Friday evening, settling down to work

[cleolinda]

Not a bad day. Not a productive one, but not a bad one, either.

Heath Ledger: CNN Clears up some of the lies about Heath Ledger's Death. It's also been pointed out that Ambien is not recommended for people with respiratory problems, under which "pneumonia" could easily fall. Also, Ledger’s masseuse massage therapist made 4 calls to Olsen. What's in dispute right now, of course, is whether he had already passed or not, because if he hadn't, and the massage therapist made three calls to Olsen before calling 911 (the fourth one was after), that's kind of bad.

Cellphone video of Ledger's last performance on the Gilliam set (not really all that exciting; mostly a lot of running); Johnny Depp to Replace Heath Ledger? (“There is a point in the film when Heath falls through a magic mirror. He could change into another character after that and that is where Johnny would come in. It’s a weird, fantasy, time-travel movie so Heath’s character could easily change appearance. It would be a poignant moment"). Meanwhile, the official Dark Knight site has been turned into a memorial.

Sales of Ledger films spike following his death. Well, of course. I'm sad I don't have a copy of 10 Things I Hate About You, personally. Just don't print out dinky signs to shill your Death Heath Ledger Movies display.

Ledger’s family pays tribute to ‘old soul’; Ledger To Be Honored by L.A. Memorial; Daniel Day-Lewis is genuinely upset and a total class act; Video Blog: Ellen DeGeneres Pays Tribute to Heath Ledger; Star Jones: somehow, a voice of reason.

Fox News' John Gibson Issues Totally Fake Apology For Being A Twat About Ledger Death; Dan Abrams calls said newsman out; Gay Activists Blast Radio Host Who Mocked Ledger's Death; Gibson Defends His Mockery Of Ledger's Death (includes information on how to complain to Fox News and their advertisers). Also: Warren Ellis is complete asshole about Ledger death; 99% of internet turns on him in 48 hours.

In case you're wondering, this is pretty much the last gigantic Heath Ledger linkspam. If anything significant happens, sure, but: we've had four days of it now.

Linkspam:

Lionsgate, Marvel sign deal with striking writers.

Teenager arrested in suicide hijacking plot; Teen Wanted to Hijack Plane & Crash Into Hannah Montana Concert. OKAY, EVERYONE OUT OF THE POOL, THE HANNAH MONTANA CRAZE HAS GONE FAR ENOUGH.

French Bank Says Rogue Trader Lost $7 Billion; A Spiral of Losses by a ‘Plain Vanilla’ Trader.

Ebert Recovering From Surgery.

Mysterious, doughy, unknown blob clogs sewer.

UK girls held in NYC orphanage after mother gets ill.

Who Taught These Pedophile Hunters To Imitate Preteen Girls So Well? [Just Asking].

Knut is a psychopath and will never mate, say experts. Nooooo! It's like he's some washed-up child star now or something. *sniff*

Lolsecretz goes out while it's still on top.

Yet Another "Where's Dan Brown's Book?" Story.

The latest plagiarism scandal: A brand-new sex columnist stole questions for her first column--from Dan Savage.

Nobel Laureate Feels Sorry for All the Pretty Young Authors.

Taxonomy of regional pizza styles.

Nicolas Cage Is Many Things, Kathleen Turner, But A Drunk-Driving Chihuahua-Swiper Is Not One Of Them.

Miss America pageant mocks contestants; Miss America Pageant Tries But Fails To Humiliate Contestants.

Restaurant fined $2,000 for serving sangria--because it mixes wine and spirits. Damn, I totally want some of that now.

It Rubs Lotion on Its Minimates, or Else It Gets the Hose Again. And a five-minute laughing spell, too.

Now Stephen Colbert's done a Tom Cruise impression.

Books that made a difference to Kate Winslet.

What are the best opening movie scenes ever?

Sony Says: "You Demand It, We'll Make the DVD."

trailer_spot: Get Smart, Children of Huang Shi, 88 Minutes, Air I Breathe, Meet the Browns.

IGN Cloverfield Video Interviews; Cloverfield Star TJ Miller (Hud) Talks; Ask Your Doctor: Should I Be Worried About 'Cloverfield' Barf Syndrome?

Lost's Greatest Hits: Five Fabulous Favorites; The Suckiest Parts of Lost. I deny that Juliet is a sucky part of Lost ! Also: ABC To Air Enhanced Lost Finale before the new season starts up.

'Prince Caspian' Adds Dreaminess, Smugness (new stills).

'Quantum of Solace' Website Goes Live; More 'Quantum Of Solace' Plot Details Emerge; Craig Commits To Making 'Quantum of Solace' A Success; Video: The 'Quantum of Solace' B-Roll.

Sundance Review: Funny Games; Sundance Diary: Michael Haneke, I'm sending you my shrink bill. Wow, I kind of want to see this now.

Sundance Diary: Alan Rickman talks 'Harry Potter'...well, sorta.

A Better Look At Gwyneth Paltrow In Iron Man Movie [Morning Spoilers].

Mutant Pussy Attacks in Raw, Brilliant Satire "Teeth."

Rossum Blogs From the Dragonball Set.

"Would You Want a Remake of 'The Crow'? ...with Jason Statham?" Does anyone really feel like remaking The Crow right now? After this week? Seriously?

Jason Statham As An Undersea Prince [Dear God No].

Comments

[viorica8957.livejournal.com]

Hannah Montana= the new High School Musical, and will hopefully die out in a year or so as well.

Aww, Knut. I hope Stephen Colbert does a segment on this.

[spectralbovine.livejournal.com]

I don't have a copy of 10 Things either. I just watched it again a few months ago, though.

Geez, Warren Ellis. I've heard he writes good comics, but geeeeez.

The Stephen Colbert YouTube has been taken down.

Juliet is not a sucky part of Lost! AT ALL.

I don't think anyone feels like remaking The Crow right now.

[honorh.livejournal.com]

Does it never occur to people like Gibson or Ellis that Heath Ledger wasn't just some face on the screen--he was a man with a family, a real-live human being? This isn't an opportunity for attention-whoring; it's a man's untimely death. Asshats!

[kijikun.livejournal.com]

For the love of god don't but Gibson and Ellis in the same sentence. Warren is an asshole (always has, always will, and we mostly love him for it) but not bigoted fuck like Gibson.

[poisoned-candyy.livejournal.com]

http://a1135.g.akamai.net/f/1135/18227/1h/cchannel.download.akamai.com/18227/podcast/WASHINGTON-DC/WIHT-FM/1-25-08%20Shirley%20Phelps-Roper%20podcast.mp3?CPROG=PCAST&MARKET=WASHINGTON-DC&NG_FORMAT=chr&SITE_ID=1802&STATION_ID=WIHT-FM&PCAST_AUTHOR=WIHT-FM&PCAST_CAT=Arts_and_Entertainment&PCAST_TITLE=Kane_On-Demand

*shakes head at this hypocrite* ^^Fred Phelps' daughter

[greyduck.livejournal.com]

On that The Crow thing... ye gods. I commented else-LJ on The Day Of The Event Earlier This Week that the upcoming Dark Knight is going to get mythologized in some circles the same way that Brandon Lee's movie did, albeit not to the same extent.

A remake? Now? It just screams "really bad idea!" to me.

[mercat.livejournal.com]

I hate Hannah Montana, so much. Sadly I hate a lot of stuff they put on the Disney Channel these days. =/ Usually crappy sitcoms that often just produce pointless stars for kids to buy stuff from. AUGH.

[tabbyclaw.livejournal.com]

Dammit, Disney! Bring back Dave the Barbarian! And a Kim Possible spinoff all about Drakken and Shego!

[idrach.livejournal.com]

I loved Dave the Barbarian! Poor soul, he only wanted to be a barbarian because he thought they were librarians that cut hair!

[edda.livejournal.com]

Dear Warren Ellis,

You know you're supposed to write about Spider Jerusalem, not act like him, right?

Also, you know what happens when you assume? You make an "ass" out of "u" and--well, just you, actually.

Currently No Love,

Shannon

[edda.livejournal.com]

Also, Spider Jeruslaem probably would fillet you for getting your facts wrong. Just sayin'.

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

Best response yet, IMO.

[kijikun.livejournal.com]

Damnit Warren!

[silk-noir.livejournal.com]

I had read the text of what DDL had said, and thought "Nice--nice, but a little wierd" --And now seeing him, hearing him, only ratchets up my estimation of him further.

[skulkings.livejournal.com]

Viacom: faster than a speeding bullet when it comes to taking down YouTube videos.

So, here is the link to the Colbert video from the official site. (http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/player.jhtml?ml_video=148032&ml_collection=&ml_gateway=&ml_gateway_id=&ml_comedian=&ml_runtime=&ml_context=show&ml_origin_url=/shows/the_colbert_report/videos/most_recent/index.jhtml&ml_playlist=&lnk=&is_large=true)

[wirrrn.livejournal.com]

I'm not remotely surprised about the Fox News guy- having no empathy seems to be a job requirement- but I expected better from Warren Ellis.

My vote for best movie opening ever- the "Vision Splendid" scene from Ray Lawrence's fi1986 film of Peter Carey's BLISS. The ending is majorly awesome too.

btw- saw CLOVERFIELD again last night- I saw no evidence of Lilli's chopper crashed beside Hud/Rob/Beth... the thing in the background is the tail rotor of *their* chopper. Lilli lives!

[megalion.livejournal.com]

Admittedly I went out and bought Casanova and Roar the day he died.

Casanova because one of my friends who obit posted him on her journal lauded this one as the movie she remembers him for.

Roar because I'd seen it long ago when first aired but always meant to see it again when I discovered it'd been released on dvd. Talking with another friend that day who rhapsodized about how much she loved the show cemented it for me.

For the rest of his movies that I hadn't seen (I own all the ones I have seen minus Brokeback), I just rented them.

I'll tell you... it was like my own version of a wake for him to watch his movies and it was after watching the 2nd one that it stopped hurting so badly and started to become peaceful acceptance.

I wish I could go to the LA Memorial since I live in Hollywood but no idea where it might be or if fans are okay.

and NO NO NO do not remake The Crow. It's not a movie that should be remade anytime in the next 20 years if at all.

[minoriko.livejournal.com]

Huge thanks for the updates on Heath's death. I got sick of having to wade through the filth that was ONTD.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Gawker (http://gawker.com/tag/heath-ledger/) and Defamer (http://defamer.com/tag/heath-ledger/) aren't so bad, and they've done a fairly good job of snarking on the media for the way they've handled this, if you want a way to keep up on things (I've linked to their Heath Ledger tagged-entries). Also, their grammar isn't atrocious.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

Regarding the new plagiarism scandal:

But for those counting, in little over a year, Mr. Blum has gone through five sex columnists. There was Rachel Kramer Bussel at the Voice whom he fired; there was the Married But Not Dead column which died after he was fired from the Voice; he fired Press sex columnist Stephanie Sellars shortly after arriving there; he hired and then fired Kelly Kreth; and now Claudia Lonow has resigned after her first column, a cover story.

Fired, died, fired, fired, resigned? (Am reading about the Tudors lately.)

[agatha-mandrake.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I missed something somewhere, but why did the massage therapist call Mary-Kate Olson first? Why, why, why would your first response be anything BUT phoning 911? What does Mary-Kate Olson have to do with any of this?

And shut up, John Gibson. Shutupshutupshutup.

[lilgoala.livejournal.com]

No one knows, and I think it's a question almost everyone is asking. Maybe she's just a moron. She WAS practicing massage therapy without a license.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Apparently HL and MKO were (non-exclusively, they said?) dating, and the massage therapist knew one of MKO's bodyguards or something. See, this is my question: if she came in and he was dead, I can kind of see her calling a mutual acquaintance to inform MKO and ask how to handle a high-profile situation. If he wasn't dead--what the hell was she thinking?

[idrach.livejournal.com]

If I remember correctly, it was the massage therapist and a cleaning lady who found Ledger; the cleaning lady called 911 and the massage therapist called MK's bodyguard because he was a block away and was also an EMT.

[cjk1701.livejournal.com]

Mysterious, doughy, unknown blob clogs sewer.

This one I will never, ever click for ANY reason. There was a SciFi story in my childhood, about chemicals from many households, combined with the organic matter found in sewers, created a "clone", a lifeform that procreated by eating organic matter. As in, people and animals. In a very gruesome way. So, uhm.

*shudders*

[foresthouse.livejournal.com]

WHHYYYY did the massage therapist not call 911 first? Whhyyyyy?

Even if it wouldn't have helped any, it just bugs me.

I do think I love DDLewis now, though. Also the Dark Knight site thing is so sweet.

I went to TMZ to watch it, and I started watching a Britney video after it, and...OMG, I couldn't even keep watching because I was so embarrassed for her. What's with that fake British accent? Is she trying to become classy or something, and thinks the way to do it is sound British?? She's too painful to watch.

Also, this is so weird: I had sangria at the Arlington La Tasca! Before they were fined. (It's right near my place.) Oh no! I was aiding and abetting! It was very good, though. Not as good as Jaleo's in DC, but very good.

Defending Warren

[khaman.livejournal.com]

Warren Ellis apologised the next day in his mailing list. I don't see that on this guy's rant.

I was upset about the way he presented the information, too. I contacted him about it, he contacted back, we had a very brief, sedate correspondence. It's true that in the first, inaccurate reports, idiot rock star suicide was the way a LOT of people were interpreting things - look at FARK.com's newsflash thread, which I am just too goddamn lazy to find.

If anything is highlighted here - and again, Warren became an early admitter of assholism in this case - it's that the media needs to stop bullshit shark frenzies and, I dunno, REPORT ACCURATE MOTHERFUCKING NEWS.

From his post the next day:

"bad signal
ME

As an interesting aside to the drama yesterday -- for which I
should apologise, I just have a hair trigger for that kind of
thing (and also for spin and crocodile tears) and don't always
take the time to level out before becoming Mr Shouty -- this
cropped up on the BBC earlier --

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7204172.stm

Seven young suicides in Bridgend, in England, have got
an MP thinking. Which is two frightening things in one
sentence. The fear is that Japanese-style "suicide
websites" may have propagated into British social
networking systems, it seems. Here's a notable part:

"Mrs Moon said she was growing increasingly worried
by the appearance of so-called 'memory walls' on networking
sites like Bebo, where members leave messages to mark
the death of a friend. 'The worrying part about internet sites is
it is a virtual world - it isn't a real world,' she said. 'The things
that happen there don't necessarily demonstrate the
consequences. I'm particularly concerned about this false
romanticism of the memory wall that seems to have set up
on Bebo giving some sort of romantic idea of suicide..'"

Which, I suspect, pins the real difficulty these people have
in getting their arms around the problem. We're way, way
past the point where the internet can be considered "not
the real world." If I'm carrying it around in my pocket,
it's pretty real. It's becoming, and become, so tightly tied
into our lives that it can no longer really be dismissed as
either "virtual" or "without consequences." Treating the
net as some spooky fog separate from the real world is
just going to exacerbate the difficulties in any attempt to
reach out to anyone.

Romanticising suicide was big business long before
the internet."

Re: Defending Warren

[kiran59.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry but...not good enough.

Re: Defending Warren

[khaman.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. It was for me, but then, I'm not much of a one for licking blood from anyone, generally.

[gravities.livejournal.com]

The children all look incredible in Caspian. Peter and Edmund ain't doin' so bad.

I could not agree more about the wussification of Kate, although I disagree with just about everything else on the "suckiest" list. Personally, I think that just about everything on Lost is very purposefully written, but I cannot figure out her character shift at all. Is she tough or isn't she? What is really driving her?

[urizanegao.livejournal.com]

How do you make your Yahoo avatar into an LJ icon?

By the way, I always enjoy your Linkspams. One of the best places I know of to get news.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I just captured the image with Print Screen and cropped it in an image editor. (Thanks!)

[greenleafgurl17.livejournal.com]

Has anyone sent you this yet? http://www.wbcn.com/topic/play_window.php?audioType=Episode&audioId=1349922

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

Here's hoping your week is frank and productive. Or restful; you could use a smidgen of solace. Man, if only there was a better term...something even smaller than a smidgen....

And maybe you've heard this before, because I certainly hadn't: is "Canadian" the new black euphemism? (http://www.nationalpost.com/most_popular/story.html?id=261254)

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I saw the article yesterday, but no, I have never, ever heard that used. I comforted myself by deciding it's because I don't hang out with racist assholes.