Category: People

Leslie Nielsen: making unfunny funny

Posted on

Yesterday, Leslie Nielson died at the age of 84. He was a very unique comedian. He’s undoubtably best remembered for his Airplane! and Naked Guns roles. He used that fame to do a bunch of other films but nothing beat Lt. Frank Drebin from Police Squad.  His performance in the first Naked Gun was probably my earliest memory of laughing uncontrollably in a movie theater.  I was unable to contain myself.

There’s a good story of when Leslie hosted SNL back in 1989. I’ll quote NPR who wrote about it:

In the monologue, Leslie explained that he didn’t understand why he had been asked to host a comedy show, because he was neither a comedian nor a comic. A comedian, he explained, was someone who says funny things. A comic was someone who says things in a funny way.

Nielsen, on the other hand, was someone who said unfunny things in an unfunny way, and for some reason, people laughed. To demonstrate this, he delivered an innocuous line – something along the lines of “Mr. Jones, sit down, I’d like to talk to you about your son” – twice. The first time, he said it as though he were in a drama, and the response was muted.

Then he told us that he was going to say the exact same unfunny line as Lt. Frank Drebin, in an unfunny way, and he did exactly that, and the audience exploded. It wasn’t just indulging him as prompted, either. Without actually tilting his delivery in that direction, Nielsen made it genuinely funny.

I couldn’t find the YouTube clip for this but it shows exactly why he’s a master at what he does and it makes you appreciate his craft. Saying unfunny things in an unfunny manner and magically having the result be funny is an incredibly hard trick. And nobody ever did it better.

Greatest Proposal Ever

Posted on

Here is a guy by the name of Corey Goldfeder who used Back to the Future to propose to his girlfriend in one of the most creative and unique ever imagined.

Goldfeder’s plan was pretty intricate. First, he spent 15 hours using a digital camera, a make-shift green screen and a 30-day free trial of Pinnacle Studio software to edit himself into Back to the Future as Marty during a scene opposite Doc Brown. He then spent a few minutes talking to Doc, as himself, about whether or not he should propose, cleverly working Doc’s real responses from the movie into their conversation.  That would have been enough for most people.

But then Corey continued. He then convinced his girlfriend that there was a Michael J. Fox retrospective taking place at a theater downtown where they were screening Back to the Future. In cahoots with the theater, they put up signage out front making it look like the event and screening were indeed real, and Goldfeder snagged about 20 friends to show up as audience members. He then showed up with his gal, the lights went down, Back to the Future began as planned, and then when they got to the selected scene Marty McFly was instantly replaced by Corey Goldfeder, who, after a little chit chat with Doc, turned it over to himself to do the actual proposal. And of course she said yes.

The video is private right now for some reason, but you can watch part of it on Fox News (fast forward to 1:35):

This is incredible.  Not only for the amount of time but for the subject matter too.  Back To The Future is one of the all time classics.  It’s great.  I would love to somehow incorporate it into my wedding.  Here’s a pic of the couple:

Why Rocky, The Hurt Locker, and Liz are Losers

Posted on

My sister is a smart lovable gal.  Sometimes she is wrong and she hates it when people point this out to her.   She responded to my recent Oscar predictions post with some interesting comments.  She said,

I won’t remember Avatar in ten years. Hell, I can barely remember it now; I had to go re-read a review to remind myself of what the actual plot was. I left Avatar thinking “Wow, you know, that looked really cool.” But Best Picture? Really? No.

and

I should note now that my brother compares the Oscar race between Avatar and Hurt Locker to the Star Wars vs. Rocky Oscar race for Best Picture, and where he comes down on the side of Star Wars on that one, I’m firmly in the Rocky camp.

Interesting comments.  But totally wrong. As an older brother, it is my duty to explain why.  Here we go:

Liz, first off I can see why you’d think this way.  You said you got sick from the 3D for Avatar and in your review you can’t even remember what the plot of Avatar was.  Well if you were so sick and you don’t know what the movie was about, you probably shouldn’t pick it for Best Picture.  But just realize that you’re in the minority and the rest of the country is quite aware of what occurred on the screen and loved it.  Maybe you should to rewatch in non-3D

Now about Rocky vs. Star Wars.  Have you seen the first Rocky lately?  The dialogue is atrocious. Rocky’s relationship with Adrian is one of the worst written and acted relationship in cinema.  It’s severely dated.

Star Wars is a different story altogether.  If you don’t think Star Wars was a seminal film in cinema history, you’re retarded.

Star Wars references are so deeply embedded in popular culture that you don’t even realize it.  You can’t even watch CNN now without them trying to copy many of the technological ideas that were first shown in a movie over 30 years old now (election hologram anyone?)  Everyday references to the main characters and themes of Star Wars are casually made. Darth Vader has become an iconic villain.  Phrases like “evil empire” and “may the force be with you” have become part of the popular lexicon in EVERY industry and culture.  Do you even remember what Apollo Creed’s nickname was?

Rocky is a good movie, but Star Wars was a good movie that changed cinema forever.  Almost all (or the majority) of science fiction films have been influenced by Star Wars and it basically created the modern-day blockbuster genre.  How many Rocky parodies are there?  Could you imagine a Spaceballs or Fanboys of Rocky?  No, the only thing keeping the Rocky films alive are Sly Stone’s attempt to remake the original time and time again.

I could go on and on about how Star Wars impacted both society and film but i think you get my point.  It was a major game-changer. This is why i compare it to Avatar.  While i don’t think Avatar will have the impact of Star Wars, i do believe it represents a large step-function in how films will be made going forward.  Major dramatic films are being made in 3D.  Future films will be made, realistically, without actors.  Think about that.  Major realistic, dramatic films without actors.  That’s what Avatar has introduced.

Let me just say that in 2007, NASA launched a space shuttle carrying a pair of Rocky’s shorts into space to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the film.  Wait, no, that’s a lie.  They didn’t.   What they DID do is launch the space shuttle with the original lightsaber on board.  It was the lightsaber that was used by Luke Skywalker. After spending two weeks in orbit, they brought the lightsaber back to Earth on November 7.  And you think this film, Star Wars, where they are doing event like this and making more references to over 30 years after the film was released shouldn’t win a “Best Picture” Oscar.  Really Liz?  Really?

LA, You’re Fired!

Posted on

The fires in LA are both incredible and sad. The sight of them is unlike anything i’ve seen. Take a look at this video that Toby put up (click on it to watch video):
Picture 3

It makes me reflect on my time here in LA.  As some of you know, i’m moving to Denver in the next few weeks.  I’m out of here. While i’m excited about moving closer to the mountains and friends, i’m sad to leave LA.  The past 17 months have been an interesting time. Some thoughts on LA:

  • The people are not as bad a place as people think.  Sure, there are some shitty people – and most of them work in “the industry” but if you avoid the industry and industry parties, then you really don’t run into these people that often.
  • Side note: it’s interesting moving from one town where “the industry” was the government to LA where it is the film business.  As i see it, these are the two largest growth business the US will have in the next 30 years (except maybe health care) or if not the largest grown maybe the largest export
  • LA is very entrepreneurial. However, the people i met here are quite different than the entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley.  Up there, a startup is typically an academic thought-based exploration.  Down here in LA, it’s much more about the hustle.  When i think about the two types of startups, i’ve found that  LA is more focused on making money and less on the ideas and philosophy behind the deals.
  • Nature, nature, nature.  It’s all around LA.  People talk about Colorado’s proximity to mountains and nature – well it’s right here too.  You’ve got beach, mountains, desert – all within 2 hours.  And it’s beautiful.  If you can see past the smog, you’ll see some amazingly beautiful scenery. I wish i had spent more time exploring
  • The beach is underrated.  There are lots of parts of LA.  You’ve got the Valley, Hollywood, West Hollywood, and Beverly Hills.  But what all of those don’t have is great weather year round and the beach.  The beach brings a calm to people’s attitude and a coolness to the air.  Both make a big difference day in and day out.
  • Related to the above post: Beach Cruisers. I’ve always loved biking but it wasn’t till i moved to the beach that i discovered the cruiser.  This has 3 key characteristics: (1) a big comfy seat, (2) a basket for carrying stuff, (3) handlebars angled up so you can sit straight up and not hunched over.  All of these dramatically change the bike riding experience so it can be done recreationally and comfortably .  I love my cruiser
  • Food: I love the Tacos.  Cactus Tacos, Dos Burritos, Loteria or all the others.  My taco standards have been raised forever.   I also love In-N-Out and ate there almost twice a month the entire time, as noted by JT and Jstreet and Nader.
  • Movie theaters. As i’ve written before, LA does movie theaters the right way.  This means that they are big comfy seats and that you can pick your seat before you arrive so you can get there 5 min before showtime and have a nice center seat.  Or you can see that there are no good seats and wait for another show.  Game changer
  • Dartmouth surely represents.  No matter what i wanted to do in LA, i found that there was a Dartmouth alum and friend who had figured it out and could take me along.  I was so fortunate to have soccer teammates, pong partners, business thinkers, rock band drummers, talent agents, concert goers and providers, and lots entrepreneurs all over the place.  They made LA an easily place to join and a hard place to leave.  I see lots of vacations back in my future.
  • The Garfields.  Todd and Julie were one of my highlights of LA.  I’m very fortunate to have roped them into many meals and movies.

Of all of these, i think i’ll miss the beach and the people around the beaches the most.  Waking up to salt water in the air and a cool breeze is amazing.

Santa Monica

Thank you LA, i’ll miss you.

500 Days of Summer

Posted on

500-days
Last month i saw the film 500 Days of Summer. I have a few thoughts about it:

  1. In the film, the main character is a guy who writes greeting cards. While this is his job, he’s actually an architect. When i heard this, the movie immediately became less original and uniquesomethingaboutmary_10

    to me. Being an architect is such a cliche now. Ever since Something About Mary it’s been used in every romantic-comedy around. I understand why. If you’re a woman, an architect embodies all the qualities you’d want in your man’s job: it’s creative, it’s independent, it’s the perfect mix between corporate and entrepreneur.

  2. You must quit your job to be happy. Such a load of crap. In modern movies there are really only four types of themes: (1) “Believe in yourself and you can do anything.” (2) “We are all alike underneath.” (3) “Love conquers all” (4) “Good people win.”  Almost all movies are one or more of these themes.  I was sort of bummed that this movie became a #1 (Believe in yourself) movie when he quit his job.  It just made the whole thing more cliche to me.  Hollywood loves this message and it’s all over the place – almost every tv show and movie is saying this.  I was hoping for more realism
  3. In real life, everyone knows the situation where there’s a couple where both people really like each other. They get along great and things seem fine. However, one person likes the other person way more. The other person is into the relationship, but not enough. They break up and people wonder why. This happens all the time. However, it never happens in movies. The only other movie i know of where this happens is Woody Allen‘s Annie Hall. I also think that just because this movie tackles this situation is why so many people see it as novel or unique.
  4. It’s amazing how good the guy from 3rd Rock From The Sun looks (Joseph Gordon-Levitt).  He was so nerdy in that show and he’s really pretty cool in this movie. I liked him a lot as an actor – even though i thought his character was a sap.  I also didn’t even recognize him as the doctor in GI Joe.

All in all, i really liked the movie and thought it was fresh and fun.  I also like the music in it.  It’s worth checking out

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Michael Jackson Thoughts

Posted on
Michael Jackson

As everyone knows, Michael Jackson died last Friday from heart complications in LA.  While i wasn’t shocked by his death, I was amazed by the reaction both by people and the media.  Some of my thoughts:

  1. First off, while it’s nice to see such happy thoughts and words coming out of the media and blogosphere, i can’t believe how everyone has sort of forgotten about the past 15 years of Michael Jackson. I mean, multiple child molestation charges with 13-year old boys.  Whatever the cause of the guilt, do you know anyone who would leave their 12 year old with him alone?
  2. Some Good Articles: There is a great recount of all those stories listed here in Vantity Fair and Ebert has posted a great article that weighs both his greatness and his fragility in a good article here called “The Boy Who Never Gave Up“
  3. Thinking about his legacy, he’s definitely one of the best performers of all time – his dancing and on-stage presence seems unparalleled.
  4. While Elvis brought in Rock n’ Roll, i feel that Michael Jackson brought in pop music.  He came to define the 80’s style while adding more production value to music.  To me, he invented the genre “pop”
  5. It’s interesting to see how people react once someone dies.  The immediately become forgiven and can easily take on legendary status.  While that’s ok, i wish more people who feel this way while the artist is alive.  Two months ago nobody was saying how influential MJ was. Then hie dies and everyone in the world starts blabbing off about how influential and transformative he was.  Was he awesome? Yes.  But why didn’t people post how awesome he was before? The same thing happened with Kurt Kobain, Johnny Cash, Elvis and others.  As Chuck Klosterman says (who is an expert on his subject having written Killing Yourself To Live), “You’ll hear nobody stating how influential Boy George is, but the minute he dies it’ll come out with how he was able to break down the gender barriers before anyone else”  And he’s right.  In death, people are no longer people, they become symbols.

Americans are Polygamists

Posted on

This is from my recent reading of the book Elsewhere USA.  In the book it describes that similar to the African areas of Mali and Malawi, America also practices a form of polygamy.  All thanks to the laws of economics and biology.

A the book describes, one of the best predictors of polygamy in a society is income inequality.  While America doesn’t approach at all those of some African villages, we are certainly number one in the Western world in income inequality.

As Elpolygamysewhere describes:

The linkage between economic inequality and polygamy is two-way – that is, polygamy both causes and is caused by inequality.  Let’s start with the basic fact that a man can produce thousands of offspring by spreading his seed while a woman is limited to around twelve or so.  But when women choose their mates, they are not just after who can provide good sperm; they also want to make sure that a would-be father both has enough resources to support a child and will, in fact, invest time and money in that child.

Confronted with a distribution of income in which the distinctions across potential suitors is not terribly great, a woman will still try to land the best catch, but she probably will not be willing to share her man.  If there are a thousand fish in the sea; it’s not worth it to take one half (or 1/3, or 1/4) of the resources of any given man.  Better to go down a notch and enjoy the complete attention, time and money of the next richest fellow.  However, sometimes the distinctions between men are so great as to alter the calculations.  If a few men control almost all of the wealth while the vast majority have very little to offer in terms of a stable source of income, then it may be worth it to be the 4th wife of the very rich man rather than the first and only of a very poor one.  At least you can guarantee your babies will eat well.

Now that the US income is becoming increasingly unequal, we’re becoming polygamists as well. Our version however are different than the African versions in these ways:

  1. Ours is not a static, mormon-type of polygamy but rather a dynamic version.  It’s better suited for a society with fluid status and class positions like ours
  2. Ours is a polyandrous society – meaning multiple husbands
  3. America’s polygamy is both a result and a cause of inequality

The first point called “dynamic polygamy” can also be called “serial monogamy”  It’s a semantic difference.  As the author says,

If “being married” means producing offspring and/or having ongoing mutual responsibilities, then when you get a divorce, you are not really pressing the erase button, you are just building another thatched hut across town where you may set up with another wife while still paying child support, alimony, or plain old respects to the first.  It doesn’t matter if the 2nd marriage started as an affair during the first, the end result from the point of view of family responsibilities is more or less the same: you have two wives (or husbands).

Our tendency to divorce is in many ways extremely similar to the form of polygamy that’s occurring in Africa.  This results in something interesting things in America.  For instance, many women today don’t get married at all as not all men have the means to support a family. It’s been calculated that there are now 60 eligible men for every 100 women.

Over the past 20 years, other things are happening in society.  According to the book, the concept of a “starter wife” is becoming more and more uncommon whereas dual-earner mairrages (both people earn high wages) dual-poor marraiges are rapidly increasing.  The rich are getting more rich and the poor are getting more poor (two low earning folks).

It’s interesting to think of divorce as a form of polygamy.  When you hear that – how does that make you feel?  Is it fair?

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Elsewhere USA is a good book

Posted on

A few months ago i read the book Elsewhere USA at danah boyd’s suggestion.  It didn’t disappoint.  While it wasn’t as good as last year’s Generation Me (which i couldn’t stop blogging about), it did have some good insights.

The point of the book is the strange paradox that is occuring in America.  People used to work and struggle so their kids wouldn’t have to.  Leiseure was something you attained at a certain income level.  Today however, this isn’t the case.  For the first time in history, the more we are paid, the more hours we work.  The rewards for working are so great they make the “opportunity cost” of not working all the more great.  The result is that there is no longer a leisure-class of elites. The rich are working harder than ever.  Now, leisure is something for the poor.  There is now a crazy measure of the income elasticity of leisure and this fundamentally changes how many of us (including me) live.   As it says in the book, elsewhere-usa-book

Obviously, this change has affected not just when we work, but also how we play, how we love, how we raise our children – how we live

Some interesting parts in the book are:

  1. There’s now a fear amoung the successful that their success isn’t geniune and an axiety that a person’s personal house of economic card is about to collapse. One interesting stat behind this is that while drinking has declined, adult use of other mind-altering substances such as Valium or marajuana has risen to the point where mature adults consume more than teenagers for the first time since these trends were tracked
  2. More and more, household income rising and falling has less to do with economic times but more about relationships.  About a quarter of American children experience two or more mother’s partners by the time they are fifteen. Over 8 percent experience three or more
  3. Similar to the African areas of Mali and Malawi, America also practices a form of polygamy.  Post coming on this soon….
  4. Religion and The Corporate man have been at odds.  A further description below:

In medieval Cathoic Europe, poverty was a virtue and to profit off one’s fellow man was considered evil.  The Protestant Reformation changed all that which led to one-on-one relationships to go and also spiritual insecurity.  This led to working harder and acculating lots of money. Success as salvation was a new incentive structure.  However, the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the trade unionism eclipsed the Protestant Work Ethic in the mid 1900’s.  There was a truce found between expansive corporate America and organzied labor such that a communitarian eithos could reign supreme.

The rift remained though as Protestants valued thrift over consumption, work over leisure, and meritocracy over social connections.  But large organizations like IBM and GM put a premium on teamwork, compromise and being a “company man.”

Today these have been resolved through the redefinition of: leisure is work and work is leisure. Consumption is investment (home equity loan is savings).  Social connectoins don’t indicate nepotism but rather social capital and entrepreneurial skill.  Loyalty is replaced by value (you show your value by calculated displays of disloyalty – displaying offers from competitors).

——-

While it doesn’t offer many solutions, the book is thought provoking and a good read.  I recommend you pick it up.

25 Random Things About Me

Posted on

I got tagged in Facebook to do one of these lists.  I really enjoyed reading some of my colleagues and some of my old friends from high school so i thought i’d put one together.

The rules are that once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged or however many you want. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

Here are my items:

1. I don’t like fruit (with the exception of apples) and i’m happy that my sister’s the same way. It makes me feel less strange.

2. I tend to get around. I’ve been to 49 states and hope to get to the final one, Mississippi, sometime soon.  Since college, I’ve lived in Virginia, New York, Washington DC, Boston (sort of), and now Los Angeles.

3. I have no toenails on my 2 little toes.

4. I was born in NY, then moved to CA, then moved to Texas before i finished my youth in Minnesota.

5. I grew up in Minnesota.  When i moved east in 1996, i felt like a Midwesterner.  I then lived on the east coast for 11 years.  When i moved to California last year, i felt like an Easterner.  After a few years here, who knows who i’ll be.

6. i’ve never broken a bone. I attribute this to my love of milk.

7. I love the extended Lewis Family clan and feel so fortunate that i have such great cousins, aunts and uncles.

8. When i was younger I used to dress up like a ninja and wonder around in the woods with my brother.

Continue reading “25 Random Things About Me” →

Recording Life

Posted on

I just read a great article by Clive Thompson called “Head for Detail” about Gordon Bell‘s latest experieement.  Please just read the first 2 paragraphs.  It’s about Gordon and how he is recording everything he’s doing (video, audio, emails, web, everything).  He’s been doing it for the past 14 years and is able to bring up almost eveyrthing.  Clive writes about Bell, saying:

He[Bell] had a tiny bug-eyed camera around his neck, and a small audio recorder at his elbow. As we chatted about various topics–Australian jazz musicians, his futuristic cell phone, the Seattle area’s gorgeous weather–Bell’s gear quietly logged my every gesture and all my blathering small talk, snapping a picture every 60 seconds. Back at his office, his computer had carefully archived every document related to me: all the email I’d sent him, copies of my articles he’d read, pages he’d surfed on my blog.

This really resonated with me as i am already trying to record my life. I have photos up on Flickr, i have my ideas going to my blog, i have my mundane thoughts going to Twitter, my videos going to YouTube, and my friend interactions recorded on Facebook.  I’m already on the web but just in the totality that Bell is.  Storage is getting cheaper and cheaper it’s gone from $233,000 for a gigabyte in 1980 to less than $1 today.  Soon there will be enough storage in your cell phone for your entire life to be stored.  I do this because i want to remember. I want my memories to be accesible all the time and reading the article made me realize how inefficent i’ve been in capturing them.

I really like articles like this becaues they make you think about where the world is going and wonder how human interactions and functions will change.  It touches on how humans will change when we no longer have to remember stuff.  I already don’t remember phone numbers beceuase of your cell phone. What if you don’t have to remember people’s names and interactions and you free you mind to be more creative.  Just imagine – that’s what i’m doing now….

Related articles:
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]