Boys Becoming Men...Men Becoming Wolves...

Werewolf Bar Mitzvah, a one-off joke from an October episode of the fall-down funny "30 Rock," is now a bonafide cultural meme, and I couldn't be more pleased. No, really! Gawker informs me that WBM provided the theme for a New York hipster Halloween party. And if providing the theme for a New York hipster Halloween party doesn't make you a cultural meme...well, then I don't really know what the term "meme" means. And I'm fairly certain that I do. Let's say, 65% so.

Tracy Morgan has graciously now recorded a full version of the song, and College Humor has appropriately made a little photo-montage video to mark the occasion. Enjoy.

Greatness Skips a Generation...or Eight...

Mike Reagan is the son of Former President Ronald Reagan, seen here in this file photo dreaming about Phil Collins.



Mike has some amusing insights he'd like to share with you about the candidacy of HilRod Clinton. It comes in the form of "advice" Mike's handing out to Democrats. Why would any Democrats possibly take advice from a guy who spasms with glee at the very passing mention of a Republican victory in 2008? No particular reason. He just likes seeing his name in print.

Listen Barack Obama, John Edwards and all you other soon-to-be also-rans, lay off Hillary. She's well on her way to winning the nomination and we don't want anything to stand in her way, especially attacks on her character and integrity that might sidetrack her on the way to being your party's standard bearer.

So leave her alone, let her cruise her way to the nomination so we Republicans can have the pleasure of dissecting her in the general election campaign.

Reagan's column reads exactly like one of those comic Onion faux editorials, in which a joke is set up and then repeated/embellished for several paragraphs. In this case, the "joke" is that Republicans secretly (but not so secretly) hope for a Clinton victory in the Democratic primaries because they think they can destroy her in a general election, and Reagan will go ahead and essentially rephrase this point over and over again until he mercifully meets his mandatory minimum word count, so he can go back outside and finish building that fort or playing that game of freeze tag or whatever the hell he was doing before he started banging away hopelessly at his keyboard in an ultimately futile attempt to formulate a coherent argument. (Run-on sentences...they're fantastic!)

And she is about as dissectible as a politician can get, starting with her health care reform fiasco, her sleazy involvement in the White House travel office firings, her use of private detectives to smear and harass the women who accused her husband of sexual misconduct, and her most recent campaign finance shenanigans.

I'm genuinely curious...is anyone still swayed by this stuff? Any American over 25 is going to remember the last time a Clinton was in charge and Republicans were screeching over Travelgate and Whitewater and a whole bunch of other bullshit that no one really bothered to take in or understand. (The only thing anyone actually got upset about was the BJ, and even then no one gave a shit except Lucianne Goldberg, Ken Starr and Jay Leno.) I sincerely hope this is the Grand Republican Plan for 2008, Mikey.

Step 1: Get Clinton the nomination
Step 2: Bring up extremely uninteresting, incomprehensible, decades-old scandals
Step 3: Profit?

She'll most likely be running against Giuliani, a cousin-marrying New Yorker who's just wild about abortions and teh ghey. Maybe Mike should be more worried about his side's prospects than smearing Hillary. Who, lets face it, is not exactly a stranger to being smeared and is still around.

Want a sample of her negatives? Here's a bit from Ana Marie Cox's blog a year ago last August: "The Boston Herald reports on what 'ordinary, grass-roots Democrats' think about Hillary Clinton: 'Lying B**** . . . Shrew . . . Machiavellian . . . Evil, power-mad witch . . . The ultimate self-serving politician. . . Criminal . . . Megalomaniac . . . Fraud . . . Dangerous . . . Devil incarnate . . . Satanic . . . Power freak.'"

I'll be honest...There's a few of those perspectives on Hillary with which I agree. (Anyone who seeking political power with HilRod's drive and ferocity for this long would have to be a self-serving Machiavellian power freak. ALL ADJECTIVES, by the way, that apply to every major Republican candidate.) Were Mike a more insightful, less hacky writer, he might stop and consider how wretchedly disgraceful his own party must be for Democrats to consider voting for a satanic, evil, power-mad witch opponent. But naturally, he doesn't go there.

I know you Democrats don't want to do us Republicans any favors, but just this once let us have our way. Give us the opportunity to give the Republican attack machine another shot at Hillary Clinton. Let her coast to victory in the primaries. Then we'll take it from there.

Andrew Sullivan, always one to jump on the Hillary Hatred bandwagon, chimes in approvingly in a post titled "A Message to the Dems," as if Mike's misogynist diatribe were actually intended to provide genuine, non-ironic advice. It's fairly obvious from Mike's seething hatred of all things Clintonian and Sullivan's constant harping on her candidacy that they're afraid she's going to win. If you really thought your party could destroy Clinton in a general election, you'd shut up about it and make Democrats think she was unbeatable. A-duh. (In Sullivan's case, he just seems to loathe Clinton to an unnatural degree, somewhat similarly to the way I loathe Zach Braff. Of course, I cop to my irrational hatreds; Sullivan wants his to guide geopolitical events for the next eight years.

I think, dead-eyed stupidity aside, what bothers me most about Mike's column is its assumption that politics is and can only be about smearing ones opponents and playing dirty tricks. This election is about nothing NOTHING NOTHING for him other than winning. He doesn't even pretend to give a shit about the troops or the war or the economy or the education system or Social Security or even abortion and prayer in school! There is no agenda, only his team and the other team, and the goal is to drive them into the ground. To ELIMINATE them, really.

Which brings me, finally, to this post from right-wing haven Wizbang. Blogger Kim Priestap makes a very silly point in response to an experiment over at Democratic Underground, in which two liberal bloggers tested out waterboarding one another to gain perspective on the ongoing debate about the practice. Kimmy argues that, if these guys were voluntarily waterboarding themselves, it can't be torture, as if people being tortured had the option of stopping when it got too unpleasant.

Like I said, just silly. Not worth a blog post, really. I bring it up only because of the comments from Wizbang readers.

Scrapiron, the FIRST TO COMMENT, says this:

"Let me bring a half inch hammer drill and some bits and show them what torture is. Bet they won't want a do over."

He's fantasizing here, just to summarize, about drilling bits into his political opponents to prove a silly point.

Anon Y. Mous says:

"I'd like to prove that electric shock is torture. First, I'll need a few volunteers from the DU."

Yeah! That'd show 'em! That...um...torture is good? Bad? That two things that have nothing to do with one another can't both be torture? I don't even know any more...

Here's commenter Mike's torture fantasy:

"Maybe next time, in an effort to illustrate the "we're no better than they are" moral equivalence argument, they'll decide to try burning the skin off each other's back with a blowtorch, or gouging each other's eyeballs out with a rusty screwdriver. Or at least the tried-and-true car battery to the genitals. I wonder how many times they would subject themselves to that one."

Ouch. He's been listening to some Method Man lyrics.

Seriously, unless you're Bret Easton Ellis, you have no business even writing a sentence like that. Who are these sadistic fucks and is there a way I can guarantee that I never run into them outside of the Internet? I mean, aside from staying out of Alabama and Texas.

Here's a comment that isn't isolationist but just...I mean...read it for yourself...

god, foreigners are envious.

PJ O'Rourke did a riff explaining why foreigners acted like jerks in a desperate attempt to be noticed by americans: he compared it to the wild longings of a 13-year-old boy frantic to get the attention of a magnificent 24-year-old babe.

not a bad analogy. foreigners will of course angrily deny this. "we're GLEDD we don't hevv as much money and powwair as you stupid americans! we LAHK being impotent and ignored!"

Foreigners? This guy's making SWEEPING GENERALIZATIONS about the entire world population that doesn't come from the USA. (And you just know he pronounces it "furr-ners".) It would be hilarious if I didn't sense that 80-some percent of my countrymen felt the same way.

Criss Angel Disproves Shit You Already Knew Was False

So, apparently NBC has this show, "Phenomenon," that's like "American Idol" for magicians, and one of the two judges is that Criss Angel "Mindfreak" guy who pretended to have sex with Britney a little while back. Now, I would never watch this show, because I'm generally not a huge fan of magic, but this clip is HI-larious.

One of the contestants is this immense goober Jim Callahan, who claims that he can physically contact the spirit world. He has Raven-Symoné choose a mystery object at random and put it in a box filled with salt, then allows a spirit to actually use his body to write out the box's contents live on stage. (She chooses a toy truck, which is so Raven!)

Honestly, it's one of the silliest performances I've ever seen. He jerks around and makes noises and rolls his eyes into the back of his head - he even has the host caution the audience that his gyrations may be disturbing beforehand. Whoopi Goldberg doesn't take her performance this far in the film Ghost, and she's playing the scene for laughs.

Anyway, Callahan correctly "guesses" that the object in the box is metal and has four wheels. He's being coached by a ghost and he still can't come up with the word "truck"? What, does this ghost only speak in puzzles? Is it the ghost of Frank Gorshin? We're supposed to find this impressive somehow? I mean, seriously, this is such an old, tired line of bullshit...Fake mentalists used to pull this routine all the time, sending assistants into the audience to find random objects which the performer would then identify using code words. (For example, the assistant would say, "Can you tell me what I hold in my hands?," and this meant it was a pocket watch, whereas "What is the object I'm holding now?," would mean cigarette lighter. I'm sure Callahan's act is based on something similar.)

Criss Angel is having none of it, and just completely faces this Callahan guy on national television by holding up two more mystery envelopes and demanding to know what's inside. The ensuing tantrum, with Callahan calling Angel an "ideological bigot" (for not believing in magic!), may be one of the year's TV highlights:



That video was actually posted to YouTube BY Callahan, who seems to think that Angel's a hypocrite for not believing in spiritual possession. I'm not actually sure whether or not Angel has ever insisted that his magic is real and not just entertainment-themed illusion, so I can't speak to the claim of hypocrisy, but I do know that the term "ideological bigot" is really stupid and that Jim Callahan is a massive, ridiculous fraud. And not just a fraud, but an angry, insecure fraud. Which is funny.

October is the Cruellest Month

Happy Halloween, everyone!



[H/t Sample the Web]

Apache Boy

Watch this. It's pretty much the greatest music video of all time...



In my face...

The Daily Show...Well, A Daily Show. Maybe not THE Daily Show.

Mahalo Daily, our site's new podcast starring the incomparable Veronica Belmont, launches next week. So they've put up the trailer!



The Daily (as I like to call it) will cover what Mahalo covers, which basically means everything. I've seen some of the future episodes, and I think this is going to be a lot of fun. (We're even landing some big guests and other assorted insider-y goodness! Stay tuned...)

You know, when we were first starting the company, we had all kinds of ideas for podcasts. I even starred in some early variations. I think we're better off getting Veronica Belmont in front of the camera, all in all. Scoble and Ask a Ninja have already kind of cornered the market on Fat Nerd Podcasting. (Okay, I'm just kidding...You can never have enough Fat Nerds.) It's been really interesting to see this whole thing come together from just a concept into a full-blown show over the past few months.

At the very least, I promise The Daily's going to be more interesting than that Boing Boing podcast, which is kind of like having a boring guy tell you all about the Boing Boing posts from the previous day that he only half-remembers.

Movie Review Archive

Normally, the archive won't be on the front page like this. It'll be linked over there on the sidebar. But it took me a while to compile, so I thought I'd leave it up here at least for now.

6 categories, from best to worst, each sub-ordered by release year. Enjoy.



CLASSICS

There Will Be Blood (2007, Anderson)
No Country for Old Men (2007, Coen)
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007, Dominik)
Children of Men (2006, Cuaron)
INLAND EMPIRE (2006, Lynch)
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006, Charles)
The Departed (2006, Scorsese)
Munich (2005, Spielberg)
The New World (2005, Malick)
Grizzly Man (2005, Herzog)
Batman Begins (2005, Nolan)
Bob Dylan: No Direction Home (2005, Scorsese)
Match Point (2005, Allen)
Head-On/Lost Honor of Katherina Blum (2004, Akin/1975, Schlondorff)
Oldboy (2003, C. Park)
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance/Pickpocket/Forbidden Games (2002, C. Park/1959, Bresson/1952, Clement)
Minority Report (2002, Spielberg)
The Double Life of Veronique (1991, Kieslowski)
Withnail & I (1987, Robinson)
Cross of Iron (1977, Peckinpah)
Network/Kind Hearts and Coronets (1976, Lumet/1949, Hamer)
The Passenger (1975, Antonioni)
F for Fake (1974, Welles)
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974, Peckinpah)
Charley Varrick (1973, Siegel)
Army of Shadows (1969, Melville)
Goyokin/Three Outlaw Samurai (1969/1967, Gosha/Gosha)
Petulia (1968, Lester)
Point Blank (1967, Boorman)
Le Samourai/Wizard of Oz (1967, Melville/1939, Fleming)
Weekend (1967, Godard)
Masculine Feminine (1966, Godard)
The Professionals (1966, R. Brooks)
Sword of Doom (1966, Okamoto)
Fists in the Pocket (1965, Bellocchio)
Hound of the Baskervilles (1959, Fisher)
The Sweet Smell of Success (1957, Mackendrick)
Rebel Without a Cause (1955, Ray)
Pickup on South Street (1953, Fuller)
Night and the City (1950, Dassin)
Asphalt Jungle (1950, Huston)
Where the Sidewalk Ends/Kiss of Death/The Dark Corner (1950, Preminger/1947, Hathaway/1946, Hathaway)
Unfaithfully Yours/Palm Beach Story (1948, Sturges/1942, Sturges)
The Killers (1946, Siodmak)
Laura (1944, Preminger)
Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943, Powell and Pressburger)
Young Mr. Lincoln (1939, Ford)
King Kong (1933, Cooper and Schoedsack)

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Juno (2007, J. Reitman)
The Darjeeling Limited (2007, Anderson)
Eastern Promises (2007, Cronenberg)
Rocket Science (2007, Blitz)
The Simpsons Movie (2007, Silverman)
Live Free or Die Hard (2007, Wiseman)
Rescue Dawn (2007, Herzog)
Knocked Up (2007, Apatow)
Hot Fuzz (2007, Wright)
Grindhouse (2007, Rodriguez and Tarantino)
Zodiac (2007, Fincher)
Black Book (2006, Verhoeven)
The Lives of Others (2006, Henckel von Donnersmarck)
The Queen (2006, Frears)
Marie Antoinette (2006, S. Coppolla)
Casino Royale (2006, Campbell)
A Scanner Darkly (2006, Russell)
The Proposition (2006, Hillcoat)
V for Vendetta (2006, McTeigue)
Find Me Guilty (2006, Lumet)
The Road to Guantanamo (2006, Winterbottom)
Hostel (2006, Roth)
Caché (2005, Haneke)
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005, Black)
13 (Tzameti) (2005, Babluani)
Brokeback Mountain (2005, Lee)
Good Night, and Good Luck.(2005, Clooney)
A History of Violence (2005, Cronenberg)
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005, Gibney)
Broken Flowers (2005, Jarmusch)
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (2005, Greenwald)
The King (2005, Marsh)
Sin City (2005, Rodriguez)
Star Wars: Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith (2005, Lucas)
Howl's Moving Castle (2004, Miyazaki)
The Aviator (2004, Scorsese)
Undertow (2004, D. Green)
Bad Education (2004, Almoldovar)
Survive Style 5+ (2004, Sekiguchi)
Sideways (2004, Payne)
Closer (2004, Nichols)
A Very Long Engagement (2004, Jeunet)
I Heart Huckabees (2004, Russell)
Friday Night Lights (2004, Berg)
Cafe Lumiere (2003, Hou)
Fear and Trembling (2003, Corneau)
Memories of Murder (2003, Bong)
The Man Who Copied (2003, Furtado)
I'm Not Scared (2003, Salvatores)
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring (2003, K. Kim)
Overnight (2003, Montana and Smith)
Funny Ha Ha (2002, Bujalski)
Donnie Darko: Director's Cut (2001, Kelly)
The Isle (2000, K. Kim)
Fresh Bait (1995, Tavernier)
Cemetary Man (1994, Saovi)
Cronos (1993, Del Toro)
Trauma (1993, Argento)
My Own Private Idaho (1991, Van Sant)
Naked Lunch (1991, Cronenberg)
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990, Stoppard)
Metropolitan (1990, Stillman)
Rumble Fish (1983, F. F. Coppola)
Southern Comfort (1981, Hill)
Cutter's Way (1981, Passer)
Thief (1981, Mann)
Bad Timing (1980, Roeg)
The Driver (1978, Hill)
The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976, Roeg)
The Laughing Policeman (1973, Rosenberg)
Sisters (1973, De Palma)
Prime Cut (1972, Ritchie)
Winter Soldier (1972)
Hunger (1966, Carlsen)
Jigoku (1960, Nakagawa)
Elevator to the Gallows (1958, Malle)
House of Bamboo/The Street With No Name (1955, Fuller/1948, Keighley)
Clash by Night (1952, Lang)
The Man in the White Suit (1951, Mackendrick)
Born to Kill (1947, Wise)
Lifeboat (1944, Hitchcock)
Fury (1936, Lang)
Hands Across the Table (1935, Leisen)
I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932, LeRoy)

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Superbad (2007, Mottola)
3:10 to Yuma (2007, Mangold)
1408 (2007, Håfström)
Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007, Story)
Blades of Glory (2007, Gordon and Speck)
Little Children (2006, Field)
Pan's Labyrinth (2006, Del Toro)
Babel (2006, Innaritu)
The Prestige (2006, Nolan)
The Black Dahlia (2006, De Palma)
Little Miss Sunshine (2006, Dayton and Farris)
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006, McKay)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006, Verbinski)
An Inconvenient Truth (2006, Guggenheim)
Accepted (2006, Pink)
The Break-Up (2006, Reed)
Running Scared (2006, Kramer)
Underworld: Evolution (2006, Wiseman)
Slither (2006, Gunn)
Inside Man/CSA (2006, Lee/2004, Willmott)
Lemming (2005, Moll)
Edmond (2005, Gordon)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005, Burton)
The Matador/The Libertine (2005, Shepard/2004, Dunmore)
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005, Jones)
Capote (2005, Miller)
The Squid and the Whale (2005, Baumbach)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005, Newell)
Pride and Prejudice (2005, Wright)
Walk the Line (2005, Mangold)
The Aristocrats (2005, Jilette and Provenza)
Thumbsucker (2005, Mills)
Junebug (2005, Morrison)
Hustle & Flow (2005, Brewer)
Red Eye (2005, Craven)
The Wedding Crashers (2005, Dobkin)
War of the Worlds (2005, Spielberg)
Lady Vengeance (2005, C. Park)
Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005, July)
Devil's Rejects (2005, Zombie)
Land of the Dead (2005, Romero)
Constantine (2005, Lawrence)
Palindromes (2005, Solondz)
Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic (2005, Lynch)
The Descent/Let's Scare Jessica to Death (2005, N. Marshall/1971, Hancock)
The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005, Apatow)
2046 (2004, Wong)
Downfall (2004, Hirschbiegel)
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004, Silberling)
Steamboy (2004, Otomo)
Creep (2004, C. Smith)
Izo/Quintet/Demon Seed (2004/1979/1977, Miike/Altman/Cannell)
Hotel Rwanda (2004, George)
The Woodsman (2004, Kassell)
Primer (2004, Carruth)
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004, Conran)
Ocean's Twelve (2004, Soderbergh)
Saw (2004, Wan)
Vera Drake (2004, Leigh)
The Brown Bunny (2003, Gallo)
A Tale of Two Sisters (2003, J. Kim)
Rounders (1998, Dahl)
The Eel (1997, Imamura)
The Frighteners: Director's Cut (1996, Jackson)
Bugsy (1991, Levinson)
Cape Fear (1991, Scorsese)
Casualties of War (1989, De Palma)
Year of the Dragon (1985, Cimino)
The Big Red One (1981, Fuller)
Three Days of the Condor (1975, Pollack)
Viva Maria (1965, Malle)
Warlock (1959, Dmytryk)
Seven Men From Now (1956, Boetticher)
Panic in the Streets (1950, Kazan)
Call Northside 777 (1948, Hathaway)
Possessed (1947, Bernhardt)

NOT RECOMMENDED

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007, Greengrass)
The Science of Sleep (2006, Gondry)
My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006, I. Reitman)
World Trade Center (2006, Stone)
The Devil Wears Prada (2006, Frankel)
Idlewild (2006, Barber)
Miami Vice (2006, Mann)
Mission: Impossible III (2006, Abrams)
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006, Ratner)
16 Blocks (2006, Donner)
Silent Hill (2006, Gans)
Tsotsi (2005, Hood)
Syriana (2005, Gaghan)
The Notorious Bettie Page (2005, Harron)
Hard Candy (2005, Slade)
Aeon Flux (2005, Kusama)
Ellie Parker/Pray (2005, Coffey/2005, Sato)
Wolf Creek (2005, McLean)
King Kong (2005, Jackson)
Memoirs of a Geisha (2005, R. Marshall)
Jarhead (2005, Mendes)
The Ice Harvest (2005, Ramis)
North Country (2005, Caro)
Separate Lies (2005, Fellowes)
The Weather Man (2005, Verbinski)
Wallace and Gromit in Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005, N. Park)
Oliver Twist (2005, Polanski)
The Island (2005, Bay)
The Constant Gardener (2005, Meirelles)
Inside Deep Throat (2005, Bailey and Barbato)
Bubble (2005, Soderbergh)
Kingdom of Heaven (2005, R. Scott)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005, Jennings)
Melinda and Melinda (2004, Allen)
The Machinist (2004, B. Anderson)
Kung Fu Hustle (2004, Chow)
Team America: World Police (2004, Parker)
Kinsey (2004, Condon)
National Treasure (2004, Turteltaub)
Enduring Love (2004, Michell)
Meet the Fockers (2004, Roach)
Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War (2004, Kang)
The Last Shot (2004, Nathanson)
The Life Aquatic (2004, W. Anderson)
Million Dollar Baby (2004, Eastwood)
Modern Romance (1981, A. Brooks)
Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972, Gibson)
The Cincinnati Kid (1965, Jewison)
High Sierra (1941, Walsh)
Gunga Din (1939, Stevens)

PROCEED WITH EXTREME CAUTION

Michael Clayton (2007, Gilroy)
The Kingdom (2007, Berg)
Stardust (2007, Vaughn)
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007, Verbinski)
Spider-Man 3 (2007, Raimi)
All the King's Men (2006, Zaillian)
Tideland (2006, Gilliam)
Clerks II (2006, K. Smith)
The Da Vinci Code (2006, Howard)
Cars (2006, Lasseter)
The Omen/Feast (2006, Moore/2005, Gulager)
The Hills Have Eyes (2006, Aja)
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006, Lin)
An American Haunting (2005, Solomon)
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (2005, Adamson)
Brick(2005, R. Johnson)
Derailed (2005, Hafstrom)
Mirrormask (2005, McKean)
The Brothers Grimm (2005, Gilliam)
Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (2005, Burton and Johnson)
The Bad News Bears (2005, Linklater)
Pretty Persuasion (2005, Siega)
Fantastic Four (2005, Story)
Havoc (2005, Kopple)
March of the Penguins (2005, Jacquet)
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005, Liman)
Bewitched (2005, Ephron)
Kicking and Screaming (2005, Dylan)
The Amityville Horror (2005, Douglas)
Sahara (2005, Eisner)
The Ring Two (2005, Nakata)
The Great New Wonderful (2005, Leiner)
The Interpreter (2005, Pollack)
Hostage (2005, Siri)
Cursed (2005, Craven)
The Jacket (2005, Maybury)
White Noise (2005, Sax)
In Good Company (2004, Weitz)
Beyond the Sea (2004, Spacey)
Eros (2004; Wong, Soderbergh and Antonioni)
Layer Cake (2004, Vaughn)
Spanglish (2004, J. Brooks)
The Toolbox Murders (2004, Hooper)
Alien vs. Predator (2004, P. W. S. Anderson)
The Forgotten (2004, Ruben)
Alexander: Director's Cut (2004, Stone)
Dark Water (2002, Nakata)
Wise Guys (1986, De Palma)
Equinox (1970, Muren and Woods)

BRAFFSTERPIECES

Southland Tales (2007, Kelly)
Transformers (2007, Bay)
300 (2007, Snyder)
Lady in the Water (2006, Shyamalan)
Superman Returns (2006, Singer)
Scoop (2006, Allen)
Thank You For Smoking(2006, J. Reitman)
Lucky Number Slevin(2006, McGuigan)
Basic Instinct 2(2006, Caton-Jones)
United 93(2006, Greengrass)
Friends With Money(2006, Holofcener)
Nacho Libre (2006, Hess)
The Wicker Man (2006, LaBute)
The Sentinel(2006, C. Johnson)
Freedomland/Date Movie (2006, Roth/2006, Seltzer)
Poseidon(2006, Peterson)
When a Stranger Calls/The Ringer (2006, West/2005, Blaustein)
A Sound of Thunder (2005, Hyams)
Serenity (2005, Whedon)
Beowulf and Grendel (2005, Gunnarsson)
XXX: State of the Union (2005, Tamahori)
Daltry Calhoun (2005, Bronson)
Elizabethtown (2005, Crowe)
Flightplan (2005, Schwentke)
Rumor Has It (2005, Reiner)
Cinderella Man (2005, Howard)
Lord of War (2005, Niccol)
Domino (2005, T. Scott)
Crash (2005, Haggis)
Bloodrayne (2005, Boll)
The Producers (2005, Stroman)
The Polar Express (2004, Zemeckis)
Mindhunters (2004, Harlin)
Exorcist: The Beginning (2004, Harlin)
Ray (2004, Hackford)
Finding Neverland (2004, Forster)
Blade: Trinity (2004, Goyer)
Suspect Zero (2004, Merhige)
High Roller: The Stu Ungar Story (2003, Vidmer)
The Duchess and The Dirtwater Fox (1976, Frank)
The Magus (1968, G. Green)

You repo men, you're all out to fuckin' lunch

This trailer for Repo: The Genetic Opera is getting attention because it features The Paris Hilton. But it deserves attention for being one of the most ludicrous things ever made.



It's not the concept of a horror musical that's notable. That's been done quite a bit. Phantom of the Paradise. Rocky Horror Picture Show. Can't Stop the Music. What makes Repo: The Genetic Opera stand out is that it looks like the storyboard to an Korn music video, only instead of that Korn idiot, you've got Paris Hilton - a person who, to the best of my recollection, doesn't so much sing as she does exhale in the vicinity of a microphone, filling in the actual singing via a sophisticated network of computers.

I'm not sure if "Korn music video storyboard", or even "Bargain Bin rehash of a Saw workprint" quite captures the aesthetic of Repo: The Genetic Opera (and what is with that name...putting "genetic" in the title of a movie featuring Paris Hilton is just asking for trouble. Perhaps they received a payoff from the Porn Titler's Union Local #290.)

Okay, first imagine that Brett Ratner directed a remake of Interview with the Vampire as a student film back in his NYU days, scored entirely by the campus glee club, while they were all in the midst of a 12-day adderall binge. Then, overexpose the film. Then cover it in vaseline and chicken shit. Now throw Goth Paris Hilton in there. That's the Repo: Genetic Opera trailer.

I hope it succeeds, though. If there's one thing we need, it's more campy slasher musicals. Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd means there's only two such films coming out in the next few months. I think we can do better than that...

A Portrait of Authority

"Beat on the Braff", the second-most-trafficked post in Crushed by Inertia history, gets a lot of comments. Some are positive (towards me and thus negative to Zach Braff), some negative (- to me, + to Braff). Some I think may even BE Zach Braff.

So last night, I'm a bit tipsy, because I just got home from the Man Man show at the Troubadour. (Quick notes on the show: It was really good, because Man Man is amazing, but the place was way overcrowded and the attendees were largely smelly assholes. And I'm not using figurative language here...At one point, I had a really good look at the stage, but I had to go somewhere else because the man next to me smelled intensely awful, like the full, lidless dumpster behind the Franco-American factory eight weeks into a sanitation strike. And the crowd was moshing, during Man Man, which is just poor form, but did kind of take me back to my teenage years, desperately trying to get close enough to the stage to hear Lagwagon without being knocked over. By the way, if you're around my age and listened to Lagwagon in high school, don't click that link and see how old those dudes are now unless you want to get deeeeeeeeeeee-pressed.)

Anyway, I'm tipsy, and I find there's a new comment in the "Beat on the Braff" forum, from Anonymous:

Sir, I could not disagree with you more.

Sir? Right off the bat, he's not doing so hot with that kind of affectation. Who addresses a blog comment to "Sir," and particularly an insulting one?

I don't think Zach Braff neccesarily [sic] deserves the amount of praise and hype he's gotten, but he is talented.

I mean, how to respond to such a thing? I don't think the guy is talented. This guy does...We're at an impasse. Why not just leave it at that?

I don't know if you have any credentials to back up your assertions that he cannot direct or act, but I do.

OH NO NO NO NO NO. WHY? Why go there? Why imply that I don't have a right to an opinion? What is to be gained?

Nothing pisses me off more than the near-daily comments posted to this blog by strangers who want to insist that I don't have a right to feel things or express feelings publicly. This is the essence of living in a free society. It's the FIRST FUCKING THING they wrote in the Bill of Rights. Before OWNING A GUN, EVEN!

There's no logical reason anyone could possibly be compelled to shut me up because, let's face it, I'm reaching a few hundred people a day here...I have no impact...There's no greater geopolitical significance to my saying what I want to say.

Bill O'Reilly...now THAT'S a guy I'd love to be able to shut up, because he's genuinely poisoning our airwaves with ignorant lies and violently militaristic propaganda, spreading a message of hate and fear to millions of Americans daily. But, me? I'm a sarcastic Jew who dislikes a big Hollywood actor/director and enjoys sharing this opinion with others. The only reason this guy wants me to shut up is that he feels threatened by my opinion.

I don't know why...

Maybe, as an actor, he fears that audiences will feel liberated to dislike his work, in the same way I dislike Braff's. So he's putting himself in Braff's shoes and realizing that the sting of professional criticism may be more than he can bear.

OR perhaps his precious opinions on acting are the only things in which he can truly take pride, and as my strongly worded opinion differs from his own, he must either snuff me out or concede that he is worthless as a human being.

I suppose there are a few other possibilities. But needless to say, I don't like being told that I lack the credentials to voice an opinion. Perhaps you disagree with my assertions, and maybe you can even back up your rebuttal with evidence and win the argument, but you don't have a right to tell me I can't think what I want or make my voice heard.

Why anyone would even want to do such a thing is beyond me.

Furthermore, I think that you just want something or someone to hate. You probably spend so much time hating Zach Braff that you never objectively look at what he's done and what he's doing.

A lot of people make this argument in re: my opinion of Zach Braff. As if I had some sort of motive in hating him aside from...hating him. I just don't like the guy. Is it maybe a bit irrational, in that my dislike for his acting exceeds my dislike for the equally mediocre acting of his peers? Sure. I'll grant that.

But no one makes this argument. People instead come here and deny my authority to even make an argument in the first place, then they try to imply that my hatred of Braff is based on some irrational delusion. Like I just felt a desperate urge to hate someone one day, and his was the first face I saw, and now he's imprinted on my brain like a Mama Duck. No one behaves in this way. If I say I dislike someone, it's probably because I have seen what they do and am not a fan.

I, recently, harbored a blood hatred for Leonardo Di Caprio: upon watching Blood Diamond, I conceded that I may be mistaken. Back to the point: I don't idolize Zach Braff, but I do think he's talented, and I think he works harder than a lot of actor/directors.

Wow...a BLOOD hatred. I've never even gone that far.

But notice that this guy permits HIMSELF to hold these kinds of strong opinions (and unquestionably about superior actors to Zach Braff). I'm just not allowed. Because I lack credentials. Who actually thinks this way? Who could possibly be this smug? I mean, that isn't Bill Maher.

So, BEARING IN MIND, as I said, that I was a few beers deep at the time...I left this comment back for the guy:

Oh, last commenter, please elaborate. Tell me more of these CREDENTIALS you have for evaluating acting and directing. A degree in Advanced Academic Evaluationisticisms from the Sorbonne, perhaps? A G.E.D. from the Tuscaloosa, Alabama High School for the Performing Arts?

You know what, you goddamn waste of space? Your opinion has no more or less validity than anyone else's. That's a fucking FACT and you better start dealing with it. Your nonsensical parading around the Internet, ANONYMOUSLY claiming that you can lord your opinion over others like a weapon, kind of makes me want to throw up or hit you or both. (Maybe throw up on you whilst hitting you.)

Get off my blog.

And I meant it, by the way. Not that I want to shut this guy up...cause who really cares what he has to say...but because I hate this kind of energy on my blog, even on old posts that I could safely just ignore. If people are going to argue with me, I want a nice, solid, good-faith argument, not some sort of academic pissing contest. (The "waste of space" line may have been a bit far...but I've always liked that insult. It's kind of one of my go-to insults.)

Anyway, the guy came back and left a comment with his name. I won't reprint it here, but you can just go to original post and see for yourself if you're so inclined...

Ha! You call ME a waste of space?

Yeah, I guess that was a bit too far...

The irony is delicious. You are a pretentious, self-righteous ass, and I will not leave simply because you say so.

Bear in mind, this is the same guy who said I lacked the credentials to gauge Zach Braff's acting skills. He's calling me pretentious.

And, for the record, the credentials are a BFA in Acting from Southern Oregon University, an MFA in acting from Yale, and many years of acting experience.

In...in my face? I guess? I mean, SOU, you know...Fuck me...

Honestly, I just...I just don't know how to respond here. I mean, who takes degrees this seriously? I have a Master's Degree, too, and it was a massive waste of 2 years. That's not to say that everyone's grad school experience was the same. I know some people who got a tremendous amount out of their post-graduate education. But to imagine that a few extra years in some classroom grants you superior, elite wisdom, such that your opinion gains immediate and permanent supremacy over all others...it's insane. This man actually thinks he's the Arbiter of Taste because he has some diploma up on his wall, or because he's been in some plays or "CSI" episodes or commercials for hand soap or whatever he means by "many years of acting experience."

I would also like to point out that I think it's funny that you feel you that your opinion on acting and directing, etc, is just as valid as mine, even though you have never studied it and probably don't know what 'it' is, or what makes 'it' good and bad.

I don't know what acting is? Really? Well, I'm not positive, but isn't it a lot like pretending...only with more accuracy? (Actually, I'm sure the writer of the comment would disagree with my contention that acting is essentially artistic pretending, but that would be because he is, as I mentioned above, a titanically massive bag full of douche, and I mean that in the least misogynist way possible).

I will use the analogy of acting to fine arts such as sculpture. You would know what you like an don't like, but I would hope that you're not so rash as to walk into a fine arts museum and start calling famous sculptures "bad" because you dislike them.

Anyone else reminded of our old friend, Brian Atene?



You wouldn't, because beyond what you like or dislike, you have no credentials on which to base an objective judgment of the piece's artistic worth. Yet, in acting, you feel you do have the credentials to judge an actor's work.

Did you follow that, or was that too many words for your miniature brain?

And since you have an issue with me posting anonymously, despite the fact that I don't think my name has anything to do with this, I will include me name. You cannot bully me.

For the record, here's what I said about Zach Braff's acting:

I mean, writing/directing aside, have you see "Scrubs"? It's a half-hour mugging session. The guy does more double-takes in an episode than Wile E. Coyote. That's acting? That's a performance? Bugging out your eyes or looking winsome? I mean, I guess it's not that hard to be the best sitcom actor around. You're competing in a field where Master Craftsmen are Jim Belushi, Kevin James and Ray Romano. It's slightly more competitive than winning a footrace against 3rd graders.

Seems to me that I'm just expressing a rather straightforward opinion. I may not have an MFA, but I know what mugging looks like, and I know that Jim Belushi is considered among the top tier of sitcom actors. One more time, for the record, we're talking about sitcoms, not the Collected Works of George Bernard fucking Shaw. They let Tom Shales review TV shows every day, and I'm pretty sure that guy's not allowed to ride the bus on his own.

Anyway, I'm just really gobsmacked that anyone would feel like they have this kind of authority or expertise, that they're free to visit the blogs of strangers and INSTRUCT them about the types of posts they can make and opinions they can hold. I left him a long, harshly-phrased comment to this effect back on the original post, not so much because I care about convincing this most-likely-hopeless case, but just because I occasionally need to vent. I have hopefully now gotten it out of my system.

Like Eating a Hot Circle of Garbage...

"Office" fans may be interested to know that both pizza restaurants mentions on the show a few week's back - "Pizza by Alfredo" and "Alfredo's Pizza Cafe" - have websites online. They are not, of course, REAL, but you've got to admire the effort NBC's putting into turning the fake world of Dunder-Mifflin into an online reality. In addition to multiple character blogs and the Dunder-Mifflin Infinity destination, they're now getting into the phony pizza business.

(These new sites are so realistic, I actually almost believed they were legit until reading this debunking post from Best Week Ever.) I wonder if this strategy is actually having any effect whatsoever on the show's ratings. Do people who wouldn't otherwise watch "The Office" discover the hilarity via these web destinations? Just strikes me as unlikely...

Perhaps it's just about keeping the viewers they already have engaged and watching...Or maybe the idea is that they can get more viewers to log into NBC.com, thereby discovering other NBC programming? Anyone actually know the strategy here?

"Brilliant"

Check out the "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks. Hilarious stuff.

[Hat tip, Gorilla Mask]

Kinky Wizards

This whole thing about Dumbledore from the "Potter" books being gay is truly outstanding. Very enjoyable fallout, J.K...we all owe you one for this essentially pointless but nonetheless highly amusing gesture.

Quick, quick backstory in case you don't follow fictional character outings...During a Q&A session, when asked about whether or not Dumbledore ever found love, "Potter" author J.K. Rowling revealed that the character was, in fact, homosexual.

"Dumbledore is gay," the author responded to gasps and applause.

She then explained that Dumbledore was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald, whom he defeated long ago in a battle between good and bad wizards. "Falling in love can blind us to an extent," Rowling said of Dumbledore's feelings, adding that Dumbledore was "horribly, terribly let down."

Interesting that this doesn't sound spontaneous - Rowling obviously had given thought to Dumbledore's personal history before - yet didn't find its way into any of the books. Why not bring it up within the text? Why wait until months after the publication of the final book to "reveal" a significant aspect of a character's personality and makeup? (Probably because it doesn't matter, but it's still interesting).

What does it mean when authors to just throw out appendages to their work after the fact? Should this information then inform future interpretations of their work? I'm not convinced that Dumbledore must be gay because Rowling says so. If I can read the books and come to a different conclusion (say, that he's secretly carrying on an affair with Professor McGonagall), must I be incorrect because my interpretation contradicts the author's thoughts on the subject?

Actually, you may not realize this, but Rowling is part of a grand tradition of artists introducing shocking relevations about their characters long after the original work was produced...

THE NEW YORK TIMES, MARCH 22, 1943

"WELLES: KANE'S A HOPHEAD!"

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - In a radio interview this morning on the McHutchin's Pork and Beans Supper Good Time Happy Variety Hour, filmmaker Orson Welles announced that his famed "Charles Foster Kane" character only wanted his childhood sled back because "that's where he hid his stash."

"I'm amused by the wild interpretations of 'Rosebud' in my film," Welles told rapt host Basil Wentworth "Johnny" Hazel. "He wanted the sled back because it was crammed full of barbituates and Benzedrine.

VARIETY, NOVEMBER 6, 1953

"HEN LOVER'S BLOWN COVER! FLIX CHICKIE MISSES DIXIE!

Animator Robert McKimson revealed yesterday at the first-annual Hollywood Awards that beloved Warner Bros. cartoon star Foghorn Leghorn was an active participant in the Ku Klux Klan before his 1946 debut, "Walky Talky Hawky."



"The fans will understand," explain McKimson. "He was a different bird back then. There's a lot of social pressure on a Tennessee rooster to fit in, and Foghorn's speech impediment already put him at a disadvantage."

When approached for comment, Leghorn declined to speak with the press, but did release this statement through a representative:

"I say, now, I say...This, this here allegation is about as nutty as a fruitcake. I may have, I say, may have attended a few meetings, but that hardly makes me a Grand Wizard, son. You're a nice boy, but about as sharp as a bowling ball."

McKimson suggested that Leghorn kept his secret by using the pseudonym "Robert Byrd" at all Klan events and gatherings."

So, those are the interesting ramifications of such an announcement, I think (if there are, in fact, any interesting ramifications at all.) Of course, to screeching homophobes, such a benign statement comes across as a declaration of war. Here's columnist Don Surber:

The author of the Harry Potter books told an audience at Carnegie Hall that Albus Dumbledore, master wizard and Headmaster of Hogwarts, is gay.

He’s also a fictional character.

So what? Are fictional characters not allowed to be gay? Someone tell Ann Rice!

Why would people applaud? Why would it be necessary to have this as a back story? Maybe the final paragraph in the AP story explains it: “Not everyone likes her work, Rowling said, likely referring to Christian groups that have alleged the books promote witchcraft. Her news about Dumbledore, she said, will give them one more reason.”

Yes, knock the Christians. That will sell books.

I wouldn't really worry too much about J.K. Rowling's ability to sell books. She's got to be among the wealthiest authors on Earth, right? (I'm too lazy to look this up, but if she was not in the Top 2 or 3 novelists on the planet right now, I'd be extremely surprised.)

But really, the whole comment here is just puzzling. It's nonsensical to ask "why" a novel would require backstory. It's a work of fiction! Why does any detail exist in any work of fiction! You might as well as why Scout lived next door to Boo Radley, or why Pip is so stupid that he doesn't realize it's Abel Magwitch, the convict he saved all those years back, who's acting as his benefactor, not crazy old Miss Havisham. Cause that's the goddamn story, you fucking meathead. You don't like it, write your own goddamn book, where no one is gay and Jesus is magic. Otherwise, just shut up.

Face!!!!!

Right-Wing Facebook...Finally!



It's a pretty solid parody - one of the better jokey political sites I've seen. Each candidate has his own "profile" page. I particularly liked that Mike Huckabee's favorite quote is “I can has cheezburger?!1!”

DragonForce Brings the Rock

OMFG DRAGONFORCE FTW!1!1!!!1!



Actual Mahalo staff reactions:

- "if dragons were real they would be pissed their name is being used for this"

- "looks like they kinda bit off soundgarden's black hole sun video. like rockin' till the earth is destroyed"

- "operation ground and pound 4Eva"

- "this is the longest 5 minutes of my life"

- "it's like if sonic the hedgehog was in a metal band"

- "it's like Asia + Zebra + Motorhead...Aszebrahead"

The Darjeeling Limited

I try not to pre-judge movies before I watch them, like a responsible reviewer. But I have to admit, I wasn't expecting to like Wes Anderson's new film, The Darjeeling Limited. I disliked Anderson's last film, The Life Aquatic, which felt entirely too broad and forced, like some hack trying to imitate the director's signature style rather than his own work. The trailers for Darjeeling so heavily emphasized the "Wes Anderson-ness" of the new film, with the director's trademark tracking shots, stock company of actors, classic rock montages and close-ups of background minutae taking center stage. I just assumed this would be another retread, one more trip back to the well for a guy that was growing more and more predictable by the day.

So it gives me great pleasure to report that Darjeeling is a major step up from Aquatic, a film that's infused with a lot of the elements that make Wes Anderson movies great but not overwhelmed by his presence. This is a very sad story about some pretty unpleasant people - it's really a meditation on selfishness - that's very funny, charming and frequently beautiful. It may be Anderson's best film since his breakthrough hit, Rushmore.





The Whitman Brothers, like a lot of Wes Anderson heroes, cannot live in the moment because they are fixated on the past. Francis Whitman (Owen Wilson), the eldest brother, has been recently mangled in a motorcycle accident. When asked about it, he responds that he "ran into a cliff on purpose" before catching himself. Jack Whitman (Jason Schwartzman, who co-wrote the film with his cousin Roman Coppola and Anderson) still pines for the woman (played by Natalie Portman in Hotel Chevalier, a short film/prologue to Darjeeling available free on iTunes) who left him months before. Peter Whitman (Adrian Brody, in one of the year's best performances) isn't ready to be a father, despite the fact that his wife's due to give birth in six weeks.

Though we sense that they've always been troubled and neurotic, the Whitman boys have been haunted for the past year by the death of their beloved father Jimmy, who was struck down in the street by a taxi. They have not spoken since the funeral, a silence eventually broken with Francis invites the other two to take a train ride with him across India.

The best thing Anderson did with Darjeeling is give these three parts to these guys. Brody's extremely awkward, almost alien, as Peter, who never seems to know how to respond to anything, or even where to stand. It's almost as if Anderson blocked out the entire film without Brody present, and then just threw him into the scenes last minute. Wilson, as everyone now realizes, was going through a very difficult time personally while portraying Francis, but it's easily among his most charming, most Owen Wilson-y characters. Hidden behind bandages for the majority of the movie, he still makes Francis the most human and fragile of the brothers. He's an extremely difficult guy to be around - bossy and demanding, then hurt when one of his instructions isn't followed to the letter.

All of Anderson's films address, in some way, this kind of wounded narcissism. His characters struggle to connect, but always seem to do so with an air of heightened expectation and arrogance. "Here I am," Royal Tenenbaum, Max Fischer and Francis Whitman all seem to say. "Now, it's your duty to love and accept me!" When others don't reciprocate in quite the way they expect, it sends these men into an uncontrollable downward spiral.

Darjeeling is Anderson's most clear-eyed, honest and therefore most depressing examination of this syndrome. Francis is controlling to an almost maniacal degree, constantly telling his brothers, directly, what they're all going to do, how they're all going to feel, and even what they should order for breakfast. Then he wonders why they avoid him and keep secrets. Peter has allowed his grief to overtake his entire life for a year and has become something of a kleptomaniac. Jack spends the bulk of the film obsessively following around two women, listening to the messages on his ex-girlfriend's answering machine and semi-stalking the comely, and attached, stewardess on the train. These characters have apparently taken this journey to connect with each other, but can't seem to actually spend any time together. And when they're forced into one another's company, they can't get past their feelings of perpetual victimhood and paranoia for long enough to even conduct some small talk.

Francis wants to take a spiritual journey, and has tasked his assistant, Brendan (Wallace Wolodarsky), with staying in another train compartment and planning trips to all sorts of shrines and temples. But of course, with their minds permanently elsewhere, scheming and planning out their next move and nursing private resentments, all the meditation and sacred Hindu rites are hollow and meaningless. (Personal squabbles prevent them from even kneeling before the same deity. Peter has to get up and pray somewhere else.)

Anderson mines similar comic territory as David O. Russell in I Heart Huckabee's (also with Schwartzman, interestingly enough...) Life is a constant struggle between the desire of higher consciousness and understanding, and the daily, material grind of actions and consequences. One minute, Jack, Peter and Francis are standing on a hillside holding aloft peacock feathers, recreating some ancient mystic rite, and then next they're debating whether or not their dead father would approve of Peter using his razor.

The Indian desert is actually an ideal venue for Anderson's deadpan comic style (and not only because all of his films have included humorously silent Indian men). Unlike the animated underwater wonderland of Life Aquatic or the absurd prep school caricature of Rushmore, Darjeeling takes place in a recognizable, real environment, which gives the film a bit of added impact. We're still definitely in Wes Andersonland. The use of Peter Sarstedt's ridiculous, lilting ballad "Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)" in both Darjeeling and Hotel Chevalier is a telling detail, an almost self-aware gesture.




Like Sarstedt's flowery language and pretentious references, Anderson films linger in a world of precious, twee details and spontaneous, adorable outpourings of emotion. (It's such an apt comparison, Sarstedt's narrator could easily be an Anderson protagonist.) But Darjeeling starts reigning it in at some point, pulling back from the fantasy, unafraid to stare a little more deeply into the darkness, creating something more recognizably human and heartfelt.

The protagonists eventually find themselves stuck in a small Indian village amidst a tragedy, and the film gets a bit more serious. Anderson starts to actually let go of the half-ironic smirk that generally holds sway over his movies. He, for once, gets real. He should do it more often.

Showalter and Black at the Ivar

MTV's "The State" was on television a decade ago. That makes me feel really old. In fact, most of the members of the comedy troupe that brought the world "Louie," "The Jew, the Italian and the Red-Haired Gay," "Doug" and "Monkey Torture" are better known for their subsequent projects. (Thomas Lennon probably gets way more attention for "Reno 911" than he ever did for "The State," even though it's one of the best sketch comedy shows in recent memory.)

Tonight, I saw two "State" veterans - Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black - doing stand-up comedy at the Ivar Theater, a converted movie theater. It was, without a doubt, one of the most hilarious evenings of stand-up I have ever seen. Their delivery, Showalter's in particular, recalls the brilliance of Zach Galifianakis from the recent "Live at the Purple Onion" DVD. It's a halting, awkward sort of persona, as if the show might just run out of air and collapse in on itself at any time.

I'm not sure if this is done strategically, to put the audience in a somewhat uncomfortable, edgy state, to raise the tension in the room, so the punchlines hit harder, or if it's just the natural rhythm these guys fall into when they get on stage. Either way, it totally enhances the frequently non-sequiteur, just plain bizarre jokes these guys tell, by bringing you inside this fractured state of mind. This is why a Galifianakis joke can't really be explained to someone who wasn't there after the show. It only makes sense when you've been inside his head for a little while.

Much of Showalter's act involved a slideshow, so he had to, at one point, stop doing his comedy and fiddle with the projector to ensure that it was going to work. At that point, he'd been on the stage for less than 10 minutes, but had already won over the audience to the point that even this generally unfunny technological gaffe won him big laughs. Usually, I'd criticize this kind of a flaw - a comic having to fudge his timing in order to do something a stagehand or assistant should really have taken care of before the show - but instead I laughed, the way you'd laugh if someone you know was messing up a big presentation.

Showalter combines the kind of long-winded anecdotal style of someone like Jeff Garlin with, I shit you not, prop comedy, and it totally works. He walked the crowd through an entire game of Scrabble with visual aides, and it freaking killed. (Just so you know, the word "penissockser" is allowed in Scrabble and refers to someone who manufactures penissocks.) A bit where he plays random songs off his iTunes and then invents fake movie dialogue to go on top of them is like the stand-up comedy version of a YouTube meme. The less said about the X-rated Smurf drawings the better...

After the mad genius of Showalter, Michael Ian Black was much more traditional, observational stand-up. Funny, still very funny, but not really as exciting, I guess. Both he and Showalter seem to be inventing their acts as they go. All comedians try to master this sort of off-the-cuff delivery - you want to keep things fresh, even if you're reciting a joke you wrote a year ago - but Black really has it mastered. I'm certain plenty of this was canned material - I've never really seen his stand-up before tonight, so I have no way of knowing if he talks about Wisconsin's Taco Palace all the time - but it felt very conversational.

My friend Dave remarked afterwards that it felt very communal in the Ivar tonight. The audience and the comedians all seemed to relate to one another in a way. It was not very much like a typical comedy show, which is either in a big amphitheater filled with obnoxious assholes shouting out their favorite of the comedian's lines from TV or tiny, extremely hot, overpriced comedy clubs with obnoxious assholes who talk loudly throughout the set because they don't actually give a shit about comedy. Anyway, a good time was had by all.

Then, Dave and I went to the Cat and Fiddle and saw Joe Lo Truglio and Ken Marino from "The State" hanging out there. (Maybe meeting up with the Michaels after the 10:00 show?) It's cool to think that all those guys (and that one girl) still get along. Could a reunion be in the offing?