The Awful Truth

Krista Kennell/ZUMA Press

“It was like working for a raving, coked-up madman for nine hours a day.”

—Former Girls Gone Wild employee, referring to GGW brain-brat Joe Francis. Yeah, the legally loopy soft-porn biz is where you want to be for solid career inspiration

Maury Phillips/Getty Images / Flynet

Patrick Dempsey, staying in character for the sake of his fans, such the little Heidi-ite, eh? P.D. was in Monterey, Calif., at the Historic Automobile Races at the Laguna Seca racetrack when two tots started yelling for the cutely coiffed guy. ‘Cept they screamed “Robert! Robert!” Demps-doll’s character name in the family flick Enchanted. Dempsey totally played along, flashing those adorable dimples while taking pics with the enamored kids. He even told them he’d “tell Pip you said hi” (another cutesy character in the film). Love when actors take the time to genuinely make a fan’s day. The girls’ just-as-charmed mom noted that the soaper’s hair was “really amazing” in person. Congrats, Pee, I think you’re officially the male Jennifer Aniston now. Getting greasier, less glam adoration elsewhere was...

Rick Salomon, over the Hell-Ay hill at E.G. Daily’s comedy show at the Universal City Walk. Elizabeth Daily, best recognized for her cartoon voices, is even better known as Ricky-boy’s ex-wife. Always keepin’ it classy, Paris’ sex-tape companion was dressed in jeans, flip-flops and a red tee with some sort of marijuana slogan slapped on it, très Pineapple Express. A pal of Daily’s swore she’d never seen R.S. at anything of the comedian’s until now. Hard to believe Liz would consider a second chance with the dude after watching his performance with the heiress, but hey, we’ve seen weirder things happen in T-town.

Nancy Kaszerman/ZUMA Press

Keep Reading

Gary Gershoff/Getty Images, Will Ragozzino/Getty Images

Earlier we mentioned the doc flick, Man on Wire, about woman-and-wire dangler Philippe Petit. Dudes who dump their SOs after they've stuck by their guys' sides for years really piss me off. Even if they did it in 1974.

However, unlike John Edwards who can kiss his political life adios because of his cheating ways, it appears P2's personal flings did not, indeed, cause career suicide. Quite the opposite, in fact.

MOW opened for sneak peeks exclusively in N.Y. and grossed a whopping $51,392 in just two theaters. That made this little baby the strongest opening weekend for any documentary this year and the fifth highest evah. It even beat out the big ole Bat for highest per-screen average.

Plus, this could just be the beginning: Variety reports Robert Zemeckis has the rights to the film, and he may animate the story rather Beowulf-like. Nothing like taking a flick that treats women like discarded puppets to the next big-screen level, where themes like that never get utilized, huh?

Kevin Mazur/WireImage.com

“I am a big Ben Stiller fan. He’s very good for your whole body, for a laugh.”

—Tropic Thunder cameo guy Jon Voight, who clearly forgot to mention how good the career-revitalizing Stiller can be for one’s slumpy job prospects, too. Just ask Tom Cruise if you don’t believe us

Michael Schwartz/Getty Images

Heard word that auditions for the new season of Saturday Night Live were held just last week in, duh, New Yawk. (Where'd you expect, Toledo?) Twenty funnyguys 'n' gals were handpicked from across the country to do five minutes of their best stuff in front of Lord Lorne Michaels and other NBC suits at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

One lucky guy was Bobby Moynihan, a teapot-type (short 'n' stout) who was asked to join the cast for season 30-friggin'-4. Said one UConn alum who partook in plays with the new SNL castmember, "Bobby was always funny...a great character actor." Looks like the dude's finally getting his due, congrats.

Tho we wonder, with pint-size comedy queen Amy Poehler leaving the show after the election, why not cast a woman to take her place? Hope there's more than one new addition in the fall.

One not-so-lucky guy from the casting session? T.J. Miller, whose voice you're prolly more familiar with than his face. TJM played Hud, the lovelorn lad holding the camera in JJ Abrams' fab sci-fi creature hit Cloverfield. Teej was one of Variety's Top Comics to watch in '08, and he impressed enough peeps to get flown out to audition for the late-night sketch show.

But poor T.J.'s audition essentially went outer-space-creature splat:

Keep Reading

AP Photo/Gus Ruelas, FOX

Dear Ted:
Is David Cook the Dexter Lecter from this week's One Skanky 'n' Straight Blind Vice?
—Kamila

Dear Cook Caper:
Thank gawd, no, we're happy we still have some respect for the Idolizer. D.L. is nowhere near as talented as D.C.—although this is reality we're talkin' about, does that narrow it down at all?

Dear Ted:
Is Dexter Lecter Bret Michaels? Ewww! Oh, by the way, the new format ain't so bad. Normally, your Blind Vices are kind of annoying (guess my brain just doesn't work that way), but this one got me.
—Guilty-Pleasure Girl

Dear Save Your Bret:
We don't doubt Bret has said his fair share of skanky sayings in his time, but this B.V. ain't him. Younger. Less tragic.

Keep Reading

Gregg DeGuire / Getty Images

Tom Cruise has finally got folks laughing with him, not at him. For two secs, at least. And all it took was some arm hair, a bald cap and a gut.

Make that guts. Who knew T.C. was secure enough to finally make fun of himself in such an unsightly getup? And if he can do it and get away with it, why can't anyone else? So sorry if we whittle away some of the accolades Tommy's getting for the role, but looks like he didn't create the look and personality of his Les Grossman Tropic Thunder character all on his own.

Says an ex-employee of Ben Stiller's Red Hour production office in Hell-Ay, Cruise-boy's studio hothead was based off of Stiller's producing partner of 10 years, Stuart Cornfeld. S.C. has got quite the coif (on his arms, that is, and none on his dome) and is infamously fond of shouting out four letter words, exactly like the movie's mad H'wood man.

In the original draft of the script, says our source, the money-grubbin' Grossman goes deep into the jungle himself and ends up being tortured. Quite a rewrite from the current flick's dancetastic finale. Guess Stu wasn't too fond of his onscreen persona kickin' the bucket for a cheap laugh.

So sensitive, this crowd.

Lester Cohen/Getty Images, Paul Fenton/ZUMA KPA

Matthew Perry, chitchatting on his cell phone outside Hell-Ay’s premiere posh movie place, ArcLight Cinemas on Sunset Boulevard, near archi-trend hot spot, Vine Street. Matty P. wore jeans and a black shirt, strolling around while on his cell. Was he seeing Tropic Thunder like everyone else? Hope he didn’t feel too envious that all his comedy colleagues were cast in the movie and he was stuck seeing it opening weekend. Wonder if he opted for Brideshead Revisited? Enjoying his evening apparently far more was...

David Spade, slurping a slice or two at Stone Fire Pizza Company in WeHo. Davey, in jeans, a tee and a moustache we def think is a super huge mistake, dined with a guy and a girl at the doughy place, ordering a vodka and tonic as soon as he plopped his skinny old ass down. But then Heather’s tabloid BFF quickly moved on to doing all-out shots. Wonder if D.S. is as concerned over Ms. Locklear as much as the rest of us, ‘cause our eatery eyes claims D.S. looked and acted “a bit out of sorts...not to mention he was sitting on his heels like a 6-year-old boy.” Guess he’s the same height as a 6 year old—may as well act like one, too.

Jeal-Paul Aussenard/Getty Images, Flynet

You know the dirty drill: It’s Monday, which means we get to be as pissy as all you are about our divine new color scheme. Let’s go.

Off-Key: Heidi Montag has a new song out. We’re pretty peeved no one’s stopped her yet. Guess they figure it helps ratings for the show? Also pissed The Hills starts a whole new season tonight, which means these people are going to be talked about more than they already are. Here included.

Off-Game: John Mayer told paps (on video, too) all about his breakup with Jen. The guy needs to STFU. Even saying nice things is probably more than Jen wants him to say about their relationship at this point. And, dude. At least pretend it was a fifty-fifty bustup, for the gal’s sake. Think your magnificent little—and smelly—ego could deign to help out the most famously dumped woman in the world, at least a friggin’ little bit? Guess not.

Keep Reading

Jeff Vespa/Getty Images, John Shearer/Getty Images

It was a tense moment. Back at the opening of Apple Lounge last week, both reigning big-hair temptresses o' the moment, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, who haven't exactly been on speaking terms lately, made up. And, stunningly, you can thank preening Paris for this score-settling moment in celeb time, certainly not Lindsay.

Here's what happened:

Keep Reading

Jody Cortes / WENN

We caught a spectacular view, dolls, of Hell-Ay from atop the brand-spankin'-new London hotel on the Sunset Strip, where Pete Wentz was deejaying a special MTV and Sunkist event.

P.W. strolled up to the rooftop pool party sans his new Simpson-Wentz wife-unit. Is Ash finally too pregs to party? Maybe she's learning some lessons from pal Nicole Richie on seriously settling down and nixing any nightlife. (Until your kid's old enough to watch itself, 'course, what is that nowadays, 6 months old?)

A handful of Fall Out Boy followers managed to finagle their way into the fete, and the eyelined babes snapped photos of the bassist, perched up on a balcony so no one could get an inch near him, all through his set. Didn't seem like Petey-pie had too many other fans in the place, since nobody was dancing to what the DJ was playin'.

Not one of the Kardashian sistahs there even boogied down. Instead Kim, Khloe and Kourtney spent most of the soiree holed up in the VIP section, unsurprisingly. In fact, more people were waiting in line to play Rock Band than the event organizers had set up for.

We dug the dude mixing hip-hop with '80s pop, like combining Jay-Z's "99 Problems" with Nena's "99 Luftballoons," but other party people were much harder to please. "He should have gotten here earlier," said one pissed P-fan. "He's playing the same songs the first DJ already played!"

Way to unwork the crowd, Wentzy. We know you've got blogging down to an art form, how about working on punctuality next? You getting Simpson-ized there, sweets?