Wow, Hilary Swank is really taking this "I'm just simple folk from the trailer park" schtick to an absurd extreme, isn't she? While Swank devoured her veggie Astro cheeseburger, her "best friend and publicist" frantically searched for an oil-stained wife-beater, a can of Keystone Light, and a mullet wig to complete the totally spontaneous photo op. Not shown: husband Chad Lowe, sporting a shiner for getting too lippy.
Before the Oscar ceremony, host Chris Rock coated envelopes containing the names of the night's big winners in a substance that would instantly afflict presenters with Down's Syndrome. Here, Tim Robbins valiantly resists the disease, but eventually would succumb to Rock's practical joke.
During our liveblogging of the Oscars, we noted, "Dustin Hoffman is clearly drunk as he slurs his way through the nominees for Best Picture." We realize that it was unfair of us to speculate that Mr. Hoffman was actually impaired during the ceremony's culminating moment, mostly because we were so drunk that we had to type that line three times to get the spelling of "Hoffman" correct. So in the cold, sober light of day, we fired up the TiVo to break down Hoffman's Best Picture presentation performance for signs of inebriation. Here's the blow-by-blow so that you can judge for yourselves:
After completing a rigorous apprenticeship learning the most arcane of the pirate-hunting arts at the feet of master Jack Valenti, MPAA chief Dan Glickman has finally gained the power over life and death. We congratulate Glickman on mastering the complicated voodoo charm that resulted in his first long-distance kill; after all, it takes weeks of stirring the blood of an albino orphan to get the consistency for the pentagram-drawing paint just right. A lesser pirate-hunter would've paid someone in the Aryan Brotherhood with a carton of Marlboro Reds and a copy of Swank to snuff the guy with a pillow, but not Glickman. He's got appreciation for craft.
A quick round-up of selected gossip column coverage of Oscar party carnage:
· "The place reeks of pot. It's like a free for all. There are people in the Jacuzzi, and it's just wild." Fox's Roger Friedman gets a call from a guest "in the shit" at Patrick Whitesell's post-Oscar orgy. We've always heard that Endeavor gets the best weed—it helps them stop stressing about Ben Affleck's career.
· The Independent Spirit Awards swag bag: nary a tropical vacation to be found. It's amazing anyone shows up to that thing.
· Prehistoric Julia Roberts found, identified by enormous mouth.
· No one ever said that Oscar is fair.
· The Fug Girls get drafted by MSNBC to lend their fashion expertise.
· Whatever happened to time-tested methods of getting stars interested in your work, like writing your script on your penis and dipping it in their soup at the Ivy?
The Defamer Special Pre-Oscar Agent-Hosted Party Correspondent infiltrated CAA bigshot Bryan Lourd's A-list awards orgy and promptly filed this report, which we are now not as promptly sharing with you now. Inside: Robin Williams! Julia Roberts! A fat Tobey Maguire! Jen and Brad talking! To each other! Also in attendance: just about everyone else in Hollywood that an agency would need present for an obligatory salad-tossing as the Oscars approached. We'll get out of the way now and let Correspondent X do her thing:
This is the actual caption for this photo: "Chantal Cousineau (L) and an unidientified guest arrive at the 2005 Vanity Fair Oscar Party at Mortons in West Hollywood February 27, 2005." Maybe we're just a wee bit cynical, but we get the feeling that Robert Evans slipped someone from Reuters a hundred dollar bill and an associate producer credit to leave his name off to "make the tomato feel special." We hope the young lady didn't mistakenly put her glasses in the denture jar on his nightstand.
While Million Dollar Baby was busy winning the Heathen/Gay/Jew Awards (we call them "The Oscars," it's less of a mouthful), Jesus was busy collecting a Golden Crucifix from the Movieguide Faith & Values Awards for The Passion of the Christ. Predictably, JC peppered his acceptance speech with shout-outs to his father, mother, and his agent (the Holy Spirit always gets ten percent), then thanked Mel Gibson for "really making it look like I was getting my ass kicked for two hours." The Messiah then added, "It was pretty hilarious to show up at craft services covered in stage blood, flaps of flayed skin dangling, and overturn the breakfast buffet table in righteous anger because they were out of glazed doughnuts." Unfortunately, the Son of Man's riff on director Mel Gibson's penchant for practical jokes was drowned out by the orchestra.
As promised, we've shelved all ambitions of crashing the Kodak Theatre or the Vanity Fair Morton's bash to sit here on the sofa, drink to the point of kidney failure, and liveblog Hollywood's Biggest Night. Who will be the first to allow Oscar's gilded phallus to tickle their tonsils, and who'll be assuming the "insincerely smiling for the winner" position, and accepting his golden shaft into their nether regions?
· Iraq war documentary Gunner Palace wins an appeal with the MPAA, earns the title of Most. Profane. PG-13. Movie. Ever. [Variety]
· Everyone works during pilot season, part 100: Tiffani "Don't call me Amber" Thiessen is cast in CBS sitcom pilot Stroller Wars. [THR]
· HBO moves Six Feet Under to Monday nights just to watch broadcast network execs shit their pants. [Variety]
· Poker no longer red hot: Debra Messing joins Drew Barrymore and Eric Bana in the Curtis Hanson poker flick Lucky You. [THR]
· Just in time to sustain the industry's feel-good vibe from the Oscars, the MPAA announces more lawsuits against movie downloaders and file sharers. This might just be a rumor, but we've heard that Dan Glickman is going to castrate one of the pirates right after the "Recently Dead" montage in the Oscar telecast, then feed his balls to a ceremonial MGM lion. [Variety]
Looming awards-show responsibilities be damned, Oscar producer Gil Cates keeps churning out blog posts. Our favorite part is always the little picture of Cates prominently featuring a laptop (today, Cates types!) that may or may not be gutted like an Ikea desktop prop, making the connection between "computers" and "blogging" for his less tech-savvy readers. This time, Cates reaches out to those who somehow might have missed the barrage of media coverage for the Oscars, i.e., coma patients, babies born without any senses, and people on the dark side of the moon with shitty satellite reception:
· Finding a love interest for Will Smith in Hitch wasn't easy: Go black, and the Euro's won't buy tickets; go white, and red staters would burn down the multiplex or propose some kind of constitutional amendment. Apparently, Eva Mendes was exactly the right shade, since the constitution seems to be relatively intact.
· Note to Michael Lohan: Comparing yourself to OJ Simpson might help you sell your reality show to Fox (threatening murder really is the final frontier), but it probably won't help in court.
· Demi Moore as Summer's stepmom on The OC? TVGasm makes good use of IMDb.
· "Ultra-Orthodox Jews" aren't thrilled by Natalie Portman's movie makeout session. Join the club. We weren't thrilled that they edited all of her nude scenes out of Closer.
We've only been following Oscar producer Gil Cates' behind-the-scenes blog musings for a couple of days now, but we're going to sorely miss his company come Monday morning. We fear he's going to abandon his online presence after the awards are over and return to his normal, daily activities, which we assume consists of chasing butterflies with an oversized net and trying to catch rainbows in a marmalade jar. Please take a moment to savor what will be one of his last dispatches before the Big Night steals him away from us:
The LAT's Michael Hiltzik isn't swallowing Universal's publicity load about the $600 million figure that's been attached to Deep Throat's all-time gross, a number recently splashed around to promote their doc Inside Deep Throat. It's shocking to learn that mobsters, accountants from the dawn of the adult film industry, and studio publicity departments might not use "best practices" in regards to accurately reporting financial information:
The pre-Oscar script's been written over and over again: Old Hollywood thinks Chris Rock's going to fuck up their special night of globally-celebrated autoeroticism, while Young Hollywood can't wait to earn points at Chateau Marmont by having their names mentioned on the list of who's got their own dick in their mouth. If you can't wait to see some of what Rock will do on Sunday night, the LAW's Nikki Finke has some spoilers:
By now, it's accepted as fact that the best way to communicate with Hollywood's decision makers is through the creative use of billboards during Oscar season. The original version of this rolling anti-smoking advocacy ad will probably raise some awareness among studio heads huddled outside for their bi-hourly Marlboro Light, but why should certain Colombian interests not adopt a campaign targeted at the industry's influencers? Fun fact: No one ever died of lung cancer by blowing rails off a stripper's ass.
