THE BAILOUT'S HOLLYWOOD CONNECTION "Hollywood would get a little unexpected boost from the proposed $700-billion bailout of the nation's financial system. The bill wending its way through Congress would provide tax breaks worth more than $470 million over the next decade for movie and TV producers that shoot in the U.S. That's not a lot of money, given that the average studio movie costs $106.6 million to make and market, but it could keep some low-budget productions — and jobs — from going offshore."
ALWAYS FOLLOW THE MONEY "On average, representatives that voted for the Wall Street bailout package received more campaign contributions from financial firms by a 2-to-1 margin than members who voted against the bailout, according to a Maplight.org study of data from the Center for Responsive Politics. While the study doesn't exonerate House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from charges she riled up opponents, it does suggest there may have been more at play than angry constituents."
Those useless Hills girls have cranked out yet another overpriced clothing line. This time the two masterpieces were designed by the lovely Whitney Port, and while the dresses are leaps and bounds more impressive than anything designed by that twit Heidi Montag, we don't understand who in her right mind would pay five hundred dollars for that black dress. We don't care how many sequins Whit managed to cram onto that thing.
Oh gawd! It's like all the news anymore is a hurricane made of lies and garbage and bullshit, and it's ceaseless!
Are you mad we yell about the GOP on here? Listen, we'll stop taking the GOP to task when it stops pulling stunts like this:
CONTINUED »
I stopped praying when in 1996. That's the year I prayed very hard for my parents to not get divorced, to no avail, subsequently prompting me to make the decision to stop thinking magic might help me in some way.
Turns out that God had a very good reason for forsaking me back then: she was saving up all her energy to make millions for a couple of Christian filmmakers!
“I’m not impressed with Hollywood in general. They don’t make a lot of movies that lift our standards and morality.” That’s what director Alex Kendrick told me in a telephone interview on Monday after his new movie "Fireproof" (IDP Films/Samuel Goldwyn) opened with a downright shocking $6.5 million opening weekend.
LA and New York are filled with talented film professionals who spend countless hours and millions upon millions of dollars making movies. The cost of development, production, a director, actors and marketing make the craft of filmmaking prohibitive. So how did a little church in Georgia score the 4th-best gross of the just-completed weekend?
The answer, according to director Kendrick, is prayer. “Before we shot a tough scene, we prayed. This movie was bathed in prayer.” He is serious.
Although Alex and his brother, co-writer and producer Stephen Kendrick, “grew up making silly movies in the backyard with a video camera,” they have no formal training in the business. They are both Associate Pastors at Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia, 3 hours south of Atlanta. They are in “the prayer business” full-time.
Fireproof, starring 80s heartthrob-cum-Christian right icon Kirk Cameron, tells the story of a fireman whose marriage is falling apart. I've not seen it, but I bet the couple stays together. With the help of the Lord, no doubt.
Unfortunately for the world — and even more unfortunately for Britney Spears — Adnan Ghalib refuses to go away and is pulling out the whole "sex tape" controversy to stay in the spotlight. He says he will sell the tape, but only for the right amount of money — and he's "not interested in selling out any other details about Britney." What a guy. The two hour-footage reportedly featured a naked Britney prancing around in her infamous pink wig. It's safe to say nobody wants to see that.
Meanwhile, here's some pictures of Britney flying from LA to NYC yesterday. We would go out and try to catch a glimpse of the singer, but you know she's being locked up in a hotel room somewhere, much like Tom Cruise does when Katie Holmes breaks the rules of Scientology.
[Source]
HOLY SHIT! THE BAILOUT DIDN'T PASS IN THE HOUSE, SUBSEQUENTLY CAUSING THE DOW TO DROP 600 POINTS IN A FEW HORRIFYING MINUTES! SEE YOU GUYS ON THE BREAD LINES!
Despite many rumors to the contrary, Matilda Ledger, Heath's daughter, will be receiving most if not all of her late father's $16 million estate. Heath's dad, Kim Ledger, the executor of his son's will, said today that he and his wife are gifting all of Heath's money to Matilda, killing scuttlebutt that claimed Kim might possibly squander the millions before his granddaughter turned 18.
In related news, the bar in which Heath invested before he passed finally opened about a block away from my apartment. It's constantly overrun with hipsters, one of whom works there and, according to my roommate, looks exactly like me from behind. I go there sometimes, too. I hope my scotch money does Matlida well 15 years from now.
Lindsay Lohan's rep is working overtime this week in the wake of LiLo's "shocking" confession that she and Samantha Ronson have been dating for "a very long time." According to her rep, "there was no confession" — she was simply saying the two were very close friends. Uh, OK.
Here's what really happened: Lindsay wanted to get people talking and succeeded — but refuses to officially come out until someone offers her lots and lots of money. Case closed.
[Source]
Why buy the cow when its way of life is so reliant upon you that it can't leave, despite the fact that you rob it blind? That's apparently the abusive husband-like thinking of the city of Los Angeles, which continues to watch shows formerly filmed in its borders – Ugly Betty, In Treatment – head east after failing to offer film and television productions tax breaks comparable to those of New York City.
LA has always sucked, but it's going to suck even more if visitors driving around and looking at it can't every 20 minutes go, "Hey, that's that building from that one movie." According to the numbers, that's happening quite frequently these days. The mayor's office estimates that in just five months since the city of New York enacted their massive tax breaks, city-based shoots have contributed $505 million more in spending than they did during the same time last year.
And New York's not the only city wising up to how profitable playing nice with the movie stars is:
John McCain, whose ads skewer Barack Obama for his "celebrity" status, has his own close ties to show business…
The 72-year-old was recently made TV-ready by makeup artist Tifanie White who's worked on So You Think You Can Dance! and American Idol.
McCain paid the 2002 beauty-school grad $5,583.43 for her services, according to the Federal Election Commission.
World famous pornographer Hugh Hefner, who's somehow convinced everyone that he's better than the common street pimps who do what he does, is being forced to can Playboy staffers in both New York and Los Angeles.
Since Hefner's once reputable magazine went from interviewing people like Malcolm X to interviewing people like Pete Wentz, and since anyone interested in masturbating to pictures now has the Internet for that, Playboy the brand has seen its stock fall precipitously, from $11.40 to $2.85.
This is just the latest blow to the 83-year-old Hef's empire, which has been in a rough patch for quite sometime now. Besides being turned down by falling starlet Lindsay Lohan, it's rumored that Playboy's notorious mansion parties have a tenuous future and that two out of three of Hef's girlfriends, Holly Madison and Kendra Wilkinson, have ditched him for younger men (magician Criss Angel and football player Hank Baskett, respectively).
Whaddya know? Women for whom one pays have no loyalty.
Update: Whoops! Page Six reports today that Hef's final girlfriend, Bridget Marquardt, is now dating Marisa Tomei's ex.
Finally, a list of the 50 richest members of Congress (27 Republicans, 23 Democrats)!
Click through to see where your favorites ranked.
"You fucked up—you trusted us." They are the immortal words of Otter in the 1978 classic Animal House, and they are the words that should be tattooed on oil scion Brandon Davis' forehead.
The New York Post today compiles a list of names of wealthy suckers who mistakenly let the flailing Davis within reach of them and their wallets, followed by descriptions of how and to what extent exactly Davis then screwed them over.
If the Post's figures are right, Davis' running tab with his "friends" is well over a quarter of a million dollars, and he's reportedly in no mood to pay back any of it: "Davis rang up a $100,000 tab on [David] Kur's bookie account. When Kur asked for it back, Davis said, 'Fuck you. I'm not going to pay. You want your money? Come get it.'" Says Kur, "He's a very messed-up person." Incisive.
DARLING NICKY: THE HILTON BLACK SHEEP? Hey now! Despite her sister being a vehement racist and her parents and grandparents being major McCain campaign donors, Nicky Hilton, the one whose privates you can't google, was reportedly at Barack Obama's $28,000 a plate fund raising dinner Tuesday night, seated at the same table as Leonardo DiCaprio. Wonder how daddy feels about his money becoming Obama's money?
A full rundown of the guests and their seating assignments is here.
GOOD PEOPLE DOING GOOD THINGS "Brad Pitt donated $100,000 to fight California's Proposition 8, a ballot initiative that would take away same-sex couples' right to marry. 'Because no one has the right to deny another their life, even though they disagree with it, because everyone has the right to live the life they so desire if it doesn't harm another and because discrimination has no place in America, my vote will be for equality and against Proposition 8,' the actor said in a statement."
ARTS AND FARTS AND CRAFTS Artist Damien Hirst's massive auction of his work yesterday at Sotheby's fetched $169 million from buyers, with 87 of the 223 lots having yet to go up on the block. This is an all-time money high for an auction of works by a single artist, a record formerly held by Pablo Picasso. At left is Hirst's "The Golden Calf," an embalmed bull with gold-plated horns and hooves, which sold for $18.5 million. You don't get it.
STARS EXERT ACTUAL EFFORT! "Jennifer Lopez completed the Nautica Malibu Triathlon in 2 hours, 23 minutes and 38.8 seconds on Sunday. The singer, 39, pumped her arms in the air and smiled broadly as she crossed the finish line of the swimming-running-biking event. 'Thank you guys so much,' she told the crowd. 'This is an amazing day. … I feel really great that we raised $127,000 for the Children's Hospital [of Los Angeles] and hopefully it'll go to good use,' Lopez added. … After finishing, Lopez joined her family and Matthew McConaughey, who came in before her, in the VIP area. McConaughey was accompanied by his girlfriend Camila Alves and their newborn son Levi. McConaughey's race time was 1 hour, 30 minutes and 44.7 seconds."
Editor
