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 Sofia Coppola, left, and French singer Thomas Mars arrive for the screening of the film “Marie-Antoinette,” at the 59th International film festival in Cannes last week. Coppola is expecting a baby, due this winter, People magazine reported today on its Web site.
Mars is the lead singer for that band Phoenix.
Congratulations to them both!
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 Jon Bon Jovi performs on stage, in the Stade de Suisse in Berne, Switzerland, today.
Yeah, we got photos.
 
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Cheech Marin says those spreading rumors of a Cheech and Chong reunion movie are smoking something other than tobacco products.
Those rumors about an on-screen reunion of Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong? Reefer madness, Marin says. The 59-year-old actor — half of the Cheech & Chong comedy duo that embodied 1970s and 1980s marijuana humor — said there will be no future joint efforts with Chong.
“We’ve tried to do it a bunch of times and we always end up at the same place,” said Marin at a recent press tour to promote the animated film “Cars,” set for release June 9. “All the old animosities resurface.” In “Cars,” Marin voices Ramon, a vintage low-rider who befriends lead character Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson).
“I’m real comfortable leaving Cheech & Chong right where it is,” Marin said. “I was a big Laurel & Hardy fan when I was a kid. I used to watch them on TV all the time and then one time I saw a Laurel & Hardy film they made when they were a lot older and it creeped me out. I just never wanted to do that.”
Marin said voicing roles in animated films such as “Oliver & Company,” “FernGully: The Last Rainforest” and “The Lion King” has given his career a second act. His screen credits also include roles in the “Spy Kids” movies and the TV series “Nash Bridges.”
“That was always a point of conflict with Tommy and I,” he said. “I wanted to kind of keep moving and do other stuff and he wanted to stay at that same thing. My natural inclination was to keep moving.”
The Cheech and Chong movies were very much tied to their eras and, indeed, are rather lame now–at least when viewed sober. Plus, there’s just something sad about stoners in their 60′s.
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The Dixie Chicks’ new album, “Taking The Long Way” has debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts, breaking their own record.
As Taking The Long Way debuts at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 best-selling albums chart this week, with first week’s sales of 525,829, the Dixie Chicks have become the first female group in chart history to have three albums debut at #1, breaking the record the Chicks established in 2002 when the group’s last studio album, Home, debuted at #1 and made them the first female group ever to have two albums debut at #1.
[...]
Taking The Long Way arrives in the midst of an incredible media blitz surrounding the Dixie Chicks, who were honored with a profile on CBS’s “60 Minutes” and appeared on the cover of Time magazine an unprecedented two times in May. The group was featured in a five-part series of interviews, culminating with an SRO live concert at New York’s Bryant Park on Friday, May 26, on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” The Dixie Chicks will sit down for an in-depth interview on “Larry King Live” tonight, Wednesday, May 31.
Now records for “female group” are somewhat dubious, much like Brooks & Dunn’s numerous achievements as “vocal duo.” Those are very small categories and there’s not much competition currently or historically in either.
Still, having three consecutive albums debut at #1 is an impressive enough achievement. Even more so considering how much the Chicks alienated their fan base three years ago with a series of derogatory comments about a then-wildly popular President Bush.
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Michelle Rodriguez, who was sentenced to 60 days in jail for violating probabation, served only a few hours before being released due to overcrowding.
 The former star of ABC’s “Lost” still must serve 30 days of community service and remain on probation until June 2009, a spokeswoman for the city attorney’s office said. “Our prosecutors are not happy about it, but that is the sad reality of our overcrowded jails,” said spokeswoman Contessa Mankiewicz.
Calls to Rodriguez’s attorney and publicist were not immediately returned Tuesday. “Michelle’s happy with the way things turned out,” Rodriguez’s friend, designer Anand John, told People magazine in a story posted Tuesday on its Web site. “She knows this wasn’t a literal get-out-of-jail-free card. Michelle’s taken responsibility for the past, and now she’s ready to focus on her career.”
The 27-year-old actress served five days in jail in Hawaii last month after pleading guilty to drunken driving. The Dec. 1 arrest in Honolulu violated the three-year probation term she was given in Los Angeles County in 2004 after pleading no contest to charges of hit-and-run, driving on a suspended license and drunken driving.
Didn’t they know the jails were crowded before she reported in? And, really, who cares how much room criminals have?
OTB
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The OTB Gone Hollywood Caption Contest is now over.
(AFP/Aris Messinis)
The Winner
First: yetanotherjohn – Boy howdy. Momma’s got a squeeze box and daddy ain’t going to sleep to night.
Second: John Burgess – Crescendos accompanied by screams and moans.
Third: spacemonkey – Unfortunately this wasn’t the squeeze box everybody wanted to watch Anna play.
Fourth: radio free fred – “New Design For The Thigh Master.”
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 Actress Naomi Watts, special representative to the United Nations’ program for HIV/AIDS, was among United Nations employees, special representatives, tourists and other participants who took part in an event to form a human red ribbon to symbolize the fight against HIV/AIDS in the North Garden at United Nations headquarters today.
You see? Naomi Watts is not only a hot classy chick, she also cares about serious issues that need to be dealt with. Personally, I’m in love.
Pictured in the last photo are Mary Fisher, right, and Peter Piot, center, executive director of the program.
  
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Arab News has a true crime report entitled, “Naked ‘Sorceress’ Falls From the Sky.”
Members of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice received a call of a suspected African “sorceress†in the holy city’s Al-Seeh neighborhood. Members of the committee along with police went to the suspected den of the black arts to find a naked African woman. Embarrassed about busting into an apartment containing a naked woman, police paused just long enough for the woman to attempt an escape, still naked, through the window of her flat. Police followed in pursuit to discover that the woman had crashed through the ceiling of the neighbor’s flimsy house and landed on the floor next to a bed of sleeping children. The woman was arrested, but not before she was provided some dignity in the form of clothing.
Some mighty gentlemenly folks on the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. But, then, what else would you expect?
via Rusty Shackleford, who entitles the story “Naked Witch Arrested in Saudi Arabia.” I’m not sure of the technical distinction between a sorceress and a witch, let alone whether they would survive translation. Nonetheless, there seems to be a consensus that the woman was naked. No photos are available.
OTB
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 Actress Jessica Alba, wearing a wig, poses for a portrait while on set filming a segment for the upcoming 2006 MTV Video Music Awards in Santa Clarita, California on Saturday. Alba says she hopes to show fans a different side of herself when she hosts the MTV awards, which will be handed out June 3 and air June 8.
Well, I wonder what “other” side of her she’s going to show us? Could it be the boring old button shopper she was several months back? Or maybe she’s finally going to come out of the closet and tell all of us she has been a hot steamy lesbian all along. Maxim magazine fans, you’ve all been fooled! Morons!
Anyhow, doesn’t her hair in these pictures look awfully similar to Jessica Simpson’s hair? I’m guessing it could be a segment ripping on Simpson. We’ll have to wait and see.
 
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 I think it’s interesting to look at the differences in the Superman costume from the 1978 version to the 2006 version. A major difference I see is the toned down colors. The blues are bluer but it seems the red cape is toned down, and I read it doesn’t have an “S” on the back either. Also the new costume has tiny little S’s semi-preforrated all around it, that’s kinda overdoing it, but still, a very cool detail.
The 1978 costume looks like an imitation Underoos pajama, by today’s standards. It seems to be spandex, and the “S” looks to have been cut out by a guy with a pair of fiskars. It’s kinda sad to think that costume was so bad-ass back then, no one questioned how “authentic” it looked. I think about how we’re going to look at this 2006 costume 30 years from now. Will I think it’s cheap, and cheesy? Far out!
 
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 Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner holds a birthday cake with girlfriends Kendra Wilkinson, left, Bridget Marquardt, second left and Holly Madison, right, during a photocall to celebrate his 80th birthday at the 59th International film festival in Cannes today.
Um, thats funny, because I remember Paris Hilton singing Happy Birthday to him almost 2 months ago. What’s the deal? On his imdb profile it states his birthday was on april 9th. Then again, if I had 3 playmate girlfriends I’d celebrate my birthday every month too. Actually, maybe the party where Paris sang him Happy Birthday just hasn’t ended yet. Maybe it’s like a 2 month party binge!
God, I wish I was 80 years old. Oh, and the publisher of Playboy.
    
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Alyssa Milano showed up at a Mets game in a tight, low cut sweater that showed off her cleavage and her cold-enhanced nipples or, as Hollywood Tuna dubs them, “her wonderful breasts and inspirational nipples.”
From this set of facts, we get some dubious causal analysis: “Yes, inspirational. Look how well the Mets are doing this year. They’re in first place. All thanks to Alyssa’s nipples.”
Here is a photograph of the nipples in question:
More sophisticated analysis, comparing Mets wins and losses with the appearances of Alyssa Milano and her nipples at ballgames, would be a minimum for establishing this connection. Moreover, univariate analysis is always problematic. We would need to know whether Milano had visited other teams’ ballparks and how their fortunes turned on that basis. Ideally, we would also need data on the overall nipple quality of the women in attendance for all Major League teams. Such research would be difficult, to be sure. But, in the interests of science, it must be done.
Still, the Mets should nonetheless invite Milano to as many games as possible. No sense in taking chances.
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Paul Gleason, who played Principal Richard Vernon in the 1980s classic “The Breakfast Club,” has died from asbestos-related lung cancer. He was 67.
 Paul Gleason, who played the go-to bad guy in “Trading Places” and the angry high school principal in “The Breakfast Club,” has died. He was 67.
Gleason died at a local hospital Saturday of mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer linked to asbestos, said his wife, Susan Gleason. Whenever you were with Paul, there was never a dull moment,” his wife said. “He was awesome.”
A native of Miami, Gleason was an avid athlete. Before becoming an actor, he played Triple-A minor league baseball for a handful of clubs in the late 1950s.
Gleason honed his acting skills with his mentor Lee Strasberg, whom he studied with at the Actors Studio beginning in the mid-1960s, family members said.
In “Trading Places,” Gleason portrayed an industry spy who stole orange futures — and wound up locked in a cage with an extremely affectionate male gorilla. Through his career, Gleason appeared in more than 60 movies that included “Die Hard,” “Johnny Be Good,” “National Lampoon’s Van Wilder,” and “Not Another Teen Movie.” Most recently, Gleason made a handful of television appearances in hit shows such as “Friends” and “Seinfeld.”
Gleason’s passions went beyond acting. He had recently published a book of poetry. “He was an athlete, an actor and a poet,” said his daughter, Shannon Gleason-Grossman. “He gave me and my sister a love that is beyond description that will be with us and keep us strong for the rest of our lives.”
A shame. Despite being most familiar for that one role, he has 132 acting credits at IMDb–including a reprise of the Vernon role for the 2001 spoof “Not Another Teen Movie.”
OTB
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David Lee Roth is campaigning to rejoin Van Halen as its lead singer, saying putting the band back together isn’t exactly “rocket surgery.”
Now that he’s lost his radio job, David Lee Roth is seeking gainful employment in another capacity — as lead singer of Van Halen. Again.
“I see it absolutely as an inevitability,” says Roth, who was deposed by CBS Radio in late April as one of Howard Stern’s replacements. “There’s contact between the two camps, and they have legitimate management; Irv Azoff is part of their loop now. “To me, it’s not rocket surgery. It’s very simple to put together. And as far as hurt feelings and water under the dam, like what’s-her-name says to what’s-her-name at the end of the movie ‘Chicago’ — ‘So what? It’s showbiz!’ So I definitely see it happening.” Despite that claim, Roth — who was Van Halen’s singer from 1974-1985 — acknowledges that he hasn’t seen Edward Van Halen “in a couple of years.” The last time Roth recorded with Van Halen was for the group’s “Best Of Van Halen Volume 1″ album in 1996, though there have been periodic rumors ever since.
Roth isn’t sitting around while he waits for the call, however. He joins the John Jorgensen bluegrass band for two songs — “Jump” and “Jamie’s Cryin’ ” — on “Strummin’ With the Devil: The Southern Side of Van Halen,” a bluegrass-styled tribute to Van Halen. Roth calls it “a detour” as well as “an interesting return … Before there was rock ‘n’ roll, there was me and a single guitar, flat pickin’ Doc Watson (songs).” Roth plans to make a number of TV appearances on behalf of the album, which comes out June 6.
Roth is also planning to tour later this summer to play Van Halen hits — “I’m so proud of that music,” he says — favorites from his solo album and covers. He’ll leave the banjos and fiddles at home, though. “I like to bring out the brass section now and the keyboard players and the singers and so forth,” Roth explains. “It’s probably a little closer to the Rolling Stones’ revue than to the early three-piece power trio. But the demand is amazing; I guess I’m lucky enough to be one of those guys now who can point at the map and say ‘Let’s go here’ — or, rather, my favorite expression, which is ‘Let’s follow the sun.’ “
Given that Van Halen has been around far longer minus Roth than with him, I’m not sure this is in the cards. Still, the band’s best music was during that brief period when the original gang was together.
And I’ve just got to buy the Van Halen bluegrass tribute album.
Hat tip: Victorino Matus
OTB
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 The 2006 Indy 500 is over. Danica Patrick did not win. Mario Andretti’s grandson finished second and some guy I’ve never heard of won.
Unlike golf reporters, who at least have the sense to tell us where Tiger Woods finished when he doesn’t win an event, the story does not mention where Patrick finished. She placed 4th last year.
Update: She finished 8th. Not a bad first two Indy 500′s. Incidentally, the winner was Sam Hornish, Jr., who was the 2001 and 2002 IRL champion. That I’ve never heard of him says something about how far this sport has fallen from its heyday. There’s not a pre-1996 CART Champion whose name I’m unfamiliar with; most are household names.
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