Innocent Bystander

Magazine Rack: Special New York Times Sunday edition...

I get itchy for New York City every year around this time. I have a short trip planned in about 2 and a half months, and this time, for the first time in quite a few years, I should be up there when fall is in full bloom. The past few years, I've gone up in mid-September, before the temperatures drop and the trees change. This year it'll be late October, and only for 3 days, but I am starting to look forward to it more and more. These days, anything to look forward to is grabbed and held and treasured. Trust me on this.

As part of my prep work for any trip to the mythical kingdom of NYC, I start off by buying a Sunday New York Times, just to do a little reconoitering. Being a hot day in August, the Times was as thin as the stack of cash in my wallet and a quick read, but still not without its own small revelations...

Such as: who decides who are pertinent personalities in the Times these days? The Magazine has an article on Anne Heche (seriously: WHO CARES?) and the Arts and Leisure section has an article on Tom Arnold. What? Joan and Melissa Rivers weren't interested? Like NBC, has the Times gone the route of including pop culture personalities who have become punch lines to their own jokes (see this season's Celebrity Apprentice on NBC for more information)? Does the newspaper of record actually think that either Heche or Arnold are personalities anyone cares about? What's next? An in-depth look at the life and career of Billy Mays?

I am constantly amazed by the wedding announcements. Some are accompanied by photos and those that are all contain at least one person of extraordinary beauty. One photo today includes a couple who are both 51. He looks like her father, she looks all of 25.

Finally, this issue of the Times includes a longish article on the financial woes of the photographer Annie Liebowitz. The Times seems shocked that an artist of such stature could be in such deep money trouble. HELLO! She's a freakin' artiste. When have you ever known ANY artist who could handle money? This is as earth-shattering a story as the profiles on has-beens Heche and Arnold.

Today's Sunday Times gives new meaning to the term "slow news day."

Magazine Rack...Entertainment Weekly goes up in smoke, Esquire still sucks.

I'm sure there are plenty of magazines that still accept cigarette ads, but I never seen them. I don't read Playboy, Sports Illustrated, GQ, or any typically male magazine, with the possible exception of Esquire (about which, see below). So imagine my shock, surprise and utter disdain when I find a big, honkin', stiff-paper insert for "American Spirit" cigarettes in my new Entertainment Weekly, which arrived yesterday in the mailbox.

Just the other day, while perusing the EW.com website, I was assaulted by a giant American Spirit banner ad, which expanded onto my screen, covering up everything I was reading. These kind of ads are annoying enough, but when they're for cigarettes, it seems even more annoying to me. I'm guessing EW, like every other print publication, is hard up enough for ad revenue that a big cigarette campaign is welcome, both in its print and online editions. But whatever happened to doing the right thing? Sure, American Spirit bills itself as a "natural" cancer stick, but there it is FOUR times on the insert: "No additives in our tobacco does NOT mean a safe cigarette." (And, yes, they added the all caps on NOT and bolded it, too...not me.) It's organic, it has no additives, it has a pipe-smoking Indian on the cover! It's American, dammit! It's also a cigarette. Plus $20 gift certificates--hey kids, free cigs!

Entertainment Weekly...I am incredibly disappointed in you.

As for Esquire, I sometimes think it's the most incredible waste of paper on the newsstand. They're still flogging to death those type-heavy covers where the "star" of the issue floats on top of text. It was cool the first time, annoying the second, now it's so overdone it's ridiculous. The current issue--with the incredibly over-rated Megan Fox (Angelina Jolie-lite) on the cover--is ostensibly a movie issue, but you won't want to read any of the articles. Their Terminator Salvation article is about two things only: a scene containing a scream and why McG isn't a dick because he calls himself McG. The Pelham 1-2-3 article talks about the original movie (The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3) starring Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw and goes on about how bad it is (he'd never even heard of it before--and he's writing about MOVIES?), but leaves out the fact that it has one of the coolest endings ever and then goes on to give Tony Scott, the director of the remake--starring Denzel Washington and John Travolta--the equivalent of a blowjob in print. So much for a movie issue.

I'm still waiting for a publisher to come along and do a serious movie mag again. Premiere was great in its hey-day, and with the American box office ramming its way to a record year (in this economic climate!), shouldn't there be a market for us movie lovers? The UK has the great Empire magazine (the one on the newsstand right now here in the States is a beauty, guest-edited by Steven Spielberg). At 10 bucks a throw, it's a pricey import, but it's pretty much all we got here in the US (plus the other Brit imports, all equally expensive and not as good). If the French can keep Premiere going, why can't we?

Magazine Rack...

The new issue of Time Magazine has a cover feature called "How to Save Your Newspaper (A Modest Proposal)". No offense to Time, but maybe they should concentrate on how to save Time Magazine. This issue is a paper-thin 56 pages, plus covers, with only 12.5 ad pages, one of which is a Time Inc. ad, with another that looks like a public service announcement (i.e. freebie?). Of the ads, 4 of the pages are drug company ads, 2 ads taking up 2 pages each. Even Time's magazine cousin, Entertainment Weekly, has more pages (64) this week. Either the news biz is slow or fading, or entertainment news is king. Maybe Time needs to do a Jessica Simpson cover.

Looks like Vanity Fair has ended an almost 15-year tradition with its latest issue. The March issue has been--over the past few years--the traditional "Hollywood Issue," and while it's still on the cover, type-wise ("Plus: Hollywood 2009!"), this issue is given over to a different theme with its "Special Commemorative Inauguration Issue!" top line and a picture of that guy. You know who I mean, oh his name is on the tip of my tongue! You know...the black dude that was just sworn in as president. OBAMA! Yeah, that's it. Boy, I haven't seen him on a magazine cover in AGES.

Is this just poor planning on VF's fault? Shouldn't Obama have been the cover feature LAST issue, during the actual inaugural month? Or has the magazine given up the ghost on wall-to-wall Hollywood coverage during the Oscar season? It could be worse, I suppose. They could have handed the whole thing over to the self-appointed "icon" Tom Ford to edit again.

I'm a tad late on this, but New York Magazine had a great article on Sully Sullenberger last week, the pilot who landed that USAirways jet smack dab in the middle of the Hudson River in New York City. It pointed out how this is the only time a pilot ever made a successful water landing, and it was part luck, part skill that it happened, a "perfect storm" gathering of circumstances that included conditions--wind, distance, Sully's glider training--that made a perfect water landing possible. (It also pointed out how the commercial air travel business has changed since the time Sully became a pilot, and how pilots like him are a vanishing breed). Sully is going to do his first-ever interview on 60 Minutes tomorrow night, and I know I'll be watching. I also know I'll be crying. When it comes to stories about heroism and a word greatly underused these days--triumph--I'm a sucker.

Magazine rack...

The latest issue of Entertainment Weekly (with the departure of CSI's William Peterson as the cover story) contains one of the grossest misuses of editorial resources--not to mention just plain old PAPER--I've ever seen in a magazine. EW--which I have been reading since the very first issue and look forward to each and every week, because let's face it, my life is bereft of even the most barren form of amusement--has taken it upon itself to "revote" the Oscars. This doesn't seem like a bad idea on the surface, if the purpose is to go back and "correct" what are regarded as Oscar wrongs over the years. But that's not what they did. Instead they "...focused on five different years—2003, 1998, 1993, 1988, and 1983 (picked with no agenda other than that they were 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 years ago)..." WTF? Why bother?

The article, titled "And the Oscar Should Have Gone to...", touts itself as a "recall," and utilized online voting on the EW website. The results? Well out of 30 categories "re-voted" upon (best picture, actor, actress, supporting actor and actress, and director), 7--SEVEN!--whole awards were different, with one tie. And yes, while Roberto Benigni should NEVER have gotten an award for best actor in 1998, they still can't retroactively erase from our memory the horror of watching him accept the award.

Why even bother to do this? Is EW that hard up for material that they have to rehash such garbage? Or did they need some kind of easily-formatted list type article that would fit conveniently around full-page ads (4 pages of the article have ads facing them on the right-hand page).

On a related note--an ad--is anyone else offended by the print ads for the new Showtime series, United States of Tara? While EW has a spiffy little lenticular card insert touting the show, the accompanying full-page ad--which shows 4 of the star's split personalities--mentions executive producer Steven Spielberg, the show's title and various other pertinent info--but fails to mention the name of the star, Toni Collette. The back of the lenticular card does mention her. But isn't she one of the selling points of the show? And isn't she fairly unrecognizable in the 4 separate identities featured in the ad and on the card? (The show's tagline is: "One woman. Multiple personalities." Didn't Lucy do this each Monday night in the '50s?) Lesson learned: Spielberg trumps acting talent each and every time. It's the name above the title that matters.

Los Angeles Magazine "The Sex Issue:" You're doing it wrong...

I love Los Angeles Magazine, and their new issue is devoted to a topic a lot of people love, namely sex. But there's something radically wrong if the lead story in the sex sex-tion is about David Spade. Seriously, whether true or not, even imagining the androgynous boy-man as "The Don Juan of our time" or "the no. 1 stud in town," as the cover so breathlessly proclaims, achieves the opposite of the issue's purpose, which is, of course, to titillate (yes, pun intended...I'm that cheap). I mean c'mon, the guy isn't even funny. He's the star of Joe Dirt, for Christ's sake, and he's smarmy AND whiny. I'm not buying it, no matter who confesses to banging him, or how many kids out of wedlock crawl out of the woodwork, literally.

Yes, I'm calling a Spade a spade here.

Seriously?

Are the editors at Playboy so bereft of ideas for online photo spreads that they've actually resorted to "The Girls of the Olive Garden?" According to TMZ.com the answer is yes. Or do you think maybe this is just a simple case of product placement (insert breadsticks joke here--wow, that's a DOUBLE double entendre!)? I tend to think they're working their way through the restaurant franchise phone book. Personally, I can't wait for "Shakey's Hot and Saucy Pizza Girls."

Magazine Rack: Tale of Two Covers...

With Wanted coming out at the end of the month, and the impending birth of her twins (not the ones pictured on the cover at left, above...those puppies are already walking and talking), Angelina Jolie is once again like dog poop: she's everywhere. Not that we're complaining. When you are arguably the most famous beautiful woman in the world, it's nice to see ya--thanks for stopping by.

But what is up with these covers? The Vanity Fair one on the left tarts her up to almost non-recognizable status, and the Entertainment Weekly one on the right does the opposite: deglamorizes her to the point that she looks like she's the new host of Good Morning Phoenix on cable channel 23 (specializing in UV reports for senior citizens: "You will burn to a crisp today, like ants beneath a magnifying glass. If you are over the age of 77, stay indoors."). The incredibly tight shot doesn't help matters. Maybe VF had an exclusive on her breasts.

EW is kind of famous for this. They've had female celebrities on their covers which have inspired me to ask "Who IS that?" out loud at newsstands. To which I get the normal response: "This ain't no lie-berry. Either buy it or leave."

But I digress. Expect to see lots and lots of the incredibly large--but looking so much better--Ms. Jolie in the coming weeks. Babies or not, Mama gotta make some moolah stumping for the new film.

Magazine rack...

One of the things that gives New York Magazine my weekly SMIRR Award (Snobbiest Magazine I Regularly Read) is their "Approval Matrix," wherein the rag devotes a page to a grid style ranking of stuff. It ranges from HIGHBROW at the top to LOWBROW at the bottom, and from DESPICABLE on the left to BRILLIANT on the right. Let's rank this current issue, dated May 19, and featuring "Hyper Design: Crazy Obsessive New York Homes on the cover, along this same sliding scale, albeit sans the unifying graph.

HIGHBROW: This issue's cover story, showing lots of big photos of New York homes, decorated to the max, all looking either crazy-packed with crap or austere, lonely and forbidding (I particularly like the sparse, modernistic home in Flushing that shows two cute little kids cavorting...let's visit them in 20 years when at their therapy sessions).

LOWBROW: Even though they almost always acknowledge comic books as "lowbrow," this issue New York suggests some oft-kilter casting for upcoming movies ala Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man, including Zooey Deschanel as She-Hulk, and--here's the brilliant part, folks--Don Cheadle as Green Lantern John Stewart. Now that's a movie I'd go see!

DESPICABLE: All the ads spawned by the decorator theme, including home furnishings and the ubiquitous real estate pages in the mag, geared towards the hedge fund financial types.

BRILLIANT: I did the whole crossword puzzle by myself!

The current issue of Entertainment Weekly is one of those special double issues that arbitrarily counts as two on your subscription, which pisses me off since it devotes SIXTY-THREE (63!) pages to Sex and the City. The page count fails to include the cover, plus the two "Contents" pages with SATC photos, nor the seven pages of SATC-related advertising, including the four on the gatefold for Vitamin Water, since, you know, talking about sex and shoes while drinking wine takes a lot out of a girl.

This week in snooty magazines...

The newest issue of Esquire has a cover that asks the musical question, "If you had two days with Halle Berry, what would you do?" And while I'm totally fine with any magazine cover that features a hot woman in black lingerie and thigh-high stockings, I have to answer the question with a succinct "Buy her a basic book on acting and tell her to go read it."

Yeah. Not a fan. And it's apparent from the critical reviews of her new film, Perfect Strangers, not a lot of other people are, either. I think Berry can be a decent actress with the right director. Monster's Ball proved that and garnered her an Oscar in the bargain, too. But it's obvious from this cover and the photo shoot inside, Halle isn't offering up her award-winning acting skills. It's T&A, pure and simple. The interview that accompanies the photos is one of the most self-indulgent pieces of crap I've ever read, in which--in schizoid fashion--Berry writes her own interview and the interviewer provides "liner notes" on it. Berry's deer in the headlights expression on most of the photos ruin even that aspect of the article.

In our other most favoritest snooty magazine--this one weekly!--New York Magazine does a big article and cover features hedge funds! "Isn't it time you stopped pretending to understand what a hedge fund is? BEHIND THE HEDGE: Who's making billions and how—their habits, their wives, their toys...ranking the smartest, the meanest, the best. Are they good or evil? All you need to know, in plain English." And that's just the cover.

I don't know what a hedge fund is. Don't want to know. But once again, I'm glad New York Magazine has the little people covered.

R.I.P. Premiere Magazine--1987-2007

Premiere is dead. The movie mag will end with the April issue, due out any day now. This doesn't seem like a big surprise to me, for a number of reasons, although I'm sad to see it go.

Premiere started off in the late 80s as a mainstream movie mag (Dragnet, with Tom Hanks and Dan Aykroyd, was featured on the very first cover, at a time when Aykroyd was a bigger star than Hanks. Go figure.) At the time, movie mags were something missing from the newsstands. After many years of gossipy movie mags like Modern Screen and a few "serious" rags like Film Comment, Premiere filled a niche that catered to popular big screen fare. In its early years, it was a well-written, nicely designed magazine. Chris Connelly, who went on to sell his soul to Satan and MTV and become a vapid red carpet host at the Academy Awards, was an early editor. Somewhere in the mid 90s, the mag became normal-sized and lost much of its appeal, at least to me. I started picking it up again on a regular basis about 3 years ago and it had once again become--for the most part--an interesting magazine (I partcularly enjoyed their Power and Summer Movie Preview issues). It was a little too designy for its own good (any mag that you makes you notice the design more than the writing is a bad one), and had a penchant for stark white covers with big close-ups of stars.

I'll miss Premiere. I still read Entertainment Weekly, even though they've totally screwed the pooch when it comes to subscribers, at least in the San Diego area. I've never been a fan of People or any of the celebrity mags, and that's undoubtedly what killed Premiere. People don't want to read "serious" journalism about movies. (And for the record, Premiere was far from serious, but compared to Us Magazine, it's the New England Journal of Medicine.) They want quick sound bites, provocative photos and Britney's shaved head, or--better yet--Anna in the coffin. Premiere was a good idea that got lost in a world that couldn't appreciate it. Twenty years is a good run, and the magazine will continue to exist online, but to this old reader, a magazine isn't a magazine unless the ink comes off the covers on to your hands.