Judy Gold took the stage with questions about Gilbert Gottfried’s childhood, career, and life. The mostly older crowd, though, was there for the “f-cks.” Gottfried told stories from his new book, “Rubber Balls and Liquor” (read it again, you’ll get it), about his first jokes, his grandmother, dropping out of high school and his first performances; but he was at his best and the crowd at their happiest when he was looser, riffing and, working blue.

After going through his biography, the conversation turned to Gottfried’s controversies: his censored jokes about Pee Wee Herman’s masturbation at the 1991 Emmys, his 9/11 jokes at the Hugh Hefner Friar’s Club Roast, and, most recently, his Twitter jokes about the Japanese tsunami. Gold asked Gottfried if he had any regrets, or if anything was off limits. Gottfried answered both with an immediate and resounding “no,” and, as if to prove the point, retold each controversial joke for the audience’s sake. The audience simultaneously cringed and laughed.

Gottfried has embraced his controversies in persona and interviews to the point where his outlandish behavior has become part of his cachet. The audience was delightfully horrified at his Holocaust jokes, each different synonym he used for female genitalia, and his reporting of how long his masturbation sessions last. Fittingly, for the last question of the night, an older woman asked him to tell the “Aristocrats” joke (NSFW). To uproarious laughter, Gottfried giddily and intricately detailed exactly who was filling up what crevice, and in so doing, Gottfried filled his own niche, providing the faux outrage the audience craved.

What They Said
“The people who get the joke don’t need an explanation. Those who don’t get it won’t understand the explanation.”
- Gilbert Gottfried explains his lack of explanations

“I do realize the tragedy. That’s where the jokes come from!”
- Gilbert Gottfried views comedy as tragedy’s roommate (the kind who sticks out his tongue as his roommate cries)

“That was the first time I ever jerked off to the Diary of Anne Frank”
- Gilbert Gottfried, on Natalie Portman. We did not ask him when the second time was

“It was up between me and Liam Neeson… Of course I, at the time, was up for Schindler’s List”
- Gilbert Gottfried dishes on how backroom Hollywood dealings go down

What We Thought

• Judy Gold was well prepared as interviewer but we thought she could have kept the format looser. She mostly eschewed segues to move forward chronologically. Interviews don’t have to be in life order, and it was fun to see Gold and Gottfried banter. We would have been happy to see more of that.
• Gottfried’s points about media were spot on. He railed against the hypocrisy of news anchors telling him privately how much they enjoyed his jokes and denouncing them publicly on camera. He also pointed out how many more people see his “controversial” jokes once they’re re-aired on the news and online.
• The discussion about Gottfried’s time on Hollywood Squares ended up touching on one of our favorite game show clips of all time. It was great to be reminded of it:

PANEL RULES!
Some audience behavior seems to repeat itself panel after panel. We’ll be updating a running list of “PANEL RULES!” that will help ensure that you are not the dweeb of the Panel Nerds.
Panel Nerds don’t like…Cause Gauze
Gilbert Gottfried is there to talk about his life, his work, and his comedy. Just because you have something in the news you’d like to complain about, that doesn’t mean you should ask Gilbert Gottfried about it. In an interview where he didn’t once discuss current events, why bring up Occupied Wall Street?

Kunis took home the grand prize for agreeing to go to the Marine Corps Ball in November with a soldier who dared asked her out on video (a promise that, as of this morning, she may already be reneging on). At the end of the program, O’Reilly declared her acceptance to the ball “excellent” and wished her and her date much fun at the ball.

And, of course, there’s nothing wrong with applauding her for agreeing to the date– it’s a cute way of her giving back to the troops, and anything that enforces the idea that America’s soldiers deserve to be honored is a good thing. The bizarre thing about the accolade, however, is that it followed a particularly “culture war”-heavy episode of the program, one that opened with Ingraham railing against people like Kunis (though not by name, of course) for leading children astray. O’Reilly’s praise of Kunis’ patriotism below:

Exactly what it is that contributes to the “deterioration of culture” is a moving target, but Ingraham, who had confronted Matt Lauer about Today‘s transgressions yesterday morning, did a good job of touching on the main points: bad parenting, tattoos, Cee Lo Green, the aforementioned lady singers, and a general “sense of entitlement,” as O’Reilly put it, that comes from both the culture and the parenting. O’Reilly told Ingraham that he was “buying into your premise that the culture is deteriorating, and very quickly,” noting that young teen girls “with these giant tattoos on their back” were a serious problem. Ingraham then made the comparison between tattoos and smoking and asked why, exactly, it was that smoking was not okay while getting tattoos was. When Ingraham accused parents of being the biggest problem, O’Reilly added that “a lot of it is driven by the media,” and both agreed that reality TV (Jersey Shore gets a nod, of course) did not help at all– though O’Reilly did not make the tie to Barack Obama that Ingraham attempted. That discussion via Fox News below:

There is much to fault in the discussion Ingraham and O’Reilly indulged in– for one, the fact that O’Reilly makes an immediate jump from the WWII generation to 2011 without noting that much has changed in culture from the late 1980s/1990s to today. Few would argue, for example, that the hit music of that era– NWA and Nirvana come to mind– is somehow more wholesome than Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber. If culture is an indication of illicit behavior, then youth statistics on drug use in 2011 seem to reflect the innocence of our time, as well. Not to mention that one of the songs Ingraham mentions by name, “S&M,” samples the far more explicit 1984 Depeche Mode hit “Master and Servant,” which appears to not have single-handedly ruined the youths of that era despite its controversial message. But this segment’s absurdity is not best illustrated through these facts, but through the shamelessness of this spokeswoman of libertinism who was, somehow, yesterday’s Patriot, Mila Kunis.

It is arguable that no one in America is doing more to “deteriorate the culture” than Mila Kunis. Aside from possibly canceling the date with Marine Sgt. Moore– an affront to the U.S. Armed Forces of Hugo Chavez proportions– Kunis has made a career of her striking beauty in ways that one would imagine Ingraham conservative types should abhor. After a series of comedic appearances and skimpy photo shoots, Kunis got the role of a lifetime alongside Natalie Portman in the Academy Award-winning Black Swan. Sure, the Academy may give the film its blessing, but not only does Kunis sport a tattoo in this film, she also participates in a lesbian sex scene with a known single mother.

She is currently following this up with a film with the institution of marriage squarely in its crosshairs, Friends With Benefits, a film where she has sex with Justin Timberlake to avoid the natural responsibilities of a relationship. Timberlake, you may recall, played the most debauched character in The Social Network and once exposed Janet Jackson‘s nipple to an unprepared audience of impressionable children during the Super Bowl Halftime Show. And, Marine incident aside, Kunis’ publicity appearances for the film have been even more offensive– so offensive, in fact, that her appearance at the MTV Movie Awards with Timberlake was so lewd Bill Maher chided them for their vulgarity.

So what permits Kunis to get away with all this filth while still retaining enough stature to win the “Patriot” title? Is doing something kindly towards the troops a panacea for all moral shortcomings? Would a more openly controversial cultural figure– say, the litany of hip-hop artists O’Reilly has gone to war against– also get a pass if they performed at a USO event or donated money to the families of veterans who lost their breadwinners in Iraq or Afghanistan? Among the many problems with the culture wars, and social conservatism in particular, is that what constitutes appropriate and deviant culture is entirely arbitrary, which makes it one of the few political realms in which the “slippery slope” argument actually works.

If this is the caliber of moral rectitude that O’Reilly will accept in order to be declared an official Factor “Patriot,” then parents today have a lot more to worry about than the corroding influence of Matt Lauer. Or perhaps the culture is just as it has ever been, when Ingraham-types were calling for the prohibition of liquor, the censorship of The Doors, or for Common to be kept away from the White House.

Superficially, No Strings Attached and Friends With Benefits sound like very similar movies: two best friends decide to have sex with each other without entering a relationship, as they are both afraid of commitment. One supposes at some point a conflict arises that leads them to realize they are in love with each other, then something happens, and a happy ending wraps up the plot. Except, as the folks at Blind Film Critic have proven, it’s not just about the storyline. The films have the same dumb sidekicks, wacky parents, camera angles, and random gay jokes. If you’re of the mind that Hollywood is dead and appealing to the lowest common denominator has killed creativity, don’t watch the video below (or, for that matter, listen to this):



[h/t]

To be fair, Huckabee later clarified (through a spokesperson) that his comment about Obama being raised in Kenya was a mistake, declaring that he meant to say that the President grew up in Indonesia. Colbert defended Huckabee’s gaffe, saying of the potential presidential candidate “He simply misspoke. For five minutes. About the Mau-Mau revolution which he evidently thought happened in Indonesia.”

Colbert then noted that in Huckabee’s mind, it likely doesn’t matter where Obama grew-up or where the Mau-Mau revolution occurred. The only important thing is that people start associating Barack Obama with the words “Mau-Mau.” (Note to Colbert Producers, to whom should Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher send his invoice?)

Colbert then proceeded to chide the former Governor for not sharing this sort of attention getting rhetoric while he was on Colbert’s show just a week earlier and putting the Huckabee “on notice.” Watch the segment below courtesy of Comedy Central.

Speaking to host Lawrence O’Donnell, Harris Perry shared that she had been a single mother for most of her daughter’s life (though no longer) and even began by ceding Huckabee at least one point: single mothers have it rough. “I was raised by an unmarried mother,” she explained, and she can tell you that “most single mothers are not making millions of dollars for their movie roles.” She added that “most of us are uneducated and poor” and that the task did come with “a set of restrictions and difficulties,” but that to it was wrong to consider single mothers “a scourge on American cultures, values, morals.” To that O’Donnell added that there were very valid reasons for many women to leave a relationship such that being a single mother is significantly more beneficial to the child, such as in cases of abuse.

She added that it was even more of a mistake to assume that Natalie Portman has some sort of magical hold on youth culture such that girls who would have previously not behaved in such a manner feel the need to get pregnant upon seen her baby bump. “What mostly impacts young women’s lives are the actual opportunities those people face.” But, she added, Portman’s behavior could have a much more adverse effect based on something completely independent of her pregnancy: the body weight issues she could create in young girls by slimming down the way she did for Black Swan and glorifying the weight loss.

The segment via MSNBC below:

Coming off of what the Fox & Friends chyron described as a “wild week” (have they not heard of Charlie Sheen?), Huckabee momentarily revisited his comment about President Obama being born in Kenya (“it was a brain slip”) before tackling “the Natalie Portman incident.” He made it a point of noting that it was not Portman herself he was attacking, but that he had been asked specifically his thoughts on single motherhood in the context of her pregnancy. He explained more thoroughly he problem with single motherhood as an economic issue: “when you have unwed mothers, you have a higher propensity toward lack of education, lack of ability to get a job, and their chidren are goin to live their entire lives in poverty.”

F&F cohost Alisyn Camerota agreed with his general view but challenged him on why, of all people, Portman got caught up in the attack. Noting that Portman was also engaged, such that the child would grow up with two parents, she argued Portman was “a beacon of what women should do.” Huckabee grumbled about having children after the marriage but nonetheless ceded the point, reiterating the poverty issue: “My point in all of this is that when we act like there is not an economic component to the choices we make.”

Tackling the most beloved starlet in Hollywood is likely not the smartest move for a man who may run for president, and emphasizing that children of single parents tend to be impoverished in the context of a multi-millionaire unmarried couple will probably do little to remedy this new gaffe.

The segment via Fox News below:

Here’s one humble suggestion. Maybe there would be fewer out-of-wedlock pregnancies if there were more sex education, including abstinence and safer sex. Even Bristol knows that.

Also, stop calling it “wedlock.” Sounds like something you get from stepping on a rusty nail.

(h/t)

THE 5 BEST PANELS OF 2010

1. Who: Billie Joe Armstrong, Michael Mayer, interviewed by Jordan Roth
Where: 92nd Street Y
When: September 19
What we said: “Mayer says that theater has always told the stories of the active and vocal generation of the time; American Idiot follows in that tradition. So what’s Armstrong think of his songs being performed on stage? They’re “two different animals,” he assures. He admits, though, that certain songs have been adapted so well to Broadway that the band now plays them differently on tour. It seems that the art forms have worked in tandem even better than the duo could have imagined.”

See the full review.

2. Who: Jonathan Alter, David Remnick, moderated by Abigail Pogrebin
Where: The JCC in Manhattan
When: October 13
What we said: “Getting the president to open up was a different story. Each of the writers got around an hour total to ask Obama questions for their respective books. Neither of them found him very forthcoming. They each, separately, came to similar conclusions about the president’s childhood and demeanor. He’s deliberate, disciplined, cool, and detached, they said. What perplexes them, though, is how he rose up and became known as a communicator yet struggles in those areas today.”

See the full review.

3. Who: Lorne Michaels and Seth Meyers, interviewed by Ken Auletta
Where: W Hotel – Union Square
When: March 2
What we said: “Both Meyers and Michaels were entirely upfront about the process they go through to put the show on the air. Michaels says that his show requires a certain precision and camera timing to put together that doesn’t allow for improvising, despite the comedians’ proficiencies and wishes. However, when Michaels was asked about the way NBC handled the Leno-Conan handover, he quickly silenced himself. It showed how disciplined Michaels is, and prefers his show to be.”

See the full review.

4. Who: Jimmy Fallon, interviewed by Brian Williams
Where: Paley Center for Media
When: May 27
What we said: “While not educating the audience, the pair was yukking it up in ways only they can. Fallon danced through the aisles, re-positioned his chair for the sake of a joke, did celebrity voice impressions, among other overall wackiness. Williams aptly played the straight man, picking his spots carefully and making the crowd laugh with his body movements and positioning. At one point, the way Williams simply moved his chin in response to some of Fallon’s antics made us laugh.”

See the full review.

5. Who: Steve Carell, interviewed by Tad Friend at the New Yorker Festival
Where: Acura at SIR Stage37
When: October 3
What we said: “Carell said that his favorite character on The Office is Toby because he does so much with so few lines and minimal amounts of screen time. This isn’t surprising though once you consider that Carell, in his roles, chooses his spots wisely, largely blending in as observers until his much-awaited entry and timely punchline. He said he’s committed to making his comedy “genuine and real” in order to avoid cliches and anything else predictable.”

See the full review.

THE 10 BEST QUOTES OF 2010

1. “He’s the least crazy president we’ve had in a century. He’s probably the least crazy person I know.”
- David Remnick shares his thoughts on the president’s psyche

2. “Is this boring?”
- Steve Martin wonders aloud whether his interest in art speaks to the 92Y audience

3. “When you get to the afternoon, Fox goes from the attractive Munster daughter to the monster under the stairs.”
- Brian Williams looks at how the news competition shapes up

4. “I don’t think my special brand of self confidence comes from anyone outside of me.”
– Gabourey Sidibe is fine with herself

5. “If you feel the audience is ahead of you, you’re losing.”
- Lorne Michaels recognizes his important it is in comedy to out think your viewers

6. “I plan to continue covering the media until I write about myself: ‘David Carr got laid off today.’”
- David Carr is going to create another Moses conundrum

7. “The only acting I did in high school, I was the rear end of a horse.”
- James Earl Jones has grown into larger parts since then

8. “Those who shout the loudest don’t necessarily deserve to be heard the most.”
- Tony Blair dealt with this firsthand as he faced down a disruptive protester proclaiming him a “war criminal”

9. “The structure of banking is what brought us to the precipice; it destroyed our economy.”
- Eliot Spitzer wants to rebuild the foundations

10. “The Long Island social scene is hanging out in the parking lot of a mall so [my acting career] was my saving grace.”
- Natalie Portman doesn’t know the joy of drinking slurpees outside a CVS

But like any extremely popular book series, and our money is on The Overton Window to begin a thriller series, there is the inevitable movie adaptation. Would it work for Beck’s book? Absolutely! (Well, maybe.)

In fact, it almost feels like the book was written with scenes in mind – almost every chapter takes place in just one location, with lengths differing wildly (chapter 3 is 15 pages, chapter 4 is 2 pages.) And the nature of the subject matter – maybe a PG-13, Tea Party version of The Da Vinci Code – lends itself to a potential movie down the road. That said, it’s Glenn Beck: who in Hollywood will be greenlighting this one?

Let’s cast the movie anyway.

• Molly Ross – Our female lead is a young, ambitious anti-Government activist. Who also, as we find out, bears a striking resemblance to a certain Hollywood star. So why not just cast Natalie Portman in the role? In order to get preferential treatment at airport security, our protagonist sets his girl Molly up with a makeshift disguise, since she “kind of” looks like her. Here’s a part of that exchange:

“She’s an A-lister but she’s done mostly art-house films, so the average Joe probably couldn’t pick her out of a lineup. She’s about your size -”
“I don’t look like Natalie Portman.”
“You kind of do, actually, and we’ve got time to make a few tweaks before the limo arrives.” He reached over to smooth one of her eyebrows with the pad of his thumb but she ducked it and swatted his hand away. “Relax,” he said. “This is going to work.”

And, spoiler alert, it did! (She did have to drop some Star Wars knowledge on the nerd at the X-ray machine.) This will be easy, because she does mostly art-house films.

• Noah Gardner – Our main character is in about 75% of the book, and a big role needs a big-name star. Let’s play on the Star Wars theme and cast Hayden Christensen opposite Portman.

• Arthur Gardner – The film’s antagonist is Noah’s powerful, PR pro father. If we’re talking realistic options, let’s give Jon Voight the role since he’s probably a Beck fan.

• Danny Bailey – The YouTube sensation tea partier and Molly’s ex is kind of the rock star for his legions of fans. So we’ll slot Michael Buble in since he and Beck are buddies.

• Eliot Spitzer – In a surprising twist, the Eliot Spitzer cameo will be played by Eliot Spitzer. How’d they get him to do it?!

Also, James Cameron will (definitely not) direct.

This is part 7 in our 100-part review of The Overton Window. Technically, part 6 counted as our dramatic reading during Office Hours on Thursday.

The crowd exited the New York Times conversation with Natalie Portman buzzing, but it wasn’t because of anything she or moderator Patrick Healy said. The cause was an unexplained, bizarre disappearance. Forty five minutes into the panel, at the beginning of the viewing of a clip from her new film Brothers, Portman quickly ran off the stage. Healy, without offering justification, then announced a delay in the panel. The audience sat awkwardly for a few minutes before Healy said that they’d show another clip. As soon as the lights dimmed, security came out and removed a gentleman from the first row of the audience. Only then did Portman return to the interview. The potential creepiness of that interaction was amped up when discussion with his seat neighbors revealed that he had not taken picture or video, or any other New York Times no-no. It seemed that Natalie Portman had ejected him for his presence. Rarely does panel going bring us in contact with the dark side of celebrity, but for one night we were reminded that not everyone is interested in witty banter and interesting give and take.

[Update: The New York Post's Page Six reported today that it was indeed a stalker.]

The ejection certainly overshadowed the interview, though the question-answer was so banal and perfunctory, it provided an easy target to overtake. Which is a shame because the rare moments when the panel got going, it touched on interesting topics. Portman was at her most passionate when discussing her appreciation for the directors she has worked with. She lavished praise on Mike Nichols (Closer), Luc Besson (The Professional), and Anthony Minghella (Cold Mountain) (notable omission: George Lucas, who directed her in the Star Wars prequels). It was also interesting to hear about the way she balanced a fairly normal life with her movie career. Her story stands in great contrast to many other child actors.

Those illuminating, moments were rare, though. The main problem with the talk was a lack of focus. It wasn’t clear before or after the discussion, what the panel was ultimately about. Without direction, the interview descended into a glorified rendition of her wikipedia page. Healy simply went in the order of her career, and each period repeated the same pattern of questions: What was (fill in specific project) like? What was good and bad about (repeat name of specific project)? What did you learn from (project name, again) to help you in the rest of your career? Great panels feel like you’re watching two old friends talking about life. Healy’s tentative, nervous presence and the general nature of the questions made this panel feel like watching a first date – the kind of first date that doesn’t lead to a second one.

What They Said
“My idea of acting at the time was – jazz hands”
- Natalie Portman has learned that there are many types of hands in acting

“It was amazing and amazingly normal. I’m blessed to have missed the whole facebook, twitter thing by a few years.”
- Natalie Portman says you can’t find paparazzi pictures of her from Harvard. That’s a challenge, internet

“The Long Island social scene is hanging out in the parking lot of a mall so [my acting career] was my saving grace.”
- Natalie Portman doesn’t know the joy of drinking slurpees outside a CVS

“I like to be liked. I try to make people like me.”
- Natalie Portman is succeeding, we think

What We Thought

• Portman was able to quote New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin verbatim from her review of The Professional:“she poses better than she acts.” She said that actors always remember the insults, before getting off an insult of her own. She didn’t feel bad because Maslin “was the one who was dissing a 12 year old.” Decade-later point: Portman.
• Portman wants to direct but she admitted that if she was a guy, she wouldn’t care to. She sees great female scripts and men don’t want to direct them. The fact that there aren’t women directing makes her mad and she wants to fill the void.
• Because the questions never scratched beyond the surface, Portman was able to rely on actor-speak to describe projects. Almost every role was described as “challenging” and experiences were “magical.” At times, it walked the border between an actual interview and Portman doing her best version of Kate Hudson’s Drew Barrymore impression.

PANEL RULES
Some audience behavior seems to repeat itself panel after panel. We’ll be updating a running list of “PANEL RULES!” that will help ensure that you are not the dweeb of the Panel Nerds.

Panel Nerds Don’t Like… Celebrity Endorsers
One mother brought her daughter (also named Natalie) to the panel and asked Natalie Portman to give advice to her daughter on how to “stay grounded in this age when teenagers are being overstimulated.” Poor audience-Natalie must have been cringing. We know we were. Also, Portman spoke at length about what helped her have a “normal” life. Even if you come with your question all planned in advance, if it’s been answered, don’t ask it.

Update: A commenter at NataliePortman.com also has the story of the guy being “forcefully ejected” from the front row. Also, a news update for nerds: Portman talked about her role in comic book adaptation Thor, due out in 2011, and revealed that she has a three-picture commitment. Comic book trilogy! Nerds, she’s yours again.

Here’s a clip they showed at the panel – Portman as that 12-year-old in Beautiful Girls:

Photo of Portman and Healy via Adam Ludwin’s Twitpic

The newest trailer for the upcoming comic book adaptation “Kick-Ass” is getting a lot of attention on Twitter today, thanks to tweets and re-tweets by the likes of Rob Corddry, Jake Tapper, and TV’s Andy Levy. The R-rated trailer features copious violence and profanity, but the clip’s heat is generated by the source of the mayhem: 12-yr-old vigilante Hit Girl.

Is this a post-ironic hoot, or the end of western civilization as we know it? You tell me.

Here’s the (extremely NSFW) trailer:

Corddry notes:

Since I tweeted this, TONS of responses about the cursing, NONE about the violence. Way to be consistent America.

The trailer certainly achieves the intended effect, turning neutered kiddie movie cliche´s into bloody piles of goo, and it’s certain to get a lot of attention. It sure got mine.

From a political standpoint, this trailer is a bit of a contradiction. While conservatives aren’t likely to appreciate the profanity, they’ll surely agree that if all 12-year-olds carried handguns, there would be little or no wedgie-ing. Liberals might appreciate the puncturing of gender roles, but be dismayed at the lack of safety equipment.

Personally, this trailer just made me feel hopelessly out of the loop. I actually had to use the Google to find out what a “Red Band Trailer” is. (It’s a trailer that can only be viewed by people who claim to be 17 or older.)

The film itself sounds, um, kick-ass. The hero is a regular high school kid who decides to become a superhero, despite having no powers, just because. It’s a funny premise, and if the trailers are any indication, the action is first-rate.

While Hit Girl takes the conceit to 11, the idea of bad-ass kids is not a new thing to cinema, although Hollywood narrative tradition usually requires some kind of mitigation. In “Taxi Driver,” Jodi Foster‘s pre-adolescent prostitute Iris is “rescued” and returned to proper living. In “Robocop 2,” malevolent drug-dealing waif Hob goes all vulnerable in his death scene.

One possible exception is Natalie Portman‘s Mathilda character from “Leon: The Professional,” who ends up in a safe place, but who doesn’t really shed her relish for vengeance.

Will scenes like those in this trailer lead to pickets and boycotts? In a world where there’s no such thing as bad publicity, that’ll be a win-win for a film like this. Perhaps those who think this movie will be a bad influence on their kids should teach their kids not to sneak into R-rated movies.

Update: Chloe Moretz, The actress who plays Hit Girl, is 12, but according to the character’s Facebook page, Hit Girl herself is only 11.

This new entrant into the canon spoofs Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face,” pointing out all sorts of people who are members of the tribe, both familiar ones like Howard Stern, Natalie Portman, Jon Stewart, Howie Mandel, Debra Messing and Jeremy Piven, and double-takes like Daniel Radcliffe (Jewish mom), Courtney Love (Jewish mom) and Gwyneth Paltrow (Jewish dad, which you’d know if you’ve ever seen Blythe Danner). Though I don’t know what Madonna and Britney are doing in there, is wearing a Kabbalah bracelet enough these days? Also, the usual jokes about bagels, lox, guilt, circumcision, and eons of persecution (“All the folks who try to kill us end up in defeat/The moral of the story is ‘We fought, we won, let’s eat’”). Thank God I did this last week. Watch below:

Other includees: Rahm Emanuel, Leonard Nimoy, Hebrew Hammer Adam Goldberg, Asher Roth, David Copperfield, Albert Einstein, Adam Sandler as The Zohan, David Lee Roth, Steven Spielberg, Golda Meir, Larry King, Andrew Dice Clay, Shia LeBoueuf, Sarah Silverman and, wait, Justin Timberlake, whaaa? (According to the Internet, no he’s actually not Jewish, but his middle name is Randall.) Anyway: Don’t challenge Harvey Levin based on this video but still, it’s quite fun, and the “Shema-ma-ma” is quite catchy (not unlike, ahem, Ra-ra-ra-shema). Also, “Kosher Face” just sounds funny. So, well done.

p.s. Hat tip to Rob Tannenbaum of Good For The Jews, who can also claim a first for their song “They Tried To Kill Us, We Survived, Let’s Eat.” Wow, writing Jew jokes is getting competitive.

p.p.s. My spellcheck in our blogging software has the chutzpah to tell me that “Hanukkah” is correct but “Chanukah” isn’t. Oh really Mr. Smart Guy? Congratulations on finding the definitive answer to a question that has eluded generations of Jewish scholars.

But what I realized just now after clicking on a video from their newsletter is that they are the only platform — besides maybe YouPorn — where the actual platform is synonymous with the type of content you’ll find there. I’m not talking about channels on YouTube or Blip.tv or Kaltura, which are all certainly impressive — I’m talking about branding. Funny or Die is now the Kleenex of comedy videos — instant shorthand for what you’re getting. It’s like how for a while we all said “YouTube” even if we were referring to a video on, say, Vimeo (“Let’s Vimeo this!” never quite made it into the popular lexicon.)

Funny or Die means two things: (1) Videos and (2) Comedy. If I am missing any other video platform that achieves the same effect — other than YouPorn! — please let me know. This is impressive, though. Remember the question mark hanging over Funny or Die after launch? Would “The Landlord” be a flash in the pan, would people watch non-Will Ferrell videos, would power — and profits — shift into the hands of the artists?

Well, the last one is still up in the air (though trending), but Funny or Die is here to stay. The site does pretty kickass traffic, averaging approximately 3.5 million uniques per month (see it to the right, compared against Gawker). This because of the answer to number two: Would people watch non-Will Ferrell videos? Why, yes, yes they would. That’s because the non-Will Ferrell videos involve people like Jon Hamm and Natalie Portman and Lindsay Lohan and Mandy Moore Bradley Cooper and Rashida Jones and Will Arnett, which in turn buoy the less mainstream but up-and-coming comedy stalwarts like Rob Huebel and Jon Daly and Paul Scheer and Seth Morris. And, once you’ve got ‘em in there for the biggies, it’s just a click away to sample the lesser-known fare. It’s the great Internet Circle of Life.

Funny or Die works for the same reason HuffPo works: Great incentives to submit your content for free. For one, “name” people established in one area are usually eager for the chance to establish in another. This is why Alec Baldwin, actor, is happy to contribute to HuffPo for free in order to be Alec Baldwin, pundit; this is why Mandy Moore appears in what would once have been a brand-despoiling faux commercial for, er, Red Bull used intimately. (And this is why I fully expect to see Joey McIntyre picked up for some comedic role sometime soon.) Also, thanks to the low barriers to entry — both in time spent and meddling outside forces — it’s easy to get content up on both sites that is personal, in-the-moment and unconstrained by the approval of outsiders. It’s great promo — we all know that. Finally, it’s personally gratifying — whether by contributing to a cause you support, or just goofing off with your friends, it’s easy to see why a celeb would want to throw up a Funny or Die video.

This isn’t news — but it took a while to play out in real time, and prove that Funny or Die had a legitimate, lasting model (and, irony alert: The publication that wondered if the site would make it — in an article called “Will Ferrell and the End of Media as We Know It” — was… Portfolio, which died six months ago). Well it is — so much so that a video like the one below of Will Arnett and the guys from Human Giant can get a million-plus views — a million-plus — while flying totally under the radar of the mainstream press (check out Google: The Will Arnett/Human Giant ‘sex tape’ had no big-time mainstream push). Those are some serious community-based numbers. Incidentally, how I found it: By clicking on the above-mentioned newsletter which advertised an Anvil video — Anvil is a Canadian rock group that puts the “old” in “old-school metal,” and I’m a supporter, so of course I clicked — but from there, I saw “Will Arnett Human Giant Sex Tape” and the next three minutes of my life were a foregone conclusion.

Was this all an elaborate excuse to post a Canadian band and a totally NSFW vid starring Will Arnett — who also happens to be Canadian? You’ll never know, but at least you can be confident that Funny or Die is here to stay. Now watch these videos, they’re funny.

Related, From The Past:
Will Ferrell and the End of Media as We Know It [Portfolio]

A collaborative effort, New York, I Love You is an anthology of 10+ shorts directed by the likes of Brett Ratner to Natalie Portman, and starring almost every actor in the world. To celebrate its arrival — and the arrival of glorious Fall in New York — we’ve nostalgically compiled a list of the cheesiest, most romantic, most epic and irresistible movies starring our favorite city.

1. Manhattan

One of Woody Allen’s many silver screen love letters to New York, the opener to this 1979 film has become a classic all on its own, perfectly capturing the combination of majesty and neurosis that is New York. In addition to Diane Keaton‘s unforgettable lines (“What do you want? I say what’s on my mind, and if you can’t take it well then fuck off”), it features Woody Allen making out with a 17-year-old during a carriage ride through Central Park, there is iconic shot of Queensboro bridge all of which make it easy to believe Allen when he says of Manhattan, “it’s really a knockout,” as he looks over the East River.

2. Moonstruck

La bella luna! This film about an Italian American family living in Brooklyn Heights is so packed with unforgettable scenes it’s hard to pick just one: Cher and Cage meeting at the Met fountain, the streets of Brooklyn, Cosmo’s moon, that house! (“It’s a house.”) Actually, you don’t have to choose because the entire movie is on YouTube.

NEXT: The Ephron Years – When Harry Meets Sally, When Seattle Meets the Empire State Building

For her appearance in The Piano, Anna Paquin became the second youngest Oscar winner in history. She was 11 — talk about starting off strong. And though she’s never really matched the chops she showed then, her turns as Rogue in X-Men and most recently, as Sookie Stackhouse in the vampire series True Blood have kept her famous. Nylon is the hip style mag made for True Blood fans.

Mediaite Grade (B): As an object of lust for vampires, Paquin plays a fair-skinned southern belle on HBO, but for this cover she’s extra pale. The washed out light reflects off of her glittery top and her pose is not exactly sexy — just full of attitude. The busy text on Nylon‘s covers is standard, as is an it-girl cover star, but it is odd that this one started off so high-brow. It’s not that she sold out – True Blood is wicked fun — but why does she look like a teenager? She’s 27, Nylon — let her act her age.

As the ’90s began, Jennifer Love Hewitt starred in the child-friendly sitcom Kids Incorporated. By age 16, she was becoming a ’90s icon, joining Party of Five. Then came the cementing of her time-specific legend as the scream-happy teen in I Know What You Did Last Summer, on her way to being Maxim‘s Sexiest Woman in 1999. But nothing says “I’ve grown up!” like a weight loss cover.

Mediaite Grade (B): Though she’s been chided in the press for the pounds she gained as her fame plummeted, it’s frustrating to see her stoop to answering body critics. Still, now 30, Jennifer has maintained her girl next door image, inarguably looks great and her show Ghost Whisperer is moderately successful. But this Shape cover — equally heavy on the pink and self-improvement — seems to be pandering a bit. And women looking to get in shape never really were her fan base, were they?

>>>NEXT: Drew Barrymore kissing girls and Natalie Portman!

• Jeff Goldblum (Not true, and handily disproved on Colbert tonight)
• Harrison Ford (Also not true, and was not in New Zealand to die alongside Goldblum, either)
• Natalie Portman (Not true, according to the gentle and helpful Examiner.com)
• George Clooney (Not true, according to TMZ, now the most trusted news source in celebrity deaths)
• Rick Astley, just starting to circulate, complete with a fake Associated Press story on something called iReport.com, which proudly proclaims: “iReport.com is a user-generated site. That means the stories submitted by users are not edited, fact-checked or screened before they post.” O-kay then. So much for trusted citizen journalism.

The Examiner told me to confirm with trusted sources, so I Google-Newsed it and found nothing. Then it said to check “reliable online sites like People magazine,” and “if that fails,” then places like the Huffington Post, TMZ and Perez Hilton. Okay! Perez said, “Rick Astley is NOT dead, Tweeple. Chillax!” So I’m chillaxing.

Update: Trust Perez! That iReport “story” has since been taken down.

Update to the Update: This is one of the smaller stories to come out of the Michael Jackson coverage, but it is actually sort of revealing, when juxtaposed with the Twitter/Iran and TMZ/Michael Jackson stories. It demonstrates just how fertile Twitter is for seeding misinformation (and disinformation), as well as how important brand credibility is for news sites. Something can call itself “iReport” and allow “citizen journalism” to be uploaded to its pages, but that doens’t make it trustworthy or credible, and what do you know, turns out that matters. On the flip side, this has provided another opportunity for TMZ to demonstrate credibility (if TMZ says they’re not dead, then they must not be dead!). The LAT explores TMZ’s slide up the credibility scale here.