I don't have an iPhone and I will never have an iPhone (I'm much too in love with my Palm Pre—suck it, iPhone!), but, if I did have an iPhone, I would download the official Cyanide & Happiness iPhone app. I don't know what it is, I don't know what it does, but my friend Joanne, along with Content House and Explosm.net, created this app for the popular web comic, which is now near the top of the app charts on iTunes.



Get the Cyanide & Happiness iPhone app now!

Um, really, how could I not post this?! Watch:



This blog just gets more and more compelling, doesn't it? DOESN'T IT?!

[Thanks to Louise Larsen.]

I don't watch the Jimmy Fallon show, and I'm neutral on how I feel about him (me? neutral? on anything? I know!), but the following clip of Jimmy Fallon teaching Mick Jagger how to act more like Mick Jagger is freaking hilarious. They could build a whole exercise routine around this (which, by the way, is an obscure reference and shout out to The Celebrity Apprentice—was I the only one watching?!). Watch:

A few years ago, I tried to get caught up with Lost on DVD. I watched the first episode and half of the second one and then threw my hands in the air, frustrated that I didn't know what the fuck was going on, and sighed, "I can't commit to this!"

But it didn't mean that the show didn't interest me. I would read spoilers online and try to get friends to explain island mythology to me. But you know what? I still didn't know what the fuck was going on. I recall a specific conversation that went like this:

PRINCE: So what did the monster end up being? A dinosaur?

GABRIEL: No.

PRINCE: Wait. There are no dinosaurs on the island?

GABRIEL: No.

PRINCE: Then what was the monster?

GABRIEL: It was a cloud of smoke.

PRINCE: Ha ha ha ha ha! No, no, really, what was it?

GABRIEL: A cloud of smoke.

PRINCE: Wait. You're serious?

GABRIEL: Yes.

PRINCE: Seriously?

GABRIEL: Yes.

At which point, I threw threw my hands in the air and sighed, "I can't commit to this!"

Thankfully, a bunch of cats recap Lost for me. Watch:



[Thanks to Louise Larsen and Howard Ho.]

As you may know, 24 is my favorite television series of all time, and I have declared on this very blog that the show "is pretty much the only reason I have to live." Yes, that's a gross exaggeration, but the level of commitment I've dedicated to 24 over eight seasons borders on fanaticism. Do you know anyone else who spends as much time as I do on a TV show's discussion board and owns so much merchandise (T-shirt, mousepad, shoulder bag, ringtone) from said series? I mean, for a hoity-toity playwright and university educator like me, that's just plain inappropriate. (Seriously, when my phone rings, it's the CTU ring!)

Last night's two-hour series finale, which ended eight pulse-pounding seasons, was quite gratifying, and I got all teary-eyed during its perfect, logical, emotional, final minutes. I won't say much more about it because I don't want to spoil anything for those of you who haven't caught up yet and because I'm still processing my eight-year relationship with the show. God, this feels like the worst break-up ever. EVER.

Goodbye, 24, I will always love you.

I really didn't want Peter Kuo to win Bamboo Nation's latest contest. After all, his seemingly endless diatribe in that post's comments section made want to vomit up my insides onto a newborn. He writes, "I would be horrifically disgusted if this comment were [to] be selected as a winner for this so-called 'contest.'"

Well, guess what? I accidentally picked his name randomly, which means that he has just won a UCLA Bruins T-shirt and cap! I honestly don't know who is more horrifically disgusted right now.

Anyway, as you contemplate that question, you can also begrudgingly watch another one of Peter's Keep or Jot vlogs. (Remember the first one I begrudgingly posted?). In this one, he teaches you how to be funny. Supposedly. Watch:



Congratulations, Peter, I guess. Or not. I don't really freaking care. Come get your shit.

I wrote an epic guest post for You Offend Me You Offend My Family, a group blog written by Asian-American filmmaker types.



Read "All Women Are Crazy!; or: What I Learned from Watching Obsessed (Over and Over Again)."

Remember the upcoming six-episode postmodern adventure series that's written and directed by Gabriel Fleming (The Lost Coast), starring Donovan Keith, and featuring me in a salad-eating cameo? Well, Gabriel has finally cut a trailer that's even more awesome than the new H&M underwear I'm wearing right now. (White and purple boxer briefs, if you must know.) I don't appear in the trailer at all (big marketing mistake, Fleming!), but it has my endorsement anyway. Watch:



Visit the official website.

Remember the trailer for Golden Boy, the pilot episode of a TV show conceived by Feo Chin, who holds some kind of strange magical power over me? Well, the entire funny episode is now available online, and you can finally catch up with me. (I saw it a couple years ago!) Here's the trailer again, in case you missed it:



The whole first episode is here on YouTube in four thrilling parts.

I wrote a new post for The Bilerico Project.



Read "Shirtless Sports Fan With Abs of Steel Interrupts Baseball Game."

I'm sorry, lovers of art-house cinema, but I just don't get how you've managed to make this Scandinavian release one of the most successful foreign films of the year. I, along with two other friends, unanimously agreed to leave an hour into the movie. I don't like going to the theater and feeling like I'm being punished. I wasn't being bad—I swear!

Who saw this? Who loved this? I don't get it! Explain please!

As if kittens on a slide weren't cute enough, a mother cat "rescues" one of her distressed babies who can't manage to make it back up. Why must you be so adorable, kittens, why?! Watch:



[Thanks to Louise on the Left.]

Remember that (500) Days of Summer commercial that I wrote the copy for and that Loren directed and that stars our apartment and that aired on Top Chef Masters last year? It was just nominated for a Key Art Award! (According to handy Wikipedia: "The Key Art Awards are an annual collection of honors given for outstanding achievement in artwork and other promotional materials advertising movies. The awards are sponsored by The Hollywood Reporter, a trade paper published for the entertainment production community.)

Have you ever seen an actual Key Art Award? It's something you can stab people with! I would so take this with me to dangerous neighborhoods. (But why do I get the distinct feeling that the trophy will not go to me? Hmmm....)



Check it out!

Because of my magical moderating skills (do you realize what an art moderating is?!), I was asked to lead a panel of Asian Americans in the media that took place a couple weeks ago at the APA-UCLA 2010 Scholarship Awards Reception. On the panel were Ted Chen (NBC news anchor!), Tzi Ma (the face of "the Chinese" on 24!), and Tamlyn Tomita (too many movies and TV shows to list!), three powerhouses in the Asian-American community who were all funny, insightful, and taller than I.

The fact that I teach at USC (UCLA's biggest rival school, for those of you who don't know) was smartly kept under the radar. I felt like I was part of a grand conspiracy, especially when one of the event hosts flat-out refused to say "USC" when introducing me. I believe she used a dirty euphemism like "another school that we won't mention."

Anyway, at the end of our panel, we all received generous gift bags that contained a UCLA T-shirt and baseball cap. Now I'm not one to not be appreciative and I know how gauche it is to re-gift merchandise, especially on a blog, but I think the event people are able to understand that I simply cannot have this stuff in my apartment. The merchandise will inevitably burst into flames and burn my home down. (You don't want that to happen, do you, event people?!) Believe me, it will happen if I don't get rid of these valuable (to you) items! So....

Here's yet another thrilling Bamboo Nation contest!

THE PRIZE: A brand-new, medium-sized UCLA Bruins T-shirt (though it looks large to me) and a brand-new, small/medium Bruins baseball cap, both made by Adidas.



THE RULES: Leave a comment—any comment—by Sunday, May 23, 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 you, Romanians!)

I've seen a lot of things in my life, but I've never seen anything quite like this. What the hell is this cat doing?! And why can't I stop watching this over and over again?! Watch:

Iron Man 3?

Flipping through TV channels late one night, I landed on a music video for Corinne Bailey Rae's "Put Your Records On," a song so deliciously sunny and good that I had to download it onto my Palm Pre and play it over and over while pretending I was riding a bicycle on a summer's day. I guess that's what "neo-soul" (that's what Google tells me is Rae's genre) is supposed to do, I guess. This song is four years old—why haven't I heard it until now?! Why are you people keeping stuff like this a secret from me?! You are not doing your job! I love this song:

Gregory Itzin. Emmy. Please.

It looks like lunchtime in the student union at the University of Mississippi (also known as "Ole Miss," for reasons that I don't care to Google). Then, Slumdog Millionaire's "Jai Ho" theme song starts blasting over the PA system, and one courageous student breaks out into dance. Soon, many others join in, and it becomes clear that this is a meticulously choreographed stunt that borders on the sublime. I love that one guy who does the entire number with his backpack still secured over his shoulders—watch out for him. Don't you wish this would happen everywhere every day? It can! It's all up to you! Watch:



[Thanks to Superbadfriend.]

Once again, I am way behind on responding to the comments that you've left here on this blog during the past week or two, but I continue to be delighted by them. Thank you. I consider them sufficient payment for all the back-breaking work I do here, especially when you leave anonymous declarations like:

i want to give you the b.j of your life

Yes, somebody actually wrote that. And, yes, if that person weren't anonymous, I would gladly accept. (It's one of the perks of being a blogging celebrity!)

(But I think I know who left that comment.)

On a campaign to promote her biography, Spoken from the Heart, former First Lady Laura Bush appeared on Larry King Live and reiterated a couple of the provocative revelations she wrote about: she supports the idea of same-sex marriage and a woman's right to choose. There's something so incredibly cool about this, the way she agrees to disagree with her much more conservative husband, who ruled the roost with an iron traditional-family-values fist his eight years in office. Man, if they had sex in the White House, I bet it was angry sex. Watch:

Holy fucking shit, you guys, you must see Exit Through the Gift Shop! It's a documentary so smart, funny, multilayered, and sublime that my head is still spinning, days after I caught it at the Arclight in Hollywood. (Well, you know, it was either that or Furry Vengeance.)

My experience of the movie reminds me of that crazy puzzle cube thing in Hellraiser, a magical Chinese box-like contraption that keeps you guessing at what the hell it is, as it secretly prepares to hook you with chains and tear the flesh from your body. (Lest you take my metaphor too far, Exit Through the Gift Shop is not horrific—it's just delightfully disarming.)

It's best if you go into the film not knowing too much about it, but I will set up the basic premise for you. Exit Through the Gift Shop starts out as a sufficiently interesting history of street art (guerrilla art that has its roots in graffiti, I believe), a movement unofficially led by the likes of Shepard Fairey, who created the iconic Andre the Giant/Obey image and the even more iconic Obama/Hope image...



...and by British provocateur Banksy, who's left his imprint all over the U.K....




...and has been able to remain anonymous, appearing in the movie in silhouette and with his voice digitally altered:



But then the filmmaker, an eccentric and obsessive fan of street art named Thierry Guetta, has the tables turned on him. Banksy starts making a movie about Guetta, who's life takes some surprising twists that may inspire you, may disgust you, or may make you question life itself.

But as entertaining as the film is on its own, the real stroke of genius is that you're certain to be talking about it for a long time afterward. On the surface, Exit Through the Gift Shop seems to simply be about the ever-present tension between art and commerce and the absurdity of the modern art world, consumerism, and fame. But if you walk away from the movie thinking that's all it's about, think again. And again. And again. At one point, when an interviewee is asked about an art event, he declares (and I'm paraphrasing), "Art is a bit of a joke. In this case, the joke is on.... The joke is on.... I don't know who the joke's on. I don't even know if there is a joke." I want that to be my manifesto.

For the love of all that is holy, see this film now! Here is where it is playing. And let me know what you think after you've seen it. I cannot wait to talk to you about it! (But don't leave spoilers in the comments section. Thanks.)

Remember that video of Christian, the lion, being reunited with those two dudes who raised him? That clip made so many of you weep like little bitches (or, if you prefer, like me). Well, Animal Planet has a show called Gorilla School (I've got to DVR this!), and the following clip is likely to make you all emotional. Conservationist Damian Aspinall searches an African jungle for Kwibi, a gorilla that he helped raised at Howletts Wild Animal Park in England and that was released back into the wild five years ago. Damian hasn't seen the animal since then...until now. Oh my freaking god, I am tearing up just thinking about it. Watch:



[Thanks to Louise on the Left.]

Remember the unexpectedly inappropriate commercial for Shake Weight, that exercise device that looks like it's designed to strengthen your masturbatory skills? It was marketed to women, but now the manufacturer is targeting men. Watch this video and just try to tell me that this isn't all about jacking off and that this isn't the gayest thing this side of a pink scarf. Watch:



[Thanks to Superbadfriend.]

[Crossposted on The Bilerico Project.]

I wrote a new post for The Bilerico Project, in which I write about The Lost Coast DVD—which features me in the special features!



Read "The Lost Coast: A Study in Straight Guys Who Make Mistakes? Gay Guys Who Cower in the Closet? Or Bisexuals Who Come to Terms With the 'B' in LGBT?"

Don't you love video footage of people getting smacked in the face with water-filled condoms? And don't you love it when that footage is in slow motion and in reverse? Goddamn, why can't I stop watching this?! Why?! WHY?! Watch:

My mom had been bugging me for weeks and weeks about Iron Man 2, so when I realized that the movie's release date coincided with Mother's Day weekend I knew what I had to do. We went to an early showing on Sunday at the Arclight's Cineramadome in Los Angeles before lunch at the fabulous Fabiolus Cafe down the street.

Although she complained about the high ticket prices (even though I paid for them!) and about the lack of stadium seating (even though it was the historic freaking Cineramadome!), we both had a good time. Iron Man 2, while certainly not as good as the first, is a serviceable sequel. It doesn't have many ass-kicking action sequences (except for the climax), but we were entertained nonetheless—fun performances and witty banter abound.

The digital projector froze up for a couple minutes in the middle of the movie. For the "inconvenience," the theater issued us all free passes for a future screening. My mom and I already have a date for Prince of Persia. This film isn't on my to-see list, but, OH MY GOD!, have you seen pictures of Jake Gyllenhaal in it?!



Yup, this could get awkward.

(By the way, someone tell Hollywood that just because you grow your hair long doesn't make you look more "Persian.")

Remember our friend Brent Rose, whose ambitious 50 Characters in 50 Weeks project has been keeping us entertained for some time now? Well, he may have outdone himself this time, having created a character named Dmitry Lennon, who is tasked with making actor Bill Pullman (Lost Highway, Spaceballs, Independence Day, While You Were Sleeping) an Internet sensation. Yes, that's really Bill Pullman! Having a celebrity meltdown! Watch:

I've harbored a not-so-secret aversion to one-person plays ever since I witnessed my friend Robert being pulled up onto stage by a woman in clown make-up who screamed at him and forced him to ram a giant rubber penis into a giant rubber vagina over and over again. I am not making that up, and I am scarred for life. (But not as much as Robert, who went home and rocked back and forth traumatically while having "I Am a Rock" blast through his stereo on repeat.)

If it's not Eric Bogosian, Mike Daisey, Spalding Gray, Jeff Greenwald, Danny Hoch, Sarah Jones, John Leguizamo, Will Power, Julia Sweeney, Lily Tomlin, or Marc Wolf, then I ain't seeing it. You can entice me with comps or even shirtless male ticket takers (why hasn't anyone thought of that yet?), but I will not go.

What was I to do, then, when I received an invitation to Chalk Repertory Theatre's latest production, Full Disclosure, a one-woman show that's as one-woman as they come? I mean, there are only two—count 'em, two!—theater companies in all of Los Angeles in which I want to go see every one of their productions: East West Players and Chalk Rep. I consider shows by other companies on a case-by-case basis, as if I were a one-man college admissions office.

I've grown to love Chalk Rep over the course of its first five productions (of "classical and contemporary plays in unconventional spaces"), and I've gotten to know the core members of the company and even recruited some of them for projects at USC—so I did the only thing I could do: waited as long as humanly possibly to RSVP until I worked up the mental confidence that I would be able to withstand the psychic pain that would seize me if Full Disclosure ended up sinking to the level of Rubber Penis/Rubber Vagina Theater. Psychologically prepared, I said yes.

When I got home after the opening night performance last week, I excitedly started telling Loren about it. He promptly hushed me because he wanted to go see the show and he felt like I was ruining the experience for him. (Or did he just want to hush me, period?)

So, in order to not give too much away, I'll briefly explain that the conceit of Full Disclosure is that the audience is attending an open house, presented by a real estate agent named Sunny. During the course of the 75-minute evening, in which she tries to push cookies and drinks in an effort to ease you into her sales pitch, she delves into the house's colorful history, as well as her own. The performance takes place in an actual house that's on the market, which, if you can't imagine, is pretty freaking cool.

Ruth McKee's script is light and conversational—even when it explores Sunny's questionable hopes for the future and her unshakable shattered dreams, it never gets maudlin. Larissa Kokernot's directing navigates the sometimes unexpected emotional beats smoothly. And Amy Ellenberger's instantly engaging and funny performance paints a picture of a woman whose capacity for self-delusion is ultimately sad—or is just an elaborate ruse, an act of salesmanship as meticulously planned out as a Chalk Rep production?

Chalk Repertory Theatre's production of Full Disclosure by Ruth McKee runs through June 13 2010, in private homes throughout Los Angeles.

Visit the Chalk Rep website for tickets and more information.

The winner of Bamboo Nation's latest contest is Brenna, who is now the proud owner of a big red literary umbrella, which is not only functional in wet weather but is also a great conversation piece. (That is, if your regular conversations are boring as hell.) Congratulations, Brenna! E-mail me your mailing address, and you will be sent your prize.

Thanks for entering, people! More contests to come.

In the meantime, here's more interview footage with Garth Stein, who wrote Raven Stole the Moon, the novel upon which the umbrella is based. (That is certainly the first time that phrase, in any form, has been uttered in the history of language.) Watch:

What do you do when you've got a shitload of time on your hands? Why, you make a fast, furious, and startlingly elaborate reconstruction of the the Star Wars universe using nothing more than items from your trunk of Legos. While the visuals are stunning, I also love the sound. Man, if I spent even a fraction of the time it took to make this video on my writing career, I would be Tennessee Williams by now. (Except alive.) Watch:

I haven't really been into Saturday Night Live since the mid-1990s—remember when
Dana Carvey, Ellen Cleghorne, Chris Farley, Phil Hartman, Tim Meadows, Mike Myers, Kevin Nealon, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider, David Spade, and Julia Sweeney were all in the cast at the same time?!—but how could I not get excited about the Betty White episode, which aired this past Saturday?

After an aggressive and surprisingly effective Facebook campaign, Betty White was tapped to host SNL. A combination of love for Betty White and curiosity about this triumph of social media yielded the show's highest ratings in 18 whopping months. And, of course, she rocked the episode with her late-career trademark blend of sweetness and vulgarity (with excellent help from SNL surprise guests and alumni Rachel Dratch, Tina Fey, Ana Gasteyer, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, and Molly Shannon).

My favorite sketch of the evening was her funny and pitch-perfect opening monologue...



...followed closely by this bizarre dance that she does...



...which Loren and Gabriel and I had to rewind and watch twice.

So...you saw it, right? What'd you think? And who should be the center of the next SNL Facebook campaign? Sherman Hemsley?! George Takei?! ALF?! No! Carol Burnett, Carol Burnett, Carol Burnett!

Watch the entire Betty White episode of SNL here.

Damn, this is funny on so many levels. A comedian named Godfrey has assumed the persona of Ty Bowman, a fitness guru who has designed a exercise program that works wonders because it operates on the very simple principle of scaring the living crap out of white women. Watch:

As you know, The People's Court is my daytime court show of choice (oh, the luxuries of being me!), but the following end-credits sequence to a Judge Judy episode is to be applauded for its sublime editing. Then again, the editor had a whole lot of crazy to work with. If you must know the context, an indie rocker chick ("I don't actually have a job, I'm a musician, so the days kind of blur together") sued her indie rocker dude friend for throwing a television across a room and killing her cat ("I was pretty wasted, but I don't think I ever killed a cat"). Here's the ending:



[Thanks to Gabriel Fleming.]

Loren's Just Wright promo featurette, which cleverly ties basketball into dating (two worlds beyond my level of comprehension), leads Hulu's trailer page today. Look, look, look! If you reading this on a day other than May 6, 2010, then you can watch it right here instead:



I realize that Just Wright is a straight romantic comedy, but—is it me?—is there something slightly lesbo-erotic going on here? Hmmmmm.....

Last night several friends and I went to go see MC Frontalot (the godfather of nerdcore) and his band (which features Black Lotus a.k.a. Brandon Patton on bass). I don't believe I've seen Brandon since our last Jukebox Stories show, which was a couple years ago, so there was a lot of catching up to do.

BRANDON: Hi!

PRINCE: I miss you!

(A warm embrace.)

PRINCE: How have things been going?

BRANDON: (Private dialogue that I won't share on this blog.)

PRINCE: No! NO! You've been away from me for too long! What's wrong with you?!

BRANDON: (Private dialogue that I won't share on this blog.)

PRINCE: No! NO! What a tragedy you've become in my absence!

BRANDON: (Private dialogue that I won't share on this blog.)

PRINCE: Look. This year. We've got to have an artists' retreat or something. Just you and me. Create new material. Maybe we'll have enough for a new show, maybe not. But we gotta do it.

BRANDON: Like a powwow.

PRINCE: Yeah.

BRANDON: So what about you? What have you been up to?

PRINCE: (Private dialogue that I won't share on this blog.)

BRANDON: (Private dialogue that I won't share on this blog.)

PRINCE: (Private dialogue that I won't share on this blog.)

BRANDON: (Private dialogue that I won't share on this blog.)

So this cat hitches a ride on an exercise machine, and I burst out laughing when it finally turns to the camera. Oh, the things that keep me occupied during the course of any given day! Watch:



Oh, wait a minute. You've never heard of an iGallop before? Well, here.

I didn't know publishers and their PR people created promotional swag for novels, but apparently they do—which means bloggers such as myself have even more opportunities to give stuff away. Sure, it's stuff that you don't need, but the impulse to go after free prizes is America!

THE PRIZE: A brand-new red umbrella, kind of like the one on the cover of Garth Stein's Raven Stole the Moon, decorated with a classy, literary logo.

THE RULES: Leave a comment—any comment—by Monday, May 10, 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 United States may enter. (Sorry, Romanians!)

In the meantime, here's part of an interview with Garth Stein, who talks about recurring themes in his work—and his background in theater!



(Yup, I actually blog about novels—when I'm given free stuff!)

I didn't know crows had a taste for squirrel, but, in the following video, a few of them are ready to pounce on one that looks like it's dead on the pavement. But the downed squirrel's best friend wards off the would-be attackers as best as it can, wanting the dead animal to rest in peace. Go, squirrel, go! Watch:

My teacher friend Robert and his 36 at-risk, inner-city, middle-school students are in the running for a $50,000 Pepsi Refresh Project grant, which would send them on a life-changing Smithsonian-led field trip to Washington, D.C., and New York City. Some of these kids have never been outside of Los Angeles, so you can imagine how amazing this trip will be for them. It'll be so damn amazing that Hollywood will surely make an inspirational teacher movie out of it!

Robert and the kids are not asking your for money. All you have to do to help is to click the "Vote for this idea" button on their project page. (You may have to click twice—make sure you see the "Thank you for voting" message.) The top ten vote-getters by May 31, 2010, will be fully funded by Pepsi. (You can vote every day until then!)

Out of 1,348 projects, this one already ranks 288th, as of this writing! Let's get them into the top ten!

Simply click to vote for this project! For the children! The children!

What do I have to do to convince you to help out...? Hey, look, hot Korean girls singing "The Greatest Love of All"!!!!! Watch:

So there's this cat that bounces its head when its backside gets scratched, which, in and of itself is pretty amusing. But mash the video up with Russian singer Eduard Khil's "Trololo," and it skyrockets into the viral hall of fame. Watch:

The opening shots of Please Give, the new film by the brilliant Nicole Holofcener, are of breasts. Now before all my straight male friends—who absolutely love boobies (you know who you are) but also have unreal expectations of women because they were raised on Maxim—go running to the theater, it is my duty to inform you that these are not perky, perfect, Hollywood breasts, but real-world tits of all shapes and sizes and ages. The movie immediately lays bare the unglamourousness of everyday bodies and everyday people, stripping away fairytale surfaces to get at the depth of who we are, what we're afraid of, and the kind of people we long to be. That doesn't sound like a boob fest, does it? It's not.

Please Give is a painfully funny, highly perceptive meditation on youth and beauty, aging and dying, philanthropy and commerce, and the human business of how we assess and assign value to things, other people, and ourselves.

In a mere four films over the course of 14 years (what the hell does Nicole Holofcener do in between gigs?!), Holofcener has emerged as one of my favorite filmmakers—a sort of female Woody Allen, one with her finger on the pulse of contemporary life. Walking and Talking, Lovely and Amazing, and my favorite, Friends With Money, explore female relationships in ways far too smart and perceptive for mainstream Hollywood.



Please Give—which features a family of antique dealers at a familial crossroads and a trio of dysfunctional neighbor women who become enmeshed in each other's lives—expands Holofcener's palette of themes, considering questions of death and legacy as a cold matter of fact. Thank the stars that the movie has a heart as big as its brain—and a pitch-perfect cast to die for.

Finally! Geniuses in a basement somewhere (I'm assuming) have invented a product that allows you to rip one in bed without any repercussions! I lean towards believing that the Better Marriage Blanket actually works (and surely works wonders), but I will reserve final judgment until someone informs me how the blanket takes on a Dutch Oven. Watch:



[Thanks to Will Blank.]