Life is too good to lose

But the way the ratings are going, it looks like I'm going to. So I'm willing to try to appeal to your prurient interests. I mean, what I like about the show is its genuinely offbeat (as opposed to Pushing Daisies, which gives whimsy a bad name) feel and individual character. As well as a lead performance by Damien Lewis which I'm slowly starting to suspect is some kind of great.

But perhaps I've been remiss in not telling you that the casting director really has an eye for lovely women who don't seem quite as "Hollywood" as many that we see on TV (I'm thinking of two or three Desperate Housewives).

Lewis' co-star, of course, is Sarah Shahi, who as I believe I've mentioned is very good-looking. She's also doing really rich work on the show.

An episode or so back the beautiful Meredith "Natty Gann" Salenger popped out of the "where are they now" file and into a supporting role.

BTW, Salenger's IMDb page tells me that she graduated cum laude from Harvard University in 1992 with a degree in Psychology, something they list as "trivia."

I'd say that sounds a little something more than trivial, wouldn't you? To quote the best joke from this week's The Big Bang Theory, come for the breasts, stay for the brains...

Getting back to the ladies of Life, last night's ep featured a guest-star turn by Jessica Paré,

who is a sexy Canadian (two words we don't often see together) actress.

As well as a small role played by an insanely sexy woman with the great name of Jennifer Lee Wiggins (who has a B.S. In Criminal Justice Administration, would you believe). Are you beginning to get an idea of what you're missing?

I'm not proud of the above, but damn it, if shows I like go off the air it's not gonna be because I didn't do everything sane in my power to hold onto them.

So you want to hear the Doctor Who theme mashed up with Eurythmics

We here at Dictionopolis In Digitopolis have anticipated your every need.

Doctor Who is a great TV series, with an all-synthetic score for most of the '80s, and Eurythmics were a great synth act. So this? This is great.

Thanks to birthday boy CK for the link. I couldn't get it to embed.

Happy birthday to Corey Klemow

Performer, Doctor Who fan, pal, fabulous fop, star of Spiders & Angel...

You'd all just roll your eyes if I went for an "eat me" joke, wouldn't you? ...That's what I thought.

Personally, I always loved Kitty Pride, but she's not in the movies much

I still haven't seen this movie.

No no, not I

The bad news is, I'm going to turn into a godlike baddie, the good news is...(or do I mean that the other way around?)

What female superhero are you??? Jean Grey You have a tendency to be the interest of many men. You're beautiful, intelligent, extremely powerful, but also extremely caring. The perfect woman!

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

There's something in this about all women, # 10

Behold, the awesome power that I wield

Four days ago, I referred to the new CBS show Viva Laughlin as one of the biggest waste[s] of proven talent I've seen on TV. Today, the series was cancelled by the network after only one more episode had aired.

Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.

Now, if only I can use this power to keep Life alive, and keep the Friday Night Lights on...

You spin me right round, baby right round like a record, baby

And Gina Phillips thought her characters were cursed

In 2001, Phillips and Justin Long appeared together in the film Jeepers Creepers. Half a decade later, Long is well known from those "I'm a Mac" ads; starred in Dodge Ball & Live Free Or Die Hard.

He is also said to be dating Drew Barrymore.

Half a decade later, last night I saw Phillips in a straight-to-cable "suspense" movie called Ring Around the Rosie. It's your basic young-woman-inherits-old-house-which-has-secrets movie. I admit, I fast-forwarded through much of it (I'd selected it from On Demand because I enjoyed Phillips' work in Jeepers).

But I think it would have been confusing even if I hadn't. Confusing, sloppy films are usually the work of four or five different credited writers (I couldn't believe it either).

But somewhere before it was over I really started to think: If ever there was proof that there aren't enough good roles for women (or if anyone really needed any), the post Jeepers careers of Long and Phillips is it.

A vision of love wearing boxing gloves and singing hearts & flowers

I'm certainly glad he saw through the sham that her entire career is based on

The first review of Britney's new album says

"She comes off like some machine that bleeps and bloops out an airy array of oohs, ahhs and groans," Jim Farber writes in the New York Daily News. "If a blowup sex doll could sing, this is what she'd sound like."

I don't know about you, but I'm simply shocked (even moreso than I was at the Madonna/Christina/Britney kiss) that Mr. Farber is suggesting Britney might be using her sexuality on her records.

Next thing you know, they'll be saying that she may not actually be all that smart, or that her vocal talent didn't actually have much to do with her success. Or even that some (not all) of her fans may in fact be, you know, kind of...idiots.

And them's fightin' words.

Criticizing Britney Spears for sounding like a blowup sex doll is like criticizing Leonard Cohen for writing emotionally heavy songs.

Random Flickr Blogging: 4064

Capturing the exact precise instant a woman realizes she's married to a pretentious twit.

Credit

My sexuality, like my taste in music, was defined by the Postpunk years of 1978-1984

Do you have an inclination for BDSM? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Experimental Experimentation is a great place to be. Open-mindedness when it comes to sexuality can open doors and allow you to discover things that you didn't think you would find engaging. Having such a curious attitude can help you learn more about your own sexual nature as well as the nature of others. Experimental 64% Switch 61% Vanilla Sex 39% Exhibitionism and Voyeurism 36% Domination 36% Submission 25% Sadism 14% Degradation 0% Masochism 0% Bondage 0%

They set the bar kind of low at the Trinity College Philosophical Society in Dublin

NAOMI Campbell is going to college - at least for a day. Trinity College in Dublin has invited the hot-tempered model to speak, according to Anderson Antunes of glamurama.com. "The Trinity College Philosophical Society has invited none other than Naomi to speak about philosophy," the online gossip reports. "This is very weird because Trinity College is one of the most respected and famous universities in Europe.

Anne Hathaway stopping traffic

That was two months and 15 days since running an image of Anne Hathaway...whew!

Odd websites to which I'm linked

The "Life After the Oil Crash Forum."

I'm a post-post-modern man...

We are not Laughlin with you, we're Laughlin at you

"Viva Laughlin" may be the biggest waste of proven talent I've seen on TV since "Twins" two years ago.

We've got Hugh Jackman, Melanie Griffith & WMOA Mädchen Amick in front of the camera and behind it, we've got, Jackman again (as producer) and, as co-creator and writer of the pilot...Bob Lowry.

Lowry is the creator of "Huff" and writer of its best episodes, so you can imagine how deep is my sigh before admitting just how laughable (unintentionally as far as I can tell) his new series is.

Where did they go wrong? Well, let's start with the musical performances. Yes, "Viva Laughlin" is sorta kinda a musical. I call it "sorta kinda" because it doesn't use music like a real musical, like "Singin' in the Rain." But it doesn't use it like a modern TV drama either.

In one the performers sing songs, in the other songs are used in the background. In this show, the songs-well-known hit recordings by the likes of the Rolling Stones-play in the background...and the performers sing along. Yes.

At no time do we fully lose the voices of Debbie Harry or Elvis Presley...but we can't fully enjoy them either, because Griffith or alleged lead actor Lloyd Owen is sucking them up.

And oh yes, about Owen...picture Mark Singer plus David Boreanaz minus any charisma whatsoever.

I don't remember when I've been more repulsed by a performance and character (the name doesn't help: "Ripley Holden" is an unspeakably awful name for a character).

Owen is that bad, but Lowry shares the blame, he can come up with quality material...but hasn't here. For any of them.

Why yes, I do read and review a lot of books

The newest is Before I Die, by Jenny Downham.

Lauren Graham has beautiful hair...among other things

Observed after watching her on the "Craig Ferguson" show

Young actress Jena Malone is the result of cloning stem cells from Winona Ryder, Mary Stuart Masterson, and a bobble-head doll.

This is awesome!

A talented DJ called DJ Earworm put together a "Mash-up" of about 22 different songs from artists including Ace Of Base, Mammas and the Papas, Britney Spears, Beyonce, Donna Summer, Maroon5, Eminem, The Who, Madison Avenue, Eurythmics, Peter Gabriel, Irene Cara, Kanye West, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Jason Mraz and Phil Collins.

It works brilliantly.



The video was made by a YouTuber named Kyle Klein.

I'm a miserable failure as an '80s man

YOU WERE 61% ACCURATE IN YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF 80'S BANDS!

NOT BAD...BUT NOT GOOD EITHER...YOU GOT HALF THE DAMN TEST WRONG!! You FLUNKED!
I think you should refresh your memory of 80's bands and come back and retake the test..hmmmm, I bet you failed your Driver's test as well on the first try didn't you??

How Well Do You Know your 80's Bands?
Create MySpace Quizzes

I must admit, he was fantastic on "The Colbert Report"

My second time taking a (different) "select a candidate" quiz tells me again that the candidate whose positions are most in harmony with my own remains Dennis Kucinich. But it moves Chris Dodd up from seventh to second place.

John Edwards remains in third, but Bill Richardson moves up from eighth to fourth. Mike Gravel slides down from two to five, Hillary Clinton takes a dive from four to six, Barack Obama hits seventh, followed again by Joe Biden.

Rudy Giuliani scored highest for me on this quiz amomg Republican candidates, which ought to tell me something about the sheer unlikelyness of my ever voting for a Republican candidate. I think he's kind of despicable, so if he's the best they can offer me...

He's followed by Ron Paul, who beat him out on the other quiz, and then Mitt Romney.

And the rest (in order):

Jim Gilmore, Sam Brownback, John McCain, Duncan Hunter, Mike Huckabee.

I've run out of funny ways to say this

Holly Hunter is so sexy she makes me tingle.

A funny sitcom. Who knew?

I got a real kick out of Samantha Who?, the new sitcom starring WMOA Christina Applegate, back on TV after way too many movies in which she played the supporting, "best friend" roles.

Here she plays an amnesiac that discovers the woman she was turns out to have been a cheating, alcoholic bitch.

In an age when sitcom success and comic acting ability don't always go together (Charlie Sheen?) Applegate is a breath of fresh air: Someone who actually is what most women sitcom stars want to be but are not.

She's beautiful, yes, but with great comedy timing, both in what she says and what she does.



Ok, so you've gotten the impression that I like Applegate...but that didn't make me a fan of Jessie. And I know she won an Emmy for one of her Friends appearances as Rachel's sister, but I don't think any of them touched her work as a Bundy.


Yes, Applegate is good, but the writing (show creators are Donald Todd and Cecelia Ahern) on Samantha Who? gives her a place to be good.

The first episode used her qualities to better effect than I have seen since the great days of Married...with Children. And although this is definitely a star vehicle, the other actors aren't left standing around.

In fact, one of the best jokes in the pilot goes to Jean Smart and Kevin Dunn as Samantha's parents. Cluelessly trying to bond with them (though we learn they hadn't spoken in years prior to the accident that caused her coma and subsequent memory loss), Samantha says, "You made me who I am."

And her mother, insulted, replies, "That is a terrible thing to say!"
"Apologize to your mother," her father adds.

The bottom line is Samantha Who? is funny. As in, I actually laughed. Out loud. And more than I have at any two other comedies I've seen this season.

Good night to go on Media Matters

Hey guys, seen this? Good old CBS. They never let me down when it comes to screwing up. Now it looks like they're actually taking dictation from the right-wing page WorldNetDaily.

ETA: To be fair, CBS News does also employ Lara Logan, who continues to make me so hard both as a reporter and as a woman...

Sigh...

For the record, looks like Friday Night Lights are dimming again.

Random Flickr Blogging: 0567

Cuteness overload!

(original source)

Caption this photo

"Talk to dolphins, ask their help! Go sleep in a bed of kelp! Go, Aquaman!"

My favorite color gets a good job

Being worn (and stood in front of) by Eliza Dushku.

[shudder] That's _very_ disturbing.

So I'm checking the old sitemeter to see what recent referrals have brought visitors to this blog. As one does. At 8:50 am this morning, a visitor from Houston, Texas, stopped here briefly because DiD turned up on a Live Images search for

rosie odonnel nude

I'm not sure which part of that knowledge I find more disgusting, that someone was looking for it, or that it led them to my blog. Need I add that it did so because I have mentioned Rosie O'Donnell, and I have used the word "nude," but never-never, ever-together?

As once observed by an English comedian whose name shamefully escapes me...

...the song "Top Hat, White Tie and Tails" contains not a word about trousers.

!

!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mom Charged With Buying Pa. Teen Weapons

The parents were indulging the boy's interests because he was unhappy, not knowingly aiding a school assault, Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor said.

Acting on a tip from a high school student and his father, police searched the boy's bedroom and found the 9 mm rifle, about 30 air-powered guns modeled to look like higher-powered weapons, swords, knives, a bomb-making book, videos of the 1999 Columbine attack in Colorado and violence-filled notebooks, Castor said.

There's more if you can take it. I can't add anything to the exclamations above.

Of myths and men

There's a new book about one of my favorite cartoonists and yours, Charles Schulz, the inventive creator of the landmark comic strip Peanuts. Schulz's second wife, Jean Schulz, has praised writer David Michaelis for his research.

(In a lovely touch, it appears that the last book Schulz read before his 2000 death was Michaelis' previous biography, of N.C. Wyeth.)




Schulz's son Monte and daughter Amy, however, have voiced objections to the book, which they feel over-psychoanalyzes their father, especially since Michaelis never met the man. Monte also suggests Michaelis may have been "manipulated" by some of those he interviewed.



Reading their comments, I'm reminded of the anger friends & family of John Belushi attached to Bob Woodward's grim biography, Wired.

As there, the failings in the Schulz book as his children see it appear to be not so much about factual inaccuracies or details but about spin.

It seems there will always be at least some slight disconnect when it comes to the private worlds of public men. The comic strip was turned into View Master sets (I had the one you see at the top of this post), movies, etc, and became a shared experience. So too is the life of the cartoonist open to interpretation.

Amy Schulz Johnson rejects the possibility that she has idealized her father, or that this is why she doesn't see him as the author of this book has.

Here I'm reminded of Nancy Sinatra's insistence that the stories about Frank (a Peanuts fan, BTW) were not true. This always seemed to me to be explained away by the obvious conclusion that there are certain things a father does not do in front of his daughter.



Bill Watterson, creator of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes-which certainly approached Peanuts in quality if not in quantity-reviews the Schulz book here.

I had already ordered it from my library, but after reading his review, I'm even more anxious for the book to become available. He says the book emphasizes how Schulz put his heart into his cartoons in more and greater ways than we imagined. Such devotion could only be met in kind.

I love the work of Charles Schulz. I think he was a genius. One reason I think that is because, at least professionally-also like Sinatra-he was able to achieve an ideal.

Something which eluded Belushi (or that his addictions hid from him) on all but the rarest of occasions. I'm sad every time I think about the ill-uses to which he put his charms.

I believe there is very little I could read about Schulz's failings that would affect my view of him as a winner, as un-Charlie Brownlike as that might sound.

But I will probably read this book with at least an average-sized chip of skepticism on my shoulder. This isn’t a bad way to read anything, really.

besides her oft-commented on breasts, Jennifer Love Hewitt is also the possessor of a prettily-shaped ass

This has been a public service announcement. Because any blog can run pictures emphasizing Ms. Hewitt's breasts, but we here at Dictionopolis in Digitopolis eschew such obvious superficiality.

Se échapper Phillips de bijou de ma couleur préférée.

Productions of Shakespeare I wish I'd seen

Angela Pierce as Maria, Colleen Delany as Katherine, Claire Lautier as the Princess of France and Sabrina LeBeauf as Rosaline in the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of Love’s Labor’s Lost, directed by Michael Kahn. Photo by Carol Rosegg.

Seven years in the life

Once again, I'm following in the footsteps of PJ. I don't mind following, though-I choose to believe she's got a figure like Lisa "Cuddy" Edelstein.

For her "Thursday 13" today PJ ran a selection of TV shows about the teenage years, and that got me thinking. I've done a post about high school movies, but never TV shows. So...

(To keep it interesting, at least for me, I decided to limit myself to shows which actually aired while I was a teenager. For better and for worse, these are the shows my generation looked to. God help us.)

Married...With Children



One of the greatest, most underrated sitcoms of the past 15-20 years.



Roseanne

It's ironic, but I really think you can trace the decline of this show by how much power Roseanne had over her character.

In the first years, Roseanne Conner is a strong, funny, loving woman. At the end, she's controlling, grim, and hateful.

But man, the writers and actors on this were so strong...before she destroyed it all.

Happy Days

Happy Days is more interesting for what it tells us about the '70s and '80s (Scott Baio -- what were we thinking?), than about the '50s. Just as That '70s Show will tell future generations more about what passed for entertainment around the turn of the century than the 1970's.

But hey, I watched it, you watched it...

One Day At A Time



All I really remember right now about this series is that bouncy theme song...

Alf

What always used to aggravate me about this series is that the puppet was so much funnier than the family they put around him. That is why he is still working now and most of them are not.

I think I did have an early crush on Andrea Elson, though.



The Cosby Show

Well, let's face it. If you grew up in the '80s, this pretty much defined sitcoms for you. But that doesn't mean I don't agree with the Simpsons satire of the episodes in which one of the grandparents (all of whom were great jazz musicians) played...

Growing Pains

Ok, Kirk Cameron turned out to be a clueless born-again, but this show was actually funny...three or four times...

Gimme a Break!



See One Day at a Time. But, Nell Carter did have a fine voice.



Family Ties

I have darn fond memories of this series, though I think I'd be hard-pressed to tell you why. Guess it's another '80s thing. At least, I don't think it was just because Justine Bateman was so hot...

Charles In Charge




Come to think of it, why hasn't anyone put together a"Charles In Charge curse" theory? Look at the facts.

Scott Baio appeared in a "reality" series that showed him to be an uncommonly boring asshole.
Willie Aames has now found God and appears in a series of videos for children as the scripture-spouting superhero Bibleman.
Nicole Eggert dated Corey Haim.
Josie Davis does fully nude scenes in poorly-reviewed, barely released movies directed by actors who are apparently better at that.
Jennifer Runyon retires to San Clemente.

Tell me somebody on that show didn't desecrate a shrine somewhere along the way.

A Year In The Life



This was a miniseries I loved followed by a regular series I only liked, but I remember both were incredibly well-acted.

Silver Spoons

Okay. This isn't exactly the best show in history...

Parker Lewis Can't Lose



Why do I have the feeling there may have been more to this series than I can remember at the moment? (Besides the fact that a quick Yahoo! search just revealed to me that Milla Jovovich was in the pilot)

Plus these series about which I've got little or nothing to say:



Call to Glory (or, Elisabeth Shue: Who knew?), The Facts of Life, Who's the Boss? (or, Alyssa Milano: Who knew?)



Head Of The Class (or, Robin Givens: Who knew?), My Two Dads, It's Your Move, Kate & Allie (or, Allison Smith...), The Hogan Family, The New Adventures of Beans Baxter...

If the Farrelly brothers want me to see "The Heartbreak Kid"-and based on its cool (and not in a good way) box office, they do...

...they're going to have to work a lot harder to convince me that a perfectly pleasant, good-looking woman like Malin Akerman is the nightmare she's apparently supposed to be in the movie.

Seriously, they keep running ads where the worst thing she does is sing along to dumb pop music. And we're supposed to identify with Ben Stiller's suffering because he's too hip & cool to do so.



All it does, at least to me, is make him look like the kind of prude that I'd get sick of a lot faster than I would a sexy drinkawater who just happens to like the Spice Girls.

Besides. I'm a sucker for leopardskin...

My girl Tara Reid is looking gooooooooooooooooood

As Snagglepuss would say: Beautiful even.



I always knew she had it in her.