This morning, we received the rarest of gifts: a genuinely candid interview with a celebrity. Noah Galvin, the 22-year-old star of the ABC sitcom The Real O’Neals, spoke with E. Alex Jung of New York’s entertainment vertical Vulture about being a young, out gay actor in Hollywood. The story was headlined “Noah Galvin Has Nothing to Hide,” which turned out to be very much untrue.
If Amy Berg's documentary An Open Secret eventually finds the distribution that is currently eluding it, it's going to mean more problems for director Bryan Singer, who earlier this year was accused of repeatedly drugging, threatening and forcibly sodomizing a minor in a lawsuit. It could mean problems, in fact, for a whole lot of people in Hollywood. Our awareness of the exploitation of minors by powerful men is just the tip of an iceberg, according to Anne Henry of the non-profit BizParentz.
Michael Egan III and his mother take questions from the media during a news conference on Monday. Egan, who previously accused X-Men director Bryan Singer of sexually abusing him when he was a teen, has sued former TV programming executive Garth Ancier, accusing him of abuse when Egan was 17. Image via Nick Ut/AP.
It is, it really is! Also today: Matt Damon makes more plans to head behind the camera, a recent literary hit goes to TV, and something about Dallas.
You can thank Glee for that. Also today: a new time travel movie is confusing, we need a farm boy to go kill a giant, a TV adaptation gets its leads, and an Ugly Betty favorite makes good.
It's been far too long since MGM was on the defensive over Valkyrie, the campaign for which uncomfortably started in its own office lobby but has since found decent enough traction in theaters and on TV. So! Right on cue, and apparently just for old time's sake, a high-ranking New York film critic has found something new to whine about.
As Esquire once famously teased, "Kevin Spacey Has a Secret," and now, finally, that secret has come to light: he's a good samaritan! Already notorious for a well-intentioned, late-night dog walking that turned ugly in the most homoerotic way, the actor was snapped this weekend in Croatia enacting a "pay it forward" so unorthodox that it would make even a newly R-rated Haley Joel Osment blush. Says The Sun:
PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our millions of Defamer operatives. We'd like to remind you that this feature is powered by you, so if you want to see more installments of PrivacyWatch, then all you've got to do is to send us your sightings. Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line so we don't lose them) and tell everyone about the time you saw a tired Kiefer Sutherland eating lunch with Gary Oldman and a couple of stunning brunettes. UPDATE (8/26/08): C'mon guys, we need you to be better than this! We just got this email from Gary Oldman's manager: "…About your item on Gary and Keifer, alas, Gary was not with Kiefer on Friday, Gary was out of the country on holiday with his family. Prior to that, Gary spent ten days in Barbados. Gary has not seen Kiefer for years and years. Whoever says they saw them together on Friday is, alas, mistaken!!" This week's installment also includes: Katherine Heigl, Anthony Michael Hall, Bryan Singer, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, Louie Anderson, Tatyana Ali, Gordon Ramsey, Catherine Keener, Bradley Cooper, Victor Garber and more!SATURDAY, AUGUST 9 · Saw KATHERINE HEIGL at Cliff's Edge in Silverlake. My parents were in town and we wanted to take them someplace nice. We were sitting up in the outside covered area when Heigl and her entourage (which included her mother) were seated next to us. Alas, she decided that she didn't want to sit there (I heard her say something about not being able to smoke. Dead serious.), so they moved to a very secluded corner. Or, she may not have wanted to sit by us because when she came in, my sister nudged me and I totally turned around in my seat to look at who or what prompted the nudge ... perhaps she thought I was a super-fan who would lose my shit if she sat next to us. She would have been safe as I am not. Also, her voice is pretty annoying in person —way crackier than it is in movies. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13 · Saw ANTHONY MICHAEL HALL at Farmer's Market on Wednesday Aug 13th with Fiona Forbes (she's a Canadian tv host who no one in LA would reconize but i did!) He's still a little geeky. SATURDAY, AUGUST 16 · Fiesta Cantina, The 'Ho: Fighting my way through the gay-os to secure one last 2-for-1 drink special, I spotted BRYAN SINGER jauntily hopping to the music as he entered. He looked fresh and young but not as fresh and young looking as the A&F wearing tyke he was with. · JERRY O'CONNELL stopped by the 12 Shiny Nickels comedy show in Hollywood on Saturday night to see Carpoolers co-star TJ Miller perform. Seemed to have a delightful time. MONDAY, AUGUST 18 · Around 11:30ish, saw PUFF DADDY trying to de-puff himself with some light cardio at Equinox West Hollywood. Take that, take that! · LOUIE ANDERSON in front of Susina on Beverly. TUESDAY, AUGUST 19 · Saw twice in one night: the beautiful TATYANA ALI at Gingergrass and Hyperion Tavern with some friends. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20 · Had two good sightings in one night along the douchey Sunset Strip. First, outside of Ketchup, chef GORDON RAMSEY and his family. He was laid back and non-shouty, his kids looked happy and content and not snobby and privileged (I always look at the kids to see if they look miserable!). Then, later that night, outside of BLD Craft we see CATHERINE KEENER in the valet area. I spot her as we walk up and just as we pass her I said in a dorky voice "Catherine Keener, I love you". It cracked up the valet but she looked utterly confused and surprised (but awesome). · Mini-Alias nonreunion in the Arclight lobby: BRADLEY COOPER exited with hipster friends; one minute later, VICTOR GARBER entered. FRIDAY, AUGUST 22 · KIEFER SUTHERLAND must like the sandwiches at Dan Subs. Because he was there in Woodland Hills, on Ventura Blvd, again. This time, he was with GARY OLDMAN a Gary Oldman lookalike. Kiefer did not look so good — he looked exhausted. But he seemed to be enjoying his sub, but not nearly as much as the two stunning brunettes that were with them.
With The Dark Knight now the second-highest domestically grossing film of all time, some of Batman's friends and co-workers are having trouble convincingly faking their delight over his success. First and foremost among that group would be Superman, with one source claiming the Kryptonian native had gotten "catty" with the cowled vigilante recently, demanding to know if he'd "remembered to celebrate Mother's Day this year," before adding, "Come on, Flash. Let's go play Wii Fit," and storming out of the Justice League cafeteria. It's no secret what the source of that animosity is— Bryan Singer's uninspiring take on the Superman mythos fizzled at the box office, failing to capture the public's imagination—and according to Variety, the very fate of the failed franchise reboot now hangs in the balance:
· HBO prosthesiscore drama Tell Me You Love Me has abandoned its second season, with series creator/Jodie Foster tabloid companion Cynthia Mort releasing a statement explaining the creative team was "unable to find the direction of the show for the second season," blaming in part "the considerable amount of time" since the first season aired. Translation: "None of us could recall what any of our whiny characters were fighting about, and the shock of a set of slapping latex balls has sort of worn off." [Variety] · Ellen Barkin, Ving Rhames and Rob Corddry have begun shooting on indie spy comedy Rogues Gallery—de facto work stoppage be damned! [Variety] · Gilmore Girls' Alexis Bledel will star in The Good Guy, a romcom also starring Andrew McCarthy, Anna Chlumsky, and several other of your formative crushes. [THR] · Studio, a show about Studio 54 and set in that cokeopolis's heyday, is coming to Showtime, with Bryan Singer in talks to direct the pilot "if his schedule permits." We have a feeling it'll permit. [THR] · Family Guy showrunner David A. Goodman will adapt Last Blood—a comic about "human survivors of a zombie massacre who find themselves protected by a band of vampires who need their blood to survive"—into a feature. ("That reminds me of the time we feasted on Zsa Zsa Gabor at Frank Sinatra's house in Palm Springs. [Cue flashback].") [THR]
Three months is apparently an eternity in comic-book years: Just when we thought we'd gotten our heads around the impact of Iron Man's smashing success, it looks like that The Dark Knight's Batrocket into the box-office record books (another $24.6 million on Monday!) necessitates a whole new flurry of comics-centric development around Hollywood. And while Wired has a roundup of movers and shakers basking in collective geek glows of summer hits also including Wanted, Hellboy II and The Incredible Hulk, newly flush Warner Bros. handed off a chunk of the spotlight to slumping Bryan Singer just for the hell of it:
Picture it: you get a fancy-schmancy director to make a film about one of America's most beloved characters; it has a huge budget, impressive effects, big name talent, and... it totally sucks. Ang Lee's The Hulk immediately comes to mind, as does Bryan Singer's Superman. They were both critical and commercial failures, plus they were boring as all hell. But this summer, the Hulk franchise got a less sucky, more successful reboot. And that got Hollywood's wheels a'spinnin'. Could the same thing be done for The Man of Steel? It's complicated. Watch as we untangle the twisted tale after the jump.
An insomniac browse last night at PeterBart.com revealed that the Variety editor's spirited studio defenses have made a remarkably speedy, seamless transition to the blogosphere. Readers seem to be enjoying it as well, alleging stolen stories about DreamWorks on one hand and launching a fascist-tastic comment cascade following Bart's breaking! News! about production resuming on Valkyrie:
Amid all of Tuesday's post-holiday hustle and bustle, we regrettably overlooked perhaps the most profound news item of the day: Harvey Weinstein indirectly hopped in the Valkyrie fray at Cannes by picking up US theatrical/DVD rights to Operation Valkyrie, a 2004 German retelling of the failed plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. It's the same film Tom Cruise and Bryan Singer made (or are making, with worse accents) only to see it bumped twice to a Feb. 2009 release-date Siberia by Cruise/UA's partners at MGM — oddly the same folks with whom The Weinstein Company shares its own distribution deal. Small world, eh? It gets even weirder — kind of.
Michael Cieply's latest dispatch from the Tom Cruise beat inventories the wreckage from the mid-air collision that is Valkyrie and United Artists, including exclusive interviews with hobbled pilots Paula Wagner and Bryan Singer. For Singer's part, he's fine to let the film speak for itself if and/or when it's ever completed and released. But for Wagner, Cruise's UA partner and designated press scold, skeptics like us just! Don't! Get it!
The craziest movie star in America is playing a Nazi colonel with one eye, one hand, and three fingers who tries to bomb the Fürher and take over the Third Reich, but instead kills everyone in the room but Hitler, and eventually dies by firing squad. What more could America want on PRESIDENTS' DAY WEEKEND?
