Weekly Review
from Harper's Magazine
WEEKLY REVIEW - 25 December, 2001
India recalled its ambassador to Pakistan and threatened to go to war
if Pakistan did not stop sponsoring terrorist groups such as
Jaish-e-Muhammad, which attacked India's parliament building last
week. Pakistan denied involvement in the attack, but a captured member
of the group admitted that the Pakistani Army donated the weapons and
that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency provided logistical support.
Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun militia chief, was sworn in as the
interim leader of Afghanistan. "Let us be good to each other," he
said. "And be compassionate and share our grief. Let us forget the sad
past." American warplanes attacked a convoy of trucks that reportedly
was carrying Afghan tribal elders to Karzai's inauguration; 65 people
were killed.
There was a coup attempt in Haiti, and Argentina's president resigned.
Santa Claus shot a woman in the face in Sao
Paulo, Brazil, and two car bombs exploded outside police headquarters
in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.
Passengers subdued a large man who bit an
American Airlines stewardess on a flight from Paris to Miami when she
tried to stop him from igniting his shoe, which contained a makeshift
bomb made from C-4 plastic explosive.
Israel's army said it would
reprimand several soldiers who recently set a booby trap at Khan Yunis
in Gaza; the bomb, in what was termed an "operational mishap," blew up
and killed five young boys, all cousins, as they walked to school.
Rear Admiral John D. Stufflebeem said that looking for Osama bin Laden
in Afghanistan was like "searching for fleas on a dog."
( continued at Weekly Review )
--Roger D. Hodge
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In The Chaos Household
Last Night
It was pretty much a Lego Christmas. Constructed a couple more Bionicles.
Didn't get to watch much TV, but there was a PBS show on Dave Brubeck in the background that
was quite pleasant.
Tonight, Wednesday, CBS is finally airing the 'Kennedy Center Honors' that was taped
1 December.
NBC has nothing but reruns, 'Ed', 'The West Wing', & 'Law & Order'.
ABC has 2 hours of sitcom reruns, 'My Wife & Kids', 'Jim', 'Drew Carey' & 'Whose Line...'. '20/20' follows.
Faux also has 2 hours of sitcom reruns, 'That 70's Show', 'Grounded For Life', 'Bernie Mac' & 'Grounded For Life'.
UPN has a rerun 'Enterprise' followed by the 2nd 'Iron Chef USA: Holiday Showdown' with William Shatner'.
Anyone have any opinions?
Or reviews?
(See below for addresses)
``European of the Year''
Bono
Bono, lead singer of the Irish rock band U2, has been named ``European of the Year'' for his campaign for
debt relief in developing nations, in a poll conducted by the weekly European Voice.
Danish film director Lars von Trier was named ``Visionary of the Year.''
Ten winners were selected by European Voice readers from a list of 50 nominees compiled by journalists and
opinion leaders from across the 15 European Union nations. The announcement was made earlier this month.
Each winner received $4,458 to donate to a charity of his or her choice. Bono, 41, said his prize would go
to the Irish charity Concern, according to U2's Web site.
``A more prosperous world is a more secure world, a more educated world is a more tolerant world and a
healthier world is a more stable world,'' Bono was quoted on the Web site.
``European of the Year''
Official U2 Web site: www.u2.com/intro.html
Updated!
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7 Is The Limit
Robert Altman
Robert Downey Jr. may struggle with his sobriety, but his acting skills are still held in high-esteem
by A-list directors. Robert Altman recently confided to a pal he wanted Downey to star in his new "Gosford
Park," but had to settle for Ryan Phillipe.
Altman, who wanted an R rating for the flick, also said that he made sure a certain expletive was used
eight times, knowing that seven is the limit for PG. "I don't make films for 14-year-olds," Altman growled.
Robert Altman
New Year's Resolution
Tina Fey
``My New Year's resolution is to cut back on mean celebrity jokes,'' Tina Fey tells Entertainment Weekly in
its Dec. 21-28 issue. Then she adds: ``And like every New Year's resolution, I'll probably break it January third.''
Fey, 31, is the first female head writer of NBC's ``Saturday Night Live,'' a post she assumed in 1999.
She's also the co-anchor, with Jimmy Fallon, of the show's ``Weekend Update'' segment.
``Saturday Night Live'' launched its new season 18 days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon. ``There was a trust we had to build with the audience,'' said Fey, who joined
the ``SNL'' writing staff in 1997.
Tina Fey
New!
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Speaking Elvish
Liv Tyler
While the guys in ``The Lord of the Rings'' films were learning how to ride horses and fight with swords,
Liv Tyler was learning how to speak Elvish.
``I wound up speaking a lot of Elvish in the film, a lot more than I would be sword fighting or horseback riding,
(so) I would spend time with the dialect coach,'' the 24-year-old actress told reporters recently.
``At first it was difficult because it wasn't familiar to me,'' she said. ``It took some time, and then it
became really kind of easy.''
Tyler said she didn't mind wearing her elf ears.
``They were comfortable when they were on and they really didn't itch or anything,'' she said. ``The hard part
was taking them off actually 'cause the glue was really powerful.''
The five-day total for ``The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring'' - which opened last Wednesday - was
$73.1 million in the United States and Canada, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Liv Tyler
''Crossroads''
Britney Spears
Fans of pop tart Britney Spears are going to be shocked by her raunchy movie debut, which features sex,
rape, underage drinking and teen pregnancy. Paramount's "Crossroads," the story of three girlfriends
who travel across America after their high school graduation, shows the pneumatic nymphette dancing
seductively in her underwear, getting drunk from a hotel mini-bar and losing her virginity to a
28-year-old ex-con.
It's a far cry from the squeaky-clean private life Spears claims to enjoy with her boyfriend, Justin
Timberlake. In the flick, due in February, Britney's real-life closest pal, Taryn Manning, 22, plays
her best friend - an unwed teen who falls pregnant after being raped. "The concept of the movie was
my idea, I felt passionate about it," Britney told journalists earlier this month. "I couldn't just
do any movie. I felt this one in my heart." Spear's on-screen mother is played by "Sex and the City"
bombshell Kim Cattrall.
Britney Spears
New! Updated!
(10 Dec., 2001)
The official BartCop Astrologer, Geneva, has done good, again!
Currently, look at the charts of George Harrison.
Very interesting reading!
The Exorcist Revisited
Friedkin & Blatty
William Friedkin and William Peter Blatty last week filed a joint copyright suit against Warner Bros. over who has rights to a
newer, updated version of "The Exorcist."
Their complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, according to Variety, accuses the studio of
violating an oral agreement to pay Friedkin part of the new version's gross receipts as compensation for
his work on "The Exorcist: The Version You've Never Seen."
Friedkin claims to have been involved in the addition of 11 minutes of new footage. He also says he reworked
other material for the project. A Warner Bros. spokesman said the studio had not seen the suit and therefore would not comment.
The suit is only the latest episode in the battle between Friedkin and Blatty and Warner. In May, the director
and the author sued the studio in L.A. Superior Court, claiming they were cheated out of profits under a series
of television licensing agreements.
Now, Friedkin and Blatty claim that Warner registered the new movie with the copyright office in Washington,
listing the company as the movie's sole author.
The two men are seeking unspecified damages and an injunction barring Warner from distributing the movie.
The Exorcist Revisited
Still Being Held
Vanessa Leggett
A writer jailed for refusing to give a grand jury her research notes about a society killing spent
Christmas in jail despite efforts to have her freed before the holidays.
Vanessa Leggett, 33, was imprisoned after she refused to hand over notes and recordings to a federal
grand jury investigating Robert Angleton, a Houston bookmaker whose wife, Doris, was slain in 1997.
Leggett has been in a federal detention center since July 20, when a federal judge found her in
contempt of court for refusing to turn over the notes.
Disclosing the information would have broken a confidentiality promise she made with those she interviewed, she said.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, and Leggett's attorney, Mike DeGeurin, sent letters to U.S. Attorney
General John Ashcroft seeking to have her released before Christmas. Both failed.
Leggett's prison term could end Jan. 4, when the grand jury ends its investigation.
Vanessa Leggett
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Actor-Director-Restaurateur
Kevin Costner
Oscar-winning actor-director Kevin Costner has yet another side to his persona - restaurateur.
Costner, who starred in and directed the Academy Award-winning ``Dances With Wolves,'' celebrated the
six-month anniversary of the Epiphany restaurant in Santa Barbara last week. He co-owns The Clubhouse
in Costa Mesa with actor Robert Wagner and golfers Jack Nicklaus and Fred Couples.
Costner's next project is the psychological thriller ``Dragonfly,'' with Kathy Bates. Costner plays Dr.
Joe Darrow who, in grief over the loss of his wife, believes she is contacting him through his patients'
near death episodes.
Kevin Costner
5 Years Later
TV Ratings
Five years after the networks relented to political pressure and incorporated TV content ratings, most
viewers still don't care.
Programming executives say the code has had no effect on what winds up airing. Standards and practices
executives say few, if any, viewers inquire about the ratings. And studies prove that awareness of the
system among parents continues to decline.
Actually, someone already has: According to a study released over the summer by the Kaiser Family
Foundation, just 17% of parents who own a V-chip (or 7% of all parents) claim they use it to block programming.
Meanwhile, according to the Annenberg Public Policy Center, just 50% of parents are aware of the
parental guidelines rating system --down from 70% in 1997, when the ratings were first introduced.
And an internal NBC report reveals that three-fourths of adults aware of the parental guidelines
don't report using them.
``The reality is, this was never an issue that parents cared about,'' one industry source said.
``This was something that only 10 people in America cared about -- members of Congress and
children's advocacy groups. Were it not for (Democratic Rep.) Ed Markey and (Republican Sen.)
John McCain and a few other people trying to grab onto some political hot potato, this thing
would have never happened.
``What's frightening is how an entire industry was brought to its knees by a few pandering politicians.''
For the rest of this enlightening article, The 'V'Chip Non-Issue
Liver Transplant
Larry Kramer
AIDS activist, author and playwright Larry Kramer underwent liver transplantation surgery and was listed in
serious condition Monday.
Kramer, 66, spent seven months on the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's waiting list. He moved to Pittsburgh
in early November to wait for an organ to become available.
Kramer is the author of the plays ``The Normal Heart'' and ``The Destiny of Me,'' and books about the front
line of AIDS and gay activism. His screenplay for the film ``Women in Love'' was nominated for an Academy Award.
Kramer helped found Gay Men's Health Crisis, a provider of services to those with AIDS, and later helped
created ACT UP, an AIDS advocacy group.
Larry Kramer
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In Memory
Lance Loud
Lance Loud, a freelance journalist whose family was the subject of a television documentary series, died Saturday of complications from hepatitis C. He was 50.
He was part of "An American Family," the PBS series that was one of the first unscripted programs on mainstream television. The show focused on the family, who allowed filming of their daily lives for seven months in 1971. The 12-part series aired in 1973 and was considered a hit.
When he was 20 years old, Loud announced he was gay on the show, a public avowal that was unusual during the early 1970s. His decision drew widespread support from many gays.
After the series aired, Loud lived in New York for several years and performed in a rock band called the Mumps.
In 1981, he moved back to California, where he studied journalism. He often wrote articles for the Advocate, Details and Interview. He also had a few small television and film roles.
Whenever "An American Family" was rebroadcast, Lance returned to the spotlight. A one-hour sequel, "An American Family Revisited: The Louds 10 Years Later," appeared on HBO in 1983.
Lance Loud
"Boondocks" (9 Oct 01)
Still MISSING
Marc Chagall's "Study for 'Over Vitebsk'"
