"I ALWAYS FIND MY PEOPLE HERE!" That's what KarenNM commented yesterday upon realizing she was not alone in her Ann Curry not-exactly-a-fandom.
So I couldn't help but wonder: what other obscure, seeming aberrant, or possibly controversial pop culture views do folks here hold for which they'd like to determine if there's more support out there? (Here's one: my daughters have been watching a lot of Looney Tunes lately, and I've realized that I just don't get the appeal of Sylvester and Tweety at all. It's just watered-down Tom and Jerry without the inventivess of Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. What's the point?)
My complete bewilderment that Julia Roberts was a) a top office draw and b) an Oscar winner. To me, she's a smildly entertaining actress that 99% of the time takes safe roles that have no payout emotionally. I will be very fair and note two exceptions: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and My Best Friends Wedding, both movies where she plays characters that have the freedom to be jerks and/or deadly (Steel Magnolias could also be considered here). She just seems to want to go the Barbra Streisand role and pick safe characters that have no major flaws and I don't especially feel the love.
ReplyDeleteAlso, that Oscar was totally for Laura Linney in 2000.
Not a big star but I don't know what anyone sees in Jeanne Garafolo. To me, she's a complete fake.
ReplyDeleteI've made this complaint before, but I'm not sure if I did it here.
ReplyDeleteI've seen plenty of people complain about The Departed winning Best Picture, because it was so obviously a Career Achievement award for Scorsese. Now, I completely agree that it's not as good as other Scorsese movies, and that he should have gotten some Oscars long before. But this ignores the question of "Was this the best of the five nominees that year?" And when I look at the competition - Babel, Letters From Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, The Queen - I feel pretty sure that it was. (Although I've never actually seen Babel.) Be mad at the people who voted for Dances With Wolves, not the ones who voted for The Departed.
Now, if they'd nominated Pan's Labyrinth, I'd have a very different opinion.
I didn't see the Ann Curry comment from yesterday but add me to the list of non-fans. She is a terrible interviewer.
ReplyDeleteI've gone on the record before with my American Idol apathy/antipathy but I'll throw it out there.
And, I know I'm alone in this but it's the truth, I don't get "What's Up With That?"
I don't know if this is obscure or even controversial but the Inertia Husband and I absolutely despise Bob Costas. Our strong feelings stem from a locker room post-game interview between the devil, Costas, and Ken Norton Jr. after the 1992 Super Bowl win. Costas, while the celebration is raging around them, asks Norton if he's going to use the win as an opportunity to reconcile with his father. Uh, what? Great question for a studio interview the following week but not when they've just won the biggest game in football about 20 minutes earlier. And yes, it is almost 20 years later and I'm still (proudly) carrying that grudge.
ReplyDeleteI think The Departed is a great movie. But it's a popcorn movie, and not a Great And Important Movie, so some people don't believe such films should be valued by the Academy.
ReplyDeleteFWIW, Children of Men and The Prestige were also 2006 releases.
Ke$ha. I get why Katy Perry and Lady Gaga are popular, but Ke$ha? She's a mystery.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, I think that y'all know my feelings on various other people (e.g., Daniel Day-Lewis).
There are a few Springsteen songs I like, and I have nothing against him personally, but overall? Not a fan.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that hating Ann Curry could possibly be considered controversial, much less aberrant. Frankly, I thought it was universal among everybody but NBC. I'm fairly certain that I'm on record here multiple times about hating her and that I expressed my stern disapproval when she rose from the news desk to the permanent co-host chair. I am also sure that when this site was a mere pup, I said something about how the worst words one could hear in the morning were "now let's hear from Ann Curry at the news desk." That was from the days when you might as easily find Soledad O'Brien or Elizabeth Vargas at that desk.
ReplyDeleteNot to keep harping on what I've already criticized here, because the list is long, but I think I once referred to people's overpraise of Bruce Springsteen as a genetic defect peculiar to the mid-Atlantic region.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Adam. That year was the first year I saw every single nominated movie (one of them on Oscar morning), and out of those five, I thought the The Departed was the best one. Babel was an awful mishmash, Iwo Jima felt like a slog, and The Queen was an acting showcase. Little Miss Sunshine was very funny, but ultimately came in second for me. Nothing that year made me angrier than the lack of major nominations for Pan's Labyrinth and Children of Men.
ReplyDeleteI wrote movie reviews for our college newspaper the year Dances with Wolves came out. My editor did not appreciate the first draft of my review, which referred to the movie as KEVIN!.
I'll out myself here: I was born and raised in the Philly suburbs, and I don't love Springsteen. Although I generally don't mind him, and don't change the station if he comes on the radio, I don't get the overpraise.
ReplyDeleteI cannot stand Pavement.
ReplyDeletealso a philadelphia arean and not a big fan. i mean, thunder road is awesome, but all of his other songs are basically footnotes to thunder road.
ReplyDeleteI still don't know that I'd call myself a fan, but this article (disclosure: I know the author) got me to think about Ke$ha in a way I hadn't previously: Raise Your Glass If U R A Firework Who Was Born This Way
ReplyDeleteI always liked Sylvester and Tweety if only because it was one of the few places I heard a child call his male parental unit "Father" like I do my dad.
ReplyDeleteI didn't like Toy Story 3.
I inherited from my mother a loathing of The Supremes.
In most movies, I'd take Bill Pullman over whoever the romantic lead is SUPPOSED to be. (Which is why "While You Were Sleeping" is one of my faves.)
Oh, and I vastly prefer "Desperado" to "El Mariachi."
I'm sorry, for 22 years I didn't get the Bruce thing at all, my tepid like for his music being confined to Thunder Road, Born to Run, and Fire. Then, around a year or two after the live albums were released, I'm thinking in about 1989-1990, someone bought them for me, and now, having listened to them for some years, and becoming a fan, I'd ask who has Dylan's Mantle if not Bruce? Some of you might say Dylan himself, but if that answer isn't available, Bruce is our folk singer. Last one standing. I think he has earned the icon. Devils and Dust cements it for me, Ghost of Tom Joad helps, and more than a few on here have acknowledged that Bruce has written the definitive 9/11 album for them. I think he is the American Folk Singer, and has been since maybe the mid 70's. So, I guess that's my way of saying, I beg to differ.
ReplyDeleteIf forced to pick someone other than BS as the American Folk Singer, I might have picked Cash.
And after reading the next post, I'll have to say that I don't love "Love, Actually" - I watched in the theater, wasn't impressed and then it started to get such a devoted following that I rewatched it last year to see if I was just in a bad mood the day I saw it. Nope, still had the same problems with it.
ReplyDeleteChiming in on the Ann Curry dislike. I've completely switched over to GMA at this point.
ReplyDeleteSame deal for me with "Love Actually". The first time I saw it, the movie was dubbed over in Korean with English subtitles, and I figured that my general dislike of it was just due to the weird translation issues. Saw it again on TV, and nope- just as bleh. And the weird thing is, I love a LOT of the people in the movie (e.g., Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Martin Freeman, etc.). I guess just not in this?
ReplyDeleteI don't know how controversial it is or isn't, but I am Clooney'd and Pitt'd out. Just make them go away for a while.
ReplyDeletePan's Labyrinth was my pick for best of the year. You want disappointment? That year I saw The Illusionist thinking I was going to see The Prestige.
ReplyDeleteHow about positive ones? I don't find many fellow travelers who share my love of 1986's Jumpin' Jack Flash starring talented newcomer Whoopi Goldberg.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Looney Tunes I absolutely despise the Roadrunner Coyote cartoons. I adore ol' Wile E. when pitted against Bugs, but the Roadrunner cartoons just seem mean. The Coyote is a starving creature just trying to get something to eat and the Roadrunner is a smug bastard who generally doesn't get caught, not because of his own cleaverness, but because Wile E. can't seem to get a quality product from Acme. I'd love to file a class-action suit against Acme for their shoddy products and clearly unfair monopolistic practices.
ReplyDeleteI've felt this way since I was a child. No issue with the Coyote being bested because of smarts (i.e. Bugs) but to be thwarted by product failure is quite another. I just feel bad for the poor, hungry critter.
I know I am in the minority on this one.
People who defend "Lost" have some sort of weird TV Stockholm Syndrome where they've invested so much time into analyzing the show they have to justify that by saying it was a satisfying conclusion and always about the characters. I don't remember it being about the characters when everyone was looking for clues in those ridiculous between-season games. Those writers had no idea what they were doing, and "From the writers of 'Lost'" serves not as promotional tactic to me, but as a warning to stay away.
ReplyDeleteTwo that have been expressed before: I think "There Will Be Blood" is a terrible movie. It is so long that the entire theater checked its collective watch when the brother showed up, as if to say "We're adding characters now?".
"The King's Speech" is a romantic comedy that doesn't belong on the same list as "The Social Network."
Ok, I'll disagree with you right there- I greatly preferred The Illusionist to The Prestige. So much so that I saw The Illusionist, saw The Prestige, and then went back and saw The Illusionist again to get the taste of Prestige out of my mouth. The only thing I liked about The Prestige was David Bowie as Tesla.
ReplyDeleteHave to disagree, at least on the Cloons. There is no such thing as too much Clooney.
ReplyDeleteThe Three Stooges. Ugh for me.
ReplyDeleteAlso from the Philly suburbs and, while not anti-Springsteen, I'm not a fan. My husband has become a disciple over the past few years. We conflict.
ReplyDeleteI talked on twitter about this with a few other Thing Throwers a while back, so I know I'm not totally alone, but I'm not a Seinfeld fan. I found the show awkward and cold and just not all that funny when it was on. I didn't watch it regularly, because I wasn't into it, but I saw it enough because it was so popular, and have seen all the most famous episodes, and I just don't get it. Friends was a much better comedy overall, and stands up over time.
ReplyDeleteYeah - not a huge Seinfeld fan here, either. I don't know if I was too young, too not-New York, or whatever, but it wasn't something I connected to.
ReplyDeleteI'm on board with Bob Costas hate. Pretentious and self-important.
ReplyDeleteI do like her in Mystic Pizza (before she was a big star, and when she is sometimes a jerk), but otherwise I agree completely. I didn't see The Pelican Brief back when I was a Grisham fan because she was so wrong for the role (should've been Jeanne Tripplehorn - though now it's been so long since I've read it I can't defend that view).
ReplyDeleteAlso, I am similarly bewildered about Sandra Bullock.
You're not alone on "What's Up With That?"
ReplyDeleteI beg to differ; that Oscar was stolen from Ellen Burstyn.
ReplyDeleteActually I get Bullock -- she's smart and (in the lighter things) having a great time which is a bit infectious. But I will confess to skipping some of her more recent rom-com fare.
I absolutely do not dismiss him as an icon and as important. (I think I might give the mantle to Patti Smith, though.)
ReplyDeleteOne review of Ocean's Eleven (possibly by Anthony Lane) pointed out that Julia Roberts can't walk through a room with any elegance - she walks through the casino like an awkward colt (I'm paraphrasing). Very true, and once you see it, you can't unsee it. A fun Julia Roberts game in all her movies!
ReplyDeleteI really, really dislike Pavement.
ReplyDeleteI'd never looked at it that way before, but your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter. I now want to go re-watch some Roadrunner cartoons and be properly outraged.
ReplyDeleteAnd to go the other way, the popularity of The Social Network completely escapes me. In fact, I completely agree with your last line.
ReplyDeleteI don't get Shelley Long in any role other than Diane Chambers.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I recognize that it has its moments, I never got Beetlejuice and it remains to this day the only movie for which I've ever even considered walking out of the theater.
I don't get Melanie Griffith in anything after Something Wild. Yes, that means Working Girl.
I don't get Radiohead (although it's been a while since I tried to).
Whoever it was, not the New Yorker.
ReplyDeleteThe Illusionist wasn't a bad movie, per se, although I liked the Prestige significantly more. My major disappointment revolved around sitting there for half the movie waiting for the rival magician to show up.
ReplyDeleteCount me in, christy in nyc. I have an absurd soft spot for this movie. Saw it in high school in 1986 and will absolutely watch it when it comes on cable.
ReplyDeleteMe, too. And the Marx Brothers. The boyfriend wants to have a NYE in this year and watch Marx Brothers movies. Some sort of family tradition of his, but not for me. Just no.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, what other Shelley Long roles are we discussing? Her Oscar-nominated work in Troop Beverly Hills?
ReplyDeleteAs a Gen Xer, I never really got Sonic Youth or Radiohead and was mocked by friends for it.
ReplyDeleteAnd I have a love/hate relationship with the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer TV special. I loved it as a kid and have a whole load of Christmas decorations based on it, but the story isn't terribly Christmassy. Reindeer with unique feature is outcast from friends and family (most harshly by Santa Claus!), but after running away and nearly dying, said unique feature is deemed useful and then he's welcomed back by friends and family.
I think I'm the only person here who likes Ann Curry. Oh well, I like being different!
ReplyDeleteThis is not a point about Bruce Springsteen at all, but if Dylan is no longer Dylan, that does not mean that somebody else has to be. One might even think that that kind of fungability is incompatible with true greatness.
ReplyDeleteBoo! Boo! I take umbrage!
ReplyDeleteI can't stand Bob Costas.
ReplyDeleteChiming in on American Idol apathy. I watched the last three or so episodes of Season 1, and haven't watched it since.
ReplyDeleteI've noted before, and I think history is bearing me out, but Seinfeld is not something I've ever understood as being funny. It's almost perfectly placed in the uncanny valley of nonfunny things. Any more unfunny and it might have some appeal, any more funny and it might be worth a minute or two of my time.
ReplyDeleteAll these comments and not one mention of Glee.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Jen. When you (over)analyze Rudolph as an adult, it's kind of dreadful and relays terrible messages about conformity and sexism. Now that it's been back on the air for several years after a long absence, "The Year Without a Santa Claus" is more of a favorite than Rudolph.
ReplyDeleteI have never gotten Whoopi Goldberg and am constantly amazed by the high-profile
ReplyDeleteChristy - I also have my own list of movies I love that other people either haven't heard of, don't like at all, or don't love the way I do. The list includes Zero Effect (which I've talked about here before), Kiss Me Goodbye, Sweet Liberty, and probably a few others I can't think of right now.
ReplyDeleteI don't get Whoopi Goldberg at all and have never understood her popularity or the high-profile roles and jobs she still gets.
ReplyDeleteThings I Don't Get That Everyone Else Does: Bruce Springsteen, The Beatles, Sit-Coms, reality shows where people are shitty, Coldplay, desserts that don't include chocolate, "Sideways" and "Lost in Translation." There are many, many more, but that's what I can come up with off the top of my head.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed her in Modern Family.
ReplyDelete100% agreed on the Seinfeld dislike. So, so much do I not like that show. And then it is impacted by people constantly telling me how WONDERFUL and FUNNY it was, quoting it at me constantly. Auggghhhh stab stab stabbitystabstab.
ReplyDeleteAlso: Boardwalk Empire. I ordered HBO specifically to watch the show, because it covers one of my favorite periods of American history. And I am left cold by the program. I can see that it's good; I just can't seem to care.
Here's another positive one: I like Michael Bay's first few movies. They weren't great movies, but they had a good mix of explosions and the occasional enjoyably weird bit like Michael Clarke Duncan and Steve Buscemi doing a "Leaving on a Jetplane" duet, or Nicolas Cage's "Zeus's butthole" line. They were perfectly fine summer action movies.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on Sideways. I turned it off about 45 minutes in. It was almost -- almost -- as tedious as sex lies and videotape
ReplyDeleteRadiohead definitely falls on that list for me. I kind of like the early stuff ("Creep," "Fake Plastic Trees"), but the more recent stuff just leaves me cold.
ReplyDeleteYou name it, from Night Shift, to outshrilling Bette Midler in Outrageous Fortune, to her guest spots on Modern Family.
ReplyDelete(Though I did think of one other role in which she worked: Carol Brady in the first of the BB movies.)
I didn't hate Drive? But I really think it's going to age poorly, that it's going to dissolve into the tableau of post-Tarantino pulp. I just don't think it's that great -- and in a lot of ways, I just don't like that movie. <span> </span>
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on Radiohead.
ReplyDeleteI saw them open for Belly in 1994, and I LOVED them so much that Kid A and Amnesiac were unconditionally loved and defended. From Hail To The Thief on, however, I've regretted every dollar I've spent.
There are a number of things I dislike where I believe I am in the minority for disliking them. But, Coldplay is the only one on the entire list where I cannot even begin to understand what it is that causes people to like it. It seems to be the most boring, blandest music imaginable.
ReplyDeleteI don't get American Idol either. It should totally be in my wheelhouse - I watch reality shows (including performance reality shows), I like singing - but I have zero interest in it.
ReplyDeleteI've only seen What's Up With That? once. I have no clue why anyone finds it funny, but I could make that statement about nearly everything on SNL in the last decade or so. I be old.
And I feel meh about Ann Curry, and it's irrelevant to my life as I havent' watched morning TV since I had kids.
When I first saw Shelley Long in Modern Family, I was convinced that she was, in fact, Florence Henderson. I kept trying to figure out how much work she'd had done.
ReplyDeleteAlso, was Shelley Long the one who did the creepy-awesome fairy-tale videos of the 1980s, or was that some other Shelley?
Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only person on Earth who didn't love "Rent."
ReplyDeleteKiss Me Goodbye is one we share, of course, but I add to that list a tiny little movie called Dancer Texas, Pop. 81 that I really, really love and wish more people would watch. It's not a guilty pleasure movie, it's a genuinely good movie with a good cast that no one seems to have seen but me.
ReplyDeleteI'm the same way about Arrested Development.
ReplyDeleteMy girlfriend loves it, quotes it constantly, and reminds me frequently how witty and funny it is, and that maybe "I just dont get it"...
Entirely agree on Seinfeld. I just never, ever thought it was funny.
ReplyDeleteKate - read this: http://www.jamesfuqua.com/lawyers/jokes/coyote-acme.shtml
ReplyDeleteI thought of it, but then assumed it's not such a minority opinion anymore to dislike it. Nor has it swung enough the other way that still liking it makes you part of a small number.
ReplyDeleteGretchen, I think that was Shelley Duvall: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faerie_Tale_Theatre
ReplyDeleteI hated Roadrunner cartoons as a kid -- such injustice! Now, I find them hysterical. That poor f--ckin' Coyote! He's all of us: luckless bastards chasing the the dream, looking for the answer in an endless stream of unsatisfactory consumer products, and making complicated plans only to be flattened again and again and again by the shifting laws of an oblivious universe. Daffy, with his pretensions of braininess and sophistication, underlying rage and resentment, and inevitable explosion and humiliation, is also us. I love him. Bugs, though, is a smartass dick.
ReplyDeleteZero Effect is fantastic. Of course, as mentioned earlier, I have a thing for Bill Pullman. But Kim Dickens is so, so good in it and it's one of the few movies where I am not only not annoyed by Ben Stiller, but even kind of like him.
ReplyDeleteI believe I've found company on this here before, but it's my glaringly obvious entrant into this category: I hated hated hated hated hated hated hated the Lord of the Rings movie. It's not a movie. It's a third of a movie. If you begin a movie explaining all this crap about one ring to rule them all yadda yadda yadda and how the ring must be destroyed or the world ends blah blah blah then at the end of the movie, either the ring has to be destroyed or everyone has to have died trying. You can't end that movie having just gotten around to forming the group of adventurers who are then going to set out to do something about the blasted ring. No. No no no no no. For two hours of my life and $10, I deserve a plot, not a prologue.
ReplyDeleteAnd it was utterly impenetrable to anyone who had not either read the books or had massive fantasy world knowledge. I should not be expected to come into the first movie of a series with the background knowledge that orcs hate elves or some such thing. You want to establish that in movie 1 and expect me to remember it in movie 3? Fine. But it's not actualy real world factual knowledge. You're allowed to assume I know who won WWII. You are not allowed to assume I know the genetic predilictions of trolls.
Now get off my lawn.
Zero Effect is fantastic. Of course, as mentioned earlier, I have a thing for Bill Pullman. But Kim Dickens is so, so good in it and it's one of the few movies where I am not only not annoyed by Ben Stiller, but even kind of like him.
ReplyDeleteI love Bob Costas. Seriously. My opinion is largely based on his time hosting Later and what I found to be a highly amusing interview on Conan O'Brien several years ago. I just like him.
ReplyDeleteI found nothing enjoyable about Gone With The Wind.
ReplyDeleteI watched Idol for a couple seasons and then gave it up. I do love The Sing-Off and like The Voice, though.
ReplyDeleteI should also add that I do not "get" most of today's popular music, nor most high-brow music I'm supposed to like. I like what I like, and most of it is wildly uncool. My taste is pretty much stuck in the 60s and the 80s.
ReplyDeleteAnd I realize that this is just that I'm old, but I am completely baffled that anyone liked Napoleon Dynamite or Superbad.
Was it Family Guy that did the bit where Coyote finally catches Roadrunner?
ReplyDeleteHis life is basically over at that point and he falls into complete depression after accomplishing his goal and he's got nothing else to do... puts new perspective on the old cartoons. ;)
The one I love that nobody knows is Truly, Madly, Deeply. But it's Alan Rickman, so maybe y'all know it. I'm still surprised seeing Juliet Stephenson in a slew of shrew roles, when she plays grief and longing and romantic comedy so well.
ReplyDeletePrestige over Illusionist for sure. I think The Prestige is Chris Nolan's best movie. There, I said it.
ReplyDeleteI hated Seinfeld - too much complaining by assholes who I'd never hang out with in real life.
ReplyDeleteLatest thing on my list of "things I don't get that everyone else seems to love" is the movie Like Crazy. To me that movie is about whiny young adults who can't get their sh*t together and instead of growing up just whine some more about how life isn't fair.
ReplyDeleteNow I second Marsha's "get off my lawn."
Andrew Sullivan hates it.
ReplyDeleteYes, desserts that don't include chocolate! What's the point?
ReplyDeleteI hated "Rent." Does a "rock musical" mean that everyone just yells the lyrics without caring about tone or whether it's in tune. I'd rather watch "La Boheme."
ReplyDeleteMoney Pit!
ReplyDeleteColdplay. Oh, God, yes on the Coldplay.
ReplyDeleteI also don't watch American idol, or Canadian Idol. I have no idea who Ann Curry is. And I don't get why What's Up with That? is hilarious.
ReplyDeleteI am SO with you on this one! I was in second year university, living in a house with two other girls and three guys when Friends started. I remember we would watch Friends and then I'd be like, okay, let's go out, and everyone else was all, No, we have to watch Seinfeld. I have NEVER understood the appeal and none of my friends share my feelings.
ReplyDeleteTHE BEATLES!!!!! I was a sort of music geek for years, but have never gotten into the Beatles. They just don't do it for me.
ReplyDeleteBorn and raised in NJ but wasn't more than a casual fan (as in I liked "Fire" and "Glory Days") until The Rising. That album pretty much put my feelings about 9/11 into words and set them to music. Now I actually own a few Springsteen albums.
ReplyDeleteIf he never writes anything even close to The Rising album I'll still be a fan.
Marsha - since you recommended Dancer, Texas, I've been trying to find it, but it's not on Netflix streaming or DVD. But it's still on my list of movies to see - and now I'm adding Truly, Madly, Deeply.
ReplyDeleteAh, it was Salon. Here it is: http://www.salon.com/2001/12/06/julia/
ReplyDelete<span>"In “Ocean’s Eleven,” Julia has to walk a lot, and all of a sudden you notice that she walks badly. Is it that old heels problem, or something about her balance? There seems to be some load slipping from side to side. She rolls. She’s awkward, ungainly, when there is so little going on in the picture that the best you can hope for is the chance to sit back and say, isn’t she graceful? Isn’t she lovely?" </span>
YES.
ReplyDeleteI really disliked The Dark Knight. It was like 12 hours long, had way too many plots and no humor. And I still complain that Gotham IS NOT Chicago. (I believe I was a delight to sit next to at that movie, what with my murmuring and fidgeting.)
ReplyDeleteAnn Curry just leaves me cold. There's something so unnatural and forced about her that it's a complete turnoff. She might be "The Peter Principle" in action - promoted one step above where she should be.
ReplyDeleteI found Raging Bull slow and dull, and was mystified as to how it was considered by so many the best film of the 1980s. I also find the Rolling Stones, not bad, but dull and middle of the road, bland. "Satisfaction" is oft-ranked one of the greatest rock songs ever; this also mystifies me greatly.
ReplyDeleteDo I win? ;)
Of course, at the start of his career Bruce was frequently compared to Dylan (helped along by the fact that, like Dylan, he was signed to Columbia by John Hammond), in both a positive and negative light.
ReplyDeleteI understand what Jim is getting at and agree specifically with the sentiment about the place and merit of Bruce's work (particularly his solo records -- to which I'd add Tunnel of Love -- but also The Rising). But I agree with Isaac more generally: I think Bruce would just as soon be recognized for his own body of work than carry the weight/burden of being anointed "today's" anyone.
Things I don't get:
ReplyDelete-any reality show that does not require a special skill to be on the show (i.e. Top Chef, Project Runway). I do get TAR.
-any and all singing, dancing, "talent" competitions
-a lot of Cheers
-Seinfeld, but only when it was running. Sometimes, things taste better as leftovers. Seinfeld is one of those leftovers.
Also- Matthew McConaughy. Why does he always have to be eating with his hands in every damn movie??
ReplyDeleteI was never a big Beatles fan growing up - recognized their talent and impact, knew a good bit of their work, but just not a fanboy about 'em. But over the past three years, my kids have gotten into them, first through Sgt Pepper, and next through Beatles Rock Band, and I've found myself revisiting their albums and enjoying them a lot more than I did in my formative years. (It doesn't hurt that my seven-year-old singing "I Am the Walrus" and "Hey Bulldog" is pure gold.)
ReplyDeleteI'm totally with you on the Stones. I could say the same about Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely agree on Coldplay. Awful. Every song sounds the same.
ReplyDeleteI actually liked both very much for different reasons, but if forced to choose, I would pick The Prestige.
ReplyDeleteReally?
ReplyDeleteI mean, seriously?
Ooh, maybe we can watch Truly Madly Deeply when I'm home in December!
ReplyDeleteAgreed on the Stones and Zeppelin (and the Doors, while we're at it). Though I always did like Pink Floyd -- to the point that I named my high school dog Floyd.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was Nickleback that wrote the same song over and over...
ReplyDeleteSorry! It just doesn't for me.
ReplyDeleteThat was me.
ReplyDeleteNot Adam C's comment. The Guest just above him.
ReplyDeleteThat guest comment is me.
ReplyDeleteThis guest is also me. Didn't realize I wasn't signed in and made lots of comments.
ReplyDeleteOk, I have had this conversation with many many people about Napoleon Dynamite because I watched it at home alone and laughed so so so SO SO hard. However, I did FFA, I grew up in a community that has many similarities to Napoleon's and many many identical touchstones even though it was not the exact same one, and it just was so hilarious. But I get why it could seem impregnable to many many people in much the same way (now that I am a city mouse instead of a country mouse) one of my coworkers from Chicago's south side could not believe that i didn't get Barbershop. Both are to a degree inside jokes.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about Superbad, it was a really awkward first date movie with a near stranger (who is now my fiancee so it didn't destroy what was there).
I like Katherine Heigl. I like her often in movies, although she might need to have a chat with the agent about uptight frigid lady who needs her heart melted roles. I like her in interviews. I know lots of people think she comes off mean or bitchy or whatever, but to me she comes off as someone who just speaks their mind. Perhaps not in the most politic or polite of circmstances but it doesn't seem very calculated to me. Maybe because I have a tendency to be mouthy with opinions too, and I just think we would be pals. But I like her. I really, really like her.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KzP4bC1Ypg
ReplyDeleteMarsha this cover of Nickleback is for you, you know if you are curious to hear what one of their songs would sound like as a killer motown tune.
100+ comments in, and I'm all over the place. Love Zep, take or leave the Stones, never cared for Dylan. Perhaps the poll could be resurrected? Looks like there would be a couple of months of questions!
ReplyDeleteHeather I don't like her quite as much as you do, but I don't get the hate for her and her being in something doesn't make me avoid it.
ReplyDeleteI will not see a movie if Matthew McConaughy is in it. Ugh. Ditto Kate Hudson.
ReplyDeleteBecca's "desserts that don't include chocolate" makes me add in desserts that include nuts that are not a nut-based dessert. My family and I all agree on this and have had heated discussions about it. Peanut brittle? Pecan pie? Nut clusters? Sure, those are fine...maybe not my top choice but they are a dessert composed around a nutty essence.
ReplyDeleteBut please stop putting nuts of any kind in my cookies and brownies and cake-based desserts. Also no chocolates with nuts in them. They disrupt the taste and especially the texture. Especially walnuts which are gross no matter what.
Hi, my name is Maret and I am kind of a crazy person about the issue of nuts in desserts.
I don't like Toy Story 3.
ReplyDeleteTotally saw it all before in Toy Story 2. Andy's getting older and doesn't need the toys. Still?
Even the the-toys-are-on-a-conveyer-to-danger was rehashed.
Rent is one of those things I LOVED as a kid but then when I saw again recently I was like "man, these people need to stop complaining." I believe Becca and I have previously had this conversation.
ReplyDeleteCool, I guess I don't win! I am also apathetic about Zepelin, which has led to many arguments with metal-head brother-in-law about Stairway not being the best song ever, classic rock radio notwithstanding.
ReplyDeleteI find Neil Patrick-Harris and Anne Hathaway charmless and devoid of talent.*
ReplyDelete*kidding
ReplyDeleteI like it! I know it's crazy.
ReplyDeleteCinephile edition. I just don't get:
ReplyDelete1. Jean-Luc Godard. Apart from Breathless, I find his movies just about unwatchable. I mean, have any of these critics who love his movies actually seen Pierrot le Fou in the last four decades?
2. Terrence Malick. He's been all over the interwebs this year, with Tree of Life... a movie I found deathly dull and self-important. (Dinosaurs? Really?) (Also, get over it, Sean Penn.)
3. Mike Leigh. Did anyone else hate Secrets and Lies as much as I did?!? I've seen a handful of his other movies, often under the impression that "It's a Mike Leigh movie for people who don't like Mike Leigh movies!" And I've yet to see one that I actually like.
And believe me, I love my share of obscure, challenging movies -- give me Truffaut or Bergman or Ozu any day! -- but I think these auteurs are all significantly overrated.
Katherine Heigl remains one of the very few Famous People who were friendly to me while on the red carpet at an awards show, so she'll never go on my shit list. I get that most of them are nervous, and stressed, and uncomfortable, but hey, aren't we all?
ReplyDeleteI am with you 100%. Why would you ruin a hot fudge sundae with a sprinkle of nuts? What do they accomplish? Why are they even there? In a similar vein, they have no business in cookies or brownies. They are just hanging around, ruining the chocolate. GETTING IN THE WAY. Yuck.
ReplyDeleteI attempted to watch Raging Bull and fell asleep. And I think I can list the Stones songs I really like on one hand, though they don't offend me.
ReplyDeleteI am staggered. Funny then, funny now, I hope that coyote never gives up. He's the goddamned Abe Lincoln of Cartoon characters. Long may he live (injured).
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying he's the new Dylan. I'm saying he fills the role Dylan once filled. And, I guess I'm saying that it is an important role to have filled. The American Folk Singer. The guy who tells the everyman and everywoman story that rings true and sometimes rhymes. People once thought Petty was the new Dylan too, but he's a rock and roll guy with folksy songs. Bruce is a folk singer and story teller who makes rock and roll. I think that's the best I can do. This is why they don't let me write for Rolling Stone.
ReplyDeleteDoes this call for a game of humiliation with things I don't like?
ReplyDeleteAs my friend Emi once siaid, "there are Seinfeld people, and there are Simpsons people."
ReplyDeleteI am (or was) a Simpsons person.
I was never a big fan of nuts in stuff (looking at you, brownies)...and then my nephew was diagnosed with a nut allergy. I do not see the purpose!!!
ReplyDeleteI thought Gotham was supposed to be Cleveland.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea how Terms of Endearment was even nominated for, much less won, Best Picture. A series of dull anecdotes about mundane happenings.
ReplyDeleteOh, I saw that one! I remember enjoying that.
ReplyDeleteSaving Private Ryan annoys me. It's a good movie, but it's a narrative cheat. The movie begins with a flashback that relates action leading up to the discovery of Matt Damon as Ryan. We are led to believe that Tom Hanks' character is having this flashback, and then he dies. "Earn this," he says to Ryan, then we find out Ryan was having the flashback. How in the hell did Ryan have a flashback about events when he was not there?
ReplyDeleteI am not a crackpot.
I'm a fan of neither Simpsons or Seinfeld - it's exhilirating to live outside the graph.
ReplyDeleteThe only Mike Leigh movie that didn't put me to sleep was "Happy-Go-Lucky" and I absolutely loved it. Go figure.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Goldman made the same argument in a Premier magazine article the year Saving Private Ryan was up for the Oscar.
ReplyDeleteIdol does nothing for me, either.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I think she can be quite charming on screen and she really won me over when she told a reporter she would "throw down" in defense of T.R. Knight. I don't get why it's apparently popular not to like her.
ReplyDeleteI hated A Fish Called Wanda and have zero interest in American Idol.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the nut issue. I love peanut butter and I'm perfectly happy eating almonds as a snack, but why would I want walnuts in anything, especially a brownie? Brownies are pretty much perfect all on their own. As are chocolate chip cookies. This may overlap some with the chocolate dessert comments earlier.
ReplyDeleteNuts in ice cream are the WORST.
ReplyDeleteMe too!
ReplyDeleteWilliam Goldman and I agree on something! Thanks Watts!
ReplyDeleteAfter a long horrible day I read this post this morning and return to the original intent - My People! Seinfeld, Nuts, Raging Bull, Ann Curry - all things I don't get. My personal add on would be The Producers.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see the lack of love for Radiohead. My god, I don't get the adoration. Same goes for Wilco, which I resent even more since it seems like as a Chicagoan I'm expected to worship them.
ReplyDelete(However, Amanda Palmer covering Creep on ukelele? Hell yes.)
I love that. Thank you so much for bringing that into my life.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't get through more than 15 minutes of Napoleon Dynamite.
ReplyDeleteYou can have Clooney, then. I'll take more Daniel Craig, please. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm that way with Robin Williams and Nicholas Cage, though I seriously doubt I'm alone on Nicholas Cage.
ReplyDeleteThe only reason I didn't walk out of the theater for "Napoleon Dynamite" was because I was on a first date and I didn't know if he was someone who would walk out of a movie. Over dinner later, found out he A. would walk out of a movie and B would gladly have walked out of that one. Ah, well, at least we saw it at the dollar theater.
ReplyDeleteWell, it's nice to see someone else share his opinion - a lot of people thought he was just being an old coot with that article.
ReplyDeleteI plus one this and also add that I do not get the appeal of the books. I tried, I really tried. But I got bored.
ReplyDeleteSame for the Narnia books.
OTOH, I adore Harry Potter and am getting into Game of Thrones so it's not like I hate the genre.
The Girl w/ series (or the Millennium series or whatever it is called). I don't get the appeal.
ReplyDeleteIs it as bad as Meg Ryan's walk?
ReplyDeleteI don't care for Seinfield, The Simpsons, Everybody Loves Raymond, Home Improvement, Friends, Community, Parks & Recreation, Whitney, 30 Rock lol....
ReplyDeleteI also liked both Illusionist and Prestige, but preferred Prestige.
ReplyDeleteI hated hated hated The Departed. Gods. I could rant and rant and rant. A hot mess, from the plotting (faithful to the original, which was also a hot mess but less so for being better paced) to the performances ("Jack Nicholson as ... Jack Nicholson!" -- "And oh yeah, hey, can we get a Baldwin for that role? Any Baldwin? No, not him ... the skinny one or the old one ... yeah, whichever. Call me." -- Farmiga had better chemistry with Damon, who was supposed to be losing her than DiCaprio who she was supposed tob be falling for -- and yes there's more...), besides which, it was not any fun. Not even for a minute. Ugh.
But after all that I should probably confess that other than Taxi Driver I'm lukewarm on Scorsese in the first place.
<span>We saw Bruce waiting for his driver outside the Lexington Candy Shop last fall and I couldn't help thinking that it should have been somebody who would appreciate the experience more. I'm not crazy for him, but I buy Bruce as the guy Jim Bell is describing and think that's a guy you should understand and respect -- you should know him and know why he resonates as broadly as he does even if he resonates with others much more strongly than he does with you. I would add that there is no place in the East 80s where that guy could have lunch and better live up to his image than the Lexington Candy Shop, which is made of awesome.</span>
ReplyDeleteI'm part way with you on There Will Be Blood. It had some good and fun and memorable moments, but did not live up to the hype much less justify the adulation. The aggravating factor for me is the Oscar for Daniel Day-Lewis. Viggo Mortensen was robbed robbed robbed.
ReplyDeleteThank you Adlai. I've felt so alone, for so long.
ReplyDeleteI can never remember which one is Nickleback and which one is Nicklecreek.
ReplyDeleteDevin, great answer. (I didn't see Babel but saw everything else that year). I still can't believe Children of Men wasn't nominated Children of Men for best picture. That's probably my favorite movie of the decade.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I love The Departed.
Ann Curry leaves me cold, too. Luckily, I live in Chicago where we have WGN Morning News, which the superstation really ought to syndicate.
ReplyDeleteThat was me.
ReplyDeleteThis was also me! Stupid comment signout thing!
ReplyDeleteI would definitely subscribe to this newsletter. Banana bread is one of my favorite things on this earth when it is not ruined with walnuts, as it so often is.
ReplyDeleteI doubt you're at all alone on this one. I liked the first book (mainly because I didn't have a big problem with the great swaths of clunky exposition), and really liked the first movie. The second book was okay, and by the third one (and the other two movies), I basically slogged through out like I felt obligated or something.
ReplyDelete1. I agree. I think Alphaville is pretty good and Breathless is okay, but the rest of Godard is just a slog.
ReplyDelete2. I have been putting off seeing Tree of Life. I just saw The Thin Red Line and it was slow going. I do like Days of Heaven and Badlands, but that was a long time ago.
3. The Mike Leigh movie I do like is the one that doesn't seem like a Mike Leigh movie: Vera Drake. And that's made as good as it is by Imelda Staunton's amazing performance.
I also don't care for lol. It's wildly overused.
ReplyDeleteBack in my day, it was reserved for things that were funny. I can tell you that the few times I've typed it, I was actually, you know, LAUGHING. Now, it's like an en dash—a punctuation mark that everyone uses even though it's rarely correct to do so. "I need to take my kidney medication now lol"? Seriously? It's not a fucking period, people.
I will acknowledge that every single time Daniel Day-Lewis got slapped was memorable. The rest of There Will Be Blood was execrable.
ReplyDeleteWith you on the Stones.
ReplyDeleteMy mother will not watch anything that has Nicholas Cage in it. Even the few good ones.
ReplyDeleteI fell asleep during The Thin Red Line, and if someone hadn't told me I had, I wouldn't have noticed.
ReplyDeleteCount me in as a non-Simpsons person. Just have never gotten the appeal. An old college housemate still holds it against me that instead of letting him watch Simpsons reruns, I would watch "Blossom." Which I'm not saying is quality television, but I still like it better than The Simpsons.
ReplyDeleteI liked Seinfeld when it first ran, but can't bear to watch it in reruns. It just doesn't seem funny now and the characters all seem awful.
I am going to murder all of you. What I don't get is people who don't get that mid-70s stretch of the Stones -- Sticky Fingers, Exile, Let it Bleed. You don't have to like it (because if nobody had bad taste, there wouldn't be good taste), but calling it "middle of the road" is flat-out wrong.
ReplyDeleteI am on record as thinking that Anne Hathaway is terrible, so, you know.
ReplyDeleteme, of course
ReplyDeleteGet a job, Mark!
ReplyDelete(Seriously: the emphasis on "selling out" seems so dated. Or I'm too sold-out to take it seriously.)
The third book clearly needed an edit/polish to remove the incredibly repetitive recap of the first two books that takes up a big chunk of it and to tone down the "Blomkvist's Girlfriend Gets Stalked" plotline, but given Larsson's death and the subsequent litigation, they didn't want to do it.
ReplyDeleteThat said, points to him for an innovative way of answering the question "how do you stop a dude who doesn't feel any pain if you don't want to kill him?"
Apparently, overpraise of the Stones is a disorder endemic to the Pacific time zone. (I sure hope I don't get murdered.)
ReplyDeleteI don't think I'm going to find my people here on this point, but I didn't much like Bridesmaids. Just not my taste in humor. (I haven't liked much Apatow.)
ReplyDeleteI don't get Dylan or Bruce.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand the love for Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, Springsteen and Tom Petty. Definite channel changers for me.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree on the Stooges, and completely disagree on the Marx Brothers. Physical violence I never find funny, wordplay, on the other hand, I love. In A Night of the Opera, the contract negotiation between Chico and Groucho still causes me to fall on the floor laughing.
ReplyDeleteTo counter the "desserts that don't contain chocolate", I hate chocolate with an all consuming passion. It's bitter, gross, and overwhelms the flavor of everything else it touches. And in cooking? It's the easiest, laziest default dessert.
ReplyDeleteGo to fancy pants resturant, one with a good pastry chef, and I will bet there is only 1-2 desserts with chocolate, and they will be BORING. All the interesting stuff will be non-chocolate.
my response to both the musical and the movie (though I do love Jesse L. Martin) was "GET A JOB HIPPIE!"
ReplyDeleteSeriously. Even as a 19 year old the idea of being so entitled as to think that you don't ever HAVE to pay rent made liberal old me pissed off.