All Is Not Lost After All

We just wrote a few days ago that this season's crop of American Idol contestants is woefully weak. Trust us, there is no Carrie Underwood, Fantasia, Kelly Clarkson or even Clay Aiken in this bunch. But all is not lost, some of them have other talents. Take a look at these photos which surfaced recently of current contestant Tim Urban. Hey, we might find Amelia Earhart alive and well in Hawaii managing a 7-11 and stripping part-time at Friday Night Senior Bingo before Tim Urban finds a note, but it looks like he could always find work as a swimsuit model. Note to Tim: Next week, don't sing, just take your shirt off, you'll score more votes. Just don't stand too close to Ryan "You're Really Creeping Us Out Over How Much You're Putting Your Hands On The Male Contestants" Seacrest after your segment.

American Idol 2010

Is it just us, or is this season's crop of American Idol aspirants really bad?
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(the top 12 male finalists)
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There are always a lot of warblers in the competition who don't have any stage presence and who can barely find a note any better than Britney Spears, but there are also a few who can truly sing and have real star appeal written all over them. But after watching the first performances of the Top 24 finalists, we couldn't help but think, "After auditioning tens of thousands of singers, this is the best that's out there?" Wow. There wasn't a single finalist who impressed us, nor did they impress the judges. The two lesbian judges, Ellen and Ryan were particularly harsh and... oh, wait a minute, we shouldn't say that. Sorry. Ryan's not a judge. There, with that correction, let's move on and hope some of the star hopefuls find their stage legs in the upcoming weeks, and hopefully, even some notes.

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(ryan seacrest and ellen degeneres)

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Many in the t.v. industry have hinted that American Idol, after ten years, might have finally worn out its welcome. Frankly, we don't see how the show can survive Simon Cowell's absence in the next season. Another telling sign occurred last week when NBC's Olympic coverage defeated Idol in the ratings. It was the first time that American Idol lost a ratings nights since 2004.

Taylor Lautner: Jail-Bait No More

Today is Taylor Lautner's 18th birthday, and millions of grown women, and men, can now lust after the young star. Well, they've always lusted after him, but now it's legal.
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Taylor recently said in an interview that he hoped to never do another film role in which he had to take off his shirt. Really? Well, for someone who doesn't want to be known as just a "body" he's certainly done his share of sexy body shots lately, namely for Rolling Stone and GQ Magazines.
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February 11 must be a somehow significant day in the making of Hollywood sex symbols: Lautner shares his birthday with two other stars who built their careers on their looks and sex appeal, Jennifer Aniston, 41, and Burt Reynolds, 74.

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Uh... no.

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( a real billboard which appeared today on Interstate 35 near Wyoming, Minnesota)

Sarah Palin: High School Dodgeball Victim

It's official: Sarah Palin is mentally challenged.

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She's so dumb, well, you know how our popular movie culture portrays the dimmest bulbs in high school as the kids who have to play dodge ball in remedial P.E.? Sarah Palin not only must have been remanded to dodge ball as a daily routine, but we think she must have gotten hit in the face one too many times.

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At the Tea Party Convention in Nashville last week, she was caught with crib notes on her hand. Yes, actual crib notes, you know, those things we all wrote on our hands in high school when we hadn't studied for the test? Her speech was lightweight at best, basically just a pep rally-type address meant to rouse her supporters, thus she addressed the topics about which she cares the most. And when speaking about the things she feels the most passionate about, she needed help remembering them? Wow.

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This incident follows the stories related in Mark Halperin and John Heileman's book, "Game Change" in which Sarah Palin almost had an emotional meltdown when preparing for her debate against Joe Biden because she couldn't remember basic facts, and she couldn't stop calling the vice presidential candidate "Joe O'Biden". McCain's staff was also horrified when they realized she didn't understand World War I, World War II, why there is a North and South Korea, etc., etc., etc. And this woman was seriously considered for the second most important job in the nation!!

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Look, we're the last people on earth to make fun of others who aren't very smart. Not everyone was blessed with brains, and that's okay, it takes all kinds of folks to make this wonderful world go around. But when you take a public, political stand against Pres. Obama and the Democrats for not understanding the issues that are important to the American people, and you, yourself, need to write words on your hand just to know what to talk about, then you need to be called out. So Sarah, honey, here's your shout out: You're a dumbass! And you're just not smart enough to be in public office. Okay? Now to keep from further embarrassing yourself and your political party, maybe you should just sit down and keep your mouth shut, and let the smart people tell you what to do. Otherwise, we predict a big, red, scary, rubber dodgeball with your name on it is heading right toward your face.

Legendary Hollywood Producer, David Brown, Dead at 93

What a coincidence that on the day before the Oscar nominations are announced, Hollywood loses one of its greatest, all-time producers, David Brown.
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(helen gurley brown and david brown)
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Four-time Oscar nominee, David Brown, 93, died on Feb. 1, 2010. Working at various times in his life as a magazine writer and theater critic, he finally went to Hollywood as a story editor, seeking a change in his life after a second divorce. He produced four films that were Oscar nominated for Best Picture, "Jaws", "The Verdict", "A Few Good Men", and "Chocolat", and two of his other co-productions won the Oscar for Best Picture, "Driving Miss Daisy" and "The Sting". Not every producer on a film receives an Oscar nomination, thus in the technical sense, Brown never won an Oscar, though he was a co-producer on "Driving Miss Daisy" and "The Sting". Brown is also credited with jump starting the career of Steven Spielberg, as well as putting Elvis Presley in his first movie, "Love Me Tender".
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Brown was also a succesful Broadway producer, "Sweet Smell of Success", 2002, and "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels", 2005, always claiming to love theater more than movies. Despite an incredibly successful career, though, Brown is probably most famous for being the husband of longtime Cosmopolitan Magazine editor, Helen Gurley Brown.
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(david brown with 3rd wife, helen gurley brown)

Grammy Awards 2010 - Part I

Last night were the 2010 Grammy Awards. Normally the Grammys are one of our favorite awards shows of the year; it's one of the few major awards shows which realizes that the awards don't really matter, it's the musical performances that people tune in to see. The performances usually make the show a blockbuster event and provides at least one or two classic showstoppers that are remembered and talked about for years to come. Uh... not this year.

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(lady gaga opened the show)

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To say that this year's show was underwhelming is an undertatement. Between the numbers that resembled Broadway dance numbers, second rate Cirque du Soleil acts and the ones whose singers couldn't sing in tune, it's no wonder the most talked about event was Michael Jackson's children making a speech. Whatever happened to sex, drugs and rock and roll? Whatever happened to the singers and bands that could blow us away with their sheer talent, their overwhelming sexual charisma and their monstrous musical abilities? No wonder the music industry is hanging onto survival by its fingernails. The music business needs real talent as desperately as the cast of "The Jersey Shore" needs a good eyebrow threading.

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Lady Gaga opened the show dressed in a giant, green, Lucky Charms marshmellow outfit with an over-the-top set and a line of dancing chorus boys that was... well, how do we put this? We haven't seen anything so campy since Ryan Seacrest's mouthwash commercial in which he's desired as a sex object by women. The number ended with twin pianos rolled out on the stage, Lady Gaga at one, and Elton John on the other, in matching outfits no less, performing a mashup of her "Speechless" and his "Your Song". Entertaining? Yes. Fun performance art? Yes. Great rock and roll? Uh... no.

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Stephen Colbert followed Lady Gaga with a comedic monologue that was actually pretty funny. At one point, he said, "We are here tonight to celebrate what I believe is our most precious right, the right of celebrities to congratulate each other." Hilarious, but that one seemed lost on the self-absorbed crowd.

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The "Song of the Year" trophy went to Beyonce's "Single Ladies". The Song of the Year award goes to the songwriter, not the singer. You knew this gargantuanally popular song was going to get some kind of trophy, but Song of the Year? Really? Oh yeah, we're sure the lyrics of "Single Ladies" will stand up to the other great, classic Songs of the Year, i.e. "Killing Me Softly With His Song", "Send in the Clowns" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water". Put a ring on that one, Knowles.

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A little bit later Taylor Swift's "Fearless" won for "Best Country Album". Taylor, opened mouthed and gasping, climbed the stage and said, "Omg, this is the first time I've ever climbed those stairs and accepted a Grammy on national t.v.!" We very nearly vomited. Listen, we love the cute, little country princess as much as the next person, (even though her music is hardly

"country"), but at this point, the girl has won every major award known to music, including the prestigious Country Music Association's "Entertainer of the Year", a feat unheard of for someone so young. So the whole, "oh, wow, I didn't expect this, and I'm so shocked I might wet myself" routine is getting a little tiresome.

2010 Grammy Awards - Part II

Beyonce took to the stage for her highly anticipated number,

"If I Were a Boy". It was another over-produced, Broadway-lite attempt at having a water cooler number, but it was all just a little too forced. Beyonce, we're begging you, just sing, you've got the pipes, you don't need to try so hard to impress. At one point, "Miss Fierce", (didn't Tyra Banks outlaw the word "fierce" a few years back for being overused and cliched?), even got down on her hands and knees and swung her wig around, ala Tina Turner, like a Tilt-a-Whirl on crack cocaine. How much longer are strong, powerful women like Ms. Knowles going to believe that they have to play the sexually agressive, horny sex kitten to get attention? Stop the madness, please! At one point, she even grabbed her crotch. It was silly, it was ridiculous, it was too much. We think there's something unsettling about Beyonce and her career choices, but we'll talk about that later. For now, we'll just say that despite the pandering production number, we really are fans of Beyonce's voice, especially when she segued into Alanis Morrisette's "You Oughta Know".

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But just when we thought Lady Gaga and Beyonce had gone too far over the top, Pink took the stage and really made us want to cower in the corner until it all just went away! Pink, in a nude body stocking, (isn't this the woman that used to rag on other women for playing too much to their sexy bodies?), sang a song while being lifted into the air by a strip of fabric, ala Cirque du Soleil, and spun around and around and around, also dripping and spewing water all over the audience. Is this really the state of popular music and performance? Why, God, why? Pink, poor misguided pop star, if you ever get the urge to do something like a Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus act again, just ask yourself, "Would the Beatles do this? Would the Rolling Stones do this? Would Etta James do this?". And then maybe you'll come to your senses.

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Loretta Lynn got a Lifetime Achievement Award, but as is always the case with the Lifetimers, they never get to take the stage for an acceptance speech. It's sad. We've got an idea, could we trade a couple of the circus acts for allowing a legend like Loretta Lynn to at least go up on stage and say "thank you"? Is that asking too much? We could even run a "crawl" at the bottom of the screen explaining to the tween set who Loretta Lynn is and why she's infinitely more important to the history of popular music than Pink.

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The Zac Brown Band won the "Best New Artist" Grammy.

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(zac brown of the zac brown band)

2010 Grammy Awards - Part III

Miley Cyrus, looking a bit like a drag queen reject from Rupaul's "Drag Race", appeared to introduce The Black Eyed Peas. Why is this girl at the Grammys? We don't know, but we just thanked Jesus that she didn't perform this year.
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Stephen Colbert made another appearance, but this time as winner of the Best Comedy Album. Sadly, he ended Kathy Griffin's hilariously overt attempt to snag a Grammy trophy. We love Griffin, and would have loved to have seen her win, for her acceptance speech if nothing else, but Colbert is brilliantly funny as well, so it was well-deserved.
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And then, a little later, came the lowest point in the show. Jamie Foxx, yes, that Oscar winning actor, Jamie Foxx, who's currently fighting a self-destructive addiction to delusions of grandeur and cringe-inducing egomania, rapped a song with T-Pain and some other fringe members of the rap community. Hey, we're all entitled to our own opinions, and what some of us love, others hate, and that's okay, this is America, right? But good God, if you honestly think Jamie Foxx is producing good music, holy shit, you need your opinion taken away from you, forever, and we know just the Republicans who will be happy to do it. Don't make us call them.
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And then finally somebody we love, Green Day, won for Best Rock Album for "21st Century Breakdown". These guys just get better and better, and they wouldn't be caught dead twirling in curtain drapes and tossing their weave round and round. Take notes, Pink and Knowles. Oh, and while we're at it, girls, Billy Joe Armstrong rocks his eyeliner better than you, too.

Grammy Awards - Part IV

One of the highlights of the night was seeing, and hearing, the incredible legend, Leon Russell, when he performed with the Zac Brown Band. It wasn't a show stopper, but anytime Leon Russell gets to perform, it's worth the price of admission. Take notes, Pink and Knowles.



Miss Seacrest took the stage to introduce, in his words, the
"phenomenon" that is Taylor Swift. (Phenomenon? The only phenomenon is the fact that Ryan Seacrest has a career.) Swift dueted with another legend, Stevie Nicks. It started great; they sang one of Fleetwood Mac's classics, "Riannon", but then they transitioned into one of Taylor's teen ditties, and the train went off the tracks. The song wasn't so bad, but Taylor oddly couldn't hit a note. Nerves, inexperience, her first period? We don't know, but we found ourselves wishing Christine McVie would come on stage, smack the shit out of the teen queen and let Stevie rock it alone. If only!

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Lionel Ritchie introduced the Michael Jackson tribute which consisted of a video shown in 3-D while Celine Dion, Carrie Underwood, Jennifer Hudson, Usher and Smokey Robinson sang. The song was fantastic, but watching the number was unnerving. CBS flashed a message to "put on your 3-D glasses" just before the video started. Did we miss something? Was CBS suppose to mail everyone in America a pair of 3-D's? It's okay, the sight of Jennifer Hudson's gigantic ta-ta's just inches from our faces might have been too much to take.
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A little later, another all-time legend, Robert Flack took the stage to sing with Maxwell. They just don't make'em like Miss Flack anymore, seriously, and it was a treat to hear her sing her classic, "Where is the Love?" Dare we say it again? Take notes, Pink and Knowles.

Grammy Awards - Part V

To us, the highlight of the night was the Andrea Bocelli and Mary J. Blige duet of "Bridge Over Troubled Water". Their vocals, Bocelli's soaring pop operatic style and Blige's grittier, urban, gospel-tinged laments made for a breathtaking and incredibly original coupling. That kind of pairing could have easily gone wrong with disastrous results, but Blige won new respect from us as a vocalist. She not only matched Bocelli, note for note, but even managed to sing harmony, finding the perfect places to underscore his grander notes. It was amazing.

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And then, another low note. Eminem, evidently back from a much-welcomed obscurity, peformed some god-awful piece of crap with Lil Wayne. The sound kept going off and on, off and on, at first we thought it was a technical glitch, then we thought it was a network censoring of offensive lyrics, but later we decided maybe someone at CBS actually just had a level of good taste in music.

Another highlight was the tribute to rock pioneer and music legend, Les Paul. Legendary guitarist Jeff Beck played guitar on Paul's classic "How High the Moon", while Irish singer Imelda May provided the Mary Ford vocal. It was a fantastic moment; great song, great performance.

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Okay, we have to admit that late in the show, we got so bored with the lackluster performances that we started flipping channels. But we made it back in time to see who would win Song of the Year and Album of the Year, the biggies. Kings of Leon won the Song award for "Use Somebody ", and Taylor Swift, yes, Miss Seacrest's
"phenomenon", won Album of the Year for her "Fearless". It didn't really matter to us, we didn't think any of the album nominees were that great, but many, and we do many people, feel that Lady Gaga should have won for the best album.

Jennifer Jones 1919-2009 and Jean Simmons 1919-2010

We seem to be in obituary mode here at East Village Afternoon; in addition to losing J.D. Salinger this week, we also recently lost two Hollywood legends, Jennifer Jones and Jean Simmons.
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Jennifer Jones, 90, died on Dec. 17, 2009 and is best known as the Best Actress Oscar-winning star of 1943's "The Song of Bernadette". She was also Oscar nominated for "Since You Went Away", (1944), "Love Letters", (1945), "Duel in the Sun", (1946), and "Love is a Many-Splendored Thing", (1955).
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Signed to a contract at Selznick Studios by producer David O. Selznick, Jones eventually fell in love with the "Gone With the Wind" producer and left her first husband, actor Robert Walker, to marry him. Jones only made 27 movies in her career, but her breathtaking beauty and often underrated acting ability left quite an impression.

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(jones between her two husbands, robert walker and david o. selznick)

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Our favorite Jennifer Jones movie is 1949's "Madame Bovary". The social tone of the day prevented the filmmakers from exploring the sexual aspects of the famous novel, instead they focused on Emma Bovary's emotional discontent and fantasy-driven yearnings which fueled her acts of monstrous self-destruction. Jones' portrayal of the unsettled young wife who was drowning in her own fantasies was emotionally complex and layered with real pathos. It's one of those performances that wasn't recognized at the time, but in retrospect, is probably one of Jones' strongest performances.
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In 1981, Jones bought the film rights to Larry McMurtry's novel "Terms of Endearment" so she could play the part of Aurora Greenway. However, director James Brooks told Jones she was too old for the role, later awarding it to Shirley Maclaine who won an Oscar for it.
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(jones in 1946's "duel in the sun")

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British beauty Jean Simmons died in Santa Monica, California on Jan. 22, 2010, one week shy of her 81st birthday. Simmons is best known for her roles in "Guys and Dolls", (1955), "The Big Country" (1958), and "Spartucus", (1960).

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While not considered as heavy-weight an actress as others of her era, Simmons nevertheless managed to receive two Oscar nominations, for 1948's "Hamlet" and 1969's "The Happy Ending".

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Simmons was director William Wyler's first choice for Princess Ann in 1953's "Roman Holiday", but she was contract-bound to Howard Hughes who wouldn't lend her out for the role. The part went to Audrey Hepburn who won an Academy Award for the role.

(cast of "Guys and Dolls", Marlon Brando, Simmons, Frank Sinatra and Vivien Blaine)

J.D. Salinger 1919-2010

One of the giants of American literature, J.D. Salinger, died this week, on Jan. 27, of natural causes at age 91 at his home in New Hampshire.

It goes without saying that his most famous novel, "Catcher in the Rye" needs no introduction. The classic American novel of teen angst and alienation, embodied in the character of Holden Caulfield, has been required reading in most high schools for decades, and still manages to sell an average of 250,000 copies each year since its publication in 1951.
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The emotional connection that young people feel with Holden Caulfield is universal; teens connected with the novel from day one, still do today and will probably continue to do so until teens cease to exist, but many scholars have noted that the novel was also important to its particular time in American history. The feelings of emotional frustration expressed by Caulfield coincide with the same emotional elements of "teen rebellion" that first surfaced in the early 1950's and signaled the beginning of the Beatnik era, which then lead to the socially powerful youth movement of the hippie era of the late '60's and early '70's.
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Salinger was also known for his famous reclusivity, completely shunning any publicity after the 1970's, even pursuing legal action against anyone who attempted to write about him, including Joyce Maynard, a former lover, and Margaret Salinger, his daughter. Many Hollywood giants, including Samuel Goldwyn, Billy Wilder, Harvey Weinstein and Steven Spielberg, have tried to obtain the film rights to the novel, and Jerry Lewis wanted for many years to play the character of Holden Caulfield, but Salinger rejected all offers. It will be interesting to see how many biographies about Salinger now emerge and if a movie adaptation is ever attempted.

But regardless of the attempts to tell the story of Salinger or to put Holden Caulfield on the silver screen, his place in literature is secure. After an early rejection by literary scholars, "Catcher in the Rye" is now widely regarded as one of the great, American, literary masterpieces.

James Franco, Will You Marry Us?

This is why we've loved James Franco for a very long time, and why we now love Jon Hamm...

...from The Huffington Post (www.thehuffingtonpost.com):
Jon Hamm and James Franco star in the upcoming Allen Ginsberg biopic 'Howl,' and they spoke to E! News this weekend at Sundance about marriage equality in relation to the obscenity trial at the center of the movie.

Half a century ago moralizers set out to ban the poem 'Howl' because of its homosexual references, and Hamm and Franco see similarities between that trial and the ongoing efforts to limit marriage equality that came to a head with the passage of Proposition 8.
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"There's a line in the movie [that says] 'I think that publicity engendered by this trial is going to bring this poem to a much wider audience than it ever would have had,'" Hamm said. "I think that argument can certainly be made for the Prop 8 situation, where publicity engendered by all this brings to light the absurdity of ascribing second-class status to an entire group of people."

Said Franco, who plays Ginsberg: "Like I said before when Milk was coming out, I hope we'll get to a time soon where we'll look back and say, 'I can't believe that we were discriminating against this whole group of people and saying, 'You don't have the same rights as everybody else.' I hope that the time comes very, very soon, when we can all look back and say that was ridiculous."
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(upper left-James Franco / at right-Jon Hamm)

The Good, the Bad and the Stupid

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Twitters of the Day
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Russell Brand - 1.17.10 - Just spilled some chocolate raisins in my cat litter tray. I'm still eating them- they're delicious. One tasted of tuna and cat-angst.
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Sarah Silverman - 1.23.10 - Liberals, in general, are more progressive and open minded, whereas conservatives tend to be more closed minded and faggotish.

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Bill Maher - 1.23.10 - NY having Pep rallies for Jets I still root for Jets and all NY teams but if ur going to a pep rally after hi school check ur house for lead.

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And from the less gifted side of town...

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Britney Spears - 12.5.09 - My daddy got me a Blizz Berry machine for my birthday. Best frozen yogurt I've tried and now I can have it all the time! -Brit

Paris Hilton - 1.24.10 - At an after hours party at some house, so much fun!

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Heidi Montag - 1.20.10 - note to anyone who gets a nose job, take off you tape in the shower after it is wet!