - Mirroring the Oscars, Britain's top film awards the BAFTAs pit 3-D blockbuster "Avatar" against low-budget Iraq war drama "The Hurt Locker", directed by former husband and wife James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow respectively. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 19 Feb 2010 | 3:05 am
The guy kicked off an airplane for going postal on Mitt Romney was one of the rappers from LMFAO. You know, the "La La La" guys? [click for aural refresher] Good material for the culture war! [TMZ]
Ronnie from Jersey Shore is "very sorry" for calling a guy a "fucking faggot" and "fucking queer" while beating the shit out of him. Next time, he will focus on beating the shit out of strangers in silence. [TMZ]
Reuters - Aerosmith will add more European dates to its summer itinerary to follow up the booking at the Download Festival in England, a spokeswoman said.
Reuters - In a sign that broadcast networks are looking to emulate the light, quirky feel of USA Network series for their crop of shows, a pair of hot USA pilot directors -- Jace Alexander and Bronwen Hughes -- are making a transition to broadcast pilots. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 19 Feb 2010 | 1:14 am
Last night Jimmy Kimmel pointed out that none of the original songsters behind "We Are the World" were invited to join in its re-recording. Luckily, he happened to have footage of a solo charitable project by someone from the first version of the song. On his show, David Letterman anticipated Friday's Tiger Woods press conference, speaking with some experience in public apologies, and later Shaun White managed to change Craig Ferguson's mind about most young people. Watch our compilation to see what you missed.
•Steven Segal: Lawman is back for another season. [THR]
Zac Strikes A Deal: Zac Efron (17 Again) has signed a two-year producing deal with Warner Bros. Pictures. The studio has been working for a few years to develop the Jonny Quest franchise as a starring vehicle for the High School Musical star; and Algorithim, a sci-fi project, has also been developed with Efron in mind. Both projects have been stalled as producers couldn’t figure out how to get around Efron’s clause that he must play a basketball star in all his films. [Variety]
In Woody's Hands: Owen Wilson is attached to Woody Allen’s next movie, which will shoot this summer. The title and story line are being kept under wraps, as is typically the case for Allen’s films. Though something tells us it’s going to be more of a Larry David Is Neurotic than a Javier Bardem Is Smoldering 21st century Allen film. [HR]
Go Big Or Go Home: Ed Harris and Amy Madigan have joined the cast of Big Red, World Wrestling Entertainment’s new drama. (Yes, you read that right.) The film marks the third in a series of films the WWE is self-financing, producing and releasing, in which their wrestlers are mixed in with veteran Hollywood actors. Red is set in the mid-1960s, and focuses on a 12-year-old boy whose English teacher (Harris) pairs him with the school’s bully on a project. Things go OK until the bully whips a metal chair out from nowhere and repeatedly beats the kid with it. [Variety]
Hawke Eye: Ethan Hawke will star opposite Kristin Scott Thomas in the indie The Woman in the Fifth, directed by Pawel Pawlikowski. The thriller is about an American film teacher who flees Paris after a scandal and takes up with a widow who may be a serial killer. Since he studies film, he should know how this goes down: the more normal she seems at the beginning of the movie, the more likely she’s the psycho killer. [Variety]
The Q Factor: Maggie Q is in talks to play the title character in the CW’s reboot of Nikita, about a new Nikita who is trained to replace the original one after she “goes rogue.” Q’s casting would not only mark the highest-profile role for an Asian actress on a primetime drama series, but it would really break down some walls for single-letter-surnamed people across the globe. [HR]
As is the time-honored tradition at snooty universities, as soon as a student finishes going hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt (or impoverishing his parents) to be there, he is expected to begin bequeathing the university with charitable donations. To make this happen, the university deploys the kids who painted their faces with the school colors and screamed like banshees at football games to panhandle and otherwise harass their peers. It's the price of being part of the club, and it is for the good of future generations' libraries, scholarships, etc., you see. Like a gang: Blood in, blood out. But the blood is money, and you'll earn it back on Wall Street, then bleed it all out again when your child joins the class of 2032.
NBC debuted its first spot promoting Jay Leno’s March 1 return to the Tonight Show during the Olympics last night. And, uh, let’s just say it's unlikely Kevin Eubanks will be sweating his decision after seeing this one.
Breaking Dawn isn't officially a go yet. Neither is the plan to make two movies instead of one.
"I have been told to be ready for November," Kristen Stewart tells me. "I...
AP - An online effort to draft Hoosier rocker John Mellencamp to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Indiana's Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh is building up steam.
“Operation Iraqi Freedom” is so last decade. In an attempt to reflect the reduced role of American troops in Iraq this coming year, President Obama’s administration has given the war in Iraq a new name: “Operation New Dawn.” The change - which will take effect in September - aims to “recognize our evolving relationship with the Government of Iraq,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates wrote in a memo. The switch is not without its detractors: Military Families United, a Washington-based advocacy group, called it a “public relations tactic.” [Washington Post]
According to Fox, the military won't confirm anything about the accused soldiers' identities, just that they take this stuff "extremely seriously." CBN broke the story that officials detained the soldiers in December, and that they aren't sure whether they are still in custody. It is unclear what sort of presumably incredible information made the translators worth detaining in the first place—perhaps none, says The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder, who suspects the whole story is false.
The terrorist accusation would be "huge—if true," Ambinder writes, but "the Army says it's not true. No one has been arrested. The National Security Council was not aware of any arrests, a spokesperson said." Ambinder points to the cultural rift between the "09-Lima" translation program—which employs many "non-citizen Muslims"—and the rest of Fort Jackson:
A routine and basic background check is conducted before any recruit is allowed into the program, but nothing rigorous. That's because the translators at Ft. Jackson don't handle active work. They're trained — given the whole Army drill sergeant basic routine. Many become citizens after their training finishes. They're then embedded with U.S. combat troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
There has been tension between the drill sergeants there and the recruits, because the drill sergeants fundamentally mistrusted them, and because they're Muslim and many aren't Americans.
You thought I was going to parody it, didn't you? Instead, I went with reality. Ba-dum-ching! [PoliPunch]
After Tiger Woods’s much-anticipated press conference Friday morning, he will return to therapy, according to a letter from PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem that was obtained by the AP.
In the letter to the PGA Tour policy board, Finchem wrote:
"As we understand it, Tiger's therapy called for a week's break at this time during which he has spent a few days with his children and then will make his statement before returning. Accordingly, there was very little flexibility in the date for the announcement."
The speech, which will be televised on all major networks, is scheduled for 11 a.m. tomorrow morning. And those of you who will be toiling away at work tomorrow need not panic: The press conference will stream live on YouTube.
As if the chance to see Robert Pattinson play a tortured soul on the big screen wasn’t enough to get the tweendom camping out to see his upcoming Remember Me opening day (it was definitely enough), Summit Entertainment announced today via Twitter, of course, that the first trailer for Eclipse will run before the film. Remember Me, a drama about two lovers both dealing with family tragedies, also starring Lost’s Emilie de Ravin, opens March 12. Eclipse, the third film in the unstoppable force that is the Twilight series, won't be out until June 30. [MovieWeb]
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Comedian Cheech Marin, one-half of the most famous pot-smoking duo of the 1970s, lent his celebrity to a medical marijuana convention that opens on Friday in Los... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 18 Feb 2010 | 9:52 pm
From left: Chuck Bass, Hayden Panettiere, Rosario Dawson, Ashley Olsen, and a predictably sulky Lonely Boy.
The mood at the Bryant Park tents Thursday night was different. Special. Tommy Hilfiger's runway show was the last ever to happen at this location, and the emotion was palpable: When we first walked into the venue, the D.J. was running a string of melancholy songs like "Secret Garden" by Springsteen and "Fire and Rain" by James Taylor, with a little Neil Young and Annie Lennox thrown in for an extra sense of angst. We turned to each other and said, "We're not missing something, are we? Fashion Week isn't over FOREVER, right?"
But then the atmosphere switched from large-scale wake to Graduation Day: The D.J. busted out "Sweet Caroline," which no one with a beating heart can resist. During the iconic "BUM BUM BUM" section of the chorus, the music cut out so that Fern Mallis could conduct the photo pit in loud, joyous karaoke — which was rewarded by a raucous round of applause. And then, when the lights went down in the Tent for the very last time, the photogs yelled, en masse, "THANK YOU, BRYANT PARK," and then a very organized, very loud, "FRONT ROW, UNCROSS YOUR LEGS," their traditional refrain. Everyone clapped. For a second, it felt like we were all going to turn to our neighbors, give them a hug, promise to write over the summer, and maybe solve world peace.
The front row almost seemed beside the point, but Tommy delivered on that count as well. There's no better way to close out a week, much less a venue, than with Ed Westwick and his inescapable Chuck Bassitude. When a reporter asked him if being on Gossip Girl makes him feel pressure to dress up in public, Westwick cracked, "I actually feel pressure to underdress, since I'm so overdressed all the time!" Yet he looked deliciously Bass-ian in his pink shirt, and his entire demeanor throughout the show was that familiar narrow-eyed, just-smelled-rancid-caviar, amused-yet-nefarious carriage that we know and love from Gossip Girl. Contrast that to his castmate Penn Badgley, who sat at the other end of the row (feud brewing, maybe? Or does Tommy just like the idea of CW-flavored bookends?) acting irritated that the press would rather talk to Chuck Bass than Dan Humphrey. Can you blame them? HE'S CHUCK BASS. Although possibly, Penn was just channeling his character, as looking put-upon and tense-jawed is exactly what stupid Dan would do in this situation.
Westwick seemed to enjoy his time in the front row, using it to chat up Rosario Dawson — in an ill-advised tight white skirt, but glowing skin — and the newly brunette Hayden Panettiere. Penn, on the other hand, seemingly spoke to no one. Not Ed, not Hayden — who was either giving Penn a run for his money in terms of hair product used, or just needed to give her tresses a scrub — not Rosario, and certainly not his neighbor, Ashley Olsen, who looked beautiful despite wearing khakis that seemed a bit adjacent to Mom Jeans. Ashley and Penn sat ramrod straight, avoiding so much as grazing arms, as if each was sure the other carried the plague. We bet Ashley wishes she'd been seated down Ed Westwick Way, where there was a party brewing during the show: While he whispered approvingly to Hayden, Rosario grooved and sang along to whatever came on — including, at one point, Hall and Oates. We don't know if Ashley and Penn hate each other or what, but when you're front-row at a fashion show and you're acting like you're in line at the DMV, something is woefully wrong.
After the show, Tommy came out for his bow and produced a microphone. "Thank you, Fern Mallis," he said. "And thank you, Bryant Park, for hosting us for eighteen years." With that, "Empire State of Mind" blew up the speakers, and Fern Mallis, looking emotional, told a camera crew she was "so incredibly proud." That was our last image of a show at Bryant Park's main tent: a teeming mass of humanity spilling past Fern Mallis, sparkling under the lights, looking like a proud mother watching her baby flee the nest. Onward and uptown we go. Unless we missed a memo and Fashion Week really IS canceled forever, in which case, shhh — please don't tell our bosses.
Former Treasury secretary and noted nature lover Henry Paulson always wanted to be a forest ranger, he told General Electric chairman Jeffrey Immelt at a talk promoting his crisis memoir, On the Brink, at the 92nd Street Y tonight. And "I never wanted to be a forest ranger more than during the crisis," he quipped. This got a big laugh from the full house. But over the course of the hour-and-a-half-long rehashing of the market meltdown and his role in fixing it, the forest motif arose so often, we started to think Paulson — who was clearly traumatized by the events — might soon be joining his deputy Neel Kashkari in the woods.
A sampling:
On not seeing the crisis before it happened: "Everyone says, 'You idiots! How did you miss it!' But I remember I said to President Bush in 2006, you know, I think we have a situation in the mortgage market. And he said, tell me where. And I said, well, there's a lot of dry tinder. You don't know what's going to catch fire." (As we now know, it all caught fire.)
On the methods the government used to stem the crisis: "We were first responders to a forest fire ... and we did not have the right tools. I was out there with an ax and a hose trying to put it out."
On regulatory reform: "I think that we need a regulatory structure that will withstand the test of time. I would like to see a systemic risk regulator, with broad authority. Any type of institution that is exhibiting behavior that would threaten to take the system down. Right now we're focused on the trees, what we need is someone focused on the whole forest."
Anyway, suppose we ought to go through the most scandalous details:
Scandalous Detail 1: David Paterson eats at fancy restaurants and charges them to his campaign!
There is a $304 tab at Le Cirque in Manhattan. There were two large expenditures at the Water Club - $670 and $299. And the campaign spent more than $1,000 at the Mojo restaurant in Harlem, for the governor's birthday.
And he also spent $1,800 in campaign funds on a fancy but drug-fueled-orgy-free trip to a Ritz Carlton in Sarasota, Fla.
Suggested New York Post Headline: "$1,000! CAMPAIGN CASH FOR GOV BIRTHDAY BA$H"
Scandalous Detail 2: Governor David Paterson is suspiciously absent from the governor's office. For example:
When a plane crashed outside Buffalo about 10:20 on a Thursday evening last year, killing 50 people, aides to Gov. David A. Paterson of New York could not find him for more than three hours, and it was nearly five hours before his office released any statement about what was the deadliest air disaster in the nation since 2001.
His hours are "not long," according to the Times: He works from 10 to about 4:30 or 5pm. And he hung out in the Hamptons for long stretches of time when he should have been campaigning. Plus, he evidently skipped out on a Columbia speaking engagement because "it was the night before his 55th birthday". (Guy really likes birthdays!)
Suggested New York Post Headline: "THE FIRST SLACKER-AMERICAN GOVERNOR"
Obviously, none of these revelations are resignation-worthy. We do get the image of Paterson as playboy-governor, which, given his predecessor, is not helpful at all! The Times just unloaded a substantial shovelful of shit on the already heaping pile that's probably going to bury Paterson's reelection efforts. But that ride was fun, let's do it again sometime. (If you hear of any impending Paterson bombshells, you know who to email.)
The embattled star will be returning to therapy after he addresses the media Friday, according to a letter penned by PGA Tour commissioner...
A letter from PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem says Tiger Woods will return to therapy after he speaks publicly for the first time about his infidelity.
People—especially celebrities—do dumb stuff all the time. But while we get to apologize in private, stars usually have to do it in the spotlight.
And come Friday, it...
AP - The tents that have billowed over fashion's elite at New York Fashion Week for 17 years went dark forever after a finale show on Thursday night by Tommy Hilfiger.
About a month after Google announced that it had been hit with "highly sophisticated attacks," the New York Times reports tonight that the online attacks (which were also directed at other American companies) have been traced to computers at two educational institutions in China, one of which has close associations to the Chinese military. The attacks — attempts to steal trade secrets and code information, as well as to obtain the e-mail of Chinese human-rights activists — were believed to have been attempted in mid-December, but may actually have started in April 2009, according to those close to the investigation. Computer security experts, including members of the National Security Agency, have been working to uncover the source of the attacks since they were announced on January 12. [NYT]
Robert Pattinson presented at last year's Oscars, but guess which Twilight stars are doing it this time around?
I'll let Kristen Stewart tell you…
"Yeah,...
Note to Jeff Probst: You may want to change your intro on Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains, because tonight's episode proved that it is so not the Villains with the "ruthless cunning and...
An online effort to draft Hoosier rocker John Mellencamp to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Indiana's Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh is building up steam. Twitter is abuzz with... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 18 Feb 2010 | 7:53 pm
The band on the video's set with RZA, who will play the ref.
The cameo roster for Vampire Weekend’s new music video reads like the lineup of a Fashion Week front row: Jake Gyllenhaal, Lil Jon, Joe Jonas, and RZA. The unexpected group of stars will appear in the recently-filmed video for the band’s second single off their album Contra, “Giving Up The Gun,” according to an interview with the video’s director, Emmett Malloy. The video’s concept (a "bizarre-o tennis match") was devised by the band’s lead singer, Ezra Koenig, Malloy said. [Anthem via Stereogum]
Mother-in-law versus baby-daddy drama is never pretty, and viewers will find that there's no exception to that rule on Sunday's season-finale episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians....
However! It appears that what the Times printed was just the nice portion of a much meaner email Friedman sent out to various media outlets. The blog Palingates has published the uncensored email:
I guess former Governor Palin does not have a sense of humor. I thought the line "I am the daughter of the former governor of Alaska" was very funny. I think the word is "sarcasm."
In my family we think laughing is good. My parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life. My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes.
(Emphasis mine.)
How does one say in English... "Zing?" The Times, however, stops at "my parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life." They must have done the calculations and figured that being able to interview Sarah Palin in the future was worth more than printing Friedman's awesome email in full. How mainstream media. It's too bad, because the best part about Friedman's response was also the point—such as there was one—of the Family Guy gag: Palin used Trig so blatantly as a campaign tool, and positions herself so squarely as the voice of the disabled community (see: "death panels"), that of course the one person with Down syndrome to appear in the Family Guy episode would be related to her.
We can think of many, many well-meaning but possibly 'edgy' jokes to make right now. But we're watching the Olympics and don't feel like reading a bunch of pissed-off comments from people who would, like Sarah Palin, take these jokes the wrong way. So, let's just say: Excellent work, Andrea Fay Friedman. Stop being so wimpy, New York Times. And: U-S-A! U-S-A!
Saying it would give credence to an obviously staged event, the Golf Writers Association of America has announced that it is going to pass...
I am looking at pictures of Angelina Jolie. Her neck looks very weird. Has she had plastic surgery?
—Clarissa, via the Answer B!tch inbox
I see the photos you mention....
You'd feel that way too if you joined us tonight. Manufacturing this live blog is a group effort, so why not don a happy hardhat and punch in? The fun gets under way in the comments section below this post, and the show starts at 10 Eastern on Lifetime.
Tim worried that Janeane's look might be undermined by a "spewing out factor." To me, that sounds more like a problem to worry about on Top Chef than on Project Runway.
When Anthony won, commenters rejoiced with shouts of "Gurl!" and "Yay!" and "Come kiss ya Aunt Bunny!" So it's official: We all love Anthony. Also official: We all hate Mila and Seth Aaron.
Commenter Lilah noticed that "Janeane managed to make the moment of Anna's elimination all about Janeane" — by crying, of course. Which reminds me of a new nickname I recently came up with for her: "the Grim Weeper."
Once tonight's episode gets under way, I suggest we watch for the following:
There will be little girls running around the workroom, so I guess it's "bring your daughters to make it work" day or something.
Jonathan will describe the situation as "Romper Room on crack" — which is actually pretty funny, and suggests that he may not be such a boring nonentity after all.
The guest judge is designer Tory Burch, who's a great choice for a kids-themed challenge because she was a leading child actress back in the '90s. Oh wait—that was Thora Birch, wasn't it? Sorry … never mind.
Ok, kids, the live blog room is ready for romping. See you in the comments!
President Obama met with the Dalai Lama at the White House today, in spite of major objections beforehand from the Chinese government. Chinese officials had indicated that Obama's meeting with the exiled Tibetan leader would strain the relationship between the two countries.
Obama commended the Dalai Lama's "commitment to nonviolence" in the meeting, and praised him for pursuing a dialogue with the Chinese government.
The president communicated his "strong support for the preservation of unique religious, cultural and linguistic identity and the protection of human rights for Tibetans” during the meeting, according to a White House statement.
Perhaps aware of the meeting’s sensitivity, Obama met with the Dalai Lama in the White House Map Room (part of the presidential residence) instead of the more formal Oval Office. Some analysts said it is possible China could respond by cutting off political exchanges with the U.S., as happened after the Dalai Lama met with the heads of state of Germany and France.
Booing ensued when Richie Rich's show for his A*Muse line started an hour and fifteen minutes late last night. We hear the delay was caused by star catwalker Pamela Anderson, who wouldn't leave her hotel until Richie came to pick her up personally. We also hear the models, which included Richie runway veteran Tinsley Mortimer, were ready at 9:15 and angry they had to wait. Seven days into Fashion Week, and we were surprisingly more bored than angry ourselves. Even the red carpet "arrivals" and mishmash scene of raver drag queens and someone who claimed to be Janice Dickinson's sister (who also claimed to know us and "loved our pen," ew) couldn't entertain us.
But the show did! Most of the swimwear was terrifically skimpy and trashy in a good way. More conservative pieces, like the tees and hoodies, reminded us of Ed Hardy — if Ed Hardy were sold in the Sears juniors' section. But that's what a Richie Rich show is for, and there's no better way to finish a long week than with Pamela Anderson in a bathing suit made from oversize sequined rubber bands.
After the show, Pam exhibited none of her rumored pre-show diva behavior. She was not a fan of the adorable Westminster Dog Show. “I don’t watch dog shows. I don’t like dogs that work. I don’t believe in dog shows.” A campaigner against the Canadian seal hunt, she also doesn't believe in people who eat seal hearts, such as Canada's Governor General Michaëlle Jean. Last year she ate a "delicious" raw seal heart before reporters, an event meant to support aboriginal hunting communities in Northern Canada.
“I think that’s why, you know, I was invited to the opening of the Olympics, and then they changed their minds, because the governor general ate the heart out of a seal at a press conference. They probably thought that I'd criticize the Olympics, which I would’ve," she said. "It was probably a good idea. But the Olympics aren’t over yet.” Maybe she can make the Closing Ceremonies? That bathing suit would sure be a showstopper in Vancouver this time of year. Or, you know, any time of year.
Just about everyone with even a passing interest in global popular culture is fascinated by Simon Cowell's American Idol swan song this season and the show's search to find a suitable...
Reuters - When it premiered a quarter-century ago, Sam Shepard's self-directed production of his "A Lie of the Mind" clocked in at four hours, including two intermissions. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment Reviews | 18 Feb 2010 | 6:32 pm
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "American Idol" judge Simon Cowell said on Thursday he would like to have glam singer Lady Gaga as a mentor this year to the aspiring pop stars on the top-rated TV... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 18 Feb 2010 | 6:28 pm
Simon Cowell believes a woman is likely to win his final season on "American Idol." The acerbic British judge told a teleconference Thursday that one of the 12 women among the ninth... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 18 Feb 2010 | 6:24 pm
One of those pictures that Brooke so graciously posed for.
Brooke Shields seriously stressed out some photographers at Naeem Khan on Thursday night when it seemed as if she might sit down without posting. After a five-minute chorus of "Don't sit down, Brooke! Please don't sit down!" the tall and dreamy Shields, wearing a black sequined number, turned with a laugh and said, "Don't worry, I'm not going to sit down!" before making sure each photog got a picture. We're not sure how she stays so calm in the face of a storm: Even her aura is relaxing. Perhaps this is what comes from the secure knowledge that your eyebrows have already secured your legacy.
Down the way, Anika Noni Rose (The Princess and the Frog) sneaked into her front-row seat right under our noses. Had we noticed her sooner, we might not have been able to resist asking her to walk down memory lane, straight past boring old Dreamgirls and right to that cherished classic From Justin to Kelly. Although maybe she has blocked that experience out. We might have, too, if we'd been forced to watch Kelly Clarkson dance in a skirt made of ties.
Next to Rose sat Reshma Shetty from TV's Royal Pains. Shetty is stunning in person, and just recently jetted to New York from Vancouver, where she was at the Olympics. "I was at the Opening Ceremonies, I saw a good chunk of the figure skating ... It was awesome," she gushed. Fashion and sports fandom all in one week? Sounds like our kind of girl. Maybe she'd like to come over for movie night. From Justin to Kelly might be right up her alley.
Get ready for a #SimonJustMadeMeCry trending topic. In what could potentially be a major shakeup in The Universe of Idol, American Idol producers will for the first time allow its 24 finalists to post to “Idol-approved” MySpace, Facebook and Twitter pages. It has not been made clear whether or not contestants will be allowed to write whatever they like, or if their posts will have to be pre-approved. At the moment, Twitter, Facebook and MySpace accounts have been set up for all of the finalists, though none have seen any activity yet, MTV News reports.
DJ Pauly D and his dudes dropped some uh metaphysicals and whatnot.
Vinny Guadagnino generously got his mom a massage, and generously lent his political science wizardly to C-N-f*&%^!-N.
JWOWW is really concerned about how the internet is affecting society's most vulnerable, the children.... haHAHAH lust kidding LOLLLLz... had you there for a minute, eh?
An unknown hero reporter was bravely asking the urgent question of the day.
“I guess former Governor Palin does not have a sense of humor. I thought the line ‘I am the daughter of the former governor of Alaska’ was very funny. I think the word is ‘sarcasm.’ In my family we think laughing is good. My parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life." - Andrea Fay Friedman, 39, who played Ellen in the Family Guy episode that drew Palin’s ire, in an e-mail to the New York Times. (Like the character she voiced on the show, Friedman has Down syndrome.) [Arts Beat/NYT]
Sitting in the front row at Calvin Klein this afternoon with his date, Whoopi Goldberg, André Leon Talley admitted to being exhausted on this final day of New York Fashion Week. "But I’ve had some wonderful moments of beauty," Talley said, and proceeded to reel them off: "Chado, Rodarte, Derek Lam, and Ralph Lauren this morning I really loved,” he said. "And I loved LaQuan Smith, the new young designer who just had his first show and is 21 years old. I loved that so much, I thought it was beautiful."
We persuaded (okay, begged) ALT to give us a teaser for the upcoming season of America’s Next Top Model, his first on the show. "When we were on our destination journey — which I cannot reveal to you, I’ll be sued for $5 million — Tyra and I had a fabulous, fabulous day with an elephant called Burma," he said. Talley can also reveal that Tyra looks terrific without her weave: "I think she’s back to her soignée look when she was first at St. Laurent when she was 16."
Anyone want to bet Tiger Woods is going to announce his return to the PGA Tour tomorrow?
The tarnished golf star's carefully orchestrated comeback continued Thursday with a practice...
AP - No one does family dysfunction quite like Sam Shepard, and "A Lie of the Mind" is prime crazy-quilt Shepard, a lengthy examination of relationships that alternate between harrowing and hilarious.
The biggest surprise at the Calvin Klein show this afternoon was not the clothes, which were consistently minimal. It was the appearance of three models considered ancient in fashion years: Stella Tennant, Kirsty Hume, and Kristen McNenamy, the latter with a silver-gray ponytail swinging across her back.
These women are not old — they are 40, maybe — but they are a bit more mature than the average catwalker, and that was exactly right for this collection. Costa's palette this season is black and white and gray. He worked with molded, rounded shoulders on jackets and coats. Standouts included an ivory shearling coat with a storm flap on its front, and an elegant passage of sheer gossamer dresses.
Since taking the reins at Calvin Klein seven years ago, Costa has honored the house's commitment to minimalism by designing with clean lines and restrained explorations of color and silhouette. The clothes are not explicitly sexy. They are, instead, serious, and they work most beautifully on adults; on a fresh-faced teenager, they don't make an enormous amount of sense.
The thing about making things seem effortless is that then people assume they’re easy. Take The-Dream: the guy’s so good he can just toss off all-decade stuff like “Umbrella” and “Single Ladies” and still have enough juice for two albums worth of peerless, precision calibrated radio R&B. So where are his Grammy noms, magazine covers, and public shrines, huh? Anyway, his new single, “Love King” — the title track to his upcoming album, due May 17th — is here, and it does not disappoint. Yes, another song about the remarkably-active sexual proclivities of its singer but, in typical Dream style, one that's streamlined, preternaturally smooth, genuinely sweet, and laced with just enough bang to make it more than alright to blast out of a car stereo. We’ve got one more chance to show our appreciation: The-Dream is promising that Love King is his last.
A household staffer to hedge funder Philip Falcone and his clotheshorse wife Lisa Maria was so physically attractive that he drove the couple mad, forcing them to sexually harass and abuse him, a lawsuit for the staffer claims. Upon his hiring to run the Falcones' several houses, William Gamble was asked by Philip whether he was gay. When he said yes, this apparently sent both Falcones into a mad sexual shame spiral. "Falcone thereafter saw fit to utter homophobic comments directed at gay people in general and [Gamble] in particular," the lawsuit claims. (Lawyers for the Falcones deny all of this and label it "nothing more than a transparent attempt by a disgruntled former employee.")
Falcone's wife couldn't handle Gamble's beauty any better, Gamble claims: According to the suit, she told him his "demeanor did not live up to her idea of what a stereotypical gay man should be, as [he] was not 'effeminate' enough." She teased him on a vacation for wearing bathing suits that weren't skimpy enough, and then once, when she was drunk, "a visibly inebriated Falcone confronted and assaulted" Gamble, "forcibly pushing her hand down his pants to grab his genitals," the suit says, as reported by the Post. "When rebuffed, Falcone struck [Gamble] three times with her hand forcefully enough to leave deep bruises on his abdomen."
Quoting the terrifying straight woman from all gay men's dreams, Lisa Maria then allegedly told Gamble "all he required was 'a good fuck' in order to change him into a heterosexual." When the gang returned to New York, Gamble claims things never went back to normal. At one point, Gamble says, Lisa Maria hissed at him: "If you weren't so beautiful, you wouldn't be here."
Man, if we had a nickle for every time we had to sue someone over how our own beauty broke their minds, we could probably actually afford our lawyers' fees.
Singer Chris Brown earned a glowing probation report six months after he was sentenced to "labor-oriented service" for assaulting his pop star girlfriend, Rihanna, the judge said Thursday.
There’s a succession battle micro-brewing in the world of literary journals: Who will be the next editor of The Paris Review? For its first 50 years, the magazine was run by George Plimpton, who is essentially a saint among the bookish. (One group has been agitating for years to erect a statue of him in New York; Philip Roth basically erected a verbal statue in his recent novel Exit Ghost: “He seemingly had nothing to escape, no flaw to hide or injustice to defy or defect to compensate for or weakness to overcome.”)
Plimpton’s successors, Brigid Hughes and Philip Gourevitch, were both capable but less statuesque. When Gourevitch announced, last November, that he would step down, a web-wide literary parlorgame began: Who could speculate most intriguingly about his replacement? The list of potential succesors was long, and included just about every youngish lit-world media player: from writers (Ben Marcus, Nathaniel Rich, Jonathan Dee) to editors (Roger Hodge, Ben Metcalf, Meghan O’Rourke). As Gourevitch’s step-down date approaches in April, the parlor game has begun to heat up.
And now I think we might have a winner.
The boldest, most counterintuitive candidate of all was nominated yesterday on the book blog the Millions by Garth Risk Hallberg, one of the smartest literary-critical writers writing anywhere. Hallberg argues that Plimpton’s sacred spot should be given to:
(I feel like we need something typographically dramatic here ... )
Е
Е
Е
Dave Eggers!
In other words, America’s most venerable literary institution should be handed over to the twee-meta king of the McSweeney’s empire.
My first instinct was to scoff at first. Like any self-serious writer who’s never been invited to write for McSweeney’s, I've gotten into the habit of dismissing Eggers. And it’s true, a handful of obvious objections leap out right away: Eggers already runs a journal; he seems pretty busy writing books and screenplays and putting together anthologies; and — most important — he shows few signs of having the capital-L literary chops for the job.
Hallberg, though, makes a very persuasive case:
Eggers is an entrepreneur of distinction, a gifted fund-raiser, a networker, a talent scout, a celebrity, a philanthropist, and an accomplished graphic designer. Moreover, he has a particular editorial capacity that’s always in rare supply: the capacity for vision. At his first two magazines — Might and (especially) McSweeney’s — Eggers helped to distill into literary form the sensibility of those who came of age after The End of History … and before history unceremoniously resumed. Whimsical, highly aestheticized, conspicuously casual, reverent of childhood and its signifiers, bound by the dialectic of irony and sincerity, the style of McSweeney’s has become the style of post-post-Modernism.
In an ideal world, Hallberg argues, Eggers and The Paris Review would cross-breed in fascinating ways. On one hand, their marriage would give the journal a jolt, instantly making it relevant to a big new demographic of passionate readers. On the other, it would force the Eggers aesthetic to grow up a little bit — he'd have no choice but to use his considerable creativity and intelligence in the service of something serious and respectable and adult. As Hallberg puts it:
… the next editor will have to make the case to readers that, in this era of YouTube and the iPad, the bound literary quarterly is still worth their time and money. That’s a mission Dave Eggers has already proven himself to be committed to. And The Paris Review, for nearly 60 years, has proven its commitment to the kind of great American writing I’d like to see more of from Eggers. Odds are these two commitments will be pursued on parallel tracks — but wouldn’t it be great if they could meet?
Actually, it might be great. Sign me up for Team Eggers.
Reuters - New York Fashion Week is the place to spot new trends and, if this season's event is any indication, going green is definitely in style. Source: Yahoo! News: Fashion News | 18 Feb 2010 | 4:26 pm
"I’m starting to get freaked out — I don’t know if I can do [interviews] for much longer. All of a sudden you go ‘wait, there’s a show happening," Isaac Mizrahi told us when it was our turn to talk to him half an hour before his show in Bryant Park this morning. "I worked very late and then I took a Xanax, which is my favorite," he revealed. "My pre-show ritual is a sleeping pill for sure, or a sort of de-stress pill." Backstage, the buzz was about the colorful sequined clothes; the almost bare-faced models; and the runway, which was decked out to resemble Central Park. "The inspiration is this idea of a kind of urbane fairy tale, like a Central Park storybook. It’s this idea of fairies and witches in Central Park," he explained. "It’s got a big sort of vagrant part to it as well, a big wanderer part to it. But it’s glamorous in this way — the juxtaposition of things is interesting. You know, very glittery, Vegas-y things next to very plain, weird, like, elevator padding or something."
And who, in plainer terms, is this showgirl-meets-woodland-fairy Mizrahi sees wearing his collection? "I think it’s about a person who’s somewhat smart and somewhat urbane, yes, and also kind of this perfect age: 35. Whether she’s 65 or 25, I think it’s smart to look kind of like prime, as opposed to too girlish. I try to stay away from girlish things, I really do. I don’t mean girly things. I mean, I don’t like girls to look tweenish. I don’t like a tween. Even though, of course, I love a tween, I have the soul of a Japanese tween, I do."
Even after spending time in a judge’s seat on Bravo’s The Fashion Show, Mizrahi says, "I think I prefer being on the designers’ side of the runway — unless I’m being hired as a judge on a fashion competition show, I never do judge. I never care what anybody wears. And everybody always goes, 'Oh, if I’d known I was going to see you, I would have dressed up,’ you know? I remember when I was dating, people would go, 'What do you wear on a date with Isaac Mizrahi?' and I was like, 'Well, what do I wear on a date?' Well, I wear black because I want to look thin, for one thing, right?"
Francis X. Morrissey, the lawyer and estate planner who was convicted of helping Anthony Marshall swindle his elderly mother, Brooke Astor, was officially disbarred today. [NYP]
Reuters - Designers showed cozy layered looks in New York this week, wrapping thick scarves over chunky sweaters and rugged jackets in hopes that a trend of casual comfort will appeal to consumers coping with uncertain times.
Japanese Vogue fashion director Anna Dello Russo is featured in New York's spring fashion issue. A favorite of street-style blogs like the Sartorialist and Jak and Jil, Anna lives in Milan, where she keeps a separate apartment next door to her own just for her clothing collection. She's been collecting couture and ready-to-wear clothes for twenty years, and is very particular about how she stores and packs things. For New York Fashion Week, Anna brought two big suitcases — one the airline labeled "heavy" — with enough shoes and clothes to get her through the week without repeating anything. Get her packing tips and find out what she wears on the plane in the video.
"Deadliest Catch's" Capt. Phil Harris died on February 9 -- but his gruff-yet-lovable legacy will live on when the show's sixth season begins airing in April.
They have more in common than blue and white being their favorite colors.
This week, Goldman Sachs won the dubious distinction of being the first thing that has united Europe in the past 50 years, or maybe ever. Politicians in the European Union, including those from Greece, Italy, France, and others, jumped at the chance, in unison, to blame Goldman Sachs for their countries' disastrously mismanaged finances, long-lost derivatives deals, and leaving the toilet seat up that one time. The Daily Telegraph in London even ran an article claiming that Italians think their country is controlled by Goldman Sachs — an impressive allegation coming from a nation that created the Mafia, and whose top politician, Silvio Berlusconi, also owns most of the television stations. (There are a lot of people and things waiting in line in the "controlling Italy" queue ahead of Goldman Sachs, is what we're saying.)
Still. The discussion of Greece and Goldman Sachs and derivatives is the kind of thing that gives you that sinking feeling of being barely informed and even less interested. So, as a public service, Daily Intel is providing you with a handy guide to the situation, just in case it comes up.
How did this all get started? Greece has been steadily falling deeper in debt for the past decade, because of general irresponsibility but also because of things like paying for the Athens Olympics. Greece also did very little to pay down its debt when times were good. In December, Greece announced it was in the hole to the tune of 30 billion euros, or 12.7 percent of the value of all the goods and services the country produces. The European Union started to freak out almost immediately and demanded that Greece cut pay for all its state workers. Greece refused. Greece's troubles worried the European Union for several reasons. The biggest one is that if Greece defaulted, the euro would be worth less. According to EU rules, though, default is the only answer, because the consortium can't give any country money to save its own finances. And default is a pretty bad scene: Russia defaulted and nearly brought down the entire world's banking system. Argentina defaulted, and citizens stormed the ATMs. At the same time, Greece's troubles were imitated and magnified by a whole bunch of other European countries: Portugal, Italy, Ireland, and Spain. Together, these troubled countries are called PIIGs (yes, pronounced PIGS). So the EU is facing a tough choice: break its rules and bail out Greece; or refuse to bail out Greece and then see it go down and the other PIIGs down with it, creating a vast European economic emergency.
So how did Goldman get involved? In 2001, the bank helped Greece structure some complicated deals to help the country manage its debt. Goldman didn't invent the swaps; they were pretty common, and Italy as well as other countries used them, too. In fact, the deals were indirectly blessed by Eurostat, the statistics watchdog of the European Union, which included similar deals in its official handbook, according to Risk Magazine. Essentially, Greece called Goldman to create a way to delay and reduce the heavy interest payments on Greece's debt. Goldman's solution was to create currency swaps, which are deals in which a country or company will pay its debt in cheaper currency for a while. (The Wall Street Journal has a nice explainer here.) These swaps were completely legal. Greece and the ratings agencies approved Goldman's swaps. The only people who were not fully informed were investors: Greece didn't disclose the swaps in an official prospectus, Bloomberg noted, but that's because they weren't required to. The country did mention the swaps in its budget and told its parliament, though, according to The Wall Street Journal. Right now, scrutiny is pointed at Italy, which did similar swaps.
Wait, 2001? Yes. Greece hasn't done any of these swaps since 2001, and even rejected a proposal to do it in 2009. It's old news. In 2001, the Economist wrote an article about Italy gaming the system with similar swaps, and Risk Magazine wrote the definitive account of the Greek swaps back in 2003. It's fair to say that no one cared for the following seven years — until the current crisis caused Germany's Der Spiegel to do some Googling. Der Spiegel ran an article heavily based on the 2003 Risk article, and that set a number of big publications — "Greek woes revive seven-year-old swaps story."
Well, are these swaps evil? To paraphrase Bill Clinton, it depends on what your definition of "is" is. They don't look fabulous now that Greece is on the verge of default because it mismanaged its debt. But the swaps weren't illegal, and Goldman was giving its client — Greece — what it asked for. The bank followed all the rules to do it. True, the swaps weren't disclosed, but you can blame the Maastricht rules for that: No country has to disclose these swaps, and that's partly why they're so popular with politicians and also why you never hear about them in the popular media. The trend recently has been to slap down regulations on stuff that was okay before but looks bad now, and several countries including France have officials looking at these swaps for that reason.
So is this entire thing mostly political? Need you even ask?
Whew! Glad it can't happen here. Don't be so sure. Most countries like to avoid talking about the size of their deficits, and they like to make the deficits look smaller so that they can keep issuing government bonds without paying a lot to borrow the money from investors. Government bonds pay for things like infrastructure, schools, public transportation — and more recently, bailouts. In fact, the entire U.S. bailout of the financial system is funded by a weird government-bond-buying circle that makes it hard to track our debt: The Federal Reserve created the financial-system bailouts, then Treasury issues bonds to pay for the bailouts, and the Fed buys the Treasuries to pay for the bailouts, which, you'll remember, the Fed created. Then there's Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are wards of the state. The Fed has been the biggest buyer of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds in order to prop up the housing market; banks, knowing this, spent much of the year buying up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds to sell back to the government at a higher price, knowing the Fed would pay through the nose if necessary. Almost certainly, the Fed has paid more than it has to for some of these bonds because it is the main buyer in the market. In addition, Fannie and Freddie keep sinking into debt, but our government has ruled to exclude the two disastrous companies from our national deficit — no small matter when Fannie and Freddie have something like $6.3 trillion in liabilities. Then there's California, whose disastrous finances could bring the entire country down, according to an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times. Recently, Moody's Investor Service warned the U.S. that its vaunted triple-A credit rating might slip. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner had to assure everyone that America wouldn't lose the valuable rating, which keeps our borrowing costs low. But even he can't be so sure.
Last year, scores of angry Bruce Springsteen fans filed complaints against Ticketmaster with the FTC after they were unfairly redirected to the evil behemoth's ticket reselling site TicketsNow, where customers were forced to pay through the nose for tickets to see the Boss perform in New Jersey. Well, the FTC and LiveNation arrived at a settlement in the case that will see the company shell out some $1 million in refunds to customers who were affected by this "bait and switch" practice, some of whom ended up paying over $1,600 for seats to see Springsteen and the E-Street Band on what may have been their last major worldwide concert tour. For those of us who watched dejectedly as Pearl Jam unsuccessfully battled the monolithic monopoly throughout most of the nineties, this news will no doubt result in a few moments of satisfaction. That said, we're not very hopeful that this (sort of puny) judgment will do anything to curtail the company from continuing to tack on ridiculous service fees to every single ticket that they issue. Jerks!
From left: Marchesa, Michael Kors, Proenza Schouler.
The latest reviews have been mostly positive. Critics offered tentative praise for Proenza Schouler's collegiate looks and giddy raves for Marchesa's ethereal creations. And all adored Michael Kors's take on "relaxed luxury," which included a fox-fur skirt and cashmere sweatpants. Read the latest reactions.
Tonight is a very important night in both the world of Olympic Figure Skating and the world of Ladies and G-Guys. That’s because tonight, the latest crop of male figure skaters from around the globe will battle it out for the Gold with each of their “long programs.”
And something we’ve noticed this year, more than any other Winter Olympic year, is how hot all the male figure skaters are. Really! Even the ones that might not be your cup of icy tea have something going for them. Below, we’ve posted our favorite male figure skaters scheduled to compete tonight, and just what it is that makes them sexxxy.
Stephane Lambiel – Switzerland
Stephane is the Marius to our Cosette — those epaulettes alone are making us quiver with delight. Stephane might actually be an elaborate Twin Peaks-style stunt set up by David Lynch and Kyle MacLaughlin. Also, on Tuesday one of the commentators commented on his “soft knees.” How often do you meet a man with soft knees and hair?
Samuel Contesti – Italy
There’s only one eyebrow competing at the Vancouver Winter Olympic’s I’d like to take home to meet my parents… and it’s Samuel. Then again, I’ve always had a penchant for slight blue collar workers who love a good two-step.
Kevin van der Perren – Belgium
Rhinestoned bones is all you need to know about Kevin. Even he can’t get enough of his own costume… or is he actually in severe pain? Severe sexy pain?
Evgeny Plushenko – Russia
Evgeny combines 2 of my personal favorite things: The face of Adrien Brody and Plinko. And you know what? We’re rooting for him and we’re not pinkos, so there.
Vaughn Chipeur – Canada
Automatic props to Vaughn for picking easily the most masculine of all the figure skater’s attires. Blur your vision a bit and you might be wondering when Ryan Phillippe’s slight half-brother decided to take up skating. And check out that masculine jazz hand! Those I some spirit fingers I could hang with.
Evan Lysacek – US
Not necessarily our cup of black feathered tea, but a tall glass of lithe water no matter which way you ice it. This is a guy who is willing to pull his groin on national television.
Patrick Chan – Canada
Our favorite sexy Canasian skater literally defies gravity. Also a sign that he leaves his skates on in bed, not necessarily a bad thing…
Jeremy Abbott – US
Oh look! He has red hair!! Bye. (We had to include him, OK? Even he doesn’t seem that psyched about the decision.)
Brian Joubert – France
LOOK AT THIS HOT ASS FRENCH BIRDFACE:
Johnny Weir – US
He might not be the sexiest physical specimen of the games, but mentally, you’re looking at the sexiest motherf**cker in Canada right now at this moment as we speak. Even the pink tassel is like “Hey girl, beep me.”
AP - That indie-film specialty, the comic drama about dysfunctional family reunions, has come to this: Parker Posey and Demi Moore cleaning up after Rip Torn's poo.
Based on the new international trailer for Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (it’s just resting its eyes) with Shia LeBeouf and Michael Douglas, it is just a retelling of that age-old story of boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy wants to meet girl’s estranged white collar criminal father and get his blessing to marry his daughter. I’ve seen it a million times.
This looks pretty good actually, but I may be a bit blinded by the use of “Sympathy of the Devil” by the Rolling Stones. If they had used that song in the trailer for The Tooth Fairy, I would have been there opening day.
Exciting new frontiers in advertising! Dunst and Schwartzman star in a short film for the clothing line Opening Ceremony (they're wearing the clothes), with music provided by Schwartzman's band, Coconut Records. It's so sweet it'll rot the teeth right out of your head.
Ever since we first saw Constantine Maroulis and Tinsley Mortimer together, we have been fascinated by their fake-seeming, reportedly contractual romance. But they're really going to great lengths to put on a show for us! Last night at around 1 a.m.,Tinz and the Rock of Ages star stumbled into the exclusive red-wristband section of the William Rast after-party, where the socialite told us that walking in the Richie Rich show was really fun, and that the show was delayed “a little” because the star, Pamela Anderson, arrived late. “But Pamela is worth it,” Tinsley assured us. “He was there,” Tinsley added giddily, pointing to Maroulis. They moved over to the bar, where they spoke earnestly. After several minutes, she was leaning on the bar, and Constantine had his arms around her. She whispered in his ear, their foreheads met, there was a kiss, then they walked off hand-in-hand.
Sigh. We guess we'll have to honor this commitment with our true mark of respect for celebrity coupledom: a ridiculous nickname. What should we call them? Constantinz? Constinsley? Maroutimer? Constantimortimer? Tinstantine Mortimoulis?
Last night at William Rast, Justin Timberlake and Trace Ayala gave their leather pieces a retro twist with tasseled trims. Fringe, it seems, is back. Everyone from Derek Lam to Nanette Lepore showed fall's fringe benefits. Kate and Laura Mulleavy created their hand-knit pieces with a shaggy finish at Rodarte, while Milly channeled the thirties with a black and white flapper-style skirt. Tory Burch and Vera Wang added feathery new dimensions to black minis. And fringe doesn’t need to just have swing: Jill Stuart and Karen Walker used it to give structure to bold-shouldered knits. Click ahead to see all the looks.
Here’s the cover of the new Lost issue of Entertainment Weekly, featuring Matthew Fox and Emile de Ravin on the set of the original Land Of The Lost pushing away two ferns with a machete like they do in the show all the time:
So many mysteries! Who’s good? Who’s evil? Who has a machete? When will Jack and Claire romantically embrace? Is there a raptor behind those ferns? How many raptors? Seriously that many raptors? Isn’t that a lot of raptors?
THE FINAL SEASON: The TIME… for FERNS… is MACHETED…
American Idol, the runaway television success which has enjoyed an American ratings stranglehold for almost six years, was knocked off top spot by the US Winter Olympic team's triple gold medal sweep,... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 18 Feb 2010 | 2:55 pm
A Kurt Cobain biopic is reportedly in the works at Universal, and there is already a lot of speculation about who will play the late Nirvana front man. I, for one, think they should hand this to Pixar and have it star his creepy Guitar Hero doppelganger, but that probably won’t happen. If the producers go the totally lame route and cast real humans in this thing, I have a few ideas for who should play the major players from the grunge-ol’ days:
Kurt Cobain – Vincent Kartheiser (Mad Men’s Pete Campbell) from the Golden Globes
Dave Grohl – Shelley Duvall in the The Shining
More brilliant casting choices after the jump.
Krist Novoselic – The Daily Show’s Rob Riggle
1992 Kurt Loder – 2010 David Bowie
The Nevermind baby – Weird Al Yankovic (naturally)
Eddie Vedder – The stoner kid from Dazed and Confused
Courtney Love – Meryl Streep
Come on. You know Meryl Streep could pull it off and win twelve Oscars. Plus Courtney Love is a producer on this movie, so there is little chance she’ll come off looking like anything but a model wife and American.
Fashion Wire Daily - Leave it to Ralph Lauren to best capture the mood of New York, with a darkly classic fall 2010 collection on Thursday, Feb. 18, where even the floral prints seemed photographed at night.
Behind the glamour of a fashion week runway show is a lot of hard work. Fox411 catches up with Badgley Mischka to learn about preparing for their fall show.
I guess it’s not charity, it’s the Richie Rich somethingerother? Japanese premiere of the movie Richie Rich? And Pam Anderson is dating John Larroquette? Probably that. Don’t trust your security guy, Richie, he’s working for Van Dough!! (Spoiler!)
Long story short, here’s a bunch of pictures of Pam Anderson’s boobs (you may never have this opportunity again):
Fashion Wire Daily - In New York this week, a number of designers have not only been showing what's in store six months from now on their fall 2010 runways, but they've also been giving people a taste of what they can buy right now.
The Upper Playground Gallery in L.A. is auctioning off a series of 13 Inglourious Basterds posters designed by a group of different artists, with each one signed by Quentin Tarantino and all the proceeds going to Haiti relief. Truly, the awesomeness of that movie just won’t stop giving:
Check out all the posters in the Inglourious Gailarry below (I can spell words weird too!):
Dutch speedskater Sven Kramer has spent his entire life doing only one thing: Learning how to go really really fast on an icy surface while wearing a spandex bodystocking. That’s it! Just that one thing.* So when an NBC newscaster found Sven following his gold medal in the 5000m race at the Vancouver Winter Olympics, rather than ply him with the usual “hallos” and “dags,” she instead just wanted to know the guy’s name and country for us non-speedskateminded Americans…
He, in turn, calls her stupid.
It’s that kind of cockiness that will win you the gold, people. Also, isn’t he sort of right? Sure, it’s a d*ck move… but camman. He’s kind of right. A simple “Gefeliciteerd!” would have been enough.
*It’s this one thing that also lends itself to Sven’s hotness.
What has Kevin Costner been up to lately? Based on this photo, it looks like he just chilling. Straight chilling.
However, after the jump, see how the former Prince of Thieves reacted when asked what he thought about the trailer for Russell Crowe’s new Robin Hood movie.
Fashion Wire Daily - Even if Michael Kors is hanging out in the backwoods of some small mountain town, he can be counted on to make it feel like the most deluxe hillside retreat with jaw-dropping panoramic views. You might be surrounded by nature on all sides, but it's kept at a safe distance thanks to layers of cashmere, mohair and of course, lots of fur.
It was a family affair at Justin Timberlake's William Rast fashion show on Wednesday: The singer's parents Lynn and Paul Harless sat in the front row next to his girlfriend Jessica Biel, whom Lynn calls "one of us."
Stephen Colbert is filming at the Winter Olympics this week, and last night he stopped by the set of Vancouver Tonight Live! with Bob Costas or whatever it’s called. Aside from just continuing his dominance in the sport of Men’s All Around Awesomeness, Stephen ended the interview by climbing inside the fake fireplace on the set.
Watch the whole interview here. NBC has a kung-fu grip on anything related to the Olympics, so we can’t embed it.
I also noticed while on the NBC Olympics site that they removed the F-bomb that the US Snowboarding coach dropped live on the air last night after Shaun White pulled off his signature Mortal Kombat finishing move on the half pipe. If your parents weren’t appalled by snowboarding’s inclusion in the Olympic games before, they f***ing sure are now. Congrats on that gold medal, Shaun.
German film director Oskar Roehler poses for photographers at the photocall for the film "Jew Suss - Rise And Fall" (Jud Suess - Film Ohne Gewissen) during the 60th Berlinale Film Festival in Berlin. His... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 18 Feb 2010 | 8:02 am
A print of the famous Abbey Road Beatles record cover is pictured at the same pedestrian crossing on Abbey Road in north London. The National Trust, which looks after historic properties for the public... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 18 Feb 2010 | 7:32 am
Paul McCartney pictured in Hollywood, in January. The National Trust, which looks after historic properties for the public good, is thinking of buying London's iconic Abbey Road studio from its debt-ridden... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 18 Feb 2010 | 7:32 am
They may inhabit opposite ends of a record store, but hip-hop and country music are not that different after all, according to one of the most influential rappers of recent years.
In a business world that's more uncertain than ever it pays to be able to think on your feet. That's why some business schools are using improvisation classes to teach skills such as creativity and leadership.
Breaking Dawn isn't officially a go yet. Neither is the plan to make two movies instead of one.
"I have been told to be ready for November," Kristen Stewart tells me. "I...
People—especially celebrities—do dumb stuff all the time. But while we get to apologize in private, stars usually have to do it in the spotlight.
And come Friday, it...
Robert Pattinson presented at last year's Oscars, but guess which Twilight stars are doing it this time around?
I'll let Kristen Stewart tell you…
"Yeah,...
Note to Jeff Probst: You may want to change your intro on Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains, because tonight's episode proved that it is so not the Villains with the "ruthless cunning and...
Mother-in-law versus baby-daddy drama is never pretty, and viewers will find that there's no exception to that rule on Sunday's season-finale episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians....
I am looking at pictures of Angelina Jolie. Her neck looks very weird. Has she had plastic surgery?
—Clarissa, via the Answer B!tch inbox
I see the photos you mention....
Just about everyone with even a passing interest in global popular culture is fascinated by Simon Cowell's American Idol swan song this season and the show's search to find a suitable...
Anyone want to bet Tiger Woods is going to announce his return to the PGA Tour tomorrow?
The tarnished golf star's carefully orchestrated comeback continued Thursday with a practice...
