johnnyhongkong says…

When Mary Milan read the news that Jared Leto was joking and in fact not gay as a goose but “like Morrissey,” she screamed at the computer screen, “Jared Leto, you are not funny!  I’m mad at you but I look into your eyes and all is forgiven my so called sweetheart.”

I was much happier (and more secure) when Mr. Leto was on the Metro train to Gay town.

Baby Brangelina is officially named “Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt.”

What with all of the press about how their genes would mix and make the most beautiful baby ever, perhaps Brad and Angelina are sending the message that their combined hotttness will save the world.  As Mary Milan observes, “Shiloh is just another way of saying Jesus, isn’t it?”

Personally, I think Baby Brangelina is waaay more catchy.

Not to be outdone, Gwen and Gavin also had their kid.  Kingston James McGregor Rossdale.  If they call him King for short, he’s suddenly King James, like the Bible.

What’s up with all this celebrity Messiah shit?

Ooo, I know!  It is King and Shiloh’s destiny to grow up and form “Jesus,” just like the lions that come together to form Voltron, and save the world.

Rad.

quick break from writing to check and say:

I guess personality counts for a lot in reality TV. Taylor wins “American Idol 5″ over McSinger and Harold wins Top Chef 1 over Snakey (”I’m not your bitch, bitch”) Bitch. I’m glad. This makes me happy.

Also, Gordon Ramsay’s “Hell’s Kitchen” is coming back to Fox which is delightful. It reminds me of my days slinging hash.

And listen closely because in about 20 seconds, you’ll hear Mary Milan’s heart break: According to Defamer, Jared “Look into My So Called Dreamy Eyes” Leto came out of the closet over IM on AOL.

ThirtySecondLeto: I’ll give you an exclusive….
TyeinMusic: ooh. lay it on me
ThirtySecondLeto: I’m gay
TyeinMusic: *!*
TyeinMusic: please tell me you’re serious
ThirtySecondLeto: as a goose.

Which begs the question: is he “gay as a goose” or “serious as a goose”? Perhaps he meant “gray as a goose,” as in “grey goose vodka,” but I doubt it.

Spotted on Deadspin, Dallas Mavericks coach Avery (Wee) Johnson showing that he is the first official coach “supporter” of the nutkicker amendment. He so crazy, he punched his own player in the nads. Watch:

saw the first part of the “American Idol” season finale. Quick thoughts before getting back to work:

• Dang! Taye Diggs!
• Tori Spelling is part of “Katharine’s Friends and Family”?
• McPhee lived up to her unfortunate naming meme (McPheever, McFans…) when she sang the disaster known as her McSingle. Over 50 million were served tonight and none of us were satisfied.
• McPheever ran headlong into a big dose of Taylornol. The difference between the two horrible singles is that while McPhee just looked lost in the crap song, Taylor does the impossible and makes an unbearable song bearable.
• With 90 minutes until the polls close, polling data on Dial Idol suggests what we all know: Taylor’s got this thing sewn up:
  

  DialIdol Rank	Idol	DialIdol Score	Margin Of Error	Actual Rank
  1	Taylor Hicks	57.267	1.145	-
  2	Katharine McPhee	46.917	1.276	-

• Whatever. Katharine will be fine. As Joey Jerusalem says, she’ll be nominated for a couple of Tonys in a couple of years.  Here’s a video of McPhee rehearsing a play called “24 Hours of Madness” where she grabs her McBoobs as a beached whale.
• After “American Idol,” Mary Milan and I turn over to what she had been lobbying to watch all night – The American Country Music Awards – just in time to see last year’s “American Idol” Carrie Underwood win the award for best Country Record Single for “Jesus Take the Wheel.” If you had told me five years ago that in half a decade, “American Idol” would be a bona fide player in music, I’d have laughed in your face. I’m never fronting on populist entertainment again.

 

Mary Milan and I just woke up from seeing The Da Boring Code this weekend.  As a populist entertainment, The Da Vinci Code fails miserably mainly because it’s, well…boring.    Ian McKellan (or as Carmen Santa Rosa puts it, Ian McExposition) and his portrayal of wingnut Holy Grail scholar Lee Teabing perks up the middle of the movie, much in the same way a splash of lemon brightens up the flavors of a drab dish.  But MecKellan’s little dash of lemon is about all the movie’s got going for it. 

I have three theories:

1) Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman tried to make it too populist and therefore were too reverent to the details of the source material, which are cookie cutter and I could care less for.  While I haven’t read the book, I’d venture to say that a search for the holy bloodline and self flagellating albinos from Opus Dei could be in any airport fiction.  Shit, I can solve anagrams in my newspaper comics page.  What is interesting is when The Da Vinci Code becomes a story about power, religion as control, and gaining the power to free the world from the shackles of religion.  It’s not a new idea but how many of the millions who have read the book or seen the movie have read Nietzche?  That’s where I think The Da Vinci Code could have been really subversive.  But alas, ho hum.  I blame Dan Brown for this as well.

2) This movie takes place mostly in Paris and Tcheky Karyo is nowhere to be found?  That’s absolutely ridiculous and obviously Ron Howard’s fatal mistake.  Mr. Karyo’s absence from the Paris landscapes makes the entire film unbelieveable.  I was holding out hope that Karyo would pop out at the end as the real baby Jesus, but again, the movie disappoints.  If the name puzzles you, then you don’t know and you better axe someone, or better yet, get yourself a copy of Addicted to Love and Bad Boys. (full disclosure: I once quit a script because the producer didn’t think the actor I wrote it for - Tcheky Karyo – could carry the film.  Thierry Lhermitte got attached and the film was never made). 

3) You know the old legend that Orson Welles watched Stagecoach 39 times to prepare for Citizen Kane?  Well it’s obvious that Ron Howard didn’t put his time in and watch  Hudson Hawk, the O.G. Da Vinci code, however many times he needed to.  If he had, I guarantee that we’d be talking about a landmark, watershed film.  

Still, a comparison between Hudson Hawk (HH) and The Da Vinci Code (TDVC) should be made because while it’s accepted that Dan Brown took his main inspiration from Holy Blood, Holy Grail, where did he get his inspiration for plot points and characters?  I say he got it from the Bruce Willis, Michael Lehmann, Steven E. de Souza, Joel Silver masterpiece:

• In HH, we have a main character who sings songs to rob museums; In TDVC, we have a main character who solves puzzles in museums;
• In HH, we have a female lead who is in a secret order of nuns and may be able to talk to dolphins; in TDVC, we have a female lead who may be part of a secret order of elders and is able to talk in code;
• In the same vein, in HH, there is a shadowy group of protectors that take shape in a secret order of nuns; In TDVC, there is a shadowy group of protectors that take shape in a secret order of elders;
• In HH, there is a fey English character played by Ian McKellan; In TDVC, there is a fey English character played by Richard E. Grant;
• In HH, the nasty henchman is a butler with knives under his sleeves and cuts his own head off; In TDVC, the nasty henchman is a monk with spiked bands under his robes and self-flagellates; 
• In HH, decoding Da Vinci’s code will bring down the world economy; In TDVC, decoding Da Vinci’s code will bring down The Church (or the Vatican City’s economy);  
• In HH, the Holy Grail is a cappuccino; In TDVC code, the Holy Grail is an apple.