Ruby Dee is Looking For Work—Please Help!

Posted by Michael Musto at 5:00 PM, March 6, 2008

All right, Ruby Dee didn't go home with the Oscar, but there are no losers at the Academy Awards—only people who have failed to win. And this little legend has a lot to say about theater, film, civil rights, and how to look foxy at 83. So book her! She'll come to your school, your library, and your friggin' home for all I know! And all you've gotta do is follow the instructions on this media blast (below) that was just sent out and shell over a few clams and a "pretty please." And voila—Ruby Dee will be at your doorstep faster than you can say "Tilda Swinton!" DON'T book the woman and she'll be at your doorstep anyway—slapping you even harder than she did to Denzel.

Many of us may already know, but for those of us who do not, Ms. Ruby Dee continues to be a powerful force in the entertainment world. Among her many accomplishments, Ms. Dee has authored two children's books titled, Tower to Heaven and Two Ways to Count to Ten. She has also written a book of poetry and short stories, My One Good Nerve, which she has adapted into a solo performance piece. In 2008, among other accomplishments, Ms. Dee has received the prestigious NAACP Image Award, was awarded the SAG (Screen Actor's Guild Award) for best actress, and was also nominated for an Oscar.

We are now accepting bookings for personal appearances and monologue/speaking engagements. Please contact us if you are interested in having an afternoon or evening with Ruby Dee, one of America's finest actresses.

Speaking Engagements
Monologue Engagements
Personal Appearances
Dramatic Readings

For More Info and Booking Information for Ms. Ruby Dee, Contact:

Randy Forrest, Sr.
President/CEO of Ma & Pa Productions
Booking Agency
757-638-1995
rforrestsr@aol.com
3036 Golden Hind Road
Chesapeake, VA 23321

Ellen Page Sexuality Update

Posted by Michael Musto at 9:00 AM, February 29, 2008

After speculating about the tomboyish Ellen Page's sexuality, I got a call which I only picked up because the number on the Caller ID was similar to NBC's and I thought it was going to be a TV booking. Instead it was Kelly Bush—Page's publicist and manager—who sounded as if her cat had just gotten stuck in a drainpipe or something. My item had been picked up on Defamer, Bush said, and she wanted me to know that it was SHE who was with Page at the Oscars (though I had been sardonically wondering if it was a mother/girlfriend/whatever). She named a couple of other starlets who also had reps with them at the awards and said it's by no means an unusual practice. (Now I'll have to wonder if THEY'RE gay too.) "I don't know why people are so mean," Bush whinnied in a wounded voice. "It's not mean to wonder if someone's gay," I shrieked, outraged. "But to call her an 'Oscar loser'?" she moaned. "I didn't say that!" I yelped. "Maybe you're illiterate," I added, triumphantly slamming down the phone. Of course maybe I'M the dummy. I later realized I HAD called Page an "Oscar loser" in a short, sassy column item, also questioning her love life. Defamer had picked up the BLOG item, and I thought that's what we were talking about. In any case, I like Ellen Page, who's an appealing talent, so I nobly took "Oscar loser" off the web version faster than Juno gives away her baby. But I'm still livid that a publicist who would never normally call me for anything is so quick on the horn to do spin control whenever the L word comes up! And now, we're back to square zero anyway: IS she?

(Update on the update: I was just reminded that Bush is not only the woman who called Ellen DeGeneres's animal shelter with threats, she's a lesbian.)

Oscar Winner's Penis-Painting Beau Strikes Out

Posted by Michael Musto at 3:00 PM, February 28, 2008

A portrait by Sandro Kopp

Tilda Swinton has two lovers and an Oscar! The younger of her two paramours, Sandro Kopp, is a talented artist whose price hopefully will go up now. As a reader points out, these very genital works by him didn’t exactly go through the roof, bid-wise, on a New Zealand version of eBay. (Forty dollars??? Surely people are willing to pay more than that for a dick or a vadge, even if they’re just representations!)

And as the same reader notes, Kopp’s own website curiously omits them.

He’s even kookier than Tilda herself!

Ellen Page: Is She or Isn't She?

Posted by Michael Musto at 12:00 PM, February 27, 2008

I mean, come on already, is she??? You know, Lebanese! She certainly dresses like a, you know, tomboy. And if you google "Ellen Page boyfriend," not a whole lot comes up, except for a link to some interview where she refers to an old beau. And if you google "Ellen Page dating," you get the news that she dated Ben Foster, but then you get a followup saying she denies that ever happened. Who did she go to the Oscars with? I couldn't tell from the cropped shots of her, but it looked like she was maybe with her mother? For guys, that used to signify 100% gay, but for girls, it might just mean young and/or Canadian--or, um, gay. And then there was the web item saying "Ellen Page is an out lesbian," but for all I know the guy who ran that is the same douche who started the whole "Marcia Cross is coming out" campaign. Come on, people, help me out of this mess! Before I get stampeded by publicists shrieking, "This is an invasion of privacy!" (yeah, yeah, shut up, this is what I do), let's put the dykey pieces together. Is Juno a you know? And if so, which male will they quickly match her up with? Zac Efron?

The Oscars Cut the Gay Stuff! But Now it's Back!

Posted by Michael Musto at 9:00 AM, February 27, 2008

It was a lovely moment on the Oscars—a/k/a the Gay Super Bowl—when No Country for Old Men producer Scott Rudin thanked his lover John Barlow (from the Broadway p.r. company Barlow Hartman) and referred to him as "honey." Well, honey, in the official transcript of the speech, that part was mysteriously left out! They didn't even make Rudin straight—they turned him into some kind of bizarre neuter without any human feeling (which they'd already tried to do by not cutting to a reaction shot of a beaming Barlow)! Well, thanks to some prodding by goodasyou.org, the axed comments were restored to the transcript, and we can all sleep much easier now. Of course we'll never know if the omission was done out of ignorance, hatred, ineptitude, or (let's be generous) a broken keyboard.

In this week's Voice:
La Dolce Musto, "Ellen Page's Sexuality! Jennifer Garner's Hairdo!"

Tilda Swinton Gives Oscar Away! Agent Takes 100%!

Posted by Michael Musto at 8:00 AM, February 25, 2008

Occasionally, the person who deserves an Oscar actually gets one, and that happened last night when Tilda Swinton copped Best Supporting Actress for Michael Clayton, in which she's surreally shimmery, brilliantly slimy, and scarily good. Off screen, Tilda's one of us—a spunky creative artist with a strong will and a radiant sense of quirk. In her speech, she said she'd give her trophy to her agent Brian Swardstrom, whom it physically resembles, and by time she greeted the press backstage last night, she said she'd already done so! A woman of her word? Who's talented and individualistic and wears a one-armed glam rock shmatte? She'll be drummed out of Hollywood in no time! But meanwhile, I'd love to meet Swardstrom. Even if he shares Oscar's distinct lack of crotch, he's got to have some mighty fine buttocks.

Oscar Mania Strikes! Let's Regroup and Discuss

Posted by Michael Musto at 8:00 AM, February 22, 2008

I live for the gay Super Bowl known as the Oscars and always go against the popular waves of feeling in my reaction to everything on the telecast. When the media was crucifying Cher, Bjork, and Geena Davis for supposed fashion crimes, I was raving about how adorable they looked while searching around for cheap swan knockoffs. I even liked Celine thumping her heart through the BACK of that jacket. The Oscars are a bad-taste idea to begin with—pitting actors against each other merely because they were good—but then if someone wears something a little colorful or left of center, they're strangely attacked for not being tasteful enough! Absurd. More troubling is the way the winners get vilified on the rare occasions when they're actually honest. Sally Field's legendary "You like me!" speech was simply a case of someone saying what she felt—that she didn't know if she'd been truly validated by her peers before, but now she felt it and it was wonderful. "Die, Sally!" came the callback. "How dare you admit you need us even though we spent the whole year and shitloads of money preparing for this crazy event?" Sally's speech was far preferable to that of later winner Julia Roberts, whose cutesy effusiveness seemed SOOO calculated and rehearsed (She'd won every other award before that. How could Jules have been that surprised?) and Halle Berry, who was elaborately teary and self-congratulatory even as she pretended to be acknowledging a host of other people. Oh, by the way, let's put an end to those laundry list speeches, where everyone who's ever lent the star a cracker or some Vaseline gets thanked (you know, "William Morris, mom, God, Billy Ray Cyrus..."). Supposedly this year's nominees are being coached to avoid that sort of thing and say something meaningful instead. Now THAT'LL involve some award caliber acting.

There Will Be Gold: Oscar Predictions Come True

Posted by Michael Musto at 2:00 PM, January 22, 2008

Alzheimer's is a big winner is at the Oscars!

I got 19 out of 25! Correctly predicted Oscar nominations, that is! The big winners? Anyone playing an assassin, a gangster, a greedy whore, a vengeance queen, a queen period, or an Alzheimer's patient. The losers? The Simpsons Movie plus most of the people in Into The Wild. I am beyond thrilled that Tommy Lee Jones and Laura Linney snuck in there for deeply affecting performances in dark films instead of my predicted Ryan Gosling (for the annoying Lars and Amanda Lepore, I mean Lars and the Real Girl), and Angelina Jolie (for that godawful Mariane Pearl movie that gave me a headache while screaming to be nominated). And Ruby Dee deserves it just for the time I heard her telling a friend, "Well, at least he's good on E!"

Oscar Wild! Predictions For This Year's Award Winners

Posted by Michael Musto at 8:00 AM, January 15, 2008

Just try to reject this man for Best Supporting Actor.

My very next column will detail my always immaculate predictions for the Oscar nominations. (Yes, there will be nominations, even if they have to announce them from a lemonade stand on the highway. Please, the Golden Globes managed to even pick winners.)

To tease you on my full slate of choices, I'll tell you now that the frontrunners to definitely, actually, maybe win the trophies—as of two minutes ago—are No Country for Old Men for Best Picture (people admire it even if they don't really like it); There Will Be Blood's Daniel Day-Lewis for Best Actor (the surest bet since Julia Roberts went home with both a white man and a golden one); Julie Christie and Marion Cotillard in a showdown for Best Actress (I love watching Europeans battle it out in the mud for some American validation); Gone Baby Gone's Amy Ryan for Best Supporting Actress (though a Tilda Swinton upset would be bitchily glamorous); No Country's scary Javier Bardem for Best Supporting Actor (Just try to reject him); and the Coen brothers for Best Director. (They'll have to get scary Bardem to saw it in half.)

But as the year du cinema progressed, I became a tiny bit shocked that Gone Baby Gone didn't ascend as a shoo-in nominee for Best Picture. Semi-joke Ben Affleck did virtuoso work with the lost-child saga, which I found far superior to the turgid Mystic River, based on a book by the same depressing author. And brother Casey, who was an even bigger punchline at parties, managed to deliver a fully credible performance, which is rare for someone so moist-eyed and cute-faced. (He's good in the Jesse James flick too and will be nominated for that, but his dewy appeal is way overmilked as that movie drags on and on. And on.) I also feel Tamara Jenkins' The Savages is an instant classic that should have easily been a Best Picture contender, and not just because I'm dealing with sick, cantankerous parents myself. But whoever the fuck is chosen, I'll get behind them—and that goes for the Democratic nominee too!