Shortly after getting back from working on 9 in Toronto, I started working for Illumination Entertainment on a film code-named "Project E". For months, people kept asking me questions about it, but thanks to an NDA and an overall level of secrecy among the production crew, I kept quiet. I didn't even tell Sam.
Now after many months of secrecy, the cat is out of the bag with a press release in Variety. Here's a snippet:
Illumination Entertainment topper Chris Meledandri has kicked off his Universal Pictures-based family film unit with "Despicable Me," a 3-D CG-animated film that has Steve Carell voicing the title character.
Jason Segel, Kristen Wiig, Will Arnett, Danny McBride, Russell Brand, Jemaine Clement ("Flight of the Conchords"), Jack McBrayer ("30 Rock") and Julie Andrews are providing the other lead voices. The film will be released in 2010.
Carell's title character is a deplorable man known as Groo who masterminds the mother of all heists when he plots to steal the moon. Egged on by an evil mother (Andrews), Groo finds one obstacle in his way: a trio of orphan girls who temporarily come under his care and won't leave.
...
Meledandri said the spirit of the film came partly from taking his sons to see family films and discovering they always most loved the villains
Kurt sent me a link to this Daily Mail article about cartograms of the world map redrawen with each country's size proportionate to demographic statistics like wealth, alcohol consumption, HIV, military spending, etc.
[Military Spending Cartogram]
After finding myself surrounded by banks and bars the last 3 months, I'm not at all surprised to see that Luxembourg, a country so tiny it's barely a speck on a global geo-political map, is relatively large on the Wealth and Alcohol Consumption cartograms because Lux is #1 in GDP per capita and #2 in boozin' it up.
It's also fascinating to see that Military Spending and Toy Imports are virtually identical while War / Death is the inverse of the two. "1st World" countries like the US build bombs and play with toys while the people of "3rd World" Countries die of war, famine and disease.
So the uncensored video of the Saturday Night Live digital short "Dick in A Box" featuring Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake is on YouTube:
Quick, watch it before NBC makes YouTube take it down!!!
Two of my favorite people, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and faux-conservative Stephen Colbert, going head-to-head:
Quick, watch it before YouTube purges all Comedy Central video clips!!!
On Ten Amendments Day, May 7th, we come together in support of our Constitution, the freedoms it preserves, and the rights it protects. Why is there a need to support and promote the Bill of Rights?
Powerful forces are working to undermine the principles that have kept Americans free for 215 years and jeopardize the liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.
Religious activists are seeking to install God in our government. On May 7th, the Ten Commandments Day Commission and millions of followers will lobby to replace the Ten Amendments with the Ten Commandments, replacing our civil rights with their religious preferences. Visit the Ten Amendments Day website at www.tenamendmentsday.org to learn about the Bill of Rights and the debates that went into the creation of our secular Constitution. You’ll find articles about the Ten Commandments and the current court cases attempting to force religion into the government, as well as other resources.
Saturday Night Live has been hit-and-miss for a long long time so I don't really watch it anymore.
I caught the ass-end of last Saturday's show because Jack Black was hosting and Neil Young was the musical guest, and I respect them both a lot, but apparently I missed the best skit of the night/month/year.
Luckily Tripp showed me what I missed when Sam and I were hanging out at his place last night.
Recent cast addition Andy Samberg (of The Lonely Island) and SNL veteran not-so-featured player Chris Parnell did this awesome Digital Short called "Lazy Sunday."
Watch, read along with the lyrics, and laugh your ass off...
__UPDATE - 02-18-2006:__ So the video no longer works because NBC has "asked" YouTube to remove the copyrighted video. This is a classic example of corporate pigheadedness and biting the hand that feeds you because much of the credit for the viral success of Lazy Sunday belongs to YouTube and bloggers posting the video on their sites.
Lazy Sunday
Lazy Sunday,
Wake up in the late afternoon
Call Parnell just to see how he's doin'
Hello?
What up, Parn!
Yo Samberg, what's crackin'?
You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?
Narnia!
Man it's happ'nin'!
But first, my hunger pangs are stickin' like duct tape.
Let's hit up Magnolia and mack on some cupcakes.
No doubt, that bakery's got all the bomb frosting.
I love those cupcakes like McAdams loves Gosling.Two! No, Six! No, Twelve! Baker's Dozen!
I told'ja that I'm crazy for these cupcakes, cousin!
Yo, where's the movie playin'?
Upper West Side, dude!
Let's hit up Yahoo Maps to find the dopest route.
I prefer Mapquest!
That's a good one too.
Google Maps is the best!
True that! Double true!
68th and Broadway.
Step on it, sucka!
What you wanna do Chris?
snack attack, mutha----!The Chronic-what?-cles of Narnia!
Yes, the Chronic-what?-cles of Narnia!
We love that Chronic-what?-cles of Narnia!
Pass that Chronic-what?-cles of Narnia!Yo, stop at the deli.
The theater is overpriced!
You got that backpack
I'm going to pack it up nice.
We don't want security to get suspicious!
Mr. Pibb and Red Vines equals crazy delicious.
Reach in my pocket and pull out some dough,
Girl acted like she never seen a $10 before!
It's all about the Hamiltons baby
Throw the snacks in a bag and I'm Ghost like Swayze.Roll up to the theater
Ticket buying what we're handling,
You can call us Aaron Burr from the way we're dropping Hamiltons
Parked in our seats, movie trivia's the illest!
"What 'Friends' alum starred in films with Bruce Willis?"
We had the dope facts, it was scary.
Everyone stared in awe when we screamed "Matthew Perry!"
Then quiet in the theater or it's gonna get tragic
We're about to be taken to a dream world of magicIn the Chronic-what?-cles of Narnia!
Yes, the Chronic-what?-cles of Narnia!
We love that Chronic-what?-cles of Narnia!
Pass that Chronic-what?-cles of Narnia!
So it turns out that if you Google "aristocrats paul provenza" my Film Diary post about The Aristocrats directed by Paul Provenza is on the second page of results (it's the 69th result directly below Roger Ebert's review of the film).
I'm guessing that's how The Aristocrats director Paul Provenza found my post, because he actually read that Film Diary entry and left a detailed comment that challenged my assumption that "Eddie Izzard and Chris Rock were drunk as fuck during their interviews."
I guess I should be more careful about what I post on this here blog because apparently it's not entirely unlikely that the people I write about might actually read it themselves. I've said some nasty things about a few of the horrible films that I've seen, but I usually remain from saying anything negative or undeserving of the filmmakers themselves.
Luckily I had nothing but positive things to say about Provenza's film. I just wish I hadn't made misinformed comments about Eddie Izzard and Chris Rock. For the record, they are two of my all time favorite comedians and I've seen them both live and up close. I saw Chris Rock live in concert for my birthday in 2004 and I saw Eddie Izzard in person hanging around outside of a Dylan Moran show.
Thanks Paul Provenza for reading my blog and taking the time to set the record straight about Eddie Izzard and Chris Rock. My previous post stands corrected.
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Current Mood: 8|
Currently listening to: Made in Usa by Pizzicato Five
I first got into Our Lady Peace after seeing their second album, Clumsy, among a friend's MP3 collection in the dorms at UCLA during my first year of undergrad. I loved what I heard so I immediately bought Clumsy and their first album, Naveed. Since then, I've always downloaded each new album before buying it, usually months in advance of the release date. But I've always, and I mean ALWAYS, bought the CD the first day it was available because I want to support the artist and I prefer CDs over MP3s. Unless it's encoded at 192kbps or higher, MP3s just don't sound as good as CDs and they don't come with the artwork (even when pirates scan the CD booklet, I can't take it with me on the bus).
Well the new OLP album, Healthy In Paranoid Times, was no exception to my download-then-buy routine. Thanks to broadband, I had the entire album on MP3s in less than an hour after learning a new album was going to come out. I've since rocked out to the MP3s right up until today, when the CD was offically released and I bought it at Best Buy along with the new Our Lady Peace: Live DVD. I even deleted the illegal MP3s, though that's entirely an issue of saving hard drive space than disposing of evidence.
I realize that I'm not the typical downloader. Most people download the MP3s and then never buy the CD. And you know, I've downloaded plenty of MP3s and never bought the CD too, but those were crappy albums. If the music industry (and movie industry) would find a way to promote a "try-before-you-buy" service, they might actually make money on CDs (and DVDs). Then again, the record producers would have to first stop wasting millions of dollars on shitty artists who make super-shitty records. If people aren't buying CDs even when they like the album, then they sure as shit aren't gonna buy after they've tried it and it sucks.
Until there's a legal way to preview music and movies online, I'm going to continue to download them first, and then buy the really good CDs and DVDs when they come out, as I've been doing for years.
Anyway, Healthy In Paranoid Times is a damn good album. It's not my favorite Our Lady Peace album (I'd probably rank them in the order that they were released), but it's still rocking stuff (especially for a Canadian band 
). And I'm glad I bought the CD because the booklet is pretty cool. It doesn't have the lyrics (
), but it has a list of statistics of things that happened during the 1165 days it took to record the album and there's a list of recommended websites, several of them are sites that I already frequent (in BOLD).
TO BETTER YOUR HEALTH AND WELLBEING VISIT...
THINKEXIST.COM
ADBUSTERS.ORG (incorrectly listed as ADBUSTERS.COM in the booklet)
THEBROOKLYNRAIL.ORG
WARCHILD.CA
MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY.ORG
NERVENET.INFO
THEONION.COM
CORPWATCH.ORG
OTHERVOICES.ORG
KCRW.COM
ZMAG.ORG
AMNESTY.ORG
RELIEFWEB.INT
OXFAM.ORG
NRDC.ORG
GREENPEACE.ORG
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Current Mood: 
Currently listening to: Healthy In Paranoid Times by Our Lady Peace (duh)
I really am the worst vegetarian ever, at least compared to all my full-blown vegan friends. I gave up beef, pork, poultry and other animals after reading Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, but I still eat seafood and I have a "leftover clause" that allows me to eat Sam's meaty leftovers (I just can't stand to let food go to waste).
And some times I just have straight-up unjustifiable lapses in judgement. Like today, I ate a hotdog and a combo pizza (pepperoni and sausage) from Costco. They were so good I just couldn't resist...
Fast Food Nation:
The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
by Eric Schlosser
