Satellites to monitor panda sex: "China's scientists have come up with a series of more or less surprising ideas for improving panda reproduction, including showing them sex education videos. Despite such efforts, the animal remains endangered."
Armed and dangerous - Flipper the firing dolphin let loose by Katrina: "It may be the oddest tale to emerge from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico."
The dolphins could also be carrying toxic dart guns. Your tax dollars at work.
Hello, I am a lucky blogger because if I shill in a proper manner, I can see Serenity on Tuesday. While the film is opening on Friday, I will be otherwise occupied on a whirlwind visit to New Jersey for a wedding (not mine) and two birthday parties. So, cough, cough:
Joss Whedon, the Oscar® - and Emmy - nominated writer/director responsible for the worldwide television phenomena of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE, ANGEL and FIREFLY, now applies his trademark compassion and wit to a small band of galactic outcasts 500 years in the future in his feature film directorial debut, Serenity. The film centers around Captain Malcolm Reynolds, a hardened veteran (on the losing side) of a galactic civil war, who now ekes out a living pulling off small crimes and transport-for-hire aboard his ship, Serenity. He leads a small, eclectic crew who are the closest thing he has left to family –squabbling, insubordinate and undyingly loyal.
I am viral marketing and I am contagious.
[Naturally a full report will be forthcoming if I get in on Tuesday night].
Scalia Defends Government's Right to Deny Art Funds: "[The panel] even parted ways in a discussion of the definition of art. Mr. Sondheim said one element was a work's ability to endure. Justice Scalia said that the Abbott and Costello routine 'Who's on First?' would certainly last a long time. But 'it will never be art!' he said.
The composer took issue with the example, saying it was not that old and that half the people in the theater probably did not even know it. Justice Scalia called for a show of hands, and many shot up. 'Ask anybody under 30,' Mr. Sondheim said. 'They won't know.'"
Both candidates against gay marriage and amendment to block it: "Gay rights advocates said they were heartened after both candidates for governor of New Jersey stated they would oppose a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, but a day after those declarations, their campaigns declined to specify what either man would do if the state Supreme Court allows such unions.
In a debate Tuesday, gubernatorial candidates Doug Forrester and Jon Corzine found common ground on the issue. Both said they oppose same-sex marriage, but that they would oppose a constitutional amendment banning it.
Their positions could be tested next year, when the state Supreme Court is expected to rule on a lawsuit from several same-sex couples who claim the state Constitution gives them a right to marry. Arguments have not been scheduled in the case and are likely to be heard sometime after the Nov. 8 election."
Flightplan: "And while the crew and the passengers are not on Kyle's side (they think she's nuts), Ms. Foster's stardom, as well as the filmmaking, ensure that the audience most definitely is, which wreaks havoc on the suspense."
I have said it before, and I will say it again: this movie seems to be a rip-off on the classic I Love Lucy episode where she smuggles a 30 pound cheese on the plane by dressing it up as a baby. All is fine until Lucy has to make the cheese disappear mid-flight. Well, I guess Ms. Foster's daughter isn't made of cheese. Or IS SHE?
Yes, Martha Fires Someone, but Pink Slip Is Scented: "These days, she is game for anything - including rapping with Diddy while wearing $8 million worth of bling from Harry Winston. (What are the chances that between a rapper and a Westport, Conn., caterer, it's the caterer who has done time?)
And on camera, Ms. Stewart laughs all the time, a fluty, infectious guffaw that only occasionally sounds forced. She is so relaxed and sunny that she could pass for any successful talk show host.
What makes her television shows hypnotic, however, is the occasional glimpse of the old Martha peeping through the insouciance - intense and instructional, even about the history of rap. 'I learned that 'Rappers Delight' by Sugar Hill Gang was the first rap single in 1979,' she explained before introducing Diddy. 'Rap was a word that originally meant talking to a girl, derived from conversation.'"
Just the other day, I was thinking that the only thing to to Poncho Day!, Yo! Martha Raps!, tap dancing, and the water-skiing bulldog named Martha Stewart would be a visit from Liza Minelli. Lo and behold, Liza stops by today (with Ben Vereen, no less)!
Moscow Cats Theater: "The story of 'Queen of the Cats' is a kind of allegory, Mr. Kuklachev explained. He plays a painter who goes to sleep and dreams that aliens arrive from outer space in a U.F.O. and try to steal his cats. At one point, one of the cats stands on a mirrored ball that looks as if it has been borrowed from 'Saturday Night Fever.' She is emitting 'rays of goodness,' he said, spreading kindness throughout the world."
Feh, Jensen wasn't that pretty afterall. And Supernatural was neither super, or, erm, natural. Feh. The strangest part of the show is that Dean from Gilmore Girls aka Jared Padalecki's character is named Sam while his brother, played by Jensen, is named Dean. FormerDeanJaredSam kept addressing DeanJensen and my mind couldn't process the disassociation of small-screen actors from their characters.
March of the Conservatives: Penguin Film as Political Fodder: "'March of the Penguins,' the conservative film critic and radio host Michael Medved said in an interview, is 'the motion picture this summer that most passionately affirms traditional norms like monogamy, sacrifice and child rearing.'
Speaking of audiences who feel that movies ignore or belittle such themes, he added: 'This is the first movie they've enjoyed since 'The Passion of the Christ.' This is 'The 'Passion of the Penguins.' '"
You can also download a form here "to write down what God speaks to you as He speaks it to you" while watching the film. I am not so sure I want a baby penguin for Xmas anymore. Being an adoptive gay parent is hard--it's even harder when your chick is loaded with political meaning. Also see Prudish Penguins.
Despite my inability to understand "high fashion," when something is good I'll know it. For instance, the new Diesel line is apparently inspired by the Carson Ellis illustrations for the Decemberists. Is the cap or the epaulet the best part? I'm torn.
Incidentally, I have been searching for a practical yet jaunty cap for the upcoming blustery temperatures to no avail.
NH better prepared: "New Hampshire's greatest threat is a mass exodus of people coming here from the Boston area and other southern New England locales".
Entertainment Weekly's Fall TV Preview issue arrived as we were leaving for the camping weekend. Naturally, we mapped out our programs, and, yes, we highlighted it.
Wednesday: The Apprentice: Martha Stewart @ 8, 9/21 ["You just don't fit in" is a catchphrase that not only dismisses the contestant but also cuts to the basis of their entire self-worth.] Veronica Mars @ 9, 9/28 vs Lost @ 9, 9/21 [VM wins. I did declare Lost dead to me when they didn't kill the hobbit and killed the pretty one instead. And the awkward pacing. And the boring music montage in every episode. Ms. Mars, on the other hand, is witty and scrappy. Also, her love with Logan is beautiful.]
Thursday The O.C. @ 8, 9/8 vs Alias @ 8, 9/29 [JJ Abrams loses again. He sets up stories well, but the execution always falls short. The O.C., on the other hand, is just pure candy.]
I like that I am pretending that I will have all the free time to actually watch all these programs during classes. Dreamers.
Hollywood's young pretenders: "But the wonder boys [Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal] should beware the curse of Jude Law, whose fiancee Sienna Miller incidentally stars opposite Heath Ledger in Casanova.
Law's blockbuster cache of films in 2004, which saw the actor appear in six films in four months, proved the saying 'less is more'. Law's ubiquity met with mediocre reviews that quickly descended into derision."
Potshot at Jude Law! His star has dimmed (because it's true--he was in too many movies).
Katrina blamed as gas prices soar: "Gasoline prices hit all-time highs yesterday due to damage to oil refineries and pipelines by Hurricane Katrina. At local gas stations like Hess, that meant rising prices that changed throughout the day. A gallon of 87 octane was $2.65 at Hess in the morning, $2.82 by afternoon and $3.09 before dusk."
Perhaps I need to rehabilitate the bicycle, which has been "resting" since the accident last year. This is my worst old-man-gas-price-watching nightmare.
The Mohawk Becomes, Well, Cute: "Or perhaps the Mohawk has re-entered the vocabulary of stylists who operate far from the barbershops near St. Marks Place, the city's historic thoroughfare for alternative style, thanks to the well-documented and ever-evolving Mohawk of one man, Maddox Jolie, 4.
Maddox, the adopted son of Angelina Jolie, is a regular face in the pages of Star and Us Weekly, and in the way of so many trends born in the pages of celebrity magazines, he has done for Mohawks what Harry Potter did for round spectacles. He made them trendy, starting a cut-to-the-scalp movement among Hollywood offspring that now includes the children of Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany: their sons Kai, 8, and Stellan, 1. Et tu, Natalie Portman?"
That's right! Et tu, Natalie Portman? That will be my snap-snap comeback whenever I have to sit through a film of hers that is rubbish (i.e. Closer, Star Wars). She better start with the good films or we will all have been duped by her mesmerizingly perfectly horizontal eyebrows.
Also, the article does not properly discuss the influence of the fauxhawk trend.
