Out of Focus

I’ve been trying to find the tape of my interview with Spaulding Gray in order to listen to it again and possibly post a transcript of it here, but I fear it may be in storage. Luckily for you, you can hear what I’m certain is a better interview from roughly the same time as mine tomorrow on the Leonard Lopate Show (12 PM on WNYC 820 AM and 93.9 FM).

Leonard will start his broadcast with a tribute to Spaulding Gray which will include a rebroadcast of Gray’s appearance on WNYC and interview with Lopate from 1990 as he was prepping the live version of his monologue Monster in a Box, which was later released as a movie directed by Nick Broomfield. If you aren’t in New York or, like me, can’t get radio stations in your midtown office building, you can still tune-in to the show live by going to the WNYC website.

The fantastic Eurotrash happened upon the not-even-enjoyable-enough-to-be-craptastic Con-Air and then performed visual hari-kari byt actually watching the whole thing. She has since taken it upon herself to review the movie, in her own delectable way and far better than I ever could.

indieWIRE reminds us that tomorrow is the start of the 11th New York Underground Film Festival at Anthology Film Archives. It runs for a week, and as the NYUFF states on its website, “Festival runs Wednesday, March 10 to Tuesday, March 16. “Closing Night” is Sunday the 14th and the two final days are repeat screenings for your slack ass.” The schedule includes a variety of features and short programs, and tickets for all screenings are $8.50, making them a bargain for NYC theatregoers.

Of interest to all New Yorkers, I’m sure, is the docu Goldstein: The Trials of the Sultan of Smut which follows Al Goldstein — the host of TW Cable Channel 35’s mainstay Midnight Blue and publisher of local porn rag Screw Magazine — as he defends himself in a recent sexual harrassment lawsuit filed by an ex-secretary. Shocker to end all shocker: the film contains interviews with the always reclusive Ron Jeremy. Thank goodness … Ron’s been out of the limelight for too long and definitely needs more exposure.

Personally, I think the terrifying news of a potential The Fast and the Furious 3 is far more important than any of AIM’s top three stories today, but obviously if I knew what I was talking about, the inconsequentiality of the AIM welcome screen headlines the past couple days would have simply been an anomoly rather than regular practice. So pay close attention because it seems that nothing happened in Haiti or Iraq, and the Attorney General is perfectly healthy and no closer to death. And there’s no way that the confirmed death of Spaulding Gray was important enough to make this list. So here’s what you should know this morning:

Continue reading “ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW: THE “IF IT’S TUESDAY, THIS MUST BE MARS” EDITION”

Big news: According to both Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter (subscriptions necessary for both), i.e., according to the studio press release, Universal Pictures plans to make another sequel of The Fast and the Furious. All I can say is NOOOOOOOOOOOO!

While the first movie had a cheesy high-speed fun to it, last summer’s sequel was just plain awful, and the lack of Vin Diesel was not the primary culprit.

OK, to be fair, one element has been eliminated: the blond Keanu will apparently not be back. On the other hand, without a horrible actor playing opposite him, Vin may not look so good.

There is one line in the Variety article which I found quite amusing: “The return of Diesel would be a bid to return excitement to a franchise that may otherwise be getting long in the tooth.” Uhm … there have been two films. I don’t think an original and it’s sequel can qualify for “long in the tooth.”

Apparently, the story would begin in Mexico where Diesel’s character has been on the lam ever since the end of the first film. Somehow, everything switches to Tokyo where Vin has to come to the rescue of a friend in trouble with gangsters. I’m guessing street racing may be involved. Vin’s decision to participate is apparently contingent on what he thinks of the script. Hahahahaha.

Ahem … excuse me. Sorry.

Holy crap, Batman! I agree with Bob Barr, the arch-right-wing conservative former congressman from Georgia whose name in English I always understood to stand for “Pure Evil.”

OK, so that might be exaggerating, but I am usually flumoxed by absolutely everything that I hear coming out of the man’s mouth. And I don’t agree with him 100%, but apparently the man who helped write the Defense of Marriage act is against any Constitutional amendment to outlaw gay marriage. He and I part ways on whether it should be legal at all, but still, I have to respect him for standing by his convictions (conservative as they may be) rather than simply looking at the issue politically and agreeing with his team. He tells the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Does it bother me that we have some states that recognize homosexual marriages? No. That’s our federal system of government. If you don’t like the policies of one state, you can move. That’s freedom.”

Any amendment on this issue would be “premature,” he says. “I just don’t think the federal government should use the Constitution to start defining social relationships. And I say that as a very strong opponent of same-sex marriage. But to me, just because you have a problem — that’s not a reason to amend the Constitution.”

Maybe the end really is nigh.
(Thanks Andrew Sullivan)

I’m sorry, but this William Hung-love has gone a little too far. (Yes, he has his own website too.) It was funny on the audition shows. It was funny and tragic on the American Idol hourlong-special where the worst of the rejects were given an extra 15 seconds of fame by singing onstage in front of a live audience simply to be mocked and ridiculed.

But this is absurd: ‘Idol’ Reject Hung Has Recording Deal (AP via NYT). I’m sure William Hung is a perfectly nice albeit completely delusional college student, but the boy can’t sing. Hopefully, this album will be one of the miserable failures to help prove that you can’t just throw any old reality show personality/contestant out there and have success. Hell if Justin Guarini could only sell 100,000-odd while actually being able to sustain some sort of tune and enunciate the language properly, the surely William should have trouble breaking the 6-figure sales barrier, no? And remember, people, you can’t see him while listening to the CD, so his jerky little movements to “She Bangs” won’t enhance your enjoyment of the performance, nor will you see the four-or-five scantily-dressed dancers shaking their asses in his direction as he carefully avoids touching any of them.

I love their bus-stop and billboard ads, but Fuse is apparently behind this. They lose major points.

I just heard it on WNYC, and then saw it on Gawker (via AP).

Spalding Gray found dead.

Strangely enough, he was working on a new monologue at the time of his death that was to be based on his horrible, debilitating car accident a couple years ago. It was to be called, “Life Interrupted.”

Bunsen compares “the little engine that couldn’t topple Jesus” with the slasher movie evangelical Christians love.

Now I feel more compelled to do the same to tonight’s betrayal-focused TV-movies on ABC and NBC. Then again ….

Out in Aspen, executive producer Michael Patrick King says there will be no Sex and the City movie. All I can say is, Huzzah! Personally, I thought the series ended just the right way, and whether we love these characters or not, anything further would just distort the six great seasons we spent with them. Let our own imaginations decide where they go from here … there’s nothing more to say. Consider it a lesson from the Book of Wachowski.