Month: October 2004

“[C]alling me a d- -k or making fun of my bow tie is not gonna rattle my cage. It’s not like I haven’t heard that before.” — Tucker Carlson, quoted in Page Six.

It is clear that the Red Sox will soon delight their long-suffering fans by reaching the World Series for the first time since 1986. We applaud them for their historic comeback, as much as it irks us to lose to them, of all teams.

Undoubtedly, there are many readers who have no sympathy for the Yankee fan, and not merely the joyous citizens of the so-called Red Sox Nation. To fans of all other baseball teams, the Yankees and their fans appear much as Americans appear to the citizens of all other nations — spoiled with obscene prosperity that they then, adding insult to injury, proceed not merely to enjoy, but to expect, at all costs. To the rest of the baseball world, the Yankees are the hyperpower, led by a boasting, undiplomatic, bloviating madman named George, using their tremendously disproportionate wealth to tilt the playing field in their favor and to insidiously appropriate the resources of the less fortunate.

“Gary goes through the usual three-act gamut of rivalry (with a puppet whose resemblance to Seann William Scott is surely intentional), romance (with a puppet whose resemblance to Elisabeth Shue is probably not), self-doubt and redemption, much of it set to music.”
—A.O. Scott, The New York Times.
“[H]is performance as John, the actor-phobic Team member is the best of Aaron Eckhart‘s career.”
—Greg Allen, Greg.org.
“The team’s control-room chief, Spottswoode, a white-haired bureaucrat in the James Mason mold, never loses his stentorian cool, even when he’s commanding Gary to, uh, go down for his country.”
—Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly.
“What’s different is that, yes, the hero is a puppet, and you can see his strings. And he’s not a fighter pilot, he’s a Broadway actor, recruited by a Charlton Heston-like figure with an omnipresent highball to save the world with his ACTING by infiltrating an Islamic terrorist group.”
—David Edelstein, Slate.

low culture, January 22, 2004:

The Believer, October 2004:

For our younger readers, the man on the right is Howard Dean.

Rakes’ Progress: Jude Law and Mick Jagger (and Jude Law, background)
You’d be smiling too if you slept with half the women in the world and your buddy slept with the other half.

Tomorrow, NBC premieres the latest entry in the decline of Western Civilization Reality TV genre, The Biggest Loser in which some people do something to win some money or maybe something else. It’s gonna be awesome—or something.
Since most TV critics are filing their reviews with their editors right about now, I thought I’d offer them some help with their inevitable shitty puns and fat jokes. Feel free to use any of the following phrases in your articles or headlines, or um, become a better writer:
·Fat Tuesday
·Weighty Matter
·Light-Weight Entertainment
·Thick as Thieves
·Chubby-Hubby
·The Weight Is Over
·Big Men and Women on Campus
·Fat of the Land
·Big, Fat Obnoxious [Anything]
·Big, Fat Hit
·Weighed Down
·Heavy/Meta
·Well-Rounded Cast
·Fatty Ass-heads
·Must Eat TV
·Hungry for Ratings
·Fat Chance
·Battle of the Bulge
·Thin Premise
·Fat Sells
·Big Competition
·Chubby Reign
·Waist of Airtime
·Devouring the Competition
·Chewing the Scenery
·Broad Humor
·The Thickest Link
·Livin’ Large
·Large and in Charge
·Wide Margin
·Fat of the Land
·Meaty
·Morbidly [Anything]
·Gut-Busting
·Phat