Hollywood, the succubus of creative thought and artistic vision, has done something right for once. While the bulk of the time they spend bleeding good ideas dry with endless sequels and remakes and franchise reboots tends to send me into fits of brick-shitting rage, there’s the occasional instance where the Hollywood money hungries leads to it making something genuinely likable. Movies such as Star Trek, which was really great! Or The Dark Knight, which was flat out brilliant! These things can happen, and it’s for that reason that this little tidbit of news has me thoroughly giddy:
Seriously, the Alien franchise is admittedly one to which I’m incredibly faithful. I sat through the miserable train wreck that was Alien vs. Predator and then somehow decided that I still had to waste my money on Alien vs. Predator: Requiem. I actually kinda like the utter insanity that is Alien Resurrection in a camp sort of way. I’ve long ago abandoned the hope that the material would ever again approach the quality of Ridley Scott’s original masterpiece or James Cameron’s exceptional sequel, but news of Ridley Scott returning to helm a prequel proves that hope does indeed spring eternal.
I’m certain there’s plenty of time for plenty of bad ideas to arise and ruin what could otherwise have been an excellent movie, but right now I couldn’t care less. Ridley Scott’s vision defined the Alien franchise, and it will always be the one to beat. The derelict spacecraft the Nostromo receives the distress call from is a stunning achievement in art design and set production, and any opportunity for Scott’s camera to return to those strange caverns is fine by me. Plus we can hopefully finally get some answers to the most important question about Alien that’s ever been asked:
Let’s get one thing clear straight off the bat: This post is written under the impression you’ve made your way through at least the bulk of Mad Men‘s second season, so MAD MEN SPOILER MINES AHEAD, y’all!
That said, as I near the home stretch of getting caught up on Mad Men season two, I’ve been realizing just how much the characters have evolved and evolved into even more complicated and multi-layered over the course of this season. I’ve also realized that season two is some of the most emotionally wrenching television I’ve even seen. Whether it’s watching the Draper household slowly crumble under the earthquake of marital dissatisfaction or witnessing The World’s Second Greatest Joan (Ms. Holloway, for the uninitiated) find the prospects of advancing her career through Sterling Cooper’s Television Department more appealing than simply playing doting housewife to a doctor, Mad Men‘s second season has been as perfectly depressing at times as it is perfect.
That said, one of the genuine bright spots this season has been Elisabeth Moss’s Peggy Jones. Sure, there’s plenty of the 😦 as she feels the loss of having given up her son at the end of the first season, but her earnestness and genuine desire to do good by other people is nothing if not utterly heart-warming. Added to that, she’s grown from the Donald Draper’s meek secretary to a woman of surprising, if sometimes occasional, confidence. She’s really quite fantastic.
And then, of course, there’s this:
Kurt, Peggy’s Eurogay coworker, is so excited. I’m so excited. Peggy, apparently, is so scared. Of course, she needn’t be. The moment in which Peggy–hair literally (and indubitably metaphorically) let-down and fabulously flipped–waltzes into Sterling Cooper with her fresh, homo-friend approved ‘do cut sent tingles down my spine. TINGLES. It’s one of those moments in which we’re reminded of a universal truth: Gay man and straight women are the peanut-butter-and-jelly-esque backbone of society. We always promise deliciousness.
Anyways, I still have two episodes to go, yet based on a certain promo photo that’s cropped up on the internet earlier this week, it’s safe to say Peggy will continue to bring the deliciousness this upcoming season:
It’s pretty safe to say that the children of the 80s can all agree about Ghostbusters:
You really can’t improve upon it. You can, however, reimagine it as a comedy from the 1950s, which is precisely what this totally brilliant video does. It combines the pleasures of Classic Hollywood filmmaking with 80s nostalgia, so it pretty much gets all my <3. Trust me, you need to watch it now:
My only complaint is that this is not an actual trailer for an actual movie because I would watch that movie ad nauseam. Still, I’ll suffer that small slight for the undescribably joy of seeing Gozer and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, circa ’54. It doesn’t get any better than that. At least until we get a a fake trailer for Showgirls of ’33, in which a young Joan Crawford battles with Marlene Dietrich and Barbara Stawyck for stage success and showgirl supremacy. Make it happen, internet!
If years of watching trash television and camp sensibility have taught me one thing about catfights, it’s this:
Really, nothing makes my heart go pitter patter as I’m thrust into a giggle fit quite like the sight of two women engaged in a ladylike bought of Mortal Kombat. Whether it involves fistfuls of hair or a mannequin arm beating, your day is guaranteed to never be less than 110% classy when a catfight is involved. Everything, save for Mad Men (which is perfect, duh), can be improved by a catfight. So how do you improve on perfection? Two words: The Gays.
Fortunately, we have the following video, which I’ve been unable to stop watching since I came across it yesterday. It’s two gay men screaming, slapping, and threatening each other with a flip-flop. They’re fighting about…something, but it’s never explained, and that only adds to the more-compelling-than-a-train-wreck nature of this video. Oh, and did I mention it’s all in Spanish? I’m basically trying to tell you that it’s the apex of batshit craziness en Español, and you absolutely need to see this mess for yourself:
Logic dictates that, for a product to exist, there must be a demand. It’s for this reason that products like the Wearable Towel or the Comfort Wipe; they may be incredibly stupid and theoretically useless, but you know that someone somewhere actually saw these products as the solution to a problem. Necessity is, after all, the mother of invention.
That said, I’m quite aware this Taylor Lautner New Moon action figure clearly has a theoretical demand. It comes from people called Twihards, and they will consume anything and everything related to Stephenie Meyer’s ridicu-succesful Twilight franchise. I may not be part of that fan base, and I imagine my only enjoyment (if any, really) of the franchise would be ironic, but I’m not going to trash the fans of Twilight because we’re all allowed our own opinions and taste. No matter how ridiculous they are.
In spite of all of this, Twihards, you really need to calm it because we now have a thing that should not exist:
What do you when life’s gettin’ you down? I find that the Beach Boys say it best: “Your doctor knows it keeps you calm/Your preacher adds it to his psalms/So add some music to your day.”
And in that lyrical spirit, today I will continue to bring you my musical musings. Now, I am no Brooklyn hipster to be sure, so perhaps I am not the greatest authority. I’m sorry, but I find ironic t-shirts and plaid short-sleeve button-downs to be passé, and am positively mystified by the concept of skinny-jeans that require one to be a eunuch to squeeze into. Plus, my sense of self-worth is based on actual accomplishments rather than merely being the first to know of the latest Hot Hot Heat knock-off worming its way through the city’s musical underground. Finally, I am too musically omnivorous for the pretentious myopism of the Brooklyn elite. Sure, I have a respectable vinyl collection, consider the The National to be my favorite band, and knew Vampire Weekend when they were still playing parties at Columbia. However, my playlist is populated not only with Indie darlings like Band of Horses and Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos, but with a broad swath of the musical world ranging from Aretha and Whitney to Travis up through Springsteen and Buckley. Plus I haven’t renounced Death Cab or Wilco for becoming too “Mainstream” and love Coldplay even though, as Ben says, they’re the rock band for soccer moms. However, I think my largely uncritical, simple love of music gives me a refreshing perspective. Consequently, it will be my goal today, and in future posts of the same vein, to draw our lovely readers’ attention toward music, new and old, with which no person should be unacquainted (either as a recommendation…or a warning). So without further ado, let us dive into today’s topic: The Morning Mix.
The Mad Men cartoons by Nobody’s Sweetheart‘s Dyna Moe are inspired stuff by any account, but they’re Mad Men crack if you’re a fan of the show. Given that I could stare at it all day, “Joan and the Xerox” is my desktop wallpaper at work, which means I get to stare at it all day. Mmm….Joan.
Anyways, the geniuses behind Mad Men‘s marketing have properly outdone themselves (I bet they work for Sterling Cooper), and created the greatest time waster I could have ever wished for: The Mad Men Avatar Generator, MadMenYourself.com. And yes, that faint popping noise you just heard was the sound of my head bursting like a ripe cantaloupe on account of a severe enthusiasm overdose.
Seriously, though, I can now live the live I’ve always wanted, aka, in Mad Men, and I get to be a fabulously kitschy Dyna Moe cartoon to be fabulous icing on my dream-life cake! For example, look at how happy Don Draper is to see me when I arrive for another day at Sterling Cooper:
Me: Why hello, Don. You’re looking fetching in your suit. As usual.
Cartoon Don Draper: Why thank you. It may not be work appropriate over here at Sterling Cooper, but you look quite dapper in that cardigan. And I should know, because my last name’s Draper. Get it? It’s a pun. Ha. Would you like to go for drinks during lunch?
I’m not even joking, y’all. If you haven’t already seen the instant camp/cult classic that is Orphan yet, you know what you have to do:
Seriously, this completely insane movie still should be reason enough for you to suddenly feign illness and catch the earliest possible showing. This is a movie that uses a black-lit aquarium as a plot device! And when you see what said black-lit aquarium reveals, the absolute batshit insanity of it all will make your head explode. Twice. And that’s just tip of the crazy iceberg.
It has been ages and ages since we’ve seen anything so unrepentant in its ridiculousness. Orphan has a go-for-broke, let-us-shock-the-shit-out-of-you zeal that is truly inspired. It’s so ridiculous that it needs to come with protective glasses that keep your eyeballs from rolling out of your skull. It’s incredibly well made, genuinely creepy, and–to be completely frank–in the worst possible taste imaginable. And it’s so over-the-top in its bad taste that you can’t really fault it for arguably being total garbage. I’d like to be more articulate, but I’m honestly still trying to digest it. Having your head explode 37 separate times during a movie tends to do that to you. That, and you really can’t discuss Orphan‘s sublime pleasures without spoiling the living hell out of it.
Still, allow me to tantalize you with the following decontextualized phrases:
Despite the general bitchiness with which I express myself on this blog, I am actually a pretty nice person. I hold doors open and give up my seat on the subway to old ladies. I’m good people. Consequently, I don’t normally find the suffering of another human being enjoyable. But there are exceptions. For example, when a person has committed High Crimes and Misdemeanors against all of mankind, I find a certain sense of joy in the miserable existence he reaps as a consequence. But who is this person, you may ask? This person against whom I direct such righteous fury? The answer, dear readers, is Jake Lloyd.
When cinema critics look back on the abomination that was The Phantom Menance, they have no shortage of targets. The fact that Lucas went batshit crazy for CGI effects at the expense of actual dialog. The fact that the mystical nature of the Force which had intrigued science fiction afficionados for decades was reduced to something as lame as midichlorians. That every CGI alien from the Nemoidians to Watto was some sort of racial stereotype. And of course, in that vein, the introduction of the worst most offensive character in the history of Science Fiction: Jar Jar Binks. And then, there is Jake Lloyd.
Jake Lloyd, or as I like to call him “Mannequin Skywalker” for the unnatural, plastic manner in which he “acted.” Now, I know some people would jump to his defense, saying he was only ten years old. No dice. Talent is not defined by age. Anna Paquin won an academy award at 12. Dakota Fanning had more presence at eight years old than most actresses muster in their prime. The simple truth is, Lloyd’s pathetic articulations and awkward manner meant he couldn’t even play a kid naturally. You have to really suck to be a ten year old boy who fails at playing a ten year old boy believably. He deserved every savage review he received at the time. And now, ten years later, one might wonder how he’s doing. Well, wonder no more, and marvel at his recent interview at Australia ComicCon.
To quote the great Jane Lynch: “Your resentment is delicious.” (more…)
File this blathering under Benjamin at his timeliestness, but let’s talk about the video for “Show Me What I’m Looking For”:
Obviously fake guitar playing that services nothing whatsoever? Check. Scruffy rocker in desperate need of a haircut definitely and bath quite possibly? Check and double check. Unnecessary aerial shots meant to convey the “drama” of the song? Checkity check check check. Congratulations! You’ve graduated from the Academy of Embarassingly Cliched Music Videos. With honors!
I’m not trying to rag on Carolina Liar or anything, in part because I have that song on my iPod because I enjoy the sound of melodrama, and also because ragging on Carolina Liar is Shmathan’s job, but why is this sort of uninspired garbage being passed off as a music video?
I’m not saying every video needs to be a “Strawberry Swing” to rank, but “Show Me What I’m Looking For” is at least overblown enough as a song to demand something less meh. I’m disappointed in you, band capable of making me want to see movies starring Alexis Bledel. Your music video most certainly did not show me what I’m looking for, aka, utter ridiculousness.
If you’re going to milk melodramatic cliches, you gotta know what works. Next time, let your video tell the story a middle-aged woman whose glamorous youth has long faded. And be sure perform in a windy rain storm. In slow motion, natch. And also be sure to actually include the choir, damnit!
Oh, and one more thing: No more aerial shots. They remind people of Creed, and that is never acceptable.
Are you not the most excited of excited over the imminent return of Mad Men to television? I know I am. Seriously, I’m at DEFCON: Riciculous whenever I think about season three, and I’ve yet to get fully caught up on season two, but that doesn’t mean I already think it’s the best season of television of all time! Where else do you get Colin Hanks as a priest, the beautiful January Jones giving brilliantly nuanced sadface as Betty Draper, or Bryan Batt’s tragicomic genius as the closeted Salvatore Romano? NOWHERE.
Everything about every episode is truly perfection, which is why the promise of Mad Men‘s third season makes me wet. Literally:
What does this poster mean? Did someone set off the sprinklers in Sterling Cooper? Is this actually a visual metaphor for the murky emotional waters that Don Draper inhabits? Why am I even asking an irrelevant question? It’s Mad Men, and that’s all that matters. The third season could be inexplicably set in Atlantis for all that matters, but so long as we still have the dreamboat deliciousness that is Jon Hamm and the world’s second great Joan (Holloway will always be second to Crawford, but she’s still the tits, pun intended), I’m fully on board.
So on board, in fact, that today I blog promise to write on every episode of this season, which we can all recognize is the one thing this blog was missing. Well, that, and an appreciation for fish tacos (the vaginal metaphor, not the tasty Mexican meal, duh), but I’ve no plans to go pull Lohan, so you’ll have to survive on Mad Men adoration and my love for the fabulousness that is Christina Hendricks:
You may remember that back in April, Ben turned into a screaming queen over the trailer for Post Grad. One of the devious mechanisms by which this insidious preview wormed its way into our favorite cinephile’s consciousness (besides the utter deliciousness of Zach Gilford) was the overpowering pop hook of its theme. There was some initial confusion over the title and artist of the song. I asserted that it was “Show Me What I’m Looking For” by Carolina Liar. Shmarker doubted my musical powers, and labeled it a Keane song. I was right (hah!), but Shmarker was entirely justified in thinking it originated with Keane. After all, it shamelessly aped Keane’s piano-heavy ballads and Chad Wolf seems to be painfully straining to imitate Tom Chaplin’s distinctive warble. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Tom must be downright charmed.
Now, the song has been popping up a lot lately. From its humble beginnings as the backing theme to the Post Grad trailer, the song has appeared on everything from car commercials to new TV spots for The Time Traveler’s Wife, even promotions for Major League Baseball. This certainly proves yet again that any band seeking a modicum of notoriety need only produce an un-offensive pop ballad with a catchy chorus, a 3 chord progression, and a suitably emotional tone. (more…)
Had you asked me before today if I would be seeing New Moon in theaters, let alone at all, I would’ve probably beaten you with a wire hanger for asking such a stupid question. That, of course, was before I saw this bootleg clip from Comic Con, which pretty much makes the case for me having to see this movie opening night:
Holy ballz, y’allz. I get that watching a YouTube clip of a camcorder recording of a movie is never the optimal way to watch a movie and judge its quality; however, I’m rather certain that doesn’t mean this movie will be any closer to a masterpiece as opposed to the totally ridiculous looking movie that it looks to be. Is that stopping me from battling herds of zealous fangirls to plunk down $12.50 on opening night? Of course not.
Whereas I look and see soft-core porn quality acting with sub-soft-core porn level excuses to get Taylor Lautner (who, in spite of the fact that his abs are insanse, is still very much 17) to take off his shirt, these girls are so deeply invested in this material that they carry on running commentaries/shriek-a-thons throughout the clip. Is it werewolf tribal medicine that says shirts cure bleeding? Or maybe washboard abs encourage proper clotting? This certainly makes no sense to the uninitiated (aka, me), but that doesn’t stop these fans from Twigasming at the top of their lungs, and that’s a good thing! Ever the fan of bearing witness to major moments in pop culture, I now feel it necessary to see New Moon opening night, and those squees of uncontrollable excitement are interactive-audience icing on the zeitgeist cake.
As the one girl says: THIS IS GONNA BE AWESOME!!!
PS: I’m pretty certain that said girl’s screams, particularly when they get so shrill as to sounding like a kazoo, have made me fall in love with her. She’s my imaginary interweb fag hag, y’all.
UPDATE 8/19/09: The high quality clip of this strange cultural moment has been removed due to (what else) copyright infringement. I’m pretty sure that this video is less about what we’re seeing and far more sociologically valuable as a document of the cultural movement that is the Twihards. Fortunately for us, they will not be stopped, and we have a lower quality copy to preserve this moment.
It’s Friday. Barely anybody’s in the office at work on account of summer Friday, and the phones are hardly ringing for the very same reason. Added to that, I’ve already gorged on McDonald’s for breakfast, and I plan on devouring a Cosi tuna melt for lunch. Oh, and the highly anticipated (by me) ridicufest that is Orphan is out today. You would think that, what with this perfect storm of things that make me happy, I could put my bitchery stew on the back burner for a day. Hahahaha, NEVER. The bitchery stew never stops cooking, y’all. Somedays it’s just spicier than others.
That all said, I must admit that my initial fury of the Nightmare on Elm Street remake has lessened as I’ve come to accept three things: This remake is going to happen no matter how much I detest its existence, Jackie Earle Haley is pretty much the best person to play Freddy Kruger, and I’m going to end up seeing this movie no matter how bad the reviews are. I simply can’t be bothered to learn from my mistakes.
And at long last, the first image of Haley’s Freddy Kruger has finally wandered its way onto the internet, but you know what? Meh:
I really want to be enthusiastic about because this movie doesn’t have to suck. Hell, done right, it’s entirely possible it could be good! But this doesn’t really look good. Don’t get me wrong, Jackie Earle Haley will probably be a great Freddy Krueger, but I personally feel that the iconic look of the striped sweater and fedora belong to Robert Englund. As far as I’m concerned, if you’re going to replace him, you need to reinvent the look as well.
I’m not saying Hollywood needs to abandon the whole look and start from scratch, but this feels entirely too safe. It doesn’t look like Jackie Earle Haley is creating a new Freddy Krueger; it just looks like he’s dressing up for Halloween in an outfit he borrowed from Robert Englund. I get that hoping for a little artistic originality from a remake, let alone a remake produced by Michael Bay, is a foolish hope; nevertheless, I was at least expecting something a little more imaginative and a little less like a shoddy bootleg of the original. Something, in short, like this:
Faithful readers and fresh-off-the-blog-boaters, I must be honest: I’ve got a problem. No, it’s not a love for the Sauce, nor is it for anything that could snorted (thank goodness) or shot into my veins (absolutely not). No no, I’ve got a different sort of problem, and that problem’s name is Cookies.
Really, if you put any form, no matter the shape, consistency, texture, or list of ingredients in front of me, I will snatch that shit away from you quicker than you can blink. The only answer I know to the question “Would you like a cookie?” is “I’ll take three.” The only response I have to “I’m sorry, sir, but we’re out” is “BAKE MORE, WHORES!!!”
When I’m not eating cookies, I’m thinking about eating cookies. Seriously, I can’t even blog sometimes because all I’d would write would be this:
Even I don’t even find that compelling, and I’m the one thinking about pecan sandies at this very moment.
And even when I am eating cookies, I’m thinking about eating other types of cookies, which I guess is sorta like imagining having sex with someone other than the person you’re having sex with, except I’m thinking about Double Stuf Oreos instead of Ryan Gosling. It’s a problem, y’all.
Now I know you probably think I’m totally making this up and that Cookie Addiction, like modern art and women’s rights, is just some bogus joke perpetrated by the bourgeois liberal elite. Trust me, y’all, it’s a real problem, and it will destroy your family. Just look at how it can ravage the mind:
Yes, I own a Blu-Ray player and yes, that makes me better than those of you who don’t. With that out of the way, I’ll begin my nerdapalooza for the day. Today, I decided to finally order some DVDs I’ve been coveting. The first thing in my in-box was the Battlestar Galactica Complete Series on Blu-Ray. I got into this show last summer, when the library finally had the first disc of the miniseries available. I had always heard only good things about this show, and while I love comic books and superheroes, the rest of the sci-fi genre was never really my forte. However, I was curious. Plus, Lee Adama always looked kinda hot to me:
Let me lay the scene. It’s 3 AM. I am minding my own business, riding the 2 Train home to rest my weary head. I am not in the best of moods, having spent the last 18 hours trying to cram my head full of New York Civil Procedure for the bar exam (which is now 5 days away!). I had to wait 45 minutes for an afterhours train and the dipshit next to me has spilled their drink all over me. But all of this is accepted calmly and with poise. What came next, however, was the last straw.
It was one thing to see the pictures that had hit the internet a few weeks back. They were great, no doubt, but seeing actual footage–even a minute-and-a-half of it–is an entirely different beast of pure, visual ferociousness. Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter is even more fabulously deranged than those first images would have let on, Tweedledee and Tweedledum look like they crawled straight out of an Edward Gorey illustration, Anne Hathaway looks absolutely fabulous as the White Queen, and Wonderland itself looks like some sort of fantastical, demented acid trip.
Really, I could try and muster up some sour grapes to make a quick cup of bitch wine, but this trailer just had me to giddy to even make the effort. Really, this is about all I can muster:
Me: Wait until March?!? YEARGH!!! That makes me want to poop on your face, Disney!
See? I told you that I’ve got nothing. NOTHING! Now, if you’ll excuse you, I’ve got a face to fix.
UPDATE (7/22): Aaaand of course it’s gone as soon it appeared. The interwebs giveth, and Disney taketh away. Now I really do want to poop on their face!
DOUBLE UPDATE (7/24): A higher quality, though non-embeddable, copy of the trailer’s found its way back to YouTube and can be watched here. Looks like the Disney-lawyer-face-poop crisis has been temporarily averted.
The less said about the just-released music video for Coldplay’s über-gorgeous Viva la Vida single “Strawberry Swing” the better, save for the fact that it’s the rare musical video that’s as beautiful as the song that it accompanies. That, and the fact that it proves my age-old suspicion that squirrels, like clowns, are inherently evil. Trust me on that one.
So just click the picture and prepare to be transported to a magical world of psychedelic chalk animation and the most fabulously colorful super-hero costume I’ve ever seen. Really, if I were a Watchman, I’m pretty sure my homemade costume would look just like that.
We can discuss the video more after you watch it, so really, y’all, click that picture! CLICK IT NOW:
Ah, totally worth it, right? Absolutely a winner of a music video, and that squirrel is evil! PURE FRICKIN’ EVIL! But, zoinksapalooza, I don’t know how to discuss it!
It’s so good that I’m entirely at a loss for anything clever or witty to say. I can’t help myself; the song is already my zen anthem, and those colors are like gay man’s catnip to me! Trust me, it’s terrible. One minute I’m bitch-bitch-bitchin’ away, and then all of a sudden all the whimsical deliciousness has me makin’ a damn fool of myself at my desk. Just like all these cats:
Traditionally, teaser posters that come out nearly an entire year before their film’s release try to do what their name would imply, which is, you know, TEASE. For example, that fabulous teaser poster for Cloverfield:
They don’t even give you a title, that’s how much they want to intrigue you with the delicious mysteriousness of it all. And you know what? As teaser posters go, that one teased me all the way into the movie theater! Great job, J.J. Abrams and company. Your posters never fail to work me into a frothing nerd frenzy. I suppose it’s just my cross to bear.
Anyways, there’s a teaser poster now on the internet for next May’s Prince of Persia:The Sands of Time. I know, I know, it’s TEN WHOLE MONTHS ’til it comes out, but I had to share it because it’s already tantalizing me with the prospect of avoiding the hell out of it:
Nobody Puts Baby in a Horner 