The PEN15 Club just got back from seeing V for Vendetta, and we heartily endorse it. Any movie that can use church-related pederasty as the basis for a comic action set piece is okay by us. We’re glad it’s winning rave reviews and topping the box office, but we can’t help but wonder - is it going to scare the Rethuglicans?
Here’s a film that features a building-bombing terrorist as a hero, makes fun of Bush-friendly opiate-of-the-masses buzzwords like “freedom” and “unity,” rails against the military/industrial/government/media/church complex, and envisions a not-too-distant-future in which gays and Muslims are interned in prison camps.
The Bush administration is way too out-of-touch to be concerned about such a film connecting with the kiddies, but if it weren’t, what kind of propaganda films might it make in order to lessen the sting? Let’s brainstorm, shall we?
- W for War President: A manly Chief Executive (Tom Selleck) takes the War on Terror into his own hands, donning a mask and going all vigilante on the terrorists’ asses.
- I for Internets: A masked, booksmart librarian (Patricia Heaton) uses her research smarts to foil terrorist plots using the world wide interweb.
- B for Born-Again: A wealthy Jewish oil magnate (Ron Silver) nearly kills himself while driving drunk, then dries out and finds Jesus. All while wearing a mask.
- O for Ownership Society: A masked Stuckey’s waitress (Jessica Simpson) buys her first home. A doublewide.
- IBMIBAMAAW for I Believe Marriage is Between a Man and a Woman: A right-thinking Christian mom (um, Patricia Heaton again) dons a mask and prowls the streets of Massachusetts breaking up gay marriages.
I wouldn’t wish near-death on anyone, not even the P15 arch nemesis Star Jones Reynolds. But I have to admit that I’ve found myself fantasizing about Star going under the knife and something terrible (but not life threatening) happening.
And it seems as someone down in hell was listening - and has some pretty powerful buddies here on Earth.
The National Enquirer is reporting that SJR went in for surgery four days ago to get her boobs fixed once and for all . (Now, as of recent, Star’s rack has been the source of much confusion. Take this for example. And then this. And finally, this.) But whatever it takes to fix a randomly inflating and deflating right breast apparently almost cost Star her life. That’s right: things weren’t all silicon and ether on the ol’ operating table, and soon Star’s bosom was hemorrhaging blood.
But the best part of the whole story isn’t the part about Star having “secret” surgery. It’s the part where her remarkably poon-loving husband Al couldn’t be by her side because he (re-read this if necessary) “was also in the hospital after he cut his head when he fell at his Manhattan gym on the same day,” which apparently kept him in the hospital overnight.
WHAT? If we’re expected to believe any of the story, do you really think we’re supposed to believe that Al didn’t actually cut his head after slipping on the gym sauna floor while playing a rollicking game of slap ‘n’ tickle with a fellow gymgoer?
Star, dear, we wish you a swift recovery – particularly because we can’t wait to see how the SJR spin machine explains this on The View next week. Hey, maybe Joy will yell out, “Yeah, and what about that time you lost half your blood through a gushing tit wound?”
Star Jones Cheats Death as she Undergoes Plastic Surgery [Enquirer]
A “View” first: Someone other than Star and Hasselbeck humiliates herself and a guest [PEN15]
Crazy old Faye Dunaway - last seen hosting an unsuccessful WB reality series - wants no! More! Questions about Mommie Dearest! Ever!!!!!
At least according to this God-knows-how-old voice message in which she lambastes an interviewer for writing about the two most embarrassing Dunaway subjects: 1) the notoriously bad Joan Crawford biopic, and 2) her dismissal from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard musical.
Well, I guess those are only the two most humiliating if you don’t count Supergirl, all the marriages, the plastic surgery, The Starlet and Dunston Checks In (in which a rambunctious chimp pushes La Dunaway into a giant cake).
Thrill to the spectacle of the one-time Oscar winner bragging about how she co-starred with Johnny Depp in the barely released Arizona Dream! Gasp as she slanders her ex-husband Terry O’Neill! Ponder exactly what kind of cut-rate junior college journalism student would actually have to submit his Faye Dunaway profile to Faye Dunaway for approval before airing!
Don’t fuck with me, fellas [World of Wonder, via A Socialite’s Life]
There are so many things wrong with this photograph of Tom Cruise forcing his daughter to hug him, I don’t even know where to begin.
But I’ll begin here: How is it that she’s taller than him and he hasn’t yet had her killed?
And I’ll continue with…
- What is an Asian man doing at a soccer match? Is that another one of Tom’s children?
- What is in the paper bag that Isabella is holding? A Brownshweiger and mayo sandwich? A urine sample she is handing over for caffeine testing? Her soon-to-be stepmom’s baby shower gift of a birthin’ muzzle and a Williams-Sonoma gift certificate?
- Are we sure he’s kissing her? Because it sure seems as if he’s sucking something something off her head – perhaps that anti-depressant shampoo she’s been sneakily using?
- Who wants to place bets on who loves whom less?
The Awkward Hug [D-Listed]
That dude who takes clips from certain movies and cuts them into trailers for movies of a totally different genre has struck again. This time, he’s changed The Fast and the Furious from a regular old action movie into a man-on-man action movie called The Fast and the Curious.
Paul Walker and Vin Diesel: So tan, so muscled, so body hair-free. You know that homo-romance is what director Rob Cohen initially envisioned before studio pressure forced him to cut it into some stupid yarn about car thieves. Also left on the cutting room floor: a subplot in which Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez adopt some cats and open a fair-trade coffee house together.
The Fast and the Curious [You Tube]
Our beloved tight-rolled-pant-and-baggy-t-shirt-wearing activist, Cindy Sheehan, is a gal about town these days. She’s trading in her burning fires of fury for a set of burning set lights as she begins filming her own weekly reality series on the Sundance Channel.
In addition to that, Cindy is publishing a novel next month,….
… attending opening night of the one-woman play inspired by her story,….
… and assisting with the production of the Cindy Sheehan biopic staring (not shitting you) Susan Sarandon.
And finally, Cindy descends into the throngs of people who have personally benefitted off of the death of a loved one, including Lisa Beamer, and the parents of Terry Shaivo. Also known as the lamest cocktail party in hell.
And if you still can’t get enough of Cindy, check out these other things coming very soon:
- The Cindy Sheehan Ringtone: Download the nasal sounds of the Outrage Tour 2005 played against a ballad by Matchbox 20
- The Cindy Sheehan Podcast: Actually just shopping advice directly from Cindy, and instructions on how to make your very own “I’ve got a bad cat-titude” night shirt and wader jeans
- The Cindy Sheehan Cookbook: Various dishes involving loads of cheddar cheese, two kinds of starches, and the tears of a patriot
- The Cindy Sheehan Doll: With exchangeable hair-don’ts and various expressions of self pity
Cindy, all our best. We love you because you’ve got moxy and will go on national television without wearing anything like a bra. I’d like to see Lisa Beamer do that.
The Defiant War [SF Gate]
via Best Week Ever Blog
Leave it to straight people.
Tom Nissen, currently serving a life sentence for the murder of transgendered Nebraskan Brandon Teena and two others, is engaged! 32-year-old Justine Mirth of Chicago has never met Nissen, but based on a long series of letters and phone calls, she says she wants to spend the rest of her life with him.
For readers’ clarification: Nissen wasn’t even the murderer played by smoking-hot Peter Sarsgaard, at left. That’s John Lotter, who’s on death row. Nissen was played by scrawny Brendan Sexton III, at right. In real life, I’m sure Lotter and Nissen are both busted as sin, especially after years in the slam.
Look, we all identified with that chick who married Erik Menendez while he was in prison. Erik’s only crime was murdering his rich, sleazy parents. And he was deeply, deeply fine.
But this is just unsavory. We hope that when Justine greets Tom in that conjugal trailer for the first time, he discovers that she’s fat.
Woman to wed ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ inmate [AP via Yahoo!]
Tammi & Erik Menendez: The Wedding Day [Entertainment Tonight]
The movie version of Dallas, with John Travolta as J.R. Ewing, J. Lo as Sue Ellen, Luke Wilson as Bobby and Shirley MacLaine as Miss Ellie, directed by Robert Win a Date with Tad Hamilton Luketic? Or the movie version of Welcome Back, Kotter starring - wait for it - Ice Cube?
So we have - an adaptation of a nighttime soap no one remembers, starring washed-up ex-stars whom everyone thinks are pathetic. Or an adaptation of a sitcom so old that it launched the career of one such washed-up ex-star, starring a guy who sold out from “Fuck Tha Police” to Are We There Yet?
Elsewhere, at ShoWest, movie executives attempted to explain to exhibitors why box office receipts dropped last year.
Fuck it. If Shia LaBeouf plays Horshack, I’m totally there.
From Texas to Hollywood: Dallas returns [The Guardian]
Welcome, black Kotter [Defamer]
If you thought Sienna Miller’s Old French Whore topless shot (NSFW) in Vanity Fair was icky, wait till you see this “I was young, I needed the money” nude frolic video from 2003.
Filmed during Sienna’s Pirelli calendar photo shoot, the short vid shows Ms. Miller getting awfully friendly with, um, co-model Lisa Sieffert on a tabletop in a bar. And check out the suggestive ice cream cone-eating in the opening shot!
The video isn’t narrated, but if it were, it would probably be a lot of: “I’m here with my best friend Lisa, and there’s something so…sexy about being in Italy, you know? Something that makes you want to set aside your…inhibitions. Oh my God! My boob just fell out of my dress! Hahahahahaha!”
Sienna Miller nude Pirelli video [Egotastic!]
How annoying is Matthew McConaughey? So annoying that cranky, tells-it-like-it-is movie columnist Jeff Wells labels him “a kind of anti-Christ” (see second item at link).
We also think McConaughey - whose new film Failure to Launch opened big last weekend, perhaps because it gives homely girls another chance to project themselves onto Sarah Jessica Parker - is talentless, useless and prone to making horrendous career choices. We don’t even think he’s that cute anymore. All we can think about is how all those shirtless scenes must be painstakingly written into all of his contracts.
Plus we really wish people hadn’t forgotten about that whole nude, bongo-playing pot bust thing, and how Matt was hanging out, nude, with another guy, frequently rumored to be Cole Hauser. Plus he’s dating Penelope Cruz, who just can’t get enough of dating straight men.
King of the Empties [Hollywood Elsewhere]
Affidavit for warrant of arrest and detention [The Smoking Gun]
