sweetney's blog

New VH1 Series "The Price of Beauty" Features Jessica Simpson Still Looking Unreasonably Attractive

2009-07-03T08:19:02-05:00

I just need to get my frustration about this out at this point I think, so please humor me whilst I vent a spell. You see, the entire frame of reference and basic thinking behind Jessica Simpson's upcoming reality show on beauty and body image REALLY rubs me the wrong way. As in, MAKES ME WANT TO GOUGE MY OWN EYEBALLS OUT WITH A SPORK. Yes, *that* kind of 'rubs me the wrong way.' Please allow me to explain (and/or rant semi-coherently) (Don't say I didn't warn ya!) (Wheee!).

The series, being produced by VH1, appears on the surface to be a solid concept for a show. Entitled The Price Of Beauty, the series follows Simpson -- best known for being, as luck would have it, exceptionally pretty -- to different parts of the world, where she'll explore native cultures' conceptions of beauty, their dietary fads, cosmetics use, etcetera. So it's sort of like In Style meets National Geographic. Or something. In any case, of the show Simpson herself has said (and one can't help but imagine this being uttered in her best Miss America on-air interview response voice): “I have always believed that beauty comes from within and confidence will always make a woman beautiful, but I know how much pressure some women put on themselves to look perfect." (PS: She believes the children are our future!) (PPS: WORLD PEACE!!) Well pardon my snark, but can I just say: Riiiiight.

Because you see, here's where my brain begins to itch. Am I really the only person who finds the positioning of Jessica Simpson as someone whose life experience could, in a substantive way, inform a show purported to be about exposing and interrogating the demands put upon women all over the world to mirror their respective culture's conception of "beauty", oh, just a little troubling? Perhaps even a smidge discomforting?

Okay, wait -- let me back up a minute.

Here, near as I can tell, is the nexus of Jessica Simpson's credibility and/or credentials as someone who can speak to the matters at hand:

This photo, and a few others taken of Simpson around the same time period (January, 2009), were plastered around the web by a number of gossip blogs early this year, positioned as evidence of some kind of mammoth, unseemly weight gain deserving of public shaming. Basically, put in the bluntest of terms, a few dumb internet dudes called her fat. Which, uhh, REALLY? I mean, I don't think I'm even vaguely going out on a limb in saying that not only is Jessica Simpson not 'fat' in this photo, but obviously solidly average to below average in weight. However brainless she might be, there's no denying she's freaking GORGEOUS -- even those hideous mom jeans and accompanying tacky gold belt can't mute her shimmering, golden-tressed beauty. Most women would freely donate a kidney to look something even vaguely like that. Heck, I might donate a kidney just to have HAIR that looked that good.

The truth is that, if anything, what those gossip blogs were demonstrating in attacking Simpson wasn't the demands our culture puts upon the women living in it to be beautiful, but rather the media's expectations of celebrities -- men and women alike -- whose primary talent and value is their ability to achieve and maintain an ideal of beauty that is for the most part unachievable, and one which no 'normal' people in our culture are actually held to. The ugly bottomline here is that it is Jessica's Simpson's job is to be insanely thin and absurdly pretty, because that is the value our culture and the entertainment industry has attributed to her, and she has most certainly played along with and to that. And so it follows that when she deviates even slightly from those expectations, the screams of "FAT!" resound, though she is anything but when seen through a lens other than "Hollywood Starlet." The pressure put upon Jessica Simpson to be skinny and pretty is clearly NOT the same pressure you and I experience as women within that same culture. I'm not saying that pressure isn't there -- it is, and we all know that because we've all experienced it to one degree or other. But our version of that pressure, as people whose actual livelihood is not dependent upon what size gown we can squeeze ourselves into before the Oscars, is of a wholly different caliber. After all, it isn't *OUR JOB* to wear Daisy Dukes (or BE Daisy Duke) and shoot a video like this one, that functions as the visual equivalent of a gentlemen's club lap dance:

Now don't get me wrong, I am in no way denying that there are cultural pressures on women in the United States to maintain themselves within a certain weight range, and to keep themselves coiffed, and good-smelling, and tweezed, and all of that. Those pressures are very real. But I have never in my life felt as though I was supposed to look like THAT. Nor have I ever felt that other people -- women or men -- expected me to. And sure, women who look like that do exist out in the real, non-Hollywood world, but they're obvious freakish exceptions to the rule. Out in Hollywood though? You'd better be a size negative 10, or you'll never work in that town again. And though I hate to say it, Jessica Simpson totally signed up for that, and is paid quite handsomely for it, whether you agree with her doing so in principle or not. And the truth is, she knows all of this. Want proof? After Simpson was lambasted on the gossip blogs for that photo -- ie, for what amounts to achieving something akin to a normal weight for an adult woman -- what do you think she did? Stand tall and proud and thumb her nose at her critics, retorting that "beauty comes from within and confidence will always make a woman beautiful," have a sammich, and buy some jeans with just a leetle bit more spandex in em'? Quite the contrary. She flew immediately into damage control mode, rapidly dropped a bunch of weight, and staged a public "comeback" just a few short weeks later, pointedly wearing her Daisy Dukes for the first time in years to show all those meanies that she's, like, totally not a cow and is still really pretty and stuff!

Yeah, she really showed them, huh? Way to make a stand for beauty from within there, Jess. BY COMPLETELY CAVING IN TO EXTERNAL PRESSURE TO LOSE WEIGHT. My hero! [slaps forehead]

Couldn't they have at least gotten, oh I don't know, Ricki Lake or somebody? A woman who, when positioned as someone who can speak to American women on the matter of body image and beauty wouldn't make my eyes roll so far back in my head that I can actually SEE my brain shrieking WTF - ARE THEY SERIOUS WITH THIS S%*T? But maybe that's just me. cough.

Is it just me? What do you make of all this? And will you watch?

. . . . .
Tracey, aka Sweetney, writes about Pop Culture & Entertainment at MamaPop, and concedes she is nowhere near as attractive as Ms. Simpson is, but takes comfort in her superior ability to differentiate between chicken and tuna.

How Should We Mourn Michael Jackson?

2009-06-29T10:46:19-05:00

Faced with the aggrandizing media spectacle that's ensued since Michael Jackson's death last week, I can't help but wonder if we aren't experiencing some kind of collective cultural amnesia. The sudden, overly reverential elevation of Jackson's body of work and life these past few days is an odd turn to say the least, and in that sense a fitting end to the highly unusual life of very peculiar -- and yes, uniquely talented -- man.

For many of us, what we felt upon hearing of Jackson's death and what we've felt in the days since are things much darker and more complex than the endless coverage of celebrity tributes and inconsolable fans would suggest. But I'd wager that if Jackson supporters and Jackson defamers can agree on anything, it's that time has not been kind to 'The King Of Pop'. Much like another King -- Elvis Presley -- before him, Jackson achieved an almost unfathomable level of fame early in life and then rapidly collapsed beneath the psychic weight of dwindling record sales and his own overindulged eccentricities, in the end retreating to his own iteration of Presley's Graceland, Neverland Ranch. Since that fall from superstardom in the early 1990s, any media attention directed at Jackson has arguably had more to do with his legal woes, prescription drug addictions, odd behavior, and ongoing physical metamorphosis (which the singer publicly attributed to treatments for Vitiligo and Lupus, though there's little doubt that Jackson engaged in extensive retooling of his facial structure by way of plastic surgery), than it had to do with his fading musical talent. And I don't deny that talent was there -- it was, clearly. I'm just not entirely sure how to go about reconciling my appreciation for the music of the Michael Jackson of the 70s and 80s with the pity and confounded revulsion I feel for the Michael Jackson of the 90s and 00s.

That segmenting of the man... I of course realize it's a convenience, an attempt to disassociate his art from his curious and at times downright disturbing life, marred as it was by bizarre publicity stunts, outlandish affectations, and, in particular, a troubling obsession with children and childish things, which taken together served to make accusations of pedophilia seem all the more credible. The questions, suspicions, and halo of guilt lingered around Jackson long after he settled out of court with the 13 year old boy who publicly accused him of molestation in 1993 (reportedly to the tune of $22 million dollars). It's understandably difficult for many people to believe an innocent man would pay that kind of money to someone who falsely accused them of anything, let alone something as reputation-shattering as pedophilia. And so some of us can't help but feel that tension pulling at us, making the unrelenting media frenzy that seems hellbent on ennobling Jackson retrospectively practically unbearable. It's almost as if the hive-mind of the media actively wants to convince us that the past 15-20 years of dissipation, questionable behavior, and creative irrelevance didn't happen, and that we should all just pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, wash our brains together, and drink the damn kool aid already. But comments like these from MamaPop's post announcing Jackson's death provided a much different point of view:

I know he was talented and all that other stuff but to me once you
sexually abuse someone that does overshadow the other stuff. I also
think that he probably had a sad life and I am trying to focus on that
and the music today. That said. It is hard to do that and I am
struggling.

I feel as though it is fine to be sad that a part of our childhood is dead. Still, I guarantee if one of our kids was hurt by this man, it would infuriate any one of us if the world mourned his death this way.

I'm not sure how I feel about this - he was a fabulous entertainer and he had a screwed up childhood that we can blame Daddy Jackson for - thanks Dad. But he was also accused of some heinous activities with young children and the issues surrounding the birth and the raising of his own children are questionable.

This is surprising. But, somehow, I can't seem to mourn the death of a multimillionaire pedophile.

Yeeeeah. And in all honesty I'm still trying to figure out just what I feel about all of this, what to make of all of it. But I will say that earlier today, as I was going through clips about Jackson in preparation for writing this piece, my daughter -- who had not the slightest idea of who Michael Jackson was -- asked what I was writing about. So in response I told her to come sit next to me on our couch, and I played this for her:

Michael Jackson - Billie Jean (Official Music Video) - Click here for funny video clips

And really, what I felt most while watching that with my daughter was overwhelming sadness. It was easily the first time I'd seen the video in 10 years, and watching it gave me a startling jolt of nostalgia mixed with the strange sense of freshness that something long lost but unexpectedly rediscovered bears. I wasn't prepared for how handsome he is, or was, rather. How indescribably magnetic. In a way, I'd forgotten about that Michael Jackson. And as I watched I couldn't help but feel for the young, talented man Jackson was -- the one frozen for all time in that video, unmarred by terrible accusations, drug addiction, and the generalized trainwreck of his later years -- and think to myself that his two-decade-long degeneration from that bright star into what he eventually became is, indeed, something worthy of our collective sadness.

. . . . .
Tracey, aka Sweetney, writes about Pop Culture & Entertainment at MamaPop, and, sadly, has nothing funny to say in this byline today.

In Defense Of Kate Gosselin (Well, Sort Of)

2009-06-18T23:48:30-05:00

Alright, that's it. I'm actually starting to feel bad for the Gosselins. *A little*.

And believe me, that's saying something. It was just a few short weeks ago that I reprimanded them for continuing on with their show in the face of what I shall gently and tactfully refer to as, ahem, marital dischord, and in the process publicly putting their children through the emotional ringer (among other notable ringers!). Believe me, I understand that there are all sorts of reasons the Gosselins should not be doing what they are doing relative to their TLC show. Those reasons may in fact be too numerous to list at this point, multiplying daily as they are (refer to the post linked above -- I do a fair job of hitting the highlights, I think). There's very little that I think could reasonably justify continuing on with their series as they have, and I have a difficult time understanding how, as parents, they get up every day and allow the obvious dysfunction and turmoil in their household to be documented and broadcast to millions. It's a legacy their children will doubtless spend the rest of their lives grappling with and living down. I get that. I do.

HOWEVER.

This? This here is just the sort of thing that would make me stop dead in my self-righteous tracks and question myself, though the intention of those who cobbled this infotainment clip together was clearly NOT to elicit sympathy. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Kate Gosselin: (alleged) Child Beater ( I SAID ALLEGED!!!!)

There are so many things wrong with that "piece of journalism" I don't even know where to begin.

Let me start by admitting for the record that I am anti-corporal punishment. Staunchly so. I was raised, as many people born in the 60s and 70s were, in a home that still deployed "spankings" involving the use of inanimate objects as a legitimate form of parental discipline (I of course do realize people still spank their kids, but it seems to me that prior to the 1980s the culture, generally speaking, had a much more permissive attitude about the matter of smacking one's kids around). During that era corporal punishment was, if not outright expected, certainly widely tolerated, viewed as one tool among the many available to parents for correction, punishment, and altering childrens' behavior. Raised in that environment -- with parents who I believe thought they were doing what they were supposed to, had to, what was expected of them at the time -- I know first-hand how damaging corporal punishment can be. To the parents, to the child, and to their relationship. That is my experience -- I don't claim it to be everyone's, but I claim it as my own, and because of that I vowed at a very early age that I would never, ever, under any circumstances, hit my own child if I had one. And I haven't. My daughter is six years old, and has lived those six years blissfully ignorant of what it's like to have the people you love and trust most in the world raise their hands to you and strike you -- knowledge I have, and will never be able to erase.

But oh god, has it been HARD.

And this is the truth, the truth that many parents will never allow themselves to utter aloud, even to close confidants. That we parents are human, and flawed, and can be pushed and pressed so hard and relentlessly by our adult lives -- and yes, the relentless needs and wants and psychotic tantrums of our very beloved children -- that we may find ourselves tempted to do, or even doing, something akin to what those photographs of Kate Gosselin depict. Which, and please correct me if I'm wrong here, appears to NOT be beating her daughter vigorously with a belt, but rather giving her a swat on the behind in a frazzled, breaking-point moment. I'M NOT SAYING THAT IT'S RIGHT. But what I am saying is that I can understand it, that I empathize. And I can empathize with her and understand it because in spite of my deeply embedded and strongly held beliefs about the issue of corporal punishment, I confess that I have had to very nearly physically restrain myself at times in the past to keep myself from doing almost precisely what Kate Gosselin is seen doing on this week's cover of In Touch Weekly. And, thank god, if ever I had that low moment it wouldn't be splashed in glossy technicolor on the cover of freaking In Touch Weekly. Man alive, can you even imagine having to live with that? I can't. I'm glad I can't.

And so despite not thinking much of Kate Gosselin, and being genuinely disturbed by what can only be described as her shameless familial exhibitionism, AND having strong negative regard for corporal punishment generally, I find myself, inexplicably, feeling for the woman in this instance. Perhaps it's a there but by the grace of God go I sort of thing, a recognition of our sameness, of the difficulties of childrearing that we all share, manifesting in a sense of kinship with any parent glimpsed in that moment when, despite the best intentions and great parental love, they -- as we all must at one time or other -- fall apart, crumble, go to pieces. Because God knows I've crumbled. Hell, I've been that scary woman you've seen rushing out of Target dragging a bloody-murder-screaming two-year-old by the arm behind her with an expression of barely contained rage on her face. I've been the woman you've heard snap discomfortingly at her child in a public place and thought to yourself, "Gee, I would've handled that differently." And you know what? I would have handled it differently too, had I not been sleep deprived and exhausted and had my patience worn thin by my daughter's skull-crushing three-tantrums-per-hour, every hour, schedule. I love my daughter, and I would never hurt her. Just like all of you love your children and would never want to hurt them. But we're lying to ourselves and each other if we deny we haven't at one time or other been, or at least come dangerously close to being, the parent scrutinized and judged in those photos.

Of course what's also true here is that the Gosselins signed up for this. They signed up to have their lives documented and detailed and made absurdly public, and of course that documenting should be expected to include their rock-bottom lowest moments, greatest mistakes, and biggest regrets. But perhaps this event doesn't fall into that category for Kate Gosselin anyway. Of the incident, she said: “I love my children and when they misbehave, I discipline them as I deem appropriate for the situation.” And that may indeed be how she feels, or it may be public justification for an out-of-control moment. In either case, I find that I'm increasingly unsettled by the media's microscopic scrutinizing of the Gosselins' parenting, invited or not. Under the constant pressure of a gigantic spotlight and the glassy, dead-eye gaze of a television camera, I can't help but wonder how well the parenting that any of us do would fare.

. . . . .
Tracey, aka Sweetney, writes about Pop Culture & Entertainment at MamaPop, and unlike just about everyone else on planet earth, has absolutely no desire to be on TV. [shudder]

The Brouhaha Du Jour: David Letterman Under Fire For Joke Involving Sarah Palin's Daughter

2009-06-11T14:25:58-05:00

I'm going to start this post with the following preamble: disagreement does not have to be agitating or wholly divisive, and I hope that at the end of this we're all still friends, still speaking, and that you'll still hug me at BlogHer in a few weeks. Because I'm going to venture a guess that I'm in the minority with regard to my opinion on what David Letterman said Tuesday night, and whether or not what he said was acceptable.

Basically, I think people are making a ridiculous, hyper-inflated mountain out of a molehill. And in thinking that, I kind of have to side with Letterman. [winces]

But before we get into hashing this out, let's have a look at the offending video, shall we? (From the monologue of Tuesday's "The Late Show"):

[rolls eyes] Really, America? Don't we have better things to be all up in arms about? SIGH.

To begin, I'm a mother, and I have a daughter. So do appreciate and understand that I am indeed looking through the eyes of someone for whom this joke has a special kind of significance and relevance. Which I suppose some people would presume to mean I should be especially offended by this. But I'm not. In the slightest. I mean, not even a single hair attached to the flesh wrapped around my skullcase is offended. I AM JUST THAT NOT OFFENDED.

And yes, I am a feminist, if that matters. But I am also a person in possession of what I hope is a good sense of humor, who values the art of comedy and satire to a degree that surpasses my desire for its authors to remain within rigid boundaries of Political Correctness. To my mind, the greatest, most insightful, funniest, and innovative comedians to ever walk the face of this planet have been ones who actively, consciously pressed (and sometimes outright pounded) against socially proscribed norms and boundaries of taste, decency, and propriety. Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Louis CK, David Cross, Andy Kaufman, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, Lewis Black, and of course Lenny Bruce (who, lest we forget, was *actually arrested* for obscenity) -- ALL of them have said things more shocking, risque, discomforting... BECAUSE THAT'S PART OF THEIR JOB DESCRIPTION (sorry about the all caps there, I'm just a little bit frustrated over here. DEEP BREATHS.). Transgression and provocation are now and have always been part of what raises comedy to art, makes it something more than merely amusing, more than just laugh-pandering.

During an NPR interview in 2000, George Carlin said: "I like to find out where the line might be drawn and then deliberately cross it. There are an awful lot of taboos. ... I just enjoy squashing them and stepping on them and peeling them apart and trying to expose them to people." And in my opinion the best comedy, the best comedians, absolutely do just that. Letterman included.

Whether you think Letterman was pushing boundaries here with good reason or not, it remains that Bristol Palin -- whom the joke is clearly referencing, since she is the Palin daughter whose pregnancy was a hot topic during the recent election -- is 18 years old, not a minor, not a child. And if we can make fun of other celebrities for their behavior, including speculation about sexual behavior and promiscuity, why should Bristol Palin be exempt? She IS a celebrity now, after all. I'm sorry that Sarah Palin wishes it were otherwise, but once you drag your children up in front of cameras for months on end, it's kind of part of the deal and what you signed up for.

It should also be noted that Letterman has a long-standing, long-running comedic beef against Gov Palin, making her the butt of his jokes on a very regular basis (to the degree that the sheer repetitiveness of Letterman making Palin a target on the show has itself become funny) -- it's a running gag on "The Late Show." Oh and did I mention Gov Palin herself recently called Letterman "pathetic" during a radio interview? Yeah. cough. So viewed within that bigger context, I'm sorry, the joke IS funny. Maybe this makes me a bad feminist. But honestly, I'd rather be a bad feminist with an expansive sense of humor than good one without.

For the record, here's Letterman's response to this brouhaha, from last night's "The Late Show":

So having just offered myself up as sacrificial lamb for the slaughter here, let me ask: What do YOU think? Agree with me? Disagree? And why? (NOTE: Let's keep comments chill and not devolve into personal attacks or name calling, shall we? Perhaps I'm being overly cautious in saying that, but since this matter is apparently highly charged and will likely tap people with strong feelings of both political persuasions, I felt it might be good to just throw that out there. kthxbai!)

. . . . .
Tracey, aka Sweetney, writes about Pop Culture & Entertainment at MamaPop, and believes that, as Steve Martin said, comedy is not pretty.

It's Gettin' Hot In Herre: Is Summer Jam Timez Nao?

2009-05-28T21:31:42-05:00

Ladies, gentlemen, web citizens, it is time we discussed a matter of utmost urgency and national importance. We can wait no longer and must act now, take the symbolic bull by its horns and decisively strike while the metaphorical iron is theoretically hot to select this year's Canción Del Verano... Which I'm pretty sure roughly translates to Summer Jam (at least according to Google Translate it does).

Oh Summer Jam 2009, wherefore art thou? The irresistible, rump-shake inducing, head-bob-generating tune that will effectively decimate all the borders and divisions between us -- racial, ethnic, class, and gender among them -- extinguishing difference in the undeniable, infectious, sing-along-inducing harmony that is The Summer Jam's consummate earwormocity. Hipsters will lie down with trust fund babies, your Mom will embrace death metal-loving fans of body modification... It will bring balance to the force and remind each of us that, indeed, there are some tunes so packed with pure win that both you and the person whose taste you most loathe will download the MP3 from iTunes and play it on repeat until all four of your eardrums bleed. Oh, you know the songs I'm talking about I'm sure. But allow me to take a moment and refresh your memory:

Destiny's Child, Bootylicious

Outcast, Hey Ya!

Nelly, Hot in Herre

Kelly Clarkson, Since U Been Gone

The Killers, Mr. Brightside

Justin Timberlake, SexyBack

Yes, we could go on and on. And I'm sure we'd all enjoy that. But I really need to sleep at some point tonight. I think you feel me.

These are those rare songs that almost every person you knew at the time they were released -- fans of hip-hop, alt-rock, pop and metal alike -- danced to and sung along with all summer long, until finally The Jam was wrung bone-dry.

*Cue the backlash.*

Because with rare exception The Summer Jam becomes so ubiquitous, aggressively infiltrating as it does all public and private spheres with claustrophobia-inducing relentlessness, that there is ultimately no response possible but repulsion, denial, and rejection. So bring on the SNL skits and Weird Al Yankovic parodies!

Weird Al Yankovic, White & Nerdy

The life cycle of The Summer Jam is brief but brilliant to be sure -- The Jam blazes brightly and dies quickly, like a shooting star glimpsed in darkest night, or an M-80 shot into a bowl of potato salad at a 4th of July cookout. Its beauty is not something that can be captured or preserved... Well, except on those NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL MUSIC! compilations. But you know what I mean.

As for this summer? Well there's that Black Eyed Peas song of course. And I've been told there are a few songs by Lady GaGa in the running for the title, and at least one Jamie Foxx tune that has a shot at is (please don't let it be the one with the vocoder, oh please please please). But overall, it seems to me that the field is still pretty wide open, though I'm still holding out hope that Animal Collective's My Girls will come through.

What do you think might be this year's Summer Jam? And of Summer Jams past, which still remain favorites?

. . . . .
Tracey, aka Sweetney, writes about Pop Culture & Entertainment at MamaPop, and is crossing her fingers that Justin Timberlake comes out with a new single.

Five Films To Watch This Memorial Day Weekend

2009-05-22T08:52:53-05:00

In honor of this Memorial Day I'm taking a look at a few of my favorite war movies -- though to be perfectly frank with you at the outset, I've really never been a big fan of the War & Military genre of film, generally speaking. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love nothing more than watching stuff blow up... provided it's a Romulan spacecraft or a Transformer or some other creature similarly othered into something inhuman. I like to keep my enjoyment of stuff blowing up far, far away from this tender and easily triggered little thing I have permanently installed in my skullcase called human empathy, which I find nearly impossible to turn off. And let's face it: however grand the pyrotechnics, recognizing one's own humanity in something blowing up is, well, kind of a killjoy. How can I ENJOY the explosions and blossoming fireballs if I have to FEEL things? BAH! Stupid feelings!

I should also add that I am also, as you shall see momentarily, clearly a child of the Vietnam era, born five years before the U.S. officially ended operations with the Fall of Saigon in 1975. Thus, my taste runs toward the hard and bloody realism common to war films since -- movies that recognize, and document, the incalculable human costs of modern warfare and why it must always be something only resorted to at the last, after all other possible diplomatic options have been exhausted.

War may indeed be hell, but the following five films make of the grisly and terrifying experience of war something sublime, capturing as they do great and terrible human truths played out in the extremity of a military theater. [WARNING: The videos below contain a fair amount of violence and bloodshed. Proceed with caution.]

Apocalypse Now (1979) Though parts of this film in retrospect appear bloated as Brando's Kurtz, thirty years later Apocalypse Now still channels, in a way that seems timeless, the cold mechanics of war and how its unrelenting brutality has the capacity to degrade those who operate within it both morally and psychologically. The epic helicopter attack scene below outlines the growing disconnect between these men and the atrocities they're enacting as they, from a sterile distance, bombard a village of Vietnamese men, women, and children to the sweeping soundtrack of Ride Of The Valkyries, a contrivance intended to lend a heroic flourish to their barbarism. The cinematography here is stunning -- its odd to not be able to help but find beauty in a scene so packed with horror (that tension being precisely the point, I imagine).

Platoon (1986) Noted egotist Oliver Stone somehow managed to keep himself in check just long enough to produce a film that feels like a 120 minute meditation on the 'heart of darkness' Coppola really only scraped the surface of in the late 70s. In Platoon, Stone digs into the guts -- literally and figuratively -- of modern soldiering, conjuring a visceral, ground-level vision of the internal and interpersonal conflicts and soul-rending moral ambiguities of Vietnam's guerilla warfare. In the film combat becomes suffocatingly immediate, and its chronicle of both mental and physical human anguish is steeped in ever-escalating emotional intensity. In the scene below -- perhaps the film's most iconic -- music is used to an end different from its deployment in Apocalypse Now, brought to the fore not to gloss savagery but to throw it into the starkest possible relief (get out your hankies, folks).

Full Metal Jacket (1987) Spare and beautiful in its ugliness, Stanley Kubrick's vision here owes much to Stone's Platoon, which he is said to have greatly admired. Raw, but emotionally minimalist compared to its predecessor, Full Metal Jacket to my mind resonates most when it lingers, as it does in the scene below, on the tangible nightmarescape of war's reality. Here the tension between the scene's imagery of physical devastation (summoning a distinct Hell-On-Earth vibe), the soldiers' song, and its accompanying narration obliquely map the numbing, dehumanizing impact that existing in such a world has on the human psyche. It is, simply put, classic Kubrick, his great and terrible genius manifest.

Richard III (1995) Yes, yes, it's Shakespeare. But Shakespeare brought into the modern era of 1930s Fascist England, with the almost impossibly brilliant Sir Ian McKellen in the title role. A killer with his eyes on ascending the throne, McKellen's Duke of Glouchester is the embodiment of moral corruption and unbridled ambition, a man to whom the lives of others are irrelevant and disposable if not instrumentally useful to him. As a leader he is alternately indifferent and abusive, exemplifying in deed and word that power does not necessarily confer nobility or wisdom, that might and right are often far separated, and that it is ill-advised to blindly follow any ruler whose version of statesmanship requires firearms. After all, if war is hell, it's fair to suspect that the one who directs its armies may in fact be the devil. In this culminating scene, McKellen's King Richard shows his horns, bears his teeth, and is electrifyingly demonic.

Saving Private Ryan (1998) I haven't always been a big fan of Spielberg's "serious" films, being of the opinion that the director's best work and where his genius lies is in films of the action/adventure genre both whimsical and fantastic -- E.T., Close Encounters, Raiders Of The Lost Ark and the like. I've gone so far as to openly admit my disdain for Schindler's List, which despite a great story floundered in schmaltz and was stylistically undone by its art school pretensions. All of that said, in Saving Private Ryan Spielberg's innovative and daring choices in cinematography and sound design spectacularly elevate the film and make it something unique to the genre. Visually, the opening scene of the film expresses more through its imagery alone than any document about what happened that day on Omaha Beach could accomplish in thousands of words. Spielberg harnesses the visceral power of the medium and forces viewers into the frame, so that our bodies become conductors of the expectation, panic, and raw terror those men must have felt. It's an extraordinary, if harrowing and emotionally exhausting, filmic achievement.

What about you, dear reader? What do you consider to be the best films of the genre?

. . . . .
Tracey, aka Sweetney, writes about Pop Culture & Entertainment at MamaPop, and feels that in the wake of all she's had to visually absorb in doing research for this post it might be time for a nice romantic comedy or something.

On Hating MTV's "The Hills" (and loving it!)

2009-05-14T23:50:07-05:00

I absolutely can't stand MTV's series "The Hills." So why can't I stop watching it?

It's a question for the ages, my friends.

And I'm not alone. Shortly after notifying the BlogHer editor's list of my intention to write this very piece about the show, I had the following exchange with one of my fellow editors:

Her: Everytime I watch it I literally say aloud, Why do I watch this crap?
Me: EXACTLY! And: I hate these people. I'd pay good money to punch each of them in the face. This is why it MUST be written about.
Her: I'm too smart for this, this is exactly what's wrong with America, I should boycott it.
And then, sometimes I PAY for it on iTunes. OMG.
Me: It's like televisual crack. Noxious, low-grade, self-abusive and HORRIBLY ADDICTIVE.

So what's up with that, I ask you? I for one haven't the foggiest, I just know that it must be stopped.

For those of you fortunate enough to not be familiar with MTV's "reality" (and yes, those are air quotes) series "The Hills," a brief overview, courtesy of the always snarkarifically concise Television Without Pity:

If you've been living under a rock, The Hills is an original MTV "reality show" that documents the life of Lauren Conrad, former star of Laguna Beach.
Lauren is a 22-year-old facing the daily struggles of love, life and
friendship. With cameras documenting her every move, a full course load
as a fashion student and an internship at Teen Vogue, Lauren Conrad's
life is chaotic. Add in the drama of friendship and boys and you are
immersed in MTV's The Hills. Since Season 1, Heidi -- Lauren's
ex-BFF, has had a nose job, a boob job and has dyed her hair platinum
blonde -- and can now be mistaken as one of Hugh Hefner's Girls Next
Door (Isn't Spencer a lucky boyfriend?) Heidi and Spencer have moved in
together, gotten engaged, have broken off their engagement and now live
in separate apartments… but don't be fooled, they are still in love and
have a great relationship (at least if you believe the tabloids)… and
Lauren still hates them. Audrina, Lauren's new BFF has moved in with
her and is still on-and-off again with the infamous motorcycle riding,
burping in public, non-showering Justin Bobby… who Lauren still hates.
Lauren, Audrina, and Lo (former High School BFF) bought their first
house together (well Lauren and Lo did… Audrina lives alone in the back
house… for now) and like it's scripted, someone has to hate someone
else… this time it's Audrina who hates Lo.

Does reading that synopsis kind of make you want to punch a wall and yet, strangely enough, feel compelled to know more? Because that's EXACTLY what this show does to you. I mean, there's really no way to explain using things like reason or logic why one would spend thirty precious minutes each week absorbing in detail the non-events that comprise the unremarkable life of an early twenty-something and the troglodytes that make up her social circle. To the casual observer on the outside looking in -- like Sean Crespo of the "No Prior Knowledge" vlog series -- viewers of "The Hills" resemble nothing less than self-loathing masochists:

And he may have something there. I mean, what the hell is wrong with us anyway?

I've been thinking about it, and I have two theories, though neither necessarily excludes the other, and elements of both may be simultaneously operating at any given time, depending on how much you psychically over-invest in the people who live inside the glowing box of pictures in your living room (not that I would know anything about that, cough):

THEORY 1. Much like "Rock of Love," there is an element of schadenfreude operating in our enjoyment of "The Hills." Simply put, we get a visceral kick out of watching other people make complete and total asses out of themselves. We can't help it, we're only human, and there's something undeniably cathartic about watching morons do and say moronic things so that we may, from a safe and comfortable distance, point and laugh at them.

THEORY 2. Despite the validity of THEORY 1, the show's characters remind those of us who AREN'T 22 years old of an earlier time in our own lives when we naively believed ourselves to be the life-giving solar center of our own private self-made galaxy, a star around which friends and family orbited like minor planets, and the universe seemed open and expansive and full of possibility. Who we were and what we would be down the road weren't things yet wholly determined, and so who knows -- maybe we'd end up embroiled in the glamour of the fashion world, or at a major record label working with up-and-coming bands -- the future was an open, unwritten book.

Yeah, I'm kinda leaning more toward THEORY 1 myself to be perfectly honest.

But really, as jaded as I am, it's hard to deny that there IS something notably appealing about Lauren Conrad, the show's protagonist. Back in late April Conrad was a guest on CBS's "The Late Show," and even the typically sneering and curmudgeonly Letterman seemed to soften and become almost paternal toward her during their interview:

Love or loathe her, it seems to me that Conrad is an almost archetypal representation of her age group: a perfect blend of the charming winsomeness and idiotic hubris of early adulthood, someone who -- unlike her loathesome famewhore cast mates Heidi and Spencer (aka "Speidi" *shudder*) -- isn't wholly devoid of humanity, empathy, a moral center, or a working cerebral cortex. She's just, well, a kid. Sometimes an annoying kid, sometimes a dumb kid who could probably use a good swift kick in the behind, sometimes a kid you'd like to grab and shake and scream "STOP HANGING OUT WITH THOSE AWFUL, REPULSIVE HUMAN BEINGS AND GET A LIFE ALREADY" at, but still, really just a kid. And watching the show it's easy to see in her foibles and gaffes earlier versions of ourselves, versions dazzled by artifice, seeking approval, making horrible choices... but that's kind of what the late teens and early 20s are all about, right? Trial, error, growing pains, and an appalling lack of appreciation for peak dermal elasticity. And though the show could indeed be used as Exhibit A in an argument regarding why youth (and elasticity) is wasted on the young, perhaps the real appeal of "The Hills" is that it serves to remind us each week, in glorious technicolor, of all the reasons we have to be grateful the trial by fire of early adulthood is behind us.

Agree? Disagree? Why do *you* watch "The Hills"? Be not ashamed of loving bad reality tv, friends -- hollaback in comments!

. . . . .
Tracey, aka Sweetney, writes about Pop Culture & Entertainment at MamaPop, and feels certain the best is still unwritten, yeah.

Lost In Lost's Funhouse

2009-05-07T22:10:59-05:00

I'll begin with a confession: I really have no clue what I'm talking about here.

And by that I mean I have as much of a clue as any other fan of the show Lost does about what the smoke monster is. About the true purpose and dark inner-workings of the Dharma Initiative. About how exactly it is that John Locke is, by all appearances, risen from the dead newly imbued with secret knowledge and a knowing (and creepy! Let's not forget creepy!) Cheshire Cat-like grin. Really, about even the fundamental reality -- or realities rather, as that seems most fitting -- upon which the show is based, and through which the substance of its narrative is woven.

But despite all this uncertainty, opacity, and inscrutability, I have my theories. Indeed, most of us do -- these are the threads by which our delight as fans of the show hangs. Because really, to love Lost is to enjoy lingering in that pause between the question and the answer, in the space between conflict and its resolution. We are connoisseurs of ambiguity, deriving more from possibility -- from what could or might be -- than we ever could from the reassuring solidity of what is.

And so with this season's finale rapidly approaching and the collective excitement of Lost fans everywhere mounting, I thought that exploring the great big labyrinth of this show here alone would not only be too daunting, but ultimately less enjoyable than doing so with another fan. So I enlisted my good friend Jason Avant, MamaPop's resident Lost recapper, to stroll with me through some of the thrilling twists and turns in this funhouse mirrored maze of a show.

. . . . . . . . . .

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Some people can't take Lost at all -- the puzzle of it leaves them cold, it's too frustrating. I've had lots of people tell me they've had to quit the show because it was impossible for them to enjoy being lost in it

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: To enjoy being lost in Lost

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: And then of course for others that's a huge part of the draw

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: I think it's a huge part of the draw for me

Jason Avant: Well, I think what's great about it and why it has gained such broad appeal is that you can enjoy it on several levels. For the geeks, there's layers upon layers that can be peeled away and dissected; we geeks love our shows to have Mythology (exhibit A: The X Files), and Lost has that to spare. For the casual viewer, the show tells a good story with interesting characters, and one can appreciate that and never have to do more with the show than scratch the surface, so to speak.

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Really? You think so?

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: See I think it would be almost impossible to enjoy it superficially -- it's such a massively wound up and tangled mess of histories and interrelationships and all of those things have meaning and threads that wind their way from one to the next -- I think you'd have to be someone with a serious psychological break to enjoy it on a surface level

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Because it would mean *actively choosing* to ignore so much

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: There's no way to deny its depth, yanno?

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Which is kind of why people can't jump in at season two or something, right? Because there's all of this history and backstory and these relationships that things build on...

Jason Avant: The ratings don't lie. This is a show with time travel and smoke monsters and mysterious giant four-toed statues, and yet it's got a big, diverse audience - people who normally would not tune in to YES I WILL SAY IT A SCI-FI SHOW BECAUSE IT IS DAMMIT IT IS THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE AMERICA!

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: DORK

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Yeah and WTF, four-toed statue?

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: EXPLAIN THAT!

Jason Avant: It's Homer Simpson.

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Dork squared

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: What's your theory, really though? Or partial theory? WHAT IN GOD'S NAME IS GOING ON, JASON?

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Do you have a theory?

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Am I calling you out on your lack of theory? heh

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: God, remember back in the olden days when life was simple and easy, and it was all "they're in purgatory!" or better yet "they're dead!" HA! SIMPLETONS!

Jason Avant: Well, here's the thing: I think that the Grand Unified Theory is actually going to be a lot less complex than people think. I've had to revise my Theory a couple of times: I never thought it was the whole Heaven/Hell thing, but I had a notion that the Island was sort of like Stephen King's Dark Tower, a gateway to alternate universes.

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Alternate UNIVERSES or alternate REALITIES?

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: There's a difference

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Like, time is one aspect of reality, right?

Jason Avant: Realities, sorry. No aliens.

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Dude, no aliens? DISAPPOINTED.

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: But what about all the science-y stuff about not being able to change things in the past? I mean, there does seem to be a single narrative "reality" happening right?

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: We don't go back and see Jack as a lounge singer. Or Kate as a trailer park Mom or whatever

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: There IS one layer at which things remain constant. A thread that no variable can break

Jason Avant: Yeah. Like the place makes it possible for you to experience what Gwyneth Paltrow did in "Sliding Doors"; a whole alternate reality where people are the same, but the events of their lives are different. And in those other realities Gwyneth Paltrow does not exist. I want to go to there.

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Hence "The Constant"

Clip from the Lost episode, "The Constant"

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: But doesn't Gwenyth Paltrow HAVE TO always exist? (Unfortunate, I know)

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: It's sort of like there's a finite amount of "stuff" in the world -- stuff that includes people, places, structures, physical artifacts -- and these things are immutable. Their existence is. But the envelope of space-time and the events that happen in that envelope can shift, change, develop in a wholly different manner

Jason Avant: I still think that there's more to the time travel piece than just the ability to go back in time. Because I don't buy Daniel's concept that to the Losties stuck in '77, the past is their present. If that were true, that would axiomatically prevent what we've already seen - Miles seeing baby Miles, Locke watching himself get fixed up by Richard, and Daniel being dead and a fetus at the same time.

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Yeah that was markedly weird -- last night's Locke observing Locke bit

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: So the Losties back in 1977 are creating a new narrative -- the thread they were on that brought them to the island snapped, picked up in a different part of space-time

Jason Avant: Like I said, I don't think it will be all that complicated. And I'm not convinced that the writers will even full explain the Island's mysterious properties. After all, we found out last night that really, no one knows what the place is REALLY all about - certainly not Ben. The fact that none of The Others have seen or talked to Jacob is pretty huge. In fact, the only guy who seems to have a clue is Richard. And I'm betting that he knows one hell of a lot more than he's letting on.

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: So you think they will sort of leave some of it as 'magic'? Fantastic happenings that have no basis in reality and aren't understood or explained...

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: (I'd actually kind of like that)

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: (I mean, isn't part of this, the beauty of it, the inexplicable? If they break it all down for us -- show us The Man Behind The Curtain -- doesn't that kind of ruin it?)

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: I don't know that I want to know everything. I like the idea that some things are just unknowable

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Jacob = Godot

Jason Avant: Not magic - I just don't think it'll get the Brian Greene treatment. What I see unfolding is this: a power struggle between Widmore, seeking to use The Island for his own diabolical purposes, and...

Jason Avant: ...the people who've been redeemed in one way or another by it.

Jason Avant: And who will eventually become its new guardians.

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Locke? *Creepy Locke*, that is

Jason Avant: The Oceanic survivors.

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: So The Others were its guardians before. And Ben was what Locke is becoming

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Except... Locke's relationship to The Island, whatever THAT is, is different

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Deeper? Spiritual almost? (Not to go THERE, but it's hard to not go THERE on this show)

Clip from the Lost episode, "Follow The Leader"

Jason Avant: Not spiritual. Scientific. Locke's crazy. My theory is that The Island is NOT some sort of sentient power. It's just there. It's Power, but it's a tool, waiting to be picked up and used.

Jason Avant: I think Ben was on to something regarding Richard.He's been there the longest. And he's - until proven otherwise - immortal. So why is that?

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Oh no doubt, Richard is going to sneak up on all of us and bite us on the butt

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: He's oddly unassuming for someone WHO DOESN'T FREAKIN' AGE AT ALL

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: OMG IS RICHARD JACOB?

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: And see, I disagree, I think there is some THERE there with the island. There is some consciousness behind it

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Even if that turns out being, like The Wizard Of Oz, a man hidden backstage pulling levers to make visible things happen

Jason Avant: We'll see. I think Richard's the man behind the curtain.

Jason Avant: Because what we've seen is that with these two opposing forces - DHARMA and The Others - there's no Good Guy. They're both trying to possess the island.

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Right and both think *they're* the good guys

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Like those men in the van who kidnapped Ghostbuster dude: "you're on the wrong side"

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Good/evil, meh -- too simplistic. Especially for this show :)

Jason Avant: Neither worthy. And that's what I think Richard's about - he (and I don't think he's working alone) is looking for people who are worthy of being the island's caretakers.

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Yeah I see that. Richard may just be a manifestation of whatever the Island is...

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: As Jacob is?

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Wheeee!

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: So you think Richard's someone who looks for people worthy of being the island's caretakers?

Jason Avant: Yep.

Jason Avant: Kind of in a Willy Wonka style: Richard observes how these people deal with the Island's power - at some point, the "leaders" (Widmore, Ben) become corrupted.

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: So they need to be replaced.

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Ok, slightly different from my theory. I think Richard is a manifestation of whatever the island is, as Jacob is, and that it IS sentient

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: And I don't think Locke is crazy. I think Locke has a wee touch of the "Pet Semetary" about him. Ben: "You don't come back from death"

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: MAYBE LOCKE IS NOW A MANIFESTATION OF THE ISLAND ("The Island" -- clearly it's NOT an island whatever IT is)

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Willy Wonka & The Wizard Of Oz. Those are the comparisons we've both made. Interesting, huh?

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: So how do you think this is all going to end? What do you see as the end point for this show?

Jason Avant: Well, first I think that of course Jack and the '77 crew are going to fail in their attempt to stop the future from happening. I'm guessing that what will happen is that they'll be zapped back to the present, and the last season will revolve around them facing off with Widmore; I think we'll find out fairly quickly what The Island's secrets are, all of them, and the Losties will find that they're the only ones capable of stopping Widmore from taking over The Island, and using it to hold the world ransom for ONE BILLION DOLLARS.

Jason Avant: I see this happening simply because it's a logical conclusion to the redemption arc that all of the main characters have been going through. At some point, each of them will realize that however horrible the experience has been, it's changed them all for the better.

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: But why does that necessarily end with them as *caretakers*? Couldn't the island's MO just be the redemption, the reconciling of things that need to be reconciled?

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Like the island is The Scales Of Justice -- It takes the measure of you, generates scenarios by which you have the opportunity to redeem yourself, and those that do get spit out mended

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Because, think about it, all the characters came to the island broken

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: (Well as most people are, but the narrative made a point of setting in bold and underscoring that brokenness -- physical, mental, emotional, psychological....)

Jason Avant: And clearly we've seen that Ben and Widmore and Eloise have all gone down a dark path. And Locke's going that way as well - which is why I think we got that reaction from Richard. And I know, good/evil is oversimplistic, but remember that scene in season 1 or 2, with Locke and the black eye/white eye?

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Yeah, but that doesn't have to translate into GOOD/EVIL; it's a dichotomy, yes, but that could be BROKEN/HEALED, FALLEN/REDEEMED, etc.

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: You know what I hope DOESN'T happen? I seriously hope that all the secrets AREN'T revealed -- the secrets of the island or anything else for that matter

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: And I know that would piss some people off, but I can't stand neat, tidy little packages

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: That more than anything else would lower, reduce this show in my eyes in the end

Jason Avant: I hope that we don't get The Island as some sort of deus ex machina; that all of the weird apparitions and even Smokey are results of people tinkering with this supernatural force. I like the idea of the Island just being this power, not some omniscient intelligence pulling all of the strings. And I think it fits in nicely with the idea of destiny that the show plays with; that the choices that Jack, Kate, Sawyer, etc. make are what will matter, not some invisible all-powerful force.

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: Waaaaah now my head hurts.

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: How about this: And they lived happily ever after, THE END

Jason Avant: And then they found five dollars.

Tracey Gaughran-Perez: GAH. Fin

*MY FELLOW LOST FANS! What's your take on all of this? Agree, disagree, have your own elaborate, brain-breaking theories? Tell us in comments!*

. . . . .
Tracey, aka Sweetney, writes about Pop Culture & Entertainment at MamaPop, and her battle cry is LOMGST!1!!!

Our Special Guest Star Jason writes about Pop Culture & Entertainment at MamaPop, and is still mourning Frogurt

An Open Letter To Fox Broadcasting Regarding Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse"

2009-05-01T00:28:27-05:00

Hey there Fox,

cough.

So listen... You and me? We kinda need to talk.

Fox, I know we've have had our problems in the past. And I know that in anger and frustration, I've said some things online that may have hurt and offended you. Or rather, I've intentionally said some things with the expressed purpose and aim of hurting and offending you. Because seriously, dude, setting aside the whole stealing-my-copyright-protected-content-and-broadcasting-it-on-national-tv thing (good times, good times), and the whole mangling the greatness of "Kitchen Confidential" thing (quoth USA Today: "...odds are that the folks in this Kitchen are about to find out why so many restaurants — and sitcoms — close in the first year." -- I SO CALLED IT! [pumps fist]), there were also the unspeakable crimes you committed against my beloved "Kitchen Nightmares" (what do you people have against kitchens, anyway?), and it's probably best if we don't even get into the matter of "Paradise Hotel" (douchebags check in, but they don't check out! (well, at least not without some kind of nasty rash in need of topical ointments or perhaps even a course of Cipro)). After all, I'm not made of stone, Fox. If you cut me, I bleed. If you broadcast "Temptation Island" I'll watch it, feel disgusted, scream at inanimate objects as though they were cognizant of the despicable behavior and attendant emotional carnage unfolding on the screen before us under the laughable guise of "entertainment," then get another bowl of ice cream, hate myself, question god and the worth of the entire human race, weep into the now-emptied-of-ice-cream bowl, set a season pass on my DVR and... well, you get the idea. This madness must end. IT MUST END TONIGHT.

Because I see what's coming, oh yes I do. I can feel it deep in my bones (actually, that may just be a touch of the osteoporosis -- I've been running a deficit with regard to my calcium consumption for quite some time now). And when a warm wind blows in from the west, tinged with Pacific Ocean brine and the moldering scent of sweat-drenched UGGs, I can almost smell it.

You're going to try to cancel "Dollhouse," aren't you? AREN'T YOU? Yeah, well you should be ashamed of yourself. Yes, even more than usual.

Dawg, listen yo. "American Idol" aside [coughWaningFranchisecough] "Dollhouse" is the only game in town for you. It practically justifies your otherwise questionable existence. It is, in a word, redemptive. Please allow me to explain.

Let's face facts, Fox: "House" and "24" are dogs who've had their day. You can keep milking them for a few more seasons sure, and profitably no doubt. But the writing's on the wall there and both of us know it. It's like the last few seasons of "The X-Files," when Chris Carter had reached that sad but inevitable point where, drained of truly inventive and engaging storytelling like "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" and "Humbug," he began to rely almost entirely on a hokey narrative arc that increasingly resembled a snake swallowing its own tail, a narrative in love with itself, a mythology spellbound by its own perplexing mythos. But in the end, however badly we Want To Believe (heh, geddit?) in a show, there comes a point when putting a fork in it is an act of mercy.

Regardless, the truth is that despite our rocky past I was genuinely excited for you when I heard you'd tapped Joss Whedon for a show (who, incidentally I've been known to stalk a time or two... and, okay, encourage others to do the same, fine, yes, GUILTY!). It seemed to speak of a new maturity on your part, in terms of taste-level if nothing else. For the first time in years, I managed to speak of you without hurling insults. It was progress, marked growth, I thought. And when the show finally aired earlier this year, I beamed with something like actual pride.

And then I was, well, disappointed. Because as much as I love the previous productions of Mr. Whedon -- and indeed I SO do -- following the initial rush of the pilot, the show seemed kind of... meh? Lacking in a certain... Whedonyness? A bit devoid of Whedonacity? Not as Whedontastic as I'd hoped? YES. THAT.

And despite what might appear from the outside to be irrational fanaticism on my part, I consciously chose to move on rather than try to talk myself into believing it was a better show than I actually thought it was. And now, the letting go. Le sigh.

But then I started to hear things. Good things, and from good people whose opinions I respected and trusted. I started to hear that after the first few somewhat stunted and stifled episodes, the show took a fantastic turn -- that it basically became the show I'd hoped it would be when I first read of it a year or so back. So I tuned in again. And they were right. Almost precisely at the sixth episode mark, an episode entitled "Man On The Street," the show positively blooms. It transforms itself from a flat, wholly plot-driven Sci-Fi-ish drama in almost literally the blink of an eye, morphing into this whip-smart, arresting, 3-dimensional exploration of identity and memory, of the boundaries of the body, mind, and something like the soul. But, like, in a completely kick-ass and entertaining way. In other words, it gets TOTALLY Whedony. Curious, that. So curious, in fact, that I did some research on it. YES, I KNOW HOW TO RESEARCH THINGS. I... have Google. cough.

And lo, you know what I found out, Fox? That it was you that pushed for the first episodes of "Dollhouse" to be 'stand-alones', ie: not part of a larger, deeper, more intricate and finely wrought narrative arc, ie: not the kind of thing that the actual brains and creative force behind the show, Mr. Whedon, does best. And the dramatic upswing in quality and depth, at episode six precisely? Well it just so happens that that's the first episode Whedon wrote himself since the pilot, and it's also when you apparently stopped trying to micromanage the man's creative impulses. Eliza Dushku, star of "Dollhouse," shared this insightful nugget on the matter with the A.V. Club:

"...people have said that the show took off once they finally realized that
Joss is best off left alone to do his thing. That happens around
episode six—six through 13 are just extraordinary. I love one, two,
three, four, and five, but Joss’ first script that he did after the
pilot is number six, which is called “Man On The Street,” and it is
just unbelievable. From that point on, the world unfolds in Joss’ way,
with Joss’ speed, and it’s really remarkable."

To which I say: INDEED. And also: WORD.

Really, Fox, try to be sensible. Can you not see as I do the promise inherent in this show? Can you not see the greatness of it, and the even greaterness that could be? With each succeeding episode its gotten better and better, converting me from a disbeliever -- nay, someone who'd given up on the show and walked away from it entirely -- into a hardcore, diehard fan. One who'd write an elaborate mock letter to a personified you and publish it on a prominent website, hoping that perchance my dancing monkey act will amuse you enough that you might pause and actually listen. Because I know many, many people who want you to give this show another chance just like I do. In my earnest dorky-geekiness here, I indeed do contain multitudes, and you'd better believe it, buster.

So think about it, okay? And while you're thinking about it -- you know, mulling it over with some tea and scones and what-not -- I WILL COMMENCE WITH ORGANIZING AN ARMY OF DISGRUNTLED TELEVISION VIEWERS AGAINST YOU.

[ And to that end: if you are a fan of "Dollhouse" and would like to voice your desire for them to renew it for a second season, you can make yourself heard by doing any or all of the following:

If you're a Twitter user, tweet @FoxBroadcasting.

If you want to email, email askfox@fox.com

If you're on Facebook, join the FOX Facebook group and post a message.

And if you aren't a fan? Well, if you've read this far I have to believe there's something here that's intrigued you. So why not head over to Hulu and do some catching up? The last 5 episodes -- from the aforementioned awesome series turning point-y sixth episode "Man On The Street" up through last week's are there for the viewing in full. Heck, if you just don't sleep for the next 24 hours (or go to work! Work, who needs it?! Phhbbt!) you could watch the whole season before the new episode airs tonight (Fridays at 9pm ET! Get out a black sharpie and write it on your forearm now!). JOIN US. ]

Thanks for reading, Fox. TTYL!

Your pal (or nemesis-to-be, your call dude),
Tracey aka Sweetney aka d0LLh0uZe4eVa!!!

. . . . .
Tracey, aka Sweetney, writes about Pop Culture & Entertainment at MamaPop, and Joss Whedon is her co-pilot.

The Best and Worst TV and Movie Moms (According To Me)

2009-04-24T00:10:48-05:00

While it's certainly true that I may never be the best mom in the world (despite what a certain coffee mug I've been given might lead you believe), I'm fairly confident that I'm far from the worst. And why am I so confident, you ask? Well, because TV and movies told me so, of course!

It's the old Mirror Up To Society thing, right? Indeed, though they may be slightly cracked or warped mirrors, TV and movies have long reflected back to us mediated visions of our collective maternal nightmares alongside soft-focus idealizations of motherhood -- extremes that rarely exist in reality. And whether these serve to make us feel inadequate or reassure us that, well, maybe we're really not all that bad at this parenting thing after all, the following characters to my mind surely represent some of the best and worst portrayals of motherhood Hollywood's yet devised:

Worst Movie Mom: Joan Crawford, "Mommie Dearest" - Arguably the most notorious example of Motherhood Gone Bad on film, and with good reason. True story: I hadn't seen so much as a clip of this film in years -- since long before I had my daughter -- and I must admit that I can't bring myself to post a video here that would help explicate all the ways this character is loathsome and atrocious, because watching clips from the film on YouTube today quite literally turned my stomach. Mind you, I don't consider myself particularly wussy or anything, but I'd remembered the movie as, well, funny, campy... but what I realized today is that that's what not-yet-a mother Tracey believed... Tracey 1.0, as it were. Admittedly, "Mommie Dearest" IS at times over-the-top melodrama (NO! WIRE! HANGERS! EVAAAAAH!!), but even so watching Joan Crawford relentlessly attack, slap, berate, and generally terrorize a little girl who, I might add, happens to be right around my daughter's age, is more than a bit disconcerting. But hey, be my guest and go check out some videos from the film... and then come back and tell me that's anything like lighthearted camp. UGH. (GAH, sorry, talk about triggering... MOVING ON!)

Worst TV Mom: TIE: Lucille Bluth, "Arrested Development" and Janice Soprano, "The Sopranos" - I found it impossible to choose between these two characters, because they both cause my skin to crawl in a way that makes me want to wring both of their necks with equal vigor. As mothers these women have the spectrum of all possible awful pretty well covered, both being egocentric, needy, and utterly devoid of anything resembling a conscience. While Mother Bluth's shallow and vicious sniping borders on cartoonish, she nonetheless elicits plenty of genuine cringing from me (see video below), while Janice... lord, what can you say about the epic trainwreck that is Janice Soprano (I mean besides that she's a sociopath)? Let me put it this way: if shrillness, manipulation, and histrionics were skills that merited the bestowing of awards, Janice Soprano would be nearly crippled by the sheer weight of her trophies. Trophies FOR HIDEOUS AND REPULSIVE DREADFULNESS (and though I'm not sure what substance statuettes for the HIDEOUS AND REPULSIVE DREADFULNESS AWARDS would be made from (and I probably don't want to know), I'm fairly certain they'd be crafted to resemble something like this in shape). [shudder]

Lucille Bluth:

Best Movie Mom: TIE: Sarah Connor, "Terminator 2"; Ellen Ripley, "Aliens" - Maybe it's just me, but watching these two characters kick butt to protect their own makes my heart swell with Mama Bear pride. These are two character who in my eyes embody the power and strength of a mother's love, and by way of their outward roughness and toughness paradoxically show a depth of emotion and tenderness that, as far as I'm concerned, warm and fuzzy Hallmark Card sentimentality can't begin to touch. HIT IT, LADIES (oh and I do mean HIT):

Sarah Connor:

Ellen Ripley:

Best TV Mom: Marge Simpson, "The Simpsons" - I know, I know. She's a cartoon. Still, as a mother Marge Simpson is more supportive, sensitive, thoughtful and grounded than most non-animated moms on TV or in film. Over the years Marge has shown that while she possesses a degree of patience that borders on saintly (see: Homer, Bart), she's no nicey-nice pushover -- particularly where protecting those she loves is concerned. She's kind of like a modern June Cleaver... but with a gigantic blue beehive and the voice of Edith Bunker -- quirks that if anything make her all the more charming.

Marge Simpson:

So now that I've said my peace, do tell: who do YOU think are some of the best and worst TV and movie moms? Alternately, which characters do you think offer the most realistic depictions of motherhood? The least realistic?

. . . . .
Tracey, aka Sweetney, writes about Pop Culture & Entertainment at MamaPop, and doesn't mind wire hangers, not one bit.

Why you (and everyone you know) should watch HBO's "The Wire"

2009-04-15T23:49:10-05:00

Last week I was reminded of the greatness of the HBO drama "The Wire," and how lax I've been in singing its praises of late. Indeed, "The Wire" is a show that merits some serious evangelizing -- I can scarcely think of another television program that inspires such depth of feeling, thought, and devotion in its audience. And while "The Wire" is a luminous achievement for the medium of television to be sure, it's more than that. It's a rich testament to the power of narrative and storytelling, a work that transcends the confines of scripted television and plumbs the inner depths of those who experience it as perhaps only great literature can. Does it sound like I'm overstating things? Well, I'm not.

I was, incidentally, reminded of "The Wire" last week because of a few lines I read on Politico, namely:

"The president [likes] the HBO drama 'The Wire.' His favorite character is Omar, a gay stickup artist who steals from drug pushers to give to the poor. ('That's not an endorsement. He's not my favorite person, but he's a fascinating character,' Obama said last year.)"

And when I read that I think I went into some sort of shock -- the good kind, the kind you get when you walk into a dead-quiet room on your birthday and then suddenly, SURPRISE!, friends and family appear from nowhere wearing silly hats and throwing confetti. THAT kind of shock. That our president is now someone who enjoys a show as intellectually and psychologically complex as "The Wire"-- as opposed to his predecessor, whose favorite TV shows are, I suspect, likely something along the lines of "COPS"or "Cheaters" -- is something that brings me to the edge of tears. And why that is, why I and so many other people I know became invested in this television show to the point where someone feeling an affinity for it and its characters seems not a statement about their taste but rather about what they as a human being are made of... well that my friends could take a few days. So for the sake of brevity I'll try to keep things punchy and limit myself to just the following three (only three!) reasons you should watch this show:

*Please note that the videos included below do contain NSFW language and include "The Sopranos"-level acts of violence. This is not a show for the squeamish, be aware.*

1. Omar Little. Our President isn't the only one who has mad love for Omar. Almost without fail, when I told someone I was writing this piece the first thing that came out of their mouth was this character's name, and with good reason. For while the show fairly bursts at the seams with memorable characters, Omar, the stoic, trench-coated gay stickup artist, is perhaps THE character that best articulates what makes "The Wire" great. Omar's nothing if not a complex bundle of shifting contradictions: a hardened criminal who is sensitive and deeply feeling, an uneducated street thug who possesses startling depth and rare wisdom, a man who shamelessly defies the rule of law at every opportunity yet lives by a strict moral and ethical code. It's hard to watch "The Wire" and not fall in love with him, with his awesome strength and tenderness, his commitment, oddly, to doing what's right and playing fairly by the rules of The Game, even if his sense of "right" and what "rules" should be followed is a bit questionable. The following clip, in which Omar confronts Brother Mouzone (another incredible character) who he believes to be responsible for the murder of his lover a year prior, gives a taste of what makes Omar so compelling:

2. The Writing. This is a show that, as one friend pointed out to me, Berkeley's film/media studies department has created an undergraduate course about (course readings include works by Aeschylus, Theodore Dreiser and, predictably, Charles Dickens). Never before or since has a television show been so, well, untelevision-show-like. That's not an indictment of the medium, but a remark on the unique nature of the show's narrative, which resembles a Shakespearean play more closely than it does your average police procedural drama. The writing bears that level of subtlety, complexity, and depth, and challenges the audience's hearts and minds relative to its characters in ways generally associated with great works of literature.

I was emailing with my close friend Angela about the show, and with her permission would like to quote at length some of what she said on this matter, as it distills so much so well:

I LOVE stories that don't let me off the hook intellectually, and writers that trust that I'm smart enough to handle ambiguity and conflict, and I've never been challenged so much in my relationships with characters as I was with "The Wire"... I don't love cops or junkies, I like drug dealers less, and I might hate Baltimore politicians even more than all of those. But the characters were written so masterfully and so lovingly that when I was watching Stringer, I wanted him to succeed in his Stringerness, even as I was, in the same episodes, rooting for the people whose goal it was to bring him down. The show just took me completely out of my life and deposited me into all these other lives, every week, and - without insulting my intelligence or condescending to me at all - guided me gently into thinking like I'd need to if I were really in them.

YES. THAT. WHAT SHE SAID.

This clip, in which crew boss of the low rise projects D'Angelo teaches his underlings Wallace and Bodie how to play chess, hints at the depth and the complexity of these characters who are, lest we forget, hoodlums and drug dealers:

3. Baltimore. Well, not quite Baltimore. David Simon, creator of "The Wire," has said that the show isn't really about Baltimore specifically but about America, about inner city America, the "other America." And from the beginning of the series straight on through its end it's apparent that the heart of "The Wire" beats in the dark places of America, in the parts of it hidden from the view of most Americans, in the places where lives begin and end in brutality, anonymity and despair. At its best "The Wire"explores the lives of those who inhabit that other America in a way that not only recognizes and respects their humanity, but finds poetry in it. A rough and bloody sort to be sure, but lyrical nonetheless. It's a poetry that doesn't offer reassurances of inner city redemption or false hope, but instead meditates on survival and sheer endurance. There is no uplifting triumph of the human spirit here. Instead there is the often grim reality of urban exhaustion, conflict, and ambivalence.

What's surprising though is how easy it is to love this other America -- in spite of or because of its utter brokenness, I'm not quite sure which. But in a broader sense, it's impossible to watch "The Wire" and not feel that in some essential way it captures profound truths about the complicated business of being human in all its ugliness and awfulness, beauty and tenderness, and that in doing so blurs the lines dividing those opposites. In "The Wire" as in life, there aren't heroes and villains, "good" people and "bad" people -- there are just people, all trying to live as best they can within the limitations of their respective circumstances. Whatever our address, whatever clothes we wear, car we drive, or occupation we labor at, our likeness to one another runs deep -- perhaps deeper than many would like to admit. As stick-up artist Omar quips to the smug lawyer Maurice Levy in defense of what Levy condemns as Omar's "parasitic" life of crime: "I got the shotgun. You got the briefcase. It's all in the game though, right?"

Tru dat.

. . . . .
Tracey, aka Sweetney, writes about Pop Culture & Entertainment at MamaPop, and believes you gotta keep the devil way down in the hole.

WARNING: Spoilers in comments below, read at your own risk!

Amazon.com's "Greatest Indie Rock Albums Of All Time" List Makes Me Itchy, Gives Me Not-So-Fresh Feeling

2009-04-03T00:26:55-05:00

Authoring any sort of hierarchical "Greatest Albums" genre list is an undertaking inherently fraught with peril, a thankless task that can't help but invite confrontation and dissent. Those who disagree with the list-maker's choices, whatever they may be, indeed have valid points to back up their needling: how can anyone's taste and judgment be considered definitive when addressing an entire genre of music? And by what universally acceptable criteria is an album determined to be "Great" anyway? I mean, isn't every component in this equation just endlessly debatable?

Well whatever truth there is in such criticisms it hasn't stopped the music editors over at Amazon.com from jumping into the fray with their newly-released "100 Greatest Indie Rock Albums Of All Time." Yes that's right, they actually said ALL TIME. I can't decide if that's what one would call daring or nerve.

But before we bring the hammer of judgment down upon their heads (heads topped with perfectly mussed hair sheathed in organic cruelty and gluten-free styling products no doubt), let's look at what these so-and-so smartypants know-it-all editors came up with, starting with the tail end of the list and working our way toward the Top 10:

100 Dangerous Magical Noise - The Dirtbombs
99 Passover - The Black Angels
98 To Survive - Joan As Police Woman
97 Ultimate Alternative Wavers - Built To Spill
96 Trans Am - Trans Am
95 The Discovery Of A World Inside... - The Apples In Stereo
94 Waiter: 'You Vultures!' - Portugal The Man
93 Alligator - The National
92 Horses In The Sky - Silver Mt. Zion
91 Gallowsbird's Bark - The Fiery Furnaces
90 Louden Up Now - (!!! Chk Chik Chick)
89 The Milk-Eyed Mender - Joanna Newsom
88 The Power Out - Electrelane
87 Cure For Pain - Morphine
86 Worn Copy - Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti
85 Vivian Girls - Vivian Girls
84 Hearts Of Oak - Ted Leo/Pharmacists
83 Save Yourself - Make Up
82 The Last Match - The Aislers Set
81 The Sea and the Bells - Rachel's
80 The Ugly Organ - Cursive
79 De Stijl - The White Stripes
78 Nothing Feels Good - The Promise Ring
77 The Smell Of Our Own - The Hidden Cameras
76 Jane From Occupied Europe - Swell Maps
75 Furnace Room Lullaby - Neko Case
74 The Curtain Hits The Cast - Low
73 The R&B Of Membership - The Delta 72
72 II & III - Camper Van Beethoven
71 Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating... - Spiritualized
70 The Fawn - The Sea And Cake
69 Feast of Wire - Calexico
68 Oh, Inverted World - The Shins
67 Will You Find Me - Ida
66 Milk Man - Deerhoof
65 Coquelicot Asleep In The Poppies... - Of Montreal
64 Rejoicing in The Hands - Devendra Banhart
63 Destroyer's Rubies - Destroyer
62 TNT - Tortoise
61 Neon Golden - The Notwist
60 Daddy's Highway - The Bats
59 Set Yourself On Fire - Stars
58 Fabulous Muscles - Xiu Xiu
57 Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes - TV On The Radio
56 The Decline And Fall Of Heavenly - Heavenly
55 The Mysterious Production of Eggs - Andrew Bird
54 Pussy-Whipped - Bikini Kill
53 Sing No Evil - Half Japanese
52 Liberty Belle And The Black Diamond Express - The Go Betweens
51 Emperor Tomato Ketchup - Stereolab
50 And Don't The Kids Just Love It - Television Personalities
49 Wild Love - Smog
48 Agaetis Byrjun - Sigur Ros
47 Red House Painters I - Red House Painters
46 Advisory Committee - Mirah
45 How Memory Works - Joan Of Arc
44 On Fire - Galaxie 500
43 On - Imperial Teen
42 Mass Romantic [Remastered] - The New Pornographers
41 Gulag Orkestar - Beirut
40 This Nation's Saving Grace - The Fall
39 You Forgot It In People - Broken Social Scene
38 I Am A Bird Now - Antony & The Johnsons
37 When Your Heartstrings Break - Beulah
36 Our Endless Numbered Days - Iron & Wine
35 Person Pitch - Panda Bear
34 Let's Get Out of This Country - Camera Obscura
33 Merriweather Post Pavilion - Animal Collective
32 Let It Be [Expanded Edition] - The Replacements
31 Repeater + 3 Songs - Fugazi
30 Zen Arcade - Hüsker Dü
29 24 Hour Revenge Therapy - Jawbreaker
28 Lift Your Skinny Fists... - godspeed you black emperor!
27 Yellow House - Grizzly Bear
26 The Glow Pt. 2 - The Microphones
25 Black Candy - Beat Happening
24 Funeral - Arcade Fire
23 Moon Pix - Cat Power
22 Diary - Sunny Day Real Estate
21 Lifted Or The Story Is In The Soil... - Bright Eyes
20 I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One - Yo La Tengo
19 Kill the Moonlight - Spoon
18 Give Up - The Postal Service
17 Dig Me Out - Sleater-Kinney
16 No Pocky for Kitty - Superchunk
15 I See A Darkness - Bonnie "Prince" Billy
14 We Have The Facts and We're Voting Yes - Death Cab For Cutie
13 Michigan - Sufjan Stevens
12 Daydream Nation - Sonic Youth
11 69 Love Songs Volume 1 - The Magnetic Fields
10 Bakesale - Sebadoh
09 Either/Or - Elliott Smith
08 Surfer Rosa - Pixies
07 If You're Feeling Sinister - Belle & Sebastian
06 Slanted & Enchanted - Pavement
05 Imperial f.f.r.r. (Deluxe Edition) - Unrest
04 Exile In Guyville - Liz Phair
03 Spiderland - Slint
02 In the Aeroplane Over the Sea - Neutral Milk Hotel
01 Bee Thousand - Guided by Voices

Okay. So. Obviously there's no way to address a list of this size in its entirety, so I'll pick my battles. Let's start by noting what is NOT on this list, most notably: The Smiths, Throwing Muses, My Bloody Valentine, Dinosaur Jr., and (wait.for.it) R.E.M. Yeah. Those are kind of enormous, gaping holes in a list that would boldly (if misguidedly) place Unrest's stylized and frankly somewhat repetitive Imperial f.f.r.r. (Deluxe Edition) in the Top 10 (OF ALL TIME! Lest we forget!). And while I give that album (and Teenbeat Records more broadly) a respectful nod for being an important part of indie rock's evolution, seriously Amazon editors, you want to tell me that Imperial f.f.r.r. is a better album than The Queen Is Dead, House Tornado, Isn't Anything, Bug, and Reckoning? As a certain internet-nesting owl might say, ORLY?

And yes, I so understand that it would be nearly impossible to come up with a list that would please everyone's tastes, and I realize that of course there are going to be unfortunate oversights. Slack? SHE IS CUT. But -- and it's just my humble opinion of course -- even the particular albums selected from specific artists' catalogs smack of a kind of self-conscious calculation I just can't get with. Based on some of their picks I can't help but imagine these editors holed up in the web editor's version of a boiler room, weighing and measuring which one album by X, Y, or Z artist is the choice that would provide them with the most cred and an aura of insidery knowingness, even if it isn't really the best choice.

Examples of what I mean are numerous. In reading over just the top twenty albums I find myself convulsing about the selection of Superchunk's No Pocky for Kitty (an earlier, rawer album) over the infinitely superior Foolish (a later, more polished-sounding album -- and I'm not a fan of polished believe me, the album is just so fantastic in every way it transcends its own production). Similarly, Elliott Smith's early, lo-fi Either/Or, while lovely in all sorts of notable ways, can't hold a candle to the emotionally expansive, melodic sure-footedness of his later XO. And don't even get me started on their choosing Pavement's Slanted & Enchanted over what I think is quite clearly the band's crowning achievement, Wowee Zowee... but come now, at the very least we can all agree that Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain is a far more developed and complex work than S&E, right? Hell-o?

Dear Amazon.com music editors,

Low production values does not equal authenticity. That something was recorded earlier in the timeline of a band's life, or is notably less popular than other titles from their catalog, does not mean it is somehow inherently more worthy, nobler, or less tainted by commerce. And picking albums for your list in this manner doesn't enhance your credibility, it makes you look insecure and faltering.

Exile in Guyville as number FOUR? Are you high?

Indignantly and hrrmph,
Tracey

Okay, okay, so clearly I could go on and on like this, picking nits from sunrise til sunset. INDEED. But frankly I'd rather hear from you. What are your thoughts on this list? Things you strongly agree or disagree with? Missing pieces? C'mon, tell us what you really think. RELEASE THE HOUNDS!

. . . . .
Tracey, aka Sweetney, writes about Pop Culture & Entertainment at MamaPop, and seems to be under the impression that her opinion matters, dangnabbit!

Spike Jonze's "Where The Wild Things Are": I'm Already A Believer

2009-03-27T09:22:19-05:00

Every once in a long while a movie comes along that seems like it might have the capacity to cross epic differences and divisions, managing to somehow please -- in equal measure -- children and adults, men and women, snarky hipsters and earnest norms. A movie made of such undeniable win that it brings warring cinematic factions of society into harmonious agreement, instituting a temporary cease fire on "Your taste sucks!"/"No, YOUR taste sucks!" moviegoer conflicts simmering everywhere, particularly upon the release of sequels with trailing numerals greater than 2 and films whose titles contain the words "Traveling Pants." In the recent past, Wall-E fit that mold nicely (I mean, who doesn't love doe-eyed robots?), and now I'm all but convinced that the coming film adaptation of "Where The Wild Things Are" will prove to be the next of Wall-E's unifying kind.

For anyone not versed in the 1963 Maurice Sendak classic and its many charms, "Where The Wild Things Are" is a story primarily about imagination: a mischievous boy named Max is sent to bed without supper, dreams up a kingdom of fearsome beasts, has many adventures, but soon misses home and returns to his bedroom where his supper sits waiting for him. The story itself is a grand total of 10 lines in length -- not a lot of actual material to work with -- but as the narrative is one about the generative power of imagination, the gaps left for the reader (or screenwriters, ahem-cough) to fill in are huge. Filled in the right way, the results could be magical. Filled the wrong way? We could be looking at another "Space Chimps."

But odds look good that my abundant enthusiasm is merited. The screenplay for the film was written by the film's director, quirktastic auteur Spike Jonze, along with indie publishing powerhouse Dave Eggers of McSweeney's fame. Both have a long history of producing work in their respective mediums that is daring, witty, and notably infused with an uncommon depth of thought and feeling. And though perhaps I'm giving it too much weight, the first trailer for the film -- released just this week -- provides basis for belief that, indeed, the best facets of Jonze and Egger's talents may be brought to life in this movie:

On a personal note, I actually wept the first time I watched that trailer. I WEPT AT A STINKIN' MOVIE TRAILER, PEOPLE. True story!

The rousing tune accompanying the visuals in the trailer is "Wake Up" by Arcade Fire, a song from their 2004 album Funeral, which seems here to capture layers of inarticulable feeling in the way only music can. And that brings me to yet another thing this film has going for it: the soundtrack was created by Yeah Yeah Yeah's front-woman Karen O -- a daring and inspired choice. And hey, if that woman can use her musical talents to make maps sound romantic, who knows what she'll be able to accomplish with material this good, right?

The film also features actors Paul Dano, Forest Whitaker, James Gandolfini, Mark Ruffalo and Catherine Keener. Which, gah, dream team much?

But my gushing aside, there are, of course, naysayers out there. Some think perhaps the film will be too frightening and intense for young children (to which I say: have you watched "Star Wars" lately, holmes? You know, the movie with the menacing man in black who chokes people just by flexing his fist?), and some have called the film's poster "creepy," which I am at a complete and utter loss to understand (doesn't Max look like he's bellowing wildly and happily in that image, the beast's paw lovingly and protectively resting on his shoulder? Am I missing something?). But from what I've seen and read of late, the killjoys are few.

Because it's hard to not get excited about a beloved classic from our childhoods (and, for some of us, the childhoods of our own children) given life and depth by artists who have the capacity to make real magic from those 10 short lines of text -- or at the very least have the capacity to not screw it up terribly. And so, all things considered, it's hard to not hope for greatness. But if the movie ends up being even half as awesome as its two minute trailer when it's finally released this October 16th, I suspect the whole country will be exuberantly shouting, as Max does in the book, "let the wild rumpus start!"
. . . . .
Tracey, aka Sweetney, writes about Pop Culture & Entertainment at MamaPop, and is clearly something of a Jonze/Eggers fangirl.

Twilight DVD to be released Friday at Midnight, and even old ladies like myself swoon

2009-03-19T18:34:54-05:00

So the Twilight DVD drops this weekend, but no, I'm not going to be lining up at my local Borders to buy it. Are you serious? I had that back-ordered at Amazon, like, months ago. Which means that I can avoid the fan frenzy that's going to start percolating sometime in the wee hours tomorrow, which is great, because although I am, in some very important respects, a fan who has been known to indulge in teh frenzy, I am also old and averse to being trampled by teenagers wearing Team Edward t-shirts. Also: I have a life.

That said, I am a Twilight fan (Team Edward represent!), and I'm right stoked about this DVD. I'm not going retread the arguments for and against supporting the Twilight series as a pop culture phenomenon. We've been there and done that a gajillion times over, and we'll no doubt get to go there and do that again if Stephenie Meyer ever gets around to finishing Midnight Sun (in which Edward explains, in the first person, just exactly how and why he was able to move from wanting to savagely murder Bella to just stalking her). Besides, subjecting Twilight to the scalpel of criticism just harshes its delicious buzz of fun. And people, seriously: Twilight is fun! Sure, it's about vampires and doomed romance, but still! Those vampires sparkle. And that romance isn't really doomed so much as destined for prom (and, later, ravenous vampire-hybrid turbo babies, but that's some thousands of pages and movie-sequel hours off yet). It goes perfectly with popcorn!

The real reason, however, why the Twilight DVD set is a must-buy? Robert Pattinson. And not because he's sparkleriffically hot - although he is, for the record, that - but because he's really freaking funny and all reports have it that his commentary on the movie, as included on the DVD? Is hysterical. Remember when he did that E!Online interview, sometime last year before the movie came out? The one that Twilight blogger Cleolinda (the best commentator on Twilight in the history of the Twilightverse, ever, IMHO) dubbed THE BEST INTERVIEW EVER? The one where he said stuff like:

"When I read it (Twilight), it seemed like (grimaces) I was convinced that ... Stephenie was ... convinced that she was Bella, and uh, and you, it wasn't, it was like it was a book that wasn't supposed to be published, like reading her ... her sort of sexual fantasy about some -- especially when she says that it was based on a dream, and it's like, "Oh, then I had a dream about this really sexy guy" and she just writes this book about it, and there's some things about Edward that are just so specific that it's like, I was just convinced that, that this woman is mad, she's completely mad, and she's in love with her own fictional creation and I -- sometimes you, like, feel uncomfortable reading this thing, and I think a lot of people feel the same way, that it's kind of voyeuristic, ah, and it creates this sick pleasure in a lot of ways."

Yeah, that one. Apparently, the entirety of his commentary track on the DVD is like that. Which: AWESOME.

From Chron.com's review of the DVD: "Who’d have thought that the funniest voice in that critical chorus would be… RobPat himself. There he is with director Catherine Hardwicke and co-star Kristen Stewart in the audio commentary on the new Twilight DVD, dissing himself and tossing in silly bits of new dialogue for his vampire hottie character, Edward Cullen."

A sampling:

During the scene in the school cafeteria where Edward bounces an apple off of his feet and into his hands - “Wow, he’s a superhuman moron… He wears lipstick, has a little bouffant and does little circus acts.”

During the scene in the forest, when Edward is warning Bella to stay away from him - Edward: “Do you know what vampires eat?” Pattinson (in a high, nasal voice): “Cheeseburgers!”

Buy it for the vampire sparkle-porn, keep it for the funny.

. . . . .
Tracey, aka Sweetney, writes about Pop Culture & Entertainment at MamaPop, and is so totally not 13 years old. No, seriously.

The Meme That Ate The Internet's Brain

2009-02-26T12:51:07-06:00

I believe I first heard about it from Waxy.org's links feed. The link from Waxy sent me over to Buzzfeed, which was apparently where it began gestating. Shortly thereafter, I saw it on Best Week Ever (the site, not the TV show), The AV Club, and Metafilter. Now there's a Flickr group dedicated to it, and it seems that even people who would consider themselves staunchly meme averse are doing it.

What is it? Why, it's the 'Wikipedia Names Your Band' meme, kids!

Indeed, over the past six days this meme has spread like wildfire... or a plague... or a festering rash... throughout all of internetland (incidentally, why isn't there a positive, pleasant metaphor for something spreading? "It spread like a galloping herd of adorable puppies!"? Eh, nevermind). In fact, just this morning I opened my email inbox to find that my friend Whit had tagged me for this very same meme on Facebook. And when something hits Facebook -- final resting place and repository of all the internet's memeage -- you know its finally reached critical mass, the point just before it jumps the shark and goes from Fun Timewaster to Annoyingly Relentless Irritant and OMG PLEASE MAKE IT STOP.

I wondered how my friend had come to meet this meme and accept it into his heart. So, over IM this morning, I asked:

So that was helpful.

As for me doing it, I was a bit late to the game, honestly -- late in viral internet meme terms, at least. The originating Buzzfeed post went live on February 20th. I first heard of it the following day, on the 21st. And then, because I'm an overachiever (read: obsessive/compulsive crackhead), I spent most of the 22nd making TEN album covers which I finally posted to my blog on the 23rd. Here is one of those masterpieces:

I like to think of Thulo Dhading and their music as a sort of Devo meets Ted Nugent type of musical experience. I like to think that.

So what makes this meme so compelling and infectious that it spread so quickly and with such deep and broad a reach into the farthest corners of the interwebs? I'm not entirely sure, but I do have a two-part theory, which is that this meme allows the person doing it to be original and creative (within Album Cover conventions, by way of design, typography, etc.) without risking anything (you've been provided with the essential components for the album cover and have nothing at stake because you didn't create any of it yourself from scratch). Oh and did I also mention the covers are often seriously funny and it's genuinely fun to do? So I guess that makes it a THREE-part theory then. Hrmm.

Okay, okay, now it's YOUR TURN to participate! Make your own album cover and post the link in comments here. Ready, set... oh wait, here are the rules:

Go to “Wikipedia.” Hit “random” and the first article you get is the name of your band.
Then go to “Random Quotations” and the last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
Then, go to Flickr and click on “Explore the Last Seven Days” and the third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
Use Photoshop or some other image editor (I used the free online image editor Picnik) to add text & spiffify.
Post a link to your band's album cover here! DO IT DO IT DO IT!!!

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Tracey, aka Sweetney, writes about Pop Culture & Entertainment at MamaPop, and is Thulo Dhading's number one fan.