There are some weeks where I don't even know why I bother doing these at all. Seriously, what with the deaths of Sydney Pollack and Harvey Korman, Sharon Stone pulling a Jerry Falwell, Brett Ratner's decision to stop dicking around with Chris Tucker knock-offs and go straight to the source, the threat of a Phish reunion, the reality of rock's demise–and lest we forget, the arrival of the Four Horse(faced Wo-)men Of The Apocalypse–the past seven days have already seen more than their fair share of depressing news, and damn it, I didn't get to make easy potshots about any of it! But imagine my surprise upon checking over my pockmarked RSS feed and discovering that, while my colleagues have already consumed most of the flank steak on this decaying sacred cow we call showbiz, lo and behold there's still plenty of gristle and fat for me to chew on. So fire up the grill; Friday Buzzkills is what's for dinner.
– There are plenty of skin-crawling facets of the ongoing R. Kelly trial–the fact that Kelly's 14-year-old alleged victim was apparently a frequent visitor to his recording studio, for example, regularly doing her homework there and sleeping over with the consent of her parents; icky, quibbling testimony about braces in the middle of a pornography trial–but this week featured the saddest revelation of all, and for once it had nothing whatsoever to do with R. Kelly's penis: According to state's investigator Alexandra Guerrero, Kelly's indoor basketball court features a mural based on the movie Space Jam, which shows Kelly "playing basketball against the cartoon Tasmanian Devil while Michael Jordan referees. In the stands sit other Looney Tunes characters, including Yosemite Sam, Elmer Fudd, and Foghorn Leghorn–who holds a sign reading 'Go R. Kelly!'" While the idea of Kelly commissioning some starving art school graduate to paint a Neverland-esque testament to his permanently stunted inner child is depressing on several levels, we suppose it could have been worse: Foghorn could have been cheering him on from the ceiling of his bedroom.
– There's a certain amount of snickering delight one gets from seeing an outré ego–and let's face it, an admitted kiddy-diddler–like Kelly getting his day in court, but we take absolutely no pleasure in seeing beloved, previously untarnished stars like Bill Murray being accused of things like spousal abuse. And sadly, that's just one of the many charges being levied against the comedian by his estranged wife Jennifer in her scathing divorce petition, in which she claims that Murray's "adultery, addiction to marijuana and alcohol, abusive behavior, physical abuse"–including a 2007 incident during which he allegedly hit her in the face and said she was "lucky he didn't kill her"–"sexual addictions, and frequent abandonment" has led her to seek both a dissolution of their marriage and a restraining order against him. Maybe it's a given that most clowns are, to borrow a quote from Quick Change, "the crying on the inside kind" (or even the "asshole on the outside kind") but come on…"Sexual addictions?" Guess some girls just don't appreciate the Aunt Jemima treatment.
– Normally in the face of ugly separations, the news of a blessed union should be cause for celebration–but not when it involves Clay Aiken and his sperm. According to TMZ, Aiken recently artificially inseminated his producer Jaymes Foster–for the sake of clarification on several levels, a woman–with his whitebread soul seed, apparently hoping to become a father without having to deal with all those yucky lady parts. We're not sure which is the saddest part of this story: That we're looking down the barrel of several weeks of inevitable People and Us pictorials featuring a frolicking Aikenspawn; that the child will no doubt grow up having to explain to his classmates that Daddy doesn't live with Mommy because he's too busy doing his one-man show in Branson; or that Clay Aiken's "best friend" is the 50-year-old woman who helped him spit-shine A Thousand Different Ways. (And yes, while it's probable that this story is patently untrue, given the track record of its "blog first, get sued later" source, the fact that we've been forced into having a national conversation on Aiken's sperm is buzzkill enough.)
– Speaking of things being inserted where they don't belong, the rankling abomination that is S. Darko–the cheapie, Richard Kelly-less sequel to cult favorite Donnie Darko we first gazed in horror upon here–just got even abominationier with the addition of Saved By The Bell and Showgirls "star" Elizabeth Berkeley to the cast. While the mere existence of this project has had us wishing for a stray jet engine big enough to wipe out all of Hollywood for a while now, we have to admit that Berkley's dead eyes and rock-bottom standards (though sadly, not her violent, primate-based approximations of sexual congress) will be put to good use on a project so ineffably soulless. And besides, her character is reportedly a former "speed freak," a role she's spent her lifetime preparing for.
– What with his slow, painful fall from cinematic grace ever since 1998's Buena Vista Social Club, we're half-surprised that formerly revered German auteur Wim Wenders hasn't tried picking over the bones of his own triumphs for a little much-needed reboot (Back To Paris, Texas, maybe?). Sadly, if the dire reviews from Cannes are to be believed, Wenders may be on the verge of never working in this proverbial town again: In his relentless slam of Wenders' Palermo Shooting, The Hollywood Reporter's Peter Brunette calls Wenders' latest effort "a film of startling and embarrassing banality, and yes, even silliness," full of ponderous images like the protagonist repeatedly hanging on to a floating distorted clock and being forced into a photo-shoot with the Devil (played by Dennis Hopper). "One is hard-pressed to imagine any commercial future whatsoever for this film, and a pickup by a U.S. distribution company seems virtually impossible," Brunette says before wondering aloud, "Where does Wenders find people to continue to invest in his films?" Um, granted that Wenders has been quickly dropped from most snooty cineastes' "really, the only films I can stand are by…" cocktail party shortlists by now, but come on, dude…This is Germany we're talking about. Uwe Boll is practically one-third of the gross domestic product.