Usually on Cinematical, when we talk about "exhibition" we are referring to the business of theaters showing movies. We are not referring to celebrities showing ... things we might prefer not to see. However, the recurring story that is buzzing all over the universe of celebrity gossip has to do with Britney Spears continually going out on the town in short skirts and nothing underneath, and then doing what is becoming known as an "upskirt," which simply means she forgot all those lessons from older female relatives about sitting in a ladylike and modest fashion. I have seen morephotos this week with significant bits covered by stars or other graphics, and I prefer not to click on the photos to view what is being hidden. (Gawker simply posts the undoctored photos after the jump, which is something I found out the hard way.) Perhaps she's allergic to certain fabrics?
Rosie O'Donnell actually bought the actress/singer a pair of underwear (which look similar to the pair sported by Jamie Kennedy) and wants to teach Spears "how to wear underwear again." However, I feel that the best and most genteel solution might be intensive etiquette lessons with a strong focus on entering and exiting vehicles properly, even while under the influence of alcohol or Paris Hilton. And -- I can't believe I just wrote two paragraphs about a celebrity's lack of panties. I need to take a shower before I tackle the rest of last week's news highlights. Excuse me for a moment ...
The celebrities, they are just like us. So many of us in the U.S. have been dealing with Thanksgiving plans this week -- which relatives should we invite? Jennifer Aniston decided to invite the parents of her ex, Brad Pitt, for Turkey Day. And of course this caused the same stir that it might if you did the same thing (with your ex's family, I mean, not Pitt's) -- allegedly Angelina Jolie was unhappy about this. (via Radar Online)
However, Aniston's invite may have freed up Pitt and Jolie's Thanksgiving plans -- they escaped to Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday, where they toured the city on a motorcycle, then had yummy Vietnamese food. How many of us have tried the same thing when our family plans have turned out to be disappointing or unrealistic? Maybe we should.
Despite the holiday, many celebrities were kind and thoughtful enough to keep on providing us with news. Michael Richards seemed to be working overtime to make the gossip rounds, as did Kelly Ripa, but other notable stars also helped:
Is there anyone reading who wasn't aware that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes were just married in Italy? If so, I envy your imperviousness to celebrity news. The rest of us have been hearing all week about possible locations for the wedding, who was or was not on the guest list, what the ceremony might be like, what they've been wearing around town ... and other speculation that is not really suitable for polite discussion. I believe I have heard more about their wedding than some of my relatives' ceremonies. No clear and interesting photos are yet available from the big event, so you'll just have to imagine what happened and how everyone looked ... if you're that interested.
After much scouring of websites, desperate for gossip and news not related to the couple, I did manage to find a few items of interest:
One related item: Defamer took a close look at the "For Your Consideration" ad for Thank You For Smoking and notes that a single cast member is absent from the list: Katie Holmes. Later, they learned that Holmes may have pulled herself from consideration.
Do I even need to link to one of the hundreds of articles about Britney Spears filing for divorce? The news threatened to overshadow the U.S. election results this week. Hell, it overshadowed the speculation about Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' wedding venue, and we all know how important that is. I can only read so many news items about the validity of the original Spears-Federline ceremony and how Britney giving away baby photos affects their pre-nup and where Kevin Federline is buying his boxers now. I am burned out. I may have to read George Will columns to recuperate. And I don't want to hear any more about Anna Nicole Smith either, although I do think it's funny that the Bahamian government now considers her a political liability.
Ah, here we go -- civilized celebrity news. Cate Blanchett (pictured above) has become co-artistic director with her husband of the Sydney Theater Company. She wants to focus on this work primarily, decreasing her acting work. It sounds admirable but I'll be sorry to see her in fewer films.
George Clooney wants you to know that he was misquoted as saying Sen. Barack Obama told him that he (Obama) was planning to run for President. I can pretend I included this little news item in the list to incorporate politics and raise the tone of this week's column, but you all know I just wanted to write about Clooney. There's a photo in that TMZ article, too.
Sometimes celebrity news stories drag on for weeks or even months. Madonna is still fielding criticism for her decision to adopt an African child whose father is still around, Anna Nicole Smith is still in the Bahamas, currently recuperating from pneumonia, and Snoop Dogg did in fact get charged with possessing a deadly weapon. Meanwhile, I am scrabbling around to find stories about Johnny Depp or George Clooney, preferably with lots of flattering photos, but the actors appear to be reclusive this week. (George, what about your promise?) It's an unfair world.
I am consoling myself with this week's gossip, which at least does seem to focus on the naughty, although not with the movie stars I ideally would like to hear make such admissions.
More admirable than naughty: Neil Patrick Harris has outed himself and is apparently quite pleased with it. So I guess his, er, chick-obsessed character in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle truly was acting.
I'm writing this week's column at the very quiet hour of 5 am. Normally, 5 am is an hour when I am dead to the world, unless my cat decides it's time to play and sinks his claws into my back. However, I have one of those nasty little colds, and can't sleep, and I finally gave up. I discovered that this is a great time to read and write about Hollywood gossip, especially when you're drinking a big cup of cocoa. It doesn't require a huge amount of brainpower, the photos are often cheering and I need not worry that my husband will read over my shoulder and shake his head sadly at the content, like last week. And when I'm done, I can go back to bed, although I hope and pray that the following celebrity news doesn't infiltrate my dreams.
Oh, Madonna. She's been at the top of the celebrity news heap all week. You try to adopt a poor little underprivileged child, and it's nothing but grief. First the father says he's confused about the adoption, then he supports it outright and wants everyone to leave Madonna alone. I'm not entirely sure why you'd adopt a kid whose father is still living, anyway; that seems like nothing but trouble. Must be an awfully cute little boy.
I also can't avoid mentioning that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have set a wedding date of November 18. The wedding will take place in Italy, Holmes' dress will be designed by Armani, and I'm sure we'll see dozens of photos, no matter how private they try to be.
So I'm sitting here writing this week's Cinematical SmartGossip column, wondering which celebrity news items are worth mentioning, and how to fit them all in one column in a fun way. I figure I should test the gossip somehow, so I shout out some of the news to my husband, who's in the next room on his own computer.
"Stop it! Aaagh! What are these gossip columns doing to you?"
"I'm just trying to share interesting celebrity news with you, sweetie. Don't you want to know what's going on in the entertainment world?"
"No."
After some discussion, in which he asked me to please never tell him anything about Paris Hilton again, he pointed out that it was in fact possible to discuss less frivolous celebrity news. He even contributed a link himself, via Metafilter: You can watch Michael J. Fox'scampaign ad for Claire McCaskill, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat in Missouri. Fox (pictured above) points out that McCaskill's opponent is against stem-cell research, which the actor, who has Parkinson's disease, wants to promote.
If you're still interested in who's hiding out in other countries, however, or want to see scary celebrity photos, I've included that news after the jump.
This week, the celebrity grapevine is twirling all its little tendrils around Angelina Jolie. My goodness, she's getting more news time than Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson combined. First, she and her family tried to take a rickshaw ride in India but had to stop due to excessive media coverage. Then her driver in India hit a pedestrian while trying to avoid paparazzi. (It was discovered later that she wasn't in the car at the time.) And now a photographer is claiming that he was punched and threatened at gunpoint by a bodyguard on the set of A Mighty Heart, in which Jolie is portraying Mariane Pearl, widow of journalist Daniel Pearl.
Fortunately, if you sift through the mountains of Angelina Jolie/Brad Pitt news (I refuse to do that name-combining thing), you can find some other celebrity activity this week:
More celebrities considering adoption: Rumors have been flying that Madonna is in the process of adopting a year-old boy from Africa. She doesn't actually have the child yet, and Malawi law prohibits non-residents from adopting the country's children, so we'll see what happens.
Oh, that wacky George Clooney: He's announced that he'd like to outwit the paparazzi, who are continually linking him with this actress or that one, by going out to dinner every night with a different celebrity, whether male or female, and letting everyone draw (incorrect) conclusions. Today's my little sister's birthday, George ... she's not famous, but she'd love to help you thwart photographers and gossipmongers.
So how many of the following news items do you think were staged by the celebrities themselves, either for publicity or to intentionally diminish the credibility of gossip columns?
Actress/singer Avril Lavigne has not been handling the paparazzi in such a classy fashion. Last weekend, she had to apologize for spitting on some of the photographers.
Peter Sarsgaard (pictured at right, mmm) and Maggie Gyllenhaal have announced the birth of their daughter. The baby, born Tuesday night, is named Ramona. No other details are available, although I guess that refutes the rumor I heard about Sarsgaard being spotted holding hands on the beach this week with Clooney.
Most of the celebrity gossip news this week seems to be centered on Anna Nicole Smith. In fact, the quantity of news about her pushed the Cruise family right out of the spotlight for once. Her son's recent death was determined to have resulted from a toxic drug combination. Disputes have been occurring over the paternity of her new baby daughter. And on Thursday, she and her longtime lawyer, Howard K. Stern, held a commitment ceremony (not an official marriage, as was earlier speculated).
After the Smith drama, do we need any more gossip? Of course we do. Here are some of the celebrity highlights from the past week:
Wedding bells: Rumors have been flying about actress Amanda Peet (pictured above) being pregnant. She not only confirmed the news of her pregnancy this week, but also announced that she and the baby's father, screenwriter David Benioff, are getting married this weekend.
Usually I try to ignore gossip related to the private anatomy of actors and celebrities. I quite frankly don't want to know about size, although I'm not unwilling to watch male frontal nudity in films. I don't want to know about anyone's quirky little habits in that area, either. But this week's celebrity news has made the topic unavoidable, from book-promotion interviews to the red carpet itself. You have been warned.
I suppose if you want innovation at red-carpet events, you have to break taboos: Steve-O (pictured above), star of Jackass: Number Two, broke ground -- or at least dampened it -- by urinating on the red carpet at the film's premiere. (Caution: The linked story does include photos.)
Did the title manage to invoke an earworm from The Lion King in your head? Sorry about that. But it seems like this is a record week for celebrity milestone events: birth, death, birth and death at the same time, divorce, and even strange addictions. Here are some of the highlights from this week's film-related celebrity gossip. I made sure all the celebrities mentioned had something to do with film, and noted their big movie achievements when it seemed doubtful.
Birth: Britney Spears (Crossroads) had another baby, a boy with nearly the same birthday as his brother. In an unbelievably tragic event, Anna Nicole Smith (The Hudsucker Proxy) had a baby daughter and lost her son at nearly the same time.
Divorce: Whitney Houston (The Bodyguard) announced that she's filed for divorce from Bobby Brown (Ghostbusters II) after 14 years of marriage. I'm a little slow on the gossip uptake sometimes but even I knew that the couple had a somewhat turbulent relationship.
Sometimes it's difficult for me to muster much interest in the big gossip items of the week. I was hoping that after posting about Suri Cruise's bronzed poop last week, I wouldn't have to hear any Cruise Family Gossip for awhile. But no, Tom had to apologize to Brooke Shields for his insensitive remarks about her postpartum depression, and then the Vanity Fair photos of the whole family went public. I've seen more photos of that baby this week than I have of my nieces and nephew, who are honestly much cuter.
There's also the difficulty of determining which celebrity news stories are most appropriate for a website devoted to film news. After all, it's not TVmatical or Musicmatical, so I shouldn't include gossip from celebrities in those arenas. But then there's a lot of overlap, like Juliette Lewis recording with Dave Grohl. And where in the world (and why) does Paris Hilton fit in? Sure, she's been in a few movies, but does that mean I ought to mention her DWI arrest this week? Let's see if I can find anything more interesting and actually related to movies in some way ...
When my Cinematical editors asked me if I'd assume responsibility for our weekly gossip column, I was a little worried. I admit that I am not as familiar with the world of celebrity goings-on as I ought to be: I don't have cable so I can't watch red-carpet galas, blind items confuse me, I mix up all the little blonde actresses, and the merest glimpse of Paris Hilton gives me a rash. But I'm willing to learn, so bear with me while I dive into the world of celebrity gossip and relate the week's prime pearls of news.
I'll start with celebrities I enjoy watching in movies and can recognize easily: George Clooney and Ellen Barkin. They're filming Ocean's Thirteen right now -- I'm so pleased Barkin's in the film, as I haven't seen her since Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas -- and are being linked as a romantic item. Barkin's a bit older than Clooney, so it's a pleasant change from the usual news about celebrity men dating much younger women. (Sympathy to my sister, who still believes some day Clooney will turn up in Covington, LA and claim her as his soulmate.)
(Little bits of) the week in gossip, for your viewing pleasure.
Denis Leary and Lenny Clarke -- both massive Red Sox fans -- got to spend some time in the NESN broadcast booth this week, watching the Sox lose to the Tigers. During their visit, Clarke and Leary discovered, much to their surprise (and overflowing pride), that Sox first baseman Kevin Youkilis is Jewish. That, combined with a great defensive play by Youk shortly after the revelation, led to a massive explosion of hilarity primarily focused on, yes, poor Mel Gibson. (You can hear the audio at the link; the video keeps getting yanked down.)
Early in the week, the ever-reliable New York Daily News reported that, contrary to popular opinion, Tom Cruise has been crazy for years. Word is that back in the heady, I'm a Flawless Superstar! days of the early 1990s, Tom got it into his head that he needed to spend some quality time with one Joe DiMaggio, an impulse that any baseball fan can respect and understand. The problem, however, is that Joe D. wasn't having it -- he was completely uninterested in talking to Cruise, so Mav did the logical thing, and started lurking around at DiMaggio's signing events and, um, outside the places the man was trying to eat. How did old-man Joe deal with it? "This guy is following me around everywhere I go. Next time, I'm going to call the cops." Nice.
James Woods, who spends most of his time trying to convince me that my affection for him is appallingly misguided, actually corrected his most recent disaster this week, albeit a bit late: He dumped Ashley Madison, his infant girlfriend (Ok, actually she's 20. But when you're 60? 20 is an infant.) after she reportedly acted like a fame whore (No!) at the funeral of Woods' brother. Try to read this description without thinking of the worst kind of 16-year-old girl: In addition to showing up in a tiny miniskirt and smoking non-stop, Madison reportedly spent the funeral figuring out "the amount of magazines she was in ... Jimmy was on his knees with tears staining his shirt, and she was showing pictures of herself." Gee, and I'm sure he expected so much more when he hooked up with a chick fully 1/3 of his age.
Usually on Cinematical, when we talk about "exhibition" we are referring to the business of theaters showing movies. We are not referring to celebrities showing ... things we might prefer not to see. However, the recurring story that is buzzing all over the universe of celebrity gossip has to do with Britney Spears continually going out on the town in short skirts and nothing underneath, and then doing what is becoming known as an "upskirt," which simply means she forgot all those lessons from older female relatives about sitting in a ladylike and modest fashion. I have seen more photos this week with significant bits covered by stars or other graphics, and I prefer not to click on the photos to view what is being hidden. (Gawker simply posts the undoctored photos after the jump, which is something I found out the hard way.) Perhaps she's allergic to certain fabrics?
The celebrities, they are just like us. So many of us in the U.S. have been dealing with Thanksgiving plans this week -- which relatives should we invite? Jennifer Aniston decided to 
Is there anyone reading who wasn't aware that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes 
Do I even need to link to one of the hundreds of articles about Britney Spears 
Sometimes celebrity news stories drag on for weeks or even months. Madonna is still 
I'm writing this week's column at the very quiet hour of 5 am. Normally, 5 am is an hour when I am dead to the world, unless my cat decides it's time to play and sinks his claws into my back. However, I have one of those nasty little colds, and can't sleep, and I finally gave up. I discovered that this is a great time to read and write about Hollywood gossip, especially when you're drinking a big cup of cocoa. It doesn't require a huge amount of brainpower, the photos are often cheering and I need not worry that my husband will read over my shoulder and shake his head sadly at the content, 
So I'm sitting here writing this week's Cinematical SmartGossip column, wondering which celebrity news items are worth mentioning, and how to fit them all in one column in a fun way. I figure I should test the gossip somehow, so I shout out some of the news to my husband, who's in the next room on his own computer.
This week, the celebrity grapevine is twirling all its little tendrils around Angelina Jolie. My goodness, she's getting more news time than Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson combined. First, she and her family 
Oh, that wacky George Clooney: He's announced that he'd like to 
Most of the celebrity gossip news this week seems to be centered on Anna Nicole Smith. In fact, the quantity of news about her pushed the Cruise family right out of the spotlight for once. Her son's recent death was determined to have resulted from 
Usually I try to ignore gossip related to the private anatomy of actors and celebrities. I quite frankly don't want to know about size, although I'm not unwilling to watch male frontal nudity in films. I don't want to know about anyone's quirky little habits in that area, either. But this week's celebrity news has made the topic unavoidable, from book-promotion interviews to the red carpet itself. You have been warned.
Did the title manage to invoke an earworm from The Lion King in your head? Sorry about that. But it seems like this is a record week for celebrity milestone events: birth, death, birth and death at the same time, divorce, and even strange addictions. Here are some of the highlights from this week's film-related celebrity gossip. I made sure all the celebrities mentioned had something to do with film, and noted their big movie achievements when it seemed doubtful.
Sometimes it's difficult for me to muster much interest in the big gossip items of the week. I was hoping that after posting about Suri Cruise's 
When my Cinematical editors asked me if I'd assume responsibility for our weekly gossip column, I was a little worried. I admit that I am not as familiar with the world of celebrity goings-on as I ought to be: I don't have cable so I can't watch red-carpet galas, blind items confuse me, I mix up all the little blonde actresses, and the merest glimpse of Paris Hilton gives me a rash. But I'm willing to learn, so bear with me while I dive into the world of celebrity gossip and relate the week's prime pearls of news.
(Little bits of) the week in gossip, for your viewing pleasure.
