APRIL '06 ARCHIVE

04/10/06

BASEBALL, BITTERNESS AND JON LOVITZ

Ice Age: The Meltdown holds at number one, utterly justifying my atheism, but just in case I had any remaining doubt, Benchwarmers opens at number two. This also just drives home how important it is to make the right friends when we’re younger. It’s laid bare for me every time one of Adam Sandler’s crew who have been with him since college gets to make his own movie. Of the friends I still speak with from college (all two of them) my only benefits (and by “benefits” I mean financial, not that love shit) the only thing I may get are free prescriptions from Nice Jewish Doctor (who just had a little baby girl so I guess I gotta haul my ass up to Dartmouth ‘cause I said would when the baby was born). This latest one is directed by his acting teacher, who has been in virtually every movie Sandler has made. It’s also co-written by the buddy who also got to write and star in Grandma’s Boy (but I liked that and I won’t apologize for it). But there were many reasons to avoid this beyond my bitter jealously. First, of all it’s about baseball, which sucks. Secondly, it’s got Rob Schneider in it. Third it’s got Jon Lovitz in it. Three strikes and it’s out of even a remote consideration. I won’t even watch it on cable. And yeah, I’ve never seen Napoleon Dynamite and never plan to and the people who have seen and love it only reinforce that decision. And yes, this includes my baby sister.

DANCE FEVER

Take The Lead Opens at number three and this is a fiction adaptation of the documentary Mad Hot Ballroom, which was about younger kids in New York City public schools being taught ballroom dance, which always struck me as creepy, given how sexual a lot of the dances are. They alleviate this problem by making it about teenagers, then stick one foot completely in shit by feeling the need to “improve” on reality by incorporating hip-hop into it. You know how I hate people who think that putting nuts into food automatically makes it better? That’s how I feel about people who think that way about hip-hop. It does not make everything better and quite frankly fucks a lot of things up, including music (believe it or not a simple musical bridge is possible; Snoop Dogg need not rap every song into the third verse). Then they had to make the kids “bad” for “drama” because we know how boring teenagers are unless they’re all potential criminals. But troubled youth has been making money for Hollywood since Spencer Tracy in Boys Town, so there’s no reason to think they’re going to walk away from a formula that works. But honestly, it was the hip-hop dancing being incorporated into a classical style that ruined this for me, along with the idea they’d be somehow “right” to show up at a competition and use it and anyone opposed to it be “wrong.” Ballroom dancing is hardly the work of the oppressive, white majority. It’s a minority all it’s own of gay men and women who frankly look like hardened hookers (I mean really hardened hookers). You really have no right to invade their little sub-culture with your own. It actually would have been a better idea to have him teach the kids traditional then have them go to a hip-hop competition and incorporate classical moves into hip-hop dancing, which can be many things, but classy and sensual are not two of them. And while playing the adult in a family film (which this is, don’t kid yourself), be it animation or live action is the most obvious step of an actor looking to remain bankable, there are typical roles within that. You can be the distant parent who reestablishes contact with their children via “The Plot Device” (an animal your child bonds with, you switch bodies, your kid gets magical or super powers, etc) or you’re a teacher of misfits that no one else can teach, but somehow you succeed, usually based on a true story. Antonio Banderas tries to take away the stain of a too little, too late Zorro sequel by going back to the Shrek 2 family arena well that saved him two years ago, while simultaneously attempting some street cred. But the pioneer in this was Michelle Pfeiffer who not only did the concerned teacher (with hip-hop street cred), but also the animated film and the horror film. How sad is it that she was pushed to that. She’s talented and beautiful, but never came close to the box office success of the untalented and ferret-like Julia Roberts. That’s gotta hurt. But it reaffirms my belief in that Americans don’t like their stars too pretty because they can’t relate to them. Yeah, George Clooney’s got his Oscar, but he’s never carried a film on his (ironically, he tanked with Michelle Pfeiffer in One Fine Day because that was just too much pretty for one film).

IT COULD SO EASILY HAVE BEEN CHRIS FORD

Inside Man is down to number four and also in this is Chiwetel Ejiofor and hats off to the brutha for keeping it real and not changing his name because you know his agent and manger probably begged him on their knees. You may know him better as the guy Keira Knightly marries in love actually. I know him from a movie called Dirty Pretty things with Audrey Tatou and he was as good in that as he is in this, throwing on a perfect American accent and joining all those Brits who embarrass all American who fail so horribly attempting the reverse, because unlike the Brits, NONE OF THE AMERICANS ARE FUCKING TRAINED! Come on you fucking losers. It’s not like it’s fucking med school or anything. Hell, even Marilyn Monroe took classes.

ONLY KATE BECKINSALE SURVIVED PEARL HARBOR APPARENTLY

Lucky Number Slevin opens at number five and I almost saw this until they showed enormous weakness by changing the ad campaign at the last minute from comedy to straight suspense action and revealing that not only is Josh Hartnett actually a player in the game and not a funny case of mistaken identity, but when he’s walking away from the explosion, Bruce Willis is with him, meaning they’re a team. That killed it for me right there. And you’d think working with Quentin Tarantino would give Bruce Willis some balls about this sort of thing. You never see him pussying out on the ad campaign and Bruce Willis is the 3,000-pound gorilla in this movie. Whatever he says, goes, but I guess he was too busy banging that tsunami-surviving model to pay attention to this (nice to know she’s recovered so nicely from the tragic death of her boyfriend---whose body was sucked out to sea by the storm and never recovered---and making wise decisions with her life). Josh Harnett is trying to make a Heath Ledger like second swipe at the brass ring with a smaller indie-minded type of film. Newsflash, Josh: indie-minded and indie are two entirely different things. Be a man and go kiss some dude. Lucy Liu also makes her attempt to reclaim her title as The Asian Woman In Hollywood from both Sandra Oh and Zhang Ziyi who’ve been sharing it between them (because Sandra Oh is too ugly and Zhang Ziyi can’t speak English well enough for either of them to totally take it).

GEMS IN THE DIRT

Failure to Launch is down to number six, suffering no doubt from its primary audience going to see Friends With Money, and this would have been a better movie had Zooey Deschanel (yes, that’s her hot sister on Bones) played the lead role. Not only is she more age appropriate, but she was funnier. With a rare exception, Sarah Jessica Parker always plays the nice girl (she played a great bitchy crystal-meth loving Marcia Brady type in Till There Was You) and this role required someone a little darker, considering the reason she’s making a living tricking men into falling in love with her because their parents are paying her. As it is, Deschanel plays her roommate who is obsessed with killing a bird outside her window and gets into an argument with a shotgun salesman (played by Rod Courdry of The Daily Show) who won’t sell her a gun for that very purpose. Needless to say, this is the comedic high point of the movie.

GIVING HOPE TO HAGS EVERYWHERE

ATL is down to number seven, followed by V For Vendetta at number eight with Phat Girlz opening at number nine and where do I start? First, I have to give it up to Mo’Nique for not hiding behind euphemisms like “big boned” or voluptuous. She’s fat and she knows it. And the movie is apparently very honest about her living a fat life in, of all places, freaking LA. And I can’t deny her making a movie where she gets a hot guy. Think of how many freaking movies are about fat bastards getting thin girls, mainstream and indie (the latter oddly pretend to be groundbreaking, but groundbreaking would be for them to have the girl say, “I like you, but I can’t get over the man-boobs.”). I’m simply no longer amused by the phonetic spelling of “girlz” and “boyz” that have been the rule in Black films since Boyz N The Hood. But this movie isn’t for everyone and doesn’t give a shit if you’re not its target audience, so they could care less what I think. It cost $1M to make and has made $3M opening weekend. It’s a flat-out success even with the undoubtedly massive bootlegging going on around it. Coupled with the success of her fat girl beauty contest on Oxygen, Fat Chance (yes, it was a success and there will be another), Mo’Nique has taken over the spot where Latifah once stood and is threatening to crossover, which would be bad for Latifah with Hollywood’s “One At A Time Rule” except for a little thing we like to call “class.”

DADDY DIDN’T HELP ME…MUCH

Finally, Thank You For Smoking breaks into the top ten at number ten and recently Jason Reitman and Chris Buckley both talked about what it was like having famous fathers and how it is not the boon people think because the impression is that you’ve had all the breaks. WELL YOU DID, YOU FUCK! At least Chris Buckley points out what Martin Amis told him, what was that anyone would publish his first book because he was Kingsley Amis’s son. It’s the second book that no one would give as shit about if you don’t prove yourself. And that, you spoiled little fuck, is all the difference in the world. Most don’t get that first shot because their daddies aren’t Ivan Reitman or William F. Buckley. Not that either of them doesn’t have some talent, but I don’t want to hear another child of privilege bitching about “It’s not as good as you think.” No, it probably isn’t but it’s still GOOD isn’t it, you little prick!?!

SADLY I CANNOT DESCRIBE ANY OF MY FRIENDS THUSLY

Not breaking the top ten is Friends With Money and Nicole Holofcener is one of my favorite indie writer/directors. I’ve been a fan of hers since Walking & Talking almost ten years ago and if all films about women living their lives were as good as hers, then “chick flick” wouldn’t be the dismissive genre category that it is (is it any surprise that she also directed episodes of Sex & The City and Gilmore Girls?). It was through her that I became a fan of Catherine Keener, who was also in Walking & Talking and her second film, Lovely & Amazing. Her work is mostly “character driven” which is, as we all know, a nice way of saying “no plot” or “talking heads.” In the wrong hands, it’s the kiss of death, but hers are not the wrong hands. This time around the characters are a group of four friends in LA, two of whom are very a comfortable financially screenwriter and a fashion designer, another who is flat out rich and another who is working as a maid, respectively played by Catherine Keener, Frances McDormand, Joan Cusack and Jennifer Anniston, a.k.a. two Academy Award nominees, one winner and the least talented person involved who probably got the whole damn film financed simply because she was in it. In an ironic or perhaps deliberate manner, personal happiness seems to go along with money. Joan Cusack is rich and very happy in her marriage to a funny, loving and sensitive husband. Frances McDormand also has a funny, loving, sensitive husband but is a less rich fashion designer and nursing an odd anger that she unleashes at every tiny injustice she perceives in the world (people who steal parking spaces, inefficient waiters). Catherine Keener is a screenwriter with her husband and has an obviously troubled marriage and Jennifer Anniston is obsessed with a married man whom she once dated and lets Scott Caan bone her without even looking at her in beds of the houses she cleans. Like I said, there’s no real plot to speak of. Just watching these people live their lives and hopefully come to realizations and conclusions about them. Fortunately, Holofcener isn’t for depressing drama so all their circumstances are filled with humor, especially McDormand, whose English husband is believed gay by most, including the gay men who hit on him. His meeting and subsequent “date” with another apparently gay husband is very funny because they both are seemingly so very gay in their every motion (gourmet food, interior designing and designer clothing are everywhere) but not in deed.

SHE’S STILL FUGLY, THOUGH

I hate to admit it, but Tori Spelling’s show Notorious is pretty funny. And I have to give her credit for letting the producers go anywhere. Apparently absolutely nothing is off-limits and the best example of this is in the use of traumatizing flashbacks. In one she‘s to cameo on Charlie’s Angels as a young Farrah, but is switched to Sabrina because “they wanted a pretty girl.” Damn. I cannot believe she didn’t flinch when she read that. And only someone as rich and as established as Aaron Spelling’s daughter could go after Scientology in the second episode with no fear or reprisal. Ironically, this is what Fat Actress tried to be but couldn’t because Scientologists have no sense of humor. Farrah actually cameoed on the first episode, so I’m expecting pretty much who ever owed a paycheck to Aaron Spelling to show up and don’t pretend you don’t need the work, Shannon Dougherty.

WHEN TODD FROM DARTMOUTH FLIPS THAT COLLAR UP, RUN

Death took a holiday and only took some old science fiction makers and Bernard Lacoste. No, he’s not “the” Lacoste. That was his father, Rene, who was a tennis player known as “The Crocodile” so that’s not an alligator on his shirts, but a crocodile. Rene designed the shirt himself, but it was his son who put it on the map and into my life in the 80’s when it took over America, with the collar horrifically flipped up, which is still worn that way by date rapists today. Izod (from Jack Izod, tailor to King George VI) was the company that produced them in America, hence Izod Lacoste. Their contract ended in 1996.

YOU THINK ROBIN WAS PISSED ABOUT THAT “FOUR GREATEST HEROES” LINE?

So, I find this cell phone in the street Friday night and try to return it to the owner who is obviously female (not even gay guys own pink phones). In anyone else’s life this would be the beginning of the best Penthouse letter ever (“She showed up at my apartment with her friend, Vanessa…”), but for me the most entertaining aspect of it was text messaging the most recent she’d contacted that night, telling her I had the phone and could she contact me so I could return it to her friend. The response from “Rachel G”? “Not my friend.” Damn. I mean, you’re obviously in contact with her, you bitch, so can’t you at least help her out with a lost phone? Next I flat out call “Brother Bob” who is her brother, but in Michigan. He then tells me to contact her boyfriend, who is the “Michael” in her contacts list. Michael and I trade phone calls until I meet him on 45th & 8th to return it to “Tamela” who works on 44th (so she’s probably a theater person of some sort so I just should have waited for my roommate). Michael gives me a thank you card from Tamela which would have been enough, but the card is nothing less than a freaking Super Friends card! This greatly amused both The Libertine (who’d I’d been spending the day with) and myself. There was also money in it, which was totally unnecessary and actually tarnishes the act just a little for me. I mean, no good Super Friend accepts a reward, right? Not even Wendy, Marvin and Wonder Dog would take one, right? GEEK TRIVIA: Wendy and Marvin were named for Marv Wolfman and Wendy Pini who are very prominent comic book creators. Wendy Pini co-created Elfquest and Marv Wolfman, aside from writing pretty much every book around at some point, also co-created The New Teen Titans, which is the basic inspiration for the animated show. He also created Blade while he was writing Tomb of Dracula. He sued when the Blade films were made, just as Stan Lee sued over the Spider-man films. The only difference is, Stan Lee won. And if any of this matters to you at all, you’re one sad puppy.

04/3/06

NOT WORTH A FUNNY HEADLINE

Ice Age 2: The Meltdown opens at number one and the first one was bad enough. There was no way I was going to see a second. But it seems it dawned on at least one person that a story centered around the death of a species during one of the harshest periods in the history of the planet itself was a mite depressing for a kid’s film, so the sequel is all about the end of the ice age and they give the woolly mammoth a mate---which isn’t enough to restart a species (this is why Cain and Abel had to get wives out of nowhere) so basically it’s their kids who will die alone. But I don’t know anything beyond that because I could genuinely care less.

SAY IT WITH ME: MONEY CHANGES EVERYTHING

Inside Man is down to number two and this may be the most successful film Spike Lee has ever done. Even adjusted for inflation his biggest hit, Malcolm X, will probably be overtaken by the end of this week, much less the end of this film’s run. While it’s a good movie, the downside is it’s doubtful Spike Lee will learn from the experience and will soon be free to inflict more of his “message” films upon us with a little more economic freedom than he had two weeks ago. Then again, he did leave Brooklyn for the Upper East Side, so once the new checks come in maybe that little voice in his head will be too busy counting to complain.

THANK GOD THEY GAVE UP ON “THE BIG PEACH.” NO, I’M NOT KIDDING.

ATL opens at number one and if you’re over 30 you may not know that the airline code for Atlanta, Georgia was adapted by hip hop as slang for the same thing. For a while it was “The A” but this somehow won out. And while I may be drawn to movies set in New York, because I love seeing New York, I don’t share the same feelings for my hometown. Maybe it’s because New York still seems glamorous to me after all these years, while Atlanta does not. Also, I probably wouldn’t see a movie set in NYC about two brothers (note the spelling: this means two actual siblings) in the hood either. If I don’t want to see Atlanta, I damn sure don’t want to see Atlanta ghetto. I’d say there’d been enough of these movies, but trying to get out of your crappy neighborhood is a Hollywood staple since Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney were doing it from Hell’s Kitchen and the Lower East Side, to John Travolta trying to “hustle” his way out of Bensonhurst. It all depends upon the execution, so this may be good it may not, but I’m going to lean towards the latter based purely on rapper’s headlining the cast. Sorry, but all “TI” means to me is “Talent Ignored” in favor of putting in a popular rapper to get kids in the seats. That Big Boi of Outkast is also in it only confirms this. He can’t act his way out three second speaking parts in his videos but he’s going to be in a film? Samuel L. Jackson has every right to be pissed.

NEXT: SARAH JESSICA PARKER IN MEAN GIRLS 2…AS A STUDENT

Failure To Launch oddly holds at number four suggesting a stronger Sarah Jessica Paker/Matthew McConughey fanbase than any of us knew. The damn thing is approaching $75M domestic with another $8M internationally. It cost $50M so there’s a chance this freaking thing will actually turn a profit by the end, unfortunately encouraging Sarah Jessica Parker to play more roles for which she is far too old.

ELRON/MR. SMITH/V…I LOVE YOU

V For Vendetta is down to number five and Hugo Weaving has secured himself in the hearts and minds of geeks everywhere as much as Natalie Portman. He’s got The Matrix, Lord of the Rings and now this. He could stop work altogether and still make enough money at conventions to send his kids to a good college. But the strain on one’s sanity at looking out over a room filled with 300 virgins who laugh and applaud every time you say “Mr. Andersen” cannot be underestimated.

HOW DARE YOU LAUGH AT FLESH-EATING ZOMBIES FROM SPACE!?!

Stay Alive is down to number six, followed by She’s The Man at number seven and Slither opens at number eight, trying to tap into the comedy/horror genre (an ironic genre since so many comedies are horrible and so many horror movies are comedy), which only works if you try to be horror first and comedy second. When you go for the comedy first the horror crowd feels like you’re mocking them and head into Stay Alive. The Scream films were smart enough to realize this. And you can’t do it much better than Tremors, which flopped theatrically despite good reviews like Slither. But Tremors found success on video and generated two sequels and a series, so maybe that’s where this will find its salvation. I admit I’ll probably watch it when it’s running on cable this time next year. I didn’t go to see The Re-Animator (perhaps the greatest deliberate horror comedy ever) either, but sitting comfortably in my own home it was great.

BASICALLY IT STINKS TOO

The Shaggy Dog is down to number nine with Larry The Cable Guy: Health Inspector and Basic Instinct 2 apparently tying for number ten. Apparently the Sharon Stone Crazy Tour wasn’t enough to get butts in the seats. I’ve told you she was crazy for years, maybe now you’ll believe me. Now, technically this is noir, and there are two types of film noir, one of which I love and one of which I cannot stand. I love hardboiled detective stories and I hate the movies of people rushing headlong into their own destruction. I saw an excellent example of the former this weekend and a crap example of the other. Guess what the crap was? Yes, I saw Basic Instinct 2 and to show you how misguided this movie is, no less than three sex scenes were cut. THREE! What the fuck other purpose does a movie like this serve but so show you sex and they cut three scenes, one of them a threeway!?! These are stupid, stupid people. And it gets worse. Sharon Stone looks good (for her age) but that apparently wasn’t good enough for the idiot producers who, after wasting money shooting then cutting much needed sex scenes, then spent more HAVING THE LINES ON HER FACE DIGITALLY REMOVED. She looked like a something out of Lord of the Rings. Hell, Gollum looked more realistic (and was a better actor and more likely get laid in the end). What’s worse is that, during a close up they mysteriously don’t use the digital effects and there’s nothing wrong with her! If you want to waste money on digital effects, then make her breasts look real. You can make dinosaurs walk, giant monkeys climb skyscrapers and Gollums speak, but you can’t make boobs bounce? The story is immaterial, but basically another guy Sharon Stone was fucking winds up dead and she starts fucking with someone investigating the case and more bodies turn up. If nothing else, they choose nice cities in which to set this crap. This time we’re in London and the open scene where Sharon Stone is speeding the streets while using drugged man’s finger to get herself off is the best scene in the movie. Not for the finger-fucking, but to see a hot car burning through the streets. Yes, that’s how bad this movie is. That’s your erotic high point. Besides, setting a sex movie in England is simply not a wise idea, because these are not the prettiest people on the planet. Throughout you can’t help but wonder just where the hell Hugh Grant and Jude Law came from because the men are so unattractive. And Sharon Stone’s character must be crazy because she keeps fucking them, at one point paying one of them to fuck her! It gets worse. Also in the cast are Charlotte Rampling (who was too hot to be English thirty years ago and still holds on to it) and Indira Varma, who recently smoked her way through Kama Sutra. Do either of them get naked and have sex? Of course not, even though Indira Varma is supposedly sleeping with Sharon Stone. Yes, because god forbid we get a gratuitous sex scene with those two! Apparently two ugly Englishmen talking has mistaken for an erotic act, because you get damn plenty of that. Like a typical self-destructive noir movie, the movie stops the moment the lead character stops doing stupid things, so they try to give you a twist at the end to explain it. It doesn’t work.

FAREWELL, MY SHORTY

Not breaking the top ten is Brick, which is an excellent example of the type of film noir I do like, the hard-boiled gumshoe. In this case, however, it’s been moved to high school and it fits there surprisingly well (if you think about it, Three O’Clock High was a teen DOA). In the place of the hardboiled detective, it’s now the smart, angry outcast who gets a mysterious call from his ex-girlfriend looking for help. Since the movie opens up with him looking at her dead body, you know how it turns out. The rest of the film is him figuring out who, why and seeking out justice. If you’ve ever read Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler or seen The Maltese Falcon or the Big Sleep you’re going to recognize everything in this film. There are at least two scenes that are taken directly from both films and the dialogue is a rapid-fire, retro-style patois, where cops are “bulls” and guys are “saps” and the dangerous girl in your arms is called “angel.” Jason Gordon Leavitt is the Samuel Spade/Phillip Marlowe who is going to find out what happened to his ex no matter what the cost. He talks tough and walks even tougher, made all the more amusing because it’s a total contrast to his skinny, bespectacled appearance. It becomes a running joke that when he’s going to mix it up he takes off his glasses and puts them in the case he carries with him. And he does mix it up (his fight with the star quarterback is hysterical, because he doesn’t so much fight him as he does launch himself at him), though in true private dick style he spends most of his time having the shit beaten out of him. If you’ve ever seen The Glass Key, you’ll recognize how the bad guy’s muscle beating the crap out of him constantly is based on that. At one point the beautiful, mysterious, rich girl (and your detective movie must have one) wants him to rest because he’s swallowed so much of his own blood. Unlike other films, which will use a high school setting and then ignore it, the movie hinges on the existence of social cliques. And there are constant references to homeroom, missing class and a fear of teachers and parents getting involved, despite the fact they are literally dealing with life and death. The local mob boss even lives with his mom, who offers glasses of milk to his soldiers. Though there are cops, the school somewhat represents the authorities here, as in true private dick style, Leavitt has to cut a deal with the Assistant Vice Principal (played by Shaft himself, Richard Roundtree) for 48 hours of non-interference or he goes down for whatever crime he’s looking into. Many have tried and failed to emulate the style of the old movies or even the books, but this movie not only does so successfully, but also does a nice job in transferring it effectively to a new setting. You’ve got a smart tough guy who won’t let it go, a blonde to be protected/avenged, a beautiful, mysterious rich girl who claims to love you but cannot be trusted, a femme fatale working her own angle (Meagan Goode finally putting her looks to good use other than being a piece of ass), a mob boss who respects you, his hired muscle who beats you, the authority breathing down your neck and a capable best friend who gathers the info while you’re in the field. Oh, and you’ve got a fist in the gut ending that would do both The Maltese Falcon and Chinatown proud. This was actually worth going to the Angelika to see, something I swore I’d never do again, but it was the only theater in the city showing it. Bastards.

SOMEWHERE KATIE HOLMES IS REALIZING SHE HAD OTHER CHANCES

If you’re an aspiring starlet tired of starving and working for success, you’ll have a wealth of opportunities to sleep your way into the spotlight this summer thanks a series of recent, high-profile splits. Right now, Babyface, Eddie Murphy, Richie Sambora, Matt LaBlanc and now Russell Simmons (you mean to tell me marrying a man twice your age who tried to fuck all your better-looking model friends before settling with you didn’t work out?) are out and on the prowl and we know middle-aged divorced men with money don’t date middle-aged women. I’m sure Jessica Alba and Scarlett Johansson and living in fear of every ring of their cell phones right about now and experiencing Tom Cruise flashbacks (but in place of his crazy is a Viagra-powered erection). And given that most are bruthas, poor Joy Bryant and Megan Goode are most likely inundated with invitations to dinner to talk about their “careers.” But you don’t have to pursue Lindsay Lohan. If she wants you, you’ll know it, as a recent encounter with George Clooney has revealed. Because he’s actually a real fucking adult man, he turned her down, but how much can you fault her taste? I hate to say it, given my resentment of Older Man/Younger Woman hook-ups, but after emotionally retarded douchebags like Wilma Valderrama, Jared Leto and the lead singer of Maroon Five, she could use an older man. But the biggest beneficiary of all this may actually be Nick Lachey. At 30, he’s the closest thing to “young” out there and after letting “Joey” buy you drinks all night, he’ll probably be the one you leave with.

THINGS WERE ACTUALLY BETTER THEN

This has nothing to do with anything, but I finally figured out who Kirsten Dunst reminds me of: Carol Lynley, who was a teen queen in her own right, part of the Yvette Mimieux, Tuesday Weld trifecta (contrast this with the aesthetically challenged trio of Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles and Mena Suvari who were also all hot at the same time). Only Carol had nice teeth, wore a bra and had no problem getting naked (as any internet search will show you). In fact, Kirstin Dunst could easily be her snaggle-toothed, less attractive granddaughter. Trivia: Carol Lynley had a relationship with Mark Frost for 18 years and was supposed to appear on Twin Peaks as Diane, the voice at the other end of the phone Agent Cooper was always talking to but never did.

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