On Friday night I was lucky enough to attend the opening night of Opera Australia's lavish new production of Lerner & Loewe's wonderful My Fair Lady. Roger Kirk's costumes are breathtaking (the Ascot sequence's costumes and millinery, and Eliza's ballgown both receiving as much if not more applause than the castmembers themselves) and it is a treat to have the musical really sung for a change (though we did appreciate Alan "Dr Karl" Fletcher's efforts in the pro-am production of a few years back).

Reg Livermore is brilliant as Professor Higgins, Taryn Fiebig is a delightful Eliza, and the production features not one but two grand dames of Australian musical theatre, Judi Conelli and Nancye Hayes (both in fine form). It's on until May 31st at Melbourne's State Theatre and I highly recommend you beg, borrow or steal a kidney to get a ticket.

However, I know what you really want to know is who was there and wearing what, so hop over the jump for this special cultured edition of Defamer Australia celebrity spotto...

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It's a turbulent time in Australian magazine publishing currently, between New Woman folding and New Idea's continued idiocy, now Famous' founding editor Shane Sutton has been shown the door.

He's been replaced in the role by a former NW staffer, which is perhaps not surprising given that the two mags are more or less identical and when reading one, you wonder why the other still exists.

After a slide in last week's sales survey, Sutton has moved to "new projects" with NW's former deputy editor taking over.

Speculation was rife that management could be considering merging Famous with its stablemate, Who.

As for merging Famous with Who, why bother? The latter ceased to be relevant some time ago, while the former never was, so combining the two would just create a massive publishing black hole of irrelevancy - and I think New Idea would have something to say about such encroachment on their market share in that department.

Yes, yes, I know there's nothing particularly big nor clever about laughing when online newspapers cock up in the photo department, but today's effort by the clowns at the "New Look!" Daily Mail are clearly so bewildered by said "New Look!" with all its Flash bells and whistles that they've let their job get the better of them.

To wit, some of the highlights from the "Femail Today" sidebar on this (incidentally equally amusing) story:

Yes, exactly how does Jennifer Aniston feel about John Mayer's continued gobbling of the famous little blue diamonds? Is his body still a wonderland?

Blue indeed - this is a new look for Portman and Scott Thomas, and don't they look thrilled with it. Meanwhile, Eric Bana plays referee in the middle of the two, in case they start a bitch fight over turning up in the same dress.

And finally, my favourite...

Just look at them, pumping out their hits. Gay disco indeed - do these girls know how to party or what?!

Incompetent staffers of one of the world's worst newspapers, on this frosty morning in May: I salute you.

Certainly the sight of Angelina Jolie topless comes as nothing new to even the most casual Jolie breast enthusiast—but that shouldn't mean that every fresh specimen isn't something worth celebrating. Take for example a recent series of photographs, shot by a paparazzo with a telephoto lens the size of a small corn silo, of the actress on a Cannes balcony. Whatever discomfort we may have experienced over this mild invasion of privacy were quickly offset by the excitement of stealing a double-helping glimpse of her Brad-only goodies. We've obfuscated the offending, glorious bits with the star of her latest animated voiceover project: We like to imagine censor-dot Kung Fu Panda is thinking, "Boobies!" to himself in a voice that sounds unmistakably like Jack Black's.

The uncensored photo is after the jump.

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For every high-pitched shriek of rage we let loose after making it through a new episode of Lost without a single Big Question answered, there's a part of us that doesn't want to know what' s going on anyway. Sure, it'd be nice if the epic's smarmy producers decided to shed some light on what the four-toed statue from season two was all about, gave us some clues about the Smoke Monster, or what Josh Holloway might look like as a member of the full-frontal nudity club, but maybe getting some answers would weaken our obsession. At least that's how we felt before hearing today that a sole cast member knows for sure exactly how the series will end. And we have a feeling that between now and 2010, they might wind up "blurting it out" despite assurances.

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Despite his best attempts, Tom Cruise has officially failed his mission of keeping wife Katie Holmes off Broadway and out of New York. As we learned earlier this year, the escape-hungry Holmes was offered a role in this fall's Arthur Miller play All My Sons, giving her a chance to remind the industry she was once an actress. But Cruise was rumoured to have squashed the idea, punishing his true love by sending her off to Scientology boot camp. But Us is confirming that Holmes has signed on anyway, meaning the tight Cruise clan will be spending autumn in New York. We can only hope NBC successfully woos Jerry Seinfeld into a deal by then, lest TomKat's previous recruitment plans for the comedian remain a high priority. [Us]

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After the implosive one-two punch comprising his recent tandem War. Inc. and Grace is Gone (not to mention, of course, his spellbinding online short film featuring Diablo Cody as "Girl Who Thought He'd Be Cooler"), fortune may yet favour the slumping John Cusack. Or at least that's the only option our optimistic hearts will allow upon reading about the actor's reported next project, a massive-budget, honest-to-goodness end-of-the-world film by apocalypse maven Roland Emmerich:

John Cusack is in negotiations to star in director Roland Emmerich's (10,000 B.C., The Day After Tomorrow) new disaster movie 2012 for Sony Pictures. The title refers to the year the world is supposed to end after a global cataclysm. Cusack is negotiating to play Jackson Curtis, a divorced dad who alternates between writing and driving a limo. ...

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Hmmm. There's really not much I can say to introduce the following clip except to say... ooh! Clever!

UPDATE: Erm... I need you guys to be honest with me. Who here watches Channel Nine's Today show? I just saw it for the first time this morning, and they have a segment called YouTube Clip Of The Day!? How long has this been going on? Did I inadvertently steal the idea from them over a year ago despite having never actually watched the program? OR ARE YOU BASTARDS DEFAMER AUSTRALIA READERS?!

(Alternatively, I suppose the words "YouTube" and "clip" and "the day" line up quite easily together, and claiming the phrase as ours would be akin to trying to copyright the sayings "here's your change" or "can I have a large latte"... STILL!)

During this exciting and hectic Cannes season, some lesser-budgeted and hyped projects are at risk, like sand through a topless sunbather's cleavage, of tumbling between the cracks. We therefore take a moment to draw your attention to Killing Fields director Roland Joffe's latest film: You And I, starring Mischa Barton and Anton Yeltsin. From it's IMDb plot synopsis: "Two teenage girls, Janie who is American and Lana who is Russian, fall in love after meeting at a t.A.T.u concert and are swept into a dangerous world of obsession, drug abuse and murrrrrderrrr." (Italics and dread-inducing consonant-extension ours.) The movie, originally titled Finding t.A.T.u., has been gathering dust on a shelf for several years (back when Yeltsin would still consider acting opposite Barton in a movie about a sapphic Soviet pop group), and is at last ready for its coming out party.

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From the looks of this new teaser for CW's upcoming Beverly Hills: 90210 remake, it looks as though any fans of the original hoping for a fresh take on their beloved West Beverly High alum will have to sheepishly return to watching classics from their prized VHS collection. Though they've obediently updated the infamous opening credits sequence in which each beautiful face candidly hops around a stark white set, we fear for the final result after hearing that a featured character is a "fun, energetic, not-your-typical grandma!" and that the adopted son will be black this time around. As if the cast's promise that the reincarnation will be "a wild ride!" wasn't enough to warn us, consider the update's tagline: "If you wanna live in the Zip, you gotta live by the code."

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In a video testimonial posted this weekend to YouTube (do you call something that runs at 1 frame-per-second a "video," or just a really fast slide show?), American Idol contestant Danny Noriega—who before a premature ouster ushered in such hot-tranny-fierce-messisms as "TMTH: too much too handle," "ish," "mmm-hm," and, most notably, "SOME people weren't LIKIN' it," (accompanied by a whiplash-inducing neck-swivel)—revealed that he hasn't so much as received a ticket to attend any portion of this week's two-part, all-David finale.

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· Who can turn the world on with her adorable The Mary Tyler Moore Show set remembrances on Oprah today? Betty White, that's who! [Oprah]
· The C&Ds are flying fast and furious with these photos of Bruno ambushing fellow Austrian Gov. Schwarzenegger, but /Film seems to still have them up as of post time. [/Film]
· David Archuleta's voice coach explains for Utah's Fox news affiliate how the show's producers have systematically rigged it so that David Cook would trample the little shaved-koala's skull in the voting. Also, disconcertingly bedentured producer Nigel Lythgoe told Ryan Seacrest that the "biggest star in the world" would be performing on the finale. OMG! Jesus! We hope he takes the wheel! (Lolz.) [MyFoxUtah, mjsbigblog.com]
· Didn't spend the heat wave on a beach with Jake and Reese, but wish you had? Now you can! [celebrity-gossip.net]
· Loni Anderson married Bob Fleck, a folk singer who would never get any WKRP airplay, in Bel Air yesterday. [AP]

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First, the bad news about the new red-band trailer for Tropic Thunder: Alas, there is no trace of Tom Cruise's fat-suited, filthy-mouthed studio boss cameo that so entranced insiders at an early screening last month. The good news: Ben Stiller does throw a murderous Viet Cong toddler off a bridge, which is only about a 6 on the teaser's overactive, oft-peaking transgression scale. More bad news: The trailer appears to promise more than anyone can rightfully expect it to deliver, and Jack Black does appear in his underwear. More good news: Black in packing more than his junk in said underwear. More bad news: The trailer does zero favours for the squeamish. More good news: The trailer does zero favours for the squeamish. So we guess we're in! NB: Simple Jack could quite possibly turn out to be the best film never made. [Tropic Thunder]

After a week-long lull in apocalyptic mutterings from all sides of SAG and AFTRA negotiations with the major studios, a couple of new stumbling blocks have appeared en route to a deal. For starters, AFTRA national president Roberta Reardon today sent out a sobering e-mail to her members, both acknowledging her discussions' ongoing news blackout while giving the rank-and-file plenty to leak to the press. To wit: Reardon writes that even AFTRA, which was expected to breeze to a new contract after SAG very publicly dug in its heels last month, is apparently having a hard time coming to terms with the majors on new media:

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· Sigourney Weaver, whom we love (but not enough to see Vantage Point) will star and co-produce Prayers for Bobby for Lifetime, in which she plays a religious woman who questions her beliefs about homosexuality after her son commits suicide. Lifetime: Television For Women Reconsidering Their Views on Gays.[Variety]
· Pierce Brosnan and Susan Sarandon will star in The Greatest, about a family trying to keep it together following the death of their son. Obviously, dead sons have replaced pregnancy as the hot new movie plot device. [Variety]

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Those adorably violent animal lovers over at PETA have temporarily ceased from attacking fur-toting starlets with tomatoes to round up their nominees for this year's Sexiest Vegetarian award. And judging by the list of potential winners, it seems that granola-loving male celebrities are seriously lacking in the "sexy" department as compared to their female counterparts. Herbivores like Naomi Watts and Natalie Portman are listed among the ladies, whereas guyliner fans, racist talk show hosts and '80s heartthrob-turned-has-beens make up the majority of the male contenders. We take a closer look at the uneven distribution after the jump.

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We don't know if Venus is in retrograde or God hates us or whatever, but we can scarcely remember a time in recent history where we've been subjected to a series of more non-stop, ear-punishing horrors than the past month. Between recent performances by Jason Castro, Teri Hatcher, and Fantasia (as accompanied by the inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the direction of the Marquis de Sade), we really didn't know how much more we could take. But those were all American Idol-advanced atrocities, which is why we thought we'd be safe with a seasoned pro like Usher on SNL. As the clip above will make quickly obvious, our assumption was dead wrong. Is this the worst performance in history? Probably not. But it's close, and contains the most hilariously spastic freestyle dance moves we've seen since Richard Simmons's Cranergy endorsement (to say nothing of more flat notes than a Post-It pad). Chris Brown: You're safe for now, Boo. [SNL]

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Only days after rumours surfaced that the on-and-off relationship between Owen Wilson and Kate Hudson had switched back to Off, the Stallion was seen preying on new anonymous blondes in New York City while lovelorn Kate was allegedly recuperating from the split. So naturally, the news that Hudson picked herself back up and found a new paramour in the fit form of one-ball wonder Lance Armstrong is slightly comforting. But after reading the details surrounding the pair's so-called dates and blooming "romance," we aren't biting. The three clues in particular that leave us seated while others jump to conclusions, after the jump.

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You tell us what's more frightening about MGM boss Harry Sloan's recent proclamations from Cannes: A) That the guy freely admits both Robocop and the Brat Pack-slays-the-Communists epic Red Dawn are up for remakes at his studio, or B) Sloan's public support of Tom Cruise, Valkyrie and United Artists has winnowed to the point of "clanking endorsement." Oh, who are we kidding? Valkyrie trumps everything:

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While Indiana Jones and the Can Someone Please Tell Me What the Fuck Just Happened? was the most sought-after ticket at Cannes, it was another prostate-enlarged cinematic icon's comeback—that of Woody Allen—that would prove the festival's most triumphant. His new Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which features Javier Bardem ravaging any number of comely lasses and at least one Penelope Cruz-on-Scarlett Johansson kiss, was greeted with a ten-minute standing ovation after its Saturday screening. Director and cast were on hand to soak in the glory—but not Johansson, whom the Daily Mail reports made life a living hell for the put-upon studio workers just trying to get a little Côte d'Azur photo-op action going:

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Jennifer Aniston did it first, quickly followed by Blake Lively. Now Britney Spears has pulled out this spring's most reliable accessory to nab a boy toy: the bikini. While sobering up at Casa Gibson down in Costa Rica, Spears spent the weekend looking happier than she has in months in two very itty bitty string bikinis adorned with tattoo parlor jargon. And in between bouts of boogie-boarding, golf cart-riding and rounds of Hide-and-Seek played amidst driftwood, Spears appeared to have successfully lined up a male suitor of her own. Who the mystery man might be, and a closer look at Spears' ongoing tendency to block her possibly-knocked up belly from sight, after the jump.

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The first-in-the-world hype accompanying Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull's premiere at Cannes appears to remain the only story of interest to most festivalgoers, with everything from live-blogs of the screening to more meditative reads ("I was bored out of my mind," writes A.O. Scott) peppering the spectrum of feedback. Of course there's always Harvey Weinstein, who continues his Cannes dealings with impunity despite our corporate death sentence leveled last week. And people actually seem to like Woody Allen's latest! It's the '80s all over again!

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Recover from a weekend so sweltering, you briefly entertained the idea of seeing Speed Racer just to take advantage of two hours' worth of Americana AC, with a glance at some refreshingly chilled box office numbers:
1. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - $56.573 million
It was an easy win for the second chapter of the only major Hollywood franchise that, to our knowledge, is also a lightly encoded Christ-allegory prominently featuring a ferocious talking beaver. (We suppose a reasonable case could be made for the Basic Instinct series, but that debate is for another time. And yes, we just made a beaver joke. It's going to be that kind of Monday.) In next installment The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the heroic young protagonists will be firmly entrenched in their gawky pubescent phase, leading to an awkward facts-of-life talk delivered by a visibly uncomfortable Aslan regarding the pile of crusty underarmor garments he found stashed in their wardrobe. Narnia forever!

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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has been unveiled at last for international critics, and with most verdicts coming in mixed to above-average, our discriminating tastes still found much left to be desired. Defamer editor Seth Abramovitch and senior editor S.T. VanAirsdale attended yesterday's screenings in Los Angeles and New York, respectively, after which the slow process of psychological reckoning and franchise restoration began the only way they knew how: via instant messaging.

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It may not contain that promised footage of Angelina Jolie smoking heroin, but the rumoured "drug tape" featuring the future mother-of-six has been released by a British tabloid. And while Jolie herself isn't filmed doing any drugs, she doesn't appear to need any, as she spends a good two minutes babbling about how S&M has spiritually changed her life. As her anonymous junkie friend casually smokes heroin next to her, Angelina talks nonstop as though the shady characters huddled nearby are licensed therapists. How seeing her baby lizard left in the sun changed her life, and why she is just so tired of explaining to people that sadomasochism is not just about accessories but about healing, after the jump.

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