Happy Halloween from the Netflix Challenge

I'm not a big gross-out horror guy, but this funny and scary Norwegian Nazi zombie movie, Dead Snow, is a whole lot of fun.



Just 49 titles remain on the queue.

Blogger slams use of 'slams' in headlines

If I read one more "So and So slams So and So or Such and Such" headline, I'm going to puke on the computer.

It's indicative of two things:
1) The laziness of contemporary journalism, where it's much easier to write and report on "he said this quote, then she responded with this quote" stories;

2) The public's appetite for gossipy personal drama over facts that might actually impact them. Somewhere, somebody has done a study that shows headlines that include "slam" generate more clicks.

Here's a random sampling from the past week or so:


James Carville slams Obama

Deputy FM slams Vatican communique as libel against Jews

Taylor Swift slams Kanye West

Iraqi PM Slams Timing Of WikiLeaks Revelations

BJP slams Kashmir interlocutors for Pak remark

Archbishop Dolan Slams New York Times for Bias

Glenn Beck slams Tides Foundation, George Soros over boycott threat

Zaragoza Coach Jose Aurelio Gay Slams Referee In Wake Of Barcelona Loss

Steve Jobs SLAMS Competitors In Lengthy Rant

Sharron Angle SLAMMED By Tea Party Rival Jon Scott Ashjian: 'She Lies'

Conway's Attack On Paul Slammed By Fellow Dems

Arianna Slams Wall Street On CNN's 'Parker Spitzer': They're Not Making Things, They're Making Things Up

Olbermann Slams O'Reilly For 'View' Comments: 'Bigot And Islamophobe'

Gardner Slams Markey On Immigration Stance

Marijuana Legalization Group SAFER Slams Hickenlooper, Lauds Tancredo

Brewer Slams Mexico for Legal Brief Criticizing Immigration Law

Watchdog Slams Companies Hired To Prevent Foreclosures

Karl Rove Slams Fox News Hosts For Bringing Up Anti-Rove Protesters

Netflix Challenge: Super High Me, Singles and SNL

While a couple of weeks have passed since the last update to the Netflix Challenge tally sheet, that doesn't mean we haven't been hard at work whittling down the queue.

Super High Me
This one has been on the queue almost since the beginning. We finally got to it, and it wasn't too bad. Inspired by Super Size Me, comedian Doug Benson (who High Times magazine called the second best "Pot Comic" working today) begins an experiment where he'll spend 30 days without smoking weed, followed by 30 days of intensive weed smoking. The results of the experiment aren't that interesting, except he did score higher on the SAT while high. What is interesting is his tour of the legal grass dispensaries in California. The sticky icky is lovingly photographed. Makes you want to move to Cali with back pains.





Singles
Members of Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains (Nirvana said no) all make appearances in this Cameron Crowe movie that's a little too Camerony-Crowey for me.





SNL: The Best of Commercial Parodies
The commercial parodies are often the best part of any SNL episode. This compilation includes some of the best of all time: Bass-O-Matic, Buckwheat Sings, Oops I Crapped My Pants ("imagine this pitcher of iced-tea is really a gallon of your feces"), Mom Jeans, Chris Farley's "Hibernol," and maybe my favorite:




Doubt
I've been wanting to see this Philip Seymour Hoffman movie for a while, but when it comes down to it, you're just never in the right mood for a drama about priests and sex abuse. So, it gets pushed farther and farther down the queue until one day Netflix removes it from the Instant catalog. Thanks, Netflix. That takes off a lot of the pressure, not to mention one more film from the queue.

Countdown: An even 50 remain.

Jamie Lidell & Twin Shadow

I put on my brand spanking white Nikes, called up my sister-in-law and jetted up to Asheville last night for a great concert.

Jamie Lidell is all the modern blue-eyed British ElectroSoulFunk you'll ever need in this life. His last album, "Jim," reached classic status in my house, and now that the retro-Motown sound has just about been done to death, he comes back with "Compass," which sounds completely different-- the only common denominator being his amazing voice.

He's known for his ability to be a live sampling one-man band during his shows, but he had a full band with him last night and they were super funky, especially on the Prince-inspired "I Wanna Be Your Telephone."



Prior to the show, I hadn't heard of the opening act, Twin Shadow, but he was cool.

I say "he," because "Twin Shadow" is really just George Lewis Jr. His given name sounds like he should be challenging for the heavyweight title, but he's just a transplanted Brooklyn hipster doing cool new wavey songs, so he's (say it in a whisper) "Twin Shadow."

That's the latest trend, solo artists giving themselves band names. As far as I know, it started with Bright Eyes. That's just one dude, really. Sam Beam is a drink your grandpa would order, but then again, so is his stage name, "Iron and Wine." Conor J. O'Brien sounds like your Catholic bishop, so instead he's "Villagers."

I don't know. Look for it on Stuff White People Like soon.

Anyway, I like Twin Shadow. He didn't seem as pretentious as his name would suggest. You can get a free song here. This video makes me uncomfortable, though.

Netflix Challenge: Moon

I really, really liked Moon. It's a dark thinker full of Stanley Kubrick references (Kevin Spacey does the voice of a HAL-like robot) and a great performance by Sam Rockwell.

I was interested to learn on the old Wikipedia that the budget was $5 million. It seemed way more expensive.



This was director Duncan Jones' first feature. His next one is Source Code and will come out next spring. I'll go see it.

A good one and now it's gone: 55 remain.

Giant bubbles in slow motion

I see why this has 1.2 million views. You should see it, too. And take the extra time to let it download in hi-def.



I want to shoot in slow motion.

Netflix Challenge: 1990s Flashback

We're still slogging through the queue.

Last night it was Edward Burns' She's the One, starring Jennifer Aniston and Cameron Diaz in all of their mid-90s glory, followed by the always entertaining Saturday Night Live: The Best of Chris Farley.

I'd never seen an Eddie Burns (as Drama calls him on "Entourage") movie before. This was his follow-up to the Sundance award-winning The Brothers McMullen, so I'm sure everyone was real pumped to see it in 1996. Fourteen years later, it serves as a nice time capsule for Aniston's legendary haircut. Tom Petty also did the music with the same haircut he's always had:





The Chris Farley compilation always makes me laugh and wonder what he'd be doing nowadays.





Side note: In searching for that Farley video, I landed on SNL's site, which implores visitors to "Check out" this or that link seven times on the front page. Too much!

Just 56 titles remaining.