Slate's highly informative "Hollywood Economist" column looks at how the insurance industry secretly runs Hollywood (we wonder how the Gay Mafia and the Jews are going to take the news), explaining how Nicole Kidman's balky knees have wreaked havoc with insurers, and how Angelina Jolie was all but encased in a titanium cocoon to protect her during Tomb Raider:
This Sunday's NYT was a treasure trove of retarded Hollywood riches (hopefully, we'll work our way through half of them in the course of the day). First up, a reporter draws the plum assignment of tailing screenwriter-with-fists-of-lead/director Paul Haggis and his macho buddies for "A Night Out With," recording their night of partying "like a rock star," i.e., mixing up pomegranate martinis, discussing cute eBay knickknacks, and retiring for a night cap of ice cream. Finally, after much slice-of-life scene-setting, the inevitable movie tie-in comes Crashing in, ten times subtler than anything in the film:
Variety reports that Revenge of the Sith did $50 million in its first day of release, putting box office paddle to the green ass of the Shrek 2's single-day record ($44.8 mil). Sith further proved that Hayden Christensen's look of crippling constipation can trump even Keanu Reeve's monosyllabic flavor of colon-blockage, toppling The Matrix Reloaded's opening day record of $42.5 million. To celebrate this early victory, George Lucas announced he's clearing a 100-acre swath of the SkyWalker ranch, where his neck-wattle can roam free while devising its first post-Star Wars project.
Do you feel alienated from the crushing hype surrounding this weekend's release of the last Star Wars movie? Maybe you need a financial stake in the box office outcome to make you feel like you've got a piece of the action. Today's LAT notes that studio types are throwing some money in a hat, just to keep things interesting.
Will Katie Holmes' publicists stop at nothing to promote Batman Begins?
An experimental browser plug-in that allows us to hear the thoughts of celebrities captured in wire service photos may shed some light on why Ben Stiller looks so unhappy at the premiere of DreamWorks' Madagascar: "How the hell did Scwimmer get in here? I knew that if I gave him that dollar to wash my windshield with his sleeve he'd sneak in behind me. He pulled the same stunt at Starsky and Hutch. The second these goddamn cameras stop flashing in my face, I'm getting Katzenberg to throw him out. And I'm taking the giraffe. My lion is totally gay."
After naively believing a camera prohibition at a Star Wars preview screening, BoingBoing blogging eminence Xeni Jardin dutifully reproduced some of the move's most mind-blowing scenes via "napkincam," while others flouted the rules and snapped away with verboten phonecams. In defense of our pal Xeni, a LucasFilm rep did get up and practically threaten to destroy her home planet of Alderaan if she unleashed her Treo:
While this obvious attempt at a tit pun is a welcome break from the non-stop phallofreudian nightmare usually represented by Drudge's front page, it's half-hearted at best (not to mention that it doesn't even work if you pronounce "Cannes" correctly). We expect a reflexive return to the sites's sneakily bulge-obsessed status quo immediately. Unless, of course, he's invited to join the writing staff of Stacked first.
Towleroad's Andy Towle wonders if something sneaky is going on with the upcoming release of the Alexander Director's Cut on DVD, which contains a version that's eight minutes shorter than the theatrical version. Odd, considering we'd expect Oliver Stone to throw even more of his "genius" at us the second time around. But why shorter, and why eight minutes?
As you may or may not know by now, the LAT has finally freed its art and entertainment coverage (known as Calendarlive in the Times' inscrutable parlance) from the shackles of paid subscription. All citizens of the internets can now freely browse its resplendent offerings, such as this endlessly fascinating entry from a reporter's "web diary" (note: this is not a blog—it's impeccably spell-checked!) from Cannes:
· "As the minstrel-accented pixie, he kept busting up the crew with his profane ad-libs over footage of Woods attempting a putt. ('Show 'em how n——r you are! Stick your d—k in the hole!')" Newsweek attempts to find out what's wrong with Dave Chappelle (pressure? drugs?), but only succeeds in making us miss his show even more than we already do.
· The LA Weekly's Nikki Finke pens a love note to the Huffington Post...if your idea of a love note involves having the recipient's heart ripped from their body and mailed to them in a box with a note that says, "Fuck you."
· Steven Spielberg weeps at a Star Wars screening, probably because he wished his summer blockbuster had docile actors and CGI characters instead of a star that's trying to convert his crew to Scientology.
· Doing voiceover in The Incredibles: just like fighting apartheid, but with better craft service!
· Angelina Jolie is headed back to Africa. This time, however, she's on a mission of peace, not a mission of noisy sex-making. [second item]
Million Dollar Baby writer Paul Haggis is carving himself out a nice little part-time career of whining in the press about how his aspirations to bring his heavy-handed vision to the big screen have been hampered by his sordid past as a (get ready for it) highly paid, successful television writer. [Ed.note—We'd gasp audibly, but we're too busy vomiting in horror!].
As you have no doubt read in countless other outlets, the Huffington Post, pundit/columnist/general-use bon vivant Arianna Huffington's online cocktail party for her fabulous celebrity friends, went live this morning. We haven't had a chance to have a look yet, so join us as we liveblog our first, cursory scan:
Today's release of Paris Hilton's most eagerly anticipated film to date, the much-hyped remake of House of Wax, has the critics polishing their celebutante-eviscerating knives. Here's the obligatory bad review round-up, presented in order of increasingly "dripping" sarcasm:
By now, you are probably at least somewhat familiar with the story: After determining that Paul "Taxi Driver" Schrader's version of The Exorcist was not sufficiently stocked with cheap scares, dirty undead children covered in fresh grave-dirt, and creepy, cursed videotapes, studio Morgan Creek decided to reshoot the entire movie under the auspices of director Renny "Cutthroat Island" Harlin, whose version promptly bombed at the box office. But in the feel-good Hollywood story of the year, Schrader's version will finally see the light of day, where it will be crushed in its limited-release run against the new Star Wars movie. This will allow Morgan Creek's execs to forget all of their bold talk about owning their fuck-up:
While we recently spent a session pondering some existential issues in the manner in which we've become accustomed, i.e., perched on the Porcelain Throne of Concentration while flipping through an issue of Entertainment Weekly, we were heartened to discover a fellow searcher in the most unlikely of places—a preview of summer blockbuster-hopeful The Island. We were as surprised as anyone to see fauxteur fashion plate Michael Bay pondering the big questions raised by his "philosophical" film:
Someone at Legoland California has created a plastic-brick tribute to those crazy Star Wars nerds who are encamped in front of the Chinese in increasingly futile hope that the theater will succumb to the enormous pressure exerted by their dork shantytown and show Revenge of the Sith. The diorama is an incredibly lifelike representation of the Hollywood Boulveard scene; every fifteen minutes or so, a homeless Lego man wanders into the camp, howls about how Darth Vader is controlling him with a brain implant, and then urinates on an unattended laptop.
