Our Morning Roundup
-Check out the Washington Post's convention coverage for updates on Denver. However, if you've visited City Desk any time in the last two days, then you know Loose Lips is the hardest working man in Colorado right now. Check out his posts here.
-And now we honor one of our City Paper forefathers, David Carr, who has paused his promotional book tour and talk of snorting coke and slapping up bitches in the 1980s, to do some fine video reporting work from Denver. Find his video somewhere on this page in the next day or so (after that, I don't know where it's going to be.)
-The New York Times offers a few reasons why you should not open a restaurant: your home, your savings, your general contentment—they could all go, if your new joint is a flop. “So many people love to cook, they like food, and they think, boy, I’ll have a job where I’ll do what I love,” Mr. Rainsford said. “They don’t realize how hard a job it is, both financially and physically.”
-Aw gee shucks, "ol' Joe Biden," he's making the people at the Wilmington train station proud. And sad. The man's not going to be boarding his usual Delaware to D.C. ride too often anymore. The Post paints the scene.
-NPR commentator and screenwriter John Ridley is peeved about the portrayal of minorities (or lack thereof) in this summer's roster of movies. "Well, that's it. Summer's about over. Hope yours was good. How was mine? Thanks for asking. Well, I'm not given to absolutes, so I'm gonna say in terms of what Hollywood gave us, this was just the demi-most offensive summer ever at the multiplexes. Offensive, if you happen to be a person of color whom Hollywood in turn mocked, lampooned or humiliated ... that is, when we weren't just being completely ignored."
9:53 am
I had to follow up with Ridley's first example of Hollywood's snubbing of minorities:
"There was Jack Black supplying the voice of a Chinese bear in Kung Fu Panda. I guess the producers of the movie thought that it would be alright for an occidental to voice one of the most revered symbols of China, since they gave actual Asian actors Jackie Chan and Lucy Liu all of like five lines in supporting roles."
There are rules about what races are allowed to supply the voices of CGI pandas now??? If a Chinese American had voiced this clumsy, obese, and (I'm assuming---I haven't seen the film) flatulent caricature of a "revered Chinese symbol," would that have been less offensive? It's a fucking panda!
10:21 am
I'm glad Ridley enjoyed Tropic Thunder as much as I did:
"And Robert Downey Jr. playing a white guy playing a black guy in Tropic Thunder. Sorry, but that one passes the funny test. It was funny. What can I tell you?"
Maybe Jack Black failed the funny test in Kung Fu Panda?
10:25 am
Couldn't they get a panda to voice that panda?
11:33 am
The ironic thing is that pandas actually talk with a really offensive stereotypical Black voice. So really, who the hell are those assholes to complain?