The Sunday Morning Couch Potato Blues

I spend most of my time sitting down on the sofa. Actually, sorry, did I say sitting? I really meant lying. I go from lying in bed to lying on the sofa. It's the good life.

Well, it would be if I didn't have exorbitant amounts of homework to do over the next week. (Heck yes, New York Public Schools getting the whole week off. Best state, confirmed.) So whilst I sob in a corner and procrastinate on my English reading(s), Latin translating, Economic journaling, Spanish studying, and Physics note-taking, here is a slew of songs to help you cope with your own Sunday weepies. (Eww. Weepies is a stupid word. And also a band.)



Create a playlist at MixPod.com

1. "Bratty B" by Best Coast: I love this song! It's so short, and it hits its stride right at the end, but regardless it still manages to be one of my favorites on the album. They played this song in last Thursday's episode of Skins (the British one, not that unholy American abomination), and I was so excited that I had to pause it and listen to the song a couple of times before I was able to continue watching the episode. Yeah, I'm a little obsessed.
2. "Pick Me Up" by the Format: My favorite Format song is "Oceans." I've listened to that song nearly 70 times. Love it. You would think that my love for that song would inspire me to listen to the band's other songs, then, right? Well, not really. I get very attached and then don't care to explore my other options. I had a handful of other songs by the band ("She Doesn't Get It," "Inches and Falling," "Wait, Wait, Wait," and "I'm Actual," which are all awesome) but that was it. Recently I acquired a couple of their other songs, and this one is my favorite. You're welcome for the needless back story, now enjoy the song.
3. "Miami" by Foals: Love this. "Would you/be there/be there/be there for me?/In Miami?" This song is such a killer singalong. I also love the synths, or what I assume are the synths. Really hard to tell these days. This song is so smooth, like some extremely charming guy who ensnares all of the girls at the club. Like Tony! (British version, of course.)
4. "Composure" by Warpaint: Warpaint is a really cool band. It's four girls making some intense, inventive music. They make sounds that I didn't even know you could make with just a guitar or bass. This song, like "Miami," is fun to sing along with, especially that beginning. Keep my! Keep my! Keep my! My what? And then it gets really fast and I can imagine people freaking out at a party while dancing to it. Or maybe it could be the music accompanying an extremely scary chase scene. Such a good song.
5. "Hard Believer" by First Aid Kit: You know, 3 out of these 5 songs have been by ladies. I used to hate music by women. Oh, how times have changed! These sisters are really young (well, older than me, but still) and already really talented and accomplished. I dig this song a ton. I keep singing, "Love is tough! Time is rough!" Their songs are like easy listening, because they just come in and out of your consciousness, listenable without taking over everything, and I really appreciate that. Even though they're not overpowering, this song and also "Ghost Town," which I love, always get stuck in my head. They stay with you, these girls.
6. "One Time (Live Acoustic)" by Justin Bieber: Hey, Biebs, haven't seen you in awhile. I guess you've been busy promoting that little movie of yours, and being surprisingly entertaining at the Grammys. That's cool, that's cool. This acoustic version of my FAVORITE Biebs song is pretty adorable. I like that he dedicates it to Cammy Elizabeth from Virginia, although Cammy Elizabeth is a really terrible name. What is this? A Scholastics book?
7. "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song" by Fleet Foxes: This is a live version, but it's still really good. I think this song is just so pleasant; I always call it "Pleasant Song" in my head, although that's not exactly intentional. I just misread the title. But "Pleasant Song" works because this song is so unobtrusive and lovely and nice, I like it a lot. I think it's my favorite song by these guys. Apparently they have a new album coming out. That's nice. Even though a lot of people think they're derivative (or maybe that others are deriving from them), I don't mind because they're great.
8. "Flightless Bird, American Mouth" by Iron & Wine: I've been listening to this a lot lately. I like the imagery and the melody is so sweet and calm. This song was in Twilight, but let's ignore that fact, okay? Although after I saw the scene where they play this song I couldn't listen to it for awhile because I kept thinking about Robert Pattinson' disgusting face, not to even mention Kristen Stewart and her stale, non-existent acting. Ugh. That connection aside this song is wonderful. "Now I'm a fat house cat..."
9. "We Could Love" by Cavil at Rest: Cavil at Rest is what Local Natives was originally called. This song reminds me of a less rhythmic "Airplanes," but I mean that in a good way. Very mellow. All of these songs are mellow! Except the first few, but still. I love the opening line: "I could say that love was/created/with you in mind." Also the chorus: "Don't/you/tell me/that life/isn't/beautiful/when we're/all/loving/each other!" This sounds a lot like the summer to me, and specifically the summer in 1960s Atlantic City, or some other place with lots of cabarets. I don't know why. I think it's the light drumming. Also, I have an overactive imagination.
10. "Rose Garden" by Shad: And we end on a slightly more upbeat note. Shad is an awesome Canadian rapper. I'm not a huge rap fan but this song and "The Old Prince Still Lives at Home" are my jams. My favorite part of this song, though, is not the rapping, but the girl singing, "I didn't come here for a rose garden!" I love how it's sung at the end, it's just so nice. Shad's songs always put me in a good mood, so I appreciate him, especially after a slew of somewhat less uplifting songs.

So that's the deal. Enjoy the music.

Relevant Things Going On in My Life Right Now #6

So, a couple of things. Obviously I have a new layout. Yay! (?) I really liked the old one but I feel like this one goes more with the spirit and the tone of this very silly web log. Second, that above is Johnny Weir. Is it just me or does he look slightly like Christian Bale there? Anyway, I just watched this documentary about him, Pop Star on Ice. It has a 17% on Rotten Tomatoes but I actually enjoyed it, even if it was mostly because Johnny is hilarious. His Russian accent is awesome.

Other than that, a lot has happened since my last post, so I thought I'd do one of these to cover everything. (Also I have a Snow Day, A-STINKING-GAIN, and I want to do other things and this is easy-ish.)

• The NGP: No, it's not some kind of government branch that's out to get you. It's the name of what is more commonly known as the PSP2! The NGP was unveiled last week and it basically is a fatter PSP with two joysticks and better graphics. This is enough for many people to rejoice over, but I remain unconvinced. It's not that I don't think the NGP looks cool, because it definitely does, and it's not that I don't think it will be successful, because I know there are a lot of people who want to buy it; it's just that, in terms of innovation, it seems like it's lacking in that extra "wow" factor. I mean, I have a PS3 to play my PS3 games. I don't need a portable for that. What it means for me, though, is that soon the PSP will finally be low enough in price that I can buy one! Yay!
• Jesse Eisenberg on SNL: I am a Jesse Eisenberg fan, and his episode of SNL was the funniest in ages. I watched the entire show, live, and that is something I never do! It was worth it, though. The best sketches were the Don't Forget the Lyrics! one, which awkwardly didn't get as many laughs from the audience as it did from me; the one with Bill Hader as Herb, the old and bitter newscaster who kept hitting everyone in the face (I'm sorry but his constantly hitting everyone in the face with the microphone was extremely amusing, especially when Bill Hader started cracking afterwards); the Lonely Island song, "Do the Creep;" and the Bride of Blackenstein, which featured the best line of the night from Jesse Eisenberg: when asked where he got the bride's mouth, he replied, "From a ho who didn't know her place!" Weekend Update was also amusing thanks to Kenan as Tyler Perry: "My best friend is Oprah!" It wasn't all kittens and cupcakes, though: the fake commercial was incredibly offensive and all of Kristen Wiig's turns were awful. But Jesse Eisenberg was able to bring his antsy energy and host a fun show. Watch the episode here.
• The new series of Skins: It premiered over in jolly old England last Thursday. I watched it over the weekend; it was my first time watching the British Skins in a decent amount of time, since I never watched the third or fourth series besides some clips. Okay, so there were definite shades of Mean Girls, but Franky and Grace and Rich and maybe Alo (which is a stupid name) seem awesome. Matty had potential also but his acting was terrible. I'm excited to see what happens this season. Err, series.
• "The Trapeze Swinger": is a beautiful song, by Iron & Wine. He wrote it for a movie that stars Topher Grace (and, disgustingly, Dennis Quaid):
• No Color by The Dodos: I posted about them last month, but today you can now pre-order their album! There are four different options: digital-only, CD, vinyl, or deluxe, which includes all of the above plus a shirt, a poster, and some other stuff. Also, you can get any of the first three options with a shirt, and the CD and the record also come with digital downloads. I'm conflicted over which package to get. I'm thinking CD, but I kind of want the shirt as well. However, the CD plus the shirt is $30, and that's way too much. I think I'm just going to get the CD. Also, when you pre-order you get a download of the first track, "Black Night," which you can listen to on the site. I listened to it and it is INSANE. In a good way! So. Do that.
• Bioshock: I got it for Christmas and my friend and I started playing it yesterday. Okay, I mostly just watched and yelled, "Welcome to the Circus of Values!" But I got to play a little. It's fun times, but also really scary. I'm not good with scary things. Thankfully, I got over my fear of the screaming, gory splicers kind of quickly. Sort of. Also, the game has the most stupidly easy trophies out of any PS3 game I've ever played. Awesome.
• RuPaul's Drag Race: So the Johnny Weir show was on Logo, and now RuPaul's show is on and we haven't bothered to change the channel. I'm not really paying attention but I see that SUTAN, the make-up artist from America's Next Top Model, is competing, and that is REALLY COOL. His drag queen persona is Raja. This should be fun. Also, watching the show is reminding me of how Tobias would mix up his pronouns a lot in Arrested Development. I'm planning on rewatching that soon, maybe when the AV Club starts its alleged Classic recapping of it.
• Sundance: This year's Sundance has been one of the most-hyped in years, in part because of the wealth of nominations movies from last year's have earned recently (see: Winter's Bone!). I'm going to write an article about it later today; maybe I'll post it on here sometime. I'll at least get around to talking about the movies that intrigued me. One of my life dreams is to go to a film festival (yeah, I totally dream big, right?), so I hope to attend Sundance one day. Maybe as press!
• Zombieland: is sitting in my DVD drive. I've been meaning to watch it for over a year now. Today, I finally will. So I'm going to go do that.

Have a splendid day.

US Skins Review

First things first: I have another stinkin' snow day, which really screws me up, ugh. However, intelligently I am using this day to watch an episode of Community on-Demand. It's "Mixology Certification," and the episode is taking place on MY BIRTHDAY, December 3rd, and Troy's birthday is the day after mine! Yay!

This has thrown me off, plus I'm irritated, so this review will probably suck.

Anyway. Skins on MTV.

L to R: Chris, Daisy (Jal), Abbud (Anwar), Tea (Maxxie), Tony, Michelle, Stanley (Sid), Cadie (Cassie), Eura (Effy)

As I mentioned yesterday, I am a fan of the original British series; thus, it was hard not to let bias seep through as I watched last night's "Tony," which was essentially a remake of the very first episode of the original show. I didn't enjoy this pilot: let's get that out of the way. However, I didn't enjoy the original very much, either. The emphasis in both versions of "Tony" is on the intense partying and drug use that the characters participate in. This is undeniable; however, what I like about Skins is that the rest of the episodes focuses instead on character development, studying each character intimately. (Not in that sense.)

Those character study moments were absent from this episode. Characters were either broadly painted (Abbud, the new Anwar; Tony; Stanley aka Sid; even Effy who looked like a 28-year-old drug addict) or flat beyond belief. While this was obviously the pilot, from the previews they showed afterwards it didn't seem that the show was going to get much deeper.

Let's talk about some of the major differences to the characters, because even though this is a transplant largely word-for-word, there are some changes. The obvious one is that Maxxie is now a lesbian, Tea (I keep pronouncing that like the drink instead of Tay-uh, haha). While Tea is accepted into the group, like Maxxie was, it seems like she may not be out of the closet. This changes the character a bit, as Maxxie was out and proud, but because there was less drama there he faded into the background much of the time. Tea also reminds me more of a female Tony than a female Maxxie; Maxxie was sweet and sincere, not one to take authority. Tea seemed confident and strong; this should prove to be a big difference.

Michelle and Tea were similar, I think; Michelle in the British series seemed to live just for Tony's love, and wasn't a very strong-willed girl. The American Michelle was someone who, while watching, kept striking me as very "cool." Her being with Tony in a reciprocated relationship made more sense here, because Michelle was easily the coolest, strongest girl out of anyone we watched. You could see why Stanley liked her so much. (Also she's perfectly cast in that she kind of looks like the original Michelle, weirdly orange hair aside.) Speaking of Stanley, while Sid was a lovable loser who just wanted a girlfriend really, really badly, Stanley was a bland pothead. He was extremely boring, and you could tell that the director really wanted us to root for him. However, his actor was not able to sell me on the character; he failed to make an impression on me, much unlike Sid did.

The acting by everyone was terrible. Evey single one of them. I had read that Tony and Tea's actors were surprising standouts, but when I watched I found them to be just as terrible as everyone else. I'm not sure if it was the direction, the fact that they have to live up to the amazingly strong original cast, or if these kids are just that bad at acting, but at times it seemed like they had learned the dialogue phonetically. This could make sense; it's impossible to completely match the cadence of the original script, with its heavy usage of British slang (that weirdly enough they kept in; the scene when Chris acts for "skins" felt really, really false to me, more than everything else), so for some of them it was a struggle to keep up while the rest didn't even try.

Eventually the episode deviated from the original enough that I no longer had a point of comparison and was forced to watch the show for what it was. This is where I meet some kind of conundrum: at the end of the episode I decided that, had I not known what the rest of the (original) series was capable of in terms of plot and character, I would give up on this show and never watch it again. I really hated this episode; it was boring, I didn't like any of the characters, the acting was terrible, but what if I hadn't known some of the more interesting things that happened later on in the original show? What if I had given up on that after the pilot, too? Because the British pilot was similarly bad, although it was better in that the characters made immediate impressions on me, especially Tony whose cell phone scene in the original was one of my favorite moments in the entire show, just for how well he sold it. So should I keep giving this show a chance?

I might, but it doesn't look good. When your central character is so weak and uninteresting, what is there to stay for? Next week should be Cadie (the new Cassie)'s episode, and while the Cassie episode in the original was one of that series' best, that was partially because Cassie was a phenomenally-played character. Cadie? She just seems to be your typical angsty teen, only she's a little "weirder" and has also tried to kill herself multiple times. Cadie was one of the least intriguing characters in this episode. There was no air of mystery surrounding her (ETA: this is also true of the new Effy, Eura, who made me angry beyond belief despite her being in two scenes), and her budding relationship with Stan was abrupt and unbelievable. The scene with the two of them in the kitchen was one of the episode's worst.  Cassie was the most original character on the show; I'm struggling with how I could describe here. Cadie was one of the least compelling here. Differences like these water the US Skins down until it gets to the point where even taken as its own show it's not interesting.

I can see how American teens who haven't seen the original show can get into this; the cast is "pretty," the partying is kind of funny (although they totally ruined "Tabitha's," aka Abigail's, party which was another moment that made the show stand out to me in that first episode, as she had everyone take off their shoes as to not ruin her parents' new rug) and I guess maybe more realistic than parties shown in other shows, there's the promise of tons of relationship drama. But as an American teen who has seen the first two series of Skins, I can't say that there's any reason for me to continue to watch this.

I really did want to give this show the benefit of the doubt. I admit that I thought it looked terrible by virtue of MTV's involvement from the getgo, but I didn't want to hate it as much as I ended up doing. It really just was not my cup of tea, even if there's that small promise of it linearly following the plot of the original show (which I can assure you/me will not happen).

Skins gets one and a half Tony's singing wildly inappropriate songs to repressed schoolgirls out of 5.

Golden Globes Highlights, And More to Come

Last night were the Golden Globes. They were pretty terrible. Ricky Gervais hosted for I believe the second year in a row, and while he was extremely, brutally entertaining, the rest of the show? Meh.


 Here are some highlights and lowlights (but mostly lowlights, because the show was nonsense, as expected):

• Ricky Gervais' scathing opening monologue. I cringed many a time, as did everyone else in the audience. Okay, so Ricky was harsh. But did everyone have to take it so seriously? Who in that room honestly likes Tom Cruise? And it's not like Ricky even mentioned him by name or anything, so why the shock? And that joke at The Tourist's expense was awesome. No one in that room saw that movie other than Johnny Depp (who was probably asleep at the time) and Angelina Jolie (possibly on drugs). I'm sure that Brad Pitt didn't even want to watch it. (Oh, and let me just give a shout-out to everything else he said, including his closing line: "And thanks to God, for making me an atheist." Classic.)
  
  
• My sister and I screamed many, many times, but our loudest moments were: when Chris Colfer won Best Supporting Actor (I like the kid, his speech was great, and Kurt is the second-best singer on the show, but seriously? Seriously?); Jim Parsons successfully paying off the HFPA to give him yet another award that rightfully deserved to either Alec Baldwin or Steve Carell (did you see how excited and happy Steve Carell looked?! I WANTED TO HUG HIM. He deserves all the best); Glee winning Best Comedy/Musical (WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD IT IS NOT "BEST" ANYTHING UGH)
• Andrew Garfield stumbling over his words while trying to introduce The Social Network, which would go on to win Best Drama (something I am happy about). An "aww" was heard from coast to coast. Poor nervous little 28-year-old baby/future Spiderman.
• Funniest non-Brits there? Steve Carell and Tina Fey. I love those people, a lot, and they were appropriately hilarious. Okay, Ricky helped. And RDJ was apparently really funny? I wasn't paying attention during his extremely long speech about the Best Actress - Comedy category. Something about sleeping with the fabulous, blonde Emma Stone? Eh, whatever.
  
• Natalie Portman's speech was funny the first time, but watching it again it was a bit too precious. Speeches I liked: KATEY SEGAL YAAAY, Aaron Sorkin (as a self-appointed "smart girl" I will take his words to heart); Chris Colfer, as I mentioned earlier.
• Speaking of speeches: Robert De Niro! Yay for him. And I also enjoyed Matt Damon's introduction of him. Both Matt Damon and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who introduced the ultimate loser Inception) should have been used way more liberally than they were. I didn't even realize they were there!
• Ricky's barb towards Tim Allen and his and Tom Hanks' comeback. He gave Tom Hanks an appropriately lengthy intro and then said "...and Tim Allen!" Tom Hanks said, "We remember when Ricky Gervais was a slightly chubby, very kind man." And Tim Allen said, "Neither of which he is now." See, I took that as a half-compliment, meaning he's no longer slightly chubby! Unless they meant now he's much chubbier. But either way, funny. Also they were talking about Toy Story 3 (the clip they showed for that made me tear up by the way, I love that movie so much) and Tim Allen said, "You are a strange, sad little man and you have my pity." BUZZ LIGHTYEAR QUOTES ARE THE BEST.

So this Globes was pretty terrible, but it's okay because I never expect anything less. Usually they serve as a decent predictor/precursor to the Oscars, but the categories were so nonsensical this year that I am still left satiating for January 25th, which is when Oscar noms are released! The Oscars have always been my favorite awards show, so expect much ranting and raving when the noms are out and the show is aired.

Speaking of ranting: tonight is the premiere of MTV's surely terrible Skins remake. I don't think I've mentioned this yet but I love the original Skins, the raunchy-yet-heartfelt British teen drama. Its first two seasons (or series in British language) were brilliant, and there is no way MTV will be able to top them. I will probably watch and report tomorrow with a scathing review, so get excited!