Morning Briefing:
"Fahrenheit Katrina"?: Filmmaker Michael Moore is said to be "seriously considering" making a documentary out of the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina. As a source tells MSNBC's "The Scoop": "It has all the elements that made 'Fahrenheit 9/11' such a powerful film. The political outrage, the human suffering, and the incredible footage." Moore hasn't made any public statement about the idea, but like many, he's clearly upset about how the disaster has been handled. In a letter on his Web site appealing for help for relief efforts, he wrote, "There is much to be said and done about the manmade annihilation of New Orleans, caused NOT by a hurricane but by the very specific decisions made by the Bush administration in the past four and a half years. Do not listen to anyone who says we can discuss all this later. No, we can't. Our country is in an immediate state of vulnerability. More hurricanes, wars, and other disasters are on the way, and a lazy bunch of self-satisfied lunatics are still running the show." (MSNBC, MichaelMoore.com)
No Simpson fan: To say photographer and "Rize" filmmaker David LaChapelle doesn't like the Simpson sisters is a bit of an understatement. "They're everything that's wrong with music," complained LaChapelle recently to the New York Daily News' Lloyd Grove. "Out of everything combined, they're everything wrong with culture, and everything wrong with art, and what we think of as art and musical culture -- in one family!" The reason behind all of this ire? The Simpsons recently refused to have LaChapelle shoot them for a Rolling Stone cover, apparently worried that he wouldn't be able to make them look like "who they are" (which raises its own questions). "We've worked with everyone from Madonna to Janet Jackson, and have never had someone so on-again, off-again as the Simpsons. In the 10 years I've worked with David, I've never known anyone to be so difficult as they were," said LaChapelle's producer, Fred Torres. "I was only doing it because of my relationship with Rolling Stone," LaChapelle said. "We were going to try and make the Simpsons look cool. I realize now that is an impossible task." (N.Y. Daily News)
Less awkward than Katie-Kate Holmes-Cruise: Call her old-fashioned, but Katie Holmes is planning on giving up her last name when she goes through with her marriage to Tom Cruise. And in keeping with her more recent trend of taking things too far, she's even taking on his preferred first name for her, Kate. Shrugging off the precedent set by former Cruise wives Mimi Rogers and Nicole Kidman, she'll use the name Kate Cruise both privately and professionally. A source tells In Touch: "Tom calls her Kate, so he suggested she start going by that professionally." (WENN via Imdb.com)
Also:
In London to accept GQ's International Man of the Year Award, Jay-Z threw his support behind Kanye West's criticism of President Bush and the response to victims of Hurricane Katrina. "I'm backing Kanye 100 percent," he told Billboard by phone. "This is America. You should be able to say what you want to say. We have freedom of speech." Jay-Z, who donated $1 million to Katrina victims with Diddy, reportedly also spent several million dollars during his London outing on parties, hotels and diamonds for Beyoncé ... Poor Rod Stewart doesn't get to keep the $2 million advance he was paid for a concert he never gave. After a surprisingly lengthy court case, the 60-year-old crooner was ordered to repay the Rio hotel and casino in Las Vegas its advance plus interest and fees after he was a no-show for a concert in 2000. Citing a difficult recovery from throat cancer surgery as his excuse for missing the concert, Stewart never made it clear why he should get to keep the $2 million, but his lawyers plan to appeal ... In the ongoing series of awkward moments that has become Jude Law's life, he and Sienna Miller showed up at the same London restaurant at the same time, but with different people. Miller took the initiative and came over to his table to say hello ... Dutch officials have placed some boundaries on what counts as acceptable reality TV -- the plan to show a live birth on the country's version of "Big Brother" has been nixed. Child labor laws were invoked to stop the birth from being filmed, and the baby will get to live in a special, non-camera-outfitted room of the Big Brother house and will have its onscreen appearances limited ... Celebrity and Disneyland are a bad combination: After Scarlett Johansson was chased into a car accident outside the amusement park last month, now Reese Witherspoon has had a brush with a nasty paparazzo in the Magic Kingdom. A police report describes the photographer as becoming "aggressive and frightening" toward Witherspoon's party, and he was arrested after reportedly assaulting two park employees in an effort to get some good shots of the actress.
Turn On:
The fall season starts on Fox, with the third season of "The O.C." (8 p.m. EDT) followed by the debut of "Reunion" (9 p.m. EDT). Also showing: the wildly confusing "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me" (TMC, 9 p.m. EDT).
-- Scott Lamb
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