Nikki Finke heard that the folks at Paramount didn't know that Comedy Central, which is also owned by Viacom, would be harshly and extremely criticizing their precious little summer cashcow. Will heads roll? No, probably not. It's allllll just publicity and stuff. Though anything that Trey Parker and Matt Stone (the boys behind South Park) can do to stop the supposedly in-the-works Indy 5 from happening, I'd appreciate it thanks.

• Amy Winehouse was rushed to the hospital after maybe mixing up some "medication" she is on to fight drug addiction. The basketcase British singer was released within 24 hours.
• For some reason Page Six is reporting that Marc Jacobs did marry Lorenzo Matrone, even though two of Jacobs' PR reps denied the story to Fashion Week Daily.
• In other weird denied-gossip news, Lindsay Lohan is still refuting reports she was struck by a motorcycle Saturday, but supposedly she is simultaneously acknowledging to friends she went to the hospital around that time. "But [she] won't tell anyone why. It's really odd." [R&M]
• Chace Crawford and roommate Ed Westwick, both of Gossip Girl, stayed within a foot of each other throughout a recent Ting Tings show. They also supposedly ignored a bunch of "flirty girls." [R&M]
• Rosie O'Donnell was going to be in Les Miserables? And now she's not because her kid broke his wrist?? The tigers really do come at night. [Showbiz Spy]
• Indiana Jones star Shia LaBeouf wasn't just busted for driving drunk — he was also busted driving around at 3 am with actress Isbael Lucas, aka the girlfriend of Entourage star Adrian Grenier. [Daily News]
• Now you've gone and forced Britney Spears to make another reality show. Sigh. [X17]
• Jerry Seinfeld's TV mom doesn't even has his phone number. Right, because she's his TV mom, not his real mom. Get in line, lady! [P6]
• Sad George Michael was delayed by weather on his jet trip to Boston for his concert tour, then had to wait for Sting and Bruce Springsteen to take off first. [P6]

"The phrase was born on May 24—two days after the film opened—and it went viral on movie message boards. In barely a month, it has blown through several Web. 2.0 benchmarks: YouTube tributes, 'fridge' haikus, merch-hawking Web sites, 'Word of the Day' status on UrbanDictionary.com. 'You're expecting [the movie] to be as great as you remembered it,' says Beth Russell, creator of nukingthefridge.com, 'and after the fridge scene, it was like, Oooo-K.' A new legend is born, for all the wrong reasons." [Newsweek]

"The letter said Russians are fond of many of Ford’s other roles, but not this time. 'You have no future in Russia any more. Speaking plainly, it is better for you not to come here. You will be beaten and despised.'

"However, despite the protests, the film was released on Thursday on 808 screens in Russia — a record for a Hollywood film.

"The Communist Party has withered since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, but it remains the second largest party in the Duma, the Russian parliament." [ShowbizSpy]

"At Gabriel’s, an Italian restaurant on the Upper West Side, Ms. Allen joined family and friends, including her son, Nick, 17; ex-husband, Kale Browne; manager, Joan Hyler; the poet Michael Lally and his son, Flynn, and friends Christy Zea and Frosty Montgomery.

"There was talk of whether Mr. Spielberg and George Lucas would make yet another Indy movie. 'George had been saying no,' Ms. Allen said with a poker face, 'but lately in the press, he doesn’t seem to be ruling it out.'

"In a lull between courses, she did her best to answer a barrage of questions about the movie: Where was it shot? (Los Angeles, mostly, she said.) Was the scene of a nuclear mushroom cloud made with government footage? (Hotly debated.) Was the motorcycle chase through the college library shot at Yale University? (Yes, Mr. Spielberg’s son studies there.)

"After dessert, 10-year-old Flynn looked up from his chocolate cake and offered Ms. Allen an unsolicited review of the film. 'The funny thing about the movie is that you punch him and then you kiss him,' he said.

“'Well, that’s love,' Ms. Allen said." [NYT]

Crystal Skull is intended, and works effectively, as instant nostalgia — a class reunion of the old gang who in the '80s reinvigorated the classic action film with such expertise and brio. So don't expect the freshness of the what-one-man-can-do plot in Iron Man, or the oneiric visuals of Speed Racer. Spielberg and Lucas, and screenwriters David Koepp and Jeff Nathanson, are looking not forward but back, to the first three films. They know that moviegoers would be disappointed not to see the talismans of Indys past reappear here [...]

The Paramount logo dissolves into some kind of mountain. Every Indy film opens this way, from one monument to another[...] In Raiders the logo became a mountain in South America; in Temple of Doom, a bas-relief on a Chinese gong; in The Last Crusade a big boulder in Utah. This time, suggesting more modest aspirations, or maybe kiddingly deflecting the audience's gargantuan expectations, it's a weeny prairie dog hill, from which a critter emerges just before being nearly run over by speeding cars. We're in Nevada, near Area 51, and it's 1957, a time of rock 'n' roll [...]

Nazis in the first and third Indys, Indian Thugees in the second. But it wouldn't be the '50s without Commies, in the chic person of Irina Spalko (played by Blanchett with the severe demeanor of Cyd Charisse's Ninotchka in the 1957 MGM musical Silk Stockings and the black bob Charisse sports in The Band Wagon). Rather than the simple matter of conquering the West militarily, Irina is part of a Soviet plot to cloud our minds by getting access to some secret technology that is concealed either in an Area 51 warehouse or in the remotest jungle mountains of Peru. "We will change you, Mr. Jones, all of you, from the inside," she proclaims. "We will turn you into us." [Time.com]

Allen, 56, appears to have left her face alone and kept her body trim with yoga (she used to run a yoga studio here in Great Barrington). 'People all want to know why I haven't been doing more films,' she said, sitting over coffee at her country breakfast table several weeks ago and shooing away one of her cats with a spray bottle.

"These days all somebody has to do is Google you and they know how old you are. I would show up for roles that were written for somebody in their early 50s, and people would say, 'You can't do that, you look too young,' but if I showed up for a role for somebody in their early 40s then the people would say, 'Well, but she's 50.'

"I'm from a generation of fantastic actresses. It's a big pool of really wonderful actresses, and so many of them we never even get to see on the screen anymore."

She ticked off several — Jessica Lange, Debra Winger, Julie Hagerty. [LAT]

"This is the Indiana movie that you were dreading [...] There was not a single moment that I thought [Indy] . . . was in any sort of peril or even significant inconvenience.' A big snake that appears in one scene is 'as crappy as a Mad TV prop' and it 'looks like the whole jungle was made of plastic.' As far as Ford's dialogue goes, 'he has a few lines that work and a million that don't.'" [P6]

I'm not too worried. I haven't believed anything on that site since they gushed all over Daredevil.

You're deliberately letting Indy age in Crystal Skull. That never happens in, say, the James Bond films. They seem to replace the actor once he gets too old. Or too expensive.

Do you fit either of those categories?
We'll see. That's one of the things I was most keen about. Just acknowledge the years between the last one and this one. Without reservation. Just acknowledge it. What's the big deal? The guy's 18, 20 years older. So what? I resisted some early efforts, for instance, to think about coloring my hair. I said, Uh, no.

What was the pro-hair-dye argument?
To look better, in some sense. I don't think there was ever a resistance to acknowledging the character's age. It's just a question of whether some people thought I'd be a better-looking 65 if my hair was colored.

American culture is generally paranoid about aging.
Well, I'm here to help. [Laughs] What would you like me to do?

By being in this movie with gray hair, you're doing it! A lot of people, when they hear about Crystal Skull, do a double take. Harrison Ford? Isn't he...um...
Yeah, I've heard it. ''Aaaaw, he's older.'' Well s—-, yes. And by the way? So are you. So...are...you! Take a look in the f—-ing mirror! [EW]

The film won over Wired, Vanity Fair, the Age, and the London Times. The creation story was optioned a while back, but it's been beaten to release by the upcoming cute but too-hip Son of Rambow, which is the same story in England with two Cockney kids. Here's the trailer for that:

In contrast, this BBC segment on Raiders shows some footage from the homemade remake:

In short, Raiders: Adaptation sounds less exhaustingly twee than Rambow or Rewind, and maybe even more fun than the new actual Indiana Jones. I'm still downloading it, but this is apparently a working Bittorrent file of the remake. (While the movie's been screened in several cities, it's never been officially released or even authorized by Spielberg and Lucas.) If you feel bad about stealing it, remember that the whole movie technically is stealing!