I’m not going to bother with spoiler alerts in this post. My guess is that roughly 30% of the people who want to see this movie went yesterday, in Stoli Raz-soaked groups of 10 or more.

Curious but wanting to avoid the throngs, I skulked into a 9:30 a.m. show this morning by myself, unshaven and clutching a 24 oz. coffee. In a 400-seat cinema, 15 were filled, and I was the only dude. With moderately fond memories of all but the show’s final season - when the focus shifted from serial dating and promiscuity to monogamy and garden-variety bridal/motherhood porn - I braced myself for the worst.

A couple of thoughts before we get to the gay stuff: Did all the characters get 30% dumber during the transition from small to big screen? Why is demure Charlotte squealing in every scene that she’s in, and why is she onscreen so much less than the other characters? Does anybody actually think that the Carrie/Big romance is one for the ages, and should represent the main thrust of the movie, even after we thought we put that puppy to bed eight times already?

If the movie is called Sex and the City, why is everything about monogamy, marriage and children (you don’t even see Kim Cattrall’s nipples, for God’s sake)? Why have all the men been castrated and lobotomized (like Harry and Big), or altered to fit the machinations of what passes for a plot (like Steve)? I realize the show was celebrated for its trendsetting approach to style, but does the movie have to flash 10 designer logos at us per shot, and stop dead in its tracks for a wardrobe-change montage every reel, thus bloating the running time to 145 minutes? Fashion brand obsession is one thing, but does it have to extend to bang-you-over-the-head-with-a-tire-iron plugs for Smart Water, Starbucks and Apple?

Does Miranda actually blame herself for causing Big’s cold feet - and when it becomes clear that Carrie does blame her, why does Miranda put up with Carrie’s bullshit (this, in fact, may be the central question of the entire series)? Did anybody, at any point, think that casting Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson as Carrie’s wide-eyed slave girl…I mean, assistant…whom she actually deems a “saint” may not be the most up-to-the-minute means of diversifying the cast?

And while we’re at it, what’s with the Andre Leon Talley cameo? And the “Charlotte shits her pants in Mexico” joke? And the “Sorry we made you wait till the 2-hour mark for male nudity but oh my God don’t look we’re showing you a penis!” scene featuring Samantha’s hot neighbor (fuck it, I’ll take Jason Segel any day)? Why does no one laugh at Carrie’s hideous Vivienne Westwood bridal abortion with the dead bird on top, until an hour later, they do? Why does Parker, so crafty and offbeat in movies like Miami Rhapsody, steamroll through this like Evita Peron’s preserved corpse? Why does no one laugh anywhere, least of all in the audience, in this jokeless comedy?

I take umbrage with the accepted wisdom that Sex and the City is a cult item among gays. Golden Girls (a show that is arguably less dated in 2008 than SATC)? Sure. Designing Women? Yup. But Sex: The Movie takes a weirdly retrograde approach to homosexuality.

Not far into the film, the old gals are strutting down a Manhattan sidewalk in their ridiculous outfits when Samantha starts checking out a guy, only to watch as he says hello to another dude and - DRAT! - kisses him! (It’s not your self-absorption that’s the problem, mall-dwelling flip flop-wearers in the audiences, the problem is that all the hot guys are gay!)

The only two gay guys that Carrie and company apparently know, dweeby Stanford and shrill wedding planner Anthony, eventually make walk-on appearances, and a split-second scene at a New Year’s Eve party implies that they have become a couple. Why? An episode in which Charlotte tried to set them up with each other established that they have nothing in common. It’s supposed to be five years later, and the lonely queens are finally settling for each other to go pink tuxedo shirt-shopping with?

The movie is so filled with off notes, misjudgments, inconsistencies, irrelevance and Fergie songs that this post could turn into a novel. I’m disappointed in writer-director Michael Patrick King, the SATC showrunner who later went on to create HBO’s brilliant The Comeback. The smarter characters on that show would have called bullshit on this movie, and the dumb ones would have loved it.

All I’m saying is, since it’s a hit, please don’t blame the gays.

Congratulations. Don’t get me wrong, it was a nice sentiment. And I was touched that he was indeed more excited about the ruling than I was. But isn’t congratulating a 26-year-old, whose longest relationship topped out at six months, akin to congratulating Abigail Breslin on ten years of sobriety? I felt a little bit like someone handed me an inscribed Mitch Albom book as a congratulatory token for graduating high school 2000 years later than the rest of the kids, even though I wasn’t yet enrolled. I sort of felt like an “I’m sorry you missed getting to be married during the ’80s” would have been a bit more appropriate.

I guess there’s something to be said about one state being an anomaly, and two states being a trend, but I can’t help but to feel as though it’s much less real and meaningful coming in second on the biggest thing to happen to gay rights since, well, Guerilla Gay Bar. When gay marriage came to Massachusetts, it gave every gay person in the country a bizarre sensation of anxiety that comes with the option to be “normal.” Most gays spend a great chuck of their lives coming to terms with the fact that they’ll have to live “modified” lives. For so many, the thought of not being able to achieve the ideal of a white picket fence, gray-faced golden retriever, and collection of cable-knit sweaters is what keeps them peering through the closet keyhole for so long. Having that option suddenly set on the table was like being a well-rehearsed understudy called in to play the leading role for the first time.

And now having that in California kind of just means you can do all of that with a tan, right?

I don’t mean to downplay the significance of Thursday’s ruling. It was surely an incredible thing. I guess I’m actually just amazed that it’s starting to feel kind of normal being included in the land of normalcy. My generation is likely the last to know what it’s like the be legislatively marginalized for being gay. It’s intriguing to think of how that will that change us as a community. And more importantly, who will we gays get to repress in order to make ourselves feel better about our own marriages?

From the moment the ruling was read in Boston, I immediately fast-forwarded to the endgame. There was no turning back. Gay marriage was here to stay, and before long, it would be everywhere. Like Shia Labeouf. So now I have to remind myself that until that last state gives in (you know it’s going to be Florida), there’s going to be a lot of significant battles that will need our focus. And to do my part, I’m dusting off my Gay Marriage Fairy wings and movin’ to Idaho. 

I, for one, am shocked. This is Luke’s first public admission that he’s gay? Is it because he’s not famous enough to have been interviewed before?

This is an actor whose small modicum of niche fame is due solely to the tabloid value of his relationships with other gay TV actors T.R. Knight and Wentworth Miller (the difference being that they’re series regulars, while Luke seems to flit from one short term guest-starring gig to another). The man is famous exclusively for being arm candy. He’s like the gay Lauren Holly.

I mean, uh, congratulations Luke, thanks for keeping it real. And good luck with pilot season.

‘Brothers & Sisters’ actor Luke MacFarlane: ‘I’m gay’ [Towleroad]

Although the cash-strapped Weinstein may have pocketed a few ducats out of the deal (you know it’s all gonna be spent on roast beef and whores), this is ultimately a devastating decision – for Bravo, for the series, and especially for the viewer.

Here’s what we think Project Runway might look like in its Lifetime incarnation:

• Designers challenged to create a fashion-forward set of Crocs
• Heidi forced to balance Seal’s baby on her knee while judging runway couture
• Pre-competition shopping trips move from Mood to JoAnn Fabrics
• Heidi’s description of Michael Kors as a “top American designer” robbed of its giggly double entendre-ness
• Nina Garcia replaced on panel by Valerie Bertinelli
• Designers challenged to create a look for Kirstie Alley’s new line of ass-masking, cleavage-enhancing velour eveningwear
• Tim Gunn forced to play helpful faghag to Marissa Jaret Winokur in upcoming telefilm about fat girl’s journey toward self-acceptance
• Catchphrase “You’re either in or you’re out” replaced with “She Cried ‘You’re Out!’ The Heidi Klum Story.”

‘Project Runway’ makes a move [Variety]

But now it’s gone too far. When T.R., who recently turned 35, started rolling up with an unfamous eyebrow-tweezer named Mark Cornelsen, we thought, “Good for him. He’s moving on. Yes, it’s with someone who looks suspiciously like what we think his nephew might look like, but still.” Then we found out that Mark is 19.

And we got a little grossed out because, you know, some 19-year-olds are hot (Michael Cera) but most ostensibly hot 19-year-olds are actually pretty lame (Zac Efron), and even if one of the hot, mature-for-his-age 19-year-olds had a thing for us, we’d say “No thank you,”* because 1) We’re not Jack Nicholson and 2) Ugh. And we’re only 26.

T.R. and Mark were last spotted “house hunting,” according to Just Jared. That could mean T.R. is in the market for new digs and just dragged Mark along. Or it could mean that Mark is taking advantage of the depressed market to become an unusually youthful homeowner.

But we fear it means that they’re moving in together. To which we say, “Beware, T.R.” At least when Martha Raye and Terry McMillan got swindled by young gay golddiggers, we got to laugh at them for their naivete and lack of gaydar. This would just be sad.

*Michael Cera, if you’re reading this, please disregard this entire paragraph.

T.R. Knight: We all have AIDS [JustJared]

John Krasinski give the cutest straight-guy Advocate interview ever. No seriously, ever. [The Advocate]

Another awful, shocking death of someone who made a lasting contribution to what passes for mainstream queer cinema. How excellent a filmmaker was Anthony Minghella? He briefly turned Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas into sex symbols. He basically gave us Jude Law (which, until a couple years ago, was a good thing). And his The Talented Mr. Ripley is the main reason why I secretly think Matt Damon is the best movie actor of his generation. [Variety]

And because TV executives love nothing more than pandering to the insecurities of lonely single ladies, we expect a lot more aspirational dramedies about beautiful, high-powered New York women who just want to have it all, dammit. Like these:

Lycra Spandex County: High-powered women’s magazine editor Octavia McBride (Lucy Lawless) falls down the steps outside her Upper West Side condo and into the arms of sexy furniture mover Hud (Steven Strait). What does this mean for her engagement to a wealthy commitmentphobe venture capitalist (Steven Weber)? Octavia frets over omakase with her best friends, an acerbic advice columnist (Samantha Mathis), an assistant DA (Elisabeth Rohm, or maybe Angie Harmon) and a television pastry chef (whichever one isn’t playing the DA).

Eyeliner Village: Workaholic ad executive Violet Heatherton (Teri Polo) is pulling another all-nighter surrounded by foamcore story boards and takeout Chinese food. But an MSG overdose sends her into the emergency room, where she catches the eye of a sexy gastroenterologist (Bradley Cooper). Can Violet juggle the demands of a career and a relationship, while still managing to spend 20 minutes per episode drinking white wine alone in her rent-controlled Greenwich Village loft? She nevertheless finds the time to self-reflect, loudly, during yoga class with her best pals, a wind-chime designer (Annabella Sciorra), the owner of a wildly successful online fortunetelling service (Debi Mazar) and a country singer (Crystal Bernard).

Pantyliner Paradise: Ambitious TriBeCa art gallery owner Marlena Albright (Anne Heche, assuming Men in Trees is cancelled by then) never met a markup she didn’t like - but she can’t put a price on her own happiness. Everything changes when she starts representing a brilliant, 18-year-old artist (Michael Angarano) who paints exclusively with blood and creme fraiche. Can Marlena put aside her prejudices about dating someone half her age? Find out during her weekly mudbath yak sessions with her lady posse, a brilliant veterinarian (Julie Bowen), a Wiccan talk show host (Fairuza Balk) and a token black lady (Regina King).

Why should you read these? Because I’m not insulting your intelligence by drawing futile comparisons between the nominees and the Presidential candidates (”if Julie Christie is Hillary Clinton, then Ellen Page is Obama!”). You’re welcome.

I’m too lazy to cut and paste the nominees, so for reference, go here.

Best Picture

Will Win: As pundits internet-wide attempt to MacGyver Juno and Michael Clayton upset scenarios into existence, the fact is that No Country for Old Men has swept the guild awards, is the second-highest grossing nominee, is a career-best for a respected filmmaking team, and has a Best Editing nomination. It wins in a walk.

Should Win: There Will Be Blood has the kind of sick genius that usually doesn’t even make the final five, so I’m eager for it to go the distance.

Where the Hell is…: Zodiac

Best Director

Will: Coens won the DGA and will win this.

Should: Anderson, who’s never made a less-than-great movie in five tries.

Where the Hell is…: Todd Haynes, I’m Not There

Best Actor

Will: Day-Lewis. Insert milkshake-drinking pun here.

Should: Day-Lewis, though Jones’ towering work as a military dad whose values are shaken to the core cut through the Paul Haggis treacle of Elah.

Where the Hell is…: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead

Best Actress

Will: Christie will extend the Sexy British Ladies of a Certain Age streak to two years.

Should: Linney, who’s ridiculously overdue, for nailing the kind of role that usually goes to men like Hoffman or Paul Giamatti.

Where the Hell is…: Nicole Kidman, Margot at the Wedding; Molly Shannon, Year of the Dog

Best Supporting Actor

Will: Bardem, like his character, appears unstoppable, although he’s shown a tendency toward loopy acceptance speeches so far this awards season.

Should: Holbrook, for making us cry like a baby during the last 20 minutes or so of Into the Wild.

Where the Hell is…: Robert Downey Jr., Zodiac

Supporting Actress

Will: As usual, the toughest category. I think those “Blanchett scenes only” I’m Not There DVDs the Weinsteins sent out, though blasphemous, will nail it for Cate. I can’t fathom Ruby Dee winning for her five-minute, window-dressing role. Career achievement awards are nice, but Dee’s career has mostly been onstage and on television.

Should: I’m cool with anyone but Dee, but I’m partial to Amy Ryan for immortalizing that dying Boston stereotype, Dorchester-dwelling Irish Catholic white trash.

Where the Hell is…: Leslie Mann, Knocked Up

Original Screenplay

Will: I have a feeling that everyone’s sick of Diablo Cody and the award will go, instead, to Clayton’s Tony Gilroy.

Should: Clayton is the most elegantly scripted piece of Hollywood entertainment in years.

Where the Hell is…: Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, Superbad

Adapted Screenplay

Will: The Coens, unless people get sick of voting for them in every category and throw a bone to Anderson instead.

Should: Polley, for fleshing out a sketch of a novella with total grace.

Where the Hell is…: Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard, Gone Baby Gone. There, I said it.

You’re welcome for the office pool victory. See you on the other side of my Monday morning hangover!

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Patti’s show is the one that Bravo’s been running ads for exhaustively over the last couple of months. In them, Patti, who has a face like a Gene Simmons drag king, wearing a bloodclot-red pantsuit, awkwardly shoots arrows Cupid-style and sprinkles rose petals over nothing.

This is not a bad bit of metonymy for the show, in which Patti scams dumb, rich L.A. sad sacks out of thousands of dollars to set them up with terrible matches, then blames their failure to connect on their own personality flaws.

Patti berates her clients, calling a 28-year-old entrepreneur “cheap” because he lives in a modest Pasadena condo. She scoffs when a client suggests, “Maybe I can wait to find someone who likes me for me.”

Her business is run like a telemarketing sweatshop, where she barks orders at her staff (whom she calls her “daughters”) as they cold call potential clients, then melts down when one asks for a raise. She forces a handsome, 5′9″ millionaire to stand behind a two-way mirror and listen to a couple of bubbleheads balk at the idea of dating such a “short” guy.

As for her own personal life, Patti claims to have had a boyfriend for 3 years. He may have appeared in one of the episodes I haven’t seen, but my guess is he lives next door to Corky St. Clair’s wife Bonnie from Waiting for Guffman.

My favorite thing about The Millionaire Matchmaker is that I have yet to see an episode where one of Patti’s matches leads to even a third date. The basic arc of every episode is 1) Patti’s client expresses his desire for a completely incompatible match, 2) Patti argues client’s instincts yet sets him upwith someone who fits his specifications, 3) the setup fails spectacularly, 4) Patti yells at client, 5) show ends.

Like Bravo’s equally, addictively vexing Real Housewives, the show is frustrating/fascinating because it refuses to take a judgmental stance on its subject. Instead, it seems to invite the audience to either enjoy it at face value or, as in my case, recoil in horror at the realization that this is how rich people spend their money.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever watch again, but I think I want to be Patti Stanger next Halloween.

I must admit I am enchanted by Hillary’s strategically-weathered facade. As a young, gay professional, women like Hillary are my bread and butter - the one that could totally bust balls all day at work, and then somehow beat you to the bar, finishing her second G&T beforeyou can even get the bartender’s attention. She’d probably talk shit about her ex-girlfriends, refer to Condi in the masculine, and totally have something funny to say about the day’s Hot Topics on The View. I’m usually smitten with broads like that within seconds.

In the real world, men like Obama, conversely, make me nervous - tall, attractive, confident, well-dressed, straight, and super interested in your well-being. Call me a skeptic, but I’m skeptical. He probably doesn’t drink, either, which generally means he’d never laugh at my jokes and would probably be offended within 10 minutes of meeting me. He strikes me as the kind of guy that would generally want to show me affection, but would do so by trying to do one of those straight-guy-high-five-turned-hand-shake combos that scare the living shit out of me.

But here’s the thing: I want that guy to be President. One of the things that draws me most to Hillary is that she shares my level of thoughtful cynicism, but that’s also the one thing I don’t want our next President to have. Not an ounce of it. I want him or her to see the empty page that starts the next chapter of American politics and fill it up with whatever great ideas his or her well-intentioned heart dreams up.

I feel like Hillary would trace lines on the page and begin to write out a very liberal, very intelligent to-do list, laboring over every word as though all of American history’s past and future were critiquing her handwriting.

With the same page, I imagine Obama would start by turning the book sideways. Or even upside-down. Then, maybe he’d trace his hand, make it into a turkey, and then write an adorably smart haiku about turkeys underneath. Then, he’d turn the page and invite Vice President John Edwards to join him in a game of hang man. Because why not?

There’s plenty of time for The Same Old Stuff, but there’s rarely an opportunity to start off so fresh, inspired, and enlivened.

Oh, and he’s handsome as hell and could probably give Cheney a run for his money in the shorts department, if you know what I mean. That’s worth something, right?

La Clinton isn’t sexy or idealistic. Thank God. (Besides, what candidate could be as sexy as, sigh, John Edwards?) Every time somebody criticizes her for being calculating and entitled, I’m like, “Fuck yeah. Right on.” Anyone who thinks Obama is going to swoop in, overhaul a lazy, ineffectual Congress, and “unify” our great fractured nation by remaining true to his ideals is in for a world of disappointment. Here in Massachusetts, Gov. Deval Patrick ran a similar campaign and found himself hamstrung by a contrarian legislature once he took office.

Clinton, on the other hand, seems like an easier lay. She knows that compromising in order to get 75% of your goal is better than holding out for 100% and ending up with 0. Yes, she’s “divisive” and “polarizing.” Guess what – come General Election time, so are both candidates. Every time.

The fun thing about this race is that, since both Clinton and Obama have similar levels of experience (at least in terms of actual elected public office) and stances on the issues (neither is more than politely gay-friendly, and we have no way of knowing, really, if either can avert the coming economic meltdown or salvage the Iraq-tastrophe), it genuinely is a war of personality. And to my eyes, Clinton wins that race hands down.

Obama may inspire ex-hippie snail trails at rallies, but Clinton deserves an Oscar for just about every debate performance she’s given. This is where the haters who call her chilly and overly rehearsed need to eat their hats. She’s a great quipper. When faced with that awful, sexist likability question, followed by a churlish Edwards/Obama gang-up during the January 5 debate, Clinton’s response was so riveting I half-expected her to break a dish and scream like Sissy Spacek in In the Bedroom. Her laser-beam takedowns of Wolf Blitzer’s WWE tactics during the January 31 debate (“Nice try, Wolf”) were a hoot. If she loses the nomination, I kind of want her to guest star as Barney’s mom on How I Met Your Mother.

I have no doubt that Barack Obama is a smart, moral guy with good ideas about how to turn our country around. But at heart, I’m still, as Jack Donaghy would say, a “godless, glassy-eyed Clintonista.” I’m pretty sure that after one of the Axis of Evil nukes us into oblivion, all that’s left standing will be the three C’s: Cher, cockroaches and the Clintons.

But Tuesday’s untimely passing of Heath Ledger harshed even my Oscar buzz, and I mean that in the most sensitive way possible. And I don’t think there’s really any way to properly reflect on it apart from saying that, even if it didn’t mark the most groundbreaking example to date of a mainstream actor plunging headlong into the role of a gay romantic lead, Heath’s Brokeback performance would be one for the ages. And that more than anything else, it really felt like the beginning of something, not only for gay audiences, but for Heath, who had lifted his game to an unexpected level.

It has been bothering me for weeks that Cate Blanchett, amazing though she is, has been receiving the lion’s share of the attention for Todd Haynes’ fucking awesome quasi-Bob Dylan fantasia I’m Not There. Ledger (as a reluctant movie star who’s playing a version of Folk Singer Dylan in a biopic-within-the-movie) brings much of the ground-level humanity that this conceptual art project of a movie couldn’t quite do without. His breakup embrace with Charlotte Gainsbourg, scored to “Idiot Wind,” is the most beautiful moment in a movie where just about every shot deserves its own undergrand semiotics seminar.

All the more reason to include the movie on your pre-Oscar Catch-Up List, I guess.

The 2007 Oscar Nominations [Movie City News]

So it was with customary horror that we accepted today’s news that M Squared is becoming a daddy. And, you know, acknowledging it. And ruining the future of a perfectly nice-looking 24-year-old model in the process.

There are a number of things we find offensive about McConaughey: His propensity for dropping the “g” in every gerund he uses (see his official babydaddy statement, in which he refers to the fetus “growin’ in [Alves’] womb”); the fact that he hasn’t even attempted to appear in a good movie in at least six years; and the extreme pleasure he appears to take in his own physique, to the point where its overexposure causes us to question everything we thought we understood and admired about the male form.

For these reasons and many more (dude, at 38, it’s time to lose the Blue Lagoon hairdo) we fear for this child every bit as much as we fear for whatever flotsam emerges from a Spears family birth canal.

Matthew McConaughey and Camila Alves expecting first child [Celebrity Baby Blog]

It’s my reaction to foolishly watching the first 10 minutes of NBC’s misbegotten Golden Globes-but-not-really telecast, in which Access Hollywood-amatons Billy Bush and Nancy Odell announced the winners in each category. If the network had trimmed the fat and just had Bush and Odell run through the nominees and winners, it might have been a moderately tolerable 20-minute news break.

But no, somebody thought it would be a better idea to pad the telecast to a solid hour, so as to allow Bush and Odell to air their own editorial opinions on each winner. Imagine my surprise when, after announcing that Cate Blanchett had won the Best Supporting Actress award for I’m Not There, Bush announced that he was surprised Amy Ryan hadn’t won, because Blanchett “was just doing an impression of a man.”

Yeah, thanks Roger Ebert. And kindly fuck off.

The hour also included multiple airings of a home video of zaftig, 19-year-old Hairspray nominee Nikki Blonsky and her obese New Jersey family learning of her Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy nomination, in which Blonsky screams, convulses like Linda Blair in The Exorcist, and knocks over a coffee table. I’m not sure what happened next, because by the end of the video I was in the bathroom vomiting up everything I’d eaten in the last six hours. It was like 1 Girl, 1 Couch.

Eventually I realized that I could switch to E!, which was airing the somewhat-less-unbearable live press conference, which I guess was feeding into NBC’s bloated circle jerk.

Hopefully this car wreck will serve as a Worst Case Scenario quasi-olive branch that’ll put an end to the Writers’ Strike. Because, come late February, if I have to watch Mary Hart announce the winner of the Best Picture Oscar, I’m going to impale myself on one of the Cable ACE Awards available for $5 on eBay.

Obviously it makes sense within the context of the strike (although WGA members are allowed to work on Letterman and the SAG Awards? Huh?), but it still seems like yet another example of this strike’s tendency toward Audience Punishment. I say this as someone who would race to his computer for a “2 Girls, 1 Cup” marathon before watching 5 seconds of NBC’s American Gladiators revival. (Speaking of which, I love that they’re marketing that show as a 300 ripoff, rather than the sorry excavation of early ’90s dross that it is.)

The Globes are stupid and trashy and, by all accounts, easily purchased. But we need them, especially in January, when a nation of loudmouthed heterosexuals are frothing over the NFL postseason. Isn’t this year’s entire awards season kind of like a Julie Christie postseason? Casey Affleck, Amy Ryan, Ellen Page and others all had really awesome and justly celebrated career breakthroughs this year, and I want to see how they look on the red carpet, dammit. Javier Bardem got a lot of attention for that terrible haircut he had in No Country for Old Men, and he deserves the opportunity to remind people that he looks really, really good in a tux.

So, even in the spirit of complete solidarity with the writers, I have to say that this sucks.

UPDATE, 1/7/08: NBC and the HFPA have somehow MacGuyvered a way to broadcast the awards show without actually broadcasting the awards show. Is it worth me staying home and getting ‘faced on champagne? Probably. But I’ll probably be flipping back and forth to the Desperate Housewives rerun on ABC.

Golden Globes, WGA at odds again [Variety]

From the poonhound dialogue in Superbad (”I’ll be the Iron Chef of pounding vazzzzh!”) to the unprecedented rash of career-interrupting premature pregnancies (smell ya later, Jessica Alba!), those twin Americans obsessions - sex and baby bumps - joined forces to create a mini-zeitgeist in which pussy was on everyone’s lips. (Except ours, of course.)

With that (and with all due apologies to the MacArthur Foundation), we’re pleased to award the following Vagenius Grants for 2007:

Brenda Dickson: The deposed soap slag’s cameltoe-drenched 1987 “Welcome to My Home” video was rediscovered through the magic of YouTube, inspiring a gutbusting series of parody voiceovers and prompting at least one “fan” to lash out in the former actress’ defense. We’re just glad the phrase “Notice the slit?” has permanently entered our lexicon.

Alexyss K. Tylor: Public access TV superstar Alexyss K. Tylor was another YouTube success d’vagine.. Her Vagina Power series featured a touching rapport between Alexyss and her mother, who played the benign Andy to Alexyss’ orgasm-obsessed Conan. Bonus points: Alexyss’ Hotlanta accent often causes her to pronounce “vagina” with a B.

The casts of Feast of Love and Tell Me You Love Me: We’re not sure why the year’s two most elaborate mainstream showcases of female nudity both co-starred multiple Oscar nominee and former NEA chairwoman Jane Alexander. All I know is that her septuagenarian sex scene with David Selby (Quentin from Dark Shadows!) on HBO’s otherwise dull Tell Me was an even bigger turnoff than the much-ballyhooed Adam Scott Prosthetic Handjob.

Jamie Lynn Spears: As big a year as it was for Britney, her little sis helped ensure that the Spears name will forever be synonymous with the term “cooter.” Canny trendspotters have already named “keeping the baby” as the hot new fad for 2008. Won’t someone please think of the knitting needles?

James Marsden has gone about it another way, by turning out to be a completely charming PG-rated song and dance man - albeit one who, well into his thirties, can still rock a super-hot black-and-white photo shoot.

Marsden was so dreamy as Corny Collins, the Denny Terrio-style Baltimore TV host, in Hairspray, that he singlehandedly threw off the equilibrium of the plot by making Zac Efron look like the skinny Kristy McNichol lookalike that he is. Why would Tracy be so crazy about Efron’s Linc when the host of the show is cuter, a better singer and dancer, and old enough to have a job?

Marsden, unlike Efron and most of the film’s other marquee names, also wins points for having the balls to perform a number from the movie live on The Today Show. He wasn’t very good, but at least he tried (take that, Miss Travolta!).

And now, he’s at it again, delivering a totally goofy, committed, infectious performance as a clueless Prince Charming in the surprisingly well-crafted Enchanted (which I did indeed pay to see, and yes, there were a lot of other twentysomething gay men in the audience, thankyouverymuch). And while Amy Adams deserves every rave she’s getting as the fish-out-of-water heroine, Marsden is every bit as adept in the musical numbers and as a physical comedian. His prince is supposed to be sweet but a little buffoonish - a lightweight next to Patrick Dempsey (and let’s all pause a minute to consider the outlandishness of that phrase) - but he’s pretty lovable nonetheless.

Prior to these two breakthroughs, Marsden had mostly been relegated to stock roles in franchise blockbusters and leads in indies that nobody saw (although he was very good as a Manhattan closet case in the excellent Heights from 2005). Hopefully now he’ll have more opportunities to show off his talents without being typecast in kiddie fare.

James Marsden Hairspray concert [YouTube]
Image source (NSFW) [iCandy]

I don’t think it’s true. I think, if anything, we’ve passed the point where everyone had 15 minutes. That paradigm worked for the Darva Congers and Omarosas and Kristin Cavallaris. No, I believe that in today’s brave new world, the howlingly mediocre get famous and stay famous.

That’s how a ferret-faced cockney slag like Posh can have a higher Q rating with America’s schoolchildren than 9 out of 10 Presidential candidates (okay, I made up that statistic, but it sounds true, right?).

I think one of the reasons I’ve been posting on this blog less frequently is that I’m starting to feel more and more alienated from pop culture. I can’t even find my satirical entry point into a world where people buy tickets to Spice Girls reunion concerts.

The tipping point, for me, was last month’s death of the Osmond paterfamilias. I was still confused as to how Dancing With the Stars had fostered a weird Marie Osmond renaissance, when the next thing I knew, Entertainment Tonight was on at my gym and there was her brother Donny, crying about his dead daddy (who had just expired that day) to Mary Hart in an “ET exclusive.” Then the Dead Osmond press tour continued on Oprah and Larry King, which led to the “Marie’s son is in rehab!” heartbreaker. Then Marie got kicked off Dancing and somehow Donny popped up in the trailer for the next shitty Martin Lawrence movie.

How had these incesto-creepy ’70s throwback Mormon-bots catapulted from obscurity to omnipresence in just a few weeks? If someone had told you, in 1978 (four years before I was born), that Marie Osmond would be receiving widespread media attention in 2007, how would you have handled it? I probably would have headed straight to Jonestown.

At least there the Kool-Aid didn’t come with Spice.

1.) Patty Heaton joins the picket lines, perhaps under the impression that the Lord her God will come down from on high and offer a contract that both sides can agree on. Or maybe she just saw that there were cameras. [Deadline Hollywood Daily]

2.) The New York Times’ Alessandra Stanley - every copy editor’s living doomsday scenario - spews out a semi-cogent statement of support for the writers, and manages to impugn both Eva Longoria and the entire art of TV criticism in the process. [NY Times]

3.) After years of un-picked-up pilots and unreleased indie films, it looked like Janeane Garofalo had finally caught a break by joining the cast of 24. Except, oh wait, it won’t be airing this season. [Hollywood Reporter]

2.) Mindy Kaling, B.J. Novak and other Office writers bitch about not being paid extra for writing online content, but are still just cute-and-funny enough to not seem like whiny assholes. [YouTube]

1.) Heroes creator Tim Kring basically admits that his show is an overhyped piece of shit. Although he really should probably cheer up and take credit for delivering America’s weekly dose of Shirtless Milo Ventimiglia. Which will really be a painful price for us to pay if this strike carries on. [Entertainment Weekly]

The researchers seem to have defined “sexual relations” pretty broadly, as “acts intended to sexually arouse other men, ranging from kissing to mutual masturbation and oral sex.” This definition could include two frat guys getting overly friendly in the mosh pit at a Sum 41 concert, for all we know.

Sigh. If the football players at my high school hadn’t been no-necked trogs, and if my college had had a football team, this study would be a real turn-on.

Tom Brady, you’re going to have bear the weight of most of the, uh, celebratory response to this important research breakthrough. I don’t care how many babymamas you have.

Over one-third of former American footballers had sexual relations with men, study claims [Science Daily]

Image source [Towleroad]