Did you know eating too much sushi could give you mercury poisoning? It’s true! Much like if you drink metric shit-tons* of Diet Soda, you could likely get cancer or how Mountain Dew will make you sterile.

And if you’re Jeremy Piven, after eating god knows how much sushi (we’re betting around six or seven tuna sashimi) he claimed he had mercury poisoning. Brief backgrounder: Piven was on Broadway in David Mamet’s “Speed-the-Plow” when reports of his partying and attempts to leave the production were based on his half-assed excuse. He’d eventually be replaced by Mamet staple William H. Macy, but the damage had been done.

And now, he’s forced to defend himself in front of Actors’ Equity according to the New York Post:

Piven will appear before a committee of five actors and five producers. He is expected to brandish the results of a blood test given to him by his doctor, and will likely give a blow-by-blow account of his illness during the show.

…

The results of that test have not been revealed, but the producers are expected to allege that long before he claimed to be ill, Piven was agitating to leave the show.

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The producers also have a record of where Piven’s car and driver took him after performances, sources say.

Although Piven claimed he was so ill that he often went home after the show, sources say the log shows that he spent many nights out on the town.

So why was Piven so desperate to jump off? Apparently, doing eight shows a week for a limited time is hard work when you’re bread and butter is playing a coked-up version of yourself Ari from Entourage. And while we’re sure Jeremy would never make up a half-assed excuse about fish or something just to get back to L.A. and bang some bimbo, we are sure justice will be done.

*1 metric shit-ton=30 percent more than regular ton.

Neal McDonough was amazingly awesome in Band Of Brothers. I’m just saying that because I like war movies, I like man movies, and I like the ability Neal has to make his eyes look super-serious or soul-crushingly empty.

Which is why my interest was piqued when he mentioned playing Captain America…

What to say about the SAG Awards?

Well, for a Union that really haven’t been able to get their sh*t together for an entire year, they sure know how to take all the excitement out of the Oscar Race.

Kate Winslet swept in for The Reader as Best Supporting Actress, adding it on to her Golden Glob and making her the front-runner for the Academy Award, Heath Ledger nabbed another posthumous win for The Dark Knight, Merryl Streep too the top lady’s acting prize for Doubt and Slumdog Millionaire took “Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture,” which made me scratch my head: how many Slumdog Millionaire cast members are SAG signatories? By now, I’m guessing all of them.

Outside of Merryl, the rest of the winners fell into place. Which is why you can see the complete list of winners HERE, but on The Bad & Ugly, you get the least ugly of the night’s female stars. Namely; Eva Longoria, Katie Holmes, Amy Poehler, Penelope Cruz, Olivia Wilde, Holly Hunter, Anne Hathaway, Jenna Fischer, and Evan Rachel Wood.

The eventual Avengers movie is likely to feature The Black Widow, a Russian-born assassin who is lethal because of her technically advanced suit. Thing is, there is no Black Widow stand-alone film on the slate, and she;s already been rumored to be one of the baddies in Iron Man 2 according to various trades.

In the Black Widow’s shady comic book past, Natasha Romanoff (characters “alter ego”) seduces Tony Stark for her own gains.

Now, THAT sounds like sequel material, especially if Robert Downy Jr is also getting flack from Sam Rockwell’s businessman and Mickey Rouke’s foreign Iron Man. And as for eye candy…

Funny Or Die is using more of someone’s budget to produce a brief, yet star-studded Prop 8 musical to illustrate what they see as the main political points of California’s Proposition 8, the voter-ratified law to repeal gay marriage in the the left most contiguous state.

We get a little nervous talking about Prop 8, because it’s a hot-button issue where a certian grouping of the population says: “We vote on laws, those laws should be enforced,” while another group says: “people can’t make laws infringing on equal rights,” and yet a third group says: “What now? California is having troubles with the gays?”

Regardless of your opinion, check out this cast: Jordan Ballard, Margaret Cho, Barrett Foa, J.B. Ghuman, John Hill, Andy Richter, Maya Rudolph, Rashad Naylor, Nicole Parker, John C. Reilly, Allison Janney, Kathy Najimy, Jenifer Lewis, Craig Robinson, Rashida Jones, Lake Bell, Sarah Chalke, Katharine “Kooks” Leonard, Seth Morris, Denise “Esi!” Piane, Lucian Piane, Richard Read, Seth Redford, Quinton Strack, Tate Taylor, Jack Black and Neil Patrick Harris.

Who doesn’t want a musical from these guys?

So strap on your political/musical/humor helmets and see the video after the cut…

We were not that devastated when Joaquin Phoenix announced that he was retiring from acting to pursue a career in music. We own the Walk The Line soundtrack, the guy can croon, we guess.

But, the new question seems to be “Is his new music career a rap career?” and, alternatively, “Is he serious?”

We’re only asking because these pictures have popped up along with the brief explanation:Joaquin Phoenix showed up at Dam-Funk’s Culver City hot spot Funkmosphere on Monday night to debut his rap career, along with your boy Casey Affleck who was filming the chaos.

What’s worse? The actual rapping. TMZ has the video, which you can watch by clicking HERE. Bonus: woman yelling in the background: “Whooo! Walk the line! Walk that line, boy!”

So…um…seriously?

You read that right, we might be rid of the Botox Queen. We don’t mean to sound rude, but - seriously - this woman has been the touch of death for her past few films. The Invasion? Bomb. The Golden Compass? A franchise-killing bomb.

Australia, directed by Baz Luhrmann and co-starring Hugh Jackman, looks like it could be good in an epic, old Hollywood way, but raising our expectations to “epic” is never a good thing for a film. So few epics deliver on the basic formula of an epic and either fall short, like Australia might, or over-extend, like we hear Benjamin Button might.

Kidman told an Australia press conference:“In terms of my future as an actor and stuff, I don’t know…I am in a place in my life where … I’ve had some great opportunities and I may just choose to have some more children. I’ve no idea what is in my future but I am very at peace with where I want to be. There are many things I want to do besides act.”

She says with Nine, The Danish Girl and Need in production.

Could we not hear anymore from Kidman, or is she crying wolf?