What do we know about The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus? Oh, plenty.

We know that Terry Gilliam directed it, for instance. And we know that it’s Heath Ledger’s final film. And that it’s released on October 16. And that it also stars that big-faced girl from the Marks And Spencers advert. And – oh! – we’ve got two tickets to give away to the London premiere of The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus next month!

If you can get to London on October 6, have a friend and enjoy probably being fairly close to Johnny Depp, then you’re strongly advised to read on…

To win a pair of these staggeringly good The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus premiere tickets, all you need to do is watch the film’s trailer below and answer a simple question:

QUESTION: What, exactly, did you just see?

To stand a chance of winning, email your answer and a contact address to Hello[at]hecklerspray.com with the subject line ‘I genuinely haven’t got a freaking clue‘. The competition closes at midnight on September 28 when the winner will be chosen at random. UK readers only please.

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this year I was awake and watched oscar it went to really late but that’s’ okay because I can write it. in other years oscar awards are suprising and make you all llike **ohohoh**but this year was I thought it was would be different so when I start to watch it and suddly its’ all like “oh this award will be given to a film about some milk and this one award will be go to Sumdog millonair and this one and these one two OMGSUFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1””” even through I stayed upawake until so late I never saw an award to Pal Blart Mall Police which if your askin me which I will was the best one of this year

Wow how sweat was Mikey Rooks’ walk into the red carpet which was him with a photo of a deadog **cutecutecute**Ryan Seascrest was their on the red carpet too which pernally I think it is amazing because he is **AWSOME!!**! ON aMerican Idol where I love him on that and I truly think he would be very nice to meet in a person but he just willn’t answer my letters and em-ails and poems and things and sing lyrics to but he never does **unhappyunhpapyunhappy**. but wear was Stuart heritage he wasn,t their haven,t they not seen his film of him walking in the red carpet with cebrities in london????

But Iv’e got to be honest and say that the true on my mind which is that Jennnfer Annston was totlly OWNED!!!!!!!!! BY ANgelina Jolly and Bradley which is the hottest movies stars everrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

I am based but this two are the best and none no one of you baytch fans of others can tell me other ways so here!if I was angelina jolly at oscar I would of robbed all my little african babies in her faces and said “”take that”

On fashon news I really liked the those dresses that where worn by the follow people Beyonce,ViolDavies and that one was in there film about people I think it may be was melissa tommy not Tillda Swindon????but anyway it was unbeefable and I think it was the best

I follwed oscar on the twits too as well as also the telly and probly the best twits is this one from he is called oscartwitterr79 he says My” God Angelina looks absolutley fantastic, Stacey and Clinton would lurve this! Amazing!!” but the won I don,t know what it means is this one coming from “vegashotelsbaby which” says “Angelina Jolie Brad Pitt Oscars Red Carpet 2009 Check Out Our Hot Deals On Strip Hotel Rooms 1-800-249-3305”””

Where was NCOBT last night because they were’nt at oscar then (last night) How should Iknow do I look like there gatekeper of somethin?!?!?1?!actually I do know wear they where and that is (was)…………………………

**drummerdrummerdrummer**………………………………………………

not at oscar!!!!!!!!!!!!put that in your face and smoke it loosers

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But it’s more than that, you know – SAG also holds an incredibly important awards ceremony each year, too. The SAG awards help to dictate the Oscar winners each year, by basically copying the Golden Globes and then standing around hoping that nobody notices. Which, so far, they haven’t.

And, as such, the big winner at last night’s SAG awards was Slumdog Millionaire, which not only won Best Picture, but also Best First Half Of A Movie and Drippiest Ending.

You’d think that SAG had better things to do than hold awards shows at the moment, wouldn’t you? The union is currently poised on the verge of a civil war over a potential strike that could lead to the unthinkable – that’s right, a slightly longer wait than usual to see films that you weren’t even bothered to see in the first place. It’s literally a nightmare.

But still, last night’s SAG awards gave the acting community a rare day off from the stresses of its strike impasse to do the one thing that it does better than anyone else – throw on some nice clothes and crow on forever about how brilliant and important it is.

And, make no mistake, the SAG awards are important – they’re a heavy indicator to the results of the Oscars, along with only three or four thousand other smug, attention-seeking movie awards shows that tend to take place at this time of year. So with this in mind, who came out on top at last night’s SAG awards?

Well, we’ll start by dismissing the Best Actor and Best Actress awards, because they were won by Sean Penn and Meryl Streep – both such icons of the acting community that they probably still would have won had they starred in that air freshener commercial about the boy who gets offended at how much his poo stinks.

The Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress SAG awards were also pretty much an inevitability – Heath Ledger won his for The Dark Knight while Kate Winslet won hers for Nazi Girls Gone Wild, or whatever that film of hers is called.

And, really, that just left Best Picture. And we’re going to dismiss that as well, because Slumdog Millionaire win it and it’s already won all kinds of other awards, plus the ending’s a bit wet and we can’t help shaking the feeling that people only give it awards so that they can gloat about their own diverse tastes in movies afterwards because of all the brown people that are in it.

So that’s it, really. The SAG awards were a bit of a washout, with awards either going to established awards favourites or the usual cast of Serious And Respected Actors. And nobody even took the time to indulge in the most SAG-y pasttime of all – literally comparing themselves to God. Did they, Variety?

“I don’t mean to embarrass anybody by comparing the actor to God, but once we’ve taken the role, we have a similar responsibility to breathe life into that role, and only the actor can do that.”

Thank you, James Earl Jones. You had us worried there for a minute.

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The resulting loss meant that an actor with outstanding potential couldn’t use his performance in The Dark Knight as a benchmark to elevate his career.

Ever since then, plenty of people have however decided to jump on the Heath Ledger bandwagon and literally mourned at the poor guy’s feet. Yes we did refer to him as that bummer cowboy, but so what? We had a vague idea of his previous career before his death unlike most people. Still, news continues to leak out about his apparent depressive nature even before The Dark Knight was filmed. Hold on tight for the most pointless thing you’ll read all day.

As soon as it was sadly announced that Heath Ledger had died, plenty of people decided that The Dark Knight came out, it would be deserving for him to win an Oscar in 2009. Consequently, plenty of people have launched pointless Facebook groups to try and make this happen.

But would this have happened if he had been alive and well? Probably not, we think, as we don’t see anyone screaming out for Slumdog Millionaire’s director Danny Boyle to grab his first Oscar for his recent effort. Probably because he’s alive and well and still making films.

The Golden Globes did see Heath clinch an award, which is all good and well, but with Oscar season coming round will he get an award based on performance, or the good old sympathy vote? Because The Golden Globes did so shit in the TV ratings, it would make sense to give him the award to make the network happy for the Oscars, but then again we don’t know how the bigwigs of the TV world think.

Despite passing away in 2008, we are now getting some stories from all the way back in  2005 about the poor guy. Are people that obsessed with the dead? It seems so as the producer of gay cowboy flick Brokeback Mountain has strangely decided to let us know how Heath was feeling during the film.

Do we care? No not particularly as it was during a time when he was just another actor amongst the thousands of people trying to make a name for themselves. Luckily for him, his pansy antics got everyone in Hollywood excited. However, it seems he wasn’t the happiest of bunnies back then when the film was being made. They say that Heath felt:

“Alone and isolated. I think it was his sense of not getting the kind of warm support.”

There you go. He felt a bit lonely and needed a friend. Will we be seeing multiple chain emails and Facebook groups started up now that this fact has been blown wide open to our attention?

Probably not, although maybe it’s true what they say about dying and becoming more famous afterwards as more people babble on about your legacy.

Or as in the case of Heath Ledger, film fans who want to look like they supported him from the very beginning of his shitastic debut in Clowning Around.

Go on, think about it…

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But last night’s Golden Globes had an unavoidably sad shadow looming over them. Was this because it was the first major awards show to honour the late Heath Ledger’s role in The Dark Knight by giving him the award for Best Supporting Actor? In part, yes.

But mainly it’s because Mickey Rourke decided to use his Golden Globes acceptance speech to eulogise some of his dead pets. And because Rumer Willis‘ face gives us the creeps.

There was a time when the Golden Globes only really existed as an excuse for Jack Nicholson to turn up, listen to four jokes about himself, laugh loudly and then presumably get drunk enough to knock stuff over afterwards. But over the last couple of years, the Golden Globes have become a much gloomier affair.

Last year this was because the Golden Globes coincided with the writers’ strike, which meant that – if memory serves correct – it was conducted within the space of ten minutes from a pasting table set-up in the car park of the Bognor Regis branch of Matalan.

This year, though, the Golden Globes were gloomy because of the unavoidable fact that one of the year’s most effervescent screen performances was given by a dead man. That’s right, we’re talking about Kate Winslet and her role in Revolutionary Road.

Oh, and Heath Ledger too. Although his posthumous Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor for his role as The Joker in The Dark Knight had always been a given thanks to both his remarkable performance and his untimely death, whether or not he’d actually win any of the awards was a different matter.

But, as the New York Daily News reports, last night he did – and his director Christopher Nolan was there to collect the award:

The announcement of Ledger’s name by presenter Demi Moore was met with a standing ovation by the crowd, followed by “Dark Knight” director Christopher Nolan’s short but moving speech. “I accept this with an awful mixture of sadness and intense pride,” said Nolan, adding that Ledgers’ death a year ago at age 28 meant “a hole had been ripped in the future of cinema.”

Elsewhere, Golden Globes were won by Mickey Rourke – who did his weird dog-dedicating thing – along with the miniseries John Adams, 30 Rock, Slumdog Millionaire and the well-deserved double Golden Globes win by Kate Winslet for her turns in The Reader and Revolutionary Road. We say well-deserved, but obviously we’re talking about us, because hopefully this means we won’t have to listen to her bleating on about how she never wins anything any more. And that’d be a relief, frankly.

However, last night’s Golden Globes belonged to one person, and that’s Heath Ledger. It’s just a shame he wasn’t around to see it.

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But Michelle Williams has probably the most genuine reason for missing Heath Ledger – not only was she engaged to him, but she also gave birth to his daughter. And because of this, it’s apparent that Michelle Williams is still having trouble coming to terms with Heath Ledger’s death.

In a recent interview with Newsweek, Michelle Williams broke down upon hearing Heath Ledger’s name, telling her interviewer that her grief is only getting worse over time. Warning: the following probably isn’t going to have too many jokes in it…

We’re all going to be hearing a lot more about Heath Ledger in the coming weeks and months. He may have died early this year after accidentally overdosing on prescription medication, but thanks to his turn as The Joker in The Dark Knight, Heath Ledger is going to be all over the place in the run-up to the Oscars.

Variety is already running ‘for your consideration’ adverts mostly of Heath Ledger’s giant face in an attempt to win him the Best Supporting Actor Oscar he’s been linked to since almost the day of his death. And, with The Dark Knight’s DVD release and Oscar-friendly theatrical re-release in January, Heath Ledger is going to be rammed into our faces for some time to come yet.

For casual fans that’s bad enough – the last thing anyone wants is for his turn as The Joker to have the life analysed out of it – but it’s probably even worse for Michelle Williams, Heath Ledger’s ex and the mother of, possibly, his only child. Although they split up last September, Michelle Williams is still finding it hard to deal with Heath Ledger’s death, as The Boston Herald reports:

“It’s so sad. I just wake up each day in a slightly different place . . . grief is like a moving river.” Although the two “Brokeback Mountain” stars had split before Ledger’s death, they remained close. “It’s a strange thing to say, because I’m at heart an optimistic person, but I would say in some ways it just gets worse,” she said. “It’s just that the more time that passes, the more you miss someone.”

It’s sad, but in time Michelle Williams will learn to appreciate the positives from all this. For instance, although it might sting to be known as Heath Ledger’s semi-widow at the moment, in years to come she’ll be thankful that at least she wasn’t known as Michelle Williams from that crappy Ewan McGregor film that nobody watched.

And if Heath Ledger hadn’t died at a tragically young age, would her daughter Matilda still be named as the seventh hottest tot in Hollywood by Forbes magazine? No, no she wouldn’t. But she is now. In your face, eighth-place Madonna’s adopted African kid!

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Yes, it would seem that everyone involved in the investigation – which covered the whole of the US – can breathe a sigh of relief, as they will not have to present themselves in front of a grand jury. This includes one Mary-Kate Olsen, whose involvement with Ledger was something questions have been raised about for a number of months now.

Fortunately for the twin-billionaire, with the case being dropped she will no longer be forced to appear for any legal proceedings, nor will she have to keep up her claims for immunity.

The collective eyebrow of the world probably isn’t quite as raised any more.

Reports on TMZ have highlighted the amount of confusion and ridiculousness in what they call a ‘power grab’ by the DEA. Heath Ledger’s death was something that should have been investigated by the NYPD, in many people’s views, and there was no reason for the feds to get involved in the whole thing.

Basically because it was ruled an accidental death and there was no criminal element linked to the proceedings. Which, y’know, is pretty much necessary for the federales to get involved, normally. What with that being their job description and all – not hassling people because someone accidentally killed themselves.

This does mean that we may never get to see Mary-Kate Olsen doing her best to look like she’s capable of functioning in the real world, as she explains her case to a grand jury and tries not to look as rough as a badger’s arse. Which would all surely come as huge challenges to her.

It’s a shame, as that would have made for some interesting reading, as well as actually letting us know whether the one half of a child from Full House did have anything to do with Ledger’s death.

It would also mean we would know where we stood legally, and wouldn’t have to avoid baseless accusations. Stupid laws…

No, we will simply have to put up with the Olsen’s book, possibly watching as Mary-Kate decides to add a new chapter at the end, telling all about her experiences with the feds. Obviously Ashley would have to put something in there as well for the sake of twinly balance, so she could talk about what it was like to get all jiggy and stuff with a cyclist.

Though anyone that wanted to read that part would have to be clinically insane, downright sick or probably blind. A combination of all three would definitely be a benefit.

Wait – we had a point somewhere… oh yes!

So the Drug Enforcement Administration’s seemingly frivolous investigation into the death of The Dark Knight star Heath Ledger has been dropped, with one reason given being:

“Because they don’t believe there’s a viable target.”

Which is, well – a pretty good reason to stop an investigation, if we’re honest here. We may never know if there was a third party that contributed willingly or unwillingly to the death of Heath Ledger, but at least this strange investigation can be forgotten about and the man can be left alone.

At least until they launch a new investigation, of course.

So we may have been a little sceptical about the whole ‘curse’ thing ever since the term started getting bandied around, but on this evidence it’s hard not to think that maybe, just maybe there are nefarious forces at work. Just days after having a serious car accident, Morgan Freeman and his wife of 24 years are to get a divorce.

According to a friend of Freeman, the divorce had been in the works for a while before the accident even occurred – so don’t go accusing Morgan of having a relationship with Demaris Meyer, the passenger in his car during the accident, that was anything beyond platonic friendship.

We thought about it – purely for comedy effect, of course – but libel is too big a word.

No, this is something that has been around for quite a while in the world of Morgan Freeman and his soon-to-be-ex wife Myrna Colley-Lee, who have been separated since December of 2007. So fortunately it does look like it may well be the work of our old friend coincindence and circumstance – or ‘real life’ as it’s sometimes called – and not the frankly ridiculous notion of a curse on a film Morgan starred in.

While he may have known it was coming for a while, it still can’t be good for the old man, who was hospitalised with a broken arm, a broken elbow and neck injuries, and had to undergo an operation to make sure things healed up properly. Sitting, recouperating in hospital and seeing the news splashed all over can’t be a good feeling – so hey, Morgan, if you’re reading – we’ll try and cheer you up!

Isn’t it strange how utterly awful the film Evan Almighty was?

No, that’s not going to work…

Hey – the narration on March of the Penguins was utter balls compared to David Attenborough’s!

Ah, he wouldn’t like that either…

Ah, screw it. Hecklerspray isn’t the greatest medicine for aching bones, we can admit that much.

But it’s not all bad for Morgan Freeman – as his friend and business partner Bill Luckett told the press:

“The doctors have said it will be six months to a year before he plays golf again.”

So… hmm… at least that means he won’t have to play golf again for a while. That could be considered a good thing, if you don’t like golf. What do you mean Luckett said more?

“He hates that.”

Ah.

So you’ve starred in one of the biggest movies of all time, but have seen a co-worker die, another arrested for allegedly threatening his family then you yourself have been in a serious car accident requiring surgery, and it’s become public knowledge that you’re getting a divorce.

At least… people like your freckles? Sorry Morgan, we just can’t do this cheering you up thing – it’s too hard.

No, not struck down another member of the cast or crew with the ‘curse’, which is apparently floating around these days. The film has gone and broken the record for the fastest $400 million in box office history, making the money in a frankly ridiculous 18 days.

Imagine making four hundred million dollars in 18 days. How many tricks you’d have to pull to draw in that amount… it’s hard to take in. Though it would also be hard to take in if you pulled $400 million-worth of tricks, let’s be honest here.

But at least it shows that maybe, just maybe, Christopher Nolan’s film is living up to its reputation, even with the extra bits of accidental hype popping up here and there.

The previous record time in which the fabled $400 million mark was crossed – as you should all know too well – was a pathetic 43 days by Shrek 2. More than four hundred million for doing a crap Scottish accent? Ruddy hell.

But in less than half the time it took for a CG ogre voiced by an irritating comedy hack to reach the milestone – just over two weeks – The Dark Knight has taken its place in box office history, climbing up the highest US earners top 10 as fast as it’s cast can make headlines through their exploits, incidents and accidents.

Surely this means Hollywood will adopt the same technique for every new major movie release, pushing their leading stars into compromising positions for the sake of a few extra headlines. It worked very well here, and the world of film is surely cynical enough to see it as a viable strategy to affect the home lives of its stars.

Unless we’re being unnecessarily harsh here. Which we aren’t.

If the movie fatcats aren’t quite that cynical, they’ll probably just adopt a new film-making strategy to rake in the speedy $400 million. Said strategy will probably involve making every single big budget summer movie the most depressing, dark and downright unsettling thing known to man, while at the same time putting a welsh bloke in a weird costume and making him speak in a frankly ridiculous manner when wearing said costume.

It’s a definite recipe for success, if you simply follow the trail of facts staring you in the face.

We do have one real hope from all of this though, and that is to see The Dark Knight overtake Titanic as the highest grossing movie of all time. Meaning whenever we hear about the film that brought home the most clams we won’t have to be reminded of the time James Cameron went mad and made one of the worst films ever. Starring a sprout.

When it comes to the world of celebrities, however, this distinction is harder to make. Thank golly gosh for the Olsens then, who we’ve been able to watch all their lives as they became adults! With problems!

The latest occurrence in Mary-Kate Olsen’s quest for womanhood has come as she seeks immunity from prosecution in the investigation into Heath Ledger’s death earlier this year. Oh how she’s grown!

Investigators looking at the cause of Ledger’s death want to ask Mary-Kate some questions about a couple of powerful painkillers the Dark Knight star had taken before his death. However, the once cherub-faced little angel has now turned into a character akin to a mob boss, it would appear, as her lawyer has told the feds she won’t cooperate without immunity.

Aww, isn’t that sweet?

We’ve seen Mary-Kate on her journey through being a twin-child star, through growing up very much in the public eye and then taking on the necessary change from child to adult actress that brings down so many young actors.

Then we got to see her vilified by PETA, move away from solely working with her sister, having kidney problems and dealing with anorexia.

But this time she’s really gone and grown up – requesting legal immunity from federal investigators. It’s a big step in the life of any young woman and one that is sure to cement her position as a proper, bona-fide grown-up.

In a statement released to the media, Mary-Kate Olsen’s lawyer said:

“Despite tabloid speculation, Mary-Kate Olsen had nothing whatsoever to do with the drugs found in Heath Ledger’s home or his body, and she does not know where he obtained them.”

Which is all well and good, we’re not going to argue with that, nor are we going to accuse anyone of anything. But it does seem a bit strange when someone refuses to speak to investigators unless they are guaranteed immunity from prosecution. The statement goes on:

“Regarding the Government’s investigation, at Ms. Olsen’s request, we have provided the Government with relevant information including facts in the chronology of events surrounding Mr. Ledger’s death and the fact that Ms. Olsen does not know the source of the drugs Mr. Ledger consumed.

We don’t know the source of the information being quoted in the media regarding the Government’s inquiry, but these descriptions are incomplete and inaccurate.”

On the other hand though, while it may look like the Olsen that isn’t Ashley has something to hide, she may well be asking for these stipulations just to be on the safe side. It’s understandable, really, if she was involved with Heath Ledger just before his death – either as ‘just friends’ or more – that she’d want to play things with more caution.

Regardless, hecklerspray will be keeping a close eye. And we don’t grant immunity.

No – Morgan Freeman is the latest to be involved in the so-called ‘curse’ of The Dark Knight, after he was involved in a car accident on Sunday night, which officials referred to as ’serious’.

The 71-year-old actor will require surgery on a shattered elbow, as well as time for other less serious injuries to his neck and shoulder to heal. While initial reports said Freeman was in a serious state, these have since rescinded and he is expected to make a comfortable, if slow, recovery from his injuries.

Morgan was travelling with an unnamed female companion when the crash occurred. Travelling eastbound on Highway 32, Tallahatchie Country, Mississippi, their car flipped several times before coming to rest. The name of the female passenger has not been released, but she is said to have suffered bruises as a result of the crash. The jaws of life were used to good effect and Freeman was airlifted around 90 miles for hospital treatment. He was upgraded from critical to serious condition, and more recent reports have left the actor with an even more positive prognosis.

Fortunately, both drugs and alcohol have been ruled out of the running for what caused the accident, meaning we don’t have to put up with another was-he wasn’t-he situation like young Shiny the Beef has had to contend with in recent weeks. Nor do we have to put up with possible insanity, like we did all those years back with Melvin. Obviously the wily old veteran that is Morgan Freeman would never be brash enough to take part in such an obviously stupid pursuit as driving under the influence.

Those young whippersnappers could learn a thing or three from God Himself.

But it would seem that the lord almighty can’t save himself from the ‘curse’ of The Dark Knight, which wild speculators (hello!) are claiming is the cause of Heath Ledger’s death and Christian Bale’s descent into alleged assault.

Now, let’s be honest here – Ledger’s death was a sad thing, unexpected and unwarranted. Bale’s case may have been his own fault, he may have been coaxed into it. Freeman’s crash is believed to have been as a result of falling asleep at the wheel, swerving and overcompensating. If this is a real curse then it’s a bit rubbish – none of your plagues on the family, eight arms on the first-born or evil gremlins turning up and wrecking your place up.

No, it’s an accidental overdose, some alleged shenanigans and an old man falling asleep at the wheel. These curse-makers really should go back to the drawing board and think up some new cursey goodness – or just stick with the classics. Doesn’t the bible have some good ones? Morgan Freeman should know about that, he is God after all.

Hecklerspray is sending you more get well beams through the internets, Morgan. Also some extra beams to help make sure the rubbish ‘curse’ doesn’t strike again. We have these kind of powers, you see.

It’s something that maybe, possibly just should have been taught to everyone’s favourite beef machine, Shia LaBeouf, before he was involved in a smashed-up cartastrophe a week ago.

Unfortunately it seems that noone did teach Beefy this one life lesson, and the manchild has ended up with something of a mashed up hand. Halfway through filming Transformers 2. You broke the golden rule, Shia. Silly boy.

Fear not though, as director extraordinairre and all-round BOOM! BLAMMO! KABLAM! personality Michael Bay may well have a solution to the age-old problem of children crashing their cars halfway through filming huge-budget blockbusters: give him a CGI hand four times bigger than his head that transforms into a public toilet – of death.

What do you mean that’s not what he said? Ohhhh – he said he’d probably just write it into the script somehow. Makes more sense, we suppose.

Yes – while some actors have the good grace to go the whole hog and actually die towards the end of filming, so all that is needed is a stunt double and a few special effects (thanks, Brandon Lee in The Crow!), Shia LaBeouf had to go and hurt himself quite badly, but be alright enough to carry on with filming.

See, that’s just the selfish behaviour of a child, meaning that once again the adults have to come in and clean up the mess by writing in a scene when Optimus Prime stands on your hand or something.

Selfish, selfish, silly boy.

Not content with saying a naughty word and making everyone in the world overreact at him, he had to go and have himself a fairly serious accident, be accused of drink driving (which Michael Bay seemingly legally cleared him of) and then have it turn out that in all likelihood the accident wasn’t even his fault in the first place, thus making any criticism we may have levelled at Beefy concerning the accident null and void.

Selfish, selfish, silly boy.

In a typically balls-out, playing-by-his-own-rules fashion, director Michael Bay decided to ignore the four hours of surgery, the apparent partial paralysis and the fact that Shia’s hand probably doesn’t look much like a hand right now. Bay told Access Hollywood:

“His two fingers are pretty smashed, but we’re figuring out a way to shoot around it, kind of write it into the story.”

Where other directors fear to tread – where they are sure they will fail, Michael Bay will emerge triumphant. Simply by saying Grimlock mistook Shia’s hand for the metal he so loves to “munch,” or that Beefy tried to take a cassette out of a tapedeck which turned out to be the evil Soundwave, who proceeded to slam the deck shut, trapping the tiny man’s hand. Or Kup makes a cameo, forcing Bifstek to mangle his own paw in a bizarre rite of passage, seeing as he’s old and mental.

Maybe?

Seriously – hecklerspray should charge for this stuff.

That is, unless you decide to go home and assault your mum and sister, as it was alleged Christian Bale had gone and done yesterday. That takes things a bit far, away from the Pacino not talking to people unless they address his character ’slight mentalness’ and well into the zone of ‘whoops he may well just be a bit odd in the head’.

But rejoice! For the Baler has bailed out of the cop shop pending further questioning!

Though that does mean he may go and strike again, if he did do anything in the first place. God knows the tabloids warn us of these repeat offenders in Gordon Brown’s Britain.

It must have been difficult for the police questioning Bale, what with his penchant for not revealing any personal information in interviews, ever. The fact that he makes a habit of staying in character – accents and all – beyond filming and throughout promotional tours may well have pushed the whole police grilling into the realms of farcical. You could say it was something of a Dark Knight for all involved.

Amid rampant speculation about how or why Bale may have attacked his family comes very little in the way of actual, concrete information. There has been speculation that he simply shouted at his mum after she said something about his wife. But Christian’s close relatives are keeping just as schtum as the Batman himself, so we are still in the dark.
This, of course, irritates us in the world of highbrow journalism at hecklerspray, as it means we don’t get to employ our nifty quote function. There is this though, a statement released by Bale’s lawyer Simon Smith – it works as an excuse to bring up those large quotation marks:

“Christian Bale attended a London police station today on a voluntary basis. Bale, who denies the allegation, co-operated throughout, gave his account in full of the events in question, and has left the station without any charge being made against him by the police.”

No charges have been made as of yet, and Bale has been ordered to return for further questioning in September. That gives him nearly two months to roam the streets. Maybe all that time spent working with Russell Crowe on 3:10 To Yuma wasn’t a complete waste after all, and Christian took away some fine life lessons on things like phone hurling and general fighting round the world.

We can only hope that the release of Terminator Salvation, which stars Bale, isn’t hampered by a similar incident of alleged assault. Who knows? We can say one thing for certain about the Baler – he really is unpredictable.

Then there are things that initially confuse, but soon reveal themselves to be not that stupid an idea after all – like making a TV show (and latterly a movie) about shallow, image-obsessed bints with too much money and free time on their hands. Some things in the world are just meant to be.

So why not combine the homoeroticism of a popular movie with the gay-friendly world of theatre? Or to put it another way: why not remake Brokeback Mountain as an opera? Genius. This thing writes itself, seriously. Having said that, there is still going to be a writer involved in the shape of 70-year-old Charles Wuorinen. The aged scribe said:

“Ever since encountering Annie Proulx’s extraordinary story I have wanted to make an opera on it, and it gives me great joy that Gerard Mortier and New York City Opera have given me the opportunity to do so.”

See – it all falls into place now, doesn’t it? By 2013 we can be sat at New York City Opera enjoying the wonder of two men discovering what love truly is, retreating to their mountainous hideaway to explore their new-found take on humanity, all while they bellow incomprehensible garbage at us with all the subtlety of a large, clumsy warthog wearing heavy boots. Walking on eggshells. In a library. We can safely say the operatic production of this is going to be ‘interesting’.

The original movie of Brokeback Mountain was released in 2005 to much critical acclaim and starred Jake “then secretly gay, now just a prettyboy actor” Gylglylglllenhall and Heath “then secretly gay, now dead” Ledger. It got some awards, did some things, made some people think a bit, made some people forgive Ang Lee for his version of The Incredible Hulk and… look: they’re making an operatic version of the film. This strikes hecklerspray as pretty bloody weird.

What are the sex scenes going to be like? We’ll go with intense, for one. Maybe this version will prove more popular in prison though.

It is claimed photographers Eric Munn and Darren Banks, back in January 2006, tricked Heath into thinking they were guests at the Chateau Marmont Hotel. Once they’d gained his trust, the three men went into the room of an unnamed People magazine reporter, where Eric gave Heath a ‘packet’ of cocaine.

Now you, dear hecklerspray reader, are no doubt like us, your dear hecklerspray team, in as much as you wouldn’t know a packet of cocaine if it was shoved up your arse by some dishevelled local upon a family outing to Botoga.

After getting over the initial shock of discovering the packet in your excrement, you’d probably wipe it clean, bake a cake for your mother and spend the next few hours listening to her dull, overly detailed descriptions of her life from birth up until the present, and simply blame the whole dull debacle on the menopause.

But not so Heath, according to the suit, which notes that The Brothers Grimm star had some cocaine of his own.

Munn then left the room, leaving Ledger and Banks alone to inhale the illegal powder into the body via the nose, while he began to secretly film the scene. So not only is Eric Munn a drug pusher, he’s also one hell of a prick. Allegedly.

The suit says:

“Mr. Ledger became aware that he was being videotaped and became very upset. He realized the two men he had been befriending all evening were paparazzi.”

The photographers, who worked for the Splash news agency, insisted the video would be destroyed. It was later sold to “Entertainment Tonight” for $200,000 (£100,000), but was not aired after several powerful industry fat-cat types pressured the programme into submission.

However, a section of the video was briefly aired on two U.S. television shows just days after his death in January and, according to the lawsuit, has been sold to media outlets around the world, generating more than $1 million in revenue that should be forfeited under a California state law that requires paparazzi to disgorge any profits obtained through illegal activity.

The unnamed People magazine reporter is seeking unspecified damages for fraud, intrusion and privacy violations.

It really is a very unspecific situation right here indeed, and so to make you feel better we’d like to offer you a piece of ultra specific information to balance the specifics out: If Eric Munn offers you drugs – just say no.

Read More – Photogs said to give Heath Ledger Drugs: Suit – NY Daily News