The Daily Squid » Pop Culture

THE NEW BAROQUE

Dave White — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:02:26 +0000

I bet if Bach showed up in the present Bill & Ted-style and was like, “Yo, show me some music” we’d probably put on Lady Gaga “Telephone” and he’d be like, “Woa, wait, seriously?”

But then we’d show him some orchestral arrangements of Super Mario Bros. themes and he’d be all, “Ok, alright, I see what you guys are up to.”

TOP 20 GILMORE GIRL EPISODES I HAVE WATCHED SINCE BECOMING UNEMPLOYED

Dave White — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:00:25 +0000

Early last week, Quentin Tarrantino graced the internet with his list of the Best 20 Movies Since 1992, the year he himself first began making movies:

I wanted to do something similar, but I don’t really make movies. In fact, since this past June, I’ve ostensibly been predominantly unemployed. Meaning: I don’t make much of anything.

I do, however, watch a lot of episodes of Gilmore Girls on DVD.

In the spirit of Tarantino, here is my list of the Top 20 Gilmore Girls Episodes I Have Watched Since Becoming Unemployed.

Like Tarantino, the list is unordered, with one exception: Keg! Max! is clearly the best episode of Gilmore Girls I have seen since June, standing high above anything else. The rest are ordered chronologically by air date.

Keg! Max! Season 3 Episode 19
Lane drunk dials her mom. High comedy, intense Korean Christian drama.
Kiss and Tell Season 1 Episode 7
Rory’s first kiss! The whole town is buzzing but she doesn’t tell Lorelai!
Christopher Returns Season 1 Episode 15
Nick and Nora/Sid and Nancy Season 2 Episode 5
Paris craziness and the introduction of Jess. Swoon.
The Bracebridge Dinner Season 2 Episode 10
A-Tisket, A-Tasket Season 2 Episode 13
The essence of Stars Hollow distilled to a fine 22 minutes, charming small town rituals and picnic basket zany mania.
I Can’t Get Started Season 2 Episode 22
Haunted Leg Season 3 Episode 2
Eight O’clock at the Oasis Season 3 Episode 5
A special appearance by a young Jon Hamm!
Ballrooms and Biscotti Season 4 Episode 1
Raincoats and Recipes Season 4 Episode 22
The Season 4 finale, in which Dean and Rory doooooo it. Double swoon!
Written in the Stars Season 5 Episode 3
But Not As Cute As Pushkin Season 5 Episode 10
So…Good Talk Season 5 Episode 16
Fight Face Season 6 Episode 2
The first appearance of Paul Anka. Marvelous.
The Prodigal Daughter Returns Season 6 Episode 9
Friday Night’s Alright for Fighting Season 6 Episode 13
Wonderul Gilmore fight montage.
Merry Fisticuffs Season 7 Episode 10
I’d Rather Be In Philadelphia Season 7 Episode 13
Unto The Breach Season 7 Episode 24
Logan proposes!! Anti-swoon!

There it is.

Up next: Top 20 Jelly Donuts I Have Purchased Since They Finished Remodeling Our Local DuDos.

MULTIPLE NATIONS = KILL YOUR FAMILY

Dave White — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:00:45 +0000

Food Inc. is a movie I have seen. And it was good!: a heroic tale of Joe The Humble Organic Lima Bean Farmer fighting the noble fight against Goliath The Earth Raping Multinational Cattle Rancher Food Conglomerate Inc.

And you know Goliath is bad, because he’s…multinational.

DUH DUH DUHNNNN!!!!!

Corporations have operated in multiple nations for a long time. Which is apparently self-evidently horrifying.

FOR EXAMPLE:

District 9 is a movie I will go see this week:

The evil corporation at the heart of the film is MNU, or, Multi-National United. Corporate terror distilled to its essence.

It’s Multinational! That’s scary! There are evil things in multiple nations! Evil multination satanic corporate multiple nations corporations!

ANOTHER GOOD ONE:

The International is a movie I have not seen. The big evil multinational (pants: shitted) corporation Clive Owen is up against there? The International Bank of Business and Credit. Not bad, though it lacks the clear narrative punch of something more simplistically terrifying. Maybe: International Bank of Banking.

That’s suspense!

MEN WHO ARE MAD EAT DONUTS IN BOWTIES

Dave White — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:00:16 +0000

Mad Menify yourself with the latest Mad Menerizer. Here’s Mad Menned Me:

For those unable to view photographic images, I am about to feed champagne to my donut before we read the newspaper and heavily pet/neck on Cinderella’s hotel bed.

WOA WOA WAIT: A real-paper newspaper? This show is vintage.

THE HISTORIC REDUNDANCY OF MY MIDDLE SCHOOL DANCES

Dave White — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 11:07:40 +0000

From 1992 to 1997, Boyz II Men spent a total of 54 weeks with a Billboard #1 single. Five singles, three of which broke a previous record for longest rein at #1. The phrase “#1″ appears in their Wikipedia profile 11 times.

The most significant hit of this impressive reign of dominance was “One Sweet Day,” a collaboration with Mariah Carey that spent a (still) record 16 weeks in the top spot. Mariah Carey herself, during this same period, charted 7 of her 18 career #1s, encompassing a total of 43 weeks.

That is to say, from 1992 to 1997, the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 was held be either Boyz II Men, Mariah Carey, and/or Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey, for a total of 81 weeks (out of 260).

Were these guys really that good, or were the mid 90s that devoid of pop competition?

15 ALBUMS

Dave White — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:05:59 +0000

I was recently tagged with this engaging little exercise on Facebook, as part of the now ever-evolving dynamic chain of notes. It made its way toward being cross-posted here because I spent a good 40 minutes writing it and am entirely strapped for content.

Think of 15 albums that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you in and took you over for days, weeks, months, years. These are the albums that you can use to identify time, places, people, emotions. These are the albums that no matter what they were thought of musically shaped your world.

1. Nirvana – Nevermind
My favorite album when I was 11 and still my favorite album today. The CD that convinced me to grow my hair long (for a time), and unselfconsciously bring a yo yo to class. That was big time.

2. Public Enemy – Nation of Millions
I often wish I could go back and experience what it was like to first hear “Rebel Without a Pause” without already knowing what Public Enemy was all about.

3. Weezer – Self Titled (Blue Album)
Haven’t listened to it in years, nor had much interest. But this was the first album to really own me outright for an extended period of time.

4. A Tribe Called Quest – The Love Movement
After I went on to discover Low End and Marauders, I quickly became embarrassed that this was my first true introduction to Tribe. Not exactly keeping it real. It took another 6 or 7 years of digesting Jay Dee’s prolific production output before I was able to return to this semi-early work of his and really appreciate that natural brilliance.

5. Keith Jarrett – The Melody at Night with You
My Dad gave me this, after I had dropped out of college (the first time) and was fucked up on fruit snacks and jello snack packs. Jarrett’s solo standard stuff doesn’t really rake in the same love his mega 70s solo-improv concerts do, but this album is just unmatched in that personal and restful vibe.

6. BIG – Ready to Die
Because you have to, right?

7. Radiohead – OK Computer
Kind of a default, as well. First album I ever bought because everyone at the time was saying it was the greatest ever, and the first album to deserve the immediacy of hyperbole I puked all over it.

8. Elliott Smith – Either/Or
Never really realized how much I loved this album until an iTunes plug-in calculated I’d spent over 61 hrs listening to it.

9. El-P – Fantastic Damage
Come to think of it, the experience wished for in item 2 is probably similar to the adventure of first being hit with “Tuned Mass Damper” or “Delorean.”

10. Beatles – Revolver
The first album I ever owned containing the song “For No One” was actually a Rickie Lee Jones covers compilation. This is better.

11. DJ Shadow – Endtroducing
This is the only record I know with an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records not related to sales or chart positions. (“First Full-Length Commercial Album Created Entirely From Sampled Audio.” Or something.)

12. Eric B & Rakim – Follow the Leader
Paid in Full gets all the love for breaking the ground, but this is where I first really understood the legend of Rakim, one I had spent so much time reading about in bound periodicals at rural libraries throughout New Hampshire.

13. Dangerdoom (Danger Mouse & MF Doom) – The Mouse and the Mask
Not one of my favorite albums, though it’s excellent. Not particularly ground breaking or burning up the iPod, either. But this is the first hip hop album to ever shout out somebody I know personally, so it’s on here.

14. Iron & Wine – Woman King
Technically an EP, but this set, combined with “Mating” by Norman Rush, a 2005 Op-Ed by Patricia Bauer, and a series of columns by a feminist writer in the UNH student newspaper, had a huge impact on the development of my first script, Big Potato Dictator.

15. One Be Lo – S.O.N.O.G.R.A.M
The first album post-1997 to disabuse me of the notion that hip hop’s best days laid in its past, the LP that demonstrated the continued existence of a still golden post-Golden Era of hip hop left to be uncovered in real time.

4 THINGS YOU PROBABLY DON’T KNOW ABOUT STEVEN SEAGAL

Dave White — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 06:34:36 +0000

Steven Seagal is a man clearly well versed in the fragility of the human ~~condition~~ skeletal system, an aggressive physical manifestation of some staggering personal depth.

For instance, where you aware that:

Steven Seagal began his career as an aikido instructor in Japan, the first foreigner to operate an aikido dojo in Osaka Japan.
Prominent Tibetan lama Penor Rinpoche has recognized Steven Seagal to be the reincarnation of a Tibetan religious figure.
While working in Japan, Steven Seagal was urgently warned by a “mystical dog” that his dojo was on fire, a dog he had never seen before and never saw again.
Most importantly: Steven Seagal is an international blues guitarist and multi-album World Music recording artist, from 2005′s Songs From the Crystal Cave to 2006′s Mojo Priest.

As such:

THANK YOU VERY MUCH, MR. ROBOTO

Dave White — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:00:23 +0000

An unlikely and yet stunningly elegant Oscar acceptance speech Sunday night, in the category of Best Animated Short:

Incoporates the bare essentials of any great movie awards speech:

Open with polite and humble joke (So heavy)

Honor us (Thank you, my supporters)

Honor the below-the-line folks (Thank you, all my staff)

Honor the craft (Thank you, my pencil)

Honor the dame who brought you there (Thank you, Academy)

Honor Styx (Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto)

How hard is that?

COME AND KNOCK ON OUR DOOR, MR. OSCAR

Dave White — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 14:00:27 +0000

Unsurprisingly, last week’s 81st annual Oscar announcement brought about a familiar round of nomination consternation, a routine spell of hater-itis more often geared toward redefining the boundaries of one’s own cleverness than it is about movies.

(This year’s inevitable predictions of low telecast ratings were thankfully balanced out by some relatively groundbreaking LOLCat comparison and analysis).

Anyways, here is how clever I am:

I have absolutely no idea how The Reader was able to pull in so much Oscar love. To be sure, I’m all for a Kate Winslet the Naked Nazi film in theory, and she and her uncomfortably well-endowed young German costar were seriously phenomenal in practice.

But that script was something out of an episode of Three’s Company; an entire plot boiled down to one (slightly glorified) simple misunderstanding that could have been/should have been resolved with a relatively pain-free five minute conversation.

SPOILER

Yes yes, she can’t read, so how could she have been the mastermind behind the mass slaughter of hundreds of jews in a church fire, the only evidence of which is a handwritten report. Everyone in that court room should have recognized that Kate’s naked character wasn’t responsible. I know this, because everyone in the theater was clearly yelling, “just tell Mr. Roper you’re illiterate and be done with it!”

When one of your primary conflicts is less “wow…draama” than it is “that’s fucking annoying, this issue should take, like, 5 minutes to clear up,” something’s not exactly working.

DANIEL CRAIG, NOT A SUPER JEW (BUT HE PLAYS ONE IN THE MOVIES)

Dave White — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 14:00:04 +0000

Daniel Craig is a very handsome man, a pretty good actor and a really great Bond. He also has a knack for playing real-life bad-ass jews, from an Israeli assassin in Munich to, most recently, Tuvie Bielski in Ed Zwick’s Defiance.

All of which is certainly impressive, given the extent to which Daniel Craig ~~isn’t exactly the most jewish looking dude around~~ is a walking manifestation of Hitler’s deviant wet dreams (he even dates hottie blonde-haired German ladies!)

Would I eat a bagel he prepared for me? Yes. Would I think twice were he to DJ my birthday party and spin Gwen Stefani’s “If I Was a Rich Girl?” more than once? Probably not.

But Daniel Craig’s compelling believability while portraying some ass-kicking jewishness is something altogether more difficult to pull off, and his ability to do so without ever rising to the level of Tom Hanks in Paul Mooney’s “Last Nigga on Earth” is a welcome testament to some impressive thespian abilities. Many kudos.

In his honor, Michelle Collins at Best Week Ever.tv has compiled a convincing list of 20 Actors More Jewish Looking Than Daniel Craig.

E=MC HAMMER

Dave White — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:00:38 +0000

The Onion AV Club labors through a 12-month bounty of demos, press releases and gig announcements, all to tabulate a very-solid year-end list of terrible terrible band names.

Some good stuff, though I have to quibble a bit, because E=MC Hammer is an absolutely amazing band name. Their MySpace band description is even better:

2 Gentlemen from the city of milwaukee making music thats at the same time retarded, annoying, and great.

Annoying, retarded and great.

Please Albert don’t hurt ‘em

HEIDI MONTAG AND THE POST-MODERN NECESSITY

Dave White — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 14:00:52 +0000

And here is Heidi Montag, vehemently denying her recent wedding was nothing more than a publicity stunt:

“I look forward to everyone seeing the footage of our time in Mexico on The Hills, so they can see for themselves what a joyous occasion it was.”

There’s something so remarkably sublime about a statement of naked publicity made as denial against accusations of naked publicity.

Heidi Montag is fascinating. Many people may violently disagree, and I certainly understand the nature of that disagreement. Because the Heidi Montag who appears on The Hills, who frolics dainty on a Mexican beach in a thin bikini with her dbag boyfriend, isn’t very interesting at all.

But that’s Heidi Montag the character, the Heidi Montag of the show. The real Heidi Montag, the one who courts fame so brazenly, who cooperates with MTV producers paid to manipulate her real-life familial relationships, who doesn’t just go to the beach in a bikini with her dbag boyfriend, but who does so in a purposefully choreographed dance of staged paparazzi “spy photos”; that’s a richly complex, eminently captivating person.

Unfortunately, The Hills itself completely misses out on this fascinating complexity, purposefully avoiding any mention of the fame or notoriety the show has brought upon its subjects.

When a sex-tape featuring Lauren Conrad was first shopped to internet high-bidders, it became a huge international story, dominating tabloid magazines, providing Billy Bush and Mark McGrath with something to talk about for weeks and weeks. And yet The Hills treated the incident as some sort of close-knit gossip gone bad; Conrad and friends spent an entire televised season discussing “rumors” on a “website,” as if the entirety of the story existed in Facbook status updates and a couple MySpace comments.

So much banality when what actually happened in the actual real life world, just beyond the periphery of the televised reality we all ended up seeing, was intensely more interesting.

What’s it like to have legitimate celebrity gossip magazines printing detailed descriptions of your vulva for broad popular consumption?

We’ll never know, because The Hills, like most Reality Television, ultimately fails to meet its mark, remaining naively devoted to the characters it has created, when the process of creating them is by far the most fascinating aspect of their actual real lives.

SELLING THINGS

Dave White — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 16:22:04 +0000

Michael Moore and Stephen Colbert discuss the current state of television news:

Colbert: I am proudly owned by my sponsors. I will never say one thing against the Pasta Pro™ pasta strainer.

Moore: Right. And that’s why you’ll have a long and successful career.

Colbert: Good.

Moore: And so, your point is … ?

Colbert: That I have a healthy relationship with my sponsors. And that’s how TV works.

Moore: In other words, it’s not really about telling the truth.

Colbert: No, we are selling things

Probably only partially true, but well spoken nonetheless.

BATTLE OF THE SUPER NERDS

Dave White — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 21:01:02 +0000

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows gets leaked.

Super-nerdy Wikipedians attempt to add information revealed within said leak to Deathly Hallows Wikipedia entry.

Dedicated super-nerdy Harry Potter fans do whatever possible to preserve the sanctity of the ~~Harry Potter marketing campaign~~ magical novel, expecto patronuming all mention of the leak from said Wikipedia entry.

Super-nerdy Wikipedians counter with further obsessive leak-related Wikipedia editing.

The battle rages on, via Wikipedia Talk Pages.

(FYI, link may reveal sensitive information)

RATATOUILLE vs. HARRY POTTER

Dave White — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 17:19:59 +0000

Patton Oswalt enlightens us on which summer blockbuster good Americans will be enjoying this weekend: