[Hollywood, October 14. Image via Bauer-Griffin.]

[Los Angeles, October 2. Image via WENN.]

• More on this is Midweek Madness, but Star is reporting that Justin Timberlake and Rihanna are "on." Here's the deal:

They've been talking and texting "nonstop" since the VMAs; but Rihanna doesn't want to be "his lady on the side." A source says: "She asked him on the phone, ‘Are you still with Jessica?' And he hinted that things were cooling off between them." [Star]

• If you were at the Bourgeois Pig on East Seventh Street the other night, you would have seen Madonna eating with Jessica Seinfeld and Jesus Luz… Then Anderson Cooper "rolled up on his bicycle and joined them." [Page Six]
• Rose McGowan has broken off her engagement to Robert Rodriguez. Does this mean no Red Sonja? But what about the awesome poster?!?! [Radar Online]
• Uh-oh! Bomb scare on the set of The Green Hornet, starring Seth Rogen! [TMZ]
• Hospitalized twice in two days? Get well soon, Tori Spelling. [Page Six, People]
• Chris Brown says he's trying to make as much music as possible — while doing community service at the same time. Multitasky. [TMZ]
• "How to fix Jon and Kate? Lose the Eight… Kate Gosselin is and has always been the show's central character. How she mothers, how she bosses her husband around, how she cuts her hair and tucks her tummy - that's what the show is really about." [MSNBC Scoop]
• Lamar Odom says his wedding to Khloe Kardashian was not fake: "It's crazy how perception works in America when you're looking at things from the outside… Anybody that was there will tell you that it was a beautiful event and it was real." [People]
• Some hairstylist claimed he did Khloe Kardashian's hair for her wedding — at a cost of $4500 — but KK didn't actually use him and actually never heard of him. [TMZ, NY Post]
• Michael Jackson's estate is suing the "Heal The World Foundation," which claims it is linked to MJ, but had no connection to the pop star and, in fact, "became dormant before he died." [CBS News]
• Rihanna is being sued by a neighbor who claims she had been allowing cars to drive on his lawn to get to her driveway; she denies causing any damage. [TMZ]
• Daniel Radcliffe: Taking driving lessons. [Telegraph]
• Jessica Alba is in talks to join the cast of Little Fockers, along side Ben Stiller and Bobby De Niro. According to this story, she'll play an "attractive" pharmaceutical rep "whose looks wreak havoc on male characters." In other words: They don't need her to act. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Uma Thurman will star in Ceremony, a flick directed by Max Winkler — Henry's son. Uma will play an older woman who is about to get married when a young man falls for her; the young man will be played by Michael Angarano, aka Kristen Stewart's (ex?) boyfriend. [Variety]
• One of the defendants in the John Travolta case claimed to have document suggesting Travolta wanted his son dead; it was actually just a form that released medical professionals in the Bahamas from liability if Travolta decided to fly his son to a hospital in Florida. [TMZ]
• "An ambulance driver believed he had John Travolta over a barrel and wanted big bucks to keep embarrassing medical records secret, a witness testified yesterday." [NY Post]
• Randy and Evi Quaid's home in Marfa, Texas now has a cease and desist sign out front, because the Quaids has started remodeling job without permits. [Radar Online]
• Remember Edward Furlong? Terminator, American History X? His estranged wife just filed a restraining order against him, claiming he threatened to hire people to beat her with chains and bats. And! She claims he "is smoking cocaine and doing other various drugs. He is very unpredictable." [TMZ]
• This columnist gives Joy Behar's new show three and a half stars and writes: "if there's one thing wrong with Joy's great new show it's her old-lady Aunt Carmela hairdo. Please Joy, call me — I'll pay for you to go to my hairdressers." [NY Post]
• The Tate Modern museum in London has decided to display a naked photograph of 10-year-old Brooke Shields; critics want it withdrawn from the exhibition, called "Pop Life: Art In A Material World." [Daily Mail]
• A Steady Rain stars Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman reportedly attracted the highest weekly gross for a nonmusical production on Broadway. But as far as I know, neither of them take their shirts off! Weird. [NY Post]
• Bono may be a superstar, but he knows how to wait patiently for a table in a crowded restaurant. [Page Six]
• Lady Gaga sang over the phone at a fundraiser and helped earn over $10 million for charities. [Page Six]
• "Sean 'Diddy' Combs has signed with Universal Music Group's Interscope Geffen A&M label in a deal which includes his future albums and creates a new joint venture with Combs' Bad Boy label." [Reuters]
• Interesting: Melissa Gilbert is playing "Ma" in Little House On The Prairie: The Musical. [USA Today]
• Jennifer Hudson says her newborn baby boy is "the cutest thing in the world" and he "seems like he's very interested in music already." [People]
• "Heather Mills, Paul McCartney's one-legged ex-wife, will appear on the British TV show Dancing on Ice, according to the London Sun." [NY Post]
• Roger Avary, Oscar-winning screenwriter of Pulp Fiction, has been sentenced to a year in jail for drunk driving and causing a fatal traffic crash in Southern California. [Breitbart]
• "A former teaching assistant who was employed by Wynonna Judd to home-school her two kids has been charged in Tennessee with distribution of child pornography." [E!]
• "Pink Floyd star leaves £24m to his children - but nothing to his three wives." [Daily Mail]
• "I had to think: 'What can I do with it? How can I make this fun?' I wanted him to be happy-go-lucky about the whole thing and not a conflicted, angry killer. More of the Hannibal Lecter school of killer: the killer you want at a party. I wasn't trying to banish Seth Cohen. I'm still me. He looks different and is morally corrupt. But I don't see it as a big departure." — Adam Brody, on his character in Jennifer's Body. [USA Today]
• "I went to Oregon to study permaculture and lived in an eco-village for a month outside Eugene. It's called Lost Valley. It was amazing and exactly what I needed, because there had been the Juno thing, where you're getting a lot of attention. You're learning how to live in a holistic way with the cycles of the Earth. At one point I was digging goat (manure) and putting it into a wheelbarrow, and while shoveling it, I just went, 'Oh, my God, this is exactly what I want to be doing right now.' "— Ellen Page on her life after Juno and before Whip It!. [USA Today]
• "I'm not a fancy person. I love small spaces. I like tiny cars. I don't buy things, aside from music and books." — Ellen Page. [USA Today]
• "She's really sexy. I did my wardrobe fittings with her where we would just take our clothes off and look at our own bodies. We both have insecurities or flaws, but we were both like, 'How do we get over this? How do we be the sexiest we can be in this movie?' We pushed each other. We challenged each other. We developed a love affair that was based on truth rather than niceties." — Drew Barrymore on Ellen Page. [USA Today]
• "It took me all my effort to watch The Wire. And I only watched it because I was directing an episode in the last season. Then I watched the whole lot in a very short time and suddenly realized what a great thing I was in." —Dominic West. More from him at the link. [Telegraph]
• "I want to apologize to everybody. I had no idea what it would turn into." — Kristin Cavallari, on introducing Spencer and Heidi to each other. [Hollywood Crush]
• "She is not a nice person… Madonna laid the law down to me before we went out. [She said] I am not going to Disneyland, OK? That's out. I said, 'I didn't ask to go to Disneyland.' She said, 'We are going to the restaurant. And afterwards, we are going to a strip bar. I said, 'I am not going to a strip bar, where they cross dress. ... I am not going to there. If that's how it is, forget this whole thing. ... Afterwards, she wrote some mean things about me in the press. And I wrote that she is a nasty witch, after I was so kind to her." — Michael Jackson, in that new book by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. [CNN]

• Nene of Real Housewives Of Atlanta has written an autobiography called Never Make The Same Mistake Twice. She gets real snippy about her "friend" Kim Zolciak, saying:

"I'm not sure if she's been clinically diagnosed, but I'm convinced that if she were to lie down on a doctor's couch, a psychiatrist could surmise within minutes that Kim is a wack job. [Kim] without question [is] the most superficial person I have ever come across in my life. If Kim doesn't have labels and nice cars and an expensive home, she will literally die ... gag me with two spoons." [Gatecrasher]

• Unsolicited uterus update: Celine Dion is pregnant with her second child, and this report states that she "conceived with the help of a team of fertility doctors." [Montreal Gazette]
• Sparkle vamp Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart went to a Kings Of Leon show and nuzzled, cuddled, and just generally had some close contact. All together now: ZOMG Twilight is real. [MSNBC]
• The Brad-Pitt-is-a-pot-connoisseur rumors persist; this time Quentin Taratino claims Pitt pulled out a brick of hash when they were in France to discuss making Inglourious Basterds. [Perez]
• So you know how Eric Dane and Rebecca Gayheart are naked on video with another chick? Dane and Gayheart are planning to sue. [TMZ]
• Eric Dane's lawyer says: "Although the participants are nude, the tape is not a 'sex tape.'" [People]
• Eric Dane and Kari Ann Peniche, the third woman on the video, both say they did not have sex with each other. [TMZ]
• Lindsay Lohan didn't look happy to see her father at an event Saturday night. When questioned about it, she said: "I'm closer to my mother." And! Michael Lohan has backed off of his intense criticism of Samantha Ronson: "I was misled by people who had their own agenda," he says. "I was wrong and I'm very sorry. I wish the best for them." [Page Six]
• Jon Gosselin's girlfriend Hailey Glassman has some pretty choice quotes in this E! interview. She says: "I have lost my happiness through this all… I've been the sacrificial lamb in this situation." And! She calls TLC "the lying channel." On Kate Major: "Cuckoo, cuckoo," She also says: "It's a dirty, dirty world. Bamboozling, this world. I didn't know any of this would happen. If I wanted fame, don't you think I would be out all the time? I stay in my house. I've been staying home with my parents because I feel safe there." [E!]
• Paula Abdul is in "talks" about returning to American Idol. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Reports that Vanessa Hudgens and Zac Efron are engaged: Not true. [Mirror]
• Blair Waldorf Leighton Meester seen dancing on a table. [Page Six]
• Ugly Betty cutie Mark Indelicato, 15 (he plays Justin) showed designer Carolina Herrera some sketches for a denim line he's planning to create during a tour of her showroom. She offered him an internship on the spot. [Gatecrasher]
• The creepy character charged with attempting to stalk Miley Cyrus — and who told a cop he was "secretly engaged" to marry her — will be in court today. [AP]
• Amy Winehouse is packing up the weavehive and heading to Miami, where she'll finally finish her third album. If the U.S. lets her in, that is. [The Sun]
• Uh-oh: Katherine Jackson is thinking about filing a wrongful death suit concerning son Michael Jackson. Target of the lawsuit? Dr. Conrad Murray. [TMZ]
• "Heath Ledger's Joker 'exacerbates stereotypes about mental health'…
  Heath Ledger's Oscar-winning depiction of the Joker in the latest Batman film gives the public the wrong impression of people with mental health problems, charities have warned." [Telegraph]
• During a U2 concert, Bono called his Bosnian passport one of his most treasured possessions. He got it in 1997 when U2 performed in Sarajevo. Now Bosnia's Council of Ministers would like to take it away. [Telegraph]
• Alaskans are mad at Jewel for canceling shows years ago. She's scheduled to perform there this week, but some residents are holding a grudge, saying she betrayed her state. [AP]
• James McAvoy will star in I'm With Cancer, alongside Seth Rogen, who is producing. [Variety]
• Rapper Bow Wow: officially out of retirement; officially joined the Cash Money record label, home of Lil' Wayne. [Reuters]
• John Cleese's divorce: £12 million settlement. [Telegraph]
• Paul Hogan made a movie and didn't pay his extras, say the extras. [News.com.au]
• Whatshisname wants Whatshername not to use the kids against him. [The Sun]
• Whatshername was voted most annoying celebrity Twitter user. [The Sun]
• "There are many times where even I, at certain points in the evening, after a few drinks, can't pronounce my own surname." — Milla Jovovich. [Daily Express]
• "I love acting with men. I tend to gravitate toward roles in movies where I get to be the only girl." — Zoe Saldana, who appeared in Star Trek and will be in James Cameron's Avatar. [Vanity Fair]
• "Yes, I was a stripper — let the judgments ensue. I'm not ashamed. What difference does it make if I danced or not? Is the sun going to stop shining? Is my past taking food out of your mouth? My son was in private school, his father wasn't chipping in for pull-ups or food, I had no job and no money coming in, the rent was past due, and the super told me and my roommate that our condo owner was about to put us out. It was about survival." — Nene, of Real Housewives Of Atlanta. [Gatecrasher]

Though it seems Judd Apatow's name has been attached to nearly every comedy in the past few years, the ubiquitous advertising for Funny People stresses that this is only the third film he's written and directed himself.

His movie concerns George Simmons (Adam Sandler), a comedian who made a fortune starring in sophmoric comedies (not unlike Adam Sandler) who now lives by himself in a mansion without many friends. Years ago, he lost the love of his life when he cheated on Laura (Leslie Mann), who is now married to another man (Erica Bana) she suspects is cheating on her. When George learns he's dying from leukemia, he has no close friends to share the news with so he tells Ira Wright (Seth Rogen), an aspiring stand-up comedian, who he hires to be his assistant.

The first half of the film explores the relationship between George and Ira and the two sides of the L.A. comedy scene, contrasting George's lonely life after having achieved fame and Ira's relationship with his two roommates (Jason Schwartzman and Jonah Hill) who are still struggling to get into the business. Then, when it's revealed that George's disease is in remission, the movie shifts focus to George trying to rekindle his relationship with Laura.

Several critics describe Adam Sandler's performance as "a revelation," but some are disturbed that the character doesn't have a heart of gold beneath all the put downs and penis jokes (of which there are many). Most complain that the film, which runs almost two and a half hours, is too long, and some even say the entire second half of the movie should have been cut. But overall, critics find the film deeper than Apatow's previous ventures, even if - once again - it's a comedy about boys learning to be men. Below, the reviews.

The San Francisco Chronicle

Funny People is a true brass ring effort, a reach for excellence that takes big risks. It's 146 minutes, with a story that's more European in feeling than American. It's not tightly structured but concentrates on the characters and their lives. There are no comic set pieces, and the personalities aren't exaggerated. Virtually every laugh comes simply from people saying funny things that they know are funny. And then there's the story, the biggest risk of all, about a major screen comedian (Adam Sandler) who finds out that he has a rare blood disease with a grim prognosis. But don't let this stop you. Funny People is anything but morbid and there's nothing maudlin or laugh-clown-laugh about it. Apatow trusts in Funny People that his audience will find interesting what he finds interesting - the world of comedy, the people in it and the people drawn to it.

The Chicago Sun-Times

The thing about Funny People is that it's a real movie. That means carefully written dialogue and carefully placed supporting performances — and it's about something. It could have easily been a formula film, and the trailer shamelessly tries to misrepresent it as one, but George Simmons learns and changes during his ordeal, and we empathize. The film presents a new Seth Rogen, much thinner, dialed down, with more dimensions. Rogen was showing signs of forever playing the same buddy-movie co-star, but here we find that he, too, has another actor inside. So does Jason Schwartzman, who often plays vulnerable but here presents his character as the kind of successful rival you love to hate.

Rollling Stone

Mann, one of the strongest arguments for nepotism in the business, is simply sensational in the role, finding the right blend of humor and heartbreak in a woman who is understandably reluctant to give her trust to a man. Laura's divided loyalties are symptomatic of the film. Apatow has many stories to tell, too many. Ira's life in the house he shares with two competitive friends - a riotous Jonah Hill, as a fellow writer, and a terrific Jason Schwartzman (he also did the music) as an actor who stars in the deliciously demented sitcom Yo, Teach- could be its own movie, and a good one.

The Washington Post

And, like that film, Apatow has found the perfect actor to embody the dark side of fame in Sandler, who may be uniquely qualified to play a man who is universally loved but not very likable. As he did in Punch-Drunk Love and Reign Over Me, Sandler wisely underplays in Funny People, never begging for sympathy even when George is at his existential nadir. Indeed, viewers could see Funny People almost entirely as a commentary on Sandler's own persona, as he assumes the funny voices and accents that have made him a star, strumming his guitar to compose improvised ditties about (what else?) Ira's nether regions and, later, the contempt he feels for his own audience.

It's these moments that make Funny People a brave movie, especially for a filmmaker who could so easily coast on the joke/setup/joke paradigm he's so profitably mastered. Instead, Apatow has decided to make a long, somewhat shapeless movie that steadfastly refuses to adhere to a rigid narrative structure. The result is a story that feels loose-limbed and slightly messed up, following its own idiosyncratic course to get at truths that can't be contained in three acts. At nearly 2 1/2 hours, Funny People is arguably too long, but in the final analysis it earns that running time, if only because it's that rare mainstream Hollywood movie that feels genuinely spontaneous, unafraid to keep the audience just a little bit confounded and off-balance.

The New Yorker

The Adam Sandler of Funny People is a revelation. George Simmons has the remorselessness of a man without illusions, and he's frighteningly intelligent. He penetrates people's defenses instantly, spots the weaknesses and fears that they're covering up. Sandler shifts moods adroitly; he surprises us with his sudden outbursts, in which a comic's timing turns bitterness into wit... The meaning of Funny People is that a comic can't be saved by anyone, not even himself. There is only the next joke.

Has there ever been a movie with so many penis jokes? George sings a melancholy song about his member; Ira and Leo are obsessed with the sex they're not getting, but onstage they don't talk about women-they talk about their own, and other men's, equipment. This is the Apatow touch-the male panic about women which seems to veer toward homosexual attraction and then pulls back.

Reel Views

Funny Peopleis a different sort of movie, because it's more of a drama, and an uncomfortable one at that, than it is a comedy. Any relationships, whether male/female romances or male/male bonding, are secondary to Apatow's fascination with the travails of a misanthrope who is living under a death sentence. The movie will challenge Apatow fans and Sandler devotees. It's a brave move that is partially undone by pacing problems and a lack of focus. Despite having obviously been cut to bring down the running length, Funny Peoplestill clocks in at nearly 2 1/2 hours, and that's too long for these characters to sustain audience interest. The movie wears thin its welcome a couple of reels before Apatow has finished telling his story.

Overall, however, Funny Peopleis pretty grim. Not only is it wearying to spend 2 1/2 hours in the company of a bipolar, self-absorbed creep, but the story is told in a choppy, uneven manner. For a while, it appears that Funny Peoplewill balance things out between George and Ira. For the first half of the movie... There's a buddy vibe. Then, things are suddenly all about George and Laura re-kindling their long-dormant love, with Ira being shunted to one side, held in reserve to baby-sit Laura's kids and spearhead the contrivance that allows the movie to arrive at the climactic confrontation that brings everything to a head.

Slate

Funny Peoplehas the shagginess and overambition of a "sophomore novel," but as with many sophomore novels, it's the flaws that make it fascinating. It's too long, but scene by scene, it's never boring. The story unfolds in leisurely swaths that could be regarded either as rich explorations of character or self-indulgent digressions. It's that niceness problem again; Apatow loves his characters, and his actors, not wisely but too well. He can't bear to sacrifice one joke, one tear, one chance to ogle his pretty wife and frequent leading lady, Leslie Mann. And though she and his buddies may love him for it, that all-inclusiveness is harming Apatow's work.

It's this last act that's received the most criticism (and which likely contains the 30 minutes that Universal unsuccessfully tried to get Apatow to cut). And there's no question the tonal shift is jarring, with romantic farce (Laura's husband comes back early from a business trip, interrupting her and George's idyll) replacing the black comedy of the earlier movie. There are also some scenes that beg for excision: I could have done without any shots of dogs licking peanut butter off the leads' faces, much less an extended montage. Yet some of the movie's strongest dramatic moments also take place in this baggy final third.

Variety

While it has its moments, this long latter stretch drains the picture of what little momentum it had and switches the focus to Laura and her own marital problems, which are annoying and not entirely convincing. Beset with persistent disappointment over a thwarted career while living in paradise with lovely kids and a hunky, if errant, mate, she's just not an interesting or even very tolerable character, her behavior stemming entirely from confusion, panic and emotional impulse. Mann hits all the surface notes, but never reveals anything beneath the manic surface.

The Village Voice

Mercifully, Funny Peopleis probably the least bathetic, self-pitying movie about death and dying to come out of Hollywood since Albert Brooks'Defending Your Life. When he receives his diagnosis, George doesn't sit around feeling sorry for himself, or set out on some inspirational quest to do everything he ever wanted to do before he dies, or any of the other things people in movies tend to do in these situations. Instead, like probably most of the people you and I know who have faced similar bad news, he resolves to fight this thing the best he can and get on with the business of living.

In fact, there's so much that's so disarmingly good and sharp about Funny People that you wish the whole movie weren't so much of a shambles. I've seen the film twice, and both times, exactly halfway into its two-and-a-half-hour running time, I have felt the cabin shudder and noticed tiny fissures forming in the fuselage.... It's hard enough for a movie to withstand the introduction of a whole set of major characters past the point when most movies are wrapping things up, and it's even harder when those characters feel so incongruous to everything that has come before. On one hand, Laura and her brood shouldseem incongruous to George and his solitary life, but the feeling is one of unintentional mismatch.

The Boston Globe

Yet the final hour, which takes place over a long weekend in Marin County, goes nowhere slowly. The point - George may be cured but he's no better - is lost amid the unfocused farce, and it's up to Eric Bana to walk away with the honors as the ex's husband, a cheerfully neurotic stud. The only way to salvage this part of Funny People would have been to hack it off like a diseased limb, and I say this as someone with an unhealthy admiration for the charms of Leslie Mann. The problem is that Apatow is stuck between gears. (That, and there's probably no one around him to say no at this point.) Hiring the great cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (Schindler's List and so on) means little when a director lacks a distinct visual sensibility. Trying to honestly portray the way people simultaneously need and use each other is impossible when all the characters can do is talk about each other's testicles.

The New York Times

That rekindled flame, Laura, is played by Mr. Apatow's wife, Leslie Mann, a brittle, lightweight comic talent who giggles and flutters right on cue, widening her eyes at George with obligatory adoration. She's fine, but the gushy romance she brings with her is a drag. As is true of almost all the female characters in Mr. Apatow's movies, Laura's role is to help George grow up, to get out of both his own head and insular masculine world. Yet while this dynamic worked in The 40-Year-Old Virgin and to a lesser extent in Knocked Up, in this movie the romantic complications are primarily situational: she's married. Honor, rather than George's ego (it isn't in remission) stands in their way, which gives him - and Mr. Apatow - an easy out.

Salon

Funny People is an ambitious, misshapen picture that feels like two, maybe even three, separate movies uncomfortably jammed into one. Apatow has gone for "quality" with a capital "Q": Shot by Janusz Kaminski, the movie has a classy glow. Much of it takes place in the lush interiors of comfortable but expensively appointed interiors, and Kaminski shoots them so they look desirable one minute and like prisons the next — they're visual symbols of the complexities of success. That's particularly true in the first section of the picture: George's house is a lavish wonder of Moroccan lanterns and plush couches, but he wanders through it like a lost boy.

Time

On its surface, Funny Peopleis about stand-up comedians who have a love-hate obsession with their penises. In the movie's many stand-up routines, Apatow surely breaks the feature-film record for dick jokes, including one told by Andy Dick. It ought to be called Funny Penises.

Apatow has mixed humor and heart before, but never humor so raw or heart so bleeding. He sets up his audience to go for the gross, then tell them to feel deeply for the folks he's been making fun of. He wants it both ways, and gets neither. Many of his fans, without begrudging his stab at working outside his comfort zone, will beg him to please, please, go back and make Judd Apatow movies.

As much as this plays into the Megan Fox as ultimate object of masculine desire cliche (which is just boring at this point), it's a relief to see poor Seth Rogen getting to talk about something different at this stop on his (and Sandler, Mann, and Apatow's) seemingly never ending Funny People tour. And, actually, it contains an infinitesemally revealing fact about Megan Fox: she was so nervous before the first show that she stopped by Seth's dressing room to ask him to stay and help her be funnier. If Megan Fox is the current blank screen onto which we project our ideas about ultimate femininity, the fact that she did that adds one little tiny pixel of coolness to that screen. I can't imagine a lot of actresses doing that, or even knowing who Seth Rogen was at that pre-Knocked Up point in time. And, bonus: next time Megan Fox is on Kimmel, she'll have something to talk about besides her tattoos.

• Jude Law got someone pregnant, but not Rachel McAdams' sister Kayleen — her rep (she's a makeup artist) says "She has never even met him." [Star]
• So. The mother of Jude Law's unborn spawn is:

Samantha Burke. She's an actress/model. Naturally. [TMZ]

• A source says that Samantha Burke wants Jude's cash! She expects "a large maintenance payment and financial costs, including a percentage of Jude's future earnings, agreed in writing." [The Sun]
• According to this report, Samantha Burke is from a wealthy family. Also, she looks good in a retro swimsuit. [Daily Mail]
• "Even Seth Rogen Now Hating on Katherine Heigl." He's talking shit about how she talks shit. And dissed The Ugly Truth: "That [movie] looks like it really puts women on a pedestal in a beautiful way." Plus: "I gotta say, it's not like we're the only people she said some batshit crazy things about. That's kind of her bag now." [NY Mag, LA Times]
• Carrie Prejean is planning to sue the Miss California USA organization for slander, libel, public disclosure of private facts, religious discrimination, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress. This should be a big old mess. [Perez]
• Need beach reading? Three celebs have "written" new memoirs: Slumdog Millionaire's Rubina Ali; former Playmate Kendra Wilkinson and Good Charlotte's Joel Madden. [NY Daily News]
• Haterade Headline of the Day: "Tony Romo and Nick Lachey rebound with Jessica Simpson look-a-likes while she's left smooching a dog." [NY Daily News]
• Police chiefs suspected of "snooping" at Sarah Jessica Parker's surrogate's home have been arrested. [NY Post]
• Emma Watson is related to a 16th century witch! Her distant relative Joan Playle was excommunicated from the Church of England for witchcraft in 1592. [E!]
• Eminem's new track, "Warning," is an answer to Mariah Carey's song, "Obsessed." He raps: "You probably think since it's been so long if I had something on you I woulda did it by now, on the contrary, Mary Poppins, I'm mixing our studio session down and sending it to mastering to make it loud, enough dirt on you to murder you, this is what the fuck I do... Mariah, it ever occur to you that I still have pictures?" [Yahoo News via E!]
• Amy Winehouse's wedding album: Found in trash. Seems Blaaaaake threw his copy away. [The Sun]
• Nora Ephron says she hopes Julie & Julia will remind everyone that before EVOO, there was BUTTER, which has now been demonized. "I just do not get that at all," Ephron says, since Julia Child and her husband lived into their 90s. "And they drank like fish," she says. "I don't believe that anything has to do with what you eat, if you don't overeat. All these people who think they can cut down on their cholesterol by eating those awful egg-white omelets. There's something I really hate. It is simply not going to make any difference if you have a couple egg yolks in your omelet." [USA Today]
• Will Katie Holmes be in the Sex And The City 2: Electric Boogaloo? A source says: "The character they want her to play is a really ballsy, high-powered company executive who tangles with Samantha." Sometimes you sort of forget she's an actress, for Xenu's sake. [The Sun]
• Jeepin' jeewillickers! Even though Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar named each of their 18 children a name beginning with the letter J, their first grandchild (from son Josh) will be named Mackenzie. Whether Josh and his wife will have 18 kids with M names remains to be seen. [Star]
• So much sadness: This report claims that Michael Jackson may have had collapsed veins and needle marks all over his body — plus — he may have been dead as early as 8:30 a.m. — four hours before paramedics were called. [ET]
• Warrants filed yesterday allege that Michael Jackson was an addict. It's a violation if Dr. Conrad Murray was "prescribing to an addict." [Yahoo News via AP]
• The Michael Jackson autopsy report: Delayed. [TMZ]
• How will TLC balance Jon & Kate's popularity with the family's right for privacy? Network exec Eileen O'Neill says: "It's a sensitive situation and we navigate that as we go along… It's the family's decision to be involved in the show… We want to stay with them as long as they want to stay with us." [Variety]
• What you'll see when Jon & Kate Plus 8 returns: "Jon and Kate have never said they were perfect," Eileen O'Neill says. "You're still going to see two parents that love their kids, but you'll see them parenting separately." [People]
• This columnist asserts that the return of Jon & Kate will help Kate's image. [MSNBC Scoop]
• And, because no one is sick of these people: Jon Gosselin (and Michael Lohan??) brainstormed a new show: Divorced Dads Club. [Page Six]
• Leonardo DiCaprio's ex, Bar Refaeli, has a new man: multi-millionaire Teddy Sagi, who is among Israel's top 30 richest men. [NY Daily News]
• BREAKING: Katy Perry and Rihanna have become inseparable. [Page Six]
• Mario Lopez says the Saved By The Bell reunion was a long time coming: "Everybody knew the 20-year anniversary was coming up. This People story has been in the works for over a year, long before [late night host] Jimmy Fallon started talking about it. We were all excited about it." But what's next? "Everybody is fired up. People keep coming up to me saying 'When are you guys going to do a show?'" [People]
• Mark Paul Gosselaar says of Dustin "Screech" Diamond: That's a disaster on so many levels… I don't know where his head is. I know probably as much as you know from watching things on TV." Plus, Gosselaar says that when he played Zack on Fallon last month, there was a reason he looked young: "I read a blog [where] some guy said, 'Dude, lay off the Botox.' I've never had Botox before. The wig was so fucking tight, it gave me a mini face-lift." [Newsweek]
• Penelope Cruz looked amazing at the premiere of Broken Embraces, but the airline had lost her luggage. [People]
• Penny Cruz: "I love London... but I have difficulties with the rainy weather." [Telegraph]
• Lost spoilers! CHARLIE. [E!]
• Details of the sort-of Seinfeld reunion on Curb Your Enthusiasm, at the link. [LA Times]
• Lawyers are getting involved in that Twilight recasting drama involving Rachelle Lefevre. [E!]
• Viva la revolucion? Benicio del Toro, Bill Murray, Robert Duvall and James Caan were in Cuba yesterday. [Reuters]
• Paul Giamatti calls some scenes from his new film, Cold Souls, "sort of awkward and painful." [WSJ]
• Billy Crudup will join the cast of Eat, Pray, Love the movie, which also stars Julia Roberts, Javier Bardem and Richard Jenkins. [Variety]
• "Bandslam's account of a teenager's awkward attempts to settle into a new school remind former Friends star Lisa Kudrow of her own adolescence." [Telegraph]
• "Singer Peter Andre has accepted "substantial" damages over a newspaper claim he was unfaithful to his estranged wife, model Katie Price." [BBC News]
• "I really felt this film, which had a love affair with boeuf bourguignon, should come out in winter." — Meryl Streep on Julie & Julia. [USA Today]
• "I heard what he had to say and I knew at this moment my life would never be the same. Life no longer seemed like a series of Random events. I also began to see that being Rich and Famous wasn't going to bring me lasting fulfillment and that it was not the end of the journey." — Madonna, on first hearing about Kabbalah when pregnant with Lourdes. [AP]
• "Phoebe was so spiritual and 'out there' — and I wasn't at all. Not. At. All. If anyone was it was Jennifer [Aniston]. She introduced me to certain books that gave me an insight into that world – Phoebe's supposed world – which was a more spiritual realm." — Lisa Kudrow. [Daily Express]
• "My mom and dad were big hippies and I spent time on communes. I just remember the smell of soybeans everywhere. People were making all sorts of strange things out of soybeans: food, clothing, paper, everything. I suppose if I'd gone to military school, maybe I'd be pining for something like Woodstock. But I'm certainly pining for what it represents, and I think that's what Ang was really after with the film." — Liev Schreiber, on Taking Woodstock. [Style.com]
• "I don't watch Jon & Kate, but I still want to punch that Jon douche in the face.his smarmy,fat alcoholic bloat&Ed Hardy wear piss me off" — Rose McGowan. [Twitter]
• "The Jay-Z controversy is great. We couldn't buy P.R. like this. I think Jay-Z said he saw Auto-Tune used in a Wendy's commercial, and that pushed him over the edge." — Marco Alpert, vice president of the company which markets Auto-Tune, on Jay-Z's latest single, "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)." [NY Times]
• "Fuck you Katy Perry, you fucking stupid, maybe 'not good for the gays,' title thieving, haven't heard much else, so not quite sure if you're talented, fucking little slut." — Jill Sobule. [The Rumpus]

In answer to claims that his movies are sexist, Apatow says,

I think, really, what a lot of these issues are is that women are romanticized in movies. [My] movies go pretty hard at having women have as many problems as men. They make mistakes that are as big as men's. So when someone says Knocked Up seems sexist, I'm like, ‘Really?' I mean, Seth [Rogen] has an earthquake, and he grabs his bong before his pregnant girlfriend. That's pretty bad. But I try to weigh it evenly so it's not really about men or women; it's just about miscommunications and us at our worst. Because people at their best I don't really want to watch in entertainment. I don't really want to watch mature people or smart people or people who do the right thing. I like to meet them in life, but I don't find them entertaining. And certainly not funny. So I feel like the worse people are, the more amusing [it is] and the more I root for them to figure their shit out.

Of course, no one has said that the men in Apatow's movies are model citizens. In fact, a major criticism of Knocked Up was that Heigl's character was actually too good for Rogen's immature stoner, and that her decision to stay with him was unrealistic. Apatow sees these criticisms as not just wrong, but anti-Semitic. He says,

Isn't that the code? 'Shiksa goddess shouldn't be near the Jews?' Diane Keaton was pretty cute. How did Woody Allen get her? I have my own shiksa goddess.

Whether or not Knocked Up's critics are anti-Semitic (some of them may well be simply looksist), Apatow has a lot to say about Rogen's charisma:

He's gruff. He's kind of a character; he has this vicious sense of humor, but he's also very sweet. And you root for him, because as tough as he is, you kind of know his life is probably tricky. He's a really great underdog guy with a big heart who will always try to do the right thing.

He's my De Niro, basically. Scorsese's a little man, and he's got tough De Niro to play Scorsese onscreen. I have Seth Rogen.

This statement, along with the information that a key scene from Knocked Up was lifted directly from Apatow's life, may shed more light on his philosophy than anything he says about sexism. His movies aren't really about bad people — they're about bumbling people, who are sort of trying to do the right thing even as they wonder what the right thing is and why they should care. And more specifically, at least in the case of Knocked Up, bumbling men. The men manage to win the affection of non-bumbling, together women, because they're funny, and because at heart they are basically nice. Apatow may see himself as one of these semi-hapless dudes, and if so, his movies must be pretty comforting for him — they show that immature guys can pretty much be themselves, and women will still love them.

It's not the worst message in the world, it feels pretty true-to-life, and it doesn't make Apatow a sexist. All his movies are really guilty of is reinforcing the kind of annoying idea that women are more grown-up than men — or that they have to be. And while he says his films "go pretty hard at having women have as many problems as men," it would still be nice to see his women get to have some "male" problems for once — like whether to save the boyfriend or the bong.

'Some People Hate My F***ing Guts': Judd Apatow Talks Sexism and More in NYC [Movieline]
'He's My De Niro': Judd Apatow on the Gruff, Underdog Virtues of Seth Rogen [Movieline]
Judd Apatow, Live In NYC, Talking Sexism, Masturbation, And The Commercial Prospects Of Funny People [NY Mag]

• Hailey Glassman says her love affair with Jon Gosselin is filled with laughter, home cooked dinners and romantic games of ping pong, but, "If you had told me a few months ago, I wouldn't have believed you."

• Glassman explains that she developed feelings for Jon, a family friend, when he visited her parent's home to mulll over the end of his marriage. "He was so strong," Glassman says. "I admired him." When asked what she thinks he likes most about her, she said: "I'm a huge believer in not controlling someone. I'll give my opinion but tell him to do what he wants to do. He said, 'I'm just not used to having an option.' I told him life is about options." [People]
• Kendra Wilkinson says she and husband Hank Baskett have learned an important lesson from Jon And Kate Plus 8. "I feel bad for the kids. If we do have a show, none of that's going to happen...I want to be able to spend quality time with my child and not really give the world too much," says Kendra. [E!]
• Kiefer Sutherland won't be charged for headbutting Jack McCollough in May. The Manhattan D.A. rejected the case because officials decided the incident was too petty to be called criminal conduct. The L.A. City Attorney won't be charging Kiefer for violating his probation from a previous DUI conviction either. [TMZ]
• Stephen Baldwin filed for bankruptcy today. According to court documents he's millions of dollars in debt. [Yahoo]
• A fight broke out during Chace Crawford's birthday outing on Saturday night. His friends started pushing and shoving photographers to get them to stop taking pictures of him in the VIP section and Chace fled his own party to avoid getting caught in the scuffle. [The Daily Express]
• Jackson Browne has settled a lawsuit and received an apology from Senator John McCain and the Republican Party for using his song "Running On Empty" during the presidential campaign. The GOP also pledged not to use any musician's work without permission from now on. [AP]
• More people are coming forward with tales of Mischa Barton's drug use. In a lengthy tale about one drug fueled night in London last year, a source reports, "She told us that she hated Kimberley [Stewart] and Paris Hilton because they had made fun of her after her DUI arrest but that Naomi Campbell had phoned her to offer some support. After some time she went into her purse and took out a bag of marijuana - when she put her purse down I could see traces of white powder inside it... Mischa was a sweet person but she is really foolish as both her drug and alcohol consumption was very open. She didn't seem to be able to control herself and I'm not surprised that it has snow-balled and that she is now in hospital. In my opinion she is going to need a lot of help to fully recover from what I saw that night in London." [Radar Online]
• Jackass star Bam Margera says he wasn't taken to the hospital for a drug overdose, but because he was on a four day drinking binge which he blamed on marital problems. "I may get a divorce ... booze helps," he said. [TMZ]
• In a new interview Ryan O'Neal said of Farrah Fawcett, "She never closed her eyes; her eyes were open for the last three weeks of her life... She was watching us. She didn't speak much, but she watched us. And then, finally, she closed her eyes." [MSNBC]
• The rumors that Jamie Kennedy proposed to Jennifer Love Hewitt last weekend aren't true but according to Jamie, she told him "By this time next year if we're not planning something, then there's a situation." [People]
• Check out these adorable photos of Emma Thompson and her adopted son Tindyebwa Agabe. Six years ago she and her husband adopted Agabe, a former Rwandan child soldier, at the age of 16. Today he graduated from Exeter University with a degree in politics. [The Daily Mail]
• In her first interview since her break down, Susan Boyle said of her rise to stardom, "The impact, like a demolition ball. Anyone who has that kind of impact finds it really hard to get a head around it... I guess I had to get my head around it, but through the guidance of a great team, and they are very good, I was able to see that in perspective and really turn that around a little." [The Sun]
• Susan Boyle will pose for a photoshoot that will appear in the September issue of Harper's Bazaar. [The Mirror]
• Marc Anthony has become a partial owner of the Miami Dophins. "I'm a huge sports fan," he said. "These opportunities don't come around too often. It's quite an honor and a privilege to be able to sit here today saying that I'm a part-owner of an NFL team." Now he and Jennifer Lopez are looking for a home in Miami. [People]
• Kelis skipped today's scheduled court date with estranged husband Nas... because she's in labor. Nas' lawyer says he's in New York for the birth of his baby and is "rushing to the hospital to be with her." [TMZ]
• Debbie Rowe's friend Marc Schaffel says, "At the end of the day, Debbie just wants what's best for the children... Her interest is that the children are going to be taken care of." [People]
• David Duchovney and Tea Leoni are looking less and less estranged these days. They spent Father's Day together with their kids, and David took Tea to the wrap party for Californication this weekend. [People]
• Alicia Silverstone will return to Broadway to reprise her role in Time Stands Still, a play about a photojournalist (who will be played by Laura Linney) recovering from and injury in the Iraq War. [The N.Y. Times]
• Adele, Kelly Clarkson, Leona Lewis, and Miley Cyrus will headline the VH1 Divas Live concert on September 17. [Perez Hilton]
• Jennifer's Body will premiere at the Toronto Film Festival's Midnight Madness program on September 10th. [Variety]
• Harrison Ford will be the guest of honor at the France's Deauville American Film Festival in September. [Variety]
• January Jones is on the cover of Interview's August issue. She says of her Mad Men character Betty Draper, "She is cracked, which is why I love her... I come from a family of very outspoken women. I can't imagine living in a time when you couldn't express what you felt... That's why Betty does what she does. She's imploding to the point where she gets so frustrated that she does something wacky." [People]
• Katherine Heigl says her first day back on the Grey's Anatomy set wasn't that great, explaining, "It was — I'm going to keep saying this because I hope it embarrasses them - a 17-hour day, which I think is cruel and mean." She added, "It was actually kind of really great to be back. All my friends are there and at this point, they're sort of like family, but it was a little weird because [T.R. Knight]'s not there anymore." [People]
• Last week Entourage featured an outdated Knocked Up joke about how Katherine Heigl would never go out with Seth Rogen in real life. Rogen responded: "Yeah, those guys are assholes. I actually ran into Matt … Kevin Dillon in a Starbucks. And he's like 'You know, I've got to kind of apologize because apparently the guy who created our show doesn't like you so much.' And I said 'Well, I have reason to believe because I think [showrunner] Doug Ellin is a moron from all I can understand so it makes sense he doesn't like me.' And I've kind of said some disparaging things about the show. Although in our defense, [producer] Mark Wahlberg called us misogynistic in an interview, so I think they kind of started that … It's on. Luckily I never have and never plan on watching Entourage." [N.Y. Magazine]
• "It is very disheartening that there are so many older men that prey on young performers. The younger you are, the more innocent you are, the more wholesome your image is, the weirder the fans become in terms of older men wanting to corrupt little girls. Even the way the paparazzi stalk the younger artists is very different from following around adults - I find that very disturbing." — Debbie Gibson [The Daily Express]

Leslie Mann looks lovely. Yes, the matching shoes are a tad Barbie, but I'm guessing her daughters approve.


Speaking of! Maude and Iris Apatow look like normal kids, always (sadly) refreshing. Also, Maude has the same half-Jew hair I had as a kid! Well, if mine had been groomed and detangled instead of a matted rat's nest.


Gotta say, Seth Rogen's looking sharp - even if he always looks more stoic than happy on the red carpet.


Anna Faris looks like she was caught doing something naughty - instead of just wearing a fairly unremarkable summer weekend outfit. What's she hiding behind her back?


Oh, Rashida Jones, you make it look so easy: love how the horizontals on the skirt are echoed by the sandals and the necklace!


Jonah Hill's pants are really long and he's wearing lace-up espadrilles. He's obviously aware of both these things, so.


Kinda digging on Elizabeth Banks' 80s cocktail - very Bright Lights, Big City. As to the hair, well, those of us susceptible to humidity are not adverse to seeing this become an acceptable look.


I've never seen comedian Aubrey Plaza scrubbed up; she "puts on the dog," as my grandfather would inexplicably have said, like a charm.


Okay, Eric Bana's obviously handsome blah blah blah, but if you're going to wear a natty suit, complete with gentlemanly trappings, you might as well shave.


So on the one hand, I love to see people taking chances and being creative and working without the stifling influence of stylists. On the other, Toni Collette looks daft.

[Images via Getty]

• According to this report, Samantha Ronson went out with Sopranos actress Drea De Matteo last night, got into a fight with Lindsay Lohan about it, and threw LL's clothes out into the street.

Can't really tell if the supposedly illustrative pictures at the link actually reflect that, but whatever. [Daily Mail]

• Oy: Rumor has it that Kevin Federline is working with VH1 on a new reality show costarring his girlfriend, Victoria Prince, and his kids, Sean Preston and Jayden James. Just what the world needs. [E!]
• Meanwhile, Britney's conservatorship might be coming to an end, when her tour winds down in November. She seems like she's doing pretty good, no? [TMZ]
• Mischa Barton's model-centric CW show, The Beautiful Life, will go on with or without her — which means that producers are casting a new recurring character as a Plan B., in case Mischa is not ready for filming the last week of July. [EW]
• Madonna is in Marseilles, where she visited with the victims of the stage collapse which left two dead. She met with the widow of a worker and also went to the hospital where eight injured workers are being treated. [Daily Mail]
• Burn Notice actor Jeffrey Donovan was arrested for DUI in Miami Beach. Nice stubble in the mug shot. [NY Daily News]
• Jon Gosselin and Hailey Glassman were seen hanging out in an upstate New York park, and "They kept stopping to make out - and they made out a lot." [Gatecrasher]
• The reporter Jon Gosselin had dinner with over the weekend often "uses her charms" to get stories, and sometimes wears wigs when she follows celebrities, so as not to be recognized. [Page Six]
• "Are Kate Gosselin and Madonna workout buddies? The Jon & Kate star has arms that mirror Madge's." [NY Daily News]
• It's official: Emma Watson will attend Brown University in the fall. [People]
• Jennifer Love Hewitt and Jamie Kennedy: Engaged! [Page Six]
• When Heidi Klum was followed by paparazzi as she took her kids to a NYC park last week, it was other parents at the park who were pissed: They asked the snappers to leave, and when the photographers didn't, the moms and dads threw water balloons at them. [Daily Express]
• Sienna Miller has seen her GI Joe action figure, and she is not impressed. "My doll is cross-eyed and has the biggest chin you have ever seen. Action figures are always a bit off, aren't they? Oddly enough from side on, it is definitely me but front on she looks sort of possessed." [The Sun]
• Here's a video of Katherine Heigl talking about T.R. Knight going to do Broadway now that he's not on Grey's Anatomy: "That really pisses me off," she says. [E!]
• David Beckham's coach is criticizing the player for confronting jeering fans at the first home game of the season: "We appreciate our players and fans passion for the team and the game, but we all must aim to hold ourselves to higher standards." [Mirror]
• Amy Winehouse's mom says the star is on the road to recovery: "A year ago, everyone was saying: 'Will she get through this, will she even survive?' And look at her now. We've got the old Amy back. I always knew she'd come through it. And I know she doesn't want to go back to the drugs. St Lucia was good in many ways because there were no hard drugs around, but she was bored, so she drank…She's put on a bit of weight and looks better than she has in a long time… She was busy cooking, so that's a good sign that she's actually eating. I think she's pleased to be home and I know she's happier now." [Mirror]
• Bonnie Somerville played Suzie Cavandish in Labor Pains, and she says of Lindsay Lohan: "She is supertalented. I had a great time working with her." [E!]
• A balloon company sent Jennifer Lopez a giant bouquet of balloons for her twins, which she promptly sent back. Maybe the colorful arrangement was not classy enough for Jenny from the block? [TMZ]
• Re: Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson: A source says: "Tony pulled the plug because he couldn't stand the constant heat Jessica was putting on him to get married… The final nail in the coffin was an argument they had over how to celebrate Jessica's birthday. She wanted a splashy Ken & Barbie-themed bash with all of her celebrity friends, and Tony wanted a quiet, low-key dinner for just the two of them." [MSNBC via National Enquirer]
• Susan Boyle will appear in an interview on the Today show tomorrow, in which she says of sudden fame: "The impact, like a demolition ball. You know, and anyone who has that kind of impact — finds it really hard to get a head around it. I guess I had to get my head around it, but through the — the guidance of a great team, and they are very good, I was able to see that in perspective and really turn that around a little." [Reuters]
• "Harry Potter's love interest rivals Emma Watson in fashion stakes… Emma Watson finally has competition as the most glamourous Harry Potter screen siren after Bonnie Wright who plays Ginny Weasley was photographed looking equally spellbinding." [Telegraph]
• Mark Lester, godfather of Michael Jackson's children, claims that after the memorial service, 7-year-old Blanket Jackson seemed confused about what was going on. "It is obvious to me that Blanket is still unsure about what exactly happened to his father.He said, 'Where's Daddy gone? On holiday?' It was a rhetorical question and it broke my heart." [Mirror]
• The Jackson family is still "agonizing" over the decision of where to bury the King of Pop, but his body is "temporarily interred" at Forest Lawn Memorial-Park and Mortuary in Los Angeles. [People]
• Joe Jackson was on Larry King Live, where he seemed to blame Dr. Conrad Murray for Michael Jackson's death: "The doctor gave him something to make him rest, and then he don't wake up no more. Something is wrong there," Joe said. [AP]
• Another report claiming that Katherine Jackson is being manipulated to dispute Michael's will. [TMZ]
• Joe Jackson says the rumor that he wants to take Michael's kids on tour as the Jackson 3 is "a bunch of jive." And when asked if he was abusive to Michael when he was a kid, he said: "That's a bunch of bull S." [CNN]
• August 29 would have been Michael Jackson's 51st birthday, and there may be two tribute concerts at London's O2 Arena in August to celebrate. [TMZ]
• Russell Brand. Goat farming. [RussellBrand.TV]
• Ciara is on the cover of Social Life magazine, but she skipped the party for the isue in East Hampton because she had a chance to go into the studio with Justin Timberlake. Social Life editor Devorah Rose has a much lengthier explanation, which you can read at the link if you wish. [Observer]
• There was some chaos at Chace Crawford's birthday party because the prettyboy didn't want to pose for photos. What the hell are we going to paste in our scrapbooks, hmm? [Page Six]
• Will Lizzie Grubman be on Real Housewives Of New York? Short answer: No. [Page Six]
• Jorja Fox: Returning to CSI. [UPI]
• Nicolas Cage is in talks to play the villain in The Green Hornet. Cameron Diaz is negotiating to play a reporter and love interest; Seth Rogen will star. [Variety]
• Uma Thurman will star in Girl Soldier, an indie film about a cleric who helped rescue 140 schoolgirls abducted in Uganda. [Variety]
• "Tyler Perry is paying for 65 children from a Philadelphia day camp to go to Walt Disney World after reading about allegations that a suburban swim club had shunned them because of racism." [AP]
• Ryan O'Neal says he is dealing with Farrah Fawcett's death by answering condolence notes from her fans. [UPI]
• Ryan O'Neal is also spilling about what Redmond O'Neal's last words were to his mother Farrah Fawcett on her death bed, which is maybe a little too intimate. [People]
• Marissa Jaret Winokur is still blogging her "weight-loss journey," although this week, it's "I Fell Off the Diet Wagon." Tons and tons of candy, thanks to her son's first birthday party. [People]
• Jamie Waylett, who plays Vincent Crabbe in the Harry Potter movies, has been ordered to do 120 hours of community service after admitting to growing 10 cannabis plants at his mother's house. [Daily Mail]
• "Bruce Lee's older sister and younger brother have authorized a Chinese company to make a series of biographical films about the late kung fu icon, saying they want to produce a historically accurate account of their brother's life." [AP]
• Whatshisname says he and Whatshername don't let the kids see them fight. [Mirror]
• Whatshisname fell off a stage, btw. [Daily Mail]
• Blind item! "Which indie starlet secretly has a house decorated entirely with Alice in Wonderland paraphernelia?" [Gatecrasher]
• "I would daydream about it all the time. I thought about the fact that there were children who didn't have anything, and I felt like I could help. It was something that weighed on me. It was something I did for the world and for my son and then for me." — Mary Louise Parker always knew she would adopt someday. [People]
• "It was fun. It was a new experience for me just to take my clothes off on camera. So to be able to scream, to be hysterical, to act out all that suffering and all those tears… well, it's not something you get to do every day." — Charlotte Gainsbourg, on controversial and violent film Antichrist. [Telegraph]
• "I'd like to go on record that he is a gentleman. He has not touched me in a bad place once." — Judd Apatow, on Russell Brand. [Mirror]
• "It's a coincidence. It's from a book called Once is Not Enough by Jacqueline Susann. Bad book… People think that I changed my name. I could've been an actress, a superhero, or a stripper." — January Jones, on her name and being born in January. Also, click to see her on the cover of Interview! [JustJared via Interview]
• "The double-edged sword of working with family is it can be the most fulfilling experience you've ever had, but the flip side is it can also be the most tortuous and most stressful, because it's your family and the lines can get blurry." — Shaun Cassidy, who, along with brothers Ryan, David and Patrick, is starring in a new ABC Family show, Ruby & The Rockits. [LA Times]
• "Stand-up is good when you're rolling. When it goes down you feel like 'why the hell did I come here?' and the same thing in acting. If it's not clicking you feel like an ass." — Adam Sandler. [Mirror]
• "This project was rife with opportunities for me to fuck it up enormously and, by doing so, prove my own limitations. To botch the whole thing would have been calamitous." — Hugh Dancy, on Adam, the film about a man with Asperger's. [BlackBook]
• "I see a lot myself in him, he is a Cancer, just like I am. I would love to meet him. He makes me smile just when I see him." — Lil' Kim on Nelson Mandela. [Mirror]

• Michelle Obama and "first tweens" Malia and Sasha skipped the health care talk President Obama gave on ABC last night and went to a Beyoncé concert instead.

Gawd, imagine sitting next to your mom while Sasha Fierce sings about Jay-Z's penis?!?! [ABC News]

• Late-breaking news: Jackie O seduced Marlon Brando? [Page Six]
• Also? Jackie may have had an affair with Bobby Kennedy? [Gatecrasher]
• Brad Pitt's mom: On Team Aniston. Insert eyeroll emoticon. [MSNBC]
• Kate Gosselin used a local lawyer when filing for divorce, but Jon Gosselin chose Charles J. Meyer, one of the Philadelphia area's most high-profile family law attorneys. [MSNBC]
• "Jon 'hurt' by Kate's remarks as she cites his weekend 'activities.'" [CNN]
• "I'm sorry. And I mean it," writes Perez Hilton. [Perez]
• Here's a mug shot of the dude who allegedly punched Perez, whom you may or may not secretly admire. [TMZ]
• Perez is suing the guy who gave him a black eye. [Page Six]
• Will.I.Am says: " would hate for my silence to be misconstrued… I do not condone harassment or violence of any kind…" [Just Jared]
• A 22-year-old drama student from the University of Indiana is planning to stage a play called The Last Days Of Heath Ledger. [Fox News]
• TMZ says it's not looking good for Farrah Fawcett. [TMZ]
• Have you seen that kid who tried to give Megan Fox a rose? You could get $5,000 if you know who he is. [Page Six]
• Russell Simmons: Seen making out with the gorgeous French actress/model Noemie Lenoir. [Page Six]
• Joy Behar's wedding: Off. How does her boyfriend feel about it? "Steve is fine," Behar says. "He says, 'Do whatever you want.'" [Gatecrasher]
• Amy Winehouse lyrics wrapping paper and greeting cards. No, really. [The Sun]
• Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint went to a pub and got so drunk they couldn't remember the name of the film Harry Portter and The Order Of The Phoenix. [Daily Star]
• Emma "Baby Spice" Bunton wanted to smoke a cigarette in a London club and was shut down. [Daily Mail]
• Two paparazzi were robbed a few hours after they snapped pix of Robbie Williams… and argued with his entourage. Coincidence? [USA Today]
• Launching this fall: Rosie Radio on XM. Rosie O'Donnell will discuss news and entertainment and chat with guests. "I think it'll be good for me," Rosie says. [AP]
• Ryan Reynolds will star in Buried, playing a civilian contractor who's kidnapped in Iraq and awakens buried in a coffin in the desert, armed only with a cell phone, a candle and a knife. [Variety]
• The estranged daughter of Billy Bob Thornton has been indicted in the death of a one-year-old girl she was baby sitting. [AP]
• Kate Hudson is described as a "steakhouse hex," since she watched the Yankees game from a restaurant and her boyfriend's team lost. [Page Six]
• Seth Rogen "seems to have given up on his diet" since he dared to be seen "wolfing down pasta" at a "high-calorie dinner." [Page Six]
• Tatyana Ali from the Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air is in the news, yay! Oh, but she is suing a company of losing her money, boo. [TMZ]
• An auto parts store in Whittier, CA is "paying tribute" to mother of octuplets Nadya Suleman with an interesting VW display involving a mannequin and a bunch of baby dolls. Traffic-stopping image at the link. [LA Times]
• The ABBA museum: Scrapped due to a lack of cash. If you change your mind, I'm the first in line. (Not really.) [NY Times]
• Get to know Scout Taylor-Compton: She has been cast as Lita Ford in The Runaways alongside Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning. [Variety]
• Oh-Snap-Blind-Item! "Which meanspirited starlet e-mailed a co-star's sex tape to a lengthy list of mutual friends?" [Gatecrasher]
• "In 1979, I was teaching nude photography at Parsons school in New York. I needed models for the course – and one day a 20-year-old called Madonna Ciccone showed up. She was just another citizen, a girl trying to make ends meet. She was quiet, taciturn. I'm not sure it was something she enjoyed. She did it for the money, in this case $30. She was relaxed, composed, did as asked. Some people are stiff, some are there to do a job, some give a little more. She was in the middle: she did what she was told but nothing extra." — Martin Schreiber. Nude pic of her Magesty at the link. [Guardian]
• "I can't think of myself in terms of celebrity. It's just too weird. If the choice is between being constantly gawked at and sitting in a chair in a dark room, I prefer the dark room." — Johnny Depp. [Telgraph]
• "The island [I own] can be perceived as a luxury and it certainly is, but it provides me with simplicity and somewhere I can go where no one is looking at me or pointing a camera or a finger at me. I can just be: that's the importance of it. When we're there we do absolutely nothing. My kiddies don't have any toys there and they build little houses out of shells." — Johnny Depp. [Telegraph]
• "I don't feel I've ever played the same person twice. Even though I might have done a couple of comedies or a couple of romantic comedies, the characters are all very different to me," — To you, but not to us, Cameron Diaz. [Reuters]
• "To me, Mia's story's about what happens when you're never really loved in the course of your life. When nobody really takes care of you. You can end up extremely damaged. Thank God, my real life doesn't resemble poor Mia at all." — Hope Davis, on her In Treatment character. [The Daily Beast]
• "I think he's the only functional father. Lucius isn't a functional father. 'Proto' fathers Sirius and Dumbledore are dead, and there's no nice way to put that, so he's the only good image of a father really." — Mark Williams, who plays Aurthur Weasley in the Harry Potter films. [LA Times]
• "After several weeks of continued press coverage of Jon Peters' upcoming book, I want to make something very clear. I have never dated nor had a romantic relationship with Mr. Peters. My name has been continually linked to his romantic liaisons, and I want to put a stop to this lie." — Salma Hayek. [EW]
• "Best way to get over a broken heart? Listen to good music." — Zooey Deschanel, who is reportedly engaged to Ben Gibbard from Death Cab For Cutie. [Mirror]
• "I never look at myself, even in still photographs. I don't look at anything. I panic if there is a monitor in the room. I immediately go into like an anxiety attack. I'm insecure, I think most actors are pretty insecure… I'm not coping very well with all this. Really I'm insane and I don't know how to control my mouth, but I'm working on it." — Your friend Megan Fox. [Mirror]

"Hollywood's pool of leading men is getting larger," Cieply writes, "and not necessarily in a good way." He points to stars like Russell Crowe, Denzel Washington, and even Hugh Grant, whose dimples "pop out where they used to pop in." It's worth noting that all of these men are in their late 40's-early 50's: as these men age, Cieply admits, their bodies give "glimpses of what age, and perhaps a little inattention, can do to a most admired physique."

Yet even as these older starts put on the pounds, they continue to get work, due to their high profiles, instant name recognition, and ability to draw an audience. Unsurprisingly, female celebrities aren't awarded the same leeway when it comes to weight gain. "Hollywood's women may have weight issues of their own. But it is somehow less noticeable, possibly because actresses who expand do not often get roles to showcase that growth," Cieply writes.

The double-standard may lie in the fact that while Hollywood consistently pumps out starlets to assume the stereotypical roles of sex kitten, ingenue, and America's sweetheart, the same attention is not given to finding bankable male stars, which allows A-list men to enjoy longer careers, as the focus is shifted to their acting, not their looks. Yes, Denzel and Russell have both made splashes as sex symbols over the past 15 years or so, but the Hollywood machine is built in a way to allow men to age somewhat naturally, leaving the "sexiest man alive" titles behind in favor of "Academy Award winner" or "celebrated actor." By contrast, women who gain or lose weight in Hollywood are often bombarded with questions regarding their health, habits, or potential eating disorders. Nobody seems to give 40+ actresses any realistic way to follow their body's natural patterns.

The double-standard also works for men who actually DO lose the weight: Seth Rogen's recent weight loss for his upcoming film, "The Green Hornet," sparked a small controversy regarding the actor's methods to drop the pounds so quickly. Rogen dismissed the rumors and noted that his weight loss was due to "The lamest answer ever—I exercised and I dieted. II personally do not care how I look or physically feel." An actress who dropped the amount of weight Rogen dropped, on the other hand, would be subjected to "OMG ANOREXIA!" headlines, and her body would continue to be scrutinized (as would her methods of weight loss) after releasing a statement similar to Rogen's. For men, it's easier to say, "Oh, I lost this weight for this role. Doesn't it suck? I'll put it back on soon." For women, losing or gaining weight becomes a career-overshadowing event: her worth is connected solely to her looks.

As our current crop of aging A-list celebrities moves through their 40's, 50's, and 60's, it will be interesting to see which celebs maintain a career built on solid roles, and which celebrities fade away due to increasing pressure to remain slim, young-looking, and beautiful. One suspects that the men will surely have an easier time, as Hollywood seems to expect actresses to adapt to the system, but is willing to tweak the system for their male peers.

What's The Skinny On The Heftier Stars? [NYTimes]
Seth Rogen Explains Drastic Weight Loss [USWeekly]

• Adnan Ghalib, Britney Spears ex, is being sued because he allegedly hit a process server trying to deliver a restraining order from Brit. He's already facing three felony charges related to the incident. [TMZ]

• Reports that Nadya Suleman has a reality show in the works aren't exactly true. Suleman said: "I'm going to be doing a show, but it's not a reality show. What I'm doing with this TV show is basically creating documentaries about the lives of my children. It's going to be an ongoing thing, and it will follow them from now until they are 18. It's being done by Eyeworks; they're in the UK. It will air in the UK and then we'll see if the US is interested." No UK network has signed on to air the show. [The Live Feed]
• Supposedly, Lindsay Lohan's family is trying to convince her to go to rehab. She was overheard yelling "Mom, stop it!" "Enough!" "Quit it!" in response to her mother's pestering. Ok]
• Sources confirm that Heidi Klum is pregnant with baby #4. [People]
• Nathan Mathers, Eminem's little brother, was arrested for a second DUI when he failed to move over for an ambulance. [TMZ]
• Madonna and Jesus Luz: back on. [The Sun]
• Pink and Carey Hart are planning to renew their wedding vows. "They want to have a ceremony at their house in Malibu on the beach at sunset. It will take place in early summer and will be very simple and small, with just their family and a few close friends," says a source. "They broke up because of their busy careers, but they never stopped loving each other. [The Sun]
• Mel Gibson is so old-school Catholic that he formed his own church because he doesn't believe mass should be said in English. However, Roger McCaffrey, publisher of Catholic books, explains that his divorce won't mean he's excommunicated. "He'll still be able to technically be a practicing Catholic, even receive communion. In other words, he wouldn't be considered, simply by having a civil divorce or a separation, to be living in grave sin," said McCaffrey. [People]
• Josh Hartnett says his health is fine after being taken to the emergency room last month. "I just had a little stomach bug," said Hartnett. "It's been reoccurring because I have been spending a lot of time in Third World countries, and I occasionally drank the water when I shouldn't have – and sometimes it catches up with you." [People]
• Audrina Patridge says her new reality show will be about "my life after The Hills, my journey. It's going to be a little spicier, edgier, older." [People]
• PETA spokeswoman Pamela Anderson is going to attend the opening of a New York strip club/steakhouse. PETA says it's OK because "steakhouses nowadays have some of the best salad bars and veggie options around, we're sure she'll find plenty to eat should she attend." [L.A. Times Blog]
• Kevin Smith will perform at Carnegie Hall in June. "This country must truly be in a desperate financial crisis," Smith said. "How else to explain Carnegie Hall allowing someone with so little talent onto their hallowed stage." [UPI]
• Kathy Griffin's assistant, Jessica, has quit and won't appear in the new season of her reality show. "Jessica had just had enough of Kathy," said an insider. "She put up with her for several years. She couldn't take it anymore." [Perez Hilton]
• Ben Affleck said he's ready for the day his daughters start dating: "I'm already planning on it – practicing the rocking-chair-and-rifle routine." [People]
• Sad news: The husband of Katie Holmes' older sister has died of heart failure at 48. [UPI]
• Gwyneth Paltrow's personal trainer, Tracy Anderson, has sold a workout book, called The 30-Day Method Boot Camp for six figures. It will be published in 2010. [The New York Observer]
• Gwyneth Paltrow writes about being happy when something bad happened to a former "frenemy" and people seem to think she's referring to Winona Ryder. Wait, isn't Gwyneth the one rumored to have fucked Winona over? [ONTD]
• Redmond O'Neal, son of Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neal, has been in jail for more than a week and no one has visited him. [Radar Online]
• Ryan Seacrest was spotted in a romantic Paris vacation with L.A. bartender Jasmine Waltz. A source says they've been together for a few months. [People]
• Kelly Killoren Bensimon was sort of nice when asked if she hates fellow Real Housewives star Bethenny Frankel. "Why would I? Hate's a really strong word," said Bensimon. "I respect her as a dynamic go-getter. I really have a lot of respect for her. It's a lot to be single in New York, working - it's a lot. And like, on your own? Listen, it's not easy." Bethenny said, "I've got the microphone, so I can clock her if she tries anything ... Also, I wore extra-high heels tonight, so I'm up here," she said, gesturing with her hand, "and she's down here." [New York Magazine]
• Alex Meraz says his New Moon castmate Robert Pattinson smells like roses. "The first time I met him, I was like, 'Dude, you smell fantastic!'" Alex continued,"I don't know where people get this stuff from." [E!]
• After a months long legal battle Flipping Out's Jeff Lewis and his neighbor, Ugly Betty's Ashley Jensen, have reached an agreement in their dispute over the property line between their homes. "I'm happy Ms. Jensen has returned to Earth, removed the restraining order, and insisted we settle our boundary dispute for my original offer of $30,000," Lewis said in a statement. "Clearly, she has milked this publicity opportunity for all it's worth." [E!]
• Dove will be running "documercials" during Gossip Girl featuring Sophomore's Chrissy Miller as a downtown fashion designer, and Nylon's style director Dani Stahl. [Jossip]
• First-time homeowner Zac Efron says: "My sprinkler broke the other day, and I spent all day trying to fix it. I just made things worse and now my whole back yard is flooded. And keeping the house clean. It's like a bigger version of the disaster formerly known as my room." [People]
• One Tree Hill star Antwon Tanner was arrested today in connection with a Social Security card scam. He's accused of "knowingly and intentionally" transferring Social Security cards last year "with intent to defraud." [NY Post]
• Billy Ray Cyrus responded to Jamie Foxx's comments that Miley Cyrus should "make a sex tape" and "do some heroin." He said: "It was hurtful, there wasn't nothing funny about it, and quite frankly, I think if I said those things about his daughter he might not find it so comedic." [E!]
• Seth Rogen says: "It's definitely not true what women say about just wanting a man with a sense of humour. What women mean is they want a guy with a sense of humour who is really handsome. If a girl had a choice between Brad Pitt or me, she'd pick Brad Pitt. And I'm a lot funnier than he is!" [The Telegraph]

Former Jezebel editor Jessica Grose writes on Slate that after seeing the movie she found the date rape scene to be:

... just another stomach-turning plot point in a movie consisting of several similarly revolting scenes. If you are to take the film and its characters seriously, which perhaps is beside the point, Rogen's cop not only sexually assaults Faris but basically stalks her, and the movie ends with him publicly slut-shaming her.

As Jessica points out, in an interview with the Onion's A.V. Club director Jody Hill said he thinks the scene would have been even funnier if he left out the line some have construed to mean that Faris's Brandi consents to the sex (even though she's passed out):

AVC: In the Times piece, they describe the scene you're talking about as Seth Rogen's character forcing himself on Anna Faris. Is that how you perceived that scene?

JH: [Pause.] I dunno. I've always kind of liked scenes that you talk about how fucked-up they are. I would have been happy without any dialogue in that scene. I wanted to show them just having sex and her passed out, and I thought that would have been funnier. But I think I have a darker sense of humor than most people. So at the end, [Faris' character] is okay with it. [Laughs.] And that was like, "I'll shoot it both ways." So I actually shot it both ways. I just kept the camera rolling. There's like a line that's "We're okay laughing, and you're pushing the envelope." But you're not really pushing the envelope until you cross that line where a lot of people don't go along with you.

Hill goes on to praise Seth Rogen for standing up to the studio when they wanted to tone down the many disturbing scenes in the film, saying Rogen "really is a fighter for what he believes in." In a separate A.V. Club interview with Anna Faris, it seems that she wasn't as happy with the rape scene as Hill and Rogen, and actually assumed it wouldn't make it to theaters:

AVC: What did you think of the script for Observe And Report when you read it? Did you have a sense of how dark and tonally edgy it would end up being?

AF: Honestly, I didn't have a very good sense at all. [Laughs.] I mean, I read the script and I auditioned for it. I had to fight a little bit for the role, and I wanted to be a part of it so badly. I had seen Jody Hill's Foot Fist Way and loved it. Danny McBride, I loved. The unapologetic nature of Jody's comedy was so appealing to me, and I really wanted be part of it. I'm so grateful I was cast, but when I read the script, I thought, "Well, this is Warner Brothers. This is a studio movie, so this is all gonna be softened up. It's a comedy, right?" So when we were shooting it, even the date-rape scene-or as I refer to it, "The Tender Love-Making Scene"-I just thought, "We'll shoot it, but it's not gonna be in the movie. I don't have to worry about that one." And yet there it is.

Faris adds that she wanted to do the film because Brandi was so awful, since apparently she's having a hard time finding studio films featuring stupid, slutty female characters. She explains:

[Brandi's] really vain, she's really bitchy, and I always imagined she was incredibly stupid, too, but it was just a joy and delight to play her. It's not often you get to be that naughty. It was wonderfully shocking. I read a script where the lead female is so awful, and I was like, "This could not be a studio movie." So it was just a joy.

Blogger Majikthise explains that in the film Brandi's character, not just the one line she mumbles while drunk, are used to justify the rape. She writes:

[Hill] also makes Brandi's character so shallow, manipulative, drug addled, and "slutty" that the target demographic feels she deserves what she gets. Brandi's character is noteworthy because she [has] no redeeming characteristics whatsoever. Even Ronnie has his good points, like his tenderness towards his falling-down drunk mom, and his refusal to steal from his employer, and his heartfelt thirst for justice. I defy anyone who has seen O&R to cite an example of a good, or even neutral, characteristic of Brandi.

So it seems the early reviews were right: The rape isn't so bad when viewed in context, but only because Brandi is treated horribly throughout the film. Hill didn't intend for anyone to mull whether the sex was consensual or not, he just flippantly tossed the date rape in the film in an attempt to get some laughs.

Observe And Revolt [Slate]
Jody Hill Interview [The A.V. Club]
Review: Observe and Report [Majikthise]

Earlier: Is Date Rape Funny? Seth Rogen Explains It All For You
Critics Observe and Report: Seth Rogen's Dark Comedy Is Disturbing

Observe and Report, which opens today, concerns bipolar mall security guard Ronnie Barnhardt (Seth Rogen), a self-important loser who has a crush on Brandi (Anna Faris), the ditzy makeup counter girl who has no interest in him. When a flasher exposes himself to Brandi in the mall parking lot, Ronnie notices that she is taken with Detective Harrison (Ray Liotta) who shows up to investigate. Ronnie hopes that by solving the case before the real cops do he can land his dream girl and his dream job, a spot at the police academy (despite his inability to pass the psychological test).

Critics weren't sure what to make of the film. Director Jody Hill said the film was inspired by Taxi Driver, and some reviewers tried to rationalize that the film is unapologetically crass and offensive because Hill was making a statement about the dark side of suburban mall culture. Others said the film wasn't funny enough to pull off the satire, so it just comes off as bizarre and tasteless. Below, we take a look at some of the major reviews.

Entertainment Weekly

To [Jody Hill's] credit, he leads Observe and Report down every alley a mainstream comedy is supposed to avoid. The violence is bone-crunching. ... Women are depicted as skanks and slatterns. Ethnicity and sexual orientation are freely mocked. Unrepentant drinking and drugging go unchastised. The flasher flaps vigorously and often - yes, that's a penis I see before me - leading to a chase scene through the mall that makes the naked wrestling set piece in Borat look coy. The result is a crazy mosaic of Americana with tiles scattered and missing. Need I observe and report that the view isn't for every taste? It sure is for mine.

New York Magazine

Observe and Report's Ronnie is a casualty, too-of a broken family (his father is long gone, his mother a prodigiously sloppy drunk), some bad genes (he's on strong psychoactive meds), a gun culture, sexual frustration exacerbated by stacked blondes in short dresses, and the accumulating spiritual effects of working in a mall and eating fast food. As Travis Bickle was a sponge for urban bad vibes, Ronnie is modern suburban mall culture gone freakazoid. Hill hits what seems like a bad-taste peak early on (Ronnie grinding away on top of an ostensibly unconscious alcohol-and-drug-addled, vomit-flecked Brandi) and just keeps climbing. When Ronnie and his second-in-command, Dennis (Michael Peña), embark on an orgy of drug-taking and authoritarian violence against unarmed civilians, the air in the theater feels dangerously thin. Is this a comedy again?

The San Francisco Chronicle

Director Jody Hill, who also wrote the screenplay, maintains a very precise tone by making sure the actors never once behave as though they know they're funny. That Rogen was willing to embrace this approach shows unusual maturity and confidence ... Rogen isn't alone out there. Anna Faris delivers a tour de force as Brandi, the trashy cosmetics counter girl who becomes the object of Ronnie's fascination. They have a date scene in which she progressively becomes more wasted, and it's flat-out hysterical, one of the funniest scenes in months, because it's clear that Faris is grounding this drug-abusing, amoral slut on very slick, detailed comic observation.

Time

Beyond the weirdness [of the date rape scene], if you can get there, is a quick portrait of trailer-park America pursuing its urges by any means necessary. It's clear that Ronnie, no babe magnet, will take what he can get on this night of nights, even if it's not quite the exalted ecstasy he had hoped for; and that Brandi, who's been in this position once or twice before, wants the sexual exercise, even if she's not awake to take an active role in it - somewhere in her stupor, she's feeling a rote rumble of pleasure. The scene achieves what few American movies even attempt: to pinpoint the grim compromise, the desperation, that can attend the sex act. Don't call it love; don't call it grand; but whatever it is, don't stop.

The A.V. Club

Say this for Jody Hill's disturbing black comedy Observe And Report: When it's over, you know you've seen something. Something of a cross between the formalist whimsy of Wes Anderson and the God's-lonely-man psychosis of Taxi Driver, the film breaks all the rules, but the tonal schizophrenia that results isn't an accident. Hill means to unsettle viewers by confusing the fantasies of an overzealous mall security guard with the bitter, down-to-earth reality of his pathetic, unhinged desperation. The trouble with Observe And Report is that Hill tries to have it both ways: He presents a hero who's hopelessly deluded and dangerous, yet he indulges those delusions, too, and turns them into a bizarre sort of wish-fulfillment. In the end, it's hard to know how he feels about the man.

The Miami Herald

Observe and Report conveys an essential truth about Rogen: Like every other actor on the planet, he needs good material to do good work. To be fair, Rogen is sporadically amusing in Jody Hill's remarkably tasteless film as Ronnie Barnhardt, a bipolar mall security guard with delusions of grandeur, especially after he hands over his meds in a misguided attempt to charm a bimbo (Anna Faris). Hill (The Foot Fist Way, HBO's Eastbound & Down) deserves some credit for going so far over the top; you have to admire a guy subversive enough to mock a subject as untouchable as mental illness. Unfortunately the film's humor is a lot like Ronnie's sanity: It comes and goes and isn't there when you most need it.

Salon

The intended point of hilarity here must be that what Ronnie is doing is almost date rape, but phew! not quite. Brandi knows what he's doing, and she's OK with it — because she's really just sort of a sleazy girl to begin with, right? Even if you just write the gag off as a sick joke, it's no fun to see Anna Faris used this way. Dressed in tiny, tight dresses and cheap high heels, Faris' character toddles through the movie with a sour, self-satisfied scowl. The idea may be that Brandi's no nicer — or no better — than Ronnie is, so why not score jokes off her? But anyone who's seen Faris work her bubbleheaded genius in The House Bunny — which really is a subversive comedy — and believes this is a good use of her talents shouldn't be going to the movies, let alone making them. Maybe Hill really is as dim, and as boorish, as his lead character is.

My hunch is that the people who respond to Observe and Report will use words like "risky" and "dark" to describe it. Hill is no dummy: He's playing straight into the audience's desire to be seen as cool and sophisticated. But he's really just pandering to that audience — he's not asking anything more of them than to bow down before his bleak, twisted vision.

The New York Times

Mr. Hill says his movie was inspired by Taxi Driver a self-flattering comparison. Like those of Travis Bickle, Ronnie's delusions of grandeur do end in a paroxysm of blood. Yet while Martin Scorsese might be overly fond of screen violence, part of what makes that film profound and memorable is how the thrill of violence, its seduction, is always in play with a palpable moral revulsion. No such dialectic informs Observe and Report, which exploits Ronnie and his brutality for laughs. This lack of critique might make the movie seem daring. But it's hard to see what is so bold about a film that, much like the world outside the theater, turns the pain and humiliation of other people into a consumable spectacle.

The Los Angeles Times

It turns out that the film's title, Observe and Report, is the credo of mall cops everywhere — they can look and take notes but they can't actually do anything. Put another way, they are ultimately impotent and expendable. Which is not a bad way to think of this movie. It heaps piles of bad, crazy stuff at our feet then walks away. There is no moral to this story, and there's not much comedy either.

Earlier: Is Date Rape Funny? Seth Rogen Explains It All For You

• Since everyone apparently loves a catfight, this report claims that Lindsay Lohan calls Sam Ronson's "team" "jealous people with bad fucking energy." [E!]

• "Lindsay's Grandmother Is Heartbroken." Um, headdesk. Michael Lohan's mom says she hasn't seen LL in over a year and "I think she needs her family in her life." Really, we're interviewing grandmas now? Really? [People]
• This report claims that Lindsay is "bereft" over her split with Sam and "the saddest girl in the world." Adding to the drama is the fact that LL is not working or booking any jobs. [Page Six]
• Madonna has been making "tearful" phone calls to Guy Ritchie ever since her adoption attempt was turned down, and Guy has been consoling her. This paper feels the need to add, "Madge being civil is a shock. Almost as shocking as her dressing her age for a night out…" [The Sun]
• Is Halle Berry's Bazaar cover a Photoshop Of Horrors? [NY Daily News]
• Halle says: "I'm usually watching The Biggest Loser, eating Doritos." And she shops online. But her gorge boyfriend keeps things interesting: "I have a 33-year-old man," she says. "That'll keep your mojo mojo-in." [Ny Daily News]
• Have lunch with Jon Hamm. No, really! [Breitbart]
• Boo: There is no Kate Moss cook book. Her spokesperson says, "We do not know where it came from but it is definitely false." [Daily Express]
• Some audience members were smoking pot at Britney's concert and she told them to cut it out because if lighting or crew members high above the stage got sick or dizzy it would be bad news bears. [Perez]
• Nadya Suleman is in talks to do a reality show, though she denies it and so do Lifetime, TLC and Oxygen. Please don't let it be on Fox, home of The Littlest Groom and Man vs. Beast. [TMZ]
• Would you like to know the plot of Sex And The City 2: Electric Boogaloo? Highlight this hidden text:
  Big cheats on Carrie, DUH. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Mischa Barton would like for you to know that she is happy with her body now. "The only way to be happy and be a more enjoyable person to be around is to embrace what you've got. Everyone has issues about their body, but I feel confident now. I'm healthy and happy." Which sucks more: That tabloids used to pick on her cellulite, or that she felt the need to make this statement and pose naked for Cosmo UK? Also, does she work? [The Sun]
• Spike Jonze was seen eating eggs with 3-year-old Matilda Ledger; Michelle Williams came and picked them up when they were done. [Page Six]
• Squee! Even though they are divorced, Pink and Carey Hart are still trying to make it work! Carey says: "We're working shit out, I admit it." I don't know why I love them together but I do. Sniff. [The Sun]
• Kate Hudson and Owen Wilson are dunzo; apparently he wanted to get married but she wasn't ready. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Michael Phelps was seen doing shots and making out with his gf at a NYC club. [Gatecrasher]
• This video of Hugh Laurie and the cast of House experiencing a pretty awesome April Fool's prank — in which Laurie actually smiles, briefly — may warm the cockles of your cold and tiny heart. Yes, the cockles. [Videogum]
• More women have contacted the LAPD with rape charges against the So You Think You Can Dance choreographer Alex Da Silva. The case is still under investigation. [Breitbart]
• Seriously, did Bruce Springsteen break up some dude's marriage by sexing his wife? [MSNBC]
• The People cover story this week is about how John Travolta and Kelly Preston are "living with grief" since the death of Jett Travolta. A "pal" says "They aren't secluding themselves or paralyzed. [Seeing them] was like old times. Nothing awkward and no topics to dance around. There were smiles." [People]
• This article is called "The Day John Lennon Proposed To Me (Pity I Thought He Was Joking!)" [Daily Mail]
• Toga, anyone? Liam Neeson will play Zeus and Ralph Fiennes will play Hades in the remake of Clash Of The Titans. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Brittany Murphy has been cast in The Expendables, an action flick with Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke and Jet Li. Brittany will play Mickey Rourke's girlfriend, and there is nothing creepy about that at all. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Brothers Kieran Culkin and Rory Culkin play brothers in a new movie, Lymelife. [NY Post]
• In a wise move, the Pet Shop Boys have rejected a request from PETA that they rename themselves the Rescue Shelter Boys. [BBC News]
• Blind item! "Which seemingly straight married actor conducts his man-to-man hanky-panky in the hangar of the Santa Monica Airport?" [Gatecrasher]
• "It's always exciting to work with new people, kind of get new experiences, to see how other people do it. I think that makes you a better moviemaker, ultimately, to work with as many different people as you can. There's definitely a comfort level I have with Judd [Apatow] — kind of a shorthand, if you will — but I enjoy working with other people still. I'm sure he gets sick of me, too." — Seth Rogen. [Reuters]
• "I have now reluctantly decided that I cannot, in good conscience, continue to be the public face of a charity that is changing beyond recognition from the one with which I have been so proud to be associated." — JK Rowling, stepping down from her role with the MS Society Scotland, which has internal issues. [Telegraph]
• "Because I write them, I already have a tone in my head. I occasionally make the males scream and suffer about their deaths, because I assume that nobody wants to die. Even in mating." — Isabella Rosselini on filming the bee segment of her Green Porno series. [Time]
• "I lived briefly in New York — Garden City — when I was in kindergarten. But I started my performing [in the city] at the Bitter End. That would be 1970. I stayed in Shel Silverstein's apartment, but I couldn't tell you where it was. Memory is not my strong suit. I can't even remember what I had for lunch." (Did you have some problems with drinking and drugs?) "I never thought of them as a problem, so much as a solution. I probably never would have been able to get up onstage. Now, I mainly drink red wine." — Kris Kristofferson. [NY Post]
• "It was a stupid joke because it rhymes. In the hands of a responsible journalist, humor and sarcasm will be translated appropriately. It was not meant as disrespectful in any way. In England, we have great rhyming slang, and everyone spends their day rhyming. But for all the trouble that comment caused, there were many people who were supportive." — Sienna Miller, after calling Pittsburgh "Shitsburgh." [NY Daily News]

You wouldn't know it from watching the commercials playing constantly on TV, but in Observe & Report Ronnie (Seth Rogen) date rapes Brandi (Anna Faris) after taking her out to dinner, and today, bloggers are talking about it. This is how The New York Times review describes the scene, which you can watch in the final 20 seconds of the trailer above:

In another scene [Rogen] forces himself on a makeup-counter saleswoman after a date of heavy drinking and drug use. (Before the scene is over she indicates that she had given her consent.)

In the scene, Brandi has thrown up on herself and appears to be totally unconscious as Ronnie is pumping away on top of her. He stops for a second, and then she murmurs the line that The New York Times says indicates her consent, "Did I tell you to stop, motherfucker?" before passing out again.

Dan Kois writes on New York Magazine's Vulture blog:

The movie doesn't mitigate that sex scene at all. In fact, it makes it even more clear than the trailer does that when Brandi and Ronnie get home from dinner, she's unbelievably trashed on antidepressants and tequila. Not only does she throw up all over the place, she can barely walk - and she certainly can't give any kind of informed consent. She's way too wasted for her yelling at Ronnie to mean anything.

But Kois doesn't get is that it's a dark comedy. People are so disturbed by rape that the fact that Brandi is too out of it to give any kind of consent what makes the scene so hilarious. Anna Faris told New York Magazine, "It's like date rape - that's funny, right?" Seth Rogen agrees in this interview posted by the Washington City Paper. He says:

SETH ROGEN: When we're having sex and she's unconscious like you can literally feel the audience thinking, like, how the fuck are they going to make this okay? Like, what can possibly be said or done that I'm not going to walk out of the movie theater in the next thirty seconds? . . . And then she says, like, the one thing that makes it all okay:
BRANDI: "Why are you stopping, motherfucker?"

Rogen explains that everyone in the theater then lets out a good long chuckle. See, even though she's probably blacked out and has no idea what she's saying, it isn't rape. (And Brandi's kind of a dumb slut anyway.) In the beginning of the trailer, a flasher is exposing himself to women in the mall parking lot and it looks like he's masturbating in front of Brandi. In this interview Anna Faris says:

It is the most traumatic event that's ever happened to her, which is funny because I always imagined that she's seen a bit of male anatomy and it wouldn't normally scare her.

Women who have many sex partners obviously love penis, so they'd welcome a stranger jerking off in front of them on their way to work.

And if you aren't already laughing at the idea of a pervert exposing himself to women and someone getting date raped, Sady points out on her blog Tiger Beatdown (via Shakesville) that the film will be even more entertaining for women with history of sexual assault. Sady writes:

"The incredible frequency of rape and sexual assault in our society means that many, many victims of rape will see [the movie], and the PTSD that often accompanies rape will mean that, for a joke, for some dipshit filmmaker's attempt at being edgy, they are going to experience all of the pain and psychological trauma associated with that experience, they are going to feel that rape all over again, there, in their seats, in the theater, and they are going to pay for the experience, and if they try to talk about what that filmmaker did to them it's probably going to get sidetracked into some conversation about the Sanctity of Art which is invariably given more consideration than their actual lives."

An Auteur of Awkward Strikes Again [The New York Times]
Does Seth Rogen Rape Anna Faris in Observe & Report? [New York Magazine]
Observe and Report's Date Rape Apologism [Washington City Paper]
Um. [Tiger Beatdown]
Quote of the Day [Shakesville]

The Good:
Seth Rogen and Lauren Miller have gotta be one of my favorite H'wood couples. They seem to really be pals. Plus, I dig her frock.


Okay, maybe I'd have done a nude cami, but I love Cheryl Hines' breezy two-part.


Sol Romero shows the aggressive zipper done right.


The Bad:


Anna Faris is such a pretty, vibrant lady, she almost triumphs over this bizarre trophy wife Cache situation.


From the front, Collette Wolfe's is pretty....


...and then there's the back.


What Say You?
Kali Hawk: bohemian rhapsody, or teenage wasteland? (Yeah, I don't know what that means, either.)

[Images via Getty]