John Hodgman on Boing Boing TV

Honestly what are the odds you read my blog and not Boing Boing? I however am not going to miss an opportunity to pimp John Hodgman.

From the moment I saw Hodgman (or Hodgie as I like to embroider onto pillowcases) in his first Daily Show interview, I've been enamoured. I was pumped to see him even get a much deserved re-occurring role as a their resident expert (here doing a bang-up job explaining net neutrality). Joy springs eternal when his beautiful punim appears on my TV screen. Blah blah blah mac commercials.

The original appearance was actually to promote his book The Area's of my Expertise. It's one of my favourite books, and one of the very few I find LOL-funny. This almanac of complete knowledge is essentially one giant fabrication. Off-hand my favourite parts may be the lobsters (not to be confused with "lobsters") section, the hobo signs section, and typical cyborg mischief. Read this book if you haven't. It's out in paperback now with an expansion of the original 700 hobo-names (which if you want you can listen to Hodgie reciting them all).

Anyways, Boing Boing TV has posted a pseudo-interview with Hodgman in his hotel room. He talks about his new book. Enjoy.



"It did not lead people to worry that I was insane."

He's on strike right now. Bollucks.

Writer's Strike and my Lack of Solidarity

I've been forced to keep writing despite the WGA strike because a) I'm Canadian, b) I'm not a member of the WGA, and c) I don't expect any of my professors to take "I'm on strike" to be a valid reason for an essay not being handed in on time.

Anyways here's a relatively unfunny video from a Daily Show writer about the strike if you haven't seen it yet. (I'm so late to join the party because the internet and I are seeing other people at the moment.) Thus far I'm on the side of the writers. More reading may change my mind but currently it seems like giant corporations could survive reimbursing their writers for what goes online.



They make a good point. However, I find it odd that a lot of the writers are still blogging, especially since the hooplah (how do I know how to spell that?) is actually about online content. I guess they're only striking against writing that makes other people money.

Goodnight, and good luck.

The Darjeeling Limited: If I mispronounce it once more I may be racist

When did Phil Collins become cool? Sorry, lingering confusion.

So this Tuesday I went to see The Darjeeling Limited, because I'm a big fan of Wes Anderson, but not a big enough fan to spend more than $4.25 on a theatre ticket. What do you want?

Anyways, I thought I was going to be pretty disappointed with this movie. My initial reaction to Life Aquatic was disappointment despite my now current and overwhelming tendency to gush about it. Then there was also the relatively mediocre reviews. Critics are pompous and I thought they'd be right behind this film, if they weren't it might actually blow. Apparently I got critics confused with hippsters. Bill Murray isn't really in this one either. I like Bill Murray. Finally, it just seemed like time for him to release a stinker.

But yeah, it was pretty enjoyable. I could chalk it up to low expectations but why ruin a good thing? This makes my heart... feel?

The stand-out feature of all Anderson flicks is that odd aesthetic of his. His movies seem to exist in parallel universes, not like cowboy universes, but universes with strange dialogue and odd ways of speaking. If you've seen one of his movies you'll know what I'm talking about. And that aesthetic is certainly present in this film.

Most of the actors do an admirable job in the film. Owen Wilson is always great in his Anderson roles and he's great in this one too. He's unpredictable and hilarious. Jason Schwartzman's dry acting is normally perfect for Anderson's film, and in Darjeeling he often seems at home, but sometimes he sticks out a little. However, I often need to see an Anderson film a few times to really get into it and so I imagine my complaints with Schwartzman might fade away in after another viewing. Anjelica Huston's performance, however, left a lot to be desired. Her role is pretty important (I won't spoil it) and her rather bland performance hurts the emotional climax of the film. Adrian Brody, though, that dude really surprised me. I've never really cared much for him, as I shy away from big budget academy award seeking movies about Nazis but Brody was absolutely fantastic in this film. He was by far my favourite character and doesn't seem out of place among the Anderson veterans. I hope to see him in further projects.

Ultimately I guess I should discuss whether this film is actually funny or not. It is. Often I was the only person in the theatre laughing (or at least my roommate and I) and so perhaps my sense of humour is part derangement but like all of his films (again) there is some awesome dialogue. I love the way people speak in Anderson films: blunt, concise, and drier than a Zellers clubhouse sandwich. Darjeeling is no different. And humour is used nicely as a contrast to the more somber nature of the character's problems. You feel worse for them because you just laughed at them.

I think the obvious conclusion for this review is that if you like Anderson films then you'll probably like this movie. There isn't anything strikingly new here but I'm not sure if that was what I wanted. Maybe some people are finding his aesthetic tired, but I think this is an issue of how overt it is and thus such an easy criticism. Is evolution about changing your style or is it in improving it? I'm happy with the current state. Ask me in another six films.

P.S. They play the short film made as a pre-cursor to Darjeeling Limited before the movie. This little film includes a very racy seen with one Natalie Portman. So if that's your thing, it's a giant screen man.

I'm not concerned about the monkey, it's the Phil Collins.

So I went to see Wes Anderson's new flick, The Darjeeling Limited. Never mind about that though, I'll blog about it in a few days. First, here's a preliminary:

We were a little late, my roommate and I. As we approached the door we heard Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight" and on the screen I may have seen a gorilla. My roommate made a grunt of hesitation; so, as we walked into the theatre I commented, "The gorilla is a little much."
"It's not the gorilla but the Phil Collins."
"That's what was off putting for me at first too, but then I saw the man in the gorilla suit."
"To each his own."

Well, we picked a seat and watched the rest of the ad.



Apparently this came out in August, so apologies if this is old news for you. I just saw this tonight and it's seriously "the crazy." That said, it may be one of my favourite commercials of-all-time despite the fact it advertises not for drums, Phil Collins, or rhythmically inclined grey back gorillas, but chocolate bars?

Beckett would have been confused.

For those who wanted to own this as I did, I've got a high quality download right here. Enjoy.

The Bloggies

Blog + Dundies (The Office S02E01)

I figured everyone was wondering which blog I was voting for in the funniest blog category for the 2007 weblog awards. Don't worry, daddy's here.

I'm voting for The Sneeze. Check out his post on Dominoes Pizza. Quite amusing.

For best comic strip I actually voted for Penny Arcade. An obvious choice, I know, but they are continually funny in both post and comic. Currently the leader is xkcd, which is I used to really dig but hasn't made me really laugh in a while. So I voted with consistency.

Do your cyber-civic duty and go vote. Or don't.

Crisis of Faith (that sounds so emo)

So I had a conversation with a gentleman on Friday in which my authority as a comedy critic was contested. The argument boiled down to whether I, as someone who has not watched Cheers or The Honeymooners extensively, had the right to be a critic regarding sitcoms. Obviously I argued that I did, but I may have also lost the argument.

My friend, who I'll call Tim, argued that since I was not well versed in the history of the sitcom, or at least the successes and thus formative influences, I would not be fully aware of what new sitcoms were doing inside the sitcom genre. This was likened to literature. Could a writer respectively analyse a work of literature without studying the works which were of direct influence, or even further could a writer respectively analyse a work without reading the major works in literature? Those studying literature are specifically taught surveys of canon so that they can (at least to some degree) better analyse/understand/contextualize any piece of literature. Tim did not deny me the right to have and support an opinion, but merely that I do not necessarily have the authority to offer an educated critique of sitcoms. This is a very strong point.

I, however, would still like to argue my case. This is of course unfair to Tim as he will not be able to offer a response or even clarify my potentially unintentional strawman-ed rendition of his argument. But I will anyways.

The problem with his argument to me is the requirement of a historical background of a genre to evaluate new instances of it. I don't disagree that a knowledge of the past can greatly help your analytical abilities, but I don't think this is absolutely imperative. I think you can construct an analyses divorced of a great deal of context (of course not all context, as would humour even work in a vacuum?). That said, Tim is very right in the quality variances in evaluations with and without context. In academic articles it is very important to discuss the context of one's arguments (why they're such a chore to read). The context provides authority. The author has read and engaged the historical and critical backing of the issue s/he is now writing about, thus his/her argument is proven to be (hopefully) well informed. There is no reason this concept shouldn't be applied to comedy.

But the issue comes down to this for me. I don't find Cheers all that funny. Neither do I find The Honeymooners too enjoyable. And I've seen enough episodes to make these judgement calls. More so, I am not writing my critiques in vacuums. I haven't ignored these foundational shows. And the pluralization is the key. This isn't a few writings, movies, or albums, this is multiple seasons of a television show. Cheers had almost 250 episodes. That's a lot of hours to spend watching a show I don't like so I can know a little more about the sitcom genre. And here's the thing--I don't think it'd matter. I've watched many other sitcoms, ones that weren't on when I was 7, that were heavily influenced by Cheers. And that goes even more so for The Honeymooners. Yes, Seinfeld is greatly influenced by The Honeymooners, but what aspect of the show have I not picked up on from other shows (in content and form) and from watching the freakin Flintstones?

Ultimately though, I think we need to consider critiques and analyses in terms of a conversation. When I engage a sitcom, a comedian, or a movie I offer my analysis, which is by no means definitive. And I would not expect any worthwhile critic to say otherwise. When we write about any topic we are engaging in a conversation (one that perhaps takes place over some length of time). When someone writes a book on Milton, s/he engages in a conversation about Milton. Other writers will then engage those ideas. This may not happen as much in comedy analysis, merely because there is yet to be vast academic work in the area, but this does not mean that the project is not the same. So Tim with his greater knowledge of Cheers could offer an argument about The Big Bang, and reveal elements of the show I, with my "ignorance" of Cheers, would miss. This would not at all be unlike the conversation that occurs about Milton. (Okay it's way different, but not in terms of project.) Anyone can be a critic here, it's merely how good of a critic. Tim might be a better critic about comedy, but he doesn't maintain a blog on the topic. I wish he would, then we could blargue until our fingers were raw. And the comedy community would be the better for it. If even slightly.

I don't intend this post to be about me winning an argument, it is supposed to be about me trying to figure out how I (or anyone) can discuss comedy on a critical level. Do the same issues of literature or music apply to comedy? This is a difficult question, even more so with this broad definition of comedy. Perhaps you can construct necessary canon pieces with comedy films, but in television, with shows involving more than an hour total watch-time, can you still construct that same idea about canon? And then certainly with the cultural pervasiveness of some of the television comedies you have to consider how viewers acquire a comedy education. Everyone, whether a comedy scholar or not, gets a great deal of I Love Lucy references. Further, so much of how sitcoms are made is built upon previous success--so by watching Home Improvement, I've watched Family Ties. And all this hasn't even begun to address how these issues relate to stand-up.

I don't necessarily have any concrete answers to the issues I've raised despite the lengths I've gone to above. Unfortunately these issues seem to be argued about at 1am in apartment buildings rather than in any written text, denying me that conversation I believe leads to better answers than the above. Bummer.

Here's a link to something actually funny.

Spinal Tap meets Gen Y

Or is it Z at this point? My youth pastor was unclear.

Now I've never been a big fan of musical comedy. I mean Barenaked Ladies were cool for a bit (yes they were!) because their humour was silly and their music folky, but now they're some rock-pop band that sing about absurd chimpanzees. And then song parodies. Ugh. Worse is a comedian with a guitar and comedy songs! When I see a comedian grab a guitar I immediately have my finger over whatever button will silence his/her tired bit. There are of course exceptions to every rule. Demetri Martin uses a guitar in his act and is consistently hilarious, but he's really punctuating jokes with the guitar rather than composing funny songs.

But My Chemical Romance, they shatter all my preconceptions.

MCR (yes I'm hip) is musical comedy at its best. Instead of trying to make jokes in song, their entire body of work and personas are the joke. Irony is the strangest thing, you can take garbage and bring it up to a level of appreciable quality by simply placing your tongue firmly in cheek. MCR does this to a tee.

I was confused at first with MCR. I'll embarrassingly admit I didn't get it. I just thought they were lousy. But when their sophomore album, The Black Parade, came out I finally "got it." Their video for the title track is what swung me. Watch it not as a pretentious emo video but as a group of self-aware guys making a pretentious emo video. Then you have a comedy masterpiece. The song brilliantly starts off with soft/sad piano music, then after the mention of a "marching band" a snare march beat is added. This all occurs underneath Gerard Way singing about pseudo-christ imagery. Then there's an obvious Queen-stealing ramp-up with Way singing his heart out and finally, at like a minute and a half, we get the fast emo-punk business. And that's just the song. The video has black and white cinematogrophy, circle wipes, futuristic macabre imagery, dramatic slow-motion band performance, and my favourite--hand reaches to the sky.

Of course for this sort of thing to work the acting has to be impeccable. And it is. Not once do I see the ounce of self-awareness that would ruin the entire joke--the only thing you see in Way's eyes are a dude desperately trying to project overwrought emotion. Check out the video for Famous Last Words. This video really features Way's ability. He spends the entire video an inch away from the screen screaming his heart out ("I am not afraid to keep on living / I am not afraid to walk this world alone"), tearing at his face, and smashing his mic stand to the sand. The rest of the band does a great job too, being way too into the music, swinging their guitars around or flipping their hair dramatically as they hit the crash. Also!, there is fire everywhere. It's a metaphor for the fire raging inside their heart sleeves.

Despite what the critics said, MCR really evolved on their second album. They grabbed a hold of their silliness and took it to a new level of pretencion--the concept album. You can't get more pretentious than concept albums. (Okay you can, if you're already a prog-metal band. I'm looking at you Dream Theatre!) And further, it's a concept album about death. You might judge them for being obvious with their choices. Yes it's easy to do a sophomore concept album about death as a ironic emo band, but since when would an emo band not be obvious? These guys have to keep up with actual emo bands, like The Used, that are taking this shit to unprecedented levels of pretentiousness.

Pick up/download their albums and hit up all their videos on youtube. They're full of laughs by some of the smartest comedy musicians of our generation. I'm interested to see where these guys go when this whole emo fad sputters out. I'm hoping for overproduced mega-indie-bands. These guys need to be taken down a few notches.