The Doctor in the Hallway News Report 01.17.07

Posted by Ben Moser on 01.17.2007

For the high brow reader, I take a look at the Golden Globes. For the low brow reader, I look at the future of porn. For the reader with only one brow up, how do you do that?

Enter, Wilkommen, Bienvenue, Come in...to The Doctor in the Hallway News Report!

By the time this column sees interweb space, it will be too late. American Idol will have inexplicably premiered to huge numbers, since the shodenfreuda audience is clearly the #1 demographic in all the land. At what point will America be tired of watching Randy and Paula make those hilarious "boy, this sure is bad [dog]" faces? At what point will America be tired of Angry British Guy trying desperately to find more elaborate ways to tell people they're terrible even as those same people try to find more creative ways to be just terrible enough to make it onto TV in hopes that their particular lack of talent will be the one that gets launched into 15 minutes of fame? At what point will America be tired of a televised karaoke contest?

Speaking of contests, some awards were handed out Monday night leaving a lot of news on the table. So let's get to it.

Globing praise

I had four hours of 24 to watch, so I skipped the show itself. The only thing I was able to pull from what the morning show drive time DJ's in the greater Raleigh area really had to say about the show itself is that Selma Hayek's boobs have seemingly each become their own celebrity independent of Hayek herself. I do, however, have a rundown of winners which I have researched just for you. Because I'm extra nice, I'll even throw in my thoughts on each winner.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION: Jeremy Irons- Elizabeth I

For some reason, I'm always bummed out when Thomas Hayden Church doesn't win something. On the other hand, I like seeing Jeremy Piven have to stay in his seat. Call it a wash.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION: Emily Blunt - Gideon's Daughter

I can't say enough about how amazing and charming Sarah Paulson has been for Studio 60, but didn't at all watch Gideon's Daughter. So let's just assume that Blunt was even more amazing and even more charming so my feelings aren't hurt.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION: Bill Nighy - Gideon's Daughter

Okay, now I'm beginning to feel as though I might have missed something.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION: Helen Mirren - Elizabeth I

I honestly thought that being nominated twice in this category would hurt her and leave room for the Gillian Anderson upset. I underestimated just how much people seem to love Elizabeth I.

BEST MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION: Elizabeth I

See? They love it.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL: Alec Baldwin - 30 Rock

Zach Braff, Tony Shalhoub, or Jason Lee could each have easily won this. Steve Carrell, by all beliefs in a just and loving God, should have won this(I keep forgetting that a just and loving God probably has more on His plate than an awards show). All that said, I cannot entirely disagree with this choice. Baldwin has been nothing short of hilarious in 30 Rock.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES –COMEDY OR MUSICAL: America Ferrera - Ugly Betty

On New Year's Day, the Soap Opera Network ran a marathon of Ugly Betty which sucked my fiancee in something fierce. I watched enough to know that America Ferrera is absolutely adorable in this show. Seriously, they'll be marketing Ugly Betty stuffed toys for small children to cuddle soon. That's just how adorable she is in that role. Good for the Globes for recognizing that rather than the tired Desperate Housewives show that even has be bored of Felicity Huffman and the incredibly lame hack-job that is The New Adventures of Old Christine.

BEST TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL: Ugly Betty

On the one hand: EAT IT, Entourage, EAT IT!

On the other hand: The Office is far and away the best show on television right now. By the way, it's light years beyond the British series that spawned it.

On the third hand: Now I get to wait for pretentious dicks everywhere to proclaim "The Colombian version is better."

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA : Hugh Laurie - House

I watched some House DVD's over Christmas. I don't really get the appeal, but it's not like the competition outside of Keifer Southerland was fierce. I've come to accept that 24 isn't an actor's playground anyway.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA: Kyra Sedgwick - The Closer

Grey's Anatomy getting shut out of awards for quality acting doesn't surprise me one bit.

BEST TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA: Grey's Anatomy

That's what I get for gloating. I guess the stories are tight enough that this was the safe choice. 24 is shedding fans, Lost is losing direction, Heroes is too new(but should be a lock for next year), and Big Love is too polygamy-y...polygamy-ish?...too Mormon.


I'm going to squint my way to next year, where I'm a big winner!

BEST ORIGINAL SONG – MOTION PICTURE: "The Song of the Heart" by Prince - Happy Feet

It's Prince. Are you going to complain? I'm not.

BEST SCREENPLAY – MOTION PICTURE: Peter Morgan - The Queen

It should have been Babel. This shouldn't have been close.

BEST DIRECTOR – MOTION PICTURE: Martin Scorsese - The Departed

I'm not going to tell anyone that this was wrong. I see that Clint Eastwood got two nods for war movies. I see that he didn't win. I feel like it's going to be the same song and dance come Oscar time for Clint, too. Could this be Scorsese's year? Well, the Bears did just pick up their first playoff win in 17 years...

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE: Eddie Murphy - Dream Girls

Ben Affleck was so close! First of all, this should have been Brad Pitt's award. Second, and I can't stress this enough, if you give Eddie Murphy an award you'll only convince him that he's relevant again...and I've got everything he's done since Beverly Hills Cop II telling me no one wants that.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE: Jennifer Hudson - Dreamgirls

Still no love for Babel. Also, Beyonce is going to spend the next few years trying to prove she can do this, too. Fantastic.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: Letters from Iwo Jima

This is an upset, folks. With the praise Volver has been getting and the huge support for Pan's Labyrinth, I believe we have the George Mason of this year's Golden Globes right here.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: Cars

Dear Happy Feet,

Don't #&*% with Pixar.

Love,

Cars

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL: Sacha Baron Cohen - Borat

I really wanted Aaron Eckhart to win this. I did. Cohen, though, brought Borat to life to make not only movie audiences buy into it, but enough that people confided their innermost frat boy feelings in a character. Clearly they got the right guy, and I'll be beyond disappointed if he doesn't at least get an Oscar nomination out of it.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL: Meryl Streep - The Devil Wears Prada

Easy Beyonce. It'll be okay...

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA: Forest Whitaker - The Last King of Scotland

Who doesn't love Forest Whitaker? Great call. Nothing but respect to the Globe voters for resisting the emotionally manipulating Pursuit of Happyness or any "acting" Leo DiCaprio did for this award.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA: Helen Mirren - The Queen

I wasn't expecting Maggie Gyllenhaal to win, but I can still be disappointed that she didn't.

BEST MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL: Dreamgirls

Unbelievable. Thank You For Smoking wasn't better? Borat wasn't more entertaining? Little Miss Sunshine didn't have better performances? Didn't I warn you people about making Eddie Murphy think he's relevant? Do we really need another Nutty Professor sequel to prove my point?

BEST MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA: Babel

Finally! An original movie with outstanding performances gets the big win. I didn't think such things could happen anymore. I hear Brad Pitt was given a new foreign baby in celebration. He put it in the display case next to his other ones. Go watch this movie, by the way.


Be still, the enemy can hear you. No, you're not still enough. Be Stiller.

Ben Stiller plans to star in and direct Tropic Thunder, a high concept comedy that he's been developing ever since he worked on Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun way back in 1987. The story is about the making of a big-budget war movie where everything that can go wrong does, and where the actors end up becoming the commandos they are playing.

Okay, I know I give Stiller a lot of grief in this column about his ability to play only Ben Stiller. That doesn't change the fact that Stiller is a great idea-man. This has great concept written all over it and, depending on what the lead calls for, Ben Stiller's one character could be perfect in this type of comedy. You want me to prove that Stiller occasionally strikes gold? Check out this pilot for Heat Vision and Jack, the funniest show never made. It will be 30 minutes of your time well spent, so watch it at work.




Smith has Mercy

Will Smith's Overbrook banner and Sony have purchased Steve Bloom spec script Sisters of Mercy for mid-six figures.

Smith and James Lassiter are producing for Overbrook along with Alex Siskin, who brought the project to the shingle. The story follows a widower father who is rescued after his wife's death by members of her book club, who soon begin running his life with their advice on parenting and dating. You might know of Overbrook's latest title, The Pursuit of Happyness, which Smith starred in to the tune of $126 million domestically.

I can only guess that Smith will also take the lead in this one, too. Man, he's been playing some downtrodden characters. He can't continue down this road without a break. Maybe not a Bad Boys break, but it couldn't hurt to do brighten things up with an Independence Day type of brainless and fun popcorn flick. Will? Are you reading this? Go make it happen. After that, you can do another couple turns as characters with horrible lives. Thanks guy, I knew I could count on you.


Notel Motel

Motel Hell, the 1980 gore and laugh-laced horror flick about a cannibalistic family that kidnaps motorists and plants them in a garden for later consumption, is getting remade. MGM has the remake set on their schedule for release on December 7th.

That's it. There is no reason to remake this movie. It's especailly unnecessary considering that it seems to be the setup for more Hostel-style capture n' torture drama more than the hilarious moving picture known as Motel Hell. At this point, I'm begging and pleading with Hollywood to just go ahead and make bad horror movies without telling us where the inspiration for those abominations came from instead of making the movie you want to make and sticking a familiar title onto it. That way, instead of saying "This crappy movie was nothing like The Hitcher, you'll leave audiences saying "Well, it was a crappy movie, but it kinda reminded me of The Hitcher...so that was cool." Please, just take this advice.

Moral Rumble

Universal Pictures has acquired an untitled pitch for a contemporary drama to be directed by Neil Burger. Project becomes a possible follow-up to Burger's The Illusionist. Burger and Dirk Wittenborn will pen the screenplay about an imminent terror threat that's caused a law-enforcement crackdown, bringing all crime to a standstill. The criminals get organized, pooling their resources to search for the terrorists. While their motivation is to get back to their nefarious business, the exercise forces them to re-examine their morality and place in society.

I'm a total sucker for movies where the bad guys become the good guys because some worse guys make the bad guys find the good guys within themselves. Add the terror angle, and you just might have a really interesting movie. Or you could go with the other extreme, where overly stereotypical mob guys face off against overly stereotypical...nevermind. Someone would do it, then I'd complain about it, and then I'd end up with a bunch of people telling my I asked for it.


This stuff makes me want to Braff

Zach Braff has opened up about his battle with depression in a US magazine interview. The funnyman thinks he suffers from "mild depression." Braff admits his fans have helped him come to terms with his mood swings. He says, "To to have millions of people go, 'I watched your movie and related' was the ultimate affirmation that I'm not a freak." The Golden Globe Award nominee, 31, insists his moody nature and his lack of image make him the most unlikely Hollywood star: "I don't care about image and all that nonsense. I'm in sweat pants every day. I don't play the game at all."

I don't know why, but I'm always entirely annoyed when a celebrity mentions his or her millions of fans and then tells us all about how they're just like we are before the thought can even settle. Also annoying is when they say that it's other people's kind words that helped them through a rough patch just before they assure you that they don't care what anyone thinks. I liked Garden State and my love affair with Scrubs is well-documented in various spots on 411mania, but lately Braff has losing me as a fan with nonsense like this. And when he doesn't have me as a fan, that will be one less voice that he doesn't care to help him out of his "just-like-me" depression while he glances over movie scripts in his LA estate.


The number of times I type porn here will up 411's hits by a gajillion per cent

Many say the last home video format war between VHS & Betamax was won by the former simply because the porn industry adopted the format. Whilst the adult industry does a lot of its distribution online now, there's still a massive market out there for pornography on DVD - disc sales and rentals in 2005 were an estimated $4.28 billion. The claims at CES last week of Blu-ray winning the format war is looking even more premature this weekend thanks to a critical defection. At the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo last week in Vegas, the very popular and influential Digital Playground declared that the company would from next week on be publishing movies only on HD DVD on a regular basis.

The move marks a complete turnaround from last year when the company publicly backed the Blu-ray format. Why the change of heart? Well here's were the story gets interesting. There Joone, founder of the company, told Heise.De that he had wanted to publish his movies on Blu-ray Disc, but "all Blu-ray Disc copying facilities in the United States had refused to cooperate". In fact, the companies had "unanimously declared that Sony had threatened to withdraw their Blu-ray licenses should they stoop to making HD copies of pornographic films".

As a consequence Digital Playground now intends to release HD-DVD products at a rapid rate, including flagship title Pirates which was recently awarded as the most commercially successful porn DVD of 2006.

If it weren't for fine films like Orgazmo and Boogie Nights, I wouldn't even know that there were awards given for porn. Even having seen them, I get my mind blown(and just my mind...so stop it) anytime I read about porn awards. I'm honestly a little bit iffy on what Pirates might be about...

As for Sony deciding that Blu-ray is entirely above the porn industry, I'm fine with it. Mostly because I really do want to see if porn was the deciding factor in the Beta-VHS feud one and for all. Of course, there will be someone who doubts the results if HD-DVD ends up beating out Blu-ray based on the number of non-pornographic problems Sony's product has been having. In my heart, though, I will always know that it was porn that turned the tide.


That'll do it for this week...

FOX isn't just in the doghouse with me for allowing American Idol on the air. 24's big 4-hour premier over Sunday and Monday night appalled me as much as it delighted me. Setting off a nuke as soon as they did was ballsy, Jack killing a bad guy with only his teeth is pretty awesome, and the amount of times we've already heard that various people are "running out of time!" is wonderful. If you're interested in my gripes, look for a new Notes from My Recliner and I'll let you hear all about it. My plugs aren't without shame.

The Golden Globes wrap-up took the place of the usual weekly feature, which means that you still have another week to make your suggestions. I've gotten some good ones(working to cheer up a myriad of celebs rather that just Ben Affleck, for example), and I've gotten some bad ones(come on, you've got to think I'm more creative than "The Tit List"). So keep 'em coming.

Best bet for your viewing pleasure between now and the next report? Well, if the glorious power of the Chicago Bears actually riding a playoff win as they host the Ain'ts isn't your thing I'd suggest the comparably glorious return of Heroes come Monday night. Me? I'll be watching them both. You? You shouldn't do anything I wouldn't do...

(This week's sources: Variety, CHUD, IMDB, Dark Horizons, Wildaboutmovies.com)