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?
Guy Ritchie may have made out like a cockney-accented pulp-movie bandit during he and Madonna's divorce settlement. But she's heading back to the States with their two little tots, Rocco and David.
Or at least that's the word on the street. But it's been raining all morning and the sidewalk-chalk isn't really legible anymore, so who knows.
But presuming this information is accurate, one hopes Ritchie will be making occasional custody visits to ensure the safety of their tiny innocents. Because although it's a little known fact, Madge maintains her tightly wired figure and muscularity by draining the life's blood out of cute young boys in a scared Kabbalah ritual.
What do you think explains her relationship with Justin Timberlake?
Even though Jessica Simpson is looking more like Selma Bouvier these days, siblings and other celebrities are coming out in droves to embrace all 52 inches of her suddenly expanded waistline. First, we had new-mom Ashlee delivering a less-than-groundbreaking state-of-tabloid-culture address on behalf of her big (no pun intended) sis.
Now, Kim Kardashian is stepping up to the plate, telling People that she thinks Jess looks fab-o-rama and "being super skinny just isn't attractive to me." And surely, not at all taking her publicist's advice that this story is ideal for her to comment on as a fellow full-figured lady, thus keeping her name in the papers as well.
Only difference, Kimbo slice, is you're Armenian, and blessed with a naturally curvacious anatomy that makes sense for your size and proportions. Jess is just a little itty bitto Anglo whose clearly been spending too much time at country cookouts during her current stint as a Nashville wannabe.
Damnit, Donny! Just when we were ready to crown you with the honor of NCDSUV's favorite Donny of all time over both Monsieurs Wahlberg and Brasco. But no, you had to go parading your filthy, filthy lies all over national television, leading us to report that you had signed on for the upcoming season of Dancing With The Stars. Only to retract your claim mere days later.
Presumably, ABC gave you a bad-boy beatdown over your hasty proclamation, even though you claimed it was an offer you weren't ready to accept at this particular juncture. But oh, how glorious it would have been to follow in your sister Marie's mambo-happy footsteps and appear on the inexplicably popular program. Not since Jose and Ozzie Canseco or, well, Mark and Donnie Wahlberg would their have been such an anticipated sibling thruline in recent pop-culture coincidence.
Puppy love our tuchus. You're in the NCDSUV doghouse now, buddy.
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 did our best impression of a demon taking to dump in emulation of vocal wizard/one-time Faith No More frontman Mike Patton, and today we may be throwing a suprise cyber-bash for a legendary MC, but we assure him it ain't no joke.
Proving that she's not as literally ill-equipped for public discourse as her sister, Pete Wentz' baby mama, Ashlee Simpson, has nonetheless displayed an impressively substance-less intellect regarding the ills of cultural prejudice and tabloid shaming.
After the blogosphere understandably recoiled with horrified curiosity at pics of Jessica Simpson resembling a middle-age metastasized version of her normal figure, lil' sis shot back with the groundbreaking rhetorical inquiry, "Since when did a woman's weight become newsworthy?"
Despite presumed muffled-cough interruptions from Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ann Wilson, Kirstie Alley and the late corpose of Luther Vandross, the recent mother (apparently having missed months of boilerplate commentary on weight-obsession in Hollywood while training a swat team of stay-at-home nannies) went on to add that it's "embarrassing and belittling to all women to read about a woman's weight
or figure as a headline on FOX News." And even expressed concern that the scorn surrounding her sister's fried-chicken chic would undermine the post-Obama "feeling of hope in
the air for our country."
Spoken like a truly out-of-touch celebrity with no conception of that fact that a vast majority of Americans are actually, contrary to herself and Jessica, struggling with issues much greater than cholestorol counting. Such as, oh, I don't know being unemployed and about 27 million dollars less comfortable than the Simpson brood.
Everyone's favorite Meth-od woman, Fergie, may be considering the Angelina Jolie-Brad Pitt route and adopt a child with husband Josh Duhamel. Or at least according to the venerable sources at National Enquirer, which are about as reliable as Stephen Glass's.
And while this would run in curious contrast to the singer's recent announcement of a supposed couple o' kittens in the oven, it's a vaguely more enticing rumor to become wrapped up in. Why, you ask? Because it would certainly support many-a-person's notion that, in light of Duhamel's clean-shaven visage, Fergie only exists to be his faithful beard.
If you know what I'm sayin'. Eh? Eh? See how silly and suggestive we're being about it so that Josh can't sue us for libel?
How do you know when you have Donny Osmond fever? Usually the classic symptoms involve rampant ocular bleeding, arthritic knee-weakening and a case of puppy love that not even Joshua Miller circa Teen Witch could find a cure for.
So look out, Dancing With The Stars lunatics, you're about to get your ball sockets and corneas cremated by awesomeness of The Big O himself. And no, we ain't talkin' bout Stedman. And unfortunately, we're not talkin' bout K-Fed either, the falsely rumored would-be participant in the reality competition's next season.
'Tis one-time show-participant Marie Osmond's former teen-idol sibling who will strap on the sequins and soak in the softened praise of harshened middle-age spotlight. So get ready to have your temperature for ballroom-and-salsa awesomeness re-measured. Because Donny fever is on its way, and the man himself will be taking your thermometer reading... rectally.
What exactly does a "tycoon" really represent in 21st century society anyway? It's like calling someone a robber baron or a haberdasher. Especially if they're a "yacht tycoon," like Spice Girls ginger snap Geri Halliwell's new fiance, Fabrizio Politi (not to be confused with one-time Drew Barrymore beau, Fabrizio Moretti of The Strokes). I kind of imagine the guy to be like a combination of Scrooge McDuck and a sea-faring pirate.
Anyway, despite only dating for a couple of weeks, the pair has announced their nuptials-to-be. Through Halliwell's management company. Because their decision has nothing at all to do with the desire for Geri to share some of the Spice-y spotlight continuously hogged by Victoria Beckham and her husband David. And everything to do with the kind of shotgun love only two near-40-year-old mature adults can understand. Yeah, that's the ticket.
While this release week may bring more anticipated and notable efforts like the Dan Deacon /Adventure split 12" and The Whore Moans' Hello From The Radio Wasteland!, we here at NCDSUV prefer to analyze more futile musical recordings.
Welcome back to Unnecessary Album Releases, a feature in which we highlight the week's most egregiously bizarre, dull and often unpleasant albums from the music industry's "left"er side of the dial. Behold the obscure, the most fantastically superfluous musical curiosas for the week of January 27, 2009.
6. The Guggenheim Grotto, Happy The Man If you prefer your music with a message and featured on poorly scripted family dramas about unwanted teen pregnancies and kids who can't live up to their parent's expectations (think One Tree Hill and Brothers And Sisters), then this second release by Dublin darlings, The Guggenheim Grotto, which teems with the mawkish smell of freshly disposed Kleenex, is sure to make even the unhappiest man happy, man.
5. The Toy Killers, The Unlistenable Years Every so often (let's call it chance), an album title comes along and practically guarantees an excruciating listening experience. Featuring an hour-long, monotonous cacophony of unbridled noise, unheard studio and live material from 1980-'84, The Unlistenable Years is, unbearably, just that.
