Thursday, April 9, 2009

Best written smackdown...ever? Well, in a long time.

Not a lot of people know this, but Roger Ebert is an absolute master of the written smackdown. Not just the world's foremost movie critic, but also a scathing wit who has delivered some of the greatest jabs against those with inflated egos of all time. (The title of one of his books, Your Movie Sucks, is taken from perhaps the greatest of them all, his slam of Rob Schneider for Deuce Bigalow.) Now, he has come up with yet another brilliant smackdown of another inflated egomaniac, Bill O'Reilly. Love O'Reilly (and I hope you don't) or hate him, you must read this:


http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090407/COMMENTARY/904079997/-1/RSS


References to Conrad Black are nice and poignant, but Squeaky the Mouse? Fantastic.

Monday, April 6, 2009

More Genie photos. And exactly what is wrong with the Genies and the people covering them. Yes, I include myself among their number.





















This couple showed up on the red carpet. Immediately, people began talking to the guy in the fur coat - no one in Canada, and few in the media, know what any of the stars at the Genies actually look like, so they asked him who he was. His name is Biz, it turns out, and he is a rapper from Montreal. They said, of the woman beside him, "is this your girlfriend?" and he said no, she is just a friend, also from Montreal. And he then had his picture taken by everyone, with everyone, including Larry O'Brien. The girl patiently waited, off to the side, while Biz did his thing in his fur coat, then accompanied him down the red carpet until they reached the backstage area.

Here is "Biz"'s just-friend, not-girlfriend, Chloe Bourgeois. She is standing with Yves-Christian Fournier, who has just accepted the Claude Jutra award for directing his first feature film, the magnificent Tout Est Parfait. Which starred Chloe Bourgeois, in a fantastic performance. And no one interviewed her.
I must admit, I fell into the category of the rest of the media, who largely ignored Ms. Bourgeois. I saw her in the film, but she looked nothing like she did on the red carpet, and I did not recognize her. I am kicking myself now, because she is one of the few people there I would love to have interviewed. Then again, I clearly wasn't alone. Besides, the guy she was with was wearing a fur coat!