The Happening

I'm not sure if writer/director M. Night Shyamalan meant this film's title ironically. It seems unlikely, but then again, it also seems unlikely that a man who has made so many other films would produce anything this hacky and amateurish. Yet here we are.

Nothing happens in The Happening. Absolutely nothing happens. This is a premise, not a story. In fact, The Happening lacks even the barest bones of a story. There is no beginning, middle or end. There is no inciting incident. Characters do not change, grow nor develop. Events do not progress in a logical manner. People are introduced and then discarded thoughtlessly.

I think it might be time for us to become seriously concerned about M. Night Shyamalan. Not for his career, but simply his mental health and well-being. It's not normal for a person who had, only a few years before, mastered the craft of screenwriting and directing to suddenly and without cause forget, on the most basic level, how to put a movie together. We're not talking about a dip in quality here; The Happening is like the work of a completely different man than The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, hell even Signs. Has Manoj suffered some sort of head trauma? Has he become hooked on oxycontin? Should we start considering a nationwide cinematic intervention?

Because his last two efforts - The Village and Lady in the Water - were themselves so dreadful, much of the discussion about The Happening and its complete failure to entertain or enlighten will naturally focus on relative comparisons. Though I still maintain that Lady in the Water remains Shyamalan's most delusional and embarrassing work to date, overall, it does have a few things going for it that Happening does not. Like, you know, a story to tell. Not a good story, mind you. But a story nonetheless. The Village has a reasonably watchable story; it just relies on a nonsensical twist ending.

The Happening is Cinema of the Inert, the introduction of a concept in the opening 5 minutes of a movie that is meant to sustain an audience's attention for 100 minutes. I'm noticing this about Shyamalan's work more and more. His initial films - The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable - certainly had high-concept premises, but they developed them into narratives that were themselves compelling. With stuff like Lady in the Water and The Happening, it's as if he no longer feels the need to tell stories. He thinks a single one of his ideas, alone and unencumbered, should be enough to sustain an audience's attention. He's mistaken.


About 3/4 of the movie is composed of shots just like this one, in which Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel and a young girl run away from nothing through the Pennsylvania countryside. Print this still out 300 times, turn it into a flip book and save yourself $10 ($20 with popcorn and parking!)

We open in Central Park, where a large crowd of people suddenly stop what they are doing, freeze in place for a moment, and then kill themselves in the quickest and most convenient method possible. News reports inform us that the phenomenon is sweeping through the city.

Cut to Philadelphia, where the school of science teacher Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) is being evacuated in response to what is perceived as a terrorist threat in NYC. Moore and a co-worker, Julian (John Leguizamo), plot to get their families out of Philadelphia and into the countryside, to wait out this weird suicide thing.

THAT'S IT, FOLKS. That's all that happens. The rest of the film follows Elliott, his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel), Julian and his daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez) as they wander around central Pennsylvania in a confused daze. They meet no one of consequence. They find out small details about what's going on via listening to radios or watching TV's, or from meeting random helpful strangers who introduce new information and then disappear.

I can't really express to you how many basic, fundamental errors Shyamalan makes here, strictly in terms of the screenplay and structure. Movies are driven by conflict. This is the single guiding principle for pretty much all drama - you introduce characters and set them at opposing goals. It's not really that hard. Everyone from Uwe Boll to the writers of "Two and a Half Men" have managed it.

Not only does The Happening lack any kind of tangible antagonist or enemy, it lacks any kind of conflict whatsoever. There are two types of scenes - scenes in which Wahlberg finds out something about the "happening" second-hand and scenes in which Wahlberg watches people in the middle distance kill themselves in increasingly laughable ways. You may notice, neither of those scenes involves any kind of conflict.

So you get a lot - A LOT - of shots of newscasters announcing that the plot is developing somewhere off-screen. And a lot of statements like this:

"Hey, everyone! I'm a stranger who has just walked here from 10 miles down the road. Everyone's dead down there! We're going to have to go some other way!"

(At one point, I shit you not, a random stranger shows Elliott a grisly death scene that apparently happened hours before on her iPhone! Are you fucking kidding me? He couldn't come up with a way to actually have anything happen on screen in his own fucking movie? Shyamalan's reduced to inserting footage into his own movie via YouTube?!)

It's also clear that the complete lack of conflict has confused and frustrated the actors. Deschanel has just given up on giving a performance, sleepwalking through the film. Wahlberg seems to be playing the character as a likable goofball, even though there's only one or two jokes and he should by all rights be traumatized. The most compelling bit of dialogue in the entire film is played between Wahlberg and a potted plant.

At a random point, the film just ends, without purpose or explanation or any kind of pay-off or showdown or denouement whatsoever. The last scene is meant to be chilling, but it's so obvious what's coming and so silly by that point that it actually plays like a joke. And that first credit - "A Film By M. Night Shyamalan" - is the punchline.

WARNING: POTENTIAL MINOR SPOILER, EVEN THOUGH THE MOVIE DOESN'T REALLY HAVE A GENUINE TWIST, AND THE PLOT IS OBVIOUS WITHIN THE FIRST 30 MINUTES OR SO

One final note on this film, because I think you all get the idea at this point. Unless Shyamalan is just playing dumb because it's easier, his understanding of the Theory of Evolution is seriously lacking. The way evolution is discussed in this film, by characters presented as scientists, is not only wrong but egregiously so, misleading in the extreme. I have read critics suggest that the film is an argument for Intelligent Design, but I think this is just a reaction to the fact that Shyamalan's misrepresentation of evolution and biology resembles the fabrications of ID proponents. Shyamalan's ignorance about evolution resembles Ben Stein's, but I'm not sure if they're working towards the same goal.

Suffice it to say, individual living things cannot spontaneously evolve in response to a predator. When biologists use a term like "rapid evolution," they're using the word "rapid" in the relative sense. It's like "taking fewer than several million years," not "by Wednesday." It's almost irresponsible to be this cavalier about representing bonafide scientific information, even in a silly fictional movie.

David Lynch on Where Ideas Come From

The Atlantic has put up this terrific video interview with director David Lynch, in which he discusses the nature of creativity and how he develops his ideas for films and TV. Enjoy.


Lynch rejects some of the traditional ideas about creative inspiration, particularly that writers should try to "write what they know" and that artists must suffer for their art. He seems to feel that writing and creating is less about having an initial spark of inspiration and more about having the talent and discipline to collect numerous, stray thoughts or ideas into a worthwhile/coherent whole. Anyway, the guy's a genius, and it's just fun to hear him pontificate about bubbles of consciousness and oceans of the transcendent for a few minutes.

[Hat tip, Matthew Yglesias]

My Fan Site is Nicer Than My Blog

A plucky Mahalo Daily fan, the infamous Connected Geek, has built a fan site for yours truly, if you can believe such things...I can honestly say, despite having only one post, it's much prettier than this blog, which was thrown together hastily around one of the 3 basic Blogspot themes many, many years ago.

While we're on the subject of this blog's general aesthetic crapitude...I'm considering moving the site over to crushedbyinertia.com or lonharris.com, both of which I own and neglect. This, and the visual overhaul I'd like to commence along with the move, would require me to actually learn something about how the Internet works. (You know, aside from "don't click on things called goatse" and "if it's the phrase Check this out...OMG! followed by a tinyurl, it's a Rick Roll.") Which is unfortunate, cause I'm kind of squeezed for time as it is.

Thoughts? Does the fact that this page is disorganized and, let's be honest, butt ugly, seriously diminish your desire to read Crushed by Inertia? Don't worry about hurting my feelings...I've had 100,000 YouTube viewers dissect my physique, Howard Stern-style, this month, all while composing sonnets memorializing my latent homosexuality. I can take it.

Go Go Gadget

Before working at Mahalo, I was not particularly gadget-conscious. I'm the sort of guy that thinks to replace his cell phone only when it suffers irreparable physical trauma or dies of its own accord, and not a moment before. (My current cell phone is from the first era of "camera phones," when the notion of taking a picture using your portable phone felt roughly as bleeding-edge futuristic as hovering skateboards and automatically-resizing Nikes.)

However, now that I'm immersed in the world of tech and gadgetry (tonight I went to what is essentially an adult science fair to check out homemade robot tables), I've actually started to lust after new shiny objects of consumer goodness. Such as the new ultra-deluxe 3G JesusPhone announced just yesterday by Captain Turtleneck. The mere fact that I understand the term "3G" is a big plus for me...That's the sort of thing I once assumed was arbitrary, like the naming system for new Terminators. (How do you go from T-1000 to T-X (which looks like T-100)? Shouldn't she be the T-10,000?

Here's the thing about the iPhone (or, if you prefer, the iPhone 2.0)...I will probably use 1/500th of the actual available features. (I frequently hear people complain that the phone is missing things I would never in a million years even think to put on there, sometimes with intimidating acronyms like VPD and SQL.) I basically just want a phone that I can also use to watch YouTube videos while I wait in lines and airports. (I'll consider playing this rumored Cro-Magnon Man Rally game, perhaps.) So my desire for the thing is almost entirely manufactured, a function of living every day in this world of gizmos and gadgets more so than any kind of practical application. It's sort of a new feeling for me...

Kerry Wins an Argument?

John McCain's case for the presidency is so weak, even John Kerry can effectively make the point on television. And that guy sometimes had trouble introducing himself.

This...is...John...Kerry...reporting...for...duty...

In this clip, courtesy of the excellent blog of Oliver Willis, McCain surrogate Lindsay Graham openly admits that, yes, a new Republican Administration would extend and enhance the economic policies of the Bush era. So if you don't ever want to sell your home, retire or get any kind of medical treatment, McCain may be the candidate for you!

From the Files of Police Mod

Brilliant mash-up of "Naked Gun" and "Grand Theft Auto IV." There's really nothing textual I could add that would enhance this.

I Will Do Anything For a Laugh

DOUBLE UDPATE: The comments on this thing are amazing. I'd say a good 4/5 have generally nice things to say - they enjoyed the video, they find me intensely sexually attractive or they support Leah in the contest. Those other 1/5 are just...well, it's the kind of hilarious obscenity you can only get from YouTube comments.

A lot of them feel the need to inform me of my own latent homosexuality. And I think we can all sympathize. How often have you been watching a clearly comical video on the Internet and thought..."Hey, the gentleman who made this is wearing something typically associated with females, or those of a different body type! He must therefore be gay, and is most likely unaware of his own sexual orientation and proclivities! I think I ought to inform him of such, lest he go through his life not realizing that he was physically attracted to members of his own gender!"

UPDATE: Leah's video may actually be going viral. It has been up for less than 24 hours and is currently showing 25,336 views on YouTube. Holy crap.

Seriously. I mean...this is too far...



Can I please stay on the Internet, please? I promise not to wear any more midriffs.

To be honest, when Leah first suggested it, I was a bit conflicted about this one. Are people laughing with me? Or at me? It took approximately two comments on the Mahalo Daily page for someone to show up and make a cheap shot at my lack of fitness.

In the end, I decided...If it's funny, it's worth doing. Call it the Chris Farley Principle.

By the way, here's Andrea's video from the day before, that was also fun to shoot and features me in a guest role:



Sorry I forgot to post that this morning...Total oversight.

AND of course, there's your Behind-the-Scenes bonus feature:

Save the Clock Tower!

This afternoon, a fire at Universal Studios consumed some of the King Kong park tour attraction, the "New York Street" sets and much of Hill Valley from the Back to the Future films. (Mercifully, the film's most iconic landmark setting, the Clock Tower, was spared).

Reading this Slashfilm post about the fire's aftermath was actually kind of trippy. I mean, these are sets for movies that have already been made. They are no longer functional at all, but exist only as part of a guided tour showing people behind-the-scenes of how movies are made. And yet...there is a real emotional attachment to these places, because of their involvement in classic movies. I bet a lot more people would be upset to hear that the fictional Back to the Future clock tower burned down than some random actual clock tower in a real town.

I mean, they're going to rebuild the Hill Valley set. Rebuild a set for a movie that's long-finished! Just so they can drive tourists in front of it! Now that's real, authentic, behind-the-scenes movie magic!

Now here's where things get...really pomo. This Hill Valley set...it wasn't the real one from the movie.

The courthouse square set was not the original set used in the time-travel trilogy. Just after the sequels finished shooting, almost the entire square was burned down in the 1990 fire (which also took down New York Street). It was rebuilt from the original blueprints.

What's with all the horrific Universal Studio fires? Is that Backdraft attraction behind all of this? Because it's really not all that cool anyway...you guys could probably ditch it...

Welcome to Reality TV

When the idea first occurred to us to turn the search for the next Mahalo Daily host into a reality show, it was totally meant in the spirit of parody. The whole notion was to mock reality shows, particularly how overblown they are and how they pit people cruelly against one another. Hence, me in a hot air balloon with my shirt unbuttoned introducing something called "The Bachelon," or Jason doing his Trump impression in the boardroom.

See, there were always two levels to the whole thing, to my mind. On the surface, we're genuinely conducting a real contest, looking for someone to host the show. But on another level, we're pretending that the contest is this massively important, epic thing, that lives were literally in the balance, and that our competition would feature all the drama and excitement promised on shows like "The Amazing Race" and "The Bachelor."

Now that we've had a month of great shows and two amazing finalists, I think I can safely say that there are two things we did not consider when planning this thing:

(1) Pitting people against one another, even in jest, creates rifts, divisions and hurt feelings;

(2) The reality format itself is powerful, and creates strong emotions in viewers, even when presented ironically

I'm still very glad we did the contest. I think the episodes themselves have been some of the most entertaining we've ever done. Even better, we got the chance to get to know and collaborate with some fantastically talented, interesting and, of course, beautiful women - not just the Final Two, Andrea and Leah, but also Sarah, Nadine, Michelle, Kristina, Lisa, Martine, Pili, Roxy, Alice, Melody...and more. I have a feeling you'll see many of them on the show again in some capacity.

But having said that, I do kind of regret taking part in anything that would inspire this kind of angry, mean, vitriolic comment thread. We never intended to create a show that would turn people against the contestants. ANY of them. The whole point was to celebrate all the talented aspirants, not to make them look bad and unleash the rage of the Internet upon them. MD viewers and fans...please do try to keep your commentary professional and respectful.

This little incident is largely our fault, for blurring the line between fake funny reality show and real reality show too much at times. I hope we can all put it past us as we declare a winner this week and start making new shows.

If we end up not choosing your preferred choice, I'd suggest you at least give the new host a chance...They're both really creative and fun, they both have a lot of enthusiasm and ideas for the show, and I promise you, they're both really genuine, nice people, no matter how a competitive 5 minute podcast featuring my boss might make it seem.

WTF MoMA?

No. No no no no no no no no.

One of the Museum of Modern Art's latest film acquisitions isn't an art-house experiment by Andy Warhol or Michelangelo Antonioni. It's the spy-action blockbuster "The Bourne Identity" and its sequels.

This week the museum is screening the films and hosting a panel discussion with "Bourne" director/producer Doug Liman and a noted neuroscientist to talk about memory, identity and the mysterious workings of the brain.

Really? Really? Not a David Gordon Green series? Or bringing over some Roy Andersson? Guy Maddin doesn't get a MoMA series...but you'll give one to the goddamn Bourne trilogy?

"You say the word 'action movie,' and everyone's standards go down," Liman said Tuesday.

And with good cause.

"And it was my goal with 'The Bourne Identity' to create a movie wherein the drama would hold up even if you took the action out."

Liman, who directed "Identity" and served as executive producer of sequels "Supremacy" and "Ultimatum," called the films' inclusion in the museum's renowned collection "a huge, huge honor."

Cinemaphiles have praised not only the movies' technical skill and heart-pounding pace, but their relatively realistic feel and character development as Bourne strives to find out who he is and why killers stalk him wherever he goes.

I mean...please. The Bourne movies aren't bad movies. Far from it. I actually think they're pretty good.

But COME ON, this is not, like, cinema as art. There are plenty of people actually making art films right at this very moment that are being ignored by this large museum as it praises the rare Hollywood action film that manages not to be horrifyingly, egregiously schlocky and embarrassing for all involved. It's like having the President come to your school to give you your "Best Attendance" medal.

Highly, Intensely Suspicious

This is the new My Morning Jacket single? Seriously? Is this awful or brilliant? I actually can't tell...



WTF? Hard to believe this is even the same band:

New Jews!

I'm really liking this new song from The Silver Jews, "Strange Victory Strange Defeat," from their upcoming Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea. Found via Stereogum.

Both If We Could?

This clip is seriously over the line, even by Fox News standards. Contributor Liz Trotta, in discussing Hillary Clinton's ill-advised comparison of Obama's campaign and that of Senator Robert Kennedy, first calls the 2008 candidate "Osama" and then openly calls for his assassination.



Seriously. She said "Some are reading it as a suggestion we should knock out Osama"...then corrects herself to say, "Obama," then says, "well, both if we could." Implying that she's like it if "we" could "knock out" both terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden AND Senator and Democratic candidate for President Barack Obama.

I think, when a network is openly calling for the assassination of a contender for the presidency, that's when it's time to seriously begin questioning their journalistic credentials, no?

You're Getting Sleepy...

Every once in a while, I see some random Internet video, usually an electronic remix accompanied by interesting/peculiar images of some kind, and become strangely obsessed by it for a week or so.

After a few days, my urge to rewatch these things kind of goes away. But it's weird how sometimes a simple concept, well executed, can just by sort of mesmerizing. Or maybe it's just me. Anyway, I defy you to just watch this "Alice in Wonderland" video once...The song is genius, composed 90% of sounds taken directly from Disney's "Alice" film. And combined with the clips...I don't know, it's just really hypnotic.



I don't think this next one is quite as outstandingly weird and fascinating as "Alice," but it's still worth including. Brooklyn band Ratatat's new single, "Mirando," has a video composed entirely of looping footage from Predator.



A little while back, it was this musical interpretation of the Crazy Texas Polygamy Cult, appropriately titled "It's Not a Compound":

The Muppets Take "Manhattan"

Wow...this is brilliant. Thanks to 1938 Media for pointing me to this fantastic mash-up via the magic of Twitter.

Steve Teaches You to Make Iced Tea

Look out, Gordon Ramsay...I think we have our next world-famous celebrity chef right there. This guy is Personality Plus! He's got It!

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Obviously, Harrison Ford's 2008 self, aged 65, can't carry an action-adventure film as credibly as his 1981 counterpart. But even though audiences will forgive a lot because of their fondness for Ford and the character of archaeologist Indiana Jones, they still want an action movie to star an action hero. That's just how these things are done.

I think Steven Spielberg had a plan to work around Harrison Ford's advanced age in this new Indy movie...and I think that plan was kind of a stupid one. Essentially, Spielberg has slowed the entire movie down considerably from its predecessors, taken his foot off the metaphorical gas, if you will, to make Ford's slower Indiana Jones appear dashing, energetic and spry by comparison.

I'm not kidding...I wish I were. Everything's slower about this Indiana Jones movie. The plot develops slower. The jokes and the big set pieces and the puzzles roll lazily by, separated by periods of relative inaction, rather than rattling off in a steady stream.

There's just something off about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The pieces are all there, it's well-directed and shot, and it's a lot of fun in spurts. I recognized the elements of an Indiana Jones movie immediately - the props, the music, the tone, the little tongue-in-cheek moments, some of the actors, the structure - but they didn't ever coalesce into anything that felt as compelling or immediate or delightful as a real Indy film.

It just never settles into place, and I think the issue here is the pacing. Raiders of the Lost Ark and Temple of Doom race along at breakneck speed. Crystal Skull kind of ambles around, takes its time developing its stately, familiar plot, then shuffles off. It's like getting a visit from an aging relative you rarely see around the holidays. You're happy to see them, and they probably brought you something even though they're on a fixed income, but all you really end up doing with them is sitting around discussing the Old Days. Great-Aunt Dot can't get around like she usedta...



To make sure I'm being clear...I don't think Harrison Ford or his age is the real problem here. He did just fine; it's a better performance, more lively and with more attention to small observations and details, than any he's given since The Fugitive.

No, it's as if the movie itself is old, like it's afraid it's going to break a hip if anything surprising, original, unexpected or sudden happens, or if a single concept is introduced that doesn't recall one of the previous Indiana Jones movies. The only twist in the whole thing comes about 5 minutes in, and it doesn't even take. You'll get more turnabouts and dramatics during a "Lost" episode's opening credits than this entire film. Seriously. That's not hyperbole.

The plot is, essentially, Last Crusade all over again. Dr. Jones (Ford...duh...) is informed by a '50s greaser named Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf) that an old friend (John Hurt) has disappeared while searching for a priceless artifact, in this case, a magical Crystal Skull that was treasured by an Ancient Mesoamerican civilization and hunted by a conquistador. Only if Jones can find this dead knight's final resting place will he be able to piece together the mystery of the Crystal Skull and find the temple to which he must deliver the prize. Ah, but, he's being chased by a brilliant, cruel Soviet psychic (Cate Blanchett) who wants to use the Skull to conquer the world.

That's all well and good, although there's a science-fiction element introduced at about the halfway point that feels really out-of-place in an Indiana Jones film. Is it an affront to organized religion that these films, which always vested their supernatural phenomenon in some version of God (either Jewish, Christian or Hindu), have now removed the Deus from their Machina? Or were screenwriter David Koepp, Lucas and Spielberg so tickled with the notion of introducing a '50s B-movie plot into a movie set in the '50s, they overlooked how this material would play in the Indiana Jones universe? Mulder and Scully will be pleased...but will anyone else?

This backstory's a bit more complicated than a search for, say, the Holy Grail, an object that's already relatively famous and easy to describe. ("Jesus' Cup!") Which works out well for Koepp and Spielberg, because they get to avoid shooting too many of these pesky action scenes the kids are so crazy about.

There's one big action set piece in the entire film - a really solid chase scene that culminates in a spill down a massive waterfall. It's pulled off nicely, and looks really good, and is exceptionally well shot by Janusz Kaminski and cut together by Michael Kahn. And I love the way Cate Blanchett delivers the line "Do svidaniya, Dr. Jones" before kicking Indy out of a moving truck. But it still feels kind of bloodless for the film's big action climax, and though it's far better than average for an American action film, it's nowhere near as memorable as the Mine Car Chase or the Bridge Climb in Temple of Doom, nor is it up to the standard of the tank battle in Last Crusade. And I'd rather watch b-roll taken on the set of Raiders than this chase or anything else in Crystal Skull.

The film's remaining action is incredibly brief, and frequently shot from far away. Spielberg has a tendency to place his actors in the foreground and show us extremely impressive feats happening in the middle distance, out of reach, letting us fill in the excitement going on for ourselves as the cast takes it easy. I'd imagine it simulates quite well the experience of being a tired middle-aged father of 3 on a long weekend day spent at Magic Mountain. "No, no, you kids run along and do Viper again...I'm just going to hang out here, maybe get a diet soda or something..."

Cate Blanchett's performance as the evil Irina Spalko is essentially note-perfect, but she isn't given nearly enough to do. (Plus, her final send-off is far far less awesome than that of any other Indy villain in history. Again, it's like Steve was afraid of over-exerting himself. EVERY Indy villain gets an sweet, gruesome comeuppance. It's goddamn tradition!)

Spalko's a better foil for Jones than Elsa Schneider in Last Crusade or Mrs. Spielberg in Temple of Doom, but she gets far far less development or screen time than either of these characters. We're at the point where it seems there's no kind of movie or character Cate Blanchett can't pull off...She's equally effective in high fantasy, period drama, serialized action-adventure and fucking Bob Dylan biopic. She was the only thing in the movie that left me wanting more.

Maybe that's not fair. I liked the film well enough, but the whole experience felt like going through the motions. Even as an audience member. I found myself chuckling at things I recognized, not things that were actually chuckle-worthy. Near the end, the film starts hinting that young Mutt will get his own spinoff adventure film series, but no one - from Indy to Mutt to Steven Spielberg to the fans in the audience - seemed terribly excited by the prospect. Unless they just don't want to get anyone too excited this close to nap time.

Between No Ferns with Thomas Lennon

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!

The Co-Hostess with the Mostest

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.

Another Great Moment in Conservative Humor

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?

Gervais Drinks Ramsay's Spunk

I'm not sure what the context of this clip could possibly be, and I don't care. Gervais + Ramsay = Good.



[Hat tip, Ezra]

Speed Racer

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!

Los Angeles Systems Engineer

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.

It's Whiter...It Stays White Later...

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.

The Mothers of Implosion

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.

BACHELON!

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?

Finally!

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...

Redbelt

As a filmmaker, David Mamet's having kind of a rough decade. 2000's State and Main was a diverting enough Hollywood satire, I suppose, though it's pretty toothless. (How far can you really go with jokes about neurotic leading ladies and nebbishy screenwriters? It's been done to death). Heist in 2001 has a lot of nice little moments, and I particularly enjoy the script's use of "lame" as a noun ("what are you, some kind of lame?") but it has about eight twists too many and doesn't add up to much. 2004's Spartan is a complete debacle that totally falls apart in the second half.

And now we have Redbelt, without a doubt the weakest film Mamet has yet produced and the sort of thing that just makes me question his judgment. It's not like Redbelt was some ambitious misfire. It's maybe one-third of a movie, stretched out to feature length by unfolding its overly-complex but ultimately uninteresting plot at a snail's pace. It's genuinely hard for me to believe that this script was written by one of America's most famous and beloved dramatic writers. It's lacking on a basic, conceptual level.



It seems to me that Mamet simply wanted to make a martial arts film, but felt the unnecessary urge to "Mamet-ize" the story, adding in a bunch of extraneous "twists" and misdirection to sort of make the genre his own. I sense the narrative would have worked better if Mamet had stuck to the more standard kung fu movie structure, but it's still not really a story that's worth telling on its own merits.

The only thing that really kept me going through the slog that is Redbelt was the performance of Chiwetel Ejiofor as Jiu-Jitsu instructor Mike Terry. Ejiofor's probably one of the most compelling actors in film today, and there are many wordless close-ups of his face in the film that are far more interesting than all the mechanics of the film's grandiose set-up. (A few Mamet regulars pop up - Joe Mantegna, Ed O'Neil, his wife Rebecca Pidgeon - but only Ricky Jay makes any kind of impact, in his usual small and extremely deadpan role. He gets every single one of the film's best lines.)

Terry's studio, Southside Jiu-Jitsu, has hit hard times. So when he comes to the aid of a movie star (Tim Allen) in a bar fight, and the star then asks him to come aboard his film project as a fight coordinator and adviser, the offer's too good to pass up. Around this same time, there's a strange incident in Terry's dojo, where a disoriented woman (Emily Mortimer) wanders in off the street and accidentally shoots at an off-duty cop (Max Martini).

These two incidents don't seem connected at first, but that would be okay as long as they seemed important. Unfortunately, neither story has any kind of intensity or stakes. Terry might lose his dojo, but it's hard to feel emotionally invested in this place. It's usually empty, and we don't really get much of a feel for what it's like in there. And the cop might get in trouble for not reporting the incident to his superiors, but he's entirely bland and barely even in the film.

For about the film's first hour, we're just kind of wandering around in Terry's world, adrift. Mamet has written a lot of speeches and information about jiu-jitsu and the theories behind it, and I guess the notion of a completely defensive martial arts strategy, about using your opponents attacks against her, is interesting in some ways. But it's not a replacement for actual storytelling, and it really doesn't tie in to the things Terry is going through in the movie until the very end.

The whole thing ends up, as these movies often do, with Terry agreeing to fight as an undercard to a big mixed martial-arts fight, featuring his own brother-in-law. It's the sort of sequence that, in a normal kung fu film, would provide a big, crowd-pleasing conclusion in which the hero wins the day. Mamet's movie doesn't quite get there for a variety of reasons:

(1) He's clueless as to how to shoot the fighting.

These fight scenes are just ugly, chopped up and blurred and impossible to follow. There was not a single move or moment - a punch landed or a skilled reversal - with any visceral impact whatsoever. It's just lines on a screen.

(2) He hasn't done a good enough job of establishing who his fighters are and what's at stake.

The main antagonist of the whole movie is introduced with about 10 minutes of screen time remaining. I don't care who you are, that's just bad. First-time screenwriters know better than that.

Also, because of the nature of this last fight, the win or loss itself will be meaningless. There is nothing to be won. I'm not even sure why these two need to be fighting.

(3) The actual blocking and dynamics of the sequence don't make any sense.

Without giving too much away, the final fight in this movie would just be impossible. It wouldn't happen that way, at all, and if it did, no one would react as they do. It would be like Rocky ending with Apollo Creed challenging the Italian Stallion to a hot air balloon race around the world. They just wouldn't do that...it's wrong...

In fact, much of the premise of Redbelt just feels dubious to me. Like, it just wouldn't happen. The strange rules for the competition. The incident with the gun in the dojo. The whole Tim Allen barfight...It's just feels wrong.

Sometimes, with my own scripts, I'll look back on something I wrote and realize that I had some idea in my head of what I wanted to do, and I was just forcing it into the script, even when it didn't exactly fit. That's the first sign I need to throw that stuff away and start again. Redbelt feels like Mamet forcing these ideas to work, even though they clearly don't. He should have just put it aside and done something else, or started over.

Iron Man

Iron Man is composed almost entirely of win. There were a few scenes here or there that I just wasn't into. I think the handling of Gwyneth Paltrow's assistant/love interest character Pepper Potts could have been handled in a less obvious, clunky fashion. But that's being curmudgeonly...

The point is, this is a well above-average comic book film, and a big step up for Marvel Studios, better than any of the Spider-Man, Fantastic Four or X-Men films by a country mile.

In fact, I think Bryan Singer and Sam Raimi should be forced to watch Iron Man and then answer a series of "discussion questions" afterwards.

(1) Did you happen to notice that Iron Man was not so deathly serious as to erase out any possibility of fun or excitement? Explain.

(2) Why don't you hire more good, charismatic lead actors? Discuss.

I feel like most comic book films come from a somewhat defensive position, like they have to forcibly prove to us that they aren't just ridiculous adolescent entertainments, but real movies with genuine, important, dramatic stories to tell. I mean, Singer's Superman Returns is just a prime example of this, a film that should be a goofy good time that disappears completely up its own butthole.

Rather than just dive in and have fun with the immense creative and visual possibilities of a movie about an alien who gains superpowers from the Earth's Yellow Sun, Singer wastes 2.5 hours soap opera theatrics or metaphysical blather, turning Superman into some kind of elaborate Jesus allegory. He forgets that his primary mission is escapist entertainment, and only after he's ensured that his movie is watchable can he worry about artistic flourishes and thought-provoking nuance. It's like he feels bad for making a Superman movie, so he just tries to ignore that that's what he's doing..

Jon Favreau takes the opposite approach, and just tries to squeeze every last ounce of zany spectacle out of his premise as possible. He has no illusions about turning in a Best Picture nominee or a mood piece. It's fucking Iron Man, and he lets it be what it is, and it really works.



What we have here is a new twist on Iron Man's origin story. We meet billionaire engineering genius and CEO Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) as he's barreling through the Afghan desert with a consortium of U.S. soldiers in Humvees, returning home from a demonstration of his latest invention, the Jericho missile. Soon after, his caravan's attacked, a bomb deposits some shrapnel in his heart and he's taken captive by terrorists.

In the course of escaping captivity, Stark will invent an armored suit that prevents his heart from exploding, and is capable of wiping out a sortee of terrorists. Oh, and self-propelled flight. After Stark gets home, and begins to deal with the ramifications of his life's work, he decides to use his latest invention to destroy all the damage his weapons have caused humanity. This, of course, causes some conflict with his partners back at the weapons factory and his friends in the U.S. military.

You pretty much get the broad strokes from there. It's hardly a perfect movie. I think there's way too much time spent on close-ups of Stark's gadgets and inventions. A few shots of mechanical equipment busily moving around CGI gears and plates go a long way, and there's probably 10 minutes out of the entire movie just admiring shiny metal.

And, as I said, a subplot about Stark's budding romance with his dutiful but concerned personal assistant, Pepper Potts, never really comes together, and feels kind of stilted. I'm not sure it's Gwyneth Paltrow's fault necessarily that the relationship between Potts and Stark isn't more compelling, but she doesn't exactly light up the screen with her presence either.

But casting Robert Downey Jr., one of the most charismatic actors working today, was truly a masterstroke, and more than compensates for a lot of the movie's relatively minor flaws.

This will probably not go down as Downey's overall finest performance, but I'm willing to bet it will remain among his most beloved and memorable. He's perfect as Tony Stark, the exact right combination of eccentric genius, callous arrogance and self-effacing charm. And the movie's not so overloaded with plot or theatrics that he doesn't have time to just be funny cracking wise. The audience is totally 100% on his side from literally Minute One.

Jeff Bridges is also terrific as Obadiah Stane, Stark's business partner who wants Stark Enterprises to remain in the weapons business. Stane's a successful mogul, and couldn't really be less like Bridges' immortal character The Dude, but it's still kind of a Dude-like performance, laid back and sly and a bit more clever than he lets on. Even after the film gets really effects-heavy and overblown, Bridges continues to actually act rather than just chew the scenery.

Iron Man has some satisfyingly epic action moments, like every good comic book film requires, but I think what really brings everything together this time out are little details. Favreau's a funny guy and knows how to compose a funny sequence, and I actually think he gets more big laughs in here than a lot of mainstream Hollywood comedies. Plus, there's just a lot of great little touches - Stark listening to Suicidal Tendencies while working in his lab, the mechanical arm with a human personality, the unexpected interior of Stark's private jet.

Oh, and you absolutely must remain in your seat until after the credits. Iron Man has, hands down, the best secret post-credit sequence in movie history.

The Teasers

The special secret about the Mahalo VLOG Idol competition that's heating up several of the Internets is this...the teasers!



We're not just putting these together in an attempt to get you to watch our show! No! I mean, we are doing that.

But the teasers are really giving you Behind-the-Scenes insight into how the show was made. Think of them, if you will, like the Special Features on the DVD that is Mahalo VLOG Idol.

I really didn't intend for all of this footage to see the light of day...I realize I come off as something of a monster. But that, my friends, is the cost of perfection. Sometimes you have to break a few eggs. And by eggs, I mean Idol host Ryan Budke.

Mahalo VLOG Idol Starts...NOW!

Here it is, Day One of our search to find my Mahalo Daily co-host. This whole project has been an amazing amount of fun to put together and I'm really excited that we finally get to share it with you, the Mahalo Daily viewer at large:



The competition really starts to heat up tomorrow with the Cewebrity Panel auditions. Stay tuned...

Harrison Ford's Hilarious Insanity

I know celebrities feel empty inside and want to use their pointless and excessive notoriety to some positive end...but can they all just shut up about the goddamn stupid environment already? It's fucked, we're all gonna burn up and die, I get it. We all know it. I'm not denying the veracity of the claims.

[Just a side-note to Climate Change deniers here...You've picked probably the least sexy or dangerous form of "Denial."]

But we can't do anything about it because switching to fluorescent lights won't clean up that Texas-size clump of plastic in the middle of the ocean or force the Chinese to stop driving the cars they were only able to afford for the first time three months ago, and our government's owned by a bunch of corporate criminals who patently refuse to do anything about it. Pretty much regardless who wins in November. So just leave us alone and let us enjoy our last few decades in peace, alright? Go make an action movie and get out of my face.

Okay, so that's pretty much how I feel any more about celebrities and their precious little "let's all go green for just a day!" stuff. But Harrison Ford's patently ludicrous attempt to "raise awareness" or whatever is just too precious to ignore. I mean, seriously, H.F., how much pot would you say you're smoking...per day?

Harrison invited Access Hollywood along as he embarked on a personal project to promote going green. And just how did Harrison, who is the vice chair of the global environment group Conservation International, want to get his message across?

By waxing his chest, of course. In an effort to showcase the pain involved in deforestation, Harrison willingly subject himself to the painful process of stripping his chest of all its follicles.

Huh? Harrison seems to have missed the best thing about hurting plants...they don't feel shit! What does waxing his chest have to do with cutting down trees again? Is this just an excuse to get him to take his shirt off on camera? And to what end? The guy looks fucking ancient these days. I mean, hey, folks, I love Han Solo as much as the rest of you. He acts like he doesn't care, but he actually does. But I can think of no good reason for him to take his shirt off on camera. That's just some of my patented Straight Talk, folks, get used to it.



Yikes. It looks like a melting wax sculpture of Harrison Ford that someone's desperately trying to suture and mend.

I mean, if Harrison's deeply concerned with deforestation and wants to work tirelessly on behalf of tree frogs or cures for various diseases that never seem to pan out or delicious new varieties of Starbucks or whatever the hell they have where deforestation is a problem, that's totally his choice and I wish him all the best. If it keeps my pasty white ass alive for a few extra days, I'll be really thankful.

But, do me a favor, let's go ahead and remain fully clothed, Sport.

Idol Preview

The Mahalo Daily Team whipped up two fantastic videos today. The first is just a tiny taste of the "Mahalo Idol" juggernaut that awaits you all. I seriously CAN'T WAIT to get these episodes out there. We've all been having a really great time shooting the competition thus far, and I'm hoping that it's going to be compelling stuff in the somewhat hokey fashion of reality television. I can hardly handle the suspense, myself, and I already got the job.



Next up is the farewell tribute to Veronica Belmont, whose enormous, Krusty-the-Clown-reminiscent shoes I and my soon-to-be-cohost will be asked to fill. It's not an easy task, and not just because she's Queen of the Sexy Geeks and I look like an unholy hybrid of Artie Lange and Ron "The Hedgehog" Jeremy. She just had a great run as hostess, and pretty much defined what the Mahalo Daily is all about, as this video ably demonstrates:



I promise, non-Mahalo-themed posts to come! I'm super-serial!

Awwwwwwww yeah....

Really proud of today's Mahalo Daily, "I'm Gonna Git You Spamma." It's hotter than Norton and cooler than McAfee:

Want to Feel Really Old?

Remember when TV promos were actually like this?



I used to watch both of these shows...Young Me had really egregious taste in television.

HiPiHi新闻联播2期横空出"事"

It strikes me that the following may seem culturally insensitive. I'm not trying to say Chinese people or things are inherently alien or weird or exotic or anything. I'm a huge fan of the Chinese people. Their movies are awesome, they are pioneers in the arena of bootlegging cool shit so I can get it for free, their lead-filled toys have never injured me, personally. Best of all, they keep their delicious Americanized restaurants open on Christmas Eve, so I can hook up some spicy Cheng-Pi Beef even though the rest of the world has come to a dead stop, eagerly awaiting the arrival of an obese, gift-bearing hermit.

So, having made that possibly-more-offensive pre-apology, allow me to say this...The following commercial for the Chinese version of "Second Life" is the most insane, creepiest thing I have ever seen. I wonder...would an American commercial for our version of "Second Life" look this weird to a Chinese person?



It probably helps that I don't understand what anyone is saying, but still...this would be weird even if it were coherent.

After some opening titles featuring a globe with non-Earth-like continents, we cut to the inside of some kind of temple, where a man with a bear claw for an arm and a firecracker strapped to his back speaks with what I can only guess is a rabbit. Oh, and the rabbit has a plunger floating just above its head. And they might be hosting some kind of show, rather than speaking to one another. I can't tell.

The weirdest part about this sequence is that the dialogue sounds like it is extremely mundane. Like they're discussing Grain Futures or something. This is supposed to sell me on whatever the hell this thing is called? So far, it looks like a crack baby's nightmare.

Then we cut to virtual news footage from what looks like an event of some sort, though I can't imagine what it would be and there aren't any people around. There's a lot of weird close-ups of crowns. Is it a beauty pageant? Could anything sound more inane than an avatar beauty pageant? I'm thinking it's probably inversely proportional anyway - the uglier you are in real life, the hotter your alternate self. You meet the Second Life Evangeline Lilly, that's probably a 400-pound guy permanently melded to his computer chair.

Then, the news show's "host" stands in front of a freaky black room containing what looks like a large perfume bottle and...I don't know...some kind of sparkly white thing. Perhaps a portal between our world and this Realm of Mystery and Polygons.

Anyway, you get the idea. Second China is frightening. It's like if someone made an Inland Empire tie-in game or something. No thanks...

Cheap Netflix Bastards!

This tweet from Anthony T. informs me that Netflix plans to charge customers more to rent Blu-Ray discs rather than traditional DVD's. This is weaksauce.

On a conference call held earlier today, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings made mention that it planned on instituting a "modest monthly premium" to its normal subscription rate for folks who rented BDs. Of course, the move only makes perfect sense -- after all, the discs do cost more, and according to Mr. Hastings, "consumers are used to paying more for high-definition content."

Naturally, the move makes financial sense. Customers with Blu-Ray players/PS3's have already spent several hundred dollars for the privilege of watching films in high-definition. The vast majority of them will clearly throw Netflix a few extra bucks a month for movies that make the player worth owning. Considering that Blu-Ray discs, on average, cost around $5-$10 over the price of regular DVD's, Netflix has to make up this difference somehow to remain profitable.

It just sucks is all. Netflix remains a fantastic deal, for the most part, but I still somehow feel "nickel and dimed" by them all the time. I'm not sure if it's just a failure of PR or my being such a movie uber-nerd that I notice small differences in rental policies...but I feel like Netflix is constantly trying to get one over on me, and it's giving me a rash, man.

I've written before about their loathsome policies of punishing more frequent renters and just generally shitty customer service. (I've still never received any kind of response to my complaint about only receiving Disc 1 of Branagh's "Hamlet." They want me to use up a second rental, I guess, to see the full film.) Once again, I'm left feeling taken advantage of, as they begin charging me extra for the same movies they've been sending me for months now.

They need some genuine competition. (Oh, I know that Blockbuster has an online rental service, but I vowed long ago never to do business with that villainous corporation again, and yeah, I could "rent" movies online and then burn them on to a disc and watch them on my TV. Shut up.) I like Netflix's business...just not the shady way they run it.