"In The Heights" Flashmob

Conroe Brooks, Staci Lawrence and the FlashMob America group did a flashmob at Universal Citywalk this weekend in honor of the opening of the musical "In The Heights" at the Pantages. The creator and composer (and original star) Lin-Manuel Miranda was there to watch it. Apparently, he knew something was up, but wasn't expecting what he got.

Take a look at his face as he watches them dance. Classic....



I wanted to do this flashmob, especially since one of the prizes was a ticket to the show. But with Savannah so close to having the baby, it didn't seem advisable to be spending hours away from home with the cellphone shut off. Besides, I need to lose some weight before I even think about dancing again.

Enjoy... and go see "In The Heights". Besides supporting live theater, you'll also be treated to a really amazing show. I have the recording and the sheet music.

CORALINE -- Coming in February

Neil Gaiman's novella, Coraline, is coming to the screen in February. It is a strange amalgam of traditional stop-action model 3D, and digital 3D, and it looks really fun. Since I first was exposed to the story through the audiobook (read by Gaiman), it'll take a little getting used to to hear Coraline talking with an American accent.

Still... here's the trailer.



~C~

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Rick Astley? Really?



I can't bear it. I missed the parade, but I'd like to stop now and give thanks for YouTube for preserving this moment forever.

"I like Rickrolling!!!"

No. Stop. You're killin' me.

~C~

So Long, Paul.

Dear Paul,

I can call you Paul, right? I mean, it only seems fair, since I've been in love with you for the past 40 years. The first time I saw you was on television, in a movie called What A Way To Go, with Shirley MacLaine. I originally wanted to see the movie because my previous love, Gene Kelly, was in it. But then I saw you, and I had to break Gene's heart and dump him for you. I was ten. I do realize I'm not alone. I'm just one of the legion of women (and men -- not that there's anything wrong with that) who fell in love with you and never fell out.

So, before you go on to wherever it is you're destined to go, I'd just like to list a few reasons why I... why we... why we all... loved you.

We love that you were so incredibly beautiful, and yet, according to everyone who knew you, you had no idea, and when the topic was brought up, it merely annoyed you.

We love that you were more interested in being true to a character and turning in a good performance then you ever were about the way you looked or the likability of your characters.

We love that you were married to the same woman for fifty years, which has got to be some kind of movie star record as far as we're concerned. And we love that the two of you seemed to genuinely still love each other after all those years together, and that you grew old together, and that you were the example that it can be done.

We love that you were able to look at the blessings you received and be gracious enough to give back when you could, and that you found a way to do it in a way that will continue to generate charitable income (hopefully) for years to come.

We love that, no matter your age, your eyes stayed every bit as blue as ever, and that there was always a bit of the demon twinkle in them, even if you weren't smiling at that moment. And we loved that you were almost always smiling.

We love that you were here, that you were one of us for a while and that you worked hard and played hard and loved your family. We love that you gave us your performing self, but kept your personal self private. It preserved our mystery.

We love that we were able to love you for a time and we are a little melancholy that we must now love you from an ever greater distance than before. But we will go on loving you, because it's what we do, regardless of the people we love in real life.

So, safe journey. Peace be with you. And thanks again for all the great good fun.

~C~

Here's Something You Don't See Every Day.

It's not unusual to see huge feature credits in the middle of a trailer for a movie that has an "all-star" cast. But the trailer for Gus Van Sant's "Milk," the biographical account of the political ascendancy of San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay candidate to be elected to public office, includes an absolutely ENORMOUS single-card credit for writer Dustin Lance Black. (The image at right really doesn't do it justice -- it's HUGE in the trailer.)

Black, who has but a few credits to his name, has written several episodes of one of our favorite, favorite HBO series, Big Love. It's very rare that a relatively unknown screenwriter is given that kind of nod, particularly in a trailer. His agent must be Jesus Christ, I swear. But it's nice to see anyway.

Here is the trailer:



Personal favorite moment:

Dan White (as played by Josh Brolin): America can't survive without the family.
Milk (as played by Sean Penn): We're not against that.
White: Can two men reproduce?
Milk: No, but God knows we keep trying.

Penn's performance looks (as usual) amazing. I have so resisted him, on principle more than anything (I think it was the whole Madonna nightmare that soured me), but I think I'm finally coming to the point where I can come out of the closet and admit the truth.

Yes, America, it's a fact. I'm a Sean Penn fan.

~C~

Not My Favorite Director, But As a Pitchman, Michael Bay is AWESOME!

I've never cared much for Michael Bay's movies, but I'm not much for explosions and such. And I do own TRANSFORMERS, so I guess I don't hate his stuff. It's just not my cup o' tea most of the time.

But I love me some Verizon, and I love me some clever commercial, and the two have been combined in a television/internet spot for Verizon FiOS that can only be described as "awesome!"



("Awesome pussycat!" I laugh every time I see it.)

Something in Bay's delivery makes me think he's a huge Stephen Colbert fan. But then, who isn't?

~C~

ANTM Cycle 10 -- Go (Full) Figure!!!

Okay, I'll admit it. I had Anya Kop picked as ANTM Cycle 10 winner from the fourth week of the show. Quirky accent (sort of Eastern European meets native Hawaiian meets imitation of Cycle 8's Natasha Galinka), "broken" nose, gamin, elfin, ethereal and characteristically sized two, the tow-headed Kop seemed to embody everything ANTM has always held dear -- edginess, beauty, the ever-touted body angles. Every week, she took gorgeous picture after gorgeous picture, won challenge after challenge. I picked her as the winner, in fact, after she won a challenge that earned her a discreetly nude photo shoot with ANTM judge, Nigel Barker. The unearthly results were breathtaking, and I was sure that Kop would walk away with the whole burrito.

Ironically, it was walking that proved to be her downfall. In the final stomp-off (semi-finalist Fatima -- she of the female genital circumcision and perennial whine -- having been thankfully eliminated by her stilted Cover Girl TV spot), it was down to the battle of the blondes. In a glittery runway show for House of Versace, each girl strutted in two gowns chosen for her by Donatella Versace herself. As lithe and long-limbed as Anya was, when it came down to it, she simply didn't rock the dresses. Whitney's first gown -- a curious gold number that was pretty enough, but was a bad choice, cut- and color-wise for the full-figured model -- didn't wow the judges. But her second gown -- a raspberry satin-and-chiffon mini with an amazing, billowing cathedral train that had a life of its own -- seemed like it was made for her. In spite of her difficulties in taming the wild train, Whitney was a vision in swerves, curves and hot pink on the runway. In the end, the judges felt it was Whitney who brought the stomp, and they fabulously defied my cynical expectations by choosing her Cycle 10's Top Model. I hope Versace lets her keep that raspberry dress, because it won her the competition.

After she was selected, Tyra made the point of correcting the oft-misquoted term "plus-sized" model by saying, "The correct term is 'full-figured'." There is a distinction. In modelling terms, apparently "plus-sized" is size 12 or larger. Whitney, a solid sized 10, is just a normal sized girl who happens to photograph like a high-fashion model. Go figure.

Now, frankly, I like Whitney. She's a little catty and has a bit of an attitude, but in a harmless, kind of sweet way that Southern girls have. And, let's face it, plenty of her predecessors have been bitchier and more evil. I rooted for her week after week, sure she'd be eliminated any minute now (she was in the bottom two four times during the cycle). But Whitney is smart and she's funny -- she has a bigger, more impressive personality than any of her predecessors (with the possible exception of the aforementioned Galinka, who has actually built a little career as an entertainment correspondent here and there). My favorite Whitney line has to be, "I never met a potato I didn't like." Atta girl. You speak for all of us.

So congratulations, Whitney. Go out there and break the trend of ANTM models who win, then vanish into thin air. (Where in the world is KariDee, by the way?) In your honor, I'm gonna go make some breakfast!

~C~

Miss Sowards Gripes For The Rest of the Week

I saw MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY on Saturday night, and thought it was very charming.

As many of you know, I never -- I MEAN, EVER -- read movie reviews of films I haven't seen yet (ever since Roger Ebert decided to show his contempt for a movie by revealing it's biggest plot twist without a "spoiler" warning, the rat bastard!).

I figured I'd be safe reading a review on MISS PETTIGREW, because I'd already seen the film, and instead, ran into my second-biggest pet peeve with movie critics. This one -- Hilda Yeshigian from my very own Cal State Northridge's Daily Sundial -- hadn't seen the film. Or perhaps she HAD seen most of the film, but decided to go to the ladies' or make out with her boyfriend during a couple of crucial scenes. In any case, her lapse in attention caused her to make two fairly obvious and egregious mistakes to anyone who had actually seen the film from beginning to end -- and hadn't made out with their boyfriend, or anyone else they happened to be sitting nearby (though I did see it at the DGA, and the guy sitting next to me was tres yummy!).

I won't reveal her errors, lest I pull what I've come to refer to as an "Ebert" for those of you who haven't seen it. Suffice it to say that such review boo-boos are not limited to college/university journalists. I can't tell you how many times I caught Richard Schickel, of no less venerable publications than the LA Times and Time Magazine, in what I've now come to call a "double Ebert" -- an unannounced spoiler that reveals a major plot point that never actually happened in the film! So Miss Daily Sundial is in good company.

Truly, I didn't disagree with the overall premise of her critique, but because she seems to be lacking a familiarity with a certain style of film made in the mid- to late-thirties, she kind of... well... missed the point. Again, this is not at all unusual. There are very few truly good film critics in the world. Schickel's predecessor at the Times, Charles Champlin, wasn't bad. Paid attention. Wrote well. Didn't (as far as we could tell) engage in nookie with the concessions girl instead of actually watching the film. (I should say, "isn't bad" because I think he's still considered "emeritus" at the Times, and reviews special releases from time to time.)

Anyhoo... this is a gripe I've had for a while. I love the movies -- I love going there, I love watching trailers, I love sitting in the theater, waiting for the lights to go out and the film to start. I even love the little dancing hot dog. I love it all. I love the experience of movies. And I generally hate most movie critics, mostly because the vast majority of them not only don't know anything about movies, but don't really like them in general, and it shows. I wonder sometimes how interested most of them are in the history of film. Or even in old films, without the history (I'm not much of a trivia buff, for certain.) I'm sure our Miss Daily Sundial has seen Titanic, but has she seen A Night At the Opera, with the Marx Brothers? Maybe she has. Who knows? I guess the question is really, did she manage to make it all the way through to the end without turning away from the screen to snog her boyfriend?

(sigh)

~C~

02/27/08 My New Boyfriend

Here's a picture of my new boyfriend.

I came home last night after a day of particularly intense upheaval, personally and professionally, only to find that Tivo had, of its own accord, recorded an episode of Mega Disasters entitled Super Swarms, about locusts and their impact on humanity.

"This is stupid," I thought, as I highlighted the entry. "Who in their right mind would want to watch a documentary on loc...." But then I had to shut up, because the narrator was saying something utterly compelling about mandibles. And I was hooked.

This afternoon, Kimberly and I were talking about this. "Been watching Discovery Channel, have we?" she commented on my MySpace. And I remembered that I had no idea what channel it was on, because Tivo had recorded it for me. Just 'cuz. And I joked with her that if Tivo were a man, I'd have to marry him. Oh, sure... it's funny when you say it like this, but... let's think about it.

Tivo thinks of me once or twice during the day. A couple of times a day, something crosses Tivo's path and Tivo thinks, "Gee, I think Amanda might like this." Tivo lets me watch and rewind, watch and rewind, and never loses its patience. Tivo sometimes overdoes the lovin' by taking my Season Pass totally to heart and recording every blessed showing throughout the day of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, when I'd really be perfectly happy with just the 11 pm showing. I get a little peevish about this sometimes, until I remember that Tivo only wants to make sure my needs are being met. And then, I have to smile.

I've decided that these are the qualities I need to find in a man. Someone who puts up with my capricious, oddball ways without complaining. Someone who stops in every so often in the course of his day and says, "I must remember to show this to Amanda -- I think she'd get a charge out of it." Someone to whom my happiness is important. Someone who wants to edify and enlighten me, but in a sweet, entertaining way.

Tivo is my new boyfriend. Until such time as the human version walks through the door.

~C~

(cross-posted at MySpace)

It's All Mary-Mia's Fault!

Back in December of last year, when Mary-Mia from Do They Have Salsa In China was feeling a little punk and decided to try and keep her identical twin 3-year-olds occupied with a video so she could rest, she inadvertently started a bit of row as to whether the girls would watch "Mee-Moss" (Mickey Mouse, Rose's first choice) or "Six Babies" (the DVD of Jon & Kate Plus 8, Marie's preference). As per usual, Mary-Mia videotaped the ensuing smackdown (okay, it was more like an inadvertent elbow to the eye, but still... ) for our amusement.

I'd heard of the former, but I'd never heard of Jon & Kate until Mary-Mia blogged about it. When TLC ran a Jon & Kate marathon a couple of weeks ago, including all three documentaries, starting when the sextuplets were 18 months old, in anticipation of the new series TLC is launching, I thought I'd give it a look-see. I Tivo-ed it. I've watched it. Four times. Then I created a Season Pass on Tivo for the show.

For the uninitiated, Jonathan and Kate Gosselin had problems conceiving and turned to fertility treatments to conceive their twins, Mady and Cara, now 7, born in the fall of 2000. A couple of years later, Kate thought it might be nice to know what it felt like to have "just one baby," so she cajoled Jon into trying for another baby. They conceived SIX -- three girls, three boys -- born in May of 2004. By the time Kate was 28 and Jon was 26, they were the parents of eight children under the age of four. GAK!

And yet.... There's something compelling about them as a family. Kate is an admitted organizational-freak-a-germ-a-phobe with slight OCD tendencies. The episode where Kate is interviewing for a part-time housekeeper has some hilarious moments when she is describing to them exactly what she expects them to do. She'd be obnoxious if you didn't understand that what she's asking them to do a couple of days a week, is what she actually DOES -- every day -- while parenting eight children!!! She isn't asking any of the potential house cleaners to do anything she doesn't do every day -- sometimes, TWICE a day. The looks on the faces of the applicants as she describes what she does is PRICELESS!!

Jon, who is the more laid back of the two parents, gets a little flack from Kate from time to time for his easygoing, time-not-imperative pokiness, especially when they're in the trenches, so to speak -- going to cut a Christmas tree, going to pick out Halloween pumpkins and take a hay ride, taking the kids to their first dentist appointments. Someone somewhere, you can bet, is going to have a first-degree, five-star meltdown along the way, and they both know it. Watching how each parent approaches it, with their vastly different temperaments and personalities is really fascinating and endearing.

They get a bit short with each other and there's a fair amount of bickering at times. But there are episodes here and there where Jon and Kate manage to steal off together, "sans enfants," as it were (the "tummy tuck" episode, the "shopping spree" episode). In these moments (brief though they are) it is obvious that Jon and Kate Gosselin adore each other and make a really good couple. If Kate is the propellant and the rudder for the family -- getting them up and going in the right direction -- it is Jon, with his equanimity and calm under fire, who acts as the retro-fire braking system that keeps them from spinning out of control full-bore into hyperspace. In their confessional-style interview moments, with the two of them in a over-sized armchair, they are like any married couple who have found a way to make it work -- charming, funny, smart, they finish each other's sentences, laugh at each other's jokes, poke, prod and tease each other, but they love. Clearly, they love.

You would have to love to stay. Because, as lovely and adorable and interesting as the Gosselin house is to peak into every week, living there would truly drive the average person round the bend. When Oprah asked Jon and Kate how they coped with the monumental responsibility, Kate replied, "We take it one day at a time. All there is is today."

The truth is, I love the Gosselins. Not because they have eight children. But because they're honest about what having eight children does to a person, to a marriage, to a life (to Kate's belly, hence the tummy tuck episode). One child puts stress on a relationship; eight would break most. In the first episode, during a confessional interview, Kate related that Jon told her, during the most difficult first few months with the sextuplets, "You know, Kate, six babies isn't that many babies. Fourteen would be a lot of babies." In the interview, Jon waited a beat after Kate finished the anecdote, then added, "Now, I think one more would push us right over the edge." One of my favorite Kate Gosselin lines is, "I'm sure there are perfect parents out there, but we're not any of them." Honest. Real. Humble. Occasionally hovernig on the brink of madness. You know.... like me, but for a much better reason.

It's hard what they do. It's work. And in Jon & Kate plus 8, all the seams show. But it's worth it for the Gosselins. And for me. Because now, I'm hooked.

And it's all Mary-Mia's fault.

~C~

Jon and Kate plus 8 can be seen on Mondays on TLC. Check your local listings for exact times and channels.

A Dance of Fairies

"Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;
Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
And then the moon, like to a silver bow
New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night
Of our solemnities."
-from A Midsummer Night's Dream-

"If we, citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice

our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up

believing in nothing and having worthless dreams."

-Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi-

I have mentioned Meh-tropolis Dance Theatre to you before (they are the ones who don't starve their dancers to death). They are launching an ambitious dance production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (traditional score by Mendelssohn), running every weekend in January (including Sunday matinees), and if you're in the Los Angeles area, you might want to go. How do I know it's ambitious? I don't really, of course -- except that they are a small, privately funded dance company in a large city where people talk a good game about the arts, but rarely actually support the arts, so I figure any full-length production of anything theatrical constitutes ambition (not to mention giddy optimism and a deliciously whimsical perversity) in the extreme! And because we here at the Naked Dancing Chicken loves us some blind ambition (and some dancing and some Shakespeare, too, for that matter), Meh-tropolis is getting a plug. Also, this ballet is a little nostalgic for me, as A Midsummer Night's Dream was the first ballet I ever saw, at the Hollywood Bowl, when I was seven.

To tempt you, the company has posted photos of their rehearsals for the production on their website. Uh, sidebar, your honor? Why do they all look so cute at their rehearsals? Shouldn't they be all sweaty and gross and haggard-looking? Do you have any idea how awful I usually look at rehearsal? (Don't answer that!) It might have something to do with the fact that they're younger and in better shape, but we won't discuss that if we know what's good for us.

Ticket prices are exceedingly reasonable, especially for a full-length ballet ($18 for adults, $15 for students with ID, seniors and children under 12). You can print out their ticket order form here, and order by mail. I urge you, if you live in the Southern California area, to support companies like Meh-tropolis. If we are going to have access to the arts, we can no longer rely on the big theatres to bring it here, unless we're only interested in whatever Disney movie-turned-musical has sloughed off the Broadway stage.

Order! GO! NOW!

(Sheesh... I hate it when you guys make me shout at you!)

~C~

Roman Mythology

I have been watching/reading/spotting-before-I-can-turn-away a lot of press on the upcoming Oliver Twist, directed by Roman Polanski. Stephanie Zacharek wrote a glowing review for Salon on 9/23, praising the film's beauty and artistic sensitivity. I must admit, reading it, I felt a little queasy. Maybe it is that I have five planets in Scorpio (you know we Scorpios can really hold a grudge), or maybe it is that I'm overly sensitive to the subject of all child abuse, sexual or otherwise. But I am appalled at the glory and praise we heap upon this man.

Even more repugnant to me was this CNN article about Polanksi which depicts him as a victim of sorts. Though Polanski's people declined an interview with the article's author, the director is depicted as having been wrongly persecuted for 30 years by overzealous D.A.s and law enforcement agencies into hiding in Europe (where, apparently, sex with children is no big deal). The most frightening part of the article for me is the description of him today: "He lives in Paris with his third wife, French actress Emmanuelle Seigner, and their children, and has slowly shed his reputation as a partier. Friends say he is a devoted father who remains young at heart." The article fails to point out -- so I shall -- that Polanski's daughter, Morgane, is a mere one year younger than the girl he abused in 1978. I wonder how he feels now, looking at her every day -- "devoted father" as he is, realizing how very young 13 really is.

I wrote a letter to Salon, which I doubt they'll ever print, seeing as how their own house critic loves, loves, loves this guy. Besides, their entertainment editor is too busy chasing after Kate Moss and her coke stash to be so concerned about one letter in protest of one little movie review. So I figured I'd speak my mind here. Because I can. So there.

Stephanie Zacharek's review of Roman Polanski's "Oliver Twist" evoked so many emotions in me, it was difficult to settle on just one. The fact that filmgoers and the international movie industry continue to laud this man as a brilliant, sensitive artist, to give him ovations at film festivals, to award him with Oscars, just kind of turns my stomach. Is our collective memory truly that short?

Have we really reached the point where we cannot hold our artistic icons to the most basic standards of decency? By his own admission in open court, Roman Polanski drugged and had sex with a 13-year-old child. He knew she was a child -- this was no "she looked 18 to me" misadventure. His obscene excuses -- that it didn't matter because she wasn't a virgin, that her actress mother presented her to him, that the girl knew what she was doing -- only serve to make his actions more despicable.

Roman Polanski has suffered more tragedy and misery in one life than anyone should have to. I would be the first to have compassion for him, had it not been for the crime he committed and his utter refusal to accept responsibility for it. I find this particular film disturbing in light of the fact that making it put children in the path of a man who, had he faced the music in California in 1978, would have certainly been required to register as a sex offender. It is fine that his victim has forgiven him. Good for her -- she deserves to be able to heal in peace. But his victim did not file the charges against him. She was simply the complaining witness. The case was entitled The People of the State of California versus Roman Polanski.

Perhaps Ms. Zacharek is too young to remember 1978. I am not. I was a year out of high school, and I remember this nasty business quite well. It was my first introduction to the reality that a man has different rights, and his behavior is held to different standards than those to which a woman is held. That goes double for a wealthy, famous man, with wealthy, famous friends.

As a person of the state of California who has yet to receive the justice that we are owed by Mr. Polanski, I refuse to see any movie, regardless of its "melancholy glow," which has been crafted by a man who drugged and raped a child. Given what tortures Mr. Polanski has said he experienced as a youth at the hands of Nazis, and his later encounters with senseless violence against his wife and unborn child, he should have been the first to be empathetic to a child who was clearly being exploited by the adults around her. Instead, he just took his own turn at exploiting her, in the most heinous of ways, then ran away and hid to avoid being held accountable.

A man like that has no soul. Art from a soulless man has no value, regardless of its temporal, superficial beauty.

Naked Chicken and Fall Movies

This is the time of year that the Naked Chicken loves to go to the movies. All the fun stuff comes out between September and December. Here are a few movies that the Chicken looks forward to and hopes are good:

Corpse Bride -- I love Tim Burton. I shouldn't. I don't know why I do. Maybe it's my unrelenting attraction to nerdy guys rearing it's nerdy-sexy head again. But I just think he's funny and kinda dopey and his stuff works for me. I really enjoyed The Nightmare Before Christmas, and recently Charlie and the Chocolate Factory salvaged a fairly dismal moviegoing summer, so I kind of owe him. Voice talent by Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter (who knew she had so much fun in her, anyway) is an appealing notion as well. I can only hope that we haven't seen the best of this movie in the ubiquitous television trailers. Release date: Currently in limited release

The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio: This one I'm least sure about. I saw an interview with Terri Ryan, the woman who wrote the book on which this is based, and it seems intriguing. In the 50's television and it's advertising were in their infancy, and America was just starting to fall in love with the medium. The Ryan family of Defiance, Ohio is no exception. Evelyn Ryan (Julianne Moore), mother of ten and wife of underachiever Leo (Woody Harrelson), struggles to keep the family fed and clothed in the face of bill collectors and repo men. She begins to enter the ever-present jingle contests on television, and, lo and behold, she has found her calling. As she continues to win ever more fabulous gifts and prizes, Leo becomes more and more resentful, seeing every victory prize as something he couldn't give her. He sulks and simpers and explodes, alternately, every time she wins. Truth be told, it was one line in the trailer that made me want to see this movie. Leo is hugging Evelyn and he tells her, "I just want to make you happy." And she says, "I don't need you to make me happy. I just need you to leave me alone when I am." Hear, hear, sister. Release date: September 30, 2005

Elizabethtown - Orlando Bloom. Kirsten Dunst. What's not to love? Okay, a lot, potentially. But under the direction of Cameron Crowe from his own script? Now, I ask you... what's not to love? Fast Times at Ridgmont High, Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous, Vanilla Sky.... oops... went one too far, didn't I? Oh, come on. It's been a while since we've seen an amusing romantic comedy. I'm not sure why this appeals to me so much. Perhaps because Tom Cruise isn't in it. I was desperate for a little romantic comedy this summer. Neither Bewitched (blech, pew) nor Broken Flowers (terrific, but dark) filled the void. Let's go see this together and hope it all comes out in the end. Release date: October 14, 2005

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire -- I've told every one of my book hound friends, including my own daughter, that I'll start reading the books when Number 7 is released, so I don't have to wait forever from one book to the next. That's the truth, too. But there's another truth here, one that I keep to myself. I kind of don't want the books to interfere with the movies at this point. I have an investment in this Harry, not the novelized Harry. I have a relationship with these children, with these wizards, with this Dobby. Nobody gets that. I'll read the damn books eventually. And I'll love them. But for now, just let me love these children, this Hagrid, these Weasleys. The trailers for this movie are captivating, because they flash through all three previous movies, allowing you to see how far these children have come, how much they've grown and changed. I am so looking forward to this movie, and I hope it doesn't disappoint me. (Prisoner of Azkaban wasn't so good, I'm afraid.) Release date: November 18, 2005.

Brokeback Mountain - This film is based on the amazing short story by Annie Proulx, and tells the story of Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Ennis (Heath Ledger), two very masculine young cowhands who find themselves drawn to each other in a relationship that moves through friendly rivalry to friendship to a profound and abiding love in a time and place (Wyoming in the early 60s) when such a relationship can simply never be. The short story from Proulx's collection, Close Range: Wyoming Stories, is written with a gruff tenderness that completely lacks sentimentality and melodrama. Proulx's simple, straightforward storytelling style and her decision to keep the focus on a love so deep that it lasts decades keeps the story from being salacious or, worse, sappy. My hope for the movie is that it avoids those same traps. Release date: December 9, 2005

So, ever optimistic, the Naked Chicken launches into the fall movie season with a heart full of hope and a purse full of sour Jellie Bellies.

~C~

THE CONSTANT GARDENER: A First Class Departure

[WARNING: THIS IS A POST ABOUT THE MOVIE "THE CONSTANT GARDENER", AND MAY CONTAIN… NO… DOES CONTAIN A SPOILER OR TWO, AS MOST REVIEWS TEND TO. IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THIS FILM, AND WANT TO BE SURPRISED, READ ON AT YOUR OWN RISK.]

If you have been tuning into this blog regularly, you know I have not had many happy moments at the movies this season. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was a welcome joy. I seemed to be alone in my full appreciation for Broken Flowers, but then we've already established that intelligent, nerdy guys (yes, Jim, I don't care how full your luscious lips are -- with that haircut, you're officially a nerd) kind of turn me on, especially when they march to the beat of their own drummer.

Alas, aside from these couple of exceptions, life at the movies has ricocheted from unsurprisingly banal (Must Love Dogs), to embarrassingly bad (Bewitched) too deeply, profoundly disappointing (War of the Worlds). If I've seen other movies this summer, I've forgotten them. That alone should tell you something. Now that summer is waning and the kiddies are going back to school, the movies have started to fall back into the hands of the grown-ups, and The Constant Gardener is a great way to kick off that new season.

In this nifty adaptation of John Le Carré's novel of the same title, Ralph Fiennes plays Justin Quayle, a young, straight-laced British diplomat who has been assigned to travel to Northern Kenya as a low-level attaché at the British High Commission (BHC). Immediately before leaving England, he embarks on a passionate, whirlwind romance with Tessa (beautifully played by Rachel Weisz), a fiery activist, who proposes marriage on the eve of Justin's departure. Once in Africa, the Quayles each pursue their own interests -- Justin's being his job and his love of gardening, and Tessa's being her bating of the BHC and corporate opportunists whom she believes are exploiting the Kenyan people. Unfortunately, though initially deeply in love, the two separate courses of their lives seem to begin to pull on the Quayles' marriage, and Justin becomes suspicious of Tessa's close friendship with a handsome Nairobi doctor (Hubert Koundé).

When Tessa is found raped and murdered and the doctor comes up missing in what initially appears to be a roadside attack by local bandits, rumor and innuendo from his associates at the BHC only serve to solidify Justin's conviction that his wife was being unfaithful. Still, his devotion to her, and his gradual realization that no one in his life is as he assumes they are, drives Justin to seek out the truth about Tessa and the "other" life she kept so furtively hidden from him. The more Justin delves into Tessa's murder, the more nervous he makes his friends at the BHC, who actively discourage him from asking questions for his own sake.

I'm not one of those women (rare as we may be) who is all gaga over Ralph Fiennes. He has always been a bit to reserved for my tastes. Still, Fiennes is very powerful in the role of a man who only discovers who his wife is after she is dead, and realizes that she was a remarkable and complex woman, very different from the one he thought he'd married. Fiennes creates a Justin Quayle who is very British, very withheld, very intact, until he loses the one thing he never realized he had -- the love of his life. His grief makes him raw and his loss makes him disoriented and determined. Fiennes shows us that in a very subtle, very controlled way, which works beautifully for the character.

Weisz' Tessa is everything Fiennes' Justin is not. Vivacious, socially charming, funny, exuberant, passionate. However, there is an air of danger about her from the beginning. The first scene in the film is a good-bye scene, where we are introduced to the alleged "love triangle" -- Justin, Tessa, the Nairobi doctor -- and immediately, before any chance at innuendo, the audience thinks, "Hmmm… is she…? With him…? Are they… ?" It is a lovely set-up, very underplayed by all, and it sets the stage nicely for what follows. Weisz is charming without being cloying, and passionate without being overbearing (unless you work at the BHC or one of the offending corporations, that is). Her insistence on protecting the Nairobi people from clutching, grasping corporate imperialism is naïve, but sincere in just the right way.

Director Fernando Meirelles (City of God), working from a fine screenplay adaptation by longtime BBC TV writer Jeffrey Canine (Dempsey & Makepeace, Bodyguards, CatsEyes), stays true to Le Carré's book, moving freely backward and forward through time to unravel Tessa's life, before and after her death. As Justin comes to know Tessa, we do, too. We fall in love with the real Tessa at the same time Justin does, hopelessly post-mortem. Though I have not read the Le Carré novel, I consulted with someone who has both read the book and seen the film. He says that the one thing Le Carré could not capture in the book was the sense of Africa. Meirelles reunites with his City of God cinematographer, César Charlone, to do just that. The grinding poverty of the AIDS-stricken Nairobi village is addressed convincingly, but it doesn't beat us over the head. It is a backdrop against which people are living their lives -- mothers care for their children, children manufacture games amidst the masses of trash and refuse by the roadside, people work and scrape, seeking to make the best existence for themselves and their families here. I'm not an enormous fan of handheld camera work, especially since it's usually done so very badly, but it is used sparingly in this film and to great effect, making the action more immediate and intense. All of it is underscored by Alberto Iglesias' score and evocative performances by Kenyan percussionist Ayub Ogada on the original soundtrack (Amazon has some sample snippets worth listening to).

The supporting cast bolsters Fiennes' and Weisz' fine performances. Danny Huston is suitably solicitous as the Quayles' ambitious and somewhat creepy BHC crony with a hidden agenda. Koundé plays the charming, handsome Nairobi doctor with such elegance, it's hard to imagine that Tessa is not having an affair with him. Richard McCabe (Vanity Fair) plays Tessa's adoring cousin, Hamm, with a sweet earnestness. Bill Nighy (Love Actually, Underworld) has a small, but pivotal role as the smarmy bad guy British royal who masterminds the entire conspiracy from London, and as the modern-day Schweitzer with slightly slanted ethics, Pete Postlethwaite (The Lost World, The Shipping News) is as good as… well, Pete Postlethwaite (and that's pretty damn good).

Do not go into the theatre expecting something lighthearted and upbeat. The only thing uplifting about The Constant Gardener is that it is a rare (these days) display of fabulous film making and acting coming together with a very good script. The results are gripping and entertaining, as well as emotionally charged and unpredictable. It is, in the end, a poignant story of a man who loses his wife, only to discover how much he truly loved her and how little he knew of her.

A definite must-see….

Nerdy-Sexy

In Kissing Jessica Stein, two women are discussing men and the term "ugly-sexy" comes up. One of them defines the quality by listing a number of actors who have it: Harvey Keitel, Jeff Goldblum, James Woods. Yeah (except for Keitel, who rather repulses me on every level), I can get behind that list. But I am more of a nerd-loving kind of girl. I just love really brainy guys with quirky looks who aren't dangerous or menacing (unlike Woods and Keitel, for example).

I have since compiled a list of nerdy-sexy guys to whom I've grown attached of late. Some of them are characters in much-loved movies and t.v. shows, some of them, the actors who play them.

Jefferson Smith (as portrayed by Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) - Jefferson Smith is one of my favorite nerds. Earnest, bright, but not very worldly, he finally catches wise and learns how to make the system work in his favor. His sincerity and integrity prevail over the twin evils of greed and injustice and he manages with one philibuster to clear his good name, foil the unholy, power-mongering politicians and get Jean Arthur by end titles. Where are the Jefferson Smiths when you need 'em?

Alan Rickman (British actor, director) -- I've had it bad for Alan Rickman for a very long time. Why he doesn't just leave his lifelong partner of 30 years, economist Rima Horton, and run away with me, I'll never understand. I think I completely fell in love with him for his portrayal of sniffly ghost Jamie in Truly, Madly, Deeply. Oh, sure, he's plenty menacing in a lot of his roles, but even as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and his uneasy, secretive Professor Snape in the Harry Potter films, there was a touch of abject nerdy awkwardness. He's quirky and a more than a little odd, and anyone who can pull down his trousers to reveal a sexless, Ken-doll-like pubic area (as Metatron in Dogma) with such dash and aplomb -- why, that's the nerd for me.

Dr. Carl Sagan -- Smart, sexy, a stylish little overbite and, man, oh, man, those turtlenecks. I was in college (the first time around) when Cosmos debuted on PBS in 1980. I never missed an episode. He was forthright about his belief in the Drake equation, which used mathematical calculation to prove that there must be life in the universe, because for Earth to be the only planet that bore life would simply be statistically improbable. Any guy who can make algebra sexy (while wearing a turtleneck, mind you) can whisk me away to his alternative universe any day. Sagan scoffed at all the then-popular "ancient astronauts" claptrap, because the claims couldn't withstand the scientific standards for putting theories to the test in his book "The Demon- Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark," (the title alone just makes you want to sleep with him, doesn't it?) which included such axioms as "Try not to get too attached to a hypothesis just because it's yours," and "If there are two hypotheses that explain the data equally well choose the simpler (Occam's razor)." If he had an enormous ego (he was a Scorpio, after all -- ahem), he managed to keep it well-hidden in favor of the science.

Adrien Brody (Academy-award winning actor who kissed Halle Berry like she's never been kissed before or since -- and who was kissed the following year by Charlize Theron). Let me tell you something. I got me five dollars here that says there were girls in Adrien Brody's high school who swore they'd die before they'd let him anywhere near them, who are now kicking their own ever-expanding Elmhurst housewife asses for being so stupid. If I were twenty years younger, I'd stalk this boy and marry him right quick. You go, boy. (Darn that Halle Berry anyway -- she gets to have all the fun!)

Frank Darabont (director, The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Majestic) -- the only one of my nerd crushes that I've actually met (I moderated this Q&A with him for Fox Searchlab). Frank happily embraces his nerdiness and flaunts it like a badge of honor, God love 'im. Frank seems to have settled nicely into the filmmaker nerd role, along with friends George Lucas (maxo-nerd) and Steven Spielberg (uber-nerd of the first order). We are less than two months apart in age and grew up less than three miles apart, and I'm stunned I never met him while we were growing up (I knew a bunch of kids at his school, Hollywood High). Now, I understand he's gotten married to Collateral producer Julie Richardson. I guess it was never meant to be between Frank and me. Which is a damn shame, since my daughter was already picking out the color Porsche she was going to buy if he ever became her stepfather. Sucks to be her, I guess, huh.

David Levinson (as portrayed by Jeff Goldlum in Independence Day) -- if Goldblum's Ian Macolm (Jurassic Park) was "ugly-sexy", his scientist-turned-superhero in ID4 was the height of nerdy-sexiness. Geeky, awkward, hopelessly in love with a wife who won't talk to him, and jealous of the man he thinks has stolen her affections (who also happens to be the hunky President of the United States) -- so much so that he actually punches him in the nose -- Levinson finds himself shunted into herodom with his cranky father (Judd Hirsch) and hotdog fighter pilot (Will Smith). Still, he's funny when he's frightened and charming when he's falling all over himself and how Margaret Collin manages to resist him for the first 120 minutes of the movie is an utter and complete mystery to me.

And, finally, Dann Florek (L.A. Law (as direct-marketing nerd-king Dave Meyer; Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU (as slightly less nerdy, but just-nerdy-enough-to-be-sexy Capt. Donald Cragen)) -- Dann Florek won my heart as the painfully socially challenged Dave Meyer, who managed to pursuade financially troubled legal secretary Roxanne Mehlman to marry him on NBC's L.A. Law. He went on to play badge-and-gun-toting-nerd-of-authority Capt. Don Cragen on the first three seasons of Law & Order and then to reprise the role in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit for the past six (going on seven) seasons. Aside from being a really good dramatic actor, he's got a way with comedy, and he can take a potentially obnoxious character like Meyer and embue in him such an underlying sweetness that he was watchable for a season or two (rather than what I'm sure would have been, with any other actor in the role, six episodes at most, then -- blam! -- hit by a bus). Florek also distinguishes himself in another way. Florek doesn't just play a nerd on t.v. -- he actually is one in real-life. According to his L&O:SVU bio, Florek started as a math and physics major at Eastern Michigan University, only to switch to theater because -- get this! -- he thought acting might be "more fun than synthetic projective geometry." Oh, my Jesus gay! Beat me, whip me, teach me differential calculus -- baby, I'm all yours.

So, there's more about me than you ever wanted to know, I'm sure. I suppose I like nerds because I know that I need a guy with a brain, who can hold up his end of the conversation. I need someone who is more interested in what's going on with the world than what's going on with his crow's feet. I just sense that I'd work with a nerd, perhaps because I'm kind of one myself (or so my kid tells me). Not a math nerd -- more of a natural sciences nerd, who as young child pointed out to her mother that paisley was kind of creepy because the pattern looked like amoebae swimming around under a microscope. I figure there must be a nerd out there with my name on him. It's only a matter of time before he finds me.

~CA~

Schadenfreude-R-Us

Okay... it's tacky... I know it's tacky. But I can't help it. We laugh when others suffer. I believe it's human nature. 'Round about these parts, when something goes wrong... it goes spectacularly wrong! Seems that Fox Publicity and Advertising department took another blow over the New York premiere of our latest, The Fantastic Four, Wednesday night. A minor publicity stunt in L.A. didn't exactly go as planned either. The publicity campaign was such an all-over fiasco, the New York Daily Observer's online blog, The Daily Transom, felt the need to do three whole posts about it here. And here. And here, too. Oh, how they laughed....

Those of us who work in the "majors" (major movie studios) have a special relationship with our respective P&A departments. These are the people who believe -- deep in their heart of hearts -- that nobody will go to see a movie that isn't named after either a comic book or a bad '70s song -- even if the song has nothing to do with the picture. This explains the inane reasoning behind taking a movie based on Laura Zigman's wildly successful chick-lit novel, Animal Husbandry, and renaming it Someone Like You. Remember that horrible Rod Stewart song? No? Well, judging by the number of people who didn't see this movie, you're not alone. The reasoning of the Fox P&A department was that women would be offended by the title Animal Husbandry. Of course, they would. That explains the tremendous success (complete with multiple printings and formats) that Dial Press enjoyed, in hardcover, paperback and audio, of this book to... did I mention it was chick-lit? If I'm not very much mistaken, that's women, is it not? Yes. Well. Most studio in-house P&A departments are renowned for backing the wrong horse, right after renaming it and whipping up a totally misleading trailer for it. Their decisions are all based on the following tragic misperception: "We know what makes a movie sell."

I'll let you guys in on a little secret. No, they don't. Neither do I. Neither do you. Know why? Because it's magic. No. Seriously. Magic. Smoke and mirrors, coupled with planetary alignment and just the right wind velocity. No one knows what will make a movie a hit. There were people at Paramount -- highly placed people who make decisions about what's good and what's bad all day -- whispering fertively that Forrest Gump would tank. Obviously, they were wrong. But they might not have been. Think about it. It's a weird little movie. It could have all gone horribly wrong, even with Hanks in the lead, Zemeckis behind the camera and an accomplished screenwriter like Eric Roth providing the screenplay. The difference between a ground-breaking, innovative, exciting, blockbuster movie and a well-intentioned, gone-awry, ambitious, expensive failure is approximately the width of an ant's eyelash. And no one -- not the studio, or the director, or the star, or the screenwriter, or even the P&A department at the studio -- can be sure in advance which movie will hit and which will fail.

Granted, a Forrest Gump or an Independence Day has certainly got a much better chance of succeeding than a Dude, Where's My Car or a Freddie Got Fingered. But a good script, good direction and brilliant performances can be thwarted by an ignorant P&A department. The perfect example is a little film released two scant months after Gump. The Shawshank Redemption is one of my all-time favorite films. Badly conceived trailers and a lackluster advertising campaign nearly put it in the toilet -- until it was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including a "best screenplay adaptation" nomination for writer/director Frank Darabont. Darabont has said that, though Shawshank won no Oscars that night, the constant mention of the movie's name during the ceremony piqued people's interest, and when the film was released on video a couple of months later, it promptly shot to the top of the "most rented" video list. It remains one of the most rented videos/DVDs of all time. Yet it's total theater box office tally in its original release was shy of $29 million (as compared to Gump's $329 million).

All because some dumbass executive in the P&A department said, "The Shawshank Redemption? Forget about it. It's Nowheresville." And thanks to that arrogant dumbass executive, it nearly was.

This is why, when things go so horribly, terribly, monumentally and publicly wrong for a studio publicity department, those of us who love film have to smile to ourselves. We like to think it must be kharma. We like to think to ourselves that, though there isn't always evidence of it, the world is a just place. A good place. A place where the scales all balance out in the end. For every decent movie that was brought to its box-office knees by P&A neglect, there will be one grandly touted premiere that will turn into an utter and complete disaster, complete with vomiting actresses, backward fireworks and skywriting, and a relentless downpour. The misery and humiliation of others occasionally fills our hearts with unabashed joy.

Is that so wrong?

~C~

George Clooney ROCKS!

Is it because he's a mega-movie star with a strong jaw and a winning smile? No, although he does. Is it because he could, with a wave of his hand, wipe away my student loan debt and not even miss it from his bank account? Well, admittedly that helps, but it's not the reason he rocks.

The reason George Clooney rocks is because he's the only person I can think of who could actually get Pat Robertson.... PAT ROBERTSON... of the 700 CLUB... to admit on national television that there are occasions when condom usage might be appropriate. Pat Robertson is the guy who's been spouting off on television that condoms don't work, even for contraception, let alone for safe sex, and so should be abandoned altogether. And George Clooney, star of the silver screen, actually got him to admit that, yes, sometimes, a condom can be a good thing, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where an estimated 36.1 million people are HIV/AIDS infected.

Okay. I admit it. It's not much. But by God, it's more than anyone else has been able to do in the face of neo-conservative ostrich-ass-in-the-air-head-in-the-sand ignorance. Forget Brooke Shields. I'm taking George Clooney to lunch. (Sorry, Brookie.)

If he plays his cards right, I might just spring for dessert, too.

What?

Oh, get your minds out of the gutter. I was talking about a little cheesecake. Sheesh!

~CA~