Amy's Robot

Hollywood studio execs are all expecting the biggest summer ever in box office sales. Some of them think this is due to shorter movie running times, allowing more screenings per day, some think it just might be because movies are actually good this summer. Um, couldn't the annual price increase of a movie ticket (it's $10 in NYC now) have something to do with it too? I'm just sayin'.

Amy's Robot will be quiet tomorrow. Ciao, bambini.

Unbelievably detailed report on what you have to wear if you want to get into L.A. clubs in various neighborhoods. Hint: short and tight gets you in, jeans and pleated pants don't.

It's all over the news about the recent Supreme Court ruling that OK's totally random drug testing of middle- and high-school kids who participate in school activities, but I thought ADM would like the word choice that Ruth Bader Ginsburg used in her commentary. She's opposed to the ruling, and said it "is not reasonable, it is capricious, even perverse."

ADM is out on vacation for a good long while. So you just got me.

Video Art and I have had our differences over the years (I was less than thrilled with most of the Whitney Biennial's selections earlier this year), but now it seems to have come to stay, an ever-present bee in my bonnet. Now that the Guggenheim has finally taken down its Brazil exhibit after an unprecedented eight month run (seems the Guggenheim ran out of cash for a new show) (and this one wasn't even modern art in the first place), its new exhibit going up this weekend is Moving Pictures, a great big old film and video exhibit. Probably it will be cool, though if you want to experience each piece in its entirety, you may have to skip work to make the time: it's only running for 6 months.

So you may be aware that there is a form of medium range wireless networking called "WiFi" that, among other things, allows your laptop to connect to the Internet wirelessly. In various cities (such as NYC) wireless nodes are scattered around, and you can access them from about a block away. Anyway, in London, WiFi users have taken to chalking the areas near the WiFi nodes...a practice reminiscent of American hobos and their somewhat elaborate symbology.

Highlights from the BET Awards: Busta emails his acceptance speech to P Diddy via a 2-way pager, Snoop Dogg and Suge have a little stand-off, and India.Arie finally wins something. Also, there was apparently a cleavage contest between Ashanti and Vivica Fox. You can also check out the official account.

LA Times has a lengthy profile of Margaret Cho, who I used to not be able to stand but who lately I have sort of liked.

Remember Stephen Glass, the young reporter whose made-up stories filled the pages of the New Republic, Harper's, and the Atlantic? Well, a bio-pic is in the works. The word is that Hayden Christensen gets the lead role, which is sort of crazy. Glass, from what I've seen, seems much more like a Tobey Maguire-type. But what do I know. A lot more can be found at this site about the Glass affair.

So if you're Michael Jackson, and Sony is trying to dump you out of your contract because you haven't made them any money in 10 years, who do you get to represent you in a flailing attempt to regain some kind of racial credibility? Or, come on, any racial identity at all? Johnnie Cochran and Al Sharpton.

Animal behavior researchers are realizing that mate selection is not solely a matter of females selecting the competing male with the longest tail or the most well-defined quads. [free login req'd] We're now learning that the males also go for the female with especially brightly-colored stomach scales or the most evenly applied pearlized eye shadow. Maybe these researchers figure that looking at human mating behavior doesn't tell us squat about the rest of the animal world, because otherwise they might have already figured this one out. [via the fluffy-feathered King Pigeon]

Ebert interviews Cruise, Spielberg, re Minority Report, which I haven't seen yet.

Martha Stewart has proclaimed her innocence while chopping salad on CBS's The Early Show. It is probably just a coincidence that she sold 4,000 shares ImClone of stock the day before the FDA rejected the company's cancer drug. Relatedly, here is about the most meta photo you can imagine of the event.

LA Times has an interesting piece on what happens when foreign directors (Woo, Jeunet, Annaud, etc.) come to Hollywood to make movies. Most often, the results aren't so great. The article explores the reasons why.

I totally neglected to mention in my Minority Report report that my own personal favorite washed-up has-been movie star Arye Gross (star of my favorite non-cult non-classic film House 2) played his usual nerd-with-no-hap supporting character role. Thanks, again, to Fame Tracker for reminding me of this in their "Arye Gross: Hapless Nerd" issue.

In case you haven't already read enough about all the books coming out now about how everybody needs to just get married and have children RIGHT NOW, especially women over 30, Salon's got another article for you. And they're pissed. Bring on the media-saturated backlash!

A book by Ann Roiphe, who I can only assume is not related to Katie Roiphe, called "Marriage: A Fine Predicament", actually includes the letter that this woman wrote to her own unmarried daughters. An excerpt: "You can't go on just doing as you please, just following your star, just flashing your pretty wings about the universe." I think I have to agree with the Salon writer, who says this book just makes you want to "flash your pretty wings anywhere you damn well please."

Apparently, Bush's delegates to UN conferences are aligning themselves with Libya, Iraq, and Iran when it come to certain social issues. Tom Tomorrow illustrates.

Boston.com has stories of people's worst experiences with traffic to Cape Cod. One above-it-all poster writes, "If I didn't have an airplane, I simply wouldn't visit the Cape." Well hardy-har-har.

But wait, there's more. This is the best one, from "Six Pack Abs" in the South End: "My new life partner and I were returning from a hopping good weekend in P-town. Coming back we were overcome by the return traffic - the worse I have ever seen. We argued so badly that we split up, and have not spoken since! Now he's off to Vermont with some new floozie - as if *that* will last..."

This article might change my life. Not so much because I have been consciously drinking to ensure that I won't develop diabetes, but because it clearly states that I can drink 3 to 6 units of alcohol a day, and be considered a moderate drinker.

Moby identifies why his sales are down, relatively speaking: smarter fans = more cd-burning = fewer sales. He calls it "the Pearl Jam effect". I call it the "Sick of you already" effect. (via slashdot)

Following up on Amy's post re the NYT's use of the word "retarded", here's a PDF document illustrating the more PC/less offensive terms to describe people who are different from me and Amy in some way. I thought midgets/dwarves were supposed to be called little people, but apparently it's "person of short stature" now. I am posting this because I think it's interesting, not because I have a strong opinion one way or the other about it.

I've yet to discuss this with ADM, but it turns out that Minority Report was a good movie. As you might expect, the supporting cast held the whole movie together, especially the Swedish Peter Stormare as the black-market surgeon with the unkempt apartment, and my personal favorite, Samantha Morton. Remember when she did that freak-out spastic dance to "Sweet Pea" in Jesus' Son? She is luminous and incredible.

If somebody besides Steven Spielberg had made this movie, there might have been more meaningful content about the signficance of themes like pre-destination, free will, and justice, but I'm not complaining.

Apparently even liberal-minded, progressive publications like the New York Times think it is totally OK to use the word "retarded" again and again in their writing. They even say "developmentally disabled" on The Sopranos, for crying out loud. Via Whiskas, free login required.

It has come to my attention that some people are still not aware of the fact that John Stamos is currently playing the Emcee in Cabaret on Broadway right here in New York. Here he is in his nipple bondage German badboy gear. Yes, John Stamos.

Remember the time I wrote "BOTTLE ROCK..." on the wrong side of my Bottle Rocket DVD? People are finally starting to figure out why: a new book explores the issue of why smart people do stupid things.

I know everyone was blogging Google Labs a couple of weeks ago, but did you realize that you can view other people's searches on Google, too? Their lab project called "Google Voice Search" lets you call a phone number, speak your search terms, and then view a page that shows you the results. The page itself continually refreshes with other people's results whenever someone else calls in a query.

The VW microbus will return.

Instead of taking your chances on the dating scene, why not use your position as the editor of a nationally-respected magazine to get chicks. Then, advocate that you and your partner (and all other couples) sign a contract of expectations and goals, and go see a "love therapist" once a week. That's probably the surest way to a happy relationship. (via medianews)

Escape of the Robots! A robot at a competition in England escaped and made its way into the parking lot before before being caught. (via slashdot).

An alternative to Microsoft Office. Best feature: it's very compatible with MS Office. Second-best feature: it's free. Also free is the registration required at nytimes.com to view the article.

Britney's new New York restaurant NYLA opened last week. (nyt, free login req'd) As the Times points out, most of her fans, and Britney herself, cannot legally drink, so we're all not too sure who the target demographic for her new lounge is... 36-year-old advertising execs? Sports writers? Sharp, sassy non-profit employees? Seems like no one really thought this new restaurant through.

On page 2 of this article, we learn that Britney does not know who Georgia O'Keefe is. As Whiskas, my source, points out, had Britney opted for attending college instead of being a pop star/actress/restaurateur, she definitely would have learned at the poster sale during the first week of school.

Smart article on Salon about why dance music is the most influential music out there today, even if it's not on the radio. Even if Timo Maas' album isn't showing up on the Billboard charts, the writer says, the fact that we're all hearing techno and house in ads on TV all the time, and that kids are going to raves even if they're Dave Matthews fans, shows that we secretly love dance music here in America. Hey, suddenly Americans are getting into soccer now that the US is in the World Cup quarterfinals, so maybe we're finally coming around to the joys of trashy, repetitive, fluffy music too.

One way schools have found to keep graduating high-school seniors from going to private keg parties: spend lots and lots of money on elaborate and self-indulgent "clean" parties. These kids today, so spoiled. They're not going to learn the value of a dollar, or the value of Boone's Snow Creek Berry wine.

With this fun game you can make your own new customized South Park character.

Dogs playing poker. Maybe the greatest painting ever. Well, it's about time the artist finally gets the recognition he deserves. His other works include a comic opera about a New Jersey mosquito epidemic, and those wood cut-outs you get your picture taken behind. (free reg. req'd) (via lcm)

Tonight, Nickelodeon is airing a news show about gay parents, despite 100,000 calls and emails of protest.

In other controversial TV show news, "My Adventures in Television", the show formerly named after its time slot, is back, and this time, it's in hot water over an episode about adopting Chinese babies. Remember, the show was created by Peter Tolan, Denis Leary's partner (no, not that Denis Leary partner) on The Job.

NYT has an article today about the elaborate nature of bulletin boards in public schools and the scrutiny they receive. (via tbl; nyt free reg req'd.)

By coincidence, I have finally gotten around to updating the Youth Employment Program bulletin board in my classroom, the pieces of which I am making available here as a web-based presentation.

As an add-on to Alan's post about The Bourne Identity: how about those increasingly divergent careers of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. They were at the same level, quality-wise, when Good Will Hunting came out, but it's been a fairly continuous upward journey for Matt (Rounders, Saving Private Ryan, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ocean's 11, Bourne Identity) and a continuous downward spiral for superstar Ben (Armageddon, Reindeer Games, Forces of Nature, Pearl Harbor, Sum of All Fears, need I go on?) Matt had a couple of missteps (Bagger Vance), and Ben did star in the very good Changing Lanes, but that movie was not good because of him. Somebody like Paul Rudd or Jude Law or Ed Norton would have been even better. I wish Fametracker would do a Fame Audit comparing these two.

Also The Bourne Identity has Clive Owen in it, so it automatically is made at least 1.8 times better just by his presence.

The Bourne Identity. Not great, but a very good genre piece. As many reviews noted, Matt Damon does lack the gravitas of, say, Richard Chamberlain, but he does a convincing enough job as a CIA hitman. The movie contains some fresh sequences -- the first car chase (involving a beat-up Austin Mini and some motorcycles), for instance, is unconventional, as is a climactic moment near the end of the film (a new take on the staircase shoot-out). Since it's so rare to see something you've never seen before in action movies, these moments make the movie easy to appreciate.

The acting (Chris Cooper, Brian Cox) believable and tense, even if the dialogue and plot don't make a great deal of sense. The one actor who seems out of sync with the rest of the movie is Julia Stiles, who is sort of stiff and always looks like she woke up late and is trying to convince everyone on the set that she isn't tired. She didn't have much to do, anway, so it's a minor quibble. Lola is good as the civilian love interest, and there aren't any dumb scenes where she knocks the bad guy over the head with a vase. Her confused, occasionally puppy-ish personality makes it a little hard to understand why Matt is so attracted to her, but she's nice enough. I guess he recently got exposed to his own human side again (this is implied in the movie), and so maybe that carried over into his relationship with Lola, or maybe he was getting in touch with his true self for the first time since his super-spy training began.

Before seeing the movie, I read 139 pages of the book. Let me tell you: don't bother. It is horribly written and seems to have almost nothing in common with the movie, besides the "secret agent has amnesia" premise, and of course, the title. Geez, and Robert Ludlum is such a big deal author and everything. It made me want to write a spy novel and become a best-selling author by the weekend.

FBI is seeking new privileges that will allow them to see who is calling you, without a warrant. No one is opposing this.

Arrivederci Italia.

Italy:1 Korea:1 Overtime.

Things are a little tense.

Francesco Totti, save us.

I have returned. Watch out.

Article on Salon about the documentary on A&E that premieres tonight, "Married in America", by Michael Apted, who did the "Seven Up" documentary series. What with all the "Bachelorettes in Alaska" series and other Fox-produced marriage exploitation shows lately, he should have some interesting things to point out.

Salon also had a great piece on the lasting value of Kieslowski's Three Colors films [via King Pigeon], in which the writer suggests that the Academy start an Oscar category for Best Haircut, which he would have given to Juliette Binoche the year that "Blue" came out. I think last year's Best Haircut award would have been a toss-up between the two stars of "Mulholland Drive". That was some good hair.

John Dean's new book about Deep Throat, published as an e-book on Salon, was supposedly going to identify Deep after all these years. Unfortunately, the chief suspect denied it so vehemently, and provided counter-evidence, that Dean had to withdraw his allegations in the end. Oh well. Anyway, Salon has this interview with Dean.

Britney: The Video Game

Ashton Kutcher, star of That 70s Show, Dude Where's My Car, and a black & white Gap commercial, is being sued for his involvment in a Candid-Camera-like prank for MTV that involved putting a blood-covered corpse-like mannequin in a hotel room and then preventing the guests from leaving. This was in the news yesterday, but today, the court papers are available.

LA Times on DJ Shadow, with audio clips.

An aide to Bush counsel Karl Rove dropped a floppy disk containing a sensitive PowerPoint presentation detailing the White House's fears of losing more Senate seats in the fall elections. A Democratic staffer found the disk by coincidence, and the contents have been made public.

Roger Ebert, who has never seen the cartoon, reviews Scooby Doo. Surprise revelation: he says there's a lot of big breasts in the movie, an observation I had been meaning to make here, based on Velma's appearance on the posters I see in the subway.

Wondering about a font? Try Identifont.

Follow-up to a widely-blogged item from last week: The Beijing newspaper which ran a fake news story from The Onion as if it were real news has finally admitted its error, but more funnily, has condemned The Onion for making up news. "According to congressional workers, the Onion is a publication that never ceases making up false reports," the Evening News said. (via medianews)

John Edwards (the guy who talks to dead people on TV): Psychic or master statistician?

Details emerging about Robert Blake's ill-conceived murder plot against his wife. Tip for next time: leave the following kinds of people off the list of hitmen you offer the job to:

• People with Parkinson's disease.
• Former police officers.
• The victim's own brother.

John Gotti's body is getting carted around all over America, and the Catholic church says, "No mass."

The guy who founded Mathematica, who apparently is quite smart, wrote a book that questions the complexity of science. (NYT, free reg req'd)

The game of Tag has been banned from this school. What else are you supposed to do at recess? (LA Times -- free reg req'd)

A Staten Island mobster allegedly attempted to extort Steven Seagal and threatened his life. Quick summary:

"But prosecutors said electronic surveillance in the case also uncovered evidence that Ciccone and two others, including Seagal's former producing partner, Julius R. 'Jules' Nasso, were attempting to extort money from an 'entertainment figure.' Nasso, 49, of Staten Island, had a 15-year business relationship with Seagal until a bitter falling-out and filed a $60-million lawsuit against the actor in March, alleging that the star of films such as 'Under Siege' had backed out of a contract to perform in four movies." (LA Times -- extensive registration required)

The final report on White House vandalism by outgoing Clinton staffers is in. Remember? They stole the W's from the keyboards. The report only cost $200,000 to produce. Good thing we got to the bottom of that one.

McDonuts. Only in NYC.

Woody settled his lawsuit against his producers and dinner partners.

Breaking up is hard to do, unless you're a man and you're doing it, apparently. Update: Or, apparently, if you're Britney Spears, and your boy band boyfriend won't stop calling his hiatus-girlfriend. More hiatus-girlfriend news: pictures, and details.

Wondering how NY'ers are feeling about the future and the city? NYT has its annual survey results. (free reg req'd)

Apparently, there is a correlation between being a tattooed adolescent and being a drunk, stoner, suicidal adolescent. Oh, wait: all the participants were from A MILITARY CLINIC. Gee, why would those adolescents be more stressed out and escapist than other teens? What I get from this article is that having a tattoo makes you more likely to get laid.

While we're on the topic, here's my favorite tattoo picture of all time, starring Christina Ricci.

Students at UCSD can track each other's locations on a map on their PDA's.

Salon has a lengthy piece on Ted Nugent today, including this recipe from his new cookbook. Step 1 involves killing "a critter".

The New York Post has extensive coverage of John Gotti's death, but their website is so poorly organized, it's hard to find it all. Columnist Steve Dunleavy has this love letter to the dead don.

The Birmingham News, in Alabama, ran an ad for a peformance of The Vagina Monologues, but wouldn't print the name of the play in the ad. You had to call a special telephone number to hear the V-word. (via medianews) I wonder what they did in 1999 when that movie starring Kirsten Dunst as Woodward and Bernstein's source came out.

Different beers, viewed under a microscope. (Sort of via slashdot)

I guess it's a good thing I bought that signed-by-Dee-Dee copy of the Pleasant Dreams album last year.

If I could be anywhere in the world, I'd be here eating a nocciolletto gelato. Oh wait, I am.

Ebert reviews Bad Company, featuring Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock (working together -- finally!). The movie probably stinks, but the review is pretty funny.

Dee Dee Ramone is dead. Do people know this already?

LA Times has a piece about the electronic music/DJ scene there, discussing both local and touring artists. Some interesting sidebar articles are linked to, including this highly debatable list of the top 5 US/World DJ's.

This post is in honor of the vacationing Amy.

All right, as far as I'm concerned, it's official: "The Osbournes" is no longer interesting. No show responsible for a $20 million renewal contract, a $2 million book contract, and now, a ridiculous and far-reaching $10 million merchandising contract can possibly be interesting. I tried to warn everyone a month ago...I hope you were listening.

The Justice Department is proposing that the INS fingerprints people who receive visas, but only if those people are from Arab countries. With each passing day, we start to look more and more like the people we are fighting against. (NYT, free reg req'd)

Footballer histrionics are finally being penalized: Rivaldo, the Brazilian player, was fined about $7,000 for faking a foul injury during the controversial Brazil v. Turkey match on Monday. Brazil are the Big Football Team who often win and everything, and the ref made some highly doubtful calls in Brazil's favor, including sending two Turkish players off the field, one of them for committing the pretend foul against Rivaldo.

Amy will be on hiatus from Amy's Robot for a time, while she basks in the Mediterranean heaven of the Italian Riviera and watches Argentina trounce England on Friday. Well Ok actually, given that the USA beat Portugal this morning, scoring three times as many goals as they did in the entire last World Cup, I guess anything is possible.

OK ADM, I'll take the bait.

Yes, Stuff magazine is full of brilliance and wit. It has a level of self-awareness and irony that is completely lacking in both FHM and Maxim, and somehow manages to encourage the self-deprecating image that most of its readers seem to have (all those "I am such an idiot!! stories from readers) but in a friendly, nice way. The Me-WOW feature in this month's issue, for example, about obese cats, really demonstrates that the editors of Stuff and I are like peas in a pod.

And about The Osbournes, which ADM has been waiting for me to say something about all month. Apart from the occassional bit of Ozzy genius and accidental physical comedy (halfway down the first paragraph, Heee!), it will bite. I just hope they have as ever-present a camera crew and as savvy an editor as they did this season, otherwise it's gonna be week after week of Jack and Kelly hamming for the camera and wallowing in their new-found unfunny fame.

The New York Press has a piece about Maxim's utter lack of soul, written by a former editor who reveals (not too surprisingly) their sacred "Formula" for each issue. Amy, for one, far prefers Stuff magazine, which is of the same genre, but far cleverer. Stuff, it turns out, is published by Maxim's publisher. (via medianews)

ABC News has produced a six-part documentary about Boston, which begins tonight. (NYT free reg. req'd.)

Michelle Goldberg, one of the music writers at Salon, may have just redeemed herself a little bit. In January, she wrote what I think was one of the worst and most misguided music reviews of the year about the Chemical Brothers' new album, in which she said that since she had last heard the Brothers at the late '90's opulent launch parties of the now-kaput dot-com companies when the world was naive and overpaid, it was inherently wrong for them to continue to make the same bouncy, optimistic music now that her friends were out of jobs, and funky big-beat was no longer the Next Big Thing. Plus she thinks that danceable music in this post-9/11 world is tasteless. This review obviously made me crazy and drove me to street vandalism.

So now she comes out with this review of Moby's new album. And what do you know: she makes some excellent points. She compares Moby to Quentin Tarantino: not a bad producer, but for the love of God, keep that ass planted firmly in the studio. Moby's thin little wheeze of a voice is a lot like Tarantino's acting, she notes. She also comments on the way other music critics are falling all over themselves to praise this new piece of crap album that Moby has put out, attributing it to overcompensation for their failure to predict the hugeness of "Play", which turned out to be the soundtrack of the world for two years. She's more merciful in her critique of "18" than I would be, but she's won back my respect.

The latest topic on Hissyfit: Babies. Entitled "112 Reasons to Lead a Barren, Childless Existence That Ends in Your Death", the HF ladies really freak out on this one. The reasons, by the way, mostly boil down to a) Your Kid Might Hate You, b) You Might Hate Your Kid, or c) Your Kid Might Like Pauly Shore. All this was inspired by that book "Creating a Life" that came out a few months ago, and created this huge uproar among educated women with jobs by revealing the cutting-edge scientific theory that women get less fertile as they get older. Yet people reacted, seriously, like this was news. Cover of New York magazine and everything. In a marketing tactic that I can only describe as sick, Amazon is selling this book with a special discount if you buy it with the season 3 DVD of "Sex And The City". For Christ's sake.

Apparently the gossip universe has moved on from Tobey Maguire and Nicole Kidman to Tobey Maguire and (gross-out warning) Christina Aguilera. I have received documentation of their attachment from "gby" on an Italian Christina webchat site. Here is the google(tm)-powered translation. My source however, tells me that a few days after one session of public canoodling, Christina saw Tobey in a club, sent over her bodyguard to ask him if she should slide her skanky garbage ass over to visit him, and he totally took off.