January 22, 2007

BINDI IRWIN'S A BIT MUCH

1. . . . The Crocodile Hunter's little daughter Bindi seems to be carrying on the work of her father Steve (killed by a stingray in September), urged along by, of course, her stage mom Terri.
2. . . . The two of them were all over the place, at the National Press Club in Washington, urging the preservation of wildlife, onstage with singing and dancing in New York at the annual Australia Week (isn't she talented and cute?) and on many, many talk shows. The media loves her. She's so well-spoken for her age.
3. . . . The little brat.
4. "IT'S NOT A MATCH TO THE VIC." CSI shorthand for victim, that is. Spoken by that Kelly Clarkson (American Idol) look-alike character Lindsay Monroe (Anna Belknap)to Det. Mac Taylor (Gary Sinise) when she was testing a male suspect's blood sample to that found on a victim.
5. . . . The show uses other shortcuts too, like "Smells like decomp," as in decomposing or decomposition. (Nice things to talk about, huh?) Det. Stella Bonasera (Melina Kanakaredes) said this once, squinching her nose up in the air when she and Mac were searching for a dead body.
6. Target is using the Beatles' Hello, Goodbye (1967) in one of their wacky TV ad campaigns, only they're changing it to Hello, Goodbuy (get it?) and it's sung by a young girl group in an almost whispered low-key manner. As usual, neat at first but after repeated viewings, it gets on your nerves - at least mine, but what doesn't?
7. Are Sen. Joe Biden's (D-Del.) teeth whiter? They look it. (Bleached, whitening strips, veneers?) Maybe it's because he's running for president.
8. . . . He's smiling more lately so I guess he's proud and confident.
9. Season 1 American Idol runner-up Justin Guarini (remember him?) appeared on the Saturday Today show along with former Season 2 Top 12 contestant Carmen Rasmusen and talked to Lester Holt about the current Idol and whether the show has turned mean. They were both good talking heads and it was nice to see Justin again, even though people made fun of him a lot. Both he and Carmen have new CDs coming out, what's new?
10. JUST ASKING. Why on CSI do all those detectives hold their flashlights in such an awkward manner? They grip the thing on the wrong side of the bottom like they're making a fist and point it like a dagger or something with a lot of elbow/forearm motion which seems unnatural to me. People don't hold flashlights like that. They pick "em up and work them from the underside, with it rested in the palm of the hand. Am I right? The way they do it seems so forced.
11. . . . But no matter what she does, I still love Melina Kanakeredes.
12. NEW SHOW: The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet (Mike Jerrick/Juliet Huddy) began this morning at 9 a.m. ET. One-hour entertainment show. That's on the Fox TV Network - the one that has 24 and House and American Idol - not on the Fox News Channel, the cable outfit and home of their morning show, Fox & Friends. (A little confusing.)
13. Would somebody tell Leonardo DiCaprio to deep-six the combed back, super jelled hairstyle he sports at formal affairs like the Golden Globes? He must think it makes him look a bit older, more mature because some say he does have a baby face.
14. I KNEW THAT WAS HIM. On NBC's Heroes, the show with people who have "incredible abilities," … the guy who plays Mr. Bennett, also known as Horn Rimmed Glasses, is Jack Coleman who played the second sexually confused Steven Carrington on the 80's primetime soap Dynasty from 1983 - 1988. Where's he been? Older now but good to see him again.
15. Does Joe Kennedy really offer up good prices on heating oil? He supposedly can through his Citizens Energy Corp. (1-877-JOE 4 OIL). He's got a TV commercial showing older people complaining that they're cold and can't afford to keep the thermostat high and Joe's out on a rig, explaining that it's because of an agreement with the friendly people of Venezuela and their president, Hugo Chavez, that now they can buy cheaper oil. So I guess he's got connections.
16. The other night weatherman Bob Ryan of News4 Washington did the whole top of his segment on the 11:00 news standing at the map and sounding OFF-MIKE. Either he didn't have his microphone on or the audio person in the control room couldn't find the "pot" for it. It was ridiculous and it went on for well over a minute. They were very slow to respond.
17. . . . I was saying while watching, "Somebody hand the man a mic. Isn't anybody up there listening? It doesn't matter if you get in the shot - there's no magic in TV. Just walk up and give him a working mic so I can hear the weather as it should be broadcast. Geesh.
18. PAN'S LABYRINTH. Fantasy movie about a young girl with lots of imagination who is brought by her pregnant mother to live with her new husband in rural northern Spain in 1944. He's a brutal military leader during post-war fascist time and young Ofelia escapes to a labyrinth, meets a faun, must fulfill three tasks and along the way meets up with various unusual creatures such as a huge toad and a faceless man (Pale Man) who puts eyeballs in the palm of his hands and then holds them up to his head to be able to see where he's going.
19. . . . Movie's in subtitles but still good and well done and is Mexico's entry for the upcoming Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film.
20. Demi Moore's at it again, on the cover of Vanity Fair in a white robe, sitting down on the floor in a not-so-feminine position with the robe showing a little cleavage up top while her bottom area is covered but the robe is very high up on her right thigh, very close to her nether region.
21. . . . So it is suggestive.
22. . . . And Liz Taylor's the sole subject of the latest Interview magazine. Pictures of her through the decades. And a special Abercrombie & Fitch section is addressed: "To Elizabeth Taylor For Her Love of Animals and Men." It features young naked boys with horses and dogs, bareback on elephants, surfing with monkeys and lions and lying on a floating cushion with bare bottom showing, swimming with swans. Good God!
23. NBC Entertainment uses its peacock logo in its Web address on TV. They show the six-colored peacock and then have .com after it. Clever. Somebody's got a brain.
24. Page Six, the New York Post gossip page, reported last week in their Sightings section that actress Renee Zellweger was spotted at a Starbucks in New York "ordering a quad venti skim latte," whatever that concoction is. (Forced language invented by the coffeemaker).
25. . . . So I guess 7-Eleven and Dunkin' Donuts coffee's not good enough for her.
26. Dreamgirl Jennifer Hudson looked like an amazon, standing up talking with the Today show's Matt Lauer when she visited a hotel room where he interviewed her for a show profile of the (later) Golden Globe winner. Little Matt looked tiny but it may just have been the camera angle.
27. . . . Matt greeted her with a kiss to one side of her check and then to the other. How European. Later he said he forgot to give her flowers that the show had planned for him to do so he gave them to American Idol host Ryan Seacrest.
28. . . . Such a kiss-up.
29. CNN's Fredricka Whitfield got rid of her long tresses for a shorter "do and she still looks great.
30. Looks like longtime ABC newsman John Yang jumped ship to NBC News. Had a report from the White House on local Channel 4's Sunday morning news.
31. "Tell Us Where You Are and What You're Seeing and Smelling." That from the lips of an MSNBC anchor (not sure who) to Bill Daly, a former FBI investigator a couple of Mondays back when a foul odor blanketed lower Manhattan and parts of New Jersey. Smelled like gas and everybody was worried, trains halted into midtown, some pandemonium.
32. . . . Too bad we don't have SMELL-O-VISION.
33. . . . And speaking of the New York area, a 17-year-old who witnessed a mob hit Halloween night in 1990 and was threatened for speaking with prosecutors but did not spill the beans, ended up being shot dead anyway, suspected of cooperating with the police. "Once in the mouth, signifying rat - on Memorial Day," said the New York Post.
34. . . . Pretty blunt, huh?
35. NEW SHOWTIME. For ABC's Sunday talk show, This Week With George Stephanopoulos, in the Washington market on Channel 7-WJLA: 10 a.m. (Program is still fed out on the network at 9 a.m. Affiliates generally decide their own local air times.) This done, probably, to ramp up Channel 7's Sunday morning public affairs lineup which now consists of Inside Washington at 9, Capital Sunday at 9:30 and then This Week at 10. Promos on TV and on D.C. buses. So maybe it'll help the ratings.
36. Wolf Blitzer stands up Monday through Friday in The Situation Room and sits down on Sunday's for Late Edition. I guess he deserves a rest.
37. LET'S GET THIS STRAIGHT. The celeb magazine, Us Weekly, is spelled as I just wrote it - not US Weekly with the s capitalized or as in U.S. Networks, local stations, newspapers and Web sites often make the error. So I'm a tellin' ya.
38. Tattoos didn't look so good on celebrities at the Golden Globes. Gals all dolled up and then, splat, there's an ugly tattoo. Like the one on the side of Angelina Jolie's arm or the one on her back showing on her backless dress, looking somewhat faint due to powder coverup.
39. I hope Jennifer Hudson (Effie in Dreamgirls) is not in the same place the former Effie on Broadway, Jennifer Holliday, ended up today. Holliday seems on the outside of the entertainment world and was miffed at the filmmakers for not letting her play a role in the movie. She hasn't had an easy time of it lately and she's always been extremely talented.
40. . . . So I hope history doesn't repeat itself.
41. Maya Rudolph on Saturday Night Live does a mean Whitney Houston impersonation, so funny. She did her Whitney last week on the set of Weekend Update (which sucks) and was hilarious -- the only part of Update that was.
42. If Hillary Clinton becomes president will Bill Clinton become the First Gentleman?
43. UH . . . I Could Never Be President - Johnnie Taylor, on Stax, 1969.

rocci@roccifisch.com