In honor of Elizabeth Taylor's death today yesterday, I dampened my cheeks to the stylings of Katharine Hepburn in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.
The movie was enjoyable and I even laughed out loud a few times, which is rare (ask my biographers that follow me everywhere and never have a good tip on a horse). Sidney Poitier was dashing, aggressive, and effective. Katharine Hepburn killed several monologues and the rookie from Connecticut, Katharine Houghton (Hepburn's niece, whom you might remember from her recent performance as Katara's Grandma in The Last Airbender), was the one who made me laugh the most.
Spencer Tracy, on the other hand, reminded me way too much of Robert DeNiro in a comedy, which is a polite way of saying he turned in a poor performance, but unfortunately one not as poor as those of Scott Baio in Arrested Development, which are so poor they come back around again to be funny and are therefore unique and redemptive.
'Maggie the Cat' indeed
If only Most Hideous Man Alive® Bruce Vilanch hadn't stolen my copy of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof I might have cut a more respectable figure this evening as four of the world's leading massage therapists worked me over in the screening lounge aboard my jet and my biographers scribbled wildly. Blaming him for everything that went wrong is so fun these days, especially when the accusations are true.
As it was, the only movie of Ms. Taylor's I had lying around was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and even though she knocks that role right out of the galaxy it isn't exactly how anyone would like her to be remembered.
In your honor, Liz, I am going to bed with this image on my brain instead:
There was once a Dutchman named Robert Wolders. He was born in Rotterdam in September of 1936, to a man and a woman, although if you asked her, the woman did most of the work.
In 1965, Mr. Wolders became an actor, starred briefly in a TV show, but never achieved much success. By 1975, he decided to retire from acting and marry legendary Hollywood nutjob Merle Oberon.
Below are more than a few words about Merle Oberon, for your pleasure:
She was an exotic beauty born on the British side of Bombay to a British mechanical engineer working on the Indian Railways and her own (half) sister, Constance.
To hide this embarrassing bit of incestuous pedophilia, one of Merle's birth certificates listed her father's wife--a Eurasian from Ceylon with partial Maori heritage, who had Constance at age 14 with an Irish foreman of a tea plantation--as her mother and the story stuck.
Merle and her "mother" moved to England, where she dated a retired actor who passed her off to a studio in France when he realized her "mom" was dark-skinned and he was irretrievably racist. The "Sexy Extra All the Powerful Men Hit On at Craft Service" roles poured in and once famous director Alexander Korda got the hots and cast Merle as Ann Boleyn in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), she was officially going places.
Alexander Korda, Merle Oberon, and Samuel "Thug" Goldwyn
Scarred for life in an automobile accident a mere four years later, skilled lighting technicians were at least able to hide Merle's disfigured face long enough for her to tear up the silver screen opposite Laurence Olivier in Wuthering Heights (1939).
By the following year, Merle's face "suffered even further damage...from a combination of cosmetic poisoning and an allergic reaction to sulfa drugs." Mr. Korda, now her husband, paid for several treatments at a skin clinic in Nueva York, but to no avail--without makeup she was hideous to behold.
So Mr. Korda decided to join the knighthood and make Merle a Lady, to give her something else to do with her time. Three years later, bored of being a Lady knight and day, Merle divorced her knight and married cinematographer Lucien Ballard, who then created a special light--the Obie--to obscure her facial scars on film.
That act of devotion fell short, however, and Merle married twice more--to Italian industrialist Bruno Pagliai (with whom she moved to Mexico and adopted two children) and the Most Interesting Man in the World, Mr. Robert Wolders--who is 25 years younger than her.
But only four years after Merle marries Robert Wolders, she dies at age 68.
What does the most interesting man in the world do when this happens? Why, he immediately becomes companion to Audrey Hepburn (7 years his senior), of course--ever the proper lady, she was waiting patiently for her turn on the Wolders, no doubt--and the two of them even hang out with the Reagmeister General:
Thirteen years later, in 1993, the honorable Audrey Hepburn dies on him, too, leaving Mr. Wolders all alone in frigid Switzerland. How does the most interesting man in the world cope with this tragedy?
He hops on a train to France, where he becomes the companion of another older woman, of course. Then-64-year-old screen legend Leslie Caron is a French dancer discovered by Gene Kelly in 1951 who went on to become a successful actress at MGM for decades and dance with every famous dancer whose name you have ever heard.
Alas, their torrid, Metamucil-tinged affair lasts only two years before the furnace goes kaput and Mr. Wolders moves on--for the first time?--without anybody dying.
Where does he go? Sadly, one can only speculate.
Here goes:
Immediately after french-kissing his goodbyes to dear Leslie, Mr. Wolders steals her 1964 Peugeot 404 convertible and drives all the way to Marseilles on the wrong side of the highway, chain-smoking a box of Cuban blunts given to him by Johnny Depp at his birthday party last year.
After six martinis and a few bottles of cheap cognac in the backroom of a rough-trade dockside saloon, Mr. Wolders gets himself into a card game and wakes up to find himself at-sea in a 45-foot sailboat named Skye.
Upon hearing several members of the crew refer to him as "Captain" (as in: "Captain, you have vomit in your beard."), Mr. Wolders commands his crew to pull into the nearest harbor for supplies and a bit of barbering.
After a killer haircut and the trading of most of their food, medical supplies, and lifeboats for several dozen barrels of rum, six pounds of beef jerky, a prostitute, and two fishing poles, Mr. Wolders and his crew are able to outrun a couple police officers and set sail for anywhere else.
The crew becomes family as they drift around the Mediterranean with Mr. Wolders for the next 15+ years, mastering kung-fu, running guns for the Russians, trying to get invited to parties along the Riviera, counterfeiting their own Cuban cigars, making their own sushi, experimenting with mind-altering drugs...and subsisting solely on the bounty of nature, the naivete of strangers, and the small fortune Mr. Wolders inherited from his two famous dead lovers.
The crew was not terribly pleased to have their berths converted to rum storage,
but they eventually got over it and embraced the good life.
When his love of the finer things in life--coupled with his innate distaste for labor of any kind--catches up with him, Mr. Wolders sees no other choice but to adopt a fake Mexican accent and resume acting under an assumed identity in commercials for Dos Equis.
It's the closest he can get to not working while still getting paid, so that's alright with him.
Yes, at 74 years of age and still kicking, life has been good to Robert Wolders. I wonder if the next 74 will be so kind?
Fact: The Colored Bartender in The Palm Beach Story was played by a man who called himself Snowflake.
For this and many other reasons, I find it hard to imagine what it would have been like to be alive in 1942. Others reasons include having to wear a wool suit all the time, hats, hair oil, the everpresent cloud of cigarette smoke, propriety, World War II, racism, and the absence of rock'n'roll.
Only in a truly fucked-up world would a black man rise the ranks of the entertainment industry as a performer named Snowflake, parlay that modest success into the dream role of "bug-eyed black man in a white tuxedo getting shot at by wasted wealthy white hunters on a private train car from New York City to Palm Beach" in one of the biggest comedies of the year, and then have this article written about him in the paper:
Heartthrob-cum-fatty Jeremy London might not be living the high life like he used to during his Party of Five days, but he has at least managed to etch his name onto the list of 2010's strangest news stories.
If you made this stuff up, everybody would think you were stupid:
Armed bandits abducted and robbed Party of Five star Jeremy London and forced him to smoke drugs during a harrowing five hour ordeal in Palm Springs, California, police have revealed to RadarOnline.com.
London, 37, was attempting to change a flat tire on his vehicle when a man stopped to help him, outside the Bahama Hotel & Apartments on North Palm Canyon Drive, late on the evening of Thursday, June 10.
BP, eat your heart out--this is the best news story I have seen in a long time (or at least since this gem):
Sword-Wielding Porn Actor Dies After Falling Off Cliff in Standoff
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A porn actor suspected of killing a colleague with a sword was taken into police custody Saturday after he fell some 40 feet from a rocky hillside from which he had been threatening to jump, officials said.
A "less lethal munition" was used against Stephen Clancy Hill just before his plummet, said police Officer Bruce Borihanh, who had no other details about the weapon that was used.
SWAT officers spent part of Saturday afternoon trying to talk Hill down from the outcropping as he clutched a sword.
It was unknown whether the sword was the murder weapon in Tuesday's deadly attack at a DVD production center that also left two people injured.
Hill fled to the Chatsworth neighborhood hillside after leaving a house where he was barricaded for most of Saturday.
Borihanh said Hill, 34, would be booked on murder and attempted murder charges after he was treated by paramedics. His condition was unknown.
The charges were filed against Hill Friday after Eric Jover, who runs the Ultima DVD production house, offered a $2,000 reward on the company's website for information leading to his arrest.
Hill attacked a colleague with a sword that was used as a film prop during a social gathering at the Ultima's studios about a week after being told he was being fired and that he would have to move out of the production facility, where he had been living, authorities said.
He then turned on two others who rushed to their co-worker's defense. One of those who attempted to help, Herbert Hin Wong, 30, was killed in the attack.
Hill, whose professional name is Steve Driver, fled in an SUV with the murder weapon, authorities said.
Ultima is located in the San Fernando Valley, known in the adult film industry as Porn Valley for its large number of porn businesses. The small company produces niche films featuring fetishes and sexual domination of men.
Hill was convicted of second-degree assault and a handgun charge in March 1999 in Maryland, according to court records.
UPDATE: The LA Times reports that Stephen Hill has died as a result of head injuries suffered from his roughly 50 ft. fall...Developing...
Wait a minute--he lived at a "DVD production company?"
Dottie popped over for a cup of tea before her big date with Bjorn.
I'm just gonna skip over the fact that this porn actor--who was only involved in fetish and "sexual domination of men" porno, mind you--lived at the studio he also shot porn in because I love how the person who wrote this won't even dignify porn movies with the sobriquet "movie," but rather insists on referring to the company as a "DVD production company."
Harrumph! Nothing those filthy people make would ever be projected in a theatre! They're not movies! They don't even shoot them on film anymore!
I wonder what exactly this swashbuckler did to get fired. Did he lose his six-pack? Forget to shave his chest? Shoot so much heroin into his dick it won't work anymore? Fuck one of the boss' whores?
I also would like to know how this guy is able to travel around LA so freely--he drove from the studio to a house that "he was barricaded for most of Saturday" to another house in Chatsworth --after murdering somebody with a sword in a place of business.
Also, do enough people really frequent the website of this niche porno company to warrant posting a $2000 reward for information leading to arrest? Did it work? Who are these people?
Also also, "less-lethal munition?" They won't admit what it was? Well, here a few guesses:
Acoustic
Acoustic Bullets: High-power, very low-frequency waves emitted from one- to two-meter antenna dishes. Results in blunt-object trauma. Effects range from discomfort to death.
Curdler Unit: A device that is plugged into a sound system to produce a shrill, shrieking, blatting noise. It is used to irritate and disperse rioters and has a decibel range just below that of the danger level to the human ear. It is used in night operations to produce a "voodoo" effect and breaks up chanting, singing, and clapping.
Infrasound: Very low-frequency sound that can travel long distances and easily penetrate most buildings and vehicles. Long-wavelength sound creates biophysical effects: nausea, loss of bowels, disorientation, vomiting, internal-organ damage, or death may occur. By 1972 an infrasound generator had been built in France. When activated it made the people in range sick for hours.
Acoustic & optical
Photic Driver: A crowd-control device that uses ultrasound and flashing infrared lights to penetrate closed human eyelids. Potential for epileptic fits because of the stroboscopic flashing effect.
Psycho-Correction: A technology invented by a Russian scientist that involves influencing subjects visually or aurally with imbedded subliminal messages.
Barrier
Coating, Slick: Teflon-type lubricants that create a slippery surface. In the 1960s the term "Instant Banana Peel" was coined to describe the capability provided by Riotril. When applied to a hard surface and wetted down, this dry, relatively inexpensive white powder becomes ice slick. It becomes virtually impossible for an individual to move or stand up on a hard surface so treated.
Biotechnical
Biodegrading Microbes: Microbes that turn storage tanks full of aviation fuel into useless jelly. Such microbes may produce acids or enzymes that can be tailored to degrade almost anything, even concrete and metal, so their potential use as nonlethal weapons could be extensive.
Genetic Alteration: The act of changing genetic code to create a desired less-than-lethal but long-term disablement effect, perhaps for generations, thereby creating a societal burden.
Neuro-Implant: Computer implants into the brain that allow for behavioral modification and control. Current research is experimental in nature and focuses on lab animals such as mice.
Project Agile: Series of military-science studies in Asia conducted in May 1966 for the Advanced Research Projects Agency. One such study centered on developing "stink" bombs that were race specific.
Pheromones: The chemical substances released by animals to influence physiology or behavior of other members of the same species. One use of pheromones, at the most elemental level, could be to mark target individuals and then release bees to attack them.
Electrical
Police Jacket: Police jacket that jolts anyone who touches it.
Holograms
Prophet: The projection of the image of an ancient god over an enemy capital whose public communications have been seized and used against it in a massive psychological operation.
Soldier Forces: The projection of soldier images that make an opponent think more allied forces exist than actually do, make an opponent believe that allied forces are located in a region where none actually exist, and/or provide false targets for his weapons to fire upon.
Death: Hologram used to scare a target individual to death. Example: a drug lord with a weak heart sees the ghost of his dead rival appearing at his bedside and dies of fright.
Marker
Invisible: One concept envisions a fluorescent powder sprayed into crowds from a pressurized container. Particles adhere to clothing and are visible only under ultraviolet light. Another concept envisions sponge grenades impregnated with infrared dye so that rioters can be later identified.
Obscurant
Smoke, Colored: Colored-smoke concentrations produce greater initial psychological and panic effect than white smoke. Caucasians are said to have a greater repugnance to brilliant green smoke, whereas Negroids and Latins are declared to be most adversely affected by brilliant red. Rioters confronted with a strong concentration of colored smoke feel, instinctively, that they are being marked, or stained, and therefore lose anonymity.
Riot-control agent
Tear Gas, Invisible: Invisible tear gas cannot be seen by rioters once it emerges from a grenade or mechanical dispenser, and therefore has a greater psychological panic-producing effect than tear smoke.
"I don't have a toilet at the moment. My house is just a wooden box. I mean I am planning to get a toilet at some point. But for now I have to go to the neighbours. I threw it all out."
So...it's not using a toilet that is the problem, it's...owning one?
I understand Mr. Campbell's desire to free himself from material goods, but I would hardly equate owning a toilet with excesses like Gucci pajamas, a personal chef, a flat-screen TV in every room, or a car collection, which makes me wonder if perhaps Campbell is a bit confused.
And so I offer him some advice, free of charge:
"It's just a place to put your shit! Literally! Now get off your high horse and put one in your house. It will make you a bit more like the rest of us, sure, but not by much, so stop worrying about that, you unique little creepazoid."
Had to re-post this bit of brilliant drivel I read on Videogum today:
At today’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice press conference, someone asked [Nicholas] Cage how he chooses whether to go way over the top (like in Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call, New Orleans) or hold back (like in Adaptation.) And he responded:
"Thank you for noticing, because first of all, it’s difficult to talk about the work, right? Because when you talk about the work, it’s kind of stupid because the work speaks for itself. I don’t want to name it, because when you name it, if you name it then it loses its mystery. If I tell you exactly what I was thinking, or what I was up to – and I have been guilty of that – then you lose your secret connection with the work of art. And I digress, but I went on Dick Cavett many years ago and met Miles Davis. And I was talking about things like art synthesis and Picasso and you can do with acting what he did, or with music, and Miles came out and he got it, you know, he was looking at me, he gave me this, like – he nodded and he winked at me. Miles Davis, you know. And we were sharing the trumpet. And ever since then, because he accepted whatever my philosophy was, I believe that I wanted to approach acting as jazz. And so he became like a surrealist father of sorts, along with Walt Disney. And I thought, 'Okay. Well, this time, I’m going to just let anything come out, whatever it may be. Like Bad Lieutenant, you know. But sometimes, it’s really thought out and constructed and carefully thought out, like Adaptation. So I always like to mix it up."
The most amazing thing about this is that a person actually said it, with no intention of being funny.
The most disappointing aspect of it is that Cage's rambling monologue about "art synthesis and Picasso" is not readily available for me to listen to and laugh at.
Anybody out there got a bootleg Dick Cavett box set? I'm looking in your direction, Charles Grodin...
Stop hittin' on my chick and get me my shit, Beethoven! Where I come from, we don't share trumpets...
While you're standing in line for a flight at the airport, unintentionally listening to one of those ubiquitous, who-pays-for-these, flat-screen TVs broadcasting oceans of shit, have you ever seen Brad Pitt interviewed about why Benjamin Button had to be shot in New Orleans?
(It HAD to, by the way; wouldn't have worked anywhere else. Wait--it would have, the hurricane shit was completely pointless--could've been Charleston. Or Baltimore. Or New York. Or Boston... Wait--but what about the train station clock? Probably fiction, equally worthless. Wait--what about the fact that New Orleans is mostly black? Wait--race is never once commented on. No wonder Brad had nothing... --Ed.)
It is one of the most hilariously useless moments ever captured on video (thank hell they didn't waste film on that shit).
Ever heard Tom Cruise answer a question a reporter/host asked him?
Ditto.
Ever heard somebody as "honorable and good and strong and 'smart'" as Angelina Jolie answer questions thrown at her?
Ever heard any other actor speak outside of the multiplex?
Why do all these people sound like idiots, when they are usually so witty and funny and charming and irreverent and sexy?
Answer: When they're under the gun, even though they've been prepped with phrases and lines and facts by their publicists, managers, and agents...they don't have WRITERS**. Nor do they have directors forcing them to stick to those lines the writers wrote. Nor do they have the benefit of a second take...
You're pretty sure he's super cool
It's no accident that movie stars have become far less glamorous, fascinating, cool, and sexy since we've started to see them on TV all the time. Interviews? Tours of their homes? DVD extras? Please---stick to your day job.
Which is, just so all you actors remember, reading the lines that somebody smarter than you wrote. You are a puppet--a puppet who can certainly improve the script at times, fair play, but not so often that they should just be allowed to go around speaking on their own all the time and expect to maintain the same awe and respect from their audience.
Since everything is cyclical, I wonder when Hollywood suits will wise up and stop letting their talent speak. Oh, wait--it's not their talent anymore. That's the problem!
Sadly, not all horses should be allowed to run free...
{Okay, so I was looking for the clip of Brad Pitt I saw at the Sacramento airport a couple weeks ago and couldn't find it. I found this instead; it might be better. Watch it. And keep in mind that this is not only EDITED, but put out there, into the ether, approved by the studio...}
{For a good Tom Cruise bit, click here and watch the Tom Cruise clip...}
** For those of you don't know who they are or what they do, that makes sense--writers are the most under-appreciated people in the movie business. They just write the story and all the things the people say in it.
