The end of another week at Movieline brings warm memories of Oscars, friendly interviews, old friends, celebrity hoarders, jet-pilot polar bears and a dazzling, dizzying panoply of other phenomena worth your consideration. Find them gathered here, and may reminiscence be as rewarding to you as bleary-eyed aggregation was to us. Have a wonderful weekend!
· Anne Hathaway "reveals all" for British GQ. (And full credit goes to Skinemax for that headline.) [GQ UK]
· Cable shuffle: Ryan O'Hara is out as president of TV Guide Network, Andrea Wong out at Lifetime. [Wrap, Deadline]
· FlashForward will have a new showrunner when it returns in March for its inevitable cancellation. Henry Winkler, meanwhile, will join Royal Pains, playing Mark Feuerstein and Paulo Costanzo's dad. Hopefully they won't de-Semitify him. [Live Feed, Live Feed]
· In his first interview since FriedChickenGate, ?uestlove feels a little bad about posting the questionable NBC Black History Month menu to his Twitter. [PopEater]
· Patrick Swayze, Joe Pesci, Mark Hamill, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Sylvester Stallone, The Rock, Matthew McConaughey. All were considered. But who got the part? [MTV]
This week's Commenters of the Week don't need to fish through Lindsay Lohan's piles of tampons, unopened DVDs, and vodka-powered time machines to get the degree in Stripperology they've always needed. We'll gladly hand it to them, free of charge/disease! The recent revelation that the Mean Girls star is a hoarder should surprise no one, but her carelessness with such a fine certificate in straddling the tip bar is a shame for the ages. So, who wins the diploma?
We've given you a day to compose yourself after the truly mind-bending reveal that was James Cameron's sexy cowgirl music video starring his ex-wife (and current Best Director competition) Kathryn Bigelow, filmed for Bill Paxton's short-lived band Martini Ranch. Now, it's time to make the case that this is the ur-text from which all of Cameron's inspiration springs. Don't believe us? Take a look at the plentiful Cameron trademarks and motifs you can find all over "Reach":
· Bif Bang Pow has released its new Lost toy prototypes. Watch out, Toy John Locke: Toy Smoke Monster wants to get all up in your plastic.
· Kristen Stewart may have hoped for some anonymity when she went in for jury duty, but TMZ's got all the details of exactly how her trial went.
· Curious about Patton Oswalt's upcoming endeavors?
· Parks and Recreation is still the ratings slacker in NBC's Thursday night lineup, but at least it hit a season high last night.
· Who needs Punxsutawney Phil when Amanda Seyfried's breasts are still more than capable of predicting the weather? We'd ask her Dear John costar Channing Tatum what his own anatomy can predict, but we know he's still recovering.
Remember back in the fall when TLC fired Jon Gosselin from Jon & Kate Plus Eight and Gosselin retaliated by shutting down production, citing child exploitation? And then TLC retaliated by suing Gosselin for breach of contract? Well, now it seems as though the Ed Hardy has fully seeped into Gosselin's blood stream because he is offering to return his kids to the cameras if TLC drops their charges. [Radar]
It's time once again for Say Whaaaa?, your convenient digest to the week's most confounding, brain-wrenching and/or cringeworthy cultural highlights. Your mileage may vary with the absurdities listed below, in which case your explanations -- and your alternatives -- are always more than welcome. For now, however, welcome back the Say Whaaaa? Singers for a lightning-round of recent WTF highs and lows.
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The Oscar chatter this season is all about James Cameron vs. his also-nominated ex-wife, Kathryn Bigelow, but over in the UK, one of Cameron's other exes is talking her way back into the picture. That'd be Linda Hamilton, who just stone-cold goes off on Cameron in a long, candid interview with the Daily Mail. Normally, we caution skepticism when linking to a British tabloid -- especially once that quotes Hamilton using the very British term "rubbish," ahem -- but this is a pretty comprehensive read. Just one complaint: where's the section where she finally explains Cameron's Martini Ranch music video? [Daily Mail]
The world isn't fair, but it's pretty freaking hilarious. How else to explain the ongoing distribution limbo of such excellent Sundance entries as Animal Kingdom, The Imperialists are Still Alive! and Lovers of Hate while a surefire qualifier for the most abysmal film ever made -- the abject Hitchcock rip-off Birdemic: Shock and Terror -- was this morning reported to have found a buyer? You might remember James Nguyen's screechy feature debut as our resident bad-movie guru's pick for the ultimate cinematic expression of the Crapocalypse. Now, after an eternity held over by Birdemic's desperately weird YouTube teaser, we're finally getting a behind-the-scenes look at the goods. Well, maybe not "goods," but you get the idea.
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Less than a week after claiming an editing award at Sundance, the candid documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work landed a theatrical buyer in IFC Films. Directors Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg followed the tireless comedienne for months, assembling a glimpse at the grueling regimens and routines that built one of this era's great comedy careers. Celebrity roasts, Sacramento morning show appearances... you name it. A release date hasn't yet been set, but trust you'll hear more here once it is. [THR]
· It's only Feb. 5, but good luck topping this casting rumor for the rest of 2010: Russell Crowe is reportedly a front-runner to co-star in Warner Bros.' planned remake of A Star is Born, in which he'd play an alcoholic mentor/love interest to an up-and-coming singer played by... Beyoncé Knowles. There are any number of ways to react to this news, but I'm really just hoping this film will finally revive the trend pairing Aussie leading men with American R&B icons that has lain dormant since Mel Gibson and Tina Turner sizzled together in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. It's time. [LAT]
Another big casting saga unfolds with Brad Pitt and/or Ryan Reynolds, Sony enters the Terminator sweepstakes, and more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
Welcome back to Movieline Attractions, your regular guide to everything new, noteworthy and/or distracting you from Super Bowl weekend. This week, slim pickings belie an outside shot at a box-office milestone, while one of the year's most ambitious efforts to date arrives on US shores for your review. Read on for a look at these and everything else happening this February weekend at a theater near you.
· How closely did Lost's original plane crash adhere to the flash-sideways recreation on Tuesday's season premiere? Pretty darned close, save perhaps for the length of Jack's buzz cut, and the speed at which Doc says, "Roads? Where we're going we don't need...roads." [YouTube via The Daily What]
Daria, MTV's Beavis and Butthead spinoff with a combat-booted, utterly sardonic teenage girl as its heroine, is finally coming to DVD this year, says a new trailer from MTV. The show went on for five seasons and finally wrapped in 2002. The packaging will include at least some of Daria's use of popular music. This also means we get to see all the snippets of Daria Morgendorffer's favorite show Sick Sad World in one place! You never have to search TLC's reality series for sick, sad worlds again. [MTV]
The activists at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have long had it out for Hollywood and its animal trainers, which made the organization's recent endorsement of Avatar for employing only CGI beasts something of a foregone conclusion. In a statement that also likened the "catlike" Na'vi culture to that of animals forced into unnatural lives away from their homes and families, PETA said it "applauds the movie's stunning special effects, which beautifully illustrate how unnecessary it is to subject animals to the stress of a film production." Touching, right? Would that it were true.
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