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20Mar

The Weekly Review: March 14 – 20

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Obesity in America

I feel sorry for today’s youngsters in their battle to stave off obesity. If I had such a cool array of electronic toys to play with when I was a child, I’d probably be at least 50 pounds overweight today. So would Tom Cruise (above).

Sex Scandal in America

Lots to choose from: Tiger Woods and his porn star; Rielle Hunter and GQ; Sandra Bullock and Jesse James. Apparently CNN’s Mike Galanos is a close personal friend of Bullock, because he shared this insight: “She [alleged homewrecker Michelle McGee] couldn’t be more different than Sandra Bullock. Who in their right mind cheats on Sandra Bullock?”

So I guess Bullock is an idiot. Are we supposed to believe that she had absolutely no idea what James was like, or what his past was like, before she married him? My guess is that she’s nowhere near the saint that her image, and Mike Galanos, would have us believe.

*****

Tom Brokaw: Silly me. I figured it was a broadcasting-school prerequisite that you must be able to speak coherently, rather than as if your mouth was filled with mashed potatoes.

Chris Matthews: I’d change the name of his show to “The No-Spit Zone.” I am surprised we can actually see Matthews on screen, given the amount of spittle he must spray over MSNBC cameras. Find a better dentist, dude.

Bill O’Reilly: O’Reilly must have been endlessly caned by the Catholic nuns who oversaw his education. The man is actually least frightening when he’s screaming at a guest; it’s when he smiles, donning his faux-grandfather demeanor, that you know it’s time to run.

Keith Olbermann: Olbermann strikes me as a walking, talking nervous breakdown. Olbermann’s father died recently, and that’s too bad, but listening to him rant, we might believe that Republican opposition to Obamacare is a personal assault on the memory of his dad.

Sean Hannity: Hannity invites lots of pretty girls to his show, like conservative blogger S.E. Cupp and disgraced beauty queen Carrie Prejean. This makes no sense to me, because these ladies present eye-candy competition for Hannity, who appears to spend more time in front of a mirror than Dudley Do-Right ever did.

11Mar

The Weekly Review: March 7 – 13

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Despite its Harlequin-romance title, Never Let Me Go is quite possibly the best book I’ve read by a living author. So it was with mixed emotions that I recently read that a film adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel is in the works. Hollywood is bound to screw it up, I thought. Then again, the movies did a pretty good job with another Ishiguro story, The Remains of the Day.

*****

Sandra Bullock was quite modest when she accepted the Best Actress Oscar for The Blind Side. I am convinced that Academy voters were actually voicing approval for Bullock’s nude scene in the atrocious The Proposal (above). After all, it worked for Diane Keaton in Something’s Gotta Give. Wait … never mind.

*****

I have no comment on this guy, New York Congressman Eric Massa. I just wanted an excuse to run a picture of him and an excuse to say “snorkeling.”

06Mar

The Weekly Review: February 28 – March 6

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Gutfeld’s Girls

No one who knows me would label me a “red guy” politically, but I’ll have to admit there is something lecherously appealing about Greg Gutfeld’s wee-hours free-for-all on Fox News, otherwise known as Red Eye.

Gutfeld does spew conservative venom in his “Greg-alogues,” but there’s a reason for that sparkle in his peepers: the bevy of supermodel types that get booked to appear on the show. You won’t find Liz Cheney on Red Eye, but you will find babes like (clockwise from top left) Megyn Kelly, Diana Falzone, Martha MacCallum, Reshma Shetty, S.E. Cupp, and Remi Spencer.

Gutfeld and his View-like panel, including the hilariously deadpan Andy Levy, are in such good humor that it’s hard not to smile. Or, as Slate put it, “It’s all horribly watchable.” Does that make me a racist homophobe?

*****

Saying goodbye to Nip/Tuck was a bit like dumping old breast implants. At first they were good, but then they began to sag, and in the end you had to dump them. This FX show — one of the hottest on TV just five years ago — went out with a whimper on Wednesday. The finale was rather touching but, sad to say, I stopped watching Nip/Tuck a few years ago. What was once a cutting-edge drama with bizarre twists eventually became bizarre, period. But I used to like you, so thanks for the mammaries.

28Feb

The Weekly Review: February 21 – 27

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Olympic Divas For the casual Olympics fan, it’s a letdown that the Lindsey Vonn-Julia Mancuso feud has sputtered out. The last time we had this much fun was back in 1994 when the Queen of Catfights broke out between Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding. That episode worked out well for both ladies: Kerrigan got to host Saturday Night Live, and Harding got to make a sex tape.

*****

Something’s Fishy Imagine that — turns out they call them “killer whales” for a reason.

Why is it that every time we read about a dog, often a pit bull, bumping off some human, we always learn that the dog was later euthanized, but this whale, supposedly responsible for several deaths now, goes on with the show? Gee, could big money be involved?

*****

The 39 Steps You’d think that the British, of all people, would know better than to mess with the films of native son Alfred Hitchcock. Didn’t they see Christopher Reeve’s sleep-inducing Rear Window, or Gus Van Sant’s pointless remake of Psycho?

But this “Masterpiece Classic” fares much better than those other duds. It’s not Hitchcock, but it is fairly entertaining.

20Feb

The Weekly Review: February 14 – 20

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Ozzie and Harriet OK, we’re all a little tired of this melodrama, but there are no “victims” in this soap opera. Certainly not golf fans, who were foolish enough to put Tiger on his pedestal. Not Woods’s wife, who had to know what she was getting into when she married the lunkhead. Not the mistresses, who will rake in big bucks from porn films, talk shows, and Gloria Allred lawsuits. As for Tiger himself, he will finish his “rehab” and go back to his enchanted golf career.

*****

Roger Ebert The esteemed film critic says he doesn’t want pity, but I feel I might owe him an apology. In the past, I have occasionally befouled the comments section of his Web site. Ebert would usually reply to my (sometimes drunken) rants, and he always did so in a civil tone. He’s a class act who really is a victim, unlike that boneheaded golfer pictured at top.

*****

Shutter Island There is just one thing missing from Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island: fun. The movie is gloomy, which is not the same as scary. On just a fraction of Scorsese’s budget, the makers of Paranormal Activity at least managed to produce a few chills.

*****

Kevin Smith No sympathy for this guy, who got booted off a Southwest Airlines flight because his booty was too big for one seat. I am a smoker, and I don’t recall the Kevin Smiths of the world standing up for us when we got the boot.

19Feb

The Weekly Review: February 7 – 13

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Going for the Gold They tell us that the Olympics are all about team spirit and patriotism, but are they really? I think that, at least for the Americans, they’re more about self-promotion. When I hear a report about Lindsey Vonn, I’m not thinking about sports, I’m wondering how long before she follows up Sports Illustrated with an appearance in Playboy.

*****

Cheap Thrills Ten years ago I made the mistake of believing the buzz about The Blair Witch Project, a low-budget horror flick that failed to horrify me. Now we have Paranormal Activity, another cheap chiller, and … surprise! It ain’t half bad.

*****

Down Home This is Willie Nelson in a coffin, I have no idea why.

18Feb

The Weekly Review: January 31 – February 6

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Taylor Swift I’m sorry, but when she performed live at the Grammys, I thought I was listening to Mercedes McCambridge doing her devil voice from The Exorcist. And people complain that the poor girl is being attacked?

Avatar Stop the talk about James Cameron’s Avatar setting box-office records. When you account for inflation, Avatar isn’t in the top five all-time earners — and neither is Titanic. What’s atop the list? Gone With the Wind.

Kathryn Bigelow Unlike Avatar, I’ve actually seen The Hurt Locker, which was … OK. It will be amusing to see which movie comes out on top at the Oscars, Bigelow’s overrated Western or ex-husband Cameron’s latest comic book.

Lost Yet another show I haven’t seen. Everyone is wondering how it will end. I am reminded of The X Files, and I believe it’s a lot easier to come up with bizarre plot threads than it is to actually resolve them.

J.D. Salinger For my money, one of the great intrigues of the 20th Century was the story of an author who, after penning a single literary masterpiece, pretty much dropped off the face of the media-hungry earth. But enough about Harper Lee.

Survivor Jeff Probst and his gang of half-naked idiots are once again gracing the CBS schedule, and some of us couldn’t be happier. There is nothing quite like pixelated breasts.

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