This Gwyneth Paltrow Has Been Sanitized for Your Protection

BAKER STREEET | REVIEW

by Eric J Baker

Think back. You’ve touched your face within the past minute or two, haven’t you? You’re probably doing it now, after running your hands over that bacteria farm of a keyboard no less. Bad move. Oh, and take that finger out of your ear. You don’t know where that finger’s been!

Those last two lines belong to a scene from the movie Airplane! (1980) in which a man offers that sage advice to another character who is using his ear for a nose. Yes, you know the sequence, but I bet you don’t know who that man was. He was acclaimed movie director Steven Soderbergh.

"Call Ryan Murphy, tell him I'm sorry I fucked up the Prince "Kiss" number in 'Glee.' And don't let that screeching harridan Madonna sing 'Like a Prayer' at my funeral."

That’s actually not true at all. I made it up. I’m sorry. But you’ll excuse me for getting confused, because Soderbergh’s new film, Contagion, dispenses the same message as Airplane! did 31 years ago: Take that finger out of your ear! It’s dirty.

The Dead Shall Rock The Earth

BAKER STREET

by Eric J Baker

Zombies are dead.

Well, of course they’re dead, but I speak in terms of pop culture trends. The second season of AMC’s TV series The Walking Dead is alleged to return in the fall, and Milla Jovovich threatens a fifth Resident Evil movie for 2012, proving that audiences in overseas markets will watch anything that’s filmed in English. So that’s something. Right?

Milla will eat your brains, too.

Maybe not. An IMDb scan of this summer’s wide-release movie titles doesn’t turn up a single case of the zed word. Hell, when George Romero, the guy who invented the modern zombie film, can’t get an undead flick into wide release, it’s time to shoot this genre in the head. His 2009 entry, Survival of the Dead, grossed a massive $54,000 in its opening weekend. That’s less than Charlie Sheen spends on hookers every Saturday.

Good God, I just made a Jay Leno joke. Is this what rock bottom feels like?