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Saturday, February 27, 2010

Oscar predix







The ballots for this years Oscars are due this coming Tuesday to be tabulated in time for next Sunday's Oscar ceremony. With that in mind, these are my final, cast-iron, full-proof* predictions for who or what will bag the main gold next weekend.

*Terms and conditions apply.

BEST PICTURE:
My bet: The Hurt Locker
Upset: Avatar

BEST DIRECTOR:
My bet: Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker)
Upset: James Cameron (Avatar)

BEST ACTOR:
My bet: Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart)
Upset: Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker)

BEST ACTRESS:
The toughest race, and I'm defying/reversing the odds to say...
My bet: Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia)
Upset: Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:
My bet: Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)
Upset: Nobody. But if I had to pick one Woody Harrelson (The Messenger)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
My bet: Mo'Nique (Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire)
Upset: Again, nobody, but perhaps Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air) is the only one who could sneak through.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:
My bet: The Hurt Locker
Upset: Inglourious Basterds

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:
My bet: Up in the Air
Upset: Precious

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM:
My bet: A Prophet
Upset: The White Ribbon

BEST ANIMATED FILM:
My bet: Up
Upset: Secret of Kells

Chasing miracles



My interview with John Crowley, whose family's story has been made into the new movie Extraordinary Measures, in today's Weekend magazine in the Irish Independent

John and Aileen Crowley sat dazed in the doctor’s office, struggling to comprehend what they were being told. It was a bright spring day in 1998, and just a week beforehand this young San Francisco-based couple had been celebrating the birth of their third child, Patrick.

On this day, however, March 13, the Crowleys were in hospital to hear the results of tests on their 15-month old daughter Megan, who had yet to start crawling or trying to speak. Their eldest son John Jnr, then aged three, was a slow starter and was later diagnosed with a learning disability, so at the very worst the Crowleys were expecting a similar prognosis for Megan.
Instead, they were told that the toddler was suffering from Pompe Disease, a genetic disorder so rare that fewer than 10,000 people in the world are born with it. The degenerative disease weakens the muscles of patients so they eventually can’t walk, talk or even breathe on their own.

John and Aileen were stunned, but the full horror of the diagnosis was yet to come: babies and young children diagnosed with Pompe usually don’t live past their second birthday. What’s more, seeing as the parents were likely recessive carriers of the gene, there was a strong chance that baby Patrick had the disease too. This was confirmed by tests a few months later.

Once the shock set aside, the Crowleys decided to get active. When the medical establishment failed to come up with a cure, John took matters into his own hands, quitting his $120,000-a-year job as a marketing director in a pharmaceutical firm to co-manage a tiny biotechnology company focused entirely on finding a cure for Pompe, a company that at one early stage had just $37,000 in the bank, but was sold for well over $100m a year later. The best part of all is that John ultimately found a treatment to save his children’s lives.

It’s an incredible story (first covered in Geeta Anand’s book The Cure) that has now been made into a new movie, Extraordinary Measures, starring Brendan Fraser and Keri Russell as John and Aileen, as well as Harrison Ford, whose character is an amalgam of several doctors and biotechnological researchers the Crowleys dealt with.

To tie in with the release of the movie, John has written Chasing Miracles, his own personal account of their experiences since that fateful day Megan and Patrick were first diagnosed. “You go through every possible emotion when you hear news like that,” John explains to Weekend from the family’s current home in Princeton, New Jersey.

“You just hear the word ‘diagnosis’; then, ‘I’m sorry there’s nothing we can do’; and, ‘She’s only going to live to be two years of age’. But once we got past that shock and that fear, we grew determined to at least find out everything we could about this disease, and to try to live as normal and full and joyous a life as possible.”

In his book, John writes honestly about how difficult that first year was after both kids were diagnosed: the enormous adjustments that had to be made to accommodate hospital visits, live-in nurses, and the fact that two young children were now living hooked up to 40 pound ventilation machines.

In particular, he describes the perhaps inevitable strain it put on his marriage to Aileen, his high school sweetheart and now wife of 20 years. “We went through so much with Megan, and then three months later went through it all again with Patrick,” John says. “I thought at the time we were handling it well, but there were moments when it nearly broke us and nearly broke me.

“I think eventually we realised what we wanted in life, and what we wanted out of life, and that takes the strength of one another. Aileen and I have this one rule between us that’s evolved over time that neither of us can have a bad day at the same time. And that’s hard sometimes, but we just can’t. One has to be strong for the other, and that helped a great deal.

In retrospect, the Crowleys needed that arduous period to mourn the life that they thought they’d have and embrace the one that they’d been given. The mission now was to save their children. For starters, they founded a charity called the Children’s Pompe Foundation to fund research into clinical trials on young Pompe patients (raising $750,000 over the course of a year).

Through John’s research, he’d met a scientist named Dr William Canfield, who had just started his own small company, Novazyme, with the intention of researching Pompe. Megan and Patrick had defied the odds to live longer than expected, but their conditions were deteriorating at an alarming rate. They desperately needed a cure.

In April 2000, John quit his steady job to work with Canfield’s start-up, which employed just four people, and was already running perilously low on cash. For the next three years, John’s task was to raise money to fund research and clinical trials, as well as to help to navigate the choppy legal and ethical waters along the way.

It’s a process that he looks back on as “excruciating”. “Those couple of years were incredibly intense,” he says. “There were so many personal and professional risks. It wasn’t always easy, particularly in the fall of 2002 when we were told the kids didn’t have long to live. We’d done eight clinical studies by that point, and we were getting political pressure from some European countries to send drugs on a compassionate basis, which we did.”

Indeed, avoiding any kind of ethical and ‘conflict of interest’ charge proved to be amongst the hardest challenges for John. “I remember one day I had to instruct my team to pack up enzymes, put them on dry ice, and get them to a hospital in Italy - but I couldn’t get my own kids treated. That was very difficult.”

Despite being a tiny, fledgling company, the industry obviously saw potential in Novazyme’s work. In September 2001, John sold the company to a huge corporation, Genzyme, in a deal worth between $100-$137m (John’s share came to $5m).
It took another 15 months, however, for a real medical breakthrough to help Megan and Patrick, but on January 9, 2003, the two kids started receiving groundbreaking enzyme replacement therapy that their dad’s former company had helped to create.

The treatment saved their lives. “The children’s energy levels changed after the first night of transfusion,” John recalls. “Within 12 weeks, we got the first reports that their hearts, which had been two-three times the normal size, were shrinking. That was the first of many incredible moments. I remember the first day that we noticed Megan was smiling again.” John pauses, his voice faltering. “That was a beautiful day.”

However, it soon became apparent that the “special medicine” (as Megan called it) would only treat their illness, not cure it. “That was disappointing, but if nothing else it made me realise that we weren’t done,” John says. “That’s when I got back into biotechnology [John is currently CEO of Amicus Therapeutics]. This wasn’t the magic cure, but it was a good first step.”

Today, all of the Crowley family treats the kids’ condition with as much humour as possible. “What would we do otherwise, cry?” John says, chuckling. “We laugh at everything, including each other. Megan has an incredibly sarcastic wit. She describes her Pompe using air quotes as a “minor breathing problem”.

“Patrick is quieter than Megan, but he has a quiet strength. Pompe hit him a little bit harder, and he’d dealt with it differently to his sister.”

Meanwhile, the Crowleys’ eldest child, John, now aged 15, has had his own struggles to overcome. “John is a special needs kid with learning disabilities, but I don’t think that if Patrick and Megan were perfectly healthy that it would be any different for him,” John explains. “John just doesn’t know life any differently and he has dealt with it all remarkably well. That said, Aileen and I joke that it takes more effort to keep track of John that it does the other two!”

Megan and Patrick are now aged 15 and 11 respectively, and by all accounts they are extremely confident, ambitious kids. Patrick has told his parents that he wants to be a police officer when he grows up. “He went to a youth camp with [his brother] John run by the police department here in Princeton,” John recalls with a laugh. “I came home after their first day and I was like, ‘Hey buddy, how was police camp?’ Now this kid could barely move a muscle but he looked at me and said, ‘Freeze! Put your hands where I can see ‘em’.

“Megan, on the other hand, is torn between being a teacher or a fashion designer. She says she wants to go to Stanford University because the weather is nicer in California. Clever girl.”

As the Crowleys continue to make the very most of life, and press on for another medical miracle, John says his brave children are a constant source of inspiration. “They’ve never felt sorry for themselves, not once,” John says proudly.

“It takes Megan and Patrick two hours to get ready every morning, between taking their medicine, having their physiotherapy, and getting them in their wheelchairs. They do that every day: two hours just to get ready for three hours of school, and they never complain. My kids have taught me such a great lesson in life.”

*Extraordinary Measures is in cinemas now. Chasing Miracles: The Crowley Family Journey of Strength, Hope and Joy by John Crowley is published by Newmarket Press.

Parents Who Cure:

The Crowleys’ search for a cure for their children resembles the story of Augusto and Michaela Odone, whose son Lorenzo was diagnosed with the apparently untreatable nerve disease adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD) in the early 1980s. Their case later formed the basis of the movie Lorenzo’s Oil starring Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon.

Ignoring the claims of medical experts that nothing could be done, the Odones persevered, recruiting researchers, visiting doctors all over the world and looking at animal experiments.

Eventually they discovered a therapy by which they added an oil made from olive oil and rapeseed oil to Lorenzo’s diet.

The oil helped to halt the progression of the disease, and Lorenzo regained his sight and started swallowing for himself. Sadly, Lorenzo died at home in Virginia in May 2008, one day after his 30th birthday, having come down with aspiration pneumonia. He had lived more than 20 years longer that doctors predicted, and is the oldest known survivor of ALD.

I'm a gay man but I can be cured. Apparently.


My piece from today's News Review in the Irish Independent

My name is Declan and apparently I have a major emotional, possibly mental disorder: homosexuality. It would seem that I'm a gay man today either because I'm depressed and lonely, am 'wounded' from childhood, or because I'm simply missing God from my heart.

But help is at hand in the form of organisations that claim they can "cure" or "fix" homosexuality through a combination of psychotherapy and prayer. Last weekend, a conference took place in Belfast organised by Core Issues, an evangelical Northern Irish Christian group that promotes so-called "conversion" or "reparative therapy".

Continue here.

Friday, February 26, 2010

What being on American Idol is worth


Good breakdown by the New York Times of the bucks earned by Idol contestants

Movie stuff



My review of Capitalism: A Love Story, and Q&A with Kirk Jones, director of Everybody's Fine, from today's Day and Night in the Independent.

Capitalism: A Love Story (PG, general release)

Three stars
Having attacked gun culture, Dubya and the decrepit US health system, there probably was no other hot topic left for arch-provocateur Michael Moore to tackle than the whole capitalist system itself.

Like all of the big man’s work, Capitalism: A Love Story is an entertaining mixed bag with some unquestionably powerful and potent moments, but the unwieldy, all-encompassing nature of the subject matter deprives Capitalism of the kind of laser-like focus and rage that so ignited Bowling for Columbine and especially Fahrenheit 9/11.

Moore once again uses interviews, case studies, archival footage and cartoons to lay out his argument, mixing the sombre with the farcical, as he sets out to examine just how and why capitalist society, and by extension democracy, has become so corrupted.

He casts the net wide – too wide sometimes – to look at the subprime housing crisis, worker exploitation, and the parasitic influence of big business on ideas of fairness and equality.

As an investigative film-maker, Moore manages to unearth some truly shocking material: the example of a bank that cashes in on employees’ deaths by way of an underhand policy sensitively nicknamed the ‘Dead Peasants’ insurance should be enough to inspire a worker’s revolution all by itself.

Similarly, the latter section picking apart the causes, and effects, of the 2008 Wall Street meltdown, is jaw-dropping and enraging to watch, while a sequence focusing on a never-realised Second Bill of Rights proposed by Franklin Roosevelt, is undoubtedly stirring.

But Moore also undermines his arguments with some bizarre errors in editorial judgement: namely relying on an actor to provide socio-economic context, and – without any hint of irony - allowing several members of the Catholic Church to condemn capitalism as a corrupt and immoral institution.

Of course, the main problem – and it’s a distracting one - is that Moore leaves himself open to all manner of hypocrisy charges, seeing as he has benefited extremely well from the very ideology and system that he’s indicting, inadvertently proving the point that capitalism only continues to thrive by assimilating its critics.

*****************

Kirk Jones – Q&A
*Your new movie Everybody’s Fine is about a lonely widower (played by Robert de Niro) crisscrossing America to visit his adult kids. Cheers for making us all feel guilty for not calling home more often.

I’m an only child, and I get on well with my own parents. I ring home as much as I can and I’ll give all the news to whoever answers, while the other one hovers in the background. I have three kids myself, and I never feel like I have enough time with them. My eldest son turns 19 next week. How’d that happen?!

*It really is a movie that makes you think – and for that audiences will never forgive you.

People have had amazing reactions to it. One guy came up to me and said that he’d worked with his dad, who’s a widower, every day for the past 10 years, but just realised that he doesn’t see him after work or at weekends. This guy then decided to bring his dad for a drink and a chat, just to see how he is.

*Aw, that’s very sweet. But how did an English man like yourself go about writing and directing an American road movie?

I did a road trip myself. I flew to New York and booked the flight home from Las Vegas. I traveled cross-country on bus and train. I took 2,000 photographs and interviewed 100 people along the way.

*You must have come across all sorts?

You certainly see and hear so many great things, and meet lots of different people. In one town I heard a man call out to another, ‘Hey Ed, where were you last week?’ And Ed replied, ‘Last week? Last week I was in pain’. What a brilliant line.

*Be honest: how scary is Robert De Niro?

I was nervous when I first met him – how couldn’t I be? But megastars like De Niro are usually pretty normal people. He knows the effect he’s had on cinema, but he doesn’t want to dwell on it. He’s very good at disarming people. He gave me a little hug after our first meeting. He’s an actor, and he needs to be connected to the real world in order to draw from it.

*You got greedy and nabbed a second legend for Everybody’s Fine: Paul McCartney wrote an original song for it.

I was crazy busy the first day I met Paul. I was running around the place and suddenly I was in his office, having a cup of tea with him. Like De Niro I think he’d hate the idea of people being scared of him. I was trying to be cool around him, but inside I was hopping up and down.

*Drew Barrymore and Kate Beckinsale also star in the movie. Not a bad way to spend a few months on a set I’d imagine?

All actors want to be challenged, and Drew, especially, has been doing that a lot lately. She’s doing some good stuff – you should check out Grey Gardens.

*I will. Your first movie was the Irish-based lottery comedy Waking Ned. How does it feel to be the man responsible for putting David Kelly’s naked arse up on the big screen?


Filming that naked motorcycle ride scene, David initially had a body stocking on, kind of like a pair of tights, to protect his modesty. But he kept sliding off the seat because they were so slippery. I said, ‘David, the only thing to do is to go totally naked’. He thought about it for a second and whipped the stocking off. That image stays with you.

*Riddle me this: why was the title changed to Waking Ned Devine in the US?

It was always called Waking Ned Devine, but halfway through the shoot it was changed because some people thought it had religious connotations. It was my first movie, and I didn’t want to hamper its release in anyway. But then when it was released in the US, they asked if they could call it Waking Ned Devine. I just said, ‘Wish I’d thought of that!’

*Everybody’s Fine is released nationwide today

Shakespeare's Hamlet was missing a certain something...


If Ophelia had had a sassy gay friend...

Thursday, February 25, 2010

The Karate Kid 2010...


...is it just me or does this new version of The Karate Kid come across as some kind of metaphor for a weakened US trying to stand up to the might of China?

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

My So-Called Life...15 years later


Remember Angela Chase and Jordan Catalano?

Look at them now...:)

Carey to win?


The LA Times asks the question: can Carey Mulligan pull off an upset at the Oscars in two weeks time? Her BAFTA win comes at a crucial point in the Oscar voting, meaning the boost could push her, a la Adrien Brody, past the two heavy frontrunners, Sandra Bullock and Meryl Streep. It would certainly inject some excitement in an other wise predictable awards year.

Jaws on the big screen


Wanna see Jaws on the big screen in the Savoy Cinema on March 11? Well click here to find out - it's for a good cause.

Irish Oscar nominees @ IFI


Next Wednesday, March 3, the IFI is screening this year's three Irish Oscar nominees - The Secret of Kells, Granny O Grimm, and The Door. Starts at 6.30pm, tickets can be bought here.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Passion Cashin




Apologies for the headline: I've been waiting for an opportunity to use that one. My travel feature from today's Weekend magazine in the Irish Independent


It’s not everyday that you come across a mayoral decree ordering men not to cut their hair or trim their beards for 18 months. That said the German village of Oberammergau isn’t like everywhere else.

This is the scene of the world-famous Passion Play, which will be staged in a custom-built open-air theatre from May to October 2010. It’s an all-hands-on-deck type affair, and everyone in the locality takes it very seriously, right down to men looking suitably hirsute for their parts - ergo, the poster stuck up in the theatre foyer reminding men to avoid razors of all kinds from Ash Wednesday of this year until the end of the Passion Play next October.

The tradition of the Passion Play in the village stems from the 1630s when bubonic plague was laying claim to millions across the continent. The locals made a pact with God that if (S)He were to spare them the worst ravages of the disease, then they would repay the Almighty with a play every ten years depicting the trial, suffering and the death of Jesus Christ.

The first play was performed in 1634, after which not one person died from plague (down from an average of 20 per month the year previous). As a sign of their gratitude, the people of Oberammergau have performed the Play every decade.

I should state from the outset that I’m not religious in the slightest. In fact, whenever I walk into a church, the stained glass windows shatter and choirs begin screeching the music from The Omen. But even I was left in awe after taking in the scale of the preparations for the Passion Play while on a tour of the Oberammergau theatre.

That’s because, despite its content, the Passion Play isn’t really about religion. Faith plays its part, undoubtedly, but, as cheesy as it may sound, the play is about community. Out of a general population of 5,200, some 2,000 locals (including 500 children) are currently in prep mode for the event, ranging from acting roles, to music, to singing, and stage production.

The Passion Play performance starts on May 15, and it will take place over a course of seven hours a day (so bring a flask and a blanket), five times a week, for over five months. To be eligible to take part, cast members must have either been born in the village, lived there for 25 years, or married to a local. There will be no blow-ins here, thank you very much!

Our tour guide was able to identify all the leading players as we walked around town, be they a local publican, teacher, or the woodcarver who works from the beautifully restored Pilates House in the village (due to the aforementioned hair-and-beard decree, it’s easy to spot the male villagers taking part). One section of the play will involve a large crowd scene, so, for the five months of performances, the villagers will literally stop what they’re doing, down tools and head to the theatre to make up the numbers. It really is something else in terms of organisation and commitment.

As a measure of how seriously it’s taken, our guide seemed to be genuinely star-struck when we came across one of the two actors who will play Christ in next year’s Passion. Some roles are even passed on from one generation to the next within families.

If you’re visiting Oberammergau next year for the Play, the good news is that there is plenty more to see and do in the locality to round out any holiday. This part of Bavaria gets the best of both worlds: ideal skiing conditions in winter and glorious sun in summer. Oberammergau itself is like a scene out of an old Brothers Grimm fairytale book, bringing to mind words like ‘quaint’ and ‘charming’ without being patronising.

There’s even a wonderful Christmas store, Kathe Wohlfahrt, open all year round, meaning that you can stock up on exquisite baubles and festive gifts in the heart of summer, just like I (and many other visitors) did.

We also made the short journey to the Linderhof Palace, the ornate country hunting lodge of King Ludwig II, a real character known for his extravagant tastes. His legacy, therefore, is a 19th century castle with opulent interior design, avant-garde architecture and stunning landscaped gardens.

The tail-end of our trip featured a hop over to the village of St Johann in Tirol in Austria. We travelled through the Austrian Alps, via Innsbruck, stopping for a nose around the Swarovski Kristallwelten, a museum comprised of, and devoted to, the world famous crystals.

It houses a series of beguiling installations and exhibitions, including a mechanical theatre where clothes (encrusted with crystals, of course) come to life, a crystalline fairy world where the sun dances with the moon and a crystal devours a plant, and the decidedly trippy Crystal Dome, which gives the impression of stepping inside a crystal, a thousand beams of light refracting of the facetted walls to the music of Brian Eno.

We arrived in St Johann during the annual summer solstice fire festival, where flames and lights adorned the peaks of all the mountains nearby, observed, ideally, from the tip of the Kitzbuheler Horn mountain, which is accessed by cable car.

The village is a ski resort of some renown (or notoriety, depending on your behaviour!), but during spring and summer, you can avail of mountain walks (easy or difficult - the choice is yours) that will allow you to take in the Alpine scenery, breathe in that wonderful air, and work off the excesses of all those weisbiers and dumplings (kudos to our guide Georg Weihs for putting up with our lumbering posse). It was an enchanting end to a trip that certainly whetted my appetite to return next year to see the Passion Play go live. The orchestra might even play The Omen music to welcome me.

NEED TO KNOW:
GETTING THERE:

Topflight (www.topflight.ie or call 01 2401700) organises tailor-made holidays, using Aer Lingus flights from Dublin, Cork and Belfast to Oberammergau, with bolt-on holidays to the Austrian Tirol. The trip is particularly group-friendly - Topflight is offering one free place in 20 for all groups.

A short break to Oberammergau with category A tickets and transfers costs €1199 per person plus taxes. Topflight also offers a choice of one week holidays to Oberammergau, with two nights in Oberammergau area including category A tickets, and five nights in a choice of the Austrian Tirol or Lake Garda, Italy.

STAYING THERE:

In Oberammergau we stayed in the three-star Hotel Feldmeier (www.hotel-feldmeier.de, +49 (0) 88223011). It’s centrally located in the village, comprising of 17 double rooms and 6 single rooms. Throughout the winter, it will cost between e340-e360 per person for a double room (half board and breakfast) for seven nights. If travelling to the Passion Play next year, check website for deals closer to the date. Early booking would be advised.

In Tirol, we stayed in the four-star Sporthotel Austria (www.sporthotelaustria.at, +43/5352/62507). Rates at the Sporthotel range from e92-e117 per person (half board) for a double room. Special ski packages are also available for winter 2009/2010.

WHEN TO GO:

The Oberammergau Passion Play starts on May 15, 2010, and continues with daily performances until October 3, 2010. The Topflight brochure on Oberammergau 2010 is out now.

THREE GREAT THINGS TO DO:

*See the Passion Play at Oberammergau. It’s a once-in-a-decade opportunity to see this extraordinary community event. See www.passionsspiele2010.de for details

*Visit Castle Linderhof (www.schlosslinderhof.de), the exquisite country retreat of the 19th century King Ludwig II. The ornate design was ahead of its time - watch out for the optical trickery taking place in the Hall of Mirrors - and its landscaped garden is ideal for long strolls.

*In St Johann, take the funicular (cable car) to the top of the Kitzbuhler Horn and enjoy a traditional Austrian dinner in the Restaurant Adler Hutte (a personal favourite is Gröstl, a roasted mixture of potatoes, onions, and bacon, with a fried egg on top). Wait around for the last cable car, and fly down in pitch darkness for added effect.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Saturday, February 06, 2010

The United States of O-merica

My interview with Robyn Okrant, author of Living Oprah, in today's Irish Examiner



When it comes to advocating lifestyle transformation, few public figures are as effusive in their encouragement than talk show titan Oprah Winfrey. For years, the Almighty O has embodied the modern belief in the power of perpetual reinvention and self-advancement, her philosophy encapsulated in her website and magazine mantra, ‘Live Your Best Life’.

This was enough to propel fellow Chicagoan Robyn Okrant to spend an entire year following Oprah’s recommendations and confident self-help tips to the letter in order to gauge if her life tangibly improved as a result.

Okrant, a performance artist and yoga teacher, made 2008 her Year of the O, and kept a blog for 365 days as she followed the advice the billionaire dispensed on television, in her magazine O, and on her website.

The deal was that Oprah had to specifically endorse the product, event or advice, rather than merely feature it or mention it in passing, but this was still enough to have Okrant spend 1,200 hours and $4,781 reading the books, buying the foods, clothes and furniture, and practising the spiritual exercises espoused by Oprah. The project even took over her marriage to the ever-patient Jim, as Okrant sought to follow Oprah’s sex tips in the bedroom.

Those experiences form the basis of Okrant’s new book Living Oprah: My One Year Experiment to Walk the Walk of the Queen of Talk. “I had always questioned whether or not someone of Oprah’s economic status could possibly relate to ‘real’ woman,” the cheery author tells the Irish Examiner.

“I was a little bothered by the fact that she was giving so much advice, and that there were so many ‘must-haves’ and ‘gotta-dos’. I could see that the women in my life, whom I adore, were getting so stressed that they weren’t able to do all of this. I don’t think Oprah really wants us to do everything; however, she’s such a powerful force that there are women who blindly follow.”

Okrant’s tasks throughout the year ranged from the easy and fun (getting her clothes tailored so they fit properly; watching the TV show 30 Rock) to the downright mad (going on a 21-day ‘vegan cleansing’ diet). Then, of course, there was the marital advice and tips for greater romantic intimacy.

“The sex stuff was really not fun,” she says. “Towards the end of the year, Oprah said we had to shower before we had sex, so anytime things would get romantic between us, I’d say, ‘Hold on’ and I’d run and take a shower. By the time I got back, Jim was either asleep or fixing things around the house. He’s used to me taking part in crazy schemes, and he’s normally happy to come along for the ride, but usually it doesn’t take a full year. I think Jim’s patience was definitely tested towards the end.”

Of course, throughout 2008, Oprah became overtly political, publicly endorsing Barack Obama throughout the primary battle against Hillary Clinton. This posed a big philosophical problem for Okrant.

“I’m very respectful of my right to vote in this country which is why that was so uncomfortable for me,” she explains. “In one way, the point of this project was to show how celebrity forces our hands in this country, so it probably would have driven my point home even further if she’d, say, backed John McCain, and so then I’d have to vote for him. Would I have been able to do that? I don’t know. I’m from Chicago so I certainly would have voted for Obama in the general election; whether I would have voted for him in the primary is a different question.

“There were studies done here in the States that showed that Oprah garnered one million votes for Obama during the primaries which is what helped him to beat Hillary. But I think that political stance, along with the spiritual side of things she’s being pushing, has caused Oprah to lose a lot of support.”

Indeed, it’s a point not lost on the talk show queen herself: she announced before Christmas that she will end her show in 2011 to focus on other projects, namely her own channel, the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). That aside, Okrant has found that Oprah is a much more divisive figure than one would think. “I’ve done some interviews recently where, off camera, people will say, ‘I think Oprah’s evil’ or ‘I think Oprah’s the devil’ or ‘You know what I hate about Oprah…’ It seems to be one way or the other with her.”

The experiment did reap some positives for Okrant, however. “The best advice I got from Oprah was about doing hands-on philanthropy,” she says. “So instead of just writing a cheque, I did a book drive for women in prison. Actually putting time and energy into something, even when it’s inconvenient, was a great lesson.

“Also I now find myself able to disconnect much more from the messages that I get via commercials, TV, and magazines. I’m 37 years old now; I don’t need to buy every magazine and watch every show that tells me things about my body and my sex life. I know enough. If I don’t know the information by now, then I’m in trouble.”

In that vein, Okrant dismisses the Oprah-mantra that inspired the experiment in the first place: ‘Live Your Best Life’. “I don’t believe in that language anymore,” she says. “I believe I’m a happy person; I believe I’m enough as I am; I believe I can still work towards goals and get better. But I’m done with using ‘best’ because the only thing you can do is fail. You can never reach ‘best’, so then you have to keep buying into the whole thing all over again.”

What everyone wants to know now is whether Oprah has read Okrant’s work. Is she expecting an invite on the show? “I know that her staff have my book, because they requested copies from my publisher,” she replies with a laugh. “One of her staffers gave a quote to The Today Show at the time saying that I was taking brand dedication to a new level! I’m just curious to know what her staff think. I haven’t heard from Oprah herself, but I’ll be waiting by the phone in my armor just in case.”

Panel:

Some of Oprah’s “must haves” and “must do’s” that will improve your life, according to Living Oprah:

-Only write one page notes to people in case they want to frame them (as recommended to Oprah by Bill Clinton)

-Buy sexy new underwear

-Buy a ‘weight vest’ to burn off more calories as you go about your business

- Eat a slice of whole grain bread with olive oil before dinner (so as not to overeat)

- Buy the Planet Earth DVD

-Use Donald Trump’s recipe for turkey burgers from the Oprah website

-Every woman “must” own a trenchcoat, white denim coat, white jeans and a crisp, white blouse.

-Make a “vision board”

-Declutter your home and go through old photos to remember what’s special to you.

*Living Oprah: My One Year Experiment to Walk the Walk of the Queen of Talk by Robyn Okrant is out now published by Little, Brown Group.

Friday, February 05, 2010

Wedded blitz


Nightwatch column from Day and Night in today's Independent

There comes a time in every adult's life when they have to ponder the Great Questions: Whatis my primary purpose? What's my place in the grand scheme of things? Where am I going? And, of course, there's the real clincher: what kind of wedding guest am I?

Continue here.

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Land of the Lost




The sixth and final season of Lost started in the US last night with a double episode that was just as awesome and infuriating and mad and daring and labyrinthine and head-wrecking as we fans expect and demand. As ever, EW's Doc Jensen is back with his peerless commentary and dissection of the new season. It's gonna be epic .

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

We Are Golden



Serious congrats to Tomm Moore at Cartoon Saloon and Brownbag Films for their respective Oscar nominations for The Secret of Kells and Granny O'Grimm.

Also The Door, made by Octagan Films, is up for Best Live Action Short.

Full list of nominations here

In other Oscar news, a very predictable list, but still one or two surprises:

- The Blind Side gets a nod for Best Picture. Really??!

- In the Loop picks up Screenplay nom. That's just f*cking well f*cktastic isn't it? F*ckers

- Maggie Gyllenhaal shoves out Julianne Moore to get Supporting Actress nom for Crazy Heart