For those of you who don't know, cocaine gives people who are on it the sense that they can do anything and that they are larger than life. This results in them talking about themselves constantly and making fast friends with other people who are on it. They also have the tendency to go to dark places sexually.
Then there's this dog, who probably just talked about starting 10 businesses he won't remember tomorrow after stuffing his face in a mountain of blow.
So reviewing television series on the basis of sentimentality is a self-indulgent and unoriginal exercise, perfect for me! My So Called Life ran for one season but became this landmark of the 90s cultural landscape. MSCL exposed me to the world of teenagers, beautiful people with deep emotions. I know now through having been a teenager that they are just deeply self-involved, dramatic, and inarticulate. Which makes sense when you don't control your life and your body and brain is working out of control in weird ways.
sitting this awkwardly gives you angst, lots of angst
What the Hell Was That Show About?
For anyone who didn't watch My So Called Life, here's a quick synopsis. Angela Chase is 15 and she's started hanging out with Rayanne and Ricky, the crazy girl and gay kid at school respectively. She's trying to define herself and fit in. Her parents, Graham and Patty, don't know how to handle this new teenage Angela and have marriage issues of their own. Angela is hopelessly in love with Jordan Catalano, a gorgeous burn-out. Meanwhile, her dorky neighbor Brian is in love with her.
Teenagers!
Rewatching My So Called Life I'm amazed how they channeled that real confusion and dramatic angle into the show in a way that works. Angela, Rayanne, and Ricky are dumb mostly because of inexperience. You get the sense they could grow up to be worthwhile people. It's entertaining to watch them struggle and be awkward. You know how on Dawson's Creek, the kids were verbose and platonicaly sharing beds? Yeah, that shit never happens-Dawson's Creek sucked.
everybody jump in the water and count to 8 million slowly!
A Very Special Episode
Every damn episode of this show is a very special episode-loaded topics are boilerplate MSCL fodder. Body image, drugs, guns in schools, bullying, and illiteracy are all packed into one season. And the crying! Most episodes involve one or more characters crying. A great way to kill a bottle of scotch would be take a shot every time someone is crying, being comforted, or hugging themselves while crying, on a My So Called Life episode. But, there's also lots of laughter and sexually charged dancing!
You Got Style
MSCL is perhaps the most perfect time capsule of what constituted fashion trends in the early 90s. Weird braids and piercings? Check. Layering shorts under dresses? Check. Crushed velvet? Check. Enough plaid to make the set look like a Big Country concert? You bet your ass. I swear Agyness Deyn has an shrine to Angela Chase somewhere in her closet.
You're So Beautiful
No review of My So Called Life would be complete without mentioning Jared Leto. Jordan Catalano is probably number one on the Fictional Character Fuck List of nearly every woman in my generation. It's totally warranted. The guy may be a world-class idiot, but look up dreamy in the dictionary and there he is brushing hair out of his azure peepers.
Worth Watching?
Sure, rewatch a little MSCL if you feel a nagging sense of sentimentality. You'll wish there were more ambitious teen dramas like it on tv today, and feel righteous anger over its cancelation. And who doesn't like a little righteous anger?
]]>My generation harbors particularly strong feelings towards tv programs. Shockingly, I was a very nerdy child. I got into the X-Files around age 8 or 9, and I watched it until about the time that Robert Patrick came on as the lead of the series. Until recently, I hadn't watched the X-Files in years and like most of the American public stayed away from the cinematic incarnations.
Recently Netflix put all of the X-Files up on Watch Instant so I've really sunk my teeth into watching them again. As an adult, I've had a lot of different feelings on the series and its place in the great pantheon of tv. So, here we go!
Isn't That That Guy?
One of the great things about watching a show years after its exit is recognizing fresh-faced newbies who've since become big name hotshots who make a lot of shitty movies. Giovanni Ribisi, Luke Wilson, Jack Black, Seth Green, Donal Logue, Terry O'Quinn, Kurtwood Smith, Felicity Huffman, Ryan Reynolds, Lucy Liu, Peter Boyle, and BD Wong all had guest spots on X-Files episodes throughout the years. Producer Vince Gilligan went on to use X-Files actors Dean Norris and Bryan Cranston in his fucking incredible series "Breaking Bad."
The Hot Factor
As a young girl, I definitely found David Duchovny very do-able, and 24 year old Laura concurs. There seems to be some kind of requirement that he goes for a run in shorts every season and that doesn't hurt either. But, Fox Mulder as a character is not such a catch. He's obsessed with his 8 year old sister and expresses his sexuality in a stunted adolescent manner through porno mags and phone sex lines, not fun.
this dog needs an adult
Gillian Anderson is luminous and makes pantsuits Hillary Clinton wouldn't wear look good. Its clear Dana Scully is a raging ocean of sexuality under a cool icy exterior, definitely hot. But, whenever Scully gets laid or even close to it (see Season 4, "Never Again") shit goes wrong, uncool.
seems like the kind of outfit that gives you a yeast infection
Mitch Pileggi who plays AD Skinner, Mulder and Scully's hard-ass boss now seems surprisingly sexy to me as an adult. He's got a great body, he's stern, and has good lips. But of course the only time he gets laid on the show the girl ends up murdered as part of a government conspiracy.
The FBI has a strict briefs over boxers policy
Horror Show
It's not scary. Many episodes have compelling suspense and a defnite sense of dread when the lives of Mulder and Scully are threatened, but scary? Not so much. I'm more impressed by how gross and gorey the show is for running in a basically prime-time spot. All of the disgusting implications of our human bodies are exploited for drama, definitely not for the squeamish.
file photo: Rupert Murdoch after midnight
Messages
What if any message did the X-Files hold? I find the X-Files to be eerily predictive of many common fears today. There are many episodes that deal with issues of food safety, pollution, and dangerous vaccines. The insane level of government surveilance legalized by the Patriot Act makes The Lone Gunmen's paranoia seem downright sensible. The fed as a willing partner alongside shady corporations propping up the military-industrial complex was seen full force in the Iraq War and years earlier in the fictions of Chris Carter.
Do I still dig it?
I do! Despite my giggles at much of the outdated technology and low grade special effects, this show is killer. I hear "Fringe" is pretty X-Files like, but from my experience its like comparing a black velvet tiger picture to a Basquiat.
Go watch it!
]]>
If you're the type of person who listens to Podcasts, there's one podcast you can't afford to miss out on. It's WTF Podcast with Marc Maron and Mike DeStefano.
He discusses his childhood in New York City and how he wanted to be a made guy, then his early 20's when he was diagnosed as HIV Positive after living a reckless lifestyle, finding true love in another recovering addict who was also diagnosed with HIV, and life in general. Also notable is that 20 years after being diagnosed with HIV he still had no sign of the virus. It wasn't HIV that claimed his life, it was a heart attack. One could only imagine how long he could have lived if it hadn't happened.
This is something you definitely can't miss. If you have an IPhone you can stream it by looking up WTF Podcast and clicking on his episode. Otherwise, you can look for it on ITunes and listen to it on your computer. Or download it and take it on the go.
Again, it's a brilliant interview, gives a lot of insight into who he was as a person and was really one of the best things I've heard as of late.
]]>
The dustbowl era Pippy Longstocking on crank look is so in for spring
Galliano's firing was tied to a taped incident that will surely ring true to a lot of working people in this country. You know when you're sitting in a cafe in Paris, thinking about your fat bankroll and how awesome your Janet Jackson Rhythm Nation tour outfit looks and a bunch of ugly people sit next to you. It's the worst right?!
But instead of texting something nasty about their thighs to Linda Evangelista, John Galliano really amped up his Jew-hater image and dropped some Hitler love on the unsuspecting patrons.
Holy Moses! Galliano, quit making drunks with shouting problems look bad. Clearly he's a deeply racist turd who thinks he can go around consequence free screaming invectives at every non-Nordic who crosses his path. Dior stripping this guy of his title makes perfect sense. But, in a way, people shouldn't be entirely surprised that a bigot with a sketch pad and celebrity friends was at the helm of a multi-million dollar fashion house.
Get ready to miss out on some gems, like this piece of shit dress.
In October, designer perfumer, Jean Paul Guerlain, used the slur negre while being interviewed on France 2 television. In detailing his work on a fragrance, he said “I put myself to work like a negre. I don’t know if the negres have always worked hard, but…” Negre can be translated to a number of American racist terms from coon to nigger.
Racist fashion moved from soundbites to the pages of French Vogue with Lara Stone's 14 page blackface spread. Not only is it incredibly arrogant to present people of color as empty skin costumes that sexy whites can jump into on a whim to be "controversial", but it did nothing but raise Lara Stone's modeling profile.
High fashion needs to stop giving racists a platform to spread their ignorant horse-shit and firing Galliano is a good first-step in that process. But, more importantly the fashion industry will probably never stop exploiting non-whites in the third world for their cheap labor-and thats fucked. So-one small step forward, if that means much at all.
]]>
Somewhere is a gigantic heap of shit. It's filmed in this raw way, it opens with someone speeding around in a Ferrari and then some of the most gratuitous scenes of twin strippers bouncing around a hotel room while Stephen Dorff watches them. Without getting too far ahead of myself, if you are a frequent reader of this website you know that I'm a sucker for these kinds of things in movies. I like movies with people running from explosions, tons of hot girls, dogs barking like crazy while they are chained up, and point blank executions. This at least had the gratuitious hot girls scene so I kept watching (no matter how next to impossible it was to keep my attention after that scene.) What transpired was just complete and utter bullshit.
The movie is about a Hollywood actor's life behind the scenes. It's all vapid. The guy lives in a hotel with Pontius from Jackass (no explanation of how they were friends or why) and has a daughter with someone whose character never develops. I get that she was trying to stress that this guys relationships weren't meaningful with exception of the one he has with his daughter BUT it provides very little character development and basically makes the entire movie drag on. She goes through the "banalities" of celebrity life, which she is obviously very knowledgeable about. It never really has a beginning, a middle, or an end. It just drags and drags and occasionally throws you a cookie (i.e. gratuitous stripper scenes, or a pair of t's getting flashed at the actor) to reward you for not just getting up and storming out of the theater.
NOTHING, and I mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING happens in this movie. It's just a way for her to complain about how hard it is to find meaning in life when you are drenched in millions of dollars and how taxing it really is to fly to foreign countries for award ceremonies when you'd rather just be a nobody. It's easy to say that when you've lived your entire life in priveledge and circumstance. Some people wish they were "poor" so they could live an exciting life, to those people I say "get a FUCKING clue."
The movie is indicative of all things Sofia Coppola. She's complaining about what she knows to be her problems. Her problem is that she grew up in extremely networked affluence. She was given the opportunity to appear in Godfather III and while that movie was a giant piece of garbage, she still managed to make it even more unbearable. She then went on to make Lost in Translation, a movie about a guy who just can't handle how he has to go to Japan to make these commercials and get paid big money, so he goes rogue and has a weekend with a whiney bitch who can't handle that she is there because she has no life of her own.
Everything about this movie sucked and without the hot girls parts it wouldn't even be worth watching on television if you were in a blow-tube wheelchair and couldn't change the channel. I supposed you'd just stop blowing into the wheelchair and die right there. You'd die miserable too.
]]>If you can train a monkey to bring unappreciative people food and take orders while wearing a mask, then why not train them to rob a bank? Is it because you think they'll lose sight of the project at hand and just throw their shit everywhere while screaming and smoking butts?
]]>
That kid is so beat looking. Now that he's an adult, he's clinging on to this show lest he become another Corey Feldman.
We've written on here before about his insatiable appetite for the Devil's Dandruff (cocaine), prostitutes, and mixing those together with violence (holding a knife to Brook Mueller's throat). This time, the stakes are even higher.
Because of Sheen's most recent antics, his network show Two and a Half Men (which has been on so long that it should be called Two Middle Aged Men and Another Man) will lose approximately $250 million. That's right folks. The show is on CBS and somehow makes $250 million? Every time you see some Nu-Metal listening to cheeseball in a truck blasting Creed you now know what T.V. show they're watching. I doubt that covers the entirety of that heaping sum of money, so you can include depressed housewives, dudes who've given up on life, and bozos to the rainbow of that viewer spectrum.
It blows my mind that most people would be locked up for centuries for one night's worth of his shenanigans but he's always out and about causing more mischief. This guy breaks the mold (also should note, he's a CELEBRITY). He can get away with virtually anything and most of his fans just say "well, boys will be boys." You're telling me that given a chance you wouldn't do the same things? Oh, you wouldn't? Because it's not healthy? You know what else isn't healthy? BEING HIV POSITIVE. And it didn't seem to kill off Magic Johnson, now did it?
So what if he's cut off the hands of mannequins before and used them in sexual acts fueled by a never endings arsenal of drugs, money, and no repercussions. The real victims here are the loyal fans left on a cliffhanger of what's going to happen next on his television program.
You can watch the madness of Charlie Sheen's life unfold on a regular basis on the news these days. I suggest not taking a sip of anything before you start reading because you might have a spit take and ruin your Ipad/"Jerk-Machine".
]]>