What a great day, I get to mention Amy, crack AND vagina in the same sentence. Actually, if you think about it, can you even mention Amy WITHOUT mentioning crack? Not lately.

Last week, stories emerged stating Amy Winehouse was offered $2 million dollars to perform at a private concert for Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich. Why? Because when you have billions of dollars, sometimes it’s fun to gamble with it, and these days, expecting perpetual crackhead Amy Winehouse to show up on time and perform anything other than a circus act with three rings, is some serious odds NOT in your favor.

Rush and Malloy have the scoopage:

Winehouse took the bait [$2 mill]. She can use the cash, according to British reports, which claim she’s been paying veteran inmates at a British jail to look after her husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, while he awaits his assault trial.)

Tattooed Amy managed to get on a plane in London. But, a source tells us, when she arrived in Moscow “she was in no condition to appear.”

Word is party organizers talked about finding a replacement to sing, but felt there wasn’t enough time.

Winehouse was due to take the stage at 10:30 p.m. at The Garage, the gallery of Abramovich’s 25-year-old love interest, Dasha Zhukova. The singer’s handlers “spent two hours trying to pull her together,” says the insider.

Around 12:30 a.m., Winehouse finally appeared, wobbling onto the stage down a red carpet lined with red lights, which guided her like a damaged aircraft down a runway.

Between restorative sips of Coke, Winehouse puffed on cigarettes, flung her lighter into the audience and tugged on her little dress, revealing to stageside fans that she wasn’t wearing underwear.

“I heard that her singing was a little sloppy,” says the source, who caught up with the gallery crowd later at The Most, the hot Moscow club where the after-party was held. “But she still put on a terrific show.”

If someone wanted to pay me $2 million to show up, caterwaul for a hour or so and flash my vagina, count me in. Except the vagina part, the caterwauling though, that’s a given. I can’t imagine, given Amy’s recent history of poor performances, Mr. Abramovich was expecting a genuine performance from Winehouse.

Also, just a side note, did she really have to go commando? If her weave and face look that messy and untidy, can you imagine what the parts we DON’T see look like?

*shudders*

You learn something new every day!

In his documentary An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore made the decision to not use actual footage of collapsing ice shelves in Antartica, but instead to use special-effects shots created for the movie The Day After Tomorrow:

Al Gore’s “traveling global warming show,” the award-winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” includes a long flyover shot of majestic Antarctic ice shelves. But this shot was first seen in the 2004 blockbuster “The Day After Tomorrow.” Sculpted from Styrofoam and later scanned into a computer, the ice shelf “flyover” looks real.

Karen Goulekas, the special effects supervisor for “The Day After Tomorrow” said the shot is a digital image. She was glad Al Gore used it in the documentary since “It is one hell of a shot.” Both movies use the shot to convincingly portray global warming, but it is left to the audience to decide if this created image can both entertain and educate us about our changing planet.

Wait, what was that again?  Styrofoam?

Well, it’s fake but accurate, you might say. “Just because Big Al manipulated my emotions with spectacular Hollywood fakery doesn’t mean we’re not ALL GONNA DIE FROM GLOBAL WARMING!!!” If you really believe that, there’s no point in arguing with you. But you’ll have to forgive me for laughing at the look on your face when you find out what the effects guys used to make all those “glaciers”:

Sculpted from Styrofoam and later scanned into a computer, the ice shelf “flyover” looks real.

That’s right, Styrofoam! You know, the evil, evil stuff that’s being banned all over the place because it’s destroying the environment. Wonder what the studio did with it when they were done with their dumb movie? Five hundred years from now, will the last few survivors of the human race stumble upon those beautifully sculpted glaciers, completely intact, in some forgotten landfill?

Uhm…mmmmkay.  I ain’t sayin’, I’m just sayin’.

hattip Deceiver

We just aren’t sure what it is that’s broken.

For one thing, I’m not crazy about the animation.  Yes, I know it’s supposed to be anime, which I don’t have a problem with.  But this brings to mind comparisons with Aeon Flux, and that particular style just isn’t my thing.  If they’re trying to make Brit sexy in this vid, I don’t think they succeeded.  Anime Brit breaks into a building where a dual anime Brit is being held in some sort of cryogenic state, along the way kicking some anime butt.  But I don’t get it…she kisses the glass holding back her twin self?  She kills the baddie with what, her sex appeal?  He self-destructs because she broke his…ice?  Too confusing.  In short, they made anime Brit do all the things real-life Brit can’t (or won’t) do any more in videos.

So let’s move on to the song.  First, what is it with starting songs with spoken lyrics?  She already tried that in “Gimme More”.  Basically, the song is about, you guessed it, sex.  She spends the song breathily panting about how ”You ain’t gotta be scared/We’re grown now” and “Can you rise to the occasion/I’m patiently waiting…I can’t get enough/So let me get it up.”  It’s techno pop, the sort of thing clubs ought to eat up, but that will seem hopelessly dated in a few years (Rick Astley, anyone?).  Then again, this album wasn’t made to stand the test of time, but to earn some bucks.  In that, it’s probably succeeding.

It takes longer than a few weeks to animate a video, so maybe she just wasn’t capable, interested in, or together enough to make a video for this song.  Jive has to make their money back on this CD some way, so an animated video was undoubtedly the next best thing.

The song is very much about Britney taking control of a sexual encounter, and I wonder if it is a metaphor for her wishing to take control of her life.  I know the song was written, recorded, and produced a long time ago, but she also took steps a while back to cut herself off from everyone who had previously helped her and took “control” of her own life.  Or it could just be another generic song about sex.

It’s not horrible…it’s just not all that great.  Meh.  However, if you like it, more power to ya.

Break the Ice

Rush and Malloy are reporting that Jake Gyllenhaal is slated to reprise the role of  DC comic superhero Captain Marvel of “Shazam!” fame, from the popular 70’s kid’s show of the same name.  This Captain Marvel is not to be confused with Marvel Comics “Captain Marvel.”  Due to copyright and trademark issues, DC Comics can’t market under the Captain Marvel name, so Shazam and Captain Marvel have become synonmous in the DC world.

If true, Gyllenhaal will be reprising the role of Captain Marvel for New Line, whose alter-ego is radio reporter Billy Batson. Billy, a young man, would obtain his super powers from the wizard Shazam, which would transform him through a bolt of lightening into an adult with the powers of six legendary figures. How cool is that?!

The article states that New Line is ready to spend $200 million on the film and director Peter Segal hopes to quickly “nab” Gyllenhaal before Sam Raimi does for the continued adventures of Spider-Man.  There is speculation that Maguire is ready to retire his role in the Spider-Man movies, despite his oddly huge popularity playing the webbed hero.  Maybe he’s just sick of looking at the Kikster.  He wouldn’t be alone.

Come to think of it, didn’t Jake once date Kirsten Dunst?  Very interesting.  Moving on…
But wait, there’s more…

Superman, Wonderwoman, Aquaman, Batman and the Flash are set to star side by side in a live-action film. Warner Brothers, drooling at the prospects of capitalizing on the popularity of comic book heroes on the silver screen, have greenlighted the project.

I think I just dropped a deuce in my pants. Can you imagine all that superheroness in one movie? We just bought the sleek and newly redone Justice League Seasons One and Two for my son. But seeing how he’s three and not old enough to appreciate the dark, brooding and sophisticated modern superheroes, I am the only one who is willing to watch them. Something about the vague lesbian nature of Wonderwomen makes me slightly uncomfortable.

Speaking of which, there is something very familiar about that Super Friends logo. Doesn’t GLAAD have that same logo? If not, they should totally borrow it. Look at them - all super-inclusive and whatnot. Heroes of all shapes, sizes, gender, species. Every damn color in the superhero rainbow.

Since I am total dork and have a son OBSESSED with superheroes, whether of the Marvel or DC variety, you know our asses will be all over it when it comes out.

I wonder if they will do a live action of the Ambiguously Gay Duo? Wait, wasn’t that called Broke Back Mountain?