If my iTunes is to be believed (and it is, it meticulously captures every thing I listen to anywhere, and is extremely anally refined on daily basis by me. We all have our things...), the only two albums from 2009 that I have really liked and played often are MSTRKRFT's Fist of God and The Thermals' Now We Can See. I thought that was kind of weird and random. MSTRKRFT had a few heavy weeks of play after I got it, but The Thermals, no surprise there as that is just a damn good album and "When I Died" may just be the best song ever. But still, I do get a lot of music (I can't recommend eMusic highly enough, especially since they now have major label stuff), so I thought it was weird.
And then I realized, no, no its not weird at all. In the past year I have mostly gotten and listened to what could be characterized as two distinct spheres of music: old sad bastard/country music (lots of Johnny Cash, and recently, Elvis, Carl Perkins, Willie Nelson, and old favorite Ryan Adams) and 90s rock/indie (including Stone Temple Pilots, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Metallica, Pavement, The Get-Up Kids, and a hell of a lot of Soundgarden).
Clearly this means I am way way off of the pulse of the music community, but fuck it. Too much poseuring for my taste anyway. I'm pretty sure The Thermals are the tops for 2009.
Then again, in a library of 16,000 tracks, the Pokemon theme is the 3rd highest played with 43 listens, so what the fuck do I know.
Side note: The Thermals are great, but since I'm writing about music, I'd be ashamed to not mention The Gaslight Anthem and by far my most played 2008 album "The 59 Sound." If you listened to "Great Expectations" (a track-1 to rival "When I Died") alone, it would change your life.
Oh and as for random one-off songs I have been liking from 2009... I'm ashamed to say I really like that Sean Kingston song about the shorties burnin on the dance floor. And "Hold the Line" by Major Lazer is a solid track, though I haven't had enough interest to get the whole album. At least not yet...
Friday, August 21, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
Two Posts, One Day?
Insert universe collapsing.
I just posted a small little thing and then was re-reading the 2 or 3 posts I put up in the past 7 months. Just wanted to clarify a little something about that Simpsons post below.
I have nothing against lesbians or gays or anything like that. By all means, love who you want and do what you gotta do. I'm all for it. That article was merely enragement at the constant shark-jumping and "oh yeah? how about this!" story-telling technique that The Simpsons have employed for the dreck of the past 6 seasons.
Not that anyone complained to me; all two readers seemed to enjoy it. But you never know who is gonna find this stuff, and I just wanted to set the record straight. Also, I will criticize that same episode for planting the idea of Lisa being a lesbian and then going nowhere with it. If that's what you want to do, at least make it a lasting change (even though there are 4 episodes, and a movie, that I can think of off the top of my head where Lisa is in love with a boy).
I'm overthinking it again.
I just posted a small little thing and then was re-reading the 2 or 3 posts I put up in the past 7 months. Just wanted to clarify a little something about that Simpsons post below.
I have nothing against lesbians or gays or anything like that. By all means, love who you want and do what you gotta do. I'm all for it. That article was merely enragement at the constant shark-jumping and "oh yeah? how about this!" story-telling technique that The Simpsons have employed for the dreck of the past 6 seasons.
Not that anyone complained to me; all two readers seemed to enjoy it. But you never know who is gonna find this stuff, and I just wanted to set the record straight. Also, I will criticize that same episode for planting the idea of Lisa being a lesbian and then going nowhere with it. If that's what you want to do, at least make it a lasting change (even though there are 4 episodes, and a movie, that I can think of off the top of my head where Lisa is in love with a boy).
I'm overthinking it again.
Today in Douchebags
My repulsion from Green Day, Post-2003 is well documented (in fact, it's documented just a scant few entries below this one!). This post is no different in tone or content.
In the September 2009 Maxim (side note: Maxim is a terrible magazine and I do not support or condone it, I merely get it for free [side side note: there is a really great Oral History of Marvel Comics in that issue as well {side side side note: Janelle, the new Maxim came; please don't get overly upset}]), there is an interview with Green Day frontman, Billie Joe Armstrong. Billie Joe was really cool when I was 12 years old, but now he's just another "success has gone to his head douchebag."
I quote, "I hear they're trying to find a new king of pop. I'd like to throw my hat into the ring."
I hear Billie Joe and Kanye West are teaming up to form a supergroup. Their first single, "I'm the Best!" will drop in September and be featured on the upcoming "Lyrical Geniuses and Voices of a Generation: Lots of Beeping and Booping and Grade-School Level Jibberish about American Politics, Volume 1: The Jesus of Suburbia (whatever the fuck that means) Meets A Creepy Giant Teddy Bear That Wears Neon Pink Poser Sunglasses, You Know, Those Ones that Kind of Look Like Venetian Blinds and Do Not Protect Your Eyes at All, But Let Everyone Around Know You Are a Complete Tool."
Needless to say, I don't care for that Kanye West either.
In the September 2009 Maxim (side note: Maxim is a terrible magazine and I do not support or condone it, I merely get it for free [side side note: there is a really great Oral History of Marvel Comics in that issue as well {side side side note: Janelle, the new Maxim came; please don't get overly upset}]), there is an interview with Green Day frontman, Billie Joe Armstrong. Billie Joe was really cool when I was 12 years old, but now he's just another "success has gone to his head douchebag."
I quote, "I hear they're trying to find a new king of pop. I'd like to throw my hat into the ring."
I hear Billie Joe and Kanye West are teaming up to form a supergroup. Their first single, "I'm the Best!" will drop in September and be featured on the upcoming "Lyrical Geniuses and Voices of a Generation: Lots of Beeping and Booping and Grade-School Level Jibberish about American Politics, Volume 1: The Jesus of Suburbia (whatever the fuck that means) Meets A Creepy Giant Teddy Bear That Wears Neon Pink Poser Sunglasses, You Know, Those Ones that Kind of Look Like Venetian Blinds and Do Not Protect Your Eyes at All, But Let Everyone Around Know You Are a Complete Tool."
Needless to say, I don't care for that Kanye West either.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Why Hollywood is Retarded
Janelle will be happy that I actually have posted something (and possibly Andy Whitegiver, if he's still out there).
Look. I get that when certain things get "hot," there's a huge groundswell to jump on the bandwagon (ignore these mixed metaphors!) and make as much money as you can until the well dries up completely. Look at zombies. There's a shitload of zombie things going on, and I haven't reaaaally cared about zombies for years. Sure, 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead are two of my favorite movies, but they both came out 5+ years ago. If it was coming out 4 years ago, maybe I would have any reason to care about this Zombieland movie that's coming out soon (and which a lot of internet geeks are creaming their jeans over), but I just can't muster it. I have plenty to nerdgasm over between Wolverine 2: This Time It Might Not Be Terrible and Green Lantern: This Is a Total Crapshoot and Might Be A Colossal Turd-Bomb being in pre-production.
Then there's vampires, a hot trend that refuses to die even more than zombies. Seriously, look no further than Twilight and you see how apeshit people go over for prissy brooding vampires. (Or look at True Blood, this new CW Twilight knock-off show, the fact that they want to have a Buffy reboot movie for some reason, and about 8 million new vampires movies coming out in the next 2 years - the only one even remotely interesting is the extremely poorly titled Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, and I only care about that because I love John C. Reilly and his chewing of the scenery in the trailer looks pretty good [side note: while I love JCR for Step Brothers, Boogie Nights, and his Brule's Rules segments on Tim & Eric {youtube it} I may never be able to forgive him for the cinematic abortion known as "The Promotion." One of the absolute worst movies I've ever seen.].
Anyway, these are just two recent examples of things that were hits and then immediately had a deluge of knock-offs and also-ran's follow in their wake. I didn't even mention the literally dozens of "boy discovers secret magical world" that came out after Harry Potter or the weird time in the late 90s when disaster movies were really popular, thus causing two nearly identical movies about volcanoes to be released in a short span of time (Dante's Peak and Volcano, and I'll never remember which one is which).
So, people are bandwagon jumpers. This isn't news. Well, I write this today to highlight the excruciating low point that we as a society have gotten to.
We all know that Transformers 2 was a massive hit. In addition to being one of the worst movies I've ever seen (yet, still, worlds better than The Promotion. I'm not kidding. It's really fucking terrible), Transformers 2: Revenge of the Blah Blah made roughly 78 borjillion dollars, and that doesn't include overseas and outer space revenues. Recently, GI Joe was also a pretty big hit and solidifies that we will be seeing GI Joe 2: Tomax and Xamot's Revenge! in the coming years.
Now the problem is, that somehow, in their infinite wisdom, Hollywood bigwigs saw this trend and said "Of course!! Movies based on toys are the new hot thing! Let's start turning out shit based on every toy we can buy the rights to!"
Hence this. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118007162.html?categoryid=13&cs=1&nid=2562
Listen, I don't want to be a pain in the ass and damnit man, I love me some Legos. But are you fucking serious? And they're making a movie based on the View-Master? The little red binocular-looking things that would make a slightly 3d picture of Ernie and Bert back when I was 4 years old? They're making a movie based on a toy that I'm pretty sure no one under the age of 19 even remembers exists.
I don't even know what else to say. I just. Ugh. I'm tired of this. Go ahead, make movies based on Legos, and Battleship (they're making a movie about Battleship! This is really happening, people! BATTLESHIP HAS NO FUCKING PLOT: IT IS LITERALLY JUST SAYING LETTER AND NUMBER COMBINATIONS AND RESPONDING HIT OR MISS!!!!) and whatever other shit they find in the toy aisle. At least Transformers and GI Joe had a rich history in comics that could be looked at for story ideas (and believe me, they mercilessly raped that gold mine; comic books are the fucking king of the Hollywood bandwagon jumping: every comic ever written has been optioned for a movie, and some mediocre comics are getting movies filmed before the comic has even ended!). Good luck constructing a vivid storyline about fucking Candyland.
Actually, a Candyland movie could be pretty sweet.
Look. I get that when certain things get "hot," there's a huge groundswell to jump on the bandwagon (ignore these mixed metaphors!) and make as much money as you can until the well dries up completely. Look at zombies. There's a shitload of zombie things going on, and I haven't reaaaally cared about zombies for years. Sure, 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead are two of my favorite movies, but they both came out 5+ years ago. If it was coming out 4 years ago, maybe I would have any reason to care about this Zombieland movie that's coming out soon (and which a lot of internet geeks are creaming their jeans over), but I just can't muster it. I have plenty to nerdgasm over between Wolverine 2: This Time It Might Not Be Terrible and Green Lantern: This Is a Total Crapshoot and Might Be A Colossal Turd-Bomb being in pre-production.
Then there's vampires, a hot trend that refuses to die even more than zombies. Seriously, look no further than Twilight and you see how apeshit people go over for prissy brooding vampires. (Or look at True Blood, this new CW Twilight knock-off show, the fact that they want to have a Buffy reboot movie for some reason, and about 8 million new vampires movies coming out in the next 2 years - the only one even remotely interesting is the extremely poorly titled Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, and I only care about that because I love John C. Reilly and his chewing of the scenery in the trailer looks pretty good [side note: while I love JCR for Step Brothers, Boogie Nights, and his Brule's Rules segments on Tim & Eric {youtube it} I may never be able to forgive him for the cinematic abortion known as "The Promotion." One of the absolute worst movies I've ever seen.].
Anyway, these are just two recent examples of things that were hits and then immediately had a deluge of knock-offs and also-ran's follow in their wake. I didn't even mention the literally dozens of "boy discovers secret magical world" that came out after Harry Potter or the weird time in the late 90s when disaster movies were really popular, thus causing two nearly identical movies about volcanoes to be released in a short span of time (Dante's Peak and Volcano, and I'll never remember which one is which).
So, people are bandwagon jumpers. This isn't news. Well, I write this today to highlight the excruciating low point that we as a society have gotten to.
We all know that Transformers 2 was a massive hit. In addition to being one of the worst movies I've ever seen (yet, still, worlds better than The Promotion. I'm not kidding. It's really fucking terrible), Transformers 2: Revenge of the Blah Blah made roughly 78 borjillion dollars, and that doesn't include overseas and outer space revenues. Recently, GI Joe was also a pretty big hit and solidifies that we will be seeing GI Joe 2: Tomax and Xamot's Revenge! in the coming years.
Now the problem is, that somehow, in their infinite wisdom, Hollywood bigwigs saw this trend and said "Of course!! Movies based on toys are the new hot thing! Let's start turning out shit based on every toy we can buy the rights to!"
Hence this. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118007162.html?categoryid=13&cs=1&nid=2562
Listen, I don't want to be a pain in the ass and damnit man, I love me some Legos. But are you fucking serious? And they're making a movie based on the View-Master? The little red binocular-looking things that would make a slightly 3d picture of Ernie and Bert back when I was 4 years old? They're making a movie based on a toy that I'm pretty sure no one under the age of 19 even remembers exists.
I don't even know what else to say. I just. Ugh. I'm tired of this. Go ahead, make movies based on Legos, and Battleship (they're making a movie about Battleship! This is really happening, people! BATTLESHIP HAS NO FUCKING PLOT: IT IS LITERALLY JUST SAYING LETTER AND NUMBER COMBINATIONS AND RESPONDING HIT OR MISS!!!!) and whatever other shit they find in the toy aisle. At least Transformers and GI Joe had a rich history in comics that could be looked at for story ideas (and believe me, they mercilessly raped that gold mine; comic books are the fucking king of the Hollywood bandwagon jumping: every comic ever written has been optioned for a movie, and some mediocre comics are getting movies filmed before the comic has even ended!). Good luck constructing a vivid storyline about fucking Candyland.
Actually, a Candyland movie could be pretty sweet.
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