Category: Shallow

Let’s say you’ve got a movie coming out with a lead actor who might be a bit of marketing gamble.
Maybe you’ve made a conventional narrative-flouting musical mystery, starring an actor widely considered to be among the most talented actors of his generation, but he’s also a convicted felon and something of a recidivist? And what if your star is usually associated with rom-com fluff and bad plastic surgery, not gritty, erotic thrillers?
The answer is simple: you hide them!
The Singing Detective and In the Cut open this week. They each star… somebody.

Coming soon to a development hell near you: Hooligans (or whatever they’ll call it when it’s changed two or three times), the touching story of “A wrongfully expelled Harvard undergrad [who] moves to London and makes friends with a man who introduces him to the violent underworld of football hooliganism.”
Finally, something we can all relate to. Who wants to take bets that the school becomes something generic like “Worthington College,” London becomes Brooklyn, the sport becomes boxing, the hooligans become wizened older Black men, and the undergrad becomes Amanda Peet. Oh, and that the script becomes a paper towel when some D-girl spills her chai latte in her cubicle.
Good luck with the movie, fellas.
Earlier thoughts on hooligans from low culture.

Andy’s back, Andy’s back, Andy’s back! After a long time in a Raines-enforced “time out” (during which he had to write “I will not blog against The New York Times” over and over again), Andrew Sullivan is back writing for The Times op-ed page.
Let it never be said that Bill Keller doesn’t mend fences.

Another week, another Frank Rich column (nearly) juxtaposed with a conflicting ad. As reported here last week, The New York Times ad sales department should read Frank Rich’s omnibus Arts & Leisure column before it places its ads. This week’s Rich column, The Rush of the New Rat Pack goes a long way to put forth the thesis that with the Gropinator in the Governor’s mansion in California and Bill Bennett playing the slots in Vegas, the staid old G.O.P. has absorbed some of the Rat Pack’s ring-a-ding-ding mojo. Not a terrible idea, but when Rich searches for contemporary examples of Rat Pack revival, he comes up a bit short: Ashton Kutcher and P. Diddy calling each other “Dino” and “Frank” between reach-arounds? Dubious at best. That weird “Sinatra: His Voice, His Way” thing at Radio City Music Hall? A bit manufactured. Maybe if Swingers had just come out and people were still smoking cigars and drinking Martinis on the cover of Esquire Rich might be able to fill his three-times-a-trend quotient for the week. (Why Rich didn’t mention the Japanese commercial director who urged Bill Murray to be more like the “Lat-a pack-a” in Lost in Translation is beyond me.)
But just as I concluded that Rich’s case was too weak and licked my finger to change from page 19 to 20, there it was on the very next page: an ad featuring Frank, Sammy, and Dino for Live and Swingin’ “The swingin’est 2-disc collection ever!” Ring-a-ding-ding, indeed.

My favorite professor from college has been profiled in the Times.
Class With the ‘Ph.D. Diva’ by Felicia R. Lee
No joke, during Professor Rose‘s class, I could literally feel my brain growing: the connections she drew between concepts and her amazing energy and accessibility made NYU’s Africana Studies Department the place to be. According to The Times, she’s currently heading up the American Studies Department at U.C. Santa Cruz, so that must be the place to be now.
Tricia Rose’s new book is called Longing to Tell: Black Women’s Stories of Sexuality and Intimacy

Georgie and Juni and Bob and Takashi

It’s so hard to say I’m sorry for “stumbling into a use of words that in the past people have taken as code for anti-Semitic feelings” but the “Jewish executives [who] worship money above all else” have finally prevailed upon Gregg Easterbrook to retract his ridiculous comments on Kill Bill: Volume 1.
Writer Takes Jews to Task for ‘Kill Bill’ by Bernard Weinraub
Now, will Gregg Easterbrook apologize for his other offenses?
Earlier apologies from low culture

Movie Poop Shoot: Hollywood Elsewhere – October 8, 2003
Liberal “blowhard” Michael Moore (who is otherwise a very respectable fellow, save for that objectionable “blowhard” part…he ruined the Academy Awards!) has said his next film, “Fahrenheit 9/11,” is due to be released in September of 2004. The tagline? “The temperature where freedom burns.” The subject matter? The Bush dynasty’s connection to Saudi oil magnates and the White House assistance given to Bin Laden’s relatives in their efforts to leave the country in the waning days after September 11, 2001, a period of time during which all other planes were grounded by the FAA.
“Fahrenheit 9/11”? If you’re going to politically riff on Ray Bradbury titles, wouldn’t some pun related to “Something Wicked This Way Comes” have worked better? Anyway, it’s better than the neo-dadaist “Bowling for Columbine”.
Here’s the shocker: the documentary is being co-produced by Mel Gibson‘s Icon Productions, the same company releasing the action star and director’s uber-biblical (and possibly uber-anti-Semitic) “The Passion” next spring. This, you may recall, is the supposedly literal reading (even down to the Aramaic-language dialogue) of the bible’s documentation of the last days of Christ, complete with Christ-killing Jews. Because, you know, that’s the way it really happened. I mean, it’s in the book, even…
Now, take another gander at Moore’s film’s projected release date, September, 2004. The same month of the Republican Convention in Manhattan, mere miles from Ground Zero, on the event’s three-year anniversary. September, 2004, a little more than one month before the presidential election. Prime influence-peddling time.
I guess it’s a little early to speculate about Fahrenheit 9/11’s potential for incendiary content, but expect some topical punches to be pulled. It’s a sure bet that in any fistfight, Mel Gibson could so kick Michael Moore’s ass.
You know why? Because Michael Moore is a fat motherfucker, and overweight to boot! He is so easy for rightwingers to make fun of!