Friday, August 3, 2007

Abbie Cornish Not To Be Bond Girl

1:21PM Jess McGuire | We love it when a story updates itself literally hours after we report on it. Abbie Cornish is NOT – we repeat, NOT – going to be a Bond girl. The agent for Australian actress Abbie Cornish, has denied rumours the Candy star will be the next Bond Girl. “No, I can tell you that that information is not accurate,” her agent Belinda Maxwell said today. She said she had no idea where the false reports were coming from. THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE, PEOPLE! THIS IS ROSE BYRNE’S DOING! REMEMBER? This entire story can be tidily summed up by saying Rose Byrne’s is a pathological liar intent on sullying the good name of tabloid journalism with her red carpet fibs. She must be stopped at all cost. More »

Jono Coleman Literally (And Literarily!) Ruins The Lives Of Thousands Of Children

12:07PM Jess McGuire | Jono Coleman, who was last a relevant and cutting edge media personality in this country in the late eighties, has spoiled the final Harry Potter book for viewers of Sunrise, a move which may potentially see him incur the wrath of the notoriously vicious and Slitherenesque tween market … and perhaps more frighteningly for him, a furious Kochie. Presenter Jonathan Coleman has been temporarily dumped by Seven’s Sunrise program after “devastating” young viewers by revealing the ending of the final Harry Potter book. In one of television’s meanest acts, the former comedian ruined the mystery for thousands of young children and adults who are yet to finish J.K Rowling’s final tome, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Coleman’s attempted joke caused the Sunrise email to “meltdown” with viewers also jamming the Seven network switchboard describing him as “pathetic”, “unprofessional”, “incompetent”, “selfish” and “a twit”. As hosts Melissa Doyle and David Koch commented how “unbelievable” it was that a school teacher in the UK revealed the ending to her students, Coleman took the opportunity to do the same thing to more than half a million Sunrise viewers across Australia. Stumbling to recover, he said: “I didn’t want to ruin it. I didn’t want the kids to be upset.” “Anyway I’ll be going now,” he added. Clearly disgusted, Koch replied: “And you may not be coming back.” Coleman then tried to justify himself by yelling from backstage: “The kids would be in school by now.” The time was 7.45am (AEST) His act of sheer Rowling-wrecking bastardry led to Seven releasing the following statement. This morning’s comments by Jono on Harry Potter were unacceptable to Sunrise. Jono sincerely regrets his actions and points out he hasn’t read the final book. In any event, we feel we have no choice but to suspend Jono from the program. Adam BolandExecutive Producer There are two other great things of note from the Daily Telegraph article about the incident. The first is this - Following his apology, viewers will tomorrow decide whether he stays or goes with an SMS poll deciding his fate. God bless the canny Sunrise team, never the kind of folk to let an opportunity for an SMS poll pass them by. Our second highlight was this nugget… “People know me as a funny guy. I’m Jono Coleman the funny movie reviewer. I’m not Richard Wilkins doing a serious review.” i. His repeated reference to himself as ‘funny’ sounds like the mantra of a man rocking back and forth in the corner with his hands over his ears dreaming of the halcyon days of his radio career in the UK. We have this vision of him, in an attempt to repress the memory of this morning’s hideous effort on Sunrise, mumbling in a Rainman fashion “I’m funny, I’m Jono Coleman the funny guy, this is Jono Coleman the funny guy and you’re listening to Heart 106.2, I’m Jono, Jono is funny, I’m a funny guy, I’m still a funny guy, that’s what I am, Jono Coleman funny guy, Jono funny, JONO FUNNY FUNNY JONO FUNNNNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE…” ii. In what fucking world is Richard Wilkins the yardstick when it comes to Serious Journalism And The Critiquing Of Art? More »

Abbie Cornish to Be Bond Girl

11:15AM Busty St Clair | The rumour mill is in overdrive in Hollywood (just as the cliche-mill is here at Defamer Australia) about the possibility that Aussie actress Abbie Cornish, best known for playing a drug-addict alongside Heath Ledger in Candy (that’s “playing”, people, not “being”), might be the next Bond girl. MTV News caught up with Aussie actress Rose Byrne, and asked if she had been contacted about the role (Byrne’s name was previously batted around for “Casino Royale”). Byrne denied any involvement in “22,” exclaiming to us, “I think Abbie Cornish’s got it.” While Cornish – a fellow Australian – has been rumored for the part since earlier this year, Byrne’s utterance lends extra credence to the story given the pair’s friendship. If true, Cornish’s appearance in “Bond” would mark the star’s first major break outside her home country, where she has made numerous acclaimed appearances in Australian television and film. We’d say congratulations to Abbie, but career wise we’re not too sure if it’s a great thing. Apart from a few exceptions, Bond Girls of years gone past don’t exactly have the best track record post-007. More »

This May Be Our New Favourite Song

11:09AM Jess McGuire | Melbourne troubadour Sime Nugent is going to be releasing his second solo offering shortly. The album’ll be called “Sime Nugent Happy Hour” and as the name suggests, he’s exchanged his sadpants for a sparkling Kylie-esque pair of gold hotpants. Or to put it another way, if his old stuff was the beautiful heartbreaking soundtrack of you crying into your drink (and for us, it often was), Sime’s now jumped off the stage, run to the bar, and bought the first round of Jager shots before suggesting we all stand on the bar and sing songs with choruses that go “Na na na na na na!” and then maybe go dancing for a while. IN ANY CASE. There are now some new songs up on his MySpazz page, and the one we can’t get out of our head (another Kylie reference – surely this is the first time Sime Nugent has been compared to Kyles not once, but twice in a “piece” of “music journalism”!) is called Alcoholic. It has horns and the aforementioned “Na na na na na na” chorus and in short, we loves it. We are told there will also be a fucking ace film clip featuring boozy puppets or something like that going on a Hilton/Lohan-esque rampage which sounds very exciting indeed, and we’ll be posting it as soon as it is “finished off” by the director. So go have a listen – there are two other new songs on his page as well, alongside ol’ Triple J favourite Gentle As She Goes. More »

Aussie Football Wunderkind Wows Manchester United

9:28AM Jess McGuire | This from news.com.au. Rhain Davis went to Manchester in pursuit of his dream. Yesterday he was the toast of all England. The nine-year-old Australian boy came to the attention of soccer giant Manchester United after his grandfather sent the club DVD footage of him. The Sun newspaper already thinks highly of his prospects, promoting him to the front page, his story read by 10 million people. The story was then detailed inside Britain’s biggest selling newspaper on pages normally reserved for serious news – pages four and five. “Wonder kid Rhain Davis was signed by Manchester United after stunned scouts viewed a DVD featuring his mesmerising skills,” it said. By the fifth paragraph, however, the Poms had already begun the groundwork to claim him as their own. “And the good news is that he could one day play for England as he has a UK passport through his mother’s side,” it said. Typical British. Although if memory serves, the Australian press similarly attempted to claim New Zealand child actress Keisha Castle-Hughes as one of ours once she was nominated for an Oscar, then quickly gave her back to the Kiwis when she got pregnant at 16. In any case, here’s some footage of Rhain doing his thang. We don’t know much about football, but we’re fairly sure Rhain’s “skillz” can safely be considered “mad”. More »

Who Does Ricki-Lee Want Dead?

8:34AM Jess McGuire | We interviewed ex-Young Diva Ricki-Lee Coulter yesterday. Among the many highbrow Serious Journalist questions we directed toward her was “Emily and Lavina Williams are both on a life support machine, but you only have one powerpoint. Who do you plug in?” Without skipping a beat, she launched into a tirade about why Lavina deserved to die and… oh, alright. That didn’t quite happen. But she didn’t exactly hesitate to tell us she didn’t really know Lavina that well compared to Emily AND THAT IS WHY SHE WOULD KILL HER. The entire interview will be broadcast on Melbourne’s RRR 102.7FM next Wednesday at midnight, but we’ll put up the odd interview excerpt on here until then. It should also be noted that Ricki-Lee has a devilish sense of humour, an impressive love of pop culture, is our new MySpazz best friend, and has agreed to represent Australia in Eurovision in 2010. More »