Dumbass of the Week – Mel Gibson
So wrong in so many ways…
It’s been quite a while since a truly worthy candidate appeared for Dumbass of the Week. Let’s face it, Jesse James is a hard act to follow in terms of utterly stupid self destruction and general smarminess. But Mel Gibson – with an already tarnished record a mile and a half long – has outdone the ex-Mr. Bullock by a country mile. Gibson makes James look like a choir boy. Fine, a choir boy that’s a big fat creep, but still.
In case you haven’t been paying attention, Mel Gibson has gone off the deep end. After his 2006 arrest during which he disparaged Jews, women and nearly flushed his career down the crapper, he checked himself into alcohol rehab (nice ploy, Mel – the public loooooves rehab). This, combined with an apology (that wasn’t really an apology – more like a denial) and the critical success of Apocalypto, saved his sorry butt from the fiery furnace of public scorn.
Jump to 2009. Mel divorces his wife of many years (and many children) and takes up with pianist Oksana Grigorieva, with whom he has yet another child (for the record, that makes 8).
Jump to this week, when Mel dives head first into the insanity pool in recorded conversations with the now estranged Grigorieva. He’s not just angry, he’s raving. He’s tossing out racial slurs, threats of violence, massive blasts of general misogyny and other little tidbits for the consumption of the masses.
First a disclaimer. I don’t think this is a pure, one sided story with Gibson as devil and Grigorieva as angel. It was she, after all, who made the tapes without his knowledge. I do not believe that if we heard tapes of other conversations between the dueling duo that she would seem quite so calm and rational. She wanted him to blow up so she could get a restraining order – fair enough. But exactly how did those tapes make their way onto the internet? The entire internet? Right, I don’t think she’s quite as much of a fair damsel as she might like us to think.
On the other hand, Gibson is a raving lunatic. He’s huffing and puffing and ranting and nearly incoherent in his vast, seemingly bottomless hatred. Who is it that Mel hates? Let’s take a look. Mel Gibson probably hates you if:
- you are homosexual
- you are female
- you are African-American
- you are Hispanic
- you are Jewish
- you are the mother of any of his tribe of children
- you are not Mel Gibson
Yes, I think that just about covers it. Chances are pretty much 100% that Mel Gibson hates you. And me.
Think about it – this man was adored by women the world over from the time he made Galipoli in 1981. At 54, he could be aging into a successful directing career (don’t forget, he owns an Oscar for Braveheart) as well as cherry picking plum acting roles. But that isn’t how it is in MelWorld.
In MelWorld it’s impossible to cork it about your unpopular, bigoted and violent beliefs and just do your damn job. In my perfect world I wouldn’t know word one about Mel Gibson’s religion, prejudices or bad habits. Sure, being in the spotlight opens actors up to scrutiny and that sometimes sucks. But Gibson has never failed to parade his weirdness as if it were a badge of courage and honor rather than a sign of mental illness. That he can’t tell the difference is probably the most frightening thing of all.
Nice going, Mel. Between the bottle, your warped psyche and your intense hatred for everyone who is not you, you’ve managed to alienate the world. Rehab isn’t going to cut it this time. At least for this movie-goer, you’re toast on a stick and your career is over. Hopefully you’ll go to jail for beating your girlfriend (which you admitted) and save us all from having to see you or worse, hear you speak. You are my Movie Rewind Dumbass of the Week, eclipsing any who have come before you with the sheer magnitude of your vile insanity. Now, please, for the sake of everyone – shut the hell up!
New on Netflix – July 13th and July 20th
It’s hot outside, and there are mosquitoes. Lots and lots of mosquitoes. So what are we to do in the evening? Watch movies, of course! Let’s see what’s new on Netflix and the wider DVD world for the next two weeks.
July 13th
Saint John of Las Vegas (indie comedy, Steve Buscemi, Romany Malco) – Netflix and purchase release, DVD
The Greatest (indie drama, Susan Sarandon, Pierce Brosnan, Carey Mulligan, Michael Shannon, Aaron Johnson) – Netflix and purchase release, DVD, Blu-Ray and Netflix Instant Streaming
8: The Mormon Proposition (documentary) – Netflix and purchase release, DVD
The Bounty Hunter (action comedy, Jennifer Aniston, Gerard Butler) – Netflix and purchase release, DVD and Blu-Ray
Chloe (thriller, Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore, Amanda Seyfried) – Netflix and purchase release, DVD and Blu-Ray
Terribly Happy (foreign thriller, Jakob Cedergren) – Netflix and purchase release, DVD and Netflix Instant Streaming
The Book of Eli (action, Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Mila Kunis) – delayed Netflix release, DVD and Blu-Ray (original purchase release date June 15, 2010)
Airline Disaster (action, Meredith Baxter, Lindsey McKeon) delayed Netflix release, DVD (original purchase release June 29, 2010)
Formosa Betrayed (thriller, James Van Der Beek, John Heard, Leslie Hope) – Netflix and purchase release, DVD
How to Make Love to a Woman (romantic comedy, Krysten Ritter, Josh Myers, Ian Somerhalder) – Netflix and purchase release, DVD, Blu-ray and Netflix Instant Streaming
Crush (paranormal thriller, Christopher Egan, Emma Lung) – purchase release, DVD, delayed Netflix release
Caught in the Crossfire (thriller, 50 cent, Chris Klein, Adam Rodriguez) – purchase release, DVD and Blu-Ray, delayed Netflix release, probably mid-August
Greenberg (comedy, Ben Stiller, Rhys Ifans) – purchase release, DVD and Blu-Ray, delayed Netflix release (scheduled for August 10th)
July 20th
Mother (foreign thriller, Bin Won, Hye-ja Kim) – Netflix and purchase release, DVD and Blu-Ray
A Town Called Panic (animated foreign family) purchase and Netflix release, DVD and Netflix Instant Streaming
Green Zone (action, Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear) – delayed Netflix release, DVD and Blu-Ray (original purchase release June 22nd)
The Runaways (drama, Dakota Fanning, Kristen Stewart) – Netflix and purchase release, DVD and Blu-Ray
Ninja’s Creed (action, Alexander Wraith, Pat Morita, Eric Roberts) – Netflix and purchase release, DVD
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (documentary) – purchase and Netflix release, DVD, Blu-Ray and Netflix Instant Streaming
Cop Out (action comedy, Bruce Willis, Tracy Morgan) – purchase release, DVD and Blu-Ray, delayed Netflix release
Our Family Wedding (romantic comedy, Forest Whitaker, Carlos Mencia, America Ferrara) – purchase release, DVD - delayed Netflix release, look for it mid-August
The Losers (action, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans) – purchase release, DVD and Blu-Ray, delayed Netflix release
Just Another Day (drama, Wood Hector, Jamie Hector, Ja Rule) – purchase release, DVD and Blu-Ray, delayed Netflix release
Not a bad selection for the middle of the summer. This week we should definitely have ice cream. Who’s buying?
Cry Me a River, Lindsay Lohan is Going to Jail
Actress gets exactly what she deserves
In the latest installment of Hollywood Eats Its Young, Lindsay Lohan is headed to the clink. Her crime? Ignoring the terms of her probation on a litany of drug and alcohol related offenses. 90 days in the slammer followed by mandatory inpatient rehab. Sweet.
The court refused to address her real crime, which is appearing in public repeatedly and purposely looking like an unwashed, dead-eyed, strung-out junkie in spandex leggings from 1984. But since that’s more a crime of fashion, I understand that it’s more appropriately dealt with by peer pressure. Oh wait – Lindsay has no peers, only subordinates.
So why is this even news? We all know Lohan is a train wreck. Her blubbering of excess make-up all over her attorney’s sweater doesn’t make me any more likely to want her set free than does her overly collagen-injected pout. She did the crime – repeatedly, and refused to follow even the ridiculously lenient probation terms – she can do the time.
But there’s something else here – the real reason she deserves this sentence. Once she’s in jail, she’ll get better treatment than she’s received in her entire life. She won’t be catered to, she won’t be coddled, she won’t have a mother who thinks having an alcoholic teenager is just dandy, she won’t have a jailed father trying to weasel his way into her fortune. She might actually have a little discipline, some guidance and some real life, grown-up advice on how to get her shit together before it kills her.
God knows she needs it. Lohan is a 24-year-old infant, without the slightest ability to care for herself or make appropriate, reasonable adult decisions. She has never been expected to do so, why should she learn? What, do we really think responsibility just blossoms out of teenage pores when they hit the age of majority? Newsflash – child stars are screwed up because the adults around them fail them miserably.
Some get through it. Robert Downey Jr. and Britney Spears both look to be on the upswing (especially RDJ). But none of that happened before they paid a heavy price for their infantile behavior. Downey did jail time and Spears not only did some inpatient time, but also lost custody of her kids.
Those who never pay a big, head slapping price for their actions (the actions set in motion by the adults meant to care for them) do not fare as well. Michael Jackson, Corey Haim, Dana Plato, River Phoenix. All dead. Why? Because they never became adults and never had to answer for their juvenile foolishness in any meaningful way. They got their way until their way killed them.
So count your blessings, Ms. Lohan. Cry until you have no more tears to shed. But that judge probably just saved your sorry ass. Oh, and your life. Pull yourself together and stop acting like a baby. Maybe then you can count yourself as a child star survivor instead of just another child star tragedy.
TV Hoarding Shows – A Compare & Contrast
Which set of compulsive hoarders do we like best?
I’ve long ago admitted to my addiction to A&E’s Hoarders. What can I say, maybe it makes me feel better about my own housekeeping skills. But there is something fascinating about delving into the pathology that makes people keep old soda cans and diapers.
Clearly I’m not the only one who thinks so.
There are currently 3 popular cable reality series that focus on hoarders. Each has its own spin, but they all exploit…er, examine the phenomenon of compulsive collecting of crap. Let’s take a brief look at all three and you can decide which is best suited to your viewing preferences.
Clean House
The Style Network entry is the longest running of the three as well as the most shallow. They don’t really use the term “compulsive hoarders” and the overall tone is relatively light. Main host Niecy Nash (yeah, the one from Dancing With the Stars) and her team descend upon families whose homes have become battle grounds over clutter.
Nash and Co. have the signature MO of The Yard Sale. They talk people into giving up their crap and sell it all at a big garage sale in order to finance designer Mark Brunetz’s redesign of the home. Nash matches up to the first $1000. After the yard sale, the family goes off to a hotel and the team does its thing, creating an organized, spiffy new space for them.
Clean House Pros:
- - Tone is light
- - Yard sale is a fun idea
- - DIY fans will like the renovations
- - Home is cleaned
Clean House Cons:
- - Families do little of their own work
- - Hoarding is not addressed as an ongoing issue
- - No aftercare
Clean House is Hoarders Lite and the show does nothing to really help the families it portrays. They’re hoarders and they will simply crap up the new space just like they did the old. Clean House is for entertainment only – there is no examination of pathology. The other two shows are far more serious in their approach.
A&E’s Hoarders
This one I’ve discussed before. They choose severe hoarders who are in danger of dire consequences if they don’t get their shit together. A psychologist or other expert comes in and assists an organizer in clearing the house in two days to try and avert whatever disaster is imminent.
In this case, the families or individuals have to agree to the “intervention” and work with the organizers. Much of the show focuses on the frustration felt by the experts, family members and the hoarders themselves over the difficulty of the clean-up process. Once the two days are up, the show is out of there, usually leaving a clean house and sometimes averting [insert name of this week's disaster here]. There is no host or set team, though there is a revolving set of docs and organizers who apparently have signed on with the show. There is also occasional ominous music.
A&E’s Hoarders Pros:
- - These are the worst of the worst hoarders. They appeal to the voyeur in all of us.
- - The title cards clearly label hoarding as a disorder
- - The docs involved provide pretty good analysis of what the hoarder experiences during the clean up
- - Aftercare is provided
A&E’s Hoarders Cons:
- - Makes me want to clean.
- - Two days isn’t enough time to really address the underlying pathology
- - A cleaning team or group of friends/relatives usually does most of the work
- - Aftercare is only funds
Hoarding: Buried Alive
The newest entry into the Hoarding Sweepstakes comes from TLC. I have boundless love for TLC due to many happy hours watching fashion victims get make-overs on What Not to Wear, but I was sceptical of their hoarding show. It seemed like a lot of bandwagon jumping when it debuted last season. I should have had more faith.
Hoarding: Buried Alive features moderate to severe hoarders. Each discusses their own problem and discusses it with a professional of some variety. The pair begins with some sort of activity designed to reveal some of the root causes of the hoarding or some way to change behaviors that lead to hoarding. The show is far more slowly paced and focused on the individual and why they hoard as well as how they can get better. Each person featured has sought help, usually without the intervention of family or friends.
Hoarding: Buried Alive Pros:
- - Hoarder does most if not all of their own cleaning and discarding
- - Clearly addresses pathology on an individual basis
- - Allows adequate time for the individual to make changes
- - Care appears to be ongoing
Hoarding: Buried Alive Cons:
- - Really makes me want to clean
- - Show is pretty slow paced
- - Not shiny and happy – the disorder is revealed as being painful and intractable
- - Lacks the instant gratification of seeing the whole house de-cluttered
Which show you choose in order to indulge your hoarding watching sort of depends on your mood. Do you want silliness? Go with Clean House. Do you want the thrill of watching really disgusting messes get cleaned up tout suite? Go with A&E’s Hoarders. Want something that is a little less exciting but delves more deeply into the disorder? Try Hoarding: Buried Alive.
It is reality TV – all are exploitative to a degree. But they all also address a problem that is more common than most people think. Every time I see a house with a two car garage that has both cars parked in the driveway I think HOARDER. Come to think of it, every time I look in my basement or my pre-teen’s room I think HOARDER. Exploitation can be fun and educational, too!
So go, indulge in your choice of hoarding shows. I watch all three depending on my mood. Clean House has been around the longest so runs in repeats about 20 hours a day and you have the best chance of catching at random. A&E’s Hoarders is available on Netflix and you can watch some full episodes on the A&E website. Hoarding: Buried Alive has only had a single season of which you can catch occasional reruns. You can buy the DVD or get it through Video on Demand, but it isn’t out on Netflix.
Now I’m going to sit here and fight the urge to clean the bathroom.
New on Netflix – June 29th and July 6th
Got Netflix?
Well, even though the studios are squeezing Netflix by forcing DVD release delays on them, we still want to know what’s new, now don’t we? Of course we do. More now than ever since some films will release for purchase and rental on the same day and others will be held hostage for a month. So here we go!
June 29th
The Crazies (horror, Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell) – Netflix and purchase release, DVD and Blu-Ray
The White Ribbon (German drama, Ulrich Tukur, Susanne Lothar) – Netflix and purchase release, DVD and Blu-Ray
The Eclipse (thriller, Ciaran Hinds, Iben Hjejle) – Netflix and purchase release, DVD and Blu-ray
Creation (biography, Paul Bettany, Jennifer Connelly) Netflix and purchase release, DVD and Blu-Ray
The Wolfman (horror, Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins) Netflix release, DVD and Blu-Ray – delayed 28 days from June 1st purchase release
Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (children and family, Logan Lerman, Uma Thurman, Pierce Brosnan) - purchase release, DVD and Blu-Ray, Netlix delay probably until the end of July
Hot Tub Time Machine (comedy, John Cusack, Craig Robinson, Rob Corddry) – purchase release, DVD and Blu-Ray – Netflix delay – look for it at the end of July
The Pagan Queen (sci-fi/fantasy, Winter Ave Zoli, Csaba Lucas) – Purchase release, DVD – Netflix release delayed
Airline Disaster (action/adventure, Meredith Baxter, Lindsay McKeon) – purchase release, DVD, delayed Netflix release – this one looks like a Direct to Video release. Maybe it will never come out on Netflix. Maybe we don’t want it to…
July 6th
Brooklyn’s Finest (drama, Richard Gere, Don Cheadle, Ethan Hawke, Wesley Snipes, Antoine Fuqua director) – Netflix and Purchase release, DVD and Blu-Ray
Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (foreign thriller, Michaeil Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace, Sven-Bertil Taube, Ewa Frohling, based on novel by Stieg Larsson) - Netflix and purchase release, DVD, Blu-Ray and Netflix Instant Streaming
A Single Man (drama, Colin Firth, Julianne Moore) – Netflix and purchase release, DVD and Blu-Ray
Curb Your Enthusiasm: Season 7 (TV comedy, Larry David, Cheryl Hines) - Netflix release, DVD, delayed from June 8th purchase release
That’s a big up-tick in delayed releases. Now that we all know now that it results in no increased DVD sales, no financial gain for the studios and a highly probable increase in piracy, it just makes the studios look stupid and stubborn. Remember, Warner Bros., Fox and Universal – piss me off, lose my money down the road. For once have a little foresight and admit that your actions make no sense, achieve nothing other than ticking off DVD renters and ultimately increase criminal piracy and maybe I’ll consider spending my money on your theatrical releases. I’m petty and vindictive, Hollywood, don’t try my patience.
On the other hand – so cool that Girl With the Dragon Tattoo will get Instant Streaming right away! Petty, vindictive and fickle. That’s me!
This week let’s have Raisinettes, shall we?
