A few (rather graphic) photos, after the jump.

Last night Mike Birbiglia had a show over at Town Hall, and unlike normal stand-up comics who would invite a decidedly less talented comic to go on as the opener, he had the Mates of State. If none of you are familiar with them, just think of the indie pop-duo you vaguely remember from high-school and you’ll be all set. Anyway, if the viewer was unfamiliar with Birbigs, as they call him on da streetz (and by “da streetz” I mean twitter), they might have thought it was weird when an awkward looking “olive-garden Italian” guy came onstage.

In fact, there are probably a few things people need to be prepared for if they’re going to see this guy. The first is that you have to understand that even though he’s a guy who’s pretty hip with all us awkward humor-lovin’, This American Life watchin’, whitewashed hipsters, if you go see him perform, you’re going to be sitting next to people who resemble your grandparents. That’s just the way it is. But if you’re the type of person who would find that juxtaposition comically awkward, then Mike Birbiglia is probably one of your favorite stand-up comics. You know how some comics will include some kind of universally pleasing anecdote about their life just so people will clap about it and he can go into a vein of relevant comedy, like “So anyway, I just got married…” or “So anyway, I’m a cancer survivor…”? Well Mike Birbiglia is the kind of guy who would instead say, “So anyway, I ironed my pants tonight…” and it elicits pretty much the same response.

The second thing you have to know is that if you’ve heard his jokes beforehand, you’re probably going to hear most of them again. I don’t know how this developed as an expectation in the stand-up comedy community, but for some reason there is this stigma against hearing jokes more than once. “Who does this guy think he is, trying to get me to laugh at something MORE than once? I’m leaving to go watch improv comedy troupes.” Stand-up comedy is probably the only type of performance where people will literally be upset that they’re hearing the same material. It’s not like you’d be at a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert (not that you would be) and think to yourself, “What? These bitches are playing Freebird AGAIN? Don’t they know I’ve already heard this song?” or “Every time I see this damned Rent show, it’s always the same! Get a new act, you damn broadway/off-broadway hit musical! Seriously!”

His act is filled with white-culture related references and absolute value humor, so there is definitely an audience for it. He actually spoke last night about how he was at NYU, performing for This American Life live, and when he got the DVD for his performance, he watched it for about thirty seconds before he got too angry at his own appearance. So if you like a guy who will bring out an indie-pop duo and sing a harmonized song about oatmeal with them (who wouldn’t?) and then get the audience to stand up and act like they’re a southern black gospel choir for several seconds until it starts to feel awkward and they all sit back down, or you want to hear how to fight for justice with soft pretzels, might I refer you to the comic stylings of Mr. Mike Birbiglia? If not, you can just continue listening to your bootleg Dane Cook shows. That’s fine too; just let me know when you get out of the 9th grade.

Thirteen people were killed and 30 wounded yesterday when a military psychiatrist opened fire at a medical center on a US Army base in Fort Hood, Texas.

Details of what exactly happened were initially misreported, but now that the dust has settled it appears the captured shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, is alive and in stable condition despite being shot four times by a female first responder. She suffered injuries during the incident, but also survived. Both had been declared dead in early accounts of the shooting.

The question remains whether Major Hasan acted alone or as a part of a terrorist plot. An army official said they were not ruling out the latter, but noted no evidence has yet been found to support such a claim. Major Hasan had recently voiced his dismay about his looming deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan. According to the The New York Times, “Military records indicated that Major Hasan was single, had been born in Virginia, had never served abroad and listed ‘no religious preference’ on his personnel records.”

Ingredients

Instructions

Photo from Flickr user oneselfsacrifice under the Creative Commons License

Seeing wide-release movies in Manhattan is generally a degrading and frustrating experience. Paying $12.50 to pile into the Regal Union Square, squeeze into a cramped seat, and end up with a lap covered with grease-splattered Cheezy Pretzel Bitez (I’ve been a victim. The shlemiel tripped. Nary an apology) is less than ideal. We’ve rounded up the best ways to score free passes to advance movie screenings in NYC—it’ll ease the multiplex pain, you’ll be ahead of the movie curve, and your wallet will thank you.

New York Observer: Free Reels

The Observer provides an ideal effort-to-free-stuff ratio: as soon as you sign up for the mailing list, you’re automatically notified for each upcoming screening. Fire off an email request for tickets, and you’re good to go. Free Reels caters more toward the indie-film crowd. Expect films like Away We Go, Whatever Works, or the latest Michael Moore flick.

NYCFreeMovieScreenings

Avoid signing up for the weekly newsletter—the real way for get passes is constant checking of their listings, which are updated pretty often. Films tend to be on the more mainstream/lowbrow side—I’ve snagged passes for Zombieland, Paranormal Activity, and The Fourth Kind, to name a few.

Director’s Series with Jeremiah Newton

Your Tisch film friends are your ticket to seeing fantastic free screenings at Cantor complete with director appearances. Easily my favorite was this summer, when I saw The Hangover a solid three weeks before its release. Zach Galifianakis, everyone’s favorite bearded baby-masturbator (see above), made a surprise appearance at Cantor with director and Tisch alumni Todd Phillips. To get in on this action, you can convince a Tischie to set up a filter that forwards all of Newton’s emails to you, email Newton yourself, or bookmark the calendar at the Tisch website to check the weekly offerings.

Yesterday, Middle East expert and University of Michigan professor Juan Cole had a piece in Salon in which he suggested that a two-state resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict had reached a dead end. And it’s true, things look pretty grim right now. Sadly, the Obama administration, while initially signaling a promising shift in US policy towards Israel, has only exacerbated things by retreating to the reflexively pro-Israeli government posture of the Bush administration.

It started with the Goldstone Report, the product of a UN investigation which found evidence that both Israel and Palestinian militant groups (most notably Hamas) were guilty of war crimes. Needless to say, the Israeli government was displeased.

Pop quiz: Did the Obama administration A) acknowledge the slaughter committed by their ally, or B) do everything they could to suppress the report? The depressing answer is below the fold.

The answer is B. The White House prevailed upon the Palestinians not to make an issue out of it in the United Nations, the result being both a lack of accountability for Israel and a sharp spike in Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s unpopularity.

Meanwhile, the US State Department has taken a surprisingly soft line on Israeli West Bank settlements, patting Israel on the back for agreeing to slow–but not stop–further expansion into Palestinian territory. Clinton later backtracked, but the fact remains that a two-state solution is inconceivable while Israel continues to eat up more West Bank territory, and the United States seems unwilling to put much energy into pressuring them to stop.

And then there was the news today: because he acquiesced to American pressure to suppress the Goldstone Report, Abbas has found his base so diminished that he will not seek reelection. Which is great news for Netanyahu, who, as Matthew Yglesias says, “loves the idea of isolating and discrediting Palestinian moderates in order to bring Palestinian radicals to power and thus have the pretext he wants to avoid peace negotiations.”

Look, this has always been an extremely difficult situation, and Obama took office at a particularly difficult point, after the Gaza incursion. But he indicated a very different approach during and after the campaign that he hasn’t followed up on. And in the mean time, he’s fucked up bad.

In the midst of Fall, it can be quite difficult to find a good movie to see — studios have already released most of their Fall movies, and holiday/awards season movies don’t come out for another month at least. You can still catch some good ones before you run home for winter break, though, and they are:

Up in the Air – George Clooney stars in this existential movie about a disaffected corporate reaper with no human connections. It’s only going to be in limited release in LA and New York, so you should take advantage of the city (yeah, how many times have you heard that one) and go see it. If anything, it will make you feel better about your social life once you realize you have more friends than the main character.

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus – Terry Gilliam’s latest directorial project looks like it was made on an extended acid trip. In other words, it looks amazing. It’s the last movie Heath Ledger was working on when he died, and has a star-laden cast, so it’s going to get a lot of attention solely for those reasons. But I’ve heard from people who saw the movie in advance that the story is really great, too. (Unfortunately, the film’s press division has placed an embargo on all advance reviews, so you can’t actually read about how awesome it is until after it comes out.)

The Messenger and Brothers – I’ve lumped these two together because it seems that depressing war-related dramas are in vogue right now, and these films have similar premises. Both of them are about the aftermath of war, and how military families are affected by a soldier’s death. The Messenger focuses on the soldiers who have the uncomfortable job of delivering the news of a death to a soldier’s next of kin, and the emotional toll the job can take. It looks to me like the better of the two. Brothers is a tad melodramatic (the soldier who dies at the beginning of the movie is later found alive, and returns to his family only to destroy the tentative balance they’ve worked out in his absence), but it does have a more recognizable cast (Natalie Portman!) and thus better advertising. The Messenger, by contrast, is a fairly low-budget film that won several festival awards and has relied mostly on buzz from critics to keep it afloat thus far.

Fantastic Mr. Fox – I know, I know: what am I doing putting a kid’s movie in an article meant for college students? But the trailer just feels so quirky and charming, and the story is based off a Roald Dahl book. Who didn’t like Roald Dahl as a kid? If director Wes Anderson did things right, I think it will be one of those movies that kids and adults (and half-grown-up college students) can appreciate, especially since the main premise of the story is that Mr. Fox turns 7, has a mid-life crisis and decides he wants a bigger house.

Good Hair – This comedic documentary has actually been in theaters for a month now, but we’ve never written about it here and I think it deserves more press than it’s getting. Probably the first genuinely funny thing Chris Rock has done in the past decade, Good Hair is an examination of the perception of hair in the African-American community. A must-see for anyone studying race or gender theory.

Daybreakers – The vampire saturation in mainstream media has reached the point at which I no longer care about anything vampire-related. This is a sad thing, because I’m a huge fan of vampires in general. Daybreakers, in contrast with your Vampire Diaries, True Bloods and New Moons, actually looks like it’s going to be a really terrifying apocalyptic thriller/action movie. I am looking forward to it immensely.

The show started with opening act Todd Barry, perhaps most well known (at least by me) as guest starring in Flight of the Conchords as Todd, the bongo playing “third Conchord”. I thought he was terribly annoying in the show, so I wasn’t expecting much. However, his set was excellent and covered a spectrum of mundane yet hilarious topics including Tom’s of Maine deodorant, Californian’s Mexican food snobbery, and Spanish prostitutes in Barcelona.

After being thoroughly warmed up by Todd, the big man himself came out. He actually isn’t as big as I’d imagined, though. The show he performed was brand new and much of the material had not been audience tested. This didn’t affect the quality of the show at all. No target groups were left alone: Fat people, gays, Creationists, Middle Eastern travelers, homosexual animals– everyone got made fun of equally. Gervais used the illustrations in two books in his set, which at first I thought to be a bit of a cop-out, but I soon forgot about that sentiment after I couldn’t breathe from laughing so hard. Who knew the story of Noah and the Ark was rife with homosexual innuendo and scientific inconsistencies? I thought his delivery would be awkward like his David Brent character on The Office, but his style was actually quite smooth and natural sounding. Overall, definitely worth the $25 ticket price. Especially since he’s playing Carnegie Hall tonight and ticket prices for that show range from $40-90. Yikes.