Hootenanny

For my first post in six months, I thought it appropriate that I should blog about my Weezer adventure. About a week and a half ago, I was listening to the radio on the way to work and the DJ announced that Weezer was holding "auditions" for their upcoming concert. All you had to do was call in to the radio station and let the DJ hear you play an instrument. I work all day...so I brought my instrument to work. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get through to the station, so my awesome co-workers all pitched in and dialed and dialed and dialed, until one of them eventually got through. I played my flute at work (I work at a police station...this was a little awkward). But the DJ loved it, and I won my place on stage with Weezer on Tuesday night.

We had a little rehearsal beforehand with one of the band members, then I got to watch most of the concert before hustling backstage for my debut. Me and twenty-nine other nobodies were herded onstage before thousands of people and played our little hearts out. I even shook Rivers' hand afterwards. It...was...awesome.

(I'm in the purple shirt)

NBA Playoffs

Go Jazz!

"It Must've Been a Typo"

One of the best commercials ever, I actually saw this on tv during my lunch break today and looked it up to share with posterity. Both of "The Truth" musical commercials are pretty fun, actually. Although a lot of people seem to be annoyed by them.

http://www.thetruth.com/videos/typo.cfm

Dan's unfortunate life

Although some people would disagree, I really do try to like movies. I make an effort to keep my expectations reasonable and approach a movie with the assumption that I am going to enjoy it, at least in some degree. My expectations are, of course, influenced by the opinions of friends and family, as well as critical reviews; I must admit that the glowing recommendation of said friends and family and the forgiving reviews doled out by the film buffs led me to believe that "Dan in Real Life" was going to be a decent movie. I feel I was misled.

As much as I worship Steve Carell in all his "The Office" glory, I can't say that I enjoyed his performance here. In fact, I thought all of the performances were either mis-directed or misinterpreted; timing and delivery were awkward in all the leading roles. Exacerbating this quality was the almost Peter Jackson-esque indulgence of tossing editing to the wind and letting scenes go on waaaay too long (i.e. the aerobics, the dancing in the bar, the bowling). Not only am I watching bad acting, but I'm watching the same bad acting go on, and on, and on.

Thematically, the film missed the mark in its interpretation of the instantaneous power of love, the unbelievably forgiving nature of family ties, and the incredibly overrated angst of teenage drama. If you meet someone and are attracted to him/her and find out he/she is dating your sibling, you forget about it and move on. Yes, amazingly enough, people do have control over their lives. If your brother finds you hooking up with his moments-ago-girlfriend, yes, he will punch you, but he will probably take longer than an afternoon to forgive you. And no, teenagers are not unpleasant one hundred percent of the time, and can even be quite empathetic to a struggling parent. Overall, I thought the actual situations presented in the film were realistic, but the over-the-top, one-sided interpretation of them was not.

On the plus side, "This corn is like an angel" is a really terrific line. And that's the end of that.

"21"

There's not much to be said about this dud. I'm going to go for the easy comparison here and say the movie was about as flat and lifeless as Kate Bosworth's hair. The acting was pretty terrible (except for Kevin Spacey, who is a terrific actor and who doesn't belong in time-wasting trash like this). For a film about intelligent college kids having the time of their life winning thousands of dollars on Las Vegas blackjack tables, it simply wasn't fun enough. The supposed "conflicts" were silly: Laurence Fishburne as an anti-card-counting casino thug was ridiculous (he even had a sidekick!) and Jim Sturgess' neglect of his nerdy-but-loveable friends really didn't matter because we all knew they would kiss and make up in the end. I will say I really enjoyed the "Jimmy got a job at Google...catchy, isn't it?" bit of dialogue, but other than that, I feel comfortable labeling this film a complete flop.

my thoughts exactly

I thought this was an excellent article. I have actually come to really loathe anything connected with Tyler Perry (it's not hard to tell what's been keeping him busy, since everything he produces, directs, writes, or sneezes on has to have "Tyler Perry" in the title). Anyway, the article addresses some interesting issues in the film industry that need to be resolved before Tyler Perry takes over the world one mad black woman at a time. To summarize: "For all the millions of dollars he has managed to rake in from his many projects, Perry is earning his money from audiences so hungry for relatable on-screen representations that they will consume whatever is put in front of them. The often mind-numbing lack of quality in Perry's films serves as evidence that a starving person will eat anything."

There Will Be...well, Blood

As I was posting my February update, I decided there was a topic I would like to discuss. This last week I saw the Academy Awards (kind of boring, in and of themselves) and for the first time in a long time I managed to see all of the best picture nominees prior to the awards. It's interesting to contrast the differences in these films, of course, but even more interesting this year, I think, were the similarites between them. Specifically, as Jon Stewart was happy to point out, were similar themes of death, destruction, vengeance, and violence (with the exception of "Juno," each nominated movie featured at least one violent death scene). The gruesomeness didn't bother me particularly, but it did seem to emphasize the idea that in order to be considered for a prestigious award, a movie needs to have some sort of "shock-value" or thematically intense element. When was the last time a comedy or action/adventure movie was nominated for best picture? What I'm saying here is not that the "There Will Be Blood"s and "No County For Old Men"s out there need to change (I thoroughly enjoyed all of the noms), but that there needs to be better quality films in a wider range of genres. "Juno" was not a perfect movie and didn't seem to be quite the same calibre as the other nominees, but I believe its nomination brought attention to an award it did deserve, which went to Diablo Cody for her screenplay. Writers should take a cue from her and give us an intelligent, thought-provoking comedy or horror or adventure...something different. That's all.

for the sake of posting

I couldn't let February go by without posting something new. I'm afraid it's not much, but I wanted to say hi, hello, and here I am.

What's new with me: the biggest change I suppose for this past month was, of course, getting my hair cut. If I ever find the USB cable that goes to our camera, I will post before/after pictures. I cut off approx. 12-13 inches (for the record, only half of what I chopped off four years ago) and it is now shorter than I've ever had it in my life. It has been extremely liberating and also satisfying to know that I am not so emotionally attached to my appearance as to not to be able to take major steps in changing it. I look forward to continuing this new trend by getting my hair colored in the near future and, as always, taking steps to lose weight and become healthier. Change is fun.

Here are some pictures from our trip to Denmark. The one where we are standing in front of the door was where Hans Christian Anderson lived for a period of time (that's what the plaque located twenty feet above our head says). And yes, it really is as cold as it looks. I think my eyeballs froze a little when we stopped to take a picture in front of the famous Little Mermaid statue. Luckily her head was still attached (the locals have a habit of blowing it up) so it was all worth it.

Love Obsessively

So I just saw the movie "Love Actually." It's been out for quite a few years, but I'd never seen it and my friend owns it and it seemed like a good Christmas movie to watch. (yes, Tina, I know you're the only one who reads this, but I am still going to refer to you as "my friend" as if there are other people who visit this blog). Knowing it is one of "my friend's" favorite movies, I am sorry to say that I was rather disappointed with the film.

My main issue here is that I expected something...more loveable...out of it. Regarding the film's theme that "love actually is all around," it does an okay job, I guess. There are countless types of love and the gazillion plotlines certainly proved that love really is everywhere in its various forms. I think I would rather have done away with the infatuation/sex plotlines (Stupid Guy who goes to Wisconsin, Alan Rickman and The Weird Girl, Keira Knightley and Her Husband's Best Friend) and focused more on the deeper stuff (Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson, basically.) Everything else was kind of typical Rom Com fluff: little boy "in love" with little girl and developing a relationship with his stepdad at the same time, rejected Colin Firth finding love in an unexpected place, Prime Minister Grant falling for his cute-as-a-button secretary...even the porn stars falling for each other was predictable and boring. The only relationship with any sort of depth was the one between Laura Linney and her brother; she realized that although she may have been obsessed with Paulo and was finally getting her chance with him, being involved with him might compromise the attention she devotes to her brother and that was not something she was willing to concede.

Kudos go to Colin Firth's brother for having the balls to show up at the family Christmas party, to Bill Nighy for stealing the show, and for the most original take on the Nativity story I have ever enjoyed. I also must say that I really appreciated Emma Thompson's handling of the whole Weird Girl situation. She was understandably upset but also very poised and in control and wasn't afraid to get it out in the open and work it through. That is closer to what love is really all about and I guess I didn't feel there was quite enough of that in this movie.