Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Just to console some of y'all after the Sean Combs Show

Following the MTV Music Video Awards (or as I call 'em, The Sean Combs Show), I'm told there have been complaints about, among other things, the general lack of babeness on said shindig. (Thank goodness for Jessica Alba. And Shakira. And Eva Longoria. And Kelly Clarkson... wet t-shirt you say?)

Fortunately, and to give Jen an idea of what she's missing (and knowing Kira's Slave, probably him too), world-class MILF Monica Bellucci comes to the rescue with these frames from Combien ti m'aimes? This woman is 41 (or 37, depending on what date you believe), and effortlessly blows away the likes of the Simpson and Hilton sisters; shame about the first pic being the only one where she's dressed and doesn't have company though.

http://people.freenet.de/elbastardino/uploads/monica_bellucci_Combien_tu_m_aimes_promo_001.jpg
http://people.freenet.de/elbastardino/uploads/monica_bellucci_Combien_tu_m_aimes_promo_002.jpg
http://people.freenet.de/elbastardino/uploads/monica_bellucci_Combien_tu_m_aimes_promo_003.jpg

Notting Hell.

Poor Hilary Duff. The Perfect Man dive-bombs at the box office - and in fairness, not without reason (although note to the woman who had a little conversation on her mobile phone at Enfield Cineworld; no movie is bad enough to deserve that, not even Problem Child 2) - and then she starts taking crap for her weight loss at the MTV Video Music Awards...

I liked Cineworld when it was UGC. Mainly those little spots with their name that used to come up - you could imagine "Welcome to UGC Cinemas - It's almost time for the main feature" coming up in French, UGC being a French company and all. I think they'd play better in French, frankly. Now they're all being rebranded as Cineworld, which makes for more places where my Unlimited card has access, but loses something in return.

Nicole Kidman's wiggle helped Bewitched. The one lower down, that is. All her lesser movies should be required to have scenes inserted of her being totally naked from the front and back; wouldn't The Interpreter have been better, for instance, if that famed Australian behind had been on display?

This weekend was my cue to avoid Notting Hill. Carnival time there; party time, fun for others, crowdy noisy pain for me.

I hate hurricanes as well. If one attacked Britain, would smart-ass sixth form Guardian letter writers make cracks about Kyoto?

Recently, Brazilian transsexual star Camila de Castro committed suicide. This was, understandably, not widely reported outside of Brazil or certain circles; Vicki Richter said on her Yahoo! club that her demise wouldn't cause a ripple in the US. It does show how different things are there and here; though I understand T-girls still have some kind of stigma in South America, it's not quite as bad as in the US or here, where they're even more of a freak show of the underground type. A long way to go before we're as understanding and accepting of all types as we say we are.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

The Cindy Spot: 3rd Rock from the Sun

There are those who claim that Cindy Crawford has difficulty acting her way out of a brown paper bag. Then there are those who've seen Cindy in The Simian Line (where Cindy delivers her best performance to date, but more in a future spot - the worst performance comes from Emmy-winning veteran and the ex-Mary Beth Lacey herself, Tyne Daly) or on Muppets Tonight!, where she doesn't do as much as other guest stars have but she's fine as a Frogiteer in the Kermit the Frog Club scene (in her pre-modelling days... on the show, that is).

But this week, it's Masha who gets our attention. See, in 1998 Cindy guested on "36! 24! 36! Dick!", the Superbowl episode of 3rd Rock from the Sun (which the Radio Times amusingly billed as "36! 24! 12! Dick!" in a classic case of failing-to-get-it-ness), as one of a group of Venusian aliens who came to Earth in a bid to take over during the Superbowl halftime show, aka The One Time The Game Actually Attempts To Be Entertaining (though in fairness to American football fans, that's still one time more than the European variety). The aliens were all not only model-types but were also actually played by models - the leader was Beverly Johnson, Angie Everhart [who reportedly got on pretty well with Cindy during filming] was Chloe (who got off with Tom), Irina Pantaeva was Gabrielle (Dick's girlfriend) and Cindy was Masha, who scored with Harry and was the nicest of the aliens. Obviously.

Though not the funniest episode, it was entertaining, and served as a nice little bonus to Channel 4's Models Close-up (which was airing at around the same time). And Cindy didn't do too badly as Masha - at least she didn't venture into the realm of overacting that was all throughout that sitcom (unsurprisingly William Shatner guested on it. Sadly not at the same time as Cindy); still not as much fun as her Pepsi ads, but worth checking out in repeats.

Thursday, August 18, 2005

The Cindy Spot: George W. Bush

Since Cindy Crawford is not, to my knowledge, a Republican, why is the man made of an asterisk and an Emperor's helmet the subject of this week's spot?

Ever since the smirking stabbing-begger got into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, He Who Makes Me Leap For The Mute Button Every Time I See Him On TV keeps infesting my Cindy Google searches with his hometown of Crawford, Texas. The place Little Miss Can't Be Wrong fucks off to every other week apparently. Blend this in with Cindy not being as visible as she used to be and it ain't fun.

And now, with Cindy Sheehan's stance... (If anyone reading this gets the wrong idea, it's not her who I'm attacking, not at all. It's him. It's all about him.)

If only that pretzel had done its job. Or this was 2008.

Does Hater still rate ZOO magazine, or has he found sense by now?

The readers of ZOO - one of two weekly lad mags which, either as a sign of my advancing age (35) or something else, seem more unreadable every week - gave us yet another list this week. Yeah, I know, but this one does at least cut through the bullshit and call itself 100 Best Bodies. Not women, bodies. (loaded, by the way, did one featuring the 200 Best Breasts. FHM seems like Reader's Digest in comparison now...) Many of them are models who appear in ZOO and its rival Nuts regularly (like every week). I won't comment, I'll let you do it.

1: Keeley Hazell
2: Cheryl Tweedy
3: Kelly Brook
4: Jennifer Ellison
5: Angelina Jolie
6: Kayleigh Pearson
7: Lucy Pinder
8: Charlotte Marshall
9: Rachel Stevens
10: Charlotte Church
11: Paris Hilton
12: Kirsty Gallacher
13: Leilani Dowding
14: Natalie Denning
15: Orlaith McAllister
16: Lisa Snowdon
17: Sarah Harding
18: Maria Sharapova
19: Carmen Electra
20: Gemma Atkinson
21: Jakki Degg
22: Natasha Marley
23: Gisele Bundchen
24: Jennifer Garner
25: Eva Longoria
26: Jessica Simpson
27: Emma Griffiths
28: Myleene Klass
29: Sophie Howard
30: Zoe McConnell
31: Nikkala Stott
32: Beyoncé Knowles
33: Lady Isabella Hervey
34: Natalie Oxley
35: Emma Spellar
36: Katie Downes
37: Kate Moss
38: Michelle Marsh
39: Kate Beckinsale
40: Holly Valance
41: Lauren Pope
42: Jodi Albert
43: Fearne Cotton
44: Danni Wells
45: Rebecca Romijn-Stamos
46: Willow
47: Ali Bastian
48: Melissa George
49: Sophie Anderton
50: Victoria Silvstedt
51: Deanne Berry
52: Nicola Roberts
53: Tanya Robinson
54: Jenny Frost
55: Summer Altice
56: Nikki Sanderson
57: Imogen Bailey
58: Sarah Dunn
59: Nell McAndrew
60: Mischa Barton
61: Emma B
62: Jordan
63: Ashley Mulheron
64: Becky Rule
65: Coleen McLoughlin
66: Holly Willoughby
67: Leanne Wilson
68: Georgina Bouzova
69: Melanie Boorman
70: Sienna Miller
71: Michelle Heaton
72: Natalie Pike
73: Lucy Becker
74: Roxanne McKee
75: Corina Weston
76: Adele Silva
77: Naomi K
78: Billie Piper
79: Isla Fisher
80: Tina O'Brien
81: Shell Jubin
82: Emma Wilson
83: Caprice
84: Stacey Cadman
85: Catherine McQueen
86: Rachel Bilson
87: Vanessa Nimmo
88: Abi Titmuss
89: Scarlett Johansson
90: Kimberley Walsh
91: Nadine Coyle
92: Fergie
93: Nikki Theobald
94: DJ Sassy
95: Brooke Kinsella
96: Kate Lawler
97: Anna Taverner
98: Rebecca Loos
99: Sam Heuston
100: Halle Berry

Expect A-level results to start going down in a few years.

Monday, August 15, 2005

Oh hell no.

If it is true about Jennifer Garner wanting to leave Alias after the next season, then Bad Robot and Touchstone may as well shut up shop.

I have nothing against Rachel "best thing about The Amityvile Horror" Nichols, who's coming on board to take up some of the Garner-pregnancy-created slack (though that may be because no UK channel has The Inside yet, so far as I know); and while the fourth season isn't the best ever - coughNadiacough - this has yet to become Stargate SG-1 level missable. But every show has its people who, if they leave, for all intents and purposes take the show with them (unless they never leave, like Joss Whedon with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or leave behind people who know what they're doing, like The Wonder Years and The Simpsons did). Sliders didn't really become unwatchable until Jerry O'Connell jumped ship; Charmed will go to hell for good if Holly Marie Combs leaves; and Alias has Ron Rifkin, Victor Garber and J.J. Abrams. But most of all, it has Jennifer Garner.

For four years the premises may get increasingly untenable and the episodes sometimes dreary, but she never does; an episode revolving around Sydney asleep would probably be more compelling than any storyline focusing on Vaughn (and in fact, this was proven conclusively in the third season). Her sidelining from the action - and yes, the abbreviated attire - because of her being with child is a pisser-in-the-distance, but a pregnant Garner is better than no Garner at all.

Imagine The Simpsons with Rod and Todd as the stars. Get the idea?

New Cindy Spot this week, I swear. But first...

Yesterday a guy asked me for some money to get some food; you know the kind of guy I mean, homeless and bedraggled. That's not what bothered me - it's that he played the "Help a brother out, be a good black man" card on me.

I did give him some money, but I did give him a very brief lecture on not pulling that stuff first. It always pisses me off that some people want to play on some kind of fictional relationship that your skin colour gives you; years and years and years ago, one girl who was at Harrison College with me and who was also from England said she didn't have to like everyone from England, and though she was an unpleasant little bitch in retrospect (and probably at the time) she has a point.


Anyway, the next time some black guy asks me for something like that and tries that tack, I'll... probably give him a pound or two.

I hate myself.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

That thing in the jungle works for Channel 4.

Last night, Channel 4 launched Lost on UK TV. And to prevent Jen from asking again next year, Evangeline Lilly is Kate the brunette, willowy, lovely and (now-)escaped criminal - well, I assume she's a criminal from the handcuffs - and Maggie Grace is Shannon the model. The spoilt brat of a model. The blonde spoilt brat of a model. The beautiful, slim, hardbodied blonde spoilt brat of a model. Along with Emilie de Ravin, they provide the main eye candy for male viewers. And do so very well... well, anyway, it was very good though the first part of the pilot was overall better than the second (and I know this was the pilot, but the ending could still have been a bit stronger).

What pissed me off about this meeting of minds between overseers of Sydney Bristow and Jordan Cavanaugh (co-creator Damon Lindelof used to write for Crossing Jordan), apart from C4's snipping of the scene where Jack, Kate and Charlie flee from the plane and later find the pilot's body, was the way they decided to show it in two parts with Big Brother in the middle. Big Cunting Brother. Big Social Experiment Cum Excuse At Laughing At Idiots And Getting Glamour Model Softporn On TV Brother. Even with the sound off I was convinced that these are not people I wanted to spend any amount of time watching. As if holding it back for the summer wasn't enough.

Ah well, it'll soon be over. And Lost continues on Sunday. And Wednesday. And hopefully sans cuts. But I'm not holding my breath.

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Time is not on my side.

Okay. So the problem with scribbling is that I've found I need at least two hours or so to build up any kind of steam before I can get around to story-doing - on top of inspiration ebbing and flowing - PLUS I've gotten so used to keyboards that trying it by hand just doesn't seem to be in the cards without a lot of practice.

And I still haven't gotten a PC from work, so that's why I've been so slow.

So... any words of support? Anyone? Please, help me! I have to get back in the game, dammit!

But it could be worse.


For a start, Cindy Crawford could have decided to not holiday in St. Tropez. :)

Thursday, August 04, 2005

I need missing memory #272 back.

Recently Sharon was telling me she was playing her old tapes from the 1980s; I've been going through mine as well (the ones that aren't with my mum, that is). Like many collectors, I like to keep track of my tapes and records on whatever format- books full of what's on them, how long they are etc.

So how I managed to overlook one tape box being empty I don't know. Right there, there it was. A tape was not in it; lost during the move, one I didn't put back in after taking it out? I don't know. But Claudia Schiffer was not accompanied by chromium-oxide trapped sounds. (All my tapes have someone or something on their spines - this one had the then-Copperfield girlfriend and now-mother of Casper and wife of the man who almost got to direct X-Men 3.) Basically, I'm now stuck without the following from the days when I spent a lot of time listening to what used to be Greater London Radio and is now BBC Radio London (and mind-numbingly crap, but that's another post):

Side One:

One Night A Day - Garth Brooks
This Is A Song - Bachman-Turner Overdrive
Radar Love - Golden Earring
Excerpt from Jack Be Nimble - Chris Neal
Walk Like A Man - The Four Seasons
I Love Rock'N'Roll - Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
NYPD Blue - Mike Post
These Boots Were Made For Walking - Nancy Sinatra
Born To Be Wild - Steppenwolf
I Will Always Love You (In Spite Of Myself) - Nanci Griffith and Tanita Tikaram

Side Two:
Amanda - Don Williams
Margaritaville - Jimmy Buffett
Love Is In The Air - John Paul Jones
Falling in Love Again - Marlene Dietrich
Black Moon Rising - Creedence Clearwater Revival
(most of) The Magnificent Seven - Elmer Bernstein
My Sharona - The Knack
California Dreaming - The River City People
Everybody Needs Somebody To Love - The Blues Brothers

In fairness, they are all readily available elsewhere, but it's the principle of the thing. Still, there are worse tapes I could have lost. Like the one I made when Debbie Gibson stood in for Shadoe Stevens as presenter of the American Top 40, for instance. Which may be too much information.

The Cindy Spot: Bodyguards

In the summer of 1995, I was desperately looking forward to Fair Game; then it was delayed in the US until the autumn, and got pushed back here as well... well, when it finally came out, it didn't go down well in cinemas. But when it arrived on Sky Movies, it was never eventually consigned to wee hours showings, which suggests it didn't get particularly bad figures. That's just my theory, anyway.

Cindy went on in her occasional forays into acting to make better projects (like The Simian Line), and also worse ones. Which brings us to Bodyguards - Guardie del Corpo, a movie that she never seems to talk about, with good reason. Not related to the Kevin Costner-Whitney Houston stinker, this Italian comedy from 2000 about three bumbling ex-cops who become bodyguards to the famous (the female famous) was never released to cinemas outside the domestic market and has yet to emerge on video/DVD with subtitles or English dubbing, which is another way of saying that when I bought a copy of the movie while visiting Zeta in Luxembourg it was in the original Italian. Not that that made any difference.

If you click on the heading you can read my review for the IMDb (one of only three for said movie), but suffice to say that it's very crude, very shouty, and very, very unfunny. And that Victoria Silvstedt is in it. And that Modjo could probably retire from the royalties Filmauro paid for playing "Lady" so many times in the movie. And that even though Cindy is billed third, she doesn't appear until the last 25 minutes (like Victoria, Anna Falchi and Australian model Megan Gale, Cindy plays herself as one of the guards' clients); like Will Ferrell in the Meet the Parents-without-the-charm that is Wedding Crashers, her arrival does make the movie a bit better - even if she is (really badly) dubbed in Italian. But trust me, you can see why she doesn't mention it... embarrassing for all concerned.

The amazing thing is, it's still better than The Bodyguard - I'd rather have Cindy playing twins and modelling sexy blue swimwear than Whitney Houston doing anything.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Tag, I'm it!

Since Kira's Slave tagged me, time once again to blow off the old cobwebs and post something.

1. Ten years ago: Working at Ashurst down in Cricklewood, living with Sharon in Neasden.

2. Five years ago: Working at Ashurst over in Colney Hatch, living with Sharon in Willesden.

3. One year ago: Working at Ashurst over in Colney Hatch, living with Sharon in Kingsbury. (I should be writing for The A-Team with my stunning grasp of different plots.)

4. Yesterday: Complained to Abbey National about a messup with £200 which I still haven't gotten back. Most of which they'll take back anyway.

5. Today: Slowly run out of food, maybe ask for some petty cash funds until bank comes through, start new chain story part, threaten to start calling her Jenny if she keeps on filling an otherwise interesting blog with stuff about sport. :) .

6. Tomorrow: More of the same. Except for the Jenny bit. I didn't mean it, honest.

7. Five snacks I enjoy: Sugarless jam-and-butter sandwiches, Nutri-Grain bars... alright, I don't enjoy the latter, but my choice of snacks I enjoy is pretty limited thanks to the diabetes.

8. Five bands (or singers??) I know the lyrics of most of their songs: Britney Spears, Paula Abdul (until "My Love Is For Real"), The Beach Boys.... er... can I go now?

9. Five things I would do with $100,000,000: Split it five ways (both sisters, mum, dad), then with my share buy my own place, get a multi-region DVD player on import since you can't buy them in England, go completely fucking nuts on eBay, and save the rest.

10. Five locations I’d like to run away to: Paris, Sydney, Los Angeles, Jen's bedroom with Jen in there :) and Munich.

11. Five Bad Habits: Putting things off, never tidying up, eating too much, spending too much, complaining.

12. Five things I like doing: Buying soundtracks, writing, taping end credits of movies, leaving work, fantasising.

13. Five T.V. shows I like: Only five? Okay - The Simpsons, Charmed, Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, Justice League Unlimited, House.

14. Famous People I’d like to meet: Again five - Danny Elfman, Matt Groening, John Williams (although I've seen him in concert), Steven Spielberg, and George W. Bush, so I can have the opportunity to kick him in the family jewels and run away.

15. Biggest joys at the moment: The fact that it's only a week to go until Lost starts, that I've done another blogging, that I've finally gotten cable back, and that by the end of the year I will hopefully owe nobody anything, money-wise.

16. Favorite toys: My pillows. :)

17. Five people to tag: MuffinMan, Butch, Jen, Oricon Allin (she seems nice), and KS.