Friday, October 03, 2008

Friday Video Double Shot

Not one, but two videos today - I have a bunch of things I want to do later, so I'm getting one out of the way now for bandwidth's sake.

1) An American Carol - I wasn't sure what this movie was until Kim told me about it, and I have to agree, it looks extremely funny and much more interesting than Religulous, which attempts to use Borat humor and fails miserably.

Here's the trailer for An American Carol:



2) I was trying to come up with something to summarize the bailout that did pass today, and sometimes the radio just puts on a song that matches up pretty well. I should have thought of it sooner, since I got Get A Grip pretty soon after it came out.

Tell me what you think about your situation
Complication, aggravation is getting to you,yeah
If chicken little tells you that the sky is fallin'
And even if it wasn't would you still come crawlin' back again?
I bet you would my friend
Again and again and again and again


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm going to a screening of American Carol tonight. I have my doubts about it, but I will let you know if it's any good.

APOSEC72 said...

Definitely would like to know - I might want to get to it at some point.

From initial looks, I'd prefer this does well compared to W or Religulous.

Anonymous said...

Mike, have you seen Religulous? I'm guessing not.

So, how would you know that its humor fails?

Curious.

APOSEC72 said...

From the clips I've seen of it, it uses the exact same approach to "filmmaking" that Borat used...and got sued for, by a lot of people.

Of course, such controversy would probably add to the box office gross.

Of course, since I don't know who you are, I'm not really sure what your point of view is.

DG Dunford said...

Sorry about that. Dan Dunford here. Old school chum, not a troll.

My point of view is that, while Religulous and Borat share a director and style of filmmaking, Bill Maher and Borat are different. Maher is trying to be provocative as himself, while Borat was Sacha Baron Cohen taking the piss. I love SBC, Maher not so much, and as a comedy nerd (politics aside), I have difficulty with the two being lumped together.

As a liberal (it's always been part of the deal with me), I don't think that "An American Carol" is going to be very funny to me. That being said, I refuse to pass judgement on its humor until I sit through it - I try to (as much as I can) see past the political leanings of the makers and look for the actual funny involved...if it does indeed exist.

For example, I don't hate Larry The Cable Guy for being conservative. I hate him because his approach to telling jokes is extremely lazy, and most of his material comes from e-mail forwards and similar sources...

Hope you're well, sir.

APOSEC72 said...

However, one big difference between the two movies is that Borat was aiming to be a comedy, whereas Religulous does not appear to aim to be a comedy. They seem to be different "products" that are being marketed the same way.

Besides, how can you not like hearing "Git-R-Done" 38 times during one show? :)

My point is, Borat was going for the funny, but Religulous appears to be striving for something else, so that type of filmmaking goes from questionably dishonest to completely dishonest.

DG Dunford said...

I think I hear what you're saying. But...Bill Maher is up front about his distaste for religion. So, what's dishonest about making a movie that explores that? From the trailer, it seems like he's interviewing folks, but there doesn't SEEM to be trickery on the Borat level where there's a different identity being used to dupe people. I don't know. But what's wrong with Bill Maher making a movie where he's upfront about his viewpoint and even trying to get people to understand his point of view? He's not pretending to be/believe anything beyond himself. That kind of position is many things, and Bill Maher is many things himself - but I don't think he's necessarily being dishonest per se.

I don't particularly care for Bill Maher, to be honest. I find him smarmy and generally unlikeable. But I'm intrigued by the movie enough to check it out before passing judgement on it.

My take on it is that it's being marketed as a documentary by a comedian, which leads people to believe "funny implications," you know? Many times marketing doesn't match up with the movie itself.