Offbeat comedian Zach Galifianakis has an online show called Between Two Ferns where he interviews celebrities. In this two-part special, he interviews some of the people who have been nominated for Oscars this year, in which they are given roughly the same amount of time to speak as Oscar winners get at the ceremony. I think this is a wonderful idea that should be adopted by all talk show hosts. [Read more…]
Last Saturday’s show was supposed to open with a sketch that parodied Chuck Hagel’s appearance before the Senate committee on his nomination to be the Secretary of Defense. But it was scrapped at the last minute, reportedly by the show’s executive producer. [Read more…]
The Daily Show had two good segments on the US policy of using drones to kill people. It looks at the so-called legal rationale that the Obama administration created to justify its own actions and how the language in it is designed to deceive rather than clarify. The memo is a deliberate exercise in the cynical use of language and reveals the utter hypocrisy of the Obama administration on this issue. [Read more…]
I watched a lot of Sesame Street with my children when they were young. I particularly loved their parodies because they work on two levels, teaching simple lessons to young children while at the same time entertaining their adult companions by riffing off adult films and TV shows and music. Now that my children are grown I no longer watch the show but once in a while come across a new good parody. [Read more…]
Reader Bob sent along this clip from Jimmy Kimmel’s late night TV show. It was about someone who came across a discarded piece of cardboard during his walk and thought he saw the face of Jesus on it. He said that the image was so glaringly obvious that even a kindergartener would see that it was the face of Jesus. [Read more…]
Movie: The Movie has everything and everybody to satisfy every filmgoer. I showed earlier the story behind the making of this film but did not realize that there was a long form trailer trailer that shows more clearly what the movie is about, or at least would be about if it ever got made. [Read more…]
I wrote last week about the religious alternatives to watching yesterday’s Super Bowl halftime show. For those who were not thrilled by the prospect of hearing testimonies by athletes or lessons from the Torah or dislike football entirely, I just heard that Animal Planet channel has for some years been counter-programing the Super Bowl with something called the Puppy Bowl that is apparently quite popular. [Read more…]
The US Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on some same-sex marriage cases in late March with its rulings expected to come towards the end of its term in the summer. The constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that defines marriage as between a man and a woman is one of the cases pending before them. [Read more…]
In a lighter vein, That Mitchell and Webb Look struggles with some of the same issues of racism that this blog has been grappling with in the last few days. [Read more…]
The discussions between Jon Stewart and Larry Wilmore about race issues are almost always both amusing and thoughtful. This one from 2011 concerns the controversy I wrote about earlier today about the removal of the n-word from a recent edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. [Read more…]