Here's a really titillating piece of news! Columbia Pictures is in early talks with Nicolas Cage to play the gangster villain in The Green Hornet. Cameron Diaz is negotiating to play a reporter and love interest in the Michel Gondry-directed pic that stars Seth Rogen as the masked crime fighter. I just want to make sure that registered with you: Nicolas Cage will be emoting for us whilst wearing some kind of tight fitting costume. We're sure you're titling too. [ Variety ]

New deals are coming in on the Monetizing Childhood Nostalgia front! John Fusco has been tapped to breathe new life into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He also wrote a redo of The Seven Samurai for the Weinstein Co. His other credits include Hidalgo and Young Guns. Next up Diablo Cody's remake of a sassy outsider who wears a strawberry beanie and smells like shortcakes! [ Variety ]

Despite a fast-approaching Thursday filing deadline, the two factions within the Screen Actors Guild have continued to keep their slate of candidates for the guild's September elections under wraps. Well, one thing's clear Martin Sheen's ass better be filling one of those slate spots because I need some new material for my West Wing fan fiction livejournal! [ Variety ]

Ugh, when is someone going to give K-Fed a reality show so we can see what's up with him and Britt's kids? Oh wait! [ E! Online! ]

Remember that sad story we told you about the group of black kids who were turned away from a swim club pool because the club's owners feared they would "change the complexion of the pool"? It's ugly stuff. To make matters less ugly writer/director Tyler Perry has stepped offered to send the 65 kids from Philly on all-expenses-paid three-day trip to DisneyWorld. And that's the last nice thing I will ever say about Tyler Perry. Are you happy morning news round up? You've broken me! [ People ]

Speaking of celebs stepping in to rescue sad children: Uma! Uma Thurman is set to star in Girl Solider an indie flick about a radical cleric who helps rescue 140 schoolgirls abducted in Uganda. Story's based on Kathy Cook's book "Stolen Angels," which follows the 1996 raid at a boarding school, where a band of armed rebels abducted young girls to turn them into soldiers and sex slaves. So there's that. Have a great day! [ Variety ]

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]

· Sony made the second big buy of the festival, announcing its pickup of the revisionist blaxploitation flick Black Dynamite the morning after its well-received Midnight premiere. The studio was coy about its affection and eventual plans for the film, though word around festival HQ today cites long-lost Arsenio Hall's "Mickey Rourke moment." Or... not.

· En route to Park City on behalf of her new film Motherhood, Uma Thurman demonstrated her trademark yoga-and-smokes method of festival prep. There goes a true veteran.

· Seriously: What do Justin Kirk, Adam Scott and all these other Sundance snobs have against Hotel For Dogs? It's at least as good as the Ashton Kutcher gigolo flick currently terrorizing audiences.

· Speaking of which, Demi Moore promises she's just fine with her husband's nude, Anne Heche-humping exploits in Spread. Then Heche showed up pregnant in Park City. Developing... [via MyHogtown]

· The day his adaptation of David Foster Wallace's Brief Interviews With Hideous Men premieres at Sundance, John Krasinski tells the LAT he owes everything he has to the late author. Steve Carell will not be pleased.

Look who else has been added to the victim list today:

Arpad Busson, the billionaire fiancee of Uma Thurman! Busson runs a hedge fund called EIM, which has more than $150 million in exposure in Madoff's funds. You can do better, Uma.


Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO of Dreamworks! He lost millions. It's the Hollywood thing to do—so did Katzenberg's pal...


Steven Spielberg! His charity got swindled out of an unknown amount. Sad. But not as sad as...


Elie Wiesel, Nobel laureate and humanitarian! His charitable foundation may have been almost wiped out. That's despicable. Then there's...


Mort "Mort" Zuckerman, real estate mogul and Daily News owner! More than 10% of his charitable trust was invested with Madoff. And finally...


Frank Lautenberg, ancient New Jersey senator! His charity also took a hit.

Of course there's also a laundry list of banks and rich individuals and whatnot, which can be seen in its fullest version here. God bless whatever unlucky WSJ drones were forced to assemble it.

• Bryan Adams is so famous entire families are stalking him. It's nice when parents want their children to follow in their professional footsteps! [Sun]
• Kirsten Dunst is getting a restraining order against a man who showed up several times at her home in Hollywood and was finally citizen arrested by Dunst's assistant. [AP]

• Uma Thurman's parents accidentally hired Ashley Dupre's sex-for-money booker. Like Dunst, Thurman has recently gone to court against an alleged stalker. Small world! [Post]
• Paris Hilton tried to break up with Benji Madden by voicemail, not realizing he had broken up with her by voicemail an hour earlier. Appropriately pathetic! [London Paper]
• Sad George Michael has to give away concert tickets to avoid an empty stadium in Abu Dhabi. To be fair, the men's room action is much less of a draw in the Arab Emirates venues. [Sun]
• Kate Moss finally admitted those scratches are on her cheek had nothing to do with falling Christmas decorations; instead, her boyfriend Jamie Hince of the Kills put them there. But you should see what she did to his eye! [P6]
• When you date a hipster bass player for 10 years, and pay his expenses the whole time, you already kinda know he's a loser. So — sorry — you're not entitled to too much righteous indignation when he kicks you out and sues you for back rent once his Raconteurs make it big. Maybe you'll listen to your friends next time! [P6]
• After 15 years and $22 million, Axl Rose's new album isn't even number one in its opening week, because he didn't return anyone's calls for two months to do publicity and promotion for the album, because he's Axl Rose. Sigh. [Sun]

In the special, which airs on NBC this December, Uma will play Santa Clause's flight attendant while Martin portrays a mailman who opens the show with a song-and-dance number. As is mandatory, Kermit, Fozzy, Gonzo, Miss Piggy, and the rest of the crew are determined to save Christmas for some tots whose letters to Santa were lost in the mail. "Thurman and Martin join previously cast Whoopi Goldberg, Tony Sirico and Steve Schirripa, Richard Griffiths and Madison Pettis, along with Kermit, Fozzie, Gonzo, Miss Piggy and the rest of the muppets gang. The special, from Muppets Prods., will feature songs by The Muppet Movie songwriter Paul Williams." [TheHollywoodReporter]

• Today host Ann Curry moved during the national anthem at the Republican National Convention, because NBC hates freedom. Then she pointed at a nice lady from Alaska and yelled, because she is a terrorist. The Virgin Islands were also terribly offended. [P6]
• Supposedly the word "nuclear" was spelled out as "new-clear" on Sarah Palin's TelePrompTer at the Republican National Convention so she wouldn't mess up the pronunciation again. Also: Uma Thurman is pregnant. [R&M]
• Don't believe celebrity hype machines like the Times: Britney Spears uttered just four sentences at the Video Music Awards, not counting her brief awards acceptance speeches. Shockingly, Spears is said to be upset by her estranged mom's tell-all book about Spears's life.
• Advertisers rejected the idea of having Girls Gone Wild honcho Joe Francis on Celebrity Apprentice. Donald Trump is at least pretending to think about creating some kind of other show for Francis to be creepy on. [P6]
• As Tommy Lee Jones has learned, you can make a $160 million movie that wins four Academy Awards, and the movie studios will still try and screw you out of your bonus. [E!]
• Lindsay Lohan supposedly wants to have a baby and raise it with Samantha Ronson. The classy Sun notes that she already has "two beautiful babies."
• Ashlee Simpson: Pregnant with twins. Except for the minor detail that her rep says "it's not true." [Sun]
• JFK's letters to Marilyn Monroe are in some kind of lock box that only Cindy Adams and some random Monroe groupie know about. [Post]

Courtney Love used the sidewalk like a red carpet, chatting and joking with reporters...

Sometimes celebrities do what they do best: bask in the attention. Ms. Love latched onto her lawyer, Scott B. Tulman, as they left the courthouse and gushed as if they were an item:

“Isn’t he handsome? Isn’t he beautiful?” Ms. Love then suggested she was pregnant with Mr. Tulman’s child.

“Are you out of your mind?” Mr. Tulman recalled telling her. “What are you doing?”

Another day outside the courthouse she finished off a partially smoked cigarette that she bummed from a passer-by.

“It’s like having a wild kid,” Mr. Tulman said. “After a while, you just shake your head.”

PR consultant Eric Dezenhall told the Times Love's antics are fine, since "anything that extends the half-life of her career is probably a net positive." Uh, sure. Maybe even get charged with more crimes like disorderly conduct and so forth and get spotted outside the glamorous criminal courthouse even more often, maybe!

[Times]

• Uma Thurman, tired of the smell and nanny banging of being married to a celebrity, gets engaged to a nice, boring financier who dated Elle Macpherson.[US Magazine]
• • David Archuleta says he's never kissed a girl and wishes he were Sarah Bareilles. It's sweet, huh?[P6]
  • Rikki Rockett of Poison says some guy is dressing up like him and raping women in Mississippi. [TMZ]
  • Guy Ritchie's mom says the divorce rumors are "rubbish" [Hollyscoop]

• Kate Moss stormed out of a party at Milk Studios in Chelsea because they wouldn't let her bring three friends into the bathroom, citing a "strict one-person-at-a-time policy." [P6]
• Supermodel and beat-down artist Naomi Campbell had surgery to allow her to have children, since she believes children will fix her life by forcing her to "calm down." As long as they aren't, you know, whiny incompetents like all those assistants she attacked. [Showbiz Spy]
• Not only did Anne Hathaway have a sinus infection when she kissed fellow actor Steve Carrell for a movie, she also had pink eye, and now he probably has it, too. [Oh No They Didn't]
• Uma Thurman's stalker is supposed to be in Maryland after narrowly avoiding a jail sentence, but instead he's handing around in New York, near the courthouse, in the same clothes he had on during the trial. It's over, buddy. Let it go. [Entertainment Tonight]
• Jennifer Aniston had dinner in Los Angeles with a mystery man, so there was speculation the movie star split from singer John Mayer, but it also emerged he's driving her car, so probably they're still together.
• Actress Jessica Alba gave birth to daughter Honor Marie. [Sun]
• Oh, look, it's seven skanks competing to be Paris Hilton's new "best friend," all hoochied up in front of a club in Las Vegas. [Sun]
• Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are determined to spend more on their baby nursery than fellow celebrity-twin parents J. Lo and Marc Anthony. So far, the price tag is north of $140,000. But where are the dedicated baby guards? The hermetically-sealed climate control? The Scientologist consultants? [R&M]

• Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter blasts back at Clinton: "The responses from the former president and his camp are very saddening in their own ways. Characteristic, but nevertheless shocking." [Observer]
• Released from jail, Tatum O'Neal goes straight to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. PR experts say the actress' career should be fine, if she acknowledges her mistake, for example by going to an AA meeting. [Post]
• The New York City Landmarks Commission tells Robert De Niro that it would be a shame if something were to happen to the top floor of his pretty little hotel, seeing as how it's disrespecting the zoning code and all. The actor would like his extra floor legalized, because he's a wiseguy over here. [Rush & Molloy]
• Sharon Bush, ex-wife of presidential brother Neil Bush, only snagged $30,000 per year in alimony and child support, and only for four years. She is planning a tell-all book about her ex-husband's philandering, but only once W. is out of office. Apparently she didn't want to, you know, embarrass the president at this critical, lame-duck juncture in his administration. [P6]
• The one time you trade your royalties for a $2,300 flat fee, the movie becomes a hit. Writers don't win. [P6]
• Eva Mendes will launch a Calvin Klein perfume in the building where Heath Ledger died. It's called "Secret Obsession." Wow. [P6]
• Jay Leno will get to see lots of "gayest looks" at a group gay and lesbian wedding in West Hollywood. [E!]
• Ethan Hawke applied for a license to marry his pregnant former nanny, from when he was married to Uma Thurman. [P6]
• Jennifer Aniston's ex, model Paul Sculfor, is now dating John Mayer's ex, Cameron Diaz. Aniston and Mayer are, of course, dating one another, and also frequently reassuring themselves they are the prettier of the two couples. [Sun]

boomp3.com

In a scene that was eerily reminiscent of the film Network, actress Uma Thurman stuck her head out her building's window and publicly vented frustrations about her cell phone company. Thurman's action inspired a man in the building across the street to yell about his frustration with his cable company's lack of HD channels, which caused the man on the floor below him to yell back that he should look into getting satellite television. As is wont to happen in New York City, the two men got into a very loud and public debate over satellite vs. cable. Thurman saw the men across yelling and yelled at them, "Hey, don't ruin my moment with a bunch of bullshit HD talk. This was about me and my issues with my phone, dingus."

[Photo Credit: Splash Pics]

Journal reporter Steel's fellow jurors included two lawyers, a "rock-show caterer" and "a former editor for the TV show Wife Swap." Still, they were 12 people sitting in a room talking about the law, so Steel did not have much to work with.

She made the best of it, delivering an account that is brisk and well-edited if not exactly riveting.

Steel had a dream about the trial, but it's sort of boring too:

I was talking with Ms. Thurman, although — as is the case with dreams — I can't recall precisely what we were discussing. Walking down the street, in my dream, I saw [the accused stalker] stroll by.

Better was the jury debate about whether the stalker intended to scare or harass Thurman with a creepy package containing, among other things, his expired driver's license, a picture of a bride with her head cut off and a love letter with many words crossed out, leaving "mouth," "kissing" and "my hands should be on your body at all times," among other phrases.

The woman who worked as a rock-show caterer said the card was disturbing, and that Mr. Jordan was a smart, manipulative man who knew what he was doing. He had graduated with a degree in English literature from the University of Chicago. By marking out some words, she said, he indicated that he knew what he was sending was inappropriate.

A juror who works as a statistician compared the situation to writing emails to a woman at work: If I did that, he said — even if I hoped it would make her like me — it would be inappropriate and get me fired.

I didn't agree... Sitting a few seats away from Mr. Jordan as he testified in his own defense, I saw him as a lovesick individual who was trying to prove himself to her with these cards and objects, which he described as artworks...

One juror, who works at an art school in Brooklyn, brought up an example of a little boy pulling the ponytail of a little girl to get her attention. Even though the boy likes the girl, he's still trying to annoy her.

Wow: Even on a well-educated jury, people form opinions based on behavioral expectations at private corporations and grade-school playgrounds. Some big, ambitious newspaper should totally do an in-depth story on that, assuming it continues to involve Uma Thurman!

[WSJ]

Yes, it's unpleasant for all involved. But that doesn't mean we must shirk our duties and refuse to offer suggestions for the inevitable CBS Movie of the Week, Dancing on the Razor's Edge: The Uma Thurman Stalking Story: We humbly nominate Anthony Edwards, who could bring the same intensity honed in the halls of ER to the part of a man driven by love to the brink of madness. In the role of Uma: Natasha Henstridge. As perfect as those are, you'll just wind up putting your own, even better suggestions in the comments below, so why delay the inevitable?

• Lovesick fan guilty of stalking Uma Thurman [CNN.com]

• Instead of viciously beating people with her cellphone, supermodel Naomi Campbell tried bringing tea and coffee to assistants on the TV show Ugly Betty. Ten bucks says the coffee and tea had, in turn, been bought by Campbell's own assistant, and that Campbell hasn't been into a Starbucks since 1998. I hope someone demanded her drink be brought back with nonfat milk at exactly 195 degrees. [News Of The World]
• Miley Cyrus after some kind of Disney concert in Orlando: "I hope you had an awesome time. I saw a sign back there that said: 'Miley, I'm praying for you.' I could not be more appreciative. Thank you guys for all your support. Without you, none of this would be possible. I love every one of you and I could not be more appreciative. God bless you." I think she could be more appreciative. [Sun]
• Victoria Beckham and husband David were looking forward to a quiet trip to Napa Valley via Tom Cruise's empty-and-waiting private jet. Turns out Cruise, his wife and four Hollywood pals were waiting on the plane to surprise them. See, for Scientologists, the line between "surprise party" and "awful kidnapping" does not exist. [Showbiz Spy]
• Singer Winona Ryder apparently still allowed to shop. [Popsugar]
• Lindsay Lohan is going on Ugly Betty. [People]
• Amy Winehouse, who is Jewish, is wearing rosary beads to support her jailed husband. Further destroying the Catholic church is just a nice side effect. [Oh No They Didn't]
• I can't muster much outrage, but the British tabs sure can: "POP mogul Simon Cowell has been allowed to park his Rolls-Royce wherever he likes — a privilege usually reserved for the QUEEN." [Sun]
• In the wake of testimony against her alleged stalker, Uma Thurman went brunette. This information would be of use pretty much only to... stalkers. [P6]

• Tom Cruise sent wife Katie Holmes to a three-day Scientology boot camp at "Gold Base" to prevent her from working on her Broadway play in New York without him, said Star magazine.
• Paris Hilton looks frighteningly skinny in this picture. [Sun]
• Miley Cyrus "skipped" a Disney event in Orlando, Florida, which would have been her first public outing since her racy Vanity Fair shoot. [LA Times]
• Druggy singer Pete Doherty is the guy who managed to shoot up not just in jail but in the detox unit of the jail. So the Brits decided to just let him go, one month into a three month sentence. [Sun]
• Former child star Gary Coleman went on Divorce Court with his 22-year-old wife Shannon Price. Coleman failed to support Price in a fight with a stranger about when the world was ending. [DListed]
• Jason Biggs from American Pie married actress Jenny Mollen in a private ceremony last week. [People]
• When singer Lou Reed and performance artist Laurie Anderson got married, they paid $10 to be wed in the "Boulder Mountain marriage license office." [Gigwise]
• Dennis Rodman, the former basketball star, was arrested for hitting a woman in a hotel. [Enquirer]
• Singer Usher denied rumors he wanted to auction pictures of his baby son. [P6]