Richard Roeper Blog

Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow were on Howard Stern’s show this week, and in between discussions of masturbation, comedy, porn, Adam Sandler and oh yes this movie called “Funny People,” Stern brought up Katherine Heigl’s remarks in Vanity Fair about “Knocked Up,” the movie that gave Heigl a film career.

Heigl said “Knocked Up” was “a little sexist. It paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys. It exaggerated the characters, and I had a hard time with it, on some days. I’m playing such a bitch; why is she being such a killjoy? Why is this how you’re portraying women? Ninety-eight percent of the time it was an amazing experience, but it was hard for me to love the movie.”

Yeah, it’s the two percent that’ll get you every time.

Apatow said at first he thought this was one of those deals where Heigl was tired at the end of a long period of promoting the film, and he figured he’d get a phone call from Heigl explaining or clarifying the remarks. (Rogen jumped in and pointed out he was tired from promoting the film as well, but he never said anything so negative about it.) But the phone call never came.

Rogen claimed to be baffled by Heigl’s remarks, given that much of her work was improvised.

In any case, it’s rare for an actress to diss a hit film in which she appeared (Megan Fox and “Transformers” notwithstanding)—but Heigl has a pattern of saying some pretty surprising things. Remember when she took herself out of the running for an Emmy because she felt the writers hadn’t given her enough to do? Now THERE’S a surefire method to win the hearts of a writing staff.

Currently Heigl is starring in a painfully unfunny romantic comedy called “The Ugly Truth,” which contains one of the most uncomfortable and deadly “comic” scenes in recent memory. It’s also creepy, sexist and just plain wrong. 

Really? A little boy manipulates a grown woman into orgasm? And it’s OK because he doesn’t know what he’s doing? Meanwhile, Gerard Butler’s character DOES know what’s going on, but he doesn’t do anything to stop it? And we’re really supposed to buy into the premise that Heigl would not only stay at the table, she’d actually achieve orgasm in that context? Not to mention that the acting there is borderline awful. It gives one a whole new respect for Meg Ryan’s work in the famous deli scene in “When Harry Met Sally…”

I just find it…funny that after Heigl complains about “Knocked Up” to Vanity Fair, she chooses to star in a movie like this, with a scene like this.

Granted, it’s refreshing when any actors step outside the PR guidelines and reveal something of their true selves, whether it’s Rogen sticking around after his segment on the Stern show to participate in an exchange with the two porn stars who were coming in next, or Heigl piping up about the various perceived injustices to her career.

But she might want to try strive for a little consistency. Doing that scene in “The Ugly Truth” after bitching about “Knocked Up” strips you of all credibility.

ESPN’s Erin Andrews, currently taking a planned vacation from the sports behemoth, hasn’t publicly commented since the illegally-shot-naked-video controversy. Andrews, who is 100 percent the victim in this story, has turned down all media requests. Now we’re hearing she called 911 from her Atlanta home last week when two “paparazzi” parked outside the house and apparently knocked on her door.

Erin Andrews\’ 911 call

It’s very strange to hear Andrews explain to the befuddled 911 operator that she’s the woman who’s all over the news because of a video of her naked in a hotel room. You can hear the anguish and frustration in Andrews’ tone as she deals with the “assholes” outside her door. But is she really being treated like “fucking Britney Spears”? Hardly. Especially when it turns out the “paparazzi” were actually just two aggressive reporters trying to score an interview.

Yes, it’s intrusive and obnoxious when the press knocks on your door. Just ask Rod Blagojevich or a thousand other public figures that have been involved in juicy stories, whether of their own doing or not. And yes, it “sucks” that Andrews has been exploited and has become a story when she didn’t ask to become a story. But as a reporter, she should understand why those two men showed up on her doorstep. And as a reporter who had just been hurled into a media firestorm, she should have realized that her 911 call would be made public. Maybe she wasn’t thinking about that at the time. I’m guessing she wasn’t, given the language.

Don’t get me wrong. I feel sorry for Erin. She doesn’t deserve any of this bullshit. I hope that when she returns to ESPN, the athletes she covers and the fans who sometimes do everything short of drooling all over her will show her the utmost respect. I wouldn’t bet on it.

Meanwhile, the creep(s) who shot that video footage haven’t been caught. Yet.

This is just weird.

Who the $#&!@! even want a wax statue in their likeness??? I always thought wax museums were creepy and just…pointless. I can’t imagine spending any time walking around some room filled with wax likenesses of princesses, actors and politicians.

The New York Daily News is reporting that baseball commissioner Bud Selig is seriously thinking about lifting Pete Rose’s lifetime suspension from the game.

Selig might reinstate Rose.

It’s about time.

Don’t get me wrong: like many baseball fans, I think Pete Rose is a Hall of Fame jerk as well as a Hall of Fame player. He bet on baseball games, he lied about betting on baseball games, and he played the part of the arrogant, whining victim when he should have come clean and admitted his mistakes.

But since when does being a jerk or a liar disqualify someone from the Hall of Fame?

There’s never been any proof Rose bet against his team, either as a player or a manager. Granted, if you’re managing a team and you’ve got money on a game, it could influence your decision-making process, to the long-term detriment of the ball club. You leave an injured player in the game, you bring in a reliever who should be resting a tired arm, you potentially sacrifice the greater good in the interest of winning that one game. (Not that there are any specific examples of Rose doing that.) And of course the mere spectre of gambling influences lurking in the clubhouse is bad for baseball.

But as a PLAYER, Rose remains the all-time leader in hits, games played and at-bats. He had 17 All-Star apperances at five different positions, he won the MVP, he was a three-time World Series winner and he has three batting titles. His stats are above reproach, which is more than you can say for dozens of All-Star players of the last 20 years.

Rose has served his time and then some. Nobody’s going to hire him to manage a team anyway. At best he’d get an honorary position with the Cincinnati Reds, and I’m not so sure they’d be interested in bringing him back into the fold, given that he’s hardly a people person.

But the guy’s a first ballot Hall of Famer, and he deserves his official spot among the game’s all-time greats.

You knew this was going to happen as soon as the “Wedding Dance” video became a viral sensation. The entire wedding party was invited to New York to appear on “Today” and re-create the moment for national TV.

Wedding march on \”Today.\”

It’s still fun, but much of the charm of the original is lost. But at least we didn’t find out this whole thing was a hoax, ala that idiotic “commercial” for Sprite or the supposedly spontaneous marriage proposal at Disney World.

UPDATE: The fans have spoken, and you’re right: the guy isn’t as close to the ball as it appears from this one angle. From other shots, you can see it wasn’t a close call. So no need to ‘out’ this fan, as he didn’t really come that close to messing with history!

Cheers,

RR

Everyone in Chicago—well, everyone who is a Sox fan in Chicago—is still talking about Mark Buehrle’s perfect game yesterday, and the remarkable catch by Dewayne Wise that preserved the gem in the ninth inning. Sports Illustrated has a terrific article on the catch.

The Wise Catch.

Check out the AP photo accompanying the SI piece. The fan reaching over the railing comes perilously close to interfering with the play.

Had the fan made contact with the ball, it almost certainly would have been ruled a home run or a ground rule double. As it is, he could have distracted Wise from making the amazing grab. Can you imagine the uproar on the South Side if that fan had ruined Buehrle’s bid for a perfect game? Forget about security guards; they would have needed some of Obama’s Secret Service guys to escort the kid out of the park.

Does anybody recognize this fan? We need to hear from him. Seeing as how he DIDN’T interfere with the play, he doesn’t need to go into hiding, ala Cubs fan Steve Bartman. I’d just love to hear his side of the story, and (I would guess) his monumental relief at escaping sports infamy.

Yes this is dorky, but this is also kinda sweet and funny and touching. God bless these kids.

I’m just wondering if somewhere in America at that same time, an all-black wedding featured the wedding party dancing down the aisle to the tune of “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy.”

Probably not.