Nikki Finke brings news that after Nicolas Cage bailed out of negotiations to play the villain in The Green Hornet, Inglourious Basterds baddie Christoph Waltz will be filling the role. Does he have a twin brother he can add to the cast of The Green Lantern for maximum confusion? [Deadline.com]
1. (PROUD) It's Time to Start the Music
Lady Gaga looks no further than her own Muppet-slaying wardrobe when selecting a date for last night's Video Music Awards, one Mr. Kermit the Frog. On the red carpet outside Radio City Music Hall, she woos Kermit with a red-light-district pterodactyl costume. This is because she's Lady Gaga, and that's one of her five settings.
2. (UGLY) Take a Bow. Please.
Madonna opens the ceremony with a speech about Michael Jackson, comparing his lost childhood to the death of her mother when she was six, or something. Narcissism: the one constant in Madonna's career of reinvention. She adds, "Blanket Jackson's childhood was ruined by the death of his father. My daughter Lourdes's childhood was ruined by untamed Spanish eyebrows."
· All is relatively quiet on the TIFF sales front, but that doesn't mean an avalanche of acquisitions couldn't crush us all at any minute. Variety names Cracks, Get Low, The Joneses, Harry Brown, Solitary Man, The Loved Ones, I Am Love and Chloe as the belles of the ball. The Reporter also mentions Lebanon and A Single Man. (Several of those were already called out by our top TIFF oddsmaker S.T.) To that list I'd add the British film The Disappearance of Alice Creed, a fiendishly entertaining little three-person/one-set crime puzzler that could have some nice commercial potential. [Variety]
Redford's first movie since 2007, Jeffrey Dean Morgan saves small town America, and Eric McCormack cons us all, as Hollywood Ink continues after the jump.
Michael Bay exercised his technical prowess on a relatively small scale over the weekend, digitally removing an infamous, anonymous, Megan Fox-hating letter from his "crew" that had shown up on his blog. "I don't condone the crew letter to Megan," Bay wrote in separate post. "And I don't condone Megan's outlandish quotes. But her crazy quips are part of her crazy charm. The fact of the matter I still love working with her, and I know we still get along. I even expect more crazy quotes from her on Transformers 3." Yay? [MichaelBay.com]
At the VMAs tonight, the audience was shocked when Kanye West stormed the stage to interrupt Taylor Swift's acceptance speech for Best Female Video, claiming that Beyoncé deserved the honor for her iconic "Single Ladies" video. (Which: true!) Still, West's meltdown shouldn't have been so surprising, as he's amassed quite the collection of interruptions and televised hissy fits during his career. We've got videos of the best ones (including tonight's) after the jump:
September might still be regarded as a box office dead zone, but four new entries clogged the marketplace this week. (Hey, anything that might siphon screens away from All About Steve is fine by us.) So how did Tyler Perry's latest fare against an animated apocalypse and two female-driven thrillers? Let's find out:
For the sixth time in eight tries, cross-dressing mogul Tyler Perry is on track for a number-one opening at the box office. His I Can Do Bad All By Myself coaxed a terrific $8.6 million from moviegoers on Friday, outgunning second-place finisher 9 by more than double. The week's horror tandem of Sorority Row and Whiteout underperformed in third and sixth places respectively; they were separated by Inglourious Basterds (which will have just cracked $100 million at press time) and All About Steve. Poor, poor Sacramento. Click through for Friday's complete top 10.
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· The rigors of promoting your series! In exchange for peddling The Beautiful Life, the ladies at The View forced Mischa Barton to explain why she was placed under an involuntary psychiatric hold this summer. The explanation was still unclear after three minutes of monotone rambling...meltdown, feel like you're going to die, botched surgery, rock bottom, wisdom teeth, etc. Even the lust-reenergized Sherri Shepherd checked out halfway through to text new boo Russell Brand. The clip, after the jump:
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Waiting for Week in Review or Comments of the Week? Hey, our week's not over -- we've got plans to keep blogging, posting, interviewing, and reviewing all weekend from the Toronto Film Festival. Come join us! You wouldn't want to see your potential Comments Crown fall to a witty influx of Saturday web surfers, would you?
While the nation is divided over whether they approve of Ellen DeGeneres joining American Idol next season, we can find solace in the fact that the celebrities are amazingly unanimous in their support for the talk show host's foray into competitive singing programming. Sure she has no musical experience aside from boogying down the aisles of her studio to unlicensed tunes, but maybe it is time for America to unite and follow the leads of these A, B and C-listers.
Larry Gelbart, the legendary, Oscar-nominated writer behind Tootsie, Oh, God!, and the first four seasons of M*A*S*H*, died today at his home in Beverly Hills. Gelbart also won a Tony in 1963 for co-authoring the smash musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum with Burt Shevelove and Stephen Sondheim. In 1997 he released a memoir, Laughing Matters: On Writing MASH, Tootsie, Oh, God!, and a Few Other Funny Things. Before his death, he contributed as a blogger for The Huffington Post. [Los Angeles Times]
· The new Where the Wild Things Are posters feature one adorable character apiece, and they look incredible. Which is more fun: the beautiful stills, or the fact that Max is played by a kid named Max? Giggles.
· George Clooney's obsessed gay fan might have gotten the wrong idea from two meddling tricksters: Matt Damon and Brad Pitt. I mean, not that George Clooney is the pranking, payback sort.
· Katherine Heigl and husband Josh Kelley are adopting a Korean baby named Nayleigh, they've announced.
· Most critics agree Heroes needs a return to form. Now NBC does too.
· La Toya Jackson says fans need not worry about the burial of her brother Michael. His burial outfit included a Mike Tyson belt and Barbara Billingsley pearls, just as they requested.
When one desk closes, another desk opens, goes the old saw. We doubt anyone will be making a strangely-cast film about Conan O'Brien's move to 11:35 PM, but there will be tons of behind-the-scenes drama, as network affiliates across America sit on their hands and hope that the Cone Zone holds up local news ratings numbers while still trying to offend a decent amount of Americans. To paraphrase a bit that should reappear on the new incarnation: 'The future, Conan?' No one knows what is going to happen, but it should be funnier than what happened the last 17 years.
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The Jay Leno Show has been clouded by skepticism, industry disses, fancy-car talk and desk controversy since the moment NBC's fall schedule was announced. But on the weekday eve of the hotly anticipated premiere, what can we really expect from the former Tonight Show's denim deity on Monday night? Guests at Leno's test-taping have the answers.
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America's fascination with vampires won't be waning anytime soon, to judge by last night's Vampire Diaries numbers. CW's gamble on the pop culture trend paid off last night when the network's vampire venture became the network's most-watched series premiere -- ever. How big was it?
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