Amy's Robot

Those not lucky enough to have experienced New York on a 95 degree day might appreciate this beautifully-written discussion of the bad hot-day smells of different neighborhoods, and also who has the worst-smelling job in the city. [via Whiskas, login required]

Ok, let's go over all the interesting articles in the NYT yesterday:

• The Israeli/Palestinian co-production of Sesame Street is running into problems, for obvious reasons.
• Detailed account of NYPD using every non-lethal force available to avoid killing crazed knife-wielder, who they eventually shot dead.
• Detailed account of last moments on Flight 93, the plane that crashed on 9/11. This is the first solid account of the cockpit voice recorder from that flight, as far as I know.
• Bodegas in Spanish neighborhoods in NYC are having trouble with their iconic bright yellow and red awnings: they are getting old and gross and they are too expensive to replace. NYT investigates.

Fantastic article in the Wall Street Journal (I know, I know) about those contests where whoever keeps their hand on a car long enough wins it. [via D-Mo] I think ADM would agree with me in saying that the documentary movie made about just such a competition in a Nissan dealership in Texas, Hands on a Hardbody, is one of the more surprisingly intense documentaries about pickup trucks you will ever see. Here's a quote from frequent winner, Brian Root:

“I’ve never really liked working, doing the 8-to-5,” he says. “I knew it would give me the freedom to go to the beach.” Besides, he adds, his long stands are “like a spiritual experience. Your mind goes to places it’s never gone before. … You see a part of yourself you never see otherwise.”

When I straighten my leg, I am going to blow up the LA Times. Even though I don't actually have a bomb.

Salon has an interview with Robert Evans about his crazy life, career, and new movie. Here's what he has to say about his greatest pleasure, "to see a woman blossom":

"I like women. Most men don't. They like to lay them, parlay them, relay them, have them on their arm. I like a woman's brain, I like a woman's instincts, I like a woman's focus and I like a woman's strengths."

This guy actually talks this way.

The Coen Brothers are going to make a musical movie, written by John Turturro and starring James Gandolfini. For serious.

There's been a rash of women being killed by their military husbands in a concentrated area of North Carolina over the past six weeks. Most of the victims were seeking separations from their (probably chronically abusive) husbands. [free login required]

The Kid Stays In the Picture made more money per screen this weekend than Austin Powers. I love this country.

Finally, readers strike back at Salon's dumb-ass advice columnist, Cary Tennis. Amy's Robot went after him months ago, even before we lost faith in The Osbournes.

Now you can host your very own blog with Salon for $40 a year. Hur-fucking-rah. In a way, this is like paying someone to publish your book for you, isn't it. Am I saying this facetiously? Of course not.

So Fametracker has a feature called "Two Stars, One Spot" -- it's what happens when two celebrities are very similar, but there's only room for one of them in the galaxy of stardom (like Chris O'Donnell and Matt Damon). Well, the latest installment indicates that of two funny, self-effacing Amy's, there's only room for 1: so the world must choose between Amy Poehler and Amy Sedaris.

Can't we all just get along?

I guess in China they still recycle plastic, unlike NYC.

This weekend the movie The Kid Stays In the Picture comes out, the documentary about movie producer Robert Evans, and everybody has something to say about it. Robert Evans produced just about every important movie that came out of Hollywood in the 1970's, he's best friends with Jack Nicholson, and he's a hard-boiled crusty old bastard. His book, which the documentary is based on, ends with the sentence: "Resolve: Fuck ’em, fuck ’em all.”

During his peregrinations through Hollywood of the '70's and '80's, this guy produced Chinatown, lost his wife Ali McGraw to Steve McQueen (he now calls her "Miss Snotnose"), became a cocaine addict, and went "from royalty to a leper." The fact that he narrates the entire movie, which is all about himself, pretty much guarantees that it will be hilarious and over the top. Salon seems to think the movie will be 2000% baloney, Variety/Yahoo is a little more in awe over Evans' greatness. Both articles agree that this guy is a larger-than-life legend.

Oh, hey, cool! Keith Olbermann is Salon's newest columnist! I am glad I publicly professed my love for him a few weeks ago.

ps. Dominick Dunne is a national treasure. There. I said it. On the record.

Aqua defeats Mattel. Come on Barbie, let's go party! [via King Pigeon]

The Catholic Church is about to canonize Juan Diego, a Mexican-Indian from the 16th century, and they seem to have revised images of him so that he looks more white. Somehow I think this has happened before.

Mmmm, chocolate. [via Whiskas]

Ok, look, what's all this crap about Tom Hanks being cast against type in the Road to Perdition? That movie is just as schmaltzy and dumb as every other movie he's in, and his character is equally sentimental. Tom Hanks is still Tom Hanks, even though he shoots a few people. Big f'ing deal. The article does have a nice treatment of Jimmy Stewart, even though it misapplies the idea to Harrison Ford.

Fametracker's latest Galaxy of Fame puts lots of old Amy's Robot favorites in their places, fame-wise. They got Billy Bob and Angelina, Conan, Anna Nicole Smith, Jacko... Hi Wing Chun! We know you read the blog!

I don't know why a fluffy story like this is in today's NYT (it seems more suited for the "Life" section of the weekend USA Today), but here it is: a story about haunted hotels.

Bitchy book critic Dale Peck has gotten everyone in a tizzy by writing that Faulkner, Nabokov, and Don DeLillo are bad writers, or even "just plain stupid." Dale Peck also considers himself "one of the best writers around." Authors' reactions to this guy are pretty funny.

Beverly Hills is infested with rats.

Viagra: is there anything it can't do?

The DVD of The Royal Tenenbaums is out, via the Criterion Collection, and it's full of interesting goodies. (Maybe they are giving it away as part of that Afgani circumcision party.)

This is likely to be among the most blogged items of the day, but San Francisco is considering growing its own pot to distribute to sick people.

Salon: the social and aesthetic power of wigs. As one wig broker puts it, with a new wig your self-image goes from "zero to hero in seconds."

Those charitable Turks are performing mass circumcisions for Afghan boys today and tomorrow. The boys all get cool goodie bags.

NYT explores The Red Wine Headache. Funny, it never gave me a headache.

What is NYC really like? It is beautiful, orderly, and sweet-smelling, at least according to the people in Ghana who process the city's civic violations tickets. (nyt, free reg req'd) (via bar)

A very clever new book by a feminist evolutionary biologist, Sexual Selections, reminds us that we can't always extract truths about human sexuality and mating behavior from the rest of the animal world: sometimes a snake orgy is just a snake orgy.

Mainstream Hip Hop is changing the nature of radio, as R&B stations switch over. Baton Rouge, LA, for example, now has 3 hip-hop stations. (NYT, free reg req'd)

Neil LaBute, who did In the Company of Men, Your Friends and Neighbors, and Nurse Betty, has a new play that takes place on September 12 in NYC, called The Mercy Seat. Hopefully he will be inspired to use as good-looking a cast as he did for his last play.

Yeah, why is Jenifer Jason Leigh in the Road to Perdition? TBL and I wondered da same ting. (warning: unannounced major spoilers in the article.) And, wow, look at David Thompson assault the movie itself: "Road to Perdition is a pretentious, bad movie and one clue to its inner decay is this abject neglect of its female character."

Ebert also loves the new movie Lovely & Amazing starring Catherine Keener, my psychic celebrity doppelganger. Don't forget she's also in Full Frontal, Stephen Soderbergh's new movie that comes out in two weeks, and the word on the street is there are naked people in it.

Here I am, giving 115% to the blog. Look, maybe they're making a Sopranos movie. Look! Angelina's getting divorced! Look! A cat flew 63,000 miles! Look! Ebert loves Eight Legged Freaks as much as Road to Perdition! Look! Look!

Oh god. It doesn't get any uglier than this: "Osbourne said she would start three months of chemotherapy on July 29, and that she planned to allow MTV to film the treatment when shooting resumes for the second season of 'The Osbournes' -- the show that follows the chaotic daily exploits of the foul-mouthed family."

Salon has this new feature called "Ask the Pilot", where you can ask a real live airline pilot dumb questions about big airplanes. Well, it's new to me, anyway. And that's what blogs are all about.

In a culinary development presaged by the cafeteria at Amy's former employer, and long-touted by her, pressed sandwiches are the latest hot -- and I mean hot -- trend in food. (NYT req'd)

Shocking books by the shockingly young. NYT reviews Twelve, by someone who is Eighteen. Well, not so shocking, considering my brother wrote Bobby and the Lion when he was only 6. (free reg req'd)

We all know Zacharias Moussaoui tried to plead guilty yesterday and the judge wouldn't let him. But, the details of what happened are incredible. NPR's Nina Totenberg, maybe the best Supreme Court reporter there is, filed this story from Moussaoui's trial in Alexandria, VA yesterday. (Audio clip, free RealPlayer required.)

Basically, instead of pleading guilty or not guilty, ZM tried to make "an affirmative plea in the name of Allah" and made many speeches regarding his partial guilt and partial innocence. Seriously, it is worth listening to, if you can. (If you can't listen, you can read this account of what happened, which is not so lively, or the NYT story, which is pretty detailed.) (tx bar)

NYT on Apple: Design critic describes the new Apple store in SoHo, and David Pogue summarizes Steve Jobs' announcements from MacWorld New York yesterday.

NYT discusses the latest incarnation of 3-D TV. (free reg req'd)

A new study on human interaction behavior shows that women find cooperating with each other physically pleasurable, in the same way that food, drugs, and money make for happy brain activity. No study has yet been done to see if the same is true for men.

Fantastically written Fame Audit of Tommy Lee Jones, America's favorite sidekick/chaperone/craggy-faced star. Especially good commentary on U.S. Marshals, i.e. The Fugitive II: This Time He's Black.

More shocking news from Hollywood: Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob are -- gasp! -- on the rocks. This after years of sickening stories of their undying, unprecedented-in-the-history-of-the-world devotion to each other.

Seriously depressing article in the Village Voice about really really young prostitutes that are all over NYC. Man. Here's an excerpt from an 11-year old: "I was trying to think of me being somewhere in a happy place, just not having to worry about no problems, no trouble," she says quietly. When it was over, "I went in the bathroom and I cried because I was like, I can't believe I'm doing this. But then I have to, because there's nobody else here that's going to take care of me. I got myself back up and I went back out there."

The latest threat to national security: Indian performance artists who pass notes on planes.

Salon has a lengthy, well-researched article about Al Qa*da's alleged efforts to hide encrypted messages in images on eBay.

US Army personnel: "Hey all you taxpayers, just keep those dollars a-comin'! Now Cinnamon honey, just bring your ass right up close to my face, that's it..."

Shakira, Mandy Moore, and all young impressionable pop stars take note: when selecting a pilot to fly your private plane for you, try not to pick a crack addict.

More coolness in Queens (a phenomenon we have previously documented): NYT discusses the shabby-chic American Museum of the Moving Image, seeking a wider audience. 'Course, it's been there for a while.

NYT discusses walking on the sidewalks in NYC the right way. (free reg req'd)

Salon has an extremely well-written Ozzy-backlash meta-piece, of sorts, and it has a great mini-history of Ozzy and Sabbath.

Alien-studying scientists expect to find ET in 25 years, due to better technology.

In case you've been wondering what the hell Leonardo DiCaprio has been doing for the past 4 years besides thrusting his career forcibly down every toilet in sight, now it seems he's joining the crowd of American movie stars acting in London theater. Hope he's better than Madonna.

OK, I thought I was done with this post, but I'm not. Back in the early '90's, Leonardo DiCaprio was one of the most talented actors in my generation. What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, This Boy's Life, Romeo + Juliet. Then what happened? I'm not buying that it was all Titanic's fault. I think he just blew it, read all his own increasingly disappointing press, became a club-whore, gained 25 pounds (as we saw in Celebrity), royally pissed off Ewan McGregor and got paid $20 million for that crappy film version of The Beach, and is now already a washed-up has-been at age 27. He's probably sitting in his apartment, trying to wash out the cocaine that's stuck in the Mexican tile grout on his bathroom floor, just praying that Gangs of New York will save him. Well good luck, Leo. Keep going with that Abdominizer.

Here's an LA Times profile of a safe-cracker.*

A taste: "As he talks into a cell phone, the long sleeves of his flannel shirt pull up a bit at the wrists revealing the beginnings of old-time tattoos--skulls and flames and large-breasted women--that cover his arms. He is 43, his silvering hair is slicked back and there are rings on his fingers--Harley-Davidson and the Brotherhood of Freemasonry."

*Lengthy registration ordinarily required. However, due to the specialness of Amy's Robot, you can just login as "amysrobot" (password = "password") and read til your heart is content.

NYT discusses synergy at National Geographic.

NY Times has a piece about Ozzy, Ozz-fest, and today's youngsters. (free reg. req'd)

The last few gossip entries on Salon are good: Sharon Osbourne swears at Prince Charles' bit of stuff (but in a nice way) and Jude Law gets assaulted by Romanians. On a related note: check out the cast of the movie Jude Law was filming in Romania, Cold Mountain, based on that novel about post-Civil War Appalachia.

Some helpful hints on how to assassinate a world leader by Frederick Forsyth, after a botched attempt on Jacques Chirac yesterday.

Hey, look, Total Annual Traffic reports on Maine's highway system, from 1956 to 2001.

So if you are as full of love as Roger Ebert, and you have to pick between recommending Sam Mendes' new "The Road to Perdition" or "THE CROCODILE HUNTER: COLLISION COURSE", which one would you pick? The answer is obvious: both. (PS: Ebert also liked the Lil Bow-Wow starrer "Like Mike" the same as The Road to Perdition, too, which is to say that each earned a 3-star rating.)

Just banned in Malaysia: the racy new Kylie Minogue live video, and also the brazenly wanton content of TV shows like "Ally McBeal" and "Friends". Considering the government there also recently reinforced sex segregation in public places, it's probably not the best place to go if you're in any way female.

FINALLY!! Some news about that show we love to hate, 24: They added a hot chick in her twenties to the cast. But more interestingly, Kiefer's wife on the show, who was killed off in season 1's closing moments, is speaking out (later in the article). She doesn't like hot chicks in their twenties. Also of note, creative force Stephen Hopkins has left the show. Oh, Kiefer -- I fear for you!

Fametracker finally gets around to writing the "Hey! It's That Guy!" installment about my very favorite actor who almost definitely lives in my neighborhood, Dylan Baker.

Keith Olbermann, formerly of ESPN, formerly of MSNBC, and now (maybe?) with Fox, has a piece called "Baseball Ruins Everything it Touches". In case you hadn't heard, the All Star game was the other night and it ended in the 11th inning when both teams ran out of pitchers. Well so fuckin' what?? Just get the goddamn second-baseman to throw the ball over the plate and keep playing, right? Well, commissioner Bud Selig didn't see it that way, so everybody started boo-ing. Hence, leave it to baseball to fuck up even the fuckin All Star game. Baseball, by the way, is my favorite sport, and Keith O. is one of my favorite commentators and is second only to Bob Costas, I think, in his quasi-intellectual-but-still-pretty-funny approach to it.

While we're on the topic, other notable current baseball fiascos include: the brouhaha over Ted Williams's frozen body, and the players' strike that is looming over the weekend.

Italy has decided to let their fascist exiled royal family, the Savoys, back into the country. [login req'd]

Connie Chung's new show on CNN apparently stinks.

Get ready for the Anna Nicole Show. Yeah like who even cares anymore. Did you know Anna Nicole has a 16-year-old son? And he's going to be on the show? Maybe he can do Celebrity Boxing against Jack or Kelly.

Jesse Bogdonoff was a Bank of America investment advisor who became the country of Tonga's court jester and financial advisor. Trick #1: he made $26 million of Tonga's money disappear.

Guess it's movie day here at Amy's Robot.

FameTracker's funny commentary on the fluidity of casting for "ethnic" roles. (I know, it's old, it's for that movie Polish Wedding.) Like when Stanley Tucci plays a Jewish dentist in Sidewalks of New York, or Penelope Cruz plays Greek in Captain Corelli's Mandolin. Olive skin? Black hair? You can play ANY ethnicity!

Why you should not even think about making an independent movie unless you are a crazed masochist, by Tom DiCillo (who made Living in Oblivion a few years ago, and whose new movie has been shelved forever) and Cintra Wilson (everybody's favorite cynical columnist.)

2004's summer blockbuster: Superman vs. Batman. Further down in this article, we learn that Darren Aronofsky has been approached to make a new Batman movie. Judging from Pi and Requiem For A Dream, which both demonstrate exactly how horrible and nightmarish human experience can be, it might be kind of dark.

Hi-tech bandaids: first introduced to me 2 weeks ago by Heather, now covered in the Washington Post. I haven't tried Liquid Band-Aid yet, but the 3M ones are amazing. There's also this sidebar on some other wound-protectants.

Maureen Dowd has a piece about Mary Magdalene and the new biographical novel (or novelized biography) about her. (free reg req'd)

New Yorkers: so aggressive that they like their pets to be ferocious. Even if the pet is a fish. [login req'd] Of course, it's broken down by neighborhood too. Downtown is meaner.

That blind German psychic just grabbed my ass!

Novels about glamorously grungy white kids backpacking in Asia have finally become self-aware. Perhaps not surprisingly, they have also started featuring female lead characters. Great article in Salon (by Michelle Goldberg, who I am just liking more and more) with an especially good first paragraph. At least when these ladies are indulging in self-absorbed travelogues and condescending attitude about their fellow travellers on third world Asian beaches, they're kidding. Makes me wonder if anyone would have read The Beach if Alex Garland wasn't really hot.

The wonderful new movie Me Without You stars British ex-soap-star Anna Friel and current American soap-star Michelle Williams, both of whom are way more talented than their careers would suggest. Anna Friel even method-pukes [see note at bottom left of screen.] [via King Pigeon.]

Entertainment Weekly, and probably the rest of the western world, has taken its cue from this website, and started the Osbournes Media Backlash.

Even though we're supposed to (and Amy tries sometimes), in my opinion, we don't talk about new albums here enough. So: At the HMV going-out-of-business sale last week, I picked up The X-Ecutioners' latest, Built from Scratch. The X-men are a crew of DJs from Queens who have been at it for a while -- Rock Raida, Rob Swift, et al -- and they have not lost their skills. There is a bunch of Linkin Park-type rap/rock cross-over stuff, which I don't usually care for, but it feels fresh and energetic on this album. (Ironically, the cut that actually features Linkin Park is pretty flat.) Particularly good is "Let It Bang", the best hybrid track I have heard since at least the Judgment Night soundtrack.

Summary of the Sunday Times:

• Couple things about cars: driving a convertible in NYC (gets funnier in the second half), and new developments in police cars.
• Along the lines of a recent Amy thread, the original author of "Sex and the City", Candace Bushnell, got married.
• Lengthy profile of Richard Wallace, the smart but angry guy who created ALICE, a computer program that very convincingly pretends to be a human when you talk to it.
• Oh yeah, and are you people aware that that new movie about dragons stars Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey? Fame audit is in order.

Almost unbelievable: Salon has a really positive review of Me Without You, and Jen from Dawson's Creek plays a bookish Jew.

Television Without Pity's latest project is designing high-concept new shows for stars with flagging careers. It seems they really understand about robots, 24, and how absurd and not at all gay Kerr Smith is.

Next installment from the Amy's Robot Salon Filtering Service: Men in Black II review. As the article suggests, the only thing that is making me think about going to see this tonight is the weather in NYNY. And the first one was mainly good to watch if you took drugs first.

Time for a meta-post.

By far the most common Google search phrase that leads people to the Amy's Robot site is "amy osbourne", which I really like, because it is a misspelling. People who don't know enough about The Osbournes (or have been somehow sheltered from the crazy media blitz that has surrounded this family) to spell their oldest daughter's name correctly are being sent to this blog in droves, and I love them all. And those of you who found us by searching for "10-13 year olds in thongs", we're onto you.

I'm up in Newfoundland, where I met an interesting almost-90-year-old guy from North Carolina who runs the site bestfrienddog.com. You can read the self-published book he wrote at wildegeest.com, too. -posted by ADM

Absolutely delightful article on Salon about what the World Cup has taught us all, recapping the best goals, the most over-rated teams, the biggest surprises, and the dirty secret that the England/Argentina match was actually [whisper] kind of boring. Fact I learned: Only 7 countries have ever won the World Cup, ever. The US sure as hell isn't going to be one of them any time soon.

Drunk pilots on a 10:30 AM America West flight out of Miami. And I can't bring tweezers in my carry-on baggage.

Unauthorized travelogue from ADM [via Amy]:

He is meeting lots of interesting people on vacation.

Fallen Hollywood mogul Michael Ovitz has publicly blamed his failure on the "gay mafia". As David Geffen, Il Capo of the gay mob says, on a scale of 1 to 10 crazy, it's 11. [via Whiskas, of course]

So what was the new movie again, with Peter Gallagher, Steve Buscemi, John Turturro, and Jared Harris, all such talented and popular actors who surely must be able to turn away scripts left and right? Oh, of course! It's Mr. Deeds. Roger "Big Softie" Ebert actually gets vicious in his review.

Mayor Bloomberg demonstrates again how good he is at pissing off radically disparate groups of New Yorkers: as of today, cigarettes are over $7 a pack, and NYC no longer recycles glass and plastic. [free login required]

Queens Is Cool: Now that MoMA [free login req'd], ADM, and Amy are all temporarily living there.

As of today, grits are the official state prepared food of Georgia.

Television without Pity: their lives have no structure now that TV is all repeats either. But they do have funny ads for the new CSI spinoff and some hospital drama.