Anthony Is Right

Worst Lyric I've Heard In A While

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:27:00 -0500

Courtesy of Juelz Santana (from his long unawaited reunion with “Run It!” partner Chris Brown):

We can birthday text

Yes, I said text

But I know you know what I really meant

Sex

(so, so glad I decided to DVR MTV2’s morning video block)

perpetua: “Dear Timbaland…if you like my songs, you can make me...

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 23:14:29 -0500

perpetua:

“Dear Timbaland…if you like my songs, you can make me popular…as Britney Spears.”

I honestly don’t care whether this is real or not. This is hilarious, and I’m not going to ruin it for you by discussing the magical anthemic chorus of this man’s song.

Pretty sure this is a Girls cover.

Video

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:23:35 -0500

katespencer: 2009: The Year America Realized Its Celebrities...

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:14:00 -0500

katespencer:

2009: The Year America Realized Its Celebrities Were Just Mere Mortals.

Brittany Murphy…rolling with the homies in heaven. RIP.

Oddly enough, I made an extremely gratuitous reference to “Rollin’ With The Homies” in a post about Kate Hudson’s anguish over A-Rod for work Thursday (Page Six says she made a silent scream of horror to her mom when “Empire State Of Mind” played at the Nine afterparty). Her movie career may have been a hot mess over the last decade, but as the voice of Luanne for the entire run of King Of The Hill, she gets mad love.

Kicking off a week-plus of holiday travel tonight with lingering...

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:50:39 -0500

Kicking off a week-plus of holiday travel tonight with lingering earache issues following a (hopefully defeated) sinus infection. Far more annoying than crippling (esp. compared to my fiancee’s sudden bout of food poisoning last night), but I’m willing to let Unrest moan for me (and her!) all the same.

barthel: Look, I know, OK? It was overpraised and “quirky” and...

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:34:00 -0500

barthel:

Look, I know, OK? It was overpraised and “quirky” and everyone liked it so we—we, us, us, you know, the people who know better and earlier—can’t like it, right? (Because some quirky things this decade were bad, all quirky things this decade were bad! Uggggh.) But now that we have maybe a little distance from it, I hope we can all acknowledge that Little Miss Sunshine really is a hell of a movie. Aside from pointing to just how well it was written (read the script sometime if you get a chance), I would narrow in on one particular point. There is a character in this movie who is a dark, brooding teenage boy. He likes Neitzsche and is intelligent and special. But he is not the center of the movie. Instead, he is a running joke, being more or less relegated to Harpo. Instead of being taken seriously and focused on in order to make the movie seem “meaningful” to the kind of people who decide whether or not movies are meaningful (who tend to be, or have been, teenage boys who thought they were special), he is mercilessly made fun of. Maybe this lack of Seriousness dawned on us eventually and we turned on it (did we turn on it? am I making this up?), finding various ways around the basic sentiment that “it’s not like The Dark Knight.”

Instead, the moral and emotional center of the movie is the person pictured above: a little girl who loves beauty pageants, not because she wants to be a princess or because she needs approval or because her parents have pushed her into it as a way of validating her self-esteem, but because she thinks beauty pageants are awesome. Olive’s desire becomes the center of the film because all the other characters are beaten down, mopey and sullen or quietly desperate, and having a hard time seeing beyond their immediate circumstances. Olive is the only one who is enthusiastic, and so the ultimate message is not about the importance of family or the need to be different or anything else. It is, rather, this: enthusiasm wins, especially sincere enthusiasm about things that would not seem to merit it. This is a movie that acknowledges the awfulness of life without dwelling on it, and providing a way to get through it. This is very different from most of the other quirkfests, which tended to end on a note of resignation or failure—or worse, settling. (The one obvious exception would be Adventureland, another great little film that’s easy to overlook.) It was a hard decade to be realistically optimistic in, to sound sunny without sounding crazy, but Little Miss Sunshine did that, and it’s no small feat.

Some valid points here if you’re comparing the film to indie faves, and I did enjoy it. But when compared to earlier crazy road trip movies driven by one character’s enthusiasm like National Lampoon’s Vacation and Dumb And Dumber, the middlebrow piety of Sunshine sticks out - it’s the reason the film got overpraised. Also sparking the career of Abigail Breslin (who has shown no talent for anything since she stopped being America’s Little Dumplin’) is a demerit.

leilacohan: Sometimes, when I’m down, I just think about how...

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:15:07 -0500

leilacohan:

Sometimes, when I’m down, I just think about how foxy Bruce Springsteen used to be. Works like a charm.

Also, I am singing this at karaoke tonight.

Bad idea jeans that will not make your butt as cute as Bruce’s! Fairly monotone, requires more shouty conviction than recommended. I whiffed it big time a while back.

Trivia: Brian DePalma directed this video.

One Star Music

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:12:17 -0500

One Star Music:

I’ve started a new tumblr of YouTubes from albums that received 1 star (or less) in a published record guide. Suggestions welcome.

Everybody's Fine

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 19:47:30 -0500

Everybody's Fine:

Review at Tiny Mix Tapes.

Recent Movies I Did Not Love

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 19:54:35 -0500

Recent Movies I Did Not Love:

In order of descending tolerability.

A Serious Man
“You goys with your suburban suffering movies, I’ll tell you suburban suffering…”

Law Abiding Citizen
A white, working class black-ops…

Why the hell is this playing at Cobble Hill Cinemas? Is it on...

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:20:00 -0500

Why the hell is this playing at Cobble Hill Cinemas? Is it on consignment or something? Did Busta Rhymes buy the theater? Tangentially, the other films playing are New Moon, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Precious and Old Dogs—-all of which are also showing at the nearby Court St. megaplex. I really wanted to see The Road without leaving Brooklyn tomorrow. Hard life, I know, but isn’t Cobble Hill supposed be the art house (or at least middlebrow) alternative? And could they really not find a more original name than Breaking Point?

If only he sounded like him.

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 08:25:37 -0500

If only he sounded like him.

Hungry For More Eamon?

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:12:00 -0500

The album I Don’t Want You Back isn’t a classic, but there are a few worthwhile follow-ups to the title track.

“I Want You So Bad” is Frankie Lymon unbound (“I just want you close to meee! I’ll get you wet! Just wait and see!!!”).

“I Love Them Hos” pays tribute to the ladies he meets on the road over a Flamingos sample (“If you still want to fool around, you can catch the next greyhound…”).

“On and On” is his tenderest announcement of sexual prowess, recently chipmunked by Flo Rida (“Every time I finish, I could see it in your eyes…I freak it like you like it then you want some more, let’s explore the bedroom floor…over and over and over…”).

You’re welcome.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO EAMON??? There are a million R&B...

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:02:00 -0500

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO EAMON??? There are a million R&B singers as profane as this guy was, but they can’t seem be bothered to contrast the rank-out with old school tunes. Wish Eamon would try a belated milking of the shtick like Shifty Shellshock’s underappreciated basket of “Butterfly” rip-offs, Happy*Love*Sick. At the very least, I’d enjoy it.

(The audio is slightly off above because the uploader was kind enough to lay the explicit audio over the video. If you haven’t heard “I Don’t Want You Back” in a while, it really deserves a revisit.)

Lou Reed, “The Original Wrapper.” Live at Japan Aid,...

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:13:00 -0500

Lou Reed, “The Original Wrapper.” Live at Japan Aid, 1986. Damn, his science is too tight! Feel that saxophone hook.

Don’t mean to come on sanctimonious
but life’s got me nervous and little pugnacious
Lugubrious, I give a salutation
and I rock on out to a beat that’s really stupid
Ooh poop ah doo and how do you do
hip hop, gonna bop till I drop.

pterodactyls: AOL is splitting from AOL Time Warner to become...

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:12:00 -0500

pterodactyls:

AOL is splitting from AOL Time Warner to become some nebulous ‘content providing’ entity known as Aol. Let’s celebrate with the dulcet tones of a dial up modem.

beep boop boop beep beep, hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, dee doo dooooyeo, dooooyeo dee doo… dee dee dee dee chhhhchchchchchch BEE BOONG BEE BOONG PSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH PSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Ah, the internet equivalent of walking three miles in the snow to school. I can’t wait to harangue my kids about it someday. (Also, the modem in this audio clip goes a hell of a lot faster than any of mine ever did).

Twilight Singers, “Clyde.” Imagine if this song was...

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:45:08 -0500

Twilight Singers, “Clyde.” Imagine if this song was the first single off an N’Sync reunion album.

The original Edward. Recognize, Twi-Hards!

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:38:44 -0500

The original Edward. Recognize, Twi-Hards!

THE STYLUS DECADE IS COMING.

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 07:46:02 -0500

THE STYLUS DECADE IS COMING.:

clembastow:

GABBO GABBO GABBO

He’ll tell us what to listen to! I didn’t get it together to contribute to this (too busy waffling back and forth on a decade-end project of my own), but I’m excited to see what these little SOBs came up with.

Back in high school, my friend (and future groomsman) Tyler and...

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 11:43:00 -0500

Back in high school, my friend (and future groomsman) Tyler and I watched eight Friday The 13th movies in two days for the teen page of the local paper. I can dignify posting the most memorable and baffling scene from Friday The 13th V: A New Beginning by noting it’s Saturday the 14th, but I was already planning to before I realized the coincidence. Happy birthday, dude. Ooooh, baby.

(trivia: the actor in the above scene later went on to star in Juwanna Mann)