I thought she was in MENSA?

Tilda Swinton, who I owe a great debt to for paying my March rent by winning an Oscar (see here), continues to show that she might very well be the coolest lady alive by showing up at the "Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy" Costume Institute Gala at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City on Monday with Justin Bond on her arm.

photo courtesy of Just Jared

Moving your career to television is obviously not a bad thing to do these days, especially if you're a woman over 40. Glenn Close, Sally Field, Mary Louise Parker, Kyra Sedgewick, Holly Hunter and others have exemplified this recently, gaining roles that are both challenging and successful. But when I read this today, I wonder if Angela Bassett got some bad advice. After years of getting the shit end of the movie role stick (Mr. 3000? Time Bomb?), Ms. Bassett has got herself a full-time gig, on the final season of ER. Why not her own series? Or a series that isn't ending? Or a series that doesn't suck? No offense to John Stamos, but you deserve way better than this Angela Bassett. Remember when you were amazing in What's Love Got To Do With It?, or when upstaged Whitney in Waiting To Exhale because you were so damn good? I do. But it's not gonna make me watch ER.

photo courtesy of Gothamist.com

A couple days back, I asked some actual New Yorkers why the Empire State Building was pink. I thought maybe it was because Friday was a day of silence for Lawrence King and other hate crime victims that it was for that. Some suggested Tribeca Film Festival, as its main colour is pink, other thought maybe it was breast cancer. But, no, none of the above. It was for Mariah Carey.

I found this press release which pretty much says it all:

New York Landmark To Shine in Lavender, Pink and White in Honor of a Great New
Yorker and her #1 album E=MC2

WHO: International superstar Mariah Carey, the #1 most successful
female recording artist of all time, with more than 160 million
sales worldwide -- who recently earned her 18th #1 single on the
Billboard Hot 100 with "Touch My Body," surpassing Elvis Presley's
long-standing chart record of 17 #1's.

WHEN: Friday, April 25th, 2008

I also found some youtube clips from the event, and jesus:

I hope she paid for this, and it was not a gift.

Julianne Moore on the cover of French Vogue.

In a recent interview with Out magazine, William Baldwin goes on at length about his brother Stephen's born-again ways, particularly the gay-hate that comes with said territory:

I think Stephen enjoys the juxtaposition of my brother Alec and me on one side and he on the other side and again the attention that might garner in the media that Baldwins are at war at the dinner table. I'm not saying he doesn't believe what he says. I just don't think that he fully understands. So I asked him, "Do you think a gay couple should be married? And if not, do you think they deserve access to the same rights on a federal level and state level that you do? And if you don't -- are they some lesser form? Why don't they deserve the same rights and privileges that you do?" [And he responds,] "Because God said and the Bible says that marriage is an institution that exists solely between a man and a woman blah blah blah," and he falls behind that crap. And I said, "Well if you had a choice -- if you and your wife were to die and your kids were still young and you had a choice between your children being in foster care and potentially being physically and emotionally and sexually abused as opposed to being adopted by a loving, healthy, caring lesbian or gay couple, what would you rather have?" He couldn't really answer, and I said, "Thank God Dad isn't here on this earth right now, because he would be so devastated and so horrified." I have three kids, and I said, "If I go on and have 10 kids and nine out of the 10 wind up being gay that's absolutely, 1,000% undoubtedly -- I'm cool with that. But if one of the 10 grow up to think the way you think, I will be absolutely fucking devastated and our father would be turning in his grave to know that one of my children grew up thinking that way." And I don't mean to say that I'm saying this is a lesser of two evils -- I don't want to be misconstrued. I don't love my brother any less, but I think he's very confused.

Billy's got insight. And it makes me blissful to know my beloved Jack Donaghy stands beside him.

Check out Corey Haim's official website. Its really impressive.

This interview with the rapper in XXL magazine totally blows my mind.

XXL: Are you following the presidential race?

It's all a fuckin' setup. It's all a setup. All fuckin' bullshit. All bullshit. I don't give a fuck about none of that.

UK's The Sun is "reporting" about how Daniel Ratcliffe is smoking "up to 20 cigarettes" a day and friends, such as co-star Rupert Grint, are "concerned":

Every time they call 'Cut', he lights up. It's disgusting.

"Friends and co-stars including Rupert Grint have been warning him about the dangers of smoking. But he doesn't take any notice."

Listen, we all know smoking is bad. It kills and costs money and stinks. And yes, Harry Potter should't smoke. But how would anyone know he smoked if gossip columnists and, er, blogs, didn't report on this crap and act like they are doing some sort of justice by denouncing the smoking while actually being the ones to publicize it in the first place?

This also annoyed me in regard to Patrick Swayze. All these articles showed pictures of him smoking and said that "1/3 of pancreatic cancer patients" are smokers. While, about 1/4 of people smoke, according to the CDC, so though there is higher numbers in smokers who get pancreatic cancer, its certainly not some insane percentage. What about the other 67% of people who don't smoke and get pancreatic cancer? Patrick Swayze already has cancer. Do we really need to demonize his bad habit and essentially suggest he had it coming? The addiction of smoking is a more complicated and complex problem than most of these people tend to suggest.. it can be imbedded in our socialization or in our psychological needs. I'm not advocating smoking in the least, but do we do this when celebrities with high cholesterol or body fat have heart attacks? When Regis had his triple bypass, did they blame bacon and eggs? Or what about the pollution non-smokers breathe in every day that might just as easily lead to the many diseases and ailments seemingly automatically blamed on smoking.

They've already raised cigarette prices so high that poor families with helplessly addicted parents spend money on cartons of smokes instead of decent meals, and THEN refuse to raise it any more to give that tax to save the sick children of those parents. They make us (yes, us, if you havent already caught on), stand on the corner of the street like lepers, go out in -20 degree winters when youve been drinking at bar, or have random strangers come up to you and tell you "you are going to die from that." Like we already didn't know. Smoking is bad. I try and quit every other day. But its my choice. I also eat right and exercise but it seems like if you smoke all other healthy regimes are cancelled out entirely.

Maybe I'm way off here. But while I get why people want to use Swayze or Ratcliffe's smoking as a "don't do this" warning, I don't think that the publicity is helping stop any smoking in Ratcliffe's case, and in Swayze's, it just seems sort of cruel considering the man is currently struggling with a possibly-deadly cancer. I hope that if for some horrible reason I get a life-threatening disease that COULD have been caused from my smoking, that someone doesn't remind me of it. Because I already know. And I'm sure Swayze does too.

And, besides, I think The Sun missed out on the real juicy gossip of their article:

Producers fear the actor's habit could ruin his schoolboy image - and have now warned him not to be seen puffing in public.

The source revealed: "He's been having late nights out with stars like Kevin Spacey and Stephen Fry and seems to have picked up bad habits from the luvvie set."

Read that last sentence again. Not to be vulgar (but hell, its St. Patrick's Day), but maybe cigarettes ain't all Harry Potter is smoking.

Good Morning America announced the line-up for the 27th Annual Barbara Walters Oscar Special:

Ellen Page
Harrison Ford
Miley Cyrus
Vanessa Williams

Remember when it used to be mostly nominees and maybe the host? So I very slightly "get" Cyrus (at least her context here) as she was just in that concert movie that made all that money and is presenting at the Oscars. But Vanessa Williams? Save for Page (and depending on who you are, Ford - I personally don't enjoy the man), this is somehow a lamer list that the Oscar presenters themselves.

You'd think Barbara would know better. Or, as Ryan at AwardsDaily.com put it: Dear Barbara: Hope you find your Rolodex soon.

Michael Musto of the The Village Voice decided to give a ton of "blind items" in this week's issue, including the juicy following bunch (the second one's my favorite):

What couple almost split up during the making of that movie because she was on fire with jealousy that he got to show his actual talent? (No worries. It totally bombed.)

Which exotic, young hotshot designer has been supposedly doing it with that black rapper with many children?

Andrew Sullivan, whose idiotic conservative-gay-agenda "book" Virtually Normal is unfortunately part of my thesis reading list, has written an even more idiotic article on his blog at The Atlantic, theorizing the good vs. evil dichotomy of Shia LaBeouf and Emile Hirsch:

Now, male heartthrobs are normally not my bailiwick, but a very smart reader recently noted that my musings on women make her cringe. Ahem. This comment was, by the way, totally justified, particularly in light of the fact that I once wrote a two-part rap about my inexplicable "love" for Saffron Burrows. So I'm going to do my darnedest to make entirely new demographics cringe by bringing to light the elemental conflict between Emile Hirsch, force of good, and Shia LeBeouf, force of evil.

Mr. Sullivan, just because you announce that something is sure to induce cringes doesn't make it okay. And don't you write for The Atlantic? Shouldn't you be saving the philosophizing of people you don't know to trash rags and get back to telling gay people to vote for John McCain? And besides all that, look at the reasoning:

I loved Holes and Disturbia as much as the next red-blooded American, but when LaBeouf addressed the assembled hordes at Comic-Con in San Diego last year, he was a punk. Harrison Ford, the wonderful Karen Allen, Steven Spielberg: all were class acts who recognized that the fans are decent, hard-working people who spent a lot of dough to ooh and aah with many like-minded Indiana Jones nerds. Yet Shia slouched and muttered and behaved in a generally impish, prima-donnaish fashion. I'll never forgive him. Rest assured, there are many millions of people who will throw rose petals at this young man's feet, and it's true that he's a decently talented actor. But you're no Depp and you never will be, LaBeouf. So you might want to develop some humility. Oh yes, the ladies love cool Shia. Merry Christmas, and damn you to Hades! What troubles me most is that he's rumored to be the first pick to play Yorick Brown in the forthcoming Y: The Last Man picture.

So, lets put this in perspective: Sullivan is a gay Catholic Republican who endorsed George W. Bush and supported the Iraq war but fucking SHIA LABEOUF is EVIL because he acted "punk" at a comic convention and got cast in some nerd adaptation that is beloved to you? And what makes Hirsch so "good"? A tidbit:

In The Girl Next Door, a silly yet mildly diverting teen sex comedy, Hirsch gave a moving performance that ranged from earnest naif to smolderingly intense proto-pimp. This kid is going places, and my hope is that he will take a brief detour on the way there to trample on Shia LaBeouf.

I think that comment stands by itself, no? Maybe Sullivan should get back to trying to ruin decades of gay activism and keep the celeb commentary to Perez Hilton.

Paris Hilton's The Hottie and the Nottie found its way to the #1 position.. on imdb's worst rated films of ALL TIME. Nottie joins fellow Hilton gems like Pledge This! (#4), The Hillz (#13), and Bottoms Up (#23) on the list, making her the "worst actress of all time" according to many thousand registered imdb users.

Congrats!

Keeping with 2008's apparent golden rule that any film - total garbage or not - can make money as long as it doesn't star Katie Holmes, this past weekend was a near-perfect example (though not the best example: that will forever belong to the weekend Rambo and Meet The Spartans ruled the chart).

Rounding out the top two were two critically shamed films starring two of the people I'd least want at a dinner party: Matthew McConaughey and Martin Lawrence. McConaughey's romantic comedy Fool's Gold topped the chart with $22 million, followed by Lawrence's Welcome Home, Roscoe Jones (not to be confused with my adolescent guilty pleasure, the Winona Ryder angst fest, Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael), which took in $17 million.

But joining Mrs. Cruise on the exception-to-the-rule list was Paris Hilton. Her Hottie & The Nottie was waaay at the bottom of the box office chart. Opening on 111 screens, the critically lambasted film averaged a truly pathetic $225 per theatre, narrowly beating December's similarly ridiculed Jessica Simpson project, "Blonde Ambition," which averaged $165 per theatre in its opening weekend (though it went on to reach a miraculous $260 average the following weekend).

Honestly, I'd much rather see Hottie in all its imaginably so-horrific-i'll-laugh-if-im-high campy glory than sit through Fool's or Roscoe. But I'm obviously in the minority there.

In other depressing box office related news, Alvin and the Chipmunks has made $210 million and Rambo has made more than (here I go again..): There Will Be Blood, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Margot at the Wedding, I'm Not There, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and The Savages combined.

Say what you will about the above cover (which suspiciously puts the whitest of the white girls on the cover and saves the "minorities" for the fold), but on the inside this Vanity Fair issue seriously counts with a gorgeous selection of Hitchcock scenes re-enacted by the likes of Jodie Foster, Javier Bardem, Marion Cotillard, Casey Affleck and Naomi Watts. Check them out after the jump, care of ONTD... the Emile Hirsch-James McAvoy pairing for Strangers on a Train is particularly.. um... satisfying.

Paris Hilton, who was yesterday shamefully awarded Harvard's National Lampoon "Woman of the Year," created some comedy today in the reviews for her tomorrow-released film, The Hottie and the Nottie.

Some choice quotes:

From Entertainment Weekly:

The Farrelly brothers could burp out a movie funnier than The Hottie & the Nottie, a farce of corrupt stereotypes that's never more grotesque than when it pretends to be more than skin-deep.

From The Village Voice:

Crass, shrill, disingenuous, tawdry, mean-spirited, vulgar, idiotic, boring, slapdash, half-assed, and very, very unfunny.

This extremely annoying Variety article popped into my inbox yesterday.. via "Variety Headlines". Entitled "Foreign Stars Cash In On Oscar Noms," writer David Mermelstein's thesis is simple: If a "foreigner" gets an Oscar nom, they are likely to get a shot at American roles and American money. The article is framed around Marion Cotillard, as if to say: "Hey Marion, a group of American film people have nominated you to be a member of their exclusive and shiny superclub! Abandon your language, country and past! You've won the film world lottery!"

List of Scientologists
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(After the jump.. its a long list... of people who might be expecting packages in the mail)

23/6.com posted this hysterical flowchart of Mary-Kate Olsen's thought processes the night of Heath Ledger's death.

23/6 introduces it:

As the timeline of 28-year-old actor Heath Ledger's death is pieced together, every media outlet in the world is reporting that his panicked masseuse, Diane Lee Wolozin, called Ledger's girlfriend, actress Mary-Kate Olsen, "for guidance" twice four times three times before calling 911. The inscrutable, waiflike twin, who was in Park City, Utah California after promoting "The Wackness" at Sundance ordered private bodyguards over to the apartment where Ledger's lifeless body was found, instead of telling Wolozin to call the emergency number. Sure, celebrities crave privacy, but really: what was she thinking?

Slightly untasteful, yes, but brutally funny:

I had the admittedly enjoyable experience of witnessing the two sides of the Sundance coin Saturday and Sunday nights. While Saturday I got to witness a Sundance reunion that epitomizes the importance of this festival past and present, last night I witnessed something representative of what Sundance has unfortunately become: Paris Hilton.

indieWIRE was asked to cover Regent Releasing's party for Paris' "independent" film, "The Hottie and the Nottie". Paris herself gave a nice little speech before I dined on eggplant soup and lamb. It was honestly a laugh riot, and my table seating allowed for some candid cameraing. More after the jump (I realize I've lost all credibility by posting this).

This clip is pretty amazing for a lot of reasons. Judy is obviously totally fucked, and its unbelievable watching a very young Barbara Walters. Perez had this up and though I usually try to steer clear... it was too much not to share. Perez posted it in reference to the parallels between Ms. Garland and the ongoing insanity that is Britney Spears, and I must say they are pretty uncanny. If you feel somewhat unaware of the context, read up on Judy's wikipedia page.

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New York magazine's fantastic Vulture blog alerted me to this eBay gem: Buy Gary Coleman's signed size XL 12 Gap Kids pants which would be, as the description notes, "perfect for any child who loves Gary."

Its at 100 bones right now... Still quite the bargain.

From Queerty:

Jodie Foster gave a really moving and surprisingly candid speech when she received the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award at the 16th annual Women in Entertainment Breakfast on Tuesday.

Toward the end of her remarks, Jodie thanked those nearest and dearest to her. Among them was “my beautiful Cydney who sticks with me through all the rotten and the bliss.”

This is the first time Foster has ever thanked her girlfriend in public.

I've tried to stay away from exposing my guilty pleasure for gossip blogs anywhere on here, mostly because I'm trying hard to personally avoid what is truthfully exploitative and useless entertainment (without much success), but this picture is too classic not to include.

From Britney, on her 26th birthday:

SearchMore, an subsidary of the Yellow Pages, has put out this (very) cheap-looking but well-informed "Gay Heritage" video. Apparently, the 'Pages found it appropriate to flash Anderson Cooper and Barry Manilow's mugs when displaying "the spirit of the gays". Accident? I mean, what interest would it serve the Yellow Pages to stir up Out magazine-esque controversy? The Yellow Pages as shit disturbors? Who'd a thought?

It would be a miracle straight from Xenu if Lions For Lambs, which opens tomorrow to bad buzz and worse reviews, keeps up Tom's impressive streak so far this decade.

Check out the stats after the jump.

In what I think is the smartest move she's made in a while (though I'd imagine many will disagree), Lindsay Lohan is rumored to be doing a three episode arc on Ugly Betty An anoynymous source told The New York Observer that Lohan will play "a fallen beauty queen who takes a gig as the assistant manager of the fast food chain where Betty’s dad toils... Betty befriends Ms. Lohan’s character, who has fallen on tough times since high school." As a pretty big fan of Mean Girls (and, though I don't admit it often, Freaky Friday), Betty seems like a great opportunity for Lohan to show the comedic skills lost on garbage like I Know Who Killed Me and Georgia Rule. And it would only take three weeks of shooting.. If, of course, the scripts are already written and Ms. Ferrera and company don't walk the line. And if this is even true (remember when Britney Spears was going to play Samantha's niece on Sex and the City?)

A Catholic priest from Boston is under arrest, charged with stalking NBC late-night television star Conan O'Brien. Father David Ajemian, 46, is undergoing psychiatric evaluation. The Manhattan District Attorney's Office said the priest sent threatening postcards and letters to O'Brien's home and to his office at 30 Rockefeller Plaza for more than a year, even though he was told to stop.

The accidental beard of my boyhood, Winona Ryder, is 36 years old today. And while relative to the fact that I remember her most often for the work she did from 1988-1994 (6 years of killer, killer roles), this seems really old, she still has plenty of time to return to her glory days. I plea with some casting director out there to give her the role she deserves to start a new era in her career. Please...

Happy birthday, Winona Ryder. I still love you as much as I did when my bedroom walls were adorned with your photos.

It might be the most shocking thing Britney Spears has done all year: She has, apparently, made a good album. Reviews are pouring in and they are pretty much glowing (or at least relatively positive) across the board, nearly every one proclaiming it her best album (which, I know, isn't much, but still..). I honestly find this astonishing and fascinating. Her handlers should get some sort of special Grammy, as how exactly this album came to be is a bit of mystery (is it even her?).

The New York Times and Entertainment Weekly's reviews after the jump:

Check out the Lions For Lambs website.

When it opens, it asks you "What do you stand for?" and tells you type in a word. After fucking around with it, you'll notice that both "gay" and "queer" are considered profanity, whereas "lesbian" and "homosexuality" are good to go. Its really weird (and a tad offensive). And so is the website's whole approach. Check it out before the film tanks and the site's removed.

The first legitimate review of Tom Cruise's first film with his United Artists venture, Lions For Lambs is out, care of Variety. A sentence of summary:

Carnahan's script dutifully checks off the issues, it becomes clear the discourse is leading nowhere, and is merely a rerun of arguments already extensively aired by media around the world.

Pretty much what we expected, no? And while the review actually gives minor cred to Cruise's performance (he has the most "sparks"), this doesn't bode well for Tom's attempted comeback or new business venture.

Gossip blogs have tranformed the office water cooler and are likely the token distraction for anyone working on or near a computer. The great majority of people I know frequent them, and I've heard a large chunk talk about how they intend on "quitting" (this idea is my bet for the most popular New Years Resolution 2008). I've never suggested that I'll ever end my frequenting of the seemingly endless array of Who-Did-What-With-Who.coms out there - except for Perez, who has become a desperare self-promoter as of late, and I'd personally like to see his 15 minutes end prompty. But just that very idea, that Perez Hilton became a near household name just by making fun of other celebrities on the internet, is at the root of my argument as to why gossip blogs are more than just a guilty pleasure. Celebrity culture is an incredibly interesting aspect of Americana: in the way it functions, in the narrative it tells, in what it says about the society that keeps it going. I was quite surprised to find how often discussion of Perez-worthy events pop up in my graduate seminars. I've even heard that Britney and Co's adventures and the culture that it belongs to is one of the fastest rising thesis topics. Just a few weeks ago, a professor of mine wondered what Andy Warhol would do if he were still alive to see this drastic extension of some of the ideas he brought forth. "He'd probably not be able to handle it," she said. "He'd probably just start making furniture." But while Andy is sadly no longer with us, another celebrity connoisseur is still alive and following celebrity's erratic steps into the 21st century.