remember you don't have to be white to be a racist!
it's true not all republicans are racists but also true is all racists are republicans!
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Who's Your Favorite Racist?
remember you don't have to be white to be a racist!
it's true not all republicans are racists but also true is all racists are republicans!
Friday, August 7, 2009
Kerry Ellis: 'Bohemian Rhapsody'
on monday i posted 'bohemian rhapsody' as originated by queen. i never thought it could be covered and succeed. i was wrong.
so now i ask: is there nothing kerry ellis cannot sing?
Damn you go girl!
so now i ask: is there nothing kerry ellis cannot sing?
Damn you go girl!
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Kate the Great
kate seems to be taking her well deserved 'vacation' from film.
we can only hope she is reading scripts. please be reading scripts kate!
but i can't have too long a period between postings on kate. so i made this little video to tide us kate fans over.
the soundtrack is the gone to soon brilliant georgia brown. the song is 'i'm a woman' from the musical 'carmelina.
a bit of triva: 'carmelina' is the original 'mamma mia'. this is true. it was based on the movie 'buena sera mrs. campbell'. same stories revolving around a wedding, three possible dads and the outcomes are the same. you must trust me on this. my mind is full of this kind of stuff. why? wish i knew. no really, i'm a music, musical, film and theater buff. well the word fanatic may be a better fit!
we can only hope she is reading scripts. please be reading scripts kate!
but i can't have too long a period between postings on kate. so i made this little video to tide us kate fans over.
the soundtrack is the gone to soon brilliant georgia brown. the song is 'i'm a woman' from the musical 'carmelina.
a bit of triva: 'carmelina' is the original 'mamma mia'. this is true. it was based on the movie 'buena sera mrs. campbell'. same stories revolving around a wedding, three possible dads and the outcomes are the same. you must trust me on this. my mind is full of this kind of stuff. why? wish i knew. no really, i'm a music, musical, film and theater buff. well the word fanatic may be a better fit!
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Jon Stewart's Salute To South Carolina: Bestiality, Adultery, Racism, And Lindsey Graham
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Thank You, South Carolina! | ||||
| ||||
Monday, August 3, 2009
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Maureen Dowd: "I Love Sarah Palin"
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
So You Think You Can Douche: Hannity, Dobbs, And Beck Compete For Dubious 'Daily Show' Honor
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| So You Think You Can Douche | ||||
| ||||
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Grant Goodeve: 'Eight Is Enough'
an oldie but goodie: the theme from 'eight is enough' sung by one of it's players grant goodeve.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
'Countdown': The Moron Maverick Retrospective
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Monday, July 27, 2009
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Palin's Favorability Rating Drops As She Nears Exit: Poll
WASHINGTON — A majority of Americans take a negative view of outgoing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, and although she remains popular among Republicans, her image within the party has slipped, according to a new poll.
Palin's favorabilty rating has dipped to its lowest level in the Washington Post-ABC News since she came to national attention last summer as GOP presidential nominee John McCain's running mate. Fifty-three percent of those polled view her negatively and 40 percent have a favorable impression.
Last summer, almost six in 10 Americans viewed her favorably, but her poll numbers have slipped since.
Palin, seen as a possible GOP presidential contender in 2012, is stepping down as governor Sunday, ending her term 18 months early.
Palin, who said it was time to change course, remains strikingly popular within her own party, especially with white evangelical Protestants and conservatives. Seventy percent of Republicans view her favorably. But the number who have "strongly favorable" opinions has dropped since last fall, the Post reported Friday.
The poll involved 1,001 randomly selected adults on standard and cell phones and was taken from July 15-18 with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
Palin's favorabilty rating has dipped to its lowest level in the Washington Post-ABC News since she came to national attention last summer as GOP presidential nominee John McCain's running mate. Fifty-three percent of those polled view her negatively and 40 percent have a favorable impression.
Last summer, almost six in 10 Americans viewed her favorably, but her poll numbers have slipped since.
Palin, seen as a possible GOP presidential contender in 2012, is stepping down as governor Sunday, ending her term 18 months early.
Palin, who said it was time to change course, remains strikingly popular within her own party, especially with white evangelical Protestants and conservatives. Seventy percent of Republicans view her favorably. But the number who have "strongly favorable" opinions has dropped since last fall, the Post reported Friday.
The poll involved 1,001 randomly selected adults on standard and cell phones and was taken from July 15-18 with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
'The Glamorous Life'
if anything good came out of the lousy film version of 'a little night music' it was 'the glamorous life'.
pity they did not keep the camera more on the kid singing and less on elizabeth taylor who at this point in her "career" had about one facial expressions left: frozen boredom.
and then by the brilliant audra mcdonald
Friday, July 24, 2009
Pure Unadulterated Racism!!!
This entire 'Birther' bullshit is pure racism...hey...white guy here saying this. these idiots are pissed a black man is president of the U.S. You are shameful. A disgrace. You embarrass Americans EVERYWHERE!!!
THE Birth Certificate for the MORONS at Large
can you read ms. idiota cheney and your roving band of village idiots?
Liz Cheney (Moron) : Birther of Crazier Conspiracies
Well, it appears Old Man Potter's progeny didn't fall far from the gnarled, twisted tree, as America bore witness to Liz Cheney unfurling her writhing power-hungry roots on Larry King, burrowing deep beneath the dirt filled with assorted creepy crawlies to feed her political prospects.
By refusing to de-legitimize the Birther Movement (who believe there is a 48-year-old conspiracy afoot to have a native born Kenyan infiltrate the White House--even if all evidence including birth certificate and newspaper announcements are in direct contradiction to their twisted xenophobic reality) and going on to question Obama's loyalty to our God-loving nation of torture, revenge and fear of the other, it seems ole Spin Lizzy is simply fanning the flames of hillbilly hatred, hoping for a backdraft to buoy her onward and upward to fill the void left by the assassination of our nansy-pansy negotiating, anti-warmongering, internationally beloved, personal-freedom protecting, non-puppet-in-chief... or so the left-wing-leaning media would lead you to believe.
However, what many in the drive-by media have failed to call attention to (with their relentless reliance on facts and annoyingly adult insistence on authenticity) are the other un-debunked conspiracy theories with a possible grain of half-truth or titillation that Elizabeth has been both tirelessly uncovering and propagating in her down-time from fulfilling her birthright to world domination.
Here are her Top 3:
1. The Obamas's Intergenerational Involvement in the Staged Apollo Moon Landing/Walk Footage
As of now, unauthenticated testimony from a fourth-party source implicates Barack Sr. as serving as not only a boom operator but gopher on a secret NASA soundstage which produced the awe-inspiring faked films. Although also possessing incontrovertible evidence such as a used coffee cup and the remnants of a glazed donut (gingerly bitten by the demented director), the clandestine whistleblower refuses to go public for fear of a vengeful Buzz Aldrin planting his 72-year-old, abnormally large, arthritic knuckles on his fragile, easy-to-bruise face.
Born just outside of Kendu Bay, Kenya, Big Daddy Barack was allegedly a member of a mysterious Kanyadhiang village tribe who had a fanatical aversion to green cheese (which those who have not bought into government-manipulated propaganda know the fungus-ridden satellite is comprised of). Anyway, the head witchdoctor of said heathen clan designated him and his offspring with the destiny of protecting all kindred palates from such evil-spirited celestial cultures, by any means necessary.
Is it merely coincidence or has Obama, Jr. most obviously followed in his father's fictionalized filmed footsteps by sanctioning the release of brand spanking new "restored" footage produced by Hollywood movie mavens Lowry Digital of Burbank, California? Is the lactose-tolerant among us being deprived of our solar system's tastiest treat?
2. Obama was the Third Shooter on the Grassy Knoll
Now the average uneducated layman might dismiss this out of hand, being that Obama was born on August 4th, 1961 and John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22nd, 1963. How could a two-year-old toddler wield a 6.5 mm caliber Carcano rifle, shouldering the recoil and blowback, when he could barely manage to walk and was (let's not forget!) a native indigene of Africa at the time? Because he wasn't an infant when he accomplished the assassination silly. Hello! Most of you are dismissing two of the most obvious variables that would handily lead to such a foreseeable conclusion: Jews and time travel. As we all now know Jews are masters of manipulating the media. Now, what if they were to take those crafty Semitic talents and apply them to the ever-so-easily malleable space-time continuum?
Blammo! No more JFK. Creating a deep-seated hurt in the heart and meta-consciousness of the big-hearted American Public, an endless emptiness and yearning which eventually leads them to vote for Democrats with similar attributes in the future to fill the vacuum, such as Bill "Bubba" Clinton...and Barack Hussein Obama, the time-tripping foreigner mastermind of his own diabolical rise. It's virtually indisputable!
3. Obama is not just an alien, he is an alien alien
This tantalizing theory effortlessly fuses the two previous ones by incorporating the federal government's baloney weather-balloon wreck cover-up of the Roswell UFO crash. It was most recently surreptitiously reported by a peyote-tripping, former-hippie-now-Republican shaman, living on the outskirts of the New Mexico desert, who courageously bore telepathic witness to the interstellar accident on July 8th, 1947.
Accordingly, the extraterrestrial who piloted the craft was allegedly drunk on some higher evolved, out-of-this-world intoxicant and overshot his mark (just outside of Kendu Bay, Kenya where he was supposed to rendezvous with you-know-who's pop pop--then 14 years old, a man by Kanyadhiang standards and fully in charge of his impending fate to discourage actual travel to the hunk of moon cheese at any cost).
Are you with me? Ok, so the Jews naturally were able to intercept him first, since (as everybody knows) they are the primary constituents of the all-powerful Illuminati and were alerted to this botched, haphazard, intergalactic first contact immediately through the secret rays they use to communicate with one another (which emanate from their hidden horns).
Now, while accidentally trying to feed their captive, sobered-up, space-traveling survivor, these Illuminati Jews soon learned of his severe revulsion to a particular dairy product (that they themselves don't normally eat with red meat, but for the most part enjoy like the rest of us).
Systematically exploiting this weakness to their advantage, they were not only able to pry into his ulterior motives for visiting earth with their secret mind-rays--to re-establish communication with his long-lost otherworldly brethren who were placed on this earth in the distant past to shepherd and rule over all of humanity (AKA Nobama's ancestors)--but gain the technological know-how to make time travel possible (which would be used at a later date in cahoots with an all too compliant Lee Harvey Oswald!).
However, what they didn't bank on (pun intended) was for the alien entity to be so darn charming. After mere weeks of regaling them with tales of his celestial hijinks, they couldn't stop fawning over him and eventually made him our de facto leader. Not really one for responsibility (he preferred boozing and getting high much like our most recent illegitimate, illiterate president) he eventually chose a little big-eared E.T. descendent (lacking a real U.S birth certificate) to be groomed as his heir for the future, letting humans fend for themselves from about 1981 to 2007 while he went on a massive bender. The rest is history.
By refusing to de-legitimize the Birther Movement (who believe there is a 48-year-old conspiracy afoot to have a native born Kenyan infiltrate the White House--even if all evidence including birth certificate and newspaper announcements are in direct contradiction to their twisted xenophobic reality) and going on to question Obama's loyalty to our God-loving nation of torture, revenge and fear of the other, it seems ole Spin Lizzy is simply fanning the flames of hillbilly hatred, hoping for a backdraft to buoy her onward and upward to fill the void left by the assassination of our nansy-pansy negotiating, anti-warmongering, internationally beloved, personal-freedom protecting, non-puppet-in-chief... or so the left-wing-leaning media would lead you to believe.
However, what many in the drive-by media have failed to call attention to (with their relentless reliance on facts and annoyingly adult insistence on authenticity) are the other un-debunked conspiracy theories with a possible grain of half-truth or titillation that Elizabeth has been both tirelessly uncovering and propagating in her down-time from fulfilling her birthright to world domination.
Here are her Top 3:
1. The Obamas's Intergenerational Involvement in the Staged Apollo Moon Landing/Walk Footage
As of now, unauthenticated testimony from a fourth-party source implicates Barack Sr. as serving as not only a boom operator but gopher on a secret NASA soundstage which produced the awe-inspiring faked films. Although also possessing incontrovertible evidence such as a used coffee cup and the remnants of a glazed donut (gingerly bitten by the demented director), the clandestine whistleblower refuses to go public for fear of a vengeful Buzz Aldrin planting his 72-year-old, abnormally large, arthritic knuckles on his fragile, easy-to-bruise face.
Born just outside of Kendu Bay, Kenya, Big Daddy Barack was allegedly a member of a mysterious Kanyadhiang village tribe who had a fanatical aversion to green cheese (which those who have not bought into government-manipulated propaganda know the fungus-ridden satellite is comprised of). Anyway, the head witchdoctor of said heathen clan designated him and his offspring with the destiny of protecting all kindred palates from such evil-spirited celestial cultures, by any means necessary.
Is it merely coincidence or has Obama, Jr. most obviously followed in his father's fictionalized filmed footsteps by sanctioning the release of brand spanking new "restored" footage produced by Hollywood movie mavens Lowry Digital of Burbank, California? Is the lactose-tolerant among us being deprived of our solar system's tastiest treat?
2. Obama was the Third Shooter on the Grassy Knoll
Now the average uneducated layman might dismiss this out of hand, being that Obama was born on August 4th, 1961 and John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22nd, 1963. How could a two-year-old toddler wield a 6.5 mm caliber Carcano rifle, shouldering the recoil and blowback, when he could barely manage to walk and was (let's not forget!) a native indigene of Africa at the time? Because he wasn't an infant when he accomplished the assassination silly. Hello! Most of you are dismissing two of the most obvious variables that would handily lead to such a foreseeable conclusion: Jews and time travel. As we all now know Jews are masters of manipulating the media. Now, what if they were to take those crafty Semitic talents and apply them to the ever-so-easily malleable space-time continuum?
Blammo! No more JFK. Creating a deep-seated hurt in the heart and meta-consciousness of the big-hearted American Public, an endless emptiness and yearning which eventually leads them to vote for Democrats with similar attributes in the future to fill the vacuum, such as Bill "Bubba" Clinton...and Barack Hussein Obama, the time-tripping foreigner mastermind of his own diabolical rise. It's virtually indisputable!
3. Obama is not just an alien, he is an alien alien
This tantalizing theory effortlessly fuses the two previous ones by incorporating the federal government's baloney weather-balloon wreck cover-up of the Roswell UFO crash. It was most recently surreptitiously reported by a peyote-tripping, former-hippie-now-Republican shaman, living on the outskirts of the New Mexico desert, who courageously bore telepathic witness to the interstellar accident on July 8th, 1947.
Accordingly, the extraterrestrial who piloted the craft was allegedly drunk on some higher evolved, out-of-this-world intoxicant and overshot his mark (just outside of Kendu Bay, Kenya where he was supposed to rendezvous with you-know-who's pop pop--then 14 years old, a man by Kanyadhiang standards and fully in charge of his impending fate to discourage actual travel to the hunk of moon cheese at any cost).
Are you with me? Ok, so the Jews naturally were able to intercept him first, since (as everybody knows) they are the primary constituents of the all-powerful Illuminati and were alerted to this botched, haphazard, intergalactic first contact immediately through the secret rays they use to communicate with one another (which emanate from their hidden horns).
Now, while accidentally trying to feed their captive, sobered-up, space-traveling survivor, these Illuminati Jews soon learned of his severe revulsion to a particular dairy product (that they themselves don't normally eat with red meat, but for the most part enjoy like the rest of us).
Systematically exploiting this weakness to their advantage, they were not only able to pry into his ulterior motives for visiting earth with their secret mind-rays--to re-establish communication with his long-lost otherworldly brethren who were placed on this earth in the distant past to shepherd and rule over all of humanity (AKA Nobama's ancestors)--but gain the technological know-how to make time travel possible (which would be used at a later date in cahoots with an all too compliant Lee Harvey Oswald!).
However, what they didn't bank on (pun intended) was for the alien entity to be so darn charming. After mere weeks of regaling them with tales of his celestial hijinks, they couldn't stop fawning over him and eventually made him our de facto leader. Not really one for responsibility (he preferred boozing and getting high much like our most recent illegitimate, illiterate president) he eventually chose a little big-eared E.T. descendent (lacking a real U.S birth certificate) to be groomed as his heir for the future, letting humans fend for themselves from about 1981 to 2007 while he went on a massive bender. The rest is history.
Farewell to 'Harper's Island'
i loved visiting harper's island this spring and summer. a lot of murders happened but i survived. made some good friends there but fortunately most were killed. fortunate because that was the true pleasure of this island wondering who's next. well i enjoyed my new friends while they lasted.i took some videos and will enjoy watching them and the memories, even the gruesome ones, that they will bring.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Jon Stewart Takes on the 'Birthers'
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| The Born Identity | ||||
| ||||
R.I.P. 'Eli Stone'
last weekend abc aired the final episode of this witty, ingenious, charming and intelligent show.
shame on abc for canceling this innovative series.
shame on abc for canceling this innovative series.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
What I Am Watching This Summer
the best of the new ones is 'royal pains'.
and starring the hot yet talented mark feuerstein is a major plus.
i like all of these summer shows.
also the return of the cable shows.
for the most part i find them more satisfying than regular network episodic tv.
'in plain sight' and 'the closer' remain the tops for me this summer season.
and starring the hot yet talented mark feuerstein is a major plus.
i like all of these summer shows.
also the return of the cable shows.
for the most part i find them more satisfying than regular network episodic tv.
'in plain sight' and 'the closer' remain the tops for me this summer season.
'Yes My Heart'
a few years ago at the encore series in nyc i saw anne hathaway in 'carnival'.
i was impressed.
....then came the most underwhelming performance in 'brokeback mountain', the walk through performance in last year's, i believe straight to video, 'passengers' and the hysterical, whining and yet somehow oscar nominated performance in the god-awful 'rachel getting married'.
don't even get me started on 'bride wars'.
but back to 'carnival'. rumour has it that ms. hathaway may join hugh jackman in a film remake of 'carousel'. with the charm she showed in 'carnival' i believe she could make a delightful julie jordan. here's hoping. and if she's not available how about emmy rossum.
from 'carnival': 'yes my heart'
i was impressed.
....then came the most underwhelming performance in 'brokeback mountain', the walk through performance in last year's, i believe straight to video, 'passengers' and the hysterical, whining and yet somehow oscar nominated performance in the god-awful 'rachel getting married'.
don't even get me started on 'bride wars'.
but back to 'carnival'. rumour has it that ms. hathaway may join hugh jackman in a film remake of 'carousel'. with the charm she showed in 'carnival' i believe she could make a delightful julie jordan. here's hoping. and if she's not available how about emmy rossum.
from 'carnival': 'yes my heart'
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Chris Takes On Another Right Wing Village Idiot
they are still denying obama is a u.s. citizen. morons
Monday, July 20, 2009
'Edge of Love': D+
i finally got to see this one on video. now i know why this art theatre film did not get much of a theatrical release. it's a tough movie.
a drunken self centered dylan thomas does not actually scream entertainment.
the screenplay if factual was tough material.
the only redeeming qualities were the performances of keira knightly and cillian murphy as the lover's who had to deal with the f. scott/zelda insanity of yet another author (thomas) and his whacked out wife caitlin both overacted and underwhelming played by sienna miller and mathew rhys.
so now i have my first pick for one of the worse films of 2009.
forget this one as film history undoubtedly will.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Does Tina Fey Deserve the EMMY: "YOU BETCHA!!!"
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Valley of the Dolls
good opening.
nice theme song sung by dionne warwick.
campiest film accident ever made.
nice theme song sung by dionne warwick.
campiest film accident ever made.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Keith Won't Let Ms. Congeniality off the Hook
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
'Somewhere'
i've always loved this song.
few do it better than streisand.
yes i said was 'soooooo' over her but her older stuff still gives me shivers at times.
this was and is one of those times.
Jon Stewart and Samantha Bee on Ms. Half Baked Alaska
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Half Baked Alaska | ||||
| ||||
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Monday, July 13, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
August Harper's Bazaar Cover Story
Growing up, the actress thought of herself as neither a screen siren nor a great beauty. Now, with both an Oscar and a Lancôme contract, she reflects on what happens after you get what you want.
By LAURA BROWN
For this year's Academy Awards, where she won the Oscar for Best Actress, Kate Winslet wore a highly glamorous one-shouldered blue-gray Yves Saint Laurent evening gown. But a little part of her — metaphorically, at least — was in tennis whites. "I wanted to run over to my parents and do one of those Wimbledon moments when the person jumps from the court and leaps over the audience and the bleachers," she says, her face creasing into a smile. "I did have the urge to do that."
Kate is, of course, a serious actress. She has gravitas. She, like her sisters in name, Blanchett and Hepburn, could conceivably be on the head of a ship. No, not that one. But onstage on Oscar night, when her fedora-wearing "gangster" (as she calls him) father let out a whistle, his daughter turned into a little girl. "Ah, my dad's whistle," she remembers, rolling a cigarette at filmmaker husband Sam Mendes's production office in New York's meatpacking district. "On holidays when I was a kid, we would all be off in the rock pools along the beach. When it came time to go, we'd hear the whistle and we'd all come running. Like dogs!"
Later that fateful night, Kate took her parents to a post-Oscar party where, she says, "seeing my dad meet Elvis Costello and my mom shaking hands with Elton John, it was lovely." But her highlight is what the kids might call random: "Meeting Tom Colicchio. I'm obsessed with Top Chef." Turns out Kate and Mendes had been planning a win-or-lose dinner at Colicchio's New York restaurant Craft. "I was like, 'I just want to run the menu by you. For an appetizer, we're having da-da-da,' and he was like, 'Good choice, good choice.'"
Returning to New York the next day, Kate discovered that you do, in fact, have to put your Oscar through the X-ray machine at the airport. "They say, 'Is that it, in the bag?' and I was like, 'Yep!'" Kate drank champagne on the flight and took pictures while her golden boy was passed around the flight crew.
Even though she returned the champion, Kate notes of the endless awards season, "It's very hard to feel like yourself because you're not; you're on show. In the old days" — her debut in Heavenly Creatures in 1994, followed by her first Oscar nominations, for Sense and Sensibility in 1996 and Titanic in 1998 — "I'd just wing it, but now you need to give people what they want, which is someone looking composed, fresh, and put together." But she gleefully defuses the glamour mythology. "Our knickers will still go up our ass at the most inappropriate moment. And we'll still want to flick them out, but you can't, because someone is going to catch you." So what does one do? "Oh, I run behind pillars and things."
Kate hasn't really gone all shy and retiring on the red carpet. After years of wearing long, she's more recently taken a short cut — sporting, among others, a curve-loving Hervé Léger and a racy Balmain number. (She's still legging it today, perched on the couch in a gold Calypso minidress.) "I danced a lot when I was younger, and I've always had decent, shapely legs and thought it's now or never," she says. "I mean, when you're pushing 40, are you really going to wander around in a dress that's midthigh length? So I thought, Oh, fuck it, I'm just going to do it."
And so began the thousandth round of Kate Winslet body speculation. "I've heard, 'Oh, she's toned and she's lost weight,' but I am exactly the same as I've always been. The one thing that had to go during awards season was exercise. People would say to me, 'Oh, come on ...' like I was lying about it!" The topic clearly fatigues her. "Some may find it hard to believe it, but I don't care about that stuff."
But Oprah Winfrey does, as she proclaimed gloriously to the world when Kate was on her show promoting The Reader — in which her character, former Nazi guard Hanna Schmitz, is often naked — "God bless your real breasts!" Kate shrugs and says, "I'm used to people openly discussing my tits. If people are noticing my boobs in a movie and saying they do what real boobs do, then that's great." But, like her legs, the boobs have a shelf life. "I'll be 34 in October. I can't keep getting away with it. There was so much of it in The Reader because the story required it, but people have seen enough of my bum and my boobs. I have to put them back."
So while Kate's figure has been endlessly debated, it's her classic, expressive face that is most compelling. She is now a model for Lancôme — her new campaign, for L'Absolu Rouge lipstick, launches this month — and she is such a diligent ambassador that she pulls a giant Ziploc bag out of her purse and starts explaining, in detail, her favorite products one by one: "Rénergie is really, really fantastic. Résolution eye cream — excellent for puffiness! Pink Parfait Magic Blush, which I just love ... and Absolute Rouge is spectacular. Sam and I went out to the theater one night, and I double kissed everyone and it didn't come off!" Pause. "Actually, I don't double kiss. Just one will do, thank you."
Kate has been frank about not being the hottest girl on the block growing up, and she admits she was surprised when Lancôme came calling. "I really thought, me?" she says. Lest she seem disingenuous, she insists, "Seriously. Because I think what you feel like as a teenager never really goes away. If you were teased for being fat or thin or having bad teeth, you're always insecure about that particular area of yourself. So I've never thought of myself as any kind of beauty, iconic or otherwise."
Sure, Kate has an Oscar, a lauded husband, and two fetching children (Mia, 8, and Joe, 5), but she's not Gisele. She's one of us ... ish. "Part of the reason Lancôme asked me was because I come across as a woman other women can identify with. The media plays such a big role in how women measure themselves against other women, so I can be in a position where I can say beauty comes from within, we're not all perfect, and the covers of magazines are of course retouched. We do not look like that." She points to her forehead. "I have wrinkles here, which are very evident, and I will particularly say when I look at movie posters, 'You guys have airbrushed my forehead. Please can you change it back?' I'd rather be the woman they're saying 'She's looking older' about than 'She's looking stoned.'"
Kate has lived many lives for someone not even 34, and it lends her an old-soul quality. She had the wind in her Titanic hair 12 years ago and was married and a mother by 25. "You know, I never felt like I was young at the time," she says, "and obviously having Mia was absolutely planned, and I was married to Jim [Threapleton, who she met on the set of Hideous Kinky]. It's only now when I meet people who are my age and single, [with] no kids, that I reflect and say, Bloody hell, I really have lived at a fast pace." She rolls another cigarette. "The growing-up-fast part weirdly happened between the ages of 15 and 22. When everyone was out getting plastered, I didn't do all of that. I was working. I was doing life. Now that I look back, I feel very lucky. I've never taken drugs, never been offered cocaine. And I've done a heck of a lot of traveling: India, Australia, Morocco, New Zealand. You have to rely on your resources when you're away; you have to think quickly [and] grow up quickly."
These days, though, her peripatetic ways are behind her. "I always have the itch," she says of work and the scripts piling up in her office, "but at the moment I am deliberately resisting it. I turned to my kids after the Oscars and said, I'm not going anywhere for a while." Mendes is in the throes of his own project, so Kate is having her turn at home, relearning French for kicks and thinking about finally putting away her work bag from The Reader, which she hasn't quite "put to bed" yet. "It's still fully packed, which is very strange," she says. "I've never done that before."
How do she and Mendes keep the home fires burning, as it were? "Ah ... romance to me is spontaneity. It's not diamond earrings; it's a bunch of daffodils that's freshly picked from the field. Or just a little thing like Sam calling me at three in the afternoon, saying, 'I'm coming home now. I'm done for the day.' It's romantic because he just thought, 'I'll go home. I want to be with Kate and the kids.' I'm not one for big, grand gestures." Like rose petals on the bed? "Ha! No, given American Beauty [for which Mendes won the Oscar for Best Director in 2000], I would walk in and be like, what the fuck? I would laugh my head off."
But, of course, as of-the-people (ish) as Kate Winslet is, her success comes because she embodies our dreams — of romance, of drama, of beauty. We will always want to see her on the prow of that famous ship, or as the heavenly creature in a Lancôme commercial, meeting her lover on the Pont des Arts. Because maybe that could happen for us too.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
A Farewell to Harms
(the following was written by peggy noonan one of the leading conservative thinkers and writers of our time not by me.)
Palin was bad for the Republicans—and the republic.
Sarah Palin's resignation gives Republicans a new opportunity to see her plain—to review the bidding, see her strengths, acknowledge her limits, and let go of her drama. It is an opportunity they should take. They mean to rebuild a great party. They need to do it on solid ground.
Her history does not need to be rehearsed at any length. Ten months ago she was embraced with friendliness by her party. The left and the media immediately overplayed their hand, with attacks on her children. The party rallied round, as a party should. She went on the trail a sensation but demonstrated in the ensuing months that she was not ready to go national and in fact never would be. She was hungry, loved politics, had charm and energy, loved walking onto the stage, waving and doing the stump speech. All good. But she was not thoughtful. She was a gifted retail politician who displayed the disadvantages of being born into a point of view (in her case a form of conservatism; elsewhere and in other circumstances, it could have been a form of liberalism) and swallowing it whole: She never learned how the other sides think, or why.
In television interviews she was out of her depth in a shallow pool. She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn't say what she read because she didn't read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity. She experienced criticism as both partisan and cruel because she could see no truth in any of it. She wasn't thoughtful enough to know she wasn't thoughtful enough. Her presentation up to the end has been scattered, illogical, manipulative and self-referential to the point of self-reverence. "I'm not wired that way," "I'm not a quitter," "I'm standing up for our values." I'm, I'm, I'm.
In another age it might not have been terrible, but here and now it was actually rather horrifying.
McCain-Palin lost. Mrs. Palin has now stepped down, but she continues to poll high among some members of the Republican base, some of whom have taken to telling themselves Palin myths.
To wit, "I love her because she's so working-class." This is a favorite of some party intellectuals. She is not working class, never was, and even she, avid claimer of advantage that she is, never claimed to be and just lets others say it. Her father was a teacher and school track coach, her mother the school secretary. They were middle-class figures of respect, stability and local status. I think intellectuals call her working-class because they see the makeup, the hair, the heels and the sleds and think they're working class "tropes." Because, you know, that's what they teach in "Ways of the Working Class" at Yale and Dartmouth.
What she is, is a seemingly very nice middle-class girl with ambition, appetite and no sense of personal limits.
"She's not Ivy League, that's why her rise has been thwarted! She represented the democratic ideal that you don't have to go to Harvard or Brown to prosper, and her fall represents a failure of egalitarianism." This comes from intellectuals too. They need to be told something. Ronald Reagan went to Eureka College. Richard Nixon went to Whittier College, Joe Biden to the University of Delaware. Sarah Palin graduated in the end from the University of Idaho, a school that happily notes on its Web site that it's included in U.S. News & World Report's top national schools survey. They need to be told, too, that the first Republican president was named "Abe," and he went to Princeton and got a Fulbright. Oh wait, he was an impoverished backwoods autodidact!
America doesn't need Sarah Palin to prove it was, and is, a nation of unprecedented fluidity. Her rise and seeming fall do nothing to prove or refute this.
"The elites hate her." The elites made her. It was the elites of the party, the McCain campaign and the conservative media that picked her and pushed her. The base barely knew who she was. It was the elites, from party operatives to public intellectuals, who advanced her and attacked those who said she lacked heft. She is a complete elite confection. She might as well have been a bonbon.
"She makes the Republican Party look inclusive." She makes the party look stupid, a party of the easily manipulated.
"She shows our ingenuous interest in all classes." She shows your cynicism.
"Now she can prepare herself for higher office by studying up, reading in, boning up on the issues." Mrs. Palin's supporters have been ordering her to spend the next two years reflecting and pondering. But she is a ponder-free zone. She can memorize the names of the presidents of Pakistan, but she is not going to be able to know how to think about Pakistan. Why do her supporters not see this? Maybe they think "not thoughtful" is a working-class trope!
"The media did her in." Her lack of any appropriate modesty did her in. Actually, it's arguable that membership in the self-esteem generation harmed her. For 30 years the self-esteem movement told the young they're perfect in every way. It's yielding something new in history: an entire generation with no proper sense of inadequacy.
"Turning to others means the media won!" No, it means they lose. What the mainstream media wants is not to kill her but to keep her story going forever. She hurts, as they say, the Republican brand, with her mess and her rhetorical jabberwocky and her careless causing of division. Really, she is the most careless sower of discord since George W. Bush, who fractured the party and the movement that made him. Why wouldn't the media want to keep that going?
Here's why all this matters. The world is a dangerous place. It has never been more so, or more complicated, more straining of the reasoning powers of those with actual genius and true judgment. This is a time for conservative leaders who know how to think.
Here are a few examples of what we may face in the next 10 years: a profound and prolonged American crash, with the admission of bankruptcy and the spread of deep social unrest; one or more American cities getting hit with weapons of mass destruction from an unknown source; faint glimmers of actual secessionist movements as Americans for various reasons and in various areas decide the burdens and assumptions of the federal government are no longer attractive or legitimate.
The era we face, that is soon upon us, will require a great deal from our leaders. They had better be sturdy. They will have to be gifted. There will be many who cannot, and should not, make the cut. Now is the time to look for those who can. And so the Republican Party should get serious, as serious as the age, because that is what a grown-up, responsible party—a party that deserves to lead—would do.
It's not a time to be frivolous, or to feel the temptation of resentment, or the temptation of thinking next year will be more or less like last year, and the assumptions of our childhoods will more or less reign in our future. It won't be that way.
We are going to need the best.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Petula Clark
i've always been in love with pet.
now playing: her first two international hits 'downtown' and 'i know a place'.
'Downtown'
i know a place
now playing: her first two international hits 'downtown' and 'i know a place'.
'Downtown'
i know a place
Thursday, July 9, 2009
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