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Posted by Clem Bastow at 5:30 PM on August 28, 2008
On Tuesday, Fairfax announced 550 job cuts across their editorial staff. On Wednesday, the first to go was The Age's editor-in-chief, Andrew Jaspan. And now, on Thursday, Fairfax staff are on strike until Monday!
Here's the word we were just sent via the Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance's handy SMS service, in two parts:
Posted by Clem Bastow at 1:30 PM on August 28, 2008
Extremely sad news this afternoon: All Saints star and talented theatre actor Mark Priestley has died. He was found later yesterday in Sydney's CBD near the hotel he was staying in; ambulance officers initially thought he'd suffered a heart attack but later indicated they believed his death was a suicide. Priestley had apparently been struggling with depression; he was only 32 years old. Channel Seven has released the following statement:
Mark Priestley was a tremendous young person - loved and respected by his fellow All Saints cast members and crew.
Posted by Jess McGuire at 12:10 PM on August 28, 2008
Guess what today is, folks?
IT'S SONIA KRUGER'S BIRTHDAY! That's right, Defamer Australia's BFF Tina Sparkle is turning 21 years old (deep breaths, Dido fans) today, and we wish her all the best on this blessed Thursday.
We are hoping to reach out to her "people" and see if we can actually one day talk to her, hold her in our arms, laugh and cry whilst watching a Sex and The City marathon on the telly, and maybe dance around to girly music till we grow giddy with delight and collapse on the couch to scoff ice-cream and talk about boys.
Failing that, we're going to land an interview with our goddess if it kills us.
SONIA! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! DEFAMER AUSTRALIA LOVES YOU AND IS ALSO RATHER UNCLEAR REGARDING THE RULES OF WEIGHTLIFTING TOO!
Clearly it's that time in the world of Winehouse, where there's been a Shocking Allegation™ and now everyone is sitting around twiddling their thumbs, waiting for the follow-up salvo or retraction or confirmation or admission to rehab or ANYTHING. To wit, in the interim, this amazing filler news from The Post:
it looks like Amy's house might be haunted! Ooh, that oughtta tide you over, eh??The rented property where Amy Winehouse is currently holed-up in her battle to kick drugs has a dark secret - a previous occupant died there.
Posted by Clem Bastow at 10:09 AM on August 28, 2008
Our illustrious Editor's heart - or even two of them, as it were - will be beating together when she reads this news (presently she is resting after making last night's I'd Rather Jack Radiothon show possibly the best two hours of radio I have ever heard - but more on that from the woman herself later!): Kylie has announced an Australian tour! Quick, to the official-press-release-mobile!
Posted by Clem Bastow at 10:00 AM on August 28, 2008
Old-timer Big Brother fans would've been thrilled to see the nation's favourite hairdresser and fan of "intimate wash" pop up on Australian Idol the other night. However, the pint-sized firecracker was not there to sing, but to support her boyfriend Sebastian Pluchinotta - and what happened next was typical of the show's increasingly dodgy "direction". To wit, Dicko and Kyle were not satisfied that Pluchinotta was straight, and made him sing his chosen song directly to Vesna's face; Dicko then mock-stormed out, evidently in protest of the massive amounts of gaydar his antennae were picking up (I picked up roughly 5% gaydar, and that was from the loving looks Dicko and Kyle were giving each other). Pluchinotta did not get through. Unsurprisingly, Vesna is pissed, and is letting everyone know about it.
Posted by Clem Bastow at 9:30 AM on August 28, 2008
Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban's treatment of their new daughter Sunday Rose has been positively unheard of in Hollywood terms - that is, they've treated her like a newborn baby rather than a product to be handled with the same level of pomp and circumstance as the unveiling of the latest miniature, scale clay model of a go-faster sportscar. So, we can probably forgive the papps and the papers for getting a bit toey; it's like going from sex on the first date to true love waits. And since it's evidently a bit naff to be using those sorts of metaphors in the same paragraph as baby Sunday Rose, I'll just zip it for a moment.
Kidman was snapped with the couple's newborn, as she boarded a Gulfstream 5 plane bound for London.
Posted by Clem Bastow at 9:08 AM on August 28, 2008
You may recall that last year, Tha D-O-double-Gizzle was due to present the MTV Australia Music Video Awards, but that the Immigration Department computer said no, and Snoop Dogg was sent on his not-so-merry way. Well, it's a case of deja vu, doggy style (sorry, I'll stop soon), as Snoop's widely publicised "return" to the MTV AVMAs stage has, once more, been given the kybosh - for the time being - from those party poopin' Doggy haterz at the Immigration Department. Peep this:
"Mr Broadus has not been granted a visa, there are further steps required beyond character assessment before a visa is granted.
If your acting career isn't going the way you had hoped, may we humbly suggest you kick start things by buying yourself a role in a summer superhero blockbuster? "But that's impossible," you're no doubt saying to yourself. "Hollywood is the quintessential meritocracy, where with nothing but hard work, talent, and some good luck thrown in, all your wildest fantasies can come true!" Well you keep telling yourself that. We'll be over here, emptying our 401k and cashing our Bar Mitzvah bonds to make sure we win this Spider-Man 4 VIP Experience eBay auction, a bounty including:
· On America's Got Talent last night, David Hasselhoff was refreshingly candid about the stirrings in his loins elicited by Drag Britney. [AGT]
· Step! Two, Three, Ball, Step, Ball, Reverse, Change! Watch out stars—Lance means business! [Mollygood]
· In this new promotional shot from Land of the Lost, Will Ferrell stands next to the kind of Sleestak you might imagine posing for pictures at Disneyland. [First Showing]
· Mmmm...Hannah Montana Sweet & Sour Gummi Cocks. [BWE.tv]
· And last but not least, it's Paul Reubens's birthday today. In his honour, enjoy the entire Pee-wee's Playhouse Christmas Special. Happy birthday, Pee-wee! Mm...Birthday cakey. [YouTube, YouTube, YouTube, YouTube]
Bond, Shames Bond: The divorce of actor George Lazenby and tennis pro Pam Shriver has taken a nasty turn from those earlier toddler-scotching allegations that so scandalized the one-time James Bond a few weeks back. New statements by Lazenby's ex-wife Christina Master contend that he "punched her in the face when she was five months pregnant and broke her nose when their son was dying from cancer," according to reports, which add: "She claims he threatened to kill her when she told him she wanted a divorce and says she was so fearful he meant it that it took years before she found the courage to leave him in 1994." Lazenby denied the claims, further challenging Master to turn up medical reports or photos proving her injuries: "I never punched her in my life," he said through a spokesman. You can believe whomever you want — innocent before proven guilty, yadda yadda — but we know where we stand, and we don't buy for a second that George Lazenby has a spokesman. [Daily Mail]
While other well-photographed actresses might don a pair of pants to go out if their knees were covered in bruises, Kate Holmes is of a different breed. Not only did Holmes attend a performance of August: Osage County with black-and-blue welts studding her bare legs, she did it while leggings were surely close at hand. Are the bruises the result of a suddenly aggressive Suri, a painful rehearsal for Katie's Broadway debut, or a niacin-cleansing ritual gone awry? The Daily Mail takes us inside the scene:
Breaking news from Jon Cryer's rep Karen Samfilippo, regarding the Fox News article that placed him at a John McCain fundraiser: "In fact, Jon is not endorsing McCain or Obama at this point. He went to the fundraiser to learn more about the candidate and would like to do the same with Obama if the opportunity presents itself." Hear that, Barack? A crucial 40% of the titular Two and a Half Men is still undecided and up for grabs! Still: no word, yet, from the similarly sighted Lorenzo Lamas or Craig T. Nelson. We'll keep you posted as the official confirmation of their endorsements comes in. [Previously: Superdelegate Shocker: Jon Cryer Sighted at McCain Fundraiser!]
Despite the fact that Jennie Garth is still taunting Shannen Doherty with expertly crafted put-downs, EW was able to wrangle the two 90210 stars for an arm-in-arm photo shoot and revealing Q&A. In it, Doherty reveals that she never really liked Brenda Walsh ("They just took her in a really odd direction that I didn't necessarily agree with at the time") and that she still harbors insecurities begun by the seminal "I Hate Brenda" newsletter. All well and good, but what about the matter everyone still cares about: the long-rumoured Doherty/Garth catfights?
The film-critic execution chamber has been mercifully quiet for most of the summer, with gripey David Ansen notably still refusing to die as others continue to line up behind him. And while on one hand we're glad to see few women among the condemned, we're reminded today that it's all relative: A recently released study notes that 70% of reviews published in the top 100 American dailies are written by men. Moreover, almost half of those papers don't publish any reviews by women at all. And despite our beloved Dargises, Chocanos, Rickeys and others, we're afraid that not a number you should expect to climb any time soon:
With the exciting news that Brad Pitt has won his second best actor chalice today at the Venice Film Festival—for what the judging committee deemed his "indomitable spirit both on and off the screen, his effortless embodiment of the American masculine ideal, and the way sucking up to him will facilitate future access to his impossibly fertile and glamorous life partner, Angelina Jolie"—we thought it time to finally time to take a look at the movie which ushered him to victory. We speak, of course, of the Coen brothers' Burn After Reading, which had its world premiere tonight at the festival. If Pitt, as Javier Bardem did before him, could win top accolades with a hairstyle this ridiculous looking, then this truly must have been another masterwork from the sibling geniuses. Let's see what the critics are saying. (And yes, spoilers ensue.)
Live From Beijing: Two weeks ago, when soliciting your help in casting Olympian Michael Phelps (thereby sparing him a terrible Hollywood future), we predicted of the athlete, "There's bound to be an awkward SNL-hosting stint yet to come." Today, TV Guide announced, "The Summer Olympics' outstandingly golden boy, swimmer Michael Phelps, will dive into not-ready-for-primetime television as the guest host of Saturday Night Live's 33rd season premiere." Were we simply prescient, or is Lorne Michaels now culling ideas from the digital pages of Defamer? If Phelps appears in a Saved By The Bell skit, perhaps we'll have our answer. [TV Guide]
Though any avid Top Chef viewer knows that the quickest way to get a thumbs-up from judge Padma Lakshmi is to appeal to her love of alcohol, it seems that one former contestant can outdo even Padma when it comes to his appreciation for the hooch. Yes, Wolverine-resembling Season 2 runner-up Marcel Vigneron has been busted by the Laguna Beach PD, who found him driving erratically while tequila-infused saliva foam dribbled from the corner of his mouth. Says the OC Register:
The Democratic National Convention is past the halfway point in Denver, which tonight will emerge as the unlikely epicenter of Steven Spielberg's cosmic restitution for Indiana Jones 4. The director is taking only incremental steps toward recovery for now, however, joining contemporaries Ken Burns and Davis Guggenheim as the DNC's guest contributors of short films for each night. The good news: Spielberg's short celebrates American military veterans, and we guess the guy knows his American military veterans. (NB: It's narrated by Tom Hanks.) The bad news: Kind of like Cannes, Spielberg will be around just long enough to drop off the tape before heading back to lick his Clinton-supporting wounds. Insert frowny emoticon here:
Tuesday's unnerving visit to the set of Sweatin' Your 15 Minutes Away, with Heidi Montag was accompanied by an even more debilitating ebb of confidence in popular culture to ever make us smile again. So imagine the overwhelming (if perhaps coincidental) sense of joy that came along with revisiting Jane Fonda's early-'80s workout-video heyday — a brain-exploding, pre-ironic throwback to an era when only two-time Oscar winners were entitled to such garish Lycra supremacy. Sam Sparro's anthem "Black and Gold" provides the mid-tempo counterpoint, the entirety of which can be observed at Vimeo; our brains are full. Grateful, but full. And does she ever hit the spot. [Vimeo]
As the man who brought us Pretty in Pink's Duckie, you might expect Jon Cryer to have a special affinity for those born on the wrong side of the tracks: the poor, the outcast, even the sexually ambiguous. However, it's apparently his role in Hot Shots! that Cryer identifies with most, because he turned up this week at a fundraiser for another easily downed Naval pilot: presidential candidate John McCain. In fact, according to Fox News, McCain met on Monday with a veritable Who's Who (no, seriously: who?) of Hollywood celebrities at the Beverly Hills Hilton in an attempt to solicit money from the group he hates the most. After the jump, the list of celebs in attendance (there's no Dennis Hopper, but trust us, you don't want to miss it):
· Tyler Perry, whose syndicated sitcom House of Payne could wind up earning him $200 million, now has a series pickup from TBS for a show based on Meet the Browns. Asked how he'd spend all this money, Perry squealed, "Zac Posen said he'd custom-design me a whole line of frumpy dresses. How 'bout that for starters?!" [Variety]
· Meanwhile, on the movie front, former co-president of Paramount production Alli Shearmur has hopped aboard Tyler Perry Productions vanity imprint Lionsgate, where she'll oversee a slate of six-to-eight releases a year. [Variety]
· Warners will produce Coco Avant Chanel, with Audrey Tautou playing the legendary fashion designer. No word yet on who'll play her little dog. [Variety]
· Burn After Reading's world premiere was the hot ticket at the Venice Film Festival, where crowds four-deep piled around the red carpet to cheer on guests of honour Brad Pitt and George Clooney, screaming, "Hey—whatever happened to that gay bed and breakfast you guys were fixing up? Is that still happening?" [THR]
· ABC ordered another season of Here Come the Newlyweds, a fun twist on the honeymoon game show genre that requires couples to swap sexual partners, then hunt each other to the death with assault rifles on "human newlywed game preserves." [THR]
While it pains us to stoop to the animal-threatening tactics of National Lampoon, it seems that Hollywood is far more cavalier with the fates of its four-legged thespians. According to the LAT, one of filmdom's most enjoyable genres — that of the monkey movie — is being assailed by PETA activists, who are demanding that actor chimps be replaced by CG versions. They allege that the trained monkeys are being abused to solicit a performance — and based on this anecdote about "Clyde," the orangutan from Every Which Way But Loose, they may have a point:
One Day at a Time is both the title of a seminal postfeminist late-'70s sitcom and a 12-step mantra, and both apply to its star and recovering substance-abuser Mackenzie Phillips. IMDb lists her as having been clean and sober since 1992, but TMZ is reporting that the actress was arrested today at LAX, allegedly for possession of heroin and coke. She's currently in custody:
Viking movies aren't always the easiest sell (as duds like Pathfinder and The 13th Warrior have proven), but the producers of Outlander had a genius idea to improve the formula: add aliens, exploding spaceships, and Jesus Christ himself. The result is a glorious, AICN-vetted $47 million production (fronted by Jim Caviezel and Ron Perlman) that looks like the sober yet entertaining cousin of the Sam Raimi classic Army of Darkness. Alas, Outlander is only the latest film to fall victim to an innovative release strategy begun by Harvey and Bob Weinstein at Miramax and then perfected at their own Weinstein Company: buy distribution rights to an expensive movie, and then never release it theatrically!
There's something about Zohan. The overseas box office had been buoyed recently by a flurry of well-received summer releases, the most confounding being Spain's love affair with Adam Sandler's You Don't Mess With the Zohan. What, exactly, is it about a crimping-iron-wielding Mossad agent that has locals skipping siestas to catch the comedy two, sometimes three times? We sent the data to the Defamer Foreign Box Office Analysis Dept.
Behind every great man is a great mom—and no one knows that more than Tropic Thunder star Matthew McConaughey, who appears to have chosen a perfectly lovely one to bear him a son, suitable for toting to red carpet events and John Mellencamp concerts in a Coleman beer cooler. But what of McConaughey himself? To whom can we attribute his uncompromisingly freewheeling spirit, his Southern sophistication, and, yes, his undeniable sexual ferocity? To put it a little more floridly: Who planted little Matthew's placenta beneath a tree, and tended to it lovingly until it bore fruit? We now have an answer:
The A-list movie-star incursion on Broadway this fall just got a little B-listier with the addition of Haley Joel Osment to the cast of American Buffalo, David Mamet's 1976 play set for revival in November. And we can't wait: For sheer envelope-pushing, neither Daniel Radcliffe's full-frontal horseplay nor Katie Holmes's Dawson-ization of Arthur Miller is likely to compare to their fellow ex-child star's profane verbal tussles with castmates Cedric the Entertainer and John Leguizamo — a duo whose characters entangle Osment's young, broke schemer Bob in a bluer-than-blue cascade of "cunts," "fucks" and other Sixth Sense-era unutterables. And all it'll cost Osment, 20, is the low, low price of a semester behind at NYU:
· On America's Got Talent last night, David Hasselhoff was refreshingly candid about the stirrings in his loins elicited by Drag Britney. [
Tuesday's unnerving visit to the set of 
Viking movies aren't always the easiest sell (as duds like Pathfinder and The 13th Warrior have proven), but the producers of Outlander had a genius idea to improve the formula: add aliens, exploding spaceships, and Jesus Christ himself. The result is a glorious, 
