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Monday , March 1, 2010

All-Time Top 5 Reasons Why The Ewoks Totally Outcool The Na'Vi

So the other night I saw that movie Avatar, which cost me $18.50 plus three life hours that I can't ever get back no matter how hard I try. Then yesterday I called Wapner and was all, "Dude, Avatar, WTFuck?" and he kind of concurred but then made the point that James Cameron did a good job of creating a culture, which isn't easy to do. But I don't think that's true! I think James Cameron just kind of ripped the Na'Vi off from the Ewoks, an infinitesimally cooler alien species who also live in trees and use archery to battle scary machines. To that end, here's five very key reasons why EWOKS BEAT NA'VI, forever and ever.

I. THEIR LANGUAGE IS WAY NEATER. As far as I can tell, most of the Ewok language is made up on monosyllabic words ending in "ub," which is probably the best way any monosyllabic word could ever end. There's "chub," "scrub," "dub," "flub," "hub"..."cub"! "Cub" is the most adorable word in all the world, maybe. "Pub" and "rub" are chill, too, I guess, although "nub" makes me uncomfortable. And the other day I came across this quote from P.D. James, reading: "We who write in English are fortunate to have the richest and most versatile language in the world. Respect it." Can not the same be said of those who write in the Ewokian language?

II. THEY'RE SASSY! When you fuck with the Na'Vi, they hiss like bitchy cats and then whine a lot about trees. Ewoks, on the other hand, will cook you up over a campfire and then play drums on your decapitated head! When I was five, I wanted so badly to fall off my speeder bike and then wake up lost in the woods of Endor, only to get adopted into a tribe of sassy little teddy-bear-looking chubsters who would make me their queen and all of a sudden I'd have cool warrior-princess clothes and complicated braids. I still wish this, sometimes.

III. THEY BASICALLY INVENTED ANIMAL COLLECTIVE. You know how everyone/AllMusic.com thinks Animal Collective are so influenced by Vashti Bunyan and Syd Barrett and the Boredoms and the Beach Boys? I'd argue that their number-one influence is actually the Ewoks' victory song from the final scene of Return of the Jedi. It's such a hot jam; I listened like 27 times yesterday and maybe I'll play it 27 more times today."The Purple Bottle" just pales in comparison.

IV. SAM WORTHINGTON IS CRAZY-HOT. That doesn't really have anything to do with anything, but it's the only element of Avatar I found even remotely life-enriching, so it seemed worth mentioning here.

V. EWOKS ARE WAAAAAY BETTER DANCERS. As Stephanie Zacharek observed in her totally right-on Salon.com review of Avatar, the Na'Vi's ritual dance "looks an awful lot like a Beverly Hills yoga class." But the Ewoks know how to get down. Look at Billy Dee Williams trying to keep up with them, in that clip up there. Dude so can't compete.

Tags: Animal Collective, Avatar, Billie Dee Williams, dancing, Ewoks, language, Nerd Barker, Return of the Jedi, Sam Worthington, Star Wars, Syd Barrett, the Beach Boys, the Boredoms, Vashti Bunyan, warrior princesses, yoga

Tuesday , February 16, 2010

All-Time Top 5: Reasons Why ART HISTORY is the Greatest Store in the Entire History of the Universe

Art History is located at 1080 Queen Street West in Toronto, and is open on Thursday & Friday from 12-7, Saturday from 11-6, and Sunday from 1-5. GO THERE NOW!!!

I. IT'S NIKI'S STORE:

Niki is a legendarily great pal/Paul of mine. Niki is an all around aces human being, and obviously it is our duty as humans to support every endeavor that humans as aces as Niki take on. Here is some severe proof of Niki's intense awesomeness: once, when Niki was sixteen, she made the joke "Sometimes, I get my age mixed up with the amount of kilograms of dog food I buy," which is an incredibly sophisticated and neo-Early Beatles Clever joke for a sixteen-year-old to make. So, if a person is so awesome that they can be making such brilliant jokes at SIXTEEN, can you even begin to imagine how awesome the STORE such a person opened up at TWENTY-FIVE could possibly be?

Maybe yes, maybe no. You don't have to imagine it. Because you're going to go to Art History now.

LEFT: Niki and I playing with a globe, remaining fragments of our respective innocences in check; THE FAKE DONALD DUCK HEADS

II. IT IS UNIQUE UNTO ITSELF:

Have you ever visited a store that sells fake Donald Duck head candle-holders, a statue of a cat, gorgeous vintage furniture, Valentine's Day cards that you can give to your cat, probably some other things that are cats, AND cat salt-and-pepper shakers?

Obviously not, but that's all going to change. Because you're going to go to Art History now.

+ Continue reading "All-Time Top 5: Reasons Why ART HISTORY is the Greatest Store in the Entire History of the Universe"

Tags: Art History, awesomeness, city guides, city livin', Donald Duck, Laura, Niki, shopping, Starbucks, Toronto

Wednesday , December 16, 2009

All-Time Top 5: Best Music Videos of 2009

I may not keep up entirely with new music all the time (gee, two skinny white guys skronking hard on guitars, GOD THAT'S NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE.) But I do like to keep up with music videos; I actually think with the rise of YouTube and whatnot, they've become more and more inventive and just fun to watch. I don't know why I thought 2009 was a particularly good year for vids; maybe it is and maybe it isn't, but personally I found myself seeking them out much more. I'm kind of like a vid slut in that I like a bit of everything: fantastical animation, noirish violence, surrealism and good old-fashioned bananas. So I think there's something for everyone in this list, and well, if you hate it, you only suffer 3-4 minutes.

El Perro Del Mar, "Change of Heart"

I already big-upped El Perro and this song in my Swedish Indie Pop Chanteuses entry, but I never mentioned the video. This was amiss, because the clip is kind of amazing. I have a special interest in what cinematic types like to call a "long take," which is a sustained shot with no breaks in editing. There's all kinds of theories why we dig long takes: allows for a freer relationship between viewer and image, more naturalistic performances, blah blah blah. What it does here in particular is give you a sustained look at the goings-on of some mind-boggling Cirque du Soleil-type acrobatics, performed by a pair of rivetingly orange gymnasts. It's not about the physical heroic, though, as it is strangely meditative and relaxing to watch these very muscled-dudes, so focused and dedicated they are to their task. This video is like Zen on crack, or on LSD at the very least. I have no idea how the song and the image are related, but for once my buzzing cineaste mind does not care.

El Perro Del Mar "Change Of Heart" from The Control Group on Vimeo.

Lady Gaga, "Paparazzi"

Everyone seemed to be about "Bad Romance" in the last stretch of 2009, and while I dig on that video's Matthew-Barney-gone-I-don't-know-what schtick, "Paparazzi" is more my speed, keeping me on the edge of my OMG/WTF seat. There's the twisted new-flavor-of-psycho-boyfriend narrative, the fantastic crutch-dancing, the menage-a-quatre with Swedish heavy-metal triplets (TRIPLETS), dead models, and more visual references than you could clock in a Steven Meisel shoot. And if all that fails -- come on, there's the hotness of Eric from "True Blood" to entice you. "Paparazzi" is like if a Motley Crue video got hit on the head, woke up and thought it was RuPaul starring in a Versace video. That last sentence definitely "tried too hard," but then again, so does this video. If Lady Gaga's all about the triumph of the trying-too-hard, then this video is where she definitely tried the hardest.

Grizzly Bear, "Ready, Able"

Childlike stop-motion Claymation full of color, nature, and surrealism, all matched up by an equally beautiful song that sounds both ethereal and down-to-earth at once. It's one of those instances where beauty speaks for itself, really.

Depeche Mode, "Wrong"

Let the darkness begin! The conceit of a man speeding the wrong way towards a bad end is completely and relentlessly focused in execution here, only temporarily distracted by a fleeting de-rigueur promo shot of the band. But even that is so seamlessly woven into the film's narrative and visual economy that it makes perfect sense as the hinge moment when the dude realizes what the hell is going on and flips his shit. (I mean, even I know that seeing Depeche Mode upon waking is a bad omen when you've been beaten and trapped inside a backwards-moving death machine.) This is one of the few videos on the list that makes me think that it could be out of a feature film; I'd rather see these three-and-a-half minutes than any recent Michael Mann movie. It's pretty brilliantly directed, with the camera in exactly the right spot to give you all the info you need to be in its protagonist's head and become drawn into his dilemma. "Wrong" was directed by the awesome Patrick Daughters, who's kind of like the Hype Williams of indie rock videos, and who you can read a bit more about here. (Filmmaker-y peeps will enjoy a peek at the storyboards here.) I'm kind of trying to figure out what the indie rock vid equivalent of the "Bonzi Boat" shot is, but I'm at a loss. Why Patrick Daughters hasn't made a feature yet is beyond me. Patrick, get in touch! I'll write you a script, dude!

Depeche Mode - Wrong from Depeche Mode on Vimeo.

Fever Ray, "If I Had A Heart"

The visionary aspect of the overall Fever Ray "project" for 2009 was amazing in its totality, so much so that it was almost Madonna-like in scale and quality of execution. It was all so subtly done that it would be hard-pressed to name the Fever Ray "brand" with a stupid catchphrase, but between the songs, videos and performance, the Fever Ray worldview was like a fever dream itself, where strange disparate elements were united in an emotional complexity that was rare, sophisticated yet accessible -- in the way that everyone knows what it's like to wake up from a very weird dream. (If comedies are extremely culturally-specific, then the cinematic modes closest to the universal may be either horror or action, because every human being knows fear and adrenaline -- whereas no self-respecting European I'm acquainted with understands why the fuck Judd Apatow films are so funny. They're always asking me, "Kat, vie is zis so fahnny to you Ah-mair-ee-kenz?") The elements of the Fever Ray world -- tribalism, age, the realities of women, everyday intimacy and isolation, nightfall and even some kind of muted political threat -- came together in a set of videos that were as beautiful, mystical and uncanny as any David Lynch film. I could put all of them down, but instead will give it up to the first video of the set. The marriage of the dark visual beauty and the elliptical narrative matched the sidelong uneasy intensity that Fever Ray's music created with listeners, and it was a perfect statement of intent for one of the most compelling records of the year.

Tags: cinema, Depeche Mode, El Perro del Mar, Fever Ray, Grizzly Bear, gymnasts, Judd Apatow's comedy does not translate internationally, Karin Dreijer Anderssen, Lady Gaga, Patrick Daughters, storyboards, videos

Monday , November 23, 2009

All-Time Top 5: Goth Makeout Songs

Who says Goths don't have feelings? Goths have TOO MANY FEELINGS, and it just rips us up from the inside! Which is why Goth love songs are the most outrageously expressive, dramatic, theatrical ones ever, where the edges of sex, pain and death blur beautifully into a sometimes maudlin mess. Oh, the darkness! Oh, the humanity! How painful each palpitation of my heart! Kill me with love! Such extremity of emotion make Goth love songs some of the best makeout soundtrack fodder; in fact, people have been known to go Goth because of their erotic experiences set to such music, if only to recapture that fleeting yet intense evanescence of sensation and emotion and Gothiness. It's like only through the combination of body and music do they understand what this music is all about. They see the light -- or the darkness, as it may be. Do you see the darkness inside? Do you wanna rip your heart out, Goth-style?

Siouxsie and the Banshees, "The Last Beat of My Heart"

I'm putting the video up instead of just a mp3 because everyone needs to take a gander at Siouxsie's impeccable eye makeup. What I love about this song is how tender Siouxsie's voice sounds, especially on an album as surreal and dark as Peepshow. This is one of the prettiest songs in the whole Sioux oeuvre, and a good song with which to make moon-y huge "I like you" eyes at someone from across a room. If those eyes were framed with as epic fake lashes as Siouxsie's sporting here, well, let's just say your tender prey will be totally conquerable.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, "The Ship Song"

I really don't need to explain how this song is romantic or anything -- it wears its heart on its undertaker-black sleeve. This song is proof that when Goths go goopy with love, they go seriously goopy. Cave had just scared the shit out of everyone with Tender Prey, so he threw everyone for a loop when he met some hot Brazilian chick, fell in love and made The Good Son, which is the record that "The Ship Song" is from. The whole thing is unabashedly swoony, romantic and epic, and highly underrated in the Cave oeuvre, if I may opine. (It's my blog -- I can opine if I want to!) By the way: I want either this or Nick Cave's "Into My Arms" as my wedding song. If any of my friends take those songs for their nuptials, there's going to be hell to pay in the form of a heat-seeking missile coming at your wedding cake.

The Cure, "The Same Deep Water As You"

Off the Cure's classic Disintegration, this song makes dying a cold, watery death and professing your love right before you shuffle off the mortal coil sound like the most romantic thing you could possibly do in the whole world to demonstrate your devotion to someone. On a purely technical note, "The Same Deep Water" is a nearly perfect Goth makeout song, if only for its epic 9-minute-and-some length -- which should give you plenty of time to get to wherever you want to go, makeout-speaking. I mean, doesn't it suck when you're in the thick of it and your iPod's on shuffle and that awesome song ends and then it goes into something like the Shins? Lesson number one for a successful makeout session: don't trust the shuffle. Lesson number two: don't download the Shins. Not that I don't like the Shins, but if a dude tried making out with me to a Shins song, I'd be going, "Awww, HELLZ NO!"

Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, "Heaven (Alternate Take)"

The majority of this list is pretty standard-issue Goth, but this song is kind of an 80s obscurity/rarity that will score you major points in the game of Goth. (No Goth, though, would admit to playing such a game.) I actually remember hearing a snatch of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry when I was 10 and used to pedal down on my bike to the local Lazers dance club and watch the people go in and out of the club during "Waver Night." At that youthful time, "Waver Night" was the ne plus ultra of what it meant to be a cool human being to me, and I dreamed of the day I could wear all black and have a haircut that would weaken the sight of my left eye because it was covered all the time by my bangs. It took me years to find out what this band was, but let me tell you, it was like my life was momentarily complete when I did. Detour in the vaults of Kat's subcultural memory aside, making out to this song will convince you that the receiver of your affections could be the love of your life. You must guard against this dark power, but if you can successfully balance the edge of this peril, I'd definitely add it to your Goth makeout repertoire.

Bauhaus, "All We Ever Wanted Was Everything"

It's just not Goth without Bauhaus, you know! I kind of wanted to put "She's In Parties" because that's a sexier song, but I guess I'm feeling a bit more on the tender, sweetheart side of things. I think this is the closest a Goth band will ever get to a "waking up in the morning and having some brekkie together" song, the kind of song that you used to hear more in the 70s. Goths and domestic bliss don't usually work well together, but there you go. Maybe one can consider this the afterglow song? An afterglow, of course, as pale as the sliver of the crescent moon. This is Goth we are talking about, of course.

AND JUST FOR FUN: Here is a clip of the "South Park" Goth kids. In this episode, Stan breaks up with his girlfriend Wendy and is so depressed he decides to join the Goth kids. My favorite is the kid with the hair flip. GENIUS. GO FORTH AND GOTH!

Tags: Bauhaus, goths, Kat Asharya, making out, Nick Cave, South Park, The Cure

Tuesday , October 27, 2009

All-Time Top 5 (Well, 8 and a Half): Favorite Horror Movies

Ba da da, in time for Samhain, we present to you a list of some of our favorite horror films. Well, MY favorite horror films, 'cause this entry is pretty much a default Kat Attack (and basically half a movie short of a nogoodformeix). Maybe Liz and LJ don't watch horror movies? I don't know! I toyed with the idea of being all conceptual and listing every single awful romantic comedy on earth (because I'm often genuinely horrified by them) and analyzing why they suck and how counterproductive they are for the evolution of human nature. But true to my sense of classicism, I'm going straight genre here. I never understood those people who are like, "Oh, I wasn't scared at all, I saw that coming a mile away" when they see a horror film. Yeah, you do see the baddie or the twist coming a mile away, but that's the fun of it sometimes; you get to be all smartypants but still get freaked out in the best way possible. Horror is one of those genres where sheer craft can win out in creating those visceral chills and thrills -- although a few severed limbs and some serious blood spillage never hurt. My only criteria for this list was either the movie was so well-made that it transcends or forwards the genre in some interesting way -- or it scared the living daylights out of me. What films would you put on your list? (Kat)

RINGU (1998)/THE RING (2002)

The Japanese do horror like no one else, really. While so many western horror films deal with metaphors of suburbia-as-major-suckage, gender/sex anxiety (all those slutty teenagers!) and the dregs of Christianity (the totally excellent The Exorcist), the Japanese have a truly ancient tradition of animism and ghost stories (kaidan) to draw upon, not to mention their own cultural neuroses and an often riveting sense of visual surrealism, all of which mix into that lovely cultural subgenre J-Horror. Restless bloodthirsty spirits, bizarre apparitions, soul inhabitants, chills and thrills more about psychological anticipation and dread over gore and grossness - dude, BRING IT ON. Ringu (and its massively successful American remake, The Ring) is one of those films where, if you think about it too much, the plot kind of falls apart, but no one really cares because it's so richly imagined. The initial hook is one of those urban legends, a videotape full of mid-era Nine Inch Nails video imagery that seems full of bizarre film-school student nonsense (believe me, I should know) but is actually super-creepy. The twist is that a few days later you get a phone call and THEN YOU DIE. Suffice it to say that the film enters into a bizarre whole mythology centered around an implacable wraith named Sadako in the Japanese version. (She goes by Samara in the Americanized remake.) I won't say more about Sadako except she made a great Halloween costume the year the movies came out, and she's indelibly scary. The backstory and mythology of the whole Ringu series is really intense and rich and psychotic, so it's worth checking them all out just to get into it. It took me awhile to get through all of it, though, because the finale of both The Ring and Ringu had me so fucking freaked out afterwards that I couldn't be alone in a room with a television set for a week straight. Kill your television indeed!

IF YOU WATCH THIS YOU WILL DIE IN A WEEK!!! AHHH, I'M SUCH A WIMP I CAN'T WATCH THIS ALONE:

+ Continue reading "All-Time Top 5 (Well, 8 and a Half): Favorite Horror Movies"

Tags: cannibals, Claire Denis, creatures, feminism, Halloween, horror movies, Let the Right One In, vampires, vamps, werewolves, zombies

Sunday , October 18, 2009

All-Time Top 5 Things We Loved About Whip It

1. KRISTEN WIIG IS SO GOOD

One of my favorite parts of Whip It was forgetting entirely that Kristen Wiig is Target Lady on "SNL." Instead, she played warm-hearted, sexy single mom Maggie Mayhem with the aplomb of a character actress; it was a performance entirely free of any Dorothy Hamill bowl cut expectations. Please please please someone give Kristen her own show and make it good! (Kat)

I don't know what Eve is thinking in regards to Kristen Wiig here. Ten points if you write an imaginary caption in the comments!

2. LANDON PIGG IS SO BAD

I'm kind of super-stoked that the "love story" in Whip It was kind of lame and eye-roll-inducing; in the larger context of "studio movies about teenage girls for teenage girls," its lackadaisical treatment was practically subversive. It's like the film refused to deviate from its grrrl-posi, pro-sporty central mission and was like, "Eh, I guess we HAVE to put this in here." So they got a piece of dude candy and made him run around in cool clothes. Fine with me! (Kat)

Dude candy.

3. ANDREW IS SO THE HOTTEST WILSON BROTHER

I've long suspected this (he's Future Man!) but Whip It really drove it home. When we got out of the movie I told my little sister that Coach Razor was my new number-one dream dude and she went "Ewwwwww, what the fresh hell???" and then told me I was gross. But that's OK. She's only 18. Give her 10 years or so and she'll totally get the appeal of a bearded, unwashed, scraggly-haired almost-hesher in stonewashed cutoffs.

P.S. In this sporadically hilar vid about the making of Bottle Rocket, Andrew's bearded, unwashed, and scraggly-haired, which leads me to believe that that's his actual look, which makes me really happy. (Unless it was shot while Whip It was being filmed, but who knows?) Skip to 4:54 for proof that Andrew's about 12 times foxier than Luke, at least.

P.P.S. Juliette Lewis was hot too, and perfect. (Liz)

Dude candy, Liz-stylez.

4. ELLEN PAGE'S COMBAT BOOTS

This is so obvious, but I don't care. It's so awesome to see in celluloid an outfit you probably wore all the time when you were in high school. Self-validation! (Kat)

Ellen's all like, "You know that feeling you get? That vast emptiness within?" And Landon's thinking, "Man, I really want that Stryper t-shirt."

5. THAT MONTAGE SET TO "CAUGHT UP IN YOU" BY .38 SPECIAL

All the rollerderby scenes were mega-goosebump-giving and so geniusly soundtracked, but the "Caught Up In You" montage (in which Bliss gets her skates) squoze* my heart harder than anything else in Whip It. For a couple minutes it's simultaneously 1982 and whatever year it was when you were 17, and now I can't ever stop listening to this song, especially when drinking Diet Coke while walking through some gas station parking lot on a swampy-aired Friday night. Guys, the "little girl" she's "so caught up in" is HERSELF. That's heavy. (Liz)

*"Squoze" is a real word, invented by Steve Martin in L.A. Story.

The arm-wrestling match is probably my favorite part of this video.

Tags: combat boots, dudes, heshers, Kristen Wiig, Southern Rock, The Brothers Wilson, Whip It

Sunday , August 16, 2009

Kat & Liz On: All-Time Top 5 Madonna Moments

This post probably could've been titled "All-Time Top 5 Most Underrated Madonna Moments," since we skirted over a few of our true favorites in the name of celebrating some of the more obscure stuff. Plus we've already talked up the genius of Madonna on "Wayne's World," and of her Marie Antoinette-inspired performance of "Vogue" at the VMAs, and we're sure everybody spends all her time recalling how awesome it was when Madonna played Karen's roommate on "Will & Grace" anyway. Add the part in Desperately Seeking Susan where she climbs out of the pool in boxers and bra and then eats cheese puffs on the chaise lounge, plus all of Truth or Dare, and and that's five right there. So here's another five, in honor of Madonnasky's birthday. Happy 51st, Madonna! We love you the most.

THE DANCETERIA SCENE IN "DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN"

My friends, I'm going to share something SO SEMINAL in the personal development of the avatar known as Kat Asharya: this whole scene made me want to be Madonna, and more importantly, want to live in NYC for the entire length of my earthly existence. To my young self, it epitomized everything I could possibly want out of life: nightclubs, intrigue, black clothes and cool dance moves. Very little has changed. (Kat)

SINGING SINATRA* WITH THE BOY FROM THE CHILI PEPPERS

It's Madonna and Anthony Kiedis doing "The Lady is a Tramp" at the Hollywood Bowl for some Arsenio Hall special in 1993, wearing matching Gaultier dresses, thigh-highs, and adorable hats with kitty-cat ears - which means it was my 15-year-old self's favorite thing ever, and I taped it and watched it 87 million times a day for many months. "Neither of them can sing worth a damn!" remarked my mom, which is true. But the kitty-cat ears! And the joyous buffoonery! And the weird mid-song dig at Sharon Stone! Still makes my heart soar today. (Liz)

*It's actually a Rodgers and Hart showtune. Just so you know.

WHEN SHE WAS MARRIED TO SEAN PENN

It is far from my official policy to celebrate a woman primarily for her marriage, but this is less a celebration than a "DUDE, REMEMBER WHEN MADONNA WAS MARRIED TO SEAN PENN?" kind of moment. Because: dude, they were married! That is kind of the weirdest thing ever! Now that I'm older and a whole enchilada of wiser in the ways of the world, this exquisitely blows my mind. I don't think the full cultural import of such a proto-celebrity marriage has yet to be explored; maybe a really smart sociologist will be able to link the Penn-Ciccone marriage to some sort of change in the divorce rate. Maybe Madonna marrying and divorcing Sean Penn during my formative pre-teen years was enough to inculcate me with a lifelong aversion to romantic commitment. Maybe no guy will ever live up to the paragon of love embodied in Madonna's dedication of True Blue to "the coolest guy in the universe." Maybe Leos should never marry other Leos. It still exerts such mystery over me: do they still keep in touch? Does he miss her? I WANT TO KNOW. (Kat)

ON LETTERMAN IN 1994

This shit was such a scandal when it aired, I actually got away with writing about it for a current events essay in 11th grade Spanish class. Afterwards there was so much talk of MADONNA BACKLASH!!!!! and IS THE MATERIAL GIRL OVER????, all because the squaresville Letterman audience was so put off by Madonnna's saying "fuck" 47 or whatever times during the 20-minute segment. What babies! I mean, sure, she's kind of an asshole, saying boringly mean things about Dave's hair and giving one-word responses to most of his interview questions, but she makes up for it with all the nervous giggling and fidgeting and cracking herself up at her own jokes. And apparently Letterman's people told her to be outrageous, but I guess they weren't expecting that might include her little spiel about the merits of peeing in the shower. People can be so narrow-minded sometimes. (Liz)

ANIMATED MADONNA IN WHO'S THAT GIRL?

I thought Madonna was an especially foxy cartoon, as evidenced here in the opening credits of Who's That Girl? (An entirely underrated good-bad movie, by the way, and yes, I'm totally, absolutely biased.) (Kat)

Tags: Arsenio Hall, birthdays, black clothes, Desperately Seeking Susan, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Madonna, Marie Antoinette, New York, peeing in the shower, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sean Penn, Wayne's World, Will & Grace

Friday , August 7, 2009

All-Time Top 5 Fave Songs Discovered Via John Hughes Movies

Rest in peace, Mr. John Hughes.

I. OINGO BOINGO, "WILD SEX (IN THE WORKING CLASS)," FROM SIXTEEN CANDLES

God, there's so much killer party music in Sixteen Candles! Probably cuz it's a killer party movie, excepting all that mushy stuff with Samantha Baker, who totally misses out on all the partying because she's too busy being a big wet-blanket baby like everybody else Molly Ringwald has ever played. Give me Caroline Mulford with her hair slammed in the door any day of the week and twice on Sunday, please oh please. And if I were in Sixteen Candles, I'd so want to be Jami Gertz drunkenly shouting on the stairs while Patti Smith plays in the background. I already am her, basically.

II. NEW ORDER, "THIEVES LIKE US," FROM PRETTY IN PINK

Speaking of wet-blanket Molly Ringwald, here she is slaving away at what I've already astutely referred to as her "terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad prom dress." Another bitchy Pretty in Pink opinion o' mine: Duckie's soooooooo annoying, and if they'd gone with the original ending and had him and Andy end up together, my seven-year-old self so would've started a riot at the Elm Draughthouse Cinema (where, incidentally, you can buy pizza and beer right in the theater, or at least you could in 1986). Despite those two considerable snags, Pretty in Pink's my fave J.H. joint, and I just cried watching the trailer. Harry Dean Stanton's the best movie dad ever. James Spader makes Chuck Bass look like, I don't know, the robot's brother on Small Wonder. Andrew McCarthy? I STILL THINK WE'D MAKE A GREAT TEAM.

III. ENGLISH BEAT, "ROTATING HEADS," FROM FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF

One thing really ace about the music supervision in John Hughes movies is their knack for taking out the lyrics and making a song 87 times more perfect for the scene. The best example's "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want" in Ferris Bueller's Day Off; the second-best example's "Rotating Heads" in the same film. I spent many years believing this track to be part of the Ferris score, till I heard it on WBRU one afternoon at age 13 or 14 whilst pedaling away on a decades-old stationary bike in the attic of my family's old house, my headphones attached to this monster boombox precariously balanced on a bookshelf. So that's a neat little glimpse into my early adolescence for you.

IV. THE ROLLING STONES, "MISS AMANDA JONES," FROM SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL

When I was little, I thought the Rolling Stones had written "Miss Amanda Jones" for Lea Thompson's character in Some Kind of Wonderful. (They didn't; it's on the 1967 album Between the Buttons, which was my favorite record for at least two months in 2002.) BTW, if I were named after a song title, I'd want to be Jill Hives (Guided By Voices), Suzy Lee (The White Stripes), or James Brown is Dead (L.A. Style).

V. KATE BUSH, "THIS WOMAN'S WORK," FROM SHE'S HAVING A BABY

I can't, in good conscience, jukebox "This Woman's Work" here; it's so precious and fragile, I'm scared I'd break it. So instead you should go and download the mp3 for free at Number One Millionaire, and then cry yourself a vast ocean of jewel-like tears.

HONORABLE MENTION

As I whined in a Facebook status update this morning, everyone always forgets that John Hughes wrote the Vacation movies. (I almost added "YOU STUPID LOSERS" but then decided that wasn't very cool.) I already picked Plastic Bertrand's "Ca Plane Pour Moi" (featured in European Vacation) as one of my dream prom themes a while back, but it seems worth mentioning again. Also, I really like the part in Vacation when Clark and Ellen are singing "Jimmy Crack Corn" and then Rusty and Audrey put on their headphones to drown them out and "Blitzkrieg Bop" comes on and it sounds SO EPIC! It's in the first 30 seconds of this vid:

Tags: Andrew McCarthy, Chuck Bass, James Spader, Jami Gertz, John Hughes, Kate Bush, Molly Ringwald, New Order, partying hard, Patti Smith, prom, prom dresses, Rolling Stones, soundtracks, The Ramones

Friday , July 3, 2009

All-Time Top 5: Reasons Why I Wouldn't Mind Spending 10 Minutes Alone in a Room with Jack Berger

"I'm a Carrie."

I hate this about myself- it is tragic, humbling and embarrassing. Coming to terms with my innate "Carrie-ness" (I used to claim I was a "Carrie/Miranda hybrid," but that was total bullshit. As if I'd ever go to Harvard!) is a real benchmark in my journey toward self-acceptance. If I am in a group of four, and we are deciding who we'd be if we were Sex and the City characters (this happens frequently, because I spearhead it. I mean, what else are you gonna do after you've figured out which Beatles y'all are?), I am always the Carrie. Like Carrie Bradshaw, I am obnoxious, self-involved, small, a writer, make dumb jokes when people are trying to tell me important stories about their lives, wear wacky clothes, call people by their last names, have a major penchant for "get[ting] up on my sassy horse," and would be hella stoked on the possibility of dating Jack "Berger" Berger.

On Thursday, in a lame attempt to high-concept shit up, I decided to make my evening into a parody of "The Single Woman's Night In." I got stoned (maybe not all single women get stoned, but the cool ones do at least), changed into unwashed jammers, and rented Season Six of Sex & the City on DVD. Also, in a move paying some serious homage to the SatC ep where Miranda feels judged by the chick from her Chinese take-out place, I ordered Thai take-out from the Thai place I frequent, frequently. Surprise, surprise- the chick judged me.

Such shaming is par for the course when you're a Singleton. Whatevs- this is the life, my coupled counterparts. It's so lovely to come home after a long day of Singletonism and spend my evening hanging out with my fake boyfriend, New York City-based novelist Jack "Jack of Hearts" Berger. He's the best fake boyfriend, and here's why:

I. HE IS NEITHER JOHN BIG NOR AIDAN SHAW

Besides Smith Jerrod when he wears a ski mask and screams "SHUT THE FUCK UP" like seventeen billion times, Jack Berger is the sole SatC love interest I would even consider dating. On the whole "Big v. Aidan," tip, I'm 100% pro-Big, but mostly because Aidan Shaw sucks so unbearably hard that I really can't imagine picking him over anyone, except Hitler.

Aidan's favourite band is probably the Dave Matthews Band. He probably refers to them as "Dave." Additionally, Aidan is ugly. You know the episode where Carrie and Berger go on their first date (to see "Craig's Room" and hate it), and Carrie runs into Aidan on the street, and he turns around with his dumb baby strapped to his chest? I have never seen a man look worse in my life. Also, leave it to Aidan Shaw to name his baby the most hideous name ever: "Tate."

Big, however, also sucks. The only thing I like about Big is how him and Carrie share cigarettes after sex; that's sexy. Otherwise, Big is an overgrown baby who masks his self-loathing behind Rat Pack-inspired bravado. He's hotter than Aidan, but who isn't? Furthermore, the scene where Big shows up at Aidan's cabin upstate in his stupid Beemer or whatevs and drunked-ly sings "I'm in a New York state of mind" is so revolting that it makes Aidan seem comparatively not-that-gross.

Harry Goldenblatt is a sweetie, but not my type. Trey "Barf" MacDougal is the pukemeister of all life; Richard Wright is such a nasty skeeze, he makes Dave Davies seem like a goddamned monk. It's not really worth opening up the whole Aleksandr Petrovsky can of worms: in short, "The Russian" is a creepy creep. And don't even get me started on Steve "Mi-wwwaahh-ynda" Brady. In the words of Jack Berger himself, "He's obviously a weenie."

II. HE IS HOT

+ Continue reading "All-Time Top 5: Reasons Why I Wouldn't Mind Spending 10 Minutes Alone in a Room with Jack Berger"

Tags: Aleksandr Petrovksy, Bed Bath & Beyond, Big v. Aidan, Carrie Bradshaw, Don Draper, Jack Berger, Mi-wwwaahh-ynda Hobbes, Normies v. Non-Normies, quotation marks, Ron Livingston, Sane v. Insane, Sanes v. Insanes, Sex and the City, Sho, Singletonism, weenies

Thursday , June 4, 2009

All-Time Top Five Reasons Why Rufus Humphrey Should Totally Off Himself

Whilst rewatching season one of Gossip Girl the other night, my 17-year-old sister pointed at Rufus Humphrey and proudly cried out "There's you, Liz!" Which is probably the most geniusly mean thing anyone's said to me in my life, but - to quote T.S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" - I AM NOT RUFUS HUMPHREY, NOR WAS MEANT TO BE. I too may be stuck in the grunge era, but I'm awesome at it, whereas Rufus Humphrey's a pathetic schlump who's never awesome at anything. Hence, I give you the top five reasons why Lonely Boy and Little J's "lame '90s dad" (^TM Blair Waldorf) should seriously consider shuffling off this mortal coil at some point during GG S3.

1. HE'S THE EPITOME OF "AGGRO-WHINY." You know how there are some dudes who - upon not getting their way - take it on the chin, get their shit together, then boldly move on to life's next great adventure? Rufus Humphrey is not one of those dudes. In fact, Rufus Humphrey wholly embodies my least favorite dude-quality in all existence: aggro-whininess, a term I invented while sitting in the passenger's seat of my friend Lisa's Cabriolet on the way to a Cure concert in either late-August or early-September 2004. Aggro-whiny dudes are really into trying to make you feel bad for not indulging their every display of bitchery-masked-as-sensitivity; another one of their favorite pastimes is responding to sexual rejection by pouting a lot and trying to guilt-trip you. It is so unbecoming. It is so Rufus Humphrey. There's also a sound effect that goes along with it, but since I don't know how create an mp3 file, I'll just encourage you to try to imagine what "whining, but in an aggro kind of way" might sound like. Can you hear it?

2. HE SO FAVORS THE WRONG OFFSPRING. My fave GG eps are those that revolve around Jenny's budding fashion career - her internship at the atelier, the ill-fated J Humphrey Designs, the subplot with the psycho model who sets Jenny's clothes on fire. Little J's troublesome and annoying and kind of an asshole sometimes, but I dig her blonde ambition in a serious way. Dan, on the other hand, is a self-righteous and possibly talentless prat who grows less likable with each scene. I wholeheartedly blame his increasing suckiness on Rufus's constant ego-stroking and blind encouragement of his son's holier-than-thou tendencies (interrupted only by the occasional attempt at tossing his guerrilla-fashion-show-throwing, vastly more charismatic daughter into the back of a cop car). Dan started out a bit of a bruiser, not afraid to throw down when some evil rich boy fucked with his shit, but now he's dangerously verging on the aggro-whiny ways of his pop. Lonely Boy, a message to you: Once you start down that dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. It's not too late to man up, young Humphrey.

3. HE'S PROBABLY LYING ABOUT EVERY EARLY-90s ALT-ROCK BAND HE CLAIMS TO KNOW. Clue #1: On the episode when he and Lily are post-coitally reminiscing about the time Ol' Lil got sexually harrassed by the drummer of Buffalo Tom, Rufus says their name all funny and puts the emphasis on the wrong word. (It's Buffalo TOM, not BUFFALO Tom. Christ, Rufus: Even Sharon Cherski knows that.) And for the record, I resent the implication that any member of Buffalo Tom is a sex offender. Clue #2: Tanya Donelly is awesome and possessed of impeccable taste, and hence would never take Rufus Humphrey on tour with her. I know this in my heart of hearts. Clue #3: I was gonna make a joke about how the only early-90s musician we've ever actually seen in the same room as Rufus Humphrey is Lisa Loeb, and what does that tell you about Rufus Humphrey's rock career? But then I started to feel bad about poking fun at Lisa Loeb, for some reason, so never mind. Also, for the love of Pete, has there ever been a lamer fictional-band name than Lincoln Hawk? Fictional-band names are always atrocious, but that one really takes the cake.

4. THAT FUCKING TURTLENECK SWEATER. You know which one I mean. He wears it to rendezvous with Lily at Grand Central Station, or wherever, midway through S2 and it's the worst thing I've ever seen in my life. Worse even than the v-neck monstrosity he's got on in the pic above, if such a thing can somehow be possible.

5. BECAUSE GAWKER'S RUFUS-HATING GG RECAPS ARE THE SECOND-BEST THING ON THE INTERNET. Probably the saddest part about GG being over till the fall is we won't get any of Richard Lawson's recaps again for so very long. Here, my favorite anti-Rufus bit from Richard's write-up of the S2 finale: "Back at Humphington Manor, Rufus was watching old Lincoln Hawk concert bootlegs on YouTube and furtively touching himself when Lily showed up. She was carrying Haitian beer and a bag full of something. She said it was from Chuck's room, so I guess we were to assume it was marijuana. My roommate said it would be funnier if it was coke, because wouldn't it be fun and dirty if they just stayed up all night drinking warm beer and blowing lines and listening to Gin Blossoms really loud." Yes, it would be so fun and dirty. In fact, I really want someone to make that into a movie. Can someone please make that into a movie?

P.S. As punishment for writing this entry, I've had that "Everytime you walk away or run away, you take a piece of me with you" song in my head for the past hour. I shake my fist at you, Rufus!

Tags: Buffalo Tom, Gawker, Gossip Girl, grunge, humor, Leighton Meester, My So-Called Life, Rufus Humphrey, Tanya Donelly, Taylor Momsen, terrible sweaters, the aggro-whiny phenomenon, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Yoda

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