Every Thursday, Hollywood.com lists the 10 coolest celebs, movies and goings-on in the world of entertainment.
1. Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria, for gracefully accepting of her recent Emmy Award nomination snub. Longoria‘s drabber co-stars, Teri Hatcher, Marcia Cross and Felicity Huffman, each received a nomination. “I’m new. I just arrived. I didn’t expect at all to be in the minds of the Academy,” Longoria, who plays temptress Gabrielle Solis, said. Series creator Marc Cherry, meanwhile, slammed the snub as a “horrendous error.”
2. Cycling superstar Lance Armstrong, for craving the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. Armstrong, the 33-year-old Texan who just won his record-breaking seventh consecutive Tour de France, said he is now ready to ditch his healthy regime to start downing beer by the gallon with his rocker girlfriend Sheryl Crow. “If she needs me to string a few guitars, I’ll be happy to do whatever I can to help,” Armstrong said. “Why not go hanging on a rock ‘n’ roll tour for a while, drink beer and have fun?”
3. The new Los Angeles Times Pop Power List, because let’s face it–we love lists. Voted on by a 21-member panel of industry bigwigs including producer Jermaine Dupri and rap mogul Russell Simmons, the new poll chooses the year’s most powerful voice in pop music. The winner? R&B sensation Usher. (In an interesting twist, however, a panelists who remained nameless insisted Britney Spears didn’t deserve to be on the new Power List because “she’s over,” while another suggested her pop rival Christina Aguilera didn’t make the list because she’s “too volatile.”)
4. Aeon Flux star Charlize Theron, for redesigning the skimpy superheroine costume after deciding her character’s original outfit was too revealing. When Theron saw the crime-fighting outfit of a bikini, thigh-high boots and shoulder pads, she decided to add trousers to the outfit. Too bad Halle Berry didn’t have the same epiphany for Catwoman’s rubber S&M-type garb. “When you’re playing with aspects of sexuality, certain things have to be hidden,” Theron said. “I wanted to stay as true as possible to the original character, but didn’t feel the need to go as far with the costume.”
5. Florida District Judge Joan Lenard, for ordering OJ Simpson to pay $25,000 in damages for pirating satellite TV signals. In 2001, federal agents seized illegal devices dubbed “bootloaders,” which authorities said were used to steal programming from DirecTV, in a raid on the former American football star’s Miami home. Simpson moved to Florida from California after he was acquitted of murder charges in the 1994 stabbing deaths of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman. Simpson’s attorney complained the judge denied them their right to a jury trial, adding: “We want our day in court.” But Dan Fawcett, executive vice president of DirecTV Inc, said, “The evidence was overwhelming since the devices seized in Simpson’s home were connected to his TV and in operation and receiving unauthorized signals at the time of the raid.”
6. ER star Goran Visnjic, for making Bond’s b-list shortlist. The Croatian-born Visnjic joins Brit Henry Cavill, Australian Alex O’lachlan and veteran Scottish actor Ewan Stewart in the race to become the next James Bond in the upcoming 007 flick Casino Royale.
7. Sweet Home Alabama hottie Josh Lucas, for planning to launch an oxymoronic chain of healthy fast food restaurants that will fund charities. The screen hunk said, “The only thing interesting to me about fame is do what Paul Newman did with it. Use it to have impact!”
8. Cool documentaries, for distracting us from a remake-packed summer. Sick of contemporary adaptations like The Honeymooners and War of the Worlds? Then catch some refreshing documentaries such as Murderball, March of the Penguins, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, and Rize. Seen them? Then mark your calendars for Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza’s The Aristocrats to to hear the biggest names in entertainment reminisce, analyze, deconstruct and deliver their own versions of world’s dirtiest joke, and the mock docu CSA: The Confederate States of America, for a glimpse of American culture had the South won the Civil War.
9. Newbie-shows-that-don’t-suck Lost and Desperate Housewives, for picking up accolades from the Television Critics Association at an awards ceremony in Los Angeles last weekend. Ditto for Housewives creator Marc Cherry, who was so pleased his drama was named Program of the Year he admitted it really does matter others think. “A lot of writers in Hollywood go around and they say, ‘Oh, I don’t care what the critics say, I don’t care about critics,'” Cherry said. “I must tell you now, I care desperately what you guys say.”
10. The newly svelte Jack Osbourne, for being so thrilled with his newfound fitness, he’s preparing to climb a 3,593-foot mountain. The 19-year-old son of rocker Ozzy Osbourne has lost more than 30 pounds in the last four months and successfully scaled a mountain in the south of France earlier this month. In a story line oddly reminiscent of Homer Simpson’s climb up Springfield’s Murderhorn Mountain-sans Sherpas or Powersauce energy bar, Jack is now setting his sights on climbing Yosemite National Park’s El Capitan. “I feel bulletproof. You have to be in top condition to do El Cap,” the formerly tubby Osbourne said.
