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Big Screen

Is Twelve The Worst Movie In The History Of Sundance?

6:45AM Foster Kamer | Nick McDonell was 17 when he wrote 2002′s Twelve, about New York’s richkids experimenting with a new superdrug. Now it’s a Sundance movie, by Joel Schumacher, starring Chase Crawford, Emma Roberts, Keifer Sutherland and 50 Cent. And it sucks. Badly. More »
People

Ari Emanuel Will Rule Hollywood As Its New Jesus

5:30PM the cajun boy | Superagent Ari Emanuel, brother of Rahm, has been getting lots of glowing press lately. Remember when the New York Times genuflected at his altar on their front page? Now The Independent is breathlessly touting his plans to single-handedly reinvent Hollywood. More »

Today On Martha: Puppy Yoga!

8:30AM Seth | So Martha’s pissed at Gawker, but as far as we know she still loves Defamer and wants us on her show just as soon as her schedule allows. Meanwhile: Puppy Beagle Yoga! ZOMG! More »

Robert Downey Jr. Saved, Jamie Foxx Doomed in ‘Soloist’ Oscar Oblivion

6:18AM STV | The fallout from Paramount’s recent release-date shuffle continues today, with agents and saber-rattling DreamWorks brass continuing their protest over The Soloist‘s move to 2009. While we sustain our first impression that the Jamie Foxx/Robert Downey Jr. tearjerker will in fact be better than the diabetic-coma inducing trailers already in circulation, that’s not much comfort to those who fear the bump from November to March will impugn Soloist‘s profile among critics and audiences alike. But now, as a peace offering to the angry gods at CAA who packaged the film for the ‘Works with its clients Downey, Foxx and director Joe Wright, Paramount has forged a silver lining for one-third of that jilted braintrust. More »

CAA’s Bryan Lourd to Carrie Fisher: ‘Your Codeine Made Me Gay’

5:00AM Kyle Buchanan | Though the sight of Princess Leia in a gold bikini could make any gay geek question his sexuality, being married to Carrie Fisher apparently had the opposite effect on CAA superagent Bryan Lourd. The two were together for three years (he fathered Fisher’s daughter Billie in 1992) before Lourd famously left Fisher for another man. Now, in her new memoir Wishful Drinking, Fisher claims that Lourd blamed her and her pill-popping ways for making him gay. Page Six has the excerpt: More »

4:30AM Seth | Whooop! Whooop! CAA Kitchen Fire! Just when you had been lulled into a false sense of Death Star culinary confidence—positive that no incendiary Chinese appetizers would again engulf the TV lit department in thick clouds of cabbage-and-pork-scented smoke—comes this CAA! Kitchen! Fire! Deathtrap! Exclusive! “Subject: CAA can’t cook! they set fire to their kitchen and got evacuated!” We ask that you remain calm at this time, until we get a full headcount (just the agents, obviously—not assistants); commuters in the Century City area, meanwhile, are instructed to keep as far away from the scene as possible, regardless of how enticing those wafting, mouth-watering gusts of BBQ baby meat might be. [Defamer] More »

E! Host Giuliana Rancic Sues WMA For Daring to Employ Other Clients

9:00AM Defamer US Edition | There are certain universal truths about Hollywood agents: namely, that they never pick up your phone calls, deal with you mostly through their assistants, and always seem to be finding work for people who aren’t you. Sadly, E! bobblehead Giuliana Rancic (who we last saw announcing the death of “Brad Redfro” while dressed in a somber tube top) has failed to grasp that last tenet — in fact, she’s suing her agents at William Morris for having the audacity to focus on anyone but her. Says Page Six: More »

9:20AM STV | Nicita Has Left the Building: Not a day too soon, it appears, 42-year agency veteran and CAA partner Rick Nicita is ditching his Death Star digs for the co-chairman spot at Morgan Creek. Nicita joins a distinguished list of CAA defectors to studio front offices, led by Michael Ovitz’s spectacular Disney flame job and Ron Meyer’s decidedly improved turn heading up Universal. The latter studio’s distribution partnership with Morgan Creek will come in handy for Nicita, who will be charged with restoring the Creek to its late-’80s/early-’90s golden years after a string of recent underachievers including The Good Shepherd and Man of the Year. We admit we’re a little surprised; at a time when most of his old CAA contemporaries are slowing down and/or testifying in federal court, Nicita’s move is that of a man with something to prove — most likely with wife Paula Wagner and client Tom Cruise looking on studiously from their own perches at UA. That’s just the kind of mensch he is. Good luck, Rick! [LAT, Photo Credit: Getty Images] More »

New Day For Endeavor Kind Of Like the Old Days, Minus the Conference-Room Orgies

2:30AM STV | A sweeping profile of Endeavor hit The NY Times on Sunday, placing the agency’s arduous climb to power in a welcome new perspective. By virtually all accounts, ETA has “grown up” — from a puckish, oversexed boys club to a puckish, oversexed employer of Jodie Foster’s rumoured lesbian paramour (and more than a half-dozen female partners, up from zero just a few years ago). But despite all Ari Emanuel’s progressive brio, he still can’t outrun CAA or his own choppy past — Michael Ovitz gets a fun body-blow in by the eighth paragraph, Ari not-so-strenuously deflects those nagging sale and/or merger rumours, and, for those who missed it, there’s a recap of Endeavor’s somewhat experimental sexual/ethnic chemistry: More »

CAA, Ashlee Simpson Survive Brief Brush with Wikipedia Terrorist

5:45AM Defamer US Edition | An eagle-eyed Defamer operative caught a wonderful if short-lived revision at CAA’s Wikipedia page this morning, when, for 30 precious minutes, the agency’s storied history of talent relations included colluding with Joe and Ashlee Simpson to rip off her song “My Model”: More »