Be Back Soon

IMG_4148, originally uploaded by runnerbird.

Grrr… things are happening. My long absence is almost at an end. I promise. Did I miss anything while I was away? I hear we have a new president?

12 of 12: March

As you have probably noticed by now, my diligent pop culture blogging is now a thing of the past. I hope to start up again sometime in the near future, but for now, things will be awfully quiet in this corner of the internet. I blame my job and my spotty internet connection at home. I wish there was a way I could also blame Eliot Spitzer, but I haven’t quite figured a way to pin it on him yet. Long story short, the internet hates me these days. I am not too fond of it. We are barely on speaking terms. The magic is gone. That being said, here are a few things I would like to comment on before I move on.

Surprisingly, admit the chaos of my work day, I did manage to snap off twelve pictures for the month 12 of 12, so here we go.

If you look closely, you can see part of my face in this shot taken as I stepped outside the door to my apartment. If you look closer still, you could probably make out the Virgin Mary in the folds of my hat.

Usually, I make my own java at home, but I was running a bit late, so I stopped off to get a cup of coffee at my favorite cafe.

Rising from the subway to a bright, glorious day. Too bad I was trapped in my office for nine hours after this.
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Artist You Ought To Know: Kate Havnevik

Remember that scene in Garden State where Natalie Portman says to Zach Braff, “You gotta hear this one song, it’ll change your life I swear.” Just pretend, for a moment, I am Natalie Portman.

Kate Havnevik began her musical career wanting to be a classical- and jazz guitar player, but then at 14 she changed her mind took a u-turn and joined an all female punk band rehearsing and playing at Oslo’s illegally occupied punk HQ, Blitz.

Kate Havnevik has a unique voice, which explores both the very deep and high reaches of her extraordinary vocal range. Her music is melodic, occasionally dramatic, but always very cool. With a touch of programming mixed with conventionally recorded instruments she creates the perfect sound-scape to dress her songs and voice.

Kate is a skilled musician and plays the guitar and the piano as well as the melodica. She uses these instruments mostly for writing and recording purposes, but sometimes plays them at gigs to enhance the live experience.

This song was on my most played for the past couple of years. Her voice simply moves me. I wondered if it would ever be released in the States as a single. Apparently it was late last year. Why wasn’t this song a big hit?

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My Friend Is In The Band

If you told me five years ago that my friend, stunningly featured in the picture above, was going to be the guitarist and vocalist in a band, I would have told you you were nuts. Yet, here I am, about to post about her band’s first gig at the Knitting Factory.

As someone who is, at the moment, really into beats (as my current obsession with this song demonstrates), I loved my friend’s stripped down, minimalist approach to music. At it is core, music is about the beat and now matter how much pretty window dressing you put on a song, it isn’t anything without a good beat. As I was listening to my friend’s set, I kept coming back to that thought, that little insight into music that we’ve seem to have forgotten over the past few decades amid overproduced, overblown records.

» Talk Normal @ MySpace

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Lesbian Turkish Oil Wrestling

I apologize in advance if you arrived here and expected something …. different given the title of this post. Maybe if you click another link on your search engine results page, you’ll find what you are looking for, you perv. I shall be talking about The L Word. If that doesn’t interest you, move right along.

Five seasons ago, The L Word debuted on Showtime to wildly high expectations. We were promised a provocative drama on par with other stellar cable shows like Six Feet Under and Nip/Tuck. Something that would makes us look at the lesbian subculture in a whole new way. Back when the first season ended, I had high hopes for this show. It wasn’t perfect, but it had the building blocks to become something intriguing, something that would become a watercooler show.

The L Word might not be the best show in the world, but it is more than the sum of its nicely put together parts. Perhaps, I am a bit biased. I connected so closely with most of the characters that I am willing to overlook some of its major flaws. These tight knit group of friends remind me a lot of my tight knit group of friends…if we were all gay, all really good looking and had tons of free time to sit around drinking coffee. It was refreshing to see a show centered around women that doesn’t involve catty, bitchy fighting or the pursuit of the perfect man. Gay or straight, many women I’ve talked to appreciate this aspect of the show and for this, The L Word, I salute you!

Five seasons ago is like another lifetime and in the lifespan of this show, it was so five personalities ago. The show’s latest episode cemented it as slow morph from character driven drama to baudy, French farce, complete with ten minutes of the aforementioned lesbian Turkish oil wrestling. No real plot. No smooth character arcs. No witty banter. Just … lesbian Turkish oil wrestling. Yet, now that the show has dropped all pretense of being a pretentious, all-important drama, now that it has stopped reaching for Six Feet Under glory, settled into someplace closer to Passions and truly embraced its narcissistic, ultra Hollywood-meta, overblow drama, it has become ridiculously entertaining again.

For almost three seasons, The L Word was too caught up in trying to say something important that it wound up saying nothing at all. The show tried to do some socially conscious storylines. There was Dana’s breast cancer storyline that lead to the popular character’s demise. There was a pre-op transsexual struggling with her/his identity and place in the world. There were two separated partners sharing custody of a small child. All these plots were clumsy, plodding and ultimately either dropped or forgotten. Characters disappear into thin air, sucked into a Bermuda triangle never to be heard or mentioned again (what the hell happened to Mark? Papi? Carmen?). The characters that did remain always seemed to switch personalities whenever the mood struck them. The show hit the big “reset” button at different points during the season and that lead to many a frustrated viewer.

This season has hit a creative peak by exploring the very drudgery that this show has mired in for years. Jenny, the show’s resident writer/artist/pain in the ass, is directing a screenplay based entirely on her experiences in L.A., with very thinly veiled versions of the people she has met along the way. This new meta plot has allowed the show to critique itself and thereby almost redeem itself by point out its own flaws. It is a fairly genius move on the part writer/producer Ilene Chaiken. Jenny has become an insufferable, pretentious, bratty, pampered diva and one has to wonder if Chaiken isn’t making fun of herself here. The L Word is based heavily on her own story of moving to L.A. and falling in love with a woman. So, the meta is working on two different levels. Does this excuse the show’s poor execution of almost every storyline over the past five years? No, but it is a start.

But back to the lesbian Turkish oil wrestling. In its complete and utter debauchery, it was almost, dare I say it, genius. As Jenny and her girlfriend rolled around the ring to the sounds of Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up”, I felt as if this show had finally found itself …. by making fun of itself with a sly wink to the audience. It was pointless, gratuitous and the most entertaining night of television I’ve had in a while. And that seemed exactly the point.

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Yes, I Went To Hooters For Wings

After two plates of hot wings, two cold pitchers of beer, surrounded by big screen televisions playing the local sport action and more cleavage than really necessary at any meal, my first experience at Hooters was complete. I felt like I shaved years off my life and a few points off my I.Q. I never felt more American.

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The Five Things To Love In The Indiana Jones Trailer

Stop what you are doing to run, don’t walk, over to the newly unleashed trailer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. For the record, the title still leaves me a bit cold, but nothing could ever top the horror of Attack of the Clones, which I invariable refer to as “Attack of the Clown” as my mind tries to rationalize Hayden Christensen’s acting as broad farce. But back to Indiana Jones and its trailer that made me feel twelve again. There is no way they could possible screw this up. Right? Lie to me even if you don’t agree.

John Williams Score and That Hat
I don’t know which one of these pop culture treasures is more beloved in my heart, John Williams’s theme, which swells and peaks in way that just scream “we are about to have an adventure” or that hat, a piece of clothing I would sell my soul to look cool in. I’ve tried on many an Indy hat on in an attempt to look as good, but have failed every time.

A much needed “Too Old For This Shit” Moment
We all know that Harrison Ford is, well, to go all Murtaugh on you, “too old for this shit” and I’d be pretty miffed if this trailer didn’t acknowledge that Indy’s adventure should be some place in his past. Shouldn’t he be collecting retirement checks while rocking in a chair, telling tales of his deeds to students? Well, yes, but Indy has one adventure left in him, even if his aim and spatial senses are a little off.

Cate Blanchett Knows How To Work a Wig
According to spoilers circulating the web, Blanchett plays the villain, the aptly named Agent Irina Spalko. Is it a rule that if you are Russian and evil are name is Irina? Blanchett can make a insurance law seem compelling and by the looks of it (and I, for one, couldn’t take my eyes off that hair), she is bringing heavy doses of surly badassery. Is badassery a word? Who cares. That is what she is.

A Family That Hunts Down Treasure Together … Well, You Know
In case you have been living under a rock, you must know by now that Marion Ravenwood, my drinking role model, is back as Indiana’s wife and the mother of his teenaged son… I think. Marion was always my favorite Indiana love interest, a woman who never took any of Indiana shit and dished out heaps of her own when necessary, so I am beyond the moon about this development. Apparently, Karen Allen has made some sort of deal with the devil since she hasn’t aged since 1993. The only sticking point to this whole family outing is you would think Indiana and Marion would have produced a more daper kid. No disrespect to Shia as an actor, but I was expecting someone more rugged to inherit the Jones family adventure streak.

It’s Indiana Fucking Jones
The trailer’s final image, the man, the icon, the object of affection and the very definition of geek, book smart cool (take that, Dr. Robert Langdon), is what sells this movie to me. I got chills. I felt like a kid again.

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Happy V-Day … Happy “I’d Rather Stick a Fork In My Eye Than Buy a Hallmark Card” Day

(From 2005)

Don’t you love a day that celebrate loves to the point of such crass commercialism that it sucks any ounce of geninue feeling out of romance and makes people who are single feel hopelessly defective? Yeah, me too. Here are a few movie suggestion to help pass the day without fear of injury or bodily harm to yourself or others in your line of vision.

The Classic Love
Notorious (1946)
Ingrid Bergman plays a woman of “questionable” virtue recruited by a government agency organization to go deep undercover as an operative to gather intelligence on Nazis laying low in South America who are threatening to re-arm and do harm against the American bastards who defeated them in WWII. Cary Grant plays her CIA handler and lets just say he handles more than he should. Against his better judgment, Grant falls head over heels in love with a woman sent off to bed another man. Think of it as Alias… but with Nazis and sans mystical subplots. Grant and Bergman define smoldering as their longing gazes and hot kisses make this spy thriller the most erotically charged film Alfred Hitchcock ever directed.

The Funny Valentine
When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
Can men and women really be just friends? Oh the world’s most eternally question. Right up there with who is on first and why is the sky blue. Who knows the answer, but this Rob Reiner romantic comedy is definitely the best relationship movie to try to tackle some sort of answer. And that answer is a resounding … just maybe. With witty, sharp dialogue by Nora Ephron, great chemistry between leads Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, a New York backdrop and a classic jazz soundtrack by Harry Connick Jr, this film is a ready-made recipe for romance. I dare you not to get the warm fuzzy at the film’s climax. And guys, if you want your lady to melt… really all you have to do is say “when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone you’d like the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”

The Tragic
Moulin Rouge! (2001)
You will either love it with a passion or hate with the fire of a thousand suns, but Baz Luhrmann’s postmodern musical was a unique, ballsy experiment and I tip my hat to that. Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor star as doomed lovers in 19th century Paris. It is one of those classic stories: boy meets girl, girl is a woman of the night, boy is devastated, girl fights feelings for boy, boy and girl try to make a go of a relationship, girl dies of consumption. With music by Madonna, The Police, Nirvana and LaBelle (just to name of few), this film could have been a disastrous failure on every level imaginable, yet, somehow McGregor’s honesty and intensity make it work. The can-can dancing didn’t hurt either.

The Thrill
The Big Easy (1986)
This film is not perfect. It’s gritty, dirty and a little rough around the edges which makes it just damn good. Ellen Barkin and Dennis Quaid star in a suspense thriller about police corruption, gangs and heroine in 1980’s New Orleans. What could have been another forgettable 80’s thriller is redeemed by the sharp script that isn’t afraid to be funny, a bit goofy and romantic. Barkin and Quaid are perfection. For my money - not that my currency is ever good in this arena - this film features the best sex scene ever captured on film. If I ever make a movie, I will force my actors to watch that scene for pointers on how it is done.

The Gay Love
Show Me Love (1998)
A small, little movie that became Sweden’s top grossing film of 1998. An all-too realistic look at High School, Swedish-style as the film follows the tale of two girls, one a popular, beautiful, disenchanted, bored girl who wants more out of life than a promise of love, marriage and kids, the other, a lonely, sullen, unpopular yet confident girl who has a painfully acute crush her more beautiful classmate. Through each other, they discover the freedom to be themselves and that they are not so different. Sweet, funny and unapologetic look at what it means to be young, what it means to be gay and what it means to find the confidence to be yourself.

The Teen Angst
Say Anything… (1989)
Haters, to the left. In my opinion, this movie is perfect. I wouldn’t change a frame. A line. An edit. Anything. Cameron Crowe created the most crush-worthy romantic lead and basically ruined me for all men. Lloyd Dobler is my dream man. A high school misfit begins an unlikely romance with the class valedictorian surprising everyone around them, but can their love survive the world telling them they shouldn’t be together? Would this be a favorite if the answer to that question wasn’t yes.

It’s a Love Story.. really…
Mulholland Dr. (2001)
This is love, David Lynch style. Naomi Watts delivers the performance of a lifetime in a film that really can’t be described, but I’ll give it the old, college try. Watts is a young Hollywood starlet who gets caught up in a murder mystery when a lost woman with amnesia stumbles upon her doorstep… well, in her shower actually. What follows is the most intriguing mind-fuck of the past decade. The story leads you one way than instantly inverts itself into something all-together different. Bette and Rita would be film’s most adorable couple if their love story wasn’t the fiction of dying murderer’s guilty subconscious.