I’ll never forget the thrill I felt reading Werner Herzog’s advice on how to become a film director, which boils down to skipping film school, taking up boxing, walking everywhere and working in a sex club. So where’s my Oscar, damn it?

Yet when Juno was delivered to theaters around the country I remember feeling nothing but outrage over the stripper-turned-screenwriter Diablo Cody hype. I found the film incredibly tedious (though in retrospect I was probably a bit hard on Cody’s writing in my review – after reading excerpts from the script I think I had a much bigger problem with Reitman’s directing), but I had an even bigger problem with the condescension surrounding Cody herself: Look, a stripper who can put together more than three sentences!

I often find myself in general sticking up for those who society deems “bimbos,” from muscle boys (most of whom are walking encyclopedias of anatomy and nutritional chemistry, if not exactly classic film connoisseurs) to sex workers (the majority savvy businesspeople), who are the exact opposite of their stereotypes, and often just a lethal combination of being incredibly intelligent and equally messed up. The condescension comes in the form of pity as well – “how sad for Courtney Love to have been a stripper” – as if the vast majority of the trade is made up of zombie sex slaves, not consenting adults who willingly chose their profession. As if it were always the industry of last resort.

In other words, Cody’s not the brainy, together exception even if she’s not the Academy Award-winning rule. You just don’t hear about “smart sex workers” because of the stigma attached to the oldest profession in the world. Cody was already publicly “out” as a stripper by the time she penned Juno thanks to her book, but most sex workers only make news in Eliot Spitzer-type scandal not art. Thus the myths remain firmly in place.

So today I’d like to follow up last week’s tribute to the valiant Eddie Izzard (who downplays the prurient aspect of cross-dressing by simply acknowledging it, thus demystifying it, thus transcending the taboo) by celebrating four more talented folks who have made the transition from sex industry to mainstream screen.

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We’re less than a week away from the release of Tropic Thunder, and as the reviews and puff pieces make their way onto the web, there’s one thing clearly uniting the media’s coverage: talk of Tom Cruise’s appearance in a small role as a Hollywood studio boss. Everyone seems to agree that he steals the show and that his performance — or the joke surrounding it — is one of the comedy’s major highlights, if not the actual best part.

Of course, we can expect a good cameo from Cruise every now and then. He showed up for a bit part in Young Guns and played himself as playing “Austin Powers” in Austin Powers in Goldmember. But from what it sounds like, his role in Tropic Thunder is featured for longer than might qualify as a cameo. Some are regardless referring to the performance as an “extended cameo”, and in theory it certainly fits in with the huge crop of so-called “ironic cameos” that have become popular in movies and TV in the last ten years.

Still, despite my not having yet seen the movie, I’m thinking that Tom Cruise’s involvement in Tropic Thunder is more like the following list, which consists of merely small roles filled by big stars. You might consider some of them to be technically cameos, especially the ones that aren’t integral to the plot and/or call attention to themselves. But with each of the roles I’ve included, I consider them to be either the best part of their respective movies or at least a major highlight, which is how Cruise’s appearance is being touted. Anyway, forgive me for trying to come up with something different than simply a best cameo list, even if the focus here seems less than clear.

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Even though some of last year’s Comic-Con secrets were leaked to the web ahead of time, the 2007 SDCC was a huge deal as far as revelations go. Whether it was the unveiling of Karen Allen’s involvement in Indiana Jones and the Then-Still-Not-Subtitled Fourth Installment or cast updates for Watchmen and Star Trek or a bit of clarification on what the hell that Cloverfield movie was, Comic-Con 2007 left us super excited and highly anticipatory for the next year of movie releases.

But after a quick glance, the 2008 convention doesn’t seem like it will have as many big announcements. There should be plenty of new footage shown from movies like Watchmen (making its second Comic-Con round) and The Spirit (hopefully there’s some better looking stuff than the most recent trailer gave us), but what secrets are set to be let out of the bag?

Here’s 10 things I hope they reveal over the next few days:

1. Arnold Schwarzenegger is back in Terminator Salvation - If this really happens, I’ll be flabbergasted. But a guy can hope, at least for official word on a cameo. And there’s no better place than Comic-Con for a confirmation to happen. Well, I guess if Warner Bros. could keep it a secret until the movie opens next May, then that would actually be better. But that’s impossible nowadays.
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Are you a supporter of gay marriage?
“I know nothing about it. I don’t follow that.”
Why doesn’t it interest you?
“The same reason heterosexual marriage doesn’t seem to interest me.”

–From Questions for Gore Vidal in The New York Times Magazine, 6/15/08.

Amen, sister. One of the perks of being queer is that you’re not expected to engage in unnatural acts like high school proms and monogamy. So in honor of the hedonistic right to our own guilt-free, queer Mardi Gras, here are some subversive suggestions that will get you in the mood and take you back to that more innocent, less commercial “Over The Rainbow” time.
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A lot of folks are talking about Sundance doc Bigger, Stronger, Faster, including Karina (full review here). Director/narrator Chris Bell explores the hot-button issue of steroid use with both intensely personal passages and darkly comic Moore-esque exposés. In this interview we talk about steroid use, the war on drugs, stumbling into documentary filmmaking, and a new script about the LA dating scene.

 

 Chris Bell Interview [6:16m]: Play Now | Download

Chris Bell