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video love.

I haven’t been around much lately, and that isn’t going to change anytime soon. I’d like to eventually get back into a rhythm of posting, but that definitely won’t happen until 2013. How is it already six weeks from 2013?!?

Anyway, for those of you who have this on an RSS feed, here are some videos I’ve been enjoying to hold you over until I’m back in full swing, and filling up your feeds with all sorts of lame shit I love.

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1. Dumb Ways To Die

Here is a creative ad for safety awareness on the Australian Metro. Also, as far as videos that are all about death go, it is definitely the cutest ever.

[via Vulture]

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2. House of Cards

It’s no secret that Netflix has been getting into the original content game. I think it started with Lilyhammer (which I haven’t actually seen), you’d have to count the upcoming continuation of Arrested Development, and from all accounts they plan on expanding in pretty audacious ways.

One show I will definitely be trying on for size when it airs next year is House of Cards. With a pilot directed by David Fincher, the show stars Kevin Spacey, Kate Mara (wee-ow!), and Robin Wright. Netflix has already given the green light on two full seasons (13 eps each).

Here is the trailer!

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3. Lover of the Light

Idris Elba directs and stars in a Mumford and Sons video. What else needs to be said?

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4. Möbius

Jean Dujardin being all brooding and intense and whatnot. I’m looking forward to learning more about this one.

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5. Now You See Me

There’s probably a pretty fair chance that it will be hackneyed and cliché. Yet, I really like the cast and I always hold out hope that a heist film will be well-executed because they can be so damn fun when they are.

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6. Hitchcock

Only a few more days!

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7. The Central Park Five

This is going to be a tough watch. Also, Ken Burns is a freaking genius (with a consistently terrible haircut).

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Still so many great videos to share, but every post has to end some time.

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october 19th is a state of mind.

I’ve gone back and forth with whether or not to try and post regularly here again, but since seeing this yesterday, I’ve been realizing it’s just too great not to share it. Even if everyone else on the internet already has.

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television. [five things, 7.6.12]

There are so many great television shows to watch these days. Now that cable stations, both premium and basic, are creating quality original programming, and that we have access to tv from around the world at the click of a button… the possibilities are endless. I haven’t even gotten around to watching shows from non-English speaking countries, but I hear there are some pretty amazing offerings from Asia and much of Europe. As it is, I always have an enormously long list of television shows I need to get around to seeing, or get around to catching up on, or get around to finishing. Then again, the list of culture I want to consume is enormously long regardless of which medium you are talking about, whether it be books, tv, movies, etc.

Lately, I’ve finally gotten around to a few shows I’d been neglecting for a while, and I thought I would share my recommendations with you.

Here are five shows which, if you aren’t already watching, you should be.

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1. Sherlock

I’m pretty sure everyone already watches this, but I finally saw the end of series two after taking way too long away from this Stephen Moffat brilliance after series one. I was a really early adopter of the first series, but then it took me forever to finally watch the second offering.

Also, try to avoid the American re-edits of the show that aired here in the States. They edit quite a bit out for time, and it sucks. Do whatever it takes to get your greedy little hands on the original BBC edits of the show, to enjoy all 90 minutes of each episode.

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2. Luther

Personal favorite Idris Elba is John Luther, a badass Detective Chief Inspector who will do anything to catch any proper villain who made the mistake of letting Luther catch his or her scent. From a major decision Luther makes that opens the series, to his unconventional relationship with someone from a previous case, the show is an excellent departure from your run of the mill cop show.

There are only ten episodes so far, divided up over two seasons. I’ve seen seven thus far, and shit gets real at the end of series one. It’s not a perfect show, with several annoying plot holes at times, and episode three didn’t make much sense (although it is as creepy as fuck), but it sure is entertaining. The performances are also stellar across the board, including those of characters only around for a single episode.

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3. Breaking Bad

The combination of the massive number of good shows to watch and my own habits of procrastination resulted in it taking me until now to finally start watching Breaking Bad. I’m only through the first season, but you can already count me amongst the show’s believers. Smart, dark, well-acted, and unlike anything else on television.

Well, I guess it is like Weeds, but it’s about a potentially dying chemistry teacher who is selling drugs because he is trying to leave something for his family instead of being about a rich white widow who is selling drugs because she doesn’t want to move into a smaller house or get a job. With the exception of Mary-Louise Parker’s insane hotness, Weeds is inferior in every way when it comes to stories about unlikely people building drug empires.

The Breaking Bad hype is well-deserved.

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4. The Newsroom

Another Aaron Sorkin show that is going to create polar opposites in people’s opinions. They had me at “Sam Waterston delivering Aaron Sorkin lines once a week.” Add to that the rest of the strong cast, and my heart was just a series of dominoes waiting for Sorkin to knock them down. He wins.

The show isn’t perfect… yet. Still, I will never understand Sorkin haters. Sure, he’ll never be subtle, and his idealism and hope that people can be better than they usually are will always bleed through, but why is that so terrible?

Another Sorkin complaint I’ve heard is that his characters never talk like real people. Right, because I’m sure the people on your favorite show talk exactly like fucking real people. No one talks like real people in film, books, tv shows… they speak an approximation of regular speech that serves a narrative and dialogue. Whedon characters all talk like Whedon characters, Wes Anderson characters all talk like Wes Anderson characters, etc. Having a voice isn’t bad. Shakespeare characters didn’t talk like regular people, neither did Jane Austen characters, or Dickens characters. No, my friend, characters in culture don’t talk like regular people, it’s really the other way around, we start speaking like the characters on the things we consume. I’d much rather have some Sorkin intelligence rub off on me than whatever other dumb shit makes up most of what’s on television.

Also, why do some people like to rag on Sorkin shows for the idealistic monologues? What’s wrong with being passionate enough about something that we get carried away and share ideas, hopes, and dreams for how the world might be better? We could all stand to be more articulate, more thoughtful orators in our daily lives. Especially when we are championing in favor of logic and reasonableness, which Sorkin’s characters always are. Tyrants and assholes are always willing to stand up and voice their ideas, if reasonable people aren’t willing to do it as well then we are allowing the tyrants and assholes to frame the entire conversation.

I’ll take Sorkin any day of the week and twice on Sunday, which just so happens to be when Newsroom airs on HBO.

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5. 30 Rock

It isn’t a show I’ve recently caught up with, but it is the show I’ve been watching every night when I am trying to trick my brain into sleeping. Not because the show is boring… that’s not how it works. Most nights, er… mornings, to fall asleep, it helps me to distract my overactive brain with a show I’ve seen over half a dozen times.

I love this show so much.

And speaking of Tina Fey, she makes a guest appearance on the last track of Childish Gambino’s new mix tape R O Y A L T Y, which you can download for free here.

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m. ward’s sasquatch avenges a community of elephants. [five things. 5.20.12]

It’s been a while since I’ve written a ‘five things’ post. The time has come.

In personal news, I finally got back to writing my novel in earnest, again. It’s still early, but I’ll be pushing past the 20,000 word mark today, so that’s a lot better than nothing.

1. The Magician’s Elephant – Kate DiCamillo

I’ve never read DiCamillo’s hugely successful books, The Tale of Despereaux or Because of Winn Dixie, so unlike most who have read her work, The Magician’s Elephant was my first encounter with her. Emily encouraged me to read it because she thought it would be the perfect story for my sensibilities. She was very, very right.

I want to believe that there is genuine beauty and magic in the world. I want to believe that there is grace and goodness there for those who keep their eyes open to see glimpses of them. I want to believe that there are such things as home, belonging, and love. I want to believe that if we are good to one another, and if we are willing to do crazy, extraordinary things, the world can be made lighter and kinder and better. I want to believe those things, and in my better moments, I actually do.

The Magician’s Elephant, the story of a boy in search of a home and a family, is written by someone who wants to believe those things along with me, and it is written for everyone else who feels similarly.

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2. The Avengers

I know, I’ve written about this once already, but there was one important thought that I forgot to mention in my last post about it. It seems like today is a good day to blog about it again, as in its third weekend so far, The Avengers CRUSHED Battleship, leading everyone in the blogosphere to make bad puns about sinking and torpedoes.

Speaking of which, I still don’t understand how they can say that a movie is based on the game ‘Battleship’ when it has nothing to do with the game ‘Battleship.’ I mean, just because there are battleships in it doesn’t mean you can say ‘based on the game.’ Just because both the game and the movie happen to center on the reality that battleships do, in fact, exist… that’s enough? I’m going to write an indie film about a tortured architect trying to complete a project building a huge tower. The project is going to cost him more and more emotionally and financially, but his ego is going to be so tied up in the project that he is going to push himself to utter ruin because he just won’t let go. I’m going to call it Jenga. I mean, they both have towers, so I think that is probably enough to say it is ‘based on the game.’

Anyway, the thought that I forgot to share before was this: In almost every movie that has as much scope and potential as The Avengers, I find myself disappointed. I still like the movies, but usually I find myself saying, “It was really good, but they could have done so much more! Maybe they will in the sequel.” Not so with The Avengers. It delivers excitement, fun, and size that truly fulfills all of the movie’s potential. It is everything a movie with this many great, dynamic, superhuman personalities should be. I’ve seen it twice so far, and I am itching for number three.

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3. Community

The life of a Community fan sure is bittersweet. First came the news that the show would be renewed for a fourth season, but only for a half-order of episodes. Then came the rumors that Dan Harmon was out as showrunner. Then came the confirmation that Dan Harmon was out as showrunner. It’s entirely possible that most of what we all love about the show will be leaving with him. Hopefully not, but it is highly likely. He was the brains, heart, and soul of the show. It was his baby. Now that he’s gone… ::sigh::

Yet, since the final episodes of Season 3 were written with the distinct possibility that the show would be cancelled altogether, they offer a beautiful end to what Community has been. From the awesome 8-bit episode, to Jeff’s final monologue in which he articulates the soul of the show: that even though we are cynical, jaded, self-centered, broken people, we still need each other, and we make the world better when we embrace that and get over ourselves a little bit. It’s a thought that temporarily zaps the beard off my inner ‘Evil Abed.’ It was all I could do to keep from bursting into tears when the final story ended with a single screen featuring the ‘six seasons and a movie’ hashtag. I love the show that much. I really hope we don’t all come to wish it had just been cancelled when Dan Harmon was fired. I really wish the show had somehow moved to Netflix like Arrested Development. That would have immediately made Netflix my favorite company on the planet.

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4. Wasteland Companion – M. Ward

I realize that I’ve never recommended M. Ward’s newest release. That’s an oversight that needs to be remedied right this moment. Ward is a master of crafting sweet, sad, spiritual songs of life and existence, disappointment and love. He has the ability to be as silly as he is melancholy. His music is perfect for the soul of the rainy pacific northwest. I love him.

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5. Sasquatch!!

Speaking of M. Ward, Sasquatch starts Friday!! And I’M GOING TO BE THERE!! In the immortal words of Jason Penopolis, “Wee-ow!” I made a list of things I want to do in my 30’s. This weekend, I cross one of those things off!

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