Defamer: John Cusack

'NY Post' Alleges That John Cusack's Childhood is Sold, Bought, and Processed

Kyle Buchanan — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:50:00 PDT

When John Cusack called us up and asked, "If I answer your questions, will you stop writing nasty shit about me?" we demurred — sadly, he didn't try the same tack with the New York Post. The left-leaning actor is a juicy target for the conservative tabloid, and after Cusack was asked to contribute an essay to the new HuffPost Chicago by his friend, "the good and great Arianna," the Post tore it wide open like a disgruntled Must Love Dogs ticketbuyter. What they allege they've found is a whole host of errors and made-up childhood reminiscences:

JOHN Cusack learned he should stick to acting with his first piece for the Huffington Post Chicago - which was "riddled with more errors than the 2006 Cubs," according to one blogger. Cusack, who was writing about his childhood as a fan of the Cubs, the White Sox, Michael Jordan and Walter Payton, managed to misspell the names of three Cubs players and of playwright Eugene O'Neill. Cusack also erroneously stated that Sammy Sosa played for the '89 Cubs. Finally, the "High Fidelity" star described taking the "express" train to Wrigley Field. There has never been an express to Wrigley. Cusack - whose last two movies, "Grace Is Gone" and "War, Inc.," were both anti-war bombs - also described how he would "scrape together $2.50" to go to a baseball game. "Cusack grew up in a massive house on Sheridan Road," said another reader of the Beachwood Reporter Web site. "It's slightly disingenuous to say he had to 'scrape' together $2.50. I'm thinking that wasn't an issue."

Also, is there really any such person as "John Cusack," or is it an elaborate ruse cooked up by "childhood friend" Jeremy Piven? It's no coincidence that you never see the two of them together anymore... could this be the reason that the Piv was shut out of High Fidelity? Were the CGI costs simply too high? When will the Huffington Post renounce the John Cusack-impersonating Jeremy Piven???

[photo credit: AP]

Cusack's Strikeout [NY Post]
Bleary-eyed in Bangkok: Daybreak Memories of Chicago [HuffPo]

Lloyd Dobler Grows Some Litigious Balls

Regan — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:55:00 PDT

John Cusack is suing Intermedia Film Equities USA for breach of contract in the amount of $5.6 million, after production was canceled on his upcoming film Stopping Power. Originally scheduled to shoot in Germany, Cusack signed on to star after Intermedia guaranteed him a "pay or play" fixed compensation of $4.5 million, along with an additional $50,000 to cover the cost of Cusack's staff while on location. $50,000? Who knew Lane Meyer was so high maintenance? Fortunately, we here at Defamer were able to get our hands on a top secret copy of Cusack's rider. We break down exactly where that $50K would've gone after the jump.

The breakdown goes as follows:
· $3,500 – Assistant to apply patented Leatherman B-Gone Spray
· $4,000 – Sweat shop worker to custom make a 6-week supply of Chuck Taylors
· $5,000 – Blogger to ghost write for Huffington Post
· $7,500 – Joan Cusack impersonator to act as security blanket
· $10,000 – Lili Taylor
· $20,000 – On-set shrink to help deal with recently developed scorpion-in-crotch phobia

After canceling production, Intermedia has since sent an olive branch to Cusack in the form of a trench-coat wearing PA, whose elevated iPod serenaded him with the sounds of Peter Gabriel. The PA was last seen running down the PCH being chased by a homicidal paper boy.

John Cusack: You Played Me, Now Pay Me [TMZ.com]

Dear Reader: Please pay no attention to John ...

STV — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:50:00 PDT

Dear Reader: Please pay no attention to John Horn, who should be ashamed of himself today — not just for his facile collection of "lessons" studios have "learned" so far this summer, but for daring to suggest that The Happening was anything but a success for Fox and Manoj Night Shyamalan. The effrontery! Even the most casual of observers would know that Manoj's Mint has yielded more than $113 million worldwide in two weeks of release, which is more than fine for all parties involved. (Never mind the 66% drop during its second weekend — it's all profit for Manoj!) Then there's this silly matter of viewers rejecting darker-themed movies like War Inc. (John Cusack would beg to differ) and Horn's pedestrian observation that "Paramount is on fire." And anyway, that's not even accurate — Paramount has topped $1 billion for the year, and Universal is on fire. Christ, John — get it straight! [LAT]

Comeback Kid John Cusack Wants A Word With Defamer

STV — Fri, 30 May 2008 16:45:00 PDT

We'd spent no shortage of time around here in recent weeks lamenting John Cusack's one-two professional plunge of box-office allergic Grace is Gone and critic-allergic War, Inc. Then came last weekend, when War, Inc. nabbed the second-highest per-screen average in the country: $27,252, second only to Indiana Jones 4. Heady, eye-opening stuff, to be sure — but not quite as eye-opening as when Cusack actually phoned us an hour ago to talk about it.

"If I answer your questions, will you stop writing nasty shit about me?" he asked. Of course we could promise nothing (especially not with a Roland Emmerich collaboration on the horizon), but for now, anyway, it's hard to deny he's on to something with War, Inc. He tells us why after the jump.

Most observers were pretty shocked to see War, Inc. score the way it did last weekend, especially after the reviews it got. What was your reaction?

I wasn't totally shocked, but I'm shocked that it went as well as it did. I've been the beneficiary of a lot of cultural snobbery, so I can't really bitch about it, you know? I don't really mind too much when it goes against me, especially when you do a movie that's different and radical. Some of the most powerful people intellectually that I know had not only seen it but endorsed it: authorities on Iraq, writers, thinkers, artists, comedians — I thought, "Hey, we've got a shot here; we don't need to sell out 6,000 screens, but I thought we could just go grass roots with it."

What's the irony in a critically-snubbed film about the Iraq War doing so well, especially after those same critics complained about commercial failures of films they backed?

Not only didn't it have critical backing, it didn't have corporate backing. But again, the critical backing we had was a different kind of critic. They write about foreign affairs and politics and culture; they don't sit around a bunch of junkets every weekend and then be snarky tastemakers about movies. Many of the press never wrote about movies before; they spent time in Iraq and had written about the issues in the movies for a long time. They said, "I don't know what the hell these critics are seeing, but this is what we see." Some people just get it.

Is that a model that more distributors and studios should take to heart for future Iraq films?

I hope so. I definitely remember thinking that if we pulled this off, it wouldn't have been done before. I was pretty excited about that. But I've also been around long enough to know the response something gets when it's either the flavor of the month or it has nothing to do with the overall life of the film — especially these kinds of edgy political satires and experimental films. We'll see how it does this weekend, but we're already going out to six new markets in two weeks.

Your previous film about the Iraq War, Grace is Gone, was a very well-received last year at Sundance. Harvey Weinstein bought it for $4 million; it made less than $100,000. What happened?

I think, to be honest, releasing it at Christmas was probably not the right time, in retrospect. I think Harvey was thinking it would get into that award season "luge," where it gets nominated for script or actor and that sort of propels the life of the movie. When that didn't happen, there wasn't a back-up plan. When Christmas came around and the debacle in Iraq was so depressing, people didn't want to be reminded of it. What's fun about War Inc. is that it's got these serious ideas but it puts it through an absurdist lens. You remember subversion can be fun; the first thing you want to reclaim is your spirit of defiance.

You're reportedly attached to star in this Roland Emmerich film 2012. You're seriously playing a limo driver in the apocalypse?

I can't divulge that information. It's very secretive stuff.

Indy's Box-Office Bullwhip Kills Uwe Boll, John Cusack and Rest of Competition

STV — Fri, 23 May 2008 09:00:00 PDT

Defamer Attractions returns today with another round of movie scanning for your Memorial Day weekend. We already know you're planning at least two excursions to view Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (once out of drunken impulse, and once to make sure that really was the ending you saw before blacking out), but Indy alone does not a holiday make! At least one of the poor bastards sharing this opening weekend is bound to tank the worst, and yet another is a fine bit of foreign-language counterprogramming worth your consideration. And of course we've got a few new DVD choices for the agoraphobic, hungover and/or the cheapskates among us. As always, our opinions and projections are A) our own and B) impeccably fail-safe. Where should we start?

WHAT'S NEW: There's a holiday-ready, cruise-control part of us that feels like skipping this part of Defamer Attractions, but again, Indiana Jones 4 is not the only new release demanding attention. That said, with $26 million already in the bank on Thursday, and with the Indiana Jones PlunderWatch Projection Ticker speeding toward $9.5 trillion, we should probably just get it out of the way. It's easily going to win the weekend, but can it displace four-day weekend champ Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End ($139.7 million) and five-day king Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith ($172 million) as the all-time biggest box-office bow? We doubt it; there's too much cultural competition to overcome the 19-year generation gap. Nevertheless, we're still calling Indy to break $110 million by Sunday and $140 million by Monday, thus promising a fifth installment set in 1967 and pitting our hero and his greaser sidekick/offspring against their toughest adversaries yet: Filthy, filthy hippies.

Also opening: John Cusack's Iraq satire/career nadir War, Inc.; the here-and-gone Jonathan Rhys Meyers drama The Children of Huang Shi; and the acclaimed Vice Magazine-produced doc Heavy Metal in Baghdad.

THE BIG LOSER: Despite early reads positioning Postal in the same critical class as What Happens in Vegas, Speed Racer and Sex and the City, it won't likely be enough to boost Uwe Boll's latest clusterfuck to anything approaching respectable at the box office. Granted, he's on four screens as opposed to, say, Indy 4's 4,200, but if Postal's per-screen average breaks $8,000, we'll volunteer to be the guy eating his own puke in Boll's next film. What? Stoic has already been shot? Whatever. The point is: It will not happen.

THE UNDERDOG: Fatih Akin's 2005 culture-clash stunner Head On captured audiences about as abruptly and unforgettably as its title suggested, and his follow-up, The Edge of Heaven, revisits his volatile Turkish/German roots with no less intensity. Which, considering its scope, is a bit of a marvel: A elderly Turkish man invites a compatriot prostitute into the home he shares with his son in Bremen. It ends... poorly, with the son traveling to Istanbul to find the woman's 20-something daughter. She's embroiled in political actions there, expatriates herself to Germany seeking asylum, falls in love with another young woman, and then — horror of horrors! — is expelled back to prison in Turkey. The interwoven searches and tragedies that follow in Heaven make Babel look like an afterschool special — not for their violence or viciousness (though they have that, too), but for their stoicism and, ultimately, their unalloyed compassion. And in any case, we'd never reject anything featuring both lesbians and Turkish prison.

FOR SHUT-INS: New DVD's this week include National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets, the latest terrible George Romero zombie entry Diary of the Dead, the Richard Gere/Claire Danes folly The Flock, and the long, long-awaited complete first season of The Bill Engvall Show.

So are we low-balling Indy's weekend plunder? Are we too generous? And is anybody actually planning to see Postal? Share your own plans, place your own bets and go ahead — tell your boss we said you could take Monday off!

The Critics Speak: 'Postal' May Actually Be Better than 'Sex and the City'

STV — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:30:00 PDT

We've been following the bouncing Uwe Boll for what seems like months now, but once the consummate self-promoter and sworn enemy of 279,452 filmgoers (and counting) wound up playing the victim in the Sunday New York Times, the shark was considered jumped. But an eagle-eyed tipster points out one of the more fascinating signs yet of the loathed filmmaker's resurgence: On a week when his new film Postal has reportedly been banned from multiplexes, it's also pulling a better Rotten Tomatoes score (33%) than "mainstream" offerings Made of Honor (12%), What Happens in Vegas (28%) and John Cusack's bomb-to-be War, Inc. (23%). It's also neck-and-neck with Sex and the City and a mere percentage point behind the tentpole Speed Racer, which is still stalled at the gate with 34% positive reviews.

Granted, everything will change as more reviews trickle in — but not necessarily for the worst. In any case, maybe Boll — not Roland Emmerich — is the ideal Euro-hack to helm that forthcoming $200 million Cusack apocalypse flick. At this rate, he may be Sony's only hope with the critics.

'Postal' [Rotten Tomatoes]

Disaster Addict John Cusack to Drive Limo Into the Apocalypse

STV — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:40:00 PDT

After the implosive one-two punch comprising his recent tandem War. Inc. and Grace is Gone (not to mention, of course, his spellbinding online short film featuring Diablo Cody as "Girl Who Thought He'd Be Cooler"), fortune may yet favor the slumping John Cusack. Or at least that's the only option our optimistic hearts will allow upon reading about the actor's reported next project, a massive-budget, honest-to-goodness end-of-the-world film by apocalypse maven Roland Emmerich:

John Cusack is in negotiations to star in director Roland Emmerich's (10,000 B.C., The Day After Tomorrow) new disaster movie 2012 for Sony Pictures. The title refers to the year the world is supposed to end after a global cataclysm. Cusack is negotiating to play Jackson Curtis, a divorced dad who alternates between writing and driving a limo. ...

Sony acquired the project in a high-stakes bidding war and is aiming for a summer 2009 release. The price tag for the special-effects laden movie could reach $200 million.

The Hollywood Reporter has stepped in over the last hour to specify a July 10, 2009, release date and to talk down the budget below $200 million — a staggering number under any circumstances, but most certainly for a film featuring John Cusack as a divorced limo driver. By the director of 10,000 BC. Alas, we'll miss this one anyway because this is the part of the post where we shoot ourselves.

[Photo Credit: Wireimage]

John Cusack in talks for Roland Emmerich's '2012' [EW]

John Cusack ponders disaster flick [THR]

Who Said It: John Cusack, Diablo Cody Or Bob Ross?

Seth — Mon, 05 May 2008 17:15:00 PDT

Like an Iconoclasts that thanks you for the add, MySpaceTV's Artist on Artist pits star vs. star in a Battle Royale of Big Ideas and Mutual Tucheslecking. The only loser? You! See if you can pin the following quotes from Diablo Cody and John Cusack's recent Artist on Artist pairing to the appropriate speaker. To heighten the difficulty level a bit, we've also thrown in a few quotes from beloved TV landscape artist, Bob Ross:

1. "We met at the cast party for How I Met Your Mother, right? We were both pretty drunk... It was kind of a blackout haze."
2. "It was really cool though. It was you, me, and Alyson Hannigan just kind of hanging. Then we kind of broke off and got to talking about stuff that interested us as people. You know, as human beings."
3. "Then we texted for a while and then we hung out."
4. "I think people's reaction to art is often more about themselves than it is about the art. People really project, and they find parts of themselves in the things that they consume. And so it's always interesting to me sometimes the new ideas that people have about things that I didn't even intend to put in there. And that's what's kind of cool."
5. "And that makes it look like birch trees, isn't that sneaky? Heh. Ha. It's gorgeous."

6. "If you go to like a sports bar, or a place, like, where there's a bunch of aggressive males, and you mix that with alcohol, then it becomes that too. Like an almost psychotic extreme."
7. "As my son Steve says, just smoosh it in there."
8. "I'm used to being a little out of step."
9. "I wrote a horror movie? That's shooting right now? In Vancouver? It's called Jennifer's Body?"
10. "People look at me like I'm a little strange, when I go around talking to squirrels and rabbits and stuff. That's ok. Thaaaat's just ok."
11. "It was pretty interesting because the film shifts from surreality to soap opera to black comedy to sincerity, and we sort of wanted to see what would happen if we did all those shifts but didn't telegraph that they were coming? And not explain them?"
12. "It's such an adventurous pastiche!"
13. "Water's like me. It's laaazy... Boy, it allways looks for the easiest way to do things."

ANSWERS: 1. JC 2. DC 3. JC 4. DC 5. BR 6. JC 7. BR 8. JC 9. DC 10. BR 11. JC 12. DC 13. BR

Artist on Artist: John Cusack and Diablo Cody [MySpace TV]
Bob Ross [Wikiquote]

John Cusack Disaster Reaffirms Iraq Films' Special Place in America's Heart

STV — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:35:00 PDT

John Cusack's meander through his second-consecutive anti-war film is coming under heavy fire at the Tribeca Film Festival, where War, Inc. bowed this week to the kinds of reviews that made his previous Iraq entry — the $50,899-grossing Grace is Gone — positively shine in comparison. While he and his agent sift around for a more reliable rom-com follow-up, our preliminary poke through the wreckage yields yet more smoldering evidence that Iraq is officially over as a dramatic subject. We piece together the eyewitness testimony after the jump:

Cusack, in the latest of a seemingly endless (and psychologically curious) string of hitman roles, plays Hauser, a typically troubled assassin whose inner psyche is so dead that he resorts to downing shot glasses of hot sauce in order to feel anything. His latest mission, at the behest of Tamerlane — a Halliburton-type corporation run by a Dick Cheney-like former vice president (Dan Aykroyd) — is to assassinate a Middle Eastern oil minister named Omar Sharif (an example of the film's humor) who is threatening to undercut their plans to build an oil pipeline in the wartorn country of Turaqistan. — Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter

He also encounters a reporter for The Nation (Marisa Tomei!), a Central European pop tart named Yonica Babyyeah (Hillary Duff) who drops a scorpion down her pants and a hysterical double-agent (played by Cusack's real-life sister Joan running the trade show that serves as Cusack's cover — featuring a chorus line of amputees with high-tech prosthetic limbs. And I haven't mentioned Sir Ben Kingsley, sporting another one of his eccentric American accents, as a Big Brother-like character. — Lou Lumenick, NY Post

Films like this and Redacted and Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? exist to make their makers feel good about their own political correctness, and content that their razor-thin world views are accurate and viable, when in fact they represent a tiny fraction of the bigger picture. This is not activism—this is self-congratulation. — Karina Longworth, Spout Blog

It gets worse from there, but again, we'd prefer to think of Cusack as we remember him: a tasteful man whose recent lapses into treacle and trash (Martian Child, John? Really?) warrant a Sure Thing sequel or, better yet, the prompt franchising of Lloyd Dobler in Say Anything Else. It's not like Cameron Crowe couldn't use the boost himself.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

John Cusack Rebuffs Fan's Attempts To Touch His Light, Heat

Megan Lynn — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 11:55:58 PDT

"Misunderstood" John Cusack fan Emily Leatherman was arrested Sunday outside the actor's home for violating the restraining order Cusack obtained in 2006 that stipulated she stay at least 500 feet away from him. Leatherman, who at the time explained that her actions were less about stalking Cusack and more about seeking his help to convince the police they should investigate her claim that she was drugged and raped in 2001, had taken a cab to Cusack's but couldn't pay the fare — a rom-com set-up if we ever saw one! But instead of covering the charge and then having Leatherman pay him back over a lengthy period of time (during which their improbable encounter would surely blossom into love and a satisfying marriage held in a taxi), the actor flagged down cops who had responded to the situation and told them the following: bitch crazy!

Leatherman, who a sheriff's spokesman characterized as a "transient in the Santa Monica area," was brought in for investigation of stalking, violating a restraining order and petty theft, and was held at $150,000 bail. In the past, she has thrown missives accompanied by rocks and screwdrivers into Cusack's home, begging the question: Had Lloyd Dobler given Diane an aerial onslaught of tools instead of his heart, would he have gotten a trip to the pokey instead of a pen?

Woman Arrested Near Cusack's Home [AP]

Heir Apparent To Merry Miller's Legacy Thinks John Cusack Is Kevin Spacey

Seth — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 09:29:13 PST

Pity John Cusack, who in the span of one junket for an earnest and well-meaning film has now been subjected to the advances of single-n'-ready-to-mingle The View guest hosts, The Chris Farley Show-caliber interviews with overzealous TV cooks, and now, this:

Not since Merry Miller's Holly Hunter debacle has an ill-prepared celebrity interviewer caused us to cringe so, as an unnamed host (surely only moments away from being identified, trotted around the morning shows for her viral notoriety, then forgotten about, only to reemerge as a View guest couch-warmer fully in control of her non-inept life after having found God) begins her audience with the lauded actor by explaining that she's missing class, which, funnily enough, is covering American Beauty that day. What's funny about that? To Cusack—not very much. To us, pretty much everything.

How Not to Start an Interview [YouTube]

Rachael Ray Does Her Impression Of A John Cusack-Convention Nerd

Seth — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 17:45:09 PST

For American women of a certain age—let's say, somewhere around the Ricki Lake/Rachael Ray generation—the utterance of the very name John Cusack is enough to instantly reawaken first stirrings of celebrity puppy-love ecstasy. Give those women their own talk shows and a captive audience with the boombox-hoisting object of their romantic adolescent fantasies, however, and things can quickly get pretty awkward.

Fresh from being tricked on The View into asking Lake on a date, now watch in amazement as the 30-minute-meal guru hovers over Cusack like a freshly baked broccoli, cheese and bacon casserole. As Ray tosses aside a cue card obviously compiled by some Cusack-illiterate to ask her own questions, the Better Off Dead star's reaction can only be described as being about as enthused as someone who's just been gifted with a bag of rocks and screwdrivers from an overzealous fan.

Rachael Ray Show

Ricki Lake Bags Herself A Cusack On 'The View'

Seth — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 13:15:48 PST

If you can manage to get past the slow preamble to this interview on The View with Grace Is Gone star John Cusack (truth be told, we drifted off ourselves, but we're almost positive we heard Sherri Shepherd asking the actor how he manages to so accurately recreate his performances each and every time she plays one of his movies on her Jesus-powered DVD player), there's a small reward waiting for you at the end:

Looking relaxed and sexified, guest host Ricki Lake (once divorced) boldly volunteers herself to be Cusack's date should he be nominated for an Oscar. Acknowledging a nomination might not happen, Cusack replies, "We might just have to go dinner." And then, like, Ricki says, "Alright, alright, it's on!" And then the audience goes, "Whooooo!" And then Shepherd says, "We should switch sides, girl." But they don't! We know! Go Ricki, go Ricki! At least someone on that panel should be getting laid regularly besides the Hasselfrau.

The View

Phil Spector Sports 'The Liza'

Seth — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 18:15:36 PDT

· Phil Spector showed off his new hairstyle at the closing arguments of his trial today, clearly hoping throwing some mid-'80s Liza the jury's way might earn him some last-minute sympathy votes.
· Michael Lohan has reportedly reunited with his estranged daughter Lindsay at Utah's Cirque Lodge, where he presented her with a brand new cartoon depicting her Denalijacking and subsequent arrest as yet another hilarious misadventure of the Archie gang.
· John Cusack gets real about his legacy.
· Good thing those Philadelphia morning show hosts didn't give away the promotional bullet-proof baby carriage.
· Time's "The 100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME" is surely going to be the source of much debate, beginning with the glaring absence of The Powerpuff Girls.

John Cusack's Action Hero Dreams Dashed

Seth — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 11:30:56 PDT

· We're impressed with Variety's show of headline-pun restraint with this one: The plug has been pulled on Stopping Power, Jan De Bont's planned action thriller starring John Cusack, after funding fell through at the last minute. [Variety]
· Conflicting with other reports, Ang Lee's Lust, Caution "thrilled" Venice audiences. One journalist asked if the graphic sexual sequences were real, to which the director responded, "Have you seen the film?" Funny—we always felt what The Hulk could have used were some Brown Bunnyesque elements. [Variety]
· ABC orders a script for The Fixer, about "the most powerful woman in New York." We knew it was only a matter of time before Leona Helmsley's dogwalker had her own show. [Variety]
· NBC and Apple have a parting of the ways, with NBC's content disappearing from iTunes as soon as December. Why can't Steve Jobs and Ben Silverman just iron this bullshit out over a couple of primo bong hits? [THR]
· Giovanni Ribisi is pulled in by the CAA Death Star's tractor beams. Run, Giovanni! They're nothing but a greedy and secretive institution that want to have undue influence over your life decisions! [THR]

How Harvey Got His Groove Back

Mark — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 11:35:00 PST

According to the Reporter, after winning an all-night, $4 million bidding war for the rights to John Cusack's Grace is Gone at Sundance, a resurgent Harvey Weinstein pounded his chest and issued forth this barbaric, dealmaking yawp, serving notice to the industry that Weinstein Co.'s misplaced groove has been reacquired:

The "Grace" deal went into after-hours negotiations, with the Weinstein Co. clinching it because of its passion for the project, said sources close to the film. Harvey Weinstein, reverting to his old Sundance strategies, didn't leave the negotiating table from 9 p.m. until 4:30 a.m. "The company got its groove back last night," an ebullient Weinstein said. "I'm happy to be back in this game. Fuck it. I'm good at this. It's fun."

If Weinstein sounds a little self-satisfied with his acquisition, it's only because he initially feared that he might have been a little out of practice in implementing his once-legendary Sundance strategies; any seeming braggadocio is merely relief that his rivals from Fox Searchlight and Sony Pictures Classics lacked the desire to chew through their limbs to escape the well-concealed bear traps he'd planted in their condos, then suddenly show up at the marathon Grace session with new bids that might trump his own.

Sundance starts on cool note [THR via Wiretap]

Jack Black Falls Victim To Jeremy Piven's Grudge-Fueled Director Cock Block

Seth — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 12:09:55 PST

In Part Two of today's series, Howard Stern Gets Celebrities To Openly Shit-Talk Other Celebrities, Page Six is reporting that Jack Black recently told Stern about a six-year grudge held against him by Jeremy Piven, claiming the bitch-hugging bachelor is still sore over having lost the part of the record store clerk in High Fidelity to the paunchy screen comic:

JACK Black says Jeremy Piven is holding a six-year grudge against him because he beat the "Entourage" star for the role of the record-store geek in "High Fidelity." Black told Howard Stern on Sirius that as he talked to a director at a recent premiere, Piven "stepped in and all of a sudden he was talking to the director and I was standing there facing the back of his head. I was like, 'Whoa, dude! What are you doing? You just cut me off' . . . He turned around and there was this strange, awkward tension." Could he take Piven in a fight? "I don't know, apparently he's a yoga master," Black quipped. A Piven rep insisted, "He loves Jack Black."

The affront may come across as pettiness, but in Hollywood, where scene-stealing roles are as precious and battled over as blood diamonds, it's hardly unheard of for these kinds of lingering resentments to manifest themselves years later in strange and ruthless ways, as demonstrated by Piven's underhanded deployment of the collaborative equivalent of the cock block, the "director interceptor." Piven, of course, would ultimately earn the breakout role he so craved, but no number of Emmy wins can ever really mute the "what if?" sting of suspecting that had it been he singing Katrina and the Waves and playing second banana to rightful screen compadre John Cusack, who knows what kind of cinematic greatness he later could have achieved filling out Nacho Libre's red and blue tights with his sinewy, yoga-tautened body.

PIVEN CUTS IN [NY Post]

Trade Round-Up: Freston's Fall From Viacom Grace Cushioned By Mattress Stuffed With $59 Million

Mark — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 11:50:05 PDT

Now we know the real reason that Sumner Redstone almost cried the night he fired Tom Freston: Freston's golden parachute just cost him $59 million for that one year on the job, plus millions more in consultant fees, deferred compensation, and his 401 (k). That's not just fuck-you money, that's fuck-you-and-everyone- who-looks-like-you money. [Variety]
Demonstrating its mandate to get faster, cheaper, and stupider, NBC orders 10 more episodes of 1 vs. 100—but then seemingly ignores orders from the corporate mothership by picking up six more scripts for newly verboten, expensive 8 pm drama Friday Night Lights. Maybe they fired the guy who's supposed to read the memos from Jeff Zucker. [THR]
John Cusack heads back into Grosse Pointe Blank territory by starring in, writing, and producing the dark political satire Brand Hauser: Stuff Happens, the story of an assassin sent to kill a Middle Eastern oil minister. The movie is set to shoot this month in Bulgaria, which probably tells you all you need to know about the budget. [Variety]
Focus Features buys the drama Underdog from Gideon Yago. Yup, exactly the Gideon Yago you're thinking of while shaking your head and asking, "The MTV kid? Seriously?" [THR]
Now that CBS has bored you so profoundly with endless procedural dramas and flavorless comedies that you can't even be bothered to change the channel, they're now going to try to slip in some edgier shows. Watch out, they're throwing out the rule book! Schlubby sitcom husbands might soon be able to pull only semi-hot wives! [Variety]

Alleged John Cusack Stalker Insists She's Just Misunderstood Penpal

Seth — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 12:51:54 PDT

Celebrity/stalker disagreements are almost always precarious matters—usually he-said/ she-screamed-incoherently affairs, with the truth lying somewhere in the gray area in between. In the case of John Cusack's alleged obsessor, Jennifer Leatherman, the actor filed and won a restraining order against the homeless 31-year-old, claiming she threw "long letters of interest over my fence in bags with rocks and screwdrivers inside." In an interview with the AP, however, Leatherman denied having catapulted the care packages into Cusack's yard, and resents the implication:

Leatherman, who has been staying with friends in Los Angeles, said she only sent Cusack two letters. She said they were to request that he use his celebrity status to urge police to investigate her belief that she was drugged and raped by several men in 2001. She said police have refused to take a report.
"I feel I've been set up to look like a stalker," said Leatherman, who must stay at least 500 feet from Cusack, his home, workplace, car and any company or office where he does business.

It's easy, of course, for the famous to allow their paranoid imaginations to run away from them, imbuing what might be just a heartfelt gesture with dark, possibly threatening undertones. Sometimes, however, a one-bedroom apartment converted into a celebrity-shrine-cum-crucifix-emporium is just that: a loving tribute from an appreciative fan, who only asks in return that you use your Hollywood Mind-Rays to telepathically explode the heads of their enemies.

Woman Denies She Stalked Actor John Cusack [WashingtonPost.com/AP]

Cusack Stalker Opts To Express Devotion With Bags Full Of Screwdrivers Instead Of Boombox Serenade

Seth — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 12:58:48 PDT

Even as his career might have lost some heat as it swerves temporarily into a spate of forgettable romcom projects, John Cusack's psychopathic, homeless stalker/future soulmate will never stop believing in him:

JOHN CUSACK claims a Los Angeles homeless woman is stalking him and has filed a restraining order against her.
The 39-year-old 'Serendipity' star filed the complaint Friday, saying EMILY LEATHERMAN is "throwing long letters of interest over my fence in bags with rocks and screwdrivers inside ... making unannounced visits to offices of people I work with in an attempt to meet with me."

We wish Cusack would at least acknowledge the loving effort that goes into Leatherman's rock-and-screwdriver-filled flying gift bags, to say nothing of the accompanying "letters of interest," and their playful supplications to "Fuck dogs, Johnny. MUST LOVE ME."

John Cusack Files For Restraining Order [ETOnline]

John Cusack: Dog Lover!

Mark — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 17:55:38 PDT

Our agony is over. We finally have an answer to the question of whether Must Love Dogs star John Cusack is a dog lover or a dog haver. The AP comes to our rescue:

Q: Are you a dog guy?
CUSACK: Yeah, I love dogs.
Q: It's got to be hard, because you're on the road a lot.
CUSACK: Yeah, it's hard for my lifestyle, because you're gone. But one day ...

We knew that he loves dogs!

Hold on...it's not like us to accept public statements at face value, and it's our job to put aside our feelings and be ~~cynical~~ critical in these situations. Do you think that Cusack might've been coached by a publicist to say that? Could he secretly be a cat fancier afraid that his true, forbidden love might injure his project's box office potential?

Nah...he totally loves dogs! Yay!

'Sort of stubborn in a way' [AP/CNN]
John Cusack: Dog Lover Or Dog Haver? [Defamer]

John Cusack: Dog Lover Or Dog Haver?

Mark — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 11:07:32 PDT

An obligatory wire service "I'm exactly like my character/nothing like my character in my just-released movie" story goes horribly awry when a crucial mistake bumps us right out of an in-depth examination of John Cusack's similarity/dissimilarity to his on-screen persona in the romantic comedy Must Love Dogs [bold ours]:

LOS ANGELES - Unlike his character in the just-released film "Must Have Dogs," John Cusack couldn't do the Internet dating thing. He's virtually computer illiterate.

It may seem like we're nitpicking (Us? Never!), but for Cusack's answers about the intersection of Real John and Movie John to truly resonate, we need to know if he's like/unlike someone who actively loves dogs, not merely one who is ambivalent about his pet ownership. To add insult to injury, we never get an answer to this question, as the article completely fails to address any canine-related concerns, instead focusing on Cusack's uneasy relationship with technology. For the record, we think John totally loves dogs! Yay!

Unlike Character, Cusack Computer-Averse [AP]