Wednesday night, bleh

[cleolinda]

Hmm. Really fatigued, uninspired and out of it today.

Wal-Mart targeted in bomb scam.

Former security guard Jewell, once wrongly suspected of Olympic bomb, dies.

Airport screens holy water.

Artist suspected of torching Burning Man early.

Revelers paint Spanish town red in giant tomato fight.

Pathologist: Doctor killed Beethoven.

Poisonous 'Golden Frog' Discovered.

Attn: Snarkfesters who remember the implosion of Fametracker: Crazy PXThis Girl Is Still Crazy.

The Elements of Style: The Movie.

List of Deleted Scenes for "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" DVD.

Wilson drops out of film after suicide attempt. Meanwhile, "What do we really know about Owen Wilson?" "I found him to be affable and charming (as many actors are during interviews), he was also serious and thoughtful, not at all like the grinning slackers he often plays. There's a tendency to think we know what actors' personalities are like based on the roles they gravitate toward, which is probably why so many fans were shocked to learn of his apparent suicide attempt on Sunday." Sister Girl was shocked, as I fully expected, but so was my mother, which surprised me--I hadn't realized she was really aware of him enough to be shocked. "He was in Behind Enemy Lines," she informed me soberly, as if this explained something. Also: Hollywood's view of Wilson: 'He's loved.' I actually think that, if Wilson can get himself together health-wise, he will actually have no trouble getting his career back in motion. After all the flamboyantly, flippantly bad behavior from other celebrities that's been in the news for the last couple of years, I think people will actually be more interested in and sympathetic to someone who's turned out to have been living a life "of quiet desperation," as it were.

Coogan denies supplying drugs to Owen Wilson. Ouch.

" 'Love in the Time of Cholera' is in your extended network!"

trailer_spot: Grace Is Gone, Shattered, Atonement, Control, King of California, Dark Knight, Hitman.

Meanwhile, aerial footage of a (spoiler) explosion from 'The Dark Knight'; more set pics.

SPOILERS: Paul Haggis Weighs In On The Next Bond Villain.

Wortmann Directing Potente in Pope Joan.

One-Sheet for Witherspoon/Gyllenhaal 'Rendition.'

Zack Snyder to Helm 'Illustrated Man' Remake.

Jamie Foxx Plays With Strings For ‘Soloist’ Role.

Goyer Preps Magneto.

Anna Faris’ ‘Bunny’ Is Now ‘I Know What Boys Like.’

James McAvoy: "I'm not in it for the fame."

"'Balls of Fury' makes 'Dodgeball' look like high art."

Corey Haim Is Angry At Corey Feldman! But Does Feldman Know? "YOU NEED TO WATCH THIS. TRUST ME. And check back tomorrow for Haim’s story on dating Posh Spice (I’m absolutely serious)."

Comments

[lauramcvey.livejournal.com]

Yeah . . . with a title like "Balls of Fury", I'm really not surprised.

The deleted scenes sound kind of eh. I was hoping for something with more of the neglected minor characters. *sigh*

[barrelgoddess.livejournal.com]

Yeah. The Neville scene interests me, but the rest I'm pretty meh towards.

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why everyone's acting so surprised about Owen Wilson. I guess not that many people have seen The Royal Tenenbaums, and fewer still realize he co-wrote it. "I'm going to kill myself tomorrow" -- remember that? His writing is laced with depression. I really do hope he gets good treatment -- he's always struck me as a fairly thoughtful guy, based on his writings and interviews. He's one of the very few actors I'd actually like to meet, just to talk to. I'm pulling for him.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Even considering that, though, I think it's because he seems so down-to-earth and even goofy in interviews. Also, I think mainstream America is more likely to have seen his goofy comedies rather than something like The Royal Tenenbaums. My mother, who was the one shocked, after all, probably hasn't even heard of it.

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

True that. I love Bottle Rocket, but how many people have even heard of that one?

he seems so down-to-earth and even goofy in interviews

So true. I keep coming back to this interview I read in Premiere magazine several years ago where he was talking about happiness and said "I'm tired of hearing 'it's got to come from within you!' Why can't happiness come from, like, a great pair of shoes?" I identified with that so much, and to be absolutely honest, I've held on to that quote many times during my own battles with depression.

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

Oh yay, I found the actual quote:

"Can't we petition someone to make it so that outside stuff is the key to happiness? I'm tired of people always saying, 'It's gotta come from you!' Can't it come from, like, a new pair of shoes?"

http://wilson-brothers.com/owen/articles/nightinthelife.html

[hulamoth.livejournal.com]

ah, that would solve so many problems

[camisado.livejournal.com]

Wow, I love that quote. I relate to this one too: "Maybe I'm the kind of optimist who deep down knows it's not going to work."

[aki.livejournal.com]

Good icon. ^_^

[rahrahmah.livejournal.com]

Actually, I did think of the Royal Tenenbaums as soon as I heard, because his brother had played the suicide attempt in that movie, and I thought it was a strange coincidence. Finding out he wrote it just makes it sad foreshadowing :(

[modpixie.livejournal.com]

dude, what's with courtney love and steve coogan?

[bluebythebook.livejournal.com]

Oh no. The trailer for Control is horrible. I'm anticipating the movie will be good, but the trailer is so formulaic and linear. It gave away every aspect of the story yet stopped just short of the you-know-what. You gave away the rest of it, why stop there? I really doubt Corbjin edited this together.

All disappointment aside, they definitely got the details accurate. The video shoot for "Love Will Tear Us Apart," the Factory stationery, the instruments used.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

Sorry you're a little down today. I'm actually starting to look forward to things, because we're heading toward Halloween and my birthday and the holidays and stuff, so it's like there's a light on the horizon.

[outinthestorm.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you've seen this already, but it might help to inspire you.

Ida's luck part 1 : http://crookedsixpence.deviantart.com/art/Ida-s-Luck-Part-1-47112974

and

Ida's luck part 2: http://crookedsixpence.deviantart.com/art/Ida-s-Luck-Part-2-63129190

Katy is just awesome.

[apocalyptically.livejournal.com]

Interesting reading: An IM Infatuation Turned to Romance. Then the Truth Came Out. (http://www.wired.com/politics/law/magazine/15-09/ff_internetlies) Yikes.

[ninepointfivemm.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure Cleo linked to that about a week ago.

[kosher-jenny.livejournal.com]

(From the Bond link) Haggis wants to bring back Felix Leiter! I really hope that happens.

[cindyg.livejournal.com]

Now that's something I'd go see a Bond movie for....wonder who they'd get to play Leiter? After all, they had Jack Lord as the first one, and I seem to remember David Hedison in many of the others.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Jeffrey Wright already played Leiter in Casino Royale...

[greyduck.livejournal.com]

Yep. Sort of a Stealth Felix, really (he gives his name once, that's about it) but still one of the better renditions I've seen. Other than his piss-poor poker skills, that is. He's at least a lot less of a Stereotypical American Boor than the usual portrayal.

I'm one of the weirdos who was probably more excited to see Felix Leiter show up in Casino Royale than I was to see the Aston Martin.

To sum up: I'm a weirdo.

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

I was happy to see Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter, too (http://chris-walsh.livejournal.com/193342.html). I hope there's continued continuity, where more people than Craig and Dench get to keep playing these characters. (Of course, I'm sure the producers want to avoid the ridiculousness of, say, the Parade of Blofelds...)

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Heh--I'm the weirdo who was more excited to see Jeffrey Wright than anything else.

[dives.livejournal.com]

Oh, Steve Coogan. I so want to like you, and yet I can't quite. And it's not even like I believe Courteney Love about the drugs thing, because honestly, blaming a friend's suicide attempt on a person that, let's be honest, 98% of Americans probably haven't even heard of but one just happened to date comes off as a teensy, tiny bit suspicious.

Anyway, my point is, you come off as a bit smarmy and jerk-esque, which is too bad, because I'm Alan Partridge is brilliant.

[christwise.livejournal.com]

"Filtch blows on Umbridge's hair"

Wha? Did I read that correctly?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was like, wait--what?

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

*reads that description*

*Ewws and shudders commence*

[christwise.livejournal.com]

As if having his puss explode all over the camera wasn't enough.

I may not need this DVD so much anymore. (more Cedric!)

[pinstripe-bindi.livejournal.com]

Love in the Time of Cholera is either going to very good or very, very bad. Although I am Officially Interested now thanks to the presence of Javier Bardem, who I've only ever seen in the trailers for No Country for Old Men, but holy fuck is he IN. TENSE.

[enid-keaner.livejournal.com]

Check him out in The Sea Inside.

You might like this.

[maetang.livejournal.com]

If Edward Gorey had done The Trouble with Tribbles (http://shaenon.livejournal.com/48834.html).

Re: You might like this.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Heeeeee. "I didn't think 'Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo' was as good as the other Herbies."

Re: You might like this.

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

Not only did I like this, I linked to it! Thanks.

Maybe this will inspire

[velvet4269.livejournal.com]

Neil Gaiman being the one NOT eating bamboo (http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/uploaded_images/IMG_0181-751862.jpg).

Or maybe it'll just make you smile.

From his 27 August 2007 Journal entry (http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/)

I Was Going to Email You A Response To That, But It Took Me A While

[syneblue.livejournal.com]

(Okay, so this is how many weeks late? But this has been bugging me.)
I’ve been thinking about your post you wrote on “The Invasion,” especially the part about how tempting it is to want to surrender free will for the greater good, what with Darfur and the Middle East and all that. You make a valid point- that it can be selfish and immature to want to keep our own personal consciousness when the alternative is bloodshed and violence. However, there is one point I have to call you on: we, all of us, will die anyway. So, if the main reward of the bargain above is the preservation of life…it’s a wasteful sacrifice.
Here things get sticky, because we’ve all been hardwired from birth to want to preserve our own life, and to a certain extent, the lives of others. After all, if our own life is so valuable, others’ lives must be too. And yet, we all still end up dead, eventually. So just living can’t be the point of all this trouble, otherwise we, as a sentient species would have just chucked in the towel ages ago.
Here’s my take on it: the point isn’t to live, or even to live well, or live long. The point is to use our lives as a kind of catalyst to get to a higher level of consciousness and transcend from one type of being to another. You can take that to mean going to heaven, or being reincarnated higher up the food chain, or chasing that comet, whatever. And to do that, to really undergo that metamorphasis, we need death. We need it because we, ourselves, need to die. Not always literally, but we need that idea of death and birth: autumn dies and comes back as spring, the sun dies in the west and rises again in the east. Grass dies and dies and dies, and no matter how much weed killer you use, it will come back again. We as a species, even, need to die to make room for the next generation. So death, as itself, is not bad.
Our unlitteral deaths are just as important. We die to our childhood self to become an adult; we die to our shallow, self-interested nature to become mature, compassionate people (hopefully). I think, in order to do so, we need struggle and conflict. We need to actively engage in the world around us, pick good or evil, toil and agonize and fight. We need to risk real things, and loose real things, in order to win real things. Grand Theft Auto is not an substitution for growing up in the ghetto.
So yes, war is terrible and people dying is terrible, especially people dying for such unnesisarry and painful reasons. But if stopping that means giving up our emotions and memories and feelings, our individuality and our consciousness and our spirit, then that’s the worst sort of surrender. It’s saving our skins, our bodies, essentially, and giving away our minds, and our souls. We can’t say “Yes to live, but only if it doesn’t hurt too much.” Life hurts. Life IS hurt. In order to really be alive we have to be suffering in some way: suffering is change, and change is growth, and anything that doesn’t grow is dead. Death, in that sense, is really the kinder of the two. We need that pain and suffering as much as we need air. To paraphrase Candide, life is the snake eating our breast, and we are pulling it closer.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t try to stop wars, but to keep wishing for a Utopia where everyone is happy and never fights is naïve and childish, and that Utopia that we think would be so awesome would be a boring, oppressive place that could only exist at the expense of our continual sacrifice of self consciousness.
We can’t prove that anything happens to us after we die, but we know, sooner or later, our bodies are going to wear out. I’ll take that chance, and try to keep my soul, rather than try to extend what must eventually give out.
If you feel bad about Darfur, call your senator, lookup Amnesty International, or donate to Doctors Without Borders. Give time, give money, but don’t give up on all of us.
This was a lot longer than I intended