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While we're mentioning Jenna Jameson, let's see what else she's been up to lately. Let's see, there's that PETA ad and, oh yeah, a straight-to-DVD flick with Robert Englund set in a fictional town in my home state. Awe. Some.
If you're big zombie fans -- like The Juice* -- you've already seen the trailer for Diary of the Dead. But it's Wednesday and we're bored, so let's watch it again.
It’s been quiet in Park City, Utah, as the Sundance Film Festival entered its second week with little fanfare even amid the ongoing strike. It’s been assumed that Hollywood studios would be stocking up on movies in case labor disputes ran the well dry, but that hasn’t been the case, Reuters reports.
“The story so far is good movies but not commercial movies,” said David Poland, founder of the Movie City News Web site. So it seems reality shows are getting a look on the silver screen as well as TV.
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, a doc about the director convicted of unlawful sex with a minor, was bought by Weinstein Co. for international distribution and by HBO’s documentary unit for North America. Young @ Heart, about a chorus of senior citizens who sing rock songs, and Patti Smith: Dream of Life, about the former punk rocker are also popular.
Meanwhile, crowd-pleasing fiction movies like Sunshine Cleaning (sisters who clean up murder scenes), The Wackness (a shrink smokes weed sold by a teenage client) and The Great Buck Howard (an ego-stroke for movie stars) still haven’t found buyers. Because short-sighted studios are probably ramping up another Weekend at Bernie’s film.
[Photo: We're showing George Romero, the mastermind of the upcoming Diary of the Dead, at Sundance because we like zombie movies. AP]
And to think: It could have happened in Tampa! Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler’s girlfriend got into a catfight with a Native American woman at Pangaea, a trendy nightclub at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino down in Hollywood. The New York Post says Tyler’s g-f, Erin Brady, got mad when a Seminole woman tried to take a picture of Tyler. “Next thing everyone knows, the two girls are going at it,” a witness tells Page Six. “Scratching, hair-puling, hitting. It lasted about six seconds, then security broke it up. Steven got up to try to pull them apart, but it happened so fast, he really didn’t have time to do anything.” Said a club spokeswoman: “Nothing like a catfight and an aging rock legend to make an evening entertaining.” Indeed. Now how can we get Joe Perry to try something like this at Floyd’s?
(Photo: AP)
And what would Halloween be without zombies?
It's no secret The Juice* is a big fan of the zombies. There's just something about the dismal futility of an entire society turning on itself in the worst possible way that warms our hearts. Anyway, why you try the ultimately useless exercise of fighting off a zombie horde with Boxhead: The Rooms, in which you face five separate scenarios (in a PG-13-rated format) that will always end in your death, no matter how hard you fight. CLICK HERE to die trying.
No one around The Juice* pretends to understand Manson-loving starlet Evan Rachel Wood, so we can’t be shocked that she’s now ashamed of recent tattoos. Wood told People she enjoyed filming the Beatles-themed snorefest "Across the Universe" so much she got a tattoo in tribute to the Fab Four. But now the 20-year-old is getting it covered up “because nobody can figure out what it is. ... It’s supposed to be a strawberry with leaves in the shape of a bird, but everybody says, 'Is that a ferret sticking out of an apple?’” Wood still has a lightning bolt tattoo in tribute to David Bowie and a black heart from good ol’ B-F Marylin. “It represents mad love,” she said of the heart. Does it ever.
(Photo: Getty Images.)
SPOILER ALERT! Our fave series 24, dangerously close to falling completely off our radar, is planning to fill the cast with at least one zombie next season.
The Fox series plans on resurrecting Carlos Bernard, who plays erstwhile Jack Bauer sidekick Tony Almeida, in the two-night season premiere in January, the New York Post reports.
If you’ll remember, the show led us to believe he was killed in CTU’s infirmary after a car bomb killed his wife, Michelle Dessler (played Reiko Aylesworth) in season five.
Exec producer Howard Gordon thinks you should suspend disbelief, though, “since there was no silent clock at the conclusion of his last appearance — the 24 tribute to major characters’ demise — we always kept this as a possibility.”
You know what else is a possibility? All of us giving up on implausible scenarios.
[Photo: Getty Images]
Larry Birkhead and Howard K. Stern are planning to sue Rita Cosby, the author of Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith’s Death, because she makes claims many of us assumed in the first place, the AP reports.
Cosby contends there is a videotape of an alleged sexual encounter between the two men and that they made a “secret deal” about ways to manipulate Anna Nicole’s finances and the media to maximize profits.
“I knew going into this that this was going to be challenged by them at every turn because they don’t want the truth to come out,” Cosby said.
Birkhead, the daddy of baby Dannielynn (who turns 1 on Friday), said he plans to sue, even though he hasn’t even read the book.
“This is going to be one of the most expensive lawsuit settlements in book-publishing history,” he said. But it’d make a great chapter of that upcoming TV movie.
[Photo: Getty Images]
While we question why it’s even an issue in the first place, a judge has issued a temporary restraining order against the release of a 1994 videotape of Anna Nicole Smith’s breast augmentation surgery. Isn’t it great to see that name again?
The AP reports Howard K. Stern asked for the injunction, to prevent the sale or distribution of the tape, which shows Texas doctor Gerald Wayne Johnson performing the procedure. Johnson is accused of sending the tape to an L.A. memorabilia dealer. Stern claims the tape was made without Smith’s knowledge, but really, who would buy such a thing?
Here's three of The Juice*'s favorite things -- motorcycles, actresses and zombie movies -- presented in a quite incongruous way. An increasingly pregnant Milla Jovovich models in front of a new BMW motorcycle Thursday in Tokyo while shilling her upcoming zombie flick, Resident Evil: Extinction. Milla, who announced she was expecting the child with RE director Paul Anderson back in April, is due in the fall. The third and final zombie flick (the pair met on the set of the first one) is due Sept. 21. We, coincidentally, are due to part with some ticket money that very day.
[Photo: Getty Images]
It's ultra-slow today, friends and neighbors, so here's updates on stuff you may or may not like.
• Ridley Scott is working on yet another version of Blade Runner, Reuters reports, adding and extending scenes of the 1982 dystopian sci-fi flick for brief run in L.A. and New York before its Dec. 18 DVD release (in three-, four- and five-disc format, no less). Scott must have been hanging out with George Lucas too much.
• George A. Romero’s latest zombie film, Diary of the Dead, will be premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, the Hollywood Reporter says. Surprisingly, the movie is not about Anna Nicole Smith.
• Billy Crudup has signed on to play Dr. Manhattan in the movie adaptation of Alan Moore’s and Dave Gibbons’ 1986 comic series Watchmen, E! Online reports. He joins Malin Akerman as the Silk Spectre, Patrick Wilson as Nite-Owl, Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach, Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Comedian and Matthew Goode as Ozymandias. This could either be Spider-Man good or League of Extraordinary Gentlemen bad.
• And finally, the trailer for Beowulf is up and running, showing off for the first time how processes called performance capture and electro oculography make actors like Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Crispin Glover and yes, Angelina Jolie look like they’re in the movie when they really aren’t, Ain’t It Cool News reports. Confused? Click here and see the animated troupe for yourself.
Barbra Streisand canceled her concert in Rome next month — a move that followed protests by Italian consumer groups angered by what they said were excessively high ticket prices, the Associated Press reported. Concert organizers indicated the decision was not connected to the outcry. “We deeply apologize to the fans in Rome,” tour promoter Michael Cohl said. Of course, he followed that up by encouraging fans to book a spot for one of Streisand’s other European concerts.
<...an Ill Literate post...>
Of the 10-million reality shows on VH1, the darkest, strangest, saddest--and by those virtues, most compelling--of them has been Shooting Sizemore, the painfully honest depiction of actor Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan, Natural Born Killers, about a thousand B-movies) dealing with his drug addictions.
It only lasted six episodes, apparently, and I personally only caught a couple of them. But I felt for the guy. Maybe that's why I take no pleasure from hearing that Sizemore was busted this morning at a hotel for using crystal meth. It's just a sad, sad story.
Maxim shares the most heart-warming story since Paris fired her manager. Kid Rock says he got in a tussle with Anna Nicole Smith at last year’s Kentucky Derby: “I had my son with me, and she strolls in shooting a TV show, so I politely ask her ‘Miss, we’re just trying to have a good time, and you’ve got those [bleeping] cameras rolling. And she was like, ‘[Bleep] you.’ So I was like ‘[Bleep] me? [Bleep] you. You’re a [bleep]ing pig,’ ” he tells the mag. Good example there, daddy.
Then, to smooth things over, Anna apologizes to the child and gives him $300. “I didn’t know about it until we got home ’cause he bought some Nintendo [bleep],” Rock says. “I’m like, ‘Where did you get the money?’ He’s like, ‘That blond girl with the big boobs gave it to me.’ ” And who says polite society is dead? [Getty Images]
In case you're tracking Anna Nicole Smith's family members, baby Dannielynn has left the Bahamas, under the care of daddy Larry Birkhead. The 34-year-old photographer and the baby left Tuesday en route to Louisville, Ky., Access Hollywood reports. Birkhead got permission to take her out of the country just last week, and the trip is full of poignant coincidences. Besides a brief layover in Fort Lauderdale -- close to the Hollywood hotel where Anna Nicole died -- Birkhead was headed back to the Kentucky city where he met the tot's mom at a Kentucky Derby party in 2003. It's like a twisted little family history tour!
You don't think we'd let Anna Nicole Smith rest just yet, did you? The New York Daily News says a new book in Smith's own words is on its way to shelves, if writer Joyce Wagner has anything to say about it. And boy does she ever.
Wagner's pitch is for a book based on interviews Wagner had with Smith going back to 1996, when the freshly rehabbed bombshell was looking to score a book deal to counter bills accrued after an $830,000 sexual harrassment lawsuit by her former nanny.
On tape, Smith recounted running away from home and being beaten by mama Virgie Arthur upon her return. "She started kicking me with her boot" and "hit me with a nightstick," Smith recalls. Wagner wouldn't go into detail on any sexual abuse, "but this book will explain a lot," she said. Well-played marketing, Joyce!
And as far as octogenarian hubby J. Howard Marshall's bedroom fitness is concerned: "We had sex a lot," Smith told Wagner. "He could not exactly satisfy me, which is to be expected. But he was very satisfied himself. That's really all that mattered to me. He satisfied me in other ways. He cared about me. He never looked down at me."
[Photo: AP]
Courtney Love, infamous widow of Kurt Cobain, has announced she's selling most of his stuff. "I'm going to have a Christie's auction," Love, 42, tells Spinner.com. "(My house) is like a mausoleum." We could be cynical and say this is all suspiciously close in proximity to the release of her next album, Nobody's Daughter, but that's just mean. Love says her daughter Frances Bean will get "a sweater, a guitar and the lyrics to (Smells Like) Teen Spirit," but the rest is going on the block, with "a bunch" of the money going to charity. And hey, there's a sad human angle here, too. Says Love: "I still wear his pajamas to bed. How am I ever going to go form another relationship in my lifetime wearing Kurt's pajamas?"
[Photo: Frances Bean looks to escape Mommy Dearest. AP]
<...an Ill Literate post>
Nothing (except The King of Queens) dies harder than the Die Hard series. Sure, it's been 12 years since unstoppable cop John McClane's third adventure, Die Hard: With A Vengeance, 17 since Die Hard 2: Die Harder and 19 since the original classic Die Hard.
But Bruce Willis is back this summer in Live Free or Die Hard, which could well be the worst movie title Hollywood's drummed up since... um... Die Hard: With A Vengeance. 
Live Free's release is still two months away, but the trailer's been getting plenty of play. Which brings me to my mixed emotions. The original Die Hard remains one of the coolest, most perfect action movies ever. The two sequels, while lesser, still are far better than most "supercop" fare.
I have high hopes for the fourth installment, but lowered expectations. Why? For one, the credited writers have mediocre resumes, and director Len Wiseman's only previous films are the two Underworld flicks. (Granted, they're not too bad. But hardly Die Hard worthy.)
I'm buoyed by the supporting cast: Timothy Olyphant, awesome in Deadwood and Go, is the big baddie. (No one will ever top Alan Rickman, but Tim's a good call.) Justin Long, the "Mac" in those Get a Mac commercials, plays McClane's sidekick. He's a likeable kid. (OK, he's 28. But he looks younger.)
The insanely talented Jeffrey Wright's in there too, plus Mary Elizabeth Winstead (hot), Maggie Q (hotter) and Kevin Smith (smokin' hot).
My two big issues: One, the action sequences in the trailer (watch it below) look cool, but some are so over-the-top and clearly computer-generated they look like Die Hard cartoons. And two...
Bruce is bald in this one. Hey, there's nothing wrong with that. Your Juice* authors basically are too, at least at the moment. (Yes, Josh, I shaved my head. See you at soccer.)
But Bald Bruce just isn't John McClane to me. Bald Bruce just looks like the same guy from Hostage and Tears of the Sun and a bunch of other (mostly) bad movies.
Look, I realize all the Rogaine in the world won't make the guy Sanjaya, but come on. He's still pulling the receded-hairline look in recent flicks like Perfect Stranger and Lucky Number Slevin--so why suddenly go chrome dome when you're back playing McClane? (That's him from the third film in the pic. Now that's John McClane.)
Think I'm overstating the point? Let me know. Check out the trailer and let me know if that doesn't look more like the chunky-phase Britney blowing away the bad guys:
[Photo: Times files]
Somehow, watching the trailer for 28 Weeks Later (the sequel to 28 Days Later), we can't help but feel there's a political message going on here. Like, why is London being firebombed by Americans who have "lost control" of the situation? Still, it's a zombie movie (well, technically not, but it is), so we're lining up for May 11 ...
<...an Ill Literate post...>
So, have you seen Grindhouse, the double-feature-in-one homage to Seventies exploitation flicks by cult filmmakers Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill Vols. I & II) and Robert Rodriguez (Desperado, Sin City)?
Judging from the box office, the likely answer is... no.
The three-hour-plus Grindhouse ground to a halt on arrival, earning less than $12-million on its opening weekend. That's almost $10-million below projections and bad news for a movie that cost $53-million, plus tens of millions more in marketing.
I haven't caught it yet (like most, apparently), so I won't comment on its merits. Though it's interesting that most reviewers who aren't completely sold on the double feature seem at odds over whether Tarantino's half (Death Proof) is awesome and Rodriguez's half (Planet Terror) is lame--or whether it's the other way around.
Either way, here's two things to check out:
One is a report that Weinstein Co. mogul Harvey Weinstein, who already planned to divide Death Proof and Planet Terror for international theaters and a future domestic DVD release, might split and re-release them in American theaters within two weeks. Weinstein even outrageously suggested that the now-solo Death Proof could compete for the coveted Palme d'Or award at next month's Cannes Film Festival. Read the Toronto Star's report here.
(Personally, I can't see how much sense that makes. Even with a plan to add additional footage to each film, how many people want to pay $8.50 to watch one of the movies when they already don't want to pay $8.50 to watch both?)
Finally, though I remain a Tarantino fan, I found myself nodding along with much of Mark Harris's unflinching take on the director in Entertainment Weekly. In the essay "Pap Fiction," he calls Grindhouse "Quentin Tarantino's latest epic canonization of garbage from his own adolescence." It's a fascinating read--peep it here. 
Meanwhile, I just added this completely unnecessary but ridiculously hot pic of Sydney Tamiia Poitier from Grindhouse. (Click it. It gets bigger.)
Now toss us some comments, so Josh and I can finally make some friends outside work. (Especially you, Sydney.)
[Photos: AP, The Weinstein Co.]
<...an Ill Literate post...>
Personally, I'm not sure what I would choose as the high point to date for the Tampa Bay area's own entry into the wannabe Britney / Mandy / Christina / Lindsay / Sanjaya contest, Miss Willa Ford of Ruskin. (That's in southeastern Hillsborough County, FYI.)
Was it when the former Amanda Lee Williford, at first using the stage name Mandah, performed a song that made it onto the soundtrack for Pokemon: The First Movie? Or later, the "Willa Ford" years, of dating such personalities as Nick Carter and Ultimate Fighting Championship behemoth Chuck Liddell? (Points for diversity though, Willa.)
Some would lean toward the decision to record the song A Toast to Men--with a subtitle and chorus that prominently features the "F" word--for an unreleased album she'd planned to title Porn Poetry. Or maybe the posing for Playboy. Or her stretch on Dancing with the Stars. Sure, her sole hit was titled I Wanna Be Bad, but she might have considered not using that as career advice. (And believe me, anyone choosing to participate in celebrity dancing must be desperate.)
Any way you cut it, the young woman was tailor-made for her next role: She's going to play Anna Nicole Smith. It's in an independent movie that reportedly will begin shooting as early as next week.
Sound incredibly sketchy to you? And thus entirely appropriate? Me too. Learn a lil' more here.
[Photo: AP]
Leave it to The Onion to bail me out on a busy Tuesday afternoon. Just in case you haven't gotten enough Anna Nicole...
Okay, you probably knew that. But you also probably already know this:
According to the New York Times, autopsy results show Ms. Smith died from an accidental drug overdose, Broward County officials said this morning. No criminal activity was involved; no charges will be filed.
The Times reports:
Chief Charlie Tiger of the Seminole Police Department, which had jurisdiction in the case, said there was “no evidence of illegal drugs” and “no foul play” in the case, which has been closed.
Dr. Joshua Perper, the medical examiner, said Ms. Smith was taking a variety of drugs including methadone for back pain, antidepressants and others, some by injection. He said traces of nine different prescription drugs were found in her blood.
Read more here.
...Anyway, that blows my theory, which is that she died of a tiger attack. What was yours? [Photo: AP]
 Make this your morning stop for a fresh serving of pop smarts and just
plain cool things from around Tampa Bay and the nation. Compiled by rogue journalists within the St. Petersburg Times, it'll have snarky celebrity gossip, pithy observations and fun links to amuse and amaze you and your friends.E-mail Josh Gillin: jgillin@tampabay.com |
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