A Serious Stephen Colbert Gives Advice on Love & Life to Teenage Girls

in Comedy, Life | August 8th, 2014

Rookie’s nev­er less than wor­thy “Ask a Grown Man” series pro­vides a forum for mature males like actor Jon Hamm and radio per­son­al­i­ty Ira Glass to offer thought­ful, straight­for­ward advice and expla­na­tions, born of per­son­al expe­ri­ence, to teenage girls (and oth­er inter­est­ed par­ties).

The most recent edi­tion adds depth, and could just as accu­rate­ly be titled “Ask a Lev­el-Head­ed 50-Year-Old Father of Three, Who’s Been Hap­pi­ly Mar­ried to His Children’s Moth­er for Years.”

Lurk­ing just beneath Stephen Colbert’s hawk­ish Col­bert Report per­sona is a fair-mind­ed, seri­ous fel­low, who’s unem­bar­rassed to weigh in in favor of parental author­i­ty when a 19-year-old fan com­plains of her dad’s oppo­si­tion to sleep­overs at her boyfriend’s place while she’s still liv­ing at home. Per­haps she should’ve asked a grown man whom expe­ri­ence hadn’t equipped to see things from the oth­er side of the fence, as Col­bert fore­sees that his answer won’t “go over great with every­one.”

Sure­ly, though, his late moth­er would approve.

Per­haps this seg­ment should be called “Ask a Grown Man Whose Unequiv­o­cat­ing Moral Com­pass Is Incon­ve­nient­ly Close to Your Dad’s, But Whose Posi­tion Allows Him to Offer Insights With­out Los­ing His Tem­per or Going Off Mes­sage.”

Colbert’s children’s extreme­ly low pro­file in the media’s line up of celebri­ty off­spring reflects well on those charged with their upbring­ing. Were his 18-year-old daugh­ter to take issue with the old man’s mus­ings on Twit­ter or Snapchat, she’d have the lux­u­ry of doing so in the way of the aver­age Rook­ie read­er, rather than some obses­sive­ly observed near­ly-grown baby bump.

As to how to tell whether a boy—or anyone—likes you, Col­bert says “they want to hear your sto­ries.”

As one view­er not­ed, “ask a grown-up, get grown-up answers.” Word.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Radiohead’s Thom Yorke Gives Teenage Girls Endear­ing Advice About Boys (And Much More)

Stu­dent Asks Noam Chom­sky for Dat­ing Advice

Niet­zsche Dis­pens­es Dat­ing Advice in a Short Screw­ball Film, My Friend Friedrich

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, zine pub­lish­er, and moth­er of a teenage Rook­ie read­er. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Two Legends: Weird Al Yankovic “Interviews” James Brown (1986)

in Comedy, Music | August 5th, 2014

Last week, America’s reign­ing bard of sil­ly par­o­dy songs, “Weird Al” Yankovic scored his first num­ber one album, Manda­to­ry Fun. His vast­ly improved take on Robin Thicke’s catchy, if deeply creepy, ear­worm Blurred Lines alone might just be worth the price of the album. This week­end saw the release of the James Brown biopic Get On Up, star­ring Chad­wick Bose­man, Octavia Spencer and Dan Aykroyd. So we thought you all might be inter­est­ed in watch­ing Weird Al’s inter­view of the God­fa­ther of Soul in 1986. You can watch it above.

Ok, so that inter­view didn’t actu­al­ly hap­pen. It was cob­bled togeth­er to make it look like Weird Al was pep­per­ing the music leg­end with bizarre and inane ques­tions. Exam­ple: “What was it like the very first time you sat in a buck­et full of warm oat­meal?” or “What can you do with a duck that you can’t do with an ele­phant?”

Back in the ‘80s and ear­ly ‘90s when MTV played videos and not end­less real­i­ty TV shows about the drunk and the vapid, Weird Al reg­u­lar­ly host­ed Al-TV, a par­o­dy of the music chan­nel. Boast­ing the tagline “putting the ‘vid’ in video and the ‘odd’ in audio,” Al-TV fea­tured skits, fake news reports and, of course, Weird Al’s trade­mark music video spoofs. It also fea­tured dada-esque “inter­views,” like the one with Brown. Below we have some more to check out, like this one where Weird Al ridicules that most dull and pompous of pop stars, Sting.

Weird Al’s inter­view with pop genius Prince is real­ly odd, and not just because of Weird Al’s dopey ques­tions — “What do you do when some­one on the street gives you a piece of cheese?” Per­haps it’s that know­ing smirk on Prince’s face.  Or maybe it’s because the inter­view hap­pens while sur­round­ed by his well-coiffed entourage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD4rYdK3y9A

And final­ly, Weird Al doesn’t have to do much with Avril Lav­i­gne. One sus­pects that the orig­i­nal inter­view would be pret­ty fun­ny even with­out the jokes. At one point, Yankovic asks, “Can you ram­ble inco­her­ent­ly for a while about some­thing that nobody cares about?”

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

“Weird Al” Yankovic Releas­es “Word Crimes,” a Gram­mar Nerd Par­o­dy of “Blurred Lines”

Every Appear­ance James Brown Ever Made On Soul Train. So Nice, So Nice!

James Brown Blows Away the Rolling Stones in 18 Elec­tric Min­utes (1964)

James Brown Gives You Danc­ing Lessons: From The Funky Chick­en to The Booga­loo

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow. And check out his blog Veep­to­pus, fea­tur­ing one new pic­ture of a vice pres­i­dent with an octo­pus on his head dai­ly. 

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Watch Mad Magazine’s Edgy, Never-Aired TV Special (1974)

in Animation, Comedy, Comics/Cartoons | July 30th, 2014

1974 was a cyn­i­cal time. That was the year that Nixon resigned after the gru­el­ing Water­gate scan­dal, Viet­nam War was final­ly grind­ing to a halt and, thanks to the Oil Shock of ’73, the econ­o­my was in the toi­let. It was also a time when TV execs were scram­bling to keep up with America’s rapid­ly chang­ing cul­tur­al tastes. Audi­ences want­ed some­thing with a lit­tle edge. The TV adap­ta­tion of Robert Altman’s lac­er­at­ing war com­e­dy MASH became a huge hit. As did All in the Fam­i­ly, about everyone’s favorite arm­chair big­ot Archie Bunker. Sat­ur­day Night Live was just a year away from pre­mier­ing. So it isn’t sur­pris­ing that execs from ABC approached the “usu­al gang of idiots” at Mad Mag­a­zine — that fount of anti-author­i­tar­i­an satire — about mak­ing a series. The result­ing pilot, which was lat­er rebrand­ed as a TV spe­cial, nev­er aired because it pro­vid­ed way too much edge for the net­work. You can watch it above.

The show, culled from some of the bet­ter bits from the mag­a­zine, fea­tures art from Don Mar­tin, Mort Druck­er, Al Jaf­fee and Dave Berg – names that will be very famil­iar to you if you grew up obses­sive­ly read­ing the mag­a­zine as a child, like I did – and the ani­ma­tion was super­vised by Jim­my Muraka­mi along with Chris Ishii and Gor­don Bel­lamy.

The net­work claimed that the show was shelved because it had too much “adult” humor. In this post-South Park, post-Fam­i­ly Guy world, the adult humor in this show, by com­par­i­son, seems down­right tame. What the Mad Mag­a­zine TV Spe­cial does have in abun­dance is with­er­ing barbs. Some­thing about trans­lat­ing the cyn­i­cal, ado­les­cent humor of the mag­a­zine from the page to screen made its satire feel much, much sharp­er. Dur­ing their par­o­dy of The God­fa­ther, called the Odd­fa­ther, mafia don Vito Mine­strone (groan) tells a group of mob­sters that their gang war must stop. “We must stop destroy­ing each oth­er and start destroy­ing the plain, ordi­nary cit­i­zens again. Like nor­mal Amer­i­can busi­ness­men.”

The show’s most caus­tic zingers, how­ev­er, are reserved for America’s bloat­ed, com­pla­cent auto indus­try where a Wal­ter Cronkite-like jour­nal­ist inter­views auto exec Edsel Lemon. In five or so min­utes, the bit unspar­ing­ly lays out why GM and Ford even­tu­al­ly lost out to Toy­ota and Hon­da – crap­py cars, lousy safe­ty, and an upper man­age­ment that was as men­da­cious as it was short­sight­ed. While field test­ing a new mod­el, which involved coast­ing the car down a hill, Lemon quips, “If our pro­to­type can go 500 feet with­out falling apart we’ll put it into pro­duc­tion.” This seem­ing­ly explains how the Ford Pin­to got made.

In the end, the net­works squea­mish­ness with the show was more due to its ridicule of an indus­try with deep pock­ets than with its toi­let humor. As Dick DeBa­to­lo, the MAD’s mad­dest writer, who penned much of the show not­ed, “Nobody want­ed to spon­sor a show that made fun of prod­ucts that were adver­tised on TV, like car man­u­fac­tur­ers.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Shel Sil­ver­stein Nar­rates an Ani­mat­ed Ver­sion of The Giv­ing Tree (1973)

Watch 1970s Ani­ma­tions of Songs by Joni Mitchell, Jim Croce & The Kinks, Aired on The Son­ny & Cher Show

A Short His­to­ry of Amer­i­ca, Accord­ing to the Irrev­er­ent Com­ic Satirist Robert Crumb

Watch the First Ani­ma­tions of Peanuts: Com­mer­cials for the Ford Motor Com­pa­ny (1959–1961)

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow. And check out his blog Veep­to­pus, fea­tur­ing pic­tures of vice pres­i­dents with octo­pus­es on their heads.

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The Modern-Day Philosophers Podcast: Where Comedians Like Carl Reiner & Artie Lange Discuss Schopenhauer & Maimonides

in Comedy, Philosophy, Podcasts | July 30th, 2014

The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life, The His­to­ry of Phi­los­o­phy With­out Any Gaps, Phi­los­o­phy Bites, Phi­los­o­phize This!: we’ve fea­tured quite a few enter­tain­ing and edu­ca­tion­al fruits of the still-new dis­ci­pline of pod­cast­ing’s incli­na­tion toward the very old dis­ci­pline of phi­los­o­phy. But the pod­cast has proven an even bet­ter fit for come­di­ans than it has for philoso­phers. Even if you’ve nev­er down­loaded an episode in your life, you’ve almost cer­tain­ly heard about the medi­um-legit­imiz­ing suc­cess­es of intel­li­gent, con­ver­sa­tion­al, high­ly opin­ion­at­ed, or oth­er­wise uncon­ven­tion­al fun­ny­men like Ricky Ger­vais with The Ricky Ger­vais Show, Adam Car­ol­la with his also-epony­mous pod­cast, and Marc Maron with WTF. Yet nobody dared to explic­it­ly cross pod­cast­ing’s comedic and philo­soph­i­cal strengths until last year, when Dan­ny Lobell launched Mod­ern Day Philoso­phers (web site — itunes — sound­cloud).

Lobell, him­self a pio­neer in not just philo­soph­i­cal com­e­dy pod­cast­ing but com­e­dy pod­cast­ing, and indeed pod­cast­ing itself, began his com­ic-inter­view­ing show Com­i­cal Radio a decade ago. “As pod­cast­ing grew in pop­u­lar­i­ty,” he writes, “many celebri­ty come­di­ans start­ed doing sim­i­lar shows to the one I was doing. [ … ] Before I knew it, what I had once felt was a unique and impor­tant under­tak­ing now no longer seemed like it served a pur­pose in the uni­verse for me.” This dark night of the soul saw him move from New York to Los Ange­les, this cra­dle of so many pod­casts comedic and oth­er­wise, where he turned his atten­tion back toward the sub­jects he neglect­ed in school. He paid spe­cial atten­tion to phi­los­o­phy, but strug­gled to under­stand the mate­r­i­al. “I real­ized that my friends, stand up come­di­ans, would make great study part­ners. I’ve often heard us referred to as the philoso­phers of our day which I fig­ured sound­ed like a good enough excuse to approach them.”

And so Lobell has pro­duced 40 episodes and count­ing fea­tur­ing philo­soph­i­cal dis­cus­sions con­duct­ed with some of today’s sharpest comics, many of them star pod­cast­ers in their own right. One recent con­ver­sa­tion finds Lobell in con­ver­sa­tion about John Cage — a philo­soph­i­cal fig­ure too often dis­missed as pri­mar­i­ly an artist — with the cere­bral, chance-ori­ent­ed, and some­what askew Reg­gie Watts (top). (The pair­ing makes espe­cial­ly good sense, since Cage influ­enced Bri­an Eno, and Watts has pub­licly dis­cussed Eno’s influ­ence on his own act.) A few months ago, Lobell talked the sui­cide-mind­ed Arthur Schopen­hauer with the once-sui­cide-mind­ed Artie Lange (mid­dle). And he even brings in elder states­men of com­e­dy to talk about mat­ters eter­nal, such as Carl Rein­er on reli­gion, prayer and mem­o­ry as reflect­ed upon by Mai­monides (above). Each episode con­tains a healthy con­sid­er­a­tion of not just the work of the philoso­pher in ques­tion, but that of the come­di­an as well. Per­son­al­ly, I can’t wait to hear what Yakov Smirnoff has to say about his fel­low Russ­ian artist-philoso­pher of note, Fyo­dor Dos­toyevsky.

H/T Mark Lin­sen­may­er, a founder of Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life: A Phi­los­o­phy Pod­cast

The His­to­ry of Phi­los­o­phy With­out Any Gaps – Peter Adamson’s Pod­cast Still Going Strong

Phi­los­o­phy Bites: Pod­cast­ing Ideas From Pla­to to Sin­gu­lar­i­ty Since 2007

Phi­los­o­phize This!: The Pop­u­lar, Enter­tain­ing Phi­los­o­phy Pod­cast from an Uncon­ven­tion­al Teacher

Down­load 100 Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es and Start Liv­ing the Exam­ined Life

Take First-Class Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es Any­where with Free Oxford Pod­casts

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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The First Animations of Mike Judge, Creator of Beavis and Butt-head & Office Space (1991)

in Animation, Comedy | July 22nd, 2014

Mike Judge first became famous for cre­at­ing the crude and crude­ly drawn car­toon series Beav­is and Butt-head (find com­plete episodes online here). The show was about two high school burnouts whose run­ning com­men­tary on the lat­est music videos was so bone­head­ed and bald­ly vul­gar that you couldn’t help but laugh. Pris­sy cul­ture war­riors point­ed to the show as yet anoth­er symp­tom of America’s decline while legions of stoned col­lege stu­dents glee­ful­ly tuned in. In 1998, Judge made the jump to live action fea­tures with Office Space, a hilar­i­ous, if uneven, take on the banal­i­ties of Amer­i­can cor­po­rate cul­ture. It’s one of those movies that no one saw in the the­ater but, thanks to cable, every­one of a cer­tain age can quote. (“If you can come in on Sat­ur­day, that would be great.”) Cur­rent­ly, he is the cre­ator for the hit HBO series Sil­i­con Val­ley.

Judge start­ed in ani­ma­tion after work­ing for a spell as first a com­put­er pro­gram­mer and then a blues bassist. After see­ing an ani­ma­tion cel on dis­play in a local movie the­ater in 1989, he ran out and bought a Bolex 16mm cam­era and start­ed mak­ing movies. Two years lat­er, he was pro­duc­ing odd, thor­ough­ly unpol­ished ani­mat­ed shorts that made the rounds in film fes­ti­vals, even­tu­al­ly launch­ing a career in Hol­ly­wood.

Above is a short about Mil­ton, the neb­bish sta­pler-obsessed cubi­cle dweller who was the gen­e­sis for Office Space. Stephen Root played him in the movie. His boss is the same pas­sive-aggres­sive prick as in the movie though played with less unc­tu­ous zeal as Gary Cole’s per­for­mance. The short proved to be such a suc­cess that MTV’s Liq­uid Tele­vi­sion ordered more.

Next is The Honky Prob­lem, about an emo­tion­al­ly unbal­anced coun­try singer named ‘Inbred Jed.’ He wants you to know that he is real­ly, real­ly, real­ly hap­py to be play­ing at a remote trail­er park­er pop­u­lat­ed by a bunch of char­ac­ters out of a David Lynch movie. In fact, if it weren’t for the jokey voice over at the end, this short is creepy enough to almost pass for an episode of Lynch’s own ani­mat­ed series, Dum­b­land.

And there’s this short also from 1991 called sim­ply Huh?, which pits the shrill against the obliv­i­ous.

You can find more Ani­ma­tions in our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Dum­b­land, David Lynch’s Twist­ed Ani­mat­ed Series (NSFW)

Watch All of Ter­ry Gilliam’s Mon­ty Python Ani­ma­tions in a Row

Tim Burton’s The World of Stain­boy: Watch the Com­plete Ani­mat­ed Series

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow.

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In Dark PSA, Director Richard Linklater Suggests Radical Steps for Dealing with Texters in Cinemas

in Comedy | July 20th, 2014

At the Alamo Draft­house cin­e­mas, they don’t mess around. They tell you right on their web site, “We have a zero-tol­er­ance pol­i­cy towards talk­ing and tex­ting dur­ing the movie. If you talk or text, you will receive one warn­ing. If it hap­pens again, you will be kicked out with­out a refund.” And they appar­ent­ly mean it. Want some proof? Here’s Exhib­it A — a clip that mocks a cus­tomer who appar­ent­ly got kicked out of their “crap­py” the­ater in Austin, Texas for tex­ting. Then there’s Exhib­it B above — a sar­don­ic Alamo Draft­house video fea­tur­ing indie film­mak­er Richard Lin­klater sug­gest­ing rad­i­cal steps for deal­ing with the type of peo­ple found in Exhib­it A. It’s all a bit of dark humor (of course). But here’s some­thing that’s not a joke. You can watch Lin­klater’s break­through 1991 film, Slack­er, free online. You can also hear the Texas native talk about his new film Boy­hood on Fresh Air here.

Part­ing words: Don’t mess with Texas, par­tic­u­lar­ly film­mak­ers in Texas.

via Gawk­er/@Sheerly

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Free Online: Richard Linklater’s Slack­er, the Clas­sic Gen‑X Indie Film

An Anti, Anti-Smok­ing Announce­ment from John Waters

David Lynch’s Unlike­ly Com­mer­cial for a Home Preg­nan­cy Test (1997)

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George Harrison Wrote His Last Letter to Austin Powers Creator Mike Myers, Asking for a Mini Me Doll (2001)

in Comedy, Letters, Music | July 19th, 2014

harrison myers

In a band full of extro­vert­ed goof­balls and pranksters, George Har­ri­son was the qui­et one, the seri­ous Bea­t­le, the straight man and intro­spec­tive mys­tic, right? Not so, accord­ing to Trav­el­ling Wilburys band­mate Tom Pet­ty, who once coun­tered the “qui­et Bea­t­le” sobri­quet with “he nev­er shut up. He was the best hang you could imag­ine.” Not so, accord­ing to Har­ri­son him­self, who once said “I think I’ve had an image, peo­ple have had a con­cept of me being real­ly straight cause I was the seri­ous one or some­thing. I mean, I’m the biggest lunatic around. I’m com­plete­ly com­i­cal, you know? I like crazi­ness. I had to in order to be in the Bea­t­les.”

It’s true that Har­ri­son dis­liked fame and its trap­pings and dove deeply into life’s mys­ter­ies. In his final tele­vised inter­view, he is con­tem­pla­tive and, yes, deeply seri­ous. And while some of the sto­ries of the end of his life are heartbreaking—like that of the oncol­o­gist who alleged­ly showed up unan­nounced at the dying Bea­t­les’ door and cajoled him into sign­ing an auto­graph when he could bare­ly write his name—the sto­ry of the last let­ter he ever wrote made me smile.

Accord­ing to Mike Myers, cre­ator of Wayne’s World and the six­ties spoof Austin Pow­ers fran­chise, that let­ter arrived in his hands on the very day of Harrison’s death, deliv­ered via pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tor as Myers and crew shot the third of the Pow­ers films.

Har­ri­son wrote but nev­er mailed the short note a month before his death in Novem­ber, 2001. In it, he reveals his love for Austin Pow­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly the “Mini Me” char­ac­ter from The Spy Who Shagged Me (played by Verne Troyer)—a minia­ture clone of Pow­ers’ neme­sis Dr. Evil. In a GQ inter­view, Myers quotes from the let­ter: “…sit­ting here with my Dr. Evil doll…I just want­ed to let you know I’ve been all over Europe for a mini-you doll.” Har­ri­son also jok­ing­ly cor­rect­ed Myers’ Liv­er­pudlian: “Dr. Evil says frickin’ but any good Scouser dad will tell you it’s actu­al­ly ‘frig­gin’ as in a ‘four of fish and fin­ger pie,’ if you get my drift.”

The “Scouser dad” ref­er­ence was par­tic­u­lar­ly poignant for Myers, whose par­ents come from Liv­er­pool. “You don’t know what The Bea­t­les were in my house,” Myers told WENN news, “They were every­thing. Liv­er­pool was poor­ish and it was rough and all of a sud­den it was cool to come from this town, so my par­ents were eter­nal­ly grate­ful.” Har­ri­son returned the grat­i­tude, writ­ing “thanks for the movies, so much fun,” a sen­ti­ment Myers reacts to with “Dude, I can’t even.” And real­ly, what could else could you say? “To get this let­ter,” and on the very day of Harrison’s pass­ing no less, “was unbe­liev­able,” said Myers, “It hits you and it can knock you off your feet.”

As for that rep­u­ta­tion for seri­ous­ness? I don’t know about you, but from now on, when I think of the last days of George Har­ri­son, I won’t think of his oppor­tunis­tic doc­tor, or his turn­ing down the OBE, or even that fate­ful final per­for­mance on VH1. I’ll imag­ine him sit­ting on the couch with a Dr. Evil doll, writ­ing Mike Myers to request a Mini Me.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bob Dylan and George Har­ri­son Play Ten­nis, 1969

George Har­ri­son in the Spot­light: The Dick Cavett Show (1971)

Phil Spector’s Gen­tle Pro­duc­tion Notes to George Har­ri­son Dur­ing the Record­ing of All Things Must Pass

Here Comes The Sun: The Lost Gui­tar Solo by George Har­ri­son

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Watch The Hire: 8 Short Films Shot for BMW by John Woo, Ang Lee & Other Popular Filmmakers (2002)

in Comedy, Film, Music | July 16th, 2014

If there’s ever a Mad Men: The Next Gen­er­a­tion, count on a 40-ish Sal­ly Drap­er to psych a con­fer­ence room full of BMW execs out of the tried-and-true for­mu­la for lux­u­ry auto­mo­bile ads in favor of a ground­break­ing, night­mar­ish, pre-YouTube web series.

As fic­tion­al sce­nar­ios go, it’s about as like­ly as hav­ing the Hard­est Work­ing Man in Show Busi­ness James Brown place a win­ner-take-all bet with the dev­il (Gary Old­man) that his dri­ver Clive Owen can out-drag peren­ni­al movie bad guy Dan­ny Tre­jo. (In oth­er words, very like­ly.)

The prize?

Anoth­er 50 years of hip-shak­ing, leg-split­ting soul for the God­fa­ther of.

Can’t wait for the soon-to-be released James Brown biopic to find out who wins?

Check out “Beat the Dev­il,” above, the final install­ment of BMW Films’ 8‑episode series, The Hire. One of the new mil­len­ni­um’s ear­li­est exam­ples of brand­ed con­tent, each fre­net­ic seg­ment found Owen’s name­less dri­ver going up against a ros­ter of big name guest stars, includ­ing Don Chea­dle, Mick­ey Rourke, Mar­i­lyn Man­son, and an uncred­it­ed, pee-soaked Madon­na. (You heard me.)

Brown’s episode, direct­ed by the late Tony Scott, quick­ly ven­tures into David Lynch ter­ri­to­ry. Old­man’s Prince of Dark­ness gets laughs with a prop flu­o­res­cent tube and striped sus­pender tights, but the scene’s not with­out men­ace. (Recall Dean Stock­well lip-synch­ing Can­dy Col­ored Clown in Blue Vel­vet…)

The dia­logue calls to mind Jim Jar­musch’s blunt snap.

Dev­il: Stick your face in the hole!

James Brown: My face?

Dev­il: Stick it in the hole!

James Brown: My face?

Dev­il: Face in the hole!

James Brown: My face?

Dev­il: Face in the- oh, shit!”

Else­where, Brown’s line deliv­ery gets a boost from same-lan­guage sub­ti­tles, with­out which one could eas­i­ly mis­hear his con­cerns about aging as an unex­pect­ed, late-in-life racial iden­ti­fi­ca­tion switch. (Say it loud, I’m Asian and proud?)

If the clip above leaves you hun­gry for more, the com­plete BMW series, fea­tur­ing the testos­terone-rich work of such high octane direc­tors as John Franken­heimer, Guy Ritchie, and John Woo is avail­able on the playlist below. 

You can find The Hire added to our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Rid­ley Scott Talks About Mak­ing Apple’s Land­mark “1984″ Com­mer­cial, Aired 30 Years Ago on Super Bowl Sun­day

David Lynch’s Per­fume Ads Based on the Works of Hem­ing­way, F. Scott Fitzger­ald & D.H. Lawrence

The Coen Broth­ers Make a TV Com­mer­cial — Ridi­cul­ing “Clean Coal”

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, home­school­er and the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of The East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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