The duo of Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon took it all the way back to the summer camp of your '90s childhood last night in a sketch where they landed roughly 1.5 good jokes, one of which was "Remember Third Eye Blind's 'Jumper?'" Pretty good joke.
Thousands of New York tourists and office workers watched in horror on Wednesday afternoon as a distraught 23-year-old man dangled 70 stories above Rockefeller Plaza, threatening to jump onto the site of the famed skating rink below. The man wore "an American flag bandana on his face and...a tie," and had "several bags, one of which has a jug of water, and was handing policemen letters with...messages on them," Gothamist reports. Late Night with Jimmy Fallon bandleader Questlove also noted via Twitter, "holy lord—-why is this on the camera feed like in HD?!!?!?!?? like i can see his nose hair! wtf!," later adding, "Whew!!!!! They got him!!!!!!!!! Now beat his ass for ruining my lunch."
Click to viewBoomp3.com High flyin’ movie star Hayden Christensen was spotted taking an invisible elevator to his management offices in Los Angeles yesterday afternoon. The Jumper star said that he uses the power of positivity to ascend through the smog covered skies and not “the force,” which many have suspected. Christensen said, “No Jedi mind tricks. I’m just thinking about puppy dogs, ice cream, and all the good things about life and that gets me off the ground.” [Photo Credit: Flynet] *A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.
There's a valid debate to be had about the cosmic justice in news that Hayden Christensen this week agreed to a three-picture deal with Screen Gems. Beyond the obvious indignation that directors like David Lynch (and his cow) are reduced to promoting his films on the street while Werner Herzog remakes American B-pictures (when he's not remaking his own), we might look to the more bracing reality that a man best known for pouting his way through two Star Wars films as Anakin Skywalker has been entrusted with the development of three movies for Sony's genre offshoot. Is it oversimplifying to wonder where this faith came from, or what Screen Gems thinks it will get out of this? Have you ever once heard anyone walking around on a studio lot, at festivals or elsewhere intoning, "I want to be in the Hayden Christensen business?" Seriously, yes or no: Is there a demand for three Hayden Christensen films?Not that we have anything against Hayden Christensen; Shattered Glass was wonderful, and it's not his fault Star Wars set fire to its own legacy. He's not waving the Hayden flag on some hubristic victory lap this morning, either; the word slipped out via Variety, which reported that Christensen and his brother's shingle Forest Park Pictures will bring projects directly to Screen Gems when he's not invited to participate in the studio's own films. The first film under the pact, the thriller Bone Deep, shoots later this fall (also starring T.I. and Chris Brown, who curiously have SG deals as well), and the two remaining projects are yet to be determined. "Hayden is a very talented and versatile actor with a proven worldwide box-office history," Screen Gems president Doug Culpepper told the trade paper. Again, nothing against Christensen's talent (we've seen better than pretty much any actor under 30 these days), but "proven worldwide box-office history"? Excepting Star Wars, which you kind of have to do considering what little he's been able to whip up in their "proven worldwide box-office" aftermath, Christensen's only score was Jumper, a generally reviled $220 million grosser that lost money Stateside and cost almost three times what Screen Gems is going to pay to make and market any of Christensen's upcoming projects — genre films like Awake, which did less than $30 million worldwide in 2007. Obviously this isn't the worst deal Screen Gems could make; there's always that home-video and Flopz™ afterlife. (Or only life, as with his straight-to-DVD 2007 effort Virgin Territory.) Still, though: In this economic climate, Hayden Christensen is a player? Does Screen Gems know something we don't? And if so, can we have stock tips while they're at it?
Tend to the wounds of your ill-advised weekend bear-wrestling adventures with the box office numbers:
What is Hayden Christensen, an actor who's had to bat away rumors about his sexuality, doing on a magazine quite as gay as Details? Last week, the Jumper star wandered the streets of Manhattan with his co-star, Rachel Bilson, providing heterosexual photo opportunities. All that hard paparazzi-enticing work, thrown away for one lousy magazine cover. Unless this is all part of his handlers' plan: encourage speculation in the celebrity weeklies of a relationship between the prettyboy actor and his female co-star; but leave enough coded language and imagery for the gays to believe there's still hope. In the business of celebrity image-making, this is the equivalent of the evangelical dog-whistle, or Mike Huckabee's floating cross commercial, an appeal designed only to be picked up by the target demographic. If so, it's working: despite awful reviews, Jumper was the weekend's highest grossing new release. (After the jump, the reason why the Jumper star keeps the audience guessing: his fans, who have filled Youtube with dreamy tribute videos, can't handle the truth.)
Ease the bitterness of having to work on President's Day with the knowledge that 1) Grover Cleveland always made his first and second assistants roll calls on Washington's birthday, and 2) the names Roscoe Jenkins, Hanna Montana, and Juno appear nowhere in the weekend box office numbers:
The gays can be particularly tedious when they question the sexuality of every boyish actor. Which is why one has some sympathy for Hayden Christensen, who's been fending off rumors of a relationship with Trevor Blumas, a fellow Canadian actor, for years. (Here was one effort: "To me, masculinity is the ability to flirt with the effeminate.") Whatever. But the fevered yearning of gay Hayden fans is sweet and innocent beside the promotion by the marketers of Jumper of an official rumor: that the delicate boy-actor is again, just in time for the movie's release, heterosexually dating Rachel Bilson. His cute co-star wears a bracelet engraved with an H; coyly avoids confirmation or denial of a relationship; and the two of them wandered romantically around Downtown Manhattan locations, like paparazzi bait, for Valentine's Day. "To all the ladies who I'm sure would like to know," Rachel told one of the morning shows. "He was a good kisser!" Blech! Anyway, aside from such cynical efforts to draw female fans, and what critics say is a thin plot, Doug Liman's camerawork looks typically stylish, and Christensen's ability to teleport is a special power every teenager has yearned for. Jumper opens today. The trailer, after the jump.
