This is bound to brand me as old and/or lame, but I seem to be one of the few people who loved Radiohead but stopped listening to them at the end of the 90s. I loved The Bends and especially OK Computer and saw them play a terrific show at the Metropol in Pittsburgh around ’97 or ’98 (at which the band churlishly refused to play “Creep”), but completely lost interest once they moved into their more “experimental” phase. It’s funny now that there’s a whole generation of people who know them almost exclusively for the post-90s output and are just now discovering their earlier stuff. Ah well.
Category: pop culture
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The man came around
Here’s a great retrospective of the final five Johnny Cash albums (well, technically the last one was released posthumously), which were released on Rick Rubin’s American Recordings label. A piece on Cash’s earlier work is promised in weeks to come. (Fair warning: contains bad language.)
I remember being in college and listening to “The Wanderer” on U2’s Zooropa (still their most underrated album, IMO and better than most of what they’ve put out since) and realizing just how badass Johnny Cash was. Though I grew up listening to country music via my parents, they weren’t really big Cash fans. (Willie and Waylon were household favorites though.) So it was ironically through U2 that I really discovered him.
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The dark side, indeed
I had a vague recollection of this from my childhood, but Andrew Sullivan posted a link to this clip the other day and I was reminded how truly, truly awful 1978’s Star Wars Holiday Special (amazingly, featuring the majority of the film’s cast, not to mention the likes of Bea Arthur, Art Carney, and Harvey Korman) was:
From the Wikipedia plot synopsis:
It is Life Day (a holiday analogous to Christmas on Earth). Chewbacca is on his way home to see his family and to celebrate the holiday, accompanied by his friend, Han Solo. Not long after departing Tatooine in the Millennium Falcon, the duo find themselves chased by two Star Destroyers, which Han derisively refers to as an “Imperial garbage scow.” After a short argument whether they should abort the mission a decision is made to move forward. Han then sends the Falcon into hyperspace.
Meanwhile, on Kashyyyk, Chewie’s family is anxiously awaiting and preparing for Chewbacca’s return. For the most part, they are going on with their everyday lives. However, Chewie’s family is a bit nervous, because Chewbacca has not arrived yet. Malla takes down a framed picture of Chewbacca; her father-in-law Itchy, notices her worries and reassures Malla that Chewie is safe, and she replaces the picture. Itchy then gets out a movie (in the form of a futuristic capsule), and gives it to his grandson, Lumpy, to play on their movie device. After the movie is over, the family begins to do various chores….
It only gets worse from there.
And while we’re on the subject, anyone else remember the two Ewoks TV movies, Caravan of Courage and Battle for Endor?
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Guest post: Sunnydale, 90210
Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post from the Missus on the important parallels between Beverly Hills 90210 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
As some of you may know, the Thinking Reed and I have recently entered the Buffyverse. One of the most wonderful things about the Buffyverse is its near seamless overlap with our first love, the magical kingdom known as 90210. Imagine Brandon’s surprise to learn that not only did Susan have an abortion – she’s also an 1100-year-old demon! And imagine Brenda’s shock when she learned that the sweet football player who took her to prom was later raised from the dead to wreak havoc on Sunnydale. Oh, Tony, how far you fell.
We learn that Tara, after becoming obsessed with Kelly and attempting to kill them both, goes on to become the werewolf, Veruca, who steals Oz from Willow and ends up dead. But the most tragic of all was poor deranged Laura; after accusing Steve of rape at a Take Back the Night rally, being redeemed, and then flipping out when Brenda was given the role of Maggie the Cat (did Brenda get the role by sleeping with the director? Did she???) , Laura meets a gruesome and untimely end after running afoul of a powerful vampire whom Angel ineptly fails to stop before he kills Laura/Tina.
Then there’s the day before prom, when Joyce Summers channels Felice Martin and convinces Angel to break up with Buffy. If only Angel had been a dreamy singer-songwriter (who for some reason won’t give the rights to his songs for the 90210 DVDs! Seriously, Jamie Walters, is it really that important to protect the rights to those songs?), perhaps Joyce would eventually have come around to the Buffy/Angel relationship. Alas.
Plus, Angel could learn a thing or two from Dylan about brooding with one’s shirt on.
I would also be remiss if I failed to mention the striking architectural similarities between Sunnydale High School and West Beverly. And one final similarity: all the main characters end up graduating together (admittedly, West Beverly’s graduation featured fewer cross-bows) and attending the plausibly named, though entirely imaginary, local colleges, UC Sunndydale and California University.
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Atheist self-parody watch
I know it’s an overused trope to say that “fundamentalist” atheists like Richard Dawkins are mirror images of the fundamentalist Christians they despise, but when Dawkins starts crusading against Harry Potter books it’s pretty hard to resist.
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Calling all Trekkies
I’m more of a casual Star Trek fan than a hardcore Trekkie (sorry, Trekker), but this Entertainment Weekly article makes J.J. Abram’s (of Lost fame) upcoming reboot of the franchise sound somewhat promising.
I thought this in particular was interesting:
Abrams says he was also drawn to the project because he believed in — and wanted to evangelize — Trek’s unabashed idealism. ”I think a movie that shows people of various races working together and surviving hundreds of years from now is not a bad message to put out right now,” says Abrams, whose infectiously upbeat energy and disdain for cynicism are among his most marked attributes. (Not for nothing did Abrams give Randy Pausch, the now-late author of The Last Lecture and avowed Trekker, a cameo in the film.) That ethos may seem cornball to an America darkened by a decade’s worth of catastrophe, but after an election season that has seen both presidential nominees run on ”hope” and ”change,” Star Trek just may find itself on the leading wave of a zeitgeist shift — away from bleak, brooding blockbusters and toward the light. ”In a world where a movie as incredibly produced as The Dark Knight is raking in gazillions of dollars, Star Trek stands in stark contrast,” Abrams says. ”It was important to me that optimism be cool again.”
The original Star Trek, as has been pointed out ad nauseum, acted as a metaphor for Kennedy-era Great Frontier-style idealism, while the Next Generation had more of a globalist, multicultural vibe and less Kirk-style unilateralism. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of spin Abrams puts on the culture and politics of the Trek universe.
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Dark Knight blogging – post-viewing edition
I’m happy to say that The Dark Knight met or exceeded most of my expectations and didn’t fall into most of the traps I feared it would. I liked how its version of the character harked back to the noirish 70s Denny O’Neil version, though seen through a gritty, Frank Miller-ish lens. Some (slightly spoilerish) thoughts:
I still think, though, that Nolan’s Batman lacks some of the qualities of Tim Burton’s, namely its larger-than-life, gothic, and almost supernatural aspect. (Think, for instnace, of some of the iconic shots in Burton’s version like the scene when Batman comes crashing through the museum skylight.) By contrast, Nolan’s Batman, at times seems like a run-of-the-mill action hero in a weird getup, with his heavy, almost thuggish, fighting style and reliance on technology.
Heath Ledger was, as everyone says, brilliant. At times I forgot who was playing the part, so thoroughly did he vanish into the character. A bit too long and bloated, and I’m still not completely sold on how they handled the Harvey Dent/Two-Face character. But, all in all, excellent.
A Thinking Reed 