Johnny Depp: vampires rock!

Is anyone here old enough to remember Dark Shadows? Yeah, that videotaped soapie that was made about 40 years ago, and was still running circa 1980 or so ... where the "twist" that made the soap opera "go" was ... vampires!

Thank heavens I'm not the only one old enough to remember Dark Shadows! And I've always had a weakness for vampires. (In fact, a contender for my favorite of the Mel Keegan novels is Nocturne, which is a vampire novel -- the "spin" on this one, making it different and fantastic, is that the vampires are gay. Haven't heard of this one? Have a taste for gay vampires?! You need to get over to MK's page, and check it out!)

Anyway -- kick me occasionally and get me back on track -- you can't fail to have noticed that anything and everything from the 1960s and 1970s is being revamped (pun intended) into major motion pictures, so, given that vampires are huge business just now --

How surprised are you likely to be if I tell you, Dark Shadows looks like coming back as (!!) a major motion picture...

Starring Johnny Depp!

And there's a rumor about Tim Burton directing it!

Now, Dark Shadows made its TV debut when I was about four, so I was utterly oblivious. But by the time I was about 16 or so, it was screening on daytime TV in Australia, and I remember it vividly, from the 1980 era...

Soap opera, right? With vampires ... and unless memory is playing tricks, I remember were wolves, voodoo, zombies, and time travelers. And they managed to do this inside of a real, genuine soapie template. In other words, it was monstrous fun. (Pun intended -- again!)

Now, add in Johnny Depp, and Tim Burton to direct this movie, and ... where do you advance book tickets?! The original soapie show taped well over 1000 episodes, so it was a huge success. A major movie --? It's a no-brainer. The only mystery is why it hasn't been done before...

And speaking of Johnny Depp, here's a very good interview, at Contact Music.

To Liam Neeson and family: our deepest sympathies

To Liam Neeson and his family: our deepest sympathy. The tragedy is incalculable. Natasha Richardson was not merely a beautiful woman ... she was that rare thing, a beautiful human being. The Neeson family must be utterly in shock, and not surprisingly, Liam has decided to put the career on hiatus...

Some very gentle, sympathetic and informative features are running right now:
http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUKTRE52I7S120090319 plus
http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b105172_brilliant_natasha_richardson_remembered.html and Neeson's Hometown Ballymena Shows Support

...What can you possibly say at a time like this? You wonder why. You wonder what you're supposed to learn from this. Heaven only knows.

Liam and family: our sympathies are with you.

Tony Curtis: hey, our generation didn't invent "gorgeous" --!

You know, these days with your superstars Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt and Will Smith, gorgeous George Clooney and angelic Orlando Bloom, that Viking archetype, Viggo Mortensen, and then the Aussie contingent -- Hugh Jackman (pant), Eric Bana (gasp), Russell Crowe (oooh), and the drop-dead gorgeous Brits such as Jude Law and Christian Bale and so on, and ON ... this generation tends to have the impression that we've not only cornered the market on gorgeous, but -- we invented it.

Not true. Believe me ... I've been around for quite long enough to remember a lot of the stratospheric names that today' twinkies, teens and tweens associate with senior citizens, gray hair and walking sticks --!

Fact, kids: time catches up with us all eventually (except for me; I'm immortal; so long as I stay the hell away from mirrors). And you might be knocked flat with a feather to see some of yesteryear's superstars in their hay days.

What brought this on? Well, AG is currently doing laps of the room without touching the floor (quite a stunt, when you work without a net) because Tony Curtis has just published a new book! Yep, a new one, American Prince ...!

Here's one of the first reviews: http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2008-10-13-tony-curtis_N.htm (it's also a good one, on USA Today).

I have GOT to get this book:

You know, Tony Curtis was one of the first actors to dare to do gay scenes. They were done for Spartacus about 1960. He played a slave owned by Lawrence Oliver's character (a Roman general), and boy, did the general fancy his, uh, property. They actually had the guts to film this -- but it was promptly cut out of the movie. Now, the film wasn't pro-gay ... in fact, the slave (TC) so far objected to being a general's sex object that he ran away and ended up executed ... but keep in mind, this was 1960, and these scenes were actually filmed. It blows your mind, when you think about it:

This was yonks before, for example, Death In Venice -- and DinV was so blurry-edged, so toned down, unless you know what you're looking at, half the time there's nothing TO look at! Which shows you the courage it took to give the scenes in Spartacus the proper treatment ... and then there's TC's incredible drag act, in Some Like it Hot. He and Jack Lemon did the full works -- and the drop-dead line in the movie goes to Joe E. Brown, right before the end credits roll. Gotta love it ... I mean, seriously, a flaming gay romance, and this was done in the 1950s?!

Anyway, Tony Curtis's new book is top of my shopping list, which is why I'm on the subject of TC today. And if you thought we invented "gorgeous," scroll down a bit further...

Scuse me while I go get a napkin ... I appear to be drooling here. Just a bit.

Michael Caine: Happy birthday, 2009

Would you believe it? It's Happy Birthday to Sir Michael Caine today ... and he's 76 years young. I've been watching Michael Caine since I was old enough to be allowed to see Zulu, which he made in the mid-1960s, when he was something like 32 years old -- um, about the time I was born, I suppose. My favorites among his movies are (still!) Zulu, and Ashanti, and Deathtrap. Those three, I can watch any time -- and thank gods for DVDs.

(You know AG by now: love the part in Deathtrap with Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve in a clinch, with a kiss! In fact, the film company apparently called this the "$10 million kiss," because they reckon that when the movie was made, this was how much revenue the bad publicity cost them ... thank gods things have changed! Sorry about the quality of the capture at left: best one I could find.)

Here's his page on IMDB ... check out that filmography. I'm impressed.

Twits, nuisances, lawbreakers: where does Twitter draw the line?!

Good gods, who'd be a celebrity? Look at what you're up against these days:

For four months, 19,637 people followed Ewan McGregor’s every move via the microblogging service. Or at least they thought they did. But come on people –Moulin Rouge 2?
While there are many fake celebrity accounts on Twitter, including those purporting to be Tina Fey and Hank Paulson, most are obviously bogus.

Ewan McGregor’s tweets, by contrast, seemed realistic, although there were signs that made some suspicious, including a post expressing a desire to make a Moulin Rouge sequel – something no real actor would contemplate.

The authenticity of the fake Ewan McGregor started to bug the real actor, who yesterday told The Guardian his people had requested that Twitter take down the posts.
Twitter said it would investigate but did not immediately relent.

Here's the story: Twitter takes down fake Ewan McGregor account

I mean, jeepers creepers, you can be Ewan McGregor -- THE Ewan, superstar and all-around great guy, and some BOOBY can do this to you, and Twitter in its infinite wisdom responds to your agent bvy saying they'll investigate.

Say what?!! Can we say, "Get that gibberish off your internet page before you get sued for your shirt?!"

Same sort of twaddle happened to David Tennant, too (oddly enough, I was just talking about this yesterday).

It's actually come to the point where any Tom, Dick or Mary could open a Twitter account, go out there and pretend to be -- oh, HM Queen, President Obama, the Pope, and Twitter would somewhat reluctantly INVESTIGATE when they're TOLD to remove the bogus twaddle!!

Is it just me, or is this getting past a joke? Like I said, who'd be a celebrity? Sheesh.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie: Brangelina to the rescue!

Some of the nicest stories are posted by users, not reporters. Journalists do this crap--work for a living and they pretty soon get jaded and some of them can't tell where humor crosses the line and turns snide. So in pro journalism work you often get a lot of wannabe humor that goes over like the proverbial lead balloon ... way too sarcastic for its own good. But when a user of a public news site posts a story, you don't have that jaded quality. You get a real news item, from a person who was there, saw it, did it, and is keen to share.

And here's a beaut: Brad Pitt’s N.O. housing efforts have Lower 9th Ward in the pink. It's a great little piece about how Brad and Ange are building 100 houses in one of the most heavily punished parts of New Orleans. I mean -- seriously cool. "Nice factor:" 11 on the scale of 1-10.

Go there -- read it and have a smile.

And while we're on the subject of the heavenly duo, let's have some more reasons to smile right here:

David Tennant: what's next?

Since delicious David Tennant is leaving Doctor Who after the upcoming spate of movies, I was wondering what he's going to be doing next. Well ... I'd been hoping for something major, but on thinking it over, the boy probably needs a rest after how many seasons of the show, plus holiday specials, plus movies ...?

So a gueststar appearance in Taggart is probably a good way to go:

Doctor, there's been a murder
DOCTOR Who star David Tennant is being lined up for a role in the crime drama Taggart.

The West Lothian actor, who recently quit his role as the Time Lord, had auditioned for the show 16 times without landing a part in his pre-Doctor Who days.

"I've been encouraging our producer to offer him a part as a doctor," Taggart star Colin McCredie was reported as saying.

I must watch out for that!

And I should imagine everyone out there is aware of the fake twittering going on, where some lunatic woman presends to be David, goes out there and saying outrageous things ... and people believe her!!! If it's news to you, click here ... but he warned, it really is stoopid.