Spears, Farrell officially an item?
By Cesar G. Soriano, USA TODAY
Holy hormones! Pop princess Britney Spears and Gaelic gigolo Colin Farrell are Hollywood's hottest new item.
And just when we were getting used to the idea of Britney and Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst and Farrell and seductive older woman Demi Moore. But that was so yesterday.
Farrell, 26, and Spears, 21, made a grand red carpet entrance at Tuesday's Hollywood premiere of The Recruit, which stars Farrell and Al Pacino and opens Friday. They held hands for flashing cameras and TV crews.
After the screening, Spears, wearing what could best be described as a camisole, hooked up again with Farrell at Chateau Marmont, where they snuggled and kissed into the wee hours.
It wasn't their first date. On Saturday, the lip-locked lovers were seen at L.A.'s Troubadour nightclub, the New York Post reports. They met last week when Spears visited the set of Farrell's movie S.W.A.T.
But why, Britney, why? Colin has made it no secret he's a Tinseltown tomcat.
In the March issue of Playboy, Farrell says: "I've always been a firm believer that casual sex is a (expletive) good thing. Sometimes ... all I'm looking for is the simple act of sexual intimacy. It's like ordering a (expletive) pizza."
The foul-mouthed Irish actor also brags about his love for porn, beer, Ecstacy and prostitutes: "I have never been with a prostitute that I haven't been completely polite to and just treated like a (expletive) human being."
Farrell, who was married for four months in 2001 to British actress Amelia Warner and still has her nickname, "Millie," tattooed on his ring finger, says he has no interest in a serious relationship.
"Girl trouble, for me, is when you fall in love," he told Playboy.
Farrell has been linked to a laundry list of women, including model Josie Maran, Playboy Playmate Nicole Narain and actress Maeve Quinlan (Tom Sizemore's ex-wife).
"If I really slept with every woman they've said I've slept with, I'd be a happy man," Farrell recently told USA TODAY.
So, are Farrell and Spears officially dating?
"They're friends," says Spears' publicist Lisa Kasteler.
What about Durst? Or rumors that Britney was back with Justin Timberlake?
"That I can't tell you," Kasteler said. "She's young, she's single, she's beautiful. What guy in his right mind wouldn't want to date her?"
At Tuesday's premiere, Farrell echoed the party line. "She's just a mate," he told Entertainment Tonight. "Seriously, we just met a week ago, (we're) having a laugh."
Limp Bizkit's Durst Tries To One-Up Borland
Fred Durst and Limp Bizkit are finishing up their forthcoming album, Less Is More, with the first single "Crack Addict" slated to hit radio in the next few months. Durst is still looking to impress Wes Borland, his former mate, with the first complete original album since the guitarist's departure.
"Today I'm definitely gonna wrap up this last song," wrote Durst on the Limp Bizkit website. "It's a hard one to nail down. I wish I could have all of your ears in the studio with me to get your opinions. I've finished 18 songs and only 10 to 12 are going on the album. Its a doozy. There will be a lot of surprised people when they hear this, especially Mr. Borland. Aw yeah!! Just like [LL] Cool J said, 'don't call it a comeback, I've been here for years.'"
Less Is More is slated to be released April 1. It's the band's first album since 2000's multi-platinum release Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water.
I Remember Her From The Movie "Zapped"
Ever wonder what Heather Thomas, the babe from "The Fall Guy", has been up to?
Fox Is No Alien To Milking A Cash Cow
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment has just announced a new massive box set of all four Alien films in an incredible nine disc set!
No details have arrived on the oddly dubbed Alien Quadrilogy set, but all four films; Alien, Aliens, Alien3 and Alien Resurrection will be included with several hours of extras, (hopefully including the legendary lost footage from Alien3.
As soon as more information arrives, you'll see it here.
Seriously, do we really need this?
Former Beach Boy Can't Use Band's Name
SAN FRANCISCO - A federal appeals court ruled that former Beach Boys singer-guitarist Al Jardine can't use the term "Beach Boys" in his touring band.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld a federal judge who ruled two years ago that Jardine was infringing on the trademark of Brother Records Inc., which owns the rights of the Beach Boys works. The Beach Boys rode a wave of popularity from hits such as "Surfin' USA."
Brother Records is jointly held by Jardine, Mike Love, Brian Wilson and the estate of Carl Wilson.
In 1998, Jardine, 60, began touring as "Beach Boys Family and Friends" and as other names that included "Beach Boys." Brother Records sued.
Web Site: 'Millionaire' Finalist Is Bondage Star
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - One of three women finalists on the hit Fox reality show "Joe Millionaire" has starred under another name in dozens of bondage and fetish films, a Web site reported on Wednesday.
Sarah Kozer (pictured above) has appeared -- often bound and gagged but fully clothed -- in such movies as "Hogtied" and "Helpless Heroines" under the stage name "Cindy Schubert," according to The Smoking Gun.
In pictures on the Web site Kozer is seen bound and gagged in various poses, in some cases dressed as a cheerleader or nurse. In other photos she is seen tying up men.
Kozer, 29, could not be reached for comment. A spokesman for Fox, which describes her occupation as "sales and design" on the show's Web site, said only, "We do not comment on the personal lives of our reality show contestants."
In "Joe Millionaire," 20 women compete for the affections of a 28-year-old construction worker, Evan Marriott, who poses as the heir to a $50 million fortune. They learn of the dupe at the end of the show.
The program, which was secretly taped in France late last year, has drawn unexpectedly high ratings for Fox on Monday night.
While you are mulling this over, "bare" in mind that a former male porno star won the last edition of Survivor.
Actor Peter O'Toole Rebuffs Honorary Oscar
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - For all the accolades handed out in Hollywood, it's rare to find a performer who is unwilling to accept one. But Peter O'Toole is no ordinary entertainer.
Academy Award organizers want to present the eccentric 70-year-old Irish actor with an honorary Oscar, but he says he won't be ready to accept such an award for at least another decade.
In a brief, hand-written open letter to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, O'Toole politely suggested that receiving an honorary Oscar might preclude him from eventually winning a competitive statuette.
O'Toole has earned seven Oscar nominations as best actor, starting with his 1962 title role in "Lawrence of Arabia," but has never won.
Describing what he thought about an honorary Oscar being in the offing, he wrote: "I was enchanted but said that as I was still in the game and might yet win the lovely bugger outright, would the Academy please defer the honor until I am 80?"
Academy President Frank Pierson responded by saying the award was for "achievement and contribution to the art of the motion picture, not for retirement," and that the academy's Board of Governors had "unanimously and enthusiastically voted you the honorary because you've earned and deserve it."
"It will be there for you at the awards ceremony March 23, and we hope you'll be there with us," Pierson wrote. "If not, it will be at the academy for you to pick up when you're 80, or whenever you're ready."
Academy spokesman John Pavlik told Reuters on Thursday the academy chooses its award designees regardless of whether they plan to show up. And while winning actors such as Marlon Brando and George C. Scott have snubbed the Oscars, no one can remember an honorary recipient refusing to accept one.
Academy officials also noted that other movie greats, among them Henry Fonda and Paul Newman, have received an honorary award and gone on to win a statuette competitively.
"There's an inaccurate perception out there that if you get one of these things, that your career is over, and we don't feel that way at all," Pavlik said.
National Geographic Reveals Swimsuit Issue
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - There are bare breasts, naked bottoms and a cover girl wearing three well-placed shells and a bit of sand, but this is no girlie magazine. It's historical. It's national. It's cultural. And it's definitely geographic.
It's National Geographic.
The venerable yellow-bordered magazine, long a repository of gorgeous family-friendly photography, is publishing its first swimsuit issue, on newsstands and online Saturday.
Timed to roughly coincide with the publication of a racy annual look at bathing beauties by Sports Illustrated, the National Geographic issue is meant to offer lighthearted diversion when that seems to be in distinctly short supply.
"We just wanted to have a little fun, especially when it's so cold in the winter," said Bill Allen, National Geographic's editor in chief. "And I think that this country could use a little bit of lightness and fun right now. We've had a pretty tough year and a half in this country."
So as the United States girds for war and weathers a shaky economy, here comes Hanna Hobensack, a fashion design student in Sydney, Australia, who posed for the cover shot in Hawaii wearing three scallop shells and partially submerged in slightly sandy water.
The cover is one of the few pictures specifically shot for the special large-format edition, Allen said. Most are from the magazine's archives, showing how people dressed for swimming over the last 100 years.
"We had looked at all of the pictures that were coming in for this out of the archives, literally tens of thousands ... none of us were really satisfied that it was bringing things up to date," Allen said in a telephone interview, explaining why they sought a new photo for the cover.
'CLOTHING OPTIONAL'
He sent veteran National Geographic photographer Susan Leen to Hawaii "to find something that would really show what the contemporary feeling of bathing suits and the whole enjoyment of fun in a natural setting would be, sort of bring us all the way from our history back in the 1900s to the present."
One of the earliest photographs is from 1900, showing a Red Cross swimming instructor demonstrating strokes while propped up on a stool, wearing the cover-up swimsuit of the day, with only her head and arms uncovered. When wet, such a costume would have weighed about 22 pounds (10 kg), the magazine said.
A pair of bare backsides from Cable Beach's "clothing optional" zone at Broome, Australia, is a more modern archival image, from 1988. Two more posteriors were shown in a 1908 shot of surveyors near a rocky pool along the Canada-Alaska border.
A photo from 1917 showed two bare-breasted women from the Marquesas Islands, "where women dressed simply for the Polynesian weather -- to the dismay of Western missionaries."
This is the sort of partial nudity that made National Geographic a must-read, or at least a must-ogle, for generations of curious adolescents, but Allen said he saw no problem with this image or any other in the collection.
Readers may be surprised that the 112-year-old magazine is making a seeming departure from such sober-sided topics as the outcast Nuba of Sudan and the environmental consequences of global warming -- two recent articles -- but Allen said a history of swimsuits is in line with National Geographic's mission.
"The whole issue is just a retrospective of how people have dressed to have fun in the water over the last century," he said. "If you look through the magazine, you'll see that there are people in all stages of dress and all kinds of bathing costumes, so it's very much in keeping with the whole cultural history of the world, which is what National Geographic portrays."
Sports Illustrated's Rick McCabe said he had not seen the special issue but graciously observed, "As the pioneers of the swimsuit genre, we welcome National Geographic into the fold."