Jon Hamm

At the premiere of The Day The Earth Stood Still, we were surprised to learn that Jon Hamm is kind of a geek and un-surprised to learn that Keanu Reeves is actually an alien.

We attended a party celebrating Jessica Cutler's (a.k.a. the Washingtonienne) wedding to a nice lawyer at the Tribeca Grand.

Billionaire David Koch told us how he's cutting back this holiday season at the 11th Annual Food Allergy Ball at the Waldorf-Astoria. 

We talked with director John Patrick Shanley about his days as a renegade alter boy at a lunch in honor of his new film Doubt. 

At a screening of  read more »

To quote The Joker: "And here ... we ... go." Including the one-week qualifying run of Steven Soderbergh's four-hour epic Che at the Ziegfeld Theater, four films with Oscar hopes hit theaters this weekend. Stars like Clint Eastwood, Meryl Streep, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Kate Winslet will all fight for the highfalutin ticket buyers' heart. Or, if you're more inclined, you can see Keanu Reeves play an alien. Either way, there is something for everyone at the multiplex! Here's a handy guide to the important releases of weekend.      read more »

Last night the Daily Transom ventured out to the premiere of The Day The Earth Stood Still--a remake of the 1951 science fiction classic about an alien who comes to earth to warn the human race about invading super robots--starring Keanu Reeves (as the alien Klaatu), Jennifer Connelly, and Kathy Bates.

"You have to respect the original--and you have to respect the fans of the original that expect certain things--but you've also got to play to a lot of audiences that, for the most part, don't know the original," said director Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Hellraiser: Inferno). "So basically we looked at the original and tried to figure out everything that can be updated in some form and what won't update well. The story though is the main thing. I always loved this story of the alien coming to earth and the biggest update to the movie is the one dealing with social issues. The original was very much about its time--the Cold War and 1951 and the atomic bomb. This movie has a whole different plane of issues it is dealing with that paints a picture of where we are in the world right now."  read more »

Several sources say that photographer Steven Meisel recently shot Madonna for the spring Louis Vuitton campaign. [WWD] 

As everyone scrambles to find new job, the classic interview suit might be making a comeback. [NY Times]  

Jon Hamm appears very un-Don Draper-like in the new Gap ads, smiling and being hugged by his girlfriend Jennifer Westfeldt. [Racked]  read more »

It was a pretty good weekend to be Jon Hamm. The Mad Men star did some of his best work yet on the show's effortlessly brilliant season finale. Whether it was plaintively reading a heartfelt letter to wife Betty in voiceover or joking around with his children in a hotel room over burgers, Mr. Hamm has ever emboldened Don with such a comfortable humanity before. It might be time to start splicing together a 2009 Emmy reel.

And! As if that wasn't enough, Mr. Hamm killed on Saturday Night Live. While the ratings for the latest episode were down compared to the other guest-star heavy affairs from this month, Saturday Night Live still pulled in roughly eight times the number of viewers that an average episode of Mad Men does.  read more »

Yahoo! and Jon Hamm (Don Draper on Mad Men) broke out the whiskey yesterday in celebration of APT, the media company's new digital advertising system (check out the site here). At a press conference in New York, in celebration of Advertising Week festivities, Mr. Hamm joined Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and President Sue Decker to talk about how much easier and faster companies can buy online ads with the  Web-based service with a drag-and-drop interface, simple analytics, and an easy-to-use "dashboard." So far, the San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News have signed up.

"I do feel a little strange being up in front of a group of people, in front of cameras, talking about advertising, instead of smoking nine cigarettes and drinking three or four glasses of Scotch," Mr.  read more »

The 60th Primetime Emmy Awards air Sunday on ABC. And in preparation, we thought it would be fun to give you a little help on your office pool. Welcome to Day 4 of our Emmy preview!

We've already handicapped both supporting races and the lead actresses. Now it's time to look at the actors.

Best Actor, Comedy: Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock; Steve Carell, The Office; Lee Pace, Pushing Daisies; Tony Shalhoub, Monk; Charlie Sheen, Two and a Half Men

Who we're pulling for: We weren't the biggest fans of the fourth season of The Office. It was hit and miss , with episodes ranging from profoundly funny to profoundly stupid. Still, Steve Carell was a supreme constant. He managed to inject Michael Scott with an underlying humanity, even in the most absurd situations. This is the third time Mr. Carell has been nominated and, thus far, he hasn't won. But doesn't it feel like he should have?

Prediction: With apologies to Mr. Carell, we'd be shocked if Alec Baldwin didn't win for 30 Rock.  read more »

Jon Hamm had whiskey breath. On the evening of Wednesday, Sept. 3, Mr. Hamm—the actor who plays Don Draper, the dashing and deceiving creative director in a 1960s Madison Avenue ad house on AMC's Mad Men—was swirling his drink (whiskey with ice, in ... a wine glass) in the window-walled back room of Michael's on 55th Street. Best Life magazine threw him a party celebrating his first time as a cover boy in their September issue.

The Daily Transom was half expecting him to pull out a cigarettte and light up. Instead, he was behaving and checking out the artwork.

"That's a nice painting right there," he said, stopping mid-sentence with a guest to observe a painting of a man looking out on a landscape with his head turned.  read more »