Karl BATMAN BEGINS AT MIDNIGHT:
It's currently rating 85 percent on the Tomatometer, though the “elite” opinion listed there is only at 50 percent. Roger Ebert gives it four stars: “I said this is the Batman movie I've been waiting for; more correctly, this is the movie I did not realize I was waiting for, because I didn't realize that more emphasis on story and character and less emphasis on high-tech action was just what was needed. The movie works dramatically in addition to being an entertainment. There's something to it.” WARNING: The full Ebert has some spoilers! Harry Knowles, who can be tough on Batman movies, says much the same: “This is the BATMAN movie we’ve been dreaming of for a long time.”
As Batman Begins it was shot in part in Chicago, often right in the area where Sylvia Hauser and I work (scroll down at the link for a map), I can offer you these exclusive photos taken by my co-clerk Debbie of the cars we would see parked nearby last summer…
ON THE PITCHFORK: Art Brut's Bang Bang Rock & Roll rates a 9.5 (and it seems to be drawing similar raves from a number of places). You can legally download a few of their tunes at their website, as well as covers of “Always on My Mind” and “I Fought The Law.” (FWIW, I preferred the former to the latter.)
LIVE 8: After an intervention from Peter Gabriel, Sir Bob Geldof adds Africa acts to the Scottish leg of the concert event.
DESTINY'S CHILD: Done.
RADIO BIRDMAN gets a little tribute at the Something Old, Something New blog.
FOO FIGHTERS: You can stream their new album and an exclusive interview with Dave Grohl from the band's MySpace page.
GANG OF FOUR, THE RAVEONETTES and more have been playing KEXP for your listening pleasure.
PETE DOHERTY UPDATE: The troubled ex-Libertines singer gets kicked off a yacht because he kept asking for tin foil. This follows his galpal Kate Moss' dazed and confused acceptance of an award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America on Monday.
ELVIS PRESLEY not a King in the bedroom, according to Peggy Lipton. Imho, based on her appearance and reputation, it would be hard to blame Lipton for any performance issues. A powerful anti-drug message.
ROCK IS DEAD, according to UK broadcaster Jeremy Clarkson (not to mention Pete Townshend and Lenny Kravitz). But on the heels of a Roxy Music reunion concert, Clarkson still seems to have quite the man-crush on Bryan Ferry.
RON WOOD will paint the Naked Chef's naked wife.
MOTOWN'S NEW CEO is trying hard not to freak out over the fact that Stevie Wonder can't seem to deliver his album on time.
JACKO JUSTICE: You may have heard that Michael Jackson was acquitted of molestation and other charges. O.J. Simpson and Robert Blake were unavailable for comment. Jackson is now expected to work on restructuring his finances in an attempt to retain ownership of his his valuable music publishing businesses. Indeed, if Jackson is unable to generate income by releasing new music or performing live concerts, he will have to count on the income that he receives from those publishing assets to pay the interest on the outstanding loans.
CELEB GOSSIP: The New York Times notes that a deluge of celebrity-centered magazines has quickly changed how the niche operates.
HOTEL HIJINX: ABC News catalogs celebrity misbehavior in luxury hotels. Sadly, the only rocker discussed at length is Courtney Love, with no mention of Keith Moon's highlight reel or Led Zeppelin's infamous “Red Snapper” incident.
JESSICA SIMPSON'S CREEPY DAD is still creepy, managing to make her daughter look bad in comparison to the likes of Lindsay Lohan.
THE FRENCH HOTEL claims she will give up her public life in two years. She also claims that the she was embarrassed and humiliated that her sex tape — which coincidentally hit the internet just before the start of her reality series — ever became public. Because she's just not the sort of girl who flashes a crowd anytime someone suggests it. Nevertheless, she may have millions of reasons for wanting to have a child right away.
TOM-KAT UPDATE: Dreamworks exec goes on the record with concerns the Cruise-Holmes affair will damage War of the Worlds. Holmes confirms that she's studying Scientology. In response to a question about whether he'd asked Holmes not to do “Factory Girl” — about Edie Sedgwick and Andy Warhol — because of the drug use in the movie, Cruise says: “I don't even know what 'Factory Girl' is.” So an earlier rumor that Cruise was helping Katie research Edie was wrong or Tom isn't playing it straight. Possibly both.
KING MSWATI III of Swaziland took an 18-year-old former Miss Teen Swaziland finalist as his 12th wife during the weekend, barely two weeks after marrying his 11th. Number 11 was controversial also, plus you'll want to read up on how the King picks 'em.
JIFFY-SURG! 3,800 patients at two hospitals run by Duke University Health System were operated on last year with instruments that were washed in hydraulic fluid instead of detergent.
LUST IS QUITE DIFFERENT FROM LOVE, now proven scientifically.
KIDS KICKED OUT OF THE HOUSE: A passerby found a 12-year-old boy and his 6-year-old sister walking along a highway near Marchfield, Missouri. The kids were dragging suitcases, shopping bags and garbage bags full of clothing. They were about a quarter of a mile from their home, scared, crying and hungry. Police say the children said their mom awakened them and told them to pack and leave immediately. The kids say their mother gave them 5 dollars and went back to sleep.
DANICA McKELLAR went to college after The Wonder Years. Now she's a mathematician, co-author of a proof of an original math theorem and on the cover of Stuff magazine.
ALICIA SILVERSTONE married her long-time boyfriend last Saturday in Lake Tahoe.
IRAQ: Following Friday's Washington Post article on the sorry state of one Iraqi unit, an article in The New York Times has a more mixed assessment of progress in training Iraqi units. The story is headlined “As Iraqi Army Trains, Word in the Field Is It May Take Years,” though there are no quotes to this effect in the body of the story.
IRAQ II: A new Gallup poll shows nearly six in ten Americans say the United States should withdraw some or all of its troops from Iraq. Meanwhile, Arthur Chrenkoff's regular round-up of under-reported good news, includes polling data showing that two-thirds of Iraqis believe their country is headed in the right direction, with the percentage of Sunnis holding that view rising from 11 percent to 40 percent since January. For some reason, Iraqis' perception of how things are going there seem to differ from Americans' perception. Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) intends to introduce legislation seeking a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, which would probably have greater impact if he was not also the guy who got French fries renamed “freedom fries” in Capitol Hill's cafeterias in March 2003.
IRAQ III: The story which may get the most attention in the coming days, however, is the Knight-Ridder piece quoting top U.S. military officials in Iraq concluding that the only way to end the guerilla war is through Iraqi politics. Capt. Jason Van Steenwyk of the Florida National Guard, who served in Iraq from May 2003 to February 2004, writes that “I’ve never met an officer in my life who didn’t think that the decisive point in the counterinsurgency was political, not military,” then links to several entries from his blog making this exact point. The military effort is necessary, but not sufficient by itself, which is why the poll mentioned in the previous item showing increasing Sunni support for the direction of Iraq, communications with Sunni insurgents, and continued haggling over the number of Sunnis to be involved in drafting the new constitution are so important.
HUNTER S. THOMPSON: The late writer has inspired a microbrewery to produce Gonzo Imperial Porter, complete with labels by longtime Thompson collaborator Ralph Steadman. A dollar from the sale of each case will go towards building the Gonzo Memorial Fist in Aspen.
CATCH HIM IF YOU CAN: A 31 year-old serial impostor who passed himself off for a month as a 15 year-old schoolboy is being questioned by police in France. Frederic Bourdin is nicknamed “the Chameleon,” but “Babyface” would be more alliterative.
PODCASTING extends to old-time radio shows.
GRIEVING 9/11 WIDOW was given millions of dollars — including 2.1 million from the Federal Victim Compensation Fund — and has blown almost all of it already.
CHINA is grappling with peasant revolts.
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA head Williamm Schultz now argues that it's okay to call Camp X-Ray at Gitmo a “gulag” because “Amnesty got more media time to discuss US detention policies in the past three weeks than we have in the past three years.” Apparently, it's okay to lie for a supposed good cause… unless you're the Bush Administration, which regularly gets accused of having done so with regard to Iraq. Also, Mr. Shultz claims that “Amnesty International understands the difference in magnitude between forcing millions into labor camps where tens of thousands starved, and illegally imprisoning and sometimes abusing prisoners in US detention.” Millions died in the Soviet Gulag; Amnesty's apparent amnesia on this point may explain why they persist in defending this grotesquely offensive trope. Mr. Shultz adds, “Amnesty truly is an international organization with members in more than 100 countries and, whether we in the US think it an appropriate historic reference or not, 'gulag' truly is how much of the rest of the world perceives US detention practices.” Apparently, Mr. Schultz's mother never gave him the talk entitled, “If all your friends wanted to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you?”
BRADGELINA UPDATE: Jolie's former assistant is shopping a screenplay based on the Hollywood beauty's tempestuous marriage and subsequent split from director and actor Billy Bob Thornton, though it sounds like names may have been changed.
RUSSELL CROWE'S phone-throwing incident caused the White House to cancel a screening and overnighter for the Aussie actor.
GOV. AHNULD SCHWARZENEGGER has called a special election for November to try to change the way California spends money, picks its politicians and hires its teachers. His poll numbers have been down lately; maybe he sees this as a way to pump… them up. After all, these are issues on which he campaigned as a reformer.
SCARLETT JOHANSSON tells Playboy her big fantasy is to romp in the back seat of a car, calling it “crazy and kinky and sexy.” As fantasies go, that's about one notch above Sally Albright's faceless man.
LIBERALS IN THE MEDIA need to lighten up. At least that's the suggestion implicitly offered by Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz and explicitly made by Vanity Fair contributing editor Michael Wolff.
ENDANGERED TORTOISES RESCUED from a man who wanted to turn them into soup.
A CLEVER SHEEP (that most dangerous of animals) been spared the slaughterhouse after a daring James Bond-style escape from a Welsh farm.
GATOR GOES SIDEWAYS, invades California wine country. The local woman who discovered it began hollering that she had a big lizard or something in her backyard.
