I know, I know: There's something inherently gross about showing up to today's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince junket in New York and discussing sexual tension with Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson. But as the series' sixth film rolls out next week, and the young wizard and his best friends admittedly reel from nearly a decade's worth of hormones right there on screen... I mean, come on. What else were we supposed to talk about?
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If the media frenzy over Tuesday's golden ticket holders weren't enough Willy Wonka weirdness for one week, now comes word of this fatal, Gloopian accident: At Cocoa Services Inc., a New Jersey chocolate factory where Hershey bars are producers, a 29-year-old employee tumbled into a melting vat and was killed by a mixing blade. [CNN via /Film]
· The first pictures have been released from Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, Whip It! Kristen Wiig with eye makeup, wearing roller skates? Sure!
· Also, the title of Michael Moore's new documentary has finally been decided upon revealed: Capitalism, A Love Story. Can we pipe in some ADR'd applause, please?
· His mourners may not have known Michael Jackson intimately, but this camera sure did.
· Speaking of things that are NSFW: Mary-Louise Parker did a topless photoshoot for Esquire.
· How did producers whip Brüno's cage fight audience into a frenzy? (Well, before the whole "making out with guys" thing.) One-dollar beers!
I don't know about you, but if I worked out for THREE HOURS A DAY, I would probably eat ice cream for dinner, because why not? Gwyneth Paltrow, on the other hand, trains exactly that hard with the woman who sculpted Madonna's terrifying arms and with whom she is opening a gym, yet she still devoted her latest GOOP newsletter to a detox cleanse she had to take to drop unwanted pounds.
Gwyneth Paltrow is a 36-year-old Oscar winner. She does not know she will soon face a Movieline intervention.
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The Australian moviegoing public has asserted itself as the first to welcome Brüno to theaters, dropping $1.4 million on its opening day -- the country's best-ever opening for any comedy not named Meet the Fockers or Sex and the City. Sadly, one of Austria's other, less flamboyant ambassadors is not celebrating Sacha Baron Cohen's accomplishment, as if the star calling Austria a great place to "have a job, find a dungeon and raise a family there" is a bad thing. Naturally, Brüno himself had a good cry over the controversy this morning on Today; the video follows the jump.
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Alec Baldwin has pledged to retire from acting at the "the 30 Rock wrap party," he recently told Playboy, in the very same interview where he dangled prospects of running against party turncoat and general Jewish Disappointment™ Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut Senate race. And that would be perfectly lovely: We'd like nothing more than to turn on CNN and see Baldwin in a Griswold diner surrounded by locals proudly wearing "I ♥ A SMART ALEC" buttons, to whom he imparts nuggets of folksy, Donaghy-esque wisdom, like, "America, I would like to teach you something. I would like to be Michelle Pfeiffer to your angry black kid who learns that poetry is just another way to rap."
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Quentin Tarantino yesterday cleared up some of the confusion around the elastic running time of Inglorious Basterds, telling Variety's Michael Fleming that his finished version of the film is actually one minute longer than the tuchus-testing epic that screened last May at Cannes. Still, the director notes, he made some hard decisions in the editing room that required consolation -- most of which comes from looking forward to a prequel. That extra footage has to go somewhere, right?
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A new photo from the set of Jennifer's Body found its way online last night, adding another, thinner layer to the week's blistering trailer hype. What we've lost in sultry B-horror camp we've gained in hilarious Z-horror cheese, about a step removed from the over-the-counter prosthetics one might impulsively nab from Albertson's on Oct. 30. And of course, like virtually everything else Megan Fox touches, you won't wear it half as well. Jump ahead for the full-size pic.
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· After expertly sailing through her Michael Jackson-memorial audition on Tuesday, 10-year big-screen absentee Brooke Shields will return to work in the family comedy Furry Vengeance. The Summit Entertainment/Participant Media co-production features Shields as the wife of Brendan Fraser's greedy real estate developer, whose run-in with a group of wild raccoons leads to infidelity, murder and... wait. Wrong raccoons vs. humans movie. Either way, Brooke, welcome back! [THR]
Will Smith awaits a reunion, the Smurfs get a director, and much more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
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· This Today Show report that Betty White was buried at Forest Lawn surely must have come as some surprise to, well, Betty White.
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Breakouts cannot be chosen; rather, they choose us. Who could have known as we approached this summer that the real stars would not be stalwarts like Will Ferrell but instead Skids the Racist Transformer, Zach Galifianakis, and now, This Very Intense-Looking Singer from the Michael Jackson Memorial? Fortunately, the mysterious man (who began the "We Are the World" verse during the service) has been identified!
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The indie comedy Humpday broke out last January at Sundance, charming the Holy Park City Trinity of viewers, critics and distributors with its tale of two old pals planning to make an amateur gay sex tape. The problem: They're straight. It was great premise well-executed by filmmaker Lynn Shelton and her cast (two of whom you we introduced you to this week), and Magnolia Pictures plotted a clever, months-long campaign (including an aborted video-on-demand preview) to sustain the hype ahead of this weekend's limited opening opposite Brüno. A glimpse at the release schedule, however, reveals what might look like a fairly significant oversight: Humpday is skipping Los Angeles.
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· ONLY the new issue of Us Weekly has these EXCLUSIVE, humiliating photo outtakes of Robert Pattinson. MUST CREDIT US WEEKLY!
· Sure, Brüno may have borrowed a few things from Borat, but how many jokes did Brüno steal from Brüno himself?
· Kate Winslet on topless verisimilitude: "If people are noticing my boobs in a movie and saying they do what real boobs do, then that's great."
· Pro Tip: Don't invite Barbara Walters to your funeral.
· Hey, the first eight minutes of The Hurt Locker! We mean it this time.
Perhaps seeking to build a slightly more family-friendly brand of toy-based blockbuster than the wrecking-ball-betesticled, deadly-whorebot-laden one that's currently dominating the box office, DreamWorks is in negotiations with Mattel to buy the film rights to the View-Master -- everyone's favorite childhood slide-viewer -- and has convinced Transformers writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci to come on board to produce the project. In an admiring nod to the kind of brave, out-of-the-box thinking necessary to go searching for a potential movie franchise in something as unconventional as a chunky red photo-viewing toy, Movieline is posting a recreation of the moment that led the mavericks at DreamWorks to chase their View-Master muse.
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In spite of the ticketing fiasco and Kobe Bryant's unabashed teleprompter reading, Michael Jackson's Memorial raised the bar for all future Superstar Funerals. It was a beautiful ceremony watched by approximately 1 billion people and streamed by millions more, complete with celebrity eulogies, Jermaine's heartbreaking rendition of Michael's favorite song and a very touching declaration of love by Michael's only daughter, Paris. But how does it compare to other superstar funerals?
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