jeff goldblum momentarily redeems vanity fair [tidbit]

Vanity Fair is a generally reprehensible publication specializing in all things overpriced and otherwise fatuous, BUT - it does have one worthwhile monthly mini-pictorial feature dubbed "In Character" starring some or other recognizable actor. Last month's, with Jeff Goldblum (http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/04/proust-valentino200904), featured an awkward teenage boy, a flirty middle-aged dad and then another awkward (although differently so) teenage boy. Look, kids, acting is fun! 

[ps - take a good look at this picture. Who'd have thought that Jeff Goldblum would have made a suitable casting choice for Todd Haynes' Bob Dylan tribute I'm Not There?]

Also:

Whoopi Goldberg (kudos to the Barbara Walters)

John Malkovich (can you imagine a less likely construction worker?)

John Leguizamo (umm...only one of these three situations is even mildly humorous)

John Goodman (this man has a face like playdoh...who's out there casting for a basketball coach?!)

cast of history: when art is funnier than life [tidbit]

whoa, whoa, whoa, what the hell is this I just found on Robin Williams’ imdb page (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0361185/)? “Freedom, A History of Us” – a 2003 mini-series featuring:

Tom Hanks as Abraham Lincoln (HA...I'd say more like Rip Torn, only thinner)

Kevin Kline as Thomas Jefferson (maybe David Morse?)

Michael Douglas as Benjamin Franklin (wow, hell no)

Morgan Freeman as Frederick Douglas (ok)

Whoopi Goldberg as Harriet freaking Tubman (meh)

Anthony Hopkins as George Washington (waaaay off)

Dennis Quaid as Andrew Jackson (HA! more like Kris Kristofferson)

Robin Williams as Ulysses S. Grant (wasn't he better as Teddy Roosevelt?)

Meryl Streep as Abigail Adams (can't have a grade-A cast without Meryl Streep)

and…

Matthew “Ferris Bueller” Broderick as (I kid you not) General Sherman

SERIOUSLY.                                                              

sadly, it’s not another star-studded John Adams-style mini-series, but a dry TV documentary with these folks’ voices occasionally sprinkled in reading a brief quote. but still…an offbeat, hilariously bad way to cast history.