Friday, May 30, 2008

Weekend Fodder

MUJI is grand opening its store in Times Square on Eighth Avenue today. My source told me that there would be freebies handed out at 12PM when the store opened to the public. And everything turned out to be true. I was there and I got the gift without any hassle or waiting in any spirit crushing long line. I was frankly surprised that at 12.20PM, I was still able to get the giveaway which by the way was a nice paper organizer and a nice pencil.

The most anticipated movie Sex And The City, which comes like four year late finally opens today. Reviews have been negative and the more than 2-hour long movie was universally panned by critics and audience alike. The premiere held a couple of days ago at Radio City Hall was mostly described as a disaster, ticket holders were turned away because there simply weren't enough seats for the long line of people waiting to get in. One woman, surprise, from Singapore was credulous enough to pay $19,000 to be part of the SATC premiere, please.

The Sichuan Earthquake claimed another victim, sort of. Sharon Stone faces the wrath of the Chinese people when she kind of misspoke at the Cannes Film Festival. She name dropped Dalai Lama, Tibetans, Karma and then before she got the chance open her legs or mouth again, she was dropped by Dior, like for good. The Chinese people, the overlord of Dior, who is the overlord of Stone, dropped the actress as spokeperson for the brand and Sharon Stone is probably forever and ever banned in China. Chinese people are pretty fierce now. A force to be reckoned with and not messed with.

UPDATE:

This is the latest from The New York Times. A piece written by Cathy Horyn (released online on 5/30 and on paper 6/1). I had my doubt about Stone's alleged apology released by Dior Shanghai. Dior, with double digit growth in China was quick to appease knowing full well they couldn't afford to make enemy with money or its overlord in China. The NYTimes piece is more in her own words. Apparently and by her own admission, she had misspoken but the later shitstorm created by the press and the blogsphere largely took the first part of her speech without even bothering to mention the second part where she said she was humbled that the Tibetans offered to help Sichuan disaster relief effort so on and so forth. The emphasis was on brotherly love or love your enemy that kind of theme. Alas, what came out was more like karma retribution because of what Ms. Stone thought as the maltreatment of Han Chinese to Tibetans.

UPDATE 2:

It was only after reviewing the video in her home toward the end of the interview that it seemed to dawn on Ms. Stone why her comments had caused such an uproar. “I had absolutely no intention of saying that, which I did say,” she said, “and now, looking at it on the tape, I look like a complete ding-dong.”

Now, I hope fans of Ding Dong or Doraemon won't get offended.



Rachael Ray, the celebrity chef on foodnetwork tv plays terrorist in a Dunkin' Donut ad, that's what some folks were alleging. In a bid to avoid any controversy, Dunkin' Donut pulled the ad. Well that only stoked the controversy. Rachael Ray, the ever happy goes lucky girl next door, mini Martha Stewart home entertainment pint sized mogul and cunning linguist who coined EVOO and Yummo can't be promoting terrorism? But hey, you never know.

4 comments:

  1. What do you mean the audience panned it?????? I was reading the online reviews of SATC while on the train en route to seeing the movie and the critics assigned to write the reviews are either guys who didn't have a clue why SATC appealed in the first place, or, in the case of NYT, the female critic's harsh words about the movie was contradicted by many viewers in the comments page. I just blogged about it myself and can honestly say that it was an enjoyable outing and didn't disappoint its fans. (And FYI, the opening weekend - this is the June bank holiday weekend here - of SATC was completely sold out beyond expectations here too, and I would not describe the fact that there are huge queues outside cinemas to be anything like a "disaster", in fact, this represented the very opposite. And while I don't know about its NYC premiere, but its first worldwide premiere at London's West End was rapturously received by the overwhelmingly female viewing public).

    Regarding Sharon Stone's comment, I think it was all a waste of time and much ado about nothing. Why dwell on thoughtless comments by a brainless has-been actress when there are a lot more serious issues to worry about regarding the earthquake, or was this precisely the reason why this non-event was whipped up to be the controversy that it became? Anyway, if Dior dropped Stone, I would heartily suggest Kim Cattrall as her replacement ;)

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  2. I protest Stone's comment by stop buying her original DVD but use some other means to watch her naked body for free

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  3. The preliminary box office tally shows SATC beat Indy on its second week.

    That's the peril of hiring spokepersons. Don't use any spokeperson unless you have absolute control of his or her private life which you don't. High end Japanese brands don't bother, they may hire celeb to walk the runway but that's a one shot deal.

    I will handle Stone or the like, I will let you handle bigger issues in the world .... Stone misspoke and now she is facing the consequence. In my mind, I don't believe she really means yeah, let the Chinese have it. No. she didn't mean that at all. But she misspoke and people aren't letting the issue go and the press loves sound bites like karma, Dalai Lama, Tibetans and Olympics. That's a hard lesson for her. Sometimes it's just easier to open her legs than her mouth.

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  4. this's your best writing in this month, particularly the last sentence

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