Dave Chappelle on the Gates Situation

Stolen from Andrew Sullivan.

Read Full Post »

Uncle Rico Throws a Steak

I still love this.

Dammit, WordPress, why can’t you just embed Hulu?

Read Full Post »

Paul Westerberg Thursdays

Left of the Dial, 1993, First Avenue, Minneapolis:

The Replacements, Talent Show, “Rock Awards”:

Read Full Post »

The Guillermo Identity

“Sorry, that was my fault. That was a question.”

Damon is one of the most underrated comedic actors in Hollywood. Like vintage Harrison Ford.

Read Full Post »

Huxley, Not Orwell, Was Right

Great comic about amusing ourselves to death, by Stuart McMillen:

Read Full Post »

KHAAAAAAN!

Read Full Post »

Mentos: The Failmaker

Read Full Post »

Bill Simmons Hands Out “Almost Famous” Quotes for NBA Scorecard

Bill Simmons has done it again.

He’s put himself in that realm of esoteric pop-culture thinkers like Chuck Klosterman (who has one of my favorite articles ever about which rock bands are accurately rated- according to Chuck, Van Halen’s “…And the Cradle Will Rock” is the single most average song in rock history. Not overrated. Not underrated. Exceptionally average.) with this great little piece in which he hands out “Almost Famous” quotes as NBA post-season awards. Part 2 here.

Goddamn, I wish I didn’t love the NBA the way I do. It makes my soul ache, like an exposed dental nerve.

“You’ll meet them all again on their long journey to the middle.”
— Lester Bangs in Almost Famous

Read Full Post »

Peter Jackson on District 9, “Lack of Original Ideas in Hollywood”

Nice interview by Frenchman Geoff Boucher at the LA Times. P-Jack talks about Neill Blomkamp’s terrible “first film experience” with Halo falling apart, and how they dealt with it:

We don’t own the ‘Halo’ franchise. We can’t raise the money somewhere else. It’s their property, they’ve got the license for it. So the way to avoid this [happening again] is to do something original, to do it at a lower budget, finance it independently, and not finance it through a studio. You know, there are ways of avoiding it. We came up with the idea for ‘District 9.’

Between this and the video below of Peter Jackson discussing turning in a draft of The Hobbit, it’s truly stunning to me that a man who basically made 3.5 BILLION DOLLARS (for the LOTR films and King Kong) still has to get script approval. He won Best Director Oscar. He still has to get studio notes? That seems… what’s the phrase I’m looking for? Ludicrously asinine.

If I’m handling money for a studio, and someone says, “Peter Jackson wants to make a movie about cannibal panda bears who shoot acid out of their butts,” I say, “Sweet. Here’s 200 million. Tell him to have fun.”

(BTW, I’ve copyrighted “Cannibal Panda Bears That Shoot Acid Out Their Butts.” Just try me, punk. My lawyers pounce like starving cheetahs.)

District 9 trailer here.

Read Full Post »

Are You Better Than Yesterday?

I know JVCD is. He’s learned to control the sea with kicks, brother.

Tim Ferris has a nice little post over on his 4 Hour Workweek Blog called, “Are You Better Than Yesterday?” Which is the real question, innit? Here’s a quote:

I’ve recently been working on this very problem in earnest. Going to the gym almost daily, eating better–the works. But even when I’m getting with the program in a serious way, it’s hard to see the results. As I was wallowing in my demotivation one recent evening, my friend Erik Kastner posted a message to Twitter with the following text:

Help me get my $%!^ in shape…ask me once a day: “Was today better than yesterday?” (nutrition / exercise) – today: YES!

When I read this I realized that it was the ticket to getting in shape. I recognized it from the big problems I have successfully solved in my life. The secret is to focus on making whatever it is you’re trying to improve and make better today than it was yesterday. That’s it. It’s easy. And, as Erik was, it’s possible to be enthusiastic about taking real, tangible steps toward a distant goal.

As Tony Robbins as the whole thing sounds, that’s the key, I think. And it is easy. In a country where television is just something you do, it’s tough to remember that you can be sitting watching Daisy of Love for a four-hour marathon (like, um, a friend of mine recently did), and realize “Oh. That just ate up a chunk of my life. Flex and Sixpack and London and Daisy just stole a piece of my life.” It’s gone. You’ll never get it back. Like a mediocre vampire.

And maybe you learned something from Daisy and her Patterned Pals, but more likely you f***ing didn’t.

Read Full Post »

BRRRRRUUUUUUUCCCCCCEEEEE.

A lil’ tribute to Saint Joe Strummer at Glastonbury 2009:

One of the YouTube comments is priceless:

fooking brill

Here he is with the Gaslight Anthem:

Read Full Post »

I Don’t Want to Change the World, I’m Not Looking For a New England

I love this song. Made better by the drunken German sing-along, and the key-change Kirsty MacColl final lyric:

Here’s a nice little concert mash-up with Kate Nash:

And here’s Billy on the Henry Rollins Show, singing Waiting for the Great Leap Forward (with the great spot-on observation about Mtv’s absolute irrelevance):

I’ll go into Levi Stubb’s Tears at a later date; probably in my top twenty favorite songs of all time. I was just in a Mr. Love n’ Justice mood today.

KENWOODE UPDATE: In the middle of doing rewrites on the screenplay. The good news is there is real interest; I can’t really go into it right now. But I promise I’ll post a few new panels this weekend, taking into account a new work-flow (or actual work) “process” from Carl and myself called, “Getting Off Our Lazy Asses.”

Read Full Post »

What’s Unfilmable?

Wired has a nice little article about what’s unfilmable in Hollywood- which books or comics cannot be done correctly? The Neil Gaiman quote slaps you right on the face:

“It’s not film-shaped,” Gaiman said. “I went out to Hollywood with beautiful artwork and toys and did a presentation…. I got to the end, very proud of myself for encapsulating 2,000 pages of comics into a giant visual pitch, and what I got was, ‘Does The Sandman have a clearly defined bad guy?’ I said, ‘No it doesn’t,’ and they said, ‘Thanks for coming!’”

Trust me, I’m going through this slog in meetings right now. There’s a reason all films feel vaguely the same: they’re designed that way. It’s actually a miracle that both Stardust and Coraline got even past the pitch stage.

[Fan-art illustration of Death and the Sandman by UMINGA. Art here]

Read Full Post »

Regina Spektor Fridays

Lately whenever I think of Dano, I hear the song “Be Still Dan’s Beating Heart.” Which is weird, because usually when I hear a Sting song in my head, I hear Sting’s name in place of every instance of the word “my” or “I” etc.

Be Still Dan’s beating heart

t’would be better to be coool

S’not time to be open just yet

Lesson once learned, so hard to forget.

Read Full Post »