Friday, December 12, 2008
OBVIOUS REFERENCES TO STINSON AND ERIKSEN WILL GET YOU SLAPPED: Some weeks ago, Spacewoman and I were recounting the details of an irritating (do I use that word too much? I think I must be irritable) encounter she had with someone. The details are lost to me -- it could have been about an old roommate (she has crazy ones), a passerby (today I actually reprimanded a young man in a suit for weaving aimlessly while he walked slowly on a crowded sidewalk and talked on his cell phone; it was impossible to pass him and people were queuing up), a service-industry worker. But, we mused, what if the law allowed everybody one non-injurious slap against everybody else?
There would be some rules. You can slap as many people as you want, but you get only one slap against any one person. That one slap would bear no legal repercussion, but the law wouldn't require that people allow themselves to be slapped -- businesses could impose no-slapping rules; people could employ bodyguards. Thus, you could be banned from US Airways or Best Buy for using your slap (and would be, until they had banned so many customers that they'd have to allow it) but you wouldn't be prosecuted. You'd never get close enough to Tom Cruise or Rod Blagojevich to take your shot. And just to keep this honest, I'm banning slaps-for-hire.
The best part of this fantasy is not imagining the crack of hand against the cheek of, say, the stranger on my flight two days ago who, while boarding, took somebody else's bag out of the overhead compartment and just left it in the aisle, but rather thinking about how you'd use your one slap with your loved ones. Strangers are easy -- you'll probably see them only once, so you'll either use it or you won't. But with your friends and family, you need to conserve your precious resource. How much regret would Spacewoman have if she used her slap on me that one time at the toll booth in 1996, when we were just dating, not knowing about the ear-reddening argument we'd have in 2003 about the Nike 17205 case? How much more valuable would my slap have been throughout middle- and high-school as a lingering threat, knowing that my impulsive sister would have used hers on me already, leaving kind of a slap-missile gap in our household cold war? Do I know anybody who, at some point, I wouldn't have slapped, and who wouldn't have slapped me?
Come to think of it, would I be proud or shamed to know, at the end of the day, that I had both suffered and doled out more than the average number of slaps? And which speaks better of you -- to have been more slapper than slapped, or the contrary?
There would be some rules. You can slap as many people as you want, but you get only one slap against any one person. That one slap would bear no legal repercussion, but the law wouldn't require that people allow themselves to be slapped -- businesses could impose no-slapping rules; people could employ bodyguards. Thus, you could be banned from US Airways or Best Buy for using your slap (and would be, until they had banned so many customers that they'd have to allow it) but you wouldn't be prosecuted. You'd never get close enough to Tom Cruise or Rod Blagojevich to take your shot. And just to keep this honest, I'm banning slaps-for-hire.
The best part of this fantasy is not imagining the crack of hand against the cheek of, say, the stranger on my flight two days ago who, while boarding, took somebody else's bag out of the overhead compartment and just left it in the aisle, but rather thinking about how you'd use your one slap with your loved ones. Strangers are easy -- you'll probably see them only once, so you'll either use it or you won't. But with your friends and family, you need to conserve your precious resource. How much regret would Spacewoman have if she used her slap on me that one time at the toll booth in 1996, when we were just dating, not knowing about the ear-reddening argument we'd have in 2003 about the Nike 17205 case? How much more valuable would my slap have been throughout middle- and high-school as a lingering threat, knowing that my impulsive sister would have used hers on me already, leaving kind of a slap-missile gap in our household cold war? Do I know anybody who, at some point, I wouldn't have slapped, and who wouldn't have slapped me?
Come to think of it, would I be proud or shamed to know, at the end of the day, that I had both suffered and doled out more than the average number of slaps? And which speaks better of you -- to have been more slapper than slapped, or the contrary?
WOLVERINE! The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has confirmed that Hugh Jackman will host the 2009 Academy Awards. Jackman was a pretty great Tony host the couple of times he did it, but those shows are typically filled with song and dance material and inside theatre jokes and production numbers. I'm not quite sure how (or whether) that carries over to the Oscars.
SOMEONE'S GOING TO NEED A LOT OF COFFEE: For those suffering from Lauren Graham withdrawal, two tidbits. First, "Super Karate Monkey Death Car," one of the funniest NewsRadio episodes, featuring Graham as an efficiency expert administering lie detector tests to the WNYX crew and an even better B-Story involving Stephen Root's Jimmy James (an odd forebear of Jack Donaghy) having the best-selling memoir in Japan--Jimmy James: Macho Business Donkey Wrestler--is now up on Hulu. I watched it yesterday afternoon, and while the "reading" sequence is the funniest part, Graham gets moments as well, including in the opening sequence, where she suggests some "roleplaying," leading into a "Zoom" joke.
Second, once Graham finishes her Guys and Dolls run, she'll return to TV in a new project for ABC from some of the folks behind Arrested Devlopment, in which she'll play "a self-help guru who teaches women how to live a stress-free life -- but struggles to follow her own advice when her boyfriend dumps her." Seems to me like they're looking for a companion for Samantha Who? Of course, unless it's going to be filmed in NYC, that may mean Graham's G&D run will be cut short, so plan accordingly.
Second, once Graham finishes her Guys and Dolls run, she'll return to TV in a new project for ABC from some of the folks behind Arrested Devlopment, in which she'll play "a self-help guru who teaches women how to live a stress-free life -- but struggles to follow her own advice when her boyfriend dumps her." Seems to me like they're looking for a companion for Samantha Who? Of course, unless it's going to be filmed in NYC, that may mean Graham's G&D run will be cut short, so plan accordingly.
WELCOME TO HOLLYWOOD, BABY: MJsBigBlog leaks an interesting Fox memo on American Idol's upcoming season:
You know I love Hollywood Week. I am thrilled to see more of it.
The shift from 24 to 36 semifinalists, and the existence of a wild card week, suggests that instead of doing the 24-to-20-to-16-to-12 eliminations, it'll be back to something like the old days -- perhaps three weeks with groups of twelve performing on Tuesdays, with the top three each week making it to Hollywood, followed by a fourth week with "judge's favorites who didn't make it the first time," with the top three from that week joining them. The format used the past few years created too many incentives against risk-taking (until the perilous 16-becomes-12 week); this will be better.
[Anyone else remember the year in which the wild card week brought back folks who we had never seen before? What season was that?]
American Idol returns on January 13, 2009, barely a month away.
FOX Network Program Executive CouncilOkay. Other than the "no Idol Gives Back" thing, since we're a fan of anything that gets Annie Lennox in front of television's biggest audience every year (as well as Carrie Underwood's cover of "Praying for Time"), this is all good. We've seen enough delusionally bad singers for a lifetime, and I'd rather they spend the time ensuring that we get to know all of the semifinalists before it's time for America to vote than trying to make bucks exploiting the mentally ill.
DECEMBER 2008 MINUTES
When will the schedule and any new details about this season be released?
January through March details will hopefully be released before the Holidays. All episodes will be Tuesday-Wednesday. No Thursday’s planned; same overall number of hours as last year. There will be 3 weeks of auditions and 2 weeks of Hollywood rounds. There will be 36 contestants coming here to Hollywood as opposed to 24 last year. There will be a wild card week and there will continue to be 12 contestants in the Finals. There will be a couple of more 2 hour shows than in the past. Promotional thrust will have fewer bad singers and more ‘aspirational’ singers. There will be no Idol Gives Back.
You know I love Hollywood Week. I am thrilled to see more of it.
The shift from 24 to 36 semifinalists, and the existence of a wild card week, suggests that instead of doing the 24-to-20-to-16-to-12 eliminations, it'll be back to something like the old days -- perhaps three weeks with groups of twelve performing on Tuesdays, with the top three each week making it to Hollywood, followed by a fourth week with "judge's favorites who didn't make it the first time," with the top three from that week joining them. The format used the past few years created too many incentives against risk-taking (until the perilous 16-becomes-12 week); this will be better.
[Anyone else remember the year in which the wild card week brought back folks who we had never seen before? What season was that?]
American Idol returns on January 13, 2009, barely a month away.
DESERVES: Given how quickly the third act of Million Dollar Baby was spoiled in the media, reviews like Manohla Dargis' of Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino make me want to see it quickly:
He knows that when we’re looking at him, we’re also seeing Dirty Harry and the Man With No Name and all his other outlaws and avenging angels who have roamed across the screen for the last half-century. All these are embedded in his every furrow and gesture.Sunday's Times will have a profile of Eastwood, which notes: "Despite what you might have read on Wikipedia, Mr. Eastwood is not a vegan, and he looked slightly aghast when told exactly what a vegan is. 'I never look at the Internet for just that reason,' he said."
These spectral figures, totems of masculinity and mementos from a heroic cinematic age, are what make this unassuming film — small in scale if not in the scope of its ideas — more than just a vendetta flick or an entertainment about a crazy coot and the exotic strangers next door. As the story unfolds and the gangbangers return and Walt reaches for his gun, the film moves from comedy into drama and then tragedy and then into something completely unexpected. We’ve seen this western before, though not quite. Because this isn’t John Wayne near the end of the 20th century, but Clint Eastwood at the start of the still-new 21st, remaking the image of the hero for one more and perhaps final time, one generation of Americans making way for the next.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT, ISAAC WASHINGTON AND A SPECIAL APPEARANCE BY TINA FEY'S HUSBAND: Oh, my goodness, that was one fine hour of NBC comedy. "The Office" was reaction shot heaven, and the Phyllis-Angela stuff was just brilliant as Pam & Jim, for once, stayed on the sidelines. As for "30 Rock," Elaine Stritch earned her annual nomination and Alec Baldwin his Emmy tonight. Just wow.
See, NBC? You can do scripted television shows that people like!
See, NBC? You can do scripted television shows that people like!
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