We’ve been largely ignoring the viral marketing direction Warner Brothers has employed for the Batman Begins sequel, The Dark Knight. It’s been a good campaign by any standards, especially by keeping the movie in the new media spotlight and unlike say the Iron Man campaign, I don’t feel like I’ve already seen everything from the movie.
Quite the opposite in fact.
When it comes to director Chris Nolan’s flick, I feel like I haven’t seen anything at all. Now they’ve released another poster and frak I want to see this movie like yesterday. July 18th can’t get here fast enough. Welcome to a world without rules indeed. MORE »
Hard to believe, but I just watched the Tina Fey comedy 30 Rockfor the first time ever last night. And it’s good, certainly better than I expected. Due in large parts to Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Will Arnett and Tracy Morgan. In many ways, because of the excellent cast, you have to wonder how the sitcom could possibly be not funny.
If Will Arnett or Tracy Morgan read the Declaration of Independence I’d probably laugh out loud. That Tina Fey is completely crazy and Alec Baldwin is surprisingly smug and restraint (yet just as funny) is a bonus. A show I’d gladly watch again.
Plus, Tina Fey has that sexy librarian thing going on, but one thing I can’t help but notice every time I watch her is that strange scar on the left side of her face. What’s up with that?
But the point is that I’m still holding out hope Tina Fey will come around and go on a date with me.
They met while they were both working at Second City and have been married since 2001. I would bet cash money that he is a wonderful and funny guy. Incredibly, Fey says that before she met him she “could not get a date.”
It’s Will Smith’s big summer movie so that’s good and it’s being directed by Peter Berg, who’s always demonstrated a steady and promising, if somewhat unremarkable, hand with his films. In Hancock, we’ve got a superhero movie about a depressed, alcoholic superhero who can’t seem to really save people and sometimes let’s his anger harm other people. It’s being marketed as funny at first, but this new look makes it seem to be darkly comic (bordering on not funny) action flick.
Bipolar might be the word to desrcibe this film and since tone is such a huge factor in determining a summer movie’s success, we’re left wondering how this one is going to play to audiences. Do people really want to see a realistic portrayal of the superhero’s life? I mean this is certainly what my life would be like if I were a superhero, but who wants to see the Al Bundy of superhero movies, even if it does star Will Smith?
But if you want to know, this is the type of superhero movie I’ve been waiting to see for about five years now. I’m gonna be there on opening day.
Going to my first Red Sox game since 2004. Should be exciting, nothing like Fenway Park in the spring/summer. You’d think I was coming back to Boston for the ROFLCon this weekend, but alas I’m here in the Hub for a high school friend’s wedding.
We’ll be back later tonight with more pop culture goodness.
Who would win in a fight? A Golden Eagle or a mountain goat? Answer: definitively, the Golden Eagle.
Also: Kottke recommends listening to the video with the Juan Diego Florez’s encore-inducing tenor solo(Mp3), when he nailed nine high C notes. It brought the house down and for the first time in 14 years a singer was asked to encore. The last guy to get that honor was some dude named Luciano Pavarotti. Damn straight. Florez even nailed the nine high C’s during the encore.
All you have to do is mute the sound on the video and open the Mp3 file in another tab (or window).
Now playing the nature video and the encore together isn’t quite like Dark Side of the Moon and The Wizard of Oz, but it’s tasty nonetheless. It even reminds me of being in college and syncing up nature videos to different albums. Yeah, I was either on lots of drugs or a really big dork. You decide.
So Conan’s first musical guest way back in 1993 was a much more emo and shaggy looking Radiohead. “Creep” was undeniably cool, but there was no to portent that that band would become the singular band of my generation. Well, for a lot of folks in my generation, I would never profess to speak for an entire group of people. Still.
So Radiohead dropped by Conan last night for a green rendition of In Rainbows tune “House of Cards.” And by drop by we mean they played a pre-recorded version of the song from London. Because flying to New York would increase their carbon footprint. They even offered some advice: “Recycle your shopping bags Conan.” I guess you can say any old snotty thing and get away with it so long as it’s with a British accent.
For some reason I can’t stop watching this news report from Minnesota’s Channel 5 KSTP. Not sure how old this clip is, but a reporter went on the scene to Maplewood, MN to get the scoop on the local drug bust. But when the cop comes out of the house, he’s packing something entirely else in a box.
I just hope he had gloves on. Thanks Robyn for the head’s up.
Despite my otherworldly hatred for Zack Braff, his sitcom Scrubs is actually pretty funny thanks in large part to the other cast members like Sarah Chalke, Donald Faison, Neil Flynn, and John C. McGinley.
Strangely, I’ve never watched it when it airs on television, but I find myself watching the reruns all the time. I’ll put it on in the background while making dinner or when working or when there is nothing else on television. Twist my arm and I’d even say it’s one of the most underrated sitcoms on television - ever.
Show creator Bill Lawrence confirms to TV Guide’s Matt Ausiello that the final episode (at least on NBC since there is still no word on if ABC will pick up the show) airing on May 15 will be a budget-breaking homage to the second most awesome movie of all-time A Princess Bride. Yeah, nothing is knocking The Goonies off the top spot.
“Even now, after seven years, we try to do one show that we spend way too much money and time on in the hopes that people… actually, you know what? We’re ultimately just making ourselves happy,” Bill confesses. “It’s like last year when we did the musical. Some of the response was like, ‘Who gives a shit?’ But we were happy. Same thing when we did the live-action sitcom. And this year, partly because my wife always jokes that I haven’t written an episode of Scrubs that my kids can watch, and partly because one of our favorite family movies is The Princess Bride, we did a huge homage to The Princess Bride. Zach directed it like a major feature; we blew our entire season’s budget on it. There are horse chases and castles…. Janitor is a giant, Elliot is a princess, Dr. Cox is a knight. It’s crazy and silly for a seventh-year show to be trying this stuff, but, man, I’m really proud of it.”
The one thing that Scrubs does so well is this type of absurb ambitious humor. That they pull it off so well is testament to the cast and crew, Zack Braff notwithstanding. This episode, I may not wait until the reruns. Is it too much to find out what the janitor’s name is?
I’m probably one of the few people who’ve never cracked open the Chronicles of Narnia books. Somehow I missed them entirely. I would like to remedy that one day. Prince Caspian arrives in theaters this summer, flying under the superhero radar.
This new trailer is darker in tone than the first one, but there is something about this film world that leaves me cold. It’s too clean. It’s like everything was shot on a sound stage and the world just doesn’t seem to be alive, not like it was in Lord of the Rings.
Disney and Walden Media aren’t planning on any more movies beyond a third one, The Dawn Trader, unless of course the box office is right. We’ll see this summer.
Earth Day is one of those holidays that seems so fucking bogus. Yeah, we get a lot of story’s about Green musicians (no surprise Willie Nelson, Dave Matthews, Jack Johnson and Radiohead made the list since they shoove their “greenness” down our throats), that’s a PDF link by the way, Sting playing a benefit concert to save the rainforests (how 1984 of you Gordon Sumner), Al Gore possibly making a sequel to An Inconvenient Truth, or how Los Angeles shut down a city street to throw a party for being the smoggiest city in the US. Yay for us!
Anyway, I’m all for conservation of open land and trying to repair the damage done to the Earth, but instead of patting ourselves on the backs with mock celebratory zeal, why not actual force citizens to make a sacrifice one day of the year to prove a point. Or better yet, why not come up with some serious solutions to some of the serious problems facing our planet, instead of giving Jack Johnson a lazy surfer dude hi-five for building a green recording studio.
I’m sure it looked good at the time when London design outfit FHD nabbed the rights to design the logo for the UK’s Office of Government Commerce (OGC). They even did a snazzy design of things. People seemed happy, we got some legalese doublespeak from the department about how important branding is, etc. etc. etc. and then people tilted their heads.
Quite remarkably, our informant suggested that, having spent the cash, OGC intends to roll out the logo anyway. Well, we contacted the OGC for comment, and a spokesman gamely explained: “The OGC is currently overhauling the design of its corporate materials following a new strategy and forward direction. As part of this, the OGC has been developing a new visual identity, one aspect of which is a new logo.
“The proposed version, which you have sent over, has been shared with staff, and is now going through final technical stages. It is true that it caused a few titters among some staff when viewed on its side, but on consideration we concluded that the effect was generic to the particular combination of the letters ‘OGC’ - and is not inappropriate to an organisation that’s looking to have a firm grip on government spend!”
He concluded: “The new identity has been extremely well received, as it presents a very clean, uncluttered and modern identity.”
So, they’re keeping the logo and they want to have a firm grip on government spending. But what’s the government for if not to jerk you off? [via]
There is almost nothing better than the weekend you go visit your older sibling at college for the first time. It’s generally one of those, “holy shit I can’t believe that happened” type of weekends. Even to this day I’ve had a few of those weekends that I glory days with my high school buddies about.
And because of that, I always tried to make sure college friends’s younger siblings had an equally as good/can’t quite remember time, even if that meant getting drunk and trying to make out with a friend’s younger sister or something.
Good times, good times. And with a premise like that you would think the summer comedy flick, College would have a much funnier trailer. But this just seems stupid and far fetched. The trailer makes it seem like they are there for a month instead of a weekend. Still, the MGM movie is R-rated, so there is hope. Even if it is faint. Probably end up watching this on DVD on when it rolls into the beer theaters.
Neil Patrick Harris is everywhere these days. And he should be. He constantly steals every scene he’s in on the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother and let’s be real, his cameo in both Harold & Kumar flicks are worth their weight in gold (okay, we’re only surmising that his cameo in the second one is wait for it . . . legendary, since it hasn’t hit theaters yet).
Frosty over at Collider has a fun video interview with the man, but some of the highlights include:
We were joking around as the interview started…he asked what outlet I was with and I said it was a porn site.
I ask with all the Saw movies that come pout every Halloween, how is there not a Harold and Kumar movie every 4/20/08
Could there be a Harold and Kumar musical?
Neil tells me about a bet between Jason Segel and himself that involves $200,000 dollars. It’s about which movie does better
I ask how many people have tried to get him high
What was it like coming back to the character and playing himself
But if you’re not into the sort humorous promotional interviews, the NY Times strolled along with NPH over the weekend for another edition of A Night Out With.
To distinguish between Mr. Harris’s authentic and fictional selves, Ms. Medlin pointed out that in real life Mr. Harris has never snorted cocaine off a woman’s behind. “Not this year!” chimed Mr. Harris and Ms. Baeling, in unison. Ba-dum-bum!
She was referring to one of Mr. Harris’s scenes in “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle,” a 2004 dark comedy. In the sequel, “Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantánamo Bay,” Mr. Harris brands a prostitute with his name while hallucinating on magic mushrooms.
“When ‘Harold and Kumar’ came out, Neil said to me, ‘I hope people don’t think I’m like that!’ ” Mr. Medlin said. “I was like, ‘It’s a parody!’ ”
The real Mr. Harris more closely resembles the social ringleader Barney Stinson, the character he plays on the CBS sitcom “How I Met Your Mother” — if Barney were gay and really into Disneyland. (Mr. Harris’s live-in boyfriend, David Burtka, also an actor, was in New York working).
“I’m not the guy who goes to Skybar,” Mr. Harris said. “I’m not good with that random small talk with people I’ll never meet again. I prefer to take a friend somewhere eventful.”
Mr. Harris, 34, recently became a board member for the Academy of Magical Arts. The board has governed the academy since it made the castle its headquarters in 1963. (“Neil’s the first celeb on the board since Cary Grant,” Ms. Baeling said.) [...]
Mr. Harris insisted that his amateur magic skills were better suited for the talk-show circuit than the club. Still, he performed impressive trick
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Despite my otherworldly hatred for Zack Braff, his sitcom Scrubs is actually pretty funny thanks in large part to the other cast members like Sarah Chalke, Donald Faison, Neil Flynn, and John C. McGinley.
