“Community” Has Been Canceled
Mother Jones
Community, a show that you and all your Twitter friends sure did like a lot, has been canceled.
RIP Community—may its legend live on in stories.
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Tag Archives: film and tv
Here Is a Video of 25-Year-Old Jon Hamm Being Super Awkward on a Dating Show
Mother Jones
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So, you’re walking down a street and you see a sign or a building or a landmark and it triggers some long forgotten memory from your past and you’re swept up in it and a wistful smile crawls across your face and you look up to the sky and put your hands on your hips and then you look down to the ground, then finally straight ahead, and you chuckle and my God, you were so young and stupid—but wasn’t it good to be young?—but then you stop chuckling because you think about the memory more and you remember it in detail and my God, what were you doing, did you really act like that, did you really say that, my God, did you really look like that, and boom boom boom is the sound of your heart pounding and your anxiety is rising and you recall vividly that you didn’t think you looked ridiculous when you were on this street corner when you were young and now you worry all of a sudden that you actually thought at that time—gasp!—that you were cool and fun and neat and attractive, and people liked you, you thought, but they couldn’t have liked this person you’re remembering because this person you’re remembering, young you, is objectively humiliating, and now you begin doubting everything—is north north?—but especially yourself, that is what you doubt the most, because if you thought you were cool then and you were wrong, maybe you’re wrong about thinking you’re cool now, and maybe it’s all a lie, everything you tell yourself about yourself, maybe you’re not really very cool, maybe you’re not really very happy, maybe you’ll never be very cool, maybe you’ll never be very happy, maybe your hands still sweat, and your lip still quivers, and your hair still looks all a mess, and oh God, dear God, blessed God, it’s true, you think: you’re still the same silly shamefully awkward 25-year-old you never wanted to be in the first place.
Don’t worry. Jon Hamm was a super awkward 25-year-old as well and look at him! You’re probably cool now, too.
(via Slate)
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Here Is a Video of 25-Year-Old Jon Hamm Being Super Awkward on a Dating Show
What Are Your Favorite Comedies?
Mother Jones
They say you can tell more about a person by what he laughs at than by what he cries at. With that in mind, here are ten of my favorite film comedies in no particular order. As you can see, I basically like jokefests. There is little trace of sophistication here:
Real Genius
Life of Brian
Office Space
Groundhog Day
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Airplane!
This is Spinal Tap
Dodgeball
Galaxy Quest
The Big Lebowski
Marian and I both thought this Minute Maid commercial was funny. I remember telling her that it showed the difference in our senses of humor. I liked it for the first part; she liked it for the second part:
Among older, classic comedies, I would probably choose anything starring Cary Grant and let it go at that. What are your favorites?
JUST FOR THE RECORD: I limited my list to one film per actor/director. So only one Monty Python film, one Steve Martin film, one Abrahams/Zucker film, etc. There are no Mel Brooks films because I’m not really much of a Mel Brooks fan.
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Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta
Tagged christ, film and tv, kevin drum, list, office, photo essays, record, slideshows, space, space-groundhog, summer
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Stop Trying To Make “Muppets Most Wanted” About Putin
Mother Jones
As you probably heard, Russia invaded Ukraine. This has been big international news for the past few weeks, and now it is even affecting how people cover and review the new Muppets movie.
In Muppets Most Wanted (released on Friday), the antagonist is Constantine the Frog, a notorious criminal with a thick Russian accent. He also looks an awful lot like Kermit the Frog. Early in the film, Constantine escapes from a gulag in Siberia, tracks down Kermit, steals his identity, and gets the good-natured Kermit thrown in the Russian labor camp in his place. (Tina Fey plays Nadya, the officer who runs the song-and-dance-obsessed gulag.)
The Russia content in Muppets Most Wanted grew out of the filmmakers’ desire to create a “classic cold-war musical comedy,” and to give a lighthearted nod to the Russian bad guys of 1980s movies. Director James Bobin and Nicholas Stoller of course had no idea that their new Muppet movie would hit theaters right around the time Russia annexed Crimea. Constantine is a world-infamous thief, not a stand-in for Putin or any Russian politician (not that the Muppets haven’t dabbled in politics—or been accused of partisan bias—before). Regardless, critics and writers found a way to make their coverage of Muppets Most Wanted more topical!
Here’s a sample:
“The newest Muppet is Russian, prefers to go shirtless and is intent on evil domination. Sound familiar?” — USA Today.
“The one discordant note comes by way of the gulag gags: With Russian President Vladimir Putin enthusiastically reviving that country’s most oppressive totalitarian past, making light of what now seems all too real may strike adult viewers as, if not tasteless, then at least unfortunately timed. (The backfire also serves as a cautionary reminder to studio executives eager to exploit the newly all-powerful international market.)” — The Washington Post.
“The United States government today called on Walt Disney Pictures to delay or cancel the release of Muppets Most Wanted on national security grounds. Or at least, it should have. Not only might this movie annoy Russia, with whom the American government is already nose-to-nose over Crimea, but it could also cause any European allies being courted by President Obama to unfriend him and the rest of the country. The film, a music-filled follow-up to the 2011 hit The Muppets, lands poor Kermit in a gulag in Siberia, which is depicted just as unflatteringly as gulags in Siberia always are. Vladimir V. Putin is unlikely to be amused.” — The New York Times.
“The film’s female lead, Miss Piggy, arguably bears some resemblance to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose stance on Russia has toughened considerably as the Crimean crisis unfolds.” — Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
“He’s kidnapped and replaced by evil frog Constantine, Kermit’s exact double apart from a facial mole and an accent that sounds like Vladimir Putin trying to invade his space.” — The Toronto Star.
…Ugh.
Now, for something better, listen to Muppets Most Wanted‘s fun, self-referential musical number “We’re Doing a Sequel” below:
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Kate Winslet’s “Divergent” Character Is Like a Brainy, Science-Driven Hitler
Mother Jones
The people who made Divergent desperately want it to be the next The Hunger Games, with all the piles of money that come with a franchise of the kind. The new sci-fi movie (released on Friday) is based on the Veronica Roth young-adult novel of the same name, set in an isolated, dystopian Chicago. Much like The Hunger Games books and movies, Divergent depicts young, good-looking people fighting totalitarianism in a war-ravaged future. (In Divergent, the youthful heroine is Beatrice “Tris” Prior, played by the talented Shailene Woodley.)
There is plenty wrong with Divergent, including that it’s a drowsy action flick (first in a planned trilogy) that reeks of studio executives’ cynical attempts to cash in on the international commercial success of a similarly themed series. Whereas the villains in The Hunger Games make up a totalitarian regime that resembles North Korea but with superior reality TV, the bad guys in Divergent resemble grown-up college nerds who are black-out drunk on political power.
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Kate Winslet’s “Divergent” Character Is Like a Brainy, Science-Driven Hitler
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Tagged film and tv, hunger-games, lai, mixed media, north, people, studio, world
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Short Takes: "The New Black"
Mother Jones
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PROMISED LAND FILM
The black voters who turned out for Barack Obama in November 2008 also have been blamed for nudging California’s gay-marriage ban—since nullified by the Supreme Court—to victory. To explore changing black perspectives on gay rights, director Yoruba Richen follows Maryland’s 2012 same-sex marriage referendum, introducing us to people like 24-year-old activist Karess Taylor-Hughes and Pastor Derek McCoy, president of the Maryland Family Alliance—thought leaders on opposite sides of the issue. Backed by an outstanding gospel soundtrack, The New Black is a story of passion, conviction, and the evolution of long-held attitudes. It’s likely to move you, whatever your belief.
This review originally appeared in our January/February issue of Mother Jones.
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The Whimsical Fascists of Wes Anderson’s "The Grand Budapest Hotel"
Mother Jones
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Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel is very, very Wes Anderson—which is to say that the colors pop, the quirky humor abounds, and your emotions are sneakily toyed with. Few directors have the kind of total control over the way their actors talk, move, and express quite like Anderson does. Anderson’s singular style and eccentricities make virtually everything in his films (even harrowing elements such as suicide and war) oddly whimsical. And in The Grand Budapest Hotel, a Nazi analog is made into something of a goofy villain.
The comedy is set primarily in the 1930s in Zubrowka, a fictional central-European republic that has endured European totalitarianism and world war (the movie was shot on location in Germany, but the setting, sounds, and visuals were, in Anderson’s words, “a pastiche of the greatest hits of…Eastern Europe”). The core of the narrative (starring Ralph Fiennes, F. Murray Abraham, Tony Revolori, Saoirse Ronan, Harvey Keitel, and several Anderson regulars) is a murder mystery, but the backdrop routinely advances to the fore as the grip of a fascist party grows more and more clenched. “Part of why I feel the impulse to reimagine World War II rather than just do it is because it’s been done so many times before,” Anderson told NPR.
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The Whimsical Fascists of Wes Anderson’s "The Grand Budapest Hotel"
Liam Neeson Warns Vladimir Putin About Taking Things, Such as Crimea
Mother Jones
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During the cold open for this weekend’s Saturday Night Live, actor/UNICEF ambassador/fierce Bill de Blasio critic Liam Neeson delivered a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin: “Crimea had been taken,” Neeson growled. “I hate it when things are taken.” (The “taken” line is an obvious reference to Neeson’s role in the Taken films, in which he plays a loving family man and CIA torturer who massacres ethnic stereotypes who have kidnapped his daughter and ex-wife.)
Here’s video of the sketch, where Neeson appears with Jay Pharoah, who plays President Barack Obama on SNL:
Vladimir Putin did not respond to a request for comment on what he thought of Neeson’s attempted deterrent.
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Liam Neeson Warns Vladimir Putin About Taking Things, Such as Crimea
The Best Oscar of Last Night Was the Screenplay Award for "Her"
Mother Jones
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Today presents a blogging problem: The news cycle is devoted almost entirely to events in Ukraine—as it should be—and I’ve already probably said more about this than I should. I don’t have any special expertise in the area, and I really hate the phenomenon of instant expertise that takes hold of pundits everywhere whenever something like this happens. I’m keenly aware of all the big underlying issues—Russia’s long cultural ties to Ukraine; the eastward spread of NATO and the EU; anti-Russian sentiment in Kiev; the weakness of Russia’s military; Putin’s one-note thuggishness; Ukraine’s endemic corruption and its internal fights over who gets to profit from the Russian gas trade; etc. etc.—and also keenly aware that a bare knowledge of all this stuff doesn’t really make me worth reading on the subject. For what it’s worth, I’ve already made a prediction that Putin will stop at Crimea because (a) the Russian army doesn’t have the strength to do much more, and (b) Putin isn’t willing to pay the price both in military and diplomatic terms for a broader intervention in eastern Ukraine. But I could be wildly wrong. Who knows?
So then, what should I write about today? I’m not sure, though I imagine that I’ll end up writing more about Ukraine despite everything I just said.
In the meantime, how about a nice Oscars thread? No? Oh come on. I’ll toss out a provocation to get everyone started: the best award of the night was the Best Original Screenplay win for Her. Not because it was my favorite movie of the year or anything, but because it was the first screenplay in ages that genuinely surprised me. Not in the sense of a last-minute twist that comes out of nowhere—that’s common enough—but in the sense of a narrative that shifted directions smoothly and naturally into something much more interesting than I thought it would be. The art of Hollywood screenwriting has deteriorated so badly that this doesn’t happen very often anymore. I won’t say more in case you haven’t seen the movie and still plan to, but feel free to discuss in comments.
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The Best Oscar of Last Night Was the Screenplay Award for "Her"
Read the New York Times’ 1853 Report on the Solomon Northup "Kidnapping Case"
Mother Jones
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On Sunday, 12 Years a Slave won the Academy Award for Best Picture. The film tells the true story of Solomon Northup (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free black man who was drugged and kidnapped in Washington, DC, in 1841 and sold into slavery. Northup, a violinist and family man based in Saratoga Springs, New York, was forced to work on Louisiana plantations for 12 years.
On January 20, 1853 (the same year Northup’s memoir Twelve Years a Slave was published), the New York Times ran a report on Northup titled, “The Kidnapping Case,” promising “interesting disclosures” (it spells his name “Northrup”):
“By the laws of Louisiana no man can be punished there for having sold Solomon into slavery wrongfully, because more than two years had elapsed since he was sold; and no recovery can be had for his services, because he was bought without the knowledge that he was a free citizen,” the story reads.
During his acceptance speech, 12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen dedicated the award to the tens of millions of people still in slavery today.
(h/t the New York Times’ Facebook page.)
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Read the New York Times’ 1853 Report on the Solomon Northup "Kidnapping Case"
