Earlier: Oprah's Favorite Things 2007: The Audience Freaks Out!

• Pamela Anderson bought a new house last year and wanted to give it some necessary renovations, like gold tiles. Sadly, she doesn't even have enough money to make the house inhabitable and has been forced to live in a one-bedroom trailer with her two sons. [Metro]
  
  
• None of the cast from Real Housewives of New York like Bethenny Frankel, which is fine, because she doesn't like them and Bravo needs to make sure she can stand alone for her own show. [NYDN]
  
  
• There's tons and tons of security on the India set for Julia Roberts' new movie because people love her. Well, not all people: some are pissed off the shooting has taken over a local temple. Don't they know that Hollywood is God? [MSNBC]
  
  
• CNN bigwigs are wondering what to do if Larry King retires when his contract expires in 18 months. Some want Ryan Seacrest, for some reason, but he's too damn expensive. [Page Six]
  
  
• Has Jude Law banned the media from asking him about his new bastard child? [Page Six]
  
  
• Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom, who have been together for a month, are now officially married. Bleck. And it's the gays who threaten the institution of marriage? [TMZ]
  
  
• A jewelry company offered Vivica A. Fox a $50,000 necklace, but Fox refused by saying she'll buy it with her next pay check. That woman always had one foot out of reality.... [Page Six]
  
  
• Kate Moss wants to be a rock star. [The Sun]
  
  
• The band The Get Up Kids, who were huge in the 90s, have taken credit for emo music and offered an apology for spawning a wave of endless shit, like Fall Out Boy. Hey, that's an admission of guilt — can we sue for all the emotional distress? [Guardian]
  
  
• Jeremy London, an actor who once seemed like a big, big star, but was really just a frivolous 90s celebrity, owes American Express $20,000. [TMZ]

The estate of Edward L. Masry, the lawyer Erin Brockovitch clerked for and played Girl Friday to (resulting in the largest single class settlement in American history, against Pacific Gas & Electric), sued Masry's former place of employment into Chapter 11.

Masry & Vititoe—sans Masry, who died in 2005—claim to have spent over $3M defending themselves against charges from Masry's estate, stemming from a decision that awarded control of a trust to Masry's kids, away from his wife. The trust held interests in the firm. Also, Masry kinda promised some people some money that they never got, and now that he's dead, they're coming out of the woodwork.

"Not only did a number of litigants come forward alleging that Mr. Masry had promised them certain assets and cash from the firm, additionally, his own estate and heirs instituted claims which have caused the firm to spend its resources, in time and staff, defending such claims," the firm said in an Aug. 24 motion seeking cash collateral in order to keep operating.

In the saga of Erin Brockovitch, the namesake single mother of three starts uncovering facts about Pacific Gas & Electric. She sniffs around with Masry (played by Albert Finney) some more, finds out PG&E are poisoning people. Two acts and a romantic subplot with Aaron Eckhart later, Masry & Vititoe win said $333M settlement. Since the 1996 PG&E suit, Vititoe's done pretty well in the field of "stick it to the man" law, but the cost of their suits weighed them down. Right now, they're claiming monthly operating expenses of $670,000. $8M in yearly overhead might hurt if there's none of the Man's Money coming through the pipeline. Council for the firm claim that they're gonna be fine, and that Vititoe's clients won't be affected. That's probably not what their creditors think.

Lesson: lawsuits beget lawsuits?

Brockovitch, meanwhile: doing fine. She opened up her own consulting shop to help investigate cases like the PG&E one that made her famous. She's also got a sass-tastic website.

Julia Roberts is filming Eat, Pray, Love, Albert Finney was great in Big Fish, and Brockovitch director Steven Soderbergh's going crazy filming porn stars and hanging out with Benicio Del Toro in the Bolivian jungle.

Happy endings, for all, we guess, except for Masry's namesake firm. Maybe if they just went balls out in shilling the fact that they were, you know, the legal eagles from Erin Brockovitch, they'd be doing better. Or they could call in a favor to Soderbergh? Either way, this commercial, wow. Clearly, none of that $8M yearly overhead went to making it. Shit, the estate of Uta Hagen could sue them for grievances against the dramatic arts, while everyone else is at it.

• Oh, well, this is a shitshow: Jon Gosselin - on leave from his Tour of Duty in the War on Good Taste, Or At The Very Least, Conscious Sartorial Choices Not Involving Ed Hardy - had the kids the other night at Castle Wolfenstein Gosselin because it was his night for them to hate a parent to their face. Well, that didn't go well, because Kate, who's a little obsessive, came back to the house to make sure Jon wasn't having the kids get babysat by one of the many in his cadre of "hussy bitches" as Kate likes to call them. Jon could've had Benjamin Spock watching the kids, and she probably would've freaked her shit out. So they got into a fight, Jon locked her out of the house, and she had to check into a Days Inn off campus. All they need to do now is strike oil and move to La Jolla. Meanwhile, Jon's hosting a pool party in Vegas soon and do you need any more reasons to despise this person? [NYDN]
  
  
• And then they made up, or something, says this photo from TMZ. [TMZ]
  
  
• Bobert Pattinson comforted his co-star, Camilla Belle, after one of the Jonas Bro-ness broke up with her. Also, I finally just watched a trailer for the new Twilight movie yesterday, and did you know the entire thing is: vampire dumps regular chick to get eaten by another vampire and then a better looking guy who turns into a werewolf eats the vampire? I'm serious. That's it. The entire movie. This is the teenage Citizen Kane, supposedly. That's what the movie's gonna be. And people are freaking out over it? I could've written that book/movie/franchise with my ass. Seriously, how about this: weekend gossip writer gets out of bed late, does a line of blow off of his washboard abs before going for coffee and typing away at his laptop. All of the sudden, he goes to the bathroom and while looking for a flat surface ends up finding a magical land of princesses, unicorns, dark magic, and TIE Fighters. He decides to bring the coffee shop girl with him, and together they have lots of adventures and do a bunch of blow and debate whether or not to turn into unicorns. NYT Bestseller List, hear that ringing? It's me calling. [Showbiz Spy]
  
  
• Remember Antonio Sabato Jr.? Was he on that one show with Lorenzo Lamas? Anyway: Rachel McAdams had a huge crush on him as a wee Rachel McAdams and she ran into him and told him! And Antonio Sabato Jr. sent her flowers. That was fun. [Page Six]
  
  
• Paying tribute to the common knowledge that Jews run showbiz, Jerry Seinfeld will be the first guest on Jay Leno's new show. This is the talk show equivalent of having a shaman come and smudge the set with sage. [NY Daily News]
  
  
• All it took was the headline "Arrest Warrant Issued For Bobby Brown" to make me laugh. Seriously. It's like someone rang a bell in my head that was like, "KISSMYASS!" Apparently, he's delinquent on paying some kind of child support bills. Naturally. [NYDN]
  
  
• Ha, love this: Eat, Pray, Love, or as it's well known around New York, Diet, Self-Pity, Desperation is getting flack from the religions the main character/memoir's writer embarks upon when looking for herself in food and spirituality around the world, only to find out that (SPOILER ALERT) everything sucks in the end: you get fat, some dude/lady dumps you for someone prettier or younger, and then, you die. Anyway, I digress: the religious people are pissed about the book already and concerned the movie version, starring Julia Roberts, is only going to make it worse. I mean, this quote! Via the head of the Universal Society of Hinduism: "The people of India will be anxious to see how perfectly Roberts does her job of cleaning ashram floors as a part of her devotional duty, trying to recite 182- verse Sanskrit chant, and going through grueling hours of meditation, while being feasted on by mosquitoes." I mean, we're anxious to see anybody get feasted on by mosquitoes, but America's Sweetheart? Holy shit, you've got a movie right there. Don't softpaw this, Sony. At least get Clooney to play one of the little bloodsucking gnats. [Page Six]
  
  
• Dan Rather's showing up to parties around New York and Richard Johnson was like, yeah, get an item out of this. Throw some outrage in for good measure. [Page Six]
  
  
• So, one of those Kardashian girls is extending the legacy of large asses by having a kid, and Kim spoiled the supposedly ratings-boosting suspense of who the Dad was. Isn't the better question who isn't the dad of that child? Anyway, hopefully that baby will come out of its mother with a gigantic badonk because otherwise, if you've ever seen the Kardashians in action, you'd realize it's at no great genetic advantage when it comes to smarts. [Page Six]
  
  
• TMZ has a theory/sources basically positing the idea that Michael Jackson is frozen somewhere, like my brain, right now, at this moment. [TMZ]
  
  
• E! does some shameless plugging for some Sierra Mist Beach House in Malibu that basically hires small foreign children for celebrities to snort drugs off of in private. [E!]

There is a 3 minute sex scene set to Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah' during the climax of Warner Bro's The Watchmen. Warner Bros. has just announced that they've reach their own climax: the 1 Billion dollar mark in domestic grosses this year. Movies like 17 Again, Friday the 13th, Gran Torino, The Hangover, He's Just Not That Into You and Watchmen and uh, some wizard movie have added to the cash orgy. [ Variety ]

NBC Universal lost 41% in profits last quarter. Execs claim the brutal economic downturn has slashed advertising. Three months ago, in the previous round of earnings, some execs said they thought the ad market had hit bottom. Industrytes point to the a certain lanky, ginger-haired late night host for their reduction in eyeballs and therefore ad revenue. The worst may not be over, yet guys! [ Variety ]

Trucks that do things! Humans that love them! Aliens who fear them! Coming up next in your dreary Hollywood adaptation: Voltron. [THR]

Twilight news that doesn't involve the dreamy undead! Billion-Dollar-Having Warner Bros. and Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way are moving ahead on a Twilight Zone movie, hiring Rand Ravich to pen a script based on the iconic Twilight Zone TV series. [ Variety ]

Silky-voiced actor Morgan Freeman is "in talks" alongside shiny-headed Bruce Willis to star in Summit Entertainment's espionage thriller "Red," based on the WildStorm/DC Comic. [Variety]

Alert your fellow book club members! Tell your spiritually starved mother! Alert your knitting circle! Casting for the movie adaptation of Eat, Pray, Love is almost complete. So far we have Julia Roberts, Viola Davis, and Richard Jenkins. [ THR ]

Coffee-voiced Javier Bardem is in talks to join Julia Roberts in the movie adaptation of Eat, Pray, Spend a Lot of Money, Love, Moralize to Poorer Women About Going on Ashrams, Be Treated as Demigod by Oprah. He'd play Roberts' love interest, because in the end of that story the pretty rich lady yes, of course, lands a new man. [Variety]

Good morning, you are old. Malcolm in the Middle, Fox's manic comedy about two frazzled parents and their hellion sons, will be airing on Nick at Nite soon. Which is like hearing 'NSYNC on an oldies station. [Variety]

Neil Patrick Harris, who further endeared with his successful hosting gig at last night's Tonys, has landed two movies. First he'll play chillaxed husband to Bonnie Somerville's crazed wife in The Best and Brightest, about a humble couple who moves to the Upper East Side to get their kids into fancy kindergartens. John Hodgman, Kate Mulgrew, and Amy Sedaris will costar. Then he'll play a blind tutor in that Beastly movie, about a cute kid who gets turned ugly by Michelle Tanner. [THR]

Masi Oka, that novelty act from Heroes, may have a new life as a producer. He successfully pitched his project The Defenders to DreamWorks, where it will be steered by Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci (of Star Trek) and directed by rising star DJ Caruso. The pic is about kids from all around the world who play an online role playing game and don't know each other outside the confines of the intercybercomputer, but when real-life disaster strikes, they must band together and actually talk in person and maybe, hopefully, touch boobs and stuff. [THR]

USA's new irksome-looking series Royal Pains did solid numbers on its premiere night, dragging in 5.3 million viewers. That number is higher than the premieres of other USA hits like In Plain Sight and Burn Notice: The Show Everyone Tells Everyone Else to Watch. [Variety]

Scott Caan and the never-quite-got-there-but-maybe-someday William Fichtner will both do several episodes of HBO's Entourage, a show that needs—please God, please—to be put to bed immediately. Because it's becoming Arli$$. [THR]

Oh, shit. Jon and Kate Gosselin might be lawyering up; Jon gave People an interview from a lawyer's office. This sucks. [Page Six]

• Pregnant R & B singer Kelis managed to Twitter - over a series of five or six Tweets - something about someone being a cheater, and cheaters cheating on people who don't deserve to be cheated on. She's probably talking about Nas, who she's getting divorced from soon. Meanwhile, a few Tweets later, she gives us the following film review of "The Hangover," out this weekend: "P.s there was a cute asian man in the movie. Very rare sighting so had to say it :)" In other news, Hipster Runoff is teaching celebrity blogging courses, somewhere. [P*r*z H*lt*n and Kelis' Twitter]

  
  

• Jim Carrey's in some kind of freaky New Age Eastern Think group. Go, Hollywood? This is kind of 1999ish. [Hollywood Reporter]

  
  

• Evan Dando's about to fuck. Some shit. Up. Except not. The Lemonheads' lead singer is suing GM for using "It's a Shame About Ray" in a bunch of their commercials without licensing it. As TMZ - who, really, is getting great at covering the legal affairs beat - explains, GM's broke-phi-broke, and Dando's lawsuit is kind of frivilous in that regard. Oh well. [TMZ]

  
  

• More of TMZ educating their readership, this time, about California legislative power, by demonstrating how Cali's anti-SLAPP statues are helping Kobe Bryant's maid talk to the press about her lawsuit against the Bryants. Next up: when you should and should not engage in jury tampering. [TMZ]

  
  

• Julia Roberts is in town filming Eat, Pray, Love and she's renting a place at 1 Morton Square in the West-West Village. I'd drop off a basket, say hi, maybe try to get her or Danny Moder to do a guest blog post, but that shit's so far west you need a visa to get there, so forget that. [Page Six]

  
  

• Phil Spector's 28 year-old girlfriend - only three years older than his daughter, it's helpfully pointed out - says that this guy is a sex-crazed fiend, or at least that they did it all the time. [Page Six]

  
  

• Marilyn Manson shaved a swastika into his new porn star girlfriend's ladyparts, and he used a protractor to do it. This sounds like something you do when you're 23 and going through your fifth year in college and the only girl you can bring home for the holidays is this batshit insane freshman goth, and your parents are talking about Republican politics at the dinner table, and you're like, OH YEAH? WELL THERE'S A SWASTIKA IN HER VAG AND I PUT IT THERE, SO THERE! and even the girl is thoroughly embarrassed and dumps you when you get back to school. You should probably graduate and get through that rebellious phase, you know? It's about time. Also, stop pretending to like The Smiths. [Kinda NSFW at Drunken Stepfather]

  
  

• Blake Liveley and Penn Badgley were among the people who the W Hotel in Ft. Lauderdale paid to show up at the opening of their place. Penn's rocking a beard and I kind of dig it, if only because it's very "fuck you" to the teenage-celebrity-industrial-complex. Rebellion! Meanwhile, Ft. Lauderdale's entirely geriatric population is psyched to hit the bumpin' lounge at the Dub. [PopSugar]

  
  

• Ron Weasley's main squeeze, Hermione, is magical in real life: she's doing all these fashion-forward things and the like. How can you not like Emma Watson? Seriously. She probably knows that if the real-life version of Hermione were a drunk moron, it'd be really sad. So she's either saving it until the movies are done, or she's an actual, responsible, image-conscious person in the best way. Which is, come to think of it, entirely possible. [Daily News]

  
  

• Kevin Bacon is a responsible person when he flies the LA to NYC flight. He's nice, courteous, and folds his blankets. And here's where I explain that it's nice to not write something salacious or stupid about this, or him. [TMZ]

  
  

• Bury-The-Lede Obama Bonus! The Obama women visited the Eiffel Tower yesterday while Dad was in Germany on business. It's their first trip abroad, ever since they've been in the White House. U Can Haz Jelusy. [NYDN]

The executives at New Line Cinema can't wait to take more hard-earned cash from women who don't care about storyline and just want to see something about dating and love — again!

That's why there is a project in the works called Valentine's Day. It will hit theaters right before — wait for it — Valentine's Day, 2010. The plot? The plot is iffy. Something about "would-be romantics working their way through a tangle of circumstances in L.A." But that doesn't matter, because Julia Roberts, Anne Hathaway, Jennifer Garner, Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel and Shirley MacLaine will be in it. And Bradley Cooper. New Line will come up with a way to work a story around these people, since all that matters is that there's money to be made. Apparently, He's Just Not That Into You proved that women want to go see "romantic" movies — with other women or a date — right around Valentine's Day.

I have nothing against romance, comedies, or romcoms. I love stuff like When Harry Met Sally, Flirting, and Amelie — thoughtful films with strong writing and characters who are forces of nature. But He's Just Not That Into You — a movie based on a self-help book based on a catchphrase from a TV show — lacked substance and soul; the characters might have well have been cardboard cut-outs with labels like "The Optimist" or "The Seductress" taped to them. And for every bad review, there was a person who said, "I'm gonna see it anyway." Now the studio has 94 million reasons to pull that shit again.

As I wrote earlier this year, when you go see a movie like He's Just Not That Into You, you're casting a vote, telling Hollywood you want more flicks in the same vein. And this is what HJNTIY's box office bonanza hath wrought: Valentine's Day. As a former screenwriting major, it is painful to read that this project is being dictated by a calendar date — along with a cast and director (Garry Marshall) — and not by an actual story someone was inspired to write.

Who knows? Maybe there will be some surprises! Maybe they'll change the title to Single Awareness Day. Maybe some great writer (writers, plural, probably) will be hired by the studio to come up with a perfectly charming Valentine's Day tale. (I can already guess that one woman, who you think will stay single, will suddenly find a date; one woman, who you think will have a date, will suddenly be single; and one couple will remain together despite going through a dilemma that should tear them apart.) But for now, I'm already announcing that I'm just not that into it.

Hollywood Has Feb. 14 Circled in Red [NY Times]

Earlier: Liveblogging He's Just Not That Into You
Cliché-Laden Chick Flick Tries To Convince You It's Not Full Of Clichés
He's Just Not That Into You: Gay Minstrel Show?
More Reasons Not To Get Into He's Just Not That Into You
He's Just Not That Into You - First Review
There's No Way You'll Be Into He's Just Not That Into You

Her reasoning was that since she was up last, all the good Tom Hanks jokes had already been made. But really, what's funnier than Julia Roberts simply shocking the monocles off everyone by saying swear words? Plus she talked about Rita Wilson's "tits." I had no idea you had this in you, Vivian.

[via PopEater]

Monsters vs. Aliens — $58.2 million
Basically Pixar or DreamWorks or whoever could basically computer-animate a dog blinking for ninety minutes and kids and their "will there be inside adult jokes for us??" parents will line up, slobbering. (Though, they couldn't just computer-animate an outerspace magic Freddie Prinze lizard blinking for ninety minutes and expect lots of money. That, apparently, doesn't work.) This huge debut beat Watchmen to become the biggest of the year. Another sad indignity waged upon the superhero movie by, no doubt, its giant squid enemy.

The Haunting in Connecticut — $23 million
Another big bow. The ghosties and ghouls feature, starring Virginia Madsen (the scariest/saddest thing of all), racked up a nice $8,422 per-screen average and would have handily won the weekend had there not been some damn animated thing raging through the cineplexes too. Cheapo horror still reliably turns a buck these days. Lionsgate or Dimension or Dark Castle or whoever ought to film a cat blinking for ninety minutes while some gurgling black J-Horror ghost lurches toward them. It'd be boffo!

I Love You, Man — $12.6 million
Hardly dropping at all (29%) in its second weekend, the Paul Rudd comedy ought to ride strong word-of-mouth to sleeper success. Which is good for all of us because Rudd and costar Jason Segel are very funny men and references to dogs named Anwar Sadat really should be encouraged. That Judd Apatow technically had nothing to do with this picture is heartening—it proves funneez can be made without the bearded svengali's involvement.

Duplicity — $7.6 million
Two weeks out, and only $25 million grossed. What exactly went wrong with this caper flick? Had Julia Roberts been out of the game too long? How much does America really want Clive Owen? Was that alienatingly smug trailer—"Admit it... you don't trust me either." Ugh—just too much? Whatever the reason, the movie's a stumble for all involved, including writer/director Tony Gilroy, who had a chance to prove some commercial appeal after his critically-acclaimed but too-somber-for-popcorn Michael Clayton. Ah well. Better luck next time, zillionaires.

Watchmen — $2.8 million
Four weeks out, and just over $100 million hauled in. The flick is playing decently overseas, but the whole muddle is still an unqualified disappointment. How much does America really want Malin Ackerman? Is it because of that moment in the trailer when the giant blue penis asks the owl sexmobile if it doesn't, in fact, trust it either? The world may never know. All it tells me, really, is that this might be a bad time for my dark, painstakingly-faithful adaption of Archie: Pals 'n' Gals #118, in which the gang is super into ventriloquism and Reggie and Archie compete to see who can throw their voice the best. Ackerman is already on board to play Betty, and Owen was set to be Reggie. Offer's still out to Obama for Chuck. So, we'll see.

julia roberts (and kids) being shockingly rude to staff while her kids had a great time running all around the restaurant. it was really disappointing...America's sweetheart is a total...rhymes with rich.

We're not sure if she was being rude because her kids were running around, or if she was being rude while her kids were running around, but either way. Rude.

[Submit your own Gawker Stalker sightings to stalker@gawker.com]

Lionsgate has purchased the rights to Suzanne Collins' dystopian future novel The Hunger Games, about a society where teenage boys and girls have to fight each other to the death on television, for fun and profit. By the time the film is made and released, it will be a documentary. [Variety] While us poors are killing and devouring each other, comedy dynamos will be meeting for Adam Sandler's next movie, about a sad little Saturday Night Live high school reunion. Chris Rock, Maya Rudolph, David Spade, and Kevin James have joined the cast. Oh, and Salma Hayek and, strangely, Colin Quinn. Laff riot. [Variety]

Little Labrador that could or whatever Marley & Me keeps surprising at the box office. It's licking ass and taking names in the foreign market, which is usually unkind to American comedies, especially those with women in them. I guess dogs, and Jennifer Aniston's beguiling misery, are a universal language. [Variety] If you're worrying about goings on at home, don't. SAG is working hard, if in secret, to get a new contract ready for ratification. Also: Puppy. Jen Aniston's weepy tears. (Hello foreign readers!) [Variety]

Family friendly Walden Media has nabbed a big old lesbian to star in their next feature. Ellen DeGeneres will be playing Mother Nature in a movie about the deity's (?) first trip back to Earth since it was created, lo those six thousand years ago. It was written by Sex and they City/Men in Trees alumna Jenny Bicks. Lady power! Only Aslan can stop this sinfulness now. [THR]

Wandering weirdo Audrina Patridge will not be continuing on The Hills after this upcoming season. She's signed a deal for a whole! new! reality show, all about herrrr. So that's spectacular. We think we're getting the end of The Hills because Lauren and Audy are leaving, instead it divides to conquer, like a wicked Hydra. [THR] A whole bunch of people got cast in pilots, including Gail O'Grady, Alfre Woodard, Katherine Moenning, and DB Woodside. Your friend Tim, who's been sleeping on your couch for the past two months? He still did not. And hey, it's early, man. Shut the curtains, would you? [THR]

Funny:

Terminator Salvation is once again surrounded with controversy and angry people. This time, though, Christian Bale is blessedly uninvolved. No, one of the film's producers, Moritz Borman, is suing his fellow prods Derek Anderson and Victor Kubicek. The pair owns the Variety]

Martin Lawrence, Regina King, Tracy Morgan, James Marsden, Zoe Saldana, and Loretta Divine will be joining Chris Rock in the remake of the British comedy Death at a Funeral (which starred Alan Tudyk and Peter Dinklage). Oddly, angry white boy Neil LaBute is slated to direct. [Variety]

If you weren't already convinced that we've only a few short, miserable, light-starved years to go before humanity coughs, sputters and dies, here's the tipping point. More people are watching The View this year than ever before. [Variety]

Julia Roberts will be producing a film called Jesus Henry Christ. It's actually just going to be Julia standing and smiling at George Clooney, touching his cheeks and saying "Oh you..." Then they rob a bank in Biarritz. [THR] Mad Men's Elisabeth Moss will be joining Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker out in Wyoming. When asked about the project, Moss gushed "Oh it's so exciting. Hugh's always wanted to be a cowboy. It's nice to see his dream come true." [THR]

Joe Simpson continues to try and squeeze blood from his stone-like daughters. He's now signed his most irksome offspring Ashlee Simpson-Wentz up for Embarrassing TV Camp, where she'll be doing some sort of frown-faced, husky-voiced acting for the new Melrose Place reboot. She'll play a small town LA transplant with a secret. The secret is that she has no discernible talent. [THR]

Among the recent ranks of mostly-untested LA fugitives are Jason Biggs, Jennifer Garner, Katie Holmes, the mercury-doomed Jeremy Piven, and the soon-to-be-hoofing-it Lauren Graham, Susan Sarandon, Rupert Everett, and Jane Fonda (among others). While big namers do earn more than a typical theatre star would to glow under the lights, the pay isn't great and the performance schedule can prove grueling. So why are so many folks jumping on the theatre bandwagon?

Well, of course there's the whole building-cred thing. Though that's sort of been debunked in years past. Ashley Judd (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) and Julia Roberts (Three Days of Rain) proved that bad notices for stage work can make you look like kind of a jackass. (See Julia's sad "you people are insanely talented" Tonys mea culpa.) And how often has the risk really paid off? Holmes (All My Sons) and Garner (Cyrano) got mostly decent reviews for their performances, but does anyone really respect them more because of it? At some point—especially in Ms. Holmes' case—doesn't it start to seem like it's just a lame fallback? When the screen work dries up, go hobbling off to New York where devoted theatre fabs will greet you with open, grateful arms. Right? Increasingly, not so much.

Did you hear that collective grumble that rose up among young male actors in New York when Haley frickin' Joel Osment got cast in the ill-fated revival of David Mamet's American Buffalo? The kid got that role simply because he starred in a couple of shitty movies ten years ago. He'd done little to no acting since. But producers, desperate for ticket sales, will throw just about any known screen actor into a significant role in a play, despite their lack of any discernible chops. Which is, you know, kind of a slap in the face to actual "theatre people." The more it happens, the more true straddlers of both mediums—your Mary Louise Parkers, your Laura Linneys, your Ethan Hawkes—get lumped in with the sad pile. The stunt casting cheapens the medium, reducing it to just an excuse to see your favorite star live and saying things. (Who the hell really wanted to see Pygmalion? No, they just wanted to see Angela Chase up close.)

So who knows about Miller. She did study acting in New York, but so did Jessica Alba. Maybe she'll flourish though, and stick around. Just once it'd be nice to see that conversion (you'd better stay put, Denis O'Hare) happen in reverse.

Anyway, this is probably just sad theatre nerd grumbling—there are plenty of good, hardworking theatre actors all over the country (Elizabeth Marvel, Thomas Derrah, etc.) who've seemingly no motivation to cross over into the glitz. It's just sad to see them overshadowed. But really, who's to argue with ticket sales? Lord knows the industry needs it.

Let's just avoid that Anne Hathaway Oleanna that was rumored about a while back. I don't give a shit if theatre is her "first love."

5) Ocean's 12 Driving Offenses
Both Julia Roberts and George Clooney—arguably two of the biggest stars in the whole wide world, next to Allah and Rihanna of course—have both had motorcade meltdowns involving pursuing photographers. George Clooney firmly yet diplomatically admonished some snappers when he got in a motorcycle accident, saying: “You can drive all you want, you can take my picture all you want, but what you cannot do is put people in danger.” Which makes sense! Julia went a bit against George's advice and incited a motor chase with a paparazzo to yell at him about filming on private property. Crusade on, you hundred-millionaires!

4) Matt Dillon Hates Children

3) Hit Me Baby Over and Over Again
Britney Spears—the popstar who descended upon this Earth to teach us of cosmic things like quasars and supernovae and of death and rebirth and of flowers and soil and of airplanes and bright, bright lights—has had an odd relationship with the paparazzi. Sometimes she seems to court their attention, coyly opening her car window and saying cryptic things. Other times she's frustrated with them. And other times she's very mad and attacks people's property with umbrellas and things. A volatile cocktail of unpredictability, that one! I guess you could make the argument that they have a strange symbiotic relationship, and that one couldn't exist without the other and that they'll continue on with their eternal, enraging dance until both are destroyed.

2) And I Will Fix Your Red Wagon
Chris Martin—singer of Coldplay, father of Apple, husband of Gwyneth—has had several beatdown happenings with the lascivious lensers. Including the time he served some nasty British fisticuff orphan gruel to a prying photographer, while his willowy wife was in hospital for some unknown ailment. We've seen the fellow strutting down Soho streets many times ourselves, and he always seems pleasant enough. I guess he's just got strict beliefs about photographic soul-stealing.

1) Into the Wild Actor's Privacy
Sean Penn, the brooding cigarettes-and-coffee-voiced actor from Mystic River and other somber downers, has a long history of gettin' up in paparazzi grill. There were his scuffles back in the days when he dated Madonna, then an incident at his brother's funeral, of all places. Many of Penn's little "incidents" seem earned on the photogs' parts but sometimes... Well, let's just say that one time like 20 years ago he found a guy in his hotel room and hung him by his ankles out the window of the 9th floor suite. Yikes.

Plus, um, there are lots of others too! Everyone hates the paparazzi! Except for Kim Kardashian. She loves them.

[Photo Credits: The Makeup Gallery]

• Hollywood sweetheart Meg Ryan gains ten stone... after donning a fat suit [Daily Mail]

We're troubled, however, to read for what feels like the the thousandth time that the ladies aren't quite measuring up:

In an era where risk-averse studio executives have declared men the more reliable movie stars—and the more desirable moviegoers—perhaps it's no surprise that they are also the medium's top earners. The reality: Hollywood's 10 best-paid actors out-earned Hollywood's 10 best-paid actresses 2-to-1 over the course of the year.

Collectively, the big screen's leading men took home an estimated $487 million between June 1, 2007, and June 1, 2008, compared with the leading ladies' haul of $244.5 million.

However, in an even more revealing Forbes slideshow for the prose-impaired, we discovered that actresses fared much better in the "Ultimate Payback" category, which calculates the best gross-to-salary ratios in the biz. While a pre-Fred Claus Vince Vaughn ranked #1, Julia Roberts, Naomi Watts, Jennifer Aniston, Renee Zellweger and Jodie Foster cracked the top 15 as well. (That'll happen when you're relatively underpaid; top-earning actress Cameron Diaz is way down at #32.) Prepare yourself for Christian Bale's controversial post-Dark Knight ascent, followed by the touching, accompanying profile of how the strapping star went from clown's son to box-office powerhouse.

• Hollywood's Best-Paid Actors [Forbes]
• The Ultimate Star Payback [Forbes]