.
The ad is surrounded on either side by links to video coverage of the child porn case. The TV station that ran the ad and Ward story, KGO/ABC7, is owned by Disney, hence the unfortunate house ad. (Incidentally, the radio host worked for a radio station with the same call letters, but it is owned by a different company.)
Ward, a former Catholic priest, hosted both a religious show and a liberal talk show.
[TMZ, Dailymotion]
Longer video at Dealbreaker.
Gold star for anyone who converts this week's New Yorker into Diggable headlines.
Anne Slowey, electrocutor of her own ass.Photo: Getty Images
A year ago, Slowey wrote a food diary for this magazine during Fashion Week, and according to her diary, she consumed the fewest calories of all participants, even less than the model. And you know what? Good for her for being honest about it (before we get all health-conscious and finger-waggy on her, and we'll admit that we're a little amazed by her fasting power). So, suffice to say, Anne Slowey is no heifer. And yet, because Slowey is as human as the rest of us, this afternoon she posted an extensive rant on her Elle blog about her determination to rid her ass of dimpled fat (sing it, sister). But how will Slowey make the evil that plagues so many of us disappear? By electrocuting herself. Slowey came across the treatment while channel-surfing in Milan:
[S]omewhere near the porno channels you've paid 20 euros to watch, there is a commercial of a slightly seedy looking brunette in a bathing suit lying on a couch... At first you think it's porn but then you realize she has all these white circular pads on her thighs, ass, and tummy (she's lying on her side of course trying to look sexy) with all these electrodes attached to the pads. Porn with electrodes? But no, it's an ad for some crazy cellulite-deleting, muscle-toning machine.Whenever I saw those commercials I'd scream, "Sign me up!" But alas, I could never find them in the States, even in SkyMall magazines on planes. But thanks to a gift certificate to Exhale, my dream of having my ass electrocuted has finally come true.
She's talking about the Exhale Power Body Detox by French company Ionithermie. She's used it five times but hasn't seen any results, even though the company promises to knock off eight inches per treatment. "I'm not sure that's true," Slowey writes (ah, our reluctance to accept reality). "But a lesbian did tell me my ass looked small yesterday so maybe it is!" And if ass electrocution is failing her, Slowey won't be stopped: She's so desperate to get into one Lanvin skirt that she's also going on the Jill Pettijohn juice fast to try to shed about twenty pounds by the Paris shows, which start in ten days. (Godspeed, lady.)
But the tale of Slowey's ass and its hard path to shrinkage only gets weirder from there. Inspired by stories of pet psychics being in touch with Vivi, the whippet who ran away from JFK airport after appearing in last year's Westminster dog show, she called her own psychic to talk about her ass. According to her psychic, "[Slowey's] ass no longer wants to be fat. It just wants to be complimented. But you are putting entirely too much pressure on it. It keeps saying, ‘Free me! Free me!’" Um, right. This is how Slowey responded:
All I have to do for my derriere to be happy is moon people and scream, "Free your ass?" Sorry, butt psychic. I am electrocuting the hell out of it at Exhale, scrunching and bumping it at Physique 57, and doing another week of juice fasting with Jill Petitjohn. Putting my ass’s happiness before my desire for a svelte silhouette is just ass-backwards…I'm getting into that Lanvin skirt, even if it means I can't bend at the waist and need two goons hauling me around by the arms around like a rusted Tin Man. To hell with my repressed ass, it's Lanvin or bust.
We've gotta say, Slowey is damn brave to put all this up there. Not all women can be so honest about the sheer assanity that goes through their heads, but Slowey took one for the team — and we're thankful that she did because we can all learn many lessons from her post:
1. Drastic attempts to lose weight generally results in losing little weight over the long term. Duh. We looked at pictures of Slowey from over the past couple of years, and she looks to be of a totally normal, consistent (and, ahem, attractive) weight the whole time. It's like every diet guide says: If you put too many restrictions on your diet, when you break the rules, you do so in a big, bad way. So, yeah, you might not have had chocolate for three days and then electrocuted your ass for a week, but then Valentine's Day comes around and you decide to just have one chocolate, which is SO GOOD it turns into three, and then six, and then the whole box — and suddenly all your fasting and electrocuting was for naught. Which brings us to...
2. Electrocuting your ass will not make it smaller.
3. Don't pay twenty euros to watch Milanese porn, and maybe you won't be as insanely inspired as Slowey.
4. If a product promises you magic results, it's a stone-cold lie.
5. Buying clothes — even if they cost thousands of dollars — that are too small for you will not necessarily inspire you to lose enough weight to fit into them.
6. Not even a phone psychic will tell you your ass is fat. Because it isn't, girl. Now go have a cookie and buy Lanvin in your God-given size.
High Voltage [Elle]
Related: The Fashion Week Food Diaries [NYM]
Montel Staffer Sues [TMZ]
Related: Shelly Lives [NYM]
On Tuesday, Michael Bay told Rotten Tomatoes that he's already completed a rough draft of the screenplay for 2009's planned Transformers sequel. "I'm not going to let the strike take me down," he said, heroically. Obviously we were intrigued, especially since, according to his IMDb page, he's never written anything. So, we did some digging and — don't ask us how! — were miraculously able to obtain a copy. What's it like? Well, trust us when we tell you that Transformers 2 will truly have everything — action, adventure, romance, explosions, Shia LaBeouf, etc. After the jump, straight from Michael Bay's glorious imagination to your eyeballs, we share an excerpt (at least until DreamWorks sends us a cease-and-desist).
Michael Bay Says He Already Wrote Transformers 2 [Rotten Tomatoes]
Image courtesy of the New York City Parks Department
Image courtesy of the New York City Parks Department
Advertising at its finest. Delish.Photo: TheFashionSpot.com
The Oscars doesn't like to drop names, but...
George Clooney, Denzel Washington, Harrison Ford, Nicole Kidman, John Travolta and Tom Hanks are among the presenters confirmed Thursday for...
Clockwise from top left: Fe Fendi, Emma Snowdon-Jones, Tatiana Platt, Tana Dye, and Melissa Berkelhammer. Photo: Patrick McMullan
Former AOL executive Tatiana Platt and her husband, the architect Campion Platt, are heading off to Aspen today, but, last night, they chose to hoof it home from a charity event, rather than dialing for car service. "We were like, You know what? Let's save the $20," said Mrs. Platt, who reportedly owns around $75 million in Time Warner stock. "It took about a half-hour, and the snow had turned to rain. My husband was fine, but I had this big Russian fur hat on." The Platts are also trying to kick their bottled-water habit. "We can go through a case of water in a matter of days. It's so ridiculous, between the cost of it and the plastic." What's next, ladies who brown-bag lunch? Maybe not. Not everyone was so concerned with penny-pinching. "I'm pinching bottoms," quipped Emma Snowden-Jones. "I use euros," Fe Fendi, of the famed fashion house, said in her buttery Italian accent as she pulled on a fur-trimmed coat. "We are from Europe, so at least we are lucky, you know?"—Maridel Reyes
Click here for more words of wisdom from the skinny and fabulous!
We include the all-important note. This isn't just any hair; it's hair with a purpose!Photos by Everett Bogue
iStockphoto, ABC
This afternoon, we made our usual call to ABC's media-relations department to ask when we would be treated to new adventures from our favorite Cro-Maggers on Cavemen. And as usual, we were rebuffed. "They completed their thirteen-episode order, and no decision's been made on when to start airing it again," ABC spokesman Jeff Fordis told us, and when we begged for any scrap of information, he said, "Sorry, we don't know anything else."
It was time to do our part for the Save Cavemen crusade. It was time to practice what we preached and to send an envelope full of hair to ABC president Steve McPherson. The hair was easy to obtain; that's what interns are for. We grabbed an envelope and invited a photographer to document this history-making act of network protest.
Don't let ABC shave prime time of your beloved Cavemen! Send your hair to Steve McPherson now!
Earlier: Help Vulture Save ‘Cavemen’: Send Your Hair to ABC!
Stuffing the envelope. Don't want any to escape before Steve McPherson opens it!
Alternate note text: "DON'T SHAVE THE CAVE"
Network presidents are busy. Neat handwriting helps them know that your envelope is worth their time!
Then it's off to the mailroom, and onward to victory!
Justice is finally being served to the man who killed "Waitress" actress-filmmaker Adrienne Shelly.
An Ecuadorian illegal immigrant construction worker pleaded guilty to manslaughter...Tagline: "Game On."
Translation: A movie called Kung Fu Dunk doesn't need much more explanation.
The Verdict: Wikipedia and a poorly subtitled version of the trailer that we found on YouTube seems to indicate that the plot is just what you'd guess: A kid who grew up in a strict kung fu–training school discovers he can use his crazy martial-arts moves on the basketball court, where normal rules of gravity do not apply, with awesome results. Meanwhile, he must also fight gangs of thugs in a more cinematically conventional (but no less awesome-looking) manner; one imagines that the attentions of a comely basketball fan are also involved in some way. The movie's based on a wildly popular nineties Japanese manga (and later anime) series called Slam Dunk, though it does make a little more sense set in basketball-crazy China. Sadly, Yao Ming was unable to film a planned cameo appearance — but perhaps he could be digitally inserted for the American release that, if there is a just God, will happen soon. —Ben Mathis-Lilley
East Village: Right across from its iconic 1859 building, Cooper Union wants to build a corrugated, spiky new thing by Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki. Um…yeah, we'll skip the stupid, vaguely racist sushi joke. [NYO]
Flatiron: The next time you walk down nondescript 28th between Broadway and Sixth, sing out "Won't You Come Home, Bill Bailey?" or "In the Good Old Summertime" to commemorate that the block was once the famed Tin Pan Alley. There's no plaque or anything that denotes as much. And that's a sad song. [Lost NYC]
Gowanus: Take a look at the residential-retail complex the Toll Brothers would like to build along the canal. Nothing like mixed-use magic alongside the miasma! [Gowanus Lounge]
Jackson Heights: Jackers may love their hood, but they want to make something clear: One café does not a "new Paris" make! It's not even the new London! How about…the new Jackson Heights? [JH Life]
Long Island City: Rumors swirl that celebs like Clay Aiken, Plácido Domingo, and big-name D.J. Danny Tenaglia have bought into the swank new Arris Lofts. Then again, this blog seems devoted to swankifying LIC as quickly as possible. [LIQCity]
Williamsburg: Plans for the new McCarren Pool include cafés "catering to different price points." What will those be…Polish, hipster, and trust-funder? [Curbed]
Upper East Side: An $8 million Basquiat, which went missing when its Brazilian-mogul owner went to prison on fraud charges, turned up in a warehouse here. When it was brought into the country in August, its value at customs was listed as $100. [NYT]
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Cupid must have aimed his arrow directly at Barneys' publicity-loving rear — and we're shamelessly hot for it, which is why, hot on the heels of our warehouse-sale live blog, we're writing about the damn place again. Racked reports the chain is opening a store in the scary retail megaplex that is the meatpacking district:
[T]he upscale department store thisclose to signing a lease for an outpost on West 13th Street between Ninth Avenue and Washington Street. Anywhere on this block is ideal for Barneys; it's removed from the mainstream madness of West 14th Street, and one tiny little block from the front doors of Andre Balazs' new Standard Hotel, projected to open sometime in 2009.
Ah, right in the middle of the wealthy, trendy folk, yet nicely removed from those tourists not quite wealthy or trendy enough to stay in the Standard. We guess if they have to go to the MePa, this is the ideal spot. Come to think of it, we don't really know why it took so long for them to get over there. Jeffrey's not necessarily big enough to run that schoolyard anymore, y'know?
BLOCKBUSTER: Barneys MePa Store Imminent! [Racked]
Magdalena Abakanowicz’s Abakan Red (1969).Courtesy of the National Museum in Wroclaw, photo courtesy of
Magdalena Abakanowicz.
In honor of Valentine's Day, we thought we'd feature this rose-colored statement, part of P.S.1's "WACK!: Art and the Feminist Revolution," opening Saturday. Sentimentalists might find Magdalena Abakanowicz's Abakan Red reminiscent of Godiva hearts wrapped in red tinfoil, or tacky paper cutouts up in their local diner; cynics, on the other hand, might equate this suggestively trimmed carpet as a giant, hanging … well, you know. —Rachel Wolff
As Indy explained to Marion in "Raiders of the Lost Ark," it's not the years, honey, it's the mileage.
And by all accounts, it looks like director Steven Spielberg, producer...
From left, Basso & Brooke, Giles Deacon, Gareth Pugh.Photo: Imaxtree
Which is why we felt let down early in the week. Where were the rat wraps? The see-through vinyl shower curtains doubling as dresses? The Mad Max–inspired makeup? Was it possible London had become … respectable? Paul Smith, who last season offered up lesbians in twenties tenniswear, this time sent out perfectly lovely cocktail dresses. Nicole Farhi's collection of outerwear — cropped jackets and cocooning coats — was … nice.
And then Basso & Brooke came to the rescue on Tuesday, sending Masha Tyelna out with a giant egg on her head. An egg! Our hopes were raised. They elevated further when Gareth Pugh's ghoulish robots reminiscent of, yes, Mad Max, stormed the catwalk. London was back, we decided.
In between the blah and breathtakingly insane, there has also been the beautiful. Christopher Kane ditched the bright colors of his last collection in favor of a stunning mix of paillettes and sheer panels. Giles Deacon, the man who would be the new king of British fashion, mixed a long, lean silhouette with volume up top. His gowns were the best looks of his collection. And we're still waiting for Vivienne Westwood, who returns to London later today for the first time in years. —Amina Akhtar
Bow before your imminent master.Photo: Getty Images
Though Opening Ceremony currently sells the Kate Moss line (and Barneys currently is trying to, um, get rid of it), Topshop ships it to them, and they sell it at higher prices than what it retails for in the U.K. Topshop spokeswoman Amy Elderton said she was unsure if Opening Ceremony would continue to sell the line after the Soho store opens — but either way, Topshop customers in New York won't feel the effects of the currently craptastic exchange rate. "It won't be a straight conversion," she reassured us. "It's got to be pitched at exactly the same level in the market so it won't feel more expensive than buying in the U.K." And she said it in such a nice, calming voice. We appreciated that.
Zebra, a U.K.-based architectural firm specializing in retail interiors, is designing the interior of the Soho space. Topshop spokesman Andrew Leahy confirmed the company is still looking for spaces — one, possibly two additional New York stores, first reported a few months ago — but none of the locations (Herald Square is one rumored destination) that they've had their eye on have quite worked out just yet. But just you wait. And while you're at it, get your kneepads ready. You're going to need them for that October opening.
Earlier: Kate's Topshop Line: Perfect Clothes for the Hungry and Sullen
Related: TopShop signs a New York deal [IHT]
Eric Fischl (left), Michael Govan (center), and Eli Broad (right) at the Broad Museum's opening.Photos: WireImage (Govan); Getty Images
Last weekend's opening of the Broad Contemporary Art Museum at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art had all the makings of Cecil B. DeMille movie — grand scale, palace intrigue, and wads and wads of cash. "The only thing missing was the human sacrifice," says Eric Fischl, who had one of his paintings on view at the new space. "It was really a spectacle, only Hollywood could pull it off." Eli Broad, the weather-making billionaire art collector who gave his name, loans of art, and $60 million to the new museum, had for years led LACMA director Michael Govan to believe that the permanent gift of his contemporary-art collection would follow the building's unveiling — only to coquettishly announce at the last moment that he didn't feel like committing to any one museum, instead preferring to keep his art in an open-ended lending foundation. (His stated rationale was that LACMA didn't have the space to keep his 2,000-some works on constant display.)
Broad's sudden shift, which the collector casually dropped in a conversation with the New York Times prior to the museum's opening, cast a shadow over the proceedings, Fischl said. "Everybody's kind of going, 'How did that happen?'" Fischl said. "It just seemed like such a sucker punch." He added that speculation at the opening centered on whether the widely respected Govan — who previously headed the Dia Art Foundation in New York — will stick around at LACMA for much longer in view of the slight; that Govan is considered a candidate to replace Philippe de Montebello added to the buzzing.
But Fischl gallantly acknowledged that he was no authority on art bigwigs or their motivations. "That's a part of the business I don't know much about," he said. "I endlessly insult people who are powerful because I keep forgetting who the fuck they are." In L.A., for instance, he made the mistake of reintroducing himself to L.A. Museum of Contemporary Art director Jeremy Strick. "I'd met him many times over the years, so oops," Fischl said. Is this something museum directors chalk up to the artistic temperament? "They could think I'm the biggest snob or asshole or idiot, who knows," said Fischl. "All of it true. So, you know." —Andrew M. Goldstein
John Hartnett, at the Edun Show on Tuesday,
undecided on what to put over his couch.Photo: Getty Images
New York pots meet some London kettles.Photo: Sarah Maslin Nir
Despite Geordon and fellow MisShape Greg K.’s misgivings about the mayhem, nothing stopped them from getting to their backbench seats in London, not even the fact that Miss MisShape Leigh Lezark was just admitted to the hospital. "We were supposed to come earlier, but Leigh came down with pneumonia," Greg told us. "She’s in the hospital right now, but her boyfriend is with her." Ultimately the boys reluctantly left Leigh’s bedside just in time to catch their plane, cab it from Heathrow to Holland’s show, and make their D.J.-ing gig at H&M’s party that night. "Mark Ronson performed and Kelly Osbourne and Peaches Geldof D.J.ed with us," said Geordon, who looked a little worse for the wear. "Nothing really exciting happened there." And all that for nothing. Pity. —Sarah Maslin Nir
As far as we can tell, there have been very few, if any, movies made about the romantic troubles of human cannonballs — and that’s reason enough to see Levi Abrino’s haunting and lyrical Lonely Bliss of the Cannonball Luke. An additional reason is that this dreamy love story, about a human cannonball trying to reclaim his girlfriend, is one of the best short films we’ve seen in the last couple of years. Abrino made this film at NYU, but its sensibility suggests the work of someone wise beyond his years; the beautiful 16mm photography and the slightly Badlands-like score also give it an old-school vibe that’s hard to resist. Heck, it’s even got real stunts — the actual human cannonball you see is living legend David Smith Sr., who made news a couple of years ago when he had himself launched headfirst across the U.S.-Mexico border. —Bilge Ebiri
Photo: Getty Images
Douglas McIntyre of 247 Wall Street wishes happy birthday to "the shareholder's worst enemy," while 1440 Wall Street wonders if, this year, he'll celebrate with "human sacrifices." Meanwhile, Breaking Views' Lauren Silva says she hopes Schwarzman gets "a new chef in Florida who won't blab all his secrets to the Wall Street Journal" and suggests that, rather than having Stewart play this year, Barry Manilow performing "We Live On Borrowed Time" might be a more appropriate choice. Ouch.
The "male Agyness Deyn" — duh.Photo: Getty Images.
That pitchfork, David Cross's tie: long gone.Courtesy of Fox
We’ve already gotten our banana suit out of storage in anticipation of a possible Arrested Development film, but according to MTV.com, the movie’s suffered a terrible setback. It seems that when Fox canceled the show, the network also auctioned off some of the sets (like Lucille’s dining room), and, more important, some of the props. Which means completely essential items — like Buster’s prosthetic hand, G.O.B.’s Segway, and Franklin’s puppet costume — are now in possession of some of Arrested Development’s dozens of fans. Normally, the studio would just replace these things, but Arrested Development’s obsessively discerning viewers have been trained to watch the show so closely that to notice, say, a replica Aztec Tomb would completely ruin the experience. So we’re putting out a call: If you bought a Cornballer, an alpaca wig, or anything else from Fox’s auction, return it to Mitch Hurwitz immediately. A grateful nation, or at least a grateful Vulture, thanks you. —Joe DeLessio
With ‘Arrested’ Movie On, Arnett Asks: ‘Have You Seen My Puppet?’ [MTV]
Earlier: Please, Mitchell Hurwitz, Pack the ‘Arrested Development’ Movie With Jokes Only We Understand
Photo: Getty Images
Newsroom Cuts at the New York Times [Mixed Media/Portfolio]
New York Times Plans to Cut 100 Newsroom Jobs [NYT]
Photo: Getty Images
"I've been writing Transformers 2 … I want to make my date. I'm not going to let the strike take me down." —Michael Bay [Rotten Tomatoes]
"Quentin's original idea was that Jules would have a big Afro. His mistake was, he sent this young white girl to South Central Los Angeles to pick up an Afro wig, and this is what she came back with." —Samuel L. Jackson on the Jheri-curl wig he wore in Pulp Fiction [MTV]
"I was very arrogant at the time, and I didn't realize then what I realize now: that a close-up of Steve McQueen's face is more powerful than the biggest landscape you could put on screen. So I told Steve to go fuck himself, and then I sent the script to Roy." —William Friedkin on casting Roy Scheider in Sorceror [EW]
"I'm really, really, really, really happy to be back. Wait. I want to add another 'really' to that." —Medium creator Glenn Gordon Caron, who is fairly excited that the strike is over [NYT]
"It's an honor. And the Weinsteins wanted me to be there to help promote it, and blah, blah, all of that stuff. It's almost an obligation, a contractual obligation." —George A. Romero, who doesn't seem too sure about why Diary of the Dead was screened at Sundance [MTV]
From left: House of Holland, Gareth Pugh. Photo: Imaxtree
Though her management at DNA wouldn’t offer comment, obviously Agyness's condition (is it pinkeye? Or just stink eye?) was going to create some issues on the runway. So how have designers coped? Deyn walked her first two shows of the week yesterday, and both times her right eye was covered. At Gareth Pugh, Deyn sported long dark braids hanging over the malignant area, and at House of Holland, her old pal Henry Holland had her open the show in a sporty plaid eye patch. She later closed that show wearing the same patch, this time with a pair of bridal-esque antlers atop her platinum locks (presumably to draw attention away from the patch?). And even with only one eye, Deyn never stumbled once. The girl's such a pro. —Kendall Herbst
Holy hell, how are we supposed to be able to do anything in the face of that cuteness?Photo: Reuters
While stylists primp a nearby Sealyham terrier and its owner before Westminster's Best in Show contest, Uno sleeps. It's barely an hour until he makes history as the first beagle to take top honors, but you wouldn't know it by the way he's splayed out in his crate. Nor are his owners worried. Whether they spend 45 minutes brushing and combing his hair or not, Uno's coat will look the same. "It's a low-maintenance breed," says co-owner Jon Woodring. Still, Uno stands at attention as handler Aaron Wilkerson snips and cuts the dog's hindquarters and runs clippers over the beagle's sensitive bits.
Suddenly, among the nervous quiet of the other dogs, Uno shows his age. The two-year-old pup jumps up to place his paws on Woodring's shoulders and lick his face. The hound's nose never stops working. Pointing his snout straight up in the air, Uno inhales. He wants to get into his neighbor's cage, but is flouted. Some girls stop by to say hello, granting his wish to play for a moment. He poses for a picture. Nearby, the Sealyham and its owner are still under a blow-dryer.
Wilkerson feeds him fatless filet mignon. Normally it's cooked on a George Foreman grill to remove that fat, but no time today. Pork loin, cooked the same way, is also a favorite.
A blue leash holds Uno in place on his grooming table.
Aaron Wilkerson is a 29-year-old Columbia, South Carolina, trainer. He's about five-foot-nine with slicked-back black hair with wisps of gray and a widow's peak. He's wearing a black suit, white shirt, and glossy silver tie and carries a yellow-furred squeaky toy in his pocket that's been with him since he first started showing Uno. Passersby offer good wishes, and he thanks them kindly in his southern twang.
It's a faux pas for a dog to relieve himself in the ring, so the last thing Woodring does is take Uno to a saw-dust-covered exercise pen before the show starts. "He's good about going before a competition," the trainer explains.
Finally, Uno bounces toward the ring. Jealous dogs bark after him, but the happy beagle doesn't notice. The final round has only just begun, but the audience is already cheering. For Uno. —Tom Brennan
Courtesy of Weinstein Co.
In 1968, George A. Romero unleashed the undead on American audiences with Night of the Living Dead. Since then, the legendary horror director has added four more Dead films to the canon. For Diary of the Dead, his latest in the series, Romero reboots the zombie apocalypse in present-day Pennsylvania with the story of a group of college students who are making a horror film in the woods when the dead start to rise. The movie stars a cast of unknowns, except for its A-list voice-over cast, including Stephen King, Quentin Tarantino, Guillermo del Toro, and Simon Pegg. Vulture chatted with Romero about his new movie, zombie logic, and the hilarity of horror.
Diary of the Dead isn’t a sequel to your other films; it goes back to the beginning. What inspired you to hit the reset button?
I like Land of the Dead a lot, and I was very satisfied with the way it turned out. But I also had this overwhelming feeling that it was approaching Thunderdome — and what was I going to do next? I had nightmares about making Mad Max 3. It just kept getting bigger, and more action, and I didn’t really want to go that way. The spirit of making Night of the Living Dead, the whole guerrilla aspect of it, suddenly seemed lost. I wanted to see if I still had the spirit and the stamina to make a little, small movie over which a bunch of friends and I had complete control.
At the same time, while we were making Land of the Dead, I suddenly noticed this whole blogosphere that was emerging out there, and it struck me as being really dangerous. I mean, if Hitler was alive today, he’d throw up a blog, and if he sounded reasonable enough, he’d have millions of followers all over the world. And everyone out there is a reporter — that gave me the idea to use student filmmakers who happened to be out shooting a class project when the dead began to walk.
What do you think about fast zombies — the kind we see in video games and movies like 28 Days Later?
Well, I took a big swipe at them in this film: There’s a running gag in the movie that dead things don’t move fast. Partially, it’s a matter of taste. I remember Christopher Lee’s mummy movies where there was this big old lumbering thing that was just walking towards you and you could blow it full of holes but it would keep coming. And in the original Halloween, Michael Meyers never ran, he just sort of calmly walked across the lawn or across the room. To me, that’s scarier: this inexorable thing coming at you and you can’t figure out how to stop it. Aside from that, I do have rules in my head of what’s logical and what’s not. I don’t think zombies can run. Their ankles would snap! And they haven’t yet taken out memberships to Curves.
What’s with the deaf Amish guy who blows up zombies with dynamite?
[Laughs] You know what, man, I struggled with that. I thought it was too slapstick. I was arguing with my partner, Peter, for days. I kept saying, “We can’t go this far.” And he would argue back and say, “Wait a minute, you had a pie fight in Dawn of the Dead. What’s more slapstick about this?”
How would you define the relationship between comedy and horror?
I’ve been mixing them for 40 years and I think they go hand in hand. The fear response and the laugh response are very, very similar reactions. Hitchcock worked with this. He said you should follow a terrifying scene with a chuckle, because their nerves are already on edge. You’re going to get a bigger chuckle out of it because they’re ready to respond to it. But I’m sure, to some extent, it’s personal. I’ve gone to a couple of horror films with Steve King, and when the gore stuff comes up, we’re probably the only two guys in the theater who are laughing. Everyone else is screaming or barfing. —Tammy Oler
We expect very little from the brand that calls this a fashion show.Photo: FilmMagic
If Siegfried & Roy ever wanted to start a Nevada chicken-ranch-plus-amusement park — a stretch-lace and animal-print McDonaldland of acceptable corporate erotica for the family casino crowd — this would be the ideal jumping-off point.Valentine’s Day is a big deal for this chain that regards itself as the answer to the question, “What is sexy?” Victoria’s Secret is, to this holiday, what Toys “R” Us was to Christmas: your one stop for totally unimaginative shopping.
We're really glad this article came out because we had the same reaction — though in far more repulsed prose — when, for the first time in God knows how long, we went to a Victoria's Secret this weekend. (Hey, we had a coupon to use. If you order something just once, the resulting occasional discount or free panty makes the constant barrage of catalogues almost tolerable. Almost.)
Cintra also notes the Lip Stain, with names like Quickie, Nubile, Proposition, and Unzipped, "is basically just an all-out, no-frills, escort service drive-thru menu." And we couldn't agree more that the $69 Dream Angels fragrance smells like "an alcoholic Twinkie." As for the undergarments, though Wilson found some acceptable underwear, never would she (or we) ever purchase anything from Victoria's Secret with rhinestones.
To put the brand in context a bit more, let's recall the most recent Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. After all, these are the folks who had Seal perform while wearing a giant piece of glitter (pictured, beautifully, above) and decided to dramatically close the show by having Heidi Klum pull a cord on her own outfit, letting loose what was supposed to be a giant snowflake but looked more like disco ball of turkey feathers coming out of her ass. We mean, you can only expect so much.
Chug-a-Lugging Aphrodisiacs [NYT]
MEDIA
• NBC golden boy Ben Silverman sells his production company, Reveille, to
Rupert Murdoch's daughter, Elizabeth. [LAT]
• CNN producer Chez Pazienza is forced to pack his bags after blogging for the Huffington Post. [TVNewser/Mediabistro]
• Us Weekly reports that OK! magazine "sensationalized" Grey's Anatomy star Eric Dane's battle with cancer in a cover story. (Actually, he only had some malignant cells on his lip frozen off in a doctor's office.) "This isn't the first time OK! has been wrong," they note. But is Us really crusading against yellow journalism? Or are they just annoyed they didn't get the scoop? [Us Weekly]
FINANCE
• It looks like the stock market isn't a big fan of Cupid: "On February 14th the market has been up only 39.3% of the time and down 57.4% of the time." [WSJ]
•Morgan Stanley slashes 1,000 more jobs, adding to the 19,000 Wall Street positions that have been eliminated within the past six months. [NYP]
• Can anything bring Merrill Lynch president Greg Fleming down? Perhaps the threat of a criminal investigation. [DealBreaker]
LAW
• New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo is investigating whether health-insurance providers purposefully make patients pay high out-of-pocket fees for out-of-network doctors. [WSJ]
• Hewlett-Packard settles with the New York Times and three Business Week journalists over the company's spying scandal. [NYT]
• The sister of a firefighter who died in last summer's Deutsche Bank building blaze is suing the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and private-building contractors, claiming that they knew that potentially fatal conditions existed prior to the fire. [NYT]
• A word of warning to those of you with restraining orders: A MySpace friend request could violate the order of protection. [Law.com]
FASHION
Sadly, we will no longer be running fashion links in Company Town. For your full fix of news, gossip, and pictures, hop on over to our newly permanent fashion blog, The Cut.
Doug BrownScreen capture from Denver Post online video
More Valentine's Day surprises! As predicted in this space a mere nine months ago, Doug Brown's upcoming nonfiction book Just Do It — in which he convinces his wife to have sex with him for 100 consecutive days — has been optioned for film. 20th Century Fox has picked up the title and will soon attach a screenwriter (we still think this concept is positively Apatovian!) "who will use the book as a template for a romantic comedy," according to Variety.
To celebrate the deal, Brown had sex with his wife.
Fox options rights to 'Just Do It' [Variety]
Earlier: Author Has Sex for 100 Straight Days, Book Editors Get to Read About It
Ordinarily, the banding together of George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro would be a producers' dream. But the A-list foursome's latest project may not be exactly what Hollywood...
Treasure hunting in the morning.Photos: Melissa Hom
Earlier: Live From the Barneys Warehouse Sale
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