PopSmart

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (reviewed here) isn’t just the sequel to The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe: it marks a kind of forgotten anniversary. The previous Narnia movie inspired “Saturday Night Live’s “Lazy Sunday,” which debuted on Dec. 17, 2005. The second “SNL Digital Short,” “Lazy Sunday” depicts Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg rapping like gangstas as they buy cupcakes and go to see Narnia:

Now quiet in the theater or it’s gonna get tragic.
We’re ’bout to get taken to a dreamworld of magic!

“Lazy Sunday’s” popularity effectively marked “Saturday Night Live’s” entry into the viral video age, and the venerable, 30-plus-year-old sketch comedy series proved unexpectedly ahead of the curve. “Lazy Sunday” led to countless imitators, including the Atlanta area’s own “Lazy Snellville.” Subsequent “SNL Digital Shorts” included Natalie Portman’s rap and “Dick in a Box.” Viral videos like these gave audiences a new destination for comedy on Youtube, and NBC’s (understandable) interest in controlling its creations led to the creation of Hulu as a Youtube alternative. It’s a surprise that it’s been two and a half years since “Lazy Sunday” appeared.

The question is, will Prince Caspian inspire a “Lazy Sunday” sequel? Steve Carell hosts the next new SNL episode on May 17.

Never heard of SuperDeluxe? Guess that was a big part of the problem. For the uninformed, SuperDeluxe was a comedy website created by Turner Broadcasting here in Atlanta to showcase original videos and cartoons. Quietly launched in January 2007 to foster a word-of-mouth following, the site initially used material from FARKtv before hiring a number of local jokesters and improv groups to create videos. One of those funnymen was ex-Loafer Noah Gardenswartz, who still writes comedy reviews for us.
But before SD could truly go viral, it soon found itself upstaged by the headline-making debut of the similar Funny or Die. That website’s inaugural video, The Landlord, starring co-founder Will Ferrell, has been viewed more than 50 million times. That’s a difficult number to compete with. It’s also tough to go up against Funny or Die’s roster of celebrity cameos: Michael Cera, Katherine Heigl, John C. Reilly and Bill Murray.

Last week, Turner canned the SD staff and announced it would soon roll the existing SD content into the Adult Swim website. And that, unfortunately, is no joke.

Atlanta has to steal this, because it’s the greatest idea ever. Through the blog of a friend, I found out about Portland’s “March of the Lebowskis,” potentially the first annual of such an event. Apparently “Cort and Fatboy” of radio station KUFO-FM in Portland, Ore., organized a parade of Big Lebowski fans, dressed in costume as either Jeff “The Dude” Bridges or other characters from The Coen Brothers’ modern-day cult classic, to coincide with an annual screening of the film. According to my friend, who was one of the marching, bathrobed Lebowskis:

Soon after 9 o’clock, staffers from the radio station lined us up to check our IDs, to prove we were 21 and older, and give out wristbands that would let us walk straight into the lobby without paying. By then, we had well over one hundred people… Being amongst Lebowski fans, I was not surprised to smell the thick smell of burnin’ herbal, either. Most of the big noise came from the traffic, both the usual traffic and the one or two people who rolled down their windows and yelled “The Dude abiiiiides!”

Obviously this could have some logistic complications with crowd control, but it seems like a natural for The Plaza Theatre or Landmark Midtown Art Cinema. The Big Lebowski seems an inspired choice, because The Dude lends himself to such an easy costume: just get bathrobe, sunglasses and flip-flops, and you can probably pass; people who want more of a challenge could dress as, say Jon Turturro’s leering rival bowler, Jesus.

A non-Lebowski parade would suit Screen on the Green, but I’m not sure that this year’s line-up (Jaws, Big Momma’s House, Chicago, etc.) would lend itself to costumes.

My ‘Hollywood Product’ review of Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay will appear in next week’s print edition of Creative Loafing. Since the film opens today, we’ve put the piece on-line already. For an accelerated but surprisingly accurate summation of the film, check out this clip, which encompasses nearly all the major scenes, based solely on a certain kind of verbiage:

Opening Friday, Young@Heart (reviewed here) takes a can’t-miss subject for a nonfiction film. The Young@Heart Chorus is a senior citizen singing group with a global following, an average age of 80 and a penchant for incongruous contemporary pop songs from the likes of Sonic Youth and The Clash. Feisty but dignified, the chorus members make inherently lovable heroes in the documentary, but at times director Stephen Walker seems to lean towards laughing at them, rather than laughing with them. Particularly in the film’s music video segments, like this clip of the chorus singing The Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated,” the incongruity becomes too knowingly ironic for my comfort level:

Disclaimer: Though representative of the film’s video interludes, the majority of Young@Heart takes a more straightforward approach, and such numbers as the live performance of Coldplay’s “Fix You” can be truly transcendent.

“Lost” returns (again) tonight at its new timeslot of 10 p.m. on ABC, conveniently moving it out of the way of “The Office” and “30 Rock” for fans of those shows (like me). To get you in the mood, here’s that amusing montage that sums up the show’s three-and-a-half seasons based on a single word:

April 23 is the day we traditionally celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday (exact date unknown) in 1564. So happy 444th birthday, William Shakespeare! Here’s a clip in honor of the Bard. (I kinda borrowed the idea from WABE-FM’s Lois Reitzes.) Enjoy some double entendres:

By the way, you may recognize one of the mobsters as Keenan Wynn, who’s career as a character actor includes “Bat” Guano from Dr. Strangelove.

I had the pleasure of talking to writer-director Garth Jennings and producer Nick Goldsmith about their new film Son of Rambow and the music videos they’ve produced at their company “Hammer & Tongs” (Jennings also directed the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie.) Jennings and Goldsmith were in attendance at the Atlanta Film Festival screening of Son of Rambow. If you saw the AFF screening or are simply interested in the guys, the podcast is here (dated April 18). Son of Rambow opens theatrically in Atlanta on May 16 and we’ll re-link to it next month when I review the film.

Incidentally, one of the videos we discuss in the podcast is Blur’s charming “Coffee & TV,” which is here:

(Photo © Paramount Vintage)

Our old friend Jonah Hill has an amusing supporting role in the funny new comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall. He plays a waiter and aspiring musician at a Hawaiian resort who turns into a clingy, stalkerish obsessed fan whenever in the presence of Aldous Snow (the scene-stealing Russell Brand). The shtick takes up a common thread in Hill’s comedy over the past year.

In Superbad, Hill plays a horny, vulgar and purportedly straight high school senior who, nevertheless, seems strangely possessive of his best friend (Michael Cera) and reveals a youthful obsession with drawing elaborate pictures of penises. When Hill hosted “Saturday Night Live” on March 15, the digital short “Andy’s Dad” (shown here) depicts Hill’s revelation that he’s fallen in love with the much-older father of “SNL”-regular Andy Samberg. And in a deleted scene from Knocked Up, Hill’s character — named “Jonah” — discussed Brokeback Mountain with Katherine Heigl in an unsuspectingly revealing way (I have a hunch the clip may not stay up forever):

Apparently giving man-crushes or homosexual traits to Hill’s on-screen alter egos translates to comedy gold. But why is that? I don’t think that Hill’s real-life sexual orientation is an issue here (Hill’s bio on the notoriously unreliable Wikipedia mentions a girlfriend). There simply seems to be something funny about Hill’s roles having gay characteristics that they can’t process, especially because they initially come across as obnoxious straight guys. Maybe it’s because his characters seem oblivious to the signals they send out as if their gaydar can’t work on themselves.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

My review of the Alliance Theatre’s superlative production of Doubt is up. If the fact that it’s a suspenseful, engrossing, thought-provoking show that crowns an exceptional season at the Alliance were not enough to intrigue you, news of the film adaptation just might.

Doubt playwright John Patrick Shanley adapted the screenplay and is directing the film, and you can imagine that his three leads were all his “first choices:” Meryl Streep as the suspicious, relentless Sister Aloysius, Philip Seymour Hoffman as the personable but enigmatic Father Flynn and Enchanted star Amy Adams as naive Sister James. On April 14, Ain’t It Cool News posted a positive review of what must be a very early cut of the Doubt film, which is expected to be released this fall for Academy Award consideration.

Shanley won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Moonstruck and has directed several films, including the intriguing sleeper Five Corners (which has the quirks and richness of his stage plays; I highly recommend it) and the wildly eccentric Tom Hanks vehicle Joe vs. The Volcano. I have mixed feelings about Joe — it’s a pretty mixed movie — but I love the job-from-hell content at the beginning, especially Dan Hedaya as his hateful boss: in his first scene, we hear one side of his furious phone conversation, which consists of two sentences repeated ad nauseum: “I’m not arguing that with you!” and “I know he can get the job, but can he do the job?” Here’s the Gilliam-esque opening credits:

(Photo by Greg Mooney)