Angelina Jolie can add another superlative feather in her cap: she's a poll-topper in the all-important Best Celebrity Humanitarian of 2007 caucus. Voters chose the adoptive mother of several Third World tykes specifically because they believe her charitable efforts not to be a calculated effort to land atop the very Best Celebrity Humanitarian poll. From the Reuters report:
· For heaven's sake, people: Heed Tippi Hedren's warnings about what happens when you bend over in front of a tiger! It could save your lives!
· First impressions of Britney Spears's new video: She's wearing more clothes, she's standing up without the use of steadying device, and several Britney-like extras are on hand to perform choreographed dance moves. Triumph!
· Madonna, Leonard Cohen, John Mellencamp, The Ventures, and The Dave Clark Five will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an honor the "Like A Virgin" singer has graciously accepted, so long as they start the ceremony with her, and she isn't expected to stick around for any of the decrepit British Invasion also-rans.
· "Tony Parker says he's not a double dribbler." We think this is about cheating, though he still might want to have a doctor check that out, just for his own peace of mind.
· In case you still haven't seen it, here's the NY Post's tasteful headline commemorating the passing of Ike Turner.
Briefly enticing the occasional director of hyperkinetic gangster flicks away from the time-consuming responsibility of making sure that his wife's orphan acquisitions aren't repossessed by any disillusioned biological family members while she's out shopping with the promise of some cocktails at the Sunset Marquis bar, the Sunday NY Times spent a fascinating "Night Out With" Madonna househusband Guy Ritchie, an encounter which began with Ritchie demonstrating his martial arts skills to an impressed reporter:
Dear label-hating pundits who gush about Madonna's oh-so-innovative deal with Live Nation: Have you tried to buy anything from Live Nation's site? All I wanted was tix to a local show at a midsize club. Live Nation splatted my screen with so many upsells, signups and talking audio popups that I felt like I'd walked into the old Tower store on Newbury Street. Live Nation surcharged me nine bucks a pop for general admission seats. My print-at-home passes (left) were lost amid pages of tree-killing, color-ink-squandering ads. I Photoshopped the tickets onto one clean page for printing, solely for my own peace of mind.
Breaking up is hard to do. Yesterday it was leaked that Madonna would be leaving her long-time record label Warner Music, in favor of the younger, hotter Live Nation to the tune of a $120 million contract. And like all jilted lovers, Warner has responded by saying they're totally cool with it. In fact, they even went so far as to write a report titled For $120 Million, She's All Yours. (No, we're not kidding.) Variety has featured some choice excerpts of said report, and here they are now along with translations of all that PR speak into plain English:
More and more artists are striking innovative deals to sell their music — and leaving the traditional record industry contract behind. The Wall Street Journal reports that once Madonna's contract with Warner Music is up, she will link up with concert-promoter Live Nation. While not as revolutionary as Radiohead's pay-what-you-want plan, or Prince's free-music-with-newspaper deal, Live Nation is a concert production company, not a record label. Madonna's deal will bring album production and distribution, concerts, merchandise and publicity under one company.
Understandably unsatisfied with only one legally shaky foreign adoption that's bound and gagged with red tape, Madonna has apparently decided that African moppets work better in pairs. Starter-orphan David Banda's home nation is allegedly allowing Madge to add a girl to her collection, according to This Is London:
Figures. Just when the Jolie-Pitt Army of Uber-Moppets had us convinced we could kill time on a slow Monday by cheerfully hand-picking any adorable foreign-born tyke we want and raising it as our own, Madonna has to come along and rain on our parade. Apparently, the good people of Malawi can't decide if she's a wicked, rapacious hellion or a serious(ly rich) potential parent for Malawian quasi-orphan David Banda; finally, per Reuters, they've apparently chosen Door No. 2, but not without totally removing the possibility of more thrilling, head-shaking indecision:
· According to a poll, 9 out of 10 adults believe that the diverting clusterfucks resulting from celebrity scandals get "too much" news coverage. Expect the immediate cancellation of Entertainment Tonight, AH, The Insider, Extra, everything on E!, and the shuttering of Us Weekly, People, Star, Life & Style and InTouch as demand for gossip completely dries up in the oversaturated market.
· On the other hand, that unaccounted for adult from the poll thinks the amount of coverage of lunches attended by more than one lady Eddie Murphy has slept with is "just right."
· That person also loves the stories about the cute orphan Madonna adopted!
· Bratz, Underdog...Rainbow Brite?
· We really love us some Happy Foot/Sad Foot.
· Madonna demanded that interviewers not break eye contact with her for the duration of their backstage encounter at Live Earth, a measure necessary for her to cast the Kabbalistic mind-control spell that prevents reporters from asking intrusive questions about her disastrous film career or black market orphan purchases. Word has it that the spell takes hold more quickly if her subject inhales the vapors from a candle that smells like God or if he or she can be tricked into touching her red string bracelet.
· Following last night's episode-ending, tranny-junk-dangling freeze frame, Entourage creator Doug Ellin promises the rest of his series will be schlong-free.
· Is this the exact moment that Jason Lee's career began an irreversible downward trajectory? Only time will tell.
· Harry Potter fans really need to just let go.
· Truly, the new generation is high to glue to fuck the type quickly.
Hey, so the Vanity Fair Africa issue hit newsstands today! Guest-edited by Bono! We rushed out to get our copy and brought it to the office where we realized that, you know, we're kind of shallow. Isn't Africa kind of last fall? We don't have the attention spans for that stuff. You know what we do care about, though? Celebrities! And with twenty different celebrity-studded covers, the magazine kept up involved for a good five minutes looking at the Annie Leibovitz compositions. Each one blends one subject from the previous cover, so you've got your Don Cheadle and Barack Obama giving way to Barack and Muhammad Ali. Here's a handy guide to who you'll want to look for at the newsstand.
Babysnatching do-gooder Madonna's recently returned to Malawi to tour the sites of her various philanthropic projects there, but also on the itinerary was a scheduled reunion between absconded toddler David Banda and his biological father, Yohane—a meeting, Yohane told a reporter from Us Magazine recently, that would never come to pass:
