Although this year’s print version of the TIME 100 features, for the first time, a total of five different domestic (Elon Musk, Jennifer Lawrence (pictured), Rand Paul, Jay Z, Malala Yousafzai) and two international covers (Li Na, Aamir Kahn), FishbowlLA’s favorite aspect of this must-read annual compilation remains the bylines.

This year for example, the ode to Justin Timberlake was composed by one Stevie Wonder; Timberlake returns the favor by praising Jimmy Fallon. And, for the bow-down to Steven Spielberg, the magazine enlisted Tom Brokaw:

However different their subjects, Spielberg’s productions have a common thematic DNA of humanity, so we are enlightened as well as entertained. His work on Lincoln alone was worthy of enduring acclaim, for it brought to life as no other film has this quintessential American President struggling with the greatest moral dilemma of our history.

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At the recent Golden Globes, Kathryn Bigelow and Jodie Foster commingled on stage and off; Bigelow as a Best Director nominee, Foster as the recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award.

By gracing the cover of the February 4 issue of TIME magazine, Bigelow joins Foster once again, this time as only the second female film director to adorn the publication. Foster did so back in October 1991.

The cover shot was taken by Paola Kudacki, the accompanying interview-profile conducted by Jessica Winter with help from Lily Rothman. Female power all around for this one.

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The remarkable and fascinating speech given at the 70th Golden Globes by 50-year-old Lifetime recipient Jodie Foster was equally golden for latimes.com. A rep for the paper tells FishbowlLA that the rush of clicks to their Foster coverage helped power The Envelope to its best day in history Monday with 12.5 million Web-based page views and another 2.3 million mobile user clicks. For a whopping total of 14.8 million page views.

Mark Olsen cranked out the quick first report about Foster’s six minutes and 40 seconds, including her backstage clarification that the speech was not a retirement announcement. Then, Monday morning, came Betsy Sharkey‘s impassioned op ed, which concluded with:

Though the specifics of what Foster actually did say, what she meant, why she chose this forum and whether she even had the right to go public in such a public, yet unconventional way, will be debated in the days, weeks and years to come. What I know is that this was one from the heart. And it was unforgettable.

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The most miraculous aspect of last night’s Golden Globes Lifetime acceptance speech by Jodie Foster is that it put forth the same level of ballroom and telecast entertainment as Ving Rhames‘ hand-off of his Don King: Only in America 1998 acting statuette to Jack Lemmon. With Mel Gibson providing the throw-to audience celebrity extra flavor rather than Jack Nicholson and Jim Carrey.

Seriously. We watched the above clip before last night’s 70th Golden Globes and told ourselves how lucky we and everyone else would be if something came close. Well, thanks to Foster’s remarkable six-and-a-half-minute speech, that’s exactly what happened.

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Actress Jodie Foster is the first to admit that the media culture has changed a whole lot since she landed her first acting gig in the mid-1960s, at age three. So much so that she likes to remind people that if she were a youngster today, she would be steering clear of the acting profession.

That’s just one of the declarations made by Foster in a thought-provoking Daily Beast op ed about the current coverage of Kristen Stewart’s personal troubles. She says that even though she hit her apex before the advent of TMZ, Twitter and anonymous character assassination, she had to learn how “to submerge beneath the foul air and breathe through a straw.” Foster also recalls a prescient conversation during the making of Panic Room, a thriller in which Stewart co-starred:

Her mother and I watched Kristen jump around after the basketball, hooting with every [production] team basket. “She doesn’t want to be an actor when she grows up, does she?” I asked. Her mom sighed. “Yes … unfortunately.” We both smiled and shrugged with an ambivalence born from experience. “Can’t you talk her out of it?” I offered. “Oh, I’ve tried. She loves it. She just loves it.” More sighs.

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Last November, we wondered: “Will Audiences Give a Dam About The Beaver?” The answer, based on this weekend’s limited release opening box office, is not really.

While the Mel Gibson drama scored fairly well on RottenTomatoes.com, it likely lost what little chance of success it had by coming out in the midst of Fast Five and Thor. Today, Steven Zeitchik over at LA Times blog “24 Frames” tries to make sense of The Beaver‘s $4,727 per-screen average:

To put that in lay terms, that means that in the markets the Jodie Foster film opened, very few people came out to see it. To put that in other lay terms, the average was lower than that for the recent opening of Atlas Shrugged, a movie so unpopular it prompted its producer to contemplate retirement

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Reader comments have started to fly in response to a Nikki Finke item in which she alleges that the Hollywood Reporter, before publication of a March 8th business story by Alex Ben Block about Summit Entertainment, removed some information in exchange for an interview with Jodie Foster.

We have to agree with the first order of Deadline.com moderated reader thinking. If Finke’s allegations are correct, is it really so objectionable that Summit co-chairman Patrick Wachsberger and COO Bob Hayward received $30 million payouts as part of a major company refinancing deal, or that co-chairman Rob Friedman is getting $7 million? Happens all the time in the upper corporate echelons. Per commenter “Tulse Luper”:

These guys Wachsberger and Friedman turned Summit from a foreign sales company (have you ever dealt with a foreign sales company? They’re like used car lots) into a mini-major studio. That’s like turning Earl Scheib into The Louvre. They made $30m bucks. Good for them!

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Finding new ways to cover the same general retail, residential and rumination territory is the challenge that confronts the editorial staff of Los Angeles Magazine each and every month. But it must be said that for the December issue, they’ve risen to the task and hit it out of the (Griffith) Park.

Beginning with Steve Martin, the 18-page “LA Stories” cover piece groups together 50 breezy celebrity reminiscences of growing up in LA, wrapped around the golden vignette aura of the Renaissance Man’s classic 1991 comedy. Everything from Jodie Foster at the Hollywood Bowl and Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine at the Guitar Center to Joey Lawrence at the crossroads and Adam Carolla on the soap box.

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Writer-director Susanna Lo recently put out the word to Hollywood agents and managers that she needed an actress around the age of 60 for a small cameo role in her upcoming Thora Birch project Manson Girls. When Lo started sorting through the responses, she was shocked to find a virtual who’s who of mature leading ladies.

The list began with Terry Moore, one-time resident of Peyton Place and Oscar nominee for Come Back, Little Sheba, and included everyone from Academy Award winner Shirley Jones (pictured) and recent Walk of Fame inductee Diane Ladd to Cheryl Ladd, former Dynasty diva Joan Collins and even Lo’s ideal choice of Kathleen Turner.

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Yesterday, movie news website ComingSoon.net spied some promotional images for the Jodie Foster directed comedy-drama The Beaver at the American Film Market in Santa Monica. Faster than you can say “sugar logs”, other sites were picking up on this delicious AFM scoop.

In the Summit Entertainment comedy-drama, Mel Gibson plays a deranged man who walks around with a beaver puppet, treating it as if it were real. The new promo shot of Gibson with the puppet is, well, priceless. He is holding a note that reads:

Hello. This person is under the care of a prescription puppet. Please treat him as you normally would, but address yourself to the puppet.

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