Horns up: Writers' strike prevails
Honestly, we haven't much missed the television since the writers' strike began Nov. 5. There's enough real-life drama to make even a new episode of "Two and a Half Men" seem overly superfluous. The strike is actually a blessing in disguise: We didn't have to suffer through three hours of self-congratulation at the Golden Globes. Now the resilient writers are putting the Oscars on the chopping block. Nominations came out yesterday, proving it was an odd, dark year for movies - suffering, corruption and teenage pregnancy are the main themes of the recognized films - and while Oscar producers say the show will go on regardless of the strike, we know even the greatest movie magic can't make up for good, old-fashioned writing.
Horns up: Republican casting call
Former Tennessee Senator and "Law & Order" thespian Fred Thompson has taken "President of America" off the list of potential occupations to put on his varied resume. Thompson pulled his candidacy from the Republican race Tuesday after placing third or worse in six primaries. His departure leaves Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and John McCain to impress voters with something more than playing Ulysses Grant in a made-for-TV movie. While Romney said in a statement that Thompson "stood for strong conservative ideas and believed strongly in the need to keep our conservative coalition together," we think he'll most likely be remembered as the actor candidate with the hot wife.
Horns down: Scientology anomalies
L. Ron Hubbard's mysterious religion/pseudo-cult is one thing we can always count on to be endlessly weird and fascinating. The religion, which has its main residence in a palatial mansion in Los Angeles, boasts Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Kirstie Alley and Giovanni Ribisi among its followers. Scientology was blamed for the July suicides of New York-based artists Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake, who claimed they were stalked by Scientologists after the Scientologist musician Beck refused to be in their movie. We just rue the day when Tom Cruise decides to run for president.
Horns down: R.I.P. Renfro, Ledger
With all the media attention focused on the supposed demises of Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton et al, the successive deaths of Brad Renfro, 25, and Heath Ledger, 28, in the past week came as a shock. Have we really reached the age when the actors we've grown up with start to sabotage their lives? Perhaps it's a gender issue. In a recent New York Times Op-Ed, fiction writer Lorrie Moore wrote that our nation's young boys are in a state of peril: "The children who are suffering in this country, who are having trouble in school and for whom the murder and suicide rates and economic dropout rates are high, are boys." We encourage ridiculous antics from unstable females in the public eye - they abuse drugs and act crazy, we give them attention, and everyone's happy. But such behavior from young men goes unnoticed or is positively attributed to bachelordom. It's a double standard that's proven to be both tragic and surprising. We're willing to bet The Associated Press didn't have ready a draft of Ledger's obituary.
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