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It’s no secret I love fake movie trailers. Well this morning I stumbled upon the motherload: TrailerSpy’s Top 15 Trailer Remixes of All-Time.
Here’s my favorite find of the bunch: Glen & Gary & Glen & Ross (Glengary Glen Ross as an inspirational movie about four men overcomming Tourette’s Syndrome.) (very NSFW)
Two thumbs up…way the fuck up.
Behold the (R-rated) trailer for Knocked Up, the new movie from 40 Year-Old Virgin writer/director Judd Apatow. It comes out June 1st, and if the trailer is any indication it will be the funniest movie of the year. Here’s the trailer (though it’s R-rated and NSFW):
Will Ferrell, Jack Black, and John C. Reilly lament the difficulties of being a comedian on Oscar night:
February 26th is Johnny Cash’s birthday and he would have been 75 this year. I’m sure you all have plans to celebrate it, but for those who need some ideas here are 10 ways to make sure you do it up right: Read the rest of this entry »
They’re from the same country, but Peter Björn and John ain’t ABBA. What are they? I think Noel Murray of The Onion AV Club said it best when he described them as quasi-retro folk-rockers. They seem retro, but they’re thoroughly modern. They’re folky, but they kind of rock. They’re in between a lot of things, but difficult to pin down into any one.
PB&J has been around for a while (since 1999), and released a few albums (three to be exact), but it was with their latest offering (Writer’s Block) they really honed in on their sound. Most of the tracks are a sparse mix of electronic and acoustic instruments with catchy melodies and strong hooks.
Here’s a couple samples:
Young Folks
This song is like mental velcro; I dare you to listen to it an not get the whistling part stuck in your head. Featuring Victoria Bergsman.
Lets Call It Off
I wish I knew how they got the lead guitar sound in this. It’s fantastic.
Ah, back when Saturday Night Live was funny…
Remember, Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball.
What would happen in Mario and Luigi left their little mushroom world and stumbled into Vice City (home of Grand Theft Auto)? This video from Robot Chicken answers the question…with hilarity!
Wow. Just wow. I hope for this guy’s sake that his nuts are in a vice, because otherwise he has squeakiest voice I’ve ever heard on a man. Part of me wants people to stop buying from companies that make these terrible commercials so they would just go away. But then I think, would a life without terrible commercials be a life worth living? I say no! So keep ‘em coming!
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG
It’s called Recording the Beatles. And it looks like pretty much the most awesome book ever written. Over at BoingBoing it’s hyped as:
Insanely exhaustive documenting of EVERYTHING related to the Beatles recording sessions, including beautiful, almost-pornographic photos of every mixing board, mic, tape deck, etc. ever used in a Beatles session.
This seems to be a must-have for any Beatles fan or gearhead. Or maybe just us music dorks. Either way I ordered mine today.
It’s no secret to anyone that knows me that I love spicy food. The hotter the better. My burritos cause misery. My chili causes casualties. I even ate a raw habanero one time (but that’s a whole other story…). So I was very excited to hear that New Mexico State University has discovered the hottest chili pepper in the world: The Bhut Jolokia. Look at the thing. It just looks evil. All red and wrinkled like Satan’s nutsack.
For those of you not into the sado-masochistic world of spicy food, heat is measured in something called Scoville Units. It’s a measure of the amount of the heat-causing compound capsaicin. As a matter of comparison, green bell peppers rate a big fat 0 Scoville Units. Jalapenos come in between 2,500 and 8,000. Habaneros get up to 350,000. These Bhut Jolokias got a 1,001,304. Yep you read that right. On a different scale, jalapenos make you say “Huh, that was kind of spicy”. Habeneros make you say “holy fucking shit, I’m retarded for putting that in my mouth.” So I’m imagining Bhut Jolokias make you pass out. Bring it on! Can’t wait to mix up a batch of chili with these things. Who’s in?
Ok, so I know this is really old, but sometimes I’m slow. It’s the video for “Fell in Love With a Girl” by The White Stripes. And it was made by ANIMATING LEGOS! How freakin’ cool is that? To make it even cooler, it was directed by Michel Gondry, who directed the brilliant Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep (which I’m expecting to be brilliant, but Netflix just delivered today…).
Enjoy:
How many artists completely reinvent their songs? Not many, but Bob Dylan is certainly one of them. Take this 1976 version of “Shelter from the Storm” (my favorite Dylan song…). It’s nothing like the original version on Blood on the Tracks. Where the original is a fairly traditional acoustic folk song, this version is a full-blown electric rocker.
Here’s the original for comparison purposes:
Shelter From The Storm
Fun fact: The other guitar player in this clip is T-Bone Burnett, who went on to be a pretty decent songwriter himself. But his biggest success has come as a producer, where his credit’s include the amazing soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Counting Crows’ debut album August and Everything After.
BoingBoing’s got a post with lots o’ links to music from classic pornos (some of the links are NSFW). Good stuff though. Porn music varies from so-bad-it’s-good to just plain bad, and the examples they give run the gamut. But below is an example of the pinnacle of the genre:
(and yes, the image above is the album cover from the soundtrack to a porno!)
Apparently it’s GnR Tuesday here at PCWEI. But this is bigger news than the new GnR single. Apparently Slash (or Saul to his mamma) is working on his autobiography. The former GnR guitarist is working with the same ghostwriter that worked with Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee on his autobio. How many stories of getting wasted on Jack Daniels and screwing groupies can fit into one book? Vegas has the over/under at 92 1/2 (I’m taking the over…). Slash is an absolute legend, and I WILL be buying this book.
More info (and a fun contest) at stereogum.
I can’t believe I’ve made it 144 posts without going all grammar-geek on y’all, but the times they are a changin’. Slate has a good article about how the internet is giving credibility to the redheaded-stepchild of grammar: the interjection!. If you’re not sure what an interjection! is, check out the Wikipedia entry, or listen to this School House Rock explanation:
Interjections
(From Eddie From Ohio’s “School House Rock Medley”, live at Bad Habits 12/15/1998)
I had no intention of covering the whole Britney Spears meltdown thing. Then I saw this: BuyBritneysHair.com. Hilarious!
via WWTDD
Funny (and very well done) video by NY sketch comedy group The Post Show.
via CineFile Video
Welcome to the birth of a new feature here on PCWEI: Sunday Music Spotlight. Each week we’ll pick an artist and tell y’all a little about them, along with some songs and videos. Some of the artists may be familiar to you. Some may not be. Either way, sit back and relax.
The first artist on Sunday Music Spotlight is uber-talented singer/ songwriter/ guitarist/ producer M. Ward.
Read the rest of this entry »
It’s not every day that someone whose work has had an impact on millions of people dies. But on February 15th it happened. Dr. Robert Adler, who brought the world the first practical wireless remote control, died of heart failure at the age of 93. It’s hard to imagine even he could have known the impact his invention would have on modern society when he created it, but the remote has changed society forever.
Read the rest of this entry »
We’ve featured a few Star Wars-related videos here on PCWEI, but I think this one is my favorite. GuyWithTheGlasses has distilled the movie down to it’s essence, presenting the full gist of the movie in 5 seconds. Genius.
Read the rest of this entry »
It’s not really a commercial, per se. It’s actually an infomercial. For a car dealer in Florida. And it epitomizes the stereotypical wacky car dealer. Gotta love it in a strange way. Their website is equally terrible.
So this guy made a rap video for his furniture store. Think “Super Bowl Shuffle”, but for a furniture store. I’ll give him credit; he’s 100% committed to the concept. And he really drives home his point. For two minutes.
Flea Market. Montgomery. It’s just like. It’s just like. A mini. Mall.
Don’t know much about M Shanghai String Band, other than what the bio on their website says, but I do know that “Devil, You and Me” (from their debut album Up From the Ground Below) sounds like a mix of Yonder Mountain String Band and Squirrel Nut Zippers, and that’s a winner in my book.
Tracked this down today. It’s Pop Culture Addict’s list of the 10 lamest super heroes ever. And boy howdy are these guys lame. My personal favorite is Dogwelder:
He’s this madman in a silver welder’s outfit that basically just goes around welding stray dogs to villains’ faces. That’s it. That’s how he fought crime. Welding dogs to people. Mind you it would be a bitch of a thing to have happen to you. You try to rob a bank and you end up with a Lhasa Apso welded to your face, yapping for eternity. *shudder*
So I admit, everything I know about welding comes from American Chopper and Monster Garage, but I’m pretty sure it involves melting metal. So I’m not quite sure how you can weld one animal (a dog) to another animal (a bad guy). I know, I know. I shouldn’t over-analyze comic books. I mean this is the medium where a silver dude on a surfboard can be a serious badass. But welding dogs to people’s faces? That’s over-the-top even for comics.
30 seconds into New Magnetic Wonder
The Apples trot out fuzzed-out guitars, vocoders, mellotrons, endless vocal harmonies and more hooks than a tackle box in crafting a masterpiece that merges the prog-pop of ELO with post-Sgt. Pepper Beatles. With it’s piano drive and wah guitar, “Same Old Drag” would fit nicely on Out of the Blue, while “Sun is Out” sounds like a deleted track from Abbey Road.
Upon repeated listening it’s hard not to notice the obsessive layering of the tracks, almost like Schneider has become a nerdy version of Brian Wilson during the Pet Sounds era. In fact, Schneider plays up the lab-rat image in a pair of bonus videos on the CD where he manipulates equations and explains the mathematical basis of music theory.
This math-geek perspective even led Schneider to create a new musical scale, based on a totally different mathematical concept than traditional scales, call the Non-Pythagorean Scale. Two compositions using the scale are included on the album (and a third is included in the CD’s bonus materials). These pieces sounds simultaneously foreign and comfortable. It will be very interesting to see how this new scale evolves as Schneider (an others) figure out the subtleties of it. (For more information on the scale and how it differs from typical scales, check out my writeup here)
Critics can claim that New Magnetic Wonder is derivative. I agree, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. It’s an album that proudly wears its influences on its sleeve, and most importantly, the influences are good. It’s not like they’re derivative of Poison or The Carpenters. Anytime someone mentions Abbey Road and Pet Sounds in relationship to your album you’re going to be happy.
Is New Magnetic Wonder an early favorite for Best Album of the Year? Definitely. It may be favorite for Album of the Decade.
More Apples In Stereo coverage:
Explanation of the Non-Pythagorean Scale
Video for “Same Old Drag”
Story Behind New Magnetic Wonder
Video for “Energy”
“Energy”
Links:
Apples In Stereo site
Apples on MySpace
Buy New Magnetic Wonder at Amazon
Rating: 
On their latest CD, New Magnetic Wonder
WARNING: Music Theory and Mathematics Content
Music scales are basically defined by the intervals they contain. Standard scales are arrangements of whole steps and half steps. These steps are defined by the ratio of the frequencies of the pitches, measured in Hertz (Hz). An octave of a typical scale is made up of the notes that fall between the frequency of the first note and the next occurrence of that note, which is at precisely double the frequency. For example, a C Major scale can start on Middle C (264 Hz) and end on the next C (528 Hz). The eleven notes between are arranged at equal intervals between the two notes (at least they are when you use equal temperament…but that’s another story…). Using all of these notes gives us a chromatic scale. Most modern music is made using scales that leave out many of the notes. The result is the familiar series of tensions and resolution we are accustomed to. This system was first written down by Greek mathematician Pythagoras, so these can be considered Pythagorean Scales.
So, what’s so different about Robert Schneider’s Non-Pythagorean Scale? The ratio of the intervals’ frequencies is not equal. It’s based on the natural logarithm of the scale tone, leading to a non-linear distribution of intervals. The space between notes at the bottom of the scale is much larger than the space at the top of it. Most of the pitches defined this way do not correspond to notes found in traditional scales because their pitches end up being irrational numbers (numbers that that cannot be derived by n/m, where n and m are integers), and all of the pitches in the Pythagorean system are rational. This results in melodies and harmonies that are at once completely foreign and oddly satisfying.
“Non-Pythagorean Composition 1″
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For more information on the Non-Pythagorean Scale check out the bonus materials on the New Magnetic Wonder
UPDATE: The scale explanation from the CD is now available on The Apples in Stereo website
Ian Richardson, who’s best known in the US as the “Pardon me, would you have any Grey Poupon” guy, died today at age 72. Rumors stating that his death was a result of an incident where he asked his famous question and got the reply “I’ve got your Grey Poupon bitch! A 9mm jar of it!” are completely unfounded.
Apparently he was actually a serious actor in England, appearing in movies, on TV, and in many stage productions. He was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. He coined a catch phrase that was used in all levels of British government. But to us yanks he was known as the uptight mustard dude. Do you think that bothered him? I’d be pissed if I was him and I took a trip to the States and everyone asked me about Grey Poupon. I’d start smacking people. In fact I’d probably end up being known as the Mustard Maniac when I finally snapped and brought a machine gun into Safeway. But that’s just me.
Here’s the commercial he’s famous for:
Ok, normally I think this type of stuff is stupid. But for some reason this site full of cat pictures made me laugh out loud. Maybe I just need more sleep.
Link to ridiculous number of these pics
UPDATE: Oh so many more of them
Anthony Bourdain (chef, writer, and tv host extraordinaire) has posted his take on the current Food Network personalities. It’s witty and insightful, and as usual, it pulls no punches. He gives his views on everyone from Rachael Ray to Alton Brown to Bobby Flay. Here’s a snippet of his opinion of Emeril:
I’m actually grateful when I channel surf across his show. He’s STILL there–the original Behemoth. And I STILL find him unwatchable.
I think Anthony Bourdain is brilliant, and I generally agree with his take on the Food Network gang. If you’re the slightest bit interested in food and you haven’t read his books (especially Kitchen Confidential
So apparently former American Idol runner-up Clay Aiken is inviting people to make up scandals about him. Apparently he posted on the member’s only portion of his website that people should:
“come up with the most outlandish story you can that places me (Clay) in a really juicy, tawdry, scandalous, shameful story. Then, use any photos, videos, audio clips of me (Clay) that you can find along with your favorite multimedia enhancing/”doctoring” program to create your evidence!”
Well the fine folks at VH1’s Best Week Ever took him up on the challenge. The result? Clay Aiken on To Catch a Predator:
Anyone else got creative ways to trash the questionably-hetero-modern-day-Barry Manilow? Send them along to sean at popculturewilleatitself dot com.
P.S. - Don’t tell my sister…she’ll be devastated
UPDATE: More Clay bashing here
Ok, not really, but I found a video for the song “Same Old Drag” by Apples in Stereo and the first thing I thought when I saw it was “Wow, it’s like Wayne’s World, only less awesome, and funnier.” Everyone should remember the scene in Wayne’s World with Wayne, Garth, and their buds rockin’ out in their car to “Bohemian Rhapsody.” This video is very much like that, only instead of 80’s rock star wannabes, you have dorky white guys. Also, instead of the classic “Bohemian Rhapsody,” you have the catchy tune by the Apples themselves. Catchy isn’t exactly the best term for this song. Infectious is more like it. Like Ebola. You’ll listen to it until you cough up blood and bleed from your ears. Big thanks go out to Sean for getting this band stuck in my head. I’ll be forwarding my medical bills to you!
FanTent has posted a collection of eclectic renditions of the ever-popular Super Mario Brothers theme. My personal favorite is the beat boxing flautist, presented below. What’s a beat-boxing flautist you ask? Until I saw this I had no clue. Just watch.
In case you’ve been living under a rock for the last 20 years, here’s the original:
Super Mario Brothers
You Ain’t No Picasso has a very good article about the genesis of The Apples in Stereo’s latest album “New Magnetic Wonder” (released today). Interesting stuff. My only complaint is that it briefly discusses Robert Schneider’s new musical scale (the Non-Pythagorean scale), but doesn’t explain what it is. I suppose that’s only a problem for the serious music nerds out there (which means it’s basically killing me…)
Previous Apples in Stereo coverage:
Video for “Energy”
Apples in Stereo - “Energy”
Slither was recommended to me by someone who told me “It’s funny as hell. It’s like Tremors, but better! You’ll dig it.” I dug it alright. Not only is it much like Tremors but it also was one of the top ten horror movies of 2006 on Rottentomatoes.com. In fact, it’s #2, right behind the best scary movie since Alien, The Descent. There are scarier movies on the list (*cough* Silent Hill *cough*) but Slither is just downright entertaining!
Time to throw some “plot” at you! Ready? Rock falls from space. Thing shoots out of rock, into hick. Hick turns into squid/slug/ugly alien thing. Makes hick chick pregnant with worms. Worms take over town. Voila! Shake well, add Nathan Fillion (Firefly, Serenity) and presto! Instant horror classic! Ok, not classic, but it’s a hoot. Maybe even a hoot and a half. What makes it so fun is that it knows full well that it’s a B grade horror movie. It’s kind of like Evil Dead, where it’s just over the top enough. I’ve also heard comparisons to the genius that is Shaun of the Dead but Slither isn’t as clever. However, it’s just as hilarious.
Slither, for what it is, has a few recognizable actors in it, and that’s kind of surprising. Nathan Fillion plays the town Sherrif, Gregg Henry (Gilmore Girls) plays the mayor, and Michael Rooker (Mallrats) plays the unfortunate hick who gets all fugly. With a movie like this, names of characters mean next to nothing because there is no characterization. There are just archetypes that we know from hundreds of substandard movies and TV shows. It’s ok though, because who needs character arcs in a B grade horror movie? Fillion is the slightly sarcastic guy who carries a torch for another man’s woman, Henry is the loud, pottymouthed guy, and Rooker is just a hick. A horny hick. See? Who needs names?
What makes this movie so entertaining, and worth your time and/or money to see, are all the hysterical lines thrown in when shit hits the fan. To be honest, until things get weird and people (and pets) start dying, it’s kind of dull. There isn’t even some gratuitous nudity to keep us occupied until the funny starts. But once it starts, boy howdy. Nathan Fillion proves yet again he’s a master of comedic timing and great delivery. Anyone who has seen him on Firefly or Serenity knows that he can be very freakin’ funny. However, if for some reason you have no sense of humor, and just love over-the-top gore, well then this movie works for you as well! There are scenes of worm infested people spitting uberloogies at hapless victims, farm animals being mutilated, beheaded, and eaten, and even some dumb redneck being split in half (slowly, so he has time to blink a couple times in confusion before he has to split). If these reasons still don’t do it for you, then at least see it for Mr. Svenning covered in monster make-up. Think Rooker’s Mr. Svenning character crossed with a squid, have that combo mate with a slug, and that hideous love child will be close to what he looks like in the movie.
Honestly, this movie is worth seeing. Netflix it, download it, rent it, or borrow it. It’s a hoot. If you like awesome B horror movies (like me!) then you should just buy it right now. You won’t be disappointed. Now, if this movie only had Samuel Mutha Fuckin’ Jackson in it…
Here’s what I know about The Starlight Mints:
Here’s a mashup of Superman and Batman talking in the Batmobile, mixed with the “know how I know you’re gay” conversation from 40 Year-Old Virgin. Hysterical. All it needs is Robin…
This is one of the scariest things I’ve seen in a long time. Michelle Ivey may be the biggest TMNT fan on the planet. She’s taken out loans to buy paraphernalia, including $3,800 for two masks from the movie. She follows a TMNT diet (strange pizza every day). She took karate lessons to fight like the turtles. Oh how I hope she’s single!
Is this the first single from the oft-rumored, many-times-delayed Chinese Democracy? Can’t say for sure. It’s definitely Axl Rose. That’s undeniable. It’s definitely not an outtake from Appetite for Destruction either. So who knows. Guess we’ll find out 
