The things I never got to this year (Part 2)

Continuing from yesterday's post...

- Paris poop

Imagine the inanity of Paris Hilton's British Best Friend (one of my guilty pleasures of the year -- and I tend not to have too many of those, as I'm rarely guilty about pleasure, but come the fuck on with this fucking show!). And now imagine that inanity with some sledgehammer blows to the head and a long inhalation of helium and an idea of what the episode re-edit above is like. It's brilliantly stupid in a way that Paris can only aspire to claim to be on purpose.

- Orphan

The most consistently enjoyable evil-kid movie of all time also has the most howl-inducing cinematic twist I've ever witnessed. This combo of The Good Son and The Hand the Rocks the Cradle is just as frustrating as those two movies, and if the mood strikes you, even more emotionally involving (I wanted to stand up in the theater and shout, "Why won't anyone believe Vera Farmiga?!? Whyyyyyy?!?!?!?"). What's not to love in this lurid, un-PC, anti-adoption propaganda? There's nun killing, child voyeurism, piss pants, the suggestion of a serious Elektra complex, a gun-toting, deaf 4-year-old, and Peter Sarsgaard's hands-on-hips, lispy flamboyance. Clearly, the answer is: nothing. There is nothing not to love about Orphan. This deserves the adoring cult following it has coming to it.

- Susan Boyle

 

Congratulations, world! This year, you learned that a person's level of conventional attractiveness is not necessarily linked to his or her ability to belt out show tunes. Hopefully in 2010, we can graduate to such advanced concepts as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the fact that Broadway actors are not the same thing as supermodels and the magical way that cat food makes cats' breath smell like cat food.

- Levi Johnston

I don't even care about not seeing cock (his fears confirmed its average status anyway, and I've sen a lot of average-sized cocks, so what was one more?). There was something gorgeously masculine about how not a big deal his ass turned out to be (butch men sit on it, not flex it into a single-occupant moonbounce...or so I hear). But his dainty, posey posing was the second boner-killer of this fiasco (first his, then mine/yours). And 0 for 2 is a shitty record. I don't even watch sports, and I know that.

- Broken Embraces

 

Pedro Almodóvar has flair for melodrama, but Broken Embraces is uncommonly subtle and still. That makes explaining why this movie haunted me for weeks after seeing it even more difficult. No wait, it's impossible. This movie reduces me to incoherence. Devastating.

- Fear of Tigers' Cossus Snufsigalonica

More mid-'90s Eurohouse revival a la Alphabeat's The Spell, except this is less song-y and more Corona-y (the title track interpolates the verses of "Rhythm of the Night"!!!!). Best of all, this is free. After you start listening to this, good luck stopping. I haven't been able to yet.

- Watchmen

 

For all of its faults -- the wooden acting, the dopey and overly literal music cues -- Watchmen won me over with its massive shot-to-gorgeousness ratio. I'd never read the comic, so that whole superhumans wrestling with their humanity thing really struck me, but not more than the (SPOILER!) final resolution that turning a group of freaks into scapegoats would be a wonderful thing to promote world peace. I don't have magical powers except that my penis is magnetized to other penises, and that made me feel like the final lesson of Watchmen wasn't as cheery as it seemed. It's, in fact, really grim commentary on humankind's need to subjugate.

Oh, and speaking of penises: get over it people. Manhattan's wasn't that big. It's so weird, because I feel like 99 percent of the time that penis size enters mass discourse (via, say, hidden-camera pics of Shemar Moore swinging in the wind on a beach), it's people calling what appear to be perfectly average-sized dicks "small." In this case, everyone was going on about how big Dr. Manhattan's perfectly average-sized dick was. Really, it just looked that way because Dr. Manhattan a) was projected on a giant screen, and b) was hairless. Seriously, people make me feel like I'm the only one who knows what flaccid cock looks like.

- "J'Koko"

Gabe said all there was to say about this song about the most bizarrely deemed R&B object of desire since Roni. I say that over four months after being introduced to this shit, it still pops up in my head regularly. It is an ode to J'Koko for the ages, clearly. I found a cable access R&B original that I love the most. Its name is "J'koko." (I think.)

- Audience of One

"Common sense is no match for the voice of God," writes Jon Krakauer in Under the Banner of Heaven. He's talking about Mormons (specifically the type that team up to kill their brother's wife and daughter and then write it off as carrying out God's work), but he might as well have been talking about Richard Gazowsky. Supposedly blessed with a vision, the Pentecostal pastor decides to make a sci-fi epic he characterizes as a cross between Star Wars and The Ten Commandments. Audience of One chronicles his God-given hubris, his time-suckage of far too many (his congregation, outside financiers and the city of San Francisco) and his inevitable failure. It's a reminder of the mentality that can strike some of the most vocal believers, the kind of pious arrogance that causes them to assume they are automatic experts in things like science (as if they know more about evolution than people who have actually studied it!) and sexuality (as if they know more about what it is to be gay than people who actually are!). Having this folly laid out so nakedly may not do anything to change the agonizing state of ignorance in the world, but is at least comforting to those of us who invest value in reason. And we deserve comfort. Take back the comfort, damn it!

- Sade's "Soldier of Love"

 

Like Avatar, Sade's first single in almost 10 years is a reminder to our culture's ultra-zippy work ethic that it's OK to take your time and get it right. And the sleek, biting "Soldier of Love" gets it so right. If you had any doubt that Sade Adu is running shit, doubt no more. The once and future HBIC is back.

And that's it! I hope that 2010 brings more shit that I put off commenting on till the end of the year! Hey, but I did it!

Comments

[matt]

Ugh, penises aside, Watchmen was single handedly the worst movie I saw in 09. Ugh. UGH UGH. I HATE "so realistic and gritty" superhero movies. I don't get it, I don't know why anyone wants to see it, I like my comic books to be campy and dumb and silly and you know, FOR KIDS, and I don't care that I'm in the minority. Seeing this movie by overly enthusiastic friends (who insisted that I would love it and that it was the best movie i'll see in ages) was like being forced to stick pins into my eyes and act like I was enjoying it so that I don't insult anyone...ugh. Worst night of 2009!

[Kim]

Matt - totally agree with you on Watchmen. Was dragged to see it by my comic geek boyfriend and couldn't even speak to him for hours after the movie ended. Just detested it and felt like I needed a shower after that experience!

[Wookie]

The Susan Boyle thing was/is so weird. Yes, people, sometimes odd looking women can sing well. Fergie's been doing it for years now!
Also, I'm glad you like the Sade song, it was pleasantly surprising.

[Dr. Girlfriend]

The BF is employed by the CGI movie industry, and as we walked away from the screening of The Watchmen, explained to me how someone would have been hired to calculate the "dong physics" of Dr. Manhattan's...sway.

So...some guy (or lady) had the task of mo-capping a dong and figuring out how wind patterns on Mars affect its motion.

THIS is the American dream, my friends. Dong Physics.

[Jamie]

I wanted to like Audience of One much more than I actually did.

[Laura @ Hungry and Frozen]

Love your whole Susan Boyle paragraph. Perfect. Thank you. Also - I do enjoy a good devastating Almodovar film, will check this one out.

[Lola]

i loved watchmen y'all can all suck my inward cock!

[amanda]

holy shit i spit cereal all over my computer with that Paris bit. Made my night, and watchmen is the best thing ever! Rick makes my life can't wait for 2010!!!

[amanda]

wow thats rich btw drunken first comment, and an epic fail!!

[Whitney G]

Gee thanks for the Gremlins banner...I have a deep, paralyzing fear of Gremlins, much like some (most?) people are terrified of clowns.

When I was 3, my parents took me to see Gremlins in the theater, because they are evil, evil people. I was such a little stoic that I wouldn't let on that I was TERRIFIED by the movie, so naturally my parents assumed that I loved it and commenced buying me truckloads of Gremlins paraphernalia, which only caused continuous relapses of my trauma. I am 28 years old and still to this day cannot watch Gremlins without curling into the fetal position and crying.

Well, perhaps I'm exaggerating a bit. Nevertheless, thanks for helping me start off my New Year with a nightmare from my childhood! ;-)

[Samantha]

Thank you SO much for Royale and "J'koko"!! By the beginning of the third minute I had stopped laughing and was singing along. That song will (hopefully) never leave my head. <3

[spazmo]

I was mesmerized by Watchmen. Then again, Patrick Wilson tends to do that to me (even with 20 extra pounds on him).

Got my mum the Susan Boyle Christmas album as a "gag" gift (long story), but when she started playing it I was amazed.

[Danielle]

Rich, how are you just now finding out about the awesomeness that is Royal?!?!!! that video popped up on YouTube a couple of years ago

[Amanda6]

Love the wrap-up post, Rich.

I was fully expecting to see Lady Gaga in this entry, but reading comprehensive posts like this always tend to remind me of the heaps of other stuff that happens in a year.

I guess I'd be lying if I said I'm not still holding out hope you'll comment on The Fame Monster...

Thanks for a great year of reading!

[adam]

I'm so glad you posted that Sade link! I have listened to it roughly a million times already ... Can't wait for February.

[Lisa M.]

I was so happy to see another commenter who is terrified of Gremlins! I was forced to watch it when I was very young, and I was visibly freaking out but my older sister wouldn't leave it to walk me home. It still scares the beans out of me.

[Vanessa M]

All I have to say about Paris is--that pink dress was darn cute. Did you happen to see Paranormal Activity? Apologies if you blogged about this and I missed it. Anyways, it was Fuck you Up scary.

[S]

that's such a good point about Levi's butt.

[RP]

"so that whole superhumans wrestling with their humanity thing really struck me"

The only character with super powers is Dr. Manhattan. Everyone else is a 'costumed' hero. No super powers. (Yeah, I know it looks like they have super strength in the movie but seriously, they're not supposed to have any special abilities.)

I think it was mostly the media and people in the industry who were honestly surprised that someone who doesn't look like a model can sing. They've been pushing the whole "you have to look like this to have a music career" thing so long they not only believe their own lie but have begun to equate looks with talent and ability.

[sairentohiru]

Just watched Orphan last night, and that flick is CRAZY-ASS CHRISTBALLS...as is anyone who misses out on it. Even my boyfriend, not normally a horror film fan, was freaking.

[Monica C.]

Never heard of Broken Embraces, but based on what you said, now Must See It.

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Levi Johnston is the former fiance of Bristol Palin. I love the way he poses here..looks hmm.. wow!! Hot in the shower

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