Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Free Spirited Isabel Was In Shia “One For The Road” LaBeouf’s Crashed Car!
1:07PM Clem Bastow | This just in - apparently our free-spirited whale saving heroine Isabel Lucas was the passenger in the car that Transformers and Indiana Jones star Shia LaBeouf crashed while driving under the influence! And she’s going out with Adrian Grenier! Who is pissed off! How many more exclamation marks can we use!!!
Umm-ahhh!
LaBeouf’s 23-year-old Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen co-star was reportedly sat next to him when he made a left turn on a red light and crashed his Ford F150 around 2.45am (local time) on Sunday in Los Angeles.
[...]
When the New York Daily News contacted Lucas’s Entourage boyfriend Adrian Grenier, who she began dating in February, he was reportedly “none too happy that his ladyfriend was partying with her handsome co-star at 3am”.
The New York Daily News said: “Grenier was testy when we asked him how Lucas was feeling post-crash, and refused to comment.”
Jeez, Shia - you were cute and funny in Transformers (and also hilarious in Freaks & Geeks when you were a wee bairn), but this is testing our allegiance to you. Hands (and cars) off our hippy princess! More » 
Paul Hogan And Shane ‘Kenny’ Jacobson To Create Cosmic Movie Supernova Of Sheer Aussieness
12:37PM Clem Bastow | This is a piece of news that will likely thrill anyone who still drinks Fosters and/or who thinks the Barry McKenzie series was the most awesome piece of art Australia has ever produced: Shane Jacobson and Paul Hogan look set to team up and create movie magic together.
Strewth, mate, chuck another Torana on the barbie, my dead dingo’s donger needs a bit of dead horse on the pavlova so I can score a root with the Big M girl who looks like a bucket of smashed crabs at the Celebration Of A Nation, etc etc.
The home-grown flick, scheduled for release late next year will again showcase the country to the world, with the Crocodile Dundee star and Jacobson’s characters travelling from Warrnambool, Victoria to Cape York.
“Shane has read the script and he likes it a lot,” Jacobson’s manager Deb Fryers said. “He’s excited about the potential, but it’s not locked in,” she added, stressing the AFI-winner had yet to actually sign on the dotted line.
All well and good and industry speak, but I was more impressed by the news.com.au/Daily Telegraph’s effort at creating an ‘artist’s impression’ of what a scene from the flick might look like:
That’s poetry in motion right there, that is. AFIs for everyone! More » 
Jonah Takalua Takes Over London Underground
12:23PM Clem Bastow | After the initial reviews suggested that the Brits were not that keen on Chris Lilley’s masterful Summer Heights High, it seems The People have spoken, and perhaps our UK cousins do like the mockumentary series after all!
Reports are filtering in from Old Blighty that have Jonah Takalua’s trademark tag popping up around London. So reporteth Confidential:
Since the hit series has been airing on the BBC, the character’s “di-k-tation” graffiti tag has been spied on a sign in a Tube station on the northern line, while Confidential hears school kids in the Old Dart are repeating the naughty phrases uttered by the unruly teenager.
Excellent work, children of the UK! After all, Jonah was the best thing about Summer Heights High and I hold out hopes that Lilley will create an entire series based on the character for his next project (for the love of god, no more Mr G!).
All this means it’s only fair to remind you that August 10th, 2008 is National Sorry Ranga Day; as the official Facebook group says:
Red-haired people across Australia have been unfavourably compared to orang-utans since Summer Heights High first aired across Australian television screens in 2007. “Ranga’ is now firmly entrenched in the vocabulary of ordinary people all over this country.
So join the Australian nation on Sunday August 10th 2008, and let a Ranga know that you are sorry.
Join up here; it’s the right thing to do.
Defamer Australia says sorry, rangas. More » 
Cue The ‘Get Into Jen’s Pants’ Gags Now, Hawkins Is Trying ‘Swimwear Designer’ On For Size
12:02PM Clem Bastow | Jennifer Hawkins is evidently not content to simply travel the world with The Great Outdoors and walk the catwalks for Myer stores, now she is adding “swimwear designer” to her resume, having pitched - successfully - to Myer to launch her own line of bikinis and other beachwear bits and pieces.
After all, if there’s one thing Hawkins is well versed in, its the swimwear section.
Marking her first foray into fashion design, Hawkins will star in her own parade when she models her “Cozi” creations at Myer’s Sydney City store on August 28.
It will be the culmination of more than six months of secretive, behind-the-scenes work for Hawkins and the Myer production team and the fulfillment of the former Miss Universe’s dream.
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph, Hawkins said she was thrilled to finally be able to talk about her brainchild which was borne out of increasing frustration at trying to find the perfect bikini and an insatiable urge to tinker with designs currently on the market.
“I’m in a bikini a lot - I’m working in one,” she said.
Well, if Jennifer Hawkins can’t find the perfect bikini, the rest of us are stuffed, aren’t we!
As for “Cozi” itself, only time will tell if it will turn out to be the next MK&A The Row/Sean John/Love Kylie, or if it will be the next Dannii For Kmart/House Of Dereon/Richard Simmons Expandable Waist Workout Gear. More » 
Campy Crystal Lake
12:00PM Mark Graham | Chew-chew-chew, ha-ha-ha. The new teaser trailer for the Michael Bay produced Friday The 13th remake debuted at Comic-Con over the weekend. As with most bootleg footage, it’s often out of focus, but how much focus do you really need to see Jason Voorhees slash his way through Camp Crystal Lake for the umpteenth time? [YouTube] Whatever happened to Abel Ferrara? Good question. [Time Out London via MCN] Heavily-hyped documentary (in the loosest sense of the word) American Teen fell surprisingly flat in its debut this weekend ($8,565/screen). Meanwhile, the phenomenal Man On Wire pulled in over $24K per screen in super-limited release. [Variety] Miley Cyrus told Marc Malkin that “we’re thinking this is our last season [of Hannah Montana].” And by we, she apparently didn’t mean Disney — they shot back a quick response to his piece saying that the ball is in their court, not Miley’s. [E! Online] More »Everybody Relax: The ‘Deadly Cinema Snake’ Has Been Apprehended
11:48AM Clem Bastow | It must be an extremely slow news week up North, as this story is still showing up in the ‘also in news’ sidebars a good, oh, three months after it originally ran (unless someone passed out after drinking a Territory stubby and actually thinks it’s still April). Either way, I took it as a sign from above that we were meant to share this incredible piece of action journalism with you, so here it is: “Deadly cinema snake hunted down.”
Someone call Samuel L. Jackson!
One of the world’s deadliest snakes caused mayhem after it was found warming itself under a popcorn machine in a Northern Territory cinema - less than a metre from teenage staff.
More » 
Dina Lohan, Mother Of The Century: ‘Ali Is A Little Scared Because She’s Meeting Adults’
11:40AM Molly Friedman | We don’t know whether to cry tears of sadness or sweet relief, but last night brought us the heartbreaking season finale of Dina Lohan’s dream come true: the Lindsay-free joy ride through the one of the most frightening TV family’s household that was Living Lohan. And despite all Dina’s efforts to convince us we should be happy for little 14-year old Ali and her double whammy of career success stories featured in this episode, the last few months have taught us that a role in the Troll remake and a single that makes our ears bleed do not necessarily a superstar make. But, as we’ve learned throughout the season, no matter how small these sad triumphs, if it weren’t for Dina and her never-ending flow of parental lessons, Ali would still just be some normal teenager allowed to go to the mall with friends and shop, instead of Dina’s way of remaining the Mother Of The Century:
The Four Billies Elliot Now Have A Paperweight To Show Off To The School Bullies Who Said Dancing Is For Sissies
11:36AM Clem Bastow | Bless their ballet slippers cotton socks: the four young lads who each play the titular boy dancer in the stage musical version of Billy Elliot have taken out the Helpmann Award for Best Male Actor in A Musical.
The little tackers beat musical theatre god Anthony Warlow as well as stiff competition from fellow nominees iOTA and Mitchell Butel to claim the prize.
[T]he night went to Billy Elliot, the feel-good musical based on the popular movie from 2000 and featuring music by Elton John. The production was named best musical, while Genevieve Lemon won best female actor in a musical for her role as Mrs Wilkinson.
Lochlan Denholm, Nick Twiney, Rarmian Newton and Rhys Kosakowski were jointly awarded best actor in a musical for their alternating performances in the title role.
Billy Elliot - which was the strong favourite with 11 nominations - also won awards for best lighting design, best choreography, best music direction and best direction.
Well done, lads!
Now we just have to work out which one will grow up to become a choreographer, which one will become a recording artist, which one will end up on Neighbours and which one will wait tables for ten years before being given a career reprise with a role as a psychotic hit man/pre-op transsexual kindergarten teacher/dinosaur in an AFI-winning comeback extravaganza. More » 
‘Flunky’ Hero of ‘Kung Fu Panda’ Apparently Bears No Resemblance to Actual Chinese
11:10AM STV | On one hand, we’re sort of ashamed to have doubled our knowledge of Chinese culture today with one glance at the Los Angeles Times. On the other, a spoonful of sugar — or, more specifically, of Kung Fu Panda — made the medicine go down that much easier as we learned the deep angst gripping China in the wake of the film’s success. It’s not frustrating enough, evidently, that DreamWorks usurped Chinese authority over everything from animation to the sacred panda itself; rather, the hero Po’s abject laziness and mild prurience has an angry 1.2 billion souls searching as we speak: More »
