Cloud 9 could forecast Oscar's Best Picture

Oscar controversy abounds. Our Man Elli in Israel reports from Jerusalem that most everyone in Israel hates Spielberg’s Munich and that “The Revoke the ‘Paradise Now’ Oscar Nomination Petition is red hot, averaging well over a thousand signatures a day, and increasing speed. The revulsion being felt around the world over Hollywood's nomination of Paradise Now, a movie glorifying PLO suicide bombers, is palpable….”

And with Heath Ledger doing public anti-gay whinging and the Associated Press reporting that “while the cowboy love story ‘Brokeback Mountain’ has been established as a solid favorite for the best-picture Oscar, the ensemble drama ‘Crash’ has an ardent following and some late-season momentum that could make it a surprise winner…” We look to the Cloud 9 crystal ball and agree that Crash could be a winner… if only by default.

This site has already pointed out the uncanny similarities between Cloud 9, the surprise motion picture sports comedy hit of the 2006 DVD crop (written and produced by Burt Kearns and Brett Hudson of Frozen Pictures and Academy Award winner Albert S. Ruddy) and Best Picture nominee Crash-- and even more outrageously, the two-degrees-or-less-of-separation between Cloud 9 and every single major 2005 Academy Award nominee.

Now, research by the Tabloid Baby staff has revealed an even scarier, more wondrous connection: two degrees of separation --or less-- between Cloud 9 and every Oscar Best Picture winner of the last 10 years.

The research went back more than 30 years. There was the 1972 Best Picture Oscar, given to The Godfather and its producer Albert S. Ruddy, who’d go on to write and produce Cloud 9 with Hudson and Kearns.

In 1974, the Best Picture Oscar went to Cloud 9’s executive producer, Gray Frederickson, for The Godfather: Part II.

But we skip forward to the past ten years, and look at only the most obvious connections between these lauded films, and Cloud 9, the hilarious motion picture comedy now out on Fox DVD:

1995: Braveheart
Braveheart star, director and producer Mel Gibson is an important presence in Cloud 9's script. Billy Cole, played by Burt Reynolds, is supposed to deliver a ficus tree to Gibson's estate, and is constantly berated by Wong, the nursery owner played by Paul Rodriguez, for failing to do so.

1996: The English Patient
Harvey Weinstein of Miramax took home the statuette. Cloud 9 writers and producers Burt Kearns and Brett Hudson of Frozen Pictures worked with--and for-- Harvey when they produced and wrote Miramax’s first reality television project, The Best Money Can Buy (executive produced by ‘Crocodile’ Dundee director Peter Faiman).

1997: Titanic
Titanic star Leonardo DiCaprio was the leading contender to star as the boy who masquerades as a girl soccer player in the 1992 comedy Ladybugs, produced by Cloud 9 producers Albert S. Ruddy and Gray Frederickson (Harry Basil, who directed Cloud 9, was associate producer on the project). Leonardo was rejected after it was decided that he was too pretty.

1998: Shakespeare in Love
See “The English Patient.” Cloud 9 writers-producers Kearns & Hudson produced the Miramax TV project while Weinsten bought-- uh, campaigned for-- the Best Picture Oscar that beat Private Ryan. Meanwhile, Cloud 9 movie-stealer Gary Busey and Ben Affleck starred in the 2003 "World Poker Tour" Hollywood Home Game. Ben was featured with Cloud 9 costar D.L. Hughley in Comedy Central’s Last Laugh ’04.

1999: American Beauty
Star Kevin Spacey appeared with Gary Busey in the 2002 television special, Inside the Playboy Mansion and 1999’s Saturday Night Live 25th Anniversary.

2000: Gladiator
Star Russell Crowe appeared with Burt Reynolds in the film Mystery, Alaska. Costar Joaquin Phoenix showed up at the book party for Tabloid Baby, written by Cloud 9 writer-producer Burt Kearns, at the Bel Age Hotel on the Sunset Strip in 1999.

2001: A Beautiful Mind
See Gladiator for the Reynolds-Crowe connection. Also, Cloud 9 actor Rick Overton appeared in The Rocketeer with A Beautiful Mind’s Oscar-winning Best Supporting Actress, Jennifer Connelly.

2002: Chicago
Star and Oscar nominee John C. Reilly starred in Boogie Nights with Burt Reynolds (who received an Oscar nomination for his role).

2003: The Lord of The Rings: The Return of The King
Cloud 9 star Burt Reynolds directed and starred in the film, The Last Producer, featuring Rings hobbit Sean Astin. Gary Busey’s son, Jake, starred in Rings director Peter Jackson’s film, The Frighteners.

2004: Million Dollar Baby
Cloud 9 writer and producer Albert S. Ruddy won his second Best Picture Oscar for this film. Ruddy signed the Million Dollar Baby deal with director Clint Eastwood on the Cloud 9 set in Pacific Palisades. Cloud 9 actors Ken Garito and Tony Danza appear in Crash, co-written and directed by Ruddy protégé and Million Dollar Baby writer Paul Haggis.

As for 2005? Now of course, there are connections between Cloud 9 and Brokeback Mountain, which were pointed out on this site (as well as the new screenplay by Brett Hudson and Burt Kearns of Frozen Pictures that has its own place in the Brokeback trend), so anything goes when it comes to Oscar voting.

But for now, the Cloud 9 Magic Volleyball is pointing toward Crash.

Can you find more Cloud 9 Oscar connections? Send them here!

And see clips from Cloud 9 here!

What the hell is Johnny Weir?

Every couple of years now, we ignore the Olympics for a few days and then are drawn in by the inherent drama. It’s good stuff. The stuff Skating with Celebrities is made of, only without Bruce Jenner and the cutaways to his wife and daughters.

The latest Olympic coverage on NBC has done away with the tinkling piano tragedy stories in favor of X-game attitude profiles. With semi-athletes like snowboarders taking center stage, it all fits— but what the hell is up with Johnny Weir?

Maybe this kid is old news. We don’t know. We haven’t followed figure skating until Fox’s Skating with Celebrities became the breakout surprise hit of the season in the Tabloid Baby office. But young Johnny has got to be the future of Olympic competition, a test balloon for NBC's political agenda, a test pilot for some new wave of social engineering, or living proof that we all live in one big Christopher Guest movie.


We get it. We’ve seen the Target ads. Everybody’s gay. But this kid is something else indeed. He’s the harbinger for breaking down the gender boundaries in the Olympics and letting men compete against women. Dressed in a Bjork swan outfit—with a red glove to represent the bird’s goddamn head-- he went out and did a lovely skate. But it could have fit easily in either category. Male or female or something in between.

And that's fine with us. Not our bailiwick. The genetic engineering in both sexes is glaring in the Olympic competition, so there’s no reason to pick on this poor androgyne. He’s obviously been picked on enough.

No, sitting at home last night, it wasn’t the performance, but NBC’s videotaped Johnny Weir profile that was offensive. We were embarrassed to be watching it with the kids. It wasn't the obvious "in your face" offensiveness they aimed for, either, setting him up as a "flamboyant diva" ice rink version of Loudon Wainwright’s kid. They shot him lounging on a chaise in scenes that were caught somewhere between Bravo and Blueboy. They had him posing in a Soviet CCCP zip-up number. Real hip. Real annoying. They had him driving in his car, playing “What A Girl Wants” on the car radio. What got us was how NBC Sports tried to add to his rebel cred by replaying his interview bite in which Johnny described a fellow skater’s performance as “a vodka shot, let's-snort-coke kind of thing.”

Vodka and cocaine? In the Olympics? C’mon, guys and gals. We get it with the brokeback locker room, drawn-to-skating and Swan Lake standard media message. But throwing in recreational drug references when folks are getting disqualified for using anti-baldness remedies isn’t cool. We were doing enough explaining about Johnny’s lipstick and his final line in the piece, when he sneered that anyone who doesn’t dig his style can “eat it.”

Which brings us to NBC's Olympian signs of aging. Though we don’t have Jim McKay wizening biennially into a Cabbage Patch Kid before our eyes, we now have Bob Costas, NBC’s former smart aleck wonderboy, now about to turn 54, still looking like the little kid sitting up trying to reach the grownup table, but with his babyface lined and hair Grecian Formulaed and looking more like that crazy guy with who used to play the drums in Times Square (see Taxi Driver) than the kid in A Christmas Story. Anyone planning to sign Katie Couric to a long-term contract should turn in to Hi-Def Costas to get a look at the future of perky.

Update: Disneyland’s Fast Food Breakthrough

Interest has been high in our posting about a fascinating, innovative and revolutionary fast food device we encountered for the first time in Disneyland yesterday—a tiny plastic dipping trough, attached to the French fries container.

We wonder why this simple yet extraordinary creation has not been picked up by every fast food giant in the country, why no one’s noticed this breakthrough, if competing container companies have quashed it, and whether its inventor is Bill Gates-wealthy.

Investigative sources including the L.A. Times and Hollywood Thoughts have followed our lead and have begun looking into the story.

Meanwhile, we’ve gotten immediate response and some valuable answers and insight from the rockin’ website, MousePlanet.com, “your resource for detailed park guides and daily news and stories from all over the Disney kingdom.”

Alex Stroup, Mouseplanet’s CEO and editor, emails:

It is pretty clever, but it has been at Disneyland for quite a while.

The first time I recall seeing it at DCA's Strips, Chips, and Dips when that park opened in 2001.

I agree that it is an innovation that should be more widespread in "walk around while eating" venues like theme parks and county fairs.

“DCA” is Disney’s California Adventure, that big park where the Disneyland parking lot used to be. The possibly exclusive presence of the dipping trough there could explain why it’s been around for five years without anyone knowing about it.

On our visit to Disneyland yesterday, we were given California Resident 2fer Parkhopper passes, which allows us to return to California Adventure for free in the next thirty days. We don’t think we’d return without paying to visit Disneyland as well. California Adventure has not yet captured the imagination-- though we’ll admit the little one’s birthday party at the park’s Ariel’s Grotto restaurant (originally a Wolfgang Puck café until poor sales led him to remove his name and sponsorship) was a memorable blast.

Meanwhile, whither the dipping trough? What do you know about this fast food innovation? Why isn’t it everywhere?

We will follow up.

Burt Reynolds' Fight Club online with Cloud 9 clips

Clips from Cloud 9, the hit DVD movie comedy that’s been the buzz of Hollywood due to its incredible two-degrees-or-less-of separation-from-every-major-Academy-Award-nominee, are now available exclusively online at ifilm.com.






The site also hosts the exclusive Internet showing of the DVD bonus featurette, Burt Reynolds' Fight Club: Directing A Rumble, one of three extras directed and produced by Frozen Pictures for the Fox Home Entertainment DVD.

Cloud 9 stars Burt Reynolds as a Malibu conman who coaches an all-stripper beach volleyball team. Costars include D.L. Hughley, Paul Rodriguez, Angie Everhart, Gabrielle Reece, Kenya Moore, Patricia de Leon, Kathryn Winnick, Marne Patterson, Paul Wesley, Ken Garito, Tony Danza, Tom Arnold and Tony Danza.

Four clips are included in the ifilm offering, along with the bonus featurette. Burt Reynolds' Fight Club documents the technique, staging and complications behind the scenes as the star conceives, choreographs and directs an action-packed fight scene featuring himself, Angie Everhart and Hollywood stuntman and action star Casey Hendershot.

Cloud 9 ifilm clips:


“Party Planner”


“Teamwork”


“The Best”


“Bonsai!”

Disneyland's monumental fast food innovation

As far as we can tell, Disneyland has introduced the greatest innovation in fast food history since bottled water was added to the menu board. And no one's noticed.

We encountered it today in Frontierland. It came with the French fries, attached to the French fries box: a tiny plastic dipping trough!

Ketchup, barbecue sauce or Ranch dressing can be poured in, and fries can be dipped individually. No more squirting messy ketchup packets onto makeshift napkin trays or, even messier, directly into the middle of the box.

The plastic attachment, which looks like a tiny bulldozer scoop or office “in basket,” clips to the side of the cardboard box the way serving trays were hooked onto driver’s side windows in the early days of drive thrus and car hops. Even when the last fry is gone, it doesn't make the box tip over.

One catch: fast food outlets would need to emulate Disneyland and create fries containers that stand up, rather than fall over and spill fries all over the table.

So who’s noticed this? Has this been around awhile? This is the first time we’ve noticed the device anywhere. It's a technological marvel, a highlight of Disneyland’s 18-month 50th anniversary celebration.

An invention of this magnitude brings to mind an advertising agency in a Frank Tashlin movie: “Schmendrick, you’re a genius! You get a giant bonus and the corner office!”

Did we miss the hoopla? Because this deserves some hoopla. Who knows the story behind this or the identity of the inventor?

McDermott Mystery: Newton-John responds

Where in the world is Patrick McDermott? Olivia Newton-John’s spin machine has addressed Tabloid Baby’s questions about her behaviour regarding the disappearance of her “boyfriend” Patrick McDermott last summer.

In a blitz of long-distance interviews with Australian news media yesterday, Newton-John refused to go into details about the case, but astonishingly used the mystery to promote her new album and concert tour!

McDermott’s disappearance is being used as a selling point, as the Newton-John team plays up the irony of the album’s title and her bravery in going onstage at such a trying time.

In the interviews, however, “she was reluctant to discuss any details about McDermott or speculation she has found love with with wealthy American Michael Klein,” the Sydney Daily Telegraph reports.

Newton-John “will use her upcoming Sydney shows as a form of therapy for dealing with the disappearance of her boyfriend last year,” the paper says, in an article headlined “Liv’s show of strength.”

The Brisbane Courier-Mail, Seven News and Contactmusic.com are among the other outlets spreading the Newton-John spin.

"I didn't think I was going to be singing again, that was how I felt," Newton-John told the Courier-Mail (though her concert plans were underway in the seven weeks she was quiet about McDermoptt’s disappearance). "But I found that performing the songs and singing for people helped me as well."

Newton-John also points out that the title of her new album, Stronger Than Before, “is kind of ironic." She says, "The weird thing was that this album was before all that happened so now it is almost like I have made it for myself." She's dedicated the album to people who have been touched by cancer, marking 13 years since she suffered from breast cancer.

The questions remain: Where is Patrick McDermott, and what does Olivia Newton-John know about his disappearance?

Conspiracy theories

Thanks to Brownie for confirming the New York Times' report that the Bush team lied about when and what it knew about the New Orleans levee breaks. They've just opened the door wide for Spike Lee's and Louis Farrakhan's conspiracy theories that the government blew up the levees. Hey, they've almost got us believing it.

And speaking of conspiracies, ABC News' new anchor announces she's pregnant and her boss says it's good news? Hmmm. First they lose Jennings, then their new female anchor's husband gets shot in the head, then her co-host gets his brains rattled in Iraq, then they're calling in the sexagenarians for support and now the last piece of their future puzzle is going to be off on maternity leave. What is it with these women who sign the contracts of their lives, for the most coveted jobs in the world, and then immediately get knocked up? I think it was Valerie Harper who started the trend, but Jeez, Liz, come on, you couldn't have waited a couple of ratings books?

Who killed the paparazzo?

The Todd Wallace story is beginning to sound a lot like Mel Gibson’s great flick Paparazzi, in which a Hollywood star takes revenge against the scumbag shutterbugs who hurt his family.

In this case, the revenge is metaphorical, of course (except with the Pellicano artichoke still being plucked and Britney Spears claiming the paparazzi defense for her PCH joyride with a baby on her lap, who knows?), and the L.A. County Coroner (visit their gift shop) may have some answers today, after spending the week with a CSI-worthy corpse believed to be that of paparazzi terrible Wallace.

Todd Wallace was a lightning rod in the battle between the new mini-celebutards and the gonzo paparazzi business, arrested in September and charged with battery for allegedly getting physical with little kids while trying to snap shots of Reese Witherspoon and her children in Disneyland.

Wallace pleaded innocent. The cops have been looking for him since he skipped bail in December. According to the papers, he was “known for using multiple aliases and traveling extensively, and officials feared he may have fled the US to Central America.”

Instead they found him on Monday, in an apartment on Darlington Avenue in Brentwood, the body so badly decomposed that they still don’t know for sure it’s the missing man, if was a homicide or if the guy died of natural causes at 44.

Patrick Ahle, a prosecutor handling the Witherspoon case, said, given Wallace's past history of aliases, he'd wait until the photographer's death is confirmed before assuming the deceased man is him.

Reese, meanwhile, is up for a Best Actress Oscar. (And Moonie, who played her dog Bruiser in Legally Blonde, stars in Cloud 9, the hit motion picture comedy written and produced by Burt Kearns and Brett Hudson of Frozen Pictures and Academy Award winner Albert S. Ruddy, now available on Fox DVD!)

For more on the Wallace mystery, see Hollywood Thoughts.

That's not Curious George! Part 2

We were the first to shout about it: That's not Curious George in the big bright new cartoon movie that opens today, and nobody who's even remotely familiar with the books or stories will try and convince us that it’s Curious George up there on the screen, when Mom and Dad and kids and anyone for that matter who’s experienced the wonder of the books in the past sixty five years but has sat in movie theatres through The Grinch and Cat in The Hat and Chicken Little and Cheaper By The Dozen and Walk The Line and Charlie and The Chocolate Factory and Good Night (COMMA) and Good Luck and any other number of Hollywood bastardizations knows the original timeless classic has been altered for no good reason, and that the new little cartoon monkey is Curious George as much as the kid in Home Alone 3 and 4 is Macauley Culkin.

Anyway, the reviews are out, and a tip of the hat to the L.A. Times’ Carina Cochano, for taking the monkey by the ears:

The big difference between this monkey and H.A. and Margret Rey's? He's now conspicuously eyeballed. Millions of dollars later, George's coal-lump peepers are now black and white, thanks very much, because studio executives believe eyeballs make him more "accessible" to children. Everybody's opinion is special.

With his new eyeballs, and his abiding love for Ted, George is considerably more anthropomorphized than before. And with his cuddly new name, the "Man" is likewise less creepily anonymous. Overall, the film version feels warmer than the books, stressing the monkey's amour fou for Ted, that yellow-headed heartbreaker. What it lacks somewhat is that brainy celebration of la différence (between man and monkey, of course) that gave the books a wilder edge, a feeling that despite their affection for one another, George and the Man were essentially strangers. Eyeball-less, and ignorant of his friend's name, George was a primal force that the Man in the Yellow Hat could never quite control. No wonder the new line of products to be sold at Kmart and Target will be modeled on the new-look George, while higher-end stores will stick with the old, literary monkey.

The old George was an irrepressible id, a reminder of the fragile equilibrium (not to mention polite distance) between nature and civilization. The new one is a future plush toy.

The New York Times, meanwhile, blows off the movie in four paragraphs, with third-stringer Dana Stevens ignoring the discrepancies, being more concerned with expressing Upper East Side private school relief that the monkey is not voiced by Snoop Doggy Dogg:

In a refreshing departure from the animal heroes of most recent children's movies, Curious George — or "the monkey," as he's called for the first two-thirds of this new animated film — doesn't rap, punch out bad guys or emit rapid-fire commentary on pop culture.... With top-drawer voice talent including Joan Plowright and Dick Van Dyke, original songs by Jack Johnson, and old-fashioned two-dimensional animation that echoes the simple colors and shapes of the books, "Curious George" is an unexpected delight...

While we’re at it, that’s not Inspector Clouseau in-- aw, fageddaboutit...


And because he lied about Iraq and the "Liberty Tower" and N'Awlins:

Sly Stone shows, then goes.

He was introduced by Dave Chappelle, who'd walked away from his television series. Then Sly walked offstage in the middle of his song. Maybe he could teach Paul McCartney a thing or two.

TV Alert! Doug Bruckner on Maury!

Check your local listings for the Maury show, tomorrow, Thursday, February 9th, and tune in for an appearance by tabloid television legend Doug Bruckner.

The storied correspondent and producer will be on hand with a collection of rock-em-sock-em wild-as-anything videotape segments from Nash Entertainment’s brand-new World’s Most Amazing Videos show, which is pulling lots of young viewers to Spike TV.

The appearance promises to be a great one. More than fifteen years ago, Bruckner and Povich faced off as competitors: Doug in the left corner as lead correspondent for Hard Copy in Los Angeles, and Maury, of course, as the urbane and groundbreaking host of A Current Affair in New York City.

Together, they made television and journalism history, and were far more influential in setting the course for today’s network and cable news coverage than any heroes George Clooney can conjure and polish.

Don’t expect any fisticuffs or harsh words. Bruckner and Povich are veterans of television’s most invigorating war and share memories of the true, overlooked television Golden Era.

Tabloid Baby spoke with Doug this afternoon.

Doug, what’s your proudest achievement in tabloid television?
Before I got into tabloid television, I was a so-called "serious" news reporter. I did some of the first stories on identity theft, auto insurance fraud, staged auto accidents and cosmetic surgery horrors. I won a local Emmy, Golden Mikes, and about six L.A. Press Club Awards. But nothing compared to my experience working in tabloid television. I faced down Charles Manson. I interviewed survivors of the Branch Davidian shoot-out outside Waco, Texas and I went around the world chasing down the Cheyenne Brando story.

You were involved with last year’s revival of A Current Affair. What happened?
The show was leading the way on they type of stories that made it famous the first time around. Traditional tabloid stories like Natalee Holloway and the cruise ship disappearance. But the plug was pulled on the show just as it was getting traction. In fact, one of the last shows carried an exclusive interview with the Holloway suspect, Joran Van Der Sloot. Funny, this week, all the news shows are bragging about getting his parents. We had the man himself. The cancellation is Fox’s loss. The show could have gone another ten years. And if someone is smart enough to do a similar show, we’re there!

Relive and learn about the Tabloid Television era in Tabloid Baby, and join the grassroots movement to make Tabloid Baby an Oprah’s Book Club selection.

Sly Stone shows up for rehearsal

Sly Stone is supposed to appear on the Grammy show tonight.

Sly, of course, is the coolest, hippest musician of our time. In an incredible five-year period, he mapped out the future of rock ‘n’ roll, hip hop and American race relations, sliding from the most optimistic, integrated stew of soul, rock and funk to the scariest, druggiest, dirtiest masterpiece ever recorded in an attic in Bel Air. He’s also the most elusive and mysterious of pop stars, skipping out on more shows than George Jones and only occasionally popping up to be propped up behind an electric piano to deliver a nostalgic growl before crawling back to his room with no windows.

Sad Sly. But at least he’s not in prison for waving a gun or on trial for murdering a House of Blues hostess. The royalties must still be pouring in, “Dance To the Music” was the highlight of Shrek’s Swamp Karaoke Dance Party, there was last year’s revival at Starbucks, and we wouldn’t be surprised if someone’s already got the bright idea of giving him the Brian Wilson tratment, strapping him into a concert tour backed by a peppy band of acolytes.

News and historywise, the LA Times reports that Sly showed up for Monday night’s Grammy rehearsals, and played up the manufactured mystery of whether he’ll make the broadcast:

The assembled musicians again ran through their medley of Stone hits and then … there he was, in a hooded, camouflage rain slicker, matching pants and 3-inch platform boots. He came to a keyboard at center stage and made eye contact with no one. Still lean, but beneath the hood he seemed smaller than he was in the '60s.

The teleprompter told him how to reintroduce himself to the world: (SLY): Ow Ow Ow.

He sang "I Want to Take You Higher," and his voice was robust and clear. Looking straight down, his chin bounced on his chest. His left hand and wrist were in a cast. From under the hood, he peeked at the musicians next to him, grinned … and then he was gone…

…Stone came back and did it again. This time, his plastic pants were tucked into his boots and, at the song's close, he stepped away from the keyboard, bobbed his head and beamed. And then he was gone again.

…A third run-through. This time, though, when it came to the point where Stone should have dashed out on stage, there was a long lull and empty air. Finally, a crew member jumped up behind the keyboard and played the part of the enigmatic star.

Meanwhile, find Greil Marcus’ Mystery Train, get a copy of There’s a Riot Goin’ On and ask about the compilation CD at Starbucks the next time you stop in for your nonfatsoycappafrappalatte.