· As you may have guessed from her Precious non-campaign-campaign or her uncomfortably flirtatious sit-down with Craig Ferguson, Mo'Nique does not bore anyone with industry conversation. The BET late night host asks questions that her audience cares about like "Would you date a brother if he was the manager of Burger King?" (But wait, he's also a great conversationalist and has health benefits!) Even grittier revelations occurred last week during an interview with Vivica A. Fox, in which the actress smudged her mascara when discussing her break-up and eventual forgiveness of 50 Cent a.k.a. Curtis Jackson.
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Ahead of tonight's premiere, Bachelor host Chris Harrison has confirmed the rumors about a female contestant who hooked up with a crew member. Poor Jake Pavelka. Harrison defended his honor by responding to the scandal like it was, you know, Watergate. "It was incredibly unfortunate. Horrible decisions were made... It was embarrassing for us and in fairness to Jake and for the other women, [we said], 'Let's nip this in the bud and take care of it.' And that's what we did." [People]
· You see the cheese on this pizza slice that Michael Cera is sharing with Jersey Shore's JWoww? He grated it on his Situation-like abs. No, not really.
· John Hillcoat's next movie, meant to star Ryan Gosling and Shia LaBeouf, has fallen apart.
· Almost as startling as Susan Sarandon's breakup with Tim Robbins: the apparent revelation that Robbins donated money to notorious arch-conservative Michele Bachmann.
· Casting! Kim Raver's become a full-blown regular on Grey's Anatomy, while axed Dexter alumna Julie Benz is heading to Desperate Housewives.
Fox commentator Brit Hume finally addressed the whole "Tiger Woods: Buddhist" issue sitting in the room like a 500 lb., big-bellied false deity, urging the disgraced golfer and Vanity Fair cover beefcake on Fox News yesterday to renounce Buddhism -- which he described as not offering the "kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith" -- in favor of the far more redemptive and philanderer-friendly Christianity. "Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world," he said with a missionary's zeal (the speech works even better if you play Ennio Morricone under it and imagine Hume tumbling from Iguazu Falls tied to a bag of golf clubs). As a rare, appalled silence swept across the Fox News studios, it fell to fellow panelist Bill Kristol to penetrate the vacuum, a feat he deftly managed by labeling Hume's intentions "admirable," before swiftly dumping that hot potato and predicting that the Resurrection would come with a win at the Masters.
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It's a new decade and a new era for Ari Emanuel: His brother's in the White House, his agency swallowed William Morris in one gulp, and the sky is the limit for the '10s. As such, he's wasted no time in cutting his first throat of the year -- yet it doesn't belong to who you might think.
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I spent some of the long weekend reading Star, Peter Biskind's biography of Hollywood's preeminent fuck machine, Warren Beatty. It begins with a chapter titled "Warrenology: An Introduction," which addresses the many times legend and journalist crossed paths throughout the years. Admitting he had never believed in "vaporous concepts like 'charisma'" until he met Beatty, Biskind had pitched him on a biography as far back as Dick Tracy, which he was covering for Premiere in 1989. He paints Beatty as a master manipulator, who'd flatly say no, then suggest yes (he "wanted his children to be able to read something that gave him his due as a filmmaker," Biskind writes), then disappear for months, then materialize for interviews in which he revealed absolutely nothing. By the end of the chapter, I was no closer to a degree in Warrenology than when I'd began, nor did I have a clear answer on whether or not Beatty had authorized the one in my hands.
And if we're to believe his lawyer, Bert Fields, he didn't.
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After Neil Patrick Harris ceded the last twelve hours to Kevin Smith (on account of the former's sleeping, no doubt), the actor awakened to find himself the victim of a Smith-spurred feud. Swiftly, Harris admitted fault for his two-year-old slap at Smith muse Jason Mewes: "Didn't realize the upset my words caused. Looked back at what you said, and I concur. Ignorance on my part. Apologies." [Twitter]
Pity poor Mischa Wynhausen, a 31-year-old who agreed to plead guilty to uploading the 2008 Mike Myers bomb to the Web the day before it opened in theaters. He'll serve three years' probation as part of the deal -- which beats the six months in prison that another Guru pirate, Jack Yates, got after obstructing an FBI investigation into the film's leak two summers ago. And yet Myers somehow roams free. Justice delayed, etc... [THR Esq.]
2009 may not have been good for much, but it was definitely all-surpassing when it came to celebrity feuds. Whether it was Jamie Foxx vs. Miley Cyrus, Seth Rogen vs. Entourage creator Doug Ellin, or Kiefer Sutherland's head vs. Jack McCullough, it seemed that everywhere you looked, someone was using his power, fame, and influence to take down someone else's. Can 2010 compare? It can, if Kevin Smith has something to say about it -- and he does, about Neil Patrick Harris.
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No sooner had I chosen last year's shrill crusade to vilify and/or criminalize smokers in movies as one of my favorite (read: most abjectly infuriating) stories of 2009, one of the movement's lead creeps navigated his way to more attention in the New York Times. How? How else? By dissing Avatar's cigarette usage.
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· Happy New Year, dear reader! Nothing has changed: Not long after finally closing its pricey deal to buy Marvel Comics, Disney went ahead and threw some additional cash at Stan Lee's POW! Entertainment. The studio has had a first-look arrangement with the legendary comic-book creator's company since 2007; the new, $2.5 million pact gives Disney a 10-percent stake in POW!, which entitles it to consulting services and "enhanced rights" to Lee's properties. No one at either office specified exactly what "enhanced rights" means, though that pale look its associates get these when you joke about their first-born children may be all the specifics you need. [THR]
The Orphanage gets an overseer, the industry follows its biggest year ever with more whining, and more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
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It's 2010. Things are so much different from how we predicted they might turn out back in 1984 -- a spacefaring future populated by pugnacious Russian cosmonauts resembling Helen Mirren with a permmullet. Back then, the most satisfying narrative experience to come out of a computer was Zork III: The Dungeon Master. Today, it's Avatar, which cast an ominous shadow upon challengers this weekend as it flapped across the billion-dollar mark. Who will tame the mighty Avatar?
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Gather round Hometree, everybody! We've got a special announcement. The Friday box office was a bountiful harvest for two of our most important dreamwalkers: Jamesca'meron, whose Avatar crossed the $300 million mark with no signs of slowing, and Sa'ndrabullock, who saw The Blind Side pass $200 million (and it's still in the Top 5). Surely, their Na'vi tentacle things are plugged directly into the American populace. Here are the full figures:
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Some of my favorite stories of the year have already been covered in our other year-end wrapups, whether they be lists, videos, or interviews (and truth be told, I've had such a pleasure doing interviews for Movieline that I could easily make post after post about the ones I liked best). At this point, then, when picking out my 6 favorite stories, I'm selecting a random sampling of standouts that hopefully gives a bigger picture of just how eclectic -- and continually rewarding -- Movieline's output can be.
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