Turn On:
On Monday night, PBS brings you a special about Alfred Kinsey, "American Experience: Kinsey" (check local listings for times), and UPN brings you the premiere of the series "Cuts," about a salon, at 8:30 p.m. EST.
Morning Briefing:
The morning after: In case you missed them, last night's Grammys were tame and tasteful, most lively when Kanye West won best rap album for "The College Dropout" and gave a heartfelt speech about embracing life and when Loretta Lynn and Jack White won best country album for "Van Lear Rose," and White amused the audience by repeatedly bowing to and "yes, ma'am"-ing his venerable collaborator. Click here for a complete list of winners, here and here for two takes on this year's Grammy fashions, and here for a batch of backstage interviews. (Grammys.com, N.Y. Daily News, N.Y. Post, Hollywood Reporter)
Caught between a Rock and a hard place? You may be all excited about Chris Rock hosting this year's Academy Awards, but, according to the Drudge Report, some longtime Academy voters are trying to have Rock relieved of his upcoming emcee duties because they're worried that he may "tarnish" the proceedings. These Academy members are reportedly particularly alarmed by a recent Rock riff, in which he said, "I never watched the Oscars. Come on, it's a fashion show. What straight black man sits there and watches the Oscars? Show me one! Awards for art are f---ing idiotic." One "veteran Hollywood mogul" told Drudge, "This is a disgrace. This guy is out there saying 'awards for art are f---ing idiotic' and he is hosting the show produced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences? I guess the joke is on us!" (Drudge Report)
The British Oscars: Those of you hard at work handicapping the Oscar race will be interested to know that Martin Scorsese's "The Aviator" won the BAFTA Award -- the British equivalent of the Academy Award -- for best film over the weekend. Mike Leigh took the best director prize for "Vera Drake," Jamie Foxx won best actor for "Ray," Imelda Staunton was named best actress for "Vera Drake," and Clive Owen ("Closer") and Cate Blanchett ("The Aviator") won best supporting actor and actress. Charlie Kaufman snagged the best screenplay prize for "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," and Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor scored the best adapted screenplay honors for "Sideways." (Time Out)
Girl fight, dog fight? Britney Spears and Paris Hilton are growling at each other over who has the cutest teeny-tiny doggy. "I think my dogs are so much cuter than Tinkerbell (ruff! ruff!)," Spears yaps on her Web site. The nip has prompted a friend of Hilton's to reply, "Sounds to me like Britney's got a serious case of canine envy. Britney copied Paris. Paris had Tinkerbell way before Britney, and Tinkerbell is much more famous that Britneys dogs -- whatever their names are." Arf! (MSNBC's Scoop)
What went down: Corey Feldman has revealed the reason for his rift with Michael Jackson, against whom he will soon testify in court. It dates back to September 2001, after the huge concert Jackson held in New York on September 10, the day before the 9/11 attacks. When Feldman met up with Jackson backstage, "Michael had some paranoid delusion that I had some ill-fated intentions to write some sort of book about him, which was categorically untrue," Feldman told Martin Bashir in the "20/20" interview on ABC on Friday in which he discussed his memories at looking at naked pictures with Jackson as a child. "What happened next was basically, the way I perceived it, is that he threatened my life." Jackson refused to give Feldman a seat on his bus out of town on 9/11, leaving him stranded after the terrorist attacks. (Contactmusic.com)
Also: Publisher Judith Regan and sex therapist Ian Kerner have pissed off the writers of the megaseller "He's Just Not That Into You" by publishing a response to it, "Be Honest -- You're Not That Into Him Either." (Lloyd Grove's Lowdown) ... The Will Smith vehicle "Hitch" raked in an estimated $45.3 million this weekend, the biggest opening ever for a romantic comedy. (N.Y. Daily News) ... The late ODB's cousin and fellow Wu Tang Clan member RZA is being sued for paternity by a woman who says that, while RZA has been helping to support the 4-year-old girl she says is his daughter, she wants to establish legal paternity in light of the troubles ODB's 13 out-of-wedlock children have had in claiming a share of his estate. (Rush and Molloy) ... Rumors are afoot that Infinity Broadcasting may look to Geraldo Rivera to fill the spot Howard Stern will leave when he defects to Sirius satellite radio. (Rush and Molloy) ... Matthew Perry is recovering after spending 24 hours in a Los Angeles hospital earlier this week for treatment for a bad reaction to prescription medication. (People magazine via Reuters) ... Mary Kay LeTourneau, the teacher who spent seven and a half years in prison for raping a 12-year-old student, with whom she had two children, is reportedly now planning to marry the former student, now 22, in April. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer via Associated Press) ... Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong, reunited after 25 years, say they're working on a new film together, joking that it has two working titles: "Grumpy Old Stoners" and "Lord of the Smoke Rings." (Reuters/Hollywood Reporter) ... Two hundred thousand copies of a special prom issue of YM magazine have had to be destroyed after it was discovered that the URL for a teen-porn Web site accidentally appeared in one of its ads. The ad also ran in Hearst's Teen Prom mag, on newsstands now. (Page Six) ... Christina Aguilera, 24, got engaged on Friday night to her boyfriend of two years, music exec Jordan Bateman, 26. (ITV.com) ... CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan resigned on Friday in light of controversial comments he made last month about journalists killed in Iraq. (Associated Press) ... A.J. Jacobs has written a screed against Joe Queenan in response to Queenan's brutal review of his book, ''The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World,'' in the New York Times Book Review. (N.Y. Times Book Review)
Money Quote:
Keith Olbermann on the Christo "Gates" in Central Park: "They look like crap." (MSNBC.com)
-- Amy Reiter
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