“Stadium Seating” is a weekly film column that will be run over the remainder of the summer
The real “Real World”
MTV’s 10th season of “The Real World” kicked off Tuesday evening. While millions of anxious viewers scheduled their days around catching the downward-spiraling show, I sat on my couch in my boxers, watched the soap opera that is my roommates, and laughed. Same thing, only I didn’t have to tolerate commercials and the guilt of having actually turned on MTV.
Aussie invasion
Las Vegas speculation has Russell Crowe tabbed as the most likely to succeed Pierce Brosnan, who recently stepped down from his role as Agent 007 in the James Bond series. Similarly, Steve “The Crocodile Hunter” Irwin is tabbed to play the part of Q, left vacant by the recently-deceased Desmond Llewelyn, finishing off the complete take-over by Australians of everything considered English and wholesome.
Doing the nasty on the cutting room floor
It was revealed this week that Disney was instrumental in forcing a major cut-job on the new Kirsten Dunst teen melodrama, “crazy/beautiful”–probably because of the FTC hearings last year on violence and sexually explicit material in teen-oriented films. Amongst the tossed footage was a nudity scene involving the once-wholesome, now-boring actress. Not since the NBA forced their refs to throw the Milwaukee-Philadelphia playoff series in favor of bigger ratings have we seen such a shameless pandering to the officials that be…says Ray Allen.
All Americans love stadium seating
Construction on the refurbished University Square Theater was finalized this past month. Additions include expanded food service, a small bar and remodeled theaters. Curiously, stadium seating was not added. Enough said.
Washed up boobs, part I
Fresh off her breast-filled appearance in the John Travolta bomb “Swordfish,” Halle Berry announced she is ready and willing to do more nude scenes now that she has “established herself as an actress.” The news has sparked speculation that she may reprise her role in the latest of the live action Flintstones franchise: “The Flinstones in Do the Bed Rock.” A little porn never helped a fading…what did she call herself? Oh, yes….actress.
Washed up boobs, part 2
On the same front, Sly Stallone, hard at work resurrecting his flailing acting career (although you wouldn’t have guessed having seen “Driven”), recently wrapped on “Avenging Angelo.” The story of the daughter of a gangster and his bodyguard, Stallone will play the part of the bodyguard. What have all you young, aspiring actors learned? If your career starts to take a dive, just take off your shirt; or, if you’ve been typecast as a thug because of your awkwardness, take a role in any silly romantic comedy. Funny, it seems this rut started some ten years ago for Stallone. Right around the time of “Oscar,” the story of a gangster and his daughter and…you know.
Parting shots
The first pleasing news in a summer of disappointing entertainment, Francis Ford Copolla announced that the “Godfather” trilogy will be released on DVD on October 9 of this year. This leaves just enough time for me to finish off the “Sopranos: The Complete First Season” DVD box set and maybe squeeze in a viewing of Copolla’s re-issued “Apocalypse Now Redux” which clocks in at some 5 billion hours long.
Steven Spielberg’s AI opens this week. As far as I can tell, I’m pretty sure I saw it the first time, when it was called “Pinochio” and it was considered original.
In the same week that both Ray Romano (“Everybody Loves Raymond”) and Drew Carey (“The Drew Carey Show”) signed contracts worth in excess of $750,000 per episode, “Frasier”‘s Kelsey Grammer re-upped with NBC for the astronomical figure of $1.6 million per episode. Astronomical, that is, given Grammer’s lack of talent, humor, charisma and presumably a heartbeat. I might comment that $1.6 million could sure buy the alleged drug-addict a heck of a lot of coke, but that would be in bad taste.
