Bad news, Enrique Iglesias - it seems your former tongue buddy, Big Brother UK housemate Sara Folino, has found a new "special friend" and it's... Kathreya the Cookie Lover! Wait, WHAT?

On Big Brother 9 U.K. this week, that's exactly what happened: Contestants Sara Folino and Kathreya Kasisopa shared a snog in the pool. Of course it wasn't as romantic as a goth pool party kiss would likely seem -- other roommates were there to "encourage" them along.

Though both Sara and Kathreya have yet to speak about their sexuality on the show, Kathreya ended their pool party by saying: "I kiss you tomorrow. Same time. In the pool." I wonder what the next theme party will be -- Mardi Gras? (Sara is Australian, and you know how gay their Mardi Gras is.)

I love how pleased Kathreya seems by the encounter. "I kiss you tomorrow" is going to be my line of choice this evening when I stroll around the Northcote Social Club hunting down Dave McCormack... or, frankly, anyone too drunk to run away.

Wow. If the year was 1989 and not 2008, word that Michael Jackson is planning on collaborating with pop sensations of yesterday New Kids On The Block might have been welcome. But it's not 1989, and thus the revelation is more of a joke than anything else.

Former King of Pop Michael Jackson is set to collaborate with reformed boy band New Kids On The Block.

The reformed boy band's singer, Donny Wahlberg, revealed the plan as the group - who announced they were reuniting earlier this year - celebrated the launch of their comeback tour, which starts in September.

Donny said: "It's very exciting. It's one big party and everyone wants to join us."

The band held secret talks with Michael, 49, at his Nevada home last week.

As a clever clogs commenter over at the Stuff.co.nz site quips, "Is Michael Jackson only doing this because he likes their name, New KIDS on the block????"

Moving on, let's take a look at the photo accompanying the article of the New Kids themselves.

Am I alone in thinking that the one who was the least attractive in the group during its hey day (Danny Wood, the chiselled looking fellow on the far right, those who were not young girls/future homosexuals during New Kids mania) is now looking dangerously like the ensemble's hottest member? This makes me uncomfortable. I fear change. Although it is worth keeping in mind that as a young lass, my favourite was Donnie - and Donnie had a rat's tail. When it comes to picking the cutest member of New Kids On The Block, I may have been born with a strange genetic defect which prevents me from assessing the situation correctly.

Poor James Blunt. All the sex and alcoholic beverages in the world won't make up for the slap in the face that was the needless cancellation of his sold out shows in Athens.

His music may be laidback, but James Blunt is on the warpath after the Greeks formed a phalanx to prevent him performing on Lykavittos Hill, the highest point in Athens.

Two sold-out concerts by Blunt were cancelled by the municipality for "safety inspections" only hours before the singer was due to take to the stage. However, concerts by Nick Cave and Mark Knopfler did go ahead. The Athens authorities admitted later that there had been no safety issue, but a letter confirming this had been "misplaced" - while 6,000 fans were locked out.

"In the best case it's carelessness and in the worst case corruption," an angry Blunt told Ta Nea, the Athens daily paper, sensing a conspiracy.

A conspiracy to protect the ears of Athenians from the dirge that is You're Beautiful? Surprisingly, the feeble mewling you're hearing in your head right now as you read about this story isn't just the chorus of "Goodbye, My Lover" raping your consciousness, it's the sound a wounded cat makes after being dropped.

Oh, my. I do love when Crikey starts their daily email to subscribers with the textual equivalent of a king hit, and today they didn't disappoint, slamming former King of Mayo Alexander Downer in three punchy paragraphs.

What a bloody sook Alexander Downer is. His response today in The Sydney Morning Herald to Peter Hartcher's savage farewelling of him last week contains a standard-issue lament about the anti-conservative bias of the Australian media.

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This is without a doubt the greatest film trailer I've ever seen.

CHAIRBULANCE!

· If you love The Shining—and who doesn't—we're pretty sure you'll love this commercial plugging a Stanley Kubrick retrospective on UK TV. [thighswideshut.org, Channel 4]
· The "Straight Dave" referred to in that Arkansas gay wrestling prank is rumoured to be another character Sacha Baron Cohen is playing in Bruno: "A gay man trying to hide his sexuality by living an ultra-straight lifestyle." This is starting to sound tedious. [g4tv.com via videogum]
· Have you always wanted to know how to spell Vin Diesel's name in Russian, but were too shy to ask? Today is your lucky day! [/Film]
· This 32,000 Barbie doll installation is like some Busby Berkeley fever dream. [eyeteeth.blogspot.com via Goldenfiddle]
· Panda births are not cute. They kind of remind us of Alien births. [itn.co.uk]

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Brooke Hogan, the Saddest Reality Star on Earth, popped by GMA this morning to plug her new VH1 show Brooke Knows Best, where she was made to react to all the truly awful things to happen to her this year. By way of review: Her brother's best friend was left brain dead from a racing accident with her brother Nick Hogan at the wheel, for which he is currently serving an eight-month sentence. Also, her mother filed for divorce from her famous wrestler dad, and is now dating a 19-year-old. And where most of us would choose to cope with a year of unthinkable tragedy and heartache by, say, not submitting ourselves to 24-hour reality film crew documenting every emotional breakdown, Brooke has chosen the perhaps more challenging route, and done precisely that. To her credit, were it us in that situation, we'd probably be shitfaced and trying to make out with Sam Champion—but Hogan manages to admirably hold it all together. Let's hope she doesn't wind up being shuffled through the VH1 Celebreality repertory, and wind up roomies with Natasha Lyonne on Celebrity Rehab, or judging a hot-fudge-massage contest on her own competitive dating show, Hogan On To Love.

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When choosing between months of intensive studies spent hunched over a Torah preparing for your kiddushin (that's betrothal for you goyum, which are non-Jews for you...non-Jews), and becoming a big star, it seems Isla Fisher has decided to go with the latter. As the Daily Mail reports, the potential redheaded successor to Lucille Ball's slapstick throne has put off the conversion process in order to complete filming Confessions Of A Shopaholic. And fiance Sacha Baron Cohen's ultra-religious parents just don't see what all this movie stardom fuss is all about. The wedding date has reportedly been postponed, Cohen's gone back to making Israelis cry as Bruno, and the wee Cohen baby is presumably in the hands of the only au pair they could find who hasn't seen Borat. But Fisher isn't the first actress to undergo conversion to Judaism for a guy — from Liz Taylor to Connie Chung, a diverse handful of stars became Jews in the name of love, though not every shattered chuppah led to a happy ending...

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There hasn't been a show as hotly anticipated as the 90210 revamp since last year's Knight Rider. (You heard me.) And as we wait with bated breath wondering about the casting fate of teen counseling sensation and all around Losing My Religion-loving Brenda, let's catch up with some former cast members to see how life is treating them.

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John Cusack is suing Intermedia Film Equities USA for breach of contract in the amount of $5.6 million, after production was canceled on his upcoming film Stopping Power. Originally scheduled to shoot in Germany, Cusack signed on to star after Intermedia guaranteed him a "pay or play" fixed compensation of $4.5 million, along with an additional $50,000 to cover the cost of Cusack's staff while on location. $50,000? Who knew Lane Meyer was so high maintenance? Fortunately, we here at Defamer were able to get our hands on a top secret copy of Cusack's rider. We break down exactly where that $50K would've gone after the jump.

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In what should come as no surprise to anyone who has kept even the vaguest interest in Amy Winehouse's exploits over the past year or so, she hasn't exactly been keeping herself nice since her hospital stay and the revelation that she has the early stages of emphysema. In fact, it's really just been business as usual for Winegums.

So for today's Winegums Watch, The Sun has video footage of Amy hanging out at her local pub, where Joe Cocker's With A Little Help From My Friends blares from the speakers and, I dunno, she does some shit, and has tequila shots. Go to and watch it.

And you know, after following Winegums for the good part of a year, I am now starting to think that I best anaesthetise myself with a few tequila slammers and some Joe Cocker just to get through the rest of the year. Chin chin!

As our US counterparts noted this morning, evidently Britney Spears is set to join Madonna on her latest world tour, if we are to believe The Sun.

But what they didn't note was this gobsmackingly insane piece of Photoshopping that everyone's favourite entertainment gossip section's team whipped up for the occasion:

"How they might look"? Yes, I suppose Madonna might very well look like she's decapitated an 18-year-old and replaced the fallen noggin with her own head, and Briney might look like Tim Brooke Taylor in drag at the annual International Transsexual Tattooing & Fake Tanning Convention held in the middle of the Crab Nebula.

In which case, I can't wait for the tour!

Okay, so the promos have hit the internet and, well, let's just say that things don't look great for the hilarity levels of NBC's Kath & Kim adaptation. If this were e.r., they'd be shouting things about how its comedy levels were "bottoming out" and how it's joke "EKGs need BP and a crash cart, stat" (yes, it's true: I did used to be a real doctor, actually, how did you guess?).

Anyway, here it is:

Wow, where to start! How about tacking the phrase "Australia's #1 Comedy!" onto something that, on this 60-second sample, looks like it's going to be about as funny as the Nuremberg Trials?

Way to make us look like the country with the biggest sense-of-humour deficit in the world, NBC! Cheers, we'll slip another cyanide-laced shrimp on the barbie for you!

With legalized same-sex unions already labelled passé, Hollywood discovered its newest cause designed specifically to piss off Arkansas: live, televised, boy-on-boy fox-trotting mayhem. This fall, Lance Bass is reportedly set to join the cast of Dancing With The Stars and partner with a male dancer and cha-cha his way into America's hearts. You know, because he's gay. And it's edgy.

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We bring to you yet more news of unsavory comings and goings on the Sony lot, this time in the form of an all-employees-bulletin distributed on the company intranet, informing whoever keeps sneaking up to craft services tables to load up on illicit granola bars, purloined M&Ms, and stolen slices of soggy turkey wrap that the jig is up:

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Remember when we all thought The Vines were the saviours of rock'n'roll, and that Craig Nicholls was the crazy genius reincarnation of, like, Kurt Cobain and John Lennon?

Yeah, we got over that fairly quickly, but as you will have noticed (possibly), they are back from wherever it was they got to, and it's good to see that Nicholls hasn't dropped his "I'm crazy, me!" routine (and before the forum trolls open a can of binary whup ass on me, I know he has Aspergers, but its symptoms don't include "acting like a complete twonk in interviews", last time I checked).

From Andrew Murfett's interview with the band, in today's Age EG:

Nicholls' demeanour is colourful to say the least. He doesn't hide his distrust of journalists and is reluctant to engage in interviews; if uncomfortable with a question, he puts on a flamboyant pair of sunglasses and spews a rambling answer. Nor is he averse to playing the clown - at one point during our interview he flings himself out of in his chair and begins writhing on the ground. His bandmates cringe and laugh uproariously.

At the shoot, he takes direction without complaint, but when a break is called, he stands defiantly in the middle of the hall and lights a cigarette. "Hey, please write in your story that I'm tough and a rebel," he says, as he proudly flouts the room's non-smoking rules.

And as the crew packs up at Parramatta, Craig Nicholls has one more thing to add.

"I'm sorry that I swore, and for everything else," he says. "But I thought it would make me sound tough."

But the best part of the whole interview is actually the photo, and specifically, the look on "new" bassist Brad Heald's face:

It says, "Jeez, what did your last bassist quit for? Oh, right. Gotcha."

ARGH!

Technical difficulties have prevented me from popping this promised audio up in a sweet mini-player sort of way - along with large dollops of conversation which we will hold onto for when Angie Hart misbehaves in a ridiculously public way and we feel that random chit chat about vegetables and drunkenness will deliver us the all important "hits" - but bugger it, let's allow you to download in a terribly primitive manner an mp3 of Angie Hart instructing you PERSONALLY how to win tickets to her East Coast shows with Dave McCormack.

Right click and save as

Marvel as Angie pretends to love the YouTube Clip Of The Day feature, and practice your fingering skills (so to speak) when she is railroaded into agreeing to let eager punters holding a recorder join her onstage at shows to play along to Labour Of Love!

After some highly impressive clip submitting, Marcus has won two tickets to tonight's Melbourne show, while Marnie is the lucky winner of tickets to the Sydney gig on Thursday night at The Vanguard, but the rest of the shows are still up for grabs. Do what you must.

Oh man, if this is true, it could be the most exciting television news all year: Larry Emdur is being "tipped" to take over the Dancing With The Stars mantle from Daryl Somers, who left at the end of last year. Can you imagine? Larry Emdur with Tina Sparkle? It'll cause a tear in the space time fabric of tongue-in-cheek light entertainment hosting because of its astronomical awesomeness!

I think this deserves an "OMG!!"

Ahem, anyway:

While sources from Dancing with the Stars' production company Freehand are placing their bets on Emdur, Mr Come On Down himself wasn't giving up the game when Confidential contacted him yesterday.

"It would be awesome but I'm not so sure that it's me," Emdur said.

"I did do a couple of tests but as far as I know I'm just one of the names on the list."

Can we start some sort of Defamer Australia-led campaign for Larry to get the gig? Someone make one of those online petitions!

If three makes a trend, then a new one is awkwardly dancing its way into Hollywood. First, Lindsay Lohan threw an 80s prom-themed party for her 22nd birthday, then we recently discovered some intriguing prom scene footage from that highly anticipated horny vampire flick Twilight, and now, Var is announcing that Miramax will produce a film based on "This Strange Thing Called Prom," a piece published last month in the NY Times. Though we never had the (mis)fortune of going to one ourselves, due to prep schools' distaste for tear-inducing, virginity-threatening functions, the infamous Prom Scene has always been a joyous go-to whenever a teen-themed movie needs a pretty way to transition into Act Three. Below, the five cinematic proms we wish we'd been invited to, from Buffy's murderous rampage alongside easy rider Luke Perry to the moment Andrew McCarthy tells Molly Ringwald he loves her even though she's wearing the ugliest dress in the history of ugly dresses.

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It's not quadrupled DVD residuals, regular cocaine rations and guaranteed work for all. However, the major studios' new concession to SAG — $10 million worth of new pay raises — is exactly what we thought might happen after SAG bludgeoned nearly 38% of AFTRA voters into opposing its primetime contract. The deal was ratified anyway, but the majors aren't taking any chances, notes Variety:

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Just when we thought we'd seen every imaginable prank comes this clip from Sci Fi Channel's Scare Tactics that should win Practical Joke of the Year Honors at the 2008 Punk'dies. In it, a woman delivers a ravenous, afterbirth-smeared devilmidget, sending an unwitting target into a fit of hysterics. It's possible she catches on after a few seconds, but she admirably never lets up on the screaming until the moment the Anton LaVey-ish midwife reveals, "You're on Scare Tactics!" and the world's most twisted mother pops her smiling head into the delivery room. In case you were worried about how the frightened woman fared, moments later, the entire cast was throwing back beers with her at a nearby pub, with the goodnatured actor who played the infant evil confessing to his frustrations that "Verne Troyer has my career."

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As far as horror movies based on aberrant sexual practices go, we would have had our money on "Dirty South Fish Hook" as the trick to beat for pure, threatening perversion (think Teeth, but featuring two sets at once). But the UK thriller Donkey Punch has apparently beat it to the, well, you know, premiering in the Midnight section at this year's Sundance Film Festival and opening next week in its home country. Sadly, no American distributor has yet picked up the film, leaving us with only this trailer to tease us with proof that nothing avenges an orgasmic jab to the face like a gun-and-chainsaw murder spree. Those Brits! So... saucy! [The Chaser Blog via Videogum]

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Our borderline obsession with Gwyneth Paltrow's new look as a S&M fetishist during her Iron Man promotional Tour of Transparent Minidresses may have rubbed off on lookalike daughter Apple. But not the way you'd think. Rather than doing the typical copycat routine most little girls go through when their mum is hot, the 4-year old papier-mache donkey fan is not turning herself into a fashionista, but using little brother Moses as her muse. As Paltrow says, "She makes Moses cross-dress." The question is: how far is Apple taking the tranny toddler theme, and does this mean little Moses is destined for an adolescence of boy-curious desires like his dear old Dad?

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When you're a hooker, what does a salacious affair with a married, holier-than-thou governor whose last name makes unoriginal bloggers giddy with glee get you? Prison? A hefty fine? A case of the poon-scratchies? If you're a regular lady of the night, all of those outcomes are possible. But when you're Ashley Dupre, you also get your very own reality dating show! Yes, Hollywood is apparently following in the footsteps of - well, everyone - and jumping into bed with a high-priced call girl who overcharges for inevitably crappy hand jobs. (Producers, take note.) Upon hearing the news, potential contestants everywhere quickly formed a line and searched for fluffers when they assumed "try outs" for "dating show" meant something else entirely.

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Dear Quentin Tarantino,

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Okay. Until now, we'd tried to give Jessica Alba the benefit of the doubt. Sure, she's impossible to watch in any movie she's ever made, what with her amateur acting skills that include crafted facial expressions such as "I'm Happy, See, Because You Can See My Teeth!" and "I'm Sexy, See, Because You Can See My Bikini-Clad Butt!" And yes, she made pregnancy look like possibly the most miserable state of being, unlike all those other actresses who affected the standard Glow (see Naomi Watts and even Nicole Kidman, incapable of moving her face, yet still dewy and happy 'til the arrival of her daughter Sunday). But after reading an excerpt from new mum Alba in next month's UK Cosmo, we think it's safe to say the actress, who insults all male actors, obsesses over her weight, and shows warning signs of early Husband Emasculation, is on her way to becoming the next Katherine Heigl:

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With her name being dragged through Yankee Stadium's muddy infield, Madonna and family are doing their best to focus on work—husband Guy Ritchie hunched over Final Draft putting the finishing "Oi Oi"s on his lad-flick take on Sherlock Holmes, and she, jodhpurs-deep in rehearsals for her upcoming Sticky & Sweet Tour. (Not to be confused with Flavor Flav's Crispity & Crackily Tour.) But how, really, to top the mirror-tiled disco-crucifixion sequence from her last tour? By blowing herself up to several stories high and getting slutty with her most famous stunt-lesbian co-star, Britney Spears. From The Sun:

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It seems that Nice's favourite "very, very nice" patient and her well-appointed womb has taken a turn toward Grumpyville. Nearing the end of her seemingly endless gestation period, Angelina Jolie has grown tired of her hospital/hotel and its Michelin Star-less menu and has started demanding that salmon be brought in from other Clooney-approved restaurants. And, more ominously, reports have surfaced that Jolie has abandoned her strict one-shower-a-day regimen. A collective gasp...

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They grow up so fast, don't they? But whose are they? That's the question we're posing on today's Defamer Celebrity SpawnWatch brain teaser. The answer is after the jump!

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With today's Variety report that Robert Downey Jr. will star in a mildly distracted Guy Ritchie's upcoming Sherlock Holmes for Warner Bros.—by all accounts, a much more reverential take on the mythical detective than the Columbia comedy announced just last week starring Sacha Baron Cohen—we thought we'd celebrate this latest Elementary! edition of our ongoing The End of Ideas series by comparing and contrasting the two competing projects:

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It didn't take a tendency toward political correctness or what roastmaster Katt Williams called his "n****r Spidey sense" to perceive the more over-the-top racism in last year's Comedy Central Roast of Flavor Flav. From the blacks-only mandatory dress rehearsal to the "flying monkey" gags to the $11 worth of damage wreaked during Williams's reputed plastic-plate-and-utensil tantrum, we're pointed today to an epic tale of outrage and, ultimately, handsome compensation for the evening that set American race relations back roughly five days. We've come back since then, however, thanks to the equal time of this recent Williams tirade live from Las Vegas. Still, the network brass got off pretty easy; Jesse Jackson clearly would have cut their nuts off.

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The Earth is easing back on to its axis today after a full month of panic that Jon Favreau might skip out on directing Iron Man 2 — not that he threatened to, mind you, though all it took was one candid MySpace entry to fertilize fanboy concern that money, ego, release-date controversies or all of the above might conspire to shatter the fragile bond between the director and the cheap-arse overlords at Marvel.

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