Jake Brooks

A curious (and perhaps shameful) thing has happened since Madonna's single, "Four Minutes to Save the World," off her new album Hard Candy (due out today), hit the Internet almost two months ago. At the time, in this same space, I wrote, "fans could be forgiven for cringing a bit at Madge's cool-as-a-cucumber delivery being drowned out by the 'urban,' brassy hip-hop beats. Was it Mommy telling us to turn the music down?" But then something happened ... Several weeks later in a store, I found myself resisting the urge to tap my foot, to shake my hips and bop my head. What is this song?, I thought. It sounds ... familiar. Oh, no. It then hit me like a bass-heavy chorus: I liked "Four Minutes to Save the World." Damn you Madonna!  read more »

Baby Mama’s (no. 2) opening weekend in Manhattan should have been the cherry to Tina Fey’s box office sundae. As the former lead writer of Saturday Night Live and writer and star of 30 Rock, Ms. Fey is New York’s comedic mistress. She even managed to have the movie open the Tribeca Film Festival, the film festival designed to save downtown from the economic downturn of 9/11. This was to be a celebratory weekend: Ms. Fey, welcome home! Thanks so much for being so very awesome. Instead, it was the site of a giant upset: Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay (no. 1) outgrossed Baby Mama, which, in a counterintuitive twist of fate, makes Baby Mama the country’s favorite movie, but not the city’s.  read more »

MONDAY

There’s something comforting about the predictability of House (Fox, 9 p.m.), which returns tonight. Sometimes it’s nice to have a show where you can set your watch by its familiar plot points, like the show’s every climax where Dr. House has reluctantly ordered some incredibly invasive procedure to cure a patient, only to have it interrupted at the last moment by a new symptom or a phrase that triggers one of Dr. House’s Eureka moments. But, finally, there’s a twist! It’s now on Mondays. (You probably saw that one coming, too.)  read more »

When Ashlee Simpson began her rise to fame (and later infamy) in 2004, the last thing the world needed was another pop star in her sister's mold—which was lucky for Ashlee, who does not have Jessica's vocal range (nor, need it be said, her Barbie looks). Packaged and primed, Ashlee was groomed to be the anti-Jessica, the Pat Benatar to Jessica's Olivia Newton John. With dark brown hair and that nose, she even managed to look the part. She was always more spunk than anything else, which was made abundantly clear when she was caught lip-synching on Saturday Night Live.  read more »

What Judd Apatow backlash? For every New Yorker who happily proclaimed the end of the producer/director’s run of luck after the flops of Walk Hard and Drillbit Taylor, there was one (if not two, three or four) who ran out to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall (no. 1) this weekend. The comedy racked in $382,590 dollars of its total $17.5 million take here in the city with an incredibly strong $42,510 per screen average. Those are 21 numbers!  read more »

MONDAY

OMFG, Gossip Girl (CW, 8 p.m.)! (Is OMFG even appropriate slang anymore? Honest to blog, who can keep up?) Too many murdered brain cells to remember exactly where the show left off? Here’s a primer. Blair’s secret affair with Chuck Bass had recently come to light after her reconciliation with Nate. He’s angry, while she’s mortified because being a “whore” undermines her leader status amongst her prim ladies. (Uh, really?) Jenny Humphrey, Dan’s younger sister, recently slighted by Blair, uses Blair’s weakened state to her own social advantage. Jenny’s rebuke—she’s from Brooklyn!—plunges Blair into a deep shame spiral. At the end of the last episode, Serena had just swooped in to console her. All caught up now? Gr8! Kthxbai.  read more »

There’s no stopping Mariah Carey. Her single, “Touch My Body,” off her 11th studio album E=MC2, and its video have so many cringe-worthy moments—no one above the age of 18 should sing about youTube—that it's remarkable anyone can take this song seriously, let alone have it break the tie between her and Elvis for most chart-topping hits. (This is number 18 for Ms. Carey.) But Ms. Carey appears to have learned a couple of things during her meteoric rise to the top (she is only 38, by the way). Despite the song’s lurid come-on, Ms. Carey makes the smart choice of not taking herself too seriously—she has always been the most playful of the Madonna, Janet, Whitney, Celine set. Jack McBrayer (30 Rock) does the heavy comedic lifting on the video. For her part, Ms. Carey appears in various phases of undress, shaking her assets (which would be the envy of any Equinox spinning class) and enjoying a laugh at the expense of Mr. McBrayer—and quite plausibly, her critics, too.  read more »

There was a clear division over the weekend between the haves and the have nots—as in those movies that had an audience and those that did not. Each of the top four movies in Manhattan averaged near or over $20,000, while every other movie in the top ten, except for The Visitor (no. 7)—which averaged $23,500 at two theaters—averaged below $6,000.  read more »

MONDAY

There should be something wrong when high-schoolers in Florida start to sound like their geriatric counterparts in Boca Raton. But when it's the stars of MTV’s The Paper [10:30 p.m.], it’s downright heartwarming. Though society seems to be "heading to the Internet and to virtual whatnot," 17-year-old Amanda Lorber, an editor on The Circuit, the student-run newspaper of Cypress Bay High School in Weston, Fla. says she and her mates "really wanna keep print alive.” Aw, we feel you sister! Perhaps the staff of The Circuit will be the perfect compliment to that other popular MTV reality series starring misguided teenagers. The Observer’s Matt Haber summed it up quite nicely in a profile of the show and its cast:  read more »

There’s a simple explanation for why George Clooney’s Leatherheads (no. 3) performed well below expectations this weekend: it just wasn’t that good of a movie. Were 21 (no. 1) or horror flick The Ruins (no. 2)—both outgrossed Leatherheads here in the city, with 21 managing to more than double Leatherheads' receipts—that much better? No, at least not according to the critics, who panned each film in equal measure. But when a movie like Leatherheads caters directly to an older audience—one that has actually heard of Preston Sturges and one that presumably relies on reviews in choosing how to spend their anemic Social Security check—it’s much harder to counter what’s written in the papers or on Web sites. The truth, however, is that Leatherheads probably isn’t that bad of a movie; it’s just that its prospective patrons have higher standards.  read more »

MONDAY

Start fresh! That’s what ABC is begging its viewers to do tonight with Samantha Who? (9:30 p.m.). Its rookie run had been going swimmingly until the writers strike. Starring Christina Applegate and Melissa McCarthy (Sookie from the Gilmore Girls), the show returns in the midst of a heated battle for Monday nights.  read more »

R.E.M. releases its 14th album, Accelerate, today. According to most accounts, it's a return to their Athens, Ga. roots. Spin writes rather breathlessly, "They haven't sounded this surprised with themselves since 1998's Up, haven't made an album this consistent since 1992's Automatic for the People, and haven't redlined so engagingly since 1986's Life's Rich Pageant." The emerging storyline is that like any long-lasting marriage, R.E.M. is surfacing from the depths of a dark period, one in which they admittedly did not talk to one another, and Accelerate is the make-up sex—fast, passionate, "surprising," and perhaps the best ever, because of it. The relief—and ecstasy—is palpable in the music and the reviews. "The best thing about Accelerate," writes David Fricke in Rolling Stone, "is that R.E.M. sound whole again ... [they're] complete in their bond and purpose." You may now kiss the bride!

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It’s been a decade since Rounders, the last (and perhaps only) good film dedicated exclusively to card-playing. And while this weekend’s box office winner, 21 (no. 1), doesn’t take over that mantle, it does raise the question why Hollywood hasn’t made this their bailiwick more often. Card-playing is always the bridesmaid, never the bride, good for a bit part, to add a little sense of danger and intrigue, but rarely the star of the film—it’s the Gary Oldman of movie themes. Despite being universally panned, 21 averaged over $47,000 on nine screens, grossing over $23 million nationally. That doesn’t sound like a gamble—that sounds like a sure bet.  read more »

MONDAY

While CBS may be getting shellacked in the ratings war by Fox (who isn’t, really?), that doesn’t mean the network with a reputation for being a little bit stodgy (sorry, Les) doesn’t have a few tricks up its sleeve. How I Met Your Mother (CBS, 8:30 p.m.) is a case study in how a network leverages a show with a prime demographic to not only market its advertisers, but itself to a younger, hipper audience.  read more »

The original release date for Gnarls Barkley's second album, The Odd Couple, was April 8. But the creative partnership of Cee-Lo Green and Danger Mouse has always marched to the beat of its own drum machines; they pushed up the date a couple weeks at the last minute. We were certainly curious whether the new record would provide a clear follow-up to the pop smash "Crazy"; it doesn't, even if "Run" (listen below) captures the unbridled fun of Outkast's popular dance track "Bombs Over Baghdad." EW labeled the new album "dense," but "a compulsively listenable, if somber, effort." Sounds good to me.

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Judging by box office—and the box office never lies—the one thing Good Friday was good for was taking your kid to the movies. Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! (No. 2) hauled in $25 million in its second weekend, easily winning the top spot nationally. And Manhattanites were equally irreligious, though marginally different in the object of their sin. Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns (No. 1) earned 25 percent more than Horton in the city, making it the most popular movie by far on the island. Take that, God!  read more »

MONDAY

Don’t call it a comeback. Britney Spears dusts herself off and puts on some glasses (prop?) to play an amorous receptionist on How I Met Your Mother (CBS, 8:30 p.m.). Sadly, between her custody battles, mental breakdowns, and her ill-chosen affair with a paparazzo, the cameo amounts to the only good press the fallen pop star has received in some time. (With that kind of drama, it’s clear why she—and her people—chose for her to be on a sitcom.) Her appearance will likely boost the show’s already strong ratings—it had its second-strongest numbers ever last week for its first new episode after the strike-induced hiatus—introducing the show to a larger swath of America and perhaps finally making it a legitimate inheritor of the Friends mantle.  read more »

On the heels of the manic, overwhelming SXSW festival, it may be difficult to get excited about a couple of ordinary album releases. But his week has it all: a pleasant surprise, a couple of highly-anticipated veteran releases, an introduction, and a catchy single.

You may have never heard of She & Him, but you've heard of them both. The "she" is actress Zooey Deschanel. The "him" is the talented singer-songwriter M. Ward. According to early chatter, Deschanel is the real thing and dispatches from SXSW suggest the same. You be the judge: the video from Austin after the jump.  read more »

If you don’t have a kid, chances are you didn’t go to the movies this weekend. Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! (No. 1), which grossed an astounding $45 million nationally, was the only movie to open this weekend to crack the top five in box office receipts in the city. And it’s not as if those movies in their later weeks are even in that high of demand. It’s just that the movies that came out last weekend—the Kate Beckinsale in tight leather pants vehicle, Doomsday (No. 6), the Bloodsport knock-off Never Back Down (No. 9), and the Naomi Watts-produced thriller Funny Games U.S.—are in very low demand. None of those films managed to grab a per-theater average higher than $10,000 in their first week, which means they’ll be out of the top ten by next. Buh-bye!  read more »

MONDAY

Does anyone remember laughter? O.K. maybe times haven’t been that tough, but the country’s diaphragms have been woefully underused these last couple of months (even with Jimmy Kimmel f**king Ben Affleck) with the absence of new episodes of veteran sitcoms (and movies like Semi-Pro plaguing the theaters). But tonight, all of that changes with fresh installments of How I Met Your Mother (CBS, 8:30 p.m.) and Two and a Half Men (CBS, 9 p.m.). (Rookie breakout The Big Bang Theory (CBS, 8 p.m.) has a new episode, too!) Watch—it’s bound to feel like the television equivalent of make-up sex.  read more »

On December 4, 2007, months before Snoop Dogg planned to make appearances on MTV's TRL, The Late Show With David Letterman and for good measure, Late Night With Conan O'Brien to promote his newest album, Ego Trippin' (out today), he was on Ellen, introducing the world (and an audience of very, very excited 30-year-old women) to his new single, Sexual Eruption, or as it was sung on that day to appease the censors, Sensual Seduction. Yes, sung—not rapped. Crooned, to be exact, like he was channeling his inner-Curtis Mayfield. Considering the many twists and turns Snoop's career has taken since the release of Doggystyle 25 years ago, it was not surprising in and of itself to see him on a daytime talk show. What was of note was that he was singing about giving a woman an orgasm and the studio audience was ... eating ... it ... up. Next stop: The View!  read more »

There’s little good to be found in the box office success of 10,000 B.C. (no. 1) over the weekend, except for the faint waft of an imagined warm summer breeze, the typical weather for a Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) release. Each year, Hollywood’s summer season starts a bit earlier, encroaching on—and sometimes enlivening—the cold, seemingly interminable winter months. Perhaps 10,000 B.C. is Hollywood’s way of clearing its throat, of wiping away in one fell swoop the cynicism and hopelessness of this year’s Oscar contenders and, in turn, harkening the beginning of summer, well before the weather will comply, but in compliance with this city’s shivering movie-goers. Will summer numbers follow?  read more »

MONDAY

Finally, they’ve given Julianna Margulies her own show, Canterbury’s Law (Fox, 8 p.m.), in which she plays a bitchy (natch) attorney for the falsely accused. Ms. Margulies has certainly paid her dues, appearing during her 18-year career on E.R., Law and Order, Scrubs, The Sopranos, and a whole host of made-for-TV movies, not to mention Snakes on a Plane. Her career strategy has obviously paid off: make the rounds playing a doctor or a lawyer and eventually, they’ll make a TV show for you. (Except if you’re Fyvush Finkel. Sorry!) It’s not a new idea. Jewish mothers have been on that tip for years.  read more »

Madonna turns 50 this year and whether one loves or hates her, one has to wonder how many listenable albums she has left. This is as much because every album represents another persona, another clone of the same DNA, as the fact that the woman is turning 50. Eventually, she's going to transform from a M.I.L.F. to a M.I.L.A.L.M. (Mom I'd Like to Act Like a Mom). When a quality version of the single "Four Minutes to Save the World," off her new album Hard Candy (due April 29th), was leaked onto the Internet last week, fans could be forgiven for cringing a bit at Madge's cool-as-a-cucumber delivery being drowned out by the "urban," brassy hip-hop beats. Was it Mommy telling us to turn the music down?  read more »

In a turn of a events that will not help our fair city’s reputation as bookish and snobby, The Other Boleyn Girl (no. 1), based on the best-selling tome of the same name, handily beat out the Will Ferrell comedy Semi-Pro (no. 3), despite playing at two fewer theaters. Nationally, however, Boleyn’s buxom stars, Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman, and their shana punims were no match for the near-ubiquitous ad campaign for Semi-Pro, with Ferrell appearing in everything from Old Spice commercials to ESPN’s Sportscenter, counting down the top ten sports hair-dos. The comedy captured the top spot, while the drama ranked fourth behind Vantage Point (no. 2) and The Spiderwick Chronicles.  read more »

MONDAY

For several panicked hours on Friday, fans of Gossip Girl—and presumably, The O.C.—swamped message boards following the news that producers of the new CW show had offered former O.C. cast member Mischa Barton a role on G.G. as Georgina Sparks, an old chum of Serena van der Woodsen. A wave of invective ensued: “This is the dumbest idea I have ever heard,” wrote one irate commenter, “[M]ischa [B]arton is the most useless actress ever!!!” wrote another. Too harsh? Maybe … maybe not. Consider the history: Josh Schwartz, who now produces G.G., and the other O. C. producers opted to kill off Barton’s character, well before the show ran its course. Now they want her back?  read more »

David Gordon Green's dream of becoming the next Terrence Malick may have stalled a bit after the lukewarm reception of 2004's Undertow, a heavy family drama starring Jamie Bell, Dermot Mulroney, and Josh Lucas. But he's back with—you guessed it!—another heavy family drama, entitled Snow Angels, based on the Stewart O'Nan novel of the same name. And he wants to tell you all about it. He'll be at the Apple Store in Soho, Wednesday, March 5, chatting up fans and shoppers alike and showing clips from the movie.  read more »

When reports emerged a couple of weeks ago that Dolly Parton had to postpone an upcoming tour due to back pain caused by her enormous breasts, it seemed that the Parton sideshow would once again overshadow the real Parton, the singer who bravely, and successfully, tackled bluegrass a decade ago when the country establishment had basically shunned her. (No Jack White necessary for her comeback!) Parton, however, is too versatile an artist with too strong a personalty to be defined by any one thing, including a humongous set of knockers. (Pamela Anderson, she is not.) For starters, she's a rather sound businesswoman: Ms. Parton plans on releasing her newest album, "Backwoods Barbie," on her own label (Dolly Records, of course), which she created for this very task. It may be the "first mainstream country record Dolly has done in 17 years," as her manager put it, but Ms. Parton has learned some new tricks, both musically and professionally. Rest those "puppies," hon, you're gonna be busy!  read more »

It’s a touch ironic that the one weekend when everyone is thinking and talking about movies, no one is actually seeing them. The Academy Awards hoopla has come and gone leaving in its wake a depressed box office with only one true stand out. Vantage Point (No. 1), the Rashomon-like action movie starring Dennis Quaid, Forest Whitaker and Matthew Fox, easily doubled the box office of its closest competitor, Jumper (no. 2), grossing $24 million nationally with 408,000 of those dollars coming locally.

With a $41,000 per-theater average in Manhattan, Point was the only movie to average over $20,000. (In a standard week, there are at least three movies that manage this feat—last week, there were five.) Be Kind Rewind (no. 3) came surprisingly close ($18,870), despite mixed reviews. With the draw of Jack Black, New Line—and maybe even Mr. Black himself, who must be wondering if his own popularity is waning—probably had higher hopes for the comedy. Historically speaking, however, it never had a chance.  read more »

MONDAY

For the last six weeks, NBC has lorded over Monday nights with the consistent popularity of game show Deal or No Deal [8 p.m.]. (Last Monday’s episode was its most-viewed in over a year with 16.8 million people tuning in.) The streak will likely end tonight, when ABC airs the made-for-television adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun [8 p.m.] starring Sean Combs, Phylicia Rashad, Audra McDonald and the rest of the cast from the 2004 revival. Dennis Harvey, in the blue-collar prose typical to Variety, calls it a “sturdy translation.” Talk about faint praise!

Meanwhile, if Raisin fails to play the part of streak-killer, the March 17 return of How I Met Your Mother [CBS, 8 p.m.] and The Big Bang Theory (the two will be switching time slots) and Two and Half Men [CBS, 9 p.m.], each with nine new episodes, should. Three weeks have never felt so long.  read more »

ARE YOU THERE, GOD? IT’S ME. KEVIN
By Kevin Keck
Bloomsbury, 228 pages, $14.95

A week before the release of his second book, a memoir titled Are You There, God? It’s Me. Kevin, the author made the bold move—a preemptive strike, really—of posting to his Web site (thekeck.typepad.com) an itemized list of the allusions in his book. It’s for the “laziest readers,” he wrote: critics. Aww, thanks!

To those at all familiar with Kevin Keck’s work—his first book, Oedipus Wrecked (2005), was a collection of short stories detailing, among other perverse and puerile things, his love of masturbation and the self-administration of anal sex—the names may surprise: Carver, Hawthorne, Shakespeare, Roth, Kerouac, Joyce, Fitzgerald, Whitman, Cummings, Eliot—not to mention myriad references to the Bible (for starters, each chapter title is a “riff” on a chapter in the good book). But don’t be fooled: Despite the title, and the pedigree, Mr. Keck is still a gutter poet/storyteller, the red-headed stepchild of some unholy union between David Sedaris and a young Philip Roth (Portnoy’s Complaint is on the list, natch), minus the transcendent insight.  read more »

If trailers for the movie Jumper (no. 1), the sci-fi actioner starring Hayden Chrstensen, Rachel Bilson and Samuel L. Jackson, made you want to jump out of a window, you may want to take the week off. The movie was a resounding success, both here and throughout the country, raking in over $27 million dollars over the three-day weekend. Guess there won’t be a desperate OC reunion anytime soon.  read more »

It must have been a foggy, overcast San Francisco day, 25 years ago, when Mark Eitzel formed American Music Club with guitarist Vudi. What else could explain the perpetual cloud that has hung over the band? Sure, one could chalk it up to the self-destructive tendencies of Eitzel, who writes the songs and sings lead, but that wouldn't suit AMC, whose ouevre includes its fair share of allegories. Maybe it was because they never met a genre they didn't like—rock, punk, folk, country, jazz, etc. Or it could just be that this band has always been destined to be successful amongst critics and Europeans (a la Kraftwerk). It's clear, however, by the title of their new album, The Golden Age, that the band is ready to enter a new phase of their careers—the aged, yet wise troubadours (or the painfully delusional). Can't wait to find out which!  read more »

MONDAY

Everyone deserves a second chance, right? Well, tonight, America has the privilege of witnessing two, as Monday nights turn into a bad episode of We Love the ’90s come to life. Last week, Brian Austin Green made his debut on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles for a stay of indeterminate length. Here’s the deal, Brian: We’ll forget how you strained your acting skills fawning over Tori Spelling on 90210 for just long enough to give you the opportunity impress on your new gig [Fox, 9 p.m.]. So far, we’ve learned that he takes a beating well. It’s a marketable skill!

Yo! Yo! Yo! Guess who else is back … Yes, none other than Dan Cortes. The former host of MTV Sports has returned as the host of My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad [NBC, 9 p.m.], a reality series that sets out to prove just that. Mark Burnett, producer, offered him the job after he promised to leave the bandanas at home.  read more »

Let the Michael Jackson comeback begin. Today, with the release of the 25th anniversary edition of Thriller, Jackson and company launch the first salvo in what has so far been an abortive effort to get the pop star's career back on track. Good luck! According to The Las Vegas Review-Journal's Norm Clarke (love the eye patch, by the way), Jackson had been holed up at the Palms for the last couple of months of 2007 with his handlers trying to finagle a six-figure deal for him to host a New Year's party. Alas, he's "too radioactive." The new edition of the "world's biggest selling album of all time" may begin to change all of that. It has a couple of new tracks with will.i.am, Fergie, Akon and Kanye West contributing new versions of "The Girl Is Mine," "P.Y.T.," "Billie Jean," and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'," using the old recordings. Click "Read More" to hear a sample from the album and from other new releases hitting stores today.  read more »

Lesson learned this weekend: Martin Lawrence still has it, while Vince Vaughn doesn’t always. Out of five—yes, five—comedies released this weekend, Lawrence’s Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins (No. 1) was easily the fan favorite in Manhattan, out-grossing its closest competition, the Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey romantic barnstormer Fool’s Gold by over $60,000. (Gold did, however, get the last laugh by claiming more cash nationally.) So, where did Vince Vaughn’s stand-up travelogue, Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show, end up? Well, for starters, not on our top 10.  read more »

MONDAY

Put those electric razors back in their chargers, writers: it looks like you’re back to work on Wednesday. (Better yet, shave today, so when you report you’ll have just the right amount of writerly stubble.) Showrunners, ever the go-getters, will be in the office today, attempting to save their charges’ shortened seasons. Miraculously, TV Guide’s Michael Ausiello has a pretty comprehensive list of what the future holds for your favorite shows. (The man knows how to work a beat!) Unfortunately, the earliest anything is going to return is April, with the exception of Saturday Night Live, which could return as early as Feb. 16. In the meantime, here’s what passes for TV.  read more »

New York producer—and the city's worst boss, according to Gawker—has two—count 'em!—two films nomimated for the best picture Oscar, There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men. And what's he have to say to the Guardian about it? "Is there any outrage in England that Jonny Greenwood wasn't nominated?" Modest, eh? Greenwood, a member of Radiohead and a composer in residence for BBC, composed the haunting soundtrack for Blood, which was ruled ineligible due to the use of previously released material. Meanwhile, scores for Atonement, The Kite Runner, Michael Clayton, Ratatouille and 3:10 to Yuma were considered sufficiently original and nominated. Incidentally, both Dario Marianelli's "Briony," the opening track of Atonement, and Greenwood's "Proven Lands" use a similar click-clack motif. Take a listen ...  read more »

Getting your big break on a hit show just before it goes off the air must be pretty tough. Just ask Autumn Reeser. You may remember her as Taylor on The O.C., the initially annoying, conniving competitor of Mischa Barton's Marissa Cooper, who matures, moves away, marries a Frenchman, returns, chills out and eventually takes Marissa's place as Ryan's paramour in season four—a.k.a. the last season, the season that no one watched. Well, McG, the show's executive producer, has given the young lady another shot—in commercials! But you'll never see them on TV. Director McG (Charlie's Angels) was hired to make four Web ads for the book Celebutantes, a Hollywood satire pegged to the Oscars by Amanda Goldberg (daughter of film producer Leonard Goldberg) and Ruthanna Khaligi Hopper (daughter of Easy Rider Dennis Hopper). The book isn't supposed to be so hot, but, boy, if these spots aren't pretty funny. Someone get that Reeser a real job!

Ads after the jump.

Who needs the Oscars when you have the Berlin Film Festival? Martin Scorsese and the Rolling Stones are in the German capital tonight to premiere their concert film, Shine a Light, shot at the Beacon Theater in 2006. The 65-year-old director, who does not have a film in this year's Oscar hunt, and the 64-year-old Mick Jagger appeared in high spirits on the red carpet. Scorsese, whose concert film resume includes The Last Waltz (1978) with the Band and No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (2005), told Reuters, "[The music of the Rolling Stones] became the basis for most of the work I've done in my movies going from Mean Streets on to Raging Bull all the way over to Casino and The Departed." To which Jagger joked that Shine a Light may be the only Scorsese film to not feature "Gimme Shelter." Zing!