Anyone want to help me shoot a depressing documentary on foreclosure, the housing crisis and the collapse of the nouveau riche debt-ridden American dream this coming spring/summer? Some camera/sound help would be nice. C’mon, kids, road trip!!
I don’t know why everyone is so into the Mighty Boosh when they could be watching Time Trumpet.
Horrifying commercial #4,296.
The Animation Show #4 is coming! (It’ll hit the Bay Area this Friday, at the Lumiere in San Francisco, and the Shattuck Cinemas in Berkeley).
I remember seeing the very first Animation Show debut in Campbell Hall (in 2003? that era is a bit hazy). Don H. and the other UCSB alums who did his voiceovers gave a great intro and took questions afterwards. (I still have my Animation Show T-shirt from that year’s Comic-Con!)
It was happier times, I guess — ’cause now Don Hertzfeldt isn’t associated with the show he co-founded, like, at all. From his Bitter Films blog, in March:
last week i decided it was time for me to part ways with the animation show. it’s been five years and three tours and some good memories. they have a new tour rolling through theaters this summer and i don’t know what will be in it but i encourage you to go check it out
The show is now entirely curated by Mike Judge. And, uh, you know how I feel about that dude.
Mostly I’m just annoyed that I’ll have to pay two (2!!) admission fees to see both AS#4 and Hertzfeldt’s upcoming i am so proud of you, the follow-up to AS#3’s everything will be ok. Disappointing all around.
I guess I’m not the only one annoyed by Adrian Grenier. It seems Hollywood is mounting a multi-pronged anti-green campaign at this very moment…
“Lionsgate has acquired worldwide rights to ‘Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty,’ a spec script by first-time screenwriter Adam Sachs,” who writes for the Harvard Lampoon. The film follows “a lonely reporter and an outspoken teen” through their awkward friendship, at the end of which the teen becomes a hero by standing up to the SHAC “terrorists” to save an animal testing lab. (Because, yes, don’t worry, Sachs specifically assures us they’ll be depicted as “terrorists.” What are they teaching the kids up at Harvard these days?)
Next up is another comedy featuring some of my favorite “terrorists”: Mike Judge’s new animated series for ABC, “The Goodes,” about a family of vegans who mean well but fall into a lot of the usual guilt-laden traps. Of course the frustrating thing is that vegans are a perfect target for great, slightly nuanced comedy (Judge, of course, being known for his nuance…). To be fair, I don’t think he means to villainize veganism with the show — just trivialize it.
But any publicity is good publicity…? Veganism is going mainstream!! Never thought I’d say it, but, um, thanks, Oprah.
“These are your own natural curves that are still there when your clothes come off.”
Turning off the television.
Lindsay Robertson at Videogum brings extremely important news: Greg Pheasant, the sometimes-loveable, mostly-hateable inexplicably scab-faced, dirt-biking chicken-decapitating teen bully from last fall’s controversial Kid Nation, got a haircut (!!), and now he’s looking to make some extra scratch by selling his greasy locks on eBay to fund a trip to Australia. From the looks of his obsessively repetitive MySpace comments, there will be fierce competition. Maybe he could turn this into a side business like Jared’s souvenir Bonanza necklaces.
Either way, I’m glad to see Greg is still making himself relevant! I don’t know why there wasn’t more sustained hype around this show. Despite the Double Dare challenges, it was a cute and sincere portrait of Gen-Y middle America (there were noticeably few city folk).
And the drama! Who wants to watch the boring Hills when there are 12-year-olds running from dust storms and burning themselves with hot oil? CBS could probably charge another batch of kids for the New Mexico faux ghost town ‘Nation experience as a summer camp; I assume that would get them around at least some child labor laws…
Anyway. I agree with Lindsay: I’d love to see where these kids end up in a few years with some reunion specials. (I’m pessimistically assuming that is as close as we’ll get to a Jared Nation spin-off.)