NEWS UPDATE

Another day, another update.

HIDALGO

Oooo, a trailer. And new pictures. Awesome. Hit Trailer Park as well to read about the clip--it's tiny and crappy and has a really intrusive narration, but at the same time, it's a movie about Viggo Mortensen and a horse kicking ass in the desert--a good premise if I ever heard one.

WALLPAPER

Done: eight new desktops, light downloads, high quality. (Don't ever say I never did nothin' for ye.)

GOD BLESS BUENA VISTA

The Buena Vista publicity site has just approved Daily Digest access, so I will shortly be posting some incredibly upgraded and improved Pirates of the Caribbean wallpaper, as soon as I finish downloading these multi-megabyte images. (Does the dance of media access)

DEATHS

I guess we knew it was going to happen--she was 96, after all--but--not Katharine Hepburn! She was so awesome. And I really mean "awesome," and not in my usual stoner way, either: awe-inspiring. She was such a firecracker--a firecracker with class, and so much talent.

I'm going to go find my tape of Desk Set now.

SHHHH!

I totally have to order a pack of these cards before I go out and see a movie again. (And sadly, knowing me, they'll probably arrive in the mail before I do go.)

NEWS UPDATE

Two days in a row! Sarcastic woo! (Shut up.)

TYPO OF THE DAY

At Dark Horizons:

Garfield: The Hollywood Reporter indicates "Cabin Fever" helmer Eli Roth will next do Lions Gate's psychological thriller flick about an artist so bent on success he may give rise to the darkest of evils.

ASK A STUPID QUESTION

Reader Tina writes in to ask, "I just got back from taking my son to see Charlie's Angels Full Throttle. I could swear that I saw Bruce Willis in a cameo, playing the guy on the airplane, but can't find a "complete" cast listing anywhere online. Am I seeing things? Thanks for your help!"

I haven't updated the main Stupid Question page (where, remember, no question is too stupid--not that any of them are stupid, but you see what I'm saying here), but we'll go ahead and answer this one: Bruce Willis is, in fact, in CA:FT. It's odd, given that ex-wife Demi Moore is the villain(ness), but it's true.

YOUR OWN PRIVATE ARAGORN

I would like to note at this time that you can simultaneously support the Digest and pre-order your own personal ROTK teaser poster for $15.95 at the New Line/LOTR shop. A nice full 27 x 40", the poster comes out July 7 (a week from Monday).

One more time:

AIN'T IT COOL?

Folks, I think I have just been sexually harassed by an AICN movie review. Again. (Yes, it's almost as bad as the infamous Blade--or was it Blade II?--review wherein Harry compared the movie to oral sex. Graphically.) Not for the faint of heart or stomach, although he's not so into actual blow-by-blow (heh) descriptions this time. Thanks (?) to Correspondent Vladimir.

TRAILER PARK

New at the Park: the new LXG "clip" exclusive to the X2 site.

AMEN, SISTER

From Stephanie Zacharek's Charlie's Angels 2 review, on the over-proliferation of high-tech FX: "Where's the thrill in watching a collection of pixels execute a septuple midair somersault? They're just dots, for God's sake. When they suit up for work, they've nothing to lose."

FROM JUSTIN TO KELLY

Over at Television Without Pity, Shack--truly a brave man--has taken a bullet for all of us and recapped the American Idol movie/travesty.

HARRY POTTER AND THE SPOILERS OF DOOM

Uh oh. JK Rowling has said in an online chat... well, we'll let you see for yourselves:

During the chat at the Royal Albert Hall, held in lieu of a book tour to promote the new best-seller ''Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,'' a reader from Australia asked Rowling if she planned to write any novels about Harry's adult years. ''You have to wait and see whether he survives to be a grown-up,'' she replied. ''I'm not saying he won't, but I don't want to give anything away.''

Rowling also warned readers that they shouldn't become too attached to some of Hogwarts' love-to-hate characters. ''You shouldn't think [Professor Snape] is too nice. He's worth keeping an eye on,'' Rowling said. She also said readers ''are all getting too fond of Draco,'' Harry's snobbish classmate. ''The dark forces are indeed rising.''


(Entertainment Weekly)

THE GEEK TEST

I? Am 22.09073% geek. (You get bonus points for being female, apparently.)

(Thanks to Mif.)

LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING

OH MY GOD, THIS IS THE MOST AWESOME POSTER EVER.

Also, compare to the very first Fellowship poster (a pair of posters, actually--Frodo looking down at the ring was the other one).

NEWS UPDATE

Well, we missed Wednesday (Tuesdays off for workshop, remember?), but didn't do so bad tonight. Actually, I have no idea what I would have posted yesterday, because I had three days' worth of news and could barely fill an update. It is sloooow this week, people. Don't get me wrong, there's lots of good stuff, but nothing... you know, earth-shattering.

DEATHS

In possibly the least-surprising passing ever, Strom Thurmond shuffles off this mortal coil at the age of 100, as the longest-serving American senator.

TOMATO NATION

I feel compelled to mention that, while Sars is wrestling with her new webhost, the site has moved to a URL you will never, ever remember.

(C'mon. A CHiPs drinking game. You know you want it.)

REVIEW OF THE WEEK

FTer Rogue Pimp on The Hulk: "Yeah, it's good if you miss huge parts of it."

SHOP THE DIGEST

Just got an email from CafePress: "Summer is here! Celebrate summer with CafePress.com's coupon promotion. Your customers can save $4 when they spend $30 or more. Coupon offer expires July 15, 2003. Coupon code: FREEDOM." So, you know, if that's any enticement...

ARRRRRR!

What's your pirate name? (Captain Prudentilla Bonney, ye bleedin' barnacle!)

LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING

Sir Ian McKellen himself reports on the recent reshoots in New Zealand:

We abandoned that scene and went to a Rohan party with Pippin and Merry doing a jig on a table-top. Only there was no table and no hobbit dancing – that had been filmed in my absence last week - though oddly there was an ample crowd of hirsute soldiers to mill about behind us, as Viggo and I did our last scene together, worrying as usual back at base camp whilst Frodo and Sam climbed up Mount Doom and Sauron set his eye on Minas Tirith.

Interesting. He also mentions a few other additional tidbits they shot, and the fact that Miranda Otto was given her sword to keep at the end of her shoot. Awesome.

Oh, and Kiki the Giant Spider wants to branch out as an actor.

HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF 'SHIPPERS

Hmm. I hear that a few high-profile fanfic writers are pissed off at J.K. Rowling over the latest installment of Harry Potter because it supposedly messes up their fanfic universes. I have a sort of controversial take on that--well, controversial to fanficcers, at least. Read more.

THUNDERBIRDS

... And a look at Bill Paxton and Ben Kingsley in the (live action) Thunderbirds as well.

PAYCHECK

Sci-fi. John Woo. Ben Affleck. I seem to recall Uma Thurman as well? Here's a first look from Entertainment Weekly:

"STAR WARS SUMMER FUN"

At least, that's what the Star Wars Kids newsletter offers: "School's out and there's so much to do... " Like... work on your tan? See a movie? Catch up on your reading? Hang out with your friends? "....like have a Star Wars movie marathon, read Star Wars books, make Star Wars food, play Star Wars games, and work on your Star Wars toy collection!" By your lonesome, lonesome self, no doubt.

("Star Wars food"?)

NEWS UPDATE

Well, after a week in which I thought we were back to our normal schedule, but were not, due to technical difficulties, we are (knock on wood) actually back to our normal schedule (cross your fingers). Because the news is important. It changes every day, you see. ;)

PETER PAN

Damn, yo. Jason Isaacs brought the sexy to a children's movie. That ain't right.

REVIEWS

Of course I reviewed the book, dude. This is Harry Potter Weekend, you expected me to get any real work done?

HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX

Finished. Damn. That only took me ten hours straight. Good thing those pages have relatively big print.

Was it awesome? It was awesome. I posted a whole discussion with spoilers, but I can't get the white-font-on-white-background thing to work on the published version of the blog. Dammit. But here we go--I'll post it as a comment, so click the comments feature below to read it if 1) you've finished reading the book, 2) you don't give a good goddamn about the book, or 3) you're making the incredibly bad decision to spoil yourself.

Did anyone else totally hear the the actors reading their characters' lines while you read? Sucked for Lupin and Sirius, though, since we won't know what they sound like until the third movie comes out next summer. (Umbridge I didn't need to hear, because she's a big enough bitch-whore as it is.) For the others, though--particularly Snape and McGonagall--it was totally awesome.

HARRY POTTER AND THE WHEELBARROW I USED TO HEAVE THE BOOK HOME

Got HP&OOTP at Books-a-Million for $17.99--just walked in and picked one up off the stack of maybe a hundred they had by the door. I'm just saying: if you didn't pre-order yours from Amazon or a store nearby, you shouldn't have a problem getting one now, hysteria be damned.

You will not be hearing from me again until I have finished the book. See you tonight.

PETER PAN

Okay, so Latino Review says there's a better-quality poster at Yahoo Movies, so I go over there, and.... AHHHHHHH! There's a trailer! AHHHHHH! There are new pictures! What is wrong with you people? Why are people not jumping up and down about this? AHHHHHHHHHH!

TRAILER PARK

New at the Park: The Punisher.

HULK SMASH CLEO MOUNTAIN DEW!

I hate ubiquitous movie advertising. Look, I know the can is green. It was practically asking for it. Nonetheless: GET OFF MY SODA!

QUESTIONS THAT NEED ANSWERS

Should a French character in a movie set directly after the French Revolution call a child "Honey"?

MOVIES YOU WATCH INSTEAD OF WRITING CRITIQUES FOR WORKSHOP

In every writer's life, there will be choices. I am faced with one such choice today: Do I get down to work and write my critiques for tonight's workshop class now, or do I put them off a couple more hours and mock the cheesy, wooden, overwrought, underwritten extravaganza that is Episode II: Attack of the Clones, now playing on HBO five times a day? Because it was okay on the big screen, but on the small? It is awful. It's fullscreen, not widescreen, so what visual grandeur it has is chopped in half, and you're left with nothing but closeups and dialogue. And we all know how the dialogue turned out. So bad! So ridiculous! So imminently mockable! The choice, it is hard.

NEWS UPDATE

Thoughts on writing tonight's update:

Why does Cinemovies.fr's Pirates of the Caribbean gallery keep crashing my computer?

Dammit, I forgot to scan those Big Fish pictures.

Dude, who goes to war in a stovepipe hat?

I don't so much care about Charlie's Angels 2, but I like the Pink song a lot. How'd that happen?

Who would name a heist caper "Layer Cake"? (Mmmm... layer cake.)

Does not refusing to give a good goddamn about The Hulk make me a bad entertainment journalist?

(Can I actually refer to myself as "an entertainment journalist," period, or is that pushing it?)

DEATHS

And we have our third in a week: Hume Cronyn, 91, of prostate cancer. Probably best known today for Cocoon and his marriage to Jessica Tandy, Cronyn debuted in, coincidentally, my favorite Hitchcock flick: Shadow of a Doubt. Obviously, it's another sad day in Hollywood.

TRAILER PARK

New at the Park: Inky takes a look at The Fighting Temptations, and I groan over the latest Seuss atrocity, the brand-new Cat in the Hat trailer ("Don't listen to me, I have personal issues with these movies").

ASSORTED NEWS

E!: Aww, Helen Mirren's now a Dame and Kristin Scott Thomas is an OBE. That's so cool.

EW: Police called to Jude Law and Sadie Frost's house on a domestic disturbance charge; Frost didn't press charges, which says to me that either she called without reason just to get his goat, or she really was in danger and got talked out of admitting it.

IMDB: Nicole Kidman will be the new face of Chanel. Maybe they can get her to stop pulling her hair back so tight and go back to the curls.

Zap2It: "Missing Oscar Statuette Turns Up in Drug Bust."

Daily Digest: We did, in fact, cross 500,000 hits over the weekend--Friday, I think. I really, really, really wanted to throw a party, mostly because I just wanted an excuse to throw a party, but all of my friends have now moved out of state. I have new-friends-in-the-making at school, but I'd feel weird rounding them all up and being like, "Everyone gets stupid drunk at my place!" Sigh.

PETER PAN

Well, I was going to get all excited over the poster, except for the fact that I've seen both the logo and the image before--just not put together with a tag line. So it's lost the element of surprise. But I'm way excited about this one, so here it is anyway at AICN, the site that broke my heart by getting my hopes up and insisting that Elijah Wood was going to play Peter Pan. (I'm telling you: "I am youth! I am joy!" Sigh.)

AS BEES IN HONEY BUZZ

Hmm. The NY Post is reporting that Gwyneth Paltrow's people are going to push her for an Oscar this fall--the movie is the Sylvia Plath biopic I've been hearing about forever; I even remember when it was first called "As Bees in Honey Drown":

GWYNETH Paltrow has good reason to be depressed after playing suicidal poet Sylvia Plath - the movie is said to be less than a masterpiece. Spies with the production of "Sylvia" - formerly titled "The Beekeeper" and "Ted & Sylvia" - say it's a turkey.

Paltrow's rep, Stephen Huvane, said: "We are doing an Oscar push for the movie which will be released the first week of October. "Gwyneth saw the [first draft of] the movie and thinks it's the best thing she has ever done. We have already booked three covers of three major magazines - we are shooting one right now - to help promote the movie."

I think I find this particularly fascinating because of the "three major magazines" bit--it's just interesting to me to see people "booking" these things, to find out why certain people end up on covers and not other people who also have timely projects.

Oh, and Oscar Watchers? There's such a thing as "famous last words," but I wouldn't be putting your money on Gwyneth this year. Why? She's already got one; there's at least going to be a sense of, "Let's give one to someone else," which could be trumped if Paltrow is undeniably, transcendently, incredibly amazing and/or she has jack-all for competition this year, and I have a feeling neither of those will happen. It doesn't help that 1) Sylvia "looks like a turkey" and 2) she's had a pretty mediocre career since Shakespeare in Love anyway, and people are starting to wonder if they should have given her the Oscar in the first place. Or so I hear.

(Man, am I just in a celebrity advice mood or what?)

BOX OFFICE

Oh dear:

1. Finding Nemo $29,200,000
2. 2 Fast 2 Furious $19,100,000
3. Bruce Almighty $14,100,000
4. Rugrats Go Wild $12,500,000
5. Hollywood Homicide $11,700,000
6. Dumb and Dumberer $11,000,000
7. Italian Job $9,500,000
8. The Matrix Reloaded $5,500,000
9. Daddy Day Care $2,100,000
10. X2 $1,600,000

Dude, it totally pains me to say this to Indiana Jones, but Homicide's placing this weekend reminds me of the thought I had while wincing through the Ford-Hartnett shenanigans at the MTV Movie Awards: "Go home, old man!" And don't get me wrong--there are far, far older men than Harrison Ford who rock. But I think Ford has just hit that point in his career where he's just... lost. I mean, what's sadder than Harrison Ford, for chrissakes, getting up at a podium and bellowing out his classic lines apropos of nothing, like he's got Tourette's or--worse--gone senile, while Josh Hartnett just patiently smiles and plays his part and reads the nominations around him? Dude, we know who you are. Even the young'uns. Trust me.

He doesn't seem to have any clue what he's doing (or at least Hollywood Homicide had no clue what kind of movie it wanted to be), and he hasn't settled down into Paul Newman/Sean Connery "I'm craggy, screw you" sageness. You're old, Harrison. Learn it, live it, love it. Don't pander to the rugrats. They know who you are. And even if they don't? Fuck 'em. You're better than this.

NO POSTER FOR YOU!

Well, before I'd even heard about this Minas Tirith poster over at Elbakin (and not "Elkabin," as the link is spelled at TORN), TheOneRing.net is debunking it. What I wonder is, who in the world would ever have bought that that was a real poster? It's blurry as hell, doesn't have the credits block at the bottom, and isn't even a particularly good design. Hell, I could do better, and I couldn't photoshop my way out of a paper bag.

Do I smell a contest coming up...? Leave me a comment if you'd be interested in a little photoshop fun.

YAY!

Fellow FTer undecided has made me one of her Sims! Yay!

Cleolinda [Spicoli]-- Upon hearing The Counting Crows croon "Mr. Jones" on her local Clear Channel affiliate, Cleolinda knew she'd be a flamenco dancer! Publicly denounced Jennifer Lopez and vows the world to know that she, Cleolinda, is the REAL Jenny on that block.

Damn straight, yo.

TWO TOWERS DVD

All right, so I get the War of the Ring Red Arrow newsletter, they have new DVD-related stuff up (promotional art, menu caps, etc.), and I see that they have a "DVD trailer" up. I remember the one for Fellowship being kind of cheesy, but that's because they can't just quietly promote the movie with a cool trailer; they actually have to step in and have Mr. Big Voice be all like, "BUY IT ON DVD TODAY!" So I'm expecting the cheese.

So I watch this one. What I discover is that this trailer is not for viewers, not to get moviegoers to watch the movie again or anything. It's for video stores--it's totally supposed to convince video store folks to buy tons of DVDs "FOR RENTAL AND FOR SALE!" and pile copies up in cardboard promotional shelves in "A VISUALLY CONSPICUOUS PLACE!" (Okay, this trailer didn't say that. But I've seen one that did.) Oh, and buy plenty of copies of Fellowship on DVD, because "SEQUELS DRIVE SALES!" (They really did say that.) Seriously, this is a long clip--at least two or three minutes, which for a trailer is an eternity.

See, this shit cracks me up. As my friends are no doubt tired of hearing, I worked at a video store for well nigh on two years, and I can promise you, ain't nobody got to convince video store folk to stock a movie this big, because, trust me, not only would it be in our best interests financially, but we would do it just to shut people up--just so we could answer "You guys got Two Towers in yet?" with the Silent Finger-Point of GOD, THERE IT IS, RENT THE THING AND SHUT UP. Because I promise you that clerks have been getting that question daily since, oh, let's say, MAY. I would put up a big ol' display of FOTR DVDs would simply to avoid having to deal with people asking about it. The only useful part of this trailer is where Mr. Big Voice talks about the EXCLUSIVE FEATURETTES AND DOCUMENTARIES, because that's another piece of information you'll need to deal with the "What's the difference between this one and the big one in November?" people. Otherwise, it's like, thank you, Captain Obvious--I'm sure there will be a video store that won't have wall-to-wall copies of Two Towers, but I don't know where it would be.

NEWS UPDATE

So. Much. News. So much news, I had to make the news page longer. Two weeks of news, kids. And I'm still not really caught up yet, but just read what we've got, and we'll work on a weekend cleanup update.

P.S. We're within 1000 hits of half a million page views. Will you be the lucky 500,000th reader?

TRAILER PARK

Inky takes a look at the From Justin to Kelly trailer, which I will not be watching because I love Kelly too much to see her like this, in the death throes of her career; and I've downloaded Pink's new Charlie's Angels video for "Feel Good Time." There's a shitload of new trailers out, so hang on for a dip into those over the weekend.

MAGAZINES

Rolling Stone: Justin and Christina. Next!

Vanity Fair: A thin issue both literally and figuratively. It's "The Teen Issue," and damned if I didn't catch a reference to an upcoming "Teen Vanity Fair magazine launch" (ugh). I thought the whole point of Vanity Fair was that it was sophisticated reading material for adults, but if Graydon Carter wants to prove me wrong, he's already done it with this issue. And the photography, my favorite part, is well-done and all, but they totally go about the article from Geezerdom Heights, asking the kids about their preferences re: Britney vs. Christina, how many Juicy Couture outfits they own, blah blah blah, when I could think of a dozen more insightful questions to ask people who are, after all, my sister's age and only a little younger than me. Sigh.

Oh, but the Mikes Darnell vs. Fleiss reality TV article is pretty good; the Taylor-Burton The V.I.P.s article comes off half juicy gossip and half slurpy suck-up, so meh; and the Ira Rennert expose ("He's richer than God! But screwed over Peruvian orphans with high lead levels in their blood to do it!") is both predictable and depressing. I skip all political articles in this magazine, quite frankly, and anything with Gore Vidal in it, so I can't speak for "America's Writing Forces" or "Bush's Brain Trust." Here's the part that made the magazine mildly worth it for me: The two-page Big Fish spread.

Premiere: The "Sex and the Movies" issue! Only there's a lot less sex than you'd think. Half of the "10 Hottest Sex Scenes", if I recall correctly, do not show or are not even portraying sex, so that's a rip-off. This is important, because so many scenes that actually show sex are not hot, and it would be useful to judge the ones that are--not the ones that might metaphorically suggest sex. The American Pie 3 "shocking photos!" aren't--they're not even from American Pie 3, but with the cast "reenacting" scenes from various older movies--Jason Biggs mooning Alyson Hannigan? MY GOD! Anyway. "Who Would You Switch Sides For?": "I'm not telling because you'll print it!" (Thanks a lot, Premiere.) Also: interviews with or profiles of Naomi Watts, Paul Walker, Nick Stahl, Evan Rachel Wood in Thirteen, Paul Verhoeven (who does not pony up the details you wish he would in "How to Shoot a Sex Scene"), Kristanna Loken, and The Hulk, Seabiscuit, S.W.A.T., and Harrison Ford. Yawn. Really, Movieline used to do this kind of thing so much better around, say, 1995. I think that was the year, anyway, that one writer's paean to Tea Leoni became lodged in my brain--yea, verily, all these years later I can quote him as writing, "I have a jones for Tea Leoni so nasty that I would sell the gold out of my mother's mouth for one sniff of her inner thigh." That, my friends, is movie sex writing.

DEATHS

No! Not Gregory Peck! I loved him--it was all about Spellbound for me--but I think the moviegoing public at large loved him best for Atticus Finch, last week's #1 hero on the AFI roundup. (Man... this is why I hate getting the MSNBC news alert emails.)

Earlier today: David Brinkley passed away as well. You can read more about both at Yahoo. And if you are particularly superstitious, you will start wondering who will be the third to die this week, if not today.

TRAILER PARK

Correspondent Inky has been put to work over on our trailer blog (see, I told you I needed help with the site), and he's got verdicts on Alex & Emma, Radio, and S.W.A.T.

MORE LOTR

Over at the IMDB, look at today's and yesterday's poll questions (June 11 and 12) for proposed LOTR: The Musical (yes, there is going to be one) songs. I favor "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Hobbit," myself.

ETA: Over at Brassy's LOTR News, there's a link to an interview with the Lords of the Rhymes (rappers B-dil and Q-beam, who are, and I quote, "straight outta Hobbiton"), an excerpt of which is reposted here just because I have a distinct feeling it will make one of our staffers smile:

If one of you gets in a fight, who is usually the one to pull them out of it? Or, do you both tag-team and fuck shit up?

Q: We've tag-teamed before, but not in a fighting situation. We have a roadie named Ghan-buri-Ghan who generally keeps the hot side hot and the cool side cool for us. but he does dish out a sinister head-butt when taunted or harried.

TWO TOWERS EXTENDED DVD

Lots of new added-scene details over at USAToday, including: Eowyn sings at Theodred's funeral; Eowyn is a very bad cook, to Aragorn's dismay; Faramir finds Boromir's body, as described in the book, and there's then a Boromir flashback; Merry and Pippin hit the Ent-draught; and we find out Aragorn's actual age (put it this way: it's more than the ages of the core Digest staff put together). Hit the link for more. (Thanks to Solaana.)

SIGH

So. I've still got a news update from last week that I was never even able to post. I've got class (4 hours) tonight, and have been doing the workshop reading and critiques yesterday and today (couldn't do it this weekend because of the wedding). So incredibly behind. Yarrrrr. Seriously, email me if you'd like to help out with the site; I'm going to post a "help wanted" thread on the message board... as soon as I can get it to load. Grrr.

DEEP DISH

True or not, this encyclopedic list of gossip will blow your mind.

"YOU'RE ALL BASTARDS!"

For those of you not willing to sit through the entire MTV Movie Awards show--because Lord knows they've already aired it 17 times this weekend alone--our friends over at the LOTR News Journal have TORN's copy of the Gollum acceptance speech for download (8 mb).

BACK AT THE RANCH

All right. As of last night, This Week, God Hates Me ended as I figured out how to fix my latest computer-related blunder, accidentally disabling Network Connections. Which means I haven't been online since Thursday night. (Learn from my mistakes: the next time you do something dumb, run a System Restore back to the day you screwed up. Doesn't change your files, but returns all your settings to their previous state, and is awesome.)

So we're a whole week behind now. Sigh. The Wedding of Digest, however, went off with only the slightest of hitches, and Friend of Digest Valerie became the new Mrs. Typo. I saw both The Animatrix and Finding Nemo, so look for reviews of those coming up in the next day or so.

Oh, and over at Trailer Park: the fifteen kinds of ass that is the Gigli trailer.

APPRAISE THIS

In the latest installment of This Week, God Hates Me, an attempt at a Thursday update was thwarted by the news that an appraiser is coming to look at the house tomorrow, and I have to clean it. NOW. Oh, and the fact that Page Builder still won't let me put the TUESDAY update up. I'm going to be completely and utterly absent from my desk tomorrow (bridesmaids' luncheon, manicure, and rehearsal dinner) and Saturday (Friend of Digest Valerie gets married), so this week is just a wash. Sigh.

THOUGHTS UPON FINALLY CATCHING THE SECOND AIRING OF THE MTV MOVIE AWARDS

Aww, dammit. I forgot to watch them the first time around, and now I've missed the beginning. No Hugh Jackman for me.

Best Kiss. Don't damage the pretty, Queen! Brody is delicate!

Okay, I'm so not into the whole Charlie's Angels thing, but the Ass Wrangler thing made me laugh. Particularly Lucy Liu.

"Everyone will suffer!" Hee, Daveigh Chase is awesome.

Beyonce Knowles should stage a coup and take over Jennifer Lopez's Booty Queen throne.

"Let's kill the bastard." Heeeee. I officially (heart) Viggo Mortensen. (I'm sure Correspondent Vladimir is off somewhere reading this, going, "You're just now coming out with that?")

Seann William Scott and Ashton Kutcher: I have finally realized that they are not the same person.

For those of you keeping score--after Gollum finished his acceptance tirade, the camera cuts to Elijah Wood, who can be seen mouthing, "That was totally awesome!"

These t.A.T.u. people disturb me. Not the redhead; she actually has breasts. It's the elfin little brunette that disturbs me--how old is she, nine?

Amanda Bynes and Hilary Duff: God, they look like uneven Olsen twins. Their tandem blondeness hurts me, and yet--I cannot look away.

Whoa, Josh Hartnett's voice is deep. I mean, I knew that--I'm just surprised anew every time I hear him.

Harrison Ford: See "water, fish out of." I honestly think he's crossed over from "older" to just downright "old."

Damn, yo. Demi is back in force. (Can that be her real hair?) I'm starting to understand how she snagged Kutcher. (AngelDust just stomped out of the room in a jealous huff.)

Aww, buddy, Keanu Reeves is bringin' the fine. He really comes off as too good-natured here to make the "I won't say that" bit work, though.

(Oh dear Jesus, are those the Hilton sisters? Pardon me while I loathe for a moment.)

These are... uh... interesting Best Movie choices. Well, yeah, Spider-Man and Two Towers were huge, they were Big Movies. I see that. 8 Mile: This is MTV, after all--the only place Eminem, talent notwithstanding, will win the equivalent of best actor. But... maybe I just don't have my finger on the pulse of the youth of today, but... Barbershop? I mean, I know it was popular and all, but... I wasn't even aware The Ring was big enough to be a Best Movie candidate, so... Barbershop?

Why is Justin Timberlake on a Segway?

BE GOOD WHILE I'M GONE

And don't forget to have fun in the caption thread.

TECHNICAL PROBLEMS

Our server hates me. Absolutely hates me. I can't access any of our pages, any of our files, anything through Page Builder. I keep getting errors. Gahhhhhh. If it's working Thursday when I'm back in town, I'll just have to put up a double update. Yar.

THE INCREDIBLES

Ooo, the new Pixar trailer is up at their site in Quicktime. (I haven't seen Finding Nemo yet. Shut up.)

THE AVIATOR

From the Hollywood Reporter:

Martin Scorsese is continuing to line up actors to join Leonardo DiCaprio in the Howard Hughes biopic "Aviator," enlisting Cate Blanchett, Kate Beckinsale, Adam Scott, Kelli Garner and Gwen Stefani to join the IEG, Warner Bros. Pictures and Miramax Films co-production, sources confirmed. The project, due to start shooting next month in Montreal, centers on the life of billionaire Hughes, to be played by DiCaprio. Among the six actors who are close to finalizing deals to join the project, Blanchett will star as Katharine Hepburn; Beckinsale as Ava Gardner; Scott as Hughes' press agent, Johnny Meyer; Garner as Faith Domergue, a young actress who was discovered by Hughes; and Stefani as Jean Harlow.

All right, this one just jumped a few notches on my list of Movies I Want to See. Remember, now, that Nicole Kidman was previously considered to play both Gardner and Hepburn. I love Nicole and all but... cooler heads have prevailed. I'm a little surprised by the Beckinsale casting, but I think she can do it. I honestly think it's a thankless job for anyone to have to play marvelous Katharine Hepburn, even young Katharine Hepburn, but Cate Blanchett, as far as I'm concerned, can do anything, so it's a good call.

Oh, and Gwen Stefani as Jean Harlow? Sure, why the hell not?

MTV MOVIE AWARDS

Heh. Yahoo totally has a slideshow of all the show highlights. Like, I totally don't have to see the Tatu or TATU or tAtU or However the Hell They Spell It performance now. Dozens of pseudo-lesbian teens in cotton underwear: seen it. Oh, and Harrison Ford mugging with Josh Hartnett in a way that convinces me that the man's career has finally jumped the shark. Kirsten Dunst giggling. Kelly Osbourne looking hideous with platinum hair. Five million pictures of Posh Spice and her husband. Colin Farrell trying to mack on Posh and, when that fails, on his award itself. Seannnn William Scott in a foam "superhero" suit. Justin Timberlake on a Segway. Pink licking some chick. That about sums it up, kids--you've just seen the show.

TECHNICAL PROBLEMS

Dammit, I've written the update, and I can't get it to upload to our server. The next update won't be until Thursday at least, so I'll see if we can't get tonight's up at some point.

AFI'S 100 HEROES AND VILLAINS

Dammit, I totally forgot about this being on TV--today is the first day of the summer semester, so of course my new class didn't last but an hour, just long enough to go over the syllabus and set some ground rules for the workshop. So I had totally resigned myself to not getting to see this (VCR on the fritz). I know the AFI stuff is lame, but I can't help it--you almost want to watch just to see how lame it is. And nothing is quite as lame as hearing a perky female announcer intone things like, "Norma Rae from Norma Rae, The Alien from Alien, and Schindler from Schindler's List" at the end-of-hour recap. You know, I'm pretty sure we can guess which movie you're talking about.

MORE TROY

The NY Post has a most excellent pic of Brad Pitt. In his armor. Talking on his cell phone. So what I want to know is, what do you think he's saying? Take your ideas over to our caption thread and we'll have ourselves an informal little caption contest.

TROY

Awww yeah. The pictures are small, but then, so are the skirts. (Thanks to minkairship.)

UPDATES ON UPDATES

Dear Miss Jones:

Every single time you mention on your weblog that you will, in fact, update your news page that night, a tornado appears to ravage the countryside and prevent you from actually doing so. We at the Shady Acres Trailer Park would ask you to please think of our denizens and refrain from doing so in the future. Thank you.

DIRTY DANCING: HAVANA NIGHTS

A teaser poster for a sequel I've heard about for so long, I still can't believe it's actually getting made: Let judgment be passed.

TROY

Sweet Lord Almighty.

Also: Your first look at Garrett Hedlund (Patroclus), for those of you who have been asking.

(Thanks to the Troy thread at FT.)

MTV MOVIE AWARDS

I'm not going to post who won here, because I have no good way of blanking out spoilers on the blog, but if you want to know, you can check out mtv.com. Suffice it to say that I was mostly pleased with the winners, and that should put you in the ballpark of who won what. The show will be on Thursday night (one of the few nights I will be home this week), and I hear it was fairly entertaining. Oh, and AngelDust wants me to tape it while she's at work solely because Justin Timberlake is hosting--you know, like MTV isn't going to rerun it every half hour over the weekend.

ETA: Spoilery, but there's some awesomely cute pictures of the LOTR gang over at Brassy's neck of the woods.

BUSY BEE

All right, in a bit of a jam here, re: news updates. Tonight I'm all clear, and with all luck, will have an update. Tuesday: My new workshop class (5:30-9:30) starts up. It's only on Tuesday nights, but you can imagine that if I can't get the news up before I go (or if enough news doesn't come out by then), there might not be an update.

And that's fine for regular weeks. But this is no regular week--Friend of Digest Valerie is about to become Mrs. Typo, marrying one of our original staff members on Saturday. The Lovely Emily is maid of honor, and I'm one of the other bridesmaids, so it's a whole Wedding of Digest, if you will. Well, Wednesday is Girls' Night (In Another County), and I won't even be in town. I think I'll be back on Thursday. Friday we have luncheons and rehearsals and dinners and such, and I can't imagine 1) being home or 2) having the energy to update. And Saturday, of course, is the wedding. Sprinkle a few dress fittings in, and you basically have my week. But the news updates have been too sporadic as it is (and I've let that slide, since we still may run out of bandwidth before the end of the month), and I really don't want to just call the updates off this week. Grrr.

PERHAPS?

You ever hear a song you've never heard before, but you love it, and you want to know what it is and where to find it? Yeah. I was trying on clothes at the mall Saturday and this song was playing and--this is going to sound really silly, but it made trying on clothes so much fun. I swear, it sounded like it had been ripped right out of Down with Love, so you can imagine what the atmosphere in that dressing room was like. All I knew was, the chorus said something about "perhaps, perhaps," and I would know the singer if I heard her again, but couldn't place her at the moment.

This is why I love the 21st century: I went home, typed in "perhaps perhaps" into Kazaa, and got... "Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps," an old Doris Day song (Down with Love!), redone several times (including by Cake. Heh). Most likely suspect? The Geri Halliwell version. (Shut up, I like her.) Downloaded it in three minutes and had my song.

One more thing: Why does this song exist? The Halliwell version, I mean. What was the occasion for rerecording it? Clothing store music is great (well, it is where I go), but it doesn't tend to feature the very latest stuff, and yet the most likely suspect seems to be the Down with Love soundtrack. So let's take a trip over to Amazon (oh, how I miss CDNow, which Amazon absorbed). And take notes, because you may have to hunt down a song of your own soon. Oh. Not on the DWL soundtrack. Hmmm. Search "song title": "perhaps perhaps perhaps." More than 200 matches. Damn. All right. Reverse alphabetical order (Z-A), get through all the Spanish "Quizás Quizás Quizás" versions... a million other "Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps"... ah, here we are. Geri Halliwell. Soundtrack: ... America's Sweethearts? Ewww. Well, I still like the song. Of course, I have terrible taste in music. But then, I think we all knew that already...