Posts for March 26, 2008 -- Vulture -- Entertainment & Culture Blog -- New York Magazine

March 26, 2008

Tube Junkie

3/26/08

6:00 PM

How to Understand Tonight's Epic ‘South Park’: Watch ‘Heavy Metal’

A post went up this morning on Ain’t It Cool News purporting to pass on word from a South Park staffer who calls tonight’s new episode, “Major Boobage,” “one of the greatest things [he’s] ever seen.” South Park being one of the only shows that we actually wish we watched more often (as opposed to “I should watch more documentaries about the migrant-worker experience”), we’re intrigued.

Apparently the episode is an homage to 1981 cult-classic feature-length cartoon Heavy Metal — a series of sci-fi vignettes whose soundtrack features songs by Sammy Hagar, Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbath, Journey, and many more beloved/ironically beloved rockers. (It’s also voiced by a crew that includes John Candy, Harold Ramis, and Eugene Levy; the film’s Wikipedia page explains the project’s Canadian origins and also notes its “unusual amount of bloody violence, nudity and sexuality” vis-à-vis other cartoons.) Completely suckered by what may or may not be a clever marketing ploy, we YouTubed Heavy Metal so as to chuckle more knowledgeably tonight. The first five minutes are above.

Tonight, a shadow shall fall over the universe. Evil will grow in its path. And death will come from the skies … to Comedy Central at 10 p.m. —Ben Mathis-Lilley

Tonight!! Major Boobage!! [Ain't It Cool]

More: Tube Junkie »heavy metal, south park, tv, video

Right-Click

3/26/08

5:30 PM

Al Green Makes a Triumphant Return

Photo: Getty Images

1. Al Green, "Thought It Out"
A new Al Green song? And it's R&B? And produced by ?uestlove? Let's just say that this isn't too good to be true, sadly. [Horse Latitudes]

2. Laura Gibson, "All the Pretty Horses"
Gibson (currently on tour with the Decemberists' Colin Meloy) turns in a lovely version of this old lullaby. But before you rip it to your baby's iPod, keep in mind that this is the sort of lullaby that Cormac McCarthy would name a novel after. [Oregon Live]

3. Estelle feat. Kanye West, "American Boy (Danger Remix)"
French producer Danger makes a really great remix, but just not for this song. [Gee Wizz]

Panda Bear! »

More: Right-Click »?uestlove, al green, estelle, kanye west, laura gibson, music, panda bear, the last rapes of mr. teach

Countdown

3/26/08

5:00 PM

Ian McKellen McKellening Again in ‘The Hobbit’

Courtesy of New Line

Usually we feel vaguely sad and dispirited when a talented actor continues to accept lucrative starring roles in crowd-pleasing blockbusters, like, say, Nicolas Cage in the National Treasure franchise, or Samuel Jackson, who apparently hasn’t turned down a part since 1996. So why is it that we feel giddy and delighted to learn that Sir Ian McKellen has more or less agreed to return as Gandalf in the Peter Jackson–produced The Hobbit?

Is it because McKellen spent a lifetime as a venerated stage actor before breaking through to Hollywood? Is it because he elevates everything he does, from the cartoonish X-Men series to the pretty terrible Bryan Singer misstep Apt Pupil? Is it because he seems to be having such a damned good time as an unlikely, late-life movie star, whether it’s hosting SNL, showing up at the Oscars with his studly young boyfriend, or generally being totally, loudly, proudly gay in a town of fake hair and real-life beards?

We’re so generally in awe of Sir Ian that we propose a new verb: to McKellen.

More: Countdown »ian mckellen, mckellening, movies, peter jackson, the hobbit

Apropos of Nothing

3/26/08

4:30 PM

Please Don't Make ‘Gotham’ the Official Nickname of New York City

Photo illustration: Hulton Archive/Getty Images;
Courtesy of New York State

So Queens councilman Hiram Monserrate wants to make “Gotham City” New York’s official nickname. (Check out the link if only for the commenter who argues that “we need the bat man to save the city.”) Why? To capitalize on the upcoming Batman movie, The Dark Knight, while offering that film some free publicity. Now, between the two Vulture editors working today, we know the least about comics — and Kois mostly reads geeky indie comics written by French speakers. But even we know that Monserrate’s proposal demonstrates a lack of comics understanding. Gotham City is not New York! The differences are legion: Their geographies are totally dissimilar; Gotham's street gangs are charmingly multiracial; multiple sources place the city in New Jersey, not New York. And, most glaring, the made-up metropolis is plagued by corrupt hypocrites in the highest levels of government — a ludicrous fictional conceit definitively indicating that “Gotham City” exists in a never-neverland fantasy world that only a child would find plausible. —Ben Mathis-Lilley

Councilman Goes to Bat For 'Gotham City' [Runnin' Scared / VV]

More: Apropos of Nothing »batman, comics, movies, the dark knight

Counting Crows Split to Make One Renewed Whole

The Counting Crows’ first studio album in six years not only splits itself between driving rock and softer balladry, but also between the slightly smug self-confidence and overweening insecurity Adam Duritz gives off these days in interviews. In a sense, the band is more comfortable in their itchy skin than ever — and certainly not rehashing “Mr. Jones.” We love the quieter second half for capturing Duritz’s sweetly escapist view of New York.

Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings

Counting Crows
Geffen
Out now
$13.98

Buy

Apropos of Nothing

3/26/08

4:00 PM

Do Two Recent Novels About China Obscure the Looming Robot Threat? Yes

Courtesy of Penguin Group, FSG; iStockphoto

The Times review of Alex Berenson’s The Ghost War gave us déjà vu. The novel depicts an imagined war between China and the United States triggered by an idealistic but scheming Communist Party official. It seemed familiar because it reminded us of the other book the Times reviewed recently whose plot is driven by Chinese chicanery, Colin Harrison’s The Finder. In Harrison’s novel, a Chinese immigrant poses as a janitorial worker in midtown in order to steal corporate secrets for her brother’s firm in Shanghai.

Frankly, this threatening-Chinese theme worries us. Not for political reasons; neither book is said to be jingoistic. Rather, it’s because we’re concerned that “the coming war against the Chinese” is going to replace “the coming war against the machines” as our leading fictional-future-war trope.

But that's exactly what the machines want to happen. »

More: Apropos of Nothing »alex berenson, books, colin harrison, nerdgasm, robots, the finder, the ghost war

Pop Trash

3/26/08

3:30 PM

We Want These ‘Battlestar Galactica’ Propaganda Posters

Courtesy of ThinkGeek

With Battlestar Galactica returning in just a week, we're getting plenty excited for some good TV for a change. One excellent way to express that excitement would be to hang these handsome propaganda posters in our cubicle. And by writing this post, we can now expense the online order we placed just seconds ago. Let's hope the ladies in accounting don't read Vulture.

Battlestar Galactica Propaganda Posters [ThinkGeek]

More: Pop Trash »battlestar galactica, tv

Art Candy

3/26/08

3:00 PM

Artist Brandon Nastanski Invites You Into His Secret Hideout

Brandon Nastanski’s Cabin of Curiosity (2007)Courtesy of the artist

There’s something about Brandon Nastanski’s speakeasy — a wood walled-off cabin that viewers will enter through a rustic bookcase — that reminds us of the at-first cozy, then-frankly-spooky cabin in which Jeffrey Eugenides's hermaphrodite protagonist realized she was more than just a little girl in Middlesex. Or is that just us? Created from found furniture as part of Nastanski’s MFA graduation work at Parsons, this curious hideaway will be up at PULSE at Pier 40, one of the handful of art fairs, including the Armory Show, opening Thursday and running through the weekend. —Emma Pearse

More: Art Candy »art, brandon nastanski, pulse

Chat Room

3/26/08

2:15 PM

David Hajdu on the Great Comics Scare

Photo: Michelle Heimerman

The latest nonfiction study from author and Columbia prof David Hajdu (Lush Life, Positively 4th Street) chronicles the widespread hysteria over comic books in postwar America. His fascinating book, The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America, tells the story of the collapse of the massively successful comics industry after it imploded under the pressure of hysterical critics convinced it was leading our nation’s children into lives of sadism, immorality, and other equally unlikely breeds of debasement. (In many ways the cultural response served as a precursor to the rock mania of the sixties, metal-bashing in the eighties, and probably many such overblown reactions still to come.) Hajdu (pronounced "HAY-du") talked to Vulture about his passion for comics, the triumph of hot comic babes over puritanical book burners, and how he envisions the (to our minds) inevitable film adaptation of the book.

What inspired this book? Are you a secret comic-book obsessive?
[Laughs.] Comics are not among my obsessions. I’m not telling you what the real ones are. I’ve always been interested in this stuff, but it wasn’t until I got deep into the work on my second book that I started to realize the deep significance of early comics and the drama of what happened in the forties and fifties. This was largely a fight not over the content of comics, but over the very idea that kids are entitled to have their own taste and their own opinions and points of view. It was a fear on the part of the prevailing Establishment and the parents who embodied that Establishment. I think there’s still a very deep-rooted fear that our kids are going to turn against us like Dobermans.

More: Chat Room »books, comics, david hajdu, the ten-cent plague

Quote Machine

3/26/08

1:30 PM

Tina Fey Launches Public Campaign to Befriend Oprah

Photo: Getty Images

"I want Oprah to play my best friend. I want to spend time with Oprah, and I don't know what I need to do to make it happen." —Tina Fey on guest stars she'd like to see on 30 Rock [Us]

"There is very little I can say, because there is a Paramount sniper trained on the back of my head as I speak. He's on a building and I'm not going to look, because he will know I know he is there." — Simon Pegg on why he has to keep quiet about his role as Scotty in the new Star Trek film [Ain't It Cool]

"When you do a movie like this, a sequel that's very, very anticipated, people anticipate ultimately that it's going to be the Second Coming. And it's not. It's just a movie." —George Lucas dispelling rumors that Indiana Jones is Jesus Christ [USAT]

"I've got a rubber gun at home that looks so real. I'm learning how to spin it." — Sienna Miller on preparing for her role as the Baroness in G.I. Joe [Access Hollywood]

"It's Carrie Fisher's bathtub. She's a friend of mine and it never even occurred to me to tell anybody that that's where we're shooting it. But it just so happens that she lives in Bette Davis's old house. And so it's one of these great old bathtubs. The bathroom itself is enormous; it's like the size of a studio apartment. [Fisher] has a piano in it, of course. Naturally. She's Carrie Fisher, she has a piano in her bathroom." —Craig Bierko on the setting for his Web series Bathing With Bierko [Newsweek]

More: Quote Machine »30 rock, bathing with bierko, carrie fisher, craig bierko, g.i. joe, oprah winfrey, sienna miller, simon pegg, star trek, tina fey

The Comics Page

3/26/08

12:45 PM

Exclusive Comics Excerpt: ‘The Rabbi's Cat 2’

In thirties Algiers, it's a good life for a rabbi's cat, despite the rising tide of anti-Semitism filling the city. But when the rabbi's cat, the rabbi, and two companions head out across Africa in search of a new Jerusalem, they meet a lot of surprising characters along the way — including, in the Congo, a young reporter you just might recognize.

Today on the Comics Page, we're proud to present an excerpt from The Rabbi's Cat 2, second in Joann Sfar's fantastical series of graphic novels. Translated from the French, the book is out next month from Pantheon.

Read the five-page excerpt now! »

More: The Comics Page »books, comics, joann sfar, pantheon, the rabbi's cat 2, tintin

Kudos

3/26/08

12:00 PM

Helen Mirren Finally Wins Award for Lifelong Devotion to Nudity

Mirren in Calendar Girls.Courtesy of Touchstone Pictures

Forget the Oscar, forget the BAFTA, forget the Oliviers and the SAG Awards and the Emmys. The USA Naturist Society has given a richly deserved award to Dame Helen Mirren, naming the oft-unclothed star of The Queen and Calendar Girls No. 1 on their list of celebrity heroes of nudity. (Kyra Sedgwick, Matthew Fox, and noted bongo player Matthew McConaughey also appear on their top-ten list.) Considering the sexy sexagenarian's long-standing commitment to the cause of getting her kit off on film, we can think of no award the actress would clutch closer to her unhindered breast.

Helen Mirren wins award from USA Naturist Society [Mirror]

Earlier: Helen Mirren Still Ready to Get Naked on Film; Vulture Still Ready to Cheer Her On

More: Kudos »helen mirren, movies, nudists

Apropos of Nothing

3/26/08

11:15 AM

Are You Ready for a $35 Movie Ticket?

Photo illustration: Getty Images

Because we sure are! Variety reports that Village Roadshow Gold Class Cinemas are preparing to launch 50 super-luxe theaters nationwide. The cinemas — opening first in suburbs of Seattle, Chicago, and Phoenix, but supposedly heading to New York soon — will sport 40 seats per auditorium, call buttons for waiters on each seat, and a $35 price tag for tickets. Hey, if that means that we won't have to share the next Bourne movie with a half-dozen crying children — as we did the last one — we're all for it.

You might complain that for that kind of money, you should get a concert or a play or something bigger than a movie. Observer theater critic John Heilpern would counter that you're better off spending $45 for two hours of The Bourne Syllogism than you are spending $50 for 45 minutes of minor Caryl Churchill at the Public.

Filmgoers get a taste of the good life [Variety]

More: Apropos of Nothing »drunk enough to say i love you, movie theaters, movies, village roadshow gold class cinemas

The Take

3/26/08

10:30 AM

Can Fall Out Boy Make It to Antarctica? An Anxious Nation Waits

Photo composite: FilmMagic, Courtesy of Lucasfilms LTD

We're on the edge of our collective seat here at Vulture today, waiting for news of whether Fall Out Boy will be able to pull off one of the greatest douche-rock stunts of all time: flying to Antarctica in order to set the world record for rocking out on all seven continents. (The Guinness Book of World Records has not yet certified that any band has actually played all the continents, but FOB is attempting to set the record for doing it the fastest, anyway.) The band, which has already performed shows on the six other continents, is waiting out bad weather that prevented them from making their scheduled flight to Antarctica on Tuesday, along with a Guinness official who will certify the record. There's a chance they could make another flight today, but the odds are decreasing by the minute.

Weather isn't the only obstacle that FOB has had to face in their attempt to set this record. First ~~lead singer~~ hot, default front man bassist Pete Wentz had to conquer his geographical ignorance. Wentz told MTV News, "Well, I was just sitting around and wrote [manager] Bob [McLynn] an e-mail saying, 'Let's be the first band to go to all five continents' — only he wrote me back, 'There are seven.'"

"I'm basically expecting that it'll be like Hoth." »

More: The Take »baiting the copy desk, fall out boy, guinness book of world records, mtv, music, pete wentz

Overnights

3/26/08

9:45 AM

‘American Idol’: You're Old

Courtesy of Fox

Last night, American Idol finally gave the Beatles catalogue a rest and the top 10 contestants were once again forced to choose music fitting the show's usual theme: Songs You Used to Like Before They Were Performed by American Idol Contestants. Each singer picked a track released the year he or she was born and, sadly, all of them were born way after you were.

Plus: Who are the terrorists voting for? »

More: Overnights »american idol, tv

The Industry

3/26/08

9:00 AM

Shekhar Kapur to Direct Anthony Minghella's New York Movie

Photos: Getty Images

Minghella, New York Loves You: Shekhar Kapur, best known for directing the Elizabeth movies, will direct Anthony Minghella's final screenplay — a segment from the upcoming short film collection New York, I Love You. Kapur discusses his thoughts on Minghella in a blog entry, his second-most-touching post after February's "renting out your body for sex; should it be legal?" [HR]

Elizabeth W. Banks: Now that she's made a porno in Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Elizabeth Banks has more time to focus on what's important: the White House. As Laura Bush, she joins Josh Brolin in Oliver Stone's George Bush biopic, W. To answer your questions: Yes, it will be controversial, and yes, it will be 45 minutes too long. [HR]

Rice Seeing Ghosts: ~~It's official: Two-time Tony winner Tim Rice will be the lyricist for Andrew Lloyd Webber's upcoming sequel to Phantom of the Opera.~~ Update: Apparently Liz Smith might be unreliable! Playbill reports that Andrew Lloyd Webber says this is news to him. Glenn Slater is the lyricist instead. This is true: The music suffered a minor setback last summer when Lloyd Webber's cat "got into the grand piano" and "destroyed the entire score for the new Phantom in one fell swoop." You may remember when his cat tried to make up for it. [Variety, Playbill]

Prime Time Feud: Not everyone is gobbling up pilots now that the strike is over, as NBC has fast-tracked Family Feud: Celebrity Edition to premiere as early as this summer. Producers are mum, but stars from your favorite NBC shows could compete in what amounts to free publicity, an opportunity Ben Silverman is privately calling a "cross-promotional bag of dicks." That's an industry term, baby. [Variety]

Julie Benz branches out. »

More: The Industry »andrew lloyd webber, anthony minghella, bob newhart, elizabeth banks, family feud: celebrity edition, hallmark channel, herb's murders, josh brolin, julie benz, nbc, new york i love you, oliver stone, saw v, shekhar kapur, the phantom of the opera 2, tim rice, w

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Art Candy: One new artwork, every day.

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The Industry: The morning trade news roundup.

Kudos: Awards news, buzz, and predictions.

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Overnights: Recaps of TV shows.

Right-Click: The hottest new MP3s.

Trailer Mix: Movie trailers reviewed.

Tube Junkie: Nuggets from the online video archives.

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