http://www.monochrom.at/kiki-and-bubu/monochrom–kikiandbubuandtheshift.mov

Tags: marx, neoliberalism, revolution

Tags: clark and michael, wall pounding,

“I had a situation last year on Battlestar Galactica where we were asked by Universal to do webisodes [Note: Moore is referring to The Resistance webisodes which ran before Season 3 premiered], which at that point were very new and ‘Oooh, webisodes! What does that mean?’ It was all very new stuff. And it was very eye opening, because the studio’s position was ‘Oh, we’re not going to pay anybody to do this. You have to do this, because you work on the show. And we’re not going to pay you to write it. We’re not going to pay the director, and we’re not going to pay the actors.’ At which point we said ‘No thanks, we won’t do it.’”

“We got in this long, protracted thing and eventually they agreed to pay everybody involved. But then, as we got deeper into it, they said ‘But we’re not going to put any credits on it. You’re not going to be credited for this work. And we can use it later, in any fashion that we want.’ At which point I said ‘Well, then we’re done and I’m not going to deliver the webisodes to you.’ And they came and they took them out of the editing room anyway — which they have every right to do. They own the material — But it was that experience that really showed me that that’s what this is all about. If there’s not an agreement with the studios about the internet, that specifically says ‘This is covered material, you have to pay us a formula - whatever that formula turns out to be - for use of the material and how it’s all done,’ the studios will simply rape and pillage.”

I could make a snarky comment about how the writing on the show was all downhill anyway during Season 3, but this strike isn’t about the quality of writing, but rather the effort that goes into it. Being commissioned to write “Webisodes” you never get paid for or that you are underhandedly denied credit for to avoid payment, is morally and ethically wrong for an employer, even one as megalomaniacal as a Hollywood studio. Keep supporting these guys; the battle they’re waging affects us all.

Tags: Writers Guild of America, strike, labor, Ronald Moore, Battlestar Galactica

As pro-union Midwesterners, Tanner and I feel very strongly about labor issues, and these demonstrations deserve everyone’s attention. I know Tanner and I have been on strike now for months, as evidenced by our rarely updated content for this blog, but once we start receiving our much deserved millions, we’ll become more productive, I promise. All kidding aside, please show support for these writers.

I guess the one good thing that can come out of this is more jobs for M.F.A students.

Title: There are no losers among the possessors of long dic’ks. Now you can be one of them!

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Tags: spam, increase your dick weight

When asked by Pitchfork about the concept of accepting donations instead of a set price for the album, Greenwood had a different perspective:

It’s just interesting to make people pause for even a few seconds and think about what music is worth now. I thought it was an interesting thing to ask people to do and compare it to whatever else in their lives they value or don’t value.

Whether Greenwood sees it or not, this is indeed a political stance against the music industry. But it doesn’t just pit them against record labels, but music itself.

I originally grabbed In Rainbows free as a torrent download because their website was inaccessible. After one listen, I returned to the website several times persistent in my resolve to purchase the Discbox.

From Greenwood’s perspective this proves that music, to me at least, is worth quite a lot. That’s really not the case at all. If it were, than I would’ve been purchasing more than a couple albums a year; instead I download fifteen albums a year and decide to purchase only a couple—and rare is the case when one of these is an actual CD.

Instead, In Rainbows demonstrates to me how important Radiohead is to me. In a swirling mass of mediocrity, corporatization, and disappointment at a general lack of exciting innovation, Radiohead is now what I cling to with hope. They are meticulous craftsmen, capable of occupying a buzzing space between horror and exultation that perhaps no other band can reach. In Rainbows is a transcendence in both its content and delivery, further solidifying the band as among a handful of artists capable of not only making music that is worth your money, but your faith.

Tags: radiohead, in rainbows review, in rainbows, music review, album of the year

Michigan needs a new industry, because the auto companies blew it.

Tags: michigan, auto industry, corporate idiocy

Wes Anderson’s work has a running theme of privilege over poverty, with whites predominantly occupying the former and minorities in the latter—this I’ll grant Weiner. For instance, in the film “Bottle Rocket,” Anthony and Dignan don’t need nine-to-five jobs to get by (Anthony and cohort Bob Maplethorpe do join the working world eventually, but its purpose is to more fully round out Anthony’s life and to live by routine; certainly not by necessity). Even Bob lives in a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, sharing the place with his brother while his parents are on perpetual holiday. In “Rushmore,” the setting is landed in money, but this is meant only to underscore the pseudo-privilege that permeates from Max Fisher, in spite of his obviously humble upbringings. “The Royal Tenenbaums,” without question, is a film about the upper crust, as is ” The Life Aquatic,” which naturally features rich people with the time and money to explore the ocean in their free time with their minority sidekicks.

In all these films, Weiner argues, Anderson subjects minorities to the whims of our protagonists. To him, we have boiled Ines down into some caricature of the immigrant worker that catches Anthony’s eye not because he sees her as a potential life mate, but because she can only mean selfish salvation to a character as determined to have it as Anthony. In “Rushmore,” Mr. LittleJeans is only there for comic relief, and represents the brevity with which Anderson handles people of color. In “The Life Aquatic,” Seu George is merely used to “decorate [Anderson’s] margins” (discounting, of course, the effect George’s music has on the viewer, who is just as important as any character in that film).

On most all Weiner’s points regarding past films I have to disagree. There are two glaring paragraphs that I take issue with and I think discredit Weiner’s own argument.

1. “In Bottle Rocket, the Paraguayan housekeeper Ines is a direct precursor to Rita [from “Darjeeling”] —a service-industry hottie with whom a depressed Anderson hero (in this case, Luke Wilson’s Anthony) becomes obsessed. Helping this obsession along is the fact that Ines can barely speak English, making her a convenient projecting screen for Anthony’s fantasies about purity and true love. Their romance is sweet, but its subtext is laughable. Anthony’s last girlfriend sent him into a psychological tailspin, we learn, when she made a bourgeois proposal: ‘Over at Elizabeth’s beach house, she asked me if I’d rather go water-skiing or lay out. And I realized that not only did I not want to answer that question,” Anthony explains, “but I never wanted to answer another water-sports question, or see any of these people again for the rest of my life.’ So it’s barefoot, towel-folding Ines to the emotional rescue.”

My first thought on this is: why is it so hard to comprehend Anthony rebounding to someone who is the polar opposite from his last girlfriend? Weiner makes a miscalculation of who Ines is, and I’m kind of astonished a racial parallel has been drawn here. Ines did represent a purity Anthony hadn’t seen, but she was not racially characterized that way. Nor does it appear to be her meekness or lack of English skills that attracts Anthony to her (an “exotic vs. the familiar” complex?). She was no mere “projection screen” for Anthony to talk to himself through. We find out in the end that Anthony is genuinely in love with her; excited to learn her English has improved (wouldn’t a purist be disappointed his projection screen is now torn?); pumped that he will get to see her again. We discover that his feelings for Ines remained even after a long period of separation. Anyone selfishly looking to fill a personal void would’ve filled that need in the interim with a new screen to project on. Furthermore, I think Anderson made a very calculated decision to have Ines NOT be a “hottie,” but rather someone who is simply attractive and potentially obtainable for your average man. If Weiner’s argument is that this was all just convenient to Anthony’s character growth, I’d posit that it’s far more convenient for the viewing audience, lest we be subjected to a more realistic film lacking fantastical properties and anything to hinge our hopes on.

2. …Mr. Sherman in Royal Tenenbaums, a black accountant who wears bow ties, falls into holes, and meekly endures Gene Hackman’s racist jabs—he calls him “Coltrane” and “old black buck,” which Anderson plays for laughs.

Yes, the slurs exist, but Anderson’s not doing this to exploit them, or point out a character flaw among middle-aged African American men. What Weiner must have missed is the quiet dignity Mr. Sherman holds; an eloquence in manners and lifestyle. He’s not falling into holes because African Americans are clumsy, but because he’s clumsily in love—something all genders and races can identify with. That he endures Royal’s racial slurs speaks more in favor of Mr. Sherman’s character than would had he fought back. Royal is left at the stooped level of taking cheap shots—something well within his character. Even that, though, has its charms, because while Royal has no boundaries in his speech, his epithets are simply juvenile ways to express his love for his ex-wife (although this is often obscured by his machismo) and his anger over her new, obviously more compassionate and worthy suitor. That we can even characterize Mr. Sherman as compassionate and worthy casts doubt on there being a mismanagement of race.

Weiner’s concern appears to be that the role of racism in Anderson’s characters is presented as “endearing quirks” when they’re really insensitivities. I guess it’s hard for me to acknowledge that as true when his characters are more often aloof than they are knowingly insulting, and while this is purely conjecture, I’d like to think there’s an underlying “had they only known, they would take it back” quality to it all. And I think that just strikes at the heart of it all: Anderson creates characters who don’t know any better, until their worldviews are challenged and they are forced to recognize their faults and embrace them. Those are traits paramount to good cinema and completely relatable on a very human level.

So, I’m left wondering if Weiner is against Wes Anderson’s theme of wealthy ne’er-do-wells discovering there’s more to life than their fortunate dispositions. If that’s the case, I’d suggest no one ever read W. Somerset Maugham, or any other author who finds absurdity in the upper class; whose writing eye is focused on bringing dissociable characters into tangible terms; and whose motivations and ambitions are not much different than ours: that of self-discovery coupled with an ounce of humility.

As for “Darjeeling,” I’ll just have to wait and see whether I’ll reach an epiphany akin to Weiner’s, or if it will only solidify my resolve in saying that Wes Anderson knows exactly what he’s doing when he’s handling race, wealth, and human emotions.

I actually stumbled on it because a blogger on Destructoid was saying how pretentious and pointless their comedy was (it’s in the comments).

Of course, the pointlessness is the point. As for the pretension, I think that has more to do with the blogger’s frustration at the fact he doesn’t quite get something a lot of other people enjoy. Because of the rather mysterious workings of humor it can be frustrating when you don’t find something funny, especially because humor and wit are connected in many ways to intelligence. Understanding the nuances of a Tim and Eric sketch requires a far more complicated relationship with the text and understanding of its references than with a Jeff Foxworthy bit based on a standard framework. I personally think the absurdist humor, often steeped in pop culture references, that has developed in the last decade is one of the best things the web has to offer. And what makes it really addictive for its fans, is that it requires a certain grammar to construct and understand the jokes. For example, check out YTMND.

Anyway, this video has spawned a large amount of derivative works worth browsing on You Tube. Just search for “Doo Dah Doo Doo.”

Tags: tim and eric show, doo dah doo doo, smells like meat

It’s rare I am floored by statistics, but this did it.

I am not sure what is more depressing: the fact this much money is being spent on sexual abuse, or the fact they have this much money to disperse.

Here is the rest of the article.

Tags: church sex scandal, priests, morons giving, their charity to churches