John Waters fans, rejoice! He's not only making a new movie—but it's a Christmas movie!!! If you know John Waters, you know he loves Christmas! This is going to be great.
Called Fruitcake, it's sounds gaytastic, but it's actually for children! While I would normally look forward to a kid's movie with the same anticipation I would hemorrhoid surgery, I'm betting this is way more Pee Wee than Care Bear. Can't wait!
Dear Hollywood,
The next time you have a role that requires fucked-up teeth, a big nose, some weird bone structure and an extra ten or twenty pounds, could you just hire an actual ugly actress to play the part? I can't really think of any off the top of my head—because even extras in dog food commercials have to be stick thin and drop-dead beautiful—but I'm sure they exist.
I am so sick of these gorgeous women being lauded with Oscars for being "brave" enough to play ugly for a couple months of their lives. Feh. Tyra in a fat suit does not a Fat Tyra make, know what I'm talking about?
Plus, La Vie en Rose was really fucking dull. I had really been looking forward to it, which made this fact doubly annoying. I eventually had to walk away because Edith Piaf could not fucking kick fast enough for me. It went on and on forever. When you're shrieking "die!" at your TV, maybe it's time to turn it off. Which I did.
Charlize Theron's turn in Monster was unintentionally hilarious, but Oscar-worthy? Not even close. Sure, she did the Hollywood-unthinkable and gained twenty pounds, but really, all that did was make her not severely underweight for a couple months. Brave would've been hiring a real crackhead for the role. Not to mention that Charlize's retard drawl was an insult to white trash everywhere. I could go on but I won't.
Just do me a favor and consider hiring a genuine fugly person the next time you need one. Otherwise, just give the Oscar to the makeup department.
Yours,
Judy
P.S. John Travolta? Your "hair" is about as real as Kenickie's sobriety.
Around the time the Monaco CD came out, I got the opportunity to interview the extremely charming ex-Joy Division bassist, Peter Hook. Like I'm certain every other interviewer before me, I asked how he felt about Ian Curtis' suicide on the eve of the band's first American tour. I can't recall his exact words, but he was obviously still angry and got a little emotional about it before lapsing back into wise-assery. I can't even remember what rag I interviewed him for, but that's not the point anyway.
What I'm getting at is that it was like the eighties all over again last night at the Film Forum. Some pals and I went to go see Control, the new movie about Ian Curtis and Joy Division. I can't recommend it highly enough.
It's shot beautifully (as it's directed by Anton Corbijn, this is not a shock, but still—gorgeous) and though we all knew how it turns out in the end, every second of it was completely enthralling.
Though the movie was based on his betrayed wife's book, I honestly didn't expect to come out of it thinking Ian Curtis was, well, kind of a jerk. Not a complete scumbag, mind you, but a jackass in that way that certain musician types get once they get a little taste of fame. I am certain I heard a hissed "asshole" once or twice from the crowd. Though I found myself getting pissy at him, it was refreshing to actually see a fully-realized, multi-dimensional character on screen. Many shades of gray, all rendered exquisitely.
I don't know how this slipped by without me noticing, but today Gothamist plugs a three-day run of Crispin Glover's film, What is it? Though it was never theatrically released, I've seen the movie, because about ten years back, my friend Darius James did a feature on Crispin for Spin magazine and brought a video of it over to my apartment.
I'd reviewed Crispin's album and always found him deeply sexy, so I was super excited to get a sneak peek. Darius fell into a deep sleep pretty much as soon as I hit play. After ten or 15 minutes, another then-friend stormed out of the room, deeply offended because mental illness runs in her family (a fact no one who knows her would find at all shocking). This left me and Rose to slog through it. While I am a Crispin fan and desperately wanted to like it, I found the film kind of unnerving and overly long. I have a strong stomach, but the focus on slugs and dry-humping downs syndrome cases got to even me after a while.
But Crispin is making a night out of this screening at Anthology Film Archives. In addition to showing the film, he's doing a reading, with accompanying powerpoint presentation (!!), along with a Q&A and book signing. Not sure whether I'm going to make it, but I bet it'll be fairly fascinating. Let's just hope he left the Peldon back home.
As I absolutely loathed the book, I was kind of surprised at myself when I found that I was excited to see the movie version of The Devil Wears Prada. After one aborted sold-out attempt on the film's opening weekend, blogger Red Sauce and I finally caught it this past Friday.
While not nearly as reprehensible as the book, the movie is still fairly annoying—Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci aside. I had hoped the film would show the Lauren Weisberger character to be just as irritating as she comes across in the book—a whining child of privilege, upset at having to fetch some fashion bitch's coffee when anyone could see she'd be much better suited to writing "thinky" pieces at the New Yorker. Yeah, right. But instead, the directors opted for hiring the aggressively bland Anne Hathaway to portray a spunky gal with a heart of gold. Barf.
Hathaway has approximately two different facial expressions and both of them made me want to hit her in the head with a bottle, so in that way she was true to the book. Adrian Grenier plays her boyfriend, proving once again that while he's easy on the eyes. . .
Normally, I only rent truly crappy movies when I'm PMSing. (This by way of explaining away Stepmom a few years back.) I get so wound up that I know I need to cry, but I can't, so I resort to outside stimulation. Like an enema for my sad glands. I once tried to explain this need for a tearjerker to a friendly video store clerk and he forced a copy of It's My Party on me. It seemed promising enough—young guy gets AIDS and throws a big farewell party for himself. And everyone's fave fag hag, Margaret Cho, is in it! Sounded like a winner.
Wrong. I should've listened to my brain that tells me anything that Eric Roberts touches is shit. It was one of the most horribly acted movies I've ever sat through. Mawkish and sappy; if there were a Lifetime TV for men, this would be on 24/7, along with Brian's Song (which I loved as a little girl).
But my period just passed, so there's no excuse for renting Rumor Has It. What was I thinking? I guess I just felt a little bad for Jen since new baby Shiloh is on the scene, but not bad enough to shell out ten bucks to see The Breakup. Mark Ruffalo, whom I normally love, plays a giant sucker. Let me tell you what—if my girlfriend slept with Kevin Costner, there'd be no way in hell I'd be taking her back. Yuck. Even Shirley MacLaine, in her patented wacky, still-thinks-she's-young granny role blew chunks.
OH, and earlier in the week Netflix sent me The Family Stone. Another stinker! While SJP doesn't bug me that much, she was really irritating in this. It made no sense that hottie Dermot Mulroney would fall for her character. This implausibility was annoying enough, but then manstealer Claire Danes comes on the scene, as SJP's much cuter, more fun, sis! Barf. While I confess that I do have a certain fondness for My So-Called Life, Danes should've packed it in after that. Her entire acting repertoire consists of the pouty head-tilt that she either pairs with the big saddy waddy eyes or a contained look of bemusement. Both equally ass-chappy. STRAIGHTEN OUT YOUR HEAD, YOU TWIT!!!!!! That look was barely winsome when she was 16; at 25 (or however old she is now) it merely serves to make her look slightly retarded. Can't wait to see it at 40.
My friend Kevin Eleven just called me from Kennedy Airport to report that Steve Buscemi had just walked by him! K11 was too cool to say hi to my hero, but knew I'd be excited to hear about the run-in.
Oddly enough, of all my celebrity crushs, Steve Buscemi is the one I've run into the most often.
Flicking around the TV last night, I stumbled upon this short on Sundance called Delusions in Modern Primitivism. It is hi-larious. The sad part is, my man knew it was a satire the entire time. But he's only lived in Williamsburg for a year or two. Me, having lived here for something like eleven years, was convinced it was real. I won't ruin the plot for you, but anytime I see someone doing something idiotic, it turns out to be an art project. Man and I watched somebody throwing Jello at the street one day (or something equally moronic, can't remember exactly what it was, but you get the point). Boyfriend got all up in arms and demanded to know what that craziness was. I rolled my eyes and told him it was an art project.
"No way!" he protested.
We watched for a second more and sure enough, the guy whipped out his camera to document his particular brand of stoopid.
UPDATE: Turns out the lead guy, Karl Moore, is the guitarist in one of my favorite bands! King Dust!
