The most famous guest star in any hour long crime show is going to be the bad guy.
Recently proven by Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s turn as the hacker/murdered in an old episode of Numbers.
Archive for the ‘I have a pop culture problem’ Category
Joe Vs. My Butt
Friday, May 20th, 2011
Crockett and I watched Joe vs. the Volcano last night. I haven’t seen it in years and had a desire to revisit it.
This is how I remember it:
Yeah, no. This is how it actually went:
Most depressing movie ever.
Important Bridesmaids shit
Wednesday, May 18th, 2011
The movie, not actual bridesmaids. Everyone I know is either past the wedding stage or not yet in the wedding stage, so there are currently no actual bridesmaids in my life.
The movie.
First, let’s make it clear that – for people who care about this sort of thing – this was an important movie. This movie was a major studio (Universal) dipping its toe into the idea that a comedy that is about and carried by women can be successful. Don’t believe me? Go read the many articles published over the last year that quote writers and directors who have pitched female-driven scripts and projects and who have been told ‘let’s see how Bridesmaids does, first’.
The fact that it did do well its opening weekend (and based on the half-full theater I experienced today at a 1 pm Wednesday showing, I suspect it will continue to do well) is excellent news. It means that the next time someone wants to make a movie that has women as more than supporting players, the people behind the movie will have some leverage. “Look at Bridesmaids!”, they can say. “Emma thought it was fantastic!”
Ok, they probably won’t say that last part. But they’ll definitely say the first part.
And people? I did think it was fantastic. I went to see it with my mom today – I do need to warn you, it opens with Kristen Wiig and Jon Hamm having sort of … graphic … sex. I mean, not graphic in that you actually see anything you wouldn’t see if they were wearing swimsuits. Graphic as in they bounce around and yell a lot and…
I’m just telling you so that if you decide to see it with your mom, you’re prepared. You might want to either send her to the bathroom or go yourself for that part.
It was everything I wanted movies like I Love You Man and Superbad to be*. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoyed those movies. I just hated that I was frequently jerked out of moments of hilarity by some misogynistic bullshit, or the sudden awareness that the film was failing the Bechdel test.
I assume, dear readers, that you actually know some women. I therefore assume that it is not news to you that sometimes, when we’re together, we go entire sentences – nay, paragraphs - without discussing men.
I’m confused as to how we all know this, and yet that fact is so rarely represented in movies, particularly comedic ones.
Independent of those issues – underrepresented and wrongly represented women – it’s nice to see people like me on the screen. By like me I actually literally mean like me – Wiig plays a failed baker in her thirties (hi, life, nice to see you up there in technicolor!) and figuratively like me. Women, with friends, who say funny things, and do things, and … ya know – live. And stuff.
Anyway. If you haven’t seen Bridesmaids, please do. You will not be disappointed. I personally guarantee you a refund if you are**. It was so funny that I thought the dude sitting down the row from me was going to have an aneurysm. He laughed until he started coughing, and then sort of started choking, and then sort of started breathing heavy (don’t worry, he wasn’t alone). The next awesome scene, he did it again.
Did you notice I said ‘dude’? That I noticed, there were two men in the theater. Maybe men are worried that it’s going to be lady-humor? There is some humor that I would consider lady-humor, certainly. There’s a whole bit about how men just stick their penises in your face until you give up and … well, I would sort of call that humor geared towards those who have sex with men. However, I have watched a lot of shitty jokes about boobs and vagina over the years, so I’m going to say Bridesmaids totally earned this one. There was also puking. And pooping of pants. And a sex tape that involves a really big sandwich. (Yes, Bridesmaids does take place because of a wedding, but it is so not about the wedding.)
I’m just saying.
Something for everyone.
* Bridesmaids is being compared to a chick version of The Hangover. That was a horrible fucking movie. Seriously. I mean, it had its moments – but… no. Just, no. If that’s what you’re looking for, just wait for The Hangover II (which I personally am super plus psyched about, lemme tell you).
** I’m assuming here that if you request a refund from me and I forward your request to Kristen Wiig, she’ll hook you up. If she doesn’t, I take no responsibility. What? She’s a movie star now.
princesses part deux
Tuesday, May 17th, 2011
Remember all those princes I was considering marrying?
You know, because they were all totally into me and stuff?
Apparently people don’t say very nice things about you when you’re a princess.
All Snow White wanted was to have a healthy snack, y’all. Gluttony?
In truth, this series from deviantART is gorgeous. Clicking on the picture will take you to images of all seven deadly sins, and somewhere in there is a link to a companion set that illustrates the seven virtues (which I actually didn’t know was a thing – thank you, pop culture and Brad Pitt, for making me aware of the bad ones and failing to mention the whole other side).
Also worth checking out is Dina Goldstein’s Fallen Princesses project. They’re pictures of life after the happily ever after – Belle gets plastic surgery, Snow White has ten kids and a slacker prince of a husband, and Jasmine is decked out for battle in a Middle Eastern field.
We use princesses the same way we use superheros – as foils for our daily concerns but on a much grander level. For a normal person, Gluttony means too many pieces of pie or bottles of wine, leading to some extra pounds or a tired liver. For a certain well known princess, Gluttony means one bite from an apple and a semi-permanent coma.
It must be hard to be a real princess. That’s a lot of responsibility to take on. Superheros can handle the weight of our expectations, what with not actually existing and all. Princesses – not so much.
All those princes that are wooing me are going to be disappointed – but I don’t think it’s a job I would want.
ETA: The brilliant Awlbiste pointed out in comments below that there is a definite air of something like misogyny in the first pictures, and that referring to the princesses as ‘fallen’ is quite judgmental.
I absolutely see what she’s getting at. Perhaps it has something to do with the expectations society has of women – the be good/stay pretty/eat lightly/act sweetly bar that women are held to. If you read the descriptions for each sin, the ones that explain why that particular woman was chosen to represent that sin, they’re likely not things that would be considered sins if they’d been committed by men. For example, Ariel was chosen to represent Greed because she wasn’t happy under the sea with just her family and friends. In a man, would that read as ambition? Why would he want to stay home? He’s got things to do! Places to be! Money to earn! She must be greedy, though.
No – just ‘problems’
Friday, May 13th, 2011
If I see the words ‘First World Problems’ one more time today, I am going to reach through the computer screen and smack the person who wrote them upside the head.
First World Problems (or #firstworldproblems on twitter) is this thing that’s taken the internets by storm recently. I’m not sure for how long – I probably saw it last week, but this week is when it really started to grate on me.
The straw that made me want to kick the fucking camel was a recent post on Apartment Therapy. They have an ‘ask the readers’ feature where you submit a question about your home and they post it and let commenters make suggestions. Yesterday, a woman wrote in saying that her and her boyfriend have a bathroom that is directly over their building’s parking garage, and that her baths get cold almost immediately. Several people suggested that perhaps her floor is not properly insulated, or that she preheat the tub with boiling water.
One super cool commenter just posted ‘first world problems’. That comment has since been removed.
Yes, people. By virtue of living in a first world country, we have first world problems.
THE ARE STILL PROBLEMS. I also have white girl problems, short girl problems – hell, just girl problems. I have student problems and American problems. Some of these problems absolutely have to do with me being in a position of privilege, and some don’t. They are still problems.
If I were to go somewhere that hunger is currently a country wide issue, say, and then whine about having nothing to eat because nothing in my full fridge looks good, that would be tasteless and really just kind of lame. Ditto for going to some third world orphanage and then complaining that my parents didn’t pay my college tuition. There are a lot of tacky ways that I could complain about things like that.
However, a statement of a cold bathtub and a request for help does not require a smack down. The author of that question didn’t go to some place where they can’t bathe and whine in their faces about her tepid bathwater. She has an apartment with a bathtub. (She doesn’t actually say where she lives, but I think Apartment Therapy readership is mostly American with some Canadians and Europeans thrown in for good measure.) She just wants to take a bath. People take baths all the time.
When you list her problem (or mine, or Crockett’s) up against hunger and poverty and oppressive government regimes, they do seem insignificant. However, that’s not how problems work. Happiness seeks a certain level, and ours has leveled out somewhere above poor, hungry, and oppressed. We know, waking up, that we’ll have enough to eat. That makes us lucky, absolutely, but it doesn’t mean that the things that go wrong for us during the day aren’t still things that go wrong.
And, as a final indignity, everyone who makes the ‘first world problems’ accusation on the internet HAS ACCESS TO THE INTERNET. You know what’s a first world problem? Having the time and ability to hang out on line and then using it to degrade other people.
Jackasses.