Tuesday, November 4, 2008
‘True Blood’ Truly Getting Bloodier
3:59PM Seth | “Now you listen here, mister. You get your teeth out of my Sookie this instant, or there will be Hell to pay! OK then, don’t say I didnt warn you!” Eater LA has a list of all the local restaurants and businesses offering Election Night specials to anyone wearing a “I Voted!” sticker Here’s a gallery of spooks and ghouls spotted around town on Halloween. Next year we’re definitely going as Shirtless Food Grilling Hunk! EW.com reports one half of Grey’s Anatomy’s only gay couple, Dr. Erica Hahn (aka actress Brooke Smith), has been ordered removed from the series by ABC, who “‘had issues’ with…the explicit direction” her relationship was taking. Assault and battery claims leveled against Keanu Reeves by an allegedly squished paparazzo have been tossed, but the photographer can still pursue a negligence claim. More »
Whereabouts of ‘Australia’ Uncertain as Fox Buys Time For Baz Luhrmann
1:46PM STV | Director Baz Luhrman’s historical epic/romance/tourism ad Australia is set to premiere Nov. 19 in its home country before opening wide here Nov. 26. It has a press junket in LA scheduled in between. And as of this writing, it has Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman and $US130 million worth of Fox’s Oscar hopes tied up in an unfinished bundle in Luhrmann’s editing bay. No one has seen much more than a couple stirring trailers and, according to Anne Thompson, an unfinished print that screened without effects for a lucky Oprah Winfrey audience (none of whom, of course, were critics). So with less than three weeks before the studio expects to introduce it to the world, what’s taking so long? More »TVNZ Reporter In Verbal Bust Up With Pink
11:10AM Jess McGuire | I like Pink. I think she’s a feisty young thing who does what she wants and takes no rubbish from anyone, but that might be the marketing talking. Either way, I think she consistently delivers the pop goods, and she’s okay in my books. Every time I’ve ever seen her interviewed, she appears to be quick with the laughs and seems to make an effort, but if the footage of her interview with a TVNZ employee ever gets leaked, I may finally get to see a crankier Pink unleashing chit-chat hell.
An Australian-based TV journalist is being investigated by her employer over an interview she did last month in Sydney with visiting US pop star Pink.
The Grammy-winning singer walked out of the interview with TV New Zealand’s Australian correspondent, Hannah Hodson, after Hodson began asking her why she had sacked Hodson’s sister, a former assistant to the pop star.
Hodson started asking what? Good gracious. I’m no Andrew Denton, but taking an interview about a new album in that kind of direction strikes me as ever so slightly unprofessional. More » 
Guiness Confirms ‘Yes On 8′ Skywriting Campaign Is Biggest Hate Message On Earth
10:15AM Seth | A reader sent Towleroad this snapshot of the sky above Warner Bros. in Burbank, probably the largest and most nausea-inducing “Yes on 8″ sign yet erected in the ongoing, Mormon-underwritten campaign to strip gay Californians of their Constitutional right to marry. Luckily, God got one look at the message and blew it away: More »
Spiteful ‘Iron Man’ Producers: We Never Liked Terrence Howard Anyway
9:47AM Kyle Buchanan | When it was announced that Don Cheadle would be taking on Terrence Howard’s role in Iron Man 2, a simple explanation of “financial differences” (as well as an inability to get the War Machine costume sufficiently baby-wiped) was all that was forthcoming from the filmmakers’ side. Then, Howard spoke to NPR and compared the Marvel braintrust to a non-singing network of pimps, forcing the filmmaking team to take the gloves off. Now, in a discussion with EW, sources close to Marvel and director Jon Favreau leaked the real details behind Howard’s firing, and they involve bad acting and one very surprising salary: More »
Newly Betrothed ‘Will & Grace’ Creator A Little Too Attached To His Characters’ Names
9:05AM Seth | A hearty mazel tov goes out to Will & Grace co-creator Max Mutchnick and new husband Erik Hyman, who married in a traditional Jewish ceremony over the weekend that also incorporated the naming of their month-old baby daughters. While every step of the weekend was carefully planned, no one could have foreseen the soul of Sean Hayes enveloping both bridegrooms during the simchat bat ritual, leading to a last-minute decision to ditch the settled-upon Rose and Evan in favour of two more residuals-friendly monikers that scored higher in key demos. View the slideshow here. Erik Hyman and Max Mutchnick [NY Times] More »
How 007 Barely Avoided a Paul Haggis-Sired ‘Bond Baby’
8:50AM Kyle Buchanan | Though Casino Royale provided the James Bond franchise with a rebooted reservoir of goodwill, director Marc Forster says that the follow-up, Quantum of Solace, almost took things in a perilous, Mutt Williams-ish direction. Speaking to New York, Forster detailed how Bond producers clashed with screenwriter Paul Haggis when the Crash scripter wanted to add one considerably more kindergarten-friendly element to the film: More »
Is Ben Affleck’s ‘Countdown’ Reason Enough to Prolong Election Season?
8:36AM STV | We look forward to that time less than 48 hours from now, when we can finally frame the entirety of the 2008 election season in our smudged rearview mirror and watch it shrink as we head toward the country’s other essential round of cutthroat campaigning. But for all the misbegotten PSA’s, infomercial filibusters and other punishing effluvia, we admit we’ll miss the bits of election-related freakery that arrive with oxygen just in time to save us. And of course, the more unexpected, the better — like Ben Affleck bellowing about his cat after the jump. More »
Jesse The Snowboarder Sheds Real Webcam Tears Over ‘Bachelorette’ Breakup
8:10AM Seth | You’ve now had several hours to absorb the news that Deanna Pappas and Jesse Csincsak will not spend the rest of eternity together in a state of cross-eyed lovers’ bliss—the very thing they pledged to us, the passively interested Bachelorette viewer, during that live broadcast of After the Final Rose. Pappas said in a statement that she “slowly came to realise that we are two totally different people and it wasn’t going to work out,” but what was Jesse’s side of the story? More »
