French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard had a film at Cannes this year. The 79 year-old legend of avant-garde cinema — at least in the 1950s and ’60s — screened Film Socialisme, a statement of some kind about something-or-other, shot with digital cameras and, if you believe the reviews, without plot or characters.
Here’s Dennis Hopper being “interviewed” on the red carpet by Jiminy Glick (Martin Short).It’s funny and strange.
At least, that’s what people seem to think, and this week, the adage held true with the passing of actor Gary Coleman, actor Dennis Hopper, and speaker-to-children Art Linkletter.Rest in peace, fellas.
Hours after the news that actor Gary Coleman had been put on life support, comes the news that he was taken off life support today and is dead at the age of 42.
You can read the account at Radar Online.
Diminutive TV star Gary Coleman has slipped into a coma and has been put on life support in a Utah hospital, according to this story from E! Online.
Coleman slipped in his home and hit his head the other day, and yesterday he took a bad turn, slipping into unconsciousness.
Today is the anniversary of Jim Thorpe’s birth, in 1888. Thorpe was voted “The Greatest Athlete of the Century” in 1950 by the Associated Press for his decades of excellence in baseball, lacrosse and football. Thorpe was a gold medalist in the 1912 Olympics, in the decathlon and pentathlon, but because he’d played semi-pro baseball in 1909 he lost his amateur status and they took his medals away (this was in the old days, when the Olympics was for amateur athletes).
His medals were returned to his family in 1983.
Two more for the heap.The Washington Post:”An enervated, crass and gruesomely caricatured trip to nowhere.”The New York Post:
Rapper 50 Cent has dropped from 214 to 160 pounds — a whopping 25% of his weight — according to the ThisIs50 blog. He lost the pounds to play the role of a cancer-stricken football player in the upcoming movie Things Fall Apart, says the blog, which also says that Fitty is now back touring (and eating).
4.8 million hours wasted last week.
In my time zone I still have 70 minutes to celebrate the anniversary of George Willig’s climb up the South Tower of the World Trade Center buildings, on a Thursday morning in 1977.It took him three and a half hours, and when he got to the top he was arrested. But he had time to sign his name up there, as you can see here.And I found some TV footage of the event:
Sex and the City 2 may be a train wreck, but at least the reviews are good for a chuckle.New York:The film is an epic eyesore. It’s as if they set out to make a movie that said, “You’re right! We are hideous!”Boston Herald:
The house made famous by the 1977 book-n-movie The Amityville Horror is up for sale. The asking price is reported to be $1.5 million. It’s a big, beautiful home.
The murders in that house of the DeFeo family were said to be the cause of the “Amityville Ghosts” that haunted the home’s next residents, George and Kathy Lutz.
May 25th: a day that will live in non-infamy!
For some reason this story headline just cracked me up. I guess if Frank Sinatra’s piping-hot memories aren’t available, Frank Sinatra Jr.’s lukewarm memories are the next best thing. Turns out that “Frank Sinatra Jr.’s Vegas Memories” are mostly of the shrugging-the-shoulders variety.
Note to Cincinnati criminals: don’t mess with the grannies. Mike Bedinghaus already tried it:
It’s impossible to keep a secret… especially one as wonderful as this. We want to be the first to share with everyone this great news that we are expecting a new addition to our family.That’s the news from John Travolta’s official site. Travolta and his wife, Kelly Preston, are expecting a baby in November. He’s 56, she’s 47, just in case you’re counting along at home.
Bicycle champion Lance Armstrong “participated in doping” while winning some of his seven Tour de France victories, according to former teammate Floyd Landis.
The First Dog is valued at $1600 — as revealed in President Obama’s financial forms. He’s listed as a gift to the Obamas from the late Sen. Edward Kennedy.
We’re pretty sure she isn’t, but pageant officials are skirting the issue.This AP story is typical of the pageant’s take on the background of Rima Fakih, who was named Miss USA 2010 on Sunday night:
Below is the audio recording of Vice President Alben William Barkley speaking his last words, on 30 April 1956. Barkley had a heart attack in the middle of a speech at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. He was 78 years old at the time, serving as a U.S. senator from Kentucky.
It happened in Antarctica in 1961. The doctor — and patient — was one Leonid Rogozov.”The operation started at about 22:00 on 30 April with the help of a
driver and meteorologist, who were providing instruments and holding a
mirror to observe areas not directly visible, while Rogozov was in a
semi-reclining position… Rogozov made a 10-12 cm incision and
proceeded to expose the appendix.”
Rima Fakih was crowned Miss USA 2010 last night as Donald Trump proudly looked on. (He owns the pageant, after all.)
Former United States Vice President Levi P. Morton was born on this day in 1824, in Shoreham, Vermont.
Levi P. Morton also died on this day — on his 96th birthday! — in 1920.
“My relationship with death remains the same. I am very strongly against
it.”Woody Allen chats with the press at the Cannes Film Festival.
Jessica Watson has returned to Australia after sailing around the world, nonstop, by herself, at age 16. She spent 210 days on a pink 33-foot boat named Ella’s Pink Lady.Her consumables for the trip:
Litres of water: 150
Cartons of juice: 160
Tins of Spam: 32
Tins of tuna: 64
Maybe.
Also called “Green Porn,” these short films about animal reproduction are informative, clever and, sometimes, just plain weird. They’re on the Sundance Channel.Rossellini, as you may know, is the daughter of Hollywood legends Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini.
Maybe you noticed today was Miranda Cosgrove’s birthday on our Born On This Day feature, and maybe you wondered who the heck Miranda Cosgrove is.
Anyone who has seen the Richard Linklater film School of Rock (also known as “the last good movie Jack Black was in) will recognize Miranda Cosgrove as the girl who played Summer, the uptight band “manager.”
Time Out runs ’em down. 30 movies are actually on the list, but a half-dozen are clearly included just to be argued about. We’re not biting!
Sports Illustrated is now able to curse athletes before it hits news stands.
President Barack Obama got medium wings and hot chat yesterday on his trip through Buffalo, New York.Obama stopped for lunch at Duff’s Famous Chicken Wings, ordering 10 medium wings (five extra crispy) plus fries and onion rings. Then the president got some extra-spicy banter from local resident Luann Haley, who told him: “You’re a hottie with a smokin’ little body.”
I particularly detest books that begin something like, “Ah, there was joy and happiness in the quaint Tasmanian home of Professor Flynn when the first bellowings of lusty little Errol were heard…” So if you are interested, let’s get down to the meat of the matter.So begins My Wicked, Wicked Ways, the jaw-dropping 1959 autobiography by Errol Flynn. Posthumous autobiography, it turned out: Flynn died at age 50 on a bedroom floor in Canada before his finished book could be published.
May the porcelain be with you.
It was Appalachian Trail time again this weekend for Gov. Mark Sanford. He spent the weekend in Miami with his once (and future?) mistress, Maria Chapur.
In the spirit of “We got company” and “It’s gonna blow!” (Note: some naughty language.)
David Cameron meets Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace on 11 May 2010 and agrees to form a government as Prime Minister. Below, Cameron and his wife Samantha arrive at …..
Sooner than expected, has resigned as prime minister for the United Kingdom, and his rival from the Conservative Party, David Cameron has taken over the post, becoming the youngest prime minister in a couple of centuries (Cameron is 43 years old).Read about it here at the BBC, or visit the official site of Prime Minister Cameron here.
Frank Frazetta, the fantasy painter and illustrator whose images of sinewy warriors and lush vixens graced paperback novels, album covers and comic books for decades and became something close to the contemporary visual definition of the sword-and-sorcery genres, died Monday after suffering a stroke the night before. He was 82.”Sinewy warriors and lush vixens” — that’s saying it.
“Rampersad compared Horne with [Jackie] Robinson, the Brooklyn Dodgers great, in that she was given ‘a kind of role of leadership within the black world’ that was to some extent bestowed on her by white American society.
Neither one had judicial experience before being nominated to the Supreme Court.William Rehnquist was nominated to the court (and then became Chief Justice) after serving as a lawyer in the Richard Nixon administration. Elena Kagan was nominated after serving as a lawyer in the Bill Clinton administration, and as Solicitor General under Barack Obama.
The wooden gun that gangster John Dillinger carved and then used to escape jail in Indiana in 1934 was sold at auction last December.
According to Heritage Auction Galleries, the “gun” went for $19,120. They also say there’s no way of knowing for sure if it’s the same hand-carved fake. There are two others vying for that title.
Carved into the side of the gun: “Colt 38.”
Yes, he had one. It doesn’t look like much racquetball got played.
Gordon Brown will give up his post as leader of the Labour Party, meaning he’ll be done as Prime Minister by September at the latest. The deal is thought to improve Labour’s chances of making a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats.
Today, May 10th, is the birthday of actor John Wilkes Booth, the man who killed President Abraham Lincoln in 1865.It’s also the birthday of jailbird James Earl Ray, who admitted to killing Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968.
Reluctant barrier-breaker, one might say:
According to this story out of New Zealand, tough-guy actor Russell Crowe says in an interview that the late pop singer Michael Jackson used to call him up and pretend to “be in trouble” as a prank.
Crowe says after he rose to stardom in L.A. Confidential, he met and befriended Jackson and found they had a similar sense of humor. So they would occasionally crank call each other.
The cat is out of the bag on the top-secret J.J. Abrams + Steven Spielberg movie project at Paramount.It’s sci-fi, it’s called Super 8, and it will be out in 2011. Trailers are going out with screenings of Iron Man 2.
Jalopnik proves that the famous testimonial letter from John Dillinger to Henry Ford (“Drive a Ford and watch other cars fall behind you”) was faked, probably by Ford itself.
Yes to pirate costumes and drunken voting; no to giant rosettes and the Queen. Rules for voting in today’s U.K. elections.Dogs must be in an “accompanying” role rather than “free-range,” while horses and ponies must be left outside. Pot-bellied pigs are at the discretion of local officials.
Jennifer Karady photographs scenes from soldiers’ lives, restaged at home.(Credit: Jennifer Karady/SF Camerawork)
Hans Holznagel reports in from Kent State University on the 40th anniversary observances there this week.See Part 1 and Part 2.
It’s hard to say from this video that’s been making the rounds, but it sure does look as though young song stylist Justin Bieber doesn’t know what the word “german” means.
The host cuts Bieber some slack, at first explaining Bieber’s confusion as perhaps being due to the host’s “kiwi accent.”But even after Bieber is shown the word, he still says he doesn’t know what it means. “We don’t say that in America,” explains Justin. The host is as polite as can be.
Below are several links on the man accused of trying to set off a car bomb in Times Square in New York City. His name is Faisal Shahzad, and he was arrested before he could make his flight to Dubai. Authorities say he is cooperating with the investigation, and there are still quite a lot of unknowns.First, here’s President Barack Obama’s first public statement about the incident:
…and in marvelous ways!
Erin Andrews is 32 years old today.Congratulations, Ms. Andrews. You are tearing up Dancing With the Stars — and, apparently, Maksim.
English actress Lynn Redgrave has died at the age of 67, according to press reports.
Redgrave was the daughter of actor Michael Redgrave and the sister of Vannessa Redgrave (and the aunt of the late actress Natasha Richardson. Lynn was nominated twice for an Oscar award, first for 1967’s Georgy Girl, and again for 1998’s Gods and Monsters. She had been undergoing treatment for breast cancer off and on since 2003.
Actress Lynn Redgrave has died at age 67.No official cause of death has been given, but her children said in an announcement that Lynn Redgrave “passed away peacefully after a seven year journey with breast cancer.” Redgrave underwent a mastectomy in 2003.
The “Dude, you’re getting a Dell” guy is preparing a one-man autobiographical show.
It is according to classy filmmaker Errol Morris, his tongue somewhere between 8% and 92% in cheek.
So let’s go to the video: Robert Lee (not that Robert Lee)
for Cullman Liquidation.
President Barack Obama did the usual presidential joking last night at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner — though his jokes were maybe better than most. The Chicago Sun-Times has the full transcript, god bless ’em. A few zingers:
Super Saver won the Kentucky Derby on Saturday afternoon, but the real winner was Glen Fullerton, a Texan who was at the track and won $900,000 courtesy of the DreamBet sweepstakes.
Catching up on a loose end from this week: Randy Quaid and his wife Evi have settled the fraud, burglary and conspiracy charges against them.