If there's one person in the world that you probably don't want to get on the bad side of, it's Mark "Chopper" Read, ex-con, hitman, rapper and artist (in roughly that order).

Not that we're suggesting Chopper's planning to take a shotgun over to Channel Nine because he didn't think much of Underbelly, but still - wouldn't you rather he really, really liked the drama? Actually, maybe not.

We're scared, hold us.

"I'm enjoying it, but there should definitely be more shooting and less rooting," he told the mag.

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Amy Winehouse might be writing "suicidal" choons and scratching her face to bits like some Dickensian flophouse resident, but at least she can pull it together when it's time to have tea with hubby (in jail).

Yes, Winegums actually scrubbed up quite nicely for her access visit with Blake Fielder-Civil, even thoughtfully donning gloves so that, presumably, a) she wouldn't spread impetigo germs all over her own face and b) so she could lovingly give Blake a full cavity search. Er, sorry, so she wouldn't infect him, either.

Amy has been battling the infection impetigo, and it looks as if she's taken to wearing rubber gloves to prevent the condition worsening.

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We've spent a long time now with the freewheeling, Emmy-winning Jeremy Piven of Today: Oozing confidence from every pore of his shredded, hairless body (save for his scalp), that Piven is an Arian super-man. It's enough to make you forget about the Jeremy Piven of Yesterday, as featured in the clip above from a 1995 episode of Chicago Hope. Playing a patient with a stubbornly persistent erection (an ominous harbinger of things to come? Discuss), that Piven comes far closer to the Piven we first grew to love: Back when the hairline was making a break for the border, chest fur rolled across his torso like tumbleweeds, and carbohydrates still played a series regular role in his diet.

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Katherine Heigl continues to ever so subtly remind her husband Josh "Call Me Joshua" Kelley that she does, and always will, wear the pants in their frightening relationship. This time, domestic issues are going beyond proving her social dominance or explaining on national television that their marriage would likely dissolve should they be forced to spend two consecutive weeks together. No, now Katie's moved on to the touchy topic of having Heiglets. And unsurprisingly, she plans on having them when she wants them, no matter how unready Joshua may be. As she puts it, "I think he'd prefer to wait a little more time, but I kind of wouldn't." [People]

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conPredictable as it was by America's right-wing box-office seers, Stop-Loss' flat opening wasn't the only high-visibility stumble out of the gate last weekend. The Weinsteins' Superhero Movie barely cracked $10 million, a fraction of the early takes for previous installments of the lucrative spoof quasi-franchise that includes Scary Movie, Date Movie et. al. While immediate speculation focused on the impact of the threatened Fanboys Solidarity Movement boycott, we're quite fond of Steven Zeitchik's take both postulating the Bob Saget Rule and suggesting superhero movies are send-ups all their own:

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There's nothing more the Australian media like than hearing someone from right here in lil ol' Aussie is doing good overseas (second only to making sure we all hear when an Australia doesn't win an award), so gather round gran'ma's rocking chair on the porch overlooking the canefields as we hear of the latest expat to do our tiny, culturally bankrupt country proud...

It would seem Abbie Cornish, who makes her trade as an actor, can actually act! And the critics are prepared to say so! Good job, deary, you show the world how good us Aussies can be if we'd only get a break, etc:

Aussie star-on-the-rise Abbie Cornish continues to win friends and influence people, with her turn in Stop-Loss, earning solid reviews in the US.

Cornish stars opposite real-life love interest Ryan Phillippe in the film.

"Ms Cornish, in spite of some accent trouble - her native Australia is a long way from Texas, geographically and phonetically - gets every nuance of her character's toughness and bewilderment exactly right," the New York Times critic said.

But you know, we're just a tiny little colony of bright-eyed hopefuls, we'll take what we can get!

Singer/actress/Game Day curse Jessica Simpson was recently treated for a kidney infection at Cedars-Sinai, according to People today. Though her rep assures us she's been released and is doing just fine, our ears tend to perk up whenever we hear of a troubled starlet being rushed to the hospital for all kinds of issues, be they asthma attacks or a simple case of the Batshits. But this is the first time in recent memory that a celeb has attributed their hospital visit to the kind of condition one generally (well, pretty much always) associates with the joy of sex. We did a bit of research, and came up with our top three guesses on what (or who) sent Jess to the operating table, after the jump.

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It's been only five weeks since Jennifer "Don't Call Me J. Lo" Lopez gave birth to twins and, magically, the singing sensation seems to have withered down to her pre-baby weight. Though we have often been mystified by what Jennifer does — particularly by her decision-making process post Wedding Planner in choosing which films to star in — her desire to quickly trim down doesn't surprise us in the slightest. To that end, we compared Lopez's figure from before Marc Anthony worked his magic on her urgent uterus to a photo of her weeks before she popped to her stunning appearance last night at the New York premiere of Shine A Light.

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Judging by some of the odder items featured on Juno Lynn Spears' alleged baby registry, it seems as though the 16 year-old is hopeful that her precious little one will turn out to be another Spears family cash cow. As People revealed this morning, Jamie Lynn drove over 80 miles from her home in Kentwood to register her bundle of joy at Babies R Us (we're guessing the internet must've been down in Kentwood?). Listed among necessities like strollers and baby monitors priced at $199, the mommy-to-be has picked out some jazzy presents designed to jump start an infant's road to insta-stardom, which will likely come via a role on some Nickelodeon song-and-dance show. See the full list, including the Idol-in-training items, after the jump.

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Former Celebrity Mum of The Year Kerry Katona™ continues to kick parenting goals that we're guessing her PR peeps would probably prefer we didn't hear about, except - oops! - Kerry invited MTV cameras into her life and home for her fly-on-the-wall series, Crazy In Love.

So, based on continued updates courtesy of the Daily Mail and Crazy In Love, we thought we'd tally up some tips and hints on parenting and pregnancy based on what Kerry - again, Former Celebrity Mum of The Year - has to tell us. Read on!

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There are a few people in this world that you know will always provide hilarious/troubling soundbites, and Keith Richards is one of them (the others are George W. Bush and Kristy from Big Brother).

Doing his bit for every government's anti-drugs campaigning, Keef - at the New York premiere of Martin Scorsese's new Stones concert flick, Shine A Light - was more than happy to wax quotable about his, er, indulgences.

The 64-year-old rock veteran of the Rolling Stones said he is writing his life story, but it is proving to be difficult as he has trouble remembering what happened yesterday.

Former heroin addict Keith, whose career has been notoriously awash with drugs, admitted: "I smoke my head off. I smoke weed all the damn time.

"But that's my benign weed. That's all I take, that's all I do. But I do smoke, and I've got some really good hash."

The man wrote the Satisfaction riff, ferchrissakes - most stoners would be lucky to write a shopping list for "peanut butter, red cordial, 2-Minute Noodles and... umm..."

Having flirted with dangerous levels of underexposure since winning her Best Screenplay Oscar a little over a month ago, Diablo Cody is back with a double-barreled blast of creative miracles. First up, The Hollywood Reporter notes that Cody's long-rumoured comedy series The United States of Tara — starring Toni Collette as the title character afflicted with multiple personalities — is nearing a full-season order from Showtime. We can handle this without much difficulty — and by "handle" we mean "believe," because the second project has the calendar-conscious skeptic in us praying for an April Fool's Day revelation:

"Juno B-Sides: Almost Adopted Songs," a 15-track collection boasting a ditty performed by star Ellen Page, will debut exclusively through iTunes for a suggested list price of $9.99 on April 8, distributor Rhino Records said. Page performs 'Zub Zub,' a song written by the film's Oscar-winning screenwriter, Diablo Cody, for a scene that was eventually cut for time. Page's character bemoans her fate with such lines as "he filled me with baby batter, then we ate some orange tic tacs after."

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We've never tuned in to The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, having assumed the CNBC show featuring the ad exec and Speedo aficionado was just a pointless platform for a Type A, macho metrosexual to get his fame-fix on. Imagine our shock, then, when we tuned in to find beloved, self-destructive comic Artie Lange—looking heavier and more heart-attack-prone than ever—being subjected to a cupcakeboarding rendition at the hands of his merciless, pink-necktied inquisitor.

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Because our Sunday wouldn't have been the same without at least four hours committed to work, Defamer crashed yesterday's U.S. press conference for the new Martin Scorsese/Rolling Stones concert film Shine a Light. It's not half-bad for Stones or Scorsese fans, with a rangy set list and intoxicating camerawork that both might run a little long for the average viewer. Not easily starstruck, we nevertheless felt a mild succession of twinges upon the band and their director's entrance ("Holy shit, Keith Richards really does look like that," etc.), none more acute than when a Paramount publicist, clearly by accident, let us sneak a question in.

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A frustrated, out-of-work actor has taken to Craigslist in search of "alternative methods" to prepare for an upcoming audition: "One of my friends suggested I get into white magic, but I think I should find a expert or someone who knows what they are doing...if you could write me with whatever idea/spell you have to help me that would be great, because like I said I have never done this before." It's actually not the craziest idea we've ever heard, but we'd caution that this sort of thing isn't for the casual dark arts dabbler; properly casting a casting spell is a science, if anything, requiring just the right measurements of eye of lapdog, hair of Andy Dick, and breath of 1st AD. [Craigslist]

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Arguably the last Hollywood reach-around that still truly matters, it's hardly a surprise to see some of the world's biggest stars line up for their turn to get slimed at the Nickelodeon's Kids Choice Awards—a relatively minor price to pay to ingratiate yourself to a new generation of prepubescent fans, who'll come away viewing you not just as some relic steeped in old-man smell, but as certified lunchbox-adornment material.

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Our condolences go out this morning to Paramount, whose sulky, twangy, denim-and-rippling-flesh marketing push for Stop-Loss couldn't trick weekend moviegoers into checking out yet another Iraq War message movie. At Defamer HQ, the search for answers behind the disappointing $4.5 million gross — too many muscle shirts? Ryan Phillippe/Abbie Cornish babymaking rumors peaked too soon? — extended to the conservative journal Men's News Daily, where crack industry analyst Greg Strange's devastating Monday-morning hindsight is sharper than ever:

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The Great Film Critic Euthanizing of 2008 continued over the weekend with its highest-profile casualty yet: David Ansen, the highly respected 30-year veteran at Newsweek, joined 110 colleagues in accepting a buyout that Variety's Anne Thompson reports included "a sweetened pension, health coverage until age 65, and two years' salary." Plus he keeps a contributing editor title at the magazine, chipping in occasionally with reviews, features and whatever else Newsweek's fast-shrinking newshole can accommodate starting in 2009.

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