Genealogy, I am doing it!

I have two great loves in life: my wife and the Middle East. My worlds have just collided. Apparently my wife's distant cousin, John Chambers, is famous. He was a Hollywood make-up artist (earned an Oscar for his work on the original Planet of the Apes film) and also helped to smuggle Americans out of Iran during the hostage crisis in the late 1970s. He is one of the main characters in the new Ben Affleck movie, played by John Goodman. I discovered all of this by accident yesterday while reading the New York Times. I told my wife and she just shrugged. She already "knew all of that." I can't believe it! She's famous and I have to be the one to tell everybody! I just have one question: Does reading New York Times' movie reviews section count as genealogical research?