Archive for March 21st, 2009

Not sure if this has been considered already, but if you watch The Room with friends and booze, might I suggest doing a shot every time Johnny tells someone to not worry about something?

What fun that was.

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Top left corner of page 2.

Groud Zero developer seeks bailout

What the fuck, guys. I know it’s Saturday, but really?

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My BPF has announced that any requests he gets for people to lobby his administration will be posted online, along with how the lobbyists propose spending the money they’re asking for.

For all of the folks who have been holding up straw men and screaming, “is this the change he was talking about?” let me direct you to this news item and reply, “no – this is.”

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Page 9 is devoted entirely to Kolan McConiughey. Here’s the first paragraph:

“A Special Olympics pin-hitting champ yesterday challenged President Obama to take his foot out of his mouth and lace up his bowling shoes for a pickup game on the lanes.”

Wow! Sounds like this guy is mad! Unless you read further.

“Bring it on… He bowled a 129. I bowl a 300. I could beat that score easily.He’s cool, but he can’t beat me.”

Gee, Post, Kolan don’t sound angry. In fact, what it sounds like (if I may be so bold), is that someone who should know better asked Kolan questions in the hopes of getting him to say something that fit your pre-written headline (BAM: BRING IT ON!). You know, maybe asked him, “Did you know that President Obama said he’s better than you at bowling? How do you feel about that?”

Doesn’t matter that in the NINTH paragraph, his foster mom says “We didn’t take any offense to that comment. It wasn’t an intentional slam.”

The foster mom gets it. I get it. Kolan gets it. Obama was saying that he bowled as if he were physically handicapped in some way. I agree that it was inappropriate to say. But let’s not ignore that some Special Olympians, as The Onion pointed out years ago in their whistle-blowing expose, have received medals for merely crying and running away.

Seriously, though, Kolan is disabled and he sees this story for what it is. Even a blind man could. Even a blind man has!

“He really was, I think, making fun of himself,” says Governor Paterson in Obama’s defense.

So what’s your excuse, Post?

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Ed Westwick chatted up a lady who was buying Orangina. Thanks, Page Six (on page 10 today).

Need I point out that Ed is on Gossip Girl?

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DoSomething.org has created a short re-enactment of the Chris Brown/Rihanna incident, using white teens. The PSA video is online at http://www.nypost.com/video/?channel=NY+Post&clipid=1458_473841&bitrate=300&format=flash (it’s unpleasant to watch, but it does help explain some of their injuries).

And at the end, there’s an ad for the free bracelets you can order from them (for free). One blue, two black. This signifies that 1 in 3 teens are in an abusive relationship.

See what they did there?

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What can the sound of one woman cracking gum accomplish? What of ten? Twenty?

New Joisey’s classiest have successfully defeated a proposal to ban Brazilian waxes.

Spa owner Linda Orsuto declared, “It was an unnecessary issue. In New Jersey especially, where the government has been picking our pockets for so long, it was like, ‘Just stay out of our pants, will you?’”

So if you’re in New Jersey and you want your vagina to look like a child’s (but don’t want to, you know, shave it yourself), you still can.

(waves miniature American flag)

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Germany has to once and for all decide if men are superior to women. And the way to do it is named Sarah Gronert.

Sarah was born with a hoo-hoo and a shimmy-shammy. She became a tennis sensation as a teenager and decided to play as a woman. Three years ago, her rivals accused her hoo-hoo of giving her an unfair advantage. So Sarah had her hoo-hoo removed (leaving only the shimmy-shammy) and returned to tournament play.

Her rivals are again accusing Sarah of being more man than woman (even without the hoo-hoo) and demand that she be barred from ladyplay.

And so, as I said, Germany will have to decide whether or not men are inherently superior to women.

I trust them to make the right decision.

(I almost kept a straight face typing that.)

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Pages 14 and 15 are photos of an ape nursery in Malaysia.

Those are some cute ape babies (apebies?).

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Great idea or the worst idea you’ve heard all week?

Christian Troy has co-founded a company (and by doing so, confounded me) called Popcardz.

They’re baseball cards, but for celebrities. So, like, you pay $3 for a pack of baseball cards and instead of baseball players, you get a photo of Jessica Biel on one side and on the back “some little-known trivia about a TV or movie star.”

For Biel’s card, that includes the easily-worth-$3 nugget that Jessica thinks the world would be a better place if “animals could talk.”

Assuming this article doesn’t cause a consumer frenzy, you can buy this crap at Toys R Us.

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I think David Wright is falling in love with Derek Jeter.

Can you blame him?

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Michael Starr! Have I mentioned how awful you are at your job? Well, y’are, Blanche! Y’are!

He’s letting us know that on Wednesday, Law & Order will air a new episode that rips the Bernie Madoff story from the headlines. And the Madoff character will be played by Edward Hermann.

No it isn’t, you jackass.

Edward Herrmann. Two r’s. One of his generation’s greatest character actors. Spell his fucking name right, you tit.

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Did Ellen’s brother Vance DeGeneres just agree to donate his sperms to put in Portia De Rossi’s shimmy-shammy?

Please stop sending me Star magazine. Please. I don’t want to know these things. I’ll pay you to stop. Please.

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OK. Tomorrow I’m-a try to work on the site. Make it prettier. Install the “more” button and sitch.

See you then, then.

And I’ll have an update on why North Korea is holding Lisa Ling’s sister hostage.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_11945699

Went to the first East Coast screening of The Room last night at midnight (alone, as Teresa fell ill in the early evening). I got there at around 11:00 p.m. and already there was a line. I read The Onion for a few minutes before realizing that two of the people standing in front of me were none other than The Cowboy and John. I haven’t seen them in many years, but I re-introduced myself to John (Curtis either recognized me or his sunglasses hid well his lie), who like anyone who has ever known me was immediately overcome with an ocean of pleasant memories of us.  They introduced me to their companion for the evening, Chris (who I would later figure out was MC Chris — of Adult Swim fame). The three of us stood in line, doing bits, trying to hide our fear/contempt for the people around us who, for some reason, kept throwing around inflatable footballs and tripping.

We were let in shortly after midnight and bumped into someone else I haven’t seen in five or more years, Jake Fogelnest. The five of us found our seats and waited. A lot. It took forever to start the movie. But just before they did, David Wain (woo-hoo!) introduced the movie. Well, actually, no he didn’t. He introduced the introduction and Q & A– which was given by none other than Tommy Wiseau. Questions were asked by the audience and Tommy gave what some considered answers.

I had three queries (Are you drunk? Are you retarded? WHAT NATIONALITY IS THAT ACCENT?) but asked none of them. He exited to much fanfare and we waited another 15 minutes. Finally, the movie started.

Diana, I have to tell you something. Maybe if I had watched this by myself on a TV I would’ve gotten bored. I might hate this movie. But I had one of the greatest experiences of my adult life. And (sorry, C & J) it’s a better worst movie than Troll 2. I mean, the details of Troll 2 don’t make sense (if you turn a human into a vegetable and then eat him, you are not a vegetarian; if you are a group of evil goblins, why are you in a movie about trolls?), but the story is easily described and (kinda) understood.

I have so many actual questions about The Room. Here is a sampling:

1) Is the titular room the living room? The bedroom? The roof? Is it a metaphor? Is it a reference to the space between two people in a relationship?

2) Whatever happened to that drug dealer?

3) Why were Johnny, his best friend, a psychologist acquintance and the 18-year-old whose life Johnny was subsidizing (and who jumps into bed with Johnny and his girlfriend and then seems hurt that they’re asking him to leave — which they did a minute earlier when they were all downstairs) for some reason all wearing tuxedoes?

4) Why did I have to watch a sex scene prominently featuring Johnny TWICE in the first 10 minutes of the movie?

5) Whose idea was it to give that old woman breast cancer?

6) Is it actually common for people in San Francisco to carry blank cassette tapes in their oversized suit jacket pockets?

7) Was that really the best take? (this question can be asked at just about any point in the film)

I have literally hundreds more, but this should give you an idea of how poorly thrown together the movie is. What it doesn’t give you an idea of, though, is how amazing it is to watch the movie in a packed theater. The guy behind me had a hit : miss ratio of about 1 : 20, but when we learned about Denny (Danny? Lenny? WHAT NATIONALITY IS THAT ACCENT?) and Johnny’s relationship, he whispered “creepy” and I almost cried. There was a woman on the other side of the theater who was an obvious pro. Her directive that we pay attention to the female lead’s neck during one scene was itself worth the price of admission. And Chris astutely pointed out (earlier than anyone else it should be noted) that the cabinet on the roof had no staircase for anyone to go down, so actors enter and stand there as the door closes.

In the opening credits, I noticed that the third-billed actor served as the film’s line producer, as well (did Tommy ask his actor to line produce or did he ask his line producer to act?). When he and the female lead had a sex scene on the stairs (it was as awkwardly shot and performed as it sounds), their kisses were almost Minnelli-Gest in their weirdness. So I announced, “that guy kisses like a line producer!” It was my finest moment of the evening. The crowd laughed for a good long while and I actually heard two people repeating it as they left the theater.

My runner-up line of the night was for the female lead and her mother. The lead tells mom that she hates Johnny and cheated on him with his best friend and wants to leave him because he’s boring. The mom tells her she should stay with him because he’s going to buy her a house. I waited for a lull and cried, “they’re a family of cunts!”

Thank you to the four extremely funny guys I sat with. Thank you to Tommy Wiseau. And thank you, Diana. Because I am going to watch this movie 1,000 times in the next year.

And you know what? Every time I do, I will scream just as loud each time I see Johnny’s naked skin. He looks like the 1963 Bumfights Champion.

If you ever get a chance to see this movie in a theater with other people, do it. Next time it’s in New York, I’ll be there.