Out of Focus

I’ve made no secret of my admiration (read: worship) for The Daily Show, so it only makes sense that I would try to get an interview with one of the members of the show. Since the anchor and correspondents are all very busy, real live serious journalists, it wasn’t easy to turn the tables and get one of them to interview for a change. Happily, for today’s Gothamist Interview, while it took patience and determination, I got my first choice.

I’ve been a huge fan of Samantha Bee ever since she joined The Daily Show about a year ago. She’s sarcastic and outrageous in that subversive way that has become such an integral part to the entire broadcast. She has a perfect poker-face during interviews, always able to say the funniest (and usually most inappropriate) thing that either leaves shocked interviewees speechless or, in rarer cases, finds them nodding in absurd agreement. If you’re unfamiliar with Bee’s work, you can see many of her stories via The Daily Show’s website on her video page.

One of my favorite stories (and one I specifically asked her about in the interview) was about Florida congressional candidate Ed Heeney who ran on an anti-gay platform saying he wasn’t homophobic; he’s “homo-nausic.” Since looking for web links about Heeney (his own web page at edheeney.com seems to have been taken down), I’ve discovered that eight days after he managed to attract just over 30% of the vote in his district, according to a column by Emily J. Minor in the Palm Beach Post, “He barricaded himself inside his apartment with his campaign manager — a man once accused of shooting off the middle finger of a Fort Lauderdale policeman — and had to be SWAT-teamed out.”

Samantha put-up with our abundance of questions about Canada. Considering her (hysterical) contributions to “America: The Book”, which all dealt with the Canadian perspective, I thought it was appropriate to start with that line of questioning. In answer to her question back to me regarding my possible obsession with Canada: No, I’m not really obsessed. But I would love to try a “peameal bacon sandwich,” and the invitation to stay at her parents’ house is quite generous. Sadly (but luckily for her and them), I’m too poor right now to even afford the trip to Toronto.

While she decided not to answer a few of our questions – she didn’t want to get into the whole CNN thing or talk about the show’s seemingly growing influence – she was a great interview, even if she didn’t offer me the chance to hose her down like she did on last night’s show to the soon-to-be-departing soldiers at an inaugural ball. Thanks Sam!

This is our last interview for January, but Lily and I will be back with six of them in February, and after a chat with another very funny lady, we’re hoping to pull-off a bit of a theme week that should be especially interesting to regular readers of this site. Fingers crossed.

If you don’t read MUG because you don’t live in New York or … well, that’s the only potentially good reason not to, actually. Anyway, if you don’t, you didn’t see today’s list of “What we’re dreading in 2005.” What a perfect day for such a list to appear — Inauguration Day! In fact, as I write this, I’m listening to some horrible operatic song at the ceremony (which I’m sure is extremely patriotic but doesn’t really do much for our aesthetic rep around the world). Today might even be a good day to post “What we’re dreading for 2005-2008,” but that might take a bit too much foresight.

Anyway, I just have to say what a brilliant list this is, starting with “Star Jones. The whole thing. Make it stop.” I believe I said as much the other night. Other highlights include: “That Frank Wildhorn is writing a new musical,” “That Sondheim isn’t,” and “That The Amazing Race won’t be on every week of the year.” I’m not sure there’s one item with which I disagree.

I would also add the following:

• That Michael Bay has directed a new movie.
• That Fox could turn its back on Arrested Development.
• That Chris Columbus will make Rent 2005’s Phantom of the Opera
• That Kathy Lee Gifford will write another musical.
• Speaking of musicals, that this (mentioned yesterday) will actually happen.

I’m sure there’s more I dread, but that’s all that immediately came to mind. Maybe it was hearing the incredibly misleading words “ownership society” again, but I got distracted. Obviously, the easiest thing to dread is that 2005 is only the first of four more years.

“Hey Aaron,” Lily said one day. “How would you like to do this model?” OK, maybe that wasn’t her exact wording, but today’s Gothamist Interview is, in fact, with a model. But not just any model, mind you. This is Saira (pronounced SI-ruh) Mohan, a Canadian model of Irish-French and Indian descent who is … aw shucks … she’s effing gorgeous. Saira is much more than just “The Perfect Face,” which Newsweek essentially said was hers with a 2003 cover. Actually, this woman is so busy, I became exhausted simply reading her CV. Not only is she a very active model, but she’s now breaking into acting, has spoken an economic summits, created her own very elaborate web site (www.saira.com), and written an eBook (and is it a doozy). Meanwhile, she isn’t some carefree, no-responsibilities to others, mid-20s woman. She’s also married and mother to a nine-month year old boy. The one thing Saira most definitely is not is stupid. Go see for yourself. Besides, wouldn’t you rather read an interview with a Stuff and Maxim cover-girl than watch some dude stand out in the cold, telling us how everything crappy around the world is going just swimmingly?

Just when you thought Donald Trump had come down to earth … uhm … OK, I guess nobody ever thought that had happened. Still, after all the bashing Trump and producer Mark Burnett took after the last Apprentice finale, can a story like this really be anything more than a publicity stunt timed for tomorrow night’s premiere of The Apprentice 3?

Let’s hope not. An Apprentice-inspired Broadway musical sounds like a colossal failure and waste of money. Then again, maybe this is the type of show that only a lucky few — those who attend the previews — will be able to recount to their grandkids how there was once a show so bad, it closed before it could open. I mean, that would be an even more exclusive club than those who saw Carrie: The Musical (16 Previews, 5 performances).

Is it even possible that such a show could be campy fun? Doubt it. But at least one person believes in the prospects of Apprentice: The Musical: Shockingly, The Donald says such a show “would be a smash.”

So at this point you may be asking, “Hey Aaron. How do you and Lily get so many fascinating people to do interviews with you? And you must know a little bit about everything because the people you talk to are so diverse.” Well, here’s a little secret … it’s all true. Lily and I are thoroughly brilliant, but in fact we each have our own areas of expertise where one crafts more questions than the other.

Today’s Gothamist Interview would be one where Lily certainly took the lead. While I am the ultimate male fashion expert (not!) and an expert on labels and trends (yeah, right!), and I have a deep and abiding love for accessories (accesowhat?), I decided that Lily would probably be a little more equipped than I to compose the majority of this interview. I must admit, I’m quite jealous of Rachelle Socol, who gets to travel to England, France and Italy several times a year for free. Oh sure, she’s “working” the whole time, visiting leather suppliers and such, but “working” in any of those places (especially Italy) means, at least in part, long, luxurious dinner meetings involving some of the greatest food around. But I digress.

Rachelle is the Director of Accessories for Theory, and while Lily was saying how she loves most of their line, I was asking, “Theory of what?” But see, that’s why these interviews are educational. Now, I can recite the entire Theory line while giving spot-on visual descriptions. Or something like that.

No rest for the weary. After the past several days of double- and weekend–blogging, today is the start of another series of Gothamist Interviews by my friend Lily and myself. We didn’t set out to do this, but this week turned into a bit of girl power representin’.

We kick off with someone I met completely by accident. It was New Year’s Eve, and my girlfriend and I had been very lazy about deciding what to do this year. New Year’s has almost become the biggest of peer-pressure holidays; I didn’t even want to do anything, but I would feel pathetic if we didn’t. Anyway, we had plans to have some dinner in Little Italy with friends. Another friend decided to come along on the way to a party — she asked us if we wanted to go with her, and we said, Why not?

The party was at this really cute apartment on Elizabeth Street with its own private backyard patio. I wanted to move in. I found myself talking to a woman named Alex Bandon who is a Senior Editor at This Old House magazine. Since we both work for the same monolithic corporate entity, we suddenly were sharing our frustrations over worthless stock options. She’s also been a freelance writer for years, having done pieces for, among other publications, the New York Times and the Times Magazine, and writing about everything from film to food to real estate. (She wrote a piece called “Calculating a ‘Best and Final’ Offer” for Sunday’s “Real Estate” section.)

But it was when Alex started telling me about her fascination with “backhouses” that I suddenly said to myself, Hey, we should interview her! Backhouses are (primarily) the old carriage houses that were built when the City was a much different kind of place: when mansions had servant’s quarters and farms had barns. They used to be everywhere, but now, while a few are scattered in neighborhoods like Williamsburg and Carroll Gardens, the largest number are in the West Village where 75 still stand and serve as hidden, slightly-more-peaceful dwellings for the lucky few who inhabit them. She wrote a story about them for the Times about two years ago, and now she wants to write a book. (Publishing execs take note!) I’m hoping she’s given the chance to do so.

But why listen to me babble about something I don’t know much about. Alex talks plenty about these hidden gems as well as several other interesting topics over at her interview, so give a click and check it out.

But hopefully, The Conversation will make a return sometime in the future. For now, though, we always intended it to be a four-day thing, just like what they do at Slate. I suppose ours was really six since we spanned a weekend, or only three if you’re looking at work days but were off for MLK day today.

Regardless, we’re wrapping up today paying less attention to discussing the Golden Globes (because really, why bother — even though I did) and instead concerning ourselves with recalling those great moments that we’ll never forget from the last year in cinema. My list is here. Meanwhile, if somehow you’ve been reading this site without checking-out the cinetrix, Liz Penn, Filmbrain or Greencine Daily, hopefully by checking out The Conversation, you’ve now seen what you’ve been missing.

Finally, from The Conversation to the Gothamist Interview, my friend Lily and I are back with four more interviews this week starting tomorrow. It’s a great lineup with a personal favorite on tap for Friday, so stay tuned.

Sadly, I wasn’t able to completely avoid Star Jones after all. When the show was over, my girlfriend wanted to turn on E!, and suddenly I find myself watching former ABC News woman and Monday Night Football sideline reporter Lisa Guerrero (and her ginormous breasts!) interviewing Star Jones. Oh poor Star. She had to get up and be in makeup at 9 AM local time today, all in preparation for her E! red-carpet duties. She had to stand there and ask obnoxious and annoying questions to all the people who passed her by and she deemed worthy.

But that’s not even the worst of it. Now, she barely has time to party because she’s got to get on a red-eye and get back to New York. She has a live TV show to do in the morning, you know. And if you didn’t, you do now because she told us all about it. And her fabulous dress, stunning shoes, and gigantic “bling,” which once she started, she almost couldn’t stop talking about. Also, it turns it that she just had to tell us everything. It was all crucial — very important. I know this because she started almost every sentence by saying, “I have to tell you….”

Can I ask: what the hell did any of us do that was so wrong that those hidden powers of the universe decided to inflict Star Jones on us? And how much longer must we endure such torture?

I managed to avoid Joan and Melissa, Star and Kathie, and Al and Lisa and all the witless, inane banter from people who have no idea what they’re talking about, and then I did the little live blogging thing for all three hours. It turned out to be way easier than expected, probably because the show overall was relatively boring.

I’m going to be giving some thoughts about the Globes over at The Conversation, but overall I must say that with the exception of The Aviator win, there weren’t really any big surprises among the major film prizes. I do think this signals good news for Sideways and not as much for Million Dollar Baby. These wins definitely play in to Oscar-race campaigning, and when those nominations come out nine days from now, Sideways will be touting its win louder than ever.

For my almost minute-by-minute thoughts on tonight’s show, click below and head past the jump. It’s all there in all its glory … or something, including a little something for those of you confused by Annette Bening’s little pizza comment.

Continue reading “LIVE BLOGGING THE GLOBES — LET THE PAIN BEGIN”

I’m always much more secure playing the guessing game before the Oscars than the Golden Globes. The Hollywood Foreign Press is such a relatively small group of people, it’s hard to predict what they’re ever going to do. While many of my predictions might as well have resulted from closing my eyes and saying “eenie, meenie, minie, moe,” I figured it would be better to post my predictions now rather than try to convince anyone after-the-fact of what I thought.

I’ve already done this over at The Conversation, so rather than repeat all my comments, I’m just going to list my picks and predictions. If you’re interested in comments and a bit more substance, feel free to check-out my post over there.

• Best Picture – Drama:
  Should win: The Aviator
  Will win: Million Dollar Baby

• Best Actress – Drama:
  Should win: Imelda Staunton for Vera Drake
  Will win: Hilary Swank for Million Dollar Baby

• Best Actor – Drama:
  Should Win: Leonardo DiCaprio for The Aviator
  Will win: Don Cheadle for Hotel Rwanda (It’s a more “important” film.)

• Best Picture – Musical/Comedy:
  Should win: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
  Will win: Sideways

• Best Actress – Musical/Comedy:
  Should win: Kate Winslet for Eternal Sunshine
  Will win: Annette Bening for Being Julia

• Best Actor – Musical/Comedy:
  Should win: Jim Carrey for Eternal Sunshine
  Will win: Jamie Foxx for Ray

• Best Foreign Language Film:
  Should and will win: House of Flying Daggers

• Best Supporting Actress:
  Should and will win: Cate Blanchett for The Aviator

• Best Supporting Actor:
  Should win: Clive Owen for Closer
  Will win: Morgan Freeman for Million Dollar Baby

• Best Director:
  Really should win: Michel Gondry for Eternal Sunshine
  Nominated should win: Alexander Payne for Sideways
  Will win: Clint Eastwood for Million Dollar Baby

• Best Screenplay:
  Should win: Charlie Kaufman for Eternal Sunshine
  Will win: Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor for Sideways

• Best Song and Best Score:
  Too much of a toss-up, so no predictions, but my votes would be for Wyclef Jean’s “Million Voices” from Hotel Rwanda and Howard Shore’s score for The Aviator.

• Best TV series – Drama:
  Should win: Deadwood
  Will win: Lost

• Best TV series – Comedy:
  Should win: Arrested Development
  Will win: Desperate Housewives

• Best Actress – Drama:
  Should win: Edie Falco for The Sopranos
  Will win: Joely Richardson for Nip/Tuck

• Best Actor – Drama:
  Should win: Ian McShane for Deadwood
  Will win: James Spader for Boston Legal

• Best Actress – Comedy:
  I imagine this will go to one of the Housewives because Sarah Jessica Parker has won repeatedly, and a win for Debra Messing would just be tragic. This one is “eenie, meenie …”
  Should and will win: Marcia Cross for Desperate Housewives

• Best Actor – Comedy:
  Should win: Jason Bateman for Arrested Development
  Will win: Larry David for Curb Your Enthusiasm

I didn’t see enough of the other TV categories (movie and miniseries related) to really make picks worth anything. I think both Iron-Jawed Angels and The Life and Death of Peter Sellers were highly flawed movies and, sadly, gigantic missed opportunities, although Geoffrey Rush should win for Best Actor in a Movie/Miniseries. I’ll also be rooting for Drea De Matteo (The Sopranos) and Oliver Platt (Huff) in the Best Supporting Actress and Actor TV categories.
I’ll be back to night to live blog the show … at least as long as I stay interested in doing so. We’ll see if my highly analytical in-depth analysis (HA!) bears any fruit.