Bill Simmons: This is my favorite Super Bowl commercial ever. Back in 1992, I desperately hoped it would start a trend of big brands using smoking-hot women to strut in slow motion while purchasing their products, a trend that should have started back in the mid-1980s when Tawny Kitaen was rolling around on top of David Coverdale’s Jaguar in the “Here I Go Again” video (even if that wasn’t an ad). Every television ad has one goal: to make us stop whatever we’re doing and keep watching the ad until its completion, while also noticing whatever product is being pimped (and maybe even subconsciously wanting to use that product). I’d argue that this Pepsi ad accomplishes that. Seeing Cindy in slow motion in her prime almost made me like Pepsi, a product that I’ve hated over the course of my life more than any product other than Heineken. Cindy didn’t spark a glut of commercials with smoking-hot women strutting in slow motion for no real reason whatsoever, but maybe there’s still time. I just hope Heineken doesn’t try this idea with Kate Upton.
"MARRIED TO A CRAZY MAN" The Saga Of Russell Brand And Katy Perry: "Katy Perry awoke alone in her Kauai, Hawaii, rental home December 30, ready to organize a party for New Year's Eve." A trial separation exploded in flames when Perry realized "her husband of 14 months had reneged on the deal, blindsiding her by filing for divorce." Katy "struggled to make sense of it all" while in the U.K. Brand "even released a statement to the press." This all compounded Katy's "private hell" wherein she had been "trying to salvage a doomed union." Brand's friends say he "has an insatiable desire for pushing limits." But "he soon learned that, for all her whipped cream-shooting bras and double entendres" Katy is actually "a good Christian girl" and "Russell didn't like the real Katy the more he got to know her." Now Perry, who really thought "marriage is forever" is devastated, since she "feels she failed." Katy initially "used her 'wild child' persona to keep him sexually infatuated" but just "a year in" and "Brand was already bored." At the start of their courtship "Katy was kinky" and Brand "was very attracted to her. When things got bad, if they had a roll in the hay, they were always better after." But all that kinky sex was "never enough" and "Russell doesn't like being alone." Katy's career interfered. Brand "always needs someone there, and that's not Katy -- she's busier than he is." Without constant female companionship to keep him in line, "Russell goes to a dark place." This dark place is on the internet, where Brand "really gets off on one particular porno with a guy in a wheelchair. He's attracted to things he can't imagine happening to him." For the couple, "all their sexual pyrotechnics couldn't mask a larger problem": Russell's sober lifestyle opposed Katy's party girl antics. But was the real problem the imbalance of fame and Brand's resentment of his wife being a bigger star? "She had so much going on this year, and there were so many times when he wasn't there." Perhaps it's because "being called 'Katy Perry's husband' bothers him." After Katy's SNL hosting gig (which he skipped) "he told her that she wasn't that funny. That really hurt." Now Brand will "no longer have to pretend to be her biggest fan." He is already "ringless" and "on the prowl" in the UK while Katy "continues to nurse her broken heart." Who gets custody of the cats???
