Hey, remember the television program Anger Management? Why, yes, that is a thing that is still happening. In fact, it's roughly halfway toward fulfilling its ridiculous 100-episode order (churned out on the cheap on an accelerated schedule; it's the Tyler Perry model) for FX. And it just hit a bit of an iceberg. As Deadline reports, Selma Blair has now been fired from the show following disparaging remarks she made about Charlie Sheen's work ethic. Sheen found out, threw a fit, and declared it was either him or her. Also, he reportedly sent her a text message calling her that not-so-nice word that starts with a 'C' and rhymes with that thing you usually do on fourth downs. No, not "cield goal."
Two months ago, I sat in a crowded banquet hall in Austin, Texas, as TMZ founder, managing editor, and TMZ on TV host Harvey Levin gave an impassioned, highly charismatic, completely unapologetic keynote about the invasive empire that he has steadily built since 2005. In the talk, aside from his speech and a few hints of what the future held (a TMZ Bus Tour in NYC), the standout takeaway was the demographic taking the microphone to ask Harvey very specific questions about TMZ. More often than not they were middle-aged women, probably in their late forties or early fifties. And with each question, there was a definite mix of delight in how little they knew (comparatively speaking) about the Internet, and genuine curiosity about what was happening within the pop culture landscape. It was a nice reminder that not everyone spends their entire day refreshing Twitter. Or having Twitter. Or knowing what Twitter is.
Two months later, however, TMZ made its way back into my life. Yesterday morning, I was confronted with one detail that I'd glossed over from Levin's March discussion.
Says Deadline: "Lohan has signed on to guest star as herself in an upcoming episode of Anger Management slated to air in April. In the episode, Lohan develops a romantic relationship with Sheen’s character after becoming his therapy patient. The casting reunites the two actors, who also co-star together" — and, at least according to this photo, sleep together, too — "in the upcoming Scary Movie 5 … and appears to be a publicity stunt for the film, which also debuts in April."
Angelina Jolie is "Surprise! Boring in bed." Whaaaaaa? This alleged information comes from shade thrown by her ex, Billy Bob Thornton, who has said, "sometimes, with the model, the actress, the 'sexiest person in the world,' it may be literally like fucking the couch." FUCK YO COUCH, BILLY BOB!
Silver: OK, so you’re making your first film. It’s about a legendary recording studio that's hosted such acts as Nirvana, Metallica, Rage Against the Machine, Nine Inch Nails, and Tom Petty, and which has since fallen into neglect due to the digital age. How in the world do you book interviews and get rights to all the music? Well, it helps if you're former Nirvana drummer, current Foo Fighters front man, and go-to Satan for Tenacious D Dave Grohl. Because booking Trent Reznor, Tom Petty, Lars Ulrich, and Dave Grohl (wow ... how’d he land that one?) is probably easier that way. But the question of the film’s quality still remains; will Grohl be just another renowned musician stepping behind the camera in hopes of earning their renaissance man/raconteur merit badge? I honestly doubt it. He’s hired some key folks from The Cove, Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos, and Dogtown and Z-Boys to help him through his rookie effort. So in the end, I’m guessing Sound City is going to be my 2013 Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap.
By the time A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III was announced last September, Charlie Sheen's meltdown had just about completely abated. The timing seemed telling: It was the first movie for Roman Coppola, Sofia's big brother, since his 2001 debut CQ (he did co-write The Darjeeling Limited and Moonrise Kingdom in that time); it was also Sheen's first big-screen starring role since before he started his Two and a Half Men run.
By Amos Barshad at
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The Television Critics Association Press Tour 2012 rolled on this weekend. Presenting over the last few days were FX and CBS, and they had news on shows you like, shows you hate, and shows you probably didn't even know existed. To the breakdown!
Johnny Depp's Broken Heart: "On a recent night at West Hollywood's Sunset Tower Hotel, Depp was uncharacteristically quiet and alone. Johnny looked forlorn. He sat at the bar, nursing his drink, listening to the piano player. He seemed to be lost in his thoughts." His split from Vanessa Paradis was just made official and he has subsequently "turned to women for comfort." His life in the French countryside with partner Paradis was "idyllic" for years. "Johnny would walk to the local cafe, sip an espresso with the men of the village and stroll home. That was his dream." But Paradis found it stifling. "She would always complain that she was bored. She said she felt like an old woman who had given up on life and constantly told him she wanted to live in L.A." While she encouraged him to take the role of Jack Sparrow, she became "resentful" of his long shoots on location. "Vanessa started to feel like she'd sacrificed her career for his." Depp "started to drink heavily." He disappeared constantly to London and New York "rather than be in a dark and brooding mood around the kids. He wouldn't contact Vanessa because he knew she'd give him hell." After the split, Depp started hanging out a lot with Marilyn Manson. He started sleeping with Amber Heard, his co-star in The Rum Diary, despite the fact that she has a serious girlfriend. They bonded over a shared love of Hunter S. Thompson. Paradis responded to Depp's infidelity by screaming, "If I see her, I'll drown her!"
Charlie Sheen has been doing a pretty admirable job of staying in the public eye post–Tiger Blood era, thanks to a now pretty much entirely ironic career and the host of tireless enablers that keep it trucking along. A "totally random" cameo here, a frank quote about his ex-wife there — in about a year the long tail of the Charlie Sheen news cycle will have leveled off to Lindsay Lohan-grade ignorability, but we might as well ride this out.
Chris Brown/Rihanna/Drake: "Chris Brown was soaking in the revelry" at W.I.P. with his girlfriend Karrueche Tran. He "sent a bottle of Ace of Spades champagne to Drake," who sent it it back with a note reading "I am fucking the love of your life." Thus began a bottle fight, which ended with Brown's cutting his chin and Tony Parker scratching his cornea. "They tore the club apart" and started "a bloody melee" fighting about Rihanna, who is on her Cleopatra shit. She even got a new ankle tattoo of an Egyptian falcon shaped like a gun. Rihanna heard about it and "was cracking up. Men fighting over her? Please. She loves the drama!" A friend of Brown's says, "These guys are fighting over Rihanna. She is the dude in this sitch and they are acting like girls." Yes, because men never have petty catfights (LOL).
The Tiger Blood runs once more! CBS announced yesterday that, on an upcoming episode of Two and a Half Men, the ghost of Charlie Sheen’s character will be present — in the form of Kathy Bates. The setup is that Jon Cryer’s character suffers a minor heart attack, and Bates-as-Sheen appears to chat him up. Presumably, this is Men creator Chuck Lorre continuing his cold war with his former star: First he kills off Sheen’s character to replace him with the effervescent Ashton Kutcher, then he has Sheen’s ghost played by a 63-year-old woman who once naked-chased Jack Nicholson out of a hot tub. Hilarious, right?
Matthew McConaughey will star alongside Gerard Butler and Sam Worthington in Thunder Run, an adaptation of David Zucchino's book Thunder Run — The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad about the three-day assault at the beginning of the Iraq War. Here’s the thing, though: This will be a 3-D CG movie that will use facial-capture technology and green-screen technology to create a unique effect. “What we capture in our cameras will be them,” explains producer Brian Presley. “It’ll have a stylized effect to it but we are shooting them.” “That means when CG Matthew McConaughey takes his shirt off, the real Matthew McConaughey has also taken his shirt off,” Presley did not add. Grade: B+ [HR]
If corporations can be people then so too can networks have personalities. Fox, for example, is youthful and brash, rife with protagonists who refuse to play by the rules, be they doctors, ten-year-olds, or megalomaniacal Brits. ABC has long been the Secret of networks, strong enough for a (sensitive) man but ph-balanced for women. While CBS is essentially what everyone down in Lower Manhattan is currently protesting: rich, old and crushingly successful. (#OccupyStudioCity!) NBC, however, is a bit more complicated.
It’s been ever so for the peacock, or at least since Chandler Bing snarked his last back in 2004. Back then, NBC was top bird in the demographics that mattered: hip young urbanites (and the strivers that wanted to be like them). Seinfeld, Friends, ER were all massive hits that projected an air of confidence and cutting-edge cool. Then somebody Zucked it all up: the last half decade has been a near-satirical spiral of dud shows, ill-advised “reinventions” and a crippling Leno addiction so powerful it would leave Charlie Sheen shaking his head and recommending rehab. In the midst of the macro, “NBC is a disaster” narrative, though, a smaller micro trend emerged: we media types mocked NBC with abandon but it also quietly became home to our most loved, least watched shows, comedies like Parks & Recreation and 30 Rock and touchy-feely hours Friday Night Lights (RIP!) and Parenthood. If you were to ask any casual industry watcher what NBC’s identity was, the answer would probably still involve the words “cool” and “Tina Fey.” But here’s the thing: making a show precisely for the commenters on the AV Club isn’t exactly profitable. This generous, art-endorsing era that bought The Office time to succeed and gave Coach Taylor five seasons of pep-talks and uplift was, in reality, an aberration, an almost accidental flowering of excellence while corporate eyes were busy putting out larger fires and taming wilder white tigers.
In the last few years, has there been a better marketing campaign than the one for The Muppets? Maybe not. The latest is a send up of David Fincher’s kick-ass trailer for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. This briskly edited spoof reveals a ton of new stuff, and if you look closely, you’ll even see Chris Cooper singing and dancing.
