smackdown (10 posts)

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Forget about Terminator: Salvation hitting theaters this weekend. The really big releases are happening in stores everywhere on Tuesday.

OK, we're not serious, but we are back with our weekly presentation of what's coming your way this week and curious to see which way you'll throw your support.

Will it be hip-hop's comeback kid, Eminem's sixth album or Tom Cruise's controversial Nazi flick?

Em's already drummed up plenty of press for his new album, Relapse, resorting back to his old tricks—stepping on toes and insulting loads of celebs on the way. So should we even still care? Probably. Relapse is the rapper's first release in five years and is said to have been his saving grace after a lengthy battle with drugs and obesity. Plus we're interested to see what he's come up with this time around.

Cruise's Valkyrie was huge before it even hit theaters. Not that anyone really knew a thing about the film, other than it was constantly surrounded by production woes and legal troubles. And while it never achieved the big financial success of other holiday releases, Valkyrie had its share of rave reviews and Tom Cruise in an eye patch. That's something even Eminem can't touch.

So who's it going to be? You tell us.

Eric Charbonneau / Getty Images, Charles Eshelman/Getty Images

Marlee Matlin is spilling. William Hurt is sorry.

Matlin has been making the rounds touting her new memoir, I'll Scream Later, and raising some eyebrows with allegations that she was abused by Hurt during their two-year relationship that blossomed on the set of 1987's Children of a Lesser God, the film which earned her a Best Actress Oscar.

"I always had fresh bruises every day. And if I had a split lip, or if...I mean, there were a lot of things that happened that were not pleasant," Matlin told Access Hollywood in an interview Monday. "I was always afraid...of him, but I loved him. Or maybe I thought I did. But look, I was 19, he was 35."

The actress, now 43, recounted one particular incident when Hurt threw her on a bed and stripped her naked as she cried, "No, no, no. Please Bill, no."

In a statement to E! News on Tuesday, Hurt said that both he and Matlin had moved on.

"My own recollection is that we both apologized and both did a great deal to heal our lives. Of course, I did and do apologize for any pain I caused. And I know we have both grown. I wish Marlee and her family nothing but good."

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Anthony; PacificCoastNews.com; smokjumpersmusic.com

Chris Brown is due to face the music in court on Monday—or he can just turn on his radio today.

Smoke Jumpers, a little-known hip-hop act, is attempting to raise its profile with some Brown bashing, taking the disgraced R&B singer to task in a new track that includes the lyric: "Chris Brown should get his ass kicked."

Called "My Flow So Tight," the electronic-flavored ditty is touted on the group's website as "the official Chris Brown dis record" and claims the entertainer has no future in the music biz because of the Rihanna incident:

"Boy hits girl/Boy should be taken down/No matter who's around...All the money in the world but that's no excuse/Career suicide, yo, here's the noose."

The track has been in heavy rotation on urban radio stations in markets like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Pittsburgh and Tampa.

Smoke Jumpers promise that a portion of the proceeds from the single will go to various organizations for battered women.

A rep for Brown was unavailable for comment. The 19-year-old singer is due in an L.A. courtroom Monday afternoon to be arraigned on two felony counts stemming from the pre-Grammys altercation.

Does the Miracle on the Hudson have anything on the (medical) miracle in the delivery room?

Some celebrities—we're looking at you, Chris Brown and Michael Phelps—are all too aware that the American public's fascination with achievement is second only to their enthrallment with the same stars' alleged shortcomings, and now some pop culture heavyweights are in danger of learning the same lesson or becoming obsolete.

While the nation's most celebrated pilot, Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger was being publicly feted on CBS' 60 Minutes over the weekend, and will continue to be fawned over on the Late Show With David Letterman tonight, NBC—no doubt smarting from the loss of their would-be hero exclusive—fought back with a two-part discussion with a pop culture phenom of their own.

The publicist-equipped, controversy-baiting (and, at the right angle, Angelina Jolie-resembling) Nadya Suleman sat down with the Today show last week to defend her decision to in-vitro fertilize her way to 14 kids and, in this morning's video pièce de résistance, show off her eight newest bundles of joy.

So which buzzworthy story really floats your plane boat, the feel-good tale or the one more amenable to cast aspersions?

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Steve Granitz/Getty Images; VH1

She may be the host of Rock of Love Charm School, but apparently Sharon Osbourne could use a refresher course herself.

E! News has confirmed that a police investigation has been launched after Osbourne allegedly attacked a contestant on the VH1 show, scratching her face and pulling her hair during a reunion taping on Saturday.

"We know a battery incident is alleged to have occurred on a taping of a reality show Sharon Osbourne hosts," said Los Angeles police spokesman Ben Llewellyn. Llewellyn would not confirm whether a police report had been filed.

Asked if she planned to comment, Osbourne rep Nicole Perna said, "We do not."

Megan Hauserman, 26, purportedly drew Osbourne's ire after commenting on camera that she was only famous for managing her husband, whom Hauserman dubbed "a brain-dead rock star."

Back for the reunion special, Hauserman, who is a regular reality contestant and previous winner on Beauty and the Geek, was booted from Charm School after four episodes for kicking a fellow contestant.

Ironically, Osbourne's final words before expelling Hauserman may come back to haunt the host: "The one thing I cannot stand is violence."

—Additional reporting by Whitney English

(Originally published Dec. 15, 2008 at 10:26 a.m. PT.)

There's fan fiction and video tributes, so we know others sense the strong attraction between the Twilight series and Bonnie Tyler's 1983 hit "Total Eclipse of the Heart."

But the more we watch the Twilight trailer the more we kind of wish its fight scene included dancing ninjas and kids with glowing eyes, too.

Do you agree—or do you think Twilight nails it? Watch this and decide for yourself.

Sipa via AP Images

Mos Def probably wishes he could Be Kind and Rewind right about now.

That's because Las Vegas police have issued a warrant for the actor-rapper's arrest after he allegedly mistook a staff photographer at a Sin City fashion event for a pestering paparazzo and opened up a can o' whoopass on him.

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Barry Brecheisen/Getty Images

This is not what we'd call a successful fusion of country and metal.

John McCain-exalting Nashville hit maker John Rich, of the chart-topping Big & Rich, and Jerry Montano, a former bassist of the Satan-saluting Danzig, both managed to avoid arrest after getting into a fistfight early Friday.

"There was an altercation and nobody desired to press charges, so no one was arrested," Los Angeles Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore tells E! News

Whitmore says deputies were called to the Mondrian Hotel in West Hollywood at 4:20 a.m., after a scuffle broke out in Rich's room.

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To quote his big-screen alter ego in Undercover Brother, this is one of them funky times.

A former production manager is suing Eddie Griffin, accusing the funnyman of a drunken assault while working on a TV pilot in March.

The lawsuit was filed today in Los Angeles County Superior Court against Griffin and the Leslie Greif Company by Vince Beane, who worked on a VH1 reality series tentatively titled The Eddie Griffin Project. (View the court docs.)

The plaintiff claims that on March 10 the comic actor wrongfully accused Beane of slighting Griffin's mother by "treating her, like a slave nigga" or a "ghetto Momma on junior prom night just waiting to get slammed" because, per producers orders, he booked her and Griffin into a "cheap three-star hotel."

Beane's complaint accuses the production company of plying the erstwhile Malcolm & Eddie star and others with more than six bottles of Veuve Clicquot Champagne, which purportedly caused Griffin to go off on Beane, grabbing him by the collar and smacking him around for failing to find better accommodations.

"That was for my Momma…she ain't no nappy-headed ho," Griffin is quoted as saying in the court documents.

For his part, Griffin's rep called Beane's allegations "completely absurd" and "without merit."

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Ah, we missed the good old days when The View was good for a noisy Rosie-versus-Elisabeth shoutfest about...whatever it is they refused to listen to each other about.

Denise Richards getting a gentle whupping from Whoopi doesn't reach the heights of Shriekspearean drama of the past, but it's still a reminder that your morning chatfest can turn up the heat in a heartbeat.