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Humour

“I no longer needed a reason for my existence, just a reason to live.”

By Asides, Humour

I know this has been going around a bit this week, but this para­graph stood out for me:

Wow. No God. If mum had lied to me about God, had she also lied to me about Santa? Yes, of course, but who cares? The gifts kept com­ing. And so did the gifts of my new found athe­ism. The gifts of truth, sci­ence, nature. The real beauty of this world. I learned of evol­u­tion -– a the­ory so simple that only England’s greatest geni­us could have come up with it. Evolution of plants, anim­als and us –- with ima­gin­a­tion, free will, love, humor. I no longer needed a reas­on for my exist­ence, just a reas­on to live. And ima­gin­a­tion, free will, love, humor, fun, music, sports, beer and pizza are all good enough reas­ons for living.

[From A Holiday Message from Ricky Gervais: Why I’m An Atheist – Speakeasy – WSJ]

Glenn Kenny says what I was trying to say

By Cinema, Humour

Former Première Magazine crit­ic Glenn Kenny has come up with a few notes about Watchmen that say what I was try­ing to say in my review, only better:

A lot of it has to do with the fact that Snyder dir­ects like a pre­ser­va­tion­ist rather than an inter­pret­er. It might have been a kick to see this set-in-an-alternate-1980s tale dir­ec­ted like an ’80s pic­ture. maybe. But no; we instead get a lot of slav­ish recre­ations of Gibbons’ panels.

These two Watchmen-related posts give me the oppor­tun­ity to re-present my favour­ite Watchmen moment since 1986:

and also dir­ect your atten­tion to this awe­some Watchmen-Saturday morn­ing car­toon pas­tiche from Harry Partridge:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDDHHrt6l4w[/youtube]

I feel my mood lifting ...

By Cinema, Humour

In a few hours the world is hope­fully going to get a little bit saner and a little more tol­er­ant. So, as I’m in a good mood here’s some­thing that might make you chuckle:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIXByCAIzos[/youtube]

And if that isn’t enough here’s the Flight of the Conchords being inter­viewed at The AV Club. I know, link­ing to Conchords con­tent just to increase one’s traffic is so 2007.

Some Frank Langella trivia

By Asides, Humour, NZ, Theatre

Here’s a New York Times pro­file of Frost/Nixon star, and great char­ac­ter act­or, Frank Langella. Langella once bought the Broadway rights to the hit kiwi “com­edy” Ladies’ Night and author Anthony McCarten told me once of sit­ting in Langella’s trail­er in Hollywood col­lab­or­at­ing on the American-ization of the play that may or may not have even­tu­ally become The Full Monty. Periodically, Langella would have to excuse him­self and vis­it the set: “Excuse me, I have to go and make love to Ellen Barkin.”

Simpsons meet Mad Men

By Asides, Humour, TV

In lieu of some­thing more sub­stant­ive, and just before I crash for the night:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://videogum.com/v/YfTNFhdejPlq6" width="448" height="356" wmode="transparent" /]

[from this year’s Treehouse of Horror, via Kottke and Videogum]