CUT!

You know that famous Guerrilla Girls campaign around the Oscars back in 2002? The one about the US Senate being more progressive than Hollywood, because just 4% of directors are female? Adjust the figures: someone defected. Larry Wachowski, of the Matrix-making Wachowski Brothers, recently completed the transition from male to female, and, intriguingly, will be talking to the press about becoming Lana.

Given that even Jodie Foster won’t talk about being gay, or even being outed (she gave a juicy quote to Entertainment Weekly on that magazine cover… oh, hold on, she said “no comment”. Yawn), this sounds pretty cool.

Except that now, the people behind the Wachowskis’ new movie Speed Racer are denying the whole sex change thing. There’s a probing piece about it on Cinematical, which pretty much implies that Speed Racer bosses want to avoid “negative publicity” around the film. The site earlier reported that Lana would not be allowed to handle the movie’s publicity, for fear of alienating an audience.

Excuse the righteousness, but every time something about trannys, homos, dykes, queers, lezzos, poofs or fags crops up in Hollywood, it reverts right back to the silent era. Because that sort of thing doesn’t exist in the entertainment business. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

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JOSS WHEDON: WONDER WOMB MAN (LOL)

Nnnghgh: Katie Holmes is in talks to star in the Wonder Woman movie. Why is this so irritating? I’m not one for hating on a sister, but she’s kind of on my list. She’s a sponge of a woman, absorbing those around her until she has no identity of her own and then stepping back into meek silence when it’s brought into question. Or she could just be dignified and content. Whatever. I’m picking a side.


This much-mooted big-screen WW will be a huge disappointment if 'Kate Cruise' takes the lead, because it’s hard to see her as anything other than a simpering accessory. But it’ll probably be a huge disappointment even if she doesn’t get it, since Joss Whedon is no longer on board (he left citing the old “creative differences”).

And his leaving the project is a tragedy of modern movies. Seriously. Joss Whedon’s a smart Hollywood player who’ll actually speak up against things he disagrees with. I remembered a post he made to his fansite Whedonesque back in May, an eloquent post about violence against women. It made me do a swoon. Among the highlights:

I watched the trailer for Captivity… Pretty much all you learn is that Elisha Cuthbert is beautiful, then kidnapped, inventively, repeatedly and horrifically tortured, and that the first thing she screams is “I’m sorry”… Women’s inferiority – in fact, their malevolence – is as ingrained in American popular culture as it is anywhere they’re sporting burkhas. I find it in movies, I hear it in the jokes of colleagues, I see it plastered on billboards, and not just the ones for horror movies. Women are weak. Women are manipulative. Women are somehow morally unfinished… [more]

After licking the screen with love, I went back further to a speech Joss gave in 2006 to Equality Now, who recognised his awesomeness with an award. And Meryl Streep only bloody introduces and lauds him. Permanent life motto: if it’s good enough for Meryl, it’s good enough for us. And it's well worth the 10 minutes or so it takes to watch:



This is all a very, very long way of saying that I wouldn’t like Katie Holmes to be Wonder Woman, if that’s alright, thanks. Rebecca

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SUCH A DRAG

This recent Paris Hilton pap shot - is she auditioning for the lead in Mommie Dearest 2?



Let's take a closer look:



[via x17]

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JOHN WATERS MASTERCLASS

Being in the right place and time for other people’s misfortune often pays dividends. Last Friday night (17/8/07), I ended up with two places on the John Waters Masterclass at the NFT in London. How pleasing that the original ticket-holders had injuries/troubles/problems too severe to leave the house etc.

The wisdom of John Waters knows no bounds.

I should’ve smuggled in a tape recorder or at the very least a pencil, but I was too busy sitting stock-still with a grin plastered on my stupefied face to think of it. I couldn’t move through sheer happiness, and despite seeming like the most important words ever uttered, well, I forgot a lot of what was said. But here’s what stuck in my mind.


Myra Hindley
“I swear the only reason she got as long as she did was because she didn’t get her roots done. She’d be out by now if she’d had her hair fixed.”

Lindsay Lohan
John said Lindsay should have gone to acting rehab, for the magnificently awful I Know Who Killed Me. He claimed that the latest breed of ‘troubled’ starlets don’t interest him because they haven’t done anything worthy of the attention. He prefers the likes of his own stars, such as Patty Hearst and Traci Lords. Paris/Lindsay/Nicole/Britney - you're nothing without armed robbery/underage porn to your name.

Helicoptering…
John said he wanted to cover a new sexual practice in every movie, and explained that he was still discovering fetishes. The gay bar in Pecker, for example, recently started allowing its go-go boys to dance with erections – hence teabagging turned into helicoptering.

…and blossoming
But that’s nothing next to blossoming – the fetishisation of anal prolapses. Pictures are swapped online, and men compete for the biggest ‘blossom’. Ouch.

Baltimore
Of course Baltimore took up a lot of the evening, but one anecdote stands out. John recalled talking to a man in a bar, and after a while he asked him what he did. “You want me to tell you?” asked the man. “Yes,” said John. “I swap deer meat for crack,” replied his companion.

The future of Hairspray
JW was very tactful on the new Hairspray movie, and praised everything from casting to execution. He also explained how schools are starting to perform the musical, and it pleases him because it means the fat girl and the boy who drags up are getting the lead roles. He went on to talk about how his mother told him about a local school production, “and it was an all-retarded school. I’d really love to have seen it. I mean the fat thing, the gay thing, they’ve been done. All-retarded versions will bring back the edge”.

Oh, and he’s really into K-Fed, and would like him to be in his next movie.

And he was ordained as a priest during the filming of Cry Baby, so he could marry Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder. Though that didn’t happen, he used his new ecclesiastical status to baptise Traci Lords.

It was pretty much the best night of my life. Rebecca

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MERYL'S GOT A NEW FILM OUT

Meryl Streep stars in new anti-war film Lions For Lambs, reports The Guardian. Or not, because they’ve buried that juicy little Streep nugget in some piece about Hollywood breaking tradition by making explicitly White-House-critical films. As headlines go, what’s wrong with ‘Meryl’s got a new film out’? Say what you mean, journos.

FYI: Charlotte Gainsbourg loves Meryl Streep. She likes The Deer Hunter and Kramer vs Kramer best, and watched The Devil Wears Prada, which she thought was “funny”.

That’s all. That really is all, I just set up this stupid page expansion thing and I can't turn it off. Sorry. Posts will be longer from now on, to make the most of it. Like this. La la la la la, here's a few more lines...

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