So according to Reuters, multi-hyphenate husband collector Jennifer Lopez has just today won roughly $545,000 in the
arbitration of a lawsuit against her first husband over his plans to
publish a tell-all book about the star. Lopez was awarded $200,000 in damages for breach of contract,
$300,000 in attorneys’ fees and nearly $48,000 in arbitration costs. Noa’s
plans for a book were revealed in a January 2006 article in the New
York Post describing the proposed expose as a 12-chapter “tell-all
manuscript” under the title: The Unknown Truth: A Passionate Portrait
of a Serial Thriller. Noa, a restaurant and nightclub manager,
then offered not to publish the book if Lopez paid him $5 million, according
to Lopez’s suit.

Lopez should be financially set, of course, but bank is bank, and worth celebrating… even a paltry $200,000. And perhaps this will help console she and new husband Marc
Anthony over the reviews of their new film, El Cantante.

So according to Variety, 24-year-old looker Leelee Sobieski will be reteaming with her squirrelly Joy Ride costar Steve Zahn in the indie flick Night Train, also alongside Danny Glover.
Written and directed by Brian King, the movie is described as a thriller which centers around three strangers competing
for a mysterious object on a train on Christmas Eve. Presumably that object is not a used DVD copy of Reindeer Games. This is all fine and well, but the Sobieski film that everyone should be most looking forward to is Uwe Boll‘s In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, which must be supported at all costs, including personal sanity. After all, how else do we get the full trilogy of that sword-and-sorcery videogame series?

The Hollywood Reporter is reporting today that, in a civil trial watched closely by those in the film industry, a jury returned a verdict ordering Warner Bros. to pay producers Alan Ladd Jr. and Jay Kanter $3.2
million in revenue from a series of movies licensed in packages to TV
and cable stations. Hollywood accounting and other chicanery has long been a point of contention, but does anyone really think this is going to change things on balance?

After all, immediately after the verdict, a Warner Bros. spokesperson issued a statement that read, in part: “While we are disappointed by the jury’s verdict,
we understand their confusion over damages. We will now look at this
entire proceeding, and hope to rectify this erroneous decision at this
level or on appeal.”

Matt Damon was on The Daily Show last night to promote The Bourne Ultimatum, and it was another effortlessly charismatic appearance, a reminder of the easy, penthouse-to-sidewalk rapport that both Damon and his pal Ben Affleck have with the press. Damon chatted comfortably with Jon Stewart (who mentioned Death to Smoochy, naturally), told an interesting though possibly apocryphal anecdote about Fat Man and Little Boy (about crew members wagering over how many Oscars it was going to win — the point being that you never quite know how something’s going to play with an audience) and said of the third installment in his spy franchise: “We’re just happy it doesn’t suck. The fact that people love it is great.”

There will be more on Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon in the coming days but, just to reiterate, the review for The Bourne Ultimatum can be found by clicking here. Or on the movie’s title, really. Totally your choice…

Andy Samberg appeared on Late
Night with Conan O’Brien last night, in support of Hot Rod, but the bulk of his time was actually devoted to an
anecdote about he and his friend and cast mate, Jorma Taccone, convincing their
Canadian union set driver to follow their lead and rub strong-scented
peppermint oil on his balls (don’t ask, regarding the set-up). He allegedly
did, and they snapped an amusing photo of him.

Samberg then poked mild, mock-cautionary fun at other big
screen offerings going up against Hot Rod,
saying that he’d heard if audiences went to see Underdog, their eyes would burn out of their
head and their faces would melt, like in Indiana
Jones and the Temple of Doom. He wasn’t done there, though. “It’s strange.
Great movie, perfectly fine if you see it once, but I’ve heard that if you see The Simpsons Movie
a second time, you get IBS. …And if you see The Bourne Ultimatum,
you’ll get syphilis.”

de Lauzirika spoke for about seven minutes (audio of the chat can be accessed here, though without the benefit of a direct mic it’s a bit dodgy in spots), and says that CBS enjoys a great relationship with filmmaker David Lynch, and that they “got away with murder” with respect to the amount of material being included in the set.

To wit: in addition to all the episodes from each season of the show, this collection will (finally) feature both the European and American versions of the
show’s pilot (the former featuring a closed narrative loop, so it could be released as a feature), deleted scenes from both seasons, and loads of other extras, including a feature-length
documentary called Secrets from Another Place.

UPDATE 8/03: A release date through Paramount, which handles the bulk of CBS’ television properties, is confirmed for October 30.

An original, screen-used “General Lee” car from The Dukes of
Hazzard TV show — expected to fetch between $180,000 and $220,000 — the
original “Johnny-Five” robot from Short
Circuit and Short Circuit 2, an
original Chewbacca
head from Star Wars, Tony Soprano’s Chevy Suburban from The Sopranos, Tom
Cruise’s “Cole Trickle” stock car from Days of Thunder and Uncle Rico’s
van from Napoleon Dynamite
are just a few of the more
than 1,000 iconic Hollywood items up for grabs in a two-day auction
taking place under the watch of Profiles in History on August 2 and 3.

www.ebayliveauctions.com), click here to visit Profiles in History’s eponymous web site.
Worldwide bidding begins at noon on both
days.

Matt Damon appeared on The Tonight Show last night in support of The Bourne Ultimatum, and his was a textbook example of how to be a great talk show guest, especially hilarious for Los Angelenos. After poking fun in good-natured fashion at Ocean’s mates George Clooney and Brad Pitt over the fact that his recently received star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was the first amongst the three, Damon talked about the days when he first moved to L.A., and lived with Ben Affleck and another guy in an apartment complex on Cherokee, just off Hollywood Boulevard. According to Damon, they ran a contest to see who could make it to the corner store and back without being offered crack — but offered so nicely, Damon made a point of emphasizing. (Jay Leno also then shared a funny story, about how his star on the Walk of Fame is near where he was once arrested for vagrancy, and sleeping in his car.) The second segment found Damon pleasantly suffering some paparazzi-snapped surfing photos of a recent vacation in Hawaii with Affleck and the guys’ wives. They finally got around to showing a clip from the movie, of Jason Bourne hot-wiring a car and driving off the roof. Good times…

Featuring an incredible array of the world’s leading keyboardists,
Moogfest, the annual festival celebrating the groundbreaking achievements of
maverick inventor Robert Moog and his namesake synthesizer, captures the spirit
that altered the course of modern music for all time and has since become an
integral part of our musical culture. Filmed live at New York’s famed B.B. King
Blues Club, a DVD of this past year’s celebration features performances from some of its greatest
practitioners, including Keith Emerson (The Nice, ELP), Jan Hammer (The
Mahavishnu Orchestra, Jeff Beck), Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater), Bernie Worrell
(P-Funk), Roger O’Donnell (The Cure), The Mahahavishnu Project and DJ Logic. Housed in a regular Amray case, MVD’s solid little
full-frame, region-free niche release comes without benefit of any supplemental
extras, but it is anchored by a nice Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio
track. To purchase the title via Amazon, click here.

So Lindsay Lohan was arrested this morning for DUI — her second such arrest in under three months, and it’s a doozy of a case, tricked out with all manner of bejweled accoutrements of crazy. Already due back in court on
August 24 to face a count of misdemeanor hit and run, and charges of driving with a blood alcohol level greater
than .08 during a Memorial Day weekend DUI crash, Lohan was nabbed just after 2 a.m. this morning in Santa Monica, allegedly blowing between a .12 and .13.

The kicker? Lohan was apparently speeding after the mother of personal assistant, who had quit just hours earlier. Said mother called police, told them she was being pursued, and headed toward a nearby police station, where Lohan was nabbed. Oh, and after failing a field sobriety test, at the station, a search of Lohan’s person was conducted and
cocaine was found in her pockets. After spending several hours in jail
and paying $25,000 bail, Lohan was released. This definitely scuttles Lohan’s planned appearance on The Tonight Show this evening in support of I Know Who Killed Me, and should absolutely kill the movie’s opening weekend.

For what it’s worth, Richard Horgan at FilmStew has a nice, spot-on little piece up in his “Hollywood Spin” blog about Alan Rickman, his deft touch with villainy and his mellifluous voice. It’s a quickie, drive-by sort of piece, but it raises my hopes a little for Nobel Son, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year and is still wandering around with its hat in its hand. Also, Horgan is right about Rickman’s distinctive, perfectly smooth voice — the guy should totally be scoring all kinds of voicework.

According to Larry King and CNN.com, Tammy Faye Messner (formerly Bakker) has passed away, after a rough bout with cancer. I caught a few minutes of her on King’s show earlier this week, and — I’m sorry to say — she looked almost as if she were already dead, a skeletal Hollywood special effect creation. For a look at Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato’s fascinating documentary The Eyes of Tammy Faye, click here.

Good news for folks who want to be sedated — a special Ramones DVD, It’s Alive: 1974-1996, will be released this fall (exact date TBD) from Rhino, distilling the essence of over 2,000 performances onto a two-disc set with over four hours of footage. Promising a blend of rare material from the influential group’s earliest performances at CBGBs to international festival gigs in front of crowds of over 100,000, this special set should be the closest experience to seeing the Ramones live again.

Good news, of a sort — despite some earlier indications to the contrary, Hot Rod‘s final, commercial release running time is in the ballpark of 87 minutes or so, definitely under 90 minutes, even with credits. I’ll try to have a few more thoughts on the film tomorrow…

David Lynch has signed on to direct a commercial for Gucci’s eponymous new perfume, according to Stylephile.com. While ad work isn’t new or necessarily unusual for the director — who’s helmed a memorable pregnancy test commercial, among others — it will be interesting to see what Lynch comes up with for what should be a relatively high-end launch. Parent company Procter & Gamble released a statement which indicated why they tapped the avant garde filmmaker to tackle
the task: “Lynch was selected for his holistic ability as an artist,
his professional experience and knowledge, his never-ending research
for beautiful images, his use of music and his modernity.” Take that, Brett Ratner! One also has to figure that Lynch can knock out half of his Christmas shopping with this gig.