Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Big Day Out Melbourne – A Report (Abridged)
10:03AM Jess McGuire | - Too many people looked like Corey.
- Television commercials about being sunsafe clearly not registering with ‘the youth’
- Boob tubes featuring the Australian flag are in fashion. Who knew? Who is responsible for this?
- Dappled Cities sounded nice.
- Dom from Little Red reported that their set went well. We missed it. We are collaborating on a Michael Bolton cover soon though.
- We are also apparently starting a rap duo with Macromantics. People will agree to anything when they’ve had a bit to drink.
- Silverchair’s ‘Freak’ is still a ridiculous song with ridiculous lyrics.
- Megan Gale’s wrist is allegedly the same size as our Associate Editor’s, according to the wrist band lady.
- Spotted in the VIP tent: Luke Steele from the Sleepy Jackson, Katy Steele from Little Birdy with very blonde hair, Chris Cheney from The Living End, Johnny from Children Collide in a fetching dolphin tshirt, a bartender from The Empress in Fitzroy, various local misfits who blagged their way in, a lady who looked like Olivia Newton John but wasn’t, other people we can’t remember. It’s all glamour back there, you know.
- [REDACTED]’s wife: “I’m not even allowed to watch him play from side of stage!” –> WHAT USE IS IT FULFILLING YOUR CONJUGAL DUTIES IF YOU CAN’T EVEN WATCH YOUR SPOUSE FROM THE COMFORT OF THE WINGS?
- Within ten minutes we lost our mobile in the VIP tent. We’re not naming names, but let’s just say we had our phone before Bjork went by on the back of a golf buggy like a Big Brother contestant on their way to face the music at the eviction show, and we didn’t have it after.
- Bjork Our phone’s new owner is sending very naughty messages to our friends. Tut tut.
- Folks chose to ‘rage’ during Rage Against The Machine, judging by the five security guards we saw standing on top of some drunken man.
- The crowd jumping up and down in time to Rage Against The Machine’s ‘Bulls On Parade’ actually resulted in the earth moving, Carole King/Martika style.
- We are too old for festivals and much prefer listening to the CDs at home with a nice cup of tea.
That is all.
More » 
Can’t John Travolta Admire One Of His Most Gifted Peers Without Everyone Scrutinising Him?
10:00AM Mark | A reader with much sharper eyes than ours asked us to go back and review a SAG awards audience reaction shot during the standing ovation for legend Mickey Rooney, feeling that there was something a little lascivious in Hairspray star John Travolta’s sidelong glance at Eastern Promises‘ Viggo Mortensen. More »
Christopher Plummer Thinks ‘Parnassus’ Can Be Saved Using Stills And Something He’s Pretty Sure Is Called CGI
9:12AM Mark Graham | When we last checked in on the status of The Imaginarium Of Dr. Parnassus, the Terry Gilliam joint that featured the final work that Heath Ledger committed to celluloid, the project looked to be in serious jeopardy. However, as we should have all learned by now, it’s impossible to underestimate the power of creativity in Hollywood, especially when a $35 million production budget is on the line. According to an interview that Christopher Plummer gave to People (and since when is he on the radar of People, anyway?), the project hasn’t been shitcanned quite yet: “Terry’s throwing himself into the job of trying to salvage the picture. [He's] trying to work out at this moment how to continue on. Fortunately, because the film deals with magic, there is a way, perhaps, of turning Heath into other people and then, using stills and I think they call it CGI.” More »
Angelina Quenches Thirst For Three At SAG Awards By Drinking Water
9:04AM Defamer Hollywood | As much as we have tried to express restraint in the latest episode of Jolie Wombwatch, these photos of Angelina sans bubbly at last night’s SAGs are hard to look at without a raised eyebrow or two. Sure, we sometimes drink water at parties, but that’s mainly because we’re broke and don’t feel like spending 18 bucks on a sip of cheap champagne. So, with that in mind, let’s recap the facts that we know up to this point: Angie was wearing a muumuu, the Pitt-Jolies can afford champagne, and water does a pregnant body good. We entered these facts into our trusty supercomputer and the results came back with 90% certainty that Mrs. Jolie-Pitt will soon be buying a few of those trendy expandable waisted Seven jeans at Kitson (as long as no animals, babies, or trees were harmed during the manufacturing process, that is). [Photos courtesy of Getty Images] Brangelina Twins – She’s Drinking Water [PageSix.com] More »
Michael Bay Tips Hand On Dream Project In Australian Banking Commercial
8:50AM Mark | Don’t let Michael Bay’s lightly self-deprecating appearance in this Australian commercial fool you: as we speak, the workaholic fauxteur is already in negotiations with Paramount to make Extreme Outback Banking Koala Force: Determined To Be Different his follow-up to Transformers 2, a nine-figure-budgeted production which will require no fewer than thirty helicopters (up from the brief presentation’s mere seven), and boast a small army of custom-made, fully animatronic bears (CGI is the coward’s way out) each featuring over 10,000 functioning parts. Projected five-day Memorial Day 2011 gross: $US125 million. New Commonwealth Bank ad [YouTube] More »
New Line, MGM Hope To Appease ‘Hobbit’ Fans By Throwing Big Bag Of Money At Guillermo Del Toro
8:46AM Mark | Having recently buried the $US40 million hatchet with Peter Jackson to bring to an end that ugly feud over Lord of the Rings profits, New Line (and partner MGM) can now turn its attention to the crucial matter of finding a suitable director (Jackson, as you surely remember, is executive producing) for its two planned Hobbit movies, knowing that making a hasty, ill-considered choice could, as THR notes, “put billions of dollars at stake…and could turn off an audience that encompasses millions of passionate readers, Tolkien fans and obsessive geeks.” More »
8:32AM Mark Graham | Although Juno’s biggest B.O. weekends appear to be in the rearview mirror, that doesn’t mean that America’s appetite for all things Juno has fully subsided. In addition to the soundtrack’s strong performance (currently #2 on the Billboard charts), there appears to be overwhelming demand on the black markets for Hamburger Phones! Or, rather, overwhelming supply. There are currently over 50 listings on eBay for hamburger phones, some of which utilize a hand-crafted MS Paint montage that includes Diablo “Call Me Brook” Cody’s now-famous shot of her talking on her very own Hamburger Phone. With that in mind, we’re using all of the money in the Defamer piggy bank to corner the market on orange Tic-Tacs. You know, just in case the Juno ancillary markets continue to grow. [Pop Candy] More »
Angelina’s Muumuu Not-So-Subtly Suggests Presence of Baby Pitt-Jolie(s)
8:27AM Defamer Hollywood | The rackalicious, curvalicious and usually teensy-waisted Angelina Jolie wore, for the first time in years, a real live muumuu to last night’s SAG Awards, adding a bit more plausibility to all those rampant ‘preggers with twins‘ rumours. Wearing a strapless vintage Hermes floaty number and clutching Brad’s arm all the way down the red carpet, any signs of the pillow-lipped Perfect 10 bod were literally camouflaged (those brown, beige and grey shades would work well in Iraq) by a dress so long and wide that anyone stepping within ten feet of the (possible) new mother of twins would have slipped on its spacious circumference. Even more suspicious? Her decision to carry a shawl, lest anyone dare take note of her newly plump arms. [Photo courtesy of Getty Images] More »
Quentin Tarantino, Okay, Doesn’t Want To Be Bothered By The Paparazzi, Okay, While He’s Drinking Starbucks Coffee, Okay
8:27AM Mark Graham | Ever since Quentin Tarantino blew the doors off an unsupecting Sundance Film Festival with the release of Reservoir Dogs, he’s been a consistent January fixture on the Park City scene since that fabled winter of `92. Heck, after 16 years, he’s practically a local by now. So imagine QT’s surprise when he strolled out of local Starbucks with his mocha choca latté ya ya and encountered a pesky paparazzo standing there in the parking lot. The good news? QT looks like he’s dropped some LBs since we last saw him (at the presser for Golden Globe nominations). The bad news? He got a little slap happy with the lensman. More »
