• Remember when Nicole Richie was on The Simple Life? She's planning on returning to primetime TV — this time in a scripted comedy.

Nicole is producing and starring as "a professional woman with complicated family relationships" who is "struggling to figure out what role she'll take as her life and her family evolve." She came up with the idea for the show, and Daisy Gardner (Californication) will be writing the half-hour sitcom for ABC. There's no title yet, so maybe we can brainstorm one? Is Family Puts The Fun In Dysfunctional too long?!?! [Variety]

• Jennifer Aniston really loves her yoga instructor, Mandy Ingber. Jen has filmed a personal introduction for Mandy's new DVD, in which she declares, "Mandy brought yoga into my life. This workout will change your body and your mind." Jen works out with Mandy up to five times a week, and even takes her on vacation with her. What have you done for your yoga instructor lately? [Page Six]
• Jake Gyllenhaal's assistant was seeing taking luggage from Reese Witherspoon's house to Jake's house. Are they broken up? Does he have sleepover bags? Is he going on a trip? What does it mean?!?!?! [MSNBC]
• Breaking: Amy Winehouse was sober at her father's birthday party. [The Sun]
• BREAKING! Lindsay Lohan was also spotted sober, while out at a night club. End times? [Page Six]
• "Sources" say the news about Tiger Woods is not surprising: "He's a pro athlete. He's been in a lot of situations with women that would not look good… Most athletes of his stature fall under the same category, it doesn't mean he doesn't love his family." Apparently Tiger was often seen "in the company of women in public places" and "whether he crossed lines - that's not something anyone talks about openly, but I can tell you there are times things look that way." As always: grain of salt. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Roman Polanski will not be released on bail before Friday, according to Swiss authorities. [AFP]
• Ever the nonconformist, Cate Blanchett spent Cyber Monday shopping the streets of Manhattan. [Gatecrasher]
• In LA, George Clooney walked the red carpet at the premiere of his film Up In The Air with his girlfriend, Elisabetta Canalis, and his mom, Nina. [Daily Mail]
• Elisabeth Hasselbeck has been sued AGAIN over her book, The G Free Diet, by the same woman who sued her the first time. Susan Hassett claims Hasselbeck's book is a rip-off of her own work, Living with Celiac Disease. [TMZ]
• Emma Watson: Spotted vacationing in Jamaica with Brit cutie Jay Barrymore, mere days after she attended a hockey game with Spanish rocker Rafael Cebrian. Hermione plays the field! [Page Six]
• Charlize Theron will be the host of a 90-minute live show promoting — and drawing players for — next year's football Wold Cup in South Africa. Only two hundred million people in 200 countries will be watching. No pressure. [Reuters]
• Rihanna was incredibly upset when a man punched Leona Lewis in the face at an event a few weeks ago. I got so mad, like it was me. I couldn't believe it happened to her, of all people," Rihanna says. "It's so disappointing when people behave like that. Why? She's so sweet. She is just a beautiful, beautiful spirit. You don't want any bad things to happen to her." [Daily Express]
• Boys kissing boys and boys in boys' crotches are very much a no-no! ABC is trying to find a way to avoid a repeat of a performance like Adam Lambert's at the American Music Awards: "We certainly don't want to suppress artistry at any level, but we also have to be cognizant of who our audience is," Anne Sweeney, president of Disney/ABC Television Group, says. [NY Post]
• Richard Gere is being called a "tree-killer." [Page Six]
• Sherri Shepherd bribes her son with White Castle. [Gatecrasher]
• In a very graphic video at the link, bounce's from Jay-Z's 40/40 Club in Atlantic City punch and beat two "ejected patrons." The bouncers may face criminal charges. [NY Daily News]
• The gorgeous and talented exiled Iranian actress Shohreh Aghdashloo — whom you may have seen in House Of Sand And Fog — is maybe about to ink a deal for her memoir. And this column claims she is the "dark-horse Oscar contender" for her performance in The Stoning of Soraya M, a film we have been keeping tabs on. [Page Six]
• The next Harry Potter movie will mostly take place away from Hogwarts, and Rupert Grint says: "Harry, Ron and Hermione are just camping out in random places, living rough, in regular clothes… Me and Dan actually have some stubble." [USA Today]
• Check out this picture of the very limber Jaden Smith, son of Will, who is currently filming the Karate Kid remake, Kung-Fu Kid. [The Life Files]
• Roger Avary, who won a screenwriting Oscar for Pulp Fiction, sent tweets from jail, and now is under higher security; he had been on a work furlough program but is now back in routine confinement. [NY Daily News]
• Russell Brand met Katy Perry's religious parents! Katy's dad gave Rusty a book about God's intervention, Russell gave Katy's dad My Booky Wook, in which Russell details his former life of drugs and hookers. Everyone is okay with everything and all four of them are on vacation in Austria. [The Sun]
• Congrats to Susan Boyle, who could have the number one album in the US and the UK and whose disc has the biggest opening sales of the year. [NY Daily News]
• Gary Busey has been named the unsexiest man in Hollywood. [Daily Express]
• "Liam Gallagher Brands Noel The 'Kevin Keegan Of Rock." [Independent]
• "Michael Jackson" was the most-searched term on Yahoo this year. [AP]
• ''I would have done nothing differently. I think it worked out really well.
  ''I am really happy with what I am doing now — happy in my personal life and happy with my professional life. 'I apologized for the thing I did wrong to the person I did it wrong to." — Russell Brand, regarding the prank calls he and Jonathan Ross made to Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs in October 2008. [Telegraph]
• "[My father] was scary and violent. He beat the living hell out of me, and there was constant verbal abuse. Looking back on it, he probably was disappointed that I was so drawn to the arts. He probably thought I was gay. I wasn't interested in sports. I didn't know the names of any baseball players. I liked films and books and records." — Tom Petty. [Advocate via Rolling Stone]
• "The only thing that came into my mind was a decade ago, when I hit 50, I was onstage in Philadelphia, and you realize, 'OK, this is exactly where I want to be right now. I wouldn't want to be any place else.' You realize there is a finiteness to it. We're playing to an audience now that will outlive us. There will be a seed of an audience out there tonight that's just going to outlive the band. But at the same time, the band is very, very powerful right now. And part of the reason it's powerful is that it's carrying a lot of very strong cumulative history. You come and you see 35 years of a speeding train going down the track and you're going to get to be on the front end of it. We look forward to many, many more years of touring and playing and enjoying it." — Bruce Springsteen. Much more in an extensive interview at the link. [Reuters]
• "I mean, it's fine if that's what they want to focus on. It's a movie that I think is beautiful and was a joy to make. But I can only make it. If people want to make that the thing they want to talk about, it's distressing, but that's their business." — Willem Dafoe wish you would stop focusing on his mutilated genitalia in Antichrist. [New York]
• "I don't have any interest in acting anymore. Movies are a part of my past. It's been 30 years. I'm not young, but I have time to do something else. I consider my entire movie career a complete failure. The goal of movie-making is to star in a film where your performance drives the film, and the film is either a soaring critical or commercial success, and I never had that." — Say it ain't so, Alec Baldwin! [MSNBC Scoop via Men's Journal]
• "I hate that. He has such a big mouth. It drives me crazy, and it makes me want to thump him in the side of his head… It's not accurate." — Kimora Lee Simmons, when asked if it's true that Russell Simmons gives her $40,000 a month in child support. [Page Six]

[New York, November 15. Image via Bauer-Griffin.]

Fantastic Mr. Fox, which opens today, is the first animated film by Anderson, who is known for directing the quirky and distinctive films Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums. Critics weren't as fond of his most recent film The Darjeeling Limited because they felt Anderson was so preoccupied with the film's offbeat style that it stifled the actors. It was a risk for him to take on Roald Dahl's classic children's story because in addition to filming it in old-fashioned stop motion rather than CGI, he directed the film from Paris through a video link to London, where it was filmed.

Anderson wrote the screenplay with Noah Baumbach (who also wrote The Squid and the Whale and The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou). Mr. Fox (George Clooney) and Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep) start out poaching chickens together, but when their son Ash (Jason Schwartzman) is born, she convinces him to take a more legitimate job. Twelve years later, he's writing a newspaper column no one reads, but when the family moves, he can't resist his wild urge to steal from his human neighbors. Three farmers led by Mr. Bean (Michael Gambon) wage war on the animal kingdom and Mr. Fox, along with his lawyer Badger (Bill Murray) and his sidekick Kylie (Wally Wolodarsky), have to outwit them.

Though at times the plot is jumpy, critics uniformly praise the film, saying it "reanimates" Anderson's career. Though it seems odd to imagine George Clooney's very-recognizable voice coming out of a fox, several critics say he gives one of his best performances ever. The exquisite hand-crafted miniatures give the movie a depth that reviewers said many computer animated films (particularly Jim Carrey's A Christmas Carol) fail to capture. Below, the reviews.

The Village Voice

For the reportedly painstaking labor it took to create, the film is a marvel to behold-with wonderful shifts in perspective, an intensely tactile design, and an intentional herky-jerkiness of motion that only enriches the make-believe atmosphere. Clooney (speaking as if everything were a self-conscious aside) and Streep (resplendent as a former wildcat turned Earth mother) do some of the best work of their illustrious careers. Among the movie's many virtues, they render an unusually convincing portrait of a marriage, a reminder that the most unexpected thing about Anderson's film may be-underneath all the carefully affixed, wind-sensitive whiskers and fur-how deeply human it is.

Salon

There should be something incongruous about the sound of George Clooney's cashmere-flannel voice coming from the mouth of a somewhat rangy-looking fox in a country gent's corduroy suit: Why should a matinee idol suffer the indignity of being trapped in a puppet's body? But from the first minute of the Wes Anderson stop-motion-animated feature Fantastic Mr. Fox, Clooney isthat creature, the genuinely fantastic Mr. Fox of the title, a rapscallion charmer who wears many hats: husband, father, newspaperman, chicken thief. It's one thing for an actor to feel comfortable in his own skin; it's another for him to feel completely at home in the body of a fake-fur and metal-armature vulpus vulpus. And yet Clooney's naturalism is of a piece with the joyous, marvelously detailed movie around him, adapted from Roald Dahl's novel with adventurousness and seemingly boundless love .

Entertainment Weekly

I'm not a big fan of Anderson's work. What I now understand, though, is that in essence, he's alwaysbeen making cartoons; he just confused the issue by putting real live actors in them. Before, he twisted reality into a permanent ironic pose. Now, in the infectiously primitive talking-animal world of Fantastic Mr. Fox, he's become an ironic realist.

Slate

The experience of Fantastic Mr. Fox... is like being magically shrunk down to 1:12 scale and set loose for 90 minutes in an exquisite, handcrafted, dizzyingly well-stocked dollhouse. If, like me, you're a lifelong aficionado of miniatures-someone who still presses their nose to toy-store windows filled with cunningly crafted furniture and tiny kitchen supplies-this movie will seduce you on tactile terms alone. The animal characters' real, shiny fur, gently moving in the wind! The infinitely detailed sets and props: acorn-patterned wallpaper, cutlery made from deer hooves, bespoke corduroy jackets with tiny stalks of wheat in place of pocket squares! You don't want to watch this movie, you want to climb inside it and play.

New York Magazine

There's no way the disparate elements of this movie should jell, yet here they sit, side by side, in the bric-a-brac of [Anderson's] brain. Frames in the foxes' den have a depth of field that evokes Velázquez paintings in the Prado. Then a bunch of characters dash down a tunnel to escape the farmers' bulldozers, looking in long shot like a child's plastic toy soldiers. A confrontation with an elongated hepcat security-guard rat (with the stabbing voice of Willem Dafoe) is scored and staged like a Sergio Leone spaghetti Western. Not even Quentin Tarantino would have the audacity to assemble a soundtrack in which the Beach Boys' "Heroes and Villains" is followed by Burl Ives, Mozart, Jarvis Cocker (as a farmhand) singing and picking a banjo, the Rolling Stones' "Street Fighting Man," and-believe it or not-"Ol' Man River."

The Los Angeles Times

[Fanstastic Mr. Fox] reanimates filmmaker Wes Anderson's career... Not since the memorable days of Bottle Rocket and Rushmore has it made sense to apply those words to Anderson. Though the director never lost his hard-core fans, his work had gotten hermetic, even stifling. With Fantastic Mr. Fox he's managed to be himself and still let some air into the room.

The Hollywood Reporter

The screenplay sometimes overdoes the winking asides, and the film doesn't so much flow as jump from one set piece to the next. But with animation director Mark Gustafson, DP Tristan Oliver and production designer Nelson Lowry, Anderson has created a world as stylized and inventive as anything he's done. From the fox-red glow of a morning idyll to the noirish gutter scene where one character meets his end to the icy fluorescent glare of the film's closing scene — happy but not without compromise — Fox is a visual delight.

The New York Times

At times this adaptation of Roald Dahl's slender anti-fable - truer to the spirit than to the letter of the source - does not even look like a movie. In spite of the pedigreed voices... it feels more like an extended episode of what progressive educators call imaginative play. The sets might just as well have been built out of available household stuff, the stiff figurines animated and ventriloquized on a classroom or bedroom floor by precocious children.

Is it is a movie for children? This inevitable question depends on the assumption that children have uniform tastes and expectations. How can that be? And besides, the point of everything Mr. Anderson has ever done is that truth and beauty reside in the odd, the mismatched, the idiosyncratic. He makes that point in ways that are sometimes touching, sometimes annoying, but usually worth arguing about. Not everyone will like Fantastic Mr. Fox; and if everyone did, it would not be nearly as interesting as it is. There are some children - some people - who will embrace it with a special, strange intensity, as if it had been made for them alone.

Official trailer:

• The Ad Standards ruling also said that the imagery is "dream-like," which makes it somewhat removed from reality, and thus inoffensive. • The Louisiana judge who refused to marry an interracial couple has announced his resignation. Keith Bardwell admitted that this was not the first time he had discriminated against couples based on race, and that he routinely recused himself from marrying couples that he felt would create an unhealthy environment for children. •  New research shows that kissing may help boost the immunity system of pregnant women. Doctors believe that if a couple smooches for six months during the pregnancy, the mother builds up protection against a certain virus that could harm her fetus. •  Three college students that went missing in North Dakota on Sunday have been found dead. Their bodies were found trapped in a car at the bottom of a stock pond. Authorities say they do not suspect foul play, and believe it was most likely a tragic accident. •  The defense team for Casey Anthony is arguing that the charges brought against Anthony are too vague, and should be dropped. "Instead of starting with the crime and figuring out who did it, the state has essentially started with who did it and is now trying to figure out what crime she might have committed," read the motion filed Tuesday. • A new law in Australia may raise the salaries of women working in homeless and domestic violence shelters by as much as 30%. The Fair Work Act would increase compensation for "feminized" work so that it more closely matches pay for similar "male occupations." • A new study has found that eating quickly makes it more likely that you will overeat, and thus achieve the dreaded food baby stage. Speed eating slows the release of hormones that signal fullness, so scarfing down multiple burgers in a ten minute span is not actually the great idea it might seem. • A 13-year-old cat in Iowa has become the first feline to be diagnosed with swine flu. But the Iowa Department of Health says that this is "not completely unexpected," and that other flu strains have been found in cats in the past. • A portrait of a disabled swimmer has won photographer Paul Floyd Blake a $19,000 prize from the National Portrait Gallery. "She had just swum a personal best in her event and I think that's why she has such a confident, self-assured look in the portrait," said Blake. Blake's 13-year-old swimmer says she hopes to go on to compete in the Paralympics. • Former Silicon Valley executive Carly Fiorina announced today that she is running for Senate against Barbara Boxer, a three-term Democrat. She depicted Boxer as a do-nothing who just writes novels while Californians face real problems and said, "What do you say that come next year, we give Barbara Boxer the chance to become a full-time novelist?" • According to resent research from Florida State University, discrimination is a major threat to the mental health of African American women. Women who reported experiencing discrimination were more prone to depression and less psychologically resilient than those who felt more "in control" of their lives. • Though abortion is only legal under very limited circumstances in Pakistan, a study by the National Committee for Maternal and Neonatal Health estimate that 890,000 abortions were performed there in 2002. Most of these abortions took place in clandestine and unsafe conditions and as a result, many of the women who sought them out suffered health complications or death. • Israeli researchers studied 2,700 twin pregnancies and found that the risk of premature delivery was highest when both twins are male and lowest when they are both female. The findings support the theory that the "male factor" raises the odds of pregnancy complications. • Photos of Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Whitney Isleib wearing blackface for her Lil Wayne Halloween costume were posted on the Gawker blog Deadspin and later removed. "We are aware of the images and we are handling it internally," said Brett Daniels, a spokesman for the team. • 18-year-old Tiffany M. Wallace has plead guilty to ramming her pickup into another car, then throwing ranch dressing at the car. She was arrested in Idaho after a man said she cut him off, then threw coins and plastic containers of dressing at him. • At the end of a speech at a Wisconsin middle school today , President Obama told an anecdote about his daughter Malia. "These aren't in my prepared remarks, but I think it's important to note, kids slack off... And part of our job as parents is not to just tell our kids what to do but to start instilling in them the sense that they want to do it themselves..." Recently Malia came home with a 73 on a test and told explained to her dad "what she planned to do about it." When she came home with a 95 yesterday she told him, "I just like having knowledge." •

• In an exclusive interview with Glamour, Rihanna discusses the year she's had: "I went to sleep as Rihanna and woke up as Britney Spears." She also talks about the picture released by cops:

"It was humiliating; that is not a photo you would show to anybody. I felt completely taken advantage of. I felt like people were making it into a fun topic on the Internet, and it's my life. I was disappointed, especially when I found out the photo was [supposedly leaked by] two women." She adds: "Domestic violence is a big secret. No kid goes around and lets people know their parents fight. Teenage girls can't tell their parents that their boyfriend beat them up. You don't dare let your neighbor know that you fight. It's one of the things we [women] will hide, because it's embarrassing. My story was broadcast all over the world for people to see, and they have followed every step of my recovery. The positive thing that has come out of my situation is that people can learn from that. I want to give as much insight as I can to young women, because I feel like I represent a voice that really isn't heard. Now I can help speak for those women." [Glamour]

• Rihanna also sat down with Diane Sawyer, for an interview which will air Thursday on Good Morning America. This happened to me. … It can happen to anyone," she says. And she admits that Chris Brown was "definitely" her "first big love." [People, Extra, ET]
• Mariah Carey and Rihanna refused to talk or be photographed together at a Halloween party; yet Mariah's rep insists that MC "loves" Rihanna and would have said hello. [Page Six]
• Angelina Jolie and Shiloh shopped for Stella McCartney's new kids' line at the Gap in Santa Monica yesterday. A source says she "purchased two complete outfits right off the mannequins, head to toe, the shoes and everything. Then she bought a couple Junk Food t-shirts — one with a Superman emblem — and a bunch of Gap watches for all the kids. She probably spent close to $500." [Radar Online]
• Tyra Banks has lost 30 lbs. since her "Kiss My Fat Ass" incident in early 2007. She used to get awful stomachaches, and says: "I switched up my unhealthy eating habits for healthier eating habits, and I haven't had a tummy attack since December '08." And: "I feel good about my curves and my imperfections – my booty, my boobs, my thighs – I embrace it all. Now I really can say … kiss my fat – and still fat – ass." [People]
• A source says Gerard Butler did not hook up with Lindsay Lohan, despite that that was reported yesterday: "He's a fun, good-looking guy, and every time he even gets close to an actress, people assume something. He has no interest in Lindsay." [Gatecrasher]
• Gisele Bundchen passed the written exam to get her pilot's license. She's a month from her due date to give birth and the president of the aviation company says: "She's almost to a point where she's too big to be flying. She needs to be able to move the rudder around and she's getting there." [NY Daily News]
• Kate Gosselin believes her eight kids are "starting to show signs of stress and behavioral changes." [NY Daily News]
• Ooh, another Britloid caught in a lie! "Kate Winslet accepted £25,000 libel damages today after an 'offensive' claim in the Daily Mail that she had publicly lied about her exercise regime." [Guardian]
• President Barack Obama's Committee on the Arts and Humanities has a gaggle of bold-faced names: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kerry Washington, Alfre Woodard, Edward Norton, Forest Whitaker, Teresa Heinz (yes, John Kerry's wife), Anna Wintour and Yo Yo Ma. According to Politico, "The committee works with the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services to coordinate the administration's arts initiatives." [Politico]
• Kathy Griffin will host Let's Dance, a new ABC show in which celebrities reenact famous dance routines from pop culture. Prediction: "Single Ladies" will be on the menu. Hopefully so will any number from Flashdance. [The Wrap]
• Owen Wilson has signed on to do the voice of Marmaduke in a live action/CGI movie based on the comic strip. I want to hear the dog say: "Me and my friends have been too busy bathing off the southern coast of St. Barts with spider monkeys for the past two weeks. Tripping on acid changed our whole perspective on shit." [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Drama involving Men Who Stare At Goats: "Jon Ronson, a journalist whose work inspired the film, credited his one-time best friend and film maker John Sergeant in the pages of his book. However, Sergeant claims to have been "airbrushed out" of the film adaptation and has aired his grievances about the snub in a letter to George Clooney." [Telegraph]
• Jude Law: Seen making out with a "hot blonde." [Page Six]
• A California appeals court has set a date to hear arguments in the Roman Polanski case: December 10. [AP]
• Courtney Love says she moved to New York because of "raids" on her home; a source says the visits were actually attempts by her drug counselor to stage an intervention. [Page Six]
• Kiefer Sutherland racked up a $700 bar tab between 7am and 1pm. (San Pedro) California… knows how to party! Keep it rockin… [TMZ]
• Mischa Barton saw her ex, Brandon Davis, at a party and spent the night avoiding him. Stars! Just like us. [Page Six]
• "Reports of a Halloween bust-up between Paris Hilton and her boyfriend Doug Reinhardt have been 'grossly misrepresented,' a rep for the socialite said." [Mirror]
• Jordin Sparks and Always brand feminine products are hosting "America's Biggest Sleepover" online on November 7. I don't get it, but there it is. [BrandWeek]
• Stephanie Seymour is getting divorced from husband Peter Brant and will get $270,000 a month. [Page Six]
• MSNBC columnist Courtney Hazlett actually read Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt's new book, which she calls "America at its worst." The chapter titled "Women's Weapons of Mass Destruction" has Heidi writing: "A crying woman trumps all things … let's pretend for one second you MIGHT be wrong in an argument one day. Just go to the waterworks and all is forgiven, isn't it? … Even the most hardened villainess can break people down with puppy-dog eyes and a few tears." Hazlett responds: "Hey Heidi, quick question: Why did you have to lump an entire gender into your scurrilous web of fame whoring tactics? I shudder to think, and do doubt, that a vapid essay about the upside of emotional exploitation could do anything to really move the needle on that front but nonetheless, it's counterproductive to continue to perpetrate such ideas. Women work hard enough to be taken seriously, this does no good." [MSNBC Scoop]
• For the last two months, six of the top 10 songs on Apple's music site have been from Glee. In this review the soundtrack gets four out of five stars. [NY Daily News]
• Simon Cowell's mom thinks he should marry his ex, Terri Seymour, and this is news. She told some magazine: "Terri loved Simon purely for the person he is, unlike some of the others. She was my favourite, but sadly Simon is married to his work!" [The Sun]
• This Nas vs. Kelis stuff is still going on! He's trying to block her from getting spousal support… and he's also asking for joint custody. [TMZ]
• Jeremy Piven stopped drinking soy milk: "I've found out [it] has enough estrogen for me to grow breasts." [Gatecrasher]
• Mel Gibson's divorce = selling off of his production company. [Showbiz 411]
• ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons took the subway to his gig at Wembley Stadium and found that he was riding with ZZ Top fans on their way to the concert. He says: "Being the consummate tourist, I wanted to ride the Tube… It's a only a block from the hotel down to the station. There was a guy on the route that was checking me out and it was getting a little edgy, and then I realised that he was looking at a ZZ Top concert ticket for the Wembley show. I may [do it again] in the future... I beat my partners by 45 minutes." [BBC News]
• At the link, Carly Simon talks about her new album. As for her previous album — which was released by Starbucks right before the company scaled back its involvement in music — she says: "My record was basically an abortion. I was in a really bad funk, because I had put so much of myself into the record." [Reuters]
• Flight Of The Conchords' Jemaine Clement is in a new film, which he says he enjoys: "Things like Gentlemen Broncos are even more fun, because someone's already thought of all that stuff, and I just slip into it and try to realize their idea." [Reuters]
• "'Action hero' is not something I thought I'd have the chance to do. I mean, I'm 39 years old! I thought at this point, I'd be sinking into oblivion." — Elizabeth Mitchell, of Lost, and now V. [LA Times]
• "It was the first time that anyone has ever died that's close to me — it's a universal feeling that anyone feels, shock, sadness… I do feel really proud, I feel like it was such an impossibly difficult thing they were faced with trying to finish and I feel very proud that they did manage to finish it. Heath was an extraordinary person and you get to see it now." — Lily Cole, who stars with Heath Ledger in The Imaginarium Of Dr Parnassus. [Mirror]
• "Starting the SNL process… I kinda feel like I might have a heart attack or pass out in the pitch meeting. I'm that excited." — Taylor Swift, via Twitter. [People]
• "I was particularly upset to be accused of lying about my exercise regime and felt that I had a responsibility to request an apology in order to demonstrate my commitment to the views that I have always expressed about body issues, including diet and exercise. I strongly believe that women should be encouraged to accept themselves as they are, so to suggest that I was lying was an unacceptable accusation of hypocrisy." — Kate Winslet. [Guardian]
• "When I was younger, I was much more careful about choosing my roles. I was nervous. Hollywood in the '80s was a horrible place. Now that I feel less stressed, I can take more risks… There are some really shocking things in Antichrist. They are important and they are part of the film, but they are not the film. It's like with The Crying Game. Everything hung on those two seconds, but there was so much more to the story than that. I hope Lars hasn't shot himself in the foot by being provocative." — Willem Dafoe, who is a rat in The Fantastic Mr. Fox, a creature of the night in The Vampire's Assistant as well as a man who gets his genitals mutilated in Antichrist. Also, click to see a great portrait of Dafoe — dig the flower behind the ear! [BlackBook]
• "She needs to sell records because she's not a singer, and that's not an offense to her because I think that she knows that too. I think she's a performer and she's more of a personality than she is a singer. But I think when musicians are really making real music people come to the show and that's what we make our money from, from playing live. And I think it's probably harder for an artist like Lily and any other pop acts. It's really about the track and about their personality and their celebrity and that's how they make their money is selling those records. So the downloads — she's not going to win that fight. None of us will win that fight. So let's just accept it and let's see it as something that can be beautiful and it might change music for the better. It might sort the weeds from the flowers. Who said that musicians have to be millionaires? Who made this a rule? We don't need that much money. We just don't. We only need enough to make music and to eat and to go on tour." — Joss Stone on Lily Allen. [MIrror]
• "I am going to go to court to get a legal conservatorship to get Lindsay into rehab and finally get her off all the prescription meds. [Wife] Dina is going to sit down with me and the lawyers and make things right for Lindsay. She is taking Adderol, Xanax, Paxil. She's a beautiful girl but she looks 100 years old." — Michael Lohan on daughter Lindsay. [Page Six]

[Image via Glamour]

• Has Lindsay Lohan turned over a new leaf? She says she's "going to India soon, before Thanksgiving hopefully," to film a BBC documentary on the trafficking of women and children.

• She says her mom is nervous about her trip, but she wants to go because, "I think it's important to have a voice when you have one." [Radar Online]
• Michael Lohan was on the Maury Povich show today trying to reach out to Lindsay. First he insulted her, calling her a "hollow person," then said there is "nothing left in her" and he "couldn't even look at her." He added, "I hate to speak out publicly like this..." As TMZ notes, this episode was called, "You're 14 ... Stop Lap Dancing and Trying to Get Pregnant"? Video here: [TMZ]
• When asked if she's excited that police have caught her alleged burglars, Lindsay said, "[That's] the most awkward question you could possibly ask. Yeah, I'm talking to the detectives, but it's nobody's business but my own." [E!]
• The father of Alexis Neiers, one of the four teenage girls arrested in connection with the recent celebrity burglaries, says, "She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, associating with the wrong people. She got sucked into this. We're standing by her. I'm sure [the case against her is] going to be thrown out of court." [People]
• A source claims Sienna Miller and Judge Law have been going on romantic dinner dates while they're both in New York performing on Broadway. A spokesman confirmed that they have met up, and the source says, "Sienna had her heart broken by Jude, but she was young and it was the first time she'd fallen in love. What people don't realise is that they always remained close, so who knows where this will lead to next." [Ok]
• Kate Gosselin's brother Kevin Kreider, his wife, Jodi Kreider, and attorney Gloria Allred are campaigning for a federal law to protect kids in reality shows. Jodi says the "Balloon Boy" story "makes it very clear that parents and people will do whatever they can do get on a reality show, kind of thinking that's a great way for quick fame." [CBS News]
• More weird Heene footage: in a video from about 10 years ago, Richard Heene tries to shove a cigar into his infant son Bradford's mouth so he can take a picture of him "smoking" and holding a beer bottle as Mayumi protests in the background. [TMZ]
• Lady Gaga says that when Beyonce called her and asked if she wanted to be in her video for "Video Phone" she said, "'What do you want to do?' And I'm like, 'I don't want to show up in some frickin' hair bow and be fashion Gaga in your video.' I said, 'I want to do you.'" She added, "I want to do my version of Beyoncé... So the whole time I was learning the choreography they were calling me Gee-yoncé." [MTV]
• Picewell Forbes publicly apologized for causing a mistrial in the John Travolta case. He didn't say who told him Pleasant Bridgewater had been acquitted but said, "My statements were reckless and interfered with the course of justice in that case and were further capable of bringing disrepute to the whole administration of justice." [AP]
• Michael Jackson's kids are having their own private screening of This Is It tonight. [TMZ]
• The Ali Forney Center, the nation's largest organization for homeless LGBT youth, has received a gift of $300,000 today from Bea Arthur's estate. The organization plans to buy a building to house 12 children whose families have thrown them out for being gay and name it in her honor. [Towleroad]
• Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner went right back to work after their wedding on Sunday, but they are planning a honeymoon in Africa for December. [People]
• Madonna and her four kids visited the orphanage in Malawi where her son David lived before she adopted him. [AP]
• Akon jumped off the stage and into the crown during a Melbourne concert last night to break up a fight. His promoter says, "The thing that I saw, and I was standing right next to him … He walked to a girl (involved in a fight) and walked to her and held her face and said, ‘You're better than that.'" [The Australian]
• Joe Francis is suing Brody Jenner and his girlfriend Jayde Nicole for battery, assault, negligence, slander, libel and false light. He claims that he only pulled Nicole's hair during their bar altercation in "self-defense" because she hit him in the head, threw a drink at him, and yelled "I'm going to kill you!" for no reason. [TMZ]
• The DA will not file charges against Joe Francis, Brody Jenner, or Jayde Nicole for their bar brawl. The D.A.'s report supports Francis' claim that the surveillance video shows that Jayde "appears to have acted without immediate provocation." Doesn't Girls Gone Wild count as provocation? [TMZ]
• Willem Dafoe says Tim Burton talked to him about playing The Joker in Batman, but he turned the role down and it went to Jack Nicholson. [Daily Express]
• At the link, Lost executive producer Damon Lindelof answers questions about the show's final season. [USA Today]
• On Thursday, Ante Up For Africa, a charity founded by Don Cheadle, is holding its second annual celebrity poker tournament to raise money to bring peace to Sudan. [CNN]
• Uh, wow. Author Martin Amis says he doesn't understand the fascination with Jordan because, "She has no waist, no arse ... an interesting face ... but all we are really worshipping is two bags of silicone." [The Telegraph]
• According to the Jonas Brothers' mom, Denise Jonas, "Nick is working on a solo act—it's called Nick Jonas and The Administration. Shhh! He's at the photo shoot for the album cover right now." [Parade]
• Taylor Lautner says he was motivated by "the movie and the fans," to put on 30 pounds of muscle for New Moon. "But I don't want to become known as just a body... If I had to choose, I would never take my shirt off again in a movie, but I guess that's not very realistic. I certainly won't be asking to do it, though." [People]
• "I'm always going to miss Oasis. It was my fucking thing, you know what I mean? It's who I am. But it's only a name," says Liam Gallagher. "Getting away from the whole Oasis thing is going to be a good thing I suppose. I don't want to do anything solo. I want to be in a band. But we can do things a lot differently these days. It'll definitely be rock 'n' roll." [The Sun]
• Mary-Louise Parker says adopting her 3-year-old daughter Caroline Aberash in 2007 was the "best decision I've ever made. She says, 'I love you, Mommy' and asks, 'Do you love me so much? She has a little bit of a speech delay; Amharic was her first language she heard. But she's really indomitable. She's really strong and she's like a little warrior. She's really amazing." [People]
• Q: What advice did your mom give you about dressing? Jane Lynch: "I like to wear my pajama bottoms and sweatshirts out to get coffee in the morning. She said to always dress like someone is going to take your picture, and every day is an opportunity to make an impression." [N.Y. Magazine]
• In a phone interview Tank Jones, Levi Johnston's manager, said of Levi posing for Playgirl, "He's pumped! He's ready to shock the world. The hell with fifteen minutes... As a matter of fact, when I picked him up, he came out the house naked. I said 'not now!'" Then Levi took the phone and said, "I just get naked. That's what I do." [Us]

Von Trier describes Antichrist, which he shot while in the midst of battling a severe bout of depression, in strange terms: it is a horror film, but not "a real horror film." He says it is about "the maximum of dying and living," the creations of God and the church of Satan. It is about a couple, grieving over the death of their son, who retreat into the wilderness in attempts to work through their loss. In a role that won her best actress at Cannes, Charlotte Gainsbourg plays a guilt-stricken mother, who blames herself for the accidental death of her child. Her husband, portrayed by Willem Dafoe, is a cognitive therapist who hopes that the woods will provide her with a safe space in which to heal. Instead, the forest becomes a horrible surreal landscape of "grisly death and feverish reproduction," complete with a self-cannibalizing, talking fox. The New York Times' Dave Kehr writes:

Seeing herself as another "bad mother," Ms. Gainsbourg's nameless character identifies with this nature, red in tooth and claw, and descends from depression to insanity. "Nature is Satan's church," she proclaims, before moving on to acts of worship that will have some viewers looking away from the screen (if not fleeing the theater).

We can only guess that the "acts of worship" are the same ones detailed in this article (spoiler). For those of you who don't want to be sickened by the New York Magazine description, here is the short version: Gainsbourg uses a hand drill on Dafoe's leg, mutilates his genitals, and jerks him off. She later does a similar number on her own parts in "an extreme closeup" that seems guaranteed to make every woman in the theater involuntarily cross their legs and/or vomit.

As for the charges of misogyny, von Trier brushes them off, saying that they arise from his "kind of romantic thing [he] had with Strindberg," a Scandinavian playwright famous for his troubled relationships with women. However, von Triers comments about Strindberg illustrate pretty clearly that he doesn't have a firm grasp on what constitutes misogynistic behavior:

"I do not hate women myself," Mr. von Trier said, "and I doubt that he did. Strindberg spent all his life fighting with his wives and pushing them down stairs and whatever he did, but in a strange way he was just a little ridiculous. Which you can say that this film might be also.

"But my problem is of course also that I'm the son of my mother, who was the feminist movement chairman of Denmark at a certain point. So I think that I made many of my films just to provoke her, even though she's dead."

After reading the synopsis of the film, I find von Trier's comments more disturbing than any cinematic gore. Dismissing domestic violence as a "little ridiculous" says a lot of von Trier's attitude toward the female sex. But Gainsbourg defends the director against these charges, claiming that he identifies with the evil he instill in his female characters. "He puts women on a pedestal and then pushes them off... I can see fear of women, but there's no hatred," she said. Famous last words.

Away From It All, In Satan's Church [New York Times]
So What Happens To Willem Dafoe's Genitals In Lars Von Trier's Antichrist, Anyway? [NY Mag]

• According to this report, Mischa Barton was taken from her home last week because she was so high on coke friends were afraid she was going to kill herself. [NY Post]

• A source says of Mischa Barton: "She is a mess. She is a suicidal, uninsurable mess." [The Sun]
• Madonna has visited the family of a worker killed in a stage collapse in France and will meet with three other people hurt in the accident. [UPI]
• Someone stole three boxes of clothing from L.A. stylist Jennifer Rade Thursday night. Who was Rade's client? Who was she collecting dresses for? Angelina Jolie. [Page Six]
• "Single Jessica Simpson Keeps A Low Profile." You mean she's not running around in circles chirping "I'm single! I'm single!"? Huh. [People]
• Nick Lachey says there is no truth to the rumor that he and Jessica Simpson might reunite: "I haven't talked to her in probably two years," Nick says. "I wish her happiness. That's where it pretty much ends." [People]
• Prince was spotted on a first class flight from Minneapolis to La Guardia. He was reading Elle magazine, carrying a gold- and diamond-encrusted walking stick and wearing flip-flops with sparkly silver socks. Whoever spotted him has pretty much had the best day of his or her life and it's all downhill from here. [Page Six]
• Gwyneth Paltrow: "Furious" that Scarlett Johansson is upstaging her. See, ScarJo is on the new Iron Man 2 cover of Entertainment Weekly, and in the new publicity shots; Gwynnie is not. [The Sun]
• David Beckham played his first home game with the L.A. Galaxy this year — and was booed by haters. One fan jumped over some seats to confront Beckham and ended up getting arrested. [AP]
• When we saw this Jean-Charles de Castelbajac ensemble, we were like, who the hell would wear that? Well, the answer, of course, is: Lady Gaga. [BuzzFeed]
• Kate Gosselin and the kids were in New York on Saturday to do a photo shoot for TLC; there was some kind of kerfluffle between security guards outside of the photo studio and paparazzi — the guards used umbrellas, styrofoam boards and folding tables to keep the snappers back; the kids had to be hustled into the studio. "It must have been very upsetting for the kids," says one observer. [People]
• Jon Gosselin's girlfriend Hailey Glassman went to fat camp before college, but would cheat by going to Panda Express. Apparently this was before her alleged "coke diet." [Perez]
• Jon and Kate Gosselin have been split up and living separately since last year, and Jon didn't start dating until after the divorce. [People]
• Wait, what? Jon Gosselin is dating a Star magazine reporter named Kate Major? [Gatecrasher]
• Concert promoter AEG is auctioning off the rights to the rehearsal footage of Michael Jackson's "This Is It" tour, and no Jackson family members are involved in the sale. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Looks like Sony Pictures is close to closing a deal to make a feature film out of the Michael Jackson rehearsal footage. [Variety]
• La Toya Jackson penned a "tribute single" after her brother's death and it will be available on iTunes on July 28. [Mirror]
• TMZ reported that Jermaine, Tito and Jackie Jackson would be performing at the Jamaican Reggae Summerfest. But Jermaine says: "TMZ needs to get their facts straight. We're not going to Jamaica." [E!]
• Tito Jackson seems to blame Dr. Conrad Murray for Michael Jackson's death, saying: "My opinion is that he panicked when my brother didn't wake up… He did have a pulse but he couldn't bring him back. I don't know what the time lapse was between the doctor finding him and when he called paramedics. But I believe if he had immediately called for help we might still have my brother here today, he would definitely still be alive." [Mirror]
• An anonymous senior law enforcement official says there will not be a murder charge in the Michael Jackson case. [UPI]
• Is Katherine Jackson trying to object to the executors named in Michael Jackson's will? And if so, why? There's a "no contest" clause in the will, meaning anyone who files objections to the will automatically gets no money. Is she being manipulated… by Joe? [TMZ]
• This report claims that Janet Jackson has offered to raise Michael's children, and loves them like they are her own. [The Sun]
• Russell Crowe is a hero! No, really: He helped out "a real-life damsel in distress" on the set of his new Robin Hood film. A crew member's car went up in flames when she was on her way to work. She told her colleagues about her scary experience, and Russell made a joke about it — but then ended up giving her enough cash to buy a new car. [Mirror, NY Daily News]
• Paula Abdul does not have a new contract to appear on American Idol for another season, which is probably more of a publicity stunt than an actual possibility that she won't return to the show. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Nevertheless, there's a #keeppaula Twitter trend. [LA Times]
• One reason Paula Abdul might not have a contract: She's holding out for more money. Apparently she makes around $2.5 mil a year, compared to the $15 a year Ryan Seacrest gets. [TMZ]
• Gossip Girls Michelle Trachtenberg and Jessica Szohr, as well as Rumer Willis, Ali Lohan and Stephanie Pratt attended a Charlotte Russe event in NYC last week, where a model playing air guitar almost hit a waiter in the head. [WWD]
• 50 Cent has been trying to sell his is giant mansion in Connecticut — the one that used to belong to Mike Tyson — which has 19 bedrooms, 37 bathrooms and a club with stripper poles. He's knocked about $4 million off the price, so if you have $10.9 million, it's all yours. [The Sun, Hartford Courant]
• Emma Thompson is looking frumpy and old-fashioned: She's filming Nanny McPhee 2! [Daily Mail]
• Jon Stewart has sent Daily Show DVDs to a 32-year-old man with leukemia and has offered to give the guy a tour of the set. [UPI]
• When Kylie Minogue and Spanish beau Andres Velencoso were arguing in a NYC club last week, he pulled out a camera and photographed her while she was upset. A source says: "He's making a collage of Kylie and has already got three albums full of photos of her, which he hopes to publish some day." [Daily Express]
• A source says of John Mayer: "Several years ago when he was dating Jessica Simpson, he couldn't go to her birthday party because he was on tour. So the night of her birthday she had dinner with [hairdresser] Ken Paves and a few friends. Everyone thought John would forget her birthday, but then a gift arrived from him — it was a DVD of him in concert. Jessica spent the rest of the night watching the DVD on a loop, 'being with him.' It was so sad." [Page Six]
• Zzzz: Peaches Geldof fell asleep during a TV interview with Fearne Cotton. [The Sun]
• "Kim Cattrall and toy boy split because he 'refused to be a kept man'" [Daily Mail]
• Jay-Z sips white wine as he is interviewed about The Blueprint 3, his 11th studio album, due in September — eight years to the day after the debut of the original Blueprint. "I wanted to bring it full circle," he says. "The first Blueprint was based on soul samples and more of a place where I came from and the records I listened to growing up with my mom and pop. This Blueprint, I liken it to a new classic, simply because we — Usher, Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, myself — are becoming the people that we looked up to musically growing up, like Marvin Gaye and Frank Sinatra." [Reuters]
• "Sienna Miller: 'I nearly burnt my breasts making GI Joe.'" [Daily Mail]
• Morgan Freeman is in talks to star with Bruce Willis in Red, based on the WildStorm/DC Comic. [Variety]
• Singer Christina Milian and producer/singer The Dream: Engaged. [NY Daily News]
• Click the link if you'd like to see video of Willem Dafoe talking about Lars von Trier's controversial thriller Antichrist. You know, the one where Charlotte Gainsbourg takes a blunt object to Dafoe's [ genitalia? [Guardian]
• Dazed Digital: There's a lot of nudity in the film so, I have to ask, is that actually your…
  Willem Dafoe: … Penis? No, it's not mine. Lars used a porn actor for those scenes. It was a good decision because, if it was me, then that's all that people would talk about. Obviously Lars wants the characters to have genitals but it would become a distraction: ‘Oh, they really had sex!' If he had asked me to do it, I don't know what I would have said. [Dazed Digital]
• Once, David Byrne almost hit Paris Hilton with his bike. [Page Six]
• RIP Frank McCourt. [NY Daily News]
• Blind item! "Which troubled starlet got her first big break on TV by sending the producer a tape of herself having sex with another girl? The producer thought the ploy was so original, he cast her instead of dozens of other ingénues." [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which perennial bachelor princeling should be more careful? While His Serene Highness was cavorting on a yacht in the Mediterranean with a hunky guy, he thought the servants on board would keep their mouths shut. He was wrong." [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which creepy dude and his posse of pals take photos of their overnight lady guests while the women are sleeping and tack them up on a 'Wall of Shame' afterward?" [Gatecrasher]
• "He put my son to shame! I provided my son with the best martial artists in the world, and he could not be persuaded to try it. In just two months, Jaden had learned so much. He is truly a talented boy." — Jackie Chan says Will Smith's son, who will star in Kung Fu Kid, is better at martial arts than his own son. [NY Daily News]
• "Anderson was just amazing. He said that the seven most horrifying words you can hear from a mother are, 'I'm going to write an erotic novel.' But he's fine with it, and of course I gave it to him before I even sent it off." — Gloria Vanderbilt, on her new book. The 85-year-old also says: "I think it's a work of art. The age of the artist is not what we're talking about. I mean, it's as if you looked at a painting and said, How old was the person that painted this? You really don't think in those terms." [Time]
• "When I started out, I'm not sure I was actually in it for the right reasons. I wanted very much to be famous. I did expect to succeed and I did have faith that I would. In reality, though, it has turned out to be something very different to what I wanted. It's the work and not the adulation that has proved to be the most fulfilling." — Gerard Butler. [Telegraph]
• "I have a boyfriend now, but I've been linked to so many guys I sound like a wanton woman. People say to me, 'Oh, it must be so easy for you, dating and boys.' It's really not easy. I suppose guys are either intimidated by me and have their defenses up, or they take the piss out of me. And I'm surrounded by cute older guys on set. That's my problem. It's a minefield, to be honest. It's stressful." — Emma Watson. [Mirror]
• "I'm sure I would have liked to have seen my parents more, and at that time, we did come second. But I like to think of them in Paris, having fun, not thinking too much ... And it was a different time." — Charlotte Gainsbourg, on being the daughter of free spirits French singer Serge Gainsbourg and the English actress Jane Birkin. [Independent]
• "He was the most important voice in our lives for thirty years. And that voice made people reach for the stars. I hate the world without Walter Cronkite." — George Clooney. [Yahoo News via E!]

[New York, June 3. Image via INF]

• Jesus Luz went on a Brazilian TV program, Fantastico, and said of Madonna: "She is my friend, only my friend." Hmm. Wow. Okay. He also said:

"Madonna is a person who I admire very much, a friend who has entered my life and [with whom] I keep in contact. I cannot say anything more than I don't have plans of marrying her. I can't say if she is the woman in my life." Dammit! Are they shagging or not? What does it mean? [Gatecrasher, The Sun]

• Lily Allen: Not impressed by Susan Boyle! "I thought her timing was off on Britain's Got Talent on Sunday — no control, and I don't think she has an amazing voice." And! "She seems like a lovely lady but if the show is about talent, then that Shaheen kid should win." [Daily Mail]
• Aww, Kiefer Sutherland and Proenza Schouler's Jack McCollough have kissed and made up! Well there was no kissing, but the two did issue a brief joint statement: "I am sorry about what happened that night and sincerely regret that Mr. McCollough was injured," Sutherland said. "I appreciate Mr. Sutherland's statement and wish him well," McCollough said. Then a unicorn jumped over a rainbow and gumdrops and structured dresses fell from the sky. [USA Today]
• Kiefer's headbutt incident caused some drama on the set of the film he's working on. [Daily Express]
• Guess who was out drinking Thursday night? Kiefer Sutherland. He had his 21-year-old daughter with him. [Page Six]
• Check out the toothless picture Demi Moore posted of herself — from the dentist's chair — on Twitter. Nice glasses. [Daily Mail]
• Charlotte Gainsbourg has won the best actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival for her role in Lars von Trier's Antichrist — in which she does unspeakable things to the genitalia of Willem Dafoe. Congrats! [AP]
• Tragic: Mike Tyson's 4-year-old daughter is on life support after she was found with her neck caught in the cord of a treadmill. [AP, NY Post, NY Daily News]
• Cate Blanchett spoke at the World Business Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen yesterday, saying: "Australia's best climate scientists have been warning us that we'll face many more catastrophic fire days in south-east Australia unless the world acts to dramatically cut greenhouse pollution. We have the ability to kick start the low carbon economies of the future right when we need to, and that's now." [Breitbart]
• Natalie Cole has been released from the hospital five days after getting a kidney transplant. The memorial service for her sister, who died from lung cancer the same day Natalie received a kidney, was held yesterday. [People]
• We've heard this a zillion times, but now it's confirmed by his "people": Mel Gibson's girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva, is pregnant. [People]
• "Actress and Scientologist Kirstie Alley is on a Twittering crusade against a bill that would provide money for screening, diagnosis and treatment of postpartum depression." Here are some of her Tweets:"I have to get you all info on THE MOTHER'S ACT. this is this lousy BILL that would give BIG BROTHER the right to force you to drug ur kids" And: "AND MANDATE that when you are pregnant, YOU MUST take drugs if a Dr. tells you to. THIS is BIG BROTHER at his finest. More on this soon moms." Plus: "I am organizing a MILLION MOM MARCH to protest this BILL. It just keeps rearing it's head. BACKED 100% by BIG PHARMA. MOMS UNITE!!" According to a spokesperson, the "Mother's Act," sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Bob Menendez, will not force "expectant mothers or new mothers to do anything." The spokesperson says: "Furthermore, the pharmaceutical industry has had nothing to do with this bill. We frankly have no idea where they get this stuff." [Politico]
• Lindsay Lohan will star in The Other Side, an indie comedy Katie Holmes was supposed to make. Apparently Katie was really into the script, sending notes and stuff, and then there was a scheduling conflict. This is the one with Woody Harrelson, Giovanni Ribisi, Jason Lee, Alanis Morissette and Dave Matthews; Lindsay will play a grad student who goes to spend her summer doing research on a remote island, where she discovers a community of eccentrics who share a secret. [Yahoo via E!]
• While Monica Bellucci was at the closing ceremonies of the Cannes Film Festival, burglars stole about $112,000 worth of jewels, a laptop and such from her Paris apartment. It's so To Catch A Thief! [Reuters]
• Whoopi Goldberg cut her Las Vegas stand up show short on Friday night after a man in the audience had a seizure and collapsed. [TMZ]
• Amy Winehouse's mom, Janis, says Amy drinks because she's bored. "Amy knows her drinking ruined the performance. Of course her band is frustrated, but even they can't stop her. It's just another one of Amy's addictions getting the better of her. It's yet another demon she has to beat. She came off drugs on her own so I know she'll stop drinking too much too. It has to be her decision though, no one else can stop her." [The Sun]
• Colin Farrell will be the best man when his gay brother Eamon Farrell marries his partner Steven later this year. [Daily Express]
• Shocker: Jon & Kate Plus 8 is staged, says Kate's sister-in-law Julie. She blogs: "When the show first started, Kate made a wish list of things that she wanted, and that became the theme of each episode - the carpet, twins' room, bunk beds, cow, hair plugs, teeth whitening, trips, etc. EVERYTHING that you see them do or buy is completely paid for out of the budget for the show or traded for free advertising … The episodes are also staged. Here's how it works ... there is a staff of people reading these blogs and they base the shows around what people are talking about." [MSNBC Scoop]
• The Real Housewives Of New York are getting a raise: Next season they'll get "upwards of $30,000 per episode." Raise your hand if you feel impoverished now. [NY Daily News]
• Lost's Evangeline Lilly says that producers "have seen that I haven't picked up on the opportunity to become a big movie star. It frustrates [them] that they've given me this chance to become the next Angelia Jolie" yet she hasn't gone after it. She adds: "Sure, I'd love to be her, but just the humanitarian side." [Page Six via Women's Health]
• Desperate Doused Wives? Teri Hatcher jumped into the pool fully clothed after performing with her charity group, "Band From TV," at Miami Beach's Shore Club. [Page Six]
• Mandy Moore loves watching the cagefighting mixed-martial arts of the UFC: "It's the best way for me to get out my aggression," she says. "The rush of adrenaline, being in an arena with 20,000 screaming people-it's overwhelming in the best way." [Maxim]
• Kevin Bacon's BlackBerry was stolen at a subway station in NYC on Thursday — and KB totally chased the guy! Unfortunately, he didn't catch him. [Daily Mail]
• Liz Taylor is in the hospital, but it's only a routine visit. Also: La Liz hearts Twitter. [MSNBC]
• "Brooke Shields: 'I was a virgin until the age of 22 because I didn't like the way I looked.'" [Daily Mail
• Rapper T.I. played a farewell concert to an arena packed with 16,000 fans Sunday night; he's due to report at the Federal Correction Institution at Forrest City, Arkansas by noon today. [USA Today]
• Unsolicited uterus update: Model Adriana Lima is reportedly three months pregnant; she eloped with NBA player Marko Jaric on Valentine's Day earlier this year. [Gatecrasher]
• Are you wondering if the Jonas Brothers are fizzling out as a Disney franchise? Here's a 1,114 word story that will sort of, but not really, answer that question. [NY Times]
• In this interview with Michael Bay, he divulges that the new Transformers movie takes up huge chunks of computer memory with its special effects. The first Transformers took up "an astounding 15 terabytes," and the sequel required 140 terabytes. "That breaks every record," says Bay. Also: Did you know he directed that old Aaron Burr "Got Milk" commercial? [LA Times]
• Phylicia Rashad, aka Claire Huxtable, is taking over as the mother in the Broadway play August Osage County. This article notes, "In a notable flourish of so-called nontraditional casting, Ms. Rashad inherits a white stage family of three daughters, a husband, a sister and other relatives." [NY Times]
• Are Kylie Minogue and her hot hottie gonna get married? [News.com.au]
• Not that you care but: "Peter Andre tells Katie Price it's 'too late' to reconcile, as he spends first day back with his kids." [Mirror]
• Morrissey has canceled more tour dates due to illness. [BBC News]
• For the last few weeks, there's been lots of buzz about the book Hollywood producer Jon Peters was going to write — with details about Barbra Streisand and so on — and now his book deal is off. Although he's still going to write a book. [Deadline Hollywood]
• "A Night Out With" Nia Vardalos includes Greek desserts, men yelling out blessings in Greek, and Rita Wilson dipping her tongue in a shot glass of Jägermeister, with Vardolos urging, "Do it, do it, do it." [NY Times]
• Sly Stone — previously reclusive — has been taking the stage lately, to support his 27-year-old daughter Novena Carmel, and her band, BabyStone. [CNN]
• Two Scottish cities are fighting over Groundskeeper Willie of The Simpsons. Is there nothing else to do? [The Sun]
• Grumpy Paul McCartney is reportedly "furious" about the switch to digital cable. "He doesn't think it's right that you have to either go to the trouble of getting an adapter or you have to buy a new TV, which he should do anyway," says a source. "You'd think he'd have an apartment full of flat screen TVs but really, he's got these old clunky sets in this tiny New York apartment." [MSNBC Scoop]
• Attention, Black Magic Women: Tomorrow, Carlos Santana will kick off a two-year residency at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas. [USA Today]
• RIP Jay Bennett, former member of the band Wilco. [E!]
• Tony Curtis called Joan Collins a "****" but it's tough to figure out what those stars stand for. [Daily Mail]
• Liberty DeVitto, who played with Billy Joel for 30 years, has sued the singer claiming he's owed overdue royalties. [UPI]
• Do you want to read a quote from Heather Mills' ex-fiancé, Chris Terrill, in which he compares her to a tornado? Then by all means, click the link. [Mirror]
• Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian made a whopping $70 million over the last four days; Terminator Salvation made about $65. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Phish tour: Sold out. Go find your tie-dye. [UPI]
• "Simple Minds return with a new album but the same defiant attitude." [Daily Express]
• Blind item! "What seemingly sweet small-screen starlet is actually so nasty that she won't speak to anyone on set until she 'has her face on?'" [Gatecrasher]
• "It was a divine beginning and it went on becoming more romantic. He took more attention than you can imagine to make sure you were sexually OK, with tiny wee cushions everywhere so one was comfortable. I never knew anyone who gave one such tiny, exquisite attentions. It was like having a wonderful parrot who bites everyone else but you. Everyone said: 'Oh Serge, he's so dangerous.' I said : 'Oh yes, he is,' but really, he was a pushover – very sentimental, very romantic." — Jane Birkin, on Serge Gainsbourg. [Guardian]
• "I don't take myself so seriously. All these people think I do. Look, a lot of people think it's fun to hate on Michael Bay. There's a lot of poison on the Internet. People always try to knock someone who's had a ton of success in movies. Whatever." — Michael Bay. [LA Times]
• "Becoming a mum was the single most profound, self-adjusting moment in my life. I birthed myself. It's like I took back my life. I took back the essence of who I am." — Thandie Newton, who struggled with bulimia before she got pregnant. [Times Of London]
• "Very swiftly we turned into two different people, and it's just hard. He's angry with me that he's home and I'm not. Yet he doesn't really feel great about me, so he wants me to travel. It is so involved I almost can't put it into words. I think the thing that makes me the maddest is: Jon made some mistakes and he was out and whatever, and that made people question him. I'm doing what I'm SUPPOSED to be doing. I'm working and traveling. [which led to reports that she was having an affair with her bodyguard]." — Kate Gosselin. [AP]
• "Since I've played for years, I get a little break. I think if I were doing rock music, there would be more doubt because there's such a great tradition of actors doing rock music so badly." — Steve Martin, on his banjo playing and bluegrass album. [NY Post]
• "I have never tap-danced in my life and I was kicked out of the choir in the fifth grade because I can't sing, but for this movie I had to tap-dance and sing in one scene… when I was supposed to be nine months pregnant. So I had tap shorts over fishnets around a fake pregnancy belly, and when I put my arms up to tap-dance in front of 300 people, my pants fell down. It was like embarrassment laid on top of embarrassment laid on top of embarrassment." — Sarah Chalke, on shooting the Lifetime movie Maneater. [NY Daily News]
• "For me, it's not a pastime, going out and meeting people and trying to hook up with people. That actually makes me feel disgusting. From a really early age, I was really sensitive to that. Getting your flirt on is the best thing in the world, but when it comes to sharing bodily fluids with a person I don't know — no thank you." — Katy Perry. [Gatecrasher]

[Image by Steven Klein via W Magazine.]

[New York, November 4. Image via Splash.]

[New York, August 7. Image via Bauer-Griffin]

• Helena Bonham Carter popped! The actress gave birth to a daughter in London late Saturday. Carter and her Sweeney Todd director beau Tim Burton already have a 4-year-old son, Billy. [People]
  
• Five years after its premiere, Celine Dion's long-running show in Las Vegas is over. But her heart will go on! [People]
  
• Britney Spears was digitally slimmed for her new video, "Piece Of Me." Yawn. [E!]
  
• Will Britney marry Sam Lutfi in Las Vegas? Probably not, but jeez, how awesome would it be? [MSNBC]
  
• Kevin Federline's attorney plans to seek consequences for Britney, since she skipped four scheduled depositions for various reasons: she could have to pay a fee or could be held in contempt of court. [USA Today]

• Pete Doherty wants to run the London Marathon. He might even make it, if he visualizes a hit at the finish line! [Mirror]
• Willem Dafoe's first job was at a printing plant where pages of Penthouse and Hustler went by "in a constant flow." Dafoe says he didn't look at the pictures: "There was nothing erotic to it at all." [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which showbiz couple had a secret split last year? When the gorgeous star caught her man in bed with her sister, he had to promise her a baby before she would get back with him." [Page Six]
• "I'm not a Casanova. I just happen to have a lot of friends who are girls!" —Brody Jenner. [Page Six]
• Photos of Lindsay Lohan going to a recording studio: Staged? [Daily News]
• A company gave 30 Rock actress Katrina Bowden a diamond ring, but tried to make it look like she won it. So lame. [Gatecrasher]
• Blind item! "Which desperate actress is being sniped about because she has full hair and makeup done before proceeding with charity work, such as serving lunches, to look good for the paparazzi?" [Daily News]
• Gossip Girl's Chace Crawford and singer Carrie Underwood: Crappy dancers. [Rush & Molloy]
• Blind item! "Which paparazzi-hating actor who claims to be sober actually has drug parties with his mistress, a certain British 'It' girl?" [Rush & Molloy, last item]
• Amy Winehouse had cocktails at 6 a.m. amid reports she will be grilled by police over her imprisoned husband's case. At least she started her day with the breakfast of champions! [Daily Mail]
• Hugh Grant's ex, Jemima Khan, says he was obsessed with the Queen and would "dream about her regularly." Hoping to be Sir Hugh, perhaps? [Daily Express]
• Meanwhile, the "Eastern beauty" Hugh was seen snogging in a bar last week is a porn star named Shu Qi. Naturally. [Mirror]
• Jessica Simpson was seen wearing a Dallas Cowboys jersey with a pink number 9 on it: Tony Romo's number. "The Cowboys lost the game and Romo had the worst performance of his career," says a report. Is Jess a bad luck charm? [USA Today]
• Meanwhile, Jessica's flick Major Movie Star may end up going straight to DVD, just like Blonde Ambition. Maybe acting isn't her thing? [MSNBC]