Defamer

grant-peck-star.jpg Short Ends

Short Ends: Closure: Gregory Peck's Star Replaced

· Gregory Peck's pilfered Walk of Fame star has already been replaced, with honorary mayor Johnny Grant generously offering to look the other way should the guilt-wracked thieves decide to return it. We really don't agree with this course of action, for we've always believed that it is more important for a fake mayor to be feared than loved.
· We find ourselves in the strange position of leaping to Tara Reid's defense, but we have to say it: We're pretty sure those are the old new boobs, not new new boobs.
· Tom Cruise, amazed by the fantastical Far East talking machine known as the "cell phone," demonstrates his amazing mastery of Chinese: "Hello. Xie xie. Ni hao. How are you?" Legal clarification: By linking to this story, Defamer does not intend to suggest that Mr. Cruise "goes around talking Chinese all day to anyone who will listen."
· This rendering of a NYT-controlled Gawker is probably the most brilliant thing we have seen in years.
· Wendie Jo Sperber, star of Bosom Buddies, one of the favorite sitcoms of our youth (really—even the opening credits, set to Billy Joel's "My Life," crack us up), has died of breast cancer. There's a very nice sentiment from Tom Hanks in the story, but the best tribute he could pay would be to let someone finally air Buddies again.* More »

5:18 PM on Wed Nov 30 2005
By Mark
163 views, 2 comments

Latest by MonkeyinDiapers: Wendie Jo was a gem in films like '1941' and 'Back to the Future' (McFly's sister). Her Sherman Oaks (free) cancer support more »

nelliemckay.jpg Shows

Comparisons To Barbra Streisand Drive Nellie McKay To Nervous Breakdown

A truly gifted singer/songwriter usually can convey emotion and inner life through a few simple chords and some heartfelt vocals. Sometimes, however, it requires a little more. A reader sends in this report from last night's Nellie McKay performance: More »

4:48 PM on Wed Nov 30 2005
By Seth
347 views, 7 comments

To Do

To Do: Nellie, Anne, Lovitz

· The Week Is 60 Percent Over Music Round-Up: Red Lightning at the Knitting Factory; Nellie McKay sticks around town to play Largo; the Cribs at Spaceland.
· Anne Rice, the Queen of Literary Darkness, turns up at Vroman's in Pasadena to read and sign her new book, but there are scary rules to be observed! Warns the store's website: "Anne will sign one copy of any backlist title, paperback or hardback, and unlimited copies of Christ the Lord. She won’t sign multiple copies of old books, comic books, graphic novels, collectibles, or any other materials, like DVDs (or body parts). She will personalize with names only, no messages. No posed pictures."
· And we mention this because a nice work of charity is involved, not because of the barrage of e-mails we got virally plugging the show: The guy who bid $7,600 on eBay (the money went to the Red Cross for disaster relief efforts) to open up for Jon Lovitz will take his ten minutes of stage time tonight at the Laugh Factory.

4:10 PM on Wed Nov 30 2005
By Mark
50 views, 1 comment

Latest by MonkeyinDiapers: Wonder if Anne Rice will engrave her consecrated-to-the Lord autograph on my Jesus nail necklace? more »

googlewood.jpg Yahoo

Welcome to Googlewood


The Great Internet Giants Battle for Hollywood is upon us, pitting interactive media colossus (and Gawker content bodysnatcher) Yahoo! against the indomitable, ubiquitous search-entity Google. Yahoo! struck first, hiring former co-chairman and co-chief executive of Warner Bros. Terry Semel to guide the company through the murky jungles of show business dealings. More »

3:03 PM on Wed Nov 30 2005
By Seth
244 views, Comment

gyllenhaal-bb-preem.jpg Premieres

Defamer Premiere Report: "Brokeback Mountain" Unholstered In Westwood

Once again (and this one really stings), our fancy Hollywood premiere invitation appears to have been pilfered by the mailman, as we spent a night on the couch ignoring some Barbara Walters special instead of enjoying the open-bar-and-finger-food largesse of the Brokeback Mountain premiere in Westwood. (Yes, the untold thousands of dollars in secret studio kickbacks we've been getting for chronicling every gay cowboy-related sound-bite of the past six or so months are great, but sometimes it's nice not to feel like a discarded whore, you know?) Luckily, a Defamer operative took copious mental notes on the festivities, sharing this quite detailed report with us and somehow reducing the pain of not greedily devouring free crab cakes in the general vicinity of Lupe Ontiveros: More »

1:37 PM on Wed Nov 30 2005
By Mark
293 views, 1 comment

Latest by MonkeyinDiapers: It all sounds Tooth-ilicious. I was happy to read that Friend of Toothy, and Maggie's arm candy: Peter Sarsgaard is back more »

springfield.jpg daytime TV

Rick Springfield Returns, Housebound Women Rejoice

The world of daytime dramas is a showbusiness subculture unto itself, with its own bizarre set of rules and customs. For example: once you are cast, you stay in that part pretty much until your dying breath, and even then creative ways are often employed to get a few more shooting days out of your corpse. So when it was recently announced that exception-to-the-rule Rick Springfield would be returning to the General Hospital role that made him a star 22 years earlier, very little shuffling had to be done to pick up where Dr. Noah Drake had left off: More »

12:47 PM on Wed Nov 30 2005
By Seth
103 views, Comment

assistant-shirt.jpg Shopping

Gawker T-Shirts: Express Holiday Love Of Your Fellow Man With A Simple Purchase

The starter's pistol has been fired, signalling the start of the holiday-season retail orgy (yes, our orgies always feature gunplay) that distinguishes this great Nation from the Communist puppet regimes that once plagued Eastern Europe. More »

12:23 PM on Wed Nov 30 2005
By Mark
162 views

Trade Roundup

Trade Round-Up: Above-The-Title Piven To Wrestle Angry Forest Creatures

· Jeremy Piven is in final talks to star in an untitled New Line "man vs. nature" comedy. Get ready for it: "Piven will play a smug Portland, Ore., real estate developer who accepts a challenge from his real estate mogul boss to develop a pristine forest in the hopes of being promoted to partner. He gets more than he bargained for when the area's animal residents start taking their revenge on him and wreak havoc on his every attempt to develop the land." Piven finally gets the lead, and he has to do an angry-raccoons-attacking-uptight-suit" flick? He should fire his agent. Again. [THR]
· SATC creator Darren Star leaves behind the world of shoe-shopping and funky spunk to develop an hour-long BBC soap about Formula One racing, "an enormous sport overseas that barely exists here." Next up: Star's sassy look at the world of cricket players' wives. [Variety]
· Annals of stunt casting: Tom Selleck will guest star on Boston Legal as Candace Bergen's ex-husband. [THR]
· Shitergy alert: USA and Bravo will pay sister company NBC Universal $1.4 million an episode for cable rights to House reruns, a hefty sum that should nip in the bud any notions that the cable nets got some sort of sweetheart deal from their corporate sibling. [Variety]
· In fairness, NBC doesn't get trounced in the ratings every single night. Last night's Biggest Loser finale did big numbers, giving them their highest (non-Olympic) rating in that timeslot in four long years, prompting president Kevin Reilly to immediately demand that his Loser finalist regain their weight for a live, two-hour special "pound-off" during February sweeps. [THR]

11:47 AM on Wed Nov 30 2005
By Mark
84 views, 3 comments

Latest by moira: Yeah, but we were all waiting for Earl and The Office to come on, and we were too drunk to more »

roberts-baby.jpg Julia Roberts

Julia Roberts Retains Money Title, Agents All Over Town Reassure Also-Rans That They're Still Pretty

The Hollywood Reporter has finally unleashed its annual list of the highest-paid actresses in the business, providing us with a handy metric that helps take the guesswork out of evaluating the true worth of the big screen's fairer sex. And in an utterly unsurprising non-development, Julia Roberts once again triumphs in the only contest that truly matters: More »

10:31 AM on Wed Nov 30 2005
By Mark
350 views, 6 comments

Latest by Malis in Wonderland: Why is Renee Zellweger's $10-15 million ranked higher than Cameron Diaz's $10-15 million? more »

kevincostner.jpg Kevin Costner

Kevin Costner and the $8 Million Conversation

If your movie is set, the old adage goes, on a baseball diamond, golf course, or postapocalyptic, sea-covered Earth, then the Kevin Costner is your go-to leading man. Certainly that's what producers at Ascendant Pictures were thinking when they entered into a verbal agreement with the grouchy, divorced actor to play the "grouchy, divorced" lead in their new golf (well, at least golf-related) picture, Taming Ben Taylor. But when they called off the production, Costner got extra-grouchy: More »

9:50 AM on Wed Nov 30 2005
By Seth
154 views, 5 comments

Latest by Really, Kev?: Oh indieprod, did the big bad producers who are actually making movies feel you up and not call you back, more »

affleck-starbucks.jpg Ben Affleck

Affleck And Garner Enjoy The Starbucks Experience

NY Daily News JV gossip Lloyd Grove hears that underemployed celebrity couple Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner's much-photographed love affair with Starbucks™ brand caffeinated beverages might have a sinister, product placement component. Luckily, entertainingly grumpy superflack Ken Sunshine was available to deny Grove's report, even slipping in a public bitchslap of the paparazzi obsessed with Affleck's eggnog latte jones: More »

9:21 AM on Wed Nov 30 2005
By Mark
338 views, 4 comments

Latest by LittletoNoAppeal: They are indeed mistaken about the Starbucks deal with Affleck. But didya hear about the secret deal with K Fed more »

50girl.0.jpg 50 Cent

Multiple Bullet Wounds Hold Spoiled Jewish Girls In Rapture


We read the reports too: the $10 million New York bat mitvah that occupied two floors of the Rainbow Room, with daddy's deep pockets somehow convincing some of the biggest icons of rock to whore themselves out, "Hava Nagila"-style. We're talkin' Steve Tyler and Joe Perry, Don Henley and Joe Walsh with Stevie Nicks on vocal (!), and 50 Cent, reportedly drunk and threatening a JAP massacre if anyone snapped his picture. Blogger Tabloid Baby found one brave, enterprising guest who did: More »

8:46 AM on Wed Nov 30 2005
By Seth
3,274 views, 12 comments

Latest by EireGirl: I actually meant to say retribution, not justification. Sorry. more »

peck-stolen-star.jpg Walk Of Fame

Extra! Shadowy Thugs Boost Gregory Peck's Star! Fake Hollywood Mayor Not A Suspect!

Even after fourteen consecutive hours of intense, good-cop/bad-cop curbside interrogation ("Johnny, Johnny, I just want to help, but my partner here, he's nuts!) about actor Gregory Peck's recently stolen star on the Walk of Fame, LAPD officers couldn't squeeze a confession out of honorary Hollywood mayor Johnny Grant. After a sidelong reference to rusty pliers and fingernails, a shaken Grant did, however, admit that he occasionally spends an entire evening sitting next to Rita Hayworth's star, weeping and drinking a bottle of five-dollar wine from a paper bag.
More »

8:08 AM on Wed Nov 30 2005
By Mark
405 views, 4 comments

Latest by MonkeyinDiapers: Atleast they didn't graverob Peck's crypt from downtown's Our Lady (of the 101) Cathedral Mausoleum. more »

don.jpg Donald Trump

New "Apprentice" To Save Expensive Movers Fees For Fame-Whore Rejects

No sooner had we adjusted to the thought of a brave, new nightlife landscape where the words "Open Bar 10-11 p.m. sponsored by Trump Vodka" flowed as freely as barrel-bottom potato-vinegar from a goat-legged bottle, comes yet more Donald Trump news: the Apprentice is heading to LA. More »

4:30 PM on Tue Nov 29 2005
By Seth
98 views, 3 comments

Latest by kween of everything: I recommend they attempt to be cashiers at Kitson post-Christmas. You try telling those yentas they can't return worn Seven's more »

To Do

To Do: Haggis, Nellie, Frank

· The ArcLight hosts a screening of Crash and post-show Q & A with writer/director Paul Haggis. Watch in amazement as what at first seems like an innocuous meeting with an intense, blue-eyed man in the concession line ripples throughout the storyline of your evening, culminating in the heavy-handed master's climactic answer-session anecdote about your shared moment by the popcorn!
· Double-awesome, two-item music round-up: Precocious piano-pounder Nellie MacKay at the Troubadour; cute alliteration resistant rockers Super Furry Animals at Avalon.
· Pulitzer-winning author Frank McCourt reads from his new book about his experiences as a NYC public high school teacher, Teacher Man, at the Skirball Center.

3:50 PM on Tue Nov 29 2005
By Mark
41 views, 1 comment

Latest by Damanda: For someone who claims in all of his books that his teeth rotted out of his head by the time more »

Sightings

One Night At The Grove: Adrian Laughs At "Rent," Paris Smells Like A Stoner's Dorm Room

If we were a well-known actor or actress, we're pretty sure that we'd avoid the Grove, that little man-made substitute for an actual urban shopping experience, like the proverbial Plague. On any given night, it's overflowing with gawkers, tourists, and (perhaps most gallingly) unfamous people with ready access to e-mail accounts, and there's the ever-present danger of tripping over those damned trolley tracks and being crushed beneath a conveyance whose sole purpose is to give visitors from Japan a clearer view of The Cheesecake Factory's patio. Still, these brave celebrities risk rubbing up against the masses to partake in some retail therapy, or more frequently, to take in a flick while surrounded by people dressed as bellhops. Two readers share their amusing, Grove-based brushes with the B-list from last night: More »

2:58 PM on Tue Nov 29 2005
By Mark
511 views, 19 comments

Latest by Jackson West: If I'd grown up in NYC and gone to La Guardia like Adrian did, I'd probably guffaw over the maudlin more »

idolfox.jpg American Idol

American Idol To Taunt Us Until We Die

Here's some exciting news for fans of the sadistic exploitation of shameless, fame-hungry minors: American Idol has been renewed well into the next decade! After a nail-biting "will he or will he?" episode involving a legal dispute, ill-fitting-muscle-shirt-wearer Simon Cowell has signed on for another five seasons, with no word yet on the involvement of the show's other standbys, narcotized, differently abled clapper Paula Abdul, "A'ight" aficionado Randy Jackson, or recently crowned Carnaval Queen/Idol host Ryan Seacrest. More »

2:18 PM on Tue Nov 29 2005
By Seth
98 views, Comment

trump-poster.jpg Donald Trump

Trump: The Booze: The Poster

Our earlier lamentation about our meager Photoshop skills inspired this reader-submitted act of charity, which takes our nod to classical bacchanalia and incorporates Trump's well-publicized satyrical bent, creating a radical—yet pleasantly pastoral—branding experience unprecedented in the super premium vodka space. More »

1:01 PM on Tue Nov 29 2005
By Mark
80 views, 2 comments

Latest by mr hotpants: Wow...half Puck, half Trump...all scary, scary shit. To quote Ralph Wigam, "It tastes like burning!" more »

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