Persnickety comedian Dave Chappelle has been co-headling Funny or Die's Oddball Comedy & Curiosity Festival, but a rowdy crowd in Hartford, Connecticut last night upset Chappelle so much that he stopped performing less than halfway through his allotted time, before giving what some fans perceived to be a giant figurative middle finger to the audience.
After Earth failed. Lone Ranger flopped. R.I.P.D. fizzled. Studios' cash cow—the effects-laden, foreign-audience-compatible blockbuster—is drying up, and Hollywood is looking around for something new. What if the only thing that can save it… is another floundering industry?
THIS IS NOT A TEST: In an interview with Variety, newly elected LA mayor Eric "I'm Not a Regular Mayor, I'm a Cool Mayor" Garcetti declared a state of emergency for California—a figurative state of emergency, duh—as film and television productions continue their exodus out of the state in lieu of locations with more favorable tax breaks.
Viacom's other big event last night was Comedy Central's Roast of James Franco. But where, you're wondering, can I find the best jokes?
In today's episode of Hollywood Dance Moms, the feud between Deadline's Nikki Finke (Abby Lee, natch) and The Wrap's Sharon Waxman (sucks to be Cathy) goes for another round: this time over Waxman's upcoming annual conference on the intersection of journalism, entertainment, and technology, TheGrill. FX's president is scheduled to speak there, a transgression that has earned his network a coverage ban in Finke's Deadline.com.
On hearing the news that Aziz Ansari will make more money on one book than most of us will see in a lifetime, most of us had the same reaction: a rush for a fresh razor blade while drawing a final warm bath. But wait! Don't strip the safety plastic off your Venus Pro-Glide yet. After talking to multiple book agents, it turns out there's actually a method this madness, and if you follow them in order, you too, could get three mil for your dumb book.
Oh Ry-Ry. I've loved you since you were just that cute flirty 24 year old, hosting "Ryan for the Ride Home" on 98.7 Star FM, balancing out Jamie and Danny's special blend of morning time crazy, and making me fall in love with you one Goo Goo Doll track at a time. But if Craigslist missed connections are to be believed, your heart will never truly be mine.
Goonies star Corey Feldman is attempting to transform himself into the next Hugh Hefner—complete with his own FeldMansion, a bevy of Jumbo's Clown Room wannabes calling themselves "Corey's Angels," and a pervasive, weary, existential sadness. Luckily for anthropologists of despair, Vice's Jamie Lee Curtis Taete was on hand to chronicle the scene at Feldman's recent birthday party with an article that required final approval from Feldman before being published. According to Taete:
SoulCycle may have eclipsed Scientology as Hollywood's favorite cult over the last year—but Scientology never made a beloved pop diva deaf. SoulCycle, according to a blind gossip report, did. Bring back the purification sessions!
Despite backlash towards the overt racism in Fox's pilot of the Seth MacFarlane produced Dads, Fox won't budge on reshooting the controversial episode.
Writers, by nature, are passive-aggressive, easily agitated creatures prone to taking their work too seriously. Those with the "thickest skin" (or "hide" if you're more literary-minded) have developed this imaginary armor usually through repeated bouts of public criticism and have learned to compartmentalize some of their glaring shortcomings by either a) correcting them or b) ignoring them. Both are successful tracks, usually, and those with the most impenetrable outer layers tend to develop immunity and go about their business accordingly, blissfully aware of their station in life.
