Thursday, January 13, 2011

Best Week Ever

Best Week Ever

This Lebanese Movie Proves Blood Libel Is Real

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 08:28 AM PST

With all the controversy surrounding Sarah Palin’s usage of the term “Blood Libel” — an unfortunate reference to the mythical practice of Jews taking Christian blood for their religious rituals — I think it’s time we heard from a dissenting opinion: Here’s a clip from an actual movie that aired on Arabic-Lebanese television in 2003 that shows us exactly how Jewish blood libel REALLY HAPPENS (Spoiler: it really doesn’t.)

The following clip is horrifying, but also kiiiind of hilarious in its terrible dramatization and blatant falseness (plus the music is awesome), but also I’m horrible so ignore me. It is also definitely NSFW:

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhm, ok.

A couple disclaimers:

1) This clip was part of a UN Council’s presentation on growing Anti-Semitism in the Arab media, and the full reel is soul-crushingly devastating. I found the dumb blood libel movie funny cause it’s so flagrantly stupid, but the rest of that video will make you legitimately worry for humanity, and I figured I’d provide the context so I’m not making light of the film’s implications.

2) I went to Lebanon two years ago and encountered no anti-Semitism amongst the educated, secular people in the north I interacted with; don’t interpret this movie as a representation of that nation as a whole, any more than we can all be blamed for this sh*tpile.

3) Jews do not actually put Christian blood in their Matzoh. Shocking but true! Although, only one of my parents is Jewish, so she might’ve been pulling her punches all those Passovers when I was growing up…

Kanye’s Watch: For Kanye, By Kanye, Of Kanye

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 08:26 AM PST

The watch was made by Tiret over the course of five months. Here’s a description:

The dial itself is in gold toned mother-of-pearl, with a combo of white, yellow, brown, and black diamonds. The bezel is lined with very large diamonds as well. The watch is said to have a total of about 8 carats of stones. Kayne's face has been immortalized on the dial – complete with sunglasses.

I mean, it’s nice. But it’s no bottom row of teeth. I look forward to the day when Kanye becomes the world’s first man to be made entirely of diamonds. Then he’ll never have to look in the mirror, he can just look at his watch. I’ll give it 6 months.

The Life Files

Confessions Of A Blogger Who Snuck Into Disneyworld’s Underground Hidden City

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 07:46 AM PST

Many years ago, back when I was in college, my high school best friend from Miami got a job working at Disneyworld for the summer. I believe she played a “waitress” at the Diamond Horseshoe Saloon, which was an understood knowing wink as she was clearly an old-timey Disney whore. She was forced to wear a dreadfully unflattering red polyester dress and black apron, while touching the shoulders of the hundreds of thousands of fathers that made their way through the saloon for just a tad too long. This is after she got ever so close to playing Sleeping Beauty, until the cruel casting director sat her down and told her she was too “squinty.” From what I understand, it was the best summer of her life, thanks in large part to her eye-widening surgery.

What did this mean for me, her giant best friend? It meant that I got to Disneyworld that summer VIP style. I was a pig in sh*t. Free ticket into the park, automatic access to the rides, walking past the 3 hour long lines with two middle fingers in the air… it was bliss.

Perhaps it was because of the endorphins firing in my brain that day that I dared to play with Disney fire. Because that day, friends, I did what is often described as “the impossible.” I snuck into the Disneyworld Underground City. That’s right: Actual Disneyworld is built on top of a giant underground human hamster world where the employees go to change, eat, and be human. It’s called the “Utilidors” and it is where the fantasy of Disney comes literally crashing to Earth. And, in an effort to score some discounted food (waves at proud Grandfather in Heaven), I Mission: Impossible 3‘d my way down there, friend in tow, to grab a burger for $1.99 and run like hell.

We found the hidden doorway (a secret I would never even think of revealing) and slowly cartoon tiptoe tinyfooted tinked our way to the employee cafeteria. How to describe the Disneyworld Tunnels… hmm. It’s like a Home Depot of childhood sadness. Cold, fluorescent, concrete. Huge. Oh, look, there’s Pluto with his head off, smoking. Did you hear that loud sigh of distress? That’s the 17-year-old girl playing Mickey Mousewalking by. If you are a Disney fanatic, the underground is your Room 101. It is where the fantasy dies. We lined our jeans with burgers, managed to avoid getting tackled by security, and made our way back into the blistering sunlight of positivity that is the above-ground Disneyworld theme park.

Why this story? Well we happened to catch a fantastic, hilarious, must-see video called “Confessions of a Disney Employee,” and all of my memories came flooding back. OK, the video is 11 minutes long, but believe me, it flies by thanks to the engaging narrator, a former employee who describes his experience working there for minimum wage. Those of you out there who love both sticking it to the man and free food, this is required viewing.

Feel free to share your own Disney-related adventures in the comments.

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Gucci Mane Has A Delicious New Face Tattoo!

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 07:37 AM PST

Kids love ice cream. Gucci Mane is a kid at heart. But you can’t see your heart when you look in the mirror. So you put the ice cream cone on your face (3 scoops, natch). Plus lightning bolts because he’s a bad ass. But also Brrrr!!!!

NY Mag

Video: Snooki Plays With An 11 Year Old Girl And Her Look

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 07:00 AM PST

This video turns me into an 80 year old woman from the 1920′s who is horrified that girls nowadays paint their faces. That being said, it’s sort of nice to see Snooki be nice to a little girl, even though I wish she’d be nice to her without applying blush atop bronzer.

It occurs to me that if Snooki ever becomes a mother she would be GREAT as a stage mom on Toddlers & Tiaras. We’ll all look forward to that, won’t we.

Popeater

Will The Rap Music Over Old Dancing Footage Meme Pass Annual Inspection?

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 11:08 PM PST

It’s the beginning of the new year, so it seemed like the right time to see if rap music edited together with old footage of people dancing is still an internet thing. It sure was great back in 2007 when the Walk It Out Lady Dance happened, but will the format hold up?! It’s time find out by watching a new one. We’ll try, oh, I don’t know… The Game‘s How We Do featuring 50 Cent over dancing people from… let’s say Kentucky probably.

Yeah, I guess it’s still a thing! Tragedy plus time plus rap plus old dancing footage minus tragedy equals comedy a thing you watch on the internet.

Thanks, Buzzfeed.

A Pawntage: Everything You Need To See From The Movie Cool Dog

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 07:20 PM PST

Last week, I posted a trailer for a 2010 straight-to-DVD movie called Cool Dog. The movie looked really insane and awful. But, just to make sure, I watched it instantly on Netflix.  It, in fact, was really insane and awful. I certainly don’t recommend anyone watching this movie, but there are exactly five things things about it that are important.

1.) The amount of lines containing the phrase “cool dog.”

2.) The amount of times there are unnecessary post-production cutaways to the dog doing ridiculous things both with and without fake paws.

3.) A brief discussion of elephant farts.

4.) The way one of the villains says the word “dog.”

5.) An overt allusion to violently sodomizing a dog.

I have put all five of these things into one easily watchable minute and eleven second video so that you don’t have to watch the whole movie. I just saved you all an enormous amount of time. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to Sarah McLachlan’s dogs. She seriously has the least healthy dogs.

So, that’s it! That was everything from Cool Dog you needed to see. Go home and hug the thing in your house that is most like a dog.

Does The World Really Want Ghostbusters 3?

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 02:50 PM PST

The internet is abuzz today (it’s always abuzz about stuff – frickin’ abuzz factory, this thing is) about rumors that a third Ghostbusters movie is written and ready to go, pending the approval of one holdout actor who hasn’t yet read the script:

"That would be the famous Bill Murray — Mr. Venkman,” Reitman says…

Reitman, 64, adds that he feels the latest installment is better than the previous two movies. “I’m really jazzed about it,” he tells CNN.

And if Murray doesn’t like it? "We have a very complicated deal,” says Reitman. “Let’s just put it that way.”

Several sites seem to be reporting this news with the implicit endorsement of the idea, as if to say “All we need is Murray on board and hoorayy!!! More Ghostbusters!!!!!”

Remember, though, that we’ve been hearing about a possible Ghostbusters 3 since the days of Geocities rumor mills — right alongside rumored future Mortal Kombat 3 characters and guarantees that the Arrested Development movie is a go — and despite the talent involved, I just have a very hard time getting excited about another Ghostbusters movie in the year 2011.

Let’s discuss:

Ghostbusters is one of the best movies ever, period. It’s arguably the most watchable and most quotable movie ever made, and I doubt I’m in any controversial minority with any of these statements.

Ghostbusters 2 came out five years later — a relatively long delay for a sequel — and while it certainly isn’t as legendary as the first, it’s still a worthy film with a lot of funny parts and I’ll always remember it fondly.

But a third Ghostbusters installment, coming out more than twenty years after the second one which already featured the Statue of Liberty coming to life via Jackie Wilson music and saving New York from a painting? I don’t believe I’m tarnishing the talent involved here when I say that I’m highly, highly skeptical of this turning out well.

I’m also not sure that Ivan Reitman, Dan Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis all being eagerly on board necessarily counts as a reason to assume the project is good. Ivan Reitman is a legend and continues to lend his hand to quality projects, but the last three films he’s directed have been Evolution, My Super Ex-Girlfriend, and this year’s No Strings Attached — why wouldn’t he jump at the opportunity to direct a film that’ll spit gold out of its title?

Harold Ramis wrote and appeared in plenty of classic films, but his involvement here seems ancillary, and as for Dan Aykroyd, well, yeah. As for the script, it may indeed be good — two U.S. Office writers apparently wrote the bulk — but of course Reitman is gonna say it’s better than the other two movies; he’s not gonna be like, “I’m pitching this new movie and trust me, it definitely has some jokes that I believe are on par with some of the ones in 2!”

I don’t mean to suggest this far in advance that Ghostbusters 3 will automatically be bad, just that we should probably reserve some caution for a sequel to an untoppable 20+ year old film when all the actors are nearing or in their 60s, the film’s been in development for seven presidential terms, and we’ll all be watching it with the collective pressure of begging it not to strip-mine the legacy of its pristine predecessor (and its also-fine sequel).

For now, though, everything depends on Bill Murray. I’m sure if they can’t convince him to eagerly reprise his decades-old successful thing, they can always just get Eric Idle.

Vampire Weekend And The Black Keys Hold A Sellout-Off For Colbert’s Grammy Vote

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 01:06 PM PST

Posting a Colbert segment in its entirety is basically the my-job equivalent of, like, a plumber doing… I don’t know, what’s something lazy a plumber does? Plumbing a pipe like, really lazily. If they were like “Yeeeahhh, I’m a-plumbin’ heahhh” but they don’t do much but the pipe’s great so we’re all fine with it.

That was an inane paragraph. Here’s a really enjoyable video of Colbert pondering his 2011 Grammy ballot, welcoming members of Vampire Weekend and The Black Keys on to make their sellouttiest cases for his Best Alternative Album vote. And frankly, I think all our minds needed some closure on that “Holiday” Honda commercial. I’m not sure it’s this, but it’s a start:

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
MeTunes – Grammy Vote – Dan Auerbach, Patrick Carney & Ezra Koenig<a>
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> Video Archive

[FYI - Sorry for that vid being all over on the left and messing up our homepage's feng shui, but those Comedy Central embeds don't center. Isn't that annoying? This person knows what I'm talking about! Oh - hi Michelle.]

E-Mail This To Your Mom: Lamb Chopper

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 12:11 PM PST

Here is a photo of a man getting straddled by his future lover dinner somewhere in the middle of Cuba. I have never felt more passionately about the U.S. lifting the Cuba embargo than I have today. Obama, please, let me get myself a lamb on a motorbike. Oh, to have those tiny little hooves meet you at the hips while riding through the countryside. One can dream.

With thanks to @WendyNewell for the tip!

Why I Really, Really Hate The Simpsons Porn Parody

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 10:45 AM PST

A number of people have sent me the trailer for the Simpsons Porn Parody, rightfully expecting me to have an instant opinion on it. I do – It’s f***ing horrifying:

Even as an internet-and-porn jaded Simpsons fanatic, I find this video impossibly disturbing for a number of reasons:

Unlike, say, the porn parody of Batman — a tv series that I’m more or less ambivalent towards — I have such a thoroughly defined and nostalgic opinion of The Simpsons, and that opinion is stashed in my brain so far away from anything remotely resembling a sexual impulse, that seeing these pseudo-characters saying and doing sexual things is simultaneously jarring and terrifying. I closed the video a split second after the opening Homer orgasm, and only composed myself to rewatch the remainder out of professional obligation (as long as this blog keeps paying me, I can’t not watch porn parody trailers — it’s actually the first rule for anyone VH1 employs, before filling out tax forms or wearing clothing to work.)

My reaction is exacerbated by my instant association with The Simpsons as the single biggest cultural component of my childhood, and seeing it pornified is idealogically not unlike someone molesting my memories. It’d be no different if someone did a porn version of Sesame Street or Mister Rogers, of which, I’m sure, there are already trillions. I’d be shocked if someone hasn’t already turned the “tr” in “Street” to a “k” and filmed a series of twelve.

On a more obvious level, this is also a movie about yellow cartoons f*cking each other. I don’t believe I’m subconsciously burying any threatening Freudian impulses when I declare that seeing yellow cartoon families having sex (or in this case, just seeing them about to have sex and hearing their orgasms) is one of the last things in this world I would ever prefer to experience, short of perhaps literally having the entire Spanish Inquisition re-enacted unto my penis.

Other than humor blogs posting this video clip and laughing at it for a couple minutes, who wants to see this movie? Or worse, who wants to be sexually inspired by and masturbate to this movie? Even that crazy merchandise dude from the Morgan Spurlock special would be forever ashamed if this film stimulated him even 1% of the way towards an erection.

Just so I’m not totally dismissive here, I will give them props for the Cookie Kwan “West Side” reference, whether that was actual knowledge someone possessed or if the director uncovered it in his frantic Googling for an excuse to throw in an Asian scene. But why would Cookie EVER have sex with Moe? And you put that glaring character loophole in your trailer?? I can’t imagine how many grievances I’d have with the full movie.

Maybe I’ll watch it just to find out. Then never experience a sexual thought for the rest of my waking life. I’ll give it some thought, might not be worth it.

Oh, Real Mature Victora Beckham

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 09:33 AM PST

Victoria Beckham leaves her London home while simultaneously telling people to go f*ck off. Is there anything this woman can’t do? (Answer here.)

[Photo: Splash News]

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