The Wackness

I appreciate movies that are extremely personal to the director, almost autobiographical. It's often the way I write my own stuff and when it's done well, it can be pretty powerful. "The Wackness", starring Ben Kingsley, adorable Josh Peck, the friend from Juno and one of those Olsen twins (still trying to figure out the point of that) is one of those movies. It starts out extremely self- indulgent as the actors didn't seem to be comfortable with the dialogue until the end of the second act and there were some scenes that just seemed a few minutes too long. (the constant references to stuff from 1994 were also kind of annoying) Despite that, this film turns out to be a very sweet, sad , and weird little movie about one of the hottest summers in NYC (I remember), falling in love and dealing with crazy old people. The craziest being Ben Kingsley, who jumps right into his stoner psychiatrist role, weird accent and all. He is so entertaining that it never gets tired and Josh Peck as his 18 year old dealer is almost perfect opposition. Even if you weren't into 90's Hip-Hop ( The soundtrack gave me serious 10th grade flashbacks) it still had something for everyone. What bothered me the most though was Method Man's horrendous accent as a Jamaican drug dealer (They could afford Ben Kingsley but not a dialect coach?) and the insertion of the title in the dialogue which I loathe unless absolutely necessary. The girl from Juno (I know her name just don't feel like typing it) says something like: "I see the dopeness, you see the wackness." Heh? Um, no, just no. Other than that, check it out.

At the end of the day, it's just music

Alicia Keys apparently has given some kind of an interview where she says gangsta rap doesn't exist and that it was made up to get Black people to kill each other. I kind of get what she is saying but it seems kind of hypocritical to comment on violence in our communities when she was in the extremely violent (and god awfully bad) movie, Smokin Aces. Young impressionable black kids are just as likely to emulate her bounty hunter character as they are NWA or Tupac or Biggie. It's not about a vast government conspiracy, it's about idol worship.

Rappers like Tupac fed off of their own hype as gangsta rappers and that is why they are no longer with us. As far as them being Black leaders...eh, that might be stretching it a bit. Icons certainly, I don't know about leaders. Keys should know better than anyone that music is a business and when something is hot, record execs will take it and run with it.That's not just the government's fault, it's the entertainment industry. Violence and the way our country perpetuates it is the root of the problem, not music. Case in point, this unfortunate occurrence back in the early nineties: (don't act like you don't remember when MC Hammer went gangsta for like a week...)











link via AP
image via tbn networks

Together Forever

4:18 on the B train...my Ipod on shuffle, got all A.I. on me and totally rickrolled me today. Still don't know what the whole Rick Astley as object of comic entertainment thing is about but hey, I can roll (no pun intended) with some things. Anyway, I have had an intense nostalgic love for his two best known songs for years...when my sister was about 8 or 9 she got a Casio keyboard for Christmas. The demo song was not "Never gonna give you up" but "Together Forever", which is basically the same song with some minor adjustments but I still love it. Wait a minute, does that mean we were the first ever to be in on the joke, when Rick Astley was actually still famous? And how should I feel right now admitting that I consciously downloaded two Rick Astley songs to my ipod two years ago? Damn Proud, that's how.

small observation...

Ashanti is back. If you read that fragmented sentence with the same level of enthusiasm I had when I typed it, that just about says it all. Don't get me wrong, her songs were cute, catchy, heavily reliant on expensive production beats. There was just almost something I found a tad bit annoying about her, I don't know. Of course she has been replaced by the queen of annoying catchy music, Beyonce and this is my reason for posting. Isn't this video just basically a Beyonce video but with someone else singing it? Same art direction, very similar costume choices, same cheesy, pointless melodrama. Originality, where art thou?

link via Spike TV

heh?

Marion Jones' unfortunate (and stupid) choice to juice it up for the Olympics doesn't particularly surprise me. Neither do all these baseball guys (probably all guilty) or even 50 cent or Timbaland (file that under duh...) but Wyclef? If true, may I suggest upping the dosage? Um.......Mary J. Blige? What in the r&b mess? She is kind of a statuesque lady...maybe she was feeling the pressure to continue to look good in heels. (heels do a number on your legs, back, butt, everything. I know!) Or maybe she was just training to be able to keep up with this guy:



FABULOUS! Am only a little embarrassed to admit that he dances like me! Or me like him? Oh well, now there's something else to over think while I'm trying to look cool on the dance floor with as little movement as possible.

This is a tough one for me

Lord knows I loves me some John Mayer. For starters, just look at him. Even when he wasn't the sexy beast that he is now, there was definitely a certain something about him (and of course he knows this)that drives the chickies wild. Oh yes, and his songs are not bad either. My music tastes are much like my taste in film, it's all over the place and I will listen to anything at least once, mostly to back up my elaborate and elegant flair for talking smack. Yes, he is most definitely a little too on the popcorn spectrum of music at times but the boy can play his arse off on guitar. Don't hate, the man is talented. Like I have said in a previous blog about music, he has mastered voicing what slightly nerdy girls and boys who daydream too much, who fall in love too easily, who don't really want to grow up, constantly think. I am glad I discovered him later in my twenties as opposed to my last years of college. I would have been a complete mess. 3x5? That song is my last year of college....anyway, the point of this was to say that while I am officially coming out of the closet to more than just one of my more non- judgemental friends about being a fan, I completely get why there are so many people who absolutely loathe his persona and his music. He wears his heart on his sleeve and while silly girls are eating it up,(and record companies are eating up their silliness in profit) their boyfriends are getting pissed because they have to become something a little more. How hilarious was it to go the concert this summer in L.I. and see hundreds of guys sitting with their girlfriends with the serious, "kill me, kill me now" look on their faces? It was classic. He has mastered the art of being super famous and still being a regular, actually likable guy, and when he's being an "insufferable douche", we love him even more. That being said, while I resent being called "an offense to retarded primates" just because I am a JM fan, this fake blog by Gordon Ramsay was pretty damn funny. Hey, maybe douches of a feather.....





Pics via LaineyGossip, The Daily Mail
Link via Newsgroper, TMZ

Radiohead says suck it Record companies!

Yes, it's all over the news and I am loving this....really, who pays full price for music anymore? Not moi...the last CD I bought was continuum and that's only because it was on sale at Target...and by then i had already heard most of the album. Musicians not dependent on your labels to give you a hit: Take notice. Record your own shit in your custom built studios in your fancy crib, distribute your own records, sell it online but do it on your own terms. You don't have to give it away like Radiohead and Prince, but at least make your music affordable, for cripes sake. Blame it on the Ipod if you want but that's it. Time of death for purchasing overpriced music: right now, October, 2007. Get on it, people. I want one and I'm not even a die hard radiohead fan like that. Personally, I just like the Principal of the thing. And a good bargain. Who wouldn't? Oh yeah.... greedy record execs. The real question is, am I going to be a big old cheapskate or actually pay more than a dollar for the cd? hmmmm.....

image via Poster Net

Music

So of course I am watching the Britney Spear's predictable hot mess train wreck TV awards like everyone else and i am sitting here wondering about the state of music. Justin Timberlake said something about this being an exciting time for music....I'm wondering, is he just saying that because he's huge right now? I mean, I had nothing to do with the momentous surge of music that I grew up with besides sheer devotion and that was enough to make me feel like the music was a complete and perfect part of me. I was in it.
So why does this time in music feel so alien to me? I don't find it exciting, I find it perplexing and increasingly disappointing. I cringe to think it's because I'm older and i just don't get it. I won't believe that. That seems like kind of a cop-out anyway. I've lent my ear to alot of what's been going on in music and I think either I am just not hearing what everyone else is hearing or I am truly mad, locked in a solitary world where only what's relevant is what I like. People were praising Britney's single before the MTV thing like it was the next great dance hit. What did I hear?
Over synthesized, tired beats on top of her nasally voice. I heard desperation, I heard Jennifer Lopez, some recent Madonna, Janet, Fergie (don't get her at all) and as much as I hate to admit it, even some Gwen... I have never been a fan of Spears' but it was truly sad because her performance, no matter how crap it was, summed up the overall state of music for me. "If I throw some shit together, wrap it all nice and pretty, they will buy it, hook line and sinker". And she will, even after the hoopla dies down over her meltdown. The radio stations will play her song ad nauseum and people will be driving or sitting in a food court going: "Well, I never really liked this song before, but..." It's enough to make me scream.
What happened to glossy production value mixed with true entertainment? Even My old (and I mean OLD) friends Janet and Madonna have chosen to take the whore (Not just literally but musically as well) approach to entertaining us. And yes, that's kind of what they were always about but, was it ever this bad??? At least Madonna gave the semblance of a whore with class, a whore with a decent stylist for feck's sake. (Britney, take notes, for the love of god, take notes!) I'm babbling, alot, but I think My point, although somewhat skewered, has been made. What happened to music? Why does Beyonce have to come out with ten thousand singles in three months to be relevant? Why do musicians feel the need to act? Why was Justin Timberlake (Who i am no fan of) the only voice of reason when he said MTV needs to start actually playing music again? What scares me is perhaps it's too late.
Who's saying something today, without losing all the glitz of showbiz? Who's preserving the mystery that fans need to stay interested? Amy Winehouse, bless her. The big hair, the applying eye makeup in the dark thing, even the drugs (Very sad and dangerous however), it's her persona, and she is working it. Alicia Keys, even though I seriously questioned her wardrobe choice that night, (Great boots, fire whoever recommended the headband) she reminds us that you can still be passionate about music and still be very cool. John Mayer's words are so uncanny for so many people my age it's like, dude enough already...get out of my head. He's pretty much all I listen to right now. I find it awesome that all of my black friends love him and all of my white friends think he is lame, too "safe", kind of boring...talk about affirmative action!
Jill Scott can do no wrong with her voice. Her take on "Baby you got me" with the Roots from "Chappelle's Block Party" gives me chills every time I hear it. I love the fact that she isn't super famous yet. (or ever will be) That makes her even more timeless. I 'm saying it here: give or take 20 years, Jill Scott will be legend. So this is an exciting time in music...hmmm...this is a very interesting time in music. One thing MTV tried with the awards (and got horribly wrong), was that people are more willing to experiment, to overlap genres of music, to make the whole thing one big Hip-hop, rock, blues, soul, dance, crunk, metal, emo (still don't know WTF that is) party. And that is cool. But without so much pretense disguised as genius or talent.....please?