But, man, can January Jones work a red carpet. Love the hit of 60s polish with totally modern styling.


Jennifer Carpenter. Strapless. What more is there to say?


Jamie-Lynn Sigler. Strapless. But this time we can say, "booties."


And when it comes to Shenae Grimes? "Necklace."
Maggie Grace's dainty little retro number has a decided "Anthropologie" vibe. Not that there's anything wrong with that.


When I did a scroll-up of Amanda Seyfried my thoughts went something like, "cute, shorts! Stevie Nicks' Belladonna! Pumpkin muffin!" (That just happened to be in my head though.)


Gabrielle Union is basically saying, no, this is how you do LBD!


Someone had to fill the disco-ball-mini quota, and Danielle Panabaker took one for the team.


Can't take my eyes off the arrows on Zoe Saldana's frock. "Spleen here!"


Olivia Wilde often fails the beatific palette. Digging with the sharp futuristic-trophy-wife angles!


All I can say is, having attempted to drape a toga, Emma Stone's isn't too bad! It's hard!


Rose McGowan: sweet, simple and pretty.


See, this front-gather trend is one that will never make it to reality - at least that portion of it with breasts. But what say you about Jamie King's red carpet iteration?


Like Alice Eve, I enjoy convent-ready eveningwear.


Jessica Stroup refuses to choose between statement pieces: she shall have the gold short-shorts and the mesh booties!


Trench dresses always scream "flasher." But as Marley Shelton shows, cute flasher!


AnnaLynne McCord's skirt is almost invisible to the naked eye.


It's always fun when Kim Kardashian just does classic bombshell. Yes, "fun."


And...the man of the hour. Some stylist obviously crammed this saffron square into his pocket, and this stylist is obviously a Palin supporter.

[Images via Getty]

• Madonna is in Brazil, but not to meet Jesus' parents. She says:

"I am going there strictly for fund raising and humanitarian purposes." Her Madgesty is sponsoring a documentary about kids living in the squalid hillside slums. [Page Six]

• Guess who was seeing Heath Ledger when he died? Lindsay Lohan. Her mom, Dina, tells Michael Lohan about it in this — you guessed it — recorded phone conversation. In the audio, Dina says Lindsay "cannot be alone" and sleeps with Dina when she is home because she has fears of being alone. [Radar Online]
• In a newly released 2008 taped phone call between Lindsay Lohan's assistant, Jenni Muro, and Michael Lohan, the former says: "I am trying to save your daughter's life every day." Muro was also pissed she had to relocate to NYC so LL could be on Ugly Betty, saying: "I get a 5% commission on this entire TV show and it's sick and disgusting and I'm here and I give up my boyfriend and my dog and my parents and my new place in LA and everything so that your daughter doesn't kill herself, ok?" [ONTD via Radar]
• A recent Tweet from Lindsay Lohan: "i'm a regular person to.. i sleep, eat, laugh, cry, shower, have blood running through my veins, i have a heart, etc etc- lol" [Twitter]
• People: I have seen a clip of Lady Gaga's new video, "Bad Romance," and there is latex and implied violence and dancing! The full video debuts Monday, and Ms. Gaga says: "There's this one shot in the video where I get kidnapped by supermodels. I'm washing away my sins and they shove vodka down my throat to drug me up before they sell me off to the Russian mafia." In addition, Gaga wears razor-blade sunglasses: "I wanted to design a pair for some of the toughest chicks and some of my girlfriends - don't do this at home! - they used to keep razor blades in the side of their mouths. That tough female spirit is something that I want to project. It's meant to be, 'This is my shield, this is my weapon, this is my inner sense of fame, this is my monster.'" [MTV News]
• Amy Winehouse loves her new boobs and now wants butt implants to get that "pin-up look." [The Sun]
• Joe Halderman — the CBS news producer accused of trying to extort cash from David Letterman — goes to court today for the first hearing in his criminal case. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Joe Halderman's friends are helping him pay his legal bills. [TMZ]
• Justin Timberlake has been dealing with a stalker, and submitted a statement to a judge yesterday which read: "I fear for my personal safety." He called the behavior of woman in question "ever-increasing, aggressive and harassing." [TMZ]
• At the link, James Franco talks about his upcoming stints on 30 Rock and General Hospital. Of doing a soap opera, he says: "It's been a blast so far. It was kind of mind-blowing. I've worked one day on it. It's one day of a few. But I think we packed seven episodes of my material in." He also reveals that he has not worn an eyepatch. Yet. [NY Magazine]
• Oh dear: Tracy Morgan's stand-up show at Carnegie Hall was so crazy, people walked out. And not crazy in the good way — he called homosexuality a choice and joked, "Obama is really changing the White House, because he and Michelle will have the first presidential sex tape out." [Gatecrasher]
• "Dr. Conrad Murray was on the phone with his girlfriend as Michael Jackson was dying." [TMZ]
• Joe Jackson is being meddlesome with the executors of Michael Jackson's will. [CNN]
• Naomi Campbell is going on a month-long, £1 million vacation with boyfriend Vladislav Doronin, and she is calling it a honeymoon, though they're not married. Grain of salt on this one. [The Sun]
• Levi Johnston has Tweeted: "BREAKING NEWS !!!! SNL APPEARANCE THIS SAT… you hear it first !!!" My guess is that he'll be in the news segment, but you never know — we could get a Tina Fey/Sarah Palin appearance! [MSNBC Scoop]
• Levi Johnston is reportedly going to file for joint custody of his son Tripp. [Page Six]
• Ugh. Carrie Prejean's autobiography is out so she is still in the damn spotlight. She claims the Miss California USA pageant director pressured her into getting a boob job. [Radar Online]
• By the by, Carrie Prejean says her "solo sex tape" was the biggest mistake of her life. [TMZ]
• Director Lee Daniels is not pushing for an Oscar for Precious: "It scares me," he says. When he first heard Oscar talk, "I was completely thrown off guard. I was like … Oscar who? Oscar de la Renta?" [Gatecrasher]
• "Actress Emma Thompson's art project takes viewers on 'Journey' of sex slave" [NY Daily News]
• John Travolta has to promote his new flick Old Dogs, even though he is struggling to get by since the death of his son. He says: "
  "We've been working very hard every day as a family to heal. We have our own way of doing it, and it has been helping." [USA Today]
• Congrats to Halle Berry, who will receive the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award at The Hollywood Reporter's 18th annual Women in Entertainment breakfast presented by Lifetime. Past recipients include Barbara Walters, Meryl Streep, Jodie Foster and Glenn Close. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Entourage's Kevin Connolly gambles and hangs with Playmates. [Page Six]
• Donald Trump and Omarosa will be reunited for Omarosa's new dating reality show on TV One, called Omarosa's Ultimate Merger, on which she tries to choose a love interest from a selection of 12 bachelors. [Variety]
• Boo: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has been diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia. [People]
• "The only thing worse than Aerosmith with Steven Tyler is Aerosmith without Steven Tyler." [NY Post]
• Hot hottie Jason Lewis — you know, he played hottie Smith Jerrod — has been cast as the lead in a new show called Rio! He'll play an international detective (?!?!) who goes to Brazil to investigate a crime… and decides to stay after enjoying the city, its beaches and nightlife. It's Miami Vice and Magnum PI and maybe even Hawaii 5-0. Also, he's hot. [Page Six]
• Someone spilled a drink on Russell Simmons at a party. [Page Six]
• Twilight's Christian Serratos is getting naked for a PETA ad. She's 19. [Gatecrasher]
• Unsolicited uterus update: Kelly Kapowski is pregnant. [Gatecrasher]
• Whatshisname sued a tabloid magazine and won libel damages. [BBC News]
• "When you hear the phrase 'only in America,' it means something extraordinary, something extreme, something good. But if someone were to say ‘only in Britain,' it would be something damp, miserable, no, not until Wednesday and then it's unlikely." — Stephen Fry is promoting Stephen Fry In America and might come live in the U.S. [Daily Express]
• "If he wanted to go down that road he probably would have done so by now. And I think he is a very solid and faithful person." — Mel Gibson's girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva, who has dated Mel and given birth while he's still legally married to his wife of 29 years. [MSNBC]
• "There wasn't going to be any more Juliet, and now there is going to be more Juliet. That's all I can say. I wish I could say more. I don't really like to be so close-lipped, but it kind of just goes with the show." — Lost's Elizabeth Mitchell. [USA Today]
• "How do I still look good? I owe 30 per cent to genes, 30 per cent to good sex, 30 per cent because of sports and healthy lifestyle with proper nutrition and for the remaining 10 per cent – I have to thank my plastic surgeon. I'm 71 and physically don't feel so good since I'm in pain. But I'm happier, the sex is better and I understand life better. I don't want to be young again." — Jane Fonda just had spine surgery, a new knee and hip made of titanium, but she had to get herself repaired because she wants to climb the Himalayas. [Telegraph]
• "I smoke weed, but I don't think it's really a drug. 'It's more of a herb. I don't regret saying that at all. I think everyone smokes weed and people who say they don't are lying! Weed has been given this evil stamp, but how is it dangerous? It's going to make you laugh your arse off? You might go to sleep? I think alcohol is much more harmful. People beat the f**k out of each other on alcohol." — Joss Stone should change her name to Joss Stoned. [Daily Mail]
• "I really enjoy acting. I like being in front of the camera. I think I should be an action star." — Serena Williams, that makes two of us. [NY Daily News]
• "Elevators scare me — just being stuck without phone service when you're alone. Small spaces are fine, if I'm with someone in an elevator fine, but I will not buy an apartment on the 14th floor of a building that's for sure, I've gotta be able to walk. … The unknown is very scary. …I'm scared of a lot of women, certain women because I guess I don't have a lot of confidence in myself, I don't know what it is." — Amanda Seyfried. [Mirror]
• "We're discovering who the enemy are, and I do think we do have an enemy. It means that everyone's got to go on fighting. And in what way you fight, well, it depends who you are… You can write a letter, you can talk about it to your congressperson… you can talk to people in bars… Or you can go on marches, or you can go and break windows." — Sir Ian McKellan on the fight for gay marriage. [Page Six]

[Los Angeles, October 26. Image via Bauer-Griffin

[Los Angeles, October 17. Image via Bauer-Griffin.]

Gutierrez has problems with Megan Fox's character, Jennifer, calling her "Hot, Flat and Empty." Gutierrez thinks the showdown between Jennifer and Amanda Seyfried's character, Needy, "plays out like a catfight over a boy."

Here's what I did think: (and obviously, spoilers abound) Jennifer and Needy's friendship rang true. Sometimes you're friends with someone and you don't even know why. I absolutely had a high school friendship in which I intensely loved — and was intensely annoyed by — my friend. There were relationships where I was jealous of the other girl, where I wanted to get close to her to prove I could, where my emotions were so complicated I didn't even understand them. And to me, that's what Jennifer's Body is about: What if your best friend — who already thinks she can get any guy she wants — became an actual man-eater?

While Jennifer was slightly under-developed as a character, it seemed like that was the point: She was a vain, slightly mean airhead before she turned into an evil creature, and, thanks to her indestrucitbility, became even more vain, cruel and drunk with power afterward.

As for fighting over a boy, that also seemed valid. Even though Jennifer seems like the popular girl with the hot body, something inside her — insecurity, malice, delusions of grandeur — made her want to destroy whatever Needy held dear. It's as though Jennifer wanted to be all Needy had. Since Needy felt a connection with the emo kid from poetry class, he had to go. Ditto Needy's boyfriend. And when Needy attempted to rescue her boyfriend, it didn't seem like a "catfight" to me as much as table-turning take on the usual damsel-in-distress cliché. Just like the Prince battles his way through overgrown brush in Sleeping Beauty, so must Needy scramble through vines in order to try and save her love.

An aside on the "Codyspeak": When I was a teenager, no one I knew said "neo-maxi-zoom-dweebie" before The Breakfast Club came out. No one I knew said "I gotta motor if I'm gonna hit that funeral" before Heathers. It sucks that, instead of being recognized for making the screenplay sparkle with fun language, Diablo Cody gets flogged for "Codyisms."

While Gutierrez didn't find Jennifer's Body scary enough, smart enough or feminist enough, and the film came in a disappointing fifth at the box office, with a meager $6.8 million, think about this: Heathers made $177,247 its opening weekend and was considered a total failure. These two movies are kissing cousins, in a sense: As Dana Stevens wrote for Slate, Jennifer is "less a teenage girl turned monster than an exploration of the monster that lurks inside every teenage girl." It's notable that a BFF charm is one of the images at the climax of the movie: All the blood, guts and Satanic rituals in the world could never hurt as much as betrayal of the "Best Friends Forever" promise — even if you have to break that promise to save your life.

Sister Hacked [The American Prospect]

Earlier: Critics Have Violently Different Views Of Jennifer's Body
6 Reasons To Love Jennifer's Body

Jennifer's Body, which opens today, is a comedic horror film about Jennifer Check (Megan Fox), the meanest, prettiest, most popular girl in Devil's Kettle, Minnesota, and Anita "Needy" Lesnicki (Amanda Seyfried), her smart, sensible, and mousy best friend since childhood. Jennifer, who has always had a somewhat-abusive relationship with Needy, drags her to local roadhouse to see an obnoxious emo band called Low Shoulder. When a freak fire destroys the bar Jennifer and Needy manage to escape and the band's lead singer (Adam Brody) offers Jennifer a ride home. Needy never sees Jennifer alive again, as she's transformed into a succubus, a form of zombie/vampire, when the band's satanic virgin sacrifice goes awry. Jennifer returns to feast on innocent high school boys and Needy has to defend their male classmates, including her boyfriend Chip (Johnny Simmons).

Earlier, we presented a few reasons to love Jennifer's Body, but critics couldn't reach a consensus on anything about the film. While some saw it as a smart and funny commentary on the angst surrounding being a teen girl and the complicated nature of female friendships, others singled out the same points to argue that the film is a "spectacular disaster." There aren't as many Juno-esque quips like "honest to blog" in Diablo Cody's screenplay, which may be good or bad depending on your opinion of Diablo Cody. Some said Megan Fox's acting was horrible, but others found her bland affect appropriate for a demonic mean girl. Reviewers expecting a straight horror movie were disappointed by the film's lack of gore, but other reviews said the film doesn't really fit into either the horror or comedy genres. Many critics described the film as a feminist take on the horror movie, but another critic praised it for refusing "to be read as a feminist revenge story." Below, we take a look at what reviewers are saying about the film, but as it deals with several topics it seems no one can agree on, including Diablo Cody, Megan Fox, feminism, and the difficulties of being a young woman, you may have to judge Jennifer's Body for yourself.

Slate

To enter into the spirit of Jennifer's Body, you have to let go of your preconceived notions of Diablo Cody, whether for good or ill. If you're looking for the gentle indie spirit of Juno, you'll be disappointed-this isn't a world in which abortion protesters make their case with twee observations about baby fingernails, and getting pregnant at 15 is nothing a Moldy Peaches song can't cure. Life at Devil's Kettle High is nasty, brutish, and short, especially for Jennifer's male victims (who aren't necessarily sexist jerks-one of the movie's strengths is its refusal to be read as a straight-up feminist revenge story). If, on the other hand, Juno's preciousness made you gag, you shouldn't write off Jennifer's Body, either. True, Cody's mania for catchphrases hasn't faded-Needy and Jennifer greet each other with rhymed putdowns along the lines of "Where's it at, Monistat?"-but she's learning to channel the more egregious lingo into the mouths of characters who might actually talk that way. In Jennifer's Body, the principal perpetrator of Codyisms is Jennifer herself, which makes perfect sense. Proving one's social worth by spouting insider slang is a mark of insecurity, and for all her sexual bravado, Jennifer is nothing if not insecure. Megan Fox, whose previous roles called on little more than her ability to successfully straddle a motorcycle, nails this tricky role. She does more than look sensational-she shows us what it feels like to be a sensational-looking young woman and to wield that as your only power. Fox seems to understand the key gambit of Cody's script: Her character is less a teenage girl turned monster than an exploration of the monster that lurks inside every teenage girl.

The Chicago Sun-Times

It's easy to go on like this, but I'd be missing something. There is within Diablo Cody the soul of an artist, and her screenplay brings to this material a certain edge, a kind of gleeful relish, that's uncompromising. This isn't your assembly-line teen horror thriller. The portraits of Jennifer and Needy are a little too knowing, the dialogue is a little too off-center, the developments are a little too quirky. After you've seen enough teen thrillers, you begin to appreciate these distinctions. Let's put it this way: I'd rather see Jennifer's Body again than Twilight.

The New York Times

Jennifer's Body, a bloody high school demonic-possession serial-killer comedy written by Diablo Cody, directed by Karyn Kusama and starring Megan Fox in the title role, is an unholy mess. I mean that as a compliment. Yes, the movie's gory set pieces are executed with more carnivorous glee than formal discipline, and its story is as full of holes as some of its disemboweled victims. But coherence has never been a significant criterion for horror movies. If it were, we could forget about Dario Argento and Brian De Palma, half of Hitchcock and most of the entries in the Friday the 13th series. And though it is too soon to install Jennifer's Body in that blood-soaked pantheon, the movie deserves - and is likely to win - a devoted cult following, despite its flaws.

These are mitigated by a sensibility that mixes playful pop-culture ingenuity with a healthy shot of feminist anger. Ms. Cody and Ms. Kusama take up a theme shared by slasher films and teenage comedies - that queasy, panicky fascination with female sexuality that we all know and sublimate - and turn it inside out. This is not a simple reversal of perspective; the girl's point of view has frequently been explored in both maniac-on-the-loose thrillers and homeroom-to-prom-night romantic comedies. Jennifer's Body goes further, taking the complication and confusion of being a young woman as its central problem and operating principle, the soil from which it harvests a tangle of unruly metaphors, mixed emotions, crazy jokes and ambivalent insights.

The Miami Herald

Jennifer's Body is also uncommonly fearless when it delves into the subject of teen sex. When the baby-faced Needy and the even younger-looking Chip get together for a stay-at-home date and start talking about condoms and lubrication, the conversation comes as a shock, because movies have traditionally taught us that only the "bad'' girls have sex when they're 16. The good ones — those who, like Needy, do their homework and are responsible — never slide past first base.

Jennifer's Bodyisn't particularly scary: Kusama feints at frightening her audience early on, but her heart just isn't in it, and she eventually loses interest. And the movie's humor is either too stale (Wikipedia gags were funny when we first heard them on The Office two seasons ago) or too dark and scalding for laughter. And some jokes, such as an ill-conceived riff on 9/11, stick out for their offensiveness.

The Hollywood Reporter

The film will most disappoint those who hoped Juno had introduced a writer with a fresh point of view about young people in today's world. Horror fans, however, will get a kick out of this absurd yarn of a high-school hottie-turned-psycho cannibal, who feasts on all those boys dying to get into her pants. And there is enough of those arch, self-conscious comic lines to remind us this is a Cody screenplay.

USA Today

Jennifer's Bodyis not as hot as you hope it would be. Written by the talented Diablo Cody, whose way with words - particularly teenspeak - was a revelation in Juno, Jennifer's Body tries hard to be cool, gross and nasty but feels forced and misses the mark... much of the humor and the scares fall short. Jennifer's Body generally follows the conventions of a teen horror tale, interspersed with some lackluster, wannabe edgy humor.

Variety

While not exactly lifeless, Jennifer's Body sure could be fresher. Even with Megan Fox ideally cast as a sharp-fanged succubus with a lusty appetite for young male (and sometimes female) flesh, this high school horror romp tackles its bad-girl-gone-really-bad premise with eye-rolling obviousness and, fatally, a near-total absence of real scares. Fox Atomic item will stir interest as a post-Juno outing for scribe Diablo Cody, whose whippersnapper sensibility can be heard in the occasional snatches of self-consciously clever dialogue. But even auds primed to see guts and other exposed body parts will be disappointed by a Body less bawdy than advertised.

The Boston Globe

The haters are already out in force for this one, storming the nation's multiplexes with torches if their blogs are to be believed. Honestly, the movie's not that terrible. That doesn't mean it's very good, though. Jennifer's Body falls into the dispiriting category of dumb movies made by smart people, in this case a glibly clever writer and a talented director who think a few wisecracks are enough to subvert the teen horror genre.

Two things keep Jennifer's Body from clicking: The script isn't nearly as wonderful as it thinks it is, and Fox has the personality of a lukewarm Thermos. (A third: Kusama's a solid director but not the wild-and-woolly stylist this project probably needs.) Cody tries to rocket her dialogue along at Juno pace, but sardonic glibness is hard to pull off when characters are going screaming to their deaths - she should have either eased up on the gas or revved through to the far side of bad taste. Worse, the writer's patented Cody-isms ("freaktarded,'' "move on-dot-org'') seem pushy and stale this time out.

The A.V. Club

Her second film script, for the excruciating teen horror-comedy Jennifer's Body, doubles down on the slangy Cody-isms, serving as a fresh reminder that the house of Juno wasn't built on a foundation of homeskillets and honest-to-blogs. It was at heart an affecting story about a pregnant teenager sorting through some very difficult decisions and trying to do the right thing; her colorfully sarcastic one-liners worked, in part, because she deployed them as a kind of defense mechanism. By contrast, Jennifer's Body is clever for its own sake, a showy piece of writing that doesn't have that all-important ballast of sincerity. This time, Cody will stop a scene cold for the chance to shoehorn "move on dot org" into a sentence. Another major problem: Neither Megan Fox nor Amanda Seyfried can handle the wordplay like Ellen Page did. As they play best friends on opposite sides of the popularity divide, Fox rips into her line-readings with lusty overconfidence, while Seyfried timidly pushes them across, as if they were written in a second language.

Reel Views

Jennifer's Body mixes, matches, and crosses three popular genres: horror, comedy, and teen angst. Unfortunately, it fails at all of them - and "fails" might be too kind a term. This movie is a spectacular disaster, the kind of thing a cat might bury in a litter box and still keep building the covering because the stench can't be smothered. There are so many things wrong with this motion picture that it might be easier to pinpoint the few elements that are right. The film is the product of the "girl power" team of director Karyn Kusama (Girlfight) and writer Diablo Cody (Juno). Neither has previously dabbled in horror and, based on the evidence at hand in Jennifer's Body, neither should be allowed near it again. Kusama comes across as a filmmaker who is playing at making an exploitation flick without having a good understanding of what the elements are and how they mesh. The tone is off throughout, like a piece of music played in the wrong key. The notes are there but the sound is dissonant. Drinking massive amounts of coffee before seeing Jennifer's Body might make it more bearable since frequent trips to the bathroom will break up the monotony.

Salon

If Jennifer's Body were either entertaining or ultimately had a point, it would have a good enough reason for existing. Even if its star, the bodaciously built Megan Fox, were sexy in anything but a plastic way, you could make an argument for it as gore-fest eye candy. But Jennifer's Body — directed by Karyn Kusama, from a script by Diablo Cody — is so contemptuous toward its own characters, and its audience, that it chokes off any visceral thrills it might have offered. The movie substitutes calculation for brains, and the filmmakers seem to think we'll all be too stupid to notice. I can't remember the last time I saw such a naked display of opportunism and exploitation at the movies — and when I use the word "exploitation," I don't mean the good, old-fashioned grindhouse kind, but the "Let's make a buck by pretending to be transgressive" kind, the kind that reallymakes you feel dirty.

Watching two women kiss, when it's done right, is a glorious thing... But a kissing scene can also be a cheap attempt to titillate the audience, particularly when it has no real context or reason for being — it doesn't matter if there's a man or a woman behind the camera. Needy is certainly in thrall to Jennifer, possibly sexually. But Jennifer treats Needy so badly, it's impossible to understand how these two women could be friends, other than out of habit (they've been pals since childhood). And as Jennifer, Fox's mannequin eyes are lifeless; they betray an attraction to no one — there's no sex in her sexiness. The kiss comes from nowhere and leads to nothing. Its calculated eroticism is enough to make you long for the tyranny of the male gaze.

Earlier: 6 Reasons To Love Jennifer's Body

6. Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried's Kiss Isn't That Exploitative

By the time I saw a screening of Jennifer's Body last week, the "lesbian kiss" clip was already partially online, and seemed just as eye-rollingly marketing department-mandated as one would expect. But it actually fits nicely into the plot — in the full scene, Needy (Amanda Seyfried) is suspicious of Jennifer (Megan Fox), and Jennifer is trying to win her back the only way she knows how — with her overpowering sexuality. Besides, it's played for laughs when Needy suddenly realizes they're kissing and pushes Jennifer away and is all like "Wait, what?" about it.

5. The Diablo Cody-isms Aren't As Distracting As They Were In Juno

Jennifer's Body probably could have done without "Moveon, Dot Org!", but generally, the weird Diablo Cody alien teenspeak is limited to one character — Jennifer — which makes it seem like it's her tic, not the entire movie's. And when I'm watching a horror movie, I like knowing there's always another pop culture allusion just around the corner. This movie isn't trying to be Citizen Kane. I might even start calling my best friends Monistat and Vagisil...well...or not. But teenagers do tend to have their own language, and if it was okay in Heathers, it's okay here.

4. Adam Brody's Dead-On Brandon Flowers Impression

Adam plays the eyelinered lead singer of the indie band Low Shoulder, whose single "Through The Trees" goes platinum after it becomes the official song of the Devil's Kettle Tragedy. Though Adam claims in interviews that he based his character on several famous lead singers, come on, it's Brandon Flowers from The Killers all the way. He even grows a Flowers-esque mustache after he gets famous. It adds another layer to think of his ruthless evil famewhore character being based on Flowers the goodie two-shoes Mormon.

3. J.K. Simmons As the Wig-Wearing Science Teacher With A Hook For A Hand

Because J.K. Simmons is always funny, and because the hook is never explained or even mentioned.

2. Megan Fox....Can...Actually...Like...Act?

Bad news for Megan Fox's legions of haters: she may have dumb tattoos, say silly things in interviews, and possess exactly one mouth-agape red-carpet facial expression, but in this movie at least, Megan Fox's ability to play the full range of her ditzy-yet-utterly-enthralling high school alpha-female character is undeniable. (Amanda Seyfriend is also terrific, but we already knew that.) You just can't stop watching Megan, and after this mesmerizing performance, her sudden massive fame seems a little bit more understandable. I'm sorry if this upsets anyone. It's just true. Bitch can act, and we need to accept it and move on (dot org).

1. It's An Empowerment Movie For Former Wallflower Sidekicks Everywhere

Most of us have, at some point in our lives, found ourselves playing sidekick to an underminer-y, narcissistic, "best friend." (This is based on anecdotal, not scientific, research, but it's totally true.) We tend to grow out of it by our late '20s unless we're characters on Sex and the City, but if the low-self-in-relation-to-Miss-Superstar-esteem memories still linger, Jennifer's Body is THE movie to see to permanently exorcise your inner nerdy sidekick forever. It's a horror movie about toxic friendships! Why didn't anyone think of that before? The last two scenes of Jennifer's Body will make any former wallflower feel like a badass, giving us more than we ever expected from a cheap horror movie: an hour and a half of therapy. See it with a friend you (actually, really) love!

This month's Allure is filled with tips we'd figured out before we were allowed to wear makeup, such as how to wear a headband, tie a scarf, and kiss people on the cheek. In other obvious news, the mag interviews some of Michael Jackson's doctors - along with anonymous sources and medical experts who never treated him - to create a timeline of his changing face that looked pretty similar to those printed in most other magazines right after he died. The feature was heavily promoted in the media, including on the Today show and in The New York Times, but the article just reaffirms what we've always known: dude had a lot of plastic surgery. The mag reports more information you've heard a million times in the article "Mom Was Right," which examines beauty tips such as "don't bite your nails," "sit like a lady," and "get your hair out of your face," and declares that you really should have been listening to your mother for all those years. So if it's true that "if you keep making that face it'll freeze that way," is reading Allure every month going to make our faces get stuck in a permanent eye roll?

(Click image to make it larger.)

Earlier: Allure: Michael Jackson Did Not Have Body Dysmorphic Disorder
Breaking: Michael's Face Changed Over The Years

• The L.A. County Coroner has ruled that Michael Jackson's death was a homicide caused by a mixture of the anesthetic propofol and the anti-anxiety drug lorazepam, but MJ had many other drugs running through his system when he died.

According to a statement released today by the coroner's office, the toxicology report also says midazolam, a muscle relaxant; diazepam, a.k.a Valium; lidocaine, a local anesthetic for needle burn; and ephedrine, a stimulant and decongestant. The final autopsy and toxicology reports will remain on security hold for now at the request of the LAPD. Dr. Conrad Murray's lawyer criticized the coroner's office for only releasing a summary of the report, calling it "gamesmanship." [N.Y. Times]

• John Krasinski and Emily Blunt are engaged. They have been dating since November 2008. [People]
• In the video at the link Christina Aguilera tears up while describing what a great husband and father Jordan Bratman is. [Perez Hilton]
• Jon Gosselin says, "I love Hailey... I'll always love Kate. I went through a whole bunch of pictures today, and it's sad to see something that was good turn bad but we moved in two different directions. We know that... I have no ill will toward Kate. She's the mother of my kids. She's a great mom. She does a lot for them." [People]
• Alicia Silverstone says she was OK with going nude in her new PETA ad because, "I used to spend a lot of time with Woody Harrelson, and he's not afraid to get naked. So, around him and his wife and their kids, I just think I got more grounded. I was like, 'This is my body, it's not some scary thing.'" [The Sun]
• Kelly Osbourne says she got addicted to opiates at age 16 when she was offered Vicodin by an acquaintance, but her addiction got worse when her mom was diagnosed with cancer in 2002. "I was trying to stay strong so I took Vicodin to hide the terrible sadness. But by this point, I was waking up and emptying six Vicodin into my hand. Soon I was taking 50 pills a day. Most people would overdose on ten," she said. [Daily Mail]
• The National Enquirer is of the opinion that Meg Ryan is dating producer Graham King, who is married and has two kids. [National Enquirer]
• New Moon director Chris Weitz says of Dakota Fanning, "She is very strange and very spooky in this movie. I think [Dakota] wanted to play an evil character for once." [People]
• According to a press release, Paula Abdul will host the Vh1 Divas Live concert on September 17.
• Though an arbitrator has ruled Jeremy Piven didn't violate his contract by leaving Speed the Plow due to a case of mercury poisoning, the National Fisheries Institute issued a statement on their website urging the media "to treat Piven's statements with skepticism... It is important to note that no peer reviewed medical journal has ever published any evidence of a case of methylmercury poisoning caused by the normal consumption of commercial seafood in the U.S. This ruling does not change that simple scientific fact." [N.Y. Times]
• Are Rebecca Gayheart and Eric Dane expecting a "little McSteamy"? A source says they've been trying to get pregnant for six months. [Life & Style]
• John Mayer kept up his end of the "find my mug shot" challenge, writing two checks totaling $25,000 today to animal charities selected by TMZ. [TMZ]
• Check out Rihanna on the cover of the couture supplement of Italian Vogue: [Socialite Life]
• At the link, New York Magazine takes a look back at "the Ballad of LiLo and Sam: a lesbian love story." [N.Y. Magazine]
• Sigourney Weaver doesn't strip in her new film You Again, but she does pole dance. "I didn't learn that at Yale," she says, "Although it would have been useful." [E!]
• Jamie Foxx brought his "Blame It" tour to New Orleans to cheer fans up on the night before the fouth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. [CBS News]
• Emily Deschanel says, "There absolutely will be more kissing" on the next season of Bones. [E!]
• Ricky Martin Tweeted an emo picture of himself on a train as he travelled across Asia and wrote: "Asia, a train, my backpace, some silence n that's it." [World Of Wonder]
• Channing Tatum's wife Jenna Dewan says she's proud of his stripper past, and has seen the video of his performance that recently surfaced. "When I saw it, I was like, "That's my husband! And that's all mine," she said. [E!]
• Tim McGraw, who has thrown fans out of his concerts twice for being abusive to women, says, "It's all about enjoying yourself and not messing with other people's fun, and certainly I don't think you should be abusive to women. I think that's No. 1 right there." [AP]
• Lily Allen says of her fondness for Twitter. ''My boyfriend gets really, really angry with me because he's just like 'I just want to spend some time with you, do we have to have one and a half million people in the room with us at one time?'. I'm like 'Yes, shut up.''' [Telegraph]
• Megan Fox says of kissing Amanda Seyfried in Jennifer's Body, "I feel much safer with girls, so I felt more comfortable kissing her in the movie than kissing any of the other people that I had to kiss. I think she was extremely uncomfortable. I don't think that - I know that. She was not comfortable and there was a lot of laughing - like, giggling fits that happened in between takes." [MTV]

• Lindsay Lohan left her phone in a New York deli. When she came back to retrieve it an employee wanted to check the security tape to make sure it was hers, which made Linds freak out and call the cops.

• By the time the police showed up the situation had been "diffused." The deli worker said he had no idea who she was. [TMZ]
• Kate Gosselin has been spending her weekends away from the kids with bodyguard Steve Neild... and his wife. A source says his wife Gina, "is one of her closest friends, so she and Steve invited Kate to spend the first weekend she had to be away from the kids as a way to show their support."[Radar Online]
• In yet another interview, Kate Major said of Jon Gosselin, "I don't have a lot of respect for him. I think he handled the situation very poorly. He did not act like an adult or a grown man or a father. And it's just sad. I think the fame has just gone to his head and he's on some bachelor romp... You cannot treat people (that way). It's not fair to me, it's not fair to Hailey, it's not fair to his ex-wife, his kids or anyone else involved in the situation." [CBS News]
• Police searched the San Diego hotel where Ryan Jenkins and Jasmine Fiore were staying two days before she was found dead. The hotel's general manager doesn't think she was killed there because the walls are thin and there were no disturbances reported, but they may have gone to a poker party at a nearby Hilton on the night she died. [TMZ]
• Sources say Jasmine Fiore was strangled after midnight last Friday and surveillance videos show Jenkins leaving a hotel with a suitcase that may have held her body. He is seen leaving the hotel with other luggage but Jasmine never left. The car he left in and her cell phone have not been found. It seems the text her friend received from her phone that said "suck it" was sent long after she was dead. [TMZ]
• The producers of Megan Wants A Millionaire say they were not aware of Ryan Jenkins' record when he was cast on the show and would have never let him on if they did know. A statement from the company said that they, "did have in place what it thought was a thorough vetting process that involved complete background checks by an outside company for all contestants on its shows. Clearly, the process did not work properly in this case." [People]
• Jasmine Fiore's former fiancé Travis Heinrich says that she was hiding a phone line from her husband because he'd go through her texts and that she told him a month ago she was "in over her head" and didn't know how to get out of their relationship. Heinrich says he saw Jenkins hit Flore in the arm so hard that she fell backwards into a pool. [People]
• Commercials for 1-800-YES-GIRL featuring Jasmine Fiore are still running on TV, but the company says they pulled the ads in January and they shouldn't be airing on any station. [TMZ]
• A judge denied Nadya Suleman's petition to block outside guardians from overseeing her children's finances. The judge recommended the Department of Social Services investigate the matter. [Radar Online]
• Katy Perry yelled at airport security personnel going through her five suitcases after a 26 hour journey from Australia to Scotland. She says, "I swear, I never feel more like cattle than when I have to go through airport security. They hate their lives and they hate us for sure. By the last flight, the third time going through security, I lost it on a security person." [Daily Express]
• Miley Cyrus was seen kissing her Australian co-star Liam Jemsworth in an airport in Tennessee. [Daily Express]
• Yesterday Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie took Maddox and Pax to a local pet shop to buy gerbils, goldfish, and a cactus. On Wednesday they took Shiloh and Zahara out to lunch and both girls wore stick on tattoos. [Us]
• Penelope Cruz says she's going to reduce her workload, fueling speculation that she's pregnant. She says: "I realised I was measuring the years going by according to whatever the films were I was working on, the countries I was shooting in. I was a total workaholic. I think that's what I needed to do then. Now I can work, but I'm not on movie sets the whole year. I can say no until there is something I really need to do." [Daily Express]
• In light of Susan Boyle's mental breakdown this year's X Factor contestants will be given psychological tests before appearing on the show. [The Sun]
• Heather Locklear is in talks to reprise her role as Amanda Woodward on the new Melrose Place. [People]
• Carrie Prejean is in talks to compete on season three of The Apprentice. "Carrie really wants to do it," says an insider.. "[Donald] Trump keeps going back and forth over it, he doesn't really care either way." [Fox News]
• Carrie Prejean's lawyer says she will not be on Celebrity Apprentice explaining, "they couldn't work it out with her schedule." [TMZ]
• Roger Avary, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Pulp Fiction has plead guilty to vehicular manslaughter and drunk driving. He was driving when his car hit a telephone pole, injuring his wife and killing a passenger. [Hollywood Reporter]
• LeAnn Rimes was questioned by police about her involvement with a hit-and-run in Brentwood and then went to hang out with Eddie Cibrian. A source says she rear ended a car stopped in the left turn lane and no one was injured. [TMZ]
• Michael Jackson's burial has been delayed again. Now it will take place on September 3. Joe Jackson says the family requested August 31, but that day was too problematic because that's when schools reopen. [TMZ]
• La Toya Jackson is in talks to appear on the British show Strictly Come Dancing. A source said, "La Toya would be a great name to have on the show - if she chats about Michael live on TV, or dedicates an emotional performance to him, it will make for fantastic viewing." [The Mirror]
• Megan Fox will host the season premiere of Saturday Night Live on September 26. [Life & Style]
• Rosie O'Donnell addressed her marital problem in a poem describing her encounter with a TMZ reporter. She wrote: "read off his cheat sheet/'and u and ur wife... he said ...whats up with that'/marriage is hard i told him/when u r married 12 years/ lemme know how it goes /it aint easy" Also according to the poem, she saw District 9 last night and is sad the summer's almost over. [ONTD]
• One Tree Hill actor Antwon Tanner is facing 10 years in jail after pleading guilty to selling Social Security numbers. [Newsday]
• Director David Yates has picked the spot where Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be split into two films. Also, Jamie Waylett, who plays Crabbe and was convicted of marijuana possession will not be in the film. [MTV]
• Milla Jovovich and her fiancé, director Paul Anderson, are getting married on Saturday. "It's going to be small," she says, "It's just going to be family and close friends. And it's at our home and it's going to be kind of Havana/Cuban, like very California-Spanish feeling. It's going to be nice." [People]
• Moving to Lifetime didn't hurt Project Runway's ratings. The season premiere had 4.2 million viewers, making it the network's biggest premiere ever as well as the biggest Project Runway premiere ever. [E!]
• At the link Daniel Vosovic and Korto Momolu talk about the results of the Project Runway All Star Challenge. If you still have it Tivoed, there are big spoilers. They say of Chris March: "You don't understand, we thought there was a health issue. He slept for probably half the time. You know how much of a slap in the face it is to all of us who are scrambling to get our collections done? He slept for probably half the time... It was insane! I guess he just knows how to execute an idea really quickly." [People]
• Daniel Vosovic says Nina Garcia is his favorite judge because, "She just has a way of cutting through the [foolishness] like no one else. As an editor it's her job to look and be aware of what everyone else is doing. I think that perspective is something that not all the judges have, which is what makes the entire panel great. I think that as an editor she's just really good at what she does and her feedback is just so spot-on." [L.A. Times]
• Hilary Duff says since she's been working on Gossip Girl, "Everyone's been really, really gracious to me and sweet to me... I'm a huge fan of the show. They called me and said come on and do a few episodes. I jumped at the chance." [People]
• Robin Williams says of his three adult children, "I'm so proud of them in different ways, but have they always been cherubs? No, but that's been part of the process. And am I the 'world's greatest dad?' Not at all, I'm a work-in-progress, but I love them." [Reuters]
• When asked about her boyfriend Dominic Cooper, Amanda Seyfriend said 'Things end. Things end. And we're in a weird business. We're surrounded by just strange people, strange influences,." Now he's reportedly been caught making out back stage with one of his co-stars in a London play. 'One of the cast walked in on them - and it didn't look like it was part of the play,' says the source. 'It was just the two of them and they looked quite surprised to have been disturbed. [Daily Mail]
• Jane Lynch, who played Julia Child's sister in Julie & Julia, said of working with Meryl Streep, "I did my best to hold it together inside, because you're working with someone who is not only a legend, but somebody who has been a hero of mine for a long time. So you kind of have to let that go and just do your job. ... We were shooting in a restaurant in Brooklyn, and we were waiting for the light so we could cross into our trailers. And she slipped her arm in mine and we crossed the street together, and I - aaach! - it was wonderful." [AP]
• RHONY's Bethenny Frankel blogged about last night's episode of RHOA saying, "Kim hit the skids for me by bringing or even associating with Michael Lohan. I once hosted a panel with him and Nene hilariously said it right when she said, 'Michael Lohan, how random is that?' Michael Lohan is a termite whose own daughter won't associate with him. He has leeched onto Jill Zarin and Jon Gosselin and now has moved to Atlanta. What an embarrassment. I cried when Nene said for him to get his ass back to Malibu. Unfortunately, he probably can't afford Malibu. His last name might as well be Ho-han. That man is a press ho, and coming from me, that's a pretty big statement." [E!]

• Lily Allen was performing in Helsinki, Finland when she burst into tears. Before the show, she Tweeted:

"Fell over badly last night and I've really fucked my back up. Just had an injection in my bum. How am I gonna get through tonight's gig?" Throwing out your back is terrible! So is Lily's hair/makeup in these pix. [Daily Mail]

• Bill Maher said he once saw Brad Pitt roll the most perfect joint he had ever seen. "I'm an artist," Brad agreed. [NY Daily News]
• Brad Pitt is being added to Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes as the detective's arch enemy. The character of Moriarty was missing from a rough cut of the film, and movie execs insisted the famous nemesis be added to the flick. Ritchie called old pal Pitt (who was in Snatch) and he'll film this week in London. [Mirror]
• The Dancing With The Stars season 9 cast: Revealed! Macy Gray, Melissa Joan Hart, Kathy Ireland, Mya, Iron Chef host Mark Dacascos, Ashley Hamilton, former Dallas Cowboy Michael Irvin, Donny Osmond, Tom DeLay (?!?!?!), Olympic swimming gold medalist Natalie Coughlin, model Joanna Krupa, Debi Mazar, Kelly Osbourne, Aaron Carter, Chuck Liddell, and snowboarder Louie Vito. [ABC News]
• Jennifer Aniston complimented a woman pole-dancing on the set of The Bounty, saying she looked like a professional. The lady replied, "I am!" [Gatecrasher]
• George Clooney plans to sue a photographer who climbed over the wall of his Lake Como home and took pictures of a 13-year-old girl changing in a guest room, as well as snaps of Clooney and gf Elisabetta Canalis. Cloons says: "I don't know about the law in the United States, but in Italy it's illegal for photographers to climb over my wall. He'll also press charges against two magazines who published the photos. [Gatecrasher]
• Beyoncé: Secretly taking ballet classes at Alvin Ailey School of Dance. [Gatecrasher]
• Jon Gosselin went to a party thrown by a student at Parsons School Of Design. He only stayed for 20 minutes, but arrived with a paparazzo and left with two female students. Keepin' it classy. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Even though Paula Abdul won't be on Dancing With The Stars, she MIGHT get a ABC show of her own. Paula's Wacky Clappy Variety Show? [TMZ]
• Madonna performed in Warsaw on Saturday even though it was a holy date, the Assumption of Mary feast. National group Pro Polonia called her a "crypto-Satanist," which is not very crypto. [Daily Express]
• Bob Dylan was on tour and took a walk in Long Branch, NJ, when he was stopped by cops; a resident had reported someone "wandering" around the neighborhood. A cop asked him for I.D. "I don't think she was familiar with his entire body of work," says a town official. [NY Daily News]
• Jennifer Lopez is looking pretty hot on the cover of InStyle and inside she's saying stuff like: "There's nothing as huge as giving birth to another human being and having to be responsible for another life. There's you before kids, and there's you after kids – and they're not the same you." [People]
• Mark Wahlberg was rushed to the hospital on Friday morning after suffering smoke inhalation on the set of The Frighter. A smoke machine was being used for atmosphere and Wahlberg breathed in too much. [RadarOnline, Daily Express]
• Amy Winehouse's divorce from Blake Fielder-Civil will be finalized at the end of the month, but Blake allegedly told a reporter: "I want to take her out for dinner and propose again. I hope that within five minutes we'll be planning where we're next going to get married." [Daily Mail]
• Blake also says: "She is looking beautiful and healthy now and it reminds me of the old Amy." [News Of The World]
• Amy will appear on Strictly Come Dancing in September as a backup singer for her 13-year-old goddaughter Dionne Bromfield, and there's a cute picture of them hugging at the link. [Mirror]
• Bodysnarky opening sentence of the day: "She's looking thinner than ever, but there's one part of Victoria Beckham that looks set to put on a lot of weight very quickly - her wallet. Posh Spice has landed a £3million contract on American Idol…" [Daily Mail]
• Joe Simpson is pushing Jessica Simpson as the perfect replacement for Paula Abdul on American Idol. [Page Six]
• Saturday night after a Fall Out Boy show, Ashlee Simpson and husband Pete Wentz were at a bar when Ashlee got wasted, yelled at Pete and made him leave his own party early. Charming! [Perez]
• Jane Fonda, 71, might marry 67-year-old Richard Perry next year, which would be her fourth wedding. [Daily Express]
• So many contradictory stories about MJ. We first heard that he was strong during rehearsals. This report claims: "Michael Jackson was so weak in his final days he needed to be SPOON-FED meals, his make-up artist has revealed." [The Sun]
• "Michael Jackson's body has been moved in secret to a new crypt, where it's been frozen." [Daily Express]
• This report claims that Michael Jackson will be buried on what would have been his 51st birthday, August 29. Or so says Joe Jackson. [Gatecrasher]
• You know how Michael Phelps was in a car accident last week? Turns out he was driving with an expired license and told cops he had a beer about an hour before the crash. [TMZ]
• George Michael on his car smashup: "Neither of us was charged because we were both stone cold sober. We both think the other is to blame so this is just an insurance fight." [E!]
• Eva Longoria is expanding her restaurant business, and soon she'll have a Beso Vegas and "Besitos" in ariports. [People]
• Kristin Bauer, who plays Pam on True Blood, thinks Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer will have kids together since Anna is "great" with Stephen's kids from previous relationships. [E!]
• Tons of Gossip Girl spoilers at the link, and yes, there are details on Chuck and Blair — with a HOT picture of the Bass. [People]
• Matthew Settle — Gossip Girl's Rufus — skateboards through New York during rush hour. [NY Times]
• Actress Aishwarya Rai has a chest infection with flu-like symptoms. [Times Of India]
• Anna Friel will play Holly Golightly in an upcoming stage production of Breakfast At Tiffany's in London. [Times Of London]
• The Office's Amy Ryan — who plays Holly Flax — is pregnant. [E!]
• An excerpt of Alana Stewart's book, My Journey With Farrah: A Story Of Life, Love And Friendship, at the link. [Daily Mail]
• Bananarama's back. [Daily Mail]
• Aberdeen, Washington has the title of one hometown hero Kurt Cobain's songs, "Come As You Are," posted at the entrance of town. An unofficial park has been established next to the bridge under which Cobain hung out and wrote songs. [LA Times]
• Blind item! "Which D-list relationship recently ended when the gal found out her man's secret vice was boy-on-boy action?" [Gatecrasher]
• "I can't tell you how far from a gold-digger I am. I've never dated a rich man in my life. I've always wondered how girl friends of mine could even ask their boyfriends to buy them clothes." — Samantha Burke, who was impregnated by Jude Law. [Daily Mail]
• "I thought it was an incredibly sexual role and a challenge to be an 'older woman' in the film. Roles always challenge me in some personal way and that was one I wanted to overcome: 'Wow, all of a sudden, you've become the "Older Woman" in a movie. Let's give the younger ones a run for their money.'" — Anne Heche on playing opposite Ashton Kutcher in Spread. [LA Times]
• "This season, I really want to get back to the guerilla style I used to have. I want to try to get back to my roots and make it crazy. In the first episode, I get buried alive in a coffin, six feet under 5,000 pounds of snow. I want people to realize I'm not complacent because I have a little bit of success and a little money. Hopefully in return I can raise the level of the art form to the level other art forms receive, like the cinema.… I just really loved the ability as a kid to do something that adults didn't understand. It was like power. Then I realized as a teenager that there was more to the art of magic than how you did it. It's trying to connect to somebody." — Criss Angel, whose Mindfreak is back on A&E for its 5th season. [LA Times]
• "I like everything about filming except the acting. In recent years I've had really bad attacks where I totally froze up. I thought 'Well, if I am going to get stage fright, then I am packing it in.'" — Hugh Grant. [Daily Mail]
• "I think anybody that's touring is going to have a carbon footprint. I think it's probably unfair to single out rock 'n' roll. There's many other things that are in the same category but as it happens we have a program to offset whatever carbon footprint we have." — The Edge, annoyed by critics of U2's travel. [Daily Express]
• "The Harry Potter books are not explicitly religious in the way that C.S. Lewis's Narnia tales are, but there is a strong sense of evil, and issues of good and evil are not only philosophical issues but also theological issues." —University of Massachusetts-Amherst philosophy professor Gareth B. Matthews. [UPI]
• "I think when I started I was working in the vein of The Dirty Dozen or The Devil's Brigade. But now watching the completed film with audiences, I don't think there has ever been a World War II movie like it. That can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your taste, but it's definitely a thing." — Quentin Tarantino on Inglourious Basterds. [WSJ]
• "Don Cheadle could play me, but I hope they just go with the obvious casting choice." — Richard Belzer, when asked who would play Richard Belzer if his crime novel about a a New York City police detective named Richard Belzer were made into a TV show. [Publishers Weekly]
• "I've had my heart broken before. Truly, truly broken. But when I look back at me in my heartbroken phase, it's pretty hilarious, because it felt so much more extreme than it really was. One of the things I love about (500) Days of Summer is that it doesn't make light of what we go through in romances, but it is honest about it and shows it for what it is, which is often profoundly funny." — Joseph Gordon-Levitt. [Guardian]
• "The speed of news creates so much vertigo. I am a very private person." — Penelope Cruz. [Telegraph]
• "We kind of rolled our eyes at the idea of having to make out." — Amanda Seyfried on her Jennifer's Body girl-on-girl scene with Megan Fox. [Page Six via Entertainment Weekly]
• "I remember really vividly kneeling by my bed as a nine-year-old, saying my prayers and asking God to give me boobs that were so big that if I laid on my back I wouldn't be able to see my feet. Eventually that request was granted. A bit of divine intervention displays the power of prayer. Every time before I go on stage, or go out where I know there will be a lot of press, I take a skipping rope and spend about ten minutes, fully clothed, skipping. I look like Rocky. This way I can ensure that everything is firmly in place and I won't have a wardrobe malfunction. Don't want those boulders doing a show of their own." — Katy Perry. [The Sun]

Charlize Theron will be on Vogue; Kate Moss is on W; Elle will have Jennifer Aniston; Jessica Simpson's on Glamour; Jennifer Lopez will be on In Style, Marie Claire will have Ashley Olsen and Amanda Seyfried landed Allure.

Aside from Jennifer Lopez, it seems that what's in for Fall 2009 is to be, well, white and blonde. (And while La Lopez used to be darker, she's definitely lightened up.) And aside from Amanda Seyfried, who's a relative newcomer, we've seen all of these women on magazine covers dozens of times before. Of course the editors feel the need to play it safe in this economy, with their biggest issue, so familiar faces on the newsstand make sense. But seeing the same old people — again — can also feel like a boring retread.

It would be great to see a brave glossy branch out with an unexpected face. The Oscar-bait film Precious hits theaters in the fall — will any mainstream mags dare to put its star on a cover? Maybe the answer isn't actresses: Vogue's August issue features multi-millionaire Google exec Marissa Mayer —inside, of course. But why couldn't the thin, "Oscar de la Renta–obsessed" Mayer make the cover? She's someone different (a Stanford-educated business woman), she'd spare us the tired celebrity profile, and yes, she's blonde.

Memo Pad: Famous Faces... [WWD]
Machine Dreams [Vogue.com]

• You may want to just give up on life: Kristin Cavallari is getting $63,000 per episode to "play" a "villain" on The Hills. [PopCrunch]

• A hotel employee on Madonna's backup dancers: "Horrible." "Notoriously difficult… rude… presumptuous and cheap." [Page Six]
• Breaking: Uncle Jesse John Stamos is "conceptualizing" a Full House feature film! The Tanners' triumphant return! [Gatecrasher]
• David Carradine's death is still a mystery — he was found in a sitting position, but with a yellow rope attached to a closet bar around his neck. "We believe that Mr. David committed suicide but it is suspicious," says a police official in Bangkok. [People]
• Further details show that David Carradine may have died "from "auto-erotic accident." [Yahoo News via AFP]
• David Carradine will be seen on his Tuesday's episode of Mental. [E!]
• "Britney Jean Spears was not born into a stable home. She was born into a dysfunctional disordered one because of her father's alcoholic rages… She was on Prozac at 18… Britney was prescribed Prozac but she treated it like headache tablets, taking a pill only on the days she awoke depressed. This seemed to make her more manic…" [Mirror]
• While Britney's in London, she'd like to drop in on the Queen. [Mirror]
• Susan Boyle is out of the hospital and already has an offer to perform for Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher — for £30,000. Also, the portrayal of her as a crazy cat lady persists, since this paper claims she left the clinic because "she could no longer bear to be parted from her family, friends and beloved cat Pebbles." [Daily Mail]
• Krist Novoselic, former bassist for Nirvana, is running for clerk of Wahkiakum County in western Washington. Apparently he is running under the "Grange Party" banner, even though the Grange isn't a political party; it's a protest of the state's system that lets candidates say what party they prefer when running for office. [USA Today]
• The Slumdog kids are in Hong Kong today, where they will sing and dance (?) at a charity event. [AP]
• Lance Armstrong Tweeted in the voice of his new baby boy, writing: "Wassup, world? My name is Max Armstrong and I just arrived. My Mommy is healthy and so am I!" [E!]
• The woman who claims she was assaulted by Sacha Baron Cohen while he was filming Bruno says her injuries are "life-altering," as she suffered brain bleeds and sometimes requires assistance walking. [TMZ]
• Jennifer Lopez was "really nervous" before working on her new flick, the Back-Up Plan, because, she says, "What if I forgot how to act?" Or! What if you were never really good at it in the first place??? [National Enquirer]
• Jay-Z will release his Blueprint 3 album on Sept. 11. Interesting choice of date. [Billboard]
• Living on St. Lucia has had an affect on Amy Winehouse's sound and she is recording with "local musicians" who play traditional island instruments. Sounds… awesome? Whatever, just release some new music! [The Sun]
• Kelly Bensimon — seen here in a rather see-through dress — says of Real Housewives: "I think it was not exactly me just because I was incredibly guarded. I was a nervous wreck! Like after the show, Jill said to me, 'You're such a nice person, why weren't you like that on the show?' I felt badly too because I didn't get to see the real me." So you were being fake then? Interesting. Oh, she also says: "On Planet Kelly, everything is happy, the grass is really green, people are really really nice .... There's, like, fun everywhere and there's excitement and new opportunities all around. It's a really great place - you should come!" [NY Mag]
• Amanda Seyfried's latest film, Letters To Julliet, starts shooting soon, but her leading man hasn't been cast yet. Who would you like to see Amanda fall in love with? [Telegraph]
• Wait! Gael Garcia Bernal has signed on to star with Amanda Seyfried in Letters To Juliet. [Variety]
• Sienna Miller and some other celebs wrote a letter to Nobu restaurant in London which reads: "We feel strongly that blue fin tuna must be completely removed from your menu as it is an extremely endangered animal." [The Sun]
• Other celebs protesting the use of blue fin tuna: Woody Harrelson, Elle Macpherson, Sting, Trudie Styler, Charlize Theron, Stuart Townsend and Alicia Silverstone. [Page Six]
• "Agency Feeding Frenzy Over Ice Cube." The actor/rapper, not the unit of frozen water. [Deadline Hollywood]
• Kate Beckinsale was supposed to play Barbarella in the remake? But lost out to Rose McGowan? Hmm. We'd always heard it was Rose. [Daily Express]
• This review of a recent Mandy Moore show claims that she was "strangely tentative onstage" until the last song, a "rootsy" cover of her pop hit, "Candy," which she "seemed to enjoy more than anything else in the set." [NY Times]
• Shannen Doherty is selling her Malibu home, which has interesting contemporary architecture and a pretty nice pool. Also dig the exposed beams in the living room. [CasaSugar]
• In other 90210 news, Jason Priestley will direct and online series called The Lake. [Reuters]
• Is Jennie Garth a Twihard? She makes husband Peter Facinelli dress up as his Dr. Cullen character all the time, he claims: "She says, 'Put the doctor's coat on!' I'm like, 'Again?'" [Gatecrasher]
• M.I.A. has a record label called N.E.E.T. and this track, "Bang!" is from Rye Rye, the first artist signed. Just the thing to get jumpstarted on a sleepy Friday. [ConcreteLoop]
• "Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neal planned to wed in Germany this spring but organisers couldn't arrange the big day in time." [Daily Express]
• Gene Simmons passed a kidney stone and promptly sold it on eBay — for charity. Charming! [Mirror]
• "Boris Becker goes wedding dress shopping with his fiancée Lilly Kerssenberg." She is awfully pretty. Together they certainly cut a figure. [Daily Mail]
• Phil Spector's 28-year-old wife denies she is a gold digger: "I don't take anything from my husband, and I never have. I'm a good person, but people don't see any of that or know how hard I work. I can weed whack. Rip out walls. Lay tile." Also, her pantsuit is 10 years old. "I've had this since high school." She does, however, wear a 9-carat diamond she and 69-year-old Spector "designed together." And now that he is in jail, she always has her hot pink BlackBerry with her: "I never know when he is going to be allowed to call. Whenever he calls, I answer." [LA Times]
• RIP Shih Kien, who played Bruce Lee's enemy in 1973's Enter the Dragon. [AP]
• "Being married is like being on a game show and you're always in the lightning round. I have a podium in my living room, and in the morning I hit the clicker button: 'I'll take Movies That I Think We Saw Together for 200.' The woman is always the returning champion from last week: 'I'll take Details of a 10-Minute Conversation We Had at 3 in the Morning Eight Years Ago...' " — Jerry Seinfeld. [E!]
• "I still can't believe we have a president who is mixed like me. It's one thing that we have a black president but for me it's even crazier because he's mixed. I feel like I come from a smaller off shoot of black people because I am mixed. People say I'm African American but that doesn't include the other half of me. I can't believe I'm living in a time where I feel proud of my president where I feel like things are actually positive and people feel good about where our country can be." — Maya Rudolph. [Women & Hollywood]
• "[Nurse Jackie] is physically low maintenance — that was a huge appeal. Very much like I am. I didn't want to spend a lot of time in makeup. On Sopranos, the nails, the hair, the makeup and the jewelry was very not who I am. It was fun, but after eight years I was ready to try something else." — Edie Falco. [Reuters]
• "All directors compare themselves to Orson Welles, who did his masterpiece at 26. So when you start and you're nearly 40, you're like, 'Oh god, I'm so behind.'" — Michel Gondry. [Independent]
• "I have a pretty amazing personality, and I'm pretty intelligent. Don't just write me off as a pinup" — Megan Fox to Elle. [Page Six]
• "A very smart person told me once what other people think of me is none of my business. ... I do not Google myself. I know that's only going to end badly." — Edie Falco. [Reuters]
• "We do not hang out." — Jill Zarin on the Real Housewives Of New Jersey. [Gatecrasher]
• "I don't know why that's either untapped or overlooked or not done well because there is really no excuse for it. This is a perfect example of it [being well done]. It's not as if women don't exist. I will say that in general there is a lot of crap in the world. It wasn't until I was thrown in the water on day 1 of Saturday Night Live where they said you write for yourself. That's what everyone does. I learned the enormous power of writing for yourself, especially now that people seem to be receptive to the fact that women can write." — Maya Rudolph, who stars in Away We Go, on why women are sometimes underwritten or ignored in Hollywood films. [Women & Hollywood]
• "I can't think of anything more horrible than sharing what I'm doing all day" — Renée Zellweger to Glamour on why she won't use Twitter. [Page Six]

• Rihanna's maybe moving on! But: She was seen getting cozy with Wilmer Valderrama. Isn't that dude bad news bears? He's been linked to Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Ashlee Simpson, Mandy Moore… [Mirror]

• So you know how Lindsay Lohan has a new Maserati? It's already been in a minor car accident. LL wasn't driving — her assistant hit a Subaru in front of them. [Just Jared]
• Is Angelina Jolie on a "crazy" diet called liquid detox? [The Sun]
• WTF: Nadya Suleman has fired the nurse-nannies from Angels in Waiting! She felt she was being judged or something? How the heck is she going to take care of 14 kids by herself? Seriously? [E!]
• Did Jennifer Aniston dump John Mayer over his Twitter obsession? [Daily Mail]
• This one time, Mary-Kate Olsen was driven off the road by the paparazi. "It was never written about,"she says. [Just Jared]
• Designer Rachel Roy has filed for divorce from hip-hop mogul Damon Dash. He co-founded Rocawear but has since been struggling with debt and bad business deals; she has her own line of women's clothing. They have two kids. This should be interesting. [NY Daily News]
• Jesus Luz says he did not cheat on Madonna with some random woman in Brazil: "The press created this story." Welcome to fame! [The Sun]
• Uh-oh: "Madonna's fling with Jesus Luz and her rumored hookup with A-rod may foil adoption plans." An official from Malawi's Ministry of Child Welfare says: "Our official policy is that we do not encourage our children to be sent into broken homes." [NY Daily News]
• Um, this report claims that Jesus wants to adopt a kid with Madonna. Grain of salt. [ONTD]
• Angelina Jolie's mother owes $60,000 in back taxes, despite having passed away in 2007. How do you fix that? [TMZ]
• Diablo Cody and her homies all wear matching necklaces which read "Fuck My Face." Heart-warming! [NY Mag]
• Here is a photograph of Amy Winehouse climbing over a spiked fence and being compared to Sideshow Bob. [Daily Mail]
• Lindsay Lohan's former roommate and Tila Tequila's ex-girlfriend Courtenay Semel has checked into rehab. [Page Six]
• Someone blogging as Leighton Meester but decidedly not Leighton Meester likes poetry, goes to a shrink and complains about the paparazzi. [NY Observer]
• Nicole Richie channels Lady Gaga in her pix for BlackBook. [Just Jared]
• Cindy Crawford is naked in the April issue of Allure, with some strategically placed soap bubbles. [The Superficial]
• Jessica "Slimpson"'s body "has now fully returned to its former glory" so you can all relax. [The Sun]
• Geri Halliwell is on a "man-ban." [The Star]
• Another day, another story about Hugh Grant making out with two women at the same time. In public. [Page Six]
• Kim Kardashian couldn't pronounce "philanthropic" at a charity event, and people laughed at her. Tragic! [Gatecrasher]
• Is Fergie heading to Washington to play a private concert for Sasha and Malia Obama? Is this why she is brunette now? Will she teach them to spell duchess with a T? [Gatecrasher]
• Coldplay's Chris Martin met kiddie band The Wiggles, got super psyched and them covered their song, "Fruit Salad." So punk rock. [The Sun]
• Chris Martin can't get Michael Jackson tickets! [Mirror]
• Maybe Chris Martin should bid on this Michael Jackson stuff up for auction? A Swarovski crystal-encrusted white glove could go for a mere $15,000. [NY Daily News]
• Speaking of Michael Jackson, he's invited the stars of Harry Potter to be All-Access guests opening night of his sold-out UK shows. Naturally. [The Sun]
• Anne Hathaway will play Judy Garland in an upcoming film and theater productions of Get Happy: The Life Of Judy Garland. Question is: Will she sing or lip sync? [E!]
• People. For the last time. Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson are not a couple in real life. Quit asking. Sheesh. [E!]
• But hey! Meet the New Moon wolf pack! Cute teenage Native American actors! [Socialite Life]
• Amanda Seyfried has pulled out of Zack Snyder's film Sucker Punch — described as Alice in Wonderland with machine guns — due to scheduling conflicts. Who should play Baby Doll, the girl in a mental institution in this big-budget action flick? [ONTD via Slashfilm via EW]
• "Syfy" is not a new kind of hip hop from the West coast but what the Sci-Fi Channel is calling itself now. It's also Polish slang for syphilis, so people aren't kidding when they say, "Sick name." [Jossip]
• Denise Richards went to see Charlie Sheen's new twins: "They're amazing." Isn't it nice when everyone gets along? [ET]
• Ooh, recession humor: Amanda Bynes has just signed to an ABC pilot called Canned, a show about a group of friends who are all fired on the same day. [ET]
• Kiefer Sutherland has signed on to play Jack Bauer for an eight season of 24. [Mirror]
• Anna Faris is on the new cover of Self magazine; cover also shills "1 minute abs." Huh? [Just Jared]
• Chelsea Handler's last night show has been extended through 2012. Bring back Russell Brand! [Reuters]
• Oh no: Problems with NBC's Parks & Recreation? Test audiences found it "unoriginal" and "too slow." [Deadline Hollywood]
• Kenny Rogers music helps stroke victims. [Wired]
• This article about Angela Lansbury contains the following sentence: "Ms. Lansbury, who describes herself as a homebody and a working actress, is described by pretty much everyone else as a 'living legend,' a phrase that makes her want to vomit 'a little,' she conceded." [WSJ]
• Blind item! "Which TV heartthrob had to wait until a young starlet's mom walked away before he could hit on her at a party?" [Gatecrasher]
• "This movie was never meant to be the end of Hannah Montana. The thing is, a lot of people put where the show's future lays in my hands — and it's not up to me. It's up to Disney and whether they want more episodes, and we hope that they do." — Miley Cyrus. [Yahoo via Billboard]
• "I had avoided getting married pretty good for, like, 23 years, and I ... secretly felt that men who were married admired me, like I was the last of the real gunslingers." — David Letterman. [People]

• Elizabeth Taylor, who is Jewish, donated $100,000 to the Alliance for Christian Education. She says she gave to the charity "because our new president challenged us to break down barriers that divide us." [AP]

• Holly Madison is joining the cast of Dancing With the Stars. She may be replacing Jewel, who has a knee injury. [Us]
• Holly also says of her newly single status: "I'm never dating anybody again. I don't need a man. I'm really happy with myself and being with my friends." [People]
• The new issue of People features a Rihanna Cover Girl ad that seems a bit insensitive. The text says "light up your eyes." [Guanabee]
• Arnold Schwarzenegger has returned to Austria, but just for a visit. He's going to his mother's grave and meeting with friends. [Yahoo]
• Phish will reunite for the first time since 2004 on Friday, but first the band is asking a judge to block the sale of bootleg T-shirts, posters and other merchandise at their upcoming concerts. [AP]
• French first lady Carla Bruni, who is 41, says she would like to have another child, "but I don't know if it will be possible at my age," she said. "If it's not possible biologically, I will adopt one. I'm not obsessed by blood ties. I think you can form strong bonds without that." [Yahoo]
• Which feature of Brad and Angie's new Long Island home is the weirdest? Two helipads, a barbershop, or a fallout shelter? [NY Magazine]
• A 22-year-old man has been found guilty of fatally stabbing Rob Knox, 18, who played Marcus Belby in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, outside a bar last spring. [The Guardian]
• George Clooney wrote a column today for The Daily Beast saying the world should bring Sudan's president to justice for his crimes against humanity. [The Daily Beast]
• In this interview Bryan Cranston, the dad from Malcolm in the Middle talks about playing a terminally ill chemistry teacher who cooks meth to leave some cash behind for his pregnant wife and child on AMC's Breaking Bad. [Esquire]
• Former Spice Girl Mel B says: "I've never met anybody with a higher sex drive than me ever in my entire life." [The Sun]
• Amy Winehouse's ex, Blake [Formerly] Incarcerated may be headed back to jail soon. He is reportedly dating a 16-year-old girl. [Newser]
• Mariska Hargitay was taken to the hospital last night with chest pains. She was hospitalized twice before in recent months for a collapsed lung. [TMZ]
• Are Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green actually broken up? She slept over at their home last week even though she'd checked into a hotel and the two went shopping together. [E!]
• More than 50 photos of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones hanging out during the years 1964-66 were found recently in the duffel bag of the bands' former tour manager. They are on display in a New York gallery. [The Telegraph]
• Emma Watson has not accepted a spot at Yale. She says on her official site that she does not have a Twitter page and is still deciding whether to attend school in the US or the UK. Also, Michelle Fairley has been cast as Hermione's mother in the final Harry Potter film. [ONTD]
• Amanda Seyfried will star in a film adaptation of the book Sucker Punch. Her character's stepfather sends her to a mental institution to be lobotomized. While there, she imagines a fantasy world author Zack Snyder describes as "Alice in Wonderland with machine guns." [Entertainment Weekly]
• Miley Cyrus, 16, says she's releasing her autobiography so fans realize, "that I'm a real person just like them." She adds: "Most of the time you see me smiling – I mean that's how I got my name! – but that's not what it's all about. Everyone goes through hardships and heartbreaks." So expect some Nick Jonas chatter. [People]
• Chris Harrison, host of The Bachelor says that Jason Mesnick should have stuck with Melissa Mesnick, the first girl he proposed to, rather than switching to runner up Melissa Rycroft. He added, "When the rumors went from how this ends to this is completely contrived and scripted, questioning not only the show's integrity but my integrity and honesty that's where I got a little upset." [People]
• The drama will continue next season on The Bachelorette with Jillian Harris, one of the last three women Jason rejected. [People]
• On part two of The Bachelor: After the Final Rose, which was filmed six weeks after Jason dumped Melissa, Jason and Molly appeared together on the show and were constantly kissing and nuzzling. He says of dumping Melissa: "It was nothing I planned on. It was not the classiest thing in the world, but I had to follow my heart. I don't regret where I'm at; I'm really happy. Everybody is entitled to feel however they want but that's what was going on with me. I don't feel like my feelings were wrong either." [People]

• So much Oscar gossip! For instance:

Amanda Seyfried got her heel caught in a stocking during the song and dance number. Zac Efron's microphone got tangled in his bow tie. We'll never be invited back," Zac joked. Alicia Keys broke a heel; Goldie Hawn snuck in the back where "no one's screaming." Jennifer Aniston was heard whispering to John Mayer: "I really love you, every part of you." [AP]

• On the red carpet, Mickey Rourke told a reporter: "I said to myself, 'I would rather have Loki for another two years than have an Oscar,' and I told her that, you know. But she stayed as long as she could." [E!]
• Mickey Rourke maybe tried to grope Jessica Alba, who "jumped back and made a disgusted face." [Gatecrasher]
• On the red carpet, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt snubbed Ryan Seacrest. Again. [NY Daily News]
• Kate Winslet on the red carpet: "I said to my daughter, 'If I did win the big prize, what do you think I should say?' And she said, 'I just think you should be really crazy and emotional'. I thought, 'You're no good.'" [E!]
• Kate Winslet doesn't want to see Angelina Jolie naked. [E!]
• Robert Pattinson on the red carpet: "I did a rehearsal and messed it up. I am probably going to be the letdown of the entire show." Uh, yeah. You're the let down of the entire show. The Oscars hinge on a sparkly vampire. [E!]
• Did you know that Oscar winners are obliged to sign winners' agreements? The agreements say if they or their heirs ever decide to part ways with their Oscars, they must offer to sell the awards back to the Academy for $1 each. Matilda Ledger will have to sign this when she turns 18, apparently. [E!]
• A review of the show: "Hugh Jackman a winner but production was a lost cause." [NY Daily News]
• Harvey Weinstein had a party Saturday night and everyone was there: Robert DeNiro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Alba, and Miss Lindsay Lohan, who showed up with a guy who owns local luxury car dealerships. [Fox 411]
• Katie "Jordan" Price attended Elton John's Oscar party, and her "rival," Victoria Beckham, was there. No showcase showdown occurred. [Daily Mail]
• An insider on Rachel Zoe: "Her television career is interfering with her styling work. Clients are getting very upset." This is why she was seen "flipping out over the phone and screaming at the top of her lungs" at the Weinstein pre-Oscar party. [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which married Oscar nominee has been cheating on his wife with a hard-partying starlet?" [Gatecrasher]
• Jennifer Aniston didn't run into Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie at the Dreamworks Oscar bash — because they didn't show up! [Gatecrasher]
• Penelope Cruz and Tom Cruise did run into each other at an Oscar party. "Penelope tapped him on the shoulder and timidly asked, 'Tom?' Tom turned around, got visibly flustered and awkwardly said, 'Oh, hey. Hi,' and gave her a small, distant hug before turning back around to his friends. It was weird." [Perez]
• Here's a rundown of all the Oscar winners. [NY Post]
• Meanwhile, Chris Brown called Rihanna to wish her a happy birthday. He also sent her a diamond bracelet and necklace, as well as an iPod Touch. Friday night, Rihanna had a birthday party that was Blackjack-themed (Chris was not there) and then jetted off to Barbados. [Gatecrasher]
• What the fuck is up with CNN anchor Kiran Chetry saying that Rihanna will have to deal with the "stigma" of being an abuse victim? Writes Barbara Morrill: "Do we use such terminology about victims in a robbery? When a man beats up another man?" Some dude says, "She'll be remembered for this, rather than her own talents." This is not right. [Daily Kos]
• Amy Winehouse stays busy: Now she's accused of splitting up a lesbian couple. An unnamed woman claims she found her girlfriend in bed with Amy Winehouse, and that Amy asked if she wanted to join. This woman changed her MySpace profile to read: "Amy Winehouse asked me for a threesome and I said no, no, no." [Mirror]
• George Clooney is in Darfur, but the United Nations is pulling his security escort, since he has been speaking out on the troubles in the area. Please Cloons, be careful! [Daily Express]
• Nicholas Kristof says he and George Clooney are bunking in a tiny room in a guest house and "George's side of the room has a big splotch of something that sure looks like blood." [NY Times]
• Speaking of putting yourself in harm's way, T-Pain has canceled a concert in Guyana after "credible death and kidnapping threats." Someone doesn't like Auto-Tune! [E!]
• Oooh, will Michelle Obama be on the first non-Oprah cover of O magazine? [Liz Smith]
• Harlow Madden will be a big sister! Nicole Richie is pregnant again. [ONTD]
• Guy Ritchie might be dating a film producer on his Sherlock Holmes film, or just, you know, hanging out with a coworker. [Daily Mail]
• Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony threw a birthday party for their 1-year-old twins on Saturday in the backyard at their home in Bel Air. A clown was involved. [People]
• Cruz Beckham's birthday looks awesome: He turned four, while dressed as Wolverine, at the Xtreme Martial Arts World Headquarters in Hollywood. Eva Longoria and nieces attended! [Daily Mail]
• During his speech at the Independent Spirit Awards, Mickey Rourke said Eric Roberts "is the fucking man and he deserves another chance." No one seems sure why he felt the need to make this point. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Prince Harry and Natalie Imbruglia: Flirting via text message? [Daily Mail]
• Meanwhile, in a new documentary, a journalist says of Prince William: "He's doing almost nothing. I'm sorry, but as second in line of succession to the throne, he really should be doing more." [Telegraph]
• In this video, Rosario Dawson talks about her mother licking her in public. Yeah. She's traumatized by spit. There's more, about lesbians/sex/virginity. [NY Times]
• Slade Smiley, from Real Housewives Of Orange County, has been arrested. It's a civil contempt charge. [UPI]
• Al Pacino will play Salvador Dali in a new film; but not the same one in which Antonio Banderas will play Dali or the one in which Robert Pattinson plays Dali. Who will be more surreal? [Daily Express]
• Freida Pinto's ex is still talking about how Slumdog Millionaire wrecked their relationship, and how upset he is that Freida is getting close to Dev Patel: "Now everywhere I go I see them on billboards. I am devastated." This is from the paper that loves to shame women, don't forget. [Daily Mail]
• By the by, Salman Rushdie hated Slumdog, saying it "piles impossibility on impossibility." [AP]
• Bruce Springsteen will headline this summer's Glastonbury festival, bringing "Born In The USA" to the UK. [Telegraph]
• Is Michael Jackson making a comeback? He's reportedly in talks to do 30 live shows in London or Las Vegas later this year. Then again, a couple of weeks ago, he was reportedly dying. [NY Daily News]
• In this Q&A, Matt Groening talks about changing the main titles of The Simpsons: "We're always throwing in what we call Black Bart gags, where Bart is writing on the blackboard, and we switch little things around. Lisa's saxophone solo switches." [NY Post]
• Richard Gere and his wife have opened up an inn. They are innkeepers now. Do with this what you will. [NY Mag]
• The creative director and global business strategist of INXS, Chris Murphy, swears they did not dump their lead singer JD Fortune from the band in the middle of a busy airport. [News.com.au]
• Debbie Gibson's house in the Hollywood Hills is for sale and photos reveal that there is a mirrored piano in the living room and a 7-up can by the bathroom sink. [The Real Estalker]
• Charlie Sheen and wife Brooke had a sports-themed baby shower, if you care. [People]
• "I've been through a lot. I can't sleep, sometimes I wake up at night. I still see him." — Housekeeper Teresa Solomon, who found Heath Ledger dead more than a year ago. [News.com.au]
• "My intention is to be Prime Minister of Canada, not Governor General, which is mainly a ceremonial position." — William Shatner. [PR-Inside]
• "Some beautiful women are passive in the bedroom. They're gorgeous, they know they're gorgeous and they don't feel the need to do anything beyond being gorgeous. Elizabeth Taylor was not one of those women. Being with her was like sticking an eggbeater in your brain." — from an essay by Robert Wagner. [Daily Mail]
• "There's a lot of gay people that dress better than me… No, I just think it's a stereotype that all gay people dress good, and then it's also a stereotype that if you dress good, you're gay." — Kanye West. [NY Mag]
• "I think about it; because I am effeminate I've always thought about it, 'Am I gay?' And then, I so love being with women, and I so love women's bodies and all that. I think, well no, I can't be. But sometimes I think it would just be simpler if I was, because everyone thinks I am. I'm quite camp, but no, I don't think I am. If I was gay, I would just get on with it. But definitely I love women, I love being around women, I find them incredible and intoxicating, and I've never had that feeling I get with women with a man." — David Walliams of Little Britain. [Guardian]
• "From the first day I met her, she said, 'I want us to be friends and I want you to know that you are a huge part of our family and are welcome any time.' She has been as good as her word. Dad and I have had our ups and downs over the years but Catherine is someone who has cemented the family together. She and Dad were in Los Angeles two weeks ago because he got some sort of lifetime achievement award and we all went out to dinner. I've never seen my father as happy as he is with her. It's cool to see." — Cameron Douglas on Catherine Zeta-Jones being good for his dad, Michael Douglas. [Daily Mail]
• "It's always great to rehearse on a plane, because people think you're mad… Emotionality is really easy for me. My father always said that Fondas can cry at a good steak. And so on a personal and professional level it's great for me not to have to do that." — Jane Fonda , 71 (?!?) on her role in Broadway show 33 Variations. (The show is being protested by Vietnam vets.) [NY Times, UPI]
• "I have decided to freeze myself when I die. You know, cryonics. You pay a lot of money and you get stuck in a deep freeze once you've been declared dead. Medical science is bound to work out a way of bringing us back to life in the next century or so, and I want to be available when they do. I would be doing the nation an invaluable service." — Simon Cowell. [Daily Mail]
• "[Partying] is what I do for a living. I get paid to go to events and parties, and it's fun." — Paris Hilton. [Gatecrasher]

[Los Angeles, CA. February 22. Image via Getty.]

• Tracy Morgan's apartment caught fire this morning when a light bulb attached to one of Tracy's fish tanks burst. Tracy, his neighbor Sherri Shepherd, and all of the fish, were uninjured.

• Firefighters arrived within minutes and the fire didn't spread. [TMZ]
• Sherri Shepherd, who lives in Tracy's building, says she and her son are all fine, but the sprinklers flooded her apartment. Sherri says: "My son has lung issues, so I'm kind of concerned about that ... But I'm not pissed, I'm just glad everyone is okay. And I've got all my hair – all my wigs." [Ok]
• The housing crisis has hit the "OctoMom." The house Nadya Suleman lives in with her mother and six previous children may be auctioned because the mortgage hasn't been paid in 10 months. [TMZ]
• Angela Suleman, the octuplets' grandmother, says her daughter isn't interested in celebrities and never had plastic surgery to look more like Angelina Jolie. She attributes the change in Nadya's facial features to gaining 130 lbs during her pregnancy. [CBS News]
• TLC says they are not giving Nadya her own show. [UPI]
• Rihanna was spending time with her family recovering from the Chris Brown attack, but now sources say she has left the Barbados for an undisclosed location and is "staying under the radar." [E!]
• There are more details on Salma Hayek's Valentine's Day wedding to Francois-Henri Pinault. There were 12 guests, including Salma's mom and brother, the couple said their vows in French, Salma wore a white dress, and carried a bouquet of red and white roses. [People]
• The Academy has decided that if Heath Leger wins an Oscar on Sunday, his statuette will go to Matilda, but Michelle Williams will hold it in trust for her until she turns 18. [AP]
• Usher's wife, Tameka Raymond, was released from a hospital in Brazil on Monday night after spending 11 days there. She was recovering from a cardiac arrest she suffered while being anesthetized for a "simple liposuction." [Yahoo]
• Perez Hilton's feud with Lily Allen continues. Today the always-classy Perez posted a picture of Lily's vagina on his blog. [The Daily Express]
• The makers of Slumdog Millionaire have apologized to the Hope Foundation. In the film something terrible happens to one of the young characters after he's picked up by a "Hope Orphanage" bus, but there's no connection to the real charity, which cares for street children in India by providing residential homes, education and healthcare. [The Mirror]
• Solange Knowles has been released from this hospital after passing out in baggage claim at an airport. She explained on Twitter that she'd been taking too much Nyquil on the plane. [Perez Hilton]
• In honor of Seth Rogen appearing on the March cover of Playboy, TMZ has a slideshow of the eight other male cover models, including Steve Martin, Donald Trump, and Jerry Seinfeld. [TMZ]
• Studio executives have demanded that Guy Ritchie reshoot five weeks' worth of scenes in Sherlock Holmes that were filmed during the beginning of his divorce from Madonna because the first cut was not up to par. [Perez Hilton]
• The estate of Jimi Hendrix has won a trademark infringement lawsuit against Hendrix Electric vodka. The estate won $3.2 million and the vodka will be pulled from stores. [Yahoo]
• Here are Shawn Johnson's pictures from the new season of Dancing With The Stars. [ONTD]
• In these photos Bindi Irwin has a snake wrapped around her neck and lets a reptile eat out of her mouth. [TMZ]
• New pictures of Hugh Jackman rehearsing for the Oscars have been released. Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Beyonce, Amanda Seyfried, and Dominic Cooper will join him for a musical number during the show. [Just Jared]
• Australian tourism operators are "very disgruntled" because they feel Tourism Australia's Baz Luhrman-inspired ads aren't effective. [News.com.au]
• Onetime Hills star Jason Wahler is being sued for a third time related to his 2006 alcohol-fueled altercation with a pair of tow-truck drivers. One of the drivers claims Wahler "committed acts of violence, threats of violence, and made racial epitaphs" toward him. [E!]
• It seems Blade Runner star Sean Young's time in rehab last winter wasn't successful. There's video of her drunk and teetering down the street after presenting an award at the Women's Image Network awards last night. [Perez Hilton]
• A judge has ruled that Gary Coleman's videotaped deposition regarding the lawsuit against him for allegedly hitting a man with his truck will not be released to the public. [Yahoo]
• Here are pictures of Margaret Cho and Wanda Sykes hugging after a pro-gay marriage rally in Sacramento. [ONTD]
• Diana Ross is going to be a grandmother! Her daughter Rhonda Ross Kendrick and her jazz musician husband are expecting a child. [The Daily Express]
• Canadian artist J.D. Fortune replaced INXS's late lead singer Michael Hutchence in the band after winning a reality TV search. Now they've kicked him out of the band and he's broke and homeless. [The Daily Express]
• Check out these adorable new photos of Tiger Woods and his 10-day-old son, Charlie Axel Woods. [People]
• Here's an interview with Tori Spelling about potty training her son, if you're into that kind of thing. [Time Out New York]
• Roman Polanski won't be returning to the United States. A judge acknowledged that there had been "misconduct" by the court in the handling of his teen rape case in 1977, but dismissed a motion to dismiss the case against the director. [Fox News]
• Dolly Parton will not be in the upcoming Hannah Montana movie. Producers asked her early on if she'd play her TV role of Aunt Dolly in the film, but then didn't write her into the script. Parton says: "I'm not in the movie. I wish I had been." [Yahoo]
• Mickey Rourke's agent will be his date for the Oscars. Rourke also says that despite rumors, he's not playing a villain in Iron Man 2 ... "right now." [NY Magazine]
• Chris Rock's little brother Tony was arrested in L.A. for a DUI and is out on bail. [TMZ]
• You can check out RuPaul's new music video for Cover Girl (Put That Bass In Your Walk) here. [Perez]
• "[W]hen you say fashion, it kind of connotes that I would like to be part of this fashion industry in NYC, where I would have to play games and, like, talk to a bunch of a—hole vapid girls I don't want to talk to. But then there's the idea of making clothes and being a clothing designer, and I'm more interested in that end of it. I just want to put out products and be the name behind the product ..." - Project Runway winner Jay McCarroll [NY Magazine]
• Viola Davis on meeting Meryl Streep: "She said, "Hi, I'm Meryl!" and I thought, "I know." The air changes when she walks into the room. It does. And I don't know if she realizes it-or maybe she does-and she's already a wonderful human being. She's completely relaxed, and if she's not, she just plays it very, very well. But she overcompensates to make you feel like you are a part of the whole. She does not want to take over, and I really appreciated that, coming from the neurotic place I was coming from." [The A.V. Club]
• "Now I'm in that middle-age place, age-wise, and youth is no longer really something that I'm a part of anymore. And that started happening for me when I was about 40, to be honest with you. I had my kids and my focus went elsewhere. And I think I've changed so much through having children ... inside myself. It's been a kind of evolution and a maturity." - Annie Lennox [CNN]
• Naomi Watts says Liev Schreiber has considered ways to get closer to their kids. "With the first [baby], he was like, 'I want the man boob,' " says Watts. "You can get those things. You can attach them and they feed through a tube. It's to create the bonding experience." [People]

• Sad face: Mickey Rourke's 18-year-old chihuahua, Loki, has died. Rourke called Loki "the love of his life." And famously thanked his all his dogs in his Golden Globes speech. RIP little dude! [E!, TMZ]

• Sarah Jessica Parker's been talking about the Sex And The City sequel. She wants the new movie to be a "massive romp." And she's worried about the consumerism: "How do we address these economic times in a franchise that has a lot to do with luxury and labels? You know, there is a lot that we have to think about because times are very different." Indeed. [UPI]
• Lindsay Lohan was seen having a fabulous time in New York while Sam Ronson was in San Diego, what does it mean??!?! [Page Six]
• The lone Asian dude in Miley Cyrus's "goofy" photo has been identified; his name is Chuck Willis, and he is a model/actor/photographer. Who hangs out with Hannah Montana. [ONTD]
• The Guardian's Hadley Freeman spends five minutes with "the surprisingly tall" Justin Timberlake and promptly falls "a little bit in love." [Guardian]
• Oscar producers want M.I.A. to be on the show so badly — even though she just gave birth — that they're willing to let her perform her track from Slumdog Millionaire from a "large bed" on stage. Or she could appear via hologram. The bed idea sounds kind of awesome, but only if there are dancing orderlies. [NY Mag, MSNBC Scoop]
• More Oscar gossip: Hugh Jackman is hosting, but he'll be joined on stage by Beyoncé, Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens and Mamma Mia's Amanda Seyfried for a big song and dance number, directed by Moulin Rouge's Baz Luhrmann. If they do "Dancing Queen," it just might be the gayest thing on TV since Charles Nelson Riley. [Yahoo News via E!]
• John Mayer will be attending the Oscars, and says: "It's my first Oscars. And it's my first being an Oscar boyfriend. After that night I have a deal almost signed in blood that says I must go into the studio and finish this record. So after Oscar Sunday, Monday morning I'm invisible." [PopSugar]
• Bookies who deal with Oscar bets says Heath Ledger is "such an absolute certainty you've got to feel a bit sorry for the fellow nominees. They have no absolutely no chance whatsoever of winning." [Mirror]
• An L.A. Superior Court judge has ruled that Roman Polanski will have to come to the U.S. and face a judge before his 1977 child sex case can be dismissed. Of course, if Polanski arrives in the States, he faces immediate arrest, as he is a fugitive. [Variety]
• Hayden Panettiere, 19, fresh off of her breakup from Milo Ventimiglia, 31, was seen flirting with Gerard Butler, 39. Can you blame her? He's hot! [MSNBC Scoop]
• Seth Rogen will appear on the cover of Playboy, only the 9th time a dude's been on the cover in 56 years. But will he be clothed? [Page Six]
• Rachel Bilson and Hayden Christensen are engaged, by the by. [Page Six]
• Kanye West looks morose on the new cover of Details and inside says the kind of stuff you expect Kanyeezy to say. Like: "Put this in the magazine: There's nothing more to be said about music. I'm the fucking end-all, be-all of music." And! "People ask me a lot about my drive," he says. "I think it comes from, like, having a sexual addiction at a really young age. Look at the drive that people have to get sex-to dress like this and get a haircut and be in the club in the freezing cold at 3 a.m., the places they go to pick up a girl. If you can focus the energy into something valuable, put that into work ethic..." [Yahoo News via E!]
• Also, when Kanye was 12, he produced a video game: "My game was very sexual. The main character was, like, a giant penis. It was like Mario Brothers, but the ghosts were, like, vaginas. Mind you, I'm 12 years old, and this is stuff 30-year-olds are programming. You'd have to draw in and program every little step-it literally took me all night to do a step, 'cause the penis, y'know, had little feet and eyes." [Yahoo News via E!]
• Michael Phelps is so afraid of people snapping his picture, he's had the windows of his home tinted and he's been hiding out in strip clubs, where photographs are not allowed. No, really, that's the only reason. [Page Six]
• Has Kylie Minogue had cosmetic surgery? The latest edition of the UK's Grazia magazine asks on its cover: "What has Kylie done to her face?" A surgeon who does not treat her has the answer: "Kylie's brows look a little higher than usual, which suggests she's having regular Botox to lift them. One of Kylie's brows is slightly more arched and higher than the other, which is often a telltale sign." [News.com.au]
• Boo-hoo: Eva Longoria Parker is sad that Nicolette Sheridan is leaving Desperate Housewives. "I love her so much as a person, and I love the character of Edie Britt, that I can't imagine the show without her," Eva says. [Mirror]
• Here's a video of Benicio Del Toro talking about playing Che Guevara and doing some really good stuff with his expressive eyebrows. [Guardian]
• Kid Rock is making Kid Rock Beer, which is expected to create 394 new jobs in Michigan. Those without jobs will at least have something to drink? [Detroit Free Press]
• Ashton Kutcher is in negotiations to star in a flick called Traded, about a superstar NFL quarterback and a 12-year-old middle school geek who magically trade bodies. Sort of Freaky Friday Night Lights. [Variety]
• Bob Barker "relaxes in retirement with dog and bottle of tequila." He doesn't watch Price Is Right. [ABC News]
• Set your DVR; A&E has ordered 11 episodes of Hammertime, a show which tracks the life of MC Hammer and his family. Can't touch this? [Variety]
• Luther Campbell from 2 Live Crew was arrested for contempt of court last night; he owes $10,233.36 and he'd better pay up. [TMZ]
• Morrissey, who turns 50 in May, says of the chance that he'll still be in the music biz at age 55: "I think it's incredibly slim. For heaven's sake!" [Daily Express]
• Blind items! 1. Which movie producer is finding out bad habits die hard? Despite being married, he asked a gorgeous, dark-haired woman back to his hotel for a "late-night private audition" after a dinner at the Berlin Film Festival. As the actress accepted, look for her to appear in his upcoming pictures. 2. Which kooky fashion figure asked for illegal substances on her contract rider? She said in order for her to appear at a fashion show, she needs two bottles of Cristal and "cocaine - a lot of it." [Page Six]
• Blind item: "Which F-list celeb had an abortion six months ago? We hear she's still not sure who the father was." Wait, why do we care about this? [Gatecrasher]
• "God, I might pass out. Your heart pounds really hard, and just that moment…wow. My grandmother is coming. My mom and my grandmother. Three generations. " — Taraji P. Henson, on being a nominee at the Oscars. [Washington Post]
• "My mother, she was like, 'I don't know if Mama wants to come because she had a knee replacement surgery and she's been going to the doctor and it's a long evening.' I said: 'Mom, you know what? Why don't we just let Grandma make the decision? Let's call her and let her say no.' We called her on a three-way and I said, 'Hey, Grandma, we got an extra ticket for the Oscars, you wanna come?' 'I sure do, baby!' She did not hesitate, do you understand? Grandma is not going to miss it for the world, do you hear me? She didn't want to hear about how long it was going to be. She didn't want to hear about that, she'd moved on to what she was going to wear. She was like, 'Well, I have this outfit and these shoes.' I was like, 'Bring it, Grandma.'" — Taraji P. Henson. [WaPo]
• "It's just something for your eyes to look at. It's just a change from the norm, innit? The problem is, I never buy a piece of art. I don't see the point in buying something because I know my eyes will get bored of it eventually. You know, a lot of museums keep the stuff, they rotate it, because people get sick of looking at it. They shift the art around, don't they? People go, 'I'm sick of that now.' They move it around the world, let someone else's eyes look at it." — Ricky Gervais, on art. [Guardian]
• "I really believe I'm on the very tail end of television as a big money-making business. I think there will always be a certain number of people who make a lot of money, like American Idol or NFL football, but I just think that in 10 years when people have good Internet connections, there are going to be a thousand channels. People will be making money, they just won't be making a lot of money. Even successful shows or programming will bring in small amounts of money." — Jimmy Kimmel. [Broadcasting & Cable]
• "Oh my God, I'm one of the greatest rappers in the world. I'll get on a track and completely ee-nihilate that track, I'll eat it and rip it in half. I wouldn't have to think of it. […] I have, like, nuclear power, like a superhero, like Cyclops when he puts his glasses on." — Kanye West. [Yahoo News via E!]
• "The next chapter of your life has begun. The toughest decisions you will ever have to make lie in front of you. You have shifted the cultural paradigm of America, but now you have to live up to the ideal that fostered the shift and ensure that the paradigm doesn't shift back. You must deliver." — LL Cool J, in an (open, unsolicited) letter to Barack Obama. [Mirror]
• "I am her biggest fan and I can't get enough of her. But wearing my fashion hat, I want to say to Meryl Streep, 'You need to accept responsibility for what you are wearing. I don't know that you do.' The message she's sending is, 'I'm too smart for this and it doesn't matter to me what I'm wearing.' I want to say to her that it should matter to you." — Tim Gunn. [MSNBC Scoop]