Every now and then on his pastoral sliver of Web pasture at Variety, editor emeritus Peter Bart fires off a dispatch worthy of of front-page publication in the paper he ran for 20 years. Monday was one of those days, when his attendance at the weekend's Kennedy Center Honors left him fuming at the effrontery of President and Mrs. Obama -- first-time event guests whose White House turned out "a lot frostier and less hospitable than during the Bush years." Gasp!
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Tom Ford's A Single Man is not just a great actor's showcase for Colin Firth and Julianne Moore but also for young actor Nicholas Hoult (About a Boy) who's handed a sizable part chockablock with screen heat and intelligence. Lucky for him, then, that Jamie Bell didn't want it. The Playlist pieced together that Bell is the unnamed actor who simply didn't show up to set the first day, according to Ford. Jamie, you are in for a stern talking-to from Jason Reitman. [The Playlist]
Just two months after CBS aired its final episode of Guiding Light, the Tiffany network has announced that its other Procter & Gamble-produced soap opera, As the World Turns, will end its 54-year run in September. Producers are rumored to be shopping the series, which broke several daytime barriers by depicting the first gay male character and first gay relationship, to different outlets. But a network crossover is unlikely given fledgling ratings and growing production costs, especially compared to the relatively cheap game shows that your favorite improv comedians could host. Paging Diedrich Bader!
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The Wrap today passed along word that Transylmania -- the self-distributed, R-rated vampire spoof that last Friday went up against as many as 15 films in some markets -- experienced the worst opening ever by a movie released on more than 1,000 screens. Indeed, its $263,941 gross in 1,007 theaters was a statistically unprecedented feat of futility in a way, but the worst opening ever? Worse even than last year's record-setting milestone Delgo? Almost, but not quite.
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· Would you like a Bond girl Barbie doll? Finally, when your six-year-old undresses her toys, she'll learn the proper double entendres to go with it.
· The Big Bang Theory keeps surging with no end in sight, and last Monday, the show hit its latest series high.
· Eli Roth isn't afraid to indulge in some Kleenex-abusing cybersex, mostly because Penthouse.com used to pay him to role-play on their internet chat line.
· Screenwriter John August has come out against sites like ScriptShadow, which review early, purloined copies of studio scripts.
· Richard Branson has signed up an unusual cadre of space tourists for his new SpaceShipTwo, including Bryan Singer and, well, Victoria Principal. Sure!
Audrina Patridge will return to The Hills, sayeth Us Weekly, though we expect the 24-year-old to mumble into her mojito all season about wanting to direct. MTV's patron saint of not-really-finishing-that-sentence has allegedly inked a six-figure deal to come back next season. Filming will resume after Patridge shoots the pilot for her as-yet-unnamed spinoff series, which is produced by Mark Burnett and part of a grand scheme to see what Patridge talks about with more than six minutes of screen time. My money is on Justin's lying face and Kierkegaard. [Us]
Ayman Abu Aita, an unwitting star of Brüno who found himself credited as "Terrorist group leader, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade," is suing Sacha Baron Cohen for $115 million for defamation. In an interview with the Daily Mail, Abu Aita insisted he's a simple grocer and a pacifist -- a "Christian activist who works for a charity in the territory," they report -- who had been duped by Cohen into sitting for an interview about Palestinian life at a hotel in Bethlehem. There the two talked about that subject for two hours, before Cohen veered towards the topic of Osama bin Laden.
Before Mr Abu Aita can respond, Brüno suggests he remove his moustache 'because your king Osama looks like a kind of dirty wizard or homeless Santa.'
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Focus Features president James Schamus has been on the hot seat for, oh, seemingly ever, but his greenlight of the biopic Fela -- about the legendary African musician and activist -- prompted some philosophical reflection about his 2009. "We all feel pressure to hit homers, but A Serious Man, a film that has no definable genre or business plan, is the solid double we hoped it would be, and Coraline got more Annie nominations than Up,' " Schamus told Variety. "Of course, I got my ass kicked on [Taking] Woodstock. That is going to happen, but you've got to keep making movies you believe in, at reasonable costs." Refreshing! Let's hope Comcast agrees. [Variety]
· This is the kind of news that keeps me getting out of bed every morning: Patricia Clarkson and Danny Glover are among those now cast in Brother's Keeper, a World Wrestling Entertainment-produced drama about a young man who tries to reunite his mother (Clarkson) and estranged older brother (WWE star John Cena) after the death of their wrestling-legend father. Evidently the family is healed by the saving grace of high-school wrestling. If you can't wait for the Oscar clip of Clarkson reminiscing to her younger son about his father's "special holds," then kiddo, you just got no heart. [THR]
Robert De Niro and Edward Norton get bought, Kate Bosworth tries on her producer's cap, and more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
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No matter the superhero franchise, when it comes time to make a sequel, people mainly want to know one thing: Which villains will be in it? Currently, fans are trying to crack the mystery of Spider-Man 4's bad guys; rumors and speculation had it that every actress in Hollywood was trying out for the sexy villainess Black Cat, or that Dylan Baker's Curt Connors would finally get to transform into the Lizard in this installment. Now, though, Movieline has confirmed with sources close to the film that Raimi's sequel is circling John Malkovich and Anne Hathaway to play Spider-Man's adversaries, and neither evildoer is quite what you might have expected.
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· If you've ever entered a contest to touch Paul Bellini, then you'll probably be thrilled to hear the Kids in the Hall are back, this time with an 8-part mini called Death Comes to Town that will air on CBC. So suck it, America. [Funny or Die]
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If you're an actor who's frustrated with what Hollywood gives you, there's always one good backup plan: Write your own stuff! Lately, more and more actors have begun writing scripts on the side, and today's trades had two such stories. What better time for Movieline to look at 10 actors who've managed some notable screenwriting success?
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/Film asks a perfectly valid question, and that is, what the hell is Arianna Huffington going on about on her Twitter feed today? In a mysterious and bizarre tweet last night, the HuffPo proprietress and Hellenic opinion-haver announced she was on her way to "chicago to take part in the Wachowskis' movie on iraq from the perspective of the future." Some hours later, there she was, true to her word, asking, "Do u want to know what I'll look like in 90 years?" Sure, Arianna! We'll bite! For those of you who guessed, "Like expensive jewelry buried deeply in a mound of nutrient-rich soil," you're wrong. Turns out the Arianna of 2100 looks a lot like Ivana Trump on her fourth wedding day!
One major mystery solved -- but that leaves another dangling, and that is ... what Wachowskis movie on Iraq from the "perspective of the future?!"
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Order up a deep dish pizza and draw yourself a bath. You'll need some comfort after this news: PerezHilton is reporting that after two long seasons, The Bonnie Hunt Show has been canceled. The Chicago comedienne's afternoon talk show premiered in 2008 with Robin Williams as her first guest. Since then, Bonnie Hunt was nominated for three Daytime Emmys including Outstanding Achievement in Hairstyling.
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Blink this Friday and you'll miss Russell Crowe's new film Tenderness. Actually, even if you don't blink, odds are good you'll miss it -- it's not playing anywhere but New York, on exactly one screen downtown for a week. So what exactly will you be missing anyway, at least until it trickles onto DVD sometime early next year?
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