Monday, March 31, 2008

March Entertainment Etceterum

Pretty sure 'etceterum' isn't a word but what the hell, I've got a few loose ends to express.....

1 The tabloids here are claiming Brad Pitt is Barack Obama's cousin. Is this true? Could either have been handed a better piece of etceterum publicity?

2 I've seen a lot of good Hollywood films lately but something's really beginning to bug me. I liked Michael Clayton and Breach, but I just read a review of Boarding Gate, this new Oliver Assayas film, and I thought, 'Urp.' Can we have a break from the flicks about rich people behaving monstrously? Nevermind whether the 'good' rich guy wins or not, these films are not critical of the idea that it's all about getting mo' money, mo' money. And you know, there is this, uh, thing called the Wealth Gap in the USA (and the rest of the frigging world.....)

3 Hey, Eliot Spitzer, wow, what a show! But you know what? Who cares about what he does with his penis? I don't. And he seems to have been a good politician. Did any of this sleazy business affect his ability to lead?

4 I finally saw an actual photograph of Amy Winehouse (as opposed to a paparazzi grab shot), and I thought, 'Hmmm. At least she looks like a real person. Sort of.' But isn't she just another sham? Please. Ripping off Erykah Badu and every other black female performer in the history of rock and roll? At the time of this revelation, I was listening to the great old psychedelic band Love, who were led by a black man named Arthur Lee, who spent much of his later life in prison because he discharged a pistol in his front yard. Why is it that black geniuses get incarcerated for bullshit, and white artistes who break the law and misbehave for the cameras just triple their record sales?

6 comments:

Gavin said...

1. This is true only in the sense that you are probably Thomas Jefferson's very distant nephew. They are related, but you have to go back 17 generations or so.

2. You really didn't think that Michael Clayton (the movie, not the character) was critical of the mindless amoral pursuit of money? Er, I disagree. Said pursuit led Tom Wilkinson down a very conflicted, unhappy road.

3. He was potentially a great politician, but he hadn't actually come through yet. He had antagonized a lot of people--if in the next year or two he had successfully cleaned out some of the Albany cruft, then it was all worthwhile. If he didn't, then it was just posturing. His reckless misjudgment on how best to deploy his penis suggests that he was perhaps not always thinking things through as much as he should. (See also, semi-legal efforts to slime the already-slimy Bruno.)

4. The easy answer is "racism," but I think the difference in your two examples is actually less black/white and more USA/Europe.

It occurs to me that some of these questions may have been rhetorical, but there you go.

pat said...

Salient points, sir. However, since you disagree with me, I will not be moving to Los Angeles.
How's Strummer?

Gavin said...

Strum's great! Just had his second birthday. Obsessed with animals of all types: his favorite places on earth right now are the zoo and the aquarium. And he's as cheerful as ever. (Although that probably means we're due for the terrible twos any day now.)

Short clip of him playing the harmonica:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfFcITKZ20s

Did his World Tour t-shirt ever arrive?

G in Berlin said...

Actually, prostitution is illegal in NY, so he broke the law. And he broke alaw that he had upheld vs others. I still voted for him and I'm sorry to lose him- I liked his campaign- but he should have just had an affair. The crossing state lines was a big no-no, and the hypocrisy of his being part of the campaign against the trafficking of women. It's not the sex, in this case.

David C. Fox said...

i think you are being a little hard on Amy Winehouse [& i'm not a huge fan]. it isn't easy for me to make a distinction btwn ripping off and being influenced or inspired by. did Erykah Badu pop out of the womb w/ her style?

pat said...

Okay, alright, now I think I've been called out--justifiably--on every one of my etceterum points. Fine. Actually, since I wrote this post, I've attained a copy of Winehouse's rekkid, and I like it just fine. Funny and sad and full of life. There.