Thursday, September 18, 2008
Interview With Wendy James – Part One
8:21PM Jess McGuire | Good evening, ladies and gents!
If you are a fan of Wendy James, formerly of Transvision Vamp and currently in Australia wandering around the country doing a few “DJ sets” at various venues, and you believe – perhaps naively – that you can tolerate listening to my talking voice in your spare time, then maybe you would like to listen to a recent interview I did with Wendy which was broadcast on RRR 102.7FM last night?
You would?
Sucker!
Alright, Here is a quick taste – “part one”, if you like – of the interview, where Wendy talks about the kind of music she’ll be spinning during her sets. Coming up shortly on Defamer Australia, you can hear Wendy discuss how she managed to get Elvis Costello to write her a whole album, her solo career, and how she feels about devoted fans twenty years on from Transvision Vamp’s domination of the pop charts.
Wendy James interview – Part One
(Parts two and three are WAY better, swears) More » 
Lyndsey Rodrigues Thanks MTV For Canning Her Show
11:45AM Clem Bastow | For most happening young things on the up-and-up through the entertainment stratosphere, being shipped overseas only to find your golden televisual chariot canned after less than a year would be cause for an ice-cream and Lithium sundae shoveled into your mouth with your hands while you howl “REJECTION, I CAN’T STAND REJECTION!!” as your mascara streaks down your face. Not so Australian expat Lyndsey Rodrigues, who 10 months ago was snapped up (from MTV Australia) to go to NYC and present MTV’s TRL (too many acronyms? DWI), which has just been cancelled; the ex-Sydney VJ is sounding remarkably chipper.
“After 10 years of success, TRL has finally been laid to rest, which is actually a blessing in disguise for me,” Rodrigues confessed.
More » 
Grant Hackett Suffers The Indignity Of Muesli Bar Ads, Lack Of Dance Skills
11:00AM Clem Bastow | You’ve got to feel a little sorry for champion swimmers. Sure, they stack on the gold medals like anyone’s business, and consequently the lucrative endorsement deals, but there’s something about life in the pool that does strange things to their proportions (look at Michael Phelps’ shoulder-to-arm length-to-face length-to-ear size ratios), and, say, disturbingly large feet and a gangly makeup could cause serious injury to, say, dreams of being a champion celebrity dancer. Just ask poor Grant Hackett.
Grant Hackett is an Olympic hero of the pool and been rewarded for it – but he looks set to be punished by Channel 7 because he just can’t dance.
More » 
Meet Abu Dhabi’s $1 Billion Media Man: ‘We Won’t Be Making ‘Borat 2”
10:25AM STV | The inflow of foreign cash to Hollywood may look stalled with the DreamWorks/Reliance deal held up in all these fashionable new bank implosions, but as discovered earlier this month, the oil barons of Abu Dhabi have enough stashed under their mattresses to greenlight some $1 billion worth of film projects over the next five years. The guy the emirate brought in to spend it, ex-Disney overlord Edward Borgerding, has hinted at a few of his more modest goals in recent weeks — “[Abu Dhabi Media Company] is fulfilling its ambition to become a global player in the media industry,” he told the Financial Times — but only finally spelled out his real plot for world conquest in a new interview with Sharon Waxman: More »
Alex Perry’s Future’s So Bright, He Wears His Shades On His Head
10:20AM Clem Bastow | There are some people who continue to be given television work despite having the personality of (to borrow a phrase from one especially witty Defamer Australia commenter) a plank of wood with eyebrows drawn on, and then there are people who bewilderingly seem never to be able to catch a television break. And then there are the TV signings that you wouldn’t have thought of in a million years but that, once they exist, seem like the best idea ever. And any television idea featuring the phrases “Alex Perry” and “crazy stuff … at weddings” in quick succession is bound to be a winner!
Sydney’s king of red carpet couture is set for his close-up, after inking a deal to host his own program on Foxtel.
More » 
Matthew McConaughey Joins Elite Group Of A-Listers Who Couldn’t Crack a Six-Figure Opening
9:40AM STV | Any Straight-to-Flopz masterpiece can top out below $100,000 theatrically, but it takes a special kind of crap to do so with a real star above the line. Take Surfer, Dude, the new Matthew McConaughey adventure-in-shirtlessness that found exactly zero takers at Rotten Tomatoes and not many more upon its release in 96 theatres nationwide: $36,497 worth, to be precise, likely prompting the actor/producer/placenta vintner to wonder if perhaps he should have saved the comma in the film’s title for the total gross.
Australian Idol Round-Up: The G’s Tips
9:27AM Clem Bastow | Generally speaking you would assume it’s not de rigeur for talent quest hosts to speak out about their favourites; I recall back in Year Dot of Australian Idol, Dicko spoke freely about who he did and didn’t fancy to win it, which felt strangely… wrong. Still, it’s always interesting to see who those who are privy to the backstage tantrums and day-long singing lessons are pegging their bets on. So, in the midst of this article about the Pacific Ocean being a handy contraceptive for Idol’s Andrew G and his lovely wife Noa Tishby (or something), we find The G’s picks to fill out the Final Four. More » 
Viewers Oddly Unreceptive To The Cavalcade Of Cringe That Is ‘Taken Out’
9:11AM Clem Bastow | Who would’ve thunk that a gobsmackingly awful parade of hilarious awfulness such as Ten’s James Kerley-hosted Taken Out (sample dialogue: Bloke: “I’m a carpenter” Chick: “A what?” Bloke: “A carpenter” Chick: “Like… making carpets?” Bloke: “…”), a curious melding of Perfect Match, Elimi-Date and, er, the Roman Coliseum, wouldn’t actually hook in the viewers and keep them pressed to the television? Well, it appears that we are all tiring of Ten’s daily dating show, as the ratings slide from “okay” into “average” into “better start looking for other work, Kerley” territory.
Hosted by James Kerley, Ten had high hopes for the program, which last night only managed to draw in a little over 500,000 viewers to come in 30th position.
More » 
8:15AM Kyle Buchanan | Donate After Reading: Brad Pitt has famously said he won’t marry Angelina Jolie until gay marriage is legalized all over the country, and now, he’s putting his money where his mouth is. According to the LAT, Pitt has become the first A-list celebrity to make a major donation ($100,000) to the campaign to fight Proposition 8, which is designed to take away the same-sex marriage rights awarded to Californians this summer. In a statement, he said, “Because no one has the right to deny another their life, even though they disagree with it, because everyone has the right to live the life they so desire if it doesn’t harm another and because discrimination has no place in America, my vote will be for equality and against Proposition 8.” Your move, Babs! [LAT] More »
