Planet Utah

What's Daisy doing now?

Last night I watched a generally unamusing movie called "Death at a Funeral." The cast was largely British and unknown, but there was one face that seemed familiar to me. I looked up the movie in the IMDB and found the name associated with the person I thought I recognized: Daisy Donovan.

If you know her at all, it is from the seemingly endless stream of commercials that appeared on TBS in 2005, touting her new show, "Daisy Does America" (produced by Courtney Cox and David Arquette). Remember those? Anyway, the show lasted a full two months, consisting of eight episodes, all unseen by me. Then it was gone.

I think this is one of a handful of cases in which the promos for a television show actually had a longer run than the show itself. ("Emily's Reasons Why Not," that ill-fated and short-lived Heather Graham thing, is another.)

Reno 9-1-1 is funnier than I am

Do you ever watch this show? It's laugh-out-loud funny (or at least chuckle audibly funny). If you ever watch a crappy network sitcom, you can see the jokes coming a mile away. That's because they're patently obvious, and/or you've seen them before.

My experience watching Reno 9-1-1, however, is that I never see the joke coming. I mean, I know there IS a joke coming, and I think I have an idea of what it's going to be, but the joke is always different from, and better than, whatever I was thinking.

So, although the show might have the look of something made on a low budget by some no-talent wannabees, it is definitely worth your time.

What's the deal with Christian Bale?

I'm pretty sure this guy is British, and I'm pretty sure that when he's home with his wife (sorry, ladies) he speaks with a British accent. In every movie I've seen, though, he speaks without an accent...or at least without a British accent. Now, that's not necessarily a big deal. Most actors from the UK have to be able sound like an American if they want to work consistently over here. Guys like Bale and Colin Farrell can do it in their sleep; they probably even snore like Americans. (As far as Colin Farrell goes, we could ask the Olsen twins, or Courtney Love, or Dame Judi Dench if we wanted to be sure.)

So far, so good. Here's the weird part, though: I've seen Christian Bale interviewed a couple of times, and he sounded like an American. That means one of two things. Either I'm wrong about him, and he really doesn't have a natural British accent, OR, he's one of those method actor weirdos who doesn't leave the role behind when he leaves the set. So, if he happens to be playing an American, then he's an American 24/7 until filming is done. I think this might be what's going on, seeing as how he lost like half his body weight to play "The Machinist."

Anybody know for sure? And if you want to earn bonus points, you'll tell me what Anthony LaPaglia's real accent is, too--Australian? unaccented American? New Yorker?

Footnote: and just because I love you, I want to link you to some exceedingly creepy pictures of Tara Reid, of whom I was reminded when I was thinking about Christian Bale in "The Machinist":

Tara Reid in desperate need of medical attention (and a few dozen Carl's Jr. quadruple-cheeseburgers)

Let's not forget, there was a time when this girl was healthy-looking, and gorgeous. It's really sad that she looks in the mirror and prefers the stick-figure image to healthier one. I wonder if Jennifer Love-Hewitt could provide some counseling? I know, I know. I'm part of the problem...

The utter pettiness of our celebrity culture

I don't have anything original to say on this subject. I have been astounded in recent days, however, to see: a) a magazine cover devoted to how Trista Rehn lost 30 pounds; and b) news stories speculating on whether or not Tom Brady is losing his hair.

The second one of these is actually slightly less offensive to me. Tom Brady is an incredibly accomplished athlete. He's done something in life worth paying attention to. I'm not sure why anyone would care about his hair loss, but I can see, at least, why people are interested in HIM.

But Trista Rehn? What in God's name has she done to merit anyone's attention? She was on a reality TV show five years ago. In my book, that alone doesn't make her worth our attention. But even if your life is so empty that you want to know more about her, didn't her 15 minutes come and go around 2003? What could possibly be interesting about her in 2008?

Well, she lost 30 pounds. So maybe all you new moms can take some inspiration from that. Maybe, but highly doubtful. The reason she was on TV in the first place is that she is genetically blessed. Plus, she managed to parlay her reality TV fame into a lot of cash -- cash that can pay for personal trainers, nannies to watch the kids while she works out, healthy foods instead of McDonald's, etc.

Does her experience really say anything to you about your life?

Jordin Sparks and America Ferrara are the same person

Here's one. Here's the other.

Now think about it. Have you ever seen them at a party together?

Conservatives and movies

There's been some grumbling among Reagan officials about the new Tom Hanks movie, "Charlie Wilson's War." It's standard stuff -- "this is a movie made by Hollywood liberals, reflecting their political agenda rather than the truth."

Liberals will deny this, of course. The smarter ones, though, will respond as follows: "If you don't like our movies, make your own." Then conservatives will say, "We can't get our movies made in Hollywood. The studios are dominated by liberals." Then liberals will say, "Liberals, conservatives, whatever -- we're all interested in the same thing: money. You show a studio that a movie will make money, and they'll make the movie. Money is the only language that Hollywood really understands." Then conservatives will say, "Really? It doesn't look that way. Take the Iraq war, for example, and the war on terror. A handful of movies have come out in the past six months that were ambivalent toward the war or altogether anti-war, and each one bombed. Why haven't we seen any movies that are more supportive of the war?"

And so on.

I think that liberals get the better of this argument, and they get it in the first quote in the previous paragraph: "If you don't like our movies, make your own." All by himself, Mel Gibson has enough money to establish a studio dedicated to making nothing but conservative movies. So, maybe Mel doesn't want to step up to the plate. But if you passed around a hat to American conservatives interested in such an undertaking, you could raise billions and billions of dollars in start-up capital. Then, either the studio would make money or it wouldn't. If it lost money, conservatives could decide that the mission of the studio was important enough to keep it open as a money-losing venture. (That's what happens at National Review, by the way. It doesn't turn a profit; it's kept open by contributions--not subscription fees and advertising revenues, but actual contributions--from guys like me.) If it made money, well, all the better.

Either way, conservatives would have an outlet for the films they would like to see made. There's nothing stopping them other than the will to do it.

Name the artist

Who recently said the following?

"I'm working on my record right now, actually. I've been in the studio and it's going really well. I'm really excited. It's going to be more urban pop.... It's good to be back in the studio."

Lindsay Lohan, of all people. I'll be you she's the ONLY one who's really excited.

The difference between Bonds and Clemens

Now that Roger Clemens has been implicated in the MLB steroid scandal, many baseball fans are saying, "If you're not as hard on Clemens as you've been on Bonds, that proves you're racist."

Does it? Not necessarily.

Bonds is a tool, a jerk, a racist (in the sense that he associates white America with undesirable, racially motivated behavior).

Clemens is a tough guy, a good 'ol boy, a lovable rogue.

We like Clemens. We don't like Bonds. That's one reason we're harder on Bonds. It's not all about race.

You want proof? Well, how hard have we been on Marion Jones? She's black, she was on the juice, she lied about it, and she got caught. So, have we come down on her the same way we have on Bonds? Nope. Why not? Part of it, undoubtedly, is that she's not as high profile a figure as Bonds is. But part of it, too, is that she's not an arrogant jerk in the way that Bonds is. She was humble in her success, and she's now (apparently) contrite in her humiliation.

And how hard were we on Shawn Kemp for fathering 40 or 50 kids and not taking responsibility for them? Not very. Why? Because by the time we found that out, he was already in the second tier of NBA stars, about 10 LBS away from the third tier. He didn't merit the attention of a Bonds. But if Dog the Bounty Hunter says the word "nigger"--a much smaller offense, if you ask me, than fathering and abandoning a bunch of kids--we're ALL over that. Why? Because Dog is on our TVs every day.

All I'm saying is that it's a multivariate world, and race is just one variable. So let's not get carried away...

Depends how important boobs are to you

Would you cheat on this girl with this girl? Well, the latter says that's exactly what happened. And Tony Parker has issued a classic non-denial denial.

We report, you decide.

P.S. As for me, no, I would not cheat on Girl #1 with Girl #2. I would have married Girl #2 in the first place.

Speaking of guarantees

Flipping around channels last night, I saw Perez Hilton on Jimmy Kimmel. The former said, quite seriously, that Fidel Castro was dead. Kimmel laughed and asked how Mr. Hilton knew this. Hilton said that he had impeccable sources, and that he could guarantee that we would never see Fidel Castro alive again. Kimmel asked, "Okay, if you're going to guarantee it, what are you prepared to do if you're wrong?" Hilton said, "I'll go straight."

Again, that's a SERIOUS guarantee.