Stardate 10112002
You know how network news broadcasts use weather and sports to give you your “up” feeling after pumping you full of fear and pathos with their news stories that linger on the who and what and when and the where and the how and leave off the all-important why in much the same way a porn film just shows you graphic sex without context or meaning, Los Angeles weather reporters have taken to calling smog, fog. As in “Another foggy day.”, “No signs of clearing fog.” Instead of reporting about smog, what creates it, how it affects your health and what you can do about. Nope, its just another foggy day. Another foggy headed day. Do the producers of the news really think we, the audience, are that stupid?
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I spent nearly an entire day with Michael Moore on Wednesday, intersecting with him at various events on a full press day promoting his new film. Moore is the author of New York Times Bestseller STUPID WHITE MEN and director of BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE which opens tonight, Friday, October 11. BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE is the third installment in Moore’s blend between filmmaking and in-your-face investigative activism that began with ROGER AND ME and continued with THE BIG ONE. His series TV NATION was briefly resurrected as THE AWFUL TRUTH, which pulled such memorable stunts as sending a Pink Winnebago and boys in hot pants to Fred Phelps’s (of GodHatesFags.com) house to challenge Phelps’s public anti-gay demonstrations and the infamous “Take a Stage Dive for Votes” where Moore challenged presidential candidates, such as Bob Dole, to stage-dive for the youth vote.
“What I do is prick people’s conscience,” said Moore. You’ll be shocked at some of the startling facts he dug up. Charlton Heston, president of the National Rifle Association, practically suggests that Americans (the white ones) need to be armed to protect themselves from the Black Man. If you’ve read FAST FOOD NATION, you’ll feel the same way about the evening news that you no doubt feel now about fast food.
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Kieran Culkin, Darryl Hannah, Bill Maher and Ivan Sergei were among the stars in attendance. I’m so tempted to say “actors,” but in Hollywood, I am supposed to call them “stars” or “celebrities.” I prefer, “Hey, you.” Darryl Hanna, by the way, is gorgeous in person. Tall, sleek, elegant, sophisticated with some preternatural shade of blonde cascading down her back. I think her colorist must have a pact with the Devil. Kieran, who lives in Manhattan, told me he’s in Los Angeles for “some MGM party.” I didn’t get much farther than that when some MGM publicist cock-blocked me to prevent a possible premature info leakage but not before I got a photo. He can be seen currently in IGBY GOES DOWN.
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And now, we’ll look at the monkey in a segment called “This Week’s Star.” I walk along the Walk of Fame on Hollywood boulevard a couple times of week and while I recognize the names of most of them, some of them just leave me going, “Who?” Which doesn’t say much for their fame, but maybe it’s a generational thing. This weeks star is Cuban-born Cristina Saralegui, who is the Oprah of the Spanish-language network, Univision. She did have a deal for an English language version of her talk show but CBS, the producer of the show, offered her less money than Univision so she declined the deal. Saralegui was also editor of the Spanish language COSMOPOLITAN.
She broke new ground in Hispanic media by broaching controversial subjects, such as sex, in her daytime talk show. As a print journalist for 18 years, she took no consideration of her looks, but when she made the transition to television, friend Gloria Estefan took her aside and got her a trainer and a diet. Saralegui shed six dress sizes to look better on television. You can read all about her life in her 1998 autobiography published by Warner Books titled, MY LIFE AS A BLONDE. She’s smiling all the way to the bank as the Spanish language spokesperson for Crest.
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Tim Blake Nelson’s upcoming film THE GREY ZONE had its premier to benefit the L.A. Museum of the Holocaust. David Arquette stars as a conflicted Jewish prisoner who is employed by the Third Reich as crematorium service worker. It’s just what you think -- body processor. Known as Sonderkommando, the Jewish death squads were given an extension of their inevitable death sentence in exchange for private quarters, bathing facilities and fine food. Those who refused the assignment were shot on the spot. Mira Sorvino plays a non-Jewish political prisoner held for her anti-Nazi demonstrations who collaborates with the rebelling Sonderkommando. “This is not a movie about the Holocaust. It is a movie about humanity,” says director Blake Nelson. The tense film explores the moral grey zone for the victim/collaborators inside the Nazi death factory.
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Lovers of the Bard spent 85 hours reading the entire canon of Shakespeare’s plays. The annual event, called Company’s Marathon, is hosted by Gordy Hoffman who wrote LOVE LIZA, starring Gordy’s brother, Phillip Seymour Hoffman. The film was well-received at Sundance and will open in Los Angeles in December. After reading about the marathon in the Saturday Los Angeles Times, I high-tailed it to the Met theatre just in time to be cast as the Shepherd and Dion in A WINTERS TALE. I got some fun lines even though the characters, while not wasted, didn’t have much of a speaking part.
The Shepherd - This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so:
We are lucky, boy; and to be so still requires
nothing but secrecy.
Dion - when the oracle,
Thus by Apollo's great divine seal'd up,
Shall the contents discover, something rare
Even then will rush to knowledge.
I don’t know what I was saying either.
WINTERS TALE isn’t exactly my favorite, but I did get to hear the last scene of HENRY THE IV, part 1 which IS my favorite Shakespeare play. If you don’t have a favorite, I highly recommend getting one. English Teachers who are Rock Stars, Librarians who are Fashion Plates, Thespians who are Movie Stars and yes, even Wookies who are Porn Stars, take note: Hoffman would like to see the marathon replicated in cities everywhere so if you’d like to host one next year, get ahold of the Company through their website at
