CHICO, CA – He did it! The Great Jackie Earle Haley is now Oscar nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
When his name was announced, I felt a joyful rush. I’ve had acquaintances get nominated for Oscars and not been that elated. I would have cried, but my tears are reserved for Dick Clark’s funeral.
On the big board, behind Salma Hayek, was Jackie Earle Haley’s face. Luckily his name was called early so there was no gritting of teeth for the final name. This column has been spreading Oscar buzz back in October when Little Children ran at Toronto. And the buzz wasn’t merely marketing hype. Jackie Earle Haley had the goods.
What are the odds of him beating the Eddie Murphy juggernaut? It could be very good. Eddie has pissed off a lot people in Tinseltown. He’s notorious for being a pain on the set. Where do you think Martin Lawrence learned how to be a soundstage diva? On top of it, the airwaves are flooded with ads for Norbit. It’s another unfunny Eddie Murphy movie with him in a fat suit. A few years ago, Bill Murray had his Lost In Translation nomination derailed thanks to his voice being abused in Garfield. Murphy could suffer the Garfield Effect.
There’s also hope that Peter O’Toole and Kate Winslet might be walking up the stairs. Plus Jennifer Hudson grousing about American Idol might backfire. The Academy Awards can’t afford to be seen as the victory lap for the usual winners. Are viewers going to stick around to see the same folks that collected hardware at the Golden Globes and the SAG awards? Expect to see “upsets.” Jackie’s best bet is that he gets Jim Broadbent action – since Jim won the Best Supporting Actor award for his work in Iris, a film starring Kate Winslet.
The cool thing about Jackie Earle Haley is that he didn’t end up having to launch his comeback by appearing on Celebrity Justice or The Surreal Life. He didn’t have to embarrass himself in order to get back in the spotlight. He was able to land serious acting gigs. I can’t wait to see him take on Joan Rivers. Although best would be if he beats the crap out of Ryan Seacrest on the Red Carpet. He’d win the Presidential Medal of Freedom for popping American Idol boy. Or at least Angelina Jolie’s undying love.
LITTLE MISS BOOZE
Do you know what I call a 20 year old girl that likes to get drunk, takes a sniff or two of cocaine and sucks face with hot girls? A sophomore in college.
Are we really supposed to get a message out of Tara Connor’s new sober ways? After seeing her fresh out of rehab on every TV channel, here’s my message to her: We don’t care. The only reason a vast majority of America knows about you was because you came off as Tara Reid’s less skanky, but still slutty younger sister. But now that you’re all clean and sober, you bore the crap out of us. You can now vamoose like nearly every other woman that has won Miss USA.
High profile rehab centers have invented a 13th step that declares, “You must appear on every major talk show to promote your new life.” Who didn’t watch her tell-all interview on The Insider and begged for Pat O’Brien to lapse into his voicemail rant?
I do hope that rehab didn’t make her want to stop humping Miss Teen USA. America needs to know that girl-girl action doesn’t always involve Rosie O’Donnell. We need to dream that those pictorials in Penthouse had a basis in reality. If Miss America and Miss Teen USA aren’t getting nasty, then the terrorists have won.
WORST MOTHER OF THE MONTH
Dina Lohan has lowered the bar for bad motherhood with her recent antics. While her daughter Lindsay is in rehab, Dina has turned the spotlight onto herself. Instead of making Lindsay’s recovery a private family matter, she made an exclusive deal to have a reporter and camera crew record her motherly plight. Nothing was more pathetic than her rushing from New York to Hollywood to reunite with her troubled daughter as an exclusive for a certain infotainment show.
Dina has the nerve to complain about the photographers hounding her meeting with Lindsay at a ritzy store. She despises how the media dares to exploit her daughter. Yet there she is turning home movies into an easy profit source. Is she just upset that the paparazzi have hounded in on her exclusive moment?
Dina is just a step above the mother who sells her daughter’s panties to Japanese businessmen. But Dina might be willing to stoop if the price is right.
NO MORE EXTREME ACTION?
While I was wandering around on the Raleigh location of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, I overheard a rumor that the show has only one more season before ABC-Disney gives it the axe.
Pretty much Ty Pennington will be putting down the megaphone after the 2007-08 season, according to the water cooler chatter. Why? The show still pulls in good ratings. People still love to come out and see the houses being built by volunteers. But the suits at the Mouse network are upset that it’s not really their property – even though each episode promotes various Disney properties. The Rat must be fed.
Write the network and complain now.
GATES TV
Why is the press drooling over Bill Gates’ vision of television five years from now? While the internet has already changed how people watch TV, his examples are rather clueless.
Gates declares that TV is terrible when it comes to the Olympics. Why? Because it has fixed times for the various events being broadcast. He envisions a split signal that will allow people to just watch their favorite events at the proper time. But it can’t go down that way. Why?
Because NBC is paying billions of dollars to run the Olympics in America. They need top dollar for commercials. And they won’t get top dollar if they splinter-cast the various events through the internet. They don’t want you to merely watch your sport. They want you to watch the show. If you really gave a crap about certain events, wouldn’t you just go see the Olympics in person? NBC has to run women’s gymnastics in prime time cause that’s where the money is at.
“Internet presentation of these things is vastly superior,” declares Bill. Really? Who is footing the bill for all this content? The networks and cable channels barely want to pay anyone for content right now. NBC pays billions to the NFL, but they’ve decided sound guys are unnecessary for news reporters. It’s just going to turn into the Al Franken SNL joke where he had the camera attached to him along with the Sat dish. The big question is who will be paying his expenses to collect the truth? Even though Mark Cuban has hired an investigative business reporter, the stories are tilted to giving Cuban stock tips. Of course media news is now being used as corporate football. Did you notice how Fox News and the Boston Herald (owned by Rupes) went after Ted Turner for the Cartoon Network’s publicity stunt that went bad? Ted doesn’t own the Cartoon Network anymore. But that didn’t stop Rupert Murdoch’s minions perform an around the clock character assassination. Heaven forbid a news organization check their facts.
The biggest problem with the narrowcasting vision of Bill Gates is that viewers are allowed to avoid being informed about the outside world. “You have to wait for the guy to talk about the thing you care about,” Gates says. Maybe while waiting, a person has to listen to something they don’t know about to hear something that needs to be heard. Bill and his buddy Bono keep going on about Africa. But under Bill’s vision of tomorrow, I can exist in an information world where I don’t have to know a damn thing about Africa. Dafur for all I care is another specialty cup served at Starbucks. And who is going to tell me differently in Bill Gates’ Five Years into the Future?
What regular TV offers us is the ability to stumble across stuff. We are a society that loves to flip channels. But if we have to pay for each channel we click, are you really going to be that adventurous? We don’t want to think that hard to be entertained. I’ve a wall full DVDs, but I’d rather not have to get up, decide on a title, open the box, load the DVD player, wait for the “don’t download movies” crap, and finally click on the movie. I’d prefer to channel surf to Green Acres.
Leave it to a billionaire to tell us how we should watch TV. When is the last time Bill sat down and watched HBO’s Cathouse: The Series on his 110 inch flat screen plasma TV? Isn’t this guy too busy saving the world with his foundation and figuring out ways to give you more Blue Screens of Death on your PCs to watch Charlie’s Angels and Gilligan’s Island? Go save the world, Bill. I’ll keep the sofa warm.
MORE CATHOUSE!
Cathouse, my favorite reality show, returns to HBO this Friday (Feb. 10). Get a sense of what it’s like to hang around a legal Nevada brothel with the lovely ladies as they service their customers. It’ll also be on the HBO OnDemand channel so you can watch it whenever you get the urge.
We’re hoping to get a few questions answered from Shelly Dushell in an upcoming column. She had told me earlier that while she’s now working at the Wildhorse Rance, she was at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch during the recent tapings.
The highlight of the show will be the return of Isabella Soprano, America’s Sweetwhore. After the first series aired, Isabella become a sensation as an internet fetish model. She knows her way around a ball gag. The things they do to her with a water hose would melt a fireman. She even made a guest appearance on Seymore Butts’ Family Business series on Showtime. Even when she’s strapped down to a bed with various mechanical devices working her private parts, she still has that true girl next door appeal. She’s like an extra sexy graduate assistant teacher. I want help refine her oral thesis. For those curious about the tattoo on her back, it reads, “Dream out loud.” And I’ve got a couple dreams involving her – although most of them end with my wife opening up the credit card bill and wondering what cost $13,000 in Nevada?
The amazing part about Cathouse is that if you really want to meet the “stars,” you can fly out to Reno and book time. This isn’t like The Girls Next Door where Hef teases you from behind the Playboy Mansion gates with his ladies. Bunny Ranch owner Dennis Hof is eager to welcome you into his life – as long you can pay in advance and be nice to the ladies.VERN IS YELLOW!
The “find the sticks of fake dynamite with the Party Favors logo in Boston” promotion has been canceled because I don’t want to be butt raped in jail by Vern Schillinger.
Here’s a strange piece of trivia, did you know that Vern Schillinger from Oz is the voice of the Yellow M&M? Yes, America’s favorite leader of the Arayan Brotherhood (played by actor J.K. Simmons) is our beloved candy icon. Can you imagine what’s been done to the Red M&M after all these years? Did Vern burn a swastika into the Red M&M’s butt like he did Tobias? Are red M&Ms the candy of choice for cellblock bitches?
The weird thing is that on an early episode of Oz, Vern experienced a chocolate coating. Simmons was able to connect the two roles on the gym floor.
An extra creepy moment is when Bill Fagerbakke arrived at Oz to play an Arayan prison guard. He’s the voice of Patrick on Spongebob Squarepants. If you close your eyes, it’s the Yellow M&M and Patrick the starfish talking about white power. Forget all the buzz about Harry Potter getting naked and nasty with horses on stage. Here’s two childhood icons that took on very daring roles and I’m scarred for it.
IS SHE FUNNY YET?
Has it really been 4 1/2 years since Jimmy Kimmel hooked up with Sarah Silverman? Some view this “power couple” as the comedy version of John and Yoko. I prefer to think of them as a super group featuring Yoko and Linda McCartney.
PRESIDENTIAL POOP
President Brownback? Come on. That sounds like character in a German fetish video. Does this guy really expect to run for president when his name sounds like a UPS slogan? Damn shame he can’t name Scatman Crothers as his Vice President. I’d put a “Brownback & Scatman ’08” bumpersticker on my Yugo.
And Gov. Huckabee is doomed because I Heart Huckabees put me to sleep. If people ignored the film, why are they going to care about the live act? Likewise, I’d never vote for Sen. Jurassic Park III.
And what is Gov. Pataki waiting for? Can’t you hear the corn growing? Can’t bother to run until you discover all the secrets of Lost?
With only two more years before the real presidential election, I’m already sick of these people and their hats in the ring. These goofs will mouth off about people taking advantage of welfare programs, but they’re the biggest welfare moochers in Americas. They need to con hundreds of millions of dollars from us for their campaigns. The winning candidate needs $100 million to win a job that pays $300K. It’s disgusting. Do we allow aspiring pizza delivery boys the right to raise millions so they can land a gig at the Pizza Transit Authority?
And I’m sick of Iowa and their caucuses. For three years out of the year, we only care about Iowa if they can beat the spread when Michigan stomps them. But for the next year, all we’ll see on TV is Sen. John McCain standing in a corn field. Whoopie.
Here’s a scoop: Saudi Arabia is in the process of building an ethanol plant on their soil. Why? Where does Saudi Arabia grow their corn?
And why is “Al Franken Considers Run For Minnesota Senate Seat” considered a new story? They made a two hour movie about his positioning for the job. Unless Franken puts his name on the ballot – it’s a non-story. You want an exclusive, I’m thinking about having an affair with Angelina Jolie. Put that on the cover of the New York Times. Or maybe Weekly World News.
LET’S GO COVERING
Why did Prince have to cover the Foo Fighters during the Super Bowl? I mean, here’s Prince and he’s doing covers of Hendrix and Ike and Tina Turner at halftime. And the Foo Fighters? Why no Sublime tribute? At least they didn’t try to force My Chemical Romance onto the bill. It was a great mini-show, but somehow it would have been nice if Prince had played something newer of his own than 23 year old material from Purple Rain.
It is amazing how he doesn’t completely come off as a nostalgia act. If the 1984 Super Bowl had Frankie Avalon, we’d think they were behind the times. Well at least they chose an American act this year instead of their First wave British invasion acts. Herman’s Hermits must have booked for a cockfight.
WHERE’S THE DVD?
When is The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh coming out on DVD? With all the talk about Pittsburgh getting a new arena for Mario and the Penguins, it’s hard to think of them trashing the old arena. It’s cinema history for the shot of the balloon with Dr. J in the basket floating down through the opening in the Mellon Arena’s retractable roof. If Orca and Gymkata can get released, then it’s time for the greatest basketball film to get shiny disc love. Plus it’s time for a James Bond III revival.
Gymkata is this month’s must see DVD. Director Robert Clouse helped define Bruce Lee when he directed Enter the Dragon. A decade later he was given the weirdest task in filmmaking – transform a male gymnastics star into an international action hero. And don’t play it for laughs. Kurt Thomas, the diminutive star who missed his chance to shine in the boycotted 1980 Moscow Olympics, is sent on a secret mission to a small Eastern European country. He has to win a brutal competition in order to get the US a site for a defense project. Instead of being buried under secret gadgets, Thomas has to use a mixture of gymnastics and karate against the opposition. And thus the world was introduced to Gymkata.
The greatest moment in the movie is when Thomas uses a town monument to score a perfect 10 in the Pummeling Horse. This film is pure unintended hilarity. It’s like a pilot for a show to follow Sledge Hammer. Shockingly enough, there would be no Gymkata 2: Vault of Death.
If you have a bottle of Jack Daniels, you need to watch this film as part of Really Dumb Action movie night. This would be the perfect double bill with John Cena’s The Marine. Did anyone else laugh during the film when they kept claiming Australian countryside was really South Carolina? I kept waiting for them to have Kangaroo-shaped possums.
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