My Dirty Friends Comeback

Since I've been lagging the last couple of days (not counting George's suggestions), today I'm going to make up for lost time. I have a triple hat-trick for you: Three trios.

2000:

Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu, AKA Charlie's Angels.

I've said this before: The 2000 movie may not have been, shall we say, mindblowingly original. In fact I've come to think of it as "Noise in Babesland."

But it is something of a guilty pleasure (also a great film to watch on the exercise bike).

The sequel, meanwhile, made the first look like Goldfinger.

I don't know who the schlep in the jeans jacket is, but I do know what he's thinking: Yes!

Updates:

Cameron Diaz's last film, What Happens in Vegas, stopped in theaters only briefly before heading for DVD. But spare her no tears, she's presently Hollywood's highest-paid actress (Reese Witherspoon was number two, Jennifer Aniston third).

New fact about Barrymore (since we've done her separately): She recently revealed that she has the worst taste in karaoke.



Lucy Liu, a prominent Barack Obama supporter, is seen here at a recent fundraising gala with actress Nia Long (of Boyz N the Hood and other films).

She voiced a character in the hit animated summer movie Kung Fu Panda, which I haven't seen.



Kirsten Dunst, Eliza Dushku and Gabrielle Union, better known as the cheerleading captain, the newest member of her squad, and their rival in Bring It On.

They're just excellent. So is the movie, which has more weight than expected.

Updates: Kirsten Dunst is waiting to hear about Spider-Man 4.

Eliza Dushku recently upset animal lovers when she revealed she has a penchant to hunt. She will appear in Joss Whedon's creepy-sounding new series as a brainwashed woman.

Gabrielle Union, statuesque as she is, badly needs a successful film. She was (briefly) onscreen this summer in Eddie Murphy's high-profile miss Meet Dave. She's done better on television, with a guest star part on Ugly Betty, which I don't watch but know is a popular show.

Incidentally, Union was also a physical role model for a character in my current work-in-progress.

Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow and Courteney Cox, better known as the girl Friends.





Aniston has more to offer as an actress than sex appeal and beauty, check out The Iron Giant, in which only her voice appears. But Lisa Kudrow seems to me to have made the most adventurous choices (Happy Endings) as an actress.



Her HBO sitcom The Comeback didn't get a second season, but I think it could easily be revived as a special, and should. Her role in it-- as an actress trying to revive her career--easily lends itself to plugging into whatever the "hot" trend of a current TV season is.

An example of this is seen in an extra bit made for the DVD release, where we see her backstage at Dancing With the Stars.

Courteney Cox remains kind of the Rodney Dangerfield of the girl Friends, to me. Aniston and Kudrow both won Emmys, but I don't think Cox was even nominated. I believe she deserves better.

I liked her post-Friends series Dirt, which made it to a second season (more than either The Comeback or Studio 60 can say) but was then cancelled. In my opinion it was a casualty of the writers' strike.



She also has the distinction of appearing in the greatest horror film series of the '90s, Scream (although the end of 2 and all of 3 bring the average down a bit).

Updates:



It is a testament to Aniston and her publicists that she has managed to cast herself--a sexy, successful, beautiful and highly-paid young woman--in the press as a victim time and again.

Granted, "Brangelina" helped with that a little.

Lisa Kudrow joins Courtney Love in being recently sued, and will be seen next in the film Kabluey, which is getting good advance notices.

Courteney Cox seems to be focusing on motherhood for the moment, but is also moving behind the camera as a director.

Yes, it's another picture of Alexis Bledel. You got a problem with that?

Twenty-three happiness

Mickey Mouse might be in the public domain.

I doubt anything will come of this, knowing the holy passion with which Disney protects its copywrights--but the idea that it even might tickles me.

Oh my.

Got a note from Jason Grose suggesting that I might want to find footage of the women's high jump at the Olympics, and specifically one Blanka Vlasic, Croatian.



Quite right. She's got kind of a Billie Piper/Amber Benson thing going on.

Between me and you, I've never thought Heidi Klum was that sexy

Aber Gott, Fluch!

This is turning into more trouble and less fun than it should be

So no, I didn't come up with anything for 1999 either.

Jeez, Mel, you didn't have to go that far to prove me wrong.

"Sporty Spice" Is Pregnant.

Twenty-two happiness

Two things today. First, Obama and the likelyhood that he'll become president. Yeah, I'm looking at him with hope in my eyes, but with the eight years my country has had (to say nothing of me personally), I need a little hope.

If his running mate is Joe Biden, as most "sources are indicating," well, I like that more than I don't like it.

Second (and on the totally flip side of the coin), I'm repeating this one, because I truly think it's a great trailer and because the old embed stopped working.



I want to say more about how I became so hooked into the "Saw" world, but I'm not sure what.

It's the women of 1998 after all, by George!

(Inspired by comment to previous post)



Updates:

Franka Potente appeared on The Shield and in the Bourne films, none of which I've seen.



Natasha Henstridge is on Eli Stone, which I think I've watched once.

Denise Richards is shaming her children by forcing them to appear on a "reality" show with her.

Matt Dillon is trying to get Richards and Neve Campbell for a remake of Little Darlings.

(OK, I made that one up.)




Neve Campbell is appearing in a mini-series for the BBC and waiting to hear about Scream 4.



Gwyneth Paltrow has enraged the always calm-thinking and logical PETA.



Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull starring Harrison Ford & Cate Blanchett is to be released on DVD in October. No, I haven't seen that, either.

I couldn't think of anything for 1998.

I tried, but I've given up. 1998 just was not a very sexy year, at least as far as film, music, etc celebrities were concerned. Sorry. Maybe 1999 was better...

Kimono my house

Twenty-one happiness

The Phantom Tollbooth. Great book, great movie.

1997: Spice Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Helen Hunt.

I like Helen Hunt, and it's not just because I've been highly warm for her form.

However, leave us not kid ourselves...



Hunt's first feature film as a director was released this year, unfortunately, it was not well-received (I haven't seen it).

The Spice Girls.

They’ll run me out of Seattle on a rail for saying this, but I'm kinda glad "grunge" was supplanted on the pop scene by the likes of the Girls. They were attractive, yes, but one or two of their records also threw down.

This was my favorite. I'll stand up for it as a good song...even the part that's a total rip-off of Wham's "Everything She Wants."



As you may have heard, the girls recently concluded a ridiculously successful reunion tour. Most of them have had babies, with the exception of Sporty Spice, who for some reason can't find the right fella.

In a related story:

David Beckham has reportedly been texting burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese.

The soccer star - who has three sons with former Spice Girls singer Victoria Beckham - is said to be so impressed by 35-year-old Dita's "raunchy routine" he got her number so he could express his gratitude.

Maybe he likes being reminded of what a woman's body looks like.

Twenty happiness

Ah, the golden age of English synth pop. Here's a great Thompson Twins record.

As you'll probably notice if you love this music as much as I do, this is a 2007 remix...



...and a brilliant one.

I'm especially happy that the remixer ("mickyd," ireland) retained the solo--one of my favorites ever.

any excuse to post an image of Milla

But put this in the category of "dreams do come true."

(BTW, if you haven't seen the third Resident Evil movie and think you may, you probably shouldn't read this. Then again, if you haven't, it won't make much sense anyhow.)

Director (and husband to Milla) Paul W.S. Anderson on the possibilities of a third sequel:

Last year there were, I think, eight 'threequels' got released. Rush Hour 3, Pirates 3, Spider-Man 3...but there was eight of them. Shrek 3. Six out of the eight, the third movie did worse business than the second movie. There were only two where the third movie did better than the second movie. That was Bourne Ultimatum and Resident Evil. So, you know, it is quite an achievement for a franchise to keep growing like that, and we all feel that the audience is excited to see another one clearly. We would like, if we could put it together, we would do it.

io9: Right, but hypothetically how would you go about using all of those Alices?

Anderson: I'm not going to tell you that. [laughs]... but we would.

io9: You would?

Anderson: We would, yes. Absolutely.

That's really nice

As you may remember, last February Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law agreed to step in to replace Heath Ledger in “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.”

The fantasy Ledger was filming at the time of his death involves his character being transported into multiple dimensons; each of the men is taking his part in a separate one.

Today:

When the three actors learned that Ledger's will had not been updated to include his daughter, the generous trio decided to donate all the money they earned from the film to little Matilda!

I know it's incredibly transparent of me, but all of a sudden I find myself wanting to see the new GI Joe movie.

Hey, I'm the '80s man, of course I played with the action figures. Scarlett was big when I was 14. Now, she's even bigger...and played by Rachel Nichols, last seen (at least by me) as one of Charlie's hot-ass office staff in Charlie Wilson's War...

Kelly/Courtney, Courtney, Courtney...

there's been a change. I pulled Kelly MacDonald to here, and replaced her in 1995 with Drew Barrymore.

1996:

Kelly Macdonald.



If you have to ask why, I have to say: What part of "cutie-pie" don't you understand?

MacDonald's newest film is Choke, from a book by the author of Fight Club.

Courtney Love. I've talked about Courtney before--I want to see her starring in her own TV series, either "reality" or a sex comedy opposite John Lydon. Or maybe a relationship advice call-in (admit it: You'd watch).



For one thing, sometimes I think she's just blissfully beautiful.

For another, she's one of the only actresses or musicians I imagine I could actually become friends with if we ever talked.

Even in her, shall we say, less-than-coherent moments I've thought she had a colorful way with a phrase that got right to the heart of a matter.

Like when she said Kurt Cobain "chewed bubblegum in his soul."

I also think she's much funnier than she's generally given credit for being. Sometimes I'll read in magazines things that she's said reported as though she were deadly serious, when it seems obvious to me she must have been joking.

I've just always had a soft spot for her (as well as a not-so-soft spot for her, if you know what I mean and I'm reasonably sure that you do).

She's a polarizing figure, I realize, but I come down firmly on the pro-side.

Love has been in the news most recently because of a dramatic weight loss she credited to hypnotism, and because she's being sued by her former management

COURTNEY LOVE
Originally uploaded by PINOY PHOTOGRAPHER

company for $1 million.



Sigh... (shakes head) Courtney, Courtney, Courtney...

That's what I said.

Ellen DeGeneres gave Time magazine the exclusive when she came out as a lesbian, and a little over a decade later, she gives People the scoop on her wedding to Portia de Rossi.

"What can I say? I'm the luckiest girl in the world," DeGeneres says

What's new, miss Drew?

1995:

Bonnie Hunt. Funny ladies are so fine and beautiful.

Here she is with the late Tom Snyder.



There's also a good collection of her quotes in this Bonnie Hunt web site.

My favorite, on the difference of living in Los Angeles...

What Bonnie misses most about Chicago:
"That my figure fit in. I'll tell ya, I get off the plane in Chicago, I'm a goddess. Yeah, here, I'm Shelley Winters in The Poseidon Adventure."

In another one of those interesting coincidences, in that Snyder clip (from 1999), Hunt speaks about what kind of talk show she'd do if she did a talk show. Her talk show starts in a few weeks.

there's been a change. I've moved Kelly MacDonald to 1996, and replaced her here with:

Drew Barrymore. According to Eszterhas' Hollywood Animal, Barrymore was turned down for the lead in Showgirls. This is the kind of thing I can see upsides and downsides to, most if not all of each probably quite obvious.


One of the things I like about Barrymore as a woman is that like Kate Winslet, she seems always to have known females are supposed to have curves.



She's a broad, as they used to say.



Barrymore recently sent yet another man to the curb, and is preparing to direct her first feature.

Nineteen happiness

My cats. I'm a cat person. I don't dislike all dogs by any means (just the big and noisy ones), but I'm definitely a cat person.

I have two cats, Donovan and Siouxsie. I didn't name either of them--I inherited them from previous owners.

Donovan is an orange tabby cat with no front claws. Siouxsie is grey and fluffy, although she's become less so as she's gotten older. They're both pretty old--when I got Donovan he was still growing out of his kitten stage, and that was the year of the OJ trial. You do the math.

Siouxsie is, I think a little older than Donovan. She'd be a Goth, like her namesake, if she could be. Donovan is lot like Sylvester in the cartoons where the clownish pussycat flees from one state of panic to another--I once referred to him as a "little fuzzy embodiment of my id."

I try to take good care of them; I'm always afraid that I could do a better job. But that's one of the things I like about having them--if forces me to take responsibility for other living things, and sometimes it's easier to do that for them than it is for myself.

As my friend Jen can attest, if we speak on the phone for much more than a minute, we can always count upon one or both of my cats to come and join me--Donovan typically curls up at my side, and Siouxsie will spread out on top of me.

BTW I don't have any pictures to post, otherwise I would.

Good lord (a salute to Christina Applegate and her breasts)

Ok--you know what I was saying yesterday about how Christina Applegate's cancer scare had a happy ending? Well fortunately, that still appears to be true.

However, it turns out that the treatment she underwent was a bit more radical than I had at first imagined--and I tip my hat to her...

"Samantha Who?" star Christina Applegate, 36, is free of cancer after having both breasts removed to combat the disease, the actress told a U.S. television news show on Tuesday.

Applegate, who revealed her diagnosis for breast cancer earlier this month, had the double-mastectomy performed a month after her diagnosis, she said on ABC's "Good Morning America."

Also fortunately, Applegate's stardom is built on a lot more than just her body-naturally hot though it is.



She's genuinely funny. Still, any woman would have to be strong to make such a decision--but for an actress, whose looks are a part of her career?

I always knew I liked that girl. She's a fighter.

Poetry Corner

Schizophrenic muse



Too avant-garde, too pop, mute.

Textured pop structure.



--Anon

Happy ending to Christina Applegate's cancer scare

Christina Applegate says she has a clean bill of health after undergoing treatment for breast cancer.

"I'm clear," Applegate tells ABC News' "Good Morning America" in an interview airing Tuesday. "Absolutely 100 percent clear and clean. It did not spread.

Yay!

The New York Times gives Jon Stewart a reacharound

Is Jon Stewart the Most Trusted Man in America?

A sane voice in a noisy red-blue echo chamber, Mr. Stewart displays an impatience with the platitudes of both the right and the left and a disdain for commentators who, as he made clear in a famous 2004 appearance on CNN’s “Crossfire,” parrot party-line talking points and engage in knee-jerk shouting matches.

Unlike many comics today, Mr. Stewart does not trade in trendy hipsterism or high-decibel narcissism. While he possesses Johnny Carson’s talent for listening and George Carlin’s gift for observation, his comedy remains rooted in his informed reactions to what Tom Wolfe once called “the irresistibly lurid carnival of American life,” the weird happenings in “this wild, bizarre, unpredictable, hog-stomping Baroque” country

You know I love Stewart. I think he's excellent. But, sheesh!

It's times like these I am most proud to be an American

Because in the UK, Doctor Who would probably have made this list of The Five Most Rabid Fanbases.

Last year when I went to Comic-Con a Whedonist looked at me as if I was from another planet when I made the mistake of asking her what that Chinese writing on her shirt meant. This was more than a few blocks from the convention center in what I thought was the Green Zone, at some pizza joint around the corner from my hotel. But immediately I knew I wasn't in safe territory. The room just stopped. The record in the jukebox skipped. I was outnumbered and out-geeked. When I turned to fellow Film.com colleague Laremy Legel for help he just took two steps back, looked at me, and shook his head. I felt like Veronica Cartwright at the end of Kaufman's Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Memories

A medley of six 80's hits (and one 90's) in 10 minutes.

Say...remember when I was on that "Venus" kick?

Venus in an orange bikini.

(In case you're wondering, it's Kate Beckinsale)

That's strange...all of a sudden, I feel like some cupcakes.

Becca very kindly named this blog for one of those "honor your favorite blog" award things.

This one is the "Arte Y Pico" Award.

1. You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award through creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogger community, no matter of language.

2. Each award should have the name of the author with a link to their blog.

3. Award winners have to post the award with the name and link to the blog of the person who gave them the award (done at the end of Paragraph 1).

4. Please include a link to the “Arte Y Pico” blog so that everyone will know where the award came from.

5. Show these rules.

1. I think I'll start with with the deadly talent and killer good looks of Amy Raasch.

2. If I Ran The Zoo, the founder and original home of Random Flickr-Blogging. A group blog, the chief contributors include aimai, Shiltone, Tom Hilton and ahab.

3. Feministe, my current favorite edgy feminism blog. I dig feminist chicks. (I also love to bait them by calling them "chicks.") Sometimes I have a problem with what I perceive as the "men are brain dead, women are godesses" mindset, but again, that's my perception. Also a group blog, and with many sharp commenters.

4. The everkeen Pop Culture Gadabout, Sherman.

5. And just to complete this blogger 69...No Smoking in the Skull Cave. For running more pictures, of more girls, with bigger tits, than I do. Thus making me feel better about myself.

BTW, on Becca's list, I'm 11. About which I have only this to say:



Becca, a gifted cartoonist, also writes that she's giving me this award

Though we may disagree about the attractiveness of Kim Kardashian (boo, Ben, boo)Ben

Now now. It's not that I think Kardashian is unattractive.

It's that I think she's a cheap, talentless whore.

Given choice, I prefer my pin-up gals to have a little something to offer besides good bodies stuffed into wild bikinis.




(Put another way, can you imagine Kim playing Jane Austen? I didn't think so.)