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24 February2008: Fans of the late Brad Renfro are bursting with anger and expressing outrage across the Internet because the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) ignored him in their obituary tribute during the 80th Academy Awards broadcast tonight (on ABC in the USA). The obituary segment ended with Heath Ledger, who died of a drug overdose in New York at age 28, leaving behind a young daughter. Brad Renfro, very familiar to our readers, died in Los Angeles of a drug overdose one week before Ledger. He was only 25 years old.
Our On-line Reviewer who was watching the Oscars at home, called KABC, the local ABC affiliate, hoping that the station would at least broadcast on their local news that Brad's fans were angry at the brutal snub, but was shunted by the News Room to a comment line (which we know from prior experience is usually ignored for days or weeks).
We are furious, and we share the anger of Brad's fans. Rather than just spin your wheels expressing anger to your friends on the Internet, COMPLAIN TO THE PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SNUB! We have included below links which will take you directly to AMPAS and to ABC. As the Grand Panjandrum (also furious) has said, "Rip 'em a new one. They deserve it!"
We hope to agitate vigorously to prevent the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (ATAS) from giving the Oscar-cast its usual Emmy award. AMPAS and its Board of Governors deserve contempt not an award!
Hollywood screwed Brad Renfro from the very start of his career, Although both the title character and the poster boy for his debut movie, The Client, he wasn't even mentioned in the advertising, and although the adult leads of the film, Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones, were given great recognition for the film, and both subsequently won Oscars for other films, Hollywood treated Brad like crap. Brad auditioned for the part of Gabriel Martin in The Patriot, which eventually went to Heath Ledger. Is it any wonder that Brad became an alcoholic and turned to drugs, considering that the highly successful Heath Ledger was also popping pills?
The Associated Press today reported as follows:
"Wed Feb 27, 9:47 PM ET
"NEW YORK - Whoopi Goldberg has accepted an apology from producer Gil Cates for not including her in a montage featuring Oscar hosts during Sunday's Academy Awards telecast. Cates called her Tuesday and 'talked about the fact that he had made an oversight, pure and simple.'
"'He said, "You know I love you,"' Goldberg said Wednesday on ABC daytime talk show 'The View.'
"Goldberg, who called Cates a 'great gentleman,' accepted his apology."
SO! Poor "Hillbilly" Brad Renfro gets dished shit not only during life, but even after death, yet multi-millionaire African-American Whoopi Goldberg wasn't satisfied that she was merely shown winning her Oscar, she wanted to be seen twice, and the Academy has bent over backwards to kiss her ass.
Apologies for Brad? Hell no!
The Motion Picture Academy has gone out of its way to say that he wasn't included because "not everyone" can be included in the memorial segment for time reasons. There was time for a segment on binoculars and periscopes, time to tell Dennis Hopper where he was, time to show Ellen vacuuming the carpet, time for an animated bee, time to kiss Whoopi Goldberg's solid gold ass two days later, but no time to tell Brad Renfro's 4-year-old son that his Daddy was worth remembering. Gods damn it, they even found time to show a photograph of Sasheen Little Feather refusing an Oscar on behalf of Marlon Brando! What decent person can think of Brad's little boy growing up, knowing that his father was denied recognition in his lifetime, and then shat on after death, without wanting to kick Gil Cates's ass up one side of Hollywood Boulevard and up and down both sides of Highland Avenue?
Never has it been clearer that George C. Scott, who flatly refused to accept the Best Actor Oscar which he had won for Patton, and even refused to attend the ceremony, was spot on when he said that the Oscars were "a meat parade." (Scott, by the way was included in the "In Memoriam" segment after he died.)
This year's Oscars had the lowest ratings in their televised history. Next year I hope that Fox schedules a fresh episode of "American Idol" opposite the Oscars. Is there any doubt which show Americans will watch?
As Bones readies itself for a third season, we find ourselves compelled to come back online for the first time in more than a year to say: We hate it! Oh for the days when David Boreanaz was Angel (or anything but the doofus FBI agent he plays in Bones)! We make an exception, however, for supporting actor, Eric Millegen, for whom we have really returned online after such a long hiatus, and whose lovely official website may be found by clicking HERE. Eric plays "Dr. Zack Addy" (the good doctor is a former child prodigy with a photographic memory who just luvs bugs and bones and such-like) with a barely-repressed energy which is a refreshing break from the completely unbelievable posturing of the two stars.
Has anyone at Fox ever stopped to think that THE FBI HAS THEIR OWN DAMNED LAB? No. The entire premise of the show is incredible, and it sucks big time. We iterate: the only reason to watch it is Eric Millegen. We have not created one of our popular "Micro-Pages" for Eric because he is no longer a struggling actor; he's an actor who has "made it," and if he ever tires of acting, he can always find a job as a sports writer (you really must go to his web site and check out his curriculum vitae; it's amazing.
TV and film star and pop recording artist Drake Bell was seriously injured in a head-on collision in the early morning hours of December 30th. Unofficially, Drake has been transported to UCLA medical center, but UCLA cannot make any statements at the request of Drake's family.
We can absolutely confirm that Drake has been injured, but we are honoring the request of his family by not saying anything else. However, it has been unofficially reported that Drake is expected to recover fully.
Just in to us at 07:37 AM, Pacific Time, celebrated playwright Arthur Miller has died. Best known for his play, Death of a Salesman, and his marriage to Marilyn Monroe, he died last night in Roxbury, Connecticut, aged 89, of undisclosed causes.
Ben Silverstone Net, reports that Ben, after appearing for many months in Terrence Rattigan's Man and Boy in Brighton, England, moves wiith it on February 7th to the Duchess Theatre in London's West End.
Oh so many years ago (back when we updated this page several times a day!), our On-Line Reviewer, Christian Leopold Shea, reviewed Carl Bessai's film Johnny, which starred Chris William Martin. They worked together again on Émile, which stars Sir Ian McKellen. Although it is considered the third film in Carl Bessai's "Identity" series, it is not a continuation of Johnny. Chris plays a different character. We are going to try to tear The Shea Man away from his television long enough to send him out to see this film and review it.
Before anyone asks, the reason we don't have a current pic of either Chris or Sir Ian posted right here is that we are desperately short of server disk space and no one wants to pony up twenty bucks a month to rent a humongous amount of extra room. We're reducing the sizes of some of our archived pics to make room for new material, but that is a time consuming process.
We asked that question almost a year ago, after many years of people asking us.. We have been diligently searching for him, though, as many of you have asked us, and we shall continue to search ... except that one of our readers may well have found him for us. We have inquired to see if this is so, and if it is, maybe he will be merciful enough to his long-time fans to allow us to pass on a word or three from him. We await confirmation.
Ummm ... no there's no direct connection between Mozart's birthday (more or less) and why we should all boycott Tesco. Rather, our local classical music station decided that a perfect Midnight Hour send-off for WAM's b'day was the Requiem Mass in D Minor (Köchel 626). If the presence of rain clouds over our cave mouth isn't enough to make our Loblollies lugubrious, lyrics like this certainly are:
We should have known there would be trouble when Dr. Shea drained his car battery and used the acid to etch across his door lintel: "Nil inultum remanebit...." then started shooting sharp glances at the payroll clerks (poor things!), but, honestly, that's not too unusual for this place. Things started taking a turn for the worse when someone started passing around a copy of the Revelation to St. John in the original koine Greek with a note asking for help in making a new translation of certain passages. ... OY VEY IS MIR! Things went downhill from there.
Now even plastering the office bulletin boards with copies of Durer woodcuts of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (and not the football players, either) would still be relatively normal around this Bedlam, but the Grand Panjandrum overheard much cryptic, cabalistic murmuring from the narrow corner by the side of the fridge in the break room where middle managers cannot see shirking Loblollies, and what did he hear them mumbling sotto voce? ....
"'Then I saw a beast emerge from the sea; it had seven heads and ten horns, with a crown on each of its horns, and its heads were marked with blasphemous titles....'"
"Like, 'Mission accomplished!'?"
"What about, 'Bring it on'?"
"Hush!" spake the apparent ringleader of this during-business-hours Biblefest. "'I saw that the beast was like a leopard, with paws like a bear and a mouth like a lion; the dragon handed over to it its own power and his throne and his worldwide authority....'"
"Just like Margaret Thatcher and John Major did!" exclaimed the second cultist, who was again hushed by the lector.
"'I saw that one of its heads seemed to have had a fatal wound but this deadly injury had healed, and after that, the whole world had marvelled and followed the beast. They prostrated themselves in front of the dragon because he had given the beast his authority; and they prostrated themselves in front of the beast, saying, 'Who can compare with the Beast? How could anyone defeat him? For forty-two months the beast was allowed to mouth its boasts and blasphemies and to do whatever it wanted: and it mouthed its blasphemies against God, against His Name, His heavenly Tent, and all those who are sheltered there. It was allowed to make war against the saints and conquer them, and given power over every race, people, language, and nation, and all people of the world will worship it, that is everybody whose name has not been written down since the foundation of the world in the book of Life of the Sacrificial Lamb. If anyone has ears to hear, let him listen....'"
"But it's been a lot more than forty-two months since he fried his brain with chronic drunkenness and flying like a snowbird with kilos of primo coke from his daddy's friends in Panama!" exclaimed the first interlocutor.
One of the Loblollies gasped. "But it's only been thirty-six months since the Peace Pretzel!" she said, nearly swooning.
This caused the Grand Panjandrum to hesitate -- as usual when radicals and free-thinkers congregate in the employee break room, he was about to trigger the fire alarm and douse them with water for easy identification and subsequent termination of employment, but talk of the famous Peace Pretzel might lead to corporate sponsorship of the web site if only he could determine its brand.
The second interlocutor continued: "It's been thirty-six moths since the Peace Pretzel attacked him -- knocked him unconscious while he was watching a football game -- his own dog wouldn't help him ...."
"Good dog!" hissed some Loblolly who probably kept a Little Red Songbook in his desk.
"CNN said the White House said that he didn't choke on it...."
"... but it still rendered him unconscious. He probably suffered brain cell loss from anoxia. Who knows how long he lay there losing brain cells while his dog didn't even bark?"
"Good dog...." The Grand Panjandrum recognized the mutterings of antisocial behavior and a deeply malicious personality, and he marked the dog-lover for promotion to Human Resources.
"Well, if it's been thirty-six months since the Peace Pretzel attacked him, so what's six months from now?"
Even the Grand Panjandrum and the hidden nanny-cam joined in the collective gasp, for a certain level of literacy and knowledge of the world is required of even the lowest Loblolly at the Jaundiced Eye. Forty-two months from the attack of the Peace Pretzel is the date of Deep Impact, when George Bush the Great, Conqueror of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Mars, Beachmaster of Titan, is scheduled to also become "George Bush, Hammer of the Universe"! On the 4th of July, 2005 a NASA flyby satellite mission will launch a missile right into the heart of Comet Tempel 1, hopefully not knocking it into an Earth-intercepting orbit which could wipe out one third of the planet. NASA calls it "Tempel 1." Perhaps it calls itself "Star Wormwood!"
"Pish tush!" exclaimed a Loblolly Grander Than Most -- one with a button on his cap, of course -- you haven't seen swarms of locusts covering the world have you?"
"You didn't watch the BBC footage from Mauretania, last week, did you?"
"Errr .... no, but ... but ... but what about the Second Beast?
There was a pause in the break room, and then the Lector said, "'He compelled everyone -- small and great, rich and poor, slave and citizen -- to be branded on the right hand or on the forehead, and made it illegal for anyone to buy or sell anything unless he had been branded with the name of the beast or with the number of its name....'"
"Do you know what that is?" several people hissed at once.
"Yes," the Lector declared solemnly. "It is a marketing strategy! We must discuss this with the Grand Panjandrum at once! He'll know how we can get a piece of this global market opportunity!"
Fortunately, the Loblollies, like most Americans, no longer fit so well into the corners where they go to hide from Management, so the Grand Panjandrum was able to hurry to his office and act nonchalant before they burst in -- without knocking, either, for which they would all have their subsidized parking permits revoked -- except for the sociopathic dog-lover -- he was clearly marked for Senior Management.
The Loblollies explained the story of the marking with name or number of the Beast and how people could not buy nor sell without one or the other mark, and they all wanted to know if Jaundiced Eye Productions could get in on the ground floor because they all wanted to float an IPO and get rich before Comet Tempel 1 destroyed the third of the Earth where they had vacation time-shares.
"Oh, my Loblollies," chuckled the Grand Panjandrum. "It is well that you have come to me with this suggestion! Already the High Exalted Ones Who Etch Cryptic Warnings into Their Door Lintels have been assigned to research this very matter! Here is the report of SimpleMan:
"In October, 2004, VeriChip received FDA permission to implant its radio monitors into human beings, ostensibly to monitor their medication levels, but ..." and the voice of the Grand Panjandrum fell to a whisper ..."in June of 2004, Applied Digital Solutions made their largest sale to date, to American Capital Holdings, makers of cellular telephones, so that 'security personnel' could use telephones with VeriChips to make certain that their calls on secure networks were coming from and going to genuinely secure telephones on emergency networks for law enforcement agencies and the military."
An impertinent Loblolly inquired: "how secure can a telephone be if it's taken away from its assigned user and used by a criminal or a terrorist or someone trying to evade paying a toll on the expressway?"
The Grand Panjandrum, as he is wont to do, nodded sagely, "SimpleMan points out that American Capital Holdings did not begin installing their hoard of VeriChips until after the FDA approved VeriChip implantation in humans. An 'emergency services' telephone which will only work if it is receiving a steady radio signal from the person to whom it is assigned, a person with the activating VeriChip installed within their body and monitoring their health as well as signalling their identity -- a signal whose telemetry could reveal whether or not the speaker was likely acting under coercion -- is a very secure telephone, indeed. But the people who make VeriChips are clever fellows, indeed! They developed the VeriChip while working on telecommunications and ground security contracts for the United States General Accounting Office and the U.S. Air Office. It must be simple for them to make a chip which transmits a "friend or foe" signal to a perimeter of sensors around a base which contains experimental air craft, hardened bunkers for high-ranking government officials -- or stockpiles of government cheese and other food in the event of food riots."
A moan arose from the Loblollies. "Grand Panjandrum, are you telling us that Applied Digital Solutions has already worked out a scheme to bar us from the bread lines and free government cheese give-aways in time of famine if we ... if we ... if we voted with the Blue States?"
"Probably" said the Grand Panjandrum, who knew that suicide wasn't covered by the employee medical plan and it was getting near the time to cut back the payroll, anyway, so he might as well lay the facts on the line for the more unstable Loblollies and clear the way for new blood.
"But, Grand Panjandrum," implored one of the earnest Loblollies who seemed like he might earn a button on his cap this year, "if Applied Digital Solutions and American Capital Holdings already have a growing monopolistic position in the use of VeriChips to secure telecommunications, guard perimeters, and deny food to people who voted Blue when the food riots start, surely there is some way we can get in on this glorious opportunity to enrich ourselves at the expense of our fellows who think like sheep and should be sheared as such!
The Grand Panjandrum admired the boy's moxie -- and his alliteration, too. His complete disregard for the welfare of other humans would also stand him in good stead when Jaundiceded Eye Productions launched their Global Mind Control Satellites and fnord. The Grand Panjandrum smiled, and said, "Indeed, we have already begun to carve out a share in the growing global market of enforced scarcity!" He beamed as he revealed to them for the first time, "Inspired by Dr. Shea's skilled exegesis of Revelation, Chapter 6, Verse 6, we will begin planting VeriChips in the the labels of expensive wines imported from the Barossa Valley and in imported Greek Extra Virgin olive oils beginning next month! The chips will monitor the paths of patrons within stores, so that we may draft ergonomically simple floor plans designed to facilitate the passage of upscale shoppers from one section of a store to another. Moreover, if the customer actually carries the bottle with the chip, telemetry of the guinea ... er ...customer's heart rate and breathing will be continuously monitored throughout the store so that we can engineer a complete tactile, auditory, and olfactory experience for the upscale customer, guaranteeing their happiness and causing them to spend money in the stores with whom we have installed our systems, all the while maintaining our moral high ground of not abusing technology to impverish further the poor and downtrodden of the Earth, since we will only be taking advantage of the desire for ergonomically simplified shopping expressed by the better class of store customers -- the ones who actually have real money."
There was much joy in the offices of Jaundiced Eye Productions at this announcement. Stock brokers were called. Real estate agents who had friends in NASA who know the projected path of Star Wormw ... er ... Compet Tempel I ... were being called and safer locations for timeshares worked out. SUVs getting four miles to a gallon of gas were being ordered. Bottles of champagne (California -- extra dry) were being popped open, when suddenly the festivities stopped.
Standing small in the gigantic doorway to the Grand Panjandrum's office, but nevertheless casting an annoyingly long shadow, was he of the cryptic Latin phrases. "Liber scriptus proferetur in quo totum continetur, unde mundus judicteur!" shouted the SheaMan.
There was weeping, and wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst those who were similarly over-educated. "What is it?" "What did he say?" cried the temps and interns -- not that anyone was paying any attention to them.
"Quidquid latet apparebit!" roared that spectre of doom, waving what might have been a copy of the Wall Street Journal, or The Economist, or, more likely, The Guardian. He finally composed himself and spoke to the staff in his studied, stentorian English: "Tesco have committed an almost unthinkable sin! They have tagged their expensive merchandise with radio frequency identifaction tags -- RFIDS! -- to monitor the activities of their customers! They spy on where their customers go and what they do, using those insidious radio tags which I told you months ago were tools of the AntiChrist!"
The awesome cleric drew himself up to his full height of five-two-and-a-quarter -- and stood on a chair for good measure -- then declaimed, "O Grand Panjandrum! For decades you have guided us through the lean years and the fat years, and we didn't beat you senseless when Carrolco recalled their warrants in which we were all heavily invested, although we might have, because we all lost a bundle by not selling short, as you did. We did not question your wisdom when you chose to bump my film reviews and instead publish the U.S. military's official guide to "shock and awe" and explained that decades of history proved that it was useless for winning a ground war in Iraq -- when we might have been covering Justin and Brittany and getting invited to cool parties up in the Hills. We ... well, okay, we did sell dollars and bought heaps of Euros on your advice and we've almost doubled our money by selling eBay short, but now the very spirit of Morality cries out to us: WE MUST BOYCOTT TESCO -- even though they have no stores near us, some of our overseas visitors shop there -- AND WE MUST TELL THE WORLD OF THIS MONSTROUS, SATANIC EVIL IN WHICH TESCO HAS INVOLVED ITSELF IN ORDER TO MINIMALLY INCREASE THEIR PROFITS!"
So declaimed the Good Doctor. Since no one had the heart to tell him that we had been about to do the same thing, but Tesco beat us to the punch, we unanimously backed his proposal, and urge everyone in the world to:
Since we haven't the heart to write about it, please click HERE for details of Tesco's foul plan and how it negatively effects you. By the way, as far as we know, the AntiChrist owns no stock in Tesco and in no way profits from their business activities. We can't say the same for a certain other company we'd like to mention ... but won't ... for your safety, of course, dear readers. For your safety.
A decade ago, when Fine Line released Death and the Maiden, the Roman Polanski-directed feature film of the play by Ariel Dorfman, starring Sigourney Weaver, Stuart Wilson, and Ben Kingsley, we were pleased with it and received it well.
Just as current events have radically changed the tone of our once fluffy web site and given it a sombre cast, so current events -- and current television -- cause us to join the call for New Line Cinema to re-release Death and the Maiden to an audience which either never saw it or which has forgotten it.
Let's cut to one part of the chase up-front: on our ten star scale, Death and the Maiden rates
... NINE STARS. It is most definitely still worth a full ticket price at an expensive theater even though it is now more than ten years old.
The reasons we're joining the call to re-release Death and the Maiden are many: Spain has finally brought a self-confessed member of one of the infamous "Operation Condor" death squads to trial for war crimes and Augusto Pinochet, the Neo-Nazi monster so beloved of Margert Thatcher and Nancy Reagan, a murderous tyrant responsible for the deaths of thousands of Chileans during the "Operation Condor" nightmare, is finally also being brought to justice.
The people of South America are rejoicing that the tyrants who caused so many "disappearances," so many murders, so many rapes, and so much torture, are finally going to be called account for their multitude of crimes. Simultaneously, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, two countries which have haughtily prided themselves as being above "lesser breeds without the Law" -- Latin American "Banana Republics," Communists, "sinister Asiatics," and "primitive Africans" who torture political prisoners -- have been revealed to have systematically engaged in the torture and murder of civilians in Iraq and in the American enclave of Guantanamo on Cuba. These are not "terror suspects" whose torture or murder has been brought to light in the past year, they are civilian noncombatants who have often been jailed for offenses as trivial as traffic violations. In the most outrageous miscarriage of justice, a squad of American Marines opened fire on a garbage collection truck in Baghdad, firing mortars and submachineguns at it, and maiming those on board: a group of teenagers who had been "moonlighting" as trash collectors to earn an extra fifty cents to survive in the face of the crushing unemployment the incompetent "interim government" has brought to Iraq. One of the poor kids was badly burned and had been shot repeatedly. Rather than call for a military ambulance to take the boy to a hospital, an American Marine shot the boy to death on the spot, a cold-blooded murder for which he received a sentence of ... one year's imprisonment.
Officers and men of Britain's Royal Fusiliers are on trial now for a string of heinous tortures inflicted on Iraqi civilians suspected of looting. "Suspected," mind you -- there was no evidence against any of them sufficient to have warranted their actual trial, which, under Iraqi law, would have yielded severe sentences to those found guilty. Instead, acting under orders from Regimental commanders, the Royal Fusiliers abused their civilian captives as savagely as ever the Japanese did to the prisoners whom they took in World War II. Had they still had teeth, the Iraqis would have been justified in whistling "The March From the River Kwai." The Iraqi "Security Forces" are even worse: Human Rights Watch reported that EIGHTY PER CENT of prisoners of the Iraqi "interim government" forces reported being criminally abused by them.
Outgoing United States Attorney General and Reichsland Security Obersturmfuhrer Tom Ridge have both made themselves clear: the United States government has "the right" to torture prisoners according to these two men. THEY LIE! In the year 2000, the Rehnquist-led United States Supreme Court ruled categorically in Dickerson v. United States, (530 US 428) that not even Congress could enact a law subverting the so-called "Miranda rights," which include a clear protection against mere coercion, let alone the torture of suspects. Moreover, the U.S. Constitution provides that international treaties to which the United States are a signatory shall have the full weight of "law of the land" as the United States Constitution. Should a tyrannical American government attempt to remove the protections of the Bill of Rights from a U.S. citizen by claiming that person to be an "enemy combatant," they simultaneously cause the Four Geneva Conventions to come into play, which have equal weight in American courts with the Constitution, and the Geneva Conventions expressly forbid all forms of torture and abuse. It is only gross ignorance of the terms of the Geneva Conventions (which the "High Contracting Parties," including the US and UK are bound to treach to their military personnel) that the shocking abuses of recent years have been allowed to occur and be sanctioned by the highest military and civlian authorities in the two countries.
The reason we here at Jaundiced Eye Productions are having such a serious hissy-coniption fit at the moment is that we not only hear reckless statements of criminal intent being made by John Ashcroft, Tom Ridge, and others of their ilk, but, much nearer to our hearts as entertainment critics, the popular American television series "24" is once again running a storyline in which the "CTU" (the ludicrously mis-named "Counter-terrorism Unit") is again torturing a prisoner in violation of American and international law. This particular prisoner is very, very, special, however, he's not a foreigner, he's not a terrorist, and he probably isn't guilty of anything: he is "Richard Heller," son of the show's Secretary of Defense, who was kidnapped from the front of Richard's house along with Richard's sister, who is on the Secretary's staff (and is Jack Bauer's latest adulterous love interest) in a bloody seizure at the beginning of this season's show ("Day 4"). He is an American citizen, on American soil, charged with no crimes, not branded as an "enemy alien," but being tortured because he might have information which might relate to a crime. Far worse for him, he is openly contemptuous of the CTU thugs as no better than the terrorists from whom they claim to be "saving us" . . . and audiences gulled by the lies of Aschroft, Ridge, Bush, and Tio Taco Gonzales are cheering on the torturers!
Richard Heller was inside his house when his father and sister were snatched outside. At the first grenade explosion he very prudently hid. He wasn't kidnapped. CTU wanted to find out if he had any information about his father's kidnapping, so they began torturing him with sensory bombardment (more brutal methods having been ruled out). Several things should be kept in mind here: he was not under arrest; there was no evidence that he had any prior knowledge of the attack; there is no evidence that any of his friends or associates in anti-war activities had any part in the kidnapping (certainly none of them were questioned, although they were almost certainly all under some level of surveillance by the F.B.I. or the Secret Service); finally, the method of torturing the boy, sensory bombardment, is specifically prohibited as an inhuman torture under the Fourth Geneva Convention (Relative to Civilian Persons in Time of War) and -- for good measure, it is also illegal under the Third Geneva Convention (Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War).
Article 118 of the Fourth Geneva Convention explicitily prohibits "imprisonment in premises without daylight" (which is where Richard Heller is being held), while being blinded by stroboscopic flashes of artifical light specifically designed to shatter the victim's will and reduce the victim to a state of near catatonia (which also makes it a form of medical and scientific experimenation, which is also expressly prohibited).
No, it's not "just TeeVee!" The very same illegal treatment being dealt out the Heller boy on "24" is the treatment being illegally meted out to civilians in Guanatanamo (transported there in illegal violation of Article 3 of the Fourth Geneva Convention).
Five sections of the Fourth convention bear quoting in full, given that the Unitred States of America and the United Kingdom are both "High Contracting Parties" to the Geneva Conventions:
Art. 29. The Party to the conflict in whose hands protected persons may be, is responsible for the treatment accorded to them by its agents, irrespective of any individual responsibility which may be incurred.
Art. 31. No physical or moral coercion shall be exercised against protected persons, in particular to obtain information from them or from third parties.
Art. 32. The High Contracting Parties specifically agree that each of them is prohibited from taking any measure of such a character as to cause the physical suffering or extermination of protected persons in their hands. This prohibition applies not only to murder, torture, corporal punishments, mutilation and medical or scientific experiments not necessitated by the medical treatment of a protected person, but also to any other measures of brutality whether applied by civilian or military agents.
Art. 147. Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the present Convention: wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power, or wilfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed in the present Convention, taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.
Art. 148. No High Contracting Party shall be allowed to absolve itself or any other High Contracting Party of any liability incurred by itself or by another High Contracting Party in respect of breaches referred to in the preceding Article.
We would like you to join the call for New Line Cinema to re-release Death and the Maiden as a movie whose time has come ... again. Please right-click over to and let them know that you want to see their Fine Line film, Death and the Maiden in theaters again.
As a poor substitute, you may buy Death and the Maiden from Amazon.com. Please note that we have absolutely no financial interest in New Line and we don't get any kick-back from Amazon if you buy the DVD. In fact, you can order it through many libraries and watch it for free, or rent it for a couple of bucks. Just see it, please!
After you've seen Death and the Maiden and had your worldview turned topsy-tuvy, please do something incredibly good for your soul and for the world and join Amnesty International! Amnesty International is the world's leading voice speaking out against torture and repression throughout the world, now sadly including the USA itself. Whether you're interested in helping labor unions, school teachers, ministers of religion, doctors, journalists, school students, working houewives, child slaves, or any of the dozens of other categories of people marked for repression, torture or death throughout much of today's ugly, ugly world, Amnesty International can help you to focus on helping the people whose causes mean the most to you, personally -- people whose welfare is a barometer of what your life might be like without the shield of protective laws.
Other wonderful groups which can use your support (like an e-mail to the ambassador of some gangster nation every once in a while, if nothing else!), are:
For a full list of the nominees, click HERE.
We're not making any predictions this year, but we DO commend to your attention Hotel Rwanda (nominations for Best Acting, Don Cheadle, and for Best Original Screenplay), and Supersize Me, nominated for Best Documentary Feature, in part on the reccomendation of Michael Moore, who pulled his own $100,000,000+ grosser, Fahrenheit 9/11 from Documentary consideration. We're not suggesting Hotel Rwanda because we think it's "better" than other nominated films, but, still rankled by "24," we think it's a good idea for Americans to see what "racial profiling" can lead to when the people being profiled are marked for death. Supersize Me is just a salutary warning for anyone in the world likely to lose twenty years of life expectancy from eating McFood-substitutes.
It would be terribly easy for Americans to call Harry Windsor "The Nazi Prince" after his refusal to make a personal public apology for wearing an Afrika Korps uniform, including a swastika armband, to a friends's "colonials and natives" fancy dress party. It would be just as easy for Britons to point out that President Bush's grandfather had his company seized for trading with the Nazis during World War II and that John Kerry's chief military advisor was the son of a Waffen-SS major who betrayed his Russian homeland to the Poles, betrayed the Poles to the Nazis, killed Americans during the Battle of the Bulge, and then betrayed Germany for a lifetime of comfort in the United States. And then there's Arnold Scwharznazi....
In related news from England, Harry Windsor has announced that the regiment in which he most desires to serve as an officer is the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, whose members apparently obey orders without respect for moral decency, Christian values, and international law, as did Harry's Nuremberg heroes.
"Saturday Night Live" had an exclusive video of Harry's party-going on their 15 January 2005 "Weekend Update." Poor Harry was shunned by fellow party-goers, except for a Ku Klux Klansman and a girl in a Hitler costume. Harry made kissy-face with the Hitler girl and was high-fived by the Klansman, who unhooded to show himself as Wee Willie Windsor.
... And today the Sun reports that a Jewish cemetary in Aldershot was vandalized, with swastikas and SS symbols painted on headstones. We're curious to know where Harry was at the time of the attack.
Seriously, though, we have every confidence that Harry will publicly apologize in tears ... the day that a bill is introduced in Commons to strip him and all the heirs of his body from the Royal succession and from all enjoyment of the tax-free money he enjoys as a Windsor -- money stolen from "the natives" of India, Africa, and Australia, for not penny of which any member of Harry's family ever did a single day of honest work. Let him face life on a soldier's pay and pension and watch him cry a river of repentence!
By the by, our office wargamer tells us that "colonials and natives" wargames are also known as "wogs and real people," the goal for the "real people" (usually British, but sometimes French, Italians, Dutch, Portuguese, Belgians, or German) being to kill as many "wogs" as possible ("Wogs" are politely called "natives" by Harry and his clique.) If the "real people" kill all of the wogs, the descendants of the wogs are presumed to grow up to enjoy the blessings of living in a proper Christian democracy, such as Iraq, Pakistan, or Sudan, while the descendents of the real people grow up to enjoy "Big Brother," cheap petrol, and the dole.
We have uploaded a few of Taylor Emerson and perennial favorite Shane McDermott. We will add more as our server space allows.
We receive visitors from more than 85 countries, including many who do not have super-advanced computers and who don't have DSL or the like, either. We are firmly determined to keep our site accesible to anyone who can log onto the World Wide Web, no matter how old and how simple their computer may be, and no matter in what country they reside. Accordingly, we have firmly committed ourselves to a policy of:
Our site has nearly 20 megabytes of pictures alone (and we plan to add another ten megabytes or so as soon as our server and bandwidth problem with Tripod-Lycos is resolved), and we load slowly for those who do not have high-speed connections, but, by golly jiminy, our page does load, without interminable hang-ups and compatibility problems caused by frames, wallpaper, java applets, pop-ups, etc. Just plain old HTML here!
ALSO: If you see an advertisement here and it doesn't specify that we approved it, then we didn't. We will hold our hat in hand soon with a spiel for PayPal donations, but we haven't yet. If we do endorse a product, by the way, it is one which we use and of which we heartily approve.
Folks, we have only one Guestbook for all of our sub-sites, movie reviews, fan pages, etc. If you want to leave a message about a specific film, TV show, or performer, PLEASE state who or what you are writing about (and if you are writing in the book about a "Ben" or "Chris," please include the last name -- we have pages for three Bens and two Chris's).
Also, please remember that "private" messages are only read by our staff. None of the actors for whom we have pages can access "private" messages in our Guestbook!!! If you leave a deeply personal message, we'll be reading it, not your fave. (There are a couple of stars whom we can contact, but we can't say who they are, so if you are an old high school buddy, leaving a private message may or may not get through to your bud. Some stars DO read the Guestbook, though, so if you're not afraid to put your e-mail addy out where everyone can see it, feel free to take your chances that your fave may read it and reply to you if he knows you. Please don't expect a star who doesn't know you to contact you, though.)
Also, none of the actors for whom we have pages are directly connected with our site. None of them. Some, in fact, are quite stubborn about not supplying info to webmasters, and also refuse to create web pages of their own. What can we say? They are people, too (well, most of them), and are entitled to their foibles. We can definitely assure you that neither Masterson brother nor Tobey Maguire have any connection with this site in any way, shape or form.
Please don't hesitate to post questions in the Guestbook about movies which are reviewed here. We can't always get the answers, but we have a pretty good batting average.
Someone recently asked us about Canadian stage and TV actor Todd Talbott, and we collected a lot of links for him, which we will soon post on a new Micro-Page for him, creating the world's first Todd Talbott page. Todd, unfortunately, is one of the people whom we cannot contact, so we won't be posting any exclusives, just gathering up facts which are currently scattered all over the net.
8 MARCH 2004: GRRRR.... Todd Talbott is apparently determined to not have an official web page. He thinks it's "strange" that people all over the world (and not just in British Columbia) are interested in him and his work. We will be creating a Todd Micro-Page and will submit it for his (unofficial) approval, but if he doesn't like it, down it will come. *sigh*
If Hayden's face looks familiar but you can't place his name, you have probably seen news stories about him. He will be seen as some guy named Anakin Skywalker in a film scheduled for release in May 2002. We, however, have been following Hayden's career almost since its beginnings, in "Goosebumps," "Who's Afraid of the Dark," and one of our reviewer's favorite TV movies, Harrison Bergeron. Or maybe you know him from the TV series "Higher Ground," in which case, you might want to check out our Young Stars Page, to which we have added a headshot of Hayden's "Higher Ground" co-star, Kyle J. Downes ("Ezra Friedkin"), who is currently appearing as Larry Tudgeman in "Lizzie McGuire" which airs on the Disney Channel and ABC's Saturday morning line-up.
Despite the best efforts of Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio, we have obtained a copy of their film, Don's Plum,a 2001 feature which is banned in the USA. An On-Line Review of it by our own Christian Leopold Shea will be posted shortly, bandwidth permitting.
Special note to their co-star, Amber Benson: Amber, we have seen it and we now understand your justifiable anger at the media's failure to mention the women of Don's Plum in their coverage of it. Amber, Jenny, Heather, and the rest: we salute you! The Grand Panjandrum has even asked IMDb to post a quote of Jenny's character Sara on their page for the film.
It's not our page, but we thought that we should alert our visitors to updates on a page devoted to the wonderful old Canadian television show, "Fifteen," which gave us Ryan Reynolds of "Two Guys and a Girl," Laura Harris (known in the U.S. for The Faculty, Suicide Kings, etc.), Chris William Martin (of "Peter Benchley's Amazon," "Felicity," Johnny, etc.), Robyn Ross of "Madison," and other actors and actresses of interest to our visitors. Check out the site and tell 'em that you found out about their site from the Jaundiced Eye.
We were unbelievably delighted to watch the scrunched, out-of-focus barely readable credits of Fox's Night Visions for July 19th. Who should we have found playing "Private Rasky" but Todd Talbot, who starred as alcoholic teen hearthrob Matt Walker on Fifteen for several seasons.
We found it hard to believe, but we ran the tape back through the episode "A View Through A Window" (directed by star Bill Pullman) and, although "Private Rasky" was in camo and wearing a G.I. Kevlar helmet that obstructed much of his face, there was no mistaking that too-long-unheard voice. Todd Talbot is back on T.V. Yea!
After about two years, we have finally updated our "Setting the Record Straight (or Whatever)" page with a blurb about teen Eagle Scout Steven Cozza, founder of Scouting For All, based upon an interview with John Gallagher which appeared in the May 22, 2001 issue of The Advocate. Fight on, Steven!
As you can see by the photo, we also have some words about Randy Harrison, co-star of the U.S. version of "Queer As Folk," which appears on the cable television channel, Showtime.
As fans of Christopher Masterson know, two years ago we announced that he would be starring in the new television series, "Malcolm in the Middle," as Malcolm's eldest (and favorite) brother, Francis. As our regular visitors know, too, our On-Line Reviewer boasts of an almost-perfect record in picking out the "stars of tomorrow." Well, now he has documentary evidence of his star gazing skills.
As a supervisor for an Emmy(tm) Awards panel in 1998, the Shea-Man wrote some notes on a piece of hotel stationery about actors whom he expected to be seeing a lot more of in the coming years. He rediscovered his notes a while back, and this is what was written across the top of the page:
Up now: Francis finds gainful employment at The Grotto.
A BEN AFFLECK Page! (With info on CASEY AFFLECK, too.) Updated 25 FEBRUARY 2000. WATCH FOR NEW PIX SOON!CHRISTIAN BALE'S HOME PAGE. Our CHRISTIAN BALE Page. Last updated 10 MAY 2000, now enhanced with pix and info from American Psycho, and other films of Christian's. A page for DON'S PLUM, the controversial film starring Tobey Maguire and Leonardo Di Caprio. Updated 6 JUNE 2001. AN ETHAN EMBRY PAGE! Updated 21 MARCH 2003."THE EDWARD AND EDWARD (FURLONG AND NORTON) VIDEO FESTIVAL" REVIEWS!(And we have thrown in EdTV as a bonus.) A BEN JORGENSEN Micro-Page! UPDATED 19 NOVEMBER 2001 WITH NEWS FROM BEN JORGENSEN!WALTER A. LUTZ, JR. ("Saved By the Bell: The New Class"). THE ORIGINAL ERIK MACARTHUR FAN PAGE! UPDATED 9 JANUARY 2001. CHRISTOPHER KENNEDY MASTERSON news. Pix from Matthew Modine's Ecce Pirate, Singles, and "Malcolm in the Middle." UPDATED 25 MARCH 2003.DANNY MASTERSON news. UPDATED 21 MARCH 2003! GREAT SCOTT! It's a TOBEY MAGUIRE fan page with pix from Wonder Boys and "The Tonight Show," and Seabiscuit news! UPDATED 23 APRIL 2003! 
The First BRECKIN MEYER Fan Page! Updated 26 MARCH 2003.The World's First DOMINIC MONAGHAN Micro-Page! UPDATED 30 MAY 2000.A RYAN PHILLIPPE Page! Updated 2 JUNE 2003. An ESTEBAN LOUIS POWELL FAN PAGE! Updated 27 July 2001.An ARTHUR RIMBAUD Page! with pix from Total Eclipse. A BEN SILVERSTONE Micro-Page! Updated 2 JUNE 2000. An ELIJAH WOOD Micro-Page! Updated 9 JANUARY 2001. A SIMON FENTON Page! with pix from Power of One, Matinee,, etc. (Simon has been a bad boy and hasn't kept us up-to-date on himself, so he has been banished from the main page. However, you may click HERE and read the review for The Tingler for more about Simon.) 
(1999 Memorial Day note from the Grand Panjandrum: The following paragraph was one of the very first on our page, but it has languished in obscurity for well over a year because the "other" people" link which was its raison d'etre became broken when the organization to which it linked changed its URL. We never got rid of the paragraph, though, and after a long time, we have updated it by adding the names of five of "these people who are here." We think that the addition of these five names only drives home the point of the following paragraph: WE are watching the stars for you, so you can watch out for "the other people.")
The people who are named below are linked to this page because we like t of his career with you, even though we had nothing to do with it. We have also followed the careers of Ben Affleck, Ryan Phillippe, Danny Masterson, Christopher Masterson, Tobey Maguire, and other major stars of today who were virtually unknown when we started this page in 1996. Keep watching this page for new names and faces. Don't bother watching the stars in whom we have faith. We have been following the career of Ethan Embry for many years now, and are happy to share the growth of his career with you, even though we had nothing to do with it. We have also followed the careers of Ben Affleck, Ryan Phillippe, Danny Masterson, Christopher Masterson, Tobey Maguire, and other major stars. Since we are busy watching people like that for you, there are some OTHER PEOPLE whom we would like you to look for:
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My Favorite Jaundiced Eye Star |
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Ben Affleck |
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Jordan Brower |
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Christopher Masterson |
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Danny Masterson |
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Esteban Louis Powell |
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Ryan Phillippe |
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Ben Silverstone |
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Someone else (say who in the guestbook, please!) |
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(LOTR UPDATE: Sir Ian will be appearing as Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings movies, the first of which is scheduled to open in December, 2001. Elijah Wood plays Frodo Baggins. Dominic Monaghan co-stars.)
After more than a year of wrangling, David Stutman versus Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, et al. was finally settled. This was a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the two stars for allegedly blocking distribution of Don's Plum, which may now (according to the settlement) only be shown outside of North America. Right. . . .
As far as we are concerned, this is ENTERTAINMENT NEWS, and we intend to cover it for our international visitors (so all of you people in North America and US territories overseas, DON'T LOOK!), but we continue to caution our visitors that we do not know the exact copyright status of the photos we have from Don's Plum, but we are presenting them as part of our fair commentary on the case and its settlement and our (pending) review of the film. If you copy or download or print any pictures from Don's Plum and there is no valid, compelling public interest in your doing so . . . somebody may very well sue you. The screenplay and/or film itself seems to be (c) 1997 or 1998 by Polo Pictures Enterprises, but we have been completely unable to contact them, and our most recent Internet search showed no listing for them in any database which we checked. We do not know if Polo Pictures Enterprises even exists as a legal entity any more. We repeat: you copy, download or print pictures from Don's Plum at your own risk unless you have a good legal reason to do so.
If you have been wondering who plays Tara, Willow Rosenberg's bewitching girlfriend on "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer," wonder no more: it is Amber Benson, co-star of Don's Plum, who really, truly did break a Birkenstock shoe throwing it at Leonardo DiCaprio! (It is part of a scene in the film.) We are waiting eagerly to post pictures of Amber, because she is one of our site's many visitors.
On another medium, frankly. We have been waiting (and waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and . . . ) for our high-end video-processing, graphics-grabbing CPU to be returned to us from the repair shop, and until it does we can't post pictures of Amber, unfortunately.
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