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Opinion
Opinion

Opinion

Hulu: Top 15

Since Hulu launched a “top 15” list of their most popular shows and films, I decided to counter with the fifteen things currently on Hulu I’d recommend:

The Bear: Along with Ted Lasso, my favorite show right now. With how much they’ve used Wilco, they could have renamed it “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.”

Better Things: Before The Bear or Ted Lasso, other shows had made me laugh more, but few have made me smile, cry or feel as much as this one.

Bottle Rocket: Wes Anderson’s underrated debut. Flawed, but but perhaps his funniest?

Brigsby Bear: Amusing, endearing little picture about a lot of things. I went into this fresh and think that has to be the best way to watch this so no spoilers, but if you wanna talk about Brigsby Bear I can be found at Brigsbyfan2.

Closer: Not sure what it says about me that this is one of my favorite films, but it is.

Damsels in Distress: Whit Stillman and Greta Gerwig should have made more pictures together.

Eight Days a Week: Probably the most contrarian thing about me is that I prefer The Beatles’ first half to their second.

Frasier: If we are being honest, The Dinner Parting is basically a feature-length Frasier episode.

Freaks and Geeks: Even though 21st Century comedy was born here, this brief show was even better than that fact would suggest.

Only Murders in the Building: Initially, I wasn’t sure this needed to be more than a mini series (or even a film), but it’s continued to impress.

Theatre Camp: Two-time summer camper and late-stage theatre kid who absolutely loved this film. Very funny, and perfectly cast. And I was very happy to see Alexander Bello. I think about “I Saw A White Lady Standing On The Street Just Sobbing (And I Think About It Once A Week)” about once a week.

Raising Arizona: “I tried to stand up and fly straight, but it wasn’t easy with that sumbitch Reagan in the White House.”

Spin Me Round: A dark comedy Suspiria. Saw this at Cinequest last year and everyone was in stitches, one of the hardest laughing audiences I’ve ever been in.

Welcome to Wrexham: So I like heartwarming shows about soccer, sue me.

The Wonder Years: The warmest blanket I can imagine.

Best Debut Albums

I know I just mentioned him, but longtime music critic Steven Hyden recently ranked 100 debut albums for your reading pleasure.

Some that stood out to me:

The Go-Go’s, Beauty And The Beat (1981): “This band is in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall Of Fame, and this album is 90 percent of the reason why.”

The Jesus & Mary Chain, Psychocandy (1985): “There are countless artists posting albums on Bandcamp right now who stole all of their ideas from The Jesus & Mary Chain, and they might not even know it. They might think they’re ripping off The Velvet Underground, but they are really ripping off this band who ripped off The Velvet Underground in the mid-’80s.”

The Mothers Of Invention, Freak Out! (1966): “I completely understand why people can’t stand the guy. He writes stupidly complicated music and stupidly stupid lyrics. Personally, I think Zappa is 1) a genius and 2) one of the most obnoxious men who ever lived.”

The B-52’s, The B-52’s (1979): “As a public service, I am sharing this video. I have watched it 25 times and I suggest you do the same. And then make this album a cornerstone of your life.”

Fiona Apple, Tidal (1998): “This might very well be the greatest debut album made by a teenager. I am exactly six days older than Fiona Apple, and I was working a customer service job in the summer of 1996, which is a million times less impressive than writing and recording ‘Shadowboxer.'”

Elvis Costello, My Aim Is True (1977): “The only track on My Aim Is True that’s not convincing is ‘I’m Not Angry,’ which is like Marvin Gaye recording a tune called ‘I’m Not Horny.'”

Pavement, Slanted And Enchanted (1992): “In the proverbial ‘what would you play for an alien to sum up this kind of music?’ scenario, Slanted And Enchanted must be regarded as the go-to soundtrack for any hipster extraterrestrial.”

Beastie Boys, Licensed To Ill (1986): “Uncut Id is taking the riff from Sabbath’s ‘Sweet Leaf” and combining it with the drum break from Zeppelin’s ‘When The Levee Breaks,’ and then inviting three idiots to chant ‘Ali Baba and the 40 thieves’ eight times over it.”

The Strokes, Is This It (2001): “Though if I ever write a column about the best second albums ever, Room On Fire might rank higher on that list than Is This It does here.”

And of course Pink Flag, Exile in Guyville, 3 Feet High & Rising, Ramones, Horses and The Velvet Underground & Nico. Jimi Hendrix took the top spot, which my stepdad would probably be happy about. DJ Shadow and Ween did get honorable mentions.

Hyden also speaks of albums that feel like debuts. In my opinion, an album in that department that always sticks out is You Forgot It in People, which projected Broken Social Scene from a small, mostly instrumental side project, to one of the most epic and ambitious rock bands this century.

A few omissions surprised me and few that made the cut downright bewildered me, but that is why I like lists like this.

Here are five I would have considered.

Violent Femmes, Violent Femmes (1982): Shocked this didn’t make the cut, so much so that I have to imagine Hyden isn’t a fan. I am hard pressed to think of too many debuts that are so quintessentially the band itself.

The Smiths, The Smiths (1984): Everything one would love about The Smiths is all right here. Not my favorite but could easily be someone’s favorite Smiths record. Especially if “This Charming Man” makes the cut.

Le Tigre, Le Tigre (1999): Their best album. Effortlessly cool, sample-laden new wave/punk record that will get you dancing more than any other radically political album I can think of.

Imperial Teen, Seasick (1996): Their best album, too. An even poppier Pixies (and Breeders!), for my money this is the most underrated alt-rock album of the 90s and the #1 album I want to see on Spotify.

Belle & Sebastian, Tiger Milk (1996): I still have love for this band, but in the ’90s and early ’00s, they were the best.

Oh, completely forgot that first Clash record. Listen to that. It rips.

Films Are Allowed to Make You Think

Had a conversation last night about this video from Bill Maher that I saw via a tweet from Scott Adams on this year’s Best Picture nominations, which Adams calls, “feel-bad ‘entertainment’ that gives you brain damage.” I haven’t seen all of the films (yet), but I wonder if Adams or Maher have either, or why exactly any of them would give one “brain damage?”

Maher’s argument is that movies should be less dour. I would argue plenty of movies are less dour, likely hundreds that were released last year alone.

“I’m not glad Stan Lee is dead, I’m sad you’re alive,” Maher said not that long ago, chiding those that like comic book and comic book films, and asking that grown-ups should read books that make them think. “Read James Baldwin, read Toni Morrison, read Michael Eric Dyson,” he pleaded.

Can film not do the same? If a movie can move you, or make you think, does it not hold value?

He continues, and this is the real crux of his argument, that the movies made in 2020 were not about entertainment, but virtue signaling. You can make that argument for Promising Young Women (to which I would disagree), but I can’t see that argument about any of the other nominees. (Side note: I would also argue Promising Young Women and The Trial of the Chicago 7 were wildly entertaining).

This is where he really loses me: “They used to know how to make a movie that was about something… that was also entertaining, and not just depressing,” he says while a list of films are shown on screen cherry picked from over 80 years of cinema, including Grapes of Wrath, 12 Angry Men, Look Who’s Coming to Dinner, Do the Right Thing, Schindler’s List, and 12 Years A Slave, all of which invalidate his “argument” and makes me ask:

What is it that Mr. Maher wants?

And what exactly is he trying to say?

You Can Be a Different Person After the Pandemic

From an essay by Olga Khazan:

“…the person who emerges from quarantine doesn’t have to be the same old you. Scientists say that people can change their personalities well into adulthood. And what better time for transformation than now, when no one has seen you for a year, and might have forgotten what you were like in the first place?

It was long thought that people just are a certain way, and they’ll remain that way forever. The Greek physician Hippocrates believed that people’s personalities were governed by the amounts of phlegm, blood, black bile and yellow bile that flowed through their bodies.

Modern science, of course, has long since discarded notions of bile and humors. And now,it appears the idea that our personalities are immutable is also not quite true. Researchers have found that adults can change the five traits that make up personality — extroversion, openness to experience, emotional stability, agreeableness and conscientiousness — within just a few months. Much as in Dr. Steffel’s case, the traits are connected, so changing one might lead to changes in another.

Changing a trait requires acting in ways that embody that trait, rather than simply thinking about it. As Richard Wiseman, a psychology professor at the University of Hertfordshire, put it in “The As If Principle,” you can behave “as if” you are the person you want to be. Pretty soon, you might find that it is you.”

How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

Wise words:

But eventually, aspirations have to be translated into specific laws and institutional practices — and in a democracy, that only happens when we elect government officials who are responsive to our demands.


Moreover, it’s important for us to understand which levels of government have the biggest impact on our criminal justice system and police practices. When we think about politics, a lot of us focus only on the presidency and the federal government. And yes, we should be fighting to make sure that we have a president, a Congress, a U.S. Justice Department, and a federal judiciary that actually recognize the ongoing, corrosive role that racism plays in our society and want to do something about it. But the elected officials who matter most in reforming police departments and the criminal justice system work at the state and local levels.


It’s mayors and county executives that appoint most police chiefs and negotiate collective bargaining agreements with police unions. It’s district attorneys and state’s attorneys that decide whether or not to investigate and ultimately charge those involved in police misconduct. Those are all elected positions. In some places, police review boards with the power to monitor police conduct are elected as well. Unfortunately, voter turnout in these local races is usually pitifully low, especially among young people — which makes no sense given the direct impact these offices have on social justice issues, not to mention the fact that who wins and who loses those seats is often determined by just a few thousand, or even a few hundred, votes.


So the bottom line is this: if we want to bring about real change, then the choice isn’t between protest and politics. We have to do both.

And this speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. at Stanford, 1967:

But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.

And, this past week, Killer Mike:

So that’s why children are burning it to the ground. They don’t know what else to do. And it is the responsibility of us to make this better — right now. We don’t want to see one officer charged, we want to see four officers prosecuted and sentenced. We don’t want to see Targets burning, we want to see the system that sets up for systemic racism burnt to the ground.

“The ancient commission of the writer has not changed…

He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement.

Furthermore, the writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man’s proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit — for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.”

–John Steinbeck

#52Films By Women

I made a pledge to watch at least one female-directed film per week that I hadn’t seen prior in 2019. I will log them as I go, and likely rank them in the same list when I am done. Did the same thing in 2016.

***

Speaking of movies. This is going to get discussed a lot this year, but 1999 was a watershed year for cinema. Probably tied to nostalgia, but seemingly one of my favorites.

Magnolia, The Virgin Suicides, The Cider House Rules, Ratcatcher, Eyes Wide Shut, Being John Malkovich, The Iron Giant, Office Space, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Election, The Green Mile, Three Kings, Man on the Moon, The Sixth Sense, The Blair Witch Project, American Beauty, Fight Club, The Straight Story, Sweet and Lowdown, The Matrix, All About My Mother, Girl, Interrupted, Boys Don’t Cry.

Hell, Cruel Intentions, She’s All That, 10 Things I Hate About You , South Park and American Pie.

We even got installments of Star Wars and Toy Story.

Dealing with People On the Internet

This issue of The Discourse has some great advice on dealing with people online.
  • Reward your “enemies” when they agree with you, exhibit good behavior, or come around on an issue. Otherwise they have no incentive to ever meet you halfway.
  • Accept it when people apologize. People should be allowed to work through ideas and opinions online. And that can result in some messy outcomes. Be forgiving.
  • Sometimes people have differing opinions because they considered something you didn’t.
  • Take a second.
  • There’s always more to the story. You probably don’t know the full context of whatever you’re reading or watching.
  • Create the kind of communities and ideas you want people to talk about.
  • You don’t always have the moral high ground. You are not always right.
  • Block and mute quickly. Worry about the bubbles that creates later.
  • There but for the grace of God go you.


(Via Kottke)

Sunday Morning/Early Afternoon Not Live

Last night ‘s episode had some fun moments. Really related to the bit in Matt Damon’s monologue about staying up late with his dad to watch the show as a child. And somehow related to the Weezer sketch even more. #TeamLeslie

Also, say what you will about Miley (I have), but I enjoyed her performance and singing it alongside Sean Ono Lennon kinda got to me.

I don’t know why I am writing about SNL. I must have mono.

“No, it’s the children who are wrong.”

Don’t know exactly how I feel about Apu in 2018.

But I think the conversation deserves more than a troll/PR stunt response. I wonder if Al Jean or Matt Groening understand that part of the problem with Apu is that his name is used as an insult. My best friend is Indian. I’ve seen it firsthand.

Having their response come from Lisa is a complete disservice to one of the best role models in modern fiction. I would probably stop watching the show if I hadn’t inadvertently already done that around season nine.