If there’s one thing I know from personal experience, it’s that Internet drama never really ends until lack of web access stops it. You sometimes just need to ride it out as the terrors fade into nothingness.
There has been an influx in bizarre shouting matches online over copyright and criticism. They stumble over into real life, involving threats, lawsuits, and major media coverage on what can be described as trolling gone terribly wrong. It seems a lot of people don’t realize that, no, everything on Google isn’t free to use and, yes, you are responsible for what you write online and will be held accountable.
Let’s start with the happily ever after of these updates. Remember the awful, terrible, not very funny at all The Oatmeal v. FunnyJunk v. Charles Carreon v. The World incident? TL:DR: FunnyJunk hired Charles Carreon to threaten a SLAPP lawsuit against the creator of The Oatmeal for writing a blog post a year ago about how FunnyJunk refused to remove copyrighted comics. This turned into Charles Carreon, on his own accord, suing The Oatmeal, the National Wildlife Foundation, the American Cancer Society, IndieGoGo, the Attorney General of California, and 100 unnamed Internet targets for hurting his feelin…systematically trying to harass him out of work while raising money for charity as an attack against him.
UPDATE: Here’s the MJRI voting link this week. Here’s my (Totally, Completely, not joking around, NSFW) performance that the judges liked for once. And here’s the full podcast. Voting closes Midnight on Wednesday, July 11.
I admit that I enjoy terrible songs. I love to tear them apart, analyze them, and figure out how they went so wrong. Usually there is something so odd about them that I’ll listen over and over just trying to identify the bizarre element.
The first one off the top of my head is Kreayshawn’s “Gucci Gucci.” It’s a poorly phrased rap song with a whiny beat and a ridiculous chorus. I’m not even going to lie. I spent weeks trying to figure out why this song existed rather than what it was. The bizarrely costumed video didn’t help, either.
For my brother, that recent track is Florence + The Machine’s “Dog Days Are Over.” He can’t understand a word Florence sings and thinks she sounds like a dying walrus or a dog with distemper on the chorus. I think it’s a charming exploration of fusion with a great message, but that’s me.
See, the problem with objectively trying to define music as good or bad is preference. It’s a subjective medium. I can break a song down according to music theory, but some of the greatest composers didn’t even play by those rules all the time. Is Shostakovitch bad because he would intentionally break audience expectations with his deeply political symphonic compositions? Or does the exploration of form and content somehow rise above what would be expected in this musical period?
There is no right or wrong. There is only preference.
So let’s have at it. What’s the worst song you ever heard? Sound off in the comments and have some fun. This is a judgment free zone. Unless you jump on Kate Bush. Then we’re going at it.
And why discuss this now? Tonight is Worster Night on MyndJack Radio Idol. I barely scraped by to advance to the Top 8 after going for broke on a song the judges would have to actually critique for once. Mission accomplished.
And what’s MyndJack Radio Idol? It’s a fantastic satire of American Idol on the All Digital Radio Network. Contestants are judged not only on their performance but on how ridiculous they make their song. Whether it be by parody or a completely inappropriate vocal, the judges want to be blown away.
Tonight, I go rap and might never go back. Tune in at 9PM EST on the All Digital Radio Network (their player is terrible, use the bottom link on Shoutcast or stream it on iTunes under Talk/News Radio) to hear the whole two hour show. Or, tune in at 10PM EST to just hear Worster Night on MyndJack Radio Idol. Dave Della Terza–the man behind Vote for the Worst–and former Canadian Idol finalist Mark Day (perhaps the only real Worster to make the finals on any Idol contest rather than be converted after the show) are guest judging. It’s going to be epic.
So tune in and shout out the worst song you’ve ever heard. I’ll update with the voting info and full program later. One contestant, Eric, is so desperate to win that he’s begging people for votes (with the full ranking to copy into the form and thousands of followers) and telling them not to listen to the program. That’s just rude. If you want to support me (otherrobert, one word, like Madonna) or any of the other contestants, listen to the show live or stream the podcast and then vote. It’s more fun that way.
Getting just the right look for the leading lady didn’t stop Old Hollywood from casting non-singers as leads in big budget musicals. That’s where dubbers come in. They’re still used today to mask less than great singers on the silver screen. Before vocals were mixed to sweeten a singer, they were swapped out entirely in post production.
One of the most prolific dubbers was Martha Mears. She filled in lead vocals for Lucille Ball (The Big Street), Marjorie Reynolds (Holiday Inn), and Hedy Lamarr (My Favorite Spy). More impressive is how varied her vocal range and type can be.
Lost Vocals on YouTube put together a 13 minute video of Martha Mears’ dubbing work in Hollywood. She performed over 50 voice over roles in 12 years. It’s overwhelming in the best way possible.
It’s America week on Myndjack Radio Idol. I’ll update after the show goes live with the voting link. Voting link is here. I appreciate #1 votes. Not ranking contestants is worse than ranking in last place. Any unranked contestant gets the worst score possible.
As you can see, there aren’t too many ways to make Amanda Palmer (by way of the Dresden Dolls) into a laugh a minute romp. I cut down an 8.5 minute song into a 2.5 minute piano/vocal performance for a parody American Idol competition. I’m going to need help this week.
Thank you for all your support so far. The funny comes back next week, I promise you. I was just getting tired of being ignored by the judges because I was just another parody singer. They’ll be talking tonight, I guarantee you.
Shoutcast is your best bet as the ADR player is buggy. Just use the bottom link. 9PM for the whole show, 10PM for the performances. It’s going to be epic.
Here’s the performance:
Judges didn’t love it. And at this point, I’m recording for me and the people in chat who dig the crap out of my bizarro song choices.
Seth MacFarlane has a problem. He is incredibly successful and has built a media empire on a certain vision of no holds barred pop culture comedy. Seth’s problem is that he doesn’t necessarily want to only do that.
Ted is probably the closest Seth MacFarlane will ever get to stepping outside of his Family Guy/American Dad!/Cleveland Show mold until all the shows are off the air. At its heart, Ted’s an old-fashioned family-friendly romantic comedy. That’s its true essence. It’s just covered in raunchy and outrageous jokes that could make a practiced cynic blush.
It’s either the girl or the bear
John is a 35 year old man about to celebrate his four year anniversary with Lori, his younger and much more successful girlfriend. The problem is that John lives with Ted, a lewd living teddy bear who became a national sensation when brought to life by John’s childhood wish. Ted helped John become more confident while growing up. Now he encourages John to skip work, binge drink, and smoke pot all day long. Lori is getting fed up with John’s devotion to Ted and issues an ultimatum: the bear or the girlfriend.
The strength of Ted is hard to lay on one element. The screenplay is one of the tightest to come out since Juno. MacFarlane knows how to pace a story and all the beats, turns, and character revelations ring true and authentic. It’s unfortunately disguised by using Flash Gordon as a major plot device. You’ll zoom in on the love it or hate it references to the 80s’ franchise and probably miss out on how the show within the film functions the same as the long lost relative or friend offscreen for the first act. Replace Flash Gordon with a less absurd reference and the structure would hold up beautifully.
For all the crude humor, Ted has a lot of old-fashioned heart
MacFarlane’s direction is excellent, as well. What he manages to do with a silly fantasy about a living teddy bear is very impressive. His understanding of camera angles, pacing, and use of light is straight out of the 1960s prestige film playbook. Every scene has a music cue, every lighting cue a slightly different filter, and every performance–no matter how small–has weight and substance.
Where Ted will lose viewers is the style of humor. It’s raunchy. It’s very Trey Parker and Matt Stone pre-South Park. The comedy is no holds barred. There are rape jokes, drug jokes, domestic abuse jokes, and addiction jokes. That’s not a complete list, either. Those are just the jokes John makes about himself as a running self-deprecation gag. The humor is broad, shocking, and offensive. There is no way it will appeal to everyone and I doubt anyone could laugh at all the jokes in the film.
When the humor’s not raunchy, it’s all about pop culture references. The reveal of a Tiffany music video playing in the background is a joke by itself. So is the presence of a few guest actors, a karaoke party, and even a reference to Family Guy. If you don’t know the references, the jokes aren’t funny. There’s a certain level of silliness to these scenes that might elicit a chuckle. However, these jokes land harder if you have seen Flash Gordon or any of the 80s/early 90s pop culture references.
I can say that I thought the film was a hilarious but a bit forced at times. I watch Family Guy and American Dad! and Ted plays somewhere in between. The plot and tone is more the strange but heart warming style of the latter but the humor is firmly in the realm of the former. Seth MacFarlane fans won’t be disappointed even when Ted goes for broke on an emotional climax.
Rating: 7/10
Did you catch Ted yet? What are your thoughts? Sound off below. Love to hear from you.
There is a myth in India about a beautiful female snake with the secret to immortality. Nagin possesses a stone called the Nagmani that keeps her young forever. The only way to even encounter the true power of Nagin is to steal her lover and bring about her wrath. Only if she cannot free her love herself do you even stand a chance of surviving the confrontation, let alone obtaining the Nagmani for your own use.
This is the basis of writer/director Jennifer Chambers Lynch’s ambitious and troubled erotic suspense story Hisss. The director worked in India with a mostly Indian cast and crew to bring what she viewed as an ancient romance story to life. What she wound up with was a company that wanted a horror story so badly that Lynch couldn’t even edit her absurd feminist vision to tell the story she wanted to.
A detective does not realize what he’s stumbled into in the face of the mysterious mute woman
Somewhere in Hisss is a really cool story. The myth of the Nagin and the integration of the human players is captivating. A rich American man with terminal brain cancer will stop at nothing to draw out and capture the Nagin for immortality. At the same time, an uptight police detective is trying to enforce the laws during a massive outdoor festival filled with drugs and depravity. His mother in law is in the late throws of Alzheimer’s and is so desperate for a grandchild that she prays to the Nagin every night for help. And somehow, somewhere, the Nagin becomes the hero that every woman in India needs while on the quest for her stolen lover.
In other words, Lynch set out to create an almost-superhero movie about the power of women, love, and desire and somehow got trapped into a SyFy-level nightmare of bad editing and poor special effects.
The festival scene really shows off what Hisss should have been
This really is a shame. The moments that work in the film really fall in line with Lynch’s vision. Everything you’re told about the Nagin–explained as a vengeful and violent shape-shifting deity–by men is recontextualized again and again. The vision firmly starts in horror and destruction and arches into a pure tale of romance, justice, and tragedy.
The technical elements of the film are mostly spot on. The practical makeup and visual design of the film is beautiful. The festival, filled with paint pigments and water, is gorgeous. The cast mostly does a great job with very strange material. Mallika Sherawat is captivating as the human from of Nagin. Even the digital design of the snake to human transformation is fine; it just falls apart when the actors don’t know how to handle a scene with a not-present monster that large.
Hisss has enough going for it that a monster movie fan or someone big on mythology and Greek-styled tragedy would find some worth in it. It is by no means a great film. It just has enough potential in its current form to grab your interest.
Rating: 4/10
Thoughts on Hisss? I knew I had to see it before Despite the Gods was available. That’s the documentary about Jennifer Chambers Lynch losing control of Hiss. Have you seen the snake woman movie yet? Sound off below.
