Jay Mohr’s Gasping for Airtime: Two Years in the Trenches of Saturday Night Live is the second “uncensored” book I’ve read about SNL. (I read Live from New York about two years ago.) Mohr is on the radio pretty frequently here in LA and I really enjoy Last Comic Standing when I catch it. His breakout role was as evil sports agent Bob Sugar in Jerry Maguire, and he appeared in the cult classic, life-in-LA film Go. This book is about the two years he spent as a writer and featured player on SNL. Yes, as you’d expect, there are a boatload of funny stories about all the crazy behind-the-scenes antics of the cast and guest hosts. But the great part about it is the story of his personal life and his struggles with depression, anxiety, and fame. It’s a really fascinating read and I definitely recommend it.

So apparently there’s a whole series of these parodies, but I think “Hitler: Bloodthirsty Dictator, Die-hard Cowboys Fan” is the best. Sure, it’s no Planet Unicorn, but it’s definitely the funniest YouTubery I’ve seen this year.
<hat tip to Andy>

Are you wondering what media I consumed this weekend? I knew you were. And so I shall tell you.

• Heat ****
• Sopranos *****
• Oh the Glory of It All, by Sean Wilsey ****½
• Oceans 13 ***½
• John from Cincinnati ***½
• A Prairie Home Companion, featuring Martin Sheen, Randy Newman, and Paula Poundstone (live at The Greek) ******
• Saturday Night Live (rerun) ***½
• SNL Tribute: Chris Farley ****

A week or two ago I linked to a video clip my friend made: Casino Royale with Cheese, a seriously funny film about how James Bond would handle being paired with a really annoying partner. It’s a great little piece of web satire that’s now been nominated at the MTV Movie Awards! Go vote for it!

Great quote in an article at Gizmodo on the futility of enforcing copyright law:

According to blueprints from the Acme Company, the MPAA will next attempt to mount a large red rocket and light its fuse while aiming it at the place where the Malaysian movie pirates are eating strategically placed birdseed.

Casino Royale with Cheese

100 Movies, 100 Quotes, 100 Numbers — This is a really, really terrific example of YouTubery.

Is Spider-Man 3 the most expensive movie ever made?

Just how long, do you think, until OscarTorrents gets slammed by Hollywood? They’re making it a snap to download all of this year’s Oscar-nominated films. Stuck somewhere without internet access? There’s a company named FON that’s giving away wifi routers in the hopes of blanketing the country with free wireless internet access. Already own one of the DVDs? LifeHacker has instructions that show you how to load a DVD onto your video iPod. Hell, don’t stop there! Why not host your own radio show — for free, of course — to discuss the films? You could also write about them if you want. Then use some free software to convert your text to a PDF document. Welcome to 2007!

Now … where’s my damn jetpack?

When my mom was in college she had a part-time job as an usher at a movie theater. The only film shown the entire time she worked there was The Sound of Music. She must have seen it hundreds of times. I’ve caught pieces and bits of it over the years, but have never actually seen the whole thing. All I know is that it’s about a nanny and Nazis. Whatever. My mom always has had a soft spot for Julie Andrews, so it’s little surprise that one of my all-time favorite movies as a kid was Mary Poppins. I loved the singing. I loved the songs. I loved Dick Van Dyke as a chimney sweep. (I think there were penguins, too.)

This morning I found a link on TheBrad’s site to a story about Julie Andrews participating in a promotion for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. I mean, even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious, how great is is that the word they gave her was supercalifragilisticexpialidocious? (video)

Now this is just plain nifty marketing. From a post at meryl.net comes twenty movie scenes recreated using only office stationery It’s a game and you have to guess each one. I nabbed fifteen of them and am kicking myself for not getting four of the five I missed. Give it a go and let me know how you did.

During last night’s Sugar Bowl one of the announcers referenced Rudy, one of my all-time favorite movies. Notre Dame got trampled by LSU and they didn’t really deserve to be in the game, but everyone loves them anyway. I admit that as much as I wanted the Tigers to win — to cement how strong the SEC is — I was pulling for Charlie’s boys. There’s just something about the Irish. This morning at the gym I couldn’t stop thinking about what a great film Rudy is. And that made my computer-programming brain start trying to organize my favorite sports movies. So I did.

I’ll start with the Honorable Mentions and then count down to Number One.

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My friend Joy asked me if I’d seen The Shining, the classic Stephen King movie. I saw it years and years ago, on an ancient technology known as a “VCR”, if you can believe that. (I have read the book — an even more ancient technology — several times.) She asked me if I’d seen the trailer on YouTube. This is where it gets awesome. Check out this misleading trailer.

I love it! It’s an entirely new genre of web fun! Has anyone found any more of these?

Update:: Apparently I’m almost exactly one year late on this one.

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So I was reading a magazine this weekend and saw that Samsung has just released another slider type phone (1, 2). There are a ton of these style phones available and I keep wondering why. Every time a new one is released I hear nothing but bad feedback on how the slider system works; either they keep breaking or they’re just not as cool as the one from the Matrix. Gadget makers just keep producing new versions, though. Because everyone wants to be Neo.

A few weeks ago I had dinner with a really nifty guy — a professional boxer — who has a new slider phone. It was cool. I wanted it. Why? Because everyone wants to be Neo.

In case you’re wondering, you can buy the actual Matrix phone. You can probably even find a carrier that will service it. But why would you want it? Even if some company decided to take this body style and add all the new GPS and mp3 and camera features that every phone has now, who would want this brick? It’s huge! But I know some of you are going to click that link and buy it. Why? Because everyone wants to be Neo …

Also, make sure to read “What code DOESN’T do in real life (that it does in the movies)“.

Let me say one thing: I was fully prepared to be disappointed by Casino Royale. I haven’t seriously enjoyed a 007 movie since the Roger Moore days. I thought Pierce Brosnan was going to be the perfect Bond; he’s a terrific actor and I’ve loved him in everything else he’s done. I think he was a great choice, but the writing in Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough just didn’t do it for me, and I never even bothered to see Die Another Day. That should tell you something.

I’m a huge James Bond fan. When I was a kid my dad and I would frequently have 007 marathons and watch four or five movies at a time. We used to make compilation VHS tapes (with a TRS-80 connected to the VCR) and put our own graphics and songs on them. I used to spend hours analyzing the bad guys and writing my own spin-offs. I’ve probably seen Octopussy a hundred times. I wanted to be James Bond.

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