Cynical Six (Plus One)

1. Megan Fox has laughed off rumors that she might play Wonder Woman, saying she would never play Wondy because “She’s lame. She flies around in an invisible jet, but she's not invisible. I don't get it.” Four year-old girls everywhere get it, but it’s too complex for Megan Fox to figure out. I wonder if she wears slip-on shoes, too… Anyway, I’d just like to thank Megan Fox for taking herself out of the running; she’s one of the last, um, let’s be charitable and say actresses I’d ever want to see in the role. Now if I could just get Joel Silver and famed Joss Whedon fanboy Joss Whedon off of the project, I’d be much more excited about the possibility of this movie.

2. I’d also like to thank the judge who granted Amy Winehouse the court order keeping photographers 100 yards from her home. If I could never see a photo of her again I would be so happy.

3. So, Oprah is a fan of children dying, then? Because she’s giving a talk show to Jenny McCarthy, someone I used to like but has been using whatever influence she has to spread her anti-vaccination stupidity. She’s trying hard to convince parents in America not to vaccinate their children, because she mistakenly believes that vaccines are harmful. It’s people like her that we have to thank for the return of previously eradicated diseases like measles, because she chooses to put her child (and yours) in harm’s way in order to satisfy her misdirected anger at having an autistic son. Oprah throwing the weight of her marketing empire behind Jenny McCarthy is a tacit endorsement of a viewpoint that is not only scientifically unsound, but which injures and kills children. So count Oprah among the lunatic fringe, then (although she also backed Dr. Mehmet Oz, another crank, so I'm just restating the obvious because it needs to be restated--a lot). Lots of dead kids: this is what results from America’s contemporary “every argument is valid, no matter how crazy” and “teach both sides of the (nonexistent) debate” bullshittery.

4. Scarlett Johansson was supposed to direct a segment for New York, I Love You, the American companion to Paris, je’taime. Hers was apparently awful and is not going into the movie (although the producer is being admirably diplomatic and saying it just didn’t fit in with the theme). Sources who saw it say it was unwatchable. If it was even a tenth as good as her album of Tom Waits covers, it must have been painful indeed. Just stick to acting, ScarJo.

5. Someone from Top Gun comes out of the closet and it’s not Tom Cruise? Well, no, he’ll never come out. He's not gay, he's something else. You know those guys who are sick and can only relate to someone sexually when it involves pain and suffering, and are completely socially awkward because they can't relate to humans? That’s Tom Cruise. It’s got nothing to do with sex or sexual preference or love or anything healthy. It’s all about needing to punish people out of self-loathing. Oh, anyway, Kelly McGillis is apparently gay, if that interests anyone. Oh, and David Ogden Stiers came out, too. In related news, I like pumpkin pie and my wife thinks Reaper is the best show on TV. There are four personal preferences that shouldn't matter to anyone but the people making them and shouldn't be major news stories.

6. Thanks to the gossip sites in my feed reader, which are annoying but which I use as a picture source, I’ve been seeing all of these pictures of Lindsay Lohan swanning about in Mexico looking like Gollum on her “Please, God, I Need Attention or I’ll Die” media-stalker tour. The really sick part is that she keeps throwing her younger sister Ali, who I think is all of 14 or 15, in front of the cameras, but I won’t go on about that, because I always get a lot of “What’s the big deal about wanting to fuck a teenager?” comments. Instead, I’m focusing on the above picture, which kind of gets at why I wish Lindsay Lohan had died in 2005. Even her little sister seems to find it creepy, awkward, uncomfortable, and cynical that Lindsay seems to be purposely trying to play up some kind of suggestive lesbian/incest/underage fantasy trifecta. That may be the most pathetic picture I’ve ever seen of a has-been trying desperately to hang on to the spotlight.

7. Can I just say how glad I am that Robert Rodriguez’ Barbarella remake is dead? I really didn’t want to see that movie, and as a big fan of his, I’m glad to see him move on. This man is generating more and more projects that will never come to fruition, but this isn’t one I’m sad to see go. And I especially didn’t want to see Barbarella played by Rose McGowan. I used to love her, but since she suddenly got that unnecessary cosmetic surgery a few years ago, she looks less like sexy and fun Jane Fonda circa 1968, and more like an old Looney Tunes caricature of Greta Garbo.