I Swear That You Are Godless

Oh, don't look so angelic, Diablo. We know what you're up to. We've been waiting for weeks for this Thanksgiving-related post to finally make its way onto the Entertainment Weekly website, and now that it's almost Christmas we see it's quietly popped up there. Don't think you can sneak it past our watchful eye. Been Googling your own name again, I see?

Hey, what could we possibly have to say about a column in which she straight-facedly describes this:

Hollywood is a perpetual summerland, a temperate, godless yaw where the very word season has been co-opted by television executives. There are few harbingers of winter here. Yeah, there's a mall called the Grove that has a Christmas trolley and a part-time Santa. And last year, a few anemic snowflakes fell in Malibu, giving billionaire bohos in the Colony an excuse to wear their Uggs. But mostly, traditional year-end signposts are absent. (Increasingly, I hear about ''Fakesgiving'' dinners, where family members are eschewed for younger, hipper friends and industry contacts. Where better to give thanks for good plastic
surgery?)

Oh come on, look at the association here: We're summery, we're temperate, and we're therefore godless, people. Godless! Who wouldn't make a connection between moderate weather and an amoral atheism?

I mean, look at the list of holiday traditions that she can't possibly find here: Yeah, the mall has a Christmas trolley and a Santa, and there's a little snow, plus all the lights and carolers and gift-givers and families that she conveniently doesn't mention, but who cares? We live in an irrigated desert, people! Christmas is dead.

Now don't get me started on her description of those who've "eschewed" their loved ones. A lot of people move to Los Angeles to pursue their creative dreams -- you know, like Diablo Cody -- and -- unlike the well-off Cody -- many artists can't afford to fly home to be with their much-missed family and hometown friends every holiday. So what's wrong with making the best of things and sharing dinner with other holiday "orphans" also in town? If her next few films do as well as Jennifer's Body, Diablo may experience a few "Fakesgivings" herself.

And the plastic surgery comment is just cliched and gratuitous. Merry Christmas everyone!

Miami Hit

Entertainment Weekly, who haven't been our faves as of late, for some reason fill their choice front-of-book pages with tons of short-form listicle-type crap, most of which is roughly as humorous as the average Marmaduke cartoon. (The Shaw Report... gah!)

Which brings us to last week's Hit List, which is a listing of ten ostensibly newsworthy items with ten ostensibly funny pithy comments attached. Usually I hadn't heard the news items in the first place, since I'm not an EW reporter closely following Nicolas Cage's press junkets -- but this one did make me take notice:

9. Burn Notice's Jeffrey Donovan allegedly tells arresting officer in Miami Beach: ''The only mistake I made tonight was drinking Benadryl with three glasses of wine''

He needs to move to L.A., where that's not considered a mistake so much as a lifestyle choice.

That's right; move him here! That way he can combine all the perfectly legal over-the-counter medications and alcoholic beverages that certainly are never misused anywhere else in America. I mean seriously -- is that really a behavior that characterizes Los Angeles more than Miami Beach? Talk about gratuitous.

Also, the original news item is a lot funnier than the witty comment.

Entertainment? Weakly

So apparently Melissa Gilbert's written an autobiography, which I might have to read because despite the fact that she's a 45-year-old mother and former holder of the same post as Ronald Reagan (president of Screen Actors Guild), I somehow believe she still looks just like this picture with the shaggy dog, perpetually scampering down a grassy hill to jaunty end-title music.

From this Entertainment Weekly book review, though, I see that I'd get a reality check from the many sordid tales contained within, of things that Manly would never dare do to our Half-Pint:

Gilbert's irritation with her first husband, Bo Brinkman, is certainly understandable; after all, as the actress tells it, she once came down to the kitchen of their home in the middle of the night, only to find him having sex with a prostitute. Even in Hollywood, this is considered bad form.

Yeah, that would totally suck and -- uh, what? Entertainment Weekly, I may have to put you on notice as I'm seeing a lot of LA cliches between your pages lately.

One more time, in case you're uncertain: No. Los Angeles is really not such a den of iniquity that it takes completely outrageous sexual behavior to be considered "bad form" here. You have writers based out here, they're probably not banging hookers in the kitchen, and you know this already so please stop stereotyping us. Hope you've enjoyed this thoroughly unnecessary lil' lesson for the day.