19 April, 2006 | Comments

Congrats to Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes on the birth of their baby girl! And I like the name Suri. It’s catchier than Press Release.

11 April, 2006 | 1 Comment

I have been at my computer for 14 hours straight. Deadline hell. My back hurts. My head hurts. Life is cruel.

I’ve been listening to my iPod all day. I rediscovered Vitalogy by Pearl Jam. This is a good album. Whatever happpened to Eddie Vedder? Is he still kicking around? Now that I’m over 30, music news doesn’t penetrate my brain. (As evidenced by the fact that I still use the word “album.”)

I read that Gwyneth Paltrow named her latest spawn Moses. Apple and Moses? Ridiculous. I realize I have a weird name too, and a Biblical one at that, but at least my name doesn’t conjure up images of Charlton Heston.

Good night.

28 March, 2006 | 5 Comments

My recent post on sperm got me to thinking. If I don’t meet Mr. Right (or Mr. Uh, I Guess So) in the next few years, I might need to cash in my gift certificate to the Celebrity Sperm Bank. I swear, you can spend hours looking through their catalogue. I have narrowed down my selection to two choices:

Donor A

I’m leaning towards Donor B because I have some concerns about Donor A. If my child were a boy, I could end up with a womanizing, telephone-throwing Australian brat on my hands, and really, who has time for that? Granted, I don’t know much about Donor B, but he doesn’t seem like the type to start bar brawls or have affairs with the likes of Meg Ryan.I must admit that I did also consider Tom Cruise’s sperm (it was on clearance). I know, I know, he’s a brainwashed cult member. But I saw Top Gun about 15 times in 1986, as did most American chicas my age, and so there will always be a soft spot in my heart for Tommy. But it looks like that bitch Katie Holmes got injected with the last of his seed.So I guess I’ll have to settle for the sperm of a smouldering heterosexual instead. Life could be worse.

15 March, 2006 | 4 Comments

Pretty boy George has recently blogged on The Huffington Post. His entry is called I am a liberal. There, I said it!

Hmmm, is this really a news flash? If looney Clooney wants to help the liberal cause, keeping his mouth shut should be a top priority.

Sadly, George isn’t a very good writer. He should stick to looking pretty and secretly dating soft-core porn stars. But he does have over 1300 comments so far. My readers are slackers!

**UPDATE**
Pretty boy claims he didn’t write the blog. Scandal has erupted. Click here if you give a damn.

15 March, 2006 | 1 Comment

I’m no fan of Michael Douglas, but even he hates Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. From the AP:

“‘I don’t know about Brad Pitt, leaving that beautiful wife to go hold orphans for Angelina,’ Douglas snipes in GQ’s April issue, hitting newsstands March 21. ‘I mean, how long is that going to last?’”

Ha, ha, ha!

Perhaps Douglas shouldn’t throw stones, given his ridiculous marriage to Catherine Zeta-Jones. But on the other hand, he knows a thing or two about Hollywood’s sham marriages. Brangelina is just evil. They are evil, I tell you!

12 March, 2006 | Comments

I should really do a web search of my blog name more often. I just discovered that on February 10th, Anglofille got a little bit of coverage in Slate magazine. They have a column called “Today’s Blogs,” which provides a round-up of the hot topics being discussed in cyberspace that day. And my post on HBO’s hillbilly perv drama Big Love got a rather nice paragraph, which you can read here (scroll down towards the bottom). The author of the column (who has his own blog) referred to me as a “Latter-Day Londoner,” which is not true, but I’ve been called worse. Hooray for Anglofille! You can read my original post here.

Big Love premiered tonight on HBO. Did anyone watch it? USA Today gave it a bad review. NPR seems to have done a lot of coverage on it. One of their reporters even sat down with “real-life” polygamists and had them watch the first episode. (I refuse to listen to this.) If NPR can find these polygamists, why can’t the police? Well, I guess that’s obvious. They’re not looking for them.

15 February, 2006 | 2 Comments

Bastards. I switched my iTunes account from the US to the UK because there’s a song on the UK version that I desperately wanted. Instead of paying .99 cents (equal to .56p) for a song, I had to pay the equivalent of $1.27 (.79p). What’s up with that? If I weren’t too lazy to switch my account back to my US credit card, I’d do it! But no, instead, I will stand in solidarity with the people of the UK and Europe who are being ripped off. Luckily, I downloaded the Brokeback Mountain soundtrack before making the switch. Whew. Saved almost $4 (£2.30) on that little doozy.

10 February, 2006 | 5 Comments

Thanks to William for alerting me to HBO’s new series called Big Love, which stars Bill Paxton as a polygamist in Utah married to three women. The show is actually set in the real Utah town where I spent more than a decade of my growing up years. Oy vey.

Big Love is apparently going to be a high-profile venture, given that it is produced by Tom Hanks and is premiering March 12th after The Sopranos. In the show, Paxton plays a businessman who owns three homes that sit side-by-side; each home contains one of his wives and the kids she has produced. Watch a preview here.

Not surprisingly, given that this is HBO, the show seems to be one big sex romp. The main joke is that Paxton’s character has to take tons of Viagara. HAHAHAHAHA! I swear, you cannot pay these Hollywood scribes enough. I mean, polygamist…taking…Viagara! Hot damn, that’s some cutting edge programming.

The Mormon Church and some conservative groups have condemned the show and have asked HBO to run a disclaimer stating that “plural marriage” is no longer an official practice of the LDS church. Perhaps HBO, privy to the news events of this week, will decide it’s wise to run the disclaimer. After all, they don’t want Bill Paxton taken hostage and beheaded by an angry mob. God-fearing people are the scariest kind.

I have mixed feelings about this show. Well, that’s not entirely true. I think it’s stupid and I wish it didn’t exist. But since it does, I’m glad that the Mormon Church and the people of Utah will once again be shamed on the international stage for the disgusting and degrading practice of polygamy. Despite being outlawed by the Church over a century ago (ahem), it is still practiced by tens of thousands of people in Utah and the Colorado/Arizona border towns. Church leaders and government officials have done virtually nothing to put a stop to a practice that often sees very young girls (we’re talking 12-year-olds) “married” to 60-year-old men. The whole state deserves to suffer from the stigma and ridicule that continues to be heaped upon them.

I am disturbed, however, that the show is making polygamy seem sexy. Yes, I realize that this is HBO, whose idea of realism is Sex and the City. But the general public is for the most part completely ignorant of Mormon practices and life in Utah. I hope that Big Love does not lead uninformed couch potatoes to think that polygamy is just another lifestyle choice. It’s not.

Having lived in Utah, a place that probably has more polygamists than anywhere outside of the Middle East, I know a few things about polygamy. I’ve known polygamists, including a family with a living situation similar to the one portrayed in Big Love. From my knowledge and experience, polygamists are:

1) Desperate losers who no one else would marry
2) Crazy
3) Religious fanatics
4) Wife beaters and child rapists
5) Butt ugly
6) Violent thugs
7) Uneducated, inbred freaks who make the average Jerry Springer Show guest look like Albert Einstein

I am not exaggerating. Polygamous families operate like cults. Extremely violent cults. Think Waco and David Koresh. That’s the kind of mentality that exists. Most of the women in polygamous relationships grew up in this cult-like environment and were “married” as very young girls to old men. These women are uneducated and disempowered. There are privately-run shelters in Salt Lake City (like the one operated by Tapestry) for women and girls trying to escape from polygamy. These women fear for their lives and rightly so. Polygamy in Utah has a long history of murder and violence. There are small towns in Utah, Colorado and Arizona that are by run by polygamous cult leaders, Colorado City being the most famous example. In these towns, even the police are polygamists, meaning that widespread crimes like child rape and domestic violence go unpunished. I know it’s hard to believe that such things are happening right now in America, but I assure you that they are. Click here for more info. With rare exceptions, the authorities in Utah stand by and do nothing. They claim it’s impossible to prove charges of polygamy, given that the participants are not legally married. My theory is that state officials, almost all of them Mormon, cannot condemn these modern-day polygamists without also condemning their own lineage and the church founders.

You may be wondering how a man can support seven wives and 40 children. Well, he’s not supporting them. The American taxpayer is. Polygamists drain the welfare system. Because the wives are not legally married to the husband, they are considered single mothers. The few prosecutions of polygamists that I’ve seen involve welfare fraud.

So HBO can show Bill Paxton sleeping with three different glamorous women, popping his Viagara and having a grand old time. Meanwhile, thousands of innocent victims caught up in the web of polygamy will continue to suffer because no one will help them. They’re an embarrassing secret and it’s just easier to pretend they don’t exist.

12 January, 2006 | 2 Comments

Add white baby to Benetton collection of children

Buy Super Dad coffee mug for Brad

Legally change name to Saint Angelina Jolie-Pitt

Purchase stretch mark cream

Jet to Third-World disaster scenes as necessary

[Note to self: Search for photogenic orphans while at aforementioned disasters]

Hire wet nurse (no implants!)

19 December, 2005 | Comments

Miss me? I needed to take a few days off. End of the term. I had a lot of essays to grade.

This little news item from the Associated Press caught my eye. We all know that celebrities (and the rich in general) have prenuptial agreements. After all, their “marriages” are more like corporate mergers. But who knew these legal pacts were so detailed?

Some agreements stipulate ridiculous things, like requiring a man to pay his wife $10,000 every time he is rude to her parents. Other marital contracts include provisions for random drug testing, while others (like the one between Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones) include a fidelity clause. However, this wins the prize as the most nauseating: One celeb agreement actually limits the wife’s weight to 120 pounds. If she gains, she gives up $100,000 of her private assets. Now wouldn’t you just love to meet the sorry excuse for a woman who signed that?

28 November, 2005 | 3 Comments

You may have been stuffing your face and shopping during this holiday weekend, but don’t feel guilty. Angelina Jolie tended to the poor and the needy on your behalf, consoling survivors in earthquake-ravaged Pakistan as an ambassador for the UN. She has atoned for your gluttonous sins.

News reports of Angelina’s latest humanitarian mission have prompted this rant. Enjoy.

Only a few short years ago, Angelina Jolie was Hollywood’s wild child, a former drug addict who French kissed her brother in public, wore a vial of Billy Bob Thornton’s blood around her neck, and had a penchant for self-mutilation. But now she is no longer the actress renowned more for her silicone-plumped lips than for her acting ability. Now she is Saint Angelina. I predict that at next year’s Oscar ceremony, she may ascend directly to heaven in a burst of golden light.

Angelina’s miraculous transformation can be traced back to her adoption of son Maddox in 2002. The entertainment media (and by extension the news media in general, since there is very little difference nowadays) lionizes celebrity motherhood, tracing the stars’ growing “bumps” with glee (and then ridiculing them later if they don’t slim down fast enough). After the birth, the new celeb mamas predictably gush that their lives are forever changed, that winning an Oscar cannot compare to wiping up baby sick. Welcome to the 1950s! Meanwhile, regular women are left to feel inadequate in the face of such media spin, which seems completely believable to most people.

Angelina Jolie cleverly zoomed past all of the unpleasant pregnancy business. No stretch marks or weight gain for her! By adopting an orphan from Cambodia, Angelina became not only an instant mother but a champion of the underprivileged children of the world. Almost instantaneously, Angelina ceased to be a weirdo in the eyes of the media and became Super Mom instead. Only motherhood could have bestowed such veneration upon her talentless shoulders. And it only helped Angelina’s image that Billy Bob appeared to end their relationship over the adoption. Angelina sacrificed her marriage for motherhood!

The new activist version of Saint Angelina became a Goodwill Ambassador for the U.N., which means, essentially, that the taxpayers are financing her worldwide exploits (and I do mean that literally). Images of her making out with Billy Bob on the red carpet have been replaced by photos of her in a business suit sitting next to Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton. Her T&A film roles are carefully balanced with paparazzi shots of her carting Cambodian tot Maddox all over the world like a Birkin Bag. The media cannot get enough and neither can the public, apparently.

Further proof of Angelina’s sainthood is obvious to anyone who’s been following the celebrity news story of the year. Under normal circumstances, when Brad Pitt dumped America’s Sweetheart Jennifer Aniston for another woman, the other woman would have been vilified by the press. But unfortunately for Aniston, the other woman in this case was Saint Angelina. So Aniston became the villain instead, portrayed as a selfish career woman with a barren womb who sent her husband rushing to the maternal bosom of Jolie. By all accounts, this is a complete fabrication in every way, yet the media ran with it. Poor Brad! All he wanted was a baby. And now he has not only little Maddox to call him papa but Jolie’s newest acquisition, Ethiopian baby Zahara. Here’s Brad carrying Zahara through an airport this weekend:

Awwwwwwwww! Isn’t an African baby the perfect accessory?

Brad Pitt is clearly an asshole. But I wonder if Saint Angelina actually believes her own press by now? Her father, Jon Voight, famously said in a TV interview a few years ago that his daughter is mentally ill. While he didn’t get specific, my guess is that she does believe her own messianic press. I mean, sista ain’t that good of an actress.

I cannot recall another situation where a Hollywood star has so radically changed her image, especially in such a short period of time. Of course, Tom Cruise did it in reverse this summer, shattering his carefully constructed façade of normalness to reveal the brainwashed cult member and all-around nutjob within. (God, that was fun to witness.) But Saint Angelina’s extreme makeover is fascinating because it so obviously highlights the sexism, conservatism and utter shallowness of today’s media. I know, what a shock.

23 November, 2005 | Comments

You’ll be relieved to know that the noxious trend of reality television thrives on both sides of the Atlantic. In fact, I think it may be even more popular in the UK, which seems to be the launching pad for many shows that find their way to the States.

Yours truly rarely indulges in reality TV, though if I had been living here earlier this year, I would have watched famous feminist author Germaine Greer lose her mind and become a contestant on Celebrity Big Brother. However, last night I forced myself to watch an episode of I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! I only watched so I could report on it for my faithful blog readers, of course. The latest series of the pointless show features a plethora of mostly D-list British celebrities who are stranded in the Australian outback where only one will survive to the end. (Unfortunately, they won’t be fighting each other to the death.) But there is one American in the group, Utah’s own goody two-shoes Jimmy Osmond. Last night, the younger sibling of Donnie and Marie was locked in a pen with angry kangaroos. And did I mention one of his mates on the Survivor-esque show is Carol Thatcher, daughter of Margaret? Perhaps the Bush twins have a future after all.

22 November, 2005 | Comments

The BBC has gone mad for Shakespeare. This fall, on television and radio, they are filling the airwaves with the Bard. The centrepiece of this extravaganza is four dramas airing on BBC One. Each drama is a modern reinterpretation of a Shakespeare play, set in modern-day Britain and sans the highfalutin language. Much Ado About Nothing was transplanted to a news studio in Wessex. The contemporary MacBeth was about chefs in a top restaurant. The shrew in last night’s The Taming of the Shrew was a Tory MP. And the upcoming A Midsummer’s Night Dream is set in a leisure park. Not surprisingly, many critics are having a hissy fit about this sacrilege. According to the Guardian: “The Shakespeare season is inventive, often wildly so, brave, and occasionally interesting. It is also a tragic failure and a dreadful waste of money.”

Oh, shut up!

I did not watch the first two dramas. I’m not glued to the TV, people! But I could not resist The Taming of the Shrew last night. It’s about gender politics and Rufus Sewell plays Petruchio. It’s hard for a gal to pass up Rufus, let me tell you. The Shrew was directed by a woman, which was a smart move. For those not familiar with the utterly misogynist plot of the play, you can read an overview here. In a nutshell, an ill-tempered woman is married off and forced into submission by a brute of a husband. Wrote one critic: “The conclusion of Taming of the Shrew - in which Kate submits to the rule of her husband - is so at odds with modern gender politics that some refuse to perform the original text.”

In large part, much of last night’s retelling was an almost-successful satire about women and power and relationships. Kate is a young Tory MP (and all-around nasty person) who wants to try for the party leadership, but she’s not married and people think she’s a lesbian. Uh oh! Petruchio is an aristocrat with a title and lots of debt who wants to marry a rich broad. They meet in an elevator and one week later they’re married. He shows up for their wedding drunk, wearing stiletto boots and a miniskirt. Oh, did I mention he likes to dress up in ladies’ clothes? (Somehow, Rufus still manages to look quite smouldering in purple eye shadow.) Kate didn’t know about the cross-dressing and they start their honeymoon in a massive battle, with Kate threatening divorce.

Eventually, Petruchio “tames” his shrew while they’re in Italy. Because Kate is so monstrous, it’s a relief when she stops screaming and flipping people off. But the modern adaptation tries to have it both ways. The last cringe-worthy scene features Kate spouting totally bogus-sounding dialogue about submitting to her husband while her mother and sister roll their eyes. Then we learn that Kate eventually becomes the prime minister and her husband is a happy stay-at-home dad to triplets. Perhaps this totally schizo ending is meant to reflect the impossible situation powerful women with families often find themselves in. Perhaps. But I’m not willing to give the filmmakers that much credit.

17 November, 2005 | 3 Comments

The newest UK screen adaptation of Pride & Prejudice has finally made its way across the Atlantic. Enjoy it, my American friends. The film stars Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet. (Excuse me while I wretch. I’m having a flashback to Gwyneth Paltrow playing Emma.) Needless to say, I haven’t seen this latest film.

It seems the Yanks are being shown a different ending to the film than the Brits. From USA Today:

“You got the more sugary one,” says Matthew MacFayden, Mr. Darcy to Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth Bennet, of the version that runs 135 minutes – eight minutes longer. “The Brits hated it.”

The British and European version of the film ends with Elizabeth’s father agreeing to let Mr. Darcy marry his daughter. But American test audiences loved an alternate ending they were shown, wherein Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy smooch it up on a moonlit balcony. According to the BBC, Donald Sutherland, who plays Mr. Bennet, said it was decided that American audiences needed a “sweeter film.” And with 8 additional minutes, that must be quite a kiss.

At this point I could make lots of snide jokes about Americans and Brits, Jane Austen film adaptations, etc. But that’s not what stands out in regards to this story. What really disgusts me is the film industry’s persistent use of test audiences. How can anyone take film seriously as an art form when audiences are given the power to shape the final product, not the directors or writers? This is akin to Toni Morrison writing several alternate endings for her latest novel and then letting a panel of readers in a shopping mall somewhere in Kansas decide which one is best. I’d like to think that a film is somehow different from, I don’t know, Vanilla Coke or the new Ford Focus, but it seems they’re all just products created for mass consumption.

As for the current version of Pride & Prejudice, is it really necessary to test a film based upon a Jane Austen novel, for crying out loud? Shouldn’t the words “Jane Austen,” “Pride & Prejudice,” and the angelic face of Hollywood’s newest It-Girl Knightley on the movie poster be enough to get butts into the seats? I guess not.

27 October, 2005 | 4 Comments

English majors, brace yourselves! Charles Dickens’s doorstop classic Bleak House has been lavishly adapted for BBC One. The first instalment of FIFTEEN episodes airs tonight. After the hour-long debut, the drama will be shown in 30-minute increments spread out over the next seven weeks. Crikey! The BBC is hoping viewers will get hooked on the soap opera format, which mirrors the way the novel was originally serialized. Dickens published Bleak House in nineteen separate instalments, each one ending with a cliff-hanger to keep ye olde Victorians hungry for more.

Andrew Davies, who wrote the screenplay for the beloved adaptation of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth, is the evil genius behind the Dickens extravaganza. He also adapted Bridget Jones’s Diary, but we can’t hold that against him – I’m sure he was hard up for cash or forced at gunpoint. Anyway, the cast of practically thousands features Agent Scully, aka Gillian Anderson, in a leading role as Lady Dedlock. I saw Anderson, who now lives in London, interviewed on a chat show a few days ago. She has taken to speaking in a British accent in real life. How pretentious!

A final note to my American friends who are weeping over the Dickensian fun they’ll be missing: Don’t fret. Bleak House is co-produced by WGBH Boston, which means that in no time it’ll be shown on a Masterpiece Theatre near you.

25 October, 2005 | 2 Comments

Apparently, the United States and Britain are two quite bloodthirsty cultures. I left the US, where Law & Order, CSI and a million other shows about murder and mayhem fill the airwaves practically 24/7. Well, the UK is no different. The people here seem to have the same unquenchable thirst for television shows about psychos, murderers, rapists, terrorists and every other kind of crackpot imaginable. Most of the primetime dramas here revolve around the police, private detectives, cold case squads or lawyers. Within the past few weeks I have seen a woman murdered and her face completely sliced off; a man beat his wife to death with his bare hands; a serial killer drowning multiple women in a surprisingly graphic fashion; children watching their parents being tortured; children being murdered; and then there was the dead man who was tied up and placed on his kitchen counter with an apple stuffed into his mouth, like a pig – needless to say, he had been tortured first. To justify their existence, these shows tend to cast themselves as a learning experience for the audience, as if any daft television show can teach us something profound about the nature of evil.

Of course, the only reason I know about these shows is because I was watching them, natch. But I am growing tired of brutality-as-entertainment. Why is it so popular? As a wise man once said – and by wise man I mean Russell Crowe in his Oscar-winning performance in Gladiator—“Are you not entertained?” Well, yes, I guess we are. And that’s disgusting.

19 October, 2005 | 2 Comments

In a misguided attempt to win over her London neighbours, American stick insect/movie star Gwyneth Paltrow has trashed the British capital in the new edition of Marie Claire magazine. Paltrow, who won an Oscar in 1999 for being thin and having famous parents, complains to the American version of the fashion rag that she hates London’s “cold and depressing” weather, its dirty streets and its lousy customer service. She would have complained about the food but she’s never tried it.

Her Majesty apparently longs for the U.S., where the streets glisten and salespeople are never rude. Only last month, Paltrow told the Toronto Globe and Mail that she has a European sensibility and didn’t want to live in America anymore, saying, “Bush’s anti-environment, pro-war policies are a disaster.” However, unlike in Britain, American drugstores stay open 24 hours a day. And that’s what really matters.

29 September, 2005 | Comments

Today was the first day of school for me and I’m knackered. On my way home, a gang of teenage hoodlums got on the train. They were clearly drugged out of their minds. One boy started shouting that he was going to shoot everyone and the whole thing would be recorded on CCTV. He spit on a member of the train’s crew, who promptly threw him and his friends off the train. And might I mention that the leader of this pack was wearing a NY Yankees ball cap? As a former Bostonian, I draw great pleasure from this fact.

The first part of Channel 4’s Elizabeth I is on television now, starring Helen Mirren and Jeremy Irons. It’s quite good so far. Helen is wearing the de rigueur red wig, à la Little Orphan Annie. Ah, the joys of British television. This is network television, mind you, what’s called “terrestrial” over here. Not too shabby for Thursday night!

And what are you watching tonight, my American friends? Joey, perhaps? Hehe.

21 September, 2005 | 3 Comments

I wanted to ignore this story, but the tabloid papers and newscasts here have their knickers in a twist over coke-head Kate. It’s impossible to walk by a newsagent in London without seeing lame headlines like “Kate’s Blown It.” It appears the stickpin supermodel has now been dumped by H&M, Burberry and Chanel. The head of London’s Metropolitan Police has personally ordered an investigation into her Class-A drug use, and now she might lose custody of her daughter. What do I have to say about this? Good!

20 September, 2005 | 1 Comment

As an American in London, perhaps it is hypocritical of me to decry the abundance of Yankee celebs on these shores. But I’ll do it anyway. First there’s news of Monica Lewinsky attending a master’s program at…gulp…the University of London. The British papers have yet to run with this story, thank goodness. The disgrace to womanity everywhere told the NY Post: “Maybe I’ll meet my husband there—get married and have some kids!” As if that is not stomach-churning enough, it appears that Mariah Carey also hopes to jump across the pond. Today comes word that the woman who gives “trashy” a new meaning is shopping for real estate and plans to become a true Brit. Bloody hell.