Fame.

Conditions: Clearing. Yes, clearing.


Anyone who pays any attention at all to popular culture, and considering that popular culture is forced down our throats all day every day thanks to the society we live in that thinks celebrity news is more important than what's really going on in the world, the latest photographic escapades of certain Hollywood starlets will not be a surprise.

Without naming names (the best way to combat the disease of fame for fame's sake), certain starlets have been the subject of a lot of juicy photographic celebrity gossip not because of anything important they may have done (snort.) but because of something they didn't do. Or rather, something they didn't wear. Yes, it's the underwear post.

First and foremost, let me say that I'm not critisizing the choice itself. Wear what you want to wear, and don't wear what you don't want to wear, I say. Go nuts. Have fun, see if I care. No, the issue as I see it is the simple brashness of the assumed scandal. Let's see if you can follow the apparent steps:

1. You're a hot American celebrity, with a pack of paparazzi who are dedicated to following you around 24/7 and will take approximately 1.5 million photos just of you putting the trash out.

2. You decide to go out with some fellow hot American celebrities, who also have their own pack of paparazzi's and, presumably wanting to save gas, you all decide to travel together in an SUV.

3. You know for a fact, FOR A FACT, that when you and your friends try to go to wherever it is that you're going, before you even get there there will be a scrum of photographers ready to shoot you getting out of the car. Shoot with cameras, I mean.

4. And so you decide to wear, for this highly-documented night out on the town, a short skirt and no underwear.

Can you see how this shit doesn't add up? Who in their right mind would be caught out by such a thing, *especially* after the first time a celebrity was caught out by it. How stupid would you have to be to get trapped in this situation?

This is why I don't think it's real. The scandal, I mean. I think these celebrities know *exactly* what they're doing. This is simply what they do now to be shocking. They can't just show up. They can't just stay out late. Or only get drunk. Or simply flash someone. It's not enough anymore. So this is what they now do. And I heartily applaud.


Film review: Crank

Gimmick movies are nothing new. Speed is a gimmick movie. Die Hard is a gimmick movie. A movie that has a gimmick at it's heart is nothing to be ashamed of, providing you make a good movie out of it. Crank is a great gimmick, but sadly the 'movie' part of the deal is not really there. Our 'hero', Chevy, wakes up and discovers he's been poisoned, and that the only thing that will keep him alive is adrenaline, so naturally he goes on an adrenaline thrill-ride, trying to avenge his own impending death. The problem is that the actual story, the whys and the hows that make up a plot, is pretty much ignored. We get a lot of perspective as to how Chevy is feeling at any particular moment, but this is a computer-game of a movie, all sound and fury with no real story underneath it. It's unfortunate, but somehow not at all surprising. Back in the day, a gimmick was a starting point to creating a great story. 'Hey, what if a cop got trapped in a building with a bunch of terrorists', or 'Hey, what of a bus was rigged to explode if it slowed down?'. Now, the gimmick itself is enough, and once it's played out the movie quickly ends. I'll give it three out of five cc's of Epinephrine.



End transmission.