Where The Wild Things Are, of course, is based on the beloved children's book by Maurice Sendak, which presented a challenge for director Spike Jonze, who also wrote the screenplay with Dave Eggers. (The story only contains 10 sentences.) To turn the book into a full-length feature, Jonze and Eggers don't reinterpret it but expand on it, showing what prompts Max (Max Records) to misbehave and get sent to his room with no supper in the first place. In the film, which opens today, Max gets upset when his teenage sister Claire (Pepita Emmerichs) and her friends destroy his snow fort and his single mother (Catherine Keener) pays more attention to work and her new boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo) than him. Max acts out and then runs away from home in his wolf costume. In his imagination, he travels by boat to an island where he befriends giant creatures who make him their king. The creatures (voiced by James Gandolfini, Paul Dano, Lauren Ambrose, Chris Cooper, and Forest Whitaker) embody Max's various emotional issues from feeling abandoned, bossy, needy, or too wild.

Many critics call the film one of the year's best, both for honoring Sendak's book and accomplishing Jonze's goal of capturing "the feeling of what it is to be 9." Other reviewers aren't as enchanted, saying it is less representative of what children are actually like, and more about adults wistfully longing for their own childhoods. While many parents are worried the "Wild Things" will scare children, the critics say they're more likely to be bored by the creatures' neurotic problems. As for adults, while many scenes of Max's "wild rumpus" provide an "undeniable rush of pleasure," their enjoyment of the film may rest on their willingness to ponder the emotional world of children while listening to an indie rock soundtrack.

Entertainment Weekly

Sendak's great gift to readers, old as well as young, is the seriousness with which he presents even the wildest mayhem, the deepest contradictions in human (and Wild Thing) behavior; the author empathizes with fantasists but has no time for cuteness. In his transcendent movie adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are, Spike Jonze not only respects the original text but also honors movie lovers with the same clarity of vision. This is one of the year's best. To paraphrase the Wild Thing named KW, I could eat it up, I love it so.

The Wall Street Journal

The filmmaker, Mr. Jonze, has done only two features until now, Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. Both were strikingly original, marvelously intricate and notably erratic in their plot and structure. They made him an exciting choice to direct this one, though also a risky choice, since the Sendak book is essentially plotless. (Boy misbehaves, boy's unseen mother sends him to bed without supper, boy's room becomes a forest populated by bizarre creatures who make him king and do his bidding until he feels hungry for love and heads back home.) Happily-and improbably, given the potential for outraging whole generations of readers-the risks have been managed by taking greater risks, and some brave ones. This adaptation, by the director and his celebrated co-writer, Dave Eggers, makes Max a somewhat older (maybe 8 or 9) and much angrier child than the original-all that wildness doesn't come from nowhere-as well as a wrenchingly vulnerable child whose adventures are elaborately rooted in his everyday life. His mother is not only seen but powerfully felt: Catherine Keener, an actress of unforced warmth and uncommon humor, has never been so affecting, even when this loving mom vents ample anger in her turn. (Mark Ruffalo appears briefly as her boyfriend.)

The New York Times

Much is left unexplained in Mr. Jonze's adaptation, including Max's melancholia, which hangs over him, his family and his wild things like a gathering storm. But childhood has its secrets, mysteries, small and large terrors. When a hilariously bungling teacher explains, rather too casually, that the sun is going to die, the flash of horror on Max's face indicates that he understands that the sun won't be the only one to go. There are other reasons, perhaps, an absent father, a distracted mother. (And when a frightened Max listens to an argument between Carol and K W, you hear the echoes of parental discord.) But such analysis is for therapy, not art, and one of the film's pleasures is its refusal of banal explanation.

The Washington Post

Viewers expecting a consoling, soft-focus version of an anodyne children's story should be forewarned: Jonze takes the story to the dark and edgy place where devotion slips into aggression, where loneliness and fear are indistinguishable from liberation and desire. This isn't to say that Where the Wild Things Are isn't suitable for children; it's just that it will probably be most enjoyable to children with a working knowledge of Bruno Bettelheim's "The Uses of Enchantment" and psychoanalytic theory.

The A.V. Club

Though little happens, it doesn't much need to. Max gets to know the wild things in ways that simply ring true, and that's story enough. He favors Gandolfini, all but ignores the timid goat-beast voiced by Paul Dano, tries to impress big-sister figure Lauren Ambrose, and bosses around Chris Cooper's bird-man. And in a subtle, daring, but thoroughly effective move, Jonze has Max fearfully avoid the nameless, near-silent bull, who often appears alone and in the distance, unremarked upon. Whether the action is grand and exciting, as when Jonze brings to life a massive fortress made of twigs, or simple and human, as in touching one-on-ones that Max has with Ambrose, Dano, and Gandolfini, it all feels genuine to the actual experience of childhood in ways that children's movies generally don't. Max learns about himself, to be sure, but Jonze never considers making the sort of broad-stroke, "Here's what everybody learned!" gestures that attempt to stand in for actual emotion. Instead, he lets a little kid loose to explore the terrain of his own mind, which turns out to be an amazing place.

USA Today

Eggers has said he and Jonze wanted to avoid depicting Max as so many movie kids are shown: "de-fanged." Max certainly has fangs - and he's not afraid to use them. The uneven pacing and tone are stirring, blending melancholy with boisterous fun. When you think about it, those polarities best capture the most indelible images of anyone's childhood - those which hurt or frighten, and those which thrill... Where the Wild Things Are is a fiercely innovative film with surprising texture and nuance. It captures the joy and exuberance of childhood without shying away from its very real pains and woes.

New York Magazine

Jonze and Eggers's most agreeable innovation is turning Sendak's rather anonymous beasts into complex, conflicted personalities. They sit around quarreling, smashing things, making holes in trees, staring into space, and wishing for a leader. They're like a counterculture commune after all the hippies and their woks have left, after the drugs have stopped working so well. And then comes little Max, who proclaims himself a king to keep them from devouring him. Max Records (I still can't get over that name) has a mop of dark hair and a sweet face, but his Max is petulant and edgy. It's a wonderful performance; you'd never know he was acting opposite nine-foot puppets.

The Chicago Sun-Times

The movie felt long to me, and there were some stretches during which I was less than riveted. Is it possible that there wasn't enough Sendak story to justify a feature-length film? In a way I suppose the book tells a feature-length story just in Sendak's drawings, and Jonze and Eggers have taken those for their inspiration. All the same, the film will play better for older audiences remembering a much-loved book from childhood, and not as well with kids who have been trained on slam-bam action animation.

Reel Views

The only actor with significant screen time is relative newcomer Max Records, whose only previous feature credit is a small part in The Brothers Bloom (he played Stephen as a boy). Records' greatest strength is his incredibly expressive face. He conveys emotions through his expressions; his delivery of dialogue is less certain. It remains to be seen whether his career trajectory will lead him to become the next "big" child actor or whether he'll perform on the periphery until puberty hits. Catherine Keener has a small role as Max's mom, and her confident presence in her few scenes makes us wish Jonze had found a way to expand her screen time. The vocal casting is perfect: James Gandolfini as Carol, Lauren Ambrose as KW, Paul Dano as the goat Alexander; Catherine O'Hara as the perpetually negative Judith; Forest Whitaker as Judith's sadsack companion, Ira; Chris Cooper as Douglas, this film's Big Bird; and Michael Berry Jr. as the taciturn Bull. Only Gandolfini's voice is immediately recognizable; everyone else blends anonymously into their parts, and the Tony Soprano connection serves only to invest Carol with an extra edge.

The Boston Globe

While this much-awaited, long-in-the-works film has more than its share of wild rumpuses, its big, shaggy heart is in what happens after the rumpus dies down: insecurities, misunderstandings, fears. Where the Wild Things Are isn't for little kids so much as it's about them, and parents and tykes expecting the next Shrek or even a seamless work of Pixar genius will be sorely disappointed if not a little freaked out. The movie is a wild thing, and that's not such a bad thing at all.

The Hollywood Reporter

The film does surmount one of its two difficult challenges: Through puppetry and computer animation, the filmmaking teams have successfully put a world of childhood imagination on the screen. Where the film falters is Jonze and novelist Dave Eggers' adaptation, which fails to invest this world with strong emotions. Children might enjoy the goofy monsters and their fights and squabbles, but adults likely are to grow weary of the repetitiveness. In the end, the book probably was too slender to support a 102-minute movie. Without a quest to propel the story, such as Dorothy's journey in The Wizard of Oz, the movie turns into an afternoon-special with an easily digested moral that fails to grab youngsters by the collar and shake them up with an exciting adventure.

Variety

The wild things move around pretty well and interact with Max in a credible way that fully justifies the no doubt difficult decision not to use CGI all the way. All the more ironic, then, that the film's biggest problem is not the look of the creatures but the manner in which they speak. That said, the thesps provide low-key, nuanced readings, with Gandolfini and Lauren Ambrose particularly distinguishing themselves with dialogue that often seems odd coming from the toothsome mouths seen onscreen. Excellent production values stress the relative realness of what's on view compared to the digital worlds of most kidpics these days. The alt-rock tenor of the music scoring is refreshing at first, but the predictability of the music cues proves increasingly wearisome.

The Village Voice

What's best about Jonze's movie is its kinetic feel for physical play-herky-jerky camera as Max and the WTs zip and bounce through the forest-not surprising from a former skateboard punk like Spike. What's weakest is its blandness, the sense memory of a child raised on Sesame Street. The psychic environment is less King Kong's Skull Island than Fred Rogers' neighborhood: Where the Wild Things Aren't. Wild Things isn't overlong, but it is underwhelming. Who is the audience? Children brought to see it might find it a downer-a case of what the New York Times has called "misery for art's sake." Triumph or travesty, this movie is more likely something for Jonze's generational cohorts to love or loathe. (How many suburban garage bands had the name Wild Rumpus?) For me, it seemed like group therapy with the muppets.

The New Yorker

Jonze and Eggers have spoken of their desire to keep the film close to a child's needs, but have they done that? Kids like danger, followed by a release from danger and a return to safety, yet the only danger posed by these creatures is that they will turn Max into someone as messed-up as they are. The filmmakers may have wanted to link Max's anger to the creatures' wounds, but the connection is fuzzy-Max isn't the one who hurt them. I have a vision of eight-year-olds leaving the movie in bewilderment. Why are the creatures so unhappy? That question doesn't return a child to safety or anywhere else. Of one thing I am sure: children will be relieved when Max gets away from this anxious crew.

Slate

When the wild things race through the forest to the sound of a Yeah Yeah Yeahs song or leap atop Max and one another in a great, snuggly pile, there's an undeniable rush of pleasure. (You can get it in its purest form by watching the trailer.) But in between these hits of energy are long swaths of desultory narrative about the relationships among the wild things themselves: Judith is jealous of Carol because of his special closeness to Max. Carol is bummed that K.W. has made friends outside the wild-thing community. Alexander struggles with the self-esteem issues you might expect from a puny, introverted goat. Essentially, the entire middle section could be summed up as follows: Fuzzy guys build a stick fort, sit inside it, and mope. If I avoid taking my 3-and-a-half-year-old daughter to this movie, it won't be because the wild things would scare her. (They might frighten some children, but I live with a miniature adrenaline junkie.) It'll be because their endless therapeutic workshopping would bore her stiff.

The Los Angeles Times

The problem with this cast of characters is not so much their personalities but the way screenwriters Jonze and Eggers have turned them into neurotic adults with dysfunctional relationships. To hear them talk among themselves is to feel like you've stumbled onto a group therapy session involving unfunny refugees from an alternate universe Woody Allen movie. It's not a good feeling. Max does utter the book's signature line, "Let the wild rumpus start," but he spends a lot of his time not really being sure what he's doing. When Jonze told the New York Times Magazine, "Everything we did, all the decisions we made, were to try to capture the feeling of what it is to be 9," he's telling the truth. Unfortunately, in this case, that's not a very interesting place to be.

Salon

That right there is enough to make me urge any filmmaker to stick to his vision. It isn't, unfortunately, enough to make me like his movie. Where the Wild Things Are may be a childlike picture, but it isn't an innocent one. The movie is so loaded with adult ideas about childhood — as opposed to things that might delight or engage an actual child — that it comes off as a calculated, petulant shout, the kind of trick kids play to guilt-trip their parents into paying attention to them. It appears to be a movie made by, and for, members of a generation who feel it's unfair to have to grow up. Jonze isn't channeling the feelings of 9-year-olds so much as he's obsessively fingering his own, like the silky edge of a blanket. "Who cares about the children?" is Jonze's sulky rhetorical question. "What about me?"

• Justin Timberlake will attempt to finish what Ann Curry started: He'll head to Tanzania and climb Mount Kilimanjaro.

Timberlake's goal is to raise awareness of the global water crisis. Rapper Lupe Fiasco and singer Kenna are going with him (?!). He says: "I've been training four times a week to get my VO2 (oxygen consumption) levels up to expand my lungs. We'll climb a week straight, carrying 30 pounds on our backs. It's going to be intense, but it's going to be so rewarding. We're going to be ready for it." [Mirror via GQ]

• High times: Amy Winehouse and Snoop Dogg collaborated last year, but were too stoned to finish the tracks! [The Sun]
• But Amy has been getting all detoxed in St. Lucia — she does a lot of mud treatments to draw out impurities. [TMZ]
• Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are mentioned as a cheap ploy for attention in this beyond stoopid press release. [Breitbart]
• Mel Gibson has "fled" to Costa Rica with his "mystery blonde." [Daily Express]
• Why hasn't Eminem been on the scene for three years? He's been on drugs. He says: "I wasn't ready mentally. I wasn't ready to give up the drugs. I didn't think that I had a problem. Basically, I went in, and I came out. I relapsed, and I spent the next three years struggling with it. Also, at that time, I felt like I wanted to pull back, because my drug problem had got so bad." He was also impacted by the death of his friend Proof: "I think it kind of hit me so hard. It just blindsided me. I just went into such a dark place that, with everything, the drugs, my thoughts, everything. And the more drugs I consumed, and it was all depressants I was taking, the more depressed I became, the more self-loathing I became." [XXL via The Sun]
• ZOMG Lindsay and Sam ran into each other. [Page Six]
• This report insinuates that Justin Long is super into Drew Barrymore, while she's all, we're just friends. [Gatecrasher]
• Kate Moss had to cut short a vacay in the Maldives because her boyfriend and her gal pal weren't getting along. [Daily Mail]
• Jennifer Aniston and Steve Zahn have a sex scene in the new movie Management. But poor Jen still can't escape being compared to Angelina; this column notes: "While it's no Mr. & Mrs. Smith, let's just say Mike (Zahn) ends up with his shirt off and his pants down to his ankles and Sue (Aniston) on her back on top of a table." [E!]
• The producers of Slumdog Millionaire have donated $740,000 to children living in Indian slums. [People]
• Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia has renewed Martha Stewart's contract and will pay Martha Stewart at least $2 million for the next three years so she can continue living as Martha Stewart. [WSJ]
• Even though In Touch reported that Kate Hudson would be on , she apparently doesn't "do" TV. The rumor is "not true," says her rep. [E!]
• Matthew Perry on Lost? "It is not true," says Perry. "I really don't know why those rumors have been floating about. I have admitted I am a Lost junkie. And at the press junket for [17 Again] I was asked what my favorite TV show was and I said [Lost], so maybe that's how they started." [EW]
• Mandy Moore got help for her new acoustic rock album Amanda Leigh from her "in-home teacher," husband Ryan Adams. [Mirror]
• Lady GaGa rocked the gay bash known as the Palm Springs White Party. She has said: "I love the gay community. Like bleeding heart love the gay community…it's a genuine love I have for them." [NBC Bay Area]
• Audrina on her new reality show: "It's my life after The Hills, my journey. It's going to be a little spicier, edgier, older." We think this means drunken makeout sessions. [People]
• Keisha Knight Pulliam, aka Rudy from The Cosby Show, is getting her own reality show on Oxygen, which involves her live-in boyfriend and will "explore what it's like to be "young, rich, single and co-habitating." The show will be called "Keisha and Kaseem." [AP]
• Guess who else is getting a reality show? Fantasia Barrino. [Reuters]
• Which Idol judge should go: Kara or Paula? [MSNBC]
• It seems that Bruce Springsteen is the "victim" in that NJ divorce scandal where the wife was calling him the other man in her marriage. A source says: "The wife pestered Bruce, but he didn't have an affair with her. He's freaked out that he was named in her divorce because he barely knows her." [National Enquirer]
• Daniel Radcliffe says the kissing scene between Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley is awkward: "Harry's got a real thing for her, and that is slightly odd because when we met I was 11 and she was nine." [Telegraph]
• Speaking of Harry Potter, the Half Blood Prince flick will open two days sooner. [NY Daily News]
• Uh, they are really squeezing the life out of this franchise: There will be a 5th Fast and Furious film. [NY Daily News]
• Miss USA contestants will wear swimsuits from the Jessica Simpson Collection Sunday night. [NY Daily News]
• Real Housewife Jill Zarin had a breast reduction and "feels 20 lbs lighter." [Page Six]
• Sean "Diddy" Combs has just been cast in a Judd Apatow flick, along with Elisabeth Moss and Rose Byrne. Get Him To The Greek stars Jonah Hill and Russell Brand, and the gist of it is that a record label intern (Hill) is hired to get an out-of-control rock star (Brand) from London to a gig at the Greek Theater in L.A. While it might have been interesting if things were shaken up a bit, Diddy plays the record label boss while Moss and Byrne play girlfriends. Of course. [Hollywood Reporter]
• David Duchovny and Tea Leoni are so back on they have matching tattoos now. [Daily Express]
• Catherine Keener has been cast in a fantasy/adventure flick called Percy Jackson, in which she will play a mom whose son is half human (his father is Poseidon). [Hollywood Reporter]
• Here's a profile on legendary producer Jon Peters, whose memoir is "filled with outrageous tales of Jack Nicholson and hookers, and Barbara Walters in her undies." he may have told a room of people that Baba Wawa had "a great rack and nice ass." [The Daily Beast]
• After saying that he "totally understands OJ" Simpson, Hulk Hogan has issued a statement, claiming he "in no way condones the OJ situation. As part of a larger conversation, he referred to it to exemplify his frustration with his own situation." [ET]
• Meanwhile Linda Hogan says she is "taking these recent comments seriously." [ET]
• "Electroclash godmother Peaches and voodoo loving rave producer Drums of Death get together in the latest issue of Dazed & Confused to talk about drugs, power ballads, performance art, their favourite fancy dress costumes, and working together on her new album I Feel Cream." [Dazed Digital]
• Former "pin-up" Heather Thomas has written a novel called Trophies, about Hollywood wives and fundraising. She says: "I researched this and found these wives are responsible for directing about 80 percent of the foundation monies in America. It is the wives who have the time and can draw things to their husband's attention. Trophy wives are seen as charms on a man's arm, but I have come in contact with a lot of billionaires and their wives are busy and often have PhDs and are brilliant businesswomen. I've yet to meet a bimbo trophy wife." [Reuters]
• A former publicist for James Brown is suing for control of his estate. [USA Today]
• Actress Tawny Kitaen has settled a fraud suit against her ex, so you can go back to not thinking about her. [AP]
• Blind item! "Which funnyman doesn't even bother to hide his drug habit? When pals come to visit his pad, they're just as likely to see baggies of cocaine lying around as they are to see throw pillows." [Gatecrasher]
• "Your blob [sic] is very funny and clever. You have so much fun with it. No wonder everyone loves it." — Diablo Cody's mom. [Page Six]
• "When the show started it was such a different beast. It was exciting and dangerous and funny and edgy and bizarre. [Then] it started feeling a little complacent, and that was very frustrating… When you have a jewel, why not polish it and put it out there for all to see?" — Nicolette Sheridan on Desperate Housewives, which she felt never gave her character enough attention. (Her last episode airs Sunday.) [LA Times]
• "Edie's already slept with most of the guys on the street and has caused about as many problems as she could. We will find a new kind of sexiness coming through Wisteria Lane. What I won't do is cast another fortysomething sexy blonde. [Sheridan] performed the aging neighborhood tramp better than anyone has ever done before." — Desperate Housewives creator Marc Chery. [LA Times]
• "I think a wedding is about love, friends, family and fun. I think spending millions of dollars on a wedding is ridiculous and it has never been my dream. I would never do that." — Salma Hayek, denying she is planning an extravagant $2 million ceremony to follow her City Hall nuptials in February. [People]
• "I think this movie presents the relationship between the media and the government - and it's kind of interesting because it says that the institutions are both a little bit corrupt." — Ben Affleck, on State Of Play. [LA Times]
• "I have a little blog that I do with some friends, but beyond that, I'm kind of clueless when it comes to the Internet. I just got e-mail down pat. So I've got to speed it up, I guess. But I tend to get my news from the radio. I don't know why, it's just the way I like it." — Rachel McAdams. [LA Times]
• "I kind of value having people not know where I am or what I'm doing." — Zac Efron, who avoids MySpace and Facebook. [Reuters]
• "I have never seen that (From Justin to Kelly), other than the time I had to sit through it at the premiere. I was contractually obligated to, and I fought that with tears - I did not want to do that movie." — Kelly Clarkson. [MSNBC Scoop via Rolling Stone]

• A dude was arrested for trying to break into the Dancing With The Stars studio.

He's now got a restraining order against him because he was trying to meet Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson — but with two guns and duct tape in his car. Frightening. [Breitbart]

• The man stalking Shawn Johnson, Robert O'Ryan, says the gymnast was "speaking to him personally through the television and via ESP, and he will be with her not matter what." [NY Daily News]
• "Desperate" Britney Spears has been sending texts to ex Adnan Ghalib, according to a source. "She keeps sneaking messages to Adnan begging him to help her win back her freedom. She says she is lonely and misses being able to date the men she chooses. She feels trapped." [The Sun]
• One of the nurses fired by mother of octuplets Nadya Suleman says: This woman does not care for these kids, she's in this for the media, for the paparazzi." [Breitbart]
• "This woman does not care for these kids, that's my honest opinion," says nurse Linda West Conforti, founder of Angels In Waiting. [ABC News]
• Yes, Nadya Suleman was once a stripper. Or topless dancer. Move along. [MSNBC]
• Scarlett Johansson is the "muse" of Champagne brand Moet & Chandon, and you are not. [WWD]
• Also, people are talking about how thin ScarJo is now. [Defamer]
• Are Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz on the rocks? A source says: "He is going out all the time and she's stuck at home. It's just not working." Her rep says this is not true. [Page Six]
• Mariah Carey wants a baby, so she has dropped $200K on a pink crib, a high chair and some other stuff. Her rep says it's not true. [Gatecrasher]
• "Jessica Simpson was spotted ordering a cooked gourmet meal in a restaurant for her dog." [The Star]
• Neil Patrick Harris will host the TVLand Awards, which sounds like fun: There will be tributes to Magnum PI, Knots Landing, M*A*S*H and, uh, Two And A Half Men. [Socialite Life]
• CSI star Marg Helgenberger has filed for divorce from her hussband, actor (and SAG prez) Alan Rosenberg. They married in 1989 and have a son. [Breitbart, AP]
• Bish Plz Face Of The Day goes to Harlow Madden, resplendent in purple. [People]
• The Oscars, which have taken place in February the last couple of years, are moving back to March. [NY Mag]
• What is wrong with this sentence: The Pussycat Dolls will perform on the Kids Choice Awards, singing "Jai Ho." [Three Stooges movie. Directed by the Farrelly brothers. Starring Jim Carrey, Benicio Del Toro, and Sean Motherfucking Penn. [World Of Wonder, E!]
• Nicole Kidman's been cast in that Woody Allen film which Freida Pinto, Naomi Watts, Josh Broling and Anthony Hopkins are already attached to. [Yahoo News via Reuters]
• Canadian model Noot Seear has been cast in sparkly vampire flick New Moon. This story suggests, "Let the Robert Pattinson and Noot romance rumors begin!" [Yahoo News via E!]
• Lost's Ian Somerhalder has joined the cast of a new CW show, Vampire Diaries. [Variety]
• By the by, the Twilight soundtrack is burning up the charts; Robert Pattinson sings on it, you know. [Yahoo News via E!]
• A review of ABC's new show, In The Motherhood, which is based on webisodes, reads: "What may be funny for five minutes isn't necessarily funny for 30." [USA Today]
• Ugly Betty fans: Do you think Betty should end up with her boss? Eric Mabius, who plays bossman Daniel Meade, says no: "That would be the equivalent of us jumping the shark." [USA Today, EW]
• Courteney Cox has been shooting her new show, Cougar Town, and it seems her wardrobe consists of bathrobes. [Daily Mail]
• Here's a preview of what to expect of the new 9 To 5 musical — starring Alison Janney! Dolly Parton oversaw the casting and wrote the music. [NY Post]
• Whee! Bob Barker is coming out of retirement — for one day — to be on The Price Is Right. He'll be promoting his autobiography, Priceless Memories. I want to spin the wheel. [ET]
• Jeremy Piven's sushi case will go into arbitration on June 8. [EW]
• Click the link to see Padma Lakshmi eat a burger like she's having sex with it in an ad for Carl's Jr. [E!]
• Watchmen actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan just found out he's the father of a four-year-old son by an old girlfriend. Surprise! [Daily Express]
• Gossip Girl's Kelly Rutherford is on the cover of Baby Couture, you know, the magazine that puts the coo in couture? [Just Jared]
• Who the hell cares if Charlie Sheen and Brooke Mueller were rooting against Denise Richards on Dancing With The Stars? [MSNBC]
• Here is a video of Pharrell Williams singing and dancing in a McDonald's in Paris because they wouldn't serve him; they weren't exactly open or something. [NY Daily News]
• Jenny McCarthy is on the cover of Shape magazine, and says "[Weight Watchers] taught me portion control and to be conscious of what I put into my mouth." That's what she said? Anyway, she's not gluten and dairy free, not that you wanted to know. [People]
• Merengue star Elvis Crespo is accused of masturbating on a flight from Houston to Miami. A woman says she saw him cover himself with a blanket, jerk off and then expose himself. Questioned at the airport, Crespo said: "I don't recall doing that." [AP]
• Brit headline of the day: "Simon Cowell Gets His Comeuppance As Prince Philip Calls Him A Sponger." [Daily Mail]
• Put this on your wish list: A box set of Hollywood movies shot before the 1934 Production Code. "Graphic stories of scandal, adultery, prostitution, drug use, murder and homosexuality." Woohoo! [USA Today]
• Blind item! "Which mouthy actor had a waitress dump a scalding cup of coffee in his lap - right after he smacked her bottom?" [Gatecrasher]
• "Interesting characters are pretty rare if you really want to be the lead. That's the usual complaint of actresses my age, and they're not wrong. They depend on you being beautiful. Since I'm not cast for my physicality, I'm not that interested in those parts. I find that playing so many characters in so many films is a way to stay in the moment." — from a profile on fantastic, awesome actress Catherine Keener, who turns 50 this week. [Guardian]
• "Complex later replaced the pic with the Photoshopped version, causing all of this drama. But you know what, who cares! I'm proud of my body and my curves and this picture coming out is probably helpful for everyone to see that just because I am on the cover of a magazine doesn't mean I'm perfect." — Kim Kardashian on her Photoshop of Horrors. [Socialite Life]
• "I always say the younger girls have the abundance of work, but I get to play real women, not girls, who have a whole life behind them." — Virginia Madsen, who's in The Haunting In Connecticut. [LA Times]
• "Right now, I like the idea that things can just kind of pop up and if they feel right I can do them. Committing to my own sort of project, that's like, 'Okay, let me block out two years of my life and do it.' I was heavily fulfilled with the last one and I always have this thing with myself that if I can't sleep because I need to do it, then I'm gonna do it. But if I'm not losing sleep over it then…" — Justin Timberlake, who is not working on a new album. [The Star]
• "It's not black-and-white justice. It's heart-and-soul justice. That's the difference between her and a lot of the crime shows out there. These crimes are not huge. But they are offensive. And they're disrespectful. Some of them, she has to go to the law. But some of them are small, like 'Somebody took my dog!' Or 'I think my husband is with another woman.' And she pours out justice the way she sees fit." — Jill Scott on her role in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, which debuts Sunday on HBO. [USA Today]

[Cannes, May 23. Images via Splash.]

Movies

• Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There: Cate plays one of four Bob Dylans in this avant garde semi-biopic. She's mid-60s Bob — after he went electric but before he became born again. She is playing a dude, and a dude who wasn't always good to women (see Baez, Joan), but since there's no "douche/genius" category, we'll have to go with...Verdict: Ok!
  
• Ruby Dee, American Gangster: Ruby plays gangster Frank Lucas's long suffering mother in this story of a black gangster who corners the Harlem heroin trade in the 70s. She lives off Frank's drug largess despite knowing his cash is ill-gotten. Despite one scene at the end where she slaps her son across the face...Verdict: Doormat
  
• Catherine Keener, Into the Wild: Didn't see it but cribbed this from the NYT
  review: "carefree and careworn" surrogate parental figure to wilderness wanderer hero, Chris. She sounds independent and kooky! Verdict: Ok!
  
• Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone: Ryan plays an alcoholic mother whose child is kidnapped. Hm, going to have to go with...Verdict: Victim
  
• Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton: Emotionally distant powerhouse lawyer orders the death of the title character when she realizes that he might ruin her reputation. She's sort of a doormat when it comes to the whims of the evil corporation Swinton is working for, but I think she's essentially... Verdict: Ok!

Television

• Ellen Burstyn, Mitch Albom's For One More Day: Dead mom/ghost helps her troubled son figure his life out. The wikipedia description says the Burstyn character saved the family with her love. Ew. Sounds like she was kind of...Verdict: Doormat
  
• Debra Messing, The Starter Wife: Her Hollywood hotshot husband leaves her for a Britney (pre K-Fed) doppleganger. At first she falls apart, but then through the support of her friends she falls for a hot homeless dude. Since she only realizes that her life is vapid and overly botoxed when she's dumped, I say...Verdict: Victim
  
• Anna Paquin, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: Paquin plays a 19th century schoolteacher who tries to improve life for Indians on a reservation. Sounds like a tough broad. Verdict: Ok!
  
• Queen Latifah, Life Support: Queen plays a mother who overcomes a crack-addiction to become a positive role model and activist. Probably a little schlocky, but basically...Verdict: Ok!
  
• Vanessa Redgrave, The Fever: Redgrave is a woman gets involved in politics with no previous contact with world events. Down with societal apathy! Verdict: Ok!
  
• Gena Rowlands, What if God Were the Sun?: Quick-witted terminally ill patient helps change another woman's outlook on life. Terminally ill? Ugh. Verdict: Victim
  
• Vanessa Williams, Ugly Betty: HBIC at fictional Mode Magazine, Vanessa plays a conniving and immaculately coiffed baddie. Even though she torments adorable Betty, she's pretty much...Verdict: Ok!

  *Caveat: we haven't seen many of these movies/shows, so if our snap judgments are incorrect, holler and let us know!

  Nominations Announced For The 14th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards [SAG Awards]
  Earlier: The Golden Globe Nominees: No Hookers, But Lots Of Victims

*Inspired by Shirley MacLaine's assertion that the best parts for actresses fall into one of the above categories

Lest you think the film will be an amalgamation of Sex And The City and Melrose Place, think again: Keener will be playing a woman living next to a cantankerous elderly lady in what is described as a drama that "explores the interactions between Keener's character, who owns the woman's apartment, the woman and her two granddaughters."

Holofcener, Keener Move In With Indie Drama [Hollywood Reporter]
Related: Mitra Thinking Inside The 'Box' [Hollywood Reporter]

• Oh, Britney, Britney, Britney. Front, back. Front, back. We know: It's complicated! [People.com]
  
• Sweet revenge! Jennifer Lopez's former assistant has been hired away from her by her husband Marc Anthony's ex-wife, Dayanara Torres. Secrets revealed, copious tears to come. [Radar]
  
• President Bush's watch has gone missing somewhere in Albania. If you have any leads on the missing timepiece, feel free to call anyone you know and tell them. It's easy to report things to the government when we're all being wiretapped! [Daily Mail]
  
• Anne Heche may be crazy, but she's retained custody of her child. [TMZ]
  
• Ok, so not only did tuberculosis dude know he had TB before hopping on an airplane, now his family is being difficult with health officials. This is no way to win friends and influence people. [CNN]

• It's been a long day and we nearly burst into tears upon reading this one: A deaf, captive dolphin has given birth to a calf, and marine biologists have installed a voice box in a rehab center so that the newborn can still learn to "speak" normally. [CNN]
• Oh the things you do when you know you're headed out of office! Like, uh, call the press a "feral beast." Nice work, Tony Blair! [NYT]
• In England, a snooker player beat up a ref! We report only on this because we're mildly fascinated by snooker. Not so much the game, but the word. Which we think is hilarious. And incidentally rhymes with lucre and not booker. [BBC]
• Any man who would divorce long-time girl crush Catherine Keener is a fool. [USA Today]
• English golf clubs not must allow women to drink in their bars. Well, phew! That's a big one! Glad we knocked that one out of the way before, oh, equal pay for equal work! [Guardian]
• Three U.S. casualties identified today. [DoD]