Throw-Back Halloween: Drunk Ewoks On The Today Show

Remember this? Five years ago Today did a Star Wars-themed Halloween show, complete with cute little ewoks. Unfortunately they apparently consumed too much of the "Boo-tini" and things got a little out of hand. Watch the video to see what happened next. Love it!

"Zellwegered Into Unrecognizability"

I've been debating whether or not I had anything else to say about Renee Zellweger's new and improved face. I was leaning towards not when I saw this delicious tidbit in a long WaPo story about Sally Quinn's post-funeral reception in honor of Ben Bradlee:

Alas, no toasts Wednesday afternoon, but plenty of fond memories, air kisses and a touch of the party gossip he reveled in. One journalist at the reception, who received an effusive hug from a unknown woman, whispered to her friend: “Who did I just kiss hello?”

“You won’t believe it,” was the reply, followed by the name of a Washington notable who had Zellwegered herself into unrecognizability.

“Ben would have loved it,” said the journalist with a giggle.

Zellwegered into unrecognizability?? Clearly Renee's campaign to convince folks that she's just, you know, well rested, isn't working so well. She's a verb now and it only took about a week and a half.

The whole article is interesting, read it here.

New Jersey Charming? Or Just Plain Belligerent?

New Jersey guv Chris Christie got into it with a heckler yesterday, in his usual take-no-prisoners style, and of course the video's all over the place this morning. So what do you think of Christie? More importantly, will his Jersey style play in Iowa and New Hampshire if he runs for President in 2016? TPM has the story and video.

In other 2016 news, Jeb Bush is slightly walking back son George P's statement that Jeb is "more than likely" to run. "He's got an opinion, he didn't talk to me," says dad, reiterating that he'll make his decision at the end of the year. My guess, based on everything I'm reading: Jeb takes a pass. Stay tuned, we'll know soon.

Katie Holmes

Katie Holmes get the cover this week, and without having read the article, I'm guessing it's driven by her new promo contracts with Olay and Alterna haircare products. I can't imagine that she'll reveal anything substantive about her private life. The Marysville shooting, Brittany Maynard and Renee Zellweger get sidebar/topline stories, along with Jennifer Lopez and her new book.

I admit I'm still a little freaked out by Renee Z's new face. She can do anything she wants, of course, and I'm sympathetic to over-40 actresses trying to remain employed in Hollywood, but saying that a change that radical came from nothing more than healthy living just doesn't pass the laugh test. Or to put it another way, I'm not stupid, Renee, and neither are a lot of other people.

The Guessing Game

What will be on the cover of People this week? Guesses, in no particular order:

Jennifer Lawrence: Breaks up with her boyfriend
Renee Zellweger: What's up with that face?
The Bachelor: Nikki and Juan Pablo break up
High School Shooter: Another sad shooting at a school
Taylor Swift: A new album and New York's Global Welcome Ambassador
Kaci Hickox: No Ebola, released from quarantine
Neil Patrick Harris: Getting his own show?
Sean Hayes: Engaged
Hugh Jackman: Surgery for skin cancer

Fave Tweet Of The Day

From "Politics and Humor" (@PoliticalLaughs):  More Americans have been married to Kim Kardashian than have died from Ebola.

Love it.

The Thrilla From Wasilla

Pictures and audio from the #palinbrawl have gone public this week and I admit I'm enjoying the spectacle. Does that make me a bad person?

And I'd still love to know what John McCain is thinking. As I said a few posts ago, in 2008 he (and a lot of other Republicans) assured Americans that Palin was qualified to be President of the United States. He was wrong about that and the word most frequently used to describe the decision to put her on the ticket (as well as her performance on it) is "disastrous." For the most part Senator McCain has kept his comments about her since the election to a minimum, mostly just reiterating that he is "proud" of Sarah. That's part gentlemanly discretion and part self-protection. The minute he says anything critical of her, the next thing he's going to hear is, "But Senator, you picked her. You told us she was qualified." That's a conversation I'm sure he wants to avoid, and that's fine. Still, I'm betting that he's not proud now, certainly not of Sarah and possibly not of himself.

Princess Kate

No Guessing Game post this week, but I figured we'd get another pregnant Kate story before too long. Although the headline refers to her as just "Kate," I've noticed at the people website that they've apparently decided to go with "Princess Kate," which makes me very happy. Blog readers know how much it bugs me when writers refer to this woman as "Kate Middleton."

#fangate

I was settled in on the couch last night, watching Modern Family. I was also scrolling through my Twitter feed on my phone when all of a sudden, every political reporter I follow was tweeting something about a fan.

The first one I saw, from Washington Post reporter Chris Cillizza, said "If I could have a fan with me at all times, I would. I am a sweater." That sounded kinda weird and it took me a few seconds to get that he meant "someone who sweats" and not "article of clothing your grandma knits for you." Before long tweets about fans were everywhere and as sure as the sun comes up in the morning, the hashtag appeared: #fangate. (This morning it's trending number 2 on Twitter.)

So what gives? The candidates for governor in Florida, incumbent Rick Scott, R, and used-to-be-and-wants-to-be-again challenger Charlie Crist, was an R, is now a D, were having a debate. At least they were supposed to have a debate, but at the appointed time, and with TV cameras rolling, Mr. Crist appeared on stage alone. No Mr. Scott. Then it was announced that Scott would not come on stage because Crist had a fan at his feet. You can read the rest of what happened here, here and here.

The most interesting part to me is that apparently Mr. Crist is fanatically (see what I did there?) obsessed about not appearing to sweat in public and is known for taking at least one, and sometimes two, fans with him everywhere he goes. Cillizza explains in this article from July, starting off with a great opening sentence: "This is a story of a man and his fan."

The fan even has its own Twitter account, Charlie Crist's Fan (@CCristFan.) As of this morning the fan has sent out 1,259 tweets and has 1,342 followers. See how much fun politics can be?

Brittany Maynard

Another cover surprise. I'd heard of Ms. Maynard and what she's planning to do but it never occurred to me that People would put her on the cover. There's a sidebar story about Stephen Collins and more about George and Amal.

The Guessing Game

What will be on the cover of People magazine this week? 

I don't know. It seems as if there's not a whole lot going on in pop culture or maybe I'm just not paying enough attention. Thoughts:

My best guess is Angie and/or Brad. She received an award from the Queen last week and he's got a new movie coming out Friday. Pope Francis is in the news for his comments about gays but I'm not sure People would go there. Mitt Romney, running or not running? Maybe. I also thought of Stephen Collins but that story's so ugly the magazine probably doesn't want any part of it.

Martha Stewart and Gwyneth Paltrow are feuding, so maybe we'll get an all blonde cover story. I love the fact that Martha's magazine for November has a pie story titled "Conscious Coupling."

If I think of any other possibilities I'll update this post, otherwise we'll know at 7.00 a.m. central time tomorrow morning.

Update: Prince Harry. I've been expecting a Harry cover for a while. A couple of weeks ago there was a rumor that he'd gone on date with ex-girlfriend Cressy Bonas, now apparently he's been seen kissing a "mystery blonde."

One more guess, on Wednesday morning: Nina Pham, the nurse in Dallas who contacted Ebola from the patient who came from Liberia and later died. She's young and attractive and might be an easy way for People to put a face on the Ebola issue.

Actually There Were Six

A few posts ago I referred to the Palin family (drunken brawl!) as having been on a total of 5 reality shows but I was wrong. Actually the total is 6. I had forgotten that Bristol and Willow were on Celebrity Wife Swap; it's poignant now to remember that they co-starred with Joan and Melissa Rivers. Here's the full list:

Sarah Palin's Alaska (the whole family)
Stars Earn Stripes (Todd)
Dancing With The Stars (Bristol, with Todd and Sarah in the audience)
Life's A Tripp (Bristol)
Amazing America with Sarah Palin (On the Sportsman Channel)
Celebrity Wife Swap (Bristol and Willow)

If I remember right, back in 2010 when Bristol and Levi briefly reunited, they pitched a reality show about their life together, presumably along the same lines as Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica, but cooler heads prevailed and they were never able to sign a deal.

Now Sarah has her own online video channel and I'd love to know how many gullible Americans are sending her $9.95/month. According to Dan Weber at wonkette.com, they're not getting much for their money:

Palin’s channel released two pieces of content in the last seven days: this rambling, incoherent glob of sputum scraped off the splashguards at a World Net Daily comment buffet, and a five-minute “Ask Me Anything” video. Everything else is more than one week old, and nine of the next 15 posts are old clips from her TLC show, Sarah Palin’s Alaska.

Are you beginning to feel it? She’s losing steam.

I admit that this isn't the most important thing happening in the world, by far. Every now and then I just get carried away by the weirdness of Sarah and I have to take to the blog to share it all. 

The Silly Season

Two headlines, both currently appearing on the homepage  of the Washington Post:

Can't Quit Mitt: Friends say Romney feels nudge to consider a 2016 presidential run. The story says that due to the weakness of the current Republican field of candidates, Mitt is "grappling" with the question of what he would do if he was drafted to run. Would he answer his party's call?

Ann Romney: Mitt and I are done. Done. Done. The story quotes Mrs. Romney telling the Los Angeles Times, "Completely. Done... Not only Mitt and I are done, but the kids are done. Done. Done. Done." In the actual LA Times story (read it here) she mentions the "really interesting" group of GOP possibilities and name checks Jeb Bush, Rob Portman and Paul Ryan, saying "We're going to see a nice field shake out."

To be fair, feeling a nudge doesn't mean Mitt is actually considering running. He ruled it out pretty definitively last week as quoted by Bloomberg Politics. This is mostly just political reporters amusing themselves while waiting for the 2016 campaign to kick-off for real, which will happen after the mid-terms in three weeks.

Cover Stories

My blog readers know that I'm fascinated by the view of the world as seen through the cover of People magazine each week. Now, as part of their 40th anniversary retrospective, people.com has a list of the 10 celebrities who've appeared on the cover more than any others. Can you guess? Here's a clue: royalty and Brangelina (extended triangle version) account for 6 of the top ten. Here's the list, along with the number of cover stories for each celeb:

55 Princess Diana
29 Brad Pitt
29 Prince William
26 Princess Kate
26 Angelina Jolie
25 Jennifer Aniston
25 Julia Roberts
22 Tom Cruise
17 Britney Spears
16 Michael Jackson

Seventeen years after Di's death some may have forgotten what an impact she had, starting when she first burst on the scene in 1981, but even after all these years she has almost twice as many covers as Brad Pitt and Prince William. Here's her first cover, dated June 22, 1981, just weeks before the wedding. It's hard to look at now, 33 years later, knowing what we know of the trauma, drama, divorce and early death to come.



By the way, back in 1994, when People was celebrating 20 years, they compiled a similar top five list. Diana was number one at that time too, followed by Elizabeth Taylor, Sarah Ferguson, Cher and Michael Jackson.
You can read the current story here.

Angie's A Dame

Actually, she's an Honorary Dame Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George. Got that? What does it mean? It's in honor of Mrs. Pitt's "campaigning against rape in war zones and services to UK foreign policy." Wow, who knew?

Anyway, I love this picture:



According to the Daily Mail, Brad and the kids were at the palace too but not in any of the official pictures. Read the story here.

No Charges Filed

Still, I'll never hear the words "drunken brawl" without thinking of the lovely, elegant and gracious Palin family. Wonkette has all the juicy details.

And wouldn't you like to know what John McCain really thinks about this? It can't be fun to remember that he stood in front of America and assured us that this woman was qualified to be President of the United States. Drunken brawls and tacky reality shows (5 in all for the Palin family) can't be what Senator McCain had in mind when he plucked her out of Alaska and set her loose on America. On the other hand she's been like manna from heaven for snarky bloggers...

A Cool Trick

Can you open a bottle of wine with a shoe? Apparently.

People's 40th Anniversary

People goes with an anniversary cover, this time with Taylor Swift in a shout-out back to that first cover in March, 1974. For a brief moment yesterday as I was writing the guessing game post, I wondered if they'd actually go with Mia Farrow again, but given that she's now 69, I figured probably not. Missing White Girl Heather Graham finally shows up in a sidebar story, along with Blake and Ryan, and Teresa Giudice. Here's the original cover from 40 years ago:



To me, the most interesting thing about that original cover is the sidebar story about Marina Oswald. At that point the assassination was only 11 years in the past and I'm curious to see what Mrs. Oswald has to say. If I can find the story online I'll link to it.

Update: I found the Marina Oswald story in People's archives, and it's fascinating. You can read the whole story here; the most interesting part is her answer to the reporter's question, Do you believe your husband killed the president?:

A moment of tantalizing suspense hung in the air, finally drifted away. Marina nodded. "I believe Lee was definitely involved," she began in words carefully measured. "Of course, I didn't see him shoot anybody. I didn't see him pull any trigger. But I do not believe there was a conspiracy, as others have claimed. Maybe it is possible that there were two or three crazy people who all had plans to kill John Kennedy that day." She stopped. Was that her full answer? 

"Like any wife," she went on, "I would like for my husband to be innocent. I loved him, after all. People said I married him just to get to America. I would have followed him to the moon, or to China. But I have had time now to reflect. He was not innocent. Lee definitely killed Officer Tippit, that's for sure. And they found his prints on the rifle in the Book Depository building." Marina seems almost convinced that her first husband killed John Kennedy, but retains a slender margin of doubt—as indeed does history. "There are too many puzzle pieces that don't fit," she said, bringing her hands together as if to meet, but they missed and continued on in empty air. 

That was in 1974. Later the conspiracy theorists got to her and I've read that she now believes Lee was innocent. 

The Guessing Game

What will be on the cover of People this week?  Guesses: 

Stephen Collins: Accused of molesting young girls
Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher: Their baby is born
Will and Kate: Will and (maybe) Kate are coming to New York.
Ben Affleck: Gone Girl is a hit, an on-air argument with Bill Maher
Teresa Giudice: She and husband both get prison sentences
Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds: Expecting a baby
Ebola: The disease is spreading, along with fear and some misconceptions
Princess Charlene: Expecting twins
People's 40th Anniversary: The magazine was first published in 1974. This is what the 20th anniversary cover looked like, from 1994:


I thought we might get a 40th anniversary cover earlier this year, since the first issue was dated March 4, 1974, but this week there are several 40th anniversary retrospectives on people.com, which may be a preview of the cover.

I'm Not Running

After a couple of weeks of feverish "will he or won't he" speculation about Romney 3.0, Mitt himself joined the "cooler heads prevailed" team yesterday and reaffirmed that he won't do it again in 2016. From Bloomberg Politics:

A little more than a week after his wife opened the door to a third White House run, Mitt Romney himself offered three consecutive statements on what he is not doing in 2016. "I'm not running, I'm not planning on running, and I've got nothing new on that story," Romney told Bloomberg Politics' Mark Halperin on "With All Due Respect."

And Then There Were Two...

Oslo has now dropped out of the bidding for the 2022 Winter Olympics, leaving just two candidate cities, Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan. According to gamesbids.com, a site which obsessively tracks all things related to Olympic bids, neither city is ideal:

Beijing controversially hosted the Summer edition of the Games in 2008 and plans to reuse some of the city venues for the 2022 Games; but the snow venues are considered too distant in the mountains.  Almaty in Kazakhstan does not have a well-developed winter sport culture and four years ago was dropped from the 2018 bid shortlist for not measuring up.

The 2022 bid will be award on July 31 next year. Read the story here. 

What about the next games, in summer of 2024? Several cities are gearing up to bid, including four in the U.S.: Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington D.C. The winning city will be announced in 2017; in the meantime, the team organizing the Washington D.C. bid now has a website, DC2024.org, check it out here. 

Wednesday morning correction: It's Oslo that dropped out this week; Stockholm had been in the bidding but dropped out earlier this year. 

Stunning International Human Rights Lawyer Weds 50-Something Actor With Commitment Issues

Will George and Amal live happily ever after? Am I impossibly cynical if I say, possibly not?

The wedding week-end was mesmerizing, absolutely, George appeared charming and very happy, Amal wore her expensive and stylish outfits with elan, they were surrounded by a sincerely warm and loving circle of friends, and both sets of still-married parents were there. All good.

Still, if they were a regular, not-famous couple I would say that I see a few potential problems. The age gap. (17 years) The culture gap. (He's American, she's Lebanese and grew up in Europe.) The education gap. (She's a lawyer who speaks three languages; he's... not.) They only dated for a few months before getting engaged. (Met in October, 2013, engaged in April, 2014, married in August, 2014). He's a rich, famous and possibly somewhat spoiled movie star, she's... not.

They also spent a boatload of money on the wedding. ($1.6 million according to people.com.) Lots of celebrity couples before them have done the same and most of those couples are not still together. I've pondered the possibility of creating some kind of after-the-divorce good marriage/bad marriage index, using, possibly, the amount of money spent on the wedding, multiplied by the number of quotes from friends about how perfect they are for each other and how happy they look together, supplemented by quotes from the couple about how they're going to be together forever, then squared by the number of months/years til they break up.

No matter how glamorous it looks I've come to believe that it's probably not easy to be married to a very rich, very attractive, very famous movie star. I'll be watching to see if this one goes the distance.

Flat Of Foot And Tin Of Ear: When Film Critics Hate A Film

There's almost nothing more entertaining than watching a bunch of film critics try to out-do each other as they explain how much they hate a bad movie. From mrqe.com, check out what critics are saying about Left Behind:

LA Times: Worst big-screen performance by an Academy Award winner (Nicholas Cage)

The Hollywood Reporter: The only thing missing is Helen Reddy as a singing nun; ... sub-par production values, howler-filled dialogue and terrible performances, [Left Behind] fails miserably on every level

Entertainment Weekly: profoundly moronic

AV Club: Faith-based clunker, groan-worthy comic relief, broad, cartoonish, and inept-ly made

In the examples above I'm mostly paraphrasing but the review at efilmcritic.com is so over-the-top fantastic that you should read it in its entirety; here's the best part, which I cut and pasted directly from the website: In essence, "Left Behind" is sort of like what might result if a pulp novelist along the lines of Clive Cussler was inexplicably hired to pen one of those cheap little evangelically-minded comic book pamphlets that earnestly insist that anyone who doesn't think exactly like the people behind them are going to hell in the most unpleasant and dramatically implausible manner imaginable. However, in jamming together a third-rate disaster movie narrative with the eschatological equivalent of "Nyah--told ya so," the end result is a film that cannot possibly begin to satisfy anyone looking for a little entertainment to go along with their proselytizing. The screenplay by Paul Lalonde and John Petus is so flat of foot and tin of ear throughout that when Rayford tells a deliberately terrible joke about a vulture trying to board an airplane, it far and away constitutes the best writing in the entire film 

Finally, there's this, from Variety: "Sharknado-inspired visual style." Sharknado!!!

It's times like these when I really miss Roger Ebert. Don't you wish he was still around to tell us what he really thinks about Left Behind?