New ‘Onion’ Fake News: Actually Fake, Not So FunnyHere’s the remarkable thing about the Onion News Network, the satire stalwart’s first foray into video content: It’s the first televisual product to literally fit the wrongheaded moniker “fake news.” The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, which are regularly saddled with that descriptor, don’t fake the news; they fake the format. ONN — as of this writing, less a network than a Web page with four clips and a Dewar’s ad — finally takes that extra step. Its news items are, indeed, mocked-up rather than simply mocked. This means that both the anchors and the subjects are played, hammily, by actors, and the “news footage” is as scripted as the banter around it. Sadly, though, it is not particularly well scripted, nor particularly amusing.
cultural capital
Whiskey, You’re the Devil
Pop quiz: Do you remember being interviewed by a New York camera crew outside of McSorley’s or Bull McCabe’s on Saturday night? No? We asked you how many drinks you had, if you knew who Saint Patrick was, and what “Erin Go Bragh” meant. Then you told us that you used to hate the Irish, that your knowledge of the holiday comes entirely from The Simpsons, and something else we couldn’t quite catch. It was late, and you were pretty drunk. So watch the video to see what might come up at your future intervention. And remember: We’re just here to help.
Video: Overheard: Saint Patrick’s Day [NYM]
video look book
Design Student Plays Up Exotic Foreigner Bit
Design student Catherine Tuck told Amy Larocca that in her native Brazil, everyone wears jeans with tank tops. Americans dress the same too, she says however Vogue tells us to. Our lemminglike fashion sense aside, Tuck prefers the city to home: “I like myself more when I’m here than when I’m in Brazil. In Brazil I’m just one more girl. Here, I’m one more Brazilian girl.”
Archives [Video Look Book]
video look book
They’re No Hansel and Zoolander
At Grand Central this week, New York’s Amy Larocca caught up with childhood friends John Jones and Khale Unger, who grew up to be male models. The pair can break into song upon request, and they plan to be successful as models–slash–rock stars, although it is unclear if they mean literal or figurative rock stars. Dolce & Gabbana is a staple of their wardrobes, but Jones says that, to be successful, “You can’t overdo it. You have to look good in whatever.” Check them out in this week’s Video Look Book.
John Jones and Khale Unger [Video Look Book]
photo op
Oh, Rats
Here’s what you missed if you weren’t watching local news this morning: Those frolicking rats? Yeah, they’re frolicking in the Taco Bell–KFC on Sixth Avenue in the Village. Thinking outside the bun, indeed.
Rats Infest NYC Restaurant [WNBC.com]
Rats Shown Running Around a Closed Restaurant [AP via 1010WINS.com]
company town
Speak, Models!FASHION
• Turns out models can speak — at least in Ridley Scott’s new Prada movie. [Fashionista]
• Bottega Veneta has designed the interior of a penthouse suite at the St. Regis. [British Vogue]
• Model Paulina Porizkova has joined the cast of Dancing With the Stars. [Flypaper]
• Naomi Campbell left Premier Models, where she’s spent most of her career, for IMG. [All Company News]
in other news
Use the N/R, Luke, Use the N/RSometimes feel like you’re battling intergalactic evil as you rush through the Union Square subway station? Seems there’s a good reason for it: The I-Beams in the station exactly mimic the first stage of the Death Star level in the old Star Wars arcade game. This dorky observation is made cinematic at the blog Ironic Sans (to which the Morning News pointed us yesterday). There’s a short film to demonstrate, complete with accompanying computer graphics. Interestingly, Leia’s gold bikini seems to have been replaced by a very attractive garbage can.
I See the Death Star [Ironic Sans via The Morning News]
in other news
Killers Kill, But ‘VF’ Just HurtsAs if Graydon Carter’s inability to sell his latest documentary, Chicago 10 , at Sundance wasn’t proof enough that the fabulously coiffed magazine editor should perhaps get out of the movie-production business, we point you to Killers Kill, Dead Men Die, a faux-noir video montage now available on VanityFair.com to promote the magazine’s new Hollywood Issue. We have no idea who wrote that drivel, how much they had to pay Ben Shenkman to get him to narrate it, or whether it’s intentional or accidental that it seems like Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid–style noir spoof, but, regardless of the answers, this much is clear: It’s time you put down the camera, Graydon, and got back to filling people’s dinner reservations.
Killers Kill, Dead Men Die [VF.com]
show & tell
Eye of the Storm: Backstage at HeatheretteFrom the outside, Heatherette may have been a total fiasco, but our Jada Yuan found that inside was nothing but love. Backstage, Richie Rich’s aromatherapist was dressed like Dorothy but didn’t seem to know why. A misty Lydia Hearst remembered the boys from back in the day (“I really consider them part of my family”) while Omahyra favored Heatherette for the bloodlust: “This is the shit. Everybody’s fighting to get in here.”
Watch the video.
in other news
Bud’s New TV Station Is in the CanIf 30-second doses of Budweiser’s audiovisual genius aren’t sufficient for you — and, really, who could get enough of crabs worshipping a cooler? — today is your lucky day. It’s the launch of Anheuser-Busch’s own online entertainment network, Bud.TV. Bud.TV provides all sorts of longer-form entertainment commissioned by the beer company, not just their ads but also series from producers like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s production company, LivePlanet, and Kevin Spacey’s Trigger Street Films. And what a rollout: Not only does the launch come the day after Bud spent untold millions on Super Bowl ads; it also comes one day after a huge New York Times Magazine feature on the new service, which makes it sound like the greatest entertainment product since color TV.
video look book
Oh, Come On, You’ve Seen Irma Sandrey
Irma Sandrey is an actress, a dancer, and an acting instructor. She’s a member of the Actors Studio and a teacher at the Lee Strasberg School. So what’s her fashion Method? On the day New York’s Amy Larocca caught up with her, it was fur, lots of fur. “I do feel sorry for the little animals,” Sandrey says between giggles, “but … ” But, indeed. It’s cold in New York these days!
Irma Sandrey [Video Look Book]
cultural capital
His Video Clip Will Touch You, Even Though He Can’tEdward Scissorhands is coming to BAM in March, but it’s not the familiar old Tim Burton movie. Nope, this version is a dance play, directed and choreographed by Matthew Bourne and with original music by Terry Davies. The preview video clip alone is worth the price of admission (which for the video, come to think of it, is free). It’s weird and oddly entrancing, and for some reason — the music, the slo-mo — it reminds us of a credit-card ad, or maybe a De Beers commercial. Even weirder.
Video Preview: Edward Scissorhands [BAM.org]
cultural capital
Sundance Report: Bronx ‘Internets Celebrities’ Go to Park City, Discover Swag
Think it’s only the rich and beautiful at the Sundance Film Festival? Not entirely. The Bronx-based video artists Dallas Penn and Rafi Kam are there, too, and they’re exploring Park City in a daily series of funny shorts called “Internets Celebrities.” In today’s installment, they discover swag, and the copious amount of it waiting for celebs at the film festival. “Sienna Miller is everywhere,” Penn notes. “She’s a swag hag.” So, too, it seems, are our hosts.
Internets Celebrities: Swag [The Daily Reel]
Related: Video Reveals Bodega Food Pyramid [Grub Street]
video look book
Morag Wemyss-Dunn Really Likes Her Shoes
Morag Wemyss-Dunn lives in both New York and London, she’s got a son and a dog, and, as she says, “You can tell I like designers.” Indeed: When Amy Larocca bumped into her on the streets of Manhattan, Morag was wearing Tod’s, Fendi, and Prada. “Handbags and shoes are very, very important” to her, and she’s apparently never got a hair out of place. Hear what else she has to say in this week’s Video Look Book.
Morag Wemyss-Dunn [Video Look Book]
in other news
New Yorker Makes Your Cell Phone the Best Etch-a-Sketch Ever
It’s all thanks to the geniuses in Cupertino that you’ll soon be able to ditch your barely functioning Razr for the oh-so-shiny new iPhone, right? Wrong! We’re sure you’ll be as thrilled as we were to learn that a major part of the iPhone’s cooler-than-thou technology — the first touch screen that allows you to simultaneously use two fingers to manipulate two things, like Tom Cruise in Minority Report — was created by a New Yorker: Jeff Han, a research scientist for NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. The video above reveals the fascinating possibilities. Whether the phone plays trippy music every time you minimize Mom to order some Domino’s? Unclear.
Multi-Touch Interaction Research [nyu.edu via MUG]
Earlier: Steve Jobs Wows the Faithful (But What About Those Options?)
intel
Studio 4
Say this for the print media: As young people abandon newspapers for the Web, newspapers remain obsessively committed to chronicling what’s going on in their rival medium to draw those kids away. Today’s Wall Street Journal, for example, frets that as the Walt Disney Co. unveils its new Website today, “users will be more or less trapped in Disney’s online world, unable to import non-Disney music or video clips to fill out their online profiles,” while the Times is worried about where young thrill-seekers can go for edgy content now that YouTube and MySpace are cracking down. What’s next? Wi-fi’d Bugaboos? Moderated baby talk? Oh, it’s worse: Babble, Nerve’s baby site, offers a YouTube glimpse of our nation’s future (and perhaps even more frighteningly, a glimpse at what happens when a girl who couldn’t get dates in high school is sent to cover such stories). At least the teething crowd won’t have to fight for its right to party.
Baby Loves Disco [Babble]
in other news
Roll Tape
Despite our odd obsession with the Charmin Times Square toilets, we confess this hadn’t previously occurred to us. But thanks to the latest installment in the Times’ ongoing coverage of the recent invention of the Internet — today we learn about YouTube videos of Times Square marketing — we decided to check YouTube for some videos of Times Square marketing. Oh, the mother lode! Feast your eyes on an oddly hypnotic, entirely unnarrated four-minute travelogue of a visit to our favorite public bathrooms. (There are plenty of other, related videos available, too, if this one doesn’t quite do it for you.) It’s almost like being there — but you won’t need to wash your hands when you’re done.
Charmin’s Times Square Bathrooms [YouTube]
Times Sq. Ads Spread Via Tourists’ Cameras [NYT]
in other news
Managing Traffic for Efficiency and Hilarity
We noted several weeks ago the city’s ambitious new plan to dedicate whole lanes of traffic to ultrafast buses with their own curbside turnstiles. And how would these buses battle unauthorized motorists slipping in and out of the lanes? By snapping pictures of them and ratting them out to the city. Nice. But not nearly as effective as a high-tech — yet awesomely brutal — solution implemented in Great Britain. Marvel at cars getting mauled by weight-sensing, automated retractable bollards.
Bollard Porn [StreetsBlog]
Earlier: It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s a … Bus!
in other news
Jane’s Carousel Spins With No One to Ride It
There’s something almost novelistic about Jane Walentas’s well-documented obsession with a wooden carousel. The wife of the man who built Dumbo first found the quaint thing in Ohio in 1984, at an auction for a belly-up amusement park; she’s been repairing it, piece by piece, ever since. During those twenty years, her husband turned a shady warehouse district into one of the city’s more enviable addresses and something close to a personal fiefdom — but it still doesn’t have a place for Jane’s carousel. The Walentas’ ultimate goal is to mount it in the Brooklyn Bridge park, but for now a kid-free indoor installation during the Dumbo art festival will have to do. And no, you still can’t ride it. But you can — thanks to the kind bloggers at Gowanus Lounge — at least take a spin on the YouTube.
Jane’s Carousel Debuts in Dumbo [Gowanus Lounge]