What I did this Weekend...

Oscar weekend has come and gone. I managed to half-watch most of the show -- I was reading my book during the "boring" awards, and missed the first 45 minutes of the show because I was watching the Amazing Race (All Stars, ugh, but more on that later). Otherwise I saw most of the 4+ hour long show. The highlight for me was Jerry Seinfeld's mini-monologue before he presented the award for Best Documentary. He was very funny, much funnier than Ellen (I just don't like Ellen in safe, daytime television mode). I thought that Cate Blanchett looked great, and I thought the video clip that Ricky Gervais (creator of the original Office series) sent to Kate Winslett on the red carpet was pretty funny. I enjoyed that Al Gore figured prominently throughout the night, including his win for An Inconvenient Truth as best doc., and, as hard as I try, I can't help but like Leonardo DiCaprio. He's just so perfectly Hollywood. Not too many surprises awards-wise, except that I was SHOCKED that Pan's Labyrinth didn't win Best Foreign Language film. It was one of my favourite films of last year.

On to Amazing Race All Stars...this has to be one of the most irritating "all star" casts ever assembled. You know things are bad when you are actually rooting for professional reality show contestants Rob and Amber (you also know that something's wrong when you google "Rob and Amber" and their homepage is the top search result). Last night the grumpy/physically-challenged bald guys were given the boot, which was a relief. I was getting annoyed with seeing the taller one fall every time he stepped out of the car. I am hoping that next week will be the end of the line for Mirna and Shmirna, or whatever their names are. What I can't stand about these two isn't their terrible, miserable attitudes, but the fact that every time they speak to a foreigner, they speak in English, but with a horrible "foreign" accent. I'm really not sure why they think that the Spanish speaking people in Chile will understand them better if they are spoken to in English with a horrible accent.....anyways, enough about that.

I finally got around to watching Y Tu Mama Tambien starring the always appealing Gael Garcia Bernal (who I discovered in The Motorcycle Diaries, another great film) and Diego Luna, who will be appearing in the upcoming Harmony Korine film Mister Lonely. Y Tu Mama Tambien was great - I would really recommend it. It is very sexually explicit, and on the surface is a film about the lives of two guys in their late-teens, coming of age sexually, blah, blah, blah. On the other hand there is a nice subtle portrayal of Mexican society, politics, class, and culture. It was really fantastic.

New Arcade Fire, Breathless, etc.

I'm just listening to the new Arcade Fire (not sure how long that link will last) on the radio and have to say that the first single ("Intervention") is fan-tiggity-tastic! I swear to god, the hard drive on my new computer is going to be filled with mp3s in no time at all!


I woke up at 7am today to go to the dreaded Passport Office. I arrived at 7:55, five minutes before opening time, and was number 56 in line!!! No shit. Anyhow, I finally got out of there at 9:30, and can expect my passport in about a month. That's some service.


I finally saw the film Breathless over the weekend. I loved it, it was amazing. It's one of those movies that makes you want to time travel back to that time and place and meet the characters - in this case Paris in 1960.



I also watched The Illusionist, which I thought was pretty drab, with a lame "plot twist" kind of ending. I really can't get into Jessica Biel - she's bland, and the fake Austrian(?) accents were throwing me off the entire time.

I have started in on the dvd tv series Weeds. I'm enjoying it, but not LOVING it the way I did Dead Like Me. Tyler and I have been trying to rent the series Rome, but it's always out. Hoping to catch the film Jesus Camp in the next day or so.

And I guess it's Oscar weekend in a few days, so I have that to look forward to....or not. It seems kind of boring this year.

And there you have my pop-culture dominated life in a nutshell. More soon.

Amy Winehouse - The Female Pete Doherty?

Just discovered the fabulousness of Amy Winehouse last night. She is a British singer who sounds like a modern and raunchy Motown-era star. Check out a recent performance of her song "Rehab" at the 2007 Brit Awards (where she just won Best British Female) here:



She won the Ivor Novello Award for Best Song and was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize for Best Album in 2004, and her new album (already out in the UK) is scheduled for release in North America this March. She has great backstory too, being a legendary & self-destructive drinker. There is a good article about this, her raging talent and her recent show in New York City, in the Washington Post HERE.

Night of Law & Order

I just finished watching two hours of Law & Order spin-offs and I have a few thoughts. First of all, Criminal Intent: I have never watched CSI (Las Vegas, Miami, or New York), I have no interest in CSI, but I can't help but feel that the producers of Criminal Intent are trying to turn the show into CSI. Last time I watched Criminal Intent it started out with an over-dramatic Civil War reenactment set to "Under Pressure" by Queen. I really wasn't even sure that I was watching CI at that point (but was sure that I wasn't watching CSI due to the absence of The Who in the soundtrack). Tonight's Criminal Intent was based on a Tupac/Biggie-esque hip hop star assassination. The opening sequence was a CSI-style montage cut with still images set to rap music referencing Tupac and Biggie, in case we missed the point. Duh. CI doesn't have to be cool. Leave CI to the politics nerds like me and the science geeks can have CSI (and their over-dramatic montages...cut with stills of the crime scene).

On to SVU. Oh forget it, I don't really have enough energy to think about that (but read the Mariska Hargitay link, it's interesting) I also watched American Idol tonight, but I think it's too soon to call, so I'll leave that for later.

As you can see, I have an over-active social life at the moment, so I might have to leave my Oscar Season Roman Polanski rant for a later date. No, seriously, it's coming.

But Why Britney?

I am a regular reader of The Superficial, as some of you might know. It is my #1 source for celebrity gossip (something I pretend not to be interested in!) It was at the Superficial that I found these wonderful pictures.

Now I know that I have commented on this before, but WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING TO BRITNEY SPEARS? I am one of the least photogenic people on the planet so I am not about to criticize her for looking heavy, or bloated, or having bad hair, or whatever. It's her clothes that worry me - she looks like a bag lady, or worse. And what's the deal with never wearing a bra? You have boobs Britney, for the love of god, put on a bra!

Is this some sort of backlash against her Pop Princess persona or what? It's like she is intentionally trying to look horrible. Does anyone have an explanation for this???

G r a ce Ke ll y by M**i**k**a

Here's a new video I just saw on muchmusic. It's the first new thing that I have seen in awhile that I actually like. Very Rufus Wainwright meets Queen meets the Scissor Sisters. Fun.

Ann Coulter - One of America's Top Public Intellectuals?

Last night's episode of Law and Order was about the botched shooting of a rabid conservative political pundit - a sexy blonde, clearly based on real life political commentator Ann Coulter. Knowing very little about Coulter, except for the obvious feeling that I would not agree with most of her opinions, I decided to google her name and landed on her official homepage: AnnCoulter.com

Coulter is the author of five New York Times bestsellers (including Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism and Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right)......sounds about right.....she makes frequent appearances on various high profile news shows....true.....she has a background in law, having practiced law privately and in the public realm....sure.....

Here's the part of her bio that made me think 'can this possibly be true?': Coulter "was named one of the top 100 Public Intellectuals by federal judge Richard Posner in 2001".

Intelligent and controversial she may be, but one of the top 100 Public Intellectuals? What does that even mean?

I googled "Richard Posner" and "100 Public Intellectuals" only to find that she had failed to mention the context of this endorsement. Posner's book is actually called Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline

It turns out that Posner had defined "public intellectual" as "the intellectual, nowadays usually a professor, who opines in the media on matters of current interest", matters outside of their area of specialty. He based this list on the number of times the public commentator's name appeared in the media. As the Yale Review of Books noted "Posner is quick to point out that ‘prominent’ is not a synonym for ‘best,’ or even for ‘good.’”

What amazed me about this wasn't the fact that she was being deliberately misleading, but rather that in such a short biography (less than 500 words) she would use such an easily refuted "endorsement". Amazing, though after scanning through her archives, not surprising. This is a woman who clearly thrives on this sort of uncomfortable controversy - the kind that makes you feel like a twelve year old if you even bother to argue.

The article published on her homepage "Free the Fitgerald One!" includes such choice statements as "Who told you Wilson was sent to Niger by his wife? Who told you a bipartisan Senate panel concluded that Joe Wilson was lying when he denied that his wife had sent him to Niger? While we're at it, who was the first person to correct you on your pronunciation of "Niger"?"...ummmm wow.

And she is still railing on and on about the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky thing....like constantly.....

Amazing.

More Trade Mark Party Stuff

I have been tracking down some photos and articles about the Trade Mark party the other night. I have come up with a couple so far, and will keep them coming:

http://www.weeklycouture.com/couture/node/300/print

Toronto Street Fashion Blog

Toronto Photobugs Flickr Page for January 30, 2007 (first three pics)

Joe Fuda Pics

A little blurb at Carolyn's blog (scroll down a bit)

The Hot Ticket by Enza Supermodel (just one pic of Tyler and me)

Some Pictures By Paula Wilson on My Kodak Gallery

(picture by Joe Fuda)