On tap this week:
— Newsweek and Sarah Palin make for a target rich environment
— Dane Cook deserves a kick to the groin
— Diane Lane: Original Hotness
And slightly much more!
So I’m watching the news the other day and the topic of the Newsweek cover with Sarah Palin comes up. For those not interested, which is the sheer majority of America I would imagine, they took the picture of her from Runner’s World and used it on their cover. According to Newsweek editor Dan Klaidman it was about “…her gravitas, about her seriousness” and then inferred he had no problem that it could potentially be viewed as negative towards her image. Even an idiot like Matt Lauer kind of figured it out, but I think he was covering for him. It’s less negative towards and further towards something that could change the way Newsweek does their reporting.
With Newsweek’s circulation in the toilet, much like the rest of the news industry, they are taking a cue from such luminous icons of journalism like Maxim and American Curves and sexing up their coverage. How? Those fabulous runner’s legs, that’s how.
Listen to me now and believe me later.
Palin in those short runner’s shorts is probably going to be used for illicit purposes by a good ¾ of their readership until the pages stick together. We all know it, but no one wants to say it. I mean honestly, I bet ol’ Danny rubbed one out to Palin’s photo before he opted to use it as the cover, as I imagine it’s in the Spank Bank depository log of a lot of guys. So in a way, Newsweek is trying to save journalism by giving it a little boost of good old fashioned American testosterone. It’s like how we turned the Croissant into the Croissanwich or how you can eat your fill in Green Bay, Wisconsin, for a weekend and get a coronary the next day.
God Bless the U.S and A but the thing I love most is our blatant hypocrisy when it comes to sex. You can show a film like The Departed and have like five guys die of graphic head shots, filmed up close, in less then 10 minutes and no one is protesting. Heck, it won an Oscar for best film and made $100 million more then nearly any other Scorsese flick. Janet Jackson shows off her honkers in the Super Bowl and its news for months, fines everywhere, and Super Bowl acts go steadily downhill from there.
We’re so Puritanical when it comes to sex and yet we use it to sell nearly everything. Heck, if you put SI swimsuit cover model Marissa Miller in a teeny tiny bikini to sell rice cakes and you can bet your sweet ass Quaker Oats would be running out of them at every Jewel-Osco within a week. Hell, you put Bar Rafaeli in a bikini and next to a coffee mug and I’ll be in Starbucks 20 minutes later.
So now Newsweek is using those nice, lean runner’s legs to kick up circulation a bit so they don’t have to lay off more writers. And that’s a good thing, because American journalism has never been better. So the little credibility they have they can fire away for a little bit of sex appeal, but that’s not a bad thing. Inside the cover is some solid journalism and terrific reporting on most topics. Newsweek, and other news organizations of the sort, do phenomenal jobs for the most part. So why not show a little leg and get Joe Sixpack to pick up a magazine? I mean it shouldn’t become an outright skin mag, but maybe a little leg from various political and pop culture celebrities would be a good thing for all concerned. There are plenty of politicians on both sides of the aisle that need to show off the goods and I’m alright with that.
And I think that’s why she still gets press coverage en masse now, after being on the losing ticket with McCain and resigning her post as governor of Alaska. She really hasn’t done as much as she has to warrant the coverage she’s garnering, to the point where it seems like the media is almost obsessed with talking about her. She’s getting to that point where she’s more famous for being famous then for actually having done something and it’s kind of sad. Even the bottom feeder who managed to knock up her hot ass daughter has a career as an oddity of sorts; Levi Johnston is a waste of human flesh and yet he is a celebrity. It says something about the nature of celebrity in America if that guy is famous, but he’s only riding on the Palin coattails in this scenario. Why?
Because she has a sort of sex appeal politicians usually don’t have. I mean you don’t have think of Nancy Pelosi or Michelle Bachman as “smoking” in the same way you think of Palin. I mean they ought to deserve our respect as law-makers but as sex objects they really don’t compare.
She also has this way about her that it wouldn’t shock anyone that if the goons in airport security tossed her luggage they’d find a leather executioner’s mask, a spiked paddle and a box of heavy-duty condoms. So it’s not surprising that, especially with her book coming out, this cult of personality developing around her from both the sycophants who want her to run for President in 2012 and the parasites & talking heads of the news media organizations want to still talk about her.
It sells, inexplicably, and in a recession you got to do what you got to do. I imagine this week’s cover of Newsweek featuring Lucy Binder in nothing but a thong, serving Thanksgiving dinner in a special themed issue might be a bit much for some of their shrinking base of readership. I’m ok with it, though, if it keeps good journalists employed and doing what they do best. But then again thoughts like these kept me out of the good colleges.
Random Thoughts of the Week
So I was listening to an interview with comedian Dane Cook the other day with MTV news, and in it he talks about how he wanted to be in a comic book film. He has to work around his touring schedule, as he is one of the biggest stand-up draws and it’s his bread and butter, but he expressed interest in being The Riddler in a Batman film. And after the howls of laughter and derision subsided from the commentary, something dawned on me.
It could work.
Christopher Nolan has always been one to take huge chances in his lead actors. Batman Begins was a huge risk, as Christian Bale wasn’t a known commodity as a draw but as an actor he had an impressive resume. Nolan is a director who casts his supporting crew remarkably well, as the one strength of all his movies is that everyone behind the main actors are solid. Both of his Batman films had strong casts of legendary proportions; any time you have Tom Wilkinson, Aaron Eckhardt, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Katie Holmes, Gary Oldman, Michael Jai White, Eric Roberts, Liam Neeson, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman spread over two films you’ve done something right. So he gets some room to fudge because his cast strength is so high.
Heath Ledger as the Joker wasn’t a marked stretch, but he wasn’t known for playing a villain. “Could he pull it off?” was a huge question mark, don’t forget, and he had the unfortunate problem of having one of history’s great actors (Jack Nicholson) in the same role in recent memory. And, an Oscar later, Ledger has raised the bar for playing a villain in a film from where Philip Seymour Hoffman (Mission Impossible 3and Alan Rickman (Die Hard) set it at. Ledger had some terrific acting chops, of course, as he had already been nominated for an Oscar (Brokeback Mountain) and had compiled a terrific acting resume to that point.
I tend to think acting is like any other profession; if you surround someone with talent they will succeed. Cook could pull off The Riddler, especially with a guy like Christian Bale on the set. After the whole lights incident on the latest Terminator flick, it’d be interesting to see how he’d react to Cook. Part of me thinks Cook would pull it off and refine his craft, as he has some good dramatic chops (Mr. Brooks) that haven’t been exploited. With as many talented actors around him, I bet the biggest standup currently working would pull off a shockingly good performance. He’s also a standup and the one thing I know about comics is that they work especially hard on their craft. Even guys who haven’t made it are always trying to refine their craft, get better and develop more material to use.
Having known a handful of standup comics over the years I can imagine that Cook, who got to where he was by working his tail off, won’t half-ass this or do it in a way that would make him look bad. Nolan gets good performances out of genre pieces from his actors and I think he would bring out something in Cook that we’d never see again.
While the chances of it happening are pretty small as someone like Johnny Depp, Ryan Philippe or Sam Worthington (i.e. a mid 30s to early 40s actor with bonafide acting chops) will get the part I think Cook wouldn’t be as bad a choice as it initially seems.
A Movie A Week – The Challenge
This Week’s Film – Killshot
The “resurrection” of Mickey Rourke was a common theme last year when The Wrestler came out, the culmination of roles starting with Sin City and moving through Man on Fire, but a film he made that got shunted to DVD during the whole Wrestler affair was an adaptation of the Leonard Elmore novel Killshot.
Blackbird (Rourke) is a killer for hire who finds himself on the run after a botched job. Picking up a partner along the way (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), the two combine for what should be an easy job: shake down a real estate agency owner for $20,000. When a case of mistaken identity leads to a couple (Diane Lane and Thomas Jane) becoming their targets, they go on the run from the two in witness protection. As they wait it out, the two killers begin a plan to track them down. It all leads to a violent conclusion, and it’s interesting to watch it as its one of the better direct to DVD films I’ve seen in a long time.
But that’s not really saying much, and it’s easy to see why this was not given a release in theatres. Directed by John Madden, an art-house and prestige picture veteran, this is an action film that gets unnecessarily complicated by a director used to dramas that are overly complicated. The film, paired down to barely over 90 minutes to begin with, takes what should be a standard issue chase flick with two evil doers, a strong woman and her ass-kicker of a husband and adds way too much into it. There’s drama between the killers, drama in the marriage, et al, and considering it was cut down and held in post production hell for a couple years by Harvey Weinstein (who allegedly cut about 30-40 minutes of material out of it) it’s shocking that a better film wasn’t reassembled from the source material.
And I can see why it was held back, especially in Rourke’s case. As much as I want him to resurrect his career, if this comes out it’s a misstep in the overall narrative. He’s good in the film, as he does the whole “hardened killer” bit well, but casting him as a Native American is a bit off because Rourke isn’t one to use accents and his stilted delivery takes away from his presence. He has a terrific look as Blackbird, and his physicality in the role is note perfect, but when he opens his mouth it’s as annoying as Mos Def in 16 Blocks.
Plus it has Diane Lane, who is perhaps the hottest woman alive. Recommended for that alone.
What Looks Good This Weekend, and I Don’t Mean the $2 Pints of Bass Ale and community college co-eds with low standards at the Alumni Club
Ninja Assassin – A ninja gets betrayed and goes on a killing spree against his old employer.
See it – A film that advertises exactly what it is: a dude (Rain) going nutty and killing people by the dozens.
Old Dogs – Robin Williams discovers he knocked up a gal 10 years ago. And she has twins. Now he and John Travolta have to take care of some bratty kids.
Skip it – Someone give Robin Williams a dozen hard R scripts where he curses all the time, a kilo of blow, and just let him be the foul goon he used to be.
The Road – After a nuclear war, Viggo Mortensen and his son try to survive the end of world.
See it – Cormac McCarthy was the man who wrote No Country for Old Men and that was a great flick, so the expectation is high.
Fantastic Mr. Fox – Wes Anderson uses stop animation to bring the Roald Dahl book to life with an all star cast.
See it – One of the perks of the sneak peek for press only is that I can see great flicks before they come out, sometimes. My review will be up Wednesday and I strongly recommend this flick.
Do you have questions about movies, life, love, or Branigan’s Law? Shoot me an e-mail at Kubryk@Insidepulse.com and you could be featured in the next “Monday Morning Critic.” Include your name and hometown to improve your odds.
