Obama picks Jeff Bridges

I'm as dismissive of the presidential campaign as you are (at least until they actually start debating), but I have decided who I'm going to vote for. I base this not on the fact that one guy is sane and the other insane, but that one guy chose Jeff Bridges when asked for his favorite movie president. From a Q&A with Entertainment Weekly:

Who's your favorite movie or TV president?
You know who was a great movie president? Jeff Bridges in the Contender. That was a great movie president. He was charming and essentially an honorable person, but there was a rogue about him. The way he would order sandwiches — he was good at that.

That is the correct answer, senator. You have my vote. McCain picked Dennis Haysbert from "24," which is a copout on several levels.

Stephen King should be fired

Here's how I imagine Stephen King composes his monthly column for Entertainment Weekly: He sits at his desk in Maine, thinks for a moment, opens the window and farts in the direction of Manhattan, where EW's editors inhale each fart with open nostrils, exhale them in mason jars without protest, somehow convert them to the page, and distribute them to us.

Stephen: You stink. Kindly resign your post. Your columns are uninspired, meandering, dull -- everything your longer prose is not.

It's worth noting that King is a kind man, a dutiful philanthropist, a wonderful fiction writer, the author of one of my favorite books ("The Green Mile") and progenitor of a couple good movies (The Shining, The Shawshank Redemption). But he has no business being a columnist, a role he's played for EW since 2003. King has run out of things to say on the magazine's back page although, really, I'm not sure he had anything to say in the first place.

What broke me was his latest column, irresistably headlined "Cool and the Gang." It consists of his normal blah-blah stream of consciousness directed at a truly, deeply asinine topic: What Is Cool and What Is Not (and it doesn't help that he's mostly wrong in making the distinction). I'm sure the editors at EW are thinking this stuff is valuable because it provides readers with a neat little window into King's thoughts on pop culture ("Look, a marquee name ruminating on the excruciating minutiae of our times!") and, yes, if written with some wit and vigor, even the most banal topics can be alchemized into gold. But King doesn't do that. His writing level (in column format) is on par with a semi-talented high school newspaper writer. He is squandering the privilege of having a primo spot in a well-read entertainment magazine. It's irresponsible.

I was an intern at EW almost three years ago and had a grand time (swag! free food! corner cubicle overlooking Time Square!), even though it introduced me to some truly baffling egos and convinced me that working for a corporate entertainment mag was not my dream job (I'll never forget being admonished after I voiced my opinions during a story brainstorming session -- a session I was invited to but, apparently, was not supposed to participate in, given the strict system of hierarchy at Broadway and 52nd). I even tied Stephen King in the office Oscar pool. But that's where our agreement ended, as did my intractable love for the magazine. I am actually considering cancelling my subscription after eight years, if only because the one good thing about the magazine (see next paragraph) is something I can just get online.

It's some consolation that King must share the back page with Mark Harris, one of the founders of EW, its former editor-at-large and, before he left to work on books, the office's sole voice of reason and true wit (at least from what I observed during my five months there). Harris recently started a column called The Final Cut, which eloquently and urgently places current entertainment into a contextual perspective that the rest of the magazine (and the industry) lacks.

Then again, both King and Harris also share the back page with EW senior writer Dalton Ross, whose faux-goofball writing style annoys the living f*ck out of me. I'll gladly read King's drivel before I subject myself to Dalton's dreck, but I'd rather just read Harris every week.

Integriwatch: Alien not Alien 3

Because I can't think of anything better to post about, here's this: Thomas Haden Church, the fun actor who's marooned with a poorly formed (literally) character in Spider-Man 3, is interviewed in the Spotlight section of the most recent Entertainment Weekly. He says Ridley Scott's 1979 masterpiece Alien is the movie that made him want to break into Hollywood. EW accompanies this declaration with a photo from 1992's Alien3 (pictured). How does a mistake like this happen? (I've been a little perturbed about the old rag recently, but can you blame me? "Heroes" on the most recent cover? "Heroes"?)

Speaking of Ripley: June 12 is The Film Experience's Action Heroine Blog-a-thon. I'll have my arms elbow-deep in the intellectual muck of gender and genre (genrder?). My topic? No, not my beloved Sigourney (though I'd love to watch the Alien quadrilogy in one sitting). Instead, I'll examine the women of the Indiana Jones films. Allen. Capshaw. Doody. (Ha, doody.) Get ready for a barnburner.

$how bu$ine$$

Item 1. Letterman introduced Nicolas Cage Wednesday night as an actor whose films have made $3 billion worldwide. Not as the man who made Moonstruck, Leaving Las Vegas and Adaptation (each a shining achievement in their respective decades), but as an actor who can really rake in the dough.

Item 2. For the past couple years, the content of my ex-favorite magazine and ex-employer, Entertainment Weekly, has revolved not around film quality (as it did during its infancy in the early '90s) but around box office. All its newsy articles are fixated on predicting or analyzing a film's floppage or blockbuster capacity -- not delineating why something sucked or why it was great and what it means for the medium and the culture.

The point: Culturalists are talking too much about movies and movie people in terms of dollars. I know the film industry is a business; money must be made, and the financial success of a movie can serve as a kind of cultural barometer. But Letterman isn't Sherry Lansing and EW isn't Variety. Let's keep our eye on the ball, folks. I understand there are corporate interests at work here, but Letterman on TV and EW in print and on the Web have tremendous power to point people to quality material. If only they were using that power for good.

Cover girls: Meryl to Charlize

The Newsweek cover is from Jan. 7, 1980. Meryl, blonde, the rather academic headshot radiating classic beauty and classical training. Inside, an analytical think piece: five consecutive, text-heavy pages uninterrupted by ads. "A Star for the '80s: Meryl Streep," by Jack Kroll and others.

The issue of Entertainment Weekly is dated Oct. 28, 2005. Charlize, blonde, wearing only a pillow, apparently, and exuding centerfold lustiness. Inside, a Q&A: six pages, two consisting entirely of photos focused on her limbs. "Charlize Gets Dirty," by Josh Rottenberg.

What a fun difference a quarter century has wrought in the magazine industry's coverage of major film actors. Granted, different magazines and different readerships, but I'm ready to take Charlize as seriously as Meryl across the board. Charlize is our star for the '00s and beyond, regardless of how the media present her.

In each cover story, Ms. Streep and Ms. Theron are 30 years old. In two months, Meryl will win her first Oscar (for Kramer vs. Kramer), in three years her second (for Sophie's Choice). Charlize won hers a year and a half ago (for Monster), will be nominated again this January (for North Country).

The Newsweek story details Meryl's rise through the Yale School of Drama and the waves she sent through New York theatre. Joe Papp, who hired her for the Public Theatre after graduation, is quoted:

There are only a few people around I would call pure actors. Meryl is one. That means the entire body is an instrument that is used to constantly serve the character. You can see it in her face. I've seen her cheeks get red, so that you can see the internal thing through her skin, which means that there's a total emotional involvement in the situation. And she takes tremendous risks, both physical and emotional.

Watch Monster and North Country, and see that Charlize is cut from the same cloth, which is kind of fascinating. Theron grew up in South Africa, moved to Hollywood at 18 to model and look for a big break. She was discovered in line at the bank, mingled in bimbo second-banana roles for a couple years, then shocked everyone with Monster.

Neither saw success coming, or even wanted it to come. Meryl "didn't think [acting] was a legitimate way to carry on your life." Charlize says in EW, "It's not like I was a little girl going, 'I want to be an actress.' This had kind of found me." And neither has lived the life of a shooting star. Meryl got married in '78 and has stayed married. Charlize has had one steady boyfriend throughout her rise. They are not wild, or reckless with money, or whatever. In short, the tabloids are powerless to distract the public from their abilities. They may enjoy the spoils of fame, but they are in it for the work.

Both women's reserve of talent is deep and wide in front of that great equalizer, the camera lens. Meryl has cemented hers over a long career of celebrated roles. With North Country, you can see already how lasting Charlize's work will be. It's even more impactful than Meryl's, in some ways. Did we ever see Meryl do something as ferocious and fearless as Monster? Or even North Country? Perhaps in Silkwood.

Perhaps. But I always see Meryl Streep in Meryl's performances. She's very much a Katharine Hepburn in that respect -- a great actor and movie star, but also very present in her roles.

But Charlize disappears. Yes, it was with the aid of heavy makeup in Monster. But in North Country, it's just a wig. The rest is some gritty, instinctive, teeth-clamping acting. Thirty-year-old Meryl could've pulled of the role of Josey Aimes without a problem. For sure. It would've been a dignified and true performance. But it wouldn't have worked for me. Why? I dunno.

I'm sure if you were to put Charlize on a Broadway stage, she'd go flat faster than a Steinway in Death Valley. Film is a tricky performance medium, and you either have it or you've had it. Meryl and Charlize have it in different ways, but they both command the screen. They are both stars and actors. Meryl has survived almost 30 years. I think she and Charlize will command the next 30 together. The movies are lucky to have that kind of varied continuum.

I'm not just a moneymaking machine. There have been some offers, but I just didn't feel ready to spend eight months on a film set. Not one day goes by where I go, "Oh, fuck, what am I missing out on?" I love my life as much as my work. I don't want one to take over the other. Charlize Theron, Entertainmently Weekly, 10/28/05

I feel pulled in a lot of different directions but I haven't shattered yet. I feel that I've made commitments professionally, to my marriage, to my baby, to the community. ... Everyone should put their life on the line according to their art, because everything else is easy. Meryl Streep, Newsweek, 1/7/80