Parents beware! Even if your children loved Carla Gugino in Spy Kids, you may not want them to catch her eye-popping role in Center of the World (which opens in select cities Friday before bowing nationwide on May 4). Directed by Wayne Wang, the film offers a shockingly realistic exploration of human sexuality. In fact, World turns heads so well that it's being released unrated to avoid the dreaded NC-17 label. (What's more, the film's racy poster was rejected by several of the nation's top daily newspapers.)
And Ms. Gugino — so wholesome as Spy Kids's comic secret-agent mom — adds spice to the racy mix by playing a hooker. "Playing a prostitute was a departure for me," Gugino tells TV Guide Online. "I did some research — strictly theoretical, of course — to get ready for the part. I find it really interesting to stretch the limits... doing something you've never done before, not knowing if you can really pull it off
read more
Ailing talk show host Rosie O'Donnell will host Nickelodeon's Kids' Choice Awards on Saturday after all. O'Donnell — who cancelled the gig when her doctors advised her not to fly as she recovers from a staph infection in her surgically repaired left hand — changed her mind because of her "dedication to kids," the Los Angeles Times reports. Meanwhile, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch star Caroline Rhea will meet with Warner Bros. execs this week to discuss the possibility of taking over O'Donnell's talk show when she leaves next year, according to the New York Post.
read more
UPN has to be broken-hearted over the lackluster debut of its new reality show Chains of Love last night. According to preliminary Nielsen data, Chains came in dead last during the 8 pm hour — 30 percent below Buffy the Vampire Slayer and just six percent above the network's four-week average in that timeslot.
read more
Biting umbilical cords, pleasuring large beasts of burden, caning a woman in a wheelchair, chuckling at child abuse... Does Tom Green's directorial debut, Freddy Got Fingered, go too far? While Variety calls the film "very possibly the fitting end of the gross-out comedy cycle," Green argues that by pushing the limits, he's actually poking fun at the genre itself.
Musing on a scene that finds him cutting a newborn's umbilical cord with his teeth, Mr. Drew Barrymore offers: "I personally feel like I'm mocking gross-out comedy because it gets so gross, and then all of a sudden you're happy and everything's fine. People scream, cover their eyes, hide behind their knees, and then the calm comes and they start to laugh when it all works well in the end. I like that aftershock laugh — if they haven't walked out of the theater by then."
Some moviegoers may be spurred to do just that after sampling the violence between Green's character Gor
read more
Attorneys for Sharon Stone are no longer seeking a permanent restraining order against her stalker, The Associated Press reports. Last month, the actress got a temporary order against Agostino P'omato, 32 — who turned up on her doorstep in Los Angeles insisting he'd "come all the way from Italy to marry her." (Stone, for the record, is already wed to San Francisco Chronicle editor Phil Bronstein.) Legal action was halted after the mentally ill P'omato was taken home to Italy by his family.
read more
Even two big jackpot winners on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire could not ignite ABC for the week ending April 15, with CBS's "Must-Now-See" Thursday keeping the network on top with an average of 12.37 million viewers — 2.53 million more than ABC. Of the Big Three, NBC remained the weakest link, with 2.33 million less viewers than this week last year. Although consistency was the word at Fox, weblets UPN and the WB both dipped from year-ago viewing levels. The top five shows of the week were: Survivor: The Australian Outback, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Millionaire, CSI (repeat) and Everybody Loves Raymond.
read more
Country singer Reba McEntire — currently earning rave reviews for her turn as Annie Oakley in Broadway's Annie Get Your Gun — will star in and executive produce a CBS TV-movie version of the Irving Berlin revival, Variety reports. Since McEntire assumed the role from Bernadette Peters in January, ticket sales for the Broadway production have quadrupled. "It's a natural fit," said Howard Braunstein, an exec from Jaffe-Braunstein Films, which is producing the project. "She's the toast of Broadway right now. You don't see that very often — someone who defines a role like she has." Barring a prolonged actors' strike, the Annie pic could debut during February sweeps 2002.
read more
Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg stepped down from a Boy Scouts of America advisory board apparently in response to the group's ban on gays. In a statement, Spielberg said he was saddened to see "the Boy Scouts of America actively and publicly participating in discrimination... To avoid any further misunderstanding, I have chosen to decline another term on the advisory board."
read more
Talk about a crossover event! An NBC spokesperson confirms that original Survivor contestants Richard Hatch, Susan Hawk, Dr. Sean Kenniff, Ramona Gray, Gretchen Cordy and Joel Klug will compete on a special episode of The Weakest Link to air sometime during May sweeps. Hosted by fierce British taskmistress Anne Robinson, the quiz show bears a striking similarity to the cutthroat competition on Palau Tiga — it calls for a contestant to be voted off at the end of each round. According to Access Hollywood, the payback will begin with Survivor victor Hatch being the first player voted off! TV Guide Online caught up with Hatch last night at the 12th annual GLAAD Media Awards in New York, but the slimmed-down conspirator wouldn't confirm that he was the weakest of Weakest. "I wonder if that's true," he hedged. "Wouldn't that be fun!" Meanwhile, last night's premiere of The Weakest Link proved to b
read more
Aaron Sorkin, the Emmy-winning creator and executive producer of NBC's The West Wing, was arrested Sunday at Burbank Airport after security guards found a quantity of hallucinogenic mushrooms in his carry-on bag, Electronic Media reports. Sorkin was apparently attempting to catch a Southwest Airlines flight from Burbank to Las Vegas when he was nabbed. Airport spokesman Victor Gill said the acclaimed writer-producer was charged with possession of a controlled substance and released on his own recognizance after posting $10,000 bail. Sorkin — who is scheduled to be arraigned April 30 — released the following statement: "I am glad to be surrounded by such a supportive group of people and am prepared to proceed as directed by my attorney and in the best interest of my family."
read more