I combined a couple of these stories into one post because they weren’t that interesting:

Billy Bob Thornton and the Rock
…are joining the cast of Faster. “The Rock plays Driver, an ex-con out to avenge his brother’s murder. Thornton plays Cop, a veteran policeman who trails Driver. Also in the mix is Killer, an egocentric hitman who’s after Driver. That role hasn’t been cast yet.”  I really hope those aren’t the character’s actual names, said Producer.  ...Would you ask Tom Petty if he was gonna be in a movie with The Rock? [Variety]

Emmanuelle Chriqui and Val Kilmer
…are set to star in Georgia, about the Russia-Georgia conflict last year.  I’m sure it will be historically accurate, because it’s being directed by Renny Harlin (12 Rounds, Driven, Deep Blue Sea, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane), whose movies are occasionally good by accident. [THR]

Ricky Gervais is hosting the Golden Globes
…which makes it a shame that the Golden Globes are such a sham.  It’s hard not to look corrupt when you honor a bunch of movies that hadn’t even been released when the nominations were announced.  But I like Ricky Gervais.  He’s one of the good ones. [HitFix]

And finally, this guy got a boner while looking at an Iron Man DVD:

Read the rest of this entry »

A contrite Billy Bob Thornton went on Jimmy Kimmel last night to apologize for being a total dick to that Canadian radio guy for basically no reason.  Ha, just kidding, he blamed it on the DJ, called everyone names, and laughed at us for being petty.

“Well first of all, the fact that that was news was astounding to me. It gave humpbacked geeks all over the world something to do for a couple of days.” [scattered laughter]

But after that he did express some remorse. Psyche!  Fooled you again!

“I do that all the time. It wasn’t the first time.”  [Thornton then talked about a show he did in Germany ten years ago in which the female host didn’t adhere to his requirements and he responded the same way]
“This woman said something that she wasn’t supposed to say and I told her that I receive signals from Venus from a metal plate in my head. Then of course you get calls from all your friends ‘are you ok?’ ‘Of course I’m ok. I told a DJ to kiss my ass, that’s all that happened….’  If I tell some guy who lied to me in my face to not say something, you know… it doesn’t make any sense to me, plus the fact that… it’s news?”

Hmmm, three names… lacks empathy… struggling musician… former actor… What else does this guy have to do before we lock him up, put on a clown suit and carve up a puppy?

[hat tip, celebitchy]

Billy Bob Thornton’s band, The Boxmasters, was forced to cancel the rest of their Canadian tour.  You may remember that during Thornton’s radio hissy fit he compared Canadian fans to “mashed potatoes with no gravy,” whatever the f*ck that means.

The Boxmasters opened for Willie Nelson on Thursday in Toronto, where they reportedly were booed and met with catcalls of “Here comes the gravy.”  A note posted on Nelson’s Web site Friday said the Boxmasters were canceling the rest of their Canadian dates “due to one band member and several of the crew having the flu.”

And if you believe that, I’ve got a dick-shaped microphone into which you might be interested in speaking.

“Canadian audiences seem to be very reserved,” Thornton had told interviewer Rian Ghomeshi. “We tend to play places where people throw things at each other. Here, they just sort of sit there. And it doesn’t matter what you say to ‘em. … It’s mashed potatoes but no gravy.”  Before his Thursday night gig, Thornton tried to clarify those remarks, saying he loved Canada and his “mashed potatoes” comment had been aimed at Ghomeshi. [Yahoo]

He also clarified that by “places where people throw things at each other,” he meant his bassist’s kitchen, the only venue they played stateside.  As it turns out, the kids hate peas.  And crappy music.

Billy Bob Thornton went on Canadian radio the other day to talk about his band. But when the host had the audacity to mention that Billy Bob Thornton was also an actor and Oscar-winning screenwriter, the interview was basically over as far as Billy Bob was concerned.  But instead of saying what he was mad about, he simply chose to act really weird prior to the inevitable meltdown.  Here’s the exchange starting at 5:17 of the interview:

INTERVIEWER (Jian Ghomeshi): And that was true for you Billy Bob?  Sort of a combination of Stones and Monkees and buck Owens?

BILLY BOB: …I just liked baseball when I was a kid.

INT: …Heh. And you almost became a professional baseball player, right?

BILLY BOB: I dunno.  …Maybe.

INT: You didn’t love music when you were a kid?

BILLY BOB: Uh… Uh… I subscribed to a magazine called Famous Monsters of Film Land.  The publisher was guy named Forrest J. Ackerman, who passed away recently.

INT: Do you remember what you were listening to musically, when you were a kid?

BILLY BOB: They had a contest, where you could build your own model, and it could be like a King Kong, or it could be anything… they made these plastic models in those days, that you could buy and then put together.  But this was like a thing you could create your own world of it.  Make telephone poles and make the railroad tracks and everything.  And uh.. I actually did enter it once.  I didn’t win anything.  But I gave it a shot.  It was a big deal for us kids in those days.

INT: Uh… and uh, where was the music in all that?

BILLY BOB: Uh… music?  No, it was a monster magazine.

INT: …Right.  But given that you seem to be quite passionate about music, I was wondering about your-

BILLY BOB: Would you say that about Tom Petty? [6:55 of the video]

Read the rest of this entry »

Bret Easton Ellis wrote Less Than Zero when he was 21 about growing up in L.A., then Rules of Attraction about his Northeastern private liberal arts college, and American Psycho about living in New York in his 20s.  He published The Informers a few years after that, a collection of short stories about L.A. in the 80s.  Ellis co-wrote the screenplay for the movie, directed by Two Hands (a fun Aussie movie, check it out if you haven’t seen it) director Gregor Jordan.  It premieres at Sundance this week and judging by the trailer, tells the story of what a fun time the 80s were, when guys with stupid hair did lots of drugs with naked chicks.  Anyway, like I said, something something drugs and naked chicks.