1) It turns out Love And Consequences, a critically acclaimed new memoir about growing up in the middle of South Central gang territory, is pure fiction. Author Margaret B. Jones, subject of a recent fawning profile in The New York Times, is actually Margaret Seltzer, well-to-do product of Sherman Oaks. Her story fell apart when her sister saw a photo of "Jones" in a magazine and called foul.
Um...Aren't publishing houses supposed to have fact-checking departments? Shouldn't the background search for someone peddling a supposedly true story be more extensive than what a temp agency would run for someone hired to dig ditches? Didn't The Times do any research of their own before they ran their story on "Jones"? Doesn't anyone remember James Frey?
2) Speaking of The Times, they ran a puff piece last week on the HBO series In Treatment, specifically on the slavish fan base surrounding Gabriel Byrne's fictional therapist. Diane O'Rourke, identified as a medical writer from Chicago, explains her attraction to Byrne's character thusly:
"Paul is attractive not because he has great youthful biceps but because he's vulnerable--a real person who wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, worrying, 'What the hell am I doing here?'"
Really? That's what makes a man attractive? Because by that standard, I am the most desirable fella on the planet!
3) Clinton, Obama, Ohio, Texas, whatever. Sorry, folks, I'm contractually required to mention that somehow.
4) There are plans afoot for a sort of updating of John Hughes' The Breakfast Club, only instead of being about high school kids stuck in detention, this will be about twenty-somethings stuck in an airport, and instead of being a fondly-remembered piece of eighties effluvia that doesn't quite stand up when you actually rewatch it, this will suck from the get-go.
5) Here's all ten minutes of the "Air-rotica" sequence from Bob Fosse's All That Jazz, which seems more and more like one of the most perfect movies ever made. Nobody ever filmed dance better than Fosse, and his attention to detail--the squirming producers, the fidgeting stagehands--amazes. The performance of the late Roy Scheider, though only briefly glimpsed here, is perfection, as are the awesome breasts of Sandahl Bergman. In an artistic sense, of course.
