Amidst growing rumors of a possible off-screen romance between Bradley Cooper and Zoe Saldana continue to grow, a recent report states that the pair were spotted kissing in public during this year's annual Sundance Festival.

Sources tell People magazine that Cooper and Saladana were very affectionate during a cocktail party in support of their forthcoming film "The Words." "They were kissing in front of the fire and being very affectionate. They are definitely very together," says one source. "They were like two seventh graders. The electricity was out of this world."

While neither Cooper nor Saldana have publicly spoken out regarding their rumored relationship, the "Avatar" actress ended her 11 year romance to former fiance & entrepreneur Keith Britton last November.

Sundance 2012 Photos:

Consider yourself lucky, Demi Moore; you broke free from Ashton a healthier woman.

New research suggests that a woman who is between seven and nine years older than her husband has a 20 percent greater mortality rate than if she were with a man the same age.

Researchers aren't sure why , but some theorize that women in relationships with younger men may die younger because they are much more stressed out by their beaus.

Natalie Merchant was still a teenager when she strolled into the community college radio station in Jamestown, New York, arms loaded with albums and eight-tracks she wanted to hear. She met DJs Steven Gustafson and Dennis Drew, and together with Robert Buck and John Lombardo, they formed the band 10,000 Maniacs. They came out with their first record, "Secrets Of The I-Ching," in 1981.

In 1987, the Maniacs released "In My Tribe," selling more than two million copies in the U.S. alone. The band's eclectic lyrics and Merchant's voice, which shimmers, smolders and soothes like a glass of cabernet, captivated alternative-rock fans. In the 1990s, Merchant launched a successful solo career, touring constantly and selling millions of albums over the next dozen years on the Elektra label, including quintuple-platinum "Tigerlily," her solo debut released in 1995.

In 2003, Merchant married documentary filmmaker Daniel de la Calle and had a daughter; she and de la Calle later divorced. Merchant turned full her attention to motherhood, which inspired a new project: "Leave Your Sleep." Over a five-year period, she researched an array of unknown and celebrated poets, putting their nursery rhymes to music in a collection of 26 songs released in 2010 by Nonesuch Records. I recently spoke with Merchant about her career, motherhood as muse and the constraints on women in rock. (Our edited conversation appears below; check out our slideshow at the end of the story for some classic performances and vote for your favorite.)

Talk about the evolution of "Leave Your Sleep."

I had an anthology of children's poetry and was nursing and spending a lot of time sitting still in a chair reading these poems, and I was really delighted. With my hands that full it was difficult for me to have hours and hours of uninterrupted creative time -- which is what I need to write lyrics normally. But then I just thought of adapting the poems. The research phase was really fascinating -- I'm not a closeted nerd, I'm an out-of-the-closet nerd. I love research and I really enjoyed learning about the lives of the poets who were more obscure -- such as Nathalia Crane -- and writing what became their first biographies. Turning someone else's words into music was meaningful.

You recorded the album with 130 different musicians in styles ranging from jazz to reggae, bluegrass to Celtic, Zydeco to chamber music. Why is collaboration important to you at this point in your career?

Being in a band for years is limiting; there's only so much creativity, even when you pool together five people. With this project I wanted to work in many different styles of music and with people who were masters in their style. Wynton Marsalis is a walking encyclopedia of jazz; the reggae players were Jamaican artists; the Celtic players were some of the best folk players in Ireland. I felt honored to be in presence of all those musicians; I learned so much.

"Leave Your Sleep" isn't really a kids' album.

It's a work about childhood rather than a children's record. Having my own child I know there's nothing worse than having to listen to really bad children's music over and over. I wanted to give parents something they could listen to too. In October, MacMillan is publishing a book featuring 20 of the songs with illustrations by Barbara McClintock. I wanted to make a perennial classic.

As part of their curriculum, 3,500 New York City school kids in grades K through 3 focused on "Leave Your Sleep" last fall, learning about the poets and writing their own verses. You performed at the YMCA for hundreds of kids from Brooklyn, Bronx and Harlem. What was that like?

I had a wireless microphone and went through audience and the kids sang the songs they had written. I sang "Isabel," an Ogden Nash poem in which Isabel encounters a witch, a bear, an evil doctor and a giant Cyclops. I asked them what makes a great fairy tale, and one of the kids said, "magic!" and another yelled out, "it has heroes!" They were so bright and so beautiful; I felt really lucky.

"In My Tribe" turns 25 this year. Are there things you have learned artistically or personally that you would tell your younger self now?

I wish I had appreciated my youth -- I should have worn tighter clothing when I could have! But when I look back I don't have a lot of regrets. We actually had our 30th anniversary last summer and when I went home they gave me the keys to the city. I saw the guys in the band and I hadn't seen them in so many years; everyone but John has kids now, so that was the common denominator. It's amazing that you get to a certain age where you have conscious memories of things that happened years ago. You feel old. I even remember Bobby Kennedy's funeral; we lived in Detroit at the time and I remember the riots -- and that seems like a long, long time ago.

Talk about growing up in Jamestown. You were the third of four children and your parents divorced when you were young.

My mother was a single working mother; she started having children very young. There was a tension inside her about who she wanted to be and what she wanted to do and how she couldn't achieve the things she wanted to. My mother went to college after having children -- she studied liberal arts and got a master's degree in fine art, but I don't she think got it until her mid-50s. My mothering experience has really contrasted with that because I had a really long career before I had a child. My mother passed away last year. I admired her strength and I understood a lot of her frustration as I got older and realized how much energy it takes to be a parent -- and I only have one child.

I read that you grew up without television.

We were avid television watchers until 1973 or 1974. It was in the early days of cable where Showtime or HBO or whatever existed back then would allow you two weeks of free movie-watching. My mother came home and saw us watching an age-inappropriate film about Lenny Bruce -- someone was naked and had overdosed on the floor -- and she pulled the cable so hard she tore the sheet rock off the wall. She said, "Not my children!" And it was over -- cold turkey. It was the best thing she did for me as a mother.

How did you spend the time after that?

We played in the forest and wrote little books and drew and we had to talk to each other, deal with each other. Up to that point we would get home from school and turn on the TV and eat bowls of sugary cereal until my brother started pounding on one of us, basically. We came home and fended for ourselves until my mother came home, like a lot of kids. Television was like a drug, a one-way ticket to brainless, numbing, nothingness -- to oblivion. I've raised my daughter with no television.

You just announced some upcoming performances as a guest soloist at orchestral shows. Is this the next direction for you?

I enjoy working with the wide variety of instruments the symphony provides, and the textures and the emotional resonance of those instruments. I'm trying to find a way to mature in this field called pop music, which really loathes the aging process and loves youth. I just feel like I don't want to do the same thing I did when 25 or 35. The songs have endurance and have retained a lot of validity. But I'm focusing on how to make the experience appropriate for the way I feel now, with new material.

It's an awkward thing to talk about, but it's true: It's possible to be a musician, but you can't be a pop musician and be a woman and continue in this forever. There's so much lived experience and some wisdom I've gained in my life, and there must be room for that. Emmylou Harris is still making good records; Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel matured and have grown through pop music -- and nobody expects them to do the same thing as they did in their early 20s.

What about Patti Smith? She took a break for 17 years and devoted herself to raising kids before returning to performing.

I did a few shows with her because we were both supporters of Tibet House. It was just after she had just started performing again -- and it felt like there was a log-jam and a dam had burst. There was great intensity there, as if she had kept it contained for so long. I wondered, "if she has all this in her, how could she go about living the life of a stay-at-home mom?" I know it's totally natural to want to raise your children and become involved in a different community of people who have similar aims and passions. You can still maintain a creative life, but it's more interior, it's more internalized.

Has motherhood been the muse for any new projects since "Leave Your Sleep"?

For black history month, my daughter's school is focusing on Marian Anderson, who was a big heroine of mine. I went to Penn State where they have all her photographs and sat up late last night for three hours, looking through the archives of her personal photo albums. She has a photo in every European capital; there are photos of her with Frida Kahlo and Martha Graham; performing in Haiti and Cuba and Japan. What a life!

She came from extremely humble origins; her father was an ice and coal deliveryman. She was 13 when her father died and she had to leave high school to work to help support her family. I came from working-class background in a pretty obscure town and music took me to European capitals and introduced me to some luminaries of the day. I could have embraced more opportunities, but I feel like I've had a good run and I'm still having a good run -- and all because of music.

Forget George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Meryl Streep and Viola Davis; awards season has been dominated by one star and one star only: Uggie the dog. From a 10,000-fan strong Facebook campaign to get the Jack Russell terrier an impossible Oscar to frequent appearances on the red carpet to skateboarding on the roof of the Empire State Building, the "Artist" pooch has become a key figure in Hollywood over the last few months. The 10-year-old dog even affected Martin Scorsese, who penned a firmly tongue-in-cheek op-ed for the Los Angeles Times about why Uggie shouldn't get all the doggy attention this year. (Don't sleep on "Hugo" star Blackie or Cosmo from "Beginners," dog-actor aficionados.)

Unfortunately for Scorsese, who did manage to get Blackie a write-in nomination at the Golden Collar awards for best movie dogs, it appears Uggie's reign will extend all the way through to the 84th annual Academy Awards. THR reports that host Billy Crystal has been working with Uggie on a sketch for the show, though little other details are known at the time. Presumably, it could include the aforementioned skateboarding, one of Uggie's more adorable tricks, or simply be an homage to "The Artist." Fun! Or is it?

If the rise of Uggie has proved one thing, it's that this year's crop of Oscar movies have little cache for the drive-by movie fan; as a result, the novelty of an adorable dog with a big personality has taken over to the point where even Oscar-winning icons like Scorsese are participating in the Uggie media tour. Of course Uggie is going to be part of Billy Crystal's Oscar opening; at this point, he's not only the most famous face from "The Artist," he's probably one of the ten biggest stars attending the ceremony. Or at least the only one who can look this cute on a skateboard.

[via THR]

Once Upon A Time, in a dark, fearful period of our nation's history, America had absolutely no amateur talent shows on TV. Shocking, right? But this isn't a fictional horror story -- there was actually a time, in our not too distant past, when there WERE NO TALENT SHOWS ON TV.

And then came... STAR SEARCH.

Perhaps you were expecting me to say American Idol? To be expected. For many, Idol was their first encounter with a televised talent show (you can't count The Gong Show). For those too young to remember (or too old to recall), Star Search was, in fact, American Idol BEFORE there was an American Idol -- or even a Ryan Seacrest. Hosted by Ed McMahon (best known as "the guy from the end of Johnny Carson's couch"), the show scoured the country for young, undiscovered performers with dreams of becoming (you guessed it) stars, and gave them a spotlight, a stage and panel of judges to impress. Given today's television landscape this seems surreal, but in 1983 when the show debuted, there was really nothing else like Star Search on TV.

However, Star Search didn't even have a network home. This was before cable's heyday, and apparently it couldn't find purchase on the broadcast networks. So, "the Search" was syndicated across local affiliate stations, airing at different times, in different markets. It was awkward (especially for the actors and spokesmodels), hokey -- the show's host, Ed McMahon, wore a powder blue tux -- and even a bit silly. And I loved it. As mullet-wearing Sam Harris went on his record-breaking 14-week-unbeaten run, mom and I tuned in every week to see if he and his soaring falsetto could do it again. Star Search ran for an impressive 12 years and, while it was popular, I was incredulous that not EVERYONE I KNEW watched it.

And then again, America suffered through the dark years of a TV talent show drought. When American Idol popped up on FOX in June of 2002, I remember thinking, "Hey, look -- Star Search is back." I watched the Idol auditions, but didn't get the same high as when Ed was hosting and Sam was singing.

Where were the comedians? The spokesmodels? The show did well initially, but it wasn't a clear break-out hit. Then, as the summer went on, something happened. By the finale in September, America had Idol Fever. The last episode attracted 23 million viewers. The next spring, the show went nuts -- averaging 26 million viewers for the season, with 38 million people tuning in for the finale.

In just a few months, Idol and its producers (Simon Fuller and Nigel Lythgoe) had reintroduced the idea of an amateur talent show to American TV and reinstated the "anyone can make it big" dream back into our culture. For 10 seasons now, Idol has captured the hearts, minds and eyeballs of the country and brought in the type of mass audience thought unrealistic in today's fragmented 1000-channel universe. Over the years, the show has even managed to give us some talented and successful musicians.

However, in its wake, Idol has created something far more nefarious than bubblegum pop stars. A raft of zombie imitators has crept onto the TV schedule -- attempting to capture the excitement and audience FOX has seen with the mothership. With X Factor, So You Think You Can Dance, America's Got Talent, America's Next Top Model, RuPaul's Drag Race, The Voice and (gulp) Dancing With The Stars, one cannot turn on a television on any given night without seeing a talent competition of some shape or form (and this doesn't even include fashion, food or design based shows). America is awash in amateur singers, dancers, jugglers, sword swallowers and models, and the celebrities who judge them.

Look, I LIKE talent shows. And I definitely will NOT deny anyone the dream of being coached to fame by Cee Lo Green (anyone who gets America to sing F*CK YOU must know talent, right?). MY issue isn't with the idea of TV talent competitions -- it's with the glut of song, dance and "et cetera" competitions on TV right now. Here's the thing: AMERICA JUST ISN'T THAT TALENTED. The more "talent" shows we get each season, the less "talented" is each slate of competitors forced upon our screens, airwaves and eardrums. In short, we are spreading our talent too thinly across too many shows and it's doing long-lasting damage to the genre.

Need proof? Consider the Star Search list of alumni performers. Competitors from Star Search include Adam Sandler, Brad Garrett, Britney Spears, Carlos Mencia, Jackie (The Joke Man) Martling, The Coors Light Twins (dance competition), Alanis Morissette, Dana Gould, Jessica Simpson, Dave Chappelle , Beyoncé, Dennis Miller, Drew Carey, Justin Timberlake, (aka Justin Randall), Martin Lawrence, Norm Macdonald, Kevin James, Ray Romano, LeAnn Rimes, Rosie O'Donnell, Sharon Stone (Spokesmodel), Sinbad, Steve Oedekerk, Sutton Foster, Tiffany, Usher (then using his surname Raymond) and, yes, Christina Aguilera.

As TV journalists dissect the ratings erosion for Idol, Dancing With The Stars and So You Think You Can Dance, and the disappointing viewership for The Voice finale or the entire season of X Factor, they're missing the most obvious answer. We don't have enough talent for all these talent shows. Each season, Dancing With The Stars stretches the definition of 'Star' even further (Nancy Grace? Chaz Bono?); Idol hasn't produced a bona fide star since Carrie Underwood; and America's Got Talent seems far more focused on their celebrity judges than what's on stage.

This is not easy for me, America. But it is abundantly clear that we, as a nation, are not as talented as we think we are. (And, let's be honest, we don't buy enough music to sustain all these stars we're trying to create either.) If we genuinely long for a place for amateur performers to shine, if we sincerely want TV shows to help us find our next crop of young talent, then we MUST do some pruning. The demand these shows put on our national tastes and talents has left us unable to discern the musical wheat from the dancing chaff. As a result, the shows are suffering from a deficit of genuine talent, and the competitors are being set up for eventual disappointment. C'mon, let's face it -- while they all may be very nice people, few of them will be legitimate stars.

It's up to you, America. Vote not with your texts or calls, but with your remotes. And, for you, the TV industrial complex, to cure what ills the current harvest of talent competition shows, the prescription is simple: LESS is MORE.

Even on "Bad Girls Club" (Mon., 10 p.m. EST on Oxygen) there are some limits. And, as far as Amy is concerned, messing with a girl's weave goes way beyond those limits.

As a joke, someone cooked Amy's weave in the microwave oven. As the girls stood around examining the burnt offering that once adorned Amy's head, she walked into the kitchen and found out what they'd done.

Time for a major meltdown. As Amy said later, "You think this is so funny? I'll show you something funny. ... I feel like I'm about to kill somebody. Nobody touches my weave!"

Unfortunately for Demitra, she made the mistake of laughing and all hell broke loose in the kitchen. Amy launched herself at Demitra and viewers were treated to a vintage "Bad Girls" display of cursing, bra-pulling, clothes-ripping and slapping. Eventually Erica separated the two and tended to Demitra as Amy stormed out.

The verdict of the others? "[Amy] needs to go home."

"The Bad Girls Club" airs Mondays at 10 p.m. EST on Oxygen.

TV Replay scours the vast television landscape to find the most interesting, amusing, and, on a good day, amazing moments, and delivers them right to your browser.

If you noticed a slimmer Alec Baldwin at last night's SAG Awards, it wasn't your TV setting.

Jordin Sparks shows off her stems in a lovely pink dress outside the Today Show in New York City!

Monday night on "Caged" (Mon., 10 p.m. EST on MTV), viewers were introduced to a new face on the Minden mixed martial arts scene, John Wesley Reed.

In fact, he wasn't a novice to the world of cage fighting: John Wesley was making his return to the ring after a three-year absence. He fought a tough, scrappy bout in front of fellow cage fighters including "Golden Boy" Daniel, and at the end of three gruelling rounds John Wesley was declared the winner.

However, after the fight he took a turn for the worse and collapsed on the floor. Laying on the ground with his eyes open, he seemed dazed and unresponsive. Could something be seriously wrong with John Wesley?

Nobody in in the mixed martial arts scene was prepared to acknowledge that he might have suffered serious trauma, instead blaming his condition on "fatigue and dehydration." As John Wesley was loaded into an ambulance, his trainer confidently said, "He'll be fine. I'm sure he'll be back at it soon. ... Wasn't nothing serious." Hopefully he received a more thorough examination at the hospital.

"Caged" airs Mondays at 10 p.m. EST on MTV.

TV Replay scours the vast television landscape to find the most interesting, amusing, and, on a good day, amazing moments, and delivers them right to your browser.

MELBOURNE (31/01/12):

Yes...

Well... So? I've become addicted to watching the Aussie news. It's beyond hilarious.

Honestly, it's like a spoof show - AUSSIE NEWS (MATE). Someone should do that, it'd be mega. I'd watch it anyway.

After the ludicrous episode with the PM's shoe these are just a couple of things that I've caught in between gigs and promo...

THE AUSSIE COUNTRY MUSIC AWARDS!!! Yes, indeed. They've invented a new musical genre. Aussie Country. So I'm watching the news and they go to the Aussie Country Awards (The Golden Guitars) where they're interviewing some of the winners of the said Golden Guitars...

They were singing like Country, y'all, but talking Aussie (mate). Dressed like proper honest-to-goodness cowboys. 40 gallon hats, leather waistcoats and the boots, but using words like "ripper" and "beady"... Very odd, no???

Now the other thing was maybe the weirdest thing I've ever seen on national television news. So much so that when I got down to the Big Day Out site I had to ask a few of the natives for confirmation of what I thought I'd just seen. And they confirmed it like it was the most natural thing in the world, which of course it is to these people. THE ANNUAL TUNA-RAMA FESTIVAL!!! A festival that celebrates all things wonderful about tuna... TUNA??? That's right, tuna... The tuna fish.

Now, there was the (un)usual local news b-roll fodder; interviewing mums, grannies and kids... All having a ripper of a day eating tuna sandwiches and tuna salad and... Well, that was it one would've thought? But no... At the climax of the festival they play a little game called tuna-hurling... TUNA-HURLING!!! That's right, I watched (checking frantically if I'd been spiked) as big burly Bruces and little burly Shielas and even a granny took a foot long tuna fish... a real fucking tuna fish and swung it round like an Olympic athlete throwing the hammer up a pre-marked out track???

And they covered it on the news like it was just a load of drunk people in a field throwing a dead fish around for fun... Which, of course, it was.

The scary thing is those were just two of the things I caught. (There was another story with a guy graphically describing how he'd been trying to get two different kinds of dung beetles to mate to make one super dung fucking ninja warrior but, we won't go into that...)

What else is going on while I'm away from the TV??? I might have to start getting this shit recorded and shipped to England once a month, it's essential viewing.

Anyway, enough of that brilliant nonsense.

The gig was good. We were indoors in a tent. It was very, very hot. Seemed to be a bit of a fancy dress vibe down the front. I saw a pirate and a cowboy. We didn't play very well. No one seemed to mind though.

Kasabian were having one of their legendary parties at some club or other down town. Last men standing were me and Serge at 5am. A good shift. As we left it was starting to get light... and fuck me if it didn't start to ever-so-slightly rain... I didn't know whether to laugh or cry so I did neither... I passed out.

Still raining now.

ONWARDS.

GD

To read more of Noel's blogs, go to http://www.noelgallagher.com and log in.

What caused Kristen Bell to have a minor emotional breakdown?

The "House of Lies" star stopped by "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" (weekdays, syndicated) with some very revealing (and hilarious) home video footage from her 31st birthday party. Unlike her 30th birthday which was "Hunger Games" themed, Bell was surprised with a special guest for her 31st: a sloth.

"The day of my birthday, we're sitting in the living room and I hear a knock at the door. [Dax Shepard, her husband] says, 'Your present is here. Why don't you go grab the dogs and go in the back room?'" Bell told DeGeneres. "I had no context for knowing what it was, but I grabbed the dogs and walk into the back room of the house and I was immediately overcome and I thought, 'There's a sloth near. There's a sloth here; it's close; it's going to happen.'"

Bell is a huge lover of sloths. Earlier in January 2012, she told The Insider that she googles Baby Sloths multiple times a week The actress added: "I've been obsessed with sloths for as long as I can remember. They must be my spirit animal or something. There's nothing cuter than a baby sloth ... OK, maybe a slow Loris. Maybe. On a good day."

So when she sensed the sloth was coming for her 31st birthday, Bell said she didn't know how to process its arrival since she had been waiting for the day she'd meet one for so long. Then, the actress bravely showed the home video footage of her crying on her bed, unable to cope with such a momentous occasion in a sloth lover's life.

Considering how amazing this video is, let's hope Sherpard brings in a slow loris for Bell's 32nd birthday.

When you're an A-list celebrity like Don Cheadle, you get to stay in some pretty swanky digs and sometimes, as he told "The Late Late Show" (Weeknights, 12:37 a.m. EST on CBS) host Craig Ferguson, those digs have some added extras. Like ghosts, for example.

Coaxed by Ferguson into elaborating on his "haunted hotel" story, Cheadle said he'd stayed at The Waldorf, which he believes is haunted. But only, he quipped, by very posh ghosts.

Recovered alcoholic Ferguson started riffing on his drinking days and asked "Have you ever been out getting drunk, and you drunk so much you're suddenly sober?" Ah, those good old nights out in the pubs of Cumbernauld ... In fact, Ferguson's drinking was so out of control he "went so crazy, and then drunk, and then boom! Rehab!"

The pair joked that family man Cheadle is very clean-living. "Apart from the heroin," of course...

The craziness continues on "The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson" each Weeknight at 12:37 a.m. EST on CBS.

TV Replay scours the vast television landscape to find the most interesting, amusing, and, on a good day, amazing moments, and delivers them right to your browser.

Happy birthday, Justin Timberlake!

It's not just any birthday for the singer-turned-actor -- it's his "Golden Birthday." Timberlake turnes 31 on Jan. 31 and while we're not sure what he'll be doing on his big day, we have a feeling he'll be celebrating in style.

Timberlake had a whirlwind 2011, both professionally and personally. The former *NSYNC star hit the big screen in two major movies, "Friends With Benefits" and "In Time," following his breakthrough role in 2010's "Social Network." Though the films were not exactly Oscar contenders this time around, the roles helped show he could carry a movie as a leading man.

In his spare time, like he has so much to begin with, Timberlake is also working with MySpace and took the stage at the Consumer Electronics Show in January to help announce the launch of MySpace TV.

His romantic life, however, had a few bumps. Timberlake and his longtime girlfriend Jessica Biel broke up in the spring, only to quietly reconcile months later. Though the pair has remained mum on their relationship since their split, they are rumored to have gotten engaged over the holidays.

2011 was all about MySpace and movies for Timberlake, so maybe 2012 will be the year he brings his music back. We can only hope.

Check out some flashback photos of Timberlake below:

Miley Cyrus was knee-deep in a Salvia-smoking scandal in 2010 and Armie Hammer was busted for possession of marijuana just last week. But it's not just the young Hollywood stars who are partaking in a little puff puff pass. Joan Rivers admits that she recently had her own run-in with the herbal remedy.

"On the first episode of our reality show, I get some plastic surgery," Joan tells me. "I've seen a few people do it on camera but they all do it in full makeup. It's so stupid. The Kardashian mom did it with eyelashes and lipstick."

But there's no smoke and mirrors when it comes to the reality of Joan's procedures.

"We really show what it is like," Joan tells me. "And then we showed afterwards which was awful. You are still high from the anesthesia. Well, I had a very difficult moment there after the surgery and I got medicinal drugs. In California you get medicinal marijuana. You go to a doctor and you say I'm blue and he says here. It's amazing, I was in shock. And I got it and I smoked it and had a great time."

But full disclosure, Joan admits that she hadn't smoked pot since the "dark ages," when she would would get high with Betty White.

"She was some slut then," jokes Joan.

"Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best?" airs Tuesdays at 9:00 PM on WETV.

This is the second of a four-part series. Read part one here.

Lost amidst all the Oscar parties, the pomp and stupidity, the magazine covers and newspaper ads, is the fundamental question -- what happens to the non-winners? Now this is true of every industry -- the Super Bowl victors go to Disneyland and into the record books; where do the losers go -- Six Flags? Wally World? There are winners and losers every day in every field; I'm sure the runner-up for Actuary of the Year (The 'Acty'?) drowns his sorrow with 40-year-old whisky and a mangled abacus. Yet none bear our particularly sadistic ritual: televise the event for a global audience (including our families) and then force the winners and losers to spend the rest of the night together at the same exact parties, reminding everyone precisely where they stand in the Winner/Loser scale. It's Darwinism meets Groundhog Day.

A quick background: being from New York, most of the films I've been lucky enough to be associated with were done with other New Yorkers -- directors, studios, etc. Whenever we'd arrive in Los Angeles for the first round of award shows, there would be a collective squint -- outdoors and indoors. If you're a true New Yorker, you know what I'm talking about: you pretend, you do your best to fit in, but you can never really adjust. The best consolation we have is that we get to go home afterwards, to somewhere where the entire city is not consumed with the fact that you're a Loser. If we had to stay in Hollywood, we'd be reminded daily of our newly earned bottom-dwelling status; back East, we only have to deal with the ongoing scorn of our loved ones.

Grumbling about losing these awards is borderline sacrilegious -- weren't you happy just to be nominated? Complaining out loud is just plain wrong. But I'm going to do it anyway. Know that there are certainly different types of Losers; most of the people nominated in each category have no realistic chance of winning. Few say it, but everybody knows it. So for some, being nominated truly is winning. When the pundits (who grow in number and ferocity every year) say that you either have a strong chance or are the frontrunner, then you're in trouble. Because you start believing you might actually win.

Here's how it happens. The big night arrives and the excitement is both heartfelt and palpable. Everyone has a special gleam in their eye, extra gel in their hair and a large flask in their pocket. We're all thinking the same thing: this is the Big Show, and we're here to win. The occasion is set up with maximum torture in mind -- start with the small awards and build slowly toward the Big One.

The night begins promisingly enough. Your film starts winning a few categories -- Costume Designer, Cinematographer, maybe Editor, a Supporting Actor or Production Designer. It doesn't really matter, except that you can feel the momentum in the room, and it feels good. Way, way too good. When the room empties during the Lifetime Achievement segment, you head to the bar with that giddy glow, knowing how close you are to winning it all. You start acting confident and cocky and if you're a certain nameless individual, you have a mind-numbingly moronic moment going up to Oprah Winfrey (whom you've never met) and actually putting your arm around her in a kind of where-do-we-titans-go-from-here way. You head back to your second row seat, blissfully unaware of the colossal line you've just crossed.

After four hours, three vodka tonics, and two bathroom breaks, here comes that famous actor to present the final award. Doesn't he look fabulous? (You love absolutely everyone right now.) Humble yet grateful, you tell yourself. Smooth hair, straighten tie. Don't forget what's-her-name that you were married to for all those years. Suddenly, though, it's not the name of your film he's reading from the envelope, it's someone else's. Someone who is not you and, you quickly realize despite that new stabbing pain in your cerebrum, never will be.

That's how your very first minute as a Loser kicks off.

To be continued...

Planning a baby shower is hard work, especially when you're really, really pregnant.

On the Season 6 finale of "Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood" (Tue., 10 p.m. EST on Oxygen) a very pregnant Tori Spelling is planning a charitable baby shower for her third child. However, it's a little hard to plan a craft-and-cocktails soiree and set up the nursery when you can barely walk because you're about to pop. Luckily, Tori finds a solution to her problems in the form of a motorized handicap cart in the exclusive sneak peek above.

Now, if only Tori knew how to operate the moving vehicle. After nearly suffocating her "chicken" Coco and taking out another wall -- this time, at the craft store -- the media-savvy reality star makes up her own hysterical tabloid headline: "Tori Spelling Takes Out Crafters: Glitter and Blood Everywhere."

The season finale of "Tori and Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood" airs Tues., Jan. 31 at 10 p.m. EST on Oxygen.

The ink was still pretty fresh, as this actress hit the red carpet at the 2012 SAG Awards on Sunday night.

From the American President to American Idol?

Barack Obama's rendition of Al Green's classic "Let's Stay Together" at an event in Harlem earned him a ticket to Hollywood (if he wants it), as "American Idol" producer Nigel Lythgoe took to Twitter early Tuesday to invite the president to sing on the reality show.

"@BarackObama we loved your vocal performance so much we'd love to invite you on to #AmericanIdol this Season for a duet with Al Green," Lythgoe wrote.

It's a shrewd business move; "Idol" ratings are down significantly this year, and rival singing competition "The X-Factor" stole all the headlines on Monday night by parting ways with host Steve Jones and judges Paula Abdul and Nicole Scherzinger.

Obama's vocal work has already helped spur record sales, as in the few days after his singing lit up YouTube, digital download sales of Green's song were up 490%.

Lythgoe also passed judgment on the vocal stylings of Obama's leading presidential rival. Mitt Romney sang "America the Beautiful" at a Florida rally on Monday night, earning negative reviews after the video hit the airwaves and web. Lythgoe was among the tough critics.

"If it were an election based on vocal talent @barackobama would beat Romney hands down. Mitt was very flat singing 'America the Beautiful,'" he tweeted.

Natalie Portman is entering the world of television, but as a producer, not an actress.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Oscar-winner is co-producing a soap opera that has been greenlit by ABC, based on the 1978 Judith Krantz novel "Scruples," about a widowed socialite who starts a Beverly Hills boutique. The book became a worldwide sensation, reaching the top of the best-seller chart in the United States and appearing in more than 20 different languages. Krantz's son Tony will be an executive producer on the show.

Portman has already produced a handful of films through her HandsomeCharlie shingle. She has starred in all but one of them thus far ("Hesher," starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt).

For more on the show, click over to The Hollywood Reporter.

In a career that spans more than three decades, John Goodman has seemingly done it all. He's starred in the nation's No. 1 sitcom ("Roseanne"), earned indie-cult-hero status (in "The Big Lebowski"), played both a President ("The West Wing") and a Congressman ("Evan Almighty"), voiced animated characters ("Cars" and "Monsters University") and even played a live-action cartoon character (Fred Flintstone). Now, he can cross starring in a silent movie off his list, too, as he features as an angry Hollywood studio executive in the Best Picture frontrunner, "The Artist."

Goodman, who was in London preparing for the upcoming BBC miniseries "Thicker," spoke to The Huffington Post about his role in the charming film that is sweeping awards season, as well as a number of his other big career milestones.

How did you get involved in "The Artist?"

They asked for me. My agent told me this guy wanted to do something and he showed me -- since they dont have a script, the guy had a scenario, basically scene-by-scene, explaining what was happening. But he tarted it up with all these old Hollywood pictures, pictures of old stars, of old advertisements, of old scenes from Hollywood. And I thought, This guy is really going through a lot of trouble, he must really dig what he's doing. And then he came to explain to me how he wanted to do it, and I flipped, I thought it was a great idea. It's just a great idea to tell a story.

Did you have an active interest before that in old Hollywood?

As I get older, I appreciate what they did more. Some of the stuff, I can't figure out how they did it. Just really effortless craftsmanship went into this stuff. And a lot of these guys were making it up, inventing the business as they went along. The guy I'm playing is one of these tough old bastards who came down from New York, fell in love with the movies and then wound up inventing the process as they went along.

You're portraying a very tough executive -- do you think that kind of character still exists in Hollywood?

You know what, I don't have much access to the executives, the big shots. I kind of try to avoid them. From my end of the spectrum, I just don't have that much exposure to them.

You're doing some speaking in the film, even if it doesn't make it into the sound mix. I read you were speaking English and Dujardin was speaking French, and you went back and forth without understanding each other.

Yeah, but it worked. There was common ground in that we knew what we were talking about, but there was some heavy focusing going on. Which kind of carried through to this whole ensemble feel of the piece -- everybody was really focused, because it was such a different way of telling a story. It created a great camaraderie among the cast.

Why do you think it's been so critically successful?

I think people enjoy seeing it. I think they enjoy seeing it with other people. It's a great, shared experience, it's one of the reasons we started going to the theater to begin with, to share a story with other people and see how they react to it, how they feel. And it's just a basic, decent, simple story that runs on a lot of different levels, too. It's a big warning, in this business, that nobody is irreplaceable.

How about that "Spring Break '83" movie, where you play a character named Dick Bender, it comes out this spring it seems?

What was this?

See, I have to deal with IMDB all the time, and rumors and figuring out what's true and what's not true. I'm looking at this film called "Spring Break '83"

Oh yeah! I remember this. This was something that was shooting up in Baton Rogue and [laughs] the paycheck was too good to turn down. So yeah, I flopped over on my back and I whored out, man. I put on the cheap cologne and I whored out big time.

So what exactly was this role as Dick Bender?

I don't remember. He was a rich guy who was yelling into a cell phone most of the time.

How often do you do that, just do a role for the check?

Oh man, not often. At that time, I think I was pretty desperate.

It looks like it's finally going to see the light of day. When did you make it?

Maybe like four, five years ago. Is it really coming out?

Yeah, I see it has you as Dick Bender and Alan Richardson as Brad, Joey Pantoloiano as Sgt. Coltrane.

I remember working with Lee Majors. Is Lee Majors in it, or maybe this is a different movie?

No, Lee is in it.

OK, yeah that's the one. But there have been movies that people have told me I was in that I wasn't in.

How often does that happen?

During interviews. People look on the computers and the computers are wrong.

Do people you know read news stories and then call you up and say, "I didn't know you were going to be in this movie" and you're really not?

I was dead a couple of times, shit like that.

How do you deal with a death hoax rumor on the Internet?

I don't care. It's so far out of my control, what am I going to do? Bust a blood vessel and really die?

I've always wondered about that, because it's my job to sort through those things and report what's true, and it gives me a headache -- how do the subjects deal with it?

Yeah, back to doing "Roseanne," when the television show was popular, she was tabloid bait. So I'd read shit about her that was all fiction, and there was a lot of stuff about me that was not true, and what are you going to do? You can't believe any of this shit, so it was kind of hard to get too worked up about it.

Roseanne wrote a New York magazine piece and said she thinks the show resonates more now than even when it came out.

Yeah. When we started doing that show, there was a little unease in the country about the economy, and there were all these glitzy shows on TV that I really don't think reflected what the country was going through. I think our show was a good touchstone for what people were going through, just trying to scrape by, going paycheck to paycheck.

Did you hear that from a lot of people?

Yeah, I still get people that say, "You remind me of my dad" or, "Roseanne is just like my mom."

You were in the Fred Phelps-inspired "Red State,". What did you think of the process Kevin Smith took it through, buying it himself at Sundance for $20 and taking it on the road?

In the beginning, like this time last year, he showed it at Radio City Center and we all went and I think that was the first time I saw it, with a room full of Kevin Smith fans, so that was pretty cool. I was disappointed that it went straight to DVD, but I guess that was part of his process as well. You know, once I step out from in front of the camera, my work is done and I have no control of anything. It was fun to do, though. We had a good time.

What are you looking forward to doing beyond what you have planned?

I wouldn't mind being on a series again. You get tired living out of a suitcase. I get to work with Joel and Ethan Coen again [on "Inside Llewyn Davis"] and that's something I'm really looking forward to. I'd like a lot of things. I like doing big movies but that hasn't been the case, so these little ones are doing me just fine.

When the Coen brothers call, do you just say, "Yes"?

Yeah, it doesn't matter. "We've got you drinking out of a dog bowl." OK!

Justin Timberlake is the star, right?

Is he? I didn't know that.

Yeah, Timberlake, you, Garrett Hedlund, Carey Mulligan, Oscar Isaac as well.

Oh, OK. [Laughs.]

How often do people come up to you and say, "I don't roll on Shabbos"?

A lot. Once a week someone will bring up a DVD or something to sign or come out of the blue, blindside me. There was a festival in NY last year, and it was the first time everyone got together. The panel we did, no one could understand the guy interviewing us, and it was in a huge theater, and that kind of sucked, but it was great seeing everybody.

When you were making it, did you expect it to be such a cult hit?

I never know anything like that. I really don't care. I was having such a good time.