U.S. Senate apologizes for slavery and segregation: http://bit.ly/G46Cu. Bob Byrd breaks down on Senate floor. "Too soon. Too soon."

I think that's a funny joke. Normally, I find set-up/punch-line jokes the lowest form of humor (far below puns and slapstick in their paucity of imagination), and I regard them warily, not unlike the way Thoreau viewed "all enterprises that require new clothes." But I cracked up when I saw this tweet from Robert A. George. To find it funny, I guess you'd have to know that Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) is very, very old, and that he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan in his youth. But in the ad hominem '00s, many people would first look at the identity of the joke teller before deciding if it was humorous.

Robert A. George, eh? Wait a minute -- he's a conservative and a libertarian! He's black! He's a naturalized American citizen, born in Trinidad (and Tobago)! He's a Catholic! He's a blogger, a Twitterer, a Facebooker, a New York Post columnist, a stand-up comedian, a comic-book geek! Soooooo, of course he's going to make that joke about Bob Byrd, right?!?!

"Remember during the campaign when John McCain attacked Obama for acting like a celebrity and we all laughed at the grumpy old shellshocked fool? Well, it turns out he was right. [...] It's getting to where you can't turn on your TV without seeing Obama."

What grumpy old shellshocked fool said that? It was comedian Bill Maher, whose approach to political satire is to talk about televised presidential photo ops as if they were interfering with, or substituting for, policy-making. I mean, the guy admits he thinks what he sees on TV is "news," and then he watches PR puff pieces about presidential puppies and romantic nights out on Broadway and thinks it's Obama who lacks substance? Turn off the boob tube, Bill, and read a newspaper or a web site -- or a blog. If you wanted to learn something about politics (and "topical humor") from TV, you should be watching Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert, not Leno. But I warn you, it's going to make you feel as tired and ancient as your schtick. You may as well be telling jokes about airline food and Geritol. (Anybody remember Geritol? That's my point.)

My turn: In this episode, Keyboard Cat becomes a 23rd century film critic and must dodge deadly Romulan lens flares and Vulcan interrogation techniques on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise! Gratuitously excessive audio-visual excitement overkill galore!

UPDATE: Cameron sends this: "J.J. Abrams Admits Star Trek Lens Flares Are "Ridiculous":

I know there are certain shots where even I watch and think, "Oh that's ridiculous, that was too many." But I love the idea that the future was so bright it couldn't be contained in the frame. The flares weren't just happening from on-camera light sources, they were happening off camera, and that was really the key to it. I want [to create] the sense that, just off camera, something spectacular is happening. [...]

SPOILER WARNING: Do not watch this if you haven't seen "Chinatown." Besides, why are you wasting time with Keyboard Cat if you haven't seen "Chinatown," one of the greatest films ever made?

Psychologists say that depression is rage turned inward. Stand-up comedy, on the other hand, is rage turned back outward again. (I believe George Carlin had a routine about the use of violent metaphors directed at the audience in comedy: "Knock 'em dead!" "I killed!") In the documentary "Heckler" (now on Showtime and DVD) comedian Jamie Kennedy, as himself, plays both roles with ferocious intensity. The movie is his revenge fantasy against anyone who has ever heckled him on stage, or written a negative review... or, perhaps, slighted him in on the playground or at a party or over the phone or online.

"Heckler" (I accidentally called it "Harangue" just now) is an 80-minute howl of fury and anguish in which Kennedy and a host of other well-known and not-well-known showbiz people tell oft-told tales of triumphant comebacks and humiliating disasters, freely venting their spleens at those who have spoken unkindly of them. At first the bile is aimed at hecklers in club audiences (with some particularly nasty invective for loudmouthed drunken women), then it shifts to "critics" -- broadly defined as anybody who says something negative about a figure whose work appears before a paying public. Some of the critics are actually interested in analysis; some are just insult comics who are using the Internet as their open mic. It gets pretty ugly, but it's fascinating -- because the comics, the critics and the hecklers are so much alike that it's no wonder each finds the others so infuriating.

"If you thought Abu Ghraib was a laugh riot then you might love 'Observe and Report,' a potentially brilliant conceptual comedy that fizzles because its writer and director, Jody Hill, doesn't have the guts to go with his spleen. [...]

"What follows next should have been the shock of the movie: a cut to Ronnie [Seth Rogen] having vigorous sex with Brandi [Anna Faris] who, from her closed eyes, slack body and the vomit trailing from her mouth to her pillow, appears to have passed out. But before the words 'date rape' can form in your head, she rouses herself long enough to command Ronnie to keep going."
-- Manohla Dargis, New York Times

"Because we laugh and gasp at what follows, does that mean we approve? Having seen Ronnie's actions in a movie, do we now believe that date rape should not be prosecuted -- that it is just harmless fun?

"Although I have never had such a dilemma in life, usually being the first to pass out, I hope I'd have the decency to walk away from a semi-conscious woman. I hope I also wouldn't harass a Muslim co-worker, use a Taser on a man who parks next to a loading dock, break into a mall and assault policemen, or triumphantly shoot an unarmed criminal. Although I adore 'Lolita,' I hope I am never tempted to lay a finger on a prepubescent girl....

"All this might seem crashingly obvious, but at least in this culture it can't be restated too often that comedy is not safe."
-- David Edelstein, The Projectionist

Last weekend I witnessed a sort-of argument over whether "Observer and Report" was funny or not. Or maybe it was really about whether the movie was even supposed to be funny. I don't know for sure because I haven't seen it yet. So to me the discussion sounded mostly like: "It's not funny!" / "Yes it is! I laughed!" / "No it's not! I didn't!" / "Yes it is!" / "It's only funny to people I hated in high school!" / "Humor is hard to analyze because it's personal!" / "No it's not!" / "Yes it is!"...

A tangential follow-up to the recent discussion, "Rehearsing your own prejudices," from the Institute for the Destruction of Tooth Fairy Science, via Hell's News Stand (which also has the R-rated version).

A drop of diluted background (from Wikipedia) on homeopathy -- a little dab'll do ya:

... Homeopathic remedies are usually diluted to the point where there are no molecules from the original solution left in a dose of the final remedy. Since even the longest-lived noncovalent structures in liquid water at room temperature are only stable for a few picoseconds, critics have concluded that any effect that might have been present from the original substance can no longer exist. No evidence of stable clusters of water molecules was found when homeopathic remedies were studied using NMR.

Furthermore, since water will have been in contact with millions of different substances throughout its history, critics point out that any glass of water is therefore an extreme dilution of almost any conceivable substance, and so by drinking water one would, according to homeopathic principles, receive treatment for every imaginable condition.

P.S. As we all know, homeopathy only works when making dry martinis. You allow one ray of light to shine through the bottle of vermouth into the bottle of gin before pouring the latter.

(tip: Tim Lloyd)

From the immortal star of "Dazed and Confused," "Waking Life" and "Sorry, Thanks."

Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) is momentarily distracted by a swooping avian creature as she heads for shore on Bodega Bay. Edith Olive Eggplant Dog (with tennis ball in mouth) is momentarily distracted by a swooping avian creature as she heads for shore on Lake Washington.

UPDATE BELOW:

Circumcised superheroes? Or mayo mavens? My favorite show is now kosher.

Above, via Aaron Hillis at GreenCine Daily, a new york craigslist ad soliciting, um, designer film criticism. This is the indie route, of course. The studios can afford to make up their own blurbs in-house.

Is this what people mean when they say craigslist has made the old newspaper business model obsolete?

It has taken off, making an unscheduled arrival in Prague as its final destination.

All world flights continue to make unnecessary layovers in Dallas-Fort Worth anyway. No departures reported.

See? They think "Doubt" is a comedy, too....

And, as it goes on, they get deeper (the Apatow-produced "Step Brothers," in which Rogen appears), and deeper (Franco as Scott Smith, in a romantic screen kiss with Harvey Milk), and deeper (Ram Jam!) and deeper (Janusz Kaminski) into the movies -- just like their characters do in "Pineapple Express" itself.

From the famous Wall Street Journal Opinion section comes good news for modern Hollywood:

Once again, family-friendly, uplifting and inspiring movies drew far more viewers in 2008 than films with themes of despair, or leftist political agendas. Sex, drugs and antireligious themes were not automatic sellers, either.

According to authors Ted Baehr and Tom Snyder of Movieguide (described as "a ministry dedicated to redeeming the values of the mass media according to biblical principles, by influencing entertainment industry executives and helping families make wise media choices"), 2008's most successful Hollywood movies continued to affirm the values of their organization, such as "coping with Nazi tyranny" ("Valkyrie") and "loyalty, sacrifice and doing the right thing" ("Bolt"). (Films with themes of languishment, or flautist political agendas, are widely considered to have been been less popular at the 2008 box office as well, but they were not tracked as closely in Movieguide's studies.) Baehr and Snyder continue:

John Patrick Shanley's comical film of his four-character Pulitzer-winning play "Doubt" is a flamboyantly theatrical sermon on the virtues of conviction. It should be seen in conjunction with a reading of Malcolm Gladwell's best-selling "Blink" because, no matter what the dialog may tell you, it's more an affirmation of gut instinct than an exploration of the title commodity.

You can see why all the adult principals -- Meryl Streep as Sister Aloysius, Philip Seymour Hoffman as Father Flynn, Amy Adams as Sister James and Viola Davis as Mrs. Miller -- have been nominated for Oscars (but is Hoffman's a supporting performance or the male lead?). This is juicy stuff, played to the hilt as you'd expect -- and as much for laughs as for melodrama (which I hadn't expected, but which came as a happy surprise).

If it remains more of a theatrical experience than a cinematic one (despite being photographed by Roger Deakins), that's probably because Shanley's ambitions are limited to delivering the "movie version" of his own hit play. I can imagine "Doubt" working more convincingly in the abstract setting of the stage (though I haven't seen it performed that way), where it sported the subtitle: "A Parable." But there's no doubt it's a bake-sale bonanza for the movie actors, who give overtly stylized performances in realistic settings, all goosed-up with stage flourishes -- thunderstorms and balcony-pitched arias and surprise entrances and exits timed to build tension and frustrate satisfaction. (It's said Shanley added some of these devices just for the movie -- which, if you think about it, is you might expect somebody with an intrinsically theatrical sensibility to do to "open up" a play for film.)

What I didn't expect was the outlandishly broad comedy of Streep's "The Devil Wears a Bonnet" performance. I think that is probably a compliment, and I don't think she's getting enough credit for how funny she is. "Doubt" may be a work that touches on Serious Issues (sex abuse in the church, the evils of gossip, the weighing of greater and lesser sins, the obligations of that come with intuition and experience -- and the paradoxes of doubt) but it's also by the guy who wrote "Moonstruck" and "Joe vs. the Volcano." Streep attacks it with sketch-comedy gusto, and there were whole scenes, memorably the inspection of Sister James' classroom and the high-voltage showdowns between Sister Aloysius and Father Flynn, when I couldn't stop chortling like a schoolboy. I don't believe my laughter was inappropriate:

Flynn: "Where's your compassion?"

Aloysius: "Nowhere you can get at it."

That's a doozy of a punch line, and Streep knows it. (If I'm wrong about that, then there hasn't been a performance this misconceived since Faye Dunaway in "Mommie Dearest.")

But where does the "doubt" come in?

"Life might very well lack purpose, and it might very well be a struggle. But that doesn't mean you have to be an asshole about it."

So writes Ali Arikan in his thoroughly illuminating (and not at all repetitious) "Imagining Sisyphus Happy: A 'Groundhog Day' Retrospective" at The House Next Door. This is one of those appreciations that lights up the movie from within, and makes you happy reading just it, as the writer weaves together detailed observations of the film itself and parallels to "It's A Wonderful Life," "The Sopranos," Schopenhauer and Camus. And it's funny!

A shot of a blue sky (cotton-white clouds floating, lazily, across the screen) opens the film. Every few seconds the shot changes--yet it remains the same. The sky is blue, the clouds as pearly as before and still in their hazy dance, even though they are not the same as the ones from the previous shot. It is a visual metaphor that permeates the rest of the film. That it is intertwined with an otherworldly small town marching band track only adds to the positively Lynchian feel.

One of my favorite movie lines ever, impeccably written and delivered so that it has stayed fresh and funny for me every single day since I first heard it 30 years ago:

"We saw the new Lina Wertmuller film.... I loved it. Phil thought it was flawed."

-- Patti (Lisa Lucas), the 15-year-old daughter of Jill Clayburgh's title character in "An Unmarried Woman" (1978) by Paul Mazursky

BTW, I'm struck that studios hardly ever make mainstream movies like this anymore, naturalistic, humanistic comedy-dramas about adults who look, talk and behave like adults -- or like15-year-olds, depending on the circumstances. "An Unmarried Woman" is flawed, and I love it. (Clayburgh's shrink still drives me up the wall, but I never doubted that she was a dead-accurate caricature. Now I think she's hilarious; I used to just feel outrage that she was so full of shit and granola: "Guilt is a man-made emotion.... Turn off the guilt.")

Even if the movie plays like a '70s period picture in some ways (and it did then, too -- because it was made and set in a recognizable '70s New York movie-milieu), it's as smart and honest and observant as ever. Almost shockingly so, given what's passing for adult drama on big screens right this minute....

It's the "Number One Movie in America!" Again. Who wrote it? The "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" screenplay is credited to its star Kevin James and Nick Bakay, who also wrote and co-starred in some episodes of James' TV series, "King of Queens." Meanwhile, an anonymous tipster ("Nomen Nescio") who claims to have worked on the film has sent me a link to an award-winning, undated (but pre-2004) script named "Mall Cop" by a self-described ghostwriter named Alfred Thomas Catalfo, whose IMDb credits include the shorts "The Norman Rockwell Code" (2006) and "The Stag Hunt" (2008).

So, would you believe that "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" is based on an award-winning screenplay by an uncredited writer? What's the story? Or is there one? Surely more than two scripts have been written involving mall cops in "Die Hard" parodies. And maybe it's a coincidence that the movie was shot in New England, where Catalfo is also based....

UPDATE (2/5/09): Catalfo now tells The Boston Herald that he got a rejection letter from Adam Sandler's Happy Madison productions saying they prefer to develop their projects "in house."

(tip: Daily Dish)

Tom Brokaw, NBC News: "It's unfortunate for Vice President Cheney to have had this accident obviously, because there will be those who don't like him, who will be writing tomorrow that he had a Dr. Strangelove appearance as he appeared today in his wheelchair."

Brokaw brought it up. Judge for yourself. Did it occur to Brokaw that that this could have been a wily piece of black-hearted/suited satirical stagecraft on Cheney's part? Wonder what was in those boxes that he was reportedly moving -- himself -- when he injured his back. Shreddable secret documents, perhaps? Or could the former CEO of Halliburton not afford to hire movers?

(AP Photo)

UPDATE: Reports that the ex-VP was doing a little recreational waterboarding down by the Potomac when he slipped on the ice have not been confirmed.

If there's any doubt in your mind (and I can't imagine why there would be) that "Pineapple Express" is a head trip movie about stoners imagining themselves the heroes of a movie they'd like to see, the final morning-after breakfast-and-bonding scene (not to mention the Robert Palmer "Woke up laughing" snippet followed by the Huey Lewis song over the end credits) drives it home like Bubby. The "Extended Version" now on DVD and Blu-ray goes even further. The guys re-live their movie, summing up what they've shared, and what they've learned.

Check out the clip above (WARNING -- spoilers and R-rated language), and then continue below for the Huey Lewis plot-synopsis lyrics. Director David Gordon Green reportedly asked just three things: 1) that it sound like his '80s stuff; 2) that it contain repeated mentions of the movie title; and 3) that it contain something like a plot synopsis. I smell Oscar! (In a good way...)

P.S. Hey, man, have you ever played "Dark Side of the Moon" at the same time as "The Wizard of Oz"... ?

I'm off this week, though I may post a few short items if I get the opportunity. Meanwhile, do you have some thanks to offer the Governor of Alaska?

This is how you promote a movie. As for The Dance: It's not just Molly Ringwald in "The Breakfast Club," Duckie (in "Pretty in Pink"), Carmen Miranda and Jimmy Carter. There's definitely an element of Elaine in "Seinfeld"...

I hear a worldwide sigh of relief. This is just the beginning. We need to put the eight-year nightmare behind us and get some real healing done. But, you know, the truth is healing, and so is laughter. So, one more for the road...

(tip: Andrew Sullivan)

Actual ad from a place called The Patriot Depot, A Division of Discount Book Distributors:

(tip: Alex Koppelman)

This is has been the script co-written by Sarah Palin & William Kristol (uncredited) all along. And once again John McCain played his part in the scenario, opposite the real Palin (Tina Fey's) on "Saturday Night Live." The 2012 Palin rallies (no mention of McCain) are already being held in places like Florida. As I said in my earlier piece, what started out as the "Mrs. Smith Goes to Washington" political narrative has now become "All About Eve" -- the rogue diva backstabbing the soon-to-be-washed-up old vet. Does McCain know he's been cast in the Bette Davis role?

Hang on, Republicans, it's gonna be a bumpy four years...

The latest in a series. Real politicians and comedians show you how to use simple word/image associations to create creepy political ads as seen on TV and the Internets!

Make your own here.

"Not since 'Sling Blade' has there been a voice that anybody could do.... Anybody can take a swing at this voice."

"You have to be able to goof on the female politicians just as much, otherwise you really are treating them like they're weaker or something."

Also, she gives credit to Seth Meyers for being the primary writer of the Palin SNL sketches. Classy broad.

(Ebert on McCain on Letterman, plus clips, here.)

"W." is the third in what could turn out to be Oliver Stone's five-part trilogy of movies containing pronounceable capital letters in the titles (after "JFK" and "U-Turn"), if you don't count "Natural Born Killers" and "World Trade Center," sometimes known as "NBK" and "WTC," respectively, in which case it may already be the fifth film in a proposed diptych about the tetralogy of power.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but the timing seems inopportune. Few public figures have faded into irrelevance more quickly in recent months than George W. Bush, whose popularity and name-recognition numbers are now running slightly behind Sanjaya, and I'm not sure I remember who that was.

... and what was that ending supposed to mean?

WARNING: HBO-rated profanity and imagery discussed -- including language previously restricted to top-level government officials, mostly during the Nixon and Cheney administrations.

(tip: Andrew Sullivan)

Rarely has an American political candidate triggered so many associations with a famed British comedy troupe of stage, screen, television and phonograph recordings:

"I used to think that Michael Palin was the funniest Palin on earth.... [Sarah Palin] is like a nice-looking parrot, because the parrot speaks beautifully and kinda says 'Aw, shucks,' every now and again, but doesn't really have any understanding of the meaning of the words that it is producing, even though it's producing them very accurately.... I mean, Monty Python could have written this."

-- John Cleese, co-founder of Monty Python's Flying Circus (Clip here.)

(See above. Monty Python did.)

"But Palin is as ridiculous as the competitors from Monty Python's Upperclass Twit of the Year competition, jumping over hurdles that are nothing more than a stack of matchbooks." -- Anne Lamott, Salon.com

"Cue marching band music and a big cartoon foot. US Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, hackers have revealed, has used a Yahoo! free webmail account to talk government business with aides."

-- David Winder, ITwire

"As Monty Python used to say, 'No one expects the Spanish Inquisition' -- which is another way of saying that no one expects the unexpected."

-- Mark J. Penn, Politico

So many times over the last nine years (especially the last nine years) I have watched politicians on television and thought of John Cleese. No so much of the parrot sketch (to which he also alludes in the quotation above) but of another beloved Python bit he did...

We've gotta cash in on this quick, so here's my pitch:

Tina Fey plays Sarah Palin as Tina Fey as Sarah Palin in a semi-remake of "Dave."

Animal Control nabs Palin off the street, mistaking her for a stray pit bull whose previous owner tested makeup on animals. Palin is asked to host "SNL" the week before the election, but nobody notices she's missing because the McCain campaign is so successful at keeping her away from the press that they forget where they put her. Security is airtight. Because Fey does a better Palin than Palin does, she is forced to do the show as Palin as Fey as Palin.

"All the really good suicide bombers are gone," laments a trio of bumbling Afghan terrorists early on in "An American Carol," and that's about the high-water mark for humor in this jaw-droppingly awful political comedy from veteran spoofer David Zucker.

-- Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

After "An American Carol" opened in some cities last week, RogerEbert.com received a few insinuating inquiries from readers asking why we did not publish a review of the film , a biographical musical celebration of the beloved wide-mouthed Broadway star of "Hello, Dolly!". The comedy, directed and co-written by David Zucker ("Airplane!"), is a conservative re-telling of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol, with a fat, unscrupulous, bespectacled, baseball-capped, America-hating documentarian named Michael Malone (played by the late Chris Farley's brother Kevin) as the Scrooge figure. Our correspondents suggested that, because the movie's politics reportedly tilted to the right, perhaps the liberal falafel-loving media establishment was deliberately ignoring it. (Meanwhile, the conservative corporate media establishment was evidently off celebrating a lonely cinematic triumph in a quiet place.)

Oddly, we did not receive a single comment or e-mail asking why we did not carry a review of "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," the Number One Movie of last weekend, but the reasons are the same: neither "An American Carol" nor "BHC" were screened for critics. That is usually the studios' way of ensuring that reviews do not appear on opening day. If any critic-type person still wants to cover it, he or she can simply buy a ticket to a show on Friday or Saturday and file a notice over the weekend.

RottenTomatoes lists 65 reviews for "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" (27 positive), 119 for "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" (85 positive), and 28 for "An American Carol" (4 positive), all of which opened the same day.

To help fill in the critical information gap, are some excerpts from the few higher-profile "American Carol" reviews I could find, some of which are kind of funny. The first one is from a review RT.com categorizes as "fresh":

And, if she does, how many viewers will be able to tell the difference? Is this gonna be the talent portion?

Bill Zwecker reports in the Chicago Sun-Times:

It's looking more and more likely that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will appear on ''Saturday Night Live'' -- to have some fun with Tina Fey.

As the comedian's impressions of the GOP vice presidential candidate draw laughs from Republicans and Democrats alike, a top honcho from the John McCain campaign tells me there's a debate going on about how to respond.

I can't get enough of Tina Fey's Sarah Palin. I feel about her the way I felt about Dr. Evil in the first "Austin Powers" movie. My eyes light up whenever she's on camera. And then, of course, there are those little starbursts she sends through the screen that go ricocheting around the living rooms of America, as first reported by Rich Lowry of the National Review.

Something strange is happening, though: Fey's Palin is not only sharper and funnier than Palin's Palin, she's also more vivid, more... real (maybe because she's on TV more). It's as if she's the main Palin and the other one is the paler surrogate Palin. In other words, for you baby boomers, Tina Fey's Palin is the Dick York and Sarah Palin's Palin is the Dick Sargent. Sure, they're both bewitching in their own ways, but Fey's is the real Darrin. If you know what I mean.

I was looking forward to the VP Debate opening sketch on "SNL" as much as the debate itself, and I was not disappointed by either. I'm guessing that former "SNL" head-writer Fey contributes to these because they're "30 Rock" precise -- more pointed than what usually passes for "SNL" political humor. (I didn't make it through the obviously obligatory finanical bailout sketch in the first half hour of the show, even though Fred Armisen's Barney Frank was a hoot).

Michael Cera, on his decision to act in "Juno" (or "Juneau"):

"Well, I had a feeling when I took the part that something like that would happen, that Sarah Palin would run and her teen would be pregnant, and so I'm glad that it finally was fulfilled."

☺☺☺☺

The Fargo Interview, with Marge Gunderson:

Gosh darn it, whether ya just love her or ya can't stand her, there's something about that Sarah Palin that's got everybody talkin' -- whether it's tryin' to talk her kinda plain ol' "Say it ain't so, Joe Sixpack" Hockey Mom talk, or just tryin' to figure out what the heck the gal is sayin'! Can ya tell what she thinks she means when she flaps that lipstick, or do ya just like the sparkle motion she makes when the words come out? Get back to me on that! Anyways, here we go again, with a buncha ways of looking at that Sarah Palin Talk that everybody's talkin' about:

Linguist Steven Pinker, "Everything You Heard Is Wrong," New York Times, October 4, 2008:

Since the vice presidential debate on Thursday night, two opposing myths have quickly taken hold about Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska. The first, advanced by her supporters, is that she made it through a gantlet of fire; the second, embraced by her detractors, is that her speaking style betrays her naïveté. Both are wrong. [...]

But it would be unfair to question the authenticity of her accent or to use it as a measure of her intellect or sophistication. The dialect is certainly for real. Listeners who hear the Minnewegian sounds of the characters from "Fargo" when they listen to Ms. Palin are on to something: the Matanuska-Susitna Valley in Alaska, where she grew up, was settled by farmers from Minnesota during the Depression.

A boardroom speech from banker Thomas Dickson, written by Robert Ryskin, directed by Frank Capra and delivered by Walter Huston in "American Madness" (1932). Capra and Ryskin collaborated on many films, including "Lady for a Day," "It Happened One Night," "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town," "Lost Horizon" and "Meet John Doe."

One of the things film critics do for a living is to pay close attention to how people behave, and how that behavior is presented through visual media. This applies not only to actors playing characters, but to people who play themselves, in fictional or nonfictional settings, on and off the screen. It should come as no surprise to learn that some of our best movie critics have backgrounds in psychology.

When Bill Clinton said, "I did not have sex with that woman," it now seems impossible to believe that he fooled anyone at that particular moment. But if any movie critic misread Clinton's voice and body language, that critic should have been impeached. As opaque as the clumsy verbal gymnastics of George W. Bush and Sarah Palin may often be, behind the contortions it's hard to avoid seeing the painful truth, which is simply that they don't know what their own words mean, and even when they know what they've been told to say they don't know how to communicate it. As actors, they're thoroughly unconvincing: You can see the wheels turning inside their heads -- only the gears aren't even engaged. There's a lot of whirring and spinning, but nothing happens. That can be excruciating to watch, but it's also the stuff of modern comedy. Christopher Guest, Ricky Gervais, Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Jon Stewart, Samantha Bee, Stephen Colbert and the whole Judd Apatow crew come to mind.

Patrick Goldstein, writing in the Los Angeles Times, argues that film critics like Roger Ebert, sophisticated in their knowledge of media presentation and human behavior, make more insightful political pundits than the usual beltway-bubble spin-docs employed by television, radio, print and online outlets. In a piece called "From film critic to political pundit," Goldstein writes:

To me, film critics, like TV and theater critics, are especially well equipped to analyze today's politics, which is why Frank Rich made such a seamless transition from theater to media and political commentator. In fact, in some ways film critics are probably better equipped to assess the political theater of today's presidential campaigns, since our campaigns are -- as has surely been obvious for some time -- far more about theater and image creation than politics.

A comedy thought experiment: You've gotta admit, they make it look so easy. Too easy. But they were doing television sketch comedy before SNL and Mad TV and Fox News rediscovered them. Now, as they're being further exposed to audiences of all persuasions, more and more people are saying: "They were so funny, I may previously have forgotten to laugh!" No longer! We're in comedy mode!

UPDATE: She's so quick, I can't even keep up with her anymore. Now she's given us new material on her preferred news sources and the Supreme Court! She's got a million of 'em -- and she'll be here all month! Probably.

Compare and contrast with another famous TV comedy sketch after the jump....

I'm posting this not just because I'm (still) in love with Sarah Silverman (though I am), and not just because she's a genius (though, of course, she is), and not just because of the overt political humor in this short film (though The Great Schlep is an inspired idea), but because of how it relates to recent Scanners posts about comedy and understanding what the joke is. (See posts and discussions regarding "Tropic Thunder," "Juneau," and David Foster Wallace.)

So, please watch the above movie and then provide your interpretation of it, by considering my questions after the jump...

NEW! Version 1.1. Now with easier-to-read captions!

Everything I know about economics I learned from the movies. (Collected knowledge after the jump.) So when times get tough, I consult Preston Sturges. Here, I have condensed the financial wisdom of a lifetime into less than five minutes -- all of it distilled from 1937's "Easy Living," written by Sturges, directed by Mitchell Leisen, and starring Jean Arthur, Edward Arnold, Ray Milland, Mary Nash, Franklin Pangborn, Luis Alberni and Andrew Tombes, among many others.

Sturges himself puts in an appearance to explain the key principle behind all successful investment strategies.

And in his movie, there's a happy ending.

Can Tina Fey get an Emmy just for this? I know, it's almost too easy. But she's flawless. I knew she was a terrific writer and comedian (er, "comedienne"?), especially from "30 Rock," but I don't think I ever fully realized what a brilliant actor (er, "actress") she is.

And now, conservative columnist David Brooks of the New York Times on a word familiar to "SNL" viewers: "prudent"...

Test: Can you find something -- a shot or a cut or a line -- in this trailer for "Crash" -- The Dramatic New Original Series Only On Starz -- that isn't a howler of a cliché? Ready? Let's see, it begins with someone who sounds suspiciously like the late Don LaFontaine intoning:

"Everyone's chasing something. And when they find it, they want more."

(Imagine that prefaced by: "In a world where...")

And then (just like the movie) characters define themselves in didactic speeches. Maybe it's Brechtian. Sometimes they actually look into the camera and tell you who they are and what they "want." Those parts may have been shot just for the trailer, but the effect is very like the Academy Award-winning movie:

"I don't break the rules. I, uh, bend 'em."

"I deserve their respect. As a cop. And as a woman."

"With that much cash you can buy your American Dream."

"I'm willing to cross a line."

"I need to bury my past... before it buries me."

"I have everything I need. And nothing I want."

In a Coen Brothers movie every pause and stutter, every "um" and grammatical (mis-)construction, every repetition and idiosyncratic pronunciation, is inscribed like a note on a musical staff. The composer-conductors write the music, indicate the pitch, tempo and duration of each passage, and the select musicians -- soloists and ensemble players -- attack their assigned parts with the virtuoso flair for which they are known. As composers have often written works specifically suited to the talents of their favorite musicians, so the Coens frequently write roles tailored to the individual actors they want to work with.

"Burn After Reading" is a deft little piece, directed with a straight face and performed with a roiling comedic energy that matches brio with precision. That's what makes it funny. Emmanuel Lebezki's cinematography, Carter Burwell's score, Roderick Jaynes' editing (yes, we all know that's a pseudonym) could proudly serve any modern espionage picture. All serve a ridiculously plotted absurdist farce, which is what the best spy stories usually boil down to, whether they're comic or tragic.

I had just begun working on a piece about how comedy is the the only adequate response to the modern world, and the most profound approach to exploring and understanding the modern human psyche... when this happened. The folly and tragedy of human existence, and the indifferent and inhospitable relationship of the universe to human needs and desires, can be plumbed only by the sharpest and most penetrating comedy, without which tragedy loses its meaning and its deepest pain. And sometimes it just happens without comedy writers needing to make anything up. Or is it the other way around? Miss Congeniality. Elle Woods. Tracy Flick. Could this be an example of life imitating comedy?

Maureen Dowd in The New York Times takes a lighter comedic view:

So imagine my delight, my absolute astonishment, when the hokey chick flick came out on the trail, a Cinderella story so preposterous it's hard to believe it's not premiering on Lifetime. Instead of going home and watching "Miss Congeniality" with Sandra Bullock, I get to stay here and watch "Miss Congeniality" with Sarah Palin. [...]

This chick flick, naturally, features a wild stroke of fate, when the two-year governor of an oversized igloo becomes commander in chief after the president-elect chokes on a pretzel on day one.

The movie ends with the former beauty queen shaking out her pinned-up hair, taking off her glasses, slipping on ruby red peep-toe platform heels that reveal a pink French-style pedicure, and facing down Vladimir Putin in an island in the Bering Strait. Putting away her breast pump, she points her rifle and informs him frostily that she has some expertise in Russia because it's close to Alaska. "Back off, Commie dude," she says. "I'm a much better shot than Cheney."

[UPDATE: Now comes news from the McCain-Palin campaign that there's an unmarried, pregnant 17-year-old daughter in the pro-family Palin household. You can't make this stuff up. Reuters reports that the minor is "about five months pregnant and is going to keep the child and marry the father, according to aides of Republican presidential candidate John McCain." Damn right she will. It's written into the GOP platform!]

Quite often, the behavior of public figures displays a cosmic humor beyond anything a comedy writer could actually have gotten away with. In this case, the joke would seem too crass and cynical if it weren't for real. Now its crassness and cynicism give the humor real bite. A week ago if some film or television writer had proposed this preposterous scenario (old politician chooses Alaskan creationist former small-town mayor and beauty contest winner as running mate), it would have just seemed mean and a little desperate. Now? Well, see "Ham Sandwich McCain's Actual Choice for Veep." It no longer seems so far-fetched.

Now you have to wonder: Why didn't he choose someone more qualified? Like Harriet Miers?

When it comes to experience, Dan Quayle was the natural choice -- but his Y chromosome made him ineligible in the all-important tokenism category. (Brownie could bring his hurricane ineptitude to the table, but he's still sporting a scrotum so that won't play.) The main attribute McCain's running mate needed was that she be able to play up her sisterhood with Senator Hillary Clinton, the veteran politician so long beloved and revered by the Republican Party. That and she had to have spunk. The convention is in Minneapolis, and she's gonna make it after all.

Once comedy of this magnitude has occurred, and satire has been rendered superfluous, the really brilliant comedians have only to recognize the situation for what it is. I'm tremendously grateful, then, that Jon Stewart, with his unerring eye for future casting opportunities, and Samantha Bee, with her sharp-as-a-tack "lady brain," found exactly the right words to summarize the genius behind this unprecedented decision.

(Transcript below, after the jump.)

The phrase above was the name I gave to the arts section I edited at the University of Washington Daily. I thought (and still think) it was funny, while it also satirizes the central conceit of writing about culture, whether it's "high culture" or "popular culture." (If I made a Venn diagram of those categories they would significantly overlap.) I still have a rubber stamp that says, "This is not art." I got it about 30 years ago. Sometimes I like to get it out and stamp it on things because I think it is absolutely hilarious -- both as a comment on art and a comment on criticism. I laugh and laugh, even if it's only on the inside.

The dialog that sets it up and spells it out for you. An inspired expository montage by Matt Zoller Seitz. What can I say?

The award winner for best short film at the 2007 US Comedy Arts Festival (now known simply as The Comedy Festival) was "My Wife Is Retarded," starring Gary Cole, Sean Astin, Leslie Bibb, Phyllis George and George Segal. It was written and directed by Etan Cohen, co-writer of "Tropic Thunder." Other than that, all I know about it is the IMDb plot description: "A man learns the secret behind his perfect marriage."

Are you offended yet? I can't say if I am, because I haven't seen the movie. If the premise is that an intellectually disabled woman is the ideal spouse, or that all women are intellectually disabled, well... I might find that deplorable, depending on how it's presented. Is the movie advocating that point of view? Is it "joking" the way R--- L------- used to about "feminazis," implying that a woman's place is in a coma? Is it the husband who wishes his wife was intellectually impaired? Does she feel like that's what her husband expects from her? There are so many conceptual approaches you could imagine for a movie of that title, some of which seem to offer comedic possibilities, and others that are maybe not-so-promising. But you never know until you actually see it. And, for some people, not even then.

I will not give away any jokes here (though too many reviews will), just one small concept: In "Tropic Thunder," Ben Stiller plays a not-very-talented actor who has made a widely loathed movie called "Simple Jack" (explicitly a parody of Sean Penn's "I Am Sam") that flopped ignominiously, failing to earn him the Oscar nomination he so desperately, transparently (and cynically) expected. Both Penn and "I Am Sam" are mentioned by name -- as are the Oscar-winning performances by Dustin Hoffman in "Rain Man" and Tom Hanks in "Forrest Gump." They should have thrown in Robin Williams in "Patch Adams." (Look for the glimpse of Penn and some other well-known actors in award-seeking stunt-roles near the end.)

From start to finish, the target of the satire here is Hollywood. As Roger Ebert describes it: "The movie is a send-up of Hollywood, actors, acting, agents, directors, writers, rappers, trailers and egos..." There's even a funny moment with a key grip that's even funnier if you know what a key grip is.

And yet, according to an article in Monday's New York Times: "A coalition of disabilities groups is expected as early as Monday to call for a national boycott of the film 'Tropic Thunder' because of what the groups consider the movie's open ridicule of the intellectually disabled."

This has got to be a joke.

This ad in The New York Times makes me unreasonably, but not unaccountably, happy. Who would have thought, only a year or so ago, that a major studio summer picture could be promoted with those (half-) faces and last names?

Rogen. Franco.

Like: Pacino. De Niro. Or: DiCaprio. Crowe.

What more do you really need to say? The title will be a mystery to most people until they see the movie, but it should already be clear to everyone by now that "Pineapple Express" is the greatest movie ever made.

Now, for the penultimate time! Ten years in the development vault! Dripping wet from the subcutaneous epidural labs! Writer-Producer-Director-Hyphenate Andre Perkowski and Terminal Pictures Presents the previously unclaimed, unfulfilled trailer for Edward D. Wood Jr.'s "The Devil Girls"!!! You'll thrill to their prevailing sex urges for lust, dementia and forbidden entertainment!

The excerpt below is from a piece I wrote at MSN Movies about what films of the past can teach us about the politics of the present. It's called Lights, Camera, Election! Political lessons we learned from the movies:

Events are more carefully staged and scripted than ever, and the mainstream media cover the photo ops, "press conferences" and "debates" as if they were actually news. Even Baghdad can be just another studio back lot: McCain claimed to "walk freely" in a market there and complained Americans weren't getting the full picture of U.S. successes in Iraq -- neglecting to mention his escort of 100 soldiers, three Blackhawk helicopters and two Apache gunships, conveniently off-camera.

With an eye toward Kevin Costner's "Swing Vote" (and Oliver Stone's "W."), I've rounded up a focus group of eight educational movies about politics (though many more could be added to the list): "The Candidate," "Election," "Primary Colors," "Nashville," "Bulworth," "Wag the Dog," "Homecoming" and (of course!) "Duck Soup."

This is my condensed version of David Fincher's 1999 comedy masterpiece, "Fight Club," to accompany and expand on my personal/critical essay below. Notice that only one punch is thrown. The violence is psychological, inner-directed and apocalyptic. That's the idea. See for yourself. (Speaking of condensation: Did you know that you can make explosives from soap and condensed orange juice? Tyler Durden says so. But don't talk about it.)

PLAY THIS MOVIE LOUD.

Spoilers abound.

"...There is nothing either good or
bad, but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison."
-- "Hamlet" Act 2, scene 2

If you've ever suffered from clinical depression, you know the experience is impossible to convey to someone who hasn't also gone through it. It doesn't make sense. It's like trying to describe why you love somebody. How do you explain a lack of feeling, or interest, or pleasure, that is both numbing and excruciatingly painful? How do you account for a disconnection with the past and any conception of a future? It's not "living in the moment" -- it's being stuck in a moment from which you can't imagine any escape -- not just the feeling that this asphyxiating near-deadness will go on forever, but that you can't imagine ever having felt any other way (even though, logically, you know that is not possible). You can remember feeling pleasure -- no, make that "having felt pleasure" -- but you have no memory of what it actually felt like.

One of the (many) reasons I probably connect so strongly with David Fincher's "Fight Club" (1999) is that, by capturing clinical depression more accurately than any other movie I've ever seen (though Laurent Cantet's "Time Out" and Eric Steel's "The Bridge" delve mighty deep into that abyss), it helped shake me out of the grips of a depression that was sucking me down at the time. I was the only person in the theater convulsed with laughter from beginning to end, because it was liberating, exhilarating, to see the truth of my own inner experience reflected back at me in its funhouse mirror. I recognized myself in the movie, relished the psychological acuteness of what I was seeing, felt its black absurdity resonate in my poor, chemically imbalanced noggin. From the very first images deep inside the human brain, I felt it could not be about anything else, even though I didn't know where it was going to go from there.

(Spoilers? Oh, yes.)

You know what? "Sex and the City" was for girls! Yes, it's true. First it was for (and about) gay boys, but eventually it revolved around a certain brand of perfume-insert, fashion-magazine womankind: rich, white, co-dependent, status-obsessed, desperate for a man to complete her.

Know what else? Judd Apatow makes movies about guys -- and heterosexual relationships with women, but mainly about what used to be known as "male bonding." (The fashionable term now is "bro-mance," which is cuter and invoked largely by what used to be called "metrosexuals.") The Apatow guy tends to be underemployed, white, Jewish (or Canadian), slobby, geeky, smelly, childish (not just "childlike") and more or less happy, unaware that he's desperate for a woman to complete him. Then, once he becomes aware, he's not entirely sure that's possible, or desirable.

This, I submit, is a minor breakthrough in romantic comedy. OK, perhaps I am single and bitter, but I'm also right.

In the New York Sun (also known as "the conservative New York Sun"), Steve Dollar mentions that Catherine Keener's character in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" "pretty much takes the blame for making the poor guy sell all his collectible model toys (but whose side is Apatow on?), and spends much of her screen time mothering her infantile boyfriend."

Is that what happens? Even if so, whose side is Mr. Dollar on? (And who said it was necessary to divine and choose "sides"?)

"Exclusive Video: Comedy Genius Robert De Niro Dazzles Us with Best Performance in Years." That was the headline at Defamer after De Niro's speech Monday night at the Film Society of Lincoln Center tribute to Meryl Streep.

Comedy genius? Defamer facetiousness? You decide. The words "De Niro" and "comedy" do not generally belong in the same sentence because (with the notable exception of "King of Comedy," "Hi, Mom!," "Midnight Run" and moments in "New York, New York" -- all of which get good laughs from extreme discomfort) he couldn't be funny if he tried -- and that's precisely the problem. He tries so very hard. In this speech, read from index cards, he tossed off canned one-liners like a bored celeb hired to appear at an industrial -- say, the Upper West Side Association of Farsighted Florists.

Wasn't he funnier in "Cape Fear"?

Excerpt from an Apatowian appreciation I wrote for MSN Movies, covering "Freaks & Geeks" to "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" to "Knocked Up" and "Superbad" and "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" (with the inconspicuous omission of "Drillbit Taylor"):

Writer/director/producer Judd Apatow, the man Entertainment Weekly recently crowned the 'Smartest Person in Hollywood,' has made a solemn promise to put a penis -- at least one penis -- into every movie he makes from now on. He's slipped penises into his pictures before, of course: all those obsessive-compulsive drawings in "Superbad," his own on comically disconcerting display in "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story," and Jason Segel's for a humiliating breakup in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall." Sometimes, too, his films include breasts and vaginas. And there are perfectly good reasons for that. Not the least of which is that all genitalia and externally visible glands are funny.

"Forgetting Sarah Marshall," starring and written by Jason Segel ("Freaks and Geeks," "Undelcared," "Knocked Up") opens April 18. Last month, after an early screening, Jeffrey Wells at Hollwyood Elsewhere revealed that the idea of "marginally unattractive guys -- witty stoners, clever fatties, doughy-bodied dorks, thoughtful-sensitive dweebs and bearish oversize guys in their 20s and 30s" playing "romantic leads" just doesn't wash with him ("Eclipse of the Hunk?").

"Question is, what if this starts to manifest in realms outside Apatow World?" he frets. God forbid. Upon seeing Segel's upper torso at the beginning of "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" (this is before all the rest of him is bared to the world in a painfully funny break-up scene), Wells says:

I immediately went, "Oh, sh-t...I'm stuck with this dude for the whole film." Segel is an obviously bright guy with moderately appealing features, but he also has a chunky, blemished ass and little white man-boobs, and he could definitely use a little treadmill and stairmaster time and a serious cutback program regarding pasta, Frito scoop chips, Ben & Jerry's and Fatburger takeout. I don't relate to this sh-t at all, I was muttering to myself.

UPDATED (03/15/08)

(My review of "Funny Games" is here. See also Your User's Guide to Movie Violence, a discussion below.)

* * * *

"You Must Admit, You Brought This On Yourself"
-- advertising tagline, and line of dialog, from "Funny Games" (2008)

"Funny Games" (the 2008 Hollywood movie-star version of the virtually identical 1997 Euro-version) is a conceptual work, an aestheticized test. It's debatable whether the movie (already a replica) is necessary, except as an object that represents the larger concept -- like, say, an Andy Warhol Brillo box or Jeff Koons' vacuum cleaners in plexiglass cases.

You could say something similar about the high-concept "Snakes On a Plane," and you'd be right. The difference is that the marketing campaign behind the packaging of "Snakes On a Plane" was designed to sell exactly the entertainment experience that the title promised. With "Funny Games," there's a deliberate element of bait-and-switch involved. It's being sold as entertainment, but that's not at all what it intends to deliver. The experience of "Funny Games" exists in the tension between the pitch and the delivery -- which will largely determine the relationship between the viewer and the film he/she sees.

So, the promotional materials for "Funny Games" (poster art, trailers, online videos, etc.) are more than the usual extensions or enhancements of the movie. They frame the experience, but they're also essential elements of the movie itself. Why you decide to watch it (or not) is every bit as central to the movie's concerns as anything in the movie itself. That may be true of any movie, but "Funny Games" puts it right there in the foreground where you can't miss it.

If you go expecting entertainment and are entertained (or, at least, terrified -- held hostage by your own expectations), that will be one thing. If you go expecting a moral lesson about the appeal of violence in movies, and you feel chastened and sullied, that will be another. If you go expecting a thriller or a comedy and find nothing thrilling or funny about it, that will be something else. If you go expecting to be toyed with and, say, enjoy feeling that you're ahead of the movie (maybe because you've already seen the 1997 version), that will provide yet another experience. If you value writer-director Michael Haneke's other work and want to see why he's chosen to remake this one... well, I hope you get the idea.

So, the first part of the experiment involves your decision to participate or not. The movie is the second part.

Back when the New German Cinema was colonizing America, my friends and I liked to transform our favorite actor-names, especially those from Fassbinder movies, into exclamations. "Ulli Lommel!" we would exclaim. Or, "Gottfried John!" (with a W.C. Fields inflection). Or, "What the Harry Baer was that!?!" The moniker-musik of Fassbinder's cinematographers alone still fill me with joy: Michael Ballhaus, Dietrich Lohmann, Xaver Schwarzenberger, Jürgen Jürges...

My dream was to hear the complete cast and credits of "Berlin Alexanderplatz" read by a National Public Radio on-air personality. Sure, every name sounds great when pronounced on NPR -- and especially "Sylvia Poggioli" or "Corey Flintoff." (I love how the second syllable of "Flintoff" falls off, like it's going over a cliff. Say that last sentence out loud. It's fun.) But what if you put the two together? It could be like peanut butter and chocolate.

What follows is a list of very, very good names for your enjoyment. They are best when you speak them with impeccable diction. And don't forget the umlauts, where appropriate. While you're doing that, can you also figure out which ones are from NPR and which are from Fassbinder? After scrambling the two lists of my favorites I'm not sure I can anymore. I will, however, say this: Rüdiger Vogler. (He's a Wim Wenders actor, not a Fassbinder vet, but he's a damn fine one with a damn fine name and I wanted to get him in here somewhere.)

UPDATE: You want to hear how it's done? Our Man In Istanbul, Ali Arikan, reads some Fassbinderian names with poetic precision here.

Before the jump, here's a few to get you started -- but beware, there are three tricks!

1 Kai Ryssdal
2 Kurt Raab
3 Peer Raben
4 Mara Liasson
5 Ulla Jacobsson
6 Annabelle Gurwitch
7 Elisabeth Trissenaar
8 Ira Flatow
9 David Folkenflik

"We need to examine the history of blacks in film to appreciate their deep roots.... Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy, the top comedy stars of the 80s, have a strange, subversive ancestor in Stepin Fetchit, America's first black millionaire actor."
-- Richard Corliss, Time, "The 25 Most Important Films on Race"

See: "Stepin Fetchit to Denzel Washington (Part I )"

"Stepin Fetchit, then and now" by Jim Emerson (2005)

* * *

The day Clarence Thomas was nominated by George H.W. Bush for the Supreme Court, I was interviewing 23-year-old writer-director John Singleton about his upcoming movie "Boyz N the Hood" (1991). Singleton was sitting in front of a hotel-room TV tuned to CNN and the first words out of his mouth were: "He's the biggest Uncle Tom."

That memory came back again recently as I was reading Harvard Law Professor and Supreme Court bar member Randall Kennedy's book, "Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal." [1] Kennedy writes:

Sometimes "Uncle Tom" is used interchangeably with "sellout." In a Washington Post profile of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, two journalists write that "Uncle Tom is among the most searing insults a black American can hurl at a member of his own race." They describe "Uncle Tom" as a "synonym for sellout, someone subservient to whites at the expense of his own people."

This usage is ironic. The original Uncle Tom -- Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom -- was a character who chose death at the hand of his notorious owner, Simon Legree, rather than reveal the whereabouts of runaway slaves. Still there are those who use "Uncle Tom" to refer to any black whose actions, in their view, retard African-American advancement. Others are more discriminating. For many of them, the label "sellout" is more damning than "Uncle Tom" or kindred epithets -- "Aunt Thomasina," "Oreo," "snowflake," "handkerchief head," "white man's Negro," "Stepin Fetchit"....

Of course, all those terms aren't synonymous, either. The name of Stepin Fetchit is nearly as well-known, and almost synonymous with "Uncle Tom" -- and that, too, may be somewhat ironic. Fetchit (born Lincoln Perry, 1902-1985) was a tremendously popular movie star with black and white audiences. But his act, on stage and screen, was also vilified for perpetuating a stereotype of African-American men as lazy, shuffling, bowing and scraping buffoon. (Other stereotypes of black men as pimps, gangstas, rapists, con artists, drug pushers/addicts, violent criminals, woman-abusers would come from elsewhere, and long outlive him.) He was admired and in many ways emulated by Muhammad Ali, with whom he converted to the Nation of Islam, and he was honored with an NAACP Image Award in 1976.

But how many people today have actually seen him in a movie?

Sarah Silverman stands against an overexposed white background, addressing the camera (and her boyfriend of five years, talk show host Jimmy Kimmel). "Hey Jimmy," she says, "It's me." It's the quintessential Silverman line delivery: faux-awkward, sweet and self-consciously cute, but so sharp and precisely targeted that it almost hurts a little. Of course it's her. But where is she?

Well, she's in some netherworld hotel, neither here nor there -- been on the road so long, you know, she's not even sure what city she's in, to be honest -- and she has something on her mind, something she's been meaning to tell Jimmy, that she's been carrying around with her like excess baggage. Dressed in a snug, lipstick-magenta/pink shirt, she stands out, flush and ripe, from the soft pale light that envelops her. She strolls to the right, from one lush, clean-green tropical split-leaf philodendron to another, a sexy and innocent Eve in the unspoiled Garden of Eden (or a hotel lobby facsimile thereof). Her delicate fingers stroke a wistful figure on her guitar, again and again, as she works up the backbone to expose her true feelings. (Insert what we imagine to be a typical candid photo of the happy couple: Silverman draped adoringly over the shoulders of a drunken, blurry-eyed Kimmel.)

The segue, if you call it that, is abrupt, jarring. Cut to a close-up of her guitar ("Here it goes...") and a crunching electric riff begins. Medium shot of Silverman as she sings the first line (and the title), with an expression of "Omygod!" on her face, like a teenage girl at a slumber party confessing a crush on the cutest boy in school: "I'm f***ing Matt Damon!" This is inappropriate. Not only is she singing this to her boyfriend, she's doing it on his fifth anniversary show on network TV. She has not only swallowed the forbidden fruit, she has swallowed the serpent: Matt Damon!

Cut to... Damon himself, in tight black t-shirt (like snakeskin!), arms stretched cockily over the back of a white couch as if in post-coital repose. He's been seated just outside the frame, all the time, and he gives the camera a knowing, testosterone-fueled smirk: "She's f***ing Matt Damon!" He's got the cat-with-the-canary grin. The knowledge that he's avenging Kimmel's repeated, disrespectful scheduling slights is written all over his face. He is no longer the butt of the joke, he gets to deliver the punchline. Repeat. Silverman shoots him a naughty-girl look, then shifts her expression to one of rue and sorrow for: "I'm not imagining it's you." Next, in an instant, she grits her teeth and turns into Joan Jett. On cue, Damon launches into a Henry Rollins punk growl and threatens to lunge at the camera, seizing it the way we imagine him grabbing Silverman's waist before they do the nasty title phrase. It begins in a two-shot, with Silverman cheerily bending down into the frame:

On the bed, on the floor
On a towel by the door
In the tub, in the car
Up against the mini-bar

One can't help but recall Theodor Geisel's seminal "Green Eggs and Ham," in which Sam I Am pesters an increasingly exasperated, unnamed character who does not like the titular dish. In this case, however, Damon and Silverman are turning the tables: The song is an expression of rapacious appetite, and the way Damon delivers it -- with a mad glint in his eyes and a leer on his lips -- is a volatile mixture of lust and vengeful glee. He likes them apples....

From McSweeney's Internet Tendency: If Werner Herzog were a guest entertainment pundit on the VH1 TV series "Best Week Ever," discussing the success of "Juno," by Michel Duchampbuffet:

The Phenomenon of Pregnancy creates in the Physiognomy of the Host the Epitome of humanity's Displaced Cannibalistic Desires: one believes oneself to be engaging in the act of Creation, only to discover, behind the Blinding Cloak of Elation, the Insidious Mask of Suicide. One need not be reminded of the Mating Habits of the Appalachian Dung Beetle to realize that Pregnancy is merely an act of Self-Immolation, veiled by the Momentary Pleasure of Copulation so as to dispel the one Elemental Truth of Human Existence: that we are provoked not by the desire for Preservation but rather by the need for Destruction....

I'm a little confused about precisely where we stand at this very moment in the "Juno" backlash cycle, but I predict the anti-backlash backlash will begin any moment now if it hasn't already. The movie was warmly embraced at the Toronto International Film Festival (OK, the director is the son of the rich and famous Canadian director of "Stripes" and "Ghostbusters") and was greeted with predominantly positive reviews when it opened in December, although some critics, me included, thought it got off to a grating start. Roger Ebert even named it his favorite movie of 2007. My 16-year-old niece says it's her favorite film "ever."

Then came the inevitable backlash after the movie was no longer a "discovery": Why was this snarky teen comedy getting all this attention -- even Oscar buzz? (BTW, I've been doing occasional Google searches for "Juno"+"snark" since before the movie opened in December and the latest total is "about 26,500 results.") Arguments lit up all over the place. At Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, Dennis Cozzalio chose it his worst film of the year. On rock critic Jim DeRogatis's Chicago Sun-Times blog, he accused the movie of "glib insincerity," suggested it could be seen as "anti-abortion and therefore anti-woman, despite its arch post-feminist veneer," and declared, "As an unapologetically old-school feminist, the father of a soon-to-be-teenage daughter, a reporter who regularly talks to actual teens as part of his beat and a plain old moviegoer, I hated, hated, hated this movie" ("Why 'Juno' is anti-rock," "More Juno Fallout," "And even a little bit more Juno").

HEADLINE; "Lohan defends herself after arrest

AP, LOS ANGELES (July 24, 2007) -- Lindsay Lohan says she's innocent.

The 21-year-old actress was arrested and released on bail for investigation of misdemeanor driving under the influence and with a suspended license, and felony cocaine possession, early Tuesday in Santa Monica, less than two weeks after completing her second trip to rehab.

"I am innocent ... did not do drugs they're not mine. I was almost hit by my assistant Tarin's mom I appreciate everyone giving me my privacy," Lohan wrote in an e-mail to "Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush, the show reported on its Web site Tuesday night.

Police found cocaine in one of Lohan's pockets during a pre-booking search, Sgt. Shane Talbot said. Police initially said Lohan was also being booked for investigation of transporting a narcotic but later said she was not.

Police received a 911 call from the mother of Lohan's former personal assistant saying that Lohan was chasing her in an SUV, said Lt. Alex Padilla. The assistant had quit hours before, he said.

Authorities found Lohan and the woman in a "heated debate" in the parking lot of Santa Monica's Civic Auditorium at about 1:30 a.m.

Lohan's arrest comes as she still faces DUI allegations connected to a Memorial Day weekend hit-and-run crash in Beverly Hills. The actress completed more than six weeks in rehab less than two weeks ago, and had checked into a recovery clinic in January.

She had worn an alcohol-monitoring ankle bracelet since her July 13 release from rehab and was tested daily to support her sobriety, her attorney, Blair Berk, said. She said Lohan had relapsed and was receiving medical care at an undisclosed location. Lohan's publicist, Leslie Sloane Zelnik, had no comment.

This story moved me to write a song, to the tune of "Unforgettable":

Uninsurable, that's what you are
Always crashing in your fancy car
Tabloid photos, so embarrassing
Flash your breasts when you're out Paris-ing
Media whore is a role you adore, but you're

Unemployable for picture work
Unprofessional, and quite a jerk
Keep the cast and crew awaiting you
And you wonder why they're hating you
Fear next year, you're carbon-dating your career

Unreliable, and more each day
Less than "adequite" in every way
Stanwyck wore an anklet to seduce
Not to monitor her booze abuse
You're a boor, a poor excuse for loose, too

Uninsurable, in Calvin Klein
Unendurable, no sign of spine
Famous for your notoriety
Not ability, insobriety
Pie-eyed claims of future piety, pooh!

Uninsurable, such a cliché
Scourge of SAG, Double-, and Triple-A
Liquored-up but not Anonymous
"Lindsay" has become synonymous
With pathetic DUI arrests, eeww...

See also: Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Denials Go Better Without Coke

"Flamers" was the title of a screenplay by Barry Fanaro ("The Golden Girls," "Kingpin," "Men in Black II") that had been re-written by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor ("Citizen Ruth," "Election," "About Schmidt," "Sideways"). Once Adam Sandler decided to star in the movie, this script was serially re-written some more by Sandler, his friends, and various others. The result opened this weekend as "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry," directed by Dennis Dugan ("Happy Gilmore," "Big Daddy," "The Benchwarmers").

The film has not been well-received by critics (14% at Rottentomatoes.com at this writing). Manohla Dargis, in the New York Times, wrote:

Fear of a gay planet fuels plenty of American movies; it’s as de rigueur in comedy as in macho action. But what’s mildly different about “Chuck & Larry” is how sincerely it tries to have its rainbow cake and eat it too. In structural terms, the movie resembles a game of Mother May I, in that for every tiny step it takes forward in the name of enlightenment (gay people can be as boring as heterosexuals), it takes three giant steps back, often by piling on more jokes about gay sex (some involving a priceless Ving Rhames). Into this mix add the stunningly unfunny Rob Schneider, who pops up brandishing buckteeth, glasses and an odious accent in apparent homage to Mickey Rooney’s painful, misguided turn as the Japanese neighbor in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

“I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry” has been deemed safe for conscientious viewing by a representative of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, a media watchdog group. Given the movie’s contempt for women, who mainly just smile, sigh and wiggle their backdoors at the camera, it’s too bad that some lesbian (and Asian) Glaad members didn’t toss in their two cents about the movie. If Mr. Sandler dares speak in favor of gay love in “Chuck & Larry” — at least when it’s legally sanctioned, tucked behind closed doors and not remotely feminine — it’s only because homosexuality represents one type of love among men. Here, boys can be boys, together in bed and not, but heaven forbid that any of them look or behave like women.

But there's a little more to this one than the usual Sandler vehicle. New York Magazine explains some of the backstory in "A Peek at the Movie ‘Chuck & Larry’ Could Have Been":

And in the dramatic conclusion of Payne and Taylor's script, Chuck and Larry kiss on the courthouse steps — "not just a timid exchange," the stage notes add, "but the long, passionate melting together of soul-mates. Tongues and everything. Hot. Wow." Needless to say, this scene never made it into the final version.

I believe that ending was already perfomed by Will Ferrell and Sacha Baron Cohen in "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby."

Judd Apatow's "Knocked Up" ought to be the most-discussed (and argument-generating) movie of the year so far -- which means it's uncommonly smart and subversive and disturbing (and funny), especially for a summer sex comedy. I happen to think Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann, as Pete and Debbie, the bitter and resentful married couple with kids (Mann is Apatow's wife, and the kids in the movie are theirs) are the funniest characters/actors in the picture (and Kristen Wiig: amazing), mainly because their material, and their performances, are so painfully true that it's not funny. Which is what makes it so funny. It helps that all three are top-flight actors with a gift for uncanny understatement. Sometimes you don't even know if the scene is funny or not (like Debbie's suburban ambush of Pete) -- and those are inevitably the most revealing and rewarding kinds of laughs, when you surprise yourself by laughing at how awful and truthful the characters are behaving.

Anyway, I've found that some women don't like the movie, for sex-specific reasons I hope to discuss at length in the near future. Let me offer a few examples now from reviews that I think "get" "Knocked Up" -- and not from my usual suspects, either.

Anthony Lane, The New Yorker:

One night, Ben [Seth Rogen] goes to a bar, picks up a girl, and goes to bed with her. Both are drunk at the time, and both, in consequence, throw up: Ben the next morning (“I just yakked,” he says winningly over breakfast), and the girl—who is no girl but a young woman named Alison (Katherine Heigl), with a growing career on television—some weeks later, into a trash can at work. Here comes the bit that will divide Apatow’s audience and (he hopes) get them arguing over the movie: Alison decides to inform the father and, little by little, to enfold him and his oafish, froggy grin in the gentle business of parenting. Call it the taming of the Shrek. Most women, I imagine, will scoff with incredulity: this is neither a last hurrah (Alison is still in her twenties) nor the ideal time (she has a good job), and Ben is the last slob on earth she would have chosen. Most men, meanwhile, will be too busy watching through their fingers. To them, this is “The Omen.”

What's interesting about this paragraph is that it's slightly wrong. We go to the bar with the women, not the men. The gals are swept inside (even though Mann's character is really too old to be there), while we catch a glimpse of Ben and his geek buddies near the front of the line. They've probably been standing out there for hours. (This doorman scene will pay off later -- though I think it's the weakest in the movie.)

My first reaction to the Ben-Alison match was that she would never want to see him again after their one-night stand. But, like so many women, Alison is someone who falls in love with a guy for who she wants him to be, not for who he really is. (She doesn't even know who he is -- and vice-versa.) At the point where she (improbably) lets him back into her life, it's because she now views him as "the father of her child" (which, in her view though not our society's, gives him some marginal rights) and as Pete and Debbie indicate cynically at the breakfast table in front of the kids, men and women who are in love get married and have babies. Or men and women who have babies get married and fall in love. Or something like that. Alison wants to be in love with the father of her child (their child, she insists), so she is determined to make herself believe that's the case, even when it isn't, because that's the way it should be. And maybe she can even make him believe it.

My problem with Chris Rock (who belongs with Dane Cook and Carlos Mencia in the category of Comics I Don't Think are Funny) is that he too often fails to base his shtick on accurate or meaningful observations. It's just dumb shtick, and he'll say anything (no matter how pointless) to get a laugh. It's all about his hacky delivery rhythms -- Catskills via Brooklyn. What he says hardly matters as long as he sounds like he's being funny. He could be speaking Ancient Greek and he hits you so hard you'd still know exactly where you're supposed to laugh, whether it's funny or not.

Take the following, from his "SNL" appearance to promote his already-vanished movie, "I Think I Love My Wife." Most of his jokes are older than John McCain (and in the '80s these same jokes were told about Reagan and in the '90s about Bob Dole). His stuff about Giuliani being good in a crisis is fine, but the pit bull analogy is stretched to the point of desperation.

Then Rock sets up the race for the Democratic nomination: "Everybody's saying the same thing: Hillary or Obama? A black man or a white woman? It's so hard to make up my mind! Like it's a suffering contest. And even if it was, how can you compare the suffering of a white woman to the suffering of a black man?" I don't know, Chris. How can you? And who's making the comparison? Well, Rock is: "I mean, white women burned their bras. Black men were burned alive!" Lame set-up, phony-outrageous non-sequitur punchline. That's Rock in a nutshell. (This might have been funny, in a Colbert-esque way, if Rock had been in character as Nat X. Does Rock know the difference? If not, what's the point? Is anybody saying Hillary is more oppressed than Obama? It might have worked if Rock had cited an example that he could riff on.)

The line about nobody hating white women as much as white women do is pretty good. Women are certainly Hillary's main problem. And the crack about how blacks would elect Halle Berry for half a term was kind of clever, but the audience was still laughing at the idea that black voters would elect OJ.

I'd love to know what would happen if someone else -- say, Joseph Biden or Hillary or Obama -- were to toss off this line: "Is America ready for a black president? I say: Why not? We just had a retarded one!" Hey, folks: What the hell -- even black politicians are better than retarded ones, right? I wish I could say that Rock is an articulate comedian. Or an insightful one. Or a funny one. But I don't think he is. Does anyone want to explain if/why they think this monologue is funny?

Betty Hutton died earlier this week. She was 86. Her most popular movies were probably "Annie Get Your Gun," the 1950 Irving Berlin musical (directed by George Sidney) in which she played the title role of Annie Oakley; and the lumbering Cecil B. DeMille circus spectacle, "The Greatest Show on Earth" (Best Picture Oscar winner for 1952), in which she played a sexy trapeze artist.

But Hutton achieved immortality in 1944, as Trudy Kockenlocker (aka Mrs. Ignatz Ratzkywatzky) in Preston Sturges' "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek." The shot sampled at right is, in my opinion, one of the greatest in movie history. Not because it's a long dolly shot (in 1944!) that takes us all the way from the Kockenlocker's front door to the town movie theater (although, yes, that's part of it), but because it allows two splendid comic actors, Hutton as Trudy and Eddie Bracken as Norval Jones, to preserve the comic integrity of their repartee, without any cuts to destroy the rhythms of their performances.

When they leave the house, Norval thinks he's taking Trudy to a triple-feature at the movies, because her father (William Demerest) has forbidden her to go to a dance for departing soldiers. Between the front porch and the ticket booth, Trudy makes a personal appeal to the smitten, 4-F Norval, combined with a call to his patriotic duty and pity for orphan soldiers who haven't got any family to say goodbye to them, to talk Norval out of the date, and his car keys. He goes to the pictures, she goes to the dance, and... nothing is ever the same after that.

Later, when Trudy breaks the news to him that she is indeed in terrible trouble and needs his help again (after all, he did say he almost wished she'd get into awful trouble sometime so he could help her out of it -- and now he's certainly got his wish), their walk takes a different route. They don't turn at the corner to go past the garage to the theater, but continue walking down the same street, and this time the shot is broken up into several components (including two optical "close ups" that appear to be inserted in order to combine two different takes). But it still feels like one fluid take because it's three long shots joined with the two close-up inserts and one brief tracking shot where they change direction and start walking toward the camera.

Three years later, in the Technicolor Musical "The Perils of Pauline," directed by George Marshall ("You Can't Cheat an Honest Man," "Destry Rides Again," "My Friend Irma"), Hutton sang this song, "Papa Don't Preach to Me," which could have been sung by Trudy Kockenlocker herself.... Or maybe that was the Madonna version. Anyway, watch the YouTube clip.

Now papa don't preach to me, preach to me,
Papa don't preach to me.
Let my heart break while it's young
Papa don't preach to me, preach to me,
Papa don't preach to me.
Let me fling 'till my fling is all flung!

... I strolled through Paris
Today with Maurice.
The Rue De La Paix
Means "The Street of the Peace"!

Edward Copeland asks: Do certain performers affect you like the sound of nails on a chalkboard? He lists Danny Huston, Kevin Costner, Kate Capshaw and Kim Cattrall among his most shudder-worthy. Some have charisma on the screen, and some don't. Or, at least, some of us are mystified by what others see in them (I could never understand the whole Ronald Reagan-as-president thing; he always seemed to me like a minor audioanimatronic attraction at Disneyland: Doddering Moments With Mr. Reagan, the Non-Communicator).

For me, it really is an involuntary, visceral response. I'm not sure I can adequately explain my instinctive revulsion for the following (in some cases the reaction has developed over time, like an allergy, as if I've built up antibodies against them), but here they are, in no particular order:

Tom Cruise. Incapable of convincingly expressing any emotion beyond grim determination. Unless it's intensely focused ambition.

Adam Sandler. Pauly Shore, but with a more limited range. Always looks as though he's going to start laughing at how funny he thinks he is. (Yes, I make an exception for "Punch Drunk Love," but I still would rather have been watching someone else. And that one had Mary Lynn Rajskub. She saves America every week on "24," and she saved Sandler's behind in this movie.)

Robin Williams. Not well-cast in human roles. (See all of the above.)

Cuba Gooding, Jr. His career after he won an Oscar for "Jerry Maguire" has made it almost impossible to sit through any of the good stuff he did before then. Tried to watch "Boyz N the Hood" recently? It's so preachy and sanctimonious it almost looks like a Matty Rich film now, but in fairness that's probably more John Singleton's fault than Gooding's alone.

That blonde heiress with the dead-trout eyes who's famous for her night-vision porno video and being in the tabloids a lot. Perfect example of "horrisma." She's like Ann Coulter in drag. Or not in drag. I'm not really sure which. But both have all the appeal of impetigo.

Chris Rock. The comedy version of Tom Cruise. Always trying way too hard to convince you... of something.

Sandra Bullock. Like watching a coconut on a stick.

Mel Gibson. "Braveheart" finally did it for me (and that was a whole five years before "What Women Want"). He enjoyed torturing himself way, way too much. Just as there is Young Elvis and Fat Elvis, there's Young Mel (pre-"Lethal Weapon 2") and Creepy Mel ("Air America" forward). Watching "The Road Warrior," it's hard to comprehend what later became of that cool guy who once played Mad Max.

Harrison Ford. Once he had a sense of humor about himself -- on screen, at least. It doesn't help that he hasn't made a decent movie ("Clear and Present Danger") in 13 years. He's great in "The Conversation," though.

Katie Holmes. Zombified. Why do I even know who she is?

Shaved vagina girl. Has she made any movies or is she just on the Internets?

Lindsay Lohan. From Mean Girl to Lucky Girl (cast with Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin in an Altman movie). Now it's over. She's the Alicia Silverstone of tomorrow, but without the comic timing. Ten years ago, John Waters might have been able to salvage her career. Now it's too late. (OK, I'm sorry: That Alicia Silverstone crack was too mean -- to Alicia Silverstone.)

Jim Carrey. See Chris Rock, above.

Natalie Portman. It's as though she aspires to be forgettable, like generic "citrus"-flavored Pixy Stix. For some reason she reminds me of Veruca Salt on Xanax and I want her to swell up into a big blueberry. But I feel that way about nearly everyone who appeared in the "Star Wars" prequels.

More comments at Copeland's place.

BAD WORD WARNING: In a world where people are stupid enough to mistake a childrens' lightbox toy displaying the likeness of a cartoon character (which looks no more sinister than any random Pac Man-era video-game pixel blob) for a bomb -- and then blame other people for their own ignorance -- the only proper response to this...

... is this:

That's right: The Aqua Teen Hunger Force marketing campaign had been under way in ten cities for " a few weeks" by the time some non-basic-cable-subscribing Luddite in Boston freaked out the whole of Beantown by mistaking a wall-mounted LiteBrite for a bomb.

Kids: Do not take your Etch-A-Sketches out of your room, or you may be arrested as a terrorist. Or a hoaxter. Because, goodness knows, anyone in their right mind might easily mistake a plastic rectangle with a picture on it for an improvised explosive device and start a citywide panic via TV news before the authorities have the slightest idea of what's going on. That's called Homeland Security. Don't mass outbreaks of unnecessary panic and fear make you feel secure? What's the root word of "terrorism" again?

Wil Wheaton is right:

You know, if the goal of terrorists and the whole point of terrorism is to scare the sh-t out of us so badly that we leap ten feet in the air whenever someone says "boo," then the terrorists are clearly kicking our national asses.

And if "The Departed" doesn't win an Oscar, it's the fault of the city officials and broadcast media of Boston for perpetuating this hoax about a hoax and making everyone in the world want to avoid acknowledging that Boston exists. Again. People are too embarrassed and infuriated to even want to think about the laughingstock town of Boston now -- and it's right in the middle of Oscar voting time! (That makes about as much sense as the whole "terrorist hoax" canard, doesn't it?)

Evidently, this is a conspiracy by Bostonians to spread fear and uncertainty -- terror, if you will -- that Martin Scorsese may not win his long-deserved Oscar. Why did he have to shoot -- er, I'm sorry, film -- the movie in Boston, for heaven's sake?!?! All Boston politician and broadcasters who have perpetuated and promoted this hoax should be arrested, fined, and forced to watch the Cartoon Network 24/7 for 60 days, until well after the Governor's Ball. And they should be forced to apologize -- to the Mooninites, Turner Broadcasting, and to all the people of the world, for being so reckless and irresponsible.

This is just one of many, many times to come when I will dearly miss Molly Ivins. She would have had a ball with this.

Don't ask me how I came up with these dozen options -- that's all the software allows, and these were the ones I thought of -- either because they were popular, conspicuous, or got some year-end recognition. (So sorry to all you fans of "Benchwarmers," "Failure to Launch," "John Tucker Must Die," "Little Man," "Madea's Family Reunion" and "You, Me & Dupree.") Choices are limited to predominantly English-language, live-action pictures, which is why "Babel" isn't listed. The box is a bit long. Just select the square next to the title of your choice, then scroll down and press the vote button at the bottom. The results will display automatically.

Final results (02/25/07):

I love Sarah Silverman and A.O. Scott all the more for this, from today's New York Times:

While most actors are reluctant to discuss critics’ opinions of them, Ms. Silverman addresses them head on, particularly a 2005 review of “Jesus Is Magic” by A. O. Scott, a film critic for The New York Times.

“It totally hurt my feelings and was like a kick in the stomach,” but, she said, she found it fascinating.

In the review Mr. Scott said her act was “the latest evidence that mocking political correctness has become a form of political correctness in its own right.”

“She depends on the assumption that only someone secure in his or her own lack of racism would dare to make, or to laugh at, a racist joke, the telling of which thus becomes a way of making fun simultaneously of racism and of racial hypersensitivity,” he wrote. In short, he added, “naughty as she may seem, she’s playing it safe.”

Ms. Silverman said the review articulated a point that she had felt, but had been struggling to express. “That was something that always festered in the back of my mind that I never talked about,” she said. Her crowds are usually liberal ones, “and we know we’re not racist,” she said. “But the whiter the crowd, the more that kind of voice in the back of my head comes toward the front, and I feel grosser doing that kind of stuff.”

“At the very least, it’s made me assess the choir,” she continued. “Context is everything, and I don’t think he would be pondering all that stuff if I was doing the material in front of an all-black crowd or a very mixed crowd,” which, she said, she regularly does.

Still, she added, she is reassessing at least part of her work.

“It was rebellious to be politically incorrect now and in the past couple of years,” she said. “But I don’t know how rebellious it will be when everybody has that point of view. It becomes hackneyed and it becomes irrelevant and it turns into something else.”

I've been arguing for several years now that, especially since 9/11, "political correctness" has evolved into a mostly reactionary phenomenon. The lefty PC that began as a way of showing sensitivity to minorities and those who had been discriminated against for years (women, the disabled, etc.) eventually turned into a form of monolithic, euphemistic denial of reality, where questioning was verboten and anything that could be interpreted as doubt or dissent was denounced as "fascist." Now we see the same thing coming from the right. The terminology has changed but the brainwashed thinking hasn't.

The inevitable backlash to liberal PC came in the form of the right-wing, talk-radio rebellion, in which uppity women were "feminazis" and liberals were "terrorist sympathizers" (even when they were too timid and spineless to oppose the administration's foreign policy blunders, which, ironically, flagrantly violated traditional conservative principles). Fox News took the talk-radio attitude mainstream, appealing to its viewers' PC biases so that it appeared, at least to the network's partisans, "fair and balanced." (If somebody already sees the world in black and white, and you show them a black and white image, they won't notice it's not in color.)

Anyway, even though I was a fan of Silverman's "Jesus Is Magic," I appreciate Scott's warning about where this is all going in the era of so-called "'South Park' Republicans." And I admire Silverman for questioning her own (and her audiences') underlying assumptions, as well.

This guy's pretty talented. He should go on "American Idol" or something. He could be as famous as Clay Aiken one day.

President Bush reminded me of the District Attorney in Chinatown (that is, in "Chinatown") the other night, as he stood in the White House "liberry," stiffly mumbling about his "new strategy" for Iraq, which amounts to: "As little as possible." Then Jon Stewart made me cry last night (with laughter and outrage -- and relief that somebody was telling the manifest truth) as he cut through all the lazy, endlessly recycled punditry about how Bush was "really putting it all on the line this time" (as he's been said to do every time he makes an empty gesture toward Iraq, or his Boratian "War of Terror"). Talk about creating a false sense of drama. Bush put nothing of himself on the line. He risked nothing. He did... as little as possible.

The only people Bush is putting on the line are the troops and the Iraqis. As Stewart pointed out, what is the addition of 21,000 more troops (returning the level to that of two years ago) supposed to accomplish that it didn't accomplish back then, when conditions were a whole lot better than they are now, and we still couldn't secure Baghdad? We have 130,000 troops in Iraq now, Stewart observed. Another 21,000 is a 15 percent increase. "That's not a surge, it's a gratuity. It's a tip," Stewart said. (Watch the whole segment here.) Perhaps Stewart's best metaphor for the President's actions: "He cooked up a giant, giant pot of shit, and looked at it last night and said, 'You know what that needs? ... A pinch of salt.'"

The real strategy? Do just enough to pretend you're trying, then blame the failure on the American people (for not supporting a losing strategy) and Congress (for not supporting a losing strategy) and the Iraqis (for being Iraqis). Amazing. Now here's a (bullshit) artist who shows nothing but contempt for his audience -- and his "characters" (i.e., the lives he's cynically and recklessly monkeying around with).

From the 2003 RAND Corporation study: "America's Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq," Chapter Nine, "Lessons Learned," page 153:

"The highest levels of casualties have occurred in the operations with
the lowest levels of U.S. troops, suggesting an inverse ratio between
force levels and the level of risk. Germany, Japan, Bosnia, and Kosovo
had no postconflict combat deaths. The postconflict occupations in
Germany and Japan proved relatively risk-free because both Japan
and Germany were thoroughly defeated and because their govern-
ments had agreed to unconditional surrender. The low numbers of
combat deaths also show that postconflict nation-building, when
undertaken with adequate numbers of troops, has triggered little vio-
lent resistance. Only when the number of stabilization troops has
been low in comparison to the population have U.S. forces suffered
or inflicted significant casualties."

If Bush had proposed to send in 200,000 more troops I still would have thought it was a bad idea (being about three or four years too late), but at least I might have thought he was (once) serious about trying to bring stability, freedom and democracy to Iraq. One again, he's done nothing more than reveal what a bad bluffer he is.

We heard a lot in 2006, as we do every year, about nasty filmmakers who were said to have viewed their characters (and, hence, their audiences) with contempt, or who "made fun of" them, or treated them with condescension, or who just don't seem to like them very much. Across time, such charges have been leveled at Stanley Kubrick, Robert Altman, Christopher Guest, the Coen Bros., Todd Solondz, Sacha Baron Cohen, and many other artists -- especially those whose work has tended toward the comic or caricaturish. And then there's all of film noir to consider, a whole kind of moviemaking that does not view the human animal with kindness or affection.

In answer to specific allegations of of alleged contempt (such as Jonathan Rosenbaum's characterization of Altman's attitude toward Lady Pearl in "Nashville"), I have tried to explain why I think such charges are false, or at least misguided. It seems to me, in these cases, that the contempt being expressed is more likely to be that of the critic for the director or film (or reader) than that of the director for the character or the audience (unless we're talking about a movie by, say, Alan Parker). But it's impossible (and futile) to argue with a blanket statement like: "The Coens mock everybody. They're laughing at the audience!" -- meaning, of course: "They're laughing at me!" (please read in the voice of Piper Laurie in "Carrie"). My response is: 1) that's a rather vague aspersion; 2) if you got the joke you wouldn't feel like you were being laughed at; and, 3) yeah, it's true. Many forms of comedy -- satire, parody, etc. -- contain an element of mockery. Even contempt.

So, I'm here to speak up for contempt! (How very contrarian of me!)

The rich, powerful and pretentious are obvious (and ripe) targets for humor and derision. Their problem is that they're just people, with flaws like everybody else, only magnified (and made more irritating and dangerous) by their position in society. They deserve to be knocked down a few notches. But you don't have to be rich, powerful or pretentious to be a hypocrite, or a boor, or a twit, or an oaf, or a cretin. You don't have to possess great wealth or celebrity or influence to be smug, stupid, petty, ignorant, pathetic, tasteless, crass, callous, crude, or just downright annoying -- and, thus, worthy of comic derision. Such people really exist! I've seen them with my own eyes! What's more, I've been them!

"Hey, look at those assholes over there. Ordinary f----in' people. I hate 'em."
-- Bud (Harry Dean Stanton), "Repo Man" (1984)

"Hell is other people."
-- Jean-Paul Sartre, "No Exit" (1944)

I sometimes wonder if those who worry about expressions of contempt for characters (particularly "ordinary people") in movies have ever had jobs in which they had to deal with the general public. Or have ever attended some kind of party or social function at which they have met some people they would rather not have met. Is this not part of the human experience? Don't most people have some pretty awful qualities? Why should an artist be expected concentrate on their benign or "sympathetic" traits -- or to come up with some kind of artificially "fair and balanced" view of them? Some people's most interesting characteristic is that they are idiots. Or worse. Did you like "Seinfeld"? Those characters were despicable in every way. Some people thought that was why they were funny.

Is misanthropy not the most universal and understandable of all sins? For all our achievements and evolutionary refinements, we are a pretty damnable species. And, as the only one capable of (and perhaps unwittingly committed to) destroying all life on our own planet, we are also the richest, most powerful and pretentious. Don't we deserve to have a laugh at ourselves -- or, at least, at those idiots right over there?

P.S. I am reminded of the words of Luther Ingram and Mack Rice, as sung by the incomparable Mavis Staples (and, yes, I'm going through one of my periodic obsessive Stax phases, so get used to it):

Keep talkin' 'bout the president won't stop air pollution
Put your hand over your mouth when you cough, that'll help the solution

Mavis means you. And she's singing in the context of a Christian family gospel/soul group. Good gosh a'mighty, now -- even the Staple Singers aren't afraid to make the average person the butt of an occasional, rather contemptuous, joke. Amen to that.

A commentary on The Year in Comedy from Judd Apatow, the co-creator of "Freaks and Geeks," "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and... Seth Rogan:

It seems like comedy is more popular than ever right now. There have been many very successful comedies as of late: "Nacho Libre," "Click," "The Break-Up," "You, Me and Dupree," "Little Miss Sunshine," "Babel." But I think people always love comedies. I assume in the 1930s, people thought comedy was really popular because they had hit movies from the Three Stooges, the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello, and Laurel and Hardy. I think every decade has its huge comedies and comedy stars. We need comedy. Life can be brutal, and watching something funny with strangers in a large room somehow makes it a tiny bit more bearable.

When I saw "Borat" at the premiere, I was sitting near Eric Idle of Monty Python, one of the greatest comedy minds of all time. I said hello before the screening. I told him I made "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," but he had not seen it. Still, he was very nice. While the film was playing, he would turn to me every so often during one of the more hilarious and outrageous moments, like the naked fight. His eyes lit up with joy and a facial expression that said, "Can you believe this?" It was as if he was so delighted by the movie that he needed to share it with someone, even if it was just some drooling fan that made a film he hadn't seen.

(tip: MCN)

Slate says it has a copy here. One page, easy to read in a couple minutes, and pretty darned comprehensive. Including: "This is the entire agreement between the Participant and the Producer or anyone else in relation to the Film, and the Participant acknowledges that in entering into it, the Participant is not relying on any promises or statements made by anyone else about the nature of the Film or the identity of any other Participants or persons involved in the Film."

Please note that, in the list of Categories in the column at right, there is one topic that still has no entires. That is "Oscars." Because, really, after last year what's even left to joke about? And it's only November.

Nevertheless, I have a couple of Chicago Sun-Times/RogerEbert.com reviews this week, and one of them is of Christopher Guest's "For Your Consideration":

Hey, I heard Catherine O'Hara is so splendid in Christopher Guest's latest ensemble comedy, "For Your Consideration," she's a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination.

It's true -- she is that good. And she's long overdue. (I would already have given her an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy, a Peabody, a Nobel and a People's Global Golden Choice Award for her performances as Lola Heatherton and Dusty Towne in the 1982 SCTV "Network 90" Christmas special alone.)

Also: "Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus":

Perhaps the two biggest problems with "Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus" are the last two words of the title. This through-the-looking-glass "Beauty and the Beast" fable has little to do with Diane Arbus, the famous photographer, or with her work, which is not seen in the film. As a Lewis Carroll title card explains, this "is not a historical biography" but instead "reaches beyond reality to express what might have been Arbus' inner experience on her extraordinary path" to becoming an artist. Sure. All that's missing is a sense of who Arbus was, and how the fictional journey depicted in the film is reflected in (or, rather, distilled from) her art.

Meanwhile, over at The Onion, the question is considered: "Are Oscar Prognosticators Evil?."

British crank Christopher Hitchens has been writing about Borat's Kazakhstan for years, only he calls it "Iraq." Still, it's an imaginary place in Hitchens' brain, like Kazakhstan in Borat's or Nicole Kidman in David Thomson's.

I do not read Hitchens much at all anymore because he's stuck in 2002 and can't get out. But Hitchens has a perspective on "Borat" that's worth mentioning. First, he quotes a dim-witted passage from a review in "London's leftist weekly," the New Statesman, in which the writer professes that "it's shocking to witness the tacit acceptance with which Borat's ghoulish requests are greeted. Trying to find the ideal car for mowing down gypsies, or seeking the best gun for killing Jews, he encounters only compliance among America's salespeople."

To which Hitchens replies:

Oh, come on. Among the "cultural learnings of America for make benefit glorious nation of Kazakhstan" is the discovery that Americans are almost pedantic in their hospitality and politesse. At a formal dinner in Birmingham, Ala., the guests discuss Borat while he's out of the room—filling a bag with ordure in order to bring it back to the table, as it happens—and agree what a nice young American he might make. And this is after he has called one guest a retard and grossly insulted the wife of another (and remember, it's "Americana" that is "crass"). The tony hostess even takes him and his bag of s__t upstairs and demonstrates the uses not just of the water closet but also of the toilet paper. The arrival of a mountainous black hooker does admittedly put an end to the evening, but if a swarthy stranger had pulled any of the foregoing at a liberal dinner party in England, I wouldn't give much for his chances....

Is it too literal-minded to point out what any viewer of the movie can see for himself—that the crowd at the rodeo stops cheering quite fast when it realizes that something is amiss; that the car salesman is extremely patient about everything from demands for p___y magnets to confessions of bankruptcy; and that the man in the gun shop won't sell the Kazakh a weapon? This is "compliance"? I have to say, I didn't like the look of the elderly couple running the Confederate-memorabilia store, but considering that Borat smashes hundreds of dollars worth of their stock, they bear up pretty well—icily correct even when declining to be paid with locks of pubic hair. The only people who are flat-out rude and patronizing to our curious foreigner are the stone-faced liberal Amazons of the Veteran Feminists of America—surely natural readers of the New Statesman.

I'll stop there for now. Hitchens' point is that "Borat" is something of a comedy of manners, and that what many are seeing as "shocking compliance" is simply politeness and an aversion to confrontation (particularly when there's a camera staring at you). On this isolated point, I think Hitchens is generally correct and the heinous, America-hating leftist is generally wrong. But I wonder if Hitchens (or the other guy) can see that one accurate observation does not make all others invalid. Hitchens' mistake -- a fallacy he indulges endlessly in his writing -- is in thinking the one thing he deigns to mention is all that's going on.

The Sunday New York Times Magazine devoted itself to comedy this weekend -- and you know how funny the New York Times Magazine can be. Actually, there's a very good article by A.O. Scott on the art of the pratfall in which he explains why some of the greatest modern comedy (from "Little Miss Sunshine" to "Borat") is of the well-executed physical variety. (Not to be confused with what Chris Farley used to call, with an undertone of dismay, "Fat Guy Falls Down" -- a desperate stunt that may elicit knee-jerk laughs, even if it's not inherently funny.)

As part of its comedic survey, the Times Mag asked some 22 comedians, well-known and not-, to name five of their favorite "Desert Island Comedies" on DVD. I don't like any of the lists much (while agreeing wholeheartedly with a few individual choices) -- but I salute David Cross (somebody I've long thought is really funny) for the humor inherent in choosing "Homer and Eddie" and "Rent."

To paraphrase an old David Steinberg routine: There are those who say... (that's the end of my paraphrase) that to analyze comedy is anti-comedic. I could not disagree more strongly. I say if you don't understand why you're laughing, when you're laughing, then you don't appreciate the comedy and you may as well not be laughing at all, since any old reaction is probably comparably appropriate for you. You could be crying or sneezing and it's probably the same thing. But let's put that aside for the moment and concentrate on some lists of very personal, very funny movies.

I suppose I could choose the great movies that have made me laugh the most -- the first that come to mind, such as: a Keaton ("Sherlock, Jr." or "Steamboat Bill, Jr."), a Fields ("It's A Gift" or "The Bank Dick"), a Marx Bros. ("Animal Crackers" or "Duck Soup"), a Sturges ("The Lady Eve" or "Miracle of Morgan's Creek"), and, let's say, a classic comedy (preferably starring Cary Grant or Barbara Stanwyck or Jean Arthur, and written and/or directed by Ernst Lubitsch or Howard Hawks or Billy Wilder or Mitchell Leisen, like "Trouble in Paradise" or "Heaven Can Wait" (1943) or "Bringing Up Baby" or "His Girl Friday" or "The Major and the Minor" or "Some Like It Hot" or "Easy Living" or "Ball of Fire"...). But those are all 50-75 years old, and I haven't even mentioned my modern-era favorites, like Luis Bunuel ("The Exterrminating Angel," "Simon of the Desert," "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie," "The Phantom of Liberty"), Monty Python ("Life of Brian" -- greatest comedy of the last half-century), Christopher Guest & ensemble ("Spinal Tap," "Waiting for Guffman," "Best in Show") or the Coen Bros. ("Barton Fink," "The Big Lebowski"). So, I thought I'd just offer up a few relatively obscure, underappreciated or, at least, off-the-beaten-path comedies that I think are hysterically funny and invite you contribute some of your own:

"I Was Born, But..." (Yasujiro Ozu, 1932) I know it's an acknowledged masterpiece by one of the greatest directors in movie history, but how many of you have actually seen it? Two boys, big belly laughs. Some of this material was re-worked in "Ohayo" ("Good Morning") in 1959.

"The President's Analyst" (Theodore J. Flicker, 1967) I love this movie -- the perfect paranoid Cold War 1960s espionage satire companion to "Dr. Strangelove" and James Bond, with James Coburn in the title role. Who is writer/directorTheodore J. Ficker, anyway? Well, according to IMDb, he directed episodes of "The Dick Van Dyke Show," "The Man From U.N.C.L.E., "The Andy Griffith Show," "I Dream of Jeannie," "Night Gallery" and "Barney Miller."

"Taking Off" (Milos Forman, 1971) You couldn't find a better time capsule for 1971 -- which Forman has captured with his characteristically uncanny ease and naturalness. Buck Henry "stars" as a father whose daughter has run away to some sort of "hippie" musical audition -- probably in the Village. The whole thing feels spontaneous and improvised -- but it was written by Forman, Jean-Claude Carrierer ("The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie," "The Phantom of Liberty," "Birth"), John Guare ("Atlantic City," "Six Degrees of Separation") and Jon Klein. One of the late, great Vincent Schiavelli's finest moments: teaching a group of uptight, wealthy parents with missing kids how to smoke pot. Early cameos by Kathy Bates, Carly Simon and Jessica Harper, among others. (Long unavailable, this recently showed up on the Sundance Channel, which I hope means it will soon be released on DVD.)

"How to Get Ahead in Advertising"(Bruce Robinson, 1989) Robinson's equally brilliant and demented "Withnail & I" is the official masterpiece (and object of obsessive cult veneration in the UK), but this is Richard E. Grant's finest hour. He's a London advertising executive so sick with self-loathing that he grows a foul-mouthed boil on his neck. How's that for a premise?

Coldblooded" (Wallace Wolodarsky, 1995) In some ways, this is a precursor to "Dexter." Jason Priestly is magnificently deadpan as an empty young man who is recruited to become a hit man -- and turns out to be mighty good at it. Co-starring Peter Riegert, Robert Loggia (getting ready for "Lost Highway"), and Jay Kogen -- who, along with writer/director Wolodarsky, wrote some of the classic early episodes of "The Simpsons."

"Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy" (Kelly Makin, 1996) Critics were mostly bewildered or repulsed, but this movie gets funnier every time I see it (and I've seen it at least a dozen times). It plays GREAT on the video screen -- better, I think, than any of the TV shows. A drug company speeds a new anti-depressant to the market, only to find that the insanely popular Gleemonex has a troublesome side effect: It puts people into comas of happiness. Each of the "Kids" has at least a handful of indescribably (but not inexplicably) funny moments. Including: "Cat on my head! Cat on my head!"; "I'm an elephant rider!"; "Tasty"; "How pleasing!"; and "Just... a guy." Should be seen alongside the great documentary, "The Corporation."

I cheated. That's six. But, OK, I've left out hundreds of great titles. Your turn. And the more obscure/underappreciated the better, please.

P.S. Anybody else remember the rest of the sentence from that David Steinberg bit?

Here's a prime example of the kind of cross-pollination on the Internet (and between blogs most of all) that I find so exciting and rewarding. I first learned from Andy Horbal at the movie blog No More Marriages! that Rob at A Film Odyssey had started a discussion about Extended Takes, inspired in part by the ever-ongoing Opening Shots Project here at Scanners. I think I first heard about Andy's blog from girish, or possibly Dennis at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, through whom I also discovered such diverse movie-obsession sites as Zach Campbell's Elusive Lucidity," Aquarello's Strictly Film School, Filmbrain's Like Anna Karina's Sweater, That Little Round-Headed Boy, Eric Henderson's when canses were classeled..., Tom Sutpen's If Charlie Parker Was a gunslinger... and many others, some of which you will find listed in the right hand column down the side of this blog.

Anyway, so as I told Rob in e-mail, I wanted to respond here with some screen grabs of one of my favorite long takes, and then you over to his place to contribute your own favorites and participate in the discussions. (The problem being, I don't know how to post screen shots in Comments fields -- or if it's even possible -- and this is one you just gotta see, although too few have.)

The movie is Jerzy Skolimowski's "Moonlighting" (1982), a dark (and dank) comedy about a group of Polish construction workers, led by Nowak (Jeremy Irons), who travel London to do a little off-the-books remodeling at their boss's flat. Political unrest in Poland makes Nowak's job as foreman all the more tricky; he withholds information from them, and tries to pretend everything is normal, while carrying an ever-increasing load of fear, guilt and moral responsibility. Ten years later, the Soviet system had collapsed, and you get an eerie sense of why from this movie.

The shot (from a stationary camera; no dollying) begins with Nowak riding his bike toward us, then turning around and riding away. No reason is given for the reversal (the pivotal moment is a pause, almost in close-up), but we know certain decisions are weighing heavily on Nowak's mind. He heads down the road, and we see a man walking a black dog on the sidewalk. The man and dog begin to cross the street and, just as Nowak is about to disappear around a corner in the distance... a cat jumps into the frame, arching its back at the dog. Man and (reluctant) dog cross to the right; the cat freezes, then continues, bristling, in the opposite direction, left. The cat pauses on the sidewalk, looking at a retaining wall. Just then, Nowak reappears at the end of the street, riding back toward the camera again. The cat jumps. End of shot.

This shot captures the restless, tortuous tensions at work in Nowak's mind -- and in one moment expresses why I love Polish cinema so very deeply. It's all in the details, the composition, the timing. The absurdity. Moments like this have taught me how to apprehend the world; or, at least, reinforced my existing view -- watching Polanski or Kieslowski or Zanussi or Skolimowski has been like coming home, or finding my long-lost twin.

All the time I catch glimpses of weird little things as I'm walking down the street, or through my windshield or in my rear-view mirror when I'm driving, that make me smile or laugh or do a double-take or give me a little chill. And I think: I've got to put that in a movie. (Of course, I promptly forget most of these things, but they enhance my enjoyment of life immensely.)

So, either you find this shot funny or you don't. I gasped with delight the first time I saw it and chuckled for the next few minutes. Maybe you find it simply odd (which it is!) or a little eerie (ditto) or just mundane (instead of inspired). But to me, it's the essence of movies. Movies!

Another exercise in Godardian film criticism (making a movie as a critical response to another movie): This one's simple and straightforward (existing footage; new soundtrack), but it makes its points unimprovably. I don't mean to pick on "Bobby" (which opens November 23), but after the work-in-progress press screening in Toronto I compared it to an Irwin Allen disaster movie:

It's "Earthquake" with the RFK assassination as the disaster. It's "Airport." It's "The Towering Inferno." A whole bunch of familiar actors play "colorful" characters swarming around the hotel, and their day will culminate in the death of a Kennedy.... Why turn this traumatic national event into a Hollywood soap opera? The performances are fine for this kind of glitzy manufactured melodrama ("Where Were YOU When They Shot RFK?"), and on that level it's swell, trashy fun. It's just that the whole concept is inappropriate.

Last week, I said the movie turns the Ambassador Hotel into "Neil Simon's California Suite with Assassination." But the filmmaker/critic whose work is embedded above has an equally valid take -- and impeccable comic timing.

(Tip: David Poland, who rescued the clip after it was pulled off of YouTube.)

Jagshemash! If you are confused about the difference between the fictional Kazakhstan, homeland of Borat Sagdiyev, as portrayed in "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" and the former Soviet Socialist Republic in Central Asia, why not visit the Official Web Site of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan? Here you will find a FAQ (Truth About Kazakhstan) and other helpful resources, from which you will learn that potassium is not even listed among Kazakhstan's major exports:

Kazakhstan possesses 30 per cent of the world’s proven resources of chromium, 25 per cent of manganese, 19 per cent of lead, 13 per cent of zinc, 10 per cent of copper and 10 per cent of iron. Kazakhstan also possesses about 20 per cent of the world’s uranium resources, with plans to become among the world’s top producers, and contains Central Asia’s largest recoverable coal reserves.

Also, if you like America but are confused by the portrayal of the fictional one in "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," you can visit the Official America Web Site and learn about the land of Premier George Walter Bush, where you will discover that "Mainstream Media Reports Inaccurate." Also, there is this from Imperial Leader Bush: "We have a plan for victory in Iraq.... And I know the people of Montana can count on Conrad Burns to make sure our troops have all that is necessary to do the jobs I've asked them to do." This is the difference between the fiction America and the real one, if you can't tell. Conrad Burns from Big Sky Country will finally make sure our troops get what they need to do the job Bush has asked told them to do in Iraq! (And wasn't he the dad on "Diff'rent Strokes," too? Amazing fellow!)

A personal note: I hope you've seen my dearest friend Julia Sweeney's "God Said 'Ha!'" (Roger Ebert's review here), which is available on DVD. And I hope you've seen her stage monologues, "In the Family Way," about her decision to adopt her daughter, Tara Mulan Sweeney, from China (my photo account of the journey itself is here, with my text written in Borat-esque Engrish); and, especially, "Letting Go of God," about her messy breakup with the Almighty, which she has performed in LA and New York (she's about to do nine shows through October 29 at the Ars Nova Theatre -- right next to "The Colbert Report"!) -- and abridged one-night engagements in a few other cities, including Seattle and Austin, where she did Q&As afterwards with Ira Glass.

You may have heard a small excerpt from "Letting Go of God" on Glass's "This American Life" NPR show, the most popular episode in that broadcast's history. But now -- for the first time! -- you can obtain a double-CD of the whole show (which comes with a beautiful booklet transcription of the piece) -- as well as a separate, single-CD recording of "In the Family Way." I'm so proud of, and moved by, Julia's accomplishments that I could do a dance -- which I indeed do, but in private.

Some of the happiest moments of my life have been working and playing and collaborating and consulting with Julia in various respects over the last 30 years of our enduring friendship -- on various projects for stage, print, TV and movies -- and I'm delighted to be listed as an Extra Special Creative Consultant on "Letting Go of God." The CDs go on sale at her web site October 25 (my birthday). "Letting Go of God," like "God Said 'Ha!'," will become a film of some kind (Julia is still playing around with ideas for how to shoot it). Here's an excerpt -- two of my favorite passages (although others are considerably funnier) -- that just happen to address this blog's core subject. No, not movies -- critical thinking:

God requires faith. Faith does not require evidence, right? But the more I thought about it, my faith was based on evidence. The evidence of how I felt when I prayed. The evidence of everyone believing in God, almost everyone I had ever met from the time I was a kid. The evidence of what I had been taught by other people I trusted, admired, and who ultimately had authority over me.

So, my faith in God was based on evidence. Well then, how could I not examine that evidence? But how did I examine anything? How did I know what I knew? I had to know! [...]

I thought of Pascal's Wager. Pascal argued that it's better to bet there is a God, because if you're wrong there's nothing to lose, but if there is, you win an eternity in heaven. But I can't force myself to believe, just in case it turns out to be true. The God I've been praying to knows what I think -- he doesn't just make sure I show up in church. How could I possibly pretend to believe? I might convince other people, but surely not God.

And plus, if I lead my life according to my own deeply held moral principles, what difference did it make if I believed in God? Why would God care if I "believed" in him?

It's a funny, informative, enlightening and suspenseful struggle if, like Julia (and me), you're inclined to Question Authority and figure things out for yourself. (Which is not to say you'll necessarily share Julia's conclusions -- and she doesn't expect you to -- just that you'll appreciate the switches, setbacks, false peaks and hard-won lessons of the journey...)

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has issued the following statement about "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," which opens in the US November 3:

When approaching this film, one has to understand that there is absolutely no intent on the part of the filmmakers to offend, and no malevolence on the part of Sacha Baron Cohen, who is himself proudly Jewish. We hope that everyone who chooses to see the film understands Mr. Cohen's comedic technique, which is to use humor to unmask the absurd and irrational side of anti-Semitism and other phobias born of ignorance and fear.

We are concerned, however, that one serious pitfall is that the audience may not always be sophisticated enough to get the joke, and that some may even find it reinforcing their bigotry.

While Mr. Cohen's brand of humor may be tasteless and even offensive to some, we understand that the intent is to dash stereotypes, not to perpetuate them. It is our hope that everyone in the audience will come away with an understanding that some types of comedy that work well on screen do not necessarily translate well in the real world -- especially when attempted on others through retelling or mimicry.

My response: If anybody is stupid enough to think that "Borat" reinforces their own bigotry, then they can find reinforcement just about anywhere -- including the ADL's statement, which will probably do more to unintentionally inflame anti-Semitism than anything in "Borat."

REUTERS reports:

Secret Service agents turned away British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, in character as the boorish, anti-Semitic journalist, when he tried to invite "Premier George Walter Bush" to a screening of his upcoming movie, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."

Also invited to the screening: O.J. Simpson, "Mel Gibsons" and other "American dignitaries."

Cohen's stunt was timed to coincide with an official visit by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who is scheduled to meet with Bush on Friday.

Nazarbayev and other Kazakh officials have sought to raise the profile of the oil-rich former Soviet republic and assure the West that, contrary to Borat's claims, theirs is not a nation of drunken anti-Semites who treat their women worse than their donkeys. [...]

Cohen's "Borat" comedy routine has drawn legal threats from the Kazakh government, which keeps a tight lid on criticism in its news media. Kazakh press secretary Roman Vasilenko said he was worried that some may take the Borat routine seriously.

"He is not a Kazakh. What he represents is a country of Boratastan, a country of one," Vasilenko told Reuters.

And from the New York Times:

Mr. Ashykbayev denounced Mr. Cohen’s performance as host of the MTV Europe Music Awards in Lisbon last fall, in which a skit mocked the imperial aura that surrounds Mr. Nazarbayev, the country’s president since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Mr. Ashykbayev suggested that Mr. Cohen was acting on behalf of “someone’s political order�? to denigrate Kazakhstan and that the government “reserved the right to any legal action to prevent new pranks of this kind.�?

Mr. Cohen, who is Jewish, responded, as Borat, in a video posted on his Web site, citing Mr. Ashykbayev by name and declaring that he “fully supported my government’s decision to sue this Jew.�?

“Since the 2003 Tulyakov reforms, Kazakhstan is as civilized as any other country in the world,�? he goes on in the video, citing fictional details in the absurdly stilted English that is central to his act. “Women can now travel inside of bus. Homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hats. And age of consent has been raised to 8 years old.�?

But it was the Foreign Ministry’s complaint that gave some in the country’s news media a chance to report on it, and that was when most Kazakhs first learned that a faraway British comedian had turned the world’s attention to their country.

In an atmosphere of legal constraints on press freedoms, if not outright censorship, the ministry’s statement offered a way to poke fun at Mr. Nazarbayev’s near-absolute political power, at least indirectly, by showing what the fuss was all about.

Throw this Jew down the well, so his country can be free!

Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen, currently appearing as Jean Girard in "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby") has a movie coming out in November with a title as good as "Ricky Bobby." It's called "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," and people who have seen it are raving about how subersively smart and revealingly funny it is.

Cohen and his characters (particularly hip-hop dimwit Ali G) are huge in Great Britain, and Naomi Alderman has an analysis of what makes Borat run in the UK Guardian:

Sacha Baron Cohen's latest film is due for release in November, but the storm of protest has started early. Already the film, in which Borat, a fictional Kazakh reporter, spits out food given to him by Jews on the ground it may be poisoned, and refuses to fly "in case the Jews repeat their attacks of 9/11", has been called "disgraceful" and "disgusting".

I first encountered the character of Borat in a clip from his HBO TV show which has circulated widely on the internet. Baron Cohen, as Borat, stands in front of an audience at a redneck bar in Arizona and announces that he will sing "a song from my country". He then sings, "In my country there is problem, and that problem is the Jew. They take everybody money and they never give it back." The chorus is particularly catchy: "Throw the Jew down the well (so my country can be free)." [Clip and lyrics here.]

I am a Jew. I've written about my community in a way that is critical but none the less, I hope, affectionate. I love the Jewish community with all its flaws and insecurities. And I think that Borat's song may be the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life. It is funny because it is ridiculous, because it parodies the most stupid kinds of anti-semitism, because the viewer is in on the joke. And, like the best humour, it is funny because it is viscerally, nauseatingly terrifying. It contains images every bit as unsettling as Leni Riefenstahl's "The Triumph of the Will." It is funny because it is true....

The reason it is unsettling to hear Borat sing "Throw the Jew down the well" is because of the reaction of those listening. Some sit in mute astonishment and horror. But some join in. Some sing along, smile and stamp their feet. One woman even - unprompted, mind you - puts her fingers to her forehead to make horns when he sings, "You must take [the Jew] by his horns." Borat is unsettling not because his opinions are outlandish but because he reveals how many ordinary people share them....

Borat is shocking because we cannot help but imagine ourselves in the place of his hapless victims and because we understand - though not, perhaps, consciously - that we might have acted precisely as they did. We too might have remained silent when Borat suggested "hanging" homosexuals, or nodded politedly at the suggestion that a Humvee is suitable for "running over Gypsies." Not because we fear for our lives if we disagree but, perhaps, to avoid embarrassment. Borat is funny because he is shocking, and he is shocking because he reveals the truth.

After watching the clip, I'm not so sure that at least some of the people in the crowd weren't in on the joke -- particularly the lady who makes the horns, because she seems aware she's on camera and has evidently decided to play along. Complete "Throw the Jew Down the Well" lyrics after jump...

This Sierra Mist commercial featuring Kathy Griffin ("It's Pat," "Pulp Fiction," "My Life on the D-List") and Michael Ian Black ("Ed," "The Baxter," "Stella") ran on Thursday night's edition of "The Daily Show," which featured a brilliant report about the foiled British bomb plot involving the use of liquid explosives aboard airliners. Correspondent John Oliver on the sudden ban on carrying liquids aboard passenger jets: "I'm afraid these terrorists have struck at what we in the West hold most dear: our beverages. They resent our wide array of fluid refreshment options. We live in the most easily quenched part of the world and they hate that.... Unfortunately, the men arrested were British citizens, which means the form of government here in Britian must not be democracy, for as you know, democracy is the only known antidote to extremism... It means regime change, Jon. America must topple the British government."

The premise of the ad is that airport security guard Griffin detains Black and pretends her wand is beeping when she passes it over his bottle of Sierra Mist. Don't expect to see this spot in heavy rotation much longer....

Believe it or not, there are still a few good Mel Gibson jokes left to tell. This one's from Andy Borowitz. EXCERPT:

"Listen, I'm all for blaming things on the Jews, but this guy went too far," said Mr. bin Laden.

The al-Qaeda leader said that the next time Mr. Gibson feels the urge to spew hateful rhetoric, "count to ten first."

"There's a time and a place for everything," Mr. bin Laden said. "And the time to launch into an anti-Semitic tirade is when you're speaking on al-Jazeera from the comfort and safety of your cave -- not when you're stopped by the cops."

Yes, by all means, count to ten first. That way you won't say anything you mean that you might have to apologize for later.

"I'm not an anti-Semite. I just talk like one when I'm drunk!"

UPDATE (8/2/06): Maureen Dowd offers a brief overview of The Bigotry of the Mel (sober, and in his movies) in today's New York Times. Mostly he's on record (in interviews and on film) as anti-gay and anti-Jew, with perhaps an especially low tolerance for gays of the Hebrew persuasion and Jews of the homosexual persuasion. Dowd turns over the last half of her column to Leon Wieseltier, a major Jew and by implication one of the Hebrew-American leaders Mel has asked to help him through anti-Semitic rehab. Wieseltier, literary editor of The New Republic, who says Mel has been "a very bad goy.":

“It is really rich to behold Gibson asking Jews to behave like Christians. Has he forgotten how bellicose and wrathful and unforgiving we are? Why would a people who start all the wars make a peace? Perhaps he’s feeling a little like Jesus, hoping that the Jews don’t do their worst and preparing himself for more evidence of their disappointing behavior. [...]

“Moreover, it is the elders’ considered view that whereas alcoholism may require a process of recovery, anti-Semitism is a more intractable and less chic failing. This was not a moment of insanity, even if Gibson is insane. His hatred of Jews was plain in his movie and in his twisted defense of it, which was made when he was sober under the influence of his primitive world view. Perhaps he thinks that all he needs to do is spend a few months in AA — Anti-Semites Anonymous — and find some celebrity sponsor and run for absolution to Larry Zeiger, I mean Larry King, where he can say with perfect sincerity that the Holocaust was a terrible thing and gut yontif.

“We understand that Gibson cannot do it alone. But why do we have to do it with him? We would find it hard to be in a room with him unless, of course, he wants to count some money with us. Why doesn’t he turn to the vast number of his Christian brothers and sisters who show no trace of anything resembling his disgusting prejudice?

“Mad Max is making Max mad, and Murray, and Irving, and Mort, and Marty, and Abe. But we’re not completely heartless. If he wants to do Shylock at dinner theater, fine. If he agrees to fill his swimming pool with Kabbalah water, fine.�?

Truth is, I didn't interpret "The Passion of the Christ" as anti-Semitic, although I see how others could. But as a director, Gibson has taken stories based on Jesus and William Wallace, and stripped them down into nothing more than bloody tales of martyrdom and revenge. (Even his performance in Franco Zeffirelli's film of "Hamlet" was less a man tortured by doubt than an avenging angel.) The primary emotion all these films express -- and, especially, evoke -- is outrage, hatred. And that speaks just as loudly as anything he himself has said off-screen.

New York Magazine reports on "How Kevin Smith Reinvented Movie Marketing." By manufacturing a dust-up with a TV movie critic just before the opening of his film and getting lots of free publicity? Sure. But also, by listing 10,000 of his MySpace "friends" in his credits:

Smith’s newest addiction is MySpace: “I think it has a lot to do with growing up fat, ’cause you’re always trying to find acceptance and credibility. I’ve been on since March and I’m closing in on 50,000 friends. So I feel like, Wow, that’s kind of cool.�? The Weinstein Co. hatched a plan to promote 'Clerks II' by putting the names of the film’s first 10,000 MySpace friends in the credits. They thought the contest would go for weeks. They had the names in two hours.

Smith feels a compulsive need to win over an audience with the sheer tonnage of his verbiage; there were no short answers to my questions. Even though he’s now a 35-year-old father who lives in his pal Ben Affleck’s old house in L.A., Web surfers still have access to insanely intimate details of his life: One blog post this month touched upon his predilections for cunnilingus, anal sex, and picking his nose.

Meanwhile, The Onion lists Smith's "career highlights," including:

2004: Got honey-mustard sauce all over favorite bowling shirt, but was able to learn from the experience and grow as a director.

This may be the definitive test to see whether Smith has a sense of humor. About himself.

Dennis at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule has posted his favorite Tex Avery cartoon, "Rock-a-Bye Bear," in response to posts by Peet Gelderblom and That Little Round-Headed Boy, who remarked that this exchange has turned into a sort of spontaneous de-facto Tex Avery blog-a-thon. Well, include me in!

The naughty fairy tale "Red Hot Riding Hood" and "King-Size Canary" are treasured classics, but one of the funniest 'toons ever, for my money, is "Northwest Hounded Police," (1946) starring Droopy Dog as Sgt. McPoodle of the Mounties. Its surreal sensibility anticipates "Duck Amuck" (Chuck Jones, 1953) by way of "Cops" (1922). Only instead of the wanted man being pursued by a whole stampede of cops (they accumulate, like the avalanche of boulders and brides in "Seven Chances"), he's hounded by what an extraordinarily persistent Droopy. The nightmare logic is relentless -- and part of what makes it so funny is that it's also creepy and anxiety-inducing...

UPDATE: After watching "Rock-a-Bye Bear" on Dennis's site, something struck me (and it wasn't a mallet or a club or an anvil): It's built upon the same recurring gag as Abbas Kiarostami's "The Wind Will Carry Us." Yep, that fancy-schmancy Iranian artiste has been stealing from Tex Avery! One involves a dog repeatedly running out into the snow to make noise; the other involves a man repeatedly running out into the desert to get cell phone reception.

Hooray, for America! On Monday's "The Colbert Report," M. Night Shyamalan made #2 on the "ThreatDown," thanks to my diligent review of "Lady in the Water." I wrote:

The key to deciphering M. Night Shyamalan's fractured fairy tale, "Lady in the Water," is to remember that it is rooted in the mythology of Stephen Colbert and "The Colbert Report." It is a warning to Mankind about the dire threat posed by ferocious topiary bears in America today, and a salute to the gigantic, soaring eagle who swoops in to rescue Wet Ladies from pitiless ursine jaws and claws. Colbert oughtta sue.

Colbert had the perfect topper: "Well, I am suing... Spoiler alert: I was fatally shot in 1995 and I'm a ghost." Thank you, Mr. Colbert -- you will never be Dead to Me. As a proud citizen of Colbert Nation for years (going back to "The Daily Show"), I could not be more honored if I'd received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Wait a minute, let me think: George Tenet, Paul Bremer, Tommy Franks... To get that medal these days you have to commit fraud, perjury and/or war crimes. No, I'm more honored to be cited by Stephen Colbert!

VIDEO CLIP: Go to the official site for "The Colbert Report." Open the Comedy Central media player and click on the video link for "ThreatDown: Kix Cereal."

A couple days ago we published an Opening Shot contribution for Woody Allen's "Annie Hall" in which Allen cited an old joke to illustrate a point about his view of life:

Two elderly women are at a Catskills mountain resort, and one of 'em says: "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know, and such small portions."

I couldn't help but think of that when I saw the open letter Steely Dan's Donald Fagen and Walter Becker posted on their web site ("Open Letter to the Great Comic Actor, Luke Wilson"). Be sure to check out the groovy Residential Suites at Longworth stationery: "Where Value is King... And So Are You!"

Fagen and Becker address their open letter to Luke to complain about his brother Owen's movie, "You, Me and Dupree," which they say is a bad movie that they think Owen should have thanked them for, because they think the story (and title) resemble their song "Cousin Dupree," off the "Two Against Nature" album. "Cousin Dupree" is about a guy who... well, let them put it in their own words:

Well I've kicked around a lot since high school
I've worked a lot of nowhere gigs
From keyboard man in a rock'n ska band
To haulin' boss crude in the big rigs

Now I've come back home to plan my next move
From the comfort of my Aunt Faye's couch
When I see my little cousin Janine walk in
All I could say was ow ow ouch

Honey how you've grown
Like a rose
Well we used to play
When we were three
How about a kiss for your cousin Dupree

Write Fagen and Becker:

Anyway, they got your little brother on the hook for this summer stinkbomb -- I mean, check the reviews -- and he's using all his heaviest Owen C. licks to try to get this pathetic way-unfunny debacle off the ground and, in the end, no matter what he does or what happens at the box office, in the short run, he's gonna go down hard for trashing the work of some pretty heavy artists like us in the process. ... I mean, we're like totally out in the cold on this one -- no ASCAP, no soundtrack, no consultant gig (like we got from the Farrelly Bros. when they used a bunch of songs in their movie, "You, Me and Irene" or whatever). No phone call, no muffin basket, no flowes, nothing....

But, hey, luke, man -- there is one petite solid you could do for us at this time -- do you think you could persuade your bro to do the right thing and come down to our Concert at Irvine and apologize to our fans for this travesty?

OK, I can see some similarities between one Dupree and the other -- especially the ramblin' nature of the character, the sleeping on the couch, and all that.

But, frankly, I think Owen Wilson's Dupree is even more like the out-of-place "special friend," the unwelcome guest who will not leave, who is the title character of the Dan masterpiece "Gaucho":

Can't you see they're laughing at me
Get rid of him
I don't care what you do at home
Would you care to explain...

Who is the gaucho amigo
Why is he standing
In your spangled leather poncho
And your elevator shoes
Bodacious cowboys
Such as your friend
Will never be welcome here
High in the Custerdome...

No he can't sleep on the floor
What do you think I'm yelling for
I'll drop him near the freeway
Doesn't he have a home...

UPDATE: Discussion of various interpretations of "Gaucho" (any or all of which work) here. Best of all: " It's obvious that the singer is berating an acquaintance (a roommate or other such cohabitant?) for his association with some poseur, a lightweight, freeloading hipster fraud who's long overstayed his welcome. Beyond that, though, we know nothing. Who are these characters? What are the circumstances of their involvement? What is the Custerdome? In the end, of course, it doesn't matter, because we're hearing a snippet of a diatribe from one character to another, and that's all we're supposed to be hearing."

... and channels roles from the entire career of James Earl Jones. That's the premise of this very funny short, "Vader Sessions," from Akjak Moving Pictures, in which the Imperial Villain speaks in Jones' voice through sound clips from "The Great White Hope" to "Clear and Present Danger" to "A Family Thing." (I kept waiting for him to announce: "This... is CNN.") I know: Is it possible for yet another "Star Wars" parody to be funny? I think these guys have demonstrated that it is. I'd love to know the sources of all the dialog used -- so feel free to post a comment with whatever you recognize.

(Thanks to Alonso Sobrado in Costa Rica!)

All of the cuss words, none of the plot! Now that the courts have stopped companies like Clean Flicks and Family Flicks USA from releasing their own custom-sanitized DVD versions of other people's movies (we used to just call this "bowdlerization"), perhaps it is time to celebrate with a different approach: a feature with all the f-words left in, but the rest of the movie taken out. That's what somebody's done with "The Big Lebowski" in this two-minute, fourteen-second "F*cking Short Version." If you're offended by profanity... well, then you're out of your element, Donny!

Those scabrously funny folks over at Rottentomatoes.com are having fun with the reviews of "Clerks II." Here are some of the quotes that appear on the main page right now:

"If 'Clerks II' doesn't have quite the scabrous kick of its predecessor, the chance to revisit a classic premise must have renewed the writer in Smith, whose banter here often achieves a sharpness and quality." -- Justin Chang, Variety

"What was scabrously funny and charmingly amateurish in the 1994 black-and-white 'Clerks' is now less so on every level in the color bigger-budgeted sequel..." -- Emanuel Levy, EmanualLevy.com

"A tender, scabrous and very, very funny comedy that picks up 12 years after the original." -- Damon Wise, Empire Magazine (UK)

For the record, as of 10 p.m. PST, July 18, 2006, a Google search for "scabrous" + "Clerks II" yields 117 results. What will it be after Friday???

Just published at MSN Movies (which reportedly recently passed Yahoo! as the highest-trafficked movie site on the web -- even more than IMDb!): my survey of ten movies about the tortures and triplicate-tribulations of having a job (or not), called "Wither While You Work," from "Modern Times" to "Time Out" to "The Office" (BBC). Please check it out and let me know what you think -- especially if you've ever been accused of suffering "a bad case of the Mondays." Here's the intro, to give you a taste:

"When I find myself in a position like this, I ask myself: 'What would General Motors do?' And then I do the opposite."

-- Johnny Case (Cary Grant) in "Holiday" (1938)

On my right calf is a tattoo of a UPC code that expresses far more concisely and profoundly than language how I feel about doing a job just for the paycheck. It's the bar code from Nirvana's "Nevermind" album -- you know, the one with the naked baby boy swimming after the dollar bill on a fishhook. It's my little private joke -- and constant reminder -- about feelings of depersonalization I felt at old jobs. And if you've ever been employed at a place that made you feel like a shrink-wrapped product, or like you were just treading water until the next paycheck (and who hasn't?) ... well then, you know what it's like.

Movies and television usually deal with work in generic ways: The characters have jobs, and we sometimes even accompany them to work, but we rarely get a feeling for what it's like to actually do their jobs. That's why Kevin Smith's "Clerks" (and now its sequel, "Clerks II") connects with many people who have spent (or spend) so much time in tedious drudgery at low-level jobs where they are forced to interact with extremely unpleasant people -- either the unwashed public or nut-bag co-workers.

"South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have finally explained some of the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that prevented their Tom Cruise/Scientology-ridiculing episode, "Trapped in the Closet" from repeating as scheduled, and why Comedy Central kept them from showing a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad in the most recent season ("Cartoon Wars, Part II"), even though they'd already shown Muhammad in a 2001 episode, "Super Best Friends."

CNN reports ("'South Park' guys still upset"):

"So there are two things we can't do on Comedy Central: show Muhammad or Tom Cruise," Trey Parker said during the MTV Networks portion of the Television Critics Assn. summer press tour.

Parker and Matt Stone said they had no doubt that the "Trapped in the Closet" episode was yanked as a result of Cruise's starring this summer in "Mission: Impossible III," the movie from Paramount, Comedy Central's sister company. [...]

"We didn't do any press because we were just going to get in a pissing war with Tom Cruise, and we didn't want to be in the same article as that guy," he said. "But we picked the wrong guy to parody because we're going to be asked about Tom for the next two years."

They added that they have not been contacted by Scientology representatives but did sit down the week after the episode aired with a "very upset" Isaac Hayes, a Scientologist who portrayed the character of Chef. Hayes has since exited the show.

"We didn't want to be hypocrites," Parker said. "We thought it could piss Isaac off, but we had to do it for that very reason" of not being labeled hypocrites. [So, it looks like Roger Friedman was full of crap.]

Regarding the decision not to air the image of Muhammad during the "Cartoon Wars" episode, the pair said it was a corporate decision that could become a slippery slope if other groups begin making threats and affecting content. They also noted that Muhammad seems to be off limits, while it is "open season" on Jesus, who happens to be a "South Park" character. (Depictions of Muhammad are strictly prohibited in Islam.)

Comedy Central president Doug Herzog admitted, "It's tough, but I think I would say we did overreact. ... Matt and Trey enjoy a fair amount of creative freedom. History might show that we overreacted, and we will live with that."

He added that the image probably will not be shown on the DVD version either, but "I look forward to the day when we can uncover it."

Over at a film odyssey (check out that beautiful logo!), movie blogger and "Fight Club" Opening Shots contributor Robert Humanick mashes up two movie mash-ups from YouTube, both set to Eric Idle's uplifting, send-'em-out-whistling curtain number from the great "Monty Python's Life of Brian": "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life." The first cuts footage from Mike Judge's "Office Space" to the tune, providing encouragement to disheartened cubicle gnomes with martyr complexes the world over.

The other uses footage of Idle singing the song in "Life of Brian," intercut with gruesome footage from Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ." Either way, it's a revelation.

Readers responding to the news that the banned "South Park" episode "Trapped in the Closet" is scheduled (again) for its first repeat showing since November of 2005 have also tipped me off (in Comments -- thanks, DVC) that the "Super Best Friends" episode was rebroadcast this week, and the world failed to end. In this 2001 show, various religious figures (including Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, Joseph Smith, Krishna, Moses and Lao Tsu) were depicted as superheroes who team up to fight the evil David Blaine, except for Buddha who doesn't believe in evil. According to Wikipedia, it was also repeated in syndication in April 2006 -- despite Comedy Central apparently refusing to show a cartoon depiction of Muhammad in "Cartoon Wars, Part II," which premiered the same month. (Sorry, Danish cartoonists. Next season I would like to see Trey and Matt actually incorporate those Muhammad cartoons into the show: "Cartoon Wars, Part III"?) And the "Bloody Mary" episode, which was withheld from re-airing after protests from the Catholic League (see "Vile 'South Park' Episode Pulled," the League's own take on the matter) is now scheduled for repeat August 2. C'mon folks, this is a show that began as a cartoon Christmas card about Jesus duking it out with Santa. Could the other kind of "market pressures" (i.e., audiences that actually want to see these shows -- and will endure the ads that accompany them as the price of doing so, unless they have DVRs and can zip through them) emerge triumphant at last? Hail, freedom!

I just love a Xenu joke. But, seriously, this just in from reader Ali Nagib:

I just noticed on my TiVo that it claims that Comedy Central will air "Trapped in the Closet" on July 19, in their usual "new" episode timeslot, at 10 and 12 PM Eastern. Go, Freedom! (I think)

Great news, Ali! I went to Comedy Central's web site and it confirms your TiVo. The episode is scheduled for the 19th (immediately following "Casa Bonita," another great one), with a repeat the next day. Will Viacom and Comedy Central have the intestinal fortitude to follow through this time? Or will they cave again at the last minute and whisk the Emmy-nominated episode back into the Comedy Closet, along with Tom Cruise, John Travolta and R. Kelly? We shall see, we shall see... Meanwhile, set your TiVos!

UPDATE (07/12/06):Check out this story at E!Online, "Airwaves Again Safe for 'South Park' Scientology Spoof":

"If they hadn't put this episode back on the air, we'd have had serious issues, and we wouldn't be doing anything else with them," cocreator Matt Stone tells Variety....

While Comedy Central failed to publicly disclose its reasons for yanking the program (which is also credited for leading Scientologist Isaac Hayes to jump ship as the longtime voice of Chef), creators Stone and Trey Parker didn't shy away from broadcasting what they claimed was the network-sanctioned reason.

As the conspiracy theory goes, the Cruise's camp had a hand in deep-sixing the episode, with the litigious actor reportedly threatening threatened to pull out of promotional duties for "Mission: Impossible III." (Viacom is the parent company for both Comedy Central and Paramount, the studio that was releasing Cruise's film.)

Cruise's reps vehemently denied such allegations, but the "South Park" brain trust stuck by its guns.

"I only know what we were told, that people involved with 'M:I:III' wanted the episode off the air and that is why Comedy Central had to do it," Stone says in Variety. "I don't know why else it would have been pulled."

Now, Cruise's saturation-level publicity tour is over (and proved fairly ineffective, with the sequel grossing a disappointing $133 million domestically) and he is apparently in hiding with his new baby.

Have the evildoers been vanquished? Here's hoping...

"Trapped in the Closet" -- the infamous 2005 "South Park" episode that miraculously combined elements of Scientology, the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, the Second Coming, L. Ron Hubbard, Tom Cruise, John Travolta, R. Kelly, Xenu and Stan -- has been nominated for an Emmy Award, even though it's been banned from showing in the UK, and from re-airing in the United States, reportedly due to pressure from Tom Cruise and/or Scientology, two of the most unpredictable litigious forces on the planet Earth.

The episode is nominated for Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour). So, Comedy Central (and Viacom), are you going to allow this acclaimed episode to be seen (again), outside of Canada and Turkey?

Today, BTW, marks Day 120-Something of "South Park" Held Hostage in America, and spineless Viacom is beginning to resemble the presidency of Jimmy Carter in its final days.

It's a very special Tom Cruise Night when the California League Lake Elsinore Storm face the High Desert Mavericks this evening (Friday) at 7:05, PDT. The Los Angeles Times reports:

Besides giving away a Cruise bobblehead — make that a "bobble-couch," depicting the star in full Oprah couch-jumping mode — the San Diego Padres' Class-A affiliate will celebrate the "silent birth" of Tom and Katie Holmes' baby, Suri, with a "silent inning," during which no batters will be announced and no music played. "Silent birth," a Church of Scientology teaching, specifies no music and no talking during the birth.

Other planned activities include a couch-jumping contest, a Scientology information and sign-up booth and a retrospective of Cruise's movie career.

The Storm's opponent? The High Desert Mavericks, of course. No doubt in honor of Cruise's character in "Top Gun."

Next week: The Adelanto Operating Thetans take on the Yucaipa Cocktails.

(tip: Defamer)

After Bruce Springsteen referred to "present company included, the idiots rambling on on cable television any given night of the week" in an interview with something called Soledad O'Brien (what is a Soledad O'Brien, and why was Springsteen having an interview with it?), Stephen Colbert was outraged. He offered these Words of Wisdom -- something to keep in mind during the summer movie season, as well:

"All Soledad did was ask a perfectly legitimate valid question about whether artists should do anything other than entertain us! I've said it before: Popular music should be a series of meaningless cliches strung together by a pleasing melody to help pass the time during long commutes or loveless marriages."

C'mon, people: Isn't willful vacuity, and the lack of any ambition other than the monetary, the very recipe for what makes life so worth living?

At The Hot Blog, David Poland has somehow gotten ahold of an obscenely funny memo from "South Park"'s Matt Stone, sent to the MPAA Ratings Board during negotiations over the rating for 1999's "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut." (WARNING: Explicit language -- as if you couldn't have anticipated that.) Stone even misspells "Sadaam." Ah, those were such innocent times. It ends with one of the great kiss-offs in Hollywood studio correspondence history: "P.S. This is my favorite memo ever." One of mine, too.

Despite the marketing campaign, the makers of "The Break-Up" say their movie is not supposed to be a romantic comedy -- which is precisely what many critics criticized it for not being. It's not "Wedding Crashers II" and it's not a "chick flick." And "Superman Returns" is not a comicbook superhero movie, or even a gay comicbook superhero movie. According to director Bryan Singer, it's a "chick flick."

OK, fine.

Link to YouTube.com

In keeping with our post-"Da Vinci Code" biblical theme:

Link to YouTube.com

(tip: MCN)

The infamous, mysteriously suppressed "South Park" episode that poked fun at Scientology and Tom Cruise (sacrilege!) still hasn't been shown on TV in the UK -- but the prestigious National Film Theatre in London hosted a free, big-screen presentation of "Trapped in the Closet" Monday. The screening was in connection with a Stanley Kubrick Masterclass conducted by "South Park" auteurs Trey Parker and Matt Stone. According to a wire service item that ran in the New York Post and in many other outlets:

Tom Cruise has lost his fight to stop an episode of South Park mocking his Scientology beliefs being shown in the UK....

Organizers were thrilled the actor failed in his attempts to stop the free screening, which accompanied a talk given by creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, insisting it was a display of free speech.

A spokesman said, "If we were charging there may have been legal problems, but it was a free event, so it should be fine."

Free DVDs of the episode were given out after the screening. (BTW, this is Day 65 of "South Park" Held Hostage in America, for those of you who, like me, are keeping a Freedom Vigil. Keep that Mr. Hankey burning in the window... for Freedom.) I wonder: If Oliver Stone can get away with showing a 20-minute promo reel for his "World Trade Center" at the Cannes Film Festival this year, why didn't the festival offer the 20-something-minute "Trapped in the Closet" to those poor Europeans who haven't been able to see it? Bet that high-definition cut paper animation would look great at the Lumiere.... (tip: Andrew Sullivan)

Quick: When you think "Tom Cruise," what's the first thing that pops into your mind? Tabloid celebrity? Love-struck happy dad? Couch-jumper? Noted skeptic and scholar of the history of psychology and psychopharmacology? Censor? Superspy? Scientologist? Actor? The former Mr. Kidman? The future Mr. Holmes? Movie star?

The release of "Mission: Impossible III" on Friday is being touted by some as a referendum on Cruise's career as a celebrity with marquee value. It's Cruise's third time out as superspy Ethan Hunt (no, not that guy who used to be married to Uma Thurman -- the secret agent dude!), so the franchise may have quite a bit of steam of its own. But after the Scientology-backed clampdown on the "Trapped in the Closet" episode of "South Park" in the US and the UK (and today, by the way, happens to be Day 50 of "South Park" Held Hostage) and other bizarre off-screen behavior, Cruise's box-office status is being... questioned.

The thing about speaking truth to power is that the powerful don't really like it all that much. That was apparent at the White House Correspondents Dinner Saturday night, when Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central's satirical "The Colbert Report" (basically a Fox News parody in which Colbert plays a fact-challenged, egomaniacal character based on Bill O'Reilly -- and Sean Hannity, Britt Hume, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter...) delivered a speech that cut maybe just an eentsy bit too close to the truth (or "truthiness") for the comfort of the President, the First Lady and the ineffectual reporters in the audience.