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Posted Dec. 15, 2008
Nicole Kidman's willingness to do whatever it takes to promote the underperforming "Australia" has bitten her on her shapely butt. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the line-free Oscar winner unwittingly touched off a cultural brouhaha over the weekend after she gamely attempted to play a didgeridoo on the antic-fueled German talk show "Wetten, Dass ...?" Several Aboriginal groups are angry over the bit because in certain parts of Australia, women are prohibited from playing or even touching the instrument (according to local legend, doing so will lead to infertility). "I presume she doesn't know, otherwise she wouldn't be playing it," a staffer at Sydney's Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council tells the paper. "Baz [Luhrmann, who directed the sweeping epic] should know something about it after working with those traditional fellas on the film."
If you're anything like us, the most important thought buzzing around your head right now is, "What is Britney Spears noshing on as she makes the promotional rounds in Tokyo?" The answer: fast food and sushi. Over the weekend, the resurrected popster was not only snapped at a burger joint, but some enterprising minion also videotaped her dinner out at a local version of Benihana, which you can watch here. In between chowing down, Brit performed "Womanizer" to an appreciative crowd on the Japanese variety show "Hey! Hey! Hey! Music Champ."
Celebrity tots are just like us -- they, too, like to celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus with toys. Now that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have finally bought a winter coat for 2-year-old Suri (and a $400 one, at that), they're apparently planning something more low-key for Christmas. "You know, she likes to color," her "Valkyrie"-promoting, sorry-for-acting-like-an-arrogant-jerk-offering dad tells E! News. "She likes dolls, stuffed animals. She's really easy about stuff like that." Suri also appears to be really easy about watching holiday-themed dance performances. On Sunday, the tot, clad in a stiff red party dress straight out of a Victorian-era portrait (and with jacket and ubiquitous blankie in hand), turned up backstage at "The Nutcracker" at the New York City Ballet with her mom and little-seen maternal grandparents. Meanwhile, in other gift news, Joel Madden says nearly 1-year-old daughter Harlow will be getting some classic playthings from Santa thanks to mom Nicole Richie. "Nicole is very organic," the Good Charlotte rocker tells E! of his doppelganger tot, "so probably a lot of organic toys, like wooden blocks." Terry Gilliam, who was in the middle of filming "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" with Heath Ledger when he died accidentally from a combination of prescription drugs in January, doesn't want him to become part of the live-fast, die-young Hollywood pantheon. "When he died, there were all these nonsensical stories coming out about Heath Ledger, James Dean and River Phoenix, all destroyed by the system -- but that's bull----. What happened was an absurd accident. I still don't understand it," the director writes in a tribute for the London Observer. "I know he was exhausted -- the last thing he said was that he was so tired and just wanted to sleep." Gilliam, who was able to finish the movie thanks to the efforts of what he calls the "Holy Trinity" of Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell (they reportedly donated their paychecks to Ledger's 3-year-old daughter, Matilda), salutes the actor as "utterly generous and always aware of everyone else, and he behaved as if there was nothing special about him -- he was just a guy." One the filmmaker will sorely miss: "You actually think at certain times angels come down to earth and Heath might have been one of them. And then he's gone and you think: This is all wrong, all the other people should be dead. He should be leading us all into a wonderful world of adventure." Next: Guy Gets Huge Payout, Possible Madonna Christmas Visit |
 Quickies: Kidman's Didgeridoo Hullabaloo, Brit's Bites
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