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News
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10
memorable movie flops
from
Entertainment News.com.au |
[#4 on the list]
* SWEPT AWAY, 2002
The stinker to beat all stinkers. So bad was Madonna's turn as a spoilt
heiress, the film didn't even make it to the theatres.
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from
The Globe |
Excerpts:
Friends
of superstar Madonna are worried that her involvemnt in the Kabblah
has gone too far, saying hs has been "sucked in beyond a point
of reason."
[Even though other
famous people are into Kabbalah] ... insiders say that Madonna is
out of control.
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(Regarding
the 2005 Versace advertisments)
By
Susannah Frankel |
January
13, 2005
News
that Madonna’s role- playing has extended to embrace the sexy
secretary should come as no surprise - we’ve all seen her effortlessly
transform from virgin bride to siren, and from respectable wife to
bespectacled mother.
This
latest incarnation is, on paper, rather more demure - and even passive
- than most, however. Still, good old Madge is stepping in to the
breach - or did she do it for the money? - in an attempt to reverse
the fortunes of her old muckerina Donatella Versace, who hasn’t
had the easiest of times recently, both personally and professionally.
....
It is heart-warming to note, then, that help is at hand. The March
issues of the international fashion glossies will see the aforementioned
World’s Most Famous Woman starring in a Versace advertising
campaign photographed by none other than Mario Testino, Madonna’s
and Donatella’s old muckerino, neatly enough - the photographer
shot Madonna for another Versace campaign 10 years ago now.
And
it is a resounding return to high-camp, high-octane form. Here is
the pop icon poised for dictation, pen and paper in hand. There she
is chatting on the phone. The distinct impression is that there’s
no need for her to file her nails while she does so. Methinks this
particular nine-to-fiver would have someone else to do that for her.
Because,
Madonna being Madonna, the impression is not of a secretary as you
or I might know one. Only very few of that profession are likely to
write notes lying back on a pristine white day- bed, or lick envelopes
lasciviously, kneeling, legs apart, on the equally white carpeted
floor.
That
sort of behaviour is the preserve of a rather different profession,
I think you’ll find. Equally, not many women have so many fabulous
handbags - one for every day of the week - just for carrying to the
office.
And
then there are the clothes: a draped jersey dress split almost to
the crotch and gathered at the waist with a gold Medusa buckle; a
signature loud and proud Versace shirt worn with skin-tight blue jeans
or cream tailored trousers and, of course, the highest metallic strappy
sandals. These are not feet that have ever touched the ground. Public
transport is anathema to them.
In the
world according to Donatella Versace, however, Madonna is doubtless
wholly convincing. This is not surprising given that the designer
herself can sometimes be seen with her hairdresser in tow, brushing
those trademark platinum tresses as she walks.
With
this in mind, one can well imagine the two of them dreaming the whole
thing up in a close woman-to-woman kind of a way, Madonna choking
on the endless stream of Marlboro reds on which La Versace famously
puffs away. The lady doesn’t do Lights.
Whichever
way you choose to look at it, their view of reality is hardly in line
with that of the rest of us.
In the
spring of 1998, just months after her brother died, I interviewed
Donatella Versace in Gianni Versace’s former home, a town house
on the Upper Westside of Manhattan.
On arrival
I was let in by the butler and left to ponder for a while the wall-to-wall
black marble, wall-to-wall Picassos, and the fountain just beyond
a first set of French windows, in which rose petals had been lovingly
scattered, as they would continue to be until the lady of the house
departed for Milan.
Ms Versace
would be with me in just a moment, I was told. She was downstairs
in the kitchen swapping recipes with a member of staff, as you do.
When
she appeared - dressed in black jeans and T-shirt, and wearing diamond
rings so huge that she couldn’t bend her fingers - she was insistent
that the main difference between herself and Gianni Versace was that
she was a woman and therefore had an empathetic, even sisterly approach
to clothing. She was, she insisted, very much the pragmatist. "I
would like all women to be able to wear my clothes," this woman
of the people claimed. And to Donatella Versace, Madonna might indeed
serve as some kind of Everywoman.
"She
relates to women of all ages," Versace said last week of her
latest leading lady. Whatever she may be, however, Madonna is no secretary.
"Take
a letter, Miss Ciccone. And take off those PVC handcuffs."
[I
notice that not too long after such articles appeared that Madonna's
press people or whomever then began explaining that Madonna was not
intended to be a "secretary" in the Versace ads, but rather,
was a CEO (Chief Executive Officer). I'm sorry, but I don't buy Madonna
as a CEO, either.]
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from
Chart Attack |
January
18, 2005
While
you were groovin' along to the Mary J. Blige song "Not Today"
on the soundtrack to Barbershop 2, were you struck with feelings of
nostalgia? Apparently, so was Madonna. Much like the theme from "Ghostbusters"
and Huey Lewis' "I Want A New Drug" sounded suspiciously
similar back in the '80s, "Not Today" had a lot of people
humming the tune of Madonna's 1983 hit "Holiday."
According
to MuchMusic.com, Madge's people are suing Blige's people for copyright
infringement over the song. Blige's collaborators, Eve and Dr. Dre
are also named in the suit. If the judge hears the similarity between
the two songs, Madonna's publishing company could take home a tidy
$15 million settlement.
Not that
Madge needs the cash, of course. Before 2004 was even over, Madonna's
Re-Invention Tour was named the #1 grossing concert of the year, raking
in somewhere in the neighbourhood of $125 million.
To earn
some extra pocket change, earlier this month Madonna signed on to
do a new ad campaign for Versace. Look out for the ads, which will
feature Madge slumming it as a secretary, posing in various office
scenes.
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by
Kevin Scrantz |
January
20, 2005
Sagging
pop singer Madonna created an international furor last weekend on
the star-studded tsunami relief telethon when she hit the previously
unheard musical key of Z while performing a cover of John Lennon's
"Imagine."
The
musical note, first postulated by masters Handel and Mozart, had for
centuries been regarded as a myth by scholars and long been the subject
of heated debate in music circles.
Although
admittedly pleased by the accidental discovery - which she attributes
to her fascination with Kaballah - the former Material Girl was quick
to say it had little importance to her life now, as she begins the
first leg of a relief trip to the devastated regions of the Indian
Ocean.
"Forty
years ago when I was still shallow and my music irrelevant, I would
have been thrilled," the singer revealed to DeadBrain. "But
the most important thing to me now, besides perfecting my British
accent, is my humanitarianism.
"Music
and water are the ultimate healers," she explained. "And
to get this point across to the victims of this tsunami thing, I'll
be selling my CDs, CD players, and bottles of Kaballah water in Thailand
and Indonesia."
The
Michigan native has been one of the leading exponents of the mystical
belief system, which has its roots in ancient Jewish tradition. Ads
airing on British television show her hawking bottled Kaballah water,
believed to come from the backyard of a Winnipeg fertilizer salesman,
with the catchphrase, "It's Kabba-licious."
Accompanying
her will be her husband, British director Guy Ritchie, who has arranged
benefit screenings of the couple's landmark film Swept Away.
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by
Daniel Kilkelly |
January
23 2005
Queen
of Pop Madonna insisted on bringing her own lighting team with her
while appearing on a BBC show, The Mirror claims.
Madonna
appeared on a benefit show to raise money for victims of the Asian
tsunami, but seemed to be more worried about her appearance.
"She
insisted on her halo lights as they don't show as many wrinkles,"
a source told the Sunday Mirror. "Madonna dipped into her own
pocket to pay for it."
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by
Sharda Prashad |
January
30, 2005
Madonna
didn't come up with the look for her jeans she wore in one of her
world tours or music videos:
They wanted to design women's couture fashion, but
twins Dean and Dan Caten realized that they were in a cash crunch
— and women's couture was too risky. The safer bet was to design
a men's ready-to-wear line.
.... In 1995, they launched their fashion house, DSquared.
The twins financed their second collection with a
bank loan, and gradually started creating a stronger client base and
hosting larger fashion shows.
"Madonna was our first big celebrity," Caten
remembers. "Madonna loves to be the one to find people."
Her artistic director was sporting DSquared jeans,
and Madonna decided that she wanted to wear the jeans in her Don't
Tell Me video. Although the twins were not designing for women at
the time, Madonna was the first exception. She wanted the Toronto
natives to create clothing for her video, and for the western countries
in her Drowned world tour.
"We knew we made it then," says Caten. "It
was a really, really good feeling."
Caten says that despite their success, they were "bummed"
because they weren't focusing on women's couture — a major reason
they moved to Italy in the first place.
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•
Bad
Penmanship? Celebrities Are Making A Mark on Children’s Literature.
But do we really want them speaking to our kids?
By
John Ross, From Southwest Airlines' Spirit magazine
|
February
2005 issue; article begins on page 120
Excerpts:
….
[The author is scanning over book titles in the kid’s section
of a book store and notices that a] ... much more famous name occupies
space on three consecutive, descending shelves. It’s Madonna.
The very same pop princess Madonna who sang “Like a Virgin”
and “I’d Rather Be Your Lover.”
[Author then
cites a long list of other recent children’s books that have
been written by famous people, including Jay Leno, singer LeAnn Rimes,
and chef Emeril Lagasse.]
What gives? Has
the children’s book become to the Aughts what the celebrity
album was to the ‘70s – a cheap and easy way for the rich
and famous to make cash?
And what are
these people teaching our kids, anyway? And, most worrisome, if we
buy these celeb kid-lit books for our Courtneys and Dakotas and Jacks,
does that say something bad about us as parents?
On the latter:
Mmm, could be. A couple of the celebrity kids’ book authors
have put out decent material – Jamie Lee Curtis, whose latest
is I’m Gonna Like Me: Letting Off a Little Self Esteem, is tops
on that short list.
But many of these
books read as if they were slapped together in a couple of days, based
on a faded memory from a famous person’s past. And those are
the good ones.
…. The
Material Girl, at least, tries to offer meatier fare. Mr. Peabody’s
Apples, Madonna writes, is inspired by a 300-year-old- tale the singer
heard from her Kabbalah teacher.
The story is
about a man who is falsely accused of stealing. Even with their historical
roots, critics have called Madonna’s books “wooden”
and “didactic.” Sounds familiar. Rolling Stone once called
the Erotica album “chilly,” “deliberate,”
and “posturing.”
The thing is
– as Madonna knows – it’s not easy to make music.
Anyone who remembers the celebrity albums that were relentlessly released
in the 1970s – horrifically capped by Leonard Nimoy’s
Outer Space / Inner Mind – knows that, too.
What seems to
escape notice is that kids’ books aren’t easy, either.
“Celebrities write children’s books because they are like
so many people who think writing for children is easy,” says
Sandra J. Philipson, author of five kids’ books, including one
that inspired the TV movie Miracle Dogs.
“Most of
these celebrity-written books are not educationally sound or really
written for children. Madonna, Billy Crystal, Jay Leno and James Carville
really should stay with their day / night jobs and do what they do
best.”
… celebrities
are not going to stick to their day jobs so long as we keep buying
whatever they’re selling.
And, man, are
we buying. The first book in Madonna’s five-book series debuted
at the top of The New York Times best seller list. That’s emboldened
every celeb to use the same Big Media Marketing Machine that tricked
us into watching Van Helsing to also get us to buy their cutesy kids’
books.
[Even though
books sales have been in decline the past several years, children’s
books] … reached a seven-year high. Kids’ book sales were
up nearly 11 percent from 2002, an estimated $2.1 billion boost. Oddly,
though, sales didn’t reflect more books sold.
The number of
books sold fell by 11 million. But the added costs of today’s
kids’ books, complete with once-rare hardcover releases and
interactive features – CDs and the liks – drove revenues
higher.
Credit Harry
Potter, too. That series is the leader in the kids’ category,
and, in many ways, it represents the best that kids’ books have
to offer – something both for kids and adults.
… [Children
such as] Courtney, though, presumably doesn’t care about Jay
Leno or James Carville or LeAnn Rimes or any of the rest. She cares
about a good story and many a few pretty pictures. Which is what parents
should care about as well. Sorry, Madonna. And Emeril.
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|
Dr.
Seuss, Watch Your Back ... (Or Not) |
by
Gilbert Cruz, from
Entertainment Weekly
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February
4, 2005
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click
image to view larger version |
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Excerpts:
Seems
every celeb is writing a kids' book these days, but who's buying them?
According to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks sales at more than 7,000
outlets nationwide, as of Jan. 20 Billy O'Reilly's "The O'Reilly
Factor for Kids" has moved 165,000 copies since its November
release - outshining other stars' 2004 tomes, including Madonna's
"The Adventues of Abdi".
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Elton
John Slams Reactions to His Madonna Comments
from
Contact Music.com
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February
7, 2005
Flamboyant superstar SIR ELTON JOHN fears he's been
made to look like a Nazi sympathiser after accusing MADONNA of lip-syncing.
The CANDLE IN THE WIND singer hit the headlines in
October (04) when he criticised his pal at the Q AWARDS in London,
accusing her of not singing live during her performances.
But John admits he remains shocked at the strong
reactions to his comments.
He says, "I was just having fun and it's like
I said that HITLER was right, or something. Everybody knows Madonna
lip-syncs. Everybody knows a lot of people lip-sync onstage. It was
no big deal...
"When you're going to see a live band, it's
one of the most exciting things that you can see. And I don't want
to go and see someone who lip-syncs, thank you very much.
"I
got a lot of flak for (saying) it. Somebody said, 'Well, she can't
sing when she's in the crab position.' Well, there you go... especially
if she had haemorrhoids as well."
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February
8, 2005
SCISSOR SISTERS
frontman JAKE SHEARS has ruled out a future collaboration with MADONNA,
because his celebrity pal KYLIE MINOGUE would "kill him".
The flamboyant
LAURA singer wrote and produced Minogue's latest hit I BELIEVE IN
YOU last year (04), and claims he's too loyal to the diminutive Australian
to work with her chart rival Madonna.
Shears
says, "I think Kylie would have my head on a plate if I worked
with Madonna. Really, I'm not interested in collaborating with her,
I love Kylie too much. . . .
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Totally
Embarrassing! Madonna To Play Transvesitite Male |
from
the New York Metro
|
February
2005
 |
| Above:
New York Metro newsclipping; Click image to view
larger version |
|
Oh
look, a role that won't require Madonna to do any "acting."
She will just be herself, like she did when she played "Susan"
in the 1980s film Despeately Seeking Susan.
Text
in article reads:
Would
her fellow Kabbalahists approve? In a bid to restore credibility to
her long-stuffering acting career, Madonna has signed on to play transvestite
Candy Darlking, a one-time muse to the late Andy Warhol, in an upcoming
flick, reports the UK's Sun.
"Madonna
has been desperate to make a film where she can earn respect for her
acting abilities. She is still trying to shake off the bad publicity
from the movie 'Swept Away.' ... She is said she would do anything for
the part and has agreed to work for free," says a source to the
newspaper.
Madge
reportedly sealed the deal during a meeting with movie agent Bryan Lourd
in Manhattan last month.
»
See also:
»
Madonna
to play a prostitute! - Feb 19, 2005
»
Madonna
in a man's role for free
»
Casting
News: Madonna to play drag queen for free -
Feb 22, 2005
»
Madonna
in a man's role for free - Feb 21, 2005
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from
Contact Music |
February
28, 2005
Veteran
French singer FRANCOISE HARDY has labelled MADONNA a "vulgar"
woman with a detestable face.
The 1960s
icon - now 61 - is so offended by the MATERIAL GIRL's physical appearance,
she's lost all interest in listening to her music.
Hardy
- legendary for her stunning looks in her heyday - blasts, "I
don't like her face. It's not her fault but I don't like it!
"I'm
not attracted to her. I don't like the way she moves. She is very
- what's the word - vulgar. It doesn't appeal to me to get to know
her work any better."
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•
Boy
George: 'Madonna is a hypocritical homophobe'
from
Contact Music
|
February
28, 2005
Gay pop
star BOY GEORGE has slammed MADONNA for embracing Kabbalah, the mystical
offshoot of Judaism which preaches homosexuality is a disease.
The former
CULTURE CLUB singer is horrified the MATERIAL GIRL flirted with lesbianism
- most famously in her controversial kisses with BRITNEY SPEARS and
CHRISTINA AGUILERA at 2003's MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS - yet supports
a religion which believes homosexuals can be cured.
He fumes,
"I have a problem with Madonna's devotion to Kabbalah, because
I watched a documentary that said that Kabbalah believes that gay
people are diseased and can be cured.
"She's
such a hypocrite. This is the woman who has embraced homosexuality
and used it to her advantage."
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