Dakota Fanning Needs to Brush up on Her Grammar

Dakota Fanning, age 12, gave Time magazine the following quote for this week’s issue: “I would love to direct someday. I’ve learned a lot from watching directors I’ve worked with [sic], like Steven Spielberg and Gary Winick, whom I worked with [sic] on Charlotte’s Web. I would love to have that relationship with another actor.”

Oh, sweet Dakota, age 12. While I always appreciate the correct objective use of a relative pronoun, you used a terminal preposition in the first clause of that sentence, and misplaced another in the second. Your sentence, if you were really that smart, should read like this:

“I’ve learned a lot from watching directors with whom I’ve worked, like Steven Spielberg and Gary Winnick, with whom I worked on Charlotte’s Web. Mommy, can I have my childhood back?”

Seriously, Dakota, if you want to be a director, you should really learn how to write an English sentence first. Don’t they even bother to homeschool you? Sheesh.

Charlotte’s Web opens next month, and Fanning’s independent film, Hound Dog, will be screened at Sundance in January.

Dakota Fanning Vagina-Flashing Pool

Did anyone catch her on Regis and Kelly this morning? She’s still creepily well-spoken, but it’s a little less freaky now that she’s a pre-teen. It was just really, really unsettling when she was, like, 7, carrying herself with more poise and maturity than most of my coworkers (in fairness, I work in software).

In the sick, sick mind of a celebrity gossip blogger, I’m staring at my TV, trying to follow her captivating story about her recent orthodontist visit, and I’m just sitting there thinking “I cannot wait until this girl flashes her coochie.” Not in a because-I-plan-to-masturbate-to-it sort of way, just in a watching-gossip-history-unfold sort of way. I mean, she’s 12 years old now. By the time she’s 15 or so, she’ll probably be Paris Hilton’s BFF, because Lindsay Lohan was 15 when Paris adopted her (this is assuming Paris manages to not OD on cocaine or Valtex between now and then). Then will come the drunken nights at whatever the hot LA club is at that point (let’s call it “Phurie”), and the hordes of paparazzi, and the short skirts and the absence of underwear, and then the holy, holy grail: the Dakota Fanning Crotch Shot.

So I’m starting a pool. $5 gets you in. In what year will we get the elusive Dakota Fanning crotch shot?

a) She won’t hold out much longer: 2007
b) After she needs a bra: 2009
c) During the post-Oscar-win frenzy: 2011
d) At least wait until it’s not kiddie porn: 2012
e) You are a sick, sick woman. Dakota would never do that. She will be a virgin forever and will never drink or use drugs or fall into that Hollywood trap. Also, I’m her mother.

Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments. If you’d like to play, email me at evilbeet@gmail.com with your guess, and I’ll tell you where to send the check.

Midday Mess: The Liza Minelli Has Herpes Edition

• Nicole Richie and Brody Jenner finally make out in public. Okay, so, now that this happened, can someone please explain to me who Brody Jenner is?
• This Page Six tidbit focuses on how Tom Hanks’ first wife basically made him out to be Satan in pre-divorce legal filings (Really? In divorce proceedings? She had negative things to say? I really hope someone thought to write a whole book about this. Someone did? Oh good.), but I’m more interested in the last paragraph, which implies that Tom jacked the Forrest Gump character from a role his brother Jim played in a soft porn flick two years earlier. In fact, Jim’s IMDB profile says that he was his brother’s “running double” in the film that won Hanks an Oscar. Eeeeenteresting.
• It turns out that whole “six degrees of separation” thing wasn’t really based “scientifically” or on “thorough analysis of research results.” See? I told you. You cannot go from Jonathan Taylor Thomas to Treat Williams in six steps. It just can’t be done.
• Remember when David Gest and Liza Minelli got married, and we all rejoiced, knowing that, no matter what, we were in for years and years of comedic gold? Man, were we ever right. This week, Gest wants their prenup set aside, because Liza is herpetic, alcoholic and abusive. Awesome.
• Dakota Fanning does her very best “Russian hostage chic” for Teen Vogue. Thank goodness the folks at Conde Nast devised a mechanism for getting the Vogue message to even younger women.

Update: Okay, okay. I knew it was just a matter of time before I got this email from one of you. Dave at Maassive would like me to know just how very wrong I am on the JTT->Treat Williams tip. He gets extra points for actually going through Kevin Bacon. Here you go:

Jonathon Taylor Thomas was in Tom & Huck with Brad Renfro
Brad Renfro was in Telling Lies in America with Kevin Bacon
Kevin Bacon was in Loverboy with Sandra Bullock
Sandra Bullock was in Miss Congeniality 2: Armed & Fabulous with Treat Williams

Update Update:

You guys just won’t let this go. Okay. Super props to Anna for going through Devon Sawa.

Treat Williams in Hollywood Ending with Woody Allen
Woody Allen in Anything Else with Christina Ricci
Christina Ricci in Now and Then with Devon Sawa
Devon Sawa in Wild America with Jonathan Taylor Thomas.