If you have to ask for something more than once, it wasn't meant in the first place...

GO HOME GWYNETH!

I used to think Gwyneth Paltrow was a nice blond girl (okay, so a nice, unnaturally blond girl). After all, she always played the victim, always had pretty hair and could carp in a British accent with the best of them. But Gwyneth started to wear on me. I couldn't quite figure out why. And then it all started coming together last month--after she lampooned Sharon Stone's husband on SNL. Stone, unable to contain her boiling rage, burst out with what everyone has been thinking for months: "She lives in a rarefied air that's very thin. It's like she's not getting enough oxygen." Precisely. It's only a matter of time before Gwyneth suffocates. Because on set, off set, Gwyneth has convinced herself that the only way to gain respect is to act. To act continuously. After all, look at the track record--she's told us many times that she was the "it" girl at her high school who all the girls worshipped, she's never gone six months without a boyfriend in her life, and she nabbed an Oscar at the ripe old age of 26. Harvey Weinstein, Miramax president, swoons over his proclaimed "Muse"--she's "beautiful," "talented," and "respected," he says, and the world nods in agreement. But how much of it is real--and how much is hallucination caused by that lack of oxygen? Look closer and the house of cards crumbles. Paltrow was "inconsolable" after her break-up with Brad Pitt; she cried in magazines for months, lamenting the loss of the "love of her life" and partly blaming the media for the fall-out. Three months later--three months!--Ben Affleck becomes her rebound man. A short while later, he gets spit out on Santa Monica Boulevard by the Gwynesaurus, and she macs on Guy Oseary, a Madonna ex-flame. She's becoming one of those celebrities who has an automatic apositive phrase with her list of ex-lovers after her name. (And poor Ben! Once the poster child of masculinity, he's been turned into a sniveling idiot by the One Woman Love Machine. He still buys her diamonds and expensive gifts and tries to be her best friend; she gladly uses them and loses him.) But Gwyneth turned us all into cynics with that miserable awards schtick she pulled last year. At the Golden Globes, the SAGS and the Oscars, she cried through each one of her speeches and added a new traumatized family member to her thank-you list. Her father, her cousin, her mother, her dear friend "Mr. Affleck," her brother's nephew's toddler's girlfriend... The boo-hoo hooligan tried to convince us that the dumb piece of gold was the cure for all her family members' illnesses! (Too bad it wasn't a cure for that dress that didn't fit. Her publicist later chastised the media for calling her on it. "You think she didn't know how that dress fit?" he retorted. "She meant it to fit like that.") Gwyneth is supposedly our generation's Audrey Hepburn. God help us.

LA VIDA LOLA

I saw Run Lola Run for the fourth time in a theater the other night. I feel like I'm spreading the Gospel every time I take someone new to see it. It's a fantastic movie--but also just the type of movie that American filmmakers would never risk making. (Instead, we get classics like Three to Tango! My dog could have peed that script.) The plot's so pithy: drug dealer accidentally leaves the 100,000 marks that he's supposed to give to his drug lord on a subway train. He and his girlfriend, fiery, red-haired Lola, have 20 minutes to scrounge up the dough. The movie unfolds in virtually real-time. Remember the last time we tried that? Johnny Depp in Nick of Time? To give the movie the juice it needs, director Tom Twyker directs Run Lola Run like a video game, programming Lola to be a lean mean running machine to hurdles an obstacle a minute. A critic called it the first "postmodern movie" of our time, but I think that's seeing it for more than it is. It's meant to be an adrenaline rush (like Pokemon!)--a sensory rather than emotional experience. And think about this--when are you gonna see an American movie where a drug dealer and his girlfriend are unconditional heroes--saints who deserve nothing but the best?

TIMBER!

I was invited to a seminar at Source Magazine recently and found out something disturbing from the publication's president. For a while now, Timberland has carved out a large share of the African-American consumer market. It's not a stretch to say that the African-American consumer has made Timberland such a dominant presence in the apparel and footwear market. Imagine my surprise, then, when we were told that Timberland refuses to advertise in Source, a magazine with one of the largest circulations in this market. Furthermore, Timberland doesn't advertise at all in any magazines that target African-Americans. Just check out their Web site at www.timberland.com for proof. Not even a hint of diversity in their models.

SOMAN'S SHORTS

Howard Stern and his wife of 21 years (!) separated this week, and both of them seem pretty crushed by it. But you have to wonder if Alison Stern--who put up with her husband's insults, revelations about their sex life, and often indefensible barbs--finally cracked under the strain. You also have to wonder if Stern will be able to get back his irreverence any time in the near future...Paula Cole's new album only sold 16,000 copies this past week. Where have all the Cole fans gone?...Matthew McConaughey was arrested for marijuana possession early this week. Why isn't that a surprise? Isn't it natural to envision Matt cruising around Texas in his Chevy, Bud in one hand, bud in the other?... Riverdance comes to Boston this week. Hooray!...Will Smith keeps getting mentioned for high profile upcoming movies--a Muhammad Ali biopic, taking the place of Carey Grant in a remake of Charade, etc. Why the delusion? Will Smith is slightly charming, and a box office draw, but he still can't act... Did you know Modern Maturity has the highest circulation of any magazine in the country? And here I thought it was Teen People...Have a great Halloween weekend. A friend and I already have our costumes set. We're gonna be the Puerto Rican Dynamic Duo: Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez. If you love pop culture, you gotta live it.

Comments? E-mail schainan@fas.harvard.edu