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#BeyonceAlwaysOnBeat proves there's no beat Bey can't get down to

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Beyoncé fans are a devoted lot, and over the last few days, they’ve zeroed in on her choreography to create the ultimate mashup. 

The hashtag #BeyonceAlwaysOnBeat is a collection of Bey dancing to other people’s songs, and it proves there’s no beat she can’t sync to. Say goodbye to whatever work you were going to do today.  


H/T Vibe | Photo via nonu | photography/Flickr (CC BY SA 2.0)


Amy Schumer gave a 'Bachelorette' contestant the advice he sorely needed

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If you've stopped watchingThe Bachelorette because the male contestants seem like human garbage dumps, Amy Schumer's appearance last night offered some incentive to check back in with the new season. 

In the latest episode, this season's bachelorette, Kaitlyn, got some boxing tips from Muhammad Ali's daughter, Laila, and then Schumer and fellow comedians Bridget Everett, Nikki Glaser, and Rachel Feinstein swooped in to give the men some advice on being funny.

Schumer zeroed in on contestant JJ, whose lack of any humor or personality whatsoever was positively radiant. 

"JJ's a sweetheart," Schumer said. "He's just missing charisma and humility and a sense of humor."

Can we please have Schumer as a consultant on every episode? 

H/T Jezebel | Screengrab via Hulu 

Bill Nye explains how the universe speaks directly to white women

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Bill Nye has been everywhere lately, and his latest stop is Tuesday night's episode of Inside Amy Schumer

Nye is appearing on the show to explain that the universe isn't an awe-inspiring "chaotic collection of matter," but rather a sentient being that functions as a direct line to white women in their twenties and their insignificant problems.

It is, Nye says, a "giant dream board on which women pin their wishes." 

The ladies of Broad City also make a cameo to show how the universe will reward you with an apricot puggle if you just put it out there. Nye, however, has other thoughts. 

Screengrab via Comedy Central/YouTube 

22-year-old intern wrote 2 of Letterman's final 'Top 10' jokes

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If you watched David Letterman's final Late Show last week, you probably noticed that one of the best segments of the night was the Top Ten list. Mostly because it featured 10 of the show's best friends throughout the years, many of whom laughed hysterically while their colleagues read off the jokes, and mostly because for the first time in a number of times since I've seen the show, I laughed at more than a couple of the lines.

You can credit the writers for crafting some fine jokes for Letterman's final show. And you can credit a 22-year-old intern for writing two of the lines—jokes that now will live forever.

Here's the first joke, via Tina Fey (and her delightful post-gag backward shoulder dance).

And here's the explanation, via this awesomely-fun Tumblr post by Bill Scheft, who's written for Letterman's show for the past 24 years.

[Eight] of the 10 celebrities were happy with the lines we had written for them. Tina Fey and Julia Louis-Dreyfus wanted to consider other takes. Julia settled on a line written by Mike Leech ("Thanks for letting me take part in another hugely disappointing series finale….") which the next day was proclaimed the “winner” of the Top Ten. Tina took something a little more subtle and much more pointed ("Thanks for finally proving men can be funny….") That line, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and ladies, was written by Caroline, whose last name I don’t know. I don’t know because she was the writer’s intern and we never got that formal. But on the last day of the last show, she scored the final two entries on the final Top Ten. Oh yeah, she already had Bill Murray’s line ("Dave, I’ll never have the money I owe you….") We were all genuinely thrilled for her. This 21-year-old [sic] has all the resume she needs going forward. I will be happy to help her in any way I can. But I’ll need her last name. (UPDATE 6:30: My pal Brian Koppleman found her on Twitter. Caroline Schaper @carolimeschaper)

You've already seen the men-can-be-funny joke. Here's the other joke written by Schaper, as performed by Murray.

But since Koppleman found Schaper's Twitter account, let's take a look and see if we can find anything else that makes us chuckle.  

A few gems:

And best of all, this is what Schaper tweeted the day before Letterman's last show.

Obviously, she was joking, but Letterman wasn't the one who gave Schaper some well-deserved credibility. Schaper did that herself.

H/T Uproxx | Photo via Late Show With David Letterman/YouTube

Patton Oswalt apologizes to Albert Brooks for 'inadvertent theft' of an old comedy bit

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Ever have a bad day in which you piss off one of your heroes, and the whole thing has to play out on social media before the entire world? If so, you know exactly how comedian Patton Oswalt feels right now.

That's because Oswalt, one of the world's most-respected (and funniest) comics working today, was announced by Esquire magazine as the dean of the Famous School For Comedians for the 2015-16 academic year.

The problem there—and the problem that seemed to highly offend legendary comedian Albert Brooks—is that Brooks concocted the idea of the faux Famous School For Comedians for the magazine in 1971.

As Splitsider wrote in 2011

Anyway, for the magazine Brooks created a five-page parody of the Famous Artists School, whose ubiquitous "Draw Me" ads filled the pages of every comic book, men's magazine, and hobby publication of the day. The "Albert Brooks Famous School For Comedians" featured a typically smarmy Brooks welcoming hopeful students to his shady enterprise. The following pages offered a photographic tour of the "campus," samples from "The Curriculum" — including a two-page Comedy Talent Test® — and Brooks' "Komedy Korner®," which "answers" vital student questions about comedy. (Note also the Register Mark, used extensively throughout the article to impart an air of transparently undeserved authenticity). There is also a "testimonial" from a former student, who unfortunately seems to have learned exactly the kind of broadly shameless humor the Famous School For Comedians teaches.

Back then, Brooks was a 23-year-old comedian practicing the art of "New Humor." But that didn't stop the magazine from reimagining the gag with Bob Odenkirk and David Cross in 2002 and now with Oswalt in 2015. Apparently, Brooks didn't know anything about the new installment, and when he found out Tuesday, he was not pleased.

At first, it appeared as though Oswalt thought Brooks was joking, and he tweeted a line about how he heard that Odenkirk and Cross had won the position of dean from Brooks in a game of baccarat and that Oswalt had then won it from the duo in a game of beer pong (that tweet has since been deleted).

Brooks, though, wasn't laughing.

And thus, late Tuesday night, Esquire tweeted this clarification.

Oswalt, meanwhile, addressed Brooks in a series of tweets in which he offered his heartfelt apologies.

Wrote Oswalt: "I was VERY aware of the Famous School for Comedians when I accepted Esquire's offer. I've been a fan and near-acolyte of you since my teens. I knew, in 2002, that Esquire had done a SECOND "Famous School" feature. So I assumed (wrongly, sloppily) that doing a THIRD one was okay with you. But we have enough friends in common that I could have EASILY contacted you, so that's on me. Albert, I'm sorry you and your work were treated this way. I go bugfuck when it's done to me or another comedian, and now I'm in the shitty position of inadvertently dealing out theft to one of my heroes. This has been an IMAX, 3D, Smell-o-Vision version of a shitty day. I've pissed off one of my heroes. No excuse, no acceptable apology as far as I can see. Fuck me. Good night."

In the end, though, it appeared that Brooks accepted Oswalt's apology.

So, that's that. Unless all of this fighting is really just a three-way work of art in which Brooks is making us all look like fools. And if so, there's only action: he immediately should be reinstated as the dean of his Famous School For Comedians.

Photo via Current Events/Flickr (CC BY SA 2.0) 

The new 'Point Break' trailer is everything that's wrong with modern remakes

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Christmas just got a little more radical. 

The first trailer for the upcoming remake of Point Break hit the web on Tuesday, and boy, it really is something else.

No, really. It is something else entirely.

This isn’t the Point Break the world came to know and love in 1991. This reimagining finds FBI Agent Johnny Utah—actual name—infiltrating a crew of thrill-seeking super-criminals who use "their skills to disrupt the international financial markets." Like him, they are extreme athletes.

However, unlike Kathryn Bigelow’s 1991 classic, which stars Keanu Reeves as Agent Utah alongside Patrick Swayze’s surfing guru Bodhi, the bank robbers in this "supercharged" version lack the charisma and need-for-speed attitude of the original movie's gang. Instead of that search for the "ultimate ride," their thing is...philanthropy? It's not really clear. 

Judging from the trailer—and I’m going to disregard my previous stance on trailer reviews for this one—2015’s Point Break meekly sops up what made the original so much fun, eschewing the camp, edginess, and self-awareness of Bigelow’s movie for big-budget set-pieces that involve more carabiners than you would find at any REI. The trailer is enough to make one wonder exactly how much Warner Bros. spent on Mountain Dew.

Additionally, the new Point Break appears to focus so little on surfing that it completely nullifies the title, which referenced the surf term used to describe the point where waves hit the coastline. 

A few questions: Did Johnny Utah blow out his knee in the X-Games? Where are the Ex-Presidents? Why put Anthony Kiedis' tattoos on the new Johnny Utah? 

Reactions to the Point Break remake ranged from disbelief, dismissal, to outright disgust. Twitter responded to the trailer reasonably.



As a reminder, here is the original movie's glorious trailer.

I’m not against the idea of a movie where "extreme sports athletes" pull off huge, stunt-filled heists. I’m not against Ericson Core directing the movie—he was, after all, the original DP of The Fast and the Furious, the only acceptable reimagining of Point Break. (Perhaps he should have quit while he was ahead.)  But I'm not okay with an unnecessary update of a movie that still holds up almost 25 years later, a modern classic by an Academy Award-winning director.

The Point Break remake is a blatant attempt to tug at the nostalgic heartstrings of '90s kids without actually channeling what made them enjoy the original movie. Luke Bracey and Ray Winstone's respective lackadaisical impressions of Keanu Reeves and Gary Busey are hardly enough to rein in even the most adrenaline-craving Bodhi-head. 

There are few perfect things in this world, and Kathryn Bigelow's Point Break was one of them. Attempting to give it a glossy makeover will only drive more eyes to the greatness of the 1991 version. 

I'm pretty sure I know how Keanu feels about all of this.

Screengrab via Warner Bros. Pictures/YouTube

From Oxford to YouTube, #WCW Sally LePage is science’s latest hero

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The Daily Dot is celebrating Woman Crush Wednesday, better known as #WCW on Twitter and Instagram, by highlighting female creators onYouTube whose work we admire.

It’s not often that a doctoral student at Oxford University is as passionate about researching evolution as she is about making YouTube videos, but when it comes to biologist Sally Le Page, nothing is out of the realm of possibility.

Consider her a science superhero.

Le Page originally started her channel Shed Science with the purpose of making science accessible and interesting to a wide audience, or as she more beautifully puts it: “There is absolutely no point of doing science if no one hears about it and can use it.” Le Page has had a long love affair with STEM fields, pursuing an undergraduate degree in biological sciences at Oxford before transitioning into a Ph.D. program there. In 2013, a year after starting her channel, Le Page’s unconventional approach to science education began making national headlines after she won both the Guardian’s short film contest and Oxford’s first Science Slam competition. During her recent talk at the Royal Institution, Le Page presented “Secrets of Sex,” a lecture in which she related how the weird and amazing sexual habits of animals are more relevant to humans than we tend to believe.

Currently, Le Page is studying how sexual selection, kinship selection, and evolution all influence the behaviors of a species.

Over the last three years on YouTube, Le Page has done a lot in the name of science, from creating original songs for starfish to painting her face orange to demonstrate animal mating preferences. Recently, GE hired her as a creator in residence and gave her the support and power to create multiple science series around everything from movies to the latest in science news. Le Page has even the opportunity to interview Bill Nye and Neil DeGrasse Tyson—a task that would intimidate even Charles Darwin.

At the root of all of Le Page’s many amazing achievements is her passion for science and education. Just like STEM educators Emily Graslie (Brain Scoop), Vanessa Hill (Braincraft), and Dr. Doe (Sexplanations), Le Page is an incredible role model to young girls interested in pursuing their scientific passions.

I’m especially grateful to Le Page for speaking openly about her struggles with imposter syndrome, an anxiety often felt by women that they do not deserve their own success, despite having external evidence to the contrary. Her candid conversation on the topic was a light bulb moment for me—and likely many of the rest of her 14,600 subscribers.

So keep rocking on, Sally Le Page, and I promise, I’ll always keep watching.

Screengrab via Sally Le Page/YouTube

One of the U.K.'s best comedy shows is coming back as a webseries

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British comedy nerds rejoice! Trigger Happy TV, Dom Joly's surreal early-2000s hidden-camera show, will reportedly be resurrected in the form of a webseries.

The show's original broadcaster, Channel 4, is in talks with Joly to create a "series of online shorts...for when you only have time for a five minute fix."

It's about time Joly started to create again. Ever since he disowned Comedy Central's U.S. version of the show and talk of a Trigger Happy TV film subsided, it seemed as if he had slid into the irredeemable life of the professional C-lister: content as a talking head on retrospective clip shows and appearing in guff like I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, Celebrity Total Wipeout, Pointless Celebrities and Splash! (in which, I assume, "celebrity" is implied).

The webseries format seems like a perfect fit for Trigger, which stuffed its episodes with a succession of snappy, minute-long scenarios, always featuring Joly. But it seems that the creator has greater plans for the series: He wants to introduce mostly fresh characters and make some of the new sketches in a "cinematic-style."

The idea sounds promising, but whether the already-complex comedic essence of the returning "massive phone guy" will be improved with a character arc and an unreliable narrator remains to be seen. 

Screengrab via Channel 4/YouTube


Mamrie Hart thinks 'You Deserve a Drink'

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This article contains explicit language.

Mamrie Hart is the kind of person who can say “coochie juice” to a room full of suit-wearing agents and not bat an eye.

She’s not just throwing out NSFW terms willy-nilly. It’s all part of the ramp-up to the release of her first book, You Deserve a Drink, a collection of stories from her boozy youth that shares a name with her super-popular YouTube series. Hart has built a loyal following on YouTube with her You Deserve a Drink series, which uses her bartending skills to craft pop-culture cocktails for whomever is most in need of a stiff one at the end of each week. Online, she’s bawdy and unfiltered, and while she isn’t a completely different person in real life, Hart admits there are a few downfalls to your media empire being built on booze: chiefly, everyone always wants to do shots with you.

“While I love drinking and it’s my favorite thing, I can’t do shots at 1pm,” she laughed over coffee. “Unless they want me to be one of those cases that gets sad in a couple years. I think people are surprised I’m really nice, because I’m such a smartass online. That’s just my sense of humor, but on the day to day, I’m not going to be like, ‘What’s up’ and then make fun of your ass.”

YouTube persona aside, the book barely mentions the platform. The stories she tells from her booze-aided 20s are not the stories of a digital celebrity navigating her way to increasing fame, but rather of every post-collegiate trying to navigate the space between the life she’s fantasized for herself and her reality.

It’s also just extremely funny. It’s chock full of stories that Hart says have only previously seen the light of day—or the dark of night—drunkenly at the bar.

“The hard part was sitting down and thinking up stories, and realizing I have that many, and that’s terrifying,” laughed Hart. “There’s definitely ones that didn’t make it in.”

Hart spent eight years in New York City cutting her teeth on the sketch comedy circuit with shows at UCB and the Pit before leaving for Los Angeles to write and ingrain herself in the YouTube community, although that was just one of many reasons for the change of scenery.

“First, the YouTube community out here is really strong, it doesn't really exist in New York,” she said, pausing to tell a crying baby to “get it, girl.” “Second, I was auditioning and I had to put myself on tape, and I absolutely hate watching myself. And third, I really wanted a dog and to not do winter. People’s maternal clock starts ticking at a certain age; mine went, ‘I need a dog.’” Beanz, her pup, is also part of her YouTube world, making numerous appearances throughout the series.

When she started on the platform six years ago, she was following in the footsteps of her sketch comedy pal Grace Helbig, who helped her get her first episode online. According to Hart, at the time there was a stigma in comedy circles about doing work online versus live work in the city.

“But that’s totally changed over the past seven years,” she explained. “Now I see people who didn’t know what the hell I was doing with You Deserve a Drink trying to build their own online stuff. Just as TV and film are recognizing Internet, so is live comedy.”

As a prime example of digital celebrities breaking into the mainstream, Hart sees the future of her creativity as a hybrid of the digital and the traditional. And she’s onto something: Hart will have the distinction of being the first YouTuber-turned-author to have her book reviewed by the New York Times.

“I’d like to make another movie in the vein of Camp Takota where we write in it, we star in it, we produce it,” she explained. “Our hand is in every cookie jar. I want to do traditional stuff as well. I want to be in more mainstream traditional movies I didn’t write, or things I can write but not be in. I want to do both paths, and I think naturally they’ll converge. As everyone says, traditional media is picking up on digital. I don’t think I need to come up with some new plan to bring them together. If I keep doing both, they won’t marry, but they will be common law. They’ll eventually just come together.”

With You Deserve a Drink, Hart has made the leap to the page, taking inspiration from other writers like Amy Sedaris, Chelsea Handler, and Mindy Kaling, to craft a book that mixes recipes and quick wit while staying true to her own style.

“This is the first thing I’ve ever written in first person; this is the first thing I’ve written that isn’t a script,” explained Hart, who penned Camp Takota and starred in the film with fellow YouTube heavyweights Helbig and Hannah Hart (no relation) last year. “Now that I’ve written this book, I could see how I could write a novel. In all the free time. Maybe that will be backup when I retire. I’ll slowly transition into … dirty Judy Blume.”

“Just as TV and film are recognizing Internet, so is live comedy.”

Meanwhile, for those NSFW moments in the book, Hart designed an ingenious plan for well-meaning family members who want to read her stories. She put in a safe word. Every time she mentions “rutabaga,” that’s the cue for family members to flip to the next chapter and skip the embarrassment.

“When I sat down to start thinking of the different stories I wanted to tell, I got to the point where with a large portion of them I thought, ‘imagine your mother reading this,’” she said. “That’s when I decided there had to be a safe word. I’m doing it for them, at the end of the day. I hope [they’ll use the safe word]. I was a pretty good kid, growing up; they should be a good parent and reciprocate.”

For now, she’s hoping everyone comes together around her book but approaches it in the lighthearted manner she intended.

“I want this to be a book you throw in your beach bag, or for your subway ride,” Hart said. “I want this to be a fun time. You’re not going to learn anything. I guarantee, or your money back!”

Illustration by Tiffany Pai

'Grace of Monaco' screenwriter explains his film's flaws in hilarious livetweets

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Grace Kelly biopic Grace of Monaco was meant to be an Oscar contender, but it was viciously panned by critics. Instead of having a proper theatrical release in the U.S., it wound up airing on the Lifetime channel, where it was received with a barrage of mocking tweets on Tuesday night. Not what Nicole Kidman was hoping for when she signed up to play Grace Kelly.

One of the many people livetweeting the movie was its own screenwriter, Arash Amel, who took the opportunity to explain why Grace of Monaco turned out so bad.

Grace of Monaco focused on Grace Kelly’s personal conflict over abandoning her Hollywood career to marry Rainier III, Prince of Monaco. In theory this was intriguing fodder for a historical drama, but the resulting film was heavily criticized for being vapid, dull, and schmaltzy. 

Several different cuts were made, with the French director Olivier Dahan disagreeing strongly with American producer Harvey Weinstein. Weinstein compared Amel’s original script to The King’s Speech, saying:
"The writer, Arash Amel, called me and said, what happened to my script. It’s like welcome to Hollywood. Writers don’t have any say, but we decided to pair him up with a team of people and see what he could do about restoring the movie to the way it looked when he wrote it."

Meanwhile Dahan described Weinstein’s cut as “a pile of shit” and “catastrophic.” He also suggested that American distributors like the Weinstein Company would resort to blackmail to get their final cut of a movie.

Amel even hated the film’s soundtrack, which he complained about several times on Twitter.

One of the most high-profile issues with Grace of Monaco was the filmmaker’s conflict with the Monaco royal family. Prince Albert II of Monaco (Grace Kelly’s son) described the film as inaccurate and “needlessly glamorized,” saying that his family’s “numerous requests for changes” had been ignored. According to Amel, the Monaco royal family signed off on the script and then criticized the film before it had been released.

Judging by the film’s critical reception combined with Arash Amel’s livetweets, Grace of Monaco sounds like a true Hollywood fiasco. He complimented Nicole Kidman on her performance and praised Harvey Weinstein for his attempts to salvage the film, but otherwise he seems to have accepted that Grace of Monaco’s terrible reputation is set in stone. It’s just as well he has a good sense of humor about it.

Photo via Warner Bros

Chris Pratt points out dirty joke on a Beijing souvenir T-shirt

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We already know that sometimes souvenir items don’t always translate well, but Chris Pratt is just going with it.

He just got back from promoting Jurassic World in China, and at some point during the trip he discovered a peculiar shirt for sale in a tourist shop. It’s echoing the “I Love NY” shirts—but with Beijing instead. Naturally the abbreviation appeals to the middle schoolers in all of us.

Well, he does have a soft spot for Beijing—and he’s taking a prime opportunity to make a joke we’re all thinking. What’s wrong with that?

Photo via Chris Pratt/Facebook

Amy Schumer's mock defense of Bill Cosby is f**king brutal

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We won’t know if Bill Cosby will ever face a trial for any of the dozens of rape allegations against him (he’ll barely even address them), but he’s finally going to court on Inside Amy Schumer.

Amy Schumer is tasked with defending Cosby in the court of public opinion after he’s been accused of sexually assault and rape by 41 women. She doesn’t have to prove he’s innocent, instead analyzing whether we can still care about Cosby and Mr. Huxtable, his beloved sitcom character, after the accusations. And all she needs is a little nostalgia to convince people, even if she still won’t accept a drink from him.

“If convicted, the next time you put on a rerun of The Cosby Show, you may wince a little,” she said in her closing argument. “And none of us deserve that. … We deserve to dance like no one’s watching, and watch like no one’s raping.”

Screengrab via Comedy Central/YouTube

The upcoming David Foster Wallace movie looks worse than anyone expected

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I didn’t know the beloved late writer David Foster Wallace, but I’ve read enough of his work to suspect that he’d cringe at the idea of a movie based on his persona. After you watch the trailer below, you probably will too.

The Internet knows Wallace as the source of an overquoted graduation speech, the zero point for viral literary hoaxes, and the author of Infinite Jest, an unwieldy tome whose title serves as a glaring red flag on any online dating profile. (Seriously, do not engage these people.) Anyway, we’ll soon see a whole new side of him, courtesy of Jason Segel: clinically depressive pixie dream boy out on an interminable book tour. His foil is Jesse Eisenberg, relegated once more to the role of twitchy insecure dude, in this case David Lipsky, whose biographical account of the trip, Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, is the basis of The End of the Tour.

Two intellectual white dudes talking in endless circles about the nature of art, life, and selfhood while tooling around a crappy sedan? Sounds like the gritty reboot of My Dinner With Andre that nobody asked for. 

Screengrab via A24/YouTube     

Jenny Lewis's 'She's Not Me' video parodies her '80s child star years

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BY KASIA PILAT

Quick: You’ve got a new single coming out, you’ve got about a zillion friends who are celebrities, and a past peppered with acting roles in Troop Beverly Hills and Golden Girls. What do you do? If you’re Jenny Lewis, you take all that and pack it into your latest music video, of course.

The former Rilo Kiley frontwoman is no stranger to rocking out on stage—she’s got a slew of albums with the indie-darling band; a duo with boyfriend Johnathan Rice named Jenny and Johnny; and a handful of solo albums under her belt. But a little-known fact (until now) is that Lewis got her start as a child actor, landing roles on shows like The Golden Girls, where in 1987 she played a “sunshine scout,” to other popular ‘80s programs like Growing Pains, Roseanne, and Mr. Belvedere. She even had a handful of film roles, appearing in Pleasantville, Troop Beverly Hills, and The Wizard. In her latest video, “She’s Not Me,” the new single from last year's The Voyager, Lewis happily revisits these particular parts of her past.

Lewis directed the video herself. Enlisting the help of funnyman Fred Armisen, Girls’ Zosia Mamet, SNL’s Vanessa Bayer, and Kids’ Leo Fitzpatrick, “She’s Not Me” features parodies galore:

The gang dressing up as “The Gilded Girls.”

The gang recreating the so-totally-’80s movie poster for the 1989 flick The Wizard.

The gang yucking it up as the cast of Troop Beverly Hills.

The gang before Feist somewhat inexplicably shows up as a priest.

Altogether “She’s Not Me” is a comedic, candy-colored romp through Lewis’s past, and we’re happy to be along for the ride.

“The video is about former identities and incarnations of one’s self,” Lewis wrote to BuzzFeed via email. “It’s a super meta retrospective on my career.”

Former identities or not, we’re focused on the present. More specifically, Jenny Lewis, where do we get that suit?!

Screengrab via Jenny Lewis/YouTube

This 'Bob's Burgers' writer will hate-watch 'Entourage' for charity

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Bob's Burgers writer Wendy Molyneux Drake does not like Entourage. Like, at all. But she's figured out a way to take her dislike of the property, and turn it into money for kids with cancer—it's basically emotional alchemy. Simpsons Executive Producer Matt Selman alerted The Mary Sue to a GoFundMe account that Drake's set up:

Her GoFundMe page is hilarious (as would be expected from a writer on Bob's Burgers), opening with the following statement:

"If you know me at all, you know there are two things I hate: pediatric cancers and the television show Entourage. I am attempting to raise 10K to donate to CureSearch. Find out more about CureSearch here. "

The rewards are pretty sweet: As little as $5 (known as the "D-BAG LEVEL") will get you a written review of the film, and a picture of Drake watching the film (presumably in great pain). Sure, things will hit Reddit, and then everywhere, as soon as the rewards go out (because they'll be extremely funny), but come on: It's only $5, and you'll get them first.

If you or a loved one is a serious Bob's Burgers fan, you can donate to the "DATE WITH WENDY" level, which will get you a ticket to the screening she's attending, and you can watch her hating the film with your very own eyes.

Drake's trying to raise a total of $10,000 for CureSearch, and she's already at $4,000, so it looks like she's going to have to watch Entourage. For her sake, let's hope the page either reaches $9,999, or $20,000, because nothing would be worse than reaching $10,001 and almost getting to miss out on the pain. Her coworkers are, of course, hoping that she reaches her goal—they're all going along with her, so they can enjoy her suffering.

Godspeed, Wendy, and feel free to donate to her page to simultaneously support hope and suffering.

H/T The Mary Sue | Screengrab via 2100ll/YouTube


This new doc explores how 'Twin Peaks' helped one queer teen find himself

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The Twin Peaks fandom is a devout one, as seen by the purist outcry around David Lynch’s involvement with the third season of the show. The series created an alternate reality, a black mirror in which we could get lost and explore other parts of ourselves. That was especially true for a fan named Travis Blue. 

A new documentary titled Northwest Passage tells the story of Blue’s discovery of Lynch and the cast filming the series in his hometown of Snoqualmie Falls, Wash., in the late ’80s. Like many fans, he was drawn to the character of Laura Palmer, and he later connected with fellow devotees and cast members via Twin Peaks fan festivals. He was on set the day they filmed the iconic scene where Palmer is found dead on the beach, and his obsession unraveled from there. Palmer’s fictional drug use and sex work became part of Blue’s real life as he struggled with sexual identity and trauma. 

The film is currently being funded via Kickstarter, and its director, Adam Baran (Jackpot), explains he befriended Blue at a film festival in NYC and the two bonded over their love of Lynch and Twin Peaks, though he didn’t know just how deep Blue’s fandom went at the time. 

“Any time you find a queer person who likes more than the real mainstream stuff, I would always gravitate towards those people,” Baran told the Daily Dot. “He struck me as a really interesting guy right away.” 

“There’s something in the world of David Lynch that appealed to me as a queer person,” Baran explained. “David Lynch has always been about selling these sort of strange underworlds where the normal rules of the regular straight world don’t apply. In Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway, it’s all about these sort of secret things people are doing and secret clubs and this secret underworld that exists. And I think as a gay person, that was something that was attractive to me, that I wanted to live in that kind of world, and I recognized instantly that it was a portrayal of the world I could live in as a gay person.”

Blue wrote about his experiences at Twin Peaks fan festivals for a magazine Baran edited, and Baran was shocked at how much background there was. Eventually he got Blue to open up more about his experiences, and he started sitting for interviews. Blue found a likeminded community within the festivals, but his fixation on the seedier aspects of the series blurred the line between fiction and truth. 

“You have to consider that Travis was a person who experienced abuse in his life,” Baran said. “Physical and sexual abuse. And so I think he was confused about himself and what was happening—and angsty, as all teenagers are. I think it was the idea of Laura Palmer being this character who went to the extreme: She was secretly a prostitute, was doing the Meals on Wheels, having affairs with every single person in town, doing drugs. She was this glamorous martyr, and when she dies, everyone in the show is obsessed with her. And we, the audience, become completely obsessed with this mystery. I think in some subconscious way, Travis really thought, ‘Well, I’m like her. That could be what happens to me.’ ...He didn't really have his own person; he was trying to figure out who he was.” 

As more people discover Twin Peaks via Netflix, that obsession continues with a new generation 25 years later. And while the eventual release of the doc could certainly dovetail nicely with the Showtime series, Baran says he really hopes Northwest Passage speaks to LGBTQ youth on a different level. He says he almost sees it as a “gay Boyhood. It tracks him in a very different way than Boyhood did, but it tracks him through 12 years of his adolescence and examines what was happening to him during that period. It touches on abuse and sexuality and homelessness and addiction. ... Twin Peaks fans aren’t the only ones who are going to experience this movie in a positive way.”

“What I really, really hope is that, you know, we have so much focus now on things like gay marriage and bakers who won’t bake cakes for couples and things like that” he added. “The focus on this experience of discrimination as a couple, and I really just want to direct people’s attention back to childhood and being gay as a young person. … I don't want people to forget what it was like to grow up as an LGBT person and the way that it felt almost like you were almost trapped in this sort of Lynchian underworld. You couldn’t tell anybody who you were; you couldn’t be who you wanted to be; you couldn’t even figure out what you liked because you were totally boxed in.

“I think there are so many teens now who, you know, maybe they’re not watching Twin Peaks and turning themselves into Twin Peaks characters, but they’re still struggling to find out who they are. And that’s really the core of the film.”

The Northwest Passage Kickstarter campaign runs through 10pm CT on June 2.

Photo via Kickstarter 

Jon Stewart gives you the comedic rundown on FIFA's corrupt history

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FIFA's corruption scandal is already an immortal tale of white-collar crime, making it irresistible fodder for The Daily Show.

Seven key FIFA officials were arrested in Switzerland this week, prompting many soccer fans to wonder what took so long. FIFA's name is already so synonymous with corruption that John Oliver dedicated an entire segment to it last year, covering FIFA's various ongoing bribery scandals and its terrible human rights record during preparations for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

On Wednesday night, Jon Stewart took a look at the unfolding FIFA scandal and its 24-year history, pointing out that while the FIFA officials were caught after laundering money through U.S. banks, U.S. bankers rarely seem to face any punishment for similar behavior. Oops?

Amazingly, the World Cup is still scheduled to take place in Qatar, regardless of the ever-growing FIFA scandal. As Jon Stewart put it, "If there's one thing we at FIFA pride ourselves in, it's that when we get bribed, we stay bribed."

Screengrab via The Daily Show

Bill Nye explores the 'science of fun' for Fun Fun Fun Fest's 10th anniversary

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Fun Fun Fun Fest, perhaps the only music festival that will shoot tacos at your face, is turning 10 this year. To celebrate, they’ve gotten Bill Nye to take a break from explaining the mysteries of the universe to explore the “science of fun.” 

The fest, which takes place in Austin, Texas, Nov. 6-8, will hopefully include a cameo by Nye during Wu Tang Clan’s set. D’Angelo, Jane’s Addiction (performing their 1990 LP Ritual de lo Habitual), Drive Like Jehu, Babes in Toyland, Grimes, Venom, Peaches, L7, Neon Indian, and more will also perform, and the 12-chamber taco cannon will be there as well. It’s hard to argue with Nye’s observations here. 

Here’s the full lineup, minus the Yellow comedy stage: 

Orange Stage

Jane’s Addiction (performing Ritual de lo habitual), D’Angelo and the Vanguard, CHVRCHES, Future Islands, RIDE, Cheap Trick, ANTEMASQUE, Toro y Moi, American Football, the Growlers, Fuzz, Mikal Cronin, the Charlatans UK, Viet Cong, Alvvays, Speedy Ortiz, Murder By Death, Cass McCombs, Steve Gunn, BRONCHO, Grifters, Creepoid, East Cameron Folkcore, A Giant Dog, Think No Think, Ringo Deathstarr

Blue Stage

Wu-Tang Clan, Chromeo, Schoolboy Q, Grimes, ODESZA, Neon Indian, Rae Sremmurd, MSTRKRFT, Hudson Mohawke, Gesaffelstein (DJ set), Peaches, Joey Bada$$, Big Freedia, Afrika Bambaataa, Slow Magic, Lido, Doomtree, BADBADNOTGOOD, Anamanaguchi, Shamir, Bomba Estereo, Snakehips, TOPS, Haelos, Two-Nine, Roger Sellers, the Outfit, TX, SURVIVE

Black Stage

Venom, NOFX, Gogol Bordello, Coheed and Cambria, Drive Like Jehu, L7, Dag Nasty, Desaparecidos, American Nightmare, Converge, Chain of Strength, Skinny Puppy, Babes in Toyland, Parquet Courts, OFF!, La Dispute, Title Fight, Fucked Up, Head Wound City, Dwarves (performing Blood, Guts & Pussy), King Khan and BBQ Show, Benjamin Booker, Andrew Jackson Jihad, Nothing, together PANGEA, Power Trip, Joanna Gruesome, American Sharks, Future Death

Screengrab via funfunfunfestival/Vimeo 

Is this a taste of the 'Daily Show' to come under Trevor Noah?

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Although we’ll be sad to see Jon Stewart leave The Daily Show on Aug. 6, we won’t have to wait too long until new episodes come our way again.

The Daily Showannounced Thursday that Trevor Noah will make his Daily Show hosting debut on Sept. 28, leaving us with nearly two months of political, presidential, and media shenanigans uncovered. Promising that nothing would ever be the same, Noah starts to get comfortable in Stewart’s chair even before he leaves in the show’s first teaser. And by that I mean really comfortable.

Stewart is unamused, but let’s be honest. We could’ve totally seen him doing some of this when he first got the job.

Screengrab via Comedy Central/YouTube

Luna Lovegood actress shuts down homophobic Instagram trolls

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Harry Potter readers are thought to grow up to be more open-minded and tolerant than other children, and it looks like Harry Potter actors tend the same way.

After J.K. Rowlingstruck back against the Westboro Baptist Church’s homophobic remarks earlier this week, Luna Lovegood actress Evanna Lynch followed suit with a Facebook post aimed at homophobic trolls.

Lynch is a Harry Potter fan in her own right, having enjoyed the books long before being cast in the movies. She’s also involved in several charitable causes, including the Harry Potter Alliance’s campaign for marriage equality in Maine, and she was understandably happy about last week’s same-sex marriage victory in Ireland.

Unfortunately, this reaction attracted homophobic comments as well as support from her followers. Lynch posted a lengthy response on Facebook, telling people to take their bigoted opinions elsewhere.

"I am making a special request to all of you today in light of an ugly instagram thread that is really bothering me. Simply, if you are someone who perceives homosexuality as 'disgusting' or 'fucked up' or 'unnatural', will you do me a kindness and please unfollow me on all social media platforms. And then block me."
"There are other fiercer, more articulate, more outspoken and more controversial figures who lead the LQBTQ+ community and will gladly engage in fiery debate with you, will be fueled and energised by your anger and vitriol even and I ask that you go to them to wrestle verbally with your conflicting beliefs. I cannot deal with this kind of venom, and more to the point it is wasted energy on your part to put it here."

She went on to say that if people came to her social media accounts via Harry Potter, they should know better. Luna Lovegood is an accepting, open-hearted character, and would never approve of homophobic behavior.

"The clue is in the name, people! Luna Lovegood's love is a GOOD kind of love. It is not conditional or possessive or needy or demanding. It doesn't fall apart the moment you expose a piece of yourself that is unconventional."

Those Harry Potter kids turned out OK, didn’t they?

Photo via Monkey Chief/Wikimedia (PD)

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