John Travolta Announces That He's Firmly In Quentin Tarantino's Group

John Travolta announced that he's pulling for Quentin Tarantino to win at the upcoming Oscars. John Travolta once starred in the critically acclaimed PULP FICTION for Quentin Tarantino. And as the film catalog grows for the controversial director, his chances of winning top honors also seem to be growing. Right now, it may be a tight race between UP IN THE AIR, AVATAR and INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS for best picture with AVATAR probably the slight favorite of the three films.

Something For The Wee Ones

To help to curb the growing teenage pregnancy rates in Switzerland, health authorities have urged condom manufacturers to make smaller condoms made to be by preteen boys aged as young as age 12. The smaller condoms will be named "Hotshot" and will cost about $7 in packs of six units.

Swiss studies discovered that condom use among the youngest boys was infrequent, as well as most adult sized condoms didn't work, resulting in the call for smaller sizes to be used by younger boys. Studies also indicated increased sexual activity among younger boys than compared to a study in the 1990's.

Sarah Palin's TONIGHT SHOW Appearance Good For Leno Ratings

Jay Leno continues to draw better ratings than the ill-fated Conan O'Brien version of the TONIGHT SHOW. Last night, with the help of Sarah Palin, he pulled in 5 million viewers, besting David Letterman by 1.6 million viewers who had Mitt Romney on. It was rather strange to see these competing GOP hopefuls both on TV last night.

Sarah Palin managed a few good one-liner laughs doing her own version of a monologue as well. You could easily see that she would be well at home hosting her own show. However, it's her greatly oversimplified views of economics and other complex topics that always draw most critics. And even media critics suggest that she continues to remain badly overexposed to public audiences, resulting in a public fatigue factor by many and declining approval numbers, even by many GOP voters. Palin probably didn't advance herself much as a serious political entity last night, yet her fans probably greatly enjoyed her appearance regardless. Then again, Richard Nixon's small comedy guess bit on LAUGH-IN in 1968 did help to soften his image, and helped to set the stage for his 1968 political comeback to win the presidency.

By contrast, Mitt Romney appeared more serious and more substantial in his David Letterman appearance than Sarah Palin who looked like she was attempting to be more entertaining and funny. But no doubt, both Jay Leno and David Letterman were very pleased at this show of political star-power last night, and decent ratings by both prove that audiences were willing to watch.

DVD Review: LAW ABIDING CITIZEN

LAW ABIDING CITIZEN may not be the very best work from the very talented Jamie Foxx, yet it's a pretty enjoyable film as long as you're willing to suspend a little disbelief and just allow yourself to enjoy the story. Jamie Foxx plays a prosecutor who really dissatisfied a husband who's family was killed by two violent home invasion robbers. The husband, played by actor Gerard Butler, is an electronics and weapons wiz in the defense industry and uses his money and power to exact revenge on everyone involved in the case including the killers, the judge and the prosecutor.

While the storyline may border on outright absurdity, the film is still more than enjoyable enough as far as better quality action or crime dramas go. While Jamie Foxx certainly won't winning a best actor award here, yet he's a decent actor here, as is Gerald Butler whose last major film was 300. This movie is certainly entertaining enough to satisfy. Grab a good snack and enjoy this popcorn film.

The Bottom Line: Not high art by any means, but just a decently produced tough and gritty action/crime snack drama that satisfies. ++1/2(Two and a half stars, better than fair, nearly good).

Jay Leno's TONIGHT SHOW Return Draws 6.6 Million Viewers

Jay Leno's TONIGHT SHOW return drew in a staggering 6.6 million viewers, well crushing David Letterman's 3.8 million LATE SHOW viewers last night. During the Winter Olympics, there was heavy promotion for Jay Leno's return to the late night throne. Fortunately, there didn't appear to be any jabs at Conan O'Brien last night from Leno. However, Howard Stern was invited to comment on the CBS EARLY SHOW, and didn't have a kind word for Leno.

Leno managed numerous funny jabs at Toyota and other popular targets. Jamie Fox proved to be an excellent guest as always. mixing in some great comic moments, proving why he's one of America's greatest stars. Olympic women's ski champion, Lindsey Vonn also was a great guest.

Overall, Leno's return to the 11:35 slot seemed flawless. His show seemed to fully recover from the awful effort at prime time quite nicely. But, how well Leno's ratings hold up over the coming weeks is a question that remains to be answered. Has Leno suffered any damage from hurt fans of Conan O'Brien who seem to blame both NBC and Leno for toppling their favorite host.

Abe Lincoln: America's First "Coolster"?

Historians recently came up with a strange little fact. It appears that Abe Lincoln was the first famous person ever to use the word "cool" to describe something. Wow! Many people think that this slang term dates back to the 1950's beatnik era or even the later 60's hippie scene. But no way, Jose. Old Honest Abe is the man. Can you dig it?

No word on whether the great president wore shades around his Oval Office digs, or whether he ended slavery because it just wasn't "cool".

War Films Recruit The Oscar Voter Troops

Strangely, the two war films nominated for best picture this year have friendly forces who have been recruiting the Oscar voter troops. In February, the producer of THE HURT LOCKER, Nicholas Chartier, emailed a number of Oscar voters urging them not to vote for AVATAR(although not quite in those open terms). Over the weekend, the film's producer issued an apology for his very overt attempt to sway Oscar voters.

And as bad as this was, an even stranger attempt by some rabbis to influence the Oscar voting in favor of the Quentin Tarantino film, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, has recently developed. Strangely, a few rabbis feel that the storyline of this odd revenge film is loosely like a retelling of the revenge story of Esther from the Old Testament, in which Hamans's ten sons even swung from the gallows and 75,000 Persians were supposedly killed as the ancient Jews avoided extermination at the hands of the Persians. As the Jewish celebration of Purim takes place on Sunday through Monday, some in the Jewish community are making a sort of push to propel the film by Quentin Tarantino towards the Oscar win.

A number of synagogues even arranged for screenings of the Quentin Tarantino film including a question and answer session at one synagogue with the famous, but controversial, filmmaker. For many Jews, the film which portrays the violent death of Hitler and before he can exact the Holocaust is a great celebration. But for his part, Tarantino claims to not have known about the revenge elements being similar to the Old Testament account of the fall of the Persian Empire before they could liquidate the Jews of the region.

INGLORIOUS BASTERDS does have many memorable moments such as the scene where the female hero, Shoshanna(whose character parallels Esther of the Old Testament) puts on makeup that looks very much like Native American war paint for her final mission to kill the dreaded Nazi officer who murdered her family.

Whether all of this extra effort by some interests to propel their pet films to the top of the Oscar film heap really works yet remains to be seen. The Oscar voting ends tomorrow and the awards ceremony is in a few days.