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

Dawn Kelley is pregnant with a girl, who at 20 weeks bears striking resemblance to Jacko. Said father William Hickman:

None of us are really Michael Jackson fans. I mean I like him, but we're not crazy about him or anything.

Dawn notes, "It is my seventh child, and they say seven is a mythical number." But is the apparition really Jacko? Here are three other celebrities who might be inside Dawn's belly:

Dita von Teese

Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge

Sophia Loren

[Telegraph]

• Lady Gaga and Beyonce made a music video! It's for Beyonce song Video Phone. It alludes to Reservoir Dogs, Beyonce wears a Zorro mask and carries an assault rifle, and Gaga wanders around looking totally normal. All in all: Headtrip. Also, between this and her own video, Gaga's been showing a lot of her very, um, vampy face lately. Is it part of her campaign to convince us that she is a tranny? [fig.1, below] [MTV]
  
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• Nicole Kidman had an awesome time with her baby weight because it gave her boobs: "They're not very big, my boobs, so they just became normal size. I loved it! I felt very Woman," she told Ladies' Home Journal. But here's the thing: ShowBizSpy quotes Nicole's quote in LHJ, but when I went to LJH's website, I couldn't find the passage! It is possible that boring Nicole's boring yammering about Keith Urban caused my eyes to glaze over, rendering me temporarily illiterate during my attempt to read the profile? Does the pregnant-boob quote really exist? Inquiring minds want to know. [ShowBizSpy] [LHJ]
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• Levi Johnston dressed up as the Unabomber after his tragically not-penis-showing Playgirl shoot yesterday, but he messed up the disguise by choosing a hooded sweatshirt that said ALASKA on it. [fig.2] There are only two Alaskans in all of New York this week, and one of them is Sarah Palin, and to be her you'd have to have tits, so we know it's you, Levi, you cannot hide. UPDATE: I am informed that Levi's shirt in fact reads ALASKAN BREWING COMPANY, the beer of choice for rugged Alaskan frontiersmen. [TMZ]
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• Brangelina are designing snake-inspired jewelry for charity. The line—entitled The Protector—features silver baby spoons, an eggcup, a tooth box (eery?), and diamond-encrusted pendants and rings, all themed with coiled snakes. The proceeds will go to child education in wartorn regions, where snakes sometimes reside, but sterling silver eggcups rarely do. [ShowBizSpy]
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• Adam Lambert wants more tattoos, but he doesn't have any ideas what to ink on his body next. It's the perennial conundrum of ostentatiously "unique" vapid people: an insatiable desire to express oneself, but no dust bunnies worth expressing in one's empty little head. [ShowBizSpy]
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• This is horrifying: Tila Tequila (93 lbs, 4'11") has submitted photographs of her black-and-blue bruised arms as evidence in her lawsuit against ex-boyfriend and NFL star Shawne Merriman (280 lbs, 6'4"). Naturally, TMZ has compiled them into a gallery, along with pictures depicting the enormous size difference between these two humans. The San Diego County D.A. never filed criminal charges against Merriman, which makes the whole case even weirder. [TMZ]
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• Spencer Pratt went on a Twitter rampage yesterday after his and wife Heidi Montag's interview with Al Roker was cut from The Today Show "due to a change in the show's schedule," according to a spokesman. Roker and Speidi sparred months ago when Al called Spencer a "jerk" on the air and Heidi almost cried. Among Spencer's myriad raging tweets: "WEATHERMAN I thought you were out of town today getting your stomache stapled again?" and "is it true you have been married 6 times? I'm sure all your wives left you when they realized you were abusive to women! Sicko!" I really hope whoever cut Speidi did it for the express purpose of pissing Spencer off, because the effect was pretty glorious. [NYDN] l
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• Aaron Carter owes more than one million dollars in back taxes, which is apparently why he cried so hard when he got kicked off Dancing with the Stars. How can he possibly owe this much money? There is no way he's even earned that much money in his life, is there? [TMZ]
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• Janet Jackson blames Dr. Conrad Murray for her brother's death, because he "was the one administering" the fatal propofol. She also says she found out about Michael's death after her assistant saw it on CNN and called her, which is testament either to the brutal speed of 24-hour media or the callousness of Jacko's inner circle for not calling his family members sooner. [NYDN]
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• Signs of the apocalypse: Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) says Carrie Prejean should run for political office, because she "has the ability to draw crowds and if she has a strong message to go with that, who knows what she can do? She has star power which can open doors." [TMZ]
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  Figure 1
  

  Figure 2
  

• 26-year-old Edis Kayalar is accused of blackmailing Cindy Crawford and husband Rande Gerber with a "sexy photograph" of their 8-year-old daughter "in revealing clothing, bound to a chair and gagged." The photo was taken by the girl's former nanny; Kayalar allegedly wanted $100K for it, but ended up handing it over to Gerber for a mere $1000 and the promise of a wire transfer in the near future. Excuse me, I have to go induce vomiting to get this horrible story out of my system. [NYDN]
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• "Everyone was talking" about Nicole Kidman at the CMAs. "She looked freakish. She just had her lips done, and now she looks like Meg Ryan." Kidman reportedly "flipped out and took off running" when people started asking questions. [P6]
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• When Harry Potter gets high, he "laughs his head off." The Mirror says Daniel Radcliffe smoked a spliff at a party and started babbling about how awesome weed is and let a chick draw on his face, which is actually compelling evidence that Radcliffe is pretty clean-cut, because no self-respecting pothead would act that stupid unless a vaporizer was involved. [Mirror]
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• "Chris Brown still can't live down his Rihanna attack," Page Six says. Um, I should hope not, mostly because the phrase "live down" usually refers to sophomoric embarrassments, not brutal acts of violence against a loved one. Apparently Chris went to a shoe store where a woman screamed, "[bleep]ing beater! I hope someone beats the [bleep]ing [bleep] out of you!" and someone caught the inestimably uncomfortable, weirdly long confrontation on video, here. The most surreal part is how people continue to line up to get their photo taken with him, even as the heckler shrieks mere inches from their faces, and then a dude bro jumps into the frame and barks "Chris Brown is the MAN." [P6]
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• Zsa Zsa Gabor has $118,321 in unpaid taxes, which is nothing compared to the $10 million in unpaid Madoff dividends she has. [TMZ]
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• 1-year-old Trig will not appear in Barbara Walters' interview of Sarah Palin, owing to a cold that prevented him from making the trip from Alaska. The deal was supposed to be that Oprah got Palin's first interview, but Barbara would get an exclusive with Trig. Now she'll just have to settle for Willow and Piper. [P6]
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• Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke told Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart not to date: "After I cast him, I told Rob, don't even think about having a romance with her... She's under 18. You will be arrested." Now that Kristen's 19, though, all bets are off! Yahoo. [ShowBizSpy]
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• Maybe the nude romps got her in the mood? Rebecca Gayheart is expecting her first child with husband and fellow video hot tub video star Eric Dane. She is doing yoga, walking on the beach, and eating vegetables to enhance the fetus inside of her, because rich people do everything better, including child bearing. [ShowBizSpy]
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• As the latest installment of Michael Lohan's taped phone conversations with Dina make their way on Radar Online (Lindsay cuts, Dina feared for her daughter's life) TMZ reports that a protective order Dina got in 2005 bars Michael from communicating with her until 2011. Dina's lawyers are apparently working to get Michael thrown behind bars for it. [TMZ]
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• Balloon Dad Richard Heene's mugshot is out! It's not nearly as haggard as you'd hope, but gratifying nonetheless. [TMZ]
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• And in meta-gossip: TMZ stole from Radar. The latter posted Jon Gosselin's court documents against TLC, and an hour later, TMZ posted them, too—after having a photoshop expert scrub off Radar's logo. Clever Radar had "put other markings on the documents," though, so they laid the smack on Harvey Levin. Radar offers but one slyly bitchy comment: "Theft is the sincerest form of flattery." [P6]
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• Chris Brown and Rihanna are doing the media equivalent of having a shouting match in the street. Except that in this instance they stop occasionally to tell passers-by that they have albums out soon, and that they're very reasonably priced and contain many excellent tracks. Brown, who doubtless didn't want to miss a publicity opportunity as great as beating the piss out of his girlfriend, has taped a 30-minute segment for MTV which will air tomorrow: the same day as Rihanna goes on 20/20 and after her two-parter with Diane Sawyer on ABC that starts today. He said the following, with a bit of illiteracy thrown in for good measure:

  My thoughts is like, ‘Why did it happen?', like ‘What was I thinking?', ‘What is wrong with you?'

  In totally unrelated news, probably, his album - which I am deliberately not naming - has been pushed up a week and will now be released at the start of December. Her album is out two weeks before. [NYDN]

• Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have canceled their fight to the death at Radio City. The two men, who were slated to hit each other with chairs while screaming obscenities, have apparently claimed that the promoter over-hyped it as a "death-match faceoff." "This event ... was supposed to be a discussion between the two former presidents, and has been cancelled because it was not being billed as such by an overeager promoter," said Clinton spokesman Matt McKenna. Yes Matt, but were they going to wear spandex? What song was Clinton going to shadow-box his way out to the ring to? Was Hillary going to wear a bikini? [NY Post]
• Carrie Prejean's pastor is willing to forgive her for (allegedly) making a sex tape, says TMZ who clearly are not building up to releasing said sex tape. In opposite world. Pastor Darren Carrington from The Rock Church in San Diego told the site that "everyone is a work in progress." Let us know when she's done. [TMZ]
• Look, midgets are just funny OK? I know it's not nice to say, but it's true. Hence the popularity of Willow. Which is why the story about Verne 'Mini-Me' Troyer threatening to pop a cap in his ex-girlfriend's ass, according to a restraining order TMZ got, is amusing even though it features much personal tragedy. Sorry. [TMZ]
• Todd English, jilter of brides, ran away from photographers at Mr. Chow's 30th anniversary party. Wouldn't you? [P6]
• The News and the Post are gossip-arguing! Page Six says Madonna is supporting boyfriend Jesus Luz's DJ career and turned up to a party at the Standard to grind on the dancefloor. "She's been taking a more active role in promoting him," said someone described as "a spy." The News says, after a brief interview with Luz, that Madge isn't collaborating with him and that he didn't play any of her songs that night anyway. In keeping with today's theme: I demand a deathmatch between Neel Shah on P6 and whoever runs Gatecrasher these days. [P6, NYDN]
• More fighting! David Hasselhoff really does do drunk better than anyone. It seems like only yesterday since his last spectacular fall off the wagon. This week's effort is a humdinger (yes, I just wanted to use the word humdinger): he's been getting shitfaced and fighting with an old person in a Canadian casino. Three security guards had to step in and escort Michael Knight from the building. The best part? He was apparently back a few hours later. What? He got thirsty OK? [TMZ]
• Nicole Kidman don't tweet! Because: "if you know what is going on inside somebody's head all the time, that's not a good place." Perhaps her insight into the mind of Tom Cruise scarred her for life. [TMZ]

[Image via Getty]

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]

Remember Madeline Stowe? She used to do a bunch of movies a long old time ago, but she's mostly disappeared. Back in her heyday, she wrote a script called Unbound Captives, about Injuns and the Wild West, that was worth millions of dollars. But she never sold it, because she wanted to star. Well now the movie is finally happening and while she'll direct, Rachel Weisz will star. Alongside sparklevamp Robert Pattinson and Hugh Jackman. Good for you, Stowey. [Variety]

Noted hilarious people Monica Bellucci, Guy Pearce, and Miranda Otto, are going to be in a romantic comedy directed by Bruce Beresford. It's going to be a scream! [Variety]

Perhaps after seeing Whatever Works and thinking "Oh God...", Nicole Kidman has dropped out of Woody Allen's next movie. Probably a wise-ish move. [Variety]

Six and a half million people in America watched a one hour edition of iCarly, called "iDate a Bad Boy" (guest star Charlie Sheen). 6.5 million people. We're all old, America! [THR]

People are evidently watching that show Castle too. I guess Nathan Fillion's talents aren't being wasted! [THR]

Movie stars steal theater folks' roles again! Though Cynthia Nixon and John Slattery played the roles in the well-reviewed Broadway production, square-jawed Aaron Eckhart and bugle-lipped Nicole Kidman will be starring in the film adaptation of David Lindsay-Abaire's play about a dead kid, Rabbit Hole. Oddly, John Cameron Mitchell, of Hedwig fame, will helm. The theateriest movie news ever! [Variety] And speaking of Sex and the City people, Warner Bros. and New Line have finally set a date for the big SATC movie sequel. Set your lipgloss to stun and mark your pink martini calendars, because on May 28, 2010... your sequined dreams will be realized once more. The story of grief and loss and life changes as the three gals make the tough decision to put Samantha in a home is sure to be a crowd pleaser. [Variety]

That twee-looking little indie movie about hipsters and babies and stuff, Gigantic, starring Zooey Bechamel, Paul Dano, and John Goodman, has won the top prize at the AFI Dallas International Film Festival. So, it must be good! [Variety] Meanwhile, in bizarro land, Julian Schnabel and Patton Oswalt have won awards at the same festival. [Variety]

Showtime has picked up two new series. They'll likely run with the comedy Ronna & Beverly, about two middle aged Jewish ladies in Boston (!!), and the Tim Robbins-produced drama Possible Side Effects, starring Josh Lucas. Sadly for someone probably, they've passed on the Matthew Perry series End of Steve. [Variety] More cable bad news: the season two finale of FX series Damages was down 32% from last year in the ol' ratings department. Though, a third season has already been ordered, so no worries. [THR]

The terrific Rosemarie DeWitt is joining the cast of John Wells' Company Man, alongside Chris Cooper, Kevin Costner, Tommy Lee Jones, and Ben Affleck. They're filming in Boston, so I'm gonna have to run home and gawp at them like a regular weirdo or something. [THR] Amaury Nolasco, from Prison Break, has been cast in the Hunter S. Thompson adaptation The Rum Diary, starring Johnny Depp. It's filming in Puerto Rico, so if you're there, go and gawp like a standard strange-o. [THR]

One of the many perks of living in countries like Slovakia, Romania, and the Czech Republic? You get to watch the precious premium cabler the MGM Channel. Well now those of you in jealous Slovenia can relax. They've finally brought the network to you too. So good. All is well in Central and Eastern Europe. [Variety]

Nicole Kidman, plastic bee-stung actress of floundering status, has joined Woody Allen's next movie. Also on board are Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Naomi Watts, Antonio Banderas, and Freida Pino. Generally Allen's more star-studded movies turn out to be the worst ones (with the exception of Everyone Says I Love You), so this doesn't bode well. [Variety] Meanwhile the so totally still likable Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz are said to be on board a James Mangold-directed movie about a luckless lady love loser who meets a mysterious stranger on a blind date. The movie was originally going to star Eva Mendes and Chris Tucker, so that should speak to its quality. [Variety]

The top 35 ad-based cable networks—Fox News, Food Network, Cartoon Network—are up 7% this year in ratings. Fox, for example, averages a depressing 1.7 million households, up 22% from the same quarter last year. Though other networks like MTV and Lifetime have seen drops, 16% and 12% respectively. Makes sense to us. What with the economy and all, no one has time to pay attention to things like music and women. [Variety]

Hm. Noted conservative 24 producer Joel Surnow (who is responsible for this) is penning a 10-hour miniseries called The Kennedys, which will dig into "the soiled and crooked steps" that the family took to insinuate themselves into the White House. A Canadian distributor plans to shop the idea around Cannes in May. Good luck finding actors! Though, I bet Bruce Willis would look fabulous in a wig and pillbox hat. [Variety]

Area hottie boombalottie Ian Somerhalder (Boone from Lorst) has been cast in a CW pilot called Vampire Diaries. He plays a vampire who is fun one minute, evil the next. And nude. Hopefully nude. [Variety] Former hottie boombalottie Orlando Bloom will be featured in the last unproduced screenplay by the late playwright Horton Foote. He'll play a small town North Carolina policeman. Also joining him in the cast is Andrew McCarthy. [THR]

Donald Sutherland will star in The Eastmans for CBS. [THR] Isaiah Washington is lined up to star in that Lou Rawls biopic everyone's been clamoring for. [THR] The comic American Jesus, about a modern-day bout between the Savior and the Antichrist, may be adapted into a film by X-Men director Matthew Vaughn. [THR]

• Yes, it is true! I am working on a Saturday. And Britney is somehow jealous of the woman, a 6 foot tall she-beast named Victoria Prince, who is dating her whiskery little back-up dancer/Portugese rapper ex-hubby. What the boys can really tell her given their age, Ricardo Montalban is 3 and Diamond Walnuts is 2, is sort of beyond me. [Showbiz Spy]
• Kanye West, the rapper chiseled by God Himself from His finest onyx, would like less fans. Because he wants to be freer or something. OK. Easy enough. [Showbiz Spy]
• Russell Crowe was "so old and fat" and Sienna Miller "so young and gorgeous" that she had to drop out of their film Nottingham because their love scenes would look silly. Sounds like Crowe's been saying "Yessing, ham!" to me. Apologies for that! [P6]
• Nicole Kidman is as ashamed of Australia as everyone else should be. Plus her face is all fucked up!!11! [P6]
• Ryan Seacrest wants us to believe that he's boning some Playboy model, as they were spotted recently canoodling at a restaurant in St. Bart's. Later that evening they returned to their hotel room, flopped down on their beds, ordered ice cream from room service, and stayed up way too late watching the second half of Syndey White and reruns of Two-a-Days, squealing every time Ross came on screen. [P6]
• Debbie Harry got old because that's how life works but now she somehow isn't old again! How did she do it??? [TMZ]
• Ew. Gross. Joey Fatone went to the AVN porn awards in Las Vegas. Ew. Gross. Joey Fatone has a penis. [TMZ]

After a botched press tour, a less-than-rapturous box office take, and a tarring of director Baz Luhrmann as the new "black hole of cinema" (to say nothing of the bounty set on Kidman's ovaries), most of the film's principal players would be content to lay low and make no more noise until Australia begins its DVD afterlife. An insecure Kidman, however, only added more fuel to the bonfire when she confessed that she typically doesn't watch her own films, and being forced to sit through Australia made her "squirm."

Miss Kidman, who attended the premiere with country singer husband Keith Urban, said: 'I can't look at this movie and be proud of what I've done.

'I sat there and I looked at Keith and went "Am I any good in this movie?"

'But I thought Brandon Walters (an 11-year-old Aboriginal boy) and Hugh Jackman were wonderful.

'It's just impossible for me to connect to it emotionally at all.'

Fortunately for Kidman, she only has one more of her upcoming performances to sit through: Nine, in which the Weinstein Co's breakthrough advances in crotch-veil technology can be expanded upon to produce a private version where Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, and Fergie interact with a six-foot-tall, Botoxed sheath.

• 'I squirmed in my seat,' says Nicole Kidman as she reveals embarrassment at her performance in Australia epic [Daily Mail]

• Tina Fey's sexy new feud with Alec Baldwin just had to be manufactured to promote 30 Rock, right? I mean, really. Alec: "Get ready to do a lot of airbrushing." Tina: "Something wrong with my face?" Alec: It's your entire body that's the problem. Tina: This is coming from a guy with a double chin who thinks Sarah Palin is hot. [Star]
• Meet the four sisters who helped lure people into Bernie Madoff's ponzi scheme (via their dad's investment firm). They shared the same "handsome stud in college," married men in different corners of the world and in "each locale, they were soon infiltrating country clubs and helping spread the word for Noel [Walter]'s Fairfield Greenwich Group." [P6]
• Kanye West offered to design clothes for Barack Obama to "go to the club in." [Sun]
• Box office for Jeremy Piven's play is down 33 percent with the "mercury" poisoned actor gone. William H. Macy doesn't replace him until January 11. [Post]
• The picture is telling me Katie Holmes just bought seven pairs of jeans, but apparently it was Nicole Kidman? WHY MUST KATIE STILL HAUNT NICOLE EVERYWHERE CONSTANTLY? [P6]
• Now Paris Hilton's uncle has been robbed, also for more than a million dollars in valuables. [Daily Star]
• Marisa Tomei's boyfriend is 12 years younger and was an actor on The O.C. They met performing in a play. [P6]

Luhrmann's postmortem addresses both the risks and challenges inherent in his epic $130 million flop, but more emphatically singles out the haters too cynical to look past the bad dialogue, Wizard of Oz bludgeoning, and generally boring three-hour runtime and embrace Australia's sincere core. So what if the movie wasn't good, he seems to say — and really, why is he explaining himself at all? Isn't this whole thing just your fault anyway?

"There are those that don't get it. A lot of the film scientists don't get it. And it's not just that that they don't get it, but they hate it and they hate me, and they think I'm the black hole of cinema. They say, 'He shouldn't have made it, and he should die'..."This is not (simply) a romantic comedy for 40-year-old women or action movies for 17-year-old boys, and that's not OK with some people. It's not OK for people to come eat at the same table of cinema." [...]

"When you do what I do, you expect to be covered in mud. But there seems to be a lot of misinformation...I'm used to the waves crashing around me. And what I do is stick to a craggy rock as they keep coming. And if you stick to it long enough someone else will stick to it, too, and then someone else and then someone else."

In other words, good intentions are of greater value than poor execution. We'd like to believe him, but it's a slippery slope; such an acknowledgment would potentially let Nicole Kidman's didgeridoo-rocking off the hook, and that is a craggy rock no one wants to cling to. Tough break, Baz, but lesson learned for Gatsby.

• Baz Luhrmann, with a defense as full-throated as Moulin Rouge [THR]

• Tom Cruise's wife Katie Holmes has cold sores. His ex-wife Nicole Kidman had cold sores. "Cold sore" is a polite term for "oral herpes... transmitted very easily from one kisser to another." Page Six is just saying! And Cruise isn't commenting. [P6]
• Hollywood Reporter writers don't get to fly to Sundance next month, which they blame on publisher Eric Mika, for purportedly blowing the budget visiting his, ahem, "close personal friend" in... Asia. Somewhere on that... continent. [P6]
• Madonna might not come to Britain for Christmas because ex-husband Guy Ritchie won't let her sleep in the country mansion where he will be, and there are no hotels nearby. He single "Miles Away" is her worst-charting in 24 years, below even that song she made for an Estee Lauder perfume in 1996. The stress got so bad, Madonna compulsively adopted a new baby.
• In this corner: Graydon Carter and some purported "vile slumlords" who own Waverly Inn with the Vanity Fair editor. In that corner: Poor renters and vile flack Ronn Torossian. [P6]
• Barack Obama is president, so Oprah Winfrey is picking out a Georgetown mansion, and probably wondering why she hasn't been called about any cabinet posts yet. Sigh. Maybe "political adviser" then, like Karl Rove. [P6]
• Simon Cowell might leave American Idol. [Scoop]
• Marci Klein, the Calvin Klein heriess and Saturday Night Live producer, is in the process of divorcing her model husband. [P6]

"People are going to see Nicole playing it and think it's all right," award-winning actor, screenwriter and Aboriginal language teacher Richard Green told Tuesday's Sydney Morning Herald.

"It bastardises our culture. I will guarantee she has no more children. It is not meant to be played by women as it will make them barren."

Kidman, who suffered an ectopic pregnancy and a miscarriage during her former marriage to fellow actor Tom Cruise, gave birth to daughter Sunday Rose after marrying country crooner Keith Urban in 2006.

Way to hit her where it hurts, kind Oceania. Fortunately, what Green doesn't know is that Kidman is still planning to birth a child, Athena-like, from her smooth, shiny forehead. Yes, those were not Botox shots but fertility treatments, and once little Tuesday Cauliflower emerges her first act will be to suck on a didgeridoo too, just to be spiteful.

• Nicole Kidman warned after breaking Aboriginal taboo: report [Yahoo]

No, Australians are up in arms because Kidman played the didgeridoo on some wacky German talk show, which women are forbidden to do in many parts of the country (apparently, souvenir shops have special exemptions). Truly, though, this clip of Kidman and Hugh Jackman on Wetten, dass..? is both an amazing extension of Kidman's Awkwardness '08 talk show tour and a surreal masterpiece that can rival the stateside display of our nation's vice president-elect stoning and drowning TV's Elaine Benes under the stewardship of a famous lesbian. Watch as Kidman sits there, having no idea what the hell anyone is saying, eventually realizing that they want her to humiliate herself on-screen. What follows, we imagine, is something akin to how David Lynch might interpret the wedding night between Kidman and Tom Cruise: lots of giggling, tentative blowing, and an uncomfortable man in a three-piece suit dancing on one foot. [The Age]

The New York Times writes of the situation:

Chris Aronson, a senior vice president with the studio, said he believed the opening promised a strong run through the holiday season, when movies tend to remain in theaters for many weeks. “These are great numbers for an adult film,” Mr. Aronson said.

Yeah, they're great numbers for like a Diane Lane dramedy about coming to terms with things. But for a Nicole Kidman meets shirtless Hugh Jackman while music swells and then planes fly in and things blow up holiday movie? Not so much. At least Fox is padded a little bit because of the crazy $50 million-worth of tax incentives and whatnot they got from the Australian government, which is placing high hopes on the film to reinvigorate their flailing tourism industry. We don't blame Aronson and Co. for trying to save face, but it seems a little silly, coming off of the big marketing blitz they rolled out in the lead up (I mean, have you seen that soaring strings and running fast trailer?), to now say "Oh, yeah. This was studio art house all the way. We're The English Patient, but, you know, really expensive."

And, yes, in the end Australia could chug along and rack up a steady stream of American dollars (plus it's bound to do better overseas) as the early winter rolls by, but it'll still be hurt by the stain of its initial duddery—it was too long, too naive, and too much about another country when all Americans can think about these days is themselves. Think about it. Would Titanic have been Titanic with a British love story?

Not on yer life, mate.