Archive for July, 2005

Weekend Movie Preview: The Studios’ Rejects

Published by Rob on July 21, 2005 in Films. 3 Comments

The dog days of August arrive early this year as four not-ready-for-blockbuster-status releases come wheezing out of the gate. The lineup includes a Rob Zombie movie, a Sundance-bred wannabe sleeper, yet another remake (directed by Richard Linklater, no less) and the first Michael Bay movie to not have megasuccess be a foregone conclusion. It could, however, be worse - Catwoman opened on this weekend last year.

Bad News Bears: Uh, I guess Rick Linklater just likes to keep busy. With Tape, (the, face it, unwatchable) Waking Life, School of Rock and Before Sunset logjamming theaters over the past 3 1/2 years, the dean of Austin filmmaking cool is betraying his roots as a Slacker. He’s also thoroughly mortgaging his indie cred with this remake of the old Walter Matthau movie in which, y’know, kids get to swear and stuff. The film appears to follow the same formula as School of Rock, except instead of Jack Black we have Billy Bob Thornton, apparently hitting many of the same notes he did in Bad Santa (the two films share screenwriters). So what, pray tell, is the point of this again? Maybe it’s to give co-stars Greg Kinnear and Marcia Gay Harden a chance to stretch as, respectively, a slick jerk and a no-nonsense shrew. Oh, wait…

The Devil’s Rejects: Yep, it’s the long-awaited prequel to Rob Zombie’s 2003 directorial debut, House of 1,000 Corpses. Yes, Zombie’s wife, the irresistibly named Sherie Moon Zombie, plays a prominent role. No, sadly, Corpses star (and ’70s whack-job goddess/emergency plane lander) Karen Black does not return. Also sadly, of everything coming out this weekend, this is highest on my want-to-see list.

Hustle & Flow: The sensation that thrilled Sundance audiences! (-1 point) Starring the riveting Terrence Howard as a pimp! (+2 points) Who undergoes an 8 Mile-style rise to rap stardom! (-1) Co-starring baby-faced fugstress (and self-proclaimed rocker) Taryn Manning! (-1000)

The Island: An interesting phenomenon is happening with Michael Bay’s latest movie, a flash-wham-bang action pic about, like, clones or something. Media outlets keep reporting its surprisingly low pre-release audience tracking numbers - specious bits of data that are notoriously inaccurate. This may be the first big-budget film to be declared a financial disappointment before its release. I don’t know how I feel about Scarlett Johansson being done up all blonde and buxom (I prefer her bookish and irritated, as in Ghost World and Lost in Translation), but I’d probably pay $9 to watch Ewan McGregor scrub his toilet. On his hands and knees.

$cientology beard…er, in-demand character actress Kelly Preston defends La Cruise

Published by Rob on July 20, 2005 in Celebs and Gunts. 0 Comments

Kelly2Jack Frost megastar Kelly Preston has leaped to the defense of notorious pussyhound Tom Cruise, according to a hilariously mis-headlined Entertainment Tonight story picked up by Yahoo! News.

Although ET would have you believe that all of Tinseltown is rallying against the big bad media’s libelous indictment of Cruise’s abuse of Matt Lauer and throwdown with Brooke Shields (oh, and that time he said the Nazis invented Ritalin), aside from Preston, the only other quote comes courtesy of erstwhile JAG (remember JAG?) uniform-filler Catherine Bell: “I think he’s cool for standing up!”

Yes, Tom Cruise…always standing up; on tiptoes, in fact, if he ever wants to kiss one of his wives (emphasis on the “if”). But good for Kelly, who convincingly simulated sex with Tom in Jerry Maguire and has done a less convincing job simulating marriage to John Travolta for the last 14 years. She’s really sticking her neck out. This is a woman who could easily rest on the sterling reputation she’s earned for such gems as Holy Man, What a Girl Wants, Daddy and Them, The Cat in the Hat, View from the Top, For Love of the Game, Nothing to Lose, The Experts, Run, Spacecamp and Amazon Women on the Moon. But no - she has put her good name on the line by standing up for a cruelly maligned religion that certainly isn’t blackmailing her husband and hasn’t helped her career at all.

I mean, plenty of anonymous-looking, marginally talented blondes can carve out 20-year film careers despite starring in flop after flop. Kelly wants you to know that she has the thetans to go to the mat for her faith, and she wants you to see Sky High, a live action Incredibles ripoff in which she dons a skintight supersuit and plays The Mom, in theaters July 29.

Stars Defend Tom Cruise [ET]

Praying for a Gay Sex Scandal…

Published by Jordan on July 19, 2005 in News, Politics and Rants. 3 Comments

… And by the looks of it, it may not be out of the question.

Ladies, hide your vaginas. Paco, hide your expired visa. Poverty-stricken sIngle mothers of the country, hide your welfare vouchers. Kevin Spacey, hide your picnic basket and hiking boots. Because if you don’t, they’ll likely be taken from you.

We here at the PEN15 generally have a pretty good track record for guessing SCOTUS nominees (yeah, we were all over Sandy D.O.), so imagine our surprise when we dropped onto CNN.com and saw someone who only somewhat resembles someone named Edith. In fact, due to a particularly intense Sox game (and when we say “particularly intense,” we mean, “pitched by Bronson Arroyo and therefore unmissable”) we had nearly forgotten about the pending announcement. It wasn’t until we heard Arianna Huffington’s scream from 3,000 miles away that we decided to check in. How dare Bush cast such an ugly cloud over Arianna’s dinner of steamed baby carrots and side of biodiesel?

Anyway, we needn’t discuss our disappointment ad nauseam - we will all have heard enough of how awful this is as soon as Barbara Boxer finds a microphone, some collagen, and a heavily-filtered news camera. But to put this in perspective, if John G. Roberts is confirmed (which is all but certain) we will likely be in our late fifties by the time he kicks off, thereby forcing his retirement. I mean, by that time, Rob and I will probably be comforting each other in the late stages of Gay Bowel Syndrome. And with all of that santorum everywhere, who’ll have time to lament over the lost freedoms of the pervious 30 years?

If I had two wishes, I would first wish for a heated and noble fight to keep this tool out of a robe. If I had one wish, though, it would be for the country to not forget about Karl Rove. You remember, right? He’s the evil “Architect” most recently known for committing a felony and then lying about it? Doesn’t ring a bell? Perhaps that’s because since Johnny was nominated an hour ago, CNN.com has somehow found the time to change its front-page photo of Roberts four times - each displaying more red, white and blue than the last - and also found the time to completely do away with any mention of the Rove scandal. Well, the article about the Rare white alligator in legal limbo just had to go somewhere, right?

Sandra Day, save us. Even if that means using your liberal lady powers to prevent Rehnquist from catching some death-triggering illness.

Bush nominates Roberts to Supreme Court [CNN]

Savage Love [Wikipedia]

Homosexuality and medical science [Wikipedia]

Hey Dems: It would be really, really easy to NOT FUCK THIS UP

Published by Jordan on July 19, 2005 in News and Politics. 0 Comments

Here’s what I want. I want Barbara Boxer, Ted Kennedy, and Howard Fucking Dean drugged, tied up, and locked in a room until Karl Rove and Scooter Libby are fired. Indeed, there cannot possibly be a group of people on the planet more apt to fuck up a gimme by spazing the fuck out. Please, for the love of everything that’s good, leave the talking to Hillary.

We don’t like to get all political here at Pen15, but it seems to us that Hillary knows how to legitimately offend Republicans. It may because they know the only thing that will get Hillary to surrender mercifully is a tool they don’t have: 12″ of strap-on rubber. Or it may because she’s always dead right without seeming like a whiny blowhole like the morons we’ve sedated (see above).

For the love of God, let these men hang themselves. Tonight, Bush will go on the air to try to convince the world that true patriots would forget about Rove and Libby and instead rally behind our newest member of the Supreme Court, which is sure to be one of the two women who happen to both be named Edith, and happen to both be judges in New Orleans. But tomorrow, while the women let their uterus guards down, Rove will have to face the music himself.

We, of course, are planning on holing up in the Clubhouse, taking bets on which Edith will win out. My money is on whichever one will demand that the Colin Farrell sex tape be released in a timely manner. That may be enough to get me to forgive and forget about Rove.

Republicans blast Sen. Clinton on Bush attack [CNN.com]

Colin Farrell Sex Tape Suit [E! Online]

Reasons why I don’t feel sorry for Sienna Miller

Published by Rob on July 18, 2005 in Bitches and Celebs. 0 Comments

1. Those tits.
2. Her ear-splitting turn as a Paris Hilton-esque hellcat in that God-awful, FHM spread of a vanity vehicle, Alfie.
3. The fact that she gets to roll around with a shirtless Daniel Craig in Layer Cake.
4. Her “I just mugged Mary-Kate Olsen” wardrobe.
5. Sadie. Fucking. Frost.

Reason I do feel sorry for Sienna Miller:

She lost the role of Warhol It Girl Edie Sedgwick in the upcoming biopic Factory Girl when director George Hickenlooper decided to go with Katie Holmes instead. Then Miss Holmes’ domineering, feverishly heterosexual brute of a fiance allegedly made her drop out ’cause of the movie’s drug and psychiatric content.

Jude Law: “Masterful Lover”

Published by Jordan on July 18, 2005 in Celebs and News. 1 Comment

In what is perhaps the most amazing news article ever written, The Sunday Mirror describes in exquisite detail the one night affair betwixt the delicious Jude Law and his children’s nanny, Daisy Wright. (Warning, if you are a young, gay male, the Mirror article may not be “work safe,” especially if you must leave your desk within 10 minutes of reading it.)

The best part of the article is that it mostly consists of actual excerpts from Daisy’s sophomoric dairy, which give a play-by-play of the events leading up to the encounter, and the deed itself. These excerpts, interestingly, sound astonishingly similar to those in my own diary which recall my (hypothesized and simulated) sexual encounter with Jude Law, right down to the detail of sharing pizza and wine with Robert Plant. I wouldn’t snog Jude any other way.

We here at The Club believe that the moral of the story is that even if you are some ho-dunk nanny with fucked up teeth and a tragic overbite (we can only imagine), you, too, have a shot at having sloppy post-night-sex-morning-sex with God himself. And, apparently, if you get him drunk enough, he may even forget about the rubber, opening the door for all sorts of prenatal-related blackmail games. I mean, the cad did cheat on confirmed hotty Sienna Miller with an undoubtedly dog-faced, Cockney kid-wrangler. This should not come without consequence.

That is, of course, only if our initial hunch is disproved: that “Daisy Wright” is just a clever pseudonym for “Vin Diesel.” I mean, let’s face it, a name like Daisy Wright sounds as made up as name like, say, Alice Ayers. And if there ever were a man more obviously into anal than Jude, my colleague Rob would like to meet him.

[Sunday Mirror]

Addendum: Having met Robert Plant in person at a former job, I am now officially one degree away from Jude. Which in gay-degrees is practically the same thing as second base.

TV Academy administers analingus to Blythe Danner’s tight, WASPy buttocks

Published by Rob on July 16, 2005 in Celebs and Gunts. 5 Comments

006 Blythedanner MeetthefockersprThis year’s Primetime Emmy nominations were announced Thursday, and as usual, the Pen15 Club took great interest in their cockeyed wisdom. Despite having limited its regular TV viewing this season to Arrested Development, Desperate Housewives (the gays love heterosexual actress Marcia Cross!) and any reality show that involved Faye Dunaway or fashion (the gays love to hate Wendy Pepper!), the Pen15 is endlessly fascinated by voters’ fatwa-like conviction that The West Wing is still watchable.

Gin-soaked Blythe Danner scored nominations for not one, not two, but three lily-white dowager roles: Supporting Actress in a Drama Series as Hank Azaria’s emotionally distant mother on Showtime’s Huff, Guest Actress in a Comedy as Will’s emotionally distant mother on Will & Grace, and Lead Actress in a TV Movie for something called Back When We Were Grownups.

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