Let us not mince words: Isabella Rossellini is one of the most beautiful actresses in the business. This should come as no surprise to anyone who knows of her gene pool (she’s Ingrid Bergman’s daughter), but given that she seems to pop up all too infrequently in films and on television, perhaps a few more directors and directors need to be reminded. Fortunately for you and I, Rossellini can be found amongst the cast of the “The Phantom,” SyFy’s attempt to reinvigorate the franchise of the character often referred to as “The Ghost Who Walks,” which premieres on June 20th. This appearance was particularly fortunate for me, as it presented me with the opportunity to chat with Rossellini about her work not only in this production but also in “Blue Velvet,” “Friends,” “Alias,” “30 Rock,” and her infamous Sundance Channel short-film series, “Green Porno.”

Prepare for your heart to go pitter-pat as you read…

Isabella Rossellini: Hi!

Bullz-Eye: Hello! How are you?

IR: I’m fine, thanks. And you?

BE: I’m wonderful. It’s a pleasure to speak with you.

IR: It’s nice to talk to you. Thank you for interviewing me!

BE: (Laughs) Not a problem! Well, “The Phantom” is certainly not your first foray into the world of science fiction, but are you actually a fan of the genre?

IR: I’m not really a fan of the genre. You know, I do see some films, but I must say I don’t go see them religiously. I love working with the producer, Robert Halmi, with whom I’ve done several films, so when Halmi called me to play this small role in “The Phantom,” I had no hesitation. I’ve been with him for five or six productions in the last 25 years, among which are “Merlin,” “The Odyssey,” and “Don Quixote,” and they’ve always been wonderful. They’ve always been… (Hesitates) It’s been great to work with the group, he has a fantastic eye, and every time he hires a director, it’s always somebody young who…well, he just has an eye. He hires them, and they turn out to be fantastic and, a few years later, they’re top directors. That’s how it has been with Paulo (Barzman), the director of “The Phantom.” So the reason why I said “yes” to this small part was because of this history that I had with Bob Halmi, and…I was surprised, actually. I had a doubt. For me, the Phantom was so much that image that I had from the 1930s, and he kept on saying, “No, no, it has nothing to do with that. It’s not trying to be retro.” And that image of the original comic strip was so strong that I was amazed, actually, when I arrived and had seen how they had transformed it to be a contemporary, modern film.

BE: So what are the challenges of playing a part like this? Because I’d think it would be a challenge to play a live-action comic book character without taking it over the top.

IR: Well, actually, you know, to tell you the truth, there were no challenges. At the beginning, you search a little bit for the look, especially when you play a small part. Every beat counts, you know. Sometimes when you have the lead, if you think it, you maybe play a part too seriously. You think, “Maybe I should smile,” and you have other possibilities later in the film to add a smile or to add some softness to your character, for shading. But when you play a small role, in a way, you have to hit every note correctly, so I think that the way she looked also was very important. When I was told that they wanted me to be a blonde…because they told me on the phone: I live in New York, but the film was shot in Montreal…I said, “Oh, blonde, it wouldn’t work with me. I’ve tried it several times, but I can’t go with it. My hair is brown. I can become easily black-haired. I can even become red-haired. But blonde has never worked with me.” But when I arrived, inevitably, there were all these blonde wigs, so I said, “Okay, I’ll show you what I mean.” And, instead, it worked perfectly, because the character should be totally artificial. I had these metallic clothes that always tended to be on the silver side, so, actually, the look of this evil person was helped a lot…it helped me to imagine the character. But the challenge is not the words. It’s so much fun that I’m always amazed that I even get paid for it. (Laughs)

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Kenneth Cole recently launched its new touch screen watch series and they were kind enough to send us one to check out just in time for Father’s Day. We were impressed with the design and functionality and thought it would be a great gift for the dad who’s interested in more stylish accessories but is also comfortable with new innovations like touch screen technology.

This new touch screen watch is the first of its kind in the fashion-forward watch category. This innovative feature bridges fashion and technology so the user can use the watch’s tools with the touch of a finger. The watches take advantage of the kind of touch screen technology available on smartphones and music players.

As you can see from the photo above, the watches mix have a modern, sleek design you would expect from Kenneth Cole, maintaining the brand’s signature, classic look with a stainless steel round case paired with a silicon strap. Don’t be put off by the bright display. The digital information only brightens up when you want to see better, and the effect is not that extreme. In its normal state the digital display is very muted so it doesn’t distract from the elegant design.

The watch functionality includes 32-City world time and an alarm, stopwatch and light up screen. It’s easy to use so it’s practical for everyday use and for more formal setting, and it’s perfect for the dads who want to feel younger. At a suggested retail ranging from $125 to $175, it also won’t break the bank.

The gang at Johnnie Walker was kind enough to send us some samples of each of the scotch bottles above. Needless to say, productivity at Bullz-Eye headquarters immediately plummeted.

It did, however, give us another great idea for a Father’s day gift. Booze may not be the most creative gift, but it’s usually a winner with most fathers, particularly when it involves great Scotch.

You see above that you can choose among five different “labels” for Johnnie Walker, each with a different color. Check out the web site and you can choose the best one for you or the lucky gift recipient. After extensive taste testing, we’re partial to Johnnie Walker Black Label and Johnnie Walker Blue Label.

Two hundred years in the making, Black Label is the signature blend from the House of Walker. Big whisky flavors with hints of rich fruit and smoke make this Scotch whisky the perfect gift for the father who stands strong as the cornerstone of his family. You can’t lose with this one, and at a retail price of around $34 it won’t break the bank.

If you’re looking to spend a tad bit more, try the Blue Label which runs around $220. This is the rarest, most exceptional whisky from Johnnie Walker, and it’s a good choice if you’re looking for a more memorable gift. Just make sure you’re around when he opens the damn thing!

Summer is here, so there are tons of events where a portable chair comes in handy, from little league baseball games, to fireworks displays and family cookouts, along with fishing and camping outings. Also, football season is right around the corner so portable chairs definitely come in handy when you’re tailgating.

So as you’re contemplating gifts for Father’s Day, this Sherpa Chair offers a great option. The Sherpa Chair folds completely and it takes up little space. The chair has shoulder straps that allow it to be carried just like a backpack, with both hands free to carry other items, so your dad can easily hand this off to the kids or grand kids for them to carry as well! It also sports a spacious pouch for carrying extra gear or some cold beers.

With these features you can carry the Sherpa Chair anywhere with ultimate convenience. It is ideal for a lawn chair, camping chair, fishing chair, hunting chair or even a sporting chair.

Check back for our full Father’s Day Gift Guide for more suggestions.

With Father’s Day coming up next weekend, we’re going to be featuring some cool products for dads, and we’ll be putting a bunch of them together in a full guide that will be published later this week.

We’re kicking things off with this cool trunk organizer from Samsonite. It’s a great gift for any guy who loves to golf, and it will help him organize that messy trunk.

The organizer is the ideal size for any trunk or back seat. With two levels, it fits nicely in the trunk but it doesn’t take too much space. The bottom level has room for three shoes, so you can fit more than golf shoes. The ventilated mesh front door makes it easy to see what’s in there and it makes it possible to air out the shoes while storing them.

The top level has a bunch of compartments to store all sorts of stuff, from phones, to sunglasses and cigars, along with golf gear like gloves and tees. It also has movable dividers so the user can customize it in the way that fits his needs. There’s plenty of room for stuff like shirts, shorts, jackets and more.

It’s a great gift, and you may want to pick one up for yourself as well.

Great song – strange video. That said, the ladies in classic French lingerie from an old-school Parisian cabaret were a nice touch.

Neil Hannon is, for all intents and purposes, my boy. The sublimely literate frontman (only man, really) for ork-pop darlings the Divine Comedy, Hannon has been applying his acerbic wit to instantly memorable pop songs for almost 20 years. They actually sounded like R.E.M. when they first started. That’s just hilarious to me now.

After collaborating with Pugwash’s Thomas Walsh for last year’s Duckworth Lewis Method (my album of 2009 by a country mile), Hannon has donned the DC hat once again, and “At the Indie Disco,” the first single from the Divine Comedy’s new album Bang Goes the Knighthood, is as Hannonesque as they come. Funny bits name-checking bands from Blur to the Wannadies, combined with spot-on observations about the club culture (spending the night staring at each other’s feet while dancing), make for one of Hannon’s funniest songs yet. But will they play it at the indie disco? Let’s hope they have enough of a sense of humor about it to oblige.

In the food chain of wedding speeches, few come with the same level of expectancy as the best man speech. The best man is meant to give a funny speech reminiscing over tales of the groom’s past while being wary not to go over the top with the humor, since offensive remarks will mean your speech is met with a limp response rather than the rousing reception you were hoping to get.

When it comes to best man speeches, there are three key rules you must adhere to:

1. Don’t upset the groom’s new wife.

2. Make sure you don’t upset the groom’s new wife.

3. Absolutely, positively don’t upset the groom’s new wife.

You get the picture. The only tears you want to see from his bride’s eyes should be tears of joy and tears of laughter, so with that in mind, let us begin our journey through our list.

1. Props.

If you want to give a best man speech that will have the audience doubled up with laughter, then be sure to use a couple of props. There are a number of props that work very well, including:

a) Present a pillow from under your table and say to your buddy, “Now that you are married, you will need this as you will be spending plenty of nights sleeping on the couch.”

b) Have a picture of the groom’s face superimposed on a photo of someone wearing a mankini, enlarge the photo and show to all, saying, “I thought you may be interested in seeing a photo of the groom from the bachelor party.”

2. Stories.

No best man speech is complete without a few funny stories about the groom. Try to have two stories that embarrass him, one about an embarrassing incident that the groom was involved in and another that gives the listeners a glimpse of how he has changed since meeting his bride.

3. Reciprocal gift.

During your speech, you can say something along the lines of, “I am proud to be here at Jim’s wedding just as he was at mine and, as such, am delighted to be able to return the favor and give him the same wedding gift he gave me,” before unveiling a mop or something equally inappropriate.

4. Wedding key prank.

Pranks, if done tastefully, work exceptionally well in a best man speech, with one of the most popular one being the wedding key prank. This prank usually entails the best man giving large “keys” — in reality, homemade cardboard keys wrapped in silver — to four women and one man before the speeches begin. Then during the speech, state, “Now that the groom is married, can I ask those of you who have keys to his apartment to hand them back please?” and let the various women one by one come up to you and hand them back. You can continue by saying, “Thank you very much ladies, but there is still one key unaccounted for, so whoever you are, please come up and give it to me.” At that stage, the remaining man should sheepishly walk up to you (as prearranged) and hand the “key” over.

5. Seating arrangements prank.

A great way to embarrass the groom is to state that he tossed and turned over who should sit where, and in the end decided to seat people by value of their gifts. Continue by saying, “With that in mind, he wants to thank everyone seated at the back for the socks, spoons and cards,” before quickly announcing that you are joking of course.

6. Explain how opposites attract.

A wedding speech is the perfect setting for using examples of how opposites attract. Here are a couple of ideas.

“The bride likes cooking and the groom certainly loves eating,” or “The bride likes pretty pearls while the groom prefers Pearl Jam.”

7. Best Man jokes.

An essential aspect of any best man speech is funny best man jokes. Short jokes work better than longer jokes so bear that in mind when writing your own speech. Use jokes that reflect the personality of the groom and, of course, make no reference to past relationships in these jokes.

8. Refer to the groom’s characteristics to embarrass him.

Continue the humor by talking about how loyal the groom is before finishing with something along the lines of, “He is so loyal that he hasn’t changed his hairstyle since the ’80s.”

9. Use emotional humor to embarrass him.

Sentimental humor is another way to prolong the agony for the groom. You can say how you never saw the romantic side in your friend/brother before, and finish with, “Before he met his wife, his idea of a romantic night out was a candlelit football stadium.”

10. Funny best man toasts.

If you want to end your toast on a humorous note, provide a witty uplifting toast rather than an all-out attempt to make fun of the groom. You want your speech to end on a high and then revel in the joy of receiving a standing ovation afterwards, so be subtle with your toast and enjoy the plaudits that come your way.

There is a fine line between embarrassing the groom and humiliating him, so make sure you don’t cross that line. Offset the funny remarks about the groom by including a few words in your best man speech about why he is such a great friend/brother. Be sure to compliment the bride and talk about the traits that make her a great person, and reserve a few special words for the bridesmaids as well.

And, of course, remember those three key rules at the top of the page. If you upset the bride, then you will not only ruin her special day, you may also lose the friendship of the groom, and that would be no laughing matter.

About David Doran
Dave lives in Dublin, Ireland, is a cancer survivor and is the co-founder of Best Man App, the ultimate resource for best men with sample best man speeches, jokes, toasts and much more.

Some would say that the idea of combining Adam Carolla with Klondike Bars would be like…well, hell, even I’m not sure what it would be like, but on the surface, the end result certainly wouldn’t seem to be on the level of, say, combining peanut butter and chocolate.

Having seen some of Carolla’s new ad campaign for Klondike, however, I have to admit that I laughed quite a bit at his so-called “Klondike Everyman Challenges,” which include “Pack the Car” (going on now), “Grab the Remote” (starting June 30th), and “Ball Toss” (arriving July 31st). That’s one reason why, when Bullz-Eye was pitched the opportunity by Klondike to do a video interview with Carolla, I jumped at the chance.

Sure, yeah, we had to ask at least a little bit about the Everyman Challenges, but, hey, funny’s funny, so it’s not like I felt all that dirty doing it…

By the way, I should mentioned that we were pitched a 5-minute interview, but I had a lot of things that I wanted to ask him about…his podcast, NBC passing on the pilot, the missed opportunity to host the American version of “Top Gear,” the attempts to make his buddy Ozzie Castillo – who co-starred with Carolla in “The Hammer” as well as in the aforementioned pilot – into the next Luis Guzman…so I kept asking, he kept answer, and the next thing I knew, we’d been talking for 10 minutes. Lucky you: they kept the camera rolling the entire time.

Lastly, when you get to the end of the interview, you’ll hear me ask Carolla about having provided the voice of the title character in an animated short entitled “Save Virgil.” I hadn’t been familiar with it until I checked IMDb for a few random things to mention during our Q&A, but now that I’ve seen it…well, to borrow a phrase from “Futurama,” I can’t unsee it. If you’d like to be in the same position, just click here.

With all of the processed foods out there that have an ingredient list as long as a phone book, it’s refreshing that there are companies going in the opposite direction. One such company is Fresherized Foods, which has brought us the Wholly Brand of guacamole and salsa for a while now.

Well, now they have taken snacking to a whole new level, with the introduction of Wholly Queso dips. Wholly Queso is made with real cheese and vegetables, and you have to refrigerate it, which is always a good sign when you’re trying to put less junk in your body.

The fine folks at Bow Wow Consulting sent us an awesome cooler filled with these dips, as well as a few other Wholly Brand products and chips to try them with to boot! And the verdict is this….the queso is simply awesome and you should go find it now. Seriously! Here are some more detailed thoughts:

Wholly Queso Classic–This was the more orange tinged queso, and instantly you can tell this is restaurant quality stuff, not the kind of queso you find in a jar near the Doritos. The taste is fresh and has both a sharp cheddar bite and nice chili pepper undertone.

Wholly Queso Blanco–This one was my favorite. It was even more authentically Mexican and had more pepper flavor, and an even sharper cheese bite. Plus, it was spicier than the Classic, and spicier is always better.

Wholly Salsa–The salsa also comes in a refrigerated tub and is incredibly fresh tasting, just like the stuff you get in most Mexican restaurants. The tomatoes were abundant with just the right amount of onion and jalapenos, but the only thing that would have made it better was if there was some cilantro. Of course, you can always add your own.

Wholly Guacamole dip–If you don’t have time to make guacamole and are looking for something quick and easy yet healthy, this is the stuff. You cut open the pouch and squeeze it into a serving bowl and start dipping. It’s creamy and homemade tasting, and, like the salsa, it also doesn’t kill you with onions. The spicy version of the guacamole is even better, but only if you dig spicy food. If you don’t, you’ve probably stopped reading by now anyway.

Wholly Party Dip–This is the guacamole with a layer of spicy pico de gallo on top. The pico de gallo is really spicy, and again, not too onion-y. The combination of flavors is incredible and really works. And the best part is, all you do is open the container and start dipping!

So there you go. You can find Wholly Brand dips in most grocery stores and for more information, go to www.fresherizedfoods.com