Land of the…….

You think the longer you live, the less likely you are to be shocked. Not true. Even though I am a Glambert as they say, before reading the following on E!Online, I would have said that the talk of not voting for Adam Lambert because he was gay was just trying to reason away the unthinkable AI result. Maybe, I thought, the majority just likes mediocrity, maybe that’s all there is to it. I think the following snippets which you can find (unless E’s moderator is back from whatever rock he/she was hiding under) beneath The Big Picture on E!’s site speak, astoundingly, for themselves.

If this doesn’t stop the exodus to America, nothing will.

Under Adam Lambert’s pic, you will read this:

“Can you say "So gay"?”

“Why is he being photographed? he didnt even win...and thank god! A freaky cross dresser shouldnt be an "IDOL"

“Fucckin faggott! * .Im so happy He didint win american Idol!”

“I personally can't wait for this freak's 15 minutes to be up. People, there are 1,000's of people like this weirdo in theater, they all sound and act the same, he's absolutely NO DIFFERENT. When I saw those very very very disturbing pictures of Adam dressed as a blue devil with his tongue stuck down some little man wearing makeup's throat, I completely lost anything I might have liked about this transvestite. He seriously has issues, and how someone like him got past the AI producers is beyond me. Now I'm reading somewhere that there are pictures of him in his early 20's making out with a 16/17 year old boy. If that's true, aren't we supposed to draw the line when it comes to sexual predators? I honestly cannot believe that America is so infatuated with this person. He's a trans-genderbending, very very strange individual, and I for one can't wait for him to go away. NO WAY will I let MY kids "idolize" this freak.”

Under Halle Berry, you will read this:

            “Her negrofied attitude makes me think it would have done her some good to work on my               great great grandfather's cotton plantation.”

      Under Salma Hayek and her baby’s photo, you will read this:

            “this baby is f**king ugly just like all the other "no spik english" babies out there.”

             I think any further comment from me would be an anti-climax.

Thank God Adam's not America's idol

It has, literally, taken me days to get over what happened to my boy Adam Lambert. I watched, aghast, as the wrong person was voted American Idol. But after a night spent tossing and turning and wrestling with the meaning of life, I finally understood. They didn’t get it wrong. They got it right, of course they did. America’s idol HAS to be Kris Allen: He is ordinary, talented enough, conventionally good-looking. Very simply, he will not give you any sleepless nights. In the end, Americans want to be safe and secure in their beds. The rest of the planet wants passion, star power, incandescent talent, chiseled beauty and originality.
When the idiots say Adam Lambert screams, I guess they didn’t hear Feeling Good, Tracks of My Tears and If I Can’t Have You.
When the idiots wonder whether he is gay, I guess they don’t know that their brother, sister, aunt, uncle and give a parent or two may be gay as well. (I take it for granted that the idiots don’t know that being gay isn’t a choice.)
When the idiots say he’s theatrical, I guess they have never watched a great play which they will remember for the rest of their lives.
When the idiots say the judges liked Adam too much, I guess what they really mean is that the judges should have lied so they could have voted for Adam as an underdog and not because he was unusually talented. That’s AI for you.
There is a question on the AI site which reads : ‘Does anyone else feel strangely protective about Adam?’ The reaction he evokes is as unusual as his talent.
Here was a boy who was young, focused, bursting with the kind of ability no one had ever seen before, and who delivered a polished apple to his teacher every single week. We bit and were hungry for more. But some saw the apple with a serpent in its core, complete with ebony fingernails and blue-black hair. They wished for milk instead. They got it. But the rest of the planet got more. We have found Adam Lambert and we will remember him for the rest of our lives. Every future success will be toasted by his acolytes from New Zealand to Israel – that is a large swathe of the planet – and he will by then be No 1 on the fan pages set up by E!Online (he is now No 3, and no, the Idol winner is nowhere to be seen).
I have watched AI for years, been a diehard fan, looked forward to those four months more than birthdays, anniversaries or world travel. Now, I can never watch it again, on a matter of principle. Who wants to see injustice, talent ignored? We have enough of that in our daily lives. Of course my abstinence will mean nothing to AI, but that’s ok, now AI means nothing to me.
One of my favourite lines ever is this: “When a true genius appears in the world, you will know him by this sign, that there will be a confederacy of dunces against him.”
‘Nuff said.

Movie on DVD: Never Back Down

For some reason, I was riveted by this same ol same ol story of a young, angst-ridden American teenager who fights his way out of his sense of guilt over his father’s death and gets the girl in the end. The girl is Amber Heard, and I can predict she will go far. She has the face of a siren - you know, the ones sitting on rocks and luring sailors to their doom? And the body of a Playboy centrespread. When has Hollywood ever asked for more? Sean Faris is a thinner, taller version of Tom Cruise and with a beauty spot as strategically perfect as Cindy Crawford’s, naturally he has come far from his days on the sets of Life as We Know It.
As for Cam Gigandet, what a sublime face and all he has ever got is to play the villain which he does well, granted, but in everything from Twilight, The OC and now this? A bit much.
Someone give him a saga in the Rocky mould and we’ll discover a superstar.

The Reader, Bernhard Schlink

Kate Winslet owned this movie body and soul so the book is bland in comparison. But it does give you the time to realize that the German sense of guilt over the Holocaust will never fade. When the Kid sleeps with Hanna, it’s a metaphor for the German people colluding with the Nazis. And his continuing relationship with her shows that the bond, though tenuous, can never be severed except by some final act of absolution. Although when Hanna does away with herself it’s more an act of release since she cannot face the one from prison and into a world that she no longer knows. This is why Windows Kindle will never win over moving the pages of a book leisurely with your fingers. It gives the reader time to muse over the wonder of the written word.

What Simon said

I have always disliked Cowell to a certain extent. Yes, when he gets it right, he gets it very, very right. And when he gets it wrong, it’s so very, very wrong. But any man who has the cojones to say to millions of moral dilettantes the following, has my vote: That we can all take it for granted that Adam will sail into the finals but we shouldn’t, so vote. And that people should vote for Adam because of his talent. Now that is straight shooting, if you’ll pardon the pun. What with Adam being inundated with slurs on something that is no one’s business but his own, (that wannabe Perez Hilton discussing his ‘lifestyle’ with Ryan on radio? Gimme a break.) It’s no wonder Simon’s sense of fair play got kick-started. Mr Baggy Tee has never said such a thing before, just as he has never given a contestant a standing ovation before.
There’s just something about Adam, apart from the ease with which he delivers his notes to us - like strawberries dipped in Nutella. He is calm, fun-loving, not a mean bone in his body and so chockfull of charisma that when he is on stage, we have eyes for no one and nothing else. And of course I’m over-reading the sitch, as Buffy would say, but I see in Adam’s mother’s tears watching her son become a worldwide phenomenon before her eyes, the sorrow over the years when she thought he was just a loser.
The fact that this phenomenon is standing with that mediocre talent going by the name of Kris Allen is enough to make my already simmering BP go up, up, up. Yes, Kris sang ONE song well, Kanye’s great Heartless, but ONE song does not a superstar make. Yes, every teenybopper in the country votes for his cute babyface and that should have taken him only so far. To stand next to Adam Lambert? What a travesty. That spot belonged to either Matt G or Allison.
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Another reason why Adam’s the One is because he never gives those utterly annoying fingers up to the camera when his numbers are being read out. I remember Jordin Sparks doing it to the point where it looked like she was having an epileptic seizure, and Danny Gokey’s heart symbol throughout this season has made me want to bring my lunch up. (What in the world, btw, was Sparks' Battlefield nonsense? More epileptic seizures was what it looked like. She needs to hunker down in Biosphere 2 for a few years and figure out how to be somewhat genuine in the talent dept. and not so bloody daft.)
Did anyone, I wonder, notice how Danny’s Joe Cocker song was so like Adam’s iconic Tracks of My Tears? The way he sat on the stool with the musicians on a line with him and tried to be soulful. Oh dear. And his homecoming was marked by nothing so much as Jamar getting his 15 minutes with a vengeance.

Nicole Kidman’s India moment

Nicole has goddess appeal, the porcelain skin, the lithe and sensual body, the enhanced beauty, and the kind of talent that allows her to walk into a space and own it (Golden Compass comes most readily to mind). She has now added to her bag of tricks with a Schweppes ad with Rubina Ali and Arjun Rampal, aka The Handsomest Man in India. The ad is inexplicable, but who cares. The Indian motifs are stunning, (the Ridley Scott/ Shekar Kapur touches less so). Nicole is in her firmament as usual and her co-stars symbolize how rich the sub-continent is in good looks and ambition. A fine reason to youtube.

Movie Must: The International

Nic best buddy and high-wattage talent Naomi Watts is wonderful in The International. But leading man Clive Owen, once described by Julia Roberts as “dreamy”, would make anyone look good. He has a kind of access on the screen that Tom Cruise, for example, would never allow us. In The International, he ducks and weaves global intrigue and venality so beautifully that we love the ride. The movie is taut, interesting and has a kind of Bond veneer (Owen has been perennially pinned as the next Bond) without the smugness inherent in James.

You go, girl

Miss California said what she believed (that’s why she’s not Miss America): She thinks a man should marry a woman. Now it’s ok to say that a man should marry a man, that makes you cool, liberal, sophisticated. Children are taught in school that their Two Daddys love them very much. Sean Penn will use the Oscar stage to blather about gay marriages and how we must fight tirelessly to allow them. Good, great, thanks Sean for underscoring what a bleeding heart you own. Now why don’t any of these bleeding hearts allow others to voice their opinion, too? Perhaps because if you exercise your freedom of thought and speech in America, they quickly disabuse you of the notion that either exists; they are for propaganda purposes only. It’s like when the Dixie Chicks said they were ashamed that Bush was Texan and were instantly reviled. Of course they got a great hit single out of it with Not Ready to Make Nice, but I ask you.

Allison meets the Voters From Hell

What’s with AI voters? I’m confused. Kris Allen and Danny Gokey are good, boring but good. Going by Allison’s last performance, she’s great: She was voted out. (They replayed Daughtry’s utterly stunned look minutes before Allison’s ouster; History teaches nothing.)Going by Adam’s Feeling Good performance last week, he is a bonafide Star: He ended up in the Bottom 2. (The scream of outrage over that was translated to another 23 MILLION votes this week, and yet.) Of course Adam, win or no, will have the last laugh. He has already appeared on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, and the comments underneath the web page will say it all, should you feel the need to feast your eyes. The media can go stuff itself it seems.
And come on, is anyone interested in Kris apart from his good looks? Or Danny apart from the niceness of his personality? Oh dear, that wasn’t politically correct. Do you think they’ll take my Miss America crown away?

Only in India

Newspapers and good journalism have gone the way of the Dodo, by and large. But this was still one for the books. Actors Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan graced the papers this morning showing their inked fingers to readers. In India, they paint your left forefinger with cheap liquid that you can’t erase so there will be justice at the polls – already an oxymoron when people only vote for the less unsavoury party in a sea of repulsive entities.
The cream of the jest, however, is that in the rarified world this trio apparently lives in, they thought it was perfectly acceptable to not only flout the rules by getting their middle fingers daubed – but to then show the finger to the world. The cherry on top of the cream? Nobody noticed. We deserve to be told to go F ourselves, don’t you think?

My world trembled on its axis

And I couldn’t sleep till about 4.30am. How could Adam Lambert have landed in the bottom two pile on American Idol? His performance of Feeling Good was noteworthy on various levels: It was camp, it was different in that he was doing a slower song with a lot more pizzazz, and he displayed notes he hasn’t done before. He looked as beautiful as he always does and moved us as he always does. Bottom 2? Beyond belief.
And then I read the reactions. I read the AI Forum, I read the Rolling Stone site, I read bloggers, and my world righted itself a little more, although it’s still trembling with aftershocks. The people have spoken, and how. A 16-year-old gay boy has thanked this phenomenon for changing his bewildered life and bringing him back from the edge, a 40something woman says she is stunned at her strong reaction and stronger support for Adam after the AI humiliation, people have expressed outrage and anger at Seacrest for ‘manhandling’ their icon, a group has posted a logo with Adam’s downcast face as he waited to hear the result with the words Don’t let this happen again, Vote for Adam on it. In the history of Idol there has never been such an outpouring of emotion, not even when Daughtry got the axe. The show couldn’t have got better publicity if they had set the whole thing up – and we are of course all questioning whether they have done just that. But as Paula said, we feel your pain, Adam. Although in the end, really, we emerge feeling good: At least we live in a world with individuals like Adam Lambert in it.