The Wall Street Journal does a little comparative study of the two franchises' marketing strategies, focusing mainly on the about-to-drop (squee!) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. See, there's a little romance in that book, and Twilight is all about romance, so is that vampire story's mega success responsible for the HP posters that front-and-center tout hot, hot teen wizard love? The producers say no!

"With all due respect to "Twilight," the longevity and world-wide success of the Harry Potter franchise speaks for itself," a studio representative said.

Ha. As it should be. Twilight is a blip on the cultural radar compared to the Harry Potter phenomenon—the provenance of chastely horny teenage girls and lonely, approaching middle age hobby LARPers, whereas Harry and Co. have the mass and broad appeal of a Da Vinci Code (only they're much, much better.) Though, if we're honest with our Potter-obsessed selves, it's hard to believe that the smoldering and yearning of Twilight—such catnip!—had nothing to do with the smoldering and yearning poster shown here.

The Twilight producers, for their part, are respectably cognizant of their big brother's long shadow:

"It's the only franchise that we ever pay attention to," says Rob Friedman, chief executive and co-chairman of Summit Entertainment. "We are very cognizant of where they are, and we've always been wary of being in too close proximity to ‘Harry Potter' because we know our fans cross over so much, and we definitely don't want to compete with ‘Harry' for attention."

Damn right. Wizard beats vampire, every time.

The passage she's chosen [very NSFW] is about a slave girl or something in a gold chain performing fellatio and waiting for milk and ohhhh God it's really wonderful/terribly disturbing. Perfect Friday fare.

Enjoy!

Hm. Noted crazy Mel Gibson will star in the film The Beaver for noted lesbian Jodie Foster, who will direct and co-star. The film, once thought to be a project for Steve Carell, is about a man who finds comfort in a beaver hand puppet. So it'll be a cheapish quirky indie type affair, although it will star one of the most vociferously strange movie stars of the past twenty years. Could be great! Could be awful. [Variety]

The Green Lantern is nearing the end of its major casting process, mulling over three actors for the lead role of a hotshot Air Force pilot who meets a dying alien and gets deputized into a space police department. (That is an actual plot of a movie. And a comic book!) Warner Brothers is trying to decide between Bradley Cooper, Ryan Reynolds, and Justin Timberlake, of all people, but is apparently having some trouble reconciling their favorite with the director's. So we'll either get a kind of boring Green Lanternt, a wise-cracking kind of annoying Green Lantern, or a singin' dancin' Green Lantern. None of which sound terribly thrilling. [THR]

The Minnie Driver/Uma Thurman comedy Motherhood, which premiered at Sundance this year, has set an October release date. The movie is about a crazed mommy trying to plan a birthday party for her daughter while the crazy city world provides obstacles along the way. Obstacles like Isn't This Basically the Plot of Jingle All the Way and Uma Thurman Is Never Funny. [Variety]

Quirky comedy queen Zooey Deschanel has signed on to play James Franco's love interest in the David Gordon Green comedy Your Highness, about a lazy prince (Danny McBride) who must go on a quest to save his kingdom. Other than the fact that Natalie Portman plays McBride's wildly disproportionate love interest, this film is weird because it looks as though Gordon Green really is going down this broad comedy route. Will we ever get a George Washington, All the Real Girls, or Snow Angels again? [THR]

Nicole Kidman will star in and produce a movie version of the book Little Bee, about a wealthy British couple who has an encounter with a Nigerian orphan while on an African vacation. No word yet on whether Jerry Seinfeld will voice the orphan character. [Variety]

Everwood surly teen Gregory Smith has joined the cast of that Canadian Grey's Anatomy-with-badges police drama Copper that will air on ABC in the States. Treat Williams is wondering if maybe there's a part for a tough-but-principled chief or something. [THR]

Ugh. Shoulda-been-gone-by-now Napoleon Dynamite star Jon Heder has landed a Comedy Central sitcom. It's about a laid-off IT worker who leaves his urban life to return home to the small town where he grew up. Which has been the idea for basically everything these days. In a nifty little distribution deal, if the sitcom's first batch of episodes do well, an automatic 90 more will be ordered. Yeesh. [Variety]

1) "Which freaky actor - who currently has a girlfriend - hit on a wardrobe consultant on the set of his latest film with the line, 'I like those jeans. Can I have your number?'" [NYDN]

2 "What former Golden Globe Best Actor nominee has fallen so far down the acting ladder that earlier this week he was forced to audition against 50 other actors for a fast food commercial?" [CDaN]

3) "This actor is part of the ensemble cast of a current television show. You don't usually see him in the tabloids because he has a wife and kid/s and is quite low-key in his personal life. However, if those tabloids knew what he was really up to, they might start following him 24/7. He has been having an extra-marital affair with a barely legal actress who appeared on his show. You wouldn't recognize her name, but you would definitely know his. This bad boy should watch his step before his wife finds out." [BlindGossip]

The problem was with Ayiiiiiiia. How do you solve a problem like Ayiiiia? How do you catch a frown and ask it to leave the house? No one knows.

This episode was one of those ones that's edited to such a weird degree that you can't really tell what's what or when's when. As the vomit-splattered curtain was drawn back on the scene last night, Emily and Ayiiiia and Shabazzle were getting along famously. They were riding pennyfarthing bicycles down by the arcade. They were flying kites and going to kissing booths and eating cotton candy and doing this and doing all of this stuff and it was summertime every minute of every day, just breezes and balms. Everyone was so happy!

Except Johnnay. Johnnay wasn't happy because she was sitting up on the deck, her black hair matted in nest-like snarls atop her little round marble head, staring down at the three frolicking ladies and seething. But she didn't care, she didn't care that they were having the best time of their lives, that they were becoming Sistahs with a capital SISTAHS, because she had the boys. She had tumble-topped Binky with his suspicious accent, creepy-faced Bronne with his bleary creeper features, that gay one, and Melody, the tattooed rocker hunk with chestnutty good looks and a badass attitude. She has all of them! So she doesn't need Ayiiiia or Emily or Mafarffle. And they don't need her.

So the house was divided and everyone was drunk so they couldn't stand. While at the club one night, Ayiiiia decided to up and leave and everyone got worried because this is downtown Mexico where the national pastime is gringo abduction and the official currency is crumpled twenties covered in blood. After 45 minutes of looking and yelling her name for a while ("Ayiiiia! Ayiiiiiiiia!" it sounded like Japanese soldiers dying in comic books from World War II), they finally found her standing on the street. Now if your roommates had been looking for you and had been worried that you were going to wind up mostly dead in the back of a rusted-out El Camino, you'd naturally do what Ayiiiiia did, I think. Which was yell at them. She got mad that they'd been worried and looking for her. Because... that makes complete sense I guess. So we started to see some cracks in the Ayiiiia veneer there.

This didn't stop the three girlyfriends from hanging out though. Mad that Johnnay had gone to lunch with the boys one day, they decided to go out club dancing without her. Just Ayiiiia and Emily and Verdell. So they went and drank fizzy drinks and the lights swirled and Emily saw Ayiiiia there across the way, grinding her hips into the air, her horsey bucks and thrusts hypnotic in their crassness. So when the ladies got home, sprawling down the stairs in their pointy boots and pointier features, Ayiiiiia and Emily left Gargamel twirling in the kitchen and went to bed. They went to bed, not to sleep. If you catch my meaning. If you're picking up what I'm laying down. What I mean to say is... I'm pretty sure that Emily and Ayiiia from The Real World: Cancun had sexual relations with each other after their girls' night out. So.

Sistahs were totally bonded! Everything was peachy keen! Except nothing was peachy keen. See while the three weird sisters were friendies, Johnnay was still hulking off in the perimeter, like Sirius Black in dog form. And as she stewed in her lonely juices, she riled up the dumb boys, who were just off in a corner hooting and throwing their feces around and drinking and annoying Emily. Dark clouds began to form in Em's eyes and the Earth began to tremble ever so slightly. But no one noticed, not yet. But soon they would.

Because they are nice or vain or probably both, the straight boys Binky and Bronne agreed to escort Derek to a gay bar for gay people. The gay bar in Cancun was basically like any other bar in Cancun except it was full of mens and only a scattered handful of women—those that just wanted to dance and not be bothered, those that needed the reassuring touch of a man but couldn't find it in Straightville. Bronne had asked Derek to "gay him up as hard as he could," which I half-chuckled at and thought That could make a could joke but really it's just too flat and boring. Gay me up real hard. Hardee hard hard. Bronne. Bronne was that guy you knew in college who was always just trying a little too hard. Wanted to be the party animal and the ladykiller and brah's brah and all that but was never quite sure how to do it, and you could tell that he was wildly reinventing himself from some nerdy obscurity he toiled in in high school and you sorta felt bad for him so you tolerated him and let him hang around but the more and more he pushed and pushed and pushed the more you got angry at him and eventually you just ditched him forever because oh holy God it was worth being an asshole and losing karma points because now he's gone and won't bother you and ahh blessed relief. Remember that dude? That is Bronne. It's sad.

ANYWAY. Nothing remarkable happened at the gay nightclub for gay people except that on the way back Derek got caught by a groundskeeper for peeing in the bushes and the small fellow tried to take him to apologize to the manager but Derek deftly eluded him by saying "No, I was just vomiting" and then making throw-up noises and motions. Blehhh Blehhhh! he went. And I felt bad for the teeny tiny Mexican man who was just trying to do his job, but really, son? Peeing in the bushes merits an awkward sitdown with the manager? This is Can-motherhumpin'-cun, friendo! The bushes must be practically made of pee at this point. Let it slide, dude. Just let it slide.

So the boys were supes drunks that night and when they woke up at 8 am, for a very important Student City business conference that involved ziplines and seal kissing, they were still drunk. Melody really wanted to be on time so he started bellowing the time to everyone and Bronne just acted cray-zay (it was just so exhausting to watch) and Emily started clawing at the walls and eventually she exploded into a furious ball of boy hating and screaming. The boys were not scared of her rage, just bemused by it, so they kept egging her on and she got madder and madder and when they finally got to the Student City Sitting In a Hammock Leadership Conference, she refused to participate in any of their reindeer games. She was mad at her roommates so she decided to punish herself with no fun zipline rides. I don't get it.

ANYWAY. Emily was also kinda mad at her once beloved Ayiiiia, because when the shit hit the fan with the boys, only brave Mulligatawny was woman enough to stand at her side and fight. Ayiiiia, on the other hand, just disappeared into an occluding smoke and mist of mutters and bleeped swears, carrying on some fight with herself and maybe other people, it was hard to tell. Whatever it was, Emily felt it was a Reason Why Not to like Ayiiiiia anymore. So being a mature individual, she decided to just not talk to her anymore. Like, really, she just blatantly ignored direct questions. She and Bilbao finally made friends with the boys and Johnnay again, and Emily apologized for being a bitchy bitch because it's not nice to be that way when you live with people for a TV show.

Ayiiiia sat alone in a hammock, sticking pins into little Melody-shaped dolls.

Back at the ranch, Ayiiia was stomping around and starting fights with people. She shoved Binky down a flight of stairs for no good reason. Derek came up and tried to give her a hug, so Ayiiiia ran him through with a curtain rod. He slumped over dead. Melody came walking by, singing a song, and she based a priceless Ming vase over his head. Ker-thunk. Johnnay was in another room entirely, doing her knitting, but Ayiiiiia closed her eyes really really tight and focused really really hard and suddenly Johnnay felt a pain in her head and then fell over, perished. Suffices to say, Ayiiiiia was in a bad mood. But then she made a critical error. She started some shit with Schlimazel. Their fight went like this:

AYIIIIA: Let's get in a fight, but don't be attitudey.

SCHLIMAZEL: Attitude? Who's got attitude?

AYIIIIA: You've got attitude.

SCHLIMAZEL: Attitude? I've got attitude?

AYIIIIA: Attitude: You've got it.

SCHLIMAZEL: Attitude?

AYIIIIA: Attitude.

SCHLIMAZEL: Attitude.

That was a verbatim transcription. They just said the word attitude back and forth for ten minutes and then both stormed away. Later Shlomo was bitching to Emily about their newfound Enemy and said Enemy was caught lurking behind curtains, listening. It was like that movie The Lives of Others except in this case instead of a conflicted East German Stasi officer listening in on a playwright, it was a stupid girl named Ayiiiia who won an online contest to be on a reality show standing behind a curtain in Cancun. But they're close relatives!

Finally the two lovers, dim Emily and rabid Ayiiiiiia, got in the spat to end all spats, shrieking and caterwauling while the other roommates milled about the living room like Sims that you don't control, they're part of some other person's game, and finally Ayiiiia said "At least I wasn't fucking adopted!!!" and ... oh dear, Ayiiiiiia. Just oh dear.

So that was basically the end of Ayiiiiia. All the other roommates were happy as clams, and decided to play kings. When they got to 9 Bust a Rhyme, Crickets or Fallujah or Jasmine or Attitudes or whatever her name is said both "cat" and "hat" which is really annoying because she took two words when she only needed one.

ANYWAY. Ayiiiiia went to go drink wine on the porch by herself. Which, all things being equal, is not a bad way to spend an evening. Watching the Mexican waves roll in while sipping wine and not having to go to work or pay bills or do anything unpleasant tomorrow. But when you're roommates are inside doing waterfalls and 2 For Yous and hating you, I guess it's a sad thing to be doing. So I guess Ayiiiia might go home. Pity.

What is it, though, about these contest winners? They never work out! Remember that fool from the Hollywood season a couple years back? Man that guy was a DISASTER. I mean, Ayiiiia sorta worked for a little while—she even did a lady!—but I guess it had to come to this. Yelling for no reason and then lonely porch drinking. Maybe the end came in the beginning, when she started bitching about dishes. It's never a good idea to bitch about dishes on this show. It just never works out well.

ANYWAY.

Here:

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Except, no, it's not. A double entendre is when something kinda means two things at once. In this case, Gretchen, the idea that you're paying $18 million in tax money to start a site so taxpayers can see where their taxes are going might be called Irony, or it could be called Comedy. But not a double entendre.

Here. Let's help you out.

Gretchen Carlson has two giant boobs = Double entendre! Because she has boobs on her body but also there are Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade.

Gretchen Carlson is paid lots of money to do nothing but blather on like an idiot = Not a double entendre! Just a statement of sad fact.

Quiet indie actor Will Smith will reteam with his I Am Legend director Francis Lawrence for a movie about this: "a father and daughter living on opposite sides of the ocean whose love is so strong that it causes Manhattan to split off and float across the Atlantic." Which, I'm sorry, sounds so fucking lame I want to scream. [Variety]

New Line, long the house that murderous dream janitors and questing lover trolls built, is now Febrezing out its delicates and pushing the pizza boxes under the sofa and becoming a lady-friendly zone. After the success of He's Just Not That Into Horrible People Who Screech and Worry All The Time, Please for the Love of God Just Be a Person, the studio has been ushering in a new host of girl movies, like What Was I Thinking with Leslie Mann and Elizabeth Banks and Valemtimes Day, a movie about Jennifer Aniston being lonely again. [THR]

Want to watch a romantic comedy starring brothers? Oh, you nasty. No they're not in love with each other! They play friends and stuff. Oh, the brothers are Chris and Danny Masterson, one of whom is from Malcolm in the Yelling and the other from That 70s Shit. The movie is called Made for Each Other. [Variety]

Stalwart theatre guy Terry Kinney (he's the dude what had been Julia Stiles' dad in Save the Last Dance) has landed a plum role on popular sophomore drama The Mentalist. He'll play a cop who seems dumb but really isn't! [THR]

Michael Moore has announced the title of his new movie. It's a study of the economy and how it fell down the stairs that one time, and it'll be called Capitalism: A Love Story. I hope he's paying Isaac Bashevis Singer some royalties or some shizz. [Variety]

The new season of Project Runway will feature guest spots by Lindsay Lohan and Christina Aguilera. So, it's 2003 again! Also, four of the contestants are weirdo foreigners. Plus the season's in LA. And it's on Lifetime. Who, exactly, is going to watch this show in August? [THR]

Warner Brothers has picked up the rights to an Argentinian movie comedy called A Boyfriend for My Wife, about a dude who tries to get his wife to fall for someone else so he can dump her and not feel bad about it. Which sounds cute! It will be less cute when it's in English and stars Vince Vaughn and Katherine Heigl. [Variety]

1) "Which television star called off her wedding the night before the nuptials? She changed her mind after having a sexy fling with the best man." [NYDN]

2) "What barely hanging onto A list married movie actor who is always Mr. Macho was seen, umm, how can I put this, getting serviced by a male assistant director on his latest movie. The trailer for the actor was unlocked and a production assistant walked in and now everyone knows. I was shocked when I heard it because I had never heard a peep that he leaned that way. Ever." [CDaN]

3) "We were out hiking on a remote section of popular hiking trail last week when we turned a corner and ran into the female star of a well-known TV drama. Having had some business dealings in the past, we stopped to exchange a few words. While we were standing there chatting, the celeb lit up a cigarette. My friend asked her if she usually smoked while exercising. Without hesitation, she responded that if smoking was bad for her heart and walking was good for her heart, she figured that if she did the two simultaneously that they would cancel each other out and she would be healthy. It's tough to argue with that kind of logic." [BlindGossip]

I also hope you all had a fortnight full of good fortune. You know who had a really fortunate fortnight? Our own live-blog accent-emulator extraordinaire, commenter bjonston, who welcomed a baby boy into this world last week. Congrats, dude! (I hear the infant can gurgle and cry with an Italian or French inflection, depending on his mood.)

So, while BJ diapers his new arrival, allow me to run through these highlights from our last live blog:

• Cindy Pawlcyn asked age-old question: "Who goes to Universal Studios, and how much organ meat do they eat?"
• Pepe Le Pew lost, and said "merde!" Ned Flanders won, and said "son-of-a-diddly-doo!" I'd translate the latter, but I don't speak Mexican.
• Among the commenter highlights: DahlELama conducted an exotic-meat poll, wherein we learned that Lizawithazee once ate smoked kangaroo. Dot's dog dropped a rawhide on her head. Many of us made offal puns and tripe jokes.

As for tonight's episode (which, as always, starts at 10 Eastern on Bravo), here are a few things to watch for: We will be told that guest judge Neil Patrick Harris is a "big fan of magic" — something I knew already, having seen his awesome turn as the Fairy Shoe Person on Sesame Street. (Check it out: He sings while conjuring footwear!) We will also meet Neil's friend, Max Maven, Master Magician and Mentalist, a rather silly-looking fellow who would benefit from learning how to make his own beard disappear.

Sadly, tonight's chef lineup looks a tad boring by comparison. They are:

• Anita Lo, who may be most talented chef of the group, but also (judging from the preview clips) the least charismatic. In fact, she might just make Week 2 winner Suzanne Tracht look as bubbly as Doris Day by comparison.
• Douglas Rodriguez, whose nickname (we're told) is the "Godfather of Latin Cuisine." Perhaps his specialty is Cabeza de Caballo?
• Mark Peel, whose Bravo bio says he once worked as Wolfgang Puck's poissonier, which I think is French for "poisoner." So he once poisoned Wolfgang Puck, I guess … which wouldn't surprise me, because he looks a little creepy. (Peel, I mean, not Puck.)
• John Besh, a New Orleans chef who is competing for Brad Pitt's charity to rebuild the Lower 9th Ward. I'm hoping Besh wins, just to make Top Chef finally do something charitable to help the people of New Orleans, after barely mentioning Katrina during the Big Easy-based final episodes last season.

Is that enough background for tonight? All right then: Let's emulate the Fairy Shoe Person and make some magic happen, people!

Though he'd previously done his shtick for Conan O'Brien and arrived at the show as Bruno, Cohen trotted out to the couches as himself. Maybe the story he told—about meeting a real-life terrorist while preening as the outrageously gay Austrian fashion reporter Bruno—was just too good and could only be told in person. It's also possible that after years of his masked shtick, the real Baron Cohen wants some notice for being himself.

Or maybe the character is just a bit too outrageous? Not that Dave Letterman would mind either way, obviously, but it is possible that he's been asked by ominous Powers That Be to scale back the hard sell. Borat was a funny guy because he was a weird foreigner Muslim. Bruno is funny because he's a weird foreigner but he's also, you know, gay and that's just so tetchy these days, best to leave it alone.

Ah well. No matter what, it's a great story.

He didn't trust the study because it was done in Finland and Sweden and the Finns and the Swedes stay "pure" by only marrying each other. Whereas in America, everyone marries everyone (so long as they're white and their partner is white. Oh, and straight!) So therefore the study doesn't mean anything.

Suddenly the clouds parted and a thin ray of sunshine shone down on the pesky corn nut that is Gretchen Carlson—descendant of some Nordic "species", for sure—and she ably, if simply, mocked crazy dumb Kilmeade for being crazy and dumb and possibly suffering from dementia.

It was a fine moment of morning television. Incidentally, after discussing this execrable show with my sister over seltzers at a picnic table in Rhode Island this weekend, she called me this morning and said "I tried watching Fox & Friends. I couldn't even get through five minutes. How can you possibly watch this every day?" And then I told her that I don't, that there are lovely video people who watch it for me and I cackled into the phone.

So, in short, thanks guys!

Yes it was the winter break episode last night, and all the kids were bundled up and snowy, shivering against a cold world that threatened to consume them. In some cases this was quite literal. Kelli learned the notion of Death in the stony, frozen expanse that some ancient Indians called The Hamptons. Rusty old Rags McTattershanty had to make a frigid, pine needle-strewn Sophie's Choice last night. To save her rep and marry out of the hobo clan, or follow her tin foil heart and get railway hitched to reliable soup seeker Soots McKenzie? Never has a fifteen-year-old been faced with such adversity.

And some of the coldness, some of the arctic mire, was in a more metaphorical sense. There was poor potato-eyed Jessi, awash in a sea of dappled Miami sadness. Eating lonely lunches with her Florida friend, a beanbag chair wearing a wig, all the while missing her one true love. That unresponsive fellow is none other than mop-browed blunderer Peter "PC" Peterson. Yes PC was busy getting lost in the aforementioned Mexico, smothering his furtive, grainy desires—which were rushing up suddenly into his loins and mouth and brains like lava in a burbling Guatemalan volcano. He'd gone to visit an old boarding school chum, the lean and dangerous Charles Ryder JP, a young Mexican baron of sand and sadness, of louche-limbed sexuality that confounds and brutalizes PC's ever-knotting insides.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves! Let's return to that scene, of that crime, a bit further down. First:

The Tough Tale of Rags McTattershanty
It was glitter, she decided. Glitter that she'd begun seeing in the corners of her yellowed eyes. A bright, quick glint or sparkle there in the periphery when she awoke in the morning, covered in the debris of last night's meal. Chicken bones and magazine scraps. Uneaten sardine tails and flecks of tin. Rags was in love. Or some manner of love, some status-crazed version of adoration that had nestled and clotted in her heart like grease. You see, she and Sebastian were a thing. Of course Rags didn't know that Sebastian had taken his carriage for a day's journey to the countryside and visited with Kelli at her parents' Westhampton manor. That the angular and mismatched pair had played billiards and discussed the nature of pets, Kelli's feeble bat wing heart fluttering and whimpering. Rags didn't know of that visit and, really, she didn't need to. Nothing of note had happened, just feelings being glooped across the floor like the maid's wash water. Sebastian had sat there in the sprawling manse and the only thing that came into his mind was not sympathy for Kelli's ailing dog, Lady Stoutbiscuits (a dog that later died and Kelli shook and shuddered and plead with Death to take her instead but it would not work), but rather Rags. Rags with her squat, gymnastic frame. Her heaving bosom toppling cheaply out of a Target chemise. He needed her, he had suddenly realized. And so he dashed out of the mansion, Kelli calling dimly after him, and ordered his driver to spurn the horses harder, and harder still! To the city! To see his beloved!

Rags had been sifting through the small pile of rubbish she called her bureau, that nagging and delightful glimmer playing in the corners of her vision, when she felt a featherweight tap on her shoulder. And there he was. Her golden tendril'd Orpheus, the sallow stink of boxer shorts and potato chip breath like a sweet intoxicant cutting through the bitter cold air. The pair—reunited, soldered together like circuits on the beautiful motherboard of love—took a walk in the snow and discussed the lay of the land. "So what are we doing?" she asked him coyly. And he'd smiled and taken her hand and said, in verse lovelier than Byron, "I dunno." They kissed and parted ways and Sebastian stood there, shaky in his trainers, a new seed suddenly buried in fertile soil. Is this it?, he thought. Are we gonna do it?

As Rags puttered off in her jalopy made of popsicle sticks and stolen leprechaun wishes, she felt that nothing could be finer than a rich boy in her 'giner. But little did she know that something wicked her way was coming (is that a sentence?). That something came at her gymnastics meet. Hobo gymnastics meets consist of three events. There's Upside-down Pie Cooling on a Windowsill Stealing, the Vertical Knife Fight, and something called Chicken Tickling that, for FCC reasons, Bravo was unable to air last night. So this was Rags' first meet ever and she was very nervous. She twisted her kerchief in her fingers and lulled herself with soft vagabond melodies but still something rattled her. And then she realized what it was. There, perched in the bleachers like a scrawny vulture in an overcoat, was Soots. He'd come not just to watch her deft nabbing of a delicious rhubarb pie (which she aced, btw) but also to woo her back. After the meet he took her to a vegan restaurant and, after Rags stuffed all the silverware up her sleeves and filled her pockets with loose sugar, he rat-a-tat-tat gave her a laundry list of reasons why she should come back to him. He was so weird, a little young Woody Allen, all confident and forceful in that neurotic, nebbishy way.

So he wanted her to break up with Sebastian and she looked at him with her pursed, strawberry features and the wood and iron gears of her fraught hobo mind turned and turned. Next week it looks as though her music box romance with Sebastian will crumble. Which isn't surprising. Lord Sebastian had earlier gone to lunch with his terrible red-eyed father—a pierogi slump of a man in sad shiny brown pants, wisps of math-teacher-comb-over hair grimly foretelling Sebastian's inglorious future—who had prodded and probed him repulsively about his luck with the ladies. He wanted Sebastian to buckle down at school but also to party and fuck, to do the things one cannot do once the years have clumped and molded you into some land-wealthy Gollum, some zombie husk stretched over withered muscle that was once taut and defined from tennis games played in the browning 70s. Yes, maybe there was never really any hope for a bottle cap beauty like Rags and this vicarious teen boyangel. But still: Will she actually make the choice? Or will it just be made for her? Only time will tell.

And now for Part II.

A Corona Is a Glow, Coming from Millions of Miles Away
It was glitter, he decided. This strange shimmer sticking to his skin. PC picked at it, the silver speck on his forearm. It was the thick, dull part of morning and he was sprawled out in a bed, in his briefs, something rude and unfriendly taking root in his stomach. What had happened last night? He couldn't remember. But we can.

As mentioned before, PC was in Mexico. He'd gone to meet the dashing JP for a wintertime romp in shitty, slitty, glitzy Cancun. It was a strange place to find PC, the affected snob young hen of Upper East Side TV society, but it worked really well for the show. Because it stripped him of context and clout, reduced him to a sad, scared boy teetering on the brink of some wide chasm. And chasm, thy name is Homosexuality. Yes, last night we got our first substantial particle waves of the inexorably unfolding gay plotline and, I must say, it was done in far more interesting chamber piece fashion than I'd thought Bravo capable of pulling off. While PC and JP and RT and QV and DMX and the gang did their cock-and-ball strut through the booze-filled feeding trough, we saw poor PC just get angrier and sadder, sadder and angrier. That scary fugue of abandon was flickering full behind PC's beady hazel eyes, and a troubled character began to emerge. He just seemed to unhappy and frightened and botched and blocked.

See nothing really happened. And that was sort of the point. PC and his buddies were besieged by flock after flock of wayward vacationing girls, drawn like moths to the magnet glare of camera crew lights. Is there some homing beacon installed in the youngs nowadays that just seeks that shit out, like pigeons or computer-guided missiles? It's sort of uncanny. Anyway, tortured PC wanted nothing, I mean nothing, to do with them. Because, ew gross, they were from Texas or wanted to dance or wear sombreros or do Yaeger bombs. No Peter Chesley Malificent Peterson is wayyy better than that, plus there's JP.

There's JP, a tall "beautiful" Mexican, all sinew and strut, chest puffed out like a sail pointing towards Eden. Oh gorgeous JP who rumpled PC's hair on the beach as they sat, shirtless and free, and made jokes to boring girls about how PC was bisexual and had a gay boyfriend back home and PC just sat there and took it, just sat there and dreamed a thousand What Ifs, bundled them up like flowers or tissue paper, made houses of them, made children of them, made slow beautiful waltzes toward death of them. Here's the truth of it, plain and bald like Sebastian's ghoulish father in five years: PC is in love with JP and is struggling terribly with it and it is sad but, oh, it is also such compelling television. I hope Bravo isn't teasing us, I hope they don't cop out on us. We'll see.

For now, PC just seems upset and agitated all the time, happy and calmed only when JP has wrapped his tawny arms around his shoulders and urged him on into the night. For her part, boulder-faced Jessi sat rotting away in Miami Beach, calling and texting and BBM'ing and all other manner of communicating with PC to no avail. PC was ignoring her. "She isn't my girlfriend," he kept saying. And then he would say it once again inside his head, softer and more meaningful this time, She isn't my girlfriend. And she never will be. No one ever will be. And the finality of it, the fact of it, would just thud on him like coconuts in a 50s beach comedy, like the sproingy thwack of a tennis ball hitting the sweet spot of a Wilson. When he got back from Mexico—when the drinking and yearning had ended (or begun???)—he and Jessi stood in her room, unpacking. PC held up a rainbow-striped teddybear and asked "Is this a gay pride bear?" And she shrugged it off, thought nothing of it, ignored it, swept it away. But it lingered and hooked in PC and now suddenly there was a whole new freighted vocabulary. How the world suddenly handled differently, like a new car.

Jessi looked him, sure that something was different. "Were there skanks in Mexico?" she asked, all fake in her chillaxitude and whatevsness. PC laughed darkly and told her no, not at all, they were all gross. Jessi seemed mildly satisfied but was still confused by the new flint she saw in her old friend. PC sat on the bed and felt himself retreating into darkness, into the cold peculiarity of a life he'd never planned.

Meanwhile elsewhere Camille was there, still cockled and strange, buying chocolates and whispering nasty things into Rags' ears. Hooting in her I-don't-wanna-be-a-nerd-anymore way that Rags should create as much boy drama as possible, so Camille can leech off of it, suck it deep inside herself so it can nourish and preserve that wicked tickle that now clamors more loudly than Grades or College or The Future combined. (Years later, when Camille is bundled up in a weekend rental Vermont ski house, Camille will turn to her partner Ruth and confess to her that that was the day, that winter afternoon in the chocolate shop, when she first felt her life yawing sideways, felt it dip then soar—a swallow fleeting a barn—into a brand new sky.) Rags listened to Camille's advice and mulled it over while playing her hobo harmonica—a contraption fashioned from dust and glass and old fireplace bellows—under her favorite bridge. What mystery awaited her, she thought. And that was just her next meal.

Kelli meanwhile lingered in a graveyard. She missed that skittering, yippy thing. She missed its silly hair, its cute noises and smells. Other than Sebastian, though, she also missed her dog Lady Stoutbiscuits. How hard it is to say goodbye to something! What pain God's given us and called it a life. She stood there, paying mournful tribute, until she got cold and she saw the cameramen getting disinterested and this episode was over for her. "Come on, let's go back. I'll have the maid make us some lunch."

But yes, back. We'll go back. Back to the bright silver blot on PC's arm. This bed, here in Mexico. This new thing in him a worm or an organ. At first he was confused, disoriented, unsure of the walls and drapes and sad sailboat painting framed beside a muted TV. But then there it was. Sense. Sense like sense has never been. Framed in a doorway, bent and beautiful. The smooth bulb of an Adam's apple, the rolled glens and hillocks of shoulder and collar, the crisp taper of stomach and waistband. JP. The legend to a map. A key. A beacon. A lighthouse.

A lighthouse perched on a precarious Yucatan shore, amid rocks and palms and finely-ground shells. The old elements and matter of dangerous Mexico. But it wasn't these things that destroyed PC. It wasn't disease. It wasn't villains on furlough from Juarez. It wasn't the burnished metal of a conquistador—not Cortes, not Pizarro, not eternal Ponce de Leon. No it wasn't any of that which felled proud, mighty PC. It was nothing simpler or purer than love and abandon themselves. Those things that eat from within and without. Here they were. Here we go.

PC scrambled out of bed while JP waited impatiently. He pulled on some shorts and a shirt and grabbed his wallet, his hotel key, his near-empty pack of cigarettes and they headed off for breakfast. Halfway down the hall JP threw his arm over PC's shoulders, pulled in him tight and asked, exuberant, "Ready for another day in paradise?"

And there, for just a second, while still in the warm pocket made by two people, faraway and safe in another country, PC felt ready for anything.

Yes, the New York Observer brings us word of the untrending. The economic downturn has caused TV and movie houses to slash their budgets, and personal stylists are one of the first things to go. So that could explain why It girl celebs like Gossip Girl's Blake Lively have been dressing themselves of late. They'll go to showrooms and fashion expos on their own and pick out what they like, enraging some of the bitchiest of the fashion bunch:

"She's the one that looked like a mess in that Nina Ricci dress at the Golden Globes!" sniped celebrity stylist Phillip Bloch [of Lively], who has worked with Halle Berry and Salma Hayek. "This is why you need a stylist. If you go to a designer, their goal is to get you out the door and on the red carpet in their gown come hell or high water. They're never going to say, ‘This just might not be right for you.'"

Hey girl, hey. Bloch does have a point, albeit a useless one, though it doesn't address the other reason why celebrities might be ditching their highly-paid helper monkeys. As stylists like Zoe, Stacy London, and Bloch become celebrities in their own right—with reality shows and bitchy newspaper quotes—it begins to pull back the curtain on how our favorite stars look so damn fabulous all the time. No, natural acting ability does not come hand in hand with innate fashion sense. Ha! It's all very practiced and calculated, sometimes down to what one wears to the grocery store.

So while the American empire crumbles all around us, celebrities increasingly do not want to be associated with the embarrassing largess of paying someone lots of money to pick out their clothes in the morning. Bloch says this is a cutting out of "the middleman," which is apt and true. And it's an unnecessary middleman! Maybe everything in the entertainment industry just got too overheated, too frivolous and expensive. Now's the time to issue some correctives, so let's start with the people whose jobs are really just entirely made up.

Of course then we'll have to march down the line axing everyone from dog walkers to, gulp, people who recap television shows, but if it'll get America back on the right track, then so be it.

We can't dress ourselves and we're damn proud of it. Won't you join us, rich and famous celebrities? Potato sacks unite!

Image via INF

1) "Which musically inclined young celeb has been dubbed - behind his back, of course - 'Lip Gloss' because he always puts it on before hitting a red carpet?" [NYDN] [Oh, Effwinkle.]

2) "Which magical actor is a hit with the ladies but keeps joking that they're wasting his time as his wand swings the other way?" [Mirror]

3) "This B-/C+ movie actor is married to a B-/B+ television actress. Over the past few months there have been some rumors swirling that their marriage is in trouble. The husband even had to spend several nights away from the family home when his wife kicked him out because she thought he was cheating. This has been a huge shock because everyone has thought they would stay together forever. Not just the public, but their friends and family as well.

Well it turns out that the husband wasn't cheating at all and that the couple were being played by a D list movie actress (you will never guess her) who is in the husband's latest movie and a few of her pap friends. The D list actress wanted some publicity and started telling everyone she could think of that she was sleeping with the husband when she wasn't. Then the paps got into the act by spreading the rumor and it got back to the wife who told the husband to not come home for a few days because even she believed it.

At some point the wife called one of her close friends who is frequently stalked by paps. A few questions were asked and the next thing you know the wife discovers none of it was true and she and the husband make up. The problem is the rumors will not go away and are spreading and multiplying. The only good news is that the D lister has not got the publicity she has wanted." [CDaN]

"This music celebrity is well past their prime, yet still seems intent on ingratiating themselves into the Michael Jackson story. They managed to score a ticket to the Michael Jackson Memorial Service. While there, they started grabbing every camera crew in sight, introducing themselves, and claimed that Michael Jackson was practically a son to them, and they were practically a parent to him.

Even more fantastically, they also claimed to have discovered Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5, and to have personally coached Michael in his unique singing and dance style. It's hard to believe that a person so close and important to the Jacksons was not invited to any of the gatherings involving the close friends and family. Perhaps it's because they invented the story to make themselves feel important. No, it's not Diana Ross." [BlindGossip]

Yes, the whole gang is expected to come back, and Bravo is hoping to find two new ladies to join them. Initially everyone thought that leathery bitch Kelly Bensimon would not return, but apparently she's eager to go on TV again to prove that she's not a self-centered nightmare. Plus, as an insider close to the show told Gatecrasher, she sorta makes for good TV:

People may hate Kelly, but they aren't immune to her. They hate her so much that they want to see what she'll do next. She's the bad guy, and that makes for interesting television.

It's perfectly understandable that Ramona would hold out for more money—rocket fuel isn't cheap, and she needs to fix the carbine-capacitor before she can slingshot past the moon and straight on towards home—but Jill? Really, hon? We like your mom, and we adore your hideously redesigned house, but other than that, you're the most blah of the group! Even your kid isn't the most interesting kid! (That title will forever go to Avery.)

Anyway. Obviously we're most excited for the return of Countess LuAnn "Crackerjacks" DeLesseps. Unfortunately we weren't able to get a comment from her, though we tried via payphone before she zoomed off in a rusted-out Thunderbird headed toward the Sierra Madres, never looking back.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The creepy gold casket was wheeled in and the oddness began.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Old pal Stevie Wonder sang a sad, fitting song.

Legendary producer Berry Gordy, who helped work young Michael to the bone when he was hoofing it in the Jackson 5, called Jackson the "greatest entertainer that's ever lived." Hm.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Al Sharpton stirringly, if inaccurately, told Jackson's children that there "wun't nothing strange about your daddy." Sigh.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Jackson's childhood pal Brooke Shields tearfully recounted their shared bond over being children in the spotlight. Though, unfortunately, her constant mentioning of kids and little princes struck an awkward chord.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.A crazy congresslady from Texas wandered up on stage and said that she wished she was a Jackson and that Michael was totally innocent of all those creepy charges.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Magic Johnson came up and told a few stories. But mostly he just plugged Kentucky Fried Chicken.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.R&B singer Urrrsher won the award for Most Classless of the day, by wearing sunglasses and pretending to cry. Usher, you were never a good actor, so why try and finally go for the teary clip reel at a funeral of all places?

Toward the end, a bunch of escaped mental patients were brought on to sing a "Heal the World"/"We Are the World" World Medley that left everyone looking awkward and ashamed, except for a few of Jackson's grasping brothers, who just seemed thrilled to be on stage.

In a chilling final moment, Jackson's rarely-seen daughter Paris tearfully said she loved her father and that he was great. In a haunting evocation of a cycle continuing to grind on, her aunt Janet fixed her hair and dotingly but firmly told her "Speak up, honey. Speak up." It was pretty much devastating.

So, that was that. An odd mess of a thing—part exciting, part sad, but mostly confusing. Fitting, then, for a life lived bizarrely and publicly, a life that needed a new word for famous, a life that, in many ways, really ended and disappeared many years ago. This whole event just felt perfunctory, as if no one could imagine MJ going out without a bang, but weren't really sure how to make the appropriate gesture. So it was just a mash of things, of different tones and styles.

And then it ended, abruptly and strangely, leaving us all to ponder what it was exactly that we'd just seen.

Image via Getty

The memorial itself starts at 1 p.m., and, oh, just because we're watching ABC doesn't mean you shouldn't watch other networks. We like the sick joke of ABC being owned by Disney, but there might be other, better, more-over-the-top coverage. Let us know in the comments!

So keep it R-rated and have fun and we'll see you out there.

Basically the designers had to make the glass five layers thick, using various new polymers and whatnot to ensure that the whole structure wouldn't crumble and send people plummeting to their dooms. The firm that built The Ledge and another group, who made big inroads in the glass architecture field by building all of the glass stairs that bedeck Apple stores across the nation, both have an end goal for all this alchemy: "Ultimately what we're all striving for is an all-glass structure." Sounds like fun! But, um, count us out.

Image via Getty

Aha! ABC has finally debuted on web TV outlet Hulu, loading on some episodes of ratty old Grey's Anatomy. Eventually we'll get other delightful ABC fare like Ugly Betty, the newly-acquired Scrubs, and Desperate Housewives. [Variety]

Now that he's in a huge summer movie and is a bigtime movie star, The Hangover star Zach Galifianakis just isn't sure what to do with himself. Should he do Todd Phillips' funnily-named Man-Witch, or Todd Phillips' blandly-named Due Date? Or what about Say Uncle (in which, we're guessing, he stars as something of a modern-day, more Dadaist Uncle Buck)? Look, as long as "Between Two Ferns" comes back here and there, we'll be happy. [THR]

Hmm... Rita Wilson, the wife of struggling actor Tom Hanks, will executive produce a developing HBO series based on Jeffrey Eugenides' beautiful novel Middlesex. So it'll be, what, a hermaphrodite coming-of-age story set in 60s and 70s era Detroit? We would probably watch that. Playwright Donald Margulies is involved as well. Hmmmmm. [Variety]

Everyone put in your earplugs, the screeching is about to begin. Current trash-talking comedy lady Kathy Griffin will soon be roasting old-timey trash-talking comedy lady Joan Rivers for that dreadful and needlessly profane Comedy Central Roast series. So much yelling and boob jokery. [THR]

Oh, good. Some guy named Jeremy Garelick (some sort of dairy heir, perhaps?), who did an uncredited rewrite on The Hangover, is writing a "funny" movie script based on that already funny without even trying series Baywatch. Because, you know, our minds have become lazy and fattened and it's too much work to infer the joke from the original, completely ridiculous Baywatch. No, we need it fed to us in comestible comedy format. With lots of boob jokery. Though, oh what the hell, it could be funny anyway. [Variety]

The set for Jay Leno's new 10pm daily talker will be made large enough to accommodate a car, as Jay might drive one of his precious automobiles on stage at the top of the show. But will it be made large enough to accommodate his chin?? (See! It's not that hard to write Jay Leno-style jokes!) [THR]

Virginia Madsen has joined the cast of that indie Kevin Spacey comedy The Father of Invention. She'll play his bitchy ex-wife. Slow and steady, Ginny. Slow and steady. [Variety]

1) "Damage control! Which hard-partying actor rushed back to his local AA chapter when he was caught drinking, but is actually still on the sauce?" [NYDN]

2) "Which star summoned staff to get him something to powder his nose with at a recent festival? The bloke didn't care who saw him as he indulged in his habit." [Mirror]

3) "I guess she would be considered an A list actress. So few actresses are given the opportunity to open movies, but she has. Almost always movies. Rarely television. It needs to be special. Anyway, over the weekend she had a little bit to drink and there was a guy at the party who had a little bit to drink and he made a comment about her anatomy. She didn't hit the guy, but only because two people stepped in between them when she lunged at him." [CDaN]

4) "Don't expect to see any new photos of this paparazzi favorite this week. She will be in hiding for several days and is not expected to give a public statement with the reason. While some may report that she is having cosmetic surgery - or spending several days holed up with her acting co-star - the real reason is much more down-to-earth. She got a bad sunburn this past weekend, and no amount of makeup can make her look photo-friendly. She will emerge from hiding when she no longer looks like a lobster in drag." [BlindGossip]

Hilton, apparently not content to be the world's leading purveyor of dirty celebrity doodles, is quixotically positioning himself as some sort of gay rights leader. Though, he's going about it all the wrong ways.

In the new profile by Boston-based gaypert Benoit Denizet-Lewis, the vicious and rotund self-ascribed Queen of All Media practically pleads with his interviewer to please accept him as a Righteous Gay. The Advocate story was written and filed before The Incident, but Denizet-Lewis has spoken to Hilton since and added his quotes to the online version of the article. Hilton, never the intellectual high jumper, buried himself even deeper:

But Perez tells me that, in the heat of the moment that night, he almost chose to use a different word. "I thought about calling him the n word," he says over the phone a week after the incident, "but I thought the f word was even worse. I was so filled with hate at that moment because I was hated on so much, and I reacted in the worst way possible. Then I went on to make a bunch of other mistakes. I shouldn't have made the video. I shouldn't have released so many statements. But what's come out of all of this is that I've learned so much about myself, and I'm in a much better place. I'm actually thankful that it happened. As cheesy as it may sound, I had almost a spiritual moment when I just let all of the anger and worry go and am now filled with peace, happiness, and wisdom.

Aw. Isn't that... vaguely horrifying. In seeking the forgiveness of the gay community (or not forgiveness, I don't think Hilton is concerned with forgiveness, but some weird meta thing somewhere between forgiveness and fear), Hilton decides to have us congratulate him for not saying the racist thing he was thinking. Terrific.

The late edition aside, the Advocate article is a mildly interesting, if not deeply-probing, read. Mostly the bitchy/sad blogger comes across as lonely and pretending, scorned by his one-time media friends and coworkers (like Queerty's Japhy Grant and head Jezebel Anna Holmes), intimidated and childish when trying to meet men. Basically he's any young gay guy with identity problems, only he's crafted a big pink dreadnought of a platform to loudly air his insecurities.

Thank God I don't have such a platform. Oh, wait.

What drama! And this just after the bombshell revelation that her dearly departed chicken had been ill with some sort of chicken disease. Oh and, Orlean had just, ominously, recommended Bear Claw ice cream to a fellow Twitterer.

Is there some sort of cyclic symbolism gnawing at us here? Some small whistling thing perched on our shoulders, telling us to let ourselves be subsumed by the natural world, to recognize our animal insides? Or is it simply a story of a ski house and a bear that met one green-flecked mountain evening? There's so much potential here!

Get on it, Orlean.

Yeah, the buildup in her gallbladder or bile duct caused her to miss the party, which was attended by other bile-related buildups like Kellan Lutz and socialgay Kristian Laliberte. In fact Laliberte was the one who spilled the beans about Ms. Hearst's painful condition, and we're sure Lydia's thrilled with him. ("Couldn't you have said a migraine, Kristy?")

Hopefully she spent her recuperation time at home writing a new Wealth of Nations.

[New York Observer]

Because it looks like it could be funny? Look, we're not fans of Cody's snappy, reference-laden "writing" any more now than we were when Juno came out or United States of Tara (a show that got better only after Cody stopped writing episodes) debuted. But couldn't that jerky dialogue and look-Ma-no-hands kind of sardonic bravado acquit itself nicely in a silly/scary horror comedy? The Girl Gets Revenge trope worked fairly well in Teeth, and we all remember the nerdy Blockbuster clerk's wet dream that was Scream. Smoosh those two things together and you just might get Jennifer's Body. Something so head-poundingly annoying it's oddly entertaining. Y'know?

[via ShockTilYouDrop]

Likable workhorse actor Clifton Collins Jr. has joined the cast of that weirdos doing experiments movie The Experiment. He'll star with other weirdos Forest Whitaker, Elijah Wood, and Adrien Brody. They'll be doing experiments. [Variety]

Gosh, Adam Sandler is so nice. He just keeps casting his old friends. The latest is the beleaguered Tim Meadows, who is joining the reunion comedy Grown Ups. Also in the flick? Once-wases like Norm Macdonald, Colin Quinn, Rob Schneider, and David Spade. Somewhere, Ellen Cleghorne extends a weary hand and plaintively whispers "Me too...?" [THR]

Charlize Theron has signed on with the big boy. She's switched over to the mega-agency poised to take over the world, William Morris Endeavor, where she'll be repped by none other than the golden cussing boy himself Ari Emanuel. What does Vince think about this? [Variety]

Because that Tim Roth show Lie to Me has inexplicably high ratings, they're bringing back two popular guest stars from last season for longer arcs. Once budding movie star turned TV stalwart Mekhi Phifer will be back, as will, well... once budding movie star turned TV stalwart Jennifer Beals. Mekhi is going to be a cast member, whereas Beals will just be that nebulous thing known as a recurring. [THR]

Nimrod Atal, the unfortunately-named director of the way-better-than-decent horror/thriller Vacancy, will helm the upcoming fifth installment in the Predator series. Predators will be about the Predator monster, only there will be plural of them. [Variety]

Very funny regular guy Jason Sudeikis has been quietly racking up a bunch of work. He's slated to next appear in the Justin Long/Drew Barrymore romancer Going the Distance. Sudeikis will play a character named Box. Heh. See? Already funny! [THR]

Whee! Charlie Murphy will be in a new movie, the bizarrely cast comedy Family Wedding. He's joining Forest Whitaker, America Ferrara, and Carlos Mencia. Charlie, we wish we could tell you we're going to see this, but, uh... [Variety]

1) Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs AND Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen — $42.5 million
Apparently people wanted animated anachronisms just as much as they wanted animated inanity this weekend, as the film about dinosaurs returning because of secret caves many years after they'd gone extinct tied with the film about evil robots returning just a few years after they'd been defeated in street-destroying battle. In the five-day weekend release, Ice Age nabbed over $67 million, just a little bit more than Transformers earned in its first day alone. So while the dinos were able to co-rule the Earth this weekend, they'd have been crushed like so many Decepticon skulls had they tried these shenanigans last week. Plus Ice Age doesn't have a writhing, be-Daisy Duke'd mini-Jolie in it, does it? That'd be weird if it did.

3) Public Enemies — $26.2 million
Some grownups and curious skinny-panted budding young film nerds went to the movies too this weekend, helping the major studio art-house gangsta picture rob some $41 million from America's wallets. Unfortunately for the film's word-of-mouth prospects, it only earned a B from CinemaScore audience polling, meaning those grownups might not, in mid wine bottle opening, stop and say "Hank, what's the name of that movie we saw, with the pirate guy? About the mobsters?" [from another room] "Public Enemies!" "Right, right. Well, Susan, it was pretty exciting. Steve would love it I bet. Honey??? Wouldn't Steve love it???" [from another room] "Yeah, he would!" And those budding film geeks? They'll sit at Denny's at 1am and light a Camel Light and tousle their hair in faux deep thought and say "It's one of Mann's lesser films." And Dawn and Patrick will smirk and Allison will quietly swoon and then the waitress will come and they'll just order more coffee and man, this summer feels like forever.

4) The Proposal — $12.8 million
What do you think it's like to be a movie star going to the ATM? Like, you're walking down the street and want to go to lunch and figure you'll need some cash so you go to the nearest vestibule. And you type in your PIN and the thing asks you "This is going to cost $2, is that OK?" and you don't even think about it, press Yes, and then you take out $100 or something and it spits out your receipt or displays your balance on screen and it reads "$15,785,232." That's your checking account. I mean, that must be so fucking nuts. Well, anyway, Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds are probably experiencing that right now, as their film chugs to the brink of the $100 million mark, and they're guaranteed at least another six weeks of stardom. People love Sandy Bullock, which we've known. People also love Ryan Reynolds, which we're just finally figuring out. Snarky sincerity, for the win.

5) The Hangover — $10.4 million
Yeah, I've had a $200 million hangover before too. I mean, that's how it felt. I didn't actually make two hundred million dollars off it. I didn't actually make any money. The grilled cheese delivery guy maybe gave me the wrong change and I made a buck or something. But, that's it. Sigh.

6) Up — $6.6 million
This is now the second highest grossing Pixar film ever. Finding Nemo still holds the top spot, because that was just a phenomenon. It was huge! Remember when that damn thing came out? Everybody was talking about the Nemo. "Where is he? Has he been found? Where do you think he went? Is he under this rock? Check your shoes, is he in there? What about the junk drawer? Allison, honey, before you meet your friends at the Denny's, look in the back of your closet. We gotta find this Nemo. Oh, and Steve, Hank and Linda called, they want to get together for dinner this week. Nemo? Nemo??? Where are you??" That was what it was like. Whereas in this case, Up is just balloon-buoyed by really expensive 3D tickets, I suspect.

Image via Getty

The pair supposedly came together after JFK's assassination, first as a means to express their grief, then as a means to express their passion. Camelot insiders, including Bobby's wife Ethel, knew the affair was going on, but everyone knew that it would never go anywhere—because it was the 1960s, because they were Catholic and divorce was what it was, because Bobby couldn't risk a marital scandal if he hoped to take office someday. So the pair continued in secrecy until Bobby's assassination in 1968.

Some factoids from the book, which includes witness accounts from Jack Newfield, Gore Vidal, and Truman Capote:

Six months after JFK's death, during a May 1964 dinner cruise on the presidential yacht the USS Sequoia, Bobby and Jackie "exchanged poignant glances" before disappearing below deck, leaving Ethel upstairs. "When they returned, they looked as chummy and relaxed as a pair of Cheshire cats,"

At the Kennedys' Palm Beach estate during Christmas 1964, socialite Mary Harrington saw Jackie sunbathing topless, with Bobby kneeling at her side. "As they began to kiss, he placed one hand on her breast and the other inside of her bikini bottom," Harrington recalled.

According to Gore Vidal, "The one person Jackie ever loved . . . was Robert Kennedy."

Shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis — RFK's rival for Jackie's attention — once threatened to "bring down" Bobby by going public with details of the affair. "I could bury that sucker," Onassis said, "although I'd lose Jackie in the process."

On June 4, minutes after winning the California primary, Bobby was fatally shot by Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

Jackie flew to his bedside — and Ethel allowed her time alone with the dying RFK, according to the book.

Bobby was brain-dead, but a distraught Ethel refused to pull the plug, and brother Ted Kennedy was in no shape to make the call, Heymann writes.

At 1:20 a.m. June 6, 1968, Jackie Kennedy ordered the respirator shut down and signed the consent form, the book reveals.

So, yeah, there you have it. The only sad, melancholy thing to ever happen to the moneyed, mossy Kennedy clan.

Image via Getty