Good evening!!  I hope you’re recovering from all the festivities quite well.  We got back home around 2:30 and then had to clean out the rental car before returning it.  When we got home the husband convinced me to snuggle with him rather than go to the gym.  It didn’t take much convincing considered I was pooped from the drive and this cold just will NOT go away.

He snoozed (he has to be at work at 10) while I watched a movie: Zodiac.  I really liked it.  It would be a good Netflix choice.  It had Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Edwards, and Robert Downey, Jr.

Anywho…a quick recap of yesterday.

We had a fantastic Christmas lunch.

Here’s my plate: ham, creamed corn, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and stuffing.

I didn’t eat any desserts yesterday, just snacked on candy and other stuff throughout the day.  In the afternoon we went to see Sherlock Holmes.  Josh and I shared a small popcorn and I had a small diet soda.  The movie was very good!!  Definitely recommend it, though it would be just as good at home.

Dinner was just leftovers so pretty much the same as above but in smaller portions.

We got up this morning a little before 7 and were on the road within 45 minutes.  I took some yogurt and True North Almond Clusters to go as well as three ham “sandwiches.”  It was leftover ham with RF mayo and mustard on potato rolls. 

Throughout the trip I had half a Gatorade, some water, and a bag of Chex Mix.  LOVE that stuff.  Can’t have it in the house.

Rusty was sad to be leaving his grandma’s house. (They have a doggie door.)

He got over it.  Here’s some pictures once he smelled home.

  As I said before I didn’t make it to the gym tonight.  Tomorrow it’s time to get back on track.  Church then gym then some work I need to get done before Monday.  Hopefully this cold is much improved by then because I can’t think of a worse time to be exiled from the gym.

I hope you had a great Saturday!!

Their vision is to preserve music. But what does this mean?

This Jersey duo We Are The HEROES sets out to combine a ’systematic knowledge of music, engineering skills’, and overall knowledge of music technology to create a new sound. They hope this caliber of sound will carry forth in today’s often depressed radio waves. Comprised of Anthony ‘Antmaestro’ Edwards (above right) and Van ‘Hollywood’ Holland III (above left), the two praise and work off of the oldschool sounds they grew up with,

“while reinventing the new…an oath materialized with the duo’s greater ideal of safeguarding music.

Hollywood brings raw creativity and spunk, while Antmaestro brings a candid refined touch based on his classical knowledge of the arts. Together these masterminds create a ‘Heroic’ sound.”

Check out their MySpace to hear their current resume. RECOMMENDED: Kaisha Jones “I’m Me”.

Top Gun is one of my all time favorite movies. Maverick and Goose, Ice Man and Charlie, Cruise and Kilmer,etc. Near the end of the movie, shortly after the climactic dog fight, Kilmer and Cruise meet on the deck of the carrier. After a brief stare down, Kilmer tells Cruise, “you are still dangerous,” adding that he could still be his wingman. Then we have the macho man  hug and action continues.

According to some well-known folks, there is  a dangerous person running amok around the country today. She has been to Ft Bragg, to Roanoke,Va, to Columbus and Cincinnati, Oh among others. Organizing for America director Mitch Stewart calls her dangerous as does well-known style arbiter Martha Stewart, presumably not related. Ms Stewart, apparently with her verbal claws sharpened also threw in the descriptive words confused  and boring. Doubtless Tina Fey had something to say also, but I don’t care.

Of course, we speak of Sarah Palin as she tours the country to promote her book which sold some 300,000 copies on day 1. I will say up front that unlike a number of my conservative brethren, I am uncertain as to whether Ms Palin would make  a good president of presidential candidate even. But I am certainly enjoying the angst that is surfacing  among those who are not fans. Is she dangerous? Dangerous to what and to whom, don’t know. I don’t really think so. It was amusing to note Martha Stewart’s comments. I  am unsure how one can be boring and dangerous simultaneously. If you are dangerous, you are certainly not boring are you? Why does Martha even care?

Anyway, the Obamacare folks should applaud her media attention. She is probably diverting some attention from all the machinations and payouts occurring in the Senate to obtain the votes of wavering Democrats. Whatever it takes, though. Sen Schumer said, we can’t not succeed. Parse that phrase, all you grammarians.

Last note. McCain has read her book and liked it. Obama says he probably will not read it.

If its Friday, then it must be time for our gang (gaggle?) of GonzoGeeks to take you on a trip through the wonderful world of the web as seen through our seriously skewed worldview.

But before we set off on our journey, let me offer you a slice of cheesecake.  This week, its Daffney, TNA superstar and all around cool chick.

Why you may ask?

The answer is quite simple.  Before it was cancelled, this was the scheduled weekend for Wizard World Texas, an event Stephe and I attended for all of its years, including last year where we met Daffney and convinced her to be our first celebrity interview.  Since then, Daffney has gone on to play The Governor (TNA’s parody of Sarah Palin) and emerge on the other side as the goth chick she was meant to be.  She’s currently rehabbing a broken arm.

***UPDATE 11/20/09 – Got an email from Daffney yesterday.  It wasn’t a broken arm, but rather a very serious concussion.  The injury is corrected but the sentiment remains the same.***

Get well soon Daff!

Now, on to the links.

1.  Everyone’s favorite uncle…Television!
2. More cool custom toys!
3. A toy Stephe says he must have!
4. The latest from the Mayor of Parts Unknown.
5. Sean Salisbury is suing DeadSpin.  Could be a watershed case when it comes to the blogosphere.
6. One of John’s favorite angles from the territorial days of wrestling.
7. This week’s episode of PWF internet TV.
8. This joke by Tommy West about Lane Kiffin has Tennessee players fired up for some unfathomable reason.  It’s barely a decent joke.
9. Rob Zombie calls Hollywood chicken.
10. Still a loner.  Still a rebel.
11. John Stewart does Glenn Beck.
12. I would have been far more surprised to find out Tim Lincecum didn’t smoke dope.
13. Stay classy Joe!
14. All this and yet no Canyonero.
15. Rastaman litigations.
16. As someone who just completed the American Community Survey, I say thanks Ron.
17. Continuing last week’s crytozoology theme.
18. Was his name Goose?
19. Christopher Walken sings Lady Gaga’s Poker Face.
20. Do you know who was the original choice to play Indiana Jones?
21. Surely Marc Singer wasn’t busy.
22. Josh Whedon wants to buy the Terminator franchise.
23. A zombie film currently in production in Tennessee.
24. Can’t be any worse than the prequels.
25. Oh the irony.  Mexico dealing with aliens.
26. Before I delete the bookmark, here’s the story that was the basis for American Gangster.
27. Our weekly link to David’s Iraq deployment blog.
28. And, if you like what you see, then become a fan on Facebook.

Marathons attract thousands of insane people, I mean, the race is supposed to be based on a soldier running for 26 miles to tell Athens about their victory over the Persians, but last I checked, we have cell phones now and there is simply no good reason to ever run that far. What makes even less sense is to run that far in New York City where there is a GIANT public transit system. Really, these people should just take the subway, they’d get wherever they’re going easier and without pooping on themselves.

Among the 43,000 participants in Sunday’s NYC Marathon were some people who are far more important than the rest of us, REAL celebrities and not runners. Among the stars who tied up their New Balances and gave it a go were Anthony Edwards (his time was 4:08:20), Alanis Morrissette crossed the finish line in a casual 4:28:45, the late Christopher Reeve’s son Matthew did the race in 4:23:06 but best of all was the finish by Edward Norton. The 40-year-old actor finished the grueling course in a mere 3:48:01, meaning he averaged under 9 minutes a mile, not too shabby at all.

The celebrities were all running for charities, Norton was running for the Massai Wilderness Conservation Trust and joining him in the running were 3 Masai tribesman. After the race Norton wanted to do just one thing,
“I’m going to get a piece of pizza!” he said.

Me, I’d pass out. But then, I’m much more of an athlete.

[People]

HarlemCondoLife

By HarlemGal
I snapped several photos today of all those amazing runners from the NYC Marathon. However, I caught one celeb by accident that I wanted to share with you. Do you remember Anthony Edwards?

HarlemCondoLife

Because nothing on it is funny. Not even that stupid video with the stupid toddler bitching out her stupid tenants about not paying their stupid rent.

Yeah, yeah. We hate a lot here at Some Country for Old Men. But it’s not really hate when a) we’re correct, b) you’re not, and c) you’re retarded. All of the video clips that play when a viewer clicks the “Die!” button at Funny or Die are funnier than the videos being judged. Ugh.

Take a look at the videos currently on the “Today’s Best” (or “Today’s Bloody Best” since it’s Halloween soon or something):

1. James Franco doing some bad acting (like that’s anything new) in a video that parodies celebrity endorsements. Wow! How cutting edge and original! The idea that celebrity endorsements are a sham! And that celebrities are stupid!

2. Anthony Edwards sending up — wait for it! — celebrity endorsements! And celebrity narcissism! Wow! And trends! Did they just whip this thing together? Above-average-actor Edwards isn’t believable for one frame of this video. He’s just too smart to pull off acting stupid. James LeGros (superior actor? or just understands comedy better? or is stupid?) is actually quite convincing as the chagrined friend. Too bad he’s showcasing his talent in such a shitty piece of crap.

3. “It Came from the Box,” a creepy movie from the ’50s! A wacky parody of bad ’50s horror movies that’s so good it actually comes across as bad! And totally unfunny! Holy fuck!

4. “Haunted Car,” a short about a car that’s haunted and is so not fucking funny.

5. And finally, “Leopard Likes Driving,” which is hilarious because someone’s driving around with a leopard in his car! And the leopard sticks his head out the window like a dog does! Holy shit, that’s hilarious!

Oh, wait! No it isn’t. Because I’m not 8.

We shouldn’t be surprised. Fat America is, after all, the country that gave us box office bonanzas Meet the Parents and its totally sidesplitting sequel (sarcasm) Meet the Fockers. Can’t wait for Little Fockers! (Barf.)

I wrote this post, for the most part, right after BWE ended. Due to some personal complications it is not getting posted until now (has it really only been one week since BWE? Seems longer!)

This was my first year attending Blog World Expo and all I can say is: WOW! It was amazing! First off, I wasn’t completely prepared for the sheer volume of people and the size of the convention center. Second, I wasn’t prepared for walking past people in the hallways who are the greats of the social media world. I think I actually tripped as I

Grace Boyle and I

walked past Chris Brogan. Also, I talked to people in real life that I never imagined I would such as Jun Loayza, Ben Parr, and Problogger. I got my picture take with Anthony Edwards (he was my favorite on ER. I stopped watching after they killed off Dr. Greene) How I kept from passing out with excitement is beyond me.

There were so many great educational sessions offered. Many of them I wanted to attend but couldn’t either because my pass didn’t allow me to (Note to self: start saving up for next year’s full access pass now) or because they were scheduled at the same time (Does anyone know if the sessions were recorded?). Pretty much, if you could think of it, there was a session on it. There was a huge exhibit hall with vendors, which is where I spent a lot of time. I got to hang out at the lijit booth with the amazing blogger Grace Boyle.

Honestly, my favorite part of Blog World was hanging out at the Blog World Radio booth.  I got to sit there and tweet my heart out about the radio shows that were being done live from the middle of the exhibit floor. There were so many great people as guest on the radio show…from Scott Stratten to DebNg to Adam Carolla (yes folks, that’s right…I sat at the table next to the table that Adam Carolla was sitting at…and didn’t take a picture…talk about being serious about your tweeting!) I now think that tweetchat is the greatest invention since sliced bread (read more about tweetchat here), tweeting for a living would be the best thing ever, and that I would love to do this again at other conferences (hint, hint people).

A good time was had by all….I think.

Angie Swartz, myself, Alan Underkofler

Social Media has definitely grown out of its infancy. Although, according to all the geeks that attended the first integrated edition of Blogworld and New Media Expo in Las Vegas. More than 2500 bloggers, podcasters, consultants and other new media mavericks visited Sin City for 3 days to talk about and share experiences on Social Media. Close to 300 speakers gave dozens presentations and panel discussions on a large variety of subjects. Without going into detail of all of them, I will give you the highlights of the conference.

Twitter rawks

If there was one subject that was mentioned in almost every discussion then it was Twitter. With great passion Twitt-lebrities like Laura Fitton (@Pistachio), Robert Scoble (@scobleizer) and Aaron Strout (@aaronstrout) shared the power of Twitter. “The power of unisolating people”, according to Laura. “And it’s not about the writer, it’s not about the number of followers you have but it is about the message you share. People are made to socialize, also in business. For that it is important to surround yourself with inspiring people. Twitter is a great tool for that.”

Guiness World Record

Thanks to Twitter a Guinness World Record was set during Blogworld. The highest number of social network mentions within 24 hours. And last Monday the record was confirmed by Guinness World Record: a total of 209,771 social network mentions of #beatcancer in one day via Twitter, Facebook and blog posts. As a result eBay/Paypal and MillerCoors offered a donation of $70.000 to four non-profit cancer organizations (Spirit Jump, Bright Pink, Alex’s Lemonade, and Stand UP to Cancer). As the campaign continues, you can still donate and help promote this initiative via Beatcancereverywhere.com.

Shoe4Africa
More good causes-support from eBay/Paypal. Their booth was completely dedicated to this theme. One of the good causes was Shoe4Africa, a non-profit organization aiming at ‘empowerment through sports and education, creating unique health initiatives, and promoting AIDS awareness.’ Cornerstone project is the development of a children’s hospital in Kenya, which will be the first public hospital in Kenya and the largest children’s hospital in Africa. The project is supported by Anthony Edwards, who sat in the keynote Celebrity panel. Although not yet very active in Social Media, Edwards understands the difference he can make as a celebrity using Social Media to spread the word around this project. So at Blogworld, he lost his Twitterginity and made his first tweet. Follow him on @anthonyedwards4. We also had a short interview with him which will be published shortly.

Dutch presence
And of course we ran into Vincent Everts, a webexpert and trend-watcher. Vincent presence at Blogworld was to promote yubby.com, a video aggregator the collect videos from over 30 popular video sources. Previously known as Dik.nl, but you can imagine, not a name that would work well in the US (although, flickr didn’t change its name for Holland…) And of course, Vincent not only did his upmost for yubby, he also worked on his own brand. Being very present at various sessions and as member in one of the panels, the success of his quest was confirmed to be successful during the closing keynote. When one-time talk-show host Guy Kawasaki asked the audience who has not heard of Jenny the Blogess, Vincent raised his hand as one of the few. Guy looked at him and said ‘oh, that’s that guy in the white suit’. An interview with Vincent will be launched shortly.

Chris Brogan

If there is one Social Media guru that is reaching superstar status without losing it, it’s Chris Brogan. I think he is the most mentioned, quoted, RTweeted and appreciated speaker of Blogworld 2009. And true, Chris is a very sympathetic and respectable person, but moreover, he is a visionary and true knowledge expert in the field. His keynote on day one was for me the most inspiring of all sessions. ‘Stop tapping each other on the back, but get out there and start working. There is so much to do out there’. And he is right. Social Media has grown out of its infancy. As much as we liked the pioneering atmosphere at New media Expo 2007, those days seem to be over. Social Media is becoming true business. Moreover, we shouldn’t call it Social Media anymore. It’s Human Business.

For more details go to Chris’ blogpost on his keynote. Here you can find the entire keynote (and all other keynotes).

Trend for 2010
On the exhibition floor, there were several companies that demonstrated applications based on aggregation of content. We already mentioned yubby.com as a video aggregation site, but aggregation goes beyond video. Zemanta is an application that helps you look for content related to the blogpost you are writing. While you’re writing, it ‘looks over your shoulder [..] and gives you tips and advice’. It analyzes your content, suggests keywords and related articles. With Zemanta, your blog becomes more visible and generates more traffic.
Regator goes even further in aggregation. There is an enormous amount of content available within the blogosphere. Regator ‘gathers the world’s best blog posts and organizes them in a way that’ makes it easy to find the things you need’. This selection is not purely done through some fancy algorithm, but through a team of editors. Yes, real people that search the web for valuable content. In fact, they decide for you what’s valuable or not. Regator uses criteria like regular updates, topical, well written, originality and whether or not your blog is ‘awesome’ based on which you can be added to the selection. The last criterium is rather vague and subjective, but that’s admitted by Regator.

Content is still king in new media. But finding the right content becomes like a monk’s job. For that we need aggregation, and we predict aggregation becomes the trend for 2010.

Audio Bummer
Was it all highs in Vegas? No, there was definitely a bummer. As there were more than 5-6 simultaneous tracks, you had to make up your mind what session to attend. Obviously, that was challenging as interesting presentations were scheduled at the same time. At New Media Expo in the past all participants were given the opportunity to download the audiotracks of all presentations. For free (or better, at no additional fee). Blogworld changed that policy: audiotracks are now available for $15 per session. Not funny. I can’t split myself up in 6, but feel that I have paid close to 1200 bucks to make all these sessions possible. Therefore I plead that all participants should have access to all recorded sessions (at least audio). And I was not the only one complaining about that. Organizer Rick Calvert should make up his mind or consult Tim and Emile Bourquin, former organizers of New Media Expo.

Another disappointment was that there was not much on the use of New Media for internal communication, in our view the way to learn what New Media is, to gain experience and in addition, to improve your internal communication, which in many organizations is underdeveloped. Truly win-win. A separate track should have been developed for this topic. Hopefully the organization considers this for the next edition.
Further, there was a strong focus on blogging, too strong to my liking. New Media is more than just blogging and Twitter. The focus overall was too much on the technology. There was hardly any attention for the development of a New and Social Media strategy. If we really want to go out there and help companies adapt New and Social Media, we need to understand that this is key to success. From that perspective I didn’t really hear anything new in these three days.

Conclusion
Conclusion for Blogworld and New Media Expo 2009: a lot on technology (and then mostly blogging) and too little on strategy. A lot of panels, some good and some which had a tendency towards too much ‘incrowd’. Some very inspiring speakers, a good atmosphere and at night awesome parties. Overall, a more than average event. Rick Calvert only has to solve this audio issue and I will certainly consider attending Blogworld and New Media Expo 2010.

Uma Thurman, Minnie Driver, and Anthony Edwards star in writer/director Katherine Dieckmann’s slice of life indie Motherhood, which follows a hapless mother of two as she attempts to prepare for her daughter’s rapidly approaching sixth birthday party. Along the way, the harried mother is forced to contend with a monumental series of unexpected urban challenges

From writer/director Katherine Dieckmann, the acclaimed filmmaker of DIGGERS and A GOOD BABY, comes MOTHERHOOD, starring Uma Thurman, Anthony Edwards and Minnie Driver. Shot entirely on location in New York’s West Village, this bittersweet comedy distills the dilemmas of the maternal state (marriage, work, self, and not necessarily in that order) into the trials and tribulations of one pivotal day. MOTHERHOOD forms a genre of one – no other movie has dedicated itself in quite this way to probing exactly what it takes to be a mother, with both wry humor and an acute sense of authenticity.

Uma Thurman in MOTHERHOOD

MOTHERHOOD, written and directed by Katherine Dieckmann and shot on location on New York’s West Village, is a bittersweet comedy focusing entirely on the state of motherhood today and what it’s really like to choose to be a stay-at-home-mom.

Uma, (a mom of two) plays Eliza Welsh, a writer and novice novelist, who has chosen to put her career on temporary hold to dedicate herself to raising her children full time. “However,” Uma says, “She’s struggling with that decision. She feels fulfilled, but at as the same time, compromised by being in total ‘baby-land’ and not stimulating other sides of herself that are obviously important.” As a creative outlet, Uma’s character turns to the increasingly popular activity for SAHM’s of “mommy-blogging.” “Mommy blogging” Uma continues, “is a creative way that fits in with Eliza’s life as a mother. It’s her voice outside of this isolating experience of raising children on her own. Uma enjoyed the character of Eliza and said, “I like that she has flaws. She has anger issues, yet she so loves her kids. She’s funny and charming and real.”

Uma (herself funny, charming and very real) recalled the time on the set when she was required to run endlessly up and down the staircase of a tenement building with a dog, groceries and a baby strapped into her backpack. In fact, it probably wasn’t funny at the time as she nearly threw her back out doing it. But her recollection of having her own babies in that kind of “contraption” always made her feel unstable “as if I were trying to keep a bowl of Ice cream perched on top of a somewhat broken wafer cone. I always felt spindly and top-heavy.”

She did enjoy going back into that phase of mommyhood during the filming and very much enjoyed the young actors who she thought were “surprisingly wonderful.” However, just like all other moms, she feels bad when she has to spend so much time on the set away from her own children and tries to forgive herself when she misses out on some important event. She does make up for it by taking a lot of time off and doesn’t work as often as she used to. “As much as you want to be in 8 places at the same time you just can’t be. You only have one body and one self. But I try to make up for it by having a rich and warm family life with all of the time I do have…and I just try to balance it.”

When I asked her how having children has made her a better actress she told me, “Well, just having kids changes you completely…you are never the same. It’s also made me more appreciative of the times I do get to work, since I don’t get to do it all the time. It’s made clearer lines between my work and my life.” She also very much enjoyed working with Anthony Edwards (see my Anthony Edwards interview, posted September 28th below) and felt that he is “an incredibly honest actor, and a very good father.” She also thinks very highly of his wife (Jeanine Lobell) who is a good friend of hers. So the onset relationship was very comfortable for her.

She also enjoyed the challenge of realizing the character arc that occurs over the course of only one day in Eliza’s life. She explains, “Not a spectacular day like one in which a character collects the Nobel Price, but one real normal day. It’s an amazing way to see a character sort of broken open. It’s tricky, but fun.”

Uma was surprisingly insightful in her response when asked if Hollywood intentionally overlooks motherhood, Uma replied that “Motherhood has often been put in the third shelf. I even had a friend say to me, ‘why would I want to watch a movie about my own boring life?’ I was amazed. Do we so discredit ourselves and our experience of motherhood that it’s slightly annoying to even propose the idea of someone who is actually raising other human beings? Has that become so unimportant in our culture? The experience of motherhood from a thousand different angles, different people and cultures…each mother’s experience…and how we consider it…wherever it may be happening…it’s who we are as a people. It’s very interesting to see different people’s reactions to it. Like it’s either not worthy of consideration or they really appreciate it if they see it. Motherhood is an honest story where the mother is central to the experience; she’s being seen through her actions, instead of being used in the narrative, as is often the case…filling in the blanks about another character.”

Well I for one (and I’m guessing many of you readers) hope that this is just the start of a trend, rather than the exception to the rule. We can all help ensure that outcome by getting our friends together, going out and seeing the movie. MOTHERHOOD opens this weekend (October 22nd) in select cities only, but will open everywhere the following weekend.

Click here to watch the trailer: http://www.motherhoodthefilm.com/video.html

Continuing an awesome and awfully insightful discussion between Brian Solis and some of our fave celebs who are connecting with the world using social media, Anthony Edwards (in talking about how the old way of doing things pales in the face of social media) equated a white person coming into an African slum with a camera to Godzilla walking through their village (this is the old way of doing things).

You give the women of the village  (he was informing us about a slum in Africa that has 1.2 million people living in a place the size of Central Park, essentially) Flip cameras though, he says, and let them do the flimling, you’re going to get a more authentic perspective.

He later talked about how, after finishing his talk on the panel, he was going to tweet for the first time to support an effort to raise money for a hospital in Africa — he’s @anthonyedwards4 on Twitter.

When asked if there were instances where anyone had created a relationship from social media, Jermaine Dupri explained the story of an amateur singer who was a singer, videotaped herself singing everyday, and posted the videos to YouTube. She had 2 million followers. Someone on JD’s staff brought his attention to the girl, and she is now a signed artist with him. When her biggest YouTube fan told JD that she knew more than anyone else about the artist because she’d followed her form the beginning, JD gave her a job.

Robin Antin says that she actually checks out videos of dancers and choreographers when they let her know about them.

A woman from the audience with a question got into an exchange with Jermaine Dupri about a celeb’s responsibility to engage with followers. J.D. quickly reiterated that he’s not going to tweet or follow anyone just to be polite. The woman from the audience said that whether he responded or not, as a follower, she had the write to post anything she wanted. JD’s point – in the realm of social media, he makes the rules of engagement for his involvement in SM tools – nobody else.

The session wrapped with a bunch of iPhones, digital cameras and video cameras doing the paparazzi thing. I asked JD: How do you convince non-believers that social media is legit? His answer: You can’t. Keep doing your thing.

BlogWorld Expo 2009 is hot, energy is infectious. Check it: http://www.blogworldexpo.com/

Brian Solis, PR genius & extraordinaire is moderating a panel of celebrities talking about celebrities on Twitter, and using Twitter & social media to connect with the public.

First things first, none of the seemed jazzed about getting other people to handle their SM efforts — authenticity is king.

Anthony Edwards equated social media to frosting on the cake — meaning, the content, not the medium, is the most important element of connecting and communicating. Referring to this analogy later in the conversation, Edwards said that just like icing, you can get sick of it.

When Solis asked Robin Antin about celebrities’ exodus of Twitter — such as Trent Reznor and Mylie Cyrus – she said that she understands why some celebrities are exhausted with social media b/c you are so exposed, and with everything else on their plate, it can feel like you’re too exposed.

Jermaine Dupri, who earlier said that he doesn’t tweet while he’s in the bathroom. said that his take on celebrities exiting Twitter or not doing SM = those celebrities are missing out and need to learn to take control of their lives. Dupri said that if a follower says something he doesn’t like, such as asking questions about girlfriend Janet Jackson, he will “unfollow” you on Twitter or delete your post. “I’m doing this,” he said, and celebrities need to understand that they have some control and use it to control who they communicate with or not.

Matt Goss = don’t take it too seriously.

More to come . . .

–HotRod

When you’ve got a movie called Motherhood, it’s naturally assumed the film is mom material only. The Motherhood PR team even made an extra effort to have a number of mom bloggers participate in the roundtables. Yes, Motherhood is about, well, motherhood, but there’s also a much deeper meaning behind the portrayal of a day in the life of mother of two, Eliza (Uma Thurman).

Much of the roundtable questions probed the film’s writer and director, Katherine Dieckmann, about her child raising philosophies and experiences, so I used my one-on-one time to investigate Dieckmann’s implementation of those elements to create an entertaining and meaningful movie.

The interview is fairly long, 18 minutes, so I chopped it up into two pieces. The first half primarily addresses Dieckmann’s inspiration and how Motherhood, contrary to popular belief, can be a movie for anybody. One particularly intriguing portion of this half of the interview is when Dieckmann tells me about the movie poster. As I said in my review of Motherhood, I’m not a fan of the poster. I still think a poster’s effectiveness can be assessed by a person’s initial reaction to the image, but Dieckmann enlightens me on the deeper meaning beyond its face value.

In the latter half Dieckmann goes into detail on the casting process. She tells me a little something about everyone from the film’s leading lady to the talented young actress who plays Eliza’s six-year-old daughter Clara (Daisy Tahan).

Click here to watch the interview.

If you’ve read my interview with Katherine Dieckmann and Uma Thurman, you know Uma’s parting words were “Live long and prosper.” Apparently she’s not the only Star Trek fan in Motherhood. The first thing Anthony Edwards did when he sat down at the table was run his fingers over the metallic mesh table runner and say, “This is a little Star Trek-y.’ What makes this whole Star Trek thing even stranger is that during my one-on-one with Dieckmann she told me she has no interest in sci-fi when it comes to writing.

Don’t expect anymore out-of-this-world talk in this interview because Motherhood cannot be more different from Star Trek. Edwards plays Avery, the husband of the super-stressed mother of two Eliza (Thurman). He’s a loving father but a bit absentminded. Edwards may not be as forgetful as his character, but admits he has a little Avery in him, which is understandable considering how much he has on his plate.

On top of Motherhood, Edwards just wrapped the Rob Reiner comedy Flipped and plans to run the New York Marathon with the charity Shoe4Africa. The proceeds will go to building a children’s hospital in Kenya. ER may be long gone, but Edwards still has some Dr. Greene in him!

Click here to read the interview.

Everyone knows the idiom ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover.’ I propose a new version, ‘Don’t judge a movie by its poster.’ For some reason, every time I look at the poster for Katherine Dieckmann’s Motherhood, I can’t help but to roll my eyes in disgust. The poster led me to believe the film would be a pity party for moms. Portions of the film certainly don that party hat, but overall Motherhood is charming and manages to turn the hackneyed concept of the used and abused mother into a fresh and pleasurable film.

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