What’s better than hearing from young, generally apolitical American movie actors on their opinions regarding the presidential election? Hearing from old, generally funny British movie actors on their opinions regarding the election. I’m not sure what is so interesting about John Cleese talking smack about Sarah Palin, but it’s become a very popular clip, despite the fact that it’s just Cleese chatting and not, as I wish he was, presenting an anarchic parody sketch featuring a talking parrot intended to represent the vice presidential candidate. Perhaps the Monty Python gang could have written something as silly as the McCain/Palin campaign, but I’d much rather see proof of that than hear about it.
So why am I featuring the clip today? Well, perhaps in anticipation of W., this will just be a week filled with celebrity endorsement videos. No, I’d rather not, especially since a lot of them, like the Hayden Panettiere ad on FunnyorDie.com are not even a little bit amusing. Besides, yesterday’s clip already pointed out that these things aren’t exactly all that film-related (and at least Joseph Gordon-Levitt had visual aids). So here’s the real reason I’m commenting on this video: please, John Cleese, or anybody else, make some political videos that are actually funny. Remember how great the Will Ferrell as George W. Bush ads for ACT were four years ago? That’s what I’m talking about. Paris Hilton spouting her economic policy a while back was fine and all, but when a few mediocre and obvious sketches from SNL represent the best political parody we have at a time so close to a major presidential election, it’s time for someone to rise to the occasion of hilarity.
The Academy’s Sid Ganis, desperate to come to some sort of revealable conclusion as to what kind of Oscars he’s going to preside over, has been pestering the WGA to grant a waiver to allow the producers to use writers/put on a show and not get picketed. So far he’s been denied, and it sounds like his hands are wringing fairly fervently. “I’m nervous. We’re getting down to the final moments; we need to make plans.”
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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