Rhymes with Salad

All You Need is Love 2011

2011-12-10T16:30:00.003-05:00

Occasional bouts of murderous rage aside, I'm usually a pretty positive guy. And every year, during the holiday season, I like to call attention to certain bits of culture I have absolutely, 100%, unreservedly, want-to-take-it-behind-a-middle-school-and-get-it-pregant loved.

I've done this two years now and and have decided to keep the good times rolling. I know the format is a bit intimidating but peruse it at your leisure and let me know in the comment section if I should try something new next year. Thanks for reading, all, and enjoy the rest of your 2011!

"Breaking Bad"

"I am the one who knocks." - Walter White (Bryan Cranston)

I figured I should start with Breaking Bad so I could explain the "rules" of the column a little bit. Whenever possible I try to get specific with my picks. For instance, I like to highlight performances or directors when referencing TV shows or movies. But occasionally when something exhibits pure ownage like season four of "Breaking Bad," I just have to honor the show itself. Having said that: how good was "Breaking Bad" in 2011? You know the answer if you watch the show...and if you don't watch, then I hope you're enjoying your self-imposed cultural outcasting. One aspect that sticks out to me about "Breaking Bad" is its incredible and versatile pacing. For the past three years, "Breaking Bad" has taken three different but equally effective approaches to story-telling. Season 2 was bookended by poignant and horrifying black and white images and had a real sense of predetermination, to the point where its conclusion felt inevitable but unexpected. Season three was really improvisational and was essentially split into two halves, each of which defied expectations. And season four? Season four was just the slow burn. I imagine the experience of watching season four on DVD straight-through would be like having a noose around your neck tighten, tighten and tighten ever so slowly before turning into a giant coma and biting your face off. And speaking of face-off, here is a link to a spoilery YouTube video for you to enjoy.

Foster the People - "Pumped Up Kicks"

"Better run, better run, outrun my gun."

The best pop song about a violent school-shooting ever. You know something had to beat P.O.D.'s "Youth of the Nation" eventually.

"Moneyball"

"How can you not get romantic about baseball?"- Billy Beane (Brad Pitt)

"Moneyball" is one of my absolute favorite books but truly seemed unfilmable. The whole idea is to strip away the sentimentality of performances in favor of the cold hard truth of statistics. How can one translate that to an inherently sentimental and shiny medium like movies? Pretty easily, as it turns out. Brad Pitt is a wonderful Billy Beane and Jonah Hill makes the best of his fat nerd-ness one last time. Bennet Miller's movie taps into an interesting aspect of "Moneyball" that only exists in hindsight. It's possible to be the absolute best at what you do, make all the right decisions and still somehow never win. It weirdly reminds me of "Amadeus" in that regard. Good stuff.

Smodcast Network

"Have a week!"

I've written about the smart business model of Kevin Smith's podcast before, but it's time to make my unabashed love more explicit. Filmmaker Kevin Smith and his producer friend Scott Mosier created a weekly podcast back in 2007 where they talked about whatever popped into their heads (usually boners and/or Hitler) and it was captivating. I believe the podcast over any other medium captures the intimacy that all other media strives for. It's the equivalent of being involved in a conversation with close friends where you just happen to say nothing. The advent of the 24-hour podcast network has brought even more gems including Smith's ongoing conversations with his wife and shows like Hollywood Babble-On and Tell 'Em Steve-Dave.

FX Comedies

"I made a decent penny in boiled denims." - Hoss Bonaventure a.k.a Charlie Kelly (Charlie Day) on "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia)

All I can say is thank God FX President John Landgraf greenlit "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" all those years ago. It's opened the floodgates for shows like "Archer" and "Louie." "Sunny" and "Archer" are an impressive 1-2 punch that make me laugh harder than any other hour on television. "Louie" is a very impressive Charlie Kaufmanesque dramedy that is accomplishing things the television medium has never seen. I know it's kind of a cheat to include them all under one entry but there is not much to say beyond "they make me laugh."

George R.R. Martin ("Game of Thrones," "A Dance with Dragons")

"What do we say to the God of Death? Not today." - Syrio Forel (Miltos Yerolemou)

I didn't really want to watch Game of Thrones. I'm not really a fantasy person per sé. I enjoy The Lord of the Rings (definitely the movies, and the books to a slightly lesser extent). I played Warhammer for years. If you don't know what Warhammer is, Google at your own risk. But for whatever reason, the commercials and promotional materials were doing absolutely nothing for me. I even paid a visit to the HBO store last spring and was disgusted to find costumes and props from the show on display. "Ughh. Why couldn't it have been Boardwalk Empire or something cool?" If I could go back in time and choke myself to death for even entertaining that thought I would. I loved Game of Thrones. I loved Game of Thrones so much it was frightening. Every moment of the week that I was not watching Game of Thrones was a waste. Near the end of the season, I got my girlfriend to watch it and rewatched all the episodes with her. Then about a month ago, I watched all the episodes for the third time. Game of Thrones may not have been the best show of the year (though it was close) but it was certainly my favorite. Then I read the books over the summer. Holy shit. I blew through books one through four over the summer, then finished book five in the fall. Now that the dust of my obsession has settled (don't worry, I still check out several articles on A Wiki of Ice and Fire every day just to stay sharp) I can safely say that I may have never enjoyed any book/TV show/movie/album/play more in my life. I could expand upon the reasons why but I still have 14 other entries to get to. Just trust me. Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire is good.

Adele - "Someone Like You"

"Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead."

Oh Adele, you horrible, horrible bitch. You and this song exist just to make me cry. The SNL video below has it right: this song is just a bullet filled with sadness shot directly through your heart.

Micahel Fassbender and James McAvoy (Magneto and Professor X in "X-Men: First Class")

"We have it in us to be better men." Charles Xavier (James McAvoy)

"We already are." - Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbener)

Sometimes I think Great Britain has an inexhaustible supply of badasses. Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart did an exemplary job in portraying Magneto and Professor X, respectively, in the original X-Men series. They did so well that one would imagine that when it came time for the inevitable prequel, director Matthew Vaughn would take a look around and realize "oh wait, I forgot that it's impossible to replace two Shakespearian-trained, multiple-award winning ballers." But nope, Britain is just able to fire up its fresh young actor pods (they look like the eggs in "Aliens") and spit out two immensely talented and handsome young chaps. James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender are not only perfect for their roles (Fassbender in particular looks creepily like McKellen) but have effortless and even exciting chemistry. All I can ever really ask for from a movie is to see one convincing relationship onscreen. X-Men: First Class gave me this with a heaping of not-so-subtle homoeroticism. Mission accomplished.

Fucked Up - "Queen of Hearts"

"Hello, my name is David. Your name is Veronica. Let's be together, let's fall in love."

Christ, this song is song. Well the entirety of Fucked Up's third album "David Comes to Life is excellent but...oh man, this song. This song to me sounds like the purest expression of love I can possibly imagine. Love isn't a hipster girl with an acoustic, love is an obese, bearded and shirtless Canadian man screaming desperate pleas into a microphone while walls and walls and walls of guitars crash all around him. A writer on A.V Club (I can't remember who it was so I'm linking to the whole website, which you should be reading every day anyway) said that even if "David Comes to Life" was just 59 straight minutes of the guitars running scales in the last minute of "Queen of Hearts," it would still be the best album of 2011. I'm inclined to agree.

Dead Island Trailer

Speaking of awesome songs. I'm torn between "Queen of Hearts" and the somber piano piece from this trailer as my favorite song of the year. Seriously. When I first it, I figured the marketing company behind the trailer just had someone record a long-known Mozart creation. As it turns out, it's just an original creation from a composer named Giles Lamb, who you know from: likely nothing. Somebody nab a profile with this guy quick because he is going to Giacchino the fuck out of all of us in 2012. Music aside, the rest of the trailer is fascinating and bold. Want to kill some zombies? Great! You just have to watch this family be killed by their undead daughter first. I never ended up playing Dead Island but heard it was a bit of a disappointment. That makes sense. I can't imagine clearing the bar the trailer sets.

Childish Gambino - "CAMP"

"Rap's stepfather: you hate me but you will respect."

For the majority of 2011, I wasn't really in a rap mood. I think I just started to fall out of love with the genre. The problem is that it just requires too much focus for me. Music is a background activity in my life. I'll listen to it in conjunction with something else. I'm actually listening to Fucked Up as I write this now. And rap demands your attention. You have to listen closely to the lyrics or your'e left in the dust. And the whole genre is so self-referential that if you don't hear a rap song for two months, all of a sudden you begin to sound like your grandfather. "Who is this Big Sean fellow that Nicki Minaj is grinding on and why won't he get off my damn lawn?" But in many ways Childish Gambino felt like a fresh start in 2011. Granted his nerdy style isn't anything groundbreaking but his rhymes were simple, accessible and just a lot of fun. I've listened to CAMP is already one of my most listened-to albums of the year and it's only been out for about a month. Nice work, Troy Barnes.

"Chopped"

"I'm sorry, but you've been chopped." - Ted Allen

Everybody's pop culture palette must include a handful of "main events" surrounded by a collection of background noise or "I'll watch it when it's on" fare. "Chopped" is the king of "when it's on" entertainment. If I'm flipping through channels and "Chopped" is on, I almost have no choice but to watch it. The format is consistent, the tension is strangely high and the food looks fantastic. Plus, my all-time favorite contestant made his triumphant return this year and won the competition after a devastating loss in the dessert round last year and...oh my God I sound ridiculous.

Damian Lewis and Claire Danes (Nicholas Brody and Carrie Mathison in "Homeland")

"I'm gonna be alone my whole life, aren't I?" Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes)

Saying that "Homeland" was the best new show of the season is a little like saying Heinrich Himmler was the nicest of the Nazis...it can kind of seem like a meaningless back-handed compliment. But I have a hard-time believing that "Homeland" would be anything but the best new show of the season in absolutely any season. It's rather similar to "Game of Thrones" in that it comes out of the gates confident and swinging, like its entering its fourth season and not its first. Part of this is probably because creators Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa are already familiar with both solid post 9/11 espionage thrillers (seasons one and five of "24") and awful post 9/11 espionage thrillers (every other season of "24"). But it's also because they found two of Hollywood's most under appreciated actors who absolutely deserved an hour-long drama to finally showcase their ability in Claire Danes and Damian Lewis. Claire Danes is always watchable in anything (she's a weirdly captivating Juliet in Baz Luhrmann's "Romeo + Juliet") and Damian Lewis once redefined the concept of badassery as Major Winters in "Band of Brothers." They both inhabit their characters beautifully and maintain solid chemistry despite sharing shockingly little screen time.

"Drive" Soundtrack

"There's something inside you. It's hard to explain." - Kavinsky

I think 2011 proved definitely that a good movie can become a great movie merely through a soundtrack. I know Ryan Gosling is dreamy and all and "Drive" provides some violent flare but the movie was style over the substance...in the best way possible. And 95% of that style comes from the soundtrack (3% is the font choices and 2% Albert Brooks). The heavy synths and angelic choruses un-ironically celebrate the '80s and provide an intriguing discord to what's appearing onscreen. I heard "Drive" compared to "Pulp Fiction" more than once this year, and while I think that comparison is a little absurd ("Pulp Fiction" is one of the best five movies of the last 30 years. "Drive" might crack the top five of this year), they do share uniquely stylish soundtracks. I imagine any "Drive" parodies out there will be made 100-times easier by the immanently recognizable music.

"Misfits"

"A bunch of young offenders develop super powers and not one of us think to use them to commit crime? Shame on us." - Nathan Young (Robert Sheehan)

Great Britain gets "Misfits." The U.S. gets "Heroes." It's enough to make me want to time travel back to the late 1700s and halt the Revolution. Seriously though, American TV needs to get its shit together. The U.S. is still the king of western entertainment but if even cable channels are going to be slaves to censors (and let's be real: the FCC is the largest organization devoted chiefly to censorship on the planet) it's not going to stay on the throne for long. "Misfits" is more entertaining than 97% of all American shows because of its dogged support of the ugly. The characters are realistic and captivating because of their ugliness and shortcomings (they're not necessarily physically ugly, but they probably would have a hard time cracking an American network TV shows). The situations they are thrust in are as grungy and realistic as a show about superpowers can provide. It's a riotously funny show that also holds up to scrutiny, maybe not necessarily literary scrutiny but at least logical scrutiny. Hallucinogenic drugs cause opposite of their powers? That makes sense. The storm gave powers to a gorilla too? That makes sense.

"Justified"

"I had every intention of living a simple life." - Mags Bennet (Margo Martindale)

A lot of attention was given this TV season to the once-in-a-lifetime awesome showdown between Walter White and Gus Fring on "Breaking Bad." It was undoubtedly the coolest mano-a-mano on TV this year and maybe even the past several years. But unfortunately I think it made us forget just how awesome the matchup between Raylan Givens and Mags Bennett was on "Justified" this year. I didn't watch season 1 of "Justified." I actually only watched season two because I needed something to review for The Post (which is also the only reason I gave "Game of Thrones" a shot). Thank God, I happened to luck into a show that reached its full potential the moment I started to pay attention to it. Season two of "Justified" has a great sense of history and consequently a great sense of consequence. And Margo Martindale is a phenomenal enough actress to just step onscreen during episode one and immediately convince us that she is the latest and most dangerous soldier in a long series conflicts between between the Givens and the Bennetts. The right amount of violence hits hard on television...as does family drama. Season two of "Justifed" was the perfect recipe of each.

Nicki Minaj - "Super Bass"

"Don't you hear that heartbeat coming your way?"

I'm a sucker for songs that recast the human heart as a percussion instrument. Therefore, it's impossible for me not to get excited when Nicki asks about that old "boom da boom da boom boom bass." I'm not sure "Super Bass" is the best representation of Ms. Minaj's talents (count me among the crew that wished she would, you know, rap more on her first album) but it is an undeniably joyful pop song...which is all the radio really ever needs.

The Book of Mormon Soundtrack

"Hasa diga Ebowai."

Like pretty much everyone else, I was dying to see Trey Parker and Matt Stone's first Broadway foray but didn't have the money or luck to. Luckily there was a cheaper option: the soundtrack. "The Book of Mormon: soundtrack is quite cinematic and gives the listener about as clear a picture of the overall plot as possible. There is a real sense of direction throughout each song, to the point where there is almost no point in picking or choosing specific songs. Just listen to the whole thing and be told a story. And what an awesome story it is! "The Book of Mormon" is hysterical, catchy and surprisingly touching...or at least the soundtrack is. I get teary eyed every time the Africans sing the opposite of "Hasa diga Ebowai" (shame on you if you don't know what that means). Here's to hoping that I see the actual play next year so "The Book of Mormon" can have an encore on "All You Need is Love 2012."

Andy Serkis (as Caesar in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes")

"No."

Because everyone loves monkeys. And nobody likes to see actors onscreen.

Parks and Recreation

"Give me all the bacon and eggs you have." Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman)

I considered an NBC comedy section simliar to my FX comedy section but "The Office's" truly spectacular dive bomb into mediocrity made that impossible. So then I thought about pairing "Parks and Rec" with "Community" but even that didn't seem fair to how truly fantastic I believe season three of "Parks and Recreation" was. TV comedies are getting better at marrying heart with humor. I would even say that the American version of "The Office" and "South Park" were at the forefront of this. But "Parks and REc" now stands alone in its ability to put its viewers through the emotional ringer. The cast in the best on TV: comedy, drama or otherwise. Ron Swanson continues to be a once-in-a-generation gem of a character. The world of Pawnee continues to get larger and richer and "Parks and Rec" just gets better and better.

Dead Island...No, the Other One

2011-11-29T16:25:00.004-05:00

I'm going to do my best to keep this one short because my recent blog outputs have been unforgivably verbose. Plus, I need to maintain my busy schedule of sitting on my couch and staring at the wall.

Yep, it's winter intercession. I probably should be doing something productive with my time but a confluence of events that include both my Athens' jobs being unavailable and me not fully understanding the concept of an application deadline have left me stranded in the homeland, Twinsburg, Ohio. And oh has it been boring. But one of the bright spots came this past Sunday with the midseason finale of "The Walking Dead."

I really like "The Walking Dead." But I'm starting to feel like I might be the only person on the planet who still does . My TV critic go-tos, Alan Sepinwall and the A.V. Club have both been lukewarm toward season 2. Ken Tucker at EW and Andy Greenwald at Grantland have downright hated it. And the commenters on all four websites have me fearing for creator and exec-producer Robert Kirkman's safety.

A lot of what the critics say does have merit but I'm started to get a little frustrated with the moving critical target on this show.

Season one of "The Walking Dead" was for the most part, a mess. Over an abbreviated six episodes, a very large unruly cast of characters ran around Atlanta from location to location with shifting sets of motivations. I think the producers felt the pressure to make a good impression with only six episodes and overextended themselves, producing a sense of chaos instead of excitement. Critics pointed this out and rightfully so.

Season two slowed things down considerably with the characters settling on a farm that was largely untouched by the zombie apocalypse. The new setting solved the schizophrenic pacing problems of the first season and has given the characters some space to breathe and interact with each other.

This is where I depart from most critics of the show. Most of them say that yes, it's nice that things have slowed down but it has only revealed that the characters aren't worth following. Some have even opined for the more frenetic zombie-killing porn aspect of the first season. I cry bullshit and for two reasons.

1. Desensitization - The last thing this TV show needs is for its audience to become desensitized to the undead violence its peddling. By kill #3 in most zombie movies, the audience has already become acclimated to the violence and decapitating hundreds of

reanimated corpses becomes no different than euthanizing cattle. "The Walking Dead" has done a great job of keeping its audience (or maybe just me) viscerally frightened and repulsed a the sight of a decaying corpse stumbling around. And the "Walking Dead" has been around for 10+ hours already where most zombie movies are only two hours. Also, if season four of "Breaking Bad" taught us anything it's that a slow burn to an explosive conclusion can be immensely satisfying on cable. It would mean the death of the show for the producers to go "Fuck it, we're not that good at characterization...let's try our hand at zombie-killing porn." We'd all be desensitized within three weeks and the same critics who called for the show to embrace its bloodlust more would say that it had gone too far and now needs to be off the air. But what about their difficulties with characterization...

2. They're Archetypes, Stupid - We get spoiled with TV shows such as "The Sopranos" or "Breaking Bad" and their characters who are so realistically human that we often forget that 98% of all characters who have ever appeared on television are broadly drawn people with a few outsized, exaggerated traits. "The Walking Dead" doesn't have characters as rich as Walter White or Tony Soprano but there is no shame in that. What season two has revealed is that the show has wisely abandoned the ambition to live up to characters in all-time classic cable shows. Instead, it has aimed its sights slightly lower, at an all-time classic network show. "The Walking Dead" is striving to be "Lost."

The characters on "Lost" were not real human beings, they were archetypes. Jack was a generic man of science. Locke was the man of faith. Sawyer was the wild card. Ben was the creepy Machiavellian genius we've all known at some point or another. Occasionally, they would transcend their prescribed roles, but for the most part they represented concepts larger than themselves.

Let's look for a moment at the characters on "The Walking Dead" then. Rick and Shane clearly have a poor man's version of Jack and Locke going where Rick represents morality and Shane represents the sheer desire to survive. They're actually kind of analogous to Piggy and Jack from Lord of the Flies (another classic that "Lost" drew from) as well. Daryl is a Sawyerian wild card as well. Carl represents the old word and how it can potentially be corrupted by this new one. Carol is the capital "M" Mother (and a shitty one at that, mind you). Andrea is a Juliet or Kate-modeled "tough chick." Dale is Rose and Bernard or the wizened elder whose intellectualism is of little use in this new world of physicality. And Glenn? Well Glenn just rocks. Keep doing what you do, dude.

"Lost" was a critical darling from moment one, and while that enthusiasm waned in later years, the reasoning behind it was never "the characters aren't vividly crafted enough."

The more I think about it the more "The Walking Dead" and "Lost" are similar. TWD has replaced "Lost" as the show that people continue to bitch about but refuse to stop watching. They both feature archetypical characters reacting to supernatural events and they both feature a fair share of mysteries. The mysteries on "Lost" are well known and numerous but TWD is building up an impressive roster of them with Merle's disappearance, Jenner's words to Rick and oh year, WHY ARE THE DEAD WALKING THE EARTH?

Anywho, I've prattled on too long. Let me know how wrong or right I am in the comments section.

P.S. SPOILER ALERT. While my brother and I were watching the midseason finale of TWD, my mom was upstairs watching an episode of "The Next Iron Chef" on Food Network. She came down afterward.

Mom: "They chopped Chef Samuelson on 'The Next Iron Chef.'"

Me: "A little girl got shot in the face on 'The Walking Dead.'"

Mom: "Oh. I guess your news is worse."

P.P.S. I started reading the "Walking Dead" comic books recently and...oh man, I don't know if I could possibly hate them more. All I can say is that if there are any fanboys out there who say the show is ruining the book's richly drawn characters, they need to go to a hospital immediately and have the 4 lb. tumor of stupid removed from their brain.

Gimme Some Rope, Tie Me to Dream

2011-11-20T22:40:00.003-05:00

"Community" isn't my TV favorite comedy of all time. "Arrested Development" is unquestionably more brilliant. "Scrubs" cracked the "goofy-group-of-strangers-as-family" code far earlier and more effectively than "Community." Hell, I don't even think "Community" is the best comedy currently on television. "Parks and Recreation" probably has the crown. But even "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" has been more consistent. "Sunny's" FX mates, Archer and Louie would also ultimately finish ahead of "Community" in a top ten list for me (and that top ten is probably coming later this year, by the way).

But since you're observant reader, you notice that I'm not writing about any of those shows right now. I'm writing about "Community." Part of that is due to some unfortunate timing. NBC in its infinite wisdom, struck "Community" from its midseason schedule. The show will probably be able to finish out its excellent third season but its long-term prospects with the peacock don't look as sunny. So I felt compelled to write a little about network TV's strangest experiment beyond the obligatory #savecommunity and #sixseasonsandamovie hashtag. The other reason for this post, however, is just that it's overdue.

I got a little bored this finals week so instead of studying for finals I watched the most recent episode, "Documentary Filmmaking: Redux," three times. Every time I marvel at its absolute ridiculousness as Greendale College's becomes an ambiguously gay Francis Ford Coppola/Martin Sheen/Colonel Kurtz hybrid monster while directing a commercial for the school. I enjoyed it so much that I thought I would try to fit it into my own personal pantheon of great "Community" episodes. And as I researched past episodes, I realized just how many truly great episodes of TV "Community" has produced.

While "Community" would probably not ultimately crack a top ten list of my favorite TV comedies, if I were to make a list of my favorite comedic episodes ever I would have a hard time finding room for anything that WASN'T "Community." I don't what it is about Dan Harmon's creation that lends it to such brilliant individual episodes that transcend the possibilities of his show's own framework and the expectations of network television in general. The simple answer might be that "Community" swings for the fences in certain high-concept episodes like "Modern Warfare" and "Epidemiology." But my eventual top ten list doesn't feature those episodes. It actually features as many "normal" episodes as it does high-concept ones. So, no, I don't get why Community has been able to kick so much ass in certain episodes but I'm certainly not complaining. Here is my full list. Let me know what I got wrong in the comments section.

10. Physical Education

There is a moment at the end of this episode that encapsulates modern culture more than anything else I've ever seen. Jeff Winger is in love with billiards. But his old school phys-ed coach dismisses his skills because he is too enthralled with the style of the "sport," jeans, leather jackets and a Winger-ian grin. So the climax involves Winger challengers his teacher to a game while wearing the customary gym shorts and t-shirt. But the coach still thinks that Winger is still somehow creating some sort of ironic fashion statement so the two men strip down to nothing and battle like B.C. Greco-Roman wrestlers. The scene of two naked men playing billiards says more about style vs. substance (a.k.a. the chief bugaboo of hipster culture) than anything I've ever seen.

9. Cooperative Caligraphy

This is the bottle episode that a character (Abed, who else) openly acknowledges that it's a bottle episode. Every group needs an Abed who fully understands that reality is just a farce and is only meaningful when every aspect of your existence can be repackaged into several seasons of 18-24 episodes each. Also: Annie's Boobs.

8. Advanced Dungeons and Dragons

This is kind of the antithesis to the Christmas episode where the group remains in a room and we get to see where their imaginations go. In this episode, the group remains in the room and we don't follow their imaginative paths of claymation whimsy. But somehow the stakes are incredibly higher. Actually, that's the part that I like about this episode. The writers establish from the first scene that the stakes are nothing short of the death of a peripheral character. And somehow it's not absurd in the slightest. It's the world most intense game of D&D ever where the group playing actually doesn't really care about D&D. It's also a testament to the sheer power of dialog.

7. Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design

I have no deep philosophical interpretation of this episode. Because blanket fort.

6. For a Few Paintballs More

You know what really bugs me? When "The Incredibles" is classified as a comedy. Look, I know it's a cartoon and I know it's pretty funny but "The Incredibles" is nothing short of the best action film of the past decade. I feel the same way about all the "Community" paintball episodes, especially "For a Few Paintballs More." Of course, there are a lot of ridiculous elements in "For a Few Paintballs Mores." chief among them the fact that there is a school-wide paintball war. But that doesn't change the fact that it is just straight badass. Abed-as-Han-Solo making out with Annie as orange paint rains down upon them is a stunningly beautiful shot. And the final story of Pierce's redemption of Greendale's triumph is actually quite thrilling. It would have made an excellent series finale but it also wouldn't have brought us episodes like...

5. Documentary Filmmaking: Redux

So this is where this episode ends up in the pantheon. Everything about this one is just genius. Annie's stockholm syndrome. Jeff "becoming" a bald man, Greendale's most famous alum, Luis Guzman, coming home. But it would amount to nothing without Jim Rash's weirdly incredibly layered performance as Dean Pelton. Every time I've watched this I've started laughing once he turns up with a gravelly voice and hoodie and no shirt, and don't stop laughing until the final frame of the episode.

4. Contemporary American Poultry

This is the moment I knew "Community" was a show for me. Only a show as warped as this one could pull off such a flawless parody of a 21-year-old mob movie and American classic this effectively. Given the option of watching this episode or "Goodfellas," I would almost always watch this episode. It all wouldn't matter, however, without that final tender scene with Jeff and Abed. The U.S Autism and Aspberger Association really needs to send Dan Harmon some kind of award.

3. Remedial Chaos Theory

This is the crown-jewel of season three so far. Wired's recent (and excellent) profile of Dan Harmon reveals just how much effort and thought he and the writing staff put into each episode. Harmon even creates little circles for each character's arc for every episode. Per Wired:

Harmon calls his circles embryos—they contain all the elements needed for a satisfying story—and he uses them to map out nearly every turn on Community, from throwaway gags to entire seasons. If a plot doesn’t follow these steps, the embryo is invalid, and he starts over. To this day, Harmon still studies each film and TV show he watches, searching for his algorithm underneath, checking to see if the theory is airtight. “I can’t not see that circle,” he says. “It’s tattooed on my brain.”

That must mean that for this episode, Harmon created 49 circles for seven characters in seven timelines. That kind of effort for a half-hour network sitcom that only 3.5 million people regularly watch is astounding. Of course, it would mean nothing if the effort sucked. Each timeline brilliantly and usually quite accurately shows the results of what happens when a particular member of a group is absent, even if for only two minutes. That the story reaches a satisfying and total conclusion with seven different stories set in different universes is astonishing. Also, it's just damn funny.

2. Mixology Certification

"You were talking about the same bar?!?!?!" See: "Physical Education", "commenting on hipster culture."

1. Critical Film Studies

"Conversation was invented by humans to conceal reality. We use it to sweet talk away around natural selection."

When I saw NBC advertising for the "Pulp Fiction" episode of "Community," I was positive that it would be my favorite episode ever. It ended up being my favorite episode ever but it had almost nothing to do with "Pulp Fiction," and it's all because of several scenes of dialog that contain no score and almost no jokes. Abed convinces Jeff that he got to be an extra on the set of his favorite show "Cougar Town." While filming he developed an alter-ego named Chet and immediately constructed an entire life story for Chet. But once filming is done, Abed's reality is thrown into crisis. How can Chet still be if filming stops...and conversely, how could Abed ever be is all Abed cares about is television and all television shows one day stop filming. So Abed becomes Chet. Chet and Jeff have a conversation in which Jeff gets into some deep shit. Jeff feels like he has gotten a huge emotional weight off of his chest but of course it turns out that Abed was only "doing" another movie, this time a scene form "My Dinner with Andre." Jeff feels betrayed and viciously attacks Abed for his inability to connect with another human being without the context of pop culture. I watch this scene all the time now because I very much identify with Abed. And now that we live in a time where we can watch pretty much whatever we want, whenever we want, I think more and more people are beginning to identify with Abed. So is that time that we spend in front of the television or computer screen real? Can it be a shared experience for communities to interact with, or is it just indulging meaningless fantasies that are only robbing us of our time here on earth? And if we have a meaningful experience with someone else with pop culture as the basis, does it demean or degrade it? These are some of the most fascinating questions we can ask ourselves in this era of media saturation and I will always pinpoint those two quiet scenes with two characters at a restaurant as the moment that society finally asked those questions in the most eloquent, entertaining and ultimately most meta way possible.

May the Black Turtleneck Retire to the Rafters of Our Apple-Shaped Hearts

2011-10-06T16:06:00.009-04:00

Image via Jonathan Mark

I just wrote 500 words on the death of Steve Jobs. Then I deleted them.

God, they sucked, they just sucked. I don't know where I wanted to take it. I suppose it was a eulogy of sorts. But I didn't know Steve Jobs. Me writing a eulogy for Steve Jobs would be about as illustrative as Steve Jobs writing a eulogy for me.

"Well, his name was Alec Bojalad. Those are some two pretty weird names. I bet people mispronounced them all the time. I'm sure Alec was quite disappointed on those occasions...and ummm...hmm, what else? There is a lot of seemingly homophobic content on his Facebook page. I think he's just joking with his friends but you never know. It's just as likely that he was actually gay I suppose and just had to overcompensate for his feelings with offensive jokes and comments. So...in conclusion: let's all honor Alec Bojalad, a gay youth with a funny name!"

- Steve Jobs writing for The Wall Street Journal

So instead of a eulogy, let's take this opportunity to talk about death, itself.

Wait...where are you all going?

There is a surefire way to tell exactly how important and influential someone is after they die. Measure how long it takes on your social networks and the comment sections you frequent for what I like to call the "what about Africa?" comments to start rolling in. The "what about Africa" comments are pretty much what they sound like. Example (that I made up but you will still probably encounter verbatim sooner or later):

I am getting reall sik (sic) of everybody talking about this (INSERT CELEBRITY/PUBLIC FIGURE HERE) dood. ITS JUST 1 PERSON!!! Dont u kno that there are people dieing in Africa?

At some point this sentiment will constitute 35% of all online interactions regarding Steve Jobs' death. We will measure just how valued Steve Jobs was to planet Earth based on how long it takes to get to that 35%. In Jobs' case, I imagine it's going to be quite a while.

I feel confident in this assessment, but I am still trying to reconcile how I feel about the "what about Africa?" crowd. I have always reacted to celebrity deaths. I don't want to say reacted "strongly" because I don't really react strongly to anything (seriously, ask my poor girlfriend). But the deaths of pretty, successful famous strangers have always stuck in my mind much longer and more prominently than the deaths of millions upon millions of non-famous anonymous individuals.

I am not entirely sure why this is the case. The best I can figure is that it's because I am so plugged into pop culture and become so attached to the characters and personas they portray. And any good artist should be able to become a mirror for his or her audience. In the case of non-actors or artists, it can be sobering to have one significant case of a talented and capable individual still succumbing to the inevitable. So essentially when I see that Heath Ledger died I think "William in A Knight's Tale was just like me and now he's dead. Oh God, I'm next." And when I see that Steve Jobs died I think "He was way, way, way, way better and more important than I'll ever be and he still died. Christ, there's no escaping it, is there?"

It is a quite narcissistic worldview and I do feel some measure of guilt when I come up against the "what about Africa?" folks. I don't know what the demographic of this group is but I would guess that they've spent a lot less time watching TV than I have. I also suspect, however, that they are not that different from me.

Everyone fears their own demise (except for Jedi, of course, Jedi fear nothing). And everyone obsesses over this fear first and foremost through the deaths of others. We all obsess and despair over the deaths of others we know...but after that we split into those two camps: those who first and foremost mourn the loss of the well known people they've never met and those who mourn the loss of little known people they've never met.

So when the "what about Africa?" folks feel that enough time has passed to start drawing people's attention away from Steve Jobs to the rest of the suffering world, let them, "celebrity death" folks. And be patient with the "celebrity death" people for now, "what about Africa?" homies - they are just trying to come to grips with their own eventual demise...just like you will be soon enough. There is no sense in fighting each other over what amounts to the only common fear you both share.

After all, a wise man once said that "remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose."

Who was that? Oh, right.

One last note.

You've probably seen this image by now.

In my opinion, it is one of the lulziest moments in the history of the internet but it also represents the moment where we finally just have to break up with the Westboro Baptist Church. I know we've all had fun being outraged by these people but this might be their biggest stretch yet. At this point they're going to picket Fred Phelps funeral after he dies (that has to be coming up soon, right?)

So can we all agree to just ignore them? Finally? Please? Pretty pretty please? And ignore is not even a strong enough word. Megan Phelps and company would probably enjoy being ignored. What we all need to do is agree, as a global society that they just don't exist.

Nobody talk to the Phelps, nobody talk about the Phelps. They do not register in our visual or auditory spectrums anymore. Even if they exist, in theory, it is only some sort of alternate dimension that no known human sense has access to.

If they are at your own mother's funeral, three inches in your face - screaming about the status of her soul- you do not hear that. If the spit from their mouths fly into your eyes, do not wipe them out, even if it stings. There is no spit in your eye because the Westboro Baptist Church doesn't exist.

If you are at a food court in a Kansas mall and Fred Phelps, himself, stands over you and rests his penis on your shoulder, do not call the cops. Do not react. Do not do anything but continue to eat your high-sodium food. Fred Phelps doesn't exist.

The media will not cover the Westboro Baptist Church, the federal government will shred their birth certificates. The Westboro Baptist Church will not exist. And then...maybe then we can have a god damn funeral in peace.

Too Late, Too Early, Right on Time

2011-09-16T11:19:00.006-04:00

I think I speak for all of us when I say that critics completely represent my views in their totality regarding every movie, TV show, album, song or book I've ever seen.

Now that I can hear all of your collective Vader-like screams of "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" I've realized that I may be in the minority on this. Oh well.

Anywho, I am one of eleven people on the planet who still values critical consensus as a legitimate measure of something's quality (along with box office gross and number of fart jokes), so I spend an inordinate amount of time analyzing what goes into creating that consensus. And here is my controversial finding: there is always a consensus.

The internet has time and time again that all critics not named "Armond White" have generally the same opinions and thoughts regarding what they're reviewing. Now that your "NOOO!" scream has died out, I can hear your exasperated sigh: "Come on now, Alec, that can't be true. I just googled 'Rotten Tomatoes 50% scores' and see that Tron Legacy split critical opinion almost exactly with 110 critics recommending the film and 111 critics not."

It is true that some films, TV shows and albums receive mixed reviews, but if you just glance over to the right of Tron Legacy you will see that under "critical consensus" the Rotten Tomatoes editors have written:

Tron Legacy boasts dazzling visuals, but its human characters and story get lost amidst its state-of-the-art production design.

That is what the critics have (correctly) declared Tron Legacy to be. They have come to the consensus over exactly what kind of film Tron Legacy is....and half of them think that that makes it a film worthy of your time and money, while the other half would probably have you seek out more sophisticated fare.

There will never be a day when every critic in the country comes to a wildly different conclusion over a piece of art. Owen Glieberman at EW is not going to interpret Tron Legacy as an allegory of the working class's uprisings in 1930's Ukraine while Roger Ebert sees it as a shot for shot remake of Freddy Got Fingered. There will almost always be a general consensus.

Now what I want to know is how often these consensuses are correct....and by "correct," I mean "in line with what I think." I believe, for the most part, they are but, in the case of serialized entertainment (TV shows with multiple seasons and to a lesser extent albums from pop artists) not always at the right time.

Let me explain. Critics will come to consensus regarding something's quality but not at the exact right moment that they are trying to pinpoint. This means declaring that a show is the best show on TV during season three...when it really earned that title in season two. Or it means calling a band's first album a once-in-a-lifetime achievement, only to have that band top it handily on their second attempt.

So I've compiled a little list of TV shows and musicians who critics have been too late, too early or right on time in their collective opinions of. I am not tackling movies, yet because unless they are part of a series critical consensus is reached once and rarely changes over time.

MUSIC

Too Late: Fucked Up

Album #2 - The Chemistry of Common Life, Meta Critic Score - 85

Album #3 - David Comes to Life, Meta Critic Score - 86

Why critics were too late: I'm actually listening to David Comes to Life as I write this and it was my inspiration for writing this post. I love David Comes to Life and I think it will end up being my favorite album of 2011 (at least until I hear this shit). But I must admit to being a little taken aback by the critical response. In my opinion, music critics are correct in asserting that David Comes to Life is Fucked Up's best album, but I think they are exaggerating the band's supposed transformation into an indie force to be reckoned with. David Comes to Life isn't Fucked Up's big coming out party because 2008's The Chemistry of Common Life already was.

Too Early: Arcade Fire

Album #1 - Funeral, Meta Critic Score - 90

Album #2 - Neon Bible, Meta Critic Score - 87

Why critics were too early: Oh boy. Let's tread carefully here because if I don't say what I'm about to say as delicately as possible, I may be cast out of pop culture journalism forever. Funeral is a great album but Neon Bible is better...and so is The Suburbs. When something so fresh and exciting bursts onto the scene I know it can be hard to temper one's enthusiasm. Funeral is an undeniably wonderful and even whimsical introduction to one of humankind's great bands. But it sounds just like that: an introduction. It doesn't sound as sharp as I think Win Butler and Co.wanted them to be. Neon Bible and The Suburbs feel more like the official Arcade Fire business cards that all 9,238 of their members would be happy to hand out at some social engagement. If Neon Bible, Funeral and The Suburbs all came out at the same time, what would critics say was the best? The correct answer is anything but Funeral. But music critics had already exhausted every superlative in their thesaurus by the time Neon Bible came out that it just felt redundant to call it genius again.

Right on Time: Kanye West

Albums #1-4 - Average Meta Critic Score - 82

Album #5 - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Average Meta Critic Score - 94

Why critics were right on time: Here is kind of the opposite example of Arcade Fire. Critics could have called any Kanye album leading up to Fantasy his seminal work and a touchstone of modern hip hop. And indeed many of them did, but one gets the sense that most critics were holding out for that one last bit to click in place, the place where Kanye's ego, talent and current emotional status all combine into one molotov cocktail of pure amazing. When that moment came along in the guise of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, critics finally let loose their unadulterated enthusiasm for both the album and Kanye's decade of sustained excellence.

TELEVISION

Too Late: Breaking Bad

Season 2 Meta Critic Score: 85

Season 3 Meta Critic Score: 89

Why critics were too late: As things stand right now, Breaking Bad is the best show on TV (or at the very least the best drama on TV). And to television critic's credit, the general consensus recognizes this. Unfortunately, it took the critical mass one season too long to come to this conclusion. Even Alan Sepinwall, who is the finest television critic in the history of the medium argues that season three is where Breaking Bad is inducted into the TV pantheon. But Breaking Bad didn't make the jump in season two, as the current critical narrative suggest, but rather in season two. The two seasons are at least on equal footing but in my mind, season two even surpasses its more popular follow-up. Season three is a testament to creator Vince Gilligan's improvisational skill, moving along at a natural and exciting pace like a excellent jazz composition that just happened to be punctuated with several murders. But season two is a more complete and consistent vision in which every possible moment connects to every other moment in impossibly complex and emotionally devastating ways. I guess what I'm saying is that you should watch Breaking Bad.

Too Early: Lost

Season 4 Meta Critic Score: 87

Season 5 Meta Critic Score: 78

Why critics were too early: I wish Meta Critic had scores for Lost season 1 because I'm certain they would be in the 90s. I know it might be hard to remember now but Lost was one of the "buzziest" shows of all time. Critics were so intoxicated with the shows zeitgeist potential that they were tripping over themselves to declare it one of network's TV's finest triumphs. Then in subsequent seasons (particularly following season 3) Lost actually became network TV's finest triumphs, to which the critics responded "y r yooo foggots stil watching that gay show?!!?!>!!1" Ok, maybe that response isn't just from the critics but that is what many of them were articulating, only with better grammar. See, the early response to Lost wasn't just over what J.J Abrams, Damon Lindelof and Co. were producing onscreen but also for the potential of what might be onscreen later on in the show's run. Now I would argue that once Lost had an end date set, the show's quality skyrocketed as the writers could move from "potential" to "substance." And that substance included three seasons of pure sci-fi genius. Unfortunately, the fact that there was any sort of substance or resolution began to drag down Lost's critical consensus because they preferred the resolutions in their minds to the resolutions that Lost had finally committed to film. Season 5 of Lost is one of the 10 best TV seasons of the past 10 years...and it also has the lowest Meta Critic ranking of anything on this page.

Right on Time: Justified

Season 1 Meta Critic Score: 81

Season 2 Meta Critic Score: 91

Why critics were right on time: I'll make a confession here: I've not watched season 1 of Justified all the way through. It's definitely a good season of TV but when I sat down to watch it my dance card was already full of shows demanding my attention and Justified was only politely asking my attention, not grabbing my eyeballs and stapling them to my laptop. Then I sat down to review season two for the Post. Consider my eyes stapled from that moment on. The jump in quality from season one to season two of Justifed is the first time I can remember reading about the concept of the "jump" in critical essays. And they were completely, ahem, Justified.

So now I turn it over to you, friends and countrymen. What shows, music artists and maybe even film directors did critical consensus get right too late, too early or right on time?

Saint Rebecca

2011-07-20T21:14:00.006-04:00

I think we all knew a second Rebecca Black single was coming.

And just as surely, I'm sure we all had our own expectations. I had only two wishes for what Ms. Black would churn out with song number two...only two possible scenarios I wanted to see.

Scenario #1 was that the song would be good. And I mean really good. I wanted both pop cultural critics and classical musical scholars to be in full agreement that it was one of the finest original compositions a human being has ever come up with. Children 500 years in the future would play "My Moment" at piano recitals instead of Beethoven's Fifth. No one would be able to hear it without immediately bursting into tears, having become suddenly aware of their own humanity in an unprecedented way.

Why did I want this? Why not. At some point, something has to come along that will change the course of music forever and it might as well come from the least likeliest source we're aware of. I am willing to concede, however, that this was not the most realistic desire on my part.

So I came up with Scenario #2. I wanted Rebecca to show us in some way, any way, that she was now in on the joke. The general gist of "My Moment" (I swear to God I originally wrote "My Struggle" on the first two references of the song) would be "Haha, yeah I get it. Friday was pretty bad. Now here's another pretty bad song that you kids with your tight-ass jeans can dance to ironically."

In hindsight, I guess maybe Scenario #1 would have been more likely.

There is no self-awareness in "My Moment," nor is there much quality to speak of. But it does have a quality that makes me want to revise my initial expectations. It's optimistic.

Rebecca Black released one of the worst songs of the Internet era. She then spent about half a year being told that she had released one of the worst songs of the Internet era. She was humiliated through every possible form of media, went through a protracted legal battle for her earnings off the song and even received death threats (although it should be noted that death threats may be the most common forms of internet censure).

So what does she do? She releases a song celebrating her "moment." We as a society spent six months raping this 13-year-old girl's soul and she essentially says "Thanks, guys! It's awesome to have y'all as fans."

I can't tell if this is courageous or just youthful naivety but I do know that, whatever it is, I plan on encouraging it. It is a rare feat to stare directly into the black heart of the Internet and still come away with a cheerful disposition. It is as impressive as Jesus facing temptation in the desert and still going to the cross. But damn it all if Rebecca doesn't pull it off.

Rebecca Black began her "career" as a social experiment of sorts. Is it possible to gain fame for something objectively awful? Having proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the answer is "yes," Rebecca deserves a continuation on this social experiment. I propose that we see if its possible to sustain someone's career in a field in which they clearly have no talent. We all know the answer is "yes" thanks to this:

The only question is if our appreciation for this girl's tenacity in following her dreams will equal our fascination with drunken fist-bumping lunatics.

Well, it was fun while it lasted, Rebecca.

Goodnight, Sweet Half-Blood Prince

2011-07-13T23:39:00.001-04:00

I'd like to share a quote with you. It's from Stephen King, one of the very few literary (if you are scoffing at the words "Stephen King" and "literary" appearing in the same sentence then you may not be the target audience for this post) icons bigger than the subject of this post. It's from his novella The Body, which was later adapted into Rob Reiner's Stand By Me.

"The most important things are the hardest to say because words diminish them."

It's always been one of my favorite quotes but I'm not entirely sure it should be. I've always considered myself a writer (and if you're scoffing at the concepts of "Alec Bojalad" and "writer," then you are definitely not the target audience for this post) and have subsequently felt a certain amount of guilt for holding that quote so highly.

Words shouldn't diminish the most important things. All I have ever wanted to do with my career and my life is to capture what's important with words, to explain it and to catalogue it. But more often than I'd like, I cannot. This is one of those moments.

In The Body, King's character is trying to explain why seeing a doe amongst the rising sun and dew of a new morning was important. I suppose this is a very difficult thing to communicate to someone - why an early morning encounter with nature can be the very moment that your whole life hinges on.

In my case, however, communicating why Harry Potter is important to me feels like it should be so much easier.

Harry Potter may very well be the biggest cultural "thing" ever. In a time where books should be huge, Harry Potter was. Hell, in a time of constantly fracturing cultural interests, nothing should be this huge, but this was.

The Harry Potter brand is worth $15 billion worldwide. That's means everybody on the planet could have conceivably paid more than $2 on some sort of Harry Potter product. J.K Rowling makes $1 million a week from Harry Potter. Harry Potter has invaded every aspect of culture. Almost everybody in English-speaking societies has a basic concept of who "Harry Potter" is.

So yes, Harry Potter is clearly important...far more important that a damn doe standing alert in the rising sun. Still, my words can only continue to fail me.

Every morning I take the subway into work. And every morning I will inevitably glimpse an ad with Harry, Ron and Hermione standing in front of a pile of rubble that was once Hogwarts with the words below them declaring "It All Ends - July 15." And I can't quite communicate what that feels like. It's like Warner Brothers bought an ad to remind me every morning that a close friend of mine will be dying in mid-July. I have an almost scandalized reaction. It seems reckless on Warner Brother's part and just downright mean.

Obviously, Harry Potter won't be dying then. But the era of my life in which there was always another outing with Potter and Company will be ceasing.

I'm not the first to say that July 15 marks the end of my childhood. I'm almost wary to use that phrase because it lends credence to the prevailing notion that Harry Potter is a children's franchise (at the very latest, it stopped being that when an evil sorcerer was brought back from ghost-like state in a ritual bordering on satanic but not before murdering a teenager). Harry Potter became an adult series, but I remained a child throughout.

When I read the first book, I was 9 years old and Harry was 11. When I saw the first movie, we were both 11. When I read the final book, we were both 17. And now Harry has stayed 17 for nearly four years as I've advanced to the uncomfortably ancient age of 21.

From age 9 to age 21, I, and my generation, had the world's most real imaginary friend to grow with...to brave the awkwardness of puberty with, to learn about the inherent injustices of the world with and to figure out just how we would ever reconcile the inconsistencies of what our parents and teachers taught us.

Now, I see "It all ends," and I'm faced with a horrifying notion. It's not horrifying that Harry Potter is ending, it's horrifying that I'm not. The students of the Hogwarts class of '98 are crystalized in a perpetual moment of triumph, defeat over evil and, in Harry's case, defeat over death. They all froze at the same moment and I found that I could still move my limbs. They won their war and then I realized that someone had to clear all of the bodies out of the Great Hall.

I suppose this realization should have hit me in 2007, when the series actually, you know, ended. There was a tremendous feeling of emotional catharsis when I closed the Deathly Hallows, but part of me was aware that I was still living in the era of "Active Potter." Somewhere in Scotland the wheels were still turning on the franchise, and it's a credit to the team behind the films that I considered the series to not quite be finished yet. But now as Warner Brothers continues to remind me, it really, really is ending.

I'm not going to the midnight release. The logistics of it finding which theater to go to while in a foreign land (the locals call it "New Jurrzee," I believe) were difficult. For something so monumental I know I could have figured it out. I've not missed a midnight release of a movie since Goblet of Fire and I haven't missed a midnight release of a book since Order of the Phoenix but I'm going to be missing this one.

I wanted to make it a special experience but nothing felt grand enough. A midnight release was fine for a middle chapter but for the end...? The only way to pay the series its due in symbolic fashion would be to fly to Scotland, identify the exact spot Hogwarts would sit on if it did exist, and set up a projection to watch the movie with everybody who's ever been important to me, living and dead.

That didn't work out.

So sometime this weekend or early next week I will sneak into a screening by myself. I'll marvel at the Dark Knight Rises trailer, finish 3/4 of my popcorn before the movie starts and have a religious experience. Once the movie is over, I will exit the theater. I might keep walking to my car, or I might take a moment to lean up against a wall.

Undoubtedly something important will have just happened and I will put it into words. And those words will diminish more than half a lifetime spent at Hogwarts.

Super (H)8(er)

2011-07-05T20:33:00.001-04:00

Some things become are such obvious slam dunks that there is no question they will somehow be messed up.

Imagine, if you will, that a basketball player knocks a pass from the opposing team towards his own basket around the free throw line (those who know nothing about sports may want to skip a paragraph or two). He takes off in a dead run, gets control of the ball around mid court and is dribbling full speed towards his own basket, with no one remotely close to him. He knows he's going to dunk it - there's really no other option.

But as you're watching this, you just have this gut feeling that he'll miss the dunk. It's too easy. Athletes thrive on adversity and there is no adversity in a fastbreak dunk. He'll start to think about what will happen if he misses the dunk. What will his excuse be? That he was too open? So what does end up happening? I don't know. Let's ask Ron Artest.

Sometimes slam dunks are just too obvious. And that's exactly how I feel about Super 8.

Look, I know Super 8 came out roughly 328 years ago (in pop culture time) but humor me and just hop in the Delorean all the way back to June 10 so we can pretend this post is still relevant.

Until Roman Polanski makes a movie about child molestation, there will never be a more perfect coupling than J.J. Abrams and a Spielbergian monster movie dripping in nostalgia. Almost everything Abrams has been involved in up to this point has been screaming that he wants to do this movie.

The first half of Lost season one (one of the very few times Abrams was actually closely involved with the show) plays kind of like Super 8-lite. There are adults and children dealing with their familial issues while the supernatural plays out in the background. The supernatural isn't the foci of the drama, it's merely the impetus.

During Abrams 2007 "Mystery Box" presentation to the TED Conference, he spoke of why Jaws is one of the best movies ever (fastforward to 9:08 in the video)

He said it's not because of the suspense or the terror of a massive, prehistoric shark. It's because Spielberg knows how to insert one scene between father and son that establishes that everything on the screen matters. There is a very fine line for cinematic characters between human being and shark chum, and Abrams clearly gets that.

Abrams understands everything he says in that TED Conference both intellectually and emotionally. And he's proven it he knows how to demonstrate that in summer movies like Mission Impossible 3 and Star Trek.

J.J. Abrams not only respects and loves Steven Spielberg's work but he understands it. He's the one man in the world who would not only want to recreate E.T more than anyone but he's also probably the only person who could.

So does it work? Do you need me to post the Ron Artest clip again? No, of course it doesn't work. How could it? Super 8 is far too close its own filmmaker's comfort zone to do or say anything meaningful or affecting.

It looks like a J.J. Abrams movie, which is to say quite visually impressive (I don't even mind the lens flare). The acting is very good, and in the case of Elle Fanning spine-tingling good. The action is solid, and the creature in question is actually quite an interesting creation. The script isn't even overly terrible, despite some awkward dialogue.

But despite every reason why it should, Super 8 just doesn't work. The emotional arcs don't hit. And it might be because we know they're just that: arcs. It feels pre-determined and false. Abrams may have gotten both emotional storytelling down to such a science that it comes across as predictably scientific and cold.

To a certain extent, all characters in summer blockbusters and Abrams' movies are loosely drawn archetypes. But Super 8, which is so invested in nostalgia, should not rely as heavily on archetypes and outright cliche as it sometimes does.

Super 8 couldn't possibly fail and that's why it predictably did. J.J. Abrams was in complete control of the ball in Super 8. Every possible aspect was pointing to a slam dunk and he clanged it off the rim. He'll bounce back, presumably when his hero isn't looking over his shoulder as a producer. It's easier to slam home that dunk when your girlfriend isn't watching from the stands.

Until then, here are more missed dunks.

Continuity is for Chumps

2011-06-27T21:11:00.002-04:00

NOTE: The following post contains spoilers for season 1 of Louie as well as some very light spoilers for season 2. But you probably don't watch that show and subsequently don't care. Oh there's a mild Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind spoiler thrown in there somewhere too. Deal with it.

The phrase "it's the best show on TV" is now uttered as frequently as phrases like "good morning," "how was your day?" and "please put the powerful hallucinogenic drugs away, Congresswoman Bachmann (I mean, it's the only explanation, right?)."

And as is the case with popular phrases, its overuse has robbed it of considerable power. Well that, and choices like these. So I've made my own private pact to only use the phrase "best show on TV" in cases of rare, Wire-level, sustained brilliance.

This, of course, means that I have to choose my words carefully with the following sentence. FX's Louie is the bes...greate...most interesting show on television.

I could prattle on for hours about what makes the show so grea...interesting, but many critics far more talented than I have prattled aplenty on almost every conceivable topic regarding the show. But there is one aspect that I still don't think gets enough play when discussing Louis C.K.'s masterpiece.

Louie operates under a radical principle: continuity is stupid. Continuity can get in the way. The only consistent aspect on Louie is Louie himself. Everything else reserves the right to change toward any purpose at any moment.

Here is an example.

In the episode "Double Date/Mom" Louie's relationship with his mother is strained and it is hinted that their relationship has always been filled with conflict. Then in the episode "God," a young Louie shares a scene with his mom in which she wisely teaches her son about the mysteries of religion without any hints of condescension or malice.

And speaking of "God," Louie's mother is played by the same actress who portrays a date in the episode "Bully" who is turned off by Louie's cowardice when confronted by a young bully. This is either a huge oversight or an Oedipal statement....or it could be something else entirely. Louis C.K, himself, commented on the A.V Club recap for "God" and said this regarding the casting of his mother:

Amy Landecker had read for the mom. I hadn't seen it. She subsequently got the part for Bully, which we shot pretty early in the season. (sorry I know the timeline is a mess here) Anyway I watched her audition for God and she just nailed it (sorry) . No one else came close. So I decided I don't care that she was in this other thing. This show doesn't really function as a series. I don't think of it that way. I use what I need to tell each story.

I bolded the third to last statement because I think it's of particular importance. There are many purposes of art and many things we seek from it. But if we all had to boil down what our expectations were for the culture we consumed, I think the general consensus would be that we want it to make us feel something...anything - excited, depressed, furious, titillated, etc.

I've always thought that Louie has been closest in tone to the movies of Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). And I think it's because Kaufman has a similar investment of impact over clarity. Like Louie, Charlie Kaufman movie's are weird but not just for weirdness' sake.

Jim Carrey once did an interview while promoting Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (I have no idea where this interview is now but I'm 95% sure it exists. Somebody please try to find it) in which he pointed out what he thought made the movie particularly special. He spoke about the scene where his character is deep inside his own subconscious and is reliving a childhood memory in which he succumbs to peer pressure and hammers a wounded bird to death.

It's incredibly strange but also incredibly affecting. In the interview (DEAR GOD, PLEASE SOMEONE FIND IT!), Carrey mentioned how you could only see a scene like that in a Kaufman film. It wouldn't make sense for another "normal" movie to suddenly flashback to a character doing something so small yet seeming so huge. But it makes sense in the context of a Kaufman movie because very little actually makes sense in a Kaufman movie.

Louie is like that. Louie can hit all of those "little Jim Carrey kills a baby bird" moments because it sees no reason not to. What Louie is trying to accomplish, either consciously or unconsciously is to prove that there is no reason for continuity to get in the way of good art. If William Shakespeare could have somehow hammered home the theme of youthful desperation and passion in Romeo and Juliet by randomly making Romeo a velociraptor in the third act, why shouldn't he?

We live in a time where TV is continually shaking away the constraints it has placed on itself - the constraints of commercial breaks, the constraints of FCC regulations, the constraints of serialized plots. But Louie will get credit for being one of the very first shows to not be constrained by continuity and plot consistency.

That's why it's the bes...greate...most interesting show on TV.

All or Nothing or Something

2011-06-21T21:40:00.002-04:00

NOTES: I initially posted this onto my new Wordpress and then promptly broke out in cold sweats. It didn't feel right. I felt like I was cheating on my little Blogger that's done nothing to not earn my trust and my posts. So I'll be blogging again on here for awhile and in the meantime work on finding a webspace for the Bojalad brand (the brand part is a joke - nobody likes me or my brand - the finding a new website part isn't. Any suggestions?). Until then, however, I'll keep plugging away at Blogger.

There is something about sitting down to write that immediately turns me emo.

It’s not that I dread the prospect of a blank page that needs to be filled (although I definitely, DEFINITELY do). What I think it is, is the fact that I know I am now fulfilling a certain role. I am suddenly a writer, whether I want to be or not. And somewhere deep down in the 8th grade American Lit. file of my brain, I have this vague understanding that being a writer means being fucking miserable.

Don’t misunderstand me, I understand I’m not a Writer, but a writer. I’m not F. Scott Fitzgerald, I’m just a journalism student eagerly waiting for someone gullible enough to pay me to do what I’d do for free. And a WordPress blog is not The Great Gatsby, it’s a central hub for half-baked ideas, “your” when one means “you’re” and Lolcats…billions and billions of Lolcats. But I still believe anyone who stares at a blank Word document or blog post is partaking in a grand tradition of sad futility.

Almost everybody who picked up a pen with the intention of capturing…something on a page was undoubtedly a miserable bastard. Maybe it’s because writing is a hopeless act of trying to capture reality and abstract concepts that can never be recreated or explained. Or maybe it’s because every writer is just unconsciously mimicking the misery of his or her heroes, dating all the way back to the first time a caveman carved symbols into a wall describing the time his family got eaten by a saber-toothed tiger.

I used to write quite a bit, actually. I began a blog my freshman year of college and swore to provide a new post five days a week for the foreseeable future. Somehow, I actually did it. I made lots of promises to myself at the beginning of my college career. Working out every morning quickly became every other morning, which became whenever I felt like, which became not quite feeling like it at all. Not skipping any classes may have lasted two weeks, I don’t remember. But those five posts a week lasted more than a year, or 71 years in Alec years.

And I enjoyed every day of it, until the one day I didn’t. I wasn’t pressed for time or ideas. For some reason, that writer’s melancholy began to set in. What was once invigorating became exhausting. So I quit. Completely. I still would write things for other sources, like my favorite magazine and the school paper. But that isn’t necessarily “writing” to me. That’s working, that’s amassing clips for future employers.

So after a few months or so (I don’t remember how long and am too lazy to check it) I began again, with slightly less output. So I quit again. Then I began again. And so on and so forth. At one point, to spare myself the embarrassment of constantly having to announce “I quit” to the internet, I even announced that I would write “whenever I feel like it.” It didn’t take long before I didn’t feel like it anymore.

Today, I still don’t feel like it. But I’m getting these stupid ideas and these stupid thoughts. Some of these ideas are good, most are bad. Sometimes, I’ll write a thought down into notebook, other times I’ll arrange it into 140-characters and tweet it, but most of the time it will just die a lonely, anonymous death in my head.

So I plan to write. I have no set schedule. No minimum output, no maximum output, just a sincere desire to quiet the constant collisions of thoughts in my head by exorcizing them out into a blog. I’m proud of the work I’ve accomplished since I’ve stopped writing blog entries – news stories, feature stories, TV reviews, baseball game recaps (all of which I plan to archive one day on this site) – but I do miss writing for writing’s sake. And if I have to accommodate the misery that comes along with the role, then so be it.

Post About the Post #23

2011-05-31T02:02:00.000-04:00

That's a wrap, folks!

Post about the Post #22

2011-05-26T12:08:00.001-04:00

Yes, Post, the pilots DO seem promising.

Post About the Post #21

2011-05-17T12:36:00.000-04:00

In which I compare Saturday Night Live to KFC.

Post About the Post #20

2011-05-16T14:41:00.002-04:00

This was from two weeks ago but I still like it. What do you think about Steve Carell's departure from The Office?

Post About the Post #19

2011-04-27T13:43:00.001-04:00

Treme? Not a fan.

Post About the Post #18

2011-04-19T11:22:00.000-04:00

We have a must watch on our hands.

Post About the Post #17

2011-04-12T12:10:00.000-04:00

Swords and sorcery, y'all.

Post About the Post #16

2011-04-07T10:30:00.000-04:00

Oh AMC, why you so great?

Post About the Post #15

2011-03-29T10:46:00.002-04:00

How has it taken me this long to cover food?

Post About the Post #14

2011-03-08T11:46:00.001-05:00

In which I flex some of my Adonis DNA.

Post About the Post #13

2011-03-01T12:43:00.000-05:00

In which Timothy Olyphant justifies my love.

Post About the Post #12

2011-02-22T11:06:00.000-05:00

Look at me, enjoying a cop show.

Post About the Post #11

2011-02-15T10:27:00.002-05:00

Is it just me, or is TV Comedy really, really good right now?

Post About the Post #10

2011-02-09T17:26:00.002-05:00

In which I go after lazy ad executives on Super Bowl Sunday.

Post About the Post #9

2011-02-01T10:16:00.001-05:00

It's a 6-for-1!

Post About the Post pt. 8

2011-01-25T10:18:00.001-05:00

Skins is actually kind of growing on me now.

Post About the Post #7

2011-01-18T10:17:00.001-05:00

You probably shouldn't watch The Cape.

Post About the Post #6

2011-01-12T14:42:00.001-05:00

In which I write about addiction of all sorts.

All You Need is Love 2010

2010-12-13T17:20:00.000-05:00

Come one, come all to my second ever "all you need is love!"

As I explained around this time last year, I like to focus on things that I truly love in popular culture, rather than gripe over things that vex me...and there are many (I'm looking at you, Chelsea Handler). And what better time to compile a list of things that I loved during the year than the end of the year when we are all with our respective families, saying what we're thankful for and arguing about whether this season of Dexter sucks or not (hint: it doesn't).

So without further ado, here is the (mostly) complete list of things I loved in 2010.

Kanye West - "Runaway"

"Let's have a toast for the douchebags."

Of all the pop culture milestones in 2010, none of them performed quite the miracle that Kanye's epic and artsy video, Runaway, did. Runaway was a 34-minute Youtube video...that I actually sat through. And I'm glad I did. People have been itching to put the "King of Rap/Pop/Autotune/Whatever Crown" on Kanye for the better part of the decade but 2010 marked the year in which he finally gave us all an indisputable reason to. The enormity of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a wonderful achievement in and of itself but it is the Runaway video that I find most impressive. Rarely has someone matched the aural mood of music with the visual mood of a video as well as Ole' Mr. West. In the internet age in which we can't watch 2 minutes of cat bloopers without getting bored, Kanye took his damn time and made it all worth the while.

Danny Pudi and Donald Glover (Troy and Abed in Community)

"Troy and Abed in the morning!"A great void was left in my life when Scrubs went off the air. For more than 8 years I subsisted myself on the bromance of J.D and Turk just as much as air and water. I thought I would never again see a finer pairing of buddies on network television. But just when I had given up all hope, Danny Pudi and Donald Glover came to the rescue as Troy and Abed on Community.

Yeasayer - "Ambling Alp"

"Stick up for yourself, son"

Never has something so inherently hipster created something so infectiously poppy and wonderful.

Christopher Nolan (Inception)

"You're waiting for a train."

Shortly after watching Inception, I was reminded of John F. Kennedy's famous proclamation about our lunar ambitions: "We choose to go to the moon...not because (it) is easy but because (it) is hard." Now I normally don't think of dead presidents after I see a film but I normally don't see films as good as Inception. Film-making in general is difficult. It's difficult from a technical perspective and it's difficult from a creative perspective. That's why I find it so admirable that Christopher Nolan chose to make a 100-million dollar blockbuster so much more difficult than it could have been - both for himself and the audience. Inception takes the very basic and well-worn heist movie structure and then puts it in a dream...and then puts it in another dream...and then puts it in another dream...and then puts it into raw, unoccupied dream space. It's far more complex than any heist film needs to be but it's also more rewarding than most heist films ever are.

Jesse Eisenberg (Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network)

"I'm talking about taking the whole social experience of college and putting it online."

I've long suspected that Jesse Eisenberg rocks. He was subdued but spot-on in one of my favorite movies, The Squid and the Whale. And then he went on to establish an older-Michael Cera archetype in the two 'Lands (Adventure and Zombie). If I'm thankful for anything in 2010, it's that America got to see that Eisenberg was the real deal once and for all in The Social Network.

Toy Story 3

"Where's your kid now, sheriff?"

It's a rule: if you make me weep like a dying walrus in a theater, you get on the Lovelist.

Titus Andronicus - The Monitor

Nobody listens to full albums anymore - or at least that is what lazy cultural analysts like to say when they notice that iTunes sells a single or two. Thankfully for all of us, Titus Andronicus still believes in the Album with a capital "A." The Monitor is commendable not only in it's scope - it's the story of a kid leaving New Jersey, interwoven with snippets from the Civil War - but also it's soul. Each song is far longer than conventional wisdom demands, but instead of feeling like a drag, it feels like Titus Andronicus is constantly filled with boundless enthusiasm and just can't quite bring themselves to stop the fun on any given song.

Mad Men

"Who is Don Draper?"

I've always respected Mad Men as being one of the most well-done shows on television but season 4 is the first season in which I've considered it a personal favorite. Thanks to the decision to finally start breaking away the cornerstones in Don Draper's life, Matthew Weiner and his writers are clearly in the midst of an incredible creative renaissance. Most shows lose steam by season 4, Mad Men seems to just be getting started.

Arliss Howard (Kale Ingram in Rubicon)

"Intelligence is incomplete. That's the nature of it."

Oh that other AMC show that no one seemed to like! I was one of the detractors for the first half of Rubicon's first (and now only) season but I came around near the end. A large deal of credit can be attributed to Arliss Howard and his portrayal of the shifty Kale Ingram. Kale was that one indecipherable character with murky intentions that every conspiracy thriller needs and Howard played the part like he knew how lucky he was to get it.

Big Boi - "General Patton"

"Stay so fresh and oh so motherfucking clean"

There's epic. There's Epic. There's EPIC. And then there's "General Patton." Often times, my complaint with modern rap is that the beats are just too dainty. Most artists seem to like to keep the music subdued so that their lyrics are the centerpiece of the song. Thank God, Big Boi had the cojones this year to quit messing around and push the petal to the metal. Sir Lucious Leftfoot was an awesome album but Big Boi deserves particular love for blowing out my ear drums with General Patton.

H. Jon Benjamin (Sterling Archer in Archer)

"Lying is like 95% of what I do."

Some people just have that voice. H. Jon Benjamin is one of those people. He injects secret agent Sterling Archer with a nasally whine that is at the surface discordant but still seems to fit so perfectly. H. Jon Benjamin should just clear space in his trophy case for now for whatever Emmy exists for voicework.

My Chemical Romance - Art is the Weapon

"Louder than God's revolver and twice as shiny."

With Kanye's "Runaway" and My Chemical Romance's "Art is the Weapon," it was a good year for the album trailer. I do love My Chem's album Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys but nothing can quite compare to the pure adrenaline rush that was watching the "Art is the Weapon" trailer for the first time.

Lost

"Nobody does it alone, Jack."

The ending of Lost was such a monumental experience in my life that it deserves it's own space to be discussed. One day, I will be able to think about the final eight minutes without weeping and I will write about it. Until then - enjoy Michael Giacchino's score.

Michael Pitt (Jimmy Darmondy in Boardwalk Empire)

"You can't be half a gangster, Nucky. Not anymore."

I considered including both of Boardwalk Empire's Michaels here (the other is Michael Shannon who plays Prohibition agent Nelson Van Alden) but I decided that Mr. Pitt deserved his own space. There were so many directions that Boardwalk Empire could have gone after it's pilot episode. It's a testament to Michael Pitt's acting ability and realistic Prohibition era appearance that the show has continually increased focus on his Jimmy Darmondy. In a show with so many established legendary figures (Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Johnny Torio, Arnold Rothstein, Nucky Johnson) with already established histories and character arcs, it's important to have the wide-eyed and ever-changing Darmondy on the ground to take the audience along with him.

Vampire Weekend - "Giving Up the Gun"

"In all the years since I saw you last, you haven't moved an inch."

Again, 2010 was the year in which I discovered that hipsters had tremendous pop sensibilities. There has to be that one catchy song on the playlist that everybody knows the words to and God bless Vampire Weekend for giving us it in 2010.

Adam Scott (Party Down, Parks and Recreation and Eastbound and Down)

"Are we having fun yet?"

Sometimes I think half of being a good actor is knowing what projects to attach oneself to. Exhibit A is the wonderful career of Adam Scott. You know him as Will Ferrell's douchey brother in Step Brothers. I know him as...well, everything else. He put the douche-hat back on in Eastbound and Down as Kenny Powers' conniving agent. He put the professional-hat on as a city employee in Parks and Recreation. But most important of all - he was the emotional and comedic center of one of my favorite shows of the year, Party Down. Mr. Scott is quickly reaching "I'll-watch-that-guy-in-anything" territory and it's mostly thanks to his excellent taste.

Kid Cudi - "Erase Me"

"I keep on running, keep on running and nothing work."

One of the more welcome trends in recent popular music is the synthesis of all different sounds from different genres. One of the most apparent examples in 2010 was Kid Cudi's first single from Man on the Moon II, "Erase Me." Erase Me sounds more like a 90's pop song than it sounds like a song from rap's new "It" kid. Aside from Kanye's verse near the end this could have been released by Everclear in 1996. That may not be everyone's idea of a good 2010 song but it's certainly mine.

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

"I want to hold her hand and show her some beauty before all this damage is done."

I listened to no album from beginning to end more times than "The Suburbs" this year...and that's impressive because "The Monitor" had a 6 month head start on it. Maybe I'm biased, but stories, struggles and songs from the suburbs are what I've been raised through experience to enjoy the most. And it's to Arcade Fire's credit that they - a motely collection of Canadians, Texans and Haitians - were able to speak to my own sensibilities as a child of suburban sprawl. Really, really good stuff and really, really catchy stuff.

Breaking Bad - "One Minute"

"I'm just not the man I thought I was."

Almost every minute of Breaking Bad's third season was brilliant this year. But one minute in particular - at the very end of an episode entitled (what else?) "One Minute" - was particularly amazing. Excessive violence is standard operation procedure for most television shows. Breaking Bad, however, has a gritty oftentimes bloodless realism that is far more gut churning than the rest of the pack. The quiet stark and terrifying scene is a master class in building tension and then releasing it in such a way the audience still doesn't quite feel settled.

The Gaslight Anthem - "Old Haunts"

"God help the man who says 'if you'd have known me then.'"

It helps me sleep at night knowing that there's someone out there fighting hard to keep the old timey Bruce Springsteen spirit alive.

The Walking Dead - "Days Gone Bye"

"I'm sorry this happened to you."

To those paying close attention, you'll notice that every one of AMC's four original series appear on my list. I honestly can't think of another network that's ever been on a hot streak quite like AMC. And now that they've found they're biggest commercial success in The Walking Dead, the future looks bright. The Walking Dead's entire first season was vastly entertaining, if a little uneven at times but the pilot episode "Days Gone Bye" was pitch-perfect. Nothing quite captures the mood of a zombie apocalypse as well as a sheriff shooting a little girl in the face within the first 6 minutes of the show. And it only gets better from there. Honestly it's probably my favorite television pilot since Lost in 2004.

Well. Here it is. Yup. It's a post.

2010-12-01T14:03:00.009-05:00

Howdy all!

Hope everyone is enjoying their extended time off. And if you don't go to Ohio University and are reading this right now, I hope you are incredibly miserable in the bitter end of your "first semester" nonsense.

Anywho, I've been incredibly unmotivated to write since about....oh a month ago. During school I was just so occupied with, you know, school and now I'm just occupied with everything I couldn't previously enjoy because I was in school. I almost feel like Charlie Kaufman in that Adaptation scene where he sits at his typewriter and starts screaming. There are about three readers nodding their heads in agreement right now and the rest of you are just wishing I saw more accessible movies.

But nothing makes me feel less productive and icky than a sparsely updated blog. So here are a few of pictures of animals with captions.

Maybe I should just get a Tumblr.

UPDATE: I have since decided to re-read Harry Potter over break. Now you'll know what I'll be doing instead of writing.

Post About the Post #5

2010-11-04T15:04:00.001-04:00

This one's bout Glee. You know you love it.

At the Athena Post-Mortem

2010-10-21T13:29:00.007-04:00

Soon you will be entering Backdrop-land.

The 2010 Fall Issue a.k.a Volume 4 Issue 1 drops tomorrow and it's a big one for good ol' B-drop. It represents the first time we've seriously rebranded. Yes, that's right, the ugly-ass karabine font is now but a distant memory, replaced with something a little sexier and a lot cleaner. Shiny logos aside, the content, itself, is very impressive.

But there is something that you mustn't forget tomorrow when you're flipping through 48 pages of glossy brilliance. The web site is relaunching too. I've seen the new web design and it is truly excellent. The Backdrop web site holds a soft-spot in my heart since I've been either working on it, for it or crying about it for the better part of two years.

For most of Spring 2009 and all of Fall 2009, I wrote weekly reviews of an Athena Cinema film. By the time I had finished (and we had moved onto a different web site), I had 17 reviews in the can. Now that the first iteration of the Backdrop web site doesn't exist, I thought what better (and most self-serving way) to honor it than a list of all the movies I saw at the Athena ranked from worst to first?

17. Two Lovers

What I said then:

Two Lovers is a weird movie filled with weird characters. “Weirdness” isn’t always a bad quality to have in a movie (just ask Charlie Kaufman) but Two Lovers is also something that no movie should be: pointless.

What I say now: This movie is still so bad in hindsight that I'm beginning to wonder if this was the true beginning of Joaquin Phoenix's little social experiment. It's almost as though this movie were set up to establish him as a "normal"romantic leading-man so that the contrast of him becoming a bearded rapper was all the more bizarre. Regardless, this is still a truly awful movie.

16. Stranded

What I said then:

I cannot say in good conscious that Stranded is a remarkably exciting or even entertaining film and it certainly isn’t a film for everyone. But Stranded could be counted as an artistic success, if only for capturing its subject’s true sorrow, anguish, regret and triumph all on film.

What I say now: I guess it still remains an "artistic success" but I think I was a little too easy on this movie. It is still one of the most boring experiences I've ever had at a cinema and at times it does resemble a Discovery Channel re-enactment of an event.

15. Taking Woodstock

What I said then:

Taking Woodstock is aimless. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing for a teen movie OR a concert movie. Some aimlessness can always be a good thing but this movie doesn’t necessarily know if it wants to be either.

What I say now: I still love Demetri Martin but my God, was that a weird casting choice. Actually, every decision in this movie made by the producers and Ang Lee was just weird. The tone, the script, the cast - it's just all so weird. It's a shame that Liev Schreiber tried so hard in this though and had nothing but a bad movie to show for it.

14. Lymelife

What I said then:

You know you’re in trouble when the best part of your movie is a Culkin brother…actually, two Culkin brothers at that.

What I say now: Lymelife does some things very, very well. Alec Baldwin puts on a hell of a show and there are two very real depictions of divorce and awkward teenage sex. But the vast majority of the movie just tries too hard and doesn't come nearly close enough to documenting an actual childhood.

13. Revolutionary Road

What I said then:

Revolutionary Road does all the things it should do, hits all the high notes it should hit and avoids all the mistakes it should avoid. But this perfunctory nature, in a way, makes it less of a movie.

What I say now: Sam Mendes is not allowed to make one of the most unique war movies ever (Jarhead) and then come back and make the most by-the-numbers suburban angst movie ever. Dude, if you wanted to do this so badly then you should have just made American Beauty 2: We Promise More Suvari Nipples.

12. The Great Buck Howard

What I said then:

The end result is very breezy and comfortable (this is a PG movie about a stage-magician after all) but not inherently satisfying. The Great Buck Howard may have been better served being called The Pretty Good Buck Howard.

What I say now: Meh. I can't conceive of anybody ever wanting to see this ever but it's not necessarily a bad movie.

11. I've Loved You So Long

What I said then:

I’ve Loved You So Long is an endearing, entertaining and satisfying film…that ultimately doesn’t stick the landing. There is a lot to love here and it has some really intriguing aspects to its story, but it is hard, in hindsight, to think fondly of this movie experience when the final scene cheapens the story’s most intriguing aspect.

What I say now: This is just the latest example that the French really have no balls. How can you establish such a controversial and thought-provoking plot and then toss it out in the third act?

10. Ben X

What I said then:

With all these rich layers adding to the plot and not confounding it, what else can you ask for from a movie experience? The ending will have its fair share of haters but at the end of the day I don’t think I could have enjoyed Ben X anymore unless MMG Films sent out employees to every screening to give audience members deep tissue massages.

What I say now: Wow. This is the movie that has fallen the farthest from grace for me in the past two years. I think it's because I neglected to realize just how awful the ending was. But due to the topical subjects (autism, social gaming, bullying), I think this would be the perfect American studio remake...as long as they change the ending.

9. The Cake Eaters

What I said then:

Still, if you are in the mood for something genuine and touching, take a chance on The Cake Eaters. Appreciate it for what it does well … and try to ignore what it does poorly

What I say now: I really want to buy 50 copies of this DVD and just pass it out to people who hate Kristin Stewart. I sat through two mediocre-to-awful Twilight flicks just to watch this delightful young actress. I don't understand where the hate comes from. Really.

8. Sunshine Cleaners

What I said then:

Unfortunately, Sunshine Cleaning never quite lives up to the cheerful macbre-ness of its subject matter. The aforementioned blood, guts and mortality are all there but that doesn’t mean the movie utilizes them well.

What I say now: I find it so strange that the folks behind Little Miss Sunshine included the word "sunshine" in their next movie title. It's like screaming "we can't do anything else" over and over again. This is another movie that rises up the list in hindsight. It's really a credit to Amy Adams and Emily Blunt that I remember anything about this film two years later.

7. Last Chance Harvey

What I said then:

The problem with most romantic comedies is that…well, they suck. But I am happy to report that Last Chance Harvey is one of the rare “rom-coms” that actually gets it right. There is nothing inherently creative or special about this movie, other than the fact that it is an interesting story told fairly and told well with charismatic actors to liven things up.

What I say now: It wouldn't be accurate to say I like this movie. But I can still think of five or six people off of the top of my head who probably would. It's undeniably well-done and I even sat through 90 minutes without wanting to punch Dustin Hoffman in the face.

6. Wendy and Lucy

What I said then:

But just understand that Kelly Reichardt is not tripping over herself to entertain you or communicate something to you. She just invites you to watch and listen…and then go on your merry way. I recommend you take that invitation.

What I say now: I really like this movie. It's probably the most stereotypically "indie" movie I've seen at the Athena to this day but somehow avoids all those annoying and pretentious indie movie hang-ups. Still, I can't imagine asking someone to pay to see this movie in good conscious. It's very slow-moving, very deliberate and maybe even a little literary. Reader, I hope you and this movie cross paths one day, I just can't beg you to do so.

5. Waltz with Bashir

What I said then:

It was nominated for Best Foreign Language film at the Oscars but lost to Japan’s Departures. I haven’t seen any of the other nominees, but I really can’t imagine there were any better than this.

What I say now: Waltz with Bashir marks the beginning of the "great movies" I've seen at the Athena. There should be absolutely no reason for this movie to be entertaining: it's a foreign language, animated film about Middle Eastern conflict. But, my God, this thing just pops off the screen.

4. Milk

What I said then:

Milk may lose its footing at times during its two hours, but the story of Harvey Milk is told well enough and with enough of a satisfying emotional pay-off that it is ultimately worth the two hours you will spend watching it.

What I say now: This is actually my first review from the Athena and it remains the only film from the Athena that I've seen more than once. I wasn't a huge fan the first time but I just admire it exponentially more every time I watch it. Biopics aren't supposed to be this entertaining.

3. Let the Right One In

What I said then:

There is a certain tone in visual art forms that is difficult to achieve. This tone is equilibrium between the macabre and the touching. Let the Right One In is one of rare pieces that achieves this equilibrium. It strikes the perfect balance between warming hearts and chilling blood.

What I say now: I can't say I was scandalized that they remade this film but I was certainly confused. Let the Right One In represents the absolute best that a tired genre can hope to achieve. I urge anyone with a flicker of humanity left in their body to see this movie.

2. The Wrestler

What I said then:

Almost everything in The Wrestler is broken. An aging wrestler’s beaten and bloodied body is broken. New Jersey’s abandoned boardwalks and ancient art deco houses are broken. A dedicated mom and disenchanted stripper’s spirit is broken. Almost everything in The Wrestler is broken. But that doesn’t mean the film, itself is…

What I say now: This isn't film. This is moving poetry. I truly believe that this is the best representation of a "character study" that one can watch in modern film. And it avoids the one pratfall that so many other of the movies on this list couldn't: it sticks the ending perfectly.

1. Sin Nombre

What I said then: The only variable in whether you should drop your hard-earned dollars on this movie or not is “can you appreciate it on a visceral and emotional level.” If you truly enjoyed Slumdog Millionaire and City of God: go see it. If you didn’t enjoy those two movies: go see it anyway so you can say you aw Fukunaga’s first feature film when it came out and gain much street-cred with your hipster friends.

What I say now: Why this movie is not some sort of cult-classic is beyond me. I think The Wrestler may be the better film strictly-speaking, but Sin Nombre represents the most enjoyable, thought-provoking and stomach churning two hours I've ever spent at the Athena. Just an amazing, amazing movie. Please find.

Everybody adjust your Netflix accordingly and grab a copy of Backdrop tomorrow!

Curren(t)cy

2010-10-19T19:36:00.003-04:00

I finally got around to seeing The Social Network this weekend and like any good film, it got me thinking (something that is increasingly rare for me once Fall Quarter hits week six).

Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher deserve a lot of credit for creating an entertaining and thought-provoking movie with a main character who is almost intolerably obnoxious. The Mark Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg) in the world of The Social Network is just a bastard. I love Jesse Eisenberg so much that I think I could watch a movie of him kicking puppies to death and still come out appreciating his brilliance. But despite Eisenberg's charm and talent, movie-Zuckerberg is almost impossible to tolerate.

Then I realized why movie-Zuckerberg is so hard to take (this is where the aforementioned thinking comes in). You see, in addition to portraying Zuckerberg as an ultra-douche, Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher also portray Zucker as 100%, undeniably correct about nearly everything.

At one point in the film, Zuckerberg's business partner and Facebook C.F.O Eduardo Saverin (played by soon-to-be Spiderman Andrew Garfield) realizes that "The Facebook" is finally popular enough to appeal to advertisers and begins the process of monetizing Facebook. Zuckerberg vehemently disagrees with this plan and it's not necessarily clear why until former Napster creator Sean Parker (played by Justin Timberlake) verbalizes Zuckerberg's thinking for Saverin and the audience by extension. He says that Facebook is not yet at the height of it's "coolness." Currently, Facebook's worth is derived from how cool and trendy it is. Once it embraces a traditional route of monetizing a web site, it immediately becomes lame and it's cool currency spirals down to nothing. Parker says that the trick to turning Facebook into a billion-dollar venture as opposed to a million dollar venture is to simply wait for it to reach the apex of cool before opening it up to advertisers and application-makers.

As a former boy-band heartthrob explains this in the year 2010, it seems so obvious. On the internet, cool is currency. But as evidenced by Eduardo Saverin's horrified reaction, this wasn't such an easy call to make as few as five years ago. People have been struggling to make money off of the Internet since the first user logged in. And now that consumers are pushing traditional routes of media onto the Internet faster than the media can comprehend, figuring out just how to make money online is of the utmost importance. Thankfully, "Zuck" already figured it out for us.

Traditional routes of currency don't exist in internet media. Consumer A does not hand Media Producer X $0.95 in exchange for a Sunday issue anymore. Instead, Media Producer X must establish a different, useful quality before it becomes appealing to advertisers or subscribers.

Facebook generated tens of billions of dollars of off the notion of "cool." Of course, it's functionality is second-to-none. Facebook provides a useful tool for people's online lives. But "useful" isn't worth billions of dollars to advertisers..."cool" is.

This, of course, got me thinking about Kevin Smith's Smodcast.

You may have heard of Kevin Smith....mostly because I won't shut up about him. He's the portly gentlemen who wrote and directed Clerks back in the 90's and established himself as an independent filmmaker and nerd-icon Now, however, he is one of the most successful podcasters in the world. Go ahead and watch the video below so you know what I'm talking about.

Video Games - E3 2011 - AOTS Exclusive

Now, since you probably didn't watch that video I'll do my best to explain the high-points.

Back in 2008, Kevin Smith started a weekly podcast called "Smodcast" with his producer and close friend Scott Mosier. The initial stated goal was to merely catch up with each other once a week, talk about wildly inappropriate and unlikely scenarios and laugh. At some point, Smith opened the first 2 minutes of each show to an advertiser so he could cover the cost of mixing and hosting episodes, but the venture still wasn't profitable. The podcast's popularity began to climb, however, and after more than 80 produced-episodes, Smith and Mosier held a live Smodcast at a hockey tournament in Brantford, Ontario.

Now here is where the money comes in.

Smith still provided a weekly podcast for free on the internet but was able to draw in some cash from live performances across the country. Then, once the first tour was finished, Smith added even more wrinkles to his podcasting Empire. What was once only Smodcast became the "Smodcast podcasting network." The network consists of seven original themed podcasts, of which Smith appears in five and a new episode is released via Internet daily. In addition to the six new podcasts, Smith founded the world's first "podcasting theater." Smith bought a small blackbox-style theater in Los Angeles and turned it into the "Smodcastle." The Smodcastle seats around 50 people and hosts several podcasting shows a week with ticket prices ranging from $10 to $25.

So let's just say that the Smodcastle hosts three shows a week at an average ticket prices of $15. If every show sells out then the Smodcastle makes $2,250 a week. That becomes $9,000 a month. And that becomes $108,000 a year before (the very, very few) business expenses. And that is ignoring potential sources of income such as merchandising and additional advertising ventures.

Do you see what just happened?

What started off as free entertainment on the internet and continues to be free entertainment on the internet is somehow generating obscene amounts of money. Just like Zuckerberg's model of "cool before profits," Smodcast is using a similar model. In the aforementioned video that you may or may not have watched, Smith attributes the success of Smodcast to "trust." Since Smith and Mosier expressed absolutely no desire to make money off of Smodcast for almost two years, they gained the trust of their audience that they truly cared about providing quality entertainment before they cared about making profits. And now that the podcast is actually profitable, that initial trust and goodwill has carried over.

Of course, Smith had both an initial level of fame and fortune prior to his podcasting career that certainly helps in monetizing a podcast. But the content of each podcast is very much unrelated to his career as a filmmaker. Even the podcasts hosted by his relatively unknown friends draw large crowds at the Smodcastle. And six of the seven podcasts hosted by the Smodcast network have reached number 1 on iTunes podcast rankings.

It is possible for media organizations to make money through the internet. The only hang up is that it will take anything but the obvious means to do so.

Post About the Post #4

2010-10-12T13:30:00.001-04:00

Dexter is fun! As are puns...

Also, some legitimate blog entries are coming soon. I have ideas - just no energy to write them.

Post About the Post #3

2010-10-04T13:15:00.000-04:00

You know you love Teen Mom.

Post About the Post #2

2010-09-27T13:49:00.003-04:00

In which I write about Boardwalk Empire.

Did anybody watch it? Did anybody not love it? Is anyone going to actually read my review? It's good...I promise?

History of Gays in the U.S Military

2010-09-21T20:11:00.004-04:00

1776 - 1993 - There is not a single homosexual in the United States military. Not one. Not even Ulysses S. Grant's beard.

1994 - "Don't ask, don't tell" is passed into law and there are now homosexuals being killed for their country...they just can't tell you that they kiss boys.

September 21, 2010 - The United States Senate decides that they still don't want to ask and they don't want to be told.

December 11, 2014 - Congress passes a bill into law that it's okay to have at least one of but not limited to the following George Michael albums in army barracks: Faith, Listen Without Prejudice Volume 1, Songs from the Last Century, Twenty Five.

February 4, 2015 - Congress declares that if two female soldiers kiss then it is okay to both ask and tell.

April 19, 2018 - The army updates its policy that two consenting soldiers can engage in homosexual acts, as long as a commanding officer witnesses the event and all three sign a waiver afterwords that what occurred was "totally not gay."

October 1, 2018 - Don't Ask, Don't Tell is repealed - effective for the Navy only.

August 31, 2096 - Don't Ask, Don't Tell is repealed - effective for all other branches.

November 6, 2096 - Republicans take back office. Don't Ask, Don't Tell is put back into effect.

March 29, 3019 - The United States of America is wiped out by Mongolians....as expected.

Look Alive, Sunshine

2010-09-18T19:00:00.006-04:00

Oh heavens...

I know I am prone to hyperbole but I am more excited about this than I have ever been about anything ever.

One of the internet's worst kept secrets is that I am a huuuuuuuuuuge My Chemical Romance fan. I really couldn't tell you why other than the fact that I once bought a burned copy of Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge from a friend for $1 on a whim (along with The Used's In Love and Death and NOFX's War on Errorism) and was in love from the opening notes of "Helena."Since that fateful day I've been crawling the Earth like a coke-fiend in search of the next MCR-related fix. They dutifully responded with 2006's (awesome) The Black Parade. After, however, it's been largely quiet on the MCR front. "Desolation Row" on the Watchmen soundtrack satiated me for a bit but it wasn't enough to serve my overly theatrical needs.

Rumblings started coming from MCR-land (you can find MCR-land at the corner of Awesome Town and Free-Ice-Cream Way) that the next album would be far more stripped down and punk rock than the grandiose Black Parade. I was more than okay with this, matching marching band outfits and pyrotechnics are fun every now and then but I would like to see MCR in the punk-phase that most rock bands inevitably go through. Of course, MCR would then kick their drummer out for unspecified reasons and start from scratch on a new album. I could deal with that, after all what is more punk-rock than starting from scratch on a new album.

Then music retailer HMV "leaked" that the next album would be called Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys. I was not a fan. And I immediately went into denial.

I've found that since LeBitch's betrayal, putting myself into a state of denial has become rather easy. Here are some examples:

ESPN's Stephen A. Smith reports that a source who has never lied to him told him that LeBron James will sign with the Miami Heat.

Stephen A. has always had it out for the Cavaliers. This is just a vicious rumor.

LeBron James has reserved spaces at several Miami hotels to celebrate his eventual signing.

Miami is a nice place. Why wouldn't he want to celebrate re-signing in Cleveland there?

"This season, I'll be taking my talents to South Beach."

Well, Cleveland is South of Canada....and Lake Erie has a beach, right?

Of course, I was able to justify my denial similarly with the Danger Days title.

Lead singer/Comic Book Genius Gerard Way announces that he is working on a comic book about young men in a band on a road trip trying to get their Ramones' records back.

Sounds awesome! I hope it doesn't interfere with the production on the new record.

Guitarist Frank Iero posts a picture on their web site which includes the proposed "Killjoys" logo.

That's nice of Frank to post a logo from Gerard's comic. They really seem to support each other.

HMV lists Danger Days: True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys as the next My Chemical Romance album.

Well clearly they're confused. That's Gerard's new comic, not the ALBUM! Silly, HMV. I don't know where they got "Danger Days" from though...

Of course Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys did end up being the final name of the album. I read MTV confirm it and felt a slight twinge of disappointment. That didn't last long, however, as mychemicalromance.com had a 2 minute trailer for me to watch.

In the span of two minutes, I went from disappointed to nearly comatose with excitement. Well what happened?

I'll tell you what happened...

A tranny on rollerblades
A Nam veteran DJ named "Dr. Death Defying."
Lines like "anti-matter for the master plan," and "this one's for all you crash-queens and motor-babies."
About a minute of the song "Na Na Na" which already sounds like the catchiest My Chemical Romance song of all time.
Rayguns...lots of rayguns.
Grant Morrison as a creepy bald guy.
The most adorable little girl of all time carrying a boombox.
A Trans Am
This shirt.

Now all that stands between me and nirvana is 62 days. I think I'm going to go watch that trailer 97 more times.

Until then: Killjoys....MAKE SOME NOISE!

What Bryan Cranston Should Have Said

2010-09-09T17:17:00.004-04:00

I actually really liked the Emmys this year. Aside from their stubborn refusal to acknowledge the existence of Lost, I think the Academy made some atypically intelligent choices. Having said that, I do have one additional comment. The category for Best Actor in a Drama Series was one of the strongest categories I have ever seen in any award show. It was so strong in act that I feel like someone on stage should have acknowledged it. Who better than the eventual (and entirely deserving) winner, Bryan Cranston, to call attention to every nominee. The following is what Bryan Cranston should have said in lieu of a speech.

Wow, what a wild ride! I am eternally grateful to the Academy for making this one of the best times in my life. Breaking Bad has been nothing but a gift to me and I view this award as acknowledgement from the Academy that I am involved in something very special. What may be an even greater honor, however, is the quality of men that I found myself associated with tonight.

The Best Actor in a Drama Series category this year represents what I truly believe to be some of the most talented people on television. What I'd like to do now is just take a moment to give these amazing actors their due.

Kyle Chandler, I admire the things that you can do. In my experience, High School football coaches aren't the most charismatic or even decent individuals. But you've created a character that is essentially Ghandi in an East Dillon pullover. Friday Night Lights is a show that likes to tear down everything in its characters lives from the institutions they trust, to the dreams they've fostered. And then it counts on you to be the rock in the middle. You've been all of that and more and you deserve this award.

Matthew Fox, it has been truly amazing to watch your maturation as an actor and as a human being over the past six seasons of Lost. You weren't afraid to portray a character that was weak and afraid of his own failings. You weren't afraid to lay all of the sins and shortcomings of your character bare and make them apparent to everyone but himself. And finally you weren't afraid to redeem that character in he very last moments of his arc... even if it meant doing something as innocuous as simply turning a light back on. You served as a consistent and realistic avatar for all of us in a show that required so much patience and attention. I cried when you closed that eye one last time and you deserve this award.

Michael C. Hall, it is an impressive feat for any actor to make a murderer likable. But what you've been able to do with the character of Dexter Morgan is much more impressive. You haven't just made a murderer likable but you've made someone who has attested to be inhuman and lifeless likable. Dexter Morgan crackles off the screen with your own wit and intensity. You've single-handedly legitimized the oft-maligned practice of voiceover with your steady and unpretentious delivery. You made my adrenaline pump harder than almost any television show ever has this year and you deserve this award.

Jon Hamm, you have taken one of the hardest tasks in television acting this decade and flourished under it. I can't imagine the pressure and difficulties associated with playing such a larger than life character on one of the most acclaimed and important shows of our time. But you somehow make it look easy. It will never cease to amaze me how you continue to inhabit the body of Don Draper, someone you couldn't be more different from, so flawlessly. It must be so tempting to overplay such a gaudy, sexy character but you never do. You act as Don Draper from the inside out and the show is all the better for it. One day they'll be teaching your Don Draper acting techniques in Acting 101 and you deserve this award.

Hugh Laurie, you are Gregory House. I can barely accept that you ever even existed before Dr. House first limped across my TV screen. You inhabit every aspect of your character from the smallest quirk to the grandest blow-up. You've always been impressive but this season represents what is undoubtedly your best work. You spent countless seasons building up an absolutely invulnerable persona before finally having to concede that your character was, indeed, fallible and capable of being hurt. The emotional vulnerabilities that you displayed while never quite letting go of your armor were paradoxically brilliant. If for nothing else other than your flawless American accent you deserve this award.

Thanks to all of you again, and I can't wait to cheer one of you on next year when you win this award.

Post About the Post

2010-09-07T22:34:00.003-04:00

I've found yet another way to be a TV whore.

Mmm Smells Like Bailout

2010-08-12T18:48:00.002-04:00

I drive a 2002 bright red Jeep Liberty named Bessie Lou.

I did my driver's test in Bessie Lou. The first time, Bessie and I got a little excited and ran a stop sign. The second time, we both kept our cool and passed with flying colors. Bessie Lou drove me my first day of junior year. Bessie Lou took me to my first girlfriend's house for my first date. Bessie Lou took me the 200 miles south to Athens, Ohio and served as the portal between my old home and my new home.

Now it looks like Bessie Lou may be dead.

And I'd like to tell you how she died.

Sometime in late-June, I was driving home from a Wal Mart grocery run. When I was about a block away from home I felt Bessie kick horribly and start to whine. Instinctively I pulled into the AAA franchise right near my house. AAA had been long closed but I needed a place to park and figure things out. I checked the engine but I had as much chance understanding the inner workings of a automobile's engine as Tiger Woods does monogamy. I decided to cut my losses and drive home anyway. Bessie Lou would start and she would drive but she wouldn't get out of first gear. A quick consulting of Google told me that this was more than likely an issue with the transmission and that it would be more than likely very, very expensive to fix.

But Bessie Lou was family and Bessie Lou deserved fixing. I consulted my benefactors (mom and dad) on the issue and they said they would front some money to fix Bessie since she was paid off anyway and 2,000 bucks here or there isn't a bad investment for a car.

With that in mind I did some research on where to take Bessie Lou. I stopped by a well-respected mechanic on Columbus Road. They told me that they could check it out themselves but if it WAS a transmission problem, they couldn't do anything about it anyway. They suggested I go down the road about a quarter-mile to Taylor Nissan, which doubles as a Chyrsley-Jeep dealership as well.

The people at Taylor Nissan told me that I had two options.

Option A) Buy a new transmission. $3,200

Option B) Buy a used transmission $1,800

I chose option B. They told me that they could not offer a warranty on a used transmission but promised that the company they receive transmissions from has never failed them. This put my mind at ease. I handed Taylor Nissan my keys, walked halfway home from Carpenter (a nice woman named Jane would pick me up and take me the rest of the way but that's a story for another time) and waited. And waited. And waited. And waited.

After roughly three weeks of waiting Taylor Nissan called me back. They told me that they had received my new (old) transmission. Problem was, the transmission wouldn't go into reverse gear.

Woops.

They told me that they had another transmission on order and wouldn't charge me for it. They would, however, be forced to charge me $600 for "man-hours." I have no idea what a "man-hour" is but it must be very different from one of my "hours" because my hours are much cheaper I assure you. Anyway, I told them $600 more dollars was a paltry sum to pay to get my sweet, sweet Bessie Lou back.

A week and a half later they called and told me Bessie Lou was ready. I had a friend drive to down to Columbus Road once more to retrieve my car. They told me that Bessie had one more issue. Her "transfer case" was broken. I would need to get that fixed eventually and it would cost around $700. I declined to get said transfer case fixed and asked if I could take my car anyway. They said it would be safe to drive for the time being. Good. I gave them credit card information to pay $2,400, they gave me my keys and I drove off.

The moment I drove off I knew something was wrong. Bessie Lou's engine was making noises as though she were being carried up a roller-coaster track. TIK-TIK-TIK-TIK-TIK-TIK-TIK-TIK.

I shrugged it off. The man told me that the transfer case would make some noise and I believed him. Granted, she had never made those noises before but maybe it was only a matter of time before she did anyway? Then I pulled into my driveway. Upon doing so my odometer, windshield wipers, headlights, volume control and power locks all died simultaneously.

Woops.

The next day I hauled Bessie Lou back over to Taylor Nissan. The mechanic there told me that they did not play around with the electrical cords at all during the transmission replacement and were at a loss for why this would happen. They said they would do a sort of car scan.

Scan away, I said.

So I waited in a hospital-like waiting room while mechanics ran more tests on my car. And much like waiting in a hospital-like waiting room it took forever and all the tests came back negative. Yes, Taylor Nissan had no more clue than I did while all of my electrical systems died at the same time. They did tell me that aside from the lack of an odometer and headlights that it should be okay to drive. If I wanted to get the other stuff fixed they could keep it overnight again but I was planning on heading home for the weekend and I couldn't afford up to a month without a car again.

Since Bessie Lou had no headlights, my girlfriend and I decided to head home to Twinsburg, Ohio immediately so that the sun wouldn't fall while we were driving. It seemed like a good idea in principle...until Bessie Lou died.

We had just gotten onto 7 North and were passing the restaurant/gas station "The Cool Spot" when Bessie Lou simply stopped. All the engine noises stopped, the RPM meter flew down to 0 and I felt the essence that was "Bessie Lou" simply vanish. I wheeled over the the side of the road before we could get smashed by oncoming traffic and gravely called AAA (see the story comes full circle).

A nice, if overly honest, tow trucker came to pick us up and take us back to Athens where Bessie Lou's corpse resides in the parking lot of Taylor Nissan.

This is part a story of a love-lost between a boy and his car and part a story of my run-in with the American auto-industry. The name on the building said "Taylor Nissan" but the company bears the symbol of Chrysler/Jeep as well. And at the end of the day, straight facts of it all boil down to this: I gave my car to a mechanic for more than a month and received it back in worse condition than I left it off with. When I tried to get those problems fixed, I was sent on my way yet again only for the car to die in 60 mph traffic.

I am assuming that for all intents and purposes the car is dead. I just want to know from you, the Internet, should I let her go peacefully or rage against the mechanics and company that in my mind, watched her die?

Ketchup, Rubber Buns and Liquor

2010-07-19T17:43:00.006-04:00

Back when I was a kid, there was this awful joke we used to tell...even if we didn't quite understand it.

JOKER: Okay to every single thing I say, you have to respond "Ketchup, rubber buns and liquor," got it?

JOKEE: Sounds reasonable enough and you've never lead me astray so I shall play into your little ruse.

JOKER: Great. So what do you eat for breakfast?

JOKEE: Ketchup, rubber buns and liquor.

JOKER. Right. So what do you eat for lunch?

JOKEE: I see where you're going with this...

JOKER: Shut up. What do you eat for lunch?

JOKEE: Ketchup, rubber buns and liquor.

JOKER: Exactly. What do you eat for dinner?

JOKEE: You know what I'm going to say...

JOKER: WHAT DO YOU EAT FOR DINNER, DAMN IT!

JOKEE: Ketchup, rubber buns and liquor.

JOKER: Good. Now when you meet up with your old girlfriend, what do you do?

JOKEE: Ketchup, rubber buns and liqu....HEY!

JOKER: Hahahahah you like giiiiiiiiiirls!

JOKEE: We're through professionally, man.

I guess what I'm trying to say, Internet, is that it has been a while. And with your permission I would like to now catch up, rub your buns and lick you.

It's been a long summer. That's not to say it hasn't been a good summer by any stretch of the imagination...just long, you know. Well if you are over the age of 20 and live in a reasonable American tax bracket than you probably DO know.

I now live in a house...a house that I make payments on (however late they may be) and a house that I'm responsible for. It seems like just yesterday I was on the receiving end of jokes that cruelly made me prove my attraction to women. Now I study in coffee shops, work at baseball stadiums and live in houses that my parents don't.

Weeeeird, man.

I also have a day job. Only it's not every day...and they don't pay me....and it's not a job so much as it is an internship but it is awesome. I'm writing game recaps for the Southern Ohio Copperheads and living the dream several nights a week, sitting in an overcrowded press box on balmy summer nights watching young men play baseball WITH ACTUAL WOODEN BATS. Then I get to go home and write about it. It's actually rather wild.

I'm also writing here and there for the Athens News. A long time ago I once called a certain editor of a certain local paper "long-winded." Two years later, that man would not only generously let me write for his paper but also patiently wait for me to figure out AP Style instead of saying "Jesus, this kid is an idiot," and kick my short-winded ass to the curb.

Life works in mysterious ways, children.

I don't know if you've noticed but I've also changed the appearance of the blog for a bit. The name "The Collective(ly) Unconscious" is one of my favorite things my demented little mindhas ever produced but my writing habits and skills haven't been able to live up to the name of such a serialized genius. I wanted my blog not to be so much a blog as it was a center for serious

cultural analysis. But almost two years into the process, I've realized that that isn't what a blog is. A blog is a narcissistic cesspool where I write about my day-to-day existence to justify the 55-80 years I will spend suffering the tragic human illness of consciousness.

Also, the blog is now in the color orange.

I've been catching up with some television as I am ought to do.

I finally finished the third season of Mad Men. I go through Mad Men in spurts. It is such a slow, literary show that my mind can only take so much of it at once. Having said that, season three was the most entertaining the show has ever been and hours like "The Gypsy and the Hobo" prove once again that television is the best it has ever been.

I've also started watching Starz recently cancelled series Party Down. I have a thing for recently cancelled shows. Lord knows I want to tackle Buffy or The Sopranos one day but 20 episodes of Party Down look a lot more conquerable than 70+ episodes of The Sopranos or 100+ episodes of Buffy. I never really watched Veronica Mars, so I had nothing to expect from a Rob Thomas show...I only watched because of the low episode count. Now that I have only four episodes left, I wish I had four-hundred more. Adam Scott and Lizzy Caplan are utterly tremendous - the best star-crossed couple I've seen on television since the first season of Jim and Pam. And how Ken Marino has escaped my radar this long is beyond me. I never would have believed that Ron Swanson of Parks and Recreation may be my second favorite character named Ron on a comedy ever.

Then of course there's True Blood...oh sweet, sweet, soooo damn sweet True Blood. I could write sonnets for this show. True Blood confirms something that I've long suspected about television - it's all in the casting. Every single casting decision that Alan Ball has made regarding True Blood has been utterly perfect. Some shows try to inject fresh blood (pardon the pun) and only succeed in taking screen-time away from better characters. The newbies on True Blood just make everything just so exponentially better.

Dennis O'Hare as a vampire King? So brilliant.

Captain Gault from Lost as a douchebag werewolf? Perfect.

James Frain as a British Vampire PI with a serious case of jungle fever? Best. Casting. Decision. Ever. In. The. History. Of. Forever.

True Blood just continues to be the best B-movie level entertainment for smart people.

Well it looks like the seventeenth episode of Party Down has finally loaded. With that, I take my leave, Internet.

May I lick you once more in the future.

Here's a picture of Copperheads Centerfielder, Luis Pollorena, doing a Mariachi dance...just in case you ever wanted to see that.

Drunk Off Misery

2010-07-09T15:32:00.002-04:00

I never thought my 200th post would be this.

In hindsight, I guess I should have. But in my defense, I am relatively knew to this. There are grown men and women across Northeast Ohio who are familiar with this. They know that complete and abject human misery can be summed up into one word.

The Catch - I wasn't there for that.

The Drive - Wasn't there for that.

The Fumble - Nope.

Red Right 88 - Swimming around somewhere in my father's scrotum.

The Move - I didn't know the Browns existed.

The Blown Save - I was living it up in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey and waiting for Curt Schilling to get healthy for the Phillies.

The Sweep - San Antonio is a good team and we have LeBron so we'll be back.

The 2007 ALCS - It hurts but this is a young team.

The Decision - so this is what it feels like.

Forgive my lack of eloquence, but "this", whatever it is that brings sorrow to the North Coast, plain sucks.

It doesn't suck that LeBron is leaving. We were prepared for that. I stared at the TV for several hours, completely motionless, after the Cavs lost to the Celtics. That is when LeBron left for me.

It doesn't suck because it was expected. Talented 25-year-olds leaving Ohio for brighter lights and bigger cities all the time. I may do it myself one day and I wouldn't want my community to shun me.

It doesn't suck because of the way it was handled. This can be called nothing else than one of the biggest sports-related PR debacles of all time. How someone lets an athlete string a fan base along for two years before breaking up with them on live TV is beyond me. Well...I guess you could say that that technically sucked but it's not why this truly sucked for me.

It sucked because LeBron James is not who I thought he was. It is unrealistic to expect sports to be simple but we expect them to be at least a little less complicated than our day to day lives. LeBron looked like a champion, he sounded like a champion and everyone agreed that one day he would BE a champion. Detractors liked to say that while he was a fine basketball player, he would never be an all-time great. Cleveland disagreed. We looked into the soul of a man the best we could through our LCD TV screens and magazine articles and found a spark of greatness. We didn't believe it was there...we KNEW it was there. It had to be. He was our native son. Our King.

The hardest part of last night was watching a King tip himself over onto the chessboard and declare that he, himself, was not good enough. The man we watched for the past seven years was never a king...only a rook, at best.

And that's what sucked the most.

It hurt last night. It hurt a lot. All I could do was get out my LeBron jersey, lay it out on a table and just wonder what I should do with it. It was still lying there when I woke up this morning.

This is a new chapter and the pain has already begun to subside. Cleveland will bounce back and I will have to bounce back with them. The Indians are not as bad as we think. The Browns finally have competent management. The Cavs will suck for a year and then Byron Scott will be able to recreate the team to his liking.

Life will go on. But I will forever know exactly what "this" feels like. I'm so sorry you had to shoulder so many years of misery, Cleveland. I've been a part of the Northeast Ohio community for a decade. It is now, in our shared misery, that I humbly submit my application for full-time Clevelander status.

As for LeBron, I forgive you. I really do. You are a 25-year-old big kid, insulated by a life in a small city. You don't quite understand what you've done to the city of Cleveland yet but you will someday.

And when they day comes, regardless of how many championship rings you have, you will still have exactly one less than Dwyane Wade.

Enjoy being the Queen.

Backdrop VII

2010-05-22T16:19:00.001-04:00

Volume 3, Issue 3 is out and generating some interesting feedback.

Let me know what you thought of it!

(Metaphorically) Around the Dial pt. 3

2010-05-09T21:17:00.002-04:00

I once read somewhere that secondary education in the U.S is becoming more and more about specialization. In order to be a proper professional, one has to have a very specific knowledge of a small area of study. I, of course, rejected this notion at first because I saw myself as a somewhat well-rounded individual. Then I realized that I was entering my third hour of a America's Next Top Model marathon on The CW.

I guess I specialize in television. Really it should have been obvious sooner. I had always just assumed that I was depressed, lazy or both for spending hours a day in front of a television. It honestly never occurred to me that maybe I just really, really liked television. Now as I enter the ripe old age of twenty, it's becoming clearer and clearer to me that I want my career to revolve around the Idiot Box. I want to be exactly like these three men:

Tim Goodman - I first heard about Tim Goodman from Bill Simmons podcast, The B.S Report. Mr. Simmons had been a fan of his for years and had him on the show to discuss the Conan-Leno scandal among other things. Goodman convinced me to read his regular blog by knowing the correct answer to "what's the greatest show of all time?" (and if you need to know the answer then you're not worthy of Goodman's blog) He also has one of the coolest features I've ever seen on a pop culture blog. It's a weekly power rankings that ranks all the shows he is currently watching from 15 to 1, based on that series' most recent episode. I pine for the days when I can rank up to 15 tv shows for a week but for now I will try to settle for 5.

5. Treme

4. Glee

3. Community

2. Lost

1. Breaking Bad

Ken Tucker - Ken Tucker did nothing but endear himself to me when he named the second season of True Blood his favorite show of the year, and since then I've took more notice of a writer I've always consistently read but never really counted myself as an avid supporter. He is one of the most generous reviewers of Saturday Night Live, which I appreciate even though he calls many of the sketches "stale" as contractually required by every TV reviewer in the world. Still, he is mercifully free of pretension and "old crusty critic syndrome" as evidenced by his wholehearted support of shows like the aforementioned True Blood and Glee.

Alan Sepinwall - Alan Sepinwall is the King of TV critics. Period. His list of the best shows of the decade reads like the Gods' verdict of all that was truly grand in the 2000s. He somehow gets reviews written and posted within an hour or two of every episodes' airing that is infinitely more insightful and affecting than almost every reviewer out there.

So why did this impromptu list happen? Who knows. I haven't written anything in awhile and I think listing the three reviewers who I've been reading a lot lately to glean expertise from counts as productivity. Regardless of the obvious deep-seated psychological issues that keep me from producing new material as of late, you should bookmark these three dudes if you like TV at all.

Jumbled Thoughts on 4/20

2010-04-20T00:10:00.002-04:00

I really have no reason to write right now other than the fact that today's date makes me giggle.

I guess another reason to write would be the crushing depression and insignificance I feel upon not being productive so far this quarter with my writing (paradox much?). Writing is a strange, strange thing, my Internet friends/admirers. Once you take the plunge and start referring to yourself as a writer, which is something that I have done since the age of seven when I wrote a stunningly awful story about an endangered Killer Whale called "The Whistle of Tobias,"it becomes a crucial part of your identity.

In that way, I guess being a writer is a lot like being "sexually active" as they like to say in Juno. Once you start writing, a little voice is born in the back of your head which constantly reminds you that you should, in fact, be writing. Once you start boning, a similar little voice in born in the back of your head, reminding you that you should, in face, be boning. Of course, with sex an actual human being can be born in addition to that little voice. To my knowledge, writing carries no such risk...but you get my point.

At least the Indians and Cavs are winning. And at least Breaking Bad, Community and Lost are all currently on television. At least I have my health and all that jazz.

Anyway, enjoy smoking weed today, Athens. I promise this post was not written under the influence of anything other than teenage angst.

What Should I Do Today?

2010-04-16T15:37:00.001-04:00

a. see Kick-Ass

b. watch the Indians game

c. write something that defines a generation

d. make a virgin sacrifice

Two Seconds Notice

2010-04-06T19:35:00.003-04:00

That's how much money I've made with my Examiner.com "job." I knew I wouldn't be making that much money but 55 cents per article written just isn't worth it for me when I can't write exactly the way I want to.

So I am done with that venture. You can now look forward to never seeing "Examiner #???" as a Collective(ly) Unconscious headline ever again.

Woo!

Examiner #15

2010-03-31T18:31:00.001-04:00

This one goes out to all you South Korean lovers out there.

Review: Lost 6X10 - The Package

Examiner #14

2010-03-30T20:44:00.000-04:00

Latest 24 review, peeps.

Review: 24 8X14 - 5:00 AM - 6:00 AM

Examiner #13

2010-03-29T22:23:00.002-04:00

Breaking Bad is back!

Review: Breaking Bad 3X02 - Caballo Sin Nombre

ENG 284 with Dr. Bojalad

2010-03-29T17:07:00.003-04:00

I'm in one of those moods.

It's a mood that seems to occur exactly three times each year for the past two years. It can manifest itself as an uncontrollable desire to declare my love for everything. It can make me stop writing. It can inspire me to start writing again. It can even make me begin a blog called The Collective(ly) Unconscious.

It's that mood at the birth of each new Quarter of my college education. This time around, it has inspired me and reaffirmed that I can do just whatever I feel like doing. And what I feel like doing is preaching.

No, not the Jesus/Muhammad/Abraham gospel but the Harry/Conan/Bluth gospel (I am rather proud of that hastily thought up holy trinity, by the way).

I had a class today called "Writing About Culture" and it, to borrow from the cultural vernacular, "fucked my shit up." It wasn't so much that I was presented with new and exciting information, but rather presented with old, obvious information that I feel is underused. I know now that for the next ten weeks, I will spend four hours in a classroom in which Culture is the most important topic in the world.

My God...I needed this. Prepare for an onslaught of rushed thoughts as I leave a 200-level class exhilarated and inspired each day. Today was only the syllabus day and I still have something in mind that I want to write about inspired by this class.

The wonderful Dr. Hart began role call by going around the room and having each person declare their name and a "guilty pleasure" of theirs. The answers ranged from Lost to the Food Network to John Hughes movies. I answered True Blood, since the person called two names before me had swiped Glee away from me. This, of course, got me thinking, as any random listings of tv shows and movies is bound to do. Is there really any such thing as a "guilty pleasure?"

Chuck Klosterman has written on this topic before. And as always he can elucidate this difficult-to-comprehend concept better than I can:

People who use this term (guilty pleasure) are usually talking about why they like Joan of Arcadia, or the music of Nelly, or Patrick Swayze's Road House. This troubles me for two reasons: Labeling things like Patrick Swayze movies a guilty pleasure implies that a) people should feel bad for liking things they sincerely enjoy, and b) if these same people were not somehow coerced into watching Road House every time it's on TBS, they'd probably be reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

There just seems to be something inherently disrespectful and dismissive about the term to me. There should be no shame in any pop cultural experience. I mean that's the whole reason the entire structure we know as "pop culture" exists. Viewers are allowed to enjoy things on an intellectual level or a visceral level or both.

If I were teaching a class on "Writing About Culture," (Thankfully, I'm not and Dr. Hart seems infinitely more capable than I) I think I would walk into the classroom the first day, write "there is no such thing as a 'guilty pleasure'" on the board and spend the rest of the quarter arguing that fact.

Does this mean I would expect my hypothetical students to blindly love everything that crosses their path? Of course not. And it brings up a point from a recent episode from my third favorite show on TV right now: Community (Ten points to whoever figures out what #1 and #2 are).

God bless Jeff Winger for hating Glee. Hating something vehemently and with cause or without cause is as integral part of pop culture as loving something is. But the hypothetical students in Dr. Bojalad's ENG 284 will never, ever be allowed to utter the words "I don't understand the appeal."

Part of being a cultural scholar is understanding the appeal of everything or lack thereof. Part of being a human being is hating it anyway.

Spring Break

2010-03-24T14:35:00.003-04:00

I've decided to spend my entire break doing this. So long Collective(ly) Unconscious! So long Examiner.com! So long independent though! Peace out until March 29 or so.

Examiner #12

2010-03-21T15:07:00.001-04:00

It begins again...

Breaking Bad Returns Tonight

Examiner #11

2010-03-16T22:59:00.000-04:00

Sawyer the cop!

Review: Lost 6X08 - Recon

Examiner #10

2010-03-16T15:42:00.001-04:00

24 knocks one out of the park.

Review: 24 8X12 - 3:00 AM - 4:00 AM

Be Gone, Bitch Quarter

2010-03-15T19:09:00.005-04:00

And so the craziest quarter of my college experience ends...not with a whimper, T.S Eliot, but a deafening, terrifying bang.

After four quarters of easy classes leading into easy (if not non-existent) Finals, I have finally run into the "Bitch Quarter" that I'm sure every college student experiences. Unless, of course, you have semesters in which case: go to hell, nobody likes you.

Here is my Finals schedule for this week:

ECON 103 - Tuesday 8:00 AM

JOUR 270 - Wednesday 12:20 PM

WGS 100 - Thursday 2:30 PM

ENG 253 - Friday 10:00 AM

Of those four finals, I am confident for two and a half of them and absolutely pants-shittingly terrified for the remaining one and a half. I will let you guess which ones have me sweating. Here's a hint: I am currently at Alden right now and will not be leaving until 7:00 AM tomorrow morning.

Then there are the other various responsibilities that I have chosen to burden myself with. There will be a new article up on Backdropmag.com researched, written and mixed by yours truly. The subject matter is pretty fascinating and it marks my first attempt to create a watchable video since my ill-fated News Writing project so be on the lookout for that. In addition to that, I will be researching and conducting interviews all week for my Spring Quarter Backdrop story. I was working on a profile of the town Chauncey for this Winter but just like everything else during my Bitch Quarter, it was a complete and absolute failure. I went too broad with it but it led me to a topic for this Spring that might actually make a compelling story.

If I have so much to do then why am I writing? Well it turns out that it takes about 40 minutes for a little over 22 minutes of video to upload to iMovie. And in that 40 minutes of spare time, I must use my favorite self-indulgent outlet to complain about my various misfortunes.

Feel free to stop the second floor of Alden tonight, Athenians to sacrifice your time, dignity and sanity to Bitch Quarter with me.

Examiner #9

2010-03-12T17:19:00.001-05:00

NBC Thursday Night Smackdown 3/11/10

Guess who wins this week?

Examiner #8

2010-03-10T16:43:00.002-05:00

Here is the second Lost review. Does anybody else think Ben Linus is just like Jack Bauer? He chose flag (The Island and The U.S Government) over family (Alex Rousseau and Teri Bauer) and now must deal with the repercussions for the rest of his life.

Review: Lost 6X07 - Dr. Linus

Examiner #7

2010-03-09T19:09:00.001-05:00

Some people say reviewing 24 is a fruitless venture.

I am one of those people...but it didn't stop me from reviewing last night's episode anyway.

Review: 24 - 8X11 2:00 AM-3:00 AM

Examiner#5 and 6

2010-03-07T18:40:00.001-05:00

Today I review SNL and report on the next coming of the apocalypse.

SNL: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 3/6/10

Jersey Shore goes Red

I ♥ Iraqis

2010-03-07T16:47:00.000-05:00

Remember how I said you wouldn't see anymore TV blogs here at the C.U? Well I lied. I have a personal observation about one of my favorite TV shows, that doesn't quite work on Examiner.com and that I don't want to fit on my Twitter feed. So here goes.

Much like Brick Tamland once admitted to loving "lamp," I must admit to loving Lost. Lost is on my pop culture shortlist of loves that includes only the likes of Arrested Development, My Chemical Romance and a kid named Potter. And like everything else on that list, I obsessively seek out every scrap of information that has ever existed about it.

Sometimes this has come back to haunt me. During season 2 of Lost, I once came across a spoiler that I did not want to come across. I knew a character was going to die in episode 6. I wanted to know who this character was going to be but I didn't want to know who this character was going to be. Hopefully anyone who has ever obsessed over a piece of culture can understand this paradox. Of course fate (a.k.a spoilerfix.com) intervened and I found out that darling Shannon Rutherford was not long for this world. I was quite alright with this as Shannon was annoying as well.

So I watched the episode with this in mind. 10 minutes pass - Shannon isn't dead. 30 minutes pass - Shannon isn't dead. 50 minutes pass - Shannon isn't dead. There is now only two minutes or so to go in the episode and Shannon still isn't dead. What she is, however, is running around the Jungle like a moron with her sexy Iraqi BF, Sayid, trailing her. It is then that my heart sunk and I had a horrible thought:

Sayid is going to fucking kill Shannon.

I immediately hated myself for thinking this. "Come on, Alec," I said to myself, "it's 2005 and you need to grow up. Just because Sayid prays five times a day, likes falafel and was in Uncle Saddam's Republican Guard doesn't mean he is capable of killing the blonde image of American unchecked excess for no apparent reason." Still, there was no time left and Shannon absolutely had to die. My heart started racing as I imagined the Internet chatter the following morning designating Lost as xenophobic, archaic and no longer worth watching. Then Ana Lucia appeared from nowhere in the Jungle and fired a bullet deep into Shannon's annoying chest. Nothing like a Dominican-American Deus Ex Machina to absolve me from allegations of closeted racism! Poor Shannon had not dodged a bullet but Lost had, in my mind. What show could survive humanizing an Iraqi and then turning him into a villain immediately? Aside from 24, of course...

Cut to: this past Tuesday. Lost did what I had once feared: they turned Sayid "bad." Only it didn't feel offensive or cliche. Back in 2005, I was worried that Sayid's turn to the dark side would resemble a cute and cuddly puppy suddenly snapping at a child and then having to be put down. But Sayid's actual turn to the dark side in 2010 felt like a good man, trying to preserve his loved ones' lives because he knew he was already damned. It was epic. It was touching. It was classy. It was Anakin Skywalker in Revenge of the Sith. But most importantly: nobody has brought it up.

To my knowledge, no one has written one word about the abrupt turning of a Muslim character into a villain. It doesn't seem to strike anyone as "off" or to disturb anyone's sensitivity meter.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Barack Obama can suck it. Lost is the REAL reason we live in a "post-racial world." Enjoy the descent into darkness, Sayid Jarrah! We'll be there with you every step of the way.

Examiner #3 and 4

2010-03-05T23:49:00.002-05:00

I got a double dose of blog today.

The first is my reviews/rankings of NBC's Thursday night comedy block this week.

The second is a little bit of some hard news pertaining to the very same subject.

67% is the Number to Beat

2010-03-03T14:36:00.002-05:00

With merely four days before the Pop Culture Super Bowl a.k.a the Oscars, it is time for me to go on record with my predictions. I may actually enter my first ever Oscar pool this year so be sure to come back to this blog after every award on Sunday to see how much money I am hemorrhaging.

The consensus seems to be that this is one of the easiest Oscars ever to predict but I am not too sure about this. I'm just not 100% feeling The Hurt Locker for Best Picture winner whereas I was 100% feeling Slumdog Millionaire last year. Really, who has Slumdog competing with? The Curious Case of Benjamin Button hype died out immediately, Milk and Frost/Nixon were never a factor and all the Weinstein stumping for The Reader couldn't change the fact that nobody liked the film. Slumdog didn't have to go up against the highest grossing film of all time. The Hurt Locker does. And that is why you will find one very, very large deviation on my prediction list from most others.

Here are the predictions. Like last year, the predicted winners are in bold, while my personal choices are in italics.

BEST PICTURE

Avatar

The Blind Side

District 9

An Education

The Hurt Locker

Inglourious Basterds

Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire

A Serious Man

Up in the Air

I am sick of James Cameron making me look like a dumbass. Consequently, if Kathryn Bigelow makes me look like a dumbass then so be it.

DIRECTING

James Cameron - Avatar

Kathryn Bigelow - The Hurt Locker

Quentin Tarantino - Inglourious Basterds

Lee Daniels - Precious

Jason Reitman - Up in the Air

How stupid is it to have ten Best Picture nominees when everyone knows that the five Best Director nominees are the real five normal Best Picture nominees? Anyway, Kathryn Bigelow is the only female Director to have a realistic shot of winning this thing. Oscar can't turn that opportunity down.

ACTOR IN A LEADNG ROLE

Jeff Bridges - Crazy Heart

George Clooney - Up in the Air

Colin Firth - A Single Man

Morgan Freeman - Invictus

Jeremy Renner - The Hurt Locker

I don't know how this became the obvious choice but it did. And I have to roll with it.

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Matt Damon - Invictus

Woody Harrelson - The Messenger

Christopher Plummer - The Last Station

Stanley Tucci - The Lovely Bones

Christoph Waltz - Inglorious Basterds

This performance is comparable to Heath Leder's in The Dark Knight for me...only even more nuanced. Christoph Waltz may even be more of a mortal lock than Heath was last year. And that's saying something.

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

Sandra Bullock - The Blind Side

Helen Mirren - The Last Station

Carey Mulligan - An Education

Gabourey Sidibe - Precious

Meryl Streep - Julie & Julia

Notice the lack of italics? That's because I haven't seen any of these films. Woops!

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Penelope Cruz - Nine

Vera Farmiga - Up in the Air

Maggie Gyllenhaal - Crazy Heart

Anna Kendrick - Up in the Air

Mo’Nique - Precious

Comedians knocking a dramatic role out of the park is too much for the Academy to resist. I, myself, prefer Vera Farmiga. Mostly because I ALWAYS prefer Vera Farmiga.

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM - Up

CINEMATOGRAPHY - Avatar

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY - Inglourious Basterds

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY - Up in the Air

ORIGINAL SONG - "The Weary King" - Crazy Heart

ORIGINAL SCORE - Up

VISUAL EFFECTS - Avatar

ART DIRECTION - Avatar

SOUND MIXING - The Hurt Locker

SOUND EDITING - The Hurt Locker

MAKEUP - Star Trek

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM - The White Ribbon

FILM EDITING - The Hurt Locker

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE - Food Inc.

COSTUME DESIGN - The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

BIG WINNERS:

Avatar - 4

The Hurt Locker - 4

Inglourious Basterds - 2

Crazy Heart - 2

Up - 2

In this scenario, Avatar has 9 nominations, 4 wins and a Best Picture Oscar, while The Hurt Locker has 9 nominations, 4 wins and a Best Director Oscar. Ladies and gentleman, I give you the 2010 Oscars: the year with no clear-cut winner!

Examiner #2

2010-03-03T03:04:00.002-05:00

It took three tries to publish this. First the Examiner system wouldn't accept the word "a-hole." Then it wouldn't accept "douchebag." I had to settle for "butthole."

Lost Review: Season 6, Episode 6 - "Sundown"

Examiner #1

2010-03-02T18:52:00.001-05:00

My first ever post is up at Examiner.com. Ch-ch-ch-eck it out!

TV's newest villain.

Bojalad Sells Out

2010-03-01T23:03:00.003-05:00

Attention, ladies and gents!

I have now joined the great and storied tradition of citizen journalism. Instead of merely toiling away at this soul-sucking blog, I will be toiling away at the soul-sucking media conglomerate known as Examiner.com.

What is the Examiner.com, you ask? I'll let our good old friend, Wikipedia explain:

Examiner.com is a media company based in Denver, Colorado, that operates a network of hyperlocal news websites, allowing citizen journalists to share their city-based knowledge on a blog-like platform, in over 100 markets throughout the United States and parts of Canada.[1][2][3] Examiner.com is a division of Clarity Media Group, with the primary investor being conservative businessman, billionaire Philip Anschutz, owner of Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), Regal Cinemas, and other media and entertainment companies.[1][2][4] Examiner.com claims to have 21,000 contributors, commonly referred to as "Examiners", in addition to the citizen journalists at NowPublic, a Vancouver-based website purchased by Examiner.com in September 2009.

As you can see, I left the footnotes in for veracity's sake. But why would I do such a thing you ask? Let's read one sentence on in the aforementioned Wikipedia entry:

The company has been criticized for the low compensation received by many "Examiners", and the lack of editorial oversight, including accusations of plagiarism.[2][6][7][5]

So the Examiners receive low compensation? You know what that means? I ACTUALLY GET COMPENSATED! Screw Journalistic integrity...Bojalad's got to ged paid, son.

My position at Examiner.com will be under the "Cleveland"and "Arts and Entertainment" sections and I will be one of three Cleveland TV Examiners. Here are the other two if you would like to read them. I recently submitted my first blog entry and will let you all know the moment it appears on the actual site. I will place the link for my new page at the right of under "My Collective Unconscious" safely nestled under the new Backdrop website. I will also post the link to my newest entry at Examiner on the Collective(ly) Unconscious the second it posts.

What does this mean for the Collective(ly) Unconscious? Probably nothing. I can guarantee that you will not see another TV-based blog on this website for the duration of my stay at Examiner.com. Why would I waste my precious words here when someone is going to pay me to spout them at another URL?

Undoubtedly, I will have thoughts on things other than television that I will want to communicate to the world. And when the inspiration strikes, the Collective(ly) Unconscious will still be here.

I hope you will be as well.

Let's Get Literary

2010-02-25T19:25:00.005-05:00

I am currently sitting on the basement steps on the RTV Building's forum theater, waiting for the Ohio University theater department's production of Marisol to begin. I know little about the show other than the act that angels will be flitting around a post-apocalyptic landscape that appears to be stolen from Derek Zoolander's "Derelicte" campaign.

Color me excited!

Since I got to watch Lost live this Tuesday (My thoughts? What he said.), I really had no incentive to crank out an obligatory blog entry which may not have been the worst thing because reaction to the last few has been mixed. So instead of beating the dead horse that is my obsession with new media (ZOMG! HULU! IPADS! KEVIN SMITH'S WAISTLINE!), I thought I would catch my faithful readership (Still only this guy) up with what I have been reading.

Yes, I have been reading books....B-O-O-K-S. I know it appears sometimes that I sit around all day and beat off to Jack Bauer beating up a terrorist on 24 while Green Day blares from my iTunes, but believe it or not I partake in other forms of entertainment. I hate to sound cliche here (no I don't) but there is something to be said for holding printed entertainment and culture in your very hands (go get the newest issue of Backdrop now). Plus, how is everyone going to know you're smart if you don't have a classy looking paperback in your hand? I suppose you could just start a pretentious blog and write about how much you love The Wire, but that isn't for everyone. In that vein, let's take a look about the fine works of literature I have gotten my nose into lately - beginning in chronological order from the beginning of the summer through yesterday.

The Curse of Rocky Colavito - Terry Pluto

This is a non-fiction book from Cleveland/Akron sportswriting legend Terry Pluto about the Cleveland Indian's trade of fan favorite Rocky Colavito to the Detroit Tigers for the chumptacular Harvey Kuenn in the 1960s. The Tribe has been "cursed" ever since. My favorite moment from reading this book was sitting in the lovely Twinsburg Starbucks and holding a half-hour conversation about the 1960s and 70s Indians with a Northeast Ohio old-timer.

Spook - Mary Roach

The first book I ever read from the wonderful Mary Roach was Stiff, an exploration of everything you would ever want to know about a human cadaver. The next was Bonk, a book about the scientific study of sex. Both of these books straight up rocked (I now know that the female monkey orgasms within about 8 second), so I picked up Roach's second book, Spook, from the handy-dandy Twinsburg library. I can safely say that this was the worst of all of Roach's efforts. The problem: Spook is about the scientific exploration of the afterlife. Well guess what: science doesn't have much to say about the afterlife...turns out it is fairly implausible and we have very little empirical data on the subject. Kudos to Mary Roach for wringing 300-some pages out of near-death experiences though.

Fargo Rock City - Chuck Klosterman

Those who read the Collective(ly) Unconscious closely know that Mr. Klosterman is a big influence on my writing. Sex Drugs and Cocopuffs is one of the greatest things I've ever read. Killing Yourself to Live is undeniably brilliant. So I decided to read Klosterman's first book, continuing my tradition of reading author's catalogues in the wrong order (see Roach, Mary). Unfortunately, Fargo Rock City is boring. Not bad, not without its merits...just boring. Apologies, Chuck, I am just not a fan of metal and I was born in 1990. I'm sure everyone else loved it!

Y: The Last Man, Book One: Unmanned - Brian K. Vaughn

It turns out that Brian K. Vaughn is as awesome as I thought he would be. I had wanted to read this ever since I found an appreciation for the graphic novel novel. I knew I had to read it once I found out that Brian K. Vaughn now writes for Lost. Win! Good science fiction reveals something about ourselves that we never even realized. In the instance of Y, it's that being the last man on Earth isn't all it's cracked up to be. Surprisingly, women won't want to have sex with you...they will want to kill you for being the last remnant of a patriarchal society. Bummer.

IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas - Chuck Klosterman

I have now read everything Chuck has written aside from Dowtown Owl and Eating the Dinosaur. IV is much better than Fargo Rock City in my eyes, but slightly worse than Killing Yourself to Live and much worse than Sex, Drugs and Cocopuffs (then again, what isn't?)

Next up on my docket is A Heart-breaking Work of Staggering Genius. Hopefully, I can knock that out over Spring Break.

By the way, Marisol was veeeery trippy. I never thought I would see a man give birth on stage. Now my bucket list is nearly complete.

King of All Media pt. 2: 2 Fat 2 Fly

2010-02-16T18:07:00.005-05:00

Look at this pudgy, bespectacled face. Look at these wide eyes and bearded visage closely. Look at the Triple XL Edmonton Oilers hoodie and the exaggeratedly bloated cheeks. Look at this man and bow, Internet, for this is your new King.

I have strong feelings regarding Kevin Smith as I suspect anyone who has ever witnessed a critic masturbate to Clerks does. I happen to love the man. Clerks is a good film if not a little dated. Chasing Amy and Dogma are near masterpieces. And Zack and Miri Make a Porno is a damn good time at the movies.

But if these were all Smith was responsible for, I don't think I would appreciate him the way I do. I appreciate Kevin Smith for his candid interviews and brilliant use of traditional media sources for exposure, his live performances that turn "Q&A" in stand-up comedy, his intimidating presence of Twitter and Facebook and most importantly, for "Smodcast": the greatest podcast or radio program that I have ever heard.

For these reasons, I have considered placing the King of All Media's Crown on Smitty's head for a while now. I always assumed Howard Stern would have to die before we could find a successor but rotting away on Satellite radio, ignoring Twitter and Facebook and not doing anything remotely interesting since the aforementioned switch to Satellite is reason enough to take Stern's crown from him. Sorry, Howie but you've gotten boring!

Still, even if I think the man who once wondered whether the storm troopers on the Death Star deserved to die deserves to be the new King of All Media, it doesn't mean that the rest of the Collective(ly) Unconscious would necessarily agree. Silent Bob needed a crystalizing moment that would utilize new media to absolute perfection to tear down the "man" while providing an opportunity for him to stretch his considerable verbal wit.

Sadly, that is too much to ask of the universe. There is no situation that can perfectly encapsulate everythin...wait, what? Southwest Airlines deemed Kevin Smith too fat to fly? And he tweeted about it endlessly? And then he did a podcast about it? And then Southwest issued a stuffy apology on their makeshift blog? And then legitimate news sources started picking up the story?And then Smith used a video blog to tell the final part of the story?

Well shit, universe, looks like you've done my work for me.

Kevin Smith is now the new King of All Media. Prove me wrong.

My Happy Place

2010-02-09T23:23:00.003-05:00

Apparently the key to writing on a semi-consistent basis is writing before the newest Lost episode. As my most recent post indicates, I am in a very specific and shall we say....suicidal? mood directly a new episode of Lost. Absolute crushing depression is essential to all good art...and make no mistake, what you are reading is art, damn it, art!

So while I wait, for the other crushing existential depression factory that is Lost, let's talk about something else. Something happy. More specifically, let's talk about my happy place.

When I was a "kid" (as far as I can tell, 95% of everything that ever happened to everyone happened to them when they were a "kid"), I had occasional trouble breathing. I wasn't an asthmatic but I was fat, and I believe my poor lungs had a difficult time keeping up. Instead of just throwing an inhaler at my fatass and calling it a day, my lovely mother decided to take me to the Cleveland Clinic to pursue complicated psychological biofeedback nonsense to fix my beleaguered body.

The nice woman at the Clinic taught me many a strategy to find my breath, including placing a weight from my stomach to breathe from the chest, blowing softly into a pinwheel and practicing complicated stretches. But my favorite strategy was the cliche, yet effective, process of "finding my happy place."

"Find an image in your mind, Alec, in which you can be completely and utterly calm. It can be a memory you have or simply an image in your mind. Just find it and occupy yourself with it...concentrate on nothing else but your happy place and your breathe will come."

So I found my happy place. It was Cooperstown Dreams Park, Field Number 6...the first place I ever hit a homerun and the only place I would ever end up hitting a homerun.

I never ended up breathing better.

But I don't blame the happy place. The happy place is a concept that I found myself embracing more and more as I slowly realized just how lacking the world was in happy places. Pop culture provided me more happy places than "real life" ever did. Cooperstown had home runs. So what, Hogwarts had Charms class, The Bluth household had the cornballer, and Serenity had a fucking kitchen in outer space!

I bring all this up in such a roundabout way (do I know how to write in any other way?) all so I can say that I've found my newest happy place. Ladies, gentlemen, misogynists and Black bellhops, I present to you: Sterling-Cooper.

I have pretty much devoured two seasons of Mad Men as fast as I could. There is much to appreciate about the artistic superiority of Matthew Weiner's creation: the complex and changing social mores of the '60s, the obsession of identiy, appearance and the lacks thereof and the subtle, yet phenomenal acting performances. But above all that for me is the ability to turn an advertising company consisting of mostly chain-smoking white men that operates thirty years before my birth feel like home.

Well done, Weiner, I hope that one day I can wear sexy suits and chug whiskey like fruit punch on Madison Avenue. Until then, I'll just find Season 3 online.

12:01...I think Lost will show up online soon. So long for now, Internet!

On Addiction

2010-02-03T01:12:00.006-05:00

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

2010-01-26T02:01:00.002-05:00

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

2010-01-17T00:00:00.002-05:00

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

2010-01-14T17:33:00.001-05:00

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

2010-01-07T17:47:00.004-05:00

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

2009-12-31T00:00:00.005-05:00

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

2009-12-18T23:05:00.003-05:00

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.

Moment of the Decade #4

2009-12-08T22:21:00.006-05:00

Release of the Gray Album

Believe it or not but there was a time when record companies were worried about mash-ups and digitally downloaded music.

2004 was a time shortly after Napster had collapsed and shortly before iTunes had become the musical juggernaut it is today. In short - it was a brief window of time when the fate of the record industry hung in the balance.

Enter DJ Danger Mouse.

Danger Mouse would later team up with Cee-Lo to craft the consensus best pop song of the decade, but for now he was working by himself trying to turn The Beatle's White Album and Jay-Z's Black Album into a musical masterpiece.

The Beatles are the undisputed pop music kings for all time, while Jay-Z is the probable pop music king for our time. Still, common sense says that a mash up of light, breezy guitar 60's guitar riffs and aggressive, fast urban-flavored verses shouldn't go together. Danger Mouse somehow made it work.

"What More Can I Say" teamed up with "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", "Encore" flowed over "Glass Onion" and in my personal favorite "Change Clothes" gently played over "Dear Prudence".

The Grey Album would eventually be honored as Album of the Year by Entertainment Weekly and received praise from several other publications. But it left a longer legacy than traditional good music. The Grey Album is a significant cultural moment of the decade because of its continuation of the theme of electronic civil disobedience.

If it exists and its online...then we all have a right to it. Forget what EMI, Paul McCartney or the U.S Constitution says! Nothing says 2000s more than that ethos.

Moment of the Decade #3

2009-12-07T00:34:00.003-05:00

Omar's Death - The Wire

The single best piece of entertainment from the decade had to show up on this list at some point. And it is with the death of it's most popular and celebrated character that The Wire makes an appearance in the best moments of this past decade.

There's really no way around it: Omar Little was a Bad-Mother-Fucker.

Omar was a man who represented a complete break from all institutions and commitments. On a show where everyone lost a piece of their identity to their surroundings (gang members, dock workers, police officers, public school teachers, elected officials), Omar was able to remain Omar: nothing more, nothing less.

Homeboy lived by a code. He followed the traditional rules of the street...with some revisions. Omar never swore, Omar never stole from anyone but drug-dealers and criminals and Omar gave that money to those in need. He was a gay, ghetto Robin Hood. And he deserved the death of a King. He deserved a death scene much like Harry Potter got (even if that one didn't quite stick): purposeful, honorable and touching.

But this is The Wire we're talking about here.

In the fifth and final season, Omar sought revenge against Kingpin Marlo Stanfield for torturing and killing his homie, Butchie. And Omar's path for revenge took him to the streets where naturally he stole money from a drug stash. Then, in a long, uniterrupted shot - Omar takes money from said stash to a convenience store to buy cigarettes. Omar walks up to the counter and the camera focuses on his blank expression and nothing else. The bell rings, indicating that someone has entered the store. Omar glances over and then back - apparently he doesn't feel threatened by whatever he sees...

BAM!

The a bullet hits Omar in the side of the head, tearing apart his brain and killing him instantly.

Omar's death scene was not what he deserved. It was quick, brutal and humiliating....much like death in real life. Omar may have felt like a larger-than-life character to us all but The Wire deals with reality, and in reality no one is larger-than-life. In reality - we are all just glorified meat-marionettes whose strings can be unceremoniously cut at any moment.

Sorry to sound grim here - but The Wire just gets to me like that.

Another interesting aspect of Omar's death is that it reveals the true artistic restraint that David Simon and Co. displayed in crafting the 5-season epic story of The Wire. Way back in Season 3, Omar and his crew were engaged in a firefight with members of the Barksdale crew (much love to you if you recognize the names of all these people and organizations) in broad daylight.

At its conclusion the police showed up and witnessed a group of kids re-enacting the fight using their hands for "guns." One young little hoodrat whines that is his turn to be Omar.

Two years later, that prepubescent terror, Kenard, would be the one who would shoot Omar Little in the head.

I love that show so much.

Moment of the Decade #2

2009-12-02T16:36:00.004-05:00

The Forest Again - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Remember when Harry Potter died?

Oh wait a minute.....let me go ahead and put up that SPOILER ALERT tag.

Anyway, remember when Voldemort wasted The Boy Who Lived (for a while at least) with a Killing Curse to the face? I do. I've actually re-read that scene about 47 times. It is "The Forest Again", the 34th chapter, and third-to-last chapter in the finale of the epic tale of Harry Potter. And it Rocks. So. Hard.

Back in the summer of '07, I was a young, promising 17-year-old student - much like the protagonist, himself. But unlike that bespectacled hero, I was not seeking out the world's most dangerous wizard. My brother and I were in Myrtle Beach and instead of lounging around on the beach, counting Double-Ds, we were inside reading The Deathly Hallows.

Somehow my brother was a full chapter ahead of me, even though he had stopped to take a quick catnap and I had not. Around 7 in the morning (we had received our books at midnight, like any self-respecting nerds), my brother looked up at me from a across the room with tears glimmering in his eyes and simply said:

"Dude..."

"Will I know what you're talking about when I get there?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

And I did. And that is why the chapter "The Forest Again" from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is my Moment of the Decade #2.

The moment in which young Harry uses the Resurrection Stone to summon the spirits of his father, mother, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin is the moment that my brother was referring to. It is also the moment that almost makes me weep like a little bitch every time I read it. The dialogue is absolutely brutal.

Harry Potter asks his Godfather, Sirius if dying hurts. To which Sirius replies: "Not at all, it is painless and easier than falling asleep." Harry apologizes to his former teacher, Lupin, because he will not be able to see his infant son grow up. Harry's parents tell him that they love him and are proud of him.

Harry Potter has more in common with the living than the dead, "The Forest Again" reveals that his story, from the beginning, has been about death more so than anything. The most prolific series of books of our times opens with a double murder and that looms over every plot detail for seven books until in reaches that emotional climax in this close-to-final scene.

And some people say Twilight is better...

Moment of the Decade #1

2009-11-26T21:42:00.007-05:00

Now that we've reached the end of the 00's (2000's? Nothins'?) it's time to start counting what rocked and what sucked about the decade that we all came of age in. This was a decade that contained both my first kiss and first caramel frappuccino and I want to honor it.

Instead of the usual top ten lists and recaps, I'll take things in a different and probably less satisfying direction. I'm going to present, in no particular order, the moments that stick out most in my mind from this past decade.

These won't be real-life events like the time Tom Cruise jumped on Oprah's couch or the time M. Night Shyamalan took an actual shit on celluloid. These will be moments from the content of pop culture, itself. Scenes, chapters, lines of dialogue, chord progressions, etc.

We'll start off with a scene from one of the most strangely underrated movies of the decade.

Avner and Louis - Munich

Here is a scene from Steven Spielberg's Munich in which Israeli assassin Avner (Eric Bana) meets with his French informant Louis (Mathieu Almalric) in Paris. Avner and his merry band of killers, demolition experts and accountants have been cutting a bloody path across Europe, bringing Jewish vengeance to the Israeli athletes killed in the 1973 Olympics terrorist attacks.

Read screenwriter Tony Kushner's brilliant depiction of the scene. Then do yourself a favor and do it again.

EXT. STORE ON A FANCY STREET IN PARIS - NIGHT

Avner is standing in front of the display, which has been changed -- a new but still beautiful modern kitchen. Behind him, reflected in the glass, he sees Robert, walking-towards him, smiling gently. They make eye contact through the reflection. Robert seems to be standing right behind Avner. He's asking Avner something, either moving his lips or it's just a question in his eyes.

AVNER

It will be beautiful. Eventually

Avner places his hand over Robert's face. Then he turns. Louis is standing there. Avner stares at Louis, hard. Louis takes a handkerchief out of his pocket, then reaches past Avner to wipe away the handprint that Avner's left on the plate glass window.

LOUIS

Ali Hassan Salameh is in Tarifa, on the Spanish coast. He's in a compound guarded by all the

predictable trouble.

Avner doesn't respond, staring a Louis as if not seeing him.

LOUIS

Bomb makers often die accidental deaths.

( shrugs )

In Athens, you shot a KGB agent. Many people must want t o kill you, Monsieur Storsch. But why would I do that? You pay better than anyone.

A beat.

LOUIS (CONT'D)

It ' s dangerous, going after Salameh. But he planned the Munich massacre. Eliminate him and they'll let you go home. Don't you think?

They look at one another.

AVNER

Yes, Louis. I do. They smile at one another, not friendly, but, Avner having acknowledged his affiliation, both know that this is the end of their business together.

LOUIS

You could have a kitchen like this someday. It costs dearly. Home always does.

Politicians, talking heads and public school teachers have been trying to explain to me why those silly people in the Middle East have been killing each other for so long. And I never understood any of their reasonings or rationales.

When I saw this scene, it all finally made sense. Here is Avner, a man who has been killing human beings in the name of his country and is nearing the end of sanity. He is standing in front of the sanitary, safe and ultimately corny representation of home that Western culture has built. Then Louis says "You could have a kitchen like this someday. It costs dearly. Home always does."

And suddenly it all makes sense.

Regardless of how sanitary, safe and corny it may be, every man, woman and child on Earth would give almost anything for that elusive concept of home. Especially when they believe they are entitled to it.

There it is: the reason for the Middle East crisis in three lines or less.

Maybe some people can understand the socio-political reasons for Arabs and Jews fighting each other. But I can't. And I need Hollywood and Tony Kushner to lend me a helping hand. In that moment I understood exactly why those silly people are dying in that far off land.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

One for Now and One for a VH1 Recap Special

2009-11-18T01:54:00.003-05:00

First of all, I'd like to apologize for my little outburst just earlier. I wrote that just last week but it will appear just below this post so in the mind's eye, this will have occurred immediately after the previous one. History will never know (unless history pays attention to time stamps on blogs) that I had a full week to recover from my meltdown. So let's pretend that my post JUST HAPPENED (to quote Ricky Bobby).

Sorry to Twitter users! Sorry to anyone looking for legitimate readable content! Sorry to mom and dad for using "fuck" in a blog title!

Anyway, let's move on with our lives.

It's the end of the decade which can only mean one thing...LISTS! LISTS! LISTS! OMG! OMG! LISTS! OMFG! LISTS!

I am a complete list whore. I think the only reason I started a blog is to compile mind-numbingly boring top ten lists at the end of the year that no one really wants to read. Thankfully, Journalism classes have beaten the idea that top ten lists are a good thing so the Internet will not be subjected to any of my mundane lists.

That doesn't mean my love for end-of-the-decade lists has waned in the slightest. In fact I would like to call your attention to a couple of interesting ones that I have discovered.

- The first one is the A.V Club's list of the best Television shows of the decade.

For some reason television seems a lot easier to draw a consensus on than movies in the modern era. I imagine that many lists in the coming month will look nearly identical to the A.V Club's list.

It is essentially perfect.

I do have a few gripes (Futurama's inclusion, South Park and Chappelle's Shows' omissions and two AMC shows back-t0-back immediately come to mind) but most people won't look at this list and think "they're way off." The Wire is the best show of the decade. Arrested Development is the best comedy. Mad Men is showing potential to reach Sopranos-esque levels and The U.K Office is ranked perfectly in relation to the U.S Office.

It really feels like a true consensus on TV's can be reached and the same certainly cannot be said for film or music in the 2000s. Does this mean that television is our most prominent pop-cultural art form of the decade? I would certainly argue for it. But I can't prove it...and you probably wouldn't believe me anyway.

- Next up is the Alternative Press' list of the best songs of the decade.

For as definitive as the A.V Club's list was, this one feels as subjective. Per the AP's M.O, the list features almost exclusive punk, alternative and emo fare with a little bit of hipster shit sprinkled in. Obviously the list was going to be inherently biased based only under those guidelines. We certainly weren't going to see "Single Ladies" or "Lose Yourself" on this list.

Even with that in mind, there seems to be a bizarre heir of subjectivity to AP's declaration. This, however, doesn't mean I don't love lots of it. Here's a snapshot of what's working for me.

99. Cursive – “Art Is Hard”

82. Brand New – “Jesus Christ”
75. Green Day – “Jesus Of Suburbia”
63. AFI – “Girl’s Not Grey”
47. My Chemical Romance – “Welcome To The Black Parade”
46. Against Me – “Thrash Unreal”
45. The Used – “A Box Full Of Sharp Objects”
37. Panic! At The Disco – “I Write Sins Not Tragedies”
33. Silversun Pickups – “Lazy Eye”
32. New Found Glory – “My Friends Over You”
31. Brand New – “Sic Transit Gloria…Glory Fades”
30. AFI – “Miss Murder”
25. The All-American Rejects – “Move Along”
24. Green Day – “American Idiot”
22. Brand New – “The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows”
14. Brand New – “Jude Law And A Semester Abroad”
13. The Gaslight Anthem – “The ‘59 Sound”
12. Jimmy Eat World – “Bleed America”
11. Blink-182 – “All The Small Things”
8. My Chemical Romance – “Helena”
4. Fall Out Boy – “Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down”
3. Jimmy Eat World – “Sweetness”
2. My Chemical Romance – “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)”

If I had to reconstruct my own top ten list based purely on what AP featured it would probably look like this:

10. My Chemical Romance - "I'm Not Okay"

9. Brand New - "Jude Law and the Semester Abroad"

8. Blink 182 - "All the Small Things"

7. AFI - "Girls Not Grey"

6. Cursive - "Art is Hard"

5. My Chemical Romance - "Welcome to the Black Parade"

4. Against Me! - "Thrash Unreal"

3. Jimmy Eat World - "Bleed America"

2. Green Day - "Jesus of Suburbia"

1. My Chemical Romance - "Helena"

I can get behind any list that I can construct into that top ten. Also, I would like to live in a world in which an MCR song is the second best song of an entire decade. I can only hope that years from now after Western culture has fallen, archaeologists will find this list and believe that My Chemical Romance was on par with the Beatles.

- But forget about the future, let's talk about the RIGHT NOW.

This might be the best music video I've seen in years. Watch it and try to come up with a compelling argument why Lady Gaga WON'T be the new Queen of Popular Music for years to come. Go on, I dare you.

Fuck Twitter

2009-11-12T03:18:00.003-05:00

I know Twitter is usually used for micro-blogging but Twitter is stupid SO....

I hate writing research papers.

That will be all for now.

Show Me What You Got

2009-11-08T17:22:00.004-05:00

When can we stop calling television shows "television" shows?

I watch plenty of serialized programming: the sublimely charming Glee, the blatantly awful but somehow still watchable Heroes and the infinitely interesting Dexter - but I watch none of them on an actual television. I'll watch them on Hulu, Surfthechannel, Ninjavideo or any other source of questionable legality (don't tell on me).

I own a television, everyone I know owns a television, but not everyone actually ever uses it. Aside from flipping on Sportscenter to quell my crushing loneliness in the morning of waking up alone in a Single dorm room, my TV mostly serves to fill space on the wall next to my refrigerator.

I could use this opportunity to speak about how the Internet is changing our lives but fuck, my professors get paid a lot of money to do that. And I'm sure the target audience on this blog (i.e 3 of my friends and around 4 OU students who stumbled upon it while Googling "synthetic dog steak") really doesn't feel like being instructed on the future by someone who has no better idea of WHAT-IT-ALL-MEANS than they, themselves, do.

So let's talk about what's actually on TV instead.

I usually try to avoid sweeping statements that I will certainly regret later BUUUUUUUUUT....I think NBC's "Must See TV" might have made a sneaky, and largely inadvertent comeback.

Thursday nights features perhaps the most solid 2 hours of comedy on television since Seinfeld signs off. I think this has largely gone unnoticed because everyone (aside from Entertainment Weekly employees) does everything but watch TV on Thursday nights. Sure, many people will watch The Office and 30 Rock, perhaps even Community or Parks and Recreation if they're feeling dangerous...but they won't watch them all straight through or on the night they first air.

It's kind of a shame, though, because if anyone actually sat down for 2 straight hours on a Thursday night then NBC might make a comeback...or at least buy back some love that they lost when they bungled the whole Leno-O'Brien situation.

The Peacock has built up quite a line-up for itself.

8:00 - Community - This got off to a bit of a rough start but has really blossomed of late. Chevy Chase still doesn't quite work for me but Joel McHale is an undeniable star. I don't think Community will ultimately last (see: Neilsen Ratings) but when it dies McHale's career had better take off...or I'll quit humanity forever. His speech about "Shark Week" in the pilot episode is a work of comic genius.

8:30 - Parks and Recreation - Parks and Recreation took off this year and it did it by following a simple concept. More Office, less Parks and Recreation. Characters are now better-defined, funnier and more vibrant and Greg Daniels and Michael Schurr have focused on character-based comedy far more than plot-based comedy (the fact that everyone inexplicably hates the elderly "Jerry" kills me). And aside from being a solidly funny show, Parks and Rec is blessed with good timing, being a show about the inner-workings of small-town government in an age where healthcare is about to become a public entity. NOTE: Do not read into my politics at all on this, I am passing no judgements. Nothing is a bigger drag than having to talk about politics when all I really want to do is express my love for Aziz Ansari and Rashida Jones' smile.

9:00 - The Office - The wedding episode was so good that it should have been the series finale. Just sayin'...

9:30 - 30 Rock - Here is the semi-embarrassing part about not watching shows directly when they air. Usually when one watches a show on television it is a public experience and everyone laughs and interacts together. When one watches a show on a laptop, it is a very solitary experience (twelve people gathered around a MacBook Pro is rather awkward). So I automatically try to refrain from laughter when watching shows alone. 30 Rock is the show that defies my attempts not to laugh most frequently. Just give it the freaking Emmy again now.

Getting Texty

2009-11-01T16:36:00.002-05:00

I could not partake in Halloween this year due to my job.

Thankfully, I have friends. And thankfully they have cell phones.

GINA - Dempe has taped a piece of cardboard over his crotch that says "dick flap"

GINA - alex just called Adam a "bisexual fuck." ...I might be the only one textingyou.

ADAM - Oh no.

VINCE - Your bro is doing excellent

GINA - Adam is Houdini and vince is drinking from a measuring cup.

GINA - We lost alex. I just saw Arthur

ADAM - i am talking to your brother. please let me train him.

ADAM - Tell ian no. trust me.

GINA - Annnnnnd Adam is puking

GINA - Alex is helping a young lad get medical attention. Everyone else is roaming arou d the house.

STEPHANIE - We are coming to you. Where should we go?

ADAM - Be careful.

STEPHANIE - Okay will try to stop them from coming

ELLEN - Ian is w/Steph and fine, no worries.

ADAM - I don't know. send him to 7tatue.

ADAM - Where is ian.

STEPHANIE - Brother its me can we come yet

ADAM - Check i an now.

ADAM - Oh boy. tel me hen back.

Violent Love and the Greatest Comic Book That Never Was

2009-10-20T15:06:00.006-04:00

I remember sitting in Court Street Diner about two or three weeks into my Freshman year (being a Freshman, this was before I realized it was cooler to go to Union Street Diner) and eavesdropping on two Sophomore girls in the booth across from me.

In-between the menial bullshit that Sophomore college girls tend to talk about (trust me: I basically am one) a little kernel of knowledge slipped through to my eavesdropping ear.

"Sophomore year in Scripps is absolutely brutal!" Girl A said.

"Jeez...that's why I am in " Girl B responded.

While sipping my absolutely delightful potato and cheese soup, I made a mental note not to ever forget that fact when my Sophomore year in Scripps rolled around.

Now as I sit here in my Film 201 class, sensations of that delightful soup long passed, I realized that I indeed forgot that fact.

Sophomore year is rather brutal.

News Writing is simple enough...until I actually have to do work. Film is fun...until I feel the uncontrollable urge to nap once the lights dim for a screening. Introduction to Creative Non-Fiction is right up my alley...until I get B's on all my papers. And Islam....well Islam just straight-up sucks all around.

This has not been the easiest quarter for me and as punishment for my boredom, Internet, you are now subject to more of my pop culture-related ramblings while I neglect Citizen Kane (too much culture, not enough pop for me)

- I thought I was done prattling on about AFI's new album, Crash Love, I really did. But something occurred to me as I was listening to its lyrics on my way to class today. Crash Love combines two concepts that go so well together they should be more synonymous with unity than PB&J: violence and infatuation. The word's Crash and Love suggest two seemingly conflicting ideas that are brought together through the magic of....ART!

Just listen to some of the violence and car-crash imagery on the record:

"If we run this light, take a little life, no one will care at all."

"With the light out and the night inside, the broken radio was playing suicide."

"Bleeding from pure love."

It's now come to my attention that I am in love with the dual concepts of love and violence as they pertain to one another. Just take a gander at the cover of one of my favorite albums of all time:

That is the cover of Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge by My Chemical Romance. The painting is called "Demolition Lovers" and was created by singer Gerard Way. "Demolition Lovers", eh? Sounds like it conforms to my fun little notion of violence and love intersecting. The blood on the two lovers faces seem splattered in the blood from their impact.

But you don't have to stick to the emo and hardcore arenas...

"And baby when it's love if it's not rough, it isn't fun." - Lady Gaga, bitches.

- I feel like I've fought destiny for a long time.

Destiny clearly wanted me to be a comic book nerd. And truthfully, I was an everything-else-nerd. Pokemon? Check. Star Wars? Check. Harry Potter? Check. Lord of the Rings? Check. Magic Cards? Check. Online RPGs? Check. Tabletop wargames? Check. But for some reason comics just felt like too big a leap for me, like heroin to a cocaine user.

But two summers ago I took that leap and read Watchmen. I loved it (doesn't everyone?). Then I tackled some Batman series. Then I read The Umbrella Academy. And now I'm on the prowl for more.

When I read these series, however, I detected that I had experienced it all before? Why is that?

Of course, comic book DNA is spread across all areas of pop culture (hehehe ew.), but it went even deeper than that. I've read these types of stories before.

Remember Animorphs? And don't lie, I KNOW you do. Everybody read Animorphs. Well K.A Applegate also wrote one of my favorite series of books ever after Animorphs called "Remnants."

Remnants was a 14-book series about a group of survivors' trials and tribulations in space in a post-Earth existence. It sounds cheesy and bad because it was cheesy and bad. But it only didn't work dramatically or commercially because it was written in the wrong medium. Remnants was a comic book series in the form of a novel. Remnants was graphic, pulpy, fast-moving, unrealistic, fun, all with a dash of deeper meaning - everything that a good comic book should be.

So your homework today, Internet, is to research Remnants (or read the whole series, which is available upon request to yours truly), contact K.A Applegate or Scholastic for the rights and then create the single greatest comic book series the world has ever seen.

Please do this...for me.

"The Lucy Westenra Search Party" Would Be an Awesome Band Name

2009-10-12T20:59:00.004-04:00

So why the fuck do we amass and consume endless amounts of television, film, literature, theater and other visual media?

I know it seems like there should be a sentence before that but there isn't. I don't want to bury the lead on this one. I was walking through West Green on my way to News Writing and the thought popped into my head. Actually, that wasn't my thought at all. But I backtracked my initial thought (to be revealed shortly) to the essential question of what I was thinking. So really that opening sentence could have been a lot more jarring...

Why do I spend my days wondering if Lost will reveal the meaning of life? Why do you read The Little Prince for the eighth time? Why do we watch The Bear Jew turn Hitler's brains into pudding? (I swear my Inglourious Basterds/Pulp Fiction is coming one day)

Well there are plenty of reasons we plug into our visual culture or, say it with me: the collective unconscious. But I thought of one reason today why I (and by "I", I am just vainly assuming "we") consume culture like Mike & Ikes.

We consume culture because we want to be in culture. I have a family, I have friends, I have peers. I have co-workers. It is a very real existence that I live with very real people. But in each and every case I always try to compare these in-groups to in-groups that I have seen in the media. And in almost every case, they don't compare favorably.

I recently posted a picture on Facebook of The Umbrella Academy (a comic book superhero team) with me and all my friends tagged as our corresponding characters. It was fun to concur that Alex was definitely The Seance and Dan was definitely The Kraken...but why did they have to be? Why can't Alex just be Alex and Dan just be Dan (this is that original thought that I had, by the way)?

Culture exists, in part, so that we can imagine ourselves in it.

This is an intriguing notion for a multitude of reasons. But I am too lazy to write about them and I have a Film Midterm breathing down my neck. Instead I'll leave you with a list of the fake-groups I would most like to be a part of. And mind you, these are groups that I have seen and enjoyed. I have not seen much of old-timey entertainment such as Cheers so don't expect me to want to hang at the bar where everyone knows your name.

- The Bluth Family (Arrested Development)

- Sacred Heart Hospital (Scrubs)

- Gryffindor, Class of '98 (Harry Potter)

- Serenity crew-mate (Firefly)

- The Basterds (Inglourious Basterds)

- The Barksdale Family/Baltimore Police Department (The Wire)

- The Gang (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia)

- Bon Temps Citizen (True Blood)

- The Lucy Westenra Search Party (Dracula)

If I could drop everything in my entire life, including even possibly my identity, and join into another reality with a different friend-base, those are a select few I would choose.

You, Internet?