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Joan Rivers: 1933-2014
An obituary for iconic comedian Joan Rivers, who died Thursday, September 4th, at age 81.
An obituary for iconic comedian Joan Rivers, who died Thursday, September 4th, at age 81.
A predictably eclectic list of QT's favorite films that have been made since he started directing in 1992. I mean, who else would even do something like this? The guy demonstrates again and again that he lives and breathes movies. One of my own fondest moviegoing experiences was in 1992 or 1993 when (drop, names, drop!) QT took Julia Sweeney, Kathy Griffin and a few others (David Cross? Janeane Garofalo? Phil LaMarr? Margaret Cho? I can't remember who all was there that day...) and me to see Jackie Chan in "Supercop" (aka "Police Story 3") at the Laemmle in Santa Monica. It was my first Jackie Chan movie and I was blown away (as any Buster Keaton devotee would be). I'm forever grateful -- and happy to see that movie on his list, along with some of my personal faves, including "Boogie Nights," "Dazed and Confused," "Fight Club," "The Insider," "Shaun of the Dead," "Memories of Murder," "The Host," "Unbreakable" and... you just have to see him deliver it himself.
Full list after the jump...
Psychologists say that depression is rage turned inward. Stand-up comedy, on the other hand, is rage turned back outward again. (I believe George Carlin had a routine about the use of violent metaphors directed at the audience in comedy: "Knock 'em dead!" "I killed!") In the documentary "Heckler" (now on Showtime and DVD) comedian Jamie Kennedy, as himself, plays both roles with ferocious intensity. The movie is his revenge fantasy against anyone who has ever heckled him on stage, or written a negative review... or, perhaps, slighted him in on the playground or at a party or over the phone or online.
"Heckler" (I accidentally called it "Harangue" just now) is an 80-minute howl of fury and anguish in which Kennedy and a host of other well-known and not-well-known showbiz people tell oft-told tales of triumphant comebacks and humiliating disasters, freely venting their spleens at those who have spoken unkindly of them. At first the bile is aimed at hecklers in club audiences (with some particularly nasty invective for loudmouthed drunken women), then it shifts to "critics" -- broadly defined as anybody who says something negative about a figure whose work appears before a paying public. Some of the critics are actually interested in analysis; some are just insult comics who are using the Internet as their open mic. It gets pretty ugly, but it's fascinating -- because the comics, the critics and the hecklers are so much alike that it's no wonder each finds the others so infuriating.
This Sierra Mist commercial featuring Kathy Griffin ("It's Pat," "Pulp Fiction," "My Life on the D-List") and Michael Ian Black ("Ed," "The Baxter," "Stella") ran on Thursday night's edition of "The Daily Show," which featured a brilliant report about the foiled British bomb plot involving the use of liquid explosives aboard airliners. Correspondent John Oliver on the sudden ban on carrying liquids aboard passenger jets: "I'm afraid these terrorists have struck at what we in the West hold most dear: our beverages. They resent our wide array of fluid refreshment options. We live in the most easily quenched part of the world and they hate that.... Unfortunately, the men arrested were British citizens, which means the form of government here in Britian must not be democracy, for as you know, democracy is the only known antidote to extremism... It means regime change, Jon. America must topple the British government."
The premise of the ad is that airport security guard Griffin detains Black and pretends her wand is beeping when she passes it over his bottle of Sierra Mist. Don't expect to see this spot in heavy rotation much longer....
The lovely Mses Griffin and Sweeney in "It's Pat: The Movie" (which has a helluva opening shot!)
OK, I don't usually get into the tabloid "news" (that much) -- this is, after all, a site devoted to the in-depth appreciation of cinema in all its manifestations (while understanding the realities of the entertainment business) -- but this is just too much: Three irresistible trash stories all hitting the wires in one day! Where is Kathy Griffin when I need her?
Tom and Nicole: Never Married!
BBC: In fact, Kidman didn't need an annulment for one simple reason: in the eyes of the Catholic Church her 10-year union with Tom Cruise, a renowned Scientologist, never happened.
Rush Limbaugh Busted for Illicit Viagra Possession!
AP: Rush Limbaugh could see a deal with prosecutors in a long-running prescription fraud case collapse after authorities found a bottle of Viagra in his bag at Palm Beach International Airport. The prescription was not in his name. [Dare we ask whose it was? We always knew not enough blood was getting to his head.]
Barbara Walters Upstaged by Some Old RuPaul Impersonator!
AP: "I love Star and I was trying to do everything I possibly could — up until this morning when I was betrayed — to protect her," Walters told The Associated Press.
The Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy goes to … Kathy Griffin for her pre-show red carpet performance on E!
