So last May (that’s May 2007), Matt “Call Me the Webmaster” Wrather and I were taking in The Coast of Utopia, a trilogy of plays by Tom Stoppard. It covers the part of Russian history most people don’t know a lot about — between when Catherine the Great had sex with a horse and when Animal Farm picks up.
So anyway, during one of the intermissions, I was sort of free-associating, as is my wont. And like an apple hitting me on the head (see how I’m referring both to Newton and orchards?) I realized that Tobey Maguire is in both Spider-Man and The Cider House Rules. And that Spider and Cider rhyme. And then I knew I was doomed. I was going to have to do something about it.
So here you go, internet. The Spider House Rules.
I don’t really expect it to get watched that much, since The Cider House Rules isn’t that well-known. But as long as you guys are impressed, I will not have sat through the terrible 1992 Michael Caine thriller Blue Ice in vain (I needed him holding a gun).
I have had a love-hate relationship with Family Guy. Or, more precisely, a love-indifference relationship. Honestly, it wasn’t even on my radar during the first Fox run, though I was of course aware of occasional gems. I didn’t watch it on Adult Swim or buy the DVDs.
My indifference was never informed by anything like a moral stance. Contrary to the impression I may have given, I’m not prudish in the least, and frankly relish comedy that is blatantly offensive. (Click at your peril. It gets worse and worse.)
In fact, I think that the supposed “offense” actually does more to reveal and ironize the double-dealing — from subtle forms of self-deception to the most blatant hypocrisy — that is a daily feature of life in the world’s only current superpower. (Do you hear me, China? Your souls are in peril! Sarah Silverman tried to warn you!) I’d actually like to talk about offensive comedy more, but that’s for another post.
Long story short, I got into the show when it returned to Fox last year, and it is in a spirit of profound admiration that I offer you the following clip, which may be the most perfect comic artifact the show has produced. Video after the jump. more »
I’ve seen this commercial a couple of times now, and I can’t get over how deeply, deeply weird the subtext is.
Look, I tend to read too much into commercials. I’m the first to admit that. But sometimes a cigar is not just a cigar, you get me? When an adorable, SOFT puppy is the spokesman for a product that uses softness as a selling point, you don’t have to be Umberto-freaking-Eco to understand that the audience is supposed to conflate the softness of the puppy with the softness of the product.
Now, when you have an ad whose message is that many of the things that come into contact with our (oh so tastefully described) “bottoms” are NOT soft, and you use your spokespuppy as a soft, soothing contrast to the dangerous, bottom-abrading world…
Well. I don’t know what the audience is actually going to think. But I know what the ad is trying to say, what we should think if it works the way it’s supposed to. Which is: “I am totally going to wipe my ass with that dog.”
Aside from ethnic stereotyping that didn’t even skirt the issue (Mariachis are sexy! Indians are crass capitalists! Chinese are pandas!), there was an overriding theme to this year’s Super Bowl ads. It started with the Audi Godfather spot.
When visiting aquariums as a child, I always wondered why this kind of thing didn’t happen, like, all the damn time. (Warning: video link. And kind of horrifying.)
I didn’t know about Eugene Mirman before he came through New Haven a couple years ago. His show alternated live bits with videos he had made. One of these, Eugene Mirman: Secret Agent, contained the memorable threat: “I’m gonna kick you so hard in the dick, you’ll cum fear.”
I have had a love-hate relationship with 