Sleep Tight

The 305

Okay, this is kind of old and mostly a fluff post to put something new on the front.

I'm a fan of the movie 300. I took some convincing, all the people talking about how "badass" the trailer looked put me off a bit, and even coming out of it I felt like Sin City was a more significant stylistic achievement, but as time has gone on, I've thought often of 300 and rarely of Sin City.

The easy assumption for my preference is the greater prevalence of muscular men in loincloths and capes in one over the other, but honestly that's not really my gauge. While both were loyal to the graphic novel, and both were shot on greenscreen, 300 was less restrictive than Sin City. 300 used the visionary work of Frank Miller as a springboard, Sin City as a straitjacket. I forgot, while watching 300, that it was shot on greenscreen. I never really lost that sense of confined space with Sin City.

Anyway, a discussion of the relative merits of the two films might have been more relevant a year and a half ago when 300 was actually released in theatres, so I'll skip it. The point in bringing up 300 is to bring up this parody film, 305, which combines the story of 300 with the sensibility (and to an extent, character "archetypes") of "The Office" (American version).

It becomes obvious pretty quickly who's who, especially in the cases of Darryl and Testicleese, who are direct duplicates in both appearance and manner of Dwight and Jim, respectively.

More than likely you've already seen this video, but for those who haven't:



But there's more to it than just a YouTube video. I think this deserves a distinction for being a YouTube video that actually led to a feature film. That's right, there's a full-length 305 movie out there for your viewing pleasure.

For the record, I don't think you should run out and buy the film, but if you see it at Blockbuster, and you're a fan of 300/The Office/both, I think it's worth your time.

My concern was how they would extend the "Office meets Sparta" conceit beyond the five minutes of the original short. Even in the short itself, it threatens to overstay its welcome, but thankfully never does. I thought the full feature would be tired repetition of the same -- not even "joke," per se, but "premise."

"What if the story of 300 was told like the Office?" "What if cavemen sold car insurance?" You get what I'm talking about.

Thankfully, the writers (and I don't have to put it in quotation marks like I would with certain "parodies" out there) actually bothered to come up with a story.

The movie starts off with the short -- and why not, you've already got five minutes of your feature in the can. Although they did bother to improve the composites -- but then immediately leaves the "guys guarding the goat path" conceit and has the characters embarking on their own misadventures. It's campy, it's occasionally cliche, but it's fun. There's some genuine amusing jokes in there, and while it's not really much more than some college guys having fun with a camera -- well, what's wrong with that, anyway?

Plus you gotta show some respect. These are young guys working with almost no money with nothing but a green tarp in a small room, and they managed to make a genuinely entertaining and enjoyable feature film. Frankly I'm surprised this hasn't gotten more attention just based on the "biography" of the project, but I guess somebody making a feature for no money isn't really "news" anymore.

Oh, and also the fight scenes, while not ones for the books, were still pretty decent, especially when you factor in the limitations of the shooting environment.

Anyway, I picked up the flick with apprehension and it surpassed my expectations. Not one to go out of your way for, but if you can't think of anything else to rent on a Saturday night, see if they've got this on the shelf.

Thank You, Daily Show, Part 2

Awesome.

These next few months are going to get interesting. I can't wait to see what happens, in particular, when Biden and Palin share the stage.

Thank You, Daily Show

I'm a big fan of the Daily Show. I've been watching it semi-regularly since it first went on the air in 1996 with Craig Kilborn in the chair. At that point it was more of a rip-off "SNL's Weekend Update," reporting current news and adding a punchline. They had interviews like they do now, where the interviewer would ask the interviewee absurd questions, but they were clearly editing tricks, where the interviewees were not actually asked those questions.

When Jon Stewart took over, the show became more overtly political, and also grew a pair. Now when a ridiculous question pops up in an interview, we can rest safely assured that the correspondent actually asked that question.

It's gotten to the point where The Daily Show is the only news commentary show I trust. Jon Stewart is astoundingly intelligent; whenever a guest comes on who has written a book, Jon has read the book in preparation for the interview. He asks his guests harder and more sincere questions than anyone else in the news media; he has, on a supposedly fluff "comedy show," taken powerful politicians to task in front of a live studio audience.

Most importantly, they do their research. If a politician or news analyst makes a statement directly in contradiction to another of their own statements, they dig it up and share it with the world.

Case in point, this video from last night's show, taking the media to task for their double standard in letting VP-nominated Sarah Palin off the hook for...well, everything.

I'm voting Obama, and enthusiastically so, and anyone who isn't -- well, I just have nothing to say to them, because obviously we neither speak the same language nor live in the same reality. But regardless of your politics, regardless of which way the pendulum swings, it's good to know that The Daily Show is there to call people on their bullshit. And I've seen them hit the Dems just as hard, and with good cause.

If I believed there was a God, I would thank him for The Daily Show. Since I don't, I'll settle for just thanking them.

Speaking of which, I'm really bogged down with work and haven't had time to continue Case for a Creator. Considering I don't want to just post glib or dismissive posts, I'll hold off continuing the reading for a while until I can review and post more substantively.

Where the Hell is Matt

I know I said I'd blog about the 48 Hour Film Project. And I will. But this came to my attention and I couldn't not share it.



Maybe I'm just a sentimental bitch of a man, but I thought this video was really moving -- in part because of the triumphant music, but mostly because of the triumph of the video itself. It's one thing to watch a guy dance badly on the internet. It's another to watch him dance badly around the world. But it's really something else entirely to watch hundreds of people from around the world, of all difference countries and cultures and ages and races and genders and backgrounds, lay all that aside and dance badly with him.

I'm sure most people watch this video and see a neato little viral. I watch this video and I see hope that human beings might just make it, after all.

Indy IV in Summary

I like his beanie.

Back to India -- Kalluri Vaanil

So, I've continued watching "Animus" and I have decided that I do in fact love the film. The more I watch it the more I notice, both in terms of what he did and what he was trying to do. It ain't perfect, but it's still good stuff.

Anyway, moving on.

This next video's most popular iteration on YouTube is titled "Crazy Indian Music Video". It's actual title is "Kalluri Vaanil" and it's by the artist Prabhu Deva. Before I researched the short (and given that I don't speak the language, I actually have no idea how I managed to decipher it enough to search for it properly), I would describe the film thusly:

"Imagine that a dance choreographer had one week to live, and he chose to put every idea he'd ever had into one last blow-out music video. I think this video is pretty close to what it would be like."

It's kind of weird at first, especially the high-pitched treatment the female vocals get, but dammit, it's catchy as hell, and the dance moves are really energetic. This makes ME want to shoot a crazy music video of some kind, because it looks like they're all having a hell of a good time.

I hate Mondays

Obviously, given the title, it would have been better if I posted this actually ON a Monday, but whatever.

Most of the people in my generation, and the one just prior, will know immediately that I am referencing Garfield. For those of you who just got to this planet, Garfield is about a fat orange tabby named Garfield who loves lasagna, hates Mondays, and is incredibly lazy. He's usually either torturing the dog, Odie, or mocking his owner, Jon Arbuckle.

I used to love Garfield; I had many of the early collections and it was my second favorite comic after Calvin and Hobbes. But Jim Davis is like the anti-Bill Watterson. Whereas Watterson refused to ever license his characters for anything (those window stickers of Calvin peeing on things/praying to things are totally unlicensed), Davis couldn't sell out fast enough or completely enough.

Garfield has been a Saturday morning cartoon (with dozens of "specials"), a live-action movie (and its sequel, and now an animated 3D movie (with its own pending sequel); they've sold prints, stickers, T-shirts, baseball caps, boxer shorts, CD holders, plush toys, figurines, bedsheets, pillow covers, window curtains, shower curtains, bamboo curtains, mudflaps, magnets, mousepads, coffee mugs, piggy banks, snow globes, bobbleheads, salt and pepper shakers, door stops, clocks, antenna balls, and toilet seat covers.

I did not make any of that up. And that's not even including CafePress, where you can slap one design on everything.

Also unlike Watterson, who knew that he essentially had nothing more to say when it came to Calvin and Hobbes and decided to retire the strip after ten years¹, 2008 marks 30 years of daily Garfield comics. And let me tell you, the well ran dry a good decade ago.

It really has gotten to the point where if you've read one Garfield comic, you've read them all. Garfield is now near the bottom of my list of favorite comics. Not quite the bottom, because there are some TRULY shitty comics in circulation these days, but well below Non Sequitur, Get Fuzzy, Zits, and a number of others.

So why am I blogging about Garfield if I think it's tripe?

Well, first of all, there's a team of filmmakers that are re-enacting Garfield cartoons in "live action" shorts. Being only three panels, they then proceed to fill the rest of the time with "tribute" music videos. The music videos themselves are kind of funny, and at least they're also short.

For example, here's the strip from December 03, 1991, with a music video tribute to Alan Jackson's "Chattahoochee":



This one's music video "tribute" is a collection of review snippets for the aforementioned Garfield movies set to music. Allow me a moment of predictable cliche in saying: Mee-ouch.



Check out lasagnacat's YouTube account for more.

So as you've seen even by those two strips alone, you've got two recurring themes in the Garfield strip. Garfield's fat and lazy, and Jon is borderline retarded -- or at least socially inadequate -- and Garfield sees fit to comment on it with frequency.

But someone apparently had the brilliant idea that Garfield's commentary was unnecessary. Someone created Garfield minus Garfield, in which they remove Garfield from the comic panels. The result is an astonishingly existential comic starring Jon Arbuckle.

Take, for example, this strip from January 8, 2007:



Retarded, right? It's not even partially funny. It doesn't even make sense ("they're your shirt"?).

But look at what happens when you take Garfield away:



Isn't that the best comic ever? Or how about this one:



Holy CRAP.

As described on the Garfield minus Garfield site:

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life?

Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against lonliness and methamphetamine addiction in a quiet American suburb.

I think Garfield (minus Garfield) just became my favorite comic. And the best part is, with 30 years to cull from, and more being done every day, there will never stop being new ones.

---

1. Fans may not realize it (or want to), but that was in 1995, thirteen years ago. Next year there will be students in high school who were born after C&H ended. But enough about C&H, that's a blog for another day.↩

From the mouths of babes

This vid is making the rounds and it is pretty amazing.

Star Wars: A New Hope, in the words of a three year old.



I love the cup she's got her hand on and drinks from occasionally. It makes it feel like a for-real interview of some kind.

Charlie Bit Me!

It's been a little while since I posted a YouTube find. Apparently I'm pretty behind on this one, as it's been up 9 months and has over 6 million views. So you may have seen it already. I haven't, and I thought it was great:



What I love about it is how real it is yet how perfectly "structured". It's almost as though it's a performance. Also, little kids with heavy accents are adorable.

Superbowl Ads

It's a strange thing that the Superbowl has become the...er...well, the Superbowl of advertising. I mean, I get it -- it's the one time you KNOW that tens of millions of people are going to be tuned in. More, it's become tradition that those who don't even watch football will watch the Superbowl FOR THE ADS. It's the only television event I know of that people will TiVO so that they can fast forward TO the commercials.

So of course, it's self-perpetuating. The companies that can afford to do so make awesome ads because they know people will be watching, and people watch the ads because they expect them to be awesome.

All the ads are currently available on Myspace, but I wanted to highlight the one I liked most. It's the Tide to Go ad, launching what I assume is their new campaign.

My favorite part is how the stain suddenly and inexplicably sounds infuriated right near the end.

Colin's Bear Animation; or, Thanks for Nothing

I may feel free to go on a rant about trade schools sometime in the near future. In the meantime, I present you with this.

In case you only watch the videos I embed on this page, and never go to their actual YouTube pages, here's the description from YouTube, which is important.

So this video was created by a third year student at UOIT. This is the final animation for an Animation Arts class. My friend Colin used all the techniques that were taught by this professor. And as you can see, he made the best animation with what was taught.

Be prepared to watch it multiple times. It gets funnier each time.

You want me to show you tough? I'll show you tough.

I'm still on the look-out for some other good YouTube fight scenes. Meanwhile, here's how not to get cast in a kung-fu movie.

Most people I know have seen Shaft and his backflip-gone-wrong, and I've seen the rest of this video but I'm not sure everyone who reads this has, so here you go.

There are dozens of uploads of this video, all from the same two not very good quality sources, so after going through all of them looking for a good one, I just picked one arbitrarily. It gets the point across.

Wow. I need a vacation.

So I'm in the middle of this project right now. It's a feature-length film that I'm editing. My editing period was originally 8 weeks. The production offered to pay me more if I could do it by November 1 (6 weeks instead), so I said yes.

Well, 8 weeks in the first place was a really truncated schedule, and 6 weeks turned out to be psychotic. I've been working basically from the time I wake up to the time the Red Bull wears off, sitting in front of the computer trying to make this happen.

So today I got a call that I needed to take, but the reception in my area has been extraordinarily shitty on the AT&T service. Specifically within about half a mile of my home. So I went out to hop in my car and get some distance.

The car was gone.

We have a private lot behind the townhouse complex where I live, and they "require" a little permit dangling on your rearview to park there. No one actually has them, and with the heat and dryness this summer mine actually broke, and dissolved into a fine powder when I tried to fix it. I'm serious.

I haven't had a chance to get a replacement, so I assumed that it had been towed. I called the towing company, but they had no record of it. The last time I remembered having it was last night, at around 2:30, coming home from a meeting for ANOTHER potential job to follow up on this one. So since it hadn't been towed, it had apparently been stolen.

I called the police to file a claim -- which took about five times as long as it ought to have thanks to the aforementioned reception problems -- then my insurance. On the upside, those processes were not that difficult and it's good to know how to do them, just in case.

Then I spoke my friend Brandon, who was part of the meeting I had remembered coming home from -- it wasn't last night. It was the night before. In the monotony of the day I had completely lost track of yesterday. I just forgot about Thursday.

So I called the towing company again. It wouldn't be on record for today, what about yesterday? Nope, still not there. Still stolen.

Then I remembered: lunch.

See, we have a little strip-mall, within reasonable walking distance, with a Subway and a Panda Express and such. I've been eating in the last few weeks, but I decided yesterday that I should get out of the house, if only briefly, so I decided to go there for lunch. Since it's within walking distance, I almost always walk there, but yesterday I felt I didn't have THAT much extra time to waste on lunch, so I drove.

But, BECAUSE I normally walk there, and because I had a lot on my burned-out brain, by the time I finished ordering (which took forever because everyone on the Subway assembly line was a trainee that day) and eating, I had managed to forget that I had driven there. I walked home. And then promptly forgot yesterday even existed, so in my head, the last time I saw the car was "last night" at 2:30AM.

I called the police back, and my insurance company. The police dispatcher laughed and said "Man, you're overworked." Both of them let me off the hook, no harm no foul.

Still, shit. If I hadn't figured it out so quickly I might have wound up in a lot more trouble. I really DO need a break once this is done. And someone else is going to have to drive me around for a little while.

IS YOU TWEAKIN'?!

I can't decide what to make of R. Kelly. Apparently he's kind of a pedophile, or at least that's the vicious rumor going around. I actually liked "I Believe I Can Fly" back in the day, but I was 13 and I liked Space Jam then, too.

Actually, that's a lie. I never liked Space Jam.

Anyway, with some of R. Kelly's latest endeavors, like his "epic" Trapped in the Closet, it's hard to tell if R. Kelly is a brilliant comedian or just insane. It's entirely possible he's both. Does he actually think he's "keepin' it real", or is his body of work one long satire of the concept?

If he is actually playing a big prank that no one but him and his pals get, R. Kelly is officially our generation's Andy Kaufman.

His latest offering in the "Is this supposed to be this funny?" category is a little track called Real Talk, a free-verse poem set to a beat, not unlike the aforementioned Trapped in the Closet. Apparently bolstered by his success with TitC, R. Kelly goes straight to the fans, producing a direct-to-YouTube video for the track.

I'll let the video speak for itself from here on: