Pete Wentz & Ashlee Simpson: breaking up or happiest family ever?

A Family Portrait: Pete, Ashlee and Bronx*

* When the going gets tough, the tough deflect attention!

In a very confusing move, Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz and Melrose Place "actress" Ashlee Simpson have released a new family photo of themselves with baby boy Bronx Mowgli. Would someone more cynical than I suggest it was released just to deflect from gossip that the pair had a very nasty public spat in Chicago over the weekened? Hmmm, maybe... particularly since Pete has previously gone on and on (and on) about how they want privacy for lil' bub. Either way, we get a cute pic of him. Observe...




Awww. They're such a happy family. Can't you tell? It's all there in the photo... b-b-but how does Pete explain such previous rants that included, “We are followed day and night and that was fine when it was us but we are going to do our best to shelter Bronx from that as much as possible”?

Well, by way of justification of the above pic, Pete blogged: “you know i wrote that i didnt really want to post pictures of bx out there. i feel like it would be damaging to our family and besides hes not old enough to decide if he wants to be an avatar or not. but the truth is i want him to know there is other stuff out there on the web about him that isnt damaging and is just normal. besides we had an old friend come and just take some pics so we could remember him when he was this lil. hes blonde now.”

Ohhhhh, so it's to show the good side of the interwebs. Now I get it! Huh?


--
Carolyn Stewart
Not sure what it means but this photo of us/It don't have a price, ready for those flashing lights o'clock, August 17, 2009

TV Talk: Cleveland and CougarTown are coming, your first look at the new Melrose Place

Your guide to what’s new on telly

The Cleveland Show

When it comes to humour, I can be quite juvenile. And so Family Guy is right up my alley. I am therefore delighted that the show has been spun-off into The Cleveland Show, following Peter Griffin’s best friend Cleveland Brown as he remarries and moves to a new town and such. This means he won’t be on Family Guy any more. HUH? He’s only a cartoon; surely he can manage the time. Anyway, even though the show hasn’t aired in the US yet, Fox have already commissioned a second series. After all, if it doesn’t rate it is still likely to sell a shed load on DVD.

Cougar Town

Back in the olden days, before Scrubs got renewed for an entirely unnecessary ninth season, Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence had announced he was running away to head up his new show Cougar Town.

Starring Courteney Cox, the show is about an older woman who has sex with younger men. Or something. I like Courteney a lot, but I do wish the comedy wasn’t so, well, Scrubsy.

Anyway, have a look and see what you think...

Melrose Place

I have already said how excited/apprehensive I was about the new Melrose Place. Well, today I have had my first look (and you can too, after I stop banging on about it) and I am just as excited/apprehensive.

To call some of the acting wooden and dialogue stilted would be, well, entirely accurate. The building looks similar, but now has a fancy water feature. Oh, and there’s a dead body by the pool – so not much has changed there.

So click away for your first look at Laura Leighton, back from the dead as a no longer redheaded Sydney, Ashlee Simpson-Wentz as a now redhead and, most excitingly, Thomas Calabro!

Lucas as Boyle

Before Susan Boyle (finally) takes to the Britain’s Got Talent stage and either takes out the whole thing or is rather bad and becomes a footnote in youtube history, Heat magazine decided to have Little Britain star Matt Lucas dress up as the formerly bushy-browed Scottish chanteuse. Matt has always been a bit of a chameleon … but it must be said he has outdone himself on this one. Not even Susan herself looks like this any more!

Matt Lucas

Susan Boyle

Scott Keenan
Pretend I posted this yesterday o'clock

The Bitch Is Back

The classic Melrose Place cast including Heather Locklear (top left), Laura Leighton (centre) and Thomas Colabro (top right)

After the success of The CW's Beverly Hills 90210 relaunch (in the US that is – only a handful of episodes were ever screened in Australia, where it had the humiliation of being axed twice), it was only a matter of time before they did the same with the BH 90210 spin-off Melrose Place, which followed the (sex) lives of the 20-something inhabitants of an apartment building on LA’s Melrose Avenue.
This week filming has begun on the pilot for the new version, which stars Ashlee Simpson-Wentz (horrifying message board nerds and delighting me) and one-time Home and Away star Stephanie “formerly Stephanie Chaves-Jacobsen” Jacobsen. Both appear to be playing prostitutes. So at least that’s in-keeping with the spirit of the original show.
Original cast members Thomas Colabro (the awesome Dr. Michael Mancini) and Laura Leighton (Sydney Andrews) are back on board, despite the fact that Sydney died at the end of season five in the arms of her new husband “Crag” (spelled “Craig” and played by the awful David Charvet).
Sydney has clearly been revived to take the place of Heather Locklear’s Amanda Woodward, as Heather, who clearly hasn’t heard about the financial crisis, wanted too much money. If the show is a hit she may yet change her mind.

It seems poor, desperate, hilarious Lisa Rinna who played a pair of lips named Taylor McBride has been overlooked for the new cast. Lisa has made no secret of wanting to return to the show, even taking to the streets of Hollywood wearing a sandwich board reading “Honk 4 Lisa Rinna on the new Melrose Place” with Ross The Intern from The Tonight Show. This may actually be the best thing to happen this year.

"Will over-act for publicity!"

Anyway, I actually want Lisa back in the cast; she was both crazy and amusing.
She even has plans for her character!
“I left the show pregnant, but I can't remember if it was Michael's or Peter's baby,” Lisa says (It was Michael's). “But you could age that baby up and add five years, and you have a teenager. Or maybe I come back to run the apartment complex. Or maybe I open my own ballroom dance studio.”
Be quiet now Lisa.
Also set to pop up on the show is Ryan Eggold, the “cool teacher” Ryan Matthews on 90210, who is set the cross between the two. While the shows are supposed to live in the same world, Jessica Lucas, who played Ryan’s girlfriend Kimberly MacIntyre on 90210, is playing Riley Richmond on Melrose, and 90210 regular Rob Estes (West Beverly principal Harry Wilson) was on the original Melrose as Kyle McBride (after a guest role years earlier as Sam Towler). Confused?
It will be interesting to see how the new version plays out. 90210 came back after the success of teen soaps like Dawson’s Creek and Gossip Girl, but there hasn’t been a successful adult soap since MP 1.0. And while the original series started as a straight-down-the line episodic spin-off of Beverly Hills 90210, it was only after producers turned up the crazy that anybody watched. Soon people were blowing things up and returning from the dead and everyone was having an affair with someone else. Which was excellent.
Let's hope they just cut straight to trash this time around. The trick for the producers will be walking a fine line between so-bad-it’s-good and, well, bad.
I for one hope the show is awesome and that Ten will air it for longer than two weeks.

Scott Keenan
So late it's almost tomorrow o'clock