The future of an HBO project that’s loosely based on Hollywood’s irascible blogger Nikki Finke is in doubt after an on-set blowout that’s strikingly similar to some of the juicy posts that can be found on Deadline.com.

Showrunner Cynthia Mort has been removed from Tilda after a tense pilot shoot in which she frequently clashed with executive producer/director Bill Condon and got into public scuffles with Diane Keaton, who plays a powerful online journalist who covers the entertainment industry.

“It was an unhappy marriage from day one,” says one source of the Condon-Mort partnership. “They banged heads about almost everything…and during production she picked huge public fights with anyone who disagreed with her on anything, including Diane.”

When HBO asked her not to come to the set, Mort fired off a scathing email to production and the studio saying Condon and Keaton didn’t know what they were doing and the show was going to fail. “It was an ugly, nasty email,” says another insider. “That was the final straw for HBO.”

HBO declined to comment for this story.

Another insider familiar with the situation acknowledged the aggressive nature of Mort’s email, which basically said it was her way or the highway. HBO ultimately chose Condon’s vision for the project.

(Mort, who declined to comment as well, is no stranger to difficult work environments, having co-produced a season of ABC’s Roseanne from 1995-96. The talented scribe was also responsible for HBO’s critically-praised series Tell Me You Love Me, which only lasted for one season.)

For now, the pay cabler isn’t giving up on Tilda. Word is Condon has assembled a new team and is closing in on a new showrunner, so there’s still a chance HBO may order the show to series (the network has ordered additional scripts). “They love Diane —Emmy in the bag—and Ellen Page, but development was rushed and the general feeling is the show doesn’t click,” says the source. The project also stars Jason Patric and Sanaa Lathan.

As for Finke’s involvement in the project, the influential but elusive blogger has said on her site that she had “no prior knowledge that this show was being created or put into development” and that she had no creative or consulting involvement with the show.

Thanks EW.

Jason Butler Harner and Cheyenne Jackson are set to co-star in Table Ten Films’ upcoming, ‘The Green’. The movie, which finished shooting on September 2, features direction by Steven Williford and was produced by Paul Marcarelli and Molly Pearson.

The film is described as “a tense, intimate drama about a gay teacher at an elite private school accused of misconduct with a male student.” Harner and Jakson will  play life partners, and will be joined by Illeana Douglas, Julia Ormond and Chris Bert.

Harner’s theatre credits include: Serenading Louie, Our Town, and The Gingerbread House. Jackson (Xanadu, Finian’s Rainbow), who is set to star in season 2 of GLEE, was recently on television in 30 Rock.

Thanks Broadway World.

Looks like it’s time to add Brent Corrigan to our list of porn stars who use their mouths for things other than sex: The Judas Kiss actor (in a non porn role!) will also be on the soundtrack.

Let us now praise Woody Allen.

I know how unfashionable that seems. Once upon a time, a Woody Allen film was an occasion, an event even – something to be longed for and anticipated and, once it arrived, to be seen more than once and savored.

These days, however, Allen has fallen into something approximating critical disfavor. My impression is that this is particularly true among younger critics, whose own youthful senses of humor weren’t shaped by the anarchic comedy – that Allen offered in his days as a stand-up comic in the 1960s, and then with early films such as “Take the Money and Run,” “Bananas,” “Sleeper” and “Love and Death.”

But even among colleagues closer to my age, I detect a certain weariness with Allen’s perpetual output. Since “Take the Money and Run” in 1969, he has averaged a movie a year. About to turn 75, he seems to have no less energy or imagination than he did in his 30s. Where his films once excited a certain keenness, I often read reviews of a new Woody Allen film these days that convey the attitude of, “Oh, give it a rest already.”

Yet, to me, his films just get better and richer: funny, certainly, but with an increasing sense of melancholy and emotional depth. While he continues to explore the subjects that have always fascinated him – the ephemeral nature of love, the meaning and absurdity and randomness of life – he also finds new and innovative ways to tell his stories and different styles in which to work.

Indeed, I would maintain that Woody Allen is the most significant independent filmmaker of his generation. While Allen himself often tells interviewers that only a tiny fraction of his own films satisfy him, I can’t think of anyone as prolific and profound at the same time, someone whose filmography contains as many memorable and significant films.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not arguing here that Allen has never made a bad film. I would point to, among others, “Anything Else,” “Melinda and Melinda” and “Cassandra’s Dream” as films that run the gamut from interesting failures to outright flops.

But you cannot name a filmmaker – a writer-director who has often appeared in his own films – with the kind of prodigious output Allen has had whose batting average is anywhere near as high. And he has done it while making exactly the films he wants to, working with what are, by today’s standards, tiny budgets and yet attracting the cream of the actors working in film today. Nobody, it seems, doesn’t want to work with Woody Allen.

Allen is frequently accused of making the same film over and over or being obsessed with only a couple of topics (the love of an older man for a much younger woman being one of them). Yet I would argue that, in fact, he has frequently experimented with story-telling techniques: from the mock-documentary (in “Take the Money and Run” and “Zelig”) to novelistic chapters (“Hannah and Her Sisters,” “Deconstructing Harry”), from edgy black and white (the underrated “Celebrity”) to sunset-drenched color (“A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy”).

He has used first-person narrators who talk directly to the camera (from “Annie Hall” to last year’s “Whatever Works).” He has experimented in drama, from the Chekhovian (“September”) to the Bergman-influenced (“Interiors”). He has made farces and comedies of manners, always injecting wry notes of social satire as throwaway gags that puncture balloons of pretension.

His subject matter – the unknowability of one person’s heart by anyone else, the inability of man to understand his place in the universe – is consistent exactly because it is so deep. I would compare him, in that respect, to such modern authors as Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, both for the breadth of his seemingly narrow focus and for taking what once was an almost niche viewpoint (the American Jew in the 20^th – and now 21^st – century) and making it mainstream.

I almost never watch movie trailers online, usually seeing them only when I take my wife to a movie at our local multiplex. While there recently, a trailer began that made me sit up, mostly because it featured such a strong cast: Josh Brolin, Naomi Watts, Anthony Hopkins, Antonio Banderas. And then the title flashed on the screen: Woody Allen’s “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger,” and my heart leapt. I’ve already RSVP’d for a press screening this week and can hardly wait to see it.

The prevalent attitude these days among critics seems to be “I’m so over Woody Allen” or, more likely, “Woody Allen is so over.” But I disagree.

Woody Allen is one of the great American filmmakers, whose achievements are unparalleled by any director before or since. As long as he keeps making them, I’ll keep seeing them – eagerly and with joyful anticipation.

Thank you Hollywood & Fine.

The stars have aligned for L.A. Theatre Works’ upcoming 2010-11 season.

The company, which presents new and classic plays that are recorded for radio in front of a live audience, will mount 10  productions with a bevy of celebrity talent including Billy Crudup, Kathleen Turner, Matthew Rhys, Ron Rifkin and Jane Kaczmarek.

“Enron” (Oct. 20 to 24), by Lucy Prebble, was a hit in London last season but flopped when it transferred to Broadway. In the Theatre Works production Steven Weber will play Jeffrey Skilling, the former president of the infamous energy giant that collapsed in 2001.

Turner and Rhys are set to perform in “The Graduate” (Dec. 8 to 12), the play based on the popular novel and film of the same name. Both actors starred in the London production of the comedy, which was written by Terry Johnson.

Crudup will star in David Ives’ “New Jerusalem” (July 13 to 17), a historical drama about the young Baruch de Spinoza and a trial that he must endure when he is accused of atheism.

Among the other productions in the 2010-11 season are: Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” (Nov. 17 to 21); Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s “The School For Scandal” (Jan. 12 to 16), starring Julian Sands; Gina Gionfriddo’s “Becky Shaw” (Feb. 9 to 13); Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” (March 16 to 20), starring Kaczmarek; Anton Chekhov’s “The Three Sisters” (April 13 to 17), starring Rifkin; Charles Morey’s “Dracula” (May 18 to 22), starring David Selby; Kenneth Lonergan’s “Lobby Hero” (June 15 to 20), starring Dulé Hill and Tate Donovan. [Updated: An earlier version of this post said that Richard Brinsley Sheridan's play was called "The School of Scandal."]

All performances will take place at the Skirball Cultural Center in L.A.

Thanks LA Times.

StaunchUSA readers I need your help. A new and exciting documentary is in the works on the great Burning Man Festival and a generous donation on your part would be much appreciated.

Everything is safe and secure!

Thanks again…

www.boysofburningman.com

From their website:

We are capturing the radical self-expression of the gay experience at Burning Man. Follow 4 friends to the desert and be a part of the experience at http://www.boysofburningman.com/.

With any donation made to the production of our documentary we will mail you a set of our Burning Man Worry Dolls along with some cool "Boys of Burning Man" schwag. You will also receive an invitation to our screening party in New York City scheduled for December 2010.

Burning Man is about self expression, love, life, and everything between. We plan to capture it all. As a group we are all very passionate about this production and excited to share a genuine documentation of the experience with you.

We have some events in the city coming around to raise awareness of this project as well support from our community. We will keep you updated and look forward for you support.

We will be shooting Boys of Burning Man 2010 from August 28 to September 5 at the Nevada Black Rock Desert. The Directors include Patrick Frost, Yianni Garcia, Sandy Fernandez and Keith Tapper. Our documentary will aim at capturing the gay experience at Burning Man like it has never been documented before. The gay culture at Burning Man has been growing in recent years more than ever before, with thousands of people coming together in gay villages and camps across the playa.

In order to make our documentary the absolute success we know it can be – we need your support. You can donate here. Your support will help make this documentary a reality and bring life to a unique and genuine representation of the Burning Man experience.

Peter LaBarbera, the president of the local anti-gay group Americans for the Truth About Homosexuality ( AFTAH ) , wants controversial right-wing pundit Ann Coulter to reconsider her appearance at HOMOCON 2010, a Sept. 25 event in New York City organized by the gay conservative group GOProud, according to the AFTAH website.

LaBarbera said, “As a fan of Ann Coulter, it pains me to see her cave in to political correctness and lend credibility to the phony homosexual ‘conservatives’ over at GOProud. Worse, Coulter is sending a dangerous message to young Americans that homosexuality is OK.”

Regarding the HOMOCON appearance, Coulter said, “I’m thrilled to be giving a speech to a room full of gay conservatives, because according to every single liberal I’ve ever met, such people don’t even exist! Who’s next on my speaking tour? Conservative unicorns? ( And don’t kid yourself—they’re out there. I get letters from them all the time. ) ,” according to GOProud.org.

Its website also states that “GOProud is committed to a traditional conservative agenda that emphasizes limited government, individual liberty, free markets and a confident foreign policy. GOProud promotes our traditional conservative agenda by influencing politics and policy at the federal level.”

Thanks Windy City Media Group.

Sharon Stone almost pulled a ‘Basic Instinct’ – as she nearly flashed a star-studded audience when an insect flew up her dress.

The screen star was hosting a charity auction in Southampton, New York, when the bug shot inside her white mini-dress.

And she frantically tried to remove it as guests like Alec Baldwin looked on.

An onlooker revealed: ‘She shrieked, ‘Oh, my God, I think a bug just flew up my dress! What an awkward moment for the bug.”[She] started to wiggle to let the bug fly free.’For some in the front row, she nearly repeated her infamous ‘Basic Instinct’ moment.’The 52-year-old screen star, who famously flashed her private parts as bisexual killer Catherine Tramell in 1992 hit movie Basic Instinct, was playing the auctioneer at the Watermill Center Benefit in Southampton on Saturday night.Other guests included Anne Hearst, Nicole Miller, and Allison and Chip Brady.The event raised $1.4 million for the arts centre in the posh Hamptons resort of New York. Thanks M&G

For the second time, Cheyenne Jackson has been cast in a key role on “Glee.” And he says he’s really looking forward to making his first appearance on the show.

This week Mr. Jackson, the Broadway star-turned-nearly-ubiquitous-television presence, closed a deal to play a recurring role on the second season of “Glee,” the hit Fox musical comedy that has drawn stage actors including Matthew Morrison, Lea Michele, Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel into its orbit.

In a telephone interview on Tuesday night, Mr. Jackson recalled how he, too, was supposed to be part of the freshman class of “Glee” — only to be felled by a horrible case of the flu.

He said he had finished the Broadway run of “Xanadu” and had not yet started on “Finian’s Rainbow” when he was approached by the “Glee” co-creator Ryan Murphy to play a part on the program’s first season. He was supposed to play Dakota Stanley, a crazed choreographer that the McKinley High School glee club tries to steal away from their rival squad, Vocal Adrenaline.

But right before Mr. Jackson was to begin filming he came down with a 103-degree fever and could not go to work, he said, and the role was recast with the actor Whit Hertford.

“I sat in my hotel room for two days in L.A.,” Mr. Jackson said, “just getting better and feeling sorry for myself and watching $22 movies in my room. It was terrible.”

In his new role on “Glee,” which he is to begin filming on Friday, Mr. Jackson is sworn to semisecrecy. “All I’m allowed to say is that I’m going to be the coach of Vocal Adrenaline,” he said.

Fans of the show will recall that position was held by Ms. Menzel’s character, Shelby Corcoran, who quit the job at the end of Season 1. Mr. Jackson said that Ms. Menzel would return for Season 2 but was not allowed to reveal anymore.

Asked how many episodes of “Glee” he would appear in, Mr. Jackson replied, “More than one, less than 22.”

He was able to confirm that he would also continue to appear on the NBC comedy “30 Rock” as the innocently Canadian sketch comedian Danny Baker.

But when asked about his work on the new season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” Mr. Jackson had to clam up again.

“All you have to do is Google it,” he said. “There were a hundred photographers that day with me and Wanda Sykes. I think it’s pretty obvious what we’re doing on there.”

Speaking more generally about the experience, in a way that hopefully won’t upset Larry David, Mr. Jackson said: “I didn’t realize that there literally was no script for ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm.’ Literally not one word written down.”

He added: “They say: ‘You’re playing this kind of character, here’s your name. You got it?” I said, ‘Are we going to rehearse?’ They said, “No, we shoot the rehearsal. And: action.’ But that’s the first rule of improv: You say yes. Especially to Wanda Sykes.”

Thanks NY Times.

THE BIOLOGICAL father of Madonna’s adopted daughter has begged the superstar to allow him to see a photograph of her.

James Kambewa, 26, who works as a waiter in South Africa, wanted to see the photographs of five year old Mercy who he has never met. Mercy’s mother died during childbirth aged 14.

Now Kambewa has made a public plea for the singer to forward him pictures of Mercy and he plans on being reunited with his biological child one day.

Kambewa told the ‘Daily Mail’, “I would appreciate if Madonna could send me pictures of how she looks like now as I don’t get any pleasure of being with her.

“It’s emotionally painful for me as a father. I’m very happy that Madonna is taking care of her. But as a parent, from the moment I heard that she was still alive, I wanted to meet her and I’m hopeful that I’ll meet her one day.”

According to Kambewa he was unaware that Mercy was still alive and thought she had died with her mother, until his friend revealed to him that she was alive and being brought up in an orphanage.

Madonna and Mercy were pictured yesterday on (August on the set of ‘W.E’ a film, which she will be directing in London.

Thanks The Voice. UK.

France’s First Lady Carla Bruni always struck us as ever-ready for her closeup, but apparently that’s not the case when it comes to acting. Some pretty hilarious reports are coming out of Paris where the stunning wife of Nicolas Sarkozy is doing a bit part as a museum curator in Woody Allen’s new film, “Midnight in Paris.”

According to London’s Mail Online website, Bruni required at least 35 takes to film a dialogue-free scene that required her to simply walk in and out of a grocery store clutching a baguette.

An onlooker quoted in the story says Bruni sacre-blew it because she was “struggling to avoid looking directly into the camera, which didn’t impress Woody Allen.” The source added: “The baguette scene could not have been simpler, but Carla wanted to make it a big one.” If she gave Allen a big headache instead, the director downplayed it. He reportedly “was very careful to show a lot of respect” to Bruni, “especially since she was surrounded by bodyguards.”

Allen was “particularly low-key” when Sarkozy himself showed up to check out his wife’s performance. According to the Mail, “he did not look particularly enthused by Carla’s acting.”

Thanks NY Daily News.

She passed up Oscar-winning roles and is now playing a talking cat. Should life have worked out differently for Bette Midler?

In theory, promoting a film like Cats & Dogs: The Revenge Of Kitty Galore should be the easiest thing in the world. You just have to pitch up, tell everyone that it’s a fun family film, and then go home. You could, if you felt that starring in a film about some talking animals had somehow compromised your artistic credibility, simply admit that your children wanted you to be in it. That’s what Chris O’Donnell said, and nobody thinks any less of him.

What you don’t do, though, is follow Bette Midler’s lead. Midler, who plays the eponymous Kitty Galore character, seems to be intent on promoting Cats And Dogs 2 by listing all the other disastrous career choices she’s ever made in her life. In an interview with Metro this week, she waded through them one by one, saying: “There was Sister Act, which was written for me, but I said: ‘My fans don’t want to see me in a wimple’ … I also didn’t do Misery and Kathy Bates won an Oscar for it.”

In addition, Midler also reportedly rejected Chicago – she was rumoured to have been offered any role she liked – which went on to win six Oscars. And these are just the roles that she turned down. Presumably, she didn’t have enough breath to list all the horrible projects that she did make, like The Women and Nicole Kidman’s remake of The Stepford Wives and The First Wives Club, not to mention her toe-curling sub-Nanny sitcom Bette a decade ago.

 But Midler’s honesty does raise an interesting question – what if she hadn’t turned down those roles? Would the films still have gone on to enjoy huge success, or would her involvement have put people off?

Obviously we’ll never know for sure, but Bette’s larger than life persona and vocal ability do seem tailor-made for films like Sister Act and Chicago. Misery, though, is a different beast entirely. You could spend days, maybe even years, trying to form a mental image of Midler done up in Kathy Bates’s dowdy Annie Wilkes outfit, mallet in hand, and never fully picture it.

Even if she had taken up the offers of Sister Act and Chicago, success would not have been guaranteed. Sister Act was Whoopi Goldberg’s last big film before she lapsed into the same funk of voicing funny animals in cartoons that Bette Midler finds herself in now. And Catherine Zeta-Jones may have won an Oscar for Chicago, but have you seen The Rebound? Don’t worry, neither has anyone else.

So maybe Bette Midler should just accept her lot. Everyone makes mistakes, and she hasn’t made nearly as many as other stars. Even the most cursory glance through notstarring.com should tell her that. Geena Davis turned down Jodie Foster’s role in Taxi Driver. Happy Go Lucky’s Sally Hawkins turned down Kate Winslet’s role in Titanic. Brooke Shields turned down Basic Instinct, A Fish Called Wanda and Scarface. And Debra Winger? She turned down American Gigolo, Arthur, Blue Velvet, Ed Wood, Ghost, Indecent Proposal, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Sleepless in Seattle. However bad she feels about her lot, Bette’s still got some way to go before she notches up a portfolio of missed opportunities that vast. Plus, don’t forget she’s in a film about a funny talking cat at the moment, and you’re not – so who are you to judge?

Thanks Guardian UK.