So what really DID happen between Winona Ryder and Matt Damon? Since last week, this inquisitive little gossip has heard up to five plausible reasons why the two decided to call it quits after an extremely lackluster affair. As you know, I mentioned two weeks ago that Matt is rumored to have a huge, malevolent obsession with fellow Bostonian Mark Wahlberg and was clearly miffed when Winona, in an effort to assuage relations between the boys, ended up sleeping with Mark in El Lay. Well, the veracity of that story has been challenged by three other (equally suspicious) rumors and one wild (and yet, most obvious) claim:

-- that Winnie actually became a bit too friendly with "Gladiator" stud Russell Crowe, not Marky Mark.

-- that it was Matt doing the cheatin' on the set of "All The Pretty Horses" with ravishing costar, Penelope Cruz.

-- that Matt convinced Winnie to invest more than one million dollars in a Cassandra fund operated by Dana Giacchetto, his money handler and that of Ben Affleck and Leonardo DiCaprio ... and the same scheister who sped off with their earnings in a botched borrow-from-Peter-to-pay-Paul scam

-- or, as one very high-up magazine editor told me at a party last week, "Don't believe anything you read. Matt and Ben will never have a successful relationship. At least, not with other people."

You can choose to believe any of these tawdry, fabulous rumors -- and my money's still on the Wahlberg tale, just because it's juiciest -- but the actual reason for the split may be a lot less scintillating. The two hardly seemed to be friends throughout the entire duration of their relationship, and at recent functions like the Golden Globes and that other award show, there was some visible animosity. They may simply have gotten sick of each other. End of story.

No More I Love You's

I'm sorry to report this, but the coolest human being in the entire world -- Annie Lennox -- may soon be seeing the end of her 12-year marriage to Uri Fructmann. Apparently, her rigorous Eurythmics tour schedule with ex-lover Dave Stewart might have caused the riff, report the tabloids. If you know Annie's rocky history with love, this will come as quite a shame. Darling, pour the grief into your music! And give us a solo album soon before I seriously combust!

But let's stop dwelling about breakups, shall we? (BG's overworked as it is!) One couple built to last is glamour gal Parker Posey (currently walking down the Great White Way in the play "Taller Than A Dwarf" with Matthew Broderick) and her new brainy beau, novelist Tom Beller. The Post reports that the two have been an item for months now, and it appears they have enough in common to spend their nightlives separately. Tommy's more of an Upper East Side, cigar-and-brandy kinda guy, while Parker, as we all know, is a true Party Girl, bumping with downtown freaks. Gosh, I wanna date her!

SEEN!

-- John Leguizamo, looking all scruff and sassy while exiting a vehicle in Gregoire's very own homeland, the Lower East Side. Sorry I wasn't home, Johnny! I'm terribly busy!

-- Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau (They're everywhere! Are there five of them?), stopping into the BMG building to say hi to Puff Daddy, their costar in the gangster film, "Made."

-- Gwyneth Paltrow, quietly ruminating on her beauty with a drink at the Stanhope Hotel bar. No bodyguards, boyfriends, or tagalongs in sight. The girl's got guts!

-- Bonnie Hunt, director of the Minnie Driver heart movie "Return To Me," possibly on a mission to self-destruct, as she was seen at trendy Nobu last week eating with Robin Williams AND Roberto Benigni. I would have run screaming from that restaurant!

-- Furry Michelin Manlike comic Bruce Vilanch and his entourage being very obnoxious at a downtown performance of drag legend Lady Bunny. They pushed their way through the crowd as members of Bruce's posse announced, "Divas coming through!" First of all, when at a drag show, don't upstage the drag. Second of all, honey, you may be able to write a quippy one-liner, but so can I and I'm twenty years younger, thinner, and more gorgeous. So watch your hairy back!

Gregoire's Summer Movie Soiree

It doesn't feel like summer, but with big-budget trash like "The Flintstones: Viva Rock Vegas" already corroding theaters, it must be Summer Movie Season once again! Every year, the studios foist out their loudest and most obnoxious films of the year, and every year, we go and see most of them, regardless of whether we want to or not, even if we wouldn't even eat off of them! What are the ingredients to a truly successful blockbuster? Forget quality and fine acting! I've broken it down into six essential areas:

• AF: Absurdity Factor -- What confounding plotline or casting choice will have America scratching its collective forehead?
  
• CV: Camp Value -- What will be our next "Showgirls," our next "Cutthroat Island"?
  
• SVFF: Steaming Visceral Fluid Factor -- Lifting the bar for gore, bloodlust, and sundry slaying.
  
• SAS: Sex and Sass -- What "Basic Instinct"/"Eyes Wide Shut"-like controversy can they get away with this year?
  
• GAIN: Gratuitous and Inappropriate Nudity -- Doesn't have to be sexual either. (Just look at the hideous John Travolta vehicle "The General's Daughter" to see screen nakedness at its most shameless.)
  
• BBB: Buzz Buzz Buzz -- What do people you don't know say about it? Ranking each criteria on a scale of 1 to 10, here are my predictions for some of the biggest films of the year...

Battlefield Earth

Basically, "The Ten Commandments" of Scientology.

• AF: 9 -- Dianetics the movie! Sure beats the heck outta Christianity movies
• CV: 8 -- John Travolta as an evil alien overlord, or Jabba the Gut
• SVFF: 4 -- Probably some gross depiction of alien guts, nothing more
• SAS: 2 - Literally millions of miles from "Saturday Night Fever"
• GAIN: 1 - Strangely, this film will probably be deemed too wholesome for a naked butt shot
• BBB: 2 -- The only ones talking about this movie are those funny people on the street who just handed you that "screening pass" for their latest film, "Orientation"

Total score: 26 -- Rent it on video if it and the Mary Gross-Rebecca Demornay vehicle "Feds" are the only two remaining films in the store.

Dinosaur

Disney essentially computerizes "Jurassic Park." (This way, nobody has to play Jeff Goldblum.)

• AF: 7 -- Has "Spielberg knockoff" written all over it, as though carved in the very stone
• CV: 5 -- Only if these talking dinosaurs also happen to sing ... the tunes of Air Supply
• SVFF 2 -- Maybe if James Cameron directed it. Instead, look forward to death by meteorite
• SAS: 0 -- Though I get a funny little chill every time I say Archaeopteryx
• GAIN: 10 -- Those slutty little lizards run around in the buff for the whole film!
• BBB: 9 -- All those oohs and ahhhs ... from nine-year olds

Total score: 33 -- For a film on mass genocide, looks cute.

Gladiator

Russell Crowe gets Ben-Hurred in this Roman swordplay epic.

• AF: 7 -- Who didn't groan when they first saw that trailer?!
• CV: 6 -- The last time Roman battlegrounds were recreated, filmmakers still used claymation monsters
• SVFF: 9 -- Swords rip through make-up more gruesomely than bullets, so look for more dismemberments than in a bag of broken Barbies
• SAS: 7 -- Russell's legs in a skirt. More shots from below please?
• GAIN: 3 -- Unless there's a hot, pre-gladiator game shower scene, don't count on it
• BBB: 8 -- Press audiences are raving

Total score: 40 -- Could get the summer film season off to a swishy start. Will definitely appeal to lesbians (Jodie Foster's friend + "Xena" overtones).

Gone In 60 Seconds

Nicolas Cage steals cars for the mob!

• AF: 4 -- Gee, Nicky in a rusty, aggressively manly thriller? Nothing new
• CV: 8 -- Angelina as white trash!
• SVFF: 7 -- It's always a given in Cage movies that there will be at least one and perhaps as many as nine naked corpses. (Except, in this case, they'll be cars, not people.)
• SAS: 6 -- Always a potential with Ms. Lippy Lips in the picture, though Nicky's looking a little less than sensual lately.
• GAIN: 7 -- See answer to SVFF. Ick. Plus, Angelina can't keep her clothes on for an entire film, can she?
• BBB: 5 -- Angelina's hot off her Oscar, but Nicholas looks nothing like her brother

Total score: 37 -- A good way to get into air conditioning this summer without straining your brain. Unlike...

Hamlet / Love's Labours Lost

Shakespeare as a corporate drama AND a 1930s musical extravaganza!

• AF: 8 / 9 -- Ethan Hawke as Hamlet!! Alicia Silverstone and Kenneth Branaugh together for the first time!!
• CV: 2 / 6 -- Shakespeare's leaves little room for screwball, at least in modern interpretation, though "Love's" music could surprise...
• SVFF: 4 / 1 -- Ham's a bit grisly, but Kenneth learned his lesson with "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein," one of the '90s camp trashterpieces.
• SAS: 5 / 3 -- Ethan's been using an exfolient; reports of Alicia and Kenneth romancing each other offscreen defuses any heat for me
• GAIN: 6 / 4 -- Modern versions of Shakespeare always have some nudity, perhaps with more potential in "Hamlet" (I mean, hello, Ophelia?!)
• BBB: 5 / 6 -- Not much on either, though the Branaugh flick's already open to some acclaim in England

Total score: Hamlet 33, Love's Labors Lost 29 -- William Shakespeare could take some lessons from Adam Sandler. Should appeal to anybody who hasn't actually read either two plays.

Mission Impossible 2

Tom's back in action, this time to contain a deadly virus.

• AF: 4 -- Other than that overdramatic mountain climbing scene, nothing absurd about this sequel
• CV: 6 -- With Anthony Hopkins as a crazed bad guy, this could get messy. He's been known to camp it up for showier roles.
• SVFF: 9 -- More explosions than a holiday in Belfast! Hooray John Woo!
• SAS: 9 -- Tom Cruise AND the utterly luscious Thandie Newton?! Hose me off this instant!
• GAIN: 7 -- We can only hope for some on-screen intimacy between the film's sexy stars.
• BBB: 4 -- This film was HEAVILY delayed, and people are starting to grumble.

Total score: 39 -- I don't care if its good or bad. Blow something up for me, Tom!

Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps

Eddie Murphy puts on the Rick Baker latex and goes domestic.

• AF: 4 -- Just that awful title!
• CV: 8 -- Costarring Janet Jackson!
• SVFF: 1 -- The only carnage expected is on the Klumps dining room table after dinner
• SAS: 3 -- Only if Ms. Jackson decides to get nasty
• GAIN: 4 -- Please God, nooooo!
• BBB: 8 -- Probably as funny as the first one, and Eddie's been in rare form recently (witness "Bowfinger")...

Total score: 28 -- ... still, it could get tedious.

The Patriot

Colonial, white bread actioner with Mel Gibson as a Yankee Doodle dandy.

• AF: 10 -- Mel as a revolutionary war hero? Sounds like a Simpsons parody.
• CV:4 -- Mel lost his camp appeal shortly after he stopped showing his butt onscreen.
• SVFF: 8 -- I'm sure that with the $100 million budget, history has been rewritten in carefully choreographed spurts of blood!
• SAS: 2 -- Not in those uniforms!
• GAIN: 3 -- See CV. Also, the American Revolution was not as fun as the sexual one.
• BBB: 7 -- Believe it or not, this is not supposed to be as cheesy as Demi Moore's early American fiasco, "The Scarlet Letter"

Total score: 34 -- I slept through it in school. I will sleep through it on screen.

The Perfect Storm

• AF: 6 -- George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg again? Are they dating?
• CV: 2 -- Unless George shouts, "Ahoy! Swab the decks, ye maties," I wouldn't expect any camp treats here.
• SVFF: 5 -- That animated wave looks fierce, but typhoons don't shed blood.
• SAS: 10 -- (Homer, drooling) Oooooo, Mark Wahlberg in a wet tee-shirt.
• GAIN: 2 -- Mark Wahlberg in, not out of, a wet tee-shirt.
• BBB: 10 -- Inconceivably, Clooney's on a role, ("Three Kings" and "Out Of Sight") and the book is nothing but gripping.

Total score: 35 -- Not the touchstone of the summer, but a solid entry.

Shaft

Samuel L. Jackson as the original, the one and only.

• AF: 6 -- The ultimate blacksploitation remake, costarring quintessential white movie star Christian Bale
• CV: 10 -- Yes! Yes! Yes! And I hope all in a good way (yet remember what happened to the potentially campy "Avengers" movie?)
• SVFF: 7 -- Probably some random gunfire, though hopefully they'll be playing up the comedy instead
• SAS: 8 -- Oh yeah, can you dig it?
• GAIN: 2 -- Certain to be some nudity in black velvet paintings throughout, however.
• BBB: 3 -- Remakes of beloved films are judged rather harshly.

Total score: 36 -- I'll follow Sammy anywhere (except to "Rules Of Engagement").

X-MEN

That wacky comic book involving a bunch of teen mutants comes to the big screen

• AF: 9 -- Starring Rebecca Romajn-Stamos?! What next, Christy Turlington as Spiderman?
• CV: 9 -- Halle's blonde wig, and a cast featuring all from Shakespearean masters to pro-wresters
• SVFF: 7 -- Enough gore for the hard-core comic-book crowd, dulled only by the grainy, poor special effects
• SAS: 4 -- It doesn't appear that mutants have sex, though Famke Janssen as Jean Grey has a sultry little swing to her
• GAIN: 6 -- Mostly it's all about gaudy costumes, but Rebecca in grotesque, blue body paint might do the trick
• BBB: 6 -- The trailer looks terrible, but fans have been clamoring for this film for so long, they'll see it even if were only a read-through

Total score: 42

Projected Winner For The Summer -- "The X-Men" (which, personally, I believe will also be the worst movie of the summer as well)

Surprise Runner-up -- "Gladiator" (Hey! Maybe Russell Crowe will become a megastar and get that annoying grimace off his face!)

Next week, ladies and gentlemen, my tribute to John Cusack!

Until I discover that I broke up Winona and Matt,

Gregoire

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