Party Breakfast

I respect that Macauley Culkin did a "gay" movie before Brokeback Mountain--and one can already see the copycats on the horizon--but my Excellent Gay Character award goes to Cillian Murphy whose "Kitten" in Breakfast on Pluto is dreamy, literate and lacking in "you go girlfriend" predictability. I saw both within twenty-four hours. Okay, so I only saw five minutes of Party Monster before I got the feeling McC and Seth Green (both of whom I like) had been practicing their "gay" for weeks from watching Rupert Everett in My Best Friend's Wedding and Will & Grace--not that there's anything wrong with that. Kitten wasn't so acty or gay-next-door. Yes, he wore lipstick and took an early shine to minidresses, but his character was unlike any I'd seen before. Plus, he was gorgeous as a woman and so vulnerable--very pre-collagen Emanuelle Beart from Manon des Sources.











Cillian's effortless seduction of Gavin Friday and Stephen Rea is a mystery. Bottom line, I kind of wanted Cillian Murphy to *be* a woman, like that one time Hal Sparks appeared in drag in Queer As Folk. Enough to give a girl a little girl crush.

Keanu's Korner...a Haiku

Hey there, crazy girl
Got a doobie in my car,
Jello down my pants

Anna's Month from Hell

Our favorite train wreck has gone through a lot from her daughter's birth, her son's death and now a commitment ceremony with her lawyer. Death makes people act quickly and given ANS's circumstances, I'm sure I would have downed several bottles of sleeping pills over the course of thirty days.

When I was in my late teens, early twenties, Anna Nicole Smith was modeling for Guess. Wearing thick Marilyn Monroe eyeliner, she was a fleshier and seedier replacement for Claudia Schiffer. I liked the change since Claudia had saturated the universe and I was tired of those perfect elvin features. Then came the soap opera of Anna Nicole's marriage to the old coot, the court battles, her reality stint and that scary appearance on the award show where she kept pointing to her breasts. She seems to be on that special downward spiral so many others have chosen -- Whitney, Lindsay, Tara Reid. All before the age of 40.

I wish for her a long trip to the middle of nowhere. Who cares who the father of her daughter is. Or that her "partner" might be controlling her. Her life has been a roller coaster for decades, add to that the likelihood of drug abuse (She had to have been on something during the award show!), a new baby and the death of probably the only sane person in her life. Very, very sad.

Makes a person appreciate her own slow pace, a cat who draws blood nightly and lack of time to get a decent manicure.

Star Sighting

On Sunday (9/24), I was waiting for my mother on the corner of 18th and 8th Avenue and saw Jesus of Montreal star Lothaire Bluteau riding his bicycle (without a helmet). I wanted to tell him how much I disliked that movie--maybe because it made me think too much--but thought he was a compelling actor. He's about fifty but looks to be about twelve. I liked his appearance on Law & Order: SVU last year.

Last Night's Star Sighting

A luminous and smiling Veanne Cox in a Hell's Kitchen pub. She's the one who says to Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich, "I think we got off on the wrong foot here." To which Julia replies, "That's all you've got, lady." Also, she's the author who betrays Meg Ryan in You've Got Mail by doing a reading at Tom Hanks's competing bookstore.

More Kidnapping, Please

Fox should be ashamed of itself, NBC too. There are now three shows about kidnapping, Vanished and Standoff on Fox, then Kidnapped on NBC. I'm hoping next season, multiple shows about TV-behind-the-scenes appear. Oh wait, that's already happened. I also want more reality shows with models, dancing celebrities and people making fart-noises with their armpits.

Vanished sustains itself with Da Vinci Code-esque cliffhangers every five minutes, not to mention the cast is so gorgeous, it's like looking at the sun. Standoff, not so gorgeous though it brags a Moonlighting chemistry between Ron Livingston and Rosemarie DeWitt, who couldn't be more average. Kidnapped, with the meatier talent of Dana Delaney, Timothy Hutton and Jeremy Sisto, premieres tonight at 10pm on NBC. ABC and CBS will follow suit, I'm sure. Then again, they already have Desperate Housewives and Katie Couric.

With so many kidnappings in the headlines, I can understand producers and writers decided this would be an excellent topic to grip American audiences--and it's so real. And yet, to a television-addicted viewer, the shows seem gimmicky and hollow. The misfortune of Vanished is: You can't polish shit. The pretty cast--and talent of Ming-Na, Essai Morales and Gale Harold--can't overcome a predictable script. Standoff has the problem of too little star power for what we've already seen enough to start a separate L&O franchise.

If this entertaining kidnapping happened on Mars, I might be more inclined to watch. Why do we need so much reality anyway? Kidnapping is just not fun.

Prime Time Haiku

A show called "Vanished"
Help me, my wife was stolen
Behold our hotness

Studio 60

I could hear the quips, fast dialogue even before I turned on my television. I knew there'd be a fleet of witty actors, at least one strong female character, who might even run everything. Lots of walking, repetition, speechifying. The biggest draw was Matthew Perry whose comedic timing often makes soft drinks come out of my nose. In fact, the cast of Studio 60 is impressive, beginning with Judd Hirsch whose Network-esque I'm-sick-and-tired-and-I'm-not-going-to-take-it-anymore speech made for an effective inciting incident. Gee, is Aaron Sorkin trying to tell us something about television? We should care, dammit, the way we do about our country. And being creative makes genius writers take drugs--Vicadin and cocaine. Not just one drug, two. I understand there have to be allusions to Chris Farley and John Belushi. Perhaps, someone can shoot a dog next.

Unlike The West Wing, the stakes of this show aren't high enough. I don't care about these wealthy, smart people striving to make a television show work--the way I did about the wealthy, smart people running a country. We've seen the ebbs and flows of comedic talent on Saturday Night Live, but are we on the edge of our seats to see if Tina Fey has a job tomorrow? Oh wait, she's doing a show about this same topic.

Of course, I will keep watching Studio 60, if only to see Matthew Perry slip into Chandler Bing-isms ("Rock, hard place...me"). Then there's the morbid curiosity of whether Steven Weber will sleep with the Amanda Peet character; maybe the Christian ex-girlfriend [not sure I buy this] will convert to Voodooism and stab dolls. Also, I'm waiting for the characters to be funny since they're part of a sketch comedy show. My greatest hope of all is for Sorkin to remove the earnestness of these characters and boost the sleaze factor. I would be completely on board then.
ps. Very happy the cast of Thirty-Something is working this fall, except I don't see Ken Olin but he's so good as the evil-doer on Lifetime (television for women) movies.