Photos
Lately, Russell Brand has been Twittering a bunch of photos of himself on the set of the remake of Arthur*, but it has been getting harder and harder to figure out which photo is the most annoying. Don’t get me wrong, they’re all terrible, but which is the MOST terrible? I’ve narrowed it down to these two (although this one deserves HONORABLE MENTION). On the left, we have Russell Brand getting a bath (and a handjob, I guess, ugh, fart) from Helen Mirren. She’s a dame of the realm! On the right, we have Russell Brand fondling Elmo’s genitals. Get it? Elmo is for children, but genitals are for adults! Klassik Komedy! Would it help if you knew what kind of “witty” one-liner he was posting along with the photos? Here’s a fun game, see if you can tell which joke goes with which photo:
At last. A bath from Helen Mirren. Never has getting clean been more dirty.
And:
He started it. He tickled me.
Oh I hate them both so much! But I’m pretty sure the Elmo photo is the worst, right? Oh, but that Helen Mirren photo is pretty bad. What are you doing, Helen Mirren! You are supposed to be THE QUEEN! Oof. These photos. Hard to choose. If only we didn’t live in a world where we absolutely were required to pick which of these photos was the worst, and we could just agree that they are both incredibly and perhaps even equally terrible. But we don’t live in that world. We live in this one. It’s so unfair.
Winner will be announced via Twitter this afternoon.
*Also, remake of Arthur? Well done, Hollywood. I’m just glad that you waited until everything was JUST RIGHT before going ahead with this one, because you know how mad all the fanboys would have gotten if you had foolishly tarnished that legacy.
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Let’s call it a tie. Photo finish. But the one thing I do know, Dudley Moore is spinning in his short grave.
Ok, I did not know Dudley Moore was dead. I went to his IMDb page to check out when he died. Turns out 8 years ago. That felt like a pretty terrible oversight on my part. Then I saw the following news headline on said IMDb page:
Spinning away…
I want to downvote this so bad but I know you are just the messenger of bad news and you didn’t cause this to be a reality. Don’t downvote the messenger and what not.
I admire your restraint. Hell, I even almost downvoted myself. It makes it all the more painful that above said NewsDesk headline it reads: “Nominated for Oscar. Another 4 wins & 3 nominations”.
i wonder which doll the DA will ask elmo to use as a reference point in court…
“elmo not sure. elmo ticklish everywhere.”
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Well that’s my childhood completely ruined now.
And now my adult life too, THANKS DAD!
“He never said no, he just kept saying ‘ha ha ha, that tickles!’”
although, coming from Russell Brand it would sound more like
“EE nevah took a pauss, EE was awl in snickahs sayin EE liked it when I gave ‘eem a wonky!”
In England, a tickle is called a lorry.
Ug. It’s like being forced to choose between your children (if both of your children were absolutely terrible).
I am voting for Elmo picture as worst. Getting groped at work is no fun. At least Helen Mirren seems to be playing along.
People actually like this man. They find him funny. I don’t understand the world.
His standup is funny, the characters he plays are funny, his thick accent is funny and charming. His twitter account is annoying.
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Maybe the problem isn’t everybody else. Maybe you should start with the man in the mirror, sir. But you’re right, Russel Brand is terrible.
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You OK PT? PM me if you need someone to talk to. http://twitter.com/chris_trash I won’t judge you
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ptsmith_vt, if there is one thing I believe in, it is the restorative power of The Legend of Zelda. Therefore, at the risk of incurring wrath (please no wrath! I don’t like wrath!), I feel I must share this beacon of joy:
http://resizeimage.org/system/0007/2288/link-1.jpg?1281545394545
Sadly, I am not cool enough to make this. Yet. But I am learning, and on that day I will feel the glee of the truly nerdy.
Freaking awesome! I will never have those skills, but I believe in your ability to attain them.
I agree, but please don’t hate me, pt! We have so much in common otherwise, we can make this work!
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Murikami, double rainbows, Topher Grace?
i nominate kittens, puppies, and sunshine.
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To celebrate my increasing amusement at my increasing silly downvotes, I got myself this:
and this
Perhaps I am naive, but I took Chris Trash’s comment to be an earnest token for friendship.
Hang on–I am going to have Legless Cat deliver smoothies to everyone’s work. He is trying to save up enough to get to NYC for those Pavement reunion shows next month.
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“I’m better than you” -ptsmith_vt
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We’ve all had one of those days, PT! I have them all the time. In those situations I find it’s always best to take a step back and stare at something other than the computer screen. Perhaps staple a kitten picture to your forehead, I hear that works.
Yeah, but…
Crab People Crab People
here is exactly what made me like russell brand, in decreasing order of importance.
1. aside from the attention seeking behavior, he’s clever, thoughtful, and a surprisingly good writer:
http://www.russellbrand.tv/2009/03/dolphins/
http://www.russellbrand.tv/2009/04/revolution/
http://www.russellbrand.tv/2009/03/for-jade/
http://www.russellbrand.tv/2009/03/controversial-blog/
2. this is improv genius (thanks to years of practice in charm and manipulation, no doubt)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoQrPsuSlWU
3. granted, part of terry gross’s genius is that she brings out the intelligence and charm in anyone, but still. here’s russell brand on npr’s fresh air:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102777334
The guy dressed as elmo is so grossed out that even the SUIT somehow has a horrified expression.
Elmo’s look of terror seals the deal for me.
Russell Brand gets a handy from The Queen… and I can’t pull off this joke without sounding like I’m gay or a homophobe.
I think you just managed to do one of those things
No elmo.
Well played.
Elmo? I thought that was Jeff Dunham!
I don’t understand either picture. I just don’t “get” highbrow humor.
Apparently Meryl Streep is being considered for the butler role. Oh, Meryl.
Let’s not give Helen Mirren too much credit — she was in “Caligula” after all.
I’m going to vote for Elmo and his shriveled Elmo hand because of the sadness they’re both conveying.
I’m going to be “different” (like Russell Brand’s photos because I have NEVER in my life seen a man in an inappropriate pose for a picture, cause, haha) and say the honorable mention based solely on the CAPTION.
Yawwwwwwn.
Elmo. He’s just taking it with a blank stare, but I mean, how else would you react to Russell Brand grabbing your non-existing genitals?
I have seen that Elmo on the corner of 6th Ave and 50th street and he normally doesn’t have that expression on his face.
According to Twitpic, it’s become popular to call him a “shitty ass cock” or alternately “shitty arse cock” or alternately “shite arse lorry bollocks”
I just realized that if they had such awful things as “Truck Nuts” in England, they would be called “Lorry Bollocks”
Any way we can all just find solice in the fact that he’s no longer doing this terrible thing to his hair?
try again?
He looks like a homeless man in Whoville.
Tim Burton’s Whoville
he’s the grungey raven locked Kate Gosslin
I think he stole this hair-do from Jesse Camp:
I think the Elmo one is worse, but only because I have serious hate-feelings towards Elmo and what he did to Sesame Street (totally ruined it with baby talk).
MASSIVE AGREEMENT, HERE! elmo’s world is an abomination. if/when i have kids, they’ll be watching ancient, pre-elmo’s world episodes of sesame street that i’ll buy on whatever the future equivalent of blu-ray is.
if i sound bitter, it’s only because as a babysitter i’ve had to sit through enough elmo’s world episodes to view it as a form of psychological fuckery, like chinese water torture or something.
The one with Helen Mirren is worse because rape.
But it’s not rape-rape.
Not at all, just singular rape.
My vote is for the Elmo photo. The caption is just really too terrible.
Can I make a serious dactual point here? I went to the same secondary school (for those who don’t understand the British education system, this is a Lorry Lorry) as Russell Brand, and seeing as he grew up in the same town as me I’ve sorta watched his career rise.
In his late teens/early 20s he worked at MTV and built up a rockstar persona that was mostly due to his heroin addiction. Since coming out of rehab he has been forced into playing the same role again and again and of, course, he’s an idiot for letting himself be continually typecast. All the public sees of Russell Brand is him acting up in this manner. I met him at a reunion five years ago and, along with seeing him in serious interviews, I have to say that he’s one of the smartest comedians around, and he seems like a genuinely fragile figure, as any recovering heroin addict is.
I don’t want to hate on Videogum, or the fact that it spends 50% of the time mocking the antics of people in the public eye who are just playing characters cast by the media, but it makes me cringe every time a Russell Brand story is reported in this way, because all it’s doing is emphasising his negative persona. And when you get into the reality of these “characters” as human beings then suddenly all this celebrity-bashing is just another hateful, cynical division in society.
To be fair, though, anybody with that hair is fair game for mocking.
Also, I can have compassion for someone while finding them unfunny, unbearable, and being confused by anyone who does find them funny.
I don’t find his standup funny, or his TV shows, or Forgetting Sarah Marshall, or Get Him To The Greek. Yet I still find him funny. Weird?
Also, I’m not urging you to watch him do interviews but I think it would be nice to provide a counterpoint to the 30-odd comments of Brand-bashing above, so here’s one he did with Dawn French: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPg76FbcVwQ
though your above comment basically is the plot of Get Him to the Greek…
“he seems like a genuinely fragile figure, as any recovering heroin addict is.”
But Get Him To The Greek was meant to be a comedy, the third-act recovery of the character felt like it was shoehorned in simply because it was a parallel of Brand’s life
While it is unfair that most all celebrity stories emphasize the negative characteristics of these celebrities, Russell Brand is still doing, and worse, flaunting these obnoxious, immature acts. I don’t feel bad for him, if he can create smarter comedy, then he should create smarter comedy, and stay away from this crudeness.
I think he’d alienate his current fans if he just switched to smart humor all of a sudden. Let the man do what he wants. I think we all have a little bit of childish humor that’s funny. Maybe it’s poop jokes, maybe farts. For me, it’s anyone falling down. For Brand, it’s the gropage. While it’s a little gross, it’s funny to him and funny to the people who follow him on twitter.
He seemed very clever on team Goth Detectives with Noel Fielding on the Big Fat Quiz Lorry of the Year, those two years they were on it. That’s when I stopped sort of auto-loathing him. That Elmo photo is super-icky. BUT I want him to succeed and be funnier and grow as a comedian, because he seems like he has lots of potential. Kind of how I feel about poor old Amy Winehouse.
That’s why I like him too! Congratuwelldone!
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that I agree that RB’s “brand” has become very annoying where he could have actually kept himself a little more legit and taken his career in a more unexpected, subversive direction (unless this is his way of doing that, in which case, “joke’s on us…?”). I have similar feelings about Paul Rudd (here come the downvotes), someone who is arguably one of the most talented performers out there today, and yet I have to keep seeing him in these lazy, paper-thin money-makers (I Love You, Man, anyone?).
So, in conclusion: I would need to see both the above photos in hipstamatic before they would really annoy me. Also, I think the Elmo one is funny just for Elmo’s face.
So, we should withhold opinion on Russel Brand when he publicly acts like a [insert lorry] because “on the inside he’s a well intentioned and well spoken person”?
I’ve heard the same thing about Larry the Cable Guy.
Besides, he’s rich. He can afford therapy.
Arthur?
No, Arthur.
I hate those Sesame Street assholes in midtown. Random losers buy some Elmo and Grover costumes, get families to pose for pictures with them, and then they’re like “Hey, how about you pay me now?” That’s why Elmo’s holding a bag in that picture. Fuck tourists, but fuck Elmo too.
Agreed. I work at rockefeller… and those dudes’ costumes get pretty disgusting in the winter. Everyday I walk out of work and catch another child in the arms of what essentially looks like Meth Head Spongebob. There should be a free clinic where the ice rink is for all the tourists who get too close before noticing the bird crap and grime stuck to Elmos face.
Russell Brand should probably soak his hand in Lysol.
all of them, all the picture of russell brand are more annoying.
“Oh, we just had so much fun on the set.” -Helen Mirren on Leno 12 months from now.
I’ll bet we couldn’t even tell the difference between these photos if we enhanced them enough times.
By which I mean I’m willing to lay down money that Russell Brand’s genitals are nigh on indistinguishable from Elmo’s.
I am going to go with Helen Mirren since she is a real physical human being with a real life that affects those that she loves and loves her back. Elmo on the other hand is a fictional character whose target audience is busy mastering their native tongue, while getting increasingly better at two-legged movement, and not caring who Russell Brand is.
Hollywood is remaking Arthur because the remake of Alfie did so well.
This is probably too late for anyone to care about but if anybody has listened to the radio show Russell had they’ll know just how funny, insightful and intelligent he can be but they’ll also know he’s got an incredible need for attention which can more than often overshadow everything else. I really can’t recommend his old radio shows enough though, they’re available to download here http://www.russellbrandradioshows.zoomshare.com/ and they’re as good if not occasionally better than the Ricky Gervais podcast and his old radio show on xfm.