michael’s thoughts

I watched this movie Havoc on cable recently. I’m pretty sure that I found out about it from Alex Albrecht, as I recall him mentioning on diggnation that Anne Hathaway was in a very non-Disney movie. And unless she’s a total freak-a-leek, I suppose he was referring to Havoc. It’s about a “gang” of priviledged high school kids growing up in Pacific Palisades who decide to slum it in downtown LA. Overall the movie isn’t fantastic, and the subject of a growing up with priviledge yet feeling alienated and struggling to pacify one’s personal demons was better covered by Kirsten Dunst in Crazy/Beautiful. Nevertheless, Anne Hathaway has her top off in every other scene (yes the girl from the Princess Diairies) which makes Havoc very watchable. Yeah yeah, I’m no Pauline Kahle, but this isn’t Last Tango in Paris either.

This may be a bit of a non-sequitor, but I was watching one of those personality profile shows on E! or something about Cameron Diaz the other day. I suppose I’ve always been a fan of hers, although not rabidly so. But some of the comments made on the TV program about her career choices struck me as a bit…off. So I thought I’d share my take, since I know you are all leaning precipitously on the edge of your collective seats to hear it.

Of course everyone knows, or at least everyone who cares, that Cameron Diaz’s first movie role was starring opposite Jim Carey in The Mask. A pretty big movie, and certainly got her noticed by a lot of people. The TV show I was watching made it sound like after The Mask, she didn’t get any more big offers and got stuck with parts in small independent movies. It’s always been my understanding that she had plenty of major motion picture options, and chose to go the independent route to get a little more experience before trying to get lightening to strike twice.

Regardless of reasoning, her second movie was the Last Supper. The television show portrayed this as a good role, but not seen by many people. Well, it was an independent film and I don’t think it was released all that widely, but plenty of people saw this movie. Including me. And if you haven’t, you should.

Frankly the Cameron Diaz independent and quirky fare is a lot more interesting than Charlie’s Angels. Some critics didn’t like it, but for my money A Life Less Ordinary is what the romantic comedy genre should be. Dark. Funny. Often mean. Yet with the payoff at the end that keeps you coming back for more.

And of course who couldn’t love Being John Malkovich. Every time I pop that movie in the DVD player I find myself totally surprised that Cameron Diaz is in it. Certainly not the stereotypical Cameron Diaz character. But then again, Charlie Kaufman is the most original and inventive screenwriter to hit mainstream Hollywood in quite a while.

And of course if you do like the more accessable lighter Diaz fare, you really need to see The Sweetest Thing. It’s sort of like Something About Mary – only set in San Francisco.  And with glory holes.

I’m not sure what the point of all this rambling is…I suppose just to point out that I don’t think it was ever the case that Cameron Diaz couldn’t get roles or was stuck in indie-land. I think those role choices were conscious decisions and good decisions in my opinion. Hot blondes are a dime a dozen, but pulling off those off-kilter roles shows some real talent.

My two cents.

I haven’t had a chance to listen to this at all yet, but the Silent Universe is billing itself as the first interactive podcast drama. I don’t know if it’s good or not, but I mention it because it shows the power of the podcast format beyond the initial “talk radio neaveu” format that has been popular up until now.

Of course, these days I’m more fascinated by video…but there’s a lot of cross-media idea germination.

There is a parody of the Joss Wheden television show Angel, produced by a fan and distributed online. I haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, but the trailer is available for download. I have high expectations. Will update more after I actually, ya know, watch it.

Cherub: The Vampire with Bunny Slippers

The Sundance film festival has made a number of shorts available online in Flash format. Kind of cool.

Tags: Sundance

As we all know, I spend a good portion of my day stalking Whitney Cummings. Just kidding, I could never be much of a stalker. That seems like something that would involve a lot of planning. And patience. And maps. Way too much effort. Who has the energy for that?

However, I did come across this press release that Ms. Cummings will be hosting the Sundance Channel’s 2006 “Festival Dailies” program covering the Sundance Awards. Alas I do not get the Sundance Channel so I will not be watching this. But I wanted to give all you other Whitney Cummings fans outs there a heads up.

Check it.

Tags: Whitney Cummings

I bought my Series 2 Tivo because I was interested in the Tivo Online Services package. So far this has proven to be a bit underwhelming – the streaming podcasts seems to defeat the point for me, along with the lack of a directory, and somewhat kludgey integreation with Yahoo’s Internet content.

On the other hand, the somewhat less hyped beta release of Rocketboom-on-Tivo I am very much digging. I hope they open up this platform a bit more to allow other content providers to play. I want my Diggnation and commandN on Tivo! And more importantly, I want Tivo to create an open platform for the next generation of “television” content.

Cool Hunting has launched a vidcast. Let’s all be sure to subscribe.

So I’m not much for goth clubs, in general, but I just happened to go to The Birthday Massacre’s web site today to find their management contact info, and lo and behold apparently they are going to be at Alchemy at Nation in DC on December 29. I may very well have to go to that show. Cuz really who knows when they would be around here again. If you’re in DC and into dark electronic music I’d say check out The Birthday Massacre if you’re not already familiar.

There’s a cable television network A&E, which stands for Arts and Entertainment. It’s been around for quite a while and if I recall correctly they first got a lot of press a few years ago for their Biography series. Then several years ago they started carrying syndicated reruns of Dick Wolf’s juggernaut Law and Order.

It seems like the Law and Order theme has gone to their head. Every time I turn on A&E it seem as though it’s some really depressing criminal investigation show or crime documentary. Case in point, I turned on my TV earlier today and it was on A&E. The first words I hear as the television turns on are, “he shot them both in the head, then he took (some guy whose name I wasn’t paying attention to) inside and slit his throat. (some guy) and his mother were killed immediately, but his wife wasn’t dead. The killers thought she was, but despite the bullet in her head she was still alive…” so I changed the channel to CNBC cuz that’s not relaxing for me in the morning to be hearing about.

Getting a bit morbid over on A&E these days. More like Court TV 2.0 than Arts and Entertainment.