Quite a ‘loathsome‘ job of copyediting, wouldn’t ya say?

EARLIER: Vibe Foils the ‘Villians’ [FishbowlNY]

Choose Our Cover! [Harper's Bazaar]

… until you get it right!

ABC News’ Brian Ross unit this week told viewers about investigators slipping fake nukes through U.S. customs, after two previous reports on ABC News doing the same thing. (We’d call it a “stunt,” but this is pretty serious stuff.) If the government behaves as in the past, they’ll:

1. Try to prosecute an ABC News producer.
2. Say that the way they were tested was completely contrived and unrealistic
3. Tell us how they’re shoring it up
4. Fail the next test someone puts them through.

Maybe Ross (who, for the record was always very nice to us) could start a new “government testing” channel all for himself.

WNT Webcasts (scroll down): “Investigators Were Able to Slip …”

Point Break LIVE!, the absurdist stage adaptation of the 1992 Keanu Reeves extreme-sports blockbuster, surfs into Galapagos for an exclusive one-month engagement.

For the record, we had the idea for this, like, five years ago. But we were stuck on how brilliantly bad acting, awkward surfer dialogue and a horrendously cast love interest would translate onstage.

Point Break [IMDB]
Point Break LIVE! [SmartTix]

We were happy to meet Jay McInerney, Candace Bushnell, Luke Thornton and other media lights last night at the Soho House before the throbbing party in honor of Creativity magazine’s 20th anniversary. Thornton ‘s TV and film production company, Believe, was helping sponsor the festivities, but he was in town from L.A. to watch his N.Y. office shoot commercials for L’Oreal (with Scarlett Johansson, he said), Revlon and “a Coke product.” (We assume the “c” was upper case.)

McInerney was just off a book tour for his new novel and said he was up to “absolutely nothing” right now, though he does plan to get back to work, soon, in his nicely cocoonish Fifth Avenue digs, or at Soho House, which has a blissfully quiet writers’ room (No Cellphones Puhleaze!)that belies its jet-setty image at night. McInerney also told us his computer was on the fritz, and so he missed having a younger girlfriend right now because the other best thing they can give is great tech support.

Bushnell, looking predictably just-so in a fur half-jacket, shortly shorn blond locks and what looked like jeans, cheerfully signed copies of her new novel before heading out to Toronto to visit a number of people, including “Bret,” who’s up there working on a film, she said.

Read more

We’re big fans of the usually reliable, salmon-colored weekly known as New York Observer. So we don’t exactly know what to make of what appears to be an extremely lazy roundup of a Don Siegel series at the Film Forum by Andrew Sarris that “borrows” heavily from the program:

FILM FORUM: THE GUN RUNNERS (1958) Fishing boat captain Audie Murphy (most decorated U.S. soldier in WWII) gets blackmailed by Eddie Albert into running arms to Cuban revolutionaries — then Albert double-crosses the rebels. Third adaptation of Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not.

SARRIS: Sharing the bill is The Gun Runners (1958), in which fishing-boat captain Audie Murphy (in real life, the most decorated soldier in World War II) gets blackmailed by Eddie Albert into running arms to the Cuban revolutionaries — before Albert double-crosses the rebels in this third adaptation of Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not.

FILM FORUM: DIRTY HARRY (1971) “There’s only one question you should ask yourself… ‘Do I feel lucky?’” Well, do ya, punk?” queries Clint Eastwood’s .44 Magnum-wielding Harry Callahan of a recumbent crook, after breaking up a bank robbery attempt in between munches of his hot dog luncheon — and then the nutso “Zodiac Killer” (Andy Robinson, a pacifist in real life) strikes again. Eastwood’s first incarnation (followed by four not-quite-as-good sequels by other directors) of one of the icons of the American cinema gives the Miranda doctrine a workout — in between racing crosstown on foot for a kidnapper’s phone calls and breaking up a harrowing school bus abduction. … “The movie’s moral position is fascist. No doubt about it.” — Roger Ebert.

SARRIS: Dirty Harry (1971): “You’ve got to ask yourself a question: ‘Do I feel Lucky?’ Well do ya, punk?” snarls Clint Eastwood’s .44 Magnum-wielding Harry Callahan of a recumbent crook, after breaking up a bank robbery attempt in between munches of his hot god [sic] luncheon. Callahan has more trouble with loony “Scorpio Killer” Andy Robinson, who winds up holding a busload of hostages because Callahan has ignored the Miranda Warning in his previous arrest of the Scorpio Killer, and has been handcuffed by a lily-livered Mayor (John Vernon) and a city administration that seems to be controlled by the American Civil Liberties Union. For his heavy-handedness, Callahan was termed a “Fascist” by some critics. Today he would be lionized for his War on Terror.

And The Reeler has a bunch more. We’re awaiting a response from Mr. Sarris.

Andrew Sarris: Plagiarist, Or Just Resourceful? [The Reeler]
At the Movies [NYO]

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Anna Benson wants a divorce from Baltimore Orioles pitcher Kris Benson, who still thinks the New York Mets traded him because of his impulsive wife.

Anna Benson, an actress and model who has posed topless, filed for divorce in Atlanta on Thursday. The petition for divorce claims the marriage is “irretrievably broken.”

Impulsive? That’s one way to put it.

Lloyd Grove, always in the middle of a controversy, weighs in:

Hubby hurler cheated, sez sexpot Anna

BY LLOYD GROVE and DAVE GOLDINER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Sexpot Anna Benson and her ex-Met hubby are headed for Splitsville
after she caught him fooling around with one of her friends, the
Daily News has learned.

Deep down we knew that we hadn’t seen the last of Ms. Benson on the back page.

Your own personal Prince concert. At his house. How … incredibly awkward.

And yet more proof of the recording industry’s paranoia — it looks like it worked.

Prince Crowned Billboard King, Scoring Very First #1 Debut [VH1]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

THE V FOR VENDETTA GRAPHIC NOVEL

IS A NATIONAL BESTSELLER

MORE THAN HALF A MILLION COPIES NOW IN PRINT

(March 30, 2006 — New York, NY) V FOR VENDETTA, the critically acclaimed graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, is #8 on the BookScan Adult Fiction Trade Paperback list for the week ending March 26, 2006.

And Alan Moore’s internal rage intensifies.

V for Very Small, Somewhat Awkward Protest [FishbowlNY]

Again, no Katie on Today. Back on Monday. Meanwhile, her potential new employer is back in the Top 10.

Couric Stay or Go? Odds Calculator:
5:4 | Couric leaves Today

Katie Couric Contract Countdown: 63 Days Left
Katie Couric Contract Countdown: 64 Days Left
Katie Couric Contract Countdown: 65 Days Left