Bill Murray

Want to avert your eyes from the stock market? Hollywood has six new releases out this weekend to numb our collective pain. Phew! The big one is Ridley Scott's actioner, Body of Lies, staring Russell Crowe (looking suspiciously like the late J.T. Walsh) and Leonardo DiCaprio (looking suspiciously like Robert De Niro in Heat). In these quarters, the buzz on Lies hasn't been kind and despite a relentless advertising push, the public doesn't seem that jacked to see it. Or maybe it's just us. Anyway, here's a handy guide to the weekend's other releases.

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We sometimes long for the days when Scarlett Johansson was best known as one of the angsty, combat-boot wearing teens in Ghost World, or, a few years later, as the soul-searching former philosophy major-cum-sexy cigarette smoker who flirts with Bill Murray—cue Jesus and Mary Chain song—in Lost in Translation. Her career since then has had a few unfortunate blemishes, namely her roles in the box office bombers The Black Dhalia and Woody Allen’s Scoop, and a Tom Waits cover album that was met with mixed reviews.

Then came the whole Barack Obama thing. Ms. Johansson made headlines as one of Mr. Obama’s hip and notable endorsers, gushing to the press over the casual e-mails she claimed to have exchanged with the presumptive Democratic nominee, only to get totally dissed by him for allegedly inflating their friendly Internet relationship.  read more »

This just in from the WTF desk: Bill Murray is planning on parachuting out of a plane at the Chicago Air and Water Show on Aug. 15.

Why the skydive? The Chicago-area native wants to do it for the Illinois USO, which aids ailing veterans, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The whole event seems a little circus-like, but also sort of awesome. Mr. Murray's jump will begin at about 3 p.m., right after Florence Henderson (you know, Carol Brady?) sings the national anthem. Gary Sinise's band is also scheduled to play.

Bombs away Bill!

Isaac Mizrahi is annoyed with having to do jury duty. [P6]

Real Vogue interns say their jobs were nothing like Sean Avery's in that they were not flown to L.A. or given their own desks. Shocking. [The Cut]

Bill Murray and wife, Jennifer Butler Murray, who alleged that he abused her, drank too much, and was addicted to marijuana and sex, quietly divorced on June 13. [TMZ]

Barack Obama has Sheryl Crow, Yo Yo Ma, and Howlin' Wolf on his iPod. [RollingStone]

Regarding her mother's high profile divorce from Peter Cook, Alexa Ray Joel told People magazine her mother "is standing up for herself, I think that's admirable.  read more »

Poets House of Soho, founded by Stanley Kunitz and Elizabeth Kray in 1985, has long had a devoted patron in the actor Bill Murray, who played a cameo role in the Transom’s childhood: En  read more »

Less than 24 hours after we learned that George Clooney and live-in girlfriend, Sarah Larson, have split, we've been hit with yet another devastating break-up.  read more »