Hollywood

Rebecca DeMornay on eyes, Brooke Burke on nose and Parker Posey on mouth!

Today as Josh and Abby were taking naps, I was listening to Ben playing in the other room. I was in the office trying to look something up, when I heard Ben say “We need more pacifiers.” I was rolling with laughter. I only wish I could add a sound clip so you could hear the way he said it. It was almost like a lieutenant radioing in a request for reinforcements on some epic war movie. I don’t think Harrison Ford could have delivered the line any better.

The story is hard to explain. The general idea is: Ewan McGregor is a psychiatrist who is trying his best to keep Ryan Gosling’s character from committing suicide. Of course, everything you think you know isn’t exactly how things are.

As cheaper technology and a seemingly inexhaustible hipness quotient have led to more filmmakers and films being produced, theatrical distribution has become more expensive, the outlets more cautious, and the returns on investments more dubious. The Internet has absorbed some of the spillover, although the bigger success stories - notably, the political films of Robert Greenwald ("Uncovered: The War on Iraq,” “Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism"), or “Faster,” a highly lucrative motorcycle documentary narrated by Ewan McGregor - have been niche movies with a core audience.

The second film in the shortlist is Stay. This will probably be the most confusing movie ever made. I couldn't even begin to tell you what it is about. I can tell you that it has Ewan McGregor, Ryan Gosling, Bob Hoskins, and Naomi Watts. Good cast sometimes makes for a good movie. It was directed by Marc Forster, the Daredevil director, if that tells you anything. It is suspenseful, with a surprise ending. Thats all I got.

Ryan Seacrest will be hosting several shows of Larry King Live. Ryan was even allowed to book his own guests. Guests are rumored to be Ashlee Simpson and her manager/dad, Joe Simpson, Jessica Simpson, Ashton Kutcher and Nicole Richie.

Nothing on TV last night so I thought I would treat my sickly self and buy me one of those carmel cakes at the store and rent a movie. We picked out Troy because oldest dd is huge fan of Orlando Bloom. At the check out counter, clerk said we still hadn’t returned Open Water. My head was already exploding with a huge headache and all I wanted to do was lie down on the ground and go to sleep. Hubby had dropped off video, so I’m thinking to what shop??? This video shop rents movies really cheap, .87 cents week nights and $1.87 weekends. But have a huge late fee. $2.50 a day. We rented this movie last weekend, so I’m picturing a huge late fee. Feeling upset, I veto the carmel cake and head straight for home to explode on hubby!

Garden state I liked, and despite it's protestations of coolness and youth appeal it is nowt but a romantic comedy (I will watch it again though). It had some great scenes and looked pretty good. Natalie Portman was excellent but the true star however was zach Braff who wrote, directed and starred in this film. Definately one to recommend, and the soundtrack was pretty good too.

7. Jamie Foxx- I loved him since he released his song “Infatuation”……wooo! Even the lil spacey eyed look he has…maybe he’s a lil cross eyed..lol I don’t care! LAWD!

Employing her musical director, Stuart Price, as producer seems to be a masterstroke. Madonna has always been most potent when translating cutting-edge club music into mass-market pop – her early hits were based on the electro-funk of mid-80s New York clubs, Vogue on house music and Ray of Light on trance techno. Price is at the cutting-edge of club music and as been responsible for a series of superb remixes for the Killers, Gwen Stefani and New Order.

Some people have fantasies about Vin Diesel and Brad Pitt. I have fantasies about Jeff Corwin.

Without going all Tom Cruise on everyone, the thing I know for sure, for today and for every day, is that there is a moment for every couple when their hearts just click, and they know that the road ahead is rocky and long, but entirely, wonderfully, and joyously worth it. To dismiss that moment as just lust is incredibly hateful.

One of the three girls is a totally naive, dizzy blonde (Tara Reid). There’s a scene in which the band’s “manager” says “I can’t be everywhere at once”. She immediately picks up on it and says “Oh, but wouldn’t it be fun if you could.” She gets up and starts running from one room to the other saying “then I could be here…and here..and here”, and keeps popping up in the doorway between rooms.

V for Vendetta is based on the Alan Moore graphic novel of the same name and stars Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving. It is now scheduled to open on March 17th.

* For inspiration, watch the movie ‘Office Space’ and study the scene where the main character goes up to the waitress (Jennifer Aniston) and lets her know that he’ll be at the restaurant next door.

My main criticism with the work is the incontinuity *within* the plot itself (I fully understand and accept that this is not a continuation of the first). Without going deeply into the plot, there are some scenarios where he will start what seems like an arc, but then the arc disappears, without entering into the plot again. It seems like whole parts of the book were created just for the sake of showing artwork, and not progressing plot (to me, plot should always come first in a written work, which this is, despite the medium). It feels like the recent Star Wars movies in that they are really a showcase for Lucas's technique with fully rendered set and have lost any semblence of a cohesive plot and great acting (especially Harrison Ford) that made the first three the classics that they are. Yes, while I do appreciate the eye candy, this is still a graphic novel, and, as such, I expect a cohesive plot and not random interjections of this and that and whatever.

Crash is the kind of movie that deals with a very well documented topic, and it can’t be easy to make a movie that is 100% about racism and have it ring true throughout. But Crash almost never rings true. Ludacris plays a carjacker who makes a 180 degree turn in his life after one of the people he carjacks (Terrence Howard) has a meltdown and almost causes a police shootout. Howard’s character’s wife intersects twice in 2 days with a racist cop played by Matt Dillon, each time with starkly different results. Brendan Fraser and Sandra Bullock play the LA District Attorney and his wife, respectively. They are carjacked by Ludacris, which allows Bullock to rear her ugly racist head (directed at her Hispanic housekeeper and the man who is changing her locks, also a Hispanic). By the end of her movie (remember this all happens in 36 hours), Bullock has seen the errors of her ways and loves all Hispanics. That same locksmith turns out to be quite a family man, but his life is almost ruined by an Iranian whose store is victimized by racists. Ryan Philippe plays a cop who can’t put up with Matt Dillon’s racist ways anymore, but engages in the most inexplicable racial act in the whole movie. Got a headache? Me too.

Here’s a thought: in this brave new millennium, isn’t it about time for James Bond to be sporting two X-chromosomes instead of the usual XY? I can think of a number of actresses who would fit the bill. Sarah Michelle Gellar comes to mind (though she’d need a good dialect coach, obviously and possibly a brown or red dye-job), Keira Knightley is another one. Other names that have been suggested to me were Rachel Weisz (who would definitely make my shortlist), Halle Berry, Kate Beckinsale and Eva Longoria (again with the dialect coach for her). Further more Angelina Jolie has proven she can take on action roles, and indeed a British accent. When you think about it, Lara Croft is basically a goody-two-shoes female Bond with some archaeology thrown in for good measure.

The election proved that Americans are sick and tired of the likes of Sean Penn, Whoopee Goldberg, Ben Affleck and Barbra Streisand, Harry Bellefonte, Martin Sheen, Susan Saran-wrap and her dumb boyfriend. and the rest. telling us how to think and vote. Do you really think that just because Bruce Springsteen gives a dopey concert, we will go along blindly to his way of thinking? No sir, not us. Just one look at the Red Map of Bush’s victory shows that the Blue elitists are outnumbered and dwindling daily .. We want to remind the Hollywood elitists that America supports President Bush on the war on terror. and that Americans will no longer stand these elitists cramming their liberal agenda down our throats

But some people, they thrive on anger. Like DoZ here, starting off with an innocent sounding sentence that normal angry human beings might use,

We’re a society under siege, at the mercy of tykes & teens. Every where you turn, you’re confronted by yet another instance of someone bending over backwards to cater to children.

and then proceeding to wax poetic on Lembas Bread, Capote, and (hold your breath) UN statistics. Damn. Also some mention about a character called James Bond that was in the recent Halle Berry flick, Die Another Day … wait a minute, that was another post. Not the same amount of anger, but just as cool.

In the movie he seems not just driven, but much more conflicted. Joss may be going to far when he predicts Nathan Fillion is the next Harrison Ford, but I have to admit that Fillion certainly deserves to be. Adam Baldwin continues to shine as Jayne, and his ability to turn a two dimensional thug intended for comic relief into a three dimensional thug intended for comic relief is a credit both to his own acting abilities and Joss’s ability to write parts that good actors can sound out and round out.

5. Failed to do anthing else productive except watch a bunch of tv. Including ‘The Butterfly Effect‘ with Ashton Kutcher, which i surprisingly recommend and is probably the only good work to come out of that peice of feces, as well as ‘The Puppet Masters‘ with Donald Sutherland, which i dont recommend even though i have respect for Sutherland as an actor.