Thursday, August 28, 2014

Hello, everybody. As we're doing this, a newsflash: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were finally wed in a private ceremony last Saturday in France. This was Pitt's second marriage (Jennifer Aniston, anyone?) and Jolie's third (Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton), and one that we weren't expecting after seven years together.

Now...it was a good night for "Breaking Bad" as the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards Monday night as the already ended AMC series went out on a high note with Drama Series and acting honors for Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, and Anna Gunn. "Modern Family", despite the threat of Netflix's "Orange Is the New Black", remained unstoppable with their fifth Comedy Series prize (tying with "Frasier") and Ty Burrell's second Supporting Actor. 

But the major winners were all reruns anyway: Jim Parsons, Julia Louis-Dreyfus (still Best Actor/Actress-Comedy), Julianna Margulies (Best Actress-Drama), "The Colbert Report" (still Variety Series despite Gwen Stefani's flub; also won for Writing as the Creative Arts awards), and "The Amazing Race" (once again Reality-Competition program after losing to "The Voice" last year). Other winners include "Fargo" (Miniseries) and "The Normal Heart" (Movie).

This was the first time since 1976 that the Emmys were held on a Monday, and for good reason: The Sunday was already booked for MTV's Video Music Awards across town at the Forum (which I won't get into) and that being on NBC this year, they were committed to "Sunday Night Football." Look at this year's Grammys; they had them in mid-January to avoid clashing with the Olympics, and the Oscars moving from late March to late February/early March in 2004 had the American Music Awards being held twice in 2003. Despite all that, the show pulled in a strong 15.6 million viewers, already making it the week's top program.

Other than host Seth Meyers moving things along (and ending the show a few minutes ahead of schedule) and Cranston and Louis-Dreyfus re-creating their "Seinfeld" scene, what moved us of course was Billy Crystal's tribute to Robin Williams that capped the In Memoriam segment that also included Mickey Rooney, Paul Walker, James Garner, Maya Angelou, and Don Pardo.

Once again, without running down the fashion roundup, my top five best-dressed were: A very glowing Hayden Panettiere (Lorena Sarbu), Amy Poehler (Theia), Sofia Vergara (Roberto Cavalli), Lucy Liu (Zac Posen), and Halle Berry (Elie Saab). The bottom two worst dressed besides Lena Dunham: Debra Messing (Angel Sanchez) and Katherine Heigl (John Haynes).

And last but not least...Labor Day weekend is two things: The unofficial end of summer, and of course, the Muscular Dystrophy Association's annual "Show of Strength" telethon Sunday on ABC. Among the many neuromuscular diseases they're trying to find a cure for is ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease, in which awareness has been raised in such a big way.

For the last month now, almost the entire world has been taking part in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge including numerous celebrities too many to name and even former President George W. Bush. The premise is this: Take a bucket or cooler full of ice, fill it with water, issue a challenge to who knows how many people (friends, family, co-workers, even the Pope), have yourself or somebody dump it on you, and make sure you get it on video. Oh yeah, and make a donation to the ALS Association, who thanks to all this has raised $94.3 million as of Wednesday.

But not everybody has been digging this summer craze. Pamela Anderson on her Facebook page has been slamming the ALS Association for animal testing saying, "Recent experiments funded by the ALS Association, mice had holes drilled into their skulls, were inflicted with crippling illnesses, and were forced to run on an inclined treadmill until they collapsed from exhaustion. Monkeys had chemicals injected into their brains and backs and were later killed and dissected."

The California Biomedical Research Association, however, tends to differ. According to them, animal research has always been used in medical breakthroughs over the decades. Remember when monkey kidney cells were the key to Dr. Jonas Salk's polio vaccine in the 1950's? That was the result of animal research.

Back to the ice bucket challenge: As someone who used to donate to MDA, nobody has called me out yet. But if they do, I'll be ready...to take a worthy plunge colder than Nestea! So long and stay strong.