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?
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.
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!
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.
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.
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?
As we gear up for the holidays, Hollywood has no intent on settling down its array of shenanigans. Particularly as it revs its self-promotional engine and rings in the start of awards season.
Yes, the big news this week (well, apart from that awful business surrounding Mark Ruffalo's brother, but let's not dwell on the morbid) involved Heath Ledger getting one last laugh after his tragic death, thanks to his work as The Joker in Dark Knight being recognized amidst the Golden Globe nominees.
But there was also the minor matter of Britney Spears' comeback, not to mention, Heather Chadwell getting the steel-toed stripper boot from Rock Of Love Charm School. So without further shenanigans of our own, here are the top five things we learned this week:
5. Apparently, there's a groundswell of second-generation punk fans just creaming their pants for the opportunity to revisit GG Allin's propensity for not wearing any.
4. Heather Chadwell, aka Heather from Charm School, may actually have less self-esteem than the people who read this site.
I know, I know: It's cold outside, you're dead broke and the holiday-shopping season six days away, and you forgot what it means to be funny after watching too many episodes of Frank TV.
Have no fear, however: The real-life foibles of celebrities are here. And thanks to everyone from Jean Claude Van Damme to Paris Hilton, the last several days have seen an abundant enough amount of Tinseltown tomfoolery to warm even the blackest of hardened hearts. So as always at this time (or maybe a bit earlier, depending on when our Sanka settles in), here's the top 5 things NCDSUV learned this week:
5. Where was Sean Stewart, son of Rod (doesn't have quite the same ring as Son Of Jor-El, does it?), when Rodney King was beaten mercilessly by LAPD in 1991? Oh, right, opening that week's unnecessary luxury gift as compensation for his dad touring the world and ensuring him a life of comfort and endless opportunity. So how exactly are their situations parallel enough to warrant co-participation in Celebrity Rehab?
4. Sinbad cut his fade-top 'do and stopped dressing like the retarded kid in your sixth grade math class. Talk about losing your sense of humor in your old age.
We're finally getting over our election hangovers here at NCDSUV. It's amazing what a little Alka Seltzer Morning Relief and Barack Obama massage oil can do. (It's a homemade creation. We'll divulge the contents soon enough.)
But it certainly makes it easier to move on when Lindsay Lohan is making ignorant statements about our newly elected black president, Britney Spears is rushing her kid to backwoods hospitals and sex-on-a-stick has-been Tracy Scoggins turns old enough to be your mother's mother (depending on how solid sex education is in your area public schools).
So without further gesundheit, here are the top five things we learned this week (and yes, we couldn't resist having at least one of them be of the overtly politically oriented).
5. Finding out Tracy Scoggins, subject of innumerable moistened night visions, has turned 55 is a bit like waking up from a coma and discovering Biff Tannen is your stepdad and has stuffed your mother with breast implants and collagen.
4. Britney Spears' son, Jayden, may be a wee young tyke, but he knows that like his mother, he enjoys winding up in hospitals for no apparent reason.
3. John McCain may not be as good looking, capable or inspirational as Obama, but he's arguably funnier than Jay Leno.
Yes, that's right. We're going to take one last chance to exploit the recent months' political fervor to bring some eyeballs to the NCDSUV annals. So sue us. Actually, don't do that, because we're already surviving on Ramen and working off converted Commodore 64s as it is.
But we'll tell ya one thing: The law of the land has taken a turn toward the left in the last five days, dominating the news and conquering cultural discourse. So while it's hard to believe that a week ago at this time we were still waiting to turn our clocks back and hoping John McCain and Sarah Palin wouldn't prevent Barack Obama from moving the nation forward, a new era has dawned on America. And on that entirely too poignant note, here's the top five things we learned this week, presidentially speaking:
5. There's a reason Sarah Palin wasn't running beside the election's black candidate. If she didn't realize Africa was a continent, lord only knows what her perception of Israel's geographical determination is.
4. Michelle Obama's dress may have resembled the exterior of a black widow spider on Election Night, but it's abundantly clear she's going to resurrect the notion of an empowered and individualistic First Lady.
3. The major news networks have officially faded themselves into a desperate irrelevance, as exemplified by hologram/digital-studio-nonsense that, oddly enough, mirrored the distracting gimmickry McCain tried to deploy (i.e. his VP nominee) during his transparently inferior campaign.
Rarely have the circumstances around Halloween and Election Day's convergence been so scary. But of course, one of the things we learned this week was that political bias is for grownups, and little kids occasionally need to remind us that we can vote however we like.
So with that, and heading into one of the tensest pre-Presidential-determining few days in American history, here's a largely lighthearted look at the top five things we learned this week from pop-culture land. See ya on Monday, and y'all come back now for a week of super-packed political coverage, ya hear?
5. If the media were half as vigilant on behalf of ordinary criminal tragedies as they were fumbling for tactful ways into covering the Jennifer Hudson nightmare, we might actually be able to spread out our police forces more effectively.
Oy vey, what a week. Color me pooped, verklempt and all out plotzed. Between the election still burning up to its final campaigning days, Axl Rose finally rising from the studio dead, the economy still being in the shitter and more VH1 reality spinoffs clogging up airwaves like diarrhea in a bidet, did somebody say thank god it's Shabbat?
No? Hm, yeah, I should have realized from our demographics research that NCDSUV somehow inspires a devoutly Protestant following.
Anyway, here are the top five things we learned this week, and hopefully you'll find them equally educating. Because if not, we can't refund your Web hits.
Wow, talk about a whirlwind five days. You know it's a nutty week when David Duchovny and Tea Leoni's inevitable split finally makes the front pages, but not NCDSUV's Top 5 Things We Learned This Week.
But not to worry. All that means is we had plenty of revelations from the likes of other megastar couples, multi-billion-dollar fast-food chains and, of course, our neverendingly illuminating presidential candidates. So enjoy, and hopefully you've learned as much as we have this week. And ideally lessons of greater societal import.
What a week, what a week. I'm personally all verklempt. Between the election race warming up, the economy cooling and down, and celebrities still indulgently frolicking around, it's been tough for NCDSUV to keep its panties unbunched. Or maybe that's just the fabric softener we've been using.
Well, in any case, from fetishizing the Obamas to taking a piss on your favorite movies and DirecTV scaring us with their tasteless Poltergeist ad, here's the top five things we learned this week.
It's been a wild week, both here in the NCDSUV chambers and in the jungle of pop culture. I think I speak for all of us when I say that, were it not for the last five days' admissions of homosexuality, a previously admitted homosexual's concession to crack-attacks, Emmy winners' self-righteous Republican-bashing and other momentarily news-making moments I'd be... well, I'd probably more or less be fine and move on with my weekend.
But anyhow, here's the top 5 things we learned this week:
