Wednesday, March 14, 2012

STEVE SCHMIDT & SHOWBIZ DOPPLEGANGERS








We watched the HBO docudrama 'Game Change' - the film of the book by journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. The book deals with all the candidates campaigns for the 2008 Presidential Election but the film honed in on the Sarah Palin story, especially the part played by John McCain's advisors. I will be beefing about that further down the page.

The film was riveting and Julianne Moore played Palin so masterfully it felt difficult to distill fact from fiction.  She was just brilliant at conveying those blurred moments some women experience as a new mother, when hormones have not settled back to normal and the connection with reality temporarily clicks off. It is hard to explain if you have never been through it. The descriptive version that appeared in the film is a tribute not only to Moore's outrageously fabulous acting but to Halperin and Heilemann's powers of observation. I know the film makers intended for me to walk away feeling that I understood Palin better and I really did. You must see it.

However, for as much as Moore resembled Palin, Woody 'the beast' Harrelson was a shocker as Steve Schmidt, John McCain's chief advisor. Woody is 'a beast' according to my teenage sons. This means he delivers on the action front. His hard-man fearless act renders him up there in the 'beast' category with other surprising outsiders including Liam Neeson and Harrison Ford. Not in the line-up, for instance, is Vin Diesel. Though he might think he is 'beast' (drop the 'a') Diesel is a wuss, ditto 'The Rock', though Steven Segal, I am told, IS beast.

Well my point here is, we (family) know Steve Schmidt. Well we've shared a cousin's wedding with him. He seems like a lovely bloke. Chatting at the buffet, having a little dance, joining everyone for breakfast etc. If he reminded me of anyone at all in this Whole Wide World and I mean anyone, it would not be Woody Harrelson. It would not even be anyone else in the 'beast' category. Which leads me to ponder, if you are a figure in the public eye,  how alarming it must be to hear someone is making a docudrama in which you will feature. One more reason why it is so fabulous not to be famous.

Leading to my final point....fame is for young people. Only the young and beautiful can enjoy it. For everyone over the age of 30 it must be the biggest pain in the ass. You cannot step out of your home looking less than perfect, no matter what walk of life you traverse. I understood Jennifer A moaning that NYC was like a goldfish bowl. Downtown, near my office in Tribeca which is, admittedly round the corner from Jay Z and Beyonce's gaff, not to mention scrillions of other celebs, the streets are teaming with paps. They just hover on street corners and in caffs. They raise their cameras like guns whenever a person passes by.  A lot of the paps out there now are foreign and unsure of who is and is not famous, so they shoot pics of everyone. Plus, they are getting shabbier and scarier. These are not people who trained in photography at St. Martins. They are street pedlars with cameras, increasingly desperate for a shot. I don't like the way it's going and I love a celebrity pic.

Er, that's it..

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