Seth Rogen Rips Brett Ratner, Chris Brown at the Independent Spirit Awards: VIDEO

Seth Rogen hosted the Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica on Saturday, and took the opportunity to lay into Brett Ratner for the anti-gay slur that got him rejected as Oscar producer last fall. In the same joke, he also took aim at Grammy producers for celebrating Chris Brown.

Said Rogen:

"Without awards season we wouldn't know what a horrible bigot Brett Ratner is. It's good. Good to know. That Ratner sh*t was crazy. That was nuts. Are we really surprised that he said that though, honestly? Come on. Who was like, 'Ratner? I thought Ratner was Mr. PC, that's weird.' It's very strange though. That was crazy."

He added:

"I honestly bet, though, that Brett Ratner wishes that he was organizing the Grammys, because they seem much more forgiving than the Oscars, altogether. Seriously. You say a few hateful things they don't let you within 100 years of the Oscars. You could literally beat the sh*t out of a nominee and they let you perform twice at the Grammys."

The mark above comes at about 5:00 into Rogen's opening monologue, AFTER THE JUMP...

Rio de Janeiro and Carnival, in a Tilt-Shift Time-Lapse: VIDEO

Rio de Janeiro and its annual Carnival, in a stunning tilt-shift time-lapse clip from Jarbas Agnelli and Keith Loutit, shot in 2011.

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

The City of Samba from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.

 

'Just a Single, Accurate, Believable Detail'

From the folks at The Onion:

Seeking to honor filmmakers for fair and inclusive portrayals of the LGBT community, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation announced Sunday the establishment of a prestigious new prize to be awarded to any mainstream motion picture that gets even one thing right about being gay.

"We're not asking for a two-hour-long pitch-perfect exploration of the gay and lesbian experience—just a single accurate, believable detail that feels in any way telling or true-to-life," said GLAAD spokesperson Cheryl Weingardt, who promised a major cash prize and high-profile award ceremony to any Hollywood director able to deliver a film—any film at all—that includes a brief on-screen moment in which a gay character seems even somewhat authentic.

"It can be a line of convincing dialogue, an emotionally honest reaction shot. All we ask is that you have someone gay in the frame for a couple seconds without it being completely insulting to the audience's intelligence."

GLAAD To Honor Any Mainstream Film That Gets One Thing Right About Being Gay [the onion]

Towleroad Guide to the Tube #1071

TOM DALEY: The British Olympic diver, recreated in wax.

SUCKATORIUM: A sex shop owner talks about his Sydney business, which just burned down (Warning: language).

ZZZZ: A hummingbird snores in Peru.

DEMOCRATS FOR SANTORUM: The Second City urges you to rise!

For recent Guides to the Tube, click HERE.

News: Sean Young, NASCAR, Nebraska, Elton John, Frank Rich

Openly gay Idaho lawmaker Nicole LeFavour discusses decision to leave politics.

Birthplace of NASCAR now a gay bar: "Friday, two days before the 54th running of France’s baby, the Daytona 500, the lobby of that same hotel, now dusty and worn, was filled with a combination of cheap NASCAR memorabilia and a line of drag queens set to sing and shake to a raucous crowd of almost exclusively male patrons gathered inside the hotel’s racing-themed bar."

Actress Sean Young arrested at Oscars.

Orange County Congressman Dana Rohrabacher responds to taunts on Twitter: "I'm happy. Not gay."

The Nebraska Heritage Coalition, a group of 214 churches and anti-gay pastors, took out a full-page ad in the Sunday Omaha World-Herald opposing Councilman Ben Gray's reintroduction this week of his antidiscrimination ordinance, which failed in 2010 on a 3-3 council vote. I wrote about Gray's legislation last week. Check it out here.

Salon: Trans teen Jazmine Khan turns to YouTube.

Elton, David, and Zachary party after Oscar.

Elton John praises UK gay activist Peter Tatchell: “You’ve never said anything hateful about anybody, you’ve just told the truth. And you never condemned anybody – well you have – but you haven’t done it with hate.."

Officials: assassination attempt on Vladimir Putin foiled. "Two men behind the plot were arrested in the Ukrainian city of Odessa. Reports suggest the pair were planning a mine attack on the Russian president (at this point almost certainly Putin) and his motorcade in Moscow sometime after the March 4 election."

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius talks NC anti-gay amendment, Obama reelection at HRC event in Charlotte: "She suggested in her 14-minute speech at the Charlotte Convention Center that gays, lesbians and other Obama backers in this key swing state use the May 8 vote on the amendment as a sort of practice run for the effort needed in November to keep North Carolina’s 15 electoral votes in President Barack Obama’s column."

Gerard Butler goes from rehab to red carpet.

Male model fix: Vincent Neilson.

Oklahoma City undercover police targeting men for sex in public parks.

Alum unhappy with all the lesbians attending Smith College these days. "I can tell you that the days of white, wealthy, upper-class students from prep schools in cashmere coats and pearls who marry Amherst men are over. This is unfortunate because it is this demographic that puts their name on buildings, donates great art and subsidizes scholarships."

Frank Rich on past liberal opposition to marriage equality: "In the outpouring of provincial self-congratulation that greeted the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York, some of the discomforting history that preceded that joyous day has been rewritten, whitewashed, or tossed into a memory hole. We—and by we, I mean liberal New Yorkers like me, whether straight or gay, and their fellow travelers throughout America—would like to believe that the sole obstacles to gay civil rights have been the usual suspects: hidebound religious leaders both white and black, conservative politicians (mostly Republican), fundamentalist Christian and Muslim zealots, and unreconstructed bigots. What’s been lost in this morality play is the role that many liberal politicians and institutions have also played in slowing and at some junctures halting gay civil rights in recent decades."

Jury Won't Hear That Tyler Clementi Requested Room Change Over Dharun Ravi's Spying

Tyler Clementi twice caught his roommate Dharun Ravi spying on him during a gay date, according to prosecutors, and requested a room change from Rutgers, ABC News reports.

But jurors won't hear that evidence:

Defense attorneys Steven Altman and Philip Nettl argued against admitting the reason for Clementi's room change request - "Roommate with webcam spying on me" -- into evidence, saying it was hearsay that was unreliable. The statement may or may not have authored by Clementi himself, and was not investigated by the university at the time of the request to be true, Altman argued.

The judge ruled that the part of the statement in which Clementi accuses Ravi of spying could not be admitted.

A more detailed explanation from the AP. Jurors heard today from William O'Brien, a university official, that Clementi requested the room change, but not the part that he did so because of Ravi's spying:

But before O'Brien testified, a judge said he would not be able to say that Clementi put on his request form for a room change that his roommate spied on him with a webcam. Prosecutors wanted the line included and argued that it would be allowed because it was part of a business record since it came from a university form.

But Judge Glenn Berman said the statement should be excluded, ruling that it was not a business record because it was Clementi and not a Rutgers official who filled out the document.

The line that said as much was blacked out when the jury was shown the form blown up on a screen in the courtroom.

On Friday, witnesses testified that Ravi was not homophobic. The trial continues this week.