R.I.P. Paul Walker

This had better be a tasteless Thanksgiving weekend hoax.

A report originated on TMZ tonight about the passing of 40-year-old of Paul Walker. The Fast star reportedly was involved in an unconfirmed-by-police a fiery single-car accident in California this afternoon.

I also heard that the report was nothing more but the product of a hacker’s idea of a joke – but then Twitter exploded with numerous R.I.P.s from Hollywood folk, like Marlee Matlin, who tweeted she had, “heard [the news] from a friend who produced the Fast & Furious franchise. It’s  true he has passed.”

Hope it is not true.

Photo: SocialiteLife.com.

Update 1: The actor’s people have confirmed the sad news via his official Facebook page.

“It is with a truly heavy heart that we must confirm that Paul Walker passed away today in a tragic car accident while attending a charity event for his organization Reach Out Worldwide.”

Walker was the passenger in a car a friend of his was driving.

Both died as a result of the accident.

Update 2: Click here for reactions from the likes of Walker’s co-stars and friends, like Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Rachael Leigh Cook, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Gabrielle Union.

And here for R.I.P.s from Alyssa Milano, Carson Daly, and Ludacris.

Update 3: Click here to watch video of a clearly emotional Tyrese Gibson visiting the makeshift memorial fans erected near the site of his Fast co-star’s accident. And here for reaction from Michelle Rodriguez, and here for a statement from Jordana Brewster.

Both actresses also played opposite Walker in the Fast franchise; in fact, the latter portrayed his love interest.

Update 4: Vin Diesel also took the time to visit Walker’s memorial site, to remember his friend, and to thank fans for their outpouring of support.

All these ladies and gentlemen truly had one beautiful brotherhood, as we have heard so much since the actor’s tragic accident, huh.

Becks Thinks He Is Worthy of Pitt

If they ever make a film based on David Beckham’s life, David Beckham thinks Brad Pitt should play him.

Well…kinda sorta.

See, Becks was recently asked who would be his top choice to portray him in a biopic, right, and the retired footballer said, after a little pressing, that Pitt would be “the obvious choice.”

Oh really?!

“I’d like Brad to be playing me,” Beckham said. “Him or Leonardo [DiCaprio – duh]. One of the two…or Bradley Cooper. They’re not bad-looking guys.”

Someone thinks quite highly of himself.

And rightfully so.

And, hey, Angelina’s skinny enough to play Posh, so it works!

Photo: FashDloops.com.

Look Who’s Got Spirit!

Nominations for the upcoming Independent Spirit Awards were announced right before Thanksgiving, and here are some of the folks who received an early holiday treat in advance of their turkey.

It Guy Michael B. Jordan was singled out for his work in Fruitvale Station, which I am dying to see. Ditto Matthew McConaughey and Cate Blanchett and Shailene Woodley, for their turns in Dallas Buyers Club and Blue Jasmine and The Spectacular Now, respectively.

And my loverly Fass, Michael Fassbender, was nominated for his supporting work in 12 Years a Slave, which is like, my must watch of the weekend.

The 2014 Independent Spirit Awards will be handed out on March 1 in Santa Monica.

Joining 12 Years a Slave in the list of nominees for Best Feature are All Is Lost, Frances Ha, Inside Llewyn Davis, and Nebraska.

Photo: IFC Films (Frances Ha).

The List, Pt. 49

In: Scott Eastwood, easily, obviously Hollywood’s latest shirtless wonder.

So Five Minutes Ago: Matthew McConaughey (let’s face it: he will always be the original…but right now, it is time to cover it up and campaign, campaign, campaign – the year of the McConaughey must appear a most respectable proposition, after all).

O-V-E-R: Shirts.

Photo: Instagram.com/scotteastwood.

The Big Gay Reveal

Bob Harper is gay!

Now, I understand that this ain’t and can’t be a big shocker to some, but to me it so kinda sorta was. Don’t get me wrong, I’d wished he were a friend of friends, and that I stood a chance (which now, I guess…in some way, I do), but I didn’t have the most remote inkling about whether he actually was.

Probably because I don’t watch The Biggest Loser.

But now we know for sure: As he revealed on the show for the first time a couple of nights ago, he is, and he is now outta the closet.

It’s a Thanksgiving treat.

Now…is he single?

Photo: EW.com.

Rockin’ Prince

Prince Harry, you didn’t think you would be the only royal having a swell time this week now, did ya?

Or getting his party on – in like, life – in style.

That musta been what the Brits thought when they saw Prince William rocking along Jon Bon Jovi and Taylor Swift – who could not have been more enthused about being there, in typical Swiftian fashion – at this gala the would-be king hosted at Kensington Palace in aid of Centrepoint, a homeless charity, last night.

Man, did Wills just score himself some points.

Photo: TheDailyBeast.com.

Snubbed By the Globes

There was a time Scarlett Johansson could not make a movie without the folks at the Golden Globes flipping out about it.

Seriously, IMDb that s---.

It seems, though, the love affair is over.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has decided that Johansson’s upcoming voice turn in Spike Jonze’s Her is ineligible for consideration for the 2014 Globes. (Johansson plays Joaquin Phoenix’s love interest in the film – his custom operating system!)

This is spite of the fact that the Rome Film Festival just named her Best Actress for her work a week ago. And that she will be eligible for a Screen Actors Guild Award and/or an Academy Award nom.

Bet the powers that be will milk this one for all its worth and will try to get the actress some more well-deserved (from what I hear) attention.

Photo: HDWallpapers.in.

A Questionable Father

Finally. I was missing him there for a while.

Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar (The Others, The Sea Inside) is getting ready to helm again.

A2 is working on Regression, a new suspense starring Ethan Hawke.

The Before Midnight and Purge actor will play a man who has no memory of sexually abusing his daughter, in spite of the charges against him, and who may be part of some sort of nationwide conspiracy.

Regression is scheduled for an August 2015 release.

Photo: TimesLive.co.za.

Pulling a Miley

Edgy pixies are so It now even boys are pulling ’em.

Keith Urban is the latest star to try a Miley-style shag, kids.

Hey – why not.

Photo: UsMagazine.com

Sheriff Hot

Mmm…Patrick Wilson in uniform.

I like that.

The Insidious star has been tapped to replace Timothy Olyphant in the drama The Man on Carrion Road, the story of a border town sheriff investigating a drug deal gone wrong.

You know…the way they do.

Photo: PNJ.com.

Big Reunion!

Amanda Seyfried and Aaron Paul are getting back together.

For the screen!

The former stars of HBO’s Big Love are set to appear in Fathers and Daughters, a new movie from The Pursuit of Happyness director Gabriele Muccino.

Russell Crowe stars in the alternates-between-the-present-and-the-past story of a mentally ill novelist and the daughter he tries his best to raise in New York City.

Seyfried will play the kid’s grown-up version, but there’s been no word on just who Paul will portray.

Up next for the Breaking Bad star is next spring’s Need for Speed, while Seyfried has been working on While We’re Young with Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts and Adam Driver from HBO’s Girls.

Photo: Onet.pl.

American Gangster

For a second there I thought I would always only think of Shiloh Fernandez as one of the guys in Red Riding Hood.

And as that actor who shares a name with one of the Brangelina kids.

But then I saw The East earlier this year, and was impressed with how different he looked and sounded and carried himself in that film – I did not recognize him at all – and with how like, magnetic I found him to be.

So I’m glad he’s headed to Skinemax Cinemax.

Fernandez has been cast as the lead of Blanco, a potential new drama about an uptown gangster (the show’s title doubles as his character’s nickname, given to him for being a light-skinned Dominican) who uses his status as confidential informant to flip and reverse his arrangement with the law to build his own criminal empire.

Clever dude.

Photo: Zimbio.com.

The New Queen

Long-gestating Queen of the Desert, the Werner Herzog-penned forthcoming biopic of English writer and explorer Gertrude Bell, is finally cooking with gas.

But sans Naomi Watts.

The actress had said yes to the film like, two summers ago, right, but it seems that she dropped out at some point earlier this fall because her BFF Nicole Kidman is now set to play Bell.

Meanwhile, Damian Lewis (Showtime’s Homeland) also has joined scored a part in the project, that of an unhappily married English war hero who embarks on an affair with Kidman’s titular lady.

Btw, Robert Pattinson is still set to play T.E. Lawrence, a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia.

Production on Queen of the Desert is scheduled to start next month.

And then Kidman’s gonna get to work on Strangerland, a drama co-starring Guy Pearce and Hugo Weaving, about a couple whose two teenaged children go missing in the Australian desert.

Photo: WhatTalking.com.

Singing Something

Christina Aguilera is back in the spotlight – the music spotlight – thanks to A Great Big World.

Sure, Xtina has been back post-Lotus ever since she rejoined Sexiest Man Alive Adam Levine and his bromantic life partner Blake Shelton on TV’s The Voice earlier this season, and ever since – shudder – she lost all that weight she’d put on (I hate that that’s even how we gotta think of it).

But now she’s like, totally back, just how we like her best: singing the s--- outta of song we enjoy.

Not that the up-and-coming indie pop two-member band has Ms. Aguilera belting away on their single “Say Something.”

No, she is smartly showing us she can do subdued, too, as you can hear in the hit power torch ballad, the effect of which is rather haunting.

Loving it. Especially now that I heard them all perform the song on last night’s American Music Awards.

GTS!.

Photo: ThatGrapeJuice.net.

Is Antarctica Melting Yet?

Watch out for rising sea levels: Prince Harry has arrived in Antarctica!

As planned, the RUILF made it down there late last week to participate in – Hot Charity-doer Alert! – the Wounded’s South Pole Allied Challenge.

The world’s most coveted ginger and his teammates will be racing teams from America and Canada on a 200-mile, sub-zero course over the next few few weeks, to raise awareness for wounded soldiers.

Can’t wait to see those pics!

Photo: People.com.

And Then Scott Eastwood Won the Internet Again

Scott Eastwood cannot seem to keep his shirt on.

Which, if you have a pulse, should be absolutely fine, right?

Thank goodness the up-and-comer is an Instagram fan.

And that he like, enjoys vacationing in Hawaii, and sharing the view with the world.

Photo: People.com.

Not a Mere...

That hot cake Jared Leto may still be best known as an actor in some circles – he was Jordan Catalano, after all; did you see Dallas Buyers Club yet? – but, for years now, he has been primarily a musician.

As the frontman for Thirty Seconds to Mars, Leto has been rockin’ ’round the world with increasing popularity since like, the late ’90s. And like, get this, the band’s music quite literally has been described as out of this world.

Their journey has been spectacular and spectacularly frustrating for its members, though. At times, at least. Like that one time that their label, EMI, sued them from for $30 million in a contract dispute.

A resolution was settled in the matter, but Leto & Co. figured they would capture all the drama in an award-winning documentary titled Artifact that will be released across numerous platforms next month.

Check out the trailer for Artifact, and be sure you save a little time to catch the doc on Dec. 3. Oh, and listen to “City of Angels.” It is a good thing.

Photo: EW.com.

Triple Threat Realizada

Azúcar!

At long last, Jennifer Lopez showed the world that she is a triple threat.

She can act, she can dance, and she can sing.

Sure, La Lopez will never be known as a powerhouse vocalist, but as she demonstrated last night with her tribute to the late Celia Cruz at the American Music Awards, she can hold her own, in her own style.

Long gone are the days of lip-synching at relatively safe environments like SNL the way she did back in the early aughts. This new post-Marc Anthony J. Lo is a badass singin’ bitch.

And I likey.

Photo: Zap2It.com.

A Rudd Sort of Saturday Night

Now this is a treat.

Anchorman: The Legend Continues is coming up, right – so, naturally, Will Ferrell Paul Rudd is going to host Saturday Night Live.

Thank you, gods of movie promotion!

Rudd will be back at Studio 8H on Dec. 7, with musical guest One Direction.

A week later, SNL will welcome John Goodman and Kings of Leon (check out the band’s video for “Beautiful War” – it features Garrett Hedlund…as a cowboy!), and then BFF Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake will be on hand for the annual Christmas episode on Dec. 21.

So now you know.

And you know…the more you know….

Photo: TheHollywoodReporter.com.

Nurse Dark and Twisty and Stunning

One of my favorite gals to watch and to interview, Jessica Szohr, is making her way back to the tube.

The erstwhile Vanessa from Gossip Girl has scored a plum part on the Jason O’Mara vehicle Complications, a new potential show from Matt Nix (Burn Notice) for the USA Network.

Szohr will play an ER nurse, a super-smart kinda gal with clearly gorgeous eyes and a bit of a dark soul.

The show is about a disillusioned doctor played by O’Mara, a man who sees everything begin to change after he intervenes in a drive-by, saving a young boy and killing one of his attackers. When the good doctor finds out that the boy’s not out of danger, he finds himself compelled to save him no matter what. So his life, and his outlook on medicine, are never what they used to be (which spills over to others in the hospital, including Szohr’s character, who is more than willing to break any rule to help out).

Could be cable-interesting.

I’m in if the pilot goes to series.

Photo: Zimbio.com.

It Wants to Begin

After much teasing, Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac is finally coming…soon.

Check.

Out.

The decidedly NSFW – that’s why I’m giving it to you on a weekend – trailer for the provocative film (make sure there are no kids of puritans around when you do):



Exciting, in an odd way, huh.

The question remains, though: When is this film getting its release, already?