Can You Guess Why I'm Going To Watch This Season of Celebrity Apprentice?

One question: What's an Aubrey O'Day?

edTunes: Shake Your Love

This is my all-time favorite song which also happens to be from my all-time favorite singer. In my high school years, while the rest of the school was into The Cure, Guns and Roses, Depeche Mode or Metallica little ol' me was off on my own listening to Debbie Gibson. My first real celebrity crush. This song never fails to cheer me up!

My Week In Movies - Debbie Gibson & Tiffany Wrestle In A Cake

The Social Network (2010) A rare viewing of a Best Picture nominated film The story of how Facebook came to be is pretty darn interesting. The way this movie goes about telling that story is a little less interesting. Right out of the gate, the dialogue is very hard to follow. That's supposed to be a gimmick but it didn't work for me or the other people I was watching this with. It was exhausting just getting through the first scene. The movie also takes about 20 minutes before it clearly establishes that it's being told as a series of flashbacks from the point of view of several different people at different points in time. It's all a bit confusing. Perhaps, if you're a young whipper-snapper and enjoy that kind of thing - it's all good for you. It took me about an hour to finally decide to ride the movie all the way out. Like I said, it's a pretty interesting story especially if you are like myself and enjoy the Facebook quite a bit. The lead, Jesse Eisenberg finally seems to drop him Michael Cerea impression, and Justin Timberlake (as the guy who founded Napster) is really good as well. In an odd bit of casting, Brenda Strong who plays some girl on the obnoxious Suite Life of Zach & Cody on The Disney Channel is also in the cast. She shows that she can act, instead of the over acting she does on Disney Channel, and it's kind of wild to see somebody from a kid's show in a sex scene. By the way, it's Rated PG-13. You would think a movie like this would carry an R rating, but I would bet they were shooting to keep this accessible to kids. Language and drug use is kept to a minimum and the sex scene is mostly implied with no nudity.


Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (2010) I'm not a big fan of style-over-substance in movies, but I thought this one might be a little different since it was a romantic comedy at heart. Visually, this flick is very fun to look at. Much of the film is made to look like a video game or a comic book and it's all a neat element to the film. But, this movie is too long. There's not enough story here to fill out two hours and the story is so self-aware silly that it can't carry the weight of a two hour runtime. In order to date a new girl, Scott Pilgrim must defeat her seven evil ex's. There's plenty of fight scenes that are exaggerated fun, but after the third fight it starts to get a little old. Rated PG-13 for sexual situations, some mild swearing and stylized violence.

Mega Python Vs. Gateroid (2011) Simply put, this is TV-movie film making at it's finest! The battle of giant reptiles is the first new SyFy Network original movie of the new year. It pits giant steroid injected gators against giant snakes who ate steroid injected gators. The movie also features the first on-screen match up of 80's teen pop stars Debbie Gibson and Tiffany. Debbie Gibson plays a radical environmentalist who tries to save rare snakes from captivity. Tiffany plays an Everglades park ranger who attempts to save the dwindling gator population of her park. The reptiles do battle in grade Z computer special effects while the pop stars do battle at a charity gala with cakes and pies. This sci-fi romp is masterfully crafted. It's tongue placed firmly in cheek, it never once winks at the camera that it's all silly but also never once for a moment takes itself seriously. The story is simple, tight and moves quickly like a great roller coaster ride. For someone like myself, who has been a huge life-long Debbie Gibson fan it was a treat to see Debbie in a leading role and to see her match wits with Tiffany. It's been noted in the press before that the "rivalry" between Deb and Tif was mostly manufactured by publicists back in their hay-day. Lately, Debbie and Tiffany have been playing up their silly feud for entertainment purposes. It's the great basis for a really silly, enjoyable movie that I look forward to watching again. Rated TV-14, quite a bit of swearing and violence plus it was a bit gory in parts.

New Feature!
January movie count: 20
Best new movie: Waking Sleeping Beauty
Best rewatch: The Little Mermaid
Worst Movie: Cavegirl

Ed's Bookshelf #2 Debbie Gibson: Electric Star

Ya gotta keep copies of the classics around! I read this book cover to cover several times in my youth. Back then we didn't have the internets to keep us updated on our favorite celebrities every move 24 hours a day. Debbie Gibson: Electric Star (1990, Bantam Books) keep me filled in on everything I needed to know about my favorite singer. Seeing as how Debbie was only 19 years old when the book was published, and she had only been in the public eye for a little over two years, there isn't much story to tell. The book dives into her fascination with music at an early age, her education, appearances on STAR SEARCH and then her big break and massive popularity for two years. One chapter goes into detail about the men (or boys) in Debbie's life. She was good friends with Scott Grimes who's big claim to fame was appearing in CRITTERS and CRITTERS 2: THE MAIN COURSE (both fine films!). And there are details about a failed relationship with Brian Robbins, who played Eric on HEAD OF THE CLASS. (He later went on to direct GOOD BURGER and VARSITY BLUES.) The last chapter of the book gives us a complete discography of Debbie's work: all TWO albums that she had released at that point in time.

As all good works of literature do, the last few pages of this book are set aside for plugging other titles from the publisher. Other titles you could have ordered through your school book club at the time included Alyssa Milano: She's the Boss and Kirk Cameron: Dream Guy. Just for S&G's I Googled author Randi Reisfeld and discovered that she's also written books on Nancy Kerrigan, Hanson, and Prince William. In addition she's also written several books based on the TV series CLUELESS and MOESHIA. (That's awesome)

If you wanna read about the time I met Debbie Gibson, check out this post from August 28, 2006.

Never Leave Home Without Them

Credit Cards...Shhhmedit Cards! It's important to keep vital information on you at all times, especially in the case of an emergency. That's why for the last 18 years I've been carrying around my Alf Fan Club Card and my Debbie Gibson International Fan Club membership cards. In all honesty, they didn't make the cut three years ago when I downsized my wallet, but I've still got them! I used to love joining Fan Clubs and getting mail back in the day. The Alf Fan Club came with stickers and a quarterly newsletter that I still have a few issues of. (surprise!) I'll have to share some of those at a later date. I also doubled this card's usefulness by writing my mom's work phone number on the back, when I was in high school. So, it's served many purposes over the years. When I go to a Chinese restaurant and show my Alf Fan Club Card, they know they don't have to pretend that there's not cat-meat in my entree!

My Debbie Gibson Fan Club card has always brought me a certain amount of pride, as you can see I was one of the first 500 people to join her fan club when she first became popular at the end of 1987. Before Debbie's flame of pop culture relevance burned out in 1990, her fan club boasted a membership of hundreds of thousands of members. I'm not kidding! Even if your not a fan of her music, ya gotta admire Deb. Even though Debbie appeared nude in Playboy a few years ago, she never resorted to shaving off all her hair and attacking a car with an umbrella just for attention! I told ya, that Deborah Gibson is all class!