Done to ‘Death’
Every time I see a trailer for Death at a Funeral, I get angry. Not because I think that Chris Rock isn’t funny, or because it pokes fun at a vulnerable situation. No, I get angry because the exact same movie has been made before. In 2007, Frank Oz directed a stellar cast in the droll, zany movie, which I saw but never reviewed for some reason. If Firefly hadn’t done so already, the 2007 Death would have endeared me to the work of Alan Tudyk for life. Now Niel LaBute, writer and director of the unknown but brilliant In the Company of Men and not much else of consequence, is helming a remake that seems content to replace understatement with catch phrases and screaming. It’s not that I don’t enjoy Tracy Morgan – I’m a huge fan of his on 30 Rock – and I’m sure this movie will find some kind of audience (probably more than the $8.5 million it grossed in 2007), but it’s completely unnecessary to remake the movie three years after its initial release, especially when the original was so good. At least they had the good sense to re-cast Peter Dinklage in his role.
Wide Awake and So Alive
It’s Friday, and that means time for another video from Movie Hawk. Enjoy the music video of “Car Crash” by Matt Nathanson. Anyone who reads this site with any regularity needs no explanation for why I’m posting this.
Edit: Whoops, looks like they aren’t allowing embedding. Here’s the link.
Barenaked Ladies Are Everyone
I gave the Barenaked Ladies a lot of flak for their most recent release, Barenaked Ladies are Me, but as I have listened more and more to the CD, I’ve found it more and more tolerable. What I’m really impressed with, though, is the Ladies’ embracing of digital technology, releasing the album on thumb drives, encouraging fans to dub their voices over the studio instrumental tracks, and now rounding up a boatload of YouTube non-celebrities to perform the music video for what appears to be their new single, “Sound of Your Voice.” It’s one of the better songs on the album, and it’s made all the better by an innovative video idea. Check it out after the jump. Click the play button on the screen, not the “watch” link.
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Sweeping the Clouds Away
One of the great things about my job is that I have to do the same thing every morning: post the electronic events newsletter. After two-plus years of doing this, it’s become a rather mindless task (the posting of the newsletter, not the writing of it), and I can do a few other things to entertain myself while I go through the motions.
I’m not sure how I got around to YouTube this morning, or how I got to searching for “Sesame Street” videos from there, but that’s kind of the point of YouTube. Anybody who is in their 20′s or early 30′s knows the glory days of “Sesame Street” and will recognize the clips linked below. On the “explore more videos” section of each clip is a wealth of links to other genius clips. I could even make it a regular feature, akin to Huge Tiny Mistake’s “Boy Meets World” Mondays feature, but won’t. Enjoy these highlights.
- Guy Smiley and Count von Count on “Beat the Time”
- Cookie Monster on “Beat the Time”
- “C is for Cookie”
- The Beetles sing “Letter B”
- “I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon”
- “Dance Myself to Sleep”
- Bert and Ernie explore a pyramid
- “Put Down the Duckie”
- The National Association of W Lovers
- Mourning Mr. Hooper
Pictured, of course, is Super Grover, who isn’t involved in any of the clips.
Conan the YouTube Barbarian
It will only be a few years before Jay Leno steps out of the spotlight on The Tonight Show and leaves the reins to Conan O’Brien. The day can’t come soon enough. Last night, the part of the public that’s asleep before Conan makes it to the NBC airwaves got a chance to see the genius at work, as he hosted the Emmy Awards. Though I didn’t watch the show, I can safely say that one of the highlights was Conan’s opening montage. He stumbles into the plots of Lost, The Office, House, 24, and Dateline‘s “To Catch a Predator” series. It’s smart, funny, and time-appropriate, something you don’t always see in the opening monologues of awards shows. The whole thing is reminiscent of the opening to the 2003 MTV Movie Awards, featuring Justin Timberlake and Sean William Scott.
And, of course, one can never link to a video that features Conan without bringing up the Walker, Texas Ranger clips. You can see two of them here, and the perhaps the ultimate online video clip ever here. Apologies for these two links, as they aren’t YouTube videos and may take a while to load and/or have questionable page content.