As you may know, I usually have a list of blog topics that I never get around to writing about. (I'm too busy making Zac Efron collages, bitches!) So all the exciting movies I've seen, all the fabulous events I've attended, all the banal breakfasts that I've eaten—you don't get to hear about. I will attempt to rectify this somewhat and to cross off some of the things on my blogging list by touching on some stuff oh-so-briefly....

The much-talked-about (at least on this blog) Levi Johnston edition of Playgirl hit newsstands last month....

It's almost as juicy as the fierce and insightful David Mamet memo to his Unit writing staff that was leaked on the Internet and that doubles as a manifesto on good writing (though you have to take some of what he says with a grain of salt)....

One piece of entertainment that needs no scolding is Psycho, which I caught at the Alex Theatre in Glendale with Louise Larsen and her daughter and which prompted me to buy the fascinating and overwhelmingly detailed book, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, by Stephen Rebello. Psycho, one of my favorite films of all time, boasts arguably the best movie score ever created. Mad props to the late, great Bernard Herrmann for his look-ma-strings-only work. And I should add that the young Tony Perkins, for all his creepy craziness, is seriously hot....

Speaking of fascinating studies of movies, Raphael Shargel's century-long survey of film history, available as a series of audio lectures titled Understanding Movies: The Art and History of Film, is a brilliant master class in cinema critical studies....

From smut to TV to film, we must now go to the wonderful world of theater. I was at opening night of Ken Narasaki's No-No Boy at the Miles Memorial Playhouse in Santa Monica this past Saturday. The play features a stellar cast—you simply don't get better than this in Los Angeles, perhaps anywhere—and it was great to see a lot of friends and colleagues in the audience. For some reason, John Cho and I keep falling into this pattern in which we are compelled to out-wry each other for no good reason. I don't know how this all got started, but I do know that it's all his fault.

Loren directed the following music video for Jack Savoretti's acoustic ditty, "One Day," a pleasant, inviting tune that comes straight out of the Jack Johnson School of Rock. Savoretti even walks around on the beach singing with his guitar as if that's something he did all the time—you don't get any more Jack Johnson than that! (Except I don't think he's barefoot. What a Jack Johnson School of Rock faux pas!)

Anyway, the video also ended up as one of the Special Features on the Post Grad DVD, though I don't think any of the Special Features reveal exactly how long it takes Savoretti to do his hair. His hair is so fabulous that he must get up at like 3 in the morning to get started. Watch:



Visit Jack Savoretti.

Part of the team that produced the award-winning Laundromat—the short film that I'm in and that did smashingly well on the festival circuit—banded together once again to shoot a new short, Jinx, this past Sunday. It's a group so fun to work with that when I walked through the door in the morning and declared, "I'm here to shoot my solo jack-off video," nobody missed a beat and everyone dived into impromptu joke-banter about solo jack-off videos.

This was, however, an actually legitimate shoot. Written by and co-starring David Wilson, directed by David Maurice Gil, and produced by Andrea James (with fine set assistance by Rick and Doug), Jinx is a cinematic exercise in..in...in...well, I don't want to give any of it away. Perhaps it'll do as well as Laundromat and end up traveling the festival circuit, showing up on cable, and being released on DVD. You can see it then.

In the meantime, I will say that this was a physically taxing shoot. My limbs were sore, and I was punk-ass tired afterward.

Of course, I wasn't tired enough to not demand stills from the movie. I insisted, "Make sure to send me all the photos in which I look butch!" Click the pictures to enlarge and behold my butchness (or lack thereof).

(By the way, we miss you, Edward Gunawan!)

One of my duties in my first academic year at USC is to produce the Master of Professional Writing Program's 2010 Writing for Stage and Screen Competition and Festival, which bows this weekend (April 2 and 3, 2010, yo!) on the USC campus. Not only am I producing the living f*ck out of this festival (with fine assistance from MPW faculty and staff, as well as Mr. Howard Ho), it's got me so excited that I'm writing a blog post about it—even though I have trouble endorsing anything in which I am not the complete center of attention.

The focal point of this event, of course, are the top three winning dramatic works written by MPW students and selected by a panel of celebrity judges.

Anyway, if you're in the Los Angeles area and can attend, do. Guess what? It's free. Guess what else? There's a catered reception afterward. Guess what now? Since I've been tasked with arranging the reception...CHERRY PIE! (Do you hear me, Howard Ho?! I want CHERRY PIE!)

For all the pertinent deets, click on the image to enlarge. Physically incapable of clicking images? Go to the event's Facebook page.

(CHERRY PIE!)

Being part of a household that consumes its fair share of frozen dinners (Lean Cuisine eaters, holla!), the following news report from The Onion strikes a chord. I would cry if this weren't so goddamn hysterically funny, right down to the Koshi shout-out at the end. Watch:

One of the signature pieces in Jukebox Stories (my storytelling, song-singing, bingo-playing show with Brandon Patton) is "What My Sister's Breast Implants Have to Do With Golf," an epic true tale that my family doesn't know I share with perfect strangers. So far, I've managed to keep the story off the Internet and to keep my sister and my mom off my ass.

But, hey, I lead a dangerous life. So, here, ladies and gentleman, is me performing the story in question at Barnes & Noble at The Grove in Los Angeles, during one of last year's USC Master of Professional Writing Program's readings. Enjoy. Watch:



If you have a YouTube account, you can also rate this video (thanks!) and leave comments (thanks!) there.

In the finest tradition of French farce, this domesticated lamb runs in and out of doors. The only thing missing is doors slamming and funny French facial expressions. Watch:

As the new movie, Greenberg, was starting at the Arclight in Los Angeles last Saturday, a woman yapped loudly on her phone, obviously talking to a babysitter to check in on her child, Hannah. "OH YEAH AND DID HANNAH EAT ALL HER DINNER? AND THEN WHAT DID YOU AND HANNAH DO? WHERE IS HANNAH NOW?"

At that point, I muttered, "Hannah's dead."

But it's not my fault! Even though it didn't begin yet, I contend that Greenberg made me do it!

A few seconds into seeing the trailer for this new Ben Stiller comedy a couple months ago, I thought to myself, "Oh my god, this film looks horrible." But then the trailer revealed that it was written and directed by Noah Baumbach, one of my favorite filmmakers, and I immediately changed my mind. It's difficult to capture the sensibility and the humor of Baumbach's work in a two-minute compilation of out-of-context clips.

Kicking and Screaming, Mr. Jealousy, The Squid and the Whale, and the unfairly derided Margot at the Wedding are all on my list of favorite movies of all time. Baumbach often gets accused of creating seriously unlikeable characters (especially in those latter two films), but I personally have never felt that he lacks compassion for them.

Some artists have contempt for their characters and their audience (Michael Haneke, anyone?), but Baumbach is not in that camp. While he doesn't gaze upon his tragically and sometimes frustratingly flawed characters with, say, a loving eye, he does approach them with an understanding one.

Ben Stiller plays a—yup—unlikeable misanthrope, recently released from a mental hospital, who is even mean to the young, sexy woman who might lead to his redemption. And I know this might sound cheesy, but there's a little Greenberg in all of us. It makes us mutter things like, "Hannah's dead," at the movie theater.

On a final note, again, don't believe the trailer. This film is funny, funny, funny.

We've all seen footage of TV news reporters out in the field who have to deal with pranksters making funny faces and such in the background. Well, the following clip from Prague features a reporter with the patience of a saint. He manages to endure an array of (hilarious) assholes. Man, this is funny. Watch:

Believe it or not, I don't usually let my hair grow out this long (click pics to enlarge):



You know why? It makes me emotionally uncomfortable.

But today is Wednesday, and ever since I was a kid my mother has absolutely forbidden me to get a haircut on Wednesdays. It's supposedly bad luck or something like that, and my uncles and cousins and various kin have crashed cars or broken limbs because they didn't buy into this Thai superstition (or, as I like to call it, STUPIDstition). But I don't dare defy my mom.

Maybe I should let my hair keep growing anyway? It'll hurt me on the inside, but artists are supposed to take risks, right?

Thoughts?

[Update: Read "How High Can I Get, Part 2."]

Speaking of Chatroulette, have you heard of Catroulette? It's a site that features screencaps of people on Chatroulette who get randomly partnered with cats. Here are a few of my favorites:



















Visit Catroulette.

Just looking at a razor blade makes me recoil. So if you really want to jangle my nerves (but why would you ever want to do that?), all you have to do is flash a razor blade onscreen in a movie. If you totally want to fuck my shit up, then have a character use a razor blade as a murder weapon in an uncomfortably long scene of raw killing. Apparently, the Oscar-nominated French film, A Prophet (Un prophète), has no goddamn respect for me and totally wanted to fuck my shit up.

Aside from that, Jacques Audiard's A Prophet (co-written by Thomas Bidegain) is a richly detailed and assuredly epic story of a teenage delinquent—a Frenchman of Arab descent—who uses his six-year prison sentence to educate himself. Sure, he learns how to read, but his real education is in the ways of the gangster. Specifically, he starts working with a group of convicted Corsicans who not only rule guards and inmates inside the jail but also dictate mob shenanigans on the outside.

At two-and-a-half hours (which honestly didn't feel that long even to someone as easily bored as I am), A Prophet, which takes place mostly inside the prison (with occasional dynamic scenes on the outside), is as immersive an experience as, say, Avatar. Seriously.



On a side note, lead actor Tahar Rahim may be scruffy, shaggy, and all kinds of dirty in the movie, but in real life he's a big helping of pure hotness! Seriously.

A reporter. A live news broadcast. And a masked streaker. Put them all together. Hilarity ensues. Watch:

By now you've certainly heard of Chatroulette, the website wherein you video-chat with random strangers around the world (that is, when you are not confronted with random guys who are stroking their cocks for your viewing pleasure).

And by now you've probably heard of Merton, the musician who has racked up nearly four million views on YouTube by going on Chatroulette and improvising songs about the random people who pop up on his video screen.

Well, a few nights ago at a concert in Charlotte, North Carolina, Ben Folds did an "Ode to Merton," wherein he logged onto Chatroulette and performed songs about the few lucky strangers that appeared. This is sublime. Watch:

The political grandstanding in Green Zone, an action thriller set near the beginning of the Iraq War, is rather pedestrian (there are no weapons of mass destruction—that's so wrong!), and the film's premise is simply preposterous (an Army officer with a conscience goes on an almost one-man crusade to uncover the conspiracy behind the nonexistent WMDs that led to war, and he brings the truth to the American people after kicking ass all up and down the Middle East!).

But forget all that, people! Haven't you seen the commercials for Green Zone?! Much is made of the fact that the movie comes to us courtesy of The Bourne Supremacy/The Bourne Ultimatum team of actor Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass. Green Zone, you see, is basically The Bourne Iraq!

All this is to say, with the horrific mess of Iraq in the back of my mind, I felt a little uneasy that Green Zone is such an efficient and entertaining action movie. You see, I love the Bourne franchise, and Supremacy is one of my favorite movies of all time, but those films are essentially devoid of political implications in the real world (or any that you'd hang on to after you leave the theater anyway). They're fantasies of the highest Hollywood order (Jason Bourne kills somebody with a rolled-up magazine, for Christ's sake!).

But Green Zone is grounded in a real war and real suffering, and to see Matt Damon kicking ass and emerging triumphant...well...I just don't know. But, man, Greengrass sure knows how to stage an action sequence—they're all tense and pulse-pounding.

I should mention that the unexpectedly moving supporting turn by Khalid Abdalla as an Iraqi citizen who assists in the mission is a revelation. His short plea for the future of his country is heartbreaking.

But don't think about that! Look! Explosions! Yay!

The thing about all these videos that I post is that to fully appreciate them you must imagine me watching them over and over again and laughing hysterically. Otherwise, you might just sit there scratching your head. The following clip is about a girl. In bikini. Who kicks a reporter. In the nuts. Watch:



Please never do this to me. Please.

In a recent post, you witnessed me getting the cast of Our Family Wedding to play a game of word association (nothing like hurling random words at Forest Whitaker). Now, instead of using my precious time to delve deep into their personal lives and encourage them to talk about race in Hollywood, I get them to talk about cake. Yup, I said "cake." I got Forest Whitaker to talk about cake! Man, I can't believe they still keep on hiring me to do this stuff. I don't get any face or voice time in this promo video for Our Family Wedding, so I guess that's my punishment. But I swear to you—I'm on the other side of America Ferrera! Making funny faces! Watch:

I wrote a new post for The Bilerico Project.



Read "Michael Bublé, I Wish You Were a Cupcake, So I Could Eat You Up."

I sent the following message to my e-mail list (what?! you're not on my e-mail list?! go here) a few weeks ago:

Dear Friends:

The first and only time I was in London some kids threw sticks at me. This was in high school. And since then, I've been longing to return so that I can hunt those kids down and throw sticks back at them. You see, I am older and more vengeful. My, how I've grown.

Anyway, I may—MAY—have the opportunity to seek revenge. You see, some seriously British British people are presenting a one-night-only staged reading of my play, MYSTERIOUS SKIN, based on the novel by Scott Heim, in London on March 15, 2010, in order to convince the "notoriously stingy" (an English friend's exact words, not mine) Arts Council to fund a full production of the play. If that happens, then I will be on the first plane to England, twigs in hand.

If you're near London, go! Be my personal spies, and tell me how they do. If you have friends in London, spread the word, so that I may one day soon scream, "Vengeance is mine!"

xoxoxo
Prince

Well, one of my personal spies has reported back! I asked her for a few sentences, but she managed to bang out an extensive review, parts of which are reproduced here for your reading pleasure, with her permission of course.

Amanda Rogers, a gentlewoman and a scholar, wrote the following:

Between the literary land of Bloomsbury and rah rah Fitzrovia, The Drill Hall is around the corner from my university so I packed up after work and went off, dragging my partner in tow (he really wishes that I did research on big West End musicals, rather than shoestring-budget theatre)....

After a late start, a whopping 50 people (this is central London, it is a staged reading, do you know how much space costs to rent?) managed to squeeze into the basement studio like sardines in a tin, for what seemed to be largely a crowd of friends and family.

As for the play itself, the first thing to say is that we really enjoyed it and for a staged reading thought it was well-acted and slickly directed. The first act moved along swiftly, with quick scene changes and sharp transitions to clearly differentiate between the present and the characters' past memories. The momentum carried us along the sharply twisting emotional roller coaster—we laughed, we were captivated, we sympathised, and then by the end of the act we were suddenly made to feet suitably uncomfortable.

During the interval, I couldn't quite see how the story of a New York hustler and a Kansas alien abductee was going to connect. I could see that they would, but I liked the ambiguity of not being able to predict the journey....

I had wondered over my interval drink if the UK Arts Council would fund this project, given its American origin and obvious lack of a 'diversity card.' However, in an era where we are monitoring teachers and child careers to ever greater degrees owing to our concerns around [child abuse], it seems odd that, Caryl Churchill not withstanding, there is a lack of theatrical engagement with this social issue. So maybe the Arts Council will see value in a fully fledged production, and Prince can finally return to London to seek his vengeance on those racist white boys who threw sticks at him all those years ago.

One of the things I enjoyed about that report is Amanda's use of the term "suitably uncomfortable," which I will now be dropping in casual conversation. ("This pie makes me suitably uncomfortable.") I also liked "interval drink," which I presume is a common phrase in her parts. And I appreciated her Caryl Churchill reference, which, if you go back and read that paragraph, draws parallels between Caryl Churchill...and me!

This is first time I left the theater in the middle of a movie this year so far. I just don't get it, folks. Explain please.

Dubbing over an old Ronald Reagan TV address in Spanish may not seem like a stroke of artistic genius, but, when the animation kicks in and the voiceover takes a turn more absurd than you can possibly imagine, you know you're in good hands. I believe this is a short titled El fin del mundo by Alberto González Vázquez, and I think it spent some time on the festival circuit. It is fucking brilliant. Watch:



[Thanks to Gabriel Fleming.]

What happens when I am tasked with spending an entire afternoon with celebrities, including an Oscar winner and an Emmy winner? Where will my penetrating, highly intellectual journalistic instincts take me? Why, to a ridiculously banal game of word association, of course! Why ask questions about the craft of acting and the state of race relations in America when I can instead bark random words at Forest Whitaker? Oh, what fun I had! In the following promo video for Our Family Wedding, I don't manage to snag any screen time, but, yup, that's my deep probing voice. Watch:



Someone could very well have an alternate career on Password!

I wrote a new post for The Bilerico Project.



Read "This Behind-the-Scenes Footage of an Underwear Photo Shoot Is Like Watching a Gay Porn Without the Porn."

When I'm driving home from a movie theater after midnight, I usually keep myself from falling asleep at the wheel by singing at the top of my lungs and pretending I'm Michael Bublé. (When you pretend you're Michael Bublé, you can't possibly fall asleep because you are surrounded by rainbows and unicorns.)

But after seeing the chilling South Korean thriller, Mother, I drove in complete silence. The film is chock-full of shocking revelations and events, sure, but its culminative effect managed to get under my skin. This movie doesn't shake off you so easily—kind of like overbearing Asian mothers. (And believe me, I know a thing or two about overbearing Asian mothers. [I hope you're not reading this, Mom! But if you are, I love you!])

The title character (an apothecary in a small Korean village) embarks on a murder investigation after her twentysomething son (who is slightly retarded) is accused of killing a schoolgirl. Sounds like something that belongs on Lifetime (I hope you're not reading this, Lifetime! But if you are, I love you!), but filmmaker Bong Joon-ho—who made the nifty monster movie, The Host—has fashioned (with co-writer Park Eun-kyo) a picture that blends CSI, Alfred Hitchcock, David Lynch, and Korean soap operas into an unsettling but deeply gratifying cinematic concoction.

It's also wickedly funny. Oh, but you won't be laughing when the movie's over. You'll wish Michael Bublé were standing right in front of you so that you can sock him in the jaw for making you believe in a world full of rainbows and unicorns. The world is actually full of mothers. They are the creators and the destroyers. And this movie will grab you by the throat and won't let you forget it.

Further evidence that a zombie apocalypse is on the horizon is the following news report about a 96-year-old Florida man who was jumped by an otter and mauled bloody. I swear, if I didn't know that this was for real, I would be on the floor convulsing with laughter. I mean, that 9-1-1 call is the stuff of great practical jokes. But this is no joke. This is some fucked-up shit right here. Fortunately, the man lived to see another day. And the otter? Well, let's just say that karma's a bitch. Watch:



[Thanks to Superbadfriend.]

Dear dedicated Bamboo Nation readers, I'm taking the rest of the week off from blogging. (I'm like 25 episodes behind on the Dateline true crime specials on my DVR.... By the way, the "On the Trail of the Bike Path Rapist" episode I just watched is one of the most riveting hours of television I've ever seen. Seriously. It's chock-full of shocking revelations that made me gasp and almost choke on my grocery store-bought cotton candy.)

In the meantime, readers, please occupy yourself with the following four-minute long shampoo commercial. Yes, you read that correctly. I'm making you watch a four-minute long shampoo commercial.

With heaps of unabashed sentimentality, the following Pantene ad from Thailand features a bullied deaf-mute girl who conquers the violin, pwns her villains, and has great hair.

I have to admit that this clip made me cry—was it her story of triumph or her beautiful flowing locks? I just don't know! Watch:



Pachelbel's Canon never smelled so clean!

See you next week! (One more note before I go: I haven't managed to keep up with responding to your blog comments lately, but please know that I do read them all and appreciate your checking in to say hello and give feedback. Keep 'em comin'!)

Once again, Japanese television provides us with fascinating video footage that makes you wish you were high while watching it. This time, TV producers dress up some girl in a polar bear costume and take her to a polar bear tank at a local zoo. [Addendum: Astute reader "Wjackalope" points out that the girl is actually wearing a seal hat, which, come to think of it, is even more fucked up.] The girl in question freaks out when a real live polar bear dives at the protective glass she's standing in front of. What's so funny about a Japanese girl almost crapping her pants? Why...everything! (One thing I forgot to mention about all these clips is that I love those screen-in-screen reaction shots. Oh, glorious technology!) Watch:

And the winner of Bamboo Nation's latest contest is "Christopher," who, according to his Blogger profile is an "OSU graduate, linguist, and young professional." I assume "OSU" stands for "Orifice Stains University." Congratulations, Christopher! E-mail me your mailing address, and you will be sent your prize—a brand-new copy of Garth Stein's Raven Stole the Moon. Read it and then tell me what it's all about, so when I inevitably bump into Garth Stein I can pretend that I just devoured his novel.

Thanks for entering, everyone! More contests are forthcoming!

Speaking of the Academy Awards ceremony's most bizarre moments, before Sean Penn presented the Oscar for best actress he went on a nonsensical tangent that nobody in this house could even remotely comprehend. He said (stammering and stuttering removed):

"I never became an official member of the Academy, but the Academy and I do have in common that we managed to neglect to acknowledge the same actress in our own ways two years running. So I'm going to start fresh with the Academy and acknowledge these wonderful actresses."

Um...WHAT?!

The New York site has a plausible theory about what Sean Penn meant that doesn't involve pot-smoking!

Read "What the Hell Was Sean Penn Talking About Last Night?"

Watch the clip in question here:

Certainly the most bizarre and decidedly uncomfortable moment during last night's Oscars ceremony was when director-producer Roger Ross Williams's gentle acceptance speech for best short documentary (for Music by Prudence) got cut off by co-producer Elinor Burkett, who mumbled something about him being "just like a man to do all the talking" as Williams just stood there a bit bewildered. It was kind of like when you throw a party and a married couple shows up, all smiles and hugs but you just know that they had been fighting in the car and she was all like "don't embarrass me at the party, ass" and he was all like "shut up and pretend to have fun, you old hag." Anyway, Salon interviewed both of them to get the juicy (and it is juicy!) inside dish about their artistic holy war!

Read "The Story Behind Oscar's 'Kanye moment.'"

Watch the clip in question here:

If you're like me, you threw a last-minute, impromptu (is that redundant? is that redundant?) Academy Awards viewing party, in which the four attendees ate pizza, gnawed on cupcakes like rabid monkeys, and put one dollar each into the Oscar pool. You unsuccessfully tried not groan at Neil Patrick Harris's opening song, you shifted uncomfortably at all the nominated-actor tribute monologues, you scratched your head during the WTF?! dance number in the middle, and you fast-forwarded through all the boring parts and commercials (we smartly watched it tape-delayed off the DVR)—but you did appreciate some of Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin's genuinely funny banter. And to top it all off, you won the $4 Oscar pool in the eleventh hour because you wisely checked off Kathryn Bigelow over James Cameron! "Yay! Yay! Yay!," you screamed as you ran to the corner 7-Eleven to spend your winnings on Milk Duds and a Smart Water. Then, you watched the following movie trailer that combines the ideas behind a dozen or so Academy Award-nominated films into one amusingly snarky package. Watch:

Don't you love it when normally sweet and innocent Japanese schoolgirls (addendum: astute Bamboo Nation reader "Maicle" puts me to shame by pointing out they're actually Korean!) dare to be defiant by punking their helpless male teacher every time he turns to the chalkboard? If I were him, I wouldn't yell at them because I would be afraid that they would gang up on me and eat my brains. (That's what Japanese Korean schoolgirls feast on, don't you know?) Watch:

Since of I have always been a bastion of the great American novel (longtime readers just choked on their walnuts), I am pleased to be giving away a brand-new copy of an acclaimed book. The beautiful trade paperback edition that I am currently in possession of isn't even in stores yet! Oh, what power and influence I yield!

THE PRIZE: A brand-new copy of Garth Stein's Raven Stole the Moon. From The Washington Times: "Garth Stein makes an amazing debut with his deeply moving, superbly crafted and highly unconventional Raven Stole the Moon. Jenna Rosen walks out of her comfortable, but empty life in Seattle to return to a small community in Alaska, the home of her late grandmother, a Tlingit Indian, a year after the drowning of her son, Bobby. Jenna herself does not know why she stepped unprepared onto a ferry for the uncomfortable trip into her past. But there are forces at work here that do not obey the laws of Seattle, nor even the laws of physics. Jenna meets a dog, a fisherman and a Tlingit shaman, each of whom plays a role in her quest. She even seems to meet her lost son. Suspend disbelief, visit a culture different from our own and revel in Mr. Stein's way with words—and hope he has another book percolating in his fertile mind." Visit Garth Stein's website.

THE RULES: Leave a comment—any comment—by Monday, March 8, 2010, 11:59 p.m. If you don't have an ID you can sign in with, you can comment anonymously and leave your name or your initials; when I announce the winner, you'll know if you won and all you have to do is e-mail me to claim your prize. One winner will be chosen at random. Anyone in the world may enter, even Romanians!

I've been to the infamous Clancy's Crab Broiler (home of the infamous "Bucket o' Crab") in Glendale so many times in the last couple of months that—by the looks of this caught-in-the-act photograph—I'm turning into a disembodied head:

A guy mounted a video camera to a robotic arm and pit it against his girlfriend's cat. Place your bets! Watch:

Courtesy of our new obsession Internet friend Brent Rose comes a vulgar (but strangely true) send-up of those dubious self-help and get-rich-quick infomercials that dominate late-night television. (You know what I'm talking about, lazy-ass couch potatoes!) Watch the probably not-safe-for-work video:

A film as slow-moving and humorless as Summer Hours should make me want to stab myself in the neck with the sharp end of a frozen carrot, but Olivier Assayas's family melodrama (now available on DVD, etc.) held a strange power over me until 2 a.m. last night. Yup, it's French.

You see, this story about three adult siblings who gently squabble over what to do with a large inheritance, which includes a lovely country house and a valuable art collection, screams—and I mean SCREAMS—Chekhov. The movie's well-to-do French people have the luxury to sit around and argue over things, the way Chekhov's wealthy Russians have time to sit around and contemplate their own ennui.

What drew me into Summer Hours (also known as L'heure d'été) is the fact that it's bursting with ideas—about art, death, legacy, and, well, the strange power that inanimate objects can hold over us. Time, memory, and context infuse those objects with life. And could the film also be an elegy for a France that once was?

Personally, I didn't care so much about how the three siblings (including a blond Juliette Binoche) would resolve their differences as much as I cared about the subplot of the country house's displaced maid, whose simple wisdom and unassuming contribution's to the movie's big themes, are lovely and little bit heartbreaking.

(But maybe Tom Hanks, whose production company is doing the American remake, has the good sense to throw in a few explosions to jazz things up a little bit?)

The following Facebook news-feed parody (click photos to enlarge) is so dead-on that it will make you question how others perceive you in the world of social networking. This piece is from the January edition of GQ, way back when, but it's just too damn funny not to share:

The following video features your typical, everyday clown urinal, in which you piss right into its wide open mouth. Finally! Watersports and the circus meet in harmony! In the restroom! Watch:

Speaking of Anjelah Johnson, did you ever see her hilarious stand-up bit about her visit to a nail salon? According to the Los Angeles Times, Vietnamese Americans account for an estimated 80% of nail technicians in California and 43% nationwide, so Johnson's act rings true in addition to being funny. She nails the accent, sure, but I especially like the passive-aggressive and other manipulation tactics that her characters employ. Watch: