“Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai of Kenya will be feted at a Dec. 11 concert to be hosted by Tom Cruise and Oprah Winfrey that will air on E!
“Festivities will be held in Oslo the day after the award ceremony, where Maathai will become Africa’s first Nobel laureate for her contributions to the environment and women’s rights.
“E! has secured exclusive rights to the telecast and will show the two-hour concert Thursday, Dec. 23.”
(From, E! to broadcast starry concert for Nobel winner, Variety, Nov. 28, 2004.)
Double hack score for implying that E! will be broadcasting the actual Nobel ceremony. Triple hack score for working in a Scientology joke, an Oprah “You get a Nobel! You get a Nobel!” joke, or a dig at Polyphonic Spree for being not unlike a cult. (Joss Stone joke, optional.)
[via TVTattle]
Author: matt
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Wonder Boy
Don’t Say a Word: Douglas let’s his breath do the talking, Nov. 30, 2004.
Congratulations to Michael Douglas on his “Walk of Fame” star! You’ve earned it, big guy.
Now, who’s up for pizzas at Spago?
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Bitten by the Humbug
Christmas Time in Ames, Iowa: Leslie Hall and a friend.
Yes, Christmas begins before Thanksgiving. Yes, it’s a marketed, commodified celebration of consumption. Yes, the true meaning of the holiday has been forgotten. (Some Jewish kid was born in a barn, or something…) Yes, it’s just totally cheesy.
But it’s kind of awesome, too. Like, when hardcore heads get into the Christmas spirit and release holiday raps. Remember Run-DMC’s “Christmas in Hollis,” or Doug E. Fresh, The Treacherous Three, and The Magnificent Force’s “X-Mas Rap” in Beat Street, or P. Diddy’s “Bad Boy for Life (Santa Gave Me a Lump of Coal, Yo)”? Classics, all.
Add to the hip hop Christmas canon the latest from the Canadian rap ‘n’ racism bible-approved Iowa-reared MC supergroup, Leslie and The LY’s. Watch “Christmas Rap” and prepare to have your planet rocked.
If the Missy Elliott-inflected lyrics don’t make you smile, the Flash-meets-Rodney Alan Greenblat video will. And if that doesn’t put you in the Christmas spirit, your soul is dead and you embody everything that is wrong with this country, and shame on you.
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Dude, They Stole My Band’s Name!
“The International Committee of the Red Cross has charged in confidential reports to the United States government that the American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion “tantamount to torture” on prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba…”
–Red Cross Finds Detainee Abuse in Guantánamo, by Neil A. Lewis, The New York Times, Nov. 30, 2004.
Not cool, Red Cross. Well, there’s always my backup band name: The Motoboys.
Today’s ‘let’s git’ high concept pitch comes courtesy of Done Deal:
Title: Jersey Dukes
Log Line: A New Jersey mob boss sends a crew over to England to check on his daughter’s impending wedding to a royal. The mobsters discover that England is perfect for mob expansion, especially once they are offered help by some dukes and duchesses in need of money to hang on to their country estate.
Writer: Fred Wolf
Agent: UTA
Buyer: Paramount Pictures
Price: High six against low seven figures
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Logged: 11/30/04
More: Pitch. Lorne Michaels will produce.
So, we’re looking at James Caan, Jim Broadbent, Kiera Knightley, Vanessa Redgrave, jokes about bad English food, a scene where a New Jersey chef is flown in to make ‘gravy’ in an old Manor House kitchen, an uptight British dude handling a gun with ease (since he dueled back in Oxford), and a set piece inside Big Ben? Works for me.
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An Eye For Trends
One’s a Trend: Gwen Stefani on i-D‘s Dec./Jan. cover…Val Kilmer as Philip in Alexander.
Related: Sammy Davis, Jr.; Murray Wilson.
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Don’t Look Back
The Life Aquatic poster… Milton Glaser‘s Bob Dylan poster.
Gothamist is running a contest to promote Wes Anderson’s cruelly under-hyped film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou this week.
What caught my eye immediately was the excellent poster for the film (above left), an obvious homage to Milton Glaser’s iconic Bob Dylan poster from 1966 (above, right). Since the Zissou image didn’t link, I don’t know its provenance, but I was surprised that there was no mention of Dylan or Glaser, since just last week, Gothamist was singing Glaser’s praises in a piece about the new New York Magazine logo.
I guess Glaser‘s just one of those artists whose work is so ubiquitous, it’s become wallpaper for the culture. It’s like “Happy Birthday to You”: Everyone knows that song, but can anyone name its composer? It’s a shame, too, since Glaser created so many excellent, memorable designs, like the beloved logo for Grand Union.
Related: “When I went upstairs, my bedroom felt like an overwarm sickroom. The clearest remaining vestige of Tom was the ‘Don’t Look Back’ poster that he’d taped to a flank of his dresser where Bob Dylan’s psychedelic hair style wouldn’t always be catching my mother’s censorious eye.” The Comfort Zone, by Jonathan Franzen, The New Yorker, Nov. 29, 2004.
(Ground) Zero Tact: Another offensive Cingular billboard, Lafayette St. and Astor Pl.
On November 19, this website published a revelation so important, so earth-shattering, our comments database promptly crashed due to the overwhelming feedback we received.
I am referring, of course, to low culture Exclusive: An Outrage Grows in Brooklyn!!!, about Cingular’s insensitive Twin Towers-themed billboard on Fourth Avenue and 9th Street in Brooklyn.
Since then, the post has richocheted around the internet, spread like wild fire, grown like kudzu, and just kept going and going like one of those battery-operated toy rabbits.
If our comments were any indication, America was just as outraged by Cingular’s billboard as we were:
“so clearly … the twin towers”
“Advertising is subliminal. They want gut reactions.”
“… those are the Twin Towers…”
“…these are obviously … supposed to be the towers. i think anyone … can figure that out.”
“When the twin towers were still standing, they were the same size, which is why they called them the twin towers…”
And, most damning of all:
“i work for cingular and thought this was hilarious.”
Hilarious, huh? Well, apparently Cingular is upping the ante by putting up not one, but several of these offensive billboards on the corner of Lafayette and Astor Place, a few blocks north of the World Trade Center! Yes, it’s true: The outrage continues. Worse yet, the representation of the Twin Towers crumbling, falling apart, appears almost exactly where the towers themselves would appear when looking downtown. Out-freakin’-rageous!
Please, we urge you once again to boycott Catherine Zeta Jones, despite her endorsement of T-Mobile. Boycott her because she married that slimy Michael Douglas! This outrage must be stopped!
Earlier: low culture Exclusive: An Outrage Grows in Brooklyn!!!
Aerosmith’s Tyler Visits Women’s Rehab Center
Related: Aerosmith: You Gotta Move DVD, released Nov. 23, 2004.
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