1. It has been announced that Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Melissa McCarthy will be among the presenters at this year’s Golden Globe Awards, which airs this Sunday night at 8pm on NBC. So, there you go, that’s three celebrities who aren’t afraid to be in the same room with the evening’s host, Ricky Gervais. [via EW]

2. Exciting news for contemporary art lovers: Yesterday, The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s board approved the hire of Sheena Wagstaff, the chief curator at the Tate Modern in London for the past ten years, to oversee a new department at the Met that will be devoted entirely to work from the 20th and 21st century. [via Daily Intel]

3. Apparently director Alexander Payne already has a lead actor in mind for Nebraska, his black-and-white followup to The Descendants, but the person who he wants hasn’t even read the script for the father/son road trip comedy yet. Any guesses who it could be? [via The Playlist]

4. Diplo has a picture book called 128 Beats Per Minute: Diplo’s Visual Guide to Music, Culture, and Everything in Between coming out in April on Universe Publishing, a Rizzoli imprint. He also thinks that this year’s Coachella lineup looks pretty lame. [via Pitchfork]

5. In case you missed this yesterday, the very intense first five minutes of Steven Soderbergh’s excellent new action flick Haywire are streaming on Hulu. We’ve seen the entire film, and promise you that it’s definitely worth checking out in theaters when it opens on January 20th.

Bonus Buzz: The Original Keyboard Cat Has Been Found

Earlier this week we told you that Chinese artist Ai Weiwei had gone “missing” after being taken into police custody. Now, led by the efforts of the Guggenheim, some of the world’s most respected museums — including the Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and the Tate Modern — are circulating an online petition directed at the Minister of Culture of the People’s Republic of China, Cai Wu, for his immediate release. The Tate Modern — where Ai’s Sunflowers is on display in the Turbine Hall through May 12th — gets bonus points for taking the IRL approach too. [Image via @robbiesharp]

1. Is it a coincidence that with only two weeks to go until the Oscars, two new pieces by Academy Award-nominated street artist Banksy have shown up in LA? We have no idea, but we think that the one of Charlie Brown lighting up with a can of gasoline is absolutely wonderful, and hope that there’s more to come. [via Vulture]

2. Rumor has it that Universal is looking to resurrect the Terminator franchise with director Justin Lin (Fast & Furious) at the helm. After the mess that was 2009’s Terminator Salvation, we’re inclined to think that this is a bad idea. [via Total Film]

3. A smaller version of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s installation Sunflower Seeds (which is currently on view at the Tate Modern), has sold for $559,394 despite reports that it gives off “hazardous porcelain dust” and that are “traces of lead in the paint.” That’s about $5.60 per toxic seed. [via NYT]

4. Listen to a remix of “E.T.,” the fourth official single from Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream album, which features a new verse from Kanye West. (Word is that he’ll also be making an appearance for the song’s music video.) [via Complex]

5. That 70’s Show star Laura Prepon will play a younger version of Chelsea Handler in Are You There Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea, a new comedy for NBC inspired by Handler’s memoir of the same name. [via Deadline]

Bonus link: Best Picture Nominees Nacho-ed

1. Yoko Ono says that Andy Warhol predicted the rise of someone like Lady Gaga and advised her to dress in a similar over-the-top fashion. [via NYP]
2. Watch the Throne — the Kanye–Jay-Z collaboration album — is actually happening, and the first single will be dropping January 1, 2011. [via Vulture]
3. In other Kanye West news, President George W. Bush told Matt Lauer that when he heard Kanye say, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people,” that “it was one of the most disgusting moments in my Presidency.” [via EW]
4. Controversial Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei — whose Sunflower Seeds is currently being shown at the Tate Modern — talks about the government order to tear down his new studio. [via Telegraph]
5. Rapper Gucci Mane has been arrested again in Atlanta. This time it was for “driving on the wrong side of the road, running a red light or stop sign, damage to government property, obstruction, no license, no proof of insurance, and other traffic charges.” [via accessAtlanta]

Bonus link: Harry Potter Inspires Owl Kidnapping Wave

When we first heard that Chinese conceptual artist Ai Weiwei had filled the Tate Modern’s enormous Turbine Hall with millions of sunflower seeds, we were intrigued. And then we discovered that each seed was made of porcelain, and had been individually sculpted by one of hundreds of artisans working on the project in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen. The end result of this “mass-production”: 150 tons worth of faux seeds. Truly mind boggling. Photo credit: Tate Photography © Ai Weiwei [via Boing Boing]

This McG-directed Takashi Murakami collaboration (note the rainbow flowers and masked social commentary) has Kirsten Dunst donning a Harajaku schoolgirl outfit, walking the streets of the “anime Mecca” of Japan, Akihabara. It screened as part of the Tate Modern’s “Pop Life: Art In A Material World” exhibit, and features the actress singing “Turning Japanese” by ’80s band, The Vapors, a song that’s arguably about masturbation. Talk about risqué business.

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The Turner Prize committee has announced this year’s winner for the top art prize in Great Britain, and it doesn’t involve text-based art, bodily fluids, minimalism, or performance. Instead, artist Richard Wright uses classical fresco techniques learned from Old Masters tradition to create temporary, site-specific installations like the gold-leafed piece currently residing in an empty room in the Tate Britain. The Rorschach-like mural is a far cry from the sensationalist circus of Turners past, and a dark horse winner in this year’s contest.

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As Andy Warhol famously declared, “Good business is the best art.” Taking Warhol and his maxim as its point of departure, Pop Life: Art in a Material World presents a selection of international artists who have followed in his footsteps. Organized by London’s Tate Modern and co-curated by Artforum editor-at-large Jack Bankowsky, François Pinault Collection curator Alison Gingeras, and Tate Modern curator Catherine Wood, Pop Life explores the relationship between art, commerce, and celebrity in the post-Pop era.

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1. Richard Prince’s Spiritual America, a nude portrait of a then 10-year-old Brooke Shields, has been pulled from a show scheduled to open tomorrow at the Tate Modern after the museum had a visit from the obscene publications unit of the Metropolitan police. [via The Guardian]
2. Contrary to previous reports, Comcast is not in talks to buy NBC-Universal from General Electric. This is good news for Jack Donaghy. [via Philly.com]
3. Paramount has shifted the release date of Up in the Air, hopefully avoiding a George Clooney vs. George Clooney showdown at the box office. [via THR]
4. Flavor Flav — who dropped out in the 10th grade — is shopping around a new reality series that would send him back to high school to receive his diploma. [via THR]
5. Download “Scoff,” an unreleased Nirvana song from Sub Pop’s upcoming Bleach reissue. [via Pitchfork]

1. It’s cinematic, baby: Filmmaker Roman Polanski’s surprise arrest in Zurich could lead to his freedom. [via WaPo]
2. Marilyn Manson has the swine flu. [via Rolling Stone]
3. ABC will air its new alien show V in two parts; four episodes starting in November, and then nine more after the Olympics in March. [via TV Guide]
4. The Tate Modern will recreate a 1992 exhibition of work by Rob Pruitt and Jack Early that New Yorkers deemed racist. [via The Independent]
5. The CW’s new Ashton Kutcher-produced model drama, The Beautiful Life, has been canceled after just two episodes. RIP Marissa Cooper. [via THR]

Bonus link: Pitchfork’s Top 200 Albums of the 2000s: 200-151