Daily Archives: November 20, 2006

Ashley Judd’s Naked Advocacy

Ephemera

Joey Lauren Adams’ Come Early Morning, so one could be forgiven for thinking this topless-but-not magazine cover, from December’s issue of Marie Claire, was nothing but a move to publicize that. Au contraire. The piece is about her advocacy for the group YouthAIDS.

Judd is whipsmart and one of those celebrities trading on her fame to do some good. And if she’s willing to go all in with her body as well, who the hell am I to argue? Me, I’m reading up on how to become the life of the party. For a redacted version of the interview from Marie Claire, click here.

Fast Food Nation

Film Reviews

1993’s Dazed and Confused (still the preeminent evocation of high school ennui and hormonal imbalance) and has ever since steadfastly refused to be pegged down, either by genre or stylistic mode.

Linklater’s latest film is Fast Food Nation, a dramatic modification of Eric Schlosser’s eye-opening, investigatory non-fiction novel of the same name, and it takes an impressive and humanistic aerial view of the fast food industry’s death-grip on American culture,
showing how cows and illegal immigrants alike are equally exploitable and
expendable in a system that values haste and the bottom line above all
else. For the full review, from FilmStew, click here. Furthermore, an interview with Linklater will follow later this week, but for an interview with costar Greg Kinnear, click here.

Happy Feet Dances Past 007

Box Office

So Bob Saget is breathing a sigh of relief. America really does love penguins, after all, it seems. Warner Bros.’ Happy Feet danced past Daniel Craig’s debut as James Bond, Casino Royale, this weekend at the box office, pulling in an estimated $42.3 million from 5,600 screens to the latter’s $40.6 million from 5,100 screens. Good news for Farce of the Penguins, even better news for Happy Feet multi-hyphenate George Miller. For the full box office rundown from the weekend of November 17, click here.