Later Haters

Conan O'Brien Can't Stop/Punching the Clown

2011-11-11T17:00:00.001-08:00

Henry Phillips and Conan Obrien have quite a bit in common. They are both guitar strumming gingers, who’s desire to perform seems in direct opposition to the cerebral nature of their humor. But, whereas O’Brien was plucked from the obscurity of a writers room to become an unlikely icon, Henry Phillips wont likely enjoy that break through. His fiend and comedian, Doug Stanhope, described him to Marc Maron as one of the most interesting talented people who’s lack of confidence makes him immune to success. Perhaps “enjoy” is the wrong word to use in relation to success, since the documentary Conan Obrien Cant Stopreveals one of the late night greats to be so addicted to the limelight that one seriously worries what will happen to him if the current incarnation of his show doesn’t work out. Phillips documentary, Punching the Clown, could be spliced with Cant Stop as a Citizen Kane style epic, the story of a soft spoken decent man, who eventually finds himself consumed by his own ambition. Who could forget 2010, when Obrien’s loss of the The Tonight Show led to an out pouring of public support and the subsequent tour that Cant Stop documents. I caught the tour in Phoenix, and would have been hard pressed to believe that so much of the spectacle was coming from a place of anger. Sure, the guy lost his job, but he was never well suited for the corporate oversight The Tonight Show entailed. I assumed Obrien must have been secretly relived to be released back into the fringe. Apparently, he was really pissed. Can’t Stop shows the comic punching his staff, being a dick to his assistant ( but still being funny), and deeply resenting the amount of energy he was forced to split between his passion to perform and perfunctory meet and greets. Its obvious that Obrien would be happier if he’d stayed behind the scenes these past two decades, but gosh, then we wouldn’t have this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1GpprtgVB8 Phillips, on the other hand, can barely muster the effort to go onstage, joking that if people knew how little work he put in, he’d be seen as a genius. He’s soft spoken in a way Obrien probably was pre-Latenight. Punching the clown is a send up of LA’s inherent insincerity, and how ill fitted a comic like Phillips proves to be in a town where perception is everything. Phillips crashes with his brother in LA after a soul crushing road gig. His career begins to advance through a series of miscommunications but ultimately crashes when his buzz shifts from ‘rising comic’ to ‘blatant anti-Semite.” The joke is that every time something does go well for Phillips, it causes several more people’s lives to suck, like when a comment to an agent about bagels fucks up the morning of every underling in the office. Like Cant Stop, show biz is painted as a toxic environment in which no one has any control, and the best an artist can do is to keep moving. Unlike Wont Stop, I did not worry for Phillips well being after viewing Punching the Clown. Ultimately, his triumph is that he gets to keep playing dive bars in obscure locations. The message to take from these films seems to be that a comedian can’t win because, at the end of the day, he still has the brain of a comedian.

The Escapist (2008)

2011-11-11T16:09:00.001-08:00

Far be it for me to speak on a director’s behalf, but as Rupert Wyatt directed the 2008 prison drama The Escapist, he must have been thinking “If only I could replace Brian Cox with a CGI monkey. Then I’d have a faucking movie.” Seriously, I can't be the only one who sees a resembance between these two.

Wyatt, of course, did go on the direct this years wildly successful Rise of the Planet of The Apes, and there is surely a you tube video to be made comparing the performances of The Escapist’s British cast and the apes of the latter film. Like Drive, this is film doesn’t concern itself with much back story, everything we need to know about the characters is communicated in body language and posturing (the Netflix synopsis even gets Cox’s motive for escape wrong, citing his daughter’s terminal illness, when in fact the one shred of back-story we receive is that she is a junkie). Without any dialogue, we understand through the spreading of his shoulders that Damian Lewis is the alpha of this particular prison, Brian Cox has a history and shit, and Dominic Cooper is gonna get raped. Stephen Makintosh, in particular, plays one of the more despicable baddies in recent memory, a man with seemingly no control of his limbs, but a strong inclination to literally mash his face into anyone he hopes to influence. I would speculate that his character had cerebral palsy, but he does rape Dominic Cooper, so probably not. The film invigorates its by the numbers escape lot but over laying the actual escape with the days leading up to it. For anyone curious as to how Wyatt, a Brit with only two directing credits, landed a big budget Hollywood franchise, this film is a fairly stellar calling card. Wyatt has made 2 great entertainments, and as of right now, he is the best working director of movies about contemplative, non verbal apes in cages.

Drive. Autistic?

2011-10-13T00:51:00.000-07:00

It doesn't have to be said again but Drive is awesome, just so damn much so.
Most critics have noted that Ryan Goslings stoic, identity free performance is an omage to certain samurai and western archtypes, but I couldnt help but wonder, was his character just autistic?
Look at these clips.

Sure, his eyes are dreamy, but tis that bad ass cool, or borderline aspergers?

E.T. Revisited

2011-05-04T14:10:00.000-07:00

Scientist in ET: “ He’s got DNA! He’s got DNA!”
I hope that scientist lost her job after the events of the movie, because that’s a dumb fucking scientist.

What an innocent time must 1982 have been that such banter passed as substantial scientific know how.
On another note, someone once said intelligence was the ability to hold two opposing thoughts in one’s mind simulataneously, so that fact that I was thinking such snarky comments while sobbing uncontrobaly for the 45 minutes straight must make me pretty darned intelligent. And did I ever sob.
So I have two modes, sarcasm and emotional train wreck. I never knew I could do them both at once. Moving on.

I now feel I have a profound sense of E.T. The boy is without a father, he has been abandoned. He comes to understand the connection between life forces exists on such a level that to be separated with a loved one means to have to severe all emotional connections or that both bodies will die. The fact that thae loved one is dying because they are cut off from the increasingly distant life force of the tribe to which they belong makes it more devastating because Elliot is forced to realize that ET is both not him in their literal emotional fluidity, and also that ET can only live when incorporated into the emotional life force of his larger community, one that cannot coexist with Elliot’s world. The last plea for ET to stay is pathetic. Elliot essentially becomes an adult when he recognizes that he is dead inside emotionally.
Authortities always approach from up hill and remain faceless throughout, with the exception of Peter Coyote’s character, who its safe it assume is essentially an adult Elliot, a child of divorce who has been awaiting a visitor since he was 10 to replace the void in himself. The fact that the ragtag team of neighborhood kids embrace hills to effortlessly on their bikes is such a poetic usurping of authority that I goddamn near punched out my window when it came onscreen.
I hadn’t seen ET in ten years. I can’tremember how the 2002 theatircal release worked with the digital insertion of walkie talkies in place of the authorities guns at the most climactic moment. I don’t care to revisit it. Also, in post 9/11 silliness they dubbed the mother forbidding elliots brother from tricker treating as a “terrorist” with “hippy” even though that kills the joke that he simply puts on a bowler hat to change his costume from Middle Eastern terrorist to a hobo.
Also, I swear to god that Harrison Ford does the voideover of the teacher with an exaggerated monotone.
No one reads this blog right?

2011-04-25T20:10:00.000-07:00

Its a debate for the ages, but in 1973 the central message from Death Wish must have seemed "Bruce Springsteen will rape and kill your family."
Those were innocent times.

2011-04-06T17:45:00.000-07:00

I can't believe Zack Galfankis made his TV debut on The Late Show while Janeane Garfolo guest hosted during Letterman's heart thing. Seeing that the lead guest was Bob Oedenkirk, it makes me wonder what it would have been like for 90's "alternative" comedy to have a nightly televised showcase.
And I love the police tape around the desk. It's about the aesthetic motherfuckers! The aesthetic!

My Effortless Brilliance V. Humpday

2011-03-11T14:00:00.000-08:00

A Slate article from a few years back noted the disparity between the movies people add to their Netflix cues and the ones that actually make it to their mailboxes. Overtime, people tend to compile a lengthy list of the movies they believe they should see while the guilty pleasures always seem to make it to the top of their list and get shipped. This creates a metaphorical void in the Netflix queue with the bottom of the list (with titles like Le Dolce Vita and Cries and Whispers) representing the sophisticated version of ourselves we wish to be, while the top of the list reflects the reality that, on average, people are pretty average (and like Caddyshack.)
When viewers are actually confronted with a title they feel they should see but have no desire to devote an evening too, that title tends to stay in their possession for an extended period. The Netflix customer will not come to admit that they have desire to choke down quality films that challenge and provoke them, and this is the reason that Hotel Rwanda and Schindler’s List stay out longer than any other titles in Netflix history. We are almost as likely to ship out as missionaries to the third world as to let those countries invade our home entertainment. Still, we cannot admit to being so shallow and unsophisticated, so we hold on to the disc, waiting for the day when a harrowing yet inspiring story of African and/or Jewish genocide seems more enticing than seeing Point Break for the umpteenth time. Not to say that Point Break isn’t harrowing and inspiring in its own right.

For six months My Person Brilliance has been the Hotel Rwanda I can no more watch than bear to send back unmolested. Yes, I am going to stick with that word choice. My brother, who spends most of his time in Alaska and the rest of it bored out his mind while he visits family, recently came to me after committing to the 2009 Mumblecore late one night. The next day, he was almost hostile that I had allowed him to commit to a film with “Absolutely no point to it.”
All I could say was “Yeah, I know. It Mumblecore.” As if the hipster genre of late were a problem we simply had to deal with nowadays, like the economy or global warming. My prediction is that mumblecore is about six months away from becoming a pejorative term, like hipster; something easily identifiable that no one will want to cop to. I’m saying this as someone who likes many of these films, but I don’t see much of a future for a subgenre that serves mainly to remind us why we prefer escapist fare to seeing real, inarticulate, meandering life represented on film. I’m amazed that I Can Do Bad All By Myself ended up being the title to a Tyler Perry film and not a Mumblecore opus, because that has been my response to most of these movies; I can be inarticulate and twenty something all by myself, why does this exist?
Watchiing Lynn Shelton’s two efforts as a director illustrates exactly how Mumblecore can make or break a movie. Her first film, My Effortless Brlliance (2008), is essentially a home movie that ruined 80 minutes of my brother’s life, whereas Humpday (2009) takes a concept (two straight friends agree to have sex on film) that would flounder as a broad comedy but works because the tension between the actors is so palpable.

In My Effortless Brilliance, Sean, an extremely effeminate, somewhat successful novelist, asks his college friend ,Dylan, to bring over Indian takeout. Upon delivering the food, Dylan announces that he thinks his friend is an asshole and leaves. A year later Sean arrives unannounced at his estranged friend’s rurally isolated home and then just stays there despite the fact that his friend clearly (and correctly) thinks he is still an asshole. That’s it. There’s some business about hunting a cougar and I half hoped the film would end in the highly unlikable cast’s violent mauling but the climax is actually the two men doing a crossword together and Sean driving off in his Prius. You can see why my brother was pissed.
The only feature on the DVD is a short making of documentary. There’s an heir of self satisfaction from all involved that they were improvising all of their dialogue and shooting the entire film for only a few thousand dollars (I’m guessing all of that went into catering) and far be it for me to tell these well adjusted arty types they shouldn’t be out there making naturalistic movies that capture the “real” moments of life, I just don’t know why the end result needed to be shared.
Humpday is another improvised story of an unwanted houseguest but avoids those meandering pitfalls by using actors who are actually skilled at improv and giving them situations that allow the scenes to unfold.

Andrew is a self styled Bohemian type who seems to have been couch surfing for years when he arrives at Ben’s home late one night. Ben is trying to make a child with his wife, Anna, and seems equally annoyed by Andrew’s presence and embarrassed that he didn’t do down a similar Bohemian road.
After a night if indulging in red wine and pot with some of Andrew’s earthy artist friends, someone brings up Boinkfest, a festival of homemade erotic films that Ben, in a drunken bid to win back some of the avante gardiness of his youth, declares he will enter with Andrew.
Two straight men agreeing to make a porn together. Played more broadly, this concept would just be a list of contrivances ( “We have to save the orphanage and gay porn is the only way!” or something) but in the context of Humpday it is totally believable that these two men could egg each other on to the day in question as a mode of getting back the artistic edge.
Some of the funniest moments come from Andrew’s dawning realization that, although he avoided Ben’s nine to five lifestyle, he really isn’t all that hip or progressive. At one point he is invited into threesome with two fairly attractive ladies, only to realize his sexual mores are not as advanced as he thought. My Effortless Brilliance would have had some momentum if Shelton had thought then to have a character whip out a dildo from time to time.
Although I’m usually annoyed when a film is about the creative process instead of the result of one, I liked that Humpday seemed like Lynn Shelton’s very entertaining answer to My Effortless Brilliance. Why do people go out and pursue these creative projects of no commercial and limited artistic value? Apparently because it’s the only way they can think to bond with their college friends. At least her end product is improving.

6:13 PM.

2011-02-27T17:13:00.001-08:00

All these Hollywood phonies....
I already miss Mo'Nique.

John Williams: Hack

2011-01-21T07:43:00.000-08:00

The year was 2005 and my skills as a Lothario were at their peak. Due to my notoriety as a high level actor in local theater, I was often invited to parties, held right in people’s apartments, where other men and women in their early twenties consumed alcohol and tried to close the gap between two human souls and their genitals.
On one such evening I met a young honey who’s considerable rack was being groped by some gay dudes because that’s something that they like to do at parties. I corrected their technique and sent them on their way, breaking out everything in my charm repertoire to seal the deal with this aspiring opera singer.
We engaged in something I like to call Hep Talk, where I break out my knowledge of classic authors like Beverly Cleary until its clear that dry humping is underway. And did we ever - dry hump that is- we must have gone on for fifteen minutes until the party's hosts asked us to leave so they could go to bed/not be grossed out anymore.
Sadly, my swinging lifestyle was not to last. Once it became clear that I didn’t have the chops to be a college thespian, I quickly retreated into a state of boozy recluse and all but gave up on dry humping my was to infamy.
It was almost a whole year before I remembered something that opera singer had said that night that didn’t jive with my worldview. When I told her my favorite musicians included The Shins and John Williams she haughtily dismissed the world’s greatest composer as “Okay, but really derivative.”

I quickly sough out whether this could be true, and the truth was truer than I could deal with. According to this Slate article Mr. Wlliams, the plucker of our youthful heartstrings and pied piper of wonderment, actually is pretty derivative of Max Steiner, the first great composer of the talky era, who himself was sort of a hack asshole. Steiner “could emit late-19th-century music, redolent of Strauss and Mahler, by the kilo. Outside Skull Island, that plush orchestral sound would dominate film scores for the following decades: the Austro-German-Hollywood grand style epitomized by Steiner and another Austrian, Erich Wolfgang Korngold.”
I don’t know who any of those people are but I’m going to go out on a limb and say they probably ended up being Nazi war criminals.

Not knowing who else to turn to, I contacted the opera singer on something we used at the time called MySpace, to concede that, yes, maybe John Williams was “sort of derivative.”
She praised the accuracy of my research but pointed out that, since I had avoided her at every turn for the past year, she wanted nothing to do with me and she hoped I learned to treat people better.
This has nothing to do with the larger point. I’m just a sad person.
So who else has John Williams raided for a dose of whimsy?

http://www.twogomers.com/?powerpress_pinw=642-podcastsmp3
The Two Gomers Run a Marathon podcast is way unfunny and light on information about running. This episode, however, cracked the JW scam wide open. About 11 minutes in, one of these Gomers beaks just how William’s scores are mere stand ins for the classical pieces from when music was just being invented. Home Alone is clearly evoking the Nutcracker throughout, stealing both key and meter for basically every sequence.

It turns out that George Lucas is fairly easygoing with licensing out the rights of Star Wars for theatrical productions. I learned from the Proudly Resents pod cast, that the Dark Room, a fifty seat theater in San Francisco, was granted permission to do stage shows of Star Wars, the only restriction being that none of the original music could be used. No matter, it turns out that audiences have little ability to decipher the original score from The Planets, the composition it clearly lifted.

Am I actually disillusioned that John Willliams is a fucking hack? Not really. While he was the first musician I ever doled out money for a cassette recording of when I was 12, I never presumed he was a great innovator. Just because the Superman theme make me feel like I imagine a coked up bull rider does God massages his temples, doesn’t mean that the source needs to be 100% original. If anything, it fills me with great hope that I could one day rip off a major talent lost to the ages. At least that’s what I’ll tell myself as I put the finishing touches on my new manuscript, War and Not War.

From the mind of Uwe Boll: Rampage

2011-01-20T21:26:00.000-08:00

Perusing a Redbox machine recently, my unassuming brother inquired whether a film titled Darfur was worth seeing. Considering how many films completely miss a theatrical release in recent years, he was being perfectly reasonable to assume a film they had never heard of could be an under the radar gem. So he was a little shocked when I squelched “No, that’s a Uwe Boll film!” with a pitch and urgency usually reserved for “ No, don’t touch those rusty AIDS needles!”
Somehow I knew - simply by virtue of being directed by German doctor of literature/ super prolific director Uwe Boll- that the film Darfur had to be equally offensive to the actual events of Darfur. That I have never seen a Uwe Boll film is beside the fact. Since House of the Dead (2003), Boll has chruned out several films a year and earned a reputation as one of the all time great hacks. To be so hated for his lack of talent, in an era when plenty of schlock films are making it to DVD, is perhaps more impressive than actually making quality features would be. Boll should be easy to ignore as his films are only receive scant theatrical runs and yet in 8 short years he has captured the ire of the interweb as if his films were compulsory viewing in public schools. Something about Boll’s penchant for catching once A list actors in need of a quick pay check and inserting them into completely inappropriate rolls and his exploitation of a loop hole in the German tax code that funds all of his features have made into some sort of schlock filmmaker super villain.
And yet I have never seen a Uwe Boll film. Just by dumb luck, I managed to avoid the string of movies being touted as some of he worst ever made. Also, I’ve mostly only watched reruns of Made on MTV in the years that Boll has been making movies.
So when I saw that Rampage (2009) was streaming off of Netflix, I thought I would watch the first 10 minutes to see exactly how inept a filmmaker Boll actually is. 100 Minutes later the credits rolled and I did not know what to make of what I just saw.
Rampage does not have a brain in its schlock head. This I know. Yet it is deliriously stupid in a way that I could not aver my eyes from. Boll clearly hates his audience and creates a protagonist he probably thinks mirrors them and carries out their ultimate mean spirited fantasy.
Rampage is filmed in a cinema verite style that disguises it as a film of far greater nuance than it comes close to being. Our protagonist Bill Williamson (who’s Germanic mug is not so dissimilar from Boll) is working out in his room. I have to say that a character exercising almost always sucks me into a movie. As portrayed by Brendan Fletcher, Bill is about as douchey and aloof as they come, but I couldn’t stop wondering “What was he getting in shape for?” We learn that Bill is a college drop out who’s super-on-the-go parents think its time for him to get his own place. Bill is reticent.
Bill works at a garage where his boss wants him to abandon the van that is his pet project even though Bill has totally fixed, like, 3 cars that day!
The local barista doesn’t make Bill’s macchiato with enough foam even though he claims to make the best coffee in town. When he meets his only friend to discuss philosophy over fast food chicken, the counter girl ends up spilling soda all over his lap. It seems as if Bill is being pushed to the edge by societies demands and poor customer service.
Rampage really doesn’t deserve much more of a synopsis other than to say that Bill assembles a bullet proof suit , blows up the police station with the van he has been rigging with remote control, and goes around killing everyone he encounters for an hour or so. He then frames his philosopher friends for his killing spree/ bank robbery and fakes his suicide.
This is all filmed in a style similar to a Paul Greengrass film and I was actually surprised that Rampage had a fairly engaging visual style. But, oh boy, was this ever a contemptible movie.
I don’t know if Rampage would still be on my mind if I had not watched it the night before the Tucson shootings. In the past two weeks there has been a public discussion as to whether pundits and politicians are advocating the common man to take up arms and in the process fetishising a revolutionary motif to advance a fairly status quo political agenda. Despite it meandering and meaningless philosophical discuassion in the first act, Rampage does not even try to link its violence to any political movement. Here’s a list of what seemed to push the protagonist to the edge.
1. Parents wanting you to et your own place.
2. Boss telling you to do your job.
3. Asshole Baristas.
4. Fast food girl spilling your drink.

Boll seems to think that American’s (and yes, I’m going to assume he is targeting America) are motivated by no greater cause than inconvenience while at the same time giving those assholes the brainless entertainment they crave. Rampage basically plays out like Columbine if it had gone well for the shooters and I can now rightfully hate Uwe Boll like everyone else because he seems to think this is the hero an American audience will get behind. I don’t think I feel the need to go any further into the Boll oeuvre, but he did get me to watch 90 minutes more of this film than I had planned, so who’s the dupe?

Here is the deal Palin: You fuck with Murphy Brown, Your Fucking with me.

2010-11-19T14:10:00.000-08:00

As a youth, I was forcd to go to bed at 8;30. A time restraint that made everything in a later hour of TV seem fascinating. I knew that Johnny Carson’s final monologue included a joke connecting then VP Dan Quayle to my mother’s favorite show, Murphy brown, but that was just because the CBS evening news included a a clip of said joke. I had to turn 12 to stay up late enough to witness Murphy Brown, the outspoken liberal feminist that embodied the Clinton era as well as the flaws that accompany my Irish DNA (I mean she was a recovering alcoholic.)

So Sarah Palin, when you speak ill of Murphy Brown, 18 years after the fact of her out of wedlock pregnancy, that sticks in my craw. Let it be known, when you fuck with Murphy Brown, in turn, your are additionally fucking with me.
It has long been known that Sarah Palin’s faux down home folksiness has been in danger of wooing a highly susceptible sector of the populous to the ballots. I’m sure they could be easily sidetracked if kool aid stands were set up outside of voting stations. For two years (and some change) I just assumed Sarah Palin would go away. 16 Years ago Kato Kaelin was a national voice, these things come and go.
Problem is, we liberals are pussies. We don’t get up in arms when we realize the person offending us is dumber than the snow machine they take t work.

That was until you fucked with Murphy Borwn. Palin.Now you have my ire.
Let it be clear, Im a staunch gun control advocate. I wont start wearing a pistol to town hall meetings as a means of intimidation. But now that you have denounced Candace Burgin’s finest creation (although I do like Carnal Knowledge) I will make it my call in life to rally my fellow pussy liberals to actually speak up and ensure the the angry idiots don’t get their way in 2 years. Just as my olde rborther wrote a letter to Regan, informing him he would be out the door in 84, I beg of all liberals to speak up for themselves in 2012.
But I get away from the point. How dare you speak ill of Myurphy Brown, do you know what she’s been through? Upon returning from the Betty Ford Clinic, she took it upon herself to defend truthfulll journalism, despite network censors who could not swallow her connection to 60’s radicalism and I think she might have talked about her vigina once.
Look, I wont pretend I have watched an episode of Murphy Brown in 15 years. Jon Stewart took over the daily Show shortly after MB went off the air, so the mantle of network leralism was carried on from there. But if sarah Palin, who didn’t have the decency t lend her daughter a rubber, wants to criticize the fictional embodiment of 90’s progressives, I am just going to have to blog the shit out of this.

Thanks to AMC for replaying the Death Wish series into oblivion for the past few months. I now have insight into the conservative mindset that their fantasy is to arm up and kill the people they view as harming society. Lierbals don’t think like this. Our fantasies involve gradual change toward public policy we approve of. I regularly jerk off to the idea of ration heath care legislation. What’s hotter than that?

So I now elect to get angry. Now that the mascot of the new (but really the same) conservative movement has dissed Murphy Brown, my life goal will be to get angry for at least 60 minutes a day toward the ways that the corporate party are fucking up where I live.
I know blogging is an impotent form of rage, but what else do I have? Liberals don’t tend to get things done.
Also, remember how Murhy Brown loved Motown soul? That was a nice touch.

Does Michal Scott have Aspergers?

2010-09-07T22:38:00.000-07:00

Oh, The Office. Six years ago, a remake of the BBC series sounded like an idea only a witless network executive could love. But then, well shucks, you just went and became great and all. So, now we face the final Michael Scott centered season of the series, which, at its' best, balanced some very broad humor with an awareness of real world economics and an attention to gradually building on character details that could almost be called novelistic. And Michael did Pam's mom cause he didn't know she was old, pfff.

My favorite thing about the Michael Scott character is how the show parcels out clues to how he evolved the middle aged emotional train wreck that runs the Scranton Branch of Dunder Miflin. The show has always alluded to certain emotional needs that were not met in Scott's early life and pulled of a real neat trick in making a character who spews nuance but is blind to the nuccey spew that's always right in front of him. The Office even took advantage of Scott's embasility by making it the very reason he's had success as a salesman: Scott fetishizes the family life he never had and uses that value to appeal to customers.

It's probably for the best that Carell is moving on after this year. While I could watch this character forever, it really is cruel after a certain point to keep gawking (affectionaletly) at this poor soul who could never realistically gain the self awareness they need to help myself.
The office has consistently refused to jump the shark to the point that it's last season was really unsure where to step. I admire this because even though Michael Scott would need some serious emotional growth to remain compelling in the long term, we know him to well now to believe that he is capable of that. This leads me to wonder, DOES MICHAEL SCOTT HAVE ASPERGERS SYNDROME? It was this clip that made me reconsider whether Michael Scott's flaws are solely the product of a lack of love in his childhood.

It's the detail at the end where Carell says that as a 5 year old he couldn't even talk. I don't pretend to have a depth of knowledge on the condition, but delayed speech development is certainly a sign.
You could just write off the comment as Michael's memory being spotty or using hyperbole, but wouldn't Carell's final year be amazing if the show really got to the bottom of MS's dysfunction? I'm amazed that the show has never jumped the shark in introducing Michael Scott's mother, if this something the show will draw from it's arsenal to truly confront his long gestating demons?
I'm sure that Carell will end his run with his character finding some sort of lasting happiness, fitting for a series about why we go on living through insipidity for the minor payoffs at days end. But the show has gone to ( and peaked at) some serious Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf areas before, wont the pay off be greater if the show regrows its teeth and says "Hey! Michael Scott has Aspergers, his mom just said so!"

And apparently Harvey Kietel is going to be the new regrional manager of the Scranton branch, so lets steel ourselves.

A mission statement: Know Mumblecore

2010-01-29T13:10:00.000-08:00

Most of the country will spend the next twelve days or so preoccupied with the outcome of the Saints/Colts Superbowl. I can see how this is an especially important event since a Saints victory would be the comeuppance of the post-Katrina New Orleans ( and by extension all the world's downtrodden) while the Colts are just some other team.
But really, I am and always will be indifferent to major sports franchises, a disposition the frees me up to focus on the really important questions in life. Specifically, what will be the major quirk-fest comedy to get picked up at Sundance this week?
If this seems trivial to you, please note that Sundance comes reasonably close to being an anagram for Sudanese, another oppressed people.

My bet is that the Duplass Brother's junior effort Cyrus will the little indie that could of 2010. Just look at the trailer, it's like their two previous films The Puffy Chair and Baghead, but with actors you know.

And if anyone wants to get up in my grill like "Hey Bro, that looks for like Happy, Texas '97 than Little Miss Sunshine '06." Then just back off, because I don't particularly like The Duplass Brother's previous films, but I do think that if this one is to hit, it is very important that I become the web's foremost authority on the sub, sub-genre the Brother's work in: Mumblecore.

Mumblecore includes, at most, 4 or 5 movies you have heard of, so if it seems a bit early for the genre to have a name, it's probably because it was coined by Eric Masunaga, the sound editor on some early MC outings such as Funny Ha Ha, and Mutual Appreciation. Once you've seen a film of this genre, it isn't hard to recognize it's main attributes (free floating camera, quasi improvised dialogue, etc.) probably because they are strikingly similar aesthetically to those of any Dogme 95 film. The main difference is the emphasis on inarticulate college graduates approaching their thirties. In fact, since the genre is so limited in terms of actual titles, it is probably easier to recognize by the overlap of talent involved.
So lets call this a rambling mission statement. In the coming weeks I will view as many of these Mumblecore pictures to see if there is any place for this genre to go, you know, besides putting John C Reilly in them, which will no doubt be a great move, for now.
For Saturday: A review if 2009's well received Humpday. Directed by Liz Shelton, starring Mark Duplass and one of the guys from the Blair witch Project, which may or may not be Mumblecore.

Old ladies, wasted lives

2009-05-12T16:04:00.000-07:00

Something that really sticks in my craw, is when I hear a particular phrase being used by some of a certain age, a phrase that I only seem to catch out of context but to me casts that person in a light exposing that they have completely and utterly wasted their life. It’s usually in a restaurant, from a table of ladies, usually in their late sixties to early seventies, people I would never in my life attempt a conversation with- there were old people liked AT ONE POINT, they were relatives and they are dead now so Im done with that demographic- and these ladies are clearly old friends who get together from time to time to eat soup and ponder what a long strange trip its been, when on e of them says this.
“I never cared for MASH.”
And suddenly the entire conversation becomes the story of an old decrepid woman who must now face that her life has been utterly and tragically unlived.
Now I understand that these are not her dying words. She has not chosen to engrave them into any substantial rock of monument type structure. But the fact that after decades of life experience and time to reflect on those experiences, that in that moment the only pearl of wisdom she could conjure up was,
“I never cared for MASH.”
It sends shivers down my spine and paralyzes me with a fear that this journey toward self discovery called life can be so utterly misspent.

I tend to speak exclusively in clever aphorisms, just to make sure that I do not conceal even a fragment of the wisdom I have accrued in my 26 years of living to the motherfucking max. Granted, I am often drunk and surrounded by people who are not so, like at work. I realize that when I express thoughts like “Boxing is the workst sport, but boozing movies are the best sports movies.” It is foolish of me to expect a slow build of applause, followed by someone gently placing their hand on my shoulder and whispering and whispering the sweet vanilla scented nothing “They truly are Brendan, and now you have taught us what it is to be human.”

But seriously “I never cared for MASH” should never be said. I am not a MASH fan persay, I actually think Alan Alda’s political leanings make him highly suspect, it is not the lack of love for this TV institution that offends me. It is the finality of the statement, the implication that everything else this woman could possibly say has been laid on the table, and all future communications will relate to minor grievances with things that are otherwise beloved elements of the public conscience. I said earlier that the insipidity of a person’s words should not be held against them as they are not intended as their dying words, but seriously, when you are that old it probably should at least be a consideration. Do these women so regularly eat soup because they understand the reduced risk of choking?
So, out of fear that I will one day find myself at the end of life’s road, still tossing out glib pop cultural references that fall on indifferent ears, I just want to get something off my chest today.

I have beef with Frasier.

I state this now knowing that if I don’t not let the world know that I considered Frasier to be overrated and coasting from the day in 1993 that it debuted, I may find myself uttering it at an advanced age when the statements with transcend insipidity and make me into a tragic figure of negated passion and only shallow self knowledge.

I have beef with Frasier.

Yes, I said it twice, incase it was still rattling around there in my psyche, sending messages to my gut to start building a tumor out of the surplus of hate I was storing.
I figure with the way I drink and take poor care of myself, I may have less time on this earth than others. These things shouldn’t be rushed, but I still hope I am able to find a depth of humanity inside myself that makes me a worthwhile being.
Shit, I’ll probably fail, but it wont be because I am stuck working through my distaste for Frasier.

I am published now!

2008-06-21T13:12:00.000-07:00

So, haven't posted here for a while. I decided that pop culture was commented on enough. What is there really left to say about the Incredible Hulk or Indiana Jones? Is life so long that I should lament the supremely unsatisfying nature of CG effects? Besides. I've entered the upper echelon as I am now key player in The Onion AV Club. That's right, they published my immaculately worded letter regarding the unattainability of old school Letterman episodes, answered by no less than chief editor Nathan Rabin. I didn't really think they would include may gushing praise of sir Rabin, and his answer was not all that informative, but fucking A, my words appeared on The Onion AV Club.

blogger.com sucks at making links work so cut and paste this:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/ask-the-av-club-june-20-2008,2351/

This is the basic equivalent of a pussy hound getting his letter published in the forum section of Hustler. Also, the only fruits to date of a BA in Media Criticism, maybe the only fruits ever.

Here's what I want:

2008-05-21T12:46:00.000-07:00

So, Indiana Jones and the Impossible To Satisfy Expectations opens tomorrow, so perhaps a mediation on just what Dr. Jones and party has meant to me.
I oft attribute the misery of my twenties to the fact that niether the world or myself has turned out to be as intersting as I had hoped in my adolesence. Scratch that, the world is probably very interesting, am just not invited to the best parts of it for being such a dullard. In adolescence, I imagined my friends and I to be future revolutionaries who would change everything once we got the chance to, athough, this may not be the source of my disontent. While I found myself recently sitting alone in a diner, writng a letter to aforementioned estranged friends, longing for their companionship, it is probabaly not them who left me disappointed with reality, but my earnest reformist quality may ae served s a bridge of the obnoxiousness I learned before adolescense.
You see, I never forgave the world for not being as exciting as Raiders of the Lost Ark. When I was nine I believed I could play a catalyst to adventure by adopting a stoic disposition and acting if I expected an abrupt escalaton of events that never occured.
That's actually giving myself too much credit. I was denied the stoicism gene that my father posseses in spades, and could only commuinicate my interest in ROTLA through my natural blabbermouth quality, inserting forced references into most sentences. Upon arrrivng at my older brother Sean's college dorm room for a visit, bearing the gift of KFC, I offered him the food plus this qip,
"Raiders of the Lost Chicken, anyone?"
So yeah, I was born witty.
So anyway, my abilty to hang out in dorms was about as bad at 9 as it was at 18, when my parents left me alone with Sean for the afternoon, I had the rare opportunity to alienate people twice my age, something I still do now wth 50 year olds and will only stop doing in twenty five years when those twice my age are all centurians. Here's where the frisson of awkward really came into play: because I could only talk about one thing, ROTLA, my brother's chill Vermont, Phish fan friends placated me by feigning interest in the movie. Asked if I actually knew what Nazis were, responded
"Sure, they killed Jewish people."
And at that moment, a Jewish coed walked by and I was informed that it was in bad taste to mention such things. By the end of the day, because no one listens to blabber mouth kids, it was communicated tomy parents that I was omhow endorsing the nazi party. Now does this really make sense? I, Dr. Jones' most devout follower, had suddenly flipped to the other party? That's slander you fuckers, slander I say?
I got a stern taking to, cried myself to sleep, and leanred an important lesson: I should not talk lest I inadvedntly offen people on the deepest of levels. It's what keeps me obessessively private today, and has saved society a slew of bother since roughly 1992.
So yeah, I am realy excited to see Indiana Jones and the Franchise ofthe Bearded Bros now that I have attributed it some low level child hood trauma. Man, I must really think I am intereting to be posting this feckless shit. Maybe I'll write tomorrow about how Threes Company confused my sense of gender relations.
Still, I did not learn from that experience because it appears my ability to offend runs paraleel to the villains of the Indiana Jones series. Now that Dr. Jones must contend with the Soviets instead of Nazis, I, naturally, have updated who I choose to offend. Junstiyna, a charming Polish immmigrant I wait tables with, spent her first 11 years living under Soviet rule. I, in turn, often show up to work wearing a USSR t--shirt ( why do I own it? I dunno why do they sell them?) and procaliming myself to me of the Marxist persuasion. Justyna has not said anything, althogh i havebeen told lately that I "Dont have the fans" like a better socialzed (I'm a socialist, how can I be badly socialized? maybe 'adjusted' is a better word) person would. So thanks, Indiana Jones, whomever you fight, i subconsciously decide to offend those whom they opressed in real life.
Atleast I didn't meet any Hindues until I was 18 (Temple of Doom is a little racist toward th Indians) and had long dismissed The Last Crusade by the time my father became a Papal Knight, sort of like the Knight pf the crusades who guards all the cups a the en of that movie. Crusading knights were sent by the Pope, I think. Popes were like the Haliburton CEOs of The Crusades.
One upside, when I did finally make it to college, I totally identiied the scene in Rashomon that Raiders pays tribute to. and atlast I didn't spend 5 years making a shot for shot remake like these kids did.

Shit, that's acutaly really cool. Most of all for lack of anti semitism.

Speed Racer/Erick the mildly autistic gay dishwasher Reviewed

2008-05-12T12:21:00.000-07:00

With Bound and The Matrix, the Wachowski brothers established themselves as innovative auters in the medium of film. With Speed Racer, they are just being dicks about it.
Apparently aiming to turn the childhood sensation of spinning around 100 times into something marketable, Speed Racer induced many yawns between me and my date and only deserves commendation for inspiring the weirdest fucking interactions with a coworker I can recall. Let me take you back to an innocent pre-Speed Racer era known as last Thursday.

Erick (the middle aged gay dishwasher at Pizza Hut who might have a touch of the Aspergers syndrome.) : Hey, did you hear about that movie that looks like Tron?

Yes! that's the most apt thing that can be said about Speed Racer, it's a movie that sort of looks like Tron, although it's actually much worse than that. Much like the latter Matrix films, the Wachowski's seem to still make good movies but lose them in editing as their egos will not sacrifice a single beloved shot. They've said the Matrix was the result of just using every idea they ever had in one film and, because they keep repeating this approach, the rules of the sophomore slump still haunt their senior feature.
Anyway, back to Erick.
I told Erick that I was going to quote him when I saw and reviewed Speed Racer but I think I would rather review the rest of our interaction. Upon learning I had a website, he suggested that I install a live web cam at either gay night club Styx or Deering Oaks park, which I suppose he thinks is a latenight hotspot for gay men. A half hour later, Erick was still keen on the subject, suggesting I write and shoot a gay porn. I should mention that Erick probably utters less than fifty words to anyone nightly, so these aren't the offerings of a natural extrovert, this is what he is saving his voice for. By the end of the night he was describing me a plot line for a character driven (gay) film he had been apparently been conceiving of for a while

"So there's this young guy, he moves to Portland from Skowhegan, he doesn't know anybody so he gets a job as a Barista...."

Since Erick is a dishwasher and I am a waiter, I have the gift of mobility while he is bound to a station. By which I mean, I can walk away when he creeps me out, the way people are always doing to me. So I never heard the graphic details of his proposed Gay boy from Skowhegan film and yet, almost 24 hours later, Erick had not missed a beat in his string of gay cinematic ambitions. He must have been up all night writing down new ideas to spring on me upon my return to tha Hut, and yet, I was not sold. I here by vow that this page will never be a forum for gay pornography, just overwrought reviews of stuff. So thank you Speed Racer (which I kind of liked but wish didn't exist because I am offended by its pomp and excess) you "look like Tron" and inspired the weirdest series of Gay ideas I have ever heard from a mildly autistic dishwasher.

College Reviewed

2008-05-09T12:37:00.000-07:00

Didn't like it, took a really long time, lost most of the friends I made, developed a drinking problem ( would have happened anyway), was bored and frustrated the whole time, picked cake walk major and still could barely muster the effort.

That being said, my attitude may have been the problem.

It's over now!

The Plantation System in Southern Life (1950) Reviewed

2008-04-30T12:47:00.000-07:00

I am worried that this is becoming "just some blog" since i started talk9ng about myself and posting stuff from Youtube. But this isn't just some blog, this is a forum for reviewing whatever obscure artifacts I can lay my eyes on, a mission articulated in the first post. So let me fulfill the promise i made that day, to review an educational documentary on the slave system from 1950.

To be honest, with part one of this doc I was a little disappointed to find a neutral portrayal of the slave system intended for post WWII fifth graders. It was described to me as an anachronistic endorsement of that system, a last ditch effort to bring slavery back in the mid twentieth century. Toward the end of part one, however, I did notice that they slave owners were getting off pretty easy.
"The planter and slaves were part of an unusual class system." Says the narrator in his now iconic neutral tone. Why yes, that class system was very unusual now that I think of it. Not oppressive or tragic, just unusual, thanks for pointing out that little nuance.

so anyway, part 2 kicks up the weird. The narrator poses the question "Did this plantation life influence the modern south?" Did the Beatles influence the Monkeys? He then begins to make his case "The land cultivated for generations, remained. The source of labor, great numbers of negros, remained." And here's where he blows your mind. You probably assumed the civil war ended the plantation system, maybe you weren't aware that land and great supplies of negros remained. I cannot even describe the frisson that the announcer gives the word remained. You get the point, the plantation system is still going in 1950. Now go read the synopsis of Lars Von Triers second installment in his (aborted) America is bad trilogy, Manderlay (2005).
Eerie, huh?
Notice how the documentary filmmakers mirror shots from part one and part 2 in which the landowner walks straight back into the house while 2 laborers walk diagonally back toward the field.
"Economic and social patterns have left a lasting influence throughout the South." i thought this this shot should have been followed up with a shot of separate water fountains, but what the narrator says next is even better as they cut to a barbecue of impeccably dressed white folk. "Today if we visit a social gathering in the south we will see some of these influences." I'll bet. southern hospitality, "The gentle manners and courtesy, the separation of society into distinct groups." I shit you not, following that line the only black person at the party walks across the screen carrying a tray of food. "These are some things the plantation system has contributed into southern life."
Were the filmmakers aware that they were making a subversive documentary on race relations and commerce? I think the neutrality had to mask some contempt but I can only imagin the elementary school kids watching this in 1950, learning about how the south had different social groups, glad that they weren't in the group that carried the trays.

Mess with me, see what happens

2008-04-29T10:39:00.000-07:00

And now, the Danial Dushane attack ad:

Danial Dushane Reviewed

2008-04-29T10:34:00.000-07:00

The main reason this site exists is that Danial Dushane wouldn't let me make a documentary about him so I had to do this for a class project instead. My resentment has had proper time to fester, and while I wont go into the history of Mr Dushane being a pupil of mine before crossing over to the non cooperative hipster side, I did make this little feature....

Actually, that isn't finished processing in Youtube, but to stimulate your interest in synthesizers look at this:

APPLETON RADIO, for reals?

2008-04-28T12:20:00.000-07:00

So, this exists.

APPLETON RADIO

Apparently it's a streaming radio station the plays ONLY Maine hip hop and electronic.

Who knew?

Just Because

2008-04-28T09:52:00.001-07:00

Virgina Tech, NPR, Brendan Cassidy Media Sensation!

2008-04-28T09:27:00.000-07:00

I almost forgot! I fulfilled my life long dream of hearing my voice on National Public Radio. Ideally i would have been speaking to Terry Gross about my innovations in hip hop and screenwriting, but Tom Porter is no slack. I helped organize the April 16 Lie In at USM to commemorate the Virgina Tech shootings and stepped in to create the impression that the student body is really really emphatically concerned about regulating the sale of firearms at gun shows.
I spoke directly to Tom Porter and I cant lie to you, it was really gay. He pointed a huge phallic microphone at me and talked in this fake British accent, everything you would expect from an NPR reporter. Mr. Porter was actually at Virginia Tech when the shit went down last year so our interaction went something like this:
Tom Porter: Thank you Brendan Cassidy, for organizing this symbolic and under attended demonstration. For exactly one year I lived in fear of all college campuses, but now academia is safe again, thanks to you.
Brendan "Oral-B" Cassidy: Don't thank me Tom Porter of NPR. Thank, actually me is good, I like being thanked.
Nevermind that the demonstration was part of my service learning practicum and my enthusiasm was actually being graded, as far as Maine Things Considered is concerned, I am just a really passionate guy who makes hilarious analogies about ping pong and handguns. So those guys might live off of our support, but they are totally the ones who are suckers.

One More thing: the teaser trailer to the movie we're making of the demonstration. The Frisson of Iconoclasm.

State of the Union

2008-04-28T08:49:00.000-07:00

So lets have a serious chat here, shall we? What are we doing here, I mean, what do you hope to get out of this? I tell you that I am going to do a writeup of everything I view or listen to, but c'mon, it's so obvious, I am not a superman. My bones are too brittle to type up all the shit I expose myself to, and what is "viewing" anyway. Am I too say that I "viewed" Imaginary Heroes on Saturday because I watched the first half of it, intermittently leaving to smoke cigarettes on my porch and rehearsing the three guitar chords I know (Incidentally, I am up to 3 chords! I can start a punk band now!)?
I am tired of making promises I can not keep. where is the review of the southern plantation documentary? I am sure as hell not doing a write up of the Mathnet episodes I found on youtube. This just isn't fair to you that I keep setting expectations and setting back into my old ways. I wanted to even tell you about the video of Prince performing Radiohead's Creep at Coachella this weekend but I am not even sure I am up to that. Actually, here it is:

wow, I don't even like Prince but that made me wish Scorcese had thought of filming Shine A Light on his camera phone.

I have posted some links to the sites that were the clear inspiration to this erratic writing and viewing style of Later Haters. One I love, one I hate, one I should view more and be smarter. Let's start with hate; Aititcool news is a bunch of wannabe movie insiders who can't get a screenplay made and feel that because their childhoods were so based around watching movies that the studio system somehow owes them and should cater to their needs. They cannot write a simple proffessional review without first talking about their uninteresting selves for 1500 words, infact they pride themselves on this. They are geeks though and through and the sites founder, Harry Knowles, cannot survive much longer at his current weight. I have viewed this sight ewvery day for the past 7 years because they collect and post reviews from test screenings and I fucking love hearing about movies months befor ethey are released. sadly, very few of the pople who send in these reviews can write very well, and they have probably affected me a great deal. I could have been reading Faulkner in that time. Faulk them.
The Onion AV Club is similarly self indulgent except that their writers are witty, insightful, and clearly have honed their crafts. Whatsmore, I have to go through the main Onion sight to get to it, of which I am very fond. I find Nathan Rabin to be a kindred soul, all though if I remember correctly he was featured on a movie panel show a couple of years back, the commercials for which touted him as the depressive cynic of the bunch. Like I said, a kindred soul, his Year In Flops feature was just about the best thing since sliced banana bread and faulk him for ending it just because the year did.
Listening Post I don't really read at all, but I heard this guy talk to Terry Gross on Fresh air last month and he is seriously faulking smart. Music, I guess, is digital now, like wrist watches except that while time is money, music is now faulking free free free. Mr. Eliot Van Buskirk has the whole changing if the guard of the music industry figured out. Listen to him, I'm going to.

so the point I started out with is that I am terrible at maintaining Later haters with any sense of continual theme. Did you get that I was framing the issue as though were were having a discussion at the end of a bad relationship? Good, I'm glad you got that. But now I have helped you move on to better sites and I am sure we will meet on the street one day and choke on the poignancy that comes when old lovers meet.

Oh, also: what's with this shit of having to go through blogger.com? Later Haters now is a register domain, so as soon as I figure out how to transfer this night template thing to my own site, I will. This is how Diablo Cody did it, right? she just started typing nonsense one day and then she had a book and an Oscar winning screenplay? I hope being interesting and smart wasn't a prerequisite for that.