Blog Posts by Fast Talking Dame

Methinks Taylor Lautner doth protest too much.

The Wolf Pack pup showed up on Letterman in a suit and tie, but had to face down some tough grilling about his constant state of shirtlessness. Instead of defending his rights to show his six-pack, Lautner shuffled the blame to that whole boy-to-werewolf transformation.

Oh contraire, my burger-beefed buck. Searches for "taylor lautner martial arts" background compelled an investigation, which uncovered a striptease addiction way back to when he was 11.

Warning: Don't blink in the first seven seconds...and prepared to be deeply deeply disturbed. And to think, all this time, we all were worried about girls in beauty pageants.

Spies...with kids?

Truth be told, after the FBI arrested 11 alleged Russian spies (and later lost the paymaster), one of the first post-Cold War reactions was bemusement, if not amusement. Spies, in our suburban midst? Forget that Obama had days earlier treated the Russian prime minister to a place called Ray's Hell Burger. With Americans baring our souls online and in reality tell-alls like "Jersey Shore" and "Real Housewives of New York," what secrets are left to tell?

But as people probed more (beyond the comely Anna Chapman, who has seized most of the online attention) and got beyond the gadgets and secret codes, a jaw-dropping picture emerged: These spies raised kids in America, presumably with American values and pursuing American pastimes. Some are under 18. If thrillers are to believed, the first rule about spies is that nobody must know you're a spy. That means deceiving the kids, who have a habit of telling family truths at the most inopportune times.

And suddenly,

Once upon a time, M. Night Shyamalan was a wonderboy. His "debut film," portended a breakout of Hitchcockian proportions, and his very name - M. Night-breathed otherwordly allure. Now, some 11 years later, the director's reputation is staked on a Nickelodeon cartoon. The Los Angeles Times, which kindly undercounted the self-inflicted damage to his last two pictures, described "The Last Airbender" as his studio's last gamble.

The movie-based on the ancient adventures of a young "avatar" (no relation to James Cameron's blue critters) out to stop four nations from warring-generated mighty advance buzz. But given Shyamalan's tenuous track record, he really couldn't afford to stir up a controversy even greater than the fears that protective fanboys normally harbor over beloved works. "Whitewashing" accusations have persisted since casting was first announced 18 months ago. Miffed fans who respected the cartoon's "culturally nuanced depiction of an Asian/Inuit fantasy world"