If that sounds terrifying – don’t worry, because according to other trailers we’ve seen John Connor defeats them by reprogramming a bunch of Roomba vacuum cleaners to infiltrate the enemy and destroy them from the inside.

We’re told this scene is particularly gripping, as one robot vacuum has to slowly suck up its own mother.

But this isn’t the only Terminator Salvation drama – no! There’s also a producer already suing other producers for 160 million in non-robot dollars.

If there’s one thing the Terminator movies tell us about the future, it’s that Star Trek isn’t even close to accurate. This is really a pretty big shame as we’d always thought that maybe one day our great, great grandchildren could beam our corpse to the table at family holiday meals. This would probably be a far less disgusting way to carry out a family tradition we intend to one day decree in our will.

But no – the John Connor-future is a grisly one wherein shape-shifting robots stab things with their pointy hands, and then go on to replace David Duchovny on the X-Files. It’s also a place at war – and while you’re trying to visibly emote behind a pile of sand bags or something, lighting people rudely walk by – completely throwing off your game.

Also in the future, Comcast will probably make Connor & co pay for internet by the minute. That’s probably the catalyst causing John to realise he needs to lead the rebellion.

The future doesn’t necessarily look bad for one guy though – if his lawsuit goes through that is. The man we’re talking about is Moritz Borman – and there’s not anything slightly off about his name at all. Moritz is suing some Salvation producers for $160 million.

All Headline News has the specifics:

“Moritz Borman has filed the suit in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday against Derek Anderson and Victor Kubicke and their Halcyon Co. banner for more than $160 million…[Borman] said that financial backing for the movie was secured through investment fund Pacificor LLC in exchange for the movie’s approval rights, involvement in all creative decisions and a $5 million producing fee. But [Kubicke & Anderson] purportedly failed to honor their deal, “hijacking” the production in July last year and refused to pay him the $2.5 million balance of his producing fee.”

How exactly the $2.5 million mentioned up there turned into $160 million, we may never understand. When asked what he intends to do with the money should he win his case, Borman reportedly said:

“I’m gonna get me some cats.”

We don’t actually have a source for that last bit. We just don’t, ok?

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Well, not if you’re Joe Satriani. Joe’s claiming that Coldplay ripped off chunks his song If I Could Fly in Viva La Vida, and he’s suing the band for everything they’ve got – so essentially a U2 songbook, some tatty faux-Napoleonic jackets and a scrawny wife who always looks miserable.

Why wasn’t the comparison between the songs pointed out sooner? Because everyone knows that if you own a Coldplay album and a Joe Satriani album, you must be drowned like a witch, that’s why.

The problem with music is that there are only so many notes available to an artist, and only so many combination of notes they can use before songs start sounding familiar. That’s why sometimes you get a situation where Avril Lavigne writes a song that sounds a bit like Hey Mickey, a bit like The Rolling Stones, a bit like Peaches and a bit like some band we’ve never heard of and yet somehow worse than all of them.

It’s not plagiarism, it’s just an unfortunate coincidence. But what’s really unfortunate is when a band makes a song that sounds like another artist’s song and both performers are crap and the note progression in both songs is so woeful that it makes us want to saw through into our belly, feed our arm up through the hole and punch the bad noise out of our brain with our fists from the inside.

Which, hey, seems to be what’s happening with Joe Satriani and Coldplay.

In 2004, Joe Satriani – the guitar bore who makes music for people who don’t like music – released an album with the punchworthy title Is There Love in Space? The album contained a song called If I Could Fly, which nobody paid any attention to at first because it was boring and almost certainly the sort of thing that Noel Edmonds would enjoy using as his on-hold music.

Flash forward four years, though, and Coldplay have released song called Viva La Vida on an album of the same name which was boring and almost certainly the sort of thing that Noel Edmonds would enjoy using as his… hey, wait a minute!

Long story short, Joe Satriani’s now suing Coldplay for ripping him off. BBC reports:

In court papers filed in Los Angeles on Thursday, he said the song used “substantial original portions” of his 2004 instrumental If I Could Fly. Satriani, 52, wants a jury trial and is seeking damages and “any and all profits” for the alleged plagiarism.

But how similar are If I Could Fly and Viva La Vida? Luckily YouTube is all over this. Look…

OK, they are kind of similar. But it won’t be up to us to decide who’ll win this lawsuit. However, if Joe Satriani does win, it’ll be a terrible blow to Coldplay – not just a financial blow but, because one of Coldplay will actually have to admit to owning a Joe Satriani album, a blow to any notion that the band understands what good music sounds like.

But regardless of who wins the lawsuit, there can only be one loser here. And that’s us – the knowledge that two artists have chosen to use a melody so obviously stupid has pretty much obliterated what little remaining faith in humanity we had. If you need us we’ll be weeping in the corner.

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But we’re sorry to say that it won’t be happening any more. Michael Jackson was due to show up at the High Court today to argue his case in the big ‘a sheikh gave Michael Jackson millions of dollars to sing his songs and Michael Jackson couldn’t be bothered so he’s being sued’ lawsuit. But now he won’t because, shame of shames, a settlement has been reached.

Now, we’re not exactly sure what this settlement involves, but one thing’s for sure – it had better involve Michael Jackson singing those songs that the sheikh wrote. If we have to go one more year without hearing future classics like That’s What Siddiqui Are For and Yummy Yummy Yummy I’ve Got Labaneh In My Tummy then we just don’t know what we’ll do.

We’ll make this very clear – if any wealthy Arab sheikhs want to give us $7 million to write an autobiography, release an album and produce a stage play, we’ll do it. Seriously, we’ll do it. In fact for $7 million we’d record an album entitled Everyone Who Has Ever Written For Hecklerspray Is Riddled With STDs, produce a stage play that grossly besmirches the character of our own parents and write an autobiography in which we confess to over 45 unsolved murders. Just so you know. We would.

But Michael Jackson probably wouldn’t. In fact, if you listen to Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad al-Khalifa of Bahrain, you’d think that Michael Jackson would take the money without doing any of those things. That’s essentially the reason why the sheikh is suing Michael Jackson, and it was supposed to be the reason why Michael Jackson was due at the High Court later today to testify his side of the dispute, which is apparently just that the sheikh gave him all that money because he quite liked The Wiz. Or something.

But that won’t be happening any more. According to reports, Michael Jackson has cancelled his visit to London because he’s reached a settlement with the sheikh. Reuters reports:

“As Mr. Jackson was about to board his plane to London, he was advised by his legal team to postpone his travels since the parties had concluded a settlement in principle,” a London spokeswoman for Jackson said on Sunday. “Therefore, he will not be attending court on Monday,” said the spokeswoman from PR company Outside Organization.

Michael Jackson’s settlement will come as a profound disappointment to the people of London. After all, it’s not every day that they get to see a gaunt, confusingly androgynous zombie-like figure with seemingly no sense of self-awareness and a horrifically alien face drifting through their streets. Well, unless you count Trinny out of Trinny and Susannah, in which case it is every day that they see that.

The settlement also means that some of the biggest questions surrounding the lawsuit will now go forever unanswered. For instance, did Michael Jackson really believe that the $7 million was a gift? Did he ever intend to honour the alleged contract? And why on earth did Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad al-Khalifa think it’d be a good idea to spend millions of dollars on a new album by a frail, creepy, squeaking middle-aged man who hasn’t had a number one record for 13 years partly because everyone used to think he was a child molester?

Honestly, that last one has us stumped.

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And it’s all thanks to that sheik’s lawsuit that threatens to push Michael Jackson into permanent financial ruin. According to reports, Michael Jackson will fly to London next week to give his testimony in the case that literally everyone’s calling ‘about the millionth Michael Jackson lawsuit of the last couple of years, and certainly one of the most dreary’.

But you know what this means? This means that if Michael Jackson’s going to court then the old Michael Jackson lookalike used in the TV coverage of his child molestation trial will get some work that doesn’t involve starring in adverts about the dangers of being hit in the face with a firework or being a scarecrow for once! This must be the happiest day of that particular Michael Jackson impersonator’s life.

Michael Jackson has a special history with London. It’s London that usually gets chosen as the venue for Michael Jackson’s eternally-delayed comeback concert even though not a single person on the planet believes it’ll ever happen.

It was London where Michael Jackson gave his now iconic ‘three lines of We Are The World and a sharp exit‘ performance of 2006. And, most fondly of all, it was London where Michael Jackson was allegedly caught jumping around on a hotel bed dressed as Mickey Mouse accompanied by several children in Peter Pan costumes a few weeks after being acquitted of child molestation. Ah, the memories.

And now it’s been reported that Michael Jackson is due to return to London next week, although sadly for something that doesn’t conjure up as many bone-chilling mental images – his lawsuit.

Remember Sheikh Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the man suing Michael Jackson because he apparently gave Michael Jackson millions of dollars and let him live in his house on the proviso that they made an album together? Well, he’s called Michael Jackson to court to defend himself, as Reuters reports:

Singer Michael Jackson plans to testify next week in a British court in a lawsuit brought against him by a Bahrain prince, Jackson’s lawyer said on Thursday. “Mister Jackson is intending to travel to this country…and will be available to give evidence to your lordship,” Jackson’s lawyer Robert Englehart told the British High Court in London. The singer is expected to take the witness stand on Monday.

Now, don’t get your hopes up. Michael Jackson has already tried to wriggle out of the court appearance once by claiming that he was too ill, and Monday is a long way off yet – in Michael Jackson’s world that’s enough time to catch six or seven new illnesses, to be hit with about 400 new lawsuits and for a large percentage of his face to slip away from his skull like a sort of gruesome melting icecap. His court appearance is nothing like a dead cert yet.

But Michael Jackson would be a fool not to come to London. Not only does the court need to hear his side of the argument – that he assumed everything the sheik lavished on him was a gift – but also, if he does lose the case and end up penniless, he’ll be nice and close to King’s Cross. And if he wants to rebuild his fortune anywhere, he’ll find that wanking off drunk businessmen in an alleyway for pennies is probably the best way to start.

Without them the rest of us would be quite helpless when trying to order a watch from a catalogue. Also mitten sales would plummet, and Palmolive would become just an ordinary dish soap.

Martha Stewart doesn’t care though. That’s why she allows the furniture she sells to cut off hand model fingers anytime it wants to. It happened recently you know – and not just to any ordinary hand model – he was a magician and a banjo player too.

Notice that’s all past tense – way past tense.

Patrick Albanese was a banjo playing hand-model magician who liked nothing more than to do things with his fingers. He’d use them to pick things up, he’d use them to put things down, and if our general suspicions are correct – he’d use them to cuff rabbits to the inside of very long and tall top hats.

One day, not too long ago, he was using them to pick up a piece of lawn furniture. He’d acquired said furniture from Martha Stewart’s Living Omnimedia company. Sure he did – he trusted her. He’d probably purchased her fine products before – and heaven knows he made the Quiche Lorraine from her Oct 2007 issue of Martha Stewart Living.

We made it too. We found it salty.

Anyway – Albanese picked up the lawn chair – and then the unthinkable happened. the AP says:

“A hand model, magician and actor blames a Martha Stewart-branded lounge chair for snipping off a bit of his livelihood. In a lawsuit filed Monday against Kmart Corp. and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Patrick Albanese said he was moving the Martha Stewart Everyday lounge chair on a deck in June when the front tubular legs collapsed, crushing his right index finger between one of the chair legs and a tubular bar on the base of the chair. The lawsuit said the fingertip fell beneath the deck but was later retrieved by a relative. Albanese’s attorney, Guy Cook, said the finger tip was reattached by a surgeon.”

All we can say is too bad Tyra’s transgender friend didn’t know about a chair like this. He/she could have been in the right body years ago.

The whole thing’s got us worried though – what’s a hand model to do once his finger-laced appendages become scarred and hideous? Sure, he could probably model snow boots or something but that’s never been lucrative.

That’s not to say they could never be lucrative. Snow boots are a fine product, the world’s just nort ready for winter-time dry socks yet. Not on a major scale its not.

And we don’t know about you, but that’s a smell we’d love to imitate – that way people might think we’re a tiny androgynous control freak with no real sense of quality control, too. Oh, why can’t Prince ever get around to creating his own perfume? Why?

What’s that? Prince did create his own perfume last year? But it didn’t really sell because Prince refused to promote it? And now the makers of the perfume are suing Prince because they’re unhappy with his lack of cooperation? Oh. You do realise that we were only joking back there, don’t you? We don’t really want to smell like Prince. That’d be quite creepy. Who’d want to do that?

Prince, as we all know, is a creative polymath. He can sing, he can dance, he’s one of the best guitar players on Earth, he can make good films, he can make really shit films, he can make hit singles, he can make album after album of suffocatingly indulgent wank that’d even test the patience of his biggest fans, he can even eat vegetables convincingly. There is nothing that Prince can’t do.

Except sell perfume. Prince quite clearly can’t sell perfume.

Although the celebrity perfume market is already uncomfortably full – with people being able to smell like anyone from Kerry Katona to Sarah Jessica Parker to Paris Hilton provided they’ve a) got more money than sense and b) taken quite a sharp blow to the head – in 2006 some bright spark at perfume company Revelations decided that what the world really needed was a scent based on the world’s smallest, creepiest, most polarising 1980s hasbeen. And, since Mick Hucknall couldn’t be contacted in time, they decided to make a Prince perfume instead.

It was all set – the perfume was made, a suitably wonky-looking bottle was created, it was given the name 3121 after Prince’s current account PIN number – and then Revelations made their first mistake. They expected that Prince would help out with the marketing.

Now Revelations is claiming that Prince didn’t do any of this, and that’s why he’s being sued for $100,000 in a breach of contract lawsuit, as Reuters reports:

“Since July 2007, despite repeated attempts by Revelations there have been virtually no communications from anyone who could commit to or coordinate any promotional efforts by Prince,” the breach of contract lawsuit said.

If these claims hold any truth, it’s not particularly surprising. Prince is a law unto himself and whatever he wants to do – like partially demolishing some rented accommodation or demanding that all YouTube videos featuring babies dancing to songs are removed or doing a greatest hits concert and then playing a titting Foo Fighters song instead of, say, Raspberry Beret – then that’s just what he’ll do.

However, we get the feeling that even if Prince had decided to dedicate his entire life to promoting the 3121 perfume, it still wouldn’t have been a success. After all, everyone knows that anything baring Prince’s name that was created after 1988 smells like a dead dog’s arse, right?

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But at other times Michael Jackson falls out with people because he goes to live with them and then doesn’t pay his way. That’s the case with Sheikh Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa of Bahrain, who’s suing Michael Jackson for taking an advance on a recording contract and not seeing it through, amongst other things.

Apparently Sheikh Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa paid Michael Jackson a $7 million advance for his participation in a joint recording project that never happened. Some observers are claiming that this lawsuit could spell financial ruin for Michael Jackson. However, given that the alternative is the release of an album of duets by Michael Jackson and a rapping sheikh, that’s something we’d be absolutely happy to live with.

If we were Michael Jackson, this week would be the worst week of our lives. Just a few days ago Michael Jackson lost his beloved Neverland ranch and now he’s being sued by a vengeful sheikh for millions of dollars. That’s a double combo of misery that not many could take.

However – simply because no children have accused him of wanking them off and no large chunks of his face have plopped off into his soup during dinner – this actually counts as a fairly decent week for Michael Jackson. Oh Michael Jackson, you’re such a glass half full kinda guy.

But, anyway, that doesn’t detract from the fact that Michael Jackson is being sued by Sheikh Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa of Bahrain. Remember Sheikh Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa? Of course you do – he’s the man who Michael Jackson hightailed it to after he was acquitted of child molestation. He put Michael Jackson up in Bahrain while Jackson decided to make his comeback by recording an album with the sheikh.

Somewhat predictably, the deal fell through a few months later and Michael Jackson hightailed it out of Bahrain just as fast as he’d gone there. Which would be fine, except that Sheikh Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa says he paid Michael Jackson $7 million for the album, and he’s suing Jackson to get it back. AP reports:

Al Khalifa wanted to work with Jackson on rebuilding his career. To that end, the sheikh spent millions paying Jackson’s legal fees, moving him to Bahrain and supporting Jackson, his family and entourage. The expenses included $350,000 for a European vacation for Jackson and his associates. “The cost even included the expenses of bringing out Mr. Jackson’s hairdresser. It’s not a conventional commercial dispute.”

Now, this isn’t the first time that Michael Jackson has been sued before, and we think we know the deal here – Michael Jackson will stall for as long as he can and then an arrangement will be made that involves about 15 oddly-named umbrella finance firms which are all subsidiaries of one another who’ll shunt Michael Jackson’s debt around with such confusing frequency that it’d even make Carol Vorderman lose all semblance of bowel control.

Or Michael Jackson could win the lawsuit, which could happen. Or, worst case scenario, Michael Jackson could agree to pay the $7 million outright. And that’s a lot of handshakes.

Really, though, we’re just disappointed that Michael Jackson didn’t make the album he’s accused of bailing on. After all, who wouldn’t want to hear the fruits of a recording session between Michael Jackson and an obscenely wealthy Middle Eastern sheikh who fancies himself as a bit of an amateur songwriter and performer?

But sadly it didn’t happen, and so we’re left with only dreams of what could have been. Those dreams, incidentally, include the release of the following songs:

Hippy Hippy Sheikh

Sheikh Down

Sheikh A Leg

Sheikh Your Groove Thing

Sheikh That Ass

Sheikh Appeal

Chicken Sheikh

Sheikh Dog Sheikh

Boom! Sheikh The Room

OK, we’re just going to go and kill ourselves now.

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Because, seriously, if Suge Knight ever comes round your house and suddenly loses one of his earrings, you’re very possibly going to get sued. Of course, it’ll help if the loss of the earring is directly preceded by an armed stranger bursting into your house and shooting Suge Knight in the leg, but mainly it’s about the earring thing.

So you wouldn’t want to be Kanye West, because he’s the man who Suge Knight is suing for the earring loss and the shooting. And Suge Knight means business, too – once he’s done suing Kanye West he’s going to punch Busta Rhymes in the face for losing one of his anklets and then twist one of Diddy’s nipples as hard as he can until Diddy promises give back his missing cockring.

There was a time when Suge Knight ruled the world of hip-hop. Not any more, though – thanks to a variety of prison sentences and dubious business moves, Suge Knight has fallen in status to the point where he’s more or less just the fat man who looks funny when he runs for the bus.

That’s not to say that Suge is going to slip away into peaceful anonymity just yet, though – whenever his profile dips beyond a certain point he’ll bound back into the limelight by losing his record label or allegedly driving around in his car with his pockets stuffed with Ecstasy, alternately punching his girlfriend in the head and threatening her with a knife. Which, ironically, is similar to how Jesus plans to make his comeback, too.

And now Suge Knight has decided to make sure that everyone remembers him by suing Kanye West because, at a party hosted by Kanye West three years ago, Suge Knight got shot in the leg and lost one of his earrings. It’s a smart move, because it means that everyone will remember him – specifically what a lumbering, money-chasing slapheaded Uncle Albert berk he’s always been. The LA Times reports:

According to the lawsuit, Knight claims needed recompense from West for medical bills, transport and “damages for the loss of use and enjoyment” of a 15-carat diamond stud earring as a result of the attack. (The lawsuit also claims that the aforementioned earring is valued at $135,000.)

Read that again. $135,000 for an earring. That’s absurd. Think of all the other things that Suge Knight could have done with that money, like reinforcing all of his chairs with concrete or buying enough snacks to last him for about 45 minutes. And he spent it on an earring. No wonder people want to shoot him.

Kanye West has yet to comment on the lawsuit – possibly because he’s still stunned that he’s being sued because a man lost his earring in a shooting that took place in a room he happened to be hiring three years ago – but we’re sure he’s not phased by this. After all, Kanye West is a successful man, so he must be used to getting sued like this.

It’s just a shame that this has gone directly to litigation, because we’d rather have seen Suge Knight and Kanye West settle this like real men – in a boxing ring. True, Suge Knight might be roughly the size and weight of a bear, but there’s no competing against the fierce combat skills that Kanye West has. It’d be a bloodbath.

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The next time he was in court was for a space-camp lawsuit, and the time after that it was because Catwoman smacked him really hard with a bull-whip once. It was in the middle of a battle. The judge sided with the lady, possibly because she was all leathered-up.

But as anybody who has ever sued judicially knows, three lawsuits are never enough. That’s why Batman is currently sticking it to Christopher Nolan for getting all up in his business and ruining the awesome life he once had. Wait – did we say ‘..he once had’? Because we meant to say ‘..it once had.’ The Batman in this case is some crappy city in Turkey.

There was a time not so long ago that in the city of Batman, Turkey, a guy could really be a guy. You could walk down the street with half a pig slung over your shoulder, chewing chunks off it whenever you’d see fit. And the best part was – nobody would even say anything – because they were all publicly chomping half-pig too.

Then Christopher Nolan decided to destroy a good thing. He swooped in with his stupid Batman movies and turned Batman movies into such a tourist hot-spot that the city council soon ruled people could only indulge in their dead swine behind closed doors, or in their backyards.

Well the city’s good mayor doesn’t like this one bit – and he plans to personally take Christopher Nolan to task over this. Here’s part of the story straight off of a Turkish news website called Hurriyet.com:

“The royalty of the name ‘Batman’ belongs to us … There is only one Batman in the world. The American producers used the name of our city without informing us,” Kalkan told to the Doğan news agency. Batman is a centuries old city, taking root in the Neolithic age but becoming significant when oil was found in the region at the end of 1940s. Almost a decade before that, Batman was created as a comic hero. Kalkan is going to sue Christopher Nolan, the director of the latest Batman movie “The Dark Night,” not DC Comics, the creator of the superhero.

It’s unknown whether the Mayor will sue in the American court system, or perhaps more locally from the big green barn located at the intersection of Main St & First South there in Batman’s financial district.

The only thing known for absolute certain is that Nolan will probably lose, and perhaps as lawsuit-payment the city will just want a production credit strong enough to make a noticeable difference in Batman 3. Like maybe Gotham could be  a suburb of Turkish Batman. Also maybe the superhero could use his numerous resources to wreak vengeance on the unholy Kurds that clog the world’s sewers with their inferior religious belief system.

Also maybe they could work Phillip Seymour Hoffman into the script. Yes, that would all blend quite nicely.

Or it’s because Keanu Reeves is quite private and stuff. One or the other. But photographer Alison Silva probably thinks it’s the first one, because he’s suing Keanu Reeves for allegedly hitting him with his car last year, causing career-threatening injuries to his wrist which, coupled with the fact that he’s got a girl’s name, must have really ticked him off.

But yesterday Keanu Reeves showed up in court to spread some of the trademark Keanu Reeves moviestar razzle dazzle around and convince everyone otherwise. Sadly, the Keanu Reeves version of razzle dazzle involves standing around looking blank-faced and a bit confused and occasionally saying “woah.” We aren’t anticipating a good outcome for him.

There’s a deeply complex relationship between celebrities and the paparazzi. On the one hand the paparazzi financially gain from essentially endorsing the lumbering self-worth of the celebrities they follow and the result in beneficial to everyone. But on the other hand, sometimes Pierce Brosnan will thump a photographer in a car park.

It’s not just Pierce Brosnan, though – every now and again Kanye West will get angry and shove some photographers around too, or maybe Matthew McConaughey will get his surfer mates to rough them up a bit. Or, you know, Keanu Reeves could run them over or something.

Or not, because there’s a chance that Keanu Reeves doesn’t run photographers over. But that hasn’t stopped paparazzo Alison Silva from claiming that he did. Last March it was reported that Keanu Reeves bumped into Silva with his Porsche, and now Silva has sued Keanu for all the injuries and whatnot he gained from slowly falling to the floor in front of a barely-moving vehicle.

The upside of this is that Keanu Reeves got to go to court yesterday to refute Alison Silva’s claims, and it was a rare chance to see Keanu Reeves saying some words that he’d thought up himself, and that therefore didn’t obviously confuse him the instant they came out of his mouth. E! Online reports:

Under cross-examination, Silva’s lawyer, Joseph Farzam, tried to nail down the Matrix man on whether he really made an effort to avoid hitting Silva, asking Reeves if he used his horn or hand signals to get Silva to move. “He was in front of a starting car,” Reeves replied. “It’s common sense to me.”

Keanu’s argument seems to be that Alison Silva was walking backwards while trying to take pictures when he tripped and fell of his own accord. It might have happened. It might not have happened. Frankly that’s not for us to decide – and a good job too, because if it was then we’d probably try sawing our own legs off as a protest to the futility of our own lives.

But we hope that Keanu Reeves is telling the truth. Not because we trust and respect him as an actor and as a human being, but because we’re scared that if he loses this lawsuit he’ll make another Matrix film to recoup his lost money. Because, if the quality pattern of Matrix movies holds, The Matrix 4 will be so bad that watching it will feel like you’re being slapped with the guts of an infected Ebola monkey. So fingers crossed that doesn’t happen.

But, anyway, David Duchovny has feelings, and those feelings are easily hurt. For example, why do you think that David Duchovny hasn’t directed a movie since 2004’s House Of D? Because that movie was so hamfisted and borderline offensive that nobody dares let him behind a camera again? No, it’s because the critical reaction hurt his feelings. Probably.

Something else that hurts David Duchovny’s feelings is when people say he’s been having sex with people he hasn’t been having sex with. So when The Daily Mail claimed that David Duchovny had a full-blown sexual affair with his tennis coach, his feelings were hurt immeasurably. You couldn’t put a price on how hurt David Duchovny was. But if you had to, it’d be $1 million. And David wants that money now. Now. No, really. Now.

When it comes to David Duchovny, there are certain things that you can and can’t say about him. For instance, you can say that X-Files: I Want To Believe was such a disappointment that you’d be happy if he never worked again, or that his TV show Californication is so bad, largely because of his own doughy face, that just thinking of the word ‘Californication’ makes you want to pull your jaw out and smash it into your eyes now.

You can even say that – as a self-confessed sex addict – it seems as though David Duchovny is just a big greedy child who lacks the basic self-control to respect his wife, whether it’s by having sex with other women or just hammering his sweaty little mushroom into a stump in front of the internet until his lap ends up looking like like a large and unusually hairy glazed Krispy Kreme doughnut. We’re pretty sure you can say that.

But what you can’t say is that David Duchovny had an affair with his tennis coach Edit Pakay. The Daily Mail said that earlier this week, and now David Duchovny’s suing it for a million dollars. Fox News reports:

Duchovny filed a lawsuit in the Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday for defamation and invasion of privacy against The Daily Mail, seeking no less than $1 million in damages. On October 18 the well-known tabloid claimed that the “Californication” star was having a “full-blown sexual affair” with his tennis teacher Edit Pakey and that he had planned to leave his wife of 11 years to be with her.

Because David Duchovny apparently wasn’t having an affair with his tennis coach – who incidentally, it’s claimed, wasn’t even his tennis coach – the report caused him ’substantial harm’. A million dollars’ worth of harm, in fact.

For what it’s worth, we haven’t had sex with any tennis instructors recently either, so if there are any newspapers that would like to pay us a million dollars for that as well, we’d appreciate that. Just so everyone knows.

Really interesting, too – there wasn’t any of this ‘occasional blogging about her implied lesbianism’ malarkey going on back then. Because, back then, Lindsay Lohan could hardly go a day without getting hammered on one substance or another and driving around all over the place like a cackling bug-eyed lunatic until she was arrested. It was fun.

But if you can’t remember that, you soon will – because some peripheral characters from one of these bug-eyed driving encounters have decided to sue Lindsay Lohan for causing them ’surprise, shock, fear and panic’. Well, hey, we’ve seen the trailer for I Know Who Killed Me – and if fear and panic are legitimate reasons for suing Lindsay Lohan, then we’ll just go and put a downpayment on that hillside mansion right now.

What exactly is Lindsay Lohan famous for these days? It’s certainly not being an actress. Is it occasionally holding a boyish girl’s hand? Her thundering political wisdom? Whatever it is, it’s rubbish.

The new Lindsay Lohan isn’t a patch on the constantly-shitfaced troublemaker that was the old Lindsay Lohan. In fact, thanks to Living Lohan and her dad’s reaction to it, it’s safe to say that Lindsay Lohan isn’t even in the top three most objectionable people in the Lohan family any more. True, it’s quite a hard family to crack – Mugabe would be hard-pressed to make the top five – but, come on, this is Lindsay Lohan we’re talking about. We expect more.

But, since Lindsay Lohan seems determined to continue down this dreary path towards cable-subscription erotic thriller career oblivion, Lindsay Lohan’s past has no option but to come back to take the slack a bit. How does it plan to do that? Only by cajoling some guest-stars in one of history’s most iconic Lohan meltdown moments to rear up and hit Lindsay Lohan with a gigantic lawsuit, that’s how.

Remember the last time that Lindsay Lohan was arrested for DUI? When she jumped into a car with her pockets full of cocaine, told the passengers “I’m a celebrity, I can do whatever the fuck I want” and chased a car full of terrified women around town until the police were called? Well, even though that happened over a year ago, those passengers have decided to sue Lindsay Lohan for it. E! Online reports:

“As it became clear what Lohan intended, the startled and fearful passengers cried for their lives,” the suit states… [plaintiffs] Blake, Sutter and Nigre are seeking at least $50,000 in damages to cover negligence, assault, battery, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, conversion, trespass and slander.

This isn’t the first time the passengers have tried to sue Lindsay Lohan – there was talk of a lawsuit right after the arrest – but this time it looks as though they mean business. Or at least they would if Lindsay Lohan’s lawyers were taking it seriously. This is genuinely what lawyer Ed McPherson said in response to the lawsuit:

“If this was truly the ‘worst night’ of their summer, and not their best night, one has to wonder why they didn’t just get out of the car during the many opportunities they had to do so.”

Wow. Maybe he’s right, though. Maybe being driven around at terrifying speeds by a shitfaced Lindsay Lohan really did constitute the best night of those passengers’ summer. You can’t help feeling, though, that if that was true, those boys must have had a really shitty summer.

What was their second best night? The night that one of them had their eyed pected out by a rabid owl? The night that one of them fell out of a helicopter into a skip full of dirty HIV needles? The night that they all went to see Georgia Rule at the cinema?

No, we’ve gone too far.

Back in the old days Lil’ Kim could usually be relied on to cause a ruckus by lying about shootings and getting sent to jail for it or whatnot but, now that she’s a little bit older, Lil’ Kim seems to have taken her eye off the balls. Sure, Lil’ Kim still gets in trouble, but only for not delivering albums she’s been paid to make.

As such, Lil’ Kim is being sued by her record label. Although a little lawsuit might not seem like much, it’s actually an indication of something far far worse than any of us could have ever imagined – there are a handful of people on earth who actually want to hear a new Lil’ Kim album. We’re scared. Hold us.

Ever since she had a year in jail after being found guilty of conspiracy and perjury, Lil’ Kim has pretty much kept herself to herself. But don’t think that her legacy has diminished any – her music is still used by millions as a silky smooth lovemaking soundtrack. In fact, if we had a pound for every baby that was conceived to Lil’ Kim songs like Shut Up Bitch or Suck My Dick or Fuck You, then we’d have quite a hefty donation to give to that charity for children with really angry parents.

But just because she’s had a few years of downtime, it doesn’t mean that Lil’ Kim hasn’t been busy. She has. Lil’ Kim has been fantastically busy not doing stuff that she’s been paid to do, and that can take a lot out of a girl. Back in July Lil’ Kim was sued for failing to submit the manuscript for her autobiography that she’d been paid $40,000 to write.

And, while we don’t think we’ll ever get over not being able to read an autobiography by a woman we barely even remember exists most of the time, that’s not the end of Lil’ Kim’s problems. Apparently she’s also failed to finish an album she’s been given ages to make, as People reports:

In a lawsuit filed earlier this week, record label Brookland Media claims the Grammy-winner hasn’t delivered the tracks she promised after the company spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on recordings and equipment. The label also claims it spent $12,000 per month to rent a house near Lil’ Kim’s New Jersey home.

Hopefully this lawsuit can be worked out without it becoming too serious on either side. We expect that Lil’ Kim hasn’t finished the album because she’s just suffering from a touch of writer’s block at the moment.

After all, when you’ve had a career as long as Lil’ Kim’s, it has to be hard to think up new offensively blunt sexual song titles without repeating yourself. So, in our role as unofficial and unappointed Lil’ Kim lawsuit mediators, here’s a handful of song titles that Lil’ Kim is welcome to use for her new album:

* Queef In Ya Mouf

* Look At My Tits

* Pussy Like A Large Hadron Collider

* O Do B Kwyit

* I Like Sex

* Pot Noodle Clodge

* Give Me Your Dick, Actually Give It To Me, Saw It Off With A Hacksaw Now And Give It To Me Or You’ll Never See Your Family Again

* Acorn Of Bum

Recently a 15-second clip of Imagine was used in a weird creationist documentary by the man who played the teacher in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and it caused Yoko Ono to hit the roof. Yoko sued the makers of the movie for copyright infringement, but it looks like she’s been unsuccessful.

Yoko Ono has now dropped the lawsuit against the movie, presumably because the use of Imagine was covered under ‘fair use’ rules. So it looks like it’s one-nil to the creationists! You see, they’re always right! Apart from, you know, all their basic religious tenants and stuff! But still! Party time!

There’s just something about Imagine by John Lennon that has caused it to remain in the public consciousness for so long. Maybe it’s the fact that the lyrics seem to have been copied from a motivational fridge magnet, or the way that the piano sounds like it’s being played by a depressed man trying to gently headbutt himself into unconsciousness. We just don’t know.

But still, the song’s power to invoke a furore is still there – not so long ago a school banned Imagine in case the students all decided to gang up and, um, imagine they didn’t have any stuff. Or something. And now Imagine is back in the news, and it’s all the fault of the sodding creationists.

In a documentary called Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed from earlier this year – in which the actor Ben Stein asks why scientists aren’t allowed to believe that God magicked everything together a couple of hundred years ago anymore – a 15-second clip of Imagine was used.

This made Yoko Ono flip out. She hit Premise Media – the makers of the movie – with a copyright infringement lawsuit as hard as she could, either because she didn’t agree with the principles of the film the song was used in or because someone didn’t offer her a wheelbarrow full of cash for a song that she didn’t even write anyway first. Again, we just don’t know.

But, whatever the reason, Yoko Ono has decided to drop the lawsuit anyway, probably in the spirit of peace or something. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Executives at Premise Media Corp. acknowledged all along that they didn’t seek permission to use the song. But they argued that under “fair use” rules, they didn’t need to, since the film used only a brief portion of the song, to comment on. Anthony Falzone, a Stanford law professor who represents Premise, said he welcomed the plaintiffs’ decision to drop their lawsuits.

Sadly, though, this decision has come slightly to late for Expelled, because Premise were forced to drop Imagine from the DVD version in case the lawsuit went Yoko Ono’s way. So anyone buying a copy of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed won’t hear Imagine by John Lennon any more. It’s been replaced by the next-best alternative – Fuck You Like An Animal by W.A.S.P.

Actually, Premise may as well have left Imagine in, because nobody’s going to actually buy Expelled on DVD anyway – evolutionists will find the subject matter too offensive to invest in, and creationists all believe that using money to buy things is essentially witchcraft, a crime punishable by drowning.

That’s why most of the films released these days are either remakes, adaptations, sequels or big honking primary-coloured idiot trumpets starring Adam Sandler called Duh: My Is Yes LOL. But at least we can all say that the Shia LaBeouf movie Disturbia is completely original and pioneering and one of a kind. Even though it’s sort of identical to Rear Window.

That’s something the estate of the man who owns the rights to Rear Window seem to have just figured out, because they’re suing Disturbia producer Steven Spielberg over all the similarities to their story. But it’s obvious that Disturbia and Rear Window are completely different movies – Rear Window didn’t want to make us punch ourselves unconscious, for example.

The movie industry thrives on remakes. That’s why the box office chart this weeks features a remake of Bangkok Dangerous, a remake of Death Race 2000, a remake of the musical Mamma Mia, a remake of Journey To The Centre Of The Earth, a remake of Brideshead Revisited and Meet Dave, a remake of every single bad film Eddie Murphy’s ever been in.

Usually nobody has a problem with Hollywood’s self-cannibalisation – everyone makes money, so everyone’s happy – but when films start allegedly remaking other films without acknowledging the remake, that’s where the trouble starts.

And that’s what has happened between the owners of the Rear Window rights and Disturbia, a film that – even to our sludgy brains – couldn’t really hide its resemblance to Rear Window. And that’s why Disturbia’s producer Steven Spielberg has just been sued by the estate of the man who owns the Rear Window rights, as E! Online reports:

With a $20 million budget, Disturbia was considered a modest hit last year, taking in $80.2 million at the U.S. box office. None of which was shared with the estate of the late Sheldon Abend, who bought the rights to Cornell Woolrich’s 1942 story It Had to Be Murder after the author died in 1968, according to the lawsuit.

It’s an interesting case, because both Shia LaBeouf and director DJ Caruso both cited Rear Window during the promotion of Disturbia, although both pointed out that they were both their own films. Which is sort of true, in a way. Here’s our comparison:

REAR WINDOW

* About a man trapped in his house due to injury.

* While trapped, the man spies on his neighbours, including a pretty girl.

* He sees a murder through some binoculars.

* He sends his girlfriend out to help catch the murderer.

* It starred Jimmy Stewart and is one of the most famous films ever made.

DISTURBIA

* About a man trapped in his house due to house arrest

* While trapped, the man spies on his neighbours, including a pretty girl.

* He sees some murders through some binoculars.

* He sends his girlfriend out to help catch the murderer.

* It starred Shia LaBeouf and was so bad it made us want to cry and commit hate crimes against animals.

Does that warrant a lawsuit? It’s not for us to say. However, Shia LaBeouf is probably praying that the Rear Window people win their case, because if they do it’ll open up all his other movies to the same sort of action.

For instance, you could say that – judging by the trailer – his new movie Eagle Eye seems fairly similar to the first season of 24, or that Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull plagiarised the first three Indiana Jones movies.

And, what’s more, our lawyers are already putting together a watertight case around the fact that Transformers is a direct shot-for-shot rip-off of a noisy, brightly-coloured, totally formless nightmare we had after eating four kilos of Haribo when we were seven. See you in court, Shia.