Rated PG-13 – 2h1

If you took the movie Titanic and placed it in the backdrop of the 1930’s circus, that’s essentially what Water For Elephants is. Knowing that, I was still pleased to see that the movie works.

Based on the widely popular novel, Water For Elephants is the story of an old man (Hal Holbrook) looking back on the fantastic moments of his life. In his 20’s, young and sensitive Jacob (Robert Pattison) is a veterinary student when he joins the circus. He eventually becomes smitten with the jealous ringmaster’s wife Marlena (Reese Witherspoon,) the circus’ main attraction and their love grows.

Christoph Waltz is mesmerizing as August, the ringmaster and bossman of the circus. The role of August is a great villain, but is a touch more-human than his other notable role of a Nazi in Inglorious Basterds. He’s abusive to his wife and the animals, which caused some of the people I was with in the theater to gasp. One of August’s favorite hobbies seems to be having his thugs toss the no longer useful employees from his moving train in the middle of the night. So much for job security.

Because of the Twilight films, I didn’t expect much from Robert Pattinson. His performance is sensitive, but pretty stiff. Even when he’s being belted with pies and seltzer water as a type of circus hazing ritual, it was tough for him to crack a smile. I am blind to any flaw that Reese Witherspoon might make. She is always golden in my eyes.

The circus is an odd world, full of duality. From the viewer’s perspective, it can be magical and fantastic. Behind the scenes it can be quite a different story. The film gets credit for representing the dark side of caging wild animals. Outside of the show, their lives looked miserable and depressing.

That’s why even though the story is light, those who commit bad deeds are appropriately punished. Justice is served and the viewer is left with some satisfaction having watched it all go down.

One side note. Look closely at the circus wagons in the film. Some of them were on loan from Circus World Museum. I recognized a couple, but was surprised they let them use them, considering how much badmouthing of the Ringling Brother’s Circus there was.

5. Why doesn’t VH1 just drop the ruse that they’re a music channel. It’s become all reality pretty much all the time. And now VH1 has announced plans for FORTY FOUR original series this year, all centered around celebrities, music and real life stories. Among the new shows, “You’re Cut Off!” which premieres in June. It shows what happens when you take nine spoiled young women and completely cut them off from shopping and getting their mani-pedis and force them to live life as normal people!! Another couple shows to look forward to — I’ve got to set my Tivo before I forget — “Diary of a Hip Hop Girlfriend,” “My Big Friggin Wedding,” and she’s back! “Fantasia for Real 2″!!!!!!
4. Courtney Love says no, Robert Pattinson will not play her late husband Kurt Cobain in the movie about his life. She says, “Isn’t that so stupid? Who would cast him? That’s just wrong. No offense.” How could he not be offended?! Courtney says there are only two men who could play the part of Kurt — Ryan Gosling and this Scottish actor named James McAvoy. As for the part of Courtney? She says she’s had her eye on Scarlett Johansson for some time. But the movie is still in the earliest stages of development. The script for “Heavier Than Heaven” is just now being written.

3. MediaTakeOut.com has just found out that Beyonce will be performing at a wedding in Nigeria next week. It was an offer she couldn’t refuse — $2 million. Nigerian billionaire Chief Mike Adenuga Jr. hired Beyonce to sing at his daughter Bella’s wedding. Adenuga made his fortune founding a Nigerian telecom company.

2. Snooki is back on the market. She dumped her body-building boyfriend Emilio because she he was flirting with other girls on Facebook — which is how the two of them hooked up in the first place — and she was paranoid that he was just using her to get famous. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when she found out Emilio was trying to get a part on the next “Real World.” Emilio says he found out he was single again by checking Snooki’s facebook status.
1. Kim Kardashian says she has a regret — posing for “Playboy.” She told “Harpers Bazaar” that she’s sorry she did it because she was uncomfortable about it. But her momager Kris Jenner pressured her into it. She says her mom told her, “They might never ask you again. Our show isn’t on the air yet. No one knows who you are. Do it and you’ll have these beautiful pictures to look at when you’re my age.”

Ever wonder how much Kristin Stewart and Robert Pattinson make for starring in the Twilight series? Since they were relatively unknown before this, you would think it wouldn’t be much. Well, think again. The stars were given a raise from 2 million to 12 million for New Moon and are projected to get much more for Eclipse and Breaking Dawn. Since both Twilight and New Moon made so much money, all of the money spent making it gets recouped and the stars get paid even more when this happens. When a movie is this big of a blockbuster, the actors get paid a percentage of the profits! This is why the kids who star in these movies can be picky with their roles afterwards. They don’t need to worry about money!

A long while back we told you about the drama going on in Sarah Jessica Parker’s life. Read about the case here. Police officers in Ohio were charged with breaking into Sarah’s surrogate mother’s home and stealing items as well as tampering with evidence. Well, the Ohio police Chief Barry Carpenter was found guilty yesterday of both charges and faces 10 years behind bars for what he did. He claims that he took nothing from her home and entered it when he saw a door open. However, he is accused of stealing files and photos which he gave to paparazzi. He is sentenced December 10th.

A.J. Jewell, the fiancé of ‘The Real Housewives of Atlanta’ cast member Kandi Burruss, died after a fight with another man in the parking lot of an Atlanta strip club back in October. Even though Fredrick Richardson was arrested and charged voluntary manslaughter, investigators are going to exhume Jewell’s body. They say that there are conflicting theories to his death. Some reports say blunt force trauma but a medical examiner says that sickle cell disease contributed. Jewell’s family claims that he didn’t have sickle cell disease and they just want to know the truth.

5. Oprah Winfrey’s production company released a statement yesterday that she is ending her show in 2011. Oprah will discuss it today during the taping of her show. There’s some confusion as to whether the final show will be September 9 or September 25, so I guess that will be one of the things she’ll clear up today. But Oprah reportedly wanted to end the show earlier than that. However, for strategic reasons, she’s sticking around a while longer because she hopes that when her show goes off the air, ABC will put “The Dr. Oz Show” in her old time slot. His show becomes a free agent within days of Oprah’s last airing.

4. Peter Facinelli, who plays Carlisle Cullen in the “Twilight” movies, says he loves Twitter. He loves it so much, that he tried to get Robert Pattinson to sign up, but Robert wasn’t interested. Peter did, however, get Robert to send his one and only Tweet. Peter says, “I was talking to Rob on-set one day and said, ‘Do me a favor and send a Tweet to my friends’ and he was like, ‘Tweets? What is that?’ For 10 agonizing minutes I tried to explain Twitter and he got tired of trying to figure it out so he finally just agreed to do it.” And in case you missed it, I looked it up for you:  “Thanks a million. Here’s Rob… Hi, it’s Rob… My first and last tweet. My dad made me do it.2:35 PM Sep 18th from Tweetie.

3. Brad Pitt reportedly turned down $5 million to appear at the Grand Prix Ball Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates because he would’ve missed Halloween with his kids. A source says Brad’s spending more time with the family and doing fewer appearances, even though they tempt him with huge wads of cash. The event he missed was to raise money for the clean-water charity Fresh2o. The 3-day event featured performances by Beyonce, Aerosmith and Timbaland.

2.Eddie Cibrian is suing “Life & Style” magazine for more than a million dollars, claiming they have defamed him. The magazine claimed that Eddie was cheating on LeAnn Rimes with the other woman he was seeing while he was still married, Scheana Jancan. To call Eddie a cheater is one thing, but a double cheater?? No way. Eddie admits he cheated on his wife, but there’s no way he’s cheating on his mistress. And he wants to be paid for his pain and suffering.

1. Chris Brown was in court in LA yesterday for a progress hearing. Back in June Chris pleaded guilty to assaulting Rihanna and was sentenced to 180 days of hard labor plus a year of domestic violence counseling. Hard labor? Picking up trash on the side of the road counts as hard labor? Apparently so, and Chris reportedly has already completed 100 hours of it. He’s also been to 7 of his 52 scheduled domestic violence classes. His probation officers gave the judge their report, and they are extremely pleased with his progress so far. The judge said she is also satisfied and has scheduled his next progress hearing for February 18.

5. 50 Cent has had the tattoos on his arms lasered off because he got tired of spending hours in the makeup chair on film sets to cover them up. He says his call time on movie sets is always 4 hours earlier than the other actors because it takes so much time to camouflage his tats. Plus he’s got a boxing movie coming up co-starring Nicolas Cage, and he’s playing a fighter so he’ll be sweating all his makeup off and it’s just too much of a pain in the butt at this point. But there is one tattoo 50 Cent will never get rid of — his back piece. He says, “I can’t take that off.”

4. Courtney Cox is such a control freak on the set of “Cougar Town” that some crew members are asking to be switched to other shows. A source says Courtney makes all these script changes to make her character look good and that’s she’s extremely picky about every little thing. The crew gets on their walkie-talkies to warn each other if she’s in the area. Her code names are “Mother Hen” and “Cougar Queen” and everybody jokes around that it’s “Courtney’s way or the highway.” One woman who works in craft services was on the receiving end of one of Courtney’s temper tantrums. Apparently, Courtney wasn’t happy with her ham and cheese sandwich and went off on the woman, “Everyone knows you’re supposed to have equal parts of ham and cheese in a sandwich!!” And somebody in wardrobe got an earful when there were only three clothing options available for her for a scene that was added at the last minute. Courtney screamed that she needed at least five options and told her that she had 10 minutes to come up with 2 more outfits or she was out of a job.

3. Three hundred fans won tickets to the London premiere of this DVD documentary about Robert Pattinson called “Robsessed.” Cute, right? To add to they hype, free posters were being handed out, and when it got down to the last poster, that’s when things got super ugly, super fast. Two girls were battling it out over the poster, and it got physical. One of the girls fell to the floor, screaming in pain because she apparently broke her arm. She ended up missing the screening of the DVD because she had to go to the hospital instead. And the fate of the last poster? It was torn in two.

2. Ryan Seacrest was on the red carpet for the LA premiere of “New Moon,” interviewing all the cast as they passed by his little place in line. But Ryan did the unthinkable. He dared to ask Robert Pattinson about his rumored relationship with Kristen Stewart. That’s when his designated PR person stopped the interview, grabbing Robert by his arm and pulling him away. What’s the big freaking deal?? Co-star Peter Facinelli and “Twilight” director Catherine Hardwicke have both confirmed the romance. Is the movie company afraid teenage girls will stay away from the movie if they think Robert is no longer available??

1. There are huge negotiations going on behind the scenes in Hollywood to get “Twilight” author Stephanie Meyer to write another installment in the series, this one focusing on the character Nessie. I can’t tell you who Nessie is because she’s not introduced until the last book in the series. But Stephanie told Oprah that she might never write another “Twilight” book. However, these producers have dollar signs dancing in their heads and they’re not about to take no for an answer. So they are offering to pay Stephanie big bucks just to write a brief plotline and see where this thing could potentialy go. And! Who would producers want to play Nessie? Taylor Swift — arguably the hottest celebrity on the planet right now.

5. We’re just now finding out about Rosie O’Donnell’s breakup with Kelli Carpenter, but she admits that Kelli actually moved out two years ago and they managed to keep it a secret all this time. When Kelli moved out, Rosie says she had a burning desire for another child or something to love, so three days later, along came her long-haired chihuahua, Misty. She and Kelli are still trying to work things out, but in the meantime, Rosie’s sleeping with Misty.

4. Stephanie Pratt pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor DUI in an LA court on Friday. She will now enroll in a 30-day residential rehab facility, hoping that makes a good impression on the judge. If she’s convicted, she faces up to 6 months in jail and a $1000 fine. Stephanie was arrested last month in Hollywood after driving home from Holly Montag’s birthday party. She says that while the arrest was the worst thing ever to happen to her, it’s also been the biggest blessing.

3. The Kardashians threw Kourtney a baby shower on Saturday. Kourtney is due to deliver a baby boy this December. The shower was held at mom’s house in Hidden Hills, CA. Among the 80 guests were sister Kim’s BFF Brittny Gastineau and comedian Heather McDonald, who’s a regular on “Chelsea Lately.” Every guest left with a Le Sport Sac weekender goody bag filled with cool stuff like a bottle of Essie nail polish in a limited edition color called “Little Baby Dash,” We Pilates shirts and scarves, a little tea set, gift cards and an Alex & Ani expandable bracelet.

2. Remember when Lindsay Lohan was photographed leaving that club in tears last week? Now we know what happened. Lindsay was partying hard at the Crown Bar in LA. She bounded into the kitchen, grabbed two bottles of expensive champagne and polished them off with a friend. When the bartender handed her a bill for the drinks, that’s when Lindsay lost it. Sources say she had a complete meltdown, yelling and cussing at the bartender and everybody else within earshot. But the bartender held firm, so Lindsay ended up having to call a friend who paid the tab over the phone with her credit card. Lindsay was crying and kept saying, “I don’t pay for drinks! This is ridiculous! I’m freaking out!” She finally left the club around 2:30am, and those are the photographs we saw of her all red-faced and teary-eyed.

1. Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner are back in the US after promoting “New Moon” all across Europe. The premiere in LA is tonight. Fans have been camping out at the two adjacent theaters holding the premiere since Thursday, and advance ticket sales for “New Moon” are said to be running four times what they were for “Twilight.”

Let’s hope this cheating rumor isn’t true. Witnesses in a bar are reporting that they saw Coldplay’s Chris Martin making out with a blond that was NOT Gwyneth Paltrow. They claim they are positive that they saw him making out with a woman who turned out to be Kate Bosworth! It seems hard to believe since Kate is supposedly dating an actor from True Blood, but more than one person is reporting this.
Ashlee Simpson apparently wasn’t easy to work with so that’s why she was fired! Set sources say that her bad attitude was something they just couldn’t put up with. She was a total diva on set, late all the time, and deeply disliked by her fellow castmates.The insider said is was only made worse by the fact that she couldn’t act at all. Once Heather Locklear said she wanted to join the show, they had to remove the “unwatchable” Ashlee to make room for Heather. The source referred to it as, “trimming the fat”.
Just as an interview with Robert Pattinson comes out where he claims that he and Kristin Stewart are truly “just friends”, the pair are caught in action! Sorry ladies, but it has been revealed that the pair spent the night together this past weekend at the Chateau Marmont. A hotel source reveals that they stayed together, had a bagel breakfast the following morning and then had a private screening of New Moon.The source goes on to say, “Rob wanted a cigarette so he went outside with Kristen for about 15 minutes. They were hugging, as Rob was smoking his cigarette and then he leaned down and kissed her on the lips. He had his arm around her almost the whole time.”

5. Joel Madden says despite what “Star” magazine is reporting, he and Nicole Richie weren’t secretly married last week. He says he keeps getting emails from old friends and family asking about the wedding, but there was no wedding! But “Star” is sticking by their story, saying the death of Nicole’s former fiance DJ AM is what pushed her into getting married.

4. Ashlee Simpson-Wentz’s weight has dropped dramatically and friends are worried. They say she’s been obsessed about her role as Violet on the new “Melrose Place” and stressed about how she compares to the other women on the show. One source says Ashlee went from a size 8 right after she was pregnant to not even filling out a size 0 now. The source says she substitutes Red Bull for some meals and just nibbles on nuts and small snacks instead of having a full lunch or dinner.

3. Heidi Montag says reports that she didn’t show up for her sister Holly’s birthday party because there was no appearance fee aren’t true. She says the reason she and Spencer weren’t at this particular party at the Empire Hollywood club on Saturday night was because Holly had two parties that night and she went to the first one. Spencer’s sister Stephanie is WISHING she hadn’t gone to the second party because now she’s dealing with those DUI charges.

2. The judge has declared a mistrial in the case of two people accused of trying to blackmail John Travolta after the death of his son, Jett. The judge said she believed somebody in the jury had been having inappropriate communication outside of the jury room, where jurors had been deliberating for 8 hours. She says somebody announced that one of the defendants had been found not guilty and no final verdict had been declared. She said she had no choice but to order a retrial. A new trial date has not been set.

1. Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart reportedly have moved in together. The two of them reportedly have rented out the entire 34th floor of the Sheraton Wall Centre Hotel in Vancouver, where they’re shooting the third installment of the “Twilight” series. And when they’re not on set, they stay holed up in their luxury suite — and why wouldn’t they? Floor-to-ceiling windows…flat screen TVs…chandeliers…Jacuzzis…a private butler…and a private elevator that leads to a gated, guarded garage. It’s heaven! Meantime, the rest of the “Twilight” cast are living in rented apartments nearby.

5. Despite weak reviews, “Couples Retreat” was the big winner at the box office this weekend, taking in over $35 million in ticket sales. Last week’s number one movie, “Zombieland,” fell to second with $15 million. “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” is third with another $12 million, followed by “Toy Story/Toy Story 2″ (3D) in fourth and “Paranormal Activity” in fifth.

4. Jon Gosselin has filed court papers accusing Kate of violating a court order by taking money out of a joint account. In other words, he’s accusing her of doing the same thing she’s accusing him of doing. While Kate claims John took out $230K, Jon says he wants a written explanation of the $1 million Kate took out and he wants to know where she’s hiding it.

3. Robert Pattinson wants us all to know that Taylor Lautner is the true star of “New Moon.” Robert says, “I’m not the lead in the second film. Taylor is. I appear in Bella’s dreams, so I’m in it, but the focus is not on me.” And Robert is really okay with that, saying that it makes him feel more free. Robert says he doesn’t take the sex symbol stuff too seriously because girls scream for Edward Cullen, not Robert Pattinson.

2. Miley Cyrus has been getting a lot of flack for deleting her Twitter account out of nowhere. Her fans demand an explanation! So she’s given them one. She wrote a looooong blog on her official website that says, in part, “It breaks my spirit to hear that some of you feel neglected since I deleted my twitter…I often complain to the ones closest to me that I don’t seem to have much of a private life any more and part of that is my fault. How can I whine about my life being too public if I am the one telling the world what I am doing?…Twitter is not the only thing I am cutting back on…I just think kids all over the world could maybe take a little vacation from Cyberspace…If we spent more time enjoying what we are doing besides tweeting about it, we would enjoy our lives a whole lot more.” As far as the rumor that her boyfriend Liam Hemsworth made her get rid of it, Miley says, “I hope my true fans know how stupid that is…Liam is a wonderful friend and he did not try to make me delete my page, he just helped me realize how much time I was wasting on that site.”

1. Rumors have been going around that Justin Timberlake dumped Jessica Biel and has taken up with Rihanna. Well, Rihanna reportedly tracked down Jessica’s phone number so she could tell her personally that all those rumors about her messing around with Justin are completely false. Rihanna told Jessica that she loves Justin as a friend, but that’s IT.

5. A couple years ago, Britney Spears ran over a photographer’s foot. Right after it happened, Ricardo Mendoza said he wanted to let bygones be bygones, but he’s since had a change of heart. Now he’s suing for over $220K in damages. Most of it is for general damages, but he wants her to fork over almost $17K for his medical bills and $10K for any future foot problems.

4. For almost 8 years, Enrique Iglesias and Anna Kournikova have made a semi-career out of toying with the press about the status of their relationship, and now here we go again. The two of them spent 40 minutes inside the Cartier boutique in Paris, but it’s not known if they walked out wtih an engagement ring or not. There were rumors they got married in 2004 and Anna even wore a wedding band, but that ended up being a ruse. Then a couple years ago, Enrique was telling everybody they’d gotten divorced. And then last year Anna was saying she’d never get married. And now Enrique says he’s been trying to get her to say yes, but she ignores him. So who knows! More importantly, who cares!

3. Eva Longoria Parker already has a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology from Texas A&M. Now she wants to go back to school to get her masters degree in Chicano studies and political science. She told “Hola” magazine that she wants to learn more about the history of the country her family comes from. While Eva was born in Texas, her family is from Monterrey, Mexico.

2. Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart reportedly are going to go public with their relationship. They’ve allegedly done a tell-all interview and a photo shoot with “Harper’s Bazaar” and it’s supposedly in their December issue.

1. Is Khloe Kardashian’s wedding really happening or is it a big sham? There’s evidence to support both sides. Kim Kardashian tweeted a big thank you to Platinum Motorsports for providing the Rolls Royce Phantom for the wedding. And “Star” magazine got an official wedding invitation from Bruce and Kris Jenner, but it did seem awfully cheap and it didn’t mention a location. It just gave an email address for RSVPs. But then Lamar Odom backed out of his bachelor party last night, saying he decided to just have a quiet dinner with his teammates and a few close friends. Khloe reportedly had a low-key bachelorette party at some hotel in LA — just dinner by the pool and then spa treatments. But at a benefit Tuesday night, Khloe and Lamar showed up and they were noticeably unaffectionate. Fellow guest Mya was even overheard telling a friend that she’s sure the engagement is fake and that this is one big publicity stunt. Plus, Khloe still isn’t wearing an engagement ring. And with her personality, she would DEFINITELY be showing that off while having her tongue shoved down Lamar’s throat. That just ain’t happening. So even if they do get married, nobody’s buying that they’re truly in love. Most believe Khloe wanted to steal some of the spotlight off of her sisters, and for this week at least — mission accomplished.