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Blake Prosecution Adds Co-Defendant to Raise Media RatingsD.A. names Christian Slater as high-profile accomplice April 29, 2002 |
Blake (left) and Slater, the new stars of Court-TV
The move has been seen by some to attract attention to a case that sounds pretty ho-hum in the modern media age. The Blake case, while garnering some media spotlight, has failed to attract the attention of the infamous O.J. Simpson case, lacking in comparison in brutality and sheer star power.
Slater, whose own career has slipped from attention in recent years, welcomed the prosecution, with a firm promise he and Blake will beat ...
urprised by the waning media interest in the Bonny Lee Bakley murder case, the Blake prosecution team named young actor Christian Slater as a co-defendant in the case. As the prosecution's murder theory now stands, Blake murdered his wife in front of the Vitello's restaurant and Slater co-conspired in the plot and drove the getaway car.
The move has been seen by some to attract attention to a case that sounds pretty ho-hum in the modern media age. The Blake case, while garnering some media spotlight, has failed to attract the attention of the infamous O.J. Simpson case, lacking in comparison in brutality and sheer star power.
Slater, whose own career has slipped from attention in recent years, welcomed the prosecution, with a firm promise he and Blake will beat the charges.
"C'mon, we're famous!" he shouted at a press conference. "We'll be out in time to guest star on the Ally McBeal finale. Or, failing that, Fox Celebrity Boxing."
The prosecution announced at the same time it was dropping conspiracy charges against Robert Blake's bodyguard Earle Caldwell, saying he "just didn't appeal as strongly to the 18-35 age group as Slater."
"We thought of many possibilities," said prosecution team member Rad Harmscull. "Our first thought was Peter Falk, but we figured people might have trouble figuring out which is which. Todd Bridges was another possibility, but he had his day in criminal court for murder and we all yawned and let him go. This time I think we've got a can't-lose case for international media buzz."
However, Blake counsel Harland Braun was less pleased about the move.
"It's ridiculous media manipulation by the prosecution," said Braun. "Mr. Blake is not afraid to have his day in court over this matter, but we're not going to share it with some kid from Young Guns 2. Not to mention it makes no sense. They don't even know each other. Why not longtime Blake friend talk show host Tom Snyder or something? This is plainly a media-oriented move by the prosecution."
If the co-defendant prosecution ignites sparks in media interest, there are already rumors abounding about bringing in former Wiseguy star Ken Wahl on a conspiracy to destroy evidence charge. And if that move is successful, Wahl could receive his own spin-off murder trial, depending on the focus group's look at the evidence.
"I think we're doing very well now," Harmscull said. "We took a so-so case and have possibly made it into the trial of the century. This century, and even bigger than the trial of last century. Sure, we may not win as all the facts don't line up meticulously. But while we could've had a victory and execution before, killed some little rascal for some humdrum crime no one cared about… now we've created a lasting piece of criminal justice. This is the trial to which all others will be compared. And if it takes off, we promise there will be others." the commune news is brown, flush it down. Ramon Nootles is a loyal commune reporter, no matter what a certain paid informant at The San Francisco Examiner insinuates.
 | Eagles Draft AnistonSitcom star surprise pick of NFL draft April 29, 2002 |
Philadelphia, PA Zip Baker Fans clamor to see the Eagles' coveted new tight end
Player personnel assistant Weeb Tittle discussed the choice with reporters. "We've always liked her here, we just think she's a fabulous talent. We especially liked her roles in the movies Office Space and Rock Star, where she really held her own going up against the dynamic M...
erhaps the biggest surprise of the otherwise lackluster 2002 NFL draft was the Philadelphia Eagles' third-round choice of actress Jennifer Aniston, who co-stars as Rachel Green on the hit NBC sit-com Friends." Ms. Aniston had appeared on virtually none of the depth charts around the league prior to the draft, including the Eagles' own charts. That oversight was apparently not enough to stop the Philly club from taking the lovely actress with the 87th pick in the third round Saturday.
Player personnel assistant Weeb Tittle discussed the choice with reporters. "We've always liked her here, we just think she's a fabulous talent. We especially liked her roles in the movies Office Space and Rock Star, where she really held her own going up against the dynamic Mark Wahlberg."
Tittle went on to give a few clues as to the reasoning behind the controversial choice. "First of all, we looked at lots of film. Hours and hours of film. Of all the Friends, we thought she was far and away the most macho, the one that exhibited the most pure testosterone. The guys on that show must all be on estrogen treatments or something. I mean, take David Schwimmer, for instance. That guy is just a whiny wienie, a total wuss. Can you imagine asking him to blitz? He'd probably start crying. Matthew Perry, sheesh, that guy does more coke than the president. We don't need that on this team, we've had our share of cokeheads here in the past. And Matt LeBlanc... did you see that movie he made with the chimpanzee? He made that chimp look like a rocket scientist, like that guy, what's his name, Norman Einstein. No thank you."
"Lisa Kudrow, now," Tittle continued, "we gave her some thought, but we were afraid that her sister, the gal that played Ursula the waitress on Mad About You might want to be included in some kind of a package deal, and we didn't want that. And Courteney Cox-Arquette got some serious consideration, because we think she could probably kick some major ass, but do you know how difficult it would be to get 'Cox-Arquette' across the back of a jersey? Besides, no one can stand David Arquette, her husband. Have you seen that guy? He's almost as annoying as Carrot Top."
Asked what position they envisioned the rather-small-by-NFL-standards Aniston playing, Tittle mused, "Well, the offensive coordinator thinks she's a natural Tight End, and I tend to agree with him on that. But we both want to see what she can do with the pump fake, and how she handles play action. And our Quarterback, Donovan McNabb, would love to see her line up at center, but not if we're going to use the Shotgun formation. We also think she might be good at covering receivers, and we're all anxious to see her go up the middle. Of course it goes without saying that most of the guys are excited about getting a few one-on-one drills with her, and seeing her take that post-game shower, too."
"All in all," he concluded, "we think she'll be a big draw here, and will help put people in the stands. And that's what it's all about, isn't it? I mean that and winning games."
Tittle dismissed as simply a "publicity ploy" and "copycatting" the subsequent sixth-round drafting of actress Jane Leeves, who portrays Daphne Moon on NBC's long-running series Frasier, by the Seattle Seahawks."What's up with that?" Tittle wondered, his voice filled with scorn. "I mean, she's British, isn't she? Football to her means soccer. Those guys don't have a clue. I used to respect Coach Holmgren and his organization out there, but a move like that, well, that's just silly." Football to the commune means a Fall Sunday spending 14 hours on the couch with all the chips and beer we can afford, burning up the batteries in the remote trying to catch every play in every game on every channel the satellite offers. Bludney Plud wishes that someone would explain the meaning of betting the "over-under" to him.
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 April 29, 2002 Time to Check Up on Tunisiathe commune's Omar Bricks isn't fooled by your desolate, barren facade I think it's about time we found out just what's going on over in Tunisia. Things have been a little too quiet over there for a little too long, if you ask me. Which, fine, maybe you didn't, but it's only a matter of time before it would have woken you up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. Some might argue, in their whiney little "hip-hugging jeans are out this year" voices, that we haven't heard much from Tunisia since nothing is going on over there, and besides it's a big freakin' desert with like ten people living there and even if something did happen nobody would be around to see it since they'd be huddled in their caves, avoiding the near-constant sand storms. To which I have to respond that Lil Duncan is most definitely on the rag this week.
And beyond that, is...
º Last Column: I'm Only Sleeping
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I think it's about time we found out just what's going on over in Tunisia. Things have been a little too quiet over there for a little too long, if you ask me. Which, fine, maybe you didn't, but it's only a matter of time before it would have woken you up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. Some might argue, in their whiney little "hip-hugging jeans are out this year" voices, that we haven't heard much from Tunisia since nothing is going on over there, and besides it's a big freakin' desert with like ten people living there and even if something did happen nobody would be around to see it since they'd be huddled in their caves, avoiding the near-constant sand storms. To which I have to respond that Lil Duncan is most definitely on the rag this week.
And beyond that, isn't this just want the Tunisians want us to believe? That all's quiet on the Tunisian front, meanwhile they're building armies of giant baby-eating robots in the dead of night, planning a complete takeover of the Western world? And we're over here sleeping like a bunch of saps who don't know that the creaking, jittery Armageddon is fast approaching? Fuck that, I say! Fuck that right in the earlobe. Because Omar Bricks may not have any babies or anything edible like that to worry about should the invasion come, but I'm going to be goddamned if I let some shoddy Tunisian robots leave a trail of dirty diaper carnage across my lawn and I have to go out there in my bathrobe in the morning and hose-blast all of that shit into my neighbor's driveway. Fuck that right in the appendix.
Tunisia can take a flying leap at a short Pierre if it thinks Omar Bricks and other Omar Bricks-like Americans (you know who you are) are going to stand for that kind of sci-fi bullshit. Maybe back in the 50's, when the sight of a 40-foot-tall galvanized behemoth with an Osh-Kosh-clad leg dangling from its titanium jaws would have made for a charming anecdote at a Tupperware party, but not today. By now, Americans have put up with Vietnam, Watergate and Family Matters and we've got a seriously short fuse. The slings and arrows of everyday life have pushed us beyond common courtesies like signaling for lane changes or recognizing crosswalks, and you can forget about the quaint 50's concept of "warning shots." A truly large, mechanical fuck-up like a Tunisian Cannibot invasion would undoubtedly snap our pajama elastic for good and it wouldn't surprise me if you saw the American people banding together and forming into some giant anthropological Voltron figure that mercilessly beat the living shit out of everything in sight, including the entire Middle East and Robin Williams.
In short, I don't think Tunisia has any clue what kind of flaming shit bag it would be stomping on, should it go forward with this whole half-baked baby-eating robot plan. Sure, we can't "prove" that this is exactly what they have in the works, and little is known about Tunisian robot technology beyond Red Bagel's book on the subject. But we're writing one dangerous IOU if we don't send a diplomatic envoy over there to scope out the situation. Maybe they'll find nothing but a whole bunch of desert and some tan-assed turtles. But will this mean that there never was a Tunisian Baby-Eating Robot Project, or just that they got wise before they strapped on the parachutes and loaded them into the man-cannons?
Only the desert will know for sure. Bricks out. º Last Column: I'm Only Sleepingº more columns | 
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Milestones2003: The infamous "Battle of the Bulge" breaks out at when office wench Ivana Folger-Balzac mistakes Ramrod Hurley's beerbelly for a birthing alien larvae and sets into the Acting-Editor with a can opener. The skirmish and resultant standoff lasts 18 hours and claims the lives of several Crochet! magazine staffers, for whom the commune observes a moment of near-silence.Now HiringSexecutioner. Why does everybody keep laughing when we say that? We need a dude who can kill some fucking people in an official capacity, okay? What's so funny about that? You guys are sick. Anyway, pay commensurate to experience. Must provide own mask, axe, electric chair, whatever floats your boat.Top Shit That's on Fire Right Now| 1. | Ted Ted's ulcer | | 2. | Iraqi fireworks stand #5 | | 3. | Lousy gag candles | | 4. | Old love letters/most of Colorado | | 5. | Salsa music. No, seriously. | | 6. | Apparently some part of Bruce Springsteen | | 7. | The sun. Pretty sure. | | 8. | Richard Pryor-model Jiffy Pop | | 9. | Dad? | | 10. | You obviously lied about those being asbestos pants. | |
|   Thousands of Missing Children Found at "Have You Seen Me?" Headquarters  BY roland mcshyster 4/29/2002 Hey there, America the beautiful! Ready for another go at the bucking bronco that is this month's batch of new releases? I didn't think so. Thankfully for you I'm getting paid to write the column and deal with this crap so you can just sit back, relax, and feel the entertainment love. But before we get into all of that, how about a healthy dose of Ask Roland?
Q. Roland, what do you think of the resistance by American audiences to the obviously superior world of French cinema? Will American "film-goers" ever tire of the endless parade exploding buildings and anti-gravity bosoms and recognize the work of the true masters: Godard, Truffaut and Chabrol? Also, if you were doin' Elle Macpherson and Reese Witherspoon at the same time, who would you pour the hot fudge al...
Hey there, America the beautiful! Ready for another go at the bucking bronco that is this month's batch of new releases? I didn't think so. Thankfully for you I'm getting paid to write the column and deal with this crap so you can just sit back, relax, and feel the entertainment love. But before we get into all of that, how about a healthy dose of Ask Roland?
Q. Roland, what do you think of the resistance by American audiences to the obviously superior world of French cinema? Will American "film-goers" ever tire of the endless parade exploding buildings and anti-gravity bosoms and recognize the work of the true masters: Godard, Truffaut and Chabrol? Also, if you were doin' Elle Macpherson and Reese Witherspoon at the same time, who would you pour the hot fudge all over first?
Steve Thomas, Winding Oaks, VA
A. That's a good question, Steve. And the answer is simple: Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Q. Are you as sick as I am of the reprehensible practice of studios doctoring film critics' reviews in order to market their movies? It seems that one can judge the quality of a film to a high degree of accuracy by averaging the number of words in the review quotes they flash during the television commercials. The better films tend to quote entire sentences from a review, while most of the obvious stinkbombs distill a review down to a single word that is taken out of context and could mean anything. A film critic can write that the latest teen toilet-fest is "An astounding display of poor acting, poor directing, and a script that may very well have been squeezed out of a tube," only to be quoted in the commercial as saying the film was "…ASTOUNDING!!"As a film critic yourself, how does it feel to have your work regularly manipulated into misleading sound-bites?
Ted Fanly, Beer Grove, KY
A. …EXPLOSIVE!! –Roland McShyster, the commune
And now for the reason you put up with all of the snide comments about your wardrobe, the movie reviews!
In Theaters
Murder by Numbnuts
Sandra Bullock is on the trail of Jude Law, an idiot who may have killed someone accidentally while cleaning a crossbow he found in the trash. Or is he really a diabolically crafty killer hiding behind the mask of a buffoon? Nope. He's the real McCoy, but Bullock still has her hands full trying to outguess a killer who's next move is always ten times stupider than what she'd thought he would do. The film is successful as a comedy-thriller that keeps you guessing and raises the interesting point: could a total dipwad be the perfect killer?
National Lampoon's Gene Wilder
Following in the footsteps of other National Lampoon classics like Animal House, Vacation and Airwolf, this rather formless comedy attempts to mine comedic gold from the everyday bumblings and fumblings of frizzy-haired funnyman Gene Wilder. A script would have been nice, as would have been some pants for Mr. Wilder himself, but I guess that was supposed to be the big joke, everyone reacting to him not wearing any pants. Whatever. I thought Airwolf was funnier.
The Scorpion King
Easily the most poorly-informed Jim Morrison biography picture to date, trumping even past disgraces like Jim Morrison and the Hell's Angels Save Christmas and Drrrruuuuuuggss Ayeeeaaaaaghh!!! for sheer grave-spinning velocity, a feat which many thought impossible. But, if you're twelve and are willing to believe that Morrison spent his free time freeing the slaves in Egypt and twirling a battle-axe around when he wasn't busy dropping a mork onstage, then I guess you can find some kicks here. Especially if you've got a thing for highly-detailed codpieces and mansweat.
Star Wars 2: Attack of the Blondes
Most people scoffed when they announced the title of the latest Star Wars film, but I for one was glad to hear that the series had finally got back to it's big-haired bimbo roots. The recent films had really been way too full of space muppets and little kids to be of any use to anyone other than kindergarteners and the heavily stoned. Any filmmaker worth his weight in salt knows that the future's greatest gift to us will be form-fitting spandex outfits, and here Lugosi finally gets it right.
On Video:
Band-its
Camouflaged as an ensemble comedy about life's little cuts and bruises, this clever indie scam is actually a product-placement smorgasbord for the adhesive bandage also-ran brand Band-its. This kind of thing is getting so common lately I wonder if Hollywood directors are ever going to turn the tables and start sneaking movies into commercials.
Life is in tha House
The producers would have you believe this is the feel-good urban movie of the year, which really isn't a crowded race since the only competition in that grouping has been Thug Parade and Stone Cole Baby Killaz, but it still manages to fail, unless for you "feeling good" involves retching while you chew up broken glass. Don't get me wrong here, it's not that I think every urban movie should be about drugs and mayhem, but no movie should be such a smarmy wad of platitudes that you spend the film's entire running time hoping for a drive-by. And I don't mean in the movie, I'm talking about in the theater.
The Man Who Wasn't There
It's long been inevitable that Guns 'N' Roses videos would eventually get so long and bloated that they'd have to be released theatrically as feature-length films, so the appearance of this picture didn't exactly surprise me. What I didn't realize was that to this day, Axl is still obsessing over rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin leaving the band, as he spends this entire film pondering if he somehow drove Izzy away, either through a lack of communication, halitosis or that one time he set Stradlin on fire. While the films psychoanalytical undertones allow for clever movie review titles like Welcome to the Jung-le, they film really isn't worth much beyond that.
Original Sink
Look folks, just because Bob Vila can act and Bob Vila can produce, and maybe he can swing a hammer pretty good too, that doesn't mean he can write or direct. It's the same mistake they made with Bob Ross, and I don't think anyone who saw Snow Falling on Cedars would ever take that chance again.
Television:
The Has-Beens (M-TV)
Who'd have thought the best mid-season show would be on a channel that once showed music videos? M-TV brings us the bold reality series where a "family" of has-beens are grouped together under one roof to see who can make the big comeback to television, while the losers are headed straight toward infomercial hell. Erik Estrada, Florence Henderson, Todd Bridges, and Soleil Moon Frye are a rich mix of fun and wisdom, proving again the old adage, "United we stand, divided we collect unemployment."
Ali McBeal
Instead of highlighting the new shows on the air, all of which should be gone by the time I finish this paragraph, I'm taking this spot to say adios to the unexpected underground hit with women 18-35 with severe emotional problems or developmental disabilities. Something about this trash-talking rail-thin female lawyer touched a nerve with the nation, and just won't quit touching it. But now, thankfully, it's about to rest in peace as the flavor of the month changes to talking babies and M-TV reality shows. Goodbye, show—I'm sure everybody who watched you will miss you.
Video Games:
FIFA World Cup Soccer (Sexbox)
Before you rush in thinking this is a great soccer game, you should be warned that "Fifa" is Scottish slang for "fairy". Accordingly, the game designers follow that spirit in making some of the goofiest, gayest-dressed soccer players this side of real soccer players. Whether you enjoy soccer or think it should be pantsed and
humiliated by real sports ought to determine what you think of this game. I'm indifferent since my Sexbox is broke and I can't play anything.
Chessmaster 5500 (PC)
From the people who brought you "Wine Taster 2002" and "Extreme Book Club" comes another venture trying to sucker the stuffed shirts and fancypantses of the world into the video game arena. Unfortunately, the game revolves not around real chess, but around trying to disguise the fact you're a champion chess player of your high school until you can get out at 3 o'clock, or else the bullies will run your underwear up a flag pole, with you in them.
And that's an Entertainment Police! No more, no less. It's a Zen kind of a thing, really,
like the sound of a stagehand getting the clap or a tree falling on James Woods. I'll let
you ponder that on into the afterlife, or at least until next month when we'll be back
like an ex-girlfriend boomerang. Until then!   |
