Matt Damon campaigned aggressively for Barack Obama last year. So why wasn’t he in Washington D.C. last week for the historic inauguration?

“[My wife] Luciana and I decided we wanted to go,” he tells the Miami Herald. “But when I called my contacts from the campaign, they just started laughing: ‘We worked on the campaign for 2 1/2 years, and we’re not going. Forget it.’

“But then they called me back the next day and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got two tickets for you, in the bleachers, and you’ll actually be able to see Obama take the oath. Just $25,000 apiece.’”

It was then that Damon (who lives with his wife and three daughters in Miami Beach) knew, “I’m going to watch. From my couch.”

Damon — whose latest Untitled Jason Bourne Project is now in production for a 2010 release — also spoke out about how his famous assassin character is nothing like James Bond.

“They could never make a James Bond movie like any of the Bourne films,” Damon said. “Because Bond is an imperialist, misogynist sociopath who goes around bedding women and swilling martinis and killing people. He’s repulsive.

“Steve [Soderbergh, who produced Damon’s 2005 spy movie, Syriana] told me that years ago he was offered a Bond movie,” the actor went on. “He told them he’d do it if they gave him creative control.

“‘Absolutely not,’ they said. They have a formula, they stick to it, and it makes them a lot of money. They know what they’re doing, and they’re going to keep doing it.”

When he does a Bourne film, Damon later added, he never feels like he’s “slumming.”

(source)

21-Year-Old Evan Rachel Wood Busted Making Out With Movie Dad

Stranger things have happened - after all, this is Hollywood. Evan Rachel Wood, 21, hit headlines last year after she started dating Marilyn Manson (19 years her senior) but since their split in December has she now moved on to 56-year-old veteran actor Mickey Rourke?

The two attended Grey Goose’s Official SAG after-party at the Shrine on Sunday evening but were spotted leaving together enroute to the later after party at the Four Seasons Hotel. According to Pop Tarts spies, the actress went upstairs with Rourke (whose second marriage ended over a decade ago) when he suddenly grabbed her for a lip-lock in the outside area of the swanky five-star hotel.

The duo have been romantically linked since she played his daughter in “The Wrestler,” although Wood always denied that they were anything more than friends.

Reps for Rourke and Wood did not respond for comment.

So, if you make out with your movie dad, does that make it movie… oh forget it.

Also seen livin’ it up at the ultra-exclusive soiree were Josh Brolin, Sean Penn, Kevin Dillon and Diane Lane.

(source)

OLIVIA Newton-John’s former partner is alive and on the run after staging his own disappearance almost four years ago, according to US investigators.

A team of private investigators from Texas said they believe Patrick McDermott has been travelling along the Mexican and South American coastline since disappearing from a fishing charter in June 2005.

Lead investigator Philip Klein said he believed that the former cameraman had disappeared so that he could avoid paying debts and enable his teenage son Chance to receive a $A150,965 ($US100,000) life insurance policy.

“He’s alive - there’s no doubt in my mind, this guy’s alive,” Klein said.

“Everything was bad in this guy’s life. There was nothing good.

“Maybe in his mind if he stages his death, the insurance policy will pay off all his debts and he can leave his child a gift by pretending he’s dead.”

McDermott, who had been in a relationship with Newton-John for nine years, was 48 when he disappeared after boarding a boat called The Freedom in California.

An official report from the US Coast Guard released in November (2008) concluded that McDermott, who had previously filed for bankruptcy and owed thousands of dollars in child support payments to his ex-wife, most likely drowned.

Klein, whose agency specialises in tracking down kidnap victims and missing people who do not want to be found, was hired by US current affairs program Dateline in March 2007 to investigator McDermott’s disappearance.

In an episode devoted to the mystery this week, Klein revealed that his agency had set up a hi-tech trap to help locate McDermott by making a website called findpatrickmcdermott .com, which secretly showed investigators the locations of people accessing the site.

Klein said he suspected McDermott has regularly been logging on to the “spider site”, with the team tracking hits from what he believed was a boat traveling along the Mexican coastline as far as South America.

“We put what we call a trap on the web site where we can tell each I-address that comes in to the web site,” Klein said.

“The rule of thumb is always this - when you’re running you always are looking over your shoulder and we’re going to catch him looking at us.

“The most interesting hits have come directly from Cabo San Lucas (in Mexico)last place anybody saw Patrick McDermott.”

Klein said he believed that Olivia Newton-John, who refused to be interviewed for the investigation, had regularly been logging on to the site to get updates on the hunt for her former partner.

“The most unusual hits we’ve gotten were Olivia Newton-John when she was on tour in Asia, every hotel she was registered at and staying at there were hits from that hotel on that night where she was staying,” Klein said.

“So it’s quite obvious to us that the Olivia Newton-John camp is following it.”

Klein, who claimed to have confirmed sightings of McDermott from at least 17 witnesses across Mexico, said he was confident that his team would track down their target.

“Patrick McDermott walked off The Freedom and Patrick McDermott’s running in Mexico - that simple,” Klein said.

“We’re close.

“He’s going to make a mistake - they (people on the run) all make mistakes.

“He’s going to do something and I’ll be right on his tail.”

Newton-John, who married Amazon herb millionaire John Easterling in June, sold her four-bedroom Malibu mansion for $A14.2 million last month.

The Grease star has moved to the upmarket Florida community of Jupiter Island where Easterling owns a three-bedroom house, which is located in an exclusive gated estate and is currently listed for sale at $A1.28 million.

(source)

Jessica Simpson’s former trainer, The 5-Factor Diet author Harley Pasternak, is defending the singer’s new fuller figure.

“She has curves where a woman needs to have curves. We all go a little bit up and a little bit down. But she’s healthy,” Pasternak tells Extra.

At Sunday’s Kiss Country Chili Cookout in Pembroke Pines, Fla., the 28-year-old singer — dressed in high-waisted jeans and a double belt — shocked fans with her new curves.

But Pasternak says “she’s still sexy. She’s still a beautiful woman. And I have no problem with the way she looks.”

Adds the trainer, “I think if more people looked the way she looks now, the country would be a lot healthier.”

(source)

Things went really well Saturday Night with Pamela Anderson at Primal. She arrived at 11:30pm and spent 20 minutes in a VIP reception area that was well attended by local radio celebrities, business persons and fans before being whisked into the main room of Primal to her table. Her table was located on the main stage and overlooked the crowd of 2,000 plus extremely enthusiastic Primal guests. It was almost impossible to see the crowd from her table because of the constant sea of cameras and flashes firing in her direction. She partied, while greeting a line of fans, until well past 2:00 a.m. After which she and her entourage left in a black SUV limo

(source)

VH1 has teamed up with one of the most recognizable names and personalities in sports – Terrell Owens — who will star in his own reality show slated to premiere in the summer of 2009 on VH1.

The series follows one of the NFL’s biggest and most outspoken stars, wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys, Terrell “T.O.” Owens. In the series, T.O. will be shadowed in the off-season by his best friends and publicists Monique Jackson and Kita Williams as they battle the two sides of his large personality. Viewers will discover that behind all the braggadocio, emotional histrionics, and sculpted physique that is the outspoken media magnet known to the world as “T.O.” –there is also a quiet, sensitive, mild-mannered guy from Alexander City, Alabama…that’s Terrell.

“We are thrilled to bring such a great athlete, who is one of the biggest names and personalities in all the world of sports to VH1 for a surprising high octane look inside his superstar life off the field,” said Jeff Olde, EVP Original Programming & Production.

Mo and Kita want to help Terrell match all the success he’s had on the field with that same kind of success off the field. Now, after a string of relationships and off-the-field endeavors, Terrell is ready to re-examine his personal life and finally put a plan into action. These outspoken, vibrant women are more like T.O.’s sisters than people who work for him. They will function as matchmakers and therapists and also put their marketing expertise to use and help him make his life off of the field as successful as his life on it!

The series is executive produced by Evan Prager and Jesse Ignjatovic for Den of Thieves. Executive producers for VH1 are Jill Holmes, Alex Demyanenko, Noah Pollack and Jeff Olde.

(source)

Producer James L. Nederlander says he has acquired the rights for a stage version of Michael Jackson’s iconic music-video spoof of horror films. The show will include songs from two of the pop king’s best-selling albums, “Thriller” and “Off the Wall.”

“The Nederlanders and Michael Jackson represent live theater and musical excellence, so let the music begin,” Tohme Tohme, a spokesman for Jackson, said Monday in a statement.

“I love the idea of making ‘Thriller’ a musical. Girl meets boy, they fall in love, boy has big secret, now what?” said Nederlander, head of the company that owns nine Broadway theaters.

No word yet on who will write the book for the show or what songs will be included in the production, or who will direct and choreograph.

(source)

Mickey Rourke has received critical acclaim for his comeback role in “The Wrestler,” where he plays a former pro wrestling legend who falls on hard times.

And on the red carpet at the 15th Annual SAG Awards on Sunday night in Hollywood, the actor revealed he’s about to get in the ring in real life.

Rourke will be participating in WWE’s “Wrestlemania 25” in Houston on April 5.

“The boys from the WWE called me and asked me to do it,” Rourke told Access Hollywood. “I said, ‘I want to.’ I’m talking with [WWE legend] Rowdy Roddy Piper about it.”

In fact, Rourke, whose role in “The Wrestler” earned him a SAG nomination for Best Actor (as well as an Academy Award nomination and a win at the Golden Globes earlier this month), said the professional wrestling industry has been extremely supportive of his portrayal of the sport.

“The nicest thing has been the whole wrestling community embracing us,” Rourke said on the red carpet. “The movie was about their world.”

And when he does jump into the ring with WWE, it appears the actor may already have his sights set on an opponent.

“Chris Jericho, you better get in shape,” Rourke added. “Because I’m coming after your a**.”

(source)