Watch Isabella Rossellini Embody the Animal Kingdom’s Most Shocking Maternal Instincts in Mammas

in Biology, Comedy, K-12, Science | May 13th, 2013

Moth­er’s Day can elic­it com­pli­cat­ed emo­tions in the human ani­mal. Not so Moth­er Ham­ster. While you were out to brunch, she was mat­ter-of-fact­ly devour­ing the run­ti­est of her lit­ter. And not because he failed to present her with a bou­quet and flow­ery card. “It’s a good morsel to recoup some of the vit­a­mins and pro­tein that are lost dur­ing child­birth,” she explains with a shrug.

This heart­warm­ing vignette is but one of the rev­e­la­tions in Mam­mas, the lat­est web series from the inquis­i­tive and extreme­ly game Isabel­la Rosselli­ni. Hav­ing embod­ied a vari­ety of insects, arach­nids, and marine life in the sci­ence-based Green Porno and its fol­low-up Seduce Me, the moth­er of two is cur­rent­ly suit­ing up to play some of the Ani­mal King­dom’s most noto­ri­ous moth­ers, from the oppor­tunis­tic Cuck­oo to the self-sac­ri­fic­ing Aus­tralian sub­so­cial crab spi­der (Diaea ergan­dros).

The com­i­cal­ly inven­tive cos­tumes are an added bonus, par­tic­u­lar­ly for any human moth­er (or father) with an aver­sion to dress­ing their ani­mal-lov­ing off­spring in store bought dis­guis­es, come Hal­loween. Catch the com­plete series here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Wild King­dom: Brought to You by Mutu­al of Oma­ha (and YouTube)

Film­ing a Sprint­ing Chee­tah at 1,200 Frames Per Sec­ond

Rainn Wil­son Talks About Life’s Big Ques­tions in His Web Series Meta­phys­i­cal Milk­shake

Ayun Hal­l­i­day thinks Isabel­la Rosselli­ni is the bee’s knees, espe­cial­ly when her glass legs are filled with beer. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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The Romantic George Carlin Writes a Nano-Powered, Sub Atomic-Filled Love Letter to His Wife

in Comedy, Life, Science | May 11th, 2013

Carlin Letter

George Car­lin was more than a Class Clown. He was also a class act, as evi­denced by this undat­ed mis­sive to com­e­dy writer Sal­ly Wade, with whom he shared the final decade of his life. The man who once parsed the Sev­en Words You Can Nev­er Say on Tele­vi­sion show­ered his “spouse with­out papers” with such notes dai­ly.

Giv­en such a prodi­gious out­put, he wise­ly turned to sci­ence to quan­ti­fy his ardor in the repro­duc­tion above. (His physi­cian’s scrawl can be dif­fi­cult to deci­pher — a tran­scrip­tion is sup­plied below.)

SALLYBURGER,

If you took THE NUMBER OF SUB-ATOMIC PARTICLES IN THE UNIVERSE and mul­ti­plied that num­ber times itself THAT MANY TIMES; and then added the total num­ber of MICRO-SECONDS since the begin­ning of time, times itself; and then added 803—you would STILL have only the tini­est frac­tion of A BILLION-BILLIONTH PER CENT of the amount of love I HAVE FOR YOU.

Love,

your can­dle part­ner,
the roman­tic Mr Car­lin,
your eter­nal flame

A por­tion of these sweet noth­ings were col­lect­ed in The George Car­lin Let­ters. Its sub­ti­tle, The Per­ma­nent Courtship of Sal­ly Wade, was tak­en from the note he left on her com­put­er the day he died, two days shy of their 10th anniver­sary.

via Dan­ger­ous Minds

Relat­ed Con­tent:

RIP: George Car­lin on the Tonight Show (1966)

How the Great George Car­lin Showed Louis CK the Way to Suc­cess (NSFW)

George Car­lin: The Mod­ern Man in Three Min­utes

Ayun Hal­l­i­day has been lov­ing on Greg Kotis since 1991. Such notes as there are remain pri­vate, but you can fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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The Strange Day When Bugs Bunny Saved the Life of Mel Blanc

in Animation, Comedy, Comics/Cartoons | May 6th, 2013

Great tal­ents seem to embody their craft. It’s as if they invent­ed the form and then broke the mold when they were fin­ished with it.

One of the best mod­ern exam­ples of this vir­tu­os­i­ty is Mel Blanc, voice of Bugs Bun­ny and near­ly all of the Looney Tunes car­toon gang. Blanc, who voiced more than 1,000 char­ac­ters, was famous­ly hard-work­ing. At one point in his career, he scram­bled from stu­dio to stu­dio around Los Ange­les to work on 18 radio shows in one week.

As Mal­colm Glad­well likes to say, that kind of prac­tice leads to mas­tery. And, in Mel Blanc’s case, it may have saved his life.

Radio Lab, broad­cast over WNYC, recent­ly aired a piece about Blanc (lis­ten below) fea­tur­ing an inter­view with his son Noel Blanc, who is also a voice actor. Noel Blanc tells the sto­ry of a ter­ri­ble car acci­dent that bad­ly injured his father in 1961 as he was dri­ving home along Sun­set Boule­vard from a job in San Fran­cis­co. Mel Blanc, dri­ving an Aston Mar­tin, col­lid­ed with anoth­er car on Dead Man’s Curve. Blanc was almost killed and slipped into a coma. Blanc’s son and wife spent two weeks at his bed­side try­ing to revive him, but got no response.

One day, about 14 days after the acci­dent, one of Blanc’s neu­rol­o­gists walked into the room and tried some­thing com­plete­ly new. He went to Mel’s bed and asked, “Bugs Bun­ny, how are you doing today?”

There was a pause while peo­ple in the room just shook their heads. Then, in a weak voice, came the response any­one would rec­og­nize.

“Myeeeeh. What’s up doc?”

The doc­tor then asked Tweety if he was there too.

“I tot I taw a pud­dy tat,” was the reply.

It took sev­en more months in a body cast for Blanc to recov­er. He even voiced Bar­ney Rub­ble in the first episodes of The Flint­stones while lying in bed with a micro­phone dan­gling from above.

The Radio Lab piece includes excerpts from an episode of This is Your Life when Blanc’s doc­tor tried to explain how he revived his patient. “It seemed like Bugs Bun­ny was try­ing to save his life,” was all he could say.

Radio Lab fea­tures anoth­er neurologist’s opin­ion: Blanc was such a hard-work­ing pro­fes­sion­al that his char­ac­ters lived, pro­tect­ed from the brain injury, deep in his uncon­scious mind. The doctor’s ques­tion must have sound­ed like a director’s cue.

Essen­tial­ly, “Mr. Blanc, you’re on.”

And he was, until 1989. Lis­ten through to the end of the pod­cast. The end of Blanc’s life is as remark­able as his long career.

Below, we have added a relat­ed doc­u­men­tary, Mel Blanc: The Man of a Thou­sand Voic­es.

Kate Rix writes about edu­ca­tion and dig­i­tal media. Vis­it her web­site to see more of her work. Fol­low her on Twit­ter: @mskaterix.

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Beth, I Hear You Loud and Clear: A Fictional Origin Story of KISS’ Best Selling Single

in Comedy, Life, Music | May 3rd, 2013

A cou­ple of days ago, Mick Fleet­wood told NPR that a band’s great­est hits belong to its fans “to be rein­ter­pret­ed and cre­ate a back­drop for parts of their lives.”

With that in mind, who among us has not relat­ed … or yearned for the boyfriend or girl­friend that might allow us to relate to Peter Criss’ chart-top­ping “Beth”? The pow­er bal­lad went gold for Criss’ band KISS in 1976, and has reigned as an ear worm on Clas­sic Rock sta­tions ever since:

Beth, I hear you call­in’ 

But I can’t come home right now 

Me and the boys are playin’ 

And we just can’t find the sound.

Close your eyes and visu­al­ize poor Beth, alone in her neg­ligee on that giant bed, the scent­ed can­dles gut­ter­ing in sad recog­ni­tion that art always comes first for a soul­ful dude like Pete.

Now open them wide for the alter­nate and extreme­ly spir­it­ed take above. This ver­sion gives us Beth’s side, com­pli­ments of writer Bob Win­ter, direc­tor Bri­an Bil­low of Anony­mous Con­tent, and actress Lil­li Bird­sell, MILF-ing it up to vin­tage per­fec­tion as she jug­gles the kids and a meat­loaf in the oven. Rock­star hus­bands’ salaries aside, Bird­sel­l’s Beth is the embod­i­ment of the red-blood­ed female mul­ti­tasker pop­u­lar­ized by the Enjoli com­mer­cial of the same peri­od. The news that her hus­band “can’t” come home right now is met not with a tear, but a hilar­i­ous­ly flat “What?” (I loved how it took sev­er­al rep­e­ti­tions for the lyri­cal hook to reg­is­ter with her.)

I was root­ing for this Beth to pull a Thel­ma and Louise, load­ing the twins into the Coun­try Squire and dump­ing them at the stu­dio for their father to deal with. Sad­ly, our hero­ine is no match for years of built-up fan inter­pre­ta­tions. Guess Bet­ty Drap­er’s not the only pret­ty woman doomed to sip her din­ner as she sto­ical­ly ignores both chil­dren and part­ner’s emp­ty plate.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day has­n’t even start­ed to think about what’s for din­ner tonight, so quit ask­ing. Fol­low her at @AyunHalliday

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Steven Spielberg’s Obama, Starring Daniel Day Lewis as the President

in Comedy, Film | April 30th, 2013

Sarah Palin did­n’t like the 2013 White House Cor­re­spon­dents’ Din­ner. In a cranky tweet, she wrote: “That #WHCD was pathet­ic. The rest of Amer­i­ca is out there work­ing our ass­es off while these DC ass­clowns throw them­selves a #nerd­prom.” But I have to dis­agree with Amer­i­ca’s most dis­tin­guished half-term gov­er­nor. Some­where in Wash­ing­ton, a hard-work­ing writer imag­ined Barack Oba­ma play­ing Daniel Day Lewis play­ing Barack Oba­ma and had the gump­tion to fol­low the joke entire­ly through. Who­ev­er’s respon­si­ble for real­iz­ing that com­ic moment, we salute you.

Spiel­berg’s Oba­ma aired dur­ing the Cor­re­spon­dents’ Din­ner. You can watch Conan O’Brien’s full com­e­dy rou­tine at the WHCD here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Steven Spiel­berg on the Genius of Stan­ley Kubrick

Watch Steven Spielberg’s Debut: Two Films He Direct­ed as a Teenag­er

525 Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, etc.

Inside Break­ing Bad: Watch Conan O’Brien’s Extend­ed Inter­view with the Show’s Cast and Cre­ator

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Woody Allen Amuses Himself by Giving Untruthful Answers in Unaired 1971 TV Interview

in Comedy, Film, Television | April 26th, 2013

Celebri­ties tire of giv­ing inter­views. I’ve learned this by spend­ing most of my career con­duct­ing inter­views myself, and thus des­per­ate­ly try­ing to mas­ter ask­ing the ques­tions that wake up a weary inter­vie­wee, get­ting them engaged enough to cast aside the boil­er­plate and speak like a con­vers­ing human being. But what about the celebri­ties them­selves? What can they do to spice up their expe­ri­ence? In 1971, the oft-inter­viewed Woody Allen sat down with Grana­da Tele­vi­sion and took a bold move to keep things inter­est­ing, appar­ent­ly chal­leng­ing him­self to reply to each ques­tion as untruth­ful­ly as pos­si­ble. Though the con­ver­sa­tion nev­er aired, Allen did man­age to keep up the rou­tine for quite some time, and you can watch near­ly forty min­utes of it in the clip above.

The inter­view­er asks Allen for a syn­op­sis of his new pic­ture. “It’s a dra­ma about human emo­tion in the Unit­ed States,” the direc­tor flat­ly replies. “It deals with the tragedy of divorce as it relates to the chil­dren and those who have to suf­fer con­tin­u­al­ly from the effects of an unhap­py home.” So it con­tains no com­e­dy what­so­ev­er, then? “No, I try and keep as much com­e­dy out of my films as pos­si­ble.” The film osten­si­bly under dis­cus­sion: Bananas. Asked ques­tion after broad, brief ques­tion, Allen lobs back ever dri­er and more implau­si­ble fab­ri­ca­tions. His ded­i­cat­ed fans, though, will notice that he does slip in a fac­tu­al state­ment. Asked if he watch­es his own films, he says no; and indeed, he famous­ly nev­er looks back at past work. The increas­ing­ly ner­vous-sound­ing inter­view­er (who may be in on the joke?) asks why. “Because I don’t have the patience to sit through them.”

h/t @lit_hum

Relat­ed con­tent:

Woody Allen Answers 12 Uncon­ven­tion­al Ques­tions He Has Nev­er Been Asked Before

Meetin’ WA: Jean-Luc Godard Meets Woody Allen in 26 Minute Film

Woody Allen Lives the “Deli­cious Life” in Ear­ly-80s Japan­ese Com­mer­cials

Woody Allen Box­es a Kan­ga­roo, 1966

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd Get Brian Wilson Out of Bed and Force Him to Go Surfing, 1976

in Comedy, Music, Television | April 25th, 2013

There are cer­tain leg­ends sur­round­ing Bri­an Wil­son, the trou­bled genius behind the Beach Boys. One is that he hates going to the beach. He nev­er went surf­ing, even though he wrote clas­sic songs like “Surfer Girl,” “Surfin’ Safari,” and “Surfin’ USA.” Anoth­er is that he basi­cal­ly stayed in bed for two or three years in the ear­ly 1970s, weight­ed down by drugs and depres­sion.

In this clas­sic com­e­dy sketch from the sum­mer of 1976, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd play a pair of Cal­i­for­nia High­way Patrol offi­cers who burst into the bed­room of Wilson’s Bel Air home and force the reclu­sive musi­cian to get up and go surf­ing. “Bri­an,” says Aykroyd, “we have a cita­tion here for you sir under Sec­tion 936A of the Cal­i­for­nia Catch a Wave Statute. Bri­an, you’re in vio­la­tion of Para­graph 12: fail­ing to surf, neglect­ing to use a state beach for surf­ing pur­pos­es, and oth­er­wise avoid­ing surf­boards, surf­ing and surf.”

The scene is from the NBC tele­vi­sion spe­cial It’s OK, which was pro­duced by Sat­ur­day Night Live cre­ator Lorne Michaels dur­ing the break between SNL’s first and sec­ond sea­sons. It was direct­ed by the show’s res­i­dent flm­mak­er Gary Weis. The one-hour spe­cial was orga­nized to cel­e­brate the Beach Boys’ 15th anniver­sary and to pro­mote their album, 15 Big Ones. Wil­son had just rejoined the group, and the spe­cial was part of the “Bri­an’s Back” pub­lic­i­ty cam­paign. The pro­gram, which is cur­rent­ly avail­able on Euro­pean-for­mat­ted DVD as The Beach Boys: Good Vibra­tions Tour,  includes an inter­view of Wil­son in bed, comedic scenes of band mem­bers doing off­beat things, and live footage from a July 3, 1976 Beach Boys con­cert at Ana­heim Sta­di­um. In the two inter­cut scenes above, Mike Love leads the Beach Boys onstage in a per­for­mance of “Surfin’ USA” as Wil­son is forced into the ocean in his bath robe. “Okay, Mr. Wil­son,” says Aykroyd. “Here’s your wave.”

via Dan­ger­ous Minds

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Mak­ing of The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds: A Video Break­down

Leonard Bern­stein Demys­ti­fies the Rock Rev­o­lu­tion for Curi­ous (if Square) Grown-Ups in 1967

John Belushi’s Impro­vised Screen Test for Sat­ur­day Night Live (1975)

The Mak­ing of The Blues Broth­ers: When Belushi and Aykroyd Went on a Mis­sion for Com­e­dy & Music

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Watch Them Watch Us: A History of Breaking the “Fourth Wall” in Film

in Comedy, Film, Video - Arts & Culture | April 23rd, 2013

Remem­ber that scene in Nashville, when Kei­th Car­ra­dine sings “I’m Easy,” and every woman in the club thinks he’s speak­ing direct­ly to her?

Break­ing the fourth wall—also known as direct address—can have the same effect on a film­go­ing audi­ence. The com­pi­la­tion video above makes it clear that actors love it too. Break­ing from con­ven­tion can tele­graph an unim­peach­able cool, à la John Cusack in High Fideli­ty, or afford a vet­er­an scenery chew­er like Samuel L. Jack­son the oppor­tu­ni­ty to turn the hog loose. It’s most often deployed in the ser­vice of com­e­dy, but a stone-cold killer can make the audi­ence com­plic­it with a wink.

Screen­writer and jour­nal­ist Leigh Singer pulled footage from 54 films for this mash up, and freely admits that time con­straints left some favorites on the cut­ting room floor. What would you add, if you hap­pened to have Mar­shall McLuhan right here?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Artist Rob­bie Cooper’s Video Project Immer­sion Stares Back at Gamers and YouTu­bers

The Film Before the Film: An Intro­duc­tion to the His­to­ry of Title Sequences in 10 Min­utes

Sig­na­ture Shots from the Films of Stan­ley Kubrick: One-Point Per­spec­tive

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is that rare Gen­er­a­tion X‑er who did­n’t see Fer­ris Bueller’s Day Off until 2013. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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