Film 250 keeps producing better and better films. Here you can see "A Day in My Life" winner of Queen's Next Generation Film Festival's Best 250 Film award.



Well done!

Unfortunately, I missed the Golden Globes this year. I was mostly upset that I missed the hilarious Ricky Gervais hosting the event. I caught up on most of the events through various gossip blogs and one of the weirdest videos I came across was the award for Best Actor in a Dramatic TV Series. The notable nominees were Hugh Laurie of "House," Bill Paxton for "Big Love" and Michael C. Hall for "Dexter." Fans of the show "Dexter" or anyone who follows Perez Hilton knows that it was recently revealed that Michael C. Hall has cancer.

Hall ended up beating out Laurie and Paxton for the award, but what was most notable about his win was the rather long shot of Bill Paxton's reaction to this win. An uproar among "Dexter" fans and viewers of the clip spread as what the clip apparently showed was Bill Paxton as he appeared to say something like "cancer ward," "cancer scarf," or "cancer ward," alluding to some political or sympathetic reason behind Hall's win.

I have not seen "Dexter" but I have heard that Halls' win was not a long shot by any means. What has happened with the capturing of television programs and subsequent upload to the internet is the ability of the average viewer to analyse the smallest detail on repeat, similar to the introduction of the VHS tape which viewers could rewind, pause and watch in slow motion in their own homes. This new freedom lead to many urban legends like the "Suicidal Munchkin" myth of The Wizard of Oz. (A little person on set was spurned by his lover and in some versions by Judy Garland, and his act of hanging himself is visible in the finished film).

Upon viewing the footage of Bill Paxton, the most realistic explanation was contributed by a youtuber who proposed Paxton said "I knew he was going to beat me. I got beat by Dexter." Skip ahead to see for yourself to :40. I'm going to give Paxton the benefit of the doubt and file this with people being overly analytical with their new access to media.

(P.S. Suicidal Munchkin Myth)

Photo from Netmen via Flickr

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"What is a meme?" you ask! Ah yes, the meme. Well, the more scientific definition is

"an idea, belief or belief system, or pattern of behavior that spreads throughout a culture either vertically by cultural inheritance (as by parents to children) or horizontally by cultural acquisition (as by peers, information media, and entertainment media)"

Basically, it's a socio-cultural equivalent of genes. In more common terms, a meme is an item of pop culture propogated via word of mouth. Usually some sort of news, video, website or phrase that spreads across the internet via YouTube and blogs.

Meme videos on YouTube often reach millions of views and are of no intrinsic creativity, but something about them is contagious enough for people to send the video to their friends. The videos become famous for being famous. Most young people will probably recognize the likes of Rick Roll, lolcats, All Your Base, Star Wars Kid, Chocolate Rain, Sneezing Baby Panda and many others. These videos and websites in themselves are ridiculous, but for some reason vastly entertaining.

Some of the latest memes have risen out of pop culture and news including "Imma Let You Finish," stemming from Kanye West's interruption of Taylor Swift at the VMA's; and "Balloon Boy" from the Balloon Boy Hoax. To become a meme is a great badge of honour despite possible embarrassment. The Star Wars Kid's family filed a $250,000 lawsuit against the students who distributed the original video. However, the father of "David After the Dentist" has said he has no regrets about filming his son under the influence of nitrous oxide after a trip to the dentist. The video has even been mashed-up with Christian Bale's on-set meltdown and it remains one of my favourites.

The meme is the new internet superstar status to aim for and there's no telling who the next meme could be kittens, balloons, badgers, who knows!? The wide array and randomness of these phenomenons just shows the variety of human interest, or the low standards of entertainment created by the over saturation of YouTube.

See how these advertisers appeal to the internet audience by adapting memes to their commercial. I have no idea what this commercial is for, but I still love it.



Update: Com Hem is a Swedish based Internet/Cable provider


Photo via sororityintern

A couple of weeks ago I saw a preview clip of a film starring Jessica Alba and Casey Affleck. As much as I dislike Jessica Alba, I watched the clip to see Casey Affleck. The clip was disturbing to say the least as Affleck started to sexually assault Alba while beating her with a belt and Alba started to act as if she enjoyed it. The mix of the sexual and the violent was shocking in its blunt portrayal. The film, The Killer Inside Me, recently premiered at the Sundance Film Fest and it appears that the film was so violent, that that Alba herself walked out during the screening. She was also absent from the Q&A period following the film.

Alba was not the only audience member to walk out of the film, many others left halfway through as well because of the graphic violence. Canoe.ca reports

Director Michael Winterbottom was left to defend the extreme content after an outraged woman in the audience berated Sundance for even showing it. “When you read the book, it’s incredibly shocking,” Winterbottom said. “But the violence is supposed to be horrible.”

The portrayal of violence in North American films is often excused with the claim that it is intended to shock. Cronenberg's A History of Violence showed how a violent past can come back to haunt a peaceful family and Tarantino is known for his graphically violent films that are meant as commentary on cinematic violence.

It is strange to me that in North America, the use of violence hardly ever merits an R or NC-17 rating and it is usually sexual imagery that causes a film to garner such a rating. The summer smash hit The Hangover features a slideshow of wild photos during the closing credits, one of which shows an actor thoroughly exposed in an elevator. A fake penis was apparently used to create the photo as to show an erect penis on film will instantly earn a film an NC-17 rating.

This is so ridiculous in my mind because the female body has been so ultimately exposed on screen yet a male cannot be shown in this manner because it is in some way inappropriate? We have seen Jim Caviezel bloodied, beaten, whipped and crucified in Passion of the Christ but an erect penis is the ultimate offensive image?

I think this all links back to Richard Dyer's theory of the phallus. He proposes that the phallus is so mysterious and powerful, that even the penis itself cannot live up to the hype. More or less, we cannot view the erect penis because it will be disappointing. This obsession with the phallus has dictated that something that is completely natural to the human body is more offensive than watching people being decapitated, microwaved, and eaten.

A strange world we live in.

Photo via Imdb

Photographs used to be taken for the preservation of memory. When the technology became available for the average family, parents captured precious moments to be looked at years later with nostalgia. Baby books were filled with every important milestone in the life of a child, every year a school photograph would show the steady progression of years and newlyweds would spend a large portion of their budget on hiring a photographer to capture that special day.

Now digital cameras are available to everyone and photos seem to have lost some of their magic. Instead of waiting until a roll of film was developed and returned to see what moments were captured, we just delete the unflattering photos with the push of a button. With no limit of a roll of film, we aren't selective about what we photograph with a drunken evening somehow meriting over two hundred photos. Not that this isn't also a plus, it is less expensive not having to buy roll after roll of film and you only need to print whichever photos you like. But if we're taking pictures of every single moment of the night, how do we know which ones were worth remembering in the first place?

So, how do we revive this once meaningful ability to capture a moment in time?

The photobomb.

This method of "bombing" photos and hijacking the focus allows for some randomness and spontaneity to be found in photographs. Girls at a bar trying to find that perfect pose will flip through their photos the next day to find that someone has unexpectedly posed behind them.

Perhaps the existence of photobombs will teach people to be more selective and cautious with their cameras, or it will give people a bit more surprise the morning after when they upload their photos to Facebook. The photos also make for great entertainment along the same veins as People of Walmart and Fail Blog; one can gain internet notoriety for a particularly awesome bomb. But one things for sure, of all the photos taken in a night, a good photobomb will definitely be a keeper. Just ask Taylor Swift.

For some great bombs, check out This is Photobomb or this list of Celebrity Photobombs.

Photo via This is Photobomb

I don't talk to my parents about commercials anymore because they mute them or skip them with PVR, so I'll just blog about them instead. My parents hate commercials, but I find a lot of them amusing. One of my favourite commercials is for Multigrain Cheerios that features a man asking his wife why she's eating multigrain Cheerios. He asks if she's trying to watch her weight which, of course, creates some mild animosity during the 30 second tv spot. The commercial ends with the exchange

"What else does the box say?"
"The box says 'Shut up, Steve.'"

If you're like me, you saw this commercial in its original form with two British actors playing the couple. It was perfect, the couple were adorable and the wife's dry, stoic reaction was so hilarious and, in the end, the couple did not seem sincerely mad at each other.

Some time later, I ended up seeing the same commercial, or so I thought! Instead of my lovable limeys bickering over breakfast, I listened in shock to two American voices coming out of their mouths. That was the only difference save for an apparent photoshop of an American version of the Cheerios box. Now, I ask those of you who have seen this commercial, WHY?!

With the two American voices the dialogue seems rushed and the wife looks like a total...um...unlikeable lady. And with such little difference in the two versions, one wonders why they bothered to dub it at all? I wonder if they liked the dialogue but thought it wouldn't be as accepted in America because of the British actors. Rather than shoot their own version, they saved money and just had it dubbed.

What is also strange is that both commercials seem to be running at the same time. I believe that I saw the British version on a Canadian channel and the Americanized version on FOX. So are American viewers so xenophobic that they wouldn't buy Cheerios from the Brits? Or were the advertisers just too lazy to shoot their own version?

You be the judge. Enjoy the American version and what I can find of the UK version.






Photo via Jamie McKerral on Flickr

Recently, a blog was posted about blogger ShayCarl. Another blogger who ranks among the most subscribed channels is the funny, filthy, oh-so-clever, Bo Burnham. Bo has captured the subscription of many-a YouTuber with his musical comedy that satirizes homophobia and hip hop. He raps about how his family thinks he's gay and sings about a rehab for fictional characters where the Easter Bunny is a crack addict. He was invited to be a part of YouTube Live where he performed "Welcome to YouTube," a song that simultaneously praises the site's availability to the masses and criticizes the over-saturation of meaningless videos.

Bo jumped from the computer screen to the big screen when he was cast in Judd Apatow's latest comedy Funny People. Though his part was small, he is currently working on a film project which Apatow is tailoring for Burnham specifically. So to all the people *coughDerekcough* who doubt the power of YouTube, Bo Burnham is one example of how videos of your average teenager singing in his bedroom can catch the eye of big shot movie directors.

Bo Burnham, with his performance on Comedy Central Presents, has become the youngest performer to ever appear on the program and has also appeared on all three screens. The availability of the internet as a medium for all to use allows for anyone to speak out and be noticed. As Bo says

YouTube is place for people to share their ideas. If by 'people' you mean '13-year-old girls' and by 'ideas' you mean 'how they love the Jonas Brothers.' I'm just kidding but let's honest that's a hefty majority.

All at once Bo gives thanks to and skewers the medium which brought him relative fame and fortune.

Enjoy Bo's performance at YouTube Live, it's the cleanest of his songs that I could find! Also, see his performance in Funny People.