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Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Who’s NOT coming to Christmas dinner?
Who’s the Hollywood star Americans would most like to chow down on turkey with this Thanksgiving? According to a survey by AOL, it’s none other than Jennifer Aniston.
Now London’s Guardian newspaper is wondering who your Hollywood Guest List From Hell would be for Christmas dinner. In a column this week, associate editor Xan Brooks said he’d steer clear of the superstars who traditionally are featured on “most hated” lists such as Tom Cruise and Lindsay Lohan. “I figure they’d actually be quite good value as Cruise might jump around on the table and Lohan would get loaded and start hitting on the next-door neighbor,” he said.
Instead, Brooks decided to go for the pompous and the preening, the precious and the fussy, the sanctimonious and the self-obsessed.
So who would he most hate to spend this Christmas with? His six worst guests would be Kate Hudson, Hugh Grant, Sharon Stone, Tim Robbins, Sofia Coppola, and M. Night Shyamalan.
These stars “would make me feel truly wretched about my shabby little life and paltry attempts to lay on a Christmas spread,” he said. Bah, Humbug.
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Guns N’ Roses album a plot to embarrass China?
The new Guns N’ Roses album “Chinese Democracy” is an attempt by the aging rockers to “influence the world’s (opinion of China) by using democracy as a pawn,” a newspaper run by China’s ruling Communist Party editorialized on Monday.
“(The) western stars, who are surrounded by news of drugs, sex and violence, rarely come to China and don’t have any understanding of Chinese democracy,” the Global Times reported in an article titled “American band releases album venomously attacking China.”
The band began recording the album in 1994 and it was released in the United States on Sunday. But Beijing’s censors, who maintain tight controls over films, music and books, are unlikely to allow the work to be sold legally in China.
The record’s title track makes a reference to the Falun Gong spiritual movement that Beijing banned as an “evil cult.” In an apparent message to China’s authoritarian government, it warns that “if your Great Wall rocks, blame yourself,” the Associate Press reported.
Beijing approves only a limited number of foreign films and recordings for distribution each year and regulates live performances, including by forcing bands to submit set lists before shows.
The Rolling Stones were barred from playing several songs with suggestive lyrics during a concert in China 2006, including “Brown Sugar” and “Let’s Spend the Night Together.”
Censors tightened restrictions earlier this year after Icelandic singer Bjork shouted “Tibet!” at the end of a concert in Shanghai.
