A: I should keep a better eye on my reading list. Whenever I take a few days off, I end up missing something like this:
[via Erin]
Better resolution version here. Commenters on Kanye West's official site seem to think this is an amateur video made by the Amish, but no, the protagonists are comedian Zach Galifinakis (one of America's famousest Greeks) and indie troubadour (and occasional actor) Will Oldham.
Here are a couple Will Oldham songs, because why not.
A:David Wain's The Ten hits theaters this weekend, and if you haven't heard, it's one of the funniest things ever, as reported by some of the nation's finest film critics. Well, most of them.
In the meanwhiletime, here's some bonus Wain to tide you over.
It's Episode 1 with more to come. Yay. Also, if you enjoyed that video of a young David touring Shaker Heights, there's more in his Super 8 Archive.
I'm on the way to California. Oh by the way, The Answer May Surprise You is moving to California, have I mentioned this?
By the way, for those of you who live outside the Internet and hadn't heard: The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs is really fricking hilarious and simultaneously really fricking insightful (if you care about tech things even a little). I'd been avoiding it, because I thought it was strictly for Mac nerds, but it's actually entirely accessible and also brilliant. And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, CNET has some background and an interview.
A:Weekly Standard editor and cutting-edge satirist William Kristol wrote a knee-slappingly hilarious editorial for yesterday's Washington Post, "Why Bush Will Be a Winner." I laughed so hard, I shot like a gallon of milk through my nose — and I wasn't even drinking milk!
Kristol packs in such zingers as,
Let's step back from the unnecessary mistakes and the self-inflicted wounds that have characterized the Bush administration. Let's look at the broad forest rather than the often unlovely trees. What do we see?
Hahahahaha! See, it's funny, because you'd have to step back so far, you'd be on like Jupiter.
I hate to give away all the punchlines, but this is his conclusion:
What it comes down to is this: If Petraeus succeeds in Iraq, and a Republican wins in 2008, Bush will be viewed as a successful president.
I like the odds.
OH GOD STOP CAN'T BREATHE!
I haven't read much Weekly Standard, but Alfred E. Newman better watch his back! There's a new funnyman in town!!!!
POSTSCRIPT:Arianna Huffington is under the impression Kristol's whimsical essay was meant literally (she probably thought "A Modest Proposal" was really about eating babies, too). Huffington claims to have ridden in the same Amtrak car with Kristol last week; presumably this occurred in the seventh circle of hell.
A: I know, it seems like a million years ago, especially with Bush's approval ratings dropping further into the mid-20s1. But it was less than two years ago (Sept. 20, 2005) that the following Tom Tomorrow comic made infuriating sense.
[click to enlarge]
Mission accomplished, you dirty hippies.
You know, if we'd known back then the Bush administration would implode under its own tons of crap as it has and is, we totally would've expected it to be way more fun than it actually is. Instead, it's just kind of boring and sad; just ask political cartoonists. Patton Oswalt said much the same thing in his recent interview with Terry Gross. Political satire loses its edge when nearly every human being on Earth agrees with you.
1 As Sully notes, these polls were largely conducted prior to the Scooter Libby commutation. I know C.W. says the conservative base supported the get-outta-jail-free card, but T.A.M.S.Y. calls bullshit. How much more straw can these dumbass camels take? Expect to see another two or three points of approval erosion, minimum, when this week's polls hit.
A: Man, Osama is as much of a jerk as a stand-up comedian as he is in his role as a terrorist mastermind. And yet I still prefer his act to Carlos Mencia's.
The Vatican's official newspaper accused an Italian comedian on Wednesday of "terrorism" for criticizing the Pope and warned his rhetoric could fuel a return to 1970s-style political violence.
In an unusually strongly worded editorial, L'Osservatore Romano said a presenter of a televised May Day rock concert, which is sponsored by Italy's labor unions, had launched "vile attacks" on Pope Benedict in front of an "excitable crowd." "This, too, is terrorism. It's terrorism to launch attacks on the Church," it said.
In the Pope's defense, just listen to these edgy, edgy, edgy zingers from comedian Andrea Rivera!
"The Pope says he doesn't believe in evolution. I agree, in fact the Church has never evolved," he said.
OH SNAP!
He also criticized the Church for refusing to give a Catholic funeral to a man who campaigned for euthanasia as he lay paralyzed with muscular dystrophy. He died in December after a doctor agreed to unplug his respirator.
"I can't stand the fact that the Vatican refused a funeral for Welby but that wasn't the case for Pinochet or Franco," he said.
ZING! Yep, I can barely tell the difference between those one-liners and a man strapping himself with explosives and blowing up a bus. It's practically the same thing. I'm surprised anyone made it out of there alive.
In a related story, Osama bin Laden, who is not dead, has been making headlines in all the local cave newspapers along the Afghan/Pakistani border, after unveiling his racy new terror-based stand-up routine.
Oseinfeld bin Laden: Audiences are laughing to death.
Unfortunately, it turns out he stole most of his act from Louis CK.
A: Maybe everyone's already seen this by now, but whatever, it's funny: Will Ferrell, Adam McKay and "Pearl" in The Landlord. [via Sydney]
Funny people should do more with digital video online. That's my nugget of wisdom for the day.
Speaking of Will Ferrell and things that have been around, have you heard his interview with Terry Gross from last November? It's worth checking out — not because it's side-splittingly hilarious or anything, but just in that it presents a side of Ferrell we don't see very often (that of the earnest, dedicated comic craftsman).
Honest to Bo Derek. The Ten is really, really good. Like, one-of-the-funniest-comedies-I've-ever-seen good. Not to set your expectations too high or anything — but oh God, so very funny.
Keeping in the spirit of the film — which is split into ten stories, each loosely (very loosely) based around one of the ten commandments — here are TEN THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE TEN:
1. In case you missed it the first time, here's the teaser trailer:
2. Going in, I had high expectations — being a big fan of The State, Stella and David Wain's comic sensibilities in general — but I also sort of expected The Ten not to meet those expectations. If that makes any sense.
I have a history of underrating comedies the first time I see them. I think it's because, as a whiny former drama major, I tend to get distracted when a film's plot is just an excuse to string together jokes (as regular T.A.M.S.Y. readers know, I also get distracted when a film's plot is an excuse to string together anything, e.g., Spartan war victories), even if the jokes are very funny.
The most relevant example of this is Wet Hot American Summer, David Wain's first film, which I saw alone in a nearly empty theater in Times Square, very shortly after its release, and which I found intermittently funny but also to be, uh, kind of just a dumb sketch about '80s summer-camp movies stretched over 97 minutes. I never, ever would've expected Wet Hot to attain the cult status it has, especially among people too young to have watched The State during its original run on MTV.
Upon subsequent viewings, I like Wet Hot much more (I'd give it an 8 out of 11), but still not quite as much as other people do. It's got very funny jokes, yes. But it is also unapologetically dumb, and unapologetically a sketch stretched over 97 minutes.
3.The Ten is better and funnier than Wet Hot. Yeah, I went there.
4. Part of what makes The Ten better than Wet Hot is that, instead of being one bizarre sketch stretched into a full-length film, it's ten bizarre sketches stretched into a full-length film. The ten stories intertwine with one another in direct and indirect ways (sometimes as continuations of previous stories, sometimes just to allow for running jokes, a Wain/State specialty), but each is its own full story. So even if one sketch falls flat for you, it won't overstay its welcome.
But the other thing that makes The Ten so great is that, as far as I'm concerned, none of the sketches fall flat. Each story is based in a absurd, convoluted, State-worthy premise (the film is cowritten by Wain and Ken Marino), but nothing bombs.
5. So much of the hilarity is based in those absurd, convoluted premises that I'm hesitant to explain anything in detail. Suffice to say, it's a David Wain movie, so there are the obligatory references to erections, vaginas, titty fucking, prison rape and lite rock of the 1970s. And naturally, lots of good one-liners and running jokes. The Wet Hot fan base won't be disappointed.
If you want minor spoilers beyond that, you can read this positive review at the blog Not Coming to a Theater Near You, or the IFC Blog's thumbs down.
I do want to say this much: One of the sketches that the IFC Blog specifically says "doesn't work," and calls "odd-for-odd's sake" is one of the bits I found most hilarious: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods," which features Liev Schrieber and Joe Lo Truglio as neighbors whose efforts to one up one another result in a battle to see who can order the most CAT scan machines.
6. Not only is it a successful comedy, but The Ten is surprisingly viable as an art film (or at least a parody of an art film), too. The stories incorporate a surprising thematic range at times, including a Bertolucci-esque tale of Gretchen Mol's sexual awakening in Mexico, and an animated story about a deceitful rhinoceros' fall from grace (featuring the work of Aaron Augenblick, best known for Wonder Showzen, and the voice talent of Jon Benjamin).
7. The glue that holds The Ten together is Paul Rudd, as Master of Ceremonies "Jeff," who attempts to introduce each story (his crumbling marriage to Famke Janssen keeps getting in the way).
I found these tiny vignettes to be the least funny bits in the film, and the only thing about The Ten that could be called even remotely predictable. But even they didn't suck.
8. When I was the aforementioned whiny drama major, one of my professors taught me a good rule of thumb (she was talking about theater, but I think it applies to film, too): If the actors are generally good, the director was good. If the actors are generally bad, the director was bad.
By that rule alone, The Ten establishes Wain as an excellent comic director. There are a lot of famous people in the cast (and not only people known for comedy, as in Wet Hot), and the fact that all of them are able to mesh in so smoothly with the State veterans, in a series of quintessentially Stately bits, says a lot about Wain's talents. Because the movie does get extremely bizarre, and never do the actors seem anything less than comfortable and wholly committed.
Particularly funny, I thought, were Schreiber, Oliver Platt (as a second-rate stand-up comedian impersonating Arnold Schwazenegger) and Gretchen Mol. Speaking of which,
8 1/2: Gretchen Mol is just insanely hot. I know that, over the past decade, it's been said a million times that such-and-such film was going to make Gretchen Mol extremely famous, and it's proven false every time, but The Ten is going to make Gretchen Mol extremely famous!
Winona Ryder is also pretty funny/hot. But she plays a girl who sleeps around a lot, so it wasn't exactly a stretch or anything. (Wait, I just realized that casting Ryder as a girl who sleeps around a lot — and in the story "Thou shalt not steal," no less — is actually a very funny joke in itself. I'm sort of dense.)
9. I saw The Ten at the Cleveland International Film Festival's midnight screening Saturday night/Sunday morning. I arrived just as the lights were going down, and as I entered the packed theater, someone in the crowd loudly mock-whispered "The whole front row is open!" in a tone oddly reminiscent of David Wain himself. Except I didn't think Wain was actually there.
Turned out, he was. After the credits finished rolling (and stick around for the credits, by the way — the theme songs are hilarious), a CIFF spokesdude introduced Wain, who gamely answered a series of inane questions ("What was it like to work with all those actors?", "Is there going to be a second season of Stella?", etc.).
Nothing substantive came of the Q&A session. I just wanted to note that David Wain instructed me on where to sit for a screening of a David Wain movie, which is like my proudest achievement ever.
One other thing about the screening: The film appears to have been really lushly shot (by a little-known cinematographer, Yaron Orbach), especially for a comedy, which is another reason I think it's legitimately successful as an art film. But it was hard to appreciate the look of the film fully — because, for reasons unknown to me (and, apparently, Wain), the CIFF didn't show an actual print of it. They had a videotape. And if you want to know what a videotape looks like on a big movie screen when you're sitting way up front, the answer is: Really, really shitty.
10. My brother just told me about this video, and it is adorably hilarious. In which a nine-year-old David Wain provides a tour of his hometown, Shaker Heights, Ohio.
Wow, this post is really long. Sorry.
10 1/2: I forced my parents to go see the screening yesterday afternoon, and they also really, really liked it. This makes me even more convinced that The Ten is going to be as wildly successful as it deserves to be.
A: As people who know me well1 know, I have a cold, icy, steel heart made of steel and very cold ice; and thus I very rarely Laugh-Out-Loud at anything, unless I'm drunk and/or hitting on you and/or so bewildered by the blackness of mortality that laughter is the only means by which to release the tension in my cold, icy, steel, bronze heart of ice.2
Among the things least likely to coax sincere laughs out of me (e.g., Carlos Mencia; Schindler's List; Carlos Mencia) is the Fox News' 1/2 Hour News Hour, a.k.a., the conservative3Daily Show, a.k.a., this thing:
(I am averting my eyes and ears. Please tell me when it is over.)
(No, wait, tell me when the hot girl is talking; and then tell me when it is over.)
After watching that, you will surely be surprised when I tell you there is something funny about The 1/2 News Hour: The Comedy Central Insider's coverage of it is very funny. I even found myself LOL'ing at this bit —
Even a brief showing by brilliant alternative comedian Ann Coulter — who, for years, has managed to trick most of the country into believing that he's a vitriolic female conservative — couldn't pull the show above the level of a high school AV club produced parody.4
— after which I was disturbed to find myself sober and alone.
MEANWHILE:Washinton Post TV critic Tom Shales writes that The 1/2 Hour has "funny spots." "In a nutshell," he concludes, "it isn't terrible."
The Washington Monthly's (liberal) Kevin Drum begs to differ, calling it "bad. Really bad." On the other side of the political spectrum, the National Review's David Frum applauds the program's mirthfu—oh, no wait, he hated it even more than the liberal did:
The 1/2 Hour News Hour is not a right-of-center comedy show. It's more like some not very clever left-wing blogger's mean-spirited parody of a right-of-center comedy show: "These right-wingers are so clueless that they would think it funny that Barack Obama's initials are BO."
What a minute ... maybe that's exactly what "The 1/2 Hour News Hour" really is! Maybe it's some ultra-Colbertian exercise in meta-irony: a parody within a parody within a parody... Seriously: The 1/2 Hour News Hour is so unfunny as to be affirmatively insulting.
ANYWAY:T.A.M.S.Y. missed the first episode, but we'll be certain to report back after the follow-up airs, Sunday at 10pm. Unless we forget.
SIDENOTE: It will be interesting to see how much of the surprisingly manyNielsen families who caught the premier come back for more.
1 No one knows me well. 2 I can be commonly found doing all three simultaneously. 3 I should note here — on behalf and in defense of dear reader Sean McWasp — that I am not using the term "conservative" in the traditional sense (e.g., that conservative fellow over there strongly dislikes government wastefulness), but rather in the modern sense, as a synonym for "ignorant and hateful" (e.g., that conservative fellow over there strongly dislikes the mosque through which he just drove a truck). 4 I just noticed this may have been written by Internet comedy veteran and sometime-T.A.M.S.Y. reader Lindsay Lindsayism, to whom I tip my hat.
A: Don't listen to all this gobbledygook about "bin Laden's dead, blah blah blah."1 Osama is alive and well — and his latest plot is so nefarious, your city just might be scared stupid. I mean, assuming your city is already stupid.
And wow, wow, that clip is just hilarious. Is College Humor always this good? I've generally tried to avoid them, because I associate "college humor" with waking up in a puddle of my own vomit. Which I also associate with "Thursdays." [link #1 via Wonkette; #2 via Wired]
Sorry today's been quiet, aside from the very exciting legal wrangling of the previous post (will follow-up on that shortly-ish).
1 Just kidding, by the way; Osama = obviously dead. Not that it affects national security in any tangible way, but just for the record.
I subscribe to approximately three hundred thousand of National Public Radio's podcasts, which -- like all of the podcasts I subscribe to -- I almost never listen to (probably because I spend so little time on the Cleveland subway). I just like all the space they take up on my hard drive.
Anyway, a few days ago, I was trying to catch up on one of the more interesting of these podcasts, NPR's Driveway Moments, (i.e., segments so compelling, theoretically, you can't bear to leave the car), and I came across one I found particularly hilarious: Dire Predictions & Disastrous Votes, Melissa Block's interview with two of the country's premier campaign-ad voice-over guys, Dennis Steele and Scott Sanders, whose voices you will likely recognize.
The best part is when they re-imagine nursery rhymes as melodramatic attack ads (John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt / His name is my name too / Whenever we go out / The people always shout / "Hey, what about Iraq!?"). Really, it's very funny. Check it out.
A: Every so often, a local television news team stumbles onto a story so disconcerting that it threatens to turn the entire community on its head. When one such story was uncovered by KCRA-3 Sacramento, it would take equal parts perspective, courage, investigative know-how and analytical aptitude to do the drama justice.
What really strikes me here is the quality of both the writing and the performance, and how each complements the other to grab and hold our attention. I may give local newscasters a hard time, but here's one they finally got right.
Link via the Comics Journal's blandly titled but content-rich daily comics blog, Journalista -- a blogroll must-have for any discerning lover of pop-art.
A: Another way to make a cross-country road trip even more fun? Do it with The State/Stella's Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black. Their extensive travelogue of a recent pan-American comedy tour -- available via Showalter's blog -- is also preposterously entertaining.
Here's a random sample:
SHOWALTER: Madison is a great city in Wisconsin. They have badgers there. Michael talked about them during his set and said that badgers were scary and would grab upon your nuts if they had the chance. We drove from D.C. to Cleveland to Chicago to Ann Arbor to Madison and are now officially disoriented and confused about anything other than the fact that I like club soda and Mike likes Dr. Pepper. Being on the road is really fun but cities start blurring into one another. Now I know what Jon Bon Jovi meant when he said, “I’m a cowboy. On a steel horse I ride. I’m wanted - dead or alive.” He meant that he’s a cowboy and he rides on a steel horse and he’s wanted dead or alive. How it applies to me? I have no idea.
BLACK: I actually think the “steel horse” was a metaphor for a mechanical bull. He could have just as easily said “on a mechanical bull” I ride, but I guess that’s why he’s a poet and we’re not. I agree with Michael that Madison is a great town. Very friendly and scruffy. We spent some time in a coffee shop before the show. The girl behind the counter was cute, and I thought Michael was going to try to ask her out. But he didn’t. He’s such a pussy. If I was single, I would have been like, “Thanks for the coffee, bitch. Now get that ass in the air.” But I’m married, so I settled for just saying, “Thanks for the coffee, bitch.”
I can’t even remember the Madison show at this point, but I’m sure it was good. Or bad. Or maybe it was just okay. I’m not sure. I’m not even sure we did a show in Madison.
It's classic State-esque comedy! It'll also makes you realize that being a second-tier famous comedian is not all glitz and glamour. It actually appears to involve neither glitz nor glamour -- it's mostly just sitting in a van, interspersed with long bouts of degenerate gambling. In other words, it's everything I've ever wanted.
I've only made it through the second half of their trip (Chicago to Austin) thus far, but it's wonderful. And like the blue-tape Audi photoblog, it features plenty of wet, hot Americana.
As you may have noticed, I'm getting a little restless in Cleveland.
A: Nothing. Nothing is more fun than cross-country roadtripping. Seriously, who wants to go on a cross-country road trip with me??? It's so fun! LET'S DO IT.
Anyway, although there is nothing more fun than a cross-country road trip, there are ways of making such a trip even more fun. For instance, (a) having enough money to eat along the way, (b) incorporating several dozen Indian casinos, and (c) covering your friend's Audi S4 entirely in Nogaro blue painter's tape. Like so:
Even more fun is when you cover your friend's Audi in blue tape, and then photoblog all the weird roadside shit you see along the way. These two dudes did just that, and the results are preposterously entertaining.
While you read, try your best to enjoy this choice Johnny Cash cover without thinking about Choice Hotels. Fat chance, I know.
], 2006
], 1995
, hits stores today.
