The Tangent

WWE wrestler Edge holds CM Punk in a leg lock. (photos by RJ Mickelson/amNY)

Column by Scott A. Rosenberg
• WWE 'SmackDown' airs Friday at 8 p.m. on My9.

They are not gladiators or warriors or even broken-down actors climbing their way back to the top.

They have the strength and might of a Mack Truck, with muscles built on muscles, and colorful, shiny and glittery costumes, like modern-day superheroes come to life.

The Limits of Control
2.5 stars
Directed by Jim Jarmusch
Starring Isaach De Bankolé, Tilda Swinton, Paz De La Huerta, Gael Garcia Bernal, John Hurt, Bill Murray

By Mina Hochberg

Curiously sexy and endlessly vexing, Jim Jarmusch’s new film, “The Limits of Control,” is minimalist almost to a fault. This movie will certainly test the patience of even the most patient moviegoers.

Less a story with plot, more a silent journey of strange encounters, the film stars Isaach De Bankolé as a loner sent on a mysterious mission. To reach his goal, which may or may not be known to him — it’s never quite clear — he must first complete a series of rendezvous.

Dressed in a sharp, crisp suit, Bankolé cuts a flawless silhouette as he travels between city and country, via plane, train and automobile. Before each rendezvous, he wakes up, does some Tai Chi, walks to a café, orders two espressos and waits. When the point person arrives, he or she starts a monologue about film, music, bohemians, drugs, science. Bankolé listens but doesn’t engage until the soliloquy is finished. He then asks for clues to the next rendezvous, and he’s off.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine
2 stars
Directed by Gavin Hood
Starring Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston, Lynn Collins, Ryan Reynolds, Dominic Monaghan, will.i.am

By Mina Hochberg

The long-awaited “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” offers a moody backstory for Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), the temperamental, maverick mutant of the X-Men gang. Born in the mid-1800s with the ability to sprout bony claws from his knuckles, Wolverine (né Logan) has an older brother named Viktor (Liev Schreiber), who was similarly blessed/cursed with the gene for killer fingernails. Narrated in a nifty opening credits montage, the two immortal brothers spend a dozen-some decades fighting side by side in a string of wars, from the Civil War to Vietnam.

By the time the brothers get recruited by a secret, present-day government operation, headed up by Col. Stryker (Danny Huston), Viktor has become a bloodthirsty killing machine. He’s the loosest cannon on a covert ops team of fellow mutants, whose powers range from teleporting to deflecting-bullets-by-sword. Wolverine, on the other hand, is sick of it all. He decides to go AWOL and start a normal life for himself in the Canadian Rockies, which saddles Viktor with some serious abandonment issues.

This is the best website I have ever seen!

A sample:

(913): i dont nkow, theres a guy slesping next to me and im wearing 8 tsthirts? wtf happened last night? will you come get me.
(816): i think im in thre room next to you

By Julie Gordon

"My Last Five Girlfriends" starts with a sad-looking Brit named Duncan (Brendan Patricks) furiously writing a suicide note to his previous five girlfriends before washing down a handful of pills with a giant swig of vodka.

Sounds like pretty heavy stuff — until the cheeky music starts playing and the audience is flashed back through a tour of Duncan's recent failed relationships. And the trip is certainly a kooky one, complete with a Duncan-themed amusement park (complete with rides representing his exes), Barbie dolls reenacting love scenes and a dating service run by God.

Based on Alain De Botton's book "On Love," "My Last Five Girlfriends" is sublimely refreshing. First, it's a movie about failed relationships that actually feels like something you've never seen. And, it shows a desperate and broken-hearted guy — a welcome break from the throngs of sorry women we often see on screen.

Screens at the Tribeca Film Festival on Monday, April 27 (9:15pm). Tickets available at www.tribecafilm.com.

By Robert Levin

Male circumcision would be at or near the top of any list of unlikely documentary subjects. Any half decent documentarian could make an interesting film about political corruption, human rights abuses or strange quirky figures. Framing such an everyday health practice in a fashion that makes it worthy of a feature is a much harder task.

So filmmaker Danae Elon deserves credit for charging ahead with “Partly Private,” a personal exploration of the issue spurred by the birth of her son and the subsequent debate with her husband. In short: to cut, or not to cut, that was the question. He wants a traditional Jewish circumcision. She agrees, but with far less confidence.

Center row, from left to right: Daniel Eric Gold, America Ferrera, Christopher Gorham, Dreama Walker

Eric Mabius and Sarah Lafleur (Photos: Marc S. Levine/New York Mets)

By Kyle Stack

It took a show based in Queens to become the first TV program to shoot scenes at the Mets’ new Flushing ballpark, Citi Field.

ABC’s “Ugly Betty” shot part of its May 21 season finale at the Mets game Friday. During those scenes, Betty (America Ferrera) “starts to really examine her relationship with Matt [her boyfriend] and her ex, Henry,” said producer Jim Klever-Weis.

“Betty” filmed mostly before and after the game. The character Daniel (Eric Mabius) even threw out the ceremonial first pitch.

During play, the Delta Sky 360 club — the most exlusive seats in the ballpark — was a backdrop for shooting.

“It’s a nice branding exercise to reach additional audiences — not your typical demographic Mets game,” said Dave Howard, executive vice president of business operations for the Mets.

By Mina Hochberg

In the stirring documentary "Rachel," filmmaker Simone Bitton revisits a story you may remember from headlines six years ago. In March of 2003, an American college student named Rachel Corrie visited the Gaza strip with a group of members from the International Solidarity Movement. Their aim was to stop the Israeli government from bulldozing Palestinian homes, but their mission met with tragedy when Corrie was crushed by an oncoming bulldozer.

The bulldozer's operators claimed they didn't see Corrie, while ISM protesters insisted it was deliberate. Whatever the truth may be, Bitton methodically shows that the follow-up investigation wasn't very rigorous. She interviews an impressive range of people related to the incident: Corrie's fellow protesters, many of whom were
eyewitnesses; a spokeperson from the Israeli military, which had been overseeing the bulldozing site; the director of the forensics lab that conducted Corrie's autopsy.

I'm easily amused and uncomfortable around horses, so this flow chart is both fun and functional for me.

(via)

By Emily Hulme
• ‘The Pictures Generation’ is at The Metropolitan Museum of Art through Aug. 2.

A video still from Dara Birnbaum's “Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman,” 1978–79

In 1977, SoHo gallery Artists Space held a group show, featuring the work of relatively unknown artists, called “Pictures.”

Since then, that exhibit has achieved landmark status in the world of contemporary art. The exhibited artists and their compatriots, the so-called “Pictures Generation,” represented a sea change in the cultural conversation of the time, and a new exhibit at the Met, “The Pictures Generation, 1974-1984,” tells their story.

At the heart of it, these artists were reacting against the abstraction of Minimalism and Conceptualism, and experimenting with the manipulative power of concrete images. They worked outside the mainstream — mostly in photography, which was a ghettoized medium at the time — and showed their work in “alternative” venues, mostly to each other.

Ed Westwick (Chuck Bass), left, and Blake Lively (Serena van der Woodsen)

By Julie Gordon

“Gossip Girl” fans will get a behind-the-scenes look at the show when On Location Tours launches a themed tour May 1. (On Location is behind the "Sex and the City" tour, among other TV and movie tours).

The $40/person, three-hour bus tour will make 30 stops, including the following:

• The Fifth Avenue building where Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) lives

• Eleanor Waldorf’s meatpacking district shop

• The restaurant where Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively) and Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley) had their second date

• Constance Billard School for Girls and St. Jude School for Boys

• Henri Bendel

• The New York Palace Hotel

Starting May 1, the $40/person tour will run every Friday and Saturday at noon, leaving from the Palace Hotel. Private tours are also available. Get tickets by calling 212-209-3370 or visiting screentours.com.

Alright, Jimmy Fallon. You've got my attention when you get Benjamin Linus on the couch.

This interview is a little weird in that there seems to be a real stylistic disconnect between Fallon and Emerson, but it's pretty neat to see the illustrations that Emerson did before he was an actor. And his creepy rendition of "Little Boy Blue" is awesome.

"I never said I was a butterfly expert. I said I liked butterflies."

"Michael and Michael" premieres July 15.

Related: The State will be coming to DVD July 14.

I am both fascinated and disgusted by this concept. This Russian blog is devoted to "food art" which consists of photos of dried pasta poked through hot dogs and then boiled.

By Mina Hochberg

If you thought Fresh Kills gave Staten Island a notorious rep, wait till you watch "Cropsey." The documentary, which is playing at the Tribeca Film Festival, delves into some real seedy island history.

Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio, natives of the borough, named the documentary after a supposed escaped mental patient who, legend had it, would kidnap kids off the streets. Fiction became reality when Jennifer Schweiger, a 13-year-old girl with Down syndrome, disappeared in 1987 and was later found dead. Police arrested a drifter named Andre Rand and sentenced him to years in prison. It
wasn't long before he was linked to a bunch of other disappearances — all children, all with mental disabilities. Rumors abounded about Rand's lunacy: cult rituals, human sacrifice. Was it true? Probably not. But some of the folks interviewed in the film would certainly beg to differ.

The payoff at the end is a bit underwhelming, but "Cropsey" does a good job of reconstructing this creepy chapter of Staten Island history. Most unsettling is the footage of the Willowbrook State School. In the early '70s, Geraldo did a shocking expose of the mental institution, revealing sexual abuse by the staff, overcrowding, images of naked patients writhing in their own feces. (He won an Emmy for the report.) The images aren't pretty, and even though the institution is now a dilapidated, abandoned building, it's still pretty haunting. It certainly doesn't help that Rand, who was known to squat in the forest around the abandoned building, also used to work at the hospital.

Screens at the Tribeca Film Festival on Saturday, April 25 (11:30pm); Sunday, April 26 (3pm); Tuesday, April 28 (11pm); Saturday, May 2 (8:30pm). Tickets available at www.tribecafilm.com.

O.K., I want to say up front that I really don't care about this story, but I thought this piece of writing about it was too great not to share.

Gabe, over at Videogum, addresses the Susan Boyle haters (which kind of includes me, I guess*):

The Susan Boyle thing is definitely popular because the editing staff at "Britain's Got Talent" did a really great job of making it seem like she was a crazy, dowdy loser who was secretly a talent goldmine (i.e. living the dream), but that narrative is all over the place. Not just in reality TV, either. If you get rid of the 47-year-old Scottish virgin, Susan Boyle is basically Spider-Man.

Point taken.

* And just to clarify, I do not hate Susan Boyle herself. Good on her for having a nice voice and getting on TV. I just hate that this has been an international topic of conversation for more than a week now.

By Emily Hulme

I don't say this often -- I don't even think it often -- but sometimes living in New York City is only second best. I know! But it's true.

Over the weekend, the cast of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" did a live performance of "The Nightman Cometh" at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, California. The full story here.

Here's the scene where Charlie comes up with the modern day classic, "Day Man."

You've won this time L.A.

Ha! Fox knows where its bread is buttered. In this promo for "Sit Down, Shut Up," they apologize profusely for canceling "Arrested Development."

"If you liked 'Arrested Development,' it's back on the air. It's just drawn," promises Michael Bluth Jason Bateman. That's quite a promise.

Who is Mark Twain? from Flash Rosenberg on Vimeo.

HarperStudio is coming out with a book of previously unpublished essays by Mark Twain called "Who is Mark Twain?" Above is an excerpt, narrated by John Lithgow and illustrated by Flash Rosenberg. It's neat!

By Lee Rosenberg
Special to amNewYork

3 Stars

For fans of the reimagined “Battlestar Galactica,” “Caprica” is a very different type of show, almost completely lacking in any of the action or science-fiction aspects of “Galactica.”

In many ways, the world of “Caprica” ($26.98) feels like it could be our world in 10 or 20 years.

By Scott A. Rosenberg
• ‘Sleepwalk With Me’ is at the Bleecker Street Theatre through June 7.

Comedian Mike Birbiglia has a well-publicized sleeping disorder — rapid eye movement behavior disorder — which has been the topic of his stand-up routine and a focal point of his hit off-Broadway show, “Sleepwalk With Me.”

Strangely enough, after years on the road dealing with the disorder — which was severe enough that he caused himself bodily harm, as he would act out his dreams while asleep — doing his show about it helped alleviate the problem to some extent.

"Gossip Girl" is back tonight. It seems like they've been running new episodes like once a month, which is annoying, and the last few have gotten even more ridiculous than the baseline of ridiculousness that the show had already set for itself, but tonight looks good.

Chuck has stopped mooning over Blair, Serena is (maybe) married and Wallace Shawn is back as Cyrus! Hooray!

Here's a series of interviews with the team adapting Neil Gaiman's "Coraline" to the stage.

Also, MCC is having a marvelous event tomorrow night with Stephin Merritt et al. peeking behind the scenes. Tickets here. The play starts May 7.

Lauren Conrad and Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt (Photos: Getty)

By Julie Gordon

We know one person who won't be catching "Hills" star Heidi Montag's bouquet this weekend: frenemy Lauren Conrad.

Conrad said she is "probably not" going to former BFF Heidi's nuptials to boyfriend Spencer Pratt on Saturday. Heidi and Spencer eloped in an unofficial Mexico ceremony in November 2008, but plan to make it official this weekend in Pasadena, Calif.

"Yes, I was invited," said Lauren, who was promoting a voice role on this Sunday's "Family Guy."

In December, Heidi told us Lauren was a possible bridesmaid choice, along with Spencer's sister, Stephanie, or her own sister, Holly. Spencer also said the ceremony would "definitely" be televised for the "fans and haters."

By Emily Hulme

Hmm ... The much-anticipated (by me, anyway) "Sit Down, Shut Up" premiered last night. And it was kind of ... meh. The jokes are a little on the obvious side and the characters broadly drawn (Ha! Get it!), but it's only the pilot. Yes, "Arrested Development" hit it out of the park on the very first episode, but this is not "Arrested Development." Clearly.

Also, I have a hard time separating everyone's voices from their real life personae, especially Kenan Thompson.

So ... I'll give it a few more weeks, but as of now I'm a little disappointed.

The folks at DiggReel go behind the scenes at "Mythbusters."

"MB" is the best Sunday afternoon show. It's not too challenging, though it feels sciencey, if not actually educational, and you get to watch guys blow sh*t up. And it seems like the Discovery Channel reruns it for 20 hours in a row so you never have the dilemma of finding what to watch next.

Black Dynamite

By Mina Hochberg

Once boasting what critics called an unwieldy number of films, the Tribeca Film Festival, now in its eighth year, has trimmed its lineup to a slender 84 selections — compared to 150-plus films in past years.

The 12-day event, which starts Wednesday, April 22, offers an even balance of documentaries and narrative films, including work from Spike Lee, Steven Soderbergh and Barry Levinson.

Here’s a selection of films that hold promise.

DOCUMENTARIES

Outrage
In his last documentary, “This Film Is Not Yet Rated,” Kirby Dick methodically took the MPAA to task for their arbitrary, prejudiced ratings system. In “Outrage,” he takes on the hypocrisy of closeted politicians who’ve railed against the LGBT community. Feeling outraged already?

Love the Beast
Aussie actor Eric Bana trades his acting cap for a director’s chair in this documentary about the love of his life: a Ford XB Falcon Coupe, otherwise known to him as his “beast.” In this ode to cars, Bana narrates the story of his lifelong affair with the beast, which he’s owned since he was 15.

By Julie Gordon

It’s fair to say that LuAnn de Lesseps, aka The Countess from Bravo’s “The Real Housewives of New York City,” is obsessed with elegance, even stressing its role in helping her deal with a recent split from her husband of 16 years, Alexandre de Lesseps.

“I’m just trying to handle the situation with as much dignity as I can by remaining friends with my husband,” said the Countess, 47, whose count left her last month for a younger woman — and told her about it via e-mail.

“There’s no use making it nasty or bitter. We’re trying to do the best we can for our kids by not involving them in the nitty-gritty,” she added.

This site is awesome.

Each day they define a new word, with these beautiful picture-book illustrations and soul-sucking examples of usage..

Video game-based hipster shenanigans are not just limited to Brooklyn. These French pranksters annoy and delight.

To me, the movies have been hit or miss (I think I liked the last one, but it wasn't all that memorable), but they're still exciting events. I'm really looking forward to this one

I just got a comment (junked, so you won't see it) that opened with the following: "Hi guys. Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese."

So true. What say you, poets? We need to know your stance on cheese!

By Emily Hulme
• ‘New at the Morgan: Acquisitions Since 2004’ is at The Morgan Library through Oct. 18.

John Singer Sargent, “Portrait of Paul-César Hélleu,” ca. 1882-85

The Morgan Library closed its doors for three years starting in mid-2003 for extensive renovations. The public exhibition schedule was halted during that time, but the Morgan’s collectors kept at their jobs.

The fruits of their labor are on view now in a small but engaging exhibit, “New at the Morgan: Acquisitions Since 2004.” The works on view range from sketches and paintings to musical scores and concert programs, and span from the 1400s to the last few years. There are pieces on view by Edgar Degas, Diane Arbus, Ted Hughes, Oscar Wilde and Johann Sebastian Bach.

But this is no jumbled blockbuster show. The exhibit is neatly organized by theme: sketches and drafts, nature, politics, etc. And housed in a one-room gallery, “New at the Morgan” feels intimate and special.

The nature of the works on view enhances that feeling. An unpublished manuscript by Ernest Hemingway features a “to-do list” on the back. Arthur Getz’s sketchbook shows off pages where the illustrator worked out potential covers for The New Yorker magazine.

This exhibit also encapsulates what is so valuable about the Morgan. Five years of collecting has yielded a strong group of works across all disciplines, underlining the museum’s wider commitment to scholarship and preservation.

State of Play
2.5 stars
Director Kevin Macdonald
Starring Russell Crowe, Rachel McAdams, Ben Affleck, Helen Mirren, Robin Wright Penn

By Mina Hochberg

On the surface, “State of Play” is about a murder, an adulterous congressman and corporate greed — standard enough fare for a Beltway thriller. The heart of the movie, though, lies in its elegiac genuflection toward newspapers, presenting a credible, though inevitably Hollywoodified, portrait of the tense but evolving relationship between dying print media and the fledgling new media.

Russell Crowe plays veteran reporter Cal McAffrey at the Washington Globe, whose plainspoken manner and truth-seeking motto have earned him a fat Rolodex of sources. Then there’s Della Frye (Rachel McAdams), a bright-eyed blogger from the paper’s online side. She’s perky, eager, gossipy and curious, but lacks the reporting wherewithal to get to the meat of a story.

Every Little Step
4 stars
Documentary by James D. Stern and Adam Del Deo

By Mina Hochberg

“Every Little Step” is a delightfully engrossing documentary that chronicles the auditions for the revival of “A Chorus Line.” First staged on Broadway in 1975, the musical didn’t return to the Great White Way until 2006, and directors James D. Stern and Adam Del Deo had the luck of bringing their cameras into the audition room. Hopeful actors auditioning for a musical about hopeful actors who audition for a musical? It’s just too meta-irresistible.

The audition process spans eight long months. Contenders leap, pirouette and wave their jazz hands with electrifying energy. They pour their heart into songs and script lines. Even to an untrained eye, some are clear standouts — you know you’re witnessing something special when a “Maggie” wannabe hits a note so high, so gracefully, it gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. Half the thrill of this film is feeling humbled in the presence of such marvelous human feats.

I should have posted this yesterday, but here's a scene from Black Books (an excellent show from the UK) where Bernard tries to do his taxes. At least we're not him.

Sports Illustrated, of all people, dug up this "Inside Edition" piece on Nintendo.

By Emily Hulme

A screengrab from Michel Gondry's website.

(via)The lovably whimsical Michel Gondry is having quite a sale over at his website. He's selling T-shirts, personalized portraits and toilet paper. Yup, that's right. You can by toilet paper that's been doodled on by Michel Gondry. That doesn't seem so sanitary, but it would make for the best TP'ing of someone's house ever (although, in my experience, people only TP houses in movies and TV). What's that you say? The toilet paper is printed, not directly drawn on?

Also, I am astounded ... I was going to post SuperDeluxe's Michel Gondry on Cribs video, but I cannot find it anywhere. I can't believe this, they said it would never happen. Something has disappeared from the internet.

ETA: Ha! I found it! I knew the internet wouldn't let me down. Here it is:

Da Cribbage - Watch more Funny Videos

I wish this had been out for the Paul Rudd birthday celebration.

This is a companion story to this one; the bios of the illustrators we spoke to are here.

Krommes, who was drawn to book illustration when she started reading to her own children, finds her kids a helpful first audience. Though sometimes they are more willing than other times to give mom’s work a look.

“They’ve seen so much of it over the years that they’re not that interested. I have to sometimes give them a quarter to look at it and give me an opinion,” she said. “But they love when they’re in the pictures”

But not everyone is so interested in hearing what the kids have to say. Notoriously, many people who work in the children’s book industry do not have little ones themselves, nor do they want them.

Smith cites Dr. Seuss, Maurice Sendak, in addition to himself, as not having much to do with children. “I guess maybe because they’re grown up kids themselves, [it’s] too much competition.”

Jeff Kinney, author of the Wimpy Kid series, does have a young child, a kindergartener, but doesn’t yet include him in the process.

“When my wife reads the book to him, she does a lot of censoring… I think you need to be in at least third grade to understand the humor in the book,” he said. “When I created 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid,' I was writing for adults, but my publisher thought that the series would be a hit with kids. I continue to write for adults and cross my fingers that the jokes don’t go over kids’ heads.”

By Emily Hulme

Lane Smith has been working in the business for more than 20 years. He’s had a long-time collaboration with Jon Scieszka, but works with other authors as well. He also illustrates his own work.

Beth Krommes is an illustrator for hire, coming to children’s books after many careers associated with art. She is this year’s recipient of the Caldecott Medal for her work on “The House in the Night,” by Susan Marie Swanson.

Jeff Kinney is the author/illustrator of the “Wimpy Kid” series. “Wimpy Kid” was originally conceived as a comic for adults, but publishers saw the inherent appeal for children. Book four will hit stores in October.

By Emily Hulme

We spoke with Lane Smith, Beth Krommes and Jeff Kinney for this story. Read their bios here.

First come the words, then comes the pictures, then comes the book tour. That’s basically the way children’s book illustrators work.

Of course in practice, it’s far more complicated than that, and each illustrator’s process is as different as the books they create.

1a. Finding a Manuscript
If the author and illustrator of a given book are separate people, they usually get matched up by their agent or the publishing company.

“The author doesn’t really get to choose. If they really didn’t like the samples, they might be able to say so,” said Krommes.

Like in any industry, veteran artists and those who have won awards have more clout, and have more freedom to pick and choose their projects.

Smith said that he probably works on only 1 out of every 20 manuscripts he receives.

“If it’s something that clicks with me I can’t help myself from doodling in the margins of the manuscript as I read it,” he said. “Usually by the time I finish it I have like 10 or 15 little drawings around the manuscript, and that’s always a good sign.”

This looks really funny. And I love all these actors.

ETA: That song that plays over the end, "Free Ride" by the Edgar Winter Group, has been used in "My Name is Earl," "Radio," "Jack Frost" and "Dazed and Confused." I would have thought it had been in more.

Suri Cruise and Katie Holmes (Getty)

By Julie Gordon

Celebu-spawn Suri Cruise will not begin taking classes this year at a Scientology-based school, despite British tabloid reports.

The U.K.’s Daily Mail reported that the daughter of Tom Cruise, 46, and Katie Holmes, 30, is set to attend New Village Leadership Academy in Calabasas, Calif.

“This is inaccurate information,” said Jacquline M. Oliver, head of the school.

Students must be 4 years old by Sept. 1 to join the youngest class, Oliver said. Suri turns 3 on Saturday.

Actors Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, friends of the Cruise family, built the New Village Academy last year.

By Pete Catapano

WIth the news today that Mel Gibson is getting divorced after 29 years, there's somewhat fresh pictures of the star all over the Internet today.

One in particular caught my attention. Well, mostly the fact that Gibson's facial hair and sheer insanity of his expression make him look a lot like the Joker from the 70s game show "The Joker's Wild" hosted by Jack Barry. You be the judge.

(Gibson photo, Getty)

Observe and Report
2.5 stars
Written and directed by Jody Hill
Starring Seth Rogen, Anna Faris, Ray Liotta, Michael Pena, Celia Weston

By Mina Hochberg

In “Observe and Report,” director Jody Hill’s brash follow-up to “The Foot Fist Way,” Seth Rogen plays Ronnie Barnhardt, an ignorant mall security guard with a delicate ego and huge delusions about his importance in the world. When a flasher starts terrorizing mall patrons, including a busty floozy who works at a makeup counter (Anna Faris), Ronnie seizes it as an opportunity to be a hero.

Except that he doesn’t know the first thing about how to track down a pervert, so when a real cop (Ray Liotta) infringes on his investigation, Ronnie has conniptions and goes to a very dark place. As the gold medal slips further out of Ronnie’s reach, the clouds darken. In fact, get ready to squirm, because Ronnie’s downward spiral is just plain uncomfortable to watch — not in a transcendently funny “Borat” kind of way, but more in a sad, miserable way.

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
1.5 stars
Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber
Starring Jon Foster, Sienna Miller, Peter Sarsgaard, Mena Suvari, Nick Nolte

By Mina Hochberg

I haven’t read Michael Chabon’s first novel, “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh,” but I get the feeling this movie adaptation doesn’t do it justice.

On the heels of “Adventureland,” it’s another Pittsburgh-set, summer-after-college coming-of-age movie — only kinkier. In this case, the recent college grad is Art (Jon Foster), son of a big-time Pittsburgh gangster (Nick Nolte). Art, an econ major who’s appeasing his dad by going into finance, isn’t too happy with life. He hates being a gangster’s son (wah!), and he hates crunching numbers.

There’s no better cure for an inhibited 22-year-old than befriending a wild and crazy couple. After meeting a dulcet, carefree blond named Jane (Sienna Miller) at a party, Art gets inexplicably adopted by her and her boyfriend Cleveland (Peter Sarsgaard) as a mostly platonic third wheel. He joins them at crazy punk raves, loiters with them around crazy abandoned factories. His new friends make Art question his straitlaced life, living under the thumb of his grouchy thug dad.

“The Mysteries of Pittsburgh” has the feel of a story that’s been lost in translation from its original source. Art, Jane and Cleveland carry on in solipsistic bubbles, all quirky and angsty without an explanation of why. Their troubles, too vague to engage you emotionally, strike a phony note. Too bad, since it’s such a purdy cast.

By Emily Hulme
• Eclectic Method is at (Le) Poisson Rouge tonight.

When Stephen Colbert talks, the Internet listens.

Most recently, the media megalomaniac convinced 230,539 people to vote for him in a NASA poll to name a new international space station (the results are under debate; Colbert may instead end up with a bathroom named after him).

Earlier this winter, Colbert inadvertently introduced audio-visual group Eclectic Method to the world, by way of a video challenge that invited interested parties to remix an interview with lawyer and intellectual property rights guru Lawrence Lessig.
Eclectic Method members Ian Edgar and Jonny Wilson agreed that there was an immediate response after Colbert played a clip of their video on his show.

“There’s statistical evidence of the ‘Colbert bump,’” Wilson says.

OK, not really. But Urlesque has compiled a list of 100 iconic videos from the history of the internet here.

You've probably seen many of them. Depending on how much of your life you waste online, you may have seen most of them.

I had not seen this one:

Charlie the Unicorn is hysterical. He sounds kind of like Dr. Girlfriend. Jason Steele, the creator, is up to Charlie the Unicorn 3.

They're up to 61 right now and they'll be posting 60-41 tomorrow. The final 20 go up Monday ... so I'm assuming 21-40 will hit the site Friday.

By Emily Hulme

The "Designing Women" set in miniature.

Someone wonderful (who may have a little too much time on their hands), has made dioramas of television sets from all your favorite shows. The gallery is here. It's marvelous.

The cover to Peter V. Brett's novel, "The Warded Man."

By Scott A. Rosenberg

Most people riding the subway are reading, listing to music or people-watching. For Peter V. Brett, the author of the new fantasy novel “The Warded Man,” the subway was his writing studio.

Using his HP iPAQ smart phone, Brett, 36, turned out 300-400 words each way on his 45-minute commute to work from Kensington in Brooklyn to Times Square on the F train.

By Emily Hulme

So I talked to the organizers of the Bob Ross Tribute party last week, but unfortunately, due to a series of mishaps, I didn't actually make it to the party.

Fortunately for the rest of you, my friend Roxy did.

Here's her report:

And here's supplemental footage of the dancers:

Bob Ross Dancers from Roxy and Anthony on Vimeo.

He had such a minor role in "R&J" that it's hard to find a clip of Rudd as Paris, so here's the intro, where they flash his beautiful face for just one second.

I really only remember him acting goofy in a space suit during the costume ball scene, but I'd take him over Leonardo DiCaprio any day (well, most days).

From 1991!

Today is Paul Rudd's birthday, and it seems there's no one who doesn't love the man. We love him lots! So we're celebrating all day, probably mostly by posting video clips, but there may be some haikus!

Anyway, we kick things off with this compilation of Rudd scenes from the 2000 Hong Kong action movie, "Gen Y Cops."

You have got to read this McSweeney's story. An excerpt:

JESSIE: Ugh, Fitzgerald. You boys and your reverence for dead white males. What chauvinist pigs.

SLATER: Oink, oink, mama. And I mean that in the most Orwellian and neo-Freudian senses.

ZACK: As Henri Bergson might say, "Time-out!" Can you two ever have a conversation without it devolving into a dispute over phallologocentrism?

And this, just on the heels of the news that Jimmy Fallon is trying to reunite the old gang on his show.

By Emily Hulme

I love Peeps and I love "The Office," so of course I love this.

OfficeTally is having a contest to see who can best recreate a scene from "The Office" using Peeps. Many of the entries come from "Office Olympics" and that one at the beach. The one below is from the episode where Michael grills his foot.

See all of the entries here.

By Robert Levin
Special to amNewYork

“Paris 36,” opening Friday after kicking off last month’s Rendezvous with French Cinema at Lincoln Center, is director Christophe Barratier’s highly polished tribute to the Popular Front era in France, which lasted for a brief time in the mid 1930s. Highly schematic and purposefully infused with artifice, the film centers on a collective theater run by Pigoil (Gérard Jugnot) in a fictional Parisian neighborhood. amNewYork spoke to co-star Nora Arnezeder, a singer making her feature film debut as Douce, the theater’s main attraction.

How did you get the part?
When I first met [Barratier] he said to me that I was too young to play the lead character. And I was really disappointed, but he said to me you can play a smaller part in the movie. But I was really happy, you know, [because] it was better than nothing. So I received songs from the movie and I really fell in love with the songs. So I sang the songs [for him] and he said to me that I’m going to give you the script and you’re going to work for the role of Douce. So I read the script and I realized it was the [lead female] character. I was really afraid because I wanted to prove to myself and Christophe that I was not just a singer, you know, [but] that I could act as well.

By Emily Hulme

Mothers can have a special way of talking to their adult children that is equal parts poignantly caring and hilariously clueless. And sometimes we receive missives that are too good not to share.

It was with that in mind that Doree Shafrir and Jessica Grose started the blog PostcardsFromYoMomma.com. They recently collected the best reader submissions into a book, “Love, Mom: Poignant, Goofy, Brilliant Messages from Home.” We spoke to the pair about the project.

What did your own mothers think when you started the web site? And
then the book?
Doree: I was super nervous about telling my mom--I wasn't sure how she'd react, especially since we'd posted a few of her gems right away. I waited about a week and then called her at work. She immediately went to the URL and started laughing hysterically. It turned out she was really excited to be on the site!

The funniest part was there were a couple emails that she was absolutely positive she'd written, but they weren't actually from her--thereby reinforcing our thesis that at heart, most moms are, essentially, the same.

Jess: My mom didn't even save the URL at first; she thought it was a passing fancy. But then we started getting written up in major newspapers and magazines about a week after we started the blog, and she realized it might be something that was sticking around. She was thrilled about the book, and pretty tickled that she was the inspiration.

Are they more careful in their communication to you now that they know
there’s a chance it could be broadcast to the world?
Doree: My mom's emails have gotten shorter, I've noticed. And every so often she'll send me an email and write at the end, "That was a Yo Momma email, wasn't it?" One habit I haven't been able to break her of, sadly, is sending forwards. She's cut back, but now when she sends them it's always with the qualifier: "This is REALLY good."

By Emily Hulme

The A.V. Club has a great interview up with Wallace Shawn, where they talk about all his roles from "My Dinner With Andre" to "Gossip Girl." I think the greatest part is that he has no idea why people think he's so cool.

Also, this quote is very nice:

AVC: What was it like acting opposite Andre The Giant?

WS: Well, that, I did very much enjoy. He was marvelous. But there was something painful about his situation, because he already had lost some of his strength. Of course it was well-known that he could not live terribly long, because no one with his condition did. So it was all a bit poignant. But he was always very, very intelligent, and he was very kind to me, because I was quite afraid of certain things we had to do, and he was very, very nice to me. He was a fascinating person, because he had come from a small village in France and wanted to travel. And he quite consciously decided that in order to travel, his best option was to try to become a wrestler and that’s what he did.

I saw Shawn at some hipster event a few years ago at Pianos, he was hosting, and it was clear he had no idea why he was there and what was going on, but he was glad to be there just the same. He seems like a genuinely nice person and good sport.

This site has a pretty comprehensive list of the pranks people are pulling on the internet today.

Some of my faves:

• Ireland's green party calls for "urgent action on dihydrogen monoxide threat." Dihydrogen Monoxide is H2O, water.

• The Pirate Bay has merged with Warner Bros.

• Kitty hair extensions. (Although if baby toupee is a real thing...)

• "Whale-Sized Marshmallows Deployed to Thwart Japanese Whalers." It's whales made from PEEPS!

• Cash4Gold is proposing a new U.S. currency that takes us back to the gold standard. With Stephen Colbert's face stamped on gold coins. Although, their "this is just a joke" disclaimer at the end kind of knee-caps the whole thing.

The lights will turn off permanently in September for television’s longest-running soap opera.

“Guiding Light,” which has been running for 72 years, will air its final episode on CBS on Sept. 18, CBS announced Wednesday. The reason behind the ending is a decline in ratings, a CBS rep said.

“GL” started in 1937 as a 15-minute radio serial before moving to TV in 1952.

The show shoots at the CBS Broadcast Center on 57th Street and in Peapack, N.J.

"No show in daytime or prime time, or anytime, has touched so many
millions of viewers across so many years as 'Guiding Light,'" said Barbara
Bloom, senior vice president of daytime programs for CBS. "We thank the cast, crew and producers - past and present - who delivered this entertainment institution, the beloved characters and the time-honored stories to our audience every day for seven decades. It's been a privilege to work with such an extraordinarily talented group of
people."

By Emily Hulme

Hooray for April Fools Day! I already got pranked this morning by a publicist who gave the subject line to her email: "New Radiohead Album." Of course I clicked on it (even though she wasn't Radiohead's publicist), and sure enough, it wasn't about Radiohead.

Google's annual prank is obvious, but still pretty funny. They claim to have launched CADIE — Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity. Break that down, and it's roughly a thinking robot that lives in the internet. The best part is that what it's learned so far is that it likes pandas.

Here's CADIE's blog, her YouTube channel and a technospeak explanation of how she works. Because those are the first things you set when you're born these days.

She actually reminds me a lot of Jane, the networked artificial intelligence, from Orson Scott Card's "Speaker for the Dead." Although I'm sure there are plenty of other examples of this ... WOPR from "WarGames" ... actually, this type of entity tends to take over the world, I think ... well played, Google.

ETA: It just gets better. Email autopilot!