Soman's In the Know

FILM

Soman's In the Know: A Pop Culture Compendium

Soman's In the Know: A Pop Culture Compendium

SOMAN'S IN THE KNOW: A Pop Culture Compendium

Further proof that the pressure to be politically correct is long gone... Overheard in Cabot House Dining Hall between a Chinese boy and a Korean girl...

BOY: I don't understand why you're so mean to me. You hate me because I'm Chinese, don't you?

GIRL: No, it has nothing to do with you being Chinese.

BOY: Why? Why do you hate Chinese people so much?

GIRL: I don't. Stop it.

BOY: What's wrong with the Chinese?

GIRL: (flustered) All Chinese people look like peasant farmers!

BOY: What?!

GIRL: Look how you sip your tea. You sip your tea like a peasant farmer.

BOY: Let's change the subject. [Pause]

GIRL: So how's that Linguistics class?

BOY: It's alright.

GIRL: Has your teacher explained to you why the Japanese sound so funny? Like they sound choppy because they have short tongues?

BOY: You hate the Japanese too?

GIRL: No. Why are you giving me that funny look?

BOY: I don't see where you're coming from on this linguistics thing.

GIRL: That's why linguistics is stupid. (Gets up and walks away)

Overheard between two students in the Science Center...

GIRL: Every day I pray to God to be skinny. I pray to God that I'll lose weight and wake up 20 pounds lighter.

BOY: That's retarded. God has no control over your weight. There's a whole damn lot of fat religious folks.

NICOLE KIDMAN: TO DIE FOR?

(Note: My mother gave me permission to discuss her obsession--as long as I don't mention her name. So I'll just call her "mom.")

So, yes, my mother thinks about Nicole Kidman more than most people should. Her theory? Kidman is Satan incarnate--a fraud, a floozy who has manipulated her way onto movie screens, magazine covers and into our collective consciousness. "She's pure evil," my mom has said on more than one occasion. "She married Tom Cruise for the money, for the fame, for the camera flashes." "She's a bad actress." "She's naked all the time." "I heard she sleeps around." I just figured my mom had a secret crush on Tom Cruise and was taking it out on poor Nicole, but it seems that lots of people feel this way. No one thinks Nicole Kidman is a particularly good actress. Sure, she was wonderfully icy in To Die For, but the consensus was that she was playing herself. "She's like that in real life," my mom says. "She's a murderer?" I ask. "You never know," she answers.

True, Nicole's career did do a 180 after she became the wife of the most famous man on the planet. After winning performances in Flirting and Dead Calm, Nicole tried to flex her acting muscles opposite her new husband (Far and Away, Days of Thunder) but found herself in an endless string of flops (My Life, Malice, Portrait of a Lady, etc.). And so she took action--my mother calls it "Plan B," I call it "Operation Take My Clothes Off and See If I'm a Better Actress When I'm Naked." Nicole Kidman has become the new Demi Moore--naked just for the hell of it. Eyes Wide Shut, The Blue Room on stage in New York City, the upcoming Birthday Girl and next year's adaptation of In the Cut ("In the Ass," as dubbed by industry insiders) all feature Nicole's body front and center. I wonder if it has to do with her makeover--the fact that after 1995, her freckles disappeared, she dropped a whole lot of weight and chemical peels may have lightened her skin complexion. Or maybe, as my mom puts it, "she's jealous that Tom gets all the media attention." We'll see how it all works out. As for my mom, she's starting to get impatient. "No one likes her, right?" asks my mom, eagerly. "Well, I think some people do," I answer. She gets an angry look on her face. "They'll change their mind."

INSIDE SCOOP: BEST SCRIPTS YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF

Last week, I was saddened by the insipidness of the current pop culture scene. So I'm trying to stay positive. I still want to be able to turn on MTV without deconstructing LFO lyrics, to watch the WB without critiquing the dialogue, and to read Entertainment Weekly in the open instead of hiding it between the covers of Jedidiah S. Purdy '97. So instead of dressing in black and writing poetry on the benches outside the Barker Center, I found news of three intriguing scripts that will soon find their way onto a screen near you.

1. Cherry Falls: Now this is a high concept. A serial killer stalks a small Midwestern town, butchering young victims who seem to share no common characteristic. And then--gasp!--the link is discovered. They're all virgins! To end the killer's spree, then, there's only one solution: Throw a sex party! All the town's teenagers get together for well-organized orgy, but the killer shows up just in time. As long as they don't cast Jennifer Love Hewitt, we have ourselves a winner.

2. Coyote vs. Acme: After decades of being burned by Acme products, Wile E. Coyote finally takes the stand. He drags Acme to court, determined to get revenge and a new chance at bagging Road Runner.

3. Benjamin Button: A script that has often been touted as the best unmade movie in Hollywood is a clear star vehicle about a man who ages backwards--when he finally finds the girl of his dreams, she gets older as he gets younger and younger. As a magazine recently noted, it'll work as long as they don't cast Robin Williams.

SOMAN'S SHORTS

Five more days, 120 hours, 7,200 seconds till Pacey and Joey finally hook up... After 7,397 performances, Cats will finally close on Broadway this summer. Will copious tears be shed? I think not. It's a two-hour abomination. Good riddance...Just caught Scream 3 a couple days ago. Only two things of significance in the whole movie: a) Parker Posey (there is no one, absolutely no one, as cool as Parker Posey) and b) that Courtney Cox Arquette looks like she's wasting away--rumor has it that she's been dieting like a madwoman, but she really looks awful (her husband, David Arquette, meanwhile, looks healthy with some extra pudge)... Random diversion: does anybody remember when the dining halls slapped hamburger patties onto croissants and tried to convince us that they were "French Rondelles?"...Okay, I think Christian Bale is a nice person and all, and I sort of see what Mary Harron was trying to do in casting him as the "psycho" in American Psycho, but why cast a Brit in a role that absolutely must be played by an American? Harron cast Jared Leto ("My So Called Life's" Jordan Catalano) in a lesser role, but he would have been a perfect Patrick Bateman...Denzel Washington doesn't deserve the Oscar for The Hurricane. The part is fabricated, the story contrived to give him a role that isn't true to the spirit of the real-life story, and the whole think just stinks of manipulation...Are Gwyneth and Ben Affleck officially dating again? Or are they just sleeping together until they find new love toys? I think we know the answer... Oooh. A girl just fell flat on her face right outside my window. She's not moving. Really, you have to watch out for the "black ice." It's deadly. I better go help her. Maybe she'll star in my music video.