The Hollywood Janitor! (1)

The Latest Dirt on Your Fave Celebrities!

"I guess I just got carried away."

"Well, I guess you did."

---HENRY, PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER

HOPKINS FINALLY LOSES IT

(Venice, Italy, Reuters)--At 6:00 am on Tuesday, Italian police were nauseated to find, in a Venice hotel room, famous actor Anthony Hopkins in his kitchen surrounded by the hewn and seasoned remains of former SILENCE OF THE LAMBS co-star Jodie Foster in a grisly scene of cannibalism and cornbread stuffing.

Apparently Hopkins succumbed to the peculiar "stalking virus" carried by Foster, which has already claimed the lives of many men before the stocky Welsh Oscar winner. Foster's refusal to be in HANNIBAL, apparently, bothered Hopkins deeply.

"We were always meant to be together, Clarice," Hopkins muttered to a fingerbone allegedly belonging to Foster instead of answering police questions. Hopkins has suffered bad luck in many roles lately, having to reprise his HANNIBAL character not only in the hit Ridley Scott film but in such films as TITUS, during which the mental breakdown leading to this episode began. "When an actor gets typecast it can sometimes lead to dangerous delusions," a police psychiatrist remarked. "When every movie fan calls you 'Hannibal' on the street, it's very hard to avoid eating them after awhile."

Indeed, the bones of no less than two hundred movie fans were found in a subsequent search of the back yard of his home in LA. Hopkins himself has been very polite, if uncooperative, with investigators. "He signed my HANNIBAL poster," said Sgt. Lazzari of the Venice Police. "This is the greatest moment of my life."

COPPOLA REALIZES TRUTH, TAKES OWN LIFE

(AP) Napa, California--The world was stunned today to hear that world-famous film director Francis Ford Coppola, responsible for such beloved films as THE GODFATHER, APOCALYPSE NOW, and the legendary Robin Williams comedy JACK, put a gun in his mouth this morning and took his own life.

EXCERPT FROM SUICIDE NOTE: "Oh my god, I peaked too early. I am such a whore. I've wasted my talent and over-hyped myself. It'll be better this way, I promise. Oh my god, my best work was two decades ago...oh lord, oh lord forgive me..."

He is survived by his wife and children. Production on the new Coppola remake of GREED will continue uninterrupted. Producer Winona Ryder said, "It's sad, but, y'know, life goes on." The film, starring Ms. Ryder and Keanu Reeves as the dentist McTeague, is set to be released this summer. Mr. Coppola had reportedly had some conflict with Ryder over her suggested changes in the script, such as her insistence that each shot be a close-up of her. "It's an experimental technique but he was just not imaginative enough."

The technique, pioneered by Kevin Costner in DANCES WITH WOLVES, has since been incorporated into subsequent edits. "I mean, why do they need to see other people's faces? The audience knows they're talking to me."

HOLLYWOOD SUES EVERYBODY

{Los Angeles, Reuters) The RIAA and MPAA joined forces in an LA county courtroom today, filing suit against every American citizen who is currently alive, has lived in the past or might live in the future. "New forms of infringement and plagiarism arise all the time," said G.B. Sterling, attorney for the industry groups. "There's only seven plots in the world and one chromatic scale. Obviously any intellectual property in the future must rest on work owned by my clients. We have to stop future creativity, then, as soon as humanly able."

The suit requests a one-time $5000 royalty, upon the birth of a new child, to be paid by every American citizen into a common fund for the use of entertainment executives "Kids are very imitative, and we all know how a child can scribble all sorts of things with crayons. We just want to make sure we, as architects of American popular culture, get our fair share of what is coming to us."

This comes in the wake of new contracts halving the royalty rates paid to musicians, and both have been hailed by RIAA president Hilary Rosen as "enormous steps forward in protecting artists' rights."

"But it does not go far enough. So long as people can still hear music, they can hum, or whistle, or any number of other cheap tactics to get around the system. Do our artists get paid when someone hums as they work? They do not." Rosen proposed new engineering standards that would render recordings audible only to the ears of dogs. "It's just that simple." Further industry talks are scheduled for June 2003.

CRUISE REVEALS GREEK GODHOOD

(AP, Los Angeles) In a tersely-worded statement today, Tom Cruise attempted to dispel rumors he is gay by admitting he is the Greek god Zeus. "This is why I have never fathered children. As you know, the ejaculations of a god would burn a mortal woman to cinders. I was only looking out for Nicole's welfare, I promise."

When asked if Oscar winner Russell Crowe was standing behind him dressed in his GLADIATOR costume as publicity for a new film, Cruise reportedly looked puzzled and was heard to ask, "...Film?" The press conference was abruptly halted at that point.

CGI IN, DIRECTORS SLAIN

(Hollywood, CA, AP)--Hollywood's grasp of computer digital effects has grown to a point that directors "are no longer necessary," announced Disney CEO Michael Eisner at a press conference today. "Let's face it, they're a pain in the neck," he stated to nodding laughter from the reporters assembled. "Money, accomodations, and let's not even think about the fights over changes in the film. Why do we want someone there being paid millions of dollars simply to get in the way?" He then removed a joystick device from his pocket and directed the reporters' attention to the screen. "With this new device, executives can create a movie from scratch right in the boardroom."

He then proceeded to demonstrate by making a computer-controlled simulation of Ben Affleck run through a WW1 minefield, fly a bomber plane, and have explicit onscreen sex with Jodie Foster. "Now who hasn't wanted to see that?" he said to great laughter. He then revealed Affleck was a prototype of this process as Affleck waved from the screen. "He's never been real. We're very proud of Ben. We like to call him 'Pinocchio' in the boardroom."

Roland Emmerich, Renny Harlin, Michael Bay, James Cameron, and David Fincher, who had been mysteriously seated tied, blindfolded and gagged on the opposite side of the room (Eisner explaining, "I told them we had product placement contracts to sign. They were over in five minutes"), were then each shot with a single bullet each in the back of the head, in celebration of the industry's new policy, to the tumultuous applause of the reporters present. "It's a new dawn in American cinema," Eisner said, then announcing the summer spectacular Buy Things, to be released this July 4.

ZEUS DENIES, CRUISE FIRES BACK

(AP, Los Angeles)--Tom Cruise, stung by allegations of deific misrepresentation and terse denials from the Olympian King of the Gods himself soon after Cruise's controversial press conference Monday, reaffirmed in a hastily-called press conference that he in fact is the god Zeus and to prove it, swallowed whole the two adoptive children shared by himself and Nicole Kidman. "There was a prophecy they would grow greater than me. Stress from worry can be very unhealthy."

Poppycock, says the alleged "true" Zeus. Speaking finally to the press in a voice made of thunder from Mt. Olympus, Greece, Zeus was reported to say, "What a dimwit. That's something Saturn would do. When I eat children, goddesses emerge from my head."

"I don't think the American public cares about insignificant detail," Cruise replied in an even hastier press conference immediately afterward. "Sure, the critics can complain for years about accuracy, but that won't change that I am the lord Zeus and my word is law." He then began to read a telegram of moral support from Mel Gibson, when reporters asked why he and Russell Crowe, standing nearby, were shirtless and covered in sweat. "Tom and I are just good friends, and I am merely here because of our mutual interest in dogs."

When pressed further on the point, Crowe, growling, raised his right arm, releasing odors which immediately killed 50 of the 75 attending reporters.

BUSH TO KILL PEOPLE, LISTEN TO HUEY LEWIS

(AP, Washington, DC)--In an unexpected move today, President George W. Bush signed a deal with director Mary Harron to star in the second sequel to the critically-acclaimed but financially unsuccessful AMERICAN PSYCHO.

"Well, Christian said he'd need therapy if he played the part again," Harron explained, "and frankly the resemblance is eerie. He looks just like Christian, if he were boozed- and coked-up for 25 years straight."

President Bush was amiable about it. "I saw them do that show about me the other day and I thought, well, hell, I should get me a piece of this. And I don't see what was so 'controversialist' about it. Laura rented it from Blockbuster and it just looked to me like a film about a cool dude with great taste in clothes and music, who gets a lot of chicks."

"And George, of course, likes to kill people," Harron added.

"It'll be cool," the president chuckled with an impish sparkle in his eye. The last time a sitting president appeared in a motion picture was, of course, Franklin Roosevelt's ill-advised portrayal of a down-on-her-luck rockette in Busby Berkeley's little-known WILL SING FOR FOOD. The film is scheduled to begin filming in early 2003. "Mr. Cheney tells me he won't need me for awhile then," said the president. "What with the camps and all."

ZEUS DESTROYS ALL OF HOLLYWOOD IN FIERY INFERNO OF VENGEANCE

(AP, Arizona Bay)---Enraged by noted gay actor Tom Cruise's repeated assertions that, rather than being gay, he is in fact the Greek king of the gods Zeus, the alleged genuine Zeus unleashed a cascade of murderous thunderbolts upon Hollywood at 2:05 PST Wednesday, incinerating all property and inhabitants in West Hollywood, Burbank, Beverly Hills and other areas close by. "I figured nobody would mind, and that way I'd be sure to get the little bastard. I haven't time to bandy talk with some poxy moon-loony who thinks he's me. I've disposed of hundreds of dupe deities in my time."

Flexing his muscles readily for the cameras, the King of the Gods did not respond to reports that Tom Cruise and companion Russell Crowe had been seen boarding a 747 to Japan shortly before his wrath descended upon Tinseltown. "If that's so, I just hope they don't run into any turbulence," the deity was said to have snickered as he exchanged jokes with the crowd before demanding what he referred to as "the Couric wench, for my pleasure."

With the sons and daughters of all of Hollywood's legends, as well as the legends themselves, dead, Joe Eszterhas and Philip Kaufman, standing at the water's edge of the new town of Arizona Bay, jointly announced that it would now be legal for the first time in almost a decade for actors to work in Hollywood. "Our long national nightmare is over," Eszterhas was reported to say. "By the way, do my tits look OK?"

COPPOLA GETS SCREWED AGAIN

(AP, Iron City of Dis)---In between sessions of being violated by a score of demons in the form of his memorable character Clemenza, recently deceased Hollywood journeyman director Francis Ford Coppola, creator of such well-remembered classics as BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA, GODFATHER III and of course, JACK, described to this reporter his dissatisfaction with his current project, for Satan's newly-established ACCURSED PRODUCTIONS.

"I thought I'd get my pick, now that so many talented actors and technicians were down here. 'How'd you like to finally do THE GREAT GATSBY right?' they asked, and promised me my script would work perfectly this time. I had forgotten the producers were here too." And they certainly were. The new Hollywood down below boasts a glittering multitude of Hollywood producers and agents past and present, all in enviable executive and middle management positions due to canny deals struck before their arrival(with the exception of Saul Zaentz, whose bones are picked daily by Brazilian jaguars).

"It's who you know that counts. That never changes," Coppola whined. Apparently recently-reunited production team Don Simpson & Jerry Bruckheimer took charge right away, demanding Coppola make the following changes:

Update to 1980s ("Who was rich in the '20s?" offered Simpson).

Gatsby be given an invisible alien pal only he can see.

Daisy must be played by Charlize Theron.

"I don't understand. They promised me final cut, and now it seems every day there's more re-editing to do. I don't even know where these new scenes they're having me insert come from. Not to mention that they replaced the belts in the cameras with tendons from my legs. It never ends. It's like some eternal torment," Coppola complains, vowing to sue "the second my lawyer arrives." Meanwhile James Cameron, whose head was plucked off and placed on the gates of Hell upon his entrance, is rumored to be assigned the eternal punishment of remaking GRAND HOTEL.

(with thanks to Chris Lanier and Stephanie Dwyer)