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Aug162005

Is This The Best We Can Do for Movie Stars?

So, I saw the movie Wedding Crashers over the weekend. It was likable enough, if not quite deserving of the critical praise that’s been heaped upon it. I suspect folks are making a big deal out of this one because it’s the first film of its type in a very long time that appeals to grown-up sensibilities, rather than pandering to the mid-teen demographic. In other words, it’s an R-rated comedy about 30-something guys that happily admits to being what it is instead of compromising itself down to a PG-13 that’s too hard-core for kids and too wimpy for adults, as so many others have done in recent years. In that respect, the movie was quite refreshing, and I personally enjoyed seeing the aging-but-still-beautiful Jane Seymour and the aging-but-still-uber cool Christopher Walken in memorable supporting roles.

The movie did leave me with one big, nagging question, though: what is the deal with Owen Wilson?

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Aug162005

The Long National Crisis is Over

Dick Clark will be returning to Times Square this New Year’s Eve. Even though the title of Clark’s annual broadcast, Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, hasn’t been strictly accurate in years — how much rocking can you really do with musical guests like Kool & the Gang? — Clark on New Year’s is an institution, and I, for one, missed seeing him last year. I know he can’t last forever, despite all the jokes about him being an android; the linked article notes that Ryan “I have lousy taste in clothes and no discernable charisma” Seacrest is warming up to take over for Clark permanently. There’ll be a time, probably not too distant now, when Dick Clark will be just one more old-school pop-cultural reference that garners blank stares from the whippersnappers. But in the meantime, I really hope ol’ Dick’s got a few more New Year’s broadcasts left in him. We have so little continuity in our society these days, so few common points of reference, that we need to prolong the careers of our cheesy, beloved, old TV hosts as long as we possibly can…

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Aug122005

Friday Afternoon Reading

I’m a shade too young to have owned the famous poster of Farrah Fawcett (or, as I believe she was known at the time, Farrah Fawcett-Majors). It was originally released in 1976, and I wouldn’t become interested in hanging my first girlie poster until sometime in the ’80s. Nevertheless, anyone who was alive and had their eyes open during the late ’70s surely knows that image of Farrah: the billowing mass of blond hair, the red swimsuit, the big, scary, “say cheese” smile. It’s an icon of its age, so much so that movie-set decorators often use it to help evoke that long-lost time when collars were wide and sex was just good, clean fun.

It turns out there’s an interesting story behind the poster, a tale of two brothers who started small, made a fortune, then lost everything, including each other. If you don’t have much on the agenda today and need something to while away your afternoon, check out this article about Mike and Ted Trikilis and their one time poster-publishing empire, Pro Arts Inc. It’s a pretty long piece, but I found it fascinating. It’s also rather sad, but then, many of the best stories are, aren’t they?

(For the record, the first pin-up to grace my bedroom wall was as much an icon of the ’80s as the Farah shot was of the ’70s, specifically that one of Heather Thomas in a pink bikini. Don’t know who Thomas is? She used to provide eye-candy for a TV series called The Fall Guy. Which, oddly enough, starred Farrah Fawcett’s ex-husband, Lee Majors. Hmm. There’s gotta be some kind of cosmic symmetry there, don’t you think?)

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Aug122005

Literary Immortality

Picture yourself curled up in your favorite chair on a cool autumn afternoon, sipping a cup of your favorite hot beverage, lost in the pages of a good novel… and all of a sudden a character steps into the scene who shares your name and maybe even looks like you. Sound like fun?

Well, then, check this out: a dozen or so notable authors including Michael Chabon, Amy Tan, Peter Straub, Lemony Snickett, John Grisham, Stephen King, and Neil Gaiman (from whose blog I got this little tidbit of news) are auctioning off the opportunity for your name to appear in one of their upcoming books. It’s all for charity, with the proceeds going to the First Amendment Project, an advocacy group that defends the freedom of expression. Complete details about this charity auction are available here.

Personally, I’m thinking I’d like to be immortalized by Stephen King. If you know his work, it probably won’t surprise you to hear that he’s offering the most elaborate prize for your auction money; whereas the other authors promise simply to use your name somewhere, King intends to have his way with your fictional doppelganger:

“…Buyer should be aware that CELL is a violent piece of work, which comes complete with zombies set in motion by bad cell phone signals that destroy the human brain. Like cheap whiskey, it’s very nasty and extremely satisfying. Character can be male or female, but a buyer who wants to die must in this case be female. In any case, I’ll require physical description of auction winner, including any nickname (can be made up, I don’t give a rip).”

A buyer who wants to die at the hands of cell-phone-induced zombies… I love it.

The auctions are being held in three separate blocks, with King’s prize up for grabs during the September 8-18 block. You know, my birthday happens to fall within that span of time. If someone really wanted to impress me…

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Aug112005

What the Hell Happened to Sophistication?

I’ve been planning to write something about the recent death of TV news anchorman Peter Jennings, but I obviously haven’t gotten around to it yet. My plan was to follow my usual obituary schtick and be simultaneously nostalgic and curmudgeonly as I discussed how Jennings’ passing marks the end of an era, which was, of course, a better time than our current Dark Age of debased superficiality. But it looks like someone has already beaten me to that angle:

…it seems certain that, at least stylistically, Jennings will have no heir. News managers today aren’t looking to hire Cary Grant, the man of distinction; they’re looking for Matt LeBlanc, the dude next door. In fact, if young reporters in 2005 were to emulate the air of aristocracy that rocketed Peter Jennings to stardom two decades ago, they’d likely be shown the door. Q-score focus groups interpret urbanity as snobbery these days, which may be why Jennings himself lost ratings supremacy to Tom Brokaw when the glamorous 1980s gave way to the naturalistic ’90s. Once the millennium arrived, forget it: His brand of romantic persona had been supplanted by Britney Spears making pig noses and reality-TV contestants eating and vomiting up live worms. …Male news anchors no longer exude savoir-faire… because Hollywood actors no longer exude it. Yesteryear’s debonair hero has passed the torch to today’s cute goofball mensch: Jason Biggs, Seann William Scott, Ashton Kutcher.

That’s from a piece on Salon called “Peter Jennings and the Death of Panache”, by Richard Speer. It’s worth a read, if you don’t mind sitting through a commercial to get to it. (Sorry, Salon’s difficult that way.)

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Aug102005

I Got Dem Cozmic Paranoid Space Shuttle Blues

Discovery at rest.

I’m sure everyone knows by now that space shuttle Discovery landed safely yesterday morning at Edwards AFB in California. I’m pleased about that, of course, and also pleased that the mission went as well as it did, including the unprecedented repairs to the shuttle itself that were performed by astronaut Steve Robinson. Post-landing glow aside, however, this Interested Observer found himself deeply troubled throughout most this flight, and it wasn’t because of the constantly looming specter of another Columbia-style disaster.

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Aug082005

Well, Now, This is Pleasing…

Hey, kids, it’s time for another one of those silly Internet quizzes, because I know how much you all love ’em…

This one determines which Looney Tunes character you are based on the usual bizarre, somewhat personal, and seemingly irrelevant questions. You know the drill. Honestly I don’t know why I fool around with these things, since the results almost always disappoint me. Almost inevitably, I’m told that my personality traits most closely align with the lamest, most uninteresting whatever of the available categories. I’m never Han Solo, according to these things; I’m Threepio, or Uncle Owen, or Red Six. I’m never Captain Kirk, I’m always Transporter Chief Kyle. In the universe of these quizzes, it appears that most people are sidekicks and background characters, not heroes. So when I settled in to take this one, I figured I’d be assessed as Sylvester the Cat, or Elmer Fudd, or one of those no-name, one-off characters like Sylvester’s creme-colored doppelganger, Claude the Cat. So imagine my surprise when I got these results:

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Aug052005

Slowly Going Mad

I’m sure everyone has had the experience of hearing a catchy song and having it continue to play in your head for hours or even days on end. But have you ever had a piece of music spontaneously pop into your mind for no apparent reason? It happens to me sometimes… I’ll just wake up with the mental iPod churning out a song or even just part of a song, and then it stays there all freaking day.

Often when this happens, the accursed audio fragment is the theme from an old TV show, usually one I haven’t heard in years, and usually something that just drips with Velveeta. You know what I mean, the sort of theme that you’re ashamed to admit you ever heard once, let alone remembered well enough to resurrect as a continuous loop.

Case in point: I’ve had the theme from Knight Rider running non-stop through my brain ever since breakfast.

Won’t somebody out there please kill me now? Please? Just do it quickly and humanely…

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Aug032005

Happy Birthday, Anne

As you might have surmised from the subject line above, this is the day my Significant Other first showed her face to the world. And I’ve got to be honest, I am woefully unprepared for its arrival this year. I’ve been in a near-panic for a couple of months as I have tried (and most likely failed) to think of something really good to give her. You see, we’ve been together for a long time, so a lot of the obvious tokens have already been exchanged. We’ve also both reached that age when you pretty much have everything you need, and you pretty much have most of the little objects you want, too. Or at least you’re in a position to just go ahead and buy them for yourself as they come to your attention. So what does that leave one to offer as a gift?

Well, how about a public display of good wishes and affection? It’s the best idea I’ve come up with so far, and it saves me the trouble of actually going shopping, so here goes:

Honey, I hope you have a very happy day and I love you.

What do you think, Loyal Readers, is that enough? Or do I still need to find some kind of tangible gift, too? (Just kidding, folks. Well, mostly kidding. I really am lousy at thinking up good gift ideas…)

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