fourfour

I do love a diva

 

Maybe it's the rapid humidity or the fact that Basketball Wives is back on the air (I remain devoted, despite no longer working for VH1), but I'm in the mood for some bitchiness, and one of yesterday's Judge Judy episodes delivered. The case that the clip above concluded involved a woman who sells knock-off bags and belts suing her friend for effectively stealing the counterfeit merchandise. Judy didn't take the plaintiff to task for selling knock-offs, which was weird, but even weirder was the post-ruling exchange. And the weirdest thing about that is how rare it is -- with the amount of mouthy people that go in and out of that courtroom set, you'd think more would argue as they made their way out. Every indication suggests that's just how they live.

Anyway, my favorite thing about this is that it's basically a fight about semantics. The central question is: what makes a diva? Class, apparently. Not stealing your friend's knock-off bags and belts and throwing them in the garbage, particularly. I love that they both agree that being a diva is a good thing, though. As long as they're both on the same page re: divadom, I think it's possible for them to mend their friendship. I hope so for them but especially for us given the potential for future televised cases!

Live! Videos! Tonight!

I've been tweeting about this all week, but I think it's only fair to post a reminder here, too: I'm screening a bunch of my editing work tonight as part of the Migrating Forms festival. It starts at 9:15 and is happening at Anthology Film Archives (32 Second Avenue at 2nd Street in Manhattan). Tickets are $10. I cannot provide much of an argument for why you should pay to see videos you could watch for free, except that I will be there commenting on them (and who doesn't love a commentary?) and they'll have never been quite so large as they will be when they are being projected tonight. Really, I made these to watch on the big screen, so attending is truly the right thing to do. Thank you.

O faces

Before yesterday's final episode, which found her rarely taking time to breathe between self-affirmative platitudes, Oprah Winfrey spent the bulk of her last week on air (...for now) in a sort of pantomime. In the two shows before the last, celeb after celeb was trotted out to "surprise" her and she reacted accordingly (even though she was miked and could interject whenever she wanted). It was straight-up silent-movie acting, very strange and endlessly gif-able. You know I had to do this:

Recent music things

It may not seem like it in these parts, but I'm still very actively reviewing albums. Both up this week at the Village Voice: my takes on Kate Bush's Director's Cut and Lady Gaga's Born This Way. True to form, I like Gaga and love Kate (Director's Cut is my favorite album of the year so far -- it's a lot more fascinating than a rehashing of lesser works may seem).

Just for the fun of it, I rank the Director's Cut reworks after the jump...

Another day, another montage

You know how contestants on American Idol are always doing that thing where they go for the big finish by singing the title of whatever song they're performing at its end? Of course you do.

 

Now you know it even better.

This is just from this season, and these are just highlights, by the way. I left a few of the more melismatic (thus slower-moving) examples on the cutting-room desktop. I assume one of these spanning all 10 seasons would have to run for about a half an hour to really convey just how overused the end-on-the-title device is. Whatever. Overuse or not, it always makes me laugh. Worth it!

[Embed code here.]

"Hip Hop" not hip-hop

 

Two things that are in this video: a guitar and the words "hip-hop" repeated ad nauseam.

Two things that are not in this song: a guitar and hip-hop.

Chris Cuevas makes Rick Astley sound like a member of X-Clan. This whole charade is so spectacular that I can't believe this video hasn't been viewed more (< 1,000 views at the time of posting) or mocked sufficiently. I mean, I kind of can because as self-parody it's awfully efficient, like a perpetual motion machine of shit. BUT STILL. WATCH IT AND MARVEL.

By the way, Cuevas was a Debbie Gibson protege. He makes her look like Sister Souljah. He makes me understand the concept of the hate that hate produced far too well. (Because really, this is straight up hateful -- even if it doesn't know it.)

Under the bus: An expanded supercut

 

Probably won't do this every year a la "I'm not here to make friends," but to celebrate (or something) last night's Celebrity Apprentice finale, I cut together even more instances of people saying some variation of "thrown under the bus" than were included in last year's season-specific clip reel (which has gone down, actually). The one above spans all four Celebrity seasons of the show, so get ready for at least four times the annoyance!

I know it's not exactly politically correct to admit to watching this product of Trump, but like I said after the premiere: I couldn't help myself.

[Embed code is here, if you're after it.]

Dunst's finest role?

I doubt I'll see anything I love as much as the video of Lars Von Trier declaring his Nazi sympathy at Cannes for the rest of the month. Make no mistake: I'm not impressed by the director's provocation or lack of political correctness. Even though he apologized, I think joking about understanding any mass murderer, let alone one on Hitler's level, is grossly disrespectful. No, the real star of the clip is Kirsten Dunst whose media-trained world is clearly turned upside down as she sits next to a public figure who says shit you're not supposed to say as a public figure. Watching her negotiate her reality with what's happening next to her is an extremely tense, wholly human experience. I salute her squirming as Von Trier dug his hole deeper and deeper in the way I love best -- a gif wall. This is no mere wall of shame: it's one of mortification.

Winston vs. a wall

 

If you know any cats, you know that they tend to develop and drop interests rather routinely. Above is a montage of Winston's latest: attacking (and maybe feeling attacked by) a wall. This wall has always been in our apartment, it's always looked the same and there's never been bugs on it (not that I've seen). In the past month, though, it's really, really been bothering him. I don't know why he does this. Maybe he sees dead Littles. Maybe these walls can talk. Regardless, I'm more than happy to exploit it.

(The song used, btw, is one of my favorite old-school Chicago tracks, "Bring Down the Walls" by Fingers Inc.)

Cher blinks for 10 minutes

 

Is Cher the most 10-minutes-able star in the world? I think so.

This, by the way, comes from Becoming Chaz, the doc about her transgender son's transition that aired Tuesday on OWN. I fucking loved it (some rambling thoughts here). All the sandwiches alone made it the doc for me (Chaz literally said, "Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. You make such good sandwiches," at one point!). I love sandwiches, too. We aren't as different as we think we are.