With excitement over James Cameron's upcoming World of Warcraft Expansion Pack movie, Avatar, it was only a matter of time before a religious group took issue with its potential to confuse and disgrace their most cherished beliefs (was it only a matter of time?). From TMZ:
James Cameron's new film "Avatar" may have one of the biggest budgets of all time ... but it also has one big problem -- a group of Hindus are up in arms because they claim the title disgraces their religion.
The Universal Society of Hinduism and its president Rajan Zed are demanding Cameron put a disclaimer before and after the new 3-D flick saying it has diddly squat to do with the Hindu religion and its concepts ... and the title is just a coincidence.
The concept of "avatar" -- commonly known as incarnation -- is a central theme in Hinduism and prominent Hindus are worried the movie will completely botch it if Cameron doesn't bother to explain himself.
The New York Times had an extensive article in the Sunday Magazine yesterday about your boyfriend, Jeff Dunham. It is a pretty interesting read for both the Jeff Dunham fan and the Jeff Dunham opposite-of-fan. It describes his career trajectory and the ways in which his "comedy" (still not sure about that classification) has surprised TV executives and blah blah blah. You should read it! But if you don't feel like reading it, I have pulled a lot of choice quotes from the article. In a word: yuck!
[Jeff Dunham] quickly realized that a dummy could crack jokes and level insults that he was too shy to touch.
OK, just so we're all on the same page on this: Jeff Dunham is touching those "jokes" and "insults." Because he is writing them. And he is saying them. His hand my be holding a puppet, but that puppet is not alive and that puppet cannot talk. I understand what the reporter is saying here, we all do, but I feel like this is a classic Jeff Dunham feint, and maybe we should not be so quick to justify and absolve and legitimize it. Even he doesn't seem to be able to do that:
He's become a genuine connoisseur of the big, goofy laugh and confessed to me that there are still times Peanut's Chinese routine makes him break character and lose it a little onstage.
He confessed that sometimes the blatant racism in his routine makes him break character and lose it a little onstage? How charming! "Even he can't help but laugh at how stupid Chinese people are." Even Jeff Dunham. He's like a young Jimmy Fallon but, you know, with racism.
Going back to that first quote, I'm also not really sure that I would classify the hesitation to spew unapologetic hate speech on stage as "shyness." It's more like self-preservational common sense, and also a modicum of human decency. He might be an unfunny nightmare with hate in his heart, but he is not a stupid nightmare with hate in his heart! He knows that you can't just say the stuff that he just says. Which of course goes back to the coward thing, but we've already discussed that.
When he agreed to do a DirecTV commercial featuring a scene from Tommy Boy with the late Chris Farley, actor David Spade never dreamed anybody would be offended.
"Slight shock," Spade told PEOPLE on Wednesday night of the fallout from the ad, which some commentators saw as tasteless. "These commercials are cool. They're well done. They're clever. And that they would include Tommy Boy in that company, I thought was very flattering."
Spade says featuring Tommy Boy in a commercial series that also has scenes from Back to the Future and Aliens "is so cool" since "we made this thing and people still talk about it."
"Oh, my God if [Farley] was here, I guarantee he'd be stoked that this little movie is included," says Spade. (Farley died in 1997 of heart failure linked to an overdose.) "The movie is important to me, and I would hate to offend [anyone] because that's one of my favorite things I've ever done. So I would apologize to someone who took it that way."
OK, well, it would be unfair to complain about David Spade hiding behind his publicist when he should be making his own statement and then to simply mock the statement that he does give. So, we should all be gracious and accept David Spade's apology, and thank him for taking some time out of his busy hot tub schedule to respond to this IMPORTANT controversy. (That is the main thing about this, is how important it is.) But, just for the record, these ads are NOT cool! Come on, David Spade. And it is not flattering to have your movie be...part of...Direct TV's ads? Huh?
Some people, including this people, were a little grossed out by David Spade's appearance with a CGI Chris Farley in an ad for Direct TV. I think the main reasons people were bothered by it was the fact that advertising is obnoxious, Chris Farley is dead, and shame on you, David Spade. But I'm sure he had his reasons (got to put food on your mansion). And one website decided to find out what those reasons were. From Asylum:
We reached out to David Spade through his publicist, who provided Asylum with a statement from Spade.
"When DIRECT TV came to me and the Farley family with this idea about 'Tommy Boy,' we talked and thought it would be a cool way to remind people just how funny Chris was. It is a clever homage to my friend and a movie that we loved doing, " he says.
UPDATE: A spokesperson for Direct TV told us, "We should look to Chris' family and friends for the ultimate opinion on this subject. They were involved from the beginning of this project and felt that the spot was a great to tribute to Chris."
A neighbor of the Heenes gets in an actual fight with the camera crews hanging around his neighborhood? An actual fight?! BUBBLE BOY STRIKES AGAIN!
Oh jeez.
"From behind? From behind?"
--that guy's tombstone
I do love when he tells the person on the other end of the phone (who I am assuming is a police dispatcher) that he is going to "fight 20 people if you don't get down here." Uh, good luck? If I was the person on the other end of the phone I might not come down here just in order to see what happens. I mean, come on, Bonesaw. That is a ton of people to fight, even for a Human Whirlwind.
I don't watch American Idol. For one thing, I am 102 years old. What is there for me in American Idol? Is there medicine in it? How about a comfortable place to sit away from the window because it's too cold by the window? No. There is nothing for me in American Idol. Besides, I watched season one in its entirety, and everyone who watched season one knows that no one on that show will ever be better than Kelly Clarkson, and no one on that show will ever be more hilarious and awful than Justin Guarini. We passed the peak years ago.
But even though I don't watch it anymore, I still remember Simon Cowell's constant insistence on the homosexuality of Ryan Seacrest. It was a pretty bold tactic for a man who wears shiny v-neck shirts to show off his chest hair and orders his teeth whitener and fake tanner in industrial quantities. Well, apparently that is all going to change. Now that Ellen DeGeneres will be a guest judge, the producers are suddenly second-guessing the lazy borderline hate-speech they've allowed to go on for years.
There is a Japanese game show called Panic Face King where the goal is to make someone have the most panicked face possible. And whoever does that is the king. Of that. I guess. Anyway, in a clip that is circulating today, one guy gets a severe case of Panic Face when he believes that the room he is in is under sniper fire, and that everyone that he was just talking to has been shot. This is what the Japanese call a "gotcha moment."
LOL? I think the funniest Panic Face he made was when he was lying prone under that body that he thought was dead, fearing the next wave of terrifying bullets. Although, they definitely got a couple more GREAT Panic Faces out of this guy when after he crawled to the door in raw fear, his shattered brain working in pure survival mode, they had more people come in with guns drawn, shooting blanks just inches from his face (sorry to interrupt, but that is, it turns out, what she said) and dragging him by the feet across the floor.
"Wakka wakka wakka!"
--Fozzy the Bear
This is basically the Japanese improv Everywhere, and it's awful. Pranks are the worst. Always. (Via the entire internet.)
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