Reel Pop

Latest vid comedy site BushLeague.tv debuts

The handiwork of various and sundry L.A. comedians/actors/writers, BushLeague.tv is a hodge podge of dude-analia, i.e., in their words, "jackass opinions on video games, tech, news, sports, boobs, 101's, and all the other essential tools every dude needs" -- a suh-weet grab bag that apparently doesn't have room for "original premise." The site's a combo of HBO/AOL's failed vidblog This Just In and vote-centric sites like Funny or Die: Every post is voted by readers as "sweet" or "bush," with the top posts ranked on a scoreboard, e.g., the top earner ("I Got My Hippie Shuffle On Last Night"), a how-to vid ("How to Change Your Oil"), and a post about an Eagle that was shot in the face titled "As AMERICAN as MOM, apple pie, and rhinoplasty."

All in all, the site's chock full of tepid puns and smarmy exclamations, and suffers from a lack of a cohesive voice and, apparently, juiced up stats -- on its first day, none of the posts have been voted "bush," but every post has a surfeit of "sweets." The site has promise, though, if the writers can focus their message and stop hoping against hope that the Internet needs yet another group blog produced by charming asshats.

Flickr's 1st vid hit? The Day There Was No News

[via] The handiwork of Jason Arber, director of production at U.K.-based video producers Wyld Stallyons, The Day There Was No News displays a series of outtakes in which BBC News anchors silently fidget in front of the cameras as they prepare to begin addressing their audience. The news ticker scrolls anti-headlines, e.g., "Breaking News: Nothing is still happening," "There are no terrorist attacks" and "There are no funny stories."

The vid's eerie effect comes from the fidgeting -- shuffling papers, practicing chin raises and knowing looks, pursing lips -- which is every bit as practiced as their artificial, accent-less speaking cadence. You wonder in what context these skills are useful besides television. I bet anchors are really good at silently standing in an elevator with only one other stranger. And doctor's appointments.

As one Flickr user observed, comedian Adam Buxton uploaded a similar clip to YouTube last year that has about 375k views. Buxton's vid, which eschews Arber's calming soundtrack for BBC sound effects, is striking because it zeroes in on the anchors' awkward, expectant moments -- when they're resetting themselves to speak (the chin raises, the half-lip grins) but are unsure when the speaking begins. Almost like a man and wife awkwardly waiting for their child's experimental dance program to finally, blessedly, cease.

Given Flickr's absence of video view counts (only the owner sees his/her uploads' popularity), "success" on Flickr is more ineffable. Better for the site, which prides itself on communities engaged in aesthetic judgments rather than views. Err..somehow I missed that view count over the last few years. I'm blessedly not a view whore on the site. Those counts are teensy tiny though.

Latest political vid hit: Hillary's Downfall

Wired's Jenna Wortham -- who recently did an excellent job unpacking ROFLCon memes -- IM'd me earlier today to chat about Hilary's Downfall, the latest iteration of the Downfall meme, with 300k+ views. [Update: Here's Jenny's article on the Downfall vids.] This time 'round, Hitler = Hilary who, confronted by pessimistic advisors, rails against the American voters who "stole the election" form her and gave it "to the dandy, Obama."

I explored the Downfall meme a bit in a January post, but it's worth reiterating a few reasons why the meme's so effective:

1. By juxtaposing a reviled person with a relatively fleeting subject (HD-DVD, Cowboys' playoff loss, etc), the vid's throw into relief both the trivial nature of the topic at hand and the ludicrous amount of reasoning that goes into dissecting it. (Somebody should really do a Chris Berman Downfall, stat.)
2. The argument carries the weight of historic inevitability.
3. The meme entertains with logic.
4. The meme is a mad libs for deductive and inductive reasoning. Simply substitute any argument, run through your supporting points, and voila.

Jenny McCarthy's 'In the Motherhood' in the dumps

At least on YouTube it is. I was browsing through YouTube's most viewed videos today when I noticed a promo for "In the Motherhood", the MSN original series starring Jenny McCarthy that debuted last year. Seven webisodes from the series' first and second seasons were uploaded in the last few months. Total traffic between them: 28,896. The highest performing video is the premiere episode, the title of which contains McCarthy's name.

The series' poor performance on YouTube probably isn't indicative of the show's quality -- YouTube's not typically a mom agora, and the MSN site for the series seems bustling enough. But it does demonstrate that simply dropping in otherwise well-produced, topical content into a social network(ish) setting doesn't guarantee success. Maybe if every soccer mom's browser automatically opened to YouTube...

Afghanistan gunbattle voicemail YouTube'd

A recording of a gunbattle between U.S. soldiers and Afghan forces -- recorded onto voicemail when an embattled soldier accidentally pocket dialed his parents in Oregon -- has been uploaded to YouTube by the soldier's brother. The full story is at the BBC, and the YouTube clip is below.

Save for a brief written intro, the three-minute clip contains no images but has been viewed almost 250,000 times in the past 12 hours (I first saw the clip last night, when it had fewer than a 1,000 views). The sound of semi-automatic gunfire, followed by calls for more ammo and exclamations of force positions, is the only sound. The absence of melodramatic added footage makes the clip all the more disturbing -- the viewer is confronted with confusing sounds in an unfamiliar landscape, an experience that, even if only just, is analogous to the American experience in the Middle East. It's an odd sort of wonderful that, of all the visual footage I've seen of our Middle Eastern conflict, a clip with no images conveys the most about our situation there.

Most ominously, the clip ends with a U.S. soldier saying something similar to, "Hey, they're coming" or "Hey, they got me." The soldier who accidentally phoned home survived.

CineVegas promos YouTube vids

In preparation for the June festivities, the folks behind the CineVegas Film Festival have begun uploading short original compositions to YouTube from indie directors like James Fotopoulos, Cam Archer,  and Kevin Everson. Surreal, haunting stuff.

Lohan, Sandler cameo in YouTube dance battle

I missed this, but over at Buzzfeed, my neighbor and former j-school colleague Scott Lamb notes that Lindsay Lohan and Adam Sandler recently made cameos in the episodic dance battle between "Step Up 2: The Streets" director John Chu and Billy Ray's tweenily-tawdry scion Miley Cyrus and her dance instructor-cum-gal pal Mandy (aka The Mandy and Miley Show, which NTV contributor Karina ably dissects here).

Lohan and Sandler cameo in the third video -- Chu's reposte to Mandy's response video -- and their presence is something of an oddity. Chu's dance crew is so accomplished, and their moves so undeniably, gobsmackingly slick, you've got to wonder who's big upping whom here. The videos have 5 million-plus views between them.

Philadelphia police beating video draws ire

I don't usually post on police beating videos -- they seem to crop up with disturbing frequency -- but this latest seems particularly egregious:

POLICE COMMISSIONER Charles H. Ramsey yesterday asked Philadelphians not "to rush to judgment" when watching a video showing baton-wielding cops repeatedly striking, kicking and stomping three young men whom they had stopped after a triple shooting in Hunting Park.

The officers stopped the men after witnessing them fleeing the scene of a shooting. Philadephia cops are reportedly on edge after a fellow officer, Stephen Liczbinksi, was gunned down last weekend. The video of the beating is below:

Other beatings that've made YouTube-y headlines in the last few years: The beating of William Cardena in LA, which developed into an FBI investigation; This New Orleans beating of a drunk man, in which the officers were later prosecuted; and the recent Victoria Lindsay beating, which led to the arrest and prosecution of several teenagers.

After credits Iron Man scene a YouTube hit

As widely reported on the web, Favreau-directed summer blockbuster Iron Man ($100M sales this weekend) contains a single scene after the credits. Sam Jackson, as super-spy Nick Fury, confronts Tony Stark about The Avengers Project -- apparently a reference to multi-hero Marvel title The Avengers, though in the original Marvel universe (I'm a geek), Fury had nothing to do with the creation of the team. Anyway, here's the scene, with 60k+ views and climbing:

Mini-montages of 70s/80s/90s films

[via] Outside the Oscar montages (sadly tepid, in recent years), I've never seen film clips strung together so brilliantly as these: Films of the 70s, Films of the 80s, and Films of the 90s. The 80s montage is particularly stunning in its soundtrack synchronization -- listen for the symbols as Elias as shot in Platoon, and the drumbeat when Otto puffs away the panties on his face in A Fish Called Wanda. The YouTube user barringer82, who created these, has also created director compilations.

Alternatives to Rick Roll

In the annals of webby peekaboo -- surprise viewings of tubgirl/goatse/2G1C, scaring children who stare too closely at the screen -- no meme has achieved as much success as the Rick Roll, a video gotcha which, like a heavily-sampled P-Diddy track, succeeds almost solely because it's a nostalgic earworm.

IOW, there's nothing new here, neither in practice, e.g., ye olde duck roll, or content, i.e., it's an old ass song. The meme-ability comes from the surprise context, followed by the song's offline earworm-ability -- you get rickrolled, you hum the tune, an office mate says wtf dude, you explain why you <3 Rick Astley, and your office mate victimizes a third party. Moreso than other memes -- Star Wars kid, All Your Base, whatever -- the Rick Roll is infectious offline as well as on the web.

Caveat: The Rick Roll succeeds b/c of it's ends-directed use, too. There's a reason to spread the meme.

Honestly, it took me awhile to appreciate Rick Rolling -- I've been humming the song since 1988, so, like, whatever -- hence this belated posting on it. I only wanted to share this link: Five alternatives to the Rick Roll, including a Jagger/Bowie cover of Dancing in the Streets, the Iron Mic freestyle vid, a Seals and Croft cover, a webcam chic's wigga challenge, and Smell Yo' Dick.

Of all those options, only the Jagger/Bowie clip passes the sniff test -- it's old enough to be ironically appreciated, plus highly earworm-y. Still. Each worth a listen.

Related: NewTeeVee's Rick Roll Timeline.

Apple offers same-day movie purchases

Apple announced same day-and-date DVD release downloads today with several studios, including Fox, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal, Sony Pictures, Lionsgate and New Line. MGM's not included, but boutique firms like Magnolia and Image Entertainment are. The deal for rentals was already in place as of January. More details at HollywoodReporter.com.

This is long-awaited news for consumers. It's a change the studios have fought against given the potential for same-day downloads to cannibalize DVD sales, worth about $16 billion in 2007. However, that amount was down almost 4% from 2006, perhaps a result of the ever-growing online distribution options.

Review: Jonah Ray on SuperDeluxe

A Hawaiian-born fattie turned svelte LAist, Jonah Ray's a young, freakishly tall and professionally peripatetic comedian: erstwhile writer for Showtime's The Offensive Show and MTV's The Andy Milonakis Show, cast member on Adult Swim's Saul of the Mole Men, and, most recently, SuperDeluxe vlogger.

Ray's vids are wide-ranging, including everything from faux celebrity interviews (Tay Zonday, Annie Hardy), to how-tos (Master the Internet, How to Drink for Free), to comic-mawkish rap videos, e.g., Quit Playing Video Games And Get Laid.

Ray's best work on SuperDeluxe is the 6-vid long Freeloader's Guide to Easy Living -- inspired by Ray's own dearth of petty cash --  though some of his more extemporized pieces are hilarious too, e.g., the faux Tay Zonday/Jonah Ray duet of Chocolate Rain, revealed to be a heartbreaking work of scatological genius. Highly recommended.

Jonah Ray on SuperDeluxe | Jonah's bio vids

Review: Beyond the Rave

A twice-weekly vid series from notorious but lately inactive horror production company Hammer, Rave follows a single night in the life of Ed (Jamie Dornan) -- a young, furloughed and pre-Iraq deployment British soldier searching for his girlfriend, who, unbeknownst to him, is enthralled by a troupe of vampire ravers. The searching's done via hearse (owned by Ed's friend Necro, depicted by truly deplorable Seinfeld-era green screen tech). The action is interspersed with vampire carnage, e.g., brawling at a strip club, ambushing a farmer, and eating a coked-up pirate DJ (a demise one can only hope will be included in the unfortunately neglected director's cut DVD of Pump up the Volume). Though not offensively acted, Rave suffers from scene-to-scene disjointedness, an effect not unfamiliar to the horror genre but made worse by the infrequency of new Rave installments. That said, Hammer's probably made an excellent choice in debuting Rave on MySpace, the cultish warrens of which provide sanctuary for the latest generation of both horror and electronica fans.
Beyond the Rave

'80s TV: Top 25 opening action sequences

[via] Of all the phenomena YouTube's responsible for -- lawsuits, memes, YouPorn -- my favorite remains the curated video list. Hence: The Top 25 opening action sequences of 80s TV. I had no idea (or didn't remember) that CHIPS involved so much motorcycle porn. The Rockford Files intro was always amazing, mostly because there was always a new message on Jim's answering machine. Also, WTF is Manimal?

Next Web-to-TV stars are, uh, already stars

The premise for this Wired article seems fatuous. Bemoaning the dearth of good online video, Wired asked Human Giant, the UCB alums whose Web vids scored them an MTV slot, to predict the next five Web stars who'll make it to TV. Sorry, amateur comedians -- all HG's picks, save perhaps one, are professional comedians:

• Derek and Simon -- scripted by Bob Odenkirk, runs on SuperDeluxe (which is owned by TBS!)
• Fatal Farm -- two L.A.-based vid creators who do professional commercial work
• Wainy Days -- starring David Wain from "The State"
• Tiny Hands -- runs on Comedy Central's Motherload
• JakeandAmir.com -- the CollegeHumor dudes, who already have an MTV contract

What lesson do we glean when a troupe of Web darlings -- whose sudden rise to fame was somewhat accidental, and a new phenomenon at the time -- picks a who's who of established comedians (what is this list, their T-Mobile myFaves?). The list elucidates nothing about the online talent pool, save the fact that online video's completely awash in professional talent, which everybody already knew. What does it even mean any more to say a talent goes from Web-to-TV, when that talent's already an established name?

The time lapsed re-birth of Vimeo

I don't often get to post about artistic video ephemera, but this time lapse vid -- ~6 entertaining minutes worth, created during 40 hours of work -- follows the design process for the artwork that now graces vidshare site Vimeo. Truly amazing. Related: this whimsical chart exposing Vimeo as the center of all virality.

Science Machine from Chad Pugh on Vimeo.

Reviewing the Video Nasties

The Video Nasty Project is reviewing every Video Nasty, the colloquial appellation given to 73 horror films banned by the UK government in 1984 under the Video Recordings Act "in response to a media orchestrated moral panic." [via] FWIW, many of these films can be seen in whole or in part online, e.g., this five minute clip from 'The Beast in Heat', and these clips from 'The Driller Killer'.

Review: Take Me Back

The cryptically whimsical debut from two amateur Canadian filmmakers, this weekly web series follows the bumble-filled adventures of Al, a young and meticulous repairsmith who's abducted from his shop by a taser-wielding masked man resembling a Monmartre mime. Awakening in a debris-filled and sealed apartment (bolted door, cinderblocked windows), Al must devise a means of escape while the fiendish mime, revealed to be an identical twin, substitutes himself into Al's routine. Though overacted at times -- too much exaggerated body language, somewhat stilted dialogue -- 'Take Me Back' is a charmingly mysterious series evocative, oddly, of the puzzle-horror flick "Saw" (sans gross), and the accordion-ated whimsy of the "Triplets of Belleville" (sans animated octogenarians). Now showing its 3rd of 12 episodes, 'Take Me Back' is rough around the edges, but highly recommended.
Take Me Back

Milkshake Dub's a Faux Supercut

Following up on yesterday's Supercuts post: This montage of There Will be Blood scenes, with the word "milkshake" dubbed over the original dialogue. A supercut, if faux-ly so.

Supercuts meme: Obsessive montages

Rex picks up what Waxy puts down: Supercuts, videos that cull discrete but recurring actions/words from TV episodes or film -- e.g., Shia LaBeouf saying "no no no" in Transformers, the Lost characters saying "what" -- and string them into a sequence, thus bringing their frequent use into relief.

No matter the topic (people being shot, somebody saying "f*ck", etc), the result's always funny. It's an old comic staple that repeating a thing three of four times isn't funny, but repeating that thing seven or eight times is (this might also be connected to our aesthetic appreciation of a simple thing repeated visually multiple times, and thus creating a complex whole). The repetition creates a constant that is then varied in context or tone by the speaker. Hence the Bud Light dude commercials, and in a more complicated sense, The Aristocrats. Quoting old Northrop Frye, "Repetition of action leads to tragedy. Repetition overdone or not going anywhere belongs to comedy."

Pitchfork trades accessibility for gimmickry

A few brief words on Pitchfork.tv, the video site from indie taste arbiters Pitchfork.com that launched earlier this week. It's a beautiful site that doesn't work well. Briefly:

In an attempt to entertain the viewer with smooth page transitions -- clicking a main nav link causes new info to scroll into view, but doesn't change the URL -- pitchfork.tv does away with static URLs for many of its pages. It's a good gimmick with good intentions, but it can make repeat browsing (not to mention linking to individual pages) a pain. It's an awkward balance between Flash's smoothness and HTML's accessibility. The one time the feature works is when you're watching a video and want to click through to another main nav point. The video doesn't stop playing, and new information scrolls into view. Elegant.

The site also provides permalinks for its videos, but therein lies another problem, i.e., the permalinks are divorced of their original context. For example, I watched "A Place to Bury Strangers'" live show. There doesn't seem to be a way to permalink the whole show, only individual set tracks. But when visiting the individual tracks' permalinked pages, there's no easy way to get back to the entire set list.

That's all.

Meth and Taxes

I don't normally highlight TV ads. But. These adverts from the Montana Meth Project -- a private initiative founded to dissuade first-time meth use -- are hauntingly visceral, e.g., paranoid kids attacks their mothers with baseball bats, addicted teenage prostitutes, and drug-fueled banditry. The director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, of "21 Grams" and "Babel" fame.

A far cry from the iconic "brain on drugs" advert, or the sadly-mockable D.A.R.E spots that aired when I was in short pants. According to these stats, the new ads are working.

I was never aware of the Montana meth problem until last summer, when my friend held his wedding ceremony a few hours west of Billings. The roadside is littered with amateur billboards (see left) and painted barns decrying the drug.

Randy Pausch's 'Last Lecture' a viral hit

Here's an uplifting counterpoint to cheerleader brawls. The charming "last lecture" from a Carnegie Mellon computer science professor suffering from terminal pancreatic cancer has garnered over 1M views on YouTube.

Doctors gave 47-year-old Randy Pausch, the father of three children, three to six months to live late last year. In response, Pausch -- a pioneering researcher of virtual worlds -- delivered a lecture about his childhood dreams, a 76-minute video in which Pausch charms viewers with his pragmatic optimism. The lecture was posted on YouTube. Tonight, Pausch speaks to Diane Sawyer on ABC. More info on Pausch at abc.com. The lecture's below:

Behind the scenes of a meme

Last year, the kids at College Humor uploaded their lip dub of Harvey Danger's Flagpole Sitta. The video, made on a lark, went on to get 1.5M views and inspired the Office Lip Dub meme -- videos of also young, also pretty kids lip syncing catchy pop-tunes as a handcam follows them through urban landscapes of professional hip (offices, apartment complexes, etc). Watching the original vid, you probably coveted their cool: one half awe at their office steez (ping pong tables, longnecks) and the other at their effortless irony. Flagpole Sitta? Really? And it's so gooooood.

Recently, College Humor uploaded a "making of" video, which shows how the director -- Jakob, one of the founders -- organized the shoot, which was completed in one take (does that qualify as a tracking shot?). It doesn't detract from the vid's hip quotient. It's kinda like a DVD bonus feature. All it reveals, really, is more of the awkward "are we doing this right?" glances between co-workers, more self-conscious smiling. It's pretty rad, worth a look.

NBC's 'Office' Mourns Nathan Robinson

"The Office" tonight memorialized a 15-year-old piano player who's family had uploaded a clip of him playing the show's theme song to YouTube. At the end of the show the clip played, followed by a brief "In Memoriam" note for Nathan Alden Robinson, who passed away last month from flu complications.

A few weeks before his death, Nathan was at a friend's house, and the two were talking about "The Office," their favorite television show. Nathan's friend suggested he play the theme music to the program, so Nathan looked online for the sheet music. Nathan mastered the song almost instantly, and his impromptu performance was filmed and posted on YouTube.

Delta Channels Angelina Jolie with Deltalina Vid

Delta Airlines is racking up view counts for its new flight safety instruction video, which stars a redheaded actress named Katherine Lee -- and dubbed Deltalina by Flyertalk forum geeks -- who bears some small resemblance to Angelina Jolie.

Forcing an unflappable smile and prone to exaggerated body language -- e.g., a flirtatious finger wag slightly evocative of Robert Patrick's T-1000 -- Deltalina chats up flight safety while her more aesthetically challenged coworkers (hi fat dude) demonstrate seatbelts and floating devices.

Related: Virgina America's equally-entertaining, though sadly babe-less, in-flight safety video.

I canz hav Internets power?

"If you have a slower modem, you will not be able to enjoy the growing multimedia aspects of the Internet, such as graphics, sound and video." -- from Internet Power!, 1995.

Entrepreneur and geek archivist Andy Baio digi-transcribes a few pre-Internet Archive VHS tapes about the entertainment possibilities of the early dub dub dub, circa 1995 -- a year you better not remember as the time when Ross owned a monkey named Marcel. Making an appearance: Windows 3.1, the AOL 2.0(?) homepage, and tapered jeans. For more (not necessarily entertainment-related) nostalgia, hit up Rex's history of Wired magazine, and founding editor Louis Rossetto's response.

Dax Shepard goes for 'Bro'

Bro Search - Watch more free videos
By Gretta Parkinson

What's a guy to do when he bangs his best friend's wife in a drunken stupor? Why, find a new best friend, of course! But only after six months of kicking his own ass, because that crap is messed up.

In case you've been wondering what Dax Shepard has been doing since "Let's Go to Prison," this is it. Well, not really. But Break Media has signed on to launch a new Web series featuring the "Punk'd" star as attorney Chuck Geiger, creator of Bro Search, a kind of eharmony.com that helps "dudes find other dudes to do cool [stuff] with and bro out."

As good as it is to see Dax in something other than "The Naked Trucker and T-Bones Show," his appearance in an online series begs the question, why? The online shorts medium has so far been a great way for A-listers to prove their comedy cred (Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, everyone on funnyordie.com) but thanks to Ashton Kutcher and "Idiocracy," we already know Shepard can deliver the laughs. Maybe it's his way of saying sorry for "Employee of the Month." Which he should. Because that's 103-Jessica-Simpson-and-Dane-Cook-filled minutes of my life that I'll never get back.

What I Learned From YouTube, the Song

Last semester, Alex Juhasz taught a course about YouTube at Pizer College. In that inimitable, academically immersive manner, all work for and by the class was done online, an attempt to mirror YouTube's own "amateur-led pedagogy".

One of the results: "What I Learned from YouTube", a music video (a cover of a Delilah song? Not sure, but it's funny) by two students that excoriates the site for being filled with vacuous comedy fluff. Not a new sentiment, but one you're probably accustomed to hearing from middle-aged entertainment executives instead of students.

Among the students' criticisms, one in particular leaped out at me: We may be playing air guitars / But soon we'll both be stars / Cause youtube is our best chance towards fame. An interesting comment there, as both a white collar parallel to inner city sports star hopefuls, and an acknowledgment that YouTube is a mass marketing vehicle. Interesting to think, after all these years of breathlessly extolling the virtues of democratic media, that the generation using that new media considers it to be nothing but another mass appeal crap machine.

This is perhaps a function of their being digitally in situ, and thus not removed enough from prior media experience to understand the marked change that YouTube represents. But it's also telling that online video sites are being criticized even in their infancy, suggesting that even as technology revolutionizes distribution, it's slow to change (can't change?) the sociology of hitmaking.

A few lyrics:

What I learned from youtube
Is a multitude of things like
How to fold a shirt real quickly
But some videos are so shitty
Yes its true
Lonelygirl15 we mean you
Fu-uh-ck you

Barackula

The latest electo-tainment vid lampooning slash celebrating (lampoon-a-brating?) the great white-ish hope, Barackula's a rock horror musical depicting a young Harvard Law School Obama, who must battle a secret society of vampires to save his immortal soul. Which is cool, in a shoulda-seen-that-coming, blaxpoitation-still-has-legs, wait-where's-Sam-Jackson kind of way. Which is probably a testament to a wacked out mediascape, in which self-de-suffragettes like Obama Girl are rump-tastical media darlings. If someone could please produce an Obama movie involving pirates (Bargh!ack, Matey?) -- or maybe a spoof novel, called The Audacity of a Third Book -- I think we'd have the allegorical bases covered.

Despite the glut of preceding Obama vids -- the aforementioned OG, Will.I.Am's Yes We Can -- Barackula acquits itself as the most well-produced and entertaining electo-tainment yet. It's a little tortured, allegory-wise, i.e., I get it, I get it, the jazz-handed vampires are undead political functionaries subsisting off the blood of innocent voters, and Barack has to convince them to change. And politically, it's translucent -- Obama? Fighting evil incarnate? And Democrats are more nuanced than Republicans how? There's the irony, right. In the left's rhetorical battle against GWB's zero-sum, you're-either-with-us-or-against-us eschatology, Obama's elevated into an action hero. Or maybe a prophet. Jesus Christ, YouTube Star.

Barackula also represents the zenith, thus far, of political coattail meme media. That's not a bad thing: Pick a public figure, mashup his/her image with an entertaining motif, viral success. (It's worth noting, though, that Barackula's available on its own site, not as a YouTube vid).

All in, Barackula's a schlock-filled, highly-entertaining vid. It's actually more of a pilot than anything, with one 5-minute vid completed and online, with more to come (though the producers say they don't have a set schedule yet). If there's time in the electoral cycle, the series'll likely get picked up. And won't that be a happy President's Day.

Barackula.com

iReport

A forum for amateur news auteurs (n'auters?), itchy fingers upon their camphones, the just-launched iReport.com (covered pre-launch here) marks CNN's effort to make good on the much-ballyhooed, rarely realized promise of crowd-sourced journalism. It's not a new idea -- remember Backfence? Bayosphere? Bueller? -- but one given new purchase by CNN's imprimatur, not immodest financial backing, and the chance that every citizen will have a vaguely pro sports-esque shot at instant infotainment stardom.

The innards: Wouldbe journos/everymen create an account (screen name and phone number, "quick contact info so your story can be considered for CNN"), upload up to 100Mb of photos or video, and then choose an assignment from the drop-down menu, e.g., "Salute to troops", "Middle East beauty", "Young People who Rock", or "Stories from Second Life". What, no assignment called "Ow, My Balls?"

Financially, iReport makes a great deal of sense. As the news industry balkanizes over the Web, the pressure for mainstream news to embrace 24/7 terror or titillation -- does that sound pretentious? Sorry, I'll rephrase: most of CNN's "news" pieces blow (hi Sanjay!) -- incorporating feeds from unpaid, Cloverfield-like witnesses provides high-margin filler, allowing CNN to hire more people to man the bicycle pump inflating Lou Dobbs.

But seriously. iReport has potential. After they work out the kinks -- like, say, removing 6-month old videos from the home page -- iReport will surely draw legions of young viewers who spend less time watching the news channel, and more time viewing Pipeline feeds and refreshing CNN.com. I have no doubt that the hippest j-schools are, even now, creating courses around iReport. Can there be any doubt that CNN's next doe-eyed, lip-glossed, plat-blonde'd newscaster is out there right now, eagerly uploading her campics?
iReport.com

90 Day Jane

An ego-romping record of an anonymous wouldbe suicide, this blog -- and its lone YouTube video -- posts daily, counting down to its author's zero hour. This is tech'd-out macabre, with comments. And widgets. And comment threads. Could be a hoax. Could be viral marketing. Could be an artist. But in the meantime, the video's drawn almost 28,000 views. Natch, it boasts an alluringly half-naked, mightly be-nippled, raven-haired hottie.

How very Hollywood. Like the latest dunderheaded tech-pocalypse, Untraceable, in which a net savvy bogeyman rigs a death machine to his site's traffic stats. The more people visit, the quicker his victim dies. Could we have the opposite here? The more people visit, the less likely Jane is to suck a tailpipe. Or however people kill themselves these days. By being anonymous, probs.

All too meticulous to me. The photo too pretty. The posts too confessional, too many office details that would tip off coworkers. And too clean. Real suicides are so much less elegant. A fiver says this is promo marketing for a new video series. Color me suckered. And annoyed.
90 Day Jane | YouTube Vid

Cookin' with Coolio

The latest in career denouements (rebirths?) given purchase via online video (hi David Hasselhoff, hi Ron Jeremy), this MyDamnChannel cooking course pimps the inestimable gastronomic skills of Artis Leon Ivey Jr., aka Coolio. Flanked by tits-tacular assistants and his obsequiously hee hawin'  cousin, Jarez, the artist formerly known as relevant drops 11 episodes worth of knowledge on kitchen-ography, with the first concerning how to cut tomatoes for Caprese Salad: "See I'm pretty good with this knife. And I'm pretty good with a sword, nunchakus, and a pistol. And my dick."
Cookin' With Coolio | Related: Ron Jeremy's Techsmart | Coolio signs with MyDamn Channel
 

NCAA March Madness Streams: No Blackouts, All Games Shown

In a move sure to depress productivity numbers even lower, The NCAA and CBS'll stream every tourney game online this year without blackouts. The decision marks a change from last year, when games were blacked out to protect local affiliates and partnerships, and is based on the idea that streaming numbers are additive to total viewership rather than cannabilistic. Well duh. If you're at work, you're not watching TV at home during the day anyway. And I doubt anyone at home with a TV will opt to watch on their 'puter instead. No updates on the NCAA's YouTube channel, which was very successful (highest viewed vid 700k+) despite a disabled embed setting. This year, the NCAA created a Facebook bracket competition. Top prize, $10,000. More info at paidcontent.

Online Vid Speed Dating Site WooMe gets $$$

I kinda think WooMe, which just got another round of funding, rocks hard, if only because it solves the problem of regular online dating (which requires so much tedious profile-filling that it leaves you too tired for one-night stands). Though there's always CrazyBlindDate for the inveterate lazy-monger. But I kinda sorta think WooMe would be a perfect partner for MySpace Roommates. Have the hotties burn through a bunch of dudes, pick the ones they like, those guys appear on the show. No ma'm, I have zero moral qualms about denigrating the show while also suggesting ways to sleep with its actresses.

We Need Girlfriends

The N.Y. Times profiles "We Need Girlfriends", a sometimes cloying, sometimes hilarious Queens-based Web series that THR reported was acquired by CBS back in November. Maybe this was the Times' anti-Fashion Week piece? Anti-MySpace Roommates piece? Whatever the reason for the piece today, it's a good backstory. I look forward to the as-yet-unannounced Wall Street dickhead spin-off, "We Need Personalities."

MySpace launches Roommates Part Deux

The tits-tacular MySpace series, "Roommates", a barely disguised version of "We Live Together", is returning for a second season. Original sponsor Ford is back, along with new sponsor Freshlook Color Contacts. The first season garnered over six million views, according to MySpace. New episodes appear MWF at 4 p.m. ET. My review of the first season, in which I was obviously retarded and wondered aloud whether guys would watch a show about hot girls (6 million hormones can't be wrong?), is here.

'Yes We Can' Sets Obama to Music

An endorsement from a celebrity is a cursed thing, with the Hollywood imprimatur typically undermined by insinuations that the star's acting more from a sense of self-importance, the idea that his or her twinkly visage can sell more than just Wheaties. It's a career move.

I don't get that vibe from the recent "Yes We Can" vid, a multiceleb song with lyrics matching excerpts from Obama speeches, and produced by the Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am. I don't often think art and politics mix -- at least not in service of a politician -- but "Yes We Can" is a well-produced, artful production, an almost poignant counterpoint to both retardogram Bushisms and the rumpshaking puffery of Obama Girl.

Andy's .02: Agreed that this is a more artful take on celebrity political endorsements. Particularly like John Legend's vocals. And I'm at least 10% more likely to vote for Obama now that I know Nick Cannon has thrown his support behind the candidate.

But have we considered what happens if "Yes We Can" catches on? Will Hillary Clinton do a virtual duet with Melissa Etheridge? They've got the same vocal timbre, right? John McCain and System of a Down? Mitt Romney/Bjork??

I'm Getting Tired of Staged Viral Videos

I go back and forth between lauding staged virality as the ascendence of culture jamming's ethos, or the denouement of factual discourse. Neither's true, and I overreact. Really, I just get tired of having my expectations dashed.

The clues to faux-hood are usually pretty easy to suss: The obvious elision of defining landmarks or data (like the bird poop vid, sans definitive station logo), tight camera angles that obscure telling details, lack of back chatter on industry message boards (back to the bird poop, the affected station would've been called out by other stations), etc.

It's tempting to label staged videos as just another form of fiction, and one finely tuned to the unique quandaries of our surveillance-happy (and online vid happy) times. I think there's truth in that. But I also think there's laziness there, too. To wit: that fleeting mustard burp of virality, Pauly Shore punched, which was fake. He basically fooled everyone into looking his way (though, to be fair, he did the same with "Encino Man." And "Biodome."). Without the fakery, no one would've cared.

Or take the vid Bride Wig Out. Great vid, highly entertaining. I'm a little more sympathetic to it because the editors behind the vid created a new work that smartly exploited a cultural assumption, i.e., weddings drive some women-folk nuts. And yet all that video turned out to be was advertising for a women's marketing company. It's like watching the Blair Witch Project and learning the witch is Snickers. Or getting a secret decoder ring only to find the secret message is "Drink your Ovaltine."

Movie Piracy: Shrinking DVD Windows, Not Academy Screeners to Blame

The shrinking time window between movie and DVD release -- not Academ screeners or online video -- is responsible for film piracy, according to entrepreneur Andy Baio's annual report.

This year Baio, who's been tracking film piracy since 2004 (and who's startup Upcoming.org was acquired by Yahoo a few years back), concluded that Region 5 DVD transfers from overseas -- those DVDs shipped abroad to coincide with the film's release -- are likely the main source of pirated films, as opposed to watermarked screeners. Among his wealth of data:

• all but six of the 34 nominated films were available in DVD quality by the last week of January
• the DVD release window has shrunk from an average of about four months to about three months over the last few years

More info and downloadable Excel/Google Spreadsheets files here.

Independent Comedy Network to Launch Five Original Series

Independent Comedy Network, an online vid site founded by Upright Citizens Brigade alum Marc Campbell w/ an assist from a former JP Morgan'er, announced its first five (of 40) original online series:  2/8 Life, Warthog, Inappropriate Workplace, Annals, and Plea Bargain Advertising. No vids up yet besides the trailer, but if that's any indication, the shows will be chuckle-worthy. More info on the site's funding here.

Of the five announced series, three are set in workplace environments, making me wonder if The Office casts too large a shadow on comedy writing. Is situational workplace comedy the new family sitcom? That...depresses me.

2 Girls, 1 Cup: The Show

Quite possibly the last 2G1C post. I swear. I'm not addicted. Because that would be gross.

From Channel101, the short film festival in LA (which inspired Dan Harmon's VH1's Darwinian comedy program, Acceptable.tv), a new faux pilot called 2 Girls 1 Cup: The Show. Created by Christian Le Guilloux and Justin Roiland, the latter of whom was also the mad genius behind ATV's Mr. Sprinkles. NSFW (language), but hilarious.

McG Directs 'Celebutantes' Promo Vids

Of all the cross-platform media plays -- television to Web, Web to movie, etc. -- the one that makes the least sense to me involves promoting novels on YouTube. The conversion factor from seeing the video to buying the book has to be low.

But whatevs. When your promo videos are directed by McG, you already got all the attention/guaranteed sales/advance checks you need. Thus: this series of vids for the novel "Celebutantes", a Hollywood satire (redundant redundant!) by Amanda Goldberg (daughter of Leonard) and Ruthanna Khaligi Hopper (daughter of Dennis), which hits shelves Feb 5.

For the novel synopsis, may I meekly suggest this riveting (seriously) article in The Scotsman, God bless their ironic remove:

Their narrator heroine is a fictional amalgam of both Goldberg (33) and Hopper (35), although they're reluctant to admit it. She's Lola Santisi, a 26-year-old member of Hollywood royalty without a kingdom –- or even a condo –- to call her own, 5 feet 7-1/2 inch (in four-inch Jimmy Choos), the daughter of a 250 lb., Oscar-winning film director and a former model "who'd done her time with Warren Beatty, Mick Jagger and Richard Gere, pre-the Dalai Lama".

Likeable Lola is, according to her therapist, an Actorholic –- hopelessly addicted to dating narcissistic actors because she is trying to work out her relationship with her narcissistic father who's incapable of loving anyone other than himself, etc., etc. … She's also suffering, in psycho-babble terms, from Career Deficit Disorder, which is apparently very common with the "Adult Children Of's" among Hollywood's caste-driven dynasties.

Hilar hilar hilar. And the promo vid -- there are four scheduled, only the first has been released -- is glorious pop candy. Highly recommended for cartoon enthusiasts.

NBC's LX.TV a Good Investment?

NBC announced the acquisition of lifestyle video magazine LX.tv this week, and by and large it looks like a good move. LX'll become the centerpiece of a new production unit at NBC, which'll focus on lifestyle programming. Like Wallstrip when it went to CBS, LX'll jumpstart NBC's knowledge of how to produce niche video content for the Web.

But here's the funny: LX.tv content is solidly unremarkable. I don't know the site's traffic, but as someone who also covers bars, restaurants, and fashion in the city, I can tell you I've never heard the site mentioned at all.

The reason's obvious if you're in the target demo and you spend any time with the site: It's slick, but boring. Instead of applying a youthful voice and presentation, founders and MTV alums Morgan Hertzan and Joseph Varet taken an otherwise scintillating group of topics and apply old school TV reportage techniques. A few pretty girls and doubletime camera tricks, but that's it. Where's the humor? The ironic retardry? It's like watching "Entertainment Tonight." Way too earnest an approach for topics that, to its 22-35 year old demo, are 'sposed to be fun.

If there's a place where LX's content'll work well, it's not the web. Elevators and cabs, if you ask me. That's where NBC should focus.

Smurf Porn

The cannibalism of your childhood culture continues. In the disturbingly blue, live-action video linked here, you will learn the true etymological origins of "to smurf". Vid's in Spanish, which somehow makes it even more taboo. How do you say NSFW en espanol?

Besides an inescapable bent toward the prurient, I'm posting this b/c it's worth noting, in the aftermath of 2G1C, the amount of truly visceral smut that's making its way into mainstream culture. No judgements. What to call the confluence of pop culture with XXX? Pop shock? I guess there's not much new here. Porn-y fanfic's been around for years. But the accessibility of video makes it so much more consumable.

Hitler Hearts Cowboys, Akeem Hearts Giants

If you're not a football fan, you can skip this post. But the following two videos are excellent examples of how to use found footage to comment on current events.

First up, an excerpt from The Downfall, in which a Hitler tirade about military losses, delivered in German, is re-subtitled to comment on the Cowboys' loss to the Giants in the NFC divisional playoff game. The Downfall excerpt has been meme'd ad nauseum, but this rejiggering is the most hilarious, mostly b/c the joke -- already an absurd juxtaposition of a genocidal madman and a sports fan -- never loses its logical momentum, up to and including the whimpering frauleins in the hallway, concerned about Hitler's newly-purchased, never-worn Terrell Owens jersey.

This second video -- an excerpt from Eddie Murphy's Coming to America -- is interesting not for its re-imagining, but because the 1988 footage captures perfectly the results of the Giants win over the Packers in the NFC Championship. Hilarious. I'd be interested to know whether the popularity of the clip has any residual effect on sales of the Coming to America DVD. Somehow I doubt it, though I'd still argue that the clip is great publicity for Paramount. (I don't see the DVD on Amazon's movers and shakers -- tough to crack -- but the flick's up 36% on IMDB's Moviemeter). The cost of licensing the minute-long footage might be prohibitive, but if the NFL had jumped on the vid it would've been a great promo tool.

Paraphrase Theater

Itinerant funny man Will Carlough recently posted another episode of Paraphrase Theater, a series of movie scene spoofs in which dialogue is paraphrased in a droll vernacular. The latest is All The President's Guys (after the Redford flick, natch), but my favorite's the Star Wars piece, Tarkin and Friends. Carlough plays each character:

Princess Leah: I, uh, smelled your foul stench when I walked on board.
Admiral Tarkin: Uh, good one. I wanted to ask you, where is the secret rebel base?
Princess Leah: yeah well, I'm not gonna tell you.
Admiral Tarkin: That's fair.

Would that HBO would contract with Carlough to paraphrase The Wire. Any series so critically-felated needs some levity.

Related: the hilarious series Movies in Five Seconds.

Tom Cruise, Interwebs Star

I wish Gawker had jumped the shark, too.

But sadly -- happily! -- the OG media snark blog (as OG as media snark gets post-Suckdom) is back in the spotlight after founder Nick Denton posted several videos showing Tom Cruise professing his Scientology zealotry. This after the religious group (club? sect? cabal?)  forced down several of the videos on YouTube. They've got a history of breaking the Internets.

On the videos: Honestly, not that weird. No couch jumping, but a lot of railing against psychiatry (a la his anti-Brooke Shields tirade) and touting of Keeping Scientology Working, a policy letter written in 1965 by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, and which Cruise repeatedly refers to as "KSW". He also sprinkles about Scientology acronyms like tiny croutons: PTS, a "potential trouble source". SP, a  "suppressive person."

 Really, Cruise seems to be baffling himself. He talks in circles. He makes arguments like a preacher -- lots of emphatic statements, dramatic pauses, "NOW is the time," "we HAVE to DO something," etc -- w/out resorting to specifics. "When you're a Scientologist, everything's so clear." Everything, except WTF am I talking about.

Cruise's spiel actually reminds me of the huckster psychics Malcolm Gladwell wrote about in "Dangerous Minds", his November New Yorker piece, in which Gladwell refers to "the Barnum Statement, the assertion so general that anyone would agree", and the Fuzzy Fact, "the seemingly factual statement couched in a way that 'leaves plenty of scope to be developed into something more specific.'"

As for Gawker: Bully for Denton. After a few months of bad press and acrimony between editors (three of which left. Or is it four. Five?), he's made the blog integral again. At least to the folks sniggling over Tim Cruise and spaceship religion. No judgments here.

Monster:Cloverfield::Snakes on a Train:Snakes on a Plane

The director of the Snakes on a Plane rip-off Snakes on a Train, Eric Forsberg, has another knockoff debuting this week: Monster, a rip-off of the upcoming J.J. Abrams flick Cloverfield. I find these knock-offs completely riveting, like alternate versions of reality wondrously full of cheese-laden actors. Check out the trailer at Slashfilm. Also check out this article in the NYTimes about the "mockbusters" genre of films, including Transmorphers and The Da Vinci Treasure.

What the Buck

Gay men are the best observers of celebrity culture*, which is why Perez Hilton's an acclaimed personality, and American Idol's hosted by Ryan Seacrest. To see the gay celebrity critic who'll most likely share Perez's post-Internet career arc, check out What The Buck.

One of the most popular entertainment shows on YouTube and hosted by Connecticut  star-boinker Michael Buckley, WTB's a thrice-weekly, 5-minute-ish, infotainment riff covering the vicissitudes of Lindsay's sex life, Brangelina's babies, Britney's Britney, ad infinitum.

Employing a combination of predictable, smarmy gay patter (rapid transitions, appropriation of female speech patterns, heavy use of "love you bitch", etc) almost as hackneyed as my bemused interest-slash-sober condescension, WTB's won YouTube awards for the 12th most subscribed show (all time), and 6th most viewed comedian (all time).

And for good reason: Buckley's facility with words, and deft takedowns of newsmakers, e.g.: "Frickin mama lynn spears. This is how she reacts to crisis. 16 year old daughter gets pregnant, sell the story put her on a magazine cover. Other daughter has mental illness, invite a made-for-tv doctor as cast by Oprah Winfrey to the hospital."

And from WTB's special on Lonelygirl15: "This is the story of an ordinary girl. Her name is Brie. She is cute. She is nerdy. She is a sixteen year old puppet with huge eyebrows and a New Zealand filmmaker's hand up her ass."

See what he's done? He's taken the riotous fabulosity of Perez -- whose critical genius peaked with pink crayon doodles on celebrity photos -- and couched his popspeak in intelligent and often self-deprecating wit, thus appealing to both the celeb fanatics and the black rim-glasses set. He's a super-gay, pop-obsessed, Red Bull-fueled Ira Glass.

Hence the speed. The patter never stops, with the only pauses for breath literally pauses for breath. Buck's the first video personality I've seen who's co-opted the comedic rapidity and snappy editing of Ze Frank -- a quick and breathless pace convenient to short form viewing online -- without copying Ze's signature cadence. Kudos.

Buckley's already appeared on the CW and Fox. Expect him to hit the even bigger time in 2008.

Check out What the Buck on YouTube and at BuckHollywood.com

* IMHO

Drunk History

Couldn't help but notice Drunk History, a new short vid with a cameo from Michael Cera, that's up on YouTube's homepage right now. Not sure of the provenance of this piece -- can't possibly be CBS (home of the Cera vehicle Clark & Michael), right? Regardless, it's hilarious. More professors should teach like this.

What Will Bill Gates Do Next?

Video: Bill Gates Last Day CES Clip

While technically an honor, a roast's real purpose is to couch unpleasant truths within the auspices of jocularity, e.g., Jimmy Kimmel's introduction of Pamela Anderson in 2005: "She's been working with PETA since 1989, when her gynecologist discovered a family of spotted owls living in her enormous vagina."

A tribute, meanwhile, is a series of accolades in which admirers fawn expectantly. Kinda like the bands AC/DShe and Lez Zeppelin, except with middle aged database admins instead of lesbians. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but refrigerator.

The CES video "What with Bill Gates do Next?" is a somewhere in between, a tribute couched in the shoddy auspices of a roast. It belongs somewhere on that awkward YouTube rostrum where Karl Rove Raps and Steve Chen and Chad Hurley thank everyone for making them billionaires. It's too earnest to be comedy, but it's comedy because it's so earnest.

The premise is thus: On Bill's last day at Microsoft after 30 years, his top execs explain how he's shunting his undying energy into creative hobbies. Celebrity cameos abound. Oh look, isn't it funny how Bill's trying to be in U2 by playing Guitar Hero. Oh look, Bill as Wolverine trying to impress Steven Spielberg. Bill in The Matrix. Bill working out with Matthew McConaughey.

This might be unfair. For the last 30 years, Bill's affected a lot of people's lives for the better. He made software a central component of our lives. He built one of the most consistently profitable companies in the history of the world. And he co-chairs one of the world's largest charity organizations which, among other things, pays for All Things Considered on NPR. Gracias.

Plus, the video IS kinda cute. If you're into that. So I suppose the real roast of Bill Gates needs to come from a third party. Someone who's paycheck doesn't still rely on him, and someone who's tired of tepid comedy like Here Comes Another Bubble. Maybe that's what our snazzy little corpocracy needs. Let's roast NASDAQ.

YouTube for Smart People

The New York Times profiles Big Think, a vid startup launching today that bills itself as "a YouTube for ideas."

The site's organized around meta concepts -- religion, politics, business, etc. -- and displays interviews with accomplished citizens, e.g. John McCain, Richard Branson, Calvin Trillin, etc. Instead of staid, boring reels, Big Think splices the interviewee responses together to form a pastiche centered on a single question: Who are we, What can we learn from Brutus, why did Sept. 11 happen, and more. The site uses a novel interviewing method that removes the interviewer (voice and all) from the process, then overlays a peppy soundtrack. Very watchable.

The site def has a good chance for success, and is a great successor to the beleaguered Arts and Letters Daily (I feel like everyone used to read that before, say, 2005). But I'm not sure I agree with its premise that there's a dearth of smartypants content on vid sites. Google Video, YouTube, et al., have a wealth of brain-feeding vids, you just have to search for them. If Big Think succeeds, it'll be because they collate and present effectively, not because they're bringing smahts to the interwebs.

ABC Streaming First 3 Lost Seasons in HD

My friend Liz over at NewTeeVee points out that ABC is streaming the first 3 seasons of Lost in high definition. That's a departure from their typical practice of only showing the last few episodes per show, and doubtless it's intended to drum up more support for the upcoming season 4 premiere.

If you're a Lost fan, check out this piece of viral marketing seen in Portland. Following the URL leads you, after watching a teaser video, to find815.com, which shows more clue-hunting vids about the series. Good stuff. And much, much more engaging than those silly minisodes ABC released last month.