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!
The rumor runnin' round the old cherry-blossom tree today is that Jennifer Aniston turned down $4 million dollars, with built-in sales incentives to pose for Playboy. Because the Viagranator himself, Hugh Hefner, dug her semi-nude airbrush fest in GQ late last year.
Of course, the news that Hughey missed is that the former Mrs. Brad Pitt will apparently only undress under the naughty guise of faux-sophisticition. Hence the subtly positioned tie around her abusively spray-tanned frame.
And am I the only one who occasionally stares at tabloid covers of America's reigning sweetheart and wonders how we come to romanticize one-time desperate Hollywood scream queens so quickly?
(And as an aside, notice how blatantly that hyper-linked trailer for Leprechaun rips off the promotional campaign for cult classic Evil Dead.)
How is it that countless wonderful would-be mothers struggle with the ability to conceive life out their uterus, but conservative media monster Elizabeth Hasselbeck has successfully germinated a hat trick of fetuses?
Yep, that's right. As broken by People, the View co-host/poor woman's Ann Coulter and her second-string former pro-quarterback hubby Matt are expecting their third bundle of Republican afterbirth on August 3.
And with its delivery, her plan for right-wing world domination via a litter of left-bashing kin will be complete.
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 swore we weren't no joke to hip-hop legend Rakim, and today we whip out our Magnums for a steamy night of celebration with a mustachioed '80s sex god.
It is because I am filled with love and gratitude for David Cross that I must savage him like a wild beast tearing apart a carcass. Yes, call me a cruci-verbalist, because I've got some cross words for this actor/comedian. As Freud notes, we must kill the ones we love in order to overcome them. And the ever-watching paternal eye of Cross gazes out at me from the screen as I watch Mr. Show and Arrested Development. Or when I hear the Daniel Stern-like lilt of his voice as it whispers out to me from the Nick-At-Nite reruns of Oliver Beene, the greatest entry in Cross' oeuvre, a shining... wait. What the fuck. Oliver Beene?
OK. Cross has been in a stinker here and there: Alvin And The Chipmunks, School For Scoundrels, She's the Man, Men in Black II, Scary Movie II, Dr. Doolittle 2, Small Soldiers, etc. He's a working actor, and as I've detailed before, unless one is independently wealthy, one takes shit jobs to survive. The problem with Cross isn't so much that he acts in crap, but rather that he's so brutal in his criticism of other Craptors ™. No. That's a terrible portmanteau. It sounds like feces-contaminated dino DNA from Jurassic Park.
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.
Granted, I my soul was already in mid-rot after viewing Rock Of Love Bus and some True Life episode about a fat kid whose friends make him lose weight so he's not a cockblock to their lusty pursuits. But somehow my stomach did a backflip after seeing the commercial for the new MTV reality show, T.I.'s Road To Redemption.
Just to refresh you memory, the rapper (whose music we love here at NCDSUV, incidentally) plead guilty last March to possession of unregistered machine guns and
silencers, unlawful possession of machine guns and possession of
firearms by a convicted felon. In other words, serious motherfucking shit. And was subsequently sentenced to a year and a day in prison (out of a possible maximum of 30), a term that was deferred until he completed a 1,000-hour-plus community-service program, in which he educates young kids on the dangers of guns, violence and general badassery.
Doesn't sound all that evil right? High-profile superstar who's weary of his personal safety makes immature mistake of having unregistered ammo, gets busted, and tries to make amends by conducting the kind of public outreach he probably should have felt compelled to do anyway as thoughtful reciprocation for his ascent to fame and fortune.
The problem is, it got spun into (and was likely intended all along as) a pseudo-sanctimonious reality show that manipulates a humbling and deserved punishment into an opportunity for PR redemption during the period of his incarceration.
Apparently, when defamed Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich claimed he had considered Oprah Winfrey for Barack Obama's Senate seat, it was part of a three-way fantasy involving himself, the talk-show queen and her "best friend" Gayle King. Because on a radio show this morning, Winfrey said had she seen his proclamation on Good Morning America, she would have fallen off her treadmill.
And if that had happened, we all likely would have felt the ripple effects.
Certainly, had the Blagonator helped usher in the Big O to Congress before his likely impeachment, that would have been the hastiest pre-exit maneuver since George Bush pardoned Scooter Libby before departing the Oval Office.
Lots of Big Os to take in here actually. Maybe that obscure semantics synchronicity is actually what the disgraced state leader was going for.
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 Friday, we slowly removed the proper-color candle from the bomb that had been detonated inside Richard Dean Anderson, akaMacGyver's, birthday cake. And today we go juuuuust a bit outside the box for our latest honoree.
Well, ladies and gents, we can now move ahead toward a time of economic prosperity and racial harmony, because Barack Obama has been sworn into office. What's that? You're still unemployed and your boss keeps referring to you by prejudiced terminology? Oh, bummer. Guess one man can't change everything.
But even if you haven't been swept up in Obama-as-Messiah fever (ironic given his presidency signals an end to high government as guise for holier-than-thou demagoguery), we can all agree it was pretty sweet to see George W. Bush (and don't call him Prez) sent off on that helicopter one last time.
Not as sweet as seeing the likes of Mike Myers and Cameron Diaz get sliced and diced by the Razzies of course. So without any last-minute presidential pardoning, here are the top 5 things we learned this week.
5. Katy Perry may pretend she likes to kiss girls and is preciously cute when calling other people gay, but apparently she'll settle for nothing but the straight dish when tabloids report on her sex life, or lack thereof.
4. Britney Spears is somehow being raked over the coals for the suggestive phonetic pronunciation of her new single. Meanwhile, no one raised an ounce of cain over Van Halen's non-too-subliminal epithet placement within the titular acronym of their 1991 album. Guess parents were less afraid of Sammy Hagar gettin' their teenage tots in a heated lather.
As that gleaming behemoth Hollywood slouches towards irrelevance, the winds of change must begin to blow in from somewhere. And where better than the so-called blogosphere? Like the polit-o-blog revolution, the great pitches of tomorrow ain't going to flow from the bloated butthole of some Hollywood hack, but rather from the proletariat! So welcome to NCDSUV's newest feature, The Slow Pitch, where we play a little game of would-be screenwriter wish-fulfillment. And viva la revolución!
Wakey, wakey, time to makey some kwan, you slugabeds. Yeah, I dunno what that word means either, but my mistress got me one of those vocab calendars and I glanced at it before tossing it in the incinerator. Anyway, I got an idea for you that not just going to fill our coffer's to the overflow. Yeah, like Uncle Scrooge's money bin in Duck Tales. But it's also going to revolutionize movies. Wait, I mean money. It'll revolutionize money. Who gives a shit about movies?
So, I've noticed that show with Donny's son (yeah, Donald Sutherland... Christ, keep up) is getting a lot of column inches lately. Keifer! Ha! Keifer Sutherland! How much pot do you think D.S. smoked before thinking that one up. I remember on the set of S*P*Y*S, him and Elliott Gould used to huff gas just to stay interested in the film. Wait, maybe that was just what I did last week when I was trying to watch it. What a piece of shit.
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 said "Wazzzup, mustachioed motherfucka!" (actually, we just wished him well and shifted down the receiving line) to a man who was responsible for giving Slash his much-cooler-than-Saul nom de plume. And today we're going to bring our lucky recipient to McDonald's Playland... except it will be covered with discreetly dotted landmines.
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.
Joining the ranks of shitty celebrity dads (hello, Michael Lohan), Alan Panettiere, father of Heroes starlet/subject of persistent nip-slip paparazzi stalking, Hayden Panettiere, pled no contest to battery.
And while it's tempting to insert mimicry of a certain Master Of Puppets-era Metallica song at this juncture, it becomes a lot less amusing upon learning that Alan's battery stemmed from a bout of domestic violence inflicted upon his wife back in August. The repercussions include two years of probation, fines and a year of domestic-violence counseling.
Ya know, it's starting to become more and more clear why youthful actors are the sort of kids inclined to spend their days escaping into the fantasies and imagination of less dysfunctional and, well, more heoric situations.
OK, that's only slightly misleading. But not to the extent where you should be wishing the ills of a thousand sinners on my soul or contacting George Clooney's people (i.e. The Coen Brothers) to urge him toward libel-driven litigious action.
Anyway, the hunk-o-Oscar-nominee is, according to much Internet conjecture, making a guest-starring appearance on the final episode of ER, which is set to air April 2, and engender rabid interest from the 75 viewers have stuck consistently by the program's bedside since its inception in 1942.
Ah, it can't help but make one yearn for the innocent days of the early '90s, when cultural trends were dictated by artifacts as simple as The Clooney and The Aniston 'dos, as opposed to the arguable dont's of socialite vaginal flashings.
Sorry I took so long to respond to this morning's Oscar announcements. I was busy telling other people that they should pretend they were drying their hair to avoid pertinent obligations.
In any event, we've all soaked in the 2009 Oscar nominations by this point, letting it roll around our epidermis like a hot Aveeno bath. And while most people are bemoaning the exclusion of Dark Knight in the Best Picture competition, I, for one, am celebrating a hat trick of unexpected and spectacular choices in the individual acting categories (and yes, expressing serious misgivings about The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button's Best Picture nod.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw Heather Graham and William Baldwin battling to the death over dwindling paper route territory, today the Cable Guide helps bring the mundane preoccupations of reality dating-competitions to the big screen.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw poor Michael Caine getting pushed around because of his less-than-desirable liquor-shelving feng shui, today we see a metaphor for the tension surrounding the failing newspaper industry acted out on the rough streets of suburbia.
Quick news flash, in case this small detail has escaped your attention, despite its corresponding event poignantly taking place the day after Martin Luther King Day. And, oh, regardless of it coming on the heels of domestic economic collapse and international diplomatic uncertainty that stems almost exclusively from the errors of George Bush's administration.
But, just in case you spent the last two-plus months stuck in a water-logged airplane floating atop the Hudson River's surface, Barack Obama is being sworn in as our President tomorrow. And Bush will spend his remaining days in a manic, Richard Nixon-like stooper of self-doubt and bullish, unapologetic self-assuredness.
I could overstate the siginficance of the precipice we're currently perched upon, but I'm just going to use the final pre-Obama NCDSUV post to let us all take a deep, collective breath and soak that in.
Ohhhhh yeah. It's like taking a bubble bath in a tub of Democracy, ain't it? Just make sure to keep it out of your eyes. That shit burns.
With the immanent ascension of Barack Obama from anointed President-Elect to full-fledged messiah, our country can now certainly begin to take the first, few tentative steps towards not being The World's Asshole. (You know, that guy at the party that drinks too much and keeps playing grabass, but no one can really do anything about it because you know he's strapped?) However, like stale vomit stains on the couch and a mysterious stench coming from god-knows-where, painful remnants of the last eight years still exist in the form of one Jack Bauer, the so-called hero of Fox's zzzzzzzz-inspiring 24.
Ah, Keifer Sutherland. Ladies love him. And ladies love Jack Bauer. His smoldering eyes. His towheaded virility. The fact that he's a fucking torturer whose not only used to justify the worst excesses of George Bush and his administration of morally-bankrupt dicklickers, but is somehow a beloved role-model, is fucking criminally insane.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while Friday saw Tony Danza and Mercedes Ruehl making swimming sexily with the fishes, today Michael Caine gets some Misery-style treatment because of his feng shui preferences.
When we heard why Milk scene-stealer James Franco, who won our hearts years ago as bad-boy Daniel from Freaks & Geeks, was missing at the Golden Globes last week, we were agog. It seems Franco was busy studying poetry at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, North Carolina, where he is enrolled in the school's MFA For Writers. The image of Franco eschewing fancy Hollywood award ceremonies to brood over his coffee-stained notebook of post-confessional free-verse, or linger over a glass of sweet tea, clutching a dog-eared copy of Mark Doty's My Alexandria... um, it kinda made us swoon. But it also got us wondering: What other charmed boldfacers would we love to see insert themselves into the raging creative class?
7. Sarah Palin Remember the lady with the glasses who ran for that political office that one time? She seemed to have some trouble, er, collecting her thoughts, on occasion. "We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington, D.C." Palin once told a crowd at a fundraiser many moons ago. "We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation." She's like the next Edward Albee, no?
6. Christopher Walken It's quite possible C-Walk would be even less popular describing his process in a workshop than the Palinator. Can you... imagine... listening... to... him... discussing... his... character's... inner... monologue... and... psychosis... this... slowly? And what if he wrote exactly like he speaks?
5. Sean Penn Somewhere, right now, Penn is seething with jealousy over Franco's secret taste for the literary arts. They can't both do it! Penn, of course, got his byline on the cover of The Nation last month for his oh-so-astute international reportage. So why not attempt to best his younger, immensely attractive co-star and tackle a creative writing MFA while he's at it? We'd adore listening to his justification for turns of phrase like, "He was God's pessimist."
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw the title of a Chris Farley vehicle taken may a teeny bit too literally, today we get down and dirty amidst some fish guts with the ever-sexy Mercedes Ruehl and Tony Danza.
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.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw a less-than-memorable John Waters flick transformed into something a bit weird, even for him, today the cable guide treats us to livestock anthromorphised with the features of Chris Farley.
OK, I couldn't help the ironic allure of that headline, but it kind of makes me look like a dick. Because in reality, Apple's 52-year-old co-founder and Chief Exec Steve Jobs (aka the computer guru who didn't get pulled over and have a ridiculous mug shot snapped) has taken a leave of absence for at least a few months due to an ambiguous, but worsening, medical condition.
Or at least Jobs is leaving the details cloudy. Outsiders speculated with some concern that it may be a recurrence of his pancreatic cancer from four years ago. Meanhwile, insiders have merely panicked at the possible business repercussions, as Apple shares immediately started to sink. Which, in the business world, is the equivalent of a guy rocketing up shareholders' death-pool lists.
Man, today's just full of bummer news, as this of course arrives on the Heaven-bound heels of Ricardo Montalban's passing. But hopefully Jobs will pull through, so that his creative vision can lead to more unbelievable TV spots like the one above, from a quarter-century ago (watch it and marvel at how far your little MacBooks have come).
Ricardo was one of the smoothest screen presences around, an advocate for Mexican-born actors and had fought through some intense physical maladies for the last 15 years of his life, but stuck it through till the verge of 90. And we are merely glad to we got a chance to acknowledge his 88th and final birthday with proper NCDSUV homage before he died. He will be missed.
Even amidst semi-legitimate websites and all-inclusive gossip blogs, one thing has remained resoundingly clear about the Internet: It was designed for the proliferation of booby pictures. OK, and maybe an occasional facial (NSFW) or finger fuck. But the "candid" celebrity shot and red-carpet nip slips that fill out headlines like implants in a waterbra have truly captured our cultural zeitgeist. Although the tried-and-true movie-still compilers, like Mr. Skin, still possess a necessary function for cyber-pervs the world over.
However, like a record-label A & R rep indiscriminately scouring MySpace for hot acts, the wider the net is cast, the more likely you're gonna catch a few stinkers you'd rather throw back in the ocean.
So for reasons no less superficial than these images' original publication, and if anything, to take the piss out of folks dangled on high as the beautiful ones, we present the 10 least arousing nude celebrity boobs (10, of course, as in five pairs of two). And in the interest of being an equal-opportunity sexist, we may even produce a sequel to this feature that reappropriates its, ehem, titular meaning and breaks down the most orgasm-killing male Hollywood mimbos. And suffice to say, virtually every link from here on out is NSFW, meaning we expect a hearty boost in page views between the hours of 6 p.m. and midnight.
10. & 9. Victoria Beckham, aka Posh Spice
It's hard to say which one of Posh's not-so-perky perforations deserves more of a honest, cups-off assessment, number nine or 10. Oh, heck, we'll call it a wash. But the bottom line is, for all her preening around in the newest haute coutoure, push-up-undergarment abuse and implicitly demeaning infrared glances at the rest of Earth's female populus, we wouldn't want to hop in the shower and soap up those plump-yet-shapeless post-pregnancy glands.
8. & 7. Teri Hatcher
Memo to Seinfeld's fact-checkers (and yes, we are contractually obligated to incorporate a Seinfeld reference in every other post): They might be real, but they're not exactly spectacular. When the would-be glamorous Desperate Housewives queen bitch bared all in cheapo flick The Cool Surface, someone should have ordered some hot maple syrup, because those babies are what those in the know refer to as pancake boobs.
While I was online searching for pictures of Pokemons with human female breasts, I happened upon the trailer for an upcoming film named Miss March, which written, directed and starring members of The Whitest Kids U Know. To say it seemed generic is an understatement, but the fucker came packaged in a plain brown box with a Toucan Sam rip-off emblazoned on its front. SLAM! Dozens, bitch!
The utter thatness of that trailer's existence is, however, indicative of the sketch group as a whole. They are there. They exist. You can point in their direction and watching their show elicits peels of "Mmmm, ok." Generic. Generic isn't necessarily bad. It's just... placing your palms upward and shrugging your shoulders.
Hopefully all those anticipatory Super Bowl partiers will be ready to step aside from their beer bongs and nachos during the pre-game festivities for a solemn moment of poignancy. Awkwardness will no doubt abound in America's living rooms, and girlfriends will assuredly be slapping their insensitive partners' into compassion when Jennifer Hudson takes the stage to sing the National Anthem before the big game on February 1.
This will, of course, be the singer/actress' first public appearance since the horrific slayings of her mother, brother and nephew in October. And what a doozy it is. However, much as I'd love to muster my usual cynicism and insinuate that Hudson manipulated the situation into a triumphant PR resurgence, I will propose the following two motives on her behalf: A. She's using the money toward legal fees to send the alleged killer to jail or for a foundation in her late relatives' names, or B. She's viewing this is as the utmost cleansing catharsis, perversely less excruciating than reemerging via a series of smaller appearances.
Either way, Hudson has one hell of an inner resolve. Maybe it's her whole Jesus-loving thing. Hmmmm. Perhaps I should give that a try.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw Anthony Hopkins improbably embody the role of a speed-freak biker dude, today we head into decidedly weirder Waters.
OK, am I the only one who read the gossip from Star magazine about Matthew Broderick supposedly sleeping around behind Sarah Jessica Parker's back and thought, "Really, but wasn't Ferris Bueller her Broadway beard?"
I mean, not to be crass, reductive, insensitive or anything else that may as well comprise the story tags for our archives, but the notion of SJP (incidentally the original acronym for Stone Temple Pilots when they first christened themselves Stone Jessica Pilots) seeking respite in a separate home because of her husband's philandering seems, at the very least, a bit backwards.
Then again, the Sex And The City starlet does kind of resemble a cross between Ruth Buzzi and post-Kabbalah-era Madonna, so I could kind of see why Matty boy would make a run for less pruneish pastures, regardless of their what they're packing between the thighs.
Nothing has curdled my stomach more in the last few days than grown-up screen brat Jason Hervey introducing the cast of VH1's Confessions Of A Teen Idol to a focus-group segment they were about to endure. Something about his little monologue reeked of the kind of self-satisfied, Napoleonic smugness that can only exude from one's paean pores after decades of portraying total douchebags both onscreen and behind the scenes of Hollywood.
Let's review: After peddling countless commercial goods in the early '80s with his bland precociousness, Hervey not coincidentally nailed the entitled man-child antics of a kid actor as Kevin Morton during the movie-within-a-movie climax of Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. Stunt casting, perhaps?
And then, of course, on The Wonder Years, Hervey was the human embodiment of the demonic older-brother caricature every terrified nerd carried with them throughout childhood. His contribution to the show seemed to be almost method in execution. But Hervey was no prodigious thespian. A la with Pee-Wee, it was evident that his authenticity as Wayne Arnold stemmed from a blurry line between reality and fiction. Art imitating douche.
Looks like the FOX drama Prison Break won't be serving a... life sentence after all. Because network execs apparently decided it was time to... execute it. I guess it didn't.... cell enough advertising.
Yeah, you get the picture. Not so much that Prison Break's cancellation was announced today, spelling the end of Dominic Purcell and co.'s handcuffed misadventures. But that we don't really have a great deal else to say about the program's conclusion, aside from making horrible puns that probably make you wish you were in solitary Internet confinement at the moment.
The show will return with new episodes on April 17 and air its series finale sometime that month. Although it's fitting that the axe will fall right around one of the holiest Jewish holidays, since the network apparently decided to... Passover another installment of episodes. Eh? Eh?
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 put a different spin (fittingly) on the usual intent of this column to derisively slam Rush Limbaugh, but today we get back to ironic business as usual and say "Get out!" to the queen of comedy's show about nothing.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw that dastardly Info-Bar try and lure us into its Poltergeist-like underworld via innocent patsy The Rock & Roll Kid, today the Cable Guide cribs a page from Cypress Hill and asks, "Do you want to get high?"
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.
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).
Flicking on the television or going online no longer offers a brief moment of respite from your hectic day, so when I tuned into red carpet portion of the Golden Globes I was hoping for an indulgent, preferably 24-carat-gold gilded respite from reality. I wanted a scene of shameless, tacky, hedonistic, materialistic display along the lines of (for the men) diamond-and-ruby encrusted boleros and (for the ladies) hot-pink, satin 10-inch-high stiletto heels that clash with the red carpet and light up when they strut. Was I expecting too much? Of course not. This is Hollywood, where dreams come true. Here's the eight most delightfully gaudy debutantes and dudes from last night's ceremony.
8. Lisa Rinna Never one to insinuate if she can noisily promulgate, the TVGuide' network's red carpet host (and soon-to-be-second-time-Playboy model) treated us to more than her usual heaping handful o' cleave. This year, we got to three inches of pectoriloquy to ogle as she giggled inanely, fumbled over her script and beat the brows of whichever celeb had somehow happened to fall into her arthritic clutches. Lisa captures many of the qualities cherished by profligate lovers of all things skin-deep: a laser-like commitment to superficiality that involves the excessive use of botox, facial fillers and Pilates machines; a love of all things low-cut and high-cut, preferably at the same time; a copious sprinkling of shiny things on and about her person; and silver sequins.
7. Olivia Wilde Olivia infused the red carpet with every starry-eyed 7-year-old girl's vision of elegance. She floated along in a strapless, floor-length pale lilac-pink Reem Acra confection that looked like it had been produced in a quiet forest glen by Cinderella's tweeting avian pals, with nothing but pink cotton candy, organza and buttercream frosting with which to toil. A giant pair of diamond snowflake earrings, an innocently smiley countenance and gleaming, shiny hair completed the nostalgic glance down princess lane.
6. Jennifer Lopez If a designer's producing a dress cut down to the navel, bless her heart, Jenny From the Block's gotta have it. J. Lo, with her trademark deer-in-headlights idiot savant pop enthusiasm, slathered on the razzle dazzle our quickly graying country is thirsting for. From her belly baring, elegantly draped gold Greek goddess Marchesa dress (which brings to mind the more innocent days of 2000. when she wore the infamous ab-flashing Versace) to her tasteful but still ridunkulously massive diamond drop earrings, J. Lo is La La Land. Calgon, take me away!
5. Debra Messing Her hair, pulled back into what at first glance appeared to be a smooth and elegant ponytail, but then ZOWIE! explodes like a hirsute B52 into a bloodshot tumble weed, is notable enough. But Big Red, as always, kicks up it up a notch, in the form of diamond and emerald teardrop (if Cyclops shed tears, they'd be about this size) earrings that threaten to unbalance her equilibrium and turn her dramatic sweep down the carpet into a slip n' slide. And let's not forget the chartreuse eye shadow applied with a trowel onto her entire lid. Her dress was the mottled color of a particularly painful bruise with an interesting set of pelvis-accentuating ruffles, which is perhaps an exciting and innovative new way to catch the boys' eyes.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw Top Gun rocked into the rarified air of intellectually complex cinema, today we blindly follow the Info-Bar wherever it tells us to go, because we are mindless automotons enslaved by the hypnotic glare of our television.
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 Friday, we raised a spike-bedazzled leather birthday fist for glam-punker David Johansen. Today, we raise a leather fist armed with a spike for a horrible man whom we can all agree to despise, proving we have something in common after all.
They say that after the Super Bowl, more people call in sick due to hangovers than any other day of the year. Well, clearly they're not nursing the pounding headache we incurred from three hours of Hollywood rubbing their hobnobby elitism in our faces and engaging in in-jokey speeches and self-congratulatory asides.
Ah yes, the Golden Globes. What an evening it was. There were so many moments worth acknowledging, some of them even marinated with poignant merit (Steven Spielberg's speech was actually pretty great) and others soaked in giant barrels of ugh (In Bruges seems great Colin Farrell, but dating Britney Spears and having a sex tape leaked sort of undermines the credibility of your speech about artistic integrity).
Anyway, before the remaining parasites throughout the blogosphere feed off the remaining drips of blood from last night's broadcast, here's the top five things NCDSUV learned from enduring the awards ceremony.
5. After Kate Winslet's heeeelarious, Hilary Swank/Chad Lowe-worthy failure to acknowledge fellow Best Actress nominee Anne Hathaway (who was shown pre-envelope-opening giddily praying her life would be validated with a win), NCDSUV breathed a sigh of relief as big as Hathaway's bug eyes, because it was evident we're not the only ones who realize she sucks.
4. Tracy Morgan is legitimately a bit nuts, but at least his lack of filter provided the only comedic speech that wasn't overly scripted or reliant on alienating elbow jabs to fellow celebrities.
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!
A couple months back, 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.
So while the last installment of Just Because teased our upcoming presidential inauguration with some unforgettable footage from a recent mayorial swearing in, this week we zap you back to almost a decade ago, to a time when Howard Stern was at the peak of his powers and chose to zero them in on a helpless Magic Johnson.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw Glenn Danzing and Mark Harmon make sweet, sweet poetry, today the Info-Bar takes flight with a young Tom Cruise.
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 back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday weirdly saw the second Info-Bar appearance for Trading Places glutton Don Ameche, today the cable guide brings together the previously incongruous worlds of Mark Harmon and Glenn Danzig.
Man. First she ditches The Cosby Show to get naked and covered in blood with future Wrestler Mickey Rourke for Angel Heart, then she marries banal, pseudo-hippie rocker douche Lenny Kravitz, and now Lisa Bonet and boyfriend Jason Momoa name their kid Nakoa-Wolf Manakauapo Namakaeha Momoa. But you know what they say: Momoa, Mo Problems.
Now, I mean not to poke thoughtless fun. There's spiritual intent behind the naming, and Lisa seems like a relatively substantive lady. But there's no way in hell this is getting exempt from the scrutiny we bestow upon any other celebrity baby christening, where the rule of thumb seems to be: There's a special energy that has blessed me with this universally appealing combination of talent and looks, and therefore that energy needs to be appropriately reflected and reinforced by making sure my kid's gonna get the shit beaten out of him every day until 12th grade.
Good thing all Momoa's residuals from Stargate: Atlantis should be able to cover at least part of Nakoa's medical bills.
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.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday's Info-Bar muckup somehow turned Barton Fink into a more surreal misadventure than it already was, today things get tawdry with an early precedent for the suggestion of Satan's sexual duality made prominent decades later in the South Park movie.
Sometimes the jokes write themselves folks. And then require me to re-type them inside a Web admin program for public consumption. Anyhow, NCDSUV just wanted to give a big ol' congratulations to Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner for producing a healthy baby girl yesterday (because what other kind might such a stunning celeb couple unleash out of their love nest?).
In fact, we were so busy debating the particulars of Nicollette Sheridan and David Spade allegedly knockin' befuddling boots that we nearly neglected to commemorate this momentous event.
Unfortunately, Bennifer Part II have yet to formally name the sister to their other daughter, Violet, but let me take a wiiiiild guess here that they're going to christen her something complementary like Rose or Hazel. Because like they say, roses are red, violets are blue, and watch out Ms. Garner, because once your hubby's acting offers invariably stop rolling in, he's going to be financially relying on you.
J.J. Abrams has some hard nuts to crack. While shows like Lost and Alias have their moments, and Mission Impossible III was about as tolerable as that series is going to get (and let's be honest, largely thanks to Philip Seymour Hoffman), most everything else he's touched has transmuted to gangrened gumbo. Though as the industry buzzes, one might think that gumbo was gold-flavored. However, for all his vaunted Midasing of TV and film properties, in the frankest of light, his ideas are really rather subpar, and since this isn't golf, that ain't good.
Or to be more accurate than a so-called smart bomb, let's narrow in a little further so that the good parts of Abrams aren't sprayed everywhere like civilian viscera. It's not particularly that his ideas are bad. Secret-agent turns double on an Illuminati-like organization, plane crashes on mysterious island, government investigators examine a giant pseudo-scientific conspiracy. These are well-wrought. However, the execution, like that of a Hamas rebel, is so sloppily performed that anyone or thing in the slightest proximity is obliterated in a blaze of ineptitude and violent ignorance.
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.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw Aracnophobia get reimagined as the tale of eight-legged creatures used as currency for farm mortgage so they can be sacrificed for a good harvest, today the Info-Bar gives us a serious literary workout, courtesy of the Coen Brothers, John Turturro (and John Goodman, in his second consecutive HCIBDOTD appearance).
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.
Not since two number one college sports teams were upset on the same evening has there been such a shockwave of unexpected coincidental downfall in our cultural waters. Yes, yes, both Jennifer Love Hewitt and Patricia Arquette publicly announced (because why do such things privately when there's absolutely no one knocking down your door suspecting controversy?) their separations from fiance Ross McCall and hubby Thomas Jane, respectively (you know, the guy who was supposed toi be a next big thing but then starred in The Punisher) in the last 24 hours.
No more details have surfaced per se, although I suppose all the heat from Love Hewitt's "I'm not fat I just have super-fine lady curves" scandal must have worn on poor McCall. Or maybe he got tired of her singing "Bare Naked" in the shower all the time.
As for Arquette and Jane (or as I like to call them Janequette), the real victim here of course is their 5-year-old daughter, Harlow, who we imagine will be placed in a special celeb-splitup orphanage home with the rest of the babies bred by famous people lacking foresight. We're pretty sure Kevin Federline is the headmaster there. Should be awesome.
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.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while Friday saw Child's Play 2 get reimagined as Chucky's enraged response to the marketing of his My Buddy-reminiscent doll, today the Info-Bar reinvents the contemporary methods of how home mortgages are financed.
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.
Ah, the innocent days of 2008. When recession, war and high-profile celebrity deaths became the glue to bond us together like societal Siamese siblings. But now it's 2009, a whole new era, a whole new ballgame. And not just for Washington, who will call Barack Obama their overlord, or the New York Yankees, who will take the field with C.C. Sabathia and Mark Texeira and still manage to lose the pennant to smaller-budgeted organizations.
It is the final stand for celebrity land in a decade that has alternately enthralled and repulsed us. It is a time for Hollywood to make its mark on culture and the planet at large, and really give 'em the good stuff we all cream for in the tabloids.
And we got off to an intermittently intriguing start, thanks largely to the birth of what could have been the First Granddaughter-in-waiting, and a certain wayward actress' parent who may love his share of his daughter's spotlight more than the woman herself. So without any pregnant pauses, here's the top 5 things NCDSUV learned this week.
4. Paul McCartney may have had to navigate Heather Mills' body sexually despite her prosthetic leg, but at least he didn't have to stick around till midnight to ritualistically spray-tan the thing.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw late-night HBO boob-festThe Beach Girls re-imagined as a fat-camp docudrama, today the Info-Bar devilishly delivers us to the lackluster sequel of an inexplicably appealing horror classic.
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 back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw a Japanese, Dirty Dozen-style violent drama transformed into a male-bonding weepy, today we visit a would-be classic of straight-to-HBO worthy, late-night boob-bouncing nostalgia.
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 Wednesday, we beat on the brat with a baseball bat for a key member of The Warriors, and today we're ringing in the New Year by wishing a happy birthday to a polymath of the wild and woolly comic landscape, whose main claim to fame is a single Saturday Night Live character.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw High Fidelity re-envisioned as the tale of a man who can finally start living after recovering from a bizarre psychological condition, today the Info-Bar transforms a hitman-style thriller into a tour of male bonding.
Isn't the word recklessly kind if ironic when applied to driving incidents, given how easily it would be to plop a "w" in front of it? Well, maybe not ironic, but there's something kind of funny about it. You get what I'm siizzzaying.
Anyhow, just when we were mid-yawn over the information surrounding Matt Dillon's relatively goody-two-shoes speeding arrest, ex-NBA great/current basketball analyst Charles Barkley comes along and gets caught driving while intoxicated in Arizona early this morning. Apparently, the former Suns/76ers great was civil and polite, and this would rank as a first offense. And he always prided himself on not being a role model anyway. But unfortunately, he's also been an outspoken voice of late about racially motivated hirings and firings in sports.
And while I for one can separate a night of pre-New Year's Eve good times and momentary indiscretion from the legitimacy of his personal politics, one has to wonder if this will affect his credibility as any kind of moral arbiter. Oh, Chuck, you are quite the conundrum.
I'm not sure what's funnier. That Matt Dillon was really in such a hurry to get anywhere of significance, that it's such a slow news day that this item made the top of most entertainment headlines, or that one website tried to provide their post with extra weight by leading off with the line, "Vermont police arrested Oscar nominee Matt Dillon for speeding overnight."
You'd think they were trying to lend gravitas to the marketing campaign for an indie film. Anyway, looks like the brother of Entourage star Kevin Dillon (ouch!) went... Over The Edge, as he was caught going a tidy 106 mph. Although he wasn't drunk, and his mugshot actually makes him look better than usual.
Hopefully the pace of celebrity misdoings will pick up its pace in the upcoming 24 hours of partying, eh?
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw Who Framed Roger Rabbit recast as the titular character's attempt to rap his way back into Jessica's heart, today we follow our devilish remote control to a movie that, in the hands of the Cable Info-Bar, has evolved from poignant human drama to Charlie Kaufman-worthy metaphysical storytelling.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while Friday had Edward Scissorhands leaving a suburban town in stitches, today the cable-guide turns an Oscar-accruing animated classic into a Breakin'-inspired tale for the hip-hop generation.
Being a working actor in Hollywood is constant moral dilemma, on par with Sophie's choice or Schindler's list or Wayne's world. You know you want to act in films and shows that are interesting, funny, weighty, real and so on, but the prospect of having to work a shitty job in order to feed your kids or pay your rent looms large. So you take the best of the worst to keep working.
Worse than mere hack work is the feeling that creeps into your skin when you think of the phenomenal jobs that preceded your current bit part on Numb3rs or Cold Case or Gum Scream or whatever. Like the hot girlfriend that you had to break up with because she was a crypto-fascist, yet still compare all subsequent partners to, that former film or show stands there like a ghost with a great rack and totalitarian ideals.
Thus, using HBO as our paradigm case, assessing the peaks and subsequent plateaus/valleys its original programming's roster of talent has endured, we offer unto you 10 wonderful, working actors whose pay-cable days are that nostalgic glint in their eye as they mumble through a guest spot on Without A Trace.
10. Harold Perrineau Starring HBO Turn: Augustus Hill on Oz Subsequent Shitty TV Role Of Note:Michael on Lost Why It's A Step Down:Lost itself isn't a terrible show, though it certainly has a large number of faults (paper thin characterization, meandering plots, gimmicky narrative devices, etc.). However, the fact that it must conform to network standards means it will never rise to the level of compelling, which Oz (forgiving some of its more ridiculous moments), usually was. This isn't a major step down, but it certainly is akin to having a sweet temp job and then making an ironic anti-Semitic joke and subsequently being fired, and then only being able to land a horrible data entry position.
9. Michael Imperioli Starring HBO Turn: Christopher on The Sopranos Subsequent Shitty TV Role Of Note: Ray on Life On Mars Why It's A Step Down: We can count the number of successful British remakes on one dick. Namely, The Office. And the only reason that survived is because it ingested the concept and made it its own, like a great voodoo priest eating the heart of his enemy to gain his powers. Assuming that has actually happened, and what was just written isn't culturally insensitive. Life On Mars is a sad simulacrum, and while Imperioli could have done much worse, going from David Chase to David Kelley is like using your company money to pay for that Greek shareholders retreat to needing the bailout money to pay for it. How humiliating.
8. Garry Shandling Starring HBO Turn: Larry on The Larry Sanders Show Subsequent Shitty Films Of Note:What Planet Are You From?, Over the Hedge Why It's A Step Down: As either Nietzsche or Professor X taught us, context is everything. So, let's put Shandling's slippery slope in perspective. Larry Sanders ended in 1998. Shandling's next film was the Dr. Doolittle re-make. The century's inaugural year gave us What Planet, and 2006 offered Hedge, one of Dreamworks' Pixar-not-quites. This is being selective, but given how groundbreaking Sanders was both as satire and character study, these other jobs feel like going from being a Las Vegas magician to giving out handjobs in a back alley in exchange for loose Starbursts.
7. Lance Reddick Starring HBO Turn: Colonel Daniels on The Wire Subsequent Shitty TV Roles Of Note: Agent Broyles on Fringe, Matthew on Lost Why It's A Step Down: As legions of obnoxious freaks will opine in your face whether you ask or not, The Wire is possibly one of the greatest shows to have ever been on TV. And just because the fuckers who scream this at you are ugly turds doesn't make them wrong. And what a complex it must manifest for the actors who starred in, created and re-created Bodymore, Murderland for five seasons, actors like Lance Reddick, who must now star in J.J. Abrams' latest sprawling mess, Fringe. Why, this is almost as bad as going from being the president of a world power to an indicted war criminal that only escapes prosecution with a series of timely pre-emptive pardons. Or something like that.
6. Garret Dillahunt Starring HBO Turns: Francis on Deadwood, Dr. Smith on John From Cincinnati Subsequent Shitty TV Role Of Note: Cromartie on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Why It's A Step Down: A lot of people may not have enjoyed John From Cincinnati, but truly, with no hyperbole, it was poetically sublime. However, more people were barmy for Deadwood because (gasp!) they swore! Really? That's what made it great? Not David Milch's writing? Not the acting or the narrative structure? The fact that they said "cocksucker" a lot, that's why you love it? Regardless, going from those shows to a stiff-necked, drab crabclaw like that Terminator rehash is like being a poet laureate onee day and still being one the next but having your face chopped off in an errant knife-throwing incident that your insurance refuses to cover.
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.
A flu, nay!, a scourge, a pall of sickness has descended upon us. Because that's where plagues come from. Above. Not below and not from the left. Not sideways, and not from Sideways, that film about wine and the lady from Arli$$. But rather from above, where New Zealand has been hovering ever since the Great Earthquake of 2046 shunted it back in time, and like that island from Lost, it now floats halfway upwards our stratosphere. At least that's my theory about the Lost island, but I created a website and have combed through every season so far to prove my point, and you can see my findings here.
Anyway, that scourge that has floated down from above is the second season of Flight Of The Conchords, a sickness for which, like Babe Ruth's Disease, there is no cure. Except not watching it, I guess. I suppose that's where the metaphor breaks down. Anyway, why so unserious about those two gits from The N.Z.? One word: They're not funny, and it rankles my ankles for dopes to dote over their hokey one-note, three chord ditties.
While one might think I'm just so-called "hatin," or whatever slang roustabouts are known to utter in these time-quadrants we call the 21st centuries, it's more than that. Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's good, and in this case, base hatred is called for, summoned up from the very depths of Q'lippoth, The Kingdom Of Shells and poured over Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement like molten steel over a Terminator.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while the previous entrant into the Cable Info-Bar pantheon was the suddenly somber documentary Borat, today we travel back in time to one of Johnny Depp's most memorable early roles. And no, we're not talking about his thankless offing as Heather Langenkamp's boyfriend in Nightmare On Elm Street.
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 the last installment of Just Because celebrated the homoerotic curiosa of a broadcasted DIY Soloflex workout, today we provide you with the belated Christmas present of a recently deceased Golden Girl who will live on ion comedy heaven for eternity.
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.
Those of you who are really, truly loyal NCDSUV readers (thanks mom and AA sponsor) will recall my abject horror at the notion of Mamma Mia!'s theatrical release, particularly the forced attempt to turn it into a midnight-movie sing-along classic.
And how I specifically would only go endure it if there was enough of a movement on the comments board. Well, Jesus himself could become resurrected (and oh yeah, happy holidays and thanks for reading this year and stuff by the way) and demand my purchase of the DVD and I wouldn't get within 100 bags of Swedish fish of this Meryl Streep disasterpiece.
Why? Because the commercial for it insists that guys like myself should, "Be a man, buy her a musical." (Full disclosure: Above clip is from theatrical trailer. Was unable to unearth said TV ad for DVD.) Which may get the gold medal for most repugnant gender-stereotype-reinforcement in a holiday-season ad over the ESPN-friendly Nutrisystem spots with recent Sucks honoree Chris Berman and his once-portly sportscasting pal Mike Golic.
How about I be a man and save whatever limited cash I have in this recession and ensure I have money to feed my family in '09 after lavishing them with superflous Santa-time offerings.
OK, I don't actually have a family to support. And I'm Jewish. But you get the idea. Although I suppose it's not as offensive as urging me to buy, say, Streep's celebrity perfume.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw D.B. Sweeney and John C. McGinley finding the fountain of youth in an Eddie Money pit, today the cable bar manages to contort a subversive comedy for the ages into a soberly investigative piece of cinema.
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).
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday reimagined a Ben Stiller updating of The Heartbreak Kid as a tale of kismet assholes falling in fated love, today we take a fantastical roadtrip to the fountain of youth with a couple of B-level leading men.
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.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while Friday saw a creepy stalker thriller get reimagined into Heather Graham's journey of personal redemption, today we clicked around until we stumbled upon a rather flippant summation of a rather half-assed remake of a kind-of awesome comedy.
Once upon a time, there was a land ruled by a King who liked to bang his intern in fucked up ways, like with cigars and shit. Despite his ridiculous sexcapades though, he left that Law Of The Land intact, and the only constitution that got tore up was the intern's carnal constitution. That didn't mean the King was a good dude, but it just meant he wasn't a unrepentant monster, who should be hanged for war crimes.
Now in this mythical land, there also lived a dwarf named Jeremy Piven whose sardonic schtick endeared him to all in shows like Cupid and Ellen, as well as cult classic films like PCU. Of course, by "cult classic," we mean, "movie that used to be run 300,000 times a second on Comedy Central." This of course, created the temporal nexus knows as the Piven Hole, a theoretical object that sucks Emmy awards into it regardless of whether they are deserved.
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 Friday, we blew out Flashdance(r)
Jennifer Beals' still sizzling birthday candles, and today we're reluctantly
strapping on our party hats for an elderly over-sharing enthusiast.
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.
Ah, the last week before the Christmas-time blitz of abusive commercialism and schmaltzy, ceremonial sentimentality. A time for celebrities to get one last headline blast before the world pretends to care about religion and family more than the dogma of tabloid culture for a few days.
Fortunately for us, there was no shortage of boob-flashing, divorce scuttlebutt and rehab-hyjinks. So without further prolonged pause, here are the top five things we here at NCDSUV (and we hope you as well) have learned this week:
4. Tara Reid, not to be outdone by her more youthful underlings Lindsay Lohan et al, finally went into rehab for undisclosed reasons. We're guessing it's because she's been chronically addicted to an illicit co-dependent substance, but what the heckfire do we know?
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw River's Edge transformed into a one-act stoner response to Stand By Me, today we go to a mystical, magnificent stop on the Info-Bar express where Hope really does float.
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 Thursday, we wished happy 65th to a guy who spent much of youth 69-ing with young, tourniquet-equipped groupies, and today we gather together in an a cappella chorus of "I Need A Hero" for the star of both a cult '80s film and an equally culty '00s Showtime drama.
As was discussed recently on NCDSUV, Jay Leno's questionable appointment (mirroring many of Barack Obama's cabinet picks) to a daily 10 p.m. slot is possibly the least progressive move NBC and Ben Silverman, its co-chair of Entertainment, could make. Desperate to hold onto their bland, ghost-white cash cow (or perhaps bleached-white steer skull, as Leno's humor is devoid of flesh, muscle and vitality, leaving merely effluvia and bones), they struck some expedient bargain.
It's admirable that they want to keep their contractually-enforced agreement with Conan O'Brien, but his show (at least in its present form) has no business being on at 11:30, even though it's quite great. Furthermore, forcing Leno to an earlier timeslot just means that the crypt-keepers that watch him will now migrate along, leaving 11:30 a desolate negative zone.
As TV critic Alan Sepinwall noted in his Star Ledger column, Silverman, the enfant terrible of the executive asshole class, said, "[The allure of this is] having the stability of Jay on every single night, on that lineup, driving what the NBC brand is, which is a comedy brand, and is a brand of true talent, and that's what Jay is."
Or as Leno then quipped: "What Ben's saying is we barely have six hours of programming." It's still a joke if you say something with a straight face and no one laughs and everyone nods and someone in the back purposely says, "How true," right?
Have yourself a cable-ridden Christmas. Watch your fill of crap. Every now and then a great movie falls in your lap. (All times in EST.) 8. Glow Ropes: The Rise And Fall Of A Bar Mitzvah Emcee (2007) TMC, Monday, December 22, 11:35pm Faux documentary regarding what the title implies. Piss-poor acting and pacing, but man, such a great idea. I should have copyrighted my concept for this movie when I came up with it. Someone's reading my thoughts!
7. Meatballs (1979) SHO Family, Sunday, December 21, 6:25pm Don't shower, don't shave, don't even bother changing out of your night clothes. Anytime Meatballs is on, it's totally chill to drop everything and vegetate. Bill Murray keeps it together through the loosest narrative possible, and Chris Makepeace all but defines emo as "Wudy The Wabbit."
6. Aliens vs Predator: Requiem (2007) Cinemax, Monday, December 22, 12:45am Squick factor 10! Aliens, predators and "Pred-Aliens" land in Colorado, destroying humans and face-humping pregnant women and little kids. Features Fox TV stars from Rescue Me and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I dare you to tell me what's happening in the rubber-suit fight scenes. You can't sit far away enough from the screen.
5. Kuroneko (The Black Cat) (1968) IFC, Sunday December 21 8am Samurais murder two women, whose spirits live on to avenge their deaths. Fits in nicely with similar Japanese horror offerings Kwaidan and Onibaba. Get ready to get skeered.
Tired of buying your relatives the same old fruit cake and set of all-usage garden pliers? Frustrated you lost the bidding for Justin Timberlake's half-eaten French Toast all those years back? Well, good news folks.
Act now, and you can not only satisfy your celeb-salivating relative and contribute to charity, but you can accomplish both noble feats while fetishizing your unhealthy affection for and interest in people more famous and better looking than you.
After Scarlett Johansson (and why does her name have a double "s" anyway? Kind of obnoxious, no?) blew her cold-riddled nose into a tissue amidst a Jay Leno interview last night, she put the booger-bedazzled nasal napkin up on eBay, with the profits (bid hovering around $2,000 as of press time) going to charity.
So hurry, and certainly don't wait. ScarJo's virus-infected viscosity can be yours, and subsequently something you can share with the one you love. Because there's no wrong way to say "I think you're a worthless piece of shit."
It's that time of year again. Holiday-shopping season. That apocalyptic assemblage of weeks in which retail outlets become surrogate synagogues and major corporations push unnecessary product rollouts on a discount/one-of-a-kind-gift-hungry public.
Which means it's also time for celebrities to shill themselves with all the grace and pride of a struggling sitcom during May sweeps. And in particular, it becomes ground zero for the marketing of celebrity fragrances. Over the last couple of weeks, you may have seen ads for perfumes and colognes bearing the name, likeness and, presumably, grundle odor, of super-famous hotties and hunks.
Britney Spears, Mariah Carey, Hilary Duff and, yes, even Tim McGraw
(whose "McGraw" cologone is fashioned to resemble, you guessed it, a
cowboy hat) are among those in the fray-grance.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw Dazed And Confused get reduced to a pedestrian slacker-stoner piece of teen celluloid, today the cable guide manages to likewise diffuse the complexity and originality of underrated and disturbing '80s teen-flick-of-sorts.
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).
This week we address Bridesmaid Fug. Just when we thought it
was safe to peruse US Weekly again in
the checkout line at the Big K, safe from the wedding-related Hollywood terror of
2006 and beyond (Katie Holmes & Tom Cruise, Anna Nicole Smith & J. Howard Marhsall, Pam Anderson & Kid Rock,
Avril Lavigne & Deryck Whibley, Nicole Kidman & Keith Urban, etc.) the most wretched, the most
insidious and the most unavoidable component that crops up in every nuptial cocktail,
from Boise to Bel Air, is upon us.
For some utterly inconceivable reason, celebrity starlets have taken it upon
themselves to don bridesmaids' dresses to red carpet events. Was the trend
launched by a Machiavellian PR maven in a bid to surreptitiously lather us into
a matrimonial-obsessed frenzy right before the premiere of Bride Wars? (The stars of the movie, Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway,
bless their hearts, have not embraced the fad.)
Can ossified updos sprinkled with baby's breath and
Diamonique clips be far away? A SWAT Team has been sent to the Hollywood
& Highland
mall to investigate and is expected to report back any moment now...
*(P.S.: Links to the below red-carpet nightmares are located, mercifully, with the commentary for each entrant.)
8. Scarlett Johansson Scene Of The Crime: The Spirit promo in Paris. ScarJo generally likes to sheath herself in princessy, fussy garments while prancing down the carpet, and when it's good, it's very, very good. But when it's bad, it's horrid. Cue this horrifying vision in black and white. We have the bridesmaid-tastic, delicately frayed tulip edged bodice, the figure-truncating cummerbund, cutesy keyhole embroidery detailing and a homely burst of white tulle peeking out from under the tragic mid-calf no-go zone of hemlines. Her priggish black satin shoes with giant toe bows complete the look.
7. Alicia Witt Scene Of The Crime: The Australia premiere in New York. Pale redheads the world over generally quake in fear when "invited" to participate in their friend's big day. One of the many unwritten rules of bridesmaid dress is that its material must be spun in an unworldly, blindingly bright hue that will sear retinas and make fair, and God forbid, fire-tressed maids look like anemic Raggedy Anns. But Alicia actually opted to wear this specimen. Is it possible that, upon dressing and gazing at her countenance in a mirror, she actually sai
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