feed it to my goldfish

Mad Men, Megan Draper, and the Skyler White Effect

2013-03-31T10:34:00.002-04:00

Mad Men is back in a week, and I am extremely excited. (Big surprise - I think I write more about this show than anything else.) The promotional pictures are just opulently sexy - Megan's hair! Pete's...hair! Joan's dress! But I'm also apprehensive, particularly about what's going to happen to the latest woman in Don's life.

Things don't look good for her.

The Skyler White effect takes its name from Breaking Bad's lead female character. It goes like this: a female character judges the male protagonist's bad behavior in a completely rational way, and the audience hates her for it. Walter White is a murderous meth dealer whose ultimate goal is meth underworld domination. There's nothing actually appealing or noble about that. But when Skyler does anything in response to his behavior, she's labeled as the worst. If she tells Walter to stop dealing drugs, she's a nagging harpy; if she decides to support Walter's drug kingpin aspirations, she's a hypocritical gold digger. The same thing happened to Carmela in The Sopranos and Alison in Knocked Up, and it's still happening to the past and future Mrs. Drapers.

Let's quickly lay out Don's horribleness. He's an army deserter and fraud. He is a constant and flagrant adulterer. He's an alcoholic with a history of sexual and domestic abuse threats. Finally, he's an occasional plagiarist. But, because he's great at his job and thinks his kids are ok, he's still fine as a flawed hero.

Betty Hofstadt Draper Francis, on the other hand, is a bitch. Betty, who tried to seek psychiatric help only to discover that her shrink was giving Don reports on what she had said. Who suffered through and then was blamed for sexual harassment from Don's boss. Who told Don she was unhappy, and got yelled at on a bad day and dismissed on a good day.

Honestly, I don't think the writing teams are immune to the Skyler White effect. The female characters who aren't married to Don get rich, easy character development, but Betty's is much more subtle. You have to pay close attention to throwaway lines like "Mommy doesn't like to eat" to get that she had an eating disorder for the first few seasons, or to pick up on the fact that she's a textbook child abuse survivor. Almost every story she tells about her mother speaks to severe emotional abuse, which informs her increasingly horrible relationship with Sally. She was raised by one bully and married another, a man who flaunted his infidelity and made her feel inadequate, then turned around and called her a whore for buying a bikini.

The woman is trying so hard, Don. Jesus.

When she finally freed herself from that terrible marriage, she spent an entire year letting her anger boil over at everyone. Finally in a position of (relative) power, she began abusing everyone she could. Unfortunately for Betty, the writers made her the one thing audiences will never forgive - a bad mother. So she's stuck in Skyler White hell.

Now former receptionist and copywriter/future actress Megan Calvet has assumed the dreaded "Mrs. Draper" role. She's already done such detestable things as ask Don to be emotionally available, tell him to take her job seriously, and use his connections to land a national commercial. (The fact that he balked at that last one, when he had no qualms about creating a copywriter job despite her lack of qualifications, speaks volumes about how stingy Don gets when women reject his image of them.) Meanwhile, at one point Don abandons Megan at some pokey rest stop motel because she doesn't like orange sherbet. He then kicks their front door in, chases her around their apartment, and tackles her to the ground.

She is tiny. He is a monster.

If Megan reacts to his bullying in a relatively independent and well-adjusted way - in other words, not like a meek doormat - she's a bitch.

The Skyler White effect is a pretty warped set-up. It speaks to the overwhelming preference for a male perspective over a female one, and for a male hero free from any woman's "interference." I hope the Mad Men writers don't yield to whatever negative feedback they do get about Megan, the way they clearly did with Betty. Don needs someone to stand up to his array of bullshit, and Megan is his strongest partner yet.

Review: House of Cards

2013-03-02T11:08:00.001-05:00

I had to take a couple of weeks after I finished House of Cards before I could write about it. It sucked me in so completely, even as it grew increasingly absurd, that by the end I was just overwhelmed. Plus, with an intricately plotted show like this, it takes a while to pull the narrative strings apart.

But I'm already making House of Cards sound better than it is. What it is is a sleek, manipulative, and very good show that thinks it's great. Its confidence is probably one of its most compelling features, actually. Every performance and every frame is sure-footed and self-assured, and they can wrap you up in their conviction that you're watching something groundbreaking. Kate Mara, Robin Wright, and Corey Stoll (who I last saw with way more hair as Ernest Hemingway in Midnight in Paris) do especially notable work. Their performances elevate their characters - the spunky cub reporter, the frosty Lady Macbeth, the rags-to-riches Congressman with powerful demons - above their cliches.

But seriously, where is his hair? AND HIS MUSTACHE?

There is something odd about all of these roles, though. For roughly the first six chapters (episodes are listed as Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc, as though you're watching a novel unfold) they are all most interesting when they're in lead character Frank Underwood's orbit. I didn't care about Claire's non-profit or relationship with a "sexy" British photographer, and I didn't want to see Zoe the reporter's ascension or watch her deal with office politics (more on that later). I really wanted to know how they would affect or interact with Frank. But about halfway through, that began to change for me. The more Zoe, Claire, and Stoll's Peter Russo spiraled away from Frank, the more dynamic they became.

Kevin Spacey's performance as Frank, the world-class manipulator/House Majority Whip, is partly to blame. He practically assaults you with his charisma, dominating all of his scenes and making florid asides straight to the camera. A performance like his makes it hard for other characters to breathe alongside him. And after a certain point, his linguistic pyrotechnics become exhausting. I might feel differently if I hadn't binge-watched this show, so I'd only get one hour of exposure rather than...more than that...at a time. But as I watched, I tired of his constant barbs, elaborate metaphors, and ultimately empty turns of phrase. His conversations weren't conversations so much as competing mini-monologues. It wasn't until well into the season - maybe even Chapter 13 - that I felt a real dynamism and connection between Frank and Claire. You only get one chapter in which Frank is at all vulnerable, and I think it was after that chapter that things began to fall apart for me and Frank. Seeing him tear up at the memories of his old school, which was NOT the Citadel at ALL, made everything else he did before and after that episode feel too slick to be interesting.

Also he keeps making this face at me. Yeesh.

But I think the plotting also has a lot to do with my pivoting interests. For a huge chunk of the show, solutions to most problems, and Frank's in particular, are frustratingly easy. House of Cards paints a strange picture of the Hill, where over-the-top manipulation rules, but only a handful of people are doing it to a network of unsuspecting dummies. Frank somehow manages to be ruthless and cruel to people's faces, but still maintain his reputation as a trustworthy gentleman who can get stuff done. After Peter lets a shipyard close in his district, destroying 12,000 jobs in the process, he manages to win the unemployed shipyard workers over by giving an inspiring speech about a new bill. This same superficiality plagues almost every political drama there is, and I have a feeling it's because these dramas are written by writers. That sounds stupid, but who else in the world believes in the transformative power of words than professional writers? They believe that the right speech can convince people whose jobs will never come back that a water purification bill (or something?) is the new great hope. It's childish, and really does the whole political process a disservice.

Zoe's entire narrative also desperately needed to change in order for me to enjoy it, so that her office nemesis Janine stopped being an office nemesis. The disappointing "jealous crone versus hot young thing in the office" trope really marred the season's first half. In my experience, older female co-workers aren't resentful jerks who try to stymie their young counterparts and call them fiercely gendered slurs like "twat" in the office. Those older women tend to reach out to serve as role models, especially in a male-dominated filed like journalism. Automatically putting two women in violent opposition is just anti-feminist. Fortunately, Janine and Zoe eventually put their feud to rest, and Janine ends up being the mentor that Zoe needed - someone who can teach her the merits of investigative journalism over being fed information by an anonymous and morally compromised source.

But while I'm complaining about the way Hollywood portrays journalism, can we stop assuming that all journalists over the age of 24 just HATE bloggers? The division is really not that severe - probably hasn't been for at least 10 years now - and it's fueled more by middle-aged confusion about the internet than anything else. People don't spit the word "blog" at 20-something-year-old upstarts like the word itself is drenched in acid. Again, this is the problem with letting writers write things! All of them probably have an axe to grind against some horrible editor from their past, and he gets written into a lot of newspaper offices. (One of the most egregious examples of this from an otherwise excellent show was Season 5 of The Wire, so it's especially hilarious to me that the House of Cards version is played by The Wire's horrible Lt. Marimow, who was named after David Simon's horrible editor from the Baltimore Sun. Round and round it goes!)

And now I've managed to make the show sound worse than it is. It really is terrifically acted, and compelling all the way through. I think I'm in favour of Netflix's idea here, releasing a new show all at once so that people can watch it in big chunks. And I'm very excited for the second (and final!) season, whenever that will happen. I just hope they're wise enough to give the most interesting characters some space from Frank, and give Frank the human some space from Frank the Machiavellian overlord.

Email addresses I got spam from this week

2013-02-15T14:30:00.001-05:00

contact@sherlocksleuth.com

contact@imissquigon.com

contact@quigoncameback.com

contact@quigonwhy.com

contact@obiwanfailed.com

contact@whyobiwan.com

contact@toomaymidichlorians.com

Masquerading as:

Zoosk

Match.com

MAGIC by Magic Johnson

Saffron Slim

Christian Mingle

Provide Auto Insurance

Tire Coupons

There is one really upset Qui-Gon Jinn fan out there, and s/he is taking his/her rage out on any email address s/he can find. You've been warned, internet.

Django Unchained - Review

2013-01-04T14:43:00.000-05:00

Synopsis: Bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) buys Django (Jamie Foxx) from two slavers so he (Django) can eyeball three men with a bounty on their heads. Eventually, Schultz frees Django and promotes him to partner in bounty hunting, promising to help him find and free his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) when the winter ends. About halfway through the film, Django and Schulz find Broomhilda's new owner, the ostentatious, criminally self-absorbed, and brutal Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). At that point, our buddies concoct an unnecessarily complicated plan to trick Candie, whose favourite hobby is Mandingo fighting*, into selling Broomhilda. Further complicating matters is Candie's head of house Stephen, played with toxic ferocity by Samuel Jackson.

The main performances, while extremely varied, are tremendous across the board. Waltz is as twinkling and delightful as he was in Inglourious Basterds, taking an almost sensual pleasure in his dialogue. Jamie Foxx necessarily has to play things much closer to the vest. As a slave living and travelling in unfriendly territory, Django can't allow any of his real emotions to come to the surface. Still, Foxx does an excellent job of showing Django's constant fear and growing sense of self. Meanwhile, DiCaprio seems to be having fun playing someone who isn't suffering from some sort of inner torment for the first time in years. (That doesn't mean he doesn't get angry - at one point, he slams his hand down on a table so hard his hand starts bleeding.)

He also gets to hold a jaunty coconut.

Django Unchained almost seems like it could be a good two-parter, since the two halves of the film - pre- and post-Candie - are so tonally different. The first half is funnier and more playful, and since Christoph Waltz dominates that half it makes sense. The second half moves a lot slower and is generally darker, as Waltz cedes the ground to darker characters like Candie and Stephen. Instead of hilariously inept Klansmen bumbling around, we get Francophile dandies explaining the finer points of phrenology. The second half is also much more violent, starting with the gruesome Mandingo fight and building to an epic Grand Guignol slaughterfest. I don't usually do this in graphic movies, but I found myself covering my eyes at several scenes.

As always, Tarantino's desire to tell a story is in fierce competition with his obsession with reminding his audience of the awesomeness of cinema. So, the powerful narrative gets interrupted and distracted from by masturbatory flourishes and ostentatious casting choices. One of the funnier and more ridiculous scenes involves a proto-KKK gang with some problems with their badly constructed hoods. On its own, the scene already distracts from the story we care about, but it becomes even more distracting when Jonah Hill pulls off his hood. We're no longer watching an unexpectedly funny interaction between characters, but a funny scene with Jonah Hill. His presence is totally unnecessary. On a similar vein, the less said about Tarantino's offensively unnecessary cameo as an Australian slave trader (??), the better. He should feel really shitty for bringing his own movie to a screeching halt like that.

But the story he's telling is so interesting, and so necessarily complex, that even with the film's numerous Tarantino-related problems it's still terrific. Naturally, the most compelling and complicated aspect was the way racism affected each character. Stephen has clearly internalized his society's racism to a severe degree, to the point that he is legitimately outraged at Django sleeping in a bed meant for white guests, and hated to see a free black man anyway. The courtly Big Daddy may call his slaves "sugar," but he still a) keeps slaves, b) insists that while Django isn't a slave, he shouldn't be treated like a white man (he finally settles on treating Django like white trash), and c) was apparently a founding member of the KKK. Unlike in Gone with the Wind, there is no such thing as a benevolent slaveowner.

Not even ones who are Colonel Sanders impersonators.

But Django himself has clearly internalized slavery's racial hierarchy as well. He tells Dr. Schultz that his wife is too pretty (and, he leaves out, light-skinned) to be a field slave. Meanwhile, Dr. Schultz clearly thinks of himself as a racially tolerant man, but his objection to slavery seems to be largely intellectual. He refers to slavery offhandedly as "this slavery malarkey," and appears genuinely baffled at the resentment engendered when he lets Django ride a horse or drink beer in a saloon. When Django first tells Schultz about his wife, he responds "I didn't know slaves believed in marriage," as though it was a personal choice on the slaves' part rather than a right denied them by their status as slaves. His position doesn't really change until he meets Candie and gets introduced to Mandingo fighting. It seems that seeing the real horrors of slavery up close - seeing a slave torn apart by dogs because Candie can't use him anymore, for instance - makes him realize that slavery isn't just a silly or misguided idea, but is truly evil.

I also have a problem with Kerry Washington's role as Broomhilda. As usual with Tarantino films that aren't starring badass women (Jackie Brown, Kill Bill), Broomhilda is tragically underwritten. She fills a pretty traditional role, the beautiful damsel in distress whose distress is that much more affecting because she's beautiful. On the other hand, it's incredibly rare to see a black woman in the beautiful damsel in distress role. I know it's weird to say, but black women are rarely allowed to be the decorative subject of a chivalrous quest. Even in the realm of the Disney princesses, the white princesses are whisked away by their princes charming while the colored princesses learn the value of hard work. Having a black man go through hell for an angelic black woman sure does diversify our on-screen representation.

Django Unchained is simultaneously awkward and elegant, superficial and complicated, disturbing and entertaining. If nothing else, I'm glad that Tarantino hasn't lost his intense ambition to make something challenging and important.

*The myth of Mandingo fighting persists because it's such a vivid distillation of what racism and slavery do to black men. It reduces them to nothing more than bodies, sets them in competition with each other, and rewards them with a substantially diminished life and sometimes a paltry recognition. The Mandingo fight scene in Django Unchained illustrates all of that with breathtaking brutality and a fair bit of elegance.

Brief musings on Tarantino and "the n-word"

2012-12-30T00:32:00.001-05:00

After I've had some time to really digest it, I'll speak with a lot more detail and (hopefully) insight about Django Unchained, which I thought was excellent and deeply flawed. But right now I just want to talk about Quentin Tarantino and the word nigger.

('Nigger' will come up a lot in this post. I won't be going in to how the word itself makes me feel as a black woman, because I don't have energy for that conversation. But you've been warned.)

I crunched some numbers and tallied the uses of 'nigger' in all of Tarantino's movies (not including Four Rooms, which he only directed part of). I split the usage up by the actor's race.

No real surprises here.

Tarantino's liberal use of the word has always bothered me, especially (really, almost exclusively) when his white characters use it. It tells us something when the white criminals in Reservoir Dogs refer to niggers when they're talking to each other - we know we're dealing with men who use it when black people aren't around, and who absolutely mean it as an epithet - but is this really something we need to know about them? Why do we need to know something so racially charged? Same goes for Pulp Fiction's Lance - we already know this is a skeezy dude who sells heroin and (worse) lives his life in a mildewed bathrobe. I don't feel particularly enlightened, nor do I think his character is at all enriched, by him also being a racist who thinks only 'niggers' in Inglewood sell shitty heroin and don't know the difference.

A more troubling example is Pulp Fiction's Jimmy, played with his usual surplus of conviction and debit of acting skill by Tarantino himself. This is a man with a black wife, talking to his black friend/ly acquaintance Jules (Samuel Jackson) about 'dead nigger storage'? Why? What is this man's deal?

Tarantino has never given a satisfactory answer. Honestly, he only seems to respond to people's understandable aggravation when either only black actors are saying it or the entire point of the movie is racism. (See his interview with Henry Louis Gates, which touches on the subject.) White people saying 'nigger' is completely justified when your movie is set in 1858. It's much less so in 1992 and 1994. The man still has some 'splainin to do.

This is what happens when I try to make tally marks in the dark.

Review: Skyfall is (mostly) awesome

2012-11-10T13:09:00.001-05:00

James Bond is getting old. The man has been killing baddies and bedding ladies for 50 years now, and the physical, emotional, and psychological wear is starting to show. Even though we've only known Daniel Craig's version for 3 movies now, from the beginning of Skyfall we can see he's exhausted.

Interestingly, Skyfall isn't only about Bond's existential crisis. Instead we have a dual focus on him and his boss/mentor, M. M, who we've gotten to know as Judi Dench for the past 17 years, has to deal with aging as well. Both she and her department, not to mention the very idea of James Bond, become less relevant as we continue to move away from the Cold War, but nobody is willing to go quietly. Her relationship with Bond comes under scrutiny as well, from outsiders as well as Bond himself. It's all very emotionally potent stuff, but, true to the spirit of Bond movies, it doesn't skimp on the action at all.

I'm not often surprised by or even interested in action sequences. After 60 seconds, I typically start to tune out - the stakes rarely seem real, and if there are robots or aliens involved, everything becomes interchangeable. Not so in Skyfall. Several scenes actually shocked me with their audacity and scope. I never would have expected Sam Mendes to be such a fearless action director, but I'm glad to have Skyfall prove me wrong.

Skyfall managed to surprise me in another way: I didn't think I'd love any Bond girl as much as I do Vesper Lynd, but Naomie Harris's Eve kind of blows Vesper out of the water. She simply fizzles with energy - badass energy, intellectual energy, and sexual energy.

Presented without comment.

But really there's a sexy type for just about everyone. As always, there's the aggressive and brutish Bond. Bérénice Marlohe plays our exotic and damaged femme fatale. The new Q (Ben Whishaw) pioneers new frontiers of tweedy hipster sexiness with a posh British accent. And Judi Dench continues to hold it down for the stern, matronly cougars.

With all of that said, there are two glaring problems I had with the movie. The first is with Javier Bardem's character, the nihilistic Silva. On the one hand, it's exciting to have an over-the-top Bond villain again. Our last two villains were (as I remember them) a chartered accountant with defective tear ducts and a French environmental capitalist (??). They skewed closer to real world villains, yeah, but they hardly got the blood going. But here, Javier Bardem brings a sort of operatic theatricality to his role that really raises Skyfall's stakes.

I didn't even mention that Max Zorin hairstyle. Fucking terrifying.

On the other hand, I am so fucking tired of what Brian Safi calls the homo-cidal maniac. Queering the villain in order to (ostensibly) up the creep factor is lazy, cliche, and downright harmful. Why should the male villain's stated or implied attraction to our hero be so problematic? Why does his first scene, almost an hour into the movie, introduce his bisexuality as a psychosexual threat to Bond? It's really quite tiresome, and that scene really stuck in my craw.

My second problem is the way the women in this movie end up. I know that marginalization of female characters in a Bond movie seems almost too easy a subject to complain about, but these new movies had set a higher bar, so I'm feeling a bit betrayed. (Not terribly significant spoilers coming.) Marlohe's Sévérine falls victim to what must have been a truncated plot arc, and gets relegated to a role somewhere beneath that of Connery-era Bond girls. Meanwhile, Harris's Eve, who opens the movie demonstrating her significant skills in the field, ends the movie working a familiar secretarial job (hint: her last name is Moneypenny). I so would have liked to see her develop through the series as a badass female spy.

Still, Skyfall works as a terrific bridge between the brawny realism of Casino Royale and the silkier (but cheesier) fantasy of Goldfinger. There are more witty one-liners, more improbable action sequences, and more aggressively sexual quips than we're used to seeing from this era. There's also more darkness, more introspection, and more emotional complication than any other Bond movie. It'll be interesting to see what direction the series will take from here, and whether that direction will include an obviously exhausted Craig. But either way, I'm all in.

Movies to watch on Halloween (update!)

2012-10-31T17:37:00.002-04:00

(Previously.)

If you want strong female characters...The Descent

A rare quality horror movie with an all-female cast (except for one character who barely has lines and vanishes after the second scene), and zero objectification. Every woman in the movie is someone you know and understand, and their relationships with each other foster as much tension and interest as the terrors they meet in the cave. I'd watch this one with the lights on.

Synopsis: A year after she survives a traumatic accident, Sarah and her five friends go on a restorative hiking/spelunking trip. When they get trapped in an unexplored cave, they start to suffer from limited oxygen, delusions (OR ARE THEY?), and rapidly fraying relationships.
Starring: Shauna MacDonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid
Money shot: Sarah crawling out of an underwater lake that may or may not consist entirely of blood.

If you need a retro fix...The House of the Devil
This movie does an excellent job of 3 things: looking, sounding, and feeling exactly like a late-70s thriller; making you fall in love with Samantha, the adorable button of a protagonist; and creeping you the fuck out for an hour until letting loose in a balls-out bloodletting spectacular.

She listens to a Discman! Look at her feathered hair! I'm in love!

Synopsis: Samantha, desperate to pay the security deposit on her dream apartment and get away from her shitty roommate, takes on a suspiciously fortuitous and lucrative babysitting job. The house is well-appointed and a little spooky. The parents are well-appointed and extremely spooky. You may well guess that Angela winds up regretting her decision.
Starring: Joceline Donahue, Tom Noonan
Money shot: The entire last 10 minutes.

If you want camp done right...Little Shop of Horrors

This movie is everything. It's a spoof of and loving homage to corny musicals of the 50s and 60s, with terrifically catchy music. It's a time capsule of 80s talent, with people like Steve Martin, John Candy, and Bill Murray all making perfect appearances. And it's a straight-up puppeteering virtuoso. Audrey II is one of the most impressive puppets of all time, with a hell of a voice.

And a scorching case of gingivitis, from the looks of it.

There's nothing particularly scary about this movie, with the exception of the "Suppertime" scene, but there's something kind of Halloween-y about it. Maybe the whole "talking plant who wants to take over the world" thing.

Synopsis: A talking plant wants to take over the world.
Starring: Rick Moranis, Ellen Greene, Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops (that's exactly how he's billed)
Money shot: Almost innumerable, but I'd say the scene in which a talking plant pulls himself across the room to use a rotary phone.

If you're going old-old school...Les Diaboliques

This one is hella old, and hella creepy. I know that saying this goes against our spoiler-oriented culture, but I think the less you know about the plot, the more you'll enjoy it. (More about that here.)

Synopsis: The ailing spouse and manhandled mistress of a sadistic boarding school headmaster plan and execute the man's murder -- but their plan goes haywire when the corpse vanishes.
Starring: Véra Clouzot, Simone Signoret, Paul Meurisse
Money shot: The bathtub scene. You'll know it when you see it.

If you're going new school...The Cabin in the Woods

Absolutely one of my favourite movies of the year. I had always been on the fence about Joss Whedon - I love Firefly, but can't stand Buffy - but The Cabin in the Woods really tipped the scales for me. This is a horror movie for and by people who love horror but perhaps want something new from it. While Scream told us that horror movies had to be a certain way, CITW tries to make us ask why. Do we horror fans crave order and tradition so much that we forcibly reject anything that tries to be different? Do we like watching sexy people get gruesomely punished for their sexiness? Does it even matter to us how they die, as long as they do it in the right order? What does a merman actually look like, anyway?

Synopsis: 5 friends - a jock, a stoner, a brain, a slut ,and a virgin - set out for a weekend in a small house in the forest. As the movie unfolds, we learn that these friends may not fit into these familiar archetypes so naturally, and something more sinister than usual is afoot.
Starring: Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Fran Kranz
Money shot: The demons from our nightmares are unleashed.

These are the demons.

Things Indiana Jones can and cannot do

2012-10-10T15:21:00.000-04:00

Things Indiana Jones is capable of:

Running.
Hating snakes.
Judging the relative weights of things.
Walking through a river of rats without even making a face.
Dealing with spiders in a matter-of-fact fashion.
Sleeping with the same lady as his dad.
Keeping his eyes shut.
Enlisting men to dig for him.
Taking a punch.
Keeping huge, life-altering secrets.
Looking damn good in some tweed.
Getting Hitler's autograph.
Bringing light BDSM into the mainstream, one whip-crack at a time.

Things Indiana Jones is not capable of:

Stopping the goddamn Nazis.

Seriously. He had one job to do.

Nagging questions about Looper

2012-10-02T21:23:00.000-04:00

I saw Looper this weekend, and really really enjoyed it. It was funny and thrilling and thoughtful, with some terrific performances and a beautifully realized world. Still, I have some questions about it that may or may not have answers (mild spoilers below):

How does looping work logistically? How do you communicate with loopers in the past to let them know when to be at the execution spot?
How sad was it to see Bruce Willis escape from Joseph Gordon-Levitt in regular time, not slow motion? JGL came off looking like a chump in that scene.
Could Bruce Willis's wife be a more generic construct? The beautiful angel who cleans him up and takes him away from his horrible life, and doesn't even have lines??
Eyebrows? You know which ones I mean.

Are they puppets??

Are loopers a global institution, or just an American one? And was the Rainmaker based in China, or America?
Why was Jeff Daniels so sleepy?
In order for both Bruce Willis and JGL to exist, must there be different timelines? One in which JGL successfully closes his loop, and one in which he doesn't?
And if that's the case, is there a timeline in which the Rainmaker still takes over the world?
Is the Rainmaker actually Evil Abed?

Cruel. Cruel cruel cruel.

The Mindy Project Review

2012-08-30T19:46:00.001-04:00

I have so many problems with Mindy Kaling's new sitcom, The Mindy Project, I don't even know where to start. I guess I could start with the elements I enjoyed, which were:

1) Ed Helms
2) Hearing Le Tigre's "Deceptacon"

That's actually it. I straight up hated everything else.

To be fair, my expectations were never that high. I reached my saturation point with Kaling around the time excerpts of her book starting appearing in magazines. There was something about her tone - she clearly thought she was making unique and interesting observations, when she was really just repeating things people have been saying for years. She also clearly thought she was one adorable woman. (This belief of hers is reflected in the face she's making on her book cover, and her Healthy Choice commercial, in which she actually calls herself "super cute").

Aaaadorkable!

I would normally apologize for reviewing an actor's persona instead of her work, but in this case the two are inseparable. The Mindy Project is just a serialized romantic comedy about a slightly fictionalized Kaling, and if you love the sound of that, you'll love the show, I guess. But it's everything that's bad about sitcoms, romcoms, and Kaling's persona. She is a flighty, clumsy chatterbox of an OB/GYN (the most advanced romcom lady job I've ever seen, but also the "girliest" medical profession) who drinks too much, says inappropriate things to everyone, and sleeps with emotionally unavailable men. She also mentions her weight twice in 23 minutes, and butts heads with the "charming" and "attractive" asshole whose muttered half-compliments are supposed to make up for his rampant douchebaggery.

Did I leave any tired-ass cliches out? Hmm...ah yes.

There are two independent scenes in which our heroine runs through traffic - first in high heels, then barefoot - to fast-paced pop music.
There's the stern black female cop who doesn't have time for the "charming" nonsense of the protagonist.
The douchebag lists his criteria for "first date hotness," and closes with the line "be hot, but don't try too hard." Got it.
Mindy lists her steps to getting her life back on track out loud, but hilariously walks back from excessively optimistic goals like "taking the stairs."
And she mistakes rote name-checking of movies and actresses like Katharine Heigl for self-aware social commentary.

What sucks about this foolishness is, Kaling makes no attempt to deconstruct or fool around with any of these tropes. And what double sucks is that all we're getting out of this new show, one of the few sitcoms out there with a woman as a creator and head writer, is another limiting and downright harmful portrayal of women. I'd almost rather watch a shitty romantic comedy - for the most part, those don't purport to be anything more than that.

How to remake Jumanji

2012-07-24T16:33:00.003-04:00

For whatever reason, the 1995 smash Jumanji is getting the reboot treatment in the near future. Actually, I think the word they're using is "reimagining," which is just a pompous way of saying "remake;" I think "reboot" only applies to franchises. But let me move away from this interesting semantic monologue.

I've already lost these guys.

I'm far from morally opposed to remakes - some of my favourite movies are remakes - and it's not like the movie-going public gives film studios much of an option. Bloggers and snobs will complain about the dearth of originality in Hollywood, while they and everyone else lines up to spend up to $15.00 on adapted or repackaged material. Remakes simply make the most financial sense. I'm mostly surprised that they landed on Jumanji, a movie I thought most of us had only dim memories of. But Jumanji it is! And I really hope they do this properly.

There are probably two ways to go with this one. (Well, maybe more, but not many more good ones.) You can either stay true to the letter of the original and have Jumanji be a board game again - and I do belong to the totally cool demographic of 20-somethings who enjoy board games, so this would appeal to me. Or, you could stay true to the spirit of the original, and have Jumanji be a kind of game that kids would find kind of outdated in the face of cooler, newer games. So, board games : 1995 :: Nintendo/Atari : 2012. Yeah, actually, I would love to see a movie about someone who got trapped in a Nintendo game for 20 years. How would he deal with going between a 2-D and a 3-D world? Would his Jumanji world stay rooted in the 80s-style Nintendo games, despite the evolution of video games in our world? Would there be a rivalry like between black-and-white and colour cartoons in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Actually, could we also just re-release Who Framed Roger Rabbit? These are questions.

How could you refuse?

If we went the video game route, I think we'd need a sufficiently nerdy male lead. Someone who'd be believable as a guy who really knew and loved his video games as a teenager. My first thought is Martin Starr - thanks to his roles as Bill Haverchuck and Roman the Malcontent, and also thanks to his glasses, he has bonafide nerd credentials. Equally important, though - he has a generally impatient and world-weary edge that would really suit a person who's had to live in a bizarro pixelated world for most of his life.

I already have my heart set on Rachel McAdams as his romantic lead. She has extensive experience playing a woman mildly traumatized by the physical or temporal inconstancy of her lover, so she'd be perfect here. She also seems like the sort of woman who's surprisingly gawky and shy, but also beautiful and fiercely intelligent - the logical grown-up version of Ally Sheedy in War Games. And isn't that the sort of girl who would enchant an archetypal 80s geek?

Gratuitous Ally Sheedy shot.

Now, the most memorable set piece in the original Jumanji, for the most part, was the massive stampede. I can't even remember how it happened, only that it was enormous and loud and insane. It was the full force of the board game world ripping through the fabric of the real world, after the relatively minor threats beforehand (a scourge of giant malaria mosquitos, a troop of "hilarious" monkeys). Wouldn't it be awesome for the reboot if, instead of just a stampede, we had a full-fledged assault from all the dark forces of the Nintendo/Atari world? Goombas from Super Mario, space invaders from Space Invaders, barrels from Donkey Kong, the dog from Paperboy...I'm sure the rights would cost a fortune, but this is the Jumanji reboot we're talking about. We must spare no expense.

I could actually see myself paying to see this, though not in its inevitable 3D iteration. I imagine that whatever they end up making will be much more "family-friendly" than what I have in mind, but I suppose nothing's perfect. There's still ample potential for this movie, so let's not count it out yet.

Teenager vault: She's All That

2012-07-16T16:07:00.000-04:00

Like I've said numerous times on this blog, being a pre-teen and teen girl the late '90s/early '00s meant that I got to experience a deluge of music and movies that were made specifically for my age demographic. Teenage girls had pop culture in a bit of a stranglehold. Movies like 10 Things I Hate About You, She's All That, Whatever It Takes, Never Been Kissed, Save the Last Dance, Can't Hardly Wait, Bring it On, and Drive Me Crazy all came out within a three-year span, and all of them - with the possible exception of Can't Hardly Wait - were made with teenage girls in mind. Today, I'm talking about one of the more famous but also less memorable entries, She's All That.

I remembered She's All That as being a pretty dumb but generally harmless bit of fluff. The standout scene in my mind, and surely in others', was the big choreographed prom dance to Rockefeller Skank, MC'd by Usher of all people. Other than that, it took up zero space in my memory.

Above - a quick recap of the stakes, brought to you by anonymous rappers and a human beatbox. RIP 1999.

Unfortunately, I've watched it again now, and I can tell you that it is an aggressively stupid and downright rancid bit of scum. After a certain point - maybe 20 or 30 minutes - I found it hard to find any aspect of the movie fun or even harmless. Most of that has to do with the movie's rather toxic attitude towards women.

The bizarre stance that Zack, Paul Walker, and the movie writ large takes on Laney Boggs was already terrifically parodied in Not Another Teen Movie. She's deemed "scary and inaccessible," apparently because she doesn't thrill at the opportunity for attention from popular dullards. (Zack specifically says, "Fat I can handle. Weird boobs, bad personality, maybe some sort of fungus?" The hero, ladies and gentlemen.) To me, she just seems like a generally self-possessed young woman with her own interests and a disdain for people like Zack. The movie takes deep offense to that.

And punishes her with a falafel hat.

And the thing is, there's no point at which her low opinion of The Popular Kids is ever proven wrong. They treat and talk about everyone shittily. Zack assumes that just being handsome and glib will make any woman swoon, and when that doesn't work, he stalks and badgers poor Laney into hanging out with people she despises. He also makes it clear that she has to meet certain aesthetic standards if she's to be seen with him at parties, going so far as to buy her new clothes and enlist his sister in a huge makeover. The poor girl just wants to watch CNN and paint in the basement. Instead, Zack forces her to hold herself to standards she didn't previously care about, tosses her in the path of even nastier people than himself, and then apologizes by saying "I didn't know you then." For my money, anyone who would treat a perfect stranger with this much cruelty needs to be tossed into a wood chipper.

There's also the confusing conception of what "poor" means. A number of characters engage in light class warfare with Laney, because...her dad owns a small business, she only has 3 stories to her home, and she doesn't have her own car. I'm not saying that there aren't obscenely rich people in high school, or that the obscenely rich people don't sometimes enjoy rubbing their privilege in other people's faces. But the movie never remarks on the rich kids' wealth, only on the "poor" girl's poverty. Wealth is the norm here. It's all just tonally off.

"Preston's dad owns Harrison Ford!"

I do still enjoy some elements of She's All That, I suppose. Zack attends an art show that involves an excellent send-up of dense, pretentious performance art (unfortunately, we're then meant to take Zack's hacky sack performance totally seriously as an emotional breakthrough). Dule Hill makes the most of his Token Black Guy role by pretty much staying out of everyone else's bullshit and taking Gabrielle Union to prom. For her own part, Gabrielle Union develops a quietly homoerotic interest in Ms. Boggs - she always expresses genuine delight at Laney's arrival; she abandons campus queen Taylor Vaughan with the terse (but evocative) explanation that "things change"; and she inexplicably nominates Laney for prom queen. A better movie would have explored this tiny hint of a subplot further, but we take what we can get with She's All That.

In the end, unless you're looking for a nostalgic laugh at late 90s fashion and vernacular - "Excuse me, I did not wig." "There was major wiggage." - I wouldn't say this movie has anything to offer you. Well, other than outlandishly mean-spirited sexual politics. But those aren't hard to find in Hollywood.

Aaron Sorkin is officially an obsolete old man

2012-06-22T16:37:00.001-04:00

Since watching seasons 1-3 of The West Wing in college, I've had a problem with Aaron Sorkin. I caught on to his writing tics - specifically, the carefully orchestrated crescendo and decrescendo of his Meaningful Speeches - pretty early, and once you're no longer delighted by his rhythms or nuggets of grammar trivia, all you can hear is his casual hatred of young women, his obsessive love for Bill Clinton, and his even more obsessive love for whichever character currently serves as his mouthpiece. No, I really don't care for him at all, and that a) put me in an extreme minority among young, college-educated DC residents; and b) really stacked the deck against his latest effort, The Newsroom. I'll admit that I haven't seen the whole pilot. Maybe I'm wrong about this one. But what I have seen - the YouTube trailer, and the centerpiece Meaningful Speech as delivered by Jeff Daniels - does literally nothing to change my opinion. What it does do is make clear what I've long suspected - Aaron Sorkin is nothing but a crabby old man who wants you damn kids to get off his lawn.

Here is the main chunk of his Meaningful Speech:

None of this is the fault of a 20-year-old college student, but you, nonetheless, are without a doubt, a member of the WORST-period-GENERATION-period-EVER-period...

We sure used to be [the best country in the world]. We stood up for what was right! We fought for moral reasons, we passed and struck down laws for moral reasons. We waged wars on poverty, not poor people. We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors, we put our money where our mouths were, and we never beat our chest. We built great big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases, and cultivated the world's greatest artists and the world's greatest economy. We reached for the stars, and we acted like men. We aspired to intelligence; we didn't belittle it; it didn't make us feel inferior. We didn't identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election, and we didn't scare so easy. And we were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed. By great men, men who were revered. The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one—America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.

So, in order:

Anyone who declares the youngest generation to be the "worst generation ever" automatically surrenders their right to be taken seriously. Really? We're worse than the generations who were in favour of slavery? Or the generations who called a person 'nigger' to his face? We're worse?

But I'll continue.

Anyone who longs for the days when we fought for "moral reasons" is longing for a simplicity that just could never exist. You know what America fought for for "moral reasons"? Segregation. You know what America fought against for "moral reasons"? Women's suffrage.

Anyone who says we "never beat our chest" has some serious blinders on. Or am I just hallucinating the rampant propaganda of World Wars I and II?

The BEST-period-GENERATION-period-EVER.

Anyone who claims that "we didn't scare so easily" must remember McCarthyism, not to mention the entire 1980s, as a quite a lark. [Cocaine joke here.]

And anyone who misses the days when we made "ungodly technological advances" cannot possibly be serious when they make bombastically reductive analogies about today's technological advances like "socializing on the internet is to socializing what reality TV is to reality."

I think it's about time to stop listening to Aaron Sorkin. Let him sit on his porch in his high-waisted slacks, drinking Metamucil and railing at the young punks who run past his house.

Damn kids.

How the director's cut makes Aliens better

2012-06-08T12:14:00.003-04:00

Aliens, as I'm pretty sure I've mentioned more than once before, is one of my all-time favourite movies, and the best sequel of all time. It's funny, deftly written and characterized, terrifying, and gross. There's nothing I can say about Aliens that hasn't already been said, in great detail, numerous times before. The only way James Cameron managed to top himself, as far as I'm concerned, is with his 1992 Special Edition. (Yeah, fuck The Terminator. I said fuck it.)

But apparently there's just this consensus out there in the land of cinephiles that the Special Edition, or director's cut, is worse than the theatrical version. This is just how people in the know feel. I'm still shocked, and I stumbled upon this information days ago. Fucking baffling. So just for my own well-being, here is a list of deleted or extended scenes that improve upon the original.

We find out that Ripley has a daughter, who died at the age of 66 (Ripley had promised to be home for her 11th birthday). For one thing, this creates a past personal life for Ripley that we otherwise wouldn't know about. She's no longer just a person - she's a person who became untethered from her family, a person who had people waiting for her. She's a grieving mother. It also creates a better explanation for her maternal devotion to Newt other than "oh, she's a woman, and they're all basically moms, right?" Her determination to protect and rescue the little girl is a determination to not lose another daughter.

By any badass means necessary.

Ripley loses her flight officer status. Carter "Slimeball" Burke alludes to the fact that she can't get a better job than one on the loading dock, but I had assumed it was due to her reputation as an unstable headcase. It turns out that Ripley was officially displaced by her employers, which bolsters Weyland-Yutani Corp's cold, bureaucratically evil persona.
We see Newt's dad get facehugged. This is the inserted scene that gets the most complaints, usually saying that it ruins the suspense re: whether the aliens have attacked the colony. I'm sorry...the movie is called Aliens. This isn't like the letter-writing scene of Vertigo, which does ruin what could have been a legitimately bonkers twist that would've forced the audience to reconsider everything. This is not the same at all. That Ripley is right and the aliens are going to fuck some shit up is basically a foregone conclusion.
Hudson is the ultimate badass. This might out me as a sadist, but I love watching Hudson go from a puffed-up braggart to a pants-wetting coward (and then, finally, to an ultimate badass).
Hudson is also the smartest. He catches on to the ant-like hierarchy that the aliens follow, and posits that there might be a queen alien giving birth to the monsters they've had to face. I'd say this supposition contributes to more suspense, since we start to think that maybe there is worse, alien-wise, than we've already seen.

Worse as in, some sort of horrible ant-scorpion-birthing sac hybrid that can use an elevator.

"Dwayne. It's Dwayne." "Ellen." "Don't be long, Ellen." I love the Hicks-Ripley relationship so much I can't even stand it. I apologize for nothing. And them revealing their first names to each other, just before Ripley heads off to rescue Newt/raise hell/deliver famous lines, is basically their version of "I love you." "I love you too."

In defense of: Smash

2012-06-01T12:44:00.002-04:00

Almost a month after the season finale, I'm still thinking about Smash.

Now, let's be clear - I tuned in to the premiere armed to the teeth with my irony and derision, fully expecting to add this to my list of bad shows I "jokingly" watch. Weirdly enough, though, I didn't loathe it. I mean, there were absolutely things I hated, and those things mostly got worse as the show went on. But there was something endearing about it, and something truly interesting going on in it, that kept bringing me back every week. I looked forward to each new episode - with some dread, sure, because Katharine McPhee - but also with real anticipation. This wasn't hate watching.

I'm sure I've lost some of you here, so let me put an example out there.

So the song goes: blahblah, boringly shrill chorus girls, boring boring, Marilyn hates playing a dumb blonde, cliche cliche, what an expedient way to express Arthur Miller's concern for her drug abuse - now I can see how you can afford those lovely scarves, Debra Messing - snooze snooze. But about 90 seconds in, Megan Hilty gets to do what she does best - express a lot of nuanced emotions through a big fucking song. Her Marilyn slides between powerful, seductive, and overwhelmed; she's motivated alternately by fear or the adulation of lookers-on; sometimes she needs to be manhandled into position, others she glides across the stage with something bordering on elation.

Unfortunately, the rest of the show struggled to meet the level of "perfectly adequate" reached by the first 90 seconds, and few performances are as complicated and interesting as this one. But still - what a performance, no?

Then, there's the Bollywood scene. In the middle of an otherwise hum-drum episode, Katharine McPhee unconvincingly begins to hallucinate, and suddenly the entire cast is performing an enormous, over-the-top Bollywood number that basically summarizes all of the plot arcs so far.

I have no idea. All I know is I went from confused and horrified to totally delighted in about two minutes. The irritatingly catchy chorus and general "let 'em riot; we're Sonic fucking Death Monkey" attitude totally won me over.

And it's stuff like that, and an argument about the sexless way that gay men view and portray sex symbols like Marilyn Monroe, that kept me from writing Smash off as a guilty pleasure, or understanding how people can call it the worst show they've ever seen. You don't find moments like that when you're watching something ironically, or when you watch something because you hate it and that hatred weirdly comforts you. (I'm absolutely guilty of both, by the way.) I mean, fuck, this isn't a Chelsea Handler show. Glimmers of intelligence and originality should carry more weight.

There's a world of difference between loving something because it's exquisitely bad, loving something even though it's bad, and loving some good elements you find in something bad. I'll never say that I love Smash, ironically or otherwise, but I will love and appreciate out the artistic moments that transcend its essential mediocrity. And it's those moments that keep the show in my mind, weeks after it's gone off the air.

Also the moments involving this couple, because I LOVE THEM.

(Movie) Advice to My Fourteen-Year-Old Self

2012-05-09T17:30:00.002-04:00

Top 10 things I'd like to tell my 14-year-old self (in 2001/2002):

1) People will roll their eyes or raise their skeptical eyebrows when you say that Moulin Rouge got you interested in cinema. Ignore them. It doesn't matter what gets you there. Also, Moulin Rouge is a goddamn tour-de-force, and people can back off.

2) I know you think that Zoe Saldana from Center Stage is the coolest actress around. That will be double true in 10 years.

3) The sooner you stop pretending to love Casablanca, the happier you'll be.

4) Maybe rent a movie besides That Thing You Do! from Blockbuster. For your mom's sake, at least.

I know. But still.

5) You and the other girls at that sleepover will be the only people to watch Urban Legend: Final Cut, so just stop bringing it up in conversation.

6) You are going to hate everything about watching The Hot Chick, except that it will introduce you to Rachel McAdams.

7) You are so not wrong about Ryan Gosling.

8) You are about to miss out on some stellar tv - Freaks and Geeks, Arrested Development - in favour of Evens Stevens and The Lizzie Maguire Show. You're not alone in this mistake, but it is such a mistake, dude.

9) It's worth it to figure out your favourite movie, even if it changes.

10) High Fidelity will get you through all the heartache.

Note: it may also cause you some Cusack-related heartache.

Don't Trust the B-- in Apt. 23 - review

2012-04-11T10:29:00.001-04:00

A lot of the comedy pilots I've been watching lately have had a rather demented, break-neck pace. The writers and actors just hurl jokes and exposition at the audience, either in an effort to dazzle everyone with their comedic pyrotechnics or to shake loose the people who prefer a more relaxed show. Don't Trust the B-- in Apt. 23 absolutely fits in with that trend, and the results are both kind of endearing and a little exhausting, frankly. I like my fast-paced comedies as much as the next person, but at times this episode reached a kind of desperate pitch.

In the first 4 minutes, we're given riffs on the naive Midwestern go-getter (Dreama Walker as June), over-the-top sex scenes, attentive and self-effacing black doormen, the perilous instability of the financial market, and the unsuitable suitors montage. It's all funny enough (eh, except for the montage - I'm really tapped out on that trope at this point), but it's a lot.

At the center of this maelstrom is Krysten Ritter, a woman who you can tell has spent a lot of time playing the Sardonic Best Friend. As Chloe, she's very funny and almost fearless (I always love a woman who's willing to do anything and go anywhere for a laugh), but so far there's not a lot of "character" there. She's just a handful of diabolical lunacy at this point, and I sincerely hope Apt. 23 will take the time to flash her out into a real person sooner rather than later.

I cannot wait for the story behind this picture, though.

Somehow, it feels like there are already too many recurring characters. For what it's worth, Community didn't introduce people like Star-Burns and Professor/Student/Officer Chang until the second episode - the pilot focused on the core characters that comprised our favourite study group. Apt. 23 has already shown us the crazy woman down the hall who's obsessed with Chloe, the perverted restaurant inspector who seems to masturbate to everything Chloe and June do (hilarious...?), and June's would-be mentor-turned-barista in the local coffee shop. It's all very breathless and busy, and not necessarily inviting.

Diving into all of this with the relish he brought to James Van Der Memes is one James Van Der Beek. The Beek is all too ready to satirize himself, but while that's the bulk of his performance so far, it isn't all of it (thank god). There's a character behind all of the Dawson's Creek-and-subsequent-drop-off jokes, and weirdly enough that character rather grounds the whole episode. He's the amused voice of reason for both Chloe and June, steering them away from their more madcap sitcommery and towards something resembling a real female friendship. I'm interested I see how this will play out, since I imagine I'll tire quickly of Chloe being fiendish and untrustworthy. Actually, I'm not ruling out that I'll tire quickly of the whole show regardless, unless they calm down a touch and stop trying so hard. But I guess we'll see!

Also, I'm awarding myself 10 points for going this long without even commenting on that title.

The Rise of Pete Campbell

2012-03-26T19:04:00.000-04:00

You can read the latest post, The Rise of Pete Campbell, at HuffingtonPost.com!

Boy Band Battle Royale: Boyz II Men

2012-03-21T12:07:00.000-04:00

As last week's episode of Community reminded us, there was a time when Boyz II Men took over the entire world. People played them at every wedding, bar mitzvah, and high school dance. Everyone a half-generation above me had their first slow dance to these guys. For at least 5 years, nobody could touch them. They fall out of the specific time frame I use for the Boy Band Battle Royale, but it's impossible to think about the boy bands of the late 90s without considering the musical and cultural juggernaut. 98 Degrees and Backstreet Boys wouldn't have existed without Boyz II Men creating the link between 80s R&B groups like New Edition, which mostly enjoyed black audiences, and a more pop-friendly sound.

Maybe because of the sick moves on the dance floor that we still do to this day.

Boy Band: Boyz II Men (Boyz 2 Men)

Members: Wanya Morris (tenor), Shawn Stockman (tenor), Nathan Morris (baritone), and Marc Nelson (bass)

Reign of Terror: 1991-1996. They're still recording and performing, but it's not the same.

Boyz II Men started out as members of the East Coast Family, a Michael Bivins (of New Edition, then Bel Biv Devoe) project. In fact, fully half of the lyrics in their first hit, "Motownphilly," are about their ECF membership. The other half is about their humble beginnings in Philadelphia and how much they like Philly cheesesteaks, which you can't really blame them for. Their next hit, however, is the one that rocketed them way past the rest of the East Coast Family and basically any other recording artist at the time - "End of the Road." This song broke all the records, won all the Grammys, and changed all the lives. From then on, they were a harmonizing, hit-making machine.

From left: Wanya, Nathan, Shawn, and Marc.

For my money, the music videos were crucial to enjoying Boyz II Men. Outfits like tipped cardigans, bow ties, and sideways baseball caps (see above) are best appreciated in motion, and the wildly varied personalities of Wanya, Shawn, Nathan, and Mark really shine through on camera.

I'll always think of Wanya as the squirrelly little mascot. You could always count in his excessively expressive face, whether he's cheesin during an up-tempo number or literally sobbing in the rain during a ballad. YMMV with this one, depending on how much over-the-top emoting you want from your 90s R&B.

He just stubbed his toe.

Shawn Stockman, who rather looks like a stretched out Mr. Incredible, was the stable romantic of the group. He displayed this trait mostly by soulfully patting his chest and closing his eyes, a pretty classic boy band ballad move. My favourite Shawn moment is in the "On Bended Knee" video. Each member sings about his lost love - Wanya's Lisa Turtle yelled at him for flirting with another woman, and both Marc and Nathan's girlfriends left because their men were too focused on their art. But Shawn...based on the plot of this video, he meets a nice lady in the park, and then is devastated when she briefly walks to another area in the park. Seriously, watch it and you'll see what I see.

Nathan and his enormous jaw didn't bring a lot of personality to the table, as far as I'm concerned. Maybe it was his glasses, or the fact that I can't remember him ever smiling. Maybe he just stood next to professional focus-puller Wanya too often. But I never really felt it in him. In fairness, people might say the same thing about Marc "Bass" Nelson, but I have to argue that Marc and his exceptional bass really anchored the whole group. He could be counted on to deliver the climactic spoken-word bridge in every ballad, usually starting with "baby." His grounded presence really balanced out Wayna's cartoonishness.

As far as musical influence goes, Backstreet Boys' "I'll Never Break Your Heart" sounds exactly, but exactly, like "End of the Road." And while BSB started out marketing exclusively towards teenage girls, they ended up following Boyz II Men into adult contemporary as they got older. And as far as sartorial influence goes...

Linen. Linen everywhere.

Unfortunately, by 1997 their star had faded. I have a feeling they became victims of their own success, and people had reached their saturation point with the extremely emotional and always coordinating quartet. They're still recording to this day, though Marc left the group due to his nearly crippling scoliosis. Still, they left the world a little more mature, expressive, and outlandishly dressed than they found it.

Final Tally:

Sex appeal/charisma: 4/10. I wouldn't date any of them, except maybe Marc, because he seems fun.
Cheesiness: 10/10, just because of Wanya.
Dance moves: After "Motownphilly" they really stopped dancing, choosing instead to walk slowly on sidewalks and stand on staircases.
Music: 11/10
Post-band success: Wanya, Nathan, and Shawn are still recording and performing as Boyz II Men. For my money, their best album is Motown: A Journey Through Hitsville USA, which is their a cappella renditions of hits like "Ribbon in the Sky" and "Easy." They even have a version of "End of the Road" with Brian McKnight, which really ups the emotional ante. They also got a star on Hollywood Walk of Fame in January 2012.

Step Up 3-D: a stream of consciousness response

2012-02-29T15:02:00.001-05:00

So, last night Netflix's streaming contract with Starz ended. A number of classics disappeared from the Netflix Instant catalogue, including Scarface, Scream, Beetlejuice, Party Down, and Spartacus. I will miss all of these movies/tv shows (especially Party Down), but for whatever reason, I saw fit to say goodbye to Starz with Step Up 3-D.

And there was much rejoicing.

And I regret nothing, because this movie is everything I dreamed and more.

Is the lead character (to whom I will refer as Dougbert) a budding filmmaker making a documentary about his dance teammates?
Are his dance teammates a multi-coloured and multi-racial ragtag bunch of misfits?
Is there an unacknowledged romance blooming between two friends who have known each other their whole lives? And one of whom is named Moose?
Is there a parkour training deck?
Will the budding filmmaker find the courage to show his documentary to people thanks to his new girlfriend Natalie?

So follow here, if you dare, for my stream-of-consciousness response to Step Up 3-D.

"Born from a boombox," aka BFAB. They will say this phrase repeatedly.

"It sounds stupid but, I do feel like that. and if we listen hard enough, we realize that maybe we're all plugged in to the same song." You're right, it does sound stupid.

"Those are the Limited Edition Gunmetal Nike Dunks!"
and thus a "Limited Edition Gunmetal Nike Dunks brought to you by Nike" passion was born.

I've identified 3 moments already that were supposed to be 3-D:

popping bubbles

floating balloons

and a skateboard

"Empire State of Mind" is playing while Moose is driving through Times Square for the first time. Nothing says NEW YORK EXPERIENCE like Times Square.

"We're 6 months late on our payments."
"The club's not making the money it used to."
"We're not gonna lose the vault, alright? i won't let that happen."
Thank god they have a motivation to win that 100k. They just want to pay the bank what they owe. They're honest people.

OMG DANCE BATTLE IN THE MEN'S ROOM. Why isn't this my life?

Aren't roller shoes kind of cheating in a dance battle? If not everyone has them?
Oh great, the bad guys have A TRUST FUND.
3-D RAMS HEAD FOR SOME REASON!
Why am I not playing a drinking game to this.
3-D CHALK DUST!
3-D SPITTLE....

Also? The lead is the worst dancer in the whole crew. He looks so physically awkward. He can't even fall convincingly.
OMG THE ROBOT. As in, this man is pretending to be an actual robot. He has not broken character yet.

Oh no, the filmmaker is on camera now and he doesn't like it.
"Gimme the camera back."
"It's not that easy on this side, huh??" Nice flip, guys.

Did his parents die in a fire?
"So that's why you're so devoted to this place. Carrying on the legacy for your family?" We're all just growing and learning today, aren't we.

Oh man, Moose's best friend is breaking up with him. "You haven't exactly been around lately. I couldn't wait forever." It's difficult to gauge how much time has passed in movie time, but I feel like it's been about 3 days.

"I just try to see things that people don't normally see."
You ARE a filmmaker, Dougbert. Or whatever your name is.

3-D SLURPEE BACKWASH

3-D SCARF

Moose unfortunately has a test AT THE EXACT SAME TIME as round motherfucking 2 of the big tournament. Is this the last round? No, but Dougbert says it's crucial. So Moose has to decide between a test that's worth 25% of his grade....and round 2.

Moose has made his decision.

That was actually some impressive dancing, and some impressive racism towards Asians and their predilection for betting on things.

3-D MOOSE SPIT A GEYSER OF WATER TOWARDS THE CAMERA

Ok, so Natalie, this girl who came out of nowhere and won't stop talking about her brother just happened to have come out of nowhere around the time that this rich trust fund guy started threatening to buy the club away from them. The rich trust fund guy...couldn't happen to be...her brother?!?

Dougbert's documentary is called Born from a Boombox. He's going to enter it in a competition that his new girlfriend Natalie told him to enter, but Natalie's gone...

The bank's put the house up for public auction. Dougbert is now at the bank.

"They could take your warehouse TODAY." "Well that's not gonna happen. Because it's not for sale." Except, legally...

Natalie invited Dougbert to a fancy ballroom party but you can only get in with paper invitations. Luckily Dougbert and Moose stole some waiter tuxedos. We're dancing the tango, by the way. A modern version of the tango.

Natalie's brother is at the fancy party and he is seething.

The chorus of this song is "I bust the windows out your car." This is still the tango.

Dammit Moose, standing up your girl again. DAMMIT.

Is the DVD title of Dougbert's movie printed in Courier font? Oh, you betcha.

Now the "Am I A Fucking Bet" moment:

"This was all a lie, wasn't it?" "At first it was, and then...I got to know you, ok? And then I started to fall for you, and that was real. That's why I had to leave. I'm so sorry - please, tell me you believe me!" "DON'T TOUCH ME."

Moose, you son of a bitch. You broke Camille's heart. (Camille is the little white girl from all the Missy Elliot videos, by the way. She's 17 now.)

3-D PROPERTY SEIZURE NOTICE.

3-D LATINO GUY IS QUITTING BECAUSE HE IS LITERALLY HOMELESS NOW.

"You guys deserve better than this. There's nothing more I can do! I screwed up! The pirates are done!!" Did I mention they're called the House of Pirates?

Sad R&B Montage time. Lyrics include the following:

reflection in the mirror
losing my mind
seeing/deceiving feeling/believing
losing rhymes with bruising
just be true to who you are, you are, you are, you are

"Can you hear that? Can you hear that right now?" Moose heard a fucking ice cream truck playing the song that was also playing when he met Camille. The song is "I Won't Dance." Hip-hop beats with jazz standards? Smells like success.

Camille was a better dancer when she was fucking 10.

Dougbert is the world's worst diner waiter now.

Hey Moose, why do you dance?

"I dance because dance can change things. One move...can set a whole generation free, like Elvis. One move can make you feel like there's something more *Michael Jackson impersonation.* Some moves can give a skinny, curly-haired kid that just wants to dance some....some hope."

"Excuse me? My coffee? This is decaf. I asked for regular." "I'm sorry, I can't do regular. It's just not me." Dougbert has removed his apron and walked the fuck out.

Whoa, wait a minute. I just realized that there have been two evil teams this whole time.

Finally, Flo Rida.

the robot has still not broken character. an hour later. He actually appears to be doing most of the same dance moves from an hour ago.

It's been 20 minutes since we saw Natalie. I wonder if she's done in this movie, or if the movie just forgot about her because she's so boring.

Angry Latino quitter has joined the main evil team. which has combined forces with the other evil team. This is just like that time that Sonny sold us out.

Damn, Natalie's back.

3-D NIKE DUNKS BY NIKE.

Natalie is asking Dougbert to come with her to california. I think they kissed once?

Jesus, the House of Pirates has a house flag.

The evil team comes straight out the gate with a shotgun-based dance move.

I will say that the women in House of Pirates play as big a role as the men, dance-wise.

Apparently Camille joined the House of Pirates . That plot point was underreported by the movie.

3-D "GHETTO MUSICK" BEING USED SUPER WELL.

The robot has literally not broken character YET.

3-D HAT TOSS.

Oh shit. Natalie is competing against her own brother. "What happened to family?" "This is my family, Julian!" That's...that's actually horrible. Her brother raised her after their parents split up.

I actually don't understand - if Julian has a trust fund, why doesn't Natalie have a trust fund and use it to buy the house?

Natalie just body-rolled extremely sensually at her brother. I don't know what to think.

I do know what to think. I think it's gross.

"You can't get those shoes at Foot Locker, people," says the competition announcer. NIKE DUNKS BROUGHT TO YOU BY NIKE.

THE HOUSE OF PIRATES ARE THE WINNERS OF THE FIRST ANNUAL WORRRRRRRRRRRRRRLD JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM

Tearful voiceover: "Dear Luke, your film was so great, I had to share it. I hope you give yourself the chance to live your dream. Love, Natalie."

"CONGRATULATIONS you have been admitted to the California Film Academy."

Moose is now a double-major in Econ and Dance. And a freshman...so why was he declaring already?

The multi-coloured and multi-racial ragtag team came to Grand Central terminal to see Natalie off :D

3-D DREAMS COMING TRUE

"You're BFAB. Remember that."

3-D LIMITED EDITION GUNMETAL NIKE DUNKS BY NIKE

In defense of: Chasing Amy

2012-02-14T13:00:00.000-05:00

I don't often take it upon myself to defend Kevin Smith. He doesn't excite me as a filmmaker, and I've long since tired of his tic-filled writing style. (See also: Aaron Sorkin, Quentin Tarantino, and to an extent David Mamet.) I can't deny that he made a big impression on the independent film scene, but I just don't care for or about his movies. Except one: Chasing Amy.

Besides An Evening with Kevin Smith, Chasing Amy is Smith's best rated film, clocking in at 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. It's by far his most mature, original, and coherent work. It's also one of his most divisive and controversial, especially within the LGBT community.

To sum up: Comic book artist Holden meets fellow comic book artist Alyssa Jones at some Comic-Con Lite panel, and Holden is instantly smitten. He and his writing partner/best friend Banky are stunned to realize that Alyssa is a lesbian; Holden pursues a friendship and subsequently a romantic relationship with Alyssa; Banky voices his homophobic disapproval throughout. [Here there be spoilers.] When Holden discovers that he is far from the first man Alyssa has slept with, he goes into a conservative douchebag tailspin and the two break up.

(Cards on the table: I have a definite bias towards this movie, largely due to Ben Affleck's Holden. Holden is the mascot for The Guys I Loved In High School - witty, staunchly homosocial, and geekily into comics.)

Jersey pompadour optional. Goatee not recommended.

This is awkward, because I know that Joey Lauren Adams is the titular Amy and everything, but queer women couldn't ask for a worse representative. Alyssa is abrasive, flighty, self-serious, and selfish. Her sexual orientation is presented as almost whim-based, driven more by curiosity and sexual appetite than anything; and she knowingly and aggressively baits the innocently by-standing Holden, without particularly caring about the emotional turmoil she's causing him. In short, she displays just about every stereotype there is about bisexuals.

She's also a super-obnoxious karaoke-er.

Still, at no point does Alyssa abandon her queer identity, whether she's dating a woman or a man. And she doesn't give off the impression of someone who's fooling around with women while she waits for The Right Man - after she and Holden break up, we see her with a woman again. She dates whoever she wants, she is who she is, and stays fiercely unapologetic about it in the face of Holden's disdain. A woman who refuses to compromise herself for her romantic partner is a lamentably rare sight in movies.

Where my squeamishness comes in is that the characters and their various stereotypes are written by and filtered through a straight man's perspective. That perspective, just because it's an outsider's, feels clumsy at best and sometimes downright offensive. If only because of an in-group-out-group bias, a straight man trafficking in stereotypes about bisexual women is qualitatively different from a bisexual woman doing the same.

But even that is complicated, because Kevin Smith knows that his perspective is limited, and he tries to address it in various ways. One of them is a direct appeal from Silent Bob, who lectures Holden on the dangers of clinging to his narrow views on sexuality. One of them is actually one of my favourite scenes in any movie - Alyssa and Banky trading sex scar stories in a sweetly raunchy spin on the Indianapolis scene in Jaws. You basically just watch two people gleefully connect over past awkwardness, and for maybe two minutes they see each other as comrades instead of rivals. Unfortunately, Holden's innate and truly insidious conservatism jolts Banky back into his bro-y posturing, and he can't feel comfortable without throwing in one last offensive faux-question. What I'm trying to say is, Smith is very conscious of his limitations, and those limitations are kind of the point of the movie.

As I've probably mentioned before, effort makes a huge difference for me. Kevin Smith was clearly trying to step out of his comfort zone, exorcise some personal demons, and foster some good honest dialogue. That's more than you can say for most romantic comedies, which are content to regurgitate the same tropes about "the battle of the sexes" that were getting old when Jackie Gleason was trotting them out. As far as I'm concerned, Chasing Amy a thoughtful, funny, romantic, and complicated movie. It delights and discomfits me in roughly equal measure. And damnit, I love it for that.

Things that only look awesome in a montage

2012-01-22T15:57:00.000-05:00

training for a fight/race/game
studying for the LSAT
preparing for a court case that nobody expects you to win
learning a new language
building literally anything
turning your failing business around
painting a room
payola schemes
barricading a mall against zombies
living in a mall during a zombie apocalypse
losing weight
trying on multiple outfits for an audience of friends
benders
going shopping
giving someone a makeover
going from zero to hero
cooking a large meal for your restaurant's last business night
going on a series of comically inappropriate dates
getting a makeover
war

The Artist is exactly as adorable as you've heard

2012-01-18T17:47:00.000-05:00

I was seriously so ready to be disappointed by The Artist. I have an innate distrust of any movie that shows up with ready-made "Oscar buzz," and the whole silent movie idea seemed simultaneously pretentious and gimmicky. And in the interest of full disclosure, I've never seen a silent movie. No, not even Nosferatu or anything starring Buster Keaton. Still, the trailer intrigued me, and I've had a crush on lead Jean Dujardin since his adorable star-making turn in OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies.

Phwoar.

So on New Year's Day I squeezed into a predictably packed theatre at E Street, rolling my eyes at my fellow elitists who were here instead of watching M-I:IV at the multiplex.

The Artist follows silent movie star George Valentin and dancing extra Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo) as they meet, fall in love, and encounter the invention of movies with sound, or "talkies." Since it is itself a silent movie, all of the emoting and movement must be much broader than I'm used to. Broadness doesn't always correlate with shallowness, though, and both Dujardin and Bejo excel at deft character-defining strokes that truly sell the movie. One scene in particular, when we see George doing what he considers to be "getting into character," tells us exactly what kind of a performer he is and exactly why he's about to be made obsolete. It's marvelous. And director Michel Hazanavicius takes the opportunity to make the very most of the visual medium, staging beautiful shots and letting the camera glide about with the actors.

For the first 10 minutes or so, my cynicism remained firmly in place, and I appreciated but didn't necessarily enjoy what was going on. But something happened as the movie twinkled merrily along. It might have been the sheer conviction of everyone in front of and behind the camera. It may have been all the tap dancing. Either way, I surrendered to its charms. As predictable as the arc was - no matter how it's dressed up, The Artist is a romantic comedy in the best sense - I found myself desperate to see George and Peppy get what they wanted. I cried at the tearjerker scene before registering it as The Tearjerker Scene, which you can imagine is quite a rare occurrence for me.

There's something about good redemption stories, in which the hero/heroine either fails or succeeds at transcending, that always moves me. It was as true for Jerry Maguire as it was for Drive, and now for The Artist. George's journey from King Of The World to Pariah to Hopeful Comeback Kid stayed with me in a way that Peppy's untrammeled ascension didn't. In fact, if I have any complaints about the movie it's that Peppy didn't have much to do besides effervesce. But I feel like a grinch, complaining about someone effervescing when she does it so beautifully.

"I can't help it that I'm popular!"

I don't think this movie's critical success signifies some kind of silent movie throwback trend. This was a terrific homage, but it was a one-off unlikely to be replicated. I also doubt very much that The Artist will win any Oscars besides perhaps Cinematography and Sound Editing. After all, if the Oscars hate anything more than Spike Lee, it's comedy. But hopefully the Dujardin-Bejo-Hazanavicius trio will keep on collaborating, because they make some real magic together.

If the Republican presidential candidates were Mad Men

2012-01-09T21:12:00.000-05:00

In the interest of full disclosure, I've been avoiding the Republican debates because I have enough blood pressure problems to deal with, thank you. But one can't help but absorb information and opinions about the bedraggled GOP presidential candidates through osmosis. With that in mind...The Republican presidential candidates and their Mad Men counterparts.

Inspired by this tweet from Conan O'Brien - https://twitter.com/#!/ConanOBrien/status/156533011976953857

Mitt Romney - Duck Phillips

Shut up, Duck.

Conan is absolutely right. The practiced-yet-awkward pitchman patter. The disgust he incurs with every attempt to be funny and loose. The casual homophobia. It's all there, and it's all Duck.

Newt Gingrich - Roger Sterling

Witty, philandering "idea man" who is busy shilling a book instead of doing a real job. I'm also not saying that Newt has ever done blackface, but the image is out there now.

Ron Paul - Bert Cooper

If you don't really pay attention to him, you think he's just an irrelevant, eccentric old codger. But if you get him on a rant - about race relations, for instance - a nasty, insidious streak is revealed.

John Huntsman - Guy Mackendrick

Handsome, intelligent, and experienced man who has fallen victim to very bad timing. In any other election year, this man would be the front runner and probable nominee. But this year...

He'll never golf again.

Rick Perry - Lee Garner, Jr

A Texas-sized doofus content to ride his Good Ol' Boy persona straight into the ground. Persistent rumours about his sexual orientation fly.

Rick Santorum - Salvatore Romano

That's a sweater vest, bitches.

Seriously though.

Anatomy of a break-up: My year with Barack Obama's email subject lines

2011-12-01T11:40:00.001-05:00

2011 was a rough year for President Obama for many reasons, not least of which was his dramatic rollercoaster ride of a relationship with my email inbox. Brought to you by the Obama communications team, I present Anatomy of a break-up: My year with Barack Obama's email subject lines.

January - The Break-Up
Sad but not surprising
No other way to put this
Promises Kept

In what seems like a purgative move, Obama and my inbox started the new year apart. Things had clearly been bad for a while, and it was clearly time to move on. Near the end of January, though, he made a snide remark about how few promises had been kept, and his passive-aggression started to show. This would be a recurring theme throughout the year.

May - Rethinking Things
Fixing what's broken
Something happened

We spent several months with almost no contact at all. Our correspondence was professional and perfunctory, and for a while he seemed content to focus on budget negotiations and starting his 2012 campaign. In May, however, Obama began to miss what he had with my email inbox, and sought some sort of reconciliation.

When I was young, I never needed anyone...

June - A Big Step
Dinner?
This is for real

My email inbox decided to play it cool and ignore his tentative pleas during the previous month. He became slightly more insistent, asking to see my inbox in person and demanding that I take this seriously.

July - Shifting Moods
Thank you for your commitment

Nothing in July but stinging sarcasm. My inbox remained unresponsive.

August - Ultimatum
Here's the deal

Obama tried to reestablish his terms, hoping that taking a more dominant approach would woo my inbox back. This attempt failed miserably, leading to one of the most emotional months of the year.

September - Stormy Weather
Marion, can we meet for dinner?
How this dinner thing works
It's officially over
Serious deadline
Decisions are riding on this
If I don't call you
Don't be shy
This has something to do with you
Last chance at dinner
What's stopping you, Marion?

Obama moves from pleading to threatening to wheedling, all to no avail. His desperation became obvious even to outsiders, who noted that he was totally losing control. The cool he had won us all over with was nowhere to be found. My inbox had driven him mad.

Staring into the abyss.

October - Taking a Stand
"I will not take no for an answer"
It doesn't need to be this way
We can't wait

October saw a return to straight aggression, which was somewhat undercut by his complete breakdown in September. My inbox just couldn't take him seriously anymore.

November - Big Things
Three years ago right now
Something special happened in Colorado
I'm bringing Michelle

Obama kicked November off with a drunken email from where we had our first date. His loneliness and nostalgia hit an all-time high in Colorado, where he started dating "Michelle." His next step was trying to make my inbox jealous. (It wouldn't work.)

December - Taking Stock
[from Michelle]- Marion, I want to meet you
I won't lie to you
This is not a game
What I wrote
Here's what I need you to know

Michelle tried and failed to get my inbox to take the bait, and by mid-December Obama finally began to realize his mistakes. He finally apologized for what he had written over the past year, and he resolved to start 2012 with a clean slate.

Happy New Year?