Celebrity News: The Band-Aid for Writer's Block

LIFE IMITATING ART?: Russell Crowe arrested Monday morning and charged with second degree assault after allegedly throwing a telephone at an employee at his Manhattan hotel.

The guy is just masterful. Seriously, who freaks out and throws a phone at someone's head? That's absolute psycho behavior. Yet despite the embarassing arrest and pictures of him walking out of the police station splashed across newspapers everwhere, he immediately hits the talk show circuit and kills whatever public ill will might have been percolating following the incident.

Crowe very earnestly apologizes on Letterman, the sincerity just oozing out of him. And people happily applaud and absolve him of his sins. "Hey, the guy may have a serious anger management problem and feels that he can abuse 'common folk' for the most trivial of reasons, but he seems like a pretty nice guy. And he sure does seem sorry about the whole thing. Plus, 'Cinderella Man' kicks ass!"

Hello, assholes!! The guy is an ACTOR!! He's convincingly played a retarded math genius and a Roman gladiator, so what makes you think he's not faking it when he claims to be "embarassed" by his actions and expresses his remorse? Being a celebrity doesn't mean never having to say you're sorry, but it does mean that you'll be forgiven quicker than Lindsey Lohan can snort up an 8-ball.


STORK WATCH: George Stephanopoulos and Ali Wentworth welcoming their second child, daughter Harper Andrea, Thursday morning in a Washington D.C. hospital.

I hope they're getting a paternity test done. "I don't know, George. Sometimes I just look at Ann and think she'd be the kinda chick that'd....unh. Oh, hell, I'm sorry man."


ON THE TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER: The release date for MGM/Sony's remake of The Pink Panther, starring Steve Martin, pushed back from Aug. 5 to Feb. 10.

I saw the preview for this one before 'Star Wars' and my immediate reaction was something between a dry heave and a wet fart. It looks utterly and completely awful, one of those "what the hell were they thinking"-type projects that make average people like me feel that movie executives are fortunate to work in an industry where stupidity is an asset. Everyone knows that trailers are the most deceptive bits of propaganda in existence, as a well done trailer can make even the biggest, most steaming pile of shit film look like a winner. So when a trailer, like the one for 'Pink Panther', makes the film look about as appealing as a one night stand with Paul Giamatti, it doesn't take a genius to predict that the film's grosses will settle somewhere between 'Heaven's Gate' and 'Gigli.'

I never found Steve Martin that funny (aside from "The Jerk" and parts of "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels"), but this is pretty clear evidence that he's entered Eddie Murphy territory. Maybe he hasn't picked up any transvestite hookers yet, but his career path is eerily similar to Murphy, who officially sold his soul to the devil before "Beverly Hills Cop II" and has been cranking out improbably high-grossing crap ever since. But I don't think even the Prince of Darkness can make 'Pink Panther' watchable.


BIG SCREEN BART: Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson in The Simpsons, telling BBC Radio 1 that a feature film version of the Fox cartoon series is in production. Cartwright said the film would take at least two years to complete.

While I'm still pretty certain this is going to be great, I'm having a bit of a hard time imagining how they're going to stretch a 22 minute show over an hour and a half. Will it translate to the big screen? Can the steady stream of brilliant pop culture references and industry in-jokes be sustained throughout an entire feature film?

The legion of 'Simpsons' fans is rabidly devoted, so they're taking a sizable risk with this project. I don't think a bad film will sink the franchise, but I would be surprised if the show goes on much longer if the movie flops. And I don't think I want to live in a world without 'The Simpsons.'


POSSIBLE MISSION: 'Mission: Impossible 3' finally scheduled to begin shooting July 18 in Italy. Recent reports had speculated that the project might not go forward due to budget concerns and intense negative press coverage of Tom Cruise.

I'm sick of talking about Tom since I'm still mad at him. But it's amazing what he's done to his career in the period of a few short weeks. The cat is out of the bag - the guy is nuts, and not just a mildly, Matthew McConaghey-type nuts. We're talking Brandoesque insanity.

This article details the finely-tuned spin machine that has worked overdrive to keep the wacky Cruise juggernaut afloat thus far. Clearly, the machine has broken down.


PROBLEM CHILD: Kelly Osbourne checking back into rehab to deal with some "personal issues," Us Weekly reports.

I don't understand, nor have I ever understood, the fascination with the Osbournes. During their heyday a few years ago, everyone LOVED that show and talked about it like it was the funniest damn thing since the John Waters episode of 'The Simpsons' ("I like my beer cold, my TV loud and my homosexuals FLAMING!!!"). I tried watching it a few times and couldn't get across how painful it was watching Ozzy putter around like a 90-year-old man in firmly in the grips of dementia. For Christ's sake, he's about 50 and has turned himself into a near-vegetable by abusing his body relentlessly. God knows there are still ants crawling around in that rotting brain (see #1). Really, gleefully watching Ozzie stumble around the house is not much different than walking through the Tenderloin pointing and laughing at some babbling bum wearing a tinfoil tiara who's just shit himself. And the bum probably speaks more intelligibly than Ozzie.

And are there any more ghastly beings on the planet than those two kids? Both are, in addition to being completely and utterly fugly, two of the most spoiled, obnoxious little shits on the planet. They scream, swear, fight, dope up and generally contribute NOTHING to the planet. Why oh why do people find it entertaining to watch them go about their shallow and pointless lives? I blame them for paving the path for the most detestable show ever to disgrace the tube: "My Super Sweet Sixteen", a show that makes me want to throw a telephone at my own head.

Anyway, in a few years the whole family will be completely ravaged by drug addiction and incapable of caring for themselves. They'll all putter around aimlessly, drooling, shitting themselves and muttering unintelligibly like lobotomized trolls. That's when I want to see MTV bring the cameras back for another season - "The Osbournes: The Incontinent Years." "Tune in next week when Jack drops a deuce on the rug and no one can summon the motor skills to clean it up."