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If you would have told someone suffering through a midnight showing of Glitter eight years ago that Mariah Carey would one day win the Palm Springs Film Festival's Breakthrough Performance Award, they may have slapped you across the face. And you would have deserved it. But you would also have been right. Carey will accept the award on January 5th for her role as a mustachioed social worker in Precious. [Idolator]
More than 1,500 Americans were so upset by Adam Lambert's mock fellatio and man kissing at last night's American Music Awards that they picked up their phones and complained to ABC about it. Some, presumably, called on their own, while others were likely sent ABC's way by the Parents Television Council, which asked its members to complain to both the network and Dick Clark Productions, the show's producer. In a joint statement both companies distanced themselves from the scandalous performance, saying, "We did not expect the impromptu moments." Which makes sense, since that would be impossible.
In between starting websites, binge drinking and napping, Joss Whedon will need to make some time to accept the Producers Guild of America's Vanguard Award, which honors achievements in new media and technology. It should also honor achievements in good jokes. Like this one: "This is an honor I didn't expect and probably don't deserve," Whedon said. "The truth is, I've never actually guarded a van." [THR]
Consequence is a marginally famous rapper, but he's the best kind of marginally famous rapper: the kind who's friends with Kanye West. That means he not only gets Kanye-produced singles, but also only the most talented video girls and, eventually, star-studded remixes. Which brings us to "Whatever You Want (G.O.O.D. Music Remix)," a smooth slice of fast-life rap featuring verses from 'Ye, Kid Cudi, and Big Sean, a crooned bridge courtesy John Legend, and an awkward Kate Hudson/A-Rod reference from Common... plus Consequence! It's pretty great, but it is, for the record, only our second-favorite Kanye song masquerading as a Consequence track, after this one.
Emma Rosenblum talks to Emily Blunt about her role in The Young Victoria, but not about Michael Bublé. Logan Hill previews nine of the biggest movies opening during the holidays this year. Logan also wonders if both Colin Farrell and Jude Law would be better off just sticking with supporting roles. David Edelstein reviews Broken Embraces, Mammoth and New Moon. Jerry Saltz describes the work in Gerard Richter's latest show as the "most majestic, haunting, voluptuous, and vulnerable of his career." Scott Brown enjoyed In the Next Room or the vibrator play, but the same cannot be said for Stephanie Zacharek's experience with Ragtime. Speaking of vibrator plays, Boris Kachka talks to Laura Benanti. Amy Lorocca profiles the Pied Piper of Craft, Todd Oldham. From The House of the Dead left Justin Davidson wanting more.
Photo: Patrick McMullan, the Weinstein Company
In Tom Ford's upcoming A Single Man, Colin Firth stars as a closeted college professor mourning the death of his male lover, played by Matthew Goode. So when the Internet first saw the movie's poster, featuring Firth in bed with female co-star Julianne Moore, some wondered if Man's distributor, the Weinstein Company, might be trying to downplay the film's gay themes. (Further arousing suspicion was a recut trailer that excised a shot of Firth kissing Goode, full-on Adam Lambert-style.) And today, TWC released a new, not-much-gayer poster (see above) that we don't imagine will squelch the controversy. Last night, though, we ran into the ever-charming Harvey Weinstein himself following a screening of Single Man at the Lighthouse Screening Room and asked if he could help clear things up for us. After the jump, the transcript of our discussion.
"Brokeback Mountain did pretty well... If you know how to market, you can market." 
When we ran into Herbie Hancock at Diddy's 40th birthday party last week at the Plaza Hotel, we asked him what he would call himself if he ever became a rapper. "I don't know, Herb Dawg?" he told us. "That wouldn't fit me, though. I'm not an intimidating person. I don't think I am. "I don't know, 'get out of my way, get out of my face.'" But then he changed his mind! "Hey, that's a good idea. Maybe that should be my name: Get Outta My Face. If a guy can call himself 50 Cent, I'll call myself Get Outta My Face." See more in our Party Lines Slideshow.
We know you can't be everywhere at once, and that's why you have us: The latest edition of our concert slideshow, "Out on the Weekend," features photos from performances by Devo, Bishop Allen, Dinosaur Jr., Javelin, Sonic Youth, Sleigh Bells, the Feelies, tUnE-YaRdS, and Dirty Projectors, with awesome surprise appearances by Curren$y, Mos Def, and David Byrne. Clicking through is like actually being there, but with less sweat and cheaper beer.
Marc Shaiman — the man behind Broadway's Hairspray and Neil Patrick Harris's songs at this year's Tonys and Emmys — has been hired by producers Adam Shankman and Bill Mechanic as the music director for March's Oscars. Bad news: In an interview with ArtsBeat, Shaiman says he will not interrupt winners' acceptance speeches by playing them off, meaning the ceremony may never end. Good news: You might not want it to — "I’m definitely going to be kissing members of all sexes," promises Shaiman. "Groping the genitalia of anyone onstage … I plan on being the Adam Lambert of the Academy Awards." [ArtsBeat/NYT]
Though a blog post at EW.com over the weekend implied differently, the Times reports that — despite the possibility of a rule change — Lady Gaga will still be ineligible for the Best New Artist Grammy at January's ceremony, because she was nominated in a different category last year. There is still talk of relaxing eligibility requirements, though the proposed changes wouldn't take effect until next year, says academy prez Neil Portnow. So look for Lady Gaga to handily win the Grammy for Best New Artist in 2011. [ArtsBeat/NYT]
Photo: Courtesy of Showtime
Somebody throws a punch this week, and it's Becca. Furious that her best friend calls Hank a homewrecker — a charge Becca grants is true, but can’t abide — she pushes Chelsea into a vending machine. Hank hears of all this in a phone call from the principal. And, as adolescent in this episode as he’s ever been, he’s delighted: “That’s my girl!”
Concluding yesterday was Performa 09, the third iteration of the biennial that sees 150 performance artists descend on New York. This year's event was helmed by art world idol Roselee Goldberg and featured a delirious array of stellar, odd, baffling, mind-blowing — and a few "eh" — works. We’ve put together a roundup of images and videos of a few of our favorites, including Alicia Framis’s Lost Astronaut, in which the artist dressed up as a space person and roamed the streets, and Wangechi Mutu and Imani Uzuri’s Stone Ihiga, a somber and stunning interpretation of the fundamentalist practice of stoning women. Plus: more!
It may not be television's highest-rated show, but according to a new report, Glee has the highest index of "upscale" viewers of any show on television (upscale, in this case, meaning people with household incomes above $100,000 per year). Rounding out the top five are 30 Rock, The Office, Community, and 60 Minutes. What, no Jeff Dunham Show? [TV by the Numbers]
Photo: Courtesy of Showtime
Never has an episode of Dexter inspired this much cringing and jaw-dropping. As our favorite serial killer mulls over his copy of Anna Karenina ("All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way"), Thanksgiving robs him of his role model.
If the Grammys do indeed find a loophole that makes Lady Gaga eligible for Best New Artist, the very least they can do to compensate for their blatant disregard of the entire concept of integrity is to give a nomination — any nomination really! — to the truly phenomenal (and actually shocking) Major Lazer. As you'll recall, this summer saw the release of their video "Pon de Floor," which thrillingly featured more dry humping than we've seen since the time we mistakenly wandered underneath the bleachers at homecoming in ninth grade. And now, just in time for Thanksgiving, Major Lazer has released the (sort of NSFW) video for "Keep It Goin' Louder," their second collaboration with director Eric Wareheim (of Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! fame). This time around, a gaggle of barely dressed women — who sorta look like inbred, mutant, female Perez Hilton clones — ride motorcycles across candy-colored backgrounds, seemingly inspired by both acid and Mario Kart 64, before blasting off into space for reasons we can't quite figure out. It's a bit on the disturbing side, but then again, that's what makes it so unforgettable.
If you've ever had trouble figuring out how NARAS determines the silly and seemingly random eligibility rules for the Grammys, it's probably because the committee who forms them doesn't necessarily have to abide by them. Take the case of Lady Gaga, for example. Because she received a nomination last year for her song "Just Dance," she's technically not eligible to be nominated for Best New Artist this year. However, Entertaiment Weekly is reporting that NARAS president Neil Portnow is strongly considering changing the rules so that she would get a shot at winning the prize this year. So much for integrity! [Music Mix/EW]
Photo: Courtesy of Strand Releasing
Michael Shannon has been stealing scenes in so many major films over the last few years — he even got nominated for an Oscar for what amounted to a cameo in last year’s Revolutionary Road — that it’s almost strange to see him in a leading role in the neo-noir The Missing Person (out now), in which he plays a troubled private detective tasked with tailing a man who reportedly went missing after 9/11. We’d better get used to it, though. Close on the heels of The Missing Person will be a lead role in Werner Herzog’s My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? Vulture caught up with Shannon last week to chat about The Missing Person, his days as a young actor, and how he likes to be directed.
Photo: Courtesy of Anvil
When we interviewed Anvil! The Story of Anvil director Sacha Gervasi back in April, he told us the documentary’s “happy ending … is what’s happening after the film.” And it’s true — since the movie’s release, the little metal band that could has played on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, been profiled on Nightline, and even toured with AC/DC. But one goal will go unfulfilled: Despite being the first screener sent out to Academy voters, last week Anvil! was left off the list of contenders for Best Documentary.
So we thought we'd subject the band to a different, possibly more relevant kind of judgment — that of its metalhead peers. We admit that we've wondered if Anvil truly is as great and influential as the doc portrays them to be — or were they perhaps the lucky recipients of a nostalgic cinematic reimagining?
Photo: Courtesy of AMPAS
Every week between now and February 2, when the nominations are announced, movies and stars will help themselves — or, sometimes, hurt themselves — in the Oscar race. Vulture's "Oscar Futures" will listen for insider gossip, comb the blogs, and out-and-out guess when necessary, to track who's up, who's down, and who's currently leading the race for a coveted nomination.
| Best Picture |  UP: Nine. For a movie this well pedigreed not to get a nomination, something would have to have gone terribly wrong. A "big response" at a SAG screening seemingly indicates that that hasn't happened. |
 DOWN: The Lovely Bones. An anonymous friend of Jeffrey Wells, who's seen the movie, says Peter Jackson's gone and made "What Dreams May Come, Part II." Yikes! |
|---|---|---|
| CURRENT PREDIX: Bright Star, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Invictus, Nine, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, A Serious Man, A Single Man, Up, Up in the Air | ||
Two current beefs — Beanie Sigel vs. Jay-Z and Matthew Friedberger vs. Beck/Radiohead — continued over the last few days in two appropriately disparate manners. Beans, having received no recorded response yet from his former supervisor, released another pair of unimpressive dis tracks (although one is sort of intensely called "How I Can Kill Jigga Man"). Meanwhile, Friedberger took a more passive-aggressive tack, writing a post titled "IMAGINARY RESPONSE" on the Fiery Furnaces' MySpace page, which has lines like "fans … must really be imagining things to admire the music acts they do." [2DopeBoyz, Pitchfork]
overnights, chat room, kudos, video, nbc, mad men, abc, twilight, quote machine, new moon, news reel, trailer mix, michael jackson, robert pattinson, slideshow, broadway, oscars, vampires, 2012, beef, hbo, this is it, 30 rock, cbs, curb your enthusiasm, fox, right-click, alec baldwin, chris weitz, james franco, jay-z, oprah, precious, v, glee, january jones, kristen stewart, lady gaga, oprahpocalypse, party lines
By Dan Brown, September 15, 2009
Copyright © 2009, New York Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Diddy's 40th-Birthday Celebration
Twilight: New Moon Premiere
MoMA Celebrates Tim Burton Exhibit
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee Screening
Safe At Home Foundation Gala
Ragtime Opening Night
Todd Oldham Creates Art Nerds With New Book
Cruz Is Irresistible in Broken Embraces
Emily Blunt Trades Prada for Prudery
Sarah Ruhl's In the Next Room Is Pure Pleasure
