Category: Media Observations

with troubled but gorgeous, freckled young actress Lindsay Lohan posing in her place in a spread in New York Magazine

If you’re my age, you know that some of these Bert Stern photographed images of forever icon Marilyn have been floated around before. Now Stern’s done it again, with Lindsay Lohan playing the role that Marilyn did so much better because she understood her emotional pain–but couldn’t squelch it.

(Unlike La Madonna, who needs only one name for universal recognition, Marilyn, who crumbled before us, and was so much more real, still seems to need the two names: Marilyn Monroe.)

As is so typical of these times, this era, when, sadly, originality is rarely found, for fun Lindsay Lohan has to don a platinum wig and pretend to do a famous photo shoot that has already been done.

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After Note

Yes, I am also a TMZ PerezHilton etc. junkie. And on their blogs, I have been see Britney sometimes wearing a pink wig–was she hoping to be the Bert Stern model?

I have the solution…..

Just like we said goodbye to the horse and carriage, we need choice; we need a new professional baseball league: the Steroid League.

Paulie’s survived cancer, he’s got emotional problems—he hates cats—- and while he’s pumped up, he’s got 20-year-old arms, he just doesn’t feel like his old self anymore. How does he keep on going?

I know! he’s got good connections.

The brother of “Paulie,” played by actor Tony Sirico–is Robert Sirico, an intellectual Roman Catholic priest and the founder of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty.

—of course Father Sirico has better connections than older brother “Paulie” has—

I’m feeling high anxiety about watching the last episode of the Sopranos. I fear it coming and I’m not sure I’m ready to watch HBO’s solution for me and other soon-to-be depressed viewers, the visual sedative, the tranquilizer, if you will—and that’s the first showing of “John From Cincinnati,â€? or whatever it’s called– scheduled to air right after the possibly bloody resolution of the Soprano epic.

“John from Cincinnati,â€? the new surfer dude series that the folks at HBO hope will take my mind off the fact, the reality, that there will be no more Sopranos for me to look forward to on Sunday evenings. [To be fair, the intriguing promo features “Johnâ€? in full surfer costume—black wetsuit, minus his surfboard, standing on dry land–but as if he were riding a wave, that is, his feet are a couple of feet of the ground.]

It’s been years and years and I’m attached to Tony and his family.

And how I looked forward to seeing my “littleâ€? friends in hi def on our 40-plus inches flat screen.

I have a confession, though: last week’s thrilling episode moved too fast and didn’t work for me. Tony Soprano’s fall through space, with bullets flying all around him, felt too hurried and that’s why I fear the final episode. I just never imagined Tony, the family man, huddled alone in a room with a loaded rifle.

Somebody’s in a rush to get this all over with and I’m not sure I can face it. Maybe I’ll watch the rerun.

colorful dialogue is produced for all the characters?
How is it done? Who can figure out the scenes with multiple, complex characters as well as what they are saying?
Today I learned that the brilliant writer David Milch goes into a room with his staff, lies on the floor with a pillow (because he has a bad back) and starts talking, creating the dialogue for say, Swearengen, then Trixie, then E.B.–and all the words are typed on a keyboard and appear on a big cinema-size display.

great HBO watching
beginning with
Deadwood,
then
the plucky Entourage, followed by
the absolutely vulgar Lucky Louie
and we top the night
off with the scary
Brotherhood on Showtime
where every week angelic looking good brother Tommy Caffee’s devastatingly handsome Robert De Niro lookalike evil brother Michael beats up or kills somebody: (when are the cops going to arrest Mike and get him off the streets?–well the writers won’t let that happen because Tommy and Mike may be brothers but they are also two parts of a whole)

Do you think Simon Cowell was testing his power over public opinion or just going with the flow when he proclaimed the night before the official American Idol winner was announced, that it would be Taylor Hicks?

I wonder.

The hints of who the winner would be had been in the air before the usually tightly wound Cowell blurted out his pick. Both Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson had been early lovers of Hicks, chastising Cowell for not loving “the silver foxâ€?– and reminding the audience that most of the past winners had been women and it was time for a man to take center stage.

A majority of 63- plus million voters anointed Taylor Hicks the American Idol (more than the results of any presidential election, Ryan Seacrest, the host with the “smiley mouthâ€? face, reminded). But not only was Taylor a man– by rock-n-roll standards, with that head of silver gray hair, he qualifies as an old man.

Taylor Hicks’ performance the night he was pronounced the winner may have revealed his singing voice’s vulnerabilities, but the judges proved they’re not age-ist.

Some posts back, the TV’s indefatigable Video Professor had driven me to the following desperate observation:

“Dear Mr. Video Professor,
I know you’re from the ‘old school’ and your tv sales pitch is directed to computer illiterates—but I am sick and tired of you, the lady and the three- and-a-half-year- old daughter who knows more about computers than all of you.
BTW: If the kid exists at all, she’s probably in juvenile hall…”

Whether because of our critique, or the ad agency– whatever the reason, at least we see some fresh commercials.

No, Video Professor, I’m not ready to sign up, but at least you’ve given me some new material to criticize.