Copyright Criminals, The IT Crowd, Tropic Thunder, & more TV notes

Copyright Criminals is worth it just for the amazing editing job on some video remix sequences, done by Eclectic Method. It's about the use of sampling in music, with slimy entertainment lawyers and notoriously pissy Steve Albini (still frickin' talented) on the anti-sampling forces, and DJs, MCs, and other hip hop/funk artists on the pro-sampling side, including Miho Hatori, Matmos, Public Enemy, Mix Master Mike, De La Soul, Negativland, George Clinton, Danger Mouse. Every time they start showing the mixed songs, they just edit together footage of the artists to match the mixing, which is really an incredible editing job. Were it not a pretty fascinating look at how you structure from samples to finished song. May not be the most in-depth look at it, but probably the best sampling documentary you will ever see. If you have any interest in this at all, you owe it to yourself to get a copy of it and take one hour out of your day to see this. I can't recommend this highly enough to anyone interested.

I also watched, over the last two weeks, the entire run of the British sitcom, The IT Crowd. As an anglophile, along with a former IT person, I loved it, but probably a lot more than Ms. Albright, who loved Moss most of all. Who is a great character, and I have another reason to hate the WGA strike. Besides killing Pushing Daisies (although who knows if it could have kept increasing in ratings had it come back), it killed the American version of this, which had a more traditionally attractive Jen (who also probably would have had a less annoying voice), but brought in the original Moss, which would have helped. And Roy, well, Roy would have been played by Joel McHale. Which would have meant no Community, if this show were popular, but damnit, I want this to turn into something like The Office, where the show starts out in the same place, but goes on and gives me years of enjoyment.

Tropic Thunder is a waste. A waste of everything in it. It's not funny, it's way too long, Robert Downey, Jr. is offensive, and I wonder how the flip this movie was made. Seriously, the only thing that isn't completely frickin' worthless is Jay Baruchel, who whips out a Renny Harlin speech that was a brief bright spot. I really don't understand huge, high budget comedies. There's no way they're going to be funny, because they're going to be "funny" to the largest group possible. This rarely leads to anything remotely funny. Comedies should be low budget, and frequently low rated, because otherwise, you're not going for actual comedy, but for lowest comedy denominator.

Similarly to Tropic Thunder, Leno goes for the lowest comedy denominator. As disappointed as I am in Leno winning anything, I have to say that I'm kind of excited about Conan being forced to do something different. He's too wacky to really be comfortable in the Tonight Show. I'm more pissed at the winning of the people who laugh at things like the Dancing Itos. That all being said, knowing that he wasn't going to continue on the Tonight Show allowed Conan to do some absolutely brilliant stuff over the last two weeks, with some of the best stuff he's done on the Tonight Show. And his final speech was great, a classy call to doing good things and avoiding cynicism. Really, really classy way to go out.