"Zambian TV network debuts reality show in which ex-prostitutes compete to win husband, paid wedding ceremony."
So yeah, I looked it up.
"A Zambian TV channel has launched a reality show to help former prostitutes find husbands. The 18 sex workers stand to win a cash prize of about $9,000 (£5,500) and have their wedding paid for. Muvi TV, which is hosting the Ready for Marriage show, said it wanted to give them a second chance in life. Some contestants said they sold their bodies because they were single mothers who could not afford to look after their children. Muvi TV said all contestants who were voted out by viewers would receive consolation prizes of between $1,000 and $1,500. They would also be offered full-time jobs so that they did not return to prostitution, it said.
The reaction of viewers in the capital, Lusaka, has been mixed.
'Once a prostitute, always a prostitute. It is very difficult for them to just change overnight,' one viewer, Humphrey Banda, said.
However, another, Prisca Chisenga, expressed a contrary view.
'It is not fair to judge them by their past,' she said."
"itsasickness is an obsession network celebrating sicknesses; the objects of our obsession. we believe that no one is ever more interesting than when they talk about what they love. to do your sickness justice is to own it. it is to prove how dedicated and enthralled you are with it. it is to geek out.
To Geek Out - slang. - verb (gēk)
To enthusiastically participate in or talk about a current passion or obsession.
we celebrate these sicknesses and the most hardcore people in the obsession groups with short tribute films you can watch on itsasicknessTV; Alan Cumming is your emcee. itsasickness productions creates obsession-based programming for an obsessive culture starring extraordinary people: us."
Speaking of random, the clip art on this site looks totally and oddly random to me...so does the difference between the Caucasians and the people of color.
POOPING HEALTH involuntary anus contractionsSome possible causes of extreme anal discomfort brought on by physical and/or emotional stress. ------ posted 7.21.2008 by Motherload (1071)
There's a poop humor appreciation page, so naturally I looked. People with handles like "Baron von Crapalot," "Logjam," "Shitwit" and "Pnuttycorn" have posted some of their favorite poop jokes.
Here is a sampling:
Who were the first people to have ICBMs?
The Eskimos.
Why did Piglet look in the toilet?
He wanted to see Pooh.
The left buttcheek says to the right buttcheek "if we stick together, we can stop this shit."
I'm just Beavis and Butthead enough to giggle at the fact that it sounds like "stiffy" instead of "Stephie" when said by a Brit and "stuffy" when said by an American.
I just love the picture. My mother was one of those people who live and die by the "if you haven't touched it in six months it's going to charity or in the trash" rule. Such an attic just did not exist in my world, except in movies. It's exotic and mysterious and I want to rummage through it and explore it like a metaphorical lover.
One night Stephie and I spent about six hours reading potty blogger posts and nearly pissing ourselves with laughter. Another night we spent an equivalent amount of time playing the ear worm game. Lots of fun at the time, but that one ended badly for both of us. We weren't even stoned. Damn ABBA! Damn the 80s! Then there were the nights I discovered Foamy and Stephie discovered legolambs. We haven't been able to stop saying "if it bleeds we can kill it" or "hear de lamentations of de wimen" since. Don't even get me started on LOLcats and cats on Youtube. Ahhh, good times.
"Oxygen’s entertaining new spinoff reflects well on the blockbuster franchise and illuminates the pressures faced by talented kids on the brink of showbiz success."
"What makes The Glee Project feel organic, however, is that the people making the decision about who goes on to Glee are the ones most qualified to do so. Glee’s casting director Robert Ulrich, choreographer Zach Woodlee and vocal coach, arranger and songwriter Nikki Anders serve as mentors and bring a heft to each critique that goes beyond that found in such casting-call shows like American Idol."
"The brutal and seemingly arbitrary truth about show business is that, in the eyes of casting directors, you either have it or you don’t. While that realization doesn’t quite jibe with Glee’s thematic message of inclusion, it does turn out to make for rather compelling reality TV."
Hank Stuever, The Washington Post, said:
"The show is also refreshingly entertaining, even when it relies on familiar cliches of the singing-competition genre."
Jessica Shaw, Entertainment Weekly, said:
"Anyone else with me thinking that was so much better than you thought it would be?"
I'm a fan of The Sing-Off, The Voice and Project Runway, so I wanted to love it and I almost did (the contestants are talented and engaging - transplant them to another show and I'd happily watch them). Maybe I chose the wrong episode to start with ("Vulnerability"), but I hated it. I committed myself to watching the entire show and I cringed and counted the seconds until it was over.
The episode I watched, "Vulnerability" was about "using your own weaknesses to make your performance more real and relatable." Contestants were asked to "publicly expose one of their deepest insecurities," "because Glee is all about acceptance." The contestants were tasked with walking around Universal CityWalk with sandwich board signs displaying one word that represented their deepest and most private insecurity, examples of which included, "gay," "fat," "anorexic" and "used."
I wanted to leap through the screen, as I have wanted to do on other viewing occasions, and march in there and tell those young people not to buy into or put up with the copious amounts of emotionally-manipulative bullshit being piled on them, but then it occurred to me that the particular brass ring these people are after, a career in show biz, pretty much means they oughtta start getting use to that kind of smarmy, pseudo-psych exploitation now. I just wish these Glee contestants were getting some qualified life coaching with their dancing and singing coaching. Ya know, something along the lines of how to recognize and respond to malarky and manipulation, how to create and maintain boundaries, how to do a cost-benefit analysis with your self-esteem, emotional health and career goals.
Watching the show reminded me of the worst kind of Christian summer camps (yes, I do believe there are good kinds) where kids get carried away by the temporarily-manfuctured and glorified sense of isolated community and peer sharing in kumbaya circles led by attractive and influential twenty-year-olds.
It also reminded me of a Twilight generation, reality-TV version of A Chorus Line, which, if you've ever seen it, is sad. The musical was excellent and won nine Tony awards and a Pulitzer Prize for Drama and is one of the longest running musicals to ever come out of Broadway and it involves the stories of young performers making themselves vulnerable, so I'm sure the Glee people would love that comparison. They'd probably also turn my discomfort into the clichéd compliment of "having at least made me feel something."
The sessions with the contestants are run like therapy sessions, only they are for entertainment and a commercial enterprise (don't get me started on Dr. Drew) and facilitated by people whose expertise is in entertainment, not therapy. I'm sure they are all glad they "shared" though. (Keep in mind they are all competing for a coveted spot on the mother show, Glee.)
What I saw was a singing coach tell one contestant that she didn't want to force her to talk about something she didn't want to talk about (wait a beat, feel the pressure, realize this is what the entire episode is about so what else are you going to talk about and go!) and tell another contestant that "I think that feeling numb to life is destructive and dangerous."
What I saw was a director talk about "big issues" and "breakthroughs."
What I saw was a writer who wanted a character from the contestant rather than writing one himself.
I was amazed to see Cameron, a charming, earnest and talented young man who said that he had found growing up gay and different in Texas to be really difficult, declared too "perfect," "confident," "well-adjusted" (heavens!) and "comfortable with himself" (not that!) and nearly cut from the show because he wasn't troubled enough and didn't have enough "deep-rooted secrets." Yes, the quotation marks indicate that I am using words straight from the show...just like this came straight from the show: "I think it might be to Cameron's disadvantage that he's normal." And this: "I think the big issue is that he really doesn't have any big issues." What was the writer to do with this actor? Use his imagination? Pfft! And the director? Help Cameron, the professional actor...act? Pfft! Cameron's word, by the way, was "misunderstood."
I thought the end-product music video was excellent, which may seem like an opportunity for a consequentialist justification, but while I recognized the poignancy and artistry of the video, I couldn't quite shake the context of the video. My discomfort was fully crystallized at the end of the video when the contestants hold up signs that spell out "U R Not Alone" which brought to mind the "It Gets Better" campaign, a campaign that included celebrities presumably volunteering their time and heartfelt effort to a worthy cause. These contestants chose to perform in this video, but they did not "volunteer." Semantically a minimal difference, but emotionally and psychologically, I'd argue not small at all.
I'm not a professional vocalist, actor or director. Maybe this kind of emotional roller coaster ride does make for good performances. Maybe Winona Ryder reflects back on her days on the set of Dracula with fond gratitude thinking about how Francis Ford Coppola, Keanu Reeves and Gary Oldman harangued her into her performance as Mina Harker. Maybe Martin Sheen has the same happy memories of Apocalypse Now. Rumor has it Alan Rickman was extremely irritated by some "enforced method acting" sprung on him during the filming of Die Hard, but of course, that's just a rumor. Maybe these contestants will replay the "Vulnerability" episode and sigh wistfully as they cash residual checks. I don't know.
I do know Jackie Cooper did not appreciate being told his dog had been killed. I also know there are some professional actors who would call this kind of stuff "bosh" and talk about the "craft" of acting...ya know, pretending to be another person with a different set of problems than your own.
Leonardo DiCaprio said:
"Don't think for a moment that I'm really like any of the characters I've played. I'm not. That's why it's called 'acting'."
Michael Leader said to Darren Aronofsky about Black Swan:
"In a way, I read the film as almost a criticism of Method acting, in the way that the character is pushed to make her personal emotions represented in the performance."
Darren Aronofsky said to Michael Leader:
"Well, I'm probably pretty critical of that. I used to think it was cool, like I think most young film people. But watching Ellen Burstyn and being around a few masters - I mean, everyone has their own process, but I think it's actually pretty selfish. It's just make-believe.
There's a fucking half a million dollar camera sitting there, and forty lights, and you've got to hit a technical mark. What is the Method when it's such a technical job? It's about make-believing, for a very, very short window.
Like, I think the Method could work when you're stage. Sure, when you walk off stage and you've got to stay in character and you've got to keep the adrenaline up. That makes sense to me.
But film is basically little bursts of acting. Twenty seconds here, 10 seconds there. Two seconds there. I mean, sure, in between takes you could stay there, but once the take's over, when you're in the make-up chair, come on. You can be thinking about what you've got to get done that day and be serious, but you don't have to be an asshole.
To me, it doesn't impress me, actors that do that. I think it's a lot of wasted energy."
George Burns said:
"Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that, you've got it made."
The movie is almost two movies in one. There's the modern-day story set in modern-day time and then there is the fantasy story set in the past. I hated the former and loved the latter. I get the modern part of the movie as the plot driver for the fantasy past part of the movie, but oy, it was so jarring and shrill that I cringed every time the movie went back to it. I would have been happier with five minutes of the present and another hour of the past. I was so enchanted with the fantasy past that I melted into it the way one might melt into Diagon Alley. At least with the Potter movies you get two hours of the good stuff without interruption.
I think Owen Wilson makes a pretty good new millenium Woody Allen.
I thought the lovenote-postcard style shots of Paris were wonderful. I drunk them up.
Midnight in Paris received a 92% fresh rating from critics and an 84% fresh rating from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes.
Roger Ebert says:
"This film is sort of a daydream for American lit majors."
"Allen makes no attempt to explain this magic. None is needed. Nor do we have to decide if what happens is real or imaginary. It doesn't matter. Gil is swept along in their wake and finds himself plunged into the Jazz Age and all its legends"
"Some audience members might be especially charmed by "Midnight in Paris." They would be those familiar with Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, and the artists who frequented Stein's famous salon: Picasso, Dali, Cole Porter, Man Ray,Luis Bunueland, yes, "Tom Eliot." Allen assumes some familiarity with their generation, and some moviegoers will be mystified, because cultural literacy is not often required at the movies anymore. Others will be as charmed as I was. Zelda is playfully daffy, Scott is in love with her and doomed by his love, and Hemingway speaks always in formal sentences of great masculine portent."
"This isWoody Allen's 41st film. He writes his films himself, and directs them with wit and grace. I consider him a treasure of the cinema. Some people take him for granted, although "Midnight in Paris" reportedly charmed even the jaded veterans of the Cannes press screenings. There is nothing to dislike about it. Either you connect with it or not. I'm wearying of movies that are for "everybody" — which means, nobody in particular. "Midnight in Paris" is for me, in particular, and that's just fine withmoi."
"With 'Midnight in Paris' it helps to have an Allen surrogate, the disenchanted Hollywoodscreenwriter played by Owen Wilson, who does more than remind the audience that it's difficult for a male lead in one of his films to sound like anyone other than Woody Allen. With his Texas drawl and his rather-be-surfing aura of genial distraction, Wilson makes everything go down easily here. Who would have guessed this actor would turn out to be an ideal conduit for Allen's nostalgic and romantic concerns?"
"The occasionally wearying quality of the contemporary scenes in 'Midnight in Paris' serves mainly to get the audience on Gil's side, though they really are more formulaic than necessary. The leap, or rather, glide into the realm of the fantastic is at once familiar and potent."
"In the meantime, in between all the longing and wistfulness, this movie is sidesplitting because Allen gets to tap into an inexhaustible source of comedy: Whenever he wants a laugh, or 10 laughs, he just introduces another writer or painter and plays to our expectations. Every scene, for example, involving Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll) is a scream, because Allen has him talk the way Hemingway wrote. There is even a Man Ray joke here. And if you know Luis Buñuel's "The Exterminating Angel," you'll fall out of your chair when Gil starts feeding him movie ideas.
Adrien Brody shows up as the young Salvador Dalí - good casting. Alison Pill looks very much like Zelda, though Tom Hiddleston is too tall for Scott Fitzgerald, who was just a little bigger than Woody Allen. But Kathy Bates is just right as Gertrude Stein, as businesslike and motherly as you'd want her to be."
I wanted to go to Paris and drink cocktails and make love and talk about art and literature. The high lasted for hours.
