The boys over at Slant asked me to contribute my thoughts on the year that was. I'm accustomed to dishing dirt while clipping the coifs of temperamental Upper East Side socialites and I'm always up for helping out loyal clients. So I decided to do a one time piece (originally titled "Camp Does Cruise & Cruz") but they asked me to tone it down and be a little more sophisticated. Moi? Sitting at the Howard Johnson's in Times Square the other day, the psychologist mother of a friend of mine informed me that
Winona Ryder didn't really need all those clothes. She's suffering from a
disease. We love her new look but maybe girl interrupted should consider making a donation to Camp
Mariah. La
Carey had a stellar year herself: a delectably campy film debut, a retro soundtrack, impromptu stripteases and that crazy breakdown. But now that she's finally interesting, why aren't people buying her records?
Charlotte Church, another musical "powerhouse," is a real idiot. Who the hell is she to tell us how to treat our heroes? Someone should send Baby Fat the new
Tickle Me Elmo Surprise for Christmas. I'm dying to find out if the "surprise" is in fact a healthy spray of Anthrax.
We hear
Madonna got a tartan this week. What the fuck is a tartan? Maybe
Maya Rudolph, SNL's new genius, would know. Her constipated rendering of
Donatella Versace puts alum
Molly Shannon to shame. Love
Tina Fey but who's in charge of her hair,
Jimmy Fallon?....
Debra Messing was robbed of an Emmy. Robbed I tell you! My girls at "Sex & the City" finally nabbed Mr. Big but who does HBO need to knock off to get one for "The Sopranos"? Jersey hair at its finest, kind of like Penelope Cruz's pits in
Captain Corelli's Mandolin—which happens to be my guilty pleasure of the year despite what those snobs at Slant have to say. Speaking of bitches, Entertainment Weekly's
Lisa Schwarzbaum is in,
Owen Glieberman is out, and
Jessica Shaw is
soooo five minutes ago...Miramax pushed
Kate & Leopold to Christmas Day and supposedly nixed that sexy incest subplot. Regardless, I'll travel near or far if it means getting into
Hugh Jackman's pants. Hottest sex scene of the year: Jackman under fellatio-binary-pressure in
Swordfish. Speaking of fish, I went to see
Monster's Ball the other day and I'm sick and tired of looking at
Halle Berry's vagina.
Fellowship of the Ring scared me silly, but not as much as
Kevin Spacey going down on that banana in
K-PAX. GLAAD is furious that
Ron Howard took the queer out of John Nash in
A Beautiful Mind, which explains why that jackass
Jeffrey Lyons likes the way Howard can tell a "straightforward story, unlike
David Lynch."
Rex Reed also strained a brain cell while watching Lynch's
Mulholland Drive but had no problem loving the generic
Mind for its "bizarre, antisocial behavior" and
Russell Crowe's "gladiator in button-down shirts." What's on the Christmas shoplifting list this year, Rex? I loved
Naomi Watts and
Laura Harring so much in
MD I haven't stopped touching myself all week.
Pat Collins of UPN News New York referred to the film as "that movie with the hot sex scene between those two actresses" and proclaimed that it wasn't worthy of its Best Picture Golden Globe nod. Wait, what? Pat who of where? In other dreamy film news,
Richard Linklater's
Waking Life is so self-important and hollow that it makes
Before Sunrise and
Dazed & Confused look like yogi meditations on the human condition. But then again, I'm just Alexa Camp of Slant Magazine. Hope I did ya proud fellas! Until next time...if there is a next time.
Alexa Camp
© slant magazine, 2001.
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