Bee Boo Dee Beep Beep

Well said, Artoo, well said. Welcome to another entry of the Peverett Phile the web's most updated blog. This weekend I worked Star Wars Weekends on the Kenny Baker's
autograph line. Kenny played Artoo in five of the six Star Wars movies. I will talk more about him later. It’s starting to get nasty out there on the campaign trail. A new book out by veteran Democratic strategist Robert Shrum claims when asked about gay rights, John Edwards said he was "not comfortable around those people." Do you believe that? How does a guy who spends 400 bucks to get his hair styled not like gay people? How about this? At a charity auction someone paid $350,000 to be kissed by George Clooney. I had no idea Ryan Seacrest had that kind of money. Some of Michael Jackson’s personal processions will be auctioned off in Las Vegas the end of this month. The one thing that Michael won’t be parting with though, is his Pinocchio doll. Do you know about this? Michael will not sell his Pinocchio doll. You know, on the off chance, that one day it might became a real live boy. 

YOU MIGHT BE A REDNECK JEDI IF....

You ever heard the phrase, "May the force be with ya'll."
Your Jedi robe is camouflage.
You have ever used your light saber to open a bottle of Bud Light.
At least one wing of your X-Wings is primer colored.
You can easily describe the taste of an Ewok.
You have ever had a land-speeder up on blocks in your yard.
The worst part of spending time on Dagobah is the dadgum skeeters.
Wookies are offended by your B.O.
You have ever used the Force to get yourself another beer so you didn't have to wait for a commercial.
You have ever used the Force in conjunction with fishing/bowling.
Your father has ever said to you, "Shoot, son come on over to the dark side... it'll be a hoot."
You have ever had your R-2 unit use its self-defense electro-shock thingy to get the barbecue grill to light.
You have a Confederate flag painted on the hood of your land-speeder.
You have the doors of your X-wing welded shut and you have to get in through the window.
Although you had to kill him, you kinda thought that Jabba the Hutt had a pretty good handle on how to treat his women.
You have a cousin who bears a strong resemblance to Chewbacca.
You suggested that they outfit the Millennium Falcon with a redwood deck.
You were the only one drinking Jack Daniels during the cantina scene.
Your business cards read "Billy Bob, Jedi Master".
Your Y-wing fighter has a bumper sticker that reads "My other fighter is an X-wing".
You know Ewoks squeal like pigs.
You use your R2 unit as a beer coaster.
When your sister wears her metallic bikini, you insist she travels by clinging to you while swinging on a rope.
Your land-speeder had a light saber rack.
Your land-speeder has a bumper sticker that reads "Protected by Smith & Wesson Light Sabers"
If you hear ... "Billy Bob, I am your father ... AND your uncle!"

TV MILF'S

Lynette Scavo from "Desperate Housewives" played by: Felicity Huffman. Beneath the "soccer mom" exterior lies a high-powered advertising exec. Though she traded the business suits for T-shirts and jeans, Lynnette is no less alluring. Pizza shop manager Rick seems to have noticed.

STUPEFACTION

TOKYO-A glittering bathtub made of gold worth nearly $1 million has been stolen from a resort hotel, an official said Wednesday. A worker at Kominato Hotel Mikazuki in Kamogawa, south of Tokyo, notified police that the fancy tub was missing from the hotel's guest bathroom on the 10th floor, according to a local police official who only gave his surname, Ogawa. The round tub, worth $987,000, is made of 18-karat gold and weighs 176 pounds. The tub, flanked by two crane statues, has been a main feature of the hotel's shared bathroom. Visitors can take a dip in the tub, but it is only available a few hours a day "for security reasons," the hotel's Web site said. Someone apparently cut the chain attached to the door of a small section of the bathroom where the bathtub was placed, but not riveted,and made off with the tub, Ogawa said. "We have no witness information and there are no video cameras," he said. "We have no idea who took it," the official said.

R.I.P.

Rev. Jerry Falwell: He's now a member of the Moldy Majority.
Charles Nelson Reilly: Dead Charlie is so dead that his corpse keeps getting mistaken for a <blank>.

TODAY IN HISTORY

1791
The French Assembly passes a resolution bringing decapitation to the common criminal: "Every person condemned to the death penalty shall have his head severed."
1943
Three days after a sailor had been badly injured in a brawl with a group of Hispanics, a mob of 60 servicemen leaves the Los Angeles Naval Reserve Armory and bludgeons anybody wearing a zoot suit. The first two victims are a couple of boys, aged 12 and 13, who were just sitting in the Carmen Theater watching a movie. Thus begins a weeklong race riot.
1968
Valerie Solanas, author of the SCUM Manifesto, arrives at the art studio of Andy Warhol and shoots him three times in the torso. Warhol barely survives the attempt on his life. Solanas is later jailed and institutionalized.
1989
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini dies after 11 days in a hospital, recovering from surgery to stop internal hemorrhaging.
1991
Students throw eggs at South Korean Prime Minister Chung Won Shik. Nobody is injured in the incident at Hankuk University in Seoul.
1998
15-year-old teen idol Brad Renfro is arrested in Knoxville, Tennessee and charged with possession of marijuana and cocaine.
2007
I worked with Kenny (Artoo-Detoo) Baker with what could possibly be his last autograph signing forever. After he sighed a thirty thousand dollar Artoo replica, there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

SHARPENING AXES

And speaking of Kenny Baker... Kenny recently made a cameo appearance in the popular British medical drama show "Casualty". A notable line in the show had him insulted by another character, who referred to his appearance in the Star Wars movies with the line : "Hey, R2-D2,go inside." In the late 1990s, Baker launched a stand up comedy career. Kenny is a harmonica player and rates his guest appearance with the James Coutts Scottish Dance Band at Hugh McCaig's Silverstone Party in July 1997 as probably his "finest musical experience". Though both he and his late wife have dwarfism, their two sons do not. Baker owned a converted Rolls Royce, which was recently sold at auction. He decided to sell it after being convicted for drunk driving in December 2004, for which he received a £50 fine and a one-year driving ban.

NUTTED BY REALITY

This may go down as the longest hour of TV in the history of TV. Last week's second episode was only an hour long, but it felt more like thirteen thanks to the lame effort to American Idolize the show with all the awkward pauses and the "we'll tell you right after the break" nonsense. There were still 24, pardon me, 18 contestants left, and I couldn't very well not talk about someone's film. It'd be like the producers of this show completely leaving out an episode. Things like that just shouldn't happen. Anyhow, I guess there's no real reason for me to stretch this out any more than it needs to be. Was it just me, or did it look like Jason (Getta Rhoom) rolled around in some dirt before the show started? His shirt had the strangest brown pattern down the left and right sides. Just an observation. Jason's film ended up being one of the three top grossing movies in this week's Box Office along with Zach's Danger Zone and Will's Lucky Penny.
I can agree with Danger Zone being in the top three since it was the most technically impressive to my untrained eye, but I totally disagree with the other two films. I didn't find them to be bad, just not as good as Replication Theory and A Golf Story. This being a reality show that liberally borrows from other reality shows, I figured the week's top grosser would win some sort of prize. Perhaps they'd get to go hang out with the guest judge for a day and get some pointers or better yet, win some highly coveted face time with Mr. Spielberg himself. Maybe we'd even get to watch a clip of this to fill up some of the thirteen hour long results show. Of course, that would make too much sense so it never happened. What did happen was Carrie Fisher offering her daughter to the Lego maniac and I found it a tad on the creepy side. I wasn't sure how long I'd be able to go before referring to Carrie as the Paula Abdul of "On The Lot". Apparently, episode four was my limit. She definitely has that Paula quality to her only with a smidgen less crazy but a dump-truck more weird. Also, did I read her completely wrong, or did she do a complete 180 on the Getta Rhoom short? She went from being offended by it to loving it? I'd say I don't understand, but the paragraph before this one pretty much explains it to me. I forgot to mention who I thought would go home during yesterday's post so here's what my prediction would have been. Hilary with Bus #1, Shalina with Love in 2007, and for the sake of my corneas, Kenny with Wack Alley Cab. As it turns out, I was off the mark with all three guesses. Carolina (Deliver Me), Claudia (Blind Date), and Phil (Please Hold) left the show this evening. I can't argue with Carolina's leaving because her film didn't do all that much for me. However, I saw potential in both Claudia and Phil and was disappointed to see the two of them leave. I wish they would have told us what next weeks genre was but as it stands, 15 remain. Next week we'll probably see another three get voted out of the competition. Of course, that's assuming they don't go changing the format on us again. If one of the directors pulls out an immunity idol during next week's Box Office show I swear I'm never watching another Mark Burnett produced series again, and I'm burning my copy of E.T. Oh, Fox has apparently responded to the lackluster ratings of "On the Lot", by trimming down the number of episodes. Instead of airing on two nights each week, the network is going to condense its unreasonably long results show with its competition for a single, one-hour installment each week. The change is effective immediately: "On the Lot" will only be seen on Tuesdays at 8 pm starting June 5. There will still be a two-night finale on August 13-14. The schedule change will also cause a shift in the schedule for the remaining episodes of "The Loop". Now "The Loop" will not appear on Tuesdays, will air twice on Sundays at 7:30 and 8:30 pm on June 24 and July 1.

GEEK TALK

For anyone disappointed that Robin has been left out of the recent Batman films (I hope you are few), there is good news: Warner Bros. is developing a movie version of the DC comic Teen Titans. Robin is one of the original members of the young super team, and though he has not always been part of the group, it is certainly a possibility that he'll make it into the movie -- if only because of his familiarity to mainstream audiences. The Hollywood Reporter does report that Nightwing, a character who is sort of like an alternative version of Robin (he is the older incarnation of the original Robin, Dick Grayson), is already a definite character. However, because the continuities of DC Comics confuse the dickens out of me, I really have no idea if Nightwing and (the more-recognizable) Robin could both be a part of the movie's team. Warner Bros.' interest in doing a Titans movie is not surprising, but it is interesting considering the studio is also currently working on a Justice League film. Mostly, I see this project as being an attempt to cater more to a young audience as well as to market the thing as comparable to X-Men. But will it actually be hip enough to attract the kids and smart enough to be as good as the (first two) X-Men films? So far the studio is on the right track with the hiring of Mark Verheiden to script the movie. Comic geeks and TV fans may know Verheiden as a writer for the comic books The Mask and Timecop, as well as their movie adaptations, and as writer-producer for the shows "Smallville" and "Battlestar Galactica". The movie is being produced by Akiva Goldsman (Constantine) and Kerry Foster.

MOVIE BUZZ

Star Wars: The Clone Wars
George Lucas has unveiled the first preview of his upcoming 2009 animated TV series. And it's just as I figured. A CGI 'toon registering more emotions than Hayden Christensen.
Tropic Thunder
Studio execs are ticked that news leaked about Tom Cruise having a cameo in BFF Ben Stiller's newest comedy. But they're not as ticked as Owen Wilson was when Ben replaced him with Tom in his MySpace top friend slot.
Michael Clayton
George Clooney's new trailer features him trapped in another convoluted conspiracy. Hey, George, how about a movie one of these days where we don't need a CliffsNotes to follow the plot?
Terminator 4
Swedish male supermodel Marcus Schenkenberg, who just signed to appear in the upcoming sequel, claims Ah-nuld will have a 30-second cameo. The Governator originally wasn't going to be in it at all, but then said he'd be glad to personally hand off the series to a guy whose last name is almost as hard to spell as his own.
Elric
Chris and Paul Weitz of American Pie infamy have picked up the film rights to the books by Michael Moorcock about a medieval albino warrior who wields a giant magical sword. When asked why they picked this project, the brothers said the author's last name just made them giggle.
Babylon A.D.
In the teaser trailer for Vin Diesel's latest, he claims his entire life flashes in front of his eyes. Must be hell when he gets to The Pacifier.
Runoff
Guillermo del Toro is going to direct another graphic-novel adaptation, this one about a spooky town with bizarre happenings. Actually, a trailer for the comic is so eerie, Guillermo's considering just waving a camera over the rest of the book and adding some ominous music.
Logan's Run
Overachiever Bryan Singer is now officially off of the long-rumored remake. Replacing him will be Joseph Kosinski, whose main claim to fame is directing the Halo 3 video game ad. This is what Hollywood needs: a guy who can direct a film, the game version and his own commercials.
Death: The High Cost of Living
Comic book legend Neil Gaiman is finally all set to direct the adaptation of his own graphic novel, with Shia LaBeouf as a depressed teen who gets to hang out with the female personification of Death for a day. That's gotta be easier than hanging out with Lindsay Lohan for a night.
Ninja Gold
John Woo is going to direct the adaptation of a video game that's still in development about a Japanese ninja fighting Russian gangsters in the African jungle, which kinda sounds like a violent U.N. meeting or something.

Well, there you have it. Another entry of the Phile. The next update will be next Sunday again. Hope everyone has a good week. Spread the word, not the turd.