Voting Link Here: otherrobert #1 Please. A video with my new mix will pop up tomorrow, maybe, if I get the time. Something funny went on with how my vocal was processed there. I just took an hour or so, remixed the audio, and added in the lyrics for this video. Closer to what I wanted, but not quite as polished as it could be.
Thank you all for your help last week. Though rankings aren’t fully released, I managed to avoid the bottom 3. Like I said, the difference between survival and elimination is disinterest. Just remember otherrobert when it’s time to vote.
MyndJack Radio Idol is a parody American Idol competition. Contestants are encouraged to write and perform parodies of songs off a pre-screened list e-mailed out each week. Last week, I received good feedback for turning “Luck Be A Lady Tonight” from Guys & Dolls into an anthem for not quite ready for Drag Race performers everywhere. You can also just sing the songs with lots of enthusiasm and energy, but that’s what the TV show is for.
This week’s theme is…well…they’re talking Nickelback, Creed, Train, and all that jazz. I will not be singing Nickelback, Creed, or Train (tonight), which I can only assume is an advantage in this contest. Not a Nickelback/Creed/Train-friendly group.
All I can say about my performance tonight is that somebody told me you might like it. Or you might not. I’m not psychic. I just came here for the cheesecake.
Tune into the show at 10PM EST at the All Digital Radio Network. I recommend using Shoutcast (bottom link). The full program starts at 9PM, but the MJRI contest usually fires up in the second hour. You can join us in the live play by play chat here.
I’ll update after the performances end with the voting link. It’s a preferential ballot and actually ranking the performers makes the difference between scoring well and scoring terribly by default.
One of the hardest things to do well is a chamber play. It is the choice to tell a big story with a very small cast, few props, one set, and little to no costume changes. The idea is to elevate human drama as the focus of theater of film. Far too often, the form just points out the flaws in the writing.
Pontypool is the first real chamber horror movie I’ve encountered. There are three principle characters onscreen for the entire film. The reason it works so well is the conceit of the story.
Whether you like it or not, sensationalist radio personality Mazzy is the voice of Pontypool
Pontypool is a small town in Ontario, Canada with a very skilled radio host named Grant Mazzy (Stephen McHattie). He specializes in going for the kill, so to speak, on a breaking news story. He’ll turn a lost kitten poster into a rant about the degradation of society. His producer Sidney Briar (Lisa Houle) does not approve of the tactic but knows he gets ratings for the station.
When an actual shocking news story about the degradation of society breaks out, Mazzy is told to stall and stretch with fluff. Briar and radio employee Laurel-Ann Drummond (Georgina Reilly) try to find real evidence to go with. It seems that a riot broke out in front of the office of a controversial doctor and neither the police nor the military can contain its spread.
You can’t put a story on the air without research
What makes Pontypool work is the radio conceit. It’s a chamber play that cheats just a little bit with voice overs. Various townspeople call in to discuss the riots as they unfold. A reporter from the BBC calls up to gather evidence for his own story. A small vocal ensemble shows up for a scheduled interview/performance. And their helicopter riding weather reporter tries to follow the story while staying out of harm’s way. Each new voice on the radio advances the plot and adds variety to the cast.
Tony Burgess adapts a very literary story from his own novel into something that mostly works onscreen. Everything in Pontypool comes down to a play on language. From “crazy talk” that spreads throughout reports to the choice of rhetoric on the air, the film is a horror story about the ambiguity of the English language. Say the wrong thing to the wrong person and you could convince them to do something bad. Saying “don’t get any closer” can be all someone needs to take that extra step into danger.
The allure of radio and its potential audience only complicates matters further. You lie about the news on the radio–say the wrong thing–and you can make a bad situation much worse.
Of course, when you deal with a story about going language down to grammatical structure and phonemes, you’re probably better off sticking to the written medium. There is a turn in the story leading into the third act that feels very out of place. The cast sells it hard, but I feel like there had to be another way to go about it. It arches back around to a good point but goes way too theoretical to sell as big enough for a movie.
Pontypool is an exciting and novel horror film. There is no denying that. It’s also quiet, slow, and deeply psychological. If you expect horror to have blood, guts, and action galore, you’ll tune out before you even see a papercut onscreen. Pontypool gets there, but it does it at its own pace. A news story doesn’t parse itself out in fifteen minutes. Why should a horror film about the creation and dissemination of news move any faster?
Rating: 8/10
Thoughts on Pontypool. A few people have been pushing me to see it for years and I only just got around to it on Netflix. Have you seen it? Have you read the book? What are your thoughts?
Every time I watch a Stuart Gordon film, I forget that I’ve watched other Stuart Gordon films. There are certain recurring elements in most of his feature. He usually works in a dark comedy/horror hybrid with lots of bloody gags. The performances are exaggerated to make even the traditional hero seem uncanny and ghastly. There’s some big shocking conceit that he’s not afraid of revealing in the first five minutes. Yet, the subjects and stories he chooses to tell couldn’t be any more different unless he intentionally set out to do a new genre with every film (like musical, sci-fi, or Western).
Dolls is no exception to those rules. Judy Bower is a young girl with a strong imagination. Her best friend in the world is her teddy bear and only he gets her through the struggles of long summers spent with her father and stepmother. The reluctant family gets caught in the mud somewhere in Great Britain and are force to spend the night in a large mansion populated by an elderly toy maker, his caring wife, and thousands of handmade dolls. A bumbling man and a pair of pickpockets join them for a stay during the longest night in the world.
Judy has an overactive imagination centered on toys and fantasy
In case you haven’t figured it out, Dolls is an evil toy movie. It might be the best evil toy movie, too. Gordon takes the conceit and twists it in every imaginable way. Judy becomes best friends with an ugly Punch doll (Punch & Judy, get it?). The toy maker goes on and on about the magic of toys created by the love of children. His wife brews large pots of strange soups and charms with a cackle and an eerie smile. The bumbling man befriends the little girl when no one else believes her stories. And the other four adults refuse to see the value of toys in the modern world.
Ostensibly, the only problem with the film is a very distinct tone. It’s very dark and fantastique. No one, not even our young protagonist, acts like a normal person. Every movement, every word, every expression is a grotesque caricature of human emotion. It’s not enough to smile–everyone must grimace. A tear must be painful and pain must be the worst thing in the world to see. It’s an unsettling blend of fantasy and the grotesque to say the least.
The house is elaborately staged to be Gothic and an ever-expanding toychest at the same time
Yet, if you accept Gordon’s vision of a world ruled by the morality of children, Dolls is a rewarding nightmare. The special effects work from the long defunct Mechanical and Makeup Imageries company (From Beyond, Ghoulies) is still quite startling. When the dolls first come to life, you’ll notice. The design and decoration of the mansion is just exaggerated enough to create tension without falling into parody. And the story, penned by Ed Naha, is internally consistent and genuinely frightening.
Dolls is not a very serious horror film. Where it excels is creating a morality tale surrounding a child intended to speak to adults. It’s too graphic to actually be a children’s story, but it might just open up a childlike sense of wonder again for the adult viewer.
Rating: 8/10
Thoughts? Dolls is available on Netflix streaming right now if you haven’t seen it. What do you think? Sound off below.
Did you hear about the Civilization II game that led to the almost total destruction of humanity? Now there’s a huge Reddit thread filled with fan fiction. It’s awesome. io9
Courtney Enlow rates some of the saddest deaths in the history of film. Needs more Dancer in the Dark. Pajiba
The winners of the 2012 Courage in Theater Award are the students of The Spectrum School in NYC for writing an original musical about their experiences with autism. Congratulations. Playbill
Can we all just accept that pop music, by its own definition, is fluff? No? And since when is Fiona Apple just a pop musician? Or Lana del Ray, for that matter. Get back to me with a career retrospective on Lily Allen or Britney Spears. Gawker
I still need to see Moonrise Kingdom. Bad film fan. Here’s a beautiful illustration from The New Yorker as penance. IndieWire
Adrian Tomine for The New Yorker
Here’s a bunch of new information about the revised Side Show that starts full productions next summer. BroadwayWorld
I must warn you this link is very NSFW. Gilbert Gottfried reads Fifty Shades of Grey. Jest
If I had a nickel for every time I had someone beg for work they told me not to finish, I’d be running fewer ads on this site and have paid employees. The Trenches
Finally, here is undeniable proof that we can and will be replaced by robots in everything we do. Take it away, breakdancing robotic dancers.
I write here not to question the validity of the United States Olympic Committee’s trademark of the term “Olympics” or variants thereof. The US court system decided years ago that they are allowed to hold a trademark on a term that has existed for thousands of years. As such, the USOC has a right to defend their trademark from inappropriate use.
I write here today to discuss how a standard cease and desist scenario with a clear right and wrong is now turning into a PR nightmare for the USOC.
Ravelry, the largest yarn craft community online, has hosts a yearly event called the Ravelympics. Knitters and crocheters compete to finish challenging projects–in quantity or technical difficulty–for a two week period that coincides with the Olympic games. This year’s planning was well underway when the USOC had a legal clerk send what was supposed to be a standard cease and desist letter to Ravelry over the phrase “Ravelympics.”
It was not a standard cease and desist letter.
We believe using the name “Ravelympics” for a competition that involves an afghan marathon, scarf hockey and sweater triathlon, among others, tends to denigrate the true nature of the Olympic Games. In a sense, it is disrespectful to our country’s finest athletes and fails to recognize or appreciate their hard work.
The letter explains how hard it is to be an Olympian before shooting out the “denigrate the true nature of the Olympic Games” line. In context, that means this legal clerk said knitters and crocheters are not skilled, have no training, and have not worked hard their entire lives to learn how to do elaborate feats of yarn art in a ridiculously short period of time.
Apparently, knitting while watching the Olympics is a personal insult to every athlete in the world.
The outrage came fast and furious. Ravelry members began a twitter campaign (#Ravelympics) and have been tweeting at the legal clerk for the better part of a day.
The simple solution would be an apology for attacking the integrity and skills of a group of crafters who wanted to take on an extra challenge while watching the Olympics. Technically, the USOC tried to do that.
The letter sent to the organizers of the Ravelympics was a standard-form cease and desist letter that explained why we need to protect our trademarks in legal terms. Rest assured, as an organization that has many passionate knitters, we never intended to make this a personal attack on the knitting community or to suggest that knitters are not supportive of Team USA.
We apologize for any insult and appreciate your support. We embrace hand-crafted American goods as we currently have the Annin Flagmakers of New Jersey stitching a custom-made American flag to accompany our team to the Olympic Games in London. To show our support of the Ravelry community, we would welcome any handmade items that you would like to create to travel with, and motivate, our team at the 2012 Games.
Something has gone haywire here with internal communications. I highly doubt that the USOC’s standard cease and desist letter claims that the local barber shop with the Olympic rings on their window “[denigrates] the true nature of the Olympic Games.” I very much doubt that the USOC chooses to insult the integrity and skill of anyone who violates their trademark and would equally insult a school with an Olympics day, a library holding an Olympics-themed readathon, or a television station airing a parody Olympics episode of their show.
Perhaps most insulting of all is the effort to patch over the issue by saying they will “welcome any handmade items” that these terrible, horrible, not very good crafters who “[disrespect]…our country’s finest athletes and [fails] to recognize or appreciate their hard work.” So yesterday, knitters and crocheters were bad people mocking the Olympics. Today, they’re welcome supporters who have the privilege of giving away free things to a not for profit sponsored by McDonalds and Coca Cola. Right. That adds up.
I hope that the USOC will find a way to fix this PR mistake before it turns into a far bigger mess. I’m somehow doubting that will happen. It appears they may just be the latest company/organization to learn the hard way that the Internet is forever and you can’t rewrite history when anyone can access the insult-riddled letter that started the bad press.
Maybe they can start by apologizing for customizing that C&D letter to insult knitters and crocheters. The only other option is doubling down and claiming that, no really, they accuse everyone of insulting the hard work of the athletes who dares to use an ancient term without a licensing deal. I’m sure that will go over well with the elementary school field days and summer craft programs around the country.
UPDATE
Wow. Turns out the whole “denigrate” nonsense is in their standard cease and desist letter. So is including examples of “denigrating” content.
So, does that mean it’s time to double down?
UPDATE 2
Since the initial posting at 2:30 this afternoon, the USOC issued another apology on their Facebook page (that you can’t link to).
As a follow-up to our previous statement on this subject, we would again like to apologize to the members of the Ravelry community. While we stand by our obligation to protect the marks and terms associated with the Olympic and Paralympic Movements in the United States, we sincerely regret the use of insensitive terms in relation to the actions of a group that was clearly not intending to denigrate or disrespect the Olympic Movement. We hope you’ll accept this apology and continue to support the Olympic Games.
Remember, their C&D letter was written to stress that anything Ravelry members ever did was nothing compared to the hours their dedicated athletes spent in pursuit of competition. Their form letter chooses to address a trademark concern with insults and shaming rather than address a cut and dry trademark concern.
And again, there is a complete flip flop here. Yesterday, Ravelry members were bad people, mocking the US Olympians by daring to associate “ympics” with yarn work. Today, they’re asking for donations of free stuff to go where their massive corporate contributions. If you can’t see the cognitive disconnect between the two opinions, you’re being willfully obtuse.
The apology should have been delivered the first time around. Instead, they chose to spin it to say that Ravelry was mad that they were called on trademark violations, which wasn’t the issue.
My sincere apologies for not being able to update this post the minute the new apology was posted on a Facebook page I do not follow.
I remember watching the first season of Big Brother and wishing America would actually vote for entertaining television. They never did. The mean people were voted out as soon as they were up for eviction and the cruel game choices were never selected. CBS remedied that for season 2 by removing the audience vote on all but the most up with people elements. Who wins a call home to mommy and daddy? Who gets an extra pillow to sleep with? Positive things were voted on, not twists to make the show better.
Somehow, ABC gathered together a large group of former Big Brother producers and show people to cobble together a totally not stolen at all show called Glass House. A group of contestants from all over the country are forced to live together as America watches in real time. They compete in challenges to determine who goes into Limbo and who is sent home. America votes on everything–what color umbrellas for the drinks, pool party or pajama party, carbs or protein–and the contestants have very little free will.
See through walls means its totally not the same as Big Brother
Did I mention it takes place in a house with see through walls everywhere? Totally different.
CBS tried really hard to stop ABC from airing the show and they failed. Frankly, when you’re fighting over the rights to a show you licensed from the UK that was pretty clearly a rip off of The Real World, you’re on shaky ground.
CBS ANNOUNCES DEVELOPMENT OF “DANCING ON THE STARS,” AN EXCITING AND COMPLETELY ORIGINAL REALITY PROGRAM THAT OWES ITS CONCEPT AND EXECUTION TO NOBODY AT ALL
…
The dazzling new show, DANCING ON THE STARS, will be broadcast live from the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, and will feature moderately famous and sort of well-known people you almost recognize competing for big prizes by dancing on the graves of some of Hollywood’s most iconic and well-beloved stars of stage and screen.
Read the full release here.
While I applaud the creativity of the CBS employee who drafted that satirical press release, I question its necessity. Glass House is terrible. The contestants are boring and the vote on everything format is dull as dishwater. It really is The Real World with eliminations and that show hasn’t felt fresh in a decade, at least.
I mean, Big Brother isn’t exactly must-see TV, but at least they cast some fun people and come up with cool twists. Glass House, so far, is completely shallow. CBS put more effort into Dancing on the Stars than ABC did with Glass House.
I was grouting and finishing up a long-delayed tiling project all day. I’m exhausted. I’m mentally wiped out. I’ll be back tomorrow with the first season 3 Drag U recap and other content.
Futurama comes back tonight and the fine folks at io9 get you caught up to speed. I, too, wonder how they’ll handle the everybody is dead or stuck in a time loop problem. io9
Not to be outdone by Disney proper, Pixar has released 4 Monsters University–aka the Monster, Inc. prequel–trailers today. Rope of Silicon
Helen Mirren might trot the boards to play Queen Elizabeth II again. I hope the material is as wonderful as The Queen. Broadway World
Emmy technicalities are srs bsns. Yes, it is strange that animated programs cannot submit for writing. Then again, they get all the voice acting categories that people like Helen Mirren (voicing Becky the cheerleader’s inner monologue on Glee) can’t enter plus their own series of technical categories to run with. Draw? Pajiba
I could see a teenager getting away with a Helen Keller dance solo in the right context. Not a nine year old on a reality show. Gawker
Now this is a cool way to redo photography. Dude Craft
Michael Mapes Photo Dissections
Newly minted Best Leading Actress winner Audra McDonald is out of Porgy & Bess until 3 July on vocal rest. From there, she will have an alternate for some performances for the rest of the run. Best wishes for a speedy recovery. Playbill
And a happy 45th birthday to Nicole Kidman. Team The Others. The Film Experience
The people I know with an actual bee allergy don’t find this as funny as I hoped. Penny Arcade
Finally, a reader sent this highly choreographed (and heavily edited) beer pong trick shot video to me. It’s pretty cool. The choice of music and flow of the story, so to speak, is great.
Let’s keep this quick. I’m one of the finalists in the MyndJack Rado Idol contest. It’s like American Idol, only entertaining. Parodies and enthusiastically bad singing are encouraged.
This week was showtunes week. My wheelhouse, if you will. You can listen to what I did to “Luck Be a Lady” from Guys & Dolls at the one hour mark of the podcast.
Then, proceed to the voting site. In order to combat “ghosties” (fake accounts from contestants) flooding the polls, MJRI4 is using an IP restrictive preferential ballot. I would strongly encourage you to vote me as your first choice. Why? Because if you don’t rank a contestant, they automatically get 12th place points. That means indifference is deadlier than hatred in this contest. If people just don’t vote for you, you’re going home.
Two people are going home Thursday night. I hope to not be one of them. I got screwed over in their last parody contest over technical issues with an audio recording and then watched as literally everyone else from my group was invited back into the contest but me. That was embarrassing.
This time around, the judges like me. The people in the live chat like me. They’re just not mentioning me again at the end of the show. That hurts. There’s no recap ala Idol because the show is broadcast live. No one gets to be reminded of my ode to busted drag queens before they vote. They only get to hear raves about the 12th performer of the night.
Brass tacks: they claim I was in the bottom 2 last week. There’s debate over whether that’s true or not. I’m going with that plus the jump to Showtunes week as evidence to a less than stellar voting performance. They know I music direct for educational theater. Also, one of the hosts mentioned my chat comment about the coincidence.
That’s why I’m asking for your help. Please listen to the podcast and vote for me. That would be ideal. Everyone benefits from that. If you don’t have an hour to spare, then just toss a vote my way and forget the rest of the ranking. I’d rather not advance that way, but that’s the point we’re at in this contest.
