Applegate Sits at the ANCHOR Desk
Christina Applegate (MARRIED...WITH CHILDREN) is set to star in ANCHOR MAN: THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY with Will Ferrell. In the film, formerly known as ACTION NEWS, Ferrell will play a mustachioed, arrogant news anchor in Portland, Oregon in the 1970s that is paired with an actually intelligent and talented female anchor (Applegate). Through working with her, he begins to realize that his ability to read a Teleprompter while having perfect hair and a mustache is not enough. Adam McKay will make his directorial debut on the film.
POOCH SMOOCH
One of Hollywood's biggest mysteries has finally been solved - the whereabouts on Oscar night of Best Actress nominee Renιe Zellweger, who disappeared after losing to Nicole Kidman.
Her vanishing act, she insists, was not sour grapes but instead the needs of the love of her life: her ailing 14-year-old dog, Dylan.
"I wasn't crazy about the parties," she admits, "because at that point I had gone to about 960 pre-parties. So at the end of the Oscar show I thought, 'If I could do anything in the world right now, to celebrate this night and what it means and what this experience has been about, what would it be?'
"And I thought, 'I'd love to kiss my dog on the nose.' So, I thought, 'I'm going to go home and do that.'"
As she was leaving the show, a man opened the door for her - and accidentally stepped on her blood-red, form-fitting, lace designer dress, ripping it badly.
"The tear exposed something that probably shouldn't make an appearance at the 'Vanity Fair' party," said Zellweger.
That made up her mind to head home, she says.
But when she arrived at her house in the Hollywood Hills, she discovered she had forgotten her front door key.
"You don't think about keys when you're putting on the dress on Oscar night and leaving the house," she said.
Fortunately she had a friend ready to help - "He's Dave Palmer, a.k.a. Spider-Man" she laughs.
So as she stood and waited in her driveway, he managed to scale a wall and climb into the house through an open window.
When she walked into her living room, she discovered that poor Dylan had been having a "really bad night" in the absence of his mistress.
"I guess it was hilarious in a way," she says. "I took my dress off and put it in a safe place. Then I took Dylan out into the yard and gave him a little bath."
So instead of spending Oscar night sipping champagne, eating caviar and rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest stars in the business, Zellweger rolled up her sleeves and began to scrub her floors.
The decision to stay home was by now irrevocable. In fact, she says, it was a bit of a relief.
"It was actually one of those life moments that you don't ever forget because it was just a lot of realization that came with it, when you get deposited back into your own life where your heart resides," she said.
"After all of that, I just didn't feel like putting the dress on and going and being 'glamorama.' And it turned out to be a beautiful night because it gave me yet another reason to sit on the couch with my dog."
After relationships with Jim Carrey and George Clooney, Zellweger says she's single now - but hasn't given up on love.
"It's not that I'm too busy for relationships, but I don't meet anyone. Also, I think a relationship doesn't have to be sexual to be romantic. A couple of years ago on my birthday, I sat in a tree with a friend. That was very romantic. It doesn't have to be roses and all that stuff."
And, of course, there's always Dylan to come home to.
MTV Movie Awards Lines Up Presenters
NEW YORK - Brittany Murphy, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, Mark Wahlberg and Kate Hudson are among the presenters lined up for the MTV Movie Awards.
Musical performances are planned from rapper 50 Cent, the Russian girl duo t.A.t.U and pop singer Pink.
The 12th annual awards ceremony will be taped May 31 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, and it's scheduled to air on MTV at 9 p.m. EDT June 5.
Justin Timberlake of 'N Sync and Seann William Scott (Stifler from the "American Pie" movies) are the hosts.
"Spider-Man" and "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" lead the nominees with five each. They're both up for best movie, along with "8 Mile," "The Ring" and "Barbershop."
Other categories at the irreverent awards show include best kiss, best villain and best virtual performance, which honors characters created digitally.
Locke's Luck Runs Out
Kimberley "The Cow" Locke's luck ran out on American Idol Wednesday night.
The 25-year-old Nashville resident, who sang Band of Gold, Anyone Who Had A Heart and Inseparable Tuesday night, was eliminated despite receiving positive feedback from the judges. Viewers cast 19 million votes, and each contestant reportedly finished within 4% of one another.
"It's great to know that American Idol isn't just about image," Locke said in her taped goodbye. "I hope that I can give back to alot of people through my music."
The two remaining contestants - Clay Aiken and Ruben Studdard - compete in the finals next week. The competition will be decided May 21.
"I'm very proud of you three, actually," judge Simon Cowell said. "All I can say is next week, I cannot wait."
If you liked THE MATRIX, you'll love THE MATRIX: RELOADED. It features great graphics, wild fighting and a solid storyline to bring it all home. This is an action film that all fans must see!
And make sure to stay after all of the film's credits have rolled for a sneak peak at THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS!
MASTER OF HIS DOMAIN
Jerry Seinfeld telling Variety he has an active role in putting together an upcoming Seinfeld DVD, featuring original material, as well as interviews, commentaries and season-ending gag reel outtakes. No word when the DVD will hit stores.
'The Matrix' Filmmakers Remain Low Key
LOS ANGELES - The realm of "The Matrix" is full of question marks, but here's a brain-twister from reality: Who are the elusive brothers behind the computer-phobic fantasy?
Larry and Andy Wachowski, the former carpenters and comic-book scribes from Chicago who dreamed up the parallel digital world of "The Matrix Reloaded," do their best to remain out of sight.
They have refused to be interviewed since the release of 1999's "The Matrix." Their official Warner Bros. biography mentions their only other directing credit, "Bound," before claiming: "Little else is known about them."
While these evasions make them seem as shadowy as their sunglasses-at-night heroes, those who know the Wachowskis say they are slightly timid "regular guys" who love basketball, their parents and hiding from the press.
Keanu Reeves, who stars in the "Matrix" films as a man trying to save humanity from a counterfeit computer universe, says the brothers can be alternately intensely focused, prone to joking or deeply reserved.
Each also seems to know what the other is thinking.
"You can go to either of them and ask a question and much more often than not they'll agree and tell you the same thing," Reeves said. "They are independent and together."
Both are married, have thinning hairlines (Andy showed up at the "Reloaded" premier with a shaved head) and favor backward baseball caps. Both are college dropouts who wrote comic books and horror scripts while supporting themselves through carpentry and house painting.
The bespectacled Larry, 37, is shorter and thinner than his sibling. He projects a professorial image that some say fits his bookish nature although he sometimes likes to wear pirate-style hoop earrings.
"Larry reads everything. I mean everything," said Jada Pinkett Smith, who co-stars in "Reloaded" as the human revolutionary leader Niobe. "One thing I've learned from working on this film is that life is about research, and Larry, he's constantly researching and constantly reading."
Andy, 35, looks like he could be his older brother's bodyguard: taller, broad-shouldered and thicker, his mouth sometimes rimmed by a dark goatee. Most say Andy is the quieter of the two.
"The Matrix" films are a fusion of the brothers' biggest interests: Hong Kong kung-fu movies, gritty Japanese animation, computer games, fairy tales and Eastern mysticism. "They kind of cooked it all up and made a souffle out of it," said Joel Silver, who produced all of "The Matrix" films.
Silver first met the brothers, whom he calls "the boys," when making the 1995 Sylvester Stallone action film "Assassins." It was the Wachowskis' first produced screenplay, and they despised the way it was altered during filming.
"I was very supportive of them and what they had tried to do," Silver said. "One day after a particular unpleasant experience with the director and another writer, they said, 'You know, we wrote something else that you might want to read.'"
That was "The Matrix," a special-effects intensive sci-fi thriller packed with levitation fighting, massive explosions, marble-wall-pulverizing gunfights and flavored with philosophy about the nature of consciousness and perception.
The brothers also wanted to direct it themselves, despite their total lack of experience behind the camera. So they did "Bound," a low-budget lesbian heist thriller, in 1996.
"I always felt that they went on and did 'Bound' as an audition to prove even to themselves, or to anybody else that they knew what they were doing," Silver said.
"Bound" became an independent cult hit. Warner Bros. then expressed interest in the brothers, and Silver told the studio bosses he had the Wachowski's next screenplay. "They said, 'It probably costs a fortune, right?' I said, ... 'Yeah.'"
Made for about $70 million, "The Matrix" became an international phenomenon, winning four Academy Awards for technical achievement and earning more than $460 million worldwide.
The film's pioneering visuals such as freezing a battle while the camera swings around it, and "Bullet Time," when characters dodge gunfire in slow-motion limbos were imitated by countless admirers. Which was ironic, because some critics complained that the Wachowskis themselves borrowed too heavily from Hong Kong action films and "Blade Runner."
The 2001 films "Charlie's Angels," "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" and last year's "Spider-Man" were among many featuring high-flying fight scenes reminiscent of "The Matrix." The camera-swinging move was even spoofed by the grouchy princess in "Shrek."
Larry and Andy were not pleased by the mimicry. "The brothers in the beginning were really flattered and then at the end they were irritated by it," said Carrie-Anne Moss, who plays the romantic warrior Trinity in "The Matrix" films.
The Wachowskis devised a multimedia approach to the sequels (the finale, "The Matrix Revolutions," is due in November). They tell the main body of the story in the films, but develop offshoots via a new video game, "Enter the Matrix," and a series of animated shorts called "The Animatrix."
Two of the shorts, which will be included on a DVD released June 3, explain how machines came to dominate humans. Others provide background that explains some of the characters and threats in "Reloaded."
Silver said Larry Wachowski explained how "The Matrix" game, shorts and movies would weave together by scribbling a diagram on a yellow notepad during a 1999 flight from Japan to Los Angeles. "It's not just marketing. It's not just hype," Silver said. "The story is being told in these different mediums."
How Larry and Andy divide their duties remains a mystery. Although Larry sounds like the brains to Andy's brawn, their colleagues remain unsure who is responsible for what in "The Matrix" world.
"I watch them, a lot of times, and I've never see them have a disagreement or argue about anything," Silver said. "Clearly, they spend a lot of time talking about things beforehand."
He said it would be wrong to characterize them as "one brain in two bodies" but even the cast seems to forget that at times.
As Reeves put it: "They're one of the most sensitive people I've ever met."
Apple's Online Music Store Sells 2 Million Songs
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Computer Inc. said on Wednesday that more than two million songs have been purchased and downloaded at 99 cents each from its iTunes Music Store in the 16 days since it opened for business in the U.S. market, continuing strong momentum for the service.
Apple said that, as seen during the first week, over half of the songs bought were purchased as albums, further dispelling what it said were concerns that selling music on a per-track basis will destroy album sales.
The service, which has more than 200,000 tracks for sale, is integrated into its iTunes music software program and for now is available only on its Macintosh computers, and those computers have to be in America. A Windows version is due by the end of the year, Apple said.
Users can listen to free 30-second previews of any track on the service and search by album, artist, music genre and song title. Users click on a "buy it" button to download the music into a folder in the iTunes program.
From there, users can compile play lists and transfer them to CDs up to 10 times before they must shuffle the order of the playlist. They can also move the tracks to as many of its popular iPod digital music players as they like and up to three Macintosh computers.
Apple, of Cupertino, California, said that more than 4,300 songs were added to the iTunes service on Tuesday, including five albums from The Doors.
The online music store is now only available in the United States, but the company is expected to expand the service to overseas markets in the future.