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Beef

8/21/08

4:30 PM

Radiohead Still Oddly Silent Over Beefs With Hold Steady and Silver Jews

Photo: WireImage, Getty Images, Chris McKay / Retna

On Sunday, bespectacled, cirrhosis-livered Hold Steady guitarist Tad Kubler set off a music-blog firestorm by brutally slagging off Radiohead during an interview with BBC's Radio 6. "I think they've lost the plot," he said. "I like them as a rock band, all the buttons and sequencing and stuff like that I don't really care for. I'm a fan of rock music, and what they're doing now I don't think is very good." But Kubler wasn't the only boozy indie-rock titan to weigh in with a negative opinion of Radiohead this week! On Monday, Silver Jews leader David Berman told Pitchfork, "You can go through the whole new Radiohead album and try and tell me what they're saying, and all you'll get over and over again is things are miserable, don't try, things suck … Never before has there been a 'greatest band in the world' who had so little to say about anything."

More: Tags: beefs, david berman, music, radiohead, silver jews, tad kubler, the hold steady

Beef

8/19/08

10:15 AM

Who’s Suing the Watchmen? That’d Be Fox

Courtesy of DC Comics

For a while, it looked like Zack Snyder and Warner Bros. were covering their every base for next year's nerd-anticipated $120 million film adaptation of Alan Moore's Watchmen — they've cut the summer's most-discussed trailer, awed the geeks at Comic-Con, and even commissioned an awesome-sounding Watchmen video game to coincide with the movie's release. The only thing they forgot to do, we guess, was lock up the rights to the original graphic novel.

Whoops! »

More: Tags: fox, movies, watchmen, zack snyder

Beef

8/13/08

4:15 PM

Iron Man Didn’t Understand ‘The Dark Knight’

Photo: DC Comics, Marvel Comics

Sure, The Dark Knight was great and everything, but wasn't its plot difficult to understand? No? We didn't think so either, but we're not Robert Downey Jr., star of the summer's second-biggest (and apparently more easily comprehensible) superhero franchise Iron Man. "I didn't understand The Dark Knight," he tells Moviehole. "It’s like a Ferrari engine of storytelling and script writing and I’m like, ‘That’s not my idea of what I want to see in a movie’ … Didn't get it, still can't tell you what happened in the movie, what happened to the character and in the end they need him to be a bad guy. I’m like, ‘I get it. This is so highbrow and so fucking smart, I clearly need a college education to understand this movie.’” And then he said this: "You know what? Fuck DC comics."

Surely he was kidding (maybe! It's kinda hard to tell even in context) — but wouldn't a full-on Batman versus Iron Man be the greatest thing ever? We eagerly await Christian Bale's response, and hope it's in his grizzly Batman voice.

Interview: Robert Downey Jr. [Moviehole via /Film]

More: Tags: batman, iron man, iron man 2, movies, robert downey jr., the dark knight

Beef

8/12/08

12:30 PM

How Will Noel Gallagher Respond to Jay-Z’s New Dis Track?

Photo: Getty Images

Back in June, during his headlining Glastonbury set, Jay-Z strummed a guitar and sang on off-key version of Oasis' "Wonderwall" as revenge for Noel Gallagher's assertion that booking a hip-hop act was wrong for the festival. Now, though, in "Jockin' Jay-Z," the awesome, just-leaked first single from Jay's upcoming Blueprint 3, Hova's back at it: "That bloke from Oasis said I couldn't play guitar. Somebody should've told him I'm a fucking rock star. Toooodaaayyyy is gonna be the day that I'm gonna throw it back to you." (He performed a version of the then-incomplete track at last week's Kanye show at MSG, but we had no idea those were the finished lyrics.) Sure, Jay's Glastonbury dis was warranted and appropriate, but isn't this a little much? (Also, won't he have to pay Oasis' publisher for borrowing the line from "Wonderwall"?) Isn't Noel now honor bound to respond? And how will he do it?

Hopefully with his typical wit and candor! »

More: Tags: jay-z, music, noel gallagher

Beef

8/ 4/08

10:30 AM

Awards Blogs Cracking Under the Pressure of Crappy Movie Season

Gold Derby's Tom O'Neil.Photo: Getty Images, Gold Derby, Awards Daily

August can be a trying time for entertainment bloggers; as all cultural news slows to a crawl and we get loopy from the heat, there's really no telling what we might resort to (last year, Vulture flirted briefly with becoming a Zac Efron fan site and, had it not been for Superbad, we'd probably have just started posting pictures of our cats). Still, nobody feels the boring pressure of summer's end quite like awards blogs like Gold Derby and Awards Daily (two of our favorites) — with the Oscars a full seven months away, and practically no statue-worthy movies in sight, their jobs certainly can't be easy. And although it's a little disappointing, we can't say we're totally surprised that tensions are flaring between the two typically respectful competitors.

"AwardsDaily.com makes an assassination attempt on Gold Derby! Is this WAR?" »

More: Tags: awards, awardsdaily, beef, gold derby, movies, tom o'neil, websites

Beef

7/ 7/08

9:45 AM

In Your Face, Willow: Will Smith Crushes 7-Year-Old Daughter at Box Office

Photo: Getty Images

In a box-office match-up as hilarious as it was potentially traumatizing, Will Smith went head-to-head with his adorable offspring over the weekend when his film Hancock opened opposite Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, which starred 7-year-old Willow Smith in a supporting role. A few weeks ago, Willow obnoxiously bragged to an interviewer, "He thinks he is going to be beat me, but I think not. I think I am going to beat him" — to which her father, during a Letterman appearance, sagely responded, "Daddy loves you, sweetie, but I gots to stomp you at the box office."

Willow Smith: Over? »

More: Tags: fail, hancock, kit kittredge: an american girl mystery, movies, will smith, willow smith

Beef

6/27/08

3:45 PM

Pixar vs. Fat People

Screen cap from the Wall-E trailer, since Pixar's press photos include no images of the humans in the movie. Courtesy of Pixar

Finally, we've found people who don't like Wall-E: fat people! The Post's Lou Lumenick points out that some reviewers have described the movie's vision of the future of the human race (trapped in a spaceship, obese, stuck in chairs, eating and mindlessly watching TV) as possibly offensive to the average moviegoer (trapped in a theater, obese, stuck in chairs, eating and mindlessly watching Wall-E). Lumenick discovers that body-image-conscious blogs have been worried about Wall-E since at least November, when the blog the F-Word questioned whether the movie was derogatory to the overweight.

Relax! The movie makes fun of fat people in context. »

More: Tags: movies, pixar, wall-e

Beef

6/24/08

12:00 PM

Will Smith vs. His 7-Year-Old Daughter

Photo: Getty Images, AFP

As anyone can tell you, Will Smith is in the undisputed champion of the July 4 weekend box office; so powerful is his Independence Day–related appeal that Columbia Pictures apparently felt safe green-lighting a $150 million Smith-toplined dark comedy about an alcoholic superhero on the condition that it would be released July 2, when it will inevitably make millions upon millions of dollars for reasons that no one quite understands. But next Wednesday, Smith's Hancock will face some unlikely competition when America's small women descend on Kit Kittredge: An American Girl Mystery, opening in wide release that day and, coincidentally, starring his 7-year-old daughter, Willow.

Hilariously, Willow is proving to be something of a trash-talker. "He thinks he is going to beat me," she said an interview last week. "But I think not. I think I am going to beat him." Last night on Letterman, Smith responded: "Daddy loves you, sweetie, but I gots to stomp you at the box office." Who will win? We'd probably root for Willow if we didn't think a Kit Kittredge victory might actually tear her family apart.

Why Hollywood Is Such A Homewrecker... [Deadline Hollywood Daily]

Earlier: Hollywood: ‘Wait, There Are Women Who Are Children, Too?’

More: Tags: beef, hancock, kit kittredge: an american girl mystery, movies, will smith, willow smith

Beef

6/23/08

11:15 AM

Ice T Battles Soulja Boy in Rap’s Lamest-Ever YouTube Beef

Forty-nine-year old rapper Ice T is sparring with annoying "Crank That" star Soulja Boy on YouTube. Or, rather, he's sparring with Soulja Boy on YouTube with the help of his 16-year-old son, who actually knows how to operate YouTube. It all started when, on a recent mix tape, Ice T claimed the 17-year-old had "killed hip-hop" and told him to "eat a dick" (he's releasing a new album soon, in case you'd not already guessed). Then, on Friday, Soulja Boy fired back with this eloquent clip, in which he uses Wikipedia to verify that Ice T is "old as fuck" (citation not needed, apparently). On Saturday, Ice T responded (see the clip after the jump) with an apology for the "dick" comment, but reiterated his earlier point that "that 'Superman' shit is wack" (not an invalid argument).

We weren't even going to weigh in on any of this until Kanye West got involved ("Soulja boy is fresh ass hell and is actually the true meaning of what hip hop is sposed to be," he writes on his blog), but as admirers of Ice T's work on Law & Order: Special Victim's Unit, as well as his many hits about the inefficacy of the police, we're a little disappointed that he'd partake in such a lame beef that requires us to acknowledge Soulja Boy's existence for the first time in months.

"I apologize, Soulja Boy, for telling you to eat a dick. That was just in anger." »

More: Tags: ice-t, kanye west, music, soulja boy, youtube

Beef

6/ 9/08

5:00 PM

Spike vs. Clint: Spike Strikes Back! Plus: Wait, Are There Black People in ‘Flags of Our Fathers’ After All?

Clint and Spike, during happier times.Photo: WireImage

Needless to say, it didn't take Spike Lee long to respond to Clint Eastwood's request that Lee "shut his face" about the lack of black soldiers in Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima. (If you had "over the weekend" in the Spike Responds office pool, you're a winner!) "First of all, the man is not my father and we're not on a plantation either," Lee told ABCNews.com. He then called Eastwood an "angry old man," before hilariously claiming the "Obama high road" and refusing further comment. Long live feuds! We're looking forward to Clint's upcoming response of "Shut your pie hole," or "Shut your yap," or maybe "Refrain from speaking."

In other news, though, a commenter on our last post on this beef claims that, in fact, black soldiers do appear in Flags of Our Fathers, possibly rendering this entire argument moot.

See the possible evidence after the jump! »

More: Tags: clint eastwood, flags of our fathers, movies, spike lee