Erika Christensen, Bridget Moynahan, Petra Nemcova and Jamie Lynn-Sigler celebrate the debut of Elton John's new album, 'The Captain & the Kid' at the Fashion Rocks pre-party. (photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage.com)

Strangers with Candy

Sarah Jessica Parker will be encouraging kids to take the time-honored orange UNICEF Trick-or-Treat box with them when they go door to door this October 31st. Parker, who has been a UNICEF Ambassador since 1997, has supported the organization through other philanthropic efforts. For instance, money from sales of Cartier's Love charity bracelet (which Parker promoted) and a signed, limited edition GAP t-shirt have raised funds for UNICEF. Said Parker: "Halloween can be very focused on the amassing of bucket-loads of sweets. Yet, Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF demonstrates that kids can do good deeds and still have fun." (photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage.com)

[PR newswire]

Pulling Rank

Timothy Olyphant has been recruited for writer/director Kimberly Peirce's ('Boys Don't Cry') upcoming film on the Iraq War, 'Stop Loss.' The film is based on a real story about a soldier (played by Ryan Phillippe) who returns home only to be called back to Iraq as part of the military's "stop loss" procedure, to extend soldiers' time in combat. But the soldier refuses to return. Olyphant plays Lt. Col. Boot Miller, the commander who orders the soldiers' re-enlistment. (photo: Mike Guastella/WireImage.com )

[Reuters]

Turtle's Revenge

It hasn't been all hugs and high fives for real-life rapper Saigon since he guest starred in 'Entourage' as the fictional Turtle's first potential client. "People walk up to me in the mall and want to kill me. They say, 'You robbed Turtle! How could you do that to Turtle?' I say, 'Homie, it was just in a script. I did not write it,'" reports the New York Post. Apparently it happens a lot. "It has been a lot of people. They treat me like Turtle is really my manager in real life. They are into a different reality. They say, 'How could you do this?' I did not think people were going to take it so seriously."

Then again, there are the perks of his alternate reality, like the real-life groupies. "There have also been girls coming after me all the time. The other night, one girl actually slept in my hallway. She was waiting for me, and she fell asleep." (photo: Jesse Grant/WireImage.com)

[NY Post]

Chris Meloni and Dean Winters at a signing of the season 6 'Oz' DVD in New York. (photo: Stephen Lovekin/WireImage.com)

International Men of Mystery

Borat (a.k.a. Sacha Baron Cohen) was in the company of some serious male competition on Tuesday night, when he picked up the editor's special award at the GQ Men of the Year Awards in London. Also called to the podium: Man of the Year Sir Paul McCartney (who was absent), International Man of the Year Justin Timberlake, and Actor of the Year Cillian Murphy — plus Comedian of the Year Ricky Gervais. As Borat accepted his trophy, he couldn't contain his star-struck enthusiasm, shouting: "Justin Timberlakes, I like you!" (photo: Jon Furniss/WireImage.com)

[news.com.au]

[ITV news]

Calling Shots in the Dark

Grenier-directed doc debuts at Toronto

Before he was making waves in front of the camera, Adrian Grenier was calling the shots behind one — directing a documentary about his search for his estranged father. Seven years later, the finished product, 'Shot in the Dark,' will be making its debut next week at the prestigious Toronto Film Festival. "I have never seen a film where a celebrity comes off as vulnerable as he does in this film," says Thom Powers, head of the festival's Real to Reel documentary program, "in part because he wasn't a celebrity when he made this film...he was just a 23-year-old kid. The film is raw. It's a roughly made, scrappy video. It doesn't have the Hollywood polish of films you're used to seeing Adrian Grenier in, such as 'The Devil Wears Prada.' But this film has an emotional content that Hollywood could learn a lot from." (photo: Mark Sullivan/WireImage.com)

[Toronto Sun]

Milch's Musings

"Quite honestly, I don't think I understand 50 percent of the stuff he's saying," says Timothy Olyphant of 'Deadwood' creator David Milch. "But when he's done talking I think we might win a Nobel Prize." That's one of the extras Slate's Jeff MacIntyre picked up from the series' just-released DVD boxed sets, along with stories of new lines arriving minutes before a scene is shot, and Milch dictating scenes to writer/producers rather than sitting down to a keyboard. As MacIntyre sees it, Milch's "auteurlike compulsiveness" coupled with "impressive erudition" allows him to get "what he wants by keeping the line between perfectionism and egghead narcissism deliciously vague." (photo: Mark Sullivan/WireImage.com)

[Slate]

Freddy Rodriguez and Christian Slater at the Venice Film Festival for their film 'Bobby.' (photo: George Pimentel/WireImage.com)

Courtney Loves Mirren

"We've fallen ass over tit for Helen Mirren!" writes Entertainment Weekly's Popwatch bloggers. And they're not the only ones. When Italian artist Francesco Vezzoli decided to shoot a trailer imagining a remake of the controversial 1979 film 'Caligula,' Courtney Love signed on the second she heard Dame Helen was involved. "With Helen Mirren, I would even do a remake of 'Showgirls,'" Love told Men's Vogue, which offers a racy slide show of the shoot (it showed at the Whitney Biennial).

EW also salutes "the saucy Brit" for her two royal roles. In the wake of her Emmy-winning 'Elizabeth I,' Mirren will play the current Elizabeth in the soon-to-be-released 'The Queen,' a Miramax docudrama about the royal family's response to the death of Princess Diana. According to EW's Michael Slezak, Mirren is "so effective in these scenes that for a few minutes, I felt like a fly on the Buckingham Palace walls." (photo: George Pimentel/WireImage.com)

[Mens Vogue]

[EW.com]

Writing Rules

Gerald McRaney on how far he'll go for good writing

It's not how many lines an actor has, but how good those lines are that determines how easy it is to commit them to memory, according to Gerald McRaney. "Even though you might get speeches that are a page and a half long, the kind of writing they got down on 'Deadwood' is easy to learn," McRaney told the San Antonio Express News. "Crappy dialogue of two lines can be hard to remember when they give it to you at the last minute. A page and a half of really good writing goes into your head and stays there comfortably."

The actor says he's at the stage of his career (read: enough money in the bank) where his primary concern is not how lucrative a project might be, but the quality of the writing. "I'm an actor," he said. "I will do funny stuff, I will do serious stuff, I'll do whatever the role is if it's good, good writing. That's all I care about anymore. ...Keep this under your hat," he said with a smile, "but I would do this for free." (photo: Jean-Paul Aussenard/WireImage.com)

[Journalnow.com]

Big Kudos for 'Little Children'

Patrick Wilson was on hand at the Deauville Film festival for the international premiere of 'Little Children' on September 5th. The film, directed by Todd Field ('In the Bedroom') has been hitting the festival circuit (Telluride, and up next, Toronto) and racking up good notices for its director and stars (Wilson, Kate Winslet, Jennifer Connelly, Phyllis Somerville and Jackie Earle Haley). The film follows two main stories — the affair of a stay-at-home mom and dad (Winslet and Wilson) and a pedophile, recently released from prison and living with his mother (Haley and Somerville). (photo: David Lodge/WireImage.com)

[Movie City News]

[Screendaily.com]

Ciara and Andre 3000 of OutKast present Best Hip-Hop Video award at the MTV Video Music Awards. (photo: Kevin Kane/WireImage.com)

Dawson's Darfur Benefit

Rosario Dawson, who narrates the HBO doc 'God Sleeps In Rwanda,' is lending her MC'ing talents to raise money for the displaced families in Darfur. On Sunday September 17th, she'll host a benefit concert at The Avalon in Hollywood, as part of Global Darfur Awareness Day. All proceeds will go to the International Rescue Committee, which helps people feeling racial, religious and ethnic persecution and those uprooted by war and violence. (photo:Jamie McCarthy/WireImage.com)

[Media Wire]

Garlin's Football Fantasy

If you could pick any Fantasy Football name what would you choose? Jeff Garlin put dibs on "Nipsey Russell." NFL Total Access returns for the 3rd year of its Hollywood Fantasy Football League, in which celebrities compete against each other every Wednesday night at 7 during the season. Garlin will be defending his title as last year's champ, facing off against seven other teams, including Paul Rudd's "Tastes Like Chicken," David Boreanz's "Dis n Dat aka Wit Wit out" and Destiny Child's Michelle Williams' "The Bootyliscious Browns." (photo: Jeff Vespa/WireImage.com)

[NFL.com]

In the Company of Women

Neil LaBute takes on matriarchy

Molly Parker is featured in Neil LaBute's remake of the British 70s cult classic 'The Wicker Man,' which opened Friday. The film tells the story of a policeman (Nic Cage)who is contacted by his ex-fiancée (Kate Beahan), seeking help finding her missing daughter. When he arrives on the remote island where she lives — an eerie matriarchy — he is stymied by the inhabitants and the mystery of where the child has gone deepens. Parker plays one of the islanders who thwarts his investigation.

In an in-depth interview, LaBute talks to Backstage about the process of making the remake, explaining how he had the entire crew, including men, dress in skirts and dresses so that they would blend in to the female-dominated atmosphere of the island. "At one point somebody was looking for [cinematographer Paul Sarossy] and saying, 'Where the hell is Paul?' And we heard him over the radio saying, 'I'm over here in the yellow skirt.' ...It was a really strange atmosphere."(photo: Steve Granitz/WireImage.com)

[Backstage]

Jamie-Lynn Sigler and Drea de Matteo enjoy the Emmy® festivities. (photo: John Sciulli/WireImage.com)

The Other Venice

Allen Coulter's 'Hollywoodland' bows at the Venice Film Festival

Director Allen Coulter ('The Sopranos,' 'Sex and the City,' etc.) makes his big screen directorial debut with 'Hollywoodland,' which premiered at the 63rd International Venice Film Festival this week. The film tells the story of actor George Reeves' (Ben Affleck) untimely death and the detective (Adrian Brody, pictured with co-star Diane Lane and Coulter) who tries to make the case that the apparent suicide was really a murder. According to the International Herald Tribune, Coulter saw it as "a story of two men who seek meaning in their lives through celebrity." Affleck and Brody were on hand to attest to how they could personally relate to the film's theme. As Coulter noted, ""I think the reason that we were all drawn to the story is that Hollywood is a repository for that kind of thinking." (photo: Jeff Vespa/WireImage.com)

[Herald Tribune]

Triple Threat

Written, produced by and starring Laura Kightlinger

'The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman' has been racking up fans for Laura Kightlinger's honest look at how its characters "hide from sight behind a façade of drugs, sarcasm and naughty language." Comic Laura Kightlinger (Tina on 'Lucky Louie') is the creator, exec producer, co-writer and star of the show. She plays an aspiring screenwriter who won't be swayed from her goal: to write an autobiographical, character-driven, feminist, period piece about the roller derby. As Gerald Peary of The Phoenix writes "But nobody's asking for her screenplay, and she has no agent, and she's got confidence issues, and she's easily distracted, and she's got an annoying day job as a reporter for a gossip rag of a film mag." We feel her pain — which is what makes Jackie Woodman "highly watchable." (photo: Amy Tierney/WireImage.com)

[The Phoenix]

Modern Legend

Singer-songwriter John Legend celebrated the upcoming release of his sophomore effort 'Once Again' at New York City's Bowery Ballroom on Wednesday night. (The album's single, 'Save Room,' accompanies HBO's fall image campaign.) According to Newsweek, the album can't come out fast enough: "His voice is stunning whether he's singing about infidelity (a favorite from his last CD) and commitment — or having an existential conversation with God on the overwhelmingly beautiful track 'Show Me.' Legend just may be one of those rare talents who get better with each record."

Legend is more modest, telling the AP: "It's not dramatically different but I think people will see it as a growth and an extension for me. It's a richer sound. The production is more developed. ... I just tried to do it with the highest standards of quality."

Check out those high standards when Legend plays the Bowery Ballroom on Wednesday, September 6th. (photo: Bobby Bank/WireImage.com)

[Newsweek]

[The Vibe]

[Music on HBO]