Sarah
Silverman and Jerry O’Connell’s videos, Movies This Week, “Penelope”,
Mega Bubble Show at Planet Hollywood, Toxic Audio at the V Theater,
Charity Gala for Lou Ruvo Brain Institute, What’s In A Name?, and
more...
If you haven’t seen Jerry
O’Connell’s hilarious, genius, and brilliant spot-on spoof of Tom
Cruise’s Scientology Video (Cruise says, among many things, “We are the
authorities on getting people off drugs, we are the authorities on the
mind, we are the authorities on improving conditions… we can
rehabilitate criminals.”) on FunnyOrDie.com, then you must take a few
minutes to see comedian Sarah Silverman’s video gift to her late-night
host boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel commemorating his 5th anniversary on ABC-TV.
Sarah’s music video is called “I’m F**king Matt
Damon.” It’s fabulous!
Tom Cruise Scientology:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFBZ_uAbxS0
Jerry O’Connell:
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/3f716ffebe
Sarah Silverman:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KUowJzpgxs
“George A. Romero’s Dairy of the Dead” (NO), “Fool’s Gold” (FLUFF), “The
Eye” (YES), “Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show” (YES), “Penelope”
(YES) and “In Bruges” (YES).
A redacted re-cap of my posted review: “Penelope” puts to rest the adage
“A face only a mother could love” because beauty trumps everything. You
are only ugly if you are poor and a nobody. Remember old man Aristotle
Onassis? He brought a wife who was the most famous woman in the world.
(Jacqueline Kennedy’s friend Eileen Slocum said: “He resembles a frog.”)
What about morbidly obese (and lady’s man) Mexican artist Diego Rivera?
Christina Onassis brought all her husbands, as did plain-faced heiresses
Barbara Hutton and Doris Duke.
Why
do I bring up these dead people? Because Penelope (Christina Ricci) is a
wealthy aristocrat who lives in a fairy tale palace doted on by her
parents and servants. They indulge every whim since they have never
allowed Penelope to go outside. Her parents consider her a monster since
she is the product of a family curse. She has a cute pig’s nose and
ears. Any mother would have said, “Penelope, I love your nose. And look
on the bright side. You’re not fat.”
In the real world, appropriate suitors would be
pounding at Penelope’s door since one kiss and an “I Do” is said to lift
the curse. If it doesn’t work, there is always the guaranteed
inheritance.
Her
parents raised Penelope like Lord Siddhartha. He fled the gilded cage
and we all know what happened afterwards.
Penelope’s mother Jessica is the real villain of this
piece. Hey! She is not to blame but is disgraced and shamed of her only
child. She constantly humiliates her daughter and insists on a parade of
socially acceptable men (only one of her own kind can lift the curse) to
meet Penelope. One look at Penelope and they jump out of a seven-story
window!
Remember
when E.T. went out on Halloween? Couldn’t Penelope have worn a burqa or
niqab like a million other women?
Did you ever see the Old Masters painting of Italian
cardinals? They were proud of their prominent noses!
Because of the media assault, Jessica decided to fake
Penelope’s death. Penelope was hidden away in splendid isolation but
hunted after by a midget journalist who doesn’t feel any sympathy for
Penelope. When a broke aristocrat cracks up at the sight of Penelope, he
teams up with the journalist to expose the pig-faced girl. They find
another penniless aristocrat, Max (McAvoy), to get a suitor “audition”
and surreptitiously take a photo of Penelope. Max is a degenerate
gambler who likes to lose.
The constant shame Penelope faces from her mother and
the suitors leads Penelope to put a scarf over the bottom half of her
face and venture outside!
WOW! The sky is blue and the world is filled with
people who pass her right by!
This semi-charming tale, if only the mother-daughter
relationship had been re-figured, is wonderful to look at and, yes, I
did shed a tear. You will also.
It’s all because of James McAvoy. So this is why he
is being hailed as a likely Sexiest Man Alive! His previous film roles –
and I’m even counting “Atonement” – have not done him justice. He is
very sexy, charming, and downright fabulous here. The production is so
wonderful you want to say, ‘Penelope, you are better off at home in your
colorfully-built dollhouse. Take your father’s advice and get a puppy to
love.”
Except for the horrible mother, “Penelope” does send
a heart-warming message to young girls, though it is a fantasy no girl
over 5 years old would go along with. Stores are selling bras for
toddlers and by the time a girl is 5, she’s on a diet and saving up for
Botox.
Magician Steve Wyrick proudly introduced (and was
friendly at the reception with the guests) Multi-Guinness Book World
Record holder Fan Yang at the Grand Opening VIP Night for a new show,
"Mega Bubble Show," at the Steve Wyrick Theatre in the Miracle Mile
Shops on February 8th. The updated version of the Gazillion Bubble Show
is all about bubbles. Fan Yang turns bubbles into a new field of
artistry. He creates bubbles within bubbles, smoking bubbles, spinning,
bouncing, floating bubbles, and bubbles that hold people. I had a
life-size photo – in my full length mink – taken inside a rainbow
colored bubble!
The children in the audience loved the show and
special bubble makers are available for purchase. I got enough
bubble-making liquid to have a Valentine’s Day party for two. Tickets
for The Mega Bubble Show can be ordered by visiting
www.SteveWyrickTheatre.com or by calling 702-777-9974. Running time
is 70 minutes with no intermission.
Next up on the pre-party and show circuit was Toxic Audio
at producer David Saxe’s V Theater at Planet Hollywood. The five member
group performs a highly entertaining mix of musical genres and highly
enjoyable comedy. You are told that Toxic Audio uses absolutely no music
or electronic tricks – all the “music” is produced by human voices.
David Saxe has brought this off-Broadway hit to Las
Vegas. Toxic Audio was the winner of the prestigious Drama Desk Award
for “The Most Unique Theatrical Experience in America.” It was also
voted No. 1 on the Wall Street Journal/ Zagat Theater Survey. Show
Times: 9 p.m. Friday - Wednesday. Prices: $53.90 Adult G/A, $64.90 Adult
VIP, $73.90 Adult G/A with Dinner and $84.90 Adult VIP with Dinner.
http://www.varietytheater.com/
On Saturday, February 9th The
12th Annual Keep Memory Alive Foundation charity gala to benefit the Lou
Ruvo Brain Institute was held at The Pavilion at MGM Grand. In
attendance was a fabulous array of celebrities and stars, including
Frank Gehry (he designed the wavy complex pictured).
After the Red Carpet Arrivals there was a Silent
Auction Reception followed by a world-class dinner prepared by culinary
legends Wolfgang Puck, Tom Colicchio and Guy Savoy. The evening’s
festivities included a live auction featuring such fabulous items as a
trip to Italy with Mario Batali (who recently completed a cooking show
in Spain with Gwyneth Platrow), dinner in New York City with Soprano
stars Lorraine Bracco and Steve Schirripa, private tennis lessons with
Andre Agassi and Steffi Graff, a Mercedes SLR McLaren Roadster, a
walk-on role to the television series 24, tickets to the 2008 Grammy’s
and much more.
I would have happily bid big for a spot on Survivor
17 (see next week’s column for my plea to be on Survivor).
Keep Memory Alive, supporting the mission of the Lou
Ruvo Brain Institute, is a Las Vegas based nonprofit organization
dedicated to the fight against Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s,
ALS, and Memory Disorders.
http://www.keepmemoryalive.org/
This naming game has been bothering me. Comets are
named after their discoverers (see Shoemaker-Levy Comet). Two
independent observers, Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp, were jointly
recognized for discovering the ancient comet at the same time! While
Hale had spent four hundred plus hours searching for comets without
finding one, Bopp didn’t even own a telescope!
Hale must have been furious but, since billing is
always fought over, he got top billing on the comet.
Bopp was out with friends near Stanfield, Arizona
observing star clusters and galaxies when he chanced across the comet
while at the eyepiece of his friend's telescope. He realized he might
have spotted something new and contacted the Central Bureau of
Astronomical Telegrams via telegram. Comets are traditionally seen as a
bad omen. As Comet Hale-Bopp reached its brightest point, Bopp's brother
and sister-in-law were killed in a car accident after photographing the
comet. "This has been the best week of my life. And the worst," he said.
Barnard's Star was named in honor of Edward Emerson
Bernard (1857-1923), its discoverer. This red dwarf star has several
claims to fame. It is currently the second closest star to the Sun at
5.96 light years.
Then there’s the naming of diseases and cures after
the discovers, such as the Salk Vaccine. However, the best why to get
something named after you is to think up a mathematical riddle. You
don’t need to solve it, just pose it. There are lots of “conjectures”:
The Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture, the Hodge Conjecture, and the
Poincaré Conjecture. Offer up a hypothesis and they name it after you -
The Riemann Hypothesis. Let’s not leave out a theory - The Yang-Mills
Theory.
So why is the collection of thirteen ancient
codices, containing over fifty texts and discovered in Egypt in 1945,
known as the Nag Hammadi Library? This immensely important discovery
includes a large number of primary Gnostic scriptures including the
Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, and the Gospel of Truth.
Why wasn’t this discovery named after the man who
found it?
The Dead Sea Scrolls, consist of roughly 900
documents, including texts from the Hebrew Bible, were discovered
between 1947 and 1956 in eleven caves in and around the Wadi Qumran in
the West Bank.
http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/deadsea.scrolls.exhibit/Library/library.html
It
is generally accepted that a Bedouin goat- or sheep-herder made the
first discovery toward the beginning of 1947. In the most commonly told
story a shepherd threw a rock into a cave in an attempt to drive out a
missing animal under his care. The shattering sound of pottery drew him
into the cave, where he found several ancient jars containing scrolls
wrapped in linen.
I am on a campaign to re-name the Nag Hammadi Library
collection “The Mohammed Ali Samman Codices” (no photo of the discoverer
available on Google Images!) and the Dead Sea Scrolls “The Mohammed
Ahmed el-Hamed Scrolls” (I hunted around and found this image, but not
sure if el-Hamed is even pictured. Is that his mother who used some of
the scrolls to build a fire?)
http://www.webcom.com/gnosis/naghamm/nhl.html
The 4th IASC, organized by Alan Shoemaker, will be held
again in the shamanic center of the Upper Amazon in Iquitos, Peru from
July 19 to 27, 2008. This 4th Amazonian Shamanism Conference will be
opened by the illustrious visionary scientist, Dr. Dennis Mckenna
(pictured). Other Presenters (with more confirming soon) are Dr. Richard
Grossman, master of sound healing; Peter Gorman, the Indiana Jones of
Amazon Shamanism and noted journalist; Dr. Frank Echenhofer, scientific
researcher on brain states while taking ayahuasca (pictured); and Dr.
Pablo Amaringo, the Amazon's most famous visionary painter. Invited but
not confirmed yet is Melvin Morse, M.D. who will discuss his research
into children’s near-death experiences as well as his research on Myths.
There
will be approximately 15 different curanderos (shamans) giving
presentations (all will be translated into English).
During the Conference Presentations you will have
ample opportunities to hear the many shamans speaking alone and in panel
discussions. You will be able to decide which healer you would like to
be in Ceremony with. There are three evenings set aside for Ceremony
with the curandero or your choice. All Ceremonies are held outside of
Iquitos, either up or downriver or outside Iquitos to Nauta highway and
then a short 15 minute walk into the various Compounds.
For those that have never been in Ceremony before, a
workshop will be held by Dr. Richard Grossman and Alan Shoemaker. All of
your questions can be adequately answered. The Ceremonies offered are
completely voluntary and not in any way a prerequisite of attending the
Conference.
The Conference website is:
www.soga-del-alma.org. You can contact Alan directly at
alanshoemaker@hotmail.com.
