• After his little traffic mishap on July 20, the LA County District attorney will charge Haley Joel Osment with a DUI. I’m sure the young Mr. Osment knows how to get through this; after all, he spent most of last month being charged by the media with driving a 1995 Saturn.
• Outted Jew-hater Mel Gibson has been sentenced for his DUI arrest earlier this month. He got 3 years probation and 5 AA meetings a week for the next 4 1/2 months, with 3 meetings a week for the rest of the year after that. He also must pay fines totalling $1300, which is about .00043% of what Passion of the Christ netted him personally. The Life Ring blog notes that the U.S. media tend to tiptoe around AA and other 12-step programs, but Britain’s Telegraph tells it like it is: Mel Gibson is even a nutcase about AA, demanding spur-of-the-moment Big Book discussions immediately before a take on the set of Braveheart. So — who’s down to stalk some Melibu AA meetings? I’ll drive!
• That Owen Wilson knows a good publicity train when he sees one. He hopped on board and he’s grabbing a coal shovel, threatening to sue anyone who suggests he might have a role in the demise of the Kate Hudson/Strange Bearded Man alliance.
• Brangelina are moving to Los Feliz, ostensibly because no one in Los Angeles can agree on how to pronounce it, let alone remember where it is.

The NY Sun ran an interesting article today regarding Jesus and everyone’s favorite retailer of wear-once-in-Vegas slutwear, Forever 21. It seems the owners are devout Catholics who have been printing the words “John 3:16″ at the bottom of the company’s trademark yellow bags. A spokeswoman for the LA-based company calls the inscription a “demonstration of the owners’ faith.” Normally I would be indignant about something like this, but where I can buy a 3-inch plaid schoolgirl skirt and same-height heels for under $20, surely God is at work.

…and TMZ has it on tape. Actually, the Jackass star invited the paparazzi up to his apartment, where he was getting stinking drunk with his grossly anorexic and probably-not-gonna-make-it-as-an-actress-if-her-utter-inability-to-be-natural-on-camera-is-any-indication girlfriend. He then tells the camera man that he and Nicole Richie’s relationship was entirely a PR stunt, blasts Brandon Davis for being an overall fuckwit (props for that), calls Paris Hilton a “self-made millionaire,” and makes the (actually pretty dead-on) point that Lindsay Lohan and Eminem have similarly inspiring rags-to-riches stories. He mentions repeatedly that all he’s ever wanted in life is to be hounded by the paparazzi. Somewhere in there he appeals to Nicole to call him, as he’s lost her number and email address and would like to be friends again. His disturbingly anorexic girlfriend gropes him the whole time. “Whatever comes out of my mouth,” he tells the photogs, “run it.”

It’s like watching a trainwreck. A beautiful, glorious, drunken trainwreck.

The fabulous Zooey Deschanel has won sought-after role of Janis Joplin, in The Gospel of Janis, which starts filming in November. If you’ve seen Failure to Launch, you understand what a glorious thing this is. If you have not seen Failure to Launch, rent it (and fast-forward through the parts that don’t have Zooey Deschanel in them). Deschanel won the role over a group that included Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and ScoJo.

“Punk” singer Pink was the first choice of director Penelope Spheeris for the role. She dropped out of the race, claiming that the producers had turned the casting into “some circus pop contest–who’s the ‘it’ girl who wants to play Janis,” and certainly not because her ego and her drinking problem couldn’t cope with the intensity and competition of what industry insiders refer to as “the casting process.”

Good riddance, Pinky Poo! I was not excited for this movie, but now that Zooey’s been cast, I can’t wait!

I’d like to begin by issuing an apology to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. In a post last month, I was unnecessarily harsh to the couple, ranting and raving about how insane, fame-whorish, and bad-parenty it was for them to allow a wax likeness of their two-month-old child to be photographed for money.

Compared to Britney Spears, Pitt & Jolie are the Cleavers. (Is there actually anyone alive today who ever watched Leave it to Beaver? Why do we still say things like that? I have no idea who the Cleavers are and you don’t either.)

Ms. Spears said an assortment of very retarded and childhood-ruining things while in the presence of People magazine’s writing staff, and I’d like to summarize the highlights. While Brad and Angelina waited until their baby had a good solid two months of footing in this world before demonstrating publicly that she’s nothing more than a long-term PR stunt, Britney formally announces she didn’t really want her baby while it’s still in utero. “It just kind of happened,” said Britney, by which she means “I meant to to take my birth control, ya’ll, but I was too damn stoned, you know? Oh-muh-gahd. Fee?”

It’s also nice to see that Britney’s in touch with the real reason she wanted to get knocked up in the first place: “It makes me feel needed and wanted,” she says, “so I like it.”

It’s so clear now: when international superstardom, worldwide adoration, mountains of cold hard cash and a steady diet of bong hits and McDonalds just won’t heal that empty ache within, you know you’re ready to be a mom.

It’s a daunting task to isolate the Stephen Sondheim musical that would have the least commercial appeal as a big-screen release, but Tim Burton has risen to the challenge, moving forward with a DreamWorks production of Sweeney Todd. True to form, he’s asked the individual who we, at this point, simply must beginning referring to as his muse — Johnny Depp — to play the lead. The feel-good cannibalism film of the decade is slated for a late 2007 release. With any luck this will tie up Depp’s schedule long enough that we, as a nation, won’t have to cope with Pirates 3 until 2008; at that point, the 17 hours of Mr. Depp drinking gin from potted plants and sporadically penetrating Keira Knightley with a rotted oar while reading Leaves of Grass aloud will casually out-gross the GDP of Finland.

There’s more where that came from. Note that the other woman present is her mother.