Russell Crowe hurts his arm!

Russell Crowe hurts his arm!! I shall nurse him back to health!

http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,13391,00.html?eol.tkr

Russell Crowe's Latest Wing Ding
by Josh Grossberg
Jan 30, 2004, 1:15 PM PT
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Russell Crowe has gotten his wing clipped again.

The Oscar-winning Gladiator dislocated his shoulder in Sydney while training for his pugilistic part in the upcoming Universal Pictures boxing drama Cinderella Man, the studio confirmed.

Crowe will immediately undergo arthroscopic surgery to repair his shoulder, followed by an intense regimen of physical therapy. He won't be able to resume training for the role of real-life boxer Jim Braddock for four to six weeks.

As a result of the injury, filming on the flick will be delayed a month, pushed back from March until early April.

Cinderella Man reunites Crowe with the Oscar-winning A Beautiful Mind triumvirate of director-producer Ron Howard, producer Brian Grazer and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman. It tells the story of how Braddock became a folk hero after winning a vicious 15-round match against heavyweight champion Max Baer in 1935 during the throes of the Great Depression. Renée Zellweger will play Crowe's wife.

"I've never known any actor who dedicates himself to a part with more intensity than Russell," said Grazer Friday. "He approaches every role with a rigorous discipline, using his mind, his body and his spirit. To prepare for his role as Jim Braddock, Russell has been training with some of the foremost boxing instructors in the world, and that commitment is what led to the injury to his shoulder."

Oscar nominations are announced

http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,13359,00.html?fdfour2

 

Oscar nominations were announced today. Big surprises include that neither Nicole Kidman nor Russell Crowe were nominated. Maybe the Academy was sick of them. And despite the big studio push, "Cold Mountain" was not nominated either.

Golden Globe Awards. Pre-Show

I am flipping between NBC and E! Television pre-show coverage. On E!, Joan Rivers is wearing some dead thing around her neck. Her daughter, Melissa, is wearing a vintage red beaded thing. At the end of the broadcast. Joan and Melissa bicker in a weird, passive-aggressive way that makes me think they need family counseling. Everyone is double air-kissing Joan. Shut up, Melissa. I realize that some stars are simply stupid, i.e. Alicia Silverstone.

 

Fergie, a.k.a. the Duchess of York is there.

“Ya haven’t done so bad for yourself,” says Melissa.

“I think not,” says Fergie.

Shut up, Melissa.

 

On NBC, Ling Ling is interviewing Johnny Depp. Ahhhhh! Johnny Depp. Johnny Depp. Johnny Deppppppppp! Lisa is drooling and so am I. He is chewing gum. He looks luscious and lovely in a brown suit with a brown fedora. His paramour, Vanessa Paradis, is wearing some black ruffled thing. A big publicist guy in a tux literally pulls Johnny away from Lisa Ling and steers him toward the entrance so the show can begin.

 

Golden Globe Awards. Part 1

8 p.m.

  The show starts. No weird musical numbers or guest hosts for the Golden Globes. Just right down to business.  Meryl Streep has nice flippy hair as she presents the Best Supporting Actor award.

  “I’ve never opened an envelope before,” Meryl says. Um, never?

  The award goes to Tim Robbins for “Mystic River" who tells us that “the good thing about coming early is that I get to drink now.” 

  Renee Zellweger wins for Best Supporting Actress in a Movie for “Cold Mountain.” Yea! I loved Renee in that movie. And she looks nice and curvy, with boobs-a-plenty because of her role in the next “Bridget Jones” movie. Guess who Renee beats out? Maria Bello, with whom I went to Villanova University and of whom I am exceedingly jealous.

   Some more awards. La la. Best Miniseries goes to “Angels in America,” the drama about AIDS and angels. I tried to like that show but it got on my nerves a bit, especially when Mary-Louise Parker disappeared into the fridge. Meryl Streep wins Best Actress in  Miniseries and tells America that “I just realized you can see completely through my dress.”

 

Golden Globe Awards 2004. Part 2

8:30 p.m.

  Sarah Jessica Parker wins Best Actress-Comedy for her role on “Sex and the City.” She remembers to thank her husband this time.

  Jeffrey Wright, an actor from “Angels in America” wins Best Supporting Actor.

  Okay, here is Robin Williams introducing a film clip from “Master and Commander” but making an off-color joke about um, seamen. Meanwhile, Johnny Depp drops something on the floor.

 

  Best Actress in a Movie- Comedy goes to Diane Keaton who wears white gloves.

 

  Bill Murray wins Best Actor in a Movie-Comedy for “Lost in Translation.” Yea! That movie rocked. It was about nothing and everything at the same time. He jokes that would thank Universal Pictures but “there are so many people trying to take credit for this, I wouldn’t know where to begin.” Ha!

 

Golden Globe Awards 2004.Part 3

9 p.m.

  I switch to “Sex and the City,” so I missed this part, including Bono. On SATC, Carrie sleeps wearing full makeup and her bra. But then, so do I. Ha! Not really.

 

9:30 p.m.

  Back to the Golden Globes. Look, the newly single JLo! She is wearing a tangerine dress which makes her boobs look long. Her hair is in a ponytail and she is wearing big earrings. She presents the award for Best Screenplay to Sofia Coppola for “Lost in Translation.” Yea!

 

  The award for Best Supporting Actress in a Miniseries goes to Mary-Louise Parker, who looks amazing considering she gave birth on Jan. 7. And can you believe her boyfriend, Billy Crudup, left her when she was seven months pregnant? Crud. Mary-Louise thanks her newborn son for “my boobs looking so good in this dress.”

 

  The Cecil B. DeMille Award goes to Michael Douglas. Blah, blah, blah. I flip to another channel. Catherine Zeta-Jones must have her whole face shot through with Botox because she has nary a wrinkle or frown line.

Golden Globe Awards 2004. Part 4

10 p.m.

   Best Director goes for Peter Jackson for “Lord of the Rings.” He could use a haircut, but he is a genius, so who really cares.

   Best Actor in a Miniseries goes to Al Pacino, who is sporting a little ponytail. He is so nervous that he looks as if he might unscrew the globe from its base on the award.

   Nicole Kidman announces the nominees for Best Actor in a Movie, who include her ex, Tom Cruise and her co-star, Jude Law. Hmmmm. What if Tom wins? He is grinning like a madman. Will it be weird? We will never know because Sean Penn wins and Clint Eastwood accepts for him.

   Best Actress in a Movie-Drama goes to Charlize Theron for “Monster.” Yea! She was great in the movie.

 “Ah! My God!” Charlize screams. “This is so crazy.”

  As she is accepting her award, they try to cut her off and the music gets louder and louder and louder. Come on guys, show some respect!

   A bald Jim Carrey presents the award for Best Movie- Comedy. It goes to “Lost in Translation.” Yea again!   Best Movie- Drama goes to “The Lord of the Rings.” Of course. And Leonardo DiCaprio bids us all farewell.

Ben and JLo break up!

I am SHOCKED, simply SHOCKED that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez have called off their engagement. Again. If those two crazy kids can't make love work, then who of us can?

VH1 Bands Reunited

http://www.vh1.com/shows/dyn/bands_reunited/series.jhtml

Okay, this is my new favorite show - VH1's "Bands Reunited." The deal is, they find all the members of these '80s bands, get them together and have them perform a show the next night. So far, I have seen the episodes about Berlin, Flock of Seagulls, Romeo Void and Klymaxx.

  The one about Berlin was quite dramatic. Their songs were "Metro," "No More Words" and "Take My Breath Away" - otherwise known as the song during the sex scene in "Top Gun." The lead singer, Terri Nunn, still looks great, although the rest of the band are quite worn. But they sounded GREAT. I would go see them.

  The guys from Flock of Seagulls have mostly lost their hair, so no one had the mousse wings.

  I totally forgot about Romeo Void, although when I heard the song "Never Say Never," it all came flooding back. The '80s. Big hair. Shoulder pads.

KQ's quick movie guide

I saw a TON of movies over the last few weeks and will now provide to you, my reading audience, a quick summary of the flicks.

Master and Commander -- Russell Crowe in britches. YES! He waves his sword, clambers onto the rigging and raises the mizzenmast or whatever. Who cares. His hair is flowing and he is in tight britches. Actually, this was quite a good movie with an excellent character study between Crowe's commander and the ship's doctor played by Paul Bettany (one of Crowe's hallucinations in "A Beautiful Mind.) There is one bloody, icky battle scene. The doctor has to perform surgery on himself. Ew. Other than that, it is great.

Last Samurai -- I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. Tom Cruise is pretty good but Ken Watanabe, the Japanese actor who plays the Samurai, is amazing. Tom's hair stays perfectly shagged throughout many months. What is up with that? There is no sex. There is a lot of drinking. The ending is not really believable. But the photography is great.

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King -- Oh. My. God. I am so in love with Viggo Mortensen, who plays Aragorn. His flashing eyes, his floating hair. This movie rocked. I only became a LOTR fan very recently but this movie was amazing. The special effects were incredible and the bond between the characters was very believable. A few too many battle scenes for me, though. I got a little bored. Also, the movie is so long that I had to go for a refill of snacks in the middle of the movie and I took several bathroom breaks.

Monster -- This is an independent movie starring Charlize Theron, about serial killer Aileen Wuornos. I knew a lot about this case from living in Daytona Beach, Fl which is where most of the action took place. This movie was quite powerful and sad, and Theron does a fantastic job. She became Aileen Wuornos in all her hyperactive, paranoid and sarcastic glory. The love between Theron's character and her girlfriend, played by Christina Ricci, is really quit touching. Not an uplifting movie though, so don't see it whilst depressed.

Michael Jackson's arraignment

So hard to decide on the most bizarre aspect of today's arraignment in the Michael Jackson molestation case. Feel free to weigh in on YOUR favorite weird moment:

1) Michael Jackson wearing glittery shoes.

2) Michael Jackson walking under an umbrella

3) The cheering fans in the courtroom.

4) The cheering fans outside the courtroom, who had been bussed in.

5) Tito

6) Michael jumping on the SUV to dance for fans

7) P.Diddy's attorney is now Michael's attorney

8) Tito

9) The absence of Latoya

10) Michael's new best friends, the Nation of Islam

Ah! College life in the fall!

(Written on 10/30/03) Fall is here in South Jersey and with it comes leaves falling from trees, long sleeve shirts and the occassional tornado which whacks people on their heads. The latter happened during a freak storm on Monday in which a 77-year-old woman who had just joined a bowling league, was walking to her car when a small tornado whirled by and whacked a tree branch into the back of her head. See? And people wonder why I have anxiety. You're walking along, excited about bowling, and suddenly you are thwacked with a tree branch.
Anyhoo, I just looked in the hallwayat school here and every student is either reading the campus newspaper or the humor magazine. Last spring, Venue garnered notice for publishing explicit instructions about how to perform oral sex, with some interesting hand-drawn pictures.
This issue of Venue includes new drinking games to movies, such as: Schindler's List and Citizen Kane. Of course, as Sister Monica Marie, I know they will all go to hell for playing "Drinking Schindler's List," but it is rather funny. Here are some of the instructions:
* Drink anytime someone is shot.
* Drink anytime you see a train.
For "Drinking Citizen Kane," participants drink anytime there is a flash-back or flash-forward and chug when anyone says "Rosebud."
In other news, last night the students put out another issue of The Whit with only a modicum of drama and whining (from them, not me). During the evening, we got to hear the Homecoming King and Queen pageant downstairs in the Student Center. I observed from the balcony above.
Before the pageant, a bunch of sorority girls who were contestants, gathered with their friends to hug and touch each other's hair.
"Oh my God! I am so nervous!" one squealed.
"Just don't think about it. Don't think about it!" she was counseled.
"Do you think I should wear my hair forward (flip) or back (flip)?" she asked.
I left before this important decision was made.
For the contest, the women wore suits, then dresses and then there was dancing (not from the contestants, from one of the groups on campus).So anyway, all the female contestants were wearing strapless or sleeveless formal gowns. What happened to sleeves? Why is this generation scared of them? Sleeves are good. Sleeves keep you warm. Sleeves allow you to wear a bra.
Anyway, two students with shiny straight teeth won the pageant and were named Homecoming King and Queen. La!

When children amused themselves

(Published in the Philadelphia Inquirer. 12/14/03)

Let me tell you a fairy tale, children. It is about a simpler time when children had to entertain themselves during long holiday car rides, without technology.Long, long ago, about 25 years or so, there were no minivans. There were no DVDs. There were no DVDs in minivans.This may seem like a horror story, Britney and Bree. But it is actually true.

Don't be afraid, children. Listen to my story about what kids used to do in the Time Before DVDs in Minivans. They actually used to amuse themselves.How did they do this, Kayla and Kyle? In very simple ways. For one thing, children looked out the window. They looked at trees, houses and dogs. Kids played the license plate game and whoever spotted an Alaska or Hawaii license plate always won. 

Children also amused themselves by poking each other. Yes, Jordan and Caitlin, this is when the kids were being bad in the car. But children actually spent hours and hours plotting how to surreptitiously poke siblings in the side. Poke, poke, poke. A good poke in the ribs always provoked screams of irritation and caused your mom or dad to turn around and start swatting at you with a free hand. That was especially fun when they swatted while driving and the car swerved back and forth.

Since there were no DVDs, kids colored on paper and drew pictures. They played Mad Libs and Auto Bingo. They told stories. My dad had one about a six-foot chocolate Easter bunny, and he changed the story each time we took a long car ride. Sometimes he told us about the bunny being on a bus, and sometimes the bunny went to dinner.What is it, Dylan? Yes, I am single. No, I don't have any kids, but I will someday.

Most of my friends have kids. And their kids ride in minivans with DVDs.What do they think about my story? Well, Tyler, my friends with kids will probably tell me to shut up when they read this."Shut up, Single Friend! You don't know what sweet, blessed peace it brings us to have silent children in the car, enraptured in the Finding Nemo video instead of poking each other," they will probably say.They will probably be right.

But for now, I can be smug in my singledom and in the thought of how my perfect children will simply and quietly ride in the car.I know, Ashley. That really is a fairy tale.

New Year's Eve. Part 2

(continued from Part 1
My favorite outfit of the evening was the 18-year-old dressed in a pink slip with black lace-up heels. Now perhaps the slip was a dress but to me, it looked like the poor girl just lost the rest of her outfit. SlipGirl got REALLY drunk towards the end of the evening and had to, of course, sit down. So we all got to see her underpants. I was just glad she was WEARING underpants. Later, her friends put her on a bench and she looked as if she might hurl. Like a cat with a hairball.

At 11 p.m., Natural got on stage to perform. I stood in front to take pictures while Michael was setting up his keyboards. I stood there and found myself in the front row, then, when the band started playing. I got to make faces at Michael while he played and took lots of pictures. I kept giggling because the whole thing was so silly. I was standing next to Michael's mother, who kept waving, and fans who kept taking videos.

 At midnight, the set was over and I got free champagne and kissed Michael on the cheek, after peeling off a 15-year-old female fan who was hanging on his arm.
I stayed until 1 a.m., talking with various people and finally with Michael, who got really drunk. And then I left. A good time was had by all. Except, perhaps, SlipGirl.

New Year's Eve with a Boy Band and SlipGirl

Hello all and Happy New Year!
  I spent an interesting New Year's Eve with my friend, Michael of the band Natural. He invited me to attend Lou Pearlman's swanky party at Church Street Station in Orlando.

Anyway, Lou is managing Michael's band now.Okay, for those of you who know, I met Michael in 1998 when we both appeared in a production of "George M" at the Bay Street Players in Eustis, FL. He and I stayed in touch, even after he became a member of a band and had to change his name to "J" because there was already a kid named Michael in the band.

  Natural has a single out and it is #3 on the Billboard list of singles. Last week I was visiting Mom and Jenny in Orlando (and Kevin and the cats). Michael and I went to the movies and he asked me to go to this party. His mom was also going and his longtime friend, Emily.  I swung into action. I purchased a long, black skirt and sparkly top at....Sears! And it was on sale for 40 percent off! I also got these cool black shoes with see-through Cinderella heels. I paired that ensemble with a silk red scarf Judy gave me for Christmas. I looked HOT if I do so myself. 

 I met Michael at the ballroom and walked in with him to see about 300 to 400 people inside. There were centerpieces of roses and sparkly silver string. Michael went off to shmooze and I entertained myself by eating hors d'oeuvres (yummy scallops, icky beef Wellington that I had to spit out) Drank beer. Drank champagne. One bartender was making cappuccinos. Chatted with Michael's mom. Chatted with Emily, who is also a singer. There was a tap dancer. I don't know why....(To be continued in Part 2)