Reel Pop

Kurt Cobain: About a Son

The doc screens next week in New York at IFC. Below, a clip on YouTube:

Pick up the Phone

Want a million dollars? Just pick up the phone!

Japanese School Girl GTA mod

This. Is. Hilarious.

Where do you go to (my lovely)

"Where do you go to (my lovely)" by Peter Sarstedt, released in 1969 in the UK, and featured heavily in Wes Anderson's Hotel Chevalier and The Darjeeling Limited. More info on the song here.

Hotel Chevalier

At this point in his boyishly id-like career, Wes Anderson can be counted on to create characters which, like the letters automatically given to contestants on Wheel of Fortune's bonus round, are always, always the same: They're quirky. They've got family issues. They deliver their lines with deadpan comedic timing, and they're surrounded -- almost at the mercy of, really -- lushly oversaturated, detail-rich scenes.

So it goes with Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman in "Hotel Chevalier", Anderson's 13-minute prequel to "The Darjeeling Limited", which debuted on Apple's iTunes this week. An offbeat release strategy, the free "Chevalier" is meant to stoke interest in "Darjeeling," though Anderson says seeing the former isn't necessary to understand what's happening in the latter.

So let's just deal with the short: With the exception of a brief opening shot of the lobby, "Chevalier" occurs entirely within the well-lived-in hotel room of Jack (Schwartzman), who orders a grilled cheese and chocolate milk before receiving a surprise call from his unnamed ex (Portman). The ex arrives and it's soon apparent the two are estranged. There's awkward conversation, talk of feelings, and no resolution. The short ends. It's kind of like a Raymond Carver short story, if Carver's stories were illustrated by Dr. Seuss.

And it's the illustrations, the background details, that mark Anderson's style. Like in his feature films, Chevalier presents the character's surroundings as a metaphor for the inside of his mind (in Bottle Rocket a motel; in Rushmore a school; in Tenenbaums a house; in Aquatic a submarine).

Obviously self-conscious of his own trope, Anderson has Jack arrange his borrowed room in anticipation of the ex's arrival: A diorama of a porcelain swammi and what looks like Tom Wolfe; a lightbox of pressed butterflies; miniature music boxes; a freshly-made watercolor painting. As Portman examines each of these in turn, Peter Sarstedt's "Where do you go to my lovely" plays. A fitting song, of course, describing a man's attempt to understand what's happening inside his standoffish lover's head.

This being an Anderson flick, the gender roles are reversed. It's Portman who's recalcitrant and it's Jack who, by revealing himself, is trying to understand her. Apropos actor/actress selection here: If there's one person the diminutive Portman can emasculate, it's the hipstery, hobbit-sized Schwartzman.

All in, Chevalier's beautiful to watch. And the release strategy -- free, and available online -- is probably the smartest move a Hollywood studio's made in some time. As for the content, there's no departure from Anderson's trademark style. Chevalier will entertain, but it won't surprise.

[You can download Hotel Chevalier here]

Bottle Rocket original short

Been looking for Wes Anderson's Hotel Chevalier on iTunes today, but it hasn't appeared (found it). So instead, I've been entertaining myself with the original short Bottle Rocket. Later made into the feature film, and displaying the unburnished acting styles of the then-unknown Wilson brothers.

Tootsie Rolls

The lesser-known sibling of the famous Tootsie Pop ad, stumbled upon whilst YouTubing today...

Human Flipbook

More at humanflipbook.com

The Gay Janus

Chris Crocker's recent ascent into supra-cult celebrity, fueled by his tearful defense of Britney Spears and boosted again last week by a development deal with Blue 44 Productions, puts one more flamboyantly gay man at the center (or talking around the center) of America's celebrity culture.

The fact that over 10 million people have watched his video, and that Crocker may soon be a more mainstream household name because of it, speaks directly to one of our odd preferences as consumers of culture: We prefer our celebrity critics to be gay men. Why that's so speaks to the gay man's function as a kind of odd janus between the sexes. And although the gay janus has power as a cultural arbiter of the mainstream sexual status quo, he has little to no power as an arbiter of homosexual culture. Oddly enough, gay men, as sexual outliers, actually reinforce traditional views of sexuality.

Consider the superlative Perez Hilton, a man of encyclopedic celeb knowledge who ably dissects female fashion and news. Women are quick to attribute authority to him not only because he's witty and knowledgeable, but also because Perez, as a gay man, is promoting an idealized version of womanhood, i.e., unabashed femininity. He is a woman in a way a woman can't be, or isn't allowed to be. And: Anyone who is so in love with the idea of woman must be celebrated.

But Perez is also an arbiter of male sexuality. He celebrates hunks. He tells you who's hot and who's not, and why.

But what nobody looks to Perez for is insight on homosexuality. I've rarely heard him even discuss it, whether on TV or on his blog. Not that he needs to. Perhaps we're past the point at which a gay man needs to represent for his community. But this is only to say we, as a society, use the "other" of Perez to reinforce our own sexual mores. Far from being a transgressive homosexual personality, Perez functions as a kind of external reinforcement.

So what is Chris Crocker? He's no Perez, although given time perhaps he will be. Right now he's another lens. Used correctly, Crocker could provide insight into gay-straight relations in the south. Employed merely to entertain, to be that flamboyant gay man who cattily dissects the media, to be in his words "the queen of complaint,"...he'll be nothing but rote.

America's Top Romney

Bruce Reed writing for Slate on the ad he created for Mitt Romney's ad creation contest. As of this morning the ad, which criticizes Romney's stance on gay marriage, has received the most views.

Amanda Congdon leaves ABC

Amanda Congdon, the vlogger who made vlogging famous -- not to mention, the first vlogger to make the jump to major news media -- isn't renewing her contract with ABC. To be honest, I rarely watched her show after the first few weeks. ABC completely misused her talent. Not that Congdon was blameless. Her cutesy schtick didn't fit well within ABC's stodgy confines.

Israel's YouTube contest

YouTube contests are a dime a dozen, but this one caught my eye:

The Israeli consulate in New York has launched a video competition about Israel on youtube, hoping to help boost a positive image about Israel in the popular video website.

The best videos will be aired on October 11 at Madison Square Garden in New York, when Israel's perennial basketball champions Maccabi Tel Aviv play the NBA's New York Knicks. The 20,000 fans, who will watch the clips on the arena's giant screens, will choose their favorite. The winner will win a roundtrip ticket to or from New York and two tickets to a Knicks game - a gift provided by the Israeli-America Friendship League.

Desert Raves

A hardhitting piece of investigative journalism from Hard Copy, circa 1996: "...and the party's still going at dawn when the sun struggles over the horizon like a bloodshot eye."

Free Fox Downloads

Lot of changes in online downloads this week. Today Fox announced they're offering season premiere episodes of seven shows for free on iTunes. Yesterday, ABC announced they'll begin offering shows through AOL, and Wednesday NBC announced ad-supported free downloads of shows via a desktop player.

Theramin Bot's "Crazy"

A theremin-bot built by Rahjit Bhatnagar plays Gnarl's Barkley's "Crazy." Slightly out of tune. But hey, y'know, robots. For more music-playing robots, check out ArtBots.

Familjen

Wicked video that mashes up religious revival scenes by Familjen.

James Earl Vader

Darth Vader scenes with James Earl voiceovers from other movies. I feel like I've seen this somewhere before.

Powerloafing

The LA Times recently profiled Mike Upchurch's Powerloafing, 20 episodes of which were bought by TBS for a high five-figure sum and is running the series on Super Deluxe. The latest features Neil Patrick Harris and a dead body.

Prank War 6

This. Is. Awesome. The latest in a series of increasingly hilarious/uncomfortable prank videos from two guys at College Humor. Also awesome, Prank War 1, in which Streeter punks Amir using the song Stacy's Mom and a sex tape.

Future's Past

Videos of the future computer as imagined in the 30s by Paul Otlet...

And in the 60s in the film 1999 AD...

Say No to Nightmares

Been meaning to post this for a few days: Tay Zonday's new vid, Say No to Nightmares. Maybe it's because I just read Michael Hirschorn's piece in The Atlantic, but Zonday strikes me as the musical embodiment of quirk.

The McFly 2015 Project

I ran across this project a few weeks ago -- basically, a petition to get Nike to make the future shoes in Back to the Future II -- but just now saw the video. The idea is cool. The video is...um...

Brunswick 2000

On the occasion of the opening of Gutter, Brooklyn's first bowling alley in 50 years, I give you this fun lil' short called The Brunswick 2000.

p.s. The Brunswick 2000 was one of the first automatic bowling scoring machines developed in the 1960s. They're suhweet.

Leave Britney Alone

I'm not sure if I'm posting this from a reprehensible sense of schadenfreude or a fine-tuned appreciation for irony. Probably both. Regarding Britney Spears' poor showing at the VMAs recently, this YouTube vid "defending" her. (p.s. via Fimoculous, this profile piece on Chris Crocker from Seattle's The Stranger.)

The ringtone sonar of teendom

This past weekend I watched the entirety of Prom Queen (again) and the current episodes of its mini-sequel, Prom Queen Summer Heat, and I noticed something blatantly obvious that I never had before.

Once you get used to the show's rhythm -- I recommend watching five episodes at a time in the week-long recaps -- you're lulled into an OC-like dream state of teenage semaphores. That's what both the original Prom Queen and Summer Heat get so right. In every scene, that incessant buzzing of phones on vibrate. The pinging of messages, the email notifications, the IMs. The characters lives are bounded by meaningful blips and ominous portents, as if their lives were lived by ringtone sonar.

And then there's the music. As with the original series, every episode in Summer Heat is soundtracked with one song. The effect is infectious, working much like, say, the soundtracks of the OC or Grey's Anatomy do: Magnifying scenes by overtly-dramatic music choices. Except with Prom Queen, there's a new song for every episode. When you watch the episodes in succession, it's as if you're watching a mix tape. Or watching high speed MTV.

Prom Queen is yet another indication of the shift of music away from being an independent art form (radio) to a co-dependent lifestyle accoutrement (Starbucks CDs, TV dramas, MySpace profiles). In a multitasking/multivariable culture, that only makes sense.

Thoughts on Prom Queen Summer Heat

I've been watching the first few episodes of Prom Queen Summer Heat. It's even more soft core porn than the original series.

Just like the original series, the minisodes rely on quick scene changes and minimal conversation. Kinda like a soap opera, but with blatant visual references to the teen lifestyle, e.g., every scene has a cell phone. Fact, I'm pretty sure you could build each episode by the following formula: Boy (no shirt) + girl (in bikini) + cell phone (on vibrate) + somebody makes out = 90 seconds. Where have you gone Shannon Tweed, our nation's critics turn their horny eyes to you.

YouTube's lil' girly fetish

While reading the WSJ's article on faux-indie folk singer Marie Digby, I was struck not by her label's surreptitious viral campaign, but by the fact that, once again, a woman is the focus of our 24x7 talent search.

Consider: Amanda Congdon, lonelygirl15, Brookers, Terra Naomi, HappySlip, LittleLoca, LisaNova.

I'm sure there are examples of male talent that's been discovered on YouTube or through online video (i.e., the archetypal Lonely Island fellas). But by and large, there's an undeniable voyeurism at work here, no doubt a consequence of our male-skewed online demographic.

The Meth Minute

Next New Networks just released their latest videoblog, an animated series by indie animator Dan Meth. First piece: Internet People.

HBO's Second Life

HBO has picked up the North American TV rights to My Second Life, a documentary of popular (or not, depending on who you ask) Second Life by Douglas Gayeton. Gayeton's six-figure payout is a direct result of Linden Lab's policy of giving users copyrights for everything they do/create in-world. Gaming/cyberspace/creative rights enthusiasts may recall it wasn't always this way, and Linden Lab's decision to grant copyrights to users was a departure from other 3d worlds of the time (e.g., There.com, which was roundly pilloried for its attempts to make its "metaverse" into a virtual shopping mall, and which I wrote about in stilted grad-school speak back in 2003).

Miss Teen USA North Carolina T-Shirt

Following on the heels of this post, another brilliant reiteration of America's blonde moment.

The neverending Miss South Carolina meme

I thought the Miss South Carolina video was hilarious, but I had no idea it would spawn an entire interweb's worth of content. The latest, most gut-busting: Andy Hyde's Song for Miss Teen USA 2007 South Carolina. Also fun-der-ful: Attack of the Show's MapsForUs.org, and People Magazine's Miss South Carolina geography quiz.

p.s. This tribute reminds me of another song, "Oh Nine, Eff Nine," named for the first two integers in the 128-bit string that allows hackers to copy media from Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs. Blondes and hacking. Hell yeah, I feel American.