Cranky Lesbian

Look what the homosexuals have done to me!

Category: Uncategorized Page 14 of 16

Coming Soon to Bookshelves Near You, My Fake Memoir

By

On March 5, 2008

In Uncategorized

James Frey: “Am I being lectured on honesty by Gayle King’s wife?!”

Was anyone actually surprised earlier this week when Margaret Seltzer, author of the recently published (and even more recently pulled from shelves) Love and Consequences, joined the ranks of publicly shamed con artist memoirists like the hacky, machismo-obsessed James Frey and Misha Defonseca, better known as phony Holocaust memoir lady? Didn’t Mimi Read’s recent New York Times piece on Seltzer, then identified by her pseudonym, Margaret B. Jones, raise a red flag or twelve? (Even Seltzer’s body language is guilty in the main photo that accompanied the article.) My favorite quotes from the faux-thug version of JT LeRoy, for posterity’s sake:

Her memoir is an intimate, visceral portrait of the gangland drug trade of Los Angeles as seen through the life of one household: a stern but loving black grandmother working two jobs; her two grandsons who quit school and became Bloods at ages 12 and 13; her two granddaughters, both born addicted to crack cocaine; and the author, a mixed-race white and Native American foster child who at age 8 came to live with them in their mostly black community. She ended up following her foster brothers into the gang, and it was only when a high school teacher urged her to apply to college that Ms. Jones even began to consider her future.

“Why take out loans? I figured I’d be dead,”she said. “One of the first things I did once I started making drug money was to buy a burial plot.”

Read presumably edited out the part where Seltzer continued, “Death ain’t nothing but a heartbeat away/ I’m livin’ life do-or-die, what can I say?/ I’m 23 now but will I live to see twenty-fo’?/ The way things are goin’ I don’t know.”

“The reason I wanted to write the book is that all the time, people would say to me, you’re not what I imagine someone from South L.A. would be like,” she said, curled up on her living room sofa, which was jacketed in a brown elasticized cover from Target. Her feet rested on a chunky coffee table from World Market. The house smelled of black-eyed peas, which were stewing with pork neck bones — a dish from the repertory of her foster mother, known as “Big Mom,” whose shoe box of recipes she inherited.

“I guess people get their ideas from TV, which is so one-dimensional and gives you no back story,” she said.

Whereas Seltzer got her ideas from The Outsiders and repeated viewings of Dangerous Minds, which tell it like it is, hardcore.

A shelf above her desk holds an altar of family snapshots, with many more black faces than white. “This is my brother who’s dead, back when he was in juvie,” she said, pointing out Terrell’s face in a picture frame.

Shades of Terminator being HIV-positive, isn’t it?

Ms. Jones gave birth to her daughter while she was still in college, then graduated with a degree in ethnic studies. She stayed on in Eugene. Rya’s father, she said, was “the first white guy I ever dated, and she was the first white baby I ever saw. I said, she looks sickly, is there something wrong with her?”

As George Takei would say, “Oh my.”

“The first time my o. g. visited me here” — meaning original gangster, the gang’s leader — “he slept 20 hours straight. In L.A. your anxiety is so high you sleep three hours a night.”

I hear that for an encore, Seltzer sang “Rolling with the Homies” to Read. I won’t even get into her comments about the fictional Big Mom and perfect buttermilk cornbread. What’s astonishing, in reading what Seltzer had to say about her fake life and fake book before her deception was revealed, is that no one called her on all of her hilariously dated homie and o.g. and ‘hood lingo. If it’s this easy to get a bogus memoir published, I think it’s time to quit my day job and get to work on my life story.

The question is, since alcoholism, drug addiction, the Holocaust, gender issues, child abuse, prostitution, and now the South L.A. gang scene have already been exploited by crazy and largely talentless hucksters, what should I choose as my angle? Would it strike anyone as overly derivative if I presented myself as a transgender concentration camp escapee who covered my numbered tattoo with “FTBSITTTD” and went to live with the zany extended family of a wayward psychiatrist?

This Week on DVD: The Who Cares? Edition

By

On February 27, 2008

In Uncategorized


This week’s new DVD offerings are pretty dismal. The only absolute must-see is Criterion’s 4-disc set of Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor (and even that doesn’t have me as weak-kneed and googly-eyed as last week’s Pierrot le Fou release), and the only genuine should-see is Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited, which Netflix told me would arrive today. Guess what? Netflix lied. Netflix is, as Al Franken might say, a lying liar. If I could get all Say Anything for a moment, I’d like to strum an acoustic guitar and sing the following: “Netflix lies, Netflix lies, Netflix lies, when he cries.” (Thanks, everyone, and remember to tip your waitress.)

Now, where were we? If you like Robert Zemeckis, or if you want to see a digitized and naked Angelina Jolie, you might consider checking out Beowulf. If you want to see a non-digitized and naked Angelina Jolie, you should check out — oh, who am I kidding? Every last one of you already owns a copy of Gia. If you’ve ever wondered what became of Danielle Brisebois, you might enjoy Life After Tomorrow, a documentary about dozens of former child actresses who played the title role in productions of Annie. And if you’re a fan of Tom “The ‘Stache” Selleck, he stars in Sea Change, the fourth made-for-TV installment in Robert B. Parker’s Jesse Stone series.

Depressing, isn’t it?

The Post-Oscar Screwup Tally

By

On February 26, 2008

In Uncategorized

For those of you looking for a final count, there were only, oh, 387 or so typographical errors in last night’s Oscary goodness. (Or Oscary badness, if you think I suck. It’s entirely up to you.) Most of them have been corrected in a half-assed kind of way. There were a couple of other mistakes that were caught fairly quickly, like a Tuesday where a Wednesday should have been, but overall I didn’t find anything that disastrous.

Relatively speaking, when you consider that most of my writing might be generously described as possessing certain shmashmortion-like qualities. A final Oscar thought: While Penelope Cruz was otherwise hot, almost unbearably so, I stand by my “questionably attired” remark. As a general rule, I’m anti-feather, unless the feather-wearer’s name is Björk.

In non-navel-gazing news, now that Sarah Paulson is off TV and on Off Broadway, playing Meg in the new Roundabout Theatre Company production of Crimes of the Heart, she’s mentioning her partner, Cherry Jones, in interviews. From Sean O’Driscoll’s AP article about the play, directed by Kathleen Turner:

Without Turner’s direction on character motivation, Paulson turned to her partner, Cherry Jones, the Tony-winning star of “The Heiress” and “Doubt.”

“Advice from Cherry is more valuable than from anyone. I’m very sensitive to what she thinks and once I get past that initial ‘Grrrrr, I’m being told what to do,’ it’s incredibly helpful because I really trust her,” she says.

Useless trivia side note: The role of Lenny, Meg’s sister, is played by actress Jennifer Dundas, who shares with Paulson the distinction of having played Diane Keaton’s lesbian daughter in a crappy movie. (The former appeared in The First Wives Club, the latter in The Other Sister.)

Sadly, the role of the third sister in Crimes of the Heart is not played by Tyrone Giordano in a wig. Giordano, you might remember, played Keaton’s gay son in The Family Stone. Or maybe you don’t remember, because The Family Stone was almost as hard to watch as Because I Said So, even though you have a crush on Rachel McAdams and — though you’re loath to admit it — a lingering admiration for Coach star Craig T. Nelson. Diane Keaton, why do I torture myself for you?

The Oscars As It Happens

By

On February 25, 2008

In Uncategorized

Felix also has an awards show, known to the 312 people who watch it as the Tonys.

7:31 – Coke, Coke, Coke. The kind you drink, not the kind Jack Nicholson sprinkles on his French toast like so much powdered sugar. Everybody drink Coke! If you don’t, they’ll cancel the Academy Awards.

7:32 – Jon Stewart welcomes the crowd to the Oscars, or as he calls it, post-strike makeup sex. They all seem really, really overdressed for that if you ask me, but maybe they do things differently in Hollywood.

7:34 – There are lots of psychotic killers among this year’s nominees, Stewart notes, before thanking God for teen pregnancy. The knocked up teens, they keep things lighthearted. He kisses some Bardem and Christie ass before making the obligatory Atonement/Yom Kippur jokes for the Jews in the audience. (Represent!) He also makes the obligatory Diablo Cody stripper reference, which will hopefully be the last of the decade.

7:39 – Stewart: “Oscar is 80 this year, which makes him now automatically the frontrunner for the Republican nomination.”

7:41 – The first presenter, Jennifer Garner, comes out with something scary on her head. Oh wait, that’s her hair. She gives the award for Best Achievement in Costume Design to Alexandra Byrne for Elizabeth: The Golden Age. No surprise there. Byrne doesn’t trip on her way up and doesn’t make an obnoxious speech, so things are off to an adult start.

7:43 – Barbra Streisand reflects on her Best Actress tie with Katharine Hepburn and says … pretty much nothing.

7:47 – After a commercial break, George Clooney strolls to the microphone, looking all, “Hey, I’m George Clooney, possessor of roguish charm and perfectly tailored suits.” He introduces a video retrospective of eighty years of Oscar. There’s a streaker behind David Niven. There’s Cher in a Bob Mackie monstrosity. There’s a lot of Johnny Carson, some Uma/Oprah, a little of Ellen vacuuming, and then it happens: Celine Dion’s voice comes out of nowhere, like a cheesy French-Canadian ninja, singing the theme to Titanic over clips of acceptance speeches. You know what would’ve worked better than “My Heart Will Go On?” I’ll tell you what: Kelis’s “Milkshake.” Am I wrong or am I wrong?

7:51 – Anne Hathaway and Steve Carrell come out, in a shameless bit of Get Smart promotion. She is wearing a very ugly, holiday-themed prom dress. So is he. Okay, he’s not. He’s wearing a suit. What’s going on under the suit, who knows. There could be a very ugly, holiday-themed prom dress. But if there is, we don’t see it. They banter in an unfunny fashion while the audience lets out the occasional sympathy laugh. Finally, they introduce the nominees for Best Animated Feature Film. The winner is another gimme, Ratatouille, and Brad Bird accepts the award, goes on for too long about his junior high guidance counselor, says he loves his wife, and says “I hate that thing” about the prompter that’s telling him to hurry it up.

7:55 – To the consternation of dozens of sad, pathetic shut-ins who spend all their time hating on Katherine Heigl on the interwebs, the Knocked Up star’s name is pronounced correctly as she’s introduced to present the award for Best Achievement in Makeup. Heigl is visibly nervous and asks for the audience’s forgiveness in a way that seems somewhat scripted. She’s treating this like it’s some kind of audition, but she looks really, really gorgeous and can get away with it as a result. Marion Cotillard gets verklempt in the audience when the Oscar goes to La Vie en Rose‘s Didier Lavergne and Jan Archibald. They try to keep it brief, but are still cut off by the music.

7:58 – My TV goes on mute as Jon Stewart explains that we’ll be forced to hear all the Best Original Song nominees. Amy Adams materializes to perform “The Happy Working Song” from Enchanted. She’s a great actress, Amy Adams, and was fantastic in Junebug, but if Hollywood casting directors realize she’s over 30 and weighs more than 105 pounds and boot her out of town, she could have a brilliant career as a kindergarten teacher because she’s very animated, like Nanny G from Cheers animated, as she sings. And sings. And sings.

8:06 – Back from commercial, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson takes the stage. Yes, I really typed that. Yes, it really happened. No, he didn’t call anyone a jabroni. He gives the Best Visual Effects award to a bunch of guys from The Golden Compass. They’re a nerdy lot – Michael L. Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris and Trevor Wood are their names – so I immediately like them. They say hardly anything, so I immediately like them some more.

8:10 – Double-nominee Cate Blanchett looks very pretty as she hands the Best Achievement in Art Direction award to Sweeney Todd‘s Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo, who, like Blanchett, previously won for The Aviator. They’re nervous, they have heavy accents, and they’re ushered off the stage like they had Soy Bomb written on their chests.

8:12 – That was nice of the Academy to devote a whole two minutes to Art Direction, wasn’t it? Now Jon Stewart’s back, being all Jon Stewarty about Cate’s versatility as an actress. After a walk down Best Supporting Actor memory lane, Jennifer Hudson makes her way to the microphone. Then a crazed Jennifer Holliday lunges from the shadows wielding a lead pipe, obviously looking to go all Tonya Harding on the American Idol reject, but Gil Cates has security taser her just in time.

Hudson regains her composure and reads. From. The. Teleprompter. Like. This. You’d be nervous too if you were that close to being violently hobbled in front of Tilda Swinton and Daniel Day-Lewis. No Country for Old Men‘s Javier Bardem is the winner, of course, and kisses an old lady who was most likely played by Cate Blanchett. He’s talking fast, thanks the Coen Brothers, and recites most of his speech in Spanish. My Spanish is pretty rusty since I only learned enough in school to proposition hookers, but I’m 98% certain that what Bardem said is that Amy Winehouse and Mark Ronson deserved the Best Supporting Actor Oscar as much as he does.

8:22 – Jon Stewart brings us back from commercial with an unfunny bit involving the writers’ strike and binoculars and periscopes. But wait, there’s more. There’s also a salute to bad dreams. It’s like Conan O’Brien has taken things over.

8:24 – Keri Russell, who was funny and lovely in Waitress, introduces “Raise It Up,” a song from August Rush that isn’t as annoying as the song from Enchanted.

8:28 – Owen Wilson presents the award for Best Live Action Short Film to Philippe Pollet-Villard, director of Le Mozart des Pickpockets. Philippe doesn’t know much English, so he wraps it up quickly. Too quickly, because it’s time for some Jerry Seinfeld Bee Movie nonsense before the Best Animated Short Film award is given to Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman for Peter & the Wolf.

8:34 – Best Supporting Actress time. Previous winners include Linda Hunt, Dianne Wiest, Whoopi Goldberg, Juliette Binoche and WE ALREADY KNOW! We saw the goddamn telecasts, you self-indulgent bastards. Wait, Kevin Spacey won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar? Was that for A Time to Kill? Anyway, Alan Arkin finally shows up to introduce the nominees. The Cate Blanchett clip goes on for a long, long time – so long that I’m Not There‘s end credits actually start to play. Ruby Dee slaps Denzel Washington, which I’ve been wanting to do ever since he got to make out with Sanaa Lathan and Eva Mendes in the same movie. I start to nod off during the Atonement clip, and Amy Ryan’s Gone Baby Gone clip is halfway over by the time I compose myself. Then it’s Tilda Swinton time. I predict a Tilda Swinton win, my friends, and not just because it’s fun to say her name.

Tilda Swinton wins the Oscar – told you so – and looks shocked. She doesn’t stop to kiss her boyfriend as she heads up to accept it, which saddens everyone at The Daily Mail. “I have an American agent who is the spitting image of this,” she says, appraising the statuette and noting that they have similar shaped heads and, as she says, “buttocks.” Listening to Swinton say buttocks has been the high point of the evening so far, and then she teases George Clooney in a way that gets everyone giggling. It’s funnier, and much less forced, when she does it than when Brad Pitt does.

8:40 – Sidney Poitier reflects on winning the Best Actor Oscar for Lilies of the Field. I reflect on thinking his daughter was attractive in Death Proof. Thanks, Sidney Poitier, for all the years of excellent acting. And for having a hot daughter.

8:44 – “The always fantastic Jessica Alba” comes out – their words, not mine – fetus in tow, to recap the Scientific and Technical Awards, which she hosted. Because once you work for James Cameron, you never escape the geeks.

8:45 – Jon Stewart suggests that Jack Nicholson might impregnate some of the female attendees, then introduces Josh Brolin and James McAvoy. That Brolin looks smart in a suit, I must say. They’re there for the Best Adapted Screenplay thing, and I could be wrong about this, but in the clip of Sarah Polley sitting in front of her laptop, I don’t think she’s actually writing Away from Her. I think she was on the IMDB message board trolling threads on Marion Cotillard’s page, posting stuff like: “Suck it, frogz!! Julie Christie all the way!”

The Brothers Coen win for No Country for Old Men. Their speech isn’t as entertaining as their screenplays. If their speech was a movie, M. Emmet Walsh and his hand would be in the same room, no one would be fed into a wood chipper, etc. Maybe they were making some kind of writerly comment that went over my head. I don’t know. I love the Coens as much as the next movie nerd, but I got distracted by brownie crumbs on my shirt and only half-heard the last part of their thank yous.

8:49 – Blah, blah, official Academy business stuff. Accuracy, honesty – their voting process has everything that was missing in Florida and Ohio.

8:52 – Miley Cyrus, who has nothing to do with anything, comes out to introduce “That’s How You Know,” another song from Enchanted. She mows through her speech like a pro, and then Kristin Chenoweth comes out, looking more like Elphaba than Glinda, to sing. My TV? It’s on mute again.

8:55 – Gmail Notifier dings from my system tray, letting me know that one of my friends wants to complain about something. While checking my mail, I skim the spam folder looking for anything interesting and find urgent missives with the following subject lines: “Just for once, wouldn’t you like to be 9 inches long?” and “Imagine being able to satisfy women until all they want to do is have sex with you.” The former subject line is a bit presumptuous, I think, because for all its sender knows I’m already packing a solid 9 inches. (At least that’s what I tell the guys on BigMuscle when I’m in need of a little online amusement…) As for the latter, my imagination isn’t that richly textured and I find it difficult to believe women will ever want me for anything but my collection of Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVDs and vintage Don Knotts movie posters.

9:00 – After some dumb pregnancy jokes, Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill come out as Dame Judi Dench and non-Dame Halle Berry, then argue about who’s Halle Berry. They’re both dressed in suits, by the way. There’s no men of South Park cross-dressing action here. They present Best Achievement in Sound Editing to a flustered Karen M. Baker and Per Hallberg for The Bourne Ultimatum. They’re funnier than Rogen and Hill, actually.

9:05 – It’s Rogen and Hill again, still bickering about who gets to be Halle Berry as they give another award to The Bourne Ultimatum. Scott Millan, David Parker and Kirk Francis win for Best Achievement in Sound Mixing, dedicating their award to Paul Huntsman, a sound editor who died last week.

9:08 – After copious clips of previous Best Actress winners, Forest Whitaker takes the stage to give this year’s Oscar to Marion Cotillard. Everyone has been saying Julie Christie is the frontrunner, but everyone is wrong. Cotillard owns this. And she looks rather fetching in the audience, in my humble opinion. So does Laura Linney. Ellen Page also cleans up quite well, though she looks nervous as hell. Marion Cotillard wins, and the gasp from the audience is such that you’d think someone just outed Jodie Foster. I told you guys. I know these things. Cotillard is somewhat incoherent as she accepts her award, which is only fitting given what a rambling mess of a movie La Vie en Rose was.

9:18 – Colin Farrell comes out, looking like he’s bathed within the last few days. He introduces the song “Falling Slowly” from Once, which is performed by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová. This song, I’m going to predict right now, will win the Oscar. It deserves it, too, the way “Lose Yourself” and “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” deserved it. And, you know, it’s on my iPod. Just like Once, the DVD, is wedged onto one of my bookshelves. Scoff if you must, but I love that movie.

9:22 – Next up is Jack Nicholson, Colin Farrell’s spiritual guru, to tell us all how great movies are. How they touch us the way he, at 70, continues to touch nubile, barely legal aspiring actresses, and so on. Because we can’t celebrate eighty years of Oscar enough, it’s time to look back on eighty years of Best Picture winners. Look, it’s The Great Ziegfeld! Hey, it’s Gone with the Wind. Ooh, Mrs. Miniver! Except Mrs. Miniver sucked. And so did Gentleman’s Agreement. What about The Greatest Show on Earth? That’s kind of crappy. Around the World in 80 Days, anyone? Oliver!, Kramer vs. Kramer, Ordinary People, Chariots of Fire – it’s a mediocrity fest.

9:26 – FYI, my ass is numb.

9:27 – How can Renée Zellweger see the teleprompter when she has on a ton of eye makeup and never stops squinting? She presents the Best Achievement in Editing Oscar to Christopher Rouse for The Bourne Ultimatum. He doesn’t look surprised and runs through his speech in about five seconds. That’s what I love about editors, they know how to use time wisely.

9:31 – Nicole Kidman, whose face looks more recognizably human than usual, is covered in diamonds as she introduces a piece on Robert F. Boyle, a production designer and this year’s recipient of the Honorary Oscar. The 98-year-old Boyle comes to the podium and thanks people like Alfred Hitchcock, Norman Jewison and Don Siegel, “who cut to the chase and gave us truth.” And right-wing propaganda. Don’t forget the right-wing propaganda! Philip Seymour Hoffman looks bored in the audience, while Laura Linney looks moved. Philip Seymour Hoffman wins Oscars and Laura Linney loses them. There’s a lesson in here somewhere, kids, about how it pays to disrespect your elders.

9:39 – The washer’s spin cycle has ended and it’s time for the blue shirt I’ve had since middle school that’s been falling apart for the last four years to be put in the dryer. However, my ass is still numb. If one of you wants to help me out, go straight down the hall and to the right. Don’t look at my underwear, though, because that would be totally creepy of you.

9:42 – The Tom Cruise Beard Parade continues as Penelope Cruz comes out, looking radiant but questionably attired, to present the award for Best Foreign Language Film. Austria’s The Counterfeiters wins and Stefan Ruzowitzky accepts, name-checking several great Austrian directors who had to flee the country because of the Nazis, and is off the stage in a flash.

9:45 – Another song from Enchanted. Again, my TV’s on mute. I contemplate getting up to put my laundry in the dryer, but I don’t want to move. I’m not sure that I can move.

9:48 – John Travolta comes out in a non-homosexual way and awards the Best Song statuette to Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová for “Falling Slowly.” Laura Linney looks very happy for them in the audience. Hansard gets a bit teary-eyed as he makes his acceptance speech, and Irglová is cut off before she can say anything. You stay classy, producers!

9:52 – Steven Spielberg, who also digs Once, briefly speaks about his Oscar win in a prerecorded clip.

9:53 – Have any of you seen the Netflix mailer I was going to return tomorrow? I thought I’d put it with my laptop case, but now I don’t see it. If those movies don’t get back to Netflix by Monday evening, they’ll hold The Darjeeling Limited hostage and I’ll be forced to read a book or something on Wednesday. That would be terrible!

9:54 – Oh, I forgot to add: Warm Water Under a Red Bridge and the women-in-prison classic Caged are the rentals I’m returning. Don’t act like you weren’t curious; you know you secretly long to know everything about me, like my astrological sign and my favorite Tina Turner song. Normally I’m a very private individual, but since you’ve been so well-behaved during this long ordeal, I’ll give you this: Capricorn (I don’t know much about astrology, but that usually makes people slap their hands to their faces like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone and go running in the opposite direction, so my sharing this is a big deal, what with me risking the rejection of people I don’t know and all) and “River Deep – Mountain High.”

Okay, so “River Deep” has some fucked up lyrics. That’s pretty much a given with a Phil Spector production. But that scream near the end, that’s what soul music, rock music, and Tina Turner are all about. You can put Tina through hell, making her sing a vocally demanding song 500,000 times (as she put it to a Rolling Stone reporter in 2004), until she’s drenched in sweat and has to strip down to her bra in the recording booth, and not only is she going to triumph, she’s going to sound so fierce doing it that every time the song plays on the radio and The Screech happens, a drag queen angel get its wig.

9:57 – Jon Stewart brings Markéta Irglová out to give the speech she was cruelly stopped from making moments earlier. There’s another shot of Laura Linney in the audience, looking pleased. What’s with all the Laura Linney shots tonight? I’m not complaining, but it’s usually Jack Nicholson who gets the constant reaction shots.

9:58 -Cameron Diaz comes out and, probably baked, flubs a line. She recovers nicely and presents the Best Achievement in Cinematography Oscar to There Will Be Blood’s Robert Elswit, who promptly thanks art director Jack Fisk, also known as Mr. Sissy Spacek, and director Paul Thomas Anderson.

10:01 – It’s downer time as two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank brings on the In Memoriam segment. Jean-Pierre Cassel gets no applause, leading me to believe none of these people watch foreign films. The clapping for Ingmar Bergman just means they’ve seen Woody Allen movies.

10:08 – Earnest as ever, Amy Adams reads the nominees for Best Original Score. Dario Marianelli wins for Atonement and gives a boring speech.

10:12 – Tom Hanks introduces enlisted men and women to announce, via satellite from Baghdad, the Best Documentary, Short Subjects category. In a perversely funny twist, a servicewoman announces that Cynthia Wade and Vanessa Roth won for Freeheld, which happens to be about a lesbian couple’s fight to be treated equally under the law. You can read an interview with filmmaker Wade by clicking here.

10:17 – Hanks presents the Best Documentary Feature award to Alex Gibney and Eva Orner for Taxi to the Dark Side, about U.S. torture practices. Michael Moore, whose Sicko was nominated in the same category, is enthusiastic about Dark Side’s win.

10:23 – If ever an actor knew how to drain a screenplay of its humor and passion, it is Harrison Ford. So it’s only fitting that Indiana Jones is brought out to present the Best Original Screenplay Oscar. Diablo Cody, who is dressed like Betty Rubble, wins. Her speech does not sound prepared, and she’s rather emotional as she holds up her Oscar and says, “This is for the writers.”

10:29 – After an overview of past Best Actor winners, Helen Mirren emerges, looking appropriately regal, to get the inevitable Daniel Day-Lewis win out of the way.

10:34 – Finally, the inevitable Daniel Day-Lewis win is out of the way. “That’s the closest I’ll ever come to getting a knighthood, so thank you,” he says to Mirren after she hugs him. His speech isn’t bloated or self-important, just simple and charming.

10:38 – I wonder how many hideous mistakes I’ve made so far in writing this. The person who guesses closest without going over gets a prize.

10:41 – Martin Scorsese gets almost as much applause as Diablo Cody as he strides out to present the Best Achievement in Directing award to the Coen Brothers. That’s right, I’m calling it for the Coens. And it goes to the Coens. This year was not meant to be a year of surprises. “I don’t have a lot to add to what I said earlier,” Ethan says to laughter. “Thank you.” Joel is wordier, but only by a bit, and they’re off the stage within a minute.

10:44 – Denzel Washington, sans hair, announces the Best Picture winner, No Country for Old Men. Scott Rudin gives the acceptance speech with Joel and Ethan Coen standing behind him. Frances McDormand is laughing into her hand the whole time. Rudin ends things by thanking his partner, and Stewart ends things by thanking the audience. And my ass is still numb.

A Story Everyone Should Read

By

On February 24, 2008

In Uncategorized

This is unspeakably sad. Lawrence King, an openly gay 15-year-old eighth-grader in Oxnard, California, was shot in his junior high school’s computer lab earlier this month in what authorities have labeled a hate crime. Two days later, he was taken off life support. Candlelight vigils for King are being held across the country, and yesterday King was remembered in Santa Barbara, where high school student Angelica Hernandez remarked, “I don’t think it was the bullet that killed Lawrence. I don’t think it was the shooter that killed Lawrence. It was the society that’s built and structured in a heterosexual manner. It’s just unfair that I can go to school and have classmates think it’s not an important issue.”

You Mean You Hadn’t Noticed I Was Gone?

By

On February 21, 2008

In Uncategorized


Despite what Mike “Volcanic Goo” Walker suggests in this week’s National Enquirer, I am neither dead nor in rehab. No, my mini-absence from this pathetic excuse for a blog has been due to a brief illness. A boring illness, for the record. Nothing exotic like the Avian flu, and nothing that would suggest I have a swinging personal life, like a garden-variety STD or mononucleosis. But I’m on the mend now, and once I’m caught up at work I’ll be back to making you roll your eyes and mutter “what a moron” in no time.

Tilda and Derek and Tabloids! Oh, My!

By

On February 17, 2008

In Uncategorized

Tilda with Michael Clayton costar George Villechaize – er, Clooney

The Oscars are only a week away, but instead of buzzing about Tilda Swinton’s chances of taking home the Best Supporting Actress award for her work in Michael Clayton, all the papers want to talk about is her personal life. When has the Daily News ever paid this kind of attention to an actress as under-the-radar as Swinton? They kick things off with this:

Actress Tilda Swinton, her longtime partner John Byrne and her young loverboy Sandro Kopp claim to be perfectly happy with their unconventional menage-a-trois relationship.

None of which is news, since Swinton publicly acknowledged the arrangement some time ago; but as the article notes, Britain’s Daily Mail has landed one of their trademark interviews with Kopp’s spurned lover, Emma Williamson, and that’s the kind of development gossip editors from around the world live for. Interestingly, reporters Steve D’Antal and Amanda Perthen buck Daily Mail tradition by not dragging Swinton through the mud. They even turn a critical eye to Williamson’s account of the story, observing:

There is no doubt Emma means what she says, no doubt she has been profoundly hurt by Sandro’s faithless behaviour.

But the image she paints of their relationship and of Sandro’s character seems out of sync with her conclusion that they were destined for a “happily ever after”, were it not for the arrival of bohemian Tilda.

Naturally, that doesn’t stop them from attacking Kopp, even questioning his sanity, but it does highlight the fact that even tabloid hacks have some reverence for the almighty Swinton.

In non-salacious Tilda-related news, The Observer ran a nice remembrance of director Derek Jarman this weekend, written by Howard Sooley. Jarman, who died of complications from AIDS on February 19, 1994, effectively launched Swinton’s career, directing her in seven films. He was also one of her closest friends. You can read interviews about her involvement in Isaac Julien’s Derek, a documentary about Jarman’s life and career, at Dark Horizons and FilmStew.

This Week on DVD: February 12th Edition

By

On February 12, 2008

In Uncategorized

Is this not an incredibly attractive box set?

Forget about Warner Brothers and their dopey Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan re-releases, the Criterion Collection is where it’s at this Valentine’s Day as they release a highly anticipated set of four early, classic musicals by the master director Ernst Lubitsch as part of their Eclipse series. The titles include The Love Parade, The Smiling Lieutenant (which stars Claudette Colbert), One Hour with You and Monte Carlo. As Dave Kehr put it in a review published today, the set is “indispensable.” It also has, in my opinion, the most attractive packaging of any Eclipse offering so far. I’m so getting it.

Before she lost her marbles, Joan Crawford was seriously hot.

Also in the classic movies department, Warners is dipping into the Joan Crawford vault (and why shouldn’t they, when everyone else did?) with The Joan Crawford Collection: Volume 2. In terms of content — it features A Woman’s Face, Flamingo Road, Sadie McKee, Strange Cargo and Torch Song — it’s more interesting than the first Crawford collection, but I don’t like this new Warner trend of putting the discs in a fold-out case and not making the films available individually. That one must also purchase Dragon Seed and Without Love to own Katharine Hepburn’s Sylvia Scarlett is a criminal offense, and one that consumers should not tolerate.

More new releases:

Spencer Tracy: “This screenplay is giving me indigestion.”

Has anyone else ever watched Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and found themselves hoping that Sidney Poitier or Katharine Houghton would get fed up with Spencer Tracy and yell, “How can you pass judgment on our relationship when you’ve been with a giant lez for the last thirty years?” I ask you these questions because, well, if I asked my Hepburn and Tracy myth-loving grandma, she’d pretend she didn’t hear me and comment on the weather. (It’s icy and overcast here today, if you were wondering.) Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner wasn’t all that great when it came out in ’67 and it isn’t all that great now, but people have been told it’s a classic and they accept without question what studio marketing schmoes and the dashing Robert Osborne tell them. Being an enormous Hepburn fan, I guess I can live with that. It’s when people revere Neil Simon schlock because they think they’re supposed to that I draw the line. Anyway, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner was out-of-print for a short while and now Columbia has brought it back, on its own with a new 40th Anniversary Edition and as part of the new Stanley Kramer collection.

Ben Affleck’s directorial debut, an adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s Gone Baby Gone, is worth checking out for its gritty depiction of Boston and a fantastic performance by Amy Ryan, a Best Supporting Actress nominee.

Jane Austen’s life was not remotely like the pap that’s presented in Becoming Jane, but since when does historical accuracy count for anything in the movies? If you like Anne Hathaway, chances are you’ll like this movie. Of course, if you like Anne Hathaway, you’re used to mediocrity.

Romance & Cigarettes, the John Turturro musical that stars James Gandolfini and Susan Sarandon, easily wins the award for the most bizarre release of the week. It’s also the release you most need to rent if you’re sick of the same old cinema.

Photos like this don’t require stupid captions.

I have mixed feelings about this Mark Wahlberg guy, who was perfect in The Departed but kind of seems like a dick. However, Joaquin Phoenix is cool and Eva Mendes is friggin’ foxy, so We Own the Night is in my Netflix rental queue. It’s about nightclubs, drugs, organized crime, brothers on opposite sides of the law (or are they?), blah, blah, blah. Did I mention that Eva Mendes is foxy?

HBO’s Tell Me You Love Me is pretty queer behind the scenes, but what you actually see on the show is rather heterosexual. And kind of boring, though anything that provides work for Jane Alexander is all right with me.

Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married?, released today by Lionsgate, poses a perfectly reasonable question, though I can’t see the title without wanting to respond, “You didn’t.”

Amy Heckerling directed I Could Never Be Your Woman, which stars Michelle Pfeiffer and Paul Rudd. Never heard of it? That’s because the Weinstein Company sent it straight to DVD. Heckerling going direct to DVD isn’t going to raise any eyebrows post-Loser, but anyone who starred in The Fabulous Baker Boys and Batman Returns deserves a little more respect.

Lesbians Denied Both Puppies and Clea Duvall

By

On February 11, 2008

In Uncategorized

What kind of sick bastard wouldn’t let them buy a puppy?

A kennel owner in Sweden refused to sell a woman a puppy after learning she was gay. To which I say: WTF? The situation has been rectified, since an appeals court in Stockholm has ruled that you can’t be denied canine companionship on the basis of your sexuality, but I find this story very confusing. When I hear about asshole-ish business owners turning away gay customers, I think of America. More specifically, I think of Texas, but that’s neither here nor there. (Please, Texans, don’t go all Walker, Texas Ranger on my ass. I’m a weakling. An admitted weakling. Attacking me would be like attacking Linda Hunt, and only a complete jack-off would attack Linda Hunt.)

What didn’t compute for me when I first read this story is that homophobia exists in Sweden. Which is stupid, I know, because homophobia exists everywhere. (Well, everywhere except in kittens and the hearts of children. Unless the kittens and children belong to Shirley Phelps-Furley. Yes, I said Furley. Because, let’s face it, Mr. Roper was a ‘phobe but Mr. Furley had an IQ of 80, tops, which means his intelligence was roughly equal to Shirley’s.) But c’mon: Sweden.

I’m a big Ingmar Bergman fan, so I was under the impression that Swedes spent all their time in mental anguish over the absence of God, mutilating their genitals with jagged pieces of glass and playing chess, or at least backgammon, with the Grim Reaper to pass the time. And remember all those reviews of Fucking Åmål (better known in English-speaking countries under its sanitized name, Show Me Love) that mentioned it beat Titanic at the Swedish box office when it was first released? I guess the homophobic kennel owner isn’t a Lukas Moodysson fan.

Other reading:

GayWired ran a puff piece on Itty Bitty Titty Committee (which, if you survey its credits on IMDB, kind of looks like the lesbian version of It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World) with this sentence that caught my eye:

Lesbian luminaries Guinevere Turner and Jenny Shimizu, along with long-time friends to the gay gals, Clea Duvall and Melanie Lynskey, join a smoking cast of relative newcomers to start the next big feminist movement.

Clea Duvall is a “long-time friend to the gay gals?” I think what Tracy E. Gilchrist and L. A. Vess meant was long-time friend with benefits, no? And, uh, what about Melanie Mayron while we’re at it? Why does she get to fly under the radar?

Finally, can’t get enough of the lurid Seth Tobias story? New York magazine’s Stephen Rodrick has written a very long article about it.

Cotillard Bitch-Slaps Christie at the BAFTAs

By

On February 11, 2008

In Uncategorized

“For my next trick, I will star in a Zelda Rubinstein biopic.”

Or, rather, BAFTA voters bitch-slapped Julie Christie by giving the Best Actress award most British journalists assumed was hers to Marion Cotillard for her work in La Vie en Rose. Cotillard’s performance was indeed remarkable, more so than Christie’s (the best acting in Away from Her belonged to Gordon Pinsent, and the lack of attention he received this award season has been regrettable to say the least), but that doesn’t change the fact that I struggled to finish La Vie en Rose the way Paris Hilton struggles to finish Green Eggs and Ham.

By the fifty-minute mark, it seemed that Cotillard’s greatest triumph wasn’t becoming Édith Piaf — and doing so in a way that caused an excitable Stephen Holden to write that her “feral portrait of the French singer Édith Piaf as a captive wild animal hurling herself at the bars of her cage is the most astonishing immersion of one performer into the body and soul of another I’ve ever encountered in a film” — but rather having the single-minded determination to slog all the way through director Olivier Dahan and Isabelle Sobelman’s excruciatingly tedious screenplay.

Which isn’t to say that La Vie en Rose was not without its finer points, like wonderful supporting performances by Emmanuelle Seigner, who almost walked off with the film in its first twenty minutes, and the always dependable Sylvie Testud (a brilliant, relatively unknown actress who has quietly made a career of playing sexually unconventional, and often queer, characters) as Mômone, Piaf’s cross-dressing lesbian BFF. Just don’t expect me to revisit it unless I need help falling asleep.

Page 14 of 16

Previous

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén