Photo of the Week:
Dirty Love |
I don't know... I just don't know... Do I talk about Jenny McCarthy? Do I talk about bad publicity stills? Do I talk about how this photo makes me not want to see the movie Dirty Love? Do I talk about how I feel sorry for Eddie Kaye Thomas? I just don't know... Click to enlarge.
REVENGE OF THE NERDS, PART 1
When it comes to releasing special edition DVDs, the marketing teams come up with some really winning sub-titles... like The Revenge of the Nerds: The Panty Raid Edition
I was throwing out some old press releases that were on my desk and stumbled onto one for the release of a DVD for The Revenge of the Nerds. And, unfortunately, it’s come to this. The latest DVD of The Revenge of the Nerds is out and it’s titled The Revenge of the Nerds: The Panty Raid Edition. Apparently reasoning that titling the new DVD simply The Special Edition of The Revenge of the Nerds wasn’t funny (or stupid) enough, Fox gives you a “newly dorked-out DVD… [of] the Geek Revolution:” Yup, The Revenge of the Nerds: The Panty Raid Edition. Also available is a box set of all four of the Revenge of the Nerds movies. It is tastefully called The Atomic Wedgie Collection. I know what you’re thinking, “Wait, there's more than one Revenge of the Nerds movie?” The answer is yes… although the last two were made for TV, marking the first instance I can think of where made-for-television movies are packaged with feature films in the same box set. And while you might not be thinking this, the question needs to be asked nonetheless: How do the nerds end every movie by stealing the stunningly hot girlfriends of the preppy asshole athletes and having the jocks begrudgingly recognize them as being cool in their own way and then start the next movie being compared unfavorably to publicists, attorneys and Eric Roberts?”
REVENGE OF THE NERDS, PART 2
How to confuse people, amplify B-list star power and other PR tricks from the The Revenge of the Nerds: The Panty Raid Edition press release.
 Kudos go out to the Fox home entertainment publicists for crafting the following sentence in their press release announcing The Revenge of the Nerds: The Panty Raid Edition:
…Revenge of the Nerds was highlighted by the Adams College yearbook of such Hollywood A-listers and cult favorites as Anthony Edwards, Robert Carradine, Timothy Busfield, John Goodman, James Cromwell, Bernie Casey and Curtis Armstrong.
What Fox’s publicists did was a wonderfully artful trick that can well be illustrated here: prior to this week, only multiple Oscar winning actors, National League MVPs and Chris Neumer have written the bulk of the Ten Minute Guide. Budding publicists, take note: by including the phrase “Hollywood A-listers and…” before the phrase “cult favorites”, the listing of actors in the movie, the positive notion was planted (namely that Hollywood A-listers were in fact in the movie) and the publicists could truthfully name the cult favorite actors who actually were in the film. Carradine, Busfield, Casey and Armstrong have never been as happy as this. Hollywood A-listers? Half those actors are best known—check that—only known for their work in The Revenge of the Nerds; quick, name something that Carradine, Busfield, Casey or Armstrong were in besides this movie.* The only possible answers to this are I’m Gonna Git You Sucka for Casey and Ray for Armstrong. There are no other answers. If you know the filmographies of Carradine and/or Busfield off the top of your head, take it as a sign that maybe, just maybe, you should start tweaking your viewing choices or getting out a little more often. The Revenge of the Nerds: The Panty Raid Edition is currently available on DVD. From what I understand, it's newly dorked out too. JAMIE FOXX LOSES HIS MIND... AND HIS TEETH
Some actors go to great lengths to get into character. Jamie Foxx took a chisel to his teeth to prepare for The Soloist. Literally.
 There is a rather famous Hollywood story involving Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier. Working together on the seventies era thriller, The Marathon Man, the two came from very different backgrounds. Hoffman is a method actor. If he’s out of breath on camera, it’s probably because he was actually running before the scene started filming. Olivier is an actor. If he’s out of breath on camera, it’s because he is consciously breathing harder than usual. Rumor has it that Oliver showed up on set one morning and found Hoffman looking like absolute hell. Olivier questioned him about it and Hoffman explained that they were shooting a scene where his character had been up all night… so he’d stayed up all night to prepare. Olivier frowned at him and said, “Why not try acting, it’s far easier.” At this point in time, it doesn’t even matter whether this story is true or not. It’s such an established legend that its validity is secondary. I was reminded of this incident while reading an interview with Jamie Foxx this week in Maxim Magazine. Foxx revealed that, while attempting to get into character as a homeless man during pre-production of The Soloist, he had taken a chisel to his mouth and had “put a gap in my teeth. I had chipped one out with a chisel.” Foxx went on to explain that, “My teeth are just so big and white—a homeless person would never have them. I wanted to break up my big, shining piano keys to give them a little character. Some might think I fucked up my grill for nothing, but I just want to come up with some shit to make the part unique.” The only other actor I can think of who physically messed with his teeth for a role was Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber. Carrey had chipped one of his front teeth earlier in life and had his dentist take out the faux part of the tooth before shooting began. He did not, however, grab the nearest tool he could find and start whacking it against his teeth. Charlize Theron played a homeless prostitute in 2004’s Monster and even she did not stoop to this level of self-mutilation. She had a set of false teeth made that she could wear over her actual teeth. It’s what most (read: all) other actors do. I wonder if Foxx was aware of how unusual his method of preparation was and how bizarre the whole thing seems. Stated Foxx, “We’re all a little crazy out here in Hollywood, but going to that edge was really scary.” That would be an affirmative, ghostrider.* * I’m not even going to get into the whole part where Foxx lost track of what was actually happening to him on set that enabled him to make the comment, “Sometimes I didn’t know what was real.”
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"I think you should acquire a taste for opera, Robin, as one does for poetry and olives."- Adam West's Batman explains tolerance in Batman: The TV Series.
| Okay, We're Back on Track |  LINDSAY LOHAN HAS STOPPED MAKING SENSE Several weeks ago, I wrote of a strange occurrence that took place in Hollywood: Actress Lindsay Lohan had gotten politically involved and, what’s more, had written a thought-provoking blog entry about focusing on the presidential candidates policies instead of their personalities. I entitled the section “Lindsay Lohan is… Making Sense?” I mean, when that happens, you take notice. Well, things have reverted to their mean. Lohan is back in the headlines for realizing that she’s not gay, making a racial slur, giving her younger sister dating advice,* getting attacked by animal rights activists and for writing that Scarlett Johansson is “a bloody cunt” on a bathroom wall in New York City. And those are just the news stories of the last week! At least it’s good to be back in familiar territory. My favorite of the above Lohan stories is the one involving Johansson. Apparently, in 2006, Lohan went into a New York City club and wrote "Scarlett is a bloody cunt" on the wall. This surprised the hell out of Johansson because as she told Allure Magazine, "I only met [Lohan], like, three times." It must have been a very memorable three times. I wonder if it was possible that Lohan had a substance abuse problem at the time and this was one of the manifestations of that. Hmmmm..... * Hopefully this advice contained the words “Don’t date Wilmer Valderrama”.
5 Things I Learned
This Week | 1) It is not wise to drink directly out of the Brita. 2) According to a poll on oprah.com, 7 percent of women say they have an open marriage, while 14 percent of men say they do. 3) The song that UPS uses in all their whiteboard ads is by a group called The Postal Service. 4) Actor Thomas Ian Nicholas has an older brother named Timbo. 5) General Motors (GM) lost $2.5 billion in the third quarter of 2008. That’s more than $800 million a month! To put this in perspective, if you sold a single, used CD on eBay for $1.00 in July, August or September, you made more than $800 million dollars more than GM did during that time period.
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