Bruner Blog

Very sad to see Bill Murray lose the Best Actor award. When the hell is he going to get another chance? It was a once-in-a-lifetime performance.

I watched the Oscars tonight. I couldn’t help noticing that IMDB’s updates on winners was almost instantaneous while Oscars.org lagged several minutes (up to half an hour) behind the announcements. Proof: IMDB and Oscars.org (note the awards for Cinematographer and the Director categories and the time stamp in the lower righthand corner).

TNT has been running a series of Steven Segal movies the last few days. I caught parts of Fire Down Below and Out for Justice. I’ve never actually seen any of Segal’s films in the theater and was not surprised that niether was very good. But what did strike me was that Segal isn’t a very gentlemanly fighter. He kicked quite a few men in the balls in both films, and bent back even more fingers. I suppose there’s something refreshing in that — it’s the way I’d certainly conduct myself in a fight, were it to come to that. Thankfully, it hasn’t yet.

Hungary’s principal newspaper Népszabadság points out (in Hungarian, of course) that front-running Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry is one-quarter Hungarian. His paternal grandfather was Fritz Kohn, from the Czech village of Horni Benesov, who later changed his name to Fredrick Kerry, and converted to Roman Catholicism from Judiasm when he moved to the US (the Boston Globe has that story). Kohn’s wife was Budapest native Ida Löwe, who grew up in the then wealthy Jewish Lipótváros neighborhood that is now around Szabadság tér (where the U.S. embassy and Magyar TV station are).

Via Miki

I just saw her on Letterman. Her music is nice enough, but it really annoys me that the media and the music industry has pegged her as jazz. I even heard Leonard Lopate say so today on WNYC, who should know better. It’s nothing but run of the mill chick pop, am I wrong?

Also, just to be bitchy about it, seems to me she spent some of the millions she must have earned from her first album on donuts or some such. Certainly not on a personal trainer, anyway. Maybe that’s why they peg her with the jazz label — she’s not keeping up appearances enough to be called a pop star.

It’s pledge drive time at my beloved NY NPR affiliate, WNYC. Please give generously, so they will shut the hell up!!

My favorite part of the fund drives is when they explain how basic math works ad naseum when they get a “dollar for dollar match” by some rich donor, meaning, as they’ll explain, “That means, if you give $50, we get $100. Or, if you give $75, we get $150. Or, if you give $100, WNYC gets $200. Or…”

Enough. We can all multiply by two!

Okay, I’m a loser, and was home Friday night watching TV. But thankfully, there are bigger losers than me, namely the contestants in Great American Celebrity Spelling Bee.

This show, hosted by John O’Hurley (probably best known for playing J. Peterman on Seinfeld), presents a conundrum of sorts. On the one hand, with all the sex, violence and just general crap on TV, a spelling show is actually fairly wholesome. Problem is, it’s just not very interesting television. (That said, I somehow watched the whole thing.)

Embarrassingly, unlike the normal has-been and B-list celebrity reality show, where all of the prize money goes to the celebrities’ charities, in this show, the winning celeb (out of 20 original contestants) gets to keep $75,000 for him- or herself. I don’t know what B-list celebs typically earn these days, but for three days work (the show is a three-parter, anyway; maybe they filmed it all in one sitting), plus the pressure of looking like a fool on national television for missing an easy word (e.g., Alice Cooper’s “m-o-r-t-i-c-i-o-n”), you’d think $75,000 wouldn’t be so highly motivating. Or, at least you think they’d like the rest of us to believe they’re worth more.

Back to our conundrum — while this show should be wholesome TV to be encouraged and yet I really just feel like mocking it — I can hardly wait for the next show to begin minutes from now, a long-awaited second installment of my all-time favorite completely tasteless reality show: Man vs. Beast!

PS: Fox’s site stinks. Neither of these shows have sections of the site, or even just stand-alone pages for me to point to. For the spelling show, for example, it would be great to get the names of all the forgotten celebs and, better yet, the words and definitions featured, per its educational value, and all…

PSS: Man versus Beast kicked ass. Man 2, Beast 3

Daypop’s wonderful Top 40 feature is, yet again, on the fritz. Unlike usual, where it simply comes up nonfunctional, this time Daypopster Daniel Chan offers us something glorious to amuse ourselves with: the Daypop Top 40 archive! I never realized this existed before (and from the lack of interface, I think perhaps it wasn’t a public feature before now). There is some serious meat in this to sink your teeth into. Frankly, I think Chan could be more enterprising and mine this in ways researchers might even pay for.

UPDATE:
Hmmm, looking at this more carefully, it’s a bit of a disappointment. What I’d really like to see would be the most popular link for a whole, week, month and year. These archives, though, are four files for each day. Even so, there’s a lot of interesting stuff here.

I’m so proud of my friend Yvette Feuer! Get ready to see that name in lights, someday.

She was actually a fairly prominent actress back in her native Hungary before she moved here a few years back to struggle for her craft in semi-obscurity. As I blogged a few weeks ago, she’s co-written, produced and stars in a great family play, “The Beak, the Sausage and the Axe,” running for the next two Sundays (3pm) at the Palace of Variety Theater (125 W. 42nd St., between Broadway and 6th Ave; tel: 877-BINDLES).

Her dedication to this production was really amazing. As Adi did the film editing for the video component of this otherwise live theater performance, I had a window into much of the preparation, and there is no exaggerating how much blood, sweat and tears Yvette personally put into making this thing happen.

Two weeks ago, I went to see it. I have to admit, it was with some apprehension, as, come on, it’s a low-budget original theater piece aimed at kids. Were a friend not in it, that just doesn’t sound like my preferred way to spend a Sunday afternoon. But honestly, it was really funny. Guffaw funny. Yvette is indeed a very talented actress (trained as a clown), and, as my dad, who came along to the performance, pointed out, it doesn’t hurt that she’s quite easy on the eyes, too. And let’s not forget her cast mate (it’s a two-person show, both playing multiple characters), Sean O’Connor, who is also quite funny, especially in the role of Prince Edumnd.

Don’t take just my word for it. Today, she gets the vindication every struggling actress and playwright can only dream of: a rave review in the New York Times. Critic Laurel Graeber summarizes, “Fortunately, love conquers all, and it does so hilariously.” (The only downside to the write up is that it erroneously identifies the co-author, Bruce Macphail, as also being the other actor, denying Sean of his due kudos in print. Oh well, Sean seems like a nice guy, but Yvette’s my friend, and at least they got her name right.)

If you have a kid, or if you’re just a kid at heart, I urge you to go see “The Beak.” You won’t regret it.

In case you haven’t noticed, your web site sucks.

• No discernible way to find the permanent links for your stories? The point of that is…what?
• An “Email Article” function that doesn’t even pretend to work (owing to your not having a functional archive feature). WTF?

• Frames? Do you have a calendar in the building? FYI, it is no longer then 1980s, or whenever it was that web sites used frames.

Feel free to hire me. Or anyone. Please. It’s possible that people other than Gawker geeks might actually read your newspaper if you did.

As I’ve noted before, I have a friend who is the editor of the beauty and fashion section of the Daily News, so I write occasional stories for her. My latest, in today’s paper: “Click ‘n’ match: Specialized dating sites make it easier to meet someone who shares your interests”

Rick Bruner (left) and Rick Bruner (right)

I had the pleasure of lunching today with Rick Bruner. Yes, the other Rick Bruner.

First time we’ve met. Wonderful guy (well, what else would you expect from a Rick Bruner?). He works here, freelances here. We’ve agreed there will be bicycling, beer, bluegrass and business in our future. (As Bruners, we favor activities that start with “B.”)

2004 is turning out to be a promising year to be a Rick Bruner.

Saw three terrific films on video in the last few days:

• Breakfast at Tiffany’s - Very sweet, even sappy you could say, but thoroughly enjoyable, thanks in no small part to Audrey Hepburn’s unearthly beauty (released in 1961, when she was 32). Truth be told, however, she wasn’t much of an actress. Remarkably, she was nominated for Best Actress for an Academy Award but she didn’t win. Too bad they don’t have one for Most Beautiful. It won for best Music. Also nominated for Writing and Art Direction.
• Network - Deliciously cynical skewer of the news media from 1976. Brilliant script by Paddy Chayefsky, except that I saw it a few days ago, so I can’t really remember any dialogue other than the classic line, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it any more!” Academy Award winner for Best Actor (Peter Finch), Best Actress (Faye Dunaway), Best Supporting Actress and Writing, and nominated for Best Picture, another Best Actor (William Holden), Cinematography, Directing and more.

• The Apartment -
  

  Best movie I’ve seen so far this year. Saw it years ago (made 1960), but forgot just how fantastic it was. Unbelievably great dialogue (Billy Wilder). “You would think I should have learned by now. When you’re in love with a married man you shouldn’t wear mascara.” Also, Fran: “Why can’t I ever fall in love with somebody nice like you?” Baxter: “Yeah. Well — that’s the way it crumbles, cookie-wise.” And many others I’d happily watch it again tomorrow night in order to transcribe. Deservedly won Best Picture and Directing, along with three other Academy Awards, out of 10 nominations in all. Must see; A+; #82 most popular on IMDB.

Commentary on an ad I’d like to see. Meanwhile, this kid rocks.

Thanks to cool-nerd nephew Patrick for the clip.

This one’s for all the beautiful ladies:

Also, enjoy the Valentine Smoochie on Happy Tree Friends.