Entertainment Report

• While other teenage starlets are getting thinner and flightier by the second, Anne Hathaway just keeps getting classier. Having gone head to head with Julie Andrew in The Princess Diaries, Hathaway is now priming herself to star alongside Meryl Streep in an adaptation of The Devil Wears Prada. Looks like baby's all grown up. [RTE]

• Nicole Kidman could twitch her nose all she wants and it still wouldn't make Bewitched anymore of a box office success. Drawing in an anemic 20 million dollars worth of American suckers, Bewitched seems destined for flopsville, another stinker in a shit-loaded year. The box office, slumping worse than the Yankees, is reaching Depression-level despair. Where's Seabiscuit when you need him? [SMH]

• 80s rock legends the Stone Roses reunited at the wet 'n wild Glastonbury festival for a few songs, previewing what's sure to become another huge reunion tour in a year that's bogged down with them. The Roses famously blew up in the early 90s after releasing their classic self-titled debut. Inspired by the joyous reunion on stage, it's reported that Liam Gallagher went off to find his brother and apologize for calling him a "cunt." [NME]

• The official line-up for the Village Voice's annual Siren Festival has finally been announced. Spoon and Mates of State will headline; Brendan Benson and Swedish band Dungen will also play sets. The festival, to be held July 17 at Coney Island, is expected to draw huge crowds; we're guessing a mere five percent of this crowd will admit to attending the festival out of their own volition. [Village Voice]

• An adaptation of the blood-soaked vigilante video game Max Payne is making its way to the big screens. Here's betting it's better than Mortal Kombat, but not as good as Super Mario Brothers. Or rather, worse than Mortal Kombat, and better than Mario Brothers. Whichever it is, it certainly won't be as good as Street Fighter. [Coming Soon] (LH)

Who's Entitled Now?

Attention "young" people: You will now be known as the Entitlement Generation, thanks to, well, the Associated Press, some unnamed corporate douchebag at a Chicago radio station, and a Perkins waffle jockey. Hell, if Billy Idol could name a generation, why not these schmucks?

"So, we call you guys the 'Entitlement Generation," the unnamed baby boomer says to Evan Wayne as he applies for a shitty sales job. "You think you're entitled to everything." So you pay into a Social Security system that, by our president's projections, will be bankrupt long before you benefit from it. So you've suffered a worsening economy, a war (or two) built on lies, and billion dollar corporate scandals (Tyco, Enron). What, that means you deserve any more than, say, a career hash slinger? The AP asks Mike Amos, a Salt Lake City-based franchise consultant for Perkins Restaurants. "It seems they want and expect everything that the 20- or 30-year veteran has the first week they're there," he says.

Yeah, and they won't stay off of our damn lawns, either! (MM & TG)

• The Young Labeled 'Entitlement Generation' [AP]

MTV's Gay Agenda

MTV decided that even with Will & Grace, Queer as Folk, The L Word, Two and a Half Men, The Real World, The Situation with Tucker Carlson and the entire Bravo channel, television just wasn't gay enough. So after years of planning, production and press releases, the network that gave you Madonna will, uh, be giving you more Madonna.

This Thursday will see the debut of Logo, the Viacom-owned channel for the "We're here, we're queer" set. Heading up the homo network is Brian Graden, the man who's been responsible for some 300 program launches across MTV, VH1 and CMT in recent years, including Jackass and Punk'd. (And with a degree from a university that calls itself Oral Roberts, a guy who couldn't have been a better pick to head up the net.) Unlike competing nelly networks Here and Q, Logo will initially reach 10 million homes without customers specifically requesting it in their digital cable service. Which means programs like gay wedding show First Comes Love and the black (in the skin color sense) comedy Noah's Arc will irritate like the rest of MTV's line-up. To lock in the obnoxious factor, Logo is set to air the GLAAD Media Awards -- and if the repetitive broadcast cycle of the MTV Video Awards is any inclination, you won't soon forget it. (DH)

• Graden polishes Logo, network for gays and lesbians [Sun-Times]
• TV network for gays, lesbians to debut [AP]
• I Want My Gay TV [New York Mag]

Jews Really Do Control Hollywood, Part XXXVII

As Bob and Harvey Weinstein continue to pry themselves away from their corporate group hug with Disney in anticipation of a Sept. 30 break from the Mouse trap, they've turned to a guy with another extremely Jewish sounding name for help. Richard Saperstein, who's done time at both Artisan and New Line, will serve as executive VP for Bob and Harve's Dimension Films, as well as their nascent Weinstein Co. Though some might not envy -- and please let us be the first to nickname him thusly -- Dick Sap for snuggling into the bearish embrace of the original phone-thrower, don't worry too much for Sap -- he started his career at ICM, so he clearly knows from malice. Mazel Tov, Dick Sap, may the three of you make sweet Klezmer music together. (MM & TG)

• Weinsteins beef up exec ranks with vet [Variety]

Saddam the Novelist

In between Dorito munching and sweaty work-outs, ousted Iraqi dictator and occasional novelist, Saddam Hussein will release his third work of fiction this week in Amman, Jordan. Saddam's latest novel, "Ekhroj minha ya mak'un," which translates roughly as "Damned one, Get out of here" (a perhaps not-so-subtle reference to his feelings about the US) was finished a month before the American occupation crushed his regime in April 2003. (Saddam's previous books, in case you're looking for some fun summer reading, includes Zabiba and the King and The Impregnable Fortress.)

According to Al Jazeera, the book "tackles the life of a man called Haskeel who moves from his hometown to a city, where he starts making conspiracies to oust the local chief. At the end of the novel, the chief's daughter, succeeds in kicking Haskeel out of the city with the help of a knight." But apparently even Saddam had trouble controlling the release of his work: an early unedited copy of the novel, which will be soon made available throughout the Middle East and will eventually be translated into English and French, has been available in Iraq for the past several months without his consent. Hussein's daughter, Raghd, plays the Dave Eggers role, endorsing the novel with a dedication to her father: "To the maker of heroes and men, to the one who taught us the love of the nation, to my dear father with appreciation and praise." Now if that isn't good publicity we don't know what is. (JB)

• Saddam's "Get Out, You Damned" novel out next week [Al-Jazeera]

Another Jackson Court Case

No, not that Jackson -- we're talking about Lord of the Rings-directing man-bit Peter Jackson, who is suing New Line cinemas for some $100 million. Jackson's arguing that since New Line, which is part of the Time Warner monolith, offered LOTR subsidiary rights only to brothers in the corporate family, Jackson missed out on many mils worth of post-production windfall that would've come from an open bidding process. A few words from today's NY Times, which may be of interest to all you unshaven poets out there:

By painting this corporate synergy as "self-dealing," Mr. Jackson's lawsuit and similar suits filed in the last few years, called vertical integration lawsuits, argue that the idea of the media conglomerate is at odds with the interests of the creative minds behind the content.

Anyone else hear the Simpson's Mr. Burns cackling maniacally while intoning, "Creative minds! Ha! That's rich, that's very rich, indeed." Later in the Times piece, an anonymous New Line lawyer says:

"Peter Jackson is an incredible filmmaker who did the impossible on 'Lord of the Rings.' But there's a certain piggishness involved here. New Line already gave him enough money to rebuild Baghdad, but it's still not enough for him."

We'll let the distastefulness and irony of that statement do all its messy oozing on its own. (MM & TG)

Daily Dirt: House of Brando

• Marlon Brando left this earth with mass to spare, and producer Mike Medavoy got rid of the rest. He signed on with Christie's to auction off Brando's estate (including his Medicare card), but the actor's eldest son Christian is furious over just how much was emptied out. The auction house got first dibs on all art and memorabilia, his camp claims, and left the children to pick over the remains. Christie's contends he had nine months to pick through daddy's belongings. [Rush & Molloy]

• Lil Jon says he's dumping his label. The diamond-toothed rapper is feuding with TVT Records over -- you guessed it -- money and now he's refusing to do any promotion for his multi-platinum album, "Crunk Juice," for the indie label. Instead he's producing albums for his own BME Records, a Warner imprint, which leaves poor TVT without its star artist. [NYDN]

• Michael Jackson is speaking to fans the way he does it best: through his website. "Your ever-present love held me, dried my tears, and carried me through," he tells those willing to read. Absent from the message, however, is any message to Tom Sneddon to "give me my goddamn passport back, you twat." [Reuters]

• Births: Angie Harmon and New York Giant hubby Jason Sehorn announced the birth of daughter Avery Grace while Six Feet Under's Rachel Griffiths popped out her second child with husband Andrew Taylor. Splits: Elle Macpherson announced her amicable breakup from long-time boyfriend (nine years!) Arpad Busson. (DH)

Morning Roundup

• Four suicide bombers killed 38 people in Mosul this weekend. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told Fox News Sunday that the insurgency could last a dozen years and Iraq would only grow more violent in the days leading up to the election later this year. Sounds promising. [NY Times]

• British Prime Minister Tony Blair's kid will intern on Capitol Hill this summer, for GOP Rep. David Drier. Euan Blair graduated from college this month and wants his MBA from Harvard. In the meantime, he'll take an internship that should go to some equally connected American kid. [UK Guardian]

• Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union will release a report today criticizing the Bush Administration's use of material witnesses. The report finds that at least 70 suspects were detained without being charged but only seven were ever formally accused of a crime. Under a 1984 law, the federal government can hold someone indefinitely if they have information about a crime and are a flight risk. The FBI is a huge fan of this law, which is popular in the war on terror. Funny that the law's from 1984. [NY Times]

• Pre-orders for the new Harry Potty book are expected to be well over a million, according to Amazon.com. The book, the sixth in the series about a young wizard, will be published in the US and the UK on July 16, as well as in Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. Children and their adult nerd counterparts should rejoice -- the new book is only a little over 600 pages. [BBC] (AG)

Gay or NY Times, Part II

On the heels of its stepped-up, gay pride-tailored coverage (including last weekend's "gay vague" obsession, the New York Times continues its week of reader service with Sunday front page play for the "Polish Plumber":

Blond, buffed and blow-dried, a come-hither half-smile on his face, the man in the travel ad grips the tools of his trade as he beckons visitors to Poland. "I'm staying in Poland," the man says, a set of strategically placed pipes in one hand, a metal-cutter in the other. "Lots of you should come."

Then in an awesome use of both double-entendre and "shock" quotes, the Times informs us that this "plumber" has come to personify French fears about the future. The story is trying to say something about the changing character of immigration in France and tourism in Poland, but we were too busy copyrighting "The Polish Plumber" and registering thepolishplumber.com for what promises to be our lucrative future as gay porn producers. (MM & TG)

• Unlikely Hero in Europe's Spat: The 'Polish Plumber' [NYT]

Bill Clinton, Crusader

Wondering why Bill Clinton appeared on stage with Billy Graham, other than to boost Hil's evangelical profile? Simple. They are two peas in a linguistic pod. The author of the much-beloved phrase "It depends what you mean by 'is'" must have resonated to the weasling put out by Graham's people about whether or not this was the last crusade for the 86-year-old smarmy thumper. After all, Graham had previously claimed that an appearance in Wichita was his final one. When pressed on this question, Graham's people said it was his last "scheduled" crusade. If only he interpreted the Bible as loosely as he wants us to interpret his own publicity. (Adam Hanft)

• Clintons Join Crusaders in N.Y. [WaPo]
• Graham's farewell? Maybe not [Chicago Tribune]

Pop Weekend

Here's a word association from Sunday's LA Times. Brownies. Naked models. Toenail painting. Porn. Hot Tub, and... Joel Stein! He meets his neighbors, the Suicide Girls, in a family newspaper-style reminder that the trollop troupe is still trite. [LA Times]

Bottle rockets and Roman candles are for pussies, says NASA, as it trains its sites on a comet and takes one giant leap closer to blowing up the moon, just as predicted by Mr. Show. [AP]

In what could either be the outline for the pilot episode of Pimp My War or a serious case of life imitating Stripes, the New York Times showcased the Rhino Runner, Don Rummy's kickass bomb-proof RV. Of course, Halliburton made one for his tour of Iraq, but it's a little too good for the troops. [NY Times] (MM & TG)