What a devastatingly dull Academy Awards! Is it just me, or does it get more predictable every year? The movies were boring, the speeches were boring and the entertainment was boring! Hell, even the clothes were boring! Anyway, congrats to the winners, and don’t feel sorry for the losers, as this year the consolation gifts, (yes m’dears, they do get consolation gifts,) were the most valuable ever, with packages valued at more that twenty grand apiece, and including watches, teeth-whitening treatments, and a reclining chair worth more than three grand! Nu? For three grand, I want Courtney Cox-Arquette reclining in it with me! But at least Nicole Kidman won her little statuette, although a lot of people in the industry still think it was a conciliatory gesture. Last year it was rumored that the Oscar went to Halle Berry instead of Kidman because the latter had trash-talked ex-hubby, Tom Cruise, a.k.a. Hollywood’s golden pisher.
Anyway, we’re here to gossip! And to start off, let me make one thing perfectly clear! (Oy, Dick, quit throwing your voice!) There is no truth to the rumors that Brad Pitt and Nichole Kidman are getting married. I’ve gotten quite a bit of mail asking me about this one, and every time I get one, it makes me crazy! The truth of the matter is, Pitt and Kidman are in negotiations to play the roles of a married couple in the still-being-scripted “Mr. And Mrs. Smith”, about a couple who are hired to bump each other off. It’s a comedy action-adventure story, and from what I hear, the script is sensational. Right now, the hang-up is…that’s right, money. Kidman is reported to be demanding twice what she received for “Moulin Rouge”!
And in from the “Genug Shoyn!” department, plans for the upcoming television version of “Fiddler on the Roof” has been put on indefinite hold because of the upcoming war with Iraq. Slated to star Victor Garber, (“Legally Blonde” and “Alias”), and produced by Craig Zazan and Neil Meron, who spearheaded “Chicago” were setting up to begin shooting in Prague when word came down that the plug had been pulled because of the war. No definite plans for rescheduling the shooting of the three-hour musical have been made.
See what God does when you cast a goy as Tevye?
I hope you all got to see the Barbara Walters/Robert Blake interview. I had the mechiah of working with Blake on “Baretta” years ago, and was really farplotzed to see him looking so gaunt and disoriented. He was nothing like the loving, articulate man I knew and admired. How sad it is to see someone who had so much going for him in such a fardrey state!
From the “They won’t let me have my way” department, producers of “West Wing” have told perennial carpetbagger Martin Sheen that unless he quits makin' a tumult with his anti-war lobbying, they’re going to ‘vote him out of office’. My sources tell me that the production offices have been flooded with letters from fans, outraged that someone playing the president is still singing the same song that the hippies were crooning back in the sixties over the Viet Nam war. Sheen has often taken unpopular stands, usually with disastrous results to his career.
Remakes seem to be the rule these days, and the latest rehash is the 1971 horror flick, “Willard”, with Bruce Davison’s role being taken over by Crispin Glover. Glover has spent gezunte hours working with the many Socrates rats, (that’s the name of the breed, and no I’m not making it up, as my son raises and trains rats for the business,) so they’ll learn to trust him. Glover was a little uncomfortable with the rats at first but came to love them for the highly intelligent, surprisingly affectionate animals they really are.
This just in, Joaquin Phoenix “Signs” and “Gladiator”) is signed to play Johnny Cash in the movie about his life. Reese Witherspoon, ("Legally Blonde” and the upcoming sequel,) will be playing his wife, June Carter. The film is geared around Cash’s youth, and will peripherally include his drug-using years. Entitled, “Walk the Line”, the biopic has Cash himself as a technical advisor, so how real can it be? Feh!
In my forty years in the entertainment field, I’ve heard all kinds of meshuggah rumors, but this one tops them all. “Vanity Fair” reports that Michael Jackson recently hired a voodoo witchdoctor to put a curse on more than twenty Hollywood menschen, including Steven Spielberg and David Geffen. According to the magazine, forty-two cows were sacrificed to ensure that all the people on the list would die within a week. Nu? With all his lawsuits and other problems being made public, why would a respectable publication like “Vanity” have to make up such stories? Am I the only person in journalism who doesn’t make up stories?
And for all you Toby Maguire fans, the young heartthrob will definitely, despite the nasty rumors, be back as Peter Parker, in spite of a recent injury he sustained on his latest film, “Seabiscuit”. In fact, Maguire’s salary for the next “Spiderman” which is scheduled to begin filming this month, jumped from a paltry four million, (which is all he got for the first one, the poor pisher,) to seventeen million for the sequel which is set to be released in May 2004. I guess the fact that after finishing “Seabiscuit”, Toby had to spend lots of time at the gym to bulk up for his reprise, required extra money. We should all have such tsores! For that kind of gelt, I’d mud-wrestle Rosie O'Donnell nude at the M-G-M Grand Garden!
And this in from the “I wanted Tidy-Cat Crystals in my sandbox!”, Warner Brothers, having received a mountain of kvetching letters from irate loyalists, has had second thoughts about replacing Michelle Pfeiffer with Ashley Judd in the upcoming spin-off “Catwoman.”  Following the lead of the original series, ( remember when they replaced Julie Newmar with Eartha Kitt?) the part has been offered to Hollywood’s ultimate sex-kitten, Halle Berry! If you ask me, she’s the puuuuuurfect choice, as anyone who saw her performance in “The Flintstones” will back up!
In closing, I’d like to wish everyone with friends or family in Iraq God’s speed and strength. I have a stepson over there, and I know what you’re all feeling. May God grant us all the fortitude to keep our hope alive until it’s over!