Justin Timberlake: Host with the Most
Few artists from the Billboard charts have managed to resonate with the SNL crowd as well as the guy who brought sexy back. Whether he’s wearing a Chess King button-down in digital shorts like “Motherlover” or rocking a white leisure suit as Robin Gibb in the hilarious “Barry Gibb Talk Show” sketches, Justin Timberlake is gold as far as SNL is concerned. Here, he shares some family history in a little sketch called “Immigrant Tale.”

Paul Simon: The Original
Long before Justin Timberlake was born, singer-songwriter Paul Simon paved the way for generations of musical guests looking for hosting duties. His monologue was self-effacing, good-spirited — and still funny after all these years.

Sting: The Rocker
Promoting his 1991 release “Soul Cages,” Sting put on a punk rock wig to channel his inner Billy Idol for this classic sketch featuring the who’s-who of 1990s SNL. In the end, the sketch served as a vehicle for the late, great Phil Hartman to deliver his belligerent Frank Sinatra impression, but Sting did a respectable job as the snarling rocker.

Queen Latifah: Crossover Artist
Though her 2004 movie Taxi — also starring Jimmy Fallon from SNL — bombed in the box office, Queen Latifah is one of the few music artists who can hold her own in front of the camera. In this fake commercial, she played up the stresses of being one of the only two black women in her office. Fortunately, she had just the cure.

Ludacris: Sharing the Spotlight
In November 2006, actor-rapper Ludacris stepped aside for the debut of the much more talented Blizzard Man (Andy Samberg at his dorkiest), whom ‘Cris lauded as “Marvin Gaye mixed with a little Stevie Wonder.” And though Samberg is definitely the scene stealer here, Ludacris’ performance proves that the SNL writers can’t go wrong when they ask their double-duty hosts to just play themselves.

Janet Jackson: Tongue-Tied
Granted, when Janet Jackson — that’s Ms. Jackson if you’re nasty — hosted, she was no stranger to acting. After all, she starred in “Good Times” in the 1970. Her “SNL” gig was nearly 30 years later, though, so it’s no wonder she tripped up in this tongue-twister of sketch that was full of innuendo.

Jon Bon Jovi: ’80s Flashback
While Amy Poehler is the true star of this ’80s flashback sketch, a cloud of Aqua Net fumes brought a bandana-clad Jon Bon Jovi to life, straight from the “Slippery When Wet” era. For those of us old enough to remember “You Give Love a Bad Name,” it’s a delight to hear that the young Jon Francis Bon Jovi, Jr., was just another fat kid who played the French horn.

Steve Martin: Role Reversal
SNL alum Steve Martin was no stranger to hosting duties when he headlined the late night show last January — after all, it was his 15th time delivering a monologue — but this time, things were different. Martin also performed “Late for School” as musical guest. In addition to his folksy banjo ditty, he presented one cool digital short: “Laser Cats 4.”

Garth Brooks: Alter-Egos
In November 1999, the second time country singer Garth Brooks hosted SNL, his alter ego, Chris Gaines performed as the musical guest. The writers played up this peculiar lineup with an ongoing gag about a bizarre love triangle between Brooks, Gaines and Chris Kattan’s “Mango” character.

Let’s experiment and little and play this actor/movie game (besides, I like getting comments, so please post your turns). You’ve probably done this before: 1) name a movie or TV show, 2) the next person responds with an actor from that movie or TV show, 3) the next person names a different movie or TV show that the actor has also been in. Then repeat.

I’ll start with a classic:

A show: Arrested Development
Starring Tony Hale (Buster).

Tony Hale also appeared in Andy Barker P.I.,
which also starred Andy Richter (Andy)

Andy Richter, of course, now appears on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.

The Tonight Show stars Conan O’Brien, who appeared on The Simpsons …

That leaves it wide open. Now it’s your turn — bonus points if the show or movie is on Hulu, but don’t just cheat with the search function. Unleash your comments, and check some of the links out on the way — I limited it to worthwhile suggestions.

Jocelyn Matsuo (jocelyn@hulu.com)
Hulu’s Name Game Champion

“At this point in the history of motion comics, ‘Gifted‘ is the very best motion comic book out there,” Adams told us. “There will be some in the future that will be as good if not better, but right now it’s the best one.” It’s the early days of this medium — you can catch a motion comic version of Marvel’s Spider-Woman, Agent of S.W.O.R.D. on Hulu, as well, and we’ll have more chapters from the Astonishing X-Men next month — but Adams thinks there’s much more to come, especially as uses motion comics are used to promote feature films. (He tells us there’s motion comic material for a Predator-like character in the works, but that’s all he can say.) Learn how Adams defines –or rather, doesn’t define — motion comics and get his take on Joss Whedon’s graphic novel talents in Hulu’s exclusive interview below. — Rebecca Harper (rebecca.harper@hulu.com), Editor

Hulu: Can you tell us about motion comics and what they are?
Neal Adams: Well, first I can tell you what they aren’t. They aren’t a replacement for comic books. They are an adjunct to comic books. They are, in some ways for some people, an easier way to read a comic book, because the comic book kind of reads itself. They are not animation. They are not animated like an animated adaptation, which is when you have some designers in Czechoslovakia or Thailand or India draw thousands and thousands of drawings that have to look very similar to the other ones so that the characters can animate, and so they use the least number of lines that they can to create the animation. They’re not computer animation, and they’re not movies, which are adaptations of comic books. Sometimes you can recognize what went on in the comic book in the movie, and sometimes — most of the time — you can’t.
These are the comic books. They are word-for-word, comma-for-comma the writing of the writer. They are line-for -line, drawing-for-drawing the drawings of the artist, except that the words are turned into voices and the drawings have become animated through manipulating them with computers. You know, you can draw a line and you can turn it into rubber on the computer. You can make it move up, you can make it move down; you can turn it into a face, you can do things with it on the computer that is not what an artist does by redrawing it. So the line that’s in the comic book becomes the line that’s in the motion comic. The only difference is you’ve added the dimension of motion so you can watch it happen. It’s a new form. I don’t want to get all high and mighty or anything, but it’s a new form of entertainment that never existed before.

You’ve explained this before, haven’t you?
I’ve explained it before, to people I’ve tried to sell it to at Marvel and DC Comics. We do this kind of thing in advertising. We do, in effect, a motion comic of a commercial that the advertising agency takes out and tests before they spend a lot of money to do the commercial. Sometimes those what used to be called “animatics” are actually better than the finished commercial. So my little company, Continuity, has done that for over 20 years. We have tried to get some folks in the comic books business to give it a try to see whether or not it can be turned into another form of doing it. Well, a whole series of events had to take place for it to happen, but, by golly, it happened. It turns out that Marvel is, as usual, the first one to open the door and try something new.

You’ve been involved with some of the biggest names in comic books — names like Superman, Batman and X-Men. How did you get your start?
I started when people thought that comic books were toilet paper. In America, once we attacked communists, we also then attacked comic books. Comic books, for a long time in America, were considered to be the kind of thing you never wanted to show your kids and you never wanted to read yourself. So there’s been this long climb upward. When I began, everything was pretty much in the doldrums and everyone was telling me, “You don’t want to do comic books because pretty soon — a year or two, maybe three — they’ll be gone.”

I started at a very bad time and, by golly, those of us who persevered and kept on going, we changed the standards as much as we could to make them not so much more adult, but to appeal to a broader audience. Some people say there are certain movies and certain movies that are meant for kids, some are meant for adults, some are meant for everybody. The wonderful thing about comic books is they’re a medium that everyone can understand. We don’t limit the language. Comic books are, in fact — and always have been — the only kind of book that a kid buys with his own money. This is not an insult to children’s books, which I think are wonderful, but children don’t go out and buy children’s books. Their parents do. Kids will take their own money and buy a comic book. They’re also not magazines. A lot of people think of them as magazines, but they’re not. They’re periodicals and books. Magazines make their income from advertising. If you pick up Vogue or whatever magazine you feel like picking up, what you’ll find is 80 percent of the magazine is advertising. Comic books survive on entertainment. They’re like going to the movie. There is some advertising in comic books, thank goodness, but not so much that it gets in the way of the story.

It’s a very weird and unique medium. In fact, I’ve spoken with some French folks who have opinions about America and have opinions about culture. If you scratch a French fellow who is interested in this sort of thing, he will tell you that America is responsible for three forms of art: jazz, musical comedy and, guess what, comic books.

How have you seen the business change recently?
I don’t see that there’s a limit. I think the limit is going to be about quality. One of the amazing things about the Astonishing X-Men that we’ve done is that it’s a motion motion comic as opposed to a cut-out dolls motion comic. It actually has motion to it. There’s a wide variety of motion comics that go from no motion to extreme motion. We’re on the extreme motion end, not on the no motion end. So there’s a great variety of that stuff. It’s available for many reasons. For example, some movies are going to be promoted with motion comics. There’s an educational program that I’m myself involved in with the Disney Corporation doing motion comics about the Holocaust. The Disney Corporation is providing them to schools. There’s going to be five in the first half of the year, basically stories about Mayor LaGuardia in New York, the ship that can’t find a port to let the refugees off, Ann Frank, things like that; really significant stories done in a form that, like motion comics, are very palatable and very, very interesting. You just don’t get bored. That’s not to say that educational things are boring but, you know, it has to do with the “boree” rather than the “borer.” The “boree” is sometimes more easily bored with one form or another. It’s very hard to get bored when you’re given good and interesting information in a form like this.

It almost takes a certain kind of person to read a comic book, to be a comic book geek. But it’s very easy, once you see the video, for you to then turn to the comic book and go, “Oh, I get it. I may read this very quickly, but it may have more meaning.” And so they go back and they look at it with a different point of view. In fact, one of the things that we do when we show people Astonishing X-Men, is I put copies of the graphic novel in the room with people as I show it to them. As they’re watching, they reach for the graphic novel to see “Is that in there? I didn’t get that from that. What is that? Was that really in there?” And they go ahead and read it and look at it to see if we were really following the comic book, or there was some nuance that they missed, this is really good artwork, or oh, that’s the guy who wrote Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So the connection is being made in a very important way to people who aren’t necessarily comic book geeks. I think that’s what happening here, and not the way a movie does it. You can go to an X-Men movie and never pick up an X-Men comic book, because it’s an entertaining movie, and it’s never exactly the comic book. It’s very hard to look at these and not pick up the graphic novel.

You referred to Joss Whedon of Buffy fame, who also wrote this “Gifted” storyline for Astonishing X-Men. Can tell us what it was like working with him?
We would have preferred that Joss to stop by and give us some input, but of course he’s been busy working on Dollhouse. On the other hand, I’ve done some directing for commercials and stuff, and from the point of view of my directing this thing, he has a better economy of words since he’s used to writing for film and television. He knows when to stop having this person talk because all you’re watching is talking heads. He knows what his limits are and he knows how to use them. He knows how to cut back-and-forth between characters, because he’s so used to doing this. He’s the very best person to be first out with a really good motion comic. I guess there may be a better script writer out there, but is there someone more used to the form of both comic books and film? I don’t think there is. He was the perfect guy for us to work with.

Can you give us a little taste of what to expect with this series?
First of all, “Gifted” is one of Marvel’s best series of graphic novels. It has an awful lot to do with the potential of having superpowers and what the inevitable result can be. You could put another culture in danger. I don’t want to tell people where this culture is, or what kind of danger it represents, but what is known is that one of the X-Men is going to present such a disaster to another culture, and that culture has to go and try to find that X-Men and do away with him, or do something to change the history that’s going to unfold. So you have a story that starts at one time and goes back in time and starts to evolve forward while you’re watching the story of the X-Men, so you get a real classic tragedy in comic book form.

Of course, one of the things about Joss, if you watch Buffy or his other stuff, is that he likes action. You’re not going to turn too many pages before you get to some big knock-down, drag-out fight. Of course, we love that. You’ve got guys going behind the computers going, “Who’s going to handle that thing where the guy bashes the guy and throws him through the wall and they end up on the other side of the wall and then crash into the third wall?” And I say, “You want to do that? Oh, OK, I guess. Hmm…yes, make me a cup of coffee and I’ll let you do it.” People just love that. We have some people who are very strong in the soap opera sense. I’m not saying that girls are more sensitive than guys, but I will say that our best soap opera person is a girl, and she milks the emotion out of the characters using the animation tears coming to the eyes and going down her face.

What’s so wonderful is that we can pass these pieces out and look for people’s strengths to see how they handle that particular scene. You wouldn’t think that handling drawings and creating animation would do that but, by golly, it does. If you watch this little epic unfold, I think you’ll see what I’m saying is true. You’ll get a lot out of it drama wise, and you’ll forget that you’re watching drawings move. You’ll think you’re watching things happen.

The movie was The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. And from the iconographic opening credits to the tense final showdown, the movie proved to live up to its title. And yet despite its name, this Western had no clearly defined “good guy” or “bad guy”. There was no cavalry riding in to save the day, no Indian enemies, no settlers to save. Just three men, hardened by the day to day in a rugged west, trying to make a few dollars and the best of several rapidly deteriorating situations.

Even watching this now, I’m still amazed at the long stretches between dialogue, which really gives you the sense of the barren loneliness in the early western desert when often only your horse, canteen and a revolver stood between you and death.

I was hooked. It was a few years later that I learned it was actually the third in a series of westerns starring the enigmatic Clint Eastwood as “the Man with No Name”.

The first movie, A Fistful of Dollars, is still is one of my favorites. While new to most of the American audience at the time, it is actually a credited remake of an Akira Kurosawa movie, Yojimbo (starring Toshiro Mifune) and was later remade as Last Man Standing (starring Bruce Willis and Christopher Walken). One of my favorite things about Fistful movie is how easily a classic story has been translated from and mimicked in these other periods.

Far grittier than other Westerns that had preceded it, A Fistful of Dollars introduced Eastwood as the new Western hero, or more appropriately, the anti-hero. Establishing Eastwood’s character from the opening scene, director Sergio Leone follows the enigmatic traveler to a well, where he stops for a drink of water, and is then begrudgingly dragged into a small-town gang war. Playing on the gangster’s fear and greed, Eastwood quickly manages to turn the tables on them by playing both sides against each other. Besides the classic storytelling, Eastwood’s cool character is a deadly shot and you can’t help but cheer him on against the gangs.

For a Few Dollars More introduces Lee van Cleef’s tough-as-nails character Mortimer while he’s on a bounty hunt. Through clever flashbacks, we learn that Mortimer’s sister had been killed by the fugitive El Indio and Mortimer is tracking him for the reward. Enter Eastwood’s character, who is also tracking El Indio, but for far less than revenge. Eventually, Eastwood’s character orchestrates a duel between Mortimer and El Indio, and surprisingly in character, makes sure it’s a fair fight. Although this was another atypical western for the 1960’s, Eastwood’s character eventually rides off into the sunset with his questionable moral standing intact.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is the most brutal of the three. Looking for buried Confederate gold, it juxtaposes three hardened men against each other with a backdrop of greed and loose, shifting alliances between our anti-heroes. This is an emotional movie where you’re meant to identify with each of the characters, even though you may not like what you see. If you haven’t seen it yet, the Mexican standoff at the end is worth it alone.

The greatest thing about these movies is that they’re not a typical trilogy – you can watch one movie without feeling like you’re missing something from the other two. But fortunately for you, Hulu is able to provide all three of these classic westerns for the month of November. So throw on your poncho, strap on a six-shooter and get ready for a wild ride.

Mark
Hulu’s Content Gun For Hire

“There’s a lot of stuff going on. Some of the scenes near the end of the episode were really fun to shoot. It’s an action-packed episode with a lot of drama. It’s actually kind of sad, too,” Scott Michael Foster (who plays Cappie) told us. “There’s a lot of stuff going and emotions are high. It’s always cool to shoot scenes like that, because we always want to make sure we have good finales for the audience.”

Now that Cappie’s back together with Casey, he has to break the news to a possibly less-than-supportive Evan. “When we were reading the scripts and finding out where they were going to go with this storyline, we wanted for them to all stay friends and be happy,” he said, “but drama has to come from somewhere, so it’s definitely hard for the three of them to have a relationship. You’re going to see how it all affects them in the finale.”

Ready to see what happens? Here’s the full episode.

Rebecca Harper (rebecca.harper@hulu.com)
Hulu’s ZBZ Wannabe

Hulu: First, can you tell us why you decided to do a series about Hong Kong?
Chef Yan: Well, if anybody has traveled to Hong Kong, it’s a city that not only never sleeps, but it never slows down. Hong Kong has always been considered the gourmet paradise and the Mecca of great foods. Being an international city and colonized by the British for over 100 years, Hong Kong is the crossroads of all the great foods. You have some of the best Western restaurants, French restaurants, Italian restaurants, Russian restaurants, Southeast Asian restaurants, and you also have the best Chinese restaurants. They actually refer to Hong Kong as the “fragrant harbor.” There are more restaurants per capita in Hong Kong than anywhere else in the world.

How did you decide which dishes and which parts of Hong Kong to focus on for this series, since Hong Kong is such a diverse large city?
I actually trained in Hong Kong. When I left Guangzhou, China when I was 13, I actually spent six years in Hong Kong working in restaurants. And after I graduated from college, I went back to Hong Kong to work. I worked for a food magazine, so I have a lot of fond memories, and I have some favorites of Hong Kong. Normally what I do in the Hong Kong Series, basically, is to feature the uniqueness of Hong Kong and what makes Hong Kong so different. Each show actually has a theme — for instance, bamboo. In Hong Kong, when they build high rises, they don’t use steel racks. They use bamboo scaffolding, all the way up to the 30th or 40th floor, so it’s very, very unique. You see people climbing up and down the bamboo scaffolding. And then the whole theme is on bamboo, talking about the use of bamboo in China and Southeast Asia. We talk about using bamboo shoots, cooking bamboo shoots, when whole bamboo is used, and when the bamboo leaf is used to wrap Chinese tamales in dim sum restaurants. Each one is about what makes Hong Kong so unique.

In another program, we talk about water. Hong Kong is an island, a peninsula island that is all surrounded by water. You water everywhere: you see deep water, you see the bay, the harbor, and then you see seafood restaurants everywhere. There’s an abundance of seafood from all over the world, not only the surrounding area. The whole series is about life, food, lifestyle, arts and the excitement, and what makes Hong Kong so unique.

Which episodes are your favorites?
They’re all my favorites. Otherwise, I wouldn’t put them in the series. I’m a world traveler. Normally my focus is not just on featuring one subject matter and one theme, but also to give people a broad understanding and an introduction to a great city. You see London, Paris, Tokyo, and New York and Los Angeles… Hong Kong is probably if not the most, then one of the most exciting cities in the world. You ask anybody who has visited Hong Kong, and they never forget all the excitement, all the energy. You go to New York – -and I love New York, I love London — but you only see part of New York, or part of London. You only see the theater district or Times Square, a certain area that never sleeps. But in Hong Kong, the entire city never sleeps. If you’ve ever been to Hong Kong, you’ll notice that it’s not just part of Hong Kong, but the entire city of Hong Kong is always bustling. There’s 7 to 8 million people living in a place that’s smaller than Chicago.

How often do you travel to Hong Kong?
I go there eight times years. I just landed, and I’m going back there in November and December. I do shows in China and Hong Kong, and I bring a lot professional chefs. I bring a leisure, gourmet tour as well as professional chefs to Hong Kong and China.

And why did you decide to put this series on Hulu?
Hulu is a great medium to reach a good audience. People who are interested in information, interested in entertainment would be browsing around Hulu and watch the programs. It’s also a new medium and excited. I’m very excited to partner with Hulu, and hopefully this is not the end, but the beginning.

I read that you’ve hosted over 3,000 cooking shows …
Yeah, I’ve done more cooking shows than most people. Not necessarily all people, but most people. I started doing the cooking show in 1978, 1979, for 30 years now.

How do you keep finding new ideas?
Well, I travel a great deal. I’m passionate about food and I love to eat, and I have a lot of friends everywhere. Everywhere I go, people always give me the best. Because of that, they inspire me. Being a guy that loves to eat — some people love tennis, some people love hiking, some people love swimming or surfing. I happen to love to eat and love to cook. Also, when you eat different food, like Cuban food, or Russian food, or Burmese food, you also understand the culture and the backdrop of the people. It’s a fascinating thing, a study of anthropology, of history and lifestyle when you go to a restaurant. Like when you go to an Indian restaurant, you see the decor. You go to a Thai restaurant and you see the wood carvings and the embroidery. You go to a Vietnamese or Cambodian restaurant, you see something. So the restaurant is a reflection of the culture and heritage. Just like people collecting stamps, you can study a lot about the people and their history. Food and restaurants are the same. Food is an expression of the chef and the owner. It’s how they want to present themselves and what kind of target audience they want to reach. For me, it’s always a cultural and culinary journey when you go into a restaurant, and it’s the same thing when I travel and when bring the program to people. I constantly learn from the chef, from the people, from home cooks. You cannot possibly know all the cuisine and the culture in the world, so by traveling, I bring all my memories and all my experiences with the people to the audience. I hope Hulu will continue to be in the forefront of bringing all this information and excitement and entertainment to people.

And when you’re at home, are you the one that cooks?
I always cook for myself. People always ask my wife, “Who cooks at home?” My wife always points her finger to me. When I’m home, I cook. I have three refrigerators and two sinks, and a big counter and a professional cooktop in my house. Everything is given to me by GE Monogram, so I can cook at home. I entertain a lot at home. When I’m home, I invite all my friends and neighbors to come and have dinner. A lot of times, I ask everybody to get involved, though. I normally cook one or two items, and they bring the dessert and salad and everything. Food and cooking brings everyone together. I hope my program on Hulu will bring more excitement and fun to the people that love food and travel, because all my programs are a combination of traveling and food and cooking.

You can find this page, which we’re calling “Coming Soon,” when you follow the “Browse by Date” link at the top of Hulu.com and then click on the “Coming Soon” tab. The schedule will consist of scripted currents from ABC, NBC and FOX, including such as favorites as Family Guy, FlashForward, The Cleveland Show, The Office, Bones, Fringe, Modern Family and more. We are hoping to add additional series to the list over time so you can keep up with your favorites.

Along with the schedule, there are a few new features that will help you manage your Hulu viewing. If you’re a registered user, you can request an email notification to alert you when a particular video has been added to Hulu.com. We’ll also alert you on the rare occasion when that video is late in getting up on Hulu.com. For bloggers and editors, you can also grab the code to pre-embed the video to your blog. (An example is pasted below.) We will swap in the video as soon as it’s available on our site, so you’re free to post your article on your own schedule.

Again, thanks for sending us all of your feedback about the site, and we encourage you to send your comments about Coming Soon to feedback@hulu.com. We hope you find this feature helpful — I know it’s definitely something I’m going to use.

Cheers,
Betina Chan-Martin (betina@hulu.com)
User Feedback Evangelist

Hulu: Can you give us a summary of the film?
Filmmaker Hanson Hosein: The big picture is that it’s about what I call the rising insurgency against corporate chains in American small towns and cities across the Heartland. The smaller story is of a road trip my wife and I took across the United States to document that, by taking only secondary highways to see what we thought was a more authentic view of America, before the corporate chains took over, and by only doing business with independent businesses along the way.

What were some of the more surprising things you discovered while you took this trip?
I think the most surprising thing is that this issue transcends politics and the standard conservative-liberal divide we keep hearing about in the United States, which is obviously quite true with many other issues. But we were in Midwestern towns in Nebraska or Wyoming, and these are conservative areas, but they also had the same concerns; they just call it something different. In Seattle, they call it sustainability; in these places they call it conservation. They’re just as concerned about these sort of concentrations of power by large corporations, which they don’t trust as much as they trust their neighbors in terms of how they do business.

One of the reviews about this documentary points out that you aren’t actually anti-Wal-Mart, that you actually provide equal time to their company. What’s your perspective on Wal-Mart?
It’s changed over the years. Because we come from a traditional journalism background — we both used to work at NBC — we take this fair and balanced thing very seriously. It was very important for us to actually get Wal-Mart in the film. They get 800 requests a week — that’s what they told us — for interviews. They looked at our website while we were doing our trip, and they said “Well, they obviously have a point of view that’s critical of us, but they’re giving us fair opportunity to talk.” So they decided they would give us some time. They gave us free access to their stores and their advertising, and there were no conditions whatsoever. So my thought on Wal-Mart as a company is, you know, I’m concerned still about the amount of power they have in the community and some of the things they’ve done in the past, overturning what communities have decided in terms of how they want to run their neighborhoods. On the other hand, I think the fact that Wal-Mart has been very open about some of the mistakes they’ve made along the way doesn’t necessarily endear me to them, but I believe in giving them a fair opportunity to state their case. It’s been said that a book can be written about Wal-Mart and all the bad things they’ve done, and a book can be written about all the good things they’ve done. Especially in this downturn, there’s a sense that that Wal-Mart is not necessarily the bad guy as much as they had been in the past.

You mentioned that you traveled the country with your wife, Heather. What was that like for the two of you?
[Laughs] It was tough, because we had both worked in television news traditionally. We both had real jobs. This was this crazy flight of fancy we had … We tried to get PBS and Discovery Channel and these other broadcasters to support us, and nobody did. We had this incredible pressure to do this story anyway, even though we didn’t have a major supporter. We had a partner, Tom Powers from Open Door in Toronto; he’d give us some funds to do this. But this was like driving into oblivion, not knowing whether we’d have something to show and whether anybody would care about what we were doing. Doing it was a little scary, but going out with your wife and your dog, there’s some moral support there — but it’s also like you’re facing every day, like “Gee, I hope I’m not leading my family into ruin on this creative urge that may not lead to anything.” It was tough, and you have the usual squabbles that happen between husband and wife: the husband never wants to check directions, and the wife always wants to stop and ask for directions — there’s a moment of pride there. But amazingly, we got along pretty well given all the stress of what the trip was about.

How did you determine your route? Did you have certain towns you wanted to hit, or was it all a “flight of fancy?”
I used to work at NBC covering breaking news around the world, so I’m really into covering things organically and letting the story tell itself. On the other hand, I knew that we couldn’t just take a chance and just close our eyes and point at a map. So we did some research before leaving — where we thought some of the hot spots might be, and we decided that we would visit some of those along the way. But what happened –this was a few years ago, before even YouTube had launched — we decided that as we were making our trip, we would share our video and share our thoughts on our blog with the world. As we kept going, more and more people kept following us, and we’d get covered by NPR stations and local newspapers. All of a sudden, people started sending us requests and recommendations of where we should go and said [they'd] put us up for the night. Fifty percent of the trip was very serendipitous based on that interaction with the audience. I’d say that the best half of the film was actually done through improvisation from these suggestions.

You created a follow-up film where you go to New Orleans. Can you tell us about that, and why a film about New Orleans was important?
We were actually supposed to go to New Orleans on the first trip. This was in 2005, and we got a call from Wal-Mart saying “We will talk to you,” so we had to rush to get to Arkansas, where Wal-Mart has their headquarters. We were thinking, “Oh, we’ll get there sometime.” Six weeks later, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. We’d always been told that New Orleans was the classic independent American city, where they had a really strong local economy and local culture, and they didn’t like big-box stores in the city. We knew that was going to change after Katrina. The second film was kind of like a lost chapter of Independent America. It’s my attempt to capture what the city was like before, and how it was actually small businesses that came back immediately after Katrina. I mean, I heard stories of people opening up the day after the floods to help their neighborhoods, and how vital that is to a community after a disaster like that. So that’s the story of that second film. There are some concerns about how city officials have been favoring big-box stores like Home Depot with tax incentives while not giving the same incentives to small businesses. It’s very much the same themes as the first film, but it’s really focused on one community right after a major disaster.

And what are you working on these days?
Right now I’m a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. And funnily enough, all the stuff that I did for that first film — creating your own content, telling your own stories, using engaged community members to help spread the word about what you’re doing — is pretty much what I teach now. It’s like the future of digital media and communication and social media. I’m also working on a book on storytelling in the 21st century. Independent America is going to be the main theme to it, which is essentially that if you ever want to cut through all the noise — everybody can communicate these days — you have to tell a really good story and you have to find a way to connect with your community using these different platforms to have them engage with you, kind of like we did in having them tell us what the second half of the story should be. That’s basically a book on the future of storytelling.

Thanks so much for your time — good luck with these projects!

Creative Differences
Kelly may never officially reveal the inspiration behind “Male Prima Donna,” but she’s more than happy to let “The Office” cameras follow her around as she produces her first music video. The Dunder Mifflin break room is converted into wardrobe — as Oscar’s trying to eat lunch, naturally — so Kelly can do Ryan’s makeup (he likes a lot of blush and eyeliner), and the parking lot serves as an impromptu set for a scene involving a priest and a smoking bride.

The Replacement
While the SubSex girls may have lost one of their video extras, they soon set their sights on a replacement: Andy, a former member of Cornell’s “Hear Comes Treble” a cappella group. What can we say? He had us with his ode to a vending machine.

The Music Video
In the end, the video had room for all the key players: Ryan in a white top hat and cane as Mr. Understood, while the Nard Dog puts on quite the show in the Dunder-Mifflin warehouse. Meanwhile, Kelly and Erin tear it up as they get down to the chorus: “But I can’t help but want ‘cha / I’m an independent diva / But I still kinda need ya” in gold spandex, wedding clothes and pirate garb. Need a last-minute Halloween costume? We think you’ve found your inspiration.

Good Parents Always Offer Their Two Cents
In the season opener, Mitchell and Cameron have a daunting task ahead of them: the gay couple needs to tell the rest of the family about their newly adopted baby. But Mitchell’s family isn’t known for keeping their opinions to themselves. As he’s about to break the news, Jay interrupts to share his thoughts on the subject of Mitchell and Cameron’s relationship. As a result, Cameron misses his cue and makes his dramatic entrance — with baby in tow — a few beats too soon.

Good Parents Teach Life Lessons
When Claire and Phil’s son, Luke, shoots his sister with a BB gun, they decide it’s time to teach Luke an important lesson: retaliation. As punishment for his actions, Luke must get shot with a BB gun himself, and so Phil takes his son to the backyard, where (as expected) nothing seems to go according to plan. Lesson learned? Who knows, but we’re sure Phil will never look at a gun the same.

Good Parents Give Older Boyfriends a Chance
Claire’s eldest daughter, Haley has a new boyfriend — a high school senior — and mom and dad aren’t so sure about their daughter dating an older boy. But when Dylan shows surprising insight during a volatile family moment, they decide to give him a chance. All that changes, though, when he performs a completely inappropriate but surprisingly catchy song he wrote for his sweetheart in front of the entire family.

Good Parents Want their Kids to Excel
Some of our favorite “Family” moments involve Mitchell and Cameron. In this scene, Mitchell shows his competitive side at baby play group, while Cameron — the diva of the bunch — shows off his dance moves.

Good Dads Enjoy Time with the Family
Hapless son-in-law Phil is always trying to bond with Claire’s dad, but Jay isn’t so tolerant of Phil. That said, Phil convinces his father-in-law to take him out to fly his model plane, and Jay reluctantly agrees — but never gives Phil the chance to take the controls. Instead, he decides to show Phil one of his favorite tricks, one that requires Phil to cross the air field and stand far, far away from Jay.

Good Parents are “Cool”
“Modern Family” fans know that Phil’s desperate to seem cool to his kids, and he goes to great lengths to show his kids how “with it” he can be. Unfortunately for Phil, his attempts at being hip usually miss the mark, as seen here, when he tries to impress — and intimidate — Haley’s boyfriend Dylan.

NBC Sports’ National Heads-Up Poker Championship has all the head-game of regular televised Poker, but the format has the fierce, one-on-one battle of the minds that makes for a good spectator sport, even over an entire season. You get to know the pros in style, personality and tells. In fact, you already know some of the competitors from your favorite 90’s sitcoms: Jason Alexander and Brad Garrett get invites, as well as Don Cheadle and Jennifer Tilly.

This series is especially good for poker novices. Heads-Up greatly simplifies the odds and the commentary is clear, while giving player-history that is actually interesting. And with Hulu’s continuous play feature, you can watch episodes back-to-back, just like you’re in the tournament. Here are the starts of the 2008 and 2009 championships to get your started.

2008

2009

Jocelyn Matsuo (jocelyn@hulu.com)
Hulu’s Card Shark

Fifty years from now, I hope to tell my grandkids this: Back in the day, we watched web video in a player, surrounded by ads, low quality, in our basements as a party started to wind down. The only way you could find the funnies was to be in the same room, taking turns showing what you could play if you got really good at the ukulele.

Those times have already changed. I find that as a yuppie, I don’t have time to surf around through sub-par web video to find some viral cat that eats its own booger. Good thing I found G4’s Web Soup:

Web Soup serves up hilarious viral videos in our favorite, high-quality Hulu form.

Jocelyn Matsuo (jocelyn@hulu.com)
Content Editor

The Leading Man: Donny Osmond
Poor Donny Osmond’s working like a dog these days, trying to balance a busy Vegas act (you can see him and Marie four nights a week) and master two new dances for the competition. But hard work suits him: he and partner Kym Johnson delivered an intimate Argentine Tango that actually seemed sexy — that’s right, Donny Osmond and “sexy” in the same sentence! Judge Carrie Ann Inaba agreed, too, exclaiming “The Argentine Tango loves Donny Osmond! … I just fell in love with you. There’s a whole new side of you tonight … it was so darn sexy!” The intensity between Donny and Kym led Bruno Toniolo to compare the squeaky clean entertainer to Donnie Darko — “broody, moody, dangerous and sharp as a blade.” While Len Goodman was a little more reserved, giving Donny a 9, Carrie Ann and Bruno each gave Donny 10’s, for the highest score of the night.

Drama Delivered: Mark Decascos
While Iron Chef chairman Mark Decascos errs on the side of cheesy more often than we like, he toned down the cheese and embraced his macho bullfighter side this week. But really, his Paso Doble with partner Lacey Schwimmer was all about her crazy, frizzed-out, banana-clipped hair. That aside, Mark delivered a dramatic Flamenco opening that managed to show off his sexier side. While Len Goodman commended Mark on his mastery of the “three P’s” — posture, passion, performance — Bruno focused on something else: “You’re turning into Mephisto, the devil. You were on it!” Lacey took a risk giving Mark a solo, but it paid off, earning the duo their highest scores so far.

Chemistry Experiment: Joanna Krupa
PETA activist/swimsuit model Joanna Krupa suffered two major blows this week, but she managed to dance her way through to another round. Not only did she have a costly stumble in the middle of her routine, but her partner Derek Hough was sidelined with the flu. Fortunately, the producers had a stand-in at the ready: the recently eliminated Maksim Chmerkovskiy, who just happens to be a Ukrainian Latin Ballroom dance champion. Lucky for Joanna, she and Maks managed to spark some chemistry after just a few days of practice. (Some partners — Melissa and Mark, Natalie and Alec — just never seem to come together.) Joanna and Maks started off strong, but Joanna’s misstep threw off the rest of the routine. “I was living my fantasies up until that stumble. Up until then, you could have had anything you wanted,” Bruno told them. Because of the change in partners, we suspect the judges were lenient with Joanna and Maks, granting them triple 8’s for the night.

Daddy’s Little Girl: Kelly Osbourne
Ozzy’s little girl found confidence doing the Charleston last week, but could she master the decidedly serious Paso Doble this time around? Faced with that challenge, Kelly did what any daughter would do: She gave herself a Sharon Osbourne ‘do while her partner, Louis van Amstel, channeled his inner goth with a lot of eyeliner, and together they danced to Ozzy’s “Crazy Train.” Her goal was to be as fierce as possible, but Kelly went off the rails from time to time. “You’ve got to learn the routine, but that’s just the start. You’ve then got to work on getting into the character,” Len told her. It wasn’t played up during the night of dancing, but it turns out Kelly actually sprained her foot and suffered a contusion (fancy doctor-speak for a bruise) during her routine, though she should be fine to dance next week.

Wooden Nickel Award: Michael Irvin
Last week, former Cowboys wide receiver Michael Irvin was crushed by the judges’ critique of his Bolero, but the voters gave him a second chance by keeping him in the game. Of all the stars on “Dancing” this season, he seems to be having the most fun, and he worked hard to master the Paso Doble. The secret, it seems, came from his partner, Ann Demidova, who told him to walk like he had a coin between his butt cheeks. And so, what did this self-respecting football star do? He stuck a nickel between his cheeks and marched and swirled his cape around like a master bullfighter. While it’s clear Michael isn’t a natural dancer, he showed improvement as far as the judges were concerned. “Finally, somebody put their game face on!” Carrie Ann told him. “It’s my favorite dance so far… the intensity was there.” Len like his posture, expressiveness and the haughty way he walked the floor. As for the always eloquent Bruno, we’ll let him speak for himself.

Swan Song: Natalie Coughlin
To our admittedly untrained eyes, Olympic swimmer Natalie Coughlin always seemed a beat behind as she did the Paso Doble to “American Woman,” but there’s no doubt that she looked strong and powerful. In fact, this dance, which mimics the movements of a Spanish bullfight, seemed to play to her strengths: a long, lean swimmer’s body and an aggressive, competitive side. The judges all agreed that she performed a very clean, precise dance, but she needed to develop a character and show more chemistry with her partner. And while Bruno, Len and Carrie Ann looked forward to seeing Natalie’s progression, the voters didn’t agree. Much to the shock of everyone in the “Dancing” studio, she was sent packing with tears in her eyes.

Tell us what you think: Were you surprised to see Natalie go home this week?

Hulu: You attended Columbine High and were at school the day of the shootings, so you clearly bring an insider’s perspective to April Showers. Can you talk about that? Where were you when the shooting began?
Robinson: Well, I was in school and a senior at Columbine on that day. We broke for lunch and, instead of going to the cafeteria for lunch, which I rarely ever did, I went up to the computer lab, which is kind of dead-center in the building. It’s kind of a study hall thing, and I was hanging out with a couple of my friends. They were editing some video projects that they had and I was just there for a second opinion. Apparently the shooting had begun outside in the student parking lot, which is behind several layers of concrete from where we were, so we didn’t hear it. The fire alarm was pulled and you immediately think “We’re two weeks from graduation, it has to be a student prank.” We walked out into the main hallway, which was empty, and within a few moments a whole horde of students came running up the hallway towards us, screaming and yelling “There’s a gun, there’s a gun!” and “They’re shooting people,” stuff like that. So we ducked back into the computer lab and kids were putting themselves into closets and cabinets and hiding under desks. My friends and I just didn’t feel comfortable there. We didn’t want to be in a room if whatever was out there came in there. We were going to be in real trouble, so we left the computer lab and found a way out of the building without encountering any direct gunfire or anything like that.

Is the film told from your perspective?
The film follows about six different points of view. You witness the event primarily through the eyes of the main character, Sean. However, with him as he’s going through the event, are two, three, four other people that, in various stages of the day, kind of get separated and branch off so they have their own unique experiences, and certain experiences that came before the shooting happened, that influence the things that they do during the day. We’ve got some other characters that don’t intertwine with the three main storylines, but you go through it through their eyes and then, at the end, how they all come out the other side — some do, some don’t. The film is not about the shooting. When we were discussing how to film it, I was very adamant that I didn’t really want to stage the shooting in the film, but I knew that I needed to, to some degree, in order for the audience to take the journey with the characters in order for them to understand the rawness of the emotion that they’re going to see onscreen, because that’s one thing the general public doesn’t really see in real life when the news media sweeps in and covers these things. They tend to cover the live pictures of it unfolding, or just after it’s unfolded with a couple of sound bites. Then they bring in experts, but you don’t really see the two dozen, three dozen kids having impromptu gatherings in basements trying to figure out where their lives go from here, or some people having backlash against others, that whole thing. I needed them to see just enough, just enough of the horror to be in the position where our characters and the audience go through the same kind of journey. What you get out of it and how it affects you and how you look to tomorrow is different to each individual, just like in the film.

Was it hard for you to revisit these scenarios? How did this project affect you?
I couldn’t have done this project three years ago, four years ago, five years ago. I’m in a really good place now, emotionally, mentally, everything with regards to that day. I harbor no ill will about the shooting. It is that day, and I’ve come to grips with it.

What was really difficult for me was having to put other people through it, even in a make-believe film sense. But we used 1,500 real high school students. Having to stage these events and talk them through them and get them into that mindset, to put them there and to watch their reaction… after a while, people on the crew were saying “These extras are really good actors,” but I said “I don’t think they’re acting. I think they’re feeling it. What you’re seeing is genuine.” It was hard to all of a sudden be a spectator to this because I went through it and wasn’t able to see it. Now I’m orchestrating it and being a spectator, watching people as it plays out this thing in my life. That was difficult because, I know when we came to town and were looking for extras, everyone was like, “Oh, I’m gonna be in a movie.” But it’s not a Zac Efron movie. A lot of kids, the first day they’re on the set were like, “Oh, we’re in a basement… it looks like a house party scene!” Meanwhile, I’m telling them “No one’s talking. You’re all fixated on the TV.” Then I start describing the images that are on the TV, which the audience never sees because their faces tell you the whole story. Just watching them go there and imagine all of this… It was difficult to have to do that to kids. At the same time, as we kept filming, you could see a bond growing. You could see people reaching out to one another. We had several different schools participate and so it was just really cool at the end of it. You saw these kids go through a transformation without having to lose friends to do it.

Could these “TGS” changes reflect something going on behind the scenes at 30 Rock? “We write what we know,” said executive producer Robert Carlock on a recent teleconference. “I think if it does make it into the script, it’s only because it’s sort of an interesting tension that the people in our fake world live with, too. We want to please as many people as we can. We also want to please ourselves. We’ve been very, very lucky in terms of pleasing ourselves and pleasing the Emmys, which is very, very gratifying and rewarding, and sure, it’s a conversation here. We wish we were the No. 1 show in America, and maybe we’ll get there this year. It sometimes makes for a story, but it certainly doesn’t come from a place of bitterness.”

So how does the cast of “TGS” handle the changes? Find out in the full episode embedded below. Looking for a little more Lemon and friends? Be sure to check out our 30 Rock page for the premiere episode and clips from the last 3 seasons.

Rebecca Harper (rebecca.harper@hulu.com)
Editor

The Road is a post-apocalyptic story of a man (Viggo Mortensen) and his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) heading south in an attempt to avoid the impending winter as they struggle against the deteriorating environment, gangs of brutal men, starvation, and their own haunting fears and memories.

In a culture that seems to use apocalypse-scenarios as vehicles for completely action flicks (Escape from New York, Terminator: Salvation) or as fodder for laughs ( Dr. Strangelove, Zombieland), The Road introduces realism. Every detail rings true, from the fleeting surge of electricity in a discovered bomb shelter to the makeshift braces and bandages taped across their bodies. Every interaction is meaningful. Every endeavor bears the burdensome weight of maintaining a dimming morality. Joe Penhall’s screenplay does not shy away from the atrocious, nor does it manipulate the audience for simple shock value.

For those diehard fans of the book, the trailer may have you wondering about the role of The Wife (Charlize Theron). Let me assure you, every liberty screenwriter Penhall took in this regard only works to deepen the connection I felt towards Mortensen’s character while adding highly dramatic moments I hadn’t imagined as I read the book.

As a member of the first generation born into a world bearing technologies capable of annihilating all of it in a moment’s notice, The Road is a story that needed be told and must be watched. It is simply a wake-up call to the fragility of our Earth. And by imagining a world stripped to its core, we see humanity stripped to its bare elements, as well. The Road shows us the worst in people, but ultimately, it is a film about our best. It is not only a story of the bonds between father and son, it is a story about the timeless responsibilities of a man and mankind.

Jordan Bonitatis (jordan.bonitatis@hulu.com)
Hulu’s Film Fanatic

“Hate on Me”
When she hears that the minority glee clubbers felt ignored by Mr. Schuester and the rest of the club, Sue realizes she’d found her “chink in the armor.” Her plan: “Sue’s Kids,” an opportunity for the minority singers to have their voices heard. To curry their favor, she brings along her own brass section to accompany a contemporary R&B song: Jill Scott’s “Hate On Me.” It’s a chance for the soulful Mercedes to really let loose and for Mike to pop-and-lock as much as he wants.

“No Air”
As for Mr. Schuester, he focuses on getting his kids ready for sectionals, pairing Rachel and Finn for a cover of Jordin Sparks’/Chris Brown’s “No Air.” As the two tear up the rehearsal hall, you can see Quinn become more and more jealous of the chemistry blossoming between the two leads.

“You Keep Me Hangin’ On”
The tension between Finn’s two love interests — Broadway wannabe Rachel and the pregnant cheerleader Quinn — comes to a head following a stairway run-in, giving Quinn the chance to prove that she’s got pipes, too. Accompanied by the rest of the Cheerios, she tackles The Supremes’ “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” on the football field. Is it just us, or do we see overtones of an early Britney Spears in this production?

“Keep Holding On”
For the episode’s grand finale the Glee producers went for a show-stopping reinvention of Avril Lavigne’s “Keep Holding On.” This time, all the kids are on stage (yay!) as all of Quinn’s emotions rise to the surface.

Bonus Track: “Ride With Me”
In the midst of the Sue vs. Mr. Schuester infighting, the glee kids came together for a covert jam session, Nelly’s “Ride Wit Me.” Though the single didn’t make it onto iTunes, it’s one of the least produced numbers we’ve seen on Glee — and we loved it. What did you think?

Which number was your favorite this week?

The Mole is a reality/game show that’s more than the producers creating challenges for a bunch of people hunting stardom. It is a full-on mystery that kept me rapt (and ultimately wrong in my suspicions until the end). Who knew Anderson Cooper could be so devious?

This game show starts out with a classic premise: A group of strangers compete at different games to win money for a collective pot. Only one person will make it to the end to win all the money at the end of the show. There’s the twist, though: One of the players works for the producers to keep the cash prize low. Paranoia, deceit, strategy … bring all your cunning.

I’ll warn you though: don’t check this out unless you’ve got some time on your hands. Season 2 is compelling and you don’t want to waste it by feeling pressured by time and skipping to the end — that’s just not as satisfying.

Jocelyn Matsuo (jocelyn@hulu.com)
Video Editor

Comeback Kid: Melissa Joan Hart
Trend alert! Thanks in part to Melissa’s campy performance with partner Mark Ballas, we see a flapper revival on the horizon. “The Charleston is all about the three E’s: energy, excitement and entertainment,” judge Len Goodman said. “You ticked off all the boxes.” The former “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch” star finally found her dancing rhythm as a 1920s starlet, a character which allowed her to be silly, have fun and show off her personality as she enthusiastically shuffled in tandem with Mark.

“Cabaret” Queen: Kelly Osbourne
For the first time since she wowed us with her Viennese waltz at the start of Season 9, Kelly Osbourne came out confident as she and partner Louis van Amstel paid tribute to Liza Minelli and “Cabaret” with their Charleston. It turns out Kelly had tried out for the role of Roxie in another Broadway musical, “Chicago,” and was relegated to play Mama Morton because she couldn’t dance. With this performance, Osbourne showed she has plenty of moxie to play Roxie. “Watching you is like watching a little birdie find their wings and learn to fly,” judge Carrie Ann Inaba told her.

Hot Stuff: Joanna Krupa
Following “Dancing” contestant Aaron Carter’s lackluster lambada, which prompted Carrie Ann to warn him, “You have to chill out. You’re trying too hard. You need to turn it off. You’re turning people off,” the crowd was in dire need of a sexy rendition of the so-called “forbidden dance.” Peta spokeswoman/swimsuit model Joanna Krupa and her partner, a shirtless Derek Hough, delivered, turning up the heat as they spun and ground up against each other with palpable passion. “I hope that the children are in bed,” Carrie Ann said. It had the raunchiness that Len was looking for and then some.

The Frontrunner: Mya
Thanks to her R&B background, Mya’s always been a frontrunner on “Dancing,” but this week she really pulled ahead of the pack. (Sure, she and Melissa both earned 28’s, but the judges rewarded Melissa’s improvement this week.) Mya and partner Dmitry Chaplin collaborated on a sophisticated lambada number in hopes of simplifying things to appease Len, who had complained that Dmitry’s choreography was often too complicated. Carrie Ann and Bruno ate it up, calling it classy and erotic, but Len, always a stickler, was more reserved, wanting a bit more from the duo. Some dancers just can’t win!

Ultimate Champion No More: Chuck Liddell
Of all the frou-frou costumes the “Dancing” team forced upon Ultimate Fighting Champion Chuck Liddell (remember last week’s ruffled sleeves?), Monday night’s jeans and cowboy boots seemed most appropriate for our heavyweight dancer. Outfit aside, though, the grinning Ice Man never seemed to warm up to the “Boot Scootin’ Boogie,” with judge Bruno Tonioli saying that Chuck brings “carnage and mayhem to everything you do.” Despite the lumbering steps, Len admitted that Chuck is still entertaining to watch — but that wasn’t enough to keep him in the game. He may have been ranked No. 3 (ahead of football star Michael Irvin and snowboarder Louie Vito) by the judges, but it was a surprise to all when Chuck and Aaron Carter ended up in the bottom two after audience voting, with the UFC star getting the final knockout punch.

Which performances were on top this week? Do you think judge Len Goodman is being too tough on Mya and Dmitry? Share your opinions in the comments.

Of all the famous marathons — New York, Boston — why did the Los Angeles filmmaker choose to focus on Chicago? “All roads were pointing to Chicago,” says Dunham. Because he was looking for someone training to qualify for the Boston Marathon, Chicago made sense. “Chicago sends the most runners to Boston,” he says, because it’s such a flat, fast course. But Chicago was also on the agenda for 2004 Olympic Bronze Medalist Deena Kastor, who suffers a foot injury early in her training for the Chicago race. But, for Dunham, it was also about the location. “It’s one of the bigger races, and it has a skyline rife with opportunities for filming. It’s a beautiful city,” he says.

As we learn more about Spirit ’s subjects, we learn more about marathons: the training involved, the deep inner strength required to keep your feet going one step after another for 26.2 miles, and the sheer spectacle of the event: tens of thousands of people streaming through the urban city streets.

With this year’s Chicago Marathon taking place on Sunday, Hulu caught up with some of the runners we met in Spirit of the Marathon to see where they are now. (Professional runners Daniel Njenga and Deena Kastor were not available for interview.) — Rebecca Harper (rebecca.harper@hulu.com), Editor

Ryan Bradley — Boston Hopeful
Though Ryan Bradley’s race didn’t turn out quite like he planned, he was back to his routine about six months later. “I’ve been doing about one marathon a year since then,” he said. Like the other amateurs we meet in Spirit, he’s not running the Chicago Marathon again this year — but that’s because he’s planning to run 26.2 miles in Des Moines next weekend, instead. His wife will be doing Chicago this year, though, so while she’s running the race Ryan’s on kid duty. “I’ve got to somehow manage to get three kids under the age of five down there to watch their mom run,” he said. “It will be fun — it will be a challenge, but it will be fun.” He and his wife had the opportunity to run the Boston marathon together, and now Ryan’s hoping to requalify within the next couple of years so he can return when he’s 40. So what’s it like living in a household with two marathon runners and three young kids? “We’ve broken our treadmill quite a few times,” he laughs. They take the kids with them on some of the shorter runs — the kids love it, he says — and the whole family recently ran their first 5K together (with strollers, of course).

Leah Caille — First-Timer
A knee injury slowed Leah Caille down in her first marathon, but that didn’t stop her from wanting to do it again. “I got to the first finish line, and the only thing I wanted to do other than sleep for three days was go out there and do it again,” she says. This year, though, she’s unable to participate in the Chicago Marathon due to spinal issues. “When you’re a runner, if you’re sidelined for even a few weeks, that kind of sets you back for a bit,” she says. “Well, I’ve been sidelined for a good long time more than that,” thanks to back surgery last year and then two herniated discs in her neck in March. “When God was passing out healthy spines, I might have been at the bar or something — actually, I was probably out for a run,” she laughs. She’s back to shorter, three- or four-mile runs now and hopes to get back to doing both the triathlon and a marathon this year. In the meantime, she’s started a run team at her daughter’s school — they’ve done several 5Ks together — and she’s coaching her volleyball team, as well. “Things are going really well,” she tells us. “My career has moved forward. I’m in the ‘business’ — I sell sponsorships for major races throughout the country, and I love it. Being a runner helps me to speak with not only knowledge, but also a deep passion for the sport.”

Gerald “Jerry” Meyers — Veteran Marathoner
In Spirit, we meet Jerry Meyers as he’s training his daughter for the Chicago Marathon. And though he’d love to be running this weekend, he won’t be able to make it. “I’m on the injured-reserved list,” he says. “I threw a blood clot in my leg in January and it’s still there.” Though he hasn’t been able to run since the beginning of the year — the longest he’s been off in 30 years — he’s still walking every day. After the film, Jerry ran the 2006 Chicago Marathon but had to pull out at mile 16, when an exposed nerve on the ball of his foot kept him from going any farther. “My family told me that if I didn’t quit, they were going to come after me with a baseball bat,” he says. “I was going to hobble in, but they said, ‘No way, you can’t hobble in on two broken legs, ‘cuz that’s what we’re gonna give ya.’ That’s the first time I was not able to complete a run.” Despite the blood clot, Jerry says he feels great today. “If I didn’t know better, I’d go out and run,” he confesses.

Lori O’Connor — First-Timer
Lori got the marathon bug during her first Chicago Marathon and had every intention of doing it again the following year. “During the first one, my training went really, really well,” she said. “I stuck to the schedule. I missed maybe one run that entire training session. I finished, I had a smile on my face, and I felt great at the end. I thought, like some runners do when they finish a race, ‘I can do it a little bit faster!’ There’s always this push to be better.” She prepared for her second marathon the next year, only to find out that she was pregnant after running the 20-mile training run. “My doctor gave me the option [to do the marathon] and I said ‘Hmm, I think I’m going to stay on the sidelines for this one.’ I know it would have been perfectly safe, but I just didn’t want to do it. I wanted to go for speed, and I knew I wouldn’t be going fast.” This year, Lori’s out of the race because she and her husband are both wrapping up their dissertations. (Lori is getting her PhD in Sociology.) “It’s very time-consuming to train for a marathon, and so this year I said I’m basically just sticking to half marathons,” she said. “I did a few halves in the spring and I’m doing another at the end of October. I’m holding off until the degree is in hand — that’s my reward, so I’ll probably train for one again next summer.”