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A State of the Cranky Address

On March 13, 2008

All over America, and in parts of Canada and Israel, everyone has been asking: Why have I been so quiet lately? (That’s I as in me, the person writing this, and not I as in them, the people asking it. If they had been quiet lately, they’d probably know why. Normally that clarification would introduce a rambling, incoherent parenthetical aside, but I’m pressed for time and will have to settle for this.)

After all, I’m over my illness and haven’t been incarcerated recently, despite a run-in with my parole officer last week. (Here’s a rambling, incoherent parenthetical aside I do have time for — who knew that running guns to Cuba was a parole violation? Shouldn’t they be happy when rehabilitated criminals show a little entrepreneurial spirit? They’re so big on “get a job, get a job, it’s a condition that you have a job,” but then you get a job and all they do is complain.) The answer is… well, I don’t know.

What has there been to talk about? We all know that Sally Kern is a bigot and Eliot Spitzer likes paying for it. Some stories are so widely commented on that mentioning them seems a complete waste of time. And this blog has never been something I intended to use for much in the way of deeply personal writing, so there will be no rambling late-night posts about exes or life-changing events. Nor do I believe that anyone is interested in reading a catalog of the minutiae of my day-to-day life. (When it comes down to it, even I hardly care about what I had for lunch yesterday or the last CD I bought.)

This thing, this so-called blog, is only meant to be an outlet for the occasional outburst or silly observation, something that lets me write when I want to write and maybe reach a few people who are exhaustively searching the Internet for naked pictures of Ken Berry. (If you think I only wrote that sentence so I can monitor how many people actually search the Internet for naked pictures of Ken Berry, you are absolutely correct.) The simple truth is, I’ve been outburst and observation-free for much of March, though I’ve kept an eye on several news sites hoping to find something inspiring. The results, some of which I’ll share with you now, have been largely disappointing:

Jodie Foster is still in the closet, hiding behind that dress you bought for your cousin’s wedding several years ago and haven’t worn since.

Mandy Moore, who is a much better comic actress than most people give her credit for, may or may not have multiple mommies. The National Enquirer, that bastion of journalistic integrity, is reporting that her mother has taken up with a female tennis player. Since it’s not Gabriela Sabatini, I doubt most of you are interested.

Meredith Vieira, ever the kidder, told attendees of a recent National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association benefit that while she’s not gay herself, she “did spend nine years with the lesbians of The View.” Oh, the hilarity! But wait, Barbara Walters did beard for Roy Cohn. Cue the suspenseful music.

Taylor Dayne, who is promoting a new album (does that mean the crowds at every Pride festival on the face of the earth will hear something besides “Tell It to My Heart” come June?), can’t spell. Or count. And that’s O.K., because she can still sing and tease her hair like nobody’s business.

Openly gay theater critic Nicholas de Jongh has written a play, Plague Over England, about actor John Gielgud’s famous 1953 arrest for some Larry Craig-like behavior. It’s getting good reviews and de Jongh spoke about it, and his own personal life, to The Observer last month.

Photo explanation: It was surprisingly difficult to find a gay-oriented, state of the union-ish photo to accompany this post. It was either use a picture of Katharine Hepburn in State of the Union or Photoshop my face onto George Bush’s body, and the latter option made me feel dirty.

Short Cuts: Cynthia Nixon and Elderly Lezbots Edition

By Cranky Lesbian

On March 6, 2008

In Uncategorized

For some reason, Cynthia Nixon (pictured above with Kristin Davis) is getting a lot of attention this morning for saying she’s in love with her girlfriend. I’m not sure why, since you generally expect people to love their girlfriends or boyfriends, but it’s not like I haven’t been accused of being dense before. Here’s what she said while doing press for the upcoming Sex and the City movie:

“I’m in a fantastic relationship. It’s been about four years. I’m in love with [Christine] because she’s her. If she were a man, would I be in love with her? I don’t know. We shop and cook and raise children – we both pitch in.”

You can keep the cracks about who does most of the pitching to yourself, you cretins. They’re a cool couple and should be left alone. JC Chasez and the overplucked guy from Gossip Girl, on the other hand, might deserve a bit of a scrutiny.

And in other news…

Liz Smith, Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner are all contributing to the same website — and no, it’s not a new geriatric section of AfterEllen, though one is undoubtedly in the works. They’re just three of the names attached to Wowowow, a new Internet hangout for “mature women.”

Candice Bergen, Whoopi Goldberg and Marlo Thomas will also chip in, but before you visit the site, which officially opens for business on Saturday, you should know that Peggy Noonan (even Meryl Streep knows there’s something off about Peggy Noonan, and Streep has spent decades promoting studio movies, so she rarely says anything but “so-and-so’s delightful!”) and 60 Minutes hack Lesley Stahl are two of its co-founders. You can read more about the creation of Wowowow here.

Buffy, You Ignorant Slut

By Cranky Lesbian

On March 5, 2008

In Uncategorized

Buffy Summers is getting her same-sex ‘speriment on in the twelfth and latest issue of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight, released today by Dark Horse Comics.

The story, written by Drew Goddard, a Buffy series scribe who later moved to Angel, finds Buffy bonking fellow slayer Satsu (pictured at link), but don’t expect to hear her say, “Hello, gay now!” anytime soon, because straight from the mouth of Joss Whedon comes this: “We’re not going to make her gay, nor are we going to take the next 50 issues explaining that she’s not. She’s young and experimenting, and did I mention open-minded?” And this: “I wouldn’t even call it a phase. It’s just something that happens.”

All of which makes sense to me, though I’d much rather this subplot belong to Faith.

Coming Soon to Bookshelves Near You, My Fake Memoir

By Cranky Lesbian

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 Cranky Lesbian

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 Cranky Lesbian

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 Cranky Lesbian

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 Cranky Lesbian

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 Cranky Lesbian

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 Cranky Lesbian

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.