On Addiction

NOTE: This is to be taken in jest, however...there is probably more truth in here than I would be comfortable to admit.

I am normally a young man with a cheery disposition (Douche-blogs aside).

But I am experiencing something right now that has turned me into a raging monster of righteous fury and incoherent screaming.

Lost is NOT online right now.

Fuck my worthless, insignificant, piss-poor excuse for a life. I don't care that I was born healthy and with all my various organs, extremities and brains intact. I don't care that I have grown up in the greatest (sort-of) country in the world. I don't care that my parents loved me and never caused me any serious physical or psychological harm. I don't care that I have received an exemplary education. I don't care that I have friends who care (or at least pretend to). I don't care that I'm even happy.

All that I care about right now is that there are millions of people around the world who have seen Lost, Episode 6X01: LA X...and I'm not one of them.

I initially intended to write a blog today about the Oscar nominations. But in my current state of abject despair I'm having hard time caring so...

10 nominations is as retarded as we thought it would be and Avatar will win everything.

There you go, there's your fucking Oscar blog.

But it doesn't matter...nothing matters. I hate my existence. I hate that I can even form a coherent thought right now because it represents my consciousness...my crushing, never-ending and ultimately disappointing consciousness.

Lost 6X01 is out there. It is out there some where and I cannot see it. I cannot even perceive it. I can download it...but it will take 2 hours to do so, by which time another site will have it streaming anyway. I can have a friend send it to me...but the wireless is down in Alden and I can only use a desktop computer.

Waiting is the only thing I can do, and I cannot do it. When every blood cell, every fleeting thought, every pore, every fiber, every twitch of your body screams out for the next fix, how can you "wait?" Waiting is for people who haven't witnessed the glory of Lost, and truth be told I now wish I could count myself among them.

The lows are always lower than the highs are higher.

If you happen to see a bearded fellow rocking back and forth on the ground in 2nd floor Alden tonight, please say a kind word and throw a blanket on him.

Please...Do This for Me

Week Four and I'm already back at the library pulling all-nighters. This was not supposed to happen this soon.

But as I melt away into academic oblivion, please enjoy some of the things that have kept me alive this week.

- First is this hilarious sketch from the comedy troupe Derrick. I found this guys from a link to the trailer for their first feature-length film "Mystery Team." I immediately recognized Donald Glover as "Troy" from one of my new favorites Community and decided to give his troupe a try out. This is the funniest thing they provided me with. God bless poo humor.

- In the creative Youtube video department is also "Llamas with Hats." It is brought to you by the same gentlemen who did "Charlie the Unicorn", only this one is actually funny. Watch the original and then move on to the thrilling sequel.

- If you have nearly two and a half hours on your hands, you should definitely check out this ten-part series from Matthew Mercer and Zach Grafton called "There Will be Brawl." Have you ever wanted to see the characters from Super Smash Brothers Brawl solve murder mysteries in a gritty live-action version of the Mushroom Kingdom? Stupid question, of course you have! Wait no longer.

- Reason #21,495 why LeBron is a beast.

- Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, of Lost fame win the Bojalad Award for not taking themselves too seriously. I love that the Onion punk'd Lost fans and love even more that the Lost creators participated in it.

- The best part of following Chuck Klosterman on Twitter is getting links like this.

Speaking of Twitter...I have decided to tweet more (i.e at all) so now would be a good time to follow my dumbass.

That's all I have for now. Back to Info Gathering torture!

Tie My Arm, I Need a TV Fix

It occurred to me recently that I am living through the greatest creative renaissance since Shakespeare.

And it's on television.

I could make an argument as to why but arguments are a drag and Emily Nussbaum over at New York Mag already made a much better and more eloquent than I ever could. Seriously, if you love pop culture or television in more particular at all you absolutely must read this essay.

The fact remains, however, that we are living in an age of greatness. So instead of focusing on the brilliance of television, like the finest three minutes I've ever seen on tv, or the prospect of a brilliant final season to one of my favorite shows, I would like to bring up all that is kitsch on the boobtoob.

- Heroes still sucks. I didn't think that anyone in the world could possibly ruin Robert Knepper as a carny. But Heroes did just that. Of course, I'll continue to watch it because I'm a sucker and pray that Peter Petrelli vs. Gabriel Gray is coming. I'm too invested at this point...I just absolutely can't miss that if/when it happens.

Interestingly enough, though, Heroes is the most pirated show on television. If NBC is smart, they are shoving this down advertisers' throats.

"Look, I know pirated versions aren't showing your ads, but you can't deny that someone is watching the show anymore. Use our characters to your delight: have Nathan Petrelli flying alongside a Continental airline jet, have Claire Bennet literally killing herself for a Klondike bar, have Hiro Nakamura stop time to enjoy the second half of his Twix bar...just whatever you do: pay us for it. Please."

Of course NBC won't do this because...

- NBC is stupid. I was going to write a comprehensive history of how NBC fucked up the Jay Leno/Conan O'Brien scenario but then I realized that I already did...13 months ago.

- Finally, don't look now but the 8th and hopefully final season of 24 airs tonight. 24 is not the finest show to ever air on television. As a matter of fact, 24 has been a truly terrible show at some points in its history. But just because it is above-average at best, doesn't mean it isn't important.

24 has rolled along with America's changing social, political and racial attitudes from the dawn of a new millennium. Season 1's depiction of shadowy Eastern European villains looking for vengeance to Season 2's depiction of Middle Eastern extremists under the control of American oil magnates is the effective passing of the torch for the American boogeyman. In 2001 the American subconscious redirected its fear from men named Viktor and Yuri to men named Achmed and Yusuf.

Probably more important than the show, itself, is the show's protagonist. I honestly cannot imagine an early 2000's America without Jack Bauer. Kiefer Sutherland has fallen mostly into self-parody at this point in his portrayal of the un-kill-able secret agent but I actually couldn't be happier that he has. Some television characters grow and show depth over many seasons...Jack just remains a consistent jingoistic killing machine. And we need that. We need somebody to yell "damn it, Chloe!" into a cell phone and constantly assure the viewer that "we're running out of time!"

Jack Bauer is America's James Bond. Where Bond reflects the English self-image suave sophistication, Bauer has reflected the rugged and brutal ideal that America holds itself to. I am hoping that Jack Bauer makes the jump to feature film and leaves Kiefer Sutherland behind. Not that I don't love Sutherland because I do, but if I want to see Captain America, Jack Bauer survive as an ideal he's going to need some more interpretations of his "character" (just imagine how Chris O'Donnell or Donnie Wahlberg will sound yelling "damn it, Chloe!" into a phone.) Jack Bauer has his Sean Connery...now he needs his Roger Moore.

So I pose to you, 24-America: if Jack Bauer is to become the timeless character I want him to be, who should portray him next in the inevitable 24 movie?

Backdrop's Back, Bitches

Check out the new web site!

It's a lot more user friendly this time around and rather pretty in a minimalist way. Download the MP3s in the Events section as well. They're pretty badass.

The Unlikeliest Underdog

I didn't want to like Avatar.

As a matter of fact, I didn't even want to see Avatar. I saw the lifeless trailer of tall blue humanoids shooting heavy machine guns and decided "not for me." I heard about the nearly $300 million budget, the supposedly revolutionary technology and was disgusted. I love cinema, god damn it, not overpriced video games on celluloid!

I didn't want to see Avatar, didn't want to like it, didn't want to read about it and didn't want to write about it.

So obviously I saw it. And I liked it. Then I read about it some more. Now I'm writing about it.

James Cameron made me eat shit in the most spectacular way possible. Avatar-hate consumed my being so much than when I had to write a short essay on the history of the film industry for Film 201, I wrote how "big-budget" movies would start to die out and make way for leaner, cheaper fare like District 9 (excellent film in its own right) and even predicted that Avatar would be the first casualty of the New New Wave of cheap cinema.

Somehow, I thought the man with the highest grossing movie of all-time, to go along with several Sci-fi classics would fall on his face. Somehow, I assumed James Cameron didn't know the American movie-going audience as well as I did. Somehow, I was unbelievably naive.

Don't look now but Avatar is currently the second highest grossing movie of all-time.

Not of the weekend...not of the Winter...not of the year....not of the decade. It is the second highest grossing movie OF. ALL. TIME.

But this doesn't necessarily blow my mind. High grosses sometimes happen even when a movie is not a cultural phenomenon. Transformers 2 somehow drained $402,000,000 from American consumers but I cannot recall someone talking about it once other than to say "it sucked."

Avatar, however, has already been brought up as an example for something in three of my five classes...and it's only been the first week. My English professor uses it at least once a class period as an allegory for the White settlement of Native American lands. My Info Gathering professor used it as an example of casual knowledge in context to sources (i.e he has a casual knowledge of the technology used in the movie and not a technical knowledge). My Women and Gender Studies professor used it as an example of Eco-feminism (apparently such a thing exists).

I, myself, have even spent more time and brainwaves than I ever anticipated I would re-imagining the rich world of Pandora.

James Cameron clearly has the master key to the Western collective unconscious and I owe him an apology...plus 11 bucks to see Avatar again in 3D.

All You Need is Love 2009

My personal pop culture experience is all about love.

Every year I fall in love with music, television, books and movies. It is a blind, burning love that I can't always explain. Try to engage me intellectually on Lost, Harry Potter or My Chemical Romance...it just can't be done. I love them so much that I can't always articulate why (and will probably get upset when you differ on their level of perfection).

So instead of developing a list of the Best of 2009, I will present you with a near-comprehensive list of everything I truly loved in 2009. I'll try to explain why but it will probably end up sounding like I am gushing over my son's first soccer goal.

In no particular order:

Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley in District 9)

"Fook you, man!"

Was there a better hero for 2009? In a time in which we are coming to terms with both a globalized world and beauracracies that seem to pop up like acne (and about as pleasant), Wikus was the most appropriate protagonist in Neill Blomkamp's alien yet familiar universe. Wikus is really nothing more than a fast-talking South African nerd and a slave to the white men in black suits he works for. Sharlto Copley (who came out of fucking nowhere in this flick) plays his decent into the alien and bizarre marvelously and realistically. Hearing him pronounce "fuckin' prawns" in his thick South African accent is nearly worth the price of admission for District 9. Pleeeease 2010, bring me more Sharlto Copley.

Allan Hyde (True Blood)

"I am full of joy, I want to burn."

I can't remember the last time an actor has captivated me so much with so little screentime. For those of you saying Allan Who? never fear. Up until about 3 minutes ago, I knew Allan Hyde merely as "that kid who played Godric in four episodes of True Blood." In one of the strongest seasons of television this year, Hyde stands out among the excellent True Blood cast. His Godric, is a 2,000 year beast residing in the body of a Nordic teenage hottie. Hyde plays the most powerful creature in the New World...and you buy it. He also plays the gentlest and most non-violent creature in the New World...and you buy it just as much. Such is the power of his performance that I nearly (NEARLY, I said) cried at his decision to make a deadly date with the rising sun...despite the fact he only had around a half-hour of screentime overall. *Fun fact* Apparently, Allan Hyde does the Danish dub of Ron Weasley's voice in Harry Potter. Wikipedia don't lie.

Girls

"I wish I had a boyfriend..."

I'm not referring to the actual biologically distinct section of humanity known as "females" when I say "girls" (they could make this list every year), but rather the San Franciscan indie band. I dare you to listen to "Lust for Life" and not dance or grin like an idiot. As a matter of fact, give it a try. Then watch the NSFW video..

John Lithgow (Dexter)

"Hello...Dexter Morgan."

Who knew you had it in you, John? After doing his time on Third Rock for the Sun, Johnny Lithgow had garnered a reputations as a comedian first, actor second. Well mark my words: that Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama series soon to be on his shelf will make people think otherwise. Lithgow's Arthur Mitchell a.k.a "The Trinity Killer" in season 4 of Dexter might be the most exciting thing to come out the year in television. Trinity is absolutely horrifying...but more horrifying than his actual deeds is our favorite serial killer protagonist's fascination with him. Dexter's own insecurities regarding his ability to be a father and a husband lead him down a demented path in which he thinks he can learn from Trinity and his relationship to his family. But every Dexter spends trying to learn from Trinity is a second spent NOT killing Trinity. This of course leads to....something very, very bad.

Quentin Tarantino (Inglorious Basterds)

"You know something, Utivich? I think this just might be my masterpiece."

Inglorious Basterds is the best film of the year. There, I said it. It is also Quentin Tarantino's second best movie...at the very least. I have nothing more to say on the matter.

Lady Gaga

"I want your psycho."

Stefani Germanotta a.k.a Lady Gaga might just be the smartest person in America. Here is a woman that understands what Western pop culture wants more than anything else: celebrity. And that's what she made for us. Lady Gaga is a simultaneous parody and celebration of American celebrity culture and we all love her for it. Of course it doesn't hurt that she knows how to churn out exciting pop hits like a mofo. "Bad Romance" in particular nails the concept of an aggressive, all-consuming love and infatuation so perfectly that I couldn't say it better myself. Though I did try. And don't think because she embraces the kitsch and poppy side of music that this gal can't sing. Exhibit A:

David Yates (Director, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince)

"Severus, please..."

Believe it or not, Harry Potter movies are not very easy to pull off. David Yates, himself can attest to that. His first Potter effort was the fifth film. Order of the Phoenix, the book was a sprawling epic tale of political repression, coming-of-age angst and the thin line between good and evil. Order of the Phoenix, the film...was just a film. Apparently, Yates learned all the lessons he needed from the fifth film, however, because his direction of the sixth was about as close to perfect as I believe a Harry Potter movie can be. The story ran as smoothly as any cinematic adaptation of a semi-episodic novel can and Yates added little quirks to clue in the audience as to what they should and shouldn't be watching for (loved Malfoy's little experiments with the birds). If Yates improves this exponentially in the final two Potter films, we might have something very special on our hands.

Zach Galifinakis (The Hangover)

"I tend to think of myself as a one-man wolfpack."

Thank God this dude finally got a breakout role.

Drake

"Last name Ever, first name Greatest."

I love Drake this year for several reasons. First, he is perpetuating the new trend in popular music of starting on the Internet, gaining some dedicated fans, then busting loose on mainstream America. Second, "Best I Ever Had" was stuck in my head for 37% of the entire year. Third, it confirms to us that Jimmy from Degrassi is a-okay and out of his wheelchair

Sin Nombre

“A psychic once told me: you’ll make it to the U.S.A. Not in God’s hands…but in the hands of the devil.”

This was the only Indie film I saw all year that was actually worth watching. Read my review, then go find it.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

"Flip, flip, flip-adelphia!"

Have you ever wondered what Seinfeld would look like if it were written by anarchists? Wonder no more! It's Always Sunny is the most consistently funny thing on TV right now.

Glee

"Sometimes being special sucks."

I'll be the first to acknowledge that the first season of Glee was rather uneven and disappointing at times. But the show has two things going for it: Jane Lynch as Sue Sylvester and mind-blowingly amazing performances. In the iTunes and Youtube age, Glee is a godsend. There is no reason that it can't last as long as the Internet does. If that's the case, I only ask Ryan Murphy that he continually recasts and finds new kids. Here is my favorite song from the first half of the first season. Try not to weep.

Airborne Toxic Event - Sometime Around Midnight

"And the piano's this melancholy soundtrack to her smile."

Speaking of things that make me cry...watch this video. Lord knows, I can't or I'll destroy my MacBook with the cascade of bittersweet tears that will undoubtedly fire out of my eyes like sprinklers. The Airborne Toxic Event really only has 3 or 4 solid songs, but this might be the most beautiful and genuine thing I've heard all year. And for an indie band from Los Angeles, "genuine" is not something one would expect.

Bryan Cranston and Anna Gunn (Breaking Bad)

"737 down over ABQ"

The second season of Breaking Bad was almost indescribably good. Part of this can be attributed to the remarkably patient storytelling about one man's decent into...evil/selfishness/practicality? But even more can be attributed to the phenomenal acting duo of Bryan Cranston and Anna Gunn a.k.a Walter and Skylar White. Cranston has received his fair share of acclaim and awards and rightfully so. His Walter is a fascinating character study of what a man thinks he needs to do to be a "man." Less heralded, but no less important, however, is Anna Gunn. How does one's spouse react to a cancer diagnosis followed by a sharp and suspicious change in behavior. Anna Gunn acts her ass off to give the audience a compelling depiction of just how a spouse does act. Please...watch Breaking Bad.

Kid Cudi

"Please save a kid that needs some help."

I dedicated a whole blog post to Dat Kid from Cleveland but one point bears repeating. In a genre known for false bravado, Kid Cudi deserves credit for letting his "I can be an insecure pussy" flag fly. Of course, it doesn't hurt that "Man on the Moon" is simply a sick album.

Cast of Community

"I have to plan in advance how to live in the moment."

I've noticed something about the state of comedy recently. No, not that it sucks. Comedy is no more or less funny than any other time that I can remember. Comedy is, however, much less conflict based than I can remember. Most of the comedies of television right now, and all of the comedies on NBC are based on the interactions between friends and peers and not the inherent conflict between those same peers. The American version of The Office originally tried to follow its British father's example by putting its characters in awkward scenarios. By its second season, however, The Office had transitioned to humor based off its characters hanging out and interacting with each other. It was basically Cheers set in a paper company. Parks and Recreation went through a similar (and successful) transition from its first to second seasons. Here is what gives me hope for Community's survival. Community understood from episode one onward that people want to see friends on television comedy. How else did Friends go for a mind-numbing ten seasons? The characters of Community fight and bicker, but the audience never doubts for a moment that deep down they are still a mini-community (har har) of their own.

21st Century Breakdown (Green Day)

"Red alert is the color of panic, elevated to the point of static."

One of the best kept secrets of the year is that Green Day's follow up to 2004's widely acclaimed "American Idiot" is actually slightly better than its predecessor. 21st Century Breakdown listened to Jay-Z's pleas for American music to "get violent," and did him one better. This is an album about revolution. Not the music revolution or the love revolution but the revolution where shit gets set on fire and people die. What are we rebelling against? No fucking clue. All we know is that Christian and Gloria are our youthful guides into destruction and that our little revolution is probably going to fail. But that can't stop the listener from screaming and throwing Molotov cocktails along with the album's protagonists.

House: Broken

"Successes only last until someone screws them up. Failures are forever."

House has followed a strict formula for five seasons. Patient comes in, patient exhibits bizarre symptoms, House fixes patient while undergoing some type of life lesson...which he will inevitably ignore. The formula works but unfortunately formulas are by their very definition: boring. House broke its own formula in grand fashion for the season six opener of the show titled "Broken." The result could have been excellent...or disastrous. By its inclusion on this list, you know I believe it to be awesome and you certainly should too. "Defiant mental patient" storylines are generally overdone but the House crew makes this one work like gangbusters. By putting him away in a mental health clinic, the viewer better understands what it's like to be the frustrating ball of madness that is Dr. House. And by giving House a worthy intellectual adversary (a cool-as-hell Andre Braugher), House also better understand what it's like to be the frustrating ball of madness that is Dr. House. Kudos to the House team for getting their character healthy...and still keeping him interesting.

Mark Pellegrino (Lost)

"It only ends once. Everything that happens before that is just progress."

The character of Jacob was doomed to fail on Lost. His name has been whispered for two seasons and his eventual arrival had been greatly anticipated. He had been built to be a God. Anything short of a 5-story dragon shooting fire out of its eyes would be disappointing. Merely one little-known actor should have been disappointing. Someway, somehow, Mark Pellegrino pulled Jacob off and he wasn't disappointing in the slightest. He was extraordinary and one of the bright spots in the best season of Lost yet. Pellegrino oozes sophistication and mystery, whether he's in the back on a taxi in, sitting on a park bench in front of a tall building, or wearing a tunic and speaking pedantically on a mystical Island. Simply put: Mark Pellegrino nailed an un-nailable role. Who knew Paul from Dexter had it in him?

Empire State of Mind (Jay-Z and Alicia Keys)

"Don't bite the Apple. Eve's caught up in the in-crowd."

A World Series Championship and the year's best song? The Empire State did very well for itself in 2009.

Kristen Stewart's Cautious, Awkward Smile

Happy New Years, everyone.

Moment of the Decade #5

This will be the last of my "Moment of the Decade" series.

It certainly has been a wild ride, readers. Years from now, when I am accepting a cherished writing award in the church basement of my local community, I will look back fondly to my Moment of the Decade series that I wrote way back at the stunning age of 19. By then, I will have had tasted multiple professional successes, have nine models for wives and an 11-inch penis (they still grow, right?).

Likewise, I am sure you will remember this hallmark of modern cultural analysis when you are off solving the problems of the world, yourself (sorry for taking all the hot wives, by the way). But as they say: "all mediocre attempts to catalogue a decade of complex ideas and experiences by a third-rate entertainment pop culture blog must come to an end." And so this too ends.

I had a couple of more things I wanted to write about but literally couldn't justify them due to obscurity. One was the self-less sacrifice of Blackwargreymon in the second season of Digimon Adventures and the other was the release of Sugarcult's song "Memory" as the most underrated pop song of the decade. The goal of this whole shindig was to highlight some of the less obvious moments of the decade but even those were too obscure for the guy who once wrote about K.A Applegate's Remnants series.

So enjoy, your last moment of the decade. We've come full circle back to the land of cinema.

Sarsgaard Flips Out - Jarhead

I talked to an old friend recently. At this point in my life, it blows my mind that I have such a thing as an "old friend." I experienced seven years of secondary education in the same town and had no choice but to have the "same friends", nobody knew, nobody old, just the same, day in and day out. But now I'm no longer in that same town and as such I have old friends.

This old friend had joined the army. We were talking about his experiences in basic training, what it's like to shoot a gun and of course how the service effects one's "female situation."

At some point in the conversation he seemed to struggle with how to explain it. Then he said:

"Remember that movie Jarhead that everyone was convinced sucked?"

I was.

"It doesn't suck. The army is exactly like that...nothing happens. Remember when Peter Sarsgaard says something like 'I never even fired my rifle?'"

I did.

"Yeah, that's what it's like."

I have never been in the armed services, nor have I ever fired a gun at another human being. But I do understand a little bit about pop culture, movies and the way things work, and I have no choice but to admire a war movie in which nothing happens.

Jarhead was not very well-received by critics. It got a lukewarm 61% on Rotten Tomatoes and was featured on very few end-of-the-year top ten lists. I didn't even really know how I felt about it after I saw it. I had this vague notion that it was a good film, maybe even a great film...but still I didn't like it.

Those of you who have seen it probably know why. It is a slow, tense build up from boot camp through Operation Desert Storm but a dramatic release never seems to come. Private Anthony Swofford and his merry band of U.S Marines just kind of stroll around a horrifically boring Iraq landscape, waiting for something to happen. Jarhead puts its characters through basic training hell, trains then to be killing machines, winds them up and lets them go nowhere and kill nothing.

And the more I think about it: maybe that was the point.

Whatever the movie was trying to say, the slow build up with no release leads to one of the most effective and disturbing scenes I've seen in five years.

While trying to fight boredom in the desert, the sniper team of Private Swofford (Jake Gyllenhall) and Private Troy (Peter Sarsgaard) receive the assignment to assassinate a crucial Iraqi official in a guard tower. Swofford and Troy are all too happy to put their training into effect and do something other than sit around talking about women or masturbating.

Troy lines up the shot perfectly and gives Swofford the go ahead to take another human being's life. Just before Swofford can take the shot, a military higher up (Dennis Hayesbert a.k.a President David Palmer from 24) burst into the tower and tells the boys that the Air Force will be taking out the enemy instead. Why kill one with a strategic sniper-shot when you can take out the whole farm with a napalm bomb?

Private Troy doesn't quite see the wisdom in that.

Troy yells that he and Swofford had the shot and begs President Palmer to just let Swofford shoot the man in the head before the Air Force wipes it all out. He doesn't ask...he literally begs. He screams "we had the shot!", falls to the floor, begins to weep and literally rocks back and forth.

It may sound like a bit much when I write it, but when Peter Sarsgaard acts it, it is just simply astounding. This man really wanted nothing else in the world to see the red mist spray out of the back of another man's head as his bullet tore apart his brain.

The tragedy of Jarhead (and perhaps the two Iraq Wars, themselves) is that a collection of young Americans wanted to spill blood...and didn't get to.