Drag Race "The Sixening": Half a Premiere

Each year I think about covering RuPaul's Drag Race, so I'm finally doing it. Like Mad Men (and I bet this is the only time you'll hear them compared!) it's awash in fun movie references. Highlights from the past have included Raja's bucket of blood Carrie dress to Raven's "I'm giving Michelle Pfeiffer bitch" to Jinkx Monsoon's Grey Gardens fetish to Tammie Brown's demented Old Hollywood persona to numerous truly terrible movie star impersonations (I've never seen a worse Marilyn or Joan Crawford, for example, than this show has provided) and so on. I know. I know. It's the sixth season, "the sixening". The library is open if you'd like to read me because these books are overdue!

Four movie references to start us off... 

During the mini-challenge, a photoshoot where the queens lept across boob-tube color bars to a pile of foam below sees rubber limbed LaGanja Estranja compared to Goldie Hawn in Overboard. "I get that a lot," she said awkwardly pulling herself out of the foam. Laganga is obviously not in Goldie's comic league but, to be fair, Goldie Hawn did look like a drag queen in Overboard... 

Click to read more ...

Burning Questions: Great Soundtracks, Lousy Movies

Will people like this soundtrack more than the films it's for?Hey everybody. Michael C. here. Most of the time I try to find a topical question to address in this column, or failing that a universal question that is always pressing to some degree or another. But sometimes there is that third category of utterly random questions that bubble to the surface and refuse to stop nagging me until I’ve shared them with the world. Where the minds of most people produce useful thoughts like “Let’s go walk in the sunshine” or “It’s never too early to plan for retirement!” my mind cranks out gems like “It’s crucial that we know which film to soundtrack ratio has the biggest disparity. Quickly! Stop what you’re doing and make up a list of candidate films!”

I suspect many faithful readers can relate.

So let’s call this week’s episode more of a simmering question than a burning one, because that’s the query I want answered. Some films are best remembered only for introducing a star (The Silver Chalice) or for a single line of dialogue (Beyond the Forest). What movies would drift off into obscurity, if not for their killer playlists? What is the biggest difference in quality between a crappy film and an awesome soundtrack? 

Doing a preliminary scan I realized finding a definitive answer was going to be trickier than I thought...

Click to read more ...

RIP Whitney Houston (1963-2012)

Jordin Sparks and Whitney in the forthcoming "Sparkle"Breaking news as CNN is currently investigating the discrepancies within the details but Whitney Houston has died at the age of 48, the day before the Grammys no less. She won six of the music industry's top prizes over the span of her career, the last in 2000 for "It's Not Right, But It's OK".

She'll always be remembered as one of the great voices of the 80s and 90s but her career had been quiet for a decade, plagued as it was with substance abuse. I'll personally never forget that chilling "crack is whack" Diane Sawyers interview but there were occasional intermittent signs that Whitney was on the mend. She had recently returned to acting filming a remake of Sparkle with "American Idol" alum Jordin Sparks. 

That musical is currently in postproduction aiming for an August 2012 release date. Whitney's movie career previously was sparse and short but started with a supernova: The Bodyguard (1992) was a smash hit at the box office and the music was an even bigger deal launching a series of hits and becoming the bestselling soundtrack of all time.

Houston jumped from A list co-star to A list co-star: Kevin Costner to Angela Bassett to Denzel Washington. (I remember being miffed at the time that Angela Bassett had to take second billing but I was a possessed Bassett fan in college and hoping to see her snag a second nod for her literally fiery work in Waiting To Exhale.).

The song everyone remembers from The Bodyguard is of course Dolly Parton's immortal "I Will Always Love You". My fondest memory of the song is actually Dolly Parton related. My friends and I would always be like 'ka-ching. You get that money, Dolly!' whenever Whitney held that crazy note which was, appropriately, ALWAYS ♫ since she didn't seem to need to breathe and the song was always on. Mostly out of loyalty to Dolly and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas where 'I Will Always' was first movie-fied but maybe also because I go weak at the knees for a sparkly headdress or wrap, I was more partial to "I Have Nothing."

Rest in Peace, Whitney Houston.  Your voice had plenty and you gave quite a lot of it to the world.