Disney Movie Countdown Day 14 - The Little Mermaid

Biggest Memory from this movie: watching it with Cousins in Marshfield and hearing my aunt's Ursala impression. It's a nice memory, and Little Mermaid remains a very good movie. Now that I'm a good decade older than the 16 year-old Ariel, I really get where King Triton was coming from. He terrified me when I was younger and now I pretty much agreed with him the whole movie; except for the part wear he trashed her collection. That's a bit of an over reaction. I guess though, if I found out my youngest daughter was obsessed with say, man-eating cougars and wanted to run off and marry one, and had a secret shine built to their greatness, I'd probably be a little upset too. Anyway, Ariel is pretty much what you'd expect from a curious, confident teenager. She could use better parenting (this is a movie where a mother could negate the whole plot with a nice heart to heart), but sometimes, you just gotta let kids make mistakes and hope they don't hand your mortal enemy the keys to the kingdom and the super powers that go with it.

As for the movie itself, Ursala is one of the more entertaining Disney villains. She's smart, witty, and capable. She's also one of the few villains to get straight up murdered. She gets run through by the prow of a ship! Quick, name another Disney Villain intentionally murdered by one of the heroes. I'll wait. . . doesn't happen very often does it? I'd say this is some sort of subtle jab against women/fish people, but I have a feeling it has more to do with the fact that you can't easily slip and fall to your death standing in the ocean.

The supporting characters are awesome. Scuttle, Sebastian, Flounder, Louie the crazy Chef. Quick nerds, who played the Chef in Little Mermaid? I'll give you a hint - Deep Space 9. Answer: Security Chief Odo. Look it up. The man has the funniest song in the movie and he's a Sci-fi icon. Speaking of music, The Little Mermaid begins a run of some of the best music in the entire history of Disney, and it's all as good as you remember.

9/10

Tomorrow, I'll be watching either Snow White or Mulan, I'm leaving it up to the readers to vote. post your vote in the comments or on my facebook page.

Disney Movie Countdown Day 15 - Beauty and the Beast

I'll admit it. Beauty and the Beast is pretty incredible. I always liked Aladdin better growing up, and I think it had more to do with my being a boy than anything else. I just couldn't get past the fact that an awesome looking beast with super-strength wouldn't want to stay that way. He could take out a pack of wolves bare handed, he was like the Chuck Norris of Disney characters, and he wants to give up being awesome!? For a Girl!? And he looks like a girl when he's human?! What a let down!
After rewatching though, I can see what all the fuss was about; the animation is stunning, especially the stained glass prologue which is probably the best in the Disney canon. The castle fight scene is as thrilling as it is fun, and Gaston is a fabulous villian. I really liked the fact that the villain was the most popular guy in town. It's a nice message to kids that popular isn't the same as right. I had multiple flashbacks to my little sister reenacting the scenes by herself, with a melodramatic flourish as only a 6 year-old can, which was fun, because she would've been the best 6 year-old Belle ever. And although I know Robby Benson played the voice of the Beast, I can only picture Lt. Comander Worf from Star Trek whenever I hear the Beast talk,(for whatever that's worth).
I've heard some complaints that Beauty and the Beast encourages women to be with an abusive boyfriend who they can change. Not true! Beast saved her life, she brought him back and gave basic first aid. You know, the decent thing to do when someone sigle handedly saves you from a pack of wolves. Then he made the effort to be nicer. All she did was allow him to be nicer. She forgave him, he did the work. Her only crime was not being vindictive. Belle is one of the best female role models in Disney, so quit complaining.
Some things I do have questions about. Did you know that the Beast was ten-TEN when he was cursed? The curse lasts until his 21st birtday, and Lemure sings about laying around for 10 years. So in order for the curse to still be in effect without running out, he couldn't have been 11 yet. Who curses a 10 year-old boy? I mean I can understand cursing AT a 10 year-old boy, sometimes they ask for it, but mutating the boy and all his servants?? Seems like a bit of an over-reaction to me. I also question how no one noticed when a full castle with hundreds of servants turned into innanimate objects, but my wife said not to worry about it, so I won't.

9/10 (I gotta dock 1 point for the beast as a human. Seriously, there's no excuse for looking more feminine than your princess!)

Side note: I'm quite enjoying movies I haven't seen in a decade or more, so there will be a marked absence of Pixar movies. I hope you understand.

Disney Movie Countdown Day 16 - Toy Story

For those of you who don't know, I was way more like Sid when I was growing up. I think I broke almost every toy I ever owned, and only 20-30% of those were on accident. I didn't hate my toys, but I did love to see how they worked.
Anyway, Toy Story has the best written script of any Disney movie. It helps that it was written by geek god Joss Whedon himself. The movie is peppered with tons of witty phrases, many I garauntee went over your head when you were little. While the script has only improved with age, the animation reallly shows it's age. Especially on Blu-ray, the detailing is just not there and it really shows the limitations of mid-90's computer graphics. It makes me miss the hand drawn style of Jungle Book or 101 damations or any of the classics. What modern computer animation makes up for in depth and demension, it still lacks the human touch of hand drawn animation. I still love the crap out of this movie though.

9.5/10

Disney Movie Countdown Day 17 - The Great Mouse Detective

This will probably be the last non-classic movie that we see, simply because we're running out of time and we still have Pixar movies and the big 4 from my childhood (Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King) to get to. For those who don't remember, The Great Mouse Detective came out in 1986, during Disney's "bad decade." It's basically Sherlock Holmes for mice. In fact, Basil of Baker Street, the mouse mentioned in the title, lives below Mr. Holmes. This isn't so much a bad movie, as simply a forgotten one. There is a lot going for it: it's a fun adventure, the plot is engaging, there's some nice character work, and Vincent Price is the villain. In many ways, the movie feels like a prototype for Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers or Duck Tales. But the movie somehow lacks a "cinematic" quality in that it feels like a made for TV movie or the first episode of a TV series rather than a feature length Disney movie. It also suffers from being made in the 80's. Like so many movies from that decade, it doesn't age well. It's most notable in the songs, especially the strip tease number. Yes, you read that right. There's a Burlesque number in the movie that, frankly, makes Jessica Rabbit seem wholesome. Despite it's best efforts, the movie feels a little cynical in it's construction. It hits the beats, but never strives to elicit an honest emotion from the viewer. It's understandable that this movie never became a classic, it's just mediocre enough to be forgettable.

6/10

Disney Movie Countdown Day 18 - The Many Adentures of Winnie the Pooh

This movie reminds me a little of Toy Story for an older generation. It tells the adventures of a little boy and his toys. On top of that though, you get characters who interact directly with the narrator and who know that they're in a book. The movie is very cute, as you'd assume a movie about a boy and his cute stuffed animals would be. What I was surprised by was how mischievous Pooh can be. He's always scheming to steal honey from his friends, and he's very self-involved. He's like that friend you have, who's fun to be around, but he's also a big fat mooch. Tigger is overconfident and obnoxious, Owl is a pompous wind-bag (which I've noticed is a popular insult in Disney movies), gopher is a lazy, overpriced sub-contractor, and Rabbit is a bit of a fuddy duddy. This isn't to say they're unlikeable. On the contrary, it's refreshing to see children's characters with such human failings. The movie is very charming and nostalgic, but it has no villain and therefore, there's never a lot of conflict. It's the cinematical equivalent of a bowl of Chicken soup on a cold day. And there's certainly nothing wrong with that. I think we'll have to up the stakes and find something a little more exciting for tomorrow.

7/10

Disney Movie Countdown Day 19 - Jungle Book

When I was very young, we had a black lab named Bogey. He was awesome, but he wasn't yard trained. One day, my brother had a friend over who opened the front door too wide and Bogey dashed outside, into the highway and was killed by a car. This day would be the first time I saw Jungle Book. It was a way to help cheer me up, and being young and not quite understanding what had happened, it worked. To this day though, I get a little choked up when it looks like Baloo has died.

Now that you're all saddened by that story, I'm pleased to report that the Jungle Book is still a nearly perfect movie. It stars many of Disney's more famous voice actors. This movie includes the voices of Winnie the Pooh, Christopher Robin, The Narrator for the Whinnie the Pooh stories, Little John from Robin Hood, The Cheshire Cat, Jasper from 101 dalmatians, and on and on. It also stars music Legend Louis Prima as King Louis the Orangutan, whose musical style permeates the film. The music in this film is better than you remember; I'd forgotten about Kaa's lullaby and the vultures Barbershop quartet number done in the style of the Beatles.

I was curious to see if Jungle Book would be overtly racist, being based on a Rudyard Kipling story, and produced by the studio that brought us Song of the South. Honestly though, I didn't see it. You could argue that it's a metaphor for segregation, blah, blah, blah, but I think they do a great job of showing a very diverse and complicated jungle hierarchy that makes it abundantly clear that a 10 year old boy needs to live in a village to be safe. It has more in common with Into the Wild than Song of the South, and I was very happy to see that. Tomorrow, I think I will be watching Winnie the Pooh. It'll be nice to see the voice of Kaa trying to eat Honey rather than Christopher Robin (the voice of mowgli).

9.5/10

On a totally random note, I thought it was very amusing that the monkeys, an animal renowned for its tendency to fling poo, were fans of scat music. So, cherish that thought, I guess....

Disney Movie Countdown Day 20 - Sleeping Beauty

Confession time - This was my favorite Disney movie of all time until Aladin came out. So until the age of 8, this was my favorite. Oh, how the times have changed. Pricess Aurora may have the fewest lines of any Disney Princess. She's more of a MacGuffin than an actual character. Suffice to say, she's no Cinderella. The fairies are still the best part of the movie, and Maleficent is a villain with a lot of style (played by the same actress who voiced the wicked stepmother). Overall though, this movie has very little to offer, and drags a little, even with a 74 minute run time.

The movie can be summed up in the scene where Briar Rose finds our she's actually Princess Aurora. The fairies just blurt it out, and rather than reacting like "HOLY CRAP!! I'M A GD PRINCESS!?!?! AND I'M BETROTHED?! AND MY PARENTS ARE ALIVE?! AND I'VE BEEN RAISED BY !@#^&$% FAIRIES?! WTF, Y'ALL?!?!?!?!" She just cries because she can't marry the random dude she met in the woods. No reaction to the copious amounts of life shattering news that was just dumped on her. What a brat! This is why princesses get as much respect as Rodney Dangerfield. NONE! That does it! we're taking a break from Princesses! Tomorrow, it's Jungle Book time!

6.5/10 (for the fairies and maleficent only)

Oh, and that dress should've stayed BLUE!!! (Merriweather gets no respect!)

Disney Movie Countdown Day 21 - Cinderella

Funny thing about Cinderella, it's easy to forget that she never wanted to marry a prince. With all the 5 star weddings where the bride insists on being in a reproduction of Cinderella's carriage, to all the snotty brats who want to dress as Cinderella and have everything their way, I seemed to forget just how much it sucked to actually be Cinderella.

Your father dies, then your step-mom wastes all your family money, and then you become an indentured servant in your own home. Take a moment and let that sink in. The place where you have Happy Childhood memories with your father who loved you, is now the place where you are emotionally abused and forced to work all day, everyday to the point where you are talking with mice. This is not a good thing. Through all this, she somehow stays a nice person. Her big dream: one night at a ball. Not bagging a husband, she just wanted one good day. She didn't even know she met the prince, did you know that? The whole appeal of Cinderella is that she didn't need the whole carriage and the happily ever after, she just needed one new happy memory to keep her going. The whole future Queen thing was a happy by product. I think that's pretty cool. Oh, and the movie really holds up. And the mice: awesome! That's right world, I'm a 26 year-old married man, and I love Cinderella.

9/10

Disney Movie Countdown Day 22 - Hunchback of Notre Dame

Wow. This could be the most underrated Disney Movie of all time. I remembered really liking it when I was younger, but re-watching it, I'd say it's nothing less than a masterpiece. For the first time during this countdown, I found myself getting choked up on numerous occasions.

What makes it so great? I'm glad you asked, hypothetical reader. First of all, it's a much darker movie than I remembered. It starts with the murder of a woman and the attempted murder of a baby. Judge Frolo is the most dangerous kind of villian. He gets his power from convincing the masses that the poorest of people (gypsies) are the cause of all the evil in Paris. This leaves him free to abuse his power and hide behind his false piety. It's a terrifying lesson in misdirected evil. It doesn't take a genius to see the similarities between the gypsies and our current obsession with immigration.

But I digress. The characters are fantastic, and the voice actors are great at shifting from dialogue to song without taking you out of the scene. The serious material is sometimes undercut by the very broad humor of Jason Alexander as the portly gargoyle, but considering the movie is about racism, genocide, and public ridicule of the handicapped, I'm ok with a few jokes to lighten the tone. If you watch the movie again, it's interesting to note different ways the three males leads relate to the Gypsy Esmerelda. Quasimodo and Frolo in particular, since they both have to deal with her rejection. Oh, and the songs are really, really good. These are starting to get long, so I will end it here.
9.5/10

Disney Movie Countdown Day 23 - Pinnochio

Jiminy Crickett may be the worst conscience and most useless character in the history of Disney. He's a dirty hobo who breaks into Geppetto's house, yells at everyone for disturbing his sleep and is kind of a misogynist. He's never around when Pinnochio needs him, and doesn't really do anything of value in the movie.
Geppetto is a little creepy When you look at him through an adult's eyes. His only friends are a fish and a cat, he makes toys for kids you never see, and all he wants in life is a little boy, not a son, a little boy. This is important. At no point in the movie does Geppetto ever wish he had a son, he just wants a little boy. Way to make Germans not creepy Walt.
If all this wasn't bad enough, the characters all take pot shots at the life of an actor. "what actor ever needed a conscience anyway" "I'd rather be an actor than smart" Then if you go to the IMDB page for the movie, you'll see that all the actors are listed as "uncredited." Did Walt Disney HATE actors? Maybe he had them all shipped to the salt mines.

Anyway, you can probably tell by now that I didn't like Pinnochio. It's a tedious morality tale that doesn't disguise any of the lessons. The characters are all obnoxious/creepy. it's 10 minutes of story stretched to 88min. When your Disney loving wife says "is it over yet!" it's not a good sign. For a Classic movie that so beloved, I was very let down.

Song - "when you wish upon a star" 5/10
movie - 1/10

Disney Movie Countdown Day 24 - 101 Dalmatians

Holy swingin' 60's style Batman! If you haven't revisited 101 Dalmatians in a decade or so, re-watch it soon. It's simply one of the most gorgeous movie's Disney has ever done. The subsequent sequels and live-action movies over the years really lowered my expectations for what this movie could be. I was more than a little surprised by how well this movie holds up. It manages to tell a great story in under 80 minutes, but is also packed with great music, engaging characters, and a simply gorgeous art style. I kept wanting to freeze the frame and mount the picture on my wall. From london to the English countryside, you can really see the personality of the artists in the work, and it gives the movie a depth that CG animated movies still haven't touched. Where modern CG cartoons work to make you forget that someone created the images you see, 101 Dalmatians lets you see the brush strokes in almost every scene and I loved it. I may have to look for a few prints when I go to Disney world.
Movie - 7.5/10
Art direction - 10/10

Disney Movie countdown Day 25 - Rescuers Down Under

Day 2 (or 25 days to the honeymoon) starkly pointed out that not all Disney films are created equal.

Like many entries on this series, this movie was a beloved favorite growing up. I remember loving it. Today I tried to watch it for the first time in almost 20 years. I didn't finish it. I went for a walk instead. George C. Scott, John Candy, Bob Newhart, Eva Gabor. These icons were all in the movie. They could not save it. Our Protagonist is a young Australian boy who's mother has an australian accent, but the boy does not. He must have worked with Kevin Costner's dialect coach. The little boy wonders in to the outback to go adventuring. He can speak to all the animals (aparently he's the only one who can...) but only some of the animals can speak. The giant eagle from Lord of the Rings he rides on can only gesture, but they give full voice to the Jar Jar Binks-like collared lizard he meets later. When they spent 10% of the movie's 77 minute run-time focusing on an albatross crash landing and inexplicably being shot in the butt with a double barrel shotgun loaded with syringes, it's time to just go outside. 2/10.

disney movie countdown Day 26 - Finding Nemo

In anticipation of my approaching honeymoon, my wife and I have embarked on a quest to watch one Disney movie a day until we leave. In an attempt to get back to writing again, I will be sharing my brief thoughts on each movie.

We began yesterday with Finding Nemo. When this movie first came out, I think I saw it 6 times in the theater. It was the summer after high school graduation, and I have some fond memories of seeing this movie with friends that I would soon lose touch with. In a similar way, I felt that my fondness for this movie had grown a little distant. It's still a very well made movie, and I still love the humor, but rewatching it, 8 years separated from my initial reaction, I found the pacing to be a little forced and choppy, and the movie feels like it drags a lot after the jellyfish sequence. It was a little weird to be dissappointed in what was once one of my all time favorite movies, but oh well. I will still be anxiously awaiting the blu-ray edition so I can enjoy the gorgeous animation in high-def! that's all for today. wow, I CAN keep a blog post short! Go Me! 7.5/10

On the joys of curling

The Olympics are over and now it is time to reflect back what I learned, which is this: Curling. Is. AWESOME! I know, I know, the Olympics were 3 weeks ago, so this is pretty late, but I promised talk of curling, and that's exactly what you're gonna get.

I must admit, that when I first started watching curling, I was watching only for the sheer novelty and silliness of it. I mean, the Norwegian men were playing in pajama pants for crying out loud! But the more I watched, the more I realized that curling is a sport, a ridiculous sport, but a sport nonetheless. When you watch a team drop a deuce in the bottom of the end... I mean, when they put the rock right on the button... ok, so some of the terms are a little weird, but still, you gotta respect someone who can stick one knee into their chest with the other leg dragging behind while sliding on a Teflon covered shoe directing a 46 pound rock into the center of a 12 foot circle 60 feet away. can you even get one knee to touch your chest while sliding on ice? I mean, on purpose? No? I didn't think so, you should really work out more.

Anyway, part of the reason I got sucked in was the level of competition. Imagine tuning into baseball for the 1st time and seeing every game settled in the 10th inning by one run. Matches that close tend to appeal to the competitor in all of us. On top of that, you have a Canadian home crowd cheering like this is the Super Bowl. 20,000 toque wearing Canadians screaming over curling. It's kind of Awesome. At one point, the Canadian men were down one rock to the Swedes in the 11th end, and the Canadians had the hammer (to the uninitiated, I'll translate: "the Yankee's were down by one run at home in the 10th inning to the Red Sox") when the Canadian home crowd spontaneously burst into and an acapella version of "O Canada." The match stopped dead until the crowd finished. Then the Canadians came back and defeated the defending world champs. How can you not be moved by that?

I mean, these are athletes who get excited when 2,000 people watch, let alone ten times that many. It's pretty special. In fact, the crowd was so into curling THAT THE PA ANNOUNCER HAD TO TELL THEM TO SETTLE DOWN! At one point, a girl on the Dutch team cried because the crowd was so rowdy. So now we have spontaneous singing, screaming crowds, and cute Dutch girls crying, would you change the channel? Reality TV wishes they had this much drama.

If you're wondering why people were so upset at the noise, imagine trying to hit a golf shot, only you're on ice, the ball weighs 46lbs, you don't have a club, and people are screaming at you. I think you'd get a little rattled too.

To sum up, curling is awesome, and it sucks to be you if you missed it, cuz now it will most likely be 4 years before you get another chance to watch it, and the Mayan's say will be dead in two, so you really missed out on something special.

That's about all I have to say about curling for now. I'm more of a roller derby fan these days though. But that's a blog for another day.

Great Concert Memories - My 1st Concert - Part 2

So we finally get to the site, and it is basically a fence around an open field with one massive permanent stage, several mobile stages and tons of booths selling band merchandise and concessions. Oh, and a skate ramp for pro skaters to do tricks on, but that is irrelevant to this story. While waiting to get into the park, I get to do some people watching, and I learned quickly the adhesive magic egg whites perform on hair.

A quick note on the set up of the main stage. In order to keep the show on schedule, the stage was split in the middle by a giant stack of amps. one half of the stage was always being set for the next group while the current band played on the other half. It ran like clockwork.

When we finally get in, my buddy and I head straight to the main stage. It's 11:15 am and the 1st band is almost done with their set. The first thing I notice is that punk music is supposed to be listened to live. I forget the name of the band, but I remember being surprised at the energy they brought to the stage, especially before noon. The next band up I do remember. It was a female fronted band called Tsunami Bomb, and they were pretty great. Since it was early, I got all the way to the front row and got to shake hands with the lead singer. It marked the first and only time I've had a crush on a musician. She was crazy cute with funky pink highlighted hair, and she gave off a very energetic and positive vibe.

So after the lovely lady punk finished, My attention was drawn to the left hand stage where a band of filthy men in dirty white t-shirts was ready to play. This would be Andrew W.K. If you don't know what Andrew W.K. sounds like, picture the happiest music you've ever heard channeled through metal guitars and sung by a demon. It was the musical equivalent of adding habanero pepper to dark chocolate, but in a good way. It was also my introduction to the mosh pit. While Andrew jumped around the stage dancing like a lunatic and telling everyone how much he loved them, I jumped around like a lunatic in the gentlest mosh pit ever. The nice mid-western punks kids made a circle (like you do) and we all jumped around inside, crashing into each other as politely as possible. It also may have been that it was just now noon, and most of the crowd was still waking up. If anyone ever fell down, three people grabbed them and pulled them up so the party could continue. My day was already turning out much differently than I had thought. These were not a bunch of anoying losers listening to crappy music. These were a bunch of nice, cool kids (for the most part) dancing to high energy, positive punk rock.

Up next were the Mad Caddies, a fantastic ska-punk band with a burly lead singer parading around stage slapping his belly (it was more fun than it sounds, I promise)
About halfway through their set, I realized we were being invaded by an army. I turned around to see a sea of Black and Green, with huge banners held high. Who could be playing next that inspired such rabid devotion? I looked at the big board with the list of bands, somebody called the Dropkick Murphys was up next. What was this all about?

It turns out that the Dropkick Murphys are a high octane Irish punk band from Boston, and holy crap do they put on a show. The experience of watching this band play in front of their fans is kind of like being in the coolest cement mixer ever.
Up next was a band named Thrice, but I can't tell you how they were though because after two plus hours in front of the middle stack of speakers, I could no longer differentiate sounds. So after the set, it was time to take a break and refuel.

On a side note, punk fans do not always bathe, and this can be a problem when you stand in the sun on a giant concrete slab in July with a few thousand of them. Thankfully, the security crew did something amazing. They hosed down the crowd. Nothing makes you forget the fat sweaty guy rubbing against you like a shot of water hose to the face.

After a couple hours of food eating and CD buying, it was time to get back to the main stage to see this AFI band I'd heard so much about. As the band before them started their set, the once blue sky had gotten quite cloudy, so the crew set about covering all amps in plastic and waterproofing the stage. The band before AFI finishes, and the sky has gotten scary dark. Then I see this band of guys dressed in black with black hair and black eye makeup and pasty white skin come out on stage. They start to play their first song, a slow, doomy intro song, that increases to a fantastic creshendo. The crowd has become a sea of kids in black screaming as loud as I ever ever heard. The tension builds and builds until Davey Havok, the lead singer walks out onstage looking like Alice Cooper's bastard child. The band hits a monster cord has Davey jumps in the air like David Lee Roth, and, as if on cue, the skies open up and pour down upon us. The crowd and the band are like a single, seething entity screaming as one. The rain pounds the sweltering concrete and sweaty crowd and causes a fog of steam to rise above our heads as Davey walks into the audience, held up by his rabid fans, and shows everybody what a real rock star looks like. My little mind is officially blown. I am shrieking and singing words to a song I don't even know. Once the set is done, everyone is screaming so long they have to wait for the poor schlubs who have to follow them. The rain stops before the next band starts and the sky is sunny by the time the Ataris start playing after them.

Although it was still early in the evening, AFI had wiped us out and it was time to go home. But was a day I'll never forget.

I think that's quite enough for now, Up next: how curling caused me to stop writing in my blog.

Great Concert Memories - My 1st concert - part I

In keeping with the non-theme of my blog, I'm gonna talk about something new today. I want to talk about my 1st concert memory.

This isn't strictly speaking, the 1st concert I ever saw. I'd seen Herman's Hermits and Gladys Knight with the Temptations at the State Fair growing up. What I want to talk about is the 1st concert I ever went to with just friends, and no family along for the ride. So what was my first big concert experience? It was the 2002 Van's Warped Tour at Flo-Rite Park just outside of the Twin Cities.

A little context: this was the summer between my junior and senior year of high school. I was a band, choir, and theatre geek who had never been very adventurous. I did not drink at all in high school, I never missed curfew, my first car wreck occurred in a mini van at under 25mph, and I had a paralyzing fear of girls. I was the antithesis of punk. So when my best friend asked if I wanted to go to the Warped Tour, it was more out of musical curiosity than anything else. (the fact that we'd be riding with two girls I may or may not have had a crush on at the time had nothing to do with it)

I hated punk music too. Or, to be accurate, I hated punk music as I understood it. I was raised on classic rock, grew up with 90's alternative pop, and was in the middle of a serious nu-metal phase. The concert I would have picked included Staind, Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, and Metallica. To me, punk was what whimpy skateboarders listened too and contained prepubescent vocals over poorly played instruments. (That's right, the future swim team captain questioned the toughness of skateboarders) The focus of my hatred of punk was a band called AFI. Now, I'd never heard anything AFI had ever done, but the kid in the trumpet section in band who I thought was a bit of a tool happened to wear an AFI sweatshirt rather frequently, so AFI sucked by association.

Despite my feelings about Punk, I decided to go. I'd get to spend the day road tripping with friends and I finally get to see a band formed after the 1960s. Also, the worst band in the world would beat a summer day pushing carts in the Wal-Mart parking lot. I don't recall much of the ride there. Growing up in far northern Wisconsin, it's a very long drive to anywhere worth while to a teenager, so we left around dawn, and I vaguely recall Burger King cinnamon rolls for breakfast. I got to hear some of the bands we'd be seeing that day, including AFI. I was a little surprised that they didn't sound too bad. Maybe this day wouldn't be so bad, but I still had my doubts.

part II coming soon!

The Wolfman review

Ok, certain readers have been whining about not having enough to read, so I hope to gorge you all over the next several days. First up, my review of the Wolfman:

3.5/5 stars

The Good - The Wolfman embraces an old school storytelling style that makes this movie feel like a 1930s script filmed today, and I do mean that in a good way.

The Bad - Movie was delayed and reworked a lot, and the plotting suffers for it

The Ugly - Dumbest set up for a sequel ever!

Longer Take - The new Wolfman movie featuring Benicio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins is a fun night at the movies. Anthony Hopkins deserves a lot of praise for his most entertaining performance since Silence of the Lambs. His almost casual chewing of the scenery is a complete joy to watch. Credit should also go out to Hugo Weaving for being the first intelligent police office I have ever seen in a horror movie. Before seeing the wolfman in person, Hugo Weaving's character does what you'd hope a policeman would: he asks questions and follows the laws he's supposed to protect. This includes defending suspects from a growing mob threat. Once the threat has been experienced, he also does what you would do, namely, get all the officers you can with a crapload of guns to solve the problem, but blowing it to pieces. Benicio Del Toro enunciates in this movie, which makes it one of his better performances, but his accent is so painfully not British or standard American that it is not a little distracting. Emily Blunt is very pretty and she's in the movie too. Her character is more or less a plot device so there's not much else to say about that.

What Really made this movie enjoyable though was not the cast, but the setting and style of the film. I felt like I was watching a film from the 30s or 40s with up to date camera work and CGI. The story contains certain tropes that give you an old timey feel: there is the mysterious old mansion, a legend of a supernatural beast, the simple minded townsfolk fear the magical gypsys, and the owner of the old mansion has a non-white manservant who knows something about monsters. Unlike the disaster that was VAN HELSING, this movie is staunchly old-fashioned and never tries to be "hip" or "modern." everything feels old and comfortable. The CGI is not great, but not terrible, and the Wolfman creature is an extremely faithful design that I quite liked. The only thing apart from the effects that updates this movie is the gore, and there are buckets of blood to go around! The most successful part of the movie happens before we get a good look at the creature. We get lots of violence and gore but only a glimpse of the monster. It reminded me of why movies like JAWS are so successful, there is something so much more terrifying about a creature you can't see. The Wolfman could have benefited from continuing this "less is more" approach, but it does do a nice job overall.

The last thing I want to talk about is what this movie does to differentiate itself from the current crop of werewolf and vampire movies, books, and TV shows. There are only two werewolves in the movie, and the movie shows how brutal and tragic it is too be one. Because there is a small number of monsters, each one gets to be as brutal as possible. You ever notice how a vampire or a werewolf's power seems to diminish has the number of them grows. You have to balance the power in order to tell a compelling story and that is why you get relatively weak monsters in the True Blood, Underworld, or Buffy universes. Oh sure, they may have some powers, but there are always other monsters to balance that power and make it seem weaker. Not here. When you only have one (or two), the brutality quotient goes up. Also, there's nothing sexy about being a werewolf. Sorry girls, no hairless man boys who instantly transform into pretty dogs, You get hairy, middle aged men horribly contorting into ugly man-wolf hybrids who rip off limbs, slash throats, and spill guts like it's going out of style. And that should make any horror movie lover happy.

Nerd alert! Why star trek is the worst/best movie of 2009

Ok, it's been a few days and I am feeling a little guilty about my lack of productivity. Rest assured dear readers, my absence as been due to an ongoing search for gainful employment, and not due to a lack of desire to dazzle you with my random articles about stuff I want to talk about. (so far, being witty and awesome does not pay bills) Oh, and I was watching the Super Bowl last Sunday. Yay Saints!

Anyway, in my spare time, I have been thinking, and I have come to a conclusion; the JJ Abrams Star Trek movie is the worst/best movie of the year. When I say best, I mean I saw it in the theatre 3 times, and I had a blast. Growing up, I had seen all the old star trek movies, but I had never watched any of the shows. When an older sibling likes something, it's easy to write it off as "lame" in order to establish your own identity. But the new Star Trek got me so excited that I began to borrow several of the series' from friends or the public library. After 2 and half seasons of Star Trek: the Next Generation, and about 3 seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space 9, I have to conclude that the shows contain far superior story telling than the movie.

Now I have by no means become a trekkie (yet). The old shows do seem painfully dated at times and can fall into low points that make you cringe. But what the old shows lack in special effects, they make up for in creating a far more interesting world than the black and white future in JJ Abrams shiny new Trek. One of the complaints many people apparently had with the shows was that there was a lack of action and an excess of plot. While this is occasionally true, more often than not, the two series I've mentioned contain a rather thrilling amount of danger and intrigue. What the tv series' lack in production values, they make up for in following one simple rule, explosions and action sequences do not equal a compelling narrative. With a vision of the future based on diplomacy and politics, the threat of war always looms large. Peace is something to constantly maintain, something to fight for, and never a given. Because the shows focus on character and the struggle not to fight, they are far more compelling in the long run than a future of shoot first, plot later. The threat of extreme action should build tension, but the viewer should ultimately hope against all out war. We want see our heroes succeed with words rather than bombs. JJ Abrams wanted a vision of Star Trek where the promise of action was fulfilled, and, upon reflection, I find this approach tacky. It's easy to create drama by blowing up something, it is far harder and more rewarding to maintain the promise of destruction with the hope of resolution. To Create a world where diplomatic solutions are not possible or laughed at is a counter to everything Star Trek seems to represent.

My favorite Original Cast movie hands down was Star Trek VI: the Undiscovered Country. As a cold war allegory, you have the crew struggling to preserve a fragile peace between two hostile empires. Ultimately, the conspirators are found and diplomacy prevails. The plot is intriguing and exciting without a snow monster chase. In the new Trek we have bad guy on killing spree, so let's kill him back. It's two dimensional and much less rewarding in the long run.

With the new Start Trek, you get a very well done summer movie, with a great ensemble cast, and I think it fits in fairly well with the universe of the original Cast films. But it is a shame that the film has abandoned the subtlety that made the series so memorable in the first place. Perhaps this will be addressed in the sequels, but as long as they are written by the two buffoons responsible for Transformers 2, I doubt they possess the maturity to tell a better story that is more exciting than the first film and contains fewer action set pieces.

What has me so ambivalent about the new Star Trek is that it did what it set out to do, which is to bring new fans into the Star Trek universe (myself being a prime example). But now that I am discovering the old shows, I feel like someone promised my candy and slipped me steak dinner instead. I'm grateful for the steak, but suddenly the candy that looked so good pales in comparison. I will continue to struggle with my feelings about the movie as I own it on blu-ray and it's still quite fun to watch, but I will always begrudge it a little for trying to make Star Trek into Star Wars. Given the choice of which galaxy I prefer, I'll choose the one without Jar Jar Binks every time. That's enough nerd rant for now, I'll try to do better next time.

Overreact much? My thoughts on the Lindsey Vonn SI cover

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/ronjuddsolympicsinsider/2010963997_lindsey_vonn_si_poster_girl.html

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/cover/featured/9313/index.htm

The above two links show two different SI Winter Olympics themed covers. The 1st will take you to this years cover showing Lindsey Vonn, the 2nd is a 1992 cover featuring A.J. Kitt. Guess which one people are upset about? Normally I don't like to talk about these supposed controversies, I find them silly and a waste of time. But this one really bothered me, and since I now have a blog, I thought I'd say my piece.

So Let's talk about the Lindsey Vonn picture. It is a shot of her, in full ski equipment, minus a helmet, looking at the camera and smiling while in her skiing pose. That's it. Yes, she is clearly in a photo shoot and not actually skiing downhill. What seems to bother people is that somehow, Ms. Vonn is being objectified in this picture. Why, because she's wearing makeup and has had her hair done for a publicity photo? This is not an objectification of anybody, this is a photo shoot designed to give a face to the 2010 US Olympic team. She is on the cover so Americans who don't follow downhill skiing will know who to cheer for. People like a name AND a face. She also happens to be arguably the best in her sport and is expected to win gold, which makes her an ideal cover athlete.

Quick, who was the face of the US Olympic team in 2008? If you said Michael Phelps you'd be right. What does he have in common with Lindsey Vonn: both are the very best in the sport, both participate in sports that are rarely followed outside of Olympic competition, both sports focus mainly on the accomplishments of the individual, and oh yes, both athlete are considered to be attractive. Why is this a problem? If you devote your life to being in fabulous shape so you can compete at the highest level, it is reasonably expected that you are at least fairly attractive.

By the way, here's Michael Phelps SI cover, you'll notice the photographer didn't go out of the way to prove he was wearing anything at all, except his gold medals.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/0808/oly.michael.phelps.covers/content.1.html

So we have a male athlete, possibly naked on the cover, in a pose that has nothing to do with his sport, and this is fine. (I guarantee you he is also wearing makeup, it's kind of how a photo shoot works) However, a female athlete in her uniform, posing as if she's competing, but smiling at the camera with a tasteful amount of makeup is somehow objectifying to all women? I rather doubt it.

Some of you maybe wondering about the 1992 photo I mentioned. You'll notice A.J. Kitt has his racing helmet on. You'll also notice that this is a less personal photo. What we have is not a face to cheer for, but a shape with a name, an interchangeable figure to the casual observer. I promise you, if they put A.J. Kitt in a little blush and eye shadow and had him smile at the camera, people outside of the downhill skiing community would still remember him. So it not about sexual objectification, or anything else, The cover is about introducing America to it's champions, the ones who will represent the best of what America has to off. In that context, they should be objectified, but as an example of athletic and physical perfection, of hard work and perseverance, not as a sexual object on the cover. To suggest that the cover intended to be anything other than tasteful, is to see a sexual deviance in the photo that exists only in the eye of the beholder.

Some thoughts about "The Real"

Hey everyone, the Broadway show, PASSING STRANGE recently came out on DVD and I wanted to talk about it a little bit. For those who don't know, I got to see this show in New York during March of 2008 and it has stayed with me like no show ever has. If you're curious, please rent or buy the DVD. Spike Lee taped the final 3 performances at the Belasco Theater and he truly makes the show come to life. That said, I'm going to post some thoughts below that are message spoilers (I take a stab at the meaning of the show) and a few plot spoilers as well. You have been warned.

Passing Strange: The Real is a contruct.
“You know it’s weird that morning you wake up and realize that your entire adult life is based on the decision of a teenager - a stoned teenager?” -Stew (narrator)

Passing Strange is a play about the dangers of chasing transcendence, of seeking it as life rather than just a piece of it. Those of us who live our passion for art have an addiction to transcendent moments, that point where art, artist, and audience meet to create magic. It can happen on stage at a play, in a movie theatre, at a rock concert, and in a church. It is the shared moment, a moment of clarity, “the real.”
Passing Strange follows the story of Youth as he struggles to free himself of the oppression of middle class black America. His pursuit of art and sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll lead him first to Amsterdam and later to West Berlin in the 1980s. But Youth is full of excuses and unrest. He cannot stay in Amsterdam because this European paradise has dulled his pain and passion to create art. So he flees to Berlin, and reimagines himself as an authority on all of black culture, and an avant-garde artiste.
In L.A. he wasn’t black enough. He wouldn’t play up the stereotype. In Berlin, he passes as the “blackest” man around. His search for the real is always focused solely on art at the expense of his relationship and his own identity. Towards the end of the play, Youth declares, “life is a mistake, that only art can correct.” Youth attempts to rectify a love taken for granted by putting it onstage, to make it “real.” But art has limits. It cannot return lost time, and it cannot absolve the sin of forgetting the ones who love you. It is a heavy message, and a reminder to artists everywhere that “the real” is only the transcendence found in art. It is not life, and it is not reality. To turn your back on reality in favor of “the real” can result in a loss of the things that make “the real” worthwhile: a family to share it with. Our narrator tells the story of the pretzel man reminding him that “the real is not real. The real is a construct. The real is a creation. The real is artificial. The kid in your play is looking for something in life that can only be found in art.” I think this is a sentiment worth remembering as we strive in our own ways to bring “the real” into the world.

That's all for today, I'll try to do better next time.

p.s. in case you care, I give this show 5 stars, a gold sticker and an A+.