[Aspen, December 21. Image via x17.]

1.) Wanda Sykes' Sarah Palin pop-up book

2.) Tyra's "big" holiday give-away show
First of all, she doesn't even give the presents to everyone in the audience, just one audience member per gift. Secondly, she sounds more like she's on the street corner trying to sell us shit that fell off the back of a truck.

3.) These shirts:

4.) Tuna

5.) Same shit, different drunks
I missed the first two episodes of the new season of Bad Girls Club while away on vacation, but I caught the new one that aired this week, and it seems like I didn't miss much.

6.) Extreme Bathrooms
There was actually an hour-long show all about "extreme" bathrooms. I watched the whole thing, because it seemed like a Homer Simpson-y thing to do, but it was basically all like this:

7.) Babs
I don't know if it's all the years on television and all the awards she's received, or the onset of dementia, but it seems like every time she speaks now—about anything—she expects everyone to be fascinated, or at least impressed, with what she's saying.

8.) That's my Mariah!

9.) Mom who grows weed
A woman sold her hair salon and asked her son how she should invest her money, and he bought her a piece of land and turned her into a medical marijuana farmer. She's enjoying it.

10.) Last-minute Christmas gift idea
The Shady Lady brothel has just added male prostitutes to its roster. The madam there is offering coupons.

• We should have seen this coming: Lindsay Lohan and John Mayer were spotted sharing a table and dancing together at a New York club last night. "She was way into it," says an eyewitness, "She would follow his every move..."

• "He would dance with the waitresses and then come back," continues the source. Linds Tweeted about the evening: "@johncmayer shhhhhhhhhhhhhh butter-face :)" Where will he find the time to romance Linds if he's still hooking up with Jessica Simpson and fathering Jennifer Aniston's baby? (According to the tabloids.) [E!]
• The suicidal Tweets issued by "themichaellohan" weren't actually written by Michael Lohan — he doesn't even have a Twitter account. [Ok]
• Jessica Simpson said Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Miles Austin is hot, so TMZ says Cowboys fans should start worrying that the "Yoko Romo curse" is back on. [TMZ]
• Jennifer Aniston is launching a DVD for her yoga instructor, Mandy Ingber. "Jen works out with Mandy up to five times a week, and they have become such great friends she even takes Mandy on vacation with her. So Jen was delighted to help launch her DVD," says a source. [N.Y. Post]
• Rachel Uchitel, Tiger Woods' alleged mistress, says the story is bogus. "This is ridiculous. Not a word of it is true... I told the Enquirer and Star [the tabloids that broke the story] that it wasn't true. I told them not only did I have information to disprove the story, but I offered to take a lie-detector test." [People]
• However, two more women have come forward claiming they had affairs with Tiger Woods while he was married to Elin Nordegren — and they may have the voicemails to prove it. Jaimee Grubbs of Tool Academy fame told her story to Us and the other woman is still shopping her story. Grubbs claims she had a 31-month affair with Tiger that started in 2007 when she was 21. She told Us she has photos, racy texts, and a voicemail from November 24 in which he says his wife may be on to them. [Radar Online, Us]
• Tiger Woods' lip was split open after his car crash on Friday morning, but police sources say there was no blood in his SUV. [TMZ]
• The Florida Highway Patrol announced today that they're giving Tiger Woods a $164 ticket for reckless driving. There investigation is over and they will not seek any search warrants for his medical records. [TMZ]
• The Adams family, Tiger Woods' neighbors, have hired lawyers to talk to the media. They say Elin Nordegren asked the Adams' for help, which is why they called 911. They gave him a pillow and a blanket and waited for the ambulance. They say there were no signs that they were fighting that night and Elin was concerned for Tiger's safety. [TMZ]
• A judge approved a request from Jennifer Lopez's lawyer for an Emergency Court Order to keep the racy video she made with Ojani Noa from being released to the public. J.Lo didn't attend the hearing. [Radar Online]
• Jennifer Lopez's attorney says there is no "sex tape." "There wasn't anything close to sex in it," he said. "We never alleged that. But it's still private and personal to my client." After the decision Ojani Noa complained, "They're trying to stop me from making my documentary and I'm fighting for my rights... They're not being fair." [People]
• A home video of Marilyn Monroe smoking marijuana at a party in the late '50s has surfaced. The person who shot the film recently sold it to a collector for $275,000. [Reuters]
• Rihanna said her life is far from normal. "It's definitely more intense," she said. "Every day is another curveball, but now I know how to handle it. Every time you get put in a situation, it somehow makes you stronger." [E!]
• Rihanna admitted the leaked naked pictures of her are real. "They were for my boyfriend at the time," she said, "if you don't send your boyfriend naked pictures, then I feel bad for him." She added, "It was the worst thing that could possibly ever happen to me. I just felt like my whole privacy was taken before that [with the other photo leak] and then, when that came out, I thought, 'Oh great, so now there's nothing they don't know about me and my private life. It was humiliating and it was embarrassing – especially my mom having to see that." [People]
• The court date for TLC's case against Jon Gosselin has been moved from December 14 to December 10. [Radar Online]
• Those in charge of Michael Jackson's estate rejected 24-year-old Prince Michael Malachi Jet Jackson's claim that he's the late singer's lovechild, so he filed an objection asking a judge to "have determined that he is the biological son of decedent Michael Joseph Jackson ... and gain whatever benefits he is entitled to." [TMZ]
• Tori Spelling and Candy Spelling's feud may be over. They started talking in September when they were both in the hospital and Candy finally met her granddaughter Stella. [E!]
• Verne Troyer says his ex-girlfriend Yvette Monet, who just obtained a restraining order against him, just wants money from him and "at no time did I ever threaten Ms. Monet or even hint to her that I would harm her in any way." [TMZ]
• Lisa Loeb gave birth to her first child, Lyla Rose Loeb Hershkovitz, on Sunday morning. [People]
• Possible Lost spoiler: Emilie de Ravin was spotted shooting a scene for the final season with Evangeline Lilly. [E!]
• John Mellencamp's 14-year-old son Speck is asking people to start a Facebook group he created to get his dad to stop smoking. Mellencamp says he'll quit if he gets 1 million people to join. [AP]
  QUOTES
• It seems Ryan Reynolds didn't finish watching yesterday's episode of Regis and Kelly even though his wife Scarlett Johansson was performing at the end of the show. When asked if he saw it he said, "Wait. Was that the show with Matt Dillon?" [Showbiz 411]
• Kate Garraway, the host of Britain's GMTV, said after Mariah Carey appeared on the show, "I've heard a lot of rumours about her being a diva over the years and guess what? It's all true! While Mariah was very nice, the amount of people she had in her entourage was hilarious. They outnumbered the entire GMTV crew!" Now her bosses have forced her to apologize to Mariah. [The Mirror]
• Bill Clinton called his future son-in-law Marc Mezvinsky "a great human being," and, a source says, "Bill adores him. This is the son he didn't have... This is the relationship Bill didn't have with his father." [People]
• When asked who should play President Obama in a movie, Morgan Freeman said, "Denzel. Denzel could pull it off quite nicely. You would totally believe him." [U.S. News]
• Steffi Graf said of the first roses Andre Agassi ever sent her, "I wondered where they came from. Each rose was stunning. You felt every petal had reached the perfect moment of its bloom." [Vogue]
• "One of the reasons I think I've gained weight pretty quickly during my pregnancy is that I'm not exercising as much as I do normally ... I can't. I'm feeling tired, and I have this business to run," says Padma Lakshmi. "You hope that with age, what you pay for in gravity, you gain in gravitas. I'm sure my thighs looked better when I was 25, but I think my mind is better today." [People]
• In addition to acting on Mad Men, Bryan Batt owns a home decor and gift shop in New Orleans with his partner Tom Cianfichi. "It's something we always wanted to do," said Batt. "I've always loved gifts and shopping and design." [AP]
• Daniel Radcliffe says after the Harry Potter films are over, his next project will be starting a family. "No man, I've got kids to have yet!" he said. "They're going to keep me busy if I do – which I hope I do at some point. I'm not planning on it soon – that's one of the things I'm really looking forward to doing." [People]
• Mila Kunis says Darren Aronofsky offered her a part in Black Swan over iChat. Here's how their conversation went, according to Kunis: "Hey." "Hey. Do you want to do this?" "Video chat? "No, the movie." "If you just offered me the movie, I think you need to get on video chat and offer it to me." [BlackBook Magazine]

• Jennifer Hudson will sing for President Obama, Michelle Obama and their guests at a state dinner tonight.

I love that the Obamas love their Chicago gal. She should always be at the White House. For some reason, I am imagining a scenario in which JHud sings "And I am telling you… I'm not going…" And then actually refuses to leave. [ET]

• Miley Cyrus went for burgers, and when the counter person asked her name to mark the order, the teen dream said: ""Are you serious? You don't recognize me? I'm Miley Cyrus." The counterperson shrugged, having no idea what that meant, and replied: "That's nice for you. Here is your order. Have a good day." [Page Six]
• Wow, Carla Bruni is going to be in a Woody Allen movie! "I don't know for what role but I said yes," she explains. And she admits she lacks experience as an actress: Perhaps I will be very bad." [WSJ]
• Judi Dench was filming a Christmas special set in the 1840s when she lost a crown on her tooth. ''There wasn't time for me to change,'' she says. ''So I was in my wig and bonnet and all my clothes. I went into the waiting room and sat and registered, and everyone kept looking at me. When I got in to see the dentist, he said: 'Are you busy working at the moment?' I was wearing a full wig with curls." [Telegraph]
• BREAKING: Amber Tamblyn got eyelash extensions. [Page Six]
• Jon and Kate might be over, but the Jon Gosselin drama lives on! The breach of contract suit against him — in which TLC claims be took on unauthorized work — persists. Now there are — you guessed it — phone call recordings between Gosselin's manager and (who else?) Michael Lohan. [MSNBC Scoop]
• At the link, you can listen to a recorded Jon Gosselin rant about TLC and say: "I put my kids out there to every pedophile on the planet and they never got paid for it." [Radar Online]
• Mariah Carey was on GMTV in the UK, and the host of the show says: "She had two people to lower her on to the GMTV sofa, in case her dress got crushed, one person to walk in front of her backwards at all times in case she fell over and several people behind the camera making sure she was going to be filmed from the right angle! Oh, and she brought her own toilet roll as well." [The Sun]
• Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds partied all night for ScarJo's birthday, and ScarJo and RyRen looked so in love and everything was wonderful and their life is perfect. [Page Six]
• Regis Philbin will be away from Live with Regis & Kelly for a month while he recovers from hip replacement surgery. Be well Reege! [NY Post]
• Emma Watson has a new boyfriend, Spanish rock star Rafael Cebrian. Allegedly. [Page Six]
• Amy Winehouse spent thousands on "saucy" underwear, perfume and a rhinestone-enrcusted whip over the weekend. According to a source, "Amy loves showing off her new boobs and wanted to get sexy underwear to make the most of them. She couldn't resist getting a few other bits and pieces, like the whip." [The Sun]
• Remember when Nicole Kidman said she'd "explored obsession" and "strange sexual fetish stuff"? She takes it back, sorta: She meant when acting! "That's what I said in relation to my work. In terms of my work, yeah, I'm interested in exploring love and so that comes in all different forms. In terms of my private life, I'd never reveal what I've explored in my private life." [Daily Express]
• Just because Taylor Lautner is on the cover of Men's Health and Taylor Swift was on the cover of Women's Health doesn't mean they're in competition with each other. Jeez. [Page Six]
• A film about Lil' Wayne is controversial? You don't say. [CNN]
• For some reason I hallucinated that Cougar Town was cancelled. Instead it was just on a break while Courteney Cox dealt with a "family matter" and will be back filming on November 30. I would love to do a "when do you think Cougar Town will get cancelled" pool, though. [People]
  
• Neve Campbell talks about living in London, getting ready to film Scream 4, her "terrible" fashion mistakes in the past, her work with an orphanage in African and "working the Sidney bob" for the Scream flicks. [BlackBook]
• Timbaland says he did not delete Chris Brown's vocal from a track called "The One I Love" due to the drama in Chris' life — "Chris is a friend to us," a rep for Timbaland claims. But Chris is missing from the song. [E!]
• 50 Cent settled the lawsuit he filed against Taco Bell after the fast-food chain used his name without permission. The dollar amount has not been disclosed, but 50 was asking for $4 million, which buys a lot of 99¢ tacos. [NY Post]
• Tyler Perry has donate $1 million to the NAACP. [WaPo]
• Spencer Pratt bet some DJs that Heidi Montag's performance at the Miss Universe pageant was the most-watched performance of all time and now he wants his money. [TMZ]
• Jeez, the Aerosmith dramz is never-ending. Joe Perry is not speaking to Steven Tyler and seems generally hostile about the situation. [MTV News]
• It appears that Pulp Fiction writer Roger Avary is updating his Twitter account and Tweeting. From JAIL. [The Wrap]
• Rosie O'Donnell raised money for her Rosie's Broadway Kids charity not by offering trips or prizes or dinners — but by working the room. [Showbiz 411]
• Poor Kirk Cameron. Going to a UCLA to convince students that Darwin's theory of evolution is wrong really backfired on you, huh? The students totally know what they're talking about when they say Darwin had evidence. [TMZ]
• Tila Tequila claims a sex video that recently popped up on a porn site was stolen from her laptop two years ago. She's planning to sue. [TMZ]
• There will be a Susan Boyle documentary on the TV Guide Network? Isn't that the one where the channels scroll all day long? [NY Post]
• Little Richard is recovering from surgery and asks for your wop bop a loo bops and prayers. [USA Today]
• Whatshername would like to apologize for her behavior since her divorce. [BBC News]
• "I knew what tone I wanted for the book, and it was a matter first of coming up with an outline, getting the characters, the ending, and then figuring out how to get from one point to the next. I'd send [a chapter] to [my collaborator]. He'd come back with some notes. If there was something I felt strongly enough about, then we'd talk about it to see if it would work. The book had to sound like I wrote it." — Al Roker, on his new mystery novel, The Morning Show Murders. [The Daily Beast]
• "The difference between you and me is that even when I wash my hands, I can't get it out of my mind that they're not clean. I have to go back to the sink, I can't even continue with my day. I have to leave the party, leave work. Those thoughts are so intrusive and on a continual loop that I can't inhibit it. Everybody has irregular thoughts, but not like this… I'm probably the only guy set up for these book signings hoping no one will show up. I don't want to face anyone, look anyone in the eye. Who, with my condition, would do a book tour right in the middle of H1N1 flu season?" — Howie Mandel, whose book, Here's the Deal: Don't Touch Me, hits stores today. [USA Today]
• "Why are people embarrassed about elderly sex? I hate it when I'm given a script in which the guy's wife is dead. That's just an easy way to dispense with having sex. Audiences don't want to see Big Daddy and Big Mama in bed – but I like to talk about it." — James Earl Jones, who plays Big Daddy in the all-black stage version of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, now in London. [Guardian]
• "We have gotten ourselves into a big, deep hole in the way that we look at healthcare. We are in a system where they get money when we're sick. That's never going to work for us. So when someone says, 'You don't need a mammogram until you're 50,' you take charge of that. I don't trust any of that." — Melissa Etheridge. [People]
• "We were working 12 hours a day, so it didn't leave too much time to eat." — New Moon's Ashley Greene on staying thin. Then her publicist nudged her, and she said: "We had a personal trainer and then we also had fight training." [Ny Daily News]
• "It took us only six months to get married, but it took us five years to commit to making a movie together." — Tao Ruspoli, who made the indie flick Fix with his wife of seven years, Olivia Wilde. [Page Six]
• "I'm all set [with a boyfriend]. But unfortunately not everyone out there is and it's tough to date, to be out there and so I kind of wanted to portray that other side of women's reality and [my song] 'Did It Again' is about making recurrently the same mistake which is something us women tend to do because of our emotional nature, that emotional, romantic and dreamy nature." — Shakira. [AP]
• "He plays guitar and has a great voice. Kids and dogs love him. He loves his mom and sister and girlfriend. He's perfect... too bad he's ugly." — Natalie Portman on Jake Gyllenhaal. I know she's kidding, but I do suspect he's had a nose job. [Mirror]

Earlier: Oprah's Favorite Things 2007: The Audience Freaks Out!

[London, November 19. Image via Getty.]

• Amy Winehouse was supposedly in the hospital because she was sick, but now her dad says:

"It wasn't because she had a cold. She's fine, she just had a little [pointing to his chest] leaky something or other." All together now: What kind of fuckery is this? [The Sun]

• Mariah Carey is supposed to turn on the Christmas lights at a shopping mall in London, and has asked for 20 white kittens and 100 white doves as well as confetti shaped like butterflies to shower her after she emerges from a Rolls-Royce driven on a pink carpet to a podium where she will wave a wand to turn on the lights. A source says: "We did manage to source the doves that we were going to release into the sky, but the kittens proved terribly difficult. In the end, it was made clear that due to health and safety, there was no way we could have the animals." [Telegraph]
• Brad Pitt declined an invitation to the October 31 Grand Prix Ball Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates — even though he was offered $5 million to attend. He went trick-or-treating with his kids instead. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Levi Johnston "made a big show" of sitting in first class. [Page Six]
• Kirsten Dunst is windswept on the cover of Allure, and inside she says that she and ex-boyfriend Jake Gyllenhaal do not keep in touch: "It would be nice to see him," she says. "But we're not good friends." [Us Magazine via Allure]
• In this Q&A, Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke talks about casting Robert Pattinson as Edward, the "electricity" between Rob and Kristen Stewart when they auditioned for her, the sexytimes the cast got into ("You have this hot, young cute sexy cast and you're out of town at hotels. It's going to happen") and her encouraging RPattz to work out: "He's a Brit and they hit the pubs all the time. They don't look too kindly to gyms." She also says that when he first got cast, there were pix of him out and looking like a slob, and fans of the book were upset that he was Edward Plus: "One day he came to me and said, I got this email forwarded to me about how revolting I am. I said, Rob, you cannot read these things. Don't torture yourself. And he said, I didn't. My mother forwarded that to me." [Time]
• Robert Pattinson was at a signing, where "you kind of get 10 seconds with each person and you never really say anything and I kind of got bored of saying, 'Hey, how are you doing?'" So then: "[A fan] said in her 10 seconds, 'What can I do to get your attention?' I was like um, just take your clothes off." What do you think happened? "She stood there and frantically started taking her clothes off and got dragged out of the room by security. I never felt more terrible." [People]
• Is Nicolas Cage broke because of bad judgment? Or because he lived in a house with bad juju? The manager Cage sued in October countersued last week, claiming he warned Cage not to buy castles in England and Bavaria and that Cage ignored him. The guy claims he told Cage he would need to earn $30 million a year to maintain his lifestyle. But! Cage once owned the notorious LaLaurie House in New Orleans, where a doctor and his wife tortured slaves. According to legend, "Many people have lived there since, but every inhabitant moved out within months or suffered tragedy and death." [Page Six]
• Oprah Winfrey's sit-down with Sarah Palin was the highest rated Oprah show in two years… since the entire Osmond family appeared in 2007. [MSNBC Scoop]
• "Victoria Beckham Loves Sex and Salad, Not Burgers." [Us Magazine]
• Asked if she prefers sleep or sex in an interview with Allure, Posh responded: "Sex! I'm getting into bed with David Beckham every night, so, you know, there'd be something wrong if I said 'sleep.'" [The Sun]
• Taylor Swift is suing a sports bar for using her music without permission. [TMZ]
• Janet Jackson's label is putting a lot of effort and cash into promoting her greatest hits album, because they quietly signed her to a new contract next month. [Gatecrasher]
• Leighton Meester needs a doctor who makes house calls. Don't we all? [Gatecrasher]
• Carrie Prejean has been asking Donald Trump for advice; he suggests: "she should become a major porn star, make millions of dollars, and give it to worthy causes." [Page Six]
• Countess LuAnn de Lesseps is dating author Coerte Felske, a "handsome blond," who will be in Real Housewives Of NYC. [Page Six]
• Will Ferrell is Hollywood's most overpaid star, thanks to Land Of The Lost, which cost $100 million and made "only" $65 million. Surely he is trapped in a glass box of emotion right now. [Reuters]
• Brad Whitford, guitarist in Aerosmith, thinks Steven Tyler might be on something: "I suspect there's a lot more going on than we know about. He has a well-documented history of drug abuse, and I find myself very suspicious. I haven't seen him do this or ... have any personal knowledge, but the isolation is very typical of addictive behavior, and his — what I call — irrational behavior." [Reuters]
• Shaquille O'Neal is curating his first art show, titled 'Size DOES Matter.'" [Page Six]
• 50 Cent has opted for tattoo removal. "I took 'em off," he says. I've been on a few acting projects and they been making me get up… My call time is four hours before the regular acting talent because of the tattoos. I've got a project I'm supposed to be doing with Nicolas Cage, called The Dance, it's a boxing film… when you're a fighter you're sweating and with a whole bunch of make-up on and stuff like that, it doesn't look real to me." [MSNBC]
• Jennifer Hudson will play Winnie Mandela in an upcoming film; she says: "I was compelled and moved when I read the script. Winnie Mandela is a complex and extraordinary woman, and I'm honored to be the actress asked to portray her." Of course, she will also do what she does best: Sing the flick's theme song. [Gatecrasher via Variety]
• Heather Locklear's return to Melrose Place gave the ratings a small boost, so she'd better not end up dead in the pool. [NY Post]
• Sherri Shepherd and MVP are so on. [Gatecrasher]
• Joe Francis has tax problems. Serious tax problems. The IRS wants $33,819,087.14 [TMZ]
• Wait, Faye Dunaway owes $1920 in back rent? How much is her rent? How many months is that? [TMZ]
• Hamish Hamilton, who directed the MTV Video Music Awards, will direct the 2010 Academy Awards. Kanye's gonna let him finish… [MSNBC Scoop]
• Zsa Zsa Gabor is okay, her husband insists. "My wife is not dying — it is ridiculous… he gets all the tabloids and she sees the things and she just smiles. She says, 'Tell them I'm still alive.'" [ET]
• "[I decided to do the Tonight Show because of] how shitty it is just trying to develop comedy right now. How dumb ideas are seeming to be rewarded. How a lot of the networks seem to have basically thrown in the towel on comedy and said ‘We just basically don't know what we're doing or what works,' and we just kind of have more stuff where the dad's kind of a jerk, the mom knows best, and everybody just kind of insults each other for half an hour and at the end everybody says they love each other and tune in next week for it all to start again." — Andy Richter. [NY Mag]
• "I was always aware of acting. I remember watching movies on TV when I was young, thinking, 'Oh, come on, that isn't acting.'" — John Malkovich. [Spectator]
• "I've never seen it and nor will I ever. It's a cult. I don't believe in it." — Miley Cyrus, on Twilight. [MSNBC]
• "After we were done, I was like, 'Wow, America is so poor. Just the towns you come across — all that's there are restaurants and gas stations. There are beautiful stretches of pasture, but for the most part, people live simply. The East and West Coast are so different from the rest of America." — Kirsten Dunst and a friend took an "eye-opening cross-country road trip. [Us Magazine via Allure]
• "Having a girlfriend is like playing whiffle ball. Being married is the war in Iraq." — Jerry Seinfeld. [Page Six]
• "There are females doing it, theatrical and a bit over the top. Lady Gaga, Pink, Christina Aguilera — they all put on a show in the spirit of Madonna, dressing up and creating a theme. But there hasn't been a guy do it for a while. In the '70s and '80s there were a lot of artists that did it but for some reason it kind of fizzled out." — Adam "Glambert" Lambert. [Reuters]
• "That image to me seemed really striking and kind of wild. I felt I looked almost inhuman. It was that whole David Bowie-Ziggy Stardust thing where you think he is an alien. It is a weird image and I liked that it was weird. I am weird. I'm nice. But I'm weird. Maybe eccentric is a better word. I'll pick that label." — Glambert, on his album cover. [Reuters]
• "It's funny because Spanish people have no problem with nudity at all… And English people obviously do have the most enormous problem with it. Little things, like when I saw my father getting changed for swimming, I was traumatized by it… I kind of freaked out a bit. [I would get naked for a role but] I think it would depend on what it is. And I don't think a lot of people would really want to see that. I think it would ruin the illusion!" — Robert Pattinson. [NY Daily News]
• "Luke and I are engaged and we'll get married when I want to. But he isn't even 21 yet, so he can't drink in America, so what's the point in getting married until he can?" — good point, Kelly Osbourne. [The Sun]

• Nicole Richie has been complaining that she doesn't feel well for days, and now she's been hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai for pneumonia. Her rep says she's "doing well."

• On Sunday she Tweeted: "ok cold, it's been 6 days. Lets part ways graciously & keep it moving." [People]
• Amy Winehouse has spent a third night in the hospital after being admitted for mixing cold medications. [People]
• Michael Barrett has been officially charged with one count of interstate stalking for allegedly filming Erin Andrews in hotels around the country. [TMZ]
• Jennifer Lopez's ex-husband Ojani Noa claims he's been receiving death threats since threatening to sell the video they made during their honeymoon. "She's having him followed. We just ran the license plate of the car . . . and it goes directly back to Jennifer Lopez. Ojani's scared," says his lawyer. [N.Y. Post]
• Paris Hilton and Doug Reinhardt reportedly got into such a bad fight this morning that the police were called. An eyewitness said Doug got in his car, but Paris screamed, "don't go, don't go." He got out of the car and they started shoving each other. [TMZ]
• Paris Hilton denies that she and Doug Reinhart were fighting. She said: "Doug and I were in bed, sound asleep, when Doug's houseguests from hell got into an argument. We had nothing to do with it. Doug told the LAPD that his guests' fight was over and that we had nothing to do with it." [TMZ]
• Kate Major is planning to sue Jon Gosselin for breach of contract for violating their handwritten agreement. Kate resigned from her position at Star because, "Jon told her he would match the salary she was making at the magazine if she came to work for him as his personal employee," says a source. [Radar Online]
• Cindy Crawford's alleged extortionist, Edis Kayalar, cannot be extradited to the U.S. He turned himself in to German police on Monday, but the country doesn't have an extradition policy with the U.S. He is still facing charges because he's accused of emailing about transferring the money into a German bank account, which is against the law. [TMZ]
• The court has notified Roman Polanski's lawyers that a request has been made to allow TV coverage of his bail hearing on December 10. A judge hasn't decided if the cameras will be allowed or not. [N.Y.T.]
• Sarah Palin invited Levi Johnston to her house for Thanksgiving dinner on Oprah but he won't be attending. He told Playgirl it's "a nice gesture, but she didn't mean it." He said having dinner with the Palins would be "awkward." [People]
• The Sarah Palin interview gave Oprah Winfrey her biggest audience in two years. [Politico]
• We thought everyone knew this already, but Radar Online his confirmed that Carrie Prejean was over 18 when she took those nude pictures by analyzing her tan lines in various states of undress. It's unclear why she couldn't have tan lines at 17. [Radar Online]
• Carrie Prejean's dad says of her sex tapes, "The personal information they are bringing out against Carrie is irrelevant to anything." Will Prejean continues, "Carrie is supposed to be doing all of these TV appearances to promote her book, and everyone can only focus on the tapes... I'm not someone who looks backwards. I think we need to look to the future. Why isn't anyone talking about the charity work and all of the charitable organizations that Carrie's involved in?" [E!]
• In an interview on Good Morning America, Janet Jackson admitted that Michael Jackson's family staged several interventions about his drug use but "weren't very successful." She says he understood "that it was out of love," but in these situations, "people tend to be in denial." [TMZ]
• Somehow "Michael Jackson's estate" is fighting with Janet Jackson because her new song "Make Me" includes the line "Don't stop till you get it up," even though the people in charge of MJ's estate say they're unaware of the dispute. [ET]
• Sources say Evan Chandler, the father of the boy who accused Michael Jackson of molesting him, had been estranged from his family for three years before he committed suicide earlier this month and had changed his appearance with plastic surgery to avoid a backlash from the case. [Radar Online]
• Michael Jackson's kids attended the L.A. premiere of New Moon and avoided the paparazzi by sneaking in a side door. A friend says, "They loved it." [Showbiz 411]
• Whoa. Miley Cyrus may be the only 16-year-old who isn't into Twilight. "I've never seen it and nor will I ever," said Miley. "I don't believe in it... I don't like vampires. I don't like the wolf that pops out of the screen when I'm watching my TV at night. I don't like it. I don't want anything to do with it. I don't like the shirts. I don't like any of it." [People]
• Kristen Stewart says her character Bella "Has a lot of really innate female qualities... For a character in literature, I think it's awesome that so many girls can look up to her, because she's fickle and unabashedly (so)." [Reuters]
• Robert Pattinson says in his pre-Twilight life, "I loved driving around L.A. I know not a lot of people say that, but if you don't have to get anywhere, L.A. is the best place to drive 'round in. I used to have this little car, a convertible ... and I really do miss doing that, as the sun is going down, driving over the mountains. It's a great thing and I kind of do miss that a little bit. It's not really the same thing when you've got 10 cars following you." [AP]
• "I don't think there's something particularly alluring or topical about vampires right now that our generation takes to. I think it's more just that Stephenie [Meyer] wrote these characters with really creative, really gloried character traits. He's a vampire - he sucks blood and all that - but being a vampire is really just a symbol of who he is. I think if you take all of the mythical aspects away from the story, these characters would still be interesting. And they'd still stand. That's what people have become addicted to. At least concerning the fans. I don't think it's a vampire thing." — Kristen Stewart [Time]
• New Moon director Chris Weitz says he's quitting making movies after doing one more film. "Every time I make a movie I'm pretty much convinced it's the last time I'm going to be able to do it and that really it's a rather silly occupation to undertake," he says. "But I think I have maybe one more film in me." [People]
• Pamela Anderson says she has told her sons about the sex tape she made with Tommy Lee. "I knew the kids were going to watch [Borat] and there was a reference to the tape in the movie and they're that age and, you know, people are going start saying things," she said. "I just said, 'Look, Mummy and Daddy were massively in love, we videotaped everything, everything was videotaped, and you're probably going hear about something at school.'" [The Sun]
• Pamela Anderson says, "I've tried it (cocaine) and I don't like it. I'm completely hyper and it actually doesn't work for me. I've dabbled in things." [Contact Music]
• Nicolas Cage, a U.N. ambassador, went to a jail in Kenya to talk to the suspected Somali pirates. "Then I'm in a position where I can actually make some sense and talk about it when I go back to the States where I go talk to different U.N. councils and discuss the matter," Cage said. [AP]
• Andrew Lloyd Webber has be re-admitted to the hospital after developing an infection following surgery for prostate cancer. [AP]
• Penny Marshall has liver cancer, according to The National Enquirer. "Most people would have been devastated, crying on the shoulder of friends and family. But not Penny - she was angry!" said a family source. "The last thing Penny wants is for anyone to feel sorry for her." [National Enquirer]
• Jennifer Hudson will play Winnie Mandela in Winnie, Clint Eastwood's movie about Nelson Mandela's ex-wife. "I was compelled and moved when I read the script," Hudson said. "Winnie Mandela is a complex and extraordinary woman, and I'm honored to be the actress asked to portray her. This is a powerful part of history that should be told." [People]
• Clint Eastwood says the U.S. is "becoming more juvenile as a nation. The guys who won World War II and that whole generation have disappeared, and now we have a bunch of teenage twits..." [Daily Express]
• The Black Eyed Peas' manager, Liborio Molina, won't face charges for punching Perez Hilton in the back of the head. Here's what Molina wrote: 'I apologize for what I did on June 22 of 2009, even though you engaged in highly offensive comments, including a homophobic slur to my clients, I acknowledge that these kinds of issues should not be resolved through a physical response." [TMZ]
• Liborio Molina has also agreed not to contact Perez HIlton and cannot carry any weapons for a year. [AP]
• Precious will be awarded the Producers Guild of America's Stanley Kramer Award, which goes to a film that tackles provocative social issues in a constructive way. [N.Y.T.]
• Kirstie Alley Tweeted about being the butt of Conan O'Brien's fat jokes saying, "ONE BITCH I'm gonna knck [sic] out next time I see her is CONAN O'BITCH O'BRIAN [sic]. That guy acts like I bit his dick off." Star Jones Tweeted back: "You know Conan probably 'wanted some' and you chumped him...I know a few brothers from Brooklyn who owe me! LOL" [Us]
• Roger Moore was named the 2009 Person of the Year by the U.K. branch of PETA for campaigning against foie gras. [Reuters]
• Mariah Carey was late to the British show This Morning, so host Phillip Schofield Tweeted: "Sitting here twiddling our thumbs waiting for Mariah Carey. la la la laaa," before adding: "It's her album... which we will talk about IF she hurries up!" [The Sun]
• Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair got into a fight at a press conference in Australia. Some say it was staged to promote a wrestling even, but in the picture at the link Hogan's head is coated in blood. [TMZ]
• Fantasia Barrino's fans are upset because she's dating a married father of two who left his wife and kids to move in with her. [Star]
• Robin Williams, who split from his wife of 19 years in 2008, has found love again with graphic designer Susan Schneider. A source said, "Robin truly believes it's no coincidence that Susan came into his life right before his heart operation. He told a pal, 'She saved me - she helped me heal.'" [Daily Express]
• Tyra Banks tried to get model Jessica White, who has been seen holding hands with Sean Penn, to confirm that they're dating, but she said, "I hold hands with my friends." [Us]
• Daniel Radcliffe will guest star in The Simpsons' "Treehouse of Horror XXI" next season. [ONTD]
• Hugh Jackman has forgiven his mother for abandoning the family when he was young, and was spotted spending time with her in New York yesterday. "My mother was not well," Jackman has said. "I always hoped she would come back, but I never blamed her for anything that went wrong. At the time, I was miserable and angry, and my brothers and I used to fight all the time." [News.com.au]
• Carrie Underwood says she isn't moving in with her boyfriend Mike Fisher. "Call me old-fashioned. He's there. I'm here... We're both doing our thing and it's good. The next guy I move in with will be my hubby. Whoever that is. I'm not saying it's going to be him." [People]
• Jessica Simpson Tweeted about her sister Ashlee Simpson-Wentz's Broadway debut: "I can't wait to watch @ashsimpsonwentz on broadway in all of her glory!!! I get chillbumps from toes to noggin thinking about it!!! YAY!!!!!" [Us]
• Pete Wentz said, "I just spent the last weekend – Mom was rehearsing for Chicago – being Dad without a nanny, without Mom, and didn't burn the house down, so I'm pretty excited about that." [People]
• Jessica Szohr says "we had fun" shooting the Gossip Girl threesome. "Penn is really easy to work with and very professional and [so is] Hilary," Szohr said. "We just went with it and tried to make it as easy as possible." [Us]
• Sandra Bullock says her family didn't like her going blonde for The Blind Side. "It was entertaining for a couple of months but it's not really my color palette," she said. Her husband didn't like it either. "Thank God an important person in my life didn't want me being blonde. He was like, ‘I don't like the blonde on you. You want him to say that!" [People]
• "I want boobs, a gentle six-pack and a perky butt," says Amanda Peet. "If I could choose an ideal body, I'd take Gisele Bunchen's. I challenge anyone to say she wouldn't want Gisele's body, deep down... Actually, I'd take a number of people's bodies. I'd take Jennifer Aniston's, too." [People]
• Susan Sarandon is going to meet table tennis legend Jan-Ove Waldner when she travels to Stockholm to receive an award next week. "It was on her initiative, we just made the effort to find him," says Git Scheynius, director of the Stockholm Film Festival. "She's actually involved in a table tennis club in New York — that's one of her greatest hobbies." [Reuters]
• "I feel like I have learned a lot. The movies could not be more different," says Penelope Cruz of her upcoming films Nine and Broken Embraces. "To be able to sing for the first time professionally and dance, it was a scary experience. Broken Embraces is like three women in one. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world." [Reuters]
• Vera Farmiga says she was drawn to the film Up In The Air because, "I thought it was a refreshing spin on feminine desire. It's something you don't too often get to see, a woman being so demanding and libertine and unapologetic about her sexual prowess. She's an adventuress; she's a full-blown romantic operative. That was pretty exciting. And tricky. Because usually, female characters who are so masculine in their needs can come across as lacking dignity. Alex represents to me what's so hard about being a woman, post-feminist. Wanting it all: a family, a career. That sort of pendulum between romance and respectability, virgin-whore, all these lady problems we have to contend with and there will never be an answer to. A modern heroine of sorts." [L.A.T.]
• Heidi Klum says she's wearing something sexy when she hosts the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, even though she wants to lose weight. "I have some great one-of-a-kind latex pieces that were made for me. I figure why not? I embrace that I have more curves right now," said Klum, "I'm definitely one of the heaviest of the bunch of the 30 girls in the show. And I still have 20 lbs. to go... But why not? I like my outfit. I like the way it looks on me." [People]
• "I have a really big scrapbook. I still actually have these notes that Marty Scorsese wrote to me while we were making The Age of Innocence. I save everything. I definitely have that gene in me. Someone was telling me about this show called Hoarders. I was like, 'Oh no!' I save everything. I'm scared I might be a hoarder." — Winona Ryder [Daily Express]
• Martha Stewart says Rachael Ray is "more of an entertainer ... with her bubbly personality, than she is a teacher, like me. That's not what she's professing to be," adding, "To me, she professed that she could — cannot bake... She — just did a new cookbook which is just a re-edit of a lot of her old recipes. She — and that's not good enough for me." Rachael Ray responded: "Why would it make me mad?... Her skill set is far beyond mine. That's simply the reality of it... I'd rather eat Martha's than mine, too." [Us]

• John Mayer went to a gay club in Palm Springs on Saturday night. According to an eyewitness, a man approached him and "planted a big kiss right on his lips – and John seemed to enjoy it!"

• The whole club cheered, says the source. [Radar Online]
• Farrah Fawcett left $4.5 million to her son Redmond O'Neal in a trust. Her nephew, father, and ex-boyfriend Greg Lott each received $500,000 or less. Ryan O'Neal and her best friend Alana Stewart received nothing. [Star]
• Chris Brown says he isn't ready to date yet. "I've been kinda chillin'," he says. "I mean, I'm Chris Brown. I'm not saying it like that, but it's just, like, girls are gonna be around. I love women. But I would say I've just been chillin'. I haven't really been trying to get into a relationship or trying to date anybody. I've just kinda been working on me. Like I said, just really getting me straight." [People]
• Jon Gosselin's lawyers are demanding that TLC not be allowed to seal his contract with the network in their lawsuit. They claim TLC is "hiding" the contract from the public and said it "will no doubt become a learning tool used in Contract 101 Law School classes as an example of what not to do when drafting an agreement that you want to be enforceable." [Radar Online]
• "I know my haircut takes a lot of flak as far what people call it and whatever," says Kate Gosselin. "But it works for me and I have very thick hair and it's easy and that's what I need." [People]
• Amy Winehouse wants to get a nose job because she says the tip looks "witch like." A source says, "Since her boobs, she's been scrutinising her body. Everyone tells her there's nothing wrong with her nose. But Amy does nothing by halves. Now she's beaten drugs, plastic surgery must not become her next obsession." [The Sun]
• Amy Winehouse was admitted to the hospital last night because she had an adverse reaction to cold medicine. "Amy took over-the-counter stuff for a cold but it didn't agree with medication she takes for her on-going recovery. She felt rubbish when she woke on Sunday morning," said a source. "A doctor came to her house and advised her to go to the hospital to make sure she was all right." [Daily Express]
• The jury selection in the trial of Barry P. Carpenter, one of the two men accused of breaking into the home of Sarah Jessica Parker's surrogate Michelle Ross, began today. The prosecutor announced that Ross will testify against him. [E!]
• Janet Jackson says she thinks Dr. Conrad Murray is responsible for Michael Jackson's death and shouldn't be allowed to practice medicine. "He was the one that was administering," she said. "I think he is responsible." [ABC News]
• In court today, the mother of Dr. Conrad Murray's son said she'd waive the $13,000 he owes her in child support as long as he pays her $1,003 a month from now on. The judge said he didn't understand why she waived the back pay, but it's her right to do so. [TMZ]
• Vivid Entertainment offered Carrie Prejean millions of dollars to distribute her sex tapes but she turned them down. [TMZ]
• The family of the pilot who died in the South Carolina plane crash that DJ AM and Travis Barker survived settled with the companies that operated and owned the plane for $500,000. [TMZ]
• Carrie Underwood says the rumors that she's moving in with boyfriend Mike Fisher are untrue. "I read something recently that a certain someone and I were moving in together. This is beyond not true...just another example of people making stuff up out of thin air!" she wrote on her blog. [Us]
• Lisa Kudrow says there probably won't be a Friends reunion because "everyone is busy" and the original writers and creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane won't do it. "I guess they don't think it's a good idea," she said. [Us]
• 50 Cent and BET are sponsoring 50's Money For Moms's contest, in which single moms can enter an essay contest to win three prizes of $10,000. Or, as the press release puts it: "Amidst tough economic times, 50 Cent is implementing his own stimulus package, specifically to help single mothers." [UPI]
• Jay-Z, Will Smith, and Jada Pinkett Smith have singed on as producers of the new Broadway musical Fela!. [N.Y.T.]
• Ashlee Simpson-Wentz has confirmed that she'll be starring on Broadway in the spring. "I'm honored to be reprising my role as Chicago's Roxie Hart, returning to the stage and joining this amazing cast," she says. "Being on Broadway is a childhood dream come true." [People]
• Ryan Reynolds will perform in the comedy Celebrity Autobiography: In Their Own Words next week. He'll read from Kenny Loggins The Unimaginable Life: Lessons Learned on teh Path of Love. [N.Y. Times]
• Lady Gaga says her performance on Gossip Girl tonight is "a little bit more of a fashion montage... It's very performance art." [People]
• Chace Crawford says of training for his role in the Footloose remake, "I can't get too detailed with it, but it's an all-around training process. It's very intense. But I'm learning exponentially, which is good. I started off in the frustration zone, and now it's gotten to where I enjoy going every day." [N.Y. Magazine]
• Jenna Elfman, who is pregnant with her second child, says, "You know, the main cravings are done with. Now it's just eating in general. I like stuffing food down my face." [People]
• Helen Mirren will receive the Lifetime Achievement award at the Women In Film And Television Awards on December 4. [The Mirror]
• Katie Price is worried that she'll have to eat animal genitalia on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here."I bet I get to eat a willy. I can't eat a willy!" she said, "I have requested that because I have veneers [on my teeth], if there is anything nice and chewy, I better have a knife and fork - otherwise I won't be able to chew it." [The Sun]
• Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag were supposed to be interviewed by Al Roker again on the Today show this morning, but a rep for the show said, "Due to a change in the show's schedule, we had to cancel the interview with Spencer and Heidi Pratt." [Us]
• Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt say they are pitching their own reality show to networks. They want to do both The Hills and their new show at the same time because, Heidi says, "you don't get to see our everyday lives and what we do." [AP]
• "My plan is to maybe stop taking my birth control," says Heidi Montag in a clip from The HIlls. "Spencer doesn't know how much he wants a family. I think we need a family — and I'll make the call!" [Us]
• German cops temporarily detained Dennis Rodman today because he was accused of bailing on a $5,100 alcohol bill at his hotel room. He thought the hotel was picking up the tab and paid when he was pulled over. [TMZ]
• Penny Marshall addressed the rumors that she's "battling for her life" after being diagnosed with brain cancer and liver tumors saying, "I know... there's all that shit. I'm walking and talking and I'm fine." [Extra]
• "I got sober for good on December 7, 2008," says Jodie Sweetin. "I was flying to L.A., and I ended up taking a bunch of Nyquil and drinking a s—-load. When I got home, I got a call that there was an emergency custody investigation because of my drinking. From that day forward, I threw myself into going to AA and avoided people who do blow off their coffee tables." [Us]
• Jessica Alba wrote an editorial for The Huffington Post about her recent trip to D.C. to campaign for 1GOAL: Education for All. "I believe that 2010 is the year for a breakthrough on global education," wrote Alba, "With the World Cup in Africa and the eyes of the world on the continent, we can connect the energy of this global game with the power of the negotiating table at the world's leading forums like the G20, G8 and UN Millennium Development Goals Summit." [Huffington Post]
• Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino says, "I wanted different things for Rory. I wanted her to follow a different sort of path… [go] off on her own adventure, which I guess she sort of did. I haven't [actually] seen the last season, but I heard about it from other people." [EW]
• Reese Witherspoon says, "I like to throw things away. I'm obsessed with garbage." After holidays she'll put some of her trash in her neighbors' cans and says, "I also put on rubber boots if there's too much garbage and I'll stand on the garbage and smash the garbage down... I'm, like, a garbage compactor." [Daily Express]
• Mariah Carey is upset about illegal music downloads. She says: "Frickin' idiots! A lot of big, powerful music industry executives made a giant mistake and now we're all paying the price. They gave the music business away on the internet. If they had just sat back and said, 'Maybe let's figure this internet thing out, it could be something cool,' we could have found a way to distribute music online on our own terms, not somebody else's. Prince had already shown them the way. He was so far ahead of the curve, putting his records out on the web. Everyone else was stupid." [Contact Music]
• Nicole Kidman says she got cast in Nine because she was breast-feeding at the time. "They're not very big, my boobs, so they just became normal size. I loved it!" she said. "I felt very Woman. When you've had a slightly androgynous body your whole life, having breasts is a nice feeling... I wouldn't get cast now." [People]
• In Going Rogue Sarah Palin writes that the line she wanted to say to Alec Baldwin on Saturday Night Live was, "Hey, Baldwin, weren't you supposed to leave the country after the last election?" He has always insisted his line about leaving the country if George W. Bush won was fabricated. His rep says, "It's a complete fallacy. But then, once Palin knew that, after telling her [it wasn't true], she said, ‘Well, let's say it anyway,' like she needed it to be true." [Hollywood Insider]
• In The Private Lives of Pippa Lee Julianne Moore plays a lesbian who commands Blake Lively to receive a spanking. "Julianne is very professional," said Lively. "I thought it was going to be really awkward, but as soon as they called action she snapped into the strongest character-it made it easy for me not to laugh or feel weird." As for wearing a leash, Lively said she felt, "Scared, but kind of enjoyed it." [Style]

• Victoria Beckham put away her Hermes bags and Louboutins and wore shredded jeans and combat boots as she joined son Brooklyn and spent 2 days with impoverished children in Kentucky.

At the link, you can see pix of Posh hanging with schoolkids. Brooklyn is one of Save The Children's youngest celebrity advocates. Posh says: "What I saw in Clay Country was the hope and promise inherent in every child. That's why we have to make sure every single child has a fair and equal start in life. Seeing Save the Children's innovative programs in action, like encouraging healthy eating, I know that we can begin to reverse the childhood poverty crisis. I'm pleased Brooklyn is learning that by helping and joining other children he can play a role in making his generation the greatest yet." [Daily Mail]

• Taylor Swift is on the cover of the new 3D issue (?!?!) of In Style, and inside she talks about meeting Taylor Lautner on the set of Valentine's Day: "He and I have gotten really close," she says. "It would be confusing on the set with two Taylors in the same scene. They were like, 'Taylor, on your mark – no, not you, the other one!' So halfway through the shoot, I said, 'How about you guys call me Swifty and call him Taylor?'" She also says: "I've never thought it was a curse to be single, and at this point in my life, I'm in the mind-set where I choose to be single — like I got to light scented candles and write in my diary and I wouldn't have time for that if I had a boyfriend right now!" [People]
• Oprah claimed that citizens of Dubai get free water, electricity and health care without paying income tax. While it's true residents are not subject to income tax, there is no support for the other claims. Whoops! [Page Six]
• The National Enquirer is reporting that David Letterman's wife asked him to move out; his rep says the story is "wrong." And it appears that reporters from the Enquirer called Dave's mom for a statement, because they are jerks. Her comment: "I don't know anything about that." [NY Daily News]
• This one is real, not a Hortense creation: "Sombre Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie look distant on a rare night out as they join A-listers at art party." [Daily Mail]
• Cops in Germany have searched a home in connection with the Cindy Crawford extortion case. The apartment might belong to Edis Kayalar, the guy who allegedly tried to get Cindy and her husband to pay him not to release a photo of their daughter bound and gagged. [TMZ]
• Vivid Entertainment is trying to buy Carrie Prejean's "erotic footage." [TMZ]
• Diddy's 40th birthday party will be a "fantasy dreamland" with fashion installations, a labyrinth, performance art and light shows. Plus a "very special" musical guest. Who could it be? [Page Six]
• Holy crap, the stills from "Video Phone," Beyoncé's video with Lady Gaga, look weird and amazing. The video should be out this week. [The Life Files]
• Mariah Carey pulled out of a performance on Brit TV show Strictly Come Dancing so she could appear on competing show X Factor. [Telegraph]
• Hayden Panettiere is producing a CW show called HMS — Harvard Medical School — which basically sounds like Grey's Anatomy Junior. [ET]
• Ryan Reynolds will be part of the NYC theatrical comedy show Celebrity Autobiography: In Their Own Words, in which stars read humorous snippets from celebrity memoirs. Ryan will read from Kenny Loggins' The Unimaginable Life: Lessons Learned on the Path of Love. Also reading: Rachel Dratch, Carol Kane, Sherri Shepherd, Michael Urie, and Kristen Wiig. [NY Times]
• Courteney Cox — and husband David Arquette — are looking forward to being in Scream 4. She's not sure about the plot, but imagines that: "He's probably still deputy, and I've had a lot of kids. I don't know. I'm probably miserable, and then I'm sure a lot of murdering will happen." [AP]
• Flavor Flav entered a Doritos commercial contest "randomly and unprovoked" and his spot is "pretty damn good." [Page Six]
• Sigourney Weaver has been named in a £3.1 million lawsuit over a business deal involving Vincent Longo cosmetics, of which she is a part-owner. [Daily Express]
• Eva Longoria Parker has been named Philanthropist of the Year by The Hollywood Reporter. [THR]
• Did you know that Simon Cowell has an older sister named June Cowell? And that she was a child actress? And that she has lived in Majorca for more than 30 years? You do now. [Daily Mail}
• Shayne Lamas was busted for a DUI — she says she had only one drink. [TMZ]
• Did Farrah Fawcett have a "secret lover" in her will? [Daily Express]
• Uncle Jesse John Stamos gets a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame today. [ONTD via NBC Los Angeles]
• Run, Fez, run! Wilmer Valderrrama will join a US Marine veteran on a 100-mile trek across Louisiana. [Page Six]
• If Aretha Franklin wants you to turn the air conditioning off, turn it off! Don't release voicemails and call her a diva. Jeez. [Gatecrasher]
• Hello, random: Donna Mills of Knots Landing is not a fan of Carrie Prejean. More specifically, she thinks the beauty queen should "shut her mouth." [TMZ]
• Black people: Omitted from the Couples Retreat poster in the UK. [Mail on Sunday]
• Lou Dobbs says his departure from CNN was "amicable." [NY Times]
• Yesterday in NYC, while attempting to break up a brawl at a club in Brooklyn, cops shot and killed a bouncer who had once been a bodyguard for Jay-Z, Mariah Carey and Diddy. [NY Post]
• At the link, discover how Led Zeppelin wrote "Stairway to Heaven." [NY Post]
• "I'm not moving to America, I will sometimes go there. I have to go there to make films. We do make films in England but it's more like a hobby. They're like 'Come along, we can make a film. Oh, and can you make the sandwiches?'" — Russell Brand. [Mirror]
• "I'm hoping the chemistry with Ellen will be great — and a great start to the season." — American Idol's Kara DioGuardi. [Reuters]
• "In hindsight, it was a magnificent thing for both of us in the sense that we got to see, both of us, really commit to this. A lot of marriages, it might take years and years for something to befall the relationship to see what are we made of. Are we gonna stand up when the storms come? And to see that that early on was really, it was life changing for me 'cause I knew I was with somebody that was in this. They're really, really in this. And so, I wanted to be in this, too. We both just stepped up to the plate, and she followed her heart, you know, God bless her. It was all life-changing." — Keith Urban, on going into rehab four months into his marriage to Nicole Kidman. [CBS News]
• "Having Jude Law licking my face for three days solid was a surreal experience. It was for a scene in 2007's Blueberry Nights. My character had passed out on a table and Jude had to come in and kiss some cream off the corner of my mouth. We did the take over and over again, so he kissed me about 90 times. There are worse ways to spend your day." — Norah Jones. [Daily Mail]
• "My life was kind of weird. My mother would cook, but we would get looked after by lots of maids. It felt like we lived in these big, enormous houses with lots of guests." — Carey Mulligan's father was a hotel executive, so she lived in hotels while growing up. [Reuters]
• "I can't answer it. The way I write, it's what makes me happy. Like, I can't write when people are looking over my shoulder. I am a little burned out on vampires right now. I think I need a little break. I might go spend some time with my aliens. I might do something completely different. I've got to cleanse the palate. I may come back to it. I did envision it as a longer series. But I wrapped ‘Breaking Dawn' in a way that I felt satisfied with, so if that moment didn't come, I'd be OK." — Stephenie Meyer on the possibility of a fifth Twilight book. [MSNBC Scoop]
• "My sister has an incredible body. I feel sorry for anyone who would judge her, because she's one sexy lady." — Ashlee Simpson. [People]
• "I hate doing school scenes and office scenes; I hate doing mall scenes… if I could do exciting genre films like this and be covered in blood and vomit for the rest of my life, I would be really happy." — Megan Fox. [Showbiz Spy]
• "I own the rights to (Oscar-winning Gone with the Wind co-star) Hattie McDaniel's life story, and I can't wait to tell that story, because that woman was absolutely amazing. She had to stand up to the adversity of black and white (society) at a time when we really weren't accepted. Mr. Lee Daniels is going to direct it, of course, and I'm going to be Miss Hattie McDaniel. I really hope I can do that woman justice." — Mo'Nique. [Reuters]
• "I love to get on that stage, honey, and make you laugh until you pee on yourself… That's my baby. I will never stop stand-up. I will be 97 years old, with two teeth and maybe a bit of hair, and I will be on that stage hoping they're having as much (fun) as I'm having." — Mo'Nique. [Reuters]
• "I feel bad for kids who are just getting famous now. If Reality Bites had come out now and I had all those people Gawker-stalking me, my life would have been hell. I feel bad for the way pop culture seems to be eating itself alive. It ends up belittling everybody."— Ethan Hawke. [NY Post]
• "When I was very young, I used to see books as the thing keeping everyone from playing with me. So there'd be long stretches in the afternoons when everyone was off in their reading corners, sprawled on couches. And I would go up to them and do this little dance to try and break their concentration, which of course they never did: ‘I'm bored!' ‘Go read a book!' ‘I'm bored!' ‘Go read a book!' And of course, now I dream of having long stretches when I'll be able to read a book." — Olivia Wilde, on being the child of writers. [New York Magazine]
• "My mother was a major fashion inspiration. Though she often wore simple housecoats with penny loafers - and usually had a Pall Mall Gold in one hand and a small glass of Scotch in the other, with an empty Hellmann's mayonnaise jar full of ice water nearby to use as a chaser - she could dress up fabulous when she wanted to. In her wedding photographs she wore a perfectly tailored navy blue coat with an off-white lining that had big, hand-painted navy blue flowers. She paired it all with navy pumps and a pillbox hat with an ivory veil. My mother certainly knew how to make an impression when she wanted to, both in the way she dressed and the way she acted. I definitely inherited those strengths from her." — America's Next Top Model's Miss J, in his new book. Do click and see the lovely vintage photo of his mother. [NY Daily News]
• "I'm like, let me get through the taping of Top Model cycle 3,413… Then I'll move to phase two, but I'm thinking about a perfume for tweens." — Miss J, on what he plans to do next. [NY Daily News]

• Could Michael Lohan go to jail for the phone calls he's been leaking?

Apparently Dina Lohan has had a protective order since 2005 — and it bans Michael Lohan from communicating with Dina by email or phone through 2011. One of the calls is supposedly from 2008, meaning Michael definitely violated the order. [TMZ]

• A "source" on Nicole Kidman's face at the Country Music Awards: "She looked freakish; She just had her lips done, and now she looks like Meg Ryan." [Page Six]
• Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart are dating! Director Catherine Hardwicke says so! But she says: "It didn't happen on the first movie. Nothing crossed the line while on the first film," since KStew was 18. Now that she's 19, it's on! TWILIGHT IS REAL ZOMG SPARKLEVAMP 4EVA BITE ME. [Us]
• Because he is awesome, Johnny Depp has offered to take care of Nicolas Cage's debts. Apparently Johnny was a struggling musician when he met Nic in the '80s, and Nic sent Johnny to his agent, who cast Johnny in Nightmare On Elm Street. [Daily Express]
• Levi Johnston had his Playgirl shoot yesterday, which involved a hockey stick and, naturally, nudity. Levi's manager Tank Jones says: "The shoot was fantastic! People are going to see more of Levi than they thought." Grrrreat. There's another shoot today; may we suggest a moose-skin rug? Or an igloo? [Us]
• Levi Johnston says he sees his upcoming memoir becoming a movie. "I would play myself," he says, naturally. [Gatecrasher]
• As previously mentioned, Chris Brown went to a Footaction store on Wednesday, and was heckled. A woman shouted, "I hope someone beats the fucking shit out of you!" Today Chris will be on Wendy Williams saying he's been "perceived wrong" and I'm definitely remorseful, and it's not something that I take lightly or think that it's, like, under the rug." [Page Six]
• Before the Country Music Awards, Wynonna Judd said Taylor Swift's nomination for Entertainer Of The Year was "too much too soon… I want kids to earn it." But now she says: "My intent was not to take anything from her talent and contributions to the country music industry… Taylor is a beautiful, hard working young woman that deserves the success she has had and I support her as an artist and as a woman in the business." Sure, sure. [Us Magazine]
• Lily Allen has hurt her foot after falling while carrying a suitcase down a flight of stairs. [The Sun]
• DVR alert: Kathy Griffin will be on Law & Order SVU. [TV Guide]
• Balloon Dad Richard Heene turned himself in yesterday and was released on a $5000 bond. [ET]
• Richard Heene will plead guilty to felony charges, his lawyer claims. Mayumi Heene will plead guilty to false reporting to authorities — a misdemeanor. Is there a law against making everyone worry? [NY Post]
• Amy Winehouse is working with a Miami-based producer on her third record, but her visa issues keep her from traveling. [The Sun]
• If you would like to see a mug shot of Cindy Crawford's alleged blackmailer, click the link. He's a former model who took a photograph he found in Cindy's nanny's room, and the pic shows Cindy's daughter bound and gagged for a "prank." [TMZ]
• Nadya Suleman would like for you to know that she is a competent mother. [Us]
• Some guy is auctioning off Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley's marriage certificate from when they tied the knot in the Dominican Republic in 1994. The names Jackson + Presley = ca$h. [Perez]
• 20-year-old Daniel Radcliffe smoked pot and a party and it is "news." [Mirror]
• Geena Davis has gained weight and it is "news." [NY Daily News]
• Whoa — Emmy Rossum met Adam Duritz via Twitter? [People]
• BREAKING: Vivica A. Fox and 50 Cent are no longer pissed at each other. [Page Six]
• Rumors abounded but now it's official: Rebecca Gayheart and Eric Dane are expecting their first child. [Gatecrasher]
• In this video, David Beckham talks about playing with the LA Galaxy today, which means missing an England vs. Brazil game. [Guardian]
• Lil' Kim is being sued for $20,000 by British club promoters who claim she accepted money but then did not appear at an event, saying she had a nosebleed. No, really. [NY Post]
• Aerosmith's management reportedly asked Steven Tyler to perform in a wheelchair. "I just wouldn't do it," Tyler told Rolling Stone. Not even if you were contractually obligated to do the gig and hurt yourself acting crazy on stage? Hmm. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Tori Amos' fantasy band would have Janis Joplin on vocals, Stevie Ray Vaughn on guitar, Bootsy Collins on bass and Zeppelin's John Bonham on drums. [Independent]
• In "10 Questions For Tony Hawk," the skateboarder says: "I don't want to name names. I'm just saying many Olympic sports require less physical effort and less talent than skateboarding." [Time]
• Chris Mann wrote the Three's Company tell-all book Come and Knock on Our Door, and served as consulting producer on NBC's behind-the-scenes movie about Company. On his blog, he writes that before John Ritter died, he was asked about Suzanne Somers' supposed breast cancer, and Ritter said: "We don't know if Suzanne has cancer or not, because she lies." [Retroality.tv]
• Jon & Kate is being replaced by Cake Boss, a show that seems super scripted but still pretty funny. And unlike those weird "challenge" cake shows, the cakes actually look edible and delicious. [NY Post]
• Zsa Zsa Gabor has tax problems. Will she have to move to the country and live on a farm with a pig named Arnold? Oh wait. That was Eva. Anyway, Bernard Madoff is to blame for this. [TMZ]
• Saturday Night Live Christmas 2009 airs December 19, and will feature the best holiday sketches from the show's 35-year history. [NY Post]
• TMZ lifted images from Radar Online. [Page Six]
• The Coen brothers are remaking True Grit, with Josh Brolin instead of John Wayne. [NY Daily News]
• "Look, I really am the last British actor who's not in any of the Harry Potter films. I was looking for something I could do that would make me cool in the eyes of my daughter." — Michael Sheen, of Frost/Nixon and, more importantly, New Moon. He also says: "I had to say to my daughter, 'I heard someone talking about this character Aro in these books. Do you know anything about that?' And she said, 'Yes, he's the leader of the Volturi and he reads people's minds. Are you playing him?' Of course I said, 'no, no, no'. When it was all worked out, she cried. Then she hit me." [Independent]
• It feels weird to do interviews because I don't understand why anyone wants to talk to me. There were all these other guys in high school that were bigger, funnier, and more handsome than I was, so why do you care about what I have to say? You should ask them." — Jason Schwartzman. [Advocate]
• "I'm not aware of any fans. I do nothing to live in secrecy, but I really don't get recognized anywhere. Though I was walking my dog recently when someone yelled, 'Hey, Jason!' They said it so sweetly that I turned around and said, 'Hey!' Then they said, 'Fuck you, you asshole!' and drove away." — Jason Schwartzman. [Advocate]
• "I had friends growing up, but I struggled to feel like I really fit in. If I was invited to a party, I would just end up sitting on a couch or standing in a corner by myself. But it wasn't like I was getting beat up or anything. I wish I had gotten beaten up, because at least that would've justified why I felt so homesick all the time, even though I was home." — Jason Schwartzman. [Advocate]
• "Susan Boyle is a lovely gracious woman, and I took advantage of that by poking fun at her." — Sharon Osboune, who, a week ago, said SuBo looked like she'd been hit by a "fucking ugly stick." [NY Post]
• We were disappointed, but we understand. He's only 1. But we were in Alaska and have plenty of footage of Trig." — Barbara Walters wanted to have Sarah Palin's grandson Trig in the studio, but he has a cold and couldn't make it. [Page Six]
• "It's disgusting that people would say those things. My sister has an incredible body. I feel sorry for anyone who would judge her, because she's one sexy lady. There's gonna be a time when I'm way curvier, and that'll be sexy, too." — Ashlee Simpson is tired of people calling Jessica Simpson fat. Ashlee also says her husband loves her body:"Pete isn't worried about stretch marks," she says. "He always makes me feel good." [Gatecrasher]
• "I have half-a-dozen close friends and Mariah is among the dearest. I flatter myself that the relationship is reciprocal: Mariah and I share a strong, sisterly friendship. She signs off all her letters to me with the affectionate endearment: 'Your sis, M.' Though she is stupendously rich and I am relatively poor, it is a friendship of equals. She visits me in my small home; I am a frequent guest at her various mansions and holiday villas all over the world." — from a piece written by a former MTV host who stayed friends with Mariah Carey after meeting her through work. [Daily Mail]
• "There are so many young girls wearing too much makeup, too much hairspray — I find that very dated." — Victoria Beckham. [Gatecrasher via Harper's Bazaar UK]

[London, November 11. Image via INFDaily.]

The Precious star is asked if she gets star struck. She answers:

Totally! And by the most random celebrities. Steve Buscemi was at one of our premieres, and I was like, Holy shit! It's Steve Buscemi! My big creep moment, however, came early on while filming Precious. Paula Patton, who stars in the film, is married to Robin Thicke, who I love. He's so tall. He came to set and hugged me, like a good seven or eight times, and I nearly died. But I kept it cool. I kept it together. And then he left, and I started crying, like sobbing.

On the first time she met Oprah:

We were in a small room with low ceilings. All of the suits that are associated with this film were pushing me towards her. But I'm scared of her, so I'm shifting backwards. But she sees me, and keeps inching closer and closer. She can't get to me fast enough, because she's Oprah and everyone wants to talk to her. I'm the only idiot in the room trying to get away from her. Finally, I'm backed into a wall and she gets to me. She hugs me and then I see her mouth moving, but I hear nothing. All I remember is that her favorite color is green. I always wear purple and she was wearing purple one day, and I think I said, Oprah, stop stalking me! And she said, "Purple is a very pretty color on you. Everyone thinks it's my favorite color, but really, it's green." That's all I remember.

On meeting Mariah Carey:

The first time I saw her was at Lee Daniels' apartment. She walked in and behind her I saw a trail of glitter and diamonds-but that's my perception of her, because she's Mariah. All that vanished on the second day of filming when I realized she's just a girl. Maybe it helps that I saw her without makeup, wearing polyester clothing.

On meeting Helen Mirren:

Helen Mirren didn't end up [being in Precious], because she got a real offer that paid her money instead of chicken wings.

‘Precious' Star Gabourey Sidibe Talks Mariah, Mo'Nique, & Oprah [BlackBook]

1.) Toes
Tyra had guests this week who get fake toenails put on.

And there were these idiots, who pay $65 a session to have their toes read.

2.) Mariah
She made the talk show rounds. She stumbled on Leno.

Then she went on Larry King Live, where she blinged out his logo.

And then smelled her tits.

Also, Larry serenaded her.

3.) "Where are you?"
Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew premiered this week. One of its cast members, Nicole Narain, was on The Joy Behar Show, where she answered Joy's question a little too literally.

4.) What happens when you slouch in Judge Judy's court.

5.) Cougars
The Insider is taking this taking this cougar thing way too far. Although, I do like the little glimpses of Wasilla townies we get.

Niecy Nash is now literally referred to as "the resident cougar," and for the past two weeks, she's been going on dates with younger men.

Is this supposed to be sexy? Chest stubble and exaggerated nipples?

It reminds me of when Homer got plastic surgery so that Marge wouldn't leave him for a younger man.

And his nipples cried.

6.) Heather from Rock of Love on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
She played a hooker.

7.) Why did Sandals have to ruin a perfectly lovely song?

8.) Jon Gosselin implied that he's on the same professional level as Mary Hart.
And she didn't like it.

9.) Kirstie Alley on her coke days.

10.) Michelle Obama is fun.

Precious, which opens today in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Atlanta, is based on the novel Push by Sapphire and executive-produced by Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, who came on board after its screening at Sundance. The film is set in late 80s Harlem, where 16-year-old Claireece Precious Jones (Gabourey "Gabby" Sidibe) is facing more hardships than it seems one person should ever endure. Her mother Mary (Mo'Nique) physically and emotionally abuses her and she's pregnant by her drug addict father for the second time. She's illiterate and mostly quiet (at first), but has an elaborate inner life the film portrays in fantasy sequences. When Precious is threatened with expulsion because she's pregnant she's offered the chance to transfer to an alternative school. Her new teacher, Blu Rain (Paula Patton), and Mrs. Weiss (Mariah Carey), a social worker, help Precious begin to deal with the abuse she's suffering.

While a less elegantly done movie could have fallen into several syrupy clichés about underprivileged kids learning to love themselves with the help of an attentive mentor, critics say the film avoids these pitfalls. The story is inspirational and (as Latoya writes) surprisingly hopeful, but it doesn't gloss over the ugliness of Precious' life and she doesn't overcome a lifetime of abuse in two hours.

Critics mention all the main leads as Oscar contenders, particularly Sidibe and Mo'Nique. Happily, most of the reviews focus on Sidibe's incredible performance rather than her size, with the notable exception of David Edelstein's New York Magazine review, which some found infuriating. A few critics question why all of the positive protagnoists are portrayed by light-skinned actors and Slate's review calls the depiction of Precious' reality "poverty porn". A roundup, below.

The Wall Street Journal

Precious is genuinely and irresistibly inspirational. If the filmmaking weren't so skillful and the acting weren't so consistently brilliant, you might mistake this production for a raw slice of life from a Third World country where movies can still be instruments of moral instruction and social change. If Ms. Sidibe weren't playing the title role, it's hard to imagine what Precious would be. She doesn't play it, she invades and conquers it with concentrated energy and blithe humor.

The Chicago Sun-Times

Sidibe is heartbreaking as Precious, that poor girl. Three other actresses [Mo'Nique, Paula Patton, and Mariah Carey] perform so powerfully in the film that academy voters will be hard-pressed to choose among them... This casting looks almost cynical on paper, as if reflecting old Hollywood days when stars were slipped into "character roles" with a wink. But Lee Daniels, the director, didn't cast them for their names, and actually doesn't use any of their star qualities. He requires them to act. Somehow he was able to see beneath the surface and trust that they had within the emotional resources to play these women, and he was right... The film is a tribute to Sidibe's ability to engage our empathy. Her work is still another demonstration of the mystery of some actors, who evoke feelings in ways beyond words and techniques. She so completely creates the Precious character that you rather wonder if she's very much like her.

Salon

What Daniels seems to recognize, perhaps even unconsciously, is that even though this is supposed to be Precious' story, for most of it she's a passive, if sensitive, receptor: The forces swirling around her provide most of the drama's dynamics. And within that context, Sidibe's performance is understated but alert. It's not her line delivery that gets to you, but the cautious curve of her smile, a smile in which she indulges only occasionally. When we see her going off to her first day of school, the blue plastic beads she wears around her neck are a dash of visual confidence, offsetting the shyness of her lumbering carriage.

New York Magazine

I'm not judging girls who look like Sidibe in life, but her image onscreen is jarring to the point of being transgressive, its only equivalent to be seen in John Waters's pointedly outrageous carnivals. Her head is a balloon on the body of a zeppelin, her cheeks so inflated they squash her eyes into slits. Her expression is either surly or unreadable. Even with her voice-over narration, you're meant to stare at her ebony face and see nothing. The movie is saying that she's not an object, but the way that Sidibe is directed she becomes one. It's only in a couple of heavy-handed fantasy sequences (she emerges from a theater in a bright-red gown to popping flashbulbs) that her eyes are windows to the soul.

Entertainment Weekly

In her first dramatic role, the comedian Mo'Nique acts with such force that she burns a hole in the screen. Her Mary is raging and defeated, a woman who treats Precious as a slave - and I don't use the word lightly, since part of the film's power is its perception that these two are living out patterns of cruelty that go back for generations. Their agony has roots. What's terrifying about the abuse here is how casually it's accepted as a fact of life, by both perpetrator and victim.

The New York Times

Mary, brimming with rage, thwarted love and plain meanness, is a character bound to provoke discomfort. Even otherwise misogynistic hip-hop artists will pay tribute to the heroism of African-American mothers, and to see that piety so thoroughly dispensed with is downright shocking. Other provocations are more subtle but no less pointed. There are virtually no men in this movie. Precious's father is glimpsed briefly in flashbacks of his assaults on her, and in the fantasy sequences that provide escape from her pain Precious hobnobs with handsome boys, but otherwise the only male character of significance is a hospital worker played by Lenny Kravitz. Otherwise, Precious's cosmos, for better and for worse, is a universe of women: the social worker (Mariah Carey scrubbed of any vestige of divahood); the teacher, Ms. Rain; her co-worker in the remedial education program, played by the comedian and talk show host Sherri Shepherd; and Precious's fellow students. These characters all can be seen as surrogate mothers, aunts and sisters, who together provide Precious with a more functional family (to say the least) than what she has at home. But their love is also enabled by institutions and government policies. An unstated but self-evident moral of Precious, set during Ronald Reagan's presidency and based on a book published in the year of Bill Clinton's welfare reform, is that government can provide not only a safety net, but also, in small and consequential ways, a lifeline.

The Los Angeles Times

Like the book, the dialogue is graphic and politically incorrect. Precious' first child, a daughter, is called Little Mongo, because of her Down syndrome. When the teenager finds one of her teachers is a "straight-up lesbian," she says so before going on to list all the things homosexuals haven't done to her. With Mary, meanwhile, it's not so much the words themselves that shock, though it sometimes seems her vocabulary doesn't extend beyond four-letter words, but the molten lava underneath them.

Reel Views

Precious ... manages the task of being both heartbreaking and heart-warming, all without resorting to the kind of manipulation so often evident in dramas about underprivileged kids trying to improve themselves. There are pitfalls inherent in this kind of story, but indie director Lee Daniels sidesteps them, crafting a feature that is both emotionally honest and stirring. Precious spends time in the urban trenches that are often used as a colorful backdrop for other less true films; here, they are integral to the essence of the characters, places where acts of supreme horror are dismissed matter-of-factly. Ultimately, Precious is a story of one young woman's embrace of self-worth in these circumstances, but that discovery does not come without a price.

Rolling Stone

When I tell people how good this movie is - and I can't shut up about it - they flash me the stink eye. As in "Yeah, right, like I need to sink into a depression coma for two hours watching a fat, illiterate, HIV-positive Harlem girl get knocked up (twice) by her daddy, brutally battered by her mother and laughed at by a world eager to pound abuse on her 16-year-old ass." Won't you dickheads be surprised. Precious ... tunnels inside your head, leaves you moved like no film in years and then lifts you up in ways you don't see coming. Despite the pain at the story's core, the movie has a spirit that soars.

The Village Voice

Hothouse melodrama one moment, kitchen-sink (and frying-pan-to-the-head) realism the next, with eruptions of incongruous slapstick throughout, this may be Daniels's stab at finding a cinematic analog for the novel's inventive, naïf-art language-a film style, like Precious's writing style, seemingly being made up as it goes along. Yet even when the movie is at its most schizoid, Precious still packs a wallop. What Daniels lacks as a craftsman, he makes up for in his willingness to put the lives of abused and defeated black women on the screen with brute-force candor and a lack of sentimentality... Precious is less about overcoming adversity than about survival-a battle the movie does not begin to pretend can be won in two hours of screen time.

The Hollywood Reporter

Damien Paul's edgy and effervescent screenplay propels us into the inner recesses of primitive survival. It's a magnificent distillation, both succinct and eruptive. Director Lee Daniels sagely navigates the story from Precious' cavernous inner world through her synaptic flashes of fantasy that momentarily allow her to transcend her personal hell. As Precious, Sidibe is superb, allowing us to see the inner warmth and beauty of a young woman who, to her world's cruel eyes, might seem monstrous. As Precious' hideous mother, Mo'Nique is cruelty incarnate. It's an astonishingly powerful performance.

The New Yorker

Blu Rain['s] powers of uplift feel like make-believe. She is a vision of tolerant gentleness, who wears a new set of soft fabrics every day and plays Scrabble in the evening with her equally lovely lesbian partner. "They talk like TV stations I don't watch," Precious says, but that tart line is not borne out by the film, which drinks in Ms. Rain without demur. The same goes for the fantasy sequences-hugely ill-advised dream clips, showing a richly clad Precious at a movie première or slow-dancing with a hunk. One of them even finds a slender white girl gazing back at her from the bedroom mirror. What we have here is a fouled-up fairy tale of oppression and empowerment, and it's hard not to be ensnared by its mixture of rank maleficence and easy reverie. The gap between being genuinely stirred and having your arm twisted, however, is narrower than we care to admit.

Slate

It's not that there isn't anything to like about Precious, which at its best resembles its heroine: observant, large-spirited, and brave. The director, Lee Daniels puts on his hip boots and wades into grimmer territory than any recent film I can think of, and his fearless leading ladies, Mo'Nique and Sidibe, wade right in with him. But Daniels' methodical commitment to abjection, his need to shove the reality of Precious' life in our faces and wave it around till we acknowledge its awfulness, winds up robbing the audience (and, to some extent, the actors) of all agency. Daniels is not above cutting from an image of incestuous rape to a shot of greasy pork sizzling on the stove: Her father treats her like meat, get it? In its eagerness to drag us through the lower depths of human experience, Precious leaves no space for the audience to breathe or to draw our own conclusions. For a film about empowerment and self-actualization, it wields an awfully large cudgel... Daniels and Fletcher no doubt intended for their film to lend a voice to the kind of protagonist too often excluded from American movie screens: a poor, black, overweight single mother from the inner city. But in offering up their heroine's misery for the audience's delectation, they've created something uncomfortably close to poverty porn.

Women & Hollywood

Precious challenges and assaults every nerve ending. It pushes the viewer to see people that are mostly invisible in the culture (and onscreen) and humanizes them. But Precious is by far not a perfect film. The script by first time screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher is really far fetched and paints a picture that is only there black and white (not talking about color here) and full of stereotypes. For example, the women who brutalize Precious are dark skinned while the women who help her are lighter skinned. What does that mean? Is it intentional? What if anything is he trying to say? What is most missing from the film is nuance and gray areas and that is clearly the directing choice of Lee Daniels. He wants you to think in extremes because Precious' world is extreme.

Ain't It Cool News

Precious is an achievement that will take a long time for me to shake. Even if I didn't like what I saw or heard at times, I'm glad someone like Daniels is out there making movies that move me to such a degree and remind me that there are people and things in the world that can still shock me into feeling something about a character and a film as deeply as this film did. This is a story of a survivor that doesn't fall back on big speeches, swelling music, angels and kittens; there's very little about this movie that would qualify as "feel good." But I did feel something after seeing it, and that's a rarity these days.

Earlier: Long Day's Journey Into Night: Reading Push, watching Precious
Precious Reactions Interesting, Infuriating
Push Comes To Shove: Precious Pushback
What We Talk About When We Talk About Precious

Hope was the last thing I was expecting when I delved into the story. Foremost on my mind was a Racialicous post from January, "Reveling in Bleakness," an essay that digs into the issues surrounding Push/black literature in mainstream culture; furthermore, any online discussion of Precious, was followed by mention of writer Percival Everett's book Erasure, a literary response to Push published in 2001. In short, all initial discussion of the book and the movie was a race and class-related cacophony, and I hadn't even opened a page.

I settled in for what I thought would be an extremely painful and devastating read...or, worse, something so disgusting and exploitative that I would reject it outright as poverty pimping. Instead, I fell headlong into the alternately horrific and hilarious world of Precious Jones, a world that felt simultaneously familiar and alien. Precious' rapid fire thoughts, and casual allegiance to Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam are fascinating, as is her openness to the world, even as she is limited by her life's circumstances. I understand the impulse to cringe at her story, painted as it is with dysfunction and pain (the graphic depictions of sexual and physical violence aren't for the faint of heart). But again, I read the novel dry-eyed. Perhaps I didn't have any tears left to shed for Precious. I've been holding in the secrets of others for years - and although the circumstances described in Push are extreme, they're not unimaginable. I smiled when I closed the book.

The next day, I hopped on the train to NYC to catch a screening of the film adaptation. Again, I prepared for a devastation that did not materialize. I did break down - especially during Mary's final monologue - but I spent a lot more of the movie laughing along with the title character (sometimes, life is so fucked up it moves into the absurd, which is what happens in Precious.; but the abject misery of the dank apartment Precious shares with her sadistic mother is mitigated by many other scenes, especially those of Precious' fellow students reclaiming their lives and their narratives).

My favorite character, outside of Precious, is Joanne. Actress Xosha Roquemore clearly evokes the spirit of Remy Ma and drops her into the 1980s. I died laughing at her empathy and warmth, undercut with flourishes of hard posturing.

The film does many things well, starting with the Susan L. Taylor cameo as the fairy godmother who opens the film's first fantasy sequence. Daniels is able to capture the horror of what happens to Precious without glamorizing the violence, making use of quick cut scenes and strategically placed fantasy sequences to pull both Precious and the viewer away from the acts committed upon her. In addition, Daniels stays fairly true to the book, pulling many lines directly from the pages. In addition, Daniels makes wonderful use of visuals - the laughter-filled, happy scenes with Precious in the hospital, surrounded by friends and a doting vegan nurse (Lenny Kravitz) provide a stark contrast with her return to the brown void with her mother.

Though I would count the film as a success, there is a major stumble that took place when moving the book from page to screen.

Over at Feministing, Rose writes:

A few days remain until Precious debuts across the country on Nov. 6th. The story, originally told by Sapphire through the novel Push, is an ode to negotiating inclusion and exclusion in the media. It's about much more than the New York Times' account: a "Harlem girl raped and impregnated by her abusive father." (That's practically all the ink dedicated to Precious the character despite an accompanying a column that extends for 5 pages.) It's about inclusion and what it says about who is valuable in our society. That's best captured in Push, when Precious explores this:

I am comp'tant. I was comp'tant enough for her [Precious' mother] husband to fuck. She ain' come in here and say, Carl Kenwood Jones—thas wrong! Git off Precious like that! Can't you see Precious is a beautiful chile like white chile in magazines or on toilet paper wrappers. Precious is a blue-eye skinny chile whose hair is long braids, long long braids. Git off Precious fool! It time for Precious to go to the gym like Janet Jackson. It time for Precious hair to braided.(64)

But what I love about the book is that Precious is not a defenseless subject. She is a survivor who resists against her exclusion by striving for her own inclusion. She does this by learning how to read. She then uses her literacy to read about the lives of Black women through writers such as Alice Walker, Ann Petry, Ann McGovern and others. The story ends with her literally penning her own story fully epitomizing the agency she had all along despite sexual trauma and despair.

This is precisely my take. From the beginning of the novel, Precious' voice explodes on the page, providing us with a heroine who may not be the most educated or literate, but has a vibrant inner life. This doesn't exactly translate on screen - Sidibe voices some of Precious' thoughts, but slowly, and nowhere near as many random, flitting ideas are explored in the movie. This omission changes our perception of Precious - in the book, she is bright, quick-witted, and runs a constant narration about the things she has encountered in her world. And once she discovers the alternative school, the reader is excited as Precious is finally given a chance to express what she is thinking - she has a space in which to speak where she is valued, as well as a new method (writing) that unlocked more possibilities for reflection, introspection, and discussions.

In the film, these elements are flattened a bit. I'm aware that books cannot be translated exactly to the screen, but condensing Precious' thoughts removes a lot of her own agency. For example, after Precious acts out in math class and gets into a verbal confrontation with her teacher, Mr. Wicher, she feels some remorse and ruminates on a goal that's slightly out of reach:

I didn't want to hurt him or embarrass him like that you know. But I couldn't let him, anybody, know, page 122 look like page 152, 22, 3, 6, 5 - all the pages look alike to me. 'N I really do want to learn. Everyday I tell myself something gonna happen, some shit like on TV. I'm gonna break through or somebody gonna break through to me - I'm gonna learn, catch up, be normal, change my seat to the front of the class. But again, it has not been that day.

This was on page five. Sapphire establishes her acharacter as wanting something more, knowing there is something more, but not quite understanding how she can reach her goal. The movie makes the classroom scenes closer to a "Freedom Writers" scenario, with Paula Patton veering way too close to the typical "nice white lady" trope.

Ah, Paula Patton.

While I think Patton is gorgeous and talented, I don't think she did the character of Blu Rain justice.

Part of this is not her fault - the character of Blue Rain in the book is considerably darker, with dreadlocks. Now, this may not seem so important on its face. After all, casting makes character changes all the time, right? This shouldn't be this big of a deal.

And it wouldn't, if the character of Precious wasn't so thoroughly indoctrinated with self hatred, displaying her color consciousness throughout the entire book. In Push, after she has her first child, Precious wastes no time in calling an EMT a "spic", quickly revising her opinion of him to use the more respectful term "Spanish" and comment on his "coffee-cream color, good hair" after he comes to her aid. Her nurse in the hospital is described as "butter color" - Precious worships light skinned people in general, whites most of all, believing that if she were white, her life would be better. She says:

My fahver don't see me really. If he did, he would know I was like a white girl, a real person, inside.

Marinate on that for a second. She would be real if she were white.

He would not climb on me from forever and stick his dick in me 'n get me inside on fire, bleed, I bleed then he slap me. Can't he see I am a girl for flowers and thin straw legs and a place in the picture. I been out the picture so long I am used to it. But that don't mean it don't hurt.

In Precious' mind, whiteness is equivalent to being loved, safe, and wanted. The movie briefly touches on this, showing Precious looking in the mirror and seeing a young white girl peering back at her, but this moment is robbed from its potency unless you are exposed to the constant self-hatred throbbing in her brain.

On a broader scale, as many others have noted, the positioning of Paula Patton and Mariah Carey as Precious' light skinned saviors reinforces existing societal ideas - the evil or helpless dark skinned people being uplifted (or punished) by the benevolent light skinned people. The casting serves to help reinforce existing prejudices that we see played out onscreen time and time again.

Even outside of that, Patton's portrayal of Rain did not make me believe that she was someone Precious could trust. That Mad TV sketch I linked to above? That was the scene between Precious and Blu Rain after Precious confesses she is HIV positive. Down to the heavy handed command, "write."

The other moment in the film that radically departs from the book is Mary's final monologue. In the social worker's office, Precious' mother gives voice to what caused her to look the other way when she knew her child was being sexually abused, and gives insight into why she chose to perpetuate this dysfunction. In the book, this speech isn't much of a speech - it's a confession, with Precious cursing her mother out in her head the whole time. And while the sight of the film's monstrous antagonist breaking down and offering to forgo the sacred welfare for a chance to be reunited with her daughter adds to the movie immeasurably, I don't think Mary should have automatically been humanized on principle. If you want the evil mom to be given full representation and humanity, go read the Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. But here, I think Sapphire deliberately chose not to humanize Mary's character. Why? I believe the answer lies on page 31.

I talk loud but I still don't exist.

In life, the character of Precious Jones is marginalized and invisible, ignored unless someone wishes to do her harm or use her in some way. Her only refuge is her mind, where she keeps herself company. And thus, Sapphire - who revealed a bit of this sentiment in her recent interview with Katie Couric - makes the entire novel about her. It's all about her thoughts, her eyes, her reactions, her perceptions. (The other girls publish their stories in a supplement after Precious' story ends.) And so, shifting the focus to anyone else would ultimately start to overshadow the story of Precious, even for a moment.

There is so much more I could write - perceptions about the film, familial violence, sexual abuse, black stereotyping, the single story conundrum, other critics take's, race and Oscar bait, what I thought about Erasure - but those will have to wait for another day.

Precious [Official Site]

Related: Reveling In Bleakness [Racialicious]
Erasure [Amazon]
The Not-Rape Epidemic [Racialicious]
Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire [IMDB]
On Representation: Push Versus Precious [Feministing]
Reflections On Lola [The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao] (Part 1 of 2) [Racialicious]
Katie Couric Interviews Sapphire [What About Our Daughters]

Earlier: What We Talk About When We Talk About Precious

Reason #580 that I love her: She tries to be classy by insisting that her fragrance Forever is called a "parfum" instead of a "perfume," and then she goes digging in her cleavage on television.


Mariah on Mariah.


Also, Larry's interviewing skills are questionable.