Russell Brand hosting MTV VMAs again. Wow.

If our goal is to avoid Michael Jackson news, we're failing miserably, because the only other things we have is stuff like MTV announcing Russell Brand will host the VMAs again. Oooo, controversy!

Or maybe not, because even the Brit says he's keeping it clean: "This year will be a controversy-free festival of love and discrete orgasms," he said on MTV.com. LOL, we get it. Oh, you're so tricky, Mr. Brand.

The overscripted yawnfest is slated for Sept. 13 at Radio City Music Hall. We can only hope that MTV breaks out of its corporate drone status long enough to ditch the manufactured stuff and excite us again.

[Photo: Getty Images]

Mariah Carey sorry about Jackson memorial

In case you hadn't heard, Mariah Carey apologized to her fans this week after giving what she thought was a less-than-stellar performance while singing I'll Be There with Trey Lorenz at Michael Jackson's memorial tribute Tuesday in L.A. (watch it again above). So nice of her to put the focus on what's really important -- her.

“Trying to sing today was basically impossible for me. I could barely keep myself from crying," she wrote through multiple posts on her feed, @mariahcarey. "I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to pull it together and really do it right, but I was literally choked up when I saw him there in front of me. One thing I know is, we will never really have to say goodbye to MJ. His legacy lives on through his music and the millions of people. He inspired with his timeless music. He will be forever in our hearts.”

You know what will forever be in our hearts? The fact that she wore a dress with a neckline that plunged to her navel. It's a funeral, not an album release, but you stay classy, Mimi.

Lindsay Lohan turned down The Hangover role

How many people still care about Lindsay Lohan? That's what we thought. Too bad she didn't make things any easier by reportedly turning down a role in hit comedy The Hangover. Too busy stealing tanning formulas, perhaps?

The 23-year-old could have been Jade the stripper after director Todd Phillips asked her, but she said the script "had no potential," Us says. Apparently LiLo and Phillips share an agent, but that didn't matter: "The agent tried hard to get Phillips to consider her, and when he finally agreed, Lindsay said she didn't like the script," a source told the mag. Heather Graham thanks her, though.

By no potential, that means more than $200 million at the box office thus far. That's a lot of eBay Maseratis.

[Photo: Getty Images]

Val Kilmer, Ryan Phillippe in MacGruber movie?

You know those MacGruber skits on Saturday Night Live, mocking MacGyver by showing Will Forte getting sidelined while dismantling a bomb with a paper clip and inevitably ending in an explosion? Funny, right? How about for 90 minutes?

The Hollywood Reporter says there are plans for a full-length movie version, with Val Kilmer playing a nuclear-warhead-happy villain (called "Cunth" -- seriously) and Ryan Phillippe playing an Army colonel who recruits the title character. Wow, that's the worst idea we've heard since the View-Master flick.

Those two big stars are just in discussions right now, but Kristin Wiig would be in it as well, with Lorne Michaels producing and SNL director Jorma Taccone behind the camera. And us not in the theaters.

An Asteroids video game movie? Really?

While we’re discussing stupid movie concepts, we noticed on SlashFilm that there’s an idea possibly even dumber than the Smurfs. It seems Universal won a four-studio (!) bidding war for rights to produce a pic based on the video game Asteroids.

Yes, the monochromatic, quarter-munching cabinet from 1979. They plan on using newish Disney-bred writer Matthew Lopez — he of Bedtime Stories, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Race to Witch Mountain — to write the adaptation. When is the movie version of Arkanoid coming out?

Smurfs movie will be bad, and in 3D

Not only will the long-dreaded Smurfs movie be live-action and animation combined, it’s going to be in 3-D, Entertainment Weekly says. Great, now we can be disgusted three times more than we expected. Columbia and Sony Pictures have announce a Dec. 17, 2010 release date for the pending disaster, which will reassure all of us that Hollywood is so far out of touch, they think we’ll watch anything as long as the colors are bright enough. We didn’t like Speed Racer, and we won’t like this, either.

Kate Gosselin yaks about divorce, hating the media

Have you had enough of Jon & Kate Gosselin yet? Too bad, because she's the cover story of the latest issue of People, and guess what? She's sad about her divorce.

"I was operating under the belief that marriage is forever," she says. "So I exhausted myself trying to do everything and make everything be okay, when maybe it just couldn't."

Isn't that what Jon & Kate Plus 8 was supposed to show in the first place? Too bad Kate wasn't paying attention.

"It was event after event after event where I came to realize: This is not the same person I married," Kate says the way her husband has been acting. "I remember just looking at him and thinking, 'I wouldn't choose to marry that exact person right now ... so why am I here?' "

Of course, anyone who's married knows that people often change, and you have to understand that. Kate was too busy calling People to tell them about the divorce right after she told the kids.But she's not all anger.

 "I don't hate Jon," she says. "He's lost, he's confused. I don't look at him 100 percent of the time with horrible anger and animosity."

Well gee, it's good she only hates him 98 percent of the time. And she still has time to hate the media, too.

"I walk into the grocery store, and my kids see the magazines, and they're like, 'Oh look! There's Daddy! And there's Daddy! And there's Mommy!' she says. "I do my motherly duty and turn them all around in the rack and I don't say anything except, 'Okay, it's all better now.' I don't have any words for it except, 'Get enough already and move on.' "

Hmm; but it's okay to have that camera crew following you around when you do it, huh? Yeah, we believe you've grown, Kate, really.

Jon & Kate Plus 8 have an announcement to make

Stay tuned, folks, because the promos for Monday's episode of Jon & Kate Plus 8 promise something big. Oh sweet overlords of reality television, will this finally be the end of Jon & Kate Gosselin on this page? We can only hope.

"Recently we've made some life-changing decisions," Kate says in the TLC commercial for Monday's episode. "Decisions that will affect every member of our family...ones that we hope will bring each of us some peace."

The network was also nice enough to scroll rhetorical phrases such as "A relationship at a crossroads" and "Where do they go from here?"  before saying "Jon & Kate have an announcement."

Now, a casual observer would ask if they were revealing they are getting a divorce, but we've watched so much reality TV we realize they're probably just selling their house or something. What do you think? Is the the end of our most recent obsession?

Al Roker laughs off Heidi and Spencer Pratt

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Al Roker is calling out do-nothings Heidi and Spencer Pratt after they whined about being mistreated by him on Monday's Today show.

Roker pointed out on Tuesday's show that while Speidi said he had attacked them and was being rude, he was simply asking "what a lot of people wanted to know," namely: Why are they spoiled and rude, and were they proud of being that way? Not that Roker was intimidated by Spencer's threats.

"If he had tried to come across, I would've dumped him like a bag of dirt," Roker told Meredith Vieira. And as for Heidi's allegations that he attacked her because she was a woman: "Come on, I've interviewed hundreds of women on this program and never had a complaint," he said. "Look, they are so un-used to people actually asking them a real question, that they didn't know how to handle it."

And finally, the coup de grace that we hope will bury these two forever: "There are a lot of celebrities who come on -- real celebrities, who've actually done something -- and act civil."

Indeed, go back and watch the clip; if this is what draws allegations of hostile interviewing these days -- actually demanding an answer to a question -- Edward R. Murrow is spinning in his grave. Tiem to ask, Juice*heads: Should Speidi be banned from The Juice*, a la Paris Hilton? Let us know!

Heidi Montag, Spencer Pratt blame Al Roker for mean Today show interview

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Playing the tiresome role of faux victims once again are Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, who took to the airwaves yet again to talk to Al Roker on the set of NBC's Today. Problem is, even though nice-guy Al was conducting a decent interview and trying to get them to cop to being idiots on I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here, they thought he was a real jerk.

"I'm still trying to figure out, was the weatherman asking us questions? I thought we were getting interviewed by Matt Lauer or something," Pratt told Ryan Seacrest. And of course his wife had to chime in.

"I was shocked at how rude he was -- I was crying afterwards because I couldn't believe I felt personally attacked," Montag said. "I wanted to say to him, do you feel proud of how you're talking to me right now? I'm just a young woman and you're coming at me so aggressively and meanly and mean-spirited."

All Al did was ask her if she was proud of the way the pair acted on the show, which is a pretty reasonable question (watch the interview above). And Heidi's the one who said "sure" when pressed again, as if she didn't really understand what was being asked.

"I just wanted to talk about the show and my experience there and how fun it was, and he just made it a very uncomfortable and awful experience," Montag added, before drawing the female trump card. "I really would advise women especially to be careful around him because I feel like he definitely came and attacked me and I did not appreciate that at all."

Yes, because we all know Al Roker is the most threatening man on television. Something tells us Speidi would be upset if Winnie the Pooh asked them what the next season of The Hills was like.