Karl 
HEY, IT'S WONKA WEEK ALREADY: The chocolate brown carpet was rolled out for the Hollywood premiere of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at Grauman's Chinese Theater over the weekend. The Associated Press checks in with Peter Ostrum, the original Charlie Bucket, who is now a veterinarian specializing in cattle and horses in New York's dairy country. The AP also interviews Johnny Depp on Wonka, movies, fame and family. I have joked to people that if Depp based Captain Jack Sparrow of Pirates of the Caribbean on Keith Richards, his Willy Wonka — judging from the pageboy hairstyle — must be based on Brian Jones. It turns out I was right, according to Depp's interview with the Boston Herald. He denies his Wonka is based on Michael Jackson, though the comparison is turning up in early reviews. Ebert and Roeper give it two thumbs up, though neither was thrilled with Depp this time. Richard Shieckel of Time magazine wishes it was darker,saying it's “all right without being particularly riveting.”
SUFJAN STEVENS tells the UCLA Bruin that he was working on albums about Rhode Island, New Jersey and Illinois, but the songs for Illinois “seemed more exciting, more challenging.”
NEW RELEASES: Today brings new stuff from Son Volt, The Knitters, Del McCoury, R.L. Burnside and even Adrian Belew. There are also reissues of Arcade Fire and The Decemberists. There's also Wille Nelson's reggae album, about which Amazon says: “It's easy to understand why this project was shelved by Nelson's previous label for nine years.”
MARIANNE FAITHFULL suffered a slight heart attack, but is doing fine, according to Page Six.
SON VOLT: Speaking of Page Six, I give them kudos for dubing the new version of the band Son of Son Volt.
RINGO was disappointed that the Cute one didn't invite him to play Live 8.
BEST OF 2005 (SO FAR): Largehearted Boy lists his Top 5 1/2 so far, with legal downloads and streams.
TOM FITE: Brooklyn Vegan gets the tip for flagging Tom Fite. His label describes Gone Ain’t Gone as a “wry, anachronistic, copyright-defying, country/hip-hop collage, was made mostly from cds rescued from dollar bins; Australian bar bands, DC garage-punks, and demos from up-and-never coming rock bands. It’s all sampled, looped and laid down as the blueprint for FITE’s intriguing avant-folk vision of musical crime and resuscitation.” I think the “hip-hop” part is inaccurate, but you can download one song from his label, and a bunch more at his site to decide for yourself.
LED ZEPPELIN: The four members of Led Zeppelin were voted the U.K.'s ideal supergroup by 3,500 music fans polled for Planet Rock Radio, with Robert Plant edging out Freddie Mercury as best singer.
JIMI HENDRIX'S childhood home, faces demolition after a two-week restraining order expires. Sadly, the place has reportedly become a haven for squatters and drug dealers. The owner wants to move the structure to a permanent location near Hendrix's gravesite in Renton, WA.
MADONNA: I am shocked, shocked to learn that Madge has a ghost writer for her Kabbalah-themed children's books.
PETE DOHERTY UPDATE: Bob Geldof's 16 year-old daughter Peaches angrily denies the troubled singer's claims that she squeezed his bum and made suggestive comments to him at Live 8. Peaches also said it was her sister Pixie, 14, who convinced their dad to include Pete in the Live 8 line-up — which is a very catty way of taking a return dig at Doherty, methinks.
TOM-KAT UPDATE: Holmes' interview with W magazine sparks claims that she is more zombie-like than ever. Cruise is raising his and Nicole Kidman's 12-year-old daughter, Isabella, as a Scientologist. Both Entertainment Tonight and the E! channel had video of Scarlett Johansson denying past Cruise rumors, but neither has it online as I write this.
BRADGELINA UPDATE: Pitt and Jolie edged out Garfleck and Tom-Kat on the Womens' Wear Daily Overexposure Chart this week. Congrats, Brad and Angie!
LI-LO UPDATE: Lohan's director for A Prairie Home Companion, the legendary Robert Altman, doesn't know her name.
BRITNEY SPEARS says she would like to design her own line of maternity clothes. “There's so much nasty stuff out their for mums-to-be, I can't work out why stores don't sell funkier stuff.” I have no doubt Britney's clothes will be funky.
OWEN WILSON reacts to being nicknamed “the Butterscotch Stallion.”
MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL says she has learned the hard way not to talk about politics on the red carpet after claiming that the U.S. was “responsible in some way” for 9/11. Of course, she still believes it, but says, “I have to be careful, because it's very easy to misunderstand a complicated thought in a complicated world.” Thanks for the condescension, Maggie, but the people who criticized you understood exactly what you were saying.
THE VAN GOGH MURDER TRIAL began in the Netherlands, with Mohammed Bouyeri rejecting the authority of the court and speaking only to confirm his name and utter a prayer in Arabic. Prosecutors say Bouyeri killed filmmaker Theo Van Gogh in a ritualistic murder committed in the name of radical Islam. A note spiked into Van Gogh's body carried threats against his co-author, Somali-born Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an outspoken critic of Islam. By Maggie Gyllenhaal's logic, Van Gogh was responsible for his own death “in some way,” because he made a movie about the way Islamic extremists treat women.
LONDON BOMBING: Police and intelligence agents are investigating the theory that a gang of white “mercenary terrorists” was hired by Al Qaeda to carry out last week's attacks. Peter Power, the managing director of a “crisis management” firm told BBC 5 that at the exact same time as the London bombings were taking place, his company was running a 1,000 person strong exercise drill in which the London Underground was being bombed at the exact same locations. SEMI-RELATED: Transportation hubs in many large cities, particularly in the U.S., have hidden security systems that can detect both nuclear and conventional weapons.
LONDON II: Iranian media claims the bombings were planned by the U.S. and U.K. governments to build support for the invasion of Iraq and attacking Islam generally. MEMRI TV, which hosts and transcribes video from Middle Eastern Media, notes that In a Friday sermon broadcast on Iranian TV, Ayatollah Mohammad Amami-Kashani called Al-Qaeda the child of the White House and Israel. Al-Majd TV aired an interview with Azzam Al-Tamimi, head of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought in London, who said that he hoped that people would realize the bombing was caused by U.S. and British entanglement in an oppressive and unjust war against the Afghan and Iraqi peoples. Abd Al-Bari Atwa, editor-in-chief of the London Arab daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi said that the bombings were a “good slap” at Tony Blair. A wishful thinker at the Associated Press managed to falsely report that Blair put the bombings in the context of the Middle-Eastern conflict. And the BBC has re-edited some of its coverage to avoid labelling the perpetrators as “terrorists.”
AFGHANISTAN: Four suspected terrorists escaped Monday from the main U.S. detention facility, sparking a massive ground and air search. The body of the fourth downed SEAL was found near the other two casualties; a senior defense official said that “no way” had the SEAL ever been in captivity, contrary to Taliban claims that he had been abducted. Arthur Chrenkoff rounds up under-reported good news.
KYRGYZSTAN VOTES and it seems to have gone well. Both Gateway Pundit and Registan have coverage, though only the latter has a photo of the dancing girls at the polls.
MICHAEL JACKSON IS SUED by a financial company claiming it is owed 48 million dollars in fees for rescuing Jacko's stake in the publishing rights to the Beatles catalog.
CELEBRITIES MOST IDENTIFY WITH GOOFY, according to a poll done for Disney in conjunction with Disneyland's 50th anniversary. Oprah Winfrey topped the list of the most desired Disney celebrity travel companion, but Clint Eastwood beat out Julie Andrews. No doubt Clint could get you to the front of the lines.
FARM AID is returning to Chicago for it 20th anniversary. Wille Nelson and John Mellencamp are bringing Dave Matthews, who certainly knows about spreading fertilizer in Chicago.
AARON BROWN may be on the outs at CNN.
THE SLURPEE turned 40 yesterday, bought an expensive sports car and started dating a much younger frozen treat.
THIS JUST IN: Men don't mind seeing naked women.
DWARF BRAHMIN CATTLE were married Sunday morning in a traditional Thai ceremony. Congrats to Thong Khaow and Thong Kham!
NICE DAY FOR A… SHARK TANK WEDDING: Gale and Wayne Landry married in wet suits and scuba diving gear on Sunday while nine sharks swam around them in The Florida Aquarium's 125,000-gallon shark tank. A sand tiger shark momentarily took interest in the bouquet, but will not be next to get hitched.
A PARROT rats out a robbery in El Salvador.
HORNY TIGERS in a Bangladesh zoo have been put on birth control.
