We've lived in a constant state of worry and fear, but now the day has finally arrived: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are splitting. (Maybe.) News of the World is reporting that the Biggest Celebrity Couple of All-Time© has signed the paperwork (they were never married) to share custody of their six children and split their gigantic pile of money. So while the internet is burning up with speculation (Gossip Cop is still investigating), confirmation and denials (Perez Hilton has an official one), the mainstream media is probably preparing for a celeb invasion. (more...)

As the NFL playoffs come down to the final four teams, the national sports media begins to ponder the potential matchups – and the potential storylines – of Super Bowl XLIV.  What games would provide the most drama? What combination of teams, cities, and personalities would make for the most compelling television?  What games would be fun to watch? For the NFL, at least this year, there is no wrong answer to these questions. (more...)

The Aughts Eli Roth has had quite a decade. From young director struggling to get his first feature in the can to hotshot horrormeister pushing to the edges of the genre to the bat-brandishing Bear Jew in Quentin Tarantino's epic Nazi revenge fantasy Inglourious Basterds, Roth has come a long way in a town that at times can be about as gentle as that dungeon in Hostel. As we head into awards season — and what has already been a triumphant outing for the much-nominated Basterds — Mediaite asked Eli to reflect on the last decade and the sweat, tears and, yes, blood it took to get here. Luckily for us, he was as forthcoming with his story as the Bear Jew is with his bat — and shared all the gory details. ELI ROTH: My Decade (more...)

my decade Excerpt from the forthcoming book "All the Gory Details" by Eli Roth.  Not for reprint without author's permission. Republishing excerpts on websites is fine. Printable version here. The nineties, while fun and wild at times, were spent in film school, then working on various film sets from 5:30 in the morning until 11:00 at night getting coffee or standing out in the freezing cold asking drug addicts in Tompkins Square Park to kindly keep their voice down.  In short, they sucked, by 1999 I had moved to Los Angeles and finally got my first directing break, co-writing, directing, producing and voicing a series of animated shorts with my friend Noah Belson called "Chowdaheads."  The shorts were to air on WCW Wrestling's #1 rated show "Monday Nitro," but the weekend before they were scheduled to air the CEO got fired, and the shorts were put on hold.  I had put every waking minute of my life into these shorts, and now they were just sitting on a shelf because of a regime change.  I was told to "sit tight" and "hang in there," but by the end of 1999 it was clear nothing was going to happen with them.  It was time to move on. (more...)

Star Magazine running a misleading cover? Say it ain't so! The jury is out on whether Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie truly had "the fight to end all fights," but Star definitely ran a misleading cover story on their fight or alleged fight.

Gossip Cop has the deets: (more...)

Get this: Angelina Jolie thinks Barack Obama is a "socialist in disguise." This is according to an anonymous source, who provided many dubious but extremely spicy quotes to Us Weekly. She also "hates him." This raises several important questions: Does this doom Obama's chances in 2012? Will this tear her and Brad  apart? And how does Angelina Jolie compare to Megan Fox, anyway? (more...)

With this weekend's release of New Moon -- and Bella, Jacob and Edward again invading the magazine racks -- we invite you to look back on the Twilight magazine covers of months past. Now, the field is much more crowded. Feel free to recommend your new favorite Twilight covers in the comments.You won't believe this: it has only been one year since the live action stars of teen vampire sensation Twilight infiltrated popular culture. And part of the reason they seem like such fixtures of celebrity already -- apart from their impossible good looks, effortless cool and high-powered marketing machine -- is their presence in print and command of their image. Flattering pictures may not be hard to come by when you're young and playing magical characters, but from this charming Vanity Fair spread to the endless tabloid fabrications, the kids always come out looking all right. (more...)

slideshow Did your New York Post look stranger than usual this morning? Rumors have been swirling for a while now that the Yes Men, those fun folks who brought New Yorker's last year's fake New York Times, were cooking up something new. Turns out it was a fake New York Post, which was handed out this morning to commuters city-wide. SLIDESHOW: Fake New York Post While last November's fake Times announced the end of the Iraq war, today's fake Post is all about the environment. Nothing like printing papers to save trees! The fake Post reports, (real Post-style!) on secret environmental reports predicting "massive climate catastrophes, public health disasters." Considering the recent resurgence of swine flu probably more than pre-coffee reader was taken in by the front page alone. (more...)

Who: Quentin Tarantino interviewed by Lynn Hirschberg What: TimesTalks, “A Conversation with Quentin Tarantino” Where: The Times Center When: August 14, 2009 Thumbs: Up (more...)

Vanity Fair has released its 2009 Best-Dressed List. Does anybody care? It wasn't that long ago that these sorts of lists, from publications like Vanity Fair, were powerful measures of a star's clout, or their clout-to-be as the case may have been. Vanity Fair in particular had a sharp sense of the zeitgeist and was once very good at plucking young stars out of the mix just before they hit the big time. (more...)

Part bathroom stall graffiti, part scribbled-on cocktail napkin wadded up in our pants: We wouldn't say that Esquire covers are in a league of their own, but they certainly do their own thing. The design is playfully masculine and the text demands careful examination (even if we're just sitting on the can or digging things out of our pockets on laundry day).   (more...)