The Grouchy Editor

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From a news report:

“127 Hours has gotten audiences fainting, vomiting and worse in numbers unseen since The Exorcist — and the movie has not even hit theaters yet.  A report in The Sun claimed that ‘horrified film fans threw up and fainted at the premiere of Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle’s shocking new movie,’ which closed the London Film Festival last week.  ‘Boyle looked on as paramedics treated fans struggling to cope with gruesome scenes.’  And the person sitting near Daily Mail reviewer Chris Tookey ‘left just after the most gruesome bit and never came back,’ apparently rebuking ‘the most harrowing bone-breaking and amputation scene in the history of cinema.’”

Who are these wimps?  It’s a frickin’ movie, people!  Does someone also wipe your arse for you?

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Zach Galifianakis:  Everywhere I turn, I am seeing stories about this bearded John Belushi wannabe.  Galifianakis first came to public awareness in The Hangover, a movie in which he displays exactly one emotion — a glower — and for which he was heralded as some kind of comic genius.  He is now starring with Robert Downey, Jr. in Due Date, an uninspired comedy getting trashed by the nation’s critics.  Here is what Roger Ebert says about Galifianakis in Due Date:

This guy also made the news for — wait for it! — pretending to smoke a joint on Bill Maher’s HBO show.  And he again made news by reportedly wielding his immense Star Power by whining to director Todd Phillips that he could not work with disgraced actor Mel Gibson in the upcoming The Hangover Part II.  I am baffled, bamboozled, and befuddled by this guy’s sudden emergence as a Hollywood player.  It makes no sense.

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Stop It!

I watch too much cable news.  I know this, because I no longer pay attention to the actual news and am instead transfixed by the anchors and their annoying physical quirks.  Recently, I shared my irritation with entertainment reporter Kim Serafin, who is a living bobble-head doll.  I was also freaked out by Fox anchor Harris Faulkner’s enormous eyeballs.  I am now adding two more anchor pet peeves to my growing list.

I was watching The Larry King Show.  Larry was off-camera as the show prepared to go to a commercial break.  Suddenly, on the audio track, there came a wet, clicking sound — a slurpy, gnashing, glop!  The sound was familiar to me:  It was Larry running his tongue over his dentures.

CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin is a fox, no doubt about it, but she has the alarming habit of continually darting her eyes off to her right.  I can’t watch her for more than a few minutes without witnessing this odd phenomenon.   It appears as though someone just off-camera suddenly popped off a fart, catching poor Brooke off her guard.

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There is something to be said for having low credibility.  Cases in point:  Jerry Springer and Dick Morris.  I watch a lot of cable news, too much really, and it gets old listening to the same talking heads as they blather on about this or that.  But Springer and Morris, both of whom are considered jokes by a lot of people, understand that they have little to lose by speaking their minds — and they do so, most entertainingly.

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Quote of the Week:  “There’s a four-letter word in there.” — Fox anchor Megyn Kelly issuing a viewer “warning” before showing a clip of Joy Behar calling Republican candidate Sharron Angle a “bitch” (count the letters).

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I can’t be the only one who finds this bedbug infestation in New York City hilarious.

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Job I Want:  Cameraman for CBS’ Survivor.  This week, the boys showed off their cinematographic skills by focusing on contestant Brenda Lowe (above and below).

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Dangerous Occupation Number One:  ESPN Sideline Reporter

News Report — An ESPNU reporter smashed a window in her hotel room after being told by a caller that the room was on fire, the website The Smoking Gun reported Thursday.

Police said [Elizabeth] Moreau, in Gainesville to cover a women’s volleyball match between Florida and Tennessee, told them she became suspicious when the caller then told her “that’s what she gets for being a bad ex-wife” and made a disparaging remark about her sexual performance.

Moreau joins ESPN’s Erin Andrews on my list of Most Dangerous Occupations.  Andrews, you might recall, was victimized by some nutball who videotaped her through a hole in the wall as she pranced around naked in her hotel room.

Dangerous Occupation Number Two:  Ex-Movie Star

News Report — Actor Randy Quaid and his wife Evi were arrested in Vancouver on Wednesday for immigration violations charges after recently skipping a court date in California. … The headline-grabbing couple originally made news back in September when they were charged with felony burglary on suspicion of illegally squatting in the guest house of a California home they owned in the 1990s.

Celebrity bounty hunter Duane “Dog” Chapman issued a public challenge to the couple on Thursday night, urging Quaid to turn himself in or he would capture them personally.

Seems clear to me that the Quaids are this generation’s Bonnie and Clyde, and Dog the Bounty Hunter is our Eliot Ness.  Being an ex-movie star is now one of the Most Dangerous Occupations.

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The media is an easy punching bag and it’s often unfairly slammed, but the Chilean miners coverage offers so many irresistible targets.  Here are two definitions from Merriam-Webster:

You tell me — are these miners “heroes,” as the media keeps insisting, or are they “victims”?  Personally, I’d go with definition 2a.  You might say, “what does it matter?”  It does matter, because calling the miners heroic can cheapen the status of real heroes.

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Turd of the Year:  James Michael Duncan

You might think that being trapped in an underground inferno for 69 days — 17 of them without much hope of rescue — with 32 smelly, jumpy fellow miners might gain you a bit of sympathy.  But that would be underestimating the malevolence of the anti-smoker crowd.  According to press reports, many, if not most, of the miners are smokers, and one of their first requests upon contact with the outside world was for cigarettes.

Enter NASA’s James Michael Duncan, who decided that political correctness was more important than the miners’ psychological and emotional well being.  “There will be no alcohol.  Nor tobacco, although almost all of them have asked for some,” wrote a correspondent for El Pais.  Duncan eventually relented, permitting the miners a whopping two packs a day — or one or two cigarettes per smoker.

We can only hope that the miners, if and when they finally meet Duncan, will demonstrate for him one more way of shoving something up a narrow hole.

.                           Turd of     the Year

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I guess now we all know why Vikings quarterback Brett Favre is so fond of the song “Pants on the Ground.”

It’s brutal being a Minnesota sports fan.  On Wednesday, we were pumped up about having home-field advantage for the Twins-Yankees playoffs.  On the same day, we learned that superstar receiver Randy Moss was coming home to the Vikings, where he would team up with Favre.  Super Bowl hopes were through the roof.

Twenty-four hours later, the Twins were facing elimination, Favre was giving new meaning to that “Pants” ditty, and we all learned who Jenn Sterger is.  Moss, of all people, was the only professional athlete in Minnesota who was behaving like a model citizen.

                      Moss                                                                Sterger

As for the Vikings, this is what I wrote in the “Weekly Review” on September 18:  “There is no team in professional sports more cursed than the Vikings, no team that does a better job of punishing its fans.  Let us see what horrors this new season brings.”

Thank goodness we still have Kevin Garnett and the Timberwolves.  Wait ….

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                           O’Keefe                                                                              Boudreau

Times are tough at CNN, and the folks who work there aren’t getting any sympathy from the vultures at MSNBC and Fox News.  Here’s a list of recent kerfuffles and shenanigans at the world’s first cable-news network:

1)  CNN, all bubbly over the launch of its new Parker Spitzer talk show, suddenly must find a replacement for the volatile Rick Sanchez.  Sanchez was canned for the sin of actually speaking his mind — something of high value at rivals MSNBC and Fox, but not so much at CNN.

2)  Judging from the previews of the Parker Spitzer show, CNN might have another ratings disaster on its hands.  Eliot Spitzer seems to be ego incarnate, and it’s embarrassing to watch Kathleen Parker try to get a word in edgewise when he’s yapping.  Perhaps if the show does nightly segments on high-price hookers, Spitzer will be forced to clam up.

3)  CNN went all out hyping news babe Abbie Boudreau’s “expose” of conservative muckraker James O’Keefe.  O’Keefe was busted attempting to hoax Boudreau with a taped “seduction” aboard a boat stocked with “a condom jar, dildos, posters and paintings of naked women, fuzzy handcuffs and a blindfold.”  But Boudreau, whom O’Keefe referred to as a “bubble-headed bleach-blonde,” came off as a pissed-off woman intent on personal payback, and not exactly a serious journalist pursuing a story.

4)  Meanwhile, Larry King keeps getting caught on camera slurping his false teeth, and earnest Anderson Cooper stutters and stammers in a series of bizarre, indignant interviews in which he tries too hard to toughen up his Boy Scout image.

This is all very sad to watch.  It looks like the once-proud network is going down, which will leave us news junkies with only those howling jackals at Fox and MSNBC.  Larry King and his false teeth must clatter at the thought.

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You Don’t Miss It Until It’s Gone

Speaking of sad tidings … it looks like Blockbuster is biting the dust.  Yes, the late fees were outrageous, and yes, they failed to stock the right movies, and yes, they bulldozed a lot of mom-and-pop video stores.  But who among us won’t get a little misty-eyed if and when the chain disappears?  I, for one, will never forget the teenage, acne-ridden clerk who would examine my video at checkout and then loudly announce to everyone within earshot, “Bubble Headed Beach Babes will be due back on Tuesday, sir!”

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I know, it’s disrespectful and in poor taste to make light of the passing of a fellow human being, but dammit … this has to be the funniest headline of the week:

Segway company owner James ‘Jimi’ Heselden dies in England after riding a Segway off cliff

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A Cure for High Unemployment

There is a remedy for the nation’s unemployed:  aggravating television commercials.

I propose that, in order to receive government benefits, citizens without jobs be required to have their TV sets tuned to regular broadcast or cable channels, 24 hours a day.  No mute buttons, no recording devices.

I guarantee that within a week, unemployment will plummet to below 5 percent.  Desperate to get out of the house and away from their television sets, these people will be escaping from:

1)  Ellen Page and her Cisco ads.  I will never again pay to see this actress in a theatrical film, because she already resides in my living room, thanks to these nauseating, non-stop commercials.  2)  That Pierce Brosnan lookalike in the irritating Geico ads.  3)  The fingernails-scratching-on-a-blackboard music in Progressive ads.  4)  The cloying music that permeates Cialis commercials.

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Poor Randy Jackson.  He is the Frank Gifford of our times.  Gifford, you might recall, was part of the original trio of broadcasters on Monday Night Football, along with Howard Cosell and Don Meredith (I am not counting short-timer Keith Jackson).  Gifford was the dull third wheel in this group.  Meredith and Cosell left the show, but Gifford soldiered on, boring us to tears for decades.

Randy Jackson, third wheel on American Idol, will no doubt stay with the show until the fat lady sings.

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Good reason not to vote for Christine O’Donnell:

Good reason to vote for Christine O’Donnell:

To paraphrase George Sanders in All About Eve, “My dear, you have a point.  An idiotic one, but still a point.”

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I am an addict.  As addictions go, mine is pretty ugly.  Yes, my name is Grouchy, and I am a Minnesota Vikings fan.

Having this sickness is not easy.  There is no team in professional sports more cursed than the Vikings, no team that does a better job of punishing its fans.  Heard of the “Hail Mary” pass?  The term was born in 1975, when Dallas victimized the Vikings — and I was in the stands.  Heard of the “love boat” scandal?  That boat was filled with Vikings.  Can you name one of two teams in the NFL to make four Super Bowl appearances — and lose all four games?  Guess which team boasts the only player in NFL history to run the wrong way for a touchown? That would be Viking Jim Marshall, way back in 1964.

One day in the 1980s, my sister ran into Howard Cosell on a sidewalk in New York.  During their conversation, it came out that she was a Vikings fan.  Cosell snorted and said to her, “They’ll never win anything.”

And now Brett Favre is a member of this cursed team.  Let us see what horrors this new season brings.

Sainz Appeal

Generally, I don’t care much for professional jocks, who too often are rude, entitled jerks.  But I side with the New York Jets concerning this female sports reporter brouhaha.  Mexican journalist Ines Sainz wants to have it both ways.  She wants to be respected as a serious reporter while strutting around the men’s locker-room in skin-tight attire.  She uses sex to advance her career — does she really expect these guys to just ignore that?

Lady Gags Me

Speaking of pigskin … there is only one way that Lady Gaga can top the meat dress she wore to the MTV Video Music Awards.  Next time, she should wear something with live critters.

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I suppose I should know better than to seek moral enlightenment from programs like Showbiz Tonight, but sometimes the double standards are simply breath-taking.  Brooke Anderson, grinning bimbo and co-host of the show, breathlessly informed viewers of a “catfight” between two women on Jersey Shore.  “These young women having fistfights — are you loving it, or is it just over the top?” giggled Brooke.

Not five minutes later, Brooke took 84-year-old Jerry Lewis to task for suggesting that Lindsay Lohan be spanked for her misbehavin’ ways.

In summary, viewers are invited to delight in what might constitute felony assault on Jersey Shore, but shame on dirty old man Jerry.

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Trendy Shows That I Refuse to Watch

The media fawn over certain shows, whether the public agrees or not.  When you look at the numbers, it seems that what determines a “hit” in today’s fragmented viewing market is hardly the same as in the past, when there were clear ratings juggernauts like Gunsmoke or All in the Family.  Glee, Mad Men, Jersey Shore … all enjoy media adulation — and relatively small fan bases.

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Another Thing About Sports …

Why is it that in sports like tennis and golf, the crowd is expected to hush, but not so in other sports?  When a basketball player lines up for a crucial, last-second free throw, does that not require the same type of concentration that a golfer must summon for an important putt?  Yet in basketball, the crowds are encouraged to do everything possible to distract the poor shooter, whereas in golf, well … shhhhh!

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“I tend almost never to throw other films under the bus, but that [Piranha] is exactly an example of what we should not be doing in 3-D.  When movies got to the bottom of the barrel of their creativity and at the last gasp of their financial lifespan, they did a 3-D version to get the last few drops out of the turnip.” — James Cameron, creatively dropping clichés like “throw under the bus” and “last few drops out of the turnip.”

So let me get this straight:  Re-releasing Avatar with just a few additional minutes of footage, and then charging full admission, is somehow not getting “the last few drops out of the turnip”?

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I was thumbing through Entertainment Weekly when I saw a picture from the TV series Sons of Anarchy.  The picture was of star Katey Sagal and some kindly, grandmotherly actress.  I recognized Sagal, but who was this elderly actress?   I read the photo caption:  Hal Holbrook.

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“It is fabulous to see girls and young women poised for success in the coming years.  But allowing generations of boys to grow up feeling rootless and obsolete is not a recipe for a peaceful future.  Men have few natural support groups and little access to social welfare; the men’s-rights groups that do exist in the U.S. are taking on an angry, antiwoman edge.  Marriages fall apart or never happen at all, and children are raised with no fathers.  Far from being celebrated, women’s rising power is perceived as a threat.” — Hanna Rosin in The Atlantic .

My theory is that society is a pendulum and that now it’s swinging to the side of estrogen.  When society declares some members the “winners” and some the “losers,” that means that — unlike what feminism would have us believe — not everybody wins.  So, how to correct the imbalance?  The same way that feminism encouraged fathers to support their daughters:  Mothers will have to stand up for their sons.

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