The International
Columbia
DVD – Rated R

Despite the fact that Hollywood is obsessed (or, it could be us) with corporate conspiracy/crooked government/international spy chase/murder cover-up movies, Tom Tykwer’s The International is a pretty legit film. Clive Owen does an adequate job of carrying the movie as agent Louis Salinger—the man trying to crack a multi-nation illegal weapons ring. At his side, of course, is the lovely Eleanor Whitman, a Manhattan Assistant DA, played by Naomi Watts (wouldn’t it be great if a film actually used average looking people?). But the action is good, the acting has some integrity and Tykwer has a very sharp eye for a slick looking film. This is a perfect renter.
Dustin Bennett

Sacha Cohen is either one of the bravest actors or he has grade-A downs syndrome, but either way I’m stoked for the upcoming release of Bruno. There are so many things to be said, but I’m kind of over writing this blog so I’ll let the trailer do the talking for me.

Tasteless joke after the jump.
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I was looking around on the file server just now and I just happened to have FOUND this interview with Found Footage co-creator Nick Prueher done written and enacted by Synthesis correspondent Landon Moblad. The Festival plays Chico this weekend and then moves East. For dates check out their Myspace here.

In a funny way, the Found Footage Festival is somewhat of an inspiring shaggy dog success story. In this YouTube era, when you can get together and swap clip recommendations with friends until one of you calls “uncle,” here we have two average dudes making a living touring videos of maniacal RV salesmen, fast food training tutorials and nonsensical cable access shows. And not even these desolate times can slow them down.
“We weren’t quite sure if people would come out to watch stupid videos in this economy,” co-creator Nick Prueher joked from his home base in New York City, where he works as an assistant for the Colbert Report. “But so far so good.”
For Prueher and his partner in crime, Joe Pickett, it’s all about the commitment to the project and love for what they’re doing that has enabled them to tour all over the country, providing audiences with an hour and a half’s worth of laughs that tops anything Hollywood is spitting out these days.
Over the past five years, Prueher and Pickett have spent countless hours of their time combing thrift stores and garage sales, sifting through trash and following audience leads to find weird, awkward, funny or plain idiotic videos. More often than not, the clips wind up being all of these at once. The show’s recent success has led to an increasing number of fan-submitted contributions, which is something Prueher and Pickett have welcomed with open arms.
“The new show is probably 40-50 percent videos other people have given us,” Prueher said. “So much of our job is not only digging through the dumpsters and finding all these videos but also watching all of them. So when someone kind of does all that for us, it’s like Christmas morning.”
One such video, called “Something’s Happening,” was sent anonymously from Denver and depicts a wretched man in a shoddy, homemade infomercial informing viewers how to get rid of mucus in their mouth. The big secret? Grape juice. What follows is too outrageous to ruin for those planning to attend the show.
“That one is my personal favorite because your jaw just kind of drops,” Prueher said. “We always like to include one of those ‘what the fuck’ clips and that is this year’s.”
Now that the show has stabilized itself as a draw all over the country, Prueher and Pickett have moved on to other endeavors, such as promoting Dirty Country, a film they debuted at South by Southwest back in 2007. The documentary follows Larry Pierce, an unknown truck stop troubadour and all around sleazy old man who has penned hundreds of songs including “Good Hard Screwing,” “We Screwed In the Rain” and “Screw Your Brains Out (One Night Stand).”
“12 years ago, we were looking for something to entertain us on the road,” Prueher said. “If you see something called Songs for Studs, you buy it.”
The film follows Pierce as he begins to gain a bit more notoriety for his filthy repertoire, eventually winding up on the Howard Stern Show.
“It’s a great all-American story,” Prueher said. “Going from total obscurity to relative obscurity.”
One of the great things about the Found Footage Festival is the amount of work put into getting back stories and somehow tracking down many of the actors and real people from the tapes themselves. One of the videos in this year’s edition is an ad for a so-called “Laughing Yogi,” which with a clip of a hysterically laughing monk, is pretty much exactly what you might expect. Prueher and Pickett found him in Los Angeles and got him out to one of their shows, only to see him sit in the front row without letting out a single laugh.
“Pretty much the worst audience member ever,” Prueher said.
One of the Internet’s most infamous clips, helped made popular by the Found Footage Festival, is of Jack Rebney, a Winnebago salesman on the brink with the patience of a gnat and tongue of a Slavic pirate. If you haven’t seen it, you should probably put this paper down and find it online immediately. But after years of searching and with the help of a private investigator and a documentary filmmaker (whose film, Winnebago Man, debuted this year at South by Southwest), Prueher and Pickett found Rebney living in seclusion in Northern California. Eventually, they talked him into making an appearance at a show in San Francisco. True to form, Rebney was prickly at first. By the end of the show, however, Prueher saw a smile come across his face at the amount of laughter his previous follies had brought to people.
“We compared it to the Grinch, when his heart grew to 10 times the size,” he said.
At their shows, watching Prueher and Pickett quip back and forth with each other and excitedly describe the upcoming clips, you can tell they’re getting just as much of a kick out of all of it as their audience.
“Part of the fun of all this is kind of being the tour guides through this world we’ve uncovered.”
I’ll take that over watching videos on my laptop any day.

Pertinent shit.Let’s take a step towards solving our financial calamity by ending the nearly 40-year war on drugs. Just the thought of the waste of lives and money  boils my bones. Bill Haney sums it up nicely (in a tldr fashion) on the Huffington Post:

Prohibition was repealed during the Depression of the 1930s, as the costs of enforcing draconian anti-alcohol laws became too expensive for society to bear. Today we have laws limiting alcohol use, tax revenues that result from its legal sale and a virtual elimination of violence resulting from its black-market distribution. With our economy staggering and the social, financial and strategic costs of our failed drug policies mounting, it is time for President Obama to bring an end to this ill-conceived “War”. The active search for peace with principle must begin.

May Obama lead our nation out of the clutches of idiocy NOW. Oh, and check out this movie:

Do not take the brown acid. Instead, try Taking Woodstock.

It’s 1969, and Elliot Tiber, a down-on-his-luck interior designer in Greenwich Village, New York, has to move back upstate to help his parents run their dilapidated Catskills motel, The El Monaco. The bank’s about to foreclose; his father wants to burn the place down, but hasn’t paid the insurance; and Elliot is still figuring how to come out to his parents.

When Elliot hears that a neighboring town has pulled the permit on a hippie music festival, he calls the producers, thinking he could drum up some much-needed business for the motel. Three weeks later, half a million people are on their way to his neighbor’s farm in White Lake, NY, and Elliot finds himself swept up in a generation-defining experience that would change his life, and American culture, forever.

If you live in the Los Angeles area, do yourself a solid. Kahlua, half and half, ice, and Lebowski Fest, dude.

Thursday, May 7th
Lebowski Fest LA – Movie Party
The Wiltern Theatre
3790 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA
Doors at 7. Show at 8. All Ages.

Friday, May 8th
Lebowski Fest LA – Bowling Party
Cal Bowl
2500 E. Carson St.
Lakewood, CA
9PM, 21+

If you DO NOT live in the LA area, you can still make White Russians all day. And attend OTHER Lebowski Fests:

West Coast Tour Dates

**Tickets on sale now**
Thu/May 7 || The Wiltern Theater – Movie Party || Los Angeles, CA
Fri/May 8 || Cal Bowl – Bowling Party || Los Angeles, CA

Fri/July 10 || Executive Lawn (ft. The Daily Show’s Rob Riggle) – Movie Party || Louisville, KY
Sat/July 11 || Executive Strike and Spare – Garden Party, Bowling Party || Louisville, KY

**Tickets on sale this Friday, April 24th**
Mon/July 20 || Fremont Outdoor Movies – Movie Party || Seattle, WA
Tue/July 21 || Acme Lanes – Bowling Party || Seattle, WA
Wed/July 22 || Aladdin Theater – Movie Party || Portland, OR
Thu/July 23 || Hollywood Bowl – Bowling Party|| Portland, OR
Fri/July 24 || Classic Bowling Center – Bowling Party || San Francisco, CA
Sat/July 25 || Fox Theater – Movie Party || Oakland, CA
Sun/July 26 || House of Blues – Movie Party || San Diego, CA
Mon/July 27 || Kearny Mesa Bowl – Bowling Party|| San Diego, CA
Tue/July 28 || House of Blues – Movie Party || Las Vegas, NV
Wed/July 29 || Red Rocks Lanes – Bowling Party || Las Vegas, NV

Announcement with remaining North American dates and cities forthcoming.