(In reference to this Onion article.)

Maybe it's because I grew up in New York. Or maybe it's because I read Anais Nin and Kurt Vonnegut at an early age. Or perhaps I just always chafed against "All-American" high school depictions in books and movies, since many key staples of the genre: Suburbs! Dates! Sports! Cars! Everybody's white! seemed a little boring, a wee retro and rather narrow-minded to me.

Which is not to say I never read a Sweet Valley High book. But growing up in the '80s, I was also reading Tama Janowitz, Jay McInerney and Bret Easton Ellis. I was watching movies like Fast Times and Less Than Zero. So I dreamed of the Wakefield twins getting edgy. More scandalous. To me, high school was supposed to have a little bit of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll: I wanted Sweet Valium High.

Although the books came out between 1983 and 2003 and the TV series was on the air between 1994 and 1997, I think a movie would have to be set in this century. Kids today are sexting, hooking up, group dating, cyberbullying and hacking one anothers' Facebook accounts. For SVH to work, it needs a fresh look. So it's entirely possible that Diablo Cody, a tattooed former stripper and Oscar-winning screenwriter, could be good for a modern take on Sweet Valley High. And, from the looks of Cody's Twitter, she knows her subject matter: She recently wrote, "You have no idea how many bitches I took down to do this project. I went 'full Jessica.' Believe it."

Diablo Cody Takes On 'Sweet Valley' [Variety]
Diablo Cody Adapting 'Sweet Valley High' [Heat Vision]
Related: Diablo Cody's Twitter

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!

• Russell Brand on the Kanye West incident at the VMAs:

"You don't like to see people upset. But I think it just gets exciting, live television, live events. People get worked up and things happen." [AP]

• "However rude Kanye West's intrusion may have been, it suited the controversy the VMAs openly crave." [NY Times]
• Philippe van den Bossche, the boss of Madonna's Raising Malawi charity, has quit after falling in love with Madonna's trainer, Tracy Anderson — also famous for sculpting Gwyneth Paltrow's physique. [Page Six]
• Is Oprah in trouble? This report notes: "Winfrey is still the queen of daytime television, but the aura of invincibility is gone. The average viewership for The Oprah Winfrey Show slipped under 7 million last season, down 7 percent from the year before, according to Nielsen Media Research. One week during the July rerun season, the show had its lowest ratings since its 1985 debut." [AP]
• Colin Farrell: Having another baby. He and girlfriend Alicja Bachleda are expecting their first child. Colin has a 5-year-old son James from a previous relationship with model Kim Bordenave. [Us Magazine]
• At a red carpet event, a photographer asked Colin Farrell's sister to step away to Colin could be photographed alone. Colin got mad and confronted the snapper, who says: "I was just saying, 'Please can everyone clear the carpet, move on.' He took it personal. He said, 'Do not shout at my sister like that, do not ever speak to my sister like that ever.'' [Daily Express]
• Deepak Chopra knew Michael Jackson for 20 years, and he says of Michael's death: "It was caused not by the drugs he had been taking for years — He was a very controlled addict. But by him being given a particular drug that is so powerful that I have never heard of it being used anywhere but in an operating theater with breathing tubes and a ventilator… This is something bigger and is happening all the time – and not just in Hollywood. The number one cause of drug addiction in America right now is medical prescriptions. We have to wake up to that." [Telegraph]
• Elton John would like to adopt a Ukrainian boy named Lev, but the country bans gay couples from adopting children. In addition, Elton and partner David Furnish are considered too old to be adoptive parents. But click the links to see adorable pix of the tot. [The Sun, NY Daily News]
• Ugh, some of the comments on this Elton John story are vile. [Page Six]
• Gisele Bundchen hates when her personal real estate business is in the paper. [Page Six]
• Lionel Richie says now that daughter Nicole has given birth to son Sparrow, "She is the happiest woman ever. She is just in total control. I'm the one that's nervous!" He also jokes: "Harlow right now is enjoying the baby until she finds out it's staying." And: "[Sparrow] looks just like Harlow." [People]
• John Mayer was at a bar in NYC when someone got stabbed; Mayer and other patrons were "seen fleeing." [Page Six]
• Susan Boyle's first single has been revealed: It's a cover of The Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses." [Mirror]
• Tila Tequila has apparently been mentioning Chris Brown in her Tweets; Chris Brown has responded: "NOT TRYNA BE RUDE but i keep hearing tila bringing my name up. ur 15 seconds of fame has ended. dont try to gain fans by dissing me.godbless." [TMZ]
• Mischa Barton is working on her new show The Beautiful Life, but while doing so, she has been ordered to stay away from booze, boys and bad behavior. She complained to cast members: "All I can do is smoke cigarettes." [Page Six]
• Lost is scheduled to end on Wednesday, May 19, 2010. Mark your calendars. [ONTD via LostBlog]
• Ugh. Here's a "joke" an NFL announcer made during a Detroit Lions game: "Going from two Super Bowls in Pittsburgh to the winless Detroit team — that's like going from dating Beyoncé to Whoopi Goldberg." [TMZ]
• "Russell Brand romanced model Christy Peterson for three months without seeing another girl. Then he told her to go shopping with his mum and had sex with a fan and a stripper." [News.com.au]
• "Prince Harry leaves nightclub ten minutes after Chelsy Davy... as he misses Lord Freddie Windsor's wedding." [Daily Mail]
• Interested in a Hollywood Hills 5,334 square foot 1929 Spanish-style house or a 4,062 square foot three-story contemporary Mediterranean home with a guesthouse? Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor are selling, and you only need around $12.5 million [UPI]
• Jay Leno's new show is related to NBC's decision to split football drama Friday Night Lights between DirecTV and NBC. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Dancing With The Stars' Maksim Chmerkovskiy is "still nursing a broken heart but doing okay" after his breakup with Karina Smirnoff. [People]
• Chandra Wilson has been nominated four consecutive years for her portrayal of Miranda Bailey, the no-nonsense chief resident on ABC's Grey's Anatomy, but is still looking for her first win. She says: "The thing that always impresses me whenever I go on the website each year to cast my little vote for myself, there are like 400 women there! So to even get in the top five, narrowed down from all those women, that's already amazing. I'm a huge fan of Sandra's work on this show. So the fact that we keep coming in together, I'm highly complimented by that. I also think it's a big testament to the show remaining as current as it is, six years in." [NY Times]
• Harrison Ford was honored with a tribute to his career at the 35th Deauville American Film Festival in Normandy, France, and got all choked up. Han Solo doesn't cry! [Daily Mail]
• Director Niki Caro and actress Keisha Castle-Hughes paired up in 2002's divine Whale Rider, and have reteamed for new film The Vinter's Luck. [USA Today]
• Couple alert: Chace Crawford and Bar Refaeli. [NY Daily News]
• Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton has dumped girlfriend Nicole Scherzinger of the Pussycat Dolls, telling her he is not ready for marriage and children. But she was quoted as saying: "My dream is to do my own music one day, to have an unbelievable tour, to have done some musical theatre and some film and maybe to have opened up a performing arts school for special needs kids. That is my ultimate dream — not marriage." [Mirror]
• Even though they broke up 22 years ago, The Smiths are gaining new fans, thanks to 500 Days Of Summer. [Independent]
• ABBA's Benny Anderson on rumors that the group will create music for a sequel to Mamma Mia!: "it's not going to happen. There will not be another, quote unquote, Abba musical." [UPI]
• "Sir Michael Caine described his latest vigilante film as a 'warning' of the way British society is heading." [Mirror]
• Kirk Douglas, 92, Is the oldest person on MySpace. He recently sent son Michael Douglas a message which read: "I've got 800 new friends, what should I do?" [Mirror]
• I Can Do Bad All By Myself opened at the top of the weekend box office with more than $24 million in ticket sales. [NY Daily News]
• Blind items! "Which has-been action hero has knocked up his comely assistant? When his longtime girlfriend learned of the impending birth, she angrily split… Which world-famous actor has fallen out with his equally A-list director? They have weeks to go on their upcoming block buster, but the actor thinks the director is arrogant and dismissive of his ideas, while the director considers his leading man to be a spoiled, over rated punk." [Page Six]
• "I'm not that motivated nor do I see that many good projects that make me want to take me away from my family. So much so, that his young children see mummy as the film star in the family. All they know was daddy makes pancakes because I did not have a movie to show them." — Michael Douglas. [Mirror]
• "It feels like we have been away for a long time. The four of us were feeling really nervous about coming back home." — Chris Martin, on Coldplay playing its first UK gig this year. [BBC News]
• "I am comfortable singing in a context like that. I am least comfortable singing karaoke, and less comfortable singing in cabarets. I really only like singing when you understand the context, so an awards show is fine." — Neil Patrick Harris on the Emmys, which he'll be hosting Sunday. [USA Today]
• "You're surrounded by cameras, you're surrounded by film crews, you're surrounded by equipment. It's, like, the most empty, unromantic experience ever." — Penn Badgley on kissing scenes on Gossip Girl. [USA Today]
• "I'm not a great actor. I don't fool myself to think that I am. Most of the work that I get is through having really good relationships with people and being dependable… We all have to put each other in check. Otherwise, people start to become delusional about who they are and what they are and what they're contributing to the world." — Ashton Kutcher. [New York Magazine]
• "Popular music has an emotional-intelligence quotient that's geared much toward younger people. It's all about [he flattens his voice to a disaffected teen monotone] 'You left me. Why did you leave me? I still love you. I tried so hard to stop loving you.' And it's like, well, I relate to that, I just don't want to think about that. When you're younger, you want to wallow in it. When you get older, you still love the person, and wonder why they don't love you. You just have other things to do." — Alec Baldwin. [New York Magazine]
• "At one of the orgies there was this bunny - there was a rabbit, who was just sitting there staring at us. We all kept saying, 'Look that bunny's still there.' And after about 45 minutes, I thought, 'Maybe he's hurt,' and I started to walk over to it and it took two hops and I was like, 'Nope, he's just a pervert.' … He was pervy Peter Rabbit!" — Michelle Forbes, aka Maryann from True Blood. [People]
• "I'm happy to be a representative for curvier women, but I don't really want to be known as 'the fat one.' I don't really mind what people want to say about me, but it's just that I have two daughters and I don't want them growing up to believe that flesh is something to be ashamed of, particularly at their age. They need to understand not to take any notice. I'm happy with my shape." — Nigella Lawson. [Telegraph]
• "It's just a working relationship. We all have our different things that we're doing. We're not friends, but we are cordial." — Sheree Whitfield, on fellow Real Housewives Of Atlanta castmates NeNe, Kim, Lisa and Kandi, whom Sheree says she doesn't really hang out with. [E!]
• "It doesn't really matter, those are Michael's kids. He raised those kids. They were in his arms when they were born." — La Toya Jackson, when asked about the biological father of Michael Jackson's children. [NY Daily News]
• "I recognized myself in that character and most of all, I recognized that I have seen the Precious girls of the world and they have been invisible to me. None of us who see the movie can walk through the world and allow the Preciouses to be invisible again." —Oprah, on the lead character in Precious, the film for which she is the co-executive producer. [AFP]
• "[Director] Karyn Kusama and I are both outspoken feminists. We wanted to subvert the classic horror model of women being terrorized. I want to write roles that service women. I want to tell stories from a female perspective. I want to create good parts for actresses where they're not just accessories to men… The friendships that I had as an adolescent had this unparalleled intensity. I wanted to show how almost horrific that devotion can be. It's almost parasitic." — Diablo Cody on Jennifer's Body. [Reuters]

It's not just Diablo Cody and Karyn Kusama's flick Jennifer's Body that has people talking. There's Bright Star, directed by Jane Campion, (known for The Piano). Lone Scherfig directed An Education, an "offbeat romance," starring Peter Sarsgaard and Carey Mulligan. Niki Caro, director of Whale Rider, is back with her latest film, The Vinter's Luck. (I've read the book, which is quite good.) Plus, Drew Barrymore will screen her rollerderby romp, Whip It.

As Melissa Silverstein of Women & Hollywood writes, "The coming of age for young men is so common and finally we are starting to pay attention to young women. FINALLY."

In 2003, Sofia Coppola's Lost In Translation screened at the Toronto Film Festival and ended up getting a best director Oscar nomination. As the Times' Michael Cieply notes: "She is one of only three women ever to earn that distinction, the others being Lina Wertmüller for Seven Beauties and Jane Campion for The Piano."

Will any films directed by women end up with Oscar nods? Time will tell. But Women & Hollywood is tracking 2009's "Women-Centric Films," and from Precious to Coco Before Chanel to The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee and many, many more — so if there are no nominations, it certainly won't be for a lack of projects.

In Toronto, Directing Is Clearly Women's Work [NY Times]
Newsflash: Women Can Direct Movies, Watching Toronto- Young Women Coming of Age [Women & Hollywood]

• Did Rosie O'Donnell and Star Jones bond over their mutual issues with Barbara Walters? They may do a reality show described as "Oprah and Gayle King's cross-country trip [mixed] with Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie's The Simple Life." [Perez Hilton]

• Meghan McCain says she's honored to guest host The View this Wednesday and Thursday because the show is, "the only place where I could watch women of different ages and backgrounds talk about current events in an open forum." [Daily Beast]
• Chris Brown will perform in the Michael Jackson tribute concert in Vienna on September 26. It will be his first public performance since he assaulted Rihanna. [Us]
• Katherine Jackson and other members of the Jackson family are mad at Jermaine Jackson over the Michael Jackson tribute concert. A source calls it "the Jermaine Jackson show" and says the family thinks there's no reason to do a tribute concert in a city MJ had not particular connection to... aside from his love for castles. [TMZ]
• Sources claim a recent blind item about a reality star hooking up with a singer is actually about John Mayer and Kristen Cavalleri. Their "friends with benefits" relationship has evolved, and they're considering going public. [Janet Charlton's Hollywood]
• Production of the film Red Sonja has come to a standstill because Rose McGowan was injured while doing stunts. "I had wrist and elbow surgery and they took part of my elbow out. I had really bad nerve damage from doing stunts - I do a lot of my own stunts," McGowan said. "I could no longer use my arm, but now I can hold a fork and drive so we're working our way up. It'll probably be another six months of rehab, but It's the price you pay for being really limber and being able to do back flips!" No word yet on whether she will get a replacement arm made out of a machine gun. [Fox News]
• Brad Pitt supposedly spent £50,000 designing and constructing a gerbil run for his kids' pets. [The Sun]
• Whitney Houston's album "I Look To You" debuted at number one this week, selling more than 300,000 copies. [Showbiz 411]
• Chris Robinson, Kate Hudson's ex-husband, is expecting his second child with girlfriend Allison Bridges in early 2010. [Us]
• A source says the rumors that Kristen Wiig is going to co-anchor Weekend Update with Seth Meyers are not true. [Entertainment Weekly]
• A tribute video played at DJ AM's memorial last week was released online yesterday. It features him behind the turntables, with family members and various celebrity friends. [E!]
• After watching the video, Travis Barker Tweeted: "This vid makes me smile from ear 2 ear and tear at the same time, miss u homie." [TMZ]
• Clark Gable's grandson, Clark Gable III, was stabbed in the chest at a Los Angeles house party after calling another guest "a very bad name." Police have arrested one person and are looking for another suspect. [TMZ]
• George Clooney has donated £12,000 to a charity his ex-girlfirend Lisa Snowdon is raising money for by jumping out of a plane. A source says, "George was so impressed with Lisa's guts and determination that he wanted to help. Lisa had no idea how generous he would be until she logged on to her website and saw how much he had put down." [Daily Express]
• Christina Milianmarried music producer The Dream last week at the Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas. [TMZ]
• The heirs of J.R.R. Tolkien and New Line Cinema, which produced the Lord of the Rings trilogy, have settled a lawsuit, clearing the way for a two-film prequel based on The Hobbit. [AP]
• Elijah Wood is donating his genetic material to DNA 11, a personalized-art company that will create artwork based on his DNA. The work will be sold on eBay to benefit Art of Elysium, a charity for children with serious medical conditions. [People]
• Elle Macpherson's boyfriend Jeff Soffer is in serious debt due to a loan he took out to remodel the Fontainbleau resort in Florida, where Goldfinger and Scarface were filmed. [News.com.au]
• Karina Smirnoff and Maksim Chmerkovskiy of Dancing With the Stars have broken up. [E!]
• Chmerkovskiy dumped KSmirnoff because she was too high maintenance, according to a source who adds, "He simply couldn't take it anyomore." [Radar Online]
• Former Rolling Stones guitarist Bill Wyman says Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and other music video games, "encourage kids not to learn, that's the trouble. It makes less and less people dedicated to really get down and learn an instrument... I think it's a pity so I'm not really keen on that sort of stuff." [Telegraph]
• Taylor Swift wrote on her MySpace blog that when her backup singer Liz got sick, she sent her a get well card that "had a picture of a kitten making a sad face on the front. I feel like kitten cards make everything better, pretty much." She added, "I put Craisins in the card. Not packaged, just loose Craisins in the card," because they are, "basically the most awesome thing ever... Hopefully the combination of cute kittens and Craisins will bring Liz back to perfect health." [People]
• Hilary Swank says she didn't become interested in her current boyfriend/former agent John Campisi until her marriage to Chad Lowe started falling apart. She says, "There was no spark. What's interesting is, there was never anything. It wasn't until we were well into the dissipation of our respective relationships. Going through something so difficult at the same time, we became very good friends. We became closer and closer. It was so unexpected. We both recognised that if we were going to take the relationship to the next step, we could no longer work together." [Daily Express]
• Tony-winning singer-actress Christine Ebersole, who is currently doing a nightclub act with Michael Feinstein, says all she does all day is, "stay in my pajamas until I have to leave for work." [New York Magazine]
• Heidi Klum says she keeps her distance from Project Runway designers because, "Otherwise, I'd get too attached, and I'd take their life story into consideration, which I don't want to do. Either I like the clothes or I don't. I don't want to know that you live with your sick mother. I don't want to feel badly because they have a sad story, like, ‘Poor thing, let's keep him on.'" [NY Post]
• "OK, here's a problem that is holding back feminism and you see it on the blogs. We all hold each other up to an incredibly high standard in a way that men do not. Let's say a woman directs a movie that's not very good-everybody piles up on her. It's, like, "No! You're representing us! It has to be perfect!" And that's not how it works! Women should be allowed to make bad movies. Good movies. Porno movies. Terrible made-for-TV movies. Women just need to be out there directing as many movies as men do. We don't all have to be the model woman-what we need is to be more visible. We really, really are tough on each other." — Diablo Cody [The Frisky]