In a matter of minutes it will be election day, and if you’re anything like me, you’re about to have a freaking heart attack. This can lead to death or even forgetting to vote, so I’m doing my part by providing you with a lighthearted distraction to slow down your heart rate with a few throaty guffaws.

This is a performance by comedian Ali Mafi, whose show I saw (and loved) last week at the George Bush Going Away Party. It’s in four parts, which I won’t have time to watch because I’m too busy refreshing CNN and sweating.

P.S. FiveThirtyEight.com is the greatest.

The usually snarky Anthony Lane sometimes dishes out some honest advice to critics. One of his pieces of shared wisdom is that critics should recreate the experience of films in their reviews. His theory, I believe, is that reviews are no longer expected to only give an opinion on a work of art: They are actually, in a sense, replacing the work of art. People expect to get the satisfaction of a movie from a review itself. It sounds great in theory, but the question is this: How the hell do you do that?

That’s a question that every critic answers for himself. It turns out that there is no one right way to do it, but there are wrong ways. One of them is often the favorite of beginning critics. And that’s description-heavy criticism.

You have to remember that criticism offers opinions of art. It’s not supposed to recap art. While some may believe that saying “the album is full or wiry guitars and thunderous drums” without offering an opinion on the sound is the ultimate recreation of the experience, it actually turns out to be something entirely impractical. (Click here to read more…)

See what I did there with that title? Yes you did. A trick alliteration. Pew pew.

But in seriousness, the two sequels hitting theaters this week, “High School Musical 3″ and “Saw V,” so vastly outperformed their competition this weekend that it deserved linguistic accent. In first place (with a commanding lead) is HSM 3 with 42 million dollars. Loads of cash, although if you average that out amongst all three films (the first two which were essentially distributed for free) that figure seems about right. Somewhat ironically, some consensus floating around is that this film, despite its larger scale, is actually a bit less creative and charming than the first two, as the plot gimmick overlaid on top of the musical foundation is one of the most hackneyed. The “high school sweethearts going separate ways” idea is so universal that it is fully inadequate to support a movie that is already wearing out the grass with its repetitive, pacing arcs.

Catchy tunes though and syrupy sweet, regardless. In his book “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs,” Chuck Klosterman argues (using “Saved By the Bell”) that the most universal and human truths are inevitably cliche. It is our common, subconscious understanding of the rules of love that make them universal (obviously), and that familiarity makes any realization, or manifestation of these rules in any sort of storytelling form seem unoriginal. This, Klosterman says, is not a bad thing. It reassures us, being able to predict where the story goes. It shows us we’re still loosely connected as people. (Click here to read more…)

Lessons from the world of arts criticism, from the critics of The Daily Californian.

When I was first exposed to Pitchfork some years ago, I was overjoyed at the breadth of albums the site had covered. So what could I do but dig through the site’s archive and seek out Pitchfork’s opinions on my favorite albums? Unfortunately, I had not yet realized how deadly some of Pitchfork’s writing could be. So when I typed the words “Kid A” into the search box, clicked on the review and started reading, it felt like someone was shoving their fist down my throat.

What caused this impulse to vomit? Well, this:

I had never even seen a shooting star before. 25 years of rotations, passes through comets’ paths, and travel, and to my memory I had never witnessed burning debris scratch across the night sky. Radiohead were hunched over their instruments … White pearls of arena light swam over their faces. A lazy disco light spilled artificial constellations inside the aluminum cove of the makeshift stage. The metal skeleton of the stage ate one end of Florence’s Piazza Santa Croce, on the steps of the Santa Croce Cathedral. Michelangelo’s bones and cobblestone laid beneath. I stared entranced, soaking in Radiohead’s new material, chiseling each sound into the best functioning parts of my brain which would be the only sound system for the material for months.

Tell me that you didn’t unconsciously grope for a brown bag while you were reading that. (Click here to read more…)

Lessons from the world of arts criticism, from the critics of The Daily Californian.

As a critic, you learn things as you go along. Specifically, you learn things from hordes of fans who leave angry comments in response to your reviews. Usually, it’s wise not too pay attention to the you-suck-go-to-hell type comments, but sometimes you see a trend that’s worth noting.

I noticed such a trend in the comments and e-mails in response to my review of the Jonas Brothers’ latest. In that piece, I pointed out that the Brothers were very clean for rock stars and were trying to bring morality rock ‘n’ roll. There is no problem with that, except that it’s difficult to do such a thing.

You see, I don’t mind that idea. I just felt like the Jonas Brothers were trying to sound dirty when they were really clean. They weren’t trying to sound moral at all but rather trying to hide morality, and therefore, they were creating a contradictory sound. I never said this explicitly, though it was an undercurrent. Bad move. (Click here to read more…)

The Obama campaign released this 13-minute documentary yesterday, concerning John McCain’s involvement in the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s and 1990s, entitled “Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis.” While this post is stepping out of my designated realm of theater, it is in all respects relevant to “Entertainment,” and I couldn’t resist taking a look at the artistry of this minimentary. Instead of analyzing the video’s crap-your-pants politics, I’m looking at how it went about inducing the crapping of voters’ pants. There are plenty of places in the “real” media where you can be told just how to react to the politics of the video. They’ve taken care of it. Now let’s get artsy.

The documentary opens with a clear sign that the viewer should be worried: slighty blurry close-ups of scary words in that ominous typewriter font. Whenever that font appears, something’s up. Something dirty and Nixonesque, like we saw in the typewritten close-ups of “All the President’s Men.” (Unfortunately, there is no Robert Redford to save the day this time.) Some subtle instrument is oscillating between two notes in A minor under sound effects of typewriters and camera shutters, and even more things are being zoomed in on. Suddenly there’s a photo of Charles Keating, the story’s slack-jawed, shifty-eyed villain and “a very nasty, fraudulent guy,” seen below. The scene is set.

Seriously, what’s wrong with this guy’s jaw?

(Click here to read more…)

Is it just me, or have voting PSAs gotten a whole lot stranger?

What I’m getting from this is, vote or Anthony Hopkins will eat your face. Really, though, the whole thing plays like “Saturday Night Live,” only not funny … which I guess just means it plays like “Saturday Night Live.” Will Jessica Alba and two TV stars be able to convince people to vote? I guess stranger things have happened. And hey, at least Hayden’s not singing.

In all seriousness, please register if you haven’t already. If not for Tristan and Hayden, then for me.

Thanks to the good bloggers over at Best Week Ever for the heads-up.