Quo Vadimus


Friday, July 16, 2004

 

If you do not vote for him, he will take power!
 
Big ups to Heather: "Cohen's unbelievable skills at improv and physical comedy call to mind Peter Sellers and Charlie Chaplin."
 
FYI: Da Ali G Show - The Complete First Season  is out on 8/17/04.

posted by Linus | 7:33 AM


Thursday, July 15, 2004

 

Fun Movie News. #103:

Romero's Land of the Dead.

posted by Linus | 7:49 AM

 

Terry, my book is cool drawings of dragons, ...

... and I have no idea what you're talking about.

posted by Linus | 7:38 AM

 

Telly Alert. #029:

Da Ali G Show (season 2 premieres Sunday at 10:30 p.m, HBO)

"Boutros Boutros-Ghali kept on telling me he used to be a bit of a bully in school, and he used to muck around. They want Ali G's approval. They're in the room with a total idiot, and yet they're seeking his approval. As if it somehow makes them cooler."

posted by Linus | 7:19 AM


Wednesday, July 14, 2004

 

Good work, lads.

The Onion AV Club's interview with Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky.

Berlinger and Sinofsky also recently announced that they would be working together on Paradise Lost 3. From this piece:

"Sinofsky, who once doubted they'd ever work together again, is now looking forward to collaborating on "Paradise Lost 3," about the final appeals of defendent Damien Echols. "It will be about him being exonerated, or getting a new trial, or God forbid, being put to death," says Sinofsky, who notes that if the first film hadn't been made "he'd be dead right now."

Support the WM3!

posted by Linus | 8:33 AM

 

Ron repeatedly states that he loves scotch.

NY Times piece on the just-released Harvard School of Public Health study on "ratings creep". The study used information from the consistenly hilarious (and thorough) Screen It! and the more-tame-but-still-fun kids-in-mind ratings. Check out their write-ups for Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy [SPOILERS?]:

"A man talks about a man eating like a wolf and letting blood drip down for the children to drink."

"Ron bribes the TV news announcer to announce Veronica as "T*ts McKee."

posted by Linus | 7:44 AM


Tuesday, July 13, 2004

 

Juicy.

As promised, here is the announcement of Bill Haverchuck's Vice-Presidential running mate for the 2004 campaign:

Lauren Graham

In addition to "general awesomeness", Haverchuck cites five main reasons for his selection of Graham:

1. Gilmore girls.

2. Educational background / geographic diversity: Graham was born in Hawaii, grew up in Northern Virginia, received an undergraduate English degree from Barnard College, received an MFA from SMU, and currently resides in California. Haverchuck has spent his entire life in glorious, suburban Detroit and is a graduate of McKinley High.

3. Is real, which provides the very important fictional character/actual human "ticket balance" that is needed to win a national election.

4. Highly skilled and aggressive No-Limit Texas Hold 'Em play.

5. Brilliant when hitting the talk show circuit (the 2 Conans and 1 Dave are classics).

Some have expressed concerns about Haverchuck's legendary allergies (e.g., licorice, bees, air, cats, some dogs, nougat, the potentially deadly peanuts, among many others). Not only is Graham allergy-free, but she also maintains an active CPR certification and will be an asset in medical emergencies. Dirty Tricksters beware: the Haverchuck-Graham campaign has an unprecedented security and paramedical staff. Any attempts to sabotage Haverchuck with items such as Annabelle's Big Hunk (aka "Haverchuck Kryptonite") will be quickly thwarted.

The official candy of the campaign will be the safe and stimulating Pixy Stix, which Haverchuck believes "rule".

The official song of the campaign will be Paul Feig's "Space Funk"

The official pants and t-shirt of the campaign will be revealed later.

Pre-emptive strike: Drudge will undoubtedly unleash this in the coming days so here it is:



Drudge is also claiming to have pictures of Graham in a "compromising position with a mall Santa" but I have yet to confirm that these pics actually exist.

Celebrity endorsements so far:

- Phil Gordon (Ah! Finally! I knew Phil looked a lot like some other guy. It's Allan Havey!)
- Beau Teague
- Alexis Bledel
- Chan Marshall
- Judd Apatow
- Jared Sapolin
- Jeff Rosso
- Eppy
- Paul Feig [via e-mail: "Nice blog. I unfortunately have never seen Gilmore Girls, so I'm not familiar with the character, but I'll support her addition as VP to the Haverchuck ticket. I have to admit, I didn't know there was a Haverchuck for President campaign underway before we did the campaign buttons. I'm embarrassed about my lack of awareness. But thanks for furthering the cause. You have my full support. Now, when is the debate?"]

Haverchuck and Graham have scheduled their first appearance: 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, July 22nd at the San Diego Convention Center.

UPDATE:
- Haverchuck greets his supporters in San Diego.
- Haverchuck laughs at Campaign Treasurer Samm Levine.
- The next POTUS.

posted by Linus | 9:10 PM


Sunday, July 11, 2004

 

Really long article about graphic novels.

"Whole years go by now that I can barely account for. I'm not even being facetious."

posted by Linus | 4:34 PM

 

I think everyone needs their own dark cave.

The Believer has an interview (online exclusive) with Dan Chaon. Here's Tom Barbush's intro:

Dan Chaon's terrific first book Fitting Ends came out with a university press and quietly disappeared. Not so with his second, Among the Missing, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and has drawn a near cult following. Dan, married to the writer Sheila Schwartz, is the father of adolescent boys, and a professor at Oberlin College, where his students worship him. "Dan rocks," one said to me. He does. He is one of the oddest, smartest, most psychologically astute writers working today. His stories manage to be dark and often beautiful, unnerving and revelatory. He is an extraordinarily wide reader and consumer of contemporary culture, activities done mostly from his paper-strewn attic in Cleveland Heights.

I'll dive into You Remind Me of Me soon.

Chaon on putting together his first novel:

BLVR: But you still had to pull it all together.

DC: Yeah. Ha, ha. It took me a very long while before I really got a sense of how novels work as architecture. Ultimately I tried to control it in an artificial, structural way. I sat down with a piece of notebook paper and made up three sections of twelve chapters, thirty-six in all - which gave me at least an illusion of order. I ended up setting up a skeletal structure for myself to work with. I had some of the chapters already written - and I began to juggle them around in the thirty-six slots I'd made for myself. I broke up pieces of what I had and started with Chapters 3, 5, 6, 7, 13, 14, and 36. And then once I had those in place - like support columns - I started to fill in the spaces between them. It's a structure, I suppose, that's a little akin to contemporary serial television (Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, E. R., etc.) with the idea of "episodes" that make up a "season" - and it also riffs on the structure of some of Robert Altman's or Paul Thomas Anderson's movies. (It occurs to me that Carver might very well have written a novel if he'd taken the approach that Altman did in his adaptation of Carver's stories, Short Cuts.) In terms of books, I think I learned some things from Michael Cunningham's The Hours, Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, and Jennifer Egan's Look at Me, to name a few contemporary novels, as well as Dickens, but I don't think anyone else will see the connections. I'm actually very curious to hear what people compare this book too, since I'm not really sure how to describe it.

posted by Linus | 4:22 PM

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