Congratulations and all that Charlize, but let’s focus on the important thing here: there are vital pieces of your dress missing. Was Alexander Skarsgard a little hungry last night?

She brought her attorney as a guest/chaperone, which actually just made her seem more ridiculous and less credible (which I think is what she was going for there). Docelebrities just go to this thing to see who can be the most ridiculous guest and shame our country?

P.S. – Miss Lohan actually made it on time to the dinner and wasn’t distracted by her usual pile of blow. I’m so proud of her!

Wild thing: Scarlett Johansson stars opposite Matt Damon in ‘We Bought a Zoo.’

Just don’t call her “ScarJo.”

“Oh, it’s awful,” Scarlett Johansson says about the nickname that’s become as much of a gossip magazine mainstay as “J.Lo.” (So don’t expect her to slap it on any perfume bottles.)

“It’s a laziness,” says Johansson, 27, her black ankle boot propped up on one of the Ritz-Carlton Central Park’s gilded coffee tables. “People can’t actually say the whole name? It’s just bizarre.” She tries shorthand sobriquets on other stars. How come Daniel Day-Lewis isn’t subjected to, “like, ‘DaDay’? So Cate Blanchett is not, like, ‘CaBla’? Why is that? Why do I have to get stuck with” a mangled moniker? (Yes, call her funny and frank, as Damon and Crowe, her colleagues in her latest movie, We Bought a Zoo, do.)

Johansson is regularly singled out — by paparazzi keen to catch her in a new relationship since her split from Ryan Reynolds just over a year ago; for an IMDB page that’s longer than those of many actors twice her age; for her throaty, scratchy cackle; as Marilyn Monroe’s heiress apparent for the comely comedienne crown.

But then she just as frequently defies easy expectations — to wit: She plays a zookeeper in Zoo (out Dec. 23). Johansson’s quasi-signature cleavage and come-hither looks are all but absent from her role as the “can-do” (as director Crowe puts it), roll-up-her-plaid-sleeves plucky Kelly Foster.

“The highlight of her wardrobe is the walkie-talkie on her hip,” says Crowe.

In the family-friendly flick, the lid on Johansson’s simmering sexpot persona is nearly sealed.

“I was just happy that Matt and I spent about the same amount of time in the makeup chair,” says Johansson, who this evening isn’t all that much more glammed up: black blazer, cream blouse, skinny charcoal jeans, a couple of gold chains and a simple French twist. “It’s the only time that’s ever happened in my life, that my leading man and I came out at the same time.” (Indeed, Damon, who plays Kelly’s boss, Benjamin Mee, an accidental owner of a Southern California menagerie, maintains that she beat him out of the chair, on account of his character’s shaggy mane.)

“The image projected from those magazine covers is an absolute bombshell and unbelievably glamorous person, so I was really impressed with how real and unadorned” she can be, says Damon. “It’s a very believable and grounded performance.”

No ‘ravishing girl skills’

Crowe, whom Johansson had auditioned for before, for Almost Famous and Elizabethtown, says it was “certainly brave” of her to consider a smallish part where she’s using none of her “ravishing girl skills.”

Johansson seems to delight in the departure. “The roles that are really available for young women most of the time are the ingenue, the other woman, the girlfriend of someone, and as I’ve gotten older, it’s nice to be able to move into territory where the characters that I’m playing and looking at are women who are established,” she says, man or no. “It’s nice to be kind of transitioning into that phase of my career.”

This new phase taps into “a different part of her appeal because the raw Scarlett, without any of the fireworks attached, is just as attractive, sometimes even more so,” Crowe continues. Forget the blond bob and the bombshell body for a minute: Her appeal is “all in her face and in her attitude. She has a kind of a wry look at the world. She’s wise beyond her years, yet extremely enthusiastic.”

Even when it comes to handling reptiles. There’s an escaped-snakes-on-a-front-lawn scene that Johansson was far more, uh, game to undertake than her scale-squeamish co-star. Once privy to Damon’s phobia, she “started rubbing it in,” Damon says. “She grabbed the snakes and started wrapping them around her forearm and shoulders and then got the kids (who play Benjamin’s children) involved and basically forced me to fish or cut bait.” Or, scoop snakes or run.

Johansson was also happy to hoist cattle carcasses. “It’s a heavy thing!” she says about the slabs of beef she slung on set. Fortunately, at the time of shooting she was training — at times for five hours a day — for her fight-heavy role as the Black Widow in May’s The Avengers. “So I had a lot of oomph in my step and was I just like, ‘I got it. That’s all good.’ But obviously, on the inside it was like, ‘Oh, man. Threw my back out.’ ” Her castmates wondered: ” ‘Why are you walking funny?’ I’m like, ‘I’ve been hauling a carcass all day.’ ” She reconsiders her word choice: “That sounds wrong.”

Close encounters with large and writhing animals dead or alive — she spent a total of about an hour 25 feet from a lion, separated only by a hot wire and a moat — weren’t Zoo’s only complication. “This film is challenging in the sense that the character has a lot of conviction,” Johansson says. “And I think to play a character with conviction, you have to have it yourself.”

Life in the public eye

If Johansson had an intense year of work, her personal life was also put under pressure. There was her very public divorce from Reynolds — a two-year marriage she managed to keep under the radar. There was her relationship with Sean Penn, during which wildly erroneous rumors swirled that “ScarJo” was pregnant. (Indeed, her nemesis of a nickname has become a kind of test: “If I hear somebody say that, I know I don’t know them at all.”) And then there were the nude pictures that went viral after her cellphone was hacked.

“The hardest part is actually going through whatever hardship you’re facing. Going through it in public is the added unfortunate thing,” says Johansson, who nonetheless seems resigned to the fact that details about her private life will likely always play out on newsstands. It’s part of the gig. “There’s nothing you can do about that.”

Except avoid it. “One of the best things I learned this year was to not read any tabloid, gossipy, you know, garbage,” Johansson says. “It really keeps you on the straight and narrow. And while some it kind of leaks in occasionally, it’s really nice to not know what crazy stories” are circulating. Mention recent rumored romances —Kieran Culkin, Kate Moss’s ex Jefferson Hack — “and I’m like, ‘What? Really? When did that come out?’ It’s just nice to have kind of a blinder up in that regard. It helps keeps you sane. I can’t follow all that stuff. It’s too exhausting.”

And she doesn’t waste her time correcting the record. “Unless it’s something that’s violently awful, I think it’s better to just let it go,” she says. “You just have to kind of let it slide. Otherwise, you’re like, in the midst of it, like a frenzy.”

Despite her hectic 12 months, “it’d be silly to say, ‘Oh, God, I can’t wait for this year to end.’ Why wish your time away?”

Johansson recently peeled back a little of her famously guarded privacy and revealed that marrying Reynolds was the best thing she ever did.

So would she marry again? “I have no idea,” she says. “I don’t X things off. I don’t know. Life is long.” What does seem to be in her future: a family for when she’s older and, ideally, doing what she’s wanted to do since she was 12 — direct.

That said, “right now, my biggest relationship is with my job,” the acting kind, says Johansson. Her current project, an allegorical indie, Under the Skin, in which she plays an alien manhunter and eater, is “just so all-encompassing that I’m happy to commit myself completely to it. And it’s been nice to just focus on that and to focus on myself. … There’s something quite refreshing about it.” She’s been holed up in the Scottish wilderness. “It’s nice to just kind of be like, I don’t know, in the middle of nowhere.”

She’s not a subway girl

Here in the thick of things, her hometown, she says she roams surprisingly free. “What do I have to lose? It’s not like I get attacked by hordes of angry fans.” (Not that you’ll see her underground: “For me, it’s like, I used up all my subway tokens. It’s a privilege to not have to take the subway. I like the subway, it gets you places fast, but I’d much rather hail a cab. Or walk.”)

“The city is very kind to me,” she says, looking out the window at the bustle two stories below. “It wraps its big, warm arms around me and keeps me safe. I feel good here.”

Two years ago, Johansson made her Tony-winning Broadway debut a neighborhood away in A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller, the former husband, of course, of the icon she’s constantly held up against, Monroe.

And though her View part, Catherine Carbone, is legendarily loosely based on Miller’s ex-wife, don’t expect Johansson to become the next in the line of blondes (and one redhead) who have lately channeled the quintessential celluloid siren on screen and in magazine pages.

“There’s a lot there to explore and I like to watch other people do it, but I have no interest in” joining the Monroe biopic brigade. “It’s lovely to be compared to somebody as sort of effervescent and charming and fragile and I think kind of an underrated actor, really,” says Johansson. And “you know, beautiful and everything. But it’s never been one for me.”

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The FBI just released the grand jury indictment of a man who allegedly hacked into the email accounts of 50 victims, including dozens of celebrities.

The indictment was issued against 35-year-old Christopher Chaney of Jacksonville, Florida.  He was arrested this morning by FBI agents, on charges of identity theft, wiretapping and other charges.

According to federal officials, Chaney would use public information to access email accounts of his alleged victims, and then access computers and cell phones under the control of his victims.

Some of the alleged victims include Christina Aguilera, Scarlett Johansson, Mila Kunis, and celebrity stylist Simone Harouche. Some of the ill-gotten materials included naked photos.

As TMZ first reported, law enforcement sources tell us Chaney allegedly acted alone, and got no money for his alleged misdeeds — rather, he did it for the thrill.

Chaney faces 121 years in federal prison if convicted on all counts.

Wow I dont think that was worth it!  Scary that he could do that though with such big celebrities. He better have a top criminal lawyer on his side.

Source: TMZ

Jackson died in June, 2009, and the estate bosses are still waiting for Lloyds to pay out on the $17.5 million (£11 million) insurance policy taken out on the pop superstar’s ill-fated This Is It concerts, which were scrapped following his passing.

The executors are now taking the insurers to court in a bid to end the stand-off, according to Tmz.com.

Lloyd’s of London originally issued the policy to cover potential losses for the This Is It London concerts, but the company bosses asked a judge in Los Angeles to declare the policy null and void, claiming Jackson lied about his medical history and drug addiction.

They insist the policy was restricted to “losses resulting from accident only”, stating the pop star’s official cause of death was homicide.

But now the estate executors have filed a cross-complaint, claiming the late star never intended to die, whether by homicide or not, so his death still qualifies as an accident.

They are now calling for the $17.5 million (£11 million) and punitive damages.

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Will Smith looks set to revive his rap career.

The actor-and-singer – whose last album, ‘Lost and Found’, was released in 2005 – is thought to be in line to begin work on a comeback album with producer La Mar ‘Mars’ Edwards, who is hoping to start up the Hollywood star’s music career again.

Mars told XXLMag.com: “We’re working on Will Smith, bringing him back. That’s actually him on the other line right now.”

The 42-year-old hunk – who shot to fame during his time in 1990s TV comedy ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ – has released four studio albums, including 1997 hit ‘Big Willie Style’, which featured US Billboard Hot 100 chart number one single ‘Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It’.

Since the release of his last album, Will – who has been married to actress Jada Pinkett Smith since 1997 and has two children with her, Jaden, 13, and 10-year-old daughter Willow, who are both music stars – has featured in major films including ‘I Am Legend’, ‘Hancock’ and ‘Seven Pounds’.

Willow appears to have been inspired by her father’s rap music interest as last year she explained Tupac – who was shot dead in 1996 – is her number one hip-hop star.

She said: “On my iPod I have Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Billy Idol, B.O.B. Eminem, Tupac – he was my mom’s best friend.”

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Pauly D and Nicki Minaj are Britney’s opening acts on tour and last night in Montreal, the 31-year-old deejay got the surprise of a lifetime — Brit pulled him up on stage for her performance of “Leather and Lace.”

Art imitates life in Jodie Foster’s “The Beaver,” a well-meaning drama that attempts to say something substantial about depression and mental illness but doesn’t quite know how to get its message across—which is a pity, because you can’t find a more suitable actor in the role of the movie’s tormented protagonist than Mel Gibson.

Toy company executive, Walter Black (Gibson), has been in the doldrums for some time now. And, even his family has had enough of his inexplicable mood swings. So, torn between love and self-preservation, his wife, Meredith (Foster), asks Walter to leave their house, before his condition manifests its adverse effects on their children, Porter (Anton Yelchin) and Henry (Riley Thomas Stewart).

But, just as he’s about to give up, Walter finds his unexpected “salvation”—in a Cockney-speaking beaver hand puppet that drowns out his destructive thoughts, then eventually irons out all the kinks in his troubled life!

Meredith and Porter are understandably wary of the unconventional “therapeutic tool” Walter utilizes as a quick-fix solution to his psychological problems. But, they grudgingly play along with it, especially after it resuscitates Walter’s joie de vivre and strengthens his relationship with Henry. Problem is, the Beaver seems to have completely taken over Walter’s persona—even during “intimate” moments with his wife!

Volatile relationships

As director, Foster handles emotionally charged scenes well, even when there’s hardly any dialogue exchanged. It’s these dynamic and volatile relationships that make the movie watchable, despite its shaky premise.

Unfortunately, the production leaves many unanswered questions about Walter’s back story, and makes viewers “imagine” crucial details on their own that could have clued them in on his predicament—so much for character motivation and clear storytelling.

Moreover, a side story involving Porter’s budding relationship with Norah (Jennifer Lawrence), the class valedictorian, requires viewers to suspend disbelief that the smartest girl on campus is incapable of writing her own graduation speech!

The film underscores the importance of medical treatment for patients with mental illness who manifest psychotic symptoms, because they could prove harmful to the people around them—you can’t just sweep them under the rug and wish for the problem to go away!

Other good reasons to see “The Beaver” are the insightful and instructive performances of Gibson and Foster, who displays her Oscar-worthy acting chops in a scene toward the end of the movie.

It’s interesting to note that in his 20s, and especially in films like “Tim,” “Gallipoli” and “The Year of Living Dangerously,” it was hard to see beyond Gibson’s physical “beauty” and potent masculine appeal. But, now that he’s past his prime, his dramatic acumen continues to see him through the difficult times—now, that’s talent!

Besides, if a former crackhead like Robert Downey Jr. can turn his life around and reinvent himself as a clean-living box-office star at age 43, why can’t the multitalented, 55-year-old Mel?

You may not like Gibson for his shocking sins of commission and for the bigoted views that spew out of his mouth during moments of inebriation, but the guy doubtless knows how to tap into Walter’s tormented soul—and his. As his thespic skills continue to unravel, he makes it easier for moviegoers to hate the sin, not the sinner.

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Spears, 29, summoned Pauly D, who is also her tour deejay, to the stage during the Circus track ‘Leather and Lace’, and he was handcuffed to a pole in the back of a pink Mini Cooper and surrounded by half-naked dancers.

She then wrapped him in a pink feather boa and proceeded to climb
behind him and dance seductively while her dancers flanked him and did their own grinding.

An excited Pauly D took to his Twitter page and tweeted about the event as soon as it happened. “Wow Just Got A Lap Dance On Stage From @britneyspears!!!” the New York Daily News quoted him as writing.

Even Spears seemed pleased with the turnout, and she let Pauly D know about it. “Hope you enjoyed your dance! Was tough getting my legs around that big blowout,” she wrote.

The video:

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In the crazy entertainment industry, surrounding oneself with quality girlfriends is a must — and Swift has become like family to Gomez and Stone, which is the upside of fame. We can only imagine what their hangout session are like. Something tells us that they are probably borrowing each other’s clothing and accessories, since all three have enviable closets, no doubt.

Swift said, “My friends are amazing and I’m so thankful to have them, [but] the ones that are like sisters to me are Selena Gomez and Emma Stone.” The sisterly bonds between Swift and her pals run so deep that they pretty much know what she is thinking at any given time. Swift admitted, “They can predict my thoughts; I’ve known them for so long it’s really cool to have friends that are that close.” Many of her fans have wondered what it’s like to be inside Swift’s head, but it’s her girlfriends who are actually that in tune with her. Must be nice!

Swift has spoken about how she and Gomez crashed a college football game one weekend, while trying to create a normal co-ed experience for themselves, despite being rich, famous and beautiful stand-out-in-a-crowd pop stars.

You know, it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine Swift, Gomez and Stone in their own sitcom. They’re all stunning and as funny as they are beautiful. Each of them is a member of one of three major hair color groups — blonde, brunette and red — so they have all the makings of a prime time hit. The premise could be that they can read each other’s minds. Quick, somebody call a network!

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