This is the trailer for Dr. Horrible Sing-Along Blog. It's a movie in three parts made by Joss Whedon. Joss Whedon, if you don't know who that is (lord have mercy on your soul), he's the visionary behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it's spinoff series Angel, and Firefly. Look him up. This movie is about a man named Billy (Neil Patrick Harris, TV's Barney Stinson, formarlly TV's Doogie Howser, MD) who's alter ego, Dr. Horrible, is a small time super villain trying to make his way into the Evil League of Evil. Mean while the girl of his dreams,Penny, (Felicia Day) an activist with a heart of gold, begins to date cheesey, shallow Captian Hammer (Nathon Fillion), a super strong defender of the city who also happens to be Dr. Horrible's nemisis. Oh, and did I mention it's a musical?

The unique thing about this movie is that it was made without the help or support of any big name studio. In fact, it's made mostly by friends and family of Whedon himself. And, as a kicker was shown free, on the internet for a long time (now it's just four dollars for the whole movie on itunes). it was conceiverd as a means to break free from the dictation of the Big Time movie studios and deep pocket producers and let go into the creative genre of "why not". In fact this was one of the only things in production during the long entertainment drought known as the Writer's Strike. The point was to view this medium as art, not product. And even when there's probably not going to be any money in it, doing art is rewarding. To quote Mr. Whedon on his own Master Plan:
"The idea was to make it on the fly, on the cheap – but to make it. To turn out a really thrilling, professionalish piece of entertainment specifically for the internet. To show how much could be done with very little. To show the world there is another way. To give the public (and in particular you guys) something for all your support and patience. And to make a lot of silly jokes. Actually, that sentence probably should have come first. "

If you have four dollars, I strongly suggest you buy this movie. It's a good cause. and it's a Damn good movie.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Class of '99...

This is Chris Rock's No Sex (in the Champagne Room). This is parody. It is a genre of comedy that means something to me. Straight forward comedy (knock knock jokes and the like) are meant to entertain, purely and simply. The illicit a gut reaction. Hopefully. Satire is trying to sell you something. Satire takes some ideal, some establishment, some cultural norm, or some icon and casts a distinctly different light on it in order to reduce the awe it's given. It's usually political.* There's a place for satire, but it isn't pure comedy.

Parody, by it's very existence, is a joke. This video, is a joke. One big joke, with lots of other little jokes inside, like those South American fish whose babies hide in thier mouths. ** You know what I'm talking about? A failed metaphor is immaterial to the point of the post, which is, parody is good. It seems liek the laziest form of funny there is. I mean, the intent is to copy someone elses form. Watch Everybody's Free (to wear sunscreen)*** and you'll understand what I mean. Watch any Mel Brooks movie, and you'll get a better idea.

parody is that special kind of humor whose worth is based on it's attention to detail, it's mimicing of the orinal work, and it's ability to make every last bit funny. That's a lot of work. Thank you, all ye parody artists, thank you for taking the time to make those well read cultured people understand jokes that the FOX watching simpletons can't comprehend.

And Finally, Cornbread: Ain' nothin wrong with that.

*This isn't satire, I was looking for good Jon Stewart or Stephan Colbert clips...but this is important, and if I get any of you to watch this I feel like life, as a whole, is better.

**This isn't the actual fish, it's a clip from When Harry Met Sally because I couldn't remember what the real fish was called.

***This video's right below this writing. Watch that, and you'll get the above. Also, you might learn something...about life

Blog Post #3

Everybody's Free (To wear Sunscreen)

This is one of my favorite videos, the kind of thing I listen to when I'm feeling down or what have you. It's a video made for the song "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)" by Baz Luhrmann. Luhrmann (and his associates) mixed it from Rozalla's song "Everybody's Free (To Feel Good)" , featured on the sound track for William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (directed by Luhrmann), and a track of Austraillian voice actor Lee Perry. Perry is reading aloud the entirety of an essay written as a column in the June 1st 1997 edition of the Chicago Tribune. The essay was written by Mary Schmich (though it was falsely rumored to be Kurt Vonnegut's commencement speech to the MIT class of '97). The essay is entitled "Advice, like Youth, Probably Just Wasted on the Young".
That whole long first introductiona paragraph should give you a feel for just how hard it is to accurately define. It's a video of a song of an essay. As such, it needs to be judged (or perhaps more accurately interperated) on three different levels. First, it's worth as a video. The visual images don't convey any plot in themselves, but they aren't purely there to diagram the song either. Pretty scenes, happy faces, and snippets of daily life which are enhanced by the words and music as much as the the words and music are enhanced by the video. After that layer comes the audio, that is, the spoken words and the music. The music, not orginally inteded to support a spoken word essay has, much like the images, it's own life. That life however has (as Luhrman saw) the same emotional goals as the words, they work in concert. The spoken words are low and easy going this is not a command, this is not a warning, this is merely a collection of advice. After that we have the heart of the piece. The written word, written as a mock commencement speach, was originally meant only as part of your morning newspaper reading reutine. A collection of words written by some one moved enough to write.

I like this piece, and think it's important and powerful, because or it's creative synergy. It's at least three seperate voices working together for the same goal, adding without compromising. It hits three distinctive parts of our soul, and more literally, we simultaneusly intake and interperet it with three different parts of our brain.

If that's not cool, I don't know what is.

Blog Post #2

Blog Post #1

"As Near as I can figure an essay can be...a query, a reminiscence, a persuasive tract, an exploration; it can look inward or outward; it can crack a lot of jokes. What it need not be is objective. An essay can certainly present facts and advocate a position, but that seems quite different from objectivity, whereby a writer just delivers information, adding nothing in the process. Instead, essays take their tone and momentum from the explicit presence of the writer in them and the distinctiveness of each writer's perspective. That makes essays definitely subjective-- not in the skewed, unfair sense of subjectivity, but in the sense that essays are voncersations, and they should have all the nuances and attitude that any conversation has. I'm Sure that's why newspapers so rarely generate great essays: even in the essay-allowed zone of a newspaper, the heavy breath of Objective Newspaper Reporting is always blowing down the writer's neck. And certainly there is no prescribed tone that is "correct" for essays. Sometimes it seems that they have a sameness of manner, a kind of earnest, hand writing solemnity. Is this neccesary? I don't think so. Many of the essays that intrigued me this year were funny, or unusually structured, or tonally adventurous -- in otherwords, not typical in sound or shape. wht mattered was they conveyed the writere's journy, and did it intelligently, gracefully, honestly, and with whatever voice or shape fit best."

--Susan Orlean