Category: Entertainment

Seen At The Carwash

Entertainment

I never read celebrity trash [some overlap]  magazines unless I’m in a waiting room and there’s nothing else to read except for magazines that will make me grow breasts just by touching them.  And even then, I page quickly through crap like People, Us and Entertainment Weekly, playing a game with myself as to how few of the “celebrities” I can actually recognize.  (My current score is roughly 5%, and that only because some 70s musicians occasionally make the presses, see below.)

A couple of days ago I was waiting for the Mexicans to finish cleaning my car, and the only magazine to read was (I think) People, and I thought I’d share just a couple samples of their fare:

“I’ve never given 60 seconds of my life to those Housewives of Blah Blah and the Kardashians.  I don’t know their names.”  — Jon Bon Jovi

Me neither.  Well, to be honest, I do know some of the Kardashian coven (Kim, Kris and Kunty), but that’s about it.  But thankfully, all the “real” housewives are a complete blank to me.

Then there is a feature called “5 Things We’re Talking About“… oy.  Here are a couple examples:

1 )  Prince George is taking ballet lessons.  And according to his dad William, “he loves it”.  These, lest we forget, are the two future kings of Great Britain, King Gormless I and the Gay-King Georgie-Boy.  How special.

3 )  Some Australian billionaire is funding the building of a complete replica of the Titanic, only with (and I quote), “more lifeboats and modern navigation equipment”.  Just to be on the safe side, the new Titanic should still operate only in the Southern Pacific because of you-know-what.

There was more, oh so much more, but then Ricardo called out that my car was all done.  Boy, was it ever — it looked brand new.

I gave him a good tip*.  I told him never to read People magazine.  He’ll thank me for it one day.

*Also $10.  He did a great job.

 

Delicious Thought

Entertainment, Men & Women

I read SOTI that there is a better-than-50/50 chance that the bloated and loathsome Hollywood mogul [some overlap]  Harvey Weinstein may not be convicted for #MeToo DoublePlusUngood Sex Crimes after all.

I have no idea if this is true, of course, but should this happen, Evil Kim is cackling his ass off at the probable feministical reaction.

Hasten the day…

Alternate Universe

Entertainment

We often imagine how things might have turned out if instead of X, we’d done Y or Z, and so on.  Imagine how TV show Gilligan’s Island might have turned out with this cast:

  • Raquel Welch for the role of Mary Ann
  • Jayne Mansfield as Ginger
  • Carroll O’Connor as Skipper
  • Jerry Van Dyke as Gilligan, and
  • Dabney Coleman as the Professor.

Whoa.  In fact, all the above auditioned for those parts in the show, but were rejected.  And here’s Mary Ann in the alternate universe:

For the record, I’ve only ever watched a few episodes of Gilligan’s Island  because boredom, and not since because brain bleed.  With the above cast, I might have been tempted to watch more, and not just because of Raquel.

Here’s an exercise.  Put your favorite modern actors (at any age) into those roles, and imagine how the show would have changed.

Here are my suggestions, by way of example, which I think would have made the show not only more grown-up, but more watchable (and funnier):

  •  Helena Bonham-Carter for the role of Mary Ann

  •  Kate Walsh as Ginger

  •  Bob Newhart as The Skipper

  •  Robin Williams as Gilligan

…but I can’t beat

  • Dabney Coleman as the Professor.

Go on, it’s your turn (and it’s harder than you think).

Snatchers

Entertainment

Some Brit toffs just got married at the groom’s future digs (which he gets when his dad snuffs it), said shack being so vast that no ground-level photo can quite do it justice :

Now ordinarily I am disinterested in the couplings of nobility;  the nuptials of Lady Fontinella Waxwork-ffolkes and Lord Beastly Stiff-Upper-Lypp pass by my gaze unnoticed, and even Prince Harry’s marriage would have been disregarded by me but for the fact that the poor royal ginger ended up with some foul feminist Hollywood slag and was therefore only worthy of comment insofar as I predict that this unfortunate alliance will not end well (you heard it here 455th).

Anyway, the thing which caught my idle glance in the above report was this unfortunate description:

“George, the Marquess of Blandford, 26, married childhood sweetheart Camilla Thorp, 31”

Say what?  I’m assuming / hoping that he wasn’t 5 years old, and she 10 when they became sweethearts… oh wait, it turns out that they met ten years ago when he was 16 (not really a “child”, was he?) and she ummmm…. carry the two, 21.  That’s a fair age difference but not overly so.

Phew.  I am relieved.  Of course, had this liaison been consummated in Murka, she’d have been facing statutory rape charges at some point (assuming that they’d started bonking soon after first meeting, as seems to be the custom these days), but I suppose the aristocracy has a much more benign attitude towards this kind of thing so it’s okay, albeit risky.  (Remember that Chinless Charles married Super-Sloane-Ranger Di when he was in his thirties and she yet in her teens, and we all know how that turned out.)  Also, the Dukes of Marlborough are outrageously wealthy, thanks to Great-Grandpappy Marlborough marrying a Vanderbilt girl, so maybe there’s a different rule for the rich when it comes to bonking sixteen-year-olds.

Anyway:  congratulations and good luck to the happy couple, who seem to be quite charming.  And as wedding pics go, you have to admit that this isn’t one of yer ordinary backgrounds:

And all over Britain can be heard the gnashing of desperate debutante teeth as another eligible “catch” escapes their hooks.

Another age-distinct couple got married recently, and their backdrop was also rather special:

That’s the Umaid Bhawan palace in Jodhpur, but it’s not likely to be owned by either the bride or groom anytime in the future, as they are neither royal not even noble.  Like we couldn’t tell (note the bride’s ceremonial hand tattoo UGH):

Anyway, he is someone called Nick Jonas, a one-time (or current?) pop star of whom I know nothing except that like the future duke (above), he’s 26.  His bride, like the Royal Ginger’s wife, is some houri actress named Priyanka Chopra, and who like the Marchioness Blandford is older than her husband, but she by some ten summers.

At least this couple are not “childhood sweethearts”:  the thought of a twenty-one-year old woman bonking an eleven-year-old boy… well, you know.

This marriage, I give a couple of years.  Call it a hunch.

In Other News, Dogs Chase Cats

Entertainment, Men & Women

I’ve never been involved in the movie business at all, so I’m not really qualified to comment on this story (not that this has ever stopped me before):

Alexa Chung has revealed how she was once ordered to strip by a movie producer while being auditioned for a role. In a worrying #MeToo moment, the model was told to remove her clothes so that the exec could see what she looked like naked.
Addressing the Oxford Union, Alexa said: ‘He told me to strip because he needed to see what I looked like naked for a scene that required it.’

Okay, let’s all accept the fact that the whole casting thing could just turn into an opportunity for men to catch a free look at naked women.  (In other news, Gen. Custer seems to be having some difficulties with the Sioux.)  And yeah yeah, that’s just awful and terrible etc. etc.

I have some parallel thoughts, however:  if you are auditioning for a part where you’re going to be filmed in the nude, don’t be shocked when you’re asked to show what you look like naked.  If you’re Julia Roberts, for example, you can turn down such demands because you’re going to get a body double anyway — they’re casting the face, not your ironing-board body.  But if you’re a nobody, you can’t really turn it down because appearing or performing in the nude is one of the reasons you’re being cast at all and if we’re going to be blunt about it, if you have some blemish (e.g. saggy boobs or a large birthmark), the producer is not going to hire a body double for a nobody.  

The other thought is that the director has to be sure that when he films a scene — any scene, let alone a nude one — he has to be sure that viewers concentrate on what he’s trying to show, not on the fact that Second Actress From The Left has one breast considerably larger than the other.

So while I can sympathize with this Alexa Chung (whoever she is) because of the voyeur thing, I can also see things from the other side of the desk, so to speak.  I should also point out that this woman is an ex-model, and didn’t seem to have too many qualms about being naked anyway:

And here’s another thought:  a producer asking to see what you look like on the nude is not a Harvey Weinstein/#MeToo moment;  a producer wanting you to fuck him to get the part, is.

We can also talk about why nude modelling or nude scenes in movies are necessary at all, but that’s a topic for another post.