Category: Shallow

From “Suddenly single: Paris Hilton: Why I Split with Nick,” an interview in the August 9, 2004 issue of Us:

“I was getting my makeup done [for a photo shoot for an upcoming cover of YM magazine], and it just hit me: I love Nick, but I need time alone. I called my psychic [L.A.-based Cipora Rekrut], and I asked her opinion. She thought I should be alone, and I agreed with her…I went straight to the Kabbalah Centre [in L.A.] and told everyone about the breakup and got a new [red string kabbalah] bracelet.”

What’s that in Denzel Washington’s hand? Why, it’s a book.
Jonathan Demme’s updated version of The Manchurian Candidate opened to $20M at the box office this weekend. The film was preceded by much conspiracy-mongering about what sort of left-leaning hobbyhorse Demme and Paramount chief Sherry Lansing rode in on and if their film about the country’s first “corporate owned V.P.” bears any resemblance to anyone in real life.
Well, it turns out there is a covert agenda floated forth in The Manchurian Candidate, but it’s not what you think: It’s a vast conspiracy aimed at making freedom-loving American people do something we are constitutionally averse to do: read.
Demme’s film is lousy with literary cameos. Check it out:

Walter Mosley (Bill Clinton’s favorite author) plays a congressman
Edwidge Danticat plays Rosie’s sister (seen in a photo)
Roy Blount, Jr. plays a pundit (who, along with actress/playwright Anna Deavere Smith, hip-hop pioneer Fab Five Freddy, monologist Reno, Def poet Beau Sia, and director Sidney Lumet seem to have fallen to the cutting-room floor)
E. Jean Carroll plays a reporter
Al Franken also plays a reporter
August Wilson appears (sort of) in a lingering shot of a Playbill for his show Jitney on Rosie’s wall.

Of course, this being a Demme film, there are tons of other cameos from friends and colleagues: Roger Corman (also an author!) appears as a former president, a promotion from FBI Director in Demme’s Silence of the Lambs. Artist/professor/fellow Lambs cameo-maker Jim Roche pops up, as do rocker Robyn Hitchcock, and the dude who plays Fuse TV’s own presidential candidate, Haymish Fuse.
None dare call it conspiracy! We are through the looking glass, people. Who will stop the reverse vampires?

From “Sick Bag Note Caused United Flight To Turn Back”, July 28, 2004:

…An air sickness bag with the letters “B O B” scrawled on it had been found in a toilet on board.
The pilot decided the note could have meant “bomb on board” and returned to Sydney, dumping almost a full load of fuel before the Boeing 747-400 landed safely.
Several other possibilities were being investigated, including that the note could have been a popular flight crew acronym for a good looking passenger, or simply a man named Bob.

One suggestion: aviation officials ought to have paid closer attention to the phrase “FIRE WALK WITH ME” that was scrawled on the bag’s flipside.

Last week, the reliably over-reactive Matt Drudge posted an urgent news flash for his legions of readers:

“RICH: ‘MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE’ MORE PARTISAN THAN ‘FAHRENHEIT 911’ Thu Jul 22 2004 20:56:59 ET”

THAT MORE OR LESS TURNED OUT (whoa, sorry, was momentarily stuck in all-caps/shouting mode) to be the news item in its entirety, in that Drudge’s pithy exclamation consisted solely of a handful of quotes from “Pop culture takes on the fear game,” an article by the New York Times’ Frank Rich (whom we absolutely adore, by the way) that appeared in Friday’s International Herald Tribune. Here’s the particular passage that got Drudge so worked up:

“[The act of turning the Bush-Cheney administration into an object of fear] can be seen at full throttle in Jonathan Demme’s remake of the classic cold war thriller ‘The Manchurian Candidate,’ which opens in the United States the morning after the Democratic convention ends. This movie could pass for the de facto fifth day of the convention itself.
I cannot recall when Hollywood last released a big-budget mainstream feature film as partisan as this one at the height of a presidential campaign. That it has slipped into action largely under the media’s radar, as discreetly as the sleeper agents in its plot, is an achievement in itself. Freed from any obligations to fact, ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ can play far dirtier than ‘Fahrenheit 9/11.’ Not being a documentary, it can also open on far more screens – some 2,800, which is more than three times what Michael Moore could command on his opening weekend (or any weekend to date).

Aw, Frank, Matt…you guys needn’t get so riled up about the undercurrent of hostility towards this year’s race for the presidency that has apparently surfaced in Demme’s remake. In fact, there were already a slew of winks and nods to the current 2004 campaign running throughout John Frankenheimer’s original 1962 film. Prescient, indeed.


You’ve got Texas versus Massachusetts…

And the convention held at Madison Square Garden in New York…

Featuring a first-class imbecile on the presidential ticket…

And, finally, the minor-yet-significant role of Heinz ketchup in the race for the presidency.
Let’s hope the real convention ends better than the one in the film!

Following in the wake of the “controversy” surrounding Jadakiss’ provocative lyrics (“Why did Bush knock down the towers?”) in his hit single, “Why?”, Fox News’ irascible hip-hop maestro Bill O’Reilly invited Forbes Magazine‘s senior reporter Victoria Murphy on to his Monday, July 19, 2004 edition of the O’Reilly Factor to discuss a tangentially-related matter, Microsoft’s usage of the rapper in an X-Box promotion.
But when you’re a 23-year-old reporter, why confine yourself to talking about boring, adult-oriented things like “marketing initiatives” and “public relations controversies” when you can wax rhapsodic on pop music and its performers?

MURPHY: This rapper’s probably a one-hit wonder anyway, and it turns out it probably wasn’t such a smart decision, but Microsoft is a smart company and what they want to do is sell more software, not promote some rapper’s political ideas…
O’REILLY: Yeah, I mean we understand what their marketing is, to get kids to play this X-Box with Jadakiss, but you know, July 5th, Jadakiss is arrested in Fayetteville, North Carolina, for, uh…
MURPHY: Right, but that’s what rappers do right, they get arrested?
O’REILLY: Yeah, I guess that’s what they do…

RELATED: One random fan’s Amazon selection of Jadakiss and the LOX’s various platinum- and gold-selling records.

TIME Magazine‘s July 26, 2004 issue, Vol. 164, Number 4
…in which the cover-story editors draw from the ten-year-old script for Jon Favreau and Doug Liman’s Swingers, liberally quoting Vince Vaughn’s Trent character.
…in which the “The Arts” section profiles Clara Peller, noted for her catchy quip, “Where’s the beef?”
…in which we learn about Ms. Pac-Man, the surprisingly successful spinoff to everyone’s favorite coin-operated arcade game
…in which the movement to impeach the President for his knowledge of an illegal break-in at the Watergate Hotel is examined
…in which the “Nation” section document’s the cultural obsession with the Lindbergh baby trial
NEXT WEEK’S ISSUE:
…in which the “Science” section profiles Gumma, the universe’s very first single-celled organism, and noted neurotic, in an article headlined “Mitochondriac”

Today’s New York Times Metro section runs a piece about the city’s night spots and the hipster embrace of—get this, kids—karaoke. In “‘Sweet Caroline’ Never Seemed So Good: So Uncool That It’s Hip, Karaoke Enjoys a Comeback”, Times readers commuting via the downtown 1/9 trains had the opportunity to learn about this thriving new subculture amongst the city’s ironic set:

“Clearly, given the demographics, this is not the karaoke of crazy drunken uncles who worship Neil Diamond, nor is it the more studied karaoke first pioneered by Japanese businessmen. Instead, it is more akin to the swing-dancing craze of the 90’s – a form of urban group expression that satisfies a longing for community.”

While an instinctive critique of the paper may be expected to run along the lines of, “Why doesn’t this paper cover these phenomena when they’re more relevant, and hire younger, more plugged-in writers and reporters,” it turns out that a better and more applicable critique may be along the lines of, “What the hell happened to their older staff, those people who actually remember what the paper has published in the past?” To wit, observations from “Noticed; Karaoke: Once More, With Irony” in the paper’s Style section (a mere six years earlier, on July 5, 1998), which noted

“a reawakened interest among New York hipsters in the sing-along pastime imported from Japan. …Just when it seemed the loose-tie recreation of the 1980’s had been safely put to rest in church basements and suburban strip-mall bars, karaoke is being revived by young downtown scene-makers, along with so many other retro relics of the Reagan era. They are frequenting new karaoke clubs, as well as infiltrating traditional ones with a largely Asian clientele.”

Well, be it 1998 or 2004, one thing is certain: it must be cool if the Bush twins are doing it.

Blonde Items:
WHAT hairy havoc have Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce Knowles, et al wreaked upon the world of up-and-coming black and Latina starlets? WHEN did Christina Milian, brunette teen songstress and star of last year’s Love Don’t Cost a Thing, have her handlers reconstruct her image and give her a post-Beyonce blonde re-do? WHY did no one realize that “Dip it Low” is a strong enough pop single on its own merits that its vocalist did not need this egregious white-person-accessibility reinvention? WHEN did we forget about that scene at the beginning of Spike Lee’s Malcolm X where the young leader of the Black Power movement becomes embarrassed by his usage of hair-straightening products? WHY has Angela Davis never fronted a pop group?

After Will Ferrell’s Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy took in an estimated $28 million and landed in second place at the weekend box office, we took it upon ourselves to help flush out the work of producers for esteemed shows such as ET and Access Hollywood and get to the bottom of things: just who is Ron Burgundy, Anchorman?
After flipping through a copy of the June, 1979 issue of National Lampoon (or, to be honest, the version archived on the Lampoon’s website, since we don’t actually collect old magazines like a goddamned packrat), realization set in that we were gazing upon the Genesis of an Institution, and the Dawn of Buffoonery. The following images are taken from a feature entitled “Emergency Fathering”, written by John Hughes, Tom Corcoran, Gerrald Sussman, and Judy Corcoran.


Are we looking at illustrated archival documentation of the Ron Burgundy’s baby years, which might in some way explain the character’s later behavior as an adult? But wouldn’t that make Ron a youthful 25 years old today? And, wait, isn’t the film itself set in the 1970s? Oh my god, I totally cannot process all of this. Maybe it’s merely cinematic inspiration?
Only John Hughes knows for sure. I, meanwhile, am off to go watch Wonderland and then Boogie Nights. Or vice versa.