A Little of the Old In and Out

In: A Life Aquatic. The Corsair elected to go to a screening yesterday (he rarely ever gets invited to these things), and while The Life Aquatic wasn't exactly what we were expecting (a two-year wait for a Noah Baumbach-Wes Anderson scripted film will raise one's expectations to ungodly levels, you know), it was a beautiful movie, visually -- lots of blues: baby blue, melancholy ocean-depth blues, 70s humanitarian "I'd-Like-To Buy-The-World-A-Coke" kind of blues, tiled-mosaic sauna blues, sky blues, &c -- and scriptwise (Murray to Oceanographic Academic-Credit Interns after a brutal Sea Hijacking by Pirates: "I can't pass you ... but I won't flunk you either -- you get Incompletes"), and music wise (lots of Portuguese guitar songs and Bowie laced with artfully placed Bach Passacaglias, fucking groovy job on scoring).

Cate Blanchett disappears into her role as an anxious, pregnant, Proust reading, bubble gum snapping National Geographic reporter with a dead-on BBC accent, expressing the subtle body movements that are particular to each character she has invented. Watching Blanchett inhabit the inner psyches of these always original characters, giving these character-specific hand or body movements, The Corsair, BTW, calls this activity-process "Blanchetting" -- observe her astonishing, hard driving, hand waving, chain smoking Veronica Guerin -- is alone worth the price of admission.

This woman is unstoppable; when all is said and done Blanchett will be ranked favorably among the ferociously gifted Liv Ullman -- whom The Corsair believes to be the greatest actor of all time -- and Marlon Brando and Meryl Streep as lo ultimo, the industry standard, the best, mark my words on this.

But it was Bill Murray that stole the show for me, especially when he picks up his pistol and leads "Team Zissou" (clad in nifty Tara Subkoff numbers) in the films many 70s cop drama inspired shootouts (Think SWAT or Baretta, but on the deep sea, and with pirates, or Corsairs). You know how emotional The Corsair gets about Bill Murray, who starred in "meatballs," the first movie we ever saw, that which began our love affair with film.

As in Lost in Translation, Murray's performance here is more one of subtraction than of addition, underplayed, muted, Zen, he unifies all the pop culture Bill Murrays -- the world weary angsty Murray ("Where has all my talent gone?"), the casual bathrobe-wearing smoothie charmer (Lost in Translation) and, from SNL, the essentially smart allecky arrogant 70s working class Second City comedian who is just as likely to punch you out as tell you a joke. All these past selves merge in a whisper, not a cacophony, as one might expect. Such is the brilliance of Bill Murray.

It's not a perfect film, it rambles -- it is not inconceiveable that there is too much talent involved inthe writing of this film, too many competing visions may be at work here-- but if you liked that Armagnac-warm, smart comedy, Royal Tennenbaums and if you adored the rich, beautiful latticework of the philosophical comedy I Heart Huckabees -- and The Corsair did, as he loves "eccentric" arthouse fare and looks for any excuse in justifying his degree in philosophy -- you'll want to see this. Maybe twice to savor all the subtle textures in play.

Out: Brian Williams. Blogger bashing cabbage patch himbo Brian Williams got a bit of a bounce from Tom Brokaw's picture perfect retirement. Riding the Brokaw coattails, Monday's DrudgeReport screamed, congratulatory, "NBCNIGHTLY BRIAN WILLIAMS WINS BIG IN MONDAY NEWS RACE WITH 8.0 RATING/13 SHARE OVER ABCWORLD JENNINGS 7.3/13 OVER CBSEVENING RATHER 5.1/9 .... " But is Bry guy starting to slide already? Today, DrudgeReports:

"CAN NBCNEWS BRIAN WILLIAMS STOP THE SLIDE?

"Mon: 8.0 rating, Tues: 7.4, Wed: 7.2 ..."

Looks like the blush is off the rose, Brian (The Corsair cracks his knuckles and evilly smirks, then whispers, "It's on!").

In: The Carmen Zeta Booty. WhereforeartthouCarmenZetaBooty? The Corsair is "Jonesing" for the CarmenZetaJonesBooty (TM).

When The Corsair first read the following piece, he said, at first, no fucking way. But, yes, yes way. But no one's got pimpgame that tight, he thought to himself. The CZJ does, however. But, but -- how do you keep a sex addict off The Carmen Zeta Booty (TM)? C'est impossible! TheCarmenZetaBooty(TM) cannot be resisted. For all of three quarters of a year, they tell us. She pimps in mysterious ways. Ananova reports:

"Catherine Zeta Jones has claimed she made husband Michael Douglas wait nine months before bedding her.

"The 35-year-old Welsh actress said she banned sex with the 60-year-old actor until she got to know him better reports The Sun quoting Harper's Bazaar magazine.

"She said: 'I wanted to know who he was. It was wonderful, like a sexual dance, making us want each other more.'"

Damn. Not even a BJ on the side? CZJ has got an elaborate, labyrinthine, kaleidescopic-pimptastic game. She pimps hard, and pimping aint easy; her game is tight. We're not even talking about how she came out of the Welsh backwater from nowhere and snatched an Oscar that has eluded people like Bill Murray. CZJ eats men for breakfast, that woman does. Something, though, tells me she will be a force of nature after Michael Douglas kicks the bucket and she, still relatively young, and The Corsair guesses, still hott, will inherit the motherlode.

Then, freed from playing the Oscarworthy role of jet set wifey, we'll see the real CZJ. And, dear readers, it will be magnificent to behold.

And all that Jazz ...

Out: Arnold. LA.com tells us that Jamie Lee Curtis has a wardrobe malfunction in front of The Governator:

The LA Times reports that at yesterday's California Governor's Conference on Women and Families Jamie Lee Curtis--who introduced the Governator--had a Tara Reid moment when her blouse came unbuttoned revealing her rack.

"'I didn't see anything, Maria,' Schwarzenegger said to laughs."

Oh, ha-ha-ha, that was a sly reference to your infidelity-laden sexual harassment days, hahaha. Funny.

In: Michael Stipe on the media. Papermag.com has an interesting interview this month between Jonathan Durbin and Michael Stipe of REM:

"JD: To my mind, the biggest media fumble recently was the Rathergate scandal at CBS -- and who knows if it was true.

"MS: You mean the purportedly falsified documents from Bush's National Guard service? I don't think it was ever proven that those were falsified, was it? It just kind of dropped. Basically, the table got turned on CBS and Dan Rather. Everyone just put their hands up and backed out of the room. I find that really disappointing. We've been doing 'What's the Frequency, Kenneth?' and sending that out to Dan Rather almost every night. [The song's title refers to a bizarre 1986 incident in which Rather was assaulted and beaten by a man who was screaming the phrase.]

"JD: Did Dan Rather ever get in touch with you about that song?

"MS: Oh, yeah. He sang it with us, in fact. It was nuts. He's a great guy with a tremendous sense of humor."