Entertainment & Sports: January 2008 Archives
Despite the imminent mockery, I will admit that I like Ryan Seacrest. The wife and I watch "American Idol" occasionally, and Seacrest's straight-man routine with the most bizarre and pathetic contestants is very amusing. When a screeching psycho bursts from the audition room swearing and raging and Seacrest asks him, "So what did the judges say?", it's great to watch the lunatics plunge off the edge of sanity into the abyss of madness.
He tends to give the weirdos plenty of rope to hang themselves with, and they generally oblige. "Why do you think the judges said 'no'?" "Are you going to train harder for next season?" "I can't believe the judges didn't like you!" "There must be some other reason they rejected you." Seacrest keeps a straight face the whole time and lets the clowns humiliate themselves, all for my enjoyment. Bravo!
Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock asks "Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?" in an upcoming movie that takes him all around the Muslim world:
Spurlock traveled to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Israel, Egypt and Morocco, interviewing dozens of people from school children to bin Laden family friends. The work was extensive, much deeper and more textured than anything I’ve seen on network news shows.Indeed, Spurlock travels to bin Laden’s former farm, now a group of abandoned huts in Pakistan. He even goes into one of those caves we keep hearing about, a likely spot where the maniacal architect of Sept. 11 could be hiding. He’s shot at, bullied and reprimanded. Spurlock even had his cameras shut down. But still he persisted.
The result of "Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?" is extraordinary. Along the way, his meetings with regular people — man-in-the-street-type stuff — in those aforementioned countries are superb.
No visits to Iraq or Iran, alas, but it still looks like a fascinating production. If it isn't a trash-America movie then this is certainly one I'm going to want to see.
I love the Japanese, but they are strange. On the fringe they seem to be stranger than Americans, even if our medians are very close.
In a drama that only grows more bizarre with each passing month, Britney Spears has been involuntarily hospitalized as a danger to herself and others and put on a 14-day lock down.
Britney Spears has reportedly been placed on a 72-hour lock down in a special suicide watch-style unit for a mental evaluation after holding her children hostage and refusing to hand them over to their father at a court-appointed time.Amid extraordinary scenes, the fallen popstar was stretchered bleary-eyed from her home last night under police guard and then taken to hospital by ambulance for tests when she was suspected to be "under the influence of an unknown substance".
The story says 72-hour, but based on my familiarity with the system in Los Angeles I believe the authorities can hold her against her will for up to 14 days while they decide what to do.
Britney Spears' life is a tragic example of how the American Dream can go horribly awry without any moral boundaries or spiritual guidance. She has everything anyone could ever want, and is still a miserable wretch.
