Hey -- you know what would be really bittersweet and slightly macabre? If there were some way to watch Michael Jackson putting on the comeback performance of a lifetime 48 hours before his death, only it's a dress rehearsal, so instead of cheering throngs, you just hear a stage manager going "hold for applause...hold for applause." What's that you say? There is?
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Movieline wants to wish everyone a very Happy Fourth of July Weekend. We'll not be posting tomorrow -- save for Part 5 of our Sundance Labs series -- but will be back on Monday ... with a very special surprise! (No hints, sorry.) In the meantime, we thought we'd celebrate America's birthday with something of a listy standby: a round-up of terrible, weird, and generally noteworthy performances of "The Star-Spangled Banner." We've eliminated some of the clichés from the regular rotation of greatest patriotic, ear-raping hits (sorry, Roseanne), and thrown in a couple of curveballs.
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· What would happen if Bravo's Real Housewives invaded Nintendo's Mushroom Kingdom? Ugh, for starters, they'd probably pronounce it "Marry-oh."
· Megan Fox "says some very ridiculous things" that make you roll your eyes, huffs Michael Bay. Pot, meet exploding kettle.
· This entire Quincy Jones tell-all about Michael Jackson is great ("He obviously didn't want to be black...you see his kids?"), but the most important takeaway is that Bubbles the chimp bit a hole into Rashida Jones's hand as a child.
· Gary Coleman's wife has been arrested for domestic battery.
· Why must the dreaded "Hispanic party elephants" in the apartment above Jeff Wells annoy him by rediscovering Thriller?
I hope you'll take a moment now to join Movieline in wishing Lindsay Lohan a happy 23rd birthday. You could joke it's all downhill from here, but obviously that's last year's line. Sign her virtual greeting card after the jump.
From the beer-soaked couches of Silver Lake hipster dives, to the Great Furry Happenings of New Mexico's finest fetish ranches, to the oak-walled children's playrooms on Manhattan's tony Upper East Side, not a corner of this great land of ours was left untouched by the Arcade Fire-scored trailer for Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are . As the director dabs the final touches onto his magic-hour-drenched love letter to the wonders and perils of childhood, virtually no emergent detail is too small not to pass along to you, the Wild Things-curious readers.
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A brief Movieline Attractions addendum: While four days remain for Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs to cool off, consider upgrading your box-office expectations based on a terrific $14 million opening day -- an estimated $3 million lead over the wounded Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
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· After an intense bidding war involving no fewer than four studios, Universal emerged with the coveted rights to Asteroids, Atari's thrilling story of a triangle and its mission to clear the the cosmos of flying rocks. Long considered by Hollywood's development community as the unadaptable Benjamin Button of classic video games, the property has no less a mind than G.I. Joe producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura to shepherd it to the screen; screenwriter Matthew Lopez will attempt to submit his initials as all-time high scorer. [THR]
Welcome to a special holiday-weekend version of Movieline Attractions, your regular guide to everything new, noteworthy and honoring priceless American ingenuity at the movies. But enough about Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen -- Michael Mann has a new film out, too! Also this week, a Fox franchise grows to three, a blockbuster couple reunites and a pop icon is reborn in Chile.
· Here's your first glimpse of the token everythings from the upcoming season of Big Brother. We'd keep an eye on that Braden fellow -- he's learned "extremely a lot throughout traveling around, you know, Europe by myself, China by myself," and those worldly insights could give him just the edge he needs to sit around an inflatable pool yammering on about who's going to win Head of Household for 15 interminable weeks. Also one to watch out for: Laura's gigantic left breast.
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In a stunning announcement that threatens to topple completely the already devastated global financial markets, a Jonas Brother has announced his engagement. The Jonas in question is eldest brother Kevin, 21, and the lucky lady is Danielle Deleasa, of New Jersey, whom the guitarist met in May 2007 while vacationing with his family in the Bahamas. People has the Jonas! Pure-No-Longer! Exclusive!:
[Kevin surprised Danielle] by showing up at her doorstep in New Jersey early Wednesday morning and dropping down to his knee to ask her to marry him. Presented with a cushion-cut diamond ring that Jonas designed with Jacob & Co., Deleasa couldn't believe what was happening.
The Daily Beast features a nifty Michael Mann two-fer today, but for once Kim Masters isn't the must-read of the pair (though her detailing of Mann's clashes with Johnny Depp and the rest of Hollywood for that matter are typically essential). Instead, check out who's got a sweet new gig reviewing movies for the outlet, starting with Public Enemies. He even got to see it before opening day for free! Does life get any better for Harvey Weinstein?
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Forbes has released its annual report listing Hollywood's top-earning female actresses, and in an interesting bit of happenstance, sworn nemeses Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston take the first and second spots, respectively. Had Gwyneth Paltrow come in third, we would have strongly suspected that something truly magical was up with Brad Pitt's wealth-imbuing manhood. (She didn't make the list, however a much older and more culturally sophisticated publication in Spain thinks she's tops.) Right behind them is the pleasant surprise of Meryl Streep -- who banked a tidy $24 million and whose Mamma Mia! made $603 million worldwide, which suggests to us either that the world simply cannot get enough of Streep's prodigious talents, or that Pitt's been giving it to Miranda Priestley on the side. [THR]
Having combed now through Michael Jackson's Last Will and Testament several times, we can say with some authority that the singer left nothing to any member of his beloved menagerie. Bubbles the chimp, Tootles the llama, Nibs the emu, Slightly the crocodile, Curly the peacock, "Off The Wall" the albino black bear, and The Tortoise Twins will simply have to settle for their fond memories of their doting owner, and the children visitors who'd pat them far too hard on the head on their way to the Wishing Tree Gift Shop.
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We honestly don't know how much more of this we can take -- everyone stop dying until after the long weekend. Academy Award winner Karl Malden has passed away today in his Los Angeles home at the age of 97. A member of Lee Strasberg's Group Theater in the '30s, the bulb-nosed, Czech/Serbian actor forged a professional friendship with Elia Kazan there, who would later cast him in 1951's A Streetcar Named Desire (for which he won his Best Supporting Actor Oscar playing Stanley Kowalski's best friend, Mitch) and 1954's On the Waterfront (also nominated, but didn't win). In the '70s, he'd star with Michael Douglas in The Streets of San Francisco (best title sequence ever), and became the foreboding face of your worst European-vacation-theft nightmares as the American Express Travelers Cheques pitchman.
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· The way people live in Spain is much better than in the United States, claims the incredibly wealthy Gwyneth Paltrow, who has not lived like a normal person ever. Duly noted!
· After turning down most of the roles The CW has offered her (including the lead on 90210), Hilary Duff has signed on to a four-episode arc on Gossip Girl.
· Hey, it's the umpteenth bit of viral marketing for Funny People! This one is a stand-up set by "Raaaaandy," Aziz Ansari's loud Dane Cook-alike. We're guessing it's supposed to be not funny.
· Is Max Weinberg leaving The Tonight Show? Yes! Wait, no!
· Mischa Barton and a friend were barred from attempting to enter a nightclub's bathroom stall together, says a British tabloid, which dutifully reports that Barton then spent a long amount of time in the stall by herself and emerged looking "worse for wear." I think we all know what's being implied here: Mischa Barton loves friends!
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