Filed under: gay, heterosexuals, movies, music, porn | Tags: automats, billboard, bruno, buying music in a store, casey kasem, comics, condoms, levi johnston, porn, sex, shakira, shaving, solange, south africa, swimmers, the dalai lama
[ed. note: Today is the end of SoundSession, Providence's biggest music festival. There's music all day and into the night, and a parade, and basically I'm pre-booking tomorrow as a hangover day. So you're getting your news delivered early, you lucky so-and-sos!]
Levi Johnston gave his thoughts about Sarah Palin’s resignation, which, whatever, but whoever decided to place him in an enormous swivel chair in front of a million books deserves three raises.
Americans aren’t so sure what sex is.
Casey Kasem, who I’d probably call my hero if anybody ever asked me who my hero was, is stepping down from the mic (again).
Choire Sicha’s thoughts about Bruno almost make me kind of want to see it. Even though Dreamy David Rakoff thinks it’s bad for the gays.
Carnal Nation reports on condoms and porn.
There’s only one thing I read more than blog posts about why sex work isn’t necessarily a sign of desperation. And that’s blog posts about the relative merits of people buying v. sharing their music.
Male swimmers shaving each other is fine, I guess, for practical reasons, but the massive push for men to shave everything is really bringing me down. (See also.)
Louisiana’s Southern University is feeling the Solange.
There’s more to South African music than you might know.
The Dalai Lama made a surprise appearance in Apartment 3-G yesterday. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the strip (we don’t have it in Providence) but it’s the only strip I’ve enjoyed for the past, oh, decade or so. (Occasional individual Get Fuzzy and Rex Morgan strips aside.)
A big trend this week is people who know nothing about the Billboard album chart complaining about the Billboard album chart.
Finally, National Geographic offers tips on how to make homemade food that tastes like it was the opposite of homemade.
Filed under: movies
I know I said I’d be taking today off, but as it stands I’m in front of the computer anyway, editing photos. And watching amazing amazing videos of Jersey Girls ca. 1992. I need to track down a copy of this, it’s sort of like the Maysles Brothers made a movie about my cousins.
This is from Carol Weaks-Cassidy and Ruth Leitman’s documentary Wildwood, NJ.
Filed under: gay, hookers, lists, movies, music, not hot, people from rhode island | Tags: abortion, amber rhea, bloc party, blogs, geneology, hiv, hoaxes, mcsweeney's, michelle rhee, movies, porn, the 700 club, the gays, timbaland
Former Rhode Island senator/current gubernatorial candidate Lincoln Chafee came out in support of gay marriage this week, with an editorial in New England gay rag Bay Windows.
Speaking of Rhode Island, our ridiculous governor made an appearance on The 700 Club the other day.
The Washington Post had a pretty fascinating report on Michelle Rhee, who heads the DC school system. (Not particularly relevant to this blog, but worth the five-page read nonetheless.) The most disturbing part of the story, I think, is the part about how lots of kids can’t graduate each year because bureaucratic nonsense prevents them from getting the credits they need.
Audacia Ray guest-posted on Feministing about the HIV scare in the porn world.
Amber Rhea is done, uh, being.
Timbaland’s getting sued for unauthorized sampling.
McSweeney’s is looking for new columnists.
Bloc Party just announced a new non-album single, which will be out in August.
Al Capone’s possibly-grandson has a website that came across my path last week. I don’t even remember how.
Anti-abortion website April’s Mom was, it turns out, a hoax. Allegedly created by a woman pregnant with a terminally ill child, social worker Becca Beushausen eventually birthed a doll. In a fit of crazy, Beushausen says that the had originally created the site only for a few of her friends. Because, I don’t know, who doesn’t think it’s a lot of fun when their friends make websites devoted to their imaginary terminally ill fetuses?
Unreality came out with a list of the ten most polarizing movies of the last decade. The list is all Hollywood, so Demonlover and Irreversible aren’t on there. I’m pro-Eyes Wide Shut and anti-Moulin Rouge, for what it’s worth.
David Archuleta’s dad was caught up in a sting at the Queens of Reiki massage parlor in Utah this past January.
Finally, if you’re looking for something else to follow on Tumblr, I really like Nashville Needs More Metaphors.
Filed under: gay, heterosexuals, hot, magazines, movies, porn | Tags: arson, clue, madonna, maine, michael cera, models, national geographic, porn, portland, public access, slap magazine, the gays, the martinez brothers, va$htie
The Grand View Topless Coffee Bar in Vassalboro, Maine, mysteriously burned down the other day. The owners didn’t have any insurance and it’s unlikely to reopen.
Fashion modeling can be creepsville. Which isn’t really surprising, but still.
Ben Greenman wrote an article for Maud Newton on Portland’s abundance of both writers and strippers. Unrelatedly, but worth mentioning, is that I only just noticed Oregon (and South Carolina) have both passed Rhode Island in terms of unemployment.
Andrew from Synthetic Pubes/Fuck Yeah Cilantro has an article on Filthy Gorgeous Things about the state of porn today. I have more to say about this, but probably won’t ever get around to it.
Here’s a map (it’s a pdf) of lesbian and gay rights in the world.
The Utne Reader reports on robots that can play Clue and possibly work as minesweepers. If I were ever going to play something against a robot, it would definitely be Clue. And if I were ever going to be a crazed collector of something, it would be Clue boards and ephemera.
Slap Magazine, though it (sadly) doesn’t exist in print form anymore, is still doing some pretty cool stuff online, like this portfolio of skate photographer Brian Gaberman.
The awesome Martinez Brothers got a really good write-up in the Times the other day.
If you join National Geographic’s Twitter (@natgeosociety) you get a subscription offer of $1/issue. Which I would totally do, if I actually had twelve dollars right now (I don’t.)
This dude talking about Madonna’s Till Death Do Us Part–a song I’ve been hearing a lot lately–is kind of hilarious, in an awkward public access dude way.
Michael Cera turns 21 today. Now I can legally fantasize about plying him with liquor before having my filthy way with him. Because, and I’ve said this before but it’s worth repeating, Michael Cera is ridiculously, mysteriously hot. (Though I say that as someone who has seen a total of about ten minutes of Arrested Development, so he was actually nineteen (in Superbad) the first time I ever really noticed him. Which is, you know, less creepy than if I liked him when Arrested Development started six years ago)
My busy schedule has led to, among other things, a significant decline in my Tumblarity. Now I’m only as popular as Fuck Yeah Va$htie. (Va$htie being, if you didn’t know, the girl who directed the new Kid Cudi video. Pardon me while I yawn a lot.)
It’s incredibly nice out right now. Part of my is itching to go hang out in the park and watch kickball. Another part of me really wants to go to the mall to see V Factory. Another part of me wants to nap. And another part of me–the part that will win, ultimately–is the part that has a tentative photo shoot set up this afternoon with a very bossy six-year old. It’s for an art project I’m doing, one whose deadline is alarmingly close. Between today and tomorrow I need to get four or five more shoots done. And since I’m sharing the car with the boyfriend–and since we’re going to see John Parish and PJ Harvey in Boston tonight–I’m not sure what I’ll be able to manage.
For those of you that are in Providence, tonight’s the second and final night of Happy Endings?*, a movie about the Korean massage parlor industry in Rhode Island. It’s screening at the Columbus–an old-timey movie theater turned porn cinema turned indie theater again; I interviewed the film’s director, Tara Hurley, the other day for an article I’m writing, and I think it’s going to be a pretty good movie. (I haven’t actually seen it yet, and the chance to see PJ Harvey overrides anything else that might be happening tonight.)
(*Not to be confused with the Lisa Kudrow/Steve Coogan/Tom Arnold/Maggie Gyllenhaal/Laura Dern movie Happy Endings)
Actress Natasha Richardson died suddenly today after a tragic ski accident. While I’m not overly familiar with the actress, and haven’t seen either The Handmaid’s Tale or Patty Hearst for some reason, she did star in one of my favorite bad movies, The Favor The Watch and the Very Big Fish. In it, she plays Sybil, a woman wanted by both Bob Hoskins (whom she meets when they’re both dubbing foreign porn) and her ex Jeff Goldblum, a mopey pianist who starts to think he’s Jesus.
It’s all very silly, in that British sort of way where very silly things somehow seem very arty, but it’s a lot of fun and the performances all very good. (French actors Jean-Pierre Cassel and Michel Blanc both have parts, too.)
Aside from this film, which you should track down if you can, I’ve only seen Richardson in Widows’ Peak (which is one of those old-lady movies I used to like as a teenager, like The Enchanted April) and Nell, the Jodie Foster goop-a-thon that I liked when I was fifteen but which seems really dreadful in retrospect. Oh, and I almost forgot that she was the mean rich lady whose identity Jennifer Lopez stole in Wayne Wang’s masterpiece Maid In Manhattan.
Filed under: movies | Tags: clue, parts of my childhood you probably didn't know about
While I think it’s usually pretty lazy of Hollywood to do remakes, I don’t always mind when ideas are reconceived altogether; Tim Burton’s Batman is different enough from the technicolor sixties one that it makes sense, say.
But to have Clue re-envisioned by the man responsible for directing every awful entry in the the hateful Pirates of the Caribbean franchise?
Yicch.
I’ve seen the 1986 film version of Clue–I’m not exaggerating here–at least three hundred times. Mainly when I was in third grade or so, and watched it after school every day. EVERY DAY.
I also own lots of Clue board games, because I compulsively buy them at yard sales. I mean, I don’t have hundreds or anything, but probably somewhere around ten or so. (Though my much-beloved Clue: Master Detective, which took place in a different house with extra rooms and more weapons, has been lost to the ages.)
And I also own the Clue VCR game; both of them, actually. For those of you that might not remember, VCR games were games you played while watching movies. The Clue one was very complicated; you’d draw cards that said things like ‘The woman who set her drink down on the mantle in scene four either murdered or was murdered by the man holding the rope in the dining room.’ And then you’d have to figure out who killed who, and where, and with what. And also you take on the roles of the characters, but can’t tell anybody who you are, or something. Also there were more characters, but less rooms and fewer weapons. It didn’t actually make sense, but the videos were very campy and hilarious, and led to all sorts of in-jokey catchphrases back when I was younger:
“You are not my daughter–and I am not French.” “Gypsies! Gypsies came in the middle of the night and stole our baby!”
“I have never been to Sumatra.”
“But curare is better. Like my daddy says, give me a good neuromuscular poison any day!”
“White wine doesn’t need to breathe.”
“I will have the Professor’s formula by morning. I must cut off now!”
Etc. That last one is my favorite, mainly because after Miss Scarlet says it she uses the knife to cut the phone cord.
In the second volume, released a few years later, the cast travel from Paris to Tangiers to Rangoon. And, I think I can safely say, it’s much more of a “global thriller and transmedia event that uses deductive reasoning as its storytelling engine” than whatever the hell awful script fucking Gore Verbinski is going to get his stupid paws on.
[via what?]
I don’t know what it is about airplane humor. I always, always think it’s really funny, but usually it’s just sloppy.
This loopy Hillshire Farms commercial is just like Britney’s Toxic video, or the moderately-underrated Gwyneth Paltrow vehicle View From The Top. There’s so much potential, and so little effort, that went into all of them. And yet I love them all anyway.
Filed under: movies
There’s 71 listed and I’ve only seen ten, though there’s an awful lot of them (Natural Born Killers, M, The Boys of St. Vincent) that I’ve been meaning to see since I was a teenager. Also, I’ve read some of the books these movies were based on (Bastard Out of Carolina, The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, Death In Venice) and wouldn’t mind seeing the adaptations, even though I don’t think many of them are very highly regarded.
I only bring the subject up at all because I really liked every one of the ten movies I’ve actually seen. The War Zone is excruciatingly bleak but extremely well-done, Happiness is disturbing and hilarious (and makes even Jon Lovitz seem funny), Eve’s Bayou is wonderful, Once Were Warriors is the creepiest movie ever, and Dolores Claiborne is extremely underrated.
Nominees have been announced for the twentieth annual GLAAD Media Awards, honoring the best in queer-positive mainstream media. Since queer-positive (or at least gay-positive) has been all the rage on TV since 1998, I’m not totally sure the awards are as useful as they were in 1990, but I guess it’s always nice to give awards to things you actually like.
There’s a million different categories, although the whole structure’s a little odd; as Boy Culture points out, there’s an award for Best Comic Book but no award for best novel or work of non-fiction. Some of the more interesting nominees, including the well-intentioned but overly long and not very effective ad above, are after the jump:
20th Annual GLAAD Media Awards Nominees
OUTSTANDING FILM – WIDE RELEASE
Brideshead Revisited (Miramax Films)
Milk (Focus Features)
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (Columbia Pictures)
RocknRolla (Warner Bros. Pictures)
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (The Weinstein Company)
The Nick and Norah movie is the only one of these that I’ve seen, but I absolutely loved it, though more for the portrayal of New York (and very charming acting by everyone involved) than for the gay supporting characters. Though the movie’s calmness about homosexuality/teenage drinking/Judaism/money was really refreshing, as Entertainment Weekly’s Lisa Schwartzbaum enthusiastically noted in her review.
OUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIES
Brothers & Sisters (ABC)
The L Word (Showtime)
South of Nowhere (The N)
Torchwood (BBC America)
True Blood (HBO)
The only one of these I’ve seen, oddly, is South of Nowhere. Although I haven’t caught it in about four years, since I hung out regularly with cable subscribers.
OUTSTANDING INDIVIDUAL EPISODE (in a series without a regular LGBT character)
“Ghostfacers” Supernatural (The CW)
“My Maharishi is Bigger than Your Maharishi” Life on Mars (ABC)
“Slam” Ghost Whisperer (CBS)
“Tandem Repeats” ER (NBC)
“Unidentified Funk” The New Adventures of Old Christine (CBS)
This category amuses me, and though I haven’t actually ever seen it I hope Life on Mars wins, just for that title.
OUTSTANDING DOCUMENTARY
Chris & Don: A Love Story (Zeitgeist Films)
Freeheld (Cinemax)
A Jihad for Love (First Run Features)
Saving Marriage (Regent Releasing)
Sex Change Hospital (WE tv)
Saving Marriage was pretty good, I thought. The pace was a little off, but any story that revolves around Massachusetts state senate elections and manages not to be totally boring deserves credit for something. But it’s the only one I’ve seen.
OUTSTANDING DAILY DRAMA
All My Children (ABC)
As the World Turns (CBS)
I don’t know why awards are given in categories where only two nominees can be found. But, you know, whatever.
OUTSTANDING TV JOURNALISM SEGMENT
“Bishop in the Eye of the Storm” Today (NBC)
“Gay in Cuba” The Situation Room (CNN)
“Special Comment: Prop 8″ Countdown with Keith Olbermann (MSNBC)
“Rick Warren: Change to Believe In?” The Rachel Maddow Show (MSNBC)
“Taking to the Streets” Good Morning America Weekend (ABC)
I like Keith Olbermann a lot, and would give just about anything to have him drag me down a dark alley and have his way with me, and I know he meant well with his Prop 8 comment. But, as a friend of mine pointed out, how can a man in the entertainment industry seriously say on television that he doesn’t know any gay people? If nothing else, who do you think does his hair and makeup before he goes on the air? Or do those people not count?
OUTSTANDING MAGAZINE OVERALL COVERAGE
The Advocate
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Entertainment Weekly
Newsweek
People
People portrays gays in a more positive light than, say, Out? Ouch! Also, I hope the Chronicle of Higher Education wins, just because it’s the one I don’t know and I find all the others very tedious.
OUTSTANDING DIGITAL JOURNALISM ARTICLE
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Do Kill” by Lennox Samuels (Newsweek.com)
“Gay Athletes are Making Their Mark” by LZ Granderson (ESPN.com)
“Gay in Wasilla” by Julie Bolcer (Advocate.com)
“Gays in Primetime” by James Hillis (AfterElton.com)
“Invisible and Overlooked” by Jessica Bennett (Newsweek.com)
The phrase digital journalism article reminds me of the time when I was little and my aunt said she had seen someone smoking a marijuana cigarette.
OUTSTANDING MUSIC ARTIST
Jay Brannan, goddamned
Hercules & Love Affair, Hercules & Love Affair
k.d. lang, Watershed
The Magnetic Fields, Distortion
Sam Sparro, Sam Sparro
I hope the Magnetic Fields win, because I would like the year’s most notable gay album to be the one that contains the line “no blood ever drips while I widen your holes.”
OUTSTANDING ADVERTISING – ELECTRONIC
“I Don’t Judge” IKEA
“Logo Unbuttoned” Levi’s
“Market” Chemistry.com
“We All Walk In Different Shoes – Nina Poon” Kenneth Cole
“Rugby Drinking Party” Jawbone
As much as I don’t understand the ad, like Bluetooth technology, think it’s okay to talk on the phone and leave your friend sitting uncomfortably at the bar, animate your fonts in a mysteriously grody fashion, or advertise things for two full minutes before you make your point, I think PG-rated rugby porn wins no matter what.
