On the heels of the publicity circus surrounding “Different Strokes” actor Todd Bridges’ new memoir about how he’s been sober for nearly 2 decades and his gripe about how in spite of this very fact everyone still recognizes him as the “Different Strokes” star who turned junkie outlaw comes news today that his TV brother Arnold/Gary Coleman is being hospitalized in Utah. The most shocking detail of the story is not the fact that Coleman’s wife and family don’t want to leak to the press anything related to his health (especially given his wife’s predilection for abusive gestures) or that Gary is sick (he’s been sick a few times in the past year), but that the dude lives in a state where booze is a no-no, trusts his treatment to physicians who don’t drink coffee, and furthermore doesn’t take advantage of the whole polygamy deal the state has going on. Really Gary?
Well, we here at Bloggin’ With Amaldo hope that Gary makes a hasty recovery. The world would be a different place without the little dude.
A-Team, The Movie! Coming to theaters in June. Bradley Cooper, Liam Neeson and Jessica Biel will try to revive the mythological 80′ TV show. While the TV A-Team were a bunch of ex Vietnam soldiers turned into escaping convicts, in the movie they are Iraq war veterans. The trailer sure brings back memories.
TMZ.com is reporting that actress Brittany Murphy died this morning after having been rushed to Cedars-Sinai in LA where she suffered from full cardiac arrest. The 32-year-old actress, best-known for her featured work and memorable roles in “Clueless” and “Girl Interrupted” was also once engaged to Ashton Kutcher. Media is still speculating on the exact cause of her death, though asthma is rumored to have been a catalyst.
Billy Joel’s wife Katie Lee, 33 years his junior, and the former host of the hit Bravo reality TV show, Top Chef, is shagging Israeli fashion designer, Yigal Azrouel. Sidebar: Am I wrong in thinking this guy is a total arse schmuck? Then again, maybe my pragmatism and miserly disposition just don’t see the value in spending $1150 on a cotton dress with a zipper, which by any other name smells like shmatas.
Joel and Lee announced their split just this week amidst rumors of infidelity. While the Joel-Lees are denying the rumors, it would seem that the age difference was a major factor in their split. Joel’s former “Uptown Girl,” Christie Brinkley was in the news last year when news of her former hubby’s scandalous shacking up with their nanny hit the fan.
Now that they’re both older, anyone else think that Joel and Brinkley should just reunite and stop trying to reclaim their youth by marrying adulterous klumniks?
I happened to catch the newly released soccer flick, “Rudo Y Cursi,” this weekend and while I’m no fan of soccer (much to the chagrin of my husband), I’m usually up for some Gael Bernal Garcia with a twist of Diego Luna. The former more than the latter, but no need to get choosy here.
The movie tells the story of two brothers - Rudo, played by Luna is the brighter and more motivated of the two and is determined to be a soccer star at all costs to himself and his family and then there’s Tato (nicknamed “Cursi”), the more likable of the two, and possibly the more talented, but also the more foolish one. Each of them has their own vice (for Rudo it’s gambling and cocaine; for Cursi it’s women and his short-sighted desire for fame in the form of becoming a singing sensation).
So while the movie is a cliche in its own right: And yet another variation on the theme of what happens when you take 2 neglected hicks and feed them into a world of overnight success and lavish attention on them, there is something deeper that the flick hints at which I think a lot about in my own career - the distinction between passion and talent.
The most successful people are the ones that can objectively (if that’s possible) look inward and package their talents in a way that makes them desirable candidates for the work they pursue. It may not reflect their passion, but it speaks to their ability to know their strengths. While Cursi is drawn to music, soccer is the device that allows him to pursue his passion and what makes him such a tragic figure is that he unabashedly takes for granted the very thing that enables him to follow his passion.
NBC canned “Medium” and the lovely Patricia Arquette only to have the show brought back to life by those silly “Ghost Whisperer”(s) over at CBS. Now all we need is Roma Downey to join the cast and we can exit stage right and proceed directly to heaven.
CBS takes death very seriously. In fact, all this repetitive ghost stuff makes me think that they just don’t know when to kill a decent storyline when they see it. In other words, get rid of J.Love and keep Allison Dubois.
Grade-A actor and resident hunk Ryan Gosling has a new career these days as frontman and pianist for the band, Dead Man’s Bones. His deep, throaty voice lends itself to a brooding crooner style (hence the Leonard Cohen reference) and I’m digging G’s moxie in the video. He’s come a long way from the Micky Mouse Club. Then again, so have Brit and Christina A.
So without further adieu, here’s Ryan belting it out with his break-out single, In the Room Where You Sleep.
Paul Newman lost his battle with Cancer today at the age of 83. He will be sorely missed, especially by the bloggers here at Amaldo.com who loved his films, his salad dressing, and most of all his signature charm. The smoldering smile and kind-hearted giver went hand-in-hand.
I’ve made no secret my distaste for the stale humor of Sarah Silverman, but she did recently win an Emmy for spouting vulgarities at Matt Damon, so apparently the chick holds some mass critical appeal or is one very lucky gal. In this video clip below, here she is telling us why we should all vote Obama. You know…In case there weren’t enough Hollywood celebrities wearing their status like a piece of chintzy Obama shwag these days.
What’s wrong with being an equal opportunity offender within the confines of comedy? If you asked me before I saw Tropic Thunder last night I might have answered, “Not much.”
Not the case anymore.
I went to see the much-anticipated Ben Stiller flick after a few months of heightened anticipation. I had read many enticing reviews, including David Ansen’s glowing accolades of Ben Stiller’s comedic rise to genius from his days on the Ben Stiller Show to his fall in The Heartbreak Kid to his present-day redemption.
I like Ben Stiller most of the time. I used to get annoyed with his shtick but ever since Zoolander (which people I either love or hate), I’ve been singing a different tune. It was a silly commentary on the fashion world, models, and the media that exploits every facet of pop culture. It was so over-the-top, it was hard to offend. Unless you’re a self-obsessed, dumb model, that is…Or just an incredibly dim-witted, kind-hearted model like Stiller’s Derek Zoolander.
So given Stiller’s penchant for poking fun at various groups in his work (and most notably “slow” people) and his 2-D labels, it’s not surprising that the President of the AAPD (Association of American People with Disabilities) came out denouncing Stiller’s portrayal of a character playing the part of mentally retarded individual, even going so far as to call out the film as “tasteless” and “offensive from start to finish.”I know what he meant because I, too, cringed every time I saw Stiller stutter in his “Simple Jack” character, wondering how this brand of cruel humor managed to see its way through the DreamWorks editing suite.
And I felt doubly ashamed and irate with Tom Cruise’s cameo as a money-grubbing, fat, and vulgar Hollywood Executive named Len Grossman.
Robert Downey, Jr.’s portrayal of a white man playing a black man was meant to be funny and self-deprecating because it was poking fun at someone who was pretending to be someone he wasn’t. It didn’t involve colors so much as one actor’s self-absorption and what he put himself through to be an artiste. The make-up and phony accent were all part of the gimick.
The joke ended there.
But with Cruise’s Jewish character and Stiller’s mentally disabled character there was no foil. There were stereotypes that were magnified and blown up at the expense of these groups. The joke was entirely on the people that comprise these groups.
I’ve never been fond of the mantra that it’s ok to insult and joke about a group if you’re a member. We all have the responsibility to uphold a degree of ethics and social responsibility in our work and our daily conduct. Besides, the majority of people attending such a mainstream flick aren’t necessarily Jewish nor Special Needs so you’re depicting these groups in an unfavorable light to a broader audience for the sake of what? To fuel the fire of discrimination and spread hate?
It’s quite possible I have a giant rod up my butt and just don’t “get it” but “it” seems like such infantile and low-brow humor that I’m not sure I ever want to get it. It makes me long for the comic brilliance of Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor - men who valued a level of sophistication in their cultural commentaries and knew that the best kind of laugh sometimes came with the price of of a tear in that it held a mirror to our own ignorance and short-comings. And at the end of the day we were better people for having listened to them and chuckled at our own expense - not someone else’s.
Hollywood’s golden couple, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett blah-blah-blah have officially got with the program and are opening a “non-affiliated” private school.
On the mythological waiting list/roster of shoe-in attendees, Suri Cruise and possibly the Preston-Travolta clan. While the Hancock star and his wife are insistent that the school is not grounded in L. Ron Hubbard’s teachings, “several teachers on board at the school are members of the Church.”
Will and Jada’s New Village is different. For one, unlike your standard everyday brand of school sports which are nothing more than thinly veiled exercises in masochism where humans get used as target practice (dodgeball, kickball), New Village students will have the option of doing yoga. How very progressive. We’re no Scientologists here (and therefore ignorant as to the ways of the future), but we foresee a very heartfelt Oprah episode airing towards the mid-August in which Tom and Katie make cameos alongside their bestest friends and everyone shares some “I love you(s)”.
If only the ending to this sad story weren’t quite as predictable as Hancock’s twisted denouement.
According to an article in this week’s Newsweek, Israeli TV is quickly becoming the hottest commodity to hit Hollywood since Ben Stiller did his Derelicte schtick in Zoolander. Not to nuke the fridge here, but with acts like Yael Naim picking up steam in MacAir commercials and shows like HBO’sIn Treatment (B’tipul) managing to muster a modest, but staunchly loyal cult following, it’s not at all surprising that TV and film execs are looking to Israel to provide them with some much needed fresh and original programming. Have you seen NBC’s and ABC’s Summer programming? There’s not one show among the bunch that’s not reality TV.
It’s telling of Israel’s rising popularity and perhaps indicative of its viability as a fixture in the entertainment industry that network TV had followed in the footsteps of HBO and chosen to add and adapt an Israeli show, Mythological X, (about love, nonetheless) to their Fall roster. (To sneak a preview of The Ex-List, click here)Loaded, a FOX-produced show about dot-com millionaires is also slated to air in the Fall.
But aside from the creative, engaging story lines that Israel seems to have the capacity to deliver, why has Hollywood looked to another country to fulfill what seems to be a gaping hole in the U.S. entertainment industry at present? To quote Joshua Alston, “Israeli shows are cheap”:
“In Treatment” premiered new episodes five days a week over nine weeks. “We’re used to doing 12 or 13 episodes per season,” says HBO executive Michael Lombardo. “The cost-effectiveness of the show is what enabled us to take on this huge commitment of 45 episodes.
“The relatively low cost will allow U.S. networks to try out Israeli formats and give them space to find an audience. “In Treatment” premiered to sluggish numbers that would spell trouble for a pricier show. But it built steam by the end of the season, and performed well enough relative to its cost that HBO will launch a second season this fall.
What may be considered “shoestring budgets” by U.S. standards is fueling the passion and stamina of Israel’s entertainment industry and in turn delivering a premium product at a bargain rate. And as long as this translates to the end result being more Gabriel Byrne, then I’m one happy gal.
Pixar’s Wall-E is opening in wide release today. We’ve been waiting for a long time to see the lonely robot who is still cleaning Earth, many years after humans have left the planet.
I can’t believe they turned Mama Mia into a movie. And what a cast: Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and more. I got a chance to watch the show a few years ago in Vegas, and though the storyline was as stupid as a musical storyline can be, I enjoyed listening to the to the immortal ABBA songs performed by the cast.
But now they turned Mama Mia into a movie. That’s unbelievable!
Season 4 of Weedspremiered last night and I, for one, couldn’t have been more giddy. As a huge fan of the show, its premise, and in spite of my repressed jealousy for the fair Mary Louise Parker, the show’s start did nothing to sway my belief that this show represents one of the finest half-hour slots in entertainment on TV right now.
Last season ended with Nancy (Mary Louise Parker) torching her house and the entire Agrestic going up in flames. The police go into the basement of Celia’s (Elizabeth Perkin) house and discover Nancy’s booming pot operation and of course come to Celia looking for answers. Without disclosing too much here and potentially spoiling the experience for viewers, Albert Brooks joins the cast as Nancy’s father-in-law and the stereotypical Jewish father who regrets that his son married a goyishe woman. Brooks also doesn’t think much of Nancy’s eldest son, the one with the “goyishe punim” nor the fact that Nancy is eating the German dish, spatzle, and that she smells like gas. References to the Holocaust abound and you start to understand that the Jewish humor jokes are only going to increase exponentially with Brooks’ presence on the show.
The big open-ended question series’ creator Jenji Kohan had us all wondering last night is what’s going to happen with the storyline involving the show’s incredibly talented and witty supporting ensemble (Kevin Nealon, Elizabeth Perkins, etc) who get left behind in Agrestic now that Nancy, her kids, and her brother-in-law have shacked up with Albert Brooks just north of the border. Kohan leaked to E! that a spin-off show might be in the works that would center around the the rest of the cast. Unfortunately for Nancy-Conrad fans, Kohan sees the split has something irrevocable:
“I love those characters; I just think those relationships wore themselves out, and I wanted to be true to where the characters were. Truthfully, Heylia and Nancy had nothing more to say to each other. Conrad and Nancy weren’t going to be the loves of each other’s lives, so it was time to move on.”
On the flipside, a spin-off might be a welcome relief as it will translate to a whole hour of Weeds entertainment back-to-back and that the Call Girl show will have move to another night. Nothing against the show or anything (’twas better than expected and I’ll admit it has more potential than Sex in the City as it lives up to its sexed-up hype and shows actual sex taking place in the city), but as David Hinckley of the NY Daily News said, “Secret Diary of a Call Girl is sexy enough, but ’tis a pity she’s a bore.”
For a sneak peak of Episode 2 of Weeds click here.
Another blond Hollywood starlet with ample assets has been possessed by the politician bug, at least virtually. Actress Scarlett Johansson has been exchanging emails with presidential hopeful Barack Obama. The connection? Her twin brother, Hunter, works for the Obama campaign after conveniently leaving his gig as Community Liaison for Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer a few weeks ago.
While all this background might explain how Obama and Scarlett were introduced, it doesn’t quite explain why the Dem candidate is garnering “advice” from the Hollywood hottie or why Scarlett is gushing about Obama’s prompt responsiveness to her emails all over the political site, Politico.
Kinda sheds new light on the whole “Yes we can” linchpin of Barack’s campaign.
Benicio Del Toro plays Che Guevara (The resemblance in the picture is unbelievable,) the Argentine who, together with Fidel led the Cuban uprising that brought Castro in to power, in a new movie. The 4 hours, Spanish speaking film was directed by Steven Soderbergh. The movie may be released in two parts titled “The Argentine” and “Guerrilla.”
“Cuba is less of an issue for me than Che,” said Soderbergh, “I think he’s great movie material is really what it comes down to. He had one of the most fascinating lives I can imagine in the last century.”
“Che” is considered a serious contender for the Palme d’or in the The Cannes film festival.
If you are fascinated by Che’s life like Steven Soderbergh, you might want to check the wonderful Motorcycle Diaries from 2004.
I did a Youtube search for one of my favorite artists today and discovered that Ms. Spektor is doing the theme song for the new Chronicles of Narnia movie. It’s a big coup for the artist, whose music has graced many a Grey’s Anatomy/CSI episode over and over again, but has yet to venture into the lucrative, albeit potential shark infested waters of Hollywood.
Anyways, as we’re huge fans of Regina on this blog and were planning on sneaking a peak of the new Narnia flick this weekend (Note: Not the Sex & The City movie), I say a celebratory drink is in high order. However, given that it’s 5 PM and I have a night of work ahead of me, I think I might have to settle for a run to the local Dunkin Donuts…
So, we went to see Iron Man on Friday. In Hollywood’s saturated political environment, where “We are to blame for all the bad in this world” George Clooney style, it’s hard to avoid the agenda even in a movie like Iron Man. But other than that, it is a very enjoyable movie; Robert Downey Jr, Jeff Bridges, GwynethPaltrow and Terrence Howard are doing a very good job. So, if you like the genre, you are up for a treat.
Oh, and a very important tip: Stay in the theater for the credits, and wait until the very end!!!! You’ll thank me later.
Fans of Steve Carell got a double dose of Carell this week starting with an hour long season finale of The Office on Thursday night and winding down with a spectacular season closer to SNL last night. The highlight of last night’s episode being the clip below where Ricky Gervais, creator of The Office (the British one), introduces the faux Japanese version of the show. Kristen Wiig, always a crowd pleaser and Bill Hader, my own personal favorite SNL cast member did a smash-up job as Pam and Jim.
For those of you Office fans who can’t wait 5+ months to know if Michael really gets with Jan or if Dwight and Angela conceive a child from their amorous tryst (might happen with the storyline given actress Angela Kinsey’s pregnancy), NBC is cleverly offering fans some crumbs in the form of webisodes to be featured on their site mid-July. Most likely these mini shows won’t give us any insight into the cliffhangers we really want answers to (rumor has it these shows will focus on Kevin’s gambling addiction), but they might provide some much needed entertainment in a world of otherwise bland and unimaginative reality TV programming.
Lastly, be sure to catch Steve Carell in Get Smart this Summer. As a lover of Maxwell Smart and all things from Inspector Closseau to Gadget, the bumbling, idiotic detective routine rarely wears too thin, unless it involves ruining a perfectly good cartoon.
On the heels of the publicity circus surrounding “Different Strokes” actor Todd Bridges’ new memoir about how he’s been sober for nearly 2 decades and his gripe about how in spite of this very fact everyone still recognizes him as the “Different Strokes” star who turned junkie outlaw comes news today that his TV brother Arnold/Gary Coleman is being hospitalized in Utah. The most shocking detail of the story is not the fact that Coleman’s wife and family don’t want to leak to the press anything related to his health (especially given his wife’s predilection for abusive gestures) or that Gary is sick (he’s been sick a few times in the past year), but that the dude lives in a state where booze is a no-no, trusts his treatment to physicians who don’t drink coffee, and furthermore doesn’t take advantage of the whole polygamy deal the state has going on. Really Gary? 
TMZ.com
NBC canned “Medium”
What’s wrong with being an equal opportunity offender within the confines of comedy? If you asked me before I saw Tropic Thunder last night I might have answered, “Not much.”
Season 4 of 
