I interviewed actor/screenwriter/intense Dune fan Thomas Lennon ("Reno 911," "The State") the other day. He's an intensely awesome guy, and gave our little Mahalo Daily podcast a full hour of his valuable time. I think it's definitely among the best Mahalo Daily episodes with which I've been involved...Let's watch!
As of today, we've seen all the podcasts produced by our six Mahalo Idol finalists, and bloggers are starting to chime in with their selections for who should move on. (I should mention, you can actually vote for your favorite at Mahalodaily.com. I'm fairly certain the audience favorite will automatically move on to the next round.)
Let me just say, I totally appreciate all the bloggers who noted that I desperately need an attractive female counterpart. As blogger Tony Andrew Meyer notes, "realistically, the show needs an extremely attractive host (especially if co-hosting with Lon)." Apparently, to Tony's mind, nothing is worse than looking at a fat guy who doesn't have an extremely beautiful woman beside him. I guess the two of us would even out into, like, some relatively plain-looking hermaphrodite at which you wouldn't mind gawking for 4-6 minutes at a pass.
Now, it wouldn't be fair for me to name a favorite, and I don't want to influence the viewers' selections (not that I feel like I have that kind of sway, but you get what I'm saying). However, I would like to post all the ladies' entries and offer some of my thoughts to any interested parties...
Leah D'Emilio
Leah kicked off the contestant podcasts winningly with a trip to a Capoeira studio to do some Brazilian Dance Fighting. I kind of wish there had been a bit more footage of her actually trying to do some Capoeira moves, but what I really liked about this episode was the sheer amount of information presented. Leah's extremely polished, and when you watch this, you feel confident, like you're in the hands of someone with a plan, someone who will make you just a teensy bit smarter. My episodes certainly don't offer anything like that. I tend to get caught up in one-liners and silly costumes, forgetting that part of the original idea behind Mahalo Daily was to be informative and enlightening. Leah remembered.
Also, did you all know she's an accomplished singer-songwriter? Got to be worth a few bonus points...
Michelle Hummel
Michelle's episode is set at an Anaheim go-kart track. I think her advantage here is that riding around in a go-kart is genuinely a lot of fun, and viewers can tell she's actually enjoying herself, not just going through the motions. The phrase "great energy" has been thrown around a lot in this competition - almost to the point of becoming meaningless - but there's no other way to describe Michelle's performance in this episode...Her playfulness and enthusiasm come through.
She's also probably the best actress of all the finalists. Whenever we'd give her direction for one of the teasers, she would nail the performance on the first take. Her crying scene in Teaser #4 is spot on.
Nadine Heimann
Nadine's episode is about Mixed Martial Arts CAGE FIGHTING! I mean...yes! Best choice of topic, I think, out of all six contestants, and as we all know from that other "Idol" show, your choices say a lot about you and can often make or break your whole performance. Plus, I love the way she just goes for it and actually does some of the moves with the instructor here, even flipping him over her shoulder at one point. A cool visual like that, in a lot of ways, is more important than all the perfectly-enunciated intros and outros (or "extros," as Alex Albrecht might say) in the world.
In general, I'd add that Nadine's very physical and athletic, which would make a great counterpoint to my fat, sedentary ass. Right, Tony?
Sarah Atwood
I'm not trying to say Sarah doesn't have her own style, but this feels like a Belmont-era "Mahalo Daily Classic" to me in a number of ways, from Sarah's friendly, laid-back tone to her total engagement with the subject to her slightly nerdy sense of humor. (Hey, that's not a knock, it's even in the name of her blog). Something else I'd point out about this episode...I think you probably hear more from the interview subject here than in any of the other contestant's shows...Sarah's not desperate to interject - she allows her subject to drive the conversation. This is something with which I struggle all the time...it's tough for me sometimes to just shut up and let someone else engage the viewer, even if they're the ones people want to hear.
Sarah's already built up a pretty strong Internet fan base on her own, without the Daily, which essentially proves she can do the job before we even have a chance to offer it to her.
Kristina Allison
Kristina is completely and thoroughly natural on camera. She's just herself. I'm noticing in the comments on her episode around the Web that some people don't like that...They want her to be more outgoing or excited or bubbly or something, I suppose. And I'll grant that most people (myself included) put on at least a bit of a persona when they get on camera. But, in this video, Kristina just has a casual conversation with a sound mixer about his job, without ever making it feel forced or stagy. She's just chilling with Dave, checking out his studio. Because of this ability to make you feel like you've hung out with her after watching a 5-minute video on the Internet, I think she might have the most potential to become Internet Famous. This is a girl with whom geeks will want to Twitter.
Also, did I mention she's the lead singer for rock band The Paper Dolls? Come on!
Andrea Rene
Andrea's episode, set at a gun club's firing range, is hilarious. Actually hilarious. I've actually been to one of these places and tried it out myself, and her reaction strikes me as entirely appropriate - the experience is weird and intense and freaky and extremely fun. There were some negative comments on the Daily page about her somewhat casual attitude towards the guns (at one point, yes, she kind of breaks protocol by pointing a gun away from the target), but it didn't bother me a bit. I was too busy being massively entertained. This was a big risk - I thought so from the moment she suggested the idea - and it really paid off. A great sense of humor is a big part of what we're looking for in a host, and if we were going on laughs-per-moment alone, I think Andrea would have it wrapped up.
I should also note, Andrea has had a lot of other hosting gigs, on and off-line, and she has nailed every single challenge we've put forth in "Mahalo Idol," leaving little doubt about her potential success as host.
Let us know your thoughts at Mahalo Daily. I'm not exactly sure where we're going from here - Jason has discussed everything from eliminating one lady per week to cutting it down to 2 on Monday - but we're committed to giving the audience a say in the matter. Your votes will COUNT! Which is more than several U.S. states can say with any measure of certainty. That's the Mahalo Daily difference.
What the hell is Mike Huckabee even talking about here? It's like he's joking...but I don't get it...
Just weird...Why would someone be pointing a gun at Obama? I mean, I get that it's an NRA meeting and all, but isn't their whole thing that they are responsible sportsmen, not psychos who pull guns on presidential candidates?
I'm not sure what the context of this clip could possibly be, and I don't care. Gervais + Ramsay = Good.
[Hat tip, Ezra]
A lot of movies, particularly in the last 10 years or so, have tried to blend the qualities of animation and traditional filmmaking, to create a kind of "live-action cartoon." As with most genre experiments, these films usually don't work. You tend to get stuff like Shoot 'Em Up that, in trying to mix and match the best elements of cartoons and live-action, wind up with a confused muddle that gets neither form right.
The Wachowski Brothers' Speed Racer is something else entirely. I'm not sure if this was even meant to be a live-action cartoon or not. It's impossible for me to tell you what Larry and Andy were going for. Unless the goal was to punish the cruel world that shunned their Matrix sequels, a sort of delayed cinematic revenge, I'm pretty sure they didn't get there.
The word "debacle" gets thrown around a lot these days. The Bush Administration. New Orleans Reconstruction. The Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis. But Speed Racer gives the word an entirely new meaning. This is not just one of the least pleasant and most inane movies I have seen, but also among the most confounding. Why make this movie? And for whom? And why do it like this? Just to prove that you can?
The story is labored and needlessly complex, involving corporate espionage, double-crosses, arcane racing rules and a whole shitload of backstory about dead brothers and vintage auto races. It sucks, and it makes the movie 140 minutes long, which is just entirely, insanely too long no matter how you slice it. Even if it were really good, that would be too long.
The basics are these: Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch, getting about as far from Into the Wild as possible) must compete in a variety of races to save his father's (John Goodman) racing company and defeat the insidious plot of corporate mogul Royalton (Roger Allam), who controls the world of professional racing and uses it for financial gain. He's helped by his girlfriend Trixie (Christina Ricci), his loyal and attentive mother (Susan Sarandon) and the mysterious and shadowy Racer X (Matthew Fox).
The Wachowskis created the "world" of the film using the same kind of technology that made Sin City and Sky Captain possible - shooting their actors in "green screen" sets and then plunking them down into an entirely computer-generated universe. In fairness, Speed Racer looks nothing like those movies. It looks as those movies may have looked if you had rubbed your eyes for two hours before watching them, then done a few bracing shots of absinthe.
I know that makes it sound good, and for a few quick seconds, during some of the racing scenes, it almost comes together into something. Every rare once in a while, I could feel the movie start to look less like a video game and almost maybe kind of get cinematic for a moment, before flipping around and turning back into an indecipherable jumble of brain-meltingly lame jokes and bright bursts of primary colors.
What I'm saying is, this movie doesn't look like any other movies, but perhaps that's because it looks like the stupidest piece of fucking trash I have ever seen. There's a reason no other director has used this technology to turn the movie screen into a coloring book that's been attacked by 8 ADHD-infected toddlers armed with a garbage bag full of magic markers and crystal meth. Because it's a bad idea.
In still shots, like the one above, Speed Racer looks almost beautiful, or at least pleasingly candy-colored and imaginative. But the movie is edited at such breakneck speed, and so constantly over-saturated with light and color and busyness, it just becomes an eyesore after about five seconds, and even turned kind of nauseating by the conclusion. The Wachowskis prove that actual showmanship and directorial prowess has nothing to do with technology or budgets or ambition or a willingness to go-for-broke.
Actually being a director is about having a keen eye, some basic visual sense for framing and composition and the confidence in your own ability to not show the audience everything you could possibly show them. Filmmaking is largely about making decisions about what to show and what to leave out. The Wachowskis want to leave nothing out, they will spin a camera at top speed for 140 minutes to show you every inch of the dazzling world they've created, and that's why they keep proving themselves to be sub-standard filmmakers. Again and again.
Take the sequence set at the elaborate, massive car factory. We spend about 10 minutes zooming down a long hallway taking in row after row after endless row of machinery, employees, car parts, equipment, and on and on and on, and in the end, it all becomes an indistinguishable blur, like a forgettable PlayStation cut scene. A movie like Monsters Inc. or even the Tim Burton Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (of which I was not a huge fan) does so much more with so much less - a hint at the size and mystery of the factory is more tantalizing than a constantly moving, buzzy but ultimately senseless 10 minute sequence. And because the activity going on is not itself interesting - it's essentially a tour of a car factory, albeit a fantastically large and, of course, candy-colored car factory - the entire purpose is lost, and the audience naturally stops paying close attention to what they are seeing.
Those are just the visuals. We haven't even discussed quite possibly the lamest, most obnoxious, poorly conceived script of the year. The dialogue, as in every script yet written by Larry and Andy, is tone-deaf and atrocious. Some basic elements of screenwriting, like foreshadowing, are so clunky and awkward here, it's genuinely embarrassing for veteran filmmakers.
(I mean, the scene where Trixie tells Speed Racer that, one day, she hopes he'll win the Grand Prix and they'll kiss in front of all the screaming fans? The 8 year old behind me could tell that was going to come back around, even though he had fallen asleep by the time it actually happened).
Surely I can't be the only one who has noticed that these two have zero sense of humor whatsoever. Bound is actually kind of a cool, funny movie, but it's really just because Joe Pantoliano figured out how ludicrous it was and decided to have some fun with the material. The entire Matrix trilogy is, essentially, joke-free.
Here, they've been given the task of adapting a silly children's cartoon that features a monkey as a main character. So you know that's not going to go too well. But still, the comedy in the film is absolutely gobsmackingly hideous.
It gives me no pleasure to bash a child actor, particularly because it's surely not his fault, but Paulie Litt as Spritle gives perhaps the worst child performance I've ever seen - he mugs uncontrollably, and his line readings are clearly coached. They might as well have just hired a stage mother to come on camera and perform the part as she hopes her child might.
This sounds mean, but I'll say again...This isn't the fault of young Paulie Litt. This is why you have directors. They're supposed to be there to try and get an actual performance out of this kid, rather than just having him jump around and generally be as irritating as any one human being could possibly make themselves. If he's not up to the kind of performance their movie requires, they're supposed to hire someone else. I harbor no ill will towards young Master Litt, but I wanted to punch him in the face at several points during tonight's screening.
I could keep going, but what's the point? Nothing at all works about Speed Racer. It's painful from start to finish. I actually found it a grueling experience, difficult to sit through and intensely annoying. Oh, and did I mention it's 140 goddamn minutes long? WTF? It's fucking Speed Racer! That's like every episode of the show placed back-to-back!
Mahalo is searching for a truly badass Los Angeles Systems Engineer. Details can be found at CEO Jason's blog.
Does this sound like you? If so, let us know. If not, why are you still reading this? Here's the basics:
Systems Engineer, Los Angeles
Mahalo.com, Inc. is a new human-powered social search service backed by Sequoia Capital (the world's #1 venture firm), Newscorp, CBS, Elon Musk (Paypal founder), and others. This kind of opportunity is extremely rare in LA: these high-profile rewards are usually found only in Silicon Valley.
We're looking for a seasoned Systems Engineer. You should be expert in massively scalable architectures, how MySQL and Linux interact, how MySQL and memcache interact, sharding, replication (including multiple
master replication) and how to tune MySQL based on various schemas for maximum performance and availability. You are a HANDS ON implementor, a get-it-done kind of developer. The right person is a self starter
with the "general get it factor". You work well with a team of like-minded engineers, and have a genuine desire for excellence.
You should be expert with:
Applications: PHP 5.x, MySQL 5.x, memcache 1.2.x
Protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, Unicast and Multicast socket programming
Scripting languages: Unix shell scripting
Other languages: Applicants with C, Java, and Objective-C experience preferred
Bonus: Hadoop / HBase, Lucene, Nutch, Spread
Well rounded candidates such as release engineers with a background in both large corporate environments and small startups have an edge.
I seriously can't believe Hillary Clinton said this to anyone, let alone a reporter:
And I quote:
"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."
"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.
Are we to understand that Hillary is now actively and openly courting the support of white bigots?
"Hey, Rufus! Wanna spend a few bucks less on gas for a month? Scared of browns? Then git on down to the votin' store and support Hillary Clinton!"
I mean, there is a primary coming up in West Virginia ("The Bigot State"), so I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad strategy...but it's pretty goddamn brazen all the same. And from a Democrat no less.
Wow.
This is an actual commercial intended to make you LIKE John McCain. It's like McCain and Romney had a "Who's More Visibly Awkward" contest, and McCain clearly won but insists on rubbing it in now. What a dick.
But seriously, Christopher Guest directing Larry David in a Ricky Gervais-penned remake of Welcome to the Dollhouse would not be this cringe-worthy.
He approved this message? What's the message? I can't even tell what the hell she's talking about. When he was born, people gave them lots of booze? John, John, when people said they "wanted to have a beer with George Bush," they didn't mean that literally he had to buy every American beer. It's just a metaphor. The guy with the most liquor doesn't actually just get to be President.
Mahalo VLOG Idol is now...THE BACHELON!
Man...a shirt unbuttoned to my navel and a tuxedo T-shirt in the same episode...Will I ever be able to top this?
Don't get me wrong...I'm glad my candidate will win. But I would have voted for either of them gladly against John McCain. I'm just happy this excruciating primary is finally going to end.
But will I ever be able to watch 20 minutes of TV without seeing ludicrous footage of Jeremiah Wright? Only time will tell...
