matt.mitovich

Lawsuit Turns "To Catch a Predator" Into Prey

Former Dateline producer Marsha Bartel alleges in a lawsuit filed against NBC that she was axed after blowing the whistle on improper journalistic practices going on behind the scenes at "To Catch a Predator." According to papers obtained by thesmokinggun.com, Bartel suggests that by paying vigilante group Perverted Justice to help with the series, the network has given it a "financial incentive to lie to trick targets of its sting." Further, when she told her boss about controversial comments made by PJ's founder, el jefe David Corvo reportedly responded, "We all know they're nuts." Law enforcement officials, Bartel adds, have at times had an idea of what justice entails that differs rather radically from what is shown on TV. She says she witnessed cops "goofing off by waving rubber chickens in the faces of sting targets while forcing them to the ground and handcuffing them." Natch, NBC has responded that "we believe this lawsuit is without merit." If I were being nailed for a mi...

Wed, May 30, 2007

Pot, Meet Kettle: Ozzy Pulls a Simon on Sanjaya

The New York Post reports that Ozzy Osbourne was to have appeared on last week's American Idol finale but backed out in the 11th hour upon learning that "he would have to do a duet with Sanjaya. Ozzy said he didn't want to be on stage with that idiot." Instead, Joe Perry of Aerosmith did the, um, honors.

Wed, May 30, 2007

New Testimony Delivers Another "Hit" to Music Legend Phil Spector

In the murder trial of "wall of sound" producer Phil Spector yesterday, a coroner testified that a bruise on the tongue of the late Lana Clarkson may have been caused by the gun being forced into her mouth before it was discharged. She also had contusions (thank you, Law & Order) on her right arm and wrist, and no history of depression or suicidal tendencies. Other than being the sort who'd go home with a crazy-ass-lookin' guy like Phil Spector.

Wed, May 30, 2007

Justin Timberlake Goes All Donald Trump On Us

If you ask me, this sounds about as awkward as a meeting in the ladies' room between Cameron Diaz, Jessica Biel and Scarlett Johansson. Justin Timberlake is starting his own label, Tennman Records (he's from Tennessee, dig?), but not with Jive/Sony BMG, to which he is signed as an artist. Instead, he's teaming up with Interscope, which is a division of Universal.

Wed, May 30, 2007

Miss Universe Ratings Are Pretty All Right... Pretty Bad

With a lineup of wall-to-wall reruns Monday night, CBS still came out on top, which was especially bad news for the Miss Universe pageant. With an audience of 7.1 million, it pulled its lowest numbers in more than a decade in the demo and it performed worse than it ever had in overall viewership. Ouch. (By comparison, Two and a Half Men, the night's No. 1 show, had an audience of 10.6 million.) Guess now that starlets go out pantyless, a swimsuit competition just isn't the draw that it used to be.

Wed, May 30, 2007

Business Matters: Dane Cook the New Bachelor?

Dane Cook is looking likely to land the lead in Bachelor No. 2, about a creep who gets paid to take girls out on dates that are so bad, they go running back to their exes.... David E. Kelley has scored frequent collaborator Thomas Schlamme (The West Wing) to direct the pilot for his ABC drama, Life on Mars.... Deadwood's John Hawkes has been cast as the brother of a baseball great turned substitute PE teacher in the Will Ferrell-produced HBO pilot East Bound and Down.

Wed, May 30, 2007

Short Cuts: Anna Nicole and Sin City

The attorney who started (and later withdrew from) Larry Birkhead's custody case has filed a lawsuit against him. Allegedly, Anna Nicole's babydaddy didn't pay his bill.... Sin City starlet Jaime King has gotten engaged to her Fanboys director Kyle Newman, People reports. Today's News was written by Ben Katner.

Wed, May 30, 2007

Short Cuts: NBC Downsizes Laughs, TNT and TBS Upload Dramas and More

The Peacock plans to discontinue its supersized sitcoms. According to TVWeek.com, the net believes that starting shows at odd intervals like 9:23 pm was frustrating viewers, not to mention confusing TiVos.... TNT and TBS will stream all of their original summer series online, says BroadCastingCable.com. Existing hits The Closer and My Boys and newbies Heartland and Saving Grace will be available the day after they're broadcast.... Literary agent Tony Cowell  aka Simon's spotlight-starved sibling  will be the head judge of Bestseller, an American Idol-like reality competition for aspiring scribes airing on British TV.... Comedy Central is developing a new slew of controversial comedies, including the bank-robbing laffer Held Up, the Arab stand-up showcase The Watch List and David Alan Grier's Chocolate News. (We miss you, Dave Chappelle!)  Reporting by Raven Snook

Wed, May 30, 2007

Mischa Barton: Welcome to the O.R., Bit... Er, Miss

Somebody really ought to tell Mischa Barton that she isn't playing Marissa Cooper anymore: TMZ.com reports that the O.C. alum was rushed to an L.A. hospital after mixing booze with antibiotics. Apparently, the wafer-thin ingenue came down with bronchitis while jet-setting around Europe recently, hence the medication. And then, since she's a rich, young starlet, she allegedly downed a few, hence the adverse reaction. Hollywood's golden rule, sugar: Never mix (drugs and drink), never worry.Today's News: My Take was written by Ben Katner.

Tue, May 29, 2007

Mischa Barton: Welcome to the O.R., Bit... Er, Miss

This Week's B.O. Is Rated Arrrgh: Pirates' Booty Is Big, But...

In the time it took the rest of us to roast a wienie and crack open a brew, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End plundered $142.1 million at the box office, giving it the record of best Memorial Day weekend debut ever. Still, the popcorn flick fell short of matching the biggest four-day opening numbers in history. That record was set less than a month earlier by Spider-Man 3, which raked in $151.1 million. Furthermore, the $115.1 million Friday-Sunday tally for World's End is significantly less than the $135.6 mil haul that Dead Man's Chest took in last summer. Rounding out the top five were Shrek the Third, with an additional $69.1 million, Spider-Man 3, with $18 million, "Bug III"... er, no, just Bug, the Ashley Judd thriller, with $4.2 million, and Waitress, with $4 million.

Tue, May 29, 2007

After the Car Crash, LiLo Remains a Train Wreck

According to the New York Post, less than two days after she was busted for a DUI, Lindsay Lohan partied so hard yesterday that she collapsed outside a Hollywood club. How out of it was she? By the time gal pal Samantha Ronson got the actress into her SUV, she couldn't even be alerted to the paparazzi having a field day with the photo op. Today, the actress is expected to check herself into Britney Spears' old stomping ground, Promises rehab facility. Her father, Michael, has also said that he plans to ask his parole officer for permission to leave New York to talk some sense into his little angel out west.Update: LiLo has indeed entered a treatment center, says TMZ.com. This is the starlet's second rehab stint this year. In January, she spent some time in West Hollywood's Wonderland Center, but as anticipated, this time she (and her handlers) have opted for a less wonderful option: the hardcore Promises facility. A source says that Lohan's friends and family "are all praying for he...

Tue, May 29, 2007

With Elisabeth Out of O'Donnell's Life, Everything's Coming Up Rosie

In a video blog posted on her website, Rosie O'Donnell says that she tried as hard as anyone could've to be friends with her View cohost Elisabeth Hasselbeck, but the dyed-in-the-wool Bushie just wasn't havin' it. "I haven't spoken to her [since I left the show], and I probably won't, and I think it's just as well," the daytime legend suggests. "I wrote her an e-mail, and she wrote me back, and there you have it." The out-and-proud lesbian adds, "I was really just like a foster kid for a year. I came [to the show], you know, we considered adoption, but I didn't really fit into the family, and now it's time for the foster kid to go back home." She also confesses that her chief writer, Janette Barber, was the one who drew a mustache on a photo of her nemesis at the studio before they called it quits. "It was a joke on the way out," she says.

Tue, May 29, 2007

Family Guy Proves It's a "Force" to Be Reckoned With

The fifth season of Fox's seemingly unsinkable Simpsons rip-off will kick off with a Star Wars spoof featuring the series regulars. In and of itself, this is not remotely odd. But Lucasfilm has given its OK to the tomfoolery. Which I can only assume means that ol' George is as intrigued by the possibility of Stewie Vader as I am.

Tue, May 29, 2007

Brits Stand Behind Broadcast of Princess Di Death Tableau

England's Channel 4 has declared that despite protests from the U.K.'s Conservative Party, on June 6 it will air, as planned, the documentary Diana: The Witnesses in the Tunnel  complete with explicit images from the interior of the car where the princess, as well as her friend Dodi Fayed and their driver, died a decade ago. The station says execs have "carefully and sensitively selected" the images to be shown and that in a shot of the car's occupants, the deceased have been blacked out. "We acknowledge there is great public sensitivity surrounding pictures of the victims," Channel 4 concedes in a statement, "and these have not been included."

Tue, May 29, 2007

RIP: Charles Nelson Reilly Gets the Last Laugh

On Friday, legendary funnyman Charles Nelson Reilly passed away of complications from pneumonia, his partner, Patrick Hughes, tells the New York Times. Although perhaps best known for cracking wise on 1970s and '80s game shows like Match Game and The Hollywood Squares, Reilly was also an accomplished on-stage scene-stealer who won a Tony for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.For more on the legendary comedian, read Raven's tribute.

Tue, May 29, 2007

It's a Girl for Chris O'Donnell and Julia Ormond!

Chris O'Donnell and Julia Ormond have been cast in Kit Kittredge: An American Girl Mystery as the title doll's parents, and Joan Cusack has signed on to play a nurse who lives at the boardinghouse Ormond runs.... Variety reports that HBO is in talks to film the Broadway hit The Year of Magical Thinking, with Vanessa Redgrave as grieving playwright Joan Didion, for future broadcast.

Tue, May 29, 2007

Got Game? Well, You're About To!

Starting Friday, Jeopardy! fans can log on to jeopardy.com (duh) to answer an extra question from one of that day's categories and be entered in a sweepstakes with a $100 daily prize and a $25,000 grand prize. Of course, unlike on the real show, here contestants are encouraged to google their answers.... Blind Date host Roger Lodge has been chosen to ringlead GSN's upcoming hidden-word game show Camouflage.... CBS has picked up a new game show called Do You Trust Me? from the producers of The Weakest Link. The Eye has also OK'd Drew Carey's Power of 10 quiz show.

Tue, May 29, 2007

Short Cuts: Miss Universe, Indy 500 and Murder, She Wrote

For only the second time in the pageant's history, a Miss Japan  Riyo Mori  was named Miss Universe last night.... Mr. Ashley Judd, Dario Franchitti, won the Indianapolis 500 over the weekend.... The Hallmark Channel hopes to make a killing off Murder, She Wrote. Now that the cabler has acquired the rerun rights to the sexy detective series, it intends to run episodes at 7 and 8 pm/ET on Sundays and every day from 8-10 am and from 11 pm-1 am. That's a lotta Angela Lansbury, folks.Today's News: My Take was written by Ben Katner.

Tue, May 29, 2007

Lohan Injured in Crash and Cited for DUI; Cocaine Possibly Found at Scene

Before we get started, let me play devil's advocate and say it is entirely possible she was simply racing to an AA meeting. I'll report, you decide.Lindsay Lohan was slightly injured and later cited for investigation of driving under the influence when her Mercedes SL-65 convertible struck a curb — I hate how those always get in the way — at 5:30 am Saturday, on Sunset Boulevard. Lohan and two others were in the car when it crashed, but (fortunately) no one else was hurt and (fortunately) no other cars were involved. Per the AP, officers at the scene found a "usable amount" of a drug tentatively identified as cocaine, but declined to say where it was found other than to say Lohan was not carrying it. A photog for X17, which first reported on the crash, says Lohan about an hour before the incident looked "completely wasted... like [she] had been partying all night, and she appeared to be in no condition to drive."

Sun, May 27, 2007

Lohan Injured in Crash and Cited for DUI; Cocaine Possibly Found at Scene

American Idol Producers Tell DVR Users: "We're Sorry"

Responding to the outcry from DVR users who got cheated out of seeing upon playback the actual end-of-show reveal on American Idol's Wednesday's finale, Fox has issued this mea culpa:"We're sorry that DVR users may have missed the conclusion of the American Idol broadcast. It was always our intention to bring the show in on time, but just as with any live sports, variety, awards or entertainment event, there is no way to absolutely guarantee that the show will end exactly on the hour. Fox and the producers apologize to those viewers who were inconvenienced."As detailed in the TV Guide News Report, the nine minutes that aired after 10:00 came and went are now streaming at AmericanIdol.com. SPOILER ALERT: Brandon Rogers won.

Sat, May 26, 2007

On Stage: A Queen, an Idol and a Monster

The upcoming Broadway musicalization of The First Wives Club may not yet be finished, but that doesn't mean casting can't begin. The New York Daily News hears that Queen Latifah called producers to express an interest in playing the Goldie Hawn role. Long live nontraditional casting.... Per Playbill.com, Idol alum Frenchie Davis will showcase her powerhouse pipes in Mahalia  A Gospel Musical, at Hartford Stage in August.... Mel Brooks confirms Young Frankenstein's casting rumors and adds that the show will most likely bow at the Hilton Theater, whose current tenant, The Pirate Queen, is about to walk the plank.  Reporting by Raven Snook.

Sat, May 26, 2007

Without a View: Rosie's Officially Done with the Show

Or is it the other way around? ABC Daytime on Friday afternoon announced that Rosie O'Donnell has led "Hot Topics" for the very last time. In a statement today, ABC president Brian Frons says, "We had hoped that Rosie would be with us until the end of her contract three weeks from now, but Rosie has informed us that she would like an early leave. Therefore, we part ways, thank her for her tremendous contribution to The View, and wish her well." In her own statement, O'Donnell says, "I'm extremely grateful. It's been an amazing year and I love all three women." But not in that way.POLL: With Rosie gone, are you more or less inclined to tune into The View? Vote here.

Fri, May 25, 2007

Without a View: Rosie's Officially Done with the Show