The Screengrab

MySpace has honored its "oldest celebrity blogger" who, it turns out, is Kirk Douglas. Guy Adams reports Douglas "began blogging last year, as part of a temporary initiative to promote his memoir Let's Face It, but decided to continue after seeing the level of interest his comments sparked. In one entry, he writes that he now receives too many messages to answer them personally, his goal at the start. 'But I want you to know that I appreciate each comment that I receive – positive or negative. And I enjoy the opportunity to talk to so many people much younger than I am.' " (Kirk, man, we love you, but you're 92 years old. Odds are pretty solid that you have the opportunity to talk to someone younger than you are whenever someone calls to ask if you're satisfied with your long distance carrier.)

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LOCAL HERO (1983)



Whither Bill Forsyth? Withering, apparently: after a charming run of movies in the 1980s (including Gregory’s Girl, Comfort and Joy and Housekeeping), the Scottish director flamed out with 1993’s Being Human (a terrible film which, unsurprisingly, stars Robin Williams), disappearing for good after 1999’s Gregory’s Two Girls (which may or may not be terrible, since I only just learned of its existence through the Internet Movie Database). But Forsyth can make sequels and terrible Robin Williams movies from now until doomsday and he’ll still be one of my favorite directors of all time, if only for bringing Local Hero into existence. A simple but compelling vision of utopia, the film takes place in a gorgeous Scottish fishing village where everyone is welcome and accepted at the local ceilidh, from punk rockers and homeless beachcombers to American businessmen, Russian sailors, African preachers and pretty big city scientists who just might turn out to be mermaids. Movies (especially the Hollywood variety) are usually too impatient, loud and cynical to capture the best parts of actually being human – the beauty of a fantastic night sky, the electric giddiness of a new flirtation, the relaxed camaraderie of smart, decent people – but Forsyth seduces us with the salty sweetness of his celluloid world the way the fictional village of Ferness eventually seduces the film’s shaggy dog protagonist, Mac (played with deadpan cable-knit sweater warmth by the ever-reliable Peter Riegert), an oil company executive tasked with paving paradise to put up a shiny new oil refinery...and, like most real-life utopias, the sense of bittersweet impermanence only heightens the appeal of the place.

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We're used to seeing actors endorse political candidates, but not like this: in an interview with that distinguished cultural journal Parade, Daniel Craig sizes up the American candidates for president and decides which of them is best-suited to take his job. After asking Craig about which Hollywood "tough guy" he would most like to emulate (“The obvious choice for me would be Bogart. Not only because of that ease he had with his unique take on masculinity, but also—and this is much more important—because he got to sleep with Lauren Bacall.”), interviewer Kevin Sessums hits him with the big one: “Who do you think would be the better James Bond—Barack Obama or John McCain?” As Sessums reports, "Craig doesn’t hesitate. 'Obama would be the better Bond because—if he’s true to his word—he’d be willing to quite literally look the enemy in the eye and go toe-to-toe with them. McCain, because of his long service and experience, would probably be a better M,' he adds, mentioning Bond’s boss, played by Dame Judi Dench. 'There is, come to think of it, a kind of Judi Dench quality to McCain.'”

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Fresh from his battle with the East Coast media elitists, in the form of the cover of The New Yorker, Barack Obama finds himself targeted by liberal Hollywood and a onetime representative of the baby boom generation, in the form of beloved sixties relic Jon Voight. The fearless and batshit actor went after the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate in an editorial he wrote for the Moonie-funded newspaper The Washington Times. "We, as parents," writes the man now best known as Angelina Jolie's dad, "are well aware of the importance of our teachers who teach and program our children. We also know how important it is for our children to play with good-thinking children growing up. Sen. Barack Obama has grown up with the teaching of very angry, militant white and black people: the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, William Ayers and Rev. Michael Pfleger. We cannot say we are not affected by teachers who are militant and angry. We know too well that we become like them, and Mr. Obama will run this country in their mindset." This kind of naive faith in the power of "teachers" to permanently shape the young minds to which they have gained access may be par for the course coming from the star of Conrack, but I'm not sure I really buy it. When I was a kid, there were of course adults around who did their best to "teach and program" me, and I probably show how little lasting impact they had on me every time I wake up in a city with paved roads and venture out into it while wearing shoes. But I digress.

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