Rambo…..and friends.

 

Sylvester Stallone doesn't get older. He only gets more wrinkles. Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the jungle...or wherever, here comes Rambo: Last Blood.

And it looks like Rocky may be coming back as well. This time as a trainer for Apollo Creed's Grandson.

No word on if Gabe Walker will be climbing Mt. Everest in the near future. Come to think of it, I think Michelle Joyner may still be falling and hasn't landed as of yet. There may still be time for Gabe to race down the mountain to catch her, but only if he hurries.

If you've never seen Cliffhanger you'll have no idea what I'm talking about so that's on you.

Variety:

After months of speculation, Sylvester Stallone has finally announced the title for the fifth (and seemingly final) “Rambo” movie, “Rambo: Last Blood.”

The actor simply tweeted earlier this week that he’ll be filming a gangster biopic about Gregory “the Grim Reaper” Scarpa after shooting “Rambo: Last Blood.”
Seven years have passed since Stallone last reprised the role of Vietnam vet John Rambo. The last film, “Rambo,” earned $113 million worldwide.

Since 2008, he’s talked about both retiring the character (who first appeared in David Morrell’s 1972 novel “First Blood”) for good and bringing him back for a last hurrah. Stallone apparently decided on the latter as he’ll be writing and directing and “Rambo: Last Blood,” in addition to starring in the film.

Stallone will be returning to another familiar franchise this month. He also tweeted that he’s headed to Philadelphia to play Rocky Balboa for the seventh time in director Ryan Coogler’s “Creed.” He’ll play the trainer of Apollo Creed’s grandson, portrayed by Michael B. Jordan. Coogler last directed Jordan in 2013’s critically acclaimed “Fruitvale Station.”

Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid? Dead Men Walking? Weekend at Clementes? D.O.A.?

So, you’re a grave digger.  Your assignment:  Dig up the grave of a one of your patrons so it can be extended so that the deceased man’s recently departed wife can be tossed in there to keep the guy company whether he wants her there or not.  For all we know, she may have been an old nag who sent him to an early grave.

So an uncle and a niece show up, you dig the old guy up, and they decide that since they are having this family reunion anyway, why not make it the photo-op of a lifetime?  Not all of us have that opportunity, so I say, go for it.

From The New York Daily News expressing their own faux outrage:

A Spanish gravedigger has been suspended after a creepy picture of him posing with an exhumed corpse went viral.

The cemetery worker reportedly dug up the body of a man who'd died 23 years ago so his recently deceased wife could be added to the family tomb. But when he opened the crypt he discovered that the man's body had become mummified and was still practically intact.

Rather than break up the body so another corpse could fit into the same space straight away, he decided to contact members of the deceased man's family.

His nephew and niece arrived — and the woman took a photograph of her dead relative standing next to the digger and her living relation.

The niece is then believed to have sent the snap to another family member via messaging service WhatsApp. It then quickly spread and was posted on several different social media sites, reports The Local.

What do I think?  I think it’s perfectly genuine and those who are expressing outrage should just take it elsewhere.  I mean, can one really be horrified over an actual dead corpse after watching live walking zombies on The Walking Dead for the past four years? 

If it was any old Tom, Dick, or Harry, off the street you might have a point.  But since it was the relatives, why not have your Kodak moment even though the once largest maker of film and cameras is deader than your departed uncle.  It’s almost poetic.  And share your joy with the world, on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or in this case, What’s App?  You now have a Christmas Card insert for all of eternity.

You’ve also made your uncle more famous than he ever was or hoped to be when he had a heartbeat, so why not let him hang around for a while and enjoy all the cool gadgets we didn’t have when he keeled over two decades ago? 

I mean, sit him on the couch and let him watch that 70 inch flat screen while you play your blu-ray copy of Weekend At Bernie’s you have in your library and he’ll feel right at home.  Not only that, when you do watch The Walking Dead, you’ll have your own movie prop right there with you.

And hey, maybe you can get him booked on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon?  He’d be the perfect guest considering how dead that show has been since Fallon took over.

As for myself, if twenty-three years after I’m gone, some relative wants to dig me up and post my picture on a billboard or whatever, that’s fine with me.  If they are still having that family reunion thingy back there every summer, you can take me along and we’ll have a meet and greet.  Let’s Party.

Robert Downey Jr.: No Ironman 4 “in the pipe.”

So as coincidence would have it, after last night's movie musical clip of Heart & Souls (see my Facebook page for that) comes this bit of news. 

Robert Downey Jr. says there is no Iron Man 4 in the pipe, although he has finished filming Avengers: Age of Ultron  and is signed for the follow-up.  And after the enormous amount of money he signed for to do those two films, I doubt if he needs the cash.  If they want him to do another, they may have to mortgage the Studio.  The ball is in his park, not theirs, and that’s the way it should be.  I don’t think the series would have gotten to where it was without Robert Downey Jr.

From Variety:

Don’t hold your breath, Tony Stark fans.

In a new interview with Variety, Robert Downey Jr. shot down speculation about a fourth “Iron Man” movie. 

“There isn’t one in the pipe,” Downey said. “No, there’s no plan for a fourth ‘Iron Man.'”

The actor, in Toronto to promote his new film “The Judge,” signed with Marvel and Disney for two “Avengers” sequels, which hit theaters summer 2015 and 2018, but has been reluctant to commit to any more superhero films.

When asked if he would “let” somebody else play Tony Stark, Downey laughed off the idea.

“I like that the idea is that it would be up to me, like I’m casting director for Marvel,” he said.

“Don’t give it to anybody else,” his “Judge” costar Robert Duvall advised.

Like the article states, don’t hold your breath.  Use the Variety link to read more and also link to info about Downey’s new movie, “The Judge.”

Cloud Files Hacked, Nude Photos Appear of Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, and others.

One of the actresses, initially denied the pictures were of her.  That's the worst thing you can do.  It's like trying to hide the fact that you did something wrong.

None of these ladies did anything wrong.  Should they have been more careful in regards to where they put these?  It's hard to say.

I keep files in the cloud, but not anything anybody would really care about or bother with. 

But a person should expect a certain amount of privacy, security, and safety from companies like Google, Apple, and Amazon.  And if they can't provide that privacy and protection, then it's best to use some common sense and discretion in regards to what you keep in the cloud.

As I mentioned earlier though, with these companies offering free cloud service for photographs, you may not even know that your private pictures are being uploaded if you accidentally authorized the service or did it without knowing what you were agreeing to.

Variety:

Nude photos of “Hunger Games” star Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Ariana Grande and Kirsten Dunst, among others, leaked online Sunday morning in one of the biggest celebrity hacking scandals in recent memory. The images, which first appeared on image sharing site 4chan, show most of the celebrities nude or in provocative poses. A spokesperson for Lawrence confirmed the images were of the Oscar-winning actress and blasted the hackers for their “flagrant violation of privacy.” “The authorities have been contacted and will prosecute anyone who posts the stolen photos of Jennifer Lawrence,” her representative warned.

So, a developing story. What makes this different is the fact that so many accounts were hacked and exposed, and if they were all kept by the same service, be it Apple or whomever, it will not be good for them. My advice: As soon as it is confirmed which company was hacked, I'd find other places to put my files and cancel the account. And remember: Don't put any personal information be it pictures or documents in the cloud. Use an external hard drive.

Oscars 2014: In The End, None of it Matters

Wolf of Wall Street was the most daring, most interesting, best acted,  movie of 2013.  Nothing will deter me from firmly believing that.  Catching Fire received marvelous reviews, but as usual crowd pleasing money makers are often ignored.  It was second on my list last year.

Third was Gravity, but as I have said, the margin of preference between the three is miniscule. 

No doubt that 12 Years A Slave is a good film.  Yes slavery, racism, and discrimination, are terrible and I know that as well if not better than any film maker who wants to hammer me over the head with that fact. I crusade against the terrible injustices of this world constantly.  But when you get down to it, wasn’t 12 Years really just Roots on Violent Steroids? 

How many times do we have to be hit over the head with the fact that slavery is bad, discrimination is bad, and racism is bad at the Oscars?  It seems to become an annual event and starting from that premise results in an automatic nomination, whether the quality of the film is deserving or not.  And after a while, the constant drumbeat waters down the message. 

Conservatives will never be convinced.  Red States continue to act like they won the Civil War and Lincoln never existed.  Everybody else already gets it and you’re preaching to the choir.  But just as they did by proclaiming Crash over Brokeback Mountain as the winner, voters again took the safe easy route and gave the Best Picture not to the best film, but again to what they deem the best film that is most relevant.  Don’t go out on a limb, Hollywood.

The real purpose of giving the Best Picture Award to a film topic  straight out of the let’s be topical safe zone was never more evident when they chose Alfonso Cuaron as best director,  gave Gravity six other awards, then turned around and ignored it  completely for the big enchilada. 

Sandra Bullock was way better in this film than she was in the one she won for The Blind Side.  It doesn't ad up, and for me the whole charade has become a crushing bore if not a yearly joke. Let’s give racism an award so we can ignore it the other 364 days of the year. 

And please let Cate Blanchett’s award be the end of Hollywood’s perpetual ass kissing of the pedophile known as Woody Allen.  Every defender of this miscreant that says there was no evidence of molestation can only make that statement when they completely ignore the findings at the custody hearing.  They conveniently get a memory lapse time after time after time as if the transcript and judge’s decision never existed at all.  As I said on my Facebook page, what Blanchett should have said was “I thank Woody Allen on behalf of all pedophiles everywhere that are under represented in Hollywood.”

And on top of that, he’s overrated as a director.  His movies are nothing more than a hodgepodge in which he caters to his own inner psychotic neurosis hoping to use Hollywood as his psychiatric treatment instead of paying for an analyst.

These are just a few of the many reasons why the Oscars shouldn't mean diddily squat to you or me.  People will still watch to gaze at the hoopla and celebrities, but they have become so stodgy and snobby that the influence they actually have is now minimal despite how many tune into see this mess.  I mean, it’s an event.  But so was the Super Bowl and it was a crushing bore this year as well. 

From the New Yorker:

With very few exceptions (most notably Christoph Waltz, Whoopi Goldberg, Bill Murray, and the duo of Jamie Foxx and Jessica Biel), the presenters seemed zombified, reading their cue cards with an engagement and an enthusiasm compared to which the nightly reports of an average weatherperson seem Brando-esque. And it’s not because they’re bad actors—on the contrary, some of my favorite contemporary performers were onstage distributing statues—but because the tone, set from on high, was petrified, in both senses. I don’t entirely blame Ellen DeGeneres for the course of the evening. I don’t know enough about the parcelling out of power backstage to know how guided or vetted she was by the producers—whether the writers were hers or imposed upon her. But, having accepted the job, she seems, at the very least, to have accepted the regulations, and she toed the line with a dutiful eagerness in a desperate cause; she worked hard to maintain a show of good cheer and good times while being denied the freewheeling disinhibition that goes with real comedy. It was mainly the undue exertions that came through.

The nadir was the pizza; the synthetic spontaneity of the non-event brought to mind Andy Kaufman, whose genius I miss all the time and whose ability to mesh the nostalgic bathos of a pizza party with the edge of chaos would have made him a formidable, historic Oscar host. And to top off the pizza’s unfunniness came DeGeneres’s passing of the hat to pay for it, about which Emily Gould aptly tweeted, “amounts of money that are consequential to most people mean nothing to us, they are literally a joke! ha ha ha.”

In a brief interview in the backstage shadows, after the red carpet and before the main event, one of the two producers of the festivities (I can’t remember whether it was Craig Zadan or Neil Meron) likened the show to tightrope walking and called himself a good tightrope walker. So he may be, but this event was all net; it started in the safety zone and never got aloft……….

……………..There are the movies, and that’s where the far end of the bell curve is served. The fact that the best movies went home empty-handed—“The Wolf of Wall Street” and “Nebraska”—is beside the point. If my own internal audio-meter is to be trusted, two of the biggest rounds of applause and cheers of the night went to Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill, for their performances in Martin Scorsese’s movie. Taking nothing away from the honorable but conventional performances by McConaughey and Leto, the house of peers seemed to know where the magic lay.

That its magicians were even on hand for the festivities, watching others collect statues, is itself a source of wonder. The movie has already passed into the future history of the cinema, and it will be watched with admiration and astonishment when the petty personality politics of the ceremony have passed into welcome oblivion. In the meantime, bring on the four-hour director’s cut of “Wolf” (and may it have a little theatrical run to coincide with the DVD release).

And if you want a list of the winners, here they are.

Snake Bit

I had never heard of this show until now.  But it's the typical reality b.s. for stupid people with mini-minds and zero thought process. 

It would be almost ridiculously hilarious reading National  Geographic's excuses and nonsense for putting people like James Coots and those like him on the air, if the real reasons weren't so blatantly obvious. 

They do it for the ratings, to attract viewers who will remain perpetually ignorant and watch any garbage out there.

National Geographic:  "He died doing what he believed was his calling."

No he didn't.  He died because he was a blooming idiot.  And the more we glorify idiots such as James Coots  or the phony bearded bums from Dork Dynasty, the stupider people in this country become. 

I guess it's no surprise at all that he's from the state of Kentucky, home of the Creationist Museum.  Where else would he be from?

Coots claimed it was their first amendment right to play with snakes.  It's also his right to be brain damaged.  And guess what Coots, it's also your right to be totally, unequivocally dead.

From Deadline Hollywood:

Jamie Coots, one of the stars of National Geographic‘s reality show Snake Salvation, died Saturday of a poisonous snake bite. According to reports he refused medical attention after being bitten in his Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name in Middlesboro, Kentucky and died shortly thereafter in his home. The show debuted last Fall centered on two Pentecostal preachers who handle deadly snakes as part of a century-old Appalachian practice originating from a Bible passage that suggests those anointed by God will not be harmed by a poisonous snake bite. Coots had previously been bitten nine times and lost a finger to a rattlesnake bite. He starred on Snake Salvation alongside Tennessee Pastor Andrew Hamblin, both of whom claim serpent handling is their First Amendment religious right. The pair have come under fire from authorities for hunting and collecting deadly snakes for their church services. Last year Coots pled guilty to illegally possessing and transporting three rattlesnakes and two copperheads in Tennessee after the state seized them in a traffic stop as he was driving them from Alabama to Kentucky.

Hollywood’s Never Ending Love Affair With Woody Allen, The Molester, Makes Me Want To Puke

 

I will never understand Hollywood's love affair with Woody Allen the Molester.  But even if you put that bit of nasty history aside, most of his movies are self indulgent exercises in endless psycho babble tedium.  Oh don't worry, every time I criticize your highness, someone from the Hollywood School of Elite Snobbery surfaces to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about.  But whatever.

By my way of thinking, Annie Hall to this day remains one of the most over praised ridiculous best picture winners in the history of the Academy Awards.   

From Think Progress:

The next summer, Orth wrote “after disappearing with Allen in Mia’s Connecticut country house and reappearing without underpants, Dylan told her mother that Allen had stuck his finger up her vagina and kissed her all over in the attic.” Allen has denied her charges, and staff at Yale-New Haven Hospital and Connecticut state investigators split on whether Dylan was a credible witness. Ultimately, charges weren’t filed against Allen, though a number of investigators believed Dylan.

It’s true that Allen hasn’t been convicted of anything, but it remains an incredibly ugly part of his history that, until Orth’s piece, had faded in the public memory, eclipsed by Allen’s affair with and marriage to Soon-Yi Previn, Farrow’s daughter, which has become the placeholder for the sexually queasy air that surrounds Allen. But his legal innocence doesn’t mean that anyone’s required to like Allen, or that it’s not incredibly jarring to see a public tribute to him that completely ignores the profound discomfort many people feel about Allen’s personal life and that has affected the way they see his work.

 

There's much more to the article, some of which I don't agree with. But whatever side you come down on, I think it's high time we quit honoring sleazeballs in this country. If Woody Allen wants to make movies, he has that right. But there is no reason to continually shower him with awards while forgetting what kind of a person her really is. But in Uh-merica, it seems to be coming a habit.

Remembering Annette: October 22, 1942 – April 8, 2013

When I made this post regarding the passing of Annette Funicello, I promised I would have more to write regarding her life and my own personal feelings about it.  It took me a lot longer than I thought to write this, because I decided to write up a review of one of her films to post with it, something I couldn’t do for Roger Ebert.  I’ll be posting that review later.

Some celebrity deaths sadden me more than others.  That was the case with Roger Ebert.  When Annette Funicello passed away just four days after Ebert, it was the second celebrity death within a week that deeply saddened me.

Annette hadn’t made a feature film since 1986, but yet I felt as if she had never left us.  She made many appearances as herself, on news shows and talk shows in the years that followed in an effort to bring awareness to the disease that inflicted her and was slowly disabling her.  That disease was Multiple Sclerosis. 

I kind of felt a kinship to her.  I was once diagnosed as possibly having that MS.  It’s a diagnoses that has never been actually confirmed, or refuted.  And that’s the problem with MS.  It’s not easily detected in its initial stages, and much of the time it is extremely difficult to pinpoint.  Those who have the disease often go years without realizing they have it because the severity of MS is inconsistent.  Annette’s bout with M.S. was one of a worst case scenario.

But that’s not the only reason her death affected me more than say Jonathan Winters who also passed away recently.  If you were a child in the fifties and sixties, and a teen in the mid sixties to the early seventies, you grew up with Annette.

The Mickey Mouse Club is one of my earliest and strongest television memories.  I can even remember my sisters trying to convince me to give it up on certain days so that they could watch the Gold Cup Matinee late afternoon movie on one of the other two channels we were blessed with.  Most of the time they would lie to me about who was in the movie they were wanting to watch by naming every one of the super hero and cartoon characters I worshipped.    A couple of times it worked, but I soon caught on to the game and then it didn’t.  I wasn’t a complete dunce, even at five and six years old.

The Mouse Club eventually disappeared, was rerun a couple of times then appeared for a while on the Disney Channel when it first made it’s debut on cable.  The show may have become dated, but I never have outgrown it.   When the Disney Channel became just another one of 500 commercial channels in the vast cable wasteland, that was the end of not only the original Mouse Club, but many of the other catalogue films from Disney’s vast TV Library sent to the vault to probably suffer a slow death from indifference.  No room for a classic Disney channel, but we do get Disney XD, Tune Disney, and Disney Jr.  Whooppee!   

There was a reason why Annette’s star shone brighter than those of the other Mousketeers who were all talented in their own way.  What attracted you to Annette was this aura of friendliness that made you just flat out like her.  She was the original Italian Santa Claus.  She was just brimming with wholesome goodness.

You may have never met her, but you just knew there wasn’t a mean bone in this girl’s body.  Annette was the gal you wanted to be your sister instead of the ones you got stuck with.  No offense to my siblings, but that’s just the way it was.

She was super photogenic, and could act, but she was  often better than the material she was given to work with.  She was good in Spin and Marty, but in her own serial Annette, she and the whole cast were hampered by a really crappy script.  I’m not talking about the storyline either.  That worked.  But those poor kids were saddled with some of the weeniest stilted dialogue ever forced upon anybody, let alone teenagers of any decade.  Uncle Walt should have known better. 


But when you’re a kid, you didn’t care about that stuff.  Probably not even the acting.  I mean, this was Annette, and she had her own serial, and that’s all that mattered.


When she guest starred on Make Room For Daddy (aka The Danny Thomas Show) as Gina Minelli and on Zorro as Anita Campillo, you made an extra effort to seek those shows out just because it was Annette.  In Make Room For Daddy, it was her first real attempt at straight comedy, and she did it beautifully.  Likewise, she was able to slightly extend her dramatic legs in her appearances on Zorro which she appeared in twice as two different characters.  When she did The Horsemasters for World  of Disney, you watched it and watched it again when they would rerun it.

I never was a big fan of the Beach Party Movies.   I guess I just expected more from my movies then what those offered.  But since they were a big part of Annette’s career, I revisited Beach Party and will offer up my take on that sooner rather than later.  Probably the worst thing about the Beach Party films, is that they put the nail in the coffin of the younger actors involved of ever being given a chance to do more theatrically.  Which is quite a shame.

I just recently caught up with  Fireball 500 and Thunder Alley.  Both were better films than the Beach Party movies, and given the chance, Annette was able to prove that she could handle a dramatic role.  But by that time, nobody was paying attention, wholesomeness was a thing of the past,  and after havin made bookoo bucks for American International Pictures, Annette was cast aside.   She was relegated from that point on to mostly guest star roles on TV series.  She deserved better.

I watched her do a rare dramatic story on The Love Boat recently, a show that was known more for it’s comedy then drama.  It reminded  me of the fact that she was a lot more talented actress than some were willing to give her credit for.  I don’t know if she minded that fact.  If Annette did, she never appeared to, but you would have to ask those who actually knew her.  Actress Shelley Fabares, who met Annette while doing a small part in her Mouse Club serial, remained her lifelong friend, and says Annette was the real deal.

I do know one thing, choosy mothers may have chosen Jif, but Annette used Skippy and that was good enough for most of us.

But her sense of humor about herself was always apparent.  She never shied away from poking fun at her image or herself.  She had fun with it when she did an episode of Growing Pains in which she played an overzealous Goody Two-shoes Uptight Repressed Teacher.  After that, both Frankie and Annette returned to the big screen to star in and co-produce the film Back to the Beach, a very under-appreciate, misunderstood satirical film that was much better than it was given credit for at the time and has now become a cult classic. 

Somebody uploaded it to YouTube, so it’s there now (as of 5-12-2013) but undoubtedly not for long which is why I don’t link to it.  I linked to the Zorro video up against my better judgment and you can find the rest of the episode on YouTube as well.  It would be well worth your time to hurry and seek out Back to the Beach along with the Zorro episode and any others you can find.  Other than that, it’s $9.99 to buy the instant viewing at Amazon (you own it unless or until the license is revoked), or you pay a fortune for the now out of print disc.  I chose the 9.99 option.

But the Annette/Frankie comeback was short lived.  It was during the filming of Back to the Beach and while doing a follow up tour with Frankie Avalon that she was diagnosed with M.S.  Three years later she would go public with the disease in an attempt to bring more awareness to MS and to help raise funds through the Annette Funicello Research Funds For Neurological Diseases.  So on top of all her other attributes, you can add bravery to the list.

Maybe I’m too old and cynical, but I doubt if today’s young audiences would ever understand the allure of someone like Annette Funicello.  I can think of no 21st Century equivalent that connects to their audience on a personal level or has a relationship with their fans in the same way. 

Many of the things Annette did early in her career are getting harder to find.  Much of the fault of that lies with the Disney Studios and current ownership, who are sticklers for copyright adherence while at the same time leaving many of their catalog titles in the vault they claim to be so fond of to waste away since there doesn’t seem to be enough profit in these films and shows for them to bother with any longer.   If you can’t mass market them to today’s kids, why market them at all is the new Disney philosophy.

I was hoping they would be part of their deal with Netflix, but that hasn’t happened either.   But that’s a topic for later discussion and I’ll leave it  for now except that it would be a crime if the early works of an icon such as Annette Funicello are left to wither on the vine.

I hope someday those who didn’t grow up with Mickey Mouse Club or saw her in the Beach Films, will take the time to understand who she was, and why she had such a lasting impact on so many of us who grew up in that era.   I only wish I could revisit her early work myself at some point, but I’m not getting any younger and when you get to be my age, you’re not in a demographic that really matters to corporate suits.

Disney placed an obituary for Annette up on this page in which they list her accomplishments.  Maybe now would be the time to do something more than just pay her lip service.  Release her World of Disney films from your library, donate the proceeds to the charity she left behind would be a start.  And yes, Merlin Jones, Shaggy Dog, and Monkey’s Uncle are all readily available, but all have also been given shabby DVD treatment as has become par for the course when it comes to Disney and their catalog titles.

The video below is a a look at Annette through the years in film and television, along with a few publicity shots and a few personal pictures.    About 95 per cent of the stills come from my own personal DVD collection, the rest come from the web.  It runs about nine minutes, but I hope you’ll watch and if perhaps get a small sampling of who she was and what she gave to so many.  The world was a better place with Annette Funicello, but it is a sadder place without her.
(Best viewed at full screen)

Remembrances of Annette by eazyguy1952

Sylvia Browne–Dead Wrong (video)

A couple of days ago I placed a meme on my Facebook page that had originated on Reddit.  Sometimes I’m lucky if I get 10 views of anything I put up on my Clyde’s Stuff Facebook page (although the numbers are increasing steadily since I’ve gotten back to my blog).  As of today, this meme on my page now has well over 1,000 views.

The meme (seen below) was of Sylvia Browne, the psychic who has made a career for herself by going on TV (mainly the Montel Williams show), flipping a coin and telling family members if their missing loved ones were alive or dead.  I say flipping a coin because she probably would be just as accurate using that method as any pertaining to any mind reading ability she has. 


Some people swear by her abilities.  To me, anybody who claims to be psychic is blowing smoke up your butt.  I just think it’s all hooey, just as I think the whole business of ghosts, goblins, reincarnations, and entities from the other side is as Scrooge said, “more about gravy than of grave.”  As it says towards the end of this video, “Psychic wins lottery again says no one ever.”

I read a review of one of her books on Amazon.  Seems the reviewer was a bit disappointed that after having paid Browne $700 for an 18 minute reading, none of her predictions came true. 

You don’t say!  My advice:  If you’re going to pay that kind of cash to a psychic, put it in a slot machine or buy lottery tickets with it.  You’ll probably get more for your money than stuffing it in Browne’s purse, or donating it to someone like Pat Robertson who boldly told all that God had assured him Mitt Romney would win the election

Not only did God inform Robertson that “Romney will win” but that he will be a two-term president who presides over a huge economic boom. Robertson even told Romney to save him a ticket for the inauguration: “I told Mitt a long time ago, I called him and said listen, I’ve been in prayer and number one you’re going to win the nomination and number two you’re going to win the general election, he said ‘well what can I do for you,’ I said give me a seat on the platform during your inauguration, give me a ticket to your inauguration.” “The Lord said he’s going to have a second term, I told him there will be to be trillions of dollars coming into the economy when you’re elected,” Robertson continued, “the stock market ought to boom, everything ought to boom.” This all deeply reassured Hinn who said that Robertson was conveying “God’s voice.”.

Pat Robertson also told his mindless flock to beware of false prophets.  Now that may be the best advice he has ever given.

As for Sylvia Browne, she now has  the biggest screw up of her long seemingly endless phony career and I’m sure you’ve probably heard about it by now.  Browne told Louwanna Miller, the mother of Amanda Berry, one of the three women who escaped from her kidnapper in Cleveland after being held for ten years, that she was dead.  A year after that, Amanda’s mother was dead of pancreatitis, still unaware that her daughter was alive.  (Here is the original news story)

It’s easy to say that Amanda’s mother shouldn’t have put her faith in some publicity seeking talk show phony, but when you have loved ones disappear off the face of the earth with no clues left behind, I’m sure that you’ll try anything and leave no stone unturned in an effort to find that person, no matter how many flimsy straws you may be grabbing at.

But whenever anybody  has invoked the abilities of Sylvia Browne around me over the years, I usually end up laughing about it. 

But I shouldn’t have.  Phony psychics like Sylvia Browne are no laughing matter.  They cause more pain and more grief to people who are already suffering tremendous agony, and there’s nothing funny about that at all.  And those gullible masses who promote and make stars out of these charlatans, are every bit as guilty as Miss Browne, and let’s not forget that.

Here’s the video from CNN and ABC:

 

Reese Witherspoon’s Mea Culpa

After making an ass of herself during a drunk driving arrest in Atlanta a couple of weeks ago, Reece Witherspoon meekly trots herself out to This Week so that she can offer up her true confession to George Stephanopoulos. Here's my take on it.

Her and her  husband were arrested as anybody would be or should be.  More so him then her.  He could have killed someone.

But not everybody would have their drunken spree make headlines across the country.

Okay, so it's over and done with. And her name is no longer Mud but I guess her movie with Matthew McConaughey is.

I guess it comes down to this: I'm sorry, I'll never do it again, I made an ass of myself, now go see my damn movie because it's great and I'm great. What is my take?

I really don't care. Unless it becomes a habit. The apology is nothing more than damage control and there's nothing wrong with that. For Joe Nobody, would any person care that he got a DWI and made an ass of himself?   Unless he killed somebody, certainly within the realm of possibility for any drunk driver.  Even Reese Witherspoon's husband.

So yeah, forgive and forget. Mostly just forget it.

That being said there is one thing I will never forgive Reese Witherspoon for.  Nor will I ever forget it. That's an atrocity foisted on the American Public called Sweet Home Alabama. Yech!

 

Mommie Dearest 2011

 

Ah, nothing like cutting the cord in a big legal battle with your money grubbing mother.  Can you imagine this conversation:

Mommie Dearest:  I need some of your millions to fix my poor  face.

Leighton:  There isn’t enough money in the world to fix your ugly fucking mug, Mommie Dearest.

Hollywood Reporter:

It seems Leighton Meester is living out a real-life version of Gossip Girl.

Last week, the CW star filed a lawsuit against her mother, Constance Meester, alleging that she diverted money that Leighton had sent for her brother’s care for her own plastic surgery.

Now, Constance has filed her own lawsuit, claiming that she "sacrificed her happiness" to support Leighton's acting career, E! News reported.

Constance claims that she paid out a total of $230,000 over the years for Leighton to attend private school and acting classes.

Faye Dunaway ought to drive over and smack both of ‘em with a wire hanger.