One of my favorite RSS feeds, 5ives, has come back online recently, and today's entry just made me giggle... Enjoy:
As if I didn't love this guy enough after giving us Juno and Thank You For Smoking, but he recently wrote reviews for the Colin Farrell, Pamela Anderson, and Paris Hilton sex tapes on his blog. There are many to choose from, but I think this might be my favorite line, as he refers to Paris' performance:
There are honestly moments when you can’t help think, I had no idea feigning ennui could be done with a full mouth.
No, wait... maybe it's this:
One Night in Paris – A one-act Pinteresque evening with a reprobate and a lithe hotel-heiress told mostly in first person.
Mitt Romney's favorite novel is Battlefield Earth? And he's running for President of the United States, right? Just checking...
Here's what ESPN's Tuesday Morning Quarterback had to say about it:
This summer, Romney said his favorite novel is the Battlefield Earth series by L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology. If you saw the really awful John Travolta movie Battlefield Earth and assumed it was another example of a movie not as good as the book -- actually, the movie was much better than the books, which number among the worst dreck ever to leave a printing plant.
How long before the main requirement for being President is that you "enjoy playing Deal or No Deal at home along with the contestants... just to see what would happen"?
I know I should stop making fun of the amazingly coherent, lucid response from Miss Teen South Carolina (I've done my share of poor public speaking, and such as.), but I can't stop laughing at this latest report from Deadspin.
To remind everyone, Miss Teen South Carolina was asked why 1/5 of Americans can't locate the US on a world map. Here is her response. I recommend reading it out loud for the full experience:
"I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because uh, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and uh, I believe that our education like such as in South Africa, and the Iraq everywhere like such as. And I believe that they should our education over here in the US should help the US, or should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so that we will be able to build up our future for our children."
Alerted to this new crisis of children across our country that are desperately lacking maps, a new website has been created, called Mapsforus.org. Their goal is a simple one:
The children of the US America are in deep trouble. Because some people out there don't have maps. Such as South Africa. Therefore, you must email us maps to make it better. Your views of our webpage will encourage our children to believe that there is a future outside of Asia. A future with maps. And such. South Africa.
I'm dying here... just dying.
Thanks to David Poland and YouTube, this is the most biting satire of Spider-Man 3 I've ever seen.
"I know how to play the piano - urrggh!"
Apparently, making movies about Giant Freaking Robots, or sleeping with a different Playboy Playmate every year isn't as time consuming as we would all think. I say this, because Michael Bay is apparently a regular reader of the Northwest Herald. Not familiar with the Northwest Herald? It's the source for "local news and video for McHenry County, Illinois."
Today's homepage leads with "Red tape threatens organic farmer" and there's not one mention of Lindsay Lohan's arrest anywhere. How dare they call themselves a legitimate news source?
Me? I let my subscription lapse after they shelved their swimsuit issue.
Anyway, Mike didn't like what their movie reviewer wrote about his Transformers movie, so he took the time to write a letter to the editor.
Let me repeat that slightly differently. Michael Bay actually gives a crap about what the movie reviewer for the Northwest Herald said about his movie, which as of today, has now grossed over $458 million worldwide. Apparently not sure how to spend all his money, he decided to send them a letter telling them how much he cares about what the Northwest Herald thinks:
“To the Editor:
The Northwest Herald’s movie critic, Jeffrey Westhoff, seems to be woefully out of touch with pop culture.
The Transformers movie’s $155 million seven-day haul is the biggest non-sequel opening in box office history. Numbers like that usually mean positive word of mouth on the film is huge, and people are going back.
A friend of mine, Steven Spielberg, he’s pretty smart about film, said Westhoff’s review was idiotic. Westhoff’s a critic who actually reviewed his dislike for the director, rather then reviewing the movie, like his job description prescribes. Westhoff talks about the director being an “egomaniacal hack.” Well I don’t believe I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting Westhoff, though it sounds like he knows me. If Westhoff actually did know me, he would find me to be a pretty down-to-earth, nice guy.
I implore the editor to give Westhoff a little relaxation and sunshine, clear his head, let him rediscover that movie-going is supposed to be a fun experience.
Maybe even help him get rid of his hatred.
Michael Bay
Director of Transformers
Los Angeles, Ca.”
"Dude... relax... get some sun... and be a down-to-earth multi-millionaire that hangs with Spielberg, just like me... another down-to-earth guy."
Or, maybe I shouldn't be surprised, since Joe Carnahan sent me email... and I'm pretty sure my readership is smaller than the Northwest Herald.
Polls like these are best taken with multiple grains of salt, because the open-ended nature of them allows someone to appear on both a "must-see" and a "must-avoid" list simultaneously.
However, the Chicago Tribune's Pop Machine blog is continuing their informal poll of who denotes quality and who denotes, um... not quality. ;) You may remember the "quality" list from a few weeks ago.
10 (tie). Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez (together again at 8 votes each)
7-9 (tie). Kevin Costner, Angelina Jolie, Ashton Kutcher (9 votes each)
5, 6 (tie). Jim Carrey, Julia Roberts (10)
3, 4 (tie). Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler (11).
2. Robin Williams (12)
1. Tom Cruise (27)
Based on these results, I think the best conclusion you can draw is that people who go to movies don't spend time voting in online surveys about movies. Box office success apparently guarantees you a spot in the top half of this list.
I also enjoy thinking about meetings where films like Gigli and The Guardian, where multiple people on this list are working together. "How do you think we can alienate twice as many moviegoers?" "I know... Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Costner together!!"
Sorry, not sure what got into me yesterday. The list of top ten tv shows just really rubbed me the wrong way.
Anyway, here are a few more links that caught my eye... other than the Cloverfield trailer that everyone is murmuring about and that Paramount is taking off of YouTube as fast as they can type...
9 and 10. Edward Norton, Denzel Washington (8 votes each)
7 and 8. Christian Bale, George Clooney (9 each)
5 and 6. Leonardo DiCaprio, Morgan Freeman (10 each)
4. Cate Blanchett (14)
3. Johnny Depp (17)
2. Kate Winslet (18)*
1. Meryl Streep (19)*
I'm stunned Andy Dick and Jessica Simpson didn't make the cut. Actually, I'm more stunned that Tom Hanks didn't make the top 10, but I'm not sure who I'd remove from the list. Wait, is anyone else surprised that Christian Bale got 9 votes? Mind you, I don't disagree, and I would have voted for him myself, but I didn't think that he was popular enough to break into George Clooney territory. To me, though, if Daniel Day-Lewis is in a film, that just screams high caliber work. Looks like he only got three votes.
Perhaps movie critics wouldn't constantly be accused of becoming irrelevant if they started writing like the author of uncov.com. This group reviews applications built on the web, and uses, um, descriptive words to describe something they don't like.
If you don't understand the beginning of the paragraph, that's okay. Just hang around for the punch line:
"Customized start pages for corporations? Maybe, but I don't see why any paying customer would want this kind of content hosted externally, beyond their control. Then there's the whole problem of authentication and authorization, and you don't want to get yourself into that mess. You'll be giving head to a 12-gauge within a week."
I love this writer.
I can't even begin to describe how angry I get when considering people who are (for lack of a better term) famous for being famous... and then act like complete asses.
For example, I'm not sure why I know who Paris Hilton is, but I certainly do know who Paris Hilton is. We all do. (Please remember that you all had heard of her before "The Simple Life" and the rest of her brilliant acting and singing career.)
This bothers me tremendously.
So, when I read Best Week Ever's review of "Sons of Hollywood," an apparently awful show on A&E about the lives of the sons of Rod Stewart, Aaron Spelling, and their agent, I knew not only that I would never watch this program, but I also knew that it was the best review of a television show ever written.
"As any attention is more attention than A&E’s new reality show Sons of Hollywood deserves, I feel guilty for even posting about this abortion of televised terribleness, but the promise of such an explosive hate orgasm is just too strong to resist. Where even to begin? This show documents in horrifying detail the foibles of three fame whoring bro-dudes in LA, whose fathers’ last names have given them an adorably absurd sense of entitlement, which results in lots of talking on cell phones, binge drinking, sexual harassment and something that somehow ends up being dumber and more depressing than The Simple Life. It’s like scientists were able to identify the chromosome for Hollywood Douchebagginess, magnify it a thousand times in a hand-held DV camera, gel its hair, show it a couple episodes of Entourage, and beam into your television to poison your last shred of hope for our species. Enjoy!"
So... I guess Ralph Fiennes had sex with a flight attendant on a recent flight. Huh. I didn't know that this flight was part of his STD awareness campaign, but the irony isn't lost on me.
When you read a story like this, do you ever say, "Gosh, I wonder what Scott Adams, the author of Dilbert, thinks about this!" Well, wonder no more! And as you can imagine, it's hilarious...
You should read the whole piece, but here's my favorite excerpt:
I can barely convince myself that ANYONE has ever had sex in an airline bathroom. And that includes the best-case scenarios where:
- The couple are already lovers
- Neither person needs to actually USE the bathroom at that moment
- Neither person is on an STD awareness tour
- Both lovers are blind, noseless people with disposable shoes.
Before I sign off tonight, I just wanted to point you to two fantastic postings - one hilarious, one passionate about film.
First, go watch the new trailer for Halle Berry's Perfect Stranger. If you are still breathing and remotely conscious after completing that task, I can't recommend visiting Burbanked strongly enough, where you'll get to "Choose Your Spoiler"! Absolutely amazing stuff. Plus, he uses the term "non-sucky." Always a plus.
On a more serious note, I've been saving this link for a while because I'm just not talented enough as a writer to illustrate how I feel about this piece. Basically, David Poland calls out several recent flawed films, albeit by extremely talented directors, to set up his review of Children of Men.
I think what struck me most about the article is less of how he uses this trend of great directors misfiring to set up his story, but moreso for his overall optimism. He fully acknowledges these films have problems, but he still can't wait to see what these directors do next.
In this world where everything is more and more binary, where you can't be right unless I'm wrong, where opinions are formed and broadcast without having all (or these days) any of the information needed to make an informed decision, I thought David's article was... (what's the word?) necessary.
Sofia Coppola's latest outing wasn't perfect... so what? I still want to see what she does next. And Alfonso Cuaron, and Steven Soderbergh, and Marc Forster, and Chris Nolan, and Darren Aronofsky, etc., etc. Frankly, it's a miracle that almost any of these films got made in the first place.
I hate to roam into the gossip world, but Defamer made me laugh out loud (that's LOL to you kids reading), so I had to share. Their snarky comment on the following events were classic.
If you haven't heard (and shame on you, by the way) some woman hooked up with Vince Vaughn around the time he and Jennifer Aniston broke up. (I can't believe I'm typing these words. I need to go shower.) She wrote an email about her evening o' fun to her friends, and obviously, it blew up on the Internets.
She responded today which included this passage:
"What happened to me these past weeks was unfortunate, yes, but I am certainly not alone. Every day in the media, people are criticized, demeaned, and laughed at without rationale. We take pleasure in hating celebrities and public figures for no reason other than that it makes for good entertainment and money-making outlets. There are more Web sites and magazine articles dedicated to hating and gossiping about Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton than to informing young people about the crisis in Sudan, or the conflicts in Lebanon. We follow Britney's first nights out without Kevin more closely than we follow America's first female Speaker of the House. Is this really where we want the priorities of our culture to lie? Will the time ever come when our concern for the evolution of our world is greater than our obsession with others' personal matters?"
Well, Defamer was NOT about to let that go. They wrote what I would describe as... the perfect response:
"She very may well have a point about this country's untoward obsession with every tabloid-documented celebutard gossip-fart over important world affairs [Ed.note--Research intern: Is Sudan the place that Clooney goes or where Angelina buys orphans? Or both? Also: Has this Speaker lady ever flashed her cooter getting out of a limo? Let me know.], but we have a question of our own for the collegiate cultural critic: Does Vince smell like Old Spice and licorice drops? We always kinda hoped he would."
