'Scissors' author accused as a fraud

Sure, "A Million Little Pieces" author James Frey is a fraud, but Augusten Burroughs is an even bigger phony. So says Buzz Bissinger, who blasts the best-selling author of "Running With Scissors" as a complete impostor in the new issue of Vanity Fair. "I don't know how [Burroughs] lives with himself," Bissinger told us yesterday. " ' Running With Scissors' contains little strands of fact that were wildly embellished, and if you take those away, you don't have much of a book." Bissinger's story, on newsstands next week, includes interviews with the Turcottes, the real-life western Massachusetts clan with whom Burroughs lived as a teen and who are characterized as more than kooky in the book. The family, which is suing Burroughs for defamation, claims he fabricated much of the memoir. (Burroughs has denied that, but wouldn't talk to Bissinger about the suit.) Theresa Turcotte says her family debated whether to sue Burroughs. "If you're Clint Eastwood or Barbra Streisand or somebody else, you can just intimidate the [expletive] out of [a publisher] ," she says. "But when you're us, what are we going to do . . . go over and say, 'You know, you hurt our feelings?' " Bissinger, who wrote "Friday Night Lights," believes Burroughs betrayed the Turcotte family. "They took him in and did their best, and he turned around and wrote about them in the most vile way possible," he said. "It's totally gratuitous."

Answers a la David Lynch

David Lynch was his charming, inscrutable self at the Brattle Theatre Sunday. In town for a screening of his new movie, "Inland Empire," the director took a few questions, but answered obliquely. Asked, for example, about the bunnies in his new film, the "Blue Velvet" director said, " They're not bunnies, they're rabbits." Lynch did manage to make a little news, announcing that the second season of his long-ago TV series "Twin Peaks" is coming out on DVD next spring. At that, the crowd erupted in applause. Before the screening, Lynch attended a reception at OM in Harvard Square, where he chatted with Haden Guest, new director of the Harvard Film Archive, and to Cambridge City Councilor Brian Murphy. (The council declared Sunday "David Lynch Day.") The director later dined at Casablanca with Brattle Film Foundation founders Ned Hinkle and Ivy Moylan, and Brattle board prez Mike Bowes.

Reeling in some local movie news

Charlestown's Jonathan Tucker will join Oscar winners Susan Sarandon, Tommy Lee Jones, and Charlize Theron in Paul Haggis' s new movie project, "In the Valley of Elah." The mystery thriller, a follow - up to his Academy Award-winning "Crash," has also been called "the untitled Paul Haggis project" because the studio expects the name to change. Tucker stars in Haggis's upcoming NBC series "The Black Donnellys." . . . Newton's John Krasinski, of "The Office," is in negotiations to join George Clooney and Renée Zellweger in "Leatherheads," a romantic comedy about football set in the 1920s , according to The Hollywood Reporter, which notes the biggest obstacle to getting the Brown alum on board is his shooting schedule for "The Office."

Pompeo is a hit in charity auction

In just a few hours yesterday, the bidding in a charity auction for lunch with "Grey's Anatomy" star Ellen Pompeo shot up from $1,300 to $2,100. The Everett native is among the celebs who contributed to the online auction to benefit The Home for Little Wanderers. Other notables with items up for bid for the next 12 days through the Cambridge online firm cMarket.com include: Pats QB Tom Brady, Barbara Bush, James Taylor, Caroline Kennedy, Annie Leibovitz , and Madonna.

Speaking of Brady, the quarterback's lovely lady, Bridget Moynahan, attended the Moving Image Tribute to Will Smith in New York the other night. The Longmeadow- raised actress was sporting a huge bauble on her left hand -- but it was not on her ring finger. . . . Red Sox GM Theo Epstein had dinner with three friends at Masa in the South End over the weekend. . . . Blues Traveler's frontman John Popper stopped by for a late dinner Sunday at Ivy downtown. . . . Arlington funnyman Dane Cook was at the Kowloon restaurant in Saugus Sunday. Cook, who's been filming for "Dan in Real Life" in Rhode Island, had the waitresses blushing as he signed autographs and posed for snapshots. . . . Boston's Peter Smyth, president and CEO of Greater Media, is Radio Ink magazine's "Radio Executive of the Year " and will be honored in Texas next year. . . . Patrons heading into the Know Fat Life Style Grill at Downtown Crossing the other day were given notice that they might be part of promotional material involving a visit by ex-heavyweight champ George Foreman, in town for a Learning Annex Real Estate & Wealth Expo.

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