Rachel McAdams starred in the “The Notebook”. This movie is the staple of “Girls’ Nights In” everywhere.
Later this year she will star as Clare Abshire in The Time Traveler’s Wife, based off of Audrey Nifenegger’s superlatively good novel.
Will she, in but a few years, seize the “weepy” crowns that have, for so long, remained firmly in the treasure-houses of Ali McGraw and Barbara Streisand?
The League of Melbotis did a 10 point listing of ladies of the 90’s media he “once dug”. For the record, when men are left alone, they pretty much do this as their primary hobby of choice. Frequently sports is used as subterfuge so that we can have some space in which to play this game, but essentially, it’s the national pasttime.
Dana Scully: Hot, Red Haired, Didn’t mind finding Mulder’s uh, “videos” on occasion. A babe who gave hope to those of us at home on Friday night watching X-Files and dialing BBS’. As I noted on The League’s site, Ms. Anderson is a very un-compelling interviewee - heck that guy that made the beer-catapulting robot was a more coherent interview, or even Madonna in the “you don’t pee-pee in the shower” bit.
Nevertheless, Seasons 2 and 3 right as “the mythos” got going were very, very awesome.
Eh. I liked her in Max Hedroom, but that’s mostly because of her clean, crisp diction.
Not so hot in the 90’s, more hot in the naughts, but I see where he’s going and I’ll never say a word against a woman whose pinky is a registered implement of death.
She can dance.
Eh, a wise-cracking moll is always kinda hot, but…hotter in the naughts. And what’s up with her hair! She stole it from Flat-Top.
As I’ve mentioned Madonna and Flattop in one entry, I saw an interview with Madonna where she said that it was hard for her to “act” (quotes mine) in Dick Tracy because her role required her to give a “bad performance”, something she simply couldn’t do naturally. Hubris, pure hubris.
In the galaxy of Hotula, orbiting babia majora, is Claudia Cardinale. Well done, sir.
In edition two, The League kicked it up a notch.
The year was 1989. Batman came out. My friend Matt’s parents were into “Twin Peaks”. I saw Sherilyn Fenn. While the NES Advantage had a great deal of my attention, Ms. Fenn was hot like sweaters and bobby-socks hot, in a way that would presage my affection for the girls of Thee Parkside in San Francisco with Betty Page cuts, and Betty Page in general.
Hot, sweaters, and longer skirts with a mischievous twinkle. Fenn-tastic!
Something about the saddle Oxfords and Badlamenti’s orchestrations chasing a character about that make her much hotter. Speaking of…
Eh. Like I said, the strains of Badlamenti following you about can’t hurt. I see where the League was going with this whole rough and fast thing ( a la Hamilton in Terminator 2 ), but….
I was way into The Breeders and The Pixies, the Breeders more so. I dug “Cannonball” and “Divine Hammer”, I’m sorry for inflicting that so much on The Social B. The interesting part about Kim is her sister Kelly who was also in the band. While I’m no Bud Light “..and twins” kinda guy, The Deals both had a full house in the guitar talent department and drug abuse department.
In any case, Kim is sorta like that girl in your math class who one day off-handedly says “Yeah my bass needs a tune up some dude knocked it over at Zelda’s the other night…” and then you find out she can play “Debaser” and you’re like. Wow, “all this time I thought you were just marking time until graduation like me, but you were doing something much cooler than I was, i shoulda asked you out before i was all intimidated”.
Seeing “True Romance” was a revelation for me. It was to launch the ship called Quentin Tarantino ( sale of this movie’s rights financed “Pulp Fiction”). It was funny, it had Val Kilmer as Elvis, a stunning tete-a-tete between master of the craft Gary Oldman and Christian Slater and…well…a hot, sassy, and voluptuous hooker named Alabama who “tasted like a peach” ( confirmed by two generations of Whorley ).
And what about the Walken / Hopper discourse about Sicilians? Man that was IN-TENSE.
Oh, right Alabama. Well, Hot, Hot, Hot. Trashy outfits and a Southern lilt never worked so well.
And I never looked at phone booths the same way again.
She’s one of the greatest artists ever. Knowing her increases your odds by 100% of being mopey, British, and wealthy in 2008.
She’s a relentless artist, never gave up anything for who she was, has a great smile and, despite the look, you just know she abides by that one for the kettle rule of making tea, she’s that British, OK?
I admit, some of her music was hard for me to get when I was in high school or junior high, but now her insight and risks continue to surprise me…all the more because the music today is so unbelievably processed and contrived. Hats off to you Siouxsie, and if you’re imagining a hat I want you to imagine it a short sort of funerary pill box hat with a veil…
OK, let me level with you.
Hipster pretense, “being into Bret Michaels-reality-show-star versus Bret Michaels sensitive tattooed rocker who realized after needin’ “Nothin’ but a Good Time” that “Every Rose Has its Thorn” …
…hipster ‘Best Week Ever’” artifice aside the truth is this: Van Halen Totally Rocks.
Shut up Hipsters
I mean Van Halen rocks in that “filling up a stadium with nubile dishwater blondes in tube-tops” way. It’s old school rock - something that, I’m sorry to say, the emo-castrati of our age (it’s not their fault ), post Blink-182-Queen-esque ( lookin’ atchu “Chemical Romance” ) teens of this age are simply unfamiliar with. I’m talking about rocking hard minus ennui ( Tool ); Rocking hard minus nonsensical Marxist blather ( Rage Against the Machine ); I’m talking about a Dionysian, graspy, pure pro-libido, pro-beer, pro-“hooray it’s five freaking o’clock on Friday let’s hit the Regal Begal” sense of rock.
Quien es mas macho?
Uh, nevermind
It’s strange, anyone born after 1985 simply doesn’t know the dream: LA, Sunset Strip, Limo with a hot tub in it with several groupies in bikinis,
loud music with way-too-many guitar notes.
The emperor thinks “Eruption” has a few too many notes”
It was the testosterone-fueled dream of 13 year olds of my era and all the eras before. Instead for the fili castrati of today, their pale ghost of a dream is nsparayshun432’s blurry headshot from the ‘turned-on-self’ digital camera on Facebook. How utterly sad.
I had thought for sure a Republican president committed to trickle-down economics and purging “evildoers” from the world would quicken the return of rock of this type ( cf. Mötley Crüe, Ratt, Cinderella, WASP ) or my own personal favorite mix of gasoline, death, sex, and Les Paul (from Bush I’s era): Guns ‘n Roses, but alas, that appears not to have happened. Maybe we don’t have it in us to rage, rage against the dying of the light, same with Rome, judging by the Silver Age.
Given that the young don’t know how to rock, it’s unsurprising that, in the postmodern age, the age of youth extension to your 70’s, the Baby Boomer concert promoters would go back to the Kilimanjaro preserve for rare and endangered masters of arena rock and haul them back out for our narcissistic look in the mirror before the kids start having discussions that include phrases like “long-term managed care”.
In the post-modern age we resurrect our icons or extend their life with fresh infusions of yoga and unicorn blood forever because we’ve lost our damned cojones and creativity ( shades of Baudrillard’s “Tasaday” essay from Simulacra & Simulation ), we went to Serengeti national park and pulled out the icons of that time when bands could rock, shamelessly, proudly, with some fucking showmanship.
That’s right, we went to the motherlode of feel good, guitar-shredding, put-a-goddamed-smile-on-your-face-you-mopey-bastard rock royalty of dare I say 1976-1983, the musical guests at Spicloli’s party: Van Halen.
“Whoa dude, I blew all my reward money on getting Van Halen to play graduation, bro!”
And what can I say but after 30 years of musicianship, you can’t help but deliver a great show with great music. During this show I realized some essential things about the Van Halen sound. If I were to use any particular scientific term s an adjective to describe their sound I would call it massively phase shifted. I don’t know how I never caught this years before, but everything they do has massive phase shift on it. During Alex’s stunning drum solo I realized that a sea of metallic cymbal, when washed in the Van Halen phase shift turns into a magnetic, roaring, metallic cascade of tin-tasting metal. When the guitar explosion that is Eddie van Halen’s guitar virtuosity ruptures into that ocean it’s like a supermassive gravitational body pulling the metallic seas of a neighboring planet this way and that in a shearing display of tidal friction.
Something should be said about young Wolfgang van Halen who, at his very early age appears to be exceedingly proficient at the bass ( as was his father before him ). I had to give a laugh at the fact that his bass was a modification of the famous Eddie van Halen “5150” Kramer guitar electrical tape theme. I remarked to my buddy that it was almost like the tartan pattern of his clan - a birthright, those hap-hazard stripes. And, I suppose I noticed the filial pride that must have infused the original tartan specifications of the highlands centuries ago.
Father
Son, with Diamond Dave
The set list:
Here’s a few comments on specific songs.
The phase shifted brown sound of the brothers Van Halen par excellance.
I hope I wasn’t the only one thinking of the claymation scene from Better Off Dead here.
Un-Chained
<phase_shift>ch-ch-chu-chu-chunk-chunk</phase_shift>
Nothing Stays the Same
Un-Chained!
Hell, yes.
Icing on the cake: Young Wolfgang doing the post-guitar-solo cut-up ( on the album too )
Dave: [to some dude in the audience, in the “pit”, who is being broadcast on the huge screen]…you’ll get some leg tonight for sure. Tell us how you do!”
Wolf: “C’mon Dave, gimme a break..”
Dave: “One Break…comin’ up…..ungh”
Chorus
This was the biggest surprise of the night to me. The stage went black and you heard some very impressive acoustic guitar playing, just noodlin’ as we with an axe say. And up came none other than David Lee Roth who proceeded to recount a story about growing up in Pasadena, CA. He told of the vast suburban boredom experience and that his town was the kind of place where they rip up the trees, put in new streets, and name the streets after the trees you ripped out. Whodathunk it, David Lee Roth, smart growth advocate.
But in recounting the story of growing up in Pasadena he told of a friend of his who had taken a job as an actual Ice Cream man, which led him into doing a great a capella version of the song which, at the end of the verse had Alex’s giant tom-tom’s come in like a tsunami with Ed’s frenetic guitar descent ride us into the second verse. Hell yes David Lee Roth, you are totally badass, still.
And no joke, Dave had an 8 pack, the high kicks that could have taken young grasshopper’s head off in a furious roundhouse kick and during the stellar finale of “1984” demonstrated mad staff twirling skills by twirling a shiny metal staff with such fury I was in mortal terror that he would lose it and impale someone in the mezzanine.
I did have to feel for Dave, thinking about him singing these songs, historically those folks right below the stage must have been nubile young ladies, instead of guys in their 50’s with enough cash to pay the astronomical price required to be in the most-wealthy room only pit.
Like: “Oh hell, more beer gut bald dudes, where the hotties at? MORE TROPHY WIVES!”
But, let that not dissuade anyone from this fact: You can continue loving the Halen all your days, so to you old dudes, rock on, to you women who should not be wearing that tube top anymore, rock on, to the kids with their dads ( Ed and Wolf; The guys in the audience ) rock on, to Alex and Dave, rock on.
In short, let me say this
I didn’t watch it, but I think it’s karmic just desserts that the team who was apparently filming other teams’ practices got served.
Want me to watch the Superbowl? I want to see The Pixies play the halftime show. I want Black Francis up there gibbering incoherently in Spanish, Swahili, and Aramaic like a portly, bald, Hispanic, Mel Gibson.
I want Joey Santiago to wear a crown, a golden crown, with flammable gasses erupting from it so that his head appears to be on fire.
That would be worth watching.
The esteemed Ransom at Chronological Snobbery has asked if I would like to make a contribution to his retrospective on the 10-year anniversary of “The Zero Effect”.
I admit, I procrastinated, I avoided the obligation and said that I, quite honestly, had nothing positive to contribute to the movie. Mr. Ransom agreed that I could take a con position. I took that offer and decided to re-watch the film and see if my perceptions had changed in the 10 years since I saw the movie. I can say they have not and I think that the movie is just as forgettable and insignificant today as I thought it was 10 years ago.
If any of the other contributors induce you to consider seeing this movie qua movie, let me be the first to say that its only merits in my book are to see the two primary protagonists give laudable acting performances of a high quality that will make you blink twice in surprise against your familiarity with the larger scope of their respective œuvres.
I speak of Bill Pullman and Ben Stiller.
Pullman executed a string of intense studies on men in very non-conventional relationships in this remarkable fecund period in the early 90’s. In fact, against several performances given between 1994 and 1998 Pullman’s role in the Summerstravaganza Crapfest “Independence Day” can be seen as an outlier.
Starting in 1994 he starred against the sexy “Wendy Kroy ( Linda Fiorentino )” in The Last Seduction. Having been manipulated by his scheming wife who sent him for condoms as she skips town with the proceeds of a lucky dope score, Pullman opened up a floodgate to exploring rage, fury, homicide, and seething frustration within the bounds of a relationship that was to pour over his next several films.
Between “The Last Seduction” and “Zero Effect”, Pullman continued his study in relationship-bounded fury in David Lynch’s Möbius murder-mystery “Lost Highway”. “Lost Highway” was the first film that the director himself, at the time, reported as “the perfect David Lynch movie”; the movie he had always wanted to make (for the record, this same theme was explored again, and much more compellingly, I’ll assert, in 2001’s “Mullholland Drive”).
In “Lost Highway”, Pullman does the research and experimentation that makes his portrayal of Zero so effortless. The protagonist believes himself cuckolded, marvels and wonders at his potential capacity as a murderer, and generally exists in a space parallel, but outside of the social mainstream.
In the character Zero, Pullman continues the detailed study of men undergoing psychological fugue between the men they are expected to be, and the men they know they are. It is a superb moment in Pullman’s career. Pullman closes this study in 2002’s Igby Goes Down. Somewhere the raging cuckold has morphed into an alcoholic, suicidal, Zen-like approach to getting a cricket bat to the face courtesy of life.
Pullman’s portrayal of Zero’s meditation on searching for things by not searching for them is reminiscent of the farcical method of flight described by “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” as well as an artful delivery into the mind of the Holmes 2.0, the detective Zero. It’s the only thing that I really remembered as being enjoyable about this movie years on.
Pullman’s not been given the best source material of late, but his performance almost makes “The Zero Effect” worth watching — if only anything else happened in it.
In 1993 there was a channel known as Fox which was favored for showing edgy and daring comedy.
In the 5 or so years previous, this network had launched “Married With Children” and “The Simpsons” and marked a decided turn in the culture wars. America, en masse disagreed with President Bush and said, effectively: “No, we think the American family should be more like The Simpsons and less like that other show you talked about”. To prove their point they elected a president who had played a notoriously difficult-to-tune woodwind on The Arsenio Hall Show.
Fox took another risk by giving Ben Stiller his own show which featured his formidable comedic talents as well as the talents of Bob Odenkirk, and pre-yakuza-arm-sleeve Janeane Garofalo. There was also this un-funny douchebag named Andy Dick on it too.
In this role we saw Ben as an edgy and intense comedic talent. Naturally, the show would be quickly cancelled as reward for such innovation. Yet in the show we saw the talent that’s there in Stiller: a wry eye for satire and a mean streak which could take the absolutely piss out the Fox network with the mockery pilot treatment “Heat Vision and Jack”.
After being kicked to the curb by Fox, Stiller found his way back to mass entertainment and landed in “The Zero Effect”. Taking the Host of the Ben Stiller show and dressing him up in a suit was the perfect chance to show off the best of Ben Stiller, man, not actor. The likable personality behind the “Ben Stiller Show” was given another chance to become familiar to the viewing public.
Yet in “The Zero Effect” we also get a brief peek at the disaster that Stiller was to come to accompany: The narcissistic, whiney, rubber-faced-angry-little-bitch that would come to define his character portfolio up to the present. Like Darwin’s finches, every role of Stiller’s that is beyond a cameo is essentially playing a character slightly more or less little-bitch than Arlo in “Zero Effect”
Consider: Arlo, Stiller’s character, is perpetually complaining about not getting his due, is perpetually obsessing about his relative import ( or lack thereof ), or is being frustrated about his situation using the same 3 stock faces:
*”disbelief/angry”
or
*”disaffected/feeling that he’s not being treated like God’s special snowflake”
*”Grr! I’m Angry”
Does this not sound like pretty much every role Stiller has played since 1998?
A few traces should suffice to prove the downward trajectory.
The Arlo persona had its whiny-bitch-o-meter revved up in “Flirting with Disaster”: over-neurotic to the point of absurdity, narcissistic to the extreme, obsessed with external validation to a fault, etc. Stiller’s character’s single nuance of “unbelievable outright neediness” threatened to tank that film, were it not for Teà Leoni’s and Patricia Arquette’s balancing desperations ( Ms. Leoni’s ticking clock and Arquette’s armpit licking made Stiller’s neurotic individual stick out less ).
Stiller took the same identikit mix for the Neil LaBute squirm-fest “Your Friends and Neighbors”. Never have I enjoyed watching a character get humiliated quite like Catherine Keener’s ego-destroying “Buh” or “Should I write hold me?” to Arlo, er, Jerry in the third act.
The only addition that has come to modify the Arlo archetype is the “Stiller Rage Face” that calls to mind G.E. Smith’s What’s-that-smell? guitar style from 90’s era Saturday Night Live ( ironically a main character feature of his Mr. Furious in the utterly forgettable “Mystery Men”).
Since that time Stiller has basically played the same role with only minor deviations.
These indictments should be sufficient to show that Zero effect marked the death of Ben Stiller auteur, thinker, and risk-taker to Ben Stiller, a guy in movies. It hurts, because goddammit Ben, you have the skills, we saw them accidentally escape in your cameo in “Anchorman”, but dammit man, the penis-inflation sight-gag from Dodgeball? What the hell is that? I thought Ben was going to fight the machine and do great things. With his connections into the Apatow mafia he still could. C’mon Ben, you’ve got the cash now, make those great things you dreamt about ( although leaving Andy Dick behind is entirely acceptable).
In conclusion, if you’re looking for the genetic ancestor of all Ben Stiller roles since 1992, you can look to “Zero Effect”. If you’re writing your master’s drama thesis on the fecund period of Pullman, look to “Zero Effect”. Otherwise pick up 7% Solution, by Doyle, its conceit is much more compelling – and there’s no open-mouthed gaping Stiller freeze frame that you will need to endure.
Inorrecto
Goin’ to California with the weekend in my heart
Robert Plant is joyous to return to the Pacific-kissing state.
ahem
Correcto
Goin’ to California with an achin’ in my heart
Robert Plant remembers great pains associated with a love he left behind in the Pacific-kissing state.
I’m well past the age of seeing movies that are terrible for the purpose of throwing back a few beers and marveling at just how horrible it is.
But I remember that Mr. Shoemaker, at the beginning of UT football season, and I were both kinda excited to catch Shoot ‘em Up. We thought that, from the trailers, the gratuitous love of bullets would be an unashamedly bullet-heavy, ridiculous action-fest.
Through a moment of loopiness at the RedBox DVD kiosk, I found myself watching this with Lauren.
Now on paper my man-crush, and Lauren’s more conventional crush, Clive Owen will be afforded opportunities to excel all things he’s good at:
And my conventional crush, no opinions from Lauren, Monica Bellucci will be afforded opportunities to excel at things she’s good at:
And the movie doesn’t fail to deliver as a send up of the ridiculous action-packed thriller ( “The Transporter”, oh hell, pretty much anything with Jason Statham). It doesn’t fail to afford the gunslinger a mysterious past, a vendetta, and a quick ( carrots, seriously ). And in this, the movie absolutely succeeds. Bullet casings fly, seas of bullets are dodged and human limits of pain are ignored. In this sense it is funny and fun.
But on another level, a plot level, it’s as intelligent as an episode of “Walker, Texas Ranger”, which, in college-times, was a favorite mark for cruel assessments of ridiculous characterization, lousy direction, and un-necessary slow downs of Chuck’s roundhouses.
In short, watch it when you can tolerate an absurd laugh or two.
The WGA strike began during my unplanned writing hiatus, but as it’s still with us, I suppose this post is still relevant. Now this topic, when brought up with my writer girlfriend and The League quickly heated up passions in a hurry, so let me be clear first and foremost.
I think that the writers are absolutely right to be on strike for the reasons they’ve identified. They see the writing on the wall and know that digital distribution is going to be an important revenue stream that their ideas gave breath to. They are absolutely entitled to residuals / royalties / etc. The idea that Tim Kring, the visionary behind “Heroes” was not getting my economic yes-vote as I watched the DVDs upsets me ( maybe he needs one of those e-tip jars? ).
But let’s be straight here, the majority of network TV is absolute crap (above). It’s chocked-full of reality TV shows: American Idol, Top Model, etc., lame sit-coms with the impossibly hot wife with the fat, surly, paterfamilias of laffs ( “According to Jim”, “That show with Jamie Gertz and the Fat Guy”), and, uh, I’m sure some other stuff that I don’t know about.
Moving to watching “The Best” TV shows on DVD is effectively like getting network TV a la carte ( which, incidentally, we ought to be able to do on cable at a reasonable rate: ESPN Classic? No thanks. More HBO’s? Yes!) and the talent behind the most frequently chosen dishes should find themselves rewarded for crafting more appealing entertainment. My plea for peace done, let me move to my thesis.
I have a stomach flu and I thought that a bit of lighthearted comedy would help.
Woe to me that the chosen film was the sequel to the surprisingly sweet and kind Legally Blonde.
Yes, that’s right, even as I type this I feel my neurons imploding to the ridiculous dialog, hackneyed plot twists, and barrage of pink that is Legally Blonde II.
I don’t think this is helping the churning gurgle in my gut.
Last night before we went to bed Lauren was watching YouTube and found a 1979 performance of Miss Piggy singing “Baby Face” at some sort of live gala event. I must say, I loved the way they swung the beat to disco and included beefcake-y male models escorting Piggy on an Egyptian style divan.
Remarked Lauren: “You know I never realized just how intentionally campy Miss Piggy is.”
And I thought to myself: “Indeed, for an overdramatic, quasi-narcissistic, stuffed, talking pig, she is rather campy.”
