The Dishmaster

When I first heard about honorary degrees, I thought: how do I get one of those?  Apparently you can save years of your life by merely being a celebrity.  Had I just spent those four miserable years of undergrad pursuing fame and fortune instead, I could have just bought my “honorary degree” and avoided all the painful pot-head speeches about how marijuana actually makes you more productive.  Kim Cattrall received her honorary fellowship from Liverpool John Moores University.  In her speech, she congratulated the graduating class on “work[ing] damn hard.”  Perhaps she should have included the line, “if all of you focused on a job instead of studying, you could have the same degree–except you would be rich on top of it.”

Edward Norton and Marvel could not come to a deal for the new Avengers movie, and the mud-slinging has begun.  Marvel’s President of Production, Kevin Feige said, “our decision is definitely not one based on monetary factors, but instead rooted in the need for an actor who embodies the creativity and collaborative spirit of our other talented cast members.”  Norton’s people were pissed by his statement and subsequently released a rather long play-by-play about what happened, but here’s Norton’s version in a nutshell: they started financial negotiations, they could not come to an agreement, and Marvel pulled the plug.  So Norton’s people don’t appreciate Marvel’s personal attacks.  When I first heard that Norton was even considered for this role I was shocked, considering the stunt he pulled with ‘The Hulk,’ where he refused to promote the film because he was pushed out of the editing room.  That being said, I am not sure why Marvel decided to go public with such a personal attack.  My guess is that they were pissed that they could not come to a financial agreement after weeks of negotiating, and decided to lodge some daggers at Norton as payback.  It’s extremely unprofessional and unnecessary.  Could you imagine if one of your former bosses released a statement to all of America about how much you suck?  It might be pretty difficult to get another job after that.

A remake of the 2008 French film, ‘LOL: Laughing Out Loud,’ is in the works, and I’m not laughing.  You might be surprised to discover that my problem with the film has nothing to do with Miley Cyrus as the lead, but rather, the use of this ridiculous expression in the title.  Yes, I am a child of an online generation, in which there are insane abbreviations for just about everything.  But I draw a serious line in the sand at LOL.  First of all, are you actually laughing out loud?  Second, why not just write “hah”?  Isn’t that simply more accurate?  I also don’t understand why men are so freely using such an effeminate expression.  Next they will start writing “Tee-Hee-Hee.”  Hopefully this blog will help eliminate this horrific pop-culture staple.  A giant leap for mankind from The Dishmaster.

I was thrilled to read on Deadline that Brian Austin Green joined ‘Desperate Housewives,’ and I just assumed that everyone would share in my excitement.  After all, didn’t we all grow up in the 90210 generation?  Apparently not.  I was aghast to discover the venomous outrage for Green in the comments section of Deadline, on top of the insistence that ‘Housewives’ has jumped-the-shark.  I then decided to write an extremely witty post on Deadline, in which I excessively used the word “haters,” and accused the anti-Green mafia of not watching the show, because if they did, they would surely know that it has not in fact jumped-the-shark.  I need not tell you what happened next.  The Deadline loyalists accosted me, and I quickly retreated to the sanctity of my own website.  Since I am confident that my readers are of the 90210 generation, I am sure that I won’t receive the same negative backlash.  Who doesn’t like David Silver?

I have to give NBC some major props.  They have somehow managed to act like the scorned lover in this late-night debacle.  It takes a great mastery to pull that off. You might just think it was Conan that screwed NBC and not the other way around.  When asked about Conan’s Emmy nomination, they simply said, “We congratulate Conan and all our Emmy nominees on their creative accomplishments and their deserved nominations.”   This reminds me of the sixth grade when I asked my English teacher if my paper was good, and she said, “Yes, everyone’s paper was good.”  Ouch!