It’s May Day! And Wolverine Day! Anyone go see a midnight show last night? Anyone watch the leak online? (Use an Internet pseudonym for anonymity, and avoid the long arm of the MPAA!)
In other news, Danny Gans has died. Of OTI’s writers, I think I am the most frequent traveler to Las Vegas (except for the one guy who lived there for a while), but I only knew Mr. Gans through his ubiquitous billboards. Can anyone speak about his qualities as an entertainer?
And, in Broadway news, which nobody cares about except me, two big shows have opened, Waitng for Godot (featuring Bill Irwin, Nathan Lane, John Glover, and John Goodman), and the brilliant, consummate American artist, Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5, featuring Alison Janney (The West Wing‘s C. J. Cregg).
There also may be some political news having to do with the supreme court. I don’t know. I go right for the arts section, and use the rest to drain bacon.
@Matt – John Goodman in Godot
I’ve always liked him in the roles that he does not play to type. I suspect that he’s probably a very good stage actor.
Supreme Court Justice Souter will resign, he’s a liberal who will be replaced by one, no change to dynamic of court.
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I was in the supermarket yesterday and I see two magazines side-by-side that I have to talk about. On the cover of one was three famous women who had lost weight and highlighting their success. These are 3/4 shots and the pic took up the majority of the page, one of the women was Tori Spelling.
Right next to that magazine was another 3/4 shot of Tori Spelling only and the story was about seeking help for eating disorders, her concerned family, and how unhealthy she was.
(insert bad segue here)
Nass and Reeves of Stanford wrote a book called “The Media Equation” where they examined through many experiments how we respond to media. In the end, we may say that we know the difference between TV and reality, but when pressed our behaviors show that we treat the movie actress or our computer like a real human.
I personally subscribe to the evolutionary theory of mating. I like a 0.6 hip to waist ratio, a women with some meat on her bones. I’m still shocked to this day that we act like the same monkeys for sex as we do with media.
For the male, the same brain that draws us to have a “relationship” with our computer or Oprah or Buffy should, in my mind, should be the same one that says that Tori Spelling is unhealthy and repulsive.
For the females, the same brain that draw us to have a “relationship” with Tori Spelling is the same one that is concerned about what happens in her life.
There are so many issues here, consumption of trash media, highlighting pain, B actresses getting press, striving for control through starvation. I wish that press could be filled with better things (read: things I like =). I guess that’s like Waiting for Godot…
Hope everyone is going to have a great weekend, babysitting and cheap beer on store for me. What’s going to be your pop culture and food/drink consumption for the weekend?
Not much this week in terms of swine-flu-free entertainment news, though a lot of studios are delaying any premieres south of the border because of it. It makes sense, but the idea that Hugh Jackman or Brad Pitt would be endangered so they don’t go to Mexico (while native populations in that area are denied their movies) seems a little off. Which leads me to ponder: what movie would you want to have on your tombstone as the last one you saw before you succumbed to swine flu (or any other kind of pandemic-worthy illness)? As usual, I’m unable to provide my own example because I just thought this up, but I have a feeling it could be interesting.
Perhaps it would be better to say which movie you *wouldn’t* want people to know was the last that you saw before you shrugged off this mortal coil. This list could be endless, but for me the answer is simple. Ever since our cable company decided to switch out the exciting bipartisan action of C-SPAN for the blatently historically inaccurate pan-Americanism and feel-good vibes of the Hallmark Channel, just about anything that passes for a “movie” on that channel would be high on my list of films to avoid (but knowing my luck, when the swine flu takes my last breath my thumb will be resting on the clicker instead of flicking me past whatever crap is on there. Maybe I’ll get lucky in that, when I’m found, it’ll be during a rerun of MASH).
Well, in terms of courts, Coleman is still appealing his defeat in Minnesota, but that’s not a shocker. And no word on the child strip-search case yet, alas- they’re totally milking this one for publicity, imo. And the 9th Circuit rejected claims that information in a case about torture conspiracies consisted of “state secrets” and shouldn’t be revealed. In this case (hah!), my hope is the Obama Administration not pursue its veil-o-secrecy not necessarily because IT has been corrupt, but because it could set a bad precedent if an appeal succeeds.
Also, in terms of politics, Arlen Spector converted, huzzah. I knew he would at least go Independent, but this makes things even more interesting- once Franken gets to go to work, the Democrats will have enough seats to stop the filibuster. So I’m anxious to see how things play out. I’m especially going to keep closer tabs on Reid since 1) he’s from Nevada, and 2) a Democratic majority of this size means he has lost pretty much every excuse he keeps throwing out there about his being such a wussy Majority Leader (and I could rant and rant about how he’s such a n00bcake, but I won’t…). I wonder if, for example, he’ll finally give Lieberman the boot he deserves and take some of those juicy seats and chairmanships away.
And yes, all of this swine flu stuff is absolutely preposterous- fear-mongering and sensationalism at its best and thus worst. It’s very telling about peoples’ latent racist thoughts/feelings, though: more than one (white) kid at my work was heard saying something about getting swine flu from another (Hispanic) student this week, and they all had answers along the lines of, “My parents said so,” when asked about it by the adults overhearing these remarks. And of course, we have Lou Dobbs harping on it as an excuse to shut down the border. Argh. I say we all just play the game “Pandemic” and let the Medic run around with their paladin-esque aura-o-happiness to give us a false sense of relief during these troubled times.
I’m from Vegas, but I never saw Danny Gans. My mom and sister went once, though, and they said he put on a great show. The sister was fourteen at the time, so for her to say it was fun must mean something.
I would LIKE to see “Wolverine” this weekend, but I don’t think I’ll get around to it. I’m seeing mixed reviews on the internets, so I’m just going to wait and see it for myself with as neutral a pallet as possible. Whenever that may be, at least. Is anyone planning on seeing it this weekend, though?
_Lost_ made me cry, if that counts for anything. Sniffle.
What movie wouldn’t I want on my tombstone? “Daredevil.” I want my time back, and I want compensation monies- I didn’t rent or go see it, since it was on cable, but the fact that I sat through it I think earned me some pain and suffering monies.
Sean Hannity said Kim Kardashian is a good role model. Riiiiiight.
I hope I didn’t kill the thread. I tend to do that. My apologies.
At risk of for serious killing the thread, go to 4:40 (unless you liked BSG, in which case, watch the whole thing) for an inside look at the _Dante’s Inferno_ game.
Crap, here’s the link, sorry
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bERzMBTy77c
(Oh yeah, and it’s kind of bad for looking at while at work, most likely)
Gab said: Sean Hannity said Kim Kardashian is a good role model. Riiiiiight.
She is a good role model, for women with big asses and no talent. I mean, Sarah Palin was able to make the “sexy librarian” look work for her, so there’s no telling.
Someone might wanna mention to Mr. Hannity what color Miss Kardashian’s boyfriend is.
Not that Sean Hannity’s a racist…he’s just an awful human being, and I wouldn’t put racism past him on the list of things he’s guilty of.
How about child rape?
He’s guilty more of mind-rape, and that’s not limited to children