Batman casting is a riddle to the Sun

The Dark Knight Rises opens in cinemas today.

Some Sun readers may be slightly confused, however, by seeing Anne Hathaway playing Catwoman.

Why? Because the Sun's Gordon Smart 'revealed' in January 2011 that Megan Fox had 'signed up to play Catwoman':

Moreover, in a 'world exclusive' in December 2008 (in which they also noted Rachel Weisz was 'up for' Catwoman), Smart and Jess Rogers also 'revealed':

The story says:

FUNNYMAN EDDIE MURPHY will play The Riddler in the next Batman movie, The Sun can reveal.

The Beverly Hills Cop star, 47, has been signed up by British director CHRISTOPHER NOLAN...

A film insider said...“Eddie’s a fantastic addition. Everyone’s excited to see what he does as the Riddler.”

'Everyone' will have to wait...

Louis Walsh and the "Walter Mitty" character.

The Sun, like most of the rest of the press, today notes the conviction of a certain Leonard Watters:

A JOBLESS dance teacher has been sentenced to six months in jail for falsely accusing X Factor judge Louis Walsh of groping him in a nightclub.

Leonard Watters, 24, admitted making two false reports to police that the music mogul sexually assaulted him in Dublin nightspot Krystle.

Father-of-two Watters — described as a "Walter Mitty" character — has apologised to Walsh, 59.

Lawyer Cahir O'Higgins told Dublin District Court Watters is now a laughing stock and has been treated as a pariah in his home town Navan, Co Meath.

The court heard Watters is penniless after blowing £670,000 compensation he received for serious burns.

He was allowed bail pending an appeal against his sentence.

Strangely, the Sun doesn't feel fit to mention that this "Walter Mitty" character, now being treated as a laughing stock and a pariah had his initial version of events most prominently promoted by... the Sun. Indeed, after the investigation against him was dropped, Louis Walsh made clear that he was considering taking legal action against the paper for splashing Watters' allegations all over the front page.

His threat presumably resulted in this sort of clarification in the Sun the following day. Gordon Smart took one for the team and wrote an award winning piece of arslikhan, making clear how Walsh is variously "one of the nicest blokes in showbiz", "one of the most friendly, decent and warm characters I have met in the music industry" and also that "he hasn't got a bad bone in his body — even after a big drink". Nonetheless, "[T]he Sun's duty is to report that news. It's our role to ask the difficult questions."

This ought to have been something both Dominic Mohan and Smart could have been asked about at the Leveson inquiry, yet for some reason both were at best, very lightly grilled. Still, plenty of time left for them to be recalled.

Homophobia? It's only a joke...

This post is reproduced with kind permission from No Rock and Roll Fun.com

This is tiresome:

Pineapple Dance Studios star Louie, or Louise as I like to call him

Do you see? Because he's gay, Gordon has given him a woman's name.

Yes, that's tiresome. But this is unacceptable:

Bender it like Beckham

You can't throw a word like "bender" into a headline about a gay man. Not in a newspaper that still pretends it has any sort of standards. Homophobic name-calling isn't the same as a witty headline.

(XRRF has lots more about the quality reporting of Gordon Smart)

1, 2 er, 3...?

CAREFUL lads or you'll drop her!
Wow, MARIAH CAREY seems to have put on some serious timber judging by these pictures.

I feel for the three dancers straining to lift the diva's junk-laden trunk.

Only there's not three, there's two, and Mariah looks as she always does. A far way from being a big lass.



It wasn't long ago, as TabloidWatch recalls, they were calling Mariah 'hot'.

Via TabloidWatch and UponNothing

Getting yourself a reputation.

Gordon 'Ironically Named' Smart...

MEGAN FOX has signed up to play Catwoman in the next Batman movie.

I presume it's by Gordon. There's no byline on the article, but it has all the hallmarks of one of his efforts...

• Crap jokes - check


• Letcherous, 'I'd give her one' type comments - check


• Completely false story - check

I'll spare you any more quotes from him but on the 26th of September Megan had definitely signed up to be Catwoman.

But alas, Gordon in his handrubbing eagerness to show us a mocked up picture of Megan in rubber, well, something takes a rumour as truth...

"It's rumor. It's not true," a source at Warner Bros. told Access Hollywood. "There is no script. There is no project to be cast in."

Megan's 'people' deny it too.

I think Gordon might finally be making a name for himself over in America...

While a new “Batman” is inevitable, when the time comes to report something definite and real, chances are a column in the Sun already known for fabricating the fab won’t have the exclusive.

Hypocrisy? What Hypocrisy?

Via a Google alert in my in box comes this little teaser...

Going well until he hit upon...? What? What did Gordon hit upon?

This.

It's for your own good, you know.

Phwaor!

I'm trying not to do so many posts about Gordon Smart because i) he's an easy target and ii) you could fill a whole blog on its own about the editor of the Sun's Bizarre column and I'm guessing the readers of this blog want a bit more than the gaffs and lies of Gordon.

But when he prints such misogynistic, sexist and lecherous shite as he has today with regards to last nights Classical Brits, well, it's hard to ignore:

WHY the sudden interest in classical music?

Well, they rhyme with Brits and get fellas showing a remarkable understanding of French Horn.

So gents, get down to an opera house to sample some delightful musical AND physical arrangements if you want to meet stunners in Bach-less dresses.

It would be a Verdi wise move if you ask me.

I tell you what, Gordon is wasting his talents at the Sun. He should get off to Nuts or Zoo.

As you know by now, words are not my strong point (strangely, for a blogger) so here is Simon H B from No Rock and Roll Fun:

He actually wrote that. It came out of his head, he typed it in, and then published on the Wall Street Journal's sister site. French horn.

I do love the idea of a Sun reader seeing Gordon's advice and turning up at the Welsh National Opera with a hopeful grin and a box of tissues. Actually, I don't love it.

Philip Case's report is just as bad:

MYLEENE KLASS puts the woodwind up the fuddy-duddy world of classical music — arriving at an awards bash last night in this sizzling gown.

Actually, that's unfair to Case. Smart would have used woodwind in an erection gag.

Gordon's wife must be so proud.

Deliberate liars or compulsive liars?

Gordon Smart:

...I was disappointed when I heard that Mr PETER DOHERTY, a fine upstanding member of his local community, was meeting BBC bosses on Tuesday for a job interview.

And that job is as a writer, apparently. According to Gordon's source at the BBC, they (BBC) want a pilot episode of a Skins type drama, and if it's a good 'un, they'll commission a whole series. Very nice, Mr Doherty. Best get cracking.

Only Pete isn't going to be writing a series, or even a pilot show for the BBC.

The Quietus [my emphasis]:

...the Beeb has rubbished the rumours as “completely false”, telling The Quietus that The Sun knew there was “no truth whatsoever” in the story – published in Gordon Smart’s ‘Bizarre’ column today – before they went to print.

I don't know The Quietus too well and I am very good at making an idiot of myself, so I thought I would confirm what the Corporation had been quoted as saying, by going to the Corporation.

I asked for the the BBC to confirm or deny if i) Pete Doherty is or isn't going to be writing/co-writing, or in negotiations with regards to writing a drama for the BBC and if ii) The Sun or Gordon Smart of the The Sun knew the story to be untrue before publishing it (if the story is untrue, obviously).

And a spokesman for the BBC confirmed that i) Pete Doherty isn't going to be writing a drama for them and ii)

They [The Sun] had our response in advance but didn't put it in.

Gordon Smart/The Sun knew the was story untrue, but still ran with it. Which means they are either compulsive liars and couldn't help themselves or they ran with it, looking at the language used, just to have a dig at the BBC to keep things ticking over until the Beeb give them a bigger target.

Gordon Smart: Travel Advisor

Two words: Gordon. Smart.

No Rock and Roll Fun:

If nobody turns up to do anything interesting in the UK, there's always Amy Winehouse to fall back on:

Amy's off to isle of druggies

Anglesey?

.RECOVERING junkie AMY WINEHOUSE is planning a change of scenery — by moving to druggie paradise Jamaica.

No, I'm sure The Sun checked that that is the official tourism slogan the country is using right now.

God, Jamaica sounds terrible:

The Rehab singer, 25, wants to record her hugely-delayed third album on the Caribbean island where illegal drugs are known to be widely available.
[...]
The label is “fully aware” Jamaica is awash with drugs like crack cocaine and cannabis.

What a horrible sounding place - awash with drugs, you say. It's slightly odd, then, that last summer the Sun's travel column was recommending the island as a place for a jolly holiday, isn't it?

It's Bizarre!

The site No Rock And Roll Fun has just appeared on my radar, and you could say, they don't hold Gordon Smart in very high esteem.

Their first post about him, when he took over in November 2007, was a good one:

And so the Sun rises on a new era, with Gordon Smart taking over the controls at the paper's Bizarre column.

Hey... he's called Gordon, and you know who else is called Gordon?

Yes, yes, the "moron" in Jilted John's hit, but you know who else?

Yes, the Prime Minister. But it's not a thought they'd push, is it?

Prime Minister of showbiz ... new man Gordon

Oh. They are.

Read Gordon's manifesto

And push it, and push it.

WE are both Scottish and called Gordon – but that’s where the similarities between the Prime Minister and me end.

Well, yes. Gordon Brown doesn't look like he's one of the guys who turn up at the end of Homes Under The Hammer saying "I would value this property at £137,000...", for a start.

But they came up with the goods, that we here at The Sun - Tabloid Lies are interested in when they dissected Gordon's 'manifesto' - the hypocrisy...

HEALTH: The Caners League continues. All celebrities, nonebrities and musicians are actively encouraged to get tanked up and cause high jinks.

We wonder if - while Gordon was chuckling over the thought of encouraging people to drink too much, did he bother to read his own paper? Only Rebekah's editorials seem to send out the opposite message:
It hit a nerve with decent families who worry when their children go out that they might not return alive.

They worry about round-the-clock access to strong, ever-cheaper booze and the pressure on youngsters to drink themselves stupid.

...again and again:
Cheap alcohol fuels the violence. Yet as a society we accept alcopops, booze marketed specifically at kids, and we regard binge-drinking as a bit of a joke.

Can the front of the paper really complain that young people are encouraged to drink themselves stupid and binge-drinking is seen as a joke when its showbiz editor is, erm, encouraging people to drink themselves stupid and regards binge-drinking as a bit of a joke?

...and lies

EDUCATION: Hear about new bands, comedians, actors and characters on Bizarre first. The next OASIS, PETER KAY and JAMES McAVOY will be unveiled by this new regime.

That's a major break with the past, as those three would have been unveiled by the NME, The Sunday Show and Stephen Fry, of course.

...and then took the piss. Rather a lot.

Anyway, back to the present. It's one of Gordon's underlings that gets mentioned about an Amy Winehouse story:

BACK TO WHACK

AMY WINEHOUSE faces arrest after allegedly whacking a woman dancer in the face.

Sherene Flash, 30, said junkie Amy punched her in the eye after she asked to take the star’s picture.

Amy then ran off, crying out: “Life can’t go on. I can’t do this any more.”

And the diagnosis from our new friends:

A woman claims that Winehouse hit her. Which might be terrible, if true, but given that Winehouse has hit people before, it's hard to see how this could count as a "new low" - bumping along the bottom, perhaps.

And the claim that she's "facing arrest"? This seems to be simply bollocks:
Cops were called to the £700-a-ticket End Of Summer Ball in central London, where Amy performed, and took a statement from Sherene.

They are expected to quiz Back To Black and Rehab singer Amy, 25, later.

So Smart, French and The Sun aren't even sure if the police are going to proceed with the matter - "expected" to - and have absolutely no reason to claim at this stage that she's "facing arrest". In the broader sense, perhaps, of "if it's true, and if they feel there's a point in pursuing the case, she would face arrest" - but that's not quite the same thing, is it?

Indeed, the only mention of arrest in the actual story is in the padding flam at the bottom:
Outside the ball, five cops had to restrain a well-dressed woman after a row with her boyfriend.

See Amy on stage and the woman being arrested by clicking on the link below.

Yes, some random woman was arrested, so they've shoved a photo of her on the Sun site for no apparent reason.

So, Amy faces arrest when she hasn't even been questioned yet? Way to go The Sun