In keeping with this blog’s laserlike focus on the utterly trivial, let’s take a look at this highly non-newsworthy snippet of an interview with Emma Stone (most recent film: Easy A). Emma is both cute and talented, and it’s nice to see she declines to spout the usual “I was an ugly teenager” tripe every woman in Hollywood feels compelled to repeat. “I never felt, like, dorky,” she says. “I was just like, ‘Yup, these are my braces. I’ve had them forever.’” Way to go, Emma. Nothing wrong with growing up well adjusted. But the interview gets a little more interesting when she starts delivering movie reviews in secret code:
I like to look like a person. It drives me crazy when you see women in movies playing teachers, and they have biceps. It totally takes me out of the movie. I start thinking, Wow, that actress playing this part really looks great!”
A perfectly reasonable, general comment. Nothing anyone need take personally. For example, Cameron Diaz (most recent film: Bad Teacher) has no idea what Emma is talking about:
If you’ve ever wanted to lick David Hasselhoff all over, then—for the love o’ Mike, don’t tell me about it. Seriously, I really don’t need images like that cluttering up my head. But if that’s your thing, then your moment has arrived. Del Monte Iced Refreshments has decided to celebrate National Ice Cream Month by creating the Hoffsicle. The raspberry-flavored confection is shaped entirely too much like You Know Who, to my way of thinking, and it quickly earned The Hoff’s seal of approval. “Like me,” he proclaimed, “it might take a licking but it keeps on ticking.”
There’s also a video, which will please anyone who isn’t a female living in London and make anyone who is think twice about the Hoff threat level before they plan their shopping expeditions. Yes, you will have to go to Britain if you want to taste the Hoff. (And I would encourage you to do so. Preferably for good.) Apparently Britons, like Germans, love David Hasselhoff. And, let’s face it, the man is not without a certain intrigue. Over the past several years, his career has evolved from the merely cheesy to the baroquely cheesy. It’s like Hasselhoff hit fifty and decided to celebrate the occasion by having his shame glands surgically removed.
Back around the time The Last Airbender was blighting theatres, someone compiled a chart showing how M. Night Shyamalan’s films had been received, based on their ratings at Rotten Tomatoes. Once you plot in all the data, it’s possible to discern a distinct decade-long trend:
The evidence is clear: critics judged Unbreakable way too harshly. Little did they know what horrors lay ahead of them. At any rate, that chart was the inspiration for the Career-O-Matic, where you can use the ratings from Rotten Tomatoes to plot the career arc of any film star or director from the last 25 years (as long as they’ve been associated with at least five films during that period). Go ahead–try it for yourself. And, if you can trust Rotten Tomatoes, Jennifer Love Hewitt is the worst major actress of the past 25 years. She’s been associated with more than twenty films, not one of which has cracked the 60 percent barrier on Rotten Tomatoes; Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties hit 11 percent, which had a big but not good effect on Hewitt’s overall ratings.
Of course, according to the Career-O-Matic the most successful American male actor from the same time period was John Ratzenberger, which tells us two things: 1) You can’t go wrong doing tons of voiceover work for Pixar; and 2) Don’t trust Rotten Tomatoes. But Hewitt’s achievement is still impressive. There must be some sort of award she’s eligible for; not necessarily a Razzie, but maybe a Golden Vajazzle.
The Heather Graham Career Assessment is now available for your reading pleasure.
Lost EP Damon Lindelof saw X-Men: First Class and generally liked it. I haven’t seen the movie yet myself, but based on this endorsement I’m assuming it’s overly long, rife with unresolved plotlines, and has a brutally disappointing ending. But Lindelof wasn’t completely uncritical about the project. He had a few choice words for January Jones, which he shared with the world through his Twitter feed:
Emma Frost’s THREE mutant powers,” Lindelof wrote on Twitter. “Telepathy, Transformation to Solid Diamond and last but not least, Sucking at Acting.”
(To be fair, it’s worth noting that Lindelof later acknowledged he sounded like a total schmuck, without exactly retracting his opinion of Ms. Jones’ acting abilities.) Now, I don’t know much about January Jones. She’s been photographed more than once doing the Walk of Shame, and she’s carrying a child whose father is probably someone else’s spouse. That puts her right in the center of the bell curve for women in Hollywood. But she seems to be pissing off all the right people, which suggests she must have some redeeming qualities. We shall follow her career with considerable interest.
And, in case you’re wondering: Yes. This blog will now cover nothing but X-Men, from here on out as far as the eye can see. I blame whoever hacked my Twitter account and DM’d those dick-pics to Matthew Vaughn.
X-Men: First Class did decent business on its opening weekend—not spectacular, but decent—and it looks like Michael Fassbender might finally be making it as a genuine Hollywood star. Not that he intends to rest on his laurels, since playing a guy who can bend metal with his mind makes him feel like a bit of a dolt. Instead, Fassbender is hard at work on his role in the upcoming film Shame, where he plays the challenging role of a man addicted to online pr0n. Fortunately Fassbender is the sort of conscientious actor who’s ready to do whatever it takes to prepare for a role:
I definitely explored the realm of it,” the 34-year-old actor says. “People can stay inside for 72 hours on end watching it. They can’t have sex with their wives because they’re so obsessed with it. What’s really interesting about it is that in the US alone, something like 24 million people claim to be sex addicts but the mental-health board hasn’t recognised it as an addiction.”
It could be an interesting role, although I’m not sure how many people will relate to it. I mean people who go to movies, not people who sit glued to their computers 24/7 whacking off like bored zoo monkeys. But it’s definitely a change from Magneto, and in some ways a change for the better. The pr0n Magneto would have had access to in 1962 would have been seriously low-quality stuff.
X-Men: First Class opens today, so it seems appropriate to illustrate a Kelsey Grammer post with a pic from what was, amazingly enough, not the worst movie in the franchise (Thanks a bunch, X-Men Origins: Wolverine!). Also appropriate, because Kelsey is behaving kind of like a beast. Now that he and Camille have separated (and are trying to finalize that arrangement in a classically ugly no-prenup divorce battle), he’s decided he’d like to further subdivide his broken family into conveniently bite-sized morsels. Specifically, Kelsey is proposing to keep the boy and give Camille the girl—a straight fifty/fifty split, and a perfectly equitable solution to the custody dispute. What? You see a problem with that?
Camille, perhaps not exactly a prize parent herself, seems to be less than thrilled with this proposal, and is now pushing for sole custody of the children. I’m honestly not sure how Kelsey’s plan would fly in court. The precedents for treating one’s children like a fifty/fifty property settlement are probably fairly hazy. However, the precedent for “You really shouldn’t get involved with Kelsey Grammer” is starting to look pretty solidly established.
If your pick in the ScarSpicoli death pool was “three months and change,” then step right up and collect your winnings. (And kudos to you, sir or madame, for your faith in the all-conquering power of love. I gave this thing four weeks, tops.) Scarlett and Sean are now history, according to multiple sources. Reps for the two former lovebirds have offered no comment or explanation. Then again, is any explanation needed? I don’t even particularly like Scarlett Johansson, and I still wouldn’t punish her with a mate like Sean Penn. As for Sean, nobody is a suitable match for him, now that Leona Helmsley is no longer with us. Sean Penn deserves nothing more than to be old and lonely, surrounded by far too many cats. Who would eventually leave him, once he started randomly punching them and hanging out with other, sleazier cats.
I was going to go with a story about Bradley Cooper’s astonishing fluency in French as he promotes The Hangover 2 (or Le Gueule du Bois Deux, according to my Babelfrench) to gullible Francophones as some sort of Lewis-and-Martin comedic romp. But this blog seems to be threatening to turn into an all-XY, all the time kind of operation, so let’s look over the job listings, shall we? Hmmm…. If you missed your chance to hire on as Pauly Shore’s buttboy, you might be interested to learn that Gwyneth Paltrow is hiring a nanny/tutor for her two kids. (Keep in mind here, the oldest is seven.) Provided, of course, that you can meet her exacting standards:
You’ll be:
• Fluent in four languages [Latin, Classical Greek, French, and Spanish]
• Grade 8 standard in two [musical] instruments
• “Probably” an Oxbridge graduate
• “Passionate” about sailing and tennis
Somehow, this seems a tad excessive. Throw in a taste for sexual assault, and a man with these qualifications could land a senior position at the IMF. The job only pays $98,000 a year, but there are some cushy fringe benefits. I might even try for it myself. All I’d have to do is brush up on my French, Spanish, Greek and Latin, brush up on my tennis game, learn to sail, and acquire or forge a graduation certificate from Oxford or Cambridge. Once those details are out of the way, I’m in like Flynn.
Simon Cowell is a man who has made millions by mocking the failures of less successful people, so it’s always a genuine pleasure to note those occasions when Cowell himself fails in a visible, highly public manner. Last night’s Britain’s Got Talent, for example, when Cowell’s face seemed to be disfigured by a hemiplegic stroke major Botox OD. Cowell is a big fan of the youthening effect gained by poking needles full of deadly poison into his face, but last night’s misapplication left him looking saggy and bruised—and with a major case of Paris Hilton wonk-eye, to boot. Don’t try this Botox thing at home, kids.
Fortunately, Cowell learned an important from this experience. And that lesson is: better lighting. After the taping, additional lights were added to Simon’s table that gave a more even illumination, softening his appearance. Sort of like photonic Botox. “The one thing Simon hates is people taking the mickey out of his looks,” according to one unnamed source. Then again, as noted above, Simon’s been taking the mickey out of aspiring performers for years now. Karma’s a bitch, eh Simon?
