Rocci Fisch

July 12, 2011

ALL DRESSED UP AND NOWHERE TO GO

… Casey Anthony was. She changed her "iconic" plain Jane, serious courtroom look that she sported during her trial to one of contemporary Jersey Shore-ishness for her sentencing last Thursday, with a baby blue plunging, tight-fitting (in certain areas) V-neckline sweater with her long, wavy hair finally free to hang down almost to her waist with wisps of it having to be constantly being pushed back out of her face.
…To top it all off she had what looked like a Snooki bump (Bumpits brand?) at the top, for the added pleasure of a"volumized" hairstyle.
… She transformed herself.
… She's was ready to go places, but she'd have to wait just a little bit longer before she finally gets released. (She was acquitted of killing her daughter Caylee and got four years for lying to the police but because of time served she'll be out this or the next week.)
… HALF AND HALF. One day her hair was half-hanging down (right side) in the front, with the other half of her mane hanging down her back, a currently stylish way some anchorwomen do on TV, like CNN's Jessica Yellin or CBS's Betty Nguyen.
MOVIE: Horrible Bosses. In the mold of the buddy Hangover movies, this comedy features three guys (Jason Sudeikis (SNL), Charlie Day and Jason Bateman) who have had it with and plot to kill their employers : an almost unrecognizable Colin Ferrell, a tarty Jennifer Aniston as a sexually insatiable dentist and Kevin Spacey as an obnoxious, self-important lout. Jamie Foxx is in it too, plays a thug (what isn't he in or what doesn't he do?).
… It's mildly funny but the humor is more from the situations the characters find themselves in than actually delivering funny lines.
… Charlie Day (FX's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) is the scene stealer.
I don't blame Harry Smith for leaving CBS News (after 25 years) and going to NBC for new opportunities. He'll join the new prime-time Brian Wilson, er… Williams magazine show and will, I'm sure, be a good addition.
… After being dumped by The Early Show (still floundering) and being the fill-in for every other CBS News show there is, he decided to jump ship after all those years.
I like Candy Crowley in The Situation Room (CNN). It becomes her. (She was filling in last week for "Wolfman" Blitzer.)
… She also looks like she uses that Wen stuff (chemical-free non-shampoo hair product) on her hair, looks shiny and full of body.
Actor Daniel Craig does a lot of lip pursing and puckering in Cowboys & Aliens (sci-fi Western film) that has seemed to be taking a long time to come out. (They began showing the preview months ago.)
… He also does it in pictures in the current Esquire magazine, of which he's on the cover.
"Not since [Phil] Donohue has someone so gray gotten their own show," says Anderson Cooper, in a promo for his upcoming (fall) syndicated daytime talk show, which is to be called "Anderson."
… Another wannabe single-named celebrity.
… I thought he was a newsman on CNN but I guess that's not enough for him now.
… "Stay with Nancy [Grace] on HLN tonight for more on Casey Anthony," says the TV announcer.
… She, too, has now become a single-name celebrity. Her stock is riding high because of her high ratings as a result of non-stop, relentless coverage of Casey Anthony on CNN's sister network.
… Grace called Casey Anthony "stone cold."
… A guest on her program said Anthony was "a snake in human clothing."
… WONDERING. Did they mean a "wolf in sheep's clothing"? Those guests on her show often shout, get riled up and excited and sometimes misspeak a lot of the time due to the stirred up atmosphere generated by the host of the program.
… Another guest was upset and disgustedly complained about the defense having "a champagne jamboree" at the Terrace 390 restaurant across the street from the courthouse after the verdict came in. (They did celebrate.)
… You could see the defense team sipping the bubbly from stemmed glasses, led by Jose Baez, the head attorney on the case.
… Criminal defense attorney Mark Geragos gave Grace and others hell and referred to the whole group as "bleached blonde former prosecutors who were a bunch of clowns, yahoos and bozos."
IN MY OPINION, AN OBSERVANCE. The CBS Evening News With Scott Pelley is a well-written show, not rushed, not trendy, serious, a bit slow-paced, and dry but it seems to hold up the established editorial standards of TV journalism of days past (Cronkite, Huntley-Brinkley, 60 Minutes).
… It's not sexy (and neither is Pelley).
… It's straightforward.
…But it's somewhat refreshing to tune in to a no hype news show.
…ONE THING I'D CHANGE. In the opening of the show Pelley announces the names of the correspondents who will bring the reports in the newscast (old tactic used by other nets).
…RESULT: It slows things down and people don't care who the reporters are during the show open; they learn that later when the news pieces are delivered ("Kelly Cobiella on this, Anthony Mason on that…").
… And the on-air look (graphics, etc.) is clean and well integrated.
SOUND AMERICAN. Elizabeth Palmer, a veteran CBS reporter, has been covering the News of the World scandal in London. She sounds slightly British and says "bean" instead of "been," and that bothers me.
… One of the signs held up by demonstrators outside the News of the World headquarters said "SCUM - GOTCHA," which was able to be seen in Jeffrey Kofman's ABC News piece over the weekend.
The Space Shuttle Atlantis took a "sentimental journey into history," said a NASA commentator during liftoff Friday morning, marking an end to the 30-year shuttle program.
… "Gonna take a Sentimental Journey…" (Doris Day with Les Brown and His Band of Renown, 1945, on Columbia Records).
… If you're wondering, I wasn't alive yet.
NEW THING? MSNBC used the Twitter address -- @archiebland -- of commentator Archie Bland (British newspaper The Independent) which was "supered" on the lower left-hand portion of the TV screen, like it was his signature or something.
… Bland was a guest on one of the cable net's afternoon programs to talk about "The End of the World," as the segment was called, for Rupert Murdoch's News of the World newspaper and the hacking scandal.
… Everybody's tweeting.
… Twitter has infiltrated everything.
… "Follow me on Facebook and Twitter," says Anderson Cooper every night.
… "Follow me on Facebook and Twitter and online at abcnews.com," says Christiane Amanpour at the end of her This Week program every Sunday.
… Do I have to?
… Twitter has become the modern-day telephone.
… Nobody calls anybody anymore and nobody retrieves phone messages . All they do is type.
… And some not very well -- just ask President Obama, who commented about Speaker of the House John Boehner's tweet to him during his Twitter Town Hall last week. (An inadvertent keyboard character appeared in the text and the president said, "John obviously needs to work on his typing skills."
Marcia Clark - remember her? - was all over TV last week (Joy Behar, others), commenting about the Casey Anthony case. She looks completely different from when she handled the O.J. Simpson prosecution back in 1995.
… Looks younger. Different hairstyle. Facelift?
Hanalie, dog in the neighborhood, got into roommate Emma the Cat's diabetic food the other night, reports owner Sally, and got a very upset stomach as a result. She stayed sick all day and the feline did not show poor Hanalie any sympathy.
… It's a mean, cruel world.
… "Goodbye Cruel World, I'm off to join the circus…" By James Darren, on Colpix Records, 1961.
WANTING HER PRIVACY. The New York Times obituary for Betty Ford, written by Enid Nemy,relates that the former first lady acknowledged traveling on campaign trips with husband Gerald R. Ford "was not all that much fun."
… Nemy writes that when she (Betty) was taking a break and sitting in an airport lounge, she said, "through clenched teeth," 'I don't want anyone to come over and talk to me. I just want to sit here all alone and finish this cigarette.'"
… Amen, that's telling 'em Bets.
… She spoke her mind and was known for it.
A DUMB THING. Newsweek magazine's cover picture of a computer-generated and aged Princess Diana ("Diana at 50: If She Were Here Now") standing alongside new daughter-in-law Kate Middleton. (The article and idea for the whole thing was that of editor in chief Tina Brown.)
… Diana has a few wrinkles now and both she and Catherine have those fascinator (hat/headpiece) things tilted on the sides of their heads.
… In the article Brown speculates that Princess Diana "would have migrated to New York, dumped Dodi Al-Fayed (remember him?), married twice more and made peace with Prince Charles and his new wife Camilla."
… How could Brown know that?
…The whole thing sounds like something you'd read in those Star and Globe tabloids here.
… (To give her credit, Brown did author The Diana Chronicles, a biography of the Princess of Wales but still…)
… What other oddball idea is Brown gonna come up with in order to sell out-dated magazines? Have you seen how thin Newsweek and Time are lately?
… Pardon me, it's actually now called the Newsweek/Daily Beast Company, LLC.
GOOD COMMERCIAL. For Chevrolet, which uses a Dick Dale surf guitar-type sound with vintage Chevys seen throughout in a speeded-up video montage of the car and its owners over the decades.
… Very cool.
… "Chevy Runs Deep," as they say.
"LIKE THE SMELL ON A SKUNK." That's how Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) described how the state would stay on the case of the Exxon/Mobil oil spill on the Yellowstone River until the cleanup is done, which was heard in a sound bite in George Lewis's news piece for NBC.
FYI: Brian Ross of ABC says those implanted "belly bombs" that al-Qaeda puts in the tummies of up and coming terrorists are the "size of a grapefruit," and that they do not have the ability to kill a lot of people at once but instead "could be used in an assassination attempt to kill one person."
… In the belly of the beast.
… Good God, what will they think of next?
Quilted Northern bath tissue "protects against breakthrough," so says the TV commercial.
…UH . . . Break on Through (To the Other Side) - The Doors, on Elektra Records, 1967.

rocci.fisch@gmail.com

Archives

Services provided by BrowserMedia.com