DJ AM Spins Separate Plane Crash Suit

DJ AM has spun his own version of the tragic events that unfolded in September.
The celebrity mix maestro, severely injured along with Travis Barker in a private-jet crash that killed four others, has filed a negligence lawsuit against the aircraft and tire manufacturers and the three charter companies he believes share responsibility for the accident.
While Barker filed a similar suit last month, Adam "DJ AM" Goldstein is also going after the estates of Sarah Lemmon and James Bland, the pilots who died in the crash.
DJ AM's complaint, filed Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, contends that Lemmon and Bland were aware that one or more of the jet's tires had failed as they approached takeoff speed.
But, "rather than proceed to takeoff, they decided to abort and/or reject the takeoff in a negligent manner," the suit states, per documents obtained by TMZ.com.
The plane ultimately overshot the runway and crossed an adjacent highway before crashing into an embankment.
The defendants named in the suit also include Clay Lacy Aviation, which has denied having anything to do with the plane Barker and DJ AM booked; Global Exec Aviation; Inter Travel and Services Inc. (reportedly the company that owned the plane); Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.; and Learjet.
DJ AM, who suffered second- and third-degree burns to his upper body and head, is seeking unspecified punitive damages and compensation for pain and suffering, lost earnings, property damage, and past and future medical and health-related expenses.
The National Transportation Safety Board is also investigating the circumstances surrounding the Sept. 19 crash but a report isn't expected until the middle of next year

Demi Lovato: Wrench in the "La La Land" Machine

Mocking Hollywood phonies is always cool by us, and bonus points to Demi Lovato for doing it while rocking out in admirable form. Skewering the "La La Land" machine with sass and grit, Disney's latest everygirl rock star seems like she might eventually give Miley Cyrus a real run for her money.
But what say you: Is Demi's "La La Land" going to be a big radio youthquake or just another Hollywood fake? Hit us back in the comments section and give us your take.

Oscar Watch: Can Dark Knight Fans Make the Difference?

Coolest New Campaign (That's Not Costing Warner Bros. a Dime): Dark Campaign, a self-described grassroots effort to score a Best Picture nomination for The Dark Knight, complete with custom ads and posters.
So Why Does a Studio-Backed Megablockbuster Need a Helping Fan Hand? "Because it's a genre flick, I think it needs the extra voice of all the moviegoers who loved it saying, 'Yes, it's a superhero movie, but it's also an incredible film that deserves to be considered among the best,' " the site's Blair Erickson said in an email.
You Could Be Next, Watchmen: While Erickson's a creative director at a media firm that's done business with Warners, his Dark Campaign is billed as strictly a fan thing. "But if the WB marketing department is reading this," he said, "and wants some help with Terminator: Salvation or Watchmen…nudge nudge."
If Austin, Texas, Ruled the World, Fan Campaigns Wouldn't Be Necessary: The area's film critics named The Dark Knight best picture.
Spoiling Milk's Shot? Yes, Sean Penn's practically sweeping the critics awards (Dallas, Houston, Phoenix—to name three recent wins), but critics don't vote for the Oscars. Readers of The Advocate, however, may. The gay magazine published an online commentary praising Penn's performance in Milk, but taking him to task for his embrace of "antigay dictators" Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro.
If Not Penn, Then…? The Wrestler's Mickey Rourke basically picked up whatever critics awards Penn didn't (Chicago, San Diego, included). The two men tied in San Francisco and Boston. But again, critics don't cast Oscar ballots.
Rourke's Other Issues: For one thing, the Los Angeles Times slammed The Wrestler—hard. (Not the sort of P.R. the movie, or the Oscar campaign, needs in its hometown newspaper, as the hometown newspaper itself pointed out.) For another thing, The Hollywood Reporter suggested Rourke might be a bit too out there on the Oscar campaign trail.
Then Again, Maybe Rourke's Onto Something: The same Reporter article notes character actor Richard Jenkins has been working the Oscar circuit hard, too, on behalf of himself and his art-house hit, The Visitor. If you're unfamiliar with Jenkins, check out the Screen Actors Guild Awards next month—he'll be the character actor up for a best actor trophy

Tom Cruise Gets Good Head on Hollywood Boulevard

We know you wouldn't want to wait till Monday night to see Tom Cruise going Cruise-azy on Jimmy Kimmel Live, so we've got a preview. Jimmy sets Top Gun loose on Hollywood Boulevard to tap as many noggins as he can in a goofy game of tag. Don't ask why, just enjoy the silly.

SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY!!!

More funny videos like the "Bush: "Sunday Bloody Sunday"" at Heavy.com

Heath Ledger, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie Rate SAG Noms

The Heath Ledger Oscar moment seems ever closer.
The late Dark Knight star earned the near-mandatory Screen Actors Guild nomination as the field for the 15th annual SAG Awards was revealed this morning.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were among the other top film nominees.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Doubt, Frost/Nixon, Milk and Slumdog Millionaire will vie for SAG's equivalent of Oscar's Best Picture honor: Best motion-picture ensemble.
Ledger was nominated in the supporting actor category; Pitt and Jolie as best leads, for Benjamin Button and Changeling, respectively.
The Dark Knight's cast, Leonardo DiCaprio and Clint Eastwood were among the snubbed

THE VERONICAS ON Z100!!!

AMAZING!!!!!!

Kate! Leo! Gloom! Doom! Can It Work?

RICHARD YATES’S 1961 novel, “Revolutionary Road,” is far from the kind of property that typically becomes a big Hollywood movie, especially one starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio in their first post-“Titanic” outing together. For one thing, the book is set back in the mid-20th century — an era that, until “Mad Men” came along to exhume it, was thought to have about as much entertainment potential as the Bronze Age. The story requires armies of boring fedora-wearing commuters to disembark from Grand Central every morning. The characters wear dopey clothes and drive boatlike cars, and everyone drinks and smokes too much — even pregnant women.

François Duhamel/DreamWorks LLC
Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio in Sam Mendes’s film “Revolutionary Road,” based on a novel by Richard Yates.
Nor does it help that “Revolutionary Road” is among the bleakest books ever written. It ends unhappily, with a gruesome death, and neither of the main characters is entirely likable to begin with. Partly autobiographical, the novel tells the story of Frank and April Wheeler, who in the mid-1950s move with their two children to the ’burbs (the movie was shot on location in Darien, Conn., a good deal more upscale than the Wheelers’ town) and from the minute they get there hold themselves apart.

On no particular evidence the Wheelers consider themselves full of unrealized potential. Frank (drawing on Yates’s experience as a sometime copywriter for Remington Rand) works for Knox Business Machines at what he calls “the dullest job you can possibly imagine,” but thinks of himself as an intellectual, an “intense, nicotine-stained Jean-Paul Sartre sort of man.”

April, like Yates’s first wife, Sheila, has theatrical aspirations, and it’s she who comes up with the solution to their depressing, unfulfilled lives: they’ll chuck everything and move to Paris, where she’ll get a well-paying secretarial job until Frank “finds” himself. For Frank, who has meanwhile begun a grubby affair with a young woman at the office, the plan is an agreeable pipe dream, but April is in deadly earnest about it, and the marriage proceeds to unravel with the inexorableness of Greek tragedy. Watching them is like rubbernecking at a car wreck.

“I’m pretty surprised it ever got made,” Blake Bailey, Yates’s biographer, said recently about the movie version, scheduled to open Dec. 26. “It has long been an ambition in Hollywood to make a movie that’s the last word on postwar suburban malaise, but like any highly nuanced work of literary art, ‘Revolutionary Road’ is awfully hard to translate onto the screen.”

By all accounts, that the movie did get made is owing mostly to the drive and enthusiasm of Ms. Winslet, who was taken with the script from the moment she read it. “I loved the emotional nakedness, the brutal honesty about what can sometimes happen in a marriage,” she said in an interview. “And also all the minor characters are so good.”

She began lobbying Mr. DiCaprio, she recalled, after slipping him the script over coffee, and she also worked on Sam Mendes, the director. He was an easier sell in some ways, because he happens to be her husband. “I just told him, ‘Babe, you’ve got to do this,’ ” Ms. Winslet said.

What none of the principals knew then is that for all its gloominess, or maybe even because of it, “Revolutionary Road” is a novel cherished by a passionate and protective coven of admirers (including, incidentally, Matthew Weiner, the creator of “Mad Men”) who pass it along, the novelist Richard Ford has said, like a secret literary handshake. They cherish its honesty, its uncompromising exactness, the austere beauty of its prose.

But despite its many champions, the book has slipped in and out of print, never quite catching on with a wider audience, and it would probably amuse and irritate the author in equal measure to know that it has been reissued in a movie tie-in edition. (There is also a new Everyman’s Library omnibus volume that includes “The Easter Parade,” another of Yates’s novels, and “Eleven Kinds of Loneliness,” a collection of stories.)

Though he would have hated the term, Yates was a writer’s writer, or even a writer’s writer’s writer. He was extravagantly admired by his peers and by many critics; but popular success, which he cared about more than he let on, maddeningly eluded him. He was dogged by bad luck — “Revolutionary Road,” his first novel and also his best, was a finalist for the 1962 National Book Award but lost to “The Moviegoer” by Walker Percy — and bad timing. At a time when postmodernism and meta-fiction were starting to become fashionable, he clung to the realist tradition of his models Fitzgerald and Flaubert.

Yates could also be his own worst enemy, courtly and cavalier at times but at other times bitter and self-inflated, and after the breakup of two marriages he became almost a caricature of the alcoholic, self-destructive American writer. Gaunt and stooped, perpetually broke, he lived in a series of rented rooms in New York, Boston and Tuscaloosa, Ala., with squashed cockroaches underfoot. By the end of his life he was doing little else but smoke (even when attached to an oxygen tank), cough, drink and write. He died in 1992 at 66, though he seemed much older.

Yates used to say he hated the movies. But like so many Americans of his generation he was imaginatively shaped by them, and like a lot of writers in search of extra money he did a couple of purgatorial stints in Hollywood. He adapted William Styron’s “Lie Down in Darkness” for John Frankenheimer — the film was never made, but the script was good enough to be printed, years later, in a literary magazine — and he got a screenwriting credit (though he disowned it) for the 1969 war film “The Bridge at Remagen.” Near the end of his life he even tried some scripts for David Milch, a former student who was then producing “Hill Street Blues.”

So he knew his way around Hollywood sufficiently to be skeptical about the movie prospects of “Revolutionary Road.” Right after the book came out, Sam Goldwyn Jr. expressed interest. But Yates wrote later: “Cooler heads in his organization decided that the moviegoing public ‘is not ready for a story of such unrelieved tragedy.’ ... Sic transit the hell Gloria.

Nicole Richie, Joel Madden & Tila Tequila Do DCMA

Feel like you don't get out enough? Check out this exclusive clip featuring Tila Tequila revealing who she's bringing home for Christmas, not to mention Nicole Richie and Joel Madden taking their leave, and you'll be right in the mix of parties, paparazzi and pretty people at DCMA on Melrose in Hollywood

Reeves' Reveals Extraterrestrial Beliefs

Keanu Reeves is sure there is life on other planets, insisting it's "crazy" to think extraterrestrials don't exist.

The actor stars in forthcoming sci-fi movie The Day The Earth Stood Still, and the filming experience left him wondering about alien beings.

He says, "I.ve met people who have seen UFOs but I don.t know anyone who has been abducted. How could there not be life on other planets? The universe is so vast.

"I guess a lot of people won.t believe in extraterrestrial life until they see evidence, until an alien lands in Central Park like my character does in the film, but the idea that life doesn.t exist anywhere but here is crazy."

Live @ 10pm pst (Christmas Telethon)

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Demi Lovato Wears Bracelets, Doesn't Cut Herself

Demi Lovato is a cut above this latest rumor.
Responding to an innocent musing from blogger Perez Hilton that Selena Gomez's BFF could be self-mutilating, a rep for Lovato tells E! News that the allegation is "completely false."
"Demi was wearing gummy bracelets just prior to her appearance on the red carpet and, because of how tight they were, they left indentations on her wrist," publicist Allison Leslie says, referring to a zoomed-in pic showing a few thin red marks on the inside of the 16-year-old's wrist.
And, considering the controversial photo was taken on the red carpet at Miley Cyrus' 16th birthday party (the one on Oct. 5, not to be confused with all her other B-day parties this year), Perez's suggestion that maybe the Disney Channel queen dug her claws into the the Camp Rock darling is probably nothing but wishful thinking on his part

Album review: Brandy's 'Human'

Brandy hasn't released a new album since 2004's "Afrodisiac," but she's hardly spent the last four years in obscurity: In 2006 the 29-year-old singer-actor was involved in a traffic accident on the 405 Freeway that killed another driver, and though she's been cleared of all criminal charges, she still faces a $50-million wrongful-death suit filed by the dead woman's family.

Given its moody melodies and midtempo beats -- not to mention lyrics like, "I make mistakes but I can't turn back time / I'm only human, forgive me," from the title track -- it's hard not to hear "Human" as Brandy's musical response to that experience.

Unfortunately, it's also hard to make it through the thing. Brandy's strong suit has never been her thoughtfulness; appropriately for someone with her Hollywood history, she's long been one of R&B's emptiest vessels, a gorgeous voice used by a series of gifted producers (including Rodney Jerkins, Timbaland and Kanye West) to communicate their own unique ideas.

In "I Tried," one of the best cuts on "Afrodisiac," when Brandy sings about wanting to hear some Coldplay, Timbaland ingeniously weaves an interpolation of the band's music into the track.

On "Human" you can hear Brandy striving (understandably) to express herself, yet the result rarely rises above diary-entry tedium. "The whole world is freezing / Need to warm it up with love," she pleads at one point. The few highlights come when Jerkins, who helmed most of the album, including the catchy lead single, "Right Here [Departed]," manages to dial down Brandy's introspection and increase the groove factor.

Macaulay Culkin's sister, Dakota, killed by car

Macaulay Culkin's sister died Wednesday after being struck by a car.

According to TMZ, law enforcement sources say that Dakota Culkin was walking on Los Angeles' Westside on Tuesday when she stepped off a curb and was struck by a car.

Macaulay's rep says: "We can officially confirm that the victim is Dakota Culkin. This is a terrible tragic accident. We have no further comment at this time."

The 29-year-old Culkin was taken to the UCLA Medical Center, where she died of her injuries Wednesday afternoon.

So far, no arrests have been made in the case, which is under investigation by the LAPD.

I have no words. This is terrible, terrible news.

And I hate to bring this up, but this is the third actor who has lost a family member violently in recent weeks.

First, Jennifer Hudson's brother, mother and nephew; then Mark Ruffalo's brother, Scott; now McCauley Culkin's sister, Dakota.

Creepy. And very sad

L.A. Dispatch: Globes Shower Love on “Benjamin Button,” “Frost/Nixon”

A gloomy Hollywood put aside a dismal economy and a worsening labor spat between studios and actors Thursday morning to focus on the fluff of who got Golden Globe nominations – and some big names that didn’t.

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” the Brad Pitt drama about a man who ages backwards, and “Frost/Nixon,” Ron Howard’s screen version of the Peter Morgan play, each nabbed five nominations, in nearly all the major categories. “Benjamin Button” was nominated in categories including best actor in a drama (Mr. Pitt), best dramatic picture, best director (David Fincher) and best screenplay (Eric Roth). The “Frost/Nixon” nominations included ones for best dramatic picture, best actor in a drama (Frank Langella), best director (Ron Howard), best screenplay (Mr. Morgan).

“Revolutionary Road,” meanwhile, captured nominations for best dramatic picture, best actor in a drama (Leonardo DiCaprio), best actress in a drama (Kate Winslet) and best director (Sam Mendes), and was immediately thrust into the middle of the award season’s center stage. ”

But Hollywood will focus as much on what was shut out, and there were several surprises. “Doubt” was also nominated in five categories (including Meryl Streep for best actress in a drama), but failed to make the list of the best film drama nominees. “Australia,” the epic drama starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, was shut out completely of the major categories, a terrible harbinger for its Oscar hopes. “Milk,” the biopic starring Sean Penn as the late gay rights activist Harvey Milk, was not nominated for best picture even though it has been touted as a lock for one at the Oscars.

Joining “Benjamin Button” and “Revolutionary Road” in the best dramatic picture category were “Frost/Nixon,” “The Reader” and “Slumdog Millionaire.”

The nominations were announced by the actresses Brooke Shields and Elizabeth Banks and the actors Terrence Howard and Rainn Wilson, in addition to Jorge Camara, the president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. By themselves, the Globe nominations are not deeply meaningful, but they are important for gaining momentum in the Oscar race. And while the Golden Globes are not necessarily predictive of the Academy Awards, the best-picture Oscar has mirrored the association’s choice for best drama or best comedy/musical in 14 of the last 21 years.

The Golden Globes, which turned into a glorified press conference last year due to the screenwriters’ strike, will be presented on Jan. 11 at a ceremony to be broadcast on NBC. The Globes are not expected to be affected by the current standoff between the Screen Actors Guild and studios over a new contract, although the Academy Awards, scheduled for February, may not be as safe.

A full list of the nominees is after the jump.


FILM

BEST FEATURE - DRAMA
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“Frost/Nixon”
“The Reader”
“Revolutionary Road”
“Slumdog Millionaire”

BEST FEATURE - COMEDY
“Burn After Reading”
“Happy-Go-Lucky”
“In Bruges”
“Mamma Mia!”
“Vicky Cristina Barcelona”

ACTOR - DRAMA
Leonardo DiCaprio - “Revolutionary Road”
Frank Langella - “Frost/Nixon”
Sean Penn - “Milk”
Brad Pitt - “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Mickey Rourke - “The Wrestler”

ACTRESS - DRAMA
Anne Hathaway - “Rachel Getting Married”
Angelina Jolie - “Changeling”
Meryl Streep - “Doubt”
Kristin Scott Thomas - “I’ve Loved You So Long”
Kate Winslet - “Revolutionary Road”

ACTOR - COMEDY OR MUSICAL
Javier Bardem - “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
Colin Farrell - “In Bruges”
James Franco - “Pineapple Express”
Brendan Gleeson - “In Bruges”
Dustin Hoffman - “Last Chance Harvey”

ACTRESS - COMEDY OR MUSICAL
Rebecca Hall - “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
Sally Hawkins - “Happy-Go-Lucky”
Frances McDormand - “Burn After Reading”
Meryl Streep - “Mamma Mia!”
Emma Thompson - “Last Chance Harvey”

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Tom Cruise, “Tropic Thunder”
Robert Downey Jr., “Tropic Thunder”
Ralph Fiennes, “The Duchess”
Philip Seymour Hoffman, “Doubt”
Heath Ledger, “The Dark Knight”

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams, “Doubt”
Penelope Cruz, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
Viola Davis, “Doubt”
Marisa Tomei, “The Wrestler”
Kate Winslet, “The Reader”

BEST DIRECTOR
Danny Boyle, “Slumdog Millionaire”
Stephen Daldry, “The Reader”
David Fincher, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Ron Howard, “Frost/Nixon”
Sam Mendes, “Revolutionary Road”

SCREENPLAY - MOTION PICTURE
Simon Beaufoy, “Slumdog Millionaire”
David Hare, “The Reader”
Peter Morgan, “Frost/Nixon”
Eric Roth, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
John Patrick Shanley, “Doubt”

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
“The Baader Meinhof Complex” (Germany)
“Everlasting Moments” (Sweden)
“Gomorrah” (Italy)
“I’ve Loved You So Long” (France)
“Waltz with Bashir” (Israel)

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
“Bolt”
“Kung Fu Panda”
“Wall-E”

ORIGINAL SCORE
Alexandre Desplat– “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Clint Eastwood — “Changeling”
James Newton Howard — “Defiance”
A.R. Rahman — “Slumdog Millionaire”
Hans Zimmer — “Frost/Nixon”

ORIGINAL SONG
“Down to Earth” — “Wall-E” (Music by Peter Gabriel, Thomas Newman; Lyrics by Peter Gabriel)
“Gran Torino” — “Gran Torino (Music by Clint Eastwood, Jamie Cullum, Kyle Eastwood, Michael Stevens;
Lyrics by Kyle Eastwood, Michael Stevens)
“I Thought I Lost You — “Bolt” (Music & Lyrics by Miley Cyrus, Jeffrey Steele)
“Once in a Lifetime” — “Cadillac Records” (Music & Lyrics by Beyoncé Knowles, Amanda Ghost, Scott McFarnon, Ian Dench, James Dring, Jody Street)
“The Wrestler” — “The Wrestler” (Music & Lyrics by Bruce Springsteen)

TELEVISION

TELEVISION SERIES - COMEDY OR MUSICAL
“30 Rock”
“Californication”
“Entourage”
“The Office”
“Weeds”

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES -COMEDY OR MUSICAL
Christina Applegate - “Samantha Who?”
America Ferrera - “Ugly Betty”
Tina Fey - “30 Rock”
Debra Messing - “The Starter Wife”
Mary-Louise Parker - “Weeds”

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES -COMEDY OR MUSICAL
Alec Baldwin - “30 Rock”
Steve Carell - “The Office”
Kevin Connelly - “Entourage”
David Duchovny - “Californication”
Tony Shalhoub - “Monk”

TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA
“Dexter” (Showtime)
“House” (Fox)
“In Treatment” (HBO)
“Mad Men” (AMC)
“True Blood” (HBO)

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA
Sally Field — “Brothers and Sisters”
Mariska Hargitay — “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit”
January Jones — “Mad Men”
Anna Paquin — “True Blood”
Kyra Sedgwick — “The Closer

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA
Gabriel Byrne — “In Treatment”
Michael Hall — “Dexter”
Jon Hamm — “Mad Men”
Hugh Laurie — “House”
Jonathan Rhys Meyers — “The Tudors”

MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
“A Raisin in the Sun”
“Bernard and Doris”
“Cranford”
“John Adams”
“Recount”

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Judi Dench — “Cranford”
Catherine Keener — “An American Crime”
Laura Linney — “John Adams”
Shirley Maclaine — “Coco Chanel”
Susan Sarandon — “Bernard and Doris”

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Ralph Fiennes — “Bernard and Doris”
Paul Giamatti — “John Adams”
Kevin Spacey — “Recount”
Kiefer Sutherland — “24: Redemption”
Tom Wilkinson –”Recount”

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Eileen Atkins — “Cranford”
Laura Dern — “Recount”
Melissa George — “In Treatment”
Rachel Griffiths — “Brothers and Sisters”
Dianne Wiest — “In Treatment”

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Neil Patrick Harris — “How I Met Your Mother”
Denis Leary — “Recount”
Jeremy Piven — “Entourage”
Blair Underwood — “In Treatment”
Tom Wilkinson — “John Adams”

Brittny Gastineau EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

Brittny Gastineau EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW at Lance Bass DWTS tour kick-off party at Yamashiro Restaurant in Hollywood December 10, 2008.

Vinnie Jones Charged in Barroom Blitz

Juggernaut has been bombarded.
X-Men: The Last Stand actor Vinnie Jones was charged Wednesday with three counts of simple assault for brawling in a South Dakota bar last week.
The one-time pro soccer player (and notorious yellow-card acquirer) is scheduled to be arraigned Dec. 30 in Minnehaha County.
Jones was busted Dec. 4 at Wiley's Tavern in Sioux Falls after allegedly slugging a fellow patron. Or maybe not so allegedly: Authorities said that closed-circuit security footage shows the Snatch thesp repeatedly hitting 24-year-old Juan Barrera.
During the scrum, another bargoer, Jesse Bickett, busted Jones' nose with a beer glass—an injury that required a trip to a nearby hospital for stitches—but prosecutors opted not to press charges against Bickett, calling the fight a "mutual combat situation," according to the local Argus Leader.

Wendy and Lucy (2008)

Kelly Reichardt’s latest film, “Wendy and Lucy,” is 80 minutes long — it would fit inside Baz Luhrmann’s “Australia” twice, with room to spare — and does not contain a superfluous word or shot. Like “Old Joy” (2006), Ms. Reichardt’s modest and critically beloved second feature, “Wendy and Lucy” takes place mainly outdoors and registers the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest with unostentatious affection.


Instead of a musical soundtrack there is, for the most part, the sighing of the wind in the trees, the rumbling of freight trains and trucks and, sometimes, the absent-minded humming of Michelle Williams, who plays Wendy, a young woman drifting through Oregon and Washington on her way to Alaska.

The Northwestern setting might put you in mind of a story by Raymond Carver, whose clean-lined prose has something in common with Ms. Reichardt’s reserved and attentive shooting style. At first glance “Wendy and Lucy” looks so modest and prosaic that it seems like little more than an extended anecdote. A young woman pauses on her journey in a nondescript, weary town and encounters a run of bad luck, some of it brought about by her own bad decisions. Her car breaks down. She is arrested for shoplifting. Her dog goes missing.

But underneath this plain narrative surface — or rather, resting on it the way a smooth stone rests in your palm — is a lucid and melancholy inquiry into the current state of American society. Much as “Old Joy” turned a simple encounter between two longtime friends into a meditation on manhood and responsibility at a time of war and political confusion, so does “Wendy and Lucy” find, in one woman’s partly self-created hard luck, an intimation of more widespread hard times ahead.

This movie, which was shot in August 2007 and made its way through various international festivals before arriving in Manhattan on Wednesday, seems uncannily well suited, in mood and manner, to this grim, recessionary season. We may be seeing more like it, which I suppose would be a silver lining of sorts.

Ms. Reichardt, quietly establishing herself as an indispensable American filmmaker, explores some paradigmatic and contradictory native themes: the nature of solidarity in a culture of individualism; the tension between the lure of the open road and the longing for home; the competing demands of freedom and obligation. READ MORE

Abu Dhabi and a little T.I.

Alicia backstage before her show in Abu Dhabi.

Keanu Reeves On The Matrix

Keanu Reeves speaks about meeting the Wachowskis to discuss the prospect of starring in The Matrix. His comments were captured at the 2008 AFI Night At The Movies Event at Arclight Cinemas in Hollywood, CA

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december 8th, 8:00 p.m.
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A Symphony for YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/symphony
The London Symphony Orchestra plays the Internet Symphony No. 1 "Eroica" - for YouTube, conducted by Tan Dun