I was tempted to call this the Nicolas Cage Award, given Cage’s wins for Ghost Rider (“It looks like a squirrel landed on his head and decided to stay there.”), National Treasure (“Cage finally met Jeremy Piven’s hairstylist… but had to cut their appointment short.”) and Con Air (“Cage could be the mayor of Bakersfield with this cut. It’s not just a mullet, it’s a mullet plus. It’s a super mullet. It’s a mullet with its own Pontiac.”) Given Cage’s hair in Bangkok Dangerous, a thinning mess that is slowly creepy further and further back on his skull, it seemed all but certain that Cage would again win the award for Worst Hair again. Then I came across a photo of John Travolta’s hair at the 2008 Oscars and realized that Cage’s Bangkok Dangerous do had been trumped. Big time. It was so bad, it didn’t matter that Travolta’s cut was just for walking around.
It’s not just that Travolta looked like he stole one of the Sklar brothers’ haircuts, it that it looks more like fur than hair. Some of it is long (there are several strands on top that look to be two inches in length) and the rest of it is short. It looks like most of it was spray painted on. Most impressive is the fact that Travolta somehow managed to get a shadow between his hairline and his skin. This is like finding something between the ink and the paper in a magazine. It doesn’t happen often and when it does, you stand up and take notice. How more was written of Travolta’s hairdo is anybody’s guess.
The "Methinks the Importance of Celebrity News is Getting a Little Bit Out of Hand" Award:
THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
On December 20, The Chicago Sun-Times web-site had a lead story that was investigating the year that was. The three stories that made intro, the three most gripping stories in Chicago of the last year, were, in order, the Cubs and Sox both made the playoffs, Jennifer Hudson’s family met with tragedy and Barack Obama became the first black president. Chicago made the short list to host the Olympics in 2016, the Tribune Company recently entered into bankruptcy and most recently, prodigal son, Rod Blagojevich is alleged to have tried to sell Obama’s vacate Senate seat to the highest bidder… but a tragedy in Hudson’s family trumps all those items.
The Worst Interview #1
(two way tie) JENNIFER ANISTON AND OWEN WILSON in THE USA TODAY
Whenever I’m at a party and people begin talking about the routes they take to and from work, I politely try to steer the discussion elsewhere. As social creatures, we can do substantially better than that line of conversation. I always find it interesting that people often seem to get together in order to NOT say anything of substance to one another. This is the interview equivalent of the aforementioned scenario. In their conversation with The USA Today, Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson are talking about their new movie Marley & Me. They also, apparently, entered into some sort of agreement with the interviewer that all questions would be of a squishy, Nerf, softball variety with an emphasis on triviality. One question emblematic of this agreement was “If you could be any dog in the world, what would you be and why?” Oooohhhh!!!!!
However, even with an emphasis on questions that Byron Allen would consider non-invasive, problems ensued. The USA Today reporter asked Aniston and Wilson whether their own dogs had the ability to help them through dark times. Wilson, apparently assuming that this was a question about his much publicized suicide attempt, got up and walked out of the interview.
The Worst Interview #2
(two way tie) JEAN CLAUDE VAN DAMME in NEWSWEEK
Whenever I’m at a party and people begin talking about the routes they take to and from work, I politely try to steer the discussion elsewhere. As social creatures, we can do substantially better than that line of conversation. I always find it interesting that people often seem to get together in order to NOT say anything of substance to one another. This is the interview equivalent of the aforementioned scenario. In their conversation with The USA Today, Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson are talking about their new movie Marley & Me. They also, apparently, entered into some sort of agreement with the interviewer that all questions would be of a squishy, Nerf, softball variety with an emphasis on triviality. One question emblematic of this agreement was “If you could be any dog in the world, what would you be and why?” Oooohhhh!!!!!
However, even with an emphasis on questions that Byron Allen would consider non-invasive, problems ensued. The USA Today reporter asked Aniston and Wilson whether their own dogs had the ability to help them through dark times. Wilson, apparently assuming that this was a question about his much publicized suicide attempt, got up and walked out of the interview.
Strangest Poster:
LOWER LEARNING
While film aficionados and collectors might think of a movie’s posters as true art, the studios see them as yet another marketing tool. Get it right (American Beauty, Fargo and The Dark Knight) and the result is an ad that people want to hang in their homes. High praise indeed. Get it wrong (Random Hearts, Lady in the Water and Joe Dirt) and you’re going to be looking at a world of hurt… most likely at the box office. A film’s stars often shapes its poster. There are certainly more artsy posters that don’t call attention to the A-list stars in the movie—a member of which American Beauty is one—but the majority of movie posters tend to reflect their stars. It kind of makes sense: if you’re paying $15 million for George Clooney, you put him out there as the literal face of the project (ahem, Michael Clayton).
The philosophy for home entertainment releases is even more simplified: stars sell. The rationale for this is that studies have shown that the simpletons who rent or purchase movies are more likely to take a chance on something if they see a stars face on the box or should the box cover looks strikingly similar to another very popular movie. It’s for this reason that Mel Gibson wasn’t on the theatrical poster for Signs, but then was featured prominently on the DVD’s box cover. It’s for this reason that the DVD boxes for any teen comedies released in the last five years kind of look like the American Pie poster. Yes, the studios are trying to trick you into watching their product.
With this in mind, I was mystified when I first saw the poster to the movie Lower Learning. Lower Learning is a comedy about high school teachers starring Jason Biggs, Eva Longoria, Monica Potter and Rob Corddry. Only three of the aforementioned actors are on the movie’s poster. One of them was placed front and center, with the other two stationed behind. Any guesses as to which one of the four was in the front?
That’s right. Rob Corddry.
I like Rob Corddry. I find him funny and I am always happy when a bald guy gets respect from marketers (yeah, Matt Hasselbeck!). However, that said, I am surprised as hell that this project had three above the title talents—the face of the billion dollar American Pie series, the face of one of the biggest television show hits of the last five years in Desperate Housewives and a guy who is best known for his work as a fake news correspondent on The Daily Show—and the powers-that-be decided to put the fake news guy front and center. How does this work?
* because people still do this.
Best Monologue:
THE HAMMER
Robert (Harold House Moore), Jerry (Adam Carolla) and Victor (Jonathan Hernandez) are driving from Phoenix to Los Angeles. During Robert’s turn to drive, he is pulled over by the police. Jerry is sleeping in the passenger seat and is woken by Robert. Robert begs Jerry to hop into the driver’s seat so that Robert won’t have to deal with the warrants that he has out on him. Jerry begrudgingly does so and is shocked to learn that Robert was pulled over for driving too slowly. 37 miles an hour in a 55, actually. This is what follows: JERRY: 37. 37. We're going 35 now and we're not moving! Hold on, let me do some rough math... We'll be back in LA in nine months! Or should we just stay here in neutral and hope that the earth just comes around underneath us? My walk to the van was faster than 37! What are we? 20 feet from Phoenix? 37. Do you understand that glaciers are kicking our ass?
Best Dialogue:
IN BRUGES
Ken and Ray are two hitmen hiding out in the Belgian city of Bruges. Ken Brendan Gleeson) is an older, more seasoned professional who is trying to make the best of their time there. Ray is a much younger, more rash fellow who has hated his time in Bruges from before the two got off the train there. This exchange takes place in downtown Bruges in front of the city’s famed bell tower. KEN: Are you coming up [to the top of the tower]?
RAY: What’s up there?
KEN: The view.
RAY: The view of what? The view of down here? I can see that down here.
KEN: Ray, you are about the worst tourist in the whole world.
RAY: Ken, I grew up in Dublin. I love Dublin. If I grew up on a farm and was retarded, Bruges might impress me. But I didn’t. So it doesn’t.
Most Bizarre Press Release:
From the KUNSTHAUS BREGENZ
Despite the fact that Stumped? is a film magazine, we’ve ended up on a lot of different press lists. As such, we get a lot of press releases that don’t seem like they’d fit with Stumped’s normal content… like the ones detailing how to cook a turkey or the ones from the “Save the Manatees” campaign. Yes, ‘ones’ plural. That said, some are genuinely bizarre. Like the one about finding a market for human kidneys. That was freaky. This year was not a banner year for this category, but there were still several press releases that seemed like legitimate contenders for the crown. The victor is the seven page, double-side press release that we received in August from the Kunsthaus Bregenz. It invited us to attend a press conference about an art exhibit by Jan Fabre that seemed to consist solely of a makeshift tent that Fabre had constructed 30 years ago.
Not only was it not apparent from the press release what, exactly, the exhibit was—I swear, I’ve read the release four times and the gallery genuinely seems to be putting a tent on display—but the press release contained the following bits of prose that would have seemed out of place in I Heart Huckabees: It* has emerged early on in what would become typical of Fabre’s work: the mirroring of the meaning of seeing as something that focuses inward and outward at the same time… The tent not only stands for a protective space but is also an archetype of risk, threat, and loss, conditions that would henceforth accompany Jan Fabre in his artist’s existence… [Fabre] experienced a reversal of the usual perceptual relationship between the work and the viewer: that not only does he gaze at the work, but the work also gazes at him.
Oh yeah, and the museum is almost 4,500 miles away from our office, in Austria.
* Normally, I’d replace the term ‘it’ in brackets with the term that ‘it’ is standing in for. However, in this case, I can’t discern whether the ‘it’ in question is referring to Fabre, a microscope or the tent, so I leave it be.
