The second week of President Barack Obama's (yeaaaaah, it feels good, doesn't it?) tenure in Washington left a few less casualties than usual in Hollywoodland. Unless you count Steven Adler, but his exploits on Sober House were technically filmed a few months back.
It was mostly a week for celebration, as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie unveiled their finest work yet, two nauseatingly adorable children, to the entire graduating class of a Japanese photography school.
But it was also five days of serious social commentary, courtesy of Ashlee Simpson and Kim Kardashian.
So without further drawn-out teasing of content that will ultimately be more succinctly stated than its lead-in, here are the top five things we learned this week:
5. Whether Tyler Perry's films offer something unique for an underserved demographic or actually pandering nonsense is debatable. But what's not up for argument is that someone should raise Jim Varney from the dead and give him some of Medea's royalties.
4. Jennifer Aniston likes to pretend getting naked on the cover of a magazine that sophisticated men jerk off to is somehow more noble than displaying airbrushed areolas for a publication less discreetly aimed at teenage boys and male divorcees. Then, again, what do you expect from a woman who's first major film role was in Leprechaun?
Here we go with another ridiculous Films From The Cable Afterlife. As usual, we scour the cable movie listings and turn up some diamonds, and lots of the rough. For best results, watch both. Your life may improve! 8. Mystery Of Monster Island (1981) Fox Movie Channel, Wednesday, February 3, 4am Unbelievable pile of crap by Juan Piquer Simon, one of the worst directors of the 20th century (he's also responsible for X-rated chainsaw slasher Pieces, MST3K fodder Pod People and K-Tel Films release The Supersonic Man). How a major studio found their way around distributing this one is anybody's guess (a series of blowjobs, perhaps), but you will never see Terence Stamp look more embarrassed. Watch if you dare.
7. DOUBLE FEATURE ALERT Pumpkin Karver (2006) The Movie Channel, Saturday, January 31, 12am Pumpkinhead (1988) IFC, Saturday, January 31, 1:35am The stars have aligned: two pumpkin-related horror movies back-to-back on the same night. Different networks, but still, work with me here. Friday Night Lights' Minka Kelly stars in the serial killer/Juggalo-style horror dumper Pumpkin Karver, while Lance Henriksen conjures up a demon to kill bikers in Stan Winston's minor classic Pumpkinhead. It's "Pumpkininny!"
6. Booty Call (1997) Cinemax (@MAX), Sunday, February 1, 8:05pm; Cinemax (WMAX), Monday, February 2, 6:50pm; Cinemax, Tuesday, February 3, 8:30pm Boisterous, offensive and couthless, Booty Call is actually one of the funnier comedies of the late '90s, and deserves another look. Jamie Foxx and Vivica A. Fox (playing characters named Bunz and Lysterine, respectively), join Tommy Davidson, a fake Indian guy, a dog that barks "Nigga Please!" in subtitles (and one Gedde Watanabe, willing to take any role no matter the stereotype, saying "Nigga Preese" in a Chinese restaurant), some hilarious orange pants, an incident with Saran Wrap as dental dam and some dude named Ug Lee. There's no one who won't be upset in its 79 minute runtime, but I don't think it'd work any other way. Watch it and pick your jaw up off the floor.
5. Ladies And Gentlemen The Fabulous Stains (1981) Turner Classic Movies, Saturday, January 31, 2am I hope that now this one has finally made it onto DVD, and not from some bootleg version that's been duped a thousand times from a Betamax that caught it on Showtime in the '80s, that we can see this legendary unreleased film for what it is: kind of a stinker. Still, there's never been anything like it before or since, and it's a fun time with a message. Teenagers Diane Lane and Laura Dern start a makeshift punk band that lands an opening spot for the fake real punk band The Looters, featuring Sex Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Cook, The Clash's Paul Simonon and fronted by actor Ray Winstone. They create a media circus and have it all collapse on them within days, but it's a good enough time, also starring Fee Waybill from The Tubes and a special (awesome) appearance from Black Randy and the Metrosquad. Join the professionals!
No one's suggesting Paris Hilton is as point-of-view-less as Ashlee Simpson, but honey-child, we've all seen you in your most intimate moments of public exposure, and it there's yet to be any indication that you play the part of a private valedictorian.
Anyway, much like Ashlee's suddenly paleolithic-sized sister, Jessica Simpson, the multimillionaire heiress swears she only plays dumb to enhance her public persona, telling website GMTV that, "I just say jokes but they think I'm serious which I think is funny and
I think I kind of play up the image sometimes because, whatever, it's
just entertainment."
Actually, sweetie-pants (and yes, I shall continue to refer to her under the assumed persona of a kindly middle-aged black woman), it's the perceived-to-be-realistic construction of your identity. And while your horde of lecherous managers and publicists may have kept that small detail from you in order to expand your brand and support their three snot-nosed little kids, it's truer than any one-liner you've uttered about confusing celebrity chefs with the British Prime Minister.
More Cable Afterlife, because you demanded it. You beat down my door. You followed me home. You took my seat on the subway. You cut in front of me in line. You better watch ... these movies. On cable, this Friday through next Thursday, like always. (All times in EST.) 8. Shanghai Surprise (1986) Encore Love, Monday, January 26, 10:30am As Sean Penn gears up to possibly win an Oscar for one of his best performances (as the titular Harvey Milk), it's high time to see him in one of his worst, and I'm not talking about I Am Sam. No, this is the spectacular flop he made with Madonna while the two were married. I dare you to finish it. P.S. It's heavily steam. I've said too much. Or have I?
7. Bullet (1995) IFC, Tuesday, January 27th, 12am As for said Oscars, Mickey Rourke's on the ascent with his role in The Wrestler. Check him out as he was careening to the bottom, out-acted by Tupac Shakur in this ruff-n-tuff action thriller, directed by Julien Temple
.
6. Luv (1967) Turner Classic Movies, Thursday, January 29th, 8:15am Jack Lemmon's about to jump off a bridge when he meets old friend Peter Falk, who pawns off his wife (Elaine May) on him so that he can be with his girlfriend. You can't pass on that cast, nor will you want to miss this rarely-screened Clive Donner effort from the peace-n-love era. Expect awkwardness, and a cameo by a young Harrison Ford as a longhair.
5. Funny Games (2008) Cinemax, Saturday, January 24th, 10pm It hasn't yet been determined if Michael Haneke's shot-for-shot remake of his own cinematic paradigm---the movie so brutal and heartless, it dares you not to watch and in effect judges you for how far along you've endured it---fulfilled whatever sort of Hollywood traction he may have been going for... because nobody's seen it, really. Here's your chance to.
January seems to be the month where cable TV networks, short on original series yet aware of an audience that's probably staying out of the cold, seem to air out their most interesting slates of movies and film programming. Films From The Cable Afterlife recommends a handful of these each week: some to watch, some to avoid. Here's some more suggestions for your pleasure, or lack thereof...
8. Prey (2007) Cinemax, Tuesday, January 20, 4:50am (and On Demand) People have remarked on the bad fortunes of The Weinstein Company ever since their acrimonious split with Disney (who walked away with their Miramax brand), but I say let 'em go. We haven't had this good of an exploitation studio since New World shuttered in the late '80s. Continuing with man vs. nature gore a la last week'sRogue, here's a safari horror flick in which Bridget Moynihan and Peter Weller, along with their children, are stranded in Africa and become Lunchables for a pride of hungry lions. Ivan Tors, we hardly knew ye.
7. Strange Hostel Of Naked Pleasures (1975) IFC, Saturday, January 17, 1:30am It's a Coffin Joe movie and it's outside the cycle of the three originals (At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul, etc.), but watch it anyway. It is loaded with the kind of brash, earthy shocks Mexico has staked its reputation on, and it likely will offend you. That title is no joke.
6. Assassination Tango (2002) Monday, January 19, 9:45pm; Tuesday, January 20, 4:20am My colleague Andrew Earles has been harping on this movie since its release, a bizarre, faux-seductive tale of hitman Robert Duvall (who also directed) stuck in South America, falling in love, and learning how to dance; a more ridiculous plot you couldn't ask for, and a more stilted, awkward performance by Duvall you won't find. Also starring the omnipresent Latin-American singer and actor Ruben Blades. This is a warning!
5. Bedazzled (1967) Cinemax (5STARMAX), Sunday, January 18, 2:40pm, 10:30pm; Cinemax (ActionMAX), Wednesday, January 21, 5am For the entire time I've been writing these weekly rundowns, I've been utterly frustrated at cable's propensity to air the forgettable remake of this soul-selling comic allegory instead of Stanley Donen's superior-in-every-way original. That wrong has been righted. You may have been stuck on an airplane or in a waiting room watching Brendan Fraser sell his soul to Liz Hurley, and yeah, that might have angered you. But you NEED to see the genuine article, starring Dudley Moore and Peter Cook, one of the funniest comedy teams ever to grace a stage. Everything about this movie is great. Go watch it now.
At a time when America's collective fat ratio is perilously disproportionate, and the only people with a booming business are cardiac surgeons and pharmacists, there's nothing our nation needs more than Food Network "star" Guy Fieri celebrating the wonders of low-priced, artery-clogging T.G.I. Friday's appetizers every fucking 30 seconds.
You know the guy: He won that Next Food Network Star competition and then launched a series of programs revolving around down-home, no-frills food to ensure immediate gratification and even more instant mortality. And edge-ified the channel with a burly personality that befit his raspy voice, Hot Topic Hair and a shit-eating goatee.
I guess I'm not inherently adverse to the culture of crappy eating he promotes, nor the fact that he's cashed in on it with a soulless endorsement for a flavorless gourmet fast-food chain. I'm just generally allergic to any publicly visible personality who patches together an aesthetic out of second-hand, adolescent symbols of awesomeness and attempts to ooze his coolness juice all over something that was either helplessly mundane, or had plenty of inherent charm for anyone without a completely crippled attention span or insecurity in their individual sensibilities.
Fuck that guy. That Guy Fieri even. He sucks. Click here for the Sucks archive.
Hey, listen. Once in a while this site has to live up to elements of its URL. Especially if it can secretly suck you in and divert your attention to awesome Golden Globe fashion wrap-ups like this one.
But OK, if you won't stop your clamoring for candidly nekkid images of your favorite reality television stars, I suppose we can suffice. Hell, it's not like a little thing called ethical standards have stopped us before. And who can say no to a little accidental, bikini-exposed side titty (NSFW), courtesy of Whitney Port, start of MTV's The Hills spinoff, The City? (See how that whole delayed rhyme thing worked there and made us feel less silly about using the word titty?)
First Audrina Patridge, now Whitney... Lauren Conrad better watch her ass, and boobs and vajayjay, because the stalkerazzi lenses no doubt have their sights set on the queen bee next.
Hey there, and how's your father? No, seriously, he wasn't doing so well the last time we made love and I'm genuinely curious if he's gotten over that horrible encounter with the Samoan princess.
Well, at least we've been able to competently take the temperature of Hollywoodland, and let me tell you, it is burning up. No pun intended in the case of still-rockin' and still-shirtless Travis Barker. And absolutely pun intended in terms of the rampant gonorrhea ravaging the Rock Of Love Bus.
But those were just a couple of the items exploding the zeitgeist since last weekend that have whetted our appetites for some good ol' pop-culture excess and voyeurism, and on that accord we triumphantly bring you the top five things NCDSUV learned this week:
5. Were we the only ones who read the news about Travis Barker getting back behind the drum kit, became momentarily inspired, then saw that he was still insistent on playing shirtless despite a burn-ravaged body and thought, "Man, he's still a skater douche, huh?"
4. Awww, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Patricia Arquette broke up with their boyyyyfweeeends. Someone call the waaaaaambulance. Now the remainder of Hollywood's single male population will have two more pairs of phenomenal, natural breasts to play comeptitive tourneys of backgammon over. Waaaaaa!
Films from the Cable Afterlife soldiers on for yet another week, highlighting special movies from special people. Laugh, cry, feel something, even if that feeling is embarrassment for having spent 90 minutes of your lives watching people get eaten by a tree. You heard right. Read on for the dirty details. (All listings in EST.)
8. The Guardian (1990) Cinemax (WMAX), Friday, January 9, 4pm; Monday January 12, 7:40am; Thursday, January 15, 2:45pm We're gonna bookend today's list with works from director William Friedkin, at his absolute lowest and his most recent heights. Might as well start from the bottom with this confusing, absurd horror tale about a nanny (Jenny Seagrove) who may just be some manner of wolf-like creature, as well as a druid. She's gonna sacrifice another baby, and hikers are going to get chewed up by a stump. One of the worst of the '90s, and it kicked off a string of forgettable, tawdry features from this one-time great. It would take years for him to get his groove back, but at least he turned it around on his own terms. Miguel Ferrer and Brad Hall co-star. Try not to kick a hole in your TV afterwards as you wonder how any network could bring itself to show this one three times in the space of a week.
7. Sisters (1973) IFC, Friday, January 9, 8pm; Saturday, January 10, 4:30am
Early, suspenseful Brian DePalma, back in his hungrier days. It's no Phantom Of The Paradise, but really, nothing is. Margot Kidder stars as a demure French girl with a horrible secret: Her formerly conjoined twin sister, hiding in the closet with a knife. Reporter Jennifer Salt is unlucky enough to witness the murder, and her investigation robs her of her personality. The scene in the mental institution where she squares off with a germophobe is positively unnerving, and overall this thing is far, far better than what the genre deserved.
6. Old Dracula (1974) Retroplex, Tuesday, January 13, 6:20pm David Niven takes a turn as the count, desperately trying to revive his wife Vampira after centuries in the coffin. The blood transfusion she receives turns her into a African-American. Dracula is bummed and she's out gettin' her thing on in the clubs of an avocado-green London. Can't make this up; couldn't even try. Clive Donner directs, from a particularly low point in his career. Look for Linda Hayden, the knockout Sabbath fan from Blood on Satan's Claw, presumably naked... again.
5. Terror On The 40th Floor (1974) Fox Movie Channel, Friday, January 16, 2am Legendary made-for-TV stinker, in the footsteps of The Towering Inferno. Office revelers John Forsyth, Don Meredith and Joseph Campanella are among the B-list talent stranded in a burning skyscraper at Christmas Eve. Will they survive? Will you?
Welcome to NCDSUV's splenetic, embittered new weekly feature, Overdressed & Underclassed, which with each installment will dissect a different aspect of celebrity fashion with the enthusiasm and exactitude of a taxidermist suffering from the second clinical phase of rabies (caution: We have reached the contagious stage).
In the spirit of the reincarnation mojo that comes with each New Year, we decided to take the opportunity to (for a change) applaud some much-welcomed progress in the wardrobe department of some of our favorite Hollywoodland targets over in Hollywoodland.
8. Angelina Jolie Unlike most of the rest of the planet, I remain resolutely unimpressed with Angel Angie. Yes, she's adopted a bijillion babies and has accomplished truly superb things as a Goodwill Ambassador for the U.N. Refugee Agency. And that whole Academy Award thing is nothing to spit at. But everyone else (including Angie) is so busy showering praise on her frail little shoulders, there's hardly room for one more accolade from the peanut gallery. I'm saving my accolades for her closet. She somehow managed to go from fright-night horror (all big lips, vials of blood, vacant eyes, witchy black hair tied with an oversized leopard-patterned ribbon and hideous jean jackets) to polished mommy glamazon (all big lips, purposeful gazes, yummy mummy beautifully tailored, tasteful and flattering clothes and much better accessories, Brad Pitt being the penultimate of course).
7. Jessica Biel She has managed to evade two major H'wood facts of life: People who star in family friendly crapfests on the small screen (7th Heaven) will never make it to the big-budget big screen (The Illusionist, Blade: Trinity, etc.) and that women have to dress like prostitutes to be taken (ahem) seriously by major studios. Biel embraced her down-home, super-casual style a touch too fervently, however, and I'm relieved to see she's eschewed the shapeless girl-next-door bell-bottoms and the random, ill-fitting shiny tops obviously slapped on her by a desperate stylist in a last-ditch attempt at glam for the occasional elegantly slinky dress that bares her impressive booty.
6. Kirsten Dunst Sharing your first kiss onscreen at the tender age of 11 with a vampire and then being launched into a brutal, multiple movies a year schedule would warp anyone. And Kirsten, like most child stars, failed or was never given the opportunity to develop as an individual. Obvious and tragic symptoms aside, (stints in rehab, troubled relationships), the perfectly cute, and totally underrated, blond starlet drowned her sorrows in an unforgiving sea of chipped, noir nail-polish, poorly executed updos, Jessica McClintock-like formal wear and outfits that look as if they were produced by frazzled clerks during a hold-up of the Salvation Army. But girlfriend got her groove back from whence it was hiding, and while she'll probably never hit the dizzying heights of chic, she's finally come into her own with brushed and styled (hello!) golden tresses, offbeat takes on downtown prep and the proud display of legs that goes for miles and miles and miles and miles...
5. Nicole Richie Forget Madonna. Richie has reinvented reinvention. She went from a slightly pudgy (but consummately cute) Paris Hilton sidekick in The Simple Life to a cadaverous L.A. beach bum, club troll and inmate to trim, suburban wife and mother in less time than it takes some people to get through Madge's Sex book. But almost invariably, Nicole manages to effortlessly pull off aggressively casual West Coast refinement (face-eating sunglasses and hair don'ts notwithstanding) like no one else. The only thing threatening her reign over the Valley was her Skeletor stage, hopefully a problem rooted firmly in her past.
Brody Jenner is like a multi-headed monster of suck. He's a Medusa of mediocrity with snakes of suckage prowling from outside his skull, swallowing both his pride and pop culture's self-respect whole like a rat inside their slithering skin.
There's the fact that he sucks on the most surface, spoiled-douche socialite level, attaining third-hand notoriety as the son of a famous athlete (Bruce Jenner, although athlete is surely in quotations there), the stepbrother of a sub-Paris Hilton nightlife diva and the carefully cast friend of a "reality" queen, Lauren Conrad of The Hills.
Then there's the magnanimous suckitude of his new MTV show, Bromance, which, fittingly, apes Ms. Hilton's My New BFF but replaces it with uncomfortably homoerotic dudeism. The premiere felt like the opening episode of a Real World season, when everyone parades naked into the hot tub for drinks, high-pitched shrieking and cavorting, except with the girls conspicuously missing an invitation.
Let's just make one thing abundantly clear before we dive into this list like a lesbian reality show participant planting their face in another femme fatale's birth canal. NCDSUV doesn't just toss around the word "slut" like salad. It's a reductive, derisively loaded descriptor, and it breaks the cardinal rule of human socializing: Don't judge a book by its cover. And on the other side of the coin, it's an expression that many modern-day feminists embrace as a means of self-appointed sexual empowerment.
But when it comes to the ladies from the three seasons of Rock Of Love, featuring our favorite glam-metal fossil Bret Michaels, it's safe to say we can apply the term with all its basest connotations, with little fear of uproar or repercussion, especially after the backlash-clamoring exploits on Rock Of Love Bus.
If anything, it's hard to distinguish one of these soulless, face-sucking fame seekers' tramposity from the others'. So even though Heather was an ex-stripper with the hair-and-fashion sense of a drag queen at New York City's Halloween parade, she exuded enough seasoned self-respect to remain off this lascivious list. And although Rock Of Love Bus newbie Brittaney admitted to a past in pornography, she had a reformed soccer-mom side that kept her from being raked over this story's critical coals.
So with all that in mind, and with all apologies to the overly sensitive, here are the five absolute sluttiest of all the self-esteem-deprived she-devils who have embarked upon a quest for VH1 stardom and Michaels' momentary affection.
5. Daisy Parading around as a true-blue rocker chick straight out of the annals of Poison's "Fallen Angel" lyrics sheet, Ms. De La Hoya is actually the no-doubt-spoiled niece of her world-class-boxing uncle, Oscar. And despite still living with her douchebag deluxe boyfriend Charles, Daisy more than presumably slept with Michaels. During one altercation, she even gloated about supposedly giving him sexual favors to get Heather off her back about the whole multiple lovers fiasco. Daisy might be the angel, but it seems Michaels was the one earning his red wings.
4. Gia This tatted-up Love Bus sex tart may have only lasted one episode, but her too-slutty-for-blurred-out-TV antics (nevermind mention the footage that actually made the cut), most notably depositing a "buttery nipple" test-tube shot inside her cooch for another contestant to swill down her gullet, enshrined her legacy in the Hall Of Whoreitude. And had us all scrambling for unencumbered production footage on file-sharing sites.
Think about this: There was a time when Bret Michaels and his band Poison would have been too edgy for VH1. You know, back in the '80s, when the network doubled as second home to Michael Bolton and late-period Steve Winwood. But now, his efforts to pursue poontang and pure romance have become the debauched ground zero for their Celebreality empire, as evidenced by the New Year's-ball-dropping-esque countdown ticker for Rock Of Love Bus displayed during the preceding premiere of Confessions Of A Teen Idol (which was kind of awesome and gripping in a Celebrity Rehab sort of way, FYI).
And while the latest seasonal installment in the fake-extensions, bandana-toting, one-time pop-metal superstar's serial opus no doubt garnered ginormous ratings, I fear a backlash may finally ensue.
Back for 2009, here's some more Films From The Cable Afterlife, properly hung over for the New Year. It's a short week, so let's just get this over with and celebrate the end of a stinker, and hope for change as well as variety in our cultural diets. (All listings in EST.)
8. The Dead One (2007) TMC, Thursday, January 8, 4:30am It's not just your junk that's up for grabs when Wilmer Valderrama rolls up to your crew in this do-not-pass-DVD, go-directly-to-cable stinker. Fez puts on mariachi makeup by accident, then gets in an accident and sent to the Aztec god of death, to do HIS BIDDING. Oooooooooooh!
7. Skinwalkers (2007) TMC, Thursday, January 8, 6:10pm A product of a robust yet bloated market, Skinwalkers was yet another failure of a horror film, given theatrical release by Lionsgate. This one's about werewolves, and while the effects were decent, there's no buffing up the acting and the plot is nearly identical to that of Dane Cook's Employee Of The Month. Here' hoping the economic downturn keeps dog dirt like this out of production.
6. American Perfekt (1997) Showtime (SHO Beyond), Wednesday, January 7, 8:15pm A flip of a coin is all it takes for criminal psychiatrist Robert Forster to abandon all of his plans and go on a wild vacation with some psychotic women and a whole heap of trouble. Are Fairuza Balk, Amanda Plummer and Naked's David Thewlis interesting enough to get you to tune in? Flip a coin to find out!
5. Doomsday (2008) Cinemax, Monday, January 5, 10pm Last year, director Neil Marshall (The Descent) took a dump in the Thunderdome, and here it is, having baked in the sun for many months. Rhona Mitra leads a cast of Bob Hoskins and Malcolm McDowell in a post-apocalyptic run 'n' gun of Scotland.
Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features,
where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of
Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by
the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge
affinity for their body of work.
On New Year's Day, Don Novello, aka Father Guido Sarducci, led us in a comedic prayer for 2009, and today we say "Schwing!" to Wayne Campbell's one-time bass-straddling mega-babe.
Welcome to NCDSUV's splenetic, embittered new weekly feature, Overdressed & Underclassed, which dissects different aspects of celebrity fashion with the enthusiasm and exactitude of a taxidermist suffering from the second clinical phase of rabies (caution: We have reached the contagious stage).
Fashion trends generally reflect the time in which they're created, ergo cash means flash, recession means regression. So what can we expect when a full-blown depression is being forecast? As I turn my jaundiced eye to 2009, I predict that the (hopefully) temporary stumble of Western Civilization will lead to a number of unsightly trendlets among the glitterati. My predictions for who will wear what, below.
8. Rumpled Luxe Most Likely Victims: Angelina Jolie, Madonna, Sean Penn Much like Kathy Fuld's rather feeble attempt to hide her weekly $10,000 shopping sprees at Hermes (you know Kathy, wife of the disgraced Lehman Brothers Goliath, Tricky Dick Fuld) in unmarked bags to protect the great unwashed masses from the awareness of her continuing spendthrift ways, there are going to be gaggles of stars known for their cultural and political "sensitivity" who will attempt to downplay their own profligate spending with the Rumpled Luxe look. Because a Prada dress that's ill-fitting, baggy, wrinkled and strapped together with a series of creased ribbons (and just happens to cost thousands) totally says, "I relate to unkempt homeless people and the struggling working class."
7. Statement Headpieces Most Likely Victims: Nicole Richie, Mischa Barton, Christian Siriano Broke but still want to look a la mode? That's where "statement" headpieces come in. And in keeping with the bipolar mood the wild fluctuations of the market have inspired in the general populace, the message this season's "statements" are sending are decidedly crazypants. Take Blumarine, for example. The unwieldy beige contraptions strapped to models' heads are tied in various fanciful designs. The giant upside down Christmas-bow that threatens to take out a model's eyeball, or at the very least, her line of vision, is my personal favorite. It perfectly evokes the topsy turvy/helter skelter spirit of our times and chooses to join in the chaos and embrace the screwball and the scary, instead of run in the other direction, screaming. Which will most likely be the common reaction if you attempt to replicate this look.
6. Sleepwear As Outerwear Most Likely Victims: Britney Spears, Matthew McConaughey, Courtney Love Luxe lads and ladies too depressed, unemployed, drunk and/or insolvent to change out of their jammies can rest assured that they'll still totally be in style. Dolce & Gabbana has conveniently devoted its 2009 line to various pajama-inspired ensembles that will take you from the deli... to the couch. The dresses resemble Hugh Hefner-style silk smoking jackets and trench coats, shorts, flowy pants and button-downs that scream "naptime!" abound -- casual lolligag belting options included. Perhaps the idea here is to allow the still gainfully employed to stand in solidarity with their jobless brethren by unabashedly approaching their oh-so-urgent PowerPoint presentations and TPS reports with the same vigor their cohorts approach their glazy-eyed afternoon slumps on the couch, clicker in one hand, giant vat of soda in the other, bowl of popcorn precariously balanced on lap strewn with trashy magazines. Let's get this economy started!
5. Bike Shorts Most Likely Victims: Lindsay Lohan, Rihanna, Nicky Hilton Leggings' tacky redneck cousins have arrived. Brace yourselves, because bike shorts are "in." Nothing says "we give up as a society" like oversized cotton T's paired with plain black leather belts that are neither thin, thick, tight or loosely slung and bike shorts... posing as haute couture. Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope that Americans en masse don't pick up this style. We've lived through enough with the redoubtable muffin top/hipster jean/peekaboo thong triangle of terror, and I'm not sure we could withstand the kind of shock and horror that would surely entail if mall rats, Soap Opera Digest subscribers and soccer moms all started sporting short, tight, shiny Lycra pants.
While slogging through VH1's autopiloted, best-of '08 (i.e. best of their coverage of '08) programming during the last week, I made it through a few more of their I Love The... and Top 100... clips shows. During one such marathon, a segment featured the best air-guitar song of that year, with celebrities and professional air guitarists alike superimposed over, say, a Judas Priest clip, wah-wah-ing and soloing away on their imaginary axe.
Oh, I'm sorry, did I just say professional air guitarists? Excuse me while I get my dick out of my hand until someone gives me my paycheck for professionally jerking off. I think what I actually meant to say was unemployed loser who lives in his mom's basement and makes a living through some mundane postmodern form of theater that lands approximately in between a Rock Band jam session and the early audition stages of American Idol.
Firstly, all the value from air guitar histrionics has historically been derived from it being a private endeavor, something that, a la singing in the shower, is vulnerable to shame and embarrassment if caught on tape or by accidental interruption.
Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features,
where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of
Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by
the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge
affinity for their body of work.
Yesterday, we breathed a sigh of relief over the candles that Marianne Faithful was even still alive and rasping, and today we say happy 43rd to a woman who had at least that many high-profile clients for her Hollywood prostitution ring.
In the midst of people clamoring to shower their relatives with menial gifts, and the news of tragic holiday-season stories like the awful family shooting in Covina, California, Michael Lohan finally put our preeminent New Year's concern to rest: He and daughter Lindsay Lohan have called a truce.
On his woefully designed website, the pop-culture-princess' perpetually misbehaving papa doesn't say what was discussed what the truce had to say when it answered on the other line, but oh I'm sure they had much to catch up on. (Pardon the knock-knock-level humor. Too much Marx Brothers watching this Hanukkah.)
The Long Island Lolita breeder does, however, acknowledge (in MS-DOS worthy giganto-font) that as it relates to his relationship with the future Mrs. Sam Ronson, "There is a truce between Lindsay and I, so please stop adding any fuel to the fire. I respectfully ask that all sources, so called friends and mouthpieces refrain from any more comments or suggestions on her blog."
Or at least that's what some guy named "Admin" posted on his site. But regardless, breathe easy and may you finally light your Christmas trees in piece armed with this heartwarming update from a guy who makes Kevin Federline look like father of the decade.
While the rest of you lazy schlubs were spending the holiday week glugging down eggnog and making sexy eyes at that random third cousin whose bloodline connection feels tenuous at best, NCDSUV was still soaking in the pop culture rays.
Humorously enough, however, there was a conspicuous paucity of tabloid-friendly stories breaking over the last several days. This could lean one to hypothetsize that much of the entertainment world's daily headlines harbor hazy significance at best and are generated so the blogosphere merely has an excuse to catalyze conversation and ramp up page views.
But, of course, we're not that cynical. We are, however, newly educated on everything from Michael Jackson's supposedly deteriorating lung to Amy Winehouse's most certainly replenished bosom. Here are the top five things we learned for this final full week of 2008, in a very much specific order. 5. Despite our very keen eye for newly portly former sex symbols, Kathleen Turner's massive tumble into terrifyingly negative sex appeal slipped through a canyon-sized crack. She might portray a dog trainer in Marley & Me, but it appears her personal workout coach really screwed the pooch.
4. Just when we thought we were out.... Actually, it's Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt who are out... (wait for it, wait for it) of their minds! And in and out of matrimony, as they teased us with yet another wedding-related ratings booster on The Hills, only to hold off on an official ceremony as a presumed cocktease for their inevitable spinoff show. Hey, it's not like marriage has been a particularly sanctified concept in recent decades anyway, so these two nutballs may as well shit all over it to advance their careers.
Here's the last Films From The Cable Afterlife of 2008. Looking back, there were some great movies shown that I hope I turned you onto, and hopefully some more that you found on your own. Overall, I gotta let it be known that cable as a medium for showing movies is starting to slip. Movie packages change hands and the more creative programmers out there fall to the wayside, buried in an avalanche of cheap-to-air space fillers, the kind of sub-direct-to-DVD garbage that's 10 times worse than the lousiest drive-in/grindhouse garbage it replaced.
Movies are also getting squeezed out of formerly great networks like Sundance and IFC in favor of original programming (thanks guys, I needed to be reminded to recycle) and the on-demand diaspora only pushes a tighter net of weak movies into a narrower frame. You'd think that the shrinking margins facing cable would cause these networks to step up, but the thrills that movie channels once provided are competing with all manner of media and piracy issues, and fighting a losing battle. Only Turner Classic Movies, and to a lesser extent Fox Movie Channel and IFC, are keeping it real, showing a tacit dedication to their implicit tasks at hand.
I challenge cable programmers to show a little more pride in their work come 2009, and that they rise to the expectations of their viewership, the lazy, unmotivated herd that deserves to have their realm shattered by unbelievable examples of cinema. This time we're going to look exclusively at IFC and Turner Classic Movies for an example of two networks who get it right. 8. Twentieth Century (1934) Turner Classic Movies, Thursday, January 1, 7:15am One of the rules of Cable Afterlife was "nothing before 1967, please" but you know what? WHO CARES. Howard Hawks' knock-down drag-out comedy deserves to be appreciated by a new generation. Fussy director John Barrymore and his even fussier protégé actress Carole Lombard, who he made a star for nothing in return, slug it out on a train ride. It's hilarious and bitchy and biting, and the best we can do today is crap like Bride Wars. Please, do yourself a favor and watch this.
7. Heaven's Gate (1981) Turner Classic Movies, Wednesday, December 31, 2am A few years back I found myself stranded in a condo with my family in Naples, Florida over Christmas vacation. It was raining, and I didn't have access to a rental car (not that there was anything to do anyway). In an ultimate act of masochism, I brought my GreenCine rentals with me, and decided to roll through the early oeuvre of Michael Cimino, from Magnum Force and Thunderbolt & Lightfoot to The Deer Hunter and this, the movie that bankrupted United Artists and sullied Cimino's career once and for all. TCM presents the long, restored version of this giant catastrophe, peppered with moments of unfettered brilliance and an extravagance that you don't see much in films anymore. It's hard to sympathize with anyone in this movie, the ultimate '70s downer and one so large it carried through to the '80s. Rich kid baron Kris Kristofferson shuns his Harvard graduating class and protects the interests of immigrants in this overblown retelling of the Johnson County War. Ugly, mean, bitter and melancholy, with great turns by Christopher Walken and Sam Waterston as the ultimate heel/coward. This year sucked anyway. Watch it run down the drain the right way.
6. Surf Movie Marathon Turner Classic Movies, Tuesday, December 30, 6:30am-8pm TCM is down to show surf movies without fail every few months, and it's always nice to get a massive dose of such irreverence thrown at you in such a manner as this; over 12 hours of beach action, slumber parties, Von Zipper chop-busting, very off-color race gags (an Asian guy named "Cholly"? Come on!), and killer musical appearances by garage and R&B bands of the '60s. Running top to bottom, we have the following:
• Pajama Party (some nonsense about an alien learning about girls, bound to be fun with Tommy Kirk and Annette Funicello on board) • Winter A Go-Go (teen turns abandoned ski lodge into music venue) • For Those Who Think Young (teens fight developers who threaten to shut down a beachside hangout; starring Paul Lynde, Nancy Sinatra, Bob Denver and Tina Louise) • It's A Bikini World (rad drag-racing beach/surf monster with Deborah Walley, Sid Haig, The Animals, The Gentrys and The Castaways) • Ride The Wild Surf (more surf-oriented than most, with Fabian and Shelley Fabares hitting the waves in Hawaii) • Don't Make Waves (Tony Curtis and the late Sharon Tate mix it up with The Byrds out by the shore) • Beach Party (the original; Frankie and Annette battle Von Zipper, with Dick Dale shredding on guitar) • Muscle Beach Party (the kids fight the bodybuilders, featuring music by Brian Wilson, Little Stevie Wonder, and Dick Dale, with extra insults by Don Rickles)
These movies are where pop culture exploded into music, and provided some of the fuel to fire up the '60s youth rebellion. Must-watch, even if you think you're beyond this type of cheese.
5. Never Die Alone (2004) IFC, Saturday, January 2, 12am Chilling, violent modern film noir, based on street-hustler-turned-Iceberg Slim-protégé Donald Goines' novel. DMX's finest role, and David Arquette is no slouch either. You probably missed this joint when it hit theaters, so catch up now and feel the burn.
With the passing of Rock Of Love Charm School, we also mourn Riki Rachtman's re-exit from the revolving door of pop culture's spotlight. For now. For a moment. Until some other opportunity arises for him to continue his improbable, two-decade tenure as a parasite on the buttocks of heavy-metal culture, during which time he's used his inflated status as backstage hanger-on extraordinaire to get consistent visibility on MTV and VH1.
Rachtman was always a clueless, over-quaffed nitwit on Headbanger's Ball (especially when making the awkward transition into the grunge years). And as evidenced in The Decline Of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years, was an even more egregiously 'do'd dipshit during the formative years of his Cathouse proprietorship (the rock club, not the HBO brothel).
From the in-case-you-missed-it department (otherwise known as the central hub of NCDSUV's cultural reporting), Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt teased us for a couple of months and had us endure two spinoff-supporting late-season episodes of The Hills, only to balk at getting married by a justice of the peace in last night's finale. Because, you see, Spencer (sporting an even more disheveled white-cheddar beard than usual) finally realized his beloved botox queen Heidi deserved the wedding of her dreams, and apparently gets a gold medal for stumbling upon the importance of her mother being there to witness it.
Man, fuck those guys. Them and the producers of the show, who collaboratively plotted the false start just to string us along and make dramatic faux-reality television. To think of all the the things I could have been doing with that 40 minutes. Saving the world, pouring salt over icy sidewalks to prevent old ladies from falling, masterbating to Cathouse: Three Ring Circus. Well, it's a good thing I'm a multitasker.
It turns out the day the earth stood still was actually last night, as the country put aside their economic woes and and tuned into VH1's Rock Of Love Charm School finale. And as you either know by now, or are cursing me for revealing before your DVR warmed up, Brandi M. (she of the C-porn facial photos resume (NSFW)) beat out fellow finalist Destiney (she of the former pole-dancing past) and received her diploma from Sharon Osbourne.
Both girls gave one last bravura performance, dredging up a few last tears from their depleted glands, with Brandi M. apparently getting the nod for dispensing of her "berping and farting" tendencies" and dramatically shredding her speech in favor of impromptu emotional outpouring. Of course, her competitor wasn't even reading from a prepared scrap of paper in the first place, but it looks like for this scintillating, unforgettable season (you get the feeling they filmed Rock Of Love Bus just to propel another season of Charm School, no?), it was Brandi M.'s... Destiney.
As we gear up for the holidays, Hollywood has no intent on settling down its array of shenanigans. Particularly as it revs its self-promotional engine and rings in the start of awards season.
Yes, the big news this week (well, apart from that awful business surrounding Mark Ruffalo's brother, but let's not dwell on the morbid) involved Heath Ledger getting one last laugh after his tragic death, thanks to his work as The Joker in Dark Knight being recognized amidst the Golden Globe nominees.
But there was also the minor matter of Britney Spears' comeback, not to mention, Heather Chadwell getting the steel-toed stripper boot from Rock Of Love Charm School. So without further shenanigans of our own, here are the top five things we learned this week:
5. Apparently, there's a groundswell of second-generation punk fans just creaming their pants for the opportunity to revisit GG Allin's propensity for not wearing any.
4. Heather Chadwell, aka Heather from Charm School, may actually have less self-esteem than the people who read this site.
Lost your job, did you? Enjoy the few weeks left in your cable subscription before it gets shut off. Films from the Cable Afterlife is like a drink to help you forget, Dean Martin-style, yet another plunge into the moldy basement of movies on TV. Do you care that this column is pay cable-centric? Want to know more about the seedy underside of basic cable as well? Let us know by e-mailing nudecelebritydeathsuv@gmail.com or leaving comments below! In the meantime, here's some films you would do well to watch. (All times in EST.)
8. DOUBLE FEATURE ALERT: Beyond The Fog (1972) Turner Classic Movies, Saturday, December 13, 2:15am Horror House (1969) Turner Classic Movies, Saturday, December 13, 3:45am Busty British women (Jill Haworth appears in both features), blood and a vengeful female god wait for you on Snape Island, while "teenager" Frankie Avalon waits out a long, dark, stabby night with other "teenagers" in an old house. Here's prime UHF fantasy fodder, drilling sex and death into the heads of the burnouts who might have crammed into a fleabag theater on the Deuce to cop drugs, and to the sugar-addled kids who would catch on via Saturday afternoon Suspense Theater matinees on TV. And with a major network repealing standard primetime hours, let's hole to see more desperation programming like this to counter the real schlock: reality TV.
7. The Ruins (2008) Cinemax, Sunday, December 13, 10pm, assorted times during the week, and On Demand Unless you catch Holocaust/white people-learning-'bout-life weepie The Boy In The Striped Pajamas, you may not find a worse feature film this year than this adaptation of Scott B. Smith's gripping horror novel. Prose turns to feces, an ill-gotten gift festers under idiocy and poor direction for all to see. Witless Yankee co-eds on spring break in Mexico run off, wholly unprepared, for an endless hike into the jungle to visit some ancient ruins. While there, they're assaulted by the natives when they try to escape, and are entwined by blood-sucking, viral vines that pick them off one by one. Only the brave and dulled of spirit will be able to make it past the point where the vines start "talking."
6. Pact With The Devil (aka Dorian) (2001) TMC Xtra, Tuesday, December 16, 2:05am Hey, howzabout a straight-to-video, "modern" update of The Picture Of Dorian Gray? No? Too bad. Malcolm McDowell chews on the set as the demon that keeps the painting in play. Not for the weak or listless.
5. Areola 51 (2008) Showtime (Showcase), Tuesday, December 16, 2:15am Normally I don't revert to Skinemax as a valid choice. Nor have I watched this heartwarming tale of a woman abducted and serviced by "fem-aliens" (though you might). I just wanted to address the fact that there's a movie called Areola 51. Proceed with your life.
Well, I figure while we're on the subject of The Hills, and while I've subsequently emasculated myself but also made myself out to be a perv in the same four-post span, it's about time to take aim at Audrina Patridge's on-again, off-again, hair-long-again, hair-short-again, faux-surfer, sort-of-wannabe-rebel-badass, second-rate Spicoli boy-toy Justin Bobby.
Now, I'm not about to get on some punk rock high horse. My association with outcast fringe culture was likewise cultivated in suburbia (Long Island to be exact), but dating back to the authentic outgrowth of the hardcore scene, there's always been something unsavory about how West Coast dudes adopt the skater aesthetic. A bro-ham, fraternity-pledging, peer-bullying sort of vibe that befits their lack of exposure to the hardened shifting of seasons and mean urban streets of the Midwest and East Coast.
Caught the commercials for the next episode of The Hills yet? You know, the one that's already pristinely edited and teases footage from Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt's much-ballyhooed (or at least semi-ballyhooed), semi-legal nuptials in Mexico?
So, yeah, we were duped. We all bought into the rumor mill about the legitimacy of their supposedly spontaneous marriage ceremony, giving the issue way more conjecture than it warranted. When really, if we were remotely as shrewd as MonPratt (or at least their presumably nefarious, Ari Gold-worthy representation), we'd never have allowed the cultural conversation to go beyond, "Yes, clearly, it was being filmed for a Heidi/Spencer-centric episode that would propel them to their own spinoff success a la Whitney Port, but hopefully via a program (Freudian slip that I nearly type-od pogrom there?) more evocatively titled than The City."
You've fooled us again, PrattTag! Damn you! But oh, will I be watching you this coming Monday. Damn me!
Today marks the launch of NCDSUV's splenetic, embittered new weekly feature, Overdressed & Underclassed, which with each installment will dissect a different aspect of celebrity fashion with the enthusiasm and exactitude of a taxidermist suffering from the second clinical phase of rabies (caution: We have reached the contagious stage).
In this inaugural piece, we will explore the prevalent problem of personality disorders among the glitterati and their affect on our ability to surf the Web and flip through glossies without causing our eyes, nay, our very souls, to bleed. One in five adults has a personality disorder that can interfere with their ability to separate fact from fiction, zebras from zinnias and prettiness from pulchritude. And logic dictates that personality disorders would affect celebrities more than the rest of the species. Today, we're focusing on female offenders.
9. Madonna Diagnosis: Schizoid Personality Disorder Madge bears all of the unfortunate hallmarks of SPD: odd dress, beliefs and behavior; palpable discomfort with close relationships; inappropriate emotional responses; and "magical thinking," i.e. the belief that you can influence people and events with your thoughts alone. Her Madgesty's sartorial sins are really just drops in her shiny, black-latex crazypants bucket, but they are significant nonetheless. Since the dawn of the new millennium and (coincidentally?) middle age, the Material Girl lost her fashion touch. The heady days of drooling over a brash, grinning bleach-blond in cone bras, tacky-chic lace gloves, insanely poofy but totally cute taffeta skirts, (ironic) religious jewelry and an armful of black rubber bracelets are gone. Now we've got snaps of a snarling Ms. Ciccone flexing her pale, ropy limbs for the stalkerazzi in her skuzziest skull-emblazoned workout gear or sporting questionable couture. Worst of all, Marc Jacobs, generally brilliant but a total ditz when it comes to selecting his "muses," is perpetuating, under-writing and encouraging the fashion train wreck by signing Madonna as the new face of Louis Vuitton. The new, frozen, swollen, sullen, skin-tight skullface of Louis Vuitton.
8. Amy Winehouse Diagnosis: Borderline Personality Disorder There are a few things you can depend on with Wino: glittering eyes that perpetually burn with the spark of chaos and fashion choices that clearly reflect her BPD; impulsive and risky behavior (see: the shameless cultivation of her omnipresent beehive and frequent decisions to don bras as tops and sport see-through tank tops sans necessary supportive undergarments); lack of stability (see: repeated sidewalk spills due to a deadly cocktail and total inability to commit to either crackwhore chic or baglady chic); and volatile relationships (see: an apparent total disregard for her apparel, as expressed through repeated cutting, shredding and tearing of wife beaters and Daisy Dukes).
7. Winona Ryder Diagnosis: Antisocial Personality Disorder Ryder was the '90s rolled up into one gloomy, pale, listless (yet still strangely perky and idealistic) package, but since then her star has been eclipsed by the go-go Hollywood hussies of the aughts. During her Icarus-like flameout into B-status, the erstwhile drab packer threw off the oversized flannel but maintained her distinctly APD approach to clothing herself. Winona's condition is characterized by a disregard for others, a persistent streak of lying and stealing, recurring difficulties with the law and repeated violations of the rights of others. Like her career, her targets of thievery have spiraled downward; this year, she was accused of stealing make-up from CVS. Winona was never officially charged.
6. The Olsen Twins Diagnosis: Avoidant Personality Disorder The direful dyad has always worn APD (feelings of inadequacy, extreme shyness in social situations, timidity, social isolation, hypersensitivity to criticism or rejection) on its hyper-tailored sleeves. The reclusive, creepy-close genetic photocopies have never really been accepted by young Hollywood's reigning nightlife cabal (Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Nicole RIchioe, et al), likely perpetuating the Olsens' already gossamer grip on sanity. Currently, their increasingly pinched, pixie-like faces can rarely be spied poking through their cascading blond tresses and under their titanic shades as they clutch each other and shuffle on their reedy little stems in Grey Gardens-esque "Little Edie" Bouvier Beale gear (giant fur coats atop leggings and high-rise platform heels, paired with giant designer bags in exotic skins and ludicrous scarves) from one awkward press event to the next. When Ashley and Mary-Kate muster enough courage to emerge from Cousin It mode and smile for the cameras, the results are invariable cringetastic, their pasty, angular faces resembling kabuki masks suddenly coming to life.
All you NCDSUV-ites (ians? ers?) are aware of the special place Rock Of Love Charm School holds in this website's left aorta. And few cast members have resonated within our varicose veins like Heather Chadwell, aka the old stripper chick with an insane lack of perspective, shatteringly low self-esteem and mystifyingly horrific hair styles that befit the preceding pair of shortcomings.
And last night, after 60 minutes of half-assed stabs at feigning helpless, suspended-spoiled-adolescent immaturity to rival her half-aged fellow competitors, Heather finally got the boot from that hideous, cosmetically altered Brit beast known as Sharon Osbourne. And can now go toward the next step in her depressingly wayward search for inner happiness via outside validation.
Films From The Cable Afterlife empties out the traps of uncut cable movies, and sorts out all the irregular or otherwise remarkable movies that got left behind by the crush of time and popular favor, that defined the medium of modern television and fed into its cultural whims with both flash and zen. Write your thesis on any of these chestnuts. (All listings in EST.) 8. CQ (2001) IFC, Friday, December 12, 12:30am How do you make the European swinging '60s unbearable? Ask Roman Coppola about this abomination, his first (and last) feature film, starring a wimpy Jeremy Davies stranding his long-time girlfriend for an Italian actress once he gets asked to drop the douchebag at film school and come to the studio to do it for real. So pointless, it's like a void; other movies become terrible in its proximity.
7. Stealth Fighter (1999) Cinemax (OuterMAX), Saturday, December 6, 11:05am; Cinemax (More MAX), Thursday, December 11, 12:05pm Director Jim Wynorski is a late-era Roger Corman protege, having polished up turds like Chopping Mall and The Return Of Swamp Thing since the mid '80s (and sitting in the chair for Skinemax crud like The Witches Of Breastwick and The DaVinci Coed). He's a huge fan of stock footage, and crams it into just about all of his movies, regardless of how well it matches with the rest of the film. Stealth Fighter features Ice-T pulling a Broken Arrow and stealing military aircraft. Costas Mandylor, Erika Eleniak, Ernie Hudson and Tom "Tiny" Lister co-star. A career ender, except for Ice-T, whose revenue streams in the jiggling buttocks of his wife, CoCo, are so strong that they may pull us out of this recession.
6. We Jam Econo: The Story Of The Minutemen (2005) Sundance Channel, Thursday, December 11, 6:35am For the first half of the '80s, San Pedro's Minutemen traveled the U.S., dodging loogies and bumming out the punks waiting to see Black Flag with tense, jazzy punk rock rooted in the struggles of the working class. Tough guys hate this band and rock the Red Hot Chili Peppers instead, but as for the rest of us, their story is a bittersweet chronicle of life on the outside, and dreams dashed away (singer/guitarist D. Boon died in an auto accident at the end of 1985, promptly ending the group). Plenty of famous folks are on hand to reminisce about the greatness of this band, and if you don't know, now ya know.
5. Harry And Son Showtime (SHO Family Zone), Sunday, December 7, 9:30pm I'll just point you to Cintra Wilson's masterful take on the career of teen actor Robby Benson and let recent Hilarious Cable Info-Bar entrantHarry And Son do the head-scratching for you. "About as sexy as a pair of white socks" indeed, but all the same, a fascinating and bizarre cultural phenom from the days of Styrofoam McDonald's containers.
May as well keep the Britney Spears train-a-rollin' while its coal furnace is blazin' memorable embers. In fact, it looks like the full-on marketing blitz that her team unfurled this week to surround her birthday and new record has had its subliminally desired effect, even on this generally manipulation-impervious blog of destruction.
Anyhow, Keven Federline may be the only individual more lecherous of Britney's success than us gossip scribes, as his Q & A with People mag hit stands this week, featuring a precious pic of Sean Preston and Jayden perched upon his stubbly lap. In the scintillating chat, K-Fed (and yes, it says much for our generation's cultural contribution that one of its luminaries will be looked back on as K-Fed... can you imagine if we referred to, say, Don Rickles as D-Rick?) talks about his disconnect from Britney during their dissolution and how his kids mean more than anything in life to him.
Yes, that's right folks, we're staying on the beat of all the breaking news regarding Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt's supposedly legit nuptials. Because here at NCDSUV, we know what really matters to the American public (or at least that's what our page views tell us).
And while they were conspicuously strolling through LAX, with Heidi dressed to the nines and a TMZ crew ready and waiting for their arrival (imagine the douche chills invoked from the constant phone calls between the stalkerazzi website and that couple's PR reps... e-gads), Spencer confirmed that having little Hollywood demon spawn is the next step in their plan to take over the universe (the one after that being a suspicious roofie in Barack Obama's "World's Greatest Audio-Book Orator" mug).
And given the celebrity rite of passage of naming your child something indulgently outrageous, as if to cast a self-fulfilling prohecy of creative good fortune upon them, one can only imagine what their little bundles of botox will be christened. Feel free to e-mail your suggestions to nudecelebritydeathsuv@gmail.com, and we'd be happy as a Hills marathon in heat to publish the most elite offerings.
Oh, and watch the above clip and try not to vomit up your late-day office snack.
Back
in the halcyon days of yore, everyone from urbane, high-brow fashion
designers to rural, overall-wearin' Midwestern farmers sought out their
own personal fashion avatars from a stunning gallery of lady
aristocrats like Caroline Astor, Babe Paley, the Vanderbilts and CZ
Guest. While many were born into the gougères-munching, Don Pérignon-swilling,
twinkle-toed fancy ways of Park Avenue, they were well-educated,
upstanding dames who used their influence to build museums, launch
charities and generally reach out to (however condescendingly) the
grubby other half.
That's in violent contrast to the fashion avatars of our current
regressive, knuckle-dragging era: Celebuspawn of the Female Variety.
And it's not just oblivious Ohio State frosh. Impossibly sophisticated
designers also take inspirational cues from these teeny terrors, not to
mention pack their runways with 'em. The current crop of celebuspawn,
unlike the socialites who preceded them, do little, if nothing to
further the cause of anything but themselves. Which wouldn't be tragic,
if they didn't insist on shoving their various and sundry "fashion"
lines down our greedy little gullets. Or in some cases, being forced down our throats as walking fashion projects in and of themselves. Here, we take a look at their
most bloodcurdling ventures, and nepotism-fueled existences as trend-inspiring icons:
8. Angela and Vanessa Simmons
Phat
Farmer Russell Simmons has used the tacktastic Run's
House to excrete his two eldest daughters (with Baby Phater
Kimora Lee Simmons) into the lucrative MTV reality swamp, launcher of
countless fameballs and unnecessary, aesthetically offensive "fashion"
lines. Angela and Vanessa, who also model, enter beauty pageants and
appear in music videos, decided to rip a page out of Lauren Conrad's
fuzzy pink playbook and foist their hideous taste on the world with
what must be one of the most preposterous premises since grillz. Their
"fashion" line (once just sneakers, now clothing, shoes and, egad,
handbags) is inspired by edible dainties. The resulting line, Pastry,
is as appealing as a dust-ball-encrusted Dunkin' Donuts éclair wedged
under your Aunt Ida's bed between her heating pad and economy-size tube
of Bengay. Unless of course lipstick-kiss patterns, gold zippers, jeans
with butt-bows or plum boat shoes with turquoise shoe laces are your
thing, in which case you should totally check out www.pastrykicks.com for other classy looks, like the Pastry Blueberry Glam Chukka and the Pastry Neon Fruit Cinch Sack. Delish!
7. Frances Bean Cobain
Chanel.
The name evokes scents of jasmine, rose and sandalwood; visions of
ballerina slippers, LBDs and gorgeously wrought (if ridiculously
stuffy) suits and quilted chain-link handbags and a history of
glamazing (if vaguely anal-retentive) spokesmodels like Catherine
Denueve, Nicole Kidman and Audrey Tautou. Now add moon-faced,
jutty-jawed 15-year-old Frances Bean Cobain to the list. (One of these
things is not like the others.) While she certainly has creamy
porcelain skin going for her, she otherwise looks like your average pouty,
self-conscious mall chick. If she weren't Kurt Cobain and Courtney
Love's possibly (hopefully?) evil seedling, and therefore the source of
increasing fascination as she reaches her teen years, Karl Otto
Lagerfeld would be screaming "Nein!" and flailing ineffectually about
in his skintight Dior suit and aviator sunglasses, slapping assistants
with his fingerless black biker gloves outfitted with pinkie rings at
the very prospect of including such a well, commoner, in his next ad
campaign. Instead, he's probably chortling victoriously over the free
publicity it's already received. Because, really, who isn't curious
about everything the genetic hot mess that is Frances Bean Cobain
produces as she exits adolescence?
6. Rumer Willis
It
must kind of suck ass to be Rumer. From a purely demographic
standpoint, she should be dating her stepfather. But Ashton's boinking
Mom because she's hotter, sassier, sexier and is overflowing with that
je ne se qua poor little Jaws will never taste. Luckily for her,
nepotism in Hollywood is alive and well. Were she the spawn of say
Betty-Sue and Fred of Omaha, her beady-eyed potatohead would be
considered a fatal career-sinking liability, but as Demi Moore and Bruce
Willis' scion, she's being aggressively marketed as a, gulp, hottie.
She's been in gaggles of Demi's movies and magazine spreads, and lately
she's been branching out on her own, though not very auspiciously.
She's been cast as a lovable loser in The House
Bunny and modeled for Wal-Mart fave Ocean Pacific. But
someone's got a pal at People. In an inexplicable
development, she was voted one of 2008's 100 Most Beautiful People.
5. Nicole Richie
Nicole
has turned doing nothing, and not being particularly pleasant,
attractive or coherent while doing these nothings, and getting paid
for it into an art form. The best part about the Nicole story is how
incredibly embarrassing and cheesy her father Lionel Richie's music is.
I mean, seriously: "All Night Long"? Ew! But Nicole
has managed to harness all of his Grammy-Award-winning heft
for her purposes, while successfully jettisoning any and all lame
associations. From starring in The Simple Life with
Paris Hilton, to various drinking and drug-related arrests, to serving
an 82-minute jail sentence, to marrying Joel Madden and popping out her
own celubuspawn, to launching a line of accessories
and jewelry, Nicole has captivated, infuriated, repulsed, worried and
thrilled an hopelessly enthralled public. While her actual achievements
are still as thin as her wasp waist, at least she's the only lady on this list
with the soul of an entertainer.
A few weeks ago, NCDSUV began broadcasting a new feature known as Just Because, highlighting something inane, obscurely amazing or just plain jaw-dropping from the outlines of pop culture and viral content.
These differ from, say, insanely retarded local ads, or eccentric YouTube karaoke performers, which can be grouped into their own self-referencing regular spotlights. Nor do they need to be burdened by standards of timeliness or having been as-yet-unearthed.
They are the standalone wonders of the cybersphere that made us all get a computer in the first place, and occasionally need to be inserted into a day of normal online programming. Just because.
So while last week we shared the unspeakable pleasure of a unitard-sporting, sort-of breakdancing Jean Claude Van Damme circa a quarter-century ago, today we bring you five minutes of bratty animated bliss that's both preciously innocent in retrospect and graphically ahead of its time.
From Black Friday to the Thursday following, Films From The Cable Afterlife fleeces you for your time and effort as you sit on your couch, absorbing the lost stocking stuffers from video's filthy past, and all of the discomfort that comes with it. Roll up your sleeves, because this brain drain time suck isn't going to unclog itself.
8. Channel Of The Apes Fox Movie Channel, Thursday, November 27 thru Sunday, November 30 Good god. It's every Planet Of The Apes movie, along with all of the serialized episodes of the TV show. All they're missing is the animated series. Seriously though, this is a perfectly valid way to spend 96 hours, especially as you get to the less successful iterations of this sci-fi chestnut. If you can make it through Life, Liberty And Pursuit On The Planet Of The Apes, you have what it takes... to do what, I have no idea
.
7. Under Pressure (1997) HBO Signature, Monday, December 1, 1am; HBO2, Wednesday, December 3, 4:40am Look for the name Craig R. Baxley, a '70s stuntman-turned-director of action schlock, for a promise of wild times within. Miles away from leading Carl Weathers through Action Jackson and "The Boz" through Stone Cold, we have this fetid little steamer, with rogue fireman Charlie Sheen snapping in a Los Angeles heat wave and taking his next-door neighbors hostage. Also starring Mare Winningham and Cheers' John Ratzenberger, last seen horrifyingly animated in a commercial for Pitney-Bowes self-postage machines.
6. Hammer House Mystery: Mark Of The Devil (1984) Fox Movie Channel, Monday, December 1, 4:30pm Handsome actor Dirk Benedict (Faceman!) is slowly covered in demonic tattoos that foretell heinous murders and crimes. Did he commit 'em? Who cares! It's a rare chance to see such talent dying on the vine; made-for-TV shocks from the UK's greatest horror studio.
5. Tim (1979) FLIX, Monday, December 1, 2:30pm Mel Gibson, right after Mad Max, goes for the Dewey Award as a learning-disabled gardener who begins a tender (or is it?) relationship with a female client (Piper Laurie). Wait for the scenes where he's wigging out. The Other Sister's got nothing on this one.
Thanks to the Huffington Post, who opted to go slightly beyond our morally and spiritually defeated kvetching and actually investigate the details of Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt's supposed eloping/definitive Us Weekly raping, the likelihood of their nuptials being a legally unrecognizable farce has crystallized.
The Us photo spread has the standard allotment of wedding-gown pics and what have you, in addition to their vows (don't tell me the performed reading of those suckers wouldn't make for a satirical off-Broadway hit), but apparently there's no proof that they got a marriage license or took part in a civil ceremony, not to mention California doesn't recognize marriages outside of the U.S. And certainly not in their hot, dusty neighbor to the south, Mexico.
Of course, the fact that they could grab national headlines for staging a fake marriage is somehow more maddening than if they had tied the knot for real and launched a subsequent self-indulgent press campaign. So you win again, Speidi, but I assure you, vengeance of some kind will rear its Hills-crashing head, no matter how long it takes me, or how far I must travel! (Well, as long as it doesn't involve leaving my couch, but lots of other magical things have happened here.)
Welcome to NCDSUV's newest daily feature, where we acknowledge
another turn of the calendar for a member of Hollywood land, even if
it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by the rest of the
blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge affinity for
their body of work.
Yesterday, we showed our Khan-do spirit by honoring Fantasy Island midget-wrangler Ricardo Montalban, and today we exhale our breath over the candles for someone who would probably rather inhale our phallus.
What, you thought I wasn't going to remark on the "eloped" nuptials between hideous Hills tandem Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt? Does a bear not shit in the woods after it has several extra servings of beef stroganoff? Maybe not, but I bet Spencer took a hot honeymoon dump on his now-wife's chest as part of their voodoo ritual to ensure world domination and waves of resentment amongst recession-impacted Americans.
But fuck it. I think I'd trade in my mundane middle-class existence for at least a day in order to leap from one nest of privilege to the next, ultimately landing in an overwhelmingly underserved position of fame, riches and multi-million-dollar magazine covers.
And ultimately, this gets at the genesis of this Sucks feature in the first place. It's about uprooting the everyman's simmering resentment over celebrity superiority and calling famous folk out on receiving their charmed exsitence and adulation without merit.
Say that headline 69 times fast. Anyway, if you weren't aware, any pop singer from the '80s with the name George has transformed into a giant, drug-addled pervy fuck-up in their middle-age. Let us not forget the repeated indiscretions of George Michael, who's suddenly got a rap sheet more pronounced than the five o'clock shadow that graces his visage.
And then there's George O'Dowd, aka Boy George, who went on trial today for allegedly beating and imprisoning a man who would come to the singer's house for naked photo shoots. Apparently because George felt his 20-something subject had been hacking into his e-mail account.
Welcome to NCDSUV's newest daily feature, where we acknowledge
another turn of the calendar for a member of Hollywood land, even if
it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by the rest of the
blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge affinity for
their body of work.
Yesterday, we got bodyslammed with birthday awesomeness by WWE "Glamazon Beth Phoenix," today we honor a man who continues to thrive despite taking second-place to midgets and William Shatner and being weelchair-bound for most of the last two decades.
The
holiday season is officially upon us. The food, the festivities, the
relatives. Feeling nauseous yet? Does spending quality time with the
fam fill you with unspeakable levels of fear and loathing? Do you break
out in sweaty hives at the very idea of all that forced togetherness
and pre-fab merrymaking? If that's the case, take heart, because it
could always be worse. No matter what your situation is, these 13
belligerent broods will make yours look positively Rockwellian by
comparison. You will be grateful that you're drowning in your own gene
pool and not theirs.
13. Parents
What
if instead of serving Tom Turkey for Thanksgiving, your
mother decided to dish up Tom, your next door neighbor? Living a
vegan's worst nightmare, a little boy realizes very quickly that
sometimes it's best to keep the origins of "mystery meat" mysterious.
So the next time you're bitching about that umpteenth turkey sandwich,
just be glad that the protein you're consuming never had arms or a
credit card. Guess Chevy Chase and the Griswolds were lucky Randy Quaid ran out of
meat that time he had them over for dinner.
12. Friday The 13th
Let's
look at this from the Voorhees' perspective, shall we? If some snotty,
half-witted counselors let your sorry, deformed ass drown at summer
camp, wouldn't you want your mom to dedicate the rest of her life to
avenging your death? It's the least she could do. June Cleaver, Claire
Huxtable, Maggie Seaver and all those other so-called, "good" mothers
aren't worthy of shining Mrs. Voorhees' bloody shoes. So kudos to you,
Jason's mom. A family that slays together stays together.
11. Sleepwalkers
It's
one thing to have a close relationship with your maternal unit, but
it's an entirely different ball of wax once you start sleeping with
her. In Stephen King's tale of felonious feline incest, shape-shifting
Brian Krause spurns Twin Peaks hottie Madchen Amick for his own mother. Who ever said cats aren't affectionate creatures?
10. What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?
The
only situation more unfortunate than being the black sheep of the
family is being at the ebony ewe's mercy. As in most cases of violent
sibling rivalry, the envious former child star blames her older sister
for her life's problems. Considering how the majority of juvenile
actors turn out, Baby Jane doesn't actually seem all that maladjusted.
9. Serial Mom
What
would be the final straw that would convince you that your mommy was
crazy? Her obsessive enforcement of the "no white after Labor Day"
rule? The fact that she speaks in a rumbling baritone that gives James
Earl Jones a run for his money? Or would it be her habit of killing
people for no good reason? Kathleen Turner addresses all these
questions and more during her John Waters-inspired spree.
8. The Stepfather
In spite of what The Brady Bunch
would have us believe, most stepfamilies go through an awkward
adjustment phase at first. Of course, that initial period of discomfort
may last a little longer if your new daddy happens to be a homicidal
maniac with severe identity issues. As the bizarro Mike Brady, Lost's Terry O'Quinn is a living, breathing (and murdering) endorsement for single moms to remain blissfully unattached.
7. Rob Zombie's Halloween
Providing
viewers with a glimpse into Michael Myers' less than ideal upbringing,
the lead singer of White Zombie gives us a peek at the boy behind the
mask. From his slutty sister to his stripper mama's drunken, live-in
boyfriend, The Shape's familial background is straight out of the
serial killer's handbook. Then again, if those were your relatives you
might be tempted to slaughter them, too.
It's no secret that NCDSUV loves it (and loathes it) some VH1 reality. And while Real Chance Of Lovehas turned out to be a hypnotic debacle, and Celebrity Rehab is both gripping and ethically questionable, Rock Of Love Charm School of course occupies its own precious space in the soul-sucking vortex that is Sunday-night programming.
And in case you missed it (we know, sometimes church runs late), last night's episode, "Fugly Daying," involved nauseating projectiles of phlegm (presumably not the first load blown in Destiney's eye), plates being thrown at contestants' heads and smashed into adjacent walls, mutliple slices of pizza being offered as a hangover preventitive and, somehow, Charlie O'Connell (why not?)
Welcome to NCDSUV's newest daily feature, where we acknowledge
another turn of the calendar for a member of Hollywood land, even if
it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by the rest of the
blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge affinity for
their body of work.
On Friday we whipped out the Ecto-Plasm birthday pudding for
cerebral Ghostbuster Harold Ramis because bustin'
makes us feel good. Today, we're strapping on our party hats for a
woman for whom bustin' is a lifestyle.
As even the least loyal NCDSUV content-craver is aware, we love us some daily features. And one of the more popular (at least amongst, well, us and the people who it commemorates) is the Awesome Celebrity Birthday Of The Day, which acknowledges another turn of the calendar for a member of Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge affinity for their body of work.
And in ACBOTD's inaugural month, the candles have been smothered with saliva for everyone from Charles Martin Smith to Vanessa Angel. But even the continual erosion of their mortality isn't as awesome as the annual birthday bashes warranted for these five folks, and here's an advance cumpleanos feliz to all the upcoming b-day boys and girls this December.
5. Judy Tenuta (November 7) Age: 52 Why She's Sort Of Awesome: Because she sounds like Yoda after a bender and plays the accordion like it was her job. Oh, wait... Most Likely Celebrity Status 20 Birthdays From Now: If she's lucky, serenading Friar's Club Roasts for generational peers like ex-hubby Emo Phillips (could you have imagined that nerdy nutjob household?). But more likely is a solo dinner-theater residence at a seedy motel in Miami. All Apologies To: Jason London, Jeremy London, Christopher Knight, Morgan Spurlock
4. Tracy Scoggins (November 13) Age: 55 Why She's Sort Of Awesome: The tawny-haired Venus balances a love of book learnin' (at 3, she was the youngest American ever to apply for a library card) with an unstudied devotion to her craptastically executed craft. Luckily, even Scoggins' most inept, ponderous portrayals are generally canceled out by her other, more corporeal, assets. Girlfriend robotically sashayed her way through gaggles of cheesy drama series like Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years, Highlander: The Series and Dallas. She's best known for playing Captain Elizabeth Lochley on Babylon 5. <strong>Most Likely Celebrity Status 20 Birthdays From Now:</strong>At 75, let's hope she's safely bundled into a nice retirement home in Boca Raton, making the other women dream up Dynasty-worthy plots to cut her down to size and making a bunch of lonely old men very, very happy. All Apologies To: Jimmy Kimmel, Rachel Bilson, Chris Noth, Whoopi Goldberg
I know, I know: It's cold outside, you're dead broke and the holiday-shopping season six days away, and you forgot what it means to be funny after watching too many episodes of Frank TV.
Have no fear, however: The real-life foibles of celebrities are here. And thanks to everyone from Jean Claude Van Damme to Paris Hilton, the last several days have seen an abundant enough amount of Tinseltown tomfoolery to warm even the blackest of hardened hearts. So as always at this time (or maybe a bit earlier, depending on when our Sanka settles in), here's the top 5 things NCDSUV learned this week:
5. Where was Sean Stewart, son of Rod (doesn't have quite the same ring as Son Of Jor-El, does it?), when Rodney King was beaten mercilessly by LAPD in 1991? Oh, right, opening that week's unnecessary luxury gift as compensation for his dad touring the world and ensuring him a life of comfort and endless opportunity. So how exactly are their situations parallel enough to warrant co-participation in Celebrity Rehab?
4. Sinbad cut his fade-top 'do and stopped dressing like the retarded kid in your sixth grade math class. Talk about losing your sense of humor in your old age.
A couple weeks, NCDSUV began broadcasting a new feature known as "Just Because", highlighting something inane, obscurely amazing or just plain jaw-dropping from the outlines of pop culture and viral content.
These differ from, say, insanely retarded local ads, or eccentric YouTube karaoke performers, which can be grouped into their own self-referencing regular spotlights. Nor do they need to be burdened by standards of timeliness or having been as-yet-unearthed.
They are the standalone wonders of the cybersphere that made us all get a computer in the first place, and occasionally need to be inserted into a day of normal online programming. Just because.
You're only gonna watch A Christmas Story once this coming week. Here's what else is on. Films From the Cable Afterlife returns to bring you some respite from glad tidings this holiday season. Buyer beware! No refunds on these turkeys!. (And per usual, all listings in EST.)
8. Dead Silence (2007)
Cinemax, Saturday, November 22, 10am; Cinemax (OuterMAX), Sunday, November 23, 10:30pm; Cinemax (ThrillerMAX), Tuesday, November 25, 8:30pm Saw creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell stepped gingerly into the major studio system with this throwback horror thriller, pitting young murder suspect Ryan Kwanten (now famous as Jason Stackhouse on HBO's True Blood) and the embarrassing Donnie Wahlberg against dolls that kill people. If dolls, dark houses and late-changing plot twists are things that terrify you, then line up. As such, this one isn't too terrible (Amber Valletta makes a good showing), but it's nothing you haven't seen outta Chucky.
7. Screwed (2000)
Starz Comedy, Wednesday, November 26, 5:45am, 12:35pm
This comedy stars Norm MacDonald, Dave Chappelle, Sarah Silverman, and Danny DeVito. Sherman Hemsley shows up in it as well. Why haven't you heard of it? Tune in to find out! Tailored for a long, slow death somewhere in the cable diaspora, this wintry comedy involves a kidnapped dog, a Jack Lord fanatic and some other things you may or may not look back on fondly. It's not as good as Norm's Dirty Work, but really, what is?
6. Zoo (2007)
Sundance Channel, Tuesday, November 25, 1am
You could drink a whole bottle of cough syrup and watch the notorious "Mr. Hands" video somewhere on the Internet, slobbering on your hands (please, do not try this), or you could simply watch this goofy, new age, bad touch documentary about it instead. You'll never think about bestiality the same way ever again. You will be so over bestiality from then on, because you didn't think anything sexual could ever be this boring.
5. Bigger Than Life (1956)
Fox Movie Channel, Sunday, November 23, 9:30am
And while we're on the subject of drugs, you really owe it to yourself to watch this intense, bizarre portrayal of addiction. James Mason tears the set down as an overworked dad who takes cortisone pills and hulks out into this tyrannical maniac who only Walter Matthau can subdue. All the ingredients work. Director Nicholas Ray pushes a thick candied Technicolor shell through Cinemascope, a man taking a bullet for the cinema. Cortisone pills!
I've been the first person to exalt the twisted, if pioneeringly exploitative, virtues of VH1's Celebrity Rehab. However, I had an admittedly belated, entirely appropriate response to their most recent episode (which I caught in fittingly belated fashion during A.M. reruns), one likely to carry over to tonight's latest installment and permanently impede my objective attraction to Dr. Drew and his addiction-addled B-listers.
Model/human opiate closet Amber Smith was reveling in her license to be a epithet-sewing bitch during a group session, lamenting that she was always made to suppress her anger in real-life situations. They flashed to Rodney King, who flashed a supportive grin and made a quip to lighten the mood.
And then I thought, "Wait a second, this is Rodney Fucking King? What on earth about any of these peoples' private traumas parallels the grand, culturally shifting scale with which his moment of public downfall was played out?" Sure, I'd considered King's christening as a "celebrity" for the series a bit odd from the get-go. But as the participants' treatment has evolved, and they begin to connect in many ways, there's also an increasingly apparent separation between the police-abuse victim's perdicament and that of, say, Rod Stewart's kid.
Welcome to NCDSUV's newest daily feature, where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge affinity for their body of work.
Just when Jean Claude Van Damme's reputation was at its highest critical-approval rating since Timecop, he had to go and muss it up by perving out on some post-grad newbie reporter for Newsweek, behavior you'd assume he'd reserve for Us Weekly. Or NCDSUV.
In the chat, the Belgian star-status waffler explained his new meta-biopic, JCVD, via a less-than-opaque sexual metaphor about it rendering him naked, then suggested he'd like to be naked for said reporter, and finally retreated back into the metaphor excuse when she balked with befuddlement. Until, of course, he lost his grip on any gentlemanly self-control and started inquiring whether she'd be at the premiere, and if she'd like to dress in a particularly seductive fashion and meet up with him there. To, ya know, discuss metaphorical nudity and stuff.
In case it escaped anyone, the guy embarked upon this venture as a commentary on his life's history of self-destruction and liquid grasp on self-control. Henceforth, Van Damme's uncanny ability to lodge his kickboxing-crazed foot in his mouth before most of the world even glimpsed this acclaimed new project should be less surprising than the witless biracial buddy humor in Double Team.
And yes, there's a 50-50 chance this post was predicated on the opportunity to reference said Dennis Rodman co-starring clusterfuck.
No, that headline isn't the name of the imagined Benji sequel that was to star Entourage's Vincent Chase. But according to the uber-reliableStar ragazine, Paris may need more than a New BFF, as she allegedly dumped her dumpy, crappy-tat-covered boyfriend of nine months, Good Charlotte's Benji Madden (it's like they had a relationship baby!).
My favorite part of the report is that they peg the gossip-column-toppling event to an actual date (for, ya know, journalistic accuracy), alleging it occurred this past Monday, November 17 as a result of Madden being controlling and a possible cheater. Mark that moment in history down in your Blackberry documents next to the Hindenburg disaster and JFK's assassination.
Paris can now, of course, resume doing what makes her a worthwhile cultural commodity in the first place: fucking mass quantities of dudes (and yes, chances are she was fairly easily convinced to call it a day as a worthy PR tradeoff). Meanwhile, Benji can attempt to regain his punk-rock integrity by, I don't know, buying a DeLorean on eBay and travelling back to a time when he and his Nicole Richie-romancing bro were known less for banging vapid debutantes and more for... um, making glorified emo for teenagers?
OK, here's a new contest for all you loyal NCDSUV passengers: Feel free to guestimate how long Kelly Osbourne's engagement/marriage to 18-year-old lip-piercing-lover Luke Worrall will last and e-mail them to nudecelebritydeathsuv@gmail.com (or leave them on the comments board below). Whoever winds up closest to when their would-be nuptials inevitably get called off will be awarded with the opportunity to write a guest post about Ozzy's perpetually misguided kin. (Come to think of it, this could dovetail quite nicely with a Death Pool revolving around her scraggly, Satanic pop.)
You'll have to pardon my skepticism, and perhaps I'm operating under a bit of naivete about how certain private announcements are made public these days (People magazine covers, right?), but doesn't the long-term sustenance of a union seem a bit doomed when the pair's adolescent half declares it official via Facebook?
If drawing come on things were a skill, than Perez Hilton would be the grand champion, wandering through Washington Square Park going from table to table with a white MS Paint marker screaming “Checkmate” at his dimwitted opponents. A dash here and there on Miley Cyrus’ face nets him a rook and a knight, a splash over Angelina Jolie’s breasts and seven pawns are removed. How masterful! With a move known as “Jackson Pollock’s dick,” he passes straight to the endgame. And, ah, “The Postmodern Gambit”─how risky… and risqué! ─the screen entirely white and underneath the Desperate Housewives. Mate in two!
Of course, it’s not a skill. It’s barely an action. It’s something that happens when your hand slips in Photoshop. “Hey, that kind of looks like…” But to stick with the chess metaphor, whomever is Hilton’s boyfriend is sure a fool’s mate. BAM! Taking it down a notch!
Alright, alright. A little while ago, it was alluded to here that Hilton has notoriously bad musical taste. (And by “alluded to,” I mean, “Clearly stated with absolutely no ambiguity.”) However, it should also be noted that he also has notoriously bad taste in, well, everything.
It's one thing for a reality show to merely jump the shark on behalf of the whole medium. It's another thing for it to be deplorable in concept, and downright reprehensible in execution (here's looking at you, Mystery/Pick-Up Artist), but as Real Chance Of Love has worn on, a major flaw in the production of VH1's incestuous, post-Surreal Life programming (isn't it a bit, well, surreal, to think that's where the last few seasons' litany of shows ostensibly started?) has been revealed.
By necessity, the format for every competitive drama centering around a New York, or a Real, or a Flavor Flav, or castoffs of any of their titular shows, has needed to mutate itself into wholly original forms. VH1's reality programming, at its most efficient, is like Optimus Prime. But in its weaker moments, like Real Chance Of Love, resembles the final trapped-in-a-labyrinth scene from The Shining, with the show's sibling duo taking the place of Jack Nicholson, frozen, wandering around clueless, looking for a way out of the cockamamey maze they innocently stumbled their way into.
If you followed this site during the Jennifer Hudson tragedy, then you'd know I have something of an issue with the CNN Headline News program Showbiz Tonight, which tends to cover mundane doings in the world of pop culture with the faux-seriousness of an actual news magazine befitting its parent network's moniker.
Most recently, my ire has been raised at two sources of continuing coverage: their relentless reporting on the Jennifer Aniston/Angelina Jolie public dust-up, otherwise known as "Uncoolgate," and their sympathetic segments about the Paula Abdul fan suicide, which occasionally remember to give cursory condolences to the actual family of the deceased.
But in the middle of this shitstorm of tabloid television masquerading as professional journalism is A.J. Hammer, a man who changed his given Semitic surname of Goldberg to adopt a Hollywood-approved moniker that makes him seem more like the protagonist of an '80s detective drama than a flesh-and-blood human being.
You may recall Mr. Hammer from his days as a VH1 VJ, counting down the best videos on the '90s modern-rock landscape, or as a host/correspondent on the E! channel and Court TV, where he hypnotized viewers with his chiseled jaw (presumably a source of inspiration for his ludicrous last name) into a state of concern about various famous-folk chicanery.
As millions across the country are still coming to terms with their grief, outrage and disgust at California's gay marriage ban, one man in particular keeps coming to mind: Harvey Milk. Forget turning over in his grave; Milk must be doing a gymnastics routine on a spinning top resting on a giant speeding bullet. The whip-smart, fearless city supervisor of San Francisco was the first openly gay man to be elected to office in 1977, when some mainstream psychiatrists still classified homosexuality as a mental illness and gay people were still being jailed for having sex with each other. In their apartments. He was also killed 30 years ago this month by a former San Fran Mayor George Moscone, an event documented in Gus Van Sant's upcoming biopic Milk, starring Sean Penn.
Thanks to folks like Milk, the majority of Americans (we hope!) no longer think homosexuality is indicative of criminal derangement. Unfortunately though, whether the fault of limited opportunities because of Hollywood prejudice (analogous to when black males could only find roles as criminals) or a generally loud, shrieking state of mass media, gay men are egregiously typecast on mainstream TV as vapid, callous, fashion-obsessed dilettantes. And these eight in particular might have singlehandedly peeled back decades of progress.
8. "Just Jack!", Will & Grace
NBC was one of the first networks to successfully capitalize on America's ambivalent feelings about gay culture. The wildly popular, Emmy-bedecked Will & Grace was ultimately a limp-wristed slap in the face at a time when realistic portrayals of gay men would have been priceless (the Supreme Court was ruling that Boy Scouts could legally prohibit gays from its ranks, while Vermont had recently passed a law recognizing civil unions for same-sex couples). Instead of a few good men though, we got quasi-closeted sexaphobe yupster Will Truman (played by Eric McCormick), and the princing, prancing, whining, squealing, slutty, fashion-and-money-obsessed stereotype of male gayness that is Jack McFarland (played by Sean Hayes). Instead of schoolin' the country on what it means to be an urbane, sophisticated gay man, Will & Grace coddled our crassest notions and allowed us to watch and laugh at, not with, "Just Jack!" as he flounced from one bedazzled imbroglio to the next.
7. Chef Marco, Privileged
Killing two birds with one stupendous boulder, CW's Privileged has tied up its "diversity" requirements with gay and black Chef Marco (played by Allan Louis). And what a reservoir of spice and sweetness he has! Marco, the Privileged Baker fam's personal chef, serves as the perfectly cynical yet sunny foil to the series' star, the smart yet Pollyanaish Megan Smith. Whenever she needs a sassy fashion tip (gays know fashion!), some throwaway dating tips (gays are hobags to they totes know how to spot a playah!), an opportunity to dish about her charges (gays aren't gonna take anyone's sass!), Chef Marco's her man. Then he disappears until she has yet another crisis. Chef Marco is the gay man who likes to slather nonsensical advice with "Honey" this and "Honey" that, criss-cross his legs with the speed and grace of a Rockette, whip up the perfect muffin batter with a few effortless flicks of his double-jointed wrists and get into innumerable jams with "hunks." You know that gay man, right?
6. Joan Rivers
Why this frightening, elderly man who resembles a Shibu Inu puppy suffering from alopecia more and more with each passing day is allowed on the air anymore is truly a mystery. His screeching, high-pitched voice, venomous treatises on celebrities' outfits, shameless haranguing of said celebs on the red carpet, bleached and feathered helmet hair (a wig?) gold sequin blazers and hideous taste in bling make antediluvian portrayal of homosexuals in shows like Marcus Welby, MD look positively mod. Someone alert GLAAD!
5. Bryan and Onch, Paris Hilton's My New BFF
One of the most cringeworthy gay stereotypes is that of the slightly bitter, neurotic, neutered best friend of the sexy, glamorous city girl with whom he exchanges lightweight witty banter and moisturizing cream made from baby-seal jizz. Because, ya know, gay men are women, except even bitchier, and that's hot! Paris, never one to let an opportunity to subvert subtlety slide, recruited two gay contestants, Bryan and Onch (nevermind ragingly superficial and noxious fashion-design duo/co-hosts "Heatherette"), for her abysmal MTV reality show, Paris Hilton's My New BFF. Bryan actually turned out to be relatively normal, and his refusal to play Paris' reindeer games resulted in his ouster in Episode 3 for being too shy. (Aren't all gay men supposed to be all screamy and yippy, kinda like her allegedly abused dogs, Tinkerbell and Marilyn Monroe?) Bisexual Onch, who says his favorite color is "rainbow," wears pigtails and has a dog named "Paris Hilton," was given the stiletto in Episode 4 for having "issues" and being the second-fakest contestant, a strange accusation from a woman who must be comprised of at least 50 percent artificial parts.
If Penn Jillette (the more portly half of Penn And Teller) is guilty of anything, it is a treacherous betrayal of the world of comedy magic. And if he’s guilty of everything, then he’s been rather busy, and I’d like to talk to him about getting my stolen chaise lounge back. I sewed some very important documents into the cushion, and I’ll never get my socks back from the dry cleaners without that hidden ticket.
The facts of the case are this: PJ is an enjoyable lug when his only goals are legerdemain and bearing naked the chicanery surrounding said tricks (I mean, illusions). He and Teller's early books and specials are enjoyable romps into a world of nerdery, but the great perfidy—the knife in the back of the audience who just wants to see two freaks fake some card shit—enters as Penn’s politics begin to wind their way into their schtick. And no, the knife in our backs is not an illusion, though it is a metaphor.
There's nothing I love more than sitting around with my morning latte, a copy of my prized Ayn Rand autobiography to my left and my gossip-perusing laptop to my right. And as I poured over the backstory behind Atlas Shrugged while enjoying another steamy sip o' Starbucks, I was simultaneously appalling at the news of someone hacking into the Miley Cyrus' YouTube account and suggesting she had been killed in a drunk-driving incident.
Of course, the news turned out to be false, and Cyrus even went so far as to post a photo on her Facebook revealing a green bra adorned with the words, "I'm stayin' alive like Frank Stallone" over its lacy exterior. OK, that also is less than truthful.
But what truly made me spill my caffeinated intoxicant across my thighs was the photo that accompanied the story on this particular site (if you didn't click the above link the first time, now might be a good moment to do so). It featured an alive-and-swell Cyrus on Nov. 10, at a Stephen Baldwin book signing, pointing to a Hannah Montana tattoo he inscribed into his arm on a dare.
In the '60s they were "jerks," in the '80s they were "dicks," (see: Jeff Spicoli facing off with Mr. Hand in Fast Times At Ridgemont High) and last year, with a little help from South Park writers, they were "asshats."
Today, everyone's a "douche" or "douchebag,” thanks in large part to The Daily Show’s influential lexicon. This annoying archetype began germinating years ago, with stars like James Spader and Val Kilmer playing T-shirt-under-sportcoat-wearing humiliators of poor kids, and oily-pec'd volleyball enthusiasts with a penchant for chewing gum and a visible, simultaneous self-love and distaste for rule breakers.
The last decade of primetime American television and tabloids has advanced douchery beyond those early examples. These guys, or at least their on-screen personae—with their narcissism, lack of grace and gratitude and constant manipulations—make the greatest case for reading more books. This list, spanning both pop-culture sensations and/or the characters the played, is our fresh-feeling, sea breeze-scented salute to the douche-defining decade.
10. Raffaello Follieri
Is Follieri too dumb to be a douche? The Italian businessman who won fame for dating bombshell brunette Anne Hathaway, but not for anything he actually achieved, landed in prison this year, convicted of wire fraud, money laundering and misspending six million dollars of his investors’ money. The ultimate in ironic con men, Follieri posed as a representative of the Vatican, to convince investors he’d purchase and redevelop Roman Catholic Church properties with their monies. It was reported that Follieri repeatedly interrupted his own legal counsel during his day in court, telling her what to say in his defense. Douchey, and dumb! On top of that, we hate his wavy, dry, Euro-trash hair. And can’t believe he screwed it up with Hathaway, the angel to the Prada-wearing devil.
9. Clay Aiken
Mr. Aiken: American Idol contestant and pop performer in the Barry Manilow school of song. We’ll keep this short. Oooooh! You're gay!? You want credit for that? Douche.
8. Gary Dourdan/Warrick Brown
On the CBS “procedural drama,” CSI: Vegas, Dourdan plays investigator Warrick Brown, a conflicted, gambling-addicted tough guy. But we’re not sure who's acted more the douche, the actor himself or his character. Back in April, in the midst of his hit series, Dourdan was arrested in Palm Springs, passed out in his own car in possession of dangerous drugs. When you’re a tall, sexy black man with starry eyes and a salary befitting a hit TV star, all you really need to do is ask someone to drive you home, or for that matter quietly to Betty Ford. Dourdan, one of a handful of African American leading men in primetime, left CSI: Vegas in October with an incredible, two-episode exit. But during the Warrick Brown funeral, it was revealed the investigator had a son he never mentioned to his co-workers, some of whom he regarded as family. Not to disrespect the (fictional) dead, but why the douchey cover-up?
7. Andy Bernard
The Office’s Bernard (portrayed by Daily Show alum Ed Helms) has the bland business wardrobe, penchant for a cappella and steady gig that typically indicate a boring middle-management dude. But his constant brown-nosing, anger management issues and competitive streak belie his true douche identity. Andy’s the type of guy who yells and kicks garbage cans over when he his office mates pull pranks on him. (Office-mate Jim froze Andy’s calculator, customarily, in jello.) He’s self-important enough to use his own voice singing “Rockin’ Robin” as a ringtone. And, exhibiting a hallmark douche tendency, he feels threatened by cubicle neighbor Dwight Schrute, and any other approval-seeking douches in his world.
6. Howie Mandell
Mandell first made a name on the comedy circuit putting a condom over his head, blowing it up and off, and then talking like a baby. He’s also been known to wear suspenders non-ironically. In recent years, he became the host of the money-grubbingest game show ever, Deal Or No Deal. There, he commands a stage full of case-wielding models, despite his horrifying lack of style (bald with a soul patch?) and general failure to be James Bond. It’s not fair. And he’s not sweet. But somehow he keeps succeeding to make money. Douche!
More movies, less problems. Cable Afterlife does the dirty work and all you gotta do is sit there. How fair is that? (And as always, all times listed in EST.)
8. The Panic in Needle Park (1971)
Cinemax (WMAX), Thursday, November 20, 1:30am
Seldom-seen depiction of junkies (a young Al Pacino and Kitty Winn) scraping by in the bleakest New York City on record. Jerry Schatzberg's acclaimed drama plays like a documentary, and is slow at times, but the wrenching portayal of addiction, and the grimy, vital urban desperation within are a bracing slap of reality for... wait a minute! These times we're in now are WORSE!
7. Nighthawks (1981)
Cinemax (OuterMAX), Saturday, November 15, 5am; Tuesday, November 18, 8:30pm
Sylvester Stallone was never more stylin', nor matched up with as worthy a co-star (at the time) as Billy Dee Williams, as he was in this NYC-based nerve ripper. Rutger Hauer and Persis Khambatta step in as terrorists with a grudge who hijack the Roosevelt Island Tramway. Watch for Sly in drag. Hot stuff.
6. Lambada (1990)
FLIX, Saturday, November 15, 6:30am
Winter temperatures are settling in, taking us Northerners by surprise. But with the rising cost of energy, you may need to find new ways to stay warm. And what better way to heat things up than with the assaultive dance of torrid passion, straight from Latin America?Lambada took the nation by storm for approximately 12 days back at the dawn of the greatest decade, so much so that warring filmmakers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus staged a pissing contest with two films about this penetrating dance trend. Nobody cared then, but what about now? Wipe the steam off your screen with straight-to-video magnate J. Eddie Peck and The Office's Melora Hardin.
5. Enter The Ninja (1981)
Encore Action, Friday, November 14, 6:15pm
This is what cable TV used to be about: cheap, violent exploitation, Cannon-style. Franco Nero, Sho Kosugi, and Christopher George starred in this martial arts vehicle, with lots of kickin', throwing stars, blood and scenery chewing. Spread 'em and let that ninja enter... your heart?
Welcome to NCDSUV's newest daily feature, where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge affinity for their body of work.
Yesterday, we nixed the cake and brought out the ham for lispy, brilliant trickster Wallace Shawn. Today, we whip up our best butter-cream frosting for a well-preserved sweet piece of ass.
Every time a new James Bond movie comes out (as a reminder for those who reside under rocks, the latest installment, Quantum Of Solace, premieres Friday), everyone dutifully recounts the greatest 007 films, moments, gadgets and most importantly, girls of all time.
But when a series has gone on this long, for every “Best Of” list, there is an equally long “Worst Of” to match it. And why our favorite secret agent would even buy any of these ladies a martini is a mystery worthy of Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
7. Domino (Kim Basinger), Never Say Never Again
Oscar-winner Basinger is the bland ying to Sean Connery’s creepy, old yang in what is widely regarded as the weakest of the Scotsman’s turns as the super spy. She plays the witless kept woman of a ruthless executive bent on world domination (as if there were any other kind) who eventually trades up and gets with Grandpa James (her, not the executive). In this awkward May-Late December romance, Connery and his sad toupee have more chemistry.
6. Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts), A View To A Kill
Maybe it’s because we’ve come to expect 007’s paramours to be exotic creatures with accents and mannerisms from far-off places, but most of the American Bond girls always seem to be missing a certain je ne sais quoi. There’s just something about that all-too-familiar Western Hemisphere twang that takes some of the sheen off the image. The fact that squeaky-voiced Roberts brings the same level of skill to this role that she brought to Sheena, Queen Of The Jungle doesn’t help matters. And at least she was naked in Sheena (hence the more tantalizing footage from that film below). Roger Moore would not be so lucky.
5. Jix (Halle Berry), Die Another Day
Although consistently considered to be one of the most beautiful women in the world, Berry has proven to be markedly inconsistent as an actress. In this over-the-top Pierce Brosnan outing, she's clearly in Catwoman mode (as opposed to say, Monster’s Ball mode). At one point, there was actually talk amongst the film’s producers to spin her character off into her own franchise, but once they got over how she looked in that bikini, cooler heads prevailed.
4. Christmas Jones (Denise Richards), The World Is Not Enough
Charlie Sheen’s ex is so awful as a tanktop-wearing nuclear physicist that you can practically see the miscast actress reading her phonetically written lines from off-camera cue cards. Her character also has the dubious honor of being the subject to the lamest one-liner ever uttered by the British Secret Service: “I thought Christmas only comes once a year.” We could delve into all the other reasons why this performance sucks so very badly, but you know, it’s complicated.
Welcome to NCDSUV's newest daily feature, where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge affinity for their body of work.
Friday, we blew out the candles for everyone's favorite accordion-wielding comic not named Weird Aland. And today we say happy almost-middle-age to a woman whose sex appeal erected many cinematic pins.
Here’s a truncated Cable Afterlife covering this week up through Thursday night, as last week’s usual installment was interrupted to memorialize the late Michael Crichton. Look for the next edition on Friday, unless somebody else dies.
8. Jaws 2 (1978)
Cinemax (OuterMAX), Wednesday, November 12, 6:50pm; Cinemax (ThrillerMAX), Thursday, November 13, 7am
One of the worst sequels ever produced in relation to the original (the last three Star Wars features notwithstanding), Jaws 2 brings Sheriff Brody (the late Roy Scheider) back to Amity Beach, where the offspring of the great white attacks anything that touches the water. A bunch of goofy teenagers help in luring Jaws Jr. to chomp down on an underwater high voltage line (what?) in a brief, cop-out ending; that one scene, looped together for two hours, tops anything else in this atrocity … but why wasn’t the rest of the cast electrocuted?
7. Lost In London (1985)
Starz InBlack, Wednesday, November 12, 12:10pm
Let’s face it: you have secretly been jonesing for a made-for-TV remake of Oliver Twist starring Emmanuel Lewis and Ben Vereen. Search no longer.
6. Downtown (1990)
Fox Movie Channel, Friday, November 14, 1am
Doughy Anthony Edwards and doughier Forest Whitaker team up as cops in the ‘hood, with a hip-hop attitude and some extraordinary pathos that threatens to blow the whole thing. It’s The Super for dummies, directed with wild abandon by Richard Benjamin. Case in point, there’s a scene where one of the film’s villains gets launched into a wood chipper and is converted into slurry. Don’t miss it!
5. The Decline Of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (1985)
IFC, Monday, November 10, 9:20am, 4pm
Wake up! It’s Monday morning. Time to watch W.A.S.P.’s Chris Holmes floating in an in-ground pool of despair, his mother sitting idly by, watching her son kill himself. Penelope Spheeris’ follow-up to her acclaimed “staged” punk documentary (c’mon, The Germs' Darby Crash with a girlfriend?) by covering the direct opposite of punk’s economy with the overblown desperation of heavy metal.
The word “inspire,” according to the Cornflax Dictionary Of Funyun Wrappers comes from the Latin inspirare, which means “to breathe upon or into." Now, if you’re like me (and if you are, I’m sorry that you’re impotent), you’re weary of the breath those fatcats in Washington have been blowing onto us. That stale, shitty scent that whispers into our nostrils and covers our skin with sores. And very likely, that stench will soon be abated, as President Barack Obama is sworn in.
However, if we wake up tomorrow to find yet another election has been stolen through massive voter fraud, please, before you kill yourself, read this list and try to find some meaning in the occasionally more uplifting world of fictional presidents. If that doesn’t work, then kick the chair over and hang out for a while.
9. Terry Crews as President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho, Idiocracy
While our society looks more and more like Idiocracy with each passing moment (and that includes a meandering plot as well as a weak third act, in addition to all that dysgenics stuff) it probably wouldn’t be too terrible with this dude in charge. He obviously knows his limitations, and he surrounds himself with the best and the brightest that society of turds has to offer. The fact that this is what the future might have to offer us should inspire everyone with an IQ above 120 to get snipped and clipped in their junk region just so that it may become an absolute reality.
8. Harrison Ford as President James Marshall, Air Force One
Last time I checked, not one single president in the history of the United States ever took care of a terrorist himself, let alone saved his fucking family from one. That’s what’s inspiring about these fictional leaders: They don’t sit around waiting for proxies to do their dirty work for them. By gum, they get out there, roll up their sleeves and do it themselves. If my wife and child and some associates are taken hostage, President Marshall has inspired me to believe I will definitely fight back. Probably. I will definitely think about it.
7. Harry Shearer as President Kang, The Simpsons
Thus spoke the immortal line: "Abortions for some, miniature American flags for all!"
Or was that Kodos? Anyway, while you may think a giant, one-eyed, tentacled space alien that uses his newfound power to enslave the human race, forcing them to create a giant ray gun, isn’t inspiring, you are dead wrong. Dead wrong. You hear what I’m saying, pal? What’s more inspiring than someone with the ability to enfetter the entire planet, especially if that someone is a democratically elected slavemaster? Haven’t we learned in the last eight years that you never contradict your Commander-In-Chief? Now work harder, or I’m going to whip your spine pain-wise.
6. Bill Pullman as President Thomas J. Whitmore, Independence Day
Of course, if aliens ruling the planet and making a mockery out of all things human burns your bunions up, this chap might perhaps be a bit more inspiring. After all, he was a military hero, and not the fakey kind that gets his daddy to swing him a sweet job. No siree! And as evidence, see him do what no other president has done since the founding fathers: murder sentient beings himself rather than just ordering others to do it.
5. Jim Backus as President/Dr. Wilbur Daffodil-11 Swain, Slapstick (Of Another Kind)
While in Slapstick, the world kind of crumbles into crap, I’ve always loved President Swain’s plan to end loneliness, and while many of the other people on this list are actually about as inspiring as a cat screaming at a driveway, Swain might truly take the cake and eat it too and eventually poop it out. Under his plan, everyone in the U.S. is randomly provided with new middle names that are a combination of a word and a number. Those with the same name are cousins and those with the same word and number are siblings. An inst-o-matic community is created for wherever one goes, and family abounds. Lonesome no more!
By tomorrow evening, the 21st century's greatest cultural phenomenon, Sarah Palin, might disappear from public discourse. But last night, on a critical Episode 4 (even more landmark than Star Wars' A New Hope) of VH1' Rock Of Love: Charm School, self-parodic wonder-slut Megan Hauserman bidded reality TV audiences adieu, returning to her non-televised life of sushi, tanning and toejobs to the stars.
As an insightful peer of mine said amidst Megan's expulsion from the program (for kicking fellow ejaculate depository Brandi M (VERY NSFW) and), "I feel like these shows are making Megan a worse person." And there is indeed something undeniably depressing about watching the Beauty And The Geek/Rock Of Love/I Love Money ex-pat gleefully inhabit her role as exhibitionist primadonna, willing to accept a lifetime of irrecoverable tradeoffs on self-respect for a propelled immersion into C-level celeb status.
But in her absence, all we have left to hang onto are her acne-scarred, gangbang-crazed (I'd link you, but I think we've had enough too-hot-for-NCDSUV cross-pollination for one Monday) buddy Brandi C. and "I'm edgy because my hair is dyed like a 15-year-old raver who sneaks out of her parents' house" Lacey. And suddenly, Sunday nights are just one big, boring vampire/Jeremy Piven sandwich. And incidentally, the last time I expressed that sentiment was when HBO was ritualistically airing Buffy The Vampire Slayer and PCU concurrently.
Welcome to NCDSUV's newest daily feature, where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge affinity for their body of work.
On Friday we blew out our most festively ghoulish birthday candles for tough n’ tender sidekick specialist David Ogden Stiers. Today, we respectfully doff our hats to a Fulbright scholar, Kyokushin Karate virtuoso and man who possesses prodigious enough cojones to rumble with Sylvester Stallone (onscreen at least).
To invoke the spirit of old MAD-mag style intros, my situation can best be described of late as being in a strange city with no job and little-to-no-responsibilities, so I’ve decided to open my mind to stimulation of all sorts. This includes watching a lot of basic cable, which fortunately has always had a home here on NCDSUV. And with that I bring you five prevailing questions that occurred to me during CMT's latest reality phenomenon, Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling:
5. After a very promising career in music and film (hey, he was in four of the six Rocky movies), why must a talented individual like Frank Stallone subject himself to this kind of humiliation?
4. Does anyone remember Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n’ Wrestling cartoon? Even as a youngster I thought that shit was fake, 'cause every time the animated Hulkster fought some jobber in the ring he never bothered to take off the championship belt!
3. Is the viewing public so beaten down and battered from years of exposes and declarations of “sports entertainment” that they’ll accept losers who barely qualify as “celebrities” play fighting, if only because it kills a few hours during their visit to Universal Studios Florida? The aesthetic reeks of American Gladiators chic, the “wrestlers” don’t really bother to sell any of the moves, and there’s no sense of excitement that comes from watching the real pros engage in high-flying theatrics or bloody beatdowns.
Thank you, Drew Pinsky (ehem, my apologies, Dr. Drew) and VH1. By striving to save the lives of several Z-level sort-of famous people (some most currently recognizable for their appearances on other VH1 reality shows) on Celebrity Rehab, you have ensured a previously waning addiction of my own: true-life cable programming.
I admit I'm a bit behind the ball on Season 2, but catching up with the season premiere was a damn near revelatory experience, and one that made me realize, yes, I can conquer my demons and continue to be reliant on a corrosive influence that prevents me from interacting meaningfully with other people: rampant couch potato-ism.
Maybe I'm beating a dead reality horse here, but NCDSUV loyalists know how I feel about the shark-jumping preponderance of 14th-rate programs revolving around pseudo-celebs' horrible families, quests for love, hunger for money or desperate pandering for attention to their foremost creative product.
The commercials for Coolio's Rules, however, have left me with a handful pressing inquiries beyond questioning the mere necessity of following the "Gangsta's Paradise" has been's patriarchal exploits.
Maybe that headline seems a bit crass, but I assure you I mean it reverentially. Only a week after Dolemite badass Rudy Ray Moore left us for some other ass-kicking, lady-killing pulp movie theater in the sky, news came down of Deep Throat director Gerard Damiano's passing after stroke-related complications.
To be sure, Damiano was no great artiste, and we all know about Linda Lovelace's allegations that she was ostensibly raped on film, and that issue has never really been resolved.
But much as the aging of thespian greats like Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino symbolizes a collective generation's time passing them by, the death of Moore and Damiano in seven-day span is emblematic of a different kind of era's conclusion.
As discussed in a recent article about Chris Williams, aka Curb Your Enthusiasm's Krazee-Eyez Killa, aka Vanessa Williams' brother, there's a good reason to herald the DVR: So we miss commercials that feature familiar faces from the small and silver screens, slumming it to make a buck and hoping no one puts two and two together.
There an alarming number of these instances, and it's always a bit like driving by a Burger King in your hometown and seeing the most popular kid from high school flipping patties for potheads. And frankly, you kind of wonder what keeps them clinging to the desperate quest for a Hollywood breakthrough when it might just be easier to manage one of the franchises they shill for.
And today we turn our charitable efforts toward poor, puffy faced Frederick Koehler, who has slid down the slippery ladder of success from playing Chip on Kate And Allie 25 years ago to pushing diarrhetic breakfast on old codgers for 30-second Fiber One spots.
Fitting that I was (ehem) cruising the Net when I happened upon one particular website's take on the latest "Jerry Lewis made it clear he doesn't think highly of gay people" incident.
As you are likely aware, the 82-year-old has-been referred to cricket as a "fag game" on Australian TV last week. After he'd made a similar slip-up last year (see clip above and marvel at his most recent repeated transgression). Because he's 82. But what struck me as more significant was said website's sidebar gallery, which they dubbed "Racism And The Stars." While that wouldn't be entirely shocking as the title for network TV's next hit reality show ("After the break, Cloris Leachman regales us with anecdotes from the minstrel era! And then does the cha cha!") it resonated as being equally crass and classless as Lewis' remark. At least the comedian wasn't consciously trying to exploit his prejudice to help his product.
Not to mention, what exactly does anyone expect from the mastermind behind The Day The Clown Cried?
Oy vey, what a week. Color me pooped, verklempt and all out plotzed. Between the election still burning up to its final campaigning days, Axl Rose finally rising from the studio dead, the economy still being in the shitter and more VH1 reality spinoffs clogging up airwaves like diarrhea in a bidet, did somebody say thank god it's Shabbat?
No? Hm, yeah, I should have realized from our demographics research that NCDSUV somehow inspires a devoutly Protestant following.
Anyway, here are the top five things we learned this week, and hopefully you'll find them equally educating. Because if not, we can't refund your Web hits.
I realize this particular epiphany may sound a bit belated, but hey, we're a relatively new website and have some backdated inventory that needs to be archived.
So, let me be clear here: I'm not suggesting Jackass the show or its movies, or Wildboyz as actual cable programming, are what suck per se. They're creative, well-produced bits of entertainment that have every right to be aired in primetime. I just take issue with the personalities that inhabit their prank-fueled parameters to begin with.
Skater culture is a nut hair away from utter alpha-male jockism, where brutish masculinity somehow implicitly compensates for massive displays of homoerotic behavior. And where bonds seemed to be forged out of antagonism and mean-spiritedness as a result of all the pent-up tension that doesn't resolve itself through more substantive man-on-man rapport.
Clearly, there was no way to let the day meander by without some kind of response to Axl Rose's affirmative decree that Guns 'N Roses' Chinese Democracy will be released (albeit through Best Buy and online) on Nov. 23. For one, the method of distribution is a very sobering indicator of the times, given that Use Your Illusion more or less epitomized the era of wrap-around midnight lines at chain music retailers. Nothing like a 17-year gap between landmark records to emphasize the disparity in cultural consumption.
But beyond that, it's kind of hard to discuss a new G 'N R record with the same reactionary fervor I'd apply to other contemporary pop culture happenings. I was a child of the '80s, they were my favorite band and I still regularly steep myself in their biographical lore and obscure archival material. Reducing my point of view on Axl, the band and Democracy's strange trajectory to snide undercutting would be to tarnish a mystique I place enormous value on.
Eva Longoria is fat! Or at least has been the absurd sentiment to once again signal that being subject to the gaze of millions is like having one’s body torn asunder from one’s mind. And the body then becomes the plaything for the populus to shred at will, to crush within the vise-like gravity well of vicious comments, as if the cultural mass were kindred spirits to the girls at the beginning of the “Baby Got Back” video. Or to inflate with self-hatred transformed into potato chips and bacon-wrapped pork chop soufflés.
So while the world keeps condemning women for not looking like Giacometti sculptures and non-condemning men regardless of their girth, we here at NCDSUV decided to cherry pick eight celebs, past and present, who epitomize what it means to actually, truly be dangerously skinny or perilously overweight (Elvis get exempt here for being, well, the fucking King). Get ready to start your schadenfreude…
8. Marlon Brando
Ah, Brando, heartthrob to my grandparents’ generation. What the fuck happened to you between A Streetcar Named Desire and The Godfather, nevermind The Island of Dr. Moreau? Too many chicken fingers to dull the pain of aging? Piles of cookies to arrest your descent into madness? Funnel cake upon funnel cake funneled into your arteries? I know it was you, fried dough. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!
7. Amy Winehouse
There’s this film from the late '80s named Millenium starring Kris Kristofferson, in which people from the 30th century come back to our time to kidnap people about to die and have them repopulate an apocalyptic world, where they evolve in such a way that pollution has become sweet succor, and without its jagged caress, they can kiss their fuckin’ future fannies adios. Amy Winehouse is kind of like that, except replace “pollution” with “crystallized methamphetamines.” This, along with a whole host of assorted narcotics, have so devastated her body that the EPA may as well have designated her as a Superfund site.
6. Keira Knightley
At first I thought Knightley was just slimming down for a role in the sequel to Shoah or for the cartoon version of The Machinist, but then it became clear that there’s probably just something really wrong with her, and it made me sad, even though she’s famous and gorgeous and rich and there are probably millions of other people more deserving of my sympathy. So like wise Solomon, I split my sympathy in half, and she gets 50 percent and the rest of the world get the remaining chunk.
5. Ralphie May
Remember this guy from the first season of America’s Funniest Last Standing Comedian Race? No? Me neither. And perhaps that right there fuels his appetite. For who can ignore the corpulent? The overly rotund? Those with eating problems that destroy their lives? To dine, to eat—to eat—perchance to feed: ay, there’s the grub. Comedians are needy folk. Why else get up onstage in front of a crowd of sub-human losers? And if that need is not met in the limelight, perhaps it will be met in the lemon-limelight with a case of Coke followed by a refreshing couple dozen Carvel ice cream cakes. And then maybe a pizza or four. Feed me, Seymour!
By now, you may have seen the above clip of William Shatner going on a bizarrely candid, if pointed, tangent regarding his lack of invitation to George Takei's wedding. Apparently, Takei still resents his former Star Trek co-star for his ego during that period (a sense of self-centeredness surely brought back down from the Starship Enterprise to Earth after decades of B-level TV roles and self-parodic ad appearances), hence the snub.
Whatever the case, Shatner rips him a pretty good new one. Or at least calmly explains why the guy's a total nutjob who uncourageously waltzed out of the closet during his twilight years. Now, we can sympathize with both sides. Takei spent years as the token Asian sidekick, repressed in his personal life, to Shatner's seductive starring turn as Captain Kirk. And Shatner, meanwhile, has been more than amiable about taking the piss out of himself in recent years, and maybe felt bygones should be bygones. Or bi-gones, as the case may be.
But this is where NCDSUV comes in to help. We cracked our brains together and beamed up five ideas about how these two can settle their differences, before it's too late and they join Scotty in that space craft in the sky.
Wow, talk about a whirlwind five days. You know it's a nutty week when David Duchovny and Tea Leoni's inevitable split finally makes the front pages, but not NCDSUV's Top 5 Things We Learned This Week.
But not to worry. All that means is we had plenty of revelations from the likes of other megastar couples, multi-billion-dollar fast-food chains and, of course, our neverendingly illuminating presidential candidates. So enjoy, and hopefully you've learned as much as we have this week. And ideally lessons of greater societal import.
