Rocci Fisch

July 7, 2006

"SQUIDIFIED"

. . . That's how USA Today describes the face of villain Davy Jones' (actor Bill Nighy) character in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, which opens this weekend. He's got squid-like tentacles on his face that move all around and look like a living, breathing beard. Eww.
. . . You could probably get a lot of sushi out of that.
. . . Keira Knightley, who plays Elizabeth Swann in the movie, said the boys in the film (Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, others) wear more eye makeup than she does.
VIDEOS GO "VIRAL." Like the sound of that, viral. Ever-spreading. That site, YouTube.com, whose slogan is Broadcast Yourself, is very popular now. On the video sharing, user-generated site people send in all kinds of home viddies and rock groups are sending in performance videos plus rejected network TV shows are available on it, getting millions of "hits" and causing mainstream companies to take a look. They've kicked up so much interest that NBC has bought into the maverick Web site. So the Internet exerts itself again. But it's just the latest thing.
DID THEY GO OUT WITH DIGNITY? Some feel that Connie Chung and Star Jones are in the same boat when it comes to that. Connie swan-songed her way out of her and hubby Maury Povich's MSNBC Saturday show, Weekends With Maury & Connie, in a somewhat undignified manner -- off-key singing on top of a piano, and Barbara Walters was hoping that Jones would go with dignity from The View. But she didn't.
. . . So their dignities weren't in tact. There wasn't a shred. Can they get it back? Does it have to be earned?
. . . A co-worker of mine thinks Star Jones looks like a cat. I can see that. She looks like she's already got the stage makeup on to play Grizabella in Cats, for crissakes. He also thinks she's got some serious claws. I can see that too.
. . . My mother saw her on Larry King and said all she did was smile. Smile, smile, smile.
When was the last time Willie Nelson cut his hair/pigtails? It's down to lower than where he holds his gee-tar. That's what it looked like at his July 4 picnic in Ft. Worth, Tex. You could take that hair and make a good hair piece for someone who needed it.
RATTED OUT. Chad Lowe, former husband of actress Hilary Swank, was. She tells the August Vanity Fair that his substance abuse problem was a factor in the breakup of their marriage. Has he admitted to the problem? Has that been in the news? Did she one-up him in order to give the magazine a hot story? Probably.
News4 Washington's Barbara Harrison is at it again. She's taken her Fitness on the Fast Track to local politics and worked out at the gym with Maryland Gov. Bob Ehrlich and his wife Kendal. He looks pretty fit and she, too. And Barbara looks good. So Harrison's worked out/exercised with Condoleezza Rice, First Lady Barbara Bush and a few other notables on television.
. . . She's created a franchise.
Another M. Night Shyamalan movie, Lady in the Water, is coming down the pike. Some pale looking nymph (Bryce Dallas Howard, whose father is movie director and Happy Days' alum Ron Howard) and what looks like a plant monster roaming around a house with a backyard pool that Paul Giamatti tries to make sense of. From the netherworld? Probably another disappointment. All his movies are to me. They never get to anywhere. It's all a tease - tension buildup -- and then there's not enough of a payoff. I'm just sayin'.
Ann Curry substituted for Brian Wilson (Williams) on NBC Nightly News on Monday and Tuesday this week. She did pretty well -- a serious Ann but she still had that air of mothering in her news reading.
. . . WHAT IF . . . One night in the future we find Curry doing the NBC Nightly News and Katie Couric, her old partner, doing the CBS Evening News and they bring back Elizabeth Vargas to sit in for Charlie Gibson on ABC's World News Tonight? Wouldn't that be something? All women anchors. How historic it would be.
Someone asked, "Is Kim Jung ill?" Ha Ha Ha (Referring to the North Korean leader Kim Jung-il) (They better watch what they're doing over there.)
They say 60 is the new 40. Let's hope so.
SUPERMAN RETURNS. Pretty good, however long (2 hours/40 minutes). Brandon Routh does a good job and is very reminiscent of Christopher Reeve in the role. And Kate Bosworth plays Lois Lane. She's no Margot Kidder but she does a good job - more assertive and intelligent-acting than Kidder's enamored role. Film is beautifully made.
. . . SOME BUTS: Where I saw it (Washington's Uptown Theatre, which has been experiencing some technical problems lately), the sound mix seemed over-equalized: There were no highs or lows in the sound action and dialogue on screen. Everything seemed at the same level -- like everyone was close up and didn't need to project. I got tired of that. Somebody needed to get loud and speak up.
. . . The opening title sequence was, probably, a take-off on the early Superman movies, showing the galaxies in outer space, etc., and the credits came swooping out in outlined block letters and swooshed away. This is how they did it back in the '70s. But for me, it was a boring intro to the movie. So I thought it was a bad decision.
. . . Marlon Brando appears in it. He's been dead. But they did some special effects in the new movie and you see him again in that crystal world (Krypton) where he, Jor-El (Superman's dad), and young Kal-El (Superman) are from, before the young 'un is catapulted to Earth. You see dad's face in among the ice crystals or whatever they are.
. . . JUST ASKING: So do they have to pay Brando's estate for his movie appearance? Does somebody get a fee?
A fellow occupier of the Curmudgeon's Corner had this vision of what he wanted to do in the midst of a frustrating day at work: "I just wanna go and rake leaves." (He has a lot of ambition.)
. . . Doesn't sound bad to me.
WAS THERE A DRUG PROBLEM ON THE SHUTTLE? That's what I thought when I saw the CNN headline on the bottom of the TV screen that said, "Crack Found in Foam Insulation On Shuttle Discovery." I think they should've put "A" in front of crack to eliminate any confusion that dumb people like me might have. One little letter would have made all the difference in the world.
New York Post gossip columnist Liz Smith mentioned Wednesday in passing that Madonna has the AC turned off at her concerts. Smith was writing about a party Madonna gave for her dance troupe in New York at some place on the East Side after her Madison Square Garden concert and said that the material girl had the AC turned off there "just as she does at her concerts." The columnist speculated that it might give her a "sexier vibe" to have it hot when she's performing. Is this true?
. . . I don't know if I'd go if this were true. It should be advertised.
JUST NOTICING. Fergie - not the Black Eyed Pea Fergie but Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York ... her lips look a bit enhanced. Is she colla-gellin'?
LOOK WHO WE'VE GOT OUR HANES ON NOW: Actor/musician Kevin Bacon. He's in ads with their T-shirts on with his guitar - playing it, toting it in the case and leaning on it. You can hear his music (The Bacon Brothers) at Hanes.com.
Yoko Ono had some exhibit, "Morning Beams for the City of London," at St. Paul's Cathedral that looked like ropes extended and rigged up and down on a big ship or backstage at some theater. She posed, intertwined in one of them, with a white cap on and a black pants suit and looked like a sailor.
. . . What is art?
You know the way CVS/pharmacy puts those 'helping people'-posed pictures in its windows to show how great and versatile they are? Well, one of the guys in one of the poster-sized pictures looks like Matt Lauer with glasses on. Think he's moonlighting?
THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA. Amusing but fluff. Meryl Streep plays a very demanding boss (Miranda Priestly) at a top fashion magazine, Runway, and Anne Hathaway plays the girl (Andy Sachs) hired to be her assistant. She wants to be a journalist but takes the job to get some contacts in the business. And it's one putdown after the next as Andy tries to make the boss lady happy. She has to jump through hoops. Streep's character is self-centered, caustic and just plain mean. Can't say much more.
. . . Femmy flick.
SEEING DOUBLE. Weatherman Tucker Barnes and morning anchor Steve Chenevey look an awful lot alike on Fox Morning News in D.C. I had to look twice. They were cross-talking about the weather at the anchor desk and in the wide shot I could swear they looked like mirror images of each other. Well, it confused me.
NICK LACHEY. He had on a watch that stood up about 10 inches on his wrist Monday morning on the Today show performing on the plaza. One of those stainless steel ones. Money. He sang two pleading songs and one upbeat one. He's promoting his new album, What's Left of Me, and sang the title tune first. There was an adoring crowd of young girls and guys out there for him and cameras were clicking away. He's likeable but hasn't really graduated from the boy band (98�) sound.
That's the Temptations's oldie hit single I Can't Get Next To You (1969, featuring lead singer Dennis Edwards) in that commercial for Buick. That great Motown group had 37 Top 40 singles and four Number 1's. Amazing.
THY ROD AND THY STAFF. That first woman bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, was seen in a photo greeting worshipers last Sunday in Bullhead City, Ariz., in full regalia -- with a miter (hat) and vestment robe on, holding a scepter in her left hand. She looked a little wizard-ish.
. . . Am I going to hell?
American Idol host Ryan Seacrest told People magazine that he's learned to drive with his knees while he checks his BlackBerry with his hands and fingers for e-mail. He's pretty versatile.
Did Tom DeLay die? Oh, sorry ... That was Ken Lay.
"THE SUN'LL COME OUT TOMORROW." Yeah, they're doing Annie on Broadway again for a limited run at the Theater at Madison Square Garden in December. It's the touring production that just played at Wolf Trap outside Washington, D.C. The TV ads, of course, featured the current little red-haired scamp, Marissa O'Donnell, blaring out that hateful song at the top of her little lungs. Could we suffer more?
Somebody wrote in to Kevin Smith (writer/actor/director: Clerks and Clerks II) in an online chat on washingtonpost.com and prefaced his question by saying, "Kevin, not to get all 'Brokeback' on you ... but I've been a huge fan of yours for years.
. . . So the movie is still resonating.
PREGNANT BELLY AGAIN. The first time it was Demi Moore on the cover of Vanity Fair in 1991 and then it became Britney Spears's turn, sitting down, naked but for a big necklace, cradling her breasts with her belly bared and baby inside. Her pregnancy isn't as far along as Demi's was so she doesn't look as beach ball-ish.
. . . What these people are willing to do ...
UH . . . Work to Do - The Isley Brothers, on T-Neck, 1972.