News and Notes

"Waiting for Godot" in LEGO

2010-03-12T15:54:00.000-08:00

Wow. There aren't too many shots, but this Flickr site from "hansolo401" includes a set of photos that replicates the 2009 London production of Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot.

The production starred Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart.

As you can clearly see, the above photo of Ian McKellan -- in Lego form -- demonstrates the existential angst and comical pointlessness of humanity.

On the other hand, this photo of hansolo401shows just how warm and cuddly human beings can be when they share a passion:

Yes, that's hansolo401 herself, with Sir Ian McKellan. There's even a nice little story to go with it.

Happy Birthday, James Taylor!

2010-03-12T11:42:00.000-08:00

Today is the 62nd birthday of singer James Taylor.

To read in detail about his early career and how he approached songwriting in those days, read this (text only) Rolling Stone interview from 1979.

And here are a few videos:

Hugh Hefner's High School Cartoons

2010-03-11T17:24:00.001-08:00

Via this Seattle Post Intelligencer blog post about a collection of Hugh Hefner letters and cartoons from the 1940s.

Before Hugh Hefner founded Playboy magazine.

The collection comes from a high school chum of his from Chicago, Jane Sellers. The letters reveal Hefner as an efficient doodler of School Daze, what he called his comics about his classmates at Chicago's Steinmetz High School.

Tiger Woods Hires Ari Fleischer

2010-03-11T12:23:00.001-08:00

The New York Post reports that golfer and swinger Tiger Woods has hired on former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer.

Tiger's now moved to the post-scandal step of refurbishing his image, after all those gnarly headlines about cheating on his wife, model Erin Norgren, with umpteen waitresses, porn stars and unnamed third, fourth or fifth parties.

Ari Fleischer was press secretary for George W. Bush, remembered mostly for being in the awkward position of selling the U.S. invasion of Iraq to the press corps in 2002 and 2003.

Fleischer's not new to the sports world, however. Last month, the Chicago Sun Times gave a detailed account of how Fleischer came to represent homer-hitting, steroid-using baseball star Mark McGwire.

Below are some vintage Fleischer moments:

Man Who Shot Pope John Paul II Released From Prison

2010-03-10T18:38:00.001-08:00

Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who shot and wounded Pope John Paul II back in 1981, has been released from a Turkish prison, according to this article in the Guardian.

Agca served 19 years in an Italian prison for attacking the pope in St. Peter's Square; he was pardoned at the pope's urging back in 2000. He then served time in a Turkish prison for other crimes. He was released from prison back in 2006, but that decision was changed and he was re-incarcerated after 8 days.

According to reports, he's never really explained why he shot the pope. He also claims to be "the Christ eternal," and so on and so forth. It sounds like such proclamations might help him avoid compulsory military service.

The Faces of Hand Models

2010-03-10T17:50:00.000-08:00

Our man Mike Duffy passes along this nice slideshow of Faces Behind Famous Hands.

Now you can find out what those hand models look like. Our favorite slide is the one of Pamela Moses, whose hands replaced those of Transformers star Megan Fox in a television ad for Motorola.

Megan Fox's thumbs are described in this feature as "infamously ugly." You can be the judge of that here in this photo of Megan Fox's thumb.

She apparently has a hereditary condition known as brachydactyly.

As you can see here at Google trends, "megan fox thumbs" is a popular search term. Especially in Waterloo, Ontario.

Robert DeNiro as Vince Lombardi

2010-03-10T10:49:00.000-08:00

According to this little bit in Vanity Fair, there's a movie being made about Vince Lombardi, former coach of the Green Bay Packers.

With Robert DeNiro playing Lombardi.

The Eerie Death of Branwell Bronte

2010-03-09T07:45:00.000-08:00

Did Branwell Bronte really die standing up?

So says Somerset Maugham.

We mentioned earlier that Maugham lists Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights in his book on the 10 greatest novels of all time. Emily was preceded in death (barely) by her older brother Branwell, and Maugham relates a curious anecdote about his death.

The setup: Branwell was hired to tutor the children of a wealthy clergyman, Mr. Edmund Robinson. "Mr. Robinson was an elderly invalid with a youngish wife and Branwell, though she was seventeen years older than he, fell in love with her and she with him."

Mr. Robinson discovered the affair and ordered his wife never to see Branwell again. Branwell, despairing, turned to booze and opium.

But! The clergyman died. Branwell was given sudden hope that he would be reunited with his lover -- until a letter from her arrived the next day, begging him to stay away forever. The old man had arranged it that she would lose her new fortune and the custody of her children if she saw him even once.

Maugham describes what happened next:

Branwell proceeded to drink himself to death. When he knew the end was come, wanting to die standing, he insisted upon getting up. He had only been in bed a day. Charlotte was so upset that she had to be led away, but her father, Anne and Emily looked on while he rose to his feet and after a struggle that lasted twenty minutes died, as he wished, standing.

Yowza!

Maugham does add a qualifier:

I should warn the reader that this account of Branwell's love and death is such as was gathered from persons who may be supposed to have known the facts; but the author of the article on the Brontes in the English Dictionary of National Biography, writing many years after the event, claims that there is no truth in it. Perhaps with a little more imagination and less bile against Branwell he might not have been so positive.

Maugham's right: the standing-up tale is too good to debunk.

There's no dispute that Emily's death followed Branwell's in short order:

Emily never went out of doors after the Sunday following his death. She was ill. "Her reserved nature occasions me great uneasiness," Charlotte wrote to a friend. "It is useless to question her; you get no answers. It is still more useless to recommend remedies; they are never adopted." When a doctor was sent for she would not see him. She made no complaints; she wanted neither sympathy nor help. She would let no one do anything for her, and when anyone tried resented it.

One morning she got up, dressed herself and began to sew; she was short of breath and her eyes were glazed, but she went on working. She grew steadily worse and at midday asked for a doctor. It was too late. At two she died.

Those high-strung writers.

Oscar Wrap-Up

2010-03-08T18:33:00.000-08:00

The LA Times blog The Envelope has it all pretty well covered.

California Sen. Roy Ashburn: 'I'm Gay'

2010-03-08T15:13:00.000-08:00

If the aftermath of a politician being arrested for drunk driving can be called refreshing, this story is refreshing:

"I'm gay," [Sen. Roy] Ashburn told KERN host Inga Barks in an interview this morning. "Those are the words that have been so difficult for me for so long."

Ashburn made the admission even though he has a long history of voting against gay rights. Can't have been easy; good for him.

Are you listening, Larry Craig?

Christopher Plummer Flirts Across the Generations

2010-03-08T13:08:00.000-08:00

First-time Oscar nominee Christopher Plummer made the most of awards season this year. Here's the 80-year-old actor at the Oscars last night, charming his The Last Station co-star, Helen Mirren...

...and in November, charming his Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus co-star, Lily Cole.

Mirren is 64, Cole is 21. (Cole, for the curious, is 5'10" without heels.)

Photos of Christopher Plummer not flirting with co-stars >>

Credit: WENN; FayesVision/WENN

Just a Nice Photo: Patrick Dempsey

2010-03-08T12:22:00.000-08:00

Actor Patrick Dempsey greets a fan before driving in the Miami Grand Prix on Saturday.

More photos of Patrick Dempsey >>

Photo: Jeff Daly / WENN.com

Crucial Oscar News

2010-03-08T12:13:00.000-08:00

Kathy Ireland "wasn't on meds."

Photo: WENN

How Jeff Bridges Met His Wife

2010-03-08T07:37:00.000-08:00

I don't know how it is for women or for other guys, but when I was young and in my 20s, I had a fear of marriage. I thought it was a giant step toward death. So I did everything in my power to resist it -- the idea was frightening to me, man. Then I met Susan Geston in 1974 while I was shooting the film Rancho Deluxe in Montana, up in Paradise Valley at Chico Hot Springs, and I thought, Now, this is interesting.

Jeff Bridges tells Reader's Digest (!) about meeting his wife in 1974. They've been married since 1977.

Here they are at the Academy Awards in 2010, just before Jeff Bridges won his Oscar for Crazy Heart. And below, another lovely shot in the rain at the Golden Globe Awards in January 2010.

More photos of Jeff Bridges >>

(Photos: WENN and FayesVision/WENN)

How Old is Kathryn Bigelow?

2010-03-08T05:13:00.000-08:00

How old is Kathryn Bigelow? She's 58 years old.

Kathryn Bigelow was born on 27 November 1951. (The same year as Sting and Jill Biden.)

That's Bigelow at center above with screenwriter Mark Boal (l) and fellow producer Greg Shapiro. She's holding two Oscars -- one as best director, and one as producer of The Hurt Locker, which was named best film of the year.

Bigelow is the first woman ever to win the Academy Award as best director. Above, she poses for Oscar photographers after the win.

Kathryn Bigelow also was named best director at the BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) Awards on February 21st. The Hurt Locker also took home the gold mask there as best film.

(Note: Her name is sometimes misspelled as Katherine Bigelow or Catherine Bigelow. But Kathryn is correct.)

More photos of Kathryn Bigelow >>

(Photos: WENN)

Oscar Winners 2010 - PHOTOS

2010-03-07T21:46:00.000-08:00

The Oscars have been chosen and the Academy has spoken. Here are the winners of the acting and directing Oscars, as they arrived at the Academy Awards on Sunday night.

Kathryn Bigelow, winner of the best director Oscar for The Hurt Locker. Kathryn Bigelow is the first woman ever to win the Academy Award as best director. The Hurt Locker also won the Oscar as best picture of 2009.

Mo'Nique, winner of the Oscar as best supporting actress for Precious, with her husband Sidney Hicks.

Jeff Bridges, winner of the best actor Oscar for Crazy Heart, with his wife Susan. They met in 1977 while he was filming Rancho Deluxe and she was a ranch maid.

Sandra Bullock, winner of the Oscar as best actress for The Blind Side.

Christoph Waltz, winner of the best supporting actor Oscar for Inglorious Basterds. We didn't get a photo of Waltz from the red carpet, so here he is, quite happy, after his win.

(Images supplied by WENN.)

Where's Buzz? At the Pre-Oscar Party at Beso!

2010-03-07T10:12:00.000-08:00

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin and wife Lois Driggs Cannon, at OK! magazine's pre-Oscar party at the "Latin steak house" Beso. (It does look like a cool joint.)

Credit: RHS/WENN.com

Best Picture Oscar: Hooray for 10 Nominees!

2010-03-07T09:30:00.000-08:00

Whatever happens at the Oscars tonight, having 10 best picture nominees is already a huge win. It's such a relief. It's SO much more fun.

Adding five movies doesn't really dilute the field, first of all. 417 movies were released in the U.S. in 2009, so with 10 total nominees we're still above the 97th percentile.

What we gain is color, unpredictability, and that all-American theme of plucky underdogs getting their shot at the big prize.

And what we really gain is fun. The five-film limit always led voters to winnow the field to "important" movies, quite possibly leaving out the movies they actually enjoyed most. Jump back 10 years and look at the Oscar lineup for best picture:

American Beauty (winner)
The Cider House Rules
The Green Mile
The Insider
The Sixth Sense

Ugh. Not much life there.

Well-made movies and "weighty" movies, sure. The Sixth Sense had a wow ending, at least. But when the themes of your other nominees are middle-class ennui, abortion, death row, and tobacco industry corruption, you've got a soporific lineup.

But! Suppose we could go back and add five more films from that same year. Now your Oscar nominees for the best picture of 1999 are:

American Beauty
The Matrix
The Cider House Rules
The Blair Witch Project
The Green Mile
Three Kings
The Insider
Being John Malkovich
The Sixth Sense
Deuce Bigalow, Male Gigolo

Just kidding about Deuce Bigalow. But you get the picture: Suddenly it's a great year at the movies. Suddenly you can root for a picture you really liked instead of a ponderous flick that was "heavy" enough to qualify.

With that lineup, does anyone really think American Beauty takes the prize? I don't. I bet it's Being John Malkovich. Because with such a range of nominees, I bet voters think, "Which movie just really blew me away this year?"

You could argue that's not a fitting way to choose the best picture. But don't tell me that the expanded list isn't a lot more fun.

For proof, do the same experiment in reverse: imagine only five nominees this year. The result would probably look like this:

Avatar
~~The Blind Side~~
~~District 9~~
~~An Education~~
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
~~Up in the Air~~

District 9 and Up In the Air are just the kinds of movies that got left out in the past. District 9 because it's too independent, too "out there" (and maybe too violent), and Up in the Air because because voters knew they could reward it with nominations for screenplay and supporting actress instead.

Well, darn it, it's more fun with those movies in there. And they deserve it.

So: well done, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences! Good call!

(Note: If The Blind Side wins, I take back this entire opinion.)

Christopher Walken Reads Lady Gaga

2010-03-07T08:15:00.000-08:00

Another fine performance by Christopher Walken, reading Lady GaGa's "Poker Face" on BBC.

The video is here.

Alfred Hitchcock's Cameo Appearances

2010-03-06T18:40:00.000-08:00

Alfred Hitchcock cameos from (nearly) all his films, courtesy of fan Roy van der Zwaan:

The Ten Greatest Novels of All Time (1948 Edition)

2010-03-06T11:55:00.000-08:00

I am holding in my hand (courtesy of Cincinnati's Mercantile Library) a first edition of Great Novelists and Their Novels, in which author W. Somerset Maugham names his 10 greatest novels of all time.

Maugham published the book in 1948. He turned 74 that year. He had been writing novels for 50 years, since Liza of Lambeth in 1897, so presumably he knew what was what in novel-writing if anyone did. Hemingway was a slacker compared to Maugham, and Fitzgerald (born in 1896) was already eight years dead.

Here's how Maugham describes the book's birth:

"One day, while I was still in the United States, the Editor of Redbook asked me to make a list of what in my opinion were the ten best novels in the world. I did so, and thought no more about it."

(Aside: Redbook is still around. Its cover articles for March 2010: "Feel Sexier Tonight"; "Is Your Face Older Than You Are?"; "79 Instant Makeovers.")

Maugham continues:

"Some time later, an American publisher put before me the suggestion of reissuing these ten novels... with an introduction to each one written by me. The suggestion interested me, and I set to work."

Great Novelists and Their Novels is Maugham's collection of those 10 introductions, with his thoughts and gossip on the lives and working habits of each of the 10 authors.

So what are the ten books?

TOM JONES
Henry Fielding

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
Jane Austen

THE RED AND THE BLACK
Stendhal

OLD MAN GORIOT
Honore de Balzac

DAVID COPPERFIELD
Charles Dickens

WUTHERING HEIGHTS
Emily Bronte

MADAME BOVARY
Gustave Flaubert

MOBY DICK
Herman Melville

WAR AND PEACE
Leo Tolstoy

THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV
Fyodor Dostoevsky

Now then: if you have read all ten of these books, I would like to hear from you, and possibly shake your hand. One title -- Old Man Goriot -- I have never heard of at all, and another -- The Red and the Black -- I know only because Maugham speaks of it in other essays on the writer's art.

Last week I'd have bet serious money that I would have at least heard of every title on any list of the 10 greatest English novels. But Maugham has made a monkey of me -- twice, really.

He calls The Red and The Black "truly an amazing book." Stendhal borrowed the plot from a famous trial of the day, according to Maugham. It's the tale of a religious student who seduces the wife and daughter of two successive employers -- and who, because of his debaucheries, is then refused the chance to become a priest. He takes violent revenge on his old employers with a gun.

So perhaps there's a reason The Red and the Black isn't an Oprah selection these days.

As for Old Man Goriot, I see that other translations render the title as Father Goriot or simply Old Goriot. The plot isn't described by Maugham, who instead spends two dozen pages marveling over Balzac's quirks. Here he is on Balzac's longtime love, the wealthy widow Eveline Henska, and why she hesitated to marry him:

"Balzac was a notorious spendthrift; she may well have feared that he would play ducks and drakes with her fortune. He was always wanting money from her. He did not dip into her purse, he plunged both hands into it. She was rich and herself extravagant, but it is very different to fling your money about for your own pleasure and to have someone else fling it about for his."

"Play ducks and drakes with her fortune" -- heh!

Maugham doesn't rank his books 1-10, but he does say this: "I think Balzac is the greatest novelist the world has ever known, but I think Tolstoy's War and Peace is the greatest novel." In this, at least, Maugham proves himself conventional. War and Peace is the Citizen Kane of novels, widely beloved and widely unread.

But no matter. Mainly I'm fascinated that two books Somerset Maugham regarded so highly in 1948 have dropped off the radar so completely. Or am I the only reader who's never heard of Old Man Goriot?

James Cameron Saturday

2010-03-06T09:45:00.000-08:00

I went in and pitched it to the studio as Romeo and Juliet on a ship: "It's going to be this epic romance, passionate film." Secretly what I wanted to do was I wanted to dive to the real wreck of Titanic, and that's why I made the movie.

James Cameron tells the TED Conference about his fascination with diving and how it's affected his career.

See photos of James Cameron >>

(Hat tip: Mr. Duffy)

Stars and Their Mothers: Lee Daniels

2010-03-05T09:59:00.000-08:00

Precious director Lee Daniels and his mother. Cannes, 2009.

More photos of Lee Daniels >>

Photo: WENN

The Unruly Party That Turned Theodore Geisel into Dr. Seuss

2010-03-05T09:40:00.000-08:00

It happened while Theodore Geisel was editor of the Dartmouth humor magazine, the Jack-O-Lantern:

Geisel was very proud of his position as editor. But it's a title Geisel would lose one fateful night on campus.

"His senior year he decided to hold a party for all of the Jack-O-Lantern staff," Pease recounted.

Geisel's party got out of hand, thanks to a couple of unruly guests. As punishment, his name was stripped from the Jack-O-Lantern publication. But Geisel continued drawing for the magazine under pseudonyms; finally settling on Seuss.

Earlier: How did Dr. Seuss die?

How the "John Roberts Is Retiring" Rumor Got Started

2010-03-05T07:34:00.000-08:00

Nice bit of legwork by Above the Law.

(Hat tip: Daily Intel)