Oct 09, 2011 at 11:00 am by Jenn

Photo: Ben Stiller and Taran Killam star in the sequel to 'Moneyball,' TINYBALLS

Can you believe it? Another week has come and gone, and we are all that much closer to our deaths. That means it’s time to watch yet another episode of Saturday Night Live! It’s like Icy-Hot salve for the soul. This week’s host? Eddie Murphy Ben Stiller! Surprise!

The cold open is kind of flat and fizzless right up until the arrival Bobby Moynihan (mugging as former presidential contender Chris Christie). The problem with making fun of Mitt Romney being boring is, it can get so boring! In the meantime, Bobby Moynihan has become such a rock-solid castmember. When did he become so reliable, even?

Grade: B-.

Here is where the opening monologue ought to have been, but I didn’t get to see it. Hulu, for some strange reason, didn’t include it in the “full episode,” and NBC.com doesn’t have it, either. (Popwatch recounts the sketch as being an uncomfortable, wince-worthy segment about Ben Stiller, Andy Samberg, and Yom Kippur. Hooohhh boy.)

Monologue grade: INCOMPLETE.

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Oct 09, 2011 at 08:30 am by Jenn

Photo: Paul McCartney with his bride-to-be, Nancy Shevell

That’s right, ladies! The most famous living Beatle is officially off the market as of, er, sometime today.

If you feel out of the loop, you’re not alone. This whole wedding thing has been shrouded in mystery. Sir Paul is marrying fiancée Nancy Shevell, whom the Daily Mail epithets an “American heiress” and, elsewhere, a “millionaire socialite.”

In stark contrast, the New York Observer insists Shevell is hardly the picture of U.S. royalty, describing Shevell instead as a “New Jersey-ite,” “tomboy,” and “trucker girl” (Shevell works for the MTA in New York City and, we are told, only travels by bus).

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Oct 09, 2011 at 07:00 am by Jenn

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann attend the bronze statue's unveiling

On Friday, Arnold Schwarzenegger attended the inauguration of the first-ever museum dedicated to the Triumph of Being Arnold Schwarzenegger. The museum itself is located in the house where Schwarzenegger was born, in the village where Schwarzenegger was born, in Austria—where Schwarzenegger was born.

Actually, the museum first opened its doors in July, but I guess Arnold Schwarzenegger was busy then. The building houses “a sword from Conan the Barbarian,” as well as “a Harley-Davidson motorbike from one of the Terminator films.” (My boyfriend, without consulting any sort of documentation, has identified the motorcycle as a “Fat Boy” from Terminator 2 since, as everyone knows, the Terminator rode a Honda in the first movie.)

Also on display: some of young Schwarzenegger’s barbells, a replica of Governor Schwarzenegger’s gubernatorial desk, and—HOLY GOD, THAT STATUE. THAT STATUE THAT STATUE THAT STATUE. Do you see what I see? THAT STATUE HAS A LITTLE STATUE OF ITS OWN.

P.S. I am so bad with headlines. I waffle. This time, my headline was very nearly “True Thighs: Schwarzenegger’s Bronze Statue Unveiled.” Either that, or a pretty obvious joke about Commando. Ugh, I really struggled with this! It’s like trying to pick a child.

Image via “Schwarzenegger unveils statue of himself at museum in Austria” from the Los Angeles Times.

Oct 09, 2011 at 05:30 am by Jenn

Photo: Adele on September 6, receiving the Mercury Award for Album of the Year

A few days ago, Adele took to her blog to explain exactly why all her U.S. tour dates have been canceled. (She’d first rescheduled in June, midway through her U.S. tour, and—as Vulture puts it—”once again, she’s not coming.”)

In her blog, Adele explains that, in January, her voice became “weaker and weaker until it eventually ‘broke.’” Try as she might, Adele was never quite able to regain her voice’s “complete strength,” she writes.

And as for the canceled dates in June?

I was in Minneapolis, which was about halfway through the tour. I made a Skype call in the morning on the day of the show, and during it, my voice suddenly switched off like a light! It was literally as if someone pulled a curtain over my throat.

She went on to perform in Denver, during which she felt “what I can only describe as something ripping in my throat.” But this isn’t a simple case of laryngitis—otolaryngologists diagnosed Adele with a “vocal hemorrhage,” she writes, “which is like a black eye on the vocal cord.”

The Wall Street Journal‘s Speakeasy did a little investigative legwork, and sure enough, a hemorrhage in the vocal folds will typically produce “instantaneous hoarseness,” explains Kenneth Altman of Mount Sinai.

Bleurgh, and there’s more.

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Oct 08, 2011 at 12:00 pm by Jenn

Photo: Patricia Arquette disabled her Facebook after a scary altercation with a fan

I think I type “oh, no!” a lot without really meaning it, but this time I do mean it: OH NO!

Recently, Patricia Arquette deleted her Facebook account. She explained in a final Wall Post:

The [social] experiment was… Could a celebrity actually friend strangers and get to know them as a person? Just a regular person. Could you really become friends? Could you move past all that they had in their mind about you and actually show them the real you?

Oh, no. Although we don’t know why Arquette deactivated her account, odds are good that she encountered either a stalker or a major creepazoid. (The NY Daily News reports only that a lengthy Facebook communication had gone wrong, and Arquette’s own security team became involved.)

I feel terrible for the woman. For one, she’s my favorite Arquette—although that’s admittedly a slim line, because I love all the Arquette siblings. And I feel so sorry that she experienced this. But anyone with a sizable online/media presence—from celebrities to Z-list bloggers to tween-aged girls—is susceptible to violent, ill-intentioned weirdos. Hence all those Dateline episodes.

In the end, it seems as if Arquette thought of the Internet as the WELL (sorry, obscure) when the truth is, any ol’ sociopath can have a Facebook account. I mean, duh: didn’t Patricia watch The Social Network? That movie was all about sociopaths.

Oct 08, 2011 at 10:00 am by Jenn

Photo: Nancy Grace on September 23, 2011

How carefully have you been following the Nancy Grace saga on Dancing with the Stars? That lady has awful luck. First her bosom flagrantly burst from her corset-style top; of course Ms. Grace insisted that viewers had only seen a pastie, rather than a nipple. But we all know the truth.

Next, myriad fans claim to have heard Nancy Grace ‘let ‘er rip’ on the October 3 episode of the dance competition. You be the judge! (For my own part, I think it sounds like a slightly gaseous tummy rumble, but TMZ’s audio is definitely clearer than the original opinion-forming video I first watched.)

Oh, Nancy. Deny, deny, deny.

Now, a group of flatulophilliacs—that is, a ‘farting fetish’ fan club—is asking Ms. Grace for licensing rights to the three-second clip of Grace’s toot. And they sent her a letter, too. The letter concluded,

Passing gas is as natural as breathing, and our members are waiting with baited [sic] breath.

Here are some Very Important Fart Facts (link possibly NSFW):

- Why do farts smell so awful? Hydrogen sulfide gas and mercaptans combine to produce the distinct odor of sulfur (AKA rotting eggs; brimstone). Meat and cauliflower will make your ‘bottom burps’ all the more colorful. Also, “the longer a fart is held in, the larger the proportion of inert nitrogen it contains.” Look out!

- Most gas directly results from “swallowed air.”

- Supposedly—although I suddenly can’t find any real substantiation for this—every human emits the same amount of gas daily. Which means that, if you are the type who carefully holds her gas in all day at work, you very likely poot in your sleep. Oh, no!