Posts with tag speech
Posted Feb 25th 2007 2:50PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Web, Awards

There are a lot of things that suck about Hollywood awards shows (the self-important attitude of the whole thing and the cheesy dialogue come to mind). But the most prominent annoyance is the 'Thank You' speech. I don't know about you, but I don't care about Reese Witherspoon's lawyer and I can't help counting when... um... Jonathan... um... Demme... wins for... um...
Silence of the Lambs.
This year, producers for tonight's Academy Awards are trying to avoid the 45-second long lists of thank yous from winners by offering them the 'Thank You' cam. It's a camera that winners can turn to when they exit the stage and finish their list of 'thank yous'. The video will be immediately broadcast on
Oscar.com. The host of the 'thank you' cam says, "It takes the pressure off. Don't worry about the list, say what you want to say from the heart and the rest will live on the internet."
First of all, who the hell is going to watch this? Second of all, it sounds doomed to fail. Most of the people who win feel obligated to thank a million behind-the-scenes folks with deep wallets in order to get more work/money.
So... sit back with the mute button at the ready. Or find something else to do tonight.
Posted Jan 26th 2007 7:29PM by Adam Finley
Filed under: Music and Variety, Web, Awards
I don't watch award shows.
I know that sounds snobby and elitist. It's like people who say they don't watch television, or only watch movies with subtitles, but I'm not that uptight when it comes to popular culture. I can watch and enjoy a lot of trash, but a night dedicated to an entire industry fawning over itself just rubs me the wrong way. My more open-minded friends tell me I should just lighten the hell up, but I can't. Perhaps some day.
Then again, maybe if I were allowed to actually pen some of the speeches myself I would actually tune into the Academy Awards. No one has asked me to do that, but NPR is offering the next best thing: a contest where people write Oscar speeches in a movie character's voice. The winner will have his or her speech recorded in a phone interview and put on NPR.org. I might try my hand at writing a speech in the voice of Alan Arkin's character from Little Miss Sunshine. I wonder if the rules allow one to snort heroin? It would only be to get into the mind of the character, of course.
[via Pop Candy]
Posted Oct 17th 2006 10:45AM by Adam Finley
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Everybody Hates Chris, The CW
(S02E03) This episode, in which Chris runs for class president, borrowed plenty of quotes from famous speeches about race and race relations. Chris tells his best friend and campaign manager Greg he plans to beat Joey Caruso "by any means necessary," a clever nod to Malcolm X. Later, during a Q&A with the school body Caruso answers every question with a variation of Alabama governor George Wallace's infamous "segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" line from his 1963 inaugural speech. When asked what flavor of Jello should be in the cafeteria, he answers: "grape today, grape tomorrow, grape forever." When asked about handicap access, he just repeats the quote with "ramps" in place of "grapes." After swiping the speech Greg wrote for Chris and presenting it as his own at a school assembly, Caruso rattles off quotes from both Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson, a stark contrast to his own racist outlook.
Continue reading Everybody Hates Chris: Everybody Hates Elections
Posted Jul 8th 2006 1:01PM by Adam Finley
Filed under: Celebrities
Every high school graduation speech is exactly the same chain of cliches and navel-gazing pabulum. This is why Conan O'Brien should deliver every commencement speech at every high school in the nation. He'd have to do some kind of molecular split in order to accomplish this, but I think it would be worth the scientific and ethical risks. Recently he gave the commencement speech at Stuybesant High School, and you can watch both parts here and here. There's plenty of Conan's signature humor, but he also offers some sage advice to the students, all of which are at that point when they feel they must have their entire life planned out right now. A truly great speech, and for you readers who are getting ready to graduate high school, I recommend you check it out.
Thanks to Tucker for the link.
Posted Jun 13th 2006 3:32PM by Adam Finley
Filed under: Family Guy, Animation, Celebrities
Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane spoke to Harvard's graduating class last Wednesday, but it wasn't part of commencement. Instead, it was for Class Day, which takes place the day before graduation ceremonies and was created to be a more relaxing send off for seniors than the "real" ceremony. MacFarlane addressed the crowd as several of the characters he plays on the show, including Stewie, Peter, and Quagmire. MacFarlane didn't attend Harvard, but he told the crowd he had been secretly living among them. Sounds like a pretty cool speech, but I'm not sure anything can top Conan O'Brien's address to the Class of 2000.
[via TV Filter]
Posted May 15th 2006 10:16PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Cable, News

Ahhh. Live television. There's nothing quite like it, is there? Tonight, CNN cut to President Bush's speech on immigration a tad bit early. The president was actually rehearsing as CNN suddenly interrupted an anchor's pre-speech analysis by cutting to the President delivering a line from his speech. Then, the President stopped and looked away.
It turns out, it wasn't really CNN's fault. NBC was the pool network on the speech and it was supposed to keep up a graphic on the screen until a countdown showed up and then the President gave his speech. But, some NBC producer had the graphic taken down early so the network feed showed the President speaking. I would guess that the folks in the control booth at CNN crapped their pants when they saw the President appear on the network feed early, delivering his speech. Of course, all the conspiracy theorists will argue that CNN was trying to make the President look stupid.
The video of CNN's goof is after the jump (or catch it
here later, if YouTube is busy):
Continue reading CNN cuts to President Bush as he's rehearsing