Are you among the legions of adoring Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk fans? I'm neutral on the subject, but I do love me some Anjelica Huston, and Sam Rockwell's pretty cool too. Anyhoo... Here's the just-released trailer for the film adaptation of Palahniuk's novel Choke.
What happened last night on the Sci-Fi Channel's sweaty, greasy, sinewy space ballet that is Battlestar Galactica? As I snoozed in air-conditioned bliss, my liver was good enough to jot down some notes. As usual: Spoilers? Could be!
Oh man. Not only are the ladies of Sex and the City shallow and screechy and four years older, the fashion icons can't even dress themselves anymore! "[I]n the film the characters are now four years older and, in a disappointing way, their styles appear to have changed into one: the offbeat, orgiastic, do-it-yourself madness of Carrie, the dominant female. It is not only that they now dress alike. In every scene the women are practically coordinated by both color and style, as if they had received a morning memo detailing the day's dress code. Let's all wear primary colors to a jewelry auction! Let's all wear psychedelic hippie dresses on a trip to Mexico! Let's all wear smart black-and-white ensembles and fur coats to a fashion show!"
What with the nation struggling under soaring gas prices, foreclosures, and general tedious suffering, The New York Times' Sunday Styles section naturally wants to know how Manhattan's filthy rich are coping with the recession. "NANCY CHEMTOB, a divorce lawyer in Manhattan, has found that her days have become crammed seeing clients, all worried about how an economic downturn will affect their marriages.But Ms. Chemtob's clients are concerned all the same, she said, because their incomes have shrunk, say, to $2 million a year from $8 million, and they know that their 2008 bonus checks are likely to be much less impressive. One of her clients recently confessed that his net worth had decreased to $8 million from more than $20 million, and he thinks that his wife will leave him. He has hidden their fall in fortune by taking on debt to pay for her extravagant clothes and vacations."
Joyce Maynard, the writer who had a creepy affair with gross old J.D. Salinger when he was 53 and she a mere 18, is still tattling on the egregiously overrated recluse. And it sounds like he has it coming. "[S]he's taking him on again in 'Going Hungry: Writers on Desire, Self-Denial and Overcoming Anorexia,' a series of essays compiled by Kate Taylor. Maynard, without identifying Salinger by name, discusses the relationship she had after her freshman year at Yale with 'a man who liked that I was skinny and, in fact, taught me new tricks to stay that way. Over the year that followed, the relationship grew increasingly difficult for many reasons, but I suspect his policing of my body and my eating was one of them . . . The experience of having another person - even one I loved - telling me what to eat and forbidding certain foods filled me with frustration . . . '"
What do you get when you have a local weather man whose last name is Quinn and is quite dashing, plus a local anchor who is perhaps overtired and has gay things on her mind? The answer is revealed in this snippet from tonight's 5:00 p.m. airing of CBS 2 News in New York. Watch the Freudian slippage after the jump.
Well, ultimate fighting is now officially an acceptable sport for mainstream America. Tomorrow night, CBS is showing a live fight featuring none other than the Miami headcracker, Kimbo Slice. He's an ex-bouncer who's risen to fame, fortune, and respectability solely through brutal, bare-knuckle fight videos of him on YouTube. A true American success story for our modern age. Half of you are saying, "Who?" The other half are saying, "My favorite was when that guy in the backyard kept trying to pause the fight, but Kimbo knocked the hell out of him anyways." Though there will be some halfhearted controversy over CBS' decision, we're calling it right now: ultimate fighting is no longer a trend, or an oddity; it's a part of the sporting establishment that families can watch together. Two of Kimbo's YouTube classics are after the jump. America will have its blood:
"I can't imagine how my mom would feel if she found out both of my brothers are on steroids right now," says Christopher Bell, the narrator and director of a new documentary called Bigger, Faster, Stronger. Well he can imagine it now, because he made a movie about his brothers being on steroids! Along with other important American cultural figures like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Hulk Hogan, and Sly Stallone. The film is billed as a real, down-to-earth look at all sides of the steroids issue, not just a one-sided condemnation. These drugs are for stupid people and cheaters, but they're also everywhere. Why can't you look like that ripped guy in the gym? Because he's on steroids. Simple! (Anybody know any media people on steroids? Email us). The early reviews are good, and this is yet another thing that guys can do this weekend instead of seeing Sex And The City. Watch the trailer, after the jump.
After commenters attacked the Times' Jennifer 8. Lee for her rather asinine, haughty story questioning how convenient bicycle commuting really is, her editor stepped in to defend her: "Readers, Since some of you seem to be seeking disclosures... Jennifer 8. Lee, a native New Yorker, has never owned a car. Nor do most writers and editors on the blog's staff. Indeed, several of us are avid cyclists." Proving cyclists can write dumb articles about cycling, too. [City Room via Animal NY]
Raging liberal tax-and-spend broadcaster Keith Olbermann is a hypocritical tax cheat who wants to deprive the government of revenues in order to further enrich himself! That's according to the well-named site Olbermann Watch, which reports that the MSNBC host has a tax warrant out against his personal corporation in New York, for failing to pay about $2,300 in state taxes. All of which would have gone to buying baby formula for children on welfare, but which Olbermann wantonly hoarded to enhance his own hair gel collection instead! He should really pay up. Disclaimer: Although this news is true, it comes from a right-leaning website, which is inherently untrustworthy. Unlike, you know, Huffington Post. [Olbermann Watch]
The anchor of Fox's "Good Day New York" thinks this Rachael Ray/ Dunkin' Donuts controversy (recap: Celebuchef Ray wore a keffiyeh in an ad, right-wingers were outraged, the company pulled the ad) is so stupid. It is! When the story came up this morning, he acknowledged that he can't stand Rachael Ray and doesn't even care what this controversy is about. Cue co-anchor Jodi Applegate leaning over and hissing (audibly): "Dunkin Donuts is one of our sponsors." His backtracking is magical! Please, click to watch this moment of journalistic integrity in action.
Seriously, what's up with cranes collapsing in NYC? Are corners being cut left and right? Does capitalism and speed trump safety? Of course! A construction workers explains it all, noting that just because city inspectors have badges, doesn't mean they know anything about cranes.
Earlier this month we told you about Jake Adelstein, the American reporter who spent 15 years covering organized crime in Japan and who now, unfortunately, finds himself and his family marked for death by an angry gangster. Adelstein's tormentor, Yakuza boss Tadamasa Goto, has been very sick lately; Adelstein's hope was that Goto would pass away, so he could return to America to be with his family without fear of assassination. Well, bad news: it's been revealed that Goto and three of his henchmen got precious, lifesaving liver transplants in Los Angeles (while many others died waiting). Thanks, science!
Barring legal challenges, gay couples can begin marrying in California starting June 17. Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi will eventually wed, but the wire services needed some examples of couples getting into the spirit now, or maybe some archive stuff from the gay marriages four years ago in San Francisco. Reuters surfaced the picture on the left; the Associated Press the one on the right. As Daniel Radosh notes, "Ninety thousand lesbians in California, and the AP just happened to find the professional belly dancer. That's what I call a nose for news." Maybe there was some smart thinking behind the AP's strange new celebrity news division; the wire service has already learned to think like the paparazzi. [Radosh]
Fabricating memoirist James Frey earned a $1.5 million advance for his novel Bright Shiny Morning, and sales are strong. Now Frey is paying forward his riches from the book, and the money seems to be making a circle back toward the people who staged his comeback in the first place. Frey, the Post reported today, hired his wife's friend Davidson Goldin, former editorial director at MSNBC, to help with publicity on Bright Shiny Morning. Now flush, it would seem, with surplus cash, Goldin is starting a "media-strategy and branding consulting firm." And who did Frey steer to Goldin as a partner in this endeavor? Joe Dolce, the former Star magazine editor-in-chief famous for his poor management and communication skills. But there's a very relevant detail about Dolce and his relationship to Frey the Post omitted:
Look at that: The tell-all book from former White House press secretary Scott McClellan is flying off the shelves, ranking number one on Amazon.com and spurring his publisher to double the print run to 130,000 copies. Sales are no doubt helped by the fact that the dishy memoir is a well-timed and fairly complete betrayal of his old Texas buddy George W. Bush, instead of a self-serving and half-hearted repudiation of the administration like the book put out by former CIA director George Tenet. But McClellan hardly took home Tenet's $4 million advance. Nor did he garner a $1.5 million advance, like Bush political adviser Karl Rove. Heck, doughy little McClellan couldn't even get "mid-to-high six figures" like Bush counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke. It turns out the Bush mouthpiece took in less than $100,000 up-front on his book deal, according to Salon — about $75,000, said an AP source. It turns out his wonky publisher PublicAffairs didn't think he would deliver the goods. Writes Salon blogger and fellow PublicAffairs author Osha Gray Davidson:
When News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch decided to sit down for a rare, on-camera interview, it was of course with two reporters from his own media empire, Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher of the Wall Street Journal. In this clip from the Journal's D conference in Carlsbad, California, Murdoch explains how he thinks the Journal and Times will be competing aggressively with one another on all stories — business, political or otherwise — within just "a few months." He also rants about how it's "ridiculous" that an average of 8.3 editors looks at a typical WSJ story, inevitable expanding it beyond reason. "People don't have time for it — there's not a story that you can't get all the facts in (within) half the space." Also: Murdoch confirms he was involved in the Post's decision to switch its allegiance from Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama.
News Corporation boss Rupert Murdoch told the Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital conference that print newspapers would outlast him. Not so sure. Industry analyst Mark Potts has been telling clients that rising online advertising will finally offset the decline of print revenues by about 2012. (That's his chart on the right, with online revenue in red making up for the shrinking blue, so overtaken by events that it now represents the optimistic scenario.) But the American Journalism Review challenges Potts' assumptions: traditional newspaper revenues are declining more rapidly than the analyst predicted; and the AJR's Charles Layton reckons their websites will never make up the difference (see left). Ouch.
