Angelina Jolie is in Pakistan, where she has met with the Prime Minister in her role as UNHCR ambassador. On Wednesday she spoke with CNN's Sanjay Gupta via satellite about the flood victims and how she deals with the tragedy she sees.
"I'll talk to my family," she said. "I talk to Brad; he wants to know as much as he can about these issues and every trip. He's been here as well, he came with me after the earthquake. But I don't know, I don't have a lot of friends I talk to. He is really the only person I talk to."
Angelina said that she lets her older children watch the reports about the floods and tries to teach them about what is happening in the countries they are from.
"I tell my children why I'm going and I explain to them why I was packing flashlights and food. They help me pack some things," she said. "It helps them to be better people, to understand a little bit about the world."
While it might seem impossible to make a funny movie about would-be terrorists, British director Chris Morris has found a way in the Four Lions.
The director known for his spoofs of TV news stories, in a Monty Python style, tells the story of a group of Muslims who have grown up in England but want to be part of the holy war against infidels.
It's never clear why. Omar, the leader, has a home, a beautiful wife and an adorable son. He uses Disney's The Lion King to teach his boy what is right and wrong.
There's no talk of the invasion of Iraq, and these Jihadists have been so deeply coopted by Western culture that they sing "Dancing In The Moonlight" on the way to their mission to blow themselves up during the London Marathon. They call each other "bro."
The "Jihadists" use derogatory terms for Pakistanis.
The main issue, as Omar's wife, puts it, is to find the right place to die. His son tells him not to worry, that his head will be in heaven before it hits the ceiling.
The incompetence of these four -- a fifth joins them -- is matched by the police and civilians. A friend-boss can't see the warning signs, even when Omar asks for permission to go to Pakistan for two weeks, claiming he is attending a wedding.
Omar (Riz Ahmed) really will be attending a terrorist training camp with his friend, Waj (Kay van Novak).
Spoiler alert/go to next paragraph: Omar, apparently not seeing the arrow pointing which way a missile launcher should aimed, tries to bring down a drone. Instead his missile goes backwards, killing terrorist leaders.
After being told they are "f.... Mr. Beans," they are sent home to continue insulting each other on who is most willing to die for Allah.
In the background it is clear that the police are catching considerable activity in their surveillance cameras, but are they after the right Muslims?
They real Jihadists do everything but take out an ad so there should be no mistakes. One of them raps: "I'm the Mujihadeen, and I'm making a scene, now you are going to feel what the boom boom means." â¨
Barry, the white Muslim, played by Nigel Lindsay, speaks at public forums defending Islam. "If you think we are all terrorists, why shouldn't we be?" Earlier, Barry had placed a cake with twin towers in a synagogue on the anniversary of 9/11. A speaker at one of these rallies says Muslims are misunderstood and shouldn't be feared.
The fourth lion, Fessel, played by Adeel Akhar, tries to teach crows how to fly bombs into targets.
A fifth Muslim, Hassan, played by Arsher Ali, is recruited to join them.
They argue over what they should bomb. Barry wants to bomb a mosque to inflame moderates. Omar persuades them to get disguises, put bombs under them, and blow themselves up during the London Marathon.
A suggestion that they blow up the Internet by jumping off a tree and landing ass-first on a laptop is rejected.
Spoiler alert/go to next paragraph: One lesson is brutally learned. Never try to employ the Heimlich Maneuver on someone who has a suicide bomb underneath his costume.
All five lions blow themselves up at various points, taking some police and an innocent cafe owner with them. A police sharpshooter, told to take out a man in a bear disguise, shoots a man in a "Wookie" costume instead, allowing Omar to escape for the time being. The sharpshooter insisted the man he shot was the right man by virtue of the fact that he shot him. This is caused a tautology in logic classes.
The story isn't that much unlike some real events. Najibullah Zazi, a Denver man who was preparing to blow up a train on the anniversary of 9/11 in New York City, got all the way to Manhattan without being stopped. Police had been watching him for months. Fortunately, he couldn't figure out how to make his peroxide bomb.
A security expert, defending the police reaction to the attack on the marathon in Four Lions, said, "Police shot the right man but the wrong man exploded."
One lesson, explained by Omar's boss, Matt, is that most loud bangs are not bombs, they are usually scooters backfiring.
Although the movie had a reasonably good run in the U.K. after its premiere Jan. 24 at the Sundance Film Festival, don't expect to see it at your neighborhood theater anytime soon. It might be as controversial as the concept of building a mosque near "Ground Zero." It is available on Amazon's U.K. site.
As for Morris, he has said trying to create controversy makes films boring. "I feel in a weird way that this is a good-hearted film. It's not a hate film, so I would hope that that aspect would come through."
Looking hotter than a toasted sandwich from Subway, Kristin Cavallari threw on her skimpiest lingerie and got downright dirty for an impromptu photo shoot last week.
0910_kristin_cavalari_photos_EX
One of the lucky bastards posing with Kristin is celeb photog Tyler Shields ... who took the pics "just for fun" ... no specific reason.
There is a new film coming out this fall that you shouldn't miss. It's called Casino Jack, starring the incomparable Kevin Spacey as disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. It is making its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 16th. If you don't know the story; Abramoff was a lobbyist who got a bit carried away with himself and began doing things that were shady, to put it mildly. He was tried and convicted of mail fraud for sending a phony money wire transfer, a felony, and spent the last 2 and 1/2 years in jail. He just got out about a month ago. As I write this he is living in a halfway house and working at Tov's Pizzeria, a kosher pizza joint, in Maryland where he is making between $7.50 and $10.00 per hour.
The George Hickenlooper film covers the ups and downs of this amazing character, brilliantly played by Kevin Spacey. We watch as Abramoff goes from egocentric, but decent, lobbyist; to egomaniacal crazy greed monger. He defrauds Indian tribes of millions, while pocketing amazing amounts of money for himself and his partner, Scanlon (played extremely well by Barry Pepper). He does business with a sleazy conman (Jon Lovitz) all in the interests of building his own empire.
On the one hand, Abramoff is an observant Jew with a wife and 5 children who only wants the best for his family. We watch his ego grow as he decides he wants to build a Jewish school and then own his own chain of kosher restaurants. Scanlon is clearly out for himself, and just wants the best house ever. Lovitz, whose performance is a revelation, is clearly sleazy and only wants money. Everyone else close to these characters is collateral damage. Abramoff's wife, played by Kelly Preston, stands by him dutifully. Scanlon's girlfriend, played by Rachel LeFevre, finds out that Scanlon was cheating on her and is the one who turned Scanlon and Abramoff into the FBI.
The story is true. Hickenlooper did exhaustive research to try and bring the story to life with as much detail as possible. He met with Abramoff in prison, interviewed all those associated who would talk to him, reviewed hours and hours of footage of the case and read everything he could about all involved. The result is 108 minutes of sheer brilliance. Everything about this film; from the script, written by Norman Snider, to the editing, beautifully executed by Sydney Pollack's editor William Steinkamp, to the music, by Jonathan Goldsmith, to the acting, is perfect.
Hickenlooper exposes the underbelly of lobbying and dirty politics. We see what goes on behind the scenes in graphic detail. Hickenlooper said, "We need the lobbyists because without them nothing would get done. They tell the politicians how to vote."
I asked him if Abramoff was ever diagnosed with a mental illness. Hickenlooper said, "Not at all. It's the culture in Washington that is mentally ill." To me, as a psychotherapist, I'd say that Abramoff has a personality disorder. If that is what it takes to be successful in Washington, it's a little scary!
When asked if he was afraid of getting sued, Hickenlooper said, "Not at all. I get sued all the time." This is fearlessness in action, in my opinion.
Spacey is amazing as Abramoff. I predict Oscar buzz and big things for this film. Go see it when it comes out. It's entertaining and a recent history lesson, all in one.
Let's focus for a moment, if we can, on the positive things about The Romantics, an otherwise unremarkable and, at times, aggressively formulaic film about young adults saying farewell to their college selves at the wedding of a friend.
Never mind, for a moment, how it pales in comparison to two other recent films: Rachel Getting Married (2008) and Margot at the Wedding (2007), to be precise. And forget, if you can, how thoroughly predictable so much of The Romantics is.
No, let's home in on its best moments: specifically, the long scenes involving either Katie Holmes or Anna Paquin. They're meaty, emotionally truthful and surprising, thanks to the alternately raw and supremely contained performances by Holmes and Paquin.
The actresses play best friends, Laura and Lila. Lila (Paquin) is getting married at her parents' Long Island spread; Laura (Holmes), her long-time roommate, is her maid of honor. One catch: Lila is marrying Tom (Josh Duhamel), the guy that Laura was deeply involved with in college, before Lila swept him away with both her charms and the promises of her parents' fortune.
The catch (and it is wholly unsurprising) is that Tom, the groom, isn't sure he made the right decision. He still has feelings for Laura. Once that's established in the script that writer-director Galt Niederhoffer adapted from her own novel, the potential paths this story can take seem pretty limited. But then so is the film.
But there are moments: like the one in which Laura confronts Tom after the rehearsal dinner, the night before the wedding, about why he broke her heart. Duhamel's Tom is the kind of pretty-boy jock who is used to getting what he wants and who believes it's his prerogative to have it both ways if that's what he desires. But Laura sets him straight in a scene that's blistering, thanks to Holmes.
The same is true when Tom reveals his indecisiveness to Lila. Paquin calmly flays him with words; she makes it clear that this is not something she'll put up with and that he needs to get his head on straight and get on with it.
And, eventually, there's the showdown between Paquin, secure in her rightness, and Holmes, who's been playing second-fiddle to Lila for as long as they've known each other. It's a terrific encounter, full of snap and bite as real feelings lead to sharp, pain-inflicting words. These two young actresses might as well be quietly spitting razors at each other. It's not a screaming fight - but it definitely is war.
Unfortunately, there's little else in The Romantics that rises to this level. Too little of this film deals with this unhappy triangle.
Instead, Niederhoffer spends far too much time on the interplay between the rest of the wedding party, two married couples played by Adam Brody, Rebecca Lawrence, Jeremy Strong and Malin Ackerman. After the rehearsal dinner, much drinking and a half-assed skinny dip (half-assed in the sense that they swim in their underwear), they switch partners for easily predicted hijinx - except that none of them wind up in bed.
Paquin is also given a black-sheep brother played by Elijah Wood, who assays the role as though he expected there to be more bad behavior for him to enact. She also has a sister who has an unsurprisingly destructive encounter with Paquin's wedding dress. And her mother is played by the comically inventive Candice Bergen, who is given criminally little to do.
So, yes, The Romantics has its minor pleasures. But they are too few and far between to warrant sitting through the entire film.
LOS ANGELES â A judge has granted Leonardo DiCaprio a three-year restraining order from a woman who he said claims to be his wife and carrying his baby.
During a brief hearing Friday, a Los Angeles judge ordered that Livia Bistriceanu stay 100 yards away from the actor. Court filings state Bistriceanu traveled from Chicago to Los Angeles and acted aggressively when she showed up at DiCaprio's home and business offices recently.
Bistriceanu, who has been twice placed on psychiatric hold, was notified of a temporary restraining order but did not appear in court.
The Academy Award-nominated actor did not attend Fridays' hearing.
DiCaprio stated in court filings that he was frightened of the 41-year-old woman and that she presented a threat to his personal safety.
Movies don't come more generic than Legendary, the first of a pair of films out of the WWE stable in the next few weeks (the less said about the upcoming Knucklehead the better).
This isn't paint by numbers -- it's color by numbers, with dull crayons. The only reason to see it is if you happen to want to be a Patricia Clarkson completist. As good as she always is, she's not in this movie enough to warrant the price of an admission ticket. Perhaps a home-video rental.
Clarkson is the matriarch of a small-town Oklahoma family -- or more accurately, the mother to a teen-age boy named Cal (Devon Graye, who played the teen Dexter on Dexter). Cal is a bit of a nerd, who decides to give his high school's wrestling team a try, though he's never done anything remotely athletic.
But he figures he's got genetics on his side. His late father was a state wrestling legend as both an athlete and a coach. And his older brother, Mike (John Cena of WWE fame), was also a state champion. But Mike survived a car crash that killed his father, a fact that Mom has never forgiven. Which means that Cal hasn't seen Mike in years.
But he's heard so much about his father and brother that Cal decides to try to seek his brother out and, perhaps, reunite him with their mother. Mike, however, wants nothing to do with Cal -- initially.
Eventually, however, Cal wins Big Bro over and convinces Mike to train him. Even though Mike is an unemployed day laborer, he somehow has outfitted an abandoned warehouse with wrestling mats, climbing ropes, free weights and more. There, in his secret wrestling lair, he teaches Cal all the tricks of the mat, even while upping his stamina, strength and confidence. He even teaches him the super-secret reverse cradle, a surefire pin hold that nobody uses because it could get them pinned instead.
What drama there is has less to do with Cal's burgeoning wrestling career than with the trumped-up friction between Mom and Mike. There's also a mysterious cheerleader for Cal -- a wise old man played by Danny Glover, who keeps popping up at opportune moments to give Cal a pep talk when he most needs it.
Graye is not a bad young actor, though director Mel Damski lets him get away with a lot of eye-popping. There's also an unfortunate subplot involving Cal with Luli (Madeleine Martin of Californication), the girl next door who has a crush on Cal.
Clarkson grounds this film in reality, finding the honest emotional notes of her scenes, no matter how operatically they are written. Cena, who isn't much of an actor, is fine playing the strong, quiet type.
On the other hand, it's hard to imagine who thought he could pass for someone young enough to have a mother as youthful as Clarkson. When the two of them eventually do get together and hug in reunion, they look like they should be playing romantic partners, not mother and son, even if she was a child bride.
Legendary isn't awful; it's just not particularly memorable. At best, it will wrestle your attention span to a draw.
Here's some new math for Danica McKellar's next book: one plus one equals three.
The former Wonder Years star and bestselling author gave birth to her first child Tuesday night, a boy named Draco Verta. He weighed in at 7 lbs., 2 oz. and takes his moniker -- which means dragon -- from the constellation of the same name.
Written and directed by Francois Ozon, Hideaway (Le Refuge) is a bitter little tale of life and loss, with the latter coloring the former, even as the former beckons sunnily.
The film starts darkly with a pair of young drug addicts, happily readying their works to shoot up their latest score. Cut to the ambulance carting the girl away to the hospital, while the coroner toetags her boyfriend.
But there's a catch. Not only is the girl, Mousse (Isabel Carre), alive, but she's pregnant with his baby. So his parents, concerned about the well-being of their grandchild to be, try to convince her to abort the child; they don't want any reminders of their late son's folly.
Instead, she decides to have the child. She borrows a small house near the beach, where she can spend the summer of her late pregnancy, soaking up rays and otherwise basking in good health in preparation for delivering a happy, healthy child.
But Mousse is not interested in rebirth. She can't abide by the rules, drinking wine and occasionally scoring some methadone to slake her cravings. Still, she is deeply unhappy, not particularly enamored of pregnancy and bored out of her mind. Her only company -- and her summer savior -- is her late lover's gay brother, Paul (Louis-Ronan Choisy). At first disapproving, he discovers the human side of Mousse, though she does her best to disguise it.
What they share is the disapproval of his parents, who disapprove of his homosexuality. And though he becomes involved with the errand boy who helps Mousse, he is also drawn to her, which forces him to reconsider his own life.
And that, mostly, is what Hideaway is about: a young woman who has cut herself off from the world, about to give birth to the one thing that will firmly tether her the rest of humanity. Ozon examines that equation from a variety of angles and, thankfully, has the acidic but beautiful Carre as his central subject.
Still, given his sharp focus, you will either buy into this film or find yourself irritated and impatient. See it for the pleasures of watching Carre play a character with no interest in acceptance by any one -- or stay far away.
Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Rock Song: You Don't Have to Go (Featuring Neil Young) Album: Last Man Standing
Sonny Rollins
Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Jazz Song: You Don't Know What Love Is Album: Saxophone Colossus (Remastered)
Memphis Slim
Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Blues Song: Going Down Slow Album: Paris Mississippi Blues
Patsy Cline
Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Country Song: I Love You So Much It Hurts Album: Patsy Cline Showcase With The Jordanaires
John Cage
Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Alternative Song: Cheap Imitation for Piano Solo I Album: Cheap Imitation
Cass Elliot (The Mamas & The Papas)
Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Rock Song: Dream a Little Dream of Me (With Introduction) Album: Greatest Hits
Chrissie Hynde (Pretenders)
Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Rock Song: My City Was Gone Album: Learning to Crawl (Remastered)
Billy Preston
Buy: iTunes.com Genre: R&B/Soul Song: Gospel in My Soul Album: The Complete VeeJay Recordings
Otis Redding
Buy: iTunes.com Genre: R&B/Soul Song: You Don't Miss Your Water Album: Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul [Collector's Edition]
George Gershwin
Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Classical Song: So Am I Album: Gershwin Plays Gershwin: The Piano Rolls
Arvo Pärt
Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Classical Song: Summa (Performed by Hortus Musicus) Album: Light
Hank Williams
Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Country Song: Move It On Over Album: 40 Greatest Hits
Arnold Schoenberg
Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Classical Song: Verklärte Nacht, Op.4: I. Grave (Ulster Orchestra conducted by Takuo Yuasa) Album: Verklärte Nacht/Chamber Symphony No.2/Accompaniment to a Cinematographic Scene
Elvin Jones
Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Jazz Song: The Juggler Album: Midnight Walk
Joey Heatherton
Buy: iTunes.com Genre: R&B/Soul Song: When You Call Me Baby Album: The Best of Northern Soul
Joan Jett (& The Blackhearts)
Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Rock Song: Bits and Pieces Album: I Love Rock 'N Roll (Remastered)
John Coltrane
Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Jazz Song: A Love Supreme Part I: Acknowledgement Album: A Love Supreme
Glenn Gould
Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Classical Song: Goldberg Variations for Keyboard, BWV 988: Variation 30 a 1 Clav. Quodlibet Album: Bach: The Goldberg Variations (1955 Version)
Bruce Springsteen
Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Rock Song: The Fever Album: 18 Tracks
BB King
Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Blues Song: Friends Album: Live & Well
Ray Charles
Buy: iTunes.com Genre: R&B/Soul Song: That's Enough Album: What'd I Say
Gene Autry
Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Country Song: Money Ain't No Use Anyway Album: Early Sides: 1930, 1931
Gwyneth Paltrow is goin' country in her new musical drama, 'Country Strong.'
In the film, the actress plays an emotionally unstable country star attempting to rescue her embattled career. While on a comeback tour, she finds her romantic life in turmoil and a younger star trying to steal her spotlight. In the first trailer, Paltrow shows off her singing chops and proves she can wail with the best of them.
LAS VEGAS — Police were investigating a complaint by a woman who claimed Motley Crue singer Vince Neil grabbed her arms in an elevator at the Las Vegas Hilton, but a hotel executive said Thursday surveillance video showed the allegation was not true.
Neil, 49, wasn't arrested after police took statements Sunday from the woman and two other people regarding the misdemeanor battery complaint, Las Vegas police Officer Barbara Morgan said.
The police investigation remained open.
However, Hilton vice president Kenneth Ciancimino issued a statement saying video footage from the elevator indicated the claim against Neil was completely unfounded.
"We consider the matter closed," he said.
Neil's lawyer David Chesnoff was unavailable for immediate comment.
A woman identified as Jessica Radovicz reiterated her claim in a video posted on the celebrity website TMZ.com. In it, she pointed to faint bruises she said she received on her upper arms.
There was no indication Neil knew the woman, and she didn't report to police that she was physically injured, Morgan said.
Neil owns tattoo shops and bars in Las Vegas, including a cantina at the Hilton.
Neil is due in court Sept. 27 on separate misdemeanor drunken driving and speeding charges. He has not yet entered a plea.
He is accused of driving his Lamborghini sports car 60 mph in a 45 mph zone before being stopped June 27 near the Las Vegas Strip.
A court document alleges he had a blood-alcohol content of 0.08 percent, the state's legal limit for drivers.
The 40-Year-Old Virgin actor Shelley Malil testified Thursday he stabbed his girlfriend 20 times when he wrongly thought that she was somebody else going after him in the dark.
"I'm sorry," Malil, 45, said in a Vista, Calif., courtroom. "I had no idea. I saw the pictures (of her wounds) for the first time, I was stunned. When I look at those pictures, I still can't believe the knife I was holding was responsible for all those injuries."â¨
Ali Larter visited 'Late Night with Jimmy Fallon' on Thursday and confirmed that her unborn child will be a boy. Fallon offered her a choice of a pink or blue onesie, and she chose the blue one.
"I was trying to keep it private, but we're having a boy!" she said. "I have a little penis inside of me."
Ali's son will be her first child with husband Hayes MacArthur.
See photos of Ali showing off her big baby bump last week here.
This was an odd week, as the penultimate week always is. We had a live eviction on Wednesday, then a second live show without an eviction on Thursday. Just one more column, I keep telling myself, and I'll never have to see or hear or discuss Boobiac ever again.
Sunday: Britney never had a chance at this Decorate-Your-Xmas-Tree challenge. I'll give her this, she passed the ever-lame Penguin.
Poor Beast. He had to emcee the HOH contest, which meant using big words like "ornament," and "breaks," and "supercalifragilisticexpialadocous." "Christmas ornaments! I hate that word!" said the Beast, unable to count to two.
Hayden credits 22 years of experience decorating Christmas trees for his runaway lead, though it took him two tries at the mathematical poser: 24 - 2 = ? to get the answer right. So, is he telling us that for 22 years, he was never allowed near a Christmas ornament nor tree except through chicken wire? It seems an odd condition to lay down, but perhaps his parents knew best. After all, some Christmas music is actually that dreaded Classical Music, aka "Hayden's Bane"! What if Handel's Messiah came on without warning, and Hayden suffered a seizure that sent him spiraling out of control into the family Christmas Tree? Then, that chicken wire might be all that could save Christmas!
Hayden's years of experience at stuffing his fingers through the wire mesh of his various cages paid off, and he became the Head of Household. He asked us: "When I busted into this joint, did you ever think I would make it this far?" No, Hayden, I didn't. If I had, I might have taken my own life then and there.
Having become aware that perhaps there are not "500 dead presidents with my name on them," as The Penguin announced back in episode one, he now has to figure a way to spin reality where he can still be the winner, even though he's going to lose.
"I'm just happy just to be part of de Brigade. I'm happy to even come up with de name ... Boom! Boom! Bra-Gade. When Hayden wins, dat's like me winnin'!" Ironically, it's also him losing! "We're de Brigade. I started dis ting from de beginning. I'm de mastermind of de whole Brigade!" Actually Mr. Mensa was the mastermind of The Brigade. That's why they got rid of him. They didn't dare compete with someone smart.
Speaking of being a Mastermind, here's a tidbit The Penguin said to Bitchney this week, heard on the live feeds and told back to me, sadly not used on CBS. It seems (prepare for a shock!) that both Bitchney and The Penguin have ambitions to become actors. What are the odds? The Penguin asked Bitchney: "What kind of actor are you going to be, a methodist?"
He's a mastermind!
Bitchney was now channeling her inner-Ragan, and having a teary self-pity party, though she at least understood that it was an immature reaction.
Hayden is not the only houseguest facing the horrors of complex higher mathematics. Said The Beast: "There's no word that could describe how excited I am, 'cause I'm in The Final Four. I have one out of - what is it? - Three chances? Or four? I get them mixed up. Like, do I count myself? 'Cause I can beat myself, so do I count myself?" He can beat himself, and has, as many a You Tube visitor has seen him do in the shower. But should he count himself? It's not an easy answer. A number representing him would probably be an imaginary number, so I say, no, don't count him.
Luxury Competition: $10,000 will buy you some luxury. The Beast is almost showering at the idea: "A chance to win ten grand? You know how many cases of beer I can buy with that? Plus Muscle Milk? Oh my gosh. This is Heaven." No wonder I'm not religious.
This game was just a pimped-up version of hide-and-seek, with coins instead of people. At some point in the past The Penguin may have played this, so he knew he had it smoked. "The Meow Meow doesn't get his name for nothin'. Hide-and-Seek is my game. Let's do it."
All the houseguests picked good hiding places. The Penguin hid his behind some huge metal wall-sculpture that will remain in place until the house is demolished. Hayden put his into an unopened cereal box. The Beast hid his in the trash. Bitchney combined the Hayden and Beast approaches, and hid hers in a cereal box in the trash. Hayden later did her the favor of hiding it more for her by taking the garbage outside, and dumping it in the bin.
The Penguin found Hayden's coin.
Poor Beast, he said that the contest was so long "It's like waiting for the ending of one of the Harry Potter movies. It's forever!" Does he mean the wait for the next movie, or the wait once the movie starts, for it to end? I suppose it wouldn't occur to him to just read the books, like every other ten year old in the world has.
Bitchney found The Penguin's coin and eliminated him. So much for it being "The Meow-Meow's Game."
Then Bitchney found The Beast's coin, and won the $10,000. The Penguin was pissed, and indulged in a little Diary Room sour graping: "Okay, Britney, you won. Good for you. Now you got ten Gs, another target on your back. You just won a vacation to the Jury House. See ya!" And this differed from her situation before the challenge how? Oh yes. She has the $10,000 that The Beast just lost. She was already fated to the Jury House unless she wins the next POV. But then, I'm sure The Penguin will win the next POV challenge. If this be madness, yet there's Methodism in it.
CBS used five minutes of national air time to show us Hayden, The Penguin, and Bitchney having an energetic pillow fight.
Hayden finally proposed to The Penguin turning on The Beast, and keeping Bitchney. It had to come, though I never saw the reason being that he might be too smart for them. I'm not saying The Beast isn't smarter than Hayden and The Penguin, I'm just saying that those would be the only two people on earth he might be smarter than.
Nominations: Bitchney and The Beast were nominated. Showmance #3 is on the block. Hayden loves everybody there.
Wednesday: This was a special, live eviction show.
Bitchney's plan is to win POV. Good plan. The Beast's plan is for Bitchney to win POV. Brave warrior, oh Texan one. The Beast has let more of his true self show this week. It made me pine for the days when he kept his mouth closed, and I could pretend there was a nice dumb guy in there, instead of the uncivilized creature who has emerged. Trust me. We will be discussing The Beast's "8-Second Game" before we are done.
The Wisdom of Hayden Moss: Hayden to The Beast: "I hope me, you, and Enzo can get in the Final Three, because then that means that we got a good shot to get in The Final Two." There is no arguing with this pointless statement.
Lazing back on a well-padded chaise lounge, by a swimming pool and a Jacuzzi, well fed and well-wined, mellowed-out, in loose, comfy clothes, outside his air-conditioned home, while enjoying the very-warm summer evening, The Penguin said: "I feel like a Spartan goin' to war tamarraw." I have seldom witnessed anything more Spartan in my life. I see my Facebook chum and future ex-husband Gerard Butler screaming to the gods: "We are Sparta! Tonight we dine in STUDIO CITY!!!!!!"
The Beast told Hayden and The Penguin he wanted to go in and take a shower, but he didn't want to leave them alone to plot behind his back. The Beast should stop mentioning the shower altogether. Whenever he says he wants to take a shower now, it makes all America giggle, like Beavis and Butthead hearing the word "teabag."
Bitchney tried brokering a save-her-butt deal with Hayden, to take her off the block, by playing numbers games with him to make it sound like he'd beat her in the final round. She told Hayden that The Penguin would win unanimously. What a horrible thought. Could a jury reward such terrible game play over Hayden, who has at least won three HOHs? Or was Bitchney just snowing The Frizzied One?
Said Bitchney of The Penguin: "Enzo played a very different game than everybody, but he played an immaculate game."
He did play "a very different game" than the other players. They were playing Big Brother; he was playing Big Loser. It was like they were playing Scrabble (a stretch for most of them, I know), and The Penguin was playing 52 Pick-Up.
Power of Veto Competition: A vital competition, since the winner decides who goes home and who stays into the Final Three.
Movie Marquee asked simple and not-so-simple questions about the housemates, and the players had to choose two-faced posters (perfect for these two-faced players) to line up for answers. Perfectly good quiz, and Bitchney has a real shot at it.
Except that rather than adopt a policy of get-the-first-one-absolutely-right, slide in answer, and move on, she decided to get all the answers before sliding in any posters. Plus she had no sense of urgency, and went at it like an afternoon's crafts project, setting out all her materials, organizing her tools, doing everything but spreading out newspapers on her workspace. The result: She had no answers at all slid in when Hayden rang in for the win. The Penguin did better than she did, and he got five-out-of-seven answers wrong!
But The Beast was the most-pathetic. He doesn't retain memories like a fully-evolved homo sapian. His family are planning to use home videos to reintroduce themselves to him when he comes back to Texas next week. They know that to The Beast there is tomorrow, today, yesterday, and "Ago". And "Ago" is just a gray blankness. So he figured out the answers to exactly none of the questions. He is lucky to remember who he himself is.
By his own testimony, The Beast got into an argument with his own brain. I don't know which horse to back in that race!
The Beast: "My brain is mixin' me up! My brain is backstabbin' me! My brain is throwin' this. It's throwin' it for me! I'm thinkin', I know that answer; my brain's sayin': 'No, you don't.' I'm thinkin', yes I do."
I'm thinking his brain is right. He should stop arguing with it and try listening to it. It can't be more wrong all the time than he is.
Lord of Delusions: Bitchney: "Even though I didn't win the Power of Veto, I still feel like I have a really good chance of staying in the house, because I'm really close with both Hayden and Lane, and I don't think that Enzo realizes that he could still end up being the person who goes home this week." Aren't they adorable when they're that deluded? How has she never come up against a boy's club before? Has she never heard of "bros before hos," the motto, both in gameplay and in Life, of The Brigade? Bitchney is about to get a very jarring awakening.
The Brigade, flush with victory in their winnowing down the house to just themselves without anyone ever learning of their existence, decided to come out to Bitchney. I can't think why they feel compelled to do this. It's not like it's gonna be a vote-winner with them. (That anything might lose you jury votes is not a concept that ever sinks into The Penguin: "Hello. My name is Enzo. I engineered your blindside eviction. I hope I have your vote.")
What it is is this: The Penguin has won almost nothing all season, except a lovely flat-screen 3-D TV. So The Brigade's victory, must be his personal victory, and He Who Created The Brigade From The Dust, and Lo, It Was Good, must brag about it to someone, and Bitchney is the only person he can brag to about it.
So the whole point of telling Bitchney was really just so The Penguin could preen. The Beast would have preferred drowning himself, or drowning The Penguin, and the Penguin didn't even wait for Hayden to arrive to spill his guts. "Personally for me, I think it's greatness," said The Penguin, oblivious to the emotions rising in Bitchney as she contemplated the depth of their deceit, realizing that the alliances she thought she was forming hither and yon were always being trumped by the silent voting unanimity of The Brigade, and faced her own inevitable eviction.
How does it feel? My guess is that it feels exactly like every evicted houseguest feels: how Boobiac feels, for instance, how Brendon feels, how Monet feels, how Andrew feels, how Mr. Mensa feels, he who now has no money to donate to the foundation for his wife's imaginary bone disease. And you didn't come for "no reason." You won $10,000 a few days ago. I'd hate to be wailing my eyes out in angry, aggrieved self-pity less than a week after winning $10,000. I'd hope still to be in a good mood, or unconscious, or both.
For the record, I know exactly how it feels to know I've wasted three months. I know what it's like to wake up not remembering the last three months. I know what it's like to wake up not remembering the last 24 months. I'll be damned if I can remember anything at all of the 1970s! Did I miss anything good? And I can assure you, I have no shot at $500,000 in the immediate future either. But you don't see me getting all whiny and self righteous about it, do you?
And then, we beheld the emotional depths of The Beast, and learned his True Regard for The Fair Sex.
The Beast: "To see Britney hurt that bad, was like one of my good dogs died. It crushed me."
"To see Britney hurt that bad, was like one of my good dogs died."
At least it was one of his good dogs. It would be terrible if hurting Britney was only like one of his bad dogs died.
Let's talk about Lane Elenberg, whom, thanks to The Penguin, I've been calling The Beast all summer long. I've wanted to like him. Gee, how I wanted to like him. He is gorgeous, no question about it. His shoulders are larger than my head. He has a country charm to him. He can be quite funny. He's upfront that he's stupid.
But stuff kept coming out of his mouth, about the joys of getting liquored up on Saturday night (I'm with you so far), and then careening about roads and fields in a pickup truck, shining a light about and then shooting at "anything that looks like it has eyes." (I'm off of this bus!)
We began to get a clear sense that his idea of a good time is going to bars and picking fights and beating up strangers, a job he's certainly built to win every time.
This week on the live feeds was an amazing conversation betwixt our lovely Brigadesters and a clearly reluctant and disgusted Bitchney, on what The Beast calls "The 8-Second Game," which CBS saw fit not to broadcast. Let's see what you would call it. (I've edited it down some):
Lane: "You ever play the.. 8 second game with her?"
Enzo : "What's the 8 second game? ... You gotta drop.. Oh.. The 8 second game, when you pull your pants down and.. uh.. I forgot. What is it, yo? What's 8 seconds?"
Lane: "Four of your buddies bring a girl back.."
Enzo : "Oh, ok"
Lane : "...and then you get her in the bed, and all of us are waitin' at the door, and we bust in on ya, and you gotta hold the girl down for 8 seconds."
Enzo: "Oh!"
Lane: "You know, cuz the girl's tryin' to squirm and tryin' to get under the covers.."
Enzo: "Oh sh**! I'm definitely gonna do that."
Lane: "8 second ___"
Enzo: "Oh! I wanna do that. You just hold her down? Down?"
Lane: "Yeah."
Enzo: "Isn't that rape?"
The Beast laughs uproariously. It goes on, and gets more graphic, but the ending is the stinger:
Enzo: "Nah.. I'd be divorced. I can't do that."
Lane: "She has to ride back with you."
Britney: "If that happened to me, I would kill myself."
Lane: "It's all fun and games."
Did that sound like "fun and games" to you? It sounded like sexual assault to me. The Beast is a beast. It's not a joke. It's not fun and games. It's subhuman.
If you're planning on voting for "America's Favorite," think of "The 8-Second Game" before you vote.
And she said she was sorry she couldn't have been "an original member of The Brigade," nor a later one. She lacked the most-basic requirement for entry into any boy's club. She wasn't a boy. There was no doubt of her not-boyness. She has no trace of an Adam's apple.
Anyway, she also had no trace of a hope, and was evicted. All were adults about it, and swore undying love. She repented of her teary eyeworks and went out campaigning for "America's Favorite."
Final Head of Household Challenge, Level One: This part of the challenge had me roaring with laughter. The three remaining Brigade members dangled from ropes, while getting slammed hard into canvas walls. When they hit the wall, they were lifted to slide the other direction, and slam into the canvas wall at that end. Last contestant left clinging to life advances to the final challenge, while the early fall-offs faced off in Level Two.
Then they started up a waterfall they had to roll through on their way towards slamming into the next wall. It was like the least-popular thrill ride at Disney's California Adventure: The Grand Slammer!
We've been having triple digit temperatures for the last couple weeks, and that waterfall might have been refreshing, except the heat waved broke the day before, and it was overcast and chilly when they were doing this challenge. We left them, still being slammed into walls. It never grows old.
Thursday: My GOD! They made Julie Chen work two consecutive days this week! What are they, slave drivers? Why is it always the ones who never suffer who suffer?
Final Head of Household Challenge, Level One [cont.]: The Penguin doesn't think Bitchney would have been much good at clinging to a rope, sailing through a waterfall, and getting repeatedly slammed into walls. I too, doubt she'd have lasted long, but I surely would love to have seen it. I'm picturing it now -- vividly! Slam! Wail! Gracious me. I'd go take a cold shower, but Lane is hogging the bath room as usual.
The Penguin on an All-Brigade Final Three: "Tree dodos in De Final Tree, you can't have wrote a better - ah - script dan dis." Don't tell me what I can't have been wrotten!
Hayden on slamming into walls: "After a while, hitting the wall felt like a frinkkin' car wreck, without the car." So it felt like a "wreck"? Which wreck? The Mary Dreare? My career? Your hair?
TMI: The Penguin: "This little wooden seat now, it's got my left leg numb. My boys downstairs are squooshed."
Well, see what the boys in the back room will have.
The Penguin continues: "I'd like to find out who designed this little wooden seat, you know, so then I could give him a nice - ah - Jersey beat down. That's what I do." He remains a source of charm to the end. He actually still thinks that's funny or cute. In any event, the only person I know with a little wooden seat is Pinocchio.
But count on The 8-Second Man to bottom even The Penguin: "This is like a Texas bar fight. You get slammed from wall-to-wall-to-wall, people pour alcohol and water on your head, and then you wake up the next morning, and your testicles hurt." Maybe they got a Jersey beat down from The Penguin's boys downstairs. TMI
I've been slammed from wall-to-wall-to-wall while people poured alcohol in the direction of my head on many occasions, but never in a bar fight. We were just young and in love.
The Penguin fell off first. Hands up, everyone who is surprised. Hands? No one? Okay.
The Penguin: "I have a chance to prove myself in this competition, and I didn't do it." Oh I disagree. I believe you did prove exactly who you were. You're the guy who always loses competitions. You're the male Kathy.
While The 8-Second Man and Hayden were being slammed into wall after wall after wall, each actually competing full-out to win, the Penguin, alone in the house at last, made himself a pizza. Left completely alone, he becomes his mother. If he'd had a TV, he'd have put his feet up and watched an old Matlock while he ate, but since he didn't, he went out and ate while watching Big Brother from the front row, enjoying his pizza while they suffered for his dining and dancing pleasure.
At one hour and fifty-eight minutes of being repeatedly slammed into walls, which must be a record, even for The Beast, he suffered an injury he was quite specific about. "I just ripped my whole ass." What exactly does he mean? Maybe I should see for myself. Now hold still. This may tickle. Stop squirming. It's all right. I've played people in movies who knew doctors, so they know what I'm doing.
At two hours and thirty-five minutes, The Beast slipped off. A mere two and a half hours of being repeatedly slammed into walls? That's all you got? Pussy!
Okay, The Penguin's "Wifey" is pretty and appealing. What is she doing married to him? She could do better.
Wifey: "He's an amazing dad, but he is a mama's boy." Tell us something we don't know.
Mommy: "In school, he was not so much of a A+ student." I'm flattened with shock! I'm guessing neither was Mommy, though she may have done well in cooking classes.
"Enzo has definitely been underestimated," said Wifey, overestimating him.
Jury House of Hell!: Kathy is still upset that a man who sits around the living room with people who are not his family, wearing Skull & Crossbones pajamas in the middle of the day, might be what she sees as evil. Is there some way Kathy could be evicted from the Jury House?
"Is Ragan a competitor?" asked Boobiac back at the jury house of the man who got both her and her boy toy evicted, and who has repeatedly won POVs, and outlasted her and Brendon at every endurance challenge. Somehow she never noticed he was a competitor while he was busy wiping the floor with her and her musclebound boyfriend?
"I'm painting a yellow picture," added Boobiac brainlessly, "so whoever comes in can be cheery and sunny." Try painting a picture of a house that Boobiac is not in, if you want whoever walks in to be cheery and sunny.
"Another showmance to the Jury House," announced Ragan to Mr. Mensa. So that's why Mensie was sitting around in pajamas. He intends to hustle Ragan off to bed, and finally consummate their bromance, before Ragan finds out about Mr. Mensa's little white fib, and Ragan-poontang goes off the table. Mr. Mensa has probably had to listen to Boobiac and Brendon all week (You just know she's loud at the, you know, loud times.), and is horny as hell.
"I see Ragan as a bully," said Boobiac, in a glaring example of it-takes-one-to-know-one in action.
Everyone, even Kathy, laughed out loud when Ragan hit The Penguin in the head with the CD. This is definitely a Three Stooges crowd.
After watching Ragan's eviction DVD, Mr. Mensa asked Ragan to accompany him outdoors. Off went Ragan, hoping this was, at last, the longed-for proposal: "I've decided that when my wife dies of her imaginary bone disease, I want to marry you. My wife's given us her blessing." But he had something else to say.
"Take your drink; you'll need it," said Kathy, in the first intelligent thing she's said all season.
View this moment out-of-context for a second: As Mr. Mensa said, "My beautiful wife can not be happier and healthier," we watched Ragan's face droop, his smile vanish. He was devastated to learn his friend's wife was healthy and happy. All his dreams of their post-show-and-bone-dead-wife marriage dashed to pieces. Now he has nothing to show for his time in the house but the $20,000 dollars he got by being the Saboteur, and thereby lying to everyone in the house, including Mr. Mensa. High horse saddled up, ready for mounting.
Ragan: "I feel like Charlie Brown when Lucy pulls the football away." Two-dimensional? Stuck in childhood forever? Dressed like a dork? What?
Bottom-Feeder Boobiac, lurking at the door, listening to every word, like a nameless horror lurking in a crypt in an H. P. Lovecraft story (I apologize to all nameless horrors in Lovecraft tales. None of you are as hideous as Boobiac.), now calculating that Ragan's emotions are at their rawest, moves in to strike. I'd liken her to a scorpion, but what has a scorpion ever done to me?
Ragan came clean about his great lie, which turned out to be the forgettable fact that he is a professor, and actually has the PhD that Brendon covets, and Mr. Mensa also lacks, for all his MENSAcity.
But big deal. Who cares? What about coming clean about being The Saboteur? Well? We're waiting. Oh, how you sewed seeds of paranoia on everyone for an extra $20,000, and lied to everyone, including Mr. Mensa, would make it harder to play the Moral Superiority Card against him, wouldn't it?
Instead, he and Boobiac went at it over her being a total bitch, and not accepting this fact. She pointed out that there had been no arguments in the jury house, conveniently forgetting the blow ups when Mr. Mensa first confessed his lie.
But here's a fact, the complaints by regular watchers of the live feeds that the feeds are duller than watching blood dry have increased substantially since Boobiac left the house.
"Ragan, go grab your tiara and be a f***ing queen; I'm over you." said Boobiac, sashaying off into the house, believing that this witlessness-wrapped-in-homophobia constituted a stinging exit line, though she only showed again her utter lack of any trace of class. And I was left wondering if she meant one of Bitchney's tin foil tiaras. And if she was actually over him, why was she trying to battle him at all?
Head of Household Competition: Level Two: This involved recognizing who was whom in "funny" pictures in which the houseguests faces had been smushed together, and "Frankensteined," which is no joke, and I speak as the ex-wife the Karloff family still refuses to admit Boris was ever married to. (That was one unpleasant break-up.)
So this involved recognizing faces and a bit of brain power, and it was between the two prize dimwits of this season's men, The Beast and The Penguin. The competition seemed to be to see who could lose worse.
The Beast did better than I expected. He got them all right in one minute and thirteen seconds. Ooh. Suspense. How much worse would the Penguin's score be?
Just a thought on the voting for America's Favorite Houseguest. I wish, when they announce it, that they'd show all the houseguests rankings on it. I'd love to see Boobiac in last place, and my guess is Mr. Mensa isn't racking up the votes either.
"We'll determine the winner when we return," said the Chenbot, though I can't imagine what extremely slow children she thought she was addressing, because anyone watching the show already knew that The Beast had beaten The Penguin by 30 seconds. "It was a close game," was a lie The Chenbot felt she needed to tell.
Okay, as regards this show's wind-up and Survivor's kick-off: I was mistaken when I wrote last week that my last Big Brother column will be on Monday, for I could see no possible reason for the show not to end on Sunday with an evening-long weekend blow-out. But no. Sunday will be a deleted-scenes hour, where we'll advance nothing, but see hopefully juicy bits of bad behavior. Translation: Lots of ear-splitting Boobiac footage.
Big Brother is ending following the Suvivor season opener next Wednesday. Oh joy. Darlings, I can watch both shows in one night, but I can not write two columns in one night. If I tried, the second one would be even less worth-reading than the first.
So, I'll be back here next Thursday with my recap of the Big Brother finale and reunion show, and then I'll be here on Friday also, with the Survivor recapped opener a day late. Live with it. Thereafter, Survivor recaps will appear each Thursday. Who says we don't have seasons in California?
