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On this week’s Frot, Alison Stevenson returns from LA where she recently moved to pursue her dream of becoming a Palindrome Android, and we talk Killer Joe (briefly), Armond White calling Samuel L. Jackson an Uncle Tom, Jodie Foster’s Golden Globes speech, Dredd 3D, whether there’s more than one good Michael Crichton movie, and of course answer all your questions about relationships and poop. Alison shares the story that led up to her crying during a preview for Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. I’ve got time-stamped notes after the jump courtesy of Adam.
IMPORTANT USER PARTICIPATION: What would you like to hear on the best-of 2012 Frotcast? Tell us in the comments.
UPCOMING SHOWS: I’ll be doing comedy at Milk Bar on January 29th as part of SF Sketchfest, and February 27th at the Hollywood Improv.
According to numerous news outlets, from E Online to Rolling Stone and the Hollywood Reporter, Tarantino “used the N-word” backstage at the Golden Globes, where he won best screenplay (full list here). That’s what their headlines say, “TARANTINO USED THE N-WORD BACKSTAGE!”, while the stories provide little else. Because that’s what we do now. We ignore context so we can have a juicy headline to shout while we soak up sweet, sweet clicks.
Less than a minute into his press conference backstage at the 70th Annual Golden Globes, the Django Unchained winner dropped the N-word. The usually bustling press room fell silent for a second; a reporter could be heard letting out a whistle, as in, “Oh, boy.” The filmmaker’s choice language came as he fieldied a question about his controversial, slavery-era spaghetti Western. Tarantino was not apologizing. Critics who think the N-word should not have been spoken by his 19th century characters, the mile-a-minute Tarantino argued, are “saying I should massage. They’re saying I should whitewash. They’re saying I should lie.” Don Cheadle, a winner for House of Lies, who took the stage right after Tarantino, couldn’t resist picking up the thread. “Please no [N-word] questions,” Cheadle told reporters. “Black people questions are all right.” For the record, Cheadle said he hadn’t seen Django, but was looking forward to checking it out. [EOnline]
Quentin Tarantino shocked reporters at the Golden Globes last night when he used the N-word while addressing use of the slur throughout his new film Django Unchained, for which he picked up the award for Best Screenplay, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “They think I should soften it, that I should lie, that I should massage,” Tarantino said, referring to widespread criticism from critics and filmmakers like Spike Lee that has been leveled against him for using the word in his film. But the director said that setting the film in the pre-Civl War era South, as well as his own artistic integrity, kept him from doctoring his script. “I could never do that when it comes to my characters,” he said. Tarantino also noted that slavery continues to exist across the globe (“go to Malaysia,” he said), and criticized the United States for a legal system that he believes has a bias against African-Americans. “Drug laws put so many black males in jails,” he said. “The way private and public prisons trade prisoners back and forth. It’s like they are not even hiding it anymore.” [RollingStone]
The Hollywood Reporter and a bunch of others are running virtually the same story. So… what actually happened? Quentin Tarantino said “n**ger” instead of “the n-word?” And then everybody ran and tattled on him that he used a naughty word without saying how or why? “Quentin said a naughty word and everyone was like ‘ooooh,’ it was so crazy Jenny almost dropped her trapper keeper!!”
F*ck all of you with this stupid story. (For the record, I use those stupid asterices in my swear words because your dumb work filters will block my site if I use to many naughty naughties). Not that Louis CK needs his ass kissed any more by people like me, but his N-word bit has scarcely been more relevant than now:
My God, it’s uncanny! All credit in the world to Josh Rowntree for discovering this amazing similarity between Tommy Lee Jones and Grumpy Cat, aka Tard the Grumpy Cat (supposedly short for “Tardar Sauce.” Uh huh, sure.). It certainly wouldn’t be the first time Tommy Lee Jones has been described as a grumpy cat. (Check out WarmingGlow’s Golden Globes recap here for more, you can see the full list of Golden Globes 2013 winners and nominees after the jump).
So, how do you rank this on the scale of animal-celebrity dopplegangers? This is going to sound crazy and I may lose some friends for this, but I put this above Christan Bale and Kermit the Frog, Benedict Cumberbatch and an Otter, and Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov and a Tibetan Fox, but well below the gold standard of Taylor Lautner and an alpaca. (I really wish I could still call it “Llama Lautner,” but I have a duty to biology).
(enjoy the video for as long as it lasts, otherwise the full transcript is below)
Jodie Foster received the Cecil B. DeMille Award at last night’s Golden Globes, and maybe it was partly Robert Downey Jr.’s fault for giving her such a nonsensical-to-the-point-of-surreal introduction (he or his writers apparently thought their bizarre non-sequitir about hamsters was so good that it needed Mel Gibson presenting Jodie Foster with a stuffed hamster underneath a cloche – uh… the f*ck?), but either way, the speech Foster gave was a marvel. I’ve never seen an acceptance speech so alternately touching and borderline inscrutable. The big news is, she came out. Sort of. And not in your usual, I’m-finally-saying-this-to-inspire-all-the-youngsters-out-there kind of way, more in a people-I-care-about-already-know-I’m-lesbian-so-why-can’t-you-leave-me-alone-you-goddamned-jackals kind of way.
Here’s the juicy part (full transcript of her acceptance speech after the jump):
“So while I’m here being all confessional, I guess I have a sudden urge to say something that I’ve never really been able to air in public. So, a declaration that I’m a little nervous about but maybe not quite as nervous as my publicist right now, huh Jennifer? But I’m just going to put it out there, right? Loud and proud, right? So I’m going to need your support on this.
“I am single. Yes I am, I am single. No, I’m kidding — but I mean I’m not really kidding, but I’m kind of kidding. I mean, thank you for the enthusiasm. Can I get a wolf whistle or something? [Audio is silent for seven seconds] … be a big coming-out speech tonight because I already did my coming out about a thousand years ago back in the Stone Age, in those very quaint days when a fragile young girl would open up to trusted friends and family and co-workers and then gradually, proudly to everyone who knew her, to everyone she actually met. But now I’m told, apparently that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance and a prime-time reality show.
“You know, you guys might be surprised, but I am not Honey Boo Boo Child. No, I’m sorry, that’s just not me. It never was and it never will be. Please don’t cry because my reality show would be so boring. I would have to make out with Marion Cotillard or I’d have to spank Daniel Craig’s bottom just to stay on the air. It’s not bad work if you can get it, though.
“But seriously, if you had been a public figure from the time that you were a toddler, if you’d had to fight for a life that felt real and honest and normal against all odds, then maybe you too might value privacy above all else. Privacy. Some day, in the future, people will look back and remember how beautiful it once was.
You’re sort of touched by her honesty and understand her annoyance with doing press, but at the same time, you wonder if maybe this speech wasn’t the best time for sarcasm and deflection (and I say this as a person for whom sarcasm and deflection make up roughly 85 percent of my interaction). It’s also a little rambly and discursive, much like her defense of Kristen Stewart a while back. I completely understand not wanting to be forced to tell total strangers intimate details about your life, but I’m not sure answering “yes” to “do you like ladies because it seems like you do” is going to turn you into Honey Boo Boo or Paris Hilton. But it’s her business to decide who she says it to, and I respect that. You don’t hear reporters asking Jonah Hill (Feldstein) or Winona Ryder (Horowitz) or Jon Stewart (Liebowitz) when they’re going to come out as Jews, do you? And that’s about as obvious as Jodie Foster being a lesbian.
Still, with her strange asides and bad jokes and ambiguously-directed tone of condescension, hers probably wasn’t the most eloquent way to express that. Or, as my mom texted me about it, “that was weird and she seems lonely.”
“My friend, there are three things I love in this world. Salmon fishing. The Yemen. And literal titles.”
The Golden Globes released their nominations today – do people care about this, I can never tell – and as usual, the fun part is figuring out who threw the best parties for the shady-ass HFPA voters based on their nominations. I’m going to assume Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, which grossed a measly $9 million in North America (plus a modest $25 million worldwide) and was reviewed at a tepid 67 percent on RottenTomatoes (with most of the positive ones not all that glowing), but managed to get best picture, best actress, and best actor nominations, with nary a Johnny Depp cameo to be found (foreigners love Johnny Depp, it’s science). Ewan MacGregor’s publicist must give one heck of a beej.
Best Motion Picture – Drama
“Argo” “Django Unchained” “Life of Pi” “Lincoln” “Zero Dark Thirty”
The insane thing about Zero Dark Thirty getting nominated in virtually every organizations’ nominations is that literally no one except awards voters has even seen it yet. Talk about knowing your audience.
Best Motion Picture – Comedy Or Musical
“The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” “Les Miserables” “Moonrise Kingdom” “Silver Linings Playbook” “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen”
Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama
Daniel Day-Lewis, “Lincoln” Richard Gere, “Arbitrage” John Hawkes, “The Sessions” Joaquin Phoenix, “The Master” Denzel Washington, “Flight”
