Can you say TOOL?

What is up with all this emo shit? Not emo the genre per se, but the bands are fucking annoying. Panic! At The Disco [insert groan here]. Their frontman gets on my nerves. Their video for watchamaccalit, that church video (eerily similar to My Chemical Romance’s Helena, or do these bands just like churches?) with the ridiculously long song title…In said video (that one in the picture on the left), the vocalist for Panic! At the Disco reminds me of when Mandy Moore used to lip-sync awfully to her music videos (remember Candy?). In other words, if you’re going to pretend like you’re actually singing in the video, make it look less obvious. Also, said video is too fucking pleased with itself. Fine, you guys are desecrating holy ground, so like, omigod, you’re sooooo cool. Omigod, the band’s totally dissing the entire institution of marriage! They are so nonconformist! Frontman: easy with the lip movement. Oh, and that goes for the lipstick, too. Try to blend in the lip liner into the rest of your lips, mmkay? Oh, and on my calendar of concerts right below, I have Panic! At the Disco for December or something, but only because I want to see Jack’s Mannequin and Bloc Party. It’s really unfortunate that the excellent and more talented bands don’t get to headline. Instead, they become chopped fucking liver for a band whose frontman wears too much make-up. Travesty, right?

Okay, on to Jared Leto. 30 Seconds to Mars probably isn’t emo, but their videos are. Didja know they actually have storylines for music videos now? To hell with the old school performance video, nowadays, you gotta find a concept for your music video and act in it. Which, of course, is only natural, considering 30 Seconds to Mars is fronted by the guy who played Alexander the Great’s gay soldier or whatever in Oliver Stone’s flop Alexander. I forgot the name of their video (I mean, who remembers, really? What with the long song titles they have nowadays?). The song isn’t even good.

Next on the chopping block…Fall Out Boy. I’m sorry, prepubescent teens of America, Fall Out Boy is annoying. Their frontman likes his fucking hat too much, and wears it in all of their videos too. Their guitarist (Pete, I think, was his name) is actually more of a tool than their frontman. We get that you guys are high energy performers, but please. Easy with the styled guitar-playing. I mean, sure, you wanna look like you’re actually rocking out to your songs, but if you don’t even have any awesome guitar solos that would make Jimi Hendrix pee in his multicolored skinny jeans, don’t act like you’re so awesome. And don’t even get me started with the song titles. A Little Less Sixteen Candles? Stop it, before someone dies of nausea.

Avenged Sevenfold. Um…I don’t even know what to say. As for the band with the ultimate tool of a frontman, My Chemical Romance, what can you say about them? The fact that I used to listen to this stuff…oh, man. Have you guys seen any of their more recent videos? What the hell is up with these guys? Black Parade? Is that a new band? Is that *gasp* their alter ego band? Omiiiiigod. First off, when the frontman dyes his hair to look like an overly bristled Gwen Stefani, there’s something awfully wrong about that picture. Second, I saw a clip of one of their videos under the name Black Parade, and they were dressed in flight suits or whatever…I had to switch channels before my eyeballs bled right out of their sockets.

Yes, I rant because I have nothing else to do. Well, actually, I can study for a Philosophy exam that I’ll be taking on Monday, but seriously now. Me? Study? In advance? [register shock that tops the Richter scale here] Please. S to the L to the A-C-K-E-R! That’s me!

Demented forever!

This is the most ridiculous film I’ve ever seen. Cecil B. Demented, with its cast of quirky characters (starring Melanie Griffith, Stephen Dorff, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Adrian Grenier), is by far the cheesiest film I’ve probably ever seen. The only thing that makes this film stand out is that it was actually meant to be cheesy.

Finally! Someone has spoken out about the absurdity of Forrest Gump’s success. How could this film have edged out such cinema greats such as The Shawshank Redemption, Quiz Show and even Pulp fucking Fiction in the 1994 Academy Awards? It’s mind-boggling, right? For one, Quiz Show was one of the most brilliant films of that year. It was one of my first Ralph Fiennes movies, and I instantly thought he delivered a great performance, along with the always-consistently excellent John Turturro. And The Shawshank Redemption. Come on. Classic movie, with Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins delivering stellar performances. How could the Academy have picked Forrest Gump over it? And don’t even get me started about Pulp Fiction. The first fucking scene of the movie is more memorable than the entire 142 minutes of listening to Tom Hanks’ Alabama accent.

Now, it sounds like I hate Forrest Gump, but I don’t. I just think it was given more praise than it deserved. Sure, it’s a feelgood movie; there are memorable scenes such as Robin Wright Penn’s immortal line of “Run, Forrest, run!” And of course, there’s um…that whole life-is-a-box-of-chocolates thing.

Anyhoo, Cecil B. Demented is a ridiculous movie. It’s like something made for the stage but shot big-screen. The performances were akin to a mime’s; very slap-stick and outrageously idiotic, but refreshingly straightforward. I like when Melanie Griffith’s character, Honey Whitlock, proclaims with conviction, “This time, I’m gonna have a fucking vision.” I also thought the entire crashing-the-Forrest Gump-sequel-set was mind-numbingly hilarious.

Did I mention that Cecil B. Demented is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen?

"What if I was your last chance at happiness?"

Rachel Bilson’s character, Kim, whispers to Michael [played by Zach Braff] in The Last Kiss. I saw the movie today and thought it was all right.

First of all, I loved Jacinda Barrett’s performance. She’s so great. She’s like the girl next door who can actually act. I got her confused with Michelle Monaghan [Mission: Impossible 3] at first, but then remembered her for her role in The Human Stain and Ladder 49. She was also recently in Poseidon. I love her character in this movie. She was someone you could easily relate to. Her character, Jenna, is supposed to be the ideal partner. Easily one of the guys, funny, outgoing, emotionally secure, beautiful…basically, Casey Affleck’s character sums it all up: “What more could you ask for?”

The gist of The Last Kiss (this movie is a remake of 2001’s L’ Ultimo Bacio [One Last Kiss]) is about a life crisis–the sort of life crisis where one is torn between wanting to settle down and taking risks. Zach Braff’s character, Michael, finds out that his girlfriend of 3 years, Jenna, is pregnant. As they start discussing about the future of their family, Michael is suddenly overcome with fear and uncertainty about what he really wants his life to be. His mindset is: He’s 29 years old, going on 30, and he might not ever get the chance to have fun and experience everything he has to experience if he chooses to settle down with a girl he actually loves. It’s a dilemma everyone probably has when they’re about 30. Questions relating to “Do I really wanna grow up?” keep popping up in the movie and I’m pretty sure most twentysomethings go through the exact same crisis.

Now, it can probably be said that the story itself isn’t at all original or imaginative. It’s actually a pretty realistic movie that takes place in a natural setting. The only thing that makes it stand out is the actors’ performances. Zach Braff, as usual, was entertaining in this movie. In some scenes, he was actually pretty good performance-wise, in the sense that you can actually see some heartfelt emotion going on instead of something out of Scrubs. Some of these scenes I’m talking about remind me of one of Braff’s scenes in Garden State where he finally talks to his father [played by Ian Holm] about the shit that he’s going through. It’s one of those parts in a movie where you see honest conversation going on between two people. I like how real these scenes felt and how it didn’t at all feel contrived.

Rachel Bilson has her first big role in this movie, and she plays a college girl who causes Zach Braff’s typically safe character, Michael, to falter. She was pretty good in the film, but the problem was, due to her exposure in The O.C. as Summer, it’s pretty hard to look at her and see her as a totally different character. Especially since she has that signature “talk” of hers that you’d think she only puts on for her role in The O.C. Anyway, I wonder how Adam Brody feels about his girlfriend having a sex scene with Zach Braff. It was actually pretty surprising, the sex scene. When I heard about it, I thought that maybe they’d just be in bed together smooching and stuff, but they really went all out on it. Well, not all out, all out, but you know. It was more than what I had expected. Which isn’t bad, trust me.

Anyhoo, soundtrack, as always, was excellent. Except when Imogen Heap’s “Hide and Seek” played, I kind of chuckled a little, because it seemed too “the music is speaking for the scenes”. The lyrics were a tad too appropriate, you know? I don’t know if that makes any sense, but yeah. I love how Coldplay’s “Warning Sign” perfectly fit the scene it was used for. Also, now that I’ve seen the movie, I can totally understand how Snow Patrol’s “Chocolate” would be appropriate as the title track for the movie.

Anyway, so yes. If you wanna see The Last Kiss, go see it. There are memorable performances from both Braff and Barrett, and also Blythe Danner, who plays Barrett’s mother in the movie. The soundtrack is great, there’s a bunch of witty one-liners and sniffle-inducing scenes, so yeah, it’s worth it. I had expected more memorable scenes (scenes that could top John Cusack lifting that boom box from outside Ione Skye’s window in Say Anything, but alas, there were none capable of this feat), but overall the movie was pretty good.

You make me a believer

Three words: Thank you, God.

Art is what you can get away with

What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the president drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke, and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one that the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the president knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.

-Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again), 1975Andy Warhol is a pioneer, rock star, icon and original all rolled into one. His work has been around for ages, and despite all the time that has passed, it is still known for his portrayal of pop culture in a completely different light. We all may remember him best from his pop art Marilyn [Monroe] or his controversial Electric Chairs. I remember him because he was the most unpretentious artist of his time.

“Unpretentious artists?” One might ask. “Is there a kind?”

When Warhol famously declared, “I am a deeply superficial person,” he was remembered for his candor and honesty. He liked being famous and did not try to hide it. He did not think he had to be brooding and anti-social to achieve greatness in art. He didn’t devote countless years of work to abstract art in order to show his depth or his passion. Because for Warhol, why mask your love for pop culture when you can embrace and devote your entire life’s work to it? Pop culture and the media surrounded everything there is about Warhol, and he enjoyed it tremendously. “I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They’re beautiful. Everybody’s plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.” And there you have it. Andy Warhol, the artist, the man, all summed up in that one statement.

So when Jessica and I finally made it to the Andy Warhol Dream America exhibit in the San Diego Museum of Art, I was relieved and excited. Relieved that we had finally gotten this much-postponed trip over and done with, and excited that I would be seeing Warhol’s work.

“If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There’s nothing behind it.” And look we did. We understood more about Warhol through his art than we had expected. You can understand how he felt about American consumerism, fame, money, beauty by looking at a single piece of art. I completely got his Campbell’s Soup collection. It was sort of a testament to how the public, for some reason, gets fed the same things everyday. Consumerism is rooted in the public’s love for repetition. There is something safe and secure about having the same product over and over again. Warhol knew it and decided to convey this idea through art by using one of American culture’s most beloved product: Campbell’s Soup.

My favorite Warhol pieces include the ones on Mick Jagger, Muhammad Ali, Shoes and Electric Chairs. I love how Warhol captured the strength and vulnerability of Muhammad Ali as well as the sexuality of Mick Jagger. One of his more moving pieces was the Kennedy piece with Jackie Kennedy.

I’ll end this post with a quote:

“Everybody has their own America, and then they have pieces of a fantasy America that they think is out there but they can’t see. When I was little, I never left Pennsylvania, and I used to have fantasies about things that I thought were happening in the Midwest, or down South, or in Texas, that I felt I was missing out on. But you can only live life in one place at a time. And your own life while it’s happening to you never has any atmosphere until it’s a memory. So the fantasy corners of America seem so atmospheric because you’ve pieced them together from scenes in movies and music and lines from books. And you live in your dream America that you’ve custom-made from art and schmaltz and emotions just as much as you live in your real one.”

All aboard the little yellow van

Dwayne, the Nietzsche-worshiping, air force pilot-wannabe member of our newest dysfunctional movie family, scribbles down on his pocket pad, which he then holds up for all to see. But Little Miss Sunshine is the farthest thing from hellish than he claims.

An extremely funny and well-cast film, Little Miss Sunshine is about a family that scrambles to get their act together in order to support their 7-year-old, youngest member, Olive, who is supposed to compete in a beauty pageant called Little Miss Sunshine. Toni Collette, who plays the mom in the film, once again dazzled with her performance; as did Greg Kinnear (who also appears with Little Miss Sunshine co-star Paul Dano in the upcoming Richard Linklater movie Fast Food Nation). I thought Greg Kinnear was very convincing in his role as a self-help writer struggling to land a book deal with his 9-step program. Alan Arkin, who plays the oversexed, coke-snorting grandfather, was also tremendously funny in this movie. But I think the man who, as always, stole the show was The 40-Year-Old Virgin’s Steve Carell. In the movie, he plays a gay scholar who failed to commit suicide and who had just been released from the hospital. I think this is by far his best performance yet. Not only was he refreshingly subdued in this film, but he was actually pretty good-looking too. He looks great with the beard, and his performance was delivered with such effortless humor that even when he’s not saying anything, you crack up anyway.

All in all, this has been the most fun I’ve had going to the movies in a long time. The characters were each very interesting and well-cast. Paul Dano playing Dwayne was a perfect call. I loved the entire idea of his character. Basically, Dwayne stops talking because he’s taken a vow of silence until he gets into the air force to be a pilot. He starts doing all these push-ups and sit-ups, reading Nietzsche, and adopting this perpetually annoyed stance whenever in the presence of his family. When asked by Steve Carell’s character, Frank, about his social relationships, he replies by scribbing on his notepad: “I hate everyone.”And then when Frank goes, “What about your family?” Dwayne narrows his eyes in this exasperated manner and then abruptly underlines “I hate everyone.”

Even in all its comical glory, Little Miss Sunshine has a heartwarming conclusion. The family starts off with each member being so isolated in his or her own world. Frank (Steve Carell’s character) is so absorbed with mourning for a guy he fell in love with (which was, consequently, the cause for his attempt to commit suicide). The grandfather constantly locks himself in their bathroom and snorts cocaine. The mom is a neurotic smoker who is always running around trying to get things done. The dad is a bankrupt self-help writer who is desperate to land a book deal. Dwayne is dead-set on his vow of silence. Olive, the 7-year-old with dreams of becoming Miss America, is glued to the TV set, playing and replaying the coronation ceremonies of various beauty pageants and mimicking the sobs and open-mouthed squeals of joy by winner of the pageant.

In the start, they seem like people who just happen to live together in the same house. When the movie reaches a conclusion, they are all brought together by one goal: that is, to support Olive in her Little Miss Sunshine pageant. It shows typical family life in America: one that involves sharing a house, which is about it. We can all be so consumed with our own individual dramas that we never get to see the big picture: not everything revolves around us. We don’t get to choose our families, and that’s one of the main points of the story. What we can do is appreciate what we’ve been given. When chaos erupts and we’re only hanging by a thread, sometimes the only way to cope is to reach out to our family for help. Because no matter what, guaranteed, our families will always be there for us.

“Life is one beauty pageant after another,” Paul Dano’s character realizes somewhere near the conclusion of the story. “Fuck beauty pageants.” These are the lines I remember because these lines are actually right. When you think beauty pageants, you think seemingly unattainable criteria, fake smiles, plastic surgery, high heels…Basically, it’s a whole lotta pain. But you have the option of kicking off your high heels, screwing up your talent act, and wiping that beaming smile off your face. Even when you’re not meeting the criteria, the important thing is you tried, and at the same time maintained your integrity while doing it, too.

Another insightful scene was where Frank (Steve Carell’s character) and Dwayne are talking and Dwayne declares, “I wish I could just skip all the bad stuff like high school and go straight to being 18. High school is hell.” Frank then enlightens Dwayne on Marcel Proust and how Proust says the best years of his life were spent when he was suffering. Because in suffering he had learned more than he did when he was happy.

Ultimately, Little Miss Sunshine is a story about winners. “Winners try and losers give up,” Alan Arkin’s character, the oversexed grandpa says to his granddaughter. The family who tries to stick together despite turmoil is a winning family. The contestant who joins the beauty pageant, but doesn’t win, is still a winner. The kid who endures the pain of turbulent high school years emerges stronger and wiser in the end. The moral of the story, then, is that all you gotta do is try. Sometimes you have to chase after a beat-up, yellow Volkswagen van with no brakes, but the point is: it’s all worth it.