SITE NEWS: I gotta bounce early today to catch a flight. These other stories’ll have to get you through the remainder of the day.
Fe-lyin’ around, cat-chin’ some rays. Hey, it was either those puns or “look at these lazy pussies.” Anyway: the very best of cats chillin’. [Buzzfeed]
From Fox News to the Onion News Network. Suzanne Sena used the credibility gained as an anchor at Fox News to land a gig reading fake news. Video at the link. [Mediabistro]
Honest content warnings for HBO shows. The more ridiculous the show, the better the warnings. [College Humor]
Mother Nature’s Punch-Out. Animals fighting, boxing commentary, and the music to Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out. The pieces don’t exactly fit together perfectly, but I approve of the interspecies animal fighting. [Asylum]
There’s really nothing I can say that isn’t already covered in the headline: this is simply a compilation of the 100 greatest quotes from “The Wire.” Or at least that’s the title of the YouTube video. I’m not going to count every line to make sure it’s exactly 100. Regardless, this is ten minutes that makes me nostalgic for the unbridled awesomeness of the greatest television show ever made. Be sure to enjoy the “sheeeeeeeeeit” parade from Clay Davis starting at the 8:39 mark.
For those of you who still haven’t seen “The Wire”: do yourself a favor and go buy, borrow, or steal the series on DVD. It gets old telling people “Yes, it really is that good” all the time.
(Note: much of the language is NSFW; thanks to Kristina for the tip)
The Marine Corps’s ass-kicking birthday continues at Warming Glow with this video about HBO’s “The Pacific” — an epic miniseries that, as I’ve said before (more than once), will be the greatest thing ever televised. No, YOUR expectations are too high!
Anyway, this is just Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg giving us no information that we haven’t already gotten before, but it’s set to moving music, and they talk about Marines, and there’s an old M4 Sherman tank, and God damn it’s days like this that I miss shooting my .50 cal. What an amazing weapon. The way it’s mounted on an M1A1 tank, you can put steel on steel from defilade 1800 meters away. One of the rarest pleasures in life is sending hot steel at unsuspecting enemies of America. It’s one of the few things in life I enjoy more than cats in wigs.
SPOILER: The students from Season 4 go to Harvard and everything works out just fine. No problems for them!
As if there weren’t enough reasons to dislike Harvard, the college will offer a class next year that gives students the opportunity to study “The Wire” (aka the best television show ever created). So if you’ve got some good SAT scores and $50,000 a year to spend on education, you can watch “The Wire” for college credit. From the Crimson:
At a panel last night, stars of the HBO hit series joined Harvard professors in discussing the applications of the show—which depicts the struggles of urban life in Baltimore—in understanding and combating real urban social issues.
“‘The Wire’ has done more to enhance our understanding of the systemic urban inequality that constrains the lives of the poor than any published study” Sociology Professor William J. Wilson said.
African American studies chair Professor Evelyn B. Higginbotham said that there would be a new course in which Wilson will use “The Wire” as a case study for poverty in America.
Wait, can I rewind that? “Professor Evelyn B. Higginbotham”? That’s not even a real name. That’s the kind of name I make up for someone who’s a professor at Harvard. Like Dean Cornelius Q. Vanderschwartz, or Associate Professor Gloria-Lynn von Kamp-Smythe, or Tweedy McElbowpatches. You know, just once I want the African American studies chair to be named LaTonya.
Larry David is under fire for a scene in last Sunday’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” in which some urine got onto a painting of Jesus. Well, not literally under fire. People aren’t shooting at him. Yet. This bring’s Christianity’s streak of getting worked up over something that’s really not worth the effort to 785,893 consecutive days .
“I don’t think it’s funny,” [Deal] Hudson [of InsideCatholic.com] told Foxnews.com. “Why is it that people are allowed to publicly show that level of disrespect for Christian symbols? If the same thing was done to a symbol of any other religions — Jewish or Muslim — there’d be a huge outcry.” [Foxnews]
You mean like how every bad guy in a Hollywood film is a Muslim terrorist? Is that better or worse?
Anyway, the story has other quotes of outrage and demands for an apology, and HBO defended David’s right to create satire, but let’s keep in mind that this wasn’t ACTUAL urine on Jesus. It’s not like the real Larry David filmed himself urinating directly onto a depiction of Christ. It was fictional splashback. This is like writing into “Law & Order” and demanding that they stop murdering so many people.
UPDATE: Video of the clip below (thanks to commenter CrabApple).
“Whatever.”
The adorable Ellen Page, who was terrific in Hard Candy, twee in Juno, and unwatched in Whip It, is adding credits on the other side of the camera, agreeing to write and produce an HBO comedy about hipsters with two of her super-cool friends.
Page has teamed with HBO for “Stitch N’ Bitch,” a single-camera comedy she will write with two other young actors, Alia Shawkat and Sean Tillmann.
The trio will executive produce the project, which follows two painfully cool hipster girls as they relocate from Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood to Los Angeles’ Silver Lake enclave in hopes of becoming artists — of any kind.
Oh boy, I hope their trust funds are big enough to support their dreams! You girls be careful — I’d hate for your kaffiyeh scarf to get caught in the spokes of your fixed-gear bicycle on the way to Hotel Cafe for your band’s debut. What would they do without their lead ukulele player?!?
