She's Crazy About Me, Which I Love In A Person

Comedy Central has just greenlit six episodes of The Sarah Silverman Program, set to star Sarah Silverman, which will air in the summer. Lauren Corrao, Comedy Central's exec Vp of development, decribed the pilot in Entertainment Weekly as:

''In the pilot, her remote control runs out of batteries and she has to get new ones because she can't stand the images on her TV, like children dying of cancer. She ends up meeting God, who's black and who she has sex with only to find out he behaves like a needy, insecure guy afterwards and she can't get him out of her apartment.''

Wonderful. Now just give Stella a second season and erase all traces of anything 'Redneck', and well, Comedy Central, I just might make an honest woman out of you yet.

Shiny Little Men, They're Everywhere

Wow, today is a big day. Tonight is the President's State of the Union address, which I will not be watching since there's a new Gilmore Girls on opposite it. I'm not really ashamed of this since the address is basically just a preview of the talking points that I'll be consistently beat over the head with for the next year, so I'm in no rush to hear them, especially when I know that he'll just trip over his delivery and then smirk at the end of every sentence, as if to notify "Cool, right?" It's like his variation of a laugh track, his version of sticking his thumbs up and going "Ehhh...", which is probably what he really wants to do, though they've probably convinced him that that wouldn't play as well as he thinks it will. That's probably the reason that he stopped wearing the leather jacket during the 2000 primaries. And why he didn't marry Pinky Tuscadero all those years ago. Or why he didn't jump his bike over all of those garbage cans. Ah, the things we sacrifice for our careers.

But the only important thing to happen today already happened. The Oscar Nominations. And the biggest news among them? That's right, cinematographer Robert Elswit is now Oscar nominated cinematographer Robert Elswit. I was a little worried that he might split the vote between 'Good Night, and Good Luck.' and 'Syriana', but now that he got the nomination for 'Good Night' the work in both films will hopefully seal his win. I also just realized that the fact that I wrote that previous sentence could serve as a valuable clue to the state of my current social life. Anyway, Noah Bambauch got a nomination for Best Original Screenplay, and honestly, anyone who writes a scene with a kid smearing his semen on library books deserves to win. Though apparently only screen-writers saw that movie, because if any one else had then they would have given a nomination to Laura Linney rather than Judi Dench. Honestly, Judi Dench? Were they really that hard up for Best Actress nominees? Did any one see 'Mrs. Henderson Presents'? I'm not sure if Judi Dench saw it, I think she fell asleep the night she was planning on seeing it because she took a nap before hand, and then woke up like five minutes before it was going to start, and then debated whether or not she was willing to miss the first few minutes, and then she probably just got a snack and went back to bed. Though one good thing about the fact that the Best Actress category was such a crap shoot was that Keira Knightley pulled out a nomination, which is great because it means that more people will hopefully see that movie, which I honestly thought was one of the best last year (it also had one of Donald Sutherland's best performances to date, and he didn't even get killed by a dwarf in this one). And you know what, I'm willing to give up my bitterness towards Dame Judi Dench's nomination, because she was in Pride and Prejudice. That's how much I liked it. And, on a related note, I highly enjoy watching the sport of football. Ahem. Some people say that Keira Kinghtley shouldn't have been nominated, that in all of her previous movies she was out acted by soccer balls, deteriorating monkeys and planks of wood. I say that this is erroneous (that monkey couldn't act for shit), and that she was able to tap into just the right amount of girlishness and stubborn feminism to pull off Lizzy Bennet. That and she is really, really pretty. I'm fairly sure that counts for something.

Oh, and William Hurt? And for that argument Frances McDormand? They're both great actors, but out of the cast of 'A History of Violence', him? He's in it for five minutes and I'm fairly sure he was on morphine the entire time. It was enjoyable, but it's kind of a waste of a nomination (Sutherland? Sarsgaard. Or, as the pirates convention would say, "SarsgaaRRRRRRRRD" Honestly, what does Peter Sarsgaard have to do to get a nomination? 'Boys Don't Cry', 'Shattered Glass', 'Kinsey', 'Jarhead'. Does he have to play a musician, is that what you want from him? Because he'll do it. He does a mean Smiths - era Morrissey). And no one in the academy saw North Country, they probably saw that McDormand used the same accent that she used in 'Fargo' and got all excited. Did S. Epatha Merkerson get nominated for 'Lackawana Blues'? I think she must have, since it's become federal law to give her an award for that. I don't even know what 'Lackawana Blues' is, but I feel the need to give her an award for it. I also think Jon Brion should have been nominated. Sure, he didn't compose any scores this year, but logic doesn't really play into the minds of Academy voters, proven by the fact that they seem to think that Clint Eastwood is the greatest American filmmaker working today. Because we can never give the star of 'Every Which Way But Loose' too many awards. The man acted with a monkey. And not some, "Peter Jackson - digital-monkey" crap, but an honest to goodness monkey. No amount of awards we give him will bestow the amount of honor that he truly deserves. But we have to try.

Poor Salesmanship

Lou Rawls passed away on January 6th. A fact which apparently has yet to reach the people at Colonial Penn Life Insurance, who continue to run their ads with Rawls as a compensated endorser. I haven't reached the point in my life where I feel the need to buy life insurance, but I'm fairly sure that when people buy their policies, it's more as a precaution than an admission of their inevitable demise. Which is exactly the feeling you get when a dead man tries to sell you life insurance. So... creepy.

Keep Your Specs On

'Brick' is going to be the best movie of 2006. True, I haven't seen any other movies that are coming out this year, so to say that is a little irresponsible and I'm probably getting ahead of myself. But I haven't seen anything else that looks half as good as this movie was. What else is going to beat high schoolers talking like they just walked out of a Hammit story? Joseph Gordon Levitt beating up on hash heads? Nora Zehetner as the second coming of Mary Astor? Have I asked enough questions yet? Am I getting through to you? I hope so. Apple finally put the trailer up the other day. Don't be fooled by the high school jokey jokes in the trailer. The Richard Roundtree scene is nothing more than what you see, and the stuff with Lucas Haas' mom doesn't go much further either. That's what's so great about the movie, that it doesn't really care that these are high school kids, it just deals with it as a straight up mystery. I promise you'll get so into it that you'll be talking like a hard boiled noir character till you destroy any semblance of a normal social life. And really, isn't that what we want from the movies?

The Man With A Magical Beard

I like Fiona Apple well enough, but one thing you can't really say about her is that she has a super sense of humour. I don't know, maybe she has a large repertoire of knock-knock jokes that she slays people with, but she's never used them in public. Which is a shame, because knock-knock jokes are hilarious. And so is Zach Galifianakis. If you weren't aware that the man was magical from his failed VH1 talk show (actually, I don't really blame you if you missed that one, though it was pretty funny), or from his stint on the failed 'Tru Calling' (don't really blame you if you missed that one either), or from his role in 'Out Cold' (Um..). Let me regroup a bit. If you did miss his Comedy Central special or the Comedians of Comedy last year, then, you're a communist. And if you don't believe me, just look at the video for Apple's 'Not About Love', because if you need proof that he's funny, just look at this. He makes her smile. Fiona Apple, the saddest girl in the world, cracks up over him. Which is scientific proof that if you don't laugh at him, then you're kind of a grinch. And nobody likes a grinch.

Distinguished Gentlemen

It's become obvious this last weekend why there is such apathy towards the political system in America. We are boring. People were upset that no one watched the Alito hearings, but I think those people would have understood why no one watched them if they themselves had actually tried to watch them. My theory? They were eating pie while they forced an unpaid intern to watch the hearing for them. I'm looking at you, Wolf Blitzer. That beard is fooling no one. I tried watching some of the hearings (during that stretch of the day in between MacGyver and West Wing reruns) but then I saw a squirrel running on the phone wires, which was much more interesting. God, that squirrel was really cute.

And it wouldn't be that unbearable if it wasn't so obvious that politics around the world were ten times as fun as they are here. Look at Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. The man's going on 70, but doesn't look a day past 64 thanks to his face lift and hair transplants. And these aren't little skeletons in the closet, little "John Kerry's trips to the Botox clinic" embarrassments. He's public about the work he's had done, because he's a man's man. He boasts that he was able to negotiate a EU contract away from Finland's female president Tarja Halonen by using his 'playboy tactics'. Does it matter that this is the woman who is getting a bump in the polls due to the fact that she looks like Conan O'Brien? No, because as all real men know, we boast about anything that we can get. Anything.

And now, at a recent party rally where he was thanked by a bishop for his opposition to gay marriage and his support of family values, the prime minister thanked him by promising to be abstinent until the general elections on April 9th. This tactic alone probably wouldn't help make our anti-pro-gay-family-values whatever rallies any more interesting though. In fact it would make it worse, because if President Bush promised to be abstinent until the midterm elections, all that would mean to me is that he and the First Lady have been...intimate. Currently. Or for that fact, ever. I know logically that they have, but, it's like my teachers, or my parents. I, personally refuse to believe that my parents have ever had intercourse. I know that that flies in the face of my very existence, but you know what? I'm okay with that.

And you know what would have made the Alito hearings a little more exciting? More use of the word "whore". That's what the fine people over at the Saddam Hussein trial figured out this weekend. Hussein's co-defendant Barzan Ibrahim was dragged out of court after standing and shouting that the court was a "daughter of a whore". So not only is the court's mom a slut, but he also called it a girl. Double whammy. Saddam had his back though, shouting "down with traitors" and "down with the Americans". It's too bad things turned out the way they did, because Saddam would have been a great guy to have in your entourage. Having your back at the club, screaming "You best check yourself before you wreck yourself" to that guy who just looked at your girl wrong. And then hopefully there would be a dance off, because little known fact, Saddam is world champion pop and locker.
Or if that didn't work out he'd just pull out his patent "shoot my shot gun into the air" move. Because that never fails.

Things just went down hill from there though, with the defense team leaving the court in protest, and then Saddam leaving the court in protest of his new defense team. All of this happened on judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman's first day, taking over after the previous judge quit. I sure hope he had time to hang up his 'Hang in There' poster with the little kitty on a clothes wire before the trial got under way, because he's sure going to need it.

So what did the Alito hearings have? It was nothing but a bland white guy dodging questions from other bland white people for forty hours. The highlights included Ted Kennedy making Mrs. Alito cry by talking about some secret society at Princeton, and Joseph Biden talking about himself for half an hour and then wearing a silly hat (perhaps he's learned a lesson from Hamas?). We put so much stock in propriety and respect, when it's obvious that all politicians are a vulgar lot brimming with contempt for each other. Now, I understand more than anyone that there is nothing more healthy or American than a good dose of repression. But perhaps we should take a page from the greatest of American traditions, wrestling, and throw a little smack down in the senate every now and then, before all of this simmering agression erupts in some sort of unjustified use of preemptive force.

* Apparently wrestling isn't an American tradition, it is, in fact, Greek. But to be fair we're the ones who made it cool.

Technology Vs. Horse

Adaptation is a dangerous movie. It's a movie that give hope to the thousands of overweight, sweaty, neurotic wanna-be filmmakers out there, that someone might actually find their lives interesting. But they won't. We're over weight, sweaty, and insecure - and unless you're Charlie Kaufman, you can't make that work. Especially now, since they already made 'Adaptation', because if you try to write a story about a screenwriter people write it off as an 'Adaptation' rip off. As they should. Because it is. Probably. Unfortunately though, it's not the neurotic ones you have to worry about. They wouldn't be able to make it past the third page before they talked themselves out of it. It's the ones who think stories about rogue screenwriters who are turned down for being too creative and thinking out of the box and eventually fight the corrupt Hollywood system to bring their glorious vision to the world (and somewhere in all of this get the girl, because there is always a girl) are really interesting. Because when you tell them that no one cares about that, then they just get indignant and keep writing the same story.

Also, Brian Cox is the shit. Not just in this movie, but everything he's ever been in. Except maybe 'Manhunter', but that's probably due to the taint that Hopkins put on the character. Even though Cox did it a few years before, you still just look at 'Manhunter' and go "No, wrong. You're doing it wrong," and then you realize you're talking to the television screen again, and go pour yourself a glass of water and hope no one heard you making an ass out of yourself. But the point is Brian Cox made me laugh when he was acting drunk in 'Super Troopers'. That was the point.

Pick up the Pieces

First, it took me like half an hour to come up with a title for this. I was thinking, 'All to Pieces', but it felt too easy. It's hard to feel clever coming up with a pun-ish title about a guy who has been publicly humiliated over a book with 'Pieces' in the title. The book was called 'A Million Little Pieces' in reference to the fact that he fell apart into said pieces. So it's not really a joke to say he's fallen to pieces, because he already said it. As some one who was picked on as a kid, one valuable tool I picked up is that if you agree with your tormenter, they kind of lose interest. When a kid would call me fat, I would just kind of chuckle, say "You sure got me pegged," and then offer him some pie. Because I never went anywhere without a fresh baked pie. I think I was trying to make the point that you can't really make the joke if he already made it about himself. Or something like that. I tend to lose focus when I start talking about pie. Anyway, I ended up going with 'Pick Up The Pieces' because not only does it fit with the title of the book, and Frey's current situation, but it's an Average White Band reference too. Everybody wins.

Anyway, I think James Frey is in a pretty nice situation right now. Sure he's been publicly humiliated by being proven a liar, but oh, oh no, it's okay, because Oprah was there for him. Except now, not so much. I don't watch Oprah, not because I despise her, just because they air the show in the morning here in Chicago (Though I do despise her). Anyway. It looks like he had it handed to him and left with his tail between his legs. But now, well now he's golden. He's been emotionally destroyed on national television, he's sitting on a pile of money, and he has a history of drug use (sort of). All of this looks like the beginning of a destructive downward spiral that makes one hell of a memoir. Sure he kind of half assed it before, but now he's been handed a second chance to totally ruin his life. And after it's all done, he can write it all down, and maybe make it back into a certain little book club.

Though I guess if he was smart about it he could just skip all the destructive bits and then lie again.

Hat's Off to You

There's been a lot of talk about Hamas's success in this week's Palestinian parliamentary elections. It's been suggested that this should serve as a sobering lesson for those who have been pushing so hard for democratic reform in the middle east over the last few years. Right, but more importantly, there seems to be a political lesson we can all learn here. Point of fact: hats. I don't know anything about Hamas other than that they all wear sweet green baseball caps. Well, that and that they're not really fond of Israel, but that's kind of a gimme. Other than that though, does it matter what their other social stances are? Bet you a nickel half the people who voted for them don't really know what they stand for - they were just in it to get a hat. And really can you blame them? If the GOP candidate was running on the promise of passing a federal law requiring the wearing of bow ties 24 hours a day, I'd still vote for them. Just as long as I got a hat.