Things are calming down in the workload/social-commitment arena and, since the entertainment industry is starting to produce worthy art once again--with some notable exceptions--it's time, once again, for a "Kinda Obsessed." Apologies in advance to those of you who don't like Winona Ryder having relations with a ventriloquist's dummy.
THE TEN
OK, I’ll admit: I’m not someone who “gets” Wet Hot American Summer. I’ve still seen it four times because nearly all of my friends find it to be the pinnacle of hilarity—and I’m ok with that—but its jokes just fly at you from nowhere and while some of them are really very funny, I ended up wishing they had more of a framework in which to exist. Well, my wishes have come true; The Ten is has all the same players, all the same humor (or, in my opinion, it’s even funnier), and it stitches it together in a way that feels completely satisfying. (The biblical laws are surprisingly great comic material.) The Ten is really ten short films, each chronicling the breaking of a commandment, but the storylines interweave and the result is a series of hilarious and creative cautionary tales. “Thou Shalt Not Envy Thy Neighbor” becomes a contest between suburban homeowners on who can buy the most CAT-SCAN machines. Gretchen Mol yells out the name of a former (Christlike) lover while with her husband in “Thou Shalt Not Take the Lord’s Name In Vain.” And Winona Ryder laughs at herself by starring in the “Thou Shalt Not Steal” segment. Is it too oddly appropriate that all David Wain’s crew needed for me to find them funny was a healthy dose of the Bible?
VIRGINIA HORSEN'S HOT AIR BALLOON RIDES
I really wanted to embed this video but, alas, it’s not yet available on the (slow-loading and glitchy) nbc.com site. Last week saw SNL return to fine
form with esteemed alum Tina Fey host. The best sketch of the episode had to be local ad “Virginia Horsen’s Hot Air Balloon Rides.” From the music, to the pantsuit, to Kristen Wiig’s Emmy-worthy delivery, it was roll-on-the-floor funny. Click the link to check it out on Defamer, a page I’ve visited about 20 times in the last week just to watch this video. By the way, Defamer—like my friend Austin—recommends “Garfield Without Garfield,” and so do I. When you take the titular cat out of his strip, it becomes a sad look at a man suffering schizophrenic delusions and self-esteem issues.
"AMERYKAHN PROMISE" BY ERYKAH BADU
While Erykah Badu was growing out her afro, I’m guessing she listened to a lot of Curtis Mayfield. Her new album has a great mixture of political tubthumping and inventive production—it’s the kind of album that used to occur when a 60’s singer-songwriter was introduced to 70’s synthesizers. The opening track, though, is the aural highlight, which is incredible considering that it’s barely a song. Don’t get me wrong, it has a solid beat and blasting horns, but it’s more of a stream-of-consciousness love letter supplemented with spoken, frustrated statements from a random cast of cartoon-voiced characters. Most artists would let it slip into something quite self-serving and annoying, but Badu manages to keep it exciting.
THE TEN
OK, I’ll admit: I’m not someone who “gets” Wet Hot American Summer. I’ve still seen it four times because nearly all of my friends find it to be the pinnacle of hilarity—and I’m ok with that—but its jokes just fly at you from nowhere and while some of them are really very funny, I ended up wishing they had more of a framework in which to exist. Well, my wishes have come true; The Ten is has all the same players, all the same humor (or, in my opinion, it’s even funnier), and it stitches it together in a way that feels completely satisfying. (The biblical laws are surprisingly great comic material.) The Ten is really ten short films, each chronicling the breaking of a commandment, but the storylines interweave and the result is a series of hilarious and creative cautionary tales. “Thou Shalt Not Envy Thy Neighbor” becomes a contest between suburban homeowners on who can buy the most CAT-SCAN machines. Gretchen Mol yells out the name of a former (Christlike) lover while with her husband in “Thou Shalt Not Take the Lord’s Name In Vain.” And Winona Ryder laughs at herself by starring in the “Thou Shalt Not Steal” segment. Is it too oddly appropriate that all David Wain’s crew needed for me to find them funny was a healthy dose of the Bible?
VIRGINIA HORSEN'S HOT AIR BALLOON RIDES
I really wanted to embed this video but, alas, it’s not yet available on the (slow-loading and glitchy) nbc.com site. Last week saw SNL return to fine
form with esteemed alum Tina Fey host. The best sketch of the episode had to be local ad “Virginia Horsen’s Hot Air Balloon Rides.” From the music, to the pantsuit, to Kristen Wiig’s Emmy-worthy delivery, it was roll-on-the-floor funny. Click the link to check it out on Defamer, a page I’ve visited about 20 times in the last week just to watch this video. By the way, Defamer—like my friend Austin—recommends “Garfield Without Garfield,” and so do I. When you take the titular cat out of his strip, it becomes a sad look at a man suffering schizophrenic delusions and self-esteem issues."AMERYKAHN PROMISE" BY ERYKAH BADU
While Erykah Badu was growing out her afro, I’m guessing she listened to a lot of Curtis Mayfield. Her new album has a great mixture of political tubthumping and inventive production—it’s the kind of album that used to occur when a 60’s singer-songwriter was introduced to 70’s synthesizers. The opening track, though, is the aural highlight, which is incredible considering that it’s barely a song. Don’t get me wrong, it has a solid beat and blasting horns, but it’s more of a stream-of-consciousness love letter supplemented with spoken, frustrated statements from a random cast of cartoon-voiced characters. Most artists would let it slip into something quite self-serving and annoying, but Badu manages to keep it exciting.
2 comments:
I thought The Ten was a REALLY interesting and different approach to a movie. I really liked that about it. I LOVE Paul Rudd, and that black room with the ten commandments was very stylistically cool. It was like a play, with your host, Paul Rudd.
But then some of the sketches/short sections - whatever they're called - kinda fell short. I wish they had been better connected. BUT the MRI machine neighbor one was hilarious - that made the movie for me.
Yeah, the lying rhino wasn't great. And the prison-bitch one was kind of a one-note joke that just kept going on and on. But I think more of them worked than didn't. And I definitely almost fell out my chair laughing a few times.
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