Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features,
where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of
Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by
the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge
affinity for their body of work.
Yesterday, we did some private investigating and discovered Tom Selleck turned 64, and today we made good on our French connections and unearthed it to be the big day for a guy with great acting genes who's anything but a hack.
Here we go with another ridiculous Films From The Cable Afterlife. As usual, we scour the cable movie listings and turn up some diamonds, and lots of the rough. For best results, watch both. Your life may improve! 8. Mystery Of Monster Island (1981) Fox Movie Channel, Wednesday, February 3, 4am Unbelievable pile of crap by Juan Piquer Simon, one of the worst directors of the 20th century (he's also responsible for X-rated chainsaw slasher Pieces, MST3K fodder Pod People and K-Tel Films release The Supersonic Man). How a major studio found their way around distributing this one is anybody's guess (a series of blowjobs, perhaps), but you will never see Terence Stamp look more embarrassed. Watch if you dare.
7. DOUBLE FEATURE ALERT Pumpkin Karver (2006) The Movie Channel, Saturday, January 31, 12am Pumpkinhead (1988) IFC, Saturday, January 31, 1:35am The stars have aligned: two pumpkin-related horror movies back-to-back on the same night. Different networks, but still, work with me here. Friday Night Lights' Minka Kelly stars in the serial killer/Juggalo-style horror dumper Pumpkin Karver, while Lance Henriksen conjures up a demon to kill bikers in Stan Winston's minor classic Pumpkinhead. It's "Pumpkininny!"
6. Booty Call (1997) Cinemax (@MAX), Sunday, February 1, 8:05pm; Cinemax (WMAX), Monday, February 2, 6:50pm; Cinemax, Tuesday, February 3, 8:30pm Boisterous, offensive and couthless, Booty Call is actually one of the funnier comedies of the late '90s, and deserves another look. Jamie Foxx and Vivica A. Fox (playing characters named Bunz and Lysterine, respectively), join Tommy Davidson, a fake Indian guy, a dog that barks "Nigga Please!" in subtitles (and one Gedde Watanabe, willing to take any role no matter the stereotype, saying "Nigga Preese" in a Chinese restaurant), some hilarious orange pants, an incident with Saran Wrap as dental dam and some dude named Ug Lee. There's no one who won't be upset in its 79 minute runtime, but I don't think it'd work any other way. Watch it and pick your jaw up off the floor.
5. Ladies And Gentlemen The Fabulous Stains (1981) Turner Classic Movies, Saturday, January 31, 2am I hope that now this one has finally made it onto DVD, and not from some bootleg version that's been duped a thousand times from a Betamax that caught it on Showtime in the '80s, that we can see this legendary unreleased film for what it is: kind of a stinker. Still, there's never been anything like it before or since, and it's a fun time with a message. Teenagers Diane Lane and Laura Dern start a makeshift punk band that lands an opening spot for the fake real punk band The Looters, featuring Sex Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Cook, The Clash's Paul Simonon and fronted by actor Ray Winstone. They create a media circus and have it all collapse on them within days, but it's a good enough time, also starring Fee Waybill from The Tubes and a special (awesome) appearance from Black Randy and the Metrosquad. Join the professionals!
Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features,
where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of
Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by
the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge
affinity for their body of work.
Yesterday, we swore we weren't no joke to hip-hop legend Rakim, and today we whip out our Magnums for a steamy night of celebration with a mustachioed '80s sex god.
Welcome to NCDSUV's splenetic, embittered new weekly feature, Overdressed & Underclassed, which with each installment will dissect a different aspect of celebrity fashion with the enthusiasm and exactitude of a taxidermist suffering from the second clinical phase of rabies (caution: We have reached the contagious stage).
Perhaps it's the prospect of facing the rest of a remarkably long, brutally cold winter and yet another tacktastic awards season; alternatively, a totally unexpected wave of good vibes is washing over me from the political changes in the air. Either way, instead of the nip of bitter grog I generally crave to counteract the effects celebrity fashion has on my parietal lobe, I'm in the mood for something more nourishing, gratifying and sustaining to get me through the inevitable nip slips, butt cleavage and exhausting razzle dazzle the Oscars and the Grammys will inevitably lay at my feet.
So in celebration of celebrities who could (and can) dress themselves, here's a round-up of the vampiest, sassiest, stylishist femme icons who have ever scaled the screen.
8. Mary Tyler Moore The style she brought to the role of working girl Mary Richards in the '70s, both on and offstage, helped make every career gal feel a little bit freer to balance her limitless ambition with her still-potent urge to primp. She made it okay, even sexy, to want to beat down the door to the boy's club at work with a polite smile without breaking a sweat in her sassy separates, vintage hats and quirky peacoats. No other female worker bee, no matter how beloved (not even Carrie Bradshaw or Peggy Olson) will ever give me the same kind of post-feminist, unconflicted case of warm fuzzies. That's right folks. She can turn the world on with her smile... take a nothin' day and make it all worthwhile! Sorry.
7. Katherine Hepburn Like most trailblazers, Kate The Great's singular road created quite a diversion for outraged onlookers from the roaring '20s onward. In a time when most women did a two-step simper, Katherine stridently strolled. When most women squeezed into oxygen-depriving undergarments under too-tight tailored dresses, she luxuriated in baggy, but impeccably tailored men's style pants, flowing shirts and combat-style boots. Even in her dotage, she tooled around on a bike, sat with her feet up and her legs splayed, wore little make-up and unpressed, drably colored clothes that lack any sort of definite shape... and still looked every inch the elegant, sexy, exquisite feminine beauty. She was the original Urbane Tomboy.
6. Brigitte Bardot Brigitte is that rare creature who can balance oooozing Hustler sex appeal with a degree of pre-Raphaelite restraint that renders it sensual, not slutty, even if she is crawling around on the floor in her undies or dancing on top of a bar in a dress that would make Paris Hilton blush. She single-handedly popularized the bikini, the beehive 'do, the bee-stung pout and general '60s-era sexy naif gear of all stripes. Unfortunately, her joie de vivre and stylishness is now less notable than her right-of-Rush Limbaugh political views.
5. Joan Crawford Unlike Katherine, Joan represented the pinnacle of idealized feminine fashion in the '20s and '30's, with wasp-waisted tailoring, exaggerated shoulder pads and breakneck-speed martini-fueled diamond-studded satin, vampy, gauzy glamour. A perpetual engine of reinvention, she sailed through 45 years onscreen portraying whatever America wanted to see in her: rebellious but innocent flapper; working girl/society girl with a heart of gold; psycho bitch; camp queen. Joan's innate ability to seamlessly morph personas paved the way for the tough, ever-changing broads we all have a soft spot who came after. But Joan never appeared to be as calculating or cynical about her image changaroos as, say, Madonna or Britney Spears do.
It is because I am filled with love and gratitude for David Cross that I must savage him like a wild beast tearing apart a carcass. Yes, call me a cruci-verbalist, because I've got some cross words for this actor/comedian. As Freud notes, we must kill the ones we love in order to overcome them. And the ever-watching paternal eye of Cross gazes out at me from the screen as I watch Mr. Show and Arrested Development. Or when I hear the Daniel Stern-like lilt of his voice as it whispers out to me from the Nick-At-Nite reruns of Oliver Beene, the greatest entry in Cross' oeuvre, a shining... wait. What the fuck. Oliver Beene?
OK. Cross has been in a stinker here and there: Alvin And The Chipmunks, School For Scoundrels, She's the Man, Men in Black II, Scary Movie II, Dr. Doolittle 2, Small Soldiers, etc. He's a working actor, and as I've detailed before, unless one is independently wealthy, one takes shit jobs to survive. The problem with Cross isn't so much that he acts in crap, but rather that he's so brutal in his criticism of other Craptors ™. No. That's a terrible portmanteau. It sounds like feces-contaminated dino DNA from Jurassic Park.
Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features,
where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of
Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by
the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge
affinity for their body of work.
Yesterday we did our best impression of a demon taking to dump in emulation of vocal wizard/one-time Faith No More frontman Mike Patton, and today we may be throwing a suprise cyber-bash for a legendary MC, but we assure him it ain't no joke.
As even the least loyal NCDSUV content-craver is aware, we love us some daily features. And one of the more popular (at least amongst, well, us and the people who it commemorates) is the Awesome Celebrity Birthday Of The Day,
which acknowledges another turn of the calendar for a member of
Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by
the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge
affinity for their body of work.
And in this historic month of January 2009, the candles have been smothered with saliva for everyone from Danny Pintauro to R. Kelly.
But even the continual erosion of their mortality isn't as awesome as
the annual birthday bashes warranted for these five folks. And of course, a happy cumpleanos feliz in advance for all the b-day boys and girls this coming February.
5. David Johansen Age: 59 Why She's Sort Of Awesome: Not only did
Johansen swagger his way into the punk rock lexicon by fronting sleazy
proto-glam alley-dwellers New York Dolls, but he managed to evade the
heroin heartbreak of bandmate Johnny Thunders and reinvent himself as
postmodern cabaret-lounge performeer Buster Poindexter, and segue that
notoriety into memorable film roles, like his portrayal of the
posthumous cabbie in the Bill Murray vehicle, Scrooged. Oh, and
he even managed to grow his hair back out and hit the studio and tour
circuit with a revamped Dolls in the mid-2000s, rivaling Iggy Pop's
Stooges on the senior punk circuit. Most Likely Celebrity Status 20 Birthdays From Now:
The decade-marking interval between 59 and 79 would seem to fit
Johansen most appropriately. But by the time he's almost hit that 80
mark, one has to imagine the only pace this wildman could handle would
be the slowed-down cool-cat stylings of his once-again-resusciated
Poindexter alter ego. All Apologies To: Joan Baez, Jimmy Page, Dave Matthews, Howie Long, Sergio Garcia
4. Richard Dean Anderson Age: 59 Why He's Sort Of Awesome: Well, for one, the titular character he portrayed during several seasons of MacGyver has become accepted as a cultural verb. But we also gather that, a la recent Awesome Birthday honoree Carl Weathers, Dean Anderson (and don't call him Dick) would have a sense of self-depreciation and, like us, giggle at the fact that in one decade he'll be 69. Most Likely Celebrity Status 20 Birthdays From Now: 79 isn't as innately humorous an age, but that won't stop Dean Anderson from tickling our funny bones by breaking his, in a one-man show about the perils of aging called Fibromyass. All Apologies To: Tiffani Thiessen, Robin Zander, Anita Baker, Rutger Hauer, Anita Pointer
Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features,
where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of
Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by
the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge
affinity for their body of work.
Yesterday we cracked a cold one for a former Miller Lite spokesman who's equally adept at cracking a home run as he is cozying up to live-in nanny Mr. Belvedere. And today we sing happy 40th in incomprehensible gibberish to one of the last two decades' truly cracked musical pioneers.
While this release week may bring more anticipated and notable efforts like the Dan Deacon /Adventure split 12" and The Whore Moans' Hello From The Radio Wasteland!, we here at NCDSUV prefer to analyze more futile musical recordings.
Welcome back to Unnecessary Album Releases, a feature in which we highlight the week's most egregiously bizarre, dull and often unpleasant albums from the music industry's "left"er side of the dial. Behold the obscure, the most fantastically superfluous musical curiosas for the week of January 27, 2009.
6. The Guggenheim Grotto, Happy The Man If you prefer your music with a message and featured on poorly scripted family dramas about unwanted teen pregnancies and kids who can't live up to their parent's expectations (think One Tree Hill and Brothers And Sisters), then this second release by Dublin darlings, The Guggenheim Grotto, which teems with the mawkish smell of freshly disposed Kleenex, is sure to make even the unhappiest man happy, man.
5. The Toy Killers, The Unlistenable Years Every so often (let's call it chance), an album title comes along and practically guarantees an excruciating listening experience. Featuring an hour-long, monotonous cacophony of unbridled noise, unheard studio and live material from 1980-'84, The Unlistenable Years is, unbearably, just that.
As the kind of white, bourgeois jackass so famously captured in Weird Al's "White & Nerdy," I'm about as much Tyler Perry's demo as Gleeb-Kra, my tentacled friend from Dimension 12. Yet, cynical hucksterism and naked commercialism transcend race and class lines like a love of fudge or mozzarella sticks, or fried fudge sprinkled with cheese bits. And when as in the case of Medea Goes To Jail, when your most iconic character Medea starts sharing movie titles with the Ernest franchise, something has definitely gone beyond the pale enough where pale pieces of shit like myself feel the eternal critical duty to stand up and scream into the void. Know what I mean, Vern?
Like the Bush Administration, I ignored all the signs of terror... until it was too late. As Perry flew his latest vehicle into my eyes, the aesthetic center of my brain collapsed. And yes, conspiracy fuckwads, the melting temperature of aesthetic cognitive modules is consistent with the NIST reports of my neuro-meltdown. However, as my brain fell apart, the history of black cinema flashed across the horizon, and while I can understand Perry's ascent, I cannot condone the shape it's taken.
Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features,
where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of
Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by
the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge
affinity for their body of work.
On Friday, we slowly removed the proper-color candle from the bomb that had been detonated inside Richard Dean Anderson, akaMacGyver's, birthday cake. And today we go juuuuust a bit outside the box for our latest honoree.
In spite of overplayed, holiday-themed claims to the contrary, there is nothing wonderful about the wintertime. The weather outside is frightful and the snow is anything but fucking delightful. It just flat-out sucks. And now that Christmas and New Year's are well behind us, there is no silver lining left to get us through this long, bleak period . As we head into the icy heart of the season, we can turn to the movies for some solace and to indulge in a little heartwarming schadenfreude. Old Man Winter may be opening up a can of whoop-ass on you at the moment, but he drops an entire barrelful on the characters in the following snowbound nightmares. So use those frostbitten fingers and count your blessings.
9. Fargo Between the shitty climate and the shittier accents, if hell were to actually freeze over, it would probably look a lot like Brainerd, Minnesota. With nothing to do but work, eat at Arby's and scrape ice off their windshields, it's no wonder the folks in this inert burg are so prone to lethal violence. If you lived here, you'd be making a beeline for that wood chipper, too.
8. Misery Wintertime driving is brutal. From frozen engine blocks, to black ice, to the inevitable blizzard-induced, life-altering accidents, it's a treacherous endeavor regardless of how prepared you think you are. But who needs AAA when you've got the Annie Wilkes Roadside Assistance Program? She'll take you in, feed you, tend to your wounds... and give you new ones when you don't do exactly as she says. Heed those severe storm warnings and stay off the road, or you might end up taking a sledgehammer to the ankles like Sonny Corleone.
7. The Day After Tomorrow How much worse would your walk to work be if you had to deal with wind chill factors of 150 degrees below zero or worry about being chased by timber wolves? When the Ice Age hits New York City (and without a single celebrity voiced mastodon or saber-toothed tiger in sight), Dennis Quaid and a pre-Gyllenspoon Jake Gyllenhaal find out what it would feel like. If the idea of a greenhouse-induced, never-ending winter doesn't scare you into buying reusable bags and getting a Prius, then nothing will.
6. The Sopranos: "Pine Barrens" Although it was technically televised, each episode of The Sopranos always seemed more like a feature film (remember, "It's not TV, it's HBO"). "Pine Barrens" is one of the strongest and most cinematic installments, as Christopher Moltisanti and Paulie Walnuts battle the elements, a Russian assassin and each other while lost in the middle of the woods. Being stranded in frigid temperatures has a way of rendering everything else in the world meaningless. So in spite of their hit turning into a total disaster, they are cruelly reminded that getting out of the cold is more important than anything: money, duty, respect, even Tony's approval.
5. Snow Day Imagine for a moment that you're a balding, middle-aged, barely employed snow plow operator with bad teeth and a crow as your only friend. And on the rare, snowy occasion that you actually have a lot of work to do, your truck gets jacked and you're attacked by a horde of schoolchildren led by an odd little girl who communicates with action figures, a flatulent fat kid and a boy who makes snowballs out of jelly and urine. Sounds like a horror story, right? Well, for Chris Elliott, it is.
Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features,
where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of
Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by
the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge
affinity for their body of work.
Yesterday, we said "Wazzzup, mustachioed motherfucka!" (actually, we just wished him well and shifted down the receiving line) to a man who was responsible for giving Slash his much-cooler-than-Saul nom de plume. And today we're going to bring our lucky recipient to McDonald's Playland... except it will be covered with discreetly dotted landmines.
More Cable Afterlife, because you demanded it. You beat down my door. You followed me home. You took my seat on the subway. You cut in front of me in line. You better watch ... these movies. On cable, this Friday through next Thursday, like always. (All times in EST.) 8. Shanghai Surprise (1986) Encore Love, Monday, January 26, 10:30am As Sean Penn gears up to possibly win an Oscar for one of his best performances (as the titular Harvey Milk), it's high time to see him in one of his worst, and I'm not talking about I Am Sam. No, this is the spectacular flop he made with Madonna while the two were married. I dare you to finish it. P.S. It's heavily steam. I've said too much. Or have I?
7. Bullet (1995) IFC, Tuesday, January 27th, 12am As for said Oscars, Mickey Rourke's on the ascent with his role in The Wrestler. Check him out as he was careening to the bottom, out-acted by Tupac Shakur in this ruff-n-tuff action thriller, directed by Julien Temple
.
6. Luv (1967) Turner Classic Movies, Thursday, January 29th, 8:15am Jack Lemmon's about to jump off a bridge when he meets old friend Peter Falk, who pawns off his wife (Elaine May) on him so that he can be with his girlfriend. You can't pass on that cast, nor will you want to miss this rarely-screened Clive Donner effort from the peace-n-love era. Expect awkwardness, and a cameo by a young Harrison Ford as a longhair.
5. Funny Games (2008) Cinemax, Saturday, January 24th, 10pm It hasn't yet been determined if Michael Haneke's shot-for-shot remake of his own cinematic paradigm---the movie so brutal and heartless, it dares you not to watch and in effect judges you for how far along you've endured it---fulfilled whatever sort of Hollywood traction he may have been going for... because nobody's seen it, really. Here's your chance to.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features,
where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of
Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by
the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge
affinity for their body of work.
Yesterday, we put on our sexiest birthday bibs for one super-hot baby. Calm down sickos. We were referring to Emma Bunton, aka Baby Spice. Anyway, today we shit to one of our favorite old men on screen, a man who gave the world one of its most ubiquitously accepted pop-culture pseudonyms.
Welcome to NCDSUV's splenetic, embittered new weekly feature, Overdressed & Underclassed, which with each installment will dissect a different aspect of celebrity fashion with the enthusiasm and exactitude of a taxidermist suffering from the second clinical phase of rabies (caution: We have reached the contagious stage).
Beltway insiders seem to approach getting dressed as a way to: A. avoid indecency charges and B. To protect themselves from the elements. A "quirky" D.C. gal may be seen traipsing through Capitol Hill clad in a purple pinstripe suit from Anthropologie with some swingin' sky-high Prada pumps, instead of the de rigueur gray pinstripe suit from Ann Taylor Loft paired with Easy Spirit flats, much to the consternation, stifled envy and shock on the parts of the less stalwart.
But change is coming to Washington, along with (we hope) a new epoch for fashion forwardness. President Barack Hussein Obama's inauguration seemed to signal, among other weightier things, a much easier era for the eyes. Here's the eight fashion highlights from Tuesday's ceremonies.
8. Laura Bush The former First Lady's outfit epitomized what we all hope we'll be saying "farewell" to: frumpy grey pantsuits and boring heels; drab grey political horizons and boring heels (of the human variety).
7. Jill Biden After so recently thrusting her well-shod foot into her mouth on Oprah (Biden claimed that Obama had offered her husband a choice of jobs as either Veep or Secretary oO State, forcing his staff to go into spin mode), I expected Biden to slip on something decidedly understated. In stark contrast to everyone else's relatively muted swearing-in duds, she opted for a fiery orange-red jacket paired and a pair of hot-stepping black leather boots. It looks like we will be able to expect all manner of exciting fireworks from Biden. And just think: It was her husband everyone was worried about. Go, Jill, go: This administration has to give Saturday Night Live something to work with.
6. Aretha Franklin The Queen of Soul's rendition of "My Country 'Tis Of Thee" was almost as thrilling as the farcically bad, but oh so delectably good, massive, yodeling, rhinestone-studded bow plopped on top of a chirping church mouse of little grey hat. Sing it, lady!
5. Senator Ted Kennedy The senator, who has managed to continue his duties in recent months despite his bout with brain cancer, collapsed at the Capitol after suffering a seizure on the day of the inauguration. He's reportedly on the mend, and we hope as optimistic, jubilant and celebratory as he appeared to be at the inauguration in his jaunty fedora and dapper sky-blue silk scarf.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw Heather Graham and William Baldwin battling to the death over dwindling paper route territory, today the Cable Guide helps bring the mundane preoccupations of reality dating-competitions to the big screen.
Trudging through the subway, my eye often dances along the graffiti scrawled across those shit ads on the walls. Like a modern day Bayeux Tapestry filled with swears and crude penis drawings, the hasty scribbles of know-nothings are a glad distraction from the dull and endlessly empty horseshit being peddled to the captive audience. Like that new Renee Zellweger and Harry Conick Jr. joint which looks just... well, words fail. Or Steve Martin's latest family friendly tragedy: The Pink Panther 2.
Seeing said poster I idly contemplated mirroring Martin's creative trajectory by diving headfirst onto the tracks, but then who would feed my eight cats (Jerry Mungo meows now for a treat!)? The facts are these though: The man responsible for The Jerk and The Man With Two Brains, revolutionized stand-up in the '70s (along with Albert Brooks), and wrote Cruel Shoes now mainly flop sweats his way through detritus like Cheaper By The Dozen and Bringing Down The House. Maybe some implausible thimblerig from David Mamet here and there, but mostly not. Mostly the forgettable. Mostly melancholy.
Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features,
where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of
Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by
the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge
affinity for their body of work.
Yesterday, we hid all NCDSUV's staplers in jello in honor of Rainn Wilson, aka Dwight Schrute's, 40th. And today we say "Yah Baby!" to a woman who helped Spice up our lives in the late-'90s.
As we reported yesterday, Britney Spears was being rushed back into the emergency room. But this time it was her music studio and not a psychiatric ward, to do some last-minute surgery on her new single, "If You Seek Amy." Apparently, the title was subversively intended to sound like something a good deal naughtier when pronounced phonetically, sparking commercial radio's refusal to air the track, and thus its impending resurrection as the nonsensical "If You See Amy."
Of course, Mrs. Spears is just the latest in a long line of illustriously censored songs. This differs, of course, from a mere lyric being bleeped out, which would canvas nearly every hip-hop single of the last two decades; cover art being airbrushed, a la the Black Crowes' Amorica; or a song's complete and controversial removal from all pressings, as in the case of Body Count's "Cop Killer."
But the guiding forces are generally the same, and at their minimum incorporate the following: conservative media, righteous protest groups and puritanical retail chains. All of the above have upheld the time-honored tradition of illogically inciting teen-baiting scandal and sensationalism around something that would otherwise pass through the bowels of our cultural intake like a harmless blast of fiber.
So while there are no doubt several more worthy of inclusion, here are five risque, and subsequently retitled, songs that either awkwardly sapped the song of its original appeal, or in some cases just made us laugh at the stick up censor-happy advocates' asses.
5. Akon featuring Snoop Dogg, "I Wanna Fuck You" Re-Titled As: "I Wanna Love You" Degree Of Silliness: Absurd, But Understandable Granted, if you're going to release a single that graphically refers to copulation, you're probably well-prepared to acquiesce and record a modified version. But "I Wanna Love You" presents a dual-edged dilemma: 1. Particularly when paired with the video, and for anyone familiar with either man's careers, it rings transparently disingenuous as a romantic offering. 2. It presents "love" in this instance as an action verb, and it ultimately winds up feeling as if its missing a double modifier, like perhaps a "make" before "love" and a "to" prior to "you" for clarification. Because to suggest "love" in its most sentimental form is both in blatant contrast to where Akon places emphasis on the lyrics and awkwardly juxtaposed against the content of the verses.
4. Crass, "Reality Asylum" Re-Titled As: "The Sound Of Free Speech" Degree Of Silliness: Silly In An Ominous Big Brother Kind Of Way In 1978, punk upsetters Crass were releasing their Feeding Of The 5000 EP. Only problem was the pressing plant was offended by its Jesus-eviscerating lyrical content and refused to finish the job. So in a truly anarchist spirit that would be total anathema to most mainstream cowtowers, the boys simply filled the space with white noise, rechristening it (pun very much intended it) "The Sound Of Free Speech," an ironic fuck you to the bullying of opposing points of view that still resonates influentially today.
Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features,
where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of
Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by
the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge
affinity for their body of work.
Yesterday we revved up our best perverted Dolly Parton nursery rhymes in honor of the country legend/amply bosomed blonde icon, and today we whip out our special 40th birthday bobbleheads in honor of one of modern television's greatest sitcom foils.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw poor Michael Caine getting pushed around because of his less-than-desirable liquor-shelving feng shui, today we see a metaphor for the tension surrounding the failing newspaper industry acted out on the rough streets of suburbia.
At one point did Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am become hip-hop's voice of political conscience and Native Tongue depth? Has the genre become so polarized by self-involved pseudo-artistes like Kanye and unabashed eccentric braggarts like Lil Wayne that there's no middle-ground representative with enough commercial appeal and grounded perspective to suddenly soundtrack the historical moment of Barack Obama's ascendency to President?
Just to review, the constantly sunglasses-adorned MC spent the late '90s and early 2000s as main mouthpiece for the Peas, known more conversationally as the poor man's Tribe Called Quest/De La Soul/et al. Then, like a sitcom struggling to stay afloat, they added a new character, in the form of big-bootied crystal-meth addict Fergie, who provided will.i.am with new leverage and credibility as a producer and solo artist, which resulted in shit-tastic affairs like Songs About Girls, which turned out to be as surface and vapid as its potentially ironic title indicated.
While this release week may bring anticipated and more notable efforts like the triumphant Airing Of Grievances by Titus Andronicus or Andrew Bird's Noble Beast, we here at NCDSUV prefer to analyze more futile musical recordings.
Welcome back to Unnecessary Album Releases, a feature in which we highlight the week's most egregiously bizarre, dull and often unpleasant albums from the music industry's "left"er side of the dial.
Behold the obscure, the most fantastically superfluous musical curiosas for the week of January 20, 2009.
6. Combichrist, Today We Are All Demons While they assume a glut of dubiously, dizzying, dark descriptors like "Hellektro," Terror EBM" or "Harsh EBM," the electro/industrial rock by Norwegian sextet Combichrist, would have justifiably leave genre pioneers like Ministry with a wry discontent.
5. The Harvest Floor, Castle Decapitation This jarring juggernaut of relentlessly grinding blast beats features the ferociously horrifying vocals of Travis Ryan, who concocts something akin to Gollum from Lord Of The Rings and a demonic death rattle all hoped up on steroids. Enjoy.
With the immanent ascension of Barack Obama from anointed President-Elect to full-fledged messiah, our country can now certainly begin to take the first, few tentative steps towards not being The World's Asshole. (You know, that guy at the party that drinks too much and keeps playing grabass, but no one can really do anything about it because you know he's strapped?) However, like stale vomit stains on the couch and a mysterious stench coming from god-knows-where, painful remnants of the last eight years still exist in the form of one Jack Bauer, the so-called hero of Fox's zzzzzzzz-inspiring 24.
Ah, Keifer Sutherland. Ladies love him. And ladies love Jack Bauer. His smoldering eyes. His towheaded virility. The fact that he's a fucking torturer whose not only used to justify the worst excesses of George Bush and his administration of morally-bankrupt dicklickers, but is somehow a beloved role-model, is fucking criminally insane.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while Friday saw Tony Danza and Mercedes Ruehl making swimming sexily with the fishes, today Michael Caine gets some Misery-style treatment because of his feng shui preferences.
Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features,
where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of
Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by
the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge
affinity for their body of work.
Friday, we proved that a rolling stone doesn't gather any Kate Moss, even if members of The Libertines do, and today we schedule a birthday celebration from 9 to 5 for country's first lady.
When we heard why Milk scene-stealer James Franco, who won our hearts years ago as bad-boy Daniel from Freaks & Geeks, was missing at the Golden Globes last week, we were agog. It seems Franco was busy studying poetry at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, North Carolina, where he is enrolled in the school's MFA For Writers. The image of Franco eschewing fancy Hollywood award ceremonies to brood over his coffee-stained notebook of post-confessional free-verse, or linger over a glass of sweet tea, clutching a dog-eared copy of Mark Doty's My Alexandria... um, it kinda made us swoon. But it also got us wondering: What other charmed boldfacers would we love to see insert themselves into the raging creative class?
7. Sarah Palin Remember the lady with the glasses who ran for that political office that one time? She seemed to have some trouble, er, collecting her thoughts, on occasion. "We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington, D.C." Palin once told a crowd at a fundraiser many moons ago. "We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation." She's like the next Edward Albee, no?
6. Christopher Walken It's quite possible C-Walk would be even less popular describing his process in a workshop than the Palinator. Can you... imagine... listening... to... him... discussing... his... character's... inner... monologue... and... psychosis... this... slowly? And what if he wrote exactly like he speaks?
5. Sean Penn Somewhere, right now, Penn is seething with jealousy over Franco's secret taste for the literary arts. They can't both do it! Penn, of course, got his byline on the cover of The Nation last month for his oh-so-astute international reportage. So why not attempt to best his younger, immensely attractive co-star and tackle a creative writing MFA while he's at it? We'd adore listening to his justification for turns of phrase like, "He was God's pessimist."
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw the title of a Chris Farley vehicle taken may a teeny bit too literally, today we get down and dirty amidst some fish guts with the ever-sexy Mercedes Ruehl and Tony Danza.
Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features,
where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of
Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by
the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge
affinity for their body of work.
Yesterday we contemplated murdering our older sister, going nuts and walking around with a sushi knife and William Shatner mask for Halloween honcho John Carpenter, and today we ditch any exhalation over the candles in favor of some straight-up blow for the saucy supermodel who somehow just keeps on capturing our fascination.
January seems to be the month where cable TV networks, short on original series yet aware of an audience that's probably staying out of the cold, seem to air out their most interesting slates of movies and film programming. Films From The Cable Afterlife recommends a handful of these each week: some to watch, some to avoid. Here's some more suggestions for your pleasure, or lack thereof...
8. Prey (2007) Cinemax, Tuesday, January 20, 4:50am (and On Demand) People have remarked on the bad fortunes of The Weinstein Company ever since their acrimonious split with Disney (who walked away with their Miramax brand), but I say let 'em go. We haven't had this good of an exploitation studio since New World shuttered in the late '80s. Continuing with man vs. nature gore a la last week'sRogue, here's a safari horror flick in which Bridget Moynihan and Peter Weller, along with their children, are stranded in Africa and become Lunchables for a pride of hungry lions. Ivan Tors, we hardly knew ye.
7. Strange Hostel Of Naked Pleasures (1975) IFC, Saturday, January 17, 1:30am It's a Coffin Joe movie and it's outside the cycle of the three originals (At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul, etc.), but watch it anyway. It is loaded with the kind of brash, earthy shocks Mexico has staked its reputation on, and it likely will offend you. That title is no joke.
6. Assassination Tango (2002) Monday, January 19, 9:45pm; Tuesday, January 20, 4:20am My colleague Andrew Earles has been harping on this movie since its release, a bizarre, faux-seductive tale of hitman Robert Duvall (who also directed) stuck in South America, falling in love, and learning how to dance; a more ridiculous plot you couldn't ask for, and a more stilted, awkward performance by Duvall you won't find. Also starring the omnipresent Latin-American singer and actor Ruben Blades. This is a warning!
5. Bedazzled (1967) Cinemax (5STARMAX), Sunday, January 18, 2:40pm, 10:30pm; Cinemax (ActionMAX), Wednesday, January 21, 5am For the entire time I've been writing these weekly rundowns, I've been utterly frustrated at cable's propensity to air the forgettable remake of this soul-selling comic allegory instead of Stanley Donen's superior-in-every-way original. That wrong has been righted. You may have been stuck on an airplane or in a waiting room watching Brendan Fraser sell his soul to Liz Hurley, and yeah, that might have angered you. But you NEED to see the genuine article, starring Dudley Moore and Peter Cook, one of the funniest comedy teams ever to grace a stage. Everything about this movie is great. Go watch it now.
At a time when America's collective fat ratio is perilously disproportionate, and the only people with a booming business are cardiac surgeons and pharmacists, there's nothing our nation needs more than Food Network "star" Guy Fieri celebrating the wonders of low-priced, artery-clogging T.G.I. Friday's appetizers every fucking 30 seconds.
You know the guy: He won that Next Food Network Star competition and then launched a series of programs revolving around down-home, no-frills food to ensure immediate gratification and even more instant mortality. And edge-ified the channel with a burly personality that befit his raspy voice, Hot Topic Hair and a shit-eating goatee.
I guess I'm not inherently adverse to the culture of crappy eating he promotes, nor the fact that he's cashed in on it with a soulless endorsement for a flavorless gourmet fast-food chain. I'm just generally allergic to any publicly visible personality who patches together an aesthetic out of second-hand, adolescent symbols of awesomeness and attempts to ooze his coolness juice all over something that was either helplessly mundane, or had plenty of inherent charm for anyone without a completely crippled attention span or insecurity in their individual sensibilities.
Fuck that guy. That Guy Fieri even. He sucks. Click here for the Sucks archive.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw a less-than-memorable John Waters flick transformed into something a bit weird, even for him, today the cable guide treats us to livestock anthromorphised with the features of Chris Farley.
Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features,
where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of
Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by
the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge
affinity for their body of work.
Yesterday we said happy Apollo 61 to Carl Weathers (and today also said goodbye to recent, and beloved, Awesome Celebrity Birthday honoree Ricardo Montalban), but today find our way back out through The Fog of Rocky's glory days to commemorate one of horror's most storied filmmakers.
Even amidst semi-legitimate websites and all-inclusive gossip blogs, one thing has remained resoundingly clear about the Internet: It was designed for the proliferation of booby pictures. OK, and maybe an occasional facial (NSFW) or finger fuck. But the "candid" celebrity shot and red-carpet nip slips that fill out headlines like implants in a waterbra have truly captured our cultural zeitgeist. Although the tried-and-true movie-still compilers, like Mr. Skin, still possess a necessary function for cyber-pervs the world over.
However, like a record-label A & R rep indiscriminately scouring MySpace for hot acts, the wider the net is cast, the more likely you're gonna catch a few stinkers you'd rather throw back in the ocean.
So for reasons no less superficial than these images' original publication, and if anything, to take the piss out of folks dangled on high as the beautiful ones, we present the 10 least arousing nude celebrity boobs (10, of course, as in five pairs of two). And in the interest of being an equal-opportunity sexist, we may even produce a sequel to this feature that reappropriates its, ehem, titular meaning and breaks down the most orgasm-killing male Hollywood mimbos. And suffice to say, virtually every link from here on out is NSFW, meaning we expect a hearty boost in page views between the hours of 6 p.m. and midnight.
10. & 9. Victoria Beckham, aka Posh Spice
It's hard to say which one of Posh's not-so-perky perforations deserves more of a honest, cups-off assessment, number nine or 10. Oh, heck, we'll call it a wash. But the bottom line is, for all her preening around in the newest haute coutoure, push-up-undergarment abuse and implicitly demeaning infrared glances at the rest of Earth's female populus, we wouldn't want to hop in the shower and soap up those plump-yet-shapeless post-pregnancy glands.
8. & 7. Teri Hatcher
Memo to Seinfeld's fact-checkers (and yes, we are contractually obligated to incorporate a Seinfeld reference in every other post): They might be real, but they're not exactly spectacular. When the would-be glamorous Desperate Housewives queen bitch bared all in cheapo flick The Cool Surface, someone should have ordered some hot maple syrup, because those babies are what those in the know refer to as pancake boobs.
While I was online searching for pictures of Pokemons with human female breasts, I happened upon the trailer for an upcoming film named Miss March, which written, directed and starring members of The Whitest Kids U Know. To say it seemed generic is an understatement, but the fucker came packaged in a plain brown box with a Toucan Sam rip-off emblazoned on its front. SLAM! Dozens, bitch!
The utter thatness of that trailer's existence is, however, indicative of the sketch group as a whole. They are there. They exist. You can point in their direction and watching their show elicits peels of "Mmmm, ok." Generic. Generic isn't necessarily bad. It's just... placing your palms upward and shrugging your shoulders.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw Anthony Hopkins improbably embody the role of a speed-freak biker dude, today we head into decidedly weirder Waters.
Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features,
where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of
Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by
the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge
affinity for their body of work.
Yesterday we belatedly opened our nipple-splashed Christmas cards for well-aged Seinfeld funny-gal Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and today we salute a man who made Rocky cry... Pussy.
While this release week may be delivering notable efforts like Andrew W.K.'s greatest hits/covers collection and the re-release of The Lemonheads' It's A Shame About Ray on vinyl, we here at NCDSUV prefer to analyze more futile musical recordings. Welcome back to Unnecessary Album Releases, a feature in which we highlight the week's most egregiously bizarre, dull and often unpleasant albums from the music industry's "left"er side of the dial. Behold the obscure, the most fantastically superfluous musical curiosas for the week of January 13, 2009
7. Saxon, Into The Labyrinth These dinosaurs of British metal have been at for more than 30 years, ensconcing the headbanging world with well over 25 releases. But while their copious output illustrates a seemingly august career, Into The Labyrinth's first single, "Live to Rock," glaringly nods (and that's being nice) at AC/DC's anthem, "For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)."
6. Late Of The Pier, Fantasy Black Channel While it may have seemed like a good idea, this genre-bending debut from the U.K.'s Late Of The Pier, brimming with a hybrid of power chord-driven electro-punk, painfully resembles last year's obnoxious, release by Does It Offend You, Yeah? Which of course renders Fantasy Black Channel's glaringly disconnected tracks perfect for the gyrating hipster pining for mindless, sweaty, cockney tunes.
5. El Goodo, Coyote Phil Spector's celebrated "wall of sound," made famous for its lush textures, sunny harmonies and ringing Rickenbackers, paved the way for cult-fave power-pop bands like Big Star. Unfortunately, the Big Star reference in El Goodo's name is as close as these droning, stodgy sons of Resolven, Wales are going to get to "September Gurls." (In that respect, we figured you'd enjoy the below of Big Star performing "El Goodo" more than a track by the band themselves.)
Nothing has curdled my stomach more in the last few days than grown-up screen brat Jason Hervey introducing the cast of VH1's Confessions Of A Teen Idol to a focus-group segment they were about to endure. Something about his little monologue reeked of the kind of self-satisfied, Napoleonic smugness that can only exude from one's paean pores after decades of portraying total douchebags both onscreen and behind the scenes of Hollywood.
Let's review: After peddling countless commercial goods in the early '80s with his bland precociousness, Hervey not coincidentally nailed the entitled man-child antics of a kid actor as Kevin Morton during the movie-within-a-movie climax of Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. Stunt casting, perhaps?
And then, of course, on The Wonder Years, Hervey was the human embodiment of the demonic older-brother caricature every terrified nerd carried with them throughout childhood. His contribution to the show seemed to be almost method in execution. But Hervey was no prodigious thespian. A la with Pee-Wee, it was evident that his authenticity as Wayne Arnold stemmed from a blurry line between reality and fiction. Art imitating douche.
Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features, where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge affinity for their body of work.
Yesterday we put a different spin (fittingly) on the usual intent of this column to derisively slam Rush Limbaugh, but today we get back to ironic business as usual and say "Get out!" to the queen of comedy's show about nothing.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw that dastardly Info-Bar try and lure us into its Poltergeist-like underworld via innocent patsy The Rock & Roll Kid, today the Cable Guide cribs a page from Cypress Hill and asks, "Do you want to get high?"
Welcome to NCDSUV's splenetic, embittered new weekly feature, Overdressed & Underclassed, which with each installment will dissect a different aspect of celebrity fashion with the enthusiasm and exactitude of a taxidermist suffering from the second clinical phase of rabies (caution: We have reached the contagious stage).
Flicking on the television or going online no longer offers a brief moment of respite from your hectic day, so when I tuned into red carpet portion of the Golden Globes I was hoping for an indulgent, preferably 24-carat-gold gilded respite from reality. I wanted a scene of shameless, tacky, hedonistic, materialistic display along the lines of (for the men) diamond-and-ruby encrusted boleros and (for the ladies) hot-pink, satin 10-inch-high stiletto heels that clash with the red carpet and light up when they strut. Was I expecting too much? Of course not. This is Hollywood, where dreams come true. Here's the eight most delightfully gaudy debutantes and dudes from last night's ceremony.
8. Lisa Rinna Never one to insinuate if she can noisily promulgate, the TVGuide' network's red carpet host (and soon-to-be-second-time-Playboy model) treated us to more than her usual heaping handful o' cleave. This year, we got to three inches of pectoriloquy to ogle as she giggled inanely, fumbled over her script and beat the brows of whichever celeb had somehow happened to fall into her arthritic clutches. Lisa captures many of the qualities cherished by profligate lovers of all things skin-deep: a laser-like commitment to superficiality that involves the excessive use of botox, facial fillers and Pilates machines; a love of all things low-cut and high-cut, preferably at the same time; a copious sprinkling of shiny things on and about her person; and silver sequins.
7. Olivia Wilde Olivia infused the red carpet with every starry-eyed 7-year-old girl's vision of elegance. She floated along in a strapless, floor-length pale lilac-pink Reem Acra confection that looked like it had been produced in a quiet forest glen by Cinderella's tweeting avian pals, with nothing but pink cotton candy, organza and buttercream frosting with which to toil. A giant pair of diamond snowflake earrings, an innocently smiley countenance and gleaming, shiny hair completed the nostalgic glance down princess lane.
6. Jennifer Lopez If a designer's producing a dress cut down to the navel, bless her heart, Jenny From the Block's gotta have it. J. Lo, with her trademark deer-in-headlights idiot savant pop enthusiasm, slathered on the razzle dazzle our quickly graying country is thirsting for. From her belly baring, elegantly draped gold Greek goddess Marchesa dress (which brings to mind the more innocent days of 2000. when she wore the infamous ab-flashing Versace) to her tasteful but still ridunkulously massive diamond drop earrings, J. Lo is La La Land. Calgon, take me away!
5. Debra Messing Her hair, pulled back into what at first glance appeared to be a smooth and elegant ponytail, but then ZOWIE! explodes like a hirsute B52 into a bloodshot tumble weed, is notable enough. But Big Red, as always, kicks up it up a notch, in the form of diamond and emerald teardrop (if Cyclops shed tears, they'd be about this size) earrings that threaten to unbalance her equilibrium and turn her dramatic sweep down the carpet into a slip n' slide. And let's not forget the chartreuse eye shadow applied with a trowel onto her entire lid. Her dress was the mottled color of a particularly painful bruise with an interesting set of pelvis-accentuating ruffles, which is perhaps an exciting and innovative new way to catch the boys' eyes.
The Uninvited, the impetus for Thursday's Sucks, spurred us on to excoriate remakes, though it might have very well delivered unto us another path for our club-footed tootsies to trot down: an execration of the entire contemporary horror genre. Not that there's a paucity of pegs to drape this commentary on. Besides The Uninvited, there's The Unborn, a particularly liquid dickpile that somehow weaves tales of Auschwitz in with absorbed fetal twins and Yiddish poltergeists. (A little annoying maybe, nu? But not as bad as what I was charged at the shoe repair place. Gonifs, the lot of them!). And don't forget My Bloody Valentine 3D, which moronically doesn't even open on February 14th and somehow centers around a murderous miner. Though the only connection I can make between the title and the killer is Neil Young's "Heart Of Gold."
Now, conventional wisdom tells us that the horror genre has been Gak-laden for a long time now, since the advent of what Joss Whedon calls "torture porn," which simply revels in some nameless authority plucking regular people out of their lives with no warning and torturing them for no discernable reason.
Regardless, the point isn't to beat off that dead horse, but rather to explain why the entire genre is the third-wave- ska of the cinematic world, i.e. utterly reprehensible and without any redeeming value. When a person is frightened of a horror film, what is it he or she is scared of? Something imaginary. Now, who is frightened by imaginary boogeymen? Answer: children and neo-conservative presidents. So for the gold-plated kewpie doll, what does that mean? If you're terrified by visages of draculas and murderers, you have the intellect of a mere babe. And I don't mean the good kind of babes. I mean kids.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw Top Gun rocked into the rarified air of intellectually complex cinema, today we blindly follow the Info-Bar wherever it tells us to go, because we are mindless automotons enslaved by the hypnotic glare of our television.
Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features, where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge affinity for their body of work.
On Friday, we raised a spike-bedazzled leather birthday fist for glam-punker David Johansen. Today, we raise a leather fist armed with a spike for a horrible man whom we can all agree to despise, proving we have something in common after all.
Everyday, struggling bands scuffle their way through the great unknown, clawing at a chance for their music to be heard, a T-shirt sold or to claim the most hits on their MySpace page among their faux-hawk bedecked, douchebag circle of friends. But even as these budding rock 'n' rollers aspire to achieve just the "toppermost of the poppermost," legions of today's hottest performers, both young and old, inundate us with reworked versions of some of their cornerstone songs.
Remaking music to make some new money is nothing novel. Whether an artist was forced to duplicate a smash hit because they made the jump to a major label and management wanted to polish up their biggest underground hit; their voracious record company wouldn't license the original recordings for commercial use; or because the band simply wanted to rehash old glory, sell out and cash in, this phenomenon seems to be happening with greater regularity as platforms for exposure increase.
Here's eight of the most noteworthy unnecessary attempts at recapturing the past, whatever the reason.
8. Erasure, "How Many Times" (1989, 2006) In 2006, the synth-pop duo got all countrified with their 12th studio album, Union Street, stripping down some of their lesser-known hits, providing a country twang in place of their familiar electro theatrics. And though the band was said the record was an attempt at shedding new light on lesser-known tracks, the dull second take of "How Many Times," already a humdrum affair in its first rendering on WILD!, left one wondering how many times the boys suckle from the tranny breast of their proverbial catalog.
7. Nirvana, "Polly"/"(New Wave) Polly" (1991, 1992) The music of Nirvana, like it or not, is one of the great cultural happenings of the last few decades. You can remember exactly where you were and what you were doing when those power chords completely annihilated your pretty little apathetic teenage ears. Originally released on Nevermind, the stark acoustics of "Polly" stood out against the album's otherwise sludgy post-punk tracks. A year later, at the height of their success, Nirvana buffed and sped the track up and even added the rather ill-defined addendum "New Wave" to its title for their Incesticide compilation. But despite suggestions that the rarities collection was a goodwill offering to their fanbase (or an outlet for Kurt Cobain's creepy artwork), the only logical conclusion aims directly at the rather equine features of drummer Dave Grohl's ego, only then in utero. Perhaps he couldn't cope with Nevermind having a song that didn't feature his percussive cacophony of drumming, but looking back, its clear that the re-vamped version (albeit a cut that worked better for band and fans alike), was nothing but vainglorious chow for the seemingly haughty stickman.
6. Bad Religion, "21st Century (Digital Boy)" (1990, 1994) In 1990, Bad Religion was arguably at the top of their game, releasing intelligent, thought-provoking, aggressive punk rock off of the then-under-the-radar independent label, Epitaph. And "21st Century (Digital Boy)," off 1990's Against The Grain, quickly scored high with their enthusiastic, long-time disciples. But their '94 move to major label Atlantic found the bespectacled Cali-punkers in need of some radio-friendly concessions. Rumor has it that their blood-sucking, evil-doing new home asked the band to re-record the track because they didn't hear a single off Stranger Than Fiction. So way to go, gentleman, for taking all the grittiness out of the near, perfect original rendition and glossing it up for your big-time debut.
5. Face To Face, "Disconnected" (1992, 1994, 1995) The early-to-mid-'90s alterna-punk scene belonged to bands like Face To Face and their catchy, southern-California melodies, making it possible for loathsome impostors like The Offspring to claim their piece. "Disconnected", arguably the bands biggest single, was first featured on a 1992 full-length and then a 1994 EP, and though only included as a "bonus" track for their major label debut, Big Choice, its intro featured a humorous exchange between the band and their manager, debating the dilemmas of selling out. Unfortunately, the attempt to save face (to face) came off as an embarrassing justification for potentially tarnishing their integrity. Everybody knows, Face To Face, everybody knows.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw Glenn Danzing and Mark Harmon make sweet, sweet poetry, today the Info-Bar takes flight with a young Tom Cruise.
Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features,
where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of
Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by
the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge
affinity for their body of work.
And while somebody peed all over yesterday's birthday candles in honor of R. Kelly, today we say "Damn boyfriend, you're almost 60?" to a glam-punk pioneer-cum-cabaret icon.
Films from the Cable Afterlife soldiers on for yet another week, highlighting special movies from special people. Laugh, cry, feel something, even if that feeling is embarrassment for having spent 90 minutes of your lives watching people get eaten by a tree. You heard right. Read on for the dirty details. (All listings in EST.)
8. The Guardian (1990) Cinemax (WMAX), Friday, January 9, 4pm; Monday January 12, 7:40am; Thursday, January 15, 2:45pm We're gonna bookend today's list with works from director William Friedkin, at his absolute lowest and his most recent heights. Might as well start from the bottom with this confusing, absurd horror tale about a nanny (Jenny Seagrove) who may just be some manner of wolf-like creature, as well as a druid. She's gonna sacrifice another baby, and hikers are going to get chewed up by a stump. One of the worst of the '90s, and it kicked off a string of forgettable, tawdry features from this one-time great. It would take years for him to get his groove back, but at least he turned it around on his own terms. Miguel Ferrer and Brad Hall co-star. Try not to kick a hole in your TV afterwards as you wonder how any network could bring itself to show this one three times in the space of a week.
7. Sisters (1973) IFC, Friday, January 9, 8pm; Saturday, January 10, 4:30am
Early, suspenseful Brian DePalma, back in his hungrier days. It's no Phantom Of The Paradise, but really, nothing is. Margot Kidder stars as a demure French girl with a horrible secret: Her formerly conjoined twin sister, hiding in the closet with a knife. Reporter Jennifer Salt is unlucky enough to witness the murder, and her investigation robs her of her personality. The scene in the mental institution where she squares off with a germophobe is positively unnerving, and overall this thing is far, far better than what the genre deserved.
6. Old Dracula (1974) Retroplex, Tuesday, January 13, 6:20pm David Niven takes a turn as the count, desperately trying to revive his wife Vampira after centuries in the coffin. The blood transfusion she receives turns her into a African-American. Dracula is bummed and she's out gettin' her thing on in the clubs of an avocado-green London. Can't make this up; couldn't even try. Clive Donner directs, from a particularly low point in his career. Look for Linda Hayden, the knockout Sabbath fan from Blood on Satan's Claw, presumably naked... again.
5. Terror On The 40th Floor (1974) Fox Movie Channel, Friday, January 16, 2am Legendary made-for-TV stinker, in the footsteps of The Towering Inferno. Office revelers John Forsyth, Don Meredith and Joseph Campanella are among the B-list talent stranded in a burning skyscraper at Christmas Eve. Will they survive? Will you?
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday weirdly saw the second Info-Bar appearance for Trading Places glutton Don Ameche, today the cable guide brings together the previously incongruous worlds of Mark Harmon and Glenn Danzig.
The truth of the matter is, Hollywood (like any corporation) loathes the people who give it money, and therefore condescends to a nation of shits by spoon-feeding them dioxin-laced cat assholes because that's all it thinks they can handle. Chief among this, though not limited to it, is the trend of taking foreign films and remaking them for American audiences, because goddamn, I didn't go to no movie to read no words.
With The Uninvited on the cusp of release (another remake of an Asian horror film), my lungs feel weepy. Not only is David Strathairn--a superb actor and a frequent collaborator of John Sayles'--wasted, but it's just another example of wasted time period. The people making the film, the people watching it, God and his cadre of angels for creating this misbegotten shithole in the first place, etc. Hollywood's infantalization of the movie-going public is short-sighted, as is the leering, drooling focus on short term-fiscal gain, but what the fuck do I know?
Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features,
where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of
Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by
the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge
affinity for their body of work.
And while yesterday ushered in the seventh decade for Kenny Loggins, a magically bearded man equally enamored with gofers and Pooh, today we head to the after party after the show after the pre-show dinner for a controversial but undeniably talented R & B legend.
Welcome to NCDSUV's splenetic, embittered new weekly feature, Overdressed & Underclassed, which with each installment will dissect a different aspect of celebrity fashion with the enthusiasm and exactitude of a taxidermist suffering from the second clinical phase of rabies (caution: We have reached the contagious stage).
In the spirit of the reincarnation mojo that comes with each New Year, we decided to take the opportunity to (for a change) applaud some much-welcomed progress in the wardrobe department of some of our favorite Hollywoodland targets over in Hollywoodland.
8. Angelina Jolie Unlike most of the rest of the planet, I remain resolutely unimpressed with Angel Angie. Yes, she's adopted a bijillion babies and has accomplished truly superb things as a Goodwill Ambassador for the U.N. Refugee Agency. And that whole Academy Award thing is nothing to spit at. But everyone else (including Angie) is so busy showering praise on her frail little shoulders, there's hardly room for one more accolade from the peanut gallery. I'm saving my accolades for her closet. She somehow managed to go from fright-night horror (all big lips, vials of blood, vacant eyes, witchy black hair tied with an oversized leopard-patterned ribbon and hideous jean jackets) to polished mommy glamazon (all big lips, purposeful gazes, yummy mummy beautifully tailored, tasteful and flattering clothes and much better accessories, Brad Pitt being the penultimate of course).
7. Jessica Biel She has managed to evade two major H'wood facts of life: People who star in family friendly crapfests on the small screen (7th Heaven) will never make it to the big-budget big screen (The Illusionist, Blade: Trinity, etc.) and that women have to dress like prostitutes to be taken (ahem) seriously by major studios. Biel embraced her down-home, super-casual style a touch too fervently, however, and I'm relieved to see she's eschewed the shapeless girl-next-door bell-bottoms and the random, ill-fitting shiny tops obviously slapped on her by a desperate stylist in a last-ditch attempt at glam for the occasional elegantly slinky dress that bares her impressive booty.
6. Kirsten Dunst Sharing your first kiss onscreen at the tender age of 11 with a vampire and then being launched into a brutal, multiple movies a year schedule would warp anyone. And Kirsten, like most child stars, failed or was never given the opportunity to develop as an individual. Obvious and tragic symptoms aside, (stints in rehab, troubled relationships), the perfectly cute, and totally underrated, blond starlet drowned her sorrows in an unforgiving sea of chipped, noir nail-polish, poorly executed updos, Jessica McClintock-like formal wear and outfits that look as if they were produced by frazzled clerks during a hold-up of the Salvation Army. But girlfriend got her groove back from whence it was hiding, and while she'll probably never hit the dizzying heights of chic, she's finally come into her own with brushed and styled (hello!) golden tresses, offbeat takes on downtown prep and the proud display of legs that goes for miles and miles and miles and miles...
5. Nicole Richie Forget Madonna. Richie has reinvented reinvention. She went from a slightly pudgy (but consummately cute) Paris Hilton sidekick in The Simple Life to a cadaverous L.A. beach bum, club troll and inmate to trim, suburban wife and mother in less time than it takes some people to get through Madge's Sex book. But almost invariably, Nicole manages to effortlessly pull off aggressively casual West Coast refinement (face-eating sunglasses and hair don'ts notwithstanding) like no one else. The only thing threatening her reign over the Valley was her Skeletor stage, hopefully a problem rooted firmly in her past.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday's Info-Bar muckup somehow turned Barton Fink into a more surreal misadventure than it already was, today things get tawdry with an early precedent for the suggestion of Satan's sexual duality made prominent decades later in the South Park movie.
J.J. Abrams has some hard nuts to crack. While shows like Lost and Alias have their moments, and Mission Impossible III was about as tolerable as that series is going to get (and let's be honest, largely thanks to Philip Seymour Hoffman), most everything else he's touched has transmuted to gangrened gumbo. Though as the industry buzzes, one might think that gumbo was gold-flavored. However, for all his vaunted Midasing of TV and film properties, in the frankest of light, his ideas are really rather subpar, and since this isn't golf, that ain't good.
Or to be more accurate than a so-called smart bomb, let's narrow in a little further so that the good parts of Abrams aren't sprayed everywhere like civilian viscera. It's not particularly that his ideas are bad. Secret-agent turns double on an Illuminati-like organization, plane crashes on mysterious island, government investigators examine a giant pseudo-scientific conspiracy. These are well-wrought. However, the execution, like that of a Hamas rebel, is so sloppily performed that anyone or thing in the slightest proximity is obliterated in a blaze of ineptitude and violent ignorance.
Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features,
where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of
Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by
the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge
affinity for their body of work.
And while yesterday we said "OK, fine you're the boss, jeeeez" to ex-pre-pubescent Tony Danza sidekick Danny Pintauro, today we get ourselves in a fine Messina trying to put the icing on the birthday cake for a folk-cum-'80s-radio-rock stalwart.
It may only be the first official week of the inaugural year, but the fruitless hits keep on comin'! Welcome back to Unnecessary Album Releases, an NCDSUV feature in which we highlight the week's most egregiously bizarre, dull and often unpleasant albums from the music industry's "left"er side of the dial. Behold the obscure, the most fantastically superfluous musical curiosas for the week of January 6, 2009
6. The Mongoloids, Assorted Music With a moniker that brings to mind indigenous peoples of Asia or chromosomal abnormality, The Mongoloids' Assorted Music is perfect for two-fisted vegans and New York Hardcore leftovers still pining for the days of Sheer Terror.
5. The Newleydeads, Dreams From A Dirt Nap This "greatest hits" collection by Goth/Industrial rockers The Newleydeads, featuring members of Faster Pussycat, is the ideal model for those who missed the cultural gap between early Marilyn Manson and the widely overstated ballyhoo that is director Rob Zombie's horror films.
Brody Jenner is like a multi-headed monster of suck. He's a Medusa of mediocrity with snakes of suckage prowling from outside his skull, swallowing both his pride and pop culture's self-respect whole like a rat inside their slithering skin.
There's the fact that he sucks on the most surface, spoiled-douche socialite level, attaining third-hand notoriety as the son of a famous athlete (Bruce Jenner, although athlete is surely in quotations there), the stepbrother of a sub-Paris Hilton nightlife diva and the carefully cast friend of a "reality" queen, Lauren Conrad of The Hills.
Then there's the magnanimous suckitude of his new MTV show, Bromance, which, fittingly, apes Ms. Hilton's My New BFF but replaces it with uncomfortably homoerotic dudeism. The premiere felt like the opening episode of a Real World season, when everyone parades naked into the hot tub for drinks, high-pitched shrieking and cavorting, except with the girls conspicuously missing an invitation.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw Aracnophobia get reimagined as the tale of eight-legged creatures used as currency for farm mortgage so they can be sacrificed for a good harvest, today the Info-Bar gives us a serious literary workout, courtesy of the Coen Brothers, John Turturro (and John Goodman, in his second consecutive HCIBDOTD appearance).
Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features,
where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of
Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by
the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge
affinity for their body of work.
Let's just make one thing abundantly clear before we dive into this list like a lesbian reality show participant planting their face in another femme fatale's birth canal. NCDSUV doesn't just toss around the word "slut" like salad. It's a reductive, derisively loaded descriptor, and it breaks the cardinal rule of human socializing: Don't judge a book by its cover. And on the other side of the coin, it's an expression that many modern-day feminists embrace as a means of self-appointed sexual empowerment.
But when it comes to the ladies from the three seasons of Rock Of Love, featuring our favorite glam-metal fossil Bret Michaels, it's safe to say we can apply the term with all its basest connotations, with little fear of uproar or repercussion, especially after the backlash-clamoring exploits on Rock Of Love Bus.
If anything, it's hard to distinguish one of these soulless, face-sucking fame seekers' tramposity from the others'. So even though Heather was an ex-stripper with the hair-and-fashion sense of a drag queen at New York City's Halloween parade, she exuded enough seasoned self-respect to remain off this lascivious list. And although Rock Of Love Bus newbie Brittaney admitted to a past in pornography, she had a reformed soccer-mom side that kept her from being raked over this story's critical coals.
So with all that in mind, and with all apologies to the overly sensitive, here are the five absolute sluttiest of all the self-esteem-deprived she-devils who have embarked upon a quest for VH1 stardom and Michaels' momentary affection.
5. Daisy Parading around as a true-blue rocker chick straight out of the annals of Poison's "Fallen Angel" lyrics sheet, Ms. De La Hoya is actually the no-doubt-spoiled niece of her world-class-boxing uncle, Oscar. And despite still living with her douchebag deluxe boyfriend Charles, Daisy more than presumably slept with Michaels. During one altercation, she even gloated about supposedly giving him sexual favors to get Heather off her back about the whole multiple lovers fiasco. Daisy might be the angel, but it seems Michaels was the one earning his red wings.
4. Gia This tatted-up Love Bus sex tart may have only lasted one episode, but her too-slutty-for-blurred-out-TV antics (nevermind mention the footage that actually made the cut), most notably depositing a "buttery nipple" test-tube shot inside her cooch for another contestant to swill down her gullet, enshrined her legacy in the Hall Of Whoreitude. And had us all scrambling for unencumbered production footage on file-sharing sites.
Clint Eastwood seems like a nice enough dude, but as Sucks is the self-styled gatekeeper of cultural inadequacy, our remit compels us to lambaste turkeys like Gran Torino and Changeling for their melodramatic claptrapishness and mawkish unidimensionality. Films like this are the epitome of Hollywood's distrust in the viewing public. "Forcefeed the plebes tripe," and like a fecal Marie-Antoinette they scream, "Let them eat shit!" But yes, gatekeeper and turkey-master are needed to bust Eastwood's balls for being the vessel of Hollywood's hatred for the common person. Let the crushing begin.
Eastwood's slide from Ernest Hemingway toughguy bullshit to bathetic cornball isn't so steep, for in reality they're just facets of the same childlike image of America that the media loves to sloppily gangbang in front of us all like freak exhibitionists. He is the well-meaning breaker of bureaucratic-regulations, that Dirty Harry is; the guy that gets things done by going outside the rule of law like it were some inconvenient set of dictates more suited to cleaning up spilt jizz than keeping sociopaths from destroying our society.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while Friday saw Child's Play 2 get reimagined as Chucky's enraged response to the marketing of his My Buddy-reminiscent doll, today the Info-Bar reinvents the contemporary methods of how home mortgages are financed.
Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features,
where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of
Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by
the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge
affinity for their body of work.
And while Friday's birthday candles went "Schwing!" for exotic Wayne's World hottie Tia Carrere, today we hesitantly say "Surprise!" to a slightly terrifying soccer thug-turned-unlikely Hollywood star.
Back for 2009, here's some more Films From The Cable Afterlife, properly hung over for the New Year. It's a short week, so let's just get this over with and celebrate the end of a stinker, and hope for change as well as variety in our cultural diets. (All listings in EST.)
8. The Dead One (2007) TMC, Thursday, January 8, 4:30am It's not just your junk that's up for grabs when Wilmer Valderrama rolls up to your crew in this do-not-pass-DVD, go-directly-to-cable stinker. Fez puts on mariachi makeup by accident, then gets in an accident and sent to the Aztec god of death, to do HIS BIDDING. Oooooooooooh!
7. Skinwalkers (2007) TMC, Thursday, January 8, 6:10pm A product of a robust yet bloated market, Skinwalkers was yet another failure of a horror film, given theatrical release by Lionsgate. This one's about werewolves, and while the effects were decent, there's no buffing up the acting and the plot is nearly identical to that of Dane Cook's Employee Of The Month. Here' hoping the economic downturn keeps dog dirt like this out of production.
6. American Perfekt (1997) Showtime (SHO Beyond), Wednesday, January 7, 8:15pm A flip of a coin is all it takes for criminal psychiatrist Robert Forster to abandon all of his plans and go on a wild vacation with some psychotic women and a whole heap of trouble. Are Fairuza Balk, Amanda Plummer and Naked's David Thewlis interesting enough to get you to tune in? Flip a coin to find out!
5. Doomsday (2008) Cinemax, Monday, January 5, 10pm Last year, director Neil Marshall (The Descent) took a dump in the Thunderdome, and here it is, having baked in the sun for many months. Rhona Mitra leads a cast of Bob Hoskins and Malcolm McDowell in a post-apocalyptic run 'n' gun of Scotland.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw late-night HBO boob-festThe Beach Girls re-imagined as a fat-camp docudrama, today the Info-Bar devilishly delivers us to the lackluster sequel of an inexplicably appealing horror classic.
Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features,
where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of
Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by
the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge
affinity for their body of work.
On New Year's Day, Don Novello, aka Father Guido Sarducci, led us in a comedic prayer for 2009, and today we say "Schwing!" to Wayne Campbell's one-time bass-straddling mega-babe.
Whether
it's viewed as a rite of passage, a holy sacrament or simply a match
made in heaven, most individuals enter the institution of marriage with
the very best of intentions. But as any good attorney will tell you, at
least 50 percent of the time those same intentions pave the way to the all
too familiar hell of divorce. As usual, we can always turn to the
movies in order to shed a little light on the kinds of issues and
behavioral patterns some unlucky couples may have to face.
In Sam Mendes' current matrimonial nightmare, Revolutionary Road,
we get a glimpse of what life might have been like had Kate Winslet
made a little room for Leonardo DiCaprio on that piece of driftwood
instead of letting him sink like a stone. Joining a long list of
terrible twosomes who should never have gotten together, Hollywood's
latest testament to staying single brings to mind the eight distinct
archetypes that failed fictional couples normally fall into. If real
people heeded the examples of these fake folks more often, maybe the
odds of having a successful marriage would add up to more than a
crapshoot.
8. Mr. & Mrs. Suburban Nightmare: Lester and Carolyn, American Beauty
There's
something about the suburbs that frequently brings out the worst in
people. Maybe all that orderliness, uniformity and conformity gives
married folks too much time to gaze into their own dyspeptic navels and
eventually pick at each other's flaws and weaknesses like so many
scabs. When the weird kid next door with the thousand yard stare (who
happens to be fond of videotaping your underage daughter) is the most
normal person in your development, either it's time to talk or it's
time to move to the city. Pronto.
Honorable Mention To: Calvin and Beth, Ordinary People
7. Mr. & Mrs. "t's All His Fault: Jonathan and Bobbie, Carnal Knowledge
In
this day and age, couples counselors usually find a way to balance the
blame between both parties in order for them to share in the
responsibility of fixing their collective problems. But sometimes,
women just happen to shack up with the wrong guy. Naïve dim bulb Bobbie
(Ann-Margret) learns the hard way that Jack Nicholson's shallow,
self-centered, sex-obsessed Jonathan is anything but marriage material.
When she tearfully pleads that she wants him, he fires back, "I'm taken
by me!" Well, in spite of everything else, at least he's honest.
Honorable Mention To: Dan and Beth, Fatal Attraction
6. Mr. & Mrs. War of Words: George and Martha, Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?
Forget
what you've heard in the past, sticks and stones ain't got shit on the
caustic, lacerating words hurled by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton
in this venomous condemnation of loveless matrimony. Liquored up and
pissed off, these old pros wield the English language like a weapon and
tear into each other with a viciousness seldom seen outside of divorce
court. Like the young couple who watch their soul-crushing vituperation
from the sidelines, these sparring spouses really force us to ponder
just how long the "ever after" must be
after the happiness is completely gone.
Honorable Mention: Lloyd and Caroline, The Ref
5. Mr. & Mrs. Homicidal Tendencies: Steven and Emily, A Perfect Murder
Modern-day sage Chris Rock once said, "If
you haven't seriously thought about killing a motherfucker, you ain't
been in love." In this cold tale about a relationship on life support,
Michael Douglas' scheming executive plots to put Gwyneth Paltrow's adulterous
character out of her misery quicker than you can say, "Coldplay sucks!"
To actually premeditate your beloved's murder requires a level of
contemplation that few outside the movies are familiar with. In real
life, no matter how bad the relationship is, snuffing out your
significant other is not an option. Besides, whether or not you get
away with it, it will always come back to haunt you. Just ask O.J.
Honorable Mention: Tony and Margot, Dial M For Murder
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw a Japanese, Dirty Dozen-style violent drama transformed into a male-bonding weepy, today we visit a would-be classic of straight-to-HBO worthy, late-night boob-bouncing nostalgia.
Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features, where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge affinity for their body of work.
On Wednesday, we beat on the brat with a baseball bat for a key member of The Warriors, and today we're ringing in the New Year by wishing a happy birthday to a polymath of the wild and woolly comic landscape, whose main claim to fame is a single Saturday Night Live character.
After absorbing the hype about Mickey Rourke's Herculean performance in Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler (supposedly a mixture of Godfather-period Brando, Rocky-era Sylvester Stallone and Jesus himself) and becoming intrigued by the campy-cum-heartbreaking premise of a has-been pro grappler trying to make good, I finally headed off to the big screen and witnessed Rourke's theater of pain.
And while reviews have brought expectations down to earth, citing the film (accurately) as an ultimately been-there-done-that re-telling of a tried-and-true fallen-warrior saga, nothing could have prepared me for the degree to which The Wrestler sucked. Not even the 35-page manual in my cupholder titled, Preparation Tactics For The Suckage Of The Wrestler.
As for the star of the main event, Rourke is the only aspect of the film that doesn't dwell in heavy-handedness. His performance is anything but showy, and doesn't need to be. Aronofsky lends the picture its poetics with his trademark style of uncomfortably gritty grotesquerie and tragic surrealism. But he and screenwriter Robert Siegel also turn The Wrestler into an exercise in manipulation that puts a stranglehold on your emotional and sensory thresholds. The outcome is predictable from the near get-go, but the filmmaking pair still mercilessly puts viewers through the formulaic paces of the movie's narrative arc.
We're first permitted a glimpse of hope during the mid-flick reconciliation with Robinson's daughter Stephanie (played with believably guarded gusto by Evan Rachel Wood) and near-consummation with stripper muse Cassidy (portrayed with a lack of naturalism distractingly antithetical to Rourke's immersion into Robinson's over-tanned-and-time-battered visage). And we're then subjected to our protagonist's rapid, perversely graceful descent into flatlined self-loathing and, eventually, a uniquely morbid kind of isolated martyrdom.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming.
And while yesterday saw High Fidelity re-envisioned as the tale of a man who can finally start living after recovering from a bizarre psychological condition, today the Info-Bar transforms a hitman-style thriller into a tour of male bonding.
The fullbore and boring backlash against Judd Apatow and his coterie of cloddish co-conspirators is well underway. Now, we could poopoo the manner in which he milks the Man-Boy Matures genre (Superbad, 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, et al) until the cows come home, but that would be mixing our milk metaphors with our meat metaphors, and that ain't grammatically Kosher.
So instead of badly butchering the man, wheezing out a few tired sentences that sentence all reading them to The Pit Of Despair, we'd rather focus on the medium and not the message. To be Frank Gifford, I'd have to cheat on my shrew of a wife, but to just be frank, the message is basically adolescence writ large anyway, and rehashing it only envelops the proceedings in the smokecloud of obfuscation.
A quick survey of Apatow's cinematic oeuvre shows that "oeuvre" is a pretty pretentious word when it comes to describing the film properties he's helped to develop. What we have are a bunch of generically plotted, broadly acted, amiable comedies that feature incredibly-gifted improvisers.
Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features,
where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of
Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by
the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge
affinity for their body of work.
Yesterday, we solicited the birthday cheer of former Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss, and today we come out and play for a Warrior-turned-Sex stud.
Welcome to NCDSUV's splenetic, embittered new weekly feature, Overdressed & Underclassed, which dissects different aspects of celebrity fashion with the enthusiasm and exactitude of a taxidermist suffering from the second clinical phase of rabies (caution: We have reached the contagious stage).
Fashion trends generally reflect the time in which they're created, ergo cash means flash, recession means regression. So what can we expect when a full-blown depression is being forecast? As I turn my jaundiced eye to 2009, I predict that the (hopefully) temporary stumble of Western Civilization will lead to a number of unsightly trendlets among the glitterati. My predictions for who will wear what, below.
8. Rumpled Luxe Most Likely Victims: Angelina Jolie, Madonna, Sean Penn Much like Kathy Fuld's rather feeble attempt to hide her weekly $10,000 shopping sprees at Hermes (you know Kathy, wife of the disgraced Lehman Brothers Goliath, Tricky Dick Fuld) in unmarked bags to protect the great unwashed masses from the awareness of her continuing spendthrift ways, there are going to be gaggles of stars known for their cultural and political "sensitivity" who will attempt to downplay their own profligate spending with the Rumpled Luxe look. Because a Prada dress that's ill-fitting, baggy, wrinkled and strapped together with a series of creased ribbons (and just happens to cost thousands) totally says, "I relate to unkempt homeless people and the struggling working class."
7. Statement Headpieces Most Likely Victims: Nicole Richie, Mischa Barton, Christian Siriano Broke but still want to look a la mode? That's where "statement" headpieces come in. And in keeping with the bipolar mood the wild fluctuations of the market have inspired in the general populace, the message this season's "statements" are sending are decidedly crazypants. Take Blumarine, for example. The unwieldy beige contraptions strapped to models' heads are tied in various fanciful designs. The giant upside down Christmas-bow that threatens to take out a model's eyeball, or at the very least, her line of vision, is my personal favorite. It perfectly evokes the topsy turvy/helter skelter spirit of our times and chooses to join in the chaos and embrace the screwball and the scary, instead of run in the other direction, screaming. Which will most likely be the common reaction if you attempt to replicate this look.
6. Sleepwear As Outerwear Most Likely Victims: Britney Spears, Matthew McConaughey, Courtney Love Luxe lads and ladies too depressed, unemployed, drunk and/or insolvent to change out of their jammies can rest assured that they'll still totally be in style. Dolce & Gabbana has conveniently devoted its 2009 line to various pajama-inspired ensembles that will take you from the deli... to the couch. The dresses resemble Hugh Hefner-style silk smoking jackets and trench coats, shorts, flowy pants and button-downs that scream "naptime!" abound -- casual lolligag belting options included. Perhaps the idea here is to allow the still gainfully employed to stand in solidarity with their jobless brethren by unabashedly approaching their oh-so-urgent PowerPoint presentations and TPS reports with the same vigor their cohorts approach their glazy-eyed afternoon slumps on the couch, clicker in one hand, giant vat of soda in the other, bowl of popcorn precariously balanced on lap strewn with trashy magazines. Let's get this economy started!
5. Bike Shorts Most Likely Victims: Lindsay Lohan, Rihanna, Nicky Hilton Leggings' tacky redneck cousins have arrived. Brace yourselves, because bike shorts are "in." Nothing says "we give up as a society" like oversized cotton T's paired with plain black leather belts that are neither thin, thick, tight or loosely slung and bike shorts... posing as haute couture. Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope that Americans en masse don't pick up this style. We've lived through enough with the redoubtable muffin top/hipster jean/peekaboo thong triangle of terror, and I'm not sure we could withstand the kind of shock and horror that would surely entail if mall rats, Soap Opera Digest subscribers and soccer moms all started sporting short, tight, shiny Lycra pants.
While slogging through VH1's autopiloted, best-of '08 (i.e. best of their coverage of '08) programming during the last week, I made it through a few more of their I Love The... and Top 100... clips shows. During one such marathon, a segment featured the best air-guitar song of that year, with celebrities and professional air guitarists alike superimposed over, say, a Judas Priest clip, wah-wah-ing and soloing away on their imaginary axe.
Oh, I'm sorry, did I just say professional air guitarists? Excuse me while I get my dick out of my hand until someone gives me my paycheck for professionally jerking off.
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