A Little of the Old In and Out



(image via strangecosmos)

In: The Ken Auletta-Katie Couric Article. Nut-brown mantanned media scribbler Ken Auletta does a portrait of Katie Couric in thousands and thousands of cascading words in this week's New Yorker. For those with ADHD, this is what it all boils down to: Katie is no longer a Katie, but not quite yet a Katherine, ya dig? All those untold millions in salary and perks have created a disconnect between her current incarnation and Middle America.

(Note: Auletta's article is repeatedly punctuated with brutal smackdowns in parenthesis noting the absolute irrelevance of CBS' The Morning Show)

Replacement time? --Can you say Kelly Ripa?



(image via BBC)

Out: The Game. Is The Game over? According to the 3AM Girls:

"We hear the protege of Dr Dre was due to attend a party for clothing kings Projekts NYC at London club Attica on Saturday.

"But when the venue's owners got wind of his 'gangsta' reputation, they got cold feet. A source tells us: 'Blue's Simon Webbe had been hanging out with The Game and called the party's promoters to ask if he could bring someone along. He was told it would be fine but when Attica's owners found out, they asked door staff to bar him.

"'They heard that The Game had a reputation and an enormous entourage, and they didn't want any sort of trouble.'"



(image via secondtuesday)

In: Musto on The Wedding Crashers. Frankly, The Corsair skipped The Wedding Crashers on the grounds that we never quite got the whole concept of Vince Vaughn. The Godlike Michael Musto, who gives a favorable review to The Aristocrats (Ed Note: The Aristocrats is a Corsair advertiser), then gets all Roger Ebert on The Wedding Crashers' slatternly ass:

" ... I just belatedly caught up with Wedding Crashers and found it a somewhat overrated romp suffused with an obligatory dose of gay panic. The comedy has a gross, psychotic (if at least artistic) queer character who blindly dives on VINCE VAUGHN as Vaughn curls his little nose in revulsion. (It's true, JANE SEYMOUR's character does pretty much the same thing to OWEN WILSON, but he ends up sort of cottoning to the idea.) What's more, the film panders to its audience by working horrid remarks into the script and then discounting them�a clever way to have your bitter cake and eat it too. 'Homo!' shrieks the demented granny character about the aforementioned psychofag, and the audience howls with glee. 'That's no way to talk,' instructs a younger character, making it all OK."

You tell 'em, Musto.



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Out: Jose Canseco, Man-Beast, Damned, Dirty Ape. Has Jose Canseco -- he of the jutting horsejaw -- even even attained the upright posture? Doubtful. He seems Neanderthalic, monosyllabic, bestial, oily, devoid of higher thought, -- Schwarzeneggerish even -- but not quite human. Jose Canseco is an intermediary life form between man and simian. And yet, as testament to the fetid decline of Western Civilization, Canseco-beast has a bestseller, a VH1 show, ogling groupies (AKA, "low-grade pieces of ass"), and, now, once more, largesse!

It boggles the imagination. It drives us to distraction. According to those fabulous Page Sixxies:

"THAT as soon as Jose Canseco showed off his naked torso on 'The Surreal Life,' the casting director for 'Charmed' called the retired slugger to book him for a guest-star spot. His manager, Bob DeBrino, is also mulling offers from producers who want to make a movie version of his best-selling memoir, 'Juiced'"

Canseco probably has all sorts of original animal senses and "rib busting ox-strengths" that we, as homo-erectus, gave up when we left the treetops and became civilized. He must emit some sort of pheromone cocktail that is irresistible to media executives.



(image via reelparadise)

In: Reel Paradise. The Corsair cannot wait to go to this screening. It looks to be an indie sleeper. According to Indiewire:

"Steve James' latest documentary 'Reel Paradise,' featuring indie guru John Pierson, his wife Janet, and their two children, will debut theatrically in New York later this month before expanding to theaters in Los Angeles and then other markets. Wellspring is opening the movie at the new IFC Center in Manhattan on August 17th. IFC is close to a deal to handle the cable debut of the doc, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this year before screening at SXSW and other festivals this spring and summer.

"The Miramax film has followed a rather unique route to theaters since James visited the Pierson family in Fiji where three years ago they ran the small 180 Meridian Cinema offering free screenings for locals in remote Taveuni.

" ... Pierson family friends Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier of View Askew executive produced the doc (Pierson repped their debut film 'Clerks' more than ten years ago, making a deal with Harvey Weinstein that led to a long-term relationship between the Weinsteins and View Askew); Miramax financed the film but last year the Indiewood company ultimately agreed to sell it off as big changes took place inside the company and the Weinstein brothers announced their departure. Cinetic Media stepped in to broker a deal and at SXSW this year, Wellspring's Marie Therese Guirgis and Ryan Werner saw the film, met with the Piersons, and began pursuing a deal for the movie.

" ... The film not only offers the story of a family, but also gives a unique look at the impact of popular American movies on people living in a remote village. Crediting James, John Pierson explained back in March that what he likes about 'Reel Paradise' is that it 'allows people to enter a world and not necessarily come out feeling exactly the same about it.'

"'Certainly one of the defining characteristics of 'Reel Paradise' is the honest - sometimes joyous sometimes painful - depiction of their lives in Fiji,' added James in his directors statement. 'The film is neither a Pollyanna portrait of the Piersons nor, for that matter, of the Fijians. The film shows that life is hard there in differing ways for both the family and locals.'"

We're so there.



(image via ananova)

Out: Joe Jackson. No, no, no -- contrary to rumor: Joe Jackson did not shoot Bubbles the chimpanzee after catching him and his son in a post-coital embrace. But, yes, he did beat Jacko with a "switch and a belt" when he misbehaved. Perhaps that's why Michael decided to diss his pops. From WorldofWonder:

"(Michael Jackson's father) so framed the Berlin Estrel hotel, telling them all his family, including Michael, would attending for his 76th. They got him 120 rooms including the president's suite for free, the mayor throw a reception, the media even was buying the story Michael would move to Berlin since he was looking at property. But then a day before, Michael send a 'sorry I cannot come, but love u all' message from Bahrain. Janet and LaToya claimed to have missed their flights. In the end Joe was sitting with Jermaine in a big ball room, eating golden eggs and on stage was a Michael impersonator, who sung: 'Happy birthday daddy.' Then he got a tart with a female stripper jumping out and he was signing her bare breasts. It was so sad."

Not if those eggs were sunny side up.