Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Anthony Strand's LiveJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Monday, December 17th, 2007
10:00 am	Reactions to the Dark Knight trailer So we just got the first full trailer for The Dark Knight. http://atasteforthetheatrical.com/deathtrap/default.htm For the most part, the movie looks amazing. That said, I don't understand what they're doing with the Joker. I'm not a Heath Ledger hater, but the character in this trailer doesn't seem like the Joker at all. His voice is low, gravelly, and without a hint of psychotic fancy. His makeup looks like makeup. (Which, I guess that's supposed to be more realistic-looking scarring. But it sure doesn't look like the Joker). Most importantly, though - He isn't smiling. The entire thing with the Joker is that he's a homicidal clown with a smile literally frozen on his face. In the movie, he has a completely sober face. He just looks like a dour-faced hobo with too much makeup on. He says "Why so serious?" and "Let's put a smile on that face" to Commissioner Gordon and to Batman, but he could just as well be talking to himself. That's not to say I'm not excited for the movie, because I am. I'll be there opening day. But the Joker means a lot to me, and that guy isn't him. (15 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 30th, 2007
9:41 pm	I am your nemesis! So I was thinking about Superboy Prime today (Yeah, yeah. SuperMAN Prime. Whatever. You either know who I mean or you don't care). Anyway, I realized something - A whiny fanboy who idolizes superheroes as a kid . . . Finds out his heroes aren't as ideal as he thought they were . . . And swears to become the greatest hero of all by killing people . . . Is hardly an original idea. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 14th, 2007
11:48 pm	Knowledge-Filled Clash! Did anyone else see Jeopardy today? It was nuts! It's the Tournament of Champions, and today was the last semi-final round. In an amazing coincidence, two of the contestants were as follows: Craig Westphal: Stoic EMT who always seemed kind of amazed and slightly worried that he was winning money on television. Six-time champion, and my all-time favorite Jeopardy contestant. I always wanted to shake his hand and tell him that it will be all right. Paul Glaser: Smug, pompous physicist who isn't nearly as clever as he thinks he is. Four-time champion, and my all-time LEAST favorite Jeopardy contestant. I always wanted to punch his face. The third contestant was Cliff Galiher, 2007 College Champion. He seems like an okay fellow. So today, a 5:00 PM, I sat in front of my TV as an epic battle between good and evil was waged before my very eyes. The Righteous Forces of Craig took an early lead, up $1600 over Paul at the first commercial break. Paul's filthy smirk made a comeback in Double Jeopardy, however, by the end of that round he had a lead of over $8000 over Craig's $4000. All looked hopeless, but young underdog Cliff correctly answered Final Jeopardy ("Who is Nellie Bly?") to win! Ha ha! True light may not have triumphed, but at least darkness was vanquished. For the record, Craig also answered correctly in Final Jeopardy to double his score. Paul said "Who is Dix?" What a fool. Like that even means anything. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, October 27th, 2007
3:04 pm	Halloween Viewing Fun So I finished writing up the list of everything Halloween themed and/or spooky that I'm going to watch or have on while working over the next few days. Here it is: Most Importantly It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown Movies Frankenstein Bride of Frankenstein Son of Frankenstein Young Frankenstein The Invisible Man Ghostbusters The Nightmare Before Christmas Ichabod & Mr. Toad TV shows Buffy - Halloween Buffy – Fear Itself Buffy – All the Way The Muppet Show – Vincent Price Fraggle Rock – Scared Silly Pete & Pete - Halloweenie Animated Shorts Looney Tunes Scaredy Cat Hare-Raising Hare Broomstick Bunny Hyde & Hare Pigs is Pigs Claws for Alarm The Case of the Stutteing Pig A-Haunting We Will Go Disney The Skeleton Dance The Mad Doctor Runaway Brain The Haunted House Duck Pimples Hell’s Bells Lonesome Ghosts Night on Bald Mountain Other Shorts Graveyard Jamboree with Mysterious Mose Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Mouse (Tom & Jerry) Am I forgetting anything important that I probably own? Are there other Buffy Halloween episodes? Did Batman: The Animated Series or Justice League ever do a Halloween episode? (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 25th, 2007
5:32 pm	Comedy Tonight All airtimes Central Standard Time Tonight is the season premiere of Scrubs on NBC (can it really be season 7 already?), meaning that NBC's Thursday Night Comedy Lineup is now intact: 7:00 - My Name is Earl 7:30 - 30 Rock 8:00 - The Office 8:30 - Scrubs Now, I'm no fan of My Name is Earl, but the other three are all pretty great television. So to have them all back-to-back is a great gift, and one that nearly lives up to my most prominent TV-related desire. I'm speaking, of course, about a block of comedy as great as the 1973-1974 CBS Saturday Night lineup. 7:00 - All in the Family 7:30 - M*A*S*H 8:00 - The Mary Tyler Moore Show 8:30 - The Bob Newhart Show Wow. Four masterpieces in a row. Not two great shows and two good ones, like NBC's 1984-87 Thursday lineup of The Cosby Show/Family Ties/Cheers/Night Court. Not one terrific show holding up an over-promoted night of crap, like that same network's Seinfeld-centric Thursday through the mid-90s. Four shows that are as near to perfection as the situation comedy has ever come. In two hours. On the same TV channel. As a child, I used to dream that something like that would happen in my lifetime. We aren't quite there yet, but we're close. The shows in each lineup even share many similarities. They don't compare perfectly, of course, but here's how I see it: 30 Rock = The Mary Tyler Moore Show. This is the obvious one. I'm hardly the first person to notice that they're both sitcoms about single career-minded 30-something women working in television and having misadventures in dating (Mary/Liz). Both women have a gruff boss who acts as a mentor (Lou/Jack), a bald and married confidant working behind the scenes (Murray/Pete), and an egotistical on-camera personality to deal with (Ted/Tracy). It's not much of a stretch. Scrubs = M*A*S*H. Again, this is fairly obvious. Both are shows about a wisecracking doctor (Hawkeye/JD) who loves to joke around with his best friend (Either Trapper or BJ/Turk). Dr. Cox is a crotchety superior who really has a warm heart, much like Col. Potter, and both shows frequently mix emotional drama in with the hijinx. The Office = The Bob Newhart Show. This one doesn't work as well. I admit that. But I think the similarities are there. Both shows started out with small casts of 5 main characters (Bob, Carol, Howard, Emily & Jerry/Michael, Dwight, Jim, Pam & Ryan) and then grew to include a huge stable of recurring players (Bob's patients/Everyone working at Dunder-Mifflin). Both casts consist of eccentric people, but they always play it completely straight. They're exaggerated, but they never feel forced or artificially. Most importantly, in both series much of the humor comes from those characters showing up each week and doing a new twist on the same shtick, and doing it perfectly. My Name is Earl is not All in the Family in any way, except maybe that both shows have a main character who is "conservative". It might be Sanford & Son, though. If only NBC had picked up Arrested Development to air at 7:00! Not only would it make a lineup of four great shows, AD could even have worked as an analogue for All in the Family. Both shows were about the dysfunctional ways the members of one family relates to each other. They also were both known for pushing the envelope of what could be done on network TV, but they always put the comedy, not the shock value, first. They are also my favorite sitcoms of their respective decades, but that's neither here nor there. Of course, I neglected to mention that the CBS lineup was followed by The Carol Burnett Show and the current NBC one airs before ER. Those two shows have very little in common, although the later seasons of ER might be funnier than the later seasons of Carol Burnett. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, October 22nd, 2007
10:23 pm	The Hobbit So now they're talking again about making The Hobbit. You know who'd be a good Bilbo if it happens? Martin Freeman (Tim from the original Office). Am I off-base with that? True, I've never seen him in anything serious, but the Hobbit isn't exactly a realistic drama. And Freeman's great at playing grumpy and befuddled by his surroundings, two things necessary to The Hobbit's take on Bilbo. Also, the dude looks like a Hobbit. I mean, really - look at him. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, July 27th, 2007
11:12 am	I'm old. I hate everything but Matlock. Ooh, it's on now! Hard to believe it's been ten years since The Simpsons left the air. After 8 seasons and 178 episodes, the Simpsons closed up shop in 1997 at the top of its game. The series went out in signature offbeat fashion with "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase". That memorable show offered a hysterical look at the various awful ways the show could have tried to carry on, such as a comedy-variety show and an action series starring Chief Wiggum in New Orleans. "Be happy we're saying good-bye," the show seemed to be saying. "You don't want this." Still, it was a bittersweet finale, and fans have mourned the loss of their favorite family ever since. Sure, FOX gave a huge promotional push to Matt Groening's new project, Futurama, now heading into its 10th immensely popular season. Some enthusiasts say the show had explored everything it could without becoming tired. Some point to the untimely death of voice actor Phil Hartman a year after the series ended, saying that may have triggered a decline of its own. But many fans would have preferred more seasons of The Simpsons, insisting there was still several seasons' worth of good stories to be mined from the residents of Springfield. These fans have spent the last decade pleading for the characters to return in some form, whether that be new episodes, web-cartoons starring the Comic Book Guy, or even (gasp!) a movie. Today, they finally get their wish, as The Simpsons Movie opens in theaters nationwide. Can it live up to the highs of a series that rarely had a subpar episode? Will this, after eight years of perfection, finally be the "shark jumping moment" for the series? Movie-goers hungry for a return to Springfield will find out tonight. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, July 19th, 2007
1:55 pm	Harry Potter Time So we're probably getting Harry Potter in at the library this afternoon, and I hope I can start reading it before Saturday without the librarians noticing. Because that would be awesome. Most of all, though, I just want to make public record of this, in case she dies - Hermione Granger is my favorite character in Harry Potter. She always has been. If she dies and a bunch of Hagrid and Malfoy fans start talking about how sad they are over Hermione, their all-time favorite character, don't cry to me. I won't be one of those fakers. That is all. Thank you. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 12th, 2007
5:59 pm	Let's Get to Work (Angel Spoilers) (Joe - Do not read this) I don't understand the big deal everyone's making about the Sopranos finale. Didn't it end pretty much exactly the same way that Angel ended three years ago? (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 11th, 2007
2:37 pm	4 8 15 16 23 42 days to go . . . It hasn't even been three weeks since the Lost season finale, and I'm already going crazy waiting for the new season to start next spring. I think I'm going to build a time machine and take it forward in time to February. Of course, by the time I get the Flux Capacitor finished, it will probably *be* February, so that's no good either. Curse you, ABC! CURSE YOU! (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, June 8th, 2007
2:04 pm	NFL SuperPro need not apply For years, my brother Benjamin and I have had an ongoing feud over our preferred forms of entertainment. He's a huge sports fan and I'm a big ol' comic book nerd. Over the years, we've had dozens of arguments on the subject. For some reason, we both seem to be at our least articulate during these bouts, which are full of statements such as "Comics are for stupid idiots who like crappy crap!" and "Why do they even bother to show baseball on television?!" They invariably end in a draw. If I'm being honest, I have to admit that the two have a lot of similarities. Comics fans and sports fans both spend ungodly amounts of time rehashing the past, which was far better than anything happening today. Both groups love to discuss the minutiae of specific events, whether that's the 1997 NBA Finals or the Crisis on Infinite Earths. When members of either group get together, they can often be heard determining the outcome of imaginary battles, be it Ruth vs. Clemens or Superman vs. Thor. Both groups also love to hear other people talk about the hobby, although ESPN commentary is certainly much higher profile than any comics blog. My brother Christopher even talks about the National League/American League split in exactly the same way I talk about the difference between DC and Marvel. We even sound equally ridiculous to people without any knowledge in the area. In spite of all of that, I've long defended the inherent superiority of comics. I'll choose the worst ever issue of Green Lantern over the greatest game in the history of the NFL. Yesterday, I finally realized why. It's as simple as this - sports fans and comic book fans have another thing in common. They both want to be just like their heroes. Every kid who watched the Bulls in the 1990s wanted to be Michael Jordan, and every kid who reads Action Comics wants to be Superman. Both forms of entertainment, at their cores, are about fans living vicariously through their favorite stars. It doesn't matter if that's the Colts or the Justice Society. The desire is the same. And that's why comics have the edge. The comics fan has a far nobler wish. Sports fans want to emulate a group of people who make millions (millions!) of dollars per year contributing nothing to society. They have tremendous physical ability, and they get paid to waste it running around on a field. In spite of that, many of them act like spoiled five-year-olds when they don't get their way. To a sports fan, this is the ideal lifestyle. Comics fans, on the other hand, strive to be like people who have been given tremendous powers and use them to help others. Superheroes don't get paid for their services. They do what they do simply because it's right. The life of a superhero is inherently selfless, while the life of a professional athlete is entirely selfish. Now, I know what you're thinking - superheroes aren't real and athletes are. Well, that's exactly my point. Comics fans seek to achieve the impossible. Our bar is set so high that there is no way we can ever reach it. Sports fans are content to strive for the life of a fallible, standard human being. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 18th, 2007
10:11 am	Xandler I was just thinking about how much I like Matthew Perry, and how much I hated Friends and Studio 60 (is that officially cancelled yet? Can I use the past tense?) He deserves so much better than those shows or any movie he's ever been in. In fact, I think the only thing I've ever actually liked featuring likable actor Matthew Perry was that one episodes of Scrubs. And then I started thinking about how Xander from Buffy kind of reminds me of a Stock Issue Matthew Perry character - sarcastic, funny, often befuddled. Really, he's just better written. So I realized - it would be cool if Matthew Perry and Nicholas Brendon got a sitcom where they played brothers. A funny sitcom with good writing. I'd totally be up for that. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 10th, 2007
10:42 am	Osmosis Viewing We just received the most recent issue of Entertainment Weekly at the library. It's a Sopranos cover with a preview of "the bloody final season" which just started. I have never seen an episode of The Sopranos. But I've been reading EW and TV Guide all these years, so I feel like I've seen them all. I can't wait to read how it ends. Anyone else ever have that happen? (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 13th, 2007
12:46 pm	Short and Oh So Sweet Lately, I've been watching a lot of short-lived TV shows through the miracle of DVD. Things like this are the reason I'm happy to be alive right now, rather than any time in the past. In junior high, I used to sit around paging through my Brooks & Marsh, thinking certain failed shows sounded interesting. Now I can actually see them without any effort at all. You can't beat that. Anyway, this morning I finished the 13th and final episode of Wonderfalls, which got me thinking. Specifically, I started thinking about the series in relation to Joss Whedon's Firefly. Despite being totally different in tone and style, the two shows have a lot in common - they were produced by Tim Minear, feature actress Jewel Staite in fairly important roles, have extremely catchy original theme songs, and were pulled by FOX before they could even finish their abbreviated runs, to name just a few superficial similarities. The thing that struck me, however, was this - both shows manage to tell a satisfying story in a limited number of episodes (15 for Firefly, 13 for Wonderfalls) and are, perhaps, better for having been pulled when they were. I haven't rewatched Wonderfalls yet, of course. But I imagine that, like Firefly, Freaks and Geeks (18 episodes), and Police Squad! (6 episodes), it will only get better when I do. Since these shows have such a small running time, every moment can be savored. With a long-running hit, there simply isn't time to watch every episode multiple times. Even with my favorite shows, such as Gilmore Girls, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and All in the Family, seasons tend to blend together in my memory, making the parts less than the whole. This doesn't happen with "one-season wonders". As with a favorite movie, I gain new appreciation for the subtleties with each trip through a short-lived series. Every line becomes burned in my brain. Unlike a movie, I still get the expanded characterization that only series TV allows. It's the best of both worlds. Also, most long-running TV shows eventually see a decline in quality, even the best ones. The three shows I mentioned in the previous paragraph, for example, all saw a major decline in their sixth seasons. Shows that die young don't suffer that indignity. They can go out in a blaze of glory, leaving us wanting more while treasuring forever what we did get. Now, shows like this don't come along very often. Most cancelled shows don't get the chance to tie up loose ends and seem like finished works of art. But when they do, it's truly something special. Also, this all makes me wonder when the day will come when more shows are specifically created for a one-season story arc. I look forward to that. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 2nd, 2006
10:52 pm	TV Haiku It's been just under a year since I last updated this journal. Due to a limited amount of peer pressure, I've decided it's time for a new post. I figure, what better way to get back into the habit than to post a single haiku about every current TV show I watch? None. There is no better way. So here they are. One poem about the most recent episode of each show. If you don't watch any of the shows, move along. EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS Betamax is great Greg gives Chris Young Frankenstein Dad tapes his stories STUDIO 60 ON THE SUNSET STRIP What is Who's on First? All he needs is discipline Sorkin's full of crap GILMORE GIRLS Pickles are funny Whiny Lorelai is not Where the heck was Lane? VERONICA MARS Cliff makes his return Richard Grieco is kidnapped Weevil's face looks weird LOST Jack's Dad, Shannon's Walt Kate's horse, only the monster Et tu, Hurley Bird? THE OFFICE Michael proposes He and Pam are so alike Hindu Halloween! DOCTOR WHO Cybermen are back Humans are inferior Doctor knows it's bad (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 22nd, 2005
10:35 pm	Marty: A Tragedy I don’t know what it is about fictional characters named Marty. They always seem to remind me of myself. In the 1955 movie Marty, the title character, played by Ernest Borgnine, laments the fact that he’s never had a girlfriend, exclaiming “I’m just a fat little man! A fat, ugly man!” That was my personal motto for a while. The other example is more recent. One of my favorite TV shows, Gilmore Girls, has a minor recurring character named Marty, one of the first people Rory ever met at Yale. Throughout the fourth and fifth seasons of the show, he serves as Rory’s token male friend and is often seen sitting around in her suite. We learn very little about him – his biological dad is actually his uncle, he works as a bartender, and that’s pretty much it. I’ve been thinking a lot about Marty lately. I fear he’s a warning directed at me, and one that I must heed. In the first half of the fifth season, several hints are dropped that Marty would like to be more than just Rory’s friend. He feels embarrassed when cocky rich boy Logan Huntzberger insults him in front of her, and later asks her if she has a boyfriend. Now, I should say that I can’t blame Marty for digging Rory. If I went to college with her, I’d have a crush on her. And I can’t shake the feeling that the end result would be much the same for me as it is for Marty. In his final appearance so far - Episode 102, “Jews and Chinese Food” - we learned that Marty loves the Marx Brothers, just like I do. Rory asks him to watch Duck Soup (my all-time favorite movie. Really!) with her, and when he shows up at her dorm room, she’s wearing a Harpo wig and hat. I feel this bears repeating – the smartest, funniest, and most attractive girl he knows asks him to watch Duck Soup, and dresses up as Harpo for the occasion. I can only dream of such a thing happening to me. How often I actually do dream of that will have to be left up to your imagination. Things go great at the Rory/Marty Marx Brothers-fest until Logan shows up and wants Rory to go gallivanting around town with him and his spoiled rich friends. Marty goes along, but feels awkward and out-of-place the entire time. As the episode ends, Marty tells Rory how he feels about her. She says she likes Logan, but they’re still friends and can finish Duck Soup if he wants. Marty declines, and actually says the words “I really like Duck Soup, and I don’t want to associate it with this particular day.” He goes home feeling dejected and Rory makes out with Logan on her bed. The end. Watching this episode nearly made my head explode. Right there on the screen was exactly the reason I’ve been entirely unable to express my feelings for any girl ever. This is exactly what I’ve always been afraid of. The Marx Brothers fan, who by all accounts is a nice guy and a “good friend”, doesn’t get the girl. The smug preppy does. And Duck Soup will have negative connotations for the Marx Brothers fan for the rest of his life. All my life, I’ve been worried that crap like that would happen to me if I ever actually worked up the nerve to ask someone out. I don’t know if it would actually work out for me like it does for Marty, but it certainly isn’t a good sign. So thanks, episode writer Daniel Palladino, for shattering my self-confidence into thousands of tiny pieces. Thanks a heap. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, June 24th, 2005
4:01 pm	Jiggy Wit' It: The Musical Today, my brother Christopher and I were talking about shows like "Mamma Mia" and "Movin' Out". We decided that if ABBA and Billy Joel deserve to have musicals based on their work, Will Smith certainly does. Inspired by that conversation, I've thrown together a rough outline of the plot and score for "Jiggy Wit' It: The Musical", hopefully to premiere by 2007. The main character is a young man named Will who has a great relationship with his Dad. They hang out all the time, and just enjoy each other's company, as explained in the opening number "Just the Two of Us". In secret, however, Will dreams of taking over the world and reshaping it in his image, then reigning for a thousand years. "Willenium" is used here. His father tells him that he doesn't think taking over the world would be such a good idea, and Will retreats to his room, where he sings "Parents Just Don't Understand." Shocked that Will would defy him, his Dad's only reaction is to send him away, to live with relatives in Bel Air. Of course, this leads to the theme from Fresh Prince Will blows off his uncle and aunt and heads to a club, where he becomes a friend to many and soon, a leader, as shown in the song "Switch". The audience is not let in as to how Will became a leader so quickly, until the song "Gettin' Jiggy Wit' It" reveals that Will is controlling people's minds through the dance he has developed. Anyone who gets Jiggy is instantly at Will's command. Using this dance, he'll soon control the world, and the Willenium will begin. Once Will has taken control of the club, a group of newcomers discover what is happening, and attepmt to foil Will's plot. His newly-formed group of dancers/hypnotists, dressed in black, put a quick stop to the resistance by forcing each regenade to nod their heads and get jiggy, in the song "Nod Ya Head". Soon, Will conquers all of California and decides to spread his dance to the rest of the country as well. Jim West, protector of the west, swears in his theme, "Wild Wild West", that he won't let this happen. Of course, Jim can't be everywhere at once, and while he's tracking down Will, the men in black are getting people jiggy all over the country. The song "Men in Black" plays during a montage of short scenes taking place all across the US. In a shocking twist, Jim discovers that Will isn't working his way eastward across the country, but has flown straight to Miami, reasoning that it's better to start on both coasts and work his way towards the center. Singing the song of the same name, Jim vows to capture Will in "Miami". As the two men finally come face to face, Will is about to perform his dance and bring Jim under his spell, defeating his most powerful enemy. He then launches into an unnecessarily long speech about how no one ever gave him the respect he deserves, and they will now that he's the 1000-year dictator. Tearfully and then in song, he confesses that everyone always thought of him simply as "Mr. Niceguy" because he hung out with his Dad so much. No one else wanted to be friends with him. He's sorry for what he did, he says. He just doesn't want to be known only as his father's son. Jim realizes that the only thing that will help Will is to discuss his true feelings with his Dad, so he sends the two of them to one of his fine western resorts, where they can talk and enjoy the "Summertime", in the song of the same name. The End. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 7th, 2005
4:13 pm	Some Funny Professional Journal Names that Start With D I have the best job in the world. Right now, in addition to being paid for sitting online, I'm doing some boring junk involving an online database of professional journals and all the journals we carry here at the Byrnes-Quanbeck Library. I'm also noticing that many of the journals have amusing names, and it is in that spirit that I present the following list, taken from the D section. Danger in the Home Dangers that Threaten Canada (1687) Debt Cubed Delicious Living Deodorants Industry Profile: Global Depo-Provera: The Quarterly Contraceptive Desalination Desert Dancing dig Digital Set Top Boxes Industry Profile: the Netherlands Dispatch International: Are We Addicted to Alcohol Advertising Djibouti Economic Competitiveness Do Fish Sleep Do I Need a Computer Do You Have Alopecia Areata? Help Yourself Do You Have: Dry Eyes Dry Mouth Dry Nose Arthritis Do Your Kids a Big Favor: Turn Them on to Exercise Dollfuss/Schuschnigg Era in Austria A Reassessment - Contemporary Austrian Studies Don't Deprive Yourself...of the Rewards of Exercise Don't Fall for the 900# Telephone Toll Fraud Scam Drug Week Drying Technology Dutch Review of Church History All of these things you can read in magazines - Crazy! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 14th, 2005
11:44 pm	Monkees=Monkees (the movie edition) In his book "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs", Chuck Klosterman talks about a game he played with a friend once called Monkees=Monkees. In the game, they chose a band or singer and decided which TV show from the same era most closely resembled them. Inspired by this, my friend Morgan and I attempted a movie version earlier today. For each band or singer, we tried to decide which movie they resembled, rather than which TV show. The criteria included general tone, initial popularity, lasting impact and critical reception. They still had to be from roughly the same era. Here's what we came up with: Backstreet Boys = She's All That Big Bopper Richardson = Plan 9 From Outer Space Bing Crosby = It's a Wonderful Life Black Sabbath = The Exorcist Blink 182 = American Pie Bob Dylan = 2001 Bob Seger = Rocky Bruce Springsteen = Raging Bull Cat Stevens = Gandhi Corey Hart = Ferris Bueller's Day Off David Bowie = Star Wars Devo = Revenge of the Nerds Duran Duran = Top Gun Eddie Murphy (as a Singer) = Arena Elvis Costello = Back to the Future Elvis Presley = Rebel Without a Cause Fountains of Wayne = Can't Hardly Wait Frank Sinatra = Citizen Kane Frank Zappa = Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Glenn Miller = Bringing Up Baby Guns 'n Roses = Terminator 2 Hootie and the Blowfish = Jerry Maguire Iggy Pop = A Clockwork Orange Johnny Cash = Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid KISS = Halloween Led Zeppelin = The Godfather Liz Phair = Thelma and Louise Louis Armstrong = Wizard of Oz MC5 = Bonnie and Clyde Metallica = Die Hard Michael Bolton = Ghost Moby = A.I. Modest Mouse = Donnie Darko Nat King Cole = Casablanca Nirvana = Pulp Fiction N*SYNC = 10 Things I Hate About You Peter Gabriel = Brazil Phish = The Big Lebowski Queen = Rocky Horror Picture Show Rage Against the Machine = Fight Club Radiohead = 12 Monkeys Talking Heads = Blue Velvet The Doors = Easy Rider The Eagles = Jaws The Pixies = Silence of the Lambs They Might Be Giants = Pee Wee's Big Adventure Van Halen = The Terminator Velvet Underground = Head Warren Zevon = Network Weezer = Mallrats Weird Al = Airplane Agree? Disagree? Any suggestions for things we forgot? Particularly, we kept trying to find movies to go with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys and The Who. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 30th, 2005
6:14 pm	A Humble Critique Among fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, episode 54, "The Prom", is often mentioned as one of the best in the entire series. Indeed, the show does have a lot going for it - Buffy's bittersweet last dance with Angel before he heads to LA, the beginning of Xander and Anya's relationship, and that excellent "Class Protector" presentation. But it has one glaring flaw which is usually overlooked - a very out-of-character peek into Buffy's taste in childrens' television. Writer Marti Noxon generally knows the Buffy characters very well, but she steps way out of line with this episode. Early on, Buffy dreams she and Angel are getting married, and the priest in her dream looks exactly like George Frankly from the beloved PBS series Mathnet. The priest is an authority figure, granting to Buffy in her dreams the wedding she'll never have in reality. As a policeman, Officer Frankly often helped kids with math-related trouble. Therefore, he is a natural to appear in a dream as a benefactor. It's not natural, however, for Frankly to appear in the dreams of our Buffy. It simply goes against everything we've ever learned about the character. If Mathnet is still affecting her subconscious a decade after it was on the air, it stands to reason that Buffy was a huge fan. But Buffy simply doesn't strike me as the type of person who would have watched Mathnet regularly. She has always shown very little interest in school, and we can assume this tendency was even stronger when she was a young girl. She's expressed a disdain for the subject in several episodes, and frequently asks her friends to "do the math". She doesn't want to do it herself! The only way Frankly's appearance could make sense would be if Willow was a fan, and had recently shown Buffy some episodes. Willow, who has expressed a fondness for math on multiple occasions, is a much more likely candidate to have grown up loving Mathnet. The possibility that she and Buffy had been watching it shortly before this episode is slim, however, as much is said in this episode about how hectic the gang's lives had been recently. They simply wouldn't have had time to sit down and watch ten-year-old educational televison. It's pretty safe to say that Marti Noxon loved Mathnet herself, and desperately wanted to insert a reference into a Buffy episode. But rather than find a place where the reference would make sense, and perhaps even reward long-time fans, she hastily stuck it in the first place she could find room. That's just plain lazy, and Noxon should be ashamed of herself. She did Buffy and its fans a disservice by falling short of the high standards the show usually maintains. (13 Comments |Comment on this)