Aging and Women and Why Men Are To Blame and Why Sharon Stone Is Bonkers

Okay, how many of us are planning to see Basic Instinct 2? I thought at first that there was no way in Satan’s Red Hell that I would go to BI2, and the recent release of the trailer has done nothing to convince me otherwise. But with the hew and cry over Ms. Stone’s expected full frontal, as well as the beginning of her Whack-Job 2006 publicity tour, I am now thinking I just might go, and here’s why:

The World Sucks Monkey Butt
Sharon Stone is a beautiful woman who is now “of a certain age”. Now, I’m all for 40-plus women being portrayed in the media as tomatoes who deserve and demand hot monkey sex as much as tangerine-colored brainless twenty year-olds do, why not? Sex, like most of the rest of life, is wasted on the young anyway. Supporting 40-plus tamales is the only reason I watch Desperate Housewives. God bless Hollywood and the viewing public for allowing the broads on Housewives to strut their sexy stuff. Go sexy broads, rah rah. Felicity Huffman, you can suck my toes any time.

So just why does Sharon Stone doing her patented smoldering thing seem so completely creepy? As a woman of “a certain age” myself, I want to support her right to flash her nethers on the big screen. I just know her performance in Basic Instince 2 is going to be shredded in the press and that it will be the end of her career—and maybe that will be justified, because ol’ Sharon is not exactly what you’d call the most accomplished thespian, and she’s also been acting full-on bat shit insane in public in recent years. But Sharon won’t be ripped to tiny pieces just for being bonkers; instead, people will be groaning in the theater and making “grandma beaver” jokes because of her age.

Madonna, who made the world a better place by making it okay for women’s bra straps to show, is currently suffering the same treatment for her latest Disco incarnation—no matter how perfectly cut Madonna’s butt is, apparently no one wants to see her in a glitter leotard shaking her ass checks. We loved her for all of her other fashion disasters, so why not this one? Kevin Pereira of Attack of the Show recently said of Madonna’s Disco tour, “Eew, it’s like watching your mom Jazzercize!” Well, what exactly is wrong with that? I personally think Madonna is beginning to look like beef jerky, but that’s because she needs to gain some weight.

Forty-seven year-old men are still considered “hot”, why not women? People get the heaves over how sexy George Clooney is, and he has grey hair and jowls! Grey haired, jowly middle aged women don’t receive “Sexiest Woman Alive” awards; they get the part of the incontinent grandma in the “vacation gone wrong” comedy. It’s so unfair.

Act Your Age. Or Not.
I personally think a lot of women don’t come into their full beauty until they are over forty-five or so. Think of Susan Sarandon in Alfie or Anjelica Huston in Life Aquatic: both of these women are at their peak of beauty right now. Perhaps it’s the experience in the eyes that does it. When Susan or Anjelica turn to their on-screen lover and fix him with that “look”, damn, it’s smoking hot, and they are both pushing sixty.

Maybe the reason why Sharon Stone getting her groove on seems wrong is because she’s still trying to be the same “pretty” girl she was when she was twenty. Like a lot of women who have made their way in the world simply by being attractive, she doesn’t seem to be okay with getting older. Like Susan and Anjelica, Sharon’s beauty should be evolving into full flower; but instead, she’s trying to pretend nothing has changed and that she’s still young and hip and so she’s coming off as old and crazy. Madonna is doing the same thing. To Mrs. Ritchie: it’s one thing to affect the fashions of the 1946 when you are in your thirties, but affecting the fashions of 1976 in your forties just reminds us all that you are old enough to have shaken your booty in those clothes when they were “in” the first time around. Go back to being Japanese.

Men Rule the World
Of course, the sad fact is that older women are not considered sexy is because older men rule the world, and older men don’t like experienced women who can call them on their bullshit. You older men love young women not just for their supple flesh, but because they will still gaze adoringly up at you and pronounce you “so cool”. When you come home wearing leather pants and driving a your new cherry red Camaro, the older woman in you life will put her hands on her hips and laugh at you. Men are afraid of older women, and I think that is why our male-centric culture tries to downgrade women when they get past forty. But men, you are the ones who made us this way. It’s your own fault. Suck it up.

It’s My Birthday and I’ll Boogie Oogie Oogie If I Want To
Maybe I’m waxing all introspective because it’s my birthday tomorrow. In the next decade or so I’ll be passing out of Mother, and into firmly into Crone. While I’m all in favor of not acting your age, I’d rather do it as a sexy Susan Sarandon, rather than as a bonkers Sharon Stone. Still, my heart goes out to Sharon, and I wish I could change the world so that we can celebrate old women as smoldering tomatoes too. Because of that, I’ll probably be suffering through Basic Instinct 2, just to boost the box office a one ticket's worth more so that maybe Hollywood will retire "Incontinent Grandma" and replace her with "Tomato of a Certain Age" more often.

Tomorrow, however, is reserved for Clive Owen and Inside Man…yummy, yummy Clive, will you be my present? I also plan to misbehave, dance a chicken dance in my underpants, and eat Indian food. Fear me.

For my birthday, you can send your best wishes and offers of toe worship to mistresssquidia@yahoo.com. I promise not to bite. Much.

Eddie Izzard Is God…and My Secret Husband

Last week BBC America ran a couple of Eddie Izzard comedy shows, Dressed To Kill and Circle. Now, I’ve seen Dressed To Kill at least three times now, but that didn’t stop me from watching it again, and Circle was new to me, and more recent as well. Damn, I love Eddie Izzard. He is the funniest thing on two legs (and platform heels); and, I’ve discovered, the sexiest thing too. It turns out I have sort of a thing for transvestites. Did I mention that Eddie is a transvestite? No? Well, he is. He’s not what you might call the most handsome man—if you are into Brad Pitt, well, you might not find Eddie all that attractive. But “pretty” doesn’t do it for me, I need a man with a moveable face, and Mr. Izzard is the king of facial expression; plus, he looks pretty awesome in Tammy Faye Bakker makeup and a glitter suit. The opening credits from Circle show him donning thigh-high lace-top black panty hose, and um, um baby, it gave me the vapors. Does that make me weird? No, it does not. (And I just lost my one reader in the Midwest. Oops.)

Speaking of Brad, has anyone complimented Angelina Jolie on her little Pitt yet? You know, ‘cause she’s a bit of a peach, and she has a little Pitt in there? No? Come on people! “Hello, we’re the Pitts.” “Hey, I’ve never seen a tomato with a Pitt before!” The jokes just tell themselves. Please, oh please Brad and Angie, if it’s a girl, please, please name her Peach, I beg you. Or Mango.

Anyway, back to Izzard. Two years ago, Girl Kid and I went down to ye olde Grand Illusion theater to see a showing of Alex Cox’s Revengers Tragedy, starring my main man. I got Mr. Cox’s autograph and everything. We knew the show would sell out fast, so we got there early and waited in line for two hours in advance, fortunately it was summer and we could sit on the Grand Illusion patio drinking coffee while we waited. Despite our efforts, the theater is teensy tiny (with a tin ceiling, which is the best ceiling known to interior design, if you ask me), and they sold the last ticket to the guy directly in front of us. Horrors! But the kindly theater dude took pity on me and allowed that maybe we could wait around for another hour or so for the sold out 11 p.m. show, because Mr. Izzard had twelve seats reserved and perhaps his full “entourage” wouldn’t show up. Which we did, and they did not, and so this is how Girl Kid and I saw Revengers Tragedy sitting directly in front of Eddie Izzard and why I am now his wife, even if he doesn’t know it yet. (And that cute twenty-something goth chick he was with can suck on it. He’s mine, bitch.) Eddie was wearing his Sexy tour outfit of six inch platforms, a plaid mini and a belly shirt with “Sexy” written on it in glitter. Shivers. He kicked Girl Kid’s seat with his big shoe several times, and that made her year and is her best celebrity encounter ever, or at least until she becomes Ruler of the Universe, which is inevitable, because it’s only a matter of time until the rest of you submit.

So, to recap: Brad and Angelina are the Pitts; Eddie Izzard is my secret husband; you all must run out and rent all of his shows that you can (Scarecrow Video has them); and, I cannot wait until the PlayStation 3 comes out, because it will play DVDs in PAL format and then I can see the rest of the his comedy shows that haven’t been released in the US yet. And to Mr. Izzard: you are late for dinner, but I forgive you. Call me.

On How I Was Assimilated…By the Beastie Boys

I’m a pretty relaxed person in my musical tastes—I can appreciate most anything, with a few exceptions which include most Grand Ole Opry-style country music, rap, and the type of metal music that is comprised entirely from random screaming. Even within these genres, there are exceptions I like: OutKast, Missy Elliott, Jerry Jeff Walker, Dolly Parton, and I even found myself the other day, to my horror, liking an AC/DC song. In my experience, girls who like AC/DC are all hard drinking skank-ho’s who, at the slightest hint of AC/DC, jump up onto the nearest table to strip down and shake their bums around with wild abandon, (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I was surprised to discover that, with no drunken after-trade show party morons around to influence my tastes, I liked this song. I am a whore! Who knew?

All I’m saying is that while I love punk rock, but there is no excuse for Oasis or Stone Temple Pilots; but, with these few exceptions, it would be hard to find a type of music I couldn’t at least appreciate a teensy bit.

In fine teenage tradition, Girl Kid finds ways to be in love with music I cannot stand. For instance, she has a deep abiding passion for the Beastie Boys, who I have always thought of as Alvin and the Chipmunks with extra helium and a dash of crack cocaine. I can only hope she stays away from jazz. So, when I saw the trailer for the Big Screen Concerts showing of the Beastie Boys, Awesome! I knew we’d going, and so we did. I guess I can be happy that $13.50 a ticket is a lot less expensive than what it would cost to actually go to a BB concert, and less hard on the ears as well.

What can I say? David Cross, masquerading as Leprechaun/German/Swiss chocolate-obsessed maniac Nathaniel Hörnblowér apparently “directed” the concert film, if you can call giving camcorders to fifty people and telling them to “rock out” directing. Let’s just say that I was nauseous and ready to blow chunks within five minutes. Out of focus, dark, camera pointing at the floor, the date/time stamp still blinking on, and all cut to together with the usual concert film frenetic suicidal-hamster-on-speed style. I was clutching my stomach in record time; and the pack of skinhead bone crushers to our left shouting, “Yeah! Rock on!” and pumping their fists every few seconds didn’t help either. I was in hell. David Cross, you are a freak—a freaky, freaky freak; but no matter how hard you try, you are not Andy Kaufman. Sorry dude.

Still, in the second hour, something happened to me. I learned to unfocus my eyes, and that helped with the stomach pains, and I began to, (dear god, I can’t believe I’m saying this) appreciate the Beastie Boys. For one thing, damn, what a great way these “boys” have found to avoid working for a living. No instruments necessary—just get a DJ to scratch someone else’s record up, and then create a cascade of noise that includes either your name, and/or the names of NYC neighborhoods. Genius. It probably takes a lot of rehearsal to get it right. The Beastie Boys almost cross the line into Saturday Night Live sketch: they’ve got the coordinated track suits, cute nicknames, sideways hats, and they do all the “rap” moves as well. It almost crosses the line into parody, but somehow they pull it off, including a bit in the middle where some of them dress up in tuxedos and mimic a cheap Bar Mitzvah band for fifteen minutes. Anyway, after all these years, I finally found something not chunk-inducing about the Beastie Boys, and so all must be right with the world. Girl Kid announced on the way home that she hopes, “To see the Beastie Boys in concert before I die…or they do.” I mean, man, those guys are my age. Dude, pretty fricken awesome. Word to myself.

Absence, Religion and Scientology, Movies That Suck, and One That Doesn’t

Yup, I’ve been gone a while, and thereby losing the paltry few readers I did have. Yeah me! Well, maybe I can get them back. Probably not. My excuses? My mom was here for two weeks, we still don’t have internet access on my Powerbook, and I’m lazy. I’m only writing right now because I just had a blow-out with my kids and I’m hiding. And for the record, I am not going senile. Much.

Religion
I’ve been watching with glee the whole South Park, Isaac Hayes and Scientology broohaha. What a tard; of course, I blame Tom Cruise. Is it just me, or is ol’ Tom looking more and more like Michael Jackson lately? Every day, he’s gone further into Mr. Crazy Go Nuts, if you ask me. The latest ridiculous flap from Kamp Krazy got me thinking—you know the sign of a truly mature religion is when it can handle jokes at its own expense. I have issues with most forms of organized religion, but take Catholicism for one—at least the Pope doesn’t get all bent out of shape over all those Pope On A Rope jokes. Jews join in on the fun too, for instance, who tells a better Jewy McJewerson joke than Jon Stewart? No one. So Mr. Cruise and Mr. Hayes, get a clue—yes, you are bringing more attention to Scientology with your stupid boycotts, but you sure aren’t attracting new recruits to your supposed religion, instead, we are all laughing at you, and laughing hard. If you really want people to respect Scientology, maybe it’s time you grew a sense of humor, umkay?

Movies That Suck
Ultra Violet
Milla Jojovich’s bitchin’ abs not withstanding, this is one horrible movie. I know it was in the comic book, or I assume it was, but why are they vampires? This plot point appears midway though the movie, and is never really addressed. And why, oh why, is the feisty rebel captain in this type of flick always dressed in a nubbly rustic sweater? Everyone else in the movie dresses in groovy spandex Future Suits, so why does he dress like a hippy from 1971? Verdict? Jeez, save your money already. Go rent Resident Evil 2 if you need some Milla action, that at least is a (marginally) better movie than this stinker.

Date Movie
Oh god, there are no words to describe how awful this movie is. I think the movie makers should be dragged out of their holes and killed with sticks. If you are going to save yourself the effort of writing your own script by plundering those of others a-la the Scary Movie franchise, at least have the decency to throw in a funny line here or there. This movie was way beyond horrible, in fact, I think its only claim to originality was the depths of horrible it managed to attain—to boldly go to levels of banality that no movie has gone to before. The blame for me seeing this retched piece of dreck can be laid firmly at the feet of Girl Kid’s boyfriend, and he has a lot to answer for. On the other hand, in less than a year, the two of them will be driving off in fast cars to see this sort of R-rated film on their own and I will be a basket case, so I guess I shouldn’t be complaining. Verdict? Choose life.

The Hills Have Eyes
Um, this got a good review in the local rag, and I suppose that if you are into slasher/gore movies, than maybe you will like it, but I was bored. Yes, bored. I normally don’t go for gore movies, so why was I there? Because Girl Kid’s friend wanted a girl’s day out, and this was her choice (so, take that, Hollywood idiots who think they know what teenage girls want). My biggest complaint was that THHE shows too much of the mutant monster dudes. Directors—sometimes less is more, trust me on this. One of the monster people was also a recognizable character actor, and every time he appeared on screen it took me right out of the storyline while I contemplated just how bad his Visa bill had to be before he took on this role. Also, if these monster guys are so uncaring of everything living including themselves, wouldn’t they have eaten each other up a long time ago? I think they would have. And, now that we are firmly in the 21st century, can we please retire the old cliché of the teenage girl who just screams and freaks out the entire movie? Hell, I wanted to kill her by the end. Verdict? The Hills Are Boring.

Failure To Launch
Nuff said, really. Oh well—um, Sarah Jessica Parker is some sort of professional who gets older “kids” to move out of their parent’s homes. Really? This is a career? Can I have it? I wouldn’t date them though; I’d just march up and say, “Hey loser, get the fuck out.” Maybe if the mom in the story stopped making all his meals and doing his laundry, Matthew Mcconaughey would have moved out back in his twenties. I mean, really, how weird is it that she’s still washing his underwear…and folding them? And, Oh Dear God, Kathy Bates, what where you thinking? Surely your Visa bill is paid off? Why did you do this movie? By the way, I hate Matthew Mcconaughey, man how I hate him. Big, big hate. What a smug goat-snogging bastard that guy is. Have you ever heard him talk in real life? Ugh, he’s a creep. As usual, the only thing worth watching in this flick is the utterly shaggable Zooey Deschanel as the depressed goth roommate to SJP, who has a homicidal thing in for the bird in the bushes outside her window. In fact, as is often the case, the zany sidekick friends on both sides of the main characters were vastly more interesting than the main characters themselves. Verdict? This movie will make triple what Serenity did at the box office, and that’s just too depressing for words. Also, Terry Bradshaw gets full-backal naked at the end of the movie. Is that really something you want to see? If you do go to this movie, consider that your punishment. I did.

Mission Impossible III
Yeah, I know this movie isn’t out yet, but I’m reviewing it now anyway. Hear me, this movie will suck large ones. There will be explosions and car chases and Tom Cruise will put his slimy lips on some hapless actress half his age. Please, oh please, movie going public, stay away from MM3. For me? Tom Cruise must be stopped. He and Matthew Mcconaughey (and Piper Perabo, don’t get me started on her), should be put into a sack and shot into outer space. Now, I love Philip Seymour Hoffman, and curse Cruise for trying to make himself look better by giving Mr. Hoffman the Bad Guy role. I’d much rather see PSH as the stud muffin, and Tom Cruise as the bad guy. Cruise has proved he can do a pretty decent bad guy in Magnolia and Collateral, and I might be able to squeeze out a teensy weensy modicum of respect for him if he played Bad more often. Maybe. I really, really want to see Philip Seymour Hoffman get the girl (and Paul Giamatti), not some Big Stupid Movie Star. It’s also funny that Mr. Cruise’s love interest in MM3 does in fact look young enough to be his daughter…hmm, why does that sound familiar? Yuck. Verdict? Tom Cruise is a ginormous perv, and I will love you more if you avoid this movie like the plague it will be.

And One That Doesn’t
V for Vendetta is a really great movie. I haven’t read the graphic novel that the movie is based on, but I could tell immediately that fans of the novel wouldn’t be disappointed by the movie. Like last year’s Sin City, this movie has that graphic novel veritas—it just looks right. I’ve been a fan of Hugo Weaving since Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and even though you don’t ever see his face in V, he’s still awesome—that voice, that body language—yummy. Mr. Hugo is The Greatness. I’ve never really connected with Natalie Portman before, but she also is great here: Ms. Natalie is just the right mix of porcelain beauty and regal nerve to carry her role as an initially reluctant revolutionary. I loved her in this, and I can’t imagine another actress in the role. Plus, if they ever do a Sinead O’Connor biopic, Natalie looks amazing bald. Despite the British setting and Guy Fawkes storyline, the movie itself is a not-so-thinly veiled indictment of the Bush administration, and the timing is right. I didn’t care if the message in V is an unsubtle one—it’s time to get your revolution on, baby. Verdict? Go see it today.

And that’s it for now. I promise to be more fruitful and timely in future, but I understand that the proof is in the pudding; I hope some of you will re-tune to find out. In the meantime, I must go make amends to Boy Kid. I love you my babies, sleep well, and dream of me as I will dream of you.