A thrill ride of sizzling stupidity!
Columbia Pictures execs were embarrassed to admit over the summer that David Manning, the movie critic/blurbmeister who raved in ads about “The Animal” (“The producing team of ‘Big Daddy’ has delivered another winner!”) and “A Knight’s Tale” (“Heath Ledger is this year’s HOTTEST NEW STAR!”), was an invention of the studio. No one could explain why a studio would invent a fake critic when Maria Sallas (“Head Over Heels”: “The best Freddie Prinze Jr. Movie since ‘She’s All That’!”) and Shawn Edwards (“Black Knight”: “The Surprise Comedy of the Year!”) already exist.
A thrill ride of sizzling stupidity — the sequel!
After tweaking Columbia by touting “real honest-to-God rave reviews” in its “Sexy Beast” ads, Fox Searchlight Pictures was revealed to have faked TV commercial testimonials for the 1998 comedy “Waking Ned Devine.” Those in-the-lobby folks calling the movie “hysterical!” were, yes, Fox Searchlight employees.
A romantic comedy . . . with a twist!
Miramax sent the time-travel romance “Kate & Leopold” back to the cutting room just days before its release when someone belatedly realized that the complicated plot implies that Liev Schreiber’s character, in effect, has had sex with his great-grandmother.
And they’ll both be on Oprah next week
In Anne Heche’s autobiography “Call Me Crazy,” the actress revealed she had a split personality; the non-Anne one happened to be “Celestia, the reincarnation of God.”
The icky pop hit of the year
In the what-was-he-thinking? department, how about the egregiously distasteful song on Michael Jackson’s “Invincible” album: “The Lost Children” concludes with a child’s voice whimpering, “It’s getting dark, I think we better go home now.” This is the kind of song and sentiment Jackson shouldn’t venture anywhere near, given the unfortunate perceptions that have surrounded him since a child-abuse suit was settled out of court several years ago.
What’s Icelandic for “bird brain”?
Bjork dressed as a stuffed swan to perform her nominated song at the Oscars telecast. Talk about laying an egg.
I want my MTV — in the ICU
MTV introduced the aptly titled “Jackass,” in which the freak-show host performs dangerous, easy-to-replicate stunts. A 12-year-old boy and a 13-year-old boy set themselves on fire in imitation of one stunt, and a 16-year-old boy was hit by a car and broke his leg while trying to make a video for the show. The MTV folks saw no connection.
Runners-up: Puff Dragon, P. Doody . . .
Realizing that Puff Daddy is a silly moniker for a grown man, hip-hopper Sean “Puffy” Combs celebrated his acquittal on gun and bribery charges by asking to be called P. Diddy.
With Cloris Leachman as “Katherine Harris”
Hey, look: It’s a presidential election marred by ballot irregularities and procedural snafus — but this one pits Melissa “Laura Ingalls” Gilbert and Valerie “Rhoda Morgenstern” Harper in a bitter contest to be the Screen Actors Guild’s top dog. Gilbert won, but as the year drew to a close, calls for re-vote were increasing.
The art of the deal
Color the Art Institute of Chicago’s trustees red-faced. Turns out the board’s finance committee went with a “can’t miss” sales pitch from a Texas trader and, much to their chagrin, it did miss — possibly by as much as $43 million in endowment funds, which trustees are suing to recover. The good news: The finance committee, which is headed by A. Steven Crown and which includes Marshall Field V and Chicago Board of Trade CEO David Vitale, could probably cover the losses with personal checks.
That’s an American-style burqa she’s wearing
MTV’s idea of covering the war in Afghanistan was to have a youthful correspondent show a picture of a scantily clad Jennifer Lopez to Afghan youth and ask them what they thought of her. In a savvy show of corporate synergy, CNN aired the hard-hitting piece, proving that yes, there is war news coverage that is more embarrasing than that of Fox News’ breathless, gun-totin’ Geraldo Rivera.
Hey, E.T., the phone won’t work. Try this.
Steven Spielberg revealed that for next March’s rerelease of “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial,” he is digitally removing guns from cops’ hands and replacing them with walkie-talkies. No word on whether eventually he’ll remove John Williams’ overbearing music from “Saving Private Ryan.”.
Poetry appreciation corner
It wasn’t enough that he slaughtered innocent people; Timothy McVeigh also had to wreck the reputation of a perfect good Victorian poem. McVeigh, sentenced to death for bombing the federal building in Oklahoma City, included William Ernest Henley’s 1875 poem “Invictus” in his official “last words.” Henley, an upright British writer and editor, would have been appalled.
Come out with your baton over your head
A few weeks after Sept. 11, Swiss police briefly detained Chicago Symphony principal guest conductor Pierre Boulez, 75, one of the world’s most eminent composers and maestros, on suspicion of being linked to terrorist activities. In the 1960s, Boulez, then a leader of the European musical avant-garde, had said that opera houses should be blown up.
David Manning switches to music criticism
We know Rolling Stone magazine lost its street cred years ago, but just to drive home the point, publisher/founder Jann Wenner came down from his throne to write a jaw-dropping 5-star (“masterpiece”) review of pal Mick Jagger’s ho-hum solo album “Goddess in the Doorway.”
Where are the bats and balls? Oh.
The Goodman Theatre originally planned to present a play by Rebecca Gilman about a Major League Baseball strike, but instead produced her “Blue Surge,” and then, due to a late mailing, didn’t inform many of its subscribers about the change. This left audiences who had anticipated a play about baseball confronted with a play about the relationship between a cop and a teenage prostitute, with full frontal male nudity and plenty of rough language.
And did I mention how cool that A-bomb was?
German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, in disjointed comments before a four-day festival of his works in Hamburg, called the attack on the World Trade Center “the greatest work of art that is possible in the whole cosmos.” Though he attempted to explain the artistic context of his remarks, the damage was done.
And then they played “Stockhausen’s Greatest Hits”
Add WFMT-FM 98.7, once the most cultured radio station in North America, to the various enterprises that sought to capitalize on the events of Sept. 11. On WFMT’s first fundraising weekend after the attacks, Dan Schmidt, CEO of the station’s parent company, WTTW, delivered a pitch that presented classical music as an emotional band-aid and WFMT as the doctor who’s “here for you.” Not all patients swallowed the pill. Operators reported many complaints
Hey, girls, he’s available again!
In a year in which multiple animals passed gas on screen and Chris Klein got his arm stuck up a cow’s rectum in “Say It Isn’t So,” the auteur award goes to Tom Green for “Freddy Got Fingered,” which won the how-low-can-you-go movie prize for its climax in which Green hoses down his dad (Rip Torn) with something unspeakable from a rhino.
Too many notes
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s primary mission is to make music. But this year, when the enterprise began to operate significantly in the red for the first time in decades, orchestral association president Henry Fogel chose not to make immediate cuts in its amenities (restaurants, a retail store) nor in the largest staff in its history. Instead, Igor Stravinsky’s ballet with song, “Pulcinella,” was dropped from one of principal guest conductor Pierre Boulez’s programs to save money on the singers.
The booby prize
Teen-pop radio station KISS-FM launched a contest called “Boobies Like Britney,” which offered a $5,000 first prize to a young woman who wanted a body like the lithe pop princess. The station received angry calls from listeners, who thought KISS-FM was giving away breast implants. KISS-FM’s Kathy Stinehour clarified the controversy by saying they were not giving away a breast job, just giving away $5,000 “for the winner to do what they want with.” And the name of the contest was changed to the much more tasteful Body Like Britney.
Wish you were here — kind of
In November, the cast of “The West Wing” filmed a promotional spot extolling Washington D.C. as a tourist destination. Trouble is, soon after that, the White House announced that it would not be hosting public Christmas tours this year (two other popular attractions, the Capitol and the FBI are also closed to tourists). Please, if the “West Wing” folks are so concerned about D.C., why don’t they pick up and move their show — and its multimillion dollar budget — from L.A. to Washington?
