Word: danae
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Bush is taking the slight personally, it's not showing. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino put the best face on the situation at the daily briefing in Washington today. "The President is very grateful for this opportunity. He's going to express his gratitude to all the people gathered in the hall," she said. "He will talk a little bit about the hurricane, but mainly the speech is going to focus on John McCain and why he believes that John McCain has the qualities that are demanded by the Commander in Chief role...
...actor in question is Dana Marschz - his last name is nearly unpronounceable, just the first reason he has trouble getting jobs - and he is played by the English comedian Steve Coogan with the lank hair, toothy smile and blithe sweetness that recall Tiny Tim, the eccentric ukuleleist of the '60s. Coogan has been everywhere lately, starring in little movies (A Cock and Bull Story: Tristram Shandy) and guesting in bigger ones. He had a brief, explosive turn as the director in Tropic Thunder, and he's popped up in Finding Amanda, Hot Fuzz, Marie Antoinette, Night at the Museum...
...Dana, to whom Coogan gives full emotional value, is the flip side of that showbiz coin. He's lost so many auditions, been told no so many times, that his actor's ego exists only on the memory of what he once hoped to be. But that memory is strong enough to keep him going. Acting is no longer what he does; it's what he is. He's the slave of his abiding addiction for approval, despite the daily, hourly, minute-ly blows to his self-esteem...
...buffeting at the high school where he teaches drama. He's adored by two misfit students, the gushing Epiphany Sellars (Phoebe Strobe) and the not-yet-aware-of-his-own-gayness Rand Posin (Skylar Astin). The other kids, including a bunch of Latinos bused in from another school, treat Dana with loud contempt, and the principal is ready and eager to close down the Drama Department, i.e. Dana. His grand idea has been to stage productions of old hit movies - Erin Brockovich played by teens - which are routinely panned by the local critic, another student at the school...
...mechanics of Dana's despair and salvation are managed with no special grace by writers Andrew Fleming and Pam Brady, and haphazardly directed by Fleming. He's done wan remakes of The In-laws and Nancy Drew, but the film closest to Hamlet 2 was the 1999 comedy Dick, which enlisted a slew of Saturday Night Live veterans (Will Ferrell, Harry Shearer, Ana Gasteyer, Jim Breuer) in the fanciful tale of two girls (Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams) who wander off from a White House tour and get entangled with President Nixon. That one sounded funnier than...