Alert your friends. Send out a mass text reading "LOL" — Laughs of Love, that is. Cheap Sox Improv Troupe and Major:Undecided Sketch Comedy band together this weekend to lead the second annual Laughs of Love (LOL) Comedy Festival in support of Seeds of Peace, a charity which brings teenagers from troubled regions of the world together to teach leadership and mediation skills.
At first glance, rapper Shwayze seems a lot like every other rapper to recently hit the club scene. The first single from his new album, "Let It Beat," is a pulsating, rhythmic wasteland of auto-tune and dirty lyrics. "Get U Home" features lyrics like "Take me in the bathroom/ Take my clothes off/ Make love to me up against a dirty wall" and paper-thin innuendos about the rapper's "handgun." But it's a mistake to judge the artist Shwayze as a whole or the entirety of his work by this single.
"Sesame Street" recently celebrated its 40th anniversary and The Daily Arts Department was stunned to realize just how old Big Bird, Burt, Ernie, Cookie Monster, Elmo and the rest of the gang are. That got us thinking: What other things have been gathering dust without us realizing it? 10. Rivers Cuomo: Mr. Cuomo (yes, "Mr.") is almost 40 and is far too old to wear tattered sweaters or Buddy Holly glasses. 9. Us: We're in our 20's now. When did that happen? Oh well, at least most of us are old enough to drink. 8. The Matrix: It seems like just yesterday that Neo had to decide to take either the red pill or the blue pill. It's been 10 years, though, and now he's probably deciding between Viagra and joint-pain relievers.
Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker," released last summer, started a growing buzz that she would be the fourth woman ever to be nominated for an Academy Award for Achievement in Direction. Jane Campion is garnering similar Oscar talk for her historical romance, "Bright Star" (2009) and Best Actress hopefuls Carey Mulligan and Meryl Streep were both featured in female-directed films by Lone Scherfig and Nora Ephron, respectively.
The third time is not necessarily the charm for Jared and Jerusha Hess, co-writers of "Napoleon Dynamite" (2004), "Nacho Libre" (2006) and now "Gentlemen Broncos" (2009). Fans of "Napoleon" in particular will be mildly disappointed with the duo's latest film, which utilizes the same awkward underdog equation that has come to define the Hesses' work, though "Broncos" introduces a few new, pleasant variables.
Jared Hess, co-writer and director of oddball comedies "Napoleon Dynamite" (2004) and "Nacho Libre" (2006), crafts movies of striking originality. His latest film, "Gentlemen Broncos" (2009), is an offbeat story about plagiarism that includes a sci-fi subplot, awkward romances and even more awkward bodily malfunctions. The Daily had a chance to sit down with Hess to hear his thoughts about the film as well as some hilarious behind-the-scene secrets. Question: So your first film, "Napoleon Dynamite," was a completely love-it-or-hate-it kind of movie. But at the "Gentlemen Broncos" screening last night, the audience was in stitches for a good portion of the evening. What do you think made this film so accessible compared to "Napoleon?" Jared Hess: I think a lot of it had to do with the main character. With Napoleon, a lot of people could not relate to him on any level and just thought that he was this obnoxious teenager. But with this film, I think the main character is maybe the most normal character ... and he's surrounded by a lot of really strange personalities and people. I think people could identify with him more and therefore it allowed them to laugh at things a little bit more. Q: Was that accessibility something you considered during your filming, or did it just work out that way? JH: Yeah, you know, we don't really think of it like who we're going to be alienating. When my wife and I are writing, we try to create something that she and I have always wanted to see before on-screen, and you kind of cross your fingers and hope that there are people out there like you. And "Napoleon" shows that there were, which is great. So "Broncos" was the next installment. Q: The film had a lot of gross-out body humor, but I think that the one scene that made the entire audience recoil was when the snake defecated all over Dusty's (Mike White) shoulder — what was that and how did you do that?
Emily Corbató recently stopped playing the piano professionally, swapping black and white keys for black and white photos. Plum Island, MA, the location of Corbató's studio, inspired her to take photographs of nature that she feels communicate her inner thoughts. She uses photography as her voice and what she has to say in "Absolution of the Wind" (1997-2009) is definitely worth listening to.
For those of you who also watch the Food Network on a far too regular basis, you probably will have noticed an ad crawler on the bottom of the screen this week for "Cook or Be Cooked," the newest video game from the Food Network. For those of you who watch "Down Home with the Neelys," you got to see a cooking competition between Pat and Gina on last Saturday's episode. Pat and his daughter Shelby made a tomato salad in the game, while Gina made the same dish in the kitchen to see who was faster, the gamers or the cook — Gina won. While this is all great cross-promotion for "Cook or Be Cooked," which was released on Nov. 3, it really got me thinking about whether or not food has a place in the gaming world.
When Detroit-native Linda (Lyndsay Allyn Cox) says, "to think that yesterday I was knee deep in snow, and today I'm in paradise," she doesn't realize that her paradise's inhabitants are on the brink of a collapse.
Some shows need to know when to quit. "CSI," while it has seen some creative resurgence this season, has suffered some hard blows since the departure of three of its main cast members. "Law & Order," once a shining beacon on the NBC schedule, is now barely pulling its weight on Friday nights after countless casting coups.
If you can navigate through the labyrinthine — though beautiful — halls of the Boston Public Library's central branch at Copley Square to one of the many main lobbies, you'll come upon the most recent installation of "Cool + Collected: Treasures of the Boston Public Library." It is a year-long exhibit that features some of the more unusual and rare pieces in the library's collection. This particular set of objects will be displayed until February 2010, when the last of three installments will be set up.
The events and circumstances that fall under the umbrella of popular culture have the ability to shine light on human opinion and emotion: How we react to certain scenarios we see in a television show, how we respond when particular buttons are pushed by events in a film or song lyrics, what we see of ourselves or others in a work of art. But what happens when feelings that should be kept in the dark are pushed into the light by cultural provocation?
The celebrity memoir is sometimes intriguing, often unnecessary and, in Tracy Morgan's case, a little premature.
A disclaimer at the beginning of the opening credits of this film says it all: "More of this is true than you'd believe." It is true that the American government set up a secret military unit to explore paranormal and psychic warfare techniques. It is also true that the soldiers in this group tried to kill goats just by staring at them. And it is precisely because of these unbelievable truths that "The Men Who Stare at Goats" succeeds as a comedic war film.
When he began teaching art history courses while completing his graduate studies at Columbia University in 1995, Frederick Ilchman quickly realized something.
Perhaps most famous for their roles as actors and musicians in the movie "Once" (2007), Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová have begun to expand their sound to a wide range of styles while still maintaining their band's heartfelt core of acoustic guitar, piano and perfectly matched harmonies. They've gone by many names ("Frames" among them), but the latest moniker for indie folk rockers Hansard and Irglová seems to have stuck: "Strict Joy" (2009), the second album released under the name The Swell Season, proves to be a satisfying follow-up to the duo's 2006's self-titled release.
"The League," a new semi-improvised, half-hour comedy on FX, is in some ways a perfect companion to its lead-in, the cult favorite "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." Both shows skirt the boundaries of political correctness and laud the rhythms and patterns of a boys' club. Though the titular league of "The League" is centered on fantasy football, the show works best when, like "Sunny," the gang is left to its own crude devices.
As Kenny (Michael Steven Costello), the physical embodiment of the archetypal Joe Six-pack, dangles a packet of Pop-Tarts in the air and whistles for his dog, Dyson (Craig Houk) gapes at him with unmitigated disgust. Adjusting the shoulder strap that holds his rifle close to his body, he disdainfully informs his longtime friend, "There's two ways to go through life, Kenny: first-class or with the dogs." Yet Zeitgeist Stage Company's presentation of "Lady," Craig Wright's powerful drama about friendship and politics, suggests that the walk of life is less often a forked, traversable path than it is a snarled labyrinth of choice and circumstance. The play centers on an annual hunting trip that three best friends have traditionally taken since boyhood. Set in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, this year's outing proves to be overshadowed by unprecedented, dark complications.
