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Friday, August 22, 2008
Jonas Brother graduates high school … in Atlanta!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Joe Jonas of the ubiquitous Jonas Brothers got a special treat during the group’s Atlanta concert this week. He graduated from high school! With a cap, a gown and a tribute from his tutor.
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
Watch and enjoy.
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An answer to the unanswerable? I’m your man
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dear Mr. Smithee,
I thoroughly enjoy your column and wondered if you had ever had a question you couldn’t answer?
If not, I may be the first to stump you.
I am looking for someone who can tell me the episode of Cirque du Soleil in which the man does the balancing act where he uses a stool and climbs up them one by one.
I have asked anyone and everyone and no one knows the answer.
JAMES CARROLL, Tucker
Dear You Get Served,
I am not anyone! I am not an animal! I am a human being!
If there is a question I couldn’t answer, it’s never been put to print. Yours included, my friend.
I certainly recall the early days of Cirque du Soleil’s visits to the fair Atlanta. I don’t know where your tickets landed you, but at one such performance to which I took my once-wee son, Cecil B., our seats were situated next to R.E.M bassist Mike Mills.
With certainty, I believe you meant to employ the word “chairs” instead of referring to stools, which would make the balancing performer Vassily Demenchoukova. The “episode” would be “Nouvelle Experience.”
Vous etes tres bienvenue.
ALAN
P.S. You get a lineup of “Tropic Thunder” bobbleheads.
Dear Mr. Smithee,
What do you consider the best and worst all-time movie accents?
Two very believable ones that come to my mind are Renee Zellweger in “Bridget Jones’s Diary” and Albert Finney in “Big Fish.” Their performances are all the more remarkable because Zellweger is a Texas native pulling off a fine English dialect and Finney is from England, accomplishing an impeccable Southern drawl.
On the other hand, as much as I tried to accept Jodie Foster’s character in “Silence of the Lambs,” her West Virginia affectation left a lot to be desired. I could never shake the notion I was watching an actor acting.
PAUL RIDLEY, Minneapolis
Dear Let’s Put Him in a Pot,
I could listen all day to Helen Mirren uttering guttural English of yore in “Excalibur.”
Cate Blanchett as Kate Hepburn in “The Aviator” was, I thought, excruciating.
I know what I like: Viggo Mortensen and Vincent Cassel in “Eastern Promises.” (What was so unusual was watching Cassel, an extremely French-looking guy playing a Russian-sounding character). Also, Meryl Streep in “Sophie’s Choice” and “Out of Africa.”
I know what was horrid: Kevin Costner in “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.”
ALAN
P.S. You get shirts for “Juno” and “Prince Caspian.”
Dear Mr. Smithee,
Has there ever been a film made in “real time”? In other words, a film that only portrays a 90-minute or two-hour time span?
ED BOSTICK, Cartersville
Dear Clockwatcher,
Two hours? How about sitting longer than that.
Andy Warhol’s 1963 silent wonder “Sleep” consists of John Giorno napping for more than five hours.
But you are looking for something with a plot. I would suggest Mike Figgis’ “Timecode” (2000). For more than 90 minutes, four cameras, each in a single take, follow four separate storylines that eventually converge. The screen is divided into four quadrants.
A better film is Aleksandr Sokurov’s “Russian Ark” (2002), which, for more than 90 minutes and in a single take, explores 33 rooms in the Russian State Hermitage Museum and 300 years of history while involving some 2,000 cast members.
ALAN
P.S. You get a “Lucky You” shirt and a “Almost Famous” room key.
Dear Mr. Smithee,
After you print an apology for omitting “A Fish Called Wanda” from your (recently reprinted 2006) comedies list, I will resume my readership. Admittedly, I’m still stuck on the quandary — how will I know?
SANDY SCHUMAN, West Palm Beach, Fla.
Dear In Need of Advice,
Do not hold your breath.
ALAN
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