Archives for June 2008

Julia Roberts stops in at her local supermarket in Los Angeles on Wednesday, carrying recyclable “Organics” shopping bags.

After spending an hour at Von’s grocery store in Venice, Julia pushed her own cart and loaded her groceries into her car.

The 40-year-old Erin Brokovich star will host the annual gala for Westport Country Playhouse on Monday, Sept. 15.

“We are thrilled that a star of Julia Roberts’ magnitude will host an array of premier artists from stage and screen to benefit the historic Westport Country Playhouse,” said Anne Keefe, Playhouse artistic director. “This will be a one-of-a-kind entertainment and social event that is not to be missed.”

Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson, having dinner a few tables away from Cameron Diaz at Dan Tana's in West Hollywood.

SAY CHEESE: Julia Roberts, enjoying a cheeseburger and trying a zucchini omelet during lunch at Macelleria in NYC.

LIZ AND LET LIVE: Elizabeth Taylor, stopping by the Abbey gay bar in West Hollywood with some friends on a Saturday afternoon.

YOU'VE GOT SPAM: Drew Lachey, celebrating his Broadway debut in Monty Python's Spamalot at New York City's Southern Hospitality.

NOT HOME ALONE: Ne-Yo, partying at Home in NYC with Danity Kane and Cassie after his sold-out concert at Madison Square Garden.

REALITY BITES: Mila Kunis, checking out the band BlueSkyReality at Harry Morton's Viper Room in L.A.

FUNNY BONES: Chris Tucker and Dave Chappelle, talking business over lunch at Fred Segal in L.A.

SAFETY FIRST: Scott Speedman, putting on a helmet for a bike ride into Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge.

FRIENDS FOREVER: Sean "Diddy" Combs and Lil' Kim, hanging out in the VIP area in the Tropicana bar and Teddy's in the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel during the official BET Awards after-party.

PRICE IS RIGHT: Lipstick Jungle star Lindsay Price, having dinner with her parents at Kobe Club New York two nights after America's Got Talent judge Piers Morgan did the same with a couple of buddies.

FOXY BOY: Kevin Connolly, hosting the opening of new nightclub and restaurant Shrine at the MGM Grand at Foxwoods in Connecticut.

Julia Roberts will host the annual gala for Westport Country Playhouse on Monday, Sept. 15.

The evening’s entertainment, “Footlights and Film: A Celebration of the Great Musicals from Stage and Screen,” will feature performances by talents to be announced and honor Bob and Suzanne Wright, longtime Westport Country Playhouse supporters. Gala chairs are Westporters Laurie Lister and Judd Burstein, and Sharon Sullivan and Jeff Kindler.

“We are thrilled that a star of Julia Roberts’ magnitude will host an array of premier artists from stage and screen to benefit the historic Westport Country Playhouse,” said Anne Keefe, Playhouse artistic director. “This will be a one-of-a-kind entertainment and social event that is not to be missed.”

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Hazel and Phinnaeus, twins of megastar Julia Roberts, ran around in New York City's exclusive Gramercy Park recently while younger brother Henry tagged along with the nanny.

Too bad you won't be visiting the lovely oasis of Gramercy: Keys to the private park are granted only to people who live in buildings surrounding it, and the property is tightly controlled. But those who have keys often don't use the park, the president of the Gramercy Park Block Association told The New York Times:
Of course, with Madison Square Park and Union Square within walking distance, it's not as if neighborhood residents lack for park space, but as the old saw goes, the grass is always greener in the park you can't get into. Just ask London residents!

A day out for dozens of young girls in New York who came out in full force for the premiere of Kit Kitriddge: An American Girl. Academy award winner Julia Roberts' makes her debut in the film as a producer.

"It was fantastic. I wasn't on the set though, my sister was the set producer," said Julia Roberts, actor and producer.

The movie has child actress Abigail Breslin in the lead Jane Krakowski, Julia Ormond and Chris O'Donnell

"I really like her, she's very curious, she's very kind, she's always asking questions, she wants to be a reporter so that part of her is really cool," said Abigail Breslin, actor.

The movie is a drama inspired on the American Girl range of dolls. It centers on Kit Kittredge, a young woman who grows up in the early years of the Great Depression.

"Well, it's interesting because I didn't know about the whole American Girl thing until I got this movie because it sort of missed my generation of doll using. So it was something to learn about. I think what's great about these books is that all the female leads are young girls in every book, the heroines, they are all great role models," said Jane Krakowski, actor.

Julia Roberts has segued her career into producing.

The Pretty Woman joined her family at the New York’s Kit Kittredge: An American Girl premiere last night.

Hollywood’s golden girl Julia Roberts, who produced this film with sister Lisa, joined her on the red carpet and told “Extra”, “I was giving birth to my younger son a year ago yesterday…Lisa did all the hard work and I’m just showing up at the party!”

Willow Smith stars in this film and will be competing with dad, Will, at the box office as his new film, Hancock also opens July 2nd.

Willow admits, “I think I’ll be the biggest flashing star.” When asked if her movie will top her father’s, Willow declares, “Yes…I’m going to post up on daddy’s movie. Willow is the star.”

This certainly had a notable cast: Julia Roberts, John Cusack, Billy Crystal and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Some people don't get the message. Joe Roth made several banal Hollywood teen B-movies in the latter part of the 1980s, but soon realised that he excelled in the role of producer. He ended up running divisions of several major studios, earning much profit and banking the necessary favours to take a second shot at a directing career. The first of three films he's directed this decade certainly had a notable cast: Julia Roberts, John Cusack, Billy Crystal and Catherine Zeta-Jones all starred in America's Sweethearts. The intent is a light romantic farce, framed against the supposedly gentle hypocrisy of the movie business. The final movie made by America's favourite off-screen couple, Gwen Harrison (Zeta-Jones) and Eddie Thomas (Cusack) is about to screen for the assembled media in the wake of the pair's messy divorce. The picture's eccentric director (Christopher Walken) has the only print and it's up to a knowing PR boss (Crystal) and Gwen's long-suffering sister and assistant (Roberts) to keep everything together. The satire is tired and the tone limp America's Sweethearts needed Billy Wilder, not the director of Revenge of the Nerds II.

To my 10-year-old daughter, the term "American Girl" means "that store my meanie of a mom unlike all the other, higher-quality moms won't let me go near." While we're on the defensive, why should I? She hates dolls, and I creeped out by row upon row of homogenized mannequins with staring Stepford Wife eyes and designer threads get nauseous within 50 feet of that posh emporium, which peddles multiculti feminism with an outrageous price tag.

Such are the cultural contradictions of corporate capitalism: As Disney is to tales of plucky small-town proles hurdling adversity through hard work and decency, so the American Girl franchise, a subsidiary of that mom-and-pop outfit Mattel, is to our nation of happy rainbow families, celebrating our shared values while honoring our differences. Could be worse, I guess, but with their sturdy ethnic heroines African-American, Native American, and every other American you can think of overcoming poverty and discrimination, the American Girl books are as predictable as they are proto-feminist and inclusive.

A trial balloon sent up to test the ether for extending the franchise, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl is no exception. Based on several American Girl stories about a 1930s cub reporter in Cincinnati, this dull theatrical debut especially disappoints because I'm usually fond of square, sepia-toned, period-costumed kids' movies (like Fly Away Home) that go nowhere at the box office. This one could go somewhere: As the opening weekend of Sex and the City showed, gee whiz, there's a distaff market out there, so why not tap the little ones?

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Katherine Heigl has graduated from the romantic comedy portion of her Julia Roberts-paved career and is moving swiftly into her Erin Brockovich period.

According to Variety, the Grey's Anatomy thesp has signed on to star in and produce a big-screen adaptation of Escape, the best-selling memoir of Carolyn Jessop.

Jessop was born into the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints and was forced to marry a man 32 years her senior before ultimately fleeing the sect with her eight children. Her testimony later led to the conviction of polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs.

Filming on the drama will begin once Heigl completes work on her lighter-fared effort The Ugly Truth.

Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts, and Rose McGowan all infamously fell in love with another woman's man. And while a Hollywood ending is never guaranteed, sometimes following your heart means breaking someone else's.

Walking home from a party with my friend Jess last night, she admitted that after moving back to the city, she hadn’t had a relationship here for longer than a month, despite several promising starts.

While listening to her heartbreaks, I couldn’t help blurting out my theory on New York men: That in this city, with its lopsided ratio of males to females that gives men the advantage, any moderately attractive guy with the ability to converse intelligently, but who didn’t already have a girlfriend probably meant that there was something wrong with him. (Excepting those freshly out of a relationship or who have just moved.

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