Love Connection

Jake and Austin have shared co-stars (Beth Grant), producers (Bruckheimer), the screen (TDAT), shirts, hats, pants, trailers? toothbrushes? wait wait I digress.

And its happened again. This time directors.

Love and Other Drugs, Jake's new movie with Anne and Josh Gad, is being directed by Ed Zwick. Who some might remember from My So-Called and Thirtysomething on TV, or directing movies such as Glory, Legends of the Fall, The Last Samurai, Blood Diamond on screen.

But did you know that Autin worked with him first?

After TDAT and before working on Glory Road, Austin did a couple of thing for TV. One you may know, Surface, but the other you might not, "1/4 life". A pilot for ABC which followed a group of young adults – friends and roommates – in their mid-20s living in Chicago. For a number of reasons the pilot did not get picked up. And who was the director? Ed Zwick.

After having a successful twenty-year relationship with ABC/Touchstone , they graciously gave the material back so that Zwick and his long time parter Marshall Herskovitz could develop it in their own way. It was during then they conceived not only doing the quarterlife series for the Internet, but marrying it with a social network called quarterlife.com.


.... before I forget

Jake might be doing Love and Other Drugs, and now it seems that Austin is doing Love and Debate.

A film Austin did in 2006 called Thanks for Gravity, has been retitled Love and Debate and is coming out on DVD August 25th. (Check out Austin Nichols Journal - Spooky's for more pictures)



You think someone else in LA - knows a good Love Connection when they see it?



Photos: OMG, Austin Nichols Journal

PoP Smart?

Comic-Con 2009 starts tomorrow but it doesn't seem like PoP will be popping up too much. Did Disney blow it or are they playing the game just on a different platform?

The only official event at Comic Con is a panel discussion and Q&A on Friday on comics and Ggaphic Novels Jordan Mechner, Prince of Persia creator and writer of the upcoming Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time graphic novel, and artists Todd McFarlane (Spawn), Cameron Stewart (Seaguy), Bernard Chang (Wonder Woman), and Tommy Lee Edwards (Daredevil). They are saying there will be a sneak peek at the upcoming Prince of Perisa: The Sands of Time graphic novel, and an advance look at the book's connections to the secrets within the upcoming Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time movie.

Does that mean it is this picture of Dastan that McFarland did that for the cover? Or that the advanced look at the book connection to the movie will be showing a teaser of the movie? Or will the pull something off that no one expects?

Is it a smart move to not promote PoP at Comic Con as much as they could?

Now what's interesting is that Bruckheimer has a new movie coming out on Friday as well. A family picture in 3-D with broad appeal. The crew over at We are Movie Geeks seems to think so.

"It seems likely that at least a teaser will be in front of ‘G-Force,’ another Disney/Bruckheimer collaboration coming out this Friday."

And it really makes sense - he's teased with the first look at a PoP poster in another of his movies Confessions of a Shopaholic, they've leaked out a lot stuff thisweek to coincide with Comic Con, and G-force (which is a Bruck/Disney collaboration) should have a strong opening. It all seems to fall in place.

So here's the question if there is a teaser. Did Bruck use the mainstream audience to boost the reception at Comic Con or is he CYA in case it doesn't ?

Everybody and their Brother

This is Jake


And this is his brother


And this is his other brother.

Any questions?

Josh Gad has just been picked to play Jake's younger brother, a vulgar but successful dot-com entrepreneur who moves in with his big brother in the movie Love and Other Drugs. Some might know Josh from his newest job as a reporter for The Daily Show. Or from the movie The Rocker, when he played Rainn Wilson's nephew, Matt Gadman. Others may remember him as the young news director on the short lived comedy Back to You, with Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton. The LA native has performed with the comedy improv troupe The Groundlings, and is a founder/member of The Lost Nomads Comedy Troupe. He also played William Barfee in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee on Broadway.

A improv comedian in a movie about Viagra, and Jake being a goof on set, somehow I see this little brother and big brother combo spelling T-R-O-U-B-L-E. Good luck Ed Zwick. Here's hoping you get it all on film for the DVD extras.

The question remains who will play their dad. Any ideas now?

You think he's already started borrowing his big brother Jake's stuff?

Josh Gad in Love & Other Drugs - The Hollywood Reporter



Another Smaller World moment:

Jake's co-star and brother in law Peter Sarsgaard was on Conan O'Brien last night, and who was the musical guest? Austin's One Tree Hill co-star Kate Voegele aka "Mia Catalano". - All things connect.


Please excuse my indulgence today.

The Eagle has landed.

Don't know if Doug Linman's Moon Project will ever take off with Jake getting to play the renegade with the theory about moon colonization, sent into space without even knowing it and forced to prove it. It might just orbit in development until it breaks apart and turn into a Skylab of a movie.

But today is all about Moon Men to celebrate the 40th anniversary of man walking on the moon.

So a little moonlight for both Jake and Austin.

Jake seems to celebrate the moon and space on screen.

That cod piece looks a little sturdier than PoP's.

And Austin?
Celebrates the moon his very own way.

Well it's a little tough in that outfit.

Sometimes you do need a wingman.

2:10 Update: First look of the official Disney Poster for Prince of Persia (UK)

Out Spotlight LXXXIX

Today's Outspotlight is Sharon Kowalski and Karen Thompson.

This couple never considered themselves to be part of an extended lesbian community. It was from a tragic accident they found themselves not only a part of the lesbian community, but a voice for importance of durable power of attorney forms for homosexual couples and a part of the gay rights movement.

First meeting in 1976 at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota when Sharon Kowalski enrolled in two physical education classes that Karen Thompson taught there. A year later, they worked together coaching track. Neither woman had previously identified as a lesbian, and their romantic involvement developed slowly over time.

By 1983, they had been together for four years and had commitment ceremony, with no one even their family knowing of their relationship. That was until a devastating automobile accident changed their lives forever and brought them out of the closet.

On November 3, of that year a drunk driver hit the car in which Kowalski was driving with her niece. Her niece was killed, and Sharon was left first comatose, then severely disabled from a head injury. She was left with the intellectual capability of a 4-6 yr old, later testing would show.

Both Thompson and Sharon Kowalski's father, Donald, petitioned to be named Sharon Kowalski's legal guardian in March 1984. With the understanding that she would have visitation rights, Thompson agreed that Donald Kowalski would be named Sharon Kowalski's guardian. At the time Thompson went to court, she and Kowalski had been 'roommates' to anyone who had an inquiring mind. When her father, Don Kowalski, was exposed to the truth of their relationship, he broke the agreement he made with Thompson to grant her full visitation rights to see his daughter.

Thompson had never used the word 'gay' the entire time she lived with Kowalski, and now she had no choice but to do so if she were to obtain visitation rights.

The court's guardianship order, however, gave Donald complete control over visitation. That July, Donald Kowalski, Sharon's father, acquired legal guardianship of his 27-year- old daughter without even a court hearing, then moved her to a nursing home almost 200 miles from her home with Thompson. He then left orders forbidding Thompson to see her lover, even though she had been working successfully to help Sharon regain some of her lost abilities.

Though Kowalski continually typed out messages (the only way she could communicate after the accident) saying she wished to live with Thompson, her parents and the court considered her incompetent to decide her own future. In May 1988, a federal judge asked specialists to conduct a study of Sharon to determine whether she had sufficient mental capacity to accurately express her wishes in regard to visitation. The court found that she was capable of understanding and communicating her wishes. All those messages she had been typing out about going home with Karen were here real wishes all those years in the care facility was what she had wanted.

Pushed out of the closet and into the public eye, Thompson found that it was support from the lesbian, gay, and disabled communities that helped the couple to win their battle to reunite. Determined that her lover would not be left alone and poorly cared for in an institution, Thompson began the lengthy battle to bring Sharon home. The case cost over $300,000 in legal fees, which she raised by speaking around the country at gay pride rallies and other events, not only to tell her own story, raised awareness about the need for legal protection for gay and lesbian relationships.

In February, 1989, Karen Thompson was finally able to visit her lover for two weekends every month. She continued to fight for guardianship of Sharon, even though the courts tried to award guardianship to a supposed "neutral third party" with close ties to Sharon's parents. A case that began on July 25, 1985, handed down its final decision Dec. 17, 1991 with Kowalski and Thompson finally won their case when the court allowed Karen to bring Sharon home.

Not only the GLBT community, but disabled rights advocates as well, rose up in support of Thompson and Kowalski, rallying to slogans like "Free Sharon Kowalski" and "Bring Sharon Home." Along with offering moral support and financial contributions, many also took Thompson's advice to draw up durable powers of attorney for health care and living wills, to protect them should the time come when they were unable to speak for themselves.

Karen Thompson and Sharon Kowalski, never thought of themselves as part of the lesbian community, but became pioneers for the GLBT community. They brought into sharp focus an issue that many able-bodied gay men and lesbians had never considered before the importance of giving legal status to their chosen families. Sharon Kowalski and Karen Thompson's persistence in pursuing their case forced both the courts and American society in general to consider an alternative definition of family.

The gay community taught Thompson how to cope with her identity, while Kowalski taught Thompson about living with a disability, Thompson said. But together, they give back by being advocates within the community that supported them.

They story and struggle helped the courts addresses and reassess what is a family. And this family has grown with the addition of Patty Bresser, Kowalski's current girlfriend. It was because of Patty that Karen could find comfort during her forced period of separation from Sharon. "I didn't think I was going to survive. ... There were times that I cried myself to sleep one time too many and just didn't care if I ever woke up," Thompson said.

A film, Lifetime Commitment: A Portrait of Karen Thompson, a play, and several books have been written about the case and its place in the overall gay rights movement. .

Thanks to Wicked for this Out Spotlight suggestion, if you have any suggestions for the Out Spotlight, please let us know.


The Sharon Kowlaski Case

Why can't Sharon Kowalski Come Home?

Home Improvement

We know that Jake is handy, he's into woodworking, he built his mom a table, and wasn't he doing some chicken coop or something. or other. And seems to like mid century modern by his choice of furniture store and the functionality of Ikea. But do you know he is the accomplished decorator?


I mean who could do a better job than integrating this as fine art?


Never though Hancock Party would have this level of sophistication, didn't you?


Don't believe me?

Check it out.

[Josh] "Friedman describes The Black Dahlia’s shades of gray while sitting in his sun-dappled backyard in Los Angeles’s posh Hancock Park neighborhood, where he lives with wife, Christine, and two-year-old son, Huckleberry, in Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s childhood home. “I tease them that I still have Jake’s childhood door with Wacky Pack stickers on it, so if I really need to, I’ll sell ’em on eBay.”

That’s not likely to happen any time soon."

Straight from The Ivys

Wacky Packs came with that hard piece of flat pink gum that was so sweet your teeth could rot. It was more about the stickers than the candy. But then again Jake knows someone who's a big candy fan.

Measured Up

Hi I'm Austin Nichols and I here to talk to you about a problem that plagues many actors in Hollywood. The too small set. We know a lot of actors are shorter in stature and even tinier so thing are built to make them look bigger on set. But were does that leave the average size people?

And where does it leave for the slightly overtall, like me?

Doorways, windows, damn I've almost knocked myself out on this TV,

Even pictures. Look how the picture looks small compared to my head.

Lilliputian I cry! Lilliputian sets!

I even have to sit up just to fit on it.

You know sometimes I have to lie to get parts. Basketball, tennis, surfing hey you can fake it till make it, but shaving inches off. What man does that? Smart guy in Hollywood does. : )

It took the crew of 5 and 20 minutes to get me in here.
They should have just built around me.

You know what they say the tinier the star the bigg.... hey gotta go, they're calling me on set.