As it turns out, the January Jones hit and run wasn't as scandalous as it initially appeared. Heck, it wasn't even a hit and run. Said LAPD officer April Harding: "It wasn't a hit and run. She wasn't under the influence and she wasn't arrested. She was being followed by paparazzi and as she was trying to elude them, she struck two cars. She wasn't under the influence of any drugs. No crime was committed and she wasn't arrested." Well, case closed. Still if you want to have some fun at Jones' expense, TMZ has created "The January Jones Driving Game" with a special appearance from Bobby Flay. Good luck! [US Weekly, TMZ]
With The Karate Kid and The A-Team one-two at the box office, clearly originality has gone out the window. And so maybe remaking The Wizard of Oz isn't such a bad idea after all. Besides, eventually everything gets the reboot treatment, right guys? (Citizen Kane you're on notice!) And yet, does anyone really need to see four different versions of The Wizard of Oz -- and two from Warner Brothers alone? Well, too bad! They're happening anyway. Since you can't tell a player without a scorecard, after the jump Movieline helps you parse through the four Oz projects. Follow the yellowbrick road...
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Prepare to cover your eyes out of sheer awkwardness. In a marriage so obvious that it probably should have happened sooner, Ricky Gervais will appear with Larry David on the eighth -- and New York set -- season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Of course there are no details what he'll actually do on the show -- beyond the aforementioned awkwardness -- but supposedly Gervais will show up for a single episode late in the season. Pretty good, etc. [THR/The Live Feed]
Sweep the leg! For the first time this summer a movie actually exceeded expectations at the box office. The Karate Kid -- which tracking had opening in the highs 20s/low 30s range -- grossed $19 million on Friday alone and could wind up with upwards of $52 million by Sunday night. Will Smith is so famous that even his kid can front a blockbuster. The other '80s nostalgia piece of the weekend, The A-Team, detonated $9.5 million on Friday and should hit just under $27 million for the three days, good for second place. Is that disappointing? Slightly. But not really considering expectations were in that range. Let's just say the plan sorta came together and leave it at that. The top-five after the jump.
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It might seem like a miracle that there's any news to collect here at all, but you'd be surprised what even the most stultifying week in the history of modern pop culture can yield. We do it all for you, Dear Reader. Anyway, it's Friday, so enough already. Drop by this weekend to catch up with Christopher Rosen, and the rest of team ML will see you Monday. Bye! [Presses eject, is shot into space.]
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· The answer, alas, is something other than "Hot Diggity!" But the question is in the ballpark. Clip after the jump. [YouTube]
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A little carnage to start off your weekend? Our Commenters of the Week win the chance to see January Jones in her element -- destroying cars and remaining unconcerned. You'll be doing it up old-school, playing her in the original Playstation version of Twisted Metal 2 and attempting to defeat her the way Bobbie Barrett never could. Jones has dibs on Thumper, the dainty Betty Draper vehicle of choice, but otherwise you're free to blow her up with a rocket launcher under the Eiffel Tower. So, who gets to play?
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So, it appears that Jodie Foster got in a little bit of an altercation last month at the parking lot of The Grove (though in fairness, I want to punch people when I'm there, too). According to Radar Online, a 17-year-old boy was photographing the star and her two children when Foster poked him in the chest and grabbed his arm. Foster says the teen was actually an aggressive paparzzo. A teenage paparazzo? Who'd ever believe such a thing! Yes, yes, it's a weird story, and here's one more weird detail.
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It took a whole week, but there's finally something truly remarkable to write about. Word broke earlier that Mad Men star January Jones hit three parked cars with her Range Rover on Thursday night and fled the accident -- only to return later and claim that she was being chased by paparazzi. Well, now get out your best plot thickeners. TMZ reports that following the accident, Jones called Bobby Flay -- whom she had just met that night -- and the celebrity chef told her to head home. Because, of course Bobby Flay would be the Peggy Olson in this scenario. And according to a "witness at the scene," Jones had alcohol on her breath, and was seen chewing gum upon returning to the accident site. See what happens when you break up with Don Draper? Developing... [TMZ]
While performing a surprise concert with Jack White in Nashville last night, Conan O'Brien announced his plan to release a vinyl album of rockabilly hits. The 300 fans who packed into White's Third Man Records heard a sneak peak of the recording, which will include covers of Eddie Cochran's "Twenty Flight Rock," Elvis Presley's "Blue Moon," The Stray Cats' "Rock This Town" and Radiohead's "Creep." A fan in the audience posted video from the night here. [Yahoo!]
As we head into the latter half of 2010, there are two documentaries from Sundance that are guaranteed to make a splash, including one that I still think is one of the best films of the year. One the one hand, you have Catfish, the pseudo-doc coming out September 17 that was the talk of the festival (though not always for the right reasons). The month before, on August 20, The Weinstein Company will roll out Amir Bar-Lev's gripping The Tillman Story. For my money, that's the must-see of the season, and Movieline is pleased to premiere the film's new theatrical poster.
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It looks like Sony may have taken a few of our suggestions for casting the Spider-Man reboot, as two new names have been thrown into the mix. According to the LAT, both Aaron Johnson (Kick-Ass) and Anton Yelchin (Star Trek) have squeezed onto the short list assembled by director Marc Webb. The irony? When Movieline last spoke to Johnson about assuming the role, he was decidedly uninterested.
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· Here's the poster for Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, featuring Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning lounging poolside at the Chateau Marmont. If only that were my office right now. Click for bigger.
· John Goodman has lost some weight. Good job, John Goodman!
· Steven Soderbergh's Gina Carano fight film Knockout has been renamed Haywire, and Sasha Grey has seen it.
· Why did Winter's Bone star Jennifer Lawrence do that swimsuit spread for Esquire? "Anybody that knows the business knows that I have to do that," she told Vulture. "My biggest fear is being typecast...Winter's Bone is a movie that doesn't have a single sexual bone in its body, and so it made sense to do something that was the opposite of that, to do something that was sexy."
· James Franco can barely recount his General Hospital plot to TV Squad without laughing. It's more than a little adorable.
Megan Fox would like to explain herself for being the most terrifically quotable woman in Hollywood. "In the past, I've been reluctant to share any bits of truth about myself or to really let people in on my reality," Fox told questioner Zach Galifianakis (?!) in the new issue of Interview. "So I have said some things to throw people off the scent of what's really going on in my life. So I have sort of aided the media in printing these misconceptions, which I regret." See guys? She's not crazy! Just crazy like a...well, you know. [ONTD]
Somewhere along the line, low-life "financier" David Bergstein and Co. managed an exclusive negotiating window with Disney for the chance to buy the Miramax library. Not so fast, say the WGA, DGA and SAG, all of whom remain creditors in involuntary bankruptcy claims against several of Bergstein's other properties. Tack on another 600 films' worth of residuals they may or may not ever receive, and you can see the problem here. Disney says it's unaware of any opposition expressed or implied, but, you know. Let's just nudge this back to the Weinsteins and be done with it already. [NYT]
