Penn Badgley Is Not Jeff Buckley

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Last week's rumor that the Gossip Girl lad might play the mid-90s crooner have proven false: the eventual bio-pic's producer told the LAT they've never met with Penn and have no idea where these rumors come from, dammit! But that they have met with Robert Pattinson who wants the role. Still they say they're still looking and seem intent on finding an unknown, which is probably how it should be. Even if our poll - which is still running - stayed pretty evenly on the fence with regards to Penn.

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Bells are Ringing Alert™: Rob and Kirsten's Twilight wedding.

Publication: OK!
Date: 20 June 2011

Last year, OK! had a seriously delusional person writing their cover copy. Anything that was happening to the characters from Twilight was happening in the lives of the actors. It wasn't Edward and Bella getting married, it was Rob and Kristen. Now at least, they seem to understand the difference between the characters and actors.

Kellan's Shirtless Walk of Shame (aka Flop Sweat)

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(via) Did y'all see how Kellan's movie with Mandy Moore that came out last weekend - directed by Dermot Mulroney - got the dreaded 0% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes? I guess this is what's known as changing one's headlines. Hey everybody, I still look like this! It's one long slog til Immortals in November, eh Kellan?

What's that, there's a Twilight movie between now and then he can cling to? Yeah... those don't register round these parts. Unless! Unless we get more stories like this:

"The biggest shocker to come out of the MTV Movie Awards on Sunday night (June 5) was hands down that Robert Pattinson treated Taylor Lautner to a smooch almost as passionate as the ones in the Golden Popcorn-winning "Twilight Saga" films.

But while it came as a surprise to those of us watching the awards show, the stars of this year's nominated "Eclipse" said it was about time the two onscreen rivals shared a kiss.

"It was about damn time, man. It's been up in the air for about three years now. I think we've all been waiting for Rob and Taylor to kiss," Jackson Rathbone told MTV News when we caught up with him backstage at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Los Angeles. "We knew it was coming, and finally it did. Finally, they acknowledged their love for each other."

Rathbone's vampire brother Kellan Lutz admitted he was a bit surprised, but their co-star Peter Facinelli (ed: mmm Facinelli) shared a little secret about how the RPattz/Taylor smooch went off without a hitch.

"They asked us to show them in practice," Facinelli said.

"We taught them everything they know," Lutz confirmed."

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On the rocks alert: Rob and Kristen split!

Publication: Star magazine
Date: 13 June 2011

Star magazine reports that Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart are no longer a couple. They say that cheating has torn them apart.

GossipCop.com calls bullshit on them, but this is nothing to sue over.

On the other hand, Angelina Jolie on heroin probably is something Star will get sued for, since they already lost cash calling Katie Holmes a pill popper.

Love Bird Alert™: Rob and Kristen living like newlyweds.

Publication: OK!
Date: 6 June 2011

OK!, the nicest of the gossip rags if not the most reliable, wants us to know the real life romance of Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart is going along swimmingly.

If they break up some short while after the last of the Twilight movies becomes available on DVD, I for one will not be surprised.

Stars Aligned: Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart

Rob and Kristen aren't saying whether they're actually seeing each other, but with a sneaking suspicion that these two are putting some extracurricular work into practicing those upcomingBreaking Dawn honeymoon scenes, we decided to run their star charts anyway.

Rob is a Taurus, which means he's the three S's: sane, stable and stubborn. And that's great because you don't have to be psychic to realize that Kristen could use some stability in her life. The willful Aries' fiery ways are just as likely to burn bridges as they are to ignite the passion of her icy cool vampire boy. But hey that's why this couple works: fire and ice. It almost makes that wince-inducing reading of Robert Frost at the beginning of Eclipse seem excusable... almost.

The Good: Good news Robsten fans. If these two are already together, it's going to take more than paparazzi pot shots to tear them apart. The fire sign/earth sign pairing can fizzle faster than the box office take for Remember Me, but if the two successfully find common ground, the partnership that can produce Twilight level dividends.

Check the interviews to see the two personalities at work.

Rob takes even annoying interviews in stride, openly acknowledging the silliness inherent in his own celebrity as a vampire heartthrob. It's classic fixed sign stuff. He's down-to-earth, funny, and stubbornly unflappable. On the other hand, Kristen is a powder keg waiting to blow when she's interviewed alone. She's quick to annoy, partial to four-letter words and treats her fame like a major pain in the ass.

But get these two together, and the dynamic just evens out. The classic example is the Oprah interview where she asked them both point blank whether they were seeing each other and Rob quickly diffused the situation by joking that Kristen was pregnant.

The Bad: The Taurus/ Aries combo isn't a super-compatible one. Even after getting over that first hump in the relationship, this is the kind of thing that both partners are going to have to actively work at and manage as long as they're together. Rob could always decide he wants someone who isn't going to play strippers and rock stars just to explicitly distance herself from her Twilight persona, and Kristen could decide Rob is just too boring in real life.

In the Stars? If these two really are a couple, their charts suggest they're going to stay that way for a while. Kristen herself has admitted to the immediate attraction she felt toward Rob when they screen-tested together for Twilight. And really isn't that chemistry the real reason we've spent so much money on movie tickets and merchandise over the past three years?

Beyond 'Breaking Dawn' - Will Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart's Careers Flourish?

As the curtain closes on their Twilight careers, the question remains whether or not Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson will continue their box office domination or even come close to it.

While it's impossible to know how well their future films will fair -- both at the box office and critically -- we can look back at their previous roles outside of Twilight.

Judging Them as Actors, Not Sex Symbols

Stewart's first major role outside of the vampire world was Adventureland. This 2009 dramedy won positive reviews, and in Stewart, starred one of the newest, most popular actresses in Hollywood. It would seem like a recipe for success. Only the film was a box office dud, making less than $20 million domestically. At least the critics loved Kristen.

Roger Ebert had this to say about Stewart's performance: "What surprised me was how much I admired Kristen Stewart, who in Twilight, was playing below her grade level. Here is an actress ready to do important things." 

She had proved to the world that she could hold her own on screen, without all the fake blood, make-up and a dreamy Robert Pattinson by her side. What she wasn't able to prove was that she could carry a non-Twilight film to box office gold. Or even silver. $20 million is less than Breaking Dawn will make in one day. 

But what about Pattinson? In 2010's Remember Me, the British hunk starred as a moody New Yorker. It failed to wow critics, but managed to bring in a very respectable $56 million at the box office. Did people flock to the theater just because R-Patz was in the movie?

They certainly showed up in hordes to get his autograph. But then cameWater for Elephants, based on the extremely popular novel by the same name. Compared to Remember Me, this film had a pretty big budget ($38 million), so making around $100 million worldwide wasn't the largest of splashes, but it was impressive when compared with Stewart's numbers. Then again, when you throw in the cost of having the elephant show up at all your press events... who knows how much they really made.

 Their Future

Pattinson is well aware of how big the transition away from Twilight will be. As he explained to the Chicago Sun-Times: "It does feel like a breakup. I do love the guy — and I’m going to miss him. I prefer to think of ending this franchise like leaving school. It’s the last day of high school.” It's nice of Pattinson to make that analogy since most of his fans are high school kids anyway.

The Brit just started production on his newest flick, Cosmopolis, aDavid Cronenberg film that was also based on a book (shocking, we know). There's no way to know how this movie, in its inchoate stages, will develop. But what we do know is that it's given time for Pattinson and Stewart to get cozy together in Toronto while he films in the Canadian city.

Stewart just wrapped up production on the film adaptation of Jack Kerouac's classic novel, On the Road. Again, she'll be starring in a movie based on an immensely popular (and in this case, iconic) book. Though it's not the type of film we see making boatloads of money, it should give her plenty of room to flex her acting muscle. Stewart's also set to play the fairest of them all inSnow White and the Hunstman, set to hit theaters in July 2012. And that film has summer blockbuster written all over it. 

Neither Pattinson nor Stewart have had the kind of success at the box office that their mega-franchiseTwighlight has. But perhaps it's wrong to assume they were directly responsible for turning the vampire goodness into gold. After all, the saga had a deep-rooted and fanatic fanbase before it even came to the big screen, just like Harry Potterbefore it.

That said, their popularity and stardom is unquestionable, which explains why they continue to get hired on for new roles despite their relative inability to draw in the crowds when they aren't sharing the screen. Maybe the only real solution down the line is to just cast them together from now on. Or maybe we're just too excited for Breaking Dawn to think straight. 

Paul Walker is a Pussy...

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... cat. Awww, Paul Walker really does seem as harmless as a lil' kitten all tangled up in nonsense, doesn't he? Poor dear. Trapped with Vin Diesel's company for the rest of your days... shudder. I suppose he can comfort himself with all the hookers and blow the millions of dollars he's made from the undying Fast Now Sans Furious franchise will buy him.

Speaking of! I speak of that movie and several others that have today as their release date as the only thing they share in common over in my weekly Friday write-up at Celebrity Beehive. The big movies coming out this weekend make me want to pluck out my eyeballs with salad tongs and serve them on a bed of fresh greens, but there are two, count them two, smaller films out that I can definitely recommend.
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Anyway they be Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams (my review), which I found a little too long but transfixing all the same, and Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins (my review), which I blathered on about just yesterday so go read that if you need convincing. Of course, and correct me if I'm wrong, I do believe both of these are only available on big screens here in NYC, so if you're in one of the billion other places on Earth, well, too bad for you!
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Bells are Ringing Alert™: Wedding of the year from Twilight!

Publications: Us Weekly, Weekly Life & Style
Date: 9 May 2011

Fresh trash on Thursdays! There's a really big wedding coming up, but I can't for the life of me remember who is getting married.

Oh, that's right, it's Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart! Or is it Edward and Bella? In any case, here are the headlines.

• Us Weekly: Twilight honeymoon photos
• Weekly Life & Style: Rob & Kristen's secret honeymoon

You can see why I'm confused about whether it's the characters or the actors.

You know, the more I think about it, I don't think this is the big wedding this weekend. I know it will come to me eventually.

I Am Link

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--- Coming For Clive - The new horror flick from Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, the director of the criminally underrated 28 Weeks Later, is called Intruders, and it stars Clive Owen, Daniel Bruhl, and Carice Van Houten (woot!), amongst others. The film comes out in October supposedly, and BD's got some info, as well as a link to a gallery of pictures from the movie. Sign me up!

--- Vroom Vroom - Glenn finally saw the third Texas Chainsaw film, the one with Viggo Mortensen, finally. I still haven't seen that one. That's different from the one with Matthew McConaughey, right? I've only seen bits of that one. But now all I can think of is Mike Vogel in the remake. Swoon.

--- Speaking of blasts from Viggo's past, Nat took a look back at his sexytimes with Diane Lane in their 1999 hippie romance A Walk on the Moon, which is what birthed my (and probably your) Viggo infatuation. Sexiest hippie of all time? I think so.

--- And speaking of Nat, he just reviewed Water For Elephants, and his review has totally convinced me that that's all I need from the movie, ever. I mean, I love circus stories, what happened here?

--- Penis Envied - Hey look, it's an illustrated list of famous full frontal man-ness.
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--- Hot Zombie - STYD highlights a brief fun bit of chat between Fright Night remake director Craig Gillespie and his star Colin Farrell about Gillispie's recently announced next movie, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Colin Farrell would make the sexiest zombie of all time, right? Even sexier than Amber Heard in Zombieland.

--- Super Slumber - The LAT got JJ Abrams to list six films that were an influence on his upcoming Super 8 - and is it just me or does the movie get more exciting every time you see the trailer? - and on the list is, I shit you not, the genius slasher Slumber Party Massacre. Weird! Also, awesome!

--- Single Ladies - Slash directs us to a new red-band trailer for Bridesmaids. I haven't watched it yet. They also direct us to six character posters for the film, which really? Is anybody asking for that? I'm as excited for this movie as anybody, but that's nuts.

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Nice Trunk, Rob

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I wasn't all that enamored with the book Water For Elephants, so the movie version coming out today isn't exactly burning up my must-do list for the weekend. Instead I've got a few leftovers from the past couple of weeks - Meek's Cutoff! Your Highness! - that I intend to catch up on. (Yes, even though everybody and their mother's drug dealer soundly rejected Your Highness I still have every intention of going.) I spoke upon these matters over at Celebrity Beehive today, so go read that. What's y'all planning on seeing? I know you're already in line for the new Madea movie, don't front.

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Too Young To Hold On...

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It's been five years since the first time I posted that it'd been announced that a Jeff Buckley bio-pic was going to be made, and here we are again. Via Deadline:

"Welcome To The Rileys helmer Jake Scott has been set to direct an untitled film about Jeff Buckley, the rising star musician who died tragically at age 30 in 1997. Scott will direct a script by Ryan Jaffe (The Rocker).

... Music rights to Buckley's songs are part of the rights package and the producers have also optioned the David Browne book Dream Brother: The Lives and Music of Jeff and Tim Buckley, as a resource."

Of course, ever since day one the main topic of conversation has been casting. Back in 2006 Jared Leto seemed like a reasonable prospect. Then there was silence, until 2009 when it was said that James Franco and Robert Pattinson were duking it out over the role. Then... more silence.

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Buckley was only 30 when he drowned in 1997, so James Franco's already getting a little old for it. Plus to be honest does he need to play every single sensitive-eyed tortured poet-type? Jared Leto's far too old at this point (not to mention used up.) If I had a better sense of what Robert Pattinson is able to do - and I feel as if I'll know once he stars in a David Cronenberg movie - then I might feel safer pointing a finger at him.There's probably somebody I'm not thinking of who'd be perfect... which is why I turn to y'all. Opinions?
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poll by twiigs.com

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Rob Pattinson interview: On Kristen, Oscars and his worst day ever

Publication: OK!
Date: 14 March 2011

Just as the Globe tells us a bunch about their target demograhpic by having a story about NASCAR on the cover, OK! lets us know who reads OK! by having an exclusive interview with Robert Pattinson. The next Twilight release is many months away, but he does have a movie coming out next month co-starring Reese Witherspoon, Water for Elephants.

On the rocks alert: Kristen jealous of Rob's new co-star!

Publication: Weekly Life & Style
Date: 21 February 2011

Fresh trash tomorrow! Last trash of the week... right now!

The story so far. The gossip rags keep telling us Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart are a couple in real life.

Kind of like Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens were supposed to be a couple as long as their movie franchise was hot.

But the course of true love never did run smooth, and now Kristen is jealous of Robert's co-star on a new project. I looked online for verification, but the Life & Style website doesn't have a search mode (lame) and "kristen stewart jealous" gives a bunch of links to 2009 when she was supposed to be jealous of Rob's co-star in Remember Me.

The story doesn't change much over time, does it?

Most Dishonest Story of the Week:Rob and Kristen's wedding and baby news

Publication: Weekly Life & Style
Date: 7 February 2011

So here's the first Twilight story of the new year, and once again we have a magazine confusing Rob and Kristen the actors with the characters they portray, Edward and Bella.

I don't think this is a big spoiler alert for the Twilight fans. Edward and Bella get married and have a baby. Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart are actors who may or may not be dating in real life. This one gets the prize for Most Dishonst Story of the Week.

Looking over the list of Most Dishonest winners in the past, all of the awards have gone to Weekly Life & Style or OK!, and most of those have been Twilight stories. The others have been separate headlines saying actresses Katie Holmes and Jennifer Aniston were pregnant when in fact they were playing characters who were pregnant.

Love Bird Alert™:How Rob seduces Kristen

Publication: OK!
Date: 20 December 2010

The headline writers at OK! are notoriously bad at telling fact from fiction. They have had the couple actually married several times this year and they did the same in 2009. Now at least, they tell a story that sounds like they are still courting, which is the official line publicists would like the fans of Twilight to believe.

Baby steps, guys. You are making great progress.

Planted Crap Alert:Secrets from Breaking Dawn

Publication: Weekly Life & Style
Date: 13 December 2010

This is the fourth straight week that stories about the filming of Breaking Dawn have been in The Only Ten Magazines That Matter, a publicity push that seems oddly timed for a movie scheduled to open eleven months from now. The saturation marketing makes a little more sense when we take into account that Eclipse, most recently released movie in the series, is now available on DVD and would make lovely holiday gifts for the vampire obsessed fans on your shopping list.

Just trying to help.

Love Bird Alert™:Twilight's hottest love scene yet

Publication: OK!
Date: 6 December 2010

Fresh trash tomorrow! Last trash of the week... right now!

This story is a step up for OK!, who admit that Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart are actually actors in a movie playing love scenes. While other gossip rags report on their alleged off-screen romance, OK! has had stories this year that she was pregnant, they were going to get married and that they got married. All three of those have been denied.

Bells Done Rung™ Alert:Rob and Kristen JUST MARRIED

Publication: OK!
Date: 29 November 2010

I've already expressed my distaste for the magazines in the AMI kennel, notably the Enquirer, Globe, Examiner and Star, many times. They are mean and their headline writers have no regard for the truth. I'm starting to dislike OK! just as much. They are not mean. In fact, no other magazine prints as many positive headlines as OK! But their headline writers are just as guilty of lying as anyone who cashes a paycheck from AMI.

This week, OK! devotes most of the cover to the big news that Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart are JUST MARRIED! The details include the big event was in Brazil and the honeymoon was in Rio.

It's not true, not a word of it. I'm sorry if this is a spoiler for anyone, but that's actually part of the story of the movie series the two actors are best known for, Twilight.

This would be a good time to recall that OK! went with several stories about Jennifer Aniston being pregnant back early this summer, none of which were true, but she did have a movie coming out where her character got pregnant.

OK! is not the only gossip rag guilty of implying events that happen on screen to characters are actually happening to the actors themselves. Katie Holmes was playing Jackie Kennedy in a TV miniseries shot earlier this year that will air on the History Channel in 2011, and Weekly Life & Style made it sound like Katie was pregnant instead of her playing Jackie when she was pregnant. That story made me invent the Most Dishonest Story Of The Week label, which I am happy to give to this story of fake wedded bliss this week.

I really should trot out this label more often.

Love Bird Alert™:more Rob and Kristen stories

Publications: Us Weekly, Star
Date: 22 November 2010

I would be tempted to call these stories Planted Crap, but the next Twilight movie doesn't open for a year, so it isn't that. Even far away from the next movie's release, the gossip rags still want to let people know about the two love birds.

Us Weekly: Twilight Sexy New Love Scenes
Star: Rob and Kristen red hot in Rio

The supermarket mags' demographic skews older than the online gossip audience, so this is aimed more at Twilight moms than the teenage fans.