Johnny Depp is reason enough for many people to look forward to a fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie.  He’s classic as Captain Jack Sparrow and men, women and children will sit through a barely adequate script just to watch Depp become the charismatic pirate.  Now rumor has it there may be two more reasons to anticipate the upcoming Pirates movie.  Jack may have a brother, and Tim Burton may be directing!

Our proven informant (who we’re forced to keep anonymous) wants you to know the following info should be taken with a “grain of salt and a dose of pepper,” things are still in motion, but here goes anyway. Wondering how they’re going to make a whole Pirates movie with just Jack Sparrow? Or who else might return? Read on!

Most excitingly, there are talks of Captain Jack having a brother in the next movie, possibly to be played by Sacha Baron Cohen (perfect!) or Russell Brand (even more perfect!) Of course, that’s probably just fantasy casting, but why would either of those comedians turn the role down? As we’ve mentioned before, the new movie might kick off a trilogy, which would revolve around Captain Jack’s search for the Fountain of Youth.

Geoffrey Rush and director Gore Verbinski are apparently both planning to return, but… and this is a big maybe… Tim Burton might direct instead. Tim Burton! If there is a single director who could make people excited for a fourth Pirates movie, it has to be Burton.

[From CinemaBlend.com]

Russell Brand and Johnny Depp could be magic.  They have a general resemblance, especially with the eye makeup.  They’re both fearless and could certainly dial up the comedy playing off each other.  My personal preference would definitely be Brand over Sacha Baron Cohen.  It goes without saying that Geoffrey Rush is essential to any sequel, but it might be time for Verbinski to consider other projects and let new blood take over the Pirates franchise.  I think most people agree that the movies’ magnetic charm has weakened as the series has progressed.

Depp and Burton have proven time and time again how well they work together.  Tim Burton is a prolific hit movie maker and has capably handled everything from stop-motion animation to musicals.  He brings a depth of color and scenery to his movies that would serve him well in a Pirates movie, too.  If anyone could make a fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie truely interesting again, beyond Depp and Rush, it’s Burton.

Header photo is of Burton and Depp at the Sweeney Todd premiere in Paris on 1/16/08. Credit: Solarpix / PR Photos. Photos below are of Burton on 1/23/08 speaking to fans in Rome Credit: Insidefoto / PR Photos

Sacha Baron Cohen, alternatively more famously known as Ali G and Borat, was arrested in Milan after crashing the Agatha Ruiz de la Prada show at Fashion Week in Milan.  Dressed in a velcro suit, and almost unrecognizable as one of his characters, Bruno, a fashion designer he’s currently filming a movie around, Cohen got half way down the catwalk before they shut the lights down on him.

“Bruno’s” black velcro suit was covered in various articles of clothing, including a jacket, a dress, a handbag and a boot, and he wore what looked like a large black sheet as a cloak as he walked the catwalk, passing legitimate models on the way down.  A man who appeared to be amused at first tried to grab him, but a model in a yellow dress wasn’t phazed by the intrusion and just kept doing her job, walking back down the catwalk, and blocking the guy from keeping his grip on Sacha.

After the comedian was removed, he covered his head in one of the pieces velcroed to him, wrapped his black cape around him and Milan police took him down to the station.

Dressed in a velcro suit he was bundled away by security guards and taken to a nearby police station where he was formally identified.

A police officer at Milan Sempione police station said: ‘A British national by the name of Sacha Baron Cohen was brought here and identified.

‘He did not have any ID documents on him so someone was sent to his hotel when he got here to fetch his passport.

‘He was actually very funny and the first thing he said was ‘Can I make a phone call’ like they do on TV.’

Cohen was released without charge and was last night still thought to be in Milan.

[From the Daily Mail]

Security at Fashion Week had been increased especially for Cohen after earlier in the week he and his film crew found their way backstage of another show by Italian designer Iceberg.

Scantily clad models screamed and security guards dived on him and several others with him and bundled them away. TV footage screened on Italian TV showed Cohen dressed as his creation Bruno, a flamboyant Austrian fashionista.

[From the Huffington Post]

Sacha Baron Cohen is in Milan filming his next mocumentary style movie Bruno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Male.  I must admit, I have a thing for Cohen, so I’ll be seeing the movie, but the ridiculously long movie title was only funny the first time.  And even then only the first time I heard it.

Note by JayBird: Here’s Sacha on the catwalk. He doesn’t get very far before security pounces on him.

After the Borat movie came out just about anyone who was in it sued the film’s creators and star Sacha Baron Cohen. Okay well not quite, but close. It was a ton of lawsuits, which was frankly to be expected for a movie of that nature. Play a lot of pranks on people and/or make them look dumb in some way, and you can’t really expect that everyone’s going to be a “good sport” about the whole thing.

Luckily for Cohen, three of the lawsuits have been settled.

NEW YORK — A New York judge has tossed out lawsuits brought by a driving instructor and two etiquette school teachers who said the makers of the movie “Borat” deceived them.

Judge Loretta Preska says all three accepted money and signed agreements releasing the filmmakers from liability. She noted in a Sept. 3 ruling the agreements said the plaintiffs consented to appear in a “documentary-style” movie.

In the 2006 film “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen plays an uncouth and anti-Semitic journalist traveling the United States in pursuit of Pamela Anderson. Cohen often fools people with his gag interviews.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs haven’t returned phone messages seeking comment.

[From the Huffington Post]

Obviously there was no actual ruling, so it’s not like it set a precedent. Which would have been sort of nice actually, for there to be a more clear line between balancing free speech and individuals’ rights. However that part about the “plaintiffs consented to appear in a “documentary-style” movie” sounds like they were upset by the nature of their scenes or the film itself, but weren’t arguing that they were ever actually deceived.

I’d think that if the studio that put out Borat had any common sense they would have realized it was a potential legal disaster and protected themselves vigorously from the beginning.

“Borat” star Sacha Baron Cohen is finding himself in the unpleasant position of being caught between his traditional Jewish parents and his modern working mom fiancee, actress Isla Fisher. The pair have been engaged for quite some time and now have a daughter, Olive. However, Cohen’s parents- particularly his mother- have insisted that the couple cannot wed until Isla has converted to Judaism. But Isla has been focused on her baby and burgeoning film career, putting her Jewish studies on the back burner- which means the wedding, originally scheduled for late summer, is now postponed indefinitely.

A source said: ‘Isla was supposed to spend her time after giving birth hard at work on her Torah studies, and that’s gone far slower than expected.

‘It’s very much frustrated her future in-laws, especially Sacha’s mother, who were really hoping for a wedding this summer.’

The source added: ‘Right now there’s no wedding date set because Isla hasn’t fully converted yet, and even though she’s working at it part-time, she’s far from being close to completing her studies.’

Isla, who has spent most of this summer filming her upcoming project Confessions Of A Shopaholic, is said to have a tense relationship with Sacha’s mother, Daniella.

The source said: ‘What made relations difficult between Isla and Sacha’s mother is that she really wanted Isla to spend more time with the baby and their family in England instead of being hasty and returning to work so quickly.

‘Now that Isla’s done shooting, she’s in the awkward position of making up for lost time.’

To this end, the Australian-born actress, who found fame in Home And Away in the Nineties, is spending increasing amounts of time with her in-laws in Britain, in an apparent effort to endear herself to them.

Meanwhile the notoriously reclusive Baron Cohen, 36, is patiently playing peacemaker between his wife and mother.

Instead of wedding preparations, he has channelled his energies into work, chalking up long hours on his new reality-based film Bruno, which has nearly completed filming and will be released worldwide next summer.

The source said: ‘Sacha is not as worried about the relationship between his parents and Isla as everyone else is because he’s extremely devoted to her and their child.

‘He also believes that putting too much pressure on Isla is only going to make the wedding happen later rather than sooner.

‘He is happy taking his time to get married the same way he was happy having a long engagement.

‘But in the meantime Isla’s had to endure a lot of awkward moments with Sacha’s mother, who just doesn’t seem to understand her future daughter-in-law’s drive to become a big star.’

For Isla’s part, the actress is said to be looking forward to becoming a Cohen.

The source said: ‘No matter what Sacha’s mother throws at her, Isla isn’t going to be scared away from the relationship or the family.

‘You really get the sense that her devotion to Sacha is total, even if she’s stalled a little bit on her Jewish studies. She loves sharing her life with this guy.’

[From Huffington Post]

That mother sounds like a nightmare. And if Sacha were smart he’d put her in her place and make it clear that HE’S the one getting married to Isla, not the rest of the family. It’s setting a dangerous precedent to let the parents dictate the terms of the marriage, because then it never stops. Best of luck to Isla, and I hope the couple can work this out.

Photo credit: Sacha Baron Cohen and Isla Fisher are shown at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party at Mortons on 2/25/07, thanks to Dimitri Halkidis for WENN.

WENN is reporting that security at a Wichita, Kansas airport was put on “red alert” when a “European man” was “[stripped] down to tight shorts and [danced] in the lobby of Wichita Airport.”

Baron Cohen is filming a movie as his flaming Austrian TV personality Bruno, and the Wichita locals didn’t take kindly to his half-dressed invasion of the airport. They also had no idea who he is. I found the original story about this on Kansas.com, and there’s no mention of Baron Cohen or Bruno, so it’s safe to say that more people are fooled by this character than his better-known Kazakh incarnation, Borat:

Officials at the Wichita Mid-Continent Airport are rewriting their policy on commercial filming inside the terminal after a film crew stripped down and started dancing at the airport.

The crew had permission from the airport to film a scene on March 18 based on a “European man” visiting America.

But security workers became concerned when they began dancing in tight short shorts, kissing and fighting in the lobby.

Security couldn’t find anything illegal about the performance, but asked the crew to leave.

Brad Christopher, assistant director of airport operations, says it won’t be as easy to film at the airport in the future.

[From Kansas.com]

I love how this is reported completely straight-faced, and they have no idea that it was comic Baron Cohen, calling him a “European man.”

At least one celebrity was said to be fooled by Bruno for the upcoming film. Mike Walker reports in the current issue of the National Enquirer that Ben Affleck called up comedian Sarah Silverman and told her that he did an interview with an “openly gay European fashion journalist” who asked him inappropriate questions like “how do you like (n-words)?” Sarah clued him in that it was Sacha Baron Cohen in his Bruno character. I’m not so quick to believe that Affleck wasn’t in on it, but maybe we’ll see how good an actor he is once the movie comes out.

Here’s a clip of Bruno interviewing some Christian guys, thanks to Hollywood.tv for linking it. It really is religion day today.

I’m pretty sure the Borat movie has led to more lawsuits than any other movie in the history of… movies. There must have been at least 92 lawsuits related to Borat. Which isn’t really surprising when you do embarrassing things to unsuspecting members of a litigious society. Luckily for free speech, another Borat lawsuit – this one poop related – has been quashed. Etiquette teacher Kathie Martin has sued after British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen and the movie’s producers after Cohen’s Borat character brought a bag of poop to one of her parties. You could see how she’s be a little annoyed.

The justices overruled a lower court and said Martin can’t sue Cohen and the companies that produced the movie in Alabama because she signed an agreement stating only courts in New York could hear any disputes that arose from her appearance.

In the movie, Cohen plays a journalist from Kazakhstan traveling across the United States in search of Pamela Anderson. He gives out random high fives and says “Very nice!” all along the way, misunderstanding American culture at every stop. During a segment in Alabama, Borat sought etiquette lessons from Martin and is shown in the movie presenting guests at a dinner party with a bag of human feces. The Supreme Court was polite enough not to go into details of the dinner: “It is sufficient to say that an eventful meal ensued during which the alleged reporter engaged in behavior that would generally be considered boorish and offensive,” wrote Justice Mike Bolin.

[From the Huffington Post]

Martin was pretty pissed about the whole debacle. She didn’t just sue Cohen and the biggest production company responsible – she went after everyone. Aside from Cohen, Martin also went after Twentieth Century, One America Productions Inc., Everyman Pictures, Dune Entertainment, MTV Networks, Comedy Central, Dakota North Entertainment Inc. and Four by Two Production Co. I think she may have sued the caterer and the gaffer too. The case isn’t thrown out altogether, she’ll just have to start from scratch in New York. And I’ve got to tell you, here carrying around a bag of poop is pretty much status quo, so I don’t think she’s going to get much sympathy.

This week’s In Touch reports that Johnny Depp gave Sacha Baron Cohen a pregnancy book as a present while the two were in NY in early December promoting their new soon-to-be-blockbuster film Sweeney Todd. Baron Cohen and his fiance Isla Fischer’s baby daughter Olive was already a month old at that point so the book wasn’t really practical. Depp seems to have realized this, since the book was titled “The Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy.”

“The Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy” was first published in 1995, and Depp’s girlfriend Vanessa Paradis had her first child, Lily-Rose, in 1999, making it likely that the book was a re-gift.

Baron Cohen plays a flaming hairdresser in dark musical Sweeney Todd, which is out in US theaters this Friday. The costume designer for the film reports that his manhood was enhanced by quilted material after a lot of trial and error to get the most natural look.

Johnny Depp recently revealed part of the reason why he’s so secretive about his privacy. He said that screen legend Marlon Brando called him up after he gushed about his children in an interview and told him that his private life was not public entertainment. In Johnny Depp’s case, he’s all the quirky entertainment we need, and that’s sure to be confirmed yet again once Sweeney Todd is out.

Johnny Depp and Sacha Baron Cohen are shown at the Sweeney Todd premiere on 12/3/07.

The details were initially hazy about the birth of Sacha Baron Cohen and his fiance Isla Fisher’s first baby last month. Reports in Fisher’s native Australia declared correctly that the pair had a girl, but the exact date and place of the birth was unknown. Later rumors had their baby a boy, with the name incorrectly given as “Sandler James.”

It turns out that the Borat comedian and his fiance did have a girl last month, and that her name is Olive. Instead of opting for a high-paid magazine reveal, the hilarious impersonator and his lovely girlfriend decided to let the paparazzi take pictures yesterday as they stood outside a hotel. They looked happy and relaxed, smiling and showing the baby. Their good friends Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber also decided to debut their newborn by letting photographers have unpaid access to pictures. Naomi showed off little Alexander Pete Schreiber to paparazzi when he was two weeks old.

Isla looks incredible, and their baby is so cute! Babies are so adorable at that age. I remember an elderly woman coming up to my husband and me when our son was a month old and telling us how fast it all went. Now that he’s three I realize how right she was.

Baron Cohen will next appear in the film Bruno, in which he dupes people with his alter ego, a flaming Austrian talk show host. Fisher says she intends to be a stay-at-home mom.

Thanks to Splash News for these pictures and The Daily Mail for the heads up.

Isla Fisher and Sacha Baron Cohen are the proud parents of a baby girl, according to reports in Fisher’s native Australia. Not much more is known other than the sex of the baby and it is unclear when the baby was born. Fisher’s rep claims to know nothing about it, so maybe she just hasn’t talked to the happy couple yet.

Australian actress Isla Fisher has reportedly given birth to a baby girl.

Sources said Fisher, who is married to English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen - the creator Borat and Ali G, has given birth. However, a spokeswoman from her agent, Shanahan Management, said they knew nothing about it, Fairfax reported.

Fisher, who is finding success in Hollywood, told The Daily Mail on Tuesday that she was happy to take a break from her career to concentrate on being a mum.

[From News.com.au]

Isla was seen out last week and looked healthy and ready to have her baby. She has no plans to work in the near future and says she is not going to worry about losing weight or missing out on work.

Congratulations to Isla and Sacha and hopefully they picked a decent name for their little one.

Update: Celebrity Baby Blog is reporting that they had a boy, not a girl, and that he was born on Wednesday morning at 11 and his name is Sadler James.

Update 2: It is a girl, not a boy, and her name is Olive.

Photo is an older one of Naomi Watts pregnant. Please see I’m Not Obsessed and Celebrity Baby Blog for the pics of baby Alexander.

Unlike Britney Spears or Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, who kept their latest respective babies under wraps for months, Naomi Watts and her beau Liev Schrieber were not afraid to let their newborn son be photographed. Two week old Alexander Pete Schreiber was seen with a smiling and happy Naomi and Liev out on a trip to the post office on Friday.

As two star parents, they can earn a million or more for exclusive photos of the tot, but they seemed happy and comfortable to give the paparazzi a glimpse ahead of any photo spread they might have planned. You have to respect that, and it’s refreshingly normal.

Commentors on I’m Not Obsessed note that Naomi looks great and that she must have been “all baby.”

On Saturday Naomi and Liev hung out with expectant couple Sacha Baron Cohen and Isla Fischer. Sacha and Liev worked out together and were seen hitting up a sporting goods store ahead of time. Naomi and Isla were said to be back at the house, “cooking for the boys.” [Details from Splash News. The pictures aren't that great, but here's one of Sacha and Liev at the store.]

None of the photo agencies we subscribe to have the pictures of little Alexander. You can see the photos at Celebrity Baby Blog and I’m Not Obsessed. Given how open Liev and Naomi were in showing their baby, there are sure to be more photos of the cutie sometime this week.

Here are Liev and Sacha shopping at that sporting goods store on Saturday.