Signs of Life

Wow, it's been a while. School is wrapping up quickly, with lots and lots of work to do, and I'm on the hunt for a job (if you know anyone looking for a wise-ass blogger send me an email), so I've been shitty with the blog.
I've collected a few things over the last bit that I thought I could post about but never got around to it. So how about I do just a quick rundown.

1. The Bechdel Test - I didn't need a test to tell me that Hollywood is male centric, but this test is a fairly damning and practical way to think about women in movies.
2. That South Park death threaten-er got arrested for being stupid in front of an FBI agent apparently. I hope some people greet him kindly when he gets to prison.
3. Um:Quick, someone get him some honey before he joins the new Avengers movie (perhaps a Mary Sue for Whedon ...)
4. Moreover:Darth Vader in a Wes Anderson flick.
   
5. And finally, though not directly related to humour, Glenn Beck hate is as good as chuckles around here so... go fuck yourself Beck.
   

Also, apparently Jon Stewart has a beard. Rub it in Stewart. Rub it in.

props Boing Boing for many of these list items.

The Force is Strong in these Directions

I'm a sucker for these stupid Star Wars GPS commercials. I laughed embarrassingly long at the first Darth Vader video (roundabound!) and this morning I saw a new Yoda video. I convinced myself before watching it that the first video was just a fluke and that I'd roll my eyes at this new video's lame pandering and become irritated as these videos continued to hit the YouTubes.

But I didn't. I laughed heartily at the pandering. Whatever, I can laugh if I want to.

A) He says roundabound!
B) I always loved the Yoda's first appearance in Empire, when he was a crazy hermit, and so this little video warmed the cockles of my laugh heart.

Dagobah!

Han-larious

Heh heh heh.Both Harrison Ford and Billy Dee Williams went to the premier of Empire Strikes Back a 30th Anniversary release. But apparently AP news isn't a big fan of the flick. Either that or, like Colbert, they don't see colour. Or coolness apparently.

P.S. Williams is the cool one in this pair. Obviously.

The Critic (Lovitz, you've let yourself go)

Seriously this shit is fucked up.


Hope you didn't plan to sleep tonight. Or ever.

Well, it's been a week of writing "academic things" and now it comes time to write about things that are important. Like Mr Plinkett.

I watched the AotC review. I had to watch the first part the day after I watched the rest because apparently some people at the cartoon network are ironically hypocritical. The review is pretty funny, and has a good number of smart things to say about AotC. Again, though, the scary violence against women, not so much the funny. That's it in summation. If you want a long version, jump.

So the new Mr. Plinkett review essentially succeeds at its goal. It delivers a fairly intelligent analysis of Attack of the Clones, and does so with humour. Unfortunately I think the review suffers slightly from the previous review. Not that that review was so perfect this couldn't live up or anything, but more because Mr. Plinkett has already explained why these new Star Wars movies lack the heart of the originals. So in this new version he has to come up with a bunch more reasons to explore why no one but kids really like these flicks.

The points he raises in the review are sound: the romance is presented rather than developed or even shown, lightsabers do not a real jedi make, and the plot doesn't make a lick of sense. This review lacks a moment like the one in first though, where he jumps between lightsaber scenes from Phantom Menace and the original trilogy, and addresses how the original trilogy used lightsaber battles as physical manifestations of the inner conflict that existed in primary characters and how the new one's are just big action set pieces. Yes I realize this is too nerdy to handle, and I know those first scenes were also actual set pieces, but Mr Plinkett is right, those scenes in the first trilogy are emotionally charged, but in Phantom Meance, the lightsaber dual is a highly choreographed dance number. And this difference is the in-a-nutshell problem between the new and old movies. Hollow action scenes disconnected from any sort of emotional connection to the characters.

Mr. Plinkett has already addressed this and so it's hard to go back over without being repetitive, and there isn't an equivalent revelation in this review, which sort of makes it suffer. There's the bit about Yoda and his lightsaber, which I totally agree with, but its sort of a cannon/spirit of the world sort of criticism not a problem with the film on its own.

It's also not as funny. It's not unfunny, just not as funny. I'm not going to describe any examples or anything because it's not that big of a deal: it's just not as funny.

Review of the review done. NOW!, let's talk about the shit with the prostitute. Knock this creepy women violence crap the fuck off! It is not funny, and it is disturbing. The pseudo-firsthand depiction of the torture and murder of women is unsettling, and it makes me want to turn the review off. Now, I didn't say shit about the use of women stereotypes when you talked about what women look for in men because it's a comedic trope, but the shots of you abusing women are painfully unfunny. And I'll explain why they aren't funny, because I need to position myself as someone who finds many terrible terrible things funny. These scenes are not funny because they are graphic and because they seem like you are trying to hard to be edgy. It all just comes off as a little sadistic and sick. There. I'm done with that topic.

Who am I addressing in that paragraph? Anyways, the review's good, but suffers from the critical thoroughness of the original.

Oh, and the whole time I watched it I couldn't stop thinking about one of my favourite things in the world.

Full of green penis... wait, that's terrible.

RedLetterMedia Reviews AotC

I told you it was Star Wars day.

So one of my most favourite of things is the RedLetterMedia reviews on Star Wars and Star Trek movies. The Star Trek reviews are really funny, and quite intelligent regarding the difference between the TNG movies and the series. Did I mention they are funny? They might not be as amusing to non-Trekkies, but this is the internet, are there even non-Trekkies on here?

In regards to the Star Wars, up until now the dude has only reviewed The Phantom Menace. This series was a) epic (70min) b) hilarious (what's wrong with your face!?), and c) really critically insightful. I don't mean to disparage the guy, but who knew this sort of review could exist on the internet, and on YouTube no less. The review is a prime example of how comedy can be used as a rhetorical device to drive points home. His ideas regarding the lack of a protagonist and suggestion to create one in Obi Wan (as opposed to multiple non-protagonists) would have genuinely made the film more concise and interesting to watch.

As it is, RedLetterMedia has released his review of Attack of the Clones, and its 90 frickin-minutes!. I'm looking forward to watching it and I may post a review if I feel up to it. Critique a critique!? Never you say, but we're revolutionaries here at NtC. I promise you.

Caveat time: the video's are done with a persona, which at one time is hilarious and a fault. The persona has developed over the course of the videos and has become increasingly distracting. Most of the time he is funny, but other times the aspects of him murdering prostitutes and his wife interrupt the quality review for some obvious and painfully unfunny interludes. I hope that these asides are less frequent in the new review, rather than more as the trend has been thus far.

UPDATE: It looks like Part 1 has been taken down because of some copyright problems with cartoon network. Really Cartoon Network? The channel that uses old cartoons to make stoner comedies? Remember that thing I just said about finding levity in Star Wars George?

Star Wars S(h)itcom

Seriously!?

Apparently they're making a Star Wars sitcom. From the Variety article:

Daytime Emmy and Gemini Award-winner Jennifer Hill ("The Backyardians") will produce with Todd Grimes ("Back at the Barnyard") directing. Brendan Hay ("The Daily Show") will be among the writers and Seth Green and Matthew Senreich, creators and executive producers of "Robot Chicken," will have "creative involvement.

Man, this is such a dumb idea, I don't care who's involved. I read a bunch of the comments after the article on /Film (where I initially learned about this development) and not enough people are waving their hands wildly in the air and screaming for this to not happen. Let's examine why this is a bad idea shall we?

Robot Chicken's Star Wars parodies are funny. The Family Guy parodies are also funny (though I begrudgingly admit it). Spaceballs is also funny. Alright, lots and lots of Star Wars parodies are funny. AND!, Star Wars itself is funny. But a dedicated Star Wars sitcom, will not be funny:

1. Parodies are parodies. All of the Star Wars parodies mock Star Wars. Yes, they embrace the source material, usually with love (especially in the case of the Robot Chicken dudes) but they are still irreverent. These parodies extend characters and ideas from the show into absurd places, that cannot be cannon.
2. This is a sitcom. Sitcoms are not sketches like Robot Chicken has excelled at in terms of their Star Wars humour. Family Guy and Spaceballs tell a story, but they tell the same fucking story as Star Wars. Are we suddenly going to break off and have Han and Leia living on Coruscant, with Chewie dropping by as the obligatory, racist depiction of a minority neighbour? How is this going to be structured? I can't express how little I think of the idea of a situational comedy starring Star Wars characters, or in the Star Wars universe. Anytime I think of something amusing, it's because of irreverence, and it would not be congenial humour, the sort of humour sitcoms are based on.
   
3. Isolated instances. All the Star Wars comedies I can think of do their funny and then end. They're all specials, not long running shows. This is important for two reasons. A) the humour doesn't outstay its welcome. Parody is something that is difficult to sustain. Many would say Colbert has done it (I don't watch it myself because I've grown a little tired of the parody), but I think as a general rule, parody itself does not lend itself to longevity. The novelty of the superiority humour dwindles, and you're left with the same joke: isn't x silly? B) You're going to run out of jokes. Wait, you can't really run out of jokes, because they are like invention (inventio!), but the writers for this show are going to find difficulty mining for humour after a while. How many jokes can you do about the Millennium Falcon failing? And with Star Wars, let me tell you, the writers are going to need to be uber careful not to get too obscure because as a Star Wars comedy, they are already flirting with a small viewership.
   
4. Finally, is this for adult or kids. Star Wars has become progressively more and more childish. The original material was entertaining for all ages but as the movies went they skewed towards juvenile audiences. This is no more clear than in consideration of the humour. If you've watched the movies, you know it to be true. So, if the humour is for kids, I really don't want to watch a dumb, racist, and homophobic Star Wars saturday-morning-cartoon. I doubt its going to be adult-centric, since how do you suddenly tell the majority of your audience (ie kids) that this Star Wars isn't for you. So I imagine it would be in the middle, like a sitcom, and I seriously doubt that Star Wars can walk the line between adult and childish humour, all the while refraining from irreverency.
   

I think my problem(s) come down to this: a Star Wars comedy will necessarily be irreverent, and irreverent isn't funny when it's done by the people that own the source material. That statement may not be true in general, but I'm damn sure it's true of George Lucas. I don't want to watch George Lucas make fun of his own material. He has taken his shit seriously for so fucking long that for him to suddenly find some levity in his creation would be down right insulting. Where was levity when you refused to release the original cuts on DVD because they weren't your vision. Where was levity when you sued all the people you sued for stupid shit and/or stopped them from releasing their own stupid version of a Star Wars thing? I mean, you can't just one day stop taking yourself and your Star Wars seriously because it'll make you a couple of buck and not expect to look like a douche.

This show will suck because either it will be a bland generic sitcom with Star Wars template overtop masking the bland genericness, or it will be irreverant, possibly good for a bit, and a perfect example as to why I libel George Lucas.

Douche!