The Famous Blogger: A Christopher Guest Film

Just ran through Guest's flick "The Mighty Wind", not as gut-busting
hilarious as previous entries ("Best in Show", "Waiting for Guffman",
and the unstoppable "This is Spinal Tap"), but still maintains all the
essential eccentricities: massive ensemble cast of Guest "regulars"
(co-writer Eugene Levy, Micheal McKean, Harry Shearer, Parker Posey),
the mockumentary format, largely improvised scenes, etc. Guest brings
lightness and compassion to the subjects he skewers, tempering his
deadpan irony with whimsy and, dare we say it, tongue-in-cheek
sincerity? [SPOILER ALERT -->] Witness the stage kiss of faux folk
legends Mitch and Mickey, surely the emotional peak of the entire movie
(if not Guest's career, nothing he's done up until now leaves you
quivering in your seat).

Another enduring theme of Guest's films is the general focus of subject
matter: the performing arts. Whether it's dog shows, community theatre,
folk revivals, or arena rock, Guest's love for the stage is undeniable.
How, then, do we explain his latest project, another mockumentary
spoofing -- get this -- bloggers?! Tentatively titled "The Daily Feed",
Guest's new film will star "Kids"-auteur Harmony Korine as a late
20-something blogo-fiend who organizes a meeting of Blogosphere
luminaries in his tiny Williamsburg apartment. Just the thought of
hearing Fred Willard riff on the unethical journalistic practices of
Gawker.com or Jennifer Coolidge stuffing her face with tofu snacks and
Red Bull drinks while drunkenly pondering the editorial intricacies of
Fleshbot.com has me so excited I can barely get through an article on
LowCulture.com.

The one glaring omission made by this new media cinematic fiasco has to
be the sheer absence of one Rommel "Coolmel" Deleon, by far one of the
most prolific bloggers working on the web today. If they can't get the
'Mel to cameo as himself, they could at least find an adequate -- and
improv-trained -- stand-in. My nomination is SNL utility man Chris
Parnell -- he's upright, loyal, well-spoken, and with enough coaching
by the 'Mel himself, will kill audiences from Silver Lake to Montauk
with his quirky-Jew interpretations of 'Mel catchphrases like "Oh
Fart!", "Right on dawg!", and "Very fluffy."

Personally, I am excited. I've been kicking around the idea of a Blog
movie for a couple years now, only mine was to occur entirely online,
with no characters actually meeting in person. Strangely, my lead
character was a thinly-veiled send-up of Guest go-to guy Bob Balaban
posing as a right-wing political blogger (a JEWISH right-wing political
blogger), who hires his hacker son Dax to spam-attack a rival left-wing
blog called GreenFrogAnonymous.org. An all-out flame war erupts,
dragging everything from Beer Blog to Technorasmic down with it,
prompting the government to impose strict new regulations on blogging
and thus suppressing the emerging new medium.

If you've been reading this blog in the past few days, you know where I
was going with this: stymied bloggers discover a new technology to mess
around with, namely biotechnology. Suddenly the "BioNet" (a global
network of high-speed biological "transfer tubes" which gush biological
materials -- plants, animals, alcoholic uncles from South Carolina --
around the world at lightning speeds) is alive with the self-expressive
creations of millions of no-named "bio-bloggers", and a new Cambrian
explosion of previously-unimaginable life forms springs out of nowhere
and wrecks havoc on the farms, villages, and cities of the world.

The film ends with Microsoft getting into the act, morphing its
much-ballyhooed "Longhorn" OS project into an ACTUAL LONGHORN -- a
bull-like beast with six legs standing 22 feet at the shoulders which
copies itself in the millions and tears into every last genetic anomaly
on planet earth, leaving precisely sixteen Amish people, a squirrel
named Baxter, and a handful of sesame seeds left to mop up the mess.