Chris Brown and Rihanna Back Together Again

Chris Brown and Rihanna attend Game 4 of the NBA Finals, Paris Hilton has a raunchy rebound hookup with soccer star Ronaldo, Paul Shaffer almost played George Costanza on Seinfeld, Megan Fox has genetically-deformed thumbs and Madonna adopts another African. More »

Jamie Lynn Spears' Beau Recovering In Hospital After Escape Attempt

News of Kate Winslet's butt, and of Heidi and Spencer's wedding. Which are sort of the same thing. Madonna welcomes Jesus into her heart, while Jamie Lynn Spears' boyfriend almost made it. More »

Harvey Weinstein's Non-Comeback Comeback

He lost a million-dollar bet, all but liquidated his company and endured a late, vicious backlash against a film that nobody even thought would reach the Oscars. And he won. That's why he's Harvey Weinstein. More »

The Art of the Oscargasm

Lady actors don't win Oscars based on film performances; it's all about giving the best acceptance speech. And the dirty, dirty Academy demands an orgasmic experience (or at least someone who can fake it well). More »

Oscar Threat Level Elevated As Kate Winslet Pressured By Underdog

Polls may be closed, but theories persist — crackpot and otherwise — about certain favorites' stability in their respective categories. Kate Winslet might be among those with reason to worry. More »

Kate Winslet Hopes Oscar Can Vault Her Into Upper, Non-Nude Echelon Of Actresses

Sure, all but one of this year's Oscar-nominated actresses have done nude scenes during their career (there's still time, Viola Davis!), but the frequently-bare Kate Winslet is hoping that the topless buck stops here. More »

The English Continue To Pile On Probable Oscar-Winner Kate Winslet

Fresh on the heels of the national "humiliation" that was her Golden Globes acceptance speech, Britain has again turned on Kate Winslet. Now she's "smug" "duplicitous" and "the world's most irritating actress." Harsh much? [Jezebel]

The Importance of Giving Overly Earnest Award Acceptance Speeches

Why was Kate Winslet—so likable usually—all wheezy and deeply humbled and annoying as she accepted her Screen Actors Guild award last night? Because that's how actresses and actors (especially black ones) audition for Academy Awards. More »

Good Fucking Riddance, 'Revolutionary Road'

In the spirit of fairness for those many times we called the Academy out for its general Oscar-nominating ineptitude, let's all commend its members' fine taste today in snubbing the utterly despicable Revolutionary Road. More »

5 Plots And Subplots To Watch In This Year's Oscar Race

This morning's Oscar nominations offered a desperately needed opportunity to pare this season's awards also-rans from the ranks of the contenders. Alas, it just means higher-stakes hype and drama for the lucky ones: More »

English Not Amused By Kate Winslet's Acceptance Speeches

Kate Winslet's two Golden Globes acceptance speeches on Sunday were among the teariest and and most flustered in awards show history; but does she owe the entire United Kingdom an "apology"? [Jezebel]

One Plus One Equals Oscar?

[Double Golden Globe winner Kate Winslet; image via WENN]

Kate Winslet Waxes, Sean Penn Wanes and Other Curious Golden Globes Implications

The Golden Globes' return to boozy, teary prime-time glory asked almost as many awards-season questions as it answered. After the jump: Five of our most burning inquiries. More »

A-Rod and Kate Hudson's Sexy Fish Date

It's true! The Yankees player Alex Rodriguez, who like teammate Derek Jeter sucks very much, was seen canoodling with actress Kate Hudson at an underground Manhattan fish restaurant. More »

You Say 'Statutory Rape,' Kate Winslet Says 'Puppy Love'

Here in America, the romantic pairing of an underage 15-year-old and an older partner is only acceptable when the teenager gets country singer parental consent. Kate Winslet, though, will not accept this injustice!

'Spirit,' '7 Pounds' and 'Revolutionary Road': A Taxonomy of Trash

Though Hollywood reserves the holiday movie season for its annual harvest of ambition, prestige and clout, even the most painstaking Oscar husbandry can often fail. For three much-anticipated films in particular, the damage varies.

Broadcast Critics Latest to Bypass 'Revolutionary Road' in Awards Race

It's another day to keep your head down around Scott Rudin's office: was snubbed once again in the latest fiery belch from Awards-Season Hell. This time, it was the Broadcast Film Critics Association Critics' Choice Awards issuing the diss among its 2008 nominees, a list where seemingly anything even casually mentioned as Oscar bait in the last three months was recognized — with not just one Revolutionary exception. More »

Director Stephen Daldry on Sex, Moguls and Surviving 'The Reader'

The culmination of our dedicated coverage of The Reader — from Rudin/Weinstein blow-ups to Oscar prognoses to its sexual audacity — arrived this weekend when director Stephen Daldry phoned Defamer HQ. "Sorry, I overslept," he said in his dignified brogue — a forgivable lapse under the circumstances, with his Kate Winslet film following his Billy Elliot stage adaptation by mere weeks on his late-'08 calendar. Nevertheless, we got him properly caffeinated and settled in for a rousing installment of Five Questions (plus one, just for appropriate awards-season breadth):

Flaccid Rankings: In an attempt to rebut the cruel patriarchy of Mr. Skin's women-only list of the year's top nude scenes, The Frisky has published their own Top 10, detailing the best bare men of the year. As a commentary on this year's slim male pickings, two of the winners went nothing more than shirtless, one was onstage, and the winner was Jason Segel from Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Alas, The Reader continued its nude scene shutout. Old Harvey would have gotten Kate Winslet on this list somehow, even without a penis! The full list, after the jump:

Teenagers Fuck Redux: Is 'The Reader' the New 'Porky's'?

The Teenagers Fuck phenomenon has seen some compelling discussion this week, a desperately needed change from the fanged chastity that so overwhelmed us during the build-up to Twilight's tween windfall last month. And while a new essay in The Guardian suggests young men in particular are a more sophisticated lot since the days of Porky's, another critic of one upcoming film has a different phrase for that: Child pornography.

Kate Winslet Not Quite Ready For Husband's 'Awkward' Thigh-Surrendering Orders

Kate Winslet's sex-positive, clothes-allergic career emerged from its most severe test to date in Revolutionary Road: It was there, the actress admits in a wrenching confession to ET, that her husband sternly insisted that he share her with Leonardo Di Caprio.

Harvey Weinstein Fails to Nab 'Mr. Skin' Top 10 Berth For Nude Kate Winslet

Poor Harvey Weinstein just can't catch a break for The Reader! So far, his pushy campaign to ready the film for awards glory has resulted in the loss of both Scott Rudin and a million-dollar bet, and now his efforts have resulted in further ignominy: Kate Winslet's very naked performance was denied a spot on Mr. Skin's Top Celebrity Nude Scenes of 2008. Could this be an Oscar precursor? Let's hope not, considering who came in first:

Today in Oscar Hell: 'Reader' Climbs, Bagger Returns

The Oscar-blog circus officially opened its third, classiest ring today at the NY Times, where David Carr returned for a fourth go-around as The Carpetbagger. Not to be outdone, resident Envelope clown Tom O' Neil honked out a new batch of hype, followed by another cluster of animals trotting around the tent with prognostication tricks of their own. It's a loud, occasionally aromatic free-for-all, but we'll show you where best to watch after the jump.

Is Revolutionary Road Too Mad Men?

Sam Mendes' adaptation of Richard Yates' perfect novel Revolutionary Road hits theaters this Christmas with every Oscar pedigree imaginable. The new trailer, set to Cat Power's "Sea of Love", shows off the full range of conceivable Leonardo DiCaprio acting faces from Confused Leo to Angry Leo, to Constipated Leo. Kate Winslet, the other half of the film's unhappy marriage, likewise spends the whole film angsty and pained. While we appreciate being able to imagine how unpleasant it would have been if the two had gotten together in Titanic, the movie more closely resembles a certain period drama that won an Emmy. Could awards voters really love the late '50s and early '60s that much, and will their love translate into box office? Trailer after the jump. More »

Kate Winslet's Nude 'Vanity Fair' Shoot Enveloped By Furs, Photoshop Controversy

If Kate Winslet thought she could beat her critics to the punch with a raft of winning, self-deprecating statements in the new issue of Vanity Fair ("Once a fat kid, always a fat kid"), then we have a London bridge we'd like to sell her — and a bloodthirsty British press she should probably be introduced to. Shortly after images from her Steven Meisel-shot, Catherine Deneueve-inspired photoshoot went live on Vanity Fair's website, the U.K. tabloids attacked them as a Photoshopped fantasia (said the Daily Mail's "airbrushing expert": "I would be very surprised if her bottom was like that naturally"). The furor caused Winslet to throw a Scott Rudin-worthy fit, says People: More »

'Reader' Trailer Drops as Kate Winslet Craves Oscar in 'Vanity Fair'

The Reader may still require a month's worth of round-the-clock editing under armed guard, but the Kate Winslet drama has at last yielded a trailer to remind us that there is an Oscar-hopeful under all those layers of Harvey Weinstein-Scott Rudin ego-crisis. And like last week's not-embarrassing Valkyrie teaser, the preview assures us that its prestige creds are in place, thus setting the table for the next phase of its awards campaign, "Getting Winslet to Say Anything Positive About It At All." Though the Rudin loyalist spends most of her time in a new interview with Vanity Fair promoting her and Leonardo DiCaprio's Revolutionary Road, there is the modest admission that "you bet your fucking ass" she wants an Oscar this year: More »

Casualties Mount in Scott Rudin's 'Reader' Implosion

If the plot isn't exactly thickening today around Scott Rudin's exit from The Reader, it's at least sustaining a low, convoluted simmer. Still nobody knows for sure the specific reasons for Rudin's move beyond the obvious, routine desire to gut Harvey Weinstein with a letter opener, but looking forward, a few new clues suggest the Oscar-season bloodbath has a while before it's drained. More »

BREAKING: Scott Rudin Yanks His Name From 'The Reader'

We don't always know what to believe anymore when it comes to The Reader, but after a turbulent period of fighting, making up, gossip-page ensnarement and a charity payout, no one watching the tormented relationship between Scott Rudin and Harvey Weinstein could have realistically expected it to survive another two months leading up the release of their troubled Kate Winslet drama. And right on cue, that eerie silence of the last week is ended this afternoon when Rudin reportedly stripped his name from the Oscar hopeful, citing irreconcilable differences — among other things. More »

Today in Deadpan Hyperbole: "Why Revolutionary Road is going to be a big, practically zeitgeist-defining, hit," wherein Glenn Kenny deduces that because Mad Men is a hit (though not quite), the show's viewers will race to see Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as an ad man and his wife splintering in early 1960s Connecticut. Titanic isn't mentioned. If he isn't serious, then it's the best poker face we've seen in a long, long time. [Some Came Running]

Bet-Losing Harvey Weinstein Spends First $1 Million on 'Reader' Oscar Campaign

No distance seems far enough, no HazMat suit thick enough to defend against the radioactivity let off by Harvey Weinstein and Scott Rudin's toxic Reader mess. This morning we're getting an idea of the clean-up cost for both parties — none more prohibitive than Harvey's, who today pledged $1 million to charity if Nikki Finke could turn up Rudin's alleged e-mail accusing him of "harrassing" ailing Reader co-producer Sydney Pollack for a 2008 release date. Even Rudin told Page Six: "That is not my e-mail. The contents of it are categorically untrue." Those gambits could have gone a lot better, as both men were soon to discover. More »

Peace at Last! Scott Rudin and Harvey Weinstein Slate 'Reader' For '08

After a brief but concentrated period of friction over the release date for their Oscar-bait drama The Reader, Harvey Weinstein and Scott Rudin issued a joint statement late Sunday confirming the film would arrive in theaters Dec. 12, 2008. Thus anticlimactically ended Rudin/Weinstein Death Match II, their first since The Hours, another Stephen Daldry film that endured a litany of tweaks and torment coming down to the awards-season wire in 2002. While Defamer scorekeepers last week favored Rudin in the tilt, a late flurry of Weinstein jabs sent the superproducer reeling to the canvas — or maybe not quite the canvas, but at least a sort of easy détente few saw coming when Harvey insisted on receiving Daldry's first edit a week from today. Let alone Rudin's congested awards roster also including Doubt and Revolutionary Road, the latter of which positions Reader star Kate Winslet in a potential race against herself for Best Actress. More »

Ryan Gosling, Vomit Dodger

What? Two PrivacyWatches in one week? That's your reward — all of our reward, really — for all of your attentive spying, neck-craning and blabber-mouthiness in recent days. And while we regret we have no epic Kim Kardashian traffic mishaps to report (and eventually debate), we can vouch for primo sightings of a single Ryan Gosling, the renowned pool shark Kevin Federline and a symbolic meeting of A-list and Z-list at one of the city's most glamorous steakeries. Remember, Hollywood PrivacyWatch is brought to us by the letter U, so put "Sightings" in your subject lines and keep those tips coming. More »

Weinstein Vs. Rudin: Handicapping Their Kate Winslet Oscar Grudge Match

While most of the filmgoing world probably wouldn't have minded seeing Kate Winslet compete against herself for a Best Actress Oscar next February (at this point we'd do anything to improve her odds), we'd sacrifice that opportunity if it means we get to witness and/or feel the seismic power struggle rocking Winslet's war-crime period piece The Reader. It was about a month ago that Harvey Weinstein cited positive test screenings and a Winslet Oscar push while moving the film's release date up to 2008; alas, as we anticipated, co-producer Scott Rudin probably heard the news right around the same time we did. More »

Kate Winslet Oscar Bait Doubles Overnight as Weinsteins Bump Up 'The Reader'

The last news we'd heard about Kate Winslet's post-WWII drama The Reader was less than reassuring: While the film ultimately got its first choice of leading lady after a pregnant Nicole Kidman backed out, the successive passings of co-producers Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack left Scott Rudin on his own with the broke-ass Weinsteins to maneuver the Oscar push everyone had in mind. Then, as recently as last month, Defamer operatives whispered that The Reader wouldn't make it to 2008 at all, instead landing somewhere of TWC's choosing in 2009 — if it could afford to release it at all. More »

Nicole Kidman Quickly Replaced After Leaving 'The Reader' To Attend To Baby-Makin' Duties

With yesterday's news that Nicole Kidman is pregnant with husband Keith Urban's baby (his little Cowboy-hatted fish can swim!), the one irrefutable bit of evidence that Kidman's privacy-guarding flacks used to dispel the circulating rumors ("She can't possibly be having a baby! She's far too busy filming a movie that would render any such dramatic physical fluctuations a major inconvenience!") has now revealed itself to be utterly obsolete. Not only has Kidman left production on The Reader, but People is now reporting that she's been replaced by another A-lister: More »

Trade Round-Up: Bart Plans Trip To Next 'Viking Quest' Convention

· After stumbling upon some screeners for its new season, Var's Peter Bart finally discovers The Entourage, which he believes pampers Hollywood's sexy underbelly but neglects the stepchildren. [Variety] More »

Hollywood PrivacyWatch: Kate Winslet Not Too Oscar-Nominated To Grocery Shop

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so send them in with the kind of enthusiasm you usually reserve for new episodes of Medium and lovemaking. Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and let everyone know about the time you saw Jay Mohr having his toenails done. More »