• Scientology flack Creepy McReminds-Me-Of-Tom-Cruise (real name Tommy Davis) walked out on Martin Bashir on Nightline, saying he wouldn't discuss "disgusting perversions" of his faith. Or, if you notice, deny said "disgusting perversions" about Xenu and volcanoes (because they're probably true.) Page Six reports that he then came back to the ABC studio 45 minutes before the show was set to air and tried to get it canned. Security guards and staffers, probably ridden with thetans, told him he couldn't speak to Bashir or the executive producer and that the show would run unchanged. This made Davis sad. As senior church members probably aren't allowed to savagely beat junior minions any more, we can only guess how he dealt with this crimp in his Sunday evening. [Page Six]
  
  
• Brooke Hundley, the 22-year-old ESPN production assistant who Steve Phillips was fired for sleeping with, has also been hefted out of the network. Perhaps not surprising considering she went 431 kinds of crazy after she got dumped by Phillips, and blew the whole thing. Most importantly though, the Post has a new insult-to-injury description of the pudgy paramour: "schlubby seductress." [New York Post]
  
  
• The stalker Justin Timberlake had to restraining-order last week apparently has eclectic taste in music. And by music I mean musicians. TMZ points out that Karen Jane McNeil also had a restraining order filed against her by Lars Ulrich of Metallica back in March. She's not allowed within 150 yards of the band, their families and the people who run the fan club (the last one just makes me sad at the caliber of modern stalkers). She's also banned from going near Axl Rose. Kenny Loggins, watch your back! [TMZ]
  
  
• Diane Von Furstenburg got mugged in Madrid while in town to pick up an award. "I just got robbed in the street in front of the Thyssen museum . . . My wallet, cash and all my credit cards!!" Tweeted DVF. Before adding "I am totally fine!! I hope it the worst thing that will happen to me. Getting a big prize tomorrow so going to sleep now." [Page Six]
  
  
• Ah, Phil Spector. You just can't stop underlining the kind of charming eccentricities that landed you in jail for murder. He once sent his friend, celebrity lawyer Marvin Mitchelson his romantic version of how a pre-nup should read: "1. If I like it, it's mine. 2. If it's in my hands, it's mine. 3. If I can take it from you, it's mine. 4. If I had it a week ago, it's mine. 5. If it's mine, it must never appear to be yours in any way. 6. If I'm doing or building something, all the pieces are mine. 7. If it looks just like mine, it's mine. 8. If I think it's fine, it's mine. 9. If it is near me, it's mine. 10. If it's broccoli, it's yours." [Page Six]
  
  
• Talking of potential pre-nups: Renee Zellweger plans to spend the holidays in Philadelphia with the family of her boyfriend Bradley Cooper. "Renee and Bradley are crazy about each other," says 'a source'. Come on source, come up with a more original line than that. How about "Renee and Bradley fucking loathe each other but are desperately insecure and always have to be dating someone else famous"? Whether it's true or not it beats the same old "this definitely solidifies how serious they are" and "they're really trying to keep this under the radar," crap we get every time Mr. or Mrs. Source-Close-To picks up the phone on this kind of story. [NYDN]
  
  
• Ivanka Trump will stay kosher for Jared Kushner. Also, the swag bags at their wedding featured flip-flops with the tag "Ivanka and Jared - what a pair" on them. Which goes to prove that swag at every event, even the joining of extraordinarily rich families, now sucks. [Cindy Adams]
  
  
• A-Rod and Kate Hudson celebrated the Yankees' win by going to Serafina on the Upper East Side. A few tables away was Hideki Matsui, also celebrating. For some reason the civilized nature of these celebrations upsets me. [Page Six]
  
  
• Teen Vogue are working on a new reality TV show because they miss having Lauren Conrad and Whitney Port around the place, apparently. [Page Six]
  
  
• Ricky Gervais will present the Golden Globes. And has a "free rein," which seems to predict at least one or two awkward moments. [Sky News]
  
  

We're struggling for the term for the opposite of trainwreck...or when something is so complete and perfect a trainwreck that it becomes brilliant. Well, that's what the Gervais-helmed has the potential to be.

It takes real character for a show which owes its acclaim to a booze-fueled multi-decade run of awkward and embarrassing moments to double down on its off the rails strengths and book a host famed for creating legendary awkward and embarrassing moments. The combination of Gervais' bizarre out-of-sync with humanity style and a line of drunken award winners, could create the most brilliantly uncomfortable show of all time.

Certainly, this choice will widen the gap between the Globes and Oscars; as Oscar attempts to return to old timey glamour (and stodginess) the Globes will more become the free-wheeling, cantankerous, spontaneous alternative. There's definitely a market for both, but in this media environment, we know which side of the canyon we'd want to be on.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The Invention of Lying, which Gervais co-wrote and co-directed with Matthew Robinson, looks pretty funny and absurdist and sports a bogglingly good cast—Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Jonah Hill, Christopher Guest, Tina Fey, Martin Starr, Jason Bateman, Jeffrey Tambor, Rob Lowe, Patrick Stewart, Stephanie March, John Hodgman, and Louis C.K., among others. Ridiculous.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Inglourious Basterds will be bloody good bloody fun. We're especially liking Mike Myers' gonzo Brit in this trailer.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Hm... While The Box has an interesting concept, our faith in Richard Kelly is a bit rattled after Southland Tales. Now, that movie definitely had its merits (that whole virtuoso Justin TImberlake/"All These Things That I've Done" sequence chief among them), but in sum it was a muddled mess. The trailer for this picture begins promisingly (if you can forgive Cameron Diaz's brutal accent) with a creepy, fable-like setup, but then devolves into watery, ugly CGI and we start to worry. Also, does the presence of James Marsden mean he's on the leading-mean up and up, or does it mean that this is a schlocky B-horror film? Sadly, we kinda think it's the latter.

Bids are coming in high on Sumner Redstone's movie theater chain, which is good because he needs the money [Variety]. More than 60 actors cast in this year's pilots are foreigners. This will be on Lou Dobbs tonight [THR]. Taye Diggs will play a vampire in Dead of Night [THR].

In Gervais's opening salvo, he bashed the "lazy fucking fat pigs" who get gastric bypass surgery instead of exercising. Crullers fell to the floor all over Britain as an aggrieved, overweight populace took to the internet to register its disapproval, but Gervais, like his targets, refuses to budge. On his blog, he defended the comments:

I heard someone on the radio once say that they were tired of the prejudice aimed at the overweight. They said something like "you're not allowed to make fun of gay people, so why are you allowed to make fun of fat people? It's the same thing."

It's not the same thing though, is it? Gay people are born that way. They didn't work at becoming gay. Fat people became fat because they would rather be that way than stop eating so much. They had to eat and eat to get fat. Then, when they were fat they had to keep up the eating to stay fat. For gayness to be the same as fatness, gay people would have to start off straight but then ween themselves onto cock. Soon they're noshing all day getting gayer and gayer. They've had more than enough cock... they're full... they're just sucking for the sake of it. Now they're overgay, and frowned upon by people who can have the occasional cock but not over indulge.

When a doctor tells me that that's how you become gay, I'll stop making jokes about fat people.

Sadly, the affliction Gervais describes is all too real (so says the New York Times!), a painful form of forced homosexual indoctrination known as Manhuntococcal inflammation. While lap band surgery does little but make the patient more desirable, there are some cures; Promises can offer free treatment (rooms and notoriety permitting), though more deep-pocketed victims may enjoy the niacin purification, group encounters, and helpful bearding provided by the Scientology Celebrity Centre.

• Week forty-seven - December/January 2008 [Ricky's Blog]

· Not enough tragic celebrity-offspring-death news for one day? The coroner's findings say Dr. Dre's son died of a heroin and morphine overdose.
· Resolution encouragement: Ricky Gervais thinks people who get gastric bypasses and lap band surgery (hey—that's us!) are "lazy fucking fat pigs" who should "stop eating, get off your arse and go for a run."
· This year-in-review quiz from today's LAT was extremely entertaining.
· The latest fake-memoir to pull the wool over Oprah's eyes has inspired this slideshow of famous literary hoaxes. We always had our suspicions about Misha, but our desire to believe there might have really existed a Holocaust-surviving weregirl trumped all rational thought.

Granted, Academy reps' original denials a few months back were of the emphatic-but-open-ended variety, leaving enough light for the weedy, sinister untruth to flourish. The quick fade of Gervais's would-be stateside movie breakthrough Ghost Town couldn't deter it, either, until the British comic invoked his edginess — and, we guess, his inaccessibility — to finally pull himself out of the running:

He says, "I don't think it will happen. Americans do get my humour but in the words of Jerry Seinfeld, 'The Oscars isn't about comedy, it's about a bunch of people turning up to see if they get an award.'

"It is a huge deal and it's very flattering to be considered but I'm not sure I would be right. It's a historic, stuffy thing and I'd want to have fun with it and I don't think they'd want me to do that. I wouldn't be allowed to do what I wanted and it would be me reading an autocue. I don't need to do these things. I don't want to up my profile."

Wait, really? In that case, the Oscar stage is exactly where he should be next February. Consider this deal done.

• Gervais Has Doubts Over Oscars Job
  [WENN]

• Apparently Courtney Love said something about being suicidal amid her 60 (!!) blog posts Sunday but she also said her mood was "pirate" (good, right??) and that "ebaz and mj dresses saved my life." Also putting on a dress made her feel pretty. Also: "Dada, circus."
• NBC's Dan Abrams and supermodel Elle Macpherson are an item. [P6]
• After a fan committed suicide in front of her house, Paula Abdul hired "healers" to get rid of ghosts, and still is convinced the place is haunted. [P6]
• Sean Combs: ""I shave and groom my private areas." Good morning to you too, Sean. [R&M - second item]
• No one tell Ricky Gervais the pound is now worth less than $1.50. The city needs all the economic stimulus it can get [R&M - third item]
• Oil heir Brandon Davis is now said to be a degenerate gambler, in addition to a sponge. [P6]
• Madonna is crushing Britney Spears' only-recently-revived hopes and dreams. [Showbiz Spy]
• Miley Cyrus is not dead. [E!]

This, from the Daily Mail Online, is not so flattering... "Simon Pegg calls Gervais a fat idiot."

Loads of journalists called for a response. This is what I gave them.

"Simon is not only one of my favourite British comic actors but he is also quite astute, as according to my last medical, I am approximately 22lb over my ideal weight." Ricky Gervais.

Pegg brought the brouhaha full circle on his own blog:

So apparently I have "slammed" Ricky Gervais in the press as being a "fat idiot". Oh dear. Ricky's comments about the British film industry were definitely a little unfair but whatever I said on Heart FM was intended in the spirit of mutual teasing that myself Ricky have always indulged in. I am not in a position to genuinely accuse anybody of being fat, or for that matter of being an idiot. Whatever public feud is subsequently encouraged/fueled/blown out of proportion as a result of this, it is entirely the doing of those gleefully stood around clapping their hands and shouting "fight".

It is true however that we used to be lovers.

Sx

p.s. Ricky and I have laughed about this, although his initial response was "It's glandular you cunt."

Glad that's settled. Now, can we go back to believing in British peace and civility — at least until a war of words breaks out between a ready-to-rumble Hugh Laurie and Russell Brand?

• SIMON’S BLOG: Ricky [Myspace]

While promoting his new film, How To Lose Friends And Alienate People, Pegg was asked if he, like Gervais, felt under pressure from the LA lifestyle.

Pegg, 38, said: "He says a lot of things, that man.

"He said there'd been no good British films since 1950. What an idiot. If you go to LA, you can get sucked into that.

"I've seen people go there and suddenly become rake-thin because there is a slight pressure on you to be thin.

"I've seen a lot of fat people there."

Jamie Theakston, who was interviewing Pegg for a radio show commented that Gervais was apparently not receiving that kind of pressure.

Pegg said: "He's one of the fat people in LA, yes."

Simon, picking on Ricky Gervais will get you nowhere — just ask Joan Rivers! As fans of both actors, we're reluctant to pick sides, but we can't help but think Pegg has made a crucial mistake. Though we loved Simon in Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, we're pretty sure that after this fight, that Oscar for Run, Fatboy, Run just got a whole lot more unlikely.

• Simon Pegg brands Ricky Gervais a 'fat idiot' [Telegraph]

"I was shocked that the suits at AOL have no humor . . . But that's OK. I've been gagged more times than Linda Lovelace. AOL is like Holocaust deniers. They want us to believe 6 million Jews spent World War II in Boca and Anne Frank was in an attic for two years looking for Christmas ornaments."

Joan, it's one thing to take on Russell Crowe (or even the Girl Scouts) but Forrest Gump himself? Go after Hanks, and soon enough the only place you'll be allowed to do red carpet commentary is on a Geocities page, nestled amid blinking unicorn .gifs. Video of all the relevant Rivers moments is up above — as a bonus, we've even included Joan's "Eva Longoria Porker" crack. Enjoy!

• AOL GAGS RIVERS' RANTS [NY Post]

He’ll certainly be in good company, now that Dreamgirls director Bill Condon has been tapped to executive produce the upcoming Oscar telecast. This is the same dude who wrote the screenplay for Chicago, so he definitely knows how to razzle-dazzle ‘em. But he also directed Kinsey and Gods and Monsters, so which Bill Condon will show up? Will it be his glitzy, gaudy musical side or his frank-exploration-of-human-sexuality side? Either way, it should make for an interesting evening, and as long as five reality hosts aren’t involved, we’ll be watching.

[Photo Credits: Getty Images]

• Ricky Gervais Gets 2009 Oscar Buzz [EW]
• 'Dreamgirls' Duo Producing Oscars Telecast [Hollywood Reporter]

WHAT'S NEW: The first genuine Oscar-chasing release of the fall, The Duchess will likely split its viewership between pro- and anti-Keira Knightley factions before anyone bothers to acknowledge its broader, bodice-ripping appeal. So yes, Team Knightley: She deftly portrays Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, the late-18th-century heroine with the bitterly controlling husband (Ralph Fiennes), the rabble-rousing side dish (Dominic Cooper) and a surfeit of corsted, pre-feminist longing. The star and the film are beautiful, the direction assured and the awards-season creds affirmed — particularly Fiennes', whose customary wretchedness as the Duke acquires a kind of fascinating tenderness with age. If anyone should be on the Oscar bubble (besides the art and costume crew, which are locks), it's him.

Still, in limited release, Duchess isn't competing for any box-office glory; that distinction belongs to Lakeview Terrace, the not-entirely-miserable Neil LaBute thriller featuring Samuel L. Jackson as a sociopathic cop out to get the hot interracial couple next door (Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington). Against sturdy holdovers (Burn After Reading, The Family That Preys) and middling newbies (the Dane Cook slog My Best Friend's Girl, Ricky Gervais's leading-man debut Ghost Town), Lakeview will top out at $15.6 million. Cook will follow with $13.2 million; with half the screens and even less promotion, Ghost Town should still manage an even $6 million.

Also opening: Ed Harris's old-old-school Western Appaloosa; Chris Smith's tiny, acclaimed Indian excursion The Pool; the gay-conversion melodrama Save Me; the wrenching immigrant day-in-the-life tale Take Out; and the Duchess-correcting, misogynist fantasia The Pink Conspiracy.

THE BIG LOSER: You know, after we just predicted the Weinsteins would once again find their step in the multiplex, trust in Harvey to not only dump another subpar animated fairy tale on an unsuspecting public, but to essentially disown it. Such is Igor's lot, with its backers AWOL, its reviews tepid, and its voice talent (John Cusack, Molly Shannon, Steve Buscemi) trapped in a Straight-to-Flopz™ patchwork about a hunchback pursuing his dream of becoming a mad scientist. MGM is left to collect the grosses for this one, which won't break $5 million on 2,300 screens. Or, as they call it at Weinstein HQ, business as usual.

THE UNDERDOG: As members of the privileged few to have seen Hounddog in its spectacularly atrocious Sundance '07 cut ("It was unfinished!", the director screams), we long doubted not only the film's release potential, but also the redeemability of those souls who actually made it. But fair is fair, and while the reedited Hounddog remains the infamous Dakota Fanning Rape Movie — full of overripe Southern hokum comprising snakes, magical Negroes, Elvis worship and borderline inbreds — it has since obtained a sort of culty, gunpowder gloss embracing all of its wrecked potential. It's finally refined its badness enough to be good, even serviceable for at least an hour, with Fanning's vulnerability dynamically intact opposite the predatory, 'shine-swilling archetypes around her. Bonus points, however, to David Morse, whose full-retard debasement here must be seen to be believed.

FOR SHUT-INS: It's Celebrity Bomb Week among new DVD releases, including Mike Myers's stroppy folly The Love Guru; the Wachowski abortion Speed Racer; the Pacino pratfall 88 Minutes; Patrick Dempsey's rom-com Made of Honor; and at not-so-long last, the complete first season of Chuck. Aw, NBC — you shouldn't have! No, really. You shouldn't have.

So what's your Top 3? Is it a Keira weekend, or is Officer Sam pulling your ass over? And how's our math, anyway? Clear your calendars and call your shots — you're among friends here. Even you, Harvey!

• No one is buying tickets to go see Katie Holmes' big Broadway play even though she's basically killing herself trying to do the play and jet back to LA to see Tom Cruise and work out and raise her daughter. "She looked pretty groggy."
• Ricky Gervais is to join the "thick-necked... slangy" British expat community in New York after buying a Manhattan apartment with his girlfriend. The cost was about $1.7 million worthless American dollars, which is like 240 British pounds. Cheersmate. [Post]
• The nightclub 1Oak was accused of firing black and Asian waitresses to make the staff more white. The bosses assured everyone that four white waitresses were fired at the same time, for not upholding the very high standards of club waitressing. [P6]
• New York cops reportedly enjoy guarding anti-Scientology pickets. [R&M]
• A joke about Amy Winehouse won a big Scottish joke prize. [Daily Star]

[via OhNoTheyDidn't]

Holding up a copy of The Sun from March 5, [Gervais] says: "I don't know what the readership is, but I imagine most people in Lowell read it." He got that right.

Wisecracking with co-director Matt Robinson in a nondescript office, Gervais seems to relish seeing news of his first movie in print. We hope to keep him tickled for the next three months.

In another video, he attacks assistant Jake with a Nerf gun. These guys must be dying to start shooting. We know we are.

Either the the Sun is threatening a Page Six-style vendetta against Gervais, complete with journalistic sniping, or the paper is just continuing to turn out the same type of writing the movie star had so much fun lampooning in the first place.

Original video that sparked the column: