Dead wrong hoaxes

Earlier this year it was Tom Cruise, then Miley Cyrus. And now this week, it's Larry Gelbart, two-time Oscar nominee and co-creator of the Emmy-winning TV series "M*A*S*H" and sitcom vet Paul Reiser. Not Reiser! Nooooooooo!

Who are these morbid Internet vandals with nothing better to do than hack into Wikipedia and kill off our Hollywood celebs? One such death wisher wrote the following:

"On December 27th, 2008, Reiser was discovered dead in the Squallahassee River where he reportedly enjoyed fly fishing. No foul play was suspected."

Former Emmy-nominated "Mad About You" star Reiser is not, in fact, dead (we don't know if he's a fly fisher).

And a couple days ago, a blog called alt.obituaries said Gelbart was "gravely ill" and had suffered "a massive stroke," freaking out his old friends Woody Allen and Alan Alda when they heard the "news."

It's not the first time two-time Tony-winner Gelbart has been prematurely bumped off, he told the L.A. Times, citing a radio report from a few years back. Turns out, Gelbart is very much alive and nearing his 81st birthday. And he had the best line of the day in response to his demise:

"Does that mean I can stop exercising?"

Mentalist picks Penn, Cruz

 

Why are we and all our Oscar prognosticating brethren watching hours worth of Important Films and going through rounds and rounds of carefully considered awards picks when we could just consult with "mentalist to the stars" and "corporate event entertainer" Sidney Friedman?

Friedman, aka "Sidney Seer," appeared on "The Today Show" a few minutes ago, predicting with somewhere between 62% and 78% certainty that Sean Penn will win the best actor Oscar.

So, take that all you Clint Eastwood boosters.

Friedman -- whose performances come with a money-back guarantee! -- has a track record that includes predicting Martin Scorsese's 2007 best director Oscar -- just like everyone did -- but was confounded last year by Marion Cotillard's win over Julie Christie for best actress.

Along with picking Penn, who's already an odds-on favorite, Friedman singled out another safe bet, saying Penelope Cruz will take home the award for best supporting actress. He also admitted he doesn't bother to see the movies until they air on TV, you know, a couple years later.

He's out there living his tagline, people: "When you absolutely, positively must thrill your audience." Really, they love him at John Deere.

The non-entertainment-industry insights he shared today included continued foreclosures and recession in '09 -- really? -- during which people will try to come up with great ideas to dig themselves out of the dumps. 

So is this guy reading the tea leaves or watching the news?

Mario Cantone tickles 'Today'

Gee, Hoda Kotb never seems to be having nearly this much fun with Kathie Lee.

Let us suggest comedian/actor/Tony nominee and all-around caustic wise-ass Mario Cantone as a permanent replacement for the often-miserable Gifford on the 18th final hour of "The Today Show."

His reaction this morning to the news that the fake Holocaust memoir from Herman Rosenblat won't be published was priceless (see: Oprah impression). If anyone could possibly find humor in this story, it's Cantone. Bravo, sir!

In other bits today...

Did Mickey Rourke really slam Sean Penn? Background in shorthand: Rourke supposedly sent "an entertainment honcho" a text calling Penn a homophobe and saying he's an average actor who might be no competition at all come Oscar time.

Is any of this sourced, verified or fact-checked? Just because someone at the new grasping-for-attention Tina Brown project, The Daily Beast, says it's true, does that mean it is?

Pick it apart yourselves here and know that plenty of others are doing the same.

Sleep well tonight knowing that "The Terminator" will be safe forever in the annals of celluloid history, thanks to the Library of Congress, which has added 25 movies to its National Film Registry. That brings the total to 500.

Among the others chosen: the World War I drama "Sergeant York" with Gary Cooper, a home movie called "Disneyland Dream" about the opening of the Anaheim park in 1956, and the rednecks-on-a-rampage cautionary tale, "Deliverance," from 1972.

More on the annual rite, along with a look into the decision-making process, here.

Oscar for Eastwood, the actor?

 

He growls and scowls for the duration of the two-hour movie, and his is a polarizing, openly bigoted, racist, crusty character with, as it turns out, a heart not so far underneath.

If you walk into "Gran Torino" knowing that -- or better yet, embracing it -- you might really feel drawn to the movie, as we did, and Clint Eastwood's compelling performance in it.

Does that mean the iconic Eastwood deserves an Oscar nomination for his work here? Never mind that he's said, not so definitively, that this could be his last acting gig.

The question has kept critics and bloggers busy lately, with folks like the Village Voice's Michael Musto, Variety's Anne Thompson, InContention's Kris Tapley and a few others saying that not only will Eastwood be nominated but he'll win.

Over Sean Penn? Over Frank Langella and Mickey Rourke?

We're still, at this point, casting our vote for Penn, no matter what kind of dustup he might be causing by airing his personal politics. We see Langella as a strong second choice but think Rourke, despite the riveting performance he gave as an on-the-ropes grappler in "The Wrestler," won't appeal to enough Academy voters to put him on top.

(We like Jeff Wells' recent post at HollywoodElsewhere that says he's perhaps more taken with "the idea" of Mickey Rourke than with the actor himself. Don't we all love a glorious comeback from a notorious badass?)

Encyclopedic awards guru Tom O'Neil points out that several A-list actor/directors like Eastwood have hit pay dirt for their behind the camera efforts without ever having won an actor trophy. In fact, "no actor who's won an Oscar for directing has ever prevailed in a performance category." That includes Robert Redford, Warren Beatty and Woody Allen. O'Neil thinks Eastwood, already a four-time Oscar winner for directing and producing, will continue that run, and we agree.

Go here to check in on a crop of current Oscarologist picks, including ours, and see how many people have now jumped on our Richard Jenkins bandwagon. Copiers!

Beating up Ben Lyons

The guy's a tool, a real doofus. An ignoramus, even. Everybody thinks so.

Get a load of some of the criticism, and boy, we're using that term loosely, spewing forth from journalists, bloggers and other media types in an L.A. Times hatchet job mighty unflattering profile on Ben Lyons, half of the new-ish hosting team on what was once the venerable syndicated TV show, "At the Movies." (The revered Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, then Richard Roeper, used to occupy the space).

Here's Lyons, subjected to some blunt force trauma:

"His integrity's out the window. He has no taste."

"He seems to be doing the show more because he wants to be on TV than because he has something to say about the movies."

"His approach is to throw out blurbs just so he can get on a poster."

As opposed to many stories that attack their subject -- surprised that Lyons declined to be interviewed? -- all the haters are named, right beside their soul-withering quotes in the story that ran prominently on the front of Sunday's Calendar section. Nothing anonymous here, which just proves the point that journalists often save their most venomous attacks for those they identify as poseurs, especially those who would try to muscle in on the Fourth Estate.

Not that Lyons didn't have it coming, trotting out his sophomoric reviews, quote whoring and star chasing at a time when the country's seasoned film critics at major publications are losing their jobs at a record pace. Credentials? Who needs 'em!

Just sour grapes because he has a cushy, high-profile job? 

Decide for yourself -- ratings have fallen double digits since Lyons and the less offensive Ben Mankiewicz took over -- but don't say we didn't warn you that it'll be a sound bite-y waste of a half hour. Or go here for some excruciating dissection of Lyons' film critiquing "chops."

Best celeb slapfights of '08

In case you miss "Celebrity Deathmatch" -- not sure you should admit that out loud -- there were a number of non-claymation bitch fights among Hollywood royalty this year that provided a steady stream of entertainment for the bloodthirsty among us.

Hat tip to Defamer for summing up 10 standouts, among them Emmy-winner and Broadway-quitter Jeremy Piven vs. "Speed-the-Plow" writer David Mamet, David Letterman vs. John McCain (no doubt who got in the most body blows there) and a vacationing Nikki Blonsky vs. "Top Model" contestant Bianca Golden (the details of that one just never get any easier to read).

Overlooked? Current boxoffice champ Jennifer Aniston vs. Angelina Jolie, Russell Brand vs. The Jonas Brothers (and purity ring wearers everywhere), and 20th Century Fox vs. Warner Bros. over the rights to the much-anticipated "Watchmen."

For the latest on that convoluted legal matter, go here and see how Fox may pull off a $50 million coup.

Dr. Horrible, Hulu make AFI list

 

Odds-on Oscar favorite "Slumdog Millionaire," Emmy hunter/gatherer Tina Fey, ground-breaking musical webisodes from Joss Whedon and Barack Obama's historic election all have something in common, because the AFI says they do.

Members of the American Film Institute, list-makers extraordinaire, have compiled the eight "Moments of Significance in Film, TV and the Web" for 2008 and, oddly, didn't include the smack-Bush-with-a-shoe game. Oversight!

What made the grade? The aforementioned rags-to-riches-with-torture-along-the-way tale, "Slumdog," which was left off the AFI's 10 best movies of the year because it's a British, not American, production. A make good? No real criticism here, since the Mumbai-set drama deserves all the wet kisses it's getting.

Fey was honored for her Emmy-winning "30 Rock" and her scary accurate Sarah Palin impersonation on "Saturday Night Live," as was Whedon for "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" with an adorably pitch-perfect Neil Patrick Harris.

Read the rest (hint: Hulu) here.

Not to be outdone in the list-making arena, THR's film critics have chosen their best-of for '08, and it's a mixed bag of boxoffice behemoths like "The Dark Knight" and "WALL-E" along with indies "The Visitor," "Frozen River" and "Paranoid Park" and foreign-language flicks such as "The Edge of Heaven" and "Waltz With Bashir."

Check here for the full kudos.

The 'Notting Hill' effect on your love life

 

Not only can watching rom-coms like "Maid in Manhattan" and "You've Got Mail" rot your brain, but it can also throw a wrench in your love life.

So says a study from U.K. researchers, which found that folks who subject themselves to sappy meet-cute happily-ever-after movies have unrealistic and/or unhealthy expectations of real-life love. The Brit press has helpfully dubbed it "the 'Notting Hill' effect" after that 1999 Golden Globe-nominated flick.

Ah, another reason to point the finger at Hugh Grant. J'accuse!

Well, we could've saved the Family and Personal Relationships Laboratory at Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh some paperwork and trouble and just shared that insight with them after a viewing this summer of the delightful brain poison that is "Sex and the City: The Movie." It follows in a long line of ridiculous but highly enjoyable flicks where girl gets swept off feet by "Perfect Man." Lots of fun, sure, but lots of brainwashing. We need a scientific study to tell us that?

Head researcher Dr. Bjarne Holmes thinks the cautionary head's-up bears repeating:

"We are not being killjoys -- we are not saying that people shouldn't watch these movies. But we are saying that it would be helpful if people were more aware and more critical of the messages in these films."

For more heartbreaking findings -- including an incongruous "Serendipity" vs. David Lynch face off -- go here.

Reel Geezer reviews

Who cares if the Reel Geezers confuse Woody Harrelson with James Woods? They're delightful! 

In case the current crop of Nazi films don't tickle your family's holiday movie fancy, here are some old school (and we mean that literally) reviews of newly available DVDs that could keep at least some of the post-dinner slapfighting to a minimum. 

In short, the Geezers agreed with your resident Gold Rusher in digging "Transsiberian," a little-seen but well-reviewed and very engaging thriller with Harrelson (not Woods), Emily Mortimer, Kate Mara and Eduardo Noriega on a train across snowbound Russia. Ben Kingsley joins up as a shady cop. They also liked Werner Herzog's "Encounters at the End of the World," which is short-listed for the best documentary Oscar, and -- surprise! -- "Young@Heart."

Solid recommendations, all (if you overlook that "Mummy 3" rave). And more where those came from here.

The high cost of Oscar

If Hollywood studios will fork over $70 million to market a movie, should it come as a surprise that the majors will shell out upwards of $15 million in the all-consuming quest for major awards?

Ever since Harvey Weinstein, back in the Miramax days, started his tsunami-like Oscar wave, everyone's wondered just how that's done.

For a rare peek under the kimono of the Specialists, that would be those awards publicists who craft Oscar campaigns that can lead the obscure to the gold, spending a lot of dough along the way, go here.

In other pre-holiday bits today:

For those who thought the full monty Jason Segel was the most memorable moment in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," well then, you just didn't see the same movie we did. Nor could you have been as moved as we were by "Dracula's Lament," where the unceremoniously dumped character let his (horror) musical flag fly.

The instant camp classic is one of 49 songs eligible to compete in February's Oscar race for best original song. Among the others: Clint Eastwood's raspy "Gran Torino" from the drama of the same name, Bruce Springsteen's "The Wrestler" from the gritty Mickey Rourke grappler story, "Rock Me Sexy Jesus," one of the best things about "Hamlet 2," and a whole boatload of "High School Musical 3: Senior Year" ditties. Full list here.

If there's such a thing as a Queasy Underage Sweepstakes for this season's awards flicks, we'll step up and declare the winner. It's "The Reader!" Kate Winslet's misguided justifications be damned, this is hands down the child molesting-est film -- Awards Caliber or otherwise -- that we've seen in a very long time. Ick! And by the way, you don't even want to know what this trophy looks like.