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I think it says something about me when I tell you this is the first time I've looked at Colin Farrell and thought to myself: "Ya. I'd do him."
PS See y'all at the 10th Annual Lazy Bear Jamboree!!!
PPS What's with the LL Bean-cargojammiebottom-Phishead-dormwear?
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You know it's going to be a bad day when you sit down with a cup of coffee, peel open the New York Times, and have the first words your brain processes be "WHAT does Alan Cumming smell like?"
Ummm....a delicate, complex mixture of Haggis, poppers and poop?
Nope!
A manly, tasty blend of black pepper and bergamot with just a hint of Scotch pine, whiskey and - could it be? - rubber. This is the bottled Alan Cumming, one of the latest and most improbable scents to hit the booming celebrity fragrance market, joining Britney Spears's Curious and Jennifer Lopez's Glow, Miami Glow and, soon, Live.
Turns out what probably started as a drunken bet at the Abbey to see if he could get a product called "Cumming in a Bottle" on store shelves has now turned into something quite real: Sephora will be carrying the entire "Cumming In..." line, including "Cumming in a Bar" hand soaps and "Cumming In My Assistant's Mouth", an apres-shave facial tonic (okay, just kidding on the last one).
"It's almost like a pop cultural joke," he tells the Times, I think referring to the fragrance line and not his career, "But the bottom line is I really like it!"
Don't get quite so cozy yet, Cumming. The 'just-a-dab-of-starfucking-behind-the-ears-set' are a fickle bunch:
...with most celebrity fragrances pitched toward consumers 16 to 28 years old, and with the window of fame now more like a portal than a bay, there is an inevitable moment when demand begins to cool. One way that companies like Coty have addressed this problem is to bring out spinoff products, like Miami Glow, a heavy coconut-and-orange-blossom scent that quickly followed Glow. In the spring Elizabeth Arden offered Britney Spears fans a two-in-one product with a lipstick at one end and roller-ball scent at the other.
Okay, Alan, listen up: I'm thinking a Swiss Army-type contraption, combining atomizer, silicone lube squeeze dispenser, coke spoon, emergency Manic Panic supply, and a tiny little flip up roach clip (awww - cute!).
too long to go into. basically it was just some scientol ranting against therapists and anderson was like, aren't you exagerrating the number of people who get shock treatment and put on drugs, etc. don't most people go with talk therapy etc. Anderson kicked his butt. which isn't saying much considering the scientol came across like a fruitloop
We were barely able to catch our heaving, Anderson-lusting breaths before this second bombshell landed with a thud (or rather an AOLey *bling*):
well, they just showed a poll that said 61% like tc less now
after all his antics and only 3% like him more
There you have it, people. 61% of people who watch Anderson Cooper yelling at Scientologist wackos like Tom Cruise less after his antics. And 3% have hilarious, poll-spoiling senses of humor!!!
UPDATE: A reader informs us that My Super Sweet Sixteen is Anderson's professed favorite show of all time too!!! MARRY US ANDERSON!!!
Is there anything better than blogger Rosie O'Donnell on a rampage? Recent posts lambaste her precious "Tommy" and comment on Oprah's curiously (we agree with her there) 'most humiliating moment':
i cannot wait to hear
all the details -
one of the most humiliating moments of her life…
oprah
a poor overweight
sexually abused
troubled black female child
from a broken home -
that oprah
sufferred ONE of the most HUMILIATING momemts of HER life
at hermes in paris
Click here for the full text.
The greatest show in the history of mankind, MTV's My Super Sweet Sixteen, is about to get some competition from Bravo's It's My Party, produced by those Sorcerers of the Superficial at World of Wonder (the people responsible for the "Showbiz/Dogs/Sportskids/Philharmonic Cellists/Found Object Sculptors/Sex Industry Workers Moms & Dads" gawk-a-tainment reality genre).
From Page 5 of today's Variety:
In each episode, cameras follow two families as they ready for similar events such as bar mitzvahs, weddings and sweet-16 parties.
Bravo topper Lauren Zalaznick said "It's My Party" "puts a unique twist on a familiar concept."
"This series aims to uncover what leads parents to invest so much in the celebrations of their children's major rites of passages," she said.
That's quite a unique twist, Zalaznick! So let me get this straight: while Super Sweet Sixteen causes audiences to point, gasp and scream at the exploits of its evil, spoiled subjects, your show will instead have viewers gasping, screaming and pointing. Way to innovate!
Don't get us wrong: we will most certainly be there, our greedy, sweaty thumbs resting ever so gently on the rubbery TiVo replay button for immediate decadent-Bar-Mitzvah-replay-satisfaction... ("YOU'RE TOO FAT AND GAY TO BE A JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE LOOKALIKE!!!...LOOKALIKE..OOKALIKE..IKE...IKE...IKE...")
HBO's newest comedy, The Comeback, alternate title: How Much Ritualized Humiliation Can We Heap On One Pathetic Character?, aired its fourth sadistic episode this past Sunday, and what can I say? I'm hooked! But when ex-sitcom star Valerie Cherish is literally getting shit on well before the first season's half-way mark, you can't help but wonder...how much lower can she go? It's the premium cable version of a limbo contest!
For those who are just joining in on the fun, here's a little graph to keep you up to date on Valerie's low points, and lower points, and even lower points, and even lower lower points, and...
This week, tongues have been raised and eyebrows sent wagging when a videotaped tribute to George Lucas screened at the AFI Lifetime Achievement Awards ceremony revealed a shockingly (shockingly!) svelte Peter Jackson, looking more Gollum than fats Hobbitseses.
None of this should have been news to anyone following the video diaries on KongIsKing.net, the official website for his due-January King Kong remake, where his transformation from furry meatball to bearded Slim Jim (pause to dry heave) has been meticulously documented. And no kids: this is not just another CGI effect like the ones overstuffing his movie's trailer, which premiered on all NBC Universal owned networks last night.
9/12/04, 3:00 am EST : The Portly Peter we know and love.
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10/03/04, 10:58 pm EST : Jack Black appears to be hogging all the craft table carbs.
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6/03/05, 12:33 pm EST: Peter enters Olsen twin territory.
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The Future....????!!!!!????
With thanks to Defamer for source photos.
New York City is presently under attack by possibly its greatest giant Snack foe since the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. This just in from the AP wires:
An attempt to erect the world's largest popsicle in a city square ended with a scene straight out of a disaster film — but much stickier.
The 25-foot-tall, 17 1/2-ton treat of frozen Snapple juice melted faster than expected Tuesday, flooding Union Square in downtown Manhattan with kiwi-strawberry-flavored fluid that sent pedestrians scurrying for higher ground.
"What was unsettling was that the fluid just kept coming," Stuart Claxton of the Guinness Book of World Records told the Daily News. "It was quite a lot of fluid. On a hot day like this, you have to move fast."
Funny-- those words could have just as easily come from redcarpet bystanders at the recent Tom Cruise snafu or frightened, machete wielding African hotel workers privy to Brad and Angelina's recent late-night monkey-screaming.
This dust has almost settled on this past weekend's string of pretty-boy related attacks, a series of ambushes which amounted to something not unlike a Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?: Hollywood Leading Men edition.
Here is a scorecard to help you keep track:
Victim
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Nickname
Leo OT VII
Location
A Night in Paris co-star Leicester Square premiere of
Rick Salomon's Hollywood Hills home. War of the Worlds.
Assailant
Female, Caucasian, late 20s. Male, Caucasian, early 30s.
Weapon / Nature of Assault
Broken beer bottle / Smashed against head, Trick microphone / Surprise stream of
slashing neck. water in face.
Motive
Still unclear: reports have her looking for Filming material for a Channel 4
an ex-boyfriend. prank television show.
Immediate Result
Rushed to Cedars Sinai emergency. Assailant informed of "jerk" status by an
12 stitches required in neck. unamused Cruise, arrested with three co-
pranksters.
Legal Recourse
Police report filed. No arrests made yet. Spokesman informs Entertainment Tonight
that Cruise will not pursue the matter.
Sympathy Meter
9.6 Reports have him minding his own business. 2.3 It was kind of stinky, and not very
Could have been fatal if carotid was severed. funny. Still -- it was water.
According to IMDb, Warner Bros. has asked the whole Wayne mishpuchah back for another swing of the Bat-Grapple in the next installment of their newly invigorated Batman franchise...minus one twinkling-ring-fingered, side-mouth-talking (see left), New OT IV shadowed actress:
"Bale as Batman was the first to put pen to paper, followed by Caine as butler Alfred and Freeman as Bruce Wayne's business associate Lucius Fox. But Holmes won't reprise her role as district attorney Rachel Dawes - reportedly because Warner Bros is angry her engagement to Tom Cruise has stolen media attention away from the movie."
When asked to comment, the glassy-eyed actress pulled her lips back into a skull-like grin and chanted "That's amazing...amazing...totally amazing..." before new best friend Jessica Rodriguez sucker-tazered reporters and a black, tinted-window helicopter air-lifted the
baby recepticalswomen to safety.
Give yourselves a round of applause: over 28,000 of you showed up this weekend, bringing Feh that much closer to its landmark number of 100,000 page views. We celebrate this imminent milestone by 1) announcing that we are now soliciting advertising (email us), and 2) going public.
Our Press Release:
Feh Contact: Lizzie Grubman - Cheryl Bies |
Feh Media |
Los Angeles, Calif., June 20, 2005 - - Feh Media (NYSE: FEH), the world's leading supplier of useless, cunty information (UCIs), will begin trading today on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) as "FEH." Seth Fehstein, Feh President and CEO, stated, "We believe that our position as an infrastructure leader in the creation and dissemination of useless, cunty information and opinions makes Feh Media and the NYSE a great combination at this juncture in our history."
Trading on the NYSE under Feh's new "FEH" ticker symbol begins today at 9:30 a.m. EDT, following an opening bell ringing ceremony on the floor of the Exchange by Ricardo, Mr. Fehstein's ex-East Village Brazilian hustler roommate (budget caps prohibited the CEO from actually making it to the ceremony).
In what will forever be referred to in Scientology Scriptures as INCIDENT III, Tom Cruise was squirted in the face with a trick microphone at Sunday's London premiere of War of the Worlds.
From this morning's London Times:
The star struggled to maintain his composure and rounded on the man, saying, "Why would you do that ... why would you do that ... why would you do that?" As the prankster offered a barely audible excuse, Cruise said, "Do you like thinking less of people, is that it?"
Reports have started to trickle in as to what that barely audible excuse was, and they vary wildly:
1. "Evil Galactic Emperor Xenu made me do it."
2. "I wanted to wipe that smug, 'I'm the biggest star in the world' grin off your annoying, brainwashed face."
3. "Here's a washcloth courtesy of GlaxoSmithKline, makers of Paxil™."
4. "No harm meant, mate. That's how we say 'Happy Sham Engagement' in England!"
5. "Love, Chris Klein."
Scotland Yard is treating this as seriously as if the attack with the large, face-drenching phallic object were an actual weapon:
The man was escorted away by security guards and taken inside the cinema where he and the three other members of his freelance camera crew were arrested. "They are being investigated in relation to an alleged assault on Mr Cruise," he said. "It was just water, but that can be very alarming when it comes from a crowd out of nowhere."
The High Priests of Scientology are themselves holding closed-door, around-the-clock, Koo Koo Roo-catered meetings, to decide what actions the Church will be taking. Activating all volcanoes in and around London, flattening Big Ben with the Mothership's laser cannons, and, most ominously, engaging Level VII of The Graham Norton Effect have all been reportedly discussed.
FOUR KINGS
Airs: TBD
Grade: D-
Hit me baby 1 more time! If NBC wants to spinoff its new summer reality series, maybe it could do a version with one-hit wonder sitcom writers. The very first slot could be filled by the writing duo of Max "Mystic Tan" Mutchnick (see photo, left) and David Kohan, who brought us one hit series (Will & Grace) and then laid a massive egg on the same network in the shape of the dreadfully misguided and unfunny Good Morning, Miami. Now poor, hit-starved NBC has another half-hour turd on its hands, this one dubbed Four Kings.
The writing duo has a penchant for casting vaguely semitic looking, hunky actors, probably because that's what they fantasize is winking back at them in the mirror every morning. Miami had Mark Feuerstein, and now Kings has Josh Cooke, fresh off NBC's recently (and mercifully) cancelled midseason comedy, Committed. As bad as it was, Commited at least gave the likeable actor a character to play. Four Kings has him playing Ben, a generic-as-a-UPC-symbol 'slacker' in New York with no discernible personality traits beyond having a dead cool, foul-mouthed grandmother (they also have a penchant for cool, foul-mouthed grandmothers) who leaves him her large apartment. Ben reacts to this news in the completely plausible way anyone living in the actual world would: he invites his three annoying wisecracking friends to move in with him! Of course they gleefully drop everything and do so: Barry, played with one loud, angry, grating note by Seth Green, Jason (Todd Grinnel) who is 'anal retentive' and 'formerly fat', and Bobby (Shane McRae), who is 'dumb' and 'dirty'. They 'banter' and 'talk shit' for 23 minutes but deep down they all 'really love' each other and the entire thing comes of as phony, tin-eared, and worst of all, very, very unfunny.
Here's a sample scene: Jason has to 'break up' with his personal trainer because he is moving across town. The personal trainer gets very hurt and acts like they are an actual couple breaking up. Isn't that HILARIOUS??
The multi-camera sitcom is dying quickly and taking NBC down with it. Four Kings is the reason why.
BONES
Network: FOX
Airs: TUES 8:00PM
Grade: B
Yet another sassy-large-breasted-female-communing-with-the-dead procedural, "Bones" is forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance Brenneman, played with a nice mixture of pluck and bombast by Emily Deschanel (sister to Zooey, as if the billboard-sized blue eyes didn't give it away). A part time crime novelist and full-time "squint," as her FBI field agent counterpart Seeley Booth (a studly, relaxed David Boreanaz) refers to her and her colleagues, Emily is a genius at gathering clues from long-decomposed human remains to solve the crimes that killed them.
Will they have a tempestuous past? Will Booth lure her into the field with him? Will the attraction still be there? Is the Pope Austrian?
Set in a landmark-free and vaguely Canadian-looking Washington D.C., the pilot is shot and paced with all the slick, artful quirkiness of an HP TV spot by wunderkind TV director Greg Yaitanes (SCI FI's Dune). And while the machinery of the plot's central mystery may be in need of some higher grade fuel, the basic elements are in place for a satisfying first season.
Which isn't to say this show is a sure hit. Far from it. Even the American public has a saturation point for big boobs and decomposing bodies.
WHAT ABOUT BRIAN
Network: ABC
Airs: MON 10:00PM
Grade: B-
Indeed. What about Brian? And what about Bob? And what about that missing question mark?
Warning: do not come to this JJ Abrams- produced series looking for the hilarious exploits of an obsessive compulsive Bill Murray harassing Richard Dreyfus at his summer home. Instead, hunker down for an hour of bland, photogenic Angelinos blandly, photogenically yammering on about bland, photogenic subjects; mainly, love. It's Felicity for the thirtysomething set, or maybe thirtysomething for the Dawson's Creek set. Or maybe it's just one long Riunite commercial.
At least that's how it starts, with a group of way-too-attractive friends on a rooftop patio, drinking and laughing effortlessly, their laser-whitened teeth glimmering with perfect golden-hour lighting. Riunite and it feels so good! A guy in voiceover tells us about his 'good friends, good times' and how he's started writing in a journal like a teenager, because he is "in love with his best friend's girl..." I kept waiting for him to say the word "friend," because only characters in an S.E. Hinton novel say things like "my best friend's girl". Alas, that shoe never dropped.
If you haven't guessed, this is Brian (Barry Watson) and he's a great guy. We know this because he drives a woodpaneled station wagon that belonged to his grandfather, which in LA means you are down to earth and quirky. His best friend Adam (Matthew Davis) is a real jerk! We know this because he drives a new BMW and doesn't appreciate his gorgeous doctor girlfriend, Marjorie (Polly Shannon). What About Brian is supposed to be a dramedy, but the suffix part of that equation only really kicks in when we meet Marjorie and are required to buy her as a physician. The levels of suspension of disbelief required to do this could collapse universes.
Aside from the good doctor, there is some nice casting here. The always great Rosanna Arquette plays Brian's older, successful sister, Nic, who marries a younger Italian boytoy named Angelo, played to pompous perfection by Raoul Bova. In one of the show's more amusing and authentic touches, Angelo spends his days studying for a psychology degree and pursuing a modeling career, which apparently gives him the credentials to psychoanalyze everyone around him with a smarmy Gucci grin.
Watson and Davis also make the most of their material, as does Rick Gomez, given the thankless role of Barry's videogame producing business partner. One wonders what nerd-writer's idea of cool was to have him lipsynching and air-keyboarding at the office to The Who's Baba O'Reilly--whoa dude, even at work, you're radical!!
PRISON BREAK
Network: FOX
Airs: WED 9:00PM
Grade: B
Prison Break also has a season-long gimmick. Can you guess what it is? I'll give you a hint...it's subtly embedded into the title. Stare closely for several minutes and explore the possible symbolisms.
Hackteur extraordinaire Brett Ratner delivers a solid, expensive looking 43 minutes. We open on the intensely watchable Wentworth Miller as Michael Scofield, getting the finishing touches on a large scale tattoo which we don't get a good look at (yet). One peek at his sleek apartment with a downtown view makes you question why he's suddenly inking gangland sleeves and holding up a bank without any plans for a getaway.
By some miraculous coincidence sent down like a bolt from the Primetime Network Drama gods, Michael is incarcerated in the same maximum security as his brother Lincoln, who is played by Dominic Purcell, a sort of a rough 'n tumbler George Eads. Lincoln is on death row for the murder of "the Vice President's brother." They never specify the Vice President of what, but for sake of high intrigue, let's assume it's the United States, not a local AmWay bureau. Anyway, through the use of some creative origami (don't ask) Michael finally gets to his doomed sibling, whom he is convinced has been set up, and pledges he will break both of them out by season's end...though he leaves out the part about their lives being divided into television seasons, probably because FOX has made things so complicated with its three season year and such.
The prison scenes are sort of OZ minus the gay sex, so basically, not all that interesting. You do catch a view of a whole line of ugly inmate butts in the first scene, though I find it hard to believe that will make it onto the airwaves when FOX is blurring out cartoon butts on Family Guy. Peter Stormare, who was so very entertaining in every frame of Fargo til his last limb was wood-chipped away, is happily with us here as incarcerated mob boss John Abruzzi. Stacy Keach plays the Pope...Warden Pope that is, who in one of many strange touches spends most of the pilot worried that his matchstick Taj Mahal is falling apart.
Not everything works. Michael's cellmate Sucre has an appropriately sugary subplot about proposing to his girlfriend that slows pace and feels phony. But there is enough well structured suspense and characterization here to engage, and more importantly, leave you asking the golden programming question: "What happens next?"
Once a year, a big box of network pilots is sent to my office. Their arrival is met with great fanfare. It's kind of like when Mrs. Scarf, my third grade English teacher, would announce that the Scholastic order had arrived and we'd attack the poor woman like a swarm of hungry pigeons on a disgarded pizza crust, tearing at eachother's hair just to be the first to get our peanut buttery fingers on the latest exploits of Clifford the Big Red Dog.
Why the frenzy? Well, here's an example: last year, months before you got your big gay eyes on it, I viewed Desperate Housewives with its original cast (minus Jesse Metcalf, plus a way less singsongy Laura Palmer from Twin Peaks as the dead narrator). I knew Lost would be a smash, with a pilot more engrossing than most big budget Hollywood features. And then there were the stinkers like LAX, a series that ran out of interesting airport stories about a third of the way into its first episode.
Until now, lucky readers, these pilots stayed at the office, where we would watch them during lunch hours, discuss among ourselves, then start e-mailing our friends in (and out) of the industry, telling them what to look forward to and what to avoid, or what was so bad you HAD to see, this Fall. In other words, sowing the seeds of buzz.
But that was last year and this is this year and the main difference is that THIS year I have a blog. So why not throw some Miracle Grow on my buzzgarden by posting the reviews right here, as I watch them. Si? Si!
REUNION
Network: FOX
Airs: THURS 9:00PM
Grade: D-
We threw this one in pretty quickly, 'cause it had a gimmick, and as the strippers in Gypsy sing 'You gotta have a gimmick!' (Hey -- you want baseball metaphors, you read another blog.) Here's the rub: each episode of this series takes place in one year of a group of friends lives, starting with the Pilot, set in 1986. A 22-episode order, then, should put the season one finale at (carry the four...) 2008. Based on the clichéd 80’s world of the pilot, the 2008 episode should feature flying cars that fold into briefcases and robot maids.
This show was laughably awful, and begs a drinking game. (ex: “Drink every time a character makes an annoyingly self conscious pop culture reference to the year in which that episode takes place.” YOU CRIED AT ST. ELMO’S FIRE? DOWN THE HATCH!) The plot is entirely absurd – something about a group of friends and a car accident and one friend taking the fall for another friend, intercut with a funeral and ‘investigation’ that takes place in the present. Someone has died, or been killed, but we aren’t told how, or who, or why or by whom. Don’t sweat it, I promise you won’t care.
Half the cast is about 19 and the other half looks well 30-something, and yet they are all supposed to be the same age—giddy teenagers in the mid 80’s. Even without their costumes and bad hair, the result is visually ridiculous. Some of the acting is shockingly bad – particularly Risky Business-era Tom Cruise doppelganger Sean Faris, of Life As We Know It, (nope, I never knew it, either) who is apparently physically incapable of producing a single believable line reading (“Drink every time Sean Faris pauses, then changes his facial expression to communicate a new emotion or thought.”)
Stuck on the fringes of this gooey mess is Mathew St. Patrick, who after five seasons on Six Feet Under must have decided it was time to try something new – joining the cast of a really, really, really sucky TV series. He’s stuck with the ‘detective’ role, questioning the cast members about their involvement in the death of, as he keeps retardedly referring to the mystery dead person, ‘the deceased.’
The questions the gimmick begs, namely, what do they do once they reach the present, are a waste of time. I’ll be surprised if this show hits grunge, though you just know the writers are drooling at the prospects of all the references to flannel and goatees they’ll be able to shoehorn in.
