Here’s the one-sheet for Superman Returns, in all its balletic, cock-worshipping glory. Columnist David Poland rightly asks, “did they really find the only image that could drive teenage boys away?” Seriously, it looks like Big S is gearing up to masturbate the engorged state of Florida.
Maybe Warner Bros.’ advance research is finding that the only market remotely interested in this retread are the elderly gays attracted by the Show Queen Bus and Truck Company of Spacey and Langella, twinky Sam Huntington and Kal Penn, hag extraordinaire Parker Posey, and tights-strainer Brandon “Rhymes with Mouth” Routh, all under the meth-crazed directorial eye of The Man Who Found Hugh Jackman, Bryan Singer.
While I applaud the studio’s embrace of niche marketing - after all, this summer is currently running 0 for 2 as far as mass-appeal blockbusters go, with the instantly reviled DaVinci Code ready to pile onto the wreckage - they should be prepared to cede much of their June 30 opening box office to The Devil Wears Prada. Meryl’s take on Anna Wintour will be a must-see attraction, while everyone knows that, thanks to piracy, all the good Superman bulge shots will be on Famousmales by July 1.
Must be a full moon [The Hot Blog]
Summer movie gay dilemma: ‘Superman’ or ‘Prada?’ [Defamer]
Snooty Scottsdale, AZ residents are upset over plans to open a restaurant called the Pink Taco in their town. “Nearly half a dozen” (gasp! that makes five!) Scottsdale-ites have complained to the city government about the restaurant name’s resemblance to a “derogatory slang term for a portion of the female anatomy.”
Residents were also upset about the Tex-Mex chain’s plans to expand its menu to include such traditional American items as clam strips, hot buttered muffins, and the lettuce, tomato and vertical bacon sandwich.
“Those items are fairly standard,” said a member of Scottsdale City Council, “but we draw the line at the bar’s insistence on serving Tang.”
(Thanks to the reader who sent this into tips@pen15club.net.)
Pink taco restaurant name causes stir [Boston.com]
Why do they send all the eligible gay millionaires to prison?
Richard Hatch, the perpetually nude victor from the first season of Survivor, has been sentenced to more than four years in the slam for tax evasion. With the announcement, a thousand convicts-turned-bear-lovers began salivating in anticipation.
Aside from the whole tax thing, Hatch’s other crimes include giving inbred CBS-watching yokels a new reason to hate gays, and not murdering the insufferable Amber Brkich on Survivor All-Stars when he had the chance.
Hatch’s sentence may seem harsh, but his vicious backstabbing and blithe nudity during his stint on the island suggest that he was treating the whole thing more like an episode of Oz, and will feel relatively at home in the big house. If it were a women’s penitentiary, I would fear for his life, as he would surely be subjected to nonstop prison beatings by ravenous Susan Hawk fans.
‘Survivor’ Hatch sentenced [E! Online]
It sure is nice of Naomi Watts to become the latest UN-ebrity to go around raising awareness, in this case for AIDS. She’s giving presentations with charts and graphs, explaining how a trip to AIDS-ravaged Zambia changed her life, and doing interviews with CNN. And her next movie doesn’t even come out till Oscar season.
So far, Naomi’s advocacy is respectful, academic and dignified. But I don’t think that’s going to do enough to raise AIDS awareness. She needs to actually move to Africa, like Angelina Jolie, adopt some infected orphans, and have loud, animalistic sex in her jungle outpost with her famous lover.
Unfortunately, Naomi’s famous lover is Liev Schreiber, who doesn’t seem like the type of guy to have loud, animalistic anything, so this may not work. But the least she could do is star in a series of public service announcements that tie into her various movies. “First you join the unprotected bareback sex ring, and then you die,” maybe, “or AIDS is the real 50-foot gorilla terrorizing this country.”
Thanks, Naomi! Your adorable overbite and aptitude for wrenching onscreen breakdowns have made me slightly more aware of AIDS today.
Film star Naomi Watts joins UN AIDS fight [Voice of America]
I’m not one of those people that likes to make small talk about the weather. Or succumb to the obligatory complaining you’re supposed to do whenever it’s been raining for more than 10 minutes. But c’mon, folks. I haven’t been wet this long since that summer I discovered how quickly the water slides at Six Flags shred board shorts. No, what I meant was, I haven’t seen this much water since Carnie Wilson’s baptism. But seriously, everyone start saving any email you happen to get from FEMA. It’ll be used against them when Boston slides into the Atlantic come Tuesday.
Weather for Jamaica Plain, MA [Weather.com]
Our first live broadcast of the PEN15 Club Podcast. Remember to check in Sunday evenings to catch a live stream of Rob and Jordan recording the podcast.
In this episode, Rob and Jordan discuss
- More Lip Gloss and Prada Queens from Dallas (here)
- Lindsay Hohan and Just Her Luck
- Mac Daddy Justin Long
- JIM!!!!!!!!!!
- A salute to “Will and Grace”
- Song: “Building a Rocket Ship” by The Artificial Hearts
- Charlize’s broken promise
- Condisruption
- Oprah and The View - dropping names
- If peanuts will kill these people, bring ‘em on
- Song: “Fantastic” by All About Eve Babitz
Thanks for listenin’.
Poseidon isn’t the only ship capsizing in theaters this weekend. Start counting the lifeboats on the S.S. Lohan, ’cause Just My Luck made less money on Friday than the three-week-old Robin Williams movie RV. As for the reviews, nobody will be able to top Planet Sick-Boy’s Jon Popick, who writes:
Just My Luck…features Li.Lo doing what Li.Lo does best: Pretending to be one kind of person (lucky/unpopular/a teenager/one twin/not a race car driver) and then pretending to be the exact opposite (unlucky/popular/a mom/the other twin/a race car driver)…What can you say about someone who looks like they’ve aged ten years in the two since Mean Girls, with hair fried from constant coloring, and that Tara Reid voice that comes from a steady diet of screaming, alcohol, cock, coke and her own stomach acid?
Lindsay has flushed away the critical goodwill she had at the start of her career, and now her tween girl bread-and-butter has abandoned her too. Am I the only one who thought Just My Luck looked suspiciously like Maid to Order, the riches-to-rags vehicle that sent Ally Sheedy into obscurity?
And that poster! Is that a wink, or is it what her face looks like after three bottles of champagne and a couple of Seconal? Whichever, it’s an image that would drive any sane person into another theater, even if it’s to see RV. Which is apparently what happened.
Daily Box Office [Box Office Mojo]
Just My Luck [Planet Sick-Boy]
Hear that? It’s the sound of 9 million pairs of panties getting ruined simultaneously during the final moments of tonight’s season finale of The Office.
‘Cause, like, Jim finally told Pam that he’s in love with her, but she’s, you know, engaged (to that ogre Roy, who’s a total fatty), so she tells him they can’t be more than friends. But then, a scene later, you see her on the phone with her mom, and she sounds like she’s wavering, and then Jim’s standing there, and, like, fuck it, he kisses her anyway, and she totally goes for it.
That’s it. I’m spending the summer in the bushes outside of John Krasinski’s house. He’s amazing - tall and floppy-haired and slightly bulbous-nosed, with eyes that could make a litter of puppy dogs anorexic with jealousy.
If Ronald Reagan were still alive, I’d shoot him just to get John’s attention.
UPDATE: Catch the clip while it’s on YouTube, and note how Pam pushes Jim away a little after a good ten seconds of full-throated tonsil hockey. What a cliffhanger! She’d be a fool not to get with him. As some bitch on DataLounge put it, “I’d pretty much crawl over broken glass to drink his piss.”
We don’t plan on seeing Poseidon this weekend - and based on tracking, we’re not alone - but we’re fascinated by Richard Dreyfuss’ character. It’s a disaster movie! And he’s gay!
Dreyfuss’s Self-Loathing Millionaire Homo is apparently the replacement for the iconic Fat Wealthy Dowager, Mrs. Rosen, that Shelley Winters played so indelibly in the original.
But no matter the CGI improvements, any Poseidon Adventure that doesn’t feature Gene Hackman attempting to rescue Winters’ tank ass is hardly worth the $175 million. But we’d almost put aside our hatred of simpering Emmy Rossum and that walking labium known as Fergie to see Dreyfuss’ portrayal of a lonely, suicidal, earring-wearing queen. Is it as offensive as we have a feeling it is? Slant’s ever-vigilant Ed Gonzalez - describing the movie’s condescending approach to its minority characters as “survival of the whitest” - says “Yes!”
There’s got to be a morning after, indeed. And Dreyfuss will meet you for mimosas after his pedicure.
Warner’s Poseidon drowned by tracking [Deadline Hollywood]
Poseidon [Slant]
I have nothing funny to say about this, but a friend sent me this great animated French AIDS awareness campaign piece today. It features “Sugar Baby Love” by the Rubettes, which is swiftly becoming the new soundtrack to our gay lives (see Breakfast on Pluto).
It does a good job of animating bossy tops, convertible trolls, whorish surfer twinks, and male nurses, but it seemed to leave out the parts where we start buying man capris and getting part time jobs at Express Men. Oh yeah, and apparently in France, losing your gay virginity is more akin to riding some phallic roller coaster than it is to ordering a medium regular coffee at the world’s fastest Dunkin’ Donuts, like it was for me.
Wait, what?
