Italy's New 'It' Boy...

    The decision to leave London was pretty easy, although no one would blame me for sticking around until The Pats/Giants game. I could have busied myself with some theatre in the West End, or a fox hunt or two; but frankly, I was getting sick of British teeth, and the game will suck anyway. The Giants will be lucky to put together 8 wins this season. They are already complaining that the beds at Giant‘s training camp are too uncomfortable and want ownership to supply them with softer mattresses. No wonder Justin Tuck had to be talked off the ledge. How can you expect a professional athlete to put up with a lumpy mattress used by, shutter, a college kid…
    Actually, that’s partially a lie. The decision to flee came shortly after Nadzeya Ostapchuk, the ‘female’ shot putter from Belarus who was just stripped of her Gold Medal for doping, ripped a sink out of the men’s room wall and chucked it at my head after an off-hand observation that women don’t normally pee standing up. But that’s a story for another time. I’ve got bigger fish to fry.

    Perhaps the biggest news of the day is that Kelly Clarkson has co-written a new anthem for the Dallas Cowboys called ‘Get Up’, and honestly, nothing would get me out of my chair faster than a Kelly Clarkson song. Every day it becomes more and more apparent that the NFL is sick and tired of being America’s Number One Spectator Sport and are doing everything in their power to wussify the game for that rare level of mass acceptance available only to the most mediocre of entertainment options.
    Reality TV shows at training camp, a shirtless Tebow in GQ for God, The Falcons’ Harry Douglas refusing to return punts in the pre-season (of course, The Falcons hold camp at a place called Flowery Branch, so what do you expect?).
    I just received a call from the Grammar Nazis that I am not allowed to use commas inside parenthesis, but I’m not going to fix it. I told them I had to catch a train to the dedication of the memorial to Mussolini’s buddy Rodolfo Graziani just outside of Rome and they were OK with that. Heck, even the Pope is OK with that. The Vatican is sending a representative too…

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET

New in the theatres, music video director Sam Bayer’s of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. The only real problem with this remake of the Wes Craven classic is, it’s not scary.

You know what is scary? In the sleepy little town of Cohasset, MA (which also has an Elm Street), the superintendent of schools runs her own personal fiefdom. Imagine, after learning that one of her teachers had been molesting a student, rather than turning him over to the police, or even firing him; she had him transferred to another school system and then sent a letter to all of her other teachers warning that it would harm the reputation of the Cohasset school system (and their employment) if anyone were to admit that this pedophile had ever worked there.

Of course, that didn’t really happen. No such letter was ever written; but if it had and we found out about it, the superintendent would be forced to resign, face prosecution for failing to report a crime (at the very least) and possible the wrath an angry mob of citizens with torches and pitch forks.

No, no superintendent of schools would be crass and negligent enough to write that letter, but the pope did. Pope Benedict, Benedictus PP. XVI, the Bishop of Rome, the head of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of the Vatican City State, did just that!

So, the pope (or Joey Ratz as he’s know in certain bar along the Bangkok strip) will be arrested, right? Wrong. As a head of sate, Joey gets criminal and civil immunity under international law. What’s more. No one really seems to care. The Catholic church has actually grown by 12% world wide this century, in a decade that was marked by their unabated abuse scandals.

How can a warmed-over remake about a murderous pedophile hope to scare us when this is our reality? Avoid A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, and the pope, like a Delhi scrap-metal market; you have been warned. I’m Lance Norris, Boston’s only straight film critic, saying later on croutons!