Notes From D.R. | Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene

Tropic Thunder is tops for a third time. More from Gitesh Pandya.

President Bush, Vice President Cheney and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will skip the Republican National Convention. Weird, but from another perspective, it should be John McCain’s show anyway.

Dean Barnett, Howie Carr, Jeff Jacoby, Margery Eagan, Holly Robichaud, Stephen Hayes, Kenneth Davenport, Jed Babbin, Doug Patton, Caspar Weinberger Jr., William Kristol, Dinesh D’Souza, Ken Blackwell and Dan Flynn on McCain-Palin.

Professional wrestling star Walter "Killer" Kowalski passes away at 81. More from the Boston Globe.

Why John McCain made the right choice in selecting Sarah Palin as his running mate.

UPDATE: More from the Wall Street Journal, Fred Barnes and Matthew Continetti.

SECOND UPDATE: More from Monica Crowley, Rob Bluey, Ross Douthat, Fred Barnes, David Freddoso, Matt Margolis and William Kristol.

Barnes and Brooks on ‘Bama’s bromides.

UPDATE: From Peggy Noonan, Kim Strassel, Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, David Freddoso, Jed Babbin, David Limbaugh, Linda Chavez and the Wall Street Journal.

Barnes and Brooks on ‘Bama’s bromides.

UPDATE: From Peggy Noonan, Kim Strassel, Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, David Freddoso, Jed Babbin, David Limbaugh, Linda Chavez and the Wall Street Journal.

William Kristol on Bill Clinton’s self-serving DNC speech.

UPDATE: More from Peggy Noonan, Daniel Henninger, Ross Douthat, Juan Williams, Karl Rove, David Freddoso, John Gizzi, George Will, Larry Elder, Howie Carr, Michael Graham and Ben Shapiro.

William Kristol on Bill Clinton’s self-serving DNC speech.

UPDATE: More from Peggy Noonan, Daniel Henninger, Ross Douthat, Juan Williams, Karl Rove, David Freddoso, John Gizzi, George Will, Larry Elder, Howie Carr, Michael Graham and Ben Shapiro.

The Weekly Standard on John McCain’s Hollywood supporters.

We all have our “What was I thinking?” moments, and I think I’ve had more than most people. On the list of things I can’t logically explain: the amount of money I spent seeing crappy movies starring actresses I considered beautiful.

It wasn’t so long ago that I would intentionally ignore negative reviews of movies featuring attractive actresses: I figured the movie couldn’t be that bad if someone I liked was in it. Because of this mentality, I ended up wasting my eyesight on some of the worst films of the late-1990s and early-2000s.

After I saw Shakespeare in Love, I was convinced that Gwyneth Paltrow was the most beautiful-looking woman in the country, and I made a point of seeing every new film that she starred in. Two of those films were excellent (The Talented Mr. Ripley and The Royal Tenenbaums), but the rest were either atrocities (Duets), borefests (Possession, Bounce, The Anniversary Party), or films with good concepts but poor execution (Shallow Hal). After watching the wretched View from the Top in 2003, I actually lost all interest in Paltrow, whose choice of scripts was not as great as her beauty.

Heather Graham was another cash-consuming cinematic crush. Graham delivered a terrific performance in the Steve Martin-Eddie Murphy comedy Bowfinger, and for a time I considered her second only to Paltrow in terms of attractiveness. That only lasted about two years. Graham appeared in the witless stalker comedy Committed in 2000, followed by two horrendous films in 2001: the incest comedy (I kid you not) Say It Isn’t So with Chris Klein, followed by the unbelievably bad (and bloody) From Hell with Johnny Depp. To this day, I cannot think about Graham without immediately remembering the extreme violence and general nihilism of that loathsome film. Graham’s Hollywood stock has fallen in recent years, and I can’t help wondering if her involvement in that disgusting film had something to do with it (presumably it would have snuffed out Depp’s career as well, had it not been for the subsequent success of the Pirates of the Caribbean flicks).

I still lament the amount of money I spent on bad films featuring the actresses who starred in American Pie. Mena Suvari had a memorable supporting role in the Oscar-winning American Beauty, but after that it was a complete freefall: Suvari turned up in such mediocrities as Loser, Sugar and Spice (a/k/a the “bank-robbing cheerleaders movie”) and The Musketeer. Alyson Hannigan had a two-minute role in the train-wreck Freddie Prinze Jr. film Boys and Girls. Natasha Lyonne starred in the alleged comedy But I’m A Cheerleader, a misfired satire about a teenager sent to an “ex-gay” institution. Shannon Elizabeth brutalized my brain cells with Tomcats, an abhorrent film whose budget should have been redirected to feeding starving children in Africa or some other philanthropic endeavor. Tara Reid delivered a strong performance in the otherwise miserable Richard Gere film Dr. T and the Women, but she was way below par in the date-rape drama Body Shots and the foul Josie and the Pussycats, a film so unholy the Vatican should have condemned it.

Why do beautiful actresses end up in such ugly films? And why did I spend so much money going to see these films? Cate Blanchett in Charlotte Gray and The Shipping News. Julianne Moore in The End of the Affair and The Ladies Man. Reese Witherspoon’s three-peat of trash: Legally Blonde,

Sweet Home Alabama and Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde. Helen Hunt in Pay It Forward. Julia Roberts in The Mexican and America’s Sweethearts. Nicole Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut and Birthday Girl. Kirsten Dunst in Get Over It and crazy/beautiful. Drew Barrymore in both of those worthless Charlie’s Angels films. It’s a seemingly infinite list.

It’s a testament to the star power of certain actresses that poor reviews of their films couldn’t lessen my desire to see those films. The first time I can recall intentionally ignoring poor reviews was when I went to see Batman and Robin in 1997.  I thought that seeing Uma Thurman and Alicia Silverstone in the same film would more than compensate for whatever script flaws the film had. I didn’t feel the same way coming out of the film, but soon enough, my mind returned to its original state.

It took a lot to finally emerge from that original state, and to stop running out to see every cruddy film starring every cute actress. Maybe there was a certain logic to the whole thing—a logic that valued beauty above all else, a logic that made physical appearance more important than quality. I’d like to blame the Hollywood image machine for this, but I really can’t. The only entity that’s responsible is my own mind.

Please, God, don’t let John McCain choose an uninspiring running mate like Joe Lieberman.

Please, God, don’t let John McCain choose an uninspiring running mate like Joe Lieberman.

Racial profiling at the "liberal mecca" Harvard? You’re pulling my leg… (They didn’t do this stuff to Barack Obama and Deval Patrick when they went to Harvard, did they?)

Thomas Sowell on Internet fraud.