Recently in The Web Category

A little bit of levity for an otherwise bad news Friday, sent to me by my good friend Jeremy and remixed by a friend of his. We may be in a recession, whole industries may be on the verge of collapse and we may be stuck in two, bloody wars, but at least we have....The New Puppy!

A sample of the genius:

wilw iTunes: You want Combustible Edison, Joey Altruda, and Esquivel. Me: How'd you know? iTunes: I'm money, baby. Me: Baby? iTunes: [:wink:]

Seriously. This cat is comedy gold. And a good lefty, to boot. So let's add them up, shall we?

Funny? Check.
Lefty? Check.
Geek? Check (and proud of it).
Been on Star Trek and doesn't take himself too seriously? Check.

See what I'm saying?

Funny or Die is hit or miss but this one is a hit, sho nuff! My only real complaint is that it's too short. Give us a couple more numbers, guys!

Thanks to @KarinaLongworth for the heads up on Twitter Vote Report (TVR). A method of tracking how the vote is going across the country, TVR is using hashtags (#______) to collect information and report on the happenings around the country on election day, even if you don't use Twitter (more on this below).

For example: "#10003 L:10th & Broadway #wait:120 back later #votereport" would mean that I am in zip code 10003 at 10th and Broadway and the wait at the polls is 2 hours and I'll be back to vote later. That's a simple one.

A more serious issue could be reported thusly:
"#10003 L:10th & Broadway #EPNY #bad #machine broken, no prov. ballots" which would mean I am in zip code 10003 at 10th and Broadway, I am having a bed experience at the polls and I need the Election Protection Coalition because the voting machines are broken and I can't get a provisional ballot from the polling place." See? A lot of info in a small space.

Even if you don't use Twitter, you can still submit reports by text to 66937 (MOZES), by phone to 567-258-VOTE or by downloading the iPhone App.

More info can be found, here.

Our right to vote is arguably the most important and powerful right we possess in this country and we all need to do our part to make sure that none of us are disenfranchised!

Warning:

NSFW!

BTW, if you don't know that this is from the brilliant, short-lived HBO series Deadwood, this will mean absolutely nothing to you. Sorry for the bandwidth.

On Monday evening The Hollywood Reporter (THR) blew off an industry standard embargo and ran the South by Southwest Film Festival & Conference lineup story a day early. According to SXSW fest producer Matt Dentler, the release was embargoed until Tuesday afternoon. I don't want to get into a big snit about this, but it's kinda fucked up. Embargoes are, for lack of a better word, understandings among the trades. They work both ways and when one publication ignores them, they all get hurt.

Not only is ignoring embargoes dishonest but given the various friendships and relationships that abound in this industry (between film festival directors, trade publications, distribution companies, etc.) it's also risky. It's a slippery slope and with the advent of the Internet and instant news, "traditional" Hollywood trades Variety and THR no longer have the stranglehold on news and info they once had. Sure, they can still strong arm certain people or companies into giving them exclusives, but their influence is waning.

I don't mean to claim that Variety and THR are not still valid sources of intelligent news reporting, festival coverage and reviews, that would be absurd. They are still the dual 800 lb. gorillas in the room. That said, I do think that the days of the entire film industry, studios and indies alike, having to kowtow to the "big two" are over. Sure, we can all get along if we all agree to abide by standard rules but if a "free for all" attitude prevails, there's no longer any guarantee that Variety and THR still have the strangle hold over the news as they have in days past. For any one "trade" paper to break these mutually agreed upon rules is harmful to the whole.

That said, check out these stories on SXSW's exceptional lineup. I will be writing more about the films (and music) at this essential fest in the days and weeks to come.

So the majority of the year end awards have come and gone and since I haven't been keeping a running tally (I really should have been) I'm gonna give big ups to Movie City News for their obscenely comprehensive awards section. The thing is, the damn site's so comprehensive (The top 10 from the UC Gauntlet's Ryan Pike....300 at #6 and Transformers at #10? Really dude?) that anyone could pick and choose from the info and shape it to illustrate almost anything....except that 300 is the sixth best film of the year.

While it's clear that no single critics group can predict the Oscars (assuming they are the ne plus ultra of awards "season") some front runners are emerging in the race to fill out the nomination fields. The last to present their awards, the Oscars are still the "big show" and despite attempts by the Independent Spirit Awards and Golden Globes to chip away at their luster, one is always drawn back to what Roger Avary said when accepting his Spirit Award for co-writing Pulp Fiction (and I may be paraphrasing, here...I was pretty drunk at the time): "This is really nice.... it won't fit up my butt as well as an Oscar, though." I can't think of a cruder way to put it, but yes, winning an Oscar is largely considered to be better, in every way, than winning a Spirit Award or Golden Globe.

As for the Globes, in nominating 12 films between their two best picture categories, they've proven themselves to be even more of a farce than in years past. Why not 14? Couldn't they find 7 musical/comedy films that "rated?" Speaking of the Musical/Comedy category, how is La Vie en Rose a musical? If every film that had music in it was considered a musical... And then there's the oddity of Persepolis. So the acclaimed Sony Pictures Classics release was good enough to be nominated for best foreign-language film, but not as best animated feature? So Bee Movie is a better film? (NOTE: I read somewhere that films can only be nominated for one "Best" category at the Globes, but can't confirm this, because the Globs don't seem to post their voting rules on their site). And whither The Counterfeiters? In my not-so-humble opinion, this film is clearly one of the best five foreign language films of the year, but it's getting no love from critics groups and very little press attention, possibly because Sony Classics isn't releasing it until next year. Will this affect its chances at the Academy Awards? I hope not, because it's an exceptional piece of work.

Think what you will about Jeffrey Wells, but his commenters are often some of the more entertaining around. I wish some of my readers would get into it like folks do on Jeff's site, but maybe I'm not controversial enough, or something. I know I have opinionated readers!

At any rate, in the comment section below his post about the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's decision to put certain films into the comedy, rather that the drama category, a debate about Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited erupted, frequently invoking the quote: "Look at those assholes," perhaps the funniest line in the film. Well, commenter a1 replied with easily the funniest comment on the board:

"Look at these assholes" Wasn't that the original title of "Margot at the Wedding"?

Coming up in a few weeks is one of my favorite times of the year...the ten days I spend in Denver, attending the Starz Denver Film Festival. The films, hospitality, staff and city are all top notch and hope I can make it there every year from here on out. It's almost directly opposite, calendar-wise) my other favorite "regional" US fest, Sarasota. If you're a filmmaker or industry person or just a travelin' (wo)man who likes to see new places and go to new film festivals, these two events would be worth your time to investigate. However, that's not my point. What is my point, you might ask? My point is that Brit Withey, program director of the Denver fest has put his blog La Pistola to novel and original use. For almost a month he's been teasing films prior to the official lineup announcement.

Since September 27th, a full month before the "official" lineup, Brit has been posting about a film here, a panel there and as far as I can tell (and I did next to no research on this, BTW) he's one of the only programmers doing this and I think it's a fantastic idea. Many festivals feel like they need to guard their lineup like state secrets and maybe they wouldn't get front page coverage in Daily Variety and THR if they announced some of their slate on their own sites earlier, and maybe this matters but to the vast majority of festivals, it doesn't. Granted, if your festival programs 20-30 films, you migh wanna hold off on the sneak previews, but if you've got over one or two hundred films screening, why not tease 'em a bit?

I know I'm even more excited about Denver knowing that Jiri Menzel's I Served the King of England is screening. I missed this film in Berlin and have regretted it ever since. It's supposed to be fantastic and I can't wait. Then there's Ronald Bronstein's Frownland. Tully loves it, so that's enough for me. Then there's Persepolis, a NYFF selection I missed and a Czech animation film called One Night in the City which sounds amazing.

I don't know about you, but I am gonna check Brit's blog daily between now and the 22nd to see what other tidbits he might be revealing! Of course, I will be on the ground in Denver, keeping y'all as up to date as possible on the salacious goings on at the various fest venues. Remember the late night lounge?

Well, it turns out that the Bionic Woman pilot that's floating around out there may just be the wrong one, in that sections of it have been re-cast or re-shot or both. Even if this turns out to be true, I loved what I saw and assuming they don't all of a sudden turn her into a 12 year-old girl or a 78 year-old grandmother, I am reasonably confident that NBC has another hit on their hands!

More on what I thought of some other pilots in the coming days.

Ah, leaks! What would a journalist be without them? Well, each year it seems that more and more of the new season TV pilots get leaked on to the 'net and while I deplore piracy, I do believe that leaking TV shows on to the 'Net may only serve to drive viewers to a show. What do I mean by that? Well, if enough intrepid bloggers watch a show a month or two in advance of its airing and then write about how cool it is, it starts buzz and thereby drives eyeballs to the airing of the premiere. Whatever you may believe, the number of people who can actually navigate Bittorrent and download a show is still relatively small, so most people are not downloading the pilots. Many people are still without DVRs, even. And before you cry "Snakes on a plane!" let me point out to you that the studio behind that bomb misread all the buzz flying around the web. They bought into the "any publicity is good publicity" canard and thought that all of the blogs "dedicated" to the film meant that B.O. would be high. Guess again. We were laughing at the film, not with it and word is, you had to actually be high to like the film.

I have managed to get copies of a few of the upcoming season's pilots and will endeavor to let you know how cool or, well, not cool they are. As I've said, I suspect that these particular pilots have been officially unofficially released in order to create buzz, but if that's the case, I am more than happy to indulge. I mean, what might have happened to Threshold, Invasion, Surface, Eyes and dozens of other quality shows, if they'd only been "leaked" to the blogosphere? Maybe nothing different, but maybe, just maybe they'd have earned a few extra tenths of a rating point on their debut and carried some more viewers over and survived. The truth is, most of these particular shows are getting very high positives in advance of their airings.

At any rate, watch this space for some (always spoiler-free) thoughts on NBC's Bionic Woman and Chuck (anyone remember Jake 2.0?), ABC's Pushing Daisies, FOX's The Sarah Connor Chronicles (which apparently doesn't start until Spring '08), the CW's Reaper and Showtime's Californication and the new season of Weeds.

So you know the feature on IMDb that gives you recommendations based on what film you're looking at? Well, some of these are really strange. While looking something up for a different story, I just looked at the page for Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep and the recommendations were:

Click
World Trade Center
The Notebook
The Adventures of Sebastian Cole
The Legend of Bagger Vance

Now, I realize that technology is imperfect, but come on!

Over on his blog, Eugene Hernandez has posted about Variety's pre-release of the winners of the recently concluded Los Angeles Film Festival (LAFF), writing that his RSS reader had tipped him off "to a Variety story announcing the winners. Posted at 5:40 p.m. PT, the 109 word item named the two Target award winners nearly 3 hours before the filmmakers (and ceremony attendees) would find out."

This stinks on several levels.

Tipping filmmakers off to awards results before the ceremony takes place is in my opinion a high crime in our little circle of the universe. Several years ago I was at the awards ceremony of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, seated next to a competition filmmaker waiting for the awards to start when a journalist (we had all received the press release, but most of us kept our mouths shut) walked up to him and asked: "How does it feel to win the award?" The filmmaker, Pawel Pawlikowski who was attending with his wonderful film Last Resort, was confused and then slowly deflated as his excitement at winning $35,000 was somewhat dulled by someone's insensitivity. His joy was further diminished when before I could shut her up, the woman let it slip that his two leads had also won prizes. Had he not been a winner, it would have been even worse.

On another level, this portends badly for the future of our business. Where I or another blogger to blow off customarily agreed to rules like embargoes, we'd at the least get slapped on the wrist by being banned from an event or two or refused credentials. However, when a publication of the size and influence of Variety does it, what's the festival going to do? Ban Variety from covering its events?

Ok, this might just be the funniest thing ever. Andy Samberg wishes he wrote this. Seriously. I think this ranks up there with Harry the Hamster as my funniest post, ever.

Oh, just in case the title didn't clue you in, this is not safe for work. Or an airplane. Or a church. And probably not grandma's house, either.

So while researching my incoming links, I found the following paragraphs regarding Peer Pressure, the Ottoman Rapists along with the Rohal/Osborne follow-up:

FIQUE DE OLHO NO SEU PUFE: O maior sucesso da semana na Internet é a descoberta de Pretty Ricky - Late Night Special, onde adolescentes egocêntricos (redundância?) violentam o pobre pufe da sala de todas as maneiras imagináveis, num intenso e altamente homoerótico gangbang, em que os indivíduos se alternam entre fazer sexo sem concessão com o pobre móvel e se seduzirem com seus movimentos peristálticos frente ao espelho. Você nunca mais vai olhar para a sua mobília do mesmo modo novamente. Veja o vídeo aqui, mas assegure-se de ter aguarrás para limpar seus olhos por perto. Tem uma variação do ato também, chamado "Pretty Ricky - Lingerie". A quem o pobre pufe vai recorrer?

Como eu vou ligar Pretty Ricky aos Mumblecorers? Fácil: em menos de uma semana Kent Osborne (uma das vozes no desenho Bob Esponja e ator de Hannah Takes The Stairs) e Todd Rohal (diretor de The Guatemalan Handshake e também ator no filme de Joe Swanberg) encarnam Peer Pressure e te ensinam como blogar.

I used my Mac's Sherlock to effect a translation, and well, this is what I got: