I’m jumping on the Ben/JLo wagon pretty late, especially after Xkot’s great post about those ecstatic lovebirds. But I came across this quote from Matt Damon about Ben’s engagement, and I couldn’t resist:

“Even when he lost his virginity, he wasn’t this happy.”

Matt should know – he was there.

BONUS JOKE (also stolen from somewhere on the Net):
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez are scheduled to be married on Valentine’s Day, 2003. So we can pencil in the divorce around Christmas 2003.

Yes, it was that bad

“I haven’t seen a worse movie in the theater since ‘Batman Forever.’ “

-Paul D. Harrison, on “The Truth About Charlie”

The verdict on Brian De Palma’s highly-praised “Femme Fatale”: Eh.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with this mildly diverting movie (with the exception of Rebecca Romijn-Stamos’ stubborn lack of acting skill), but there’s nothing particularly right about it either. This is a Showtime-level production (including lots of RR-S in lingerie) that just happens to be directed by De Palma. Plot twists, doubles, dreams, split screen, yada yada yada. Maybe it’s just my mood lately, but I found it impossible to care about any of this hooha. Go rent “Carrie” (or “Mulholland Drive” for that matter) instead.

I am an experienced monkey washer. Just ask Sparky.

This is such a grey, cold, nasty day, I thought I would give you something colorful and fun to read.

I’ve written in the past about funny/stupid spam e-mails I’ve received, but the amount of spam anyone gets who is even moderately active on the internet isn’t particularly funny. I’ve just started using something called SpamNet, which collects information about spam e-mail sent to all its users to block future e-mails. When you get a spam e-mail that the system didn’t already block, you click on “block,” and that e-mail is blocked from all users of the system. It’s a cool use of collaboration over the internet to help stamp out spam. That’s a good thing.

The problem with any anti-spam measures is you still have to look over the blocked e-mails to make sure no legitimate ones were flagged incorrectly. So I don’t know how much time you save. But it’s just nice to have those messages moved out of your inbox in the first place.

Giblets and repression

According to “Joy of Cooking” the original name is stuffing. The term “dressing” comes from Victorian England, when the term “stuffing” was thought to be improper.

-National Turkey Federation

The jury is still out, but I seriously think “The Truth About Charlie” may be one of the 10 worst movies I’ve ever seen. Jonathan Demme should be ashamed. In the first hour I repeatedly thought, while huffily checking my watch, “This is the most boring movie I’ve ever seen.” The ludicrous image of Mark Wahlberg wearing, variously, a beret and a fedora didn’t help. Then things got seriously stupid, random, insane and meaningless. The direction, the acting, the pacing, the script itself were all mind-blowingly horrible.

The luminous Thandie Newton deserves much better, and Marky Mark should rethink doing romantic parts – there was absolutely no chemistry between them. (Maybe he should just break down and do a romantic comedy with George Clooney.)

For some reason this experience reminded me of another one of the handful of times I contemplated walking out of a movie (I’ve never actually done it): “Ricochet,” where Denzel Washington tries to catch John Lithgow before he kills anyone else with a power drill.

“Ricochet” was better than this.

Nik was “infinitely intrigued” that I had Dolly Parton on my 10 People list (see below). Well, for all you doubters out there, I offer this MP3 (4.25 MB file). Just listen and see what you think. That is all.

Saw a book on the Borders sale table today, “Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life.” I can’t for the life of me understand why a baseball player would be called a hero, but I know he and many other sports figures have been called that. My favorite was Dale Earnhardt, who was called a hero because he died driving too fast. I’m fascinated that sports figures get this treatment (there’s even the phrase, “sports hero”), while movie stars and other pop culture figures don’t.

What does it take to make a hero?