Ever since we all saw David Hasselhoff drunkenly eating a hamburger off the floor while berating his daughter, we’ve all thrilled at how damaged the former Baywatcher is. Not to mention that whole being under the impression he brought down the iron curtain in Germany thing.

The Hoff, for reasons only unclear to him, is one of our favourite celebrities to mockingly enjoy.

And, the good news is, is that he really hasn’t learned a thing. He’s as deluded as ever, growing his peas above sticks and saying, without a trace of irony, that he wants A-List superstar Russell Crowe for the Knight Rider Movie. That’d be the Knight Rider Movie which doesn’t ever, ever look like getting general release.

That’s right. A man who starred in the terrible slo-boober Baywatch and glazed idiot on the peering panel of America’s Got Talent has tweeted an invitation to Russell Crowe The Hollywood Actor.

Hoff said:

“Thanks mate hope to see you soon! Time for us to do Knight Rider the movie. Would love to hook up next time I’m in Sydney. Be there soon. Direct message me your email. Hope you’re well, bud.”

DaveHoff met Crowe in a hospital in Sydney. That’s all well and good until you hear that Hasselhoff is reported to have  danced for the young patients.

Surely there are law against such a thing?

Not only that, but while in Australia, Hasselhoff reportedly proposed to girlfriend Hayley Roberts during a walk up the Sydney Harbour Bridge. He posted photos on Twitter of him down on one knee and the couple kissing each other.

Next week, he’ll show us what he had for his lunch, post-digestion.

Deathaganza 2010 has really obliterated our celebrity stocks. We’ve lost that bloke from that band, for example.

And that woman’s husband. And the bloke who used to be in that that thing and the old lady from that other thing. Where’s it going to end? We’ll tell you where – you’ll end up being the most famous person on the planet. And that’s a disgrace because, seriously, look at the state of you.

But maybe we’re not there just yet. Russell Crowe hasn’t died, for one. But that didn’t stop one New York radio station from yesterday getting carried away and telling everyone that he had. But Russell Crowe definitely isn’t dead. His chances of winning a Grammy, yes. His soul, possibly. But his physical body is still very much alive.

We wouldn’t particularly like to be the morning DJs for New York’s Z100 radio station today. Remember the temper tantrum that Russell Crowe threw just because Mark Lawson claimed his Robin Hood accent was off by about 250 miles? Remember when he threw a telephone at a man’s head just because he didn’t know how it worked? That was nothing compared to what’ll happen when Russell Crowe hears that the Z100 DJs accidentally announced his death yesterday morning. UsMagazine reports:

A rep for the actor, 46, tells UsMagazine.com the rampant Internet and radio reports are “not true.” (One report said he fell 50 feet off a mountain in Kitzbuhel, Austria.) New York City radio station Z100 reported Thursday morning that the Robin Hood star had passed away, and the news quickly became a trending topic on Google.

Now, listen here. Everybody loves a good death hoax, especially when there plenty of real celebrity deaths all over the place. But, for crying out loud, you’ve got to choose your victims carefully. They absolutely can’t be someone who can beat you in a fight. That’s why last year’s Britney Spears and Jeff Goldblum death hoaxes worked so well – at worst the only repercussions you’d face would either be a bout of neurosis (in Goldblum’s case) or a full-scale mental breakdown (in Britney’s case).

But Russell Crowe? You’re messing with the wrong guy, hoaxers. His anger is unstoppable. His fury is mighty. He’ll come at you with every ounce of strength he’s got until you’re dead. Which admittedly might take a while because he’s a bit fat these days, but the intention’s there.

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Last week hecklerspray was invited to the Cannes Film Festival for a few days as guests of Stella Artois.

Here are 10 things we now know about this year’s festival that no other website will tell you (or even care about)…

1 – That Darth Vader is not as big as he looks in the movies and in his spare time likes to cavort with half-naked girls in clubs

OK, so it wasn’t really the Dark Lord of the Sith, but a midget dressed up as him. However, it was by far the finest moment of the trip. The Force was certainly strong with him as he threw shapes on the dance floor surrounded by seven of the most stunning girls hecklerspray has ever been allowed to get close to without violating some kind of court order.

The scary thing is that, while our gaze was fixed almost entirely on the writhing girls, looking at some of the strange people in the club, there were definitely some who only had eyes for Dwarf Vader and his tiny lightsabre. Here is a very blurry picture, but we hope to have a video of it soon.

2 – That Eva Longoria really does not want to talk to hecklerspray

Even if we pathetically run after her at a VIP party screaming “Eeeva”. At one point we are pretty sure she started to break into a jog. In fact, her bodyguard was even less impressed. Sorry we don’t have a picture of the blessed event, but, as much as we can remember from our drunken haze, she was very small, very pretty, had very big hair and a designer dress with jewels encrusted in it. We think. There were also a lot of Russian hookers around. See, who needs Vanity Fair?

3 – That you really need to apply sun cream, even if it’s cloudy

Or you will end with third degree burns, looking like the Singing Detective and shunned by your embarrassed peers.

4 – That Jean Claude van Damme likes hecklerspray more than Eva Longoria, but dresses like a kid with an Asbo

Well, he at least said hello and shook our hand – almost breaking it in the process. However, he would not have his picture taken with us, possibly because he could sense the desperation in our eyes, but mainly because he did not want people to realise he was shorter than the dwarf in the Darth Vader outfit. We did manage to take a couple of pictures, however, before he got very uncomfortable and went AWOL (get it?).

Now we are big fans of the Muscles from Brussels but were baffled with what he was wearing (even we made an effort by wearing a suit). Tracksuit bottoms and a white T-shirt? Maybe now he is unemployed he spends most of his time in his backyard in Essex, drinking strong lager (not Stella), smoking tabs and shouting at the neighbours.

5 – That Ethan Hawke is a very small man who tries to compensate by hiring the cast of 300 to protect him

OK, so it wasn’t quite an entire army of Spartan soldiers, but five bodyguards, who even followed him into the toilet. But every movie star we saw was a lot smaller than we thought they would be. In fact, we had to check we were in Cannes rather than Lilliput.

6 – That Universal bosses think Russell Crowe is ‘a bastard’

Of course, that is assuming the guy we spoke to was actually who he says he was and that he was not joking when he said it. Maybe he was cursing the grumpy Australian after just seeing the movie Robin Hood for the first time. We certainly were. Despite the fanfare, the film was rubbish, proof if ever you needed it that while you can’t polish a turd, you can always roll it in glitter.

7 – That taxi drivers in Cannes are murderous, treacherous swines

How do we know this? Well, all we can say is that we are lucky to still be here after being hit not once but twice on pedestrian crossings. In fact, they even accelerated. Maybe Eva Longoria hired them.

8 – That Russell Crowe can handle his drink

We arrived at the Robin Hood party at midnight – about three hours after Crowe. We were told he had already gone, but he actually did not leave until 5am after quite a few drinks. Mind you, he had just been given the dreaded slow hand clap by the Cannes audience after trying to address them at the end of the movie and was probably nursing his bruised, king-sized ego.

9 – That the Cannes film festival attracts a lot of strange people

Women dressed as zombies, pensioners with mullets dressed in pyjamas – and that’s just the celebrities. It’s like walking around a David Lynch movie.

10 – That there is no way of telling people you are going to Cannes without sounding like a smug knob

Believe us, we at least tried.

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In true Robin Hood spirit, Ridley Scott has taken £237million from various rich people to make a very poor movie.

Robin Hood? More like Rotten Hood.

Rotten acting, rotten script, rotten idea, very rotten accents.

In fact, Robin Hood is so bad, I have to confess I did something in a cinema that I have not done for a very long time. No, not that! Or that! And that’s just sick! No, I am talking about falling asleep. Yep, while Russell Crowe was busy cutting chunks out of British history, I was happily snoring away and was only awoken by some French woman angrily jabbing me in the chest with one of her Gitanes. In fact, I missed about 45 minutes, which, for all I know, could have been the most gripping three-quarters of an hour of cinema ever made.

But going on the murderous, bum-numbing 18 hours (it felt that long) I did see, I am pretty sure I did not miss anything. I even did a quick straw poll of people who managed to stay awake and the most flattering opinion was that ‘you might enjoy it if you were 10’. And that just about sums it up.

So what’s the story? Well, clearly not happy with the popular folklore surrounding the hooded man, Scott instead constructs a completely unnecessary back story, presumably with the sole intention of squeezing as much cash out of the project as possible by making a sequel almost inevitable. It begins with archer Robin Longstride (Crowe) on campaign with Richard the Lionheart in France. When King Dick is killed, Robin delivers the dead king’s crown to his brother John back in England.

But on his way back, he discovers nobleman Robert Loxley, who is dying after being betrayed by another English noble, Godfrey (Mark Strong), who is in cahoots with the French. He promises to return his sword back to Loxley’s dad (Max Von Sydow) in Nottingham, but also assumes his identity.

When he returns, England is on the brink of civil war and his widow, Lady Marian (Cate Blanchett), is having a few issues with the Sheriff of Nottingham and some local, wild orphans. She agrees to play along, mainly to protect her estate from the greedy King John, but also, presumably, because she likes a bit of rough.

Lots of preposterous battle scenes later and we end where the story usually starts: Robin Hood declared an outlaw.

What a total waste of time. With the notable exceptions of Von Sydow and Mark Addy (Friar Tuck), the acting is as wooden as Sherwood Forest, which is surprising knowing how good Blanchett and Crowe usually are. But it’s the accents which really steal the show. Blanchett does her best at a Nottingham accent, but Crowe cannot seem to make his mind up which part of the British Isles Robin Hood is actually from. In fact, he mumbles so much, I found myself relying on the French subtitles to get some sense of what he was actually saying.

All in all, Robin Hood totally misses the target.

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The big showbiz news rendering important newspaper and magazine desks in London completely agog is that Louisa Lytton – who played someone-or-other in EastEnders – has just taken the world by storm by playing an exchange student in the latest American Pie movie.

Without wanting to urinate too heavily on Louisa’s chips, who gives one?

Soap stars have been silently ascending Hollywood’s greasy pole for years now. In fact, some of your favourites have most probably spent a short window of their career awkwardly channelling the spirit of a lonely hunk called ‘Bill’ ordering a coffee. Read on, and you’ll find four men who weren’t ashamed to make a living from these so-called “soap operas”…

Ben Kingsley


Before Ben Kingsley became mega-famous – playing a tiny Indian gentleman called Gandhi, and later, the magnificent Don Logan in Sexy Beast – he played a put upon Northern woman in a flowery dress scrubbing feverishly at her front step in Coronation Street. Or something.

Guy Pearce

Once the cheerful Ramsey Street heartthrob who got to dance his delicate fingers all over Plain Jane the Superbrain’s nerdish thighs, Guy Pearce has gone on to wonderfully dizzy heights. We like him best as the do-gooder cop in LA Confidential, or the obsessive maniac in Momento Memento – a film which sets out to blow your mind by telling a story from end to beginning. Yeah, he’s all a bit art-farty, that Mike from Neighbours.

Alec Baldwin

We don’t want Alec Baldwin to retire from acting – no one does. A hunch suggests that even Alec Baldwin doesn’t want to retire from acting. In fact, perhaps he was acting when he said it? Yeah, that’s probably what it was. He was winding everyone up. He’s hilarious, that Alec Baldwin. So bloody hilarious. God we love Alec Baldwin. Alec Baldwin. Who, by the way, managed to craft a fantastic career despite starting out as a televangelist-gone-mental called Joshua Rush in the popular US soap opera Knots Landing. Most of his former cast-mates have also given up acting by the looks of things.

Russell Crowe

Whether Russell Crowe took his token brooding intensity onto the Neighbours set, we’re not sure. But we do know that Neighbours might have missed a trick by only casting him for a handful of episodes in the late-80s. He’d have made a wonderful Madge. As things panned out, he went on to whisper and roar his way through Gladiator, pretend to be barmy in A Beautiful Mind, and the word on the street is that he’s pulled on a set of tight green leggings to give us his take on Robin Hood. Our prediction: an intense, lonely Robin Hood mutters dramatic sentiments, whilst his pals Friar Tuck and Little John nod to his face, then talk in whispers behind his back about what a cock that Robin is turning out to be. Should be excellent.

This was a guest blog by none other than Josh Burt from Interestment. Wonderful.

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The latest from Sherwood Forest is that there is a God.

Back in September we reported that Russell Crowe was set to play both Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham in Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood. Think Lindsay Lohan in Parent Trap with facial hair and a few hundred extra pounds.

However, according to an update on the IMDB Russell Crowe is sticking to one role. He is donning a pair of spanx and is playing Robin Hood. The Sheriff of Nottingham is rumoured to be played by Matthew Macfadyen of Pride and Prejudice remake fame.

If recent physical appearance is anything to go by its hard not to imagine Crowe playing anything other than Friar Tuck. However, a man of his craft, the latest promo picture shows him slimmed down sporting a hair-do that would make Maximus proud.

Cate Blanchett has taken over from Sienna Miller, and been cast as Maid Marion. The mere presence of Blanchett in the line up makes the film all the more appealing.

Also with a nearly 20-year age difference between Miller and Crowe, no amount of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor would have condoned such sugardaddy casting.

The actors attached to the project all appear to be pretty awesome, it’s comforting to have in this kind of genre a leading man who can actually act. If you’re not a fan of Crowe, just be grateful it’s not Clive Owen (see, utter relief). Even if Scott at the helm doesn’t get your arrows soaring the writers alone make the project worth a look.

One such writer is Brian Helgeland, who wrote the screenplays for Man on Fire, Mystic River, LA Confidential, Payback and Assassins. OK, Assassins is no Mystic River, but you know you love that movie. If none of those films appeal enough to make you go and watch the film, maybe you don’t deserve to. No, seriously, if that isn’t your bag of chips, the other writers involved co-wrote Kung Fu Panda. Now, you definitely know you love that movie.

As a die hard and quote-addicted fan of Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, this latest man-(not quite)-in-tight adventure should be a welcome addition to the franchise. Despite the teething problems the stellar cast and crew may just pull off the film of 2011. One has to admit, the thought of Crowe donning a scowl and pivoting once again with a sword in hand, is an appealing one.

Are you not entertained?

[story by Gemma Addy]

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News about Nottingham – Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood story, not the horrible East Midlands town – has been a bit all over the shop lately.

First Nottingham was going to star Russell Crowe as a good Sheriff of Nottingham who had to battle the evil Robin Hood, then it wasn’t going to be made at all, but now it’s back on – and it’s got completely weird. Apparently in the new Nottingham, Russell Crowe is going to play the Sheriff of Nottingham and Robin Hood.

Not in a good way, either. In Nottingham, Russell Crowe’s character will be both the Sheriff of Nottingham and Robin Hood – news which will be profoundly disappointing to all of us hoping that Nottingham would feature a Double Impact-style scene where two identical Russell Crowes have a kung-fu fight with telephones in the woods in 12th Century England.

Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott have something of a mutual profession mancrush on each other. They’ve previously teamed up on Gladiator, A Good Year, American Gangster, Body Of Lies – in fact, we’re mostly convinced that if Russell Crowe was more than 15 years old when Alien was made, it would have been about Russell Crowe bursting out of Russell Crowe’s chest and then getting fired out of a spaceship by a grappling hook fired by Russell Crowe.

Anyway, the next movie that Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott are teaming up on will be Nottingham, their revisionist take on the legend of Robin Hood. Nottingham was to stray from the traditional Robin Hood tale in several ways – there’d be no tights, no Bryan Adams songs and Nottingham wouldn’t be 30 minutes from Dover on horseback. But most importantly, Nottingham would be a detective movie about Russell Crowe playing a hard-bitten Sheriff of Nottingham on the trail of the evil criminal Robin Hood.

That’s the way it was supposed to be, at least. But not too long ago, Nottingham was shelved – the blame being laid on the writers strike, the possibility of an actors strike and the seasonal ugliness of forests. However, now Nottingham is back on with one small difference.

In the new version of Nottingham, the Sheriff Of Nottingham is Robin Hood, and Russell Crowe gets to play everybody, even Friar Tuck and Maid Marion. Probably. MTV reports:

The news comes straight from the helmer himself, with Scott revealing “He’s playing both!” exclusively to MTV News. While Scott held additional details close to his chest — saying they would take too long to describe — he did exclaim that Crowe’s dual roles would be “a good old clever adjustment of characters. One becomes the other. It changes.”

What could this all mean? Does the Sheriff of Nottingham take to robbing people as a way of collecting taxes for the king? Is there going to a Tyler Durden-style schizophrenic reveal near the end of the movie? Or is it going to be the Double Impact thing? Oh, let it be the Double Impact thing, Ridley. There’s a tenner in it for you if you make it the Double Impact thing.

But however Russell Crowe will play the Sheriff of Nottingham and Robin Hood, let’s just all be grateful that Nottingham is actually getting made. It’s been too long since a decent Robin Hood movie has been made – plus we hear that Jay-Z has already recorded another American Gangster-style album inspired by the movie, and we wouldn’t want the world to be deprived of surefire would-be hits like H To The Izzood, Wenches Wenches Wenches and I Got 99 Problems (And Scurvy Accounts For 97 Of Them), would we.

State Of Play - the movie adaptation of a BBC mini-series that recently hit the headlines when Brad Pitt didn't want to be in it any more – has had another member-swap.

Now, thanks to Brad Pitt suddenly leaving State Of Play and Russell Crowe taking his place, production has been slightly delayed – and that delay has meant that Edward Norton has been forced to drop out as well. But, undeterred, the State Of Play team have laboured on and quickly signed up Ben Affleck to fill his shoes. And don't forget that State Of Play still hasn't started filming yet, so by the time it hits cinemas we can expect State Of Play's all-star line-up to include two Baldwin brothers, the girl from The Craft who wasn't Neve Campbell or the pretty one, a Chinese Highland Shrew and your Mum.

The now legitimately troubled movie adaptation of State Of Play seems to be working on some sort of confusing karmic points system at the moment. For example, first Brad Pitt left State Of Play in a fug of controversy, and he was eventually replaced with Russell Crowe, who is a much better actor, but a little bit funny-looking.

That left State Of Play – also slated to star Edward Norton and Helen Mirren – in a state of unbalance, since it was heavy on the funny-looking good actors but light on the wooden eye candy. However, Edward Norton has just stepped in to save the day because he's left State Of Play too, and been replaced with Ben Affleck. Thus, a wooden piece of eye candy has replaced the funny-looking good actor and, coupled with Crowe's funny-looking good actor replacing Pitt's wooden eye candy, State Of Play balance has been restored.

Let's just hope that Helen Mirren isn't about to leave State Of Play as well, because the way things are going she'll probably be replaced by Jessica Simpson, and that'll fuck everything up.

But back to Edward Norton. Why has he left State Of Play? Well, pleasingly it's for something a little more rational than not being allowed to make his character travel everywhere on a golden horse fully nude except for a giant Viking helmet – which is why we think Brad Pitt left. The Hollywood Reporter reports:

Russell Crowe was quickly recruited to replace Pitt in the film written by "Lions for Lambs" scribe Matthew Michael Carnahan. With Crowe on board, the film's production start date was moved from November to January. Because of the change in start date, Norton, who also is set to produce and star in the indie comedy "Leaves of Grass," found himself with a schedule conflict. So he asked Universal if he could be replaced so that he could fulfil his commitment to the Tim Blake Nelson-directed "Leaves."

That would normally heap trouble on an already-struggling State Of Play, but not this time. As we've said, Ben Affleck has quickly stepped in to fill Norton's role as a hard-ball politician caught up in a murder conspiracy. And since Ben Affleck's turn in last year's Hollywoodland won him awards, the State Of Play producers can at least be reassured that it's still in safe hands.

Plus the new State Of Play scene where the politician struts through his office counting how many women give him the glad-eye on his handheld clicker that he got free with some chavvy deodorant is going to just be wicked nang.

Read more:

'State' subs Affleck for Norton role – Hollywood Reporter

For an unmade movie remake of a political BBC TV show that anyone with a working internet connection can discover the ending to, State Of Play has been getting all sorts of fuss made over it lately.

Although, to be be fair, that isn't because State Of Play is a world-class movie in the making; it's because Brad Pitt stropped off production recently, right before it was due to start filming. But now, with Universal planning to sue Brad Pitt for the walk-out, State Of Play needs a new leading man, and fast. Step forward Russell Crowe, who Universal has been desperately wooing all weekend. Of course, Russell Crowe is a notoriously safe pair of hands, and won't demand constant script changes like Brad Pitt reportedly did, apart from requesting that his character performs a 25-minute multi-stanza poem about the fickle nature of material success right in the middle of things.

And that 30 Odd Foot Of Grunts performs the State Of Play title music.

And that the whole thing gets called Russell Crowe's State Of Play and is set in prehistoric times, and that Edward Norton's character is replaced by an otter in a baseball cap.

So the fall-out to Brad Pitt leaving State Of Play has begun. To recap, Brad Pitt left State Of Play because he kept clashing with director Kevin McDonald over the quality of the script, something that couldn't be changed because of the continuing writers' strike. We're assuming that the changes Brad Pitt wanted included scenes of Brad Pitt riding along a deserted beach topless on a motorbike at sunset with the unmistakable sound of Whitesnake in the background, but we can't be sure of that, so don't quote us.

Anyway, by walking out of State Of Play, Brad Pitt has caused a right royal mess behind the scenes. Filming of State Of Play is ready to go, and if it doesn't get moving soon, then its star-flecked cast of Edward Norton, Helen Mirren and Rachel McAdams will be forced to abandon it too and the whole thing could go under.

So while Universal edges closer towards suing Brad Pitt – who, let's not forget, also walked out of production of The Fountain and constantly fought with the director of The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford – it's also busy trying to get Russell Crowe to jump into Brad Pitt's vacant spot.

Thanks to American Gangster being that rare occurrence – a recent Russell Crowe film that people want to watch – Russell Crowe is back in demand as an actor again. In March he begins filming Nottingham, the Ridley Scott-directed story of Robin Hood with the Sheriff Of Nottingham as the goodie, so if he agrees to fill in on State Of Play, filming will have to kick into gear pretty sharpish.

But this is all just speculation, because Russell Crowe hasn't agreed to be in State Of Play just yet. If negotiations fall through then Universal might also approach Johnny Depp or Tom Hanks, although these two actors are less desirable because they don't especially want the State Of Play lead to either assume an offputtingly unrealistic cockney accent or a mullety haircut that looks like it's made of plastic eels. So at this rate expect Brad Pitt's State Of Play role to be filled by man with the parrot from the Admiral Car Insurance adverts.

Read more:

Universal Seeks Crowe For Play – Variety