Blood Brothers

Both Quentin Tarantino and the Cohen brothers have created films that span genres, and stoke controversy. Their films are character and dialogue driven, and usually peppered with sex and violence. Though often bloody creations, both Tarantino and the Cohen brothers explore thematic elements that dig deeper into the human experience. But sometimes you push that aside to sit back and watch the chaos unfold. Leandro Braga did just that when he spent thirteen days watching Tarantino and Cohen brothers films. He's collected 500 scenes in the following clip - now that's what I call a cinephile!

Via New York Magazine

Build Me Up, Buttercup

Last Friday, March 12th, a bunch of funny people got together to make each other laugh, and to make a difference. They're tweeting their way to happiness, helping to rebuild schools in Haiti with the proceeds from Night of 140 Tweets. I'm pretty sure Ben Stiller was the brains behind the event, and after reading last week's New York Times article about his upcoming film 'Greenberg' I think I'll support him in anything he puts his heart to.

Photograph by Chad Batka for the New York Times.

Enjoy The Hannukah Cookie, Man!

I'm not sure who created the Arrested Development ode at left, but they're spot on. The comparison makes perfect sense: Michael is the hero, Lindsay is the beauty, Lucille is the villain, Gob is "a magician," Buster is the idiot, and Tobias is... well just a "never-nude" I suppose. In celebration of the genius that was Arrested Development and tomorrow's first day of Hannukah, check out Ben Stiller's cameo as magician Tony Wonder below:

The Man Of The Century

Imagine living to see your 100th birthday. Then imagine that during that lifetime you produced some of the most important anthropological work of the 20th Century. What a life that would have been right? Claude Levi-Strauss, French anthropologist and the “father of structuralism,” lived that life. Levi-Strauss’ approach to anthropology was so far removed from other thinkers of his time, because he looked at different cultures through a unique lens – instead of trying to pinpoint all of their differences, he “argued that history and experience were far more important in shaping human consciousness than universal laws.” By analyzing myth and culture, Levi-Strauss challenged many theories which reduced tribal behavior and society as primitive, and solely based on tradition. The NYTimes ran a great article about his life and work today, and what struck me the most about the article was Levi-Strauss’ interpretations of modern living: “With the fading of myth’s power in the modern West, [Strauss] also suggested that music had taken on myth’s function. Music, he argued, had the ability to suggest, with primal narrative power, the conflicting forces and ideas that lie at the foundation of society.” For a man who devoted his life to exploring humanity, and who at one point taught in a local high school in Paris where fellow teachers included Jean-Paul Satre and Simone de Beauvoir, he was incredibly in touch with the realities of the world.