This is my ideal day. Saturday morning: I love to get up to go to a museum. I always take a taxi, and only open the door into the bike lane. Because I love to see how many Citi Bike riders I can pick off. I love to spend mornings at MoMA, where I eat M&Ms and I sneeze on Jackson Pollocks, just to see who can tell. I try to get to a Mets game if they’re in town, because they have a great ticket plan: If you buy one, you get one free; if you buy two, they let you pitch. — Joan Rivers [Vulture]
Joan Rivers was an icon. She was controversial, acerbic, offensive sometimes, spot on often, and the last of the real “take no crap” broads in showbiz. No, not in Hollywood or the movies, or on television…showbiz. Showbiz meaning that she was a consummate performer. Brooklyn born, a Phi Beta Kappa from Barnard College educated, and one of the quickest wits to walk the planet even at the age of 81. Rivers could get up on a stage in her twilight years and make the biggest “man’s man” blush as she regaled an audience with raunchy and ribald humor while dressed to the nines, heels in place, hair perfected, and face…a work of dizzying craftsmanship. And that’s all we’re going to say about that.
Whether she was cutting a celeb down expertly for wearing something atrocious or doting lovingly on her daughter and grandson, Rivers gave it her all. She spoke passionately, loved passionately, and told women everywhere that they didn’t need to be quiet, polite, or censored. You could just be. However, and whatever that means, everyone else be damned. And there was none better at giving real talk, the moniker, “Can We Talk” was hers and hers alone, and when she gave good talk, she gave good talk. RIP Joan. We’ll miss your lightning speed wit, your indelible snark, your longevity, your keen ability to laugh at yourself while committing a lifetime to making sure others did the same. You were a salty broad to be sure, polarizing, sensational, crass, and uncompromising. And in our book that means you were one of the greats.
The Hollywood Caller
Here at the Hollywood Caller we are taking a hiatus from Marvel/DC News because we literally cannot take reporting on all the various happenings going on in the world of comics. They have literally taken over all of moviedom, and at some point you’ve just got to take a stand. [Shouting at all of Hollywood: WHO DO YOU LOVE? YOU LOVE COMICS!] And now we’ve kicked a Ferrari out a plate glass window. (Ten Points to any and all who get this reference)
Poncherello. If you don’t know exactly what a Poncherello is you’d really think it was some sort of jaunty short cape, or a small citrus fruit. You’d be so wrong! Some of us know a Poncherello is the name of a slightly undetermined ethnic entity on the hit late 1970’s television show CHiPS about two motorcycle riding Highway Patrol officers. We say this because we wonder if the ethnic origin of Erik Estrada was ever discussed on the show, or if we were just left with Poncherello and we had to decipher what that meant. As in, someone who hails from some Mediterranean aisle, or perhaps a descendant from a long line of tough-browed, be-hair-coiffed Spaniards. No one knows! Poncherello could be an Italian dish or the name of a lunatic fighting windmills! Mysteries! Perhaps we’ll find out more about this enigma when his namesake costars with Dax Shepard in a new and updated version in film form to be written, starred in, and directed by Shepard. We have a feeling Estrada will come out of retirement wanting to punch Dax in his own Poncherello. [THR]
Hemlock Grove, a show about angst ridden monsters in a badly written soapy sudser, has impressed the people over at Netflix, who we’re thinking also like red dot laser beams and pictures of pets with cheese on their heads, enough that they’re giving the show a third and final season to maybe, perhaps turn into something worth binge watching. For those of you who had no idea that this show even existed, please continue, because there’s nothing to see here. It’s a place where all good horror goes to die. It’s the frozen whipped topping on your sundae. The oily margarine in your griddle pan. The fake sugar substitute in your cupcake. This, friends, is what happens when someone decides that all your favorite paranormals should be relegated to high school while moping around your Netflix queue like maudlin junkies looking for a score. It’s the worst. Don’t watch it. You can do so much better. [THR]
Oh, good. Dancing to Your Grandma’s Phonograph show nee’ Dancing with the Stars has announced its stars or as we like to call them, “people who have decided that it’s either this or porn” and we’re just so excited, it’s like we had Ovaltine this morning! Anyway, from the dregs of former superstardom, joining an illustrious list that includes Bristol Palin among its alums, are NASCAR driver Michael Waltrip, MMA champion Randy Couture, Olympian Lolo Jones, the main guy from Mean Girls, Jonathan Bennett, soap opera veteran Antonio Sabato, Jr., Silver Spoons‘ Alfonso Ribeiro, Back to the Future‘s Lea Thompson, talk-show host Tavis Smiley (What?), You Tube person, Bethany Mota, Pretty Little Liars star, Janel Parrish, Duck Dynasty reality thingamabob, Sadie Robertson, 72-year-old fashion designer Betsey Johnson, and wait for it….76-year-old Tommy Chong from Cheech and Chong (Jesus Christ!). Dancing With the Stars is an insane clown car full of mania, long sighs, and Ginkgo biloba. [THR]
On the show known for yelling about stomach surgeries, defending Mel Gibson, and other Republican burbled nonsense by a former reality star, The View, has found its other two co-hosts. Actress Rosie Perez and political commentator, as well as former communications director for George W. Bush, Nicolle Wallace, will take the final two slots not held by Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie O’Donnell. Wallace is less of a surprise here. We assumed they’d fill at least one slot with a Republican, BUT remember Wallace was portrayed in HBO’s movie, Game Change as the senior advisor to Sarah Palin who could not vote for McCain due to a crisis of conscience, so that’s something. Oh, God, is that something. Perez is another interesting addition to the mix. Aside from her acting credits, she’s a community activist, documentarian, director of a Spanish AIDS PSA campaign, and was appointed to The Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA). So a bunch of smart, politically-minded folks will be at The View helm. Should be interesting. [THR]
NBC, broadcast’s Little Shop of Horrors, has decided throwing a fear stricken Carrie Underwood, and a pixied Allison Williams out on a stage to be roasted alive on Twitter, won’t be enough to contain an audience clamoring for ever more live television, (who are these people?) so they’ve enlisted Sean Hayes, of Will & Grace fame, to create some sort of live sitcom we guess. “Hospitality centers on the staff of a midtown Manhattan hotel and would air live every week with live commercials during the breaks.” Oh, fantastic. Why not just bring back Fear Factor, NBC? Just make people eat rhinoceros scrotums or something instead of making them do this whole “trial by fire” live comedy sitcom thing! The pressure, the timing, the hope you don’t desperately need a sip of water! What could possibly go wrong, wronger still, wrongest of all? Well, okay, NBC. [THR]
Lastly, while not a big, mega, movie star, Rob Ford, Toronto’s resident fart joke of a mayor, is causing problems for the Toronto Film Festival. Everyone is afraid he’ll show up to the red carpet and embark in an orgy of public debasement for the enjoyment of no one, anywhere. TIFF wants absolutely no connection to the controversial mayor which they believe could turn their event into a circus with Ford at the center stumbling and mumbling around like some sort of drunken pachyderm hell-bent on destroying the reputation of the prestigious arts celebration. And when you think about it, sure, who wants their film festival ruined by your city’s cracked out, racist, homophobic, big baby of an elected official? He doesn’t exactly meld with the arts scene, or mesh well with liberal Hollywood. There is actually no better depiction of a bull in a China shop than in envisioning Rob Ford at a swanky Hollywood film festival. [THR]
Casting News in Short
Because Modern Family hasn’t robbed us of enough good feelings, the illustrious Tyne Daly will appear as Lily’s teacher [THR]
Jessica Chastain and Kristen Wiig are in early talks to star opposite Matt Damon playing an astronaut stranded on a Martian colony in a film that proves that Damon learned very little from Elysium. [THR]
Bran Stark and Hodor will not be in next season’s Game of Thrones, because who really cares anyway about what happens to them once they meet the “Star Children” or whatever? We imagine it’s just a bunch of, “Well, what do we do now, Star People?” “Hodor.” Right? Right. [Vulture]
Kate Mara and Gary Oldman will co-star with Vaudevillian silent film hat chaser and theater agitator, Shia LaBeouf, in a psychological thriller about an Afghanistan war veteran in a post-apocalyptic America. Prepare for screaming and more hat throwing. [THR]
Julia Roberts and Gwenyth Paltrow, two Oscar winners, and we’re betting paparazzo dartboard owners, will be costarring in a Secret in Their Eyes remake as Mayan war priestesses who invent churros. [THR]
Robert Redford will star as Dan Rather in the major film version of the Dan Rather scandal that involved a news agency calling George W. Bush a huge prick. [THR]
Zac Efron, who we guess is the kind of movie star who can say “Hey, I worked with Robert De Niro” to our horror, will co-star with De Niro in something lampoonish sounding called, Dirty Grandpa. Great. [THR]
There will be so much Shia LaBeouf in the coming years! Now Jesse Eisenberg and LaBeouf, imperial goof goblin and gypsy werewolf, will costar as stoners-turned-arms dealers in the aptly named, Arms and the Dudes. [THR]
Image: Wikimedia
