The Grouchy Editor

Jerk of the Week:  Arianna Huffington

The media queen plans to ban anonymous comments from The Huffington Post, apparently because her cocktail-party pals have had their feelings hurt.  Better to stifle honest discourse than to offend the high and mighty, right Arianna?

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It’s been a tough month for former teen idol David Cassidy.  First, busted for squatting at J.Lo’s house, and then nailed for DUI.  Sorry, dude, but that wig doesn’t fool us.

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Broadchurch:  As we’ve come to expect from British television, this is a smart and entertaining whodunit.  My problem is with the lead detective (David Tennant, above with Olivia Colman).  Either as written or performed by Tennant, I’m not sure which, this guy is so relentlessly sour and unpleasant that I find myself sympathizing with anyone he encounters — including all of the murder suspects.

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Quote of the Week:

“I just thought there was no way they could find people this awful in the world.  But they did.” — houseguest Elissa, describing her initial impression of fellow cast members on Big Brother

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Baseball’s Bold Move

Major League Baseball announced that it will add more instant-replay challenges to games, beginning next year.  Great idea.  Complaints have been rampant about the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, rapid pace of baseball, so anything that slows down the game has got to be a good thing.

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I keep seeing Barbara Starr doing special reports for CNN.  Someone at that network obviously needs to be chastened, because this is not in keeping with standard cable-news practice of featuring nothing but Hooters-girl journalism.

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God help me, I am a sucker for hidden-camera shows, no matter if they are real, or obviously staged.  TruTV’s (Impractical) Jokers is the epitome of stupid-funny, and I love it.

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I’m going to stop making fun of “conspiracy nuts.”  Area 51, NSA spying, black boxes in our cars, ad infinitum.  The government, led by Professor Obama, is much too fond of keeping secrets … and Jesse Ventura is looking less crazy to me every day.

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Now there are two reasons to skip Lee Daniels’ The Butler — Oprah, and Lee Daniels.

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“What is wrong with people?” — Shepard Smith, pretty much speaking for all of us.

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Not sure why this is considered news.  Isn’t this knucklehead wrong about nearly everything?

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Jimmy Fallon had Fran Lebowitz (above) on his show.  Every talk show needs more Fran Lebowitzes — and fewer Hollywood starlets.

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From Entertainment Weekly:

“The Oscars Atone with Ellen:  That was the message when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences tapped Ellen DeGeneres, 55, to emcee the Academy Awards on March 2, 2014.  The fact that a woman was selected felt like a well-earned apology for the arguably sexist humor of this year’s Seth MacFarlane.”

Yes, because in hiring MacFarlane, the Oscars reached out to a straight-male audience, and as a result its ratings went up.  Don’t want to repeat that mistake, right, Entertainment Weekly?

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Summer TV Report

Under the Dome:  CBS shot its special-effects wad in the first episode.  Since that cow-splitting, plane-crashing introduction, this Stephen King-based miniseries has just been tepid soap opera under glass.  Grade:  C+

Orange Is the New Black:  Some of the humor is sophomoric and a few of the characters are cartoonish, but this Netflix comedy-drama about a well-off woman who finds herself in prison is mostly smart and entertaining.  Grade:  B+

The Bridge:  Lots of plots and subplots in the first four episodes — maybe too many — but the lead characters are intriguing.  Two quibbles:  When did cigarettes replace the black hat as the prop that signals “villain,” and must every journalist on TV be written as a jerk?  Grade:  B

The Killing:  Critics and fans who wrote off this series when it failed to resolve “the killing” at the end of its first season made a mistake, because this continues to be a great cop show.  Grade:  A-

Here Comes Honey Boo Boo:  June and clan are a likeable bunch, but the hillbilly novelty has worn off.  At some point, subtitled English and fart jokes lose their luster.  Grade:  B-

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Buttwipe of the Week … er, Month

Director of National Intelligence James Claptrap.  If you are a high-powered government official, evidently you can lie to Congress, get busted for doing so, and be penalized by … nothing.

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Quote of the Week:

“My vagina came out!  Sorry, America … it just popped out!” — controversial houseguest Aaryn Gries (above) on Big Brother After Dark, having an oops! moment while climbing into a hammock

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Fox News sex bomb Shannon Bream (above left at journalism school, and right at Fox) interviewed a doctor who told us that we should all be eating fruits and vegetables.  I did not know that.  Next thing you know, they will be telling us that smoking is bad.

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These misbehaving politicians are reminding me of nature:

                                Bob                                                                               Filner

                            Anthony                                                                         Weiner

                                 Eliot                                                                           Spitzer

But spare me all of this sympathy for Anthony Weiner’s wife, Hubris.  Hubris stays with Anthony because Hubris likes power and Hubris likes fame.

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Apparently some people are disappointed — secretly or not — that the little brat born this week “across the pond” is a boy brat, and not a girl brat.  Royal poop, whether in male or female diapers, is still just royal poop.

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Geraldo Rivera tweeted a naked “selfie.”  Seems obvious to me that Geraldo noticed all of the media attention for Filner, Weiner, and the “Smallest Penis in Brooklyn” pageant and was overcome with envy.

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More TV Crap

Netflix joined the Emmy party with 14 nominations, including nine for House of Cards.  I’m not as surprised by the caliber of Netflix’s new series as I am by the variety.  Cards is the type of quality drama that the traditional networks would love to do, but don’t.   Hemlock Grove is the type of series that SyFy would love to do, but doesn’t.  Orange Is the New Black is the type of “dramedy” that Lifetime would love to do if Lifetime wasn’t, well, Lifetime.

Disturbing Trend 1:

The endless dragging out of opening credits on TV shows is a distracting, annoying new practice.  I began watching The Bridge at 9 p.m.  At 9:15, the opening credits finally ended.  Why not just run credits throughout the entire show?

Disturbing Trend 2:

TV-show creators are devious.  If they have a new series that potentially skews female, like Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black (top), or BBC America’s Orphan Black (below), they lure in male viewers by displaying lots of female flesh in the opening episodes.  But once the Neanderthalian male is hooked on the story, the nudity stops – at least from the star actress.

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Now that Jodi Arias and George Zimmerman are in the rearview mirror, what will we armchair jurists do for entertainment?  More important, what will HLN do for ratings?

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Some people wouldn’t let anything interfere with Wednesday’s premiere of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo:

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Hats off to Rae Dawn Chong!  At last, a celebrity who sees the Queen of Smarm, Oprah Winfrey, the same way that I do.  These Chong quotes from a recent radio interview are a bit out of context, just because it’s more fun this way:

“She’s [Oprah’s] a great brown-noser.  If you were in a room with her, she will pick the most powerful person and she’ll become best friends with them.”

“She was that fat chick in school that did everything and everybody loved her.”

“You’ve got to respect her no matter how vile she is, ultimately because she’s all about Oprah and she’s boring.”

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

No, it’s not “Shark Week.”  Or maybe it is.  See below.

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John Kerry (above) got in trouble for puttering aboard his yacht while Egypt burned.  That’s not what bothers me.  What bothers me is that Democrats are supposedly the party of environmentalism, and I’m curious about how much gas Kerry’s yacht guzzles, not to mention how much energy he and Teresa burn up in their mansions.

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When early reviews gush that a movie is “fantastic,” “groundbreaking,” or “the best film of the year!,” it rarely is.  An example is 2010’s Inception, which fan boys and bloggers hailed as the next Citizen Kane.  It wasn’t.

On the other hand, there are movies like The Raven, a flick that bombed and was universally trashed by critics.   I saw it the other night and yes, it was silly and certainly no Oscar bait for John Cusack, who was oddly cast as Edgar Allan Poe (above), but it was a perfectly entertaining way to spend two hours.

In related news, although it’s not really related and it’s not really news, I am ashamed to admit that I missed the world premiere of SyFy’s instant classic,  Sharknado (pictures at top and bottom).   Luckily for me, there are always repeats.

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Country music’s Zac Brown, above left, and Duck Dynasty’s Willie Robertson, above right.  How is this not the same person?

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“I think they ought to make him a cop in Nigeria.” — Bob Beckel (above) on The Five, speculating about George Zimmerman’s future.

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Local news station KTVU is taking heat for inadvertently broadcasting the “names” of the pilots of that ill-fated plane in San Francisco.  OK, I suppose it was a racist and insensitive prank, but it’s also funny as hell.

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No Politics Edition …

… because sometimes, you just get sick of it.

Showtime’s new series Ray Donovan is underwhelming.  On the other hand, Jon Voight, above, makes one hell of a villain.

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Quote of the Week:

“What’s nine times three?” — houseguest Aaryn Gries, above left and right, in the blue bikini-bottom, asking a perfectly legitimate question and putting to rest the myth of the “dumb blonde” on CBS’s Big Brother.

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The Huffington Post, New York Post, and other pillars of journalism report that a bar in New York is hosting “the smallest penis in Brooklyn” contest.  Journalist Misty the Size Vixen was also on top of the story, and is apparently quite enamored of the phrase “small penis”:

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

CNN’s Rachel Nichols interviewed the Miami Heat’s LeBron James and then had this nauseating exchange with Brooke Baldwin:

Nichols:  “Brooke, I love that idea, that the most powerful, talented basketball player in the world is just like the rest of us.  That the first time you leave home, you get your shaky little wings out, you kind of test out the world and it teaches you new things …. It is good to be LeBron James right now.  And it turns out he’s just like the rest of us.  Who knew you could say that about LeBron?”

Baldwin:  “‘Just like the rest of us.’  Listen to you, Rachel Nichols.”

No thanks, Brooke.  Next time I see Nichols coming, I will get out my shaky little wings and fly away.

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Attorney Don West, right, exchanges phone numbers with new sweetheart, Rachel Jeantel

“You don’t think that ‘creepy-ass cracker’ is a racial comment?” —  lawyer Don West to witness Rachel Jeantel at the George Zimmerman trial.

Can’t be racial; it’s what I think every time I find a broken Ritz in the box.

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For a computer geek, Ed Snowden is certainly living a glamorous life.  Pole-dancing girlfriends, international intrigue, globe-hopping spies ….

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No matter where you come down on the same-sex marriage ruling by the Supreme Court, there is at least one positive side effect.  Next time you encounter some pompous ass who considers himself (or herself) superior because of a ring on a finger, just ask, “Is your spouse a man or a woman?”  I’m guessing they won’t like that.

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Be Afraid.  Be Naked and Afraid.

Red Eye’s Greg Gutfeld watched Naked and Afraid and expressed disappointment that Discovery Channel “kept showing [the male’s] ass.”  It’s true.  They did keep showing the male’s ass.  In fairness, here is a picture of the female survivalist’s ass.

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

Jennifer Lopez got the 2,500th star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.  This is a major honor.  Here are a few of Jennifer’s fellow luminaries who are memorialized on the walk:

Big Bird, Constance Binney, Rodney Bingenheimer, Leeza Gibbons, Godzilla, Horace Heidt, Shotgun Tom Kelly, Howie Mandel, Wink Martindale, Winnie the Pooh … and too many other giants of arts and entertainment to mention in this space.

Horace Heidt

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Fox’s Judge Jeanine Pirro, outraged over the story of Orlando Shaw, an idiot who fathered 22 children with 14 women, called for chemical castration of Shaw-like deadbeat dads.

I have another solution:  Any deadbeat dad in the grip of sexual arousal could simply look at Judge Jeanine.  End of problem.

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President Obama, faltering in the polls after more revelations about government spying, is basically saying to the public, “Trust me.”

Uh … no thanks.  You have to earn trust, you don’t automatically get it.  This condescending, professor-lecturing-students attitude that Obama affects when he’s in trouble has got to go.

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We won’t be hearing from George Zimmer on Men’s Wearhouse commercials anymore.  I guarantee it.

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Jake Tapper had a question on Wednesday:  “Why are so many mediocre movies getting sequels now?”  Here’s an answer:  Because Hollywood serves two markets these days — unsophisticated teenagers, and foreign audiences where subtitles don’t cut it, but car chases do.

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