Thoughts on Qantas In-Flight Entertainment from Johannesburg to Sydney and Back Again

What would any long-haul Qantas flight be without white wine, hot chocolate and in-flight entertainment?

Maleficent
I loved the general themes of the Angelina Jolie-headlined retelling/retooling of Sleeping Beauty: Romantic love is not the only true love. Maternal love reigns supreme. Sisters are doing it for themselves. Loving well, not getting even, is the best revenge. And love, not hate, will conquer all. Plus, Jolie is almost always watchable, even when her movies aren't. But the whole thing is so cartoonish (I almost think it would have worked better as an Enchanted-style mix of live action and traditional animation), and I couldn't figure out whether the camp was intentional.

Also, it was clearly created as a 3D spectacle, so my aisle seat in coach on Qantas flight 64 probably wasn't the ideal viewing space. I could see distracting evidence of the 3D effects on the miniature screen. It was like watching a sleeping beauty who fell into her deep slumber before she had a chance to wash off her make-up.

Shameless
Having recently completed a marathon viewing of several seasons of Weeds (1 to 3 and 8), some of them nearly a decade belatedly, I'm not sure if I am up for another dysfunctional-family comedy-drama from Showtime. I wasn't bored watching the two season 4 episodes of Shameless, and I love Emmy Rossum's gritty side, but will someone please explain to me why a couple who is having trouble conceiving would even consider having the husband screw the wife's mother so that they could possibly be the proud parents of the wife's sibling?

The Immigrant
Love her and leave her has never applied more than it does to Marion Cotillard and Oscar after she won Best Actress in 2008 for La Vie en Rose. If Cotillard were Jennifer Lawrence and she gave the performance she gives in The Immigrant, she would be a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination. Speaking Polish no doubt boosted Meryl Streep's Oscar appeal in Sophie's Choice, and as far as I could tell, Cotillard pulled it off masterfully as The Immigrant's titular character caught between two cousins (Joaquin Phoenix and Jeremy Renner) and, like Sophie, having to make a difficult choice. She does tortured and conflicted so effortlessly, fooling you into thinking she's not even acting. But I'm fully prepared for the Academy to overlook her yet again.

The Normal Heart
Julia Roberts made me cry. Matt Bomer broke my heart. Alfred Molina made me look forward to seeing his work as John Lithgow's lover in Love Is Strange. Jim Parsons made me wonder if he's only capable of doing variations on The Big Bang Theory's Sheldon Cooper. Taylor Kitsch made me wish he'd send me a message on Grindr, which had everything to do with how the actor looks and nothing to do with how he acted here, which, frankly, was somewhat generically. (In his defense, he was playing the dime-a-dozen closeted "straight-acting" gay hunk.) Finn Wittrock, whom I've loved since he was Tad Martin's long-lost son on All My Children, confirmed my long-held suspicion that daytime soaps were just the beginning for him.

Meanwhile, Mark Ruffalo, an engaging actor of whom I'm quite fond and the human crux for which The Normal Heart beats, impressed me because he's sexy even when he isn't trying to be. For the most part, though, his performance didn't move me. His fake weeping as he watched his lover succumb to AIDS didn't help. Tears -- actual tears -- may not be enough to save starving children, but they are needed to really sell a dying-too-young scene. See Oscar nominee Bruce Davison in Longtime Companion to see how the living side should nail it.

My biggest problem with Ruffalo's Emmy-nominated performance in The Normal Heart was how mannered and self-conscious it seemed. He lacked the natural quality of other straight actors who have played gay in leading film roles in recent years (Sean Penn in Milk, Colin Firth in A Single Man), perhaps because Ruffalo's character, Ned Weeks, was pretty much a stand-in for Larry Kramer and Ruffalo played it that way. Ruffalo appeared to be trying too hard to capture Kramer specifics instead of just embodying the fighting spirit of the real-life activist and the film's screenwriter, on whose play the movie is based, and letting Ned be his own man.

I bought Ned's anger and righteous indignation, which, like villainy, are not the hardest things to sell from an acting standpoint, but because of all the anger and righteous indignation, when Ruffalo's Ned should have been making me feel, I mostly didn't. After a while, the performance became exhausting for me to watch. Ned was one of the good guys, but his compassion was too angular. (So was Julia Roberts', but it worked better for her satellite character.) His moral compass needed a little less hard edge and little more soft vulnerability in scenes where he wasn't caring for his dying lover (Bomer). During the one in which Ned slammed the milk against the wall, Ruffalo was doing all of the capital-A acting, but I couldn't take my eyes off of Bomer's quiet, helpless response.

5 Things I Realized While Watching The Other Woman
1. As a daytime soap fanatic, I love a good catfight, but there is something so engaging about women working together to vanquish a common enemy (in this case a serially cheating spouse). The First Wives Club this trio of other women were not, but then who is.

2. Cameron Diaz is a Hollywood rarity, an actress who made it largely on the strength of her physical appearance (not that she didn't eventually prove her acting chops) but seems to be allowing herself to age normally. She doesn't look freakishly twentysomething, or like she's trying to be. She looks like a fortyish woman who is still smoking hot.

3. Leslie Mann is every bit Melissa McCartney's comedic equal, and I wish she were better known as that than as Judd Apatow's wife who occasionally appears in his films. Though the spoils weren't all that great, she stole The Other Woman from a top-billed Diaz and made it mostly her movie.

4. At sixtysomething, Don Johnson is still Miami hot.

5. Why aren't more people talking about Taylor Kinney? I've caught glimpses of him in the glimpses I've seen of Chicago Fire, which I'd glimpsed mostly to catch a glimpse of Jesse Spencer. I might be tuning in for more in the future.

Surviving Jack
Admiring Christopher Meloni's physical gifts could only preoccupy me for so long before I started to realize how not funny Surviving Jack was. (No offense to Meloni, who nicely sent up his hunkdom on Veep last season.) I'd never heard of the Fox sitcom until it showed up among the in-flight entertainment options, and after the very first scene, I knew it couldn't possibly still be around. (Indeed, Fox axed it on my birthday this year after only a few episodes had aired.) Memo to future comedy writers who want to create something about the spiteful side of parenthood: Do it with a little bit of love. (See Damon Wayans comically toeing the line between parental affection and contempt in My Wife and Kids.) Being nasty is not inherently being funny.

The Millers
I love the cast, but during the four back-to-back episodes I watched, I couldn't stop wishing they were on a better show. If I ever sit through it again, it'll definitely be for Margo Martindale, who basically does here what she did last year in August: Osage County only more broadly. I'd gladly watch her watching paint dry because she'd no doubt find a way to crack me up while doing it.

10 Great Romantic Movie Moments for Valentine's Day

Coming up with a list of 10 romantic anything in movies was a tougher task than I thought it would be. Although I consider myself to be a diehard romantic in everyday life, I prefer my onscreen experiences to be darker, midnight blue over Valentine red (unless the latter is the color of a bleeding, broken heart). So with the exception of Pillow Talk, my all-time favorite films -- Trois couleurs: Bleu, Interiors, Dangerous Liaisons, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Central Station, The Heiress, Room at the Top... -- tend to take a bleaker, blacker approach to life and love than your average rom com.

I guess Oscar and I have that in common. Of this year's nine Academy Award nominees for Best Picture, only one, Her, would qualify as being anything resembling romantic, and its central love story is between a lonely guy and a computerized voice. Thankfully, Hollywood has had a long enough tradition of being in love with love that I did eventually manage to pull out 10 favorite movie moments where red-hot romance reigns supreme, even if they're often painted black.

Richard Gere carries Debra Winger away in An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) At age 13, I was as susceptible to the power of love and a classic Hollywood ending as the next future existential angst-ridden adult.

Berlin's "Take My Breath Away" in Top Gun (1985) The perfect marriage of love, movies and '80s pop.

Sean Penn + James Franco in the subway entrance in Milk (2008) Boy meets boy has never seemed so sweet, so erotically charged, so the way it would actually happen when boy meets boy in real life.

The fight club in Women in Love (1969) "Love is a battlefield," Pat Benatar once sang, but if you think about it, sex is the part that looks most like war. Rupert Birkin (Alan Bates) and Gerald Crich (Oliver Reed) may not be engaging in coitus in Women in Love's most famous nude scene (imagine Michael Fassbender and Tom Hardy in a modern remake!), but it looks an awful lot like foreplay, and the aftermath is unmistakably afterglowing. Mmm, yes. True bromance indeed. And the way Reed pinky-fondles Bates shoulder sends a chill down my... (Watch it here.)

Edward declares his love to Elinor in Sense and Sensibility (1995) Someone recently told me the story about how he proposed to his girlfriend while they were climbing Table Mountain in Cape Town. As they neared the top, her fear of heights kicked in, and she couldn't go any higher. No problem. He pulled out the ring and popped the question right there, just a few scary ladders from the summit. High as his new fiancee was (literally) and must have been (figuratively), as stunned, violently happy new brides-to-be go, I imagine that Emma Thompson's Elinor still had her beat.

Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy dance in Pride and Prejudice (2005) I can't say I was so quick to buy into the attraction of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy in the Oscar-nominated remake of the Jane Austen classic (Matthew Macfadyen's wiggy-looking hair and the 11-year age difference between him and Best Actress Oscar nominee Keira Knightley, then 20, was too distracting), but we've all been there, so into loving the one we're with that everything and everyone else in the room just disappears. Poof!

Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas wash each other clean in The English Patient (1996) I didn't care much their epic romance the first and only time I saw Oscar's 1996 Best Picture (it was all about Best Supporting Actress Juliette Binoche), but the one love scene that still stands out in my mind is Fiennes and Scott Thomas in the bathtub. There's something so subtlely sexy in the way they switched expected positions -- woman in back, man in front -- that made the idea of being straddled by your lover while soaking in both of your own watery grime almost appealing for this die-hard shower person.

Meg Ryan's final words to Nicolas Cage in City of Angels (1998) Sometimes in fiction, the best way to achieve romantic immortality is to die before the end of the final act. Look what death did for Romeo and Juliet! If it weren't for what Maggie says to Seth as she lies dying on the side of the road -- "When they ask me what I liked the best, I'll tell them it was you" -- I'm not even sure I'd remember the movie today. (Watch that scene here.)

Daniel Day-Lewis and Juliette Binoche achieve romantic nirvana in The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) Speaking of death becoming lovers in the final act, the exchange between Tomas and Tereza in the last frames never fails to kill me. Tereza: "Tomas, what are you thinking?" Tomas: "I'm thinking how happy I am." That's love, the kind that can move mountains, if not quite cheat death. (Watch it here.)

Venice in Summertime (1955) Not to be mistaken for Venice in summertime, which, as I witnessed firsthand for the first time last year, has very little to do with romance.

Burning Questions: The Tel Aviv Edition

When did everyone else catch on to the fabulousness that is Thursday? It's been my favorite day of the week for decades, ever since the mid-'90s, when it was the best night to go to the star-studded Bowery Bar in New York City for a few hours of celebrity spotting. (In this corner table, Matt Dillon, in this one, Wesley Snipes, in this one, Madonna, and at the bar, nodding politely at the guy a few feet away from him who's ordering a kir royale and giving him the eye -- that would be one of mine -- Madonna's ex, Sean Penn!)

But in the post-Thursdays-at-Bowery Bar era, my appreciation for Thursday has had more to do with my realization that the best part of any great event is the anticipation leading up to it, and on Thursday, you still have the weekend to look forward to. You can imagine it being anything you hope it will be because it hasn't yet disappointed you by being just another weekend, and most importantly, it's not even close to being over because it hasn't even yet begun.

Which brings me to Wednesday in Tel Aviv, which, due to Shabbat, is technically their Thursday, which inadvertently got its due props on Monday night (the equivalent to Tuesday in the world outside of Israel) in the words on a poster I saw on my way into OCD, a gay hip hop party whose soundtrack reminded me of Wonder Bar in New York City in the late '90s: "Wednesday is the new BLACK." I don't think I've been so excited about Hump Day since the Hump Day when I wrote a blog post about my soundtrack to one.

Speaking of soundtracks, when did rap replace Motown as the go-to incidental black music in all-white affairs? And I'm not just talking about the dance floor at OCD. For years, it seemed that whenever you went to see a Hollywood movie starring white actors as characters who were middle class to affluent, you couldn't leave the theater without hearing at least one Motown singalong. (I'm still rolling my eyes over the memory of Susan Sarandon's cancer-stricken mom and her two kids trying to cheer each other up while dancing and lip-syncing to Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" in 1998's Stepmom.) Hell, 1983's The Big Chill, which didn't include a single black actor among its principal cast, had a major hit soundtrack that featured predominantly '60s golden Motown oldies sung by black artists.

Then faster than you can say "Tropic Thunder" (the title of the 2008 film in which a bald-capped Tom Cruise attempted to send-up his white-boy image by gyrating and rapping along to "Low" by Flo Rida and "Get Back" by Ludacris, and one that featured a white actor, Robert Downey Jr., playing a "black" character and a black actor, Brandon T. Jackson, playing a rapper playing a soldier named, yes, Motown), white mainstream Hollywood's musical emphasis shifted to rap. In the last few days, I've finally gotten around to watching three of the five top-grossing comedies of 2013 so far (The Heat, We're the Millers and The Hangover Part III), all of which feature white actors in all of the principal roles, and all of which feature rap music blaring on the soundtrack in at least one key scene.

In the case of The Heat, rap music was all over the movie, and some of it -- particularly Azealia Banks' 2011 debut single, "212" (featuring Lazy J), a Top 20 UK hit -- actually made the slapstick antics of Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy (the star of Identity Thief, the third-biggest comedy of 2013 so far, who also popped up in The Hangover Part III, playing basically the same character she's been playing onscreen since Bridesmaids in 2011) worth watching. BTW, I'm not saying that McCarthy doesn't have range. The characters that made her a TV star -- her sidekicks in Gilmore Girls and Samantha Who? and her lead in Mike & Molly -- had/have entirely different dispositions than any of her of recent big-screen alter egos.

Where the hell am I from anyway? Frankly, I'm confused and probably not a little bit confusing, which gives me something in common with the people in Tel Aviv, many of whom, despite their Israeli status, originated elsewhere, or have parents who did. I'm still saying I'm from New York City, but it's been seven years since I actually lived there. Should I now shift the emphasis to the U.S. Virgin Islands, where I was actually born? Nobody in this part of the world even knows what those are. Or how about Florida, where I grew up? Nah, too long ago.

Of course, I could say Bangkok or Melbourne, but then I'd be like the Israeli girl I met at OCD who was claiming to be from Los Angeles just because she happens to live there now. She was so excited to meet a fellow American that I didn't have the heart to tell her that she's still Israeli (her accent was what immediately gave her origin away), and that I haven't actually been to New York City in three and a half years, and I currently have no idea when I'll be going back.

What Must Leonardo DiCaprio Do to Win an Oscar?

You'd think that starring as J. Edgar Hoover, one of the most controversial men of the 20th century, in J. Edgar would be Leonardo DiCaprio's ticket to the podium on Oscar night. 

Right?

Wrong. Probably not with Brad Pitt (Moneyball) and George Clooney (The Descendants) in the running. And definitely not with Meryl Streep expected to finally bring home the gold for the third time for playing former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady. I can't see Oscar going home in one night with with two actors playing two vile and reviled historical figures.

Since Streep is widely considered to be more overdue for her third win than DiCaprio is for his first (if only the Academy would focus on performances and not on who's due and who's not), I'm giving her the edge. If DiCaprio wins the Oscar for J. Edgar (and for the record, despite his typically excellent work, I don't think he deserves to), I'll eat it -- if I can pry it from his grip.

As for the movie, my feelings about it are mixed. It wasted two great actresses -- Judi Dench, as Hoover's mother, and especially Naomi Watts, as his career-long personal secretary -- in the epitomization of thankless roles (though Dench does have one standout clip -- see below). It featured some of the worst old-person make-up I've seen since Julianne Moore aged 40-odd years in The Hours. (DiCaprio, however, does make an extremely convincing old coot. He could be Phillip Seymour Hoffman's brother 20 years from now.) And at times, I felt like I was watching re-enactment scenes in a History Channel documentary.

Still, I enjoyed it more than Moneyball (yes, more anti-sports sentiment) in spite of its biopic-cliche overload. Maybe it's my love of U.S. history. Back in school it was the one class I was always wide awake for, and some things never change. History was the one thing that pulled me into Midnight in Paris, too. So I suppose, in a way, I can relate to Oscar's obsession with biopics. Six out of his last nine Best Actors have starred as A-list historical figures, so the odds should be on DiCaprio's side. 

Right?

Wrong. Again. For one thing, DiCaprio's age works against him. Oscar typically likes his Best Actors fortysomething and above. But even if DiCaprio, 37, were three years older, he's still in the wrong movie. Oscar also likes his Best Actor winners in critically acclaimed films, which J. Edgar is not. (His Best Actresses, like Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side, and probably Streep in Lady, tend to have an easier time getting away with critical duds.) 

One of director Clint Eastwood's miscalculations, I think, was skimping on the details of Hoover's cross dressing, which is merely broached during a conversation between Hoover and his mother in the film's best scene, and his homosexuality. DiCaprio prancing about like a transvestite "daffodil" (Hoover's mother's word, not mine) would have all but guaranteed him the Oscar.

Some of Sean Penn's best work in Milk (for which he won his second Oscar and which, intriguingly, won J. Edgar writer Dustin Lance Black an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay) was when the film explored the romantic and sexual dynamic between Harvey Milk and his lovers, played by James Franco and Diego Luna, and J. Edgar is most moving when it gets out of the political board room and goes into the bedroom -- literally. The scene where a fist fight with Clyde Tolson (played by The Social Network's Armie Hammer, who must be quite an actor because I keep thinking he has a twin brother) ends with a kiss and Hoover's warning not to ever do that again, does more than any other to get to the root of Hoover's evil. 

Deeply closeted and conflicted, he used public displays of morality to compensate for what he perceived as his inner immorality. It's as cliche as a gay man with an overly doting mother who would rather "a dead son than a daffodil," yet the scene is a telling one. Too bad Eastwood and Black offer little else that transcends routine biopic melodrama and connect-the-dots characterization.

If I were making the movie, I would have put Hoover's relationship with Tolson at the center, weaving in the historical details (which are all pretty much already matters of public record) into their story instead of the other way around. (Hoover's narration/dictation to Chuck Bass -- I mean, Gossip Girl's Ed Westwick, playing his biographer -- barely touches on Tolson.) J. Edgar is more revealing as a romantic drama than as a political or even a historical one, and DiCaprio, like the movie, excels when detailing Hoover's personal angst. The Hoover vs. Tolson throwdown would be a great Oscar clip for when Natalie Portman presents the nominees. Of course, we'll probably get one of Hoover's many pontificating sequences instead.

Yes, I'm pretty sure DiCaprio will get his fourth nomination, and for now that will have to be his reward. Better luck next time -- which, if he really expects to win, should be around 2015.

Brad Pitt Vs. Brad Pitt: Which One Should Get the Best Actor Oscar Nomination?

As usual, Brad Pitt is in an enviable position.

This time, it has nothing to do with being one of the richest movie stars on the planet, one of the sexiest men alive, or having to choose between Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie. He's in the enviable position of starring in two movies in one year which are both ending up on pretty much every best-of-2011 list: The Tree of Life and Moneyball. When the dust settles, he'll probably be in that, yes, enviable, and rare position of headlining two Best Picture Oscar nominees as well as being a Best Actor contender.

Here is the part where I reveal that I was disappointed by both movies. I think my problem with Moneyball might have had as much to do with the subject matter as the film itself. I'm not a big sports fan, and I can't imagine ever being truly moved by a sports film unless there is some great emotional off-the-field story arc at the center. (I'm about to watch Warrior, and I'm hoping for the best.) Friday Night Lights was a TV series based around football, but it was the detailed character study and the small-town drama that made it one of my favorite TV shows of the past decade.

I'm definitely more into baseball than football, but Moneyball was too much about love of the game. That said, there's no denying Brad Pitt's performance in it. Ridiculously charismatic and a bit of an asshole, he reminded me a lot of Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire, a movie I enjoyed partly because there was so much more going on in it than football. I would have loved to have seen more than two Moneyball scenes with Robin Wright, who appeared once in the flesh and once via telephone, and more father-daughter bonding might have pulled me deeper into Moneyball.

Pitt got lots of family time in The Tree of Life. And although I liked that film even less than I did Moneyball, I was more moved by Pitt's performance in it. He's getting all of his precursor awards and nominations for Moneyball, but this is the film that should win him that long-elusive Oscar in February (just as Revolutionary Road, not The Reader, was the 2008 film for which Kate Winslet should have snagged her Best Actress honors -- and for those who say Pitt was supporting in Life, so was Winslet in The Reader). My gripes with The Tree of Life are numerous, and I won't delve too deeply into them here.

As a whole, I found it to be both pretentious and boring, which is a deadly combination. The existential question at the center -- grace vs. nature -- is a creaky one, and the film didn't pose it in a way that I found to be fresh, compelling or fully coherent. The Creation scenes were my favorites of the movie, and I sort of wish they had taken up the entire two hours and 15 minutes running time. (I could spend hours watching dueling computer-generated dinosaurs!)

As for the family drama, it was elevated by Pitt's performance, so contained but always seemingly on the brink of boiling over in the most explosive way. He's probably about a decade too old to be playing Jessica Chastain's husband, but then, he hardly looks like he's less than two years shy of 50. When his character, Mr. O'Brien, went to the other side of the world to hawk his inventions, I missed him a lot more than his boys did!

I think the family drama would have been more effective overall had director Terrence Malick focused on it solely (leaving The Creation for another movie) and filmed it as a straight narrative without all of the existentialist bells and whistles and taken more time to flesh out the characters and the family dynamic. And beyond the fact the Chastain looks too young to be receiving news of her son's death via telegraph (was he at sleep-away camp?), I think the movie focused on the wrong kid.

I realize that they had to justify Sean Penn's presence in the bookending scenes, but the middle son was the more interesting character. Maybe it was his artistic leaning -- more representative of the spiritual angle that the film kept awkwardly working in -- or perhaps the young actor's sad, expressive eyes. He broke my heart every time he was on screen.

So did Brad Pitt. Mr. O'Brien wasn't particularly likable, but thanks to Pitt, I understood him and to a degree, even sympathized with him. I'm convinced that on Oscar night, Natalie Portman will be saying his name when she opens the envelope and presents the Best Actor prize. "Brad Pitt for Moneyball"! I can see it now: round of applause, maybe a standing ovation, many close-ups of a beaming Angelina Jolie.

And I'll be folding my arms, flashing back to 2009. Totally deserving actor, totally wrong movie.

PAGING JAMES FRANCO: PLEASE CHECK OUT OF 'GENERAL HOSPITAL' (AND DON'T EVER COME BACK)!

Shouldn't an Oscar-nominated actor like James Franco have better things to do? Dance with apes? Cut off his right arm? Get baked with Seth Rogen? Make out with Sean Penn on a subway station platform? Didn't he torture us enough co-hosting the Academy Awards last February?

Must he keep popping up in Port Charles every six months or so to throw a spanner in the works? With Katie Couric's upcoming talk show set to take over General Hospital's 3pm time slot next year, what will be ABC's sole remaining daytime soap come January is already a stinking, sinking ship. Each time Franco's character shows up -- he's conveniently named Franco and recently returned to GH for the first time since a mercifully brief appearance last Oscar season -- he's like a dead weight dropped in the middle of the grand ballroom.

Lord knows, GH already has enough problems onscreen: a young harridan -- I mean, heroine -- who spends most of her screen time shrieking at anyone who crosses her path (that would be awful Lulu, played by the awesome Julie Marie Berman), the dullest happy couple on earth (sorry JaSam fans, and I know there are a lot of you out there), and a crybaby drug-addicted hero named Lucky who deserves a story worthy of his name.

With so many talented vets sitting on the sidelines -- like Alexis and Monica, brought back to prominence at the beginning of Garin Wolf's writing regime before once again being sacrificed to mob wars -- the last thing the show needs is a pointless character eating up precious screen time. Franco (the character and the actor) is like the hammy supper-time entertainment you're forced to pay attention to when you'd much rather be gossiping and drinking.

What's his motivation? Why does a guy with such a sweet mom -- played by the actor's real-life mother -- get his kicks killing for his art? Why is he so obsessed with Jason Morgan?

Yes, when you're a soap executive producer and an actor of Franco's caliber and talent wants to be on your show, how do you say no? You don't. But neither should you create a pointless character who exists in a vacuum with the most boring male lead in daytime. (For a professional killer, Jason Morgan has absolutely no edge.) If they must keep Franco around, they should link him to the canvas by making him Johnny Zacchara's demented brother or Helena Cassadine's secret grandson.

Years ago (1981, to be exact), when Elizabeth Taylor wanted in on GH, Gloria Monty created the glamorous mysterious Helena Cassadine character especially for her, and a major GH clan was born. Thirty years later, Helena, played by Constance Towers since 1997, is still on the canvas, wreaking havoc all over Port Charles and beyond. Franco, whom 80-year-old Helena could crush while filing her nails, gets more story than Nancy Lee Grahn (Alexis Davis, a Cassadine) and Leslie Charleson (Monica Quartermaine) even when, due to his more-pressing big-screen commitments, the actor is offscreen. Having characters allude to him to remind viewers that he exists only highlights how unnecessary he is.

Five years from now, long after Franco the actor has lost interest in being the subversive A-lister who dared to star on a daytime soap, will Franco the character still be around? Not a chance. But then, given its current downward trajectory, neither will GH.

GHOSTS IN THE ATTIC

"She is a ghost to me now."
-- Sean Penn on his ex-wife, Robin Wright Penn, to Vanity Fair

My first impression when I read the above quote was disbelief. "No he didn't," I thought to myself. "He did not just call the mother of his children a 'ghost.'" Then I carefully reconsidered his words, and I began to realize where he was coming from.

In fact, just this morning, I was loitering near the same mental space. I was thinking about my exes -- well, two, in particular -- and how it's almost like they no longer exist, or never did at all. In some ways, they're dead to me, and when they pop into my mind, as they occasionally do, they're like ghosts from my past lives.

When I was younger, I was much better about hanging on to mementos from old relationships -- photos, gifts, letters (back when people still wrote letters), cards, and various other assorted trinkets. But at some point during the last 10 years, as the minimalist in me took over, all that changed. Now moments after the break-up email is sent (sadly, that's exactly how my last few relationships have ended), I begin the task of erasing all physical memories of the ex from my life. As a result of my obsessive-compulsive emotional house-cleaning through the methodical removal of physical evidence of unwanted emotions, the only thing I have left of my relationships since I turned 30 are one or two photos that I didn't toss out, a pair of tennis shoes given as a birthday gift, and memories.

And once the latter begin to fade -- and eventually, they always do and already have --- what is left? Sometimes I wonder if my last few boyfriends actually existed or if I just dreamed them up. It's not like we had children together, or shared real estate. Those at least would be constant reminders that they weren't just some vaguely remembered dream. There are, for the most part, no photos, no emails, no gifts. Nothing.

Just fading memories. And are their memories of me fading, too? Do they remember the times we shared, the places we went, the things we said? I do, if I concentrate hard enough. But these memories are no longer easily retrieved. Remembering now takes a little bit of mental effort. If I saw these exes on the street, and they pretended not to see me, or know me, would they really be pretending. Perhaps I'm as much of a ghost for them as they are for me.

I would like to think I make a bigger impression on people than that, but sometimes I wonder. In the end, maybe it's a good thing, these ghosts of boyfriends past. Though I retain the lessons learned from my previous relationships, and the ones I had in my twenties, my first three, remain more or less vividly implanted in my memory, I don't walk around with a lot of baggage, perhaps just a small carry-on full of emotions. The memories would be heavy enough. They can be emotional burdens that break both your spirit and your back. The physical evidence of them could do similar damage -- financially and interior design-wise. (Thank God, I got rid of that storage space in Brooklyn -- and the romantic mementos I was keeping there, too.)

All I've got are my ghosts, which I wouldn't give up for the world. They may be disturbing and scary sometimes, but they're completely weightless, conducive to light travelling. Thank God, they only haunt me once in a while.

Kristen Hersh "Your Ghost"