Rocketboom Concerns

So Rocketboom has a new host and it makes me very unhappy. I absolutely adored the former host, Joanne Colan. But she's gone, and the new host is this girl Caitlin Hill. The way I said that sounds kind of dismissive or contemptuous... and it's mean to be, kind of. She's not as beautiful as Joanne and even though she also has an English accent, it isn't quite the same. Somebody who knows much more about English accents could probably tell me exactly where Joanne's comes from and where Caitlin's comes from and could tell me all about what kind of a horrible person that makes me.

I also know that I shouldn't judge right after her very first appearance and give her time to ease into the chair and endear herself to me. And I will. I guess I just imagined Elie Rountree taking the seat and was unhappy that she was passed over too.

Fiona Apple is my real guilty pleasure

I have a lot of guilty pleasures. My Chemical Romance and Gilmore Girls are two that I've talked about before to a lot of people. One I don't think I've discussed at length to anyone is Fiona Apple. The thing about Fiona Apple that makes her, probably, my most guilty pleasure is her legitimacy. A lot of other guilty pleasures, like campy movies (by far the most acceptable form of "guilty pleasure," to the extent that it shouldn't even really be considered one), ABBA, or Food Network can be justified in various ways. MCR hearkens back to my emo or Smashing Pumpkins days. ABBA is a derivative of my Stephin Merritt fetish and is ridiculous/outlandish enough to be acceptable. Food Network is utilitarian.

I should have no real connection with Fiona Apple's music. It's undeniably effeminate in more profound and robust ways than MCR or ABBA. She has little to no indie cred; her first album was probably her most popular and came out when she was 19 or something. There's really no reason why I should like her. That's why it makes no sense - there is no justification. For all my other guilty pleasures, there's some sort of 'out' - a reason why I like it. That doesn't exist for Fiona Apple.

Yeah, I mean there's the basic truth that the music is incredible. Tidal, beyond its 1996-esque cred, has about eight really, really good songs. The other albums get a bit more experimental, and that's even better. Her lyrics, also, are some of the very few outside of hip-hop that I actually listen to and care about. But beyond that, as far as image is concerned, there's no justification.

Wait a sec, here's a classic fall-back criterion to vindicate me - she's hot. I'd be all circa-1999-P.T. Anderson with her. I just wish she would come out with more than one fucking album a decade.

Fiona Apple |MTV Music

"Sleep to Dream" is probably the hottest Fiona track ever. You should listen to the drums from the first few seconds on at least mp3; this video fucks them up.

Fiona Apple |MTV Music

"Fast As You Can" is a latter-day Fiona banger that you might not have checked out.

Fiona Apple |MTV Music

A Fiona ballad; I wasn't able to get the video for any of the songs I really like from Extraordinary Machine. This song is pretty good too, though.

Shoot the Piano Player is such a gem

• It's a ridiculously well-rounded movie that hits every emotional tone while maintaining and overall playfulness and never diving into deep cynicism. There are suicides, murders, and tragedy, but its charm is relentless.
• It really doesn't seem like a movie that's less than 90 minutes long - and that's a really good thing.
• Obviously very new wave, but doesn't fall prey to the worst stereotypes of the genre.
• Lena is a true ride or die girl.
  
• I identify with Eduard Saroyan.
• A film whose villains carry a musical lighter has to be at least okay.
  

Says It All

I was going to write something like this, but I'm lazy and not very witty, while Nostalgia Chick is motivated, smart, funny, and owns video editing software.





I'm becoming increasingly enamored of this woman. Though, I should note that I hate the main guy on the website. And that I've never heard the song "Christmas Shoes."

Two Inversely Related Cultural Critics

Ok, so if the internet is a valuable medium for any types of media besides pornography, it's commentary on things people in their mid-20's might find nostalgic. For me, there are two such critics that stand out above the rest. The more prominent of these is the Angry Video Game Nerd, whose basic idea is ridiculing terrible retro games.



And believe me, I've played a gargantuan share of NES games in my time. The basic trope of that era was to make the game as difficult as possible as to to make the kid playing the game devote as much time as possible to it and fool the parent who bought the game into believing it was a worthwhile waste of $50. In reality, this difficulty was usually not generated by an intelligent and fun game, like any Mario or Mega Man, but by irrationally and frustratingly absurd games. These are the kind of games that AVGN takes up and exposes for the trash that they are.

However, while I greatly enjoy AVGN, I have to admit that a lot of the enjoyment comes from nostalgia. I laugh because I remember playing a lot of these games, remembering exactly how goddamn awful they were. He draws upon the same life experiences that I have. I'm predisposed towards liking him and his show because I know exactly what he's talking about and am begging to laugh at any of his jokes.

The Nostalgia Chick works on the same level as the AVGN, but in an inverse way. AVGN isn't witty, but is fun because I'm obsessed with his source material. The Nostalgia Chick, on the other hand, reviews shitty movies from the 80s and 90s that were marketed towards girls. Not having a sister or any young female friends, my knowledge of 80s and 90s girl culture is more deficient than my knowledge of girl culture today. So, the Nostalgia Chick is reviewing culture that I don't know a damn thing about. Luckily, she's as witty and intelligent as AVGN's source material is familiar to me.



I've never been a fan of Disney animated films or She-Ra, but the Nostalgia Chick is so brilliantly smart, funny, and - yes - cute, that it doesn't really matter. I still wait readily for her next posting. Still waiting for that mixture of a really intelligent and witty person to review things that I like...

I'm obsessed with massive structures

Take that as you will, but I actually mean it in the literal sense.  Tallest, longest, most volume... I can't get enough of it on Wiki and elsewhere.  So I was amazed to see rocketboom's take on it.  A must-watch:

[rocketboom]

Gilmore Girls, or why I'm not afraid of girl-comedies

Although Gilmore Girls is my foremost secret, guilty pleasures, it isn't that secret, especially now.  I'm not the only guy I know that likes the show, but I am one of very few.  I first saw Gilmore Girls in the context of an assignment for a class on film and television.  I was required to analyze a television show and reveal how it subtly encouraged consumer tendencies and formed a complete advertisement that reinforced the show's actual, paid advertisements.

I don't know for sure whether or not that paper had any legitimacy, but my tastes have definitely changed since freshman year.  Criticism grew into adoration, and before I knew it, I found myself debating girls (pretty much always girls) about whether Logan was a worthy mate for Rory.  (I would say yes; he is far superior to Jess or Dean.)  

So, instead of enumerating the actual ways that Gilmore Girls is an excellent television show (amazing dialogue, cultural consciousness, overwhelmingly charming quirkiness), I'll go over a few totally superficial and insubstantial reasons why I love Gilmore Girls.

1. Rory Gilmore is my fantasy girlfriend.  It is a little known fact that a scientist working for CW spliced the genes of this lemur (massive eyes), an Argentinean model, and Kim Deal to create Alexis Bledel.  In reality, though Argentinean, Alexis grew up in Houston and even has a small part in Rushmore.  A true thinking man's pinup.  The series ends with Rory still being single, giving me a false hope that someday she will make the transition from fictional to actual, and that I will be at the right place in the right time when that happens.
2. I aspire to live a bourgeois bohemian life in suburban/rural Connecticut while not appearing to do any real work.  Lorelai's ability to run a hotel without any serious training or a college degree (at first) is admirable.  However, it's pretty clear that even in the early years, before she because a wildly successful entrepreneur, the younger Gilmores never really had to worry about money.  For a single mother at the age of 16, Lorelai has certainly done quite well for herself.  Even if not every character in the show is expressly rich, they all certainly dress rich and have rich tastes.  Even Rory's father randomly falls into ridiculous, excessive wealth.  That all these people are living extremely well is comforting to me.
3. I am a total sucker for indie rock references.  While few aspects of the show deal with music in a substantive way, all it takes is a few cameos (The Shins, Sonic Youth) and some off-hand references to Elvis Costello for me to become completely infatuated with a show.  These references indicate to me that there may be a like-minded individual there on the other end of the hierarchical relationship between producer and viewer.  Granted, an assiduous critic at this point might reintroduce his freshman year study on marketing in television shows, but I prefer to ignore that.  To me, Amy Sherman-Palladino (producer) is a rabid fan of the Magnetic Fields, despite the fact that she used to write for Roseanne.
4. I really like the confused look in people's eyes when they are looking through the DVDs owned by my roommate and me and they finally get to the Gilmore Girls box-set.  Very few people can easily comprehend complete incongruity.