Guess Who's Back, Back Again?

Not Shady, no! britpopbaby. And I'm here for the love of "I'm Stalking Jake!".

Britpopbaby Reviews "I'm Stalking Jake" In The Only Way Shes Knows How...Disjointed and Rambling

My first ever book review was for a creative writing class at University in 2007. I reviewed ‘Things Snowball’ by Rich Hall. After spending weeks dissecting, and prodding this book within an inch of its life all the response my Professor could muster was, ‘But you didn’t mention that Rich Hall is most famous for being a stand-up comic.’ So with that sage advice in mind, I begin my second ever book review…

Becky Heineke is not famous for being a stand-up comic. In my head she’s famous for being the only real life person I know that’s from Memphis, Tennessee, being a Beatles fan, being a Photoshop WIZZZZard, wearing slogan t-shirts, having parents that seem cooler than mine and half-heartedly stalking Jake Gyllenhaal (this book will show you there are some actual professionals out there).

On a more personal level she’s the girl I spent HOURS of my life emailing back and forth about sidebar designs, fake Myspacers, a dog called Boo, an online merchandising empire, plagiarism, strange ladies with blonde beehives called Barbie, the artistic direction of Jake Watch, lawsuits, hypersensitive Gyllenfans, hypermoody assorted Gyllenhaal relatives, really WEIRD emails from really WEIRD people, editors from US Weekly who can’t spell and occassionally, Jake Gyllenhaal (and how he wrecked everything, all the time).

For those on a tight schedule please read the Short Review:
Read this book!!! It will change your life. It’s got puggles and Sprinkles cupcakes!

Long review: It’s difficult for me to review 'I’m Stalking Jake' from any other standpoint than the one I have – like someone wrote out a year and a half from an odd point in my life and analysed it for me. I mean I could have paid serious money for that kind of therapy. But honestly, this is why I loved loved loved this book, this is why it made me laugh and cry, why it made me feel guilty, feel awesome, feel ridiculous. It reminded me how much fun we had, how angry we got, how we were determined to keep going, how we ended up in situations we really shouldn’t have and most importantly how lame Jake Gyllenhaal’s PR team are.

But if you never read Jake Watch or if you’re not even a Jake Gyllenhaal fan this book is about a million and one other things. This truly is a modern tale that shows you everything the internet has to offer from the brilliance and creativity it can reveal in people through to the sad and depressing things it can do to lonely dissatisfied souls right down to the properly dark shiz. Without sounding too over-dramatic (me? Overdramatic?!), this book is about our generation – my generation – us kids who were told working hard, getting a good education and playing by the rules was all you needed to do to get somewhere. It’s about two kids who left University and found out that that cruelly wasn’t true but we kept trying anyway (by the way, the ultimate dream was to be incredibly awesome at something we loved doing that paid lots of money rather than to get an interview with Jake Gyllenhaal).

The writing is (and I can say this as a seasoned critic – Sparkle Motion anyone?) open and honest, sometimes brutal. Most people don’t come off great, including Jake Gyllenhaal (and also me), but that’s okay because it’s the goddamn truth. I know Prophecy Girl was so popular with JW fans as she was warm, hilarious and most importantly relatable and this all transcends into print. Once you’ve finished this book you’ll feel like you’ve made a pretty cool, if slightly manic, friend and if you don’t get through reading the chapter on the Babygate incident without feeling like stamping on Stephen Gyllenhaal’s big toe on Becky’s behalf then you’re obviously dead inside. It made me howl and cringe in equal amounts at some of things we did and said (why would anyone think Stephen Gyllenhaal was the answer to anything EVER?) but wtf, it was one wicked random ride. Okay, I’m going to stop now because this is kind of sounding like an obituary.

Before I go, you get to learn a lot of things about Prophecy Girl in I’m Stalking Jake that may have been difficult for her to share, so to even the balance, here are some things about britpopbaby and her lingering thoughts that you probably didn’t need to know about:

1. I had entirely too much time on my hands at University because I didn’t read half the books I was suppose to and I’m not sure how I ever passed my degree. If I had chosen Law like my Dad wanted me to, none of us would probably even be here. Ponder that.
2. I actually did want to use Jake Watch as a springboard to a writing career (my grammar and spelling aside). I totally underestimated the hysteria, drama and general craziness associated with running a ‘fan’ site. If I had, say, a dagger that turns back time I might have stuck with my original idea – a blog on Britpop culture – hence my name. Who knew?
3. I’m so glad we quit when we did because I couldn’t have handled the Prince of Persia. Seriously, Jake? Seriously? A dagger that turns back time?
4. But on the otherhand I sometimes still feel guilty for quitting Jake Watch. That PoP haircut would have led to some truly amazing posts.
5. There were things we really didn't like about Jake Gyllenhaal.
6. I still don’t honestly know if Jake Gyllenhaal is straight, gay or bi. It truthfully didn’t matter to us a blog. The one thing that really hurt me during all of this is when we got accused of being homophobic just because we happened to think Jake was straight. I found it truly offensive (even more so than being called a Nazi Cow) and extremely narrow-minded of the people who, in their minds, were supposedly so much more liberal and educated than we were. In fact, I’ll be even more honest. We didn’t want Jake Gyllenhaal to be gay but not because we haboured some ridiculous fantasy about dating him but because I didn’t want that stupid fucking blog that STOLE my ideas and it’s deluded readership to be right. So, Jake, if you are gay, please don’t ever come out, just for the sake of our pride – you owe us that much. By the way, this isn't really covered in the book as it actually wasn't that important to the flow of the story. But I hold grudges. Go figure.
7. I still don’t regret stealing extracts from an Interview magazine, um, interview from another blog and then being sarcastically arsey about it. The back story to this event is not explained entirely in the book but I wrote that woman back SO many times, mainly because I was afraid she was going to top herself out of loneliness and she sits up all night and writes out magazine articles for other frickin’ people!!! And I still can’t believe it lead someone to sit up all night crying and downing a bottle of wine because they thought it was a personal attack. Seriously, reassess. Maybe after reading this book, you will…


Anyways....Read this book!!!

Okay, I gotta go eat ice cream. Peace out. (I only swore once, go me!)

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Marketing Basics: Perfecting Your Pitch

Poor salesman that I am, I usually hedge when people ask me what my book is about.

I do this for two reasons:

a)  Demographic reading this blog aside, the words "Jake Gyllenhaal" are often more likely to inspire concern over my mental wellbeing than interest in buying my book.

b)  It's possible I don't know what the book is about.

It's kind of like asking what life is about.  Who even knows?  And the book's about life.  But with Jake Gyllenhaal.

About a year ago, when all I had to my name was a Word document and delusional visions of grandeur (for it's always easier to envision your successes in life before you've put yourself out there), I took a continuing education class to learn how to become published.  I was a few minutes late to class, so the only seat was in the very back row.  Everyone else had already gone around to talk about their book ideas; before I even sat down, I was prompted, "So what's your book?"

"It's called I'm Stalking Jake!  It's about a blog I used to write," I said.

"Interesting," said The Professor.

"Yeah, the blog was actually about Jake Gyllenhaal.  You know, the actor?"

And in complete seriousness, The Professor asked, "Oh?  Were you and Jake an item?"

Every female head in the room turned around in unison to look at me.

I was still laughing five minutes later.

No, that's not what the book is about.

(But I will continue to actively encourage anyone who has read it to try to sum it up.)

Some guy...I don't know his name...

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Completely Changing Things with Seemingly No Warning: It's the Jake Watch Way!

I will probably lose several of you over this and I want to say up front that I'm sorry about that.

I started this blog back in May to jump in on the Prince of Persia hysteria. Like many of you, I assumed this movie was going to be a hit and bring with it an influx of interest in Jake the likes of which we haven't seen since Brokeback Mountain. I also thought that my book was going to be out within weeks of the movie's release. I have no shame in telling you that I anticipated riding that promotional wave and starting the groundwork for my own marketing campaign. Amateur that I am (this is my first book and I haven't got so much as an informational leaflet - much less a publicist  - to help me sell it), I had hoped that your enthusiasm would help me.

But the movie wasn't a hit. And my book got pushed back several months. And to keep everyone entertained, to keep myself occupied, and to (try to) keep interest in Jake as high as I could, I worked overtime to build this blog to heights I wasn't prepared to sustain.

And I don't mean "creatively" sustain. I mean "emotionally." So many of you don't know me from before and are no doubt sick to death of me bringing up past glories, but I rehashed Jake Watch hoping you'd be curious about the story behind it. I had hoped you might do a little research, get interested. I had hoped you might become intrigued by my story. In why I quit the first time around. In the disappointments that you don't personally remember but are legend to those who were fans back then.

And that was absolutely ridiculous of me to pin that on you considering the blog I wrote for you. You don't come here for me. You come here for Jake. And I did that. I built a blog that promotes Jake Gyllenhaal. That was a mistake. And it's one that I need to correct. The truth is, I don't want to do it. I've already been down that road and I wrote a whole book about how hard it was the first time. And after four months of trying it this way, very, very few of you are interested in that book anyway...

So starting today, this website is about the book I'm Stalking Jake!, by Becky Heineke. It is a memoir about two years of my life, much of which I spent writing a blog called Jake Watch, all of which I spent learning a lot about the world and my place in it.

I will continue to blog, and I will do Jake posts periodically, but not every day. He's not interesting every day. I'm not interesting every day. (And if you come here solely for Jake news, you've probably been coming to the wrong blog anyway...)

I'm opening a forum. I want people to talk about the book (there are really big issues in there that I would love to discuss with people who are interested in the larger picture of pop culture and its influence on our consumer-driven society). There's even a part of the forum where I'll stay out of it. I want people to be able to talk openly and honestly without having to worry about me jumping in. You can also talk about Jake there. The discussions you've had in the comments will work better in a forum anyway, since they can be organized.

The Vigilante Facebook page will continue (Katie and Vanessa are doing most of that anyway!) and the YouTube page will stay. I will always post on Facebook and Twitter when there's a new blog entry. And as Love & Other Drugs approaches, I'll do more Jake stuff on the blog, I promise. But this isn't really about him. It wasn't about him to begin with, and I shouldn't have let it look like it was.

And I know that I'm going to lose a lot of you with this. Maybe most of you. But the direction we were going wasn't a good one. I sincerely do, and always will, appreciate everyone who takes time out of their day to read what I write. I just need to start writing something a little different, or I will go insane...and also broke.

And Jake Gyllenhaal wasn't worth either of those things to me even the first time I did this. :)

So this is me hitting "reset." And onward we go...

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Prophecy Girl is Taking a Little Time to Restock Her Liquor Cabinet.

She'll be back!

In the meantime, autographed copies of I'm Stalking Jake! (the book) are NOW AVAILABLE.

If you want one (and you do) e-mail me:  prophecygirl@jakewatch.com.

Even BABIES love I'm Stalking Jake!

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Updates Elsewhere in the ISJ Universe...

If you have not checked out our Vigilante Facebook page in the past few days, then you should go see how much Love & Other Drugs goodness has gone up there and then you'll never make that mistake again.  It is now essentially (and by "essentially" I mean "definitely") Facebook's most comprehensive repository of digital memorabilia related to this prescription-themed motion picture.

(And update your bookmarks, because we're now at www.facebook.com/loveandotherdrugs.)

(Yes, I really did snag that URL out from under Fox.  Suck it, "people who professionally promote movies.")

Soon to be included amongst the updates on Facebook is the content-appropriate clip below from last fall.  Watch as Jake cracks a Birth of a Nation joke, because the world in which he lives is one where everyone cares about cinematic history.  (Note to Jake:  This was Jimmy Kimmel; sometimes you gotta suck it up and dumb it down for the audience.  Oh, wait.  You reference knowledge procured on Wikipedia later on?  Okay, you're fine):

This clip is hosted on our YouTube channel, which you probably didn't check either.  IT'S FINE.  Someday I will stop crying over all of you forgetting about the thousands of places online you have to check for ISJ updates.  Just because you "have lives" and can't always "check everything" is totally cool.  (Thus this blog entry.  Also, those last two sentences are such crap because even I can't remember all these damn places.  We're going to have a talk about that later in the week...)

ALSO TODAY, if you are a person who is able to be in New York City on October 2, you might want to spend $35 and see some dude named Jake Gyllenhaal talk about what it's like to be Jake Gyllenhaal.  (Hint:  It's pretty awesome, because entire online empires are built in his name.)

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Hey, It's Love & Other Drugs in W Magazine! (real news this time)

Read below about Jake walking around constantly with no clothes, except for the time when the photographer showed up for this photo shoot.  (And I think I'm the first one on this so enjoy, because this whole "exclusive" thing doesn't happen for me often.)

Click to enlarge:

Nothing says "Thanksgiving release" like Jamie the Viagra Salesman and his "fucking."

(This movie will be great.)

Kudos to our resident news scout, Vanessa! :)

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BREAKING: Jake Successfully Walks Across Parking Lot

Alright, it was in 2009.  But it's still impressive!

It's almost hard to recognize Jake, being Facial-Hair-Alert-Level-Low and all.  But of course we know it's him because of the way he has both hands full of crap.

(It was either deceiving you with old pictures today or giving you more rehashed Prince of Persia coverage.  I flipped a coin...)

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Today We Take a Stand! (Or, Regarding Jake's Twitter Status and the ISJ Response to the Love & Other Drugs Facebook Page)

If you are a human person with eyes, you already know that when it comes to the internet, Jake Gyllenhaal's personal presence is painfully non-existent.

Luckily for you (and Jake?), my specialty in life is talking incessantly about such inadequacies and then starting ultimately doomed campaigns to bring these complaints to Jake's attention.

Having now been back for five months, and having not yet started even one Ultimately Doomed Campaign, I am so behind with my Ultimately Doomed Campaign Schedule that today I'm launching two (2!).

One!

As Jake's idiotic Twitter impersonator approaches 5,000 followers, I have decided to steal Melsbells129's idea and petition title and CREATE THIS PETITION.

I want you to sign it.  And then I want you to tweet it.  And I want you to see how many people we can get to say that they want Jake Gyllenhaal to create a real Twitter account.  I'll follow up in a week, and if we have enough signatures, I'll send it to Jake's agent and PR firm (yes, I will actually do this).

SIGN HERE!

Two!

In response to my various and sundry complaints about the lame-ass Love & Other Drugs Facebook page, we now have our own Love & Other Drugs Facebook page, which is better, and will continue to get better, because more stuff is going to be added to it all the time.

I want you to like it.  And then I want you to get your friends to like it.  And I want you to see if we can get more people to like our page than the official page, at which point I will alert Fox to this fact and show them how much better the fans are doing at covering this movie than they are.

LIKE HERE!

Those are your instructions.  Now go forth, spread the good word, and take down the enemy combatants.  (The "enemy" in question being "people who suck.")  Good day!

1,900 more screencaps at IHJ.  Seriously.  That number is not exaggerated.  MEGA thank you to Katie for being my Facebook minion, and to Vanessa for (as always) providing us with all the goods for it! :)

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New York Magazine Gets Obsessive-Compulsive About the Love & Other Drugs Poster

New York magazine apparently did not get the message that we are going through a period of JAKE APATHY right now.

You know?  Because there's nothing going on?  And all the news is rehashed stuff?  And we haven't seen Jake for weeks (although in times past it's been months, so actually we're not that bad off in that particular department)?

We're hunkering down, reading without caring, going on with our lives until things get interesting and then we'll all give a damn again.

And through it all we are being PUT TO SHAME by New York magazine, which is just completely freaking the freak out over the Love & Other Drugs poster and the mysteriousness of Jake covering his mouth with his hand.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN.

Below is the high-quality version of the poster (which is clickable):

And below this is the high-quality discussion of it that New York came up with (my commentary is in blue):

"What is going on?  Is Jake trying not to laugh?  His eyes aren't smiling.  [Actually, I could see the argument for his eyes being "mirthful."]  Is he surprised?  He doesn't look it, and besides, what's he surprised about?  That a photographer showed up in his bedroom?  [Ha ha, this joke is so lame.]  Is he making the universal sign for "speak no evil"?  Again, why?  The poster doesn’t convey enough information about his character, or his relationship, for us to think he has a problem running his mouth.  [Looks like someone hasn't watched the trailer...]  Meanwhile, why is Hathaway so contentedly oblivious to whatever inner turmoil is going on with Jake and his mouth?  [Probably because she doesn't care.  She just slept with Jake Gyllenhaal.]  He's not the one with a serious illness!  [Spoiler alert!]  She is!  Is her illness the subtext of Jake's gesture?  Like, don't ask Jake Gyllenhaal if this is a movie about Parkinson's disease or sex, because he won't tell you?  He can keep a secret!  [Can he?!]  This movie can keep a secret!  The secret being, maybe it's not just a sex-forward romantic comedy?  Woah.  [I believe that's "whoa."]  Clearly, we have now spent more than a reasonable amount of time pondering the meaning of this poster, and are not sure we have arrived at a satisfactory explanation.  [You haven't and you haven't.]  Can you help?  [No.]"

On the upside, if a legitimate (?) news organization can wring that much analysis out of a single poster, then hell, there may be hope for this movie yet!

On the downside, NEW YORK MAGAZINE is out-stalking us at the moment.  It is a sad day in the life of my restraining order...

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It's Prince of Persia Day in the US! So Let's Talk about Donnie Darko.

Yesterday, A.O. Scott of The New York Times looked at the world and thought, 'You know, it would make so much sense for me to do a video review today for a movie that's nine years old and for which there is nothing even remotely relevant going on right now to inspire it.'

A.O. Scott, we thank you for pulling this one totally out of your ass:

And while we're on the subject of pulling things from one's ass, I must say I'm slightly suspicious of the price for which my book is selling on Amazon.co.uk:

Granted, it would be worth every penny (and converted to US currency, that would be 116,380 pennies), but I still only get a dollar or so from that, and it's perhaps a bit early to start reselling my first editions.  Nice, though, that at least one unknown British opportunist has confidence in my marketing potential!

And now you can all go back to watching Prince Dastan parkour his spinach-eating self around your living room, because that's probably what you're doing right now instead of reading this anyway. 

Thanks to Emily for telling me her countrymen were trying to scam her!

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Work Out Like Jake!

Happy Monday!  How is your day going so far?  Have you been up since 5 a.m. drinking black coffee and eating half a banana and some nuts?  If not, then you are not as good at life as Jake Gyllenhaal.

KidzWorld ran an interview over the weekend that ran all over the damn internet...but if you scroll to the bottom, they added a little something extra from Simon Waterson.  Simon is a "fitness expert" who worked with some guy named Jake to get him ready for some movie called Prince of Persia.  Simon's goal (in the words of KidzWorld) was to "transform [Jake's] lean and lithe body into that of a muscle-bound warrior."

Jake Gyllenhaal:  Stoic Warrior

You can read the article for Jake's full regimen (beware of serenading Bieber rip-offs), but here are some of the highlights:

5:00 a.m. - Jake gets up and eats aforementioned nuts and half a banana whilst chugging black coffee.  Simon then forces him to run around in the sand with weights on his back like a racehorse, which is his warm-up for the next hour of cardio.

7:30 a.m. - Jake is finally allowed to eat breakfast, which comes in the form of an egg white omelet, rye toast, and half of a protein shake with various berries.  Simon helpfully adds that it is at this stage of the day when Jake takes a shower.

Sometime After He Showers - Jake goes to the set and starts his actual work for the day.

10:00 a.m - Jake is given a snack for being a good boy.  If he's a really good boy, that snack is nuts and dark chocolate.

Midday - Light Popeye-inspired lunch (and by "Popeye" I mean lots of spinach, not fried chicken).

2:00 - 4:00 p.m. - More snacks while he works.  (Much like a newborn, Jake has to eat every 2 hours.)  At this point in the day, it's all celery and hummus.

6:00 p.m. - After work, he has an hour of circuit-based training, wherein he is forced to carry heavy weights so as to build up all of those muscles that were covered up for most of the movie.

7:30 p.m. - Jake gets a half-hour deep-tissue massage and then, if he's really lucky, a bowl of soup.

9:00 p.m. - Jake goes to bed so he can wake up and do it all again the next day.

And that is how Jake Gyllenhaal came to be physically objectified by Walt Disney.

Every year, I train for (and run) a half-marathon in December.  And every year, I say I'm going to do stomach crunches on the days I don't run.

I never do it...

Also, here is a coupon for $8 off your Blu-Ray/DVD combo pack that you will be purchasing tomorrow!  Basically all I do these days, all of the time, is promote this damned movie which, to be honest, I don't have the disposable income to buy right now.  (I'll let you know when Disney returns the favor and starts pimping my book.)

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Jake Finally Wins a Poll for Once, Plus Prince of Persia Boxing Day!

(Since yesterday was Christmas.)

The nation of Canada has made a bold and progressive move by asking members of its voting populace to judge studly male actor-types and NOT pitting Jake up against anyone whose sole claim to fame involves vampires.  The results:

Canada, the rest of the world salutes you.

If you're sick of all the Prince of Persia coverage, all I can say is...er, get over it.  'Cause it's another Dastan day around here!

FIRST UP...another chance to win a DVD/Blu-Ray combo pack is HERE.  To enter, you must take on the impossibly large task of submitting your single favorite Jake Gyllenhaal moment and/or movie (personally, I like the time he tried to kill Elmo), and then the impossibly impossible task of telling these people why you like their website (which of course you don't, because you've never heard of it, and only care about it for their DVD giveaways...so you'll just have to make something up).

SECONDLY...has MSN gone completely batshit insane with all of their Prince of Persia stories?

Yes.  Yes, they have.  Here's one, two, and three (four and five were excluded for being repetitive from yesterday...and five is only the tip of the iceberg for these people!).

AND LASTLY, here is a parkour featurette, which appears to show Jake being manly and athletic, but maybe that's his stunt double...um, let's just pretend either way that it's Jake being manly and athletic:



Are you exhausted yet?  WELL DON'T BE.  Because IHJ has a million new screencaps for you to go through:

And that is all the news that's fit to print (and quite a bit that isn't). 

Big thanks to Miss_Kris, Paula, and Vanessa for their incomparable news compilation skills!

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Hell, It's Like Prince of Persia Christmas Up in This Junt

(Because I like to throw in something a little extra every once in a while, today we're learning Memphis slang.)

There was a time in his life (May), when Jake Gyllenhaal was in a movie.  It was a movie called Prince of Persia:  The Sands of Time, and it was movie to which we all owe a large debt of gratitude, for it was the movie that gave us this:

In a mere THREE DAYS, people who are U.S. citizens (and/or residents of other countries where Prince of Persia has not yet been released in home-viewing form) will have the opportunity to be sitting at home watching this film.

In the meantime, every news outlet in the Western Hemisphere is trying to remind us how much we want to go out and buy it.  Suddenly, there are interviews and articles galore!  They're re-running some of the classics (hair extensions, annoyingly enormous shoulder muscles, ostrich fear), and also bringing out some new material... 

Like here, we've got Gemma Arterton rattling off Jake's admirable qualities in list form (she could only think of four):

(The Only?) Four Things That Are Good About Jake Gyllenhaal

1. He is devastatingly handsome. 
2. He is lovely, amiable and friendly.  [Except to ostriches.]
3. He has a sense of wit.
4. And despite mega fame, he is extremely grounded and humble.  [Except to ostriches.]

 The devastatingly handsome Jake decapitates an ostrich.

(For more on how humble Jake is, here is an article about how he always kept his sunglasses on when he was inside, and how he told Gemma Arterton, constantly, that she was a "commoner.")

Other Prince of Persia articles of interest:

DVDActive saying the DVD and Blu-Ray extras don't totally suck (to be honest, I stopped reading after the first screencap).

The Daily Mail going all homoerotic on us (parkour and British accents straight ahead).

And last, but certainly not least, THIS ARTICLE, where Jake admits all women should be impressed with him and doesn't even correct the interviewer when (s)he gives him credit for both Spider-Man and Batman (refer to "humble" discussion above).

There's actually more, but WHO WOULD EVEN READ THIS MUCH.  (I sure didn't...I read most of it, though.)

So Merry Christmas in September!  And if you're utterly overwhelmed right now and don't even know where to start in reading through all of this, you can instead just look at the picture above and the one below and contemplate how eerily similar Jake's facial expression is in both.

I just blew your mind, didn't I? It's what I'm here for.

HUGE thank you to Sophie and Vanessa!

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Middle Eastern Comedy Festival to Honor Jake Gyllenhaal (Let the record state I copied this headline verbatim from a legitimate news source.)

Any other day of the week, such a headline would be a victory born from the depths of my creative wells...

...but I'll be damned if it's not true.  Jake really will be honored at a Middle Eastern comedy festival and...you know, where do I even go with that when the job has done itself for me?  I'm going to go radically off course here and just post the entire article below:

"Champions of Middle Eastern culture, Ronnie Khalil and Ryan Shrime are set to reinvent last year’s highly successful Middle Eastern Comedy Festival, to be held in Los Angeles, Oct. 4-7, 2010. The event will showcase stand-up comics of Middle Eastern descent, including Arabs, Israelis, Persians, Afghanis, and more, as well as stage a variety of comedy sketches.

The festival will kick off at Hollywood’s Laugh Factory with a “brown carpet gala,” followed by three nights of entertainment at the Acme Comedy Theatre. At the closing awards ceremony, Khalil and Shrime will honor Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time star Jake Gyllenhaal. Also new to this year’s ceremony will be the Middle East Jackass Awards."

I have nothing to add.

And if THAT wasn't weird enough for you, here's a story about a guy who's essentially remade Donnie Darko.  As a mockumentary.

It's like the universe looked at me and said, "PG, you need a day off."

Another source for the comedy festival.  Thanks to Vanessa for today's links!

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Quote of the Week: Perfectionist Edition

"I want to get every move perfect and I refuse to accept anything less than that.”

- Jake "I'm Really Into Flak Jackets" Gyllenhaal

Check out Jake's outrageous attention to detail in this article about Prince of Persia, in which the author thought using a picture of Jake's face from 2004 was the best way to illustrate the shape Jake got into 6 years later for Prince of Persia.

In fact, let's take a look at the results of Jake's flak jacket workout:

Well done, Jake!  Your extreme buffness allowed you to enter the land of arm straps and oversized boots and not look completely ridiculous.  Though I think I speak for all involved when I note that this was also the land where you did all of that ab work only to have your chest show up on film for all of, like, 2 seconds.  What the hell?

I know there was a market for your midsection because OK! Magazine is still drooling over it (literally; actual quote from their article:  "Now excuse us while we wipe the drool from our desks").  They have graced us with some laughably poor-quality shots of your abs from a behind-the-scenes video, but it's all good because you can WATCH THE VIDEO, too, which is a fun time for anyone who enjoys a minute and thirteen seconds of you walking around shirtless while other men talk about how studly you are.

First pictures from IHJ, second pictures from OK! Magazine (who failed Screencapping Class).

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Dammit, Gyllenhaal. You and Your "News Updates."

Couple of things to report this evening...

Exhibit A:  The release date for Source Code has been pushed back in the United States.  To April 15, 2011.  Go on.  Look at the other releases for that day.  Check out how Water for Elephants is coming out the same fucking day and then groan at the inevitable media hoopla that will ensue.

Then commit to burying that goddamned Witherspoon/Pattinson piece of crap and giving Jake a win.  Team Gyllenhaal!

Exhibit B:  It's possible we've found the source of the rumor of Jake's involvement in the Stand Up to Cancer thing.  And it's possible that TV Guide doesn't know what the hell it's talking about and just writes ambiguous articles that can be interpreted however you want to interpret them.  All this back and forth...

Just understand that no one has any idea what is going on with Jake, ever, at any time, and then accept that this makes this whole "fan" thing that much more thrilling...  He likes to keep us on our toes.

And sometimes it's nice to know that the professionals are just as baffled by him as the rest of us!  (But he's not going to be doing the SU2C thing, no matter what TV Guide tries to tell us.  *sad face*)

Exhibit C:  Any and all continued bashing of the Love & Other Drugs Facebook page in the previous post is strongly encouraged.

That is all.

Thanks to sumi k and Vanessa for the Source Code news, and gyllenhaalisgr8 for the SU2C update!

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Dear Love and (&?) Other Drugs Facebook Page, Let's Chat.

So...the Love & Other Drugs poster showed up online yesterday, larger and flatter than it used to be.  The version below is from Rope of Silicon:

I was a little confused by this random Rope of Silicon site (because how did they even get this?), and then got more confused when I realized that earlier in the day, the poster showed up on ET Canada online.  ET Canada?  Not even ET Country-Where-The-Movie-Was-Made?

If there's one thing I have vast, achingly broad, and unrelentingly devastating experience with, it's failed ventures involving promoting Jake Gyllenhaal on the internet.  And no, I'm not talking about my own efforts (I'm awesome to the point of painful), I'm talking about people who get paid to do it.

I'm not feeling great about the haphazard Love & Other Drugs online campaign right now, and since it's a Mark Zuckerberg world out there, I decided to check out the Love & Other Drugs Facebook page to see how they were holding up.

Sure enough, the poster is there...but it wasn't added by the Love & Other Drugs people.  It was added by totally plebeian movie-goer "Samantha," who was apparently just doing her good deed for the day.

Dear Love and (&) Other Drugs Facebook page,

Why do you suck so much?  Why is ET Canada scooping you?  Why did you not even name your page with the actual name of the movie?

Why have you linked to Perez Hilton and no one else?  (Perez Hilton is terrible and so is the post you linked to.)

Why have you not given any information about the plot of your movie, aside from confusingly labeling it both a drama and a romantic comedy?

Why do you only have 3 (really 2) pictures, and no discussions, and no reviews?

I realize (thanks to our newly redesigned sidebar) that we have some time before this movie comes out, but it's never too early to start putting up your own movie poster before some entertainment news program in Canada.

(And also where do you sign up for the job of taking care of Facebook pages for movies because I feel like that could be my calling in life.)

(And now that I've completely insulted this page, I'm going to link this over there and start a campaign of my own to wind up on their "Favorites" list.  Failure is...inevitable.  But I'm doing it anyway.)

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Creative Stalking Techniques

There is such brilliance in this approach.  Jake has NO IDEA.

(From 2009.)

Also, though I never got around to announcing that Jake was going to be a celebrity guest for the Stand Up to Cancer telethon on September 10, Jake is no longer listed as a celebrity guest for the Stand Up to Cancer telethon on September 10, but that's probably because Jake may never have actually been listed as a celebrity guest for the Stand Up to Cancer telethon on September 10 to begin with, and that was just the internet being dumb.  But think of this as a win, because even though we no longer have a reason to debate whether he'll shave his beard before then, we also no longer have to sit through watching a telethon.

Also, for any American readers out there who are just coming back to us after a long Labor Day weekend (or non-Americans who aren't weekend stalkers), I'm Stalking Jake! (the book!) is OUT NOW.  And everyone who reads this blog is required to buy a copy and then write me a 5-star review on Amazon; otherwise I'll have to go back to having a real job and won't be able to write this blog every day and EVERYONE LOSES (especially Jake, because that poor kid can't even tell when he's being stalked by women in posters unless I'm here to point it out to him).

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