Towleroad Talking Points: My Mom Thinks I'm Sexy

PHOTO OF THE DAY: The Man of Steel is all tied up.

BY SAM GREISMAN

A look back at today's top stories

POLITICS

Still no word from the Supreme Court today regarding if they will take on DOMA or Prop 8 cases. Our Ari Waldman tell us what that means and what might be next.

Mitt Romney has finally found a gig, post-election failure. He is headed back to Marriott. Let's hope he stays there.

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ENTERTAINMENT

Les Miserables doesn't hit theaters until Christmas but, the studio has released five new clips of some of the songs from the adaptation. Last night my mother, Sally Field, appeared on Oprah's Next Chapter and among other things called me "sexy". Awkward.

The founder of LOGO has launched an LGBT-themed YouTube channel. The channel will feature shows from a variety of LGBT friendly personalities. On the heels of J Crew featuring a gay wedding in their "Wedding Album", JET Magazine is running a gay-wedding announcement in their December issue. Also check out the trailer for the gay-themed Five Dances.

And I don't know if this qualifies as "entertainment", but William and Kate are expecting a royal baby!

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VIDEOS OF THE DAY

This time-lapse video of planes landing in San Diego is bizarrely beautiful.

So first the gays told straight guys that they would marry their girlfriends if they didn't support gay marriage. Then the straighties said "go ahead". Now the girlfriends have something to say about all this. Also dolphins may be developing a taste for human flesh.

Michael Bloomberg Called Hillary Clinton, Encouraged Her to Run for NYC Mayor in 2013

Probably not the 3 am phone call Hillary was expecting.

The NYT reports:

In a telephone call confirmed by three people, Mr. Bloomberg encouraged Mrs. Clinton to consider entering the 2013 mayor’s race, trading international diplomacy for municipal management on the grandest scale.

She would, the mayor suggested, be a perfect fit.

Much about the call, which occurred some months ago, remains shrouded in mystery. But Mr. Bloomberg’s overture to the former first lady highlights the level of his anxiety about the current crop of candidates, his eagerness to recruit a replacement who can rival his stature and his determination to become a kingmaker in the political arena he will soon exit.

And what of NYC City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, thought assured of Bloomberg's endorsement?

In many corners of the city’s political world, Mr. Bloomberg’s eventual endorsement of Ms. Quinn has been considered a foregone conclusion, barring the entry of a big-name candidate into the field.

But the mayor’s conversation with Mrs. Clinton, even after he had begun to telegraph his allegiance to Ms. Quinn, suggests that, to a degree previously unknown, his thinking has been unsettled.

“He is looking for somebody he can feel comfortable handing the reins over to,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a longtime New York City political operative who worked on Mr. Bloomberg’s last campaign.

Previously...
NYT: Mayor Bloomberg to Endorse Christine Quinn as Successor [tlrd]

Norway's Crown Princess Flew to India, Posed as Nanny to Care for Gay Employee's Twins Born to Surrogate

Norway's Crown Princess Mette-Marit went the extra mile for a gay palace employee who could not get a travel visa to care for his infant twins born to a surrogate mother in India, Reuters reports:

Armed with a diplomatic passport that granted her immediate access, the future queen jumped on a plane in late October when the employee, who is also a friend, and his husband were unable to travel to care for their newborns.

"For me, this is about two babies lying alone in a New Delhi hospital," Mette-Marit said in a statement. "I was able to travel and wanted to do what I could."

She did not alert Indian authorities and spent several days with the babies at the Manav Medicare Centre, where staff assumed the wife of Norway's Crown Prince Haakon was a nanny.

A relative of one of the fathers eventually took over while the palace kept her absence under wraps. Said Mette-Marit: "Sometimes life presents you with situations with few good solutions. This was one of those."

2012 in Movies, a Supercut: VIDEO

Some industrious soul has done a bang-up job of stitching together moments from dozens of this year's stand-out films. Here's the list.

Check it out, AFTER THE JUMP...

Writes the industrious editor:

PRIMA PARTE - The Pruitt-Igoe Myth: Pruitt-Igoe was a large urban housing project that became infamous for symbolizing the shattered dreams of many and was subject to a great documentary this year. By the late 1960's, it had gone from a promise of a better future for thousands of families to a place of desolation, poverty and crime. Not unlike the fate of its inhabitants, many characters in this year's motion pictures have had to endure a vision of the future that demanded for their hopes to make room for despair. From the Orwellian districts of The Hunger Games to the corporate conspiracies of Branded and the highly-controlled buildings of The Raid and Dredd 3D, dystopia certainly made its comeback this year.

SECONDA PARTE - Tick Tick Boom: A song that has been attempted in online movie mashups countless times. I always wanted to take a crack at it and celebrate every note of explosive silliness that transpire through this epic hit from The Hives. The inspiration I got from Tick Tick Boom wasn't that it clearly promotes balls-out action all over the walls but that it does it with a sense of self-awareness and light parody. This is precisely the tone that we've found in offerings such as Battleship, The Expendables 2, and (last but not least) Joss Whedon's The Avengers. These movies all know they're silly but rather than convincing us of the contrary, they decide to embrace it and focus on giving us what we crave: great walls of fire erupting everywhere and heroes who can't bother to look at them.

PARTE FINALE - Everything is Connected: My third segment was an attempt to explore what can only described in Hollywood as the merger of mainstream blockbusters and small independent films. Now more than ever, young and emerging filmmakers have the affordable technology in their post-production to make their shoestring-budgeted features feel as visually striking as a major studio production. On the other side of the coin, the big studios are increasing financing on their Oscar hopefuls and make sure to spare no expense in order to make a resourceful production look as indie as possible. I tried to blend the little movies, the big ones, and put my emphasis on those who happen to be one but pretending to be the other.

Barney Frank Discusses Life as an Out Congressman in a 'Washington Post' Exit Interview: VIDEO

The Washington Post's Ed O'Keefe sits down with retiring Congressman Barney Frank to talk about his coming out and life in the public eye for an out gay lawmaker:

Frank said he’s never counseled another lawmaker about coming out, just a few state legislators. They should publicly disclose their homosexuality, if they are ready, he said, “because your ability to live as an integrated human person is more important than anything.”

“Do it if you feel that strongly, forgetting about the political consequences,” Frank said. “Once you do, then your job is once you’re out, if there are people who are deeply prejudiced against you because of who you are, forget them, you can’t waste your time on them.”

Gay politicians also need to avoid being pigeonholed as single-issue candidates only concerned with gay issues, Frank said — suggesting that gay candidates should go so far as to avoid meeting with or campaigning alongside gay rights groups.

“If I can’t take gay and lesbian people for granted, I can’t win,” he said.

Watch the interview, AFTER THE JUMP...

Frank Ocean Posts Photo/Still of Rumored Boyfriend Willy Cartier

Hip-hop star Frank Ocean is being coy about a photo he posted on Sunday night to his Instagram feed which appears to be a still from a video. The still features French male model Willy Cartier embracing Ocean from behind and has set people buzzing, according to The Hollywood Reporter:

Cartier has reappeared in Ocean's Twitter feed recently, with the singer even going so far as to tease a possible marriage on the horizon: "Marry em, make em American," Ocean tweeted on Sunday morning.

But the new photo of Cartier and Ocean is a little different from the others: Rather than a candid snapshot, it looks to be taken from a movie screen -- leading many fans to believe that Cartier has been cast in the next music video from Ocean's acclaimed debut album, Channel Orange, which on Monday was named Spin's Album of the Year.

Responding to the torrent of fan comments that accompanied the photo, Ocean wrote, "Lol y'all are crazy. Remember, everyone goes to the grave. Let me live."