Best Casting News of the Year

My days as a hack movie news reporter are long past me, but you must be told: Abel Ferrara is making a modern re-imagining of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde with Forest Whitaker and 50 Cent in the lead roles. Is Lorne Michaels producing this or something? What's going on?

In other Abel Ferrara news, Werner Herzog is doing a remake (an extremely loose one it would appear) of Ferrara's "Bad Lieutenant" that looks NUTS.

I'm in a Slumberous Reverie of Grain

We've been all out of cow milk for the past three days. We've got Rice Dream, but I can only drink it in shots, and my face when it's down is pretty similar to the one I wear after scotch but with more shuddering and less rugged bravado.

The Tonight Show with a Wax Sculpture of Conan O'Brien

I'm looking forward to seeing Conan's first show tonight. There's been some naysaying as far as whether or not he can be as edgy or absurd at 11:35, but I tend to think as long as he's using most of the same bunch of writers and performers who've served him this well this long, the proverbial chuckleboat should be sailing on smooth gigglewaves. Until of course the writers get into their 50s and lose touch with contemporary issues, technology, and the ever-renewing touchstones of youth pop culture. So I figure we've got at least five years until that really kicks in.

That said, the banner ads (click the image for larger picture) that NBC has been using to promote the new Tonight Show are terrifying. Surely an actual photograph of Conan couldn't have been the basis for that illustration. It looks like carefully molded plastic with a few laugh lines at the sides of the eyes to humanize it up. Thoroughly weird-looking.

Politics and Psychology

I read an Op-Ed piece this morning over a bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats (okay, Star Trek cereal) called "Would You Slap Your Father? If So, You’re a Liberal." All right, that's a good hook. I'm listening.

The premise of the article is that studies show that in general liberals and conservatives think and feel differently on more subjects than just "the issues." If you want to find out where a new acquaintance's political sensibilities lie, Nicholas Kristof (an occasional topic kicker-offer around this blog) suggests you ask them questions like "Would you be willing to slap your father in the face, with his permission, as part of a comedy skit?" and "Does it disgust you to touch the faucet in a public restroom?"

"Studies suggest that conservatives are more often distressed by actions that seem disrespectful of authority, such as slapping Dad. Liberals don’t worry as long as Dad has given permission.

Likewise, conservatives are more likely than liberals to sense contamination or perceive disgust. People who would be disgusted to find that they had accidentally sipped from an acquaintance’s drink are more likely to identify as conservatives."

I guess it makes sense that as a Democrat raised by Republicans I'd been fine with slapping my father in a sketch but I can't help but be mildly disgusted by public restrooms and sharing drinks with people who aren't romantic partners. But I think the latter just makes good health sense. If being a true liberal means loving getting sick, then count me out.

Best Exchange This Week

Lily: A man on the street just told me that white people are becoming a minority and that as a white female it's my job to have a lot of babies. He gave me some GREAT literature and then walked past a young and pretty Latina girl in favor of a 60 year old white lady. I don't think she's gonna help

Dave: Save the lit, want to read. Also fyi, that text was split into 2 where you said "he gave me some"

Woodstock and Cannes

IMDb's WENN can at times have about the most shallow and content-deficient reporting imaginable, but occasionally a headline will catch me and I'll read the story. Here's a recent article in which they describe the lukewarm reaction to Ang Lee's new film Taking Woodstock.

After skimming some negative reviews, they quote writer-producer James Schamus, who said that it was difficult to cast young people today who looked like the hippies you see in the old Woodstock footage.

"When you think about it, a generation of people who weren't fat, who weren't staring at themselves in the mirror all the time, and not shaving everything off down there, it captures the difference of 40 years right there."

So Schamus wanted people who were not image-conscious, but also, no fatties?

Ah the glorious 60s. When America's beautiful youth stood for something and stopped showering and got wasted every day to prove it. But in all fairness they did have better popular music.

Restraint

Sometimes I find it very difficult not to (try to) use humor as a defense/deflection mechanism. Recent example: Someone from my elementary school who I haven't spoken to in ten years just posted on her Facebook feed:

_______ is glad to be home with the family, back to ____ College tomorrow....R.I.P. Uncle Mike

I will not say "I like this." I will not say "I like this."