Karen Cartwright imagines herself in a shimmering white dress, center stage, belting out that ultimate dreamer’s song, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” She stretches her hands above her head, ever so dramatically, because she’s really into this performance – she isn’t just singing these words, she’s feeling them. She closes her eyes. Oh, yeah. She’s all up inside this song and we immediately understand the subtext here: these lyrics have been etched into her heart since she was a small girl, head already full of big city hopes and dreams about makin’ it. A cell phone rings, jolting Karen back to reality. She’s in a small room – far from the spotlight- auditioning for some jaded folks who somehow can’t see that she’s from Iowa and that she has aspirations! How wide-eyed does a girl have to be before someone gives her a leading role in a Broadway musical, yo? American Idol is all about regular people with unexpected talent, yearning for stardom. (Well, it used to be. Now, according to the most recent promos, it’s all about kids falling off of stages.) Katherine McPhee is an American Idol runner-up, so I guess she’s suited for this Karen part on Smash, NBC’s much-hyped drama about the creation of a musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe. McPhee’s Karen has a fresh-faced charm about her, the kind of girl you’d maybe instinctively root for, and the character’s Midwestern origins are, I believe, supposed to make her that much more appealing. The

Nice work America, you really did it this time. This was the season that everybody was finally supposed to stop watching American Idol. This was the season they were coming back without all of their signature judges, surely a death knell for any long running television show. But instead of abandoning a sinking ship, you people kept watching the show in bigger numbers than ever, and now there’s renewed interest in the career of replacement judge Jennifer Lopez. I’m not saying that I have anything against Jennifer Lopez. She’s probably a nice enough rich person, and I respect the size and shape of her butt, but I was pretty content living in a world where she didn’t star in lame romantic comedies anymore, and those days appear to soon be over. Reports are that Lopez is in negotiations to appear in two films. The first is the Jason Statham starring action film Parker, which has been previously reported as being directed by Taylor Hackford and adapted from the written works of Richard Stark. Parker is a literary character who has been brought to the big screen before, most notably as played by Mel Gibson in Payback and Lee Marvin in Point Blank. If Lopez signed on to the film she would be playing the girl. I can’t imagine there’s much more to it than that.

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