Midtown Blogger/Manhattan Valley Follies: WNYC: Five Things You Had to See Online This Week

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FIVE THINGS YOU HAD TO SEE ONLINE THIS WEEK

Friday, February 27, 2015 - 08:00 AM

'Power Rangers' fan film > Power Rangers

'Power Rangers' got one hell of a fan tribute film this week (Adi Shankar)

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This week in “Thanks, Internet” — Seinfeld vs Bizkit, FiveThirtyEight tries football (and fails), James Van Der Beek meets fan films, Tig Notaro hopes to host the Oscars, and Jimmy Kimmel really gets the internet.

1. WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH BIZKIT?

Limp Bizkit's "Break Stuff" over the bouncy jazz bass-heavy Seinfeld theme is either the song you hear as you descend into hell or a really smart mashup that perfectly captures the show's comedy of "he-says, she-says bull shit." Or both. You'll have to decide for yourself.

2. FOOTBALL FANTASY

This week, Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight rolled out the most extensive analysis of sports video games the internet has ever seen. To figure out how the people at EA Sports determine player agility and superiority in games like the immensely popular Madden series, FiveThirtyEight sent its lifestyle writer Walt Hickey on a mission to become an actual digitized player in the game.

After going through a series of time trials and skill tests (beautifully presented with GIFs, graphs, and video), Hickey becomes his best pixelated self and faces-off against the game's stars. It doesn't go well. Football season is over, but FiveThirtyEight doesn't care.

3. POWER/RANGERS

Fan films are supposed to suck, so what happens when one is even better than the source material? It gets pulled from the internet. For proof, we have the case of Power/Rangers, a fourteen-minute fan film made by "Blank Space" director Joseph Kahn and starring James Van Der Beek (Dawson) and Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck).

Power/Rangers arrived on Tuesday. By Thursday it had been pulled from Vimeo and, after racking up at least 12 million views on YouTube, disappeared from the internet altogether. What makes this fan film different than all the rest, other than quality, is that Power Rangers creator Haim Saban wants to make a (presumably bad) movie in the near-future. Knowing the internet, the one that offered Saban a few pointers won't be gone for long.

4. #HASHTIGOSCARS

Tig Notaro performs live on Soundcheck from WNYC's Greene Space.

(Matthew Septimus for WNYC)

The best way to get something is to ask. Tig Notaro is well aware, hence her asking to host the next Academy Awards in a funny blog post this week:

An open letter to the people looking for a new Oscar host,
Now, let me start by saying that I don’t have a problem with Neil Patrick Harris. This letter is STRICTLY an attempt to procure work for myself and if that means bumping this dude out of the way next year, then so be it.

Tig proceeds to list 11 reasons she'd make a better host than NPH or anyone else next year, including the fact that she looks like Ellen, lives close to the venue, and that she'll gladly promote the show on her podcast. Sold!