Man

I miss the days of 90s/early 00s television. They were, and continue to be, the best.

The ones I'm pining for the most at the moment are the ones by Mo Willems, the once up-and-coming animator and now kids' book writer. Sheep in the Big City is in my BitTorrent downloader thingy-mahjiggy right now. I didn't want to resort to that, but I have no choice. See what you're doing, Cartoon Network? You're making me not give you the money I really, REALLY want to give you.

The Offbeats was the coolest, too. Here's one of the episodes; they used to air on Kablam!, which was one of my favorite shows:



Sigh.

Relevant Things Going On in My Life Right Now #4

I have no clue who that chick on the left is. So don't ask.

Have you guys ever seen The Dish on Style Network? Oh, that's right, I forgot. You guys actually have better things to do than watch reruns of Clean House all day long.Well, basically the show just rips-off The Soup but is more woman-centric. Thus, it is also less funny. YOOOOW! It's hosted by Topanga from Boy Meets World, who is the large woman in the picture. She's gotten, well, quite large over the years.

But that's not all!:

• 10 Things I Hate About You: The movie used to be one of my least favorites EVER, but in my quest to become the Coolest Joseph Gordon-Levitt Fan in History or something moronic and pointless like that it was necessary to give it another chance. I still think it's a terrible movie. It doesn't age well - it's INCREDIBLY 90s. That being said, it was tolerable. Heath Ledger, JGL, and David Krumholtz all gave fun performances and their characters made me trudge through the movie. Although JGL played the irritating and dull archetype of the Loser-ish Kid Pining For Inexplicably Attractive Vapid Valley Girl, he did it with STYLE! (When I hear anyone say "with style!" I think of Buzz Lightyear instantly. Oh, Toy Story. You're my best friend.) SO. While I can't recommend this movie, if I ever find myself at your house and you put it on, I will only whine for one hour as opposed to three. 
Smart Guy: There's some new channel called Centric that was airing a Smart Guy marathon today. Man, I love that show. Really! I also love Sister, Sister, which, if it was ever remade, I could DEFINITELY star in. It's about biracial twins! I can play that in my sleep! But anyway, Smart Guy has a cool premise that is executed in a stupid-but-hilarious way. T.J. is the bomb, as is his brother Marcus. MARCUS. And then Marcus' friend! I can't remember his name but I think he used to be my favorite character. And T.J.'s dad is so nice! His sister I couldn't care less about, though. Do you guys like T.J. Mowry or Tia and Tamara Mowry better? I can't choose :(
Weekend Box Office: Excitement! The excellent blog that you guys should follow The Playlist reports that Inception came in first this weekend with $60 million. This was expected, although it is perhaps even a tad higher than initial projections. I'm really happy! I hope that the drop-down percentage is slow and this movie will make back its budget multiple times due to strong word-of-mouth. (Read my mini-review for the movie here.) Other new release The Sorcerer's Apprentice opened in a VERY weak third. Read the post I linked for some really good reasoning as to why that is. It's too bad, really, because I like Jay Baruchel and I wish him ETERNAL HAPPINESS. But he'll be okay.
Cheap Trick: I'm just randomly listening to them over and over again today. My favorites are, very boringly, "Surrender," "Hello There," and my number one favorite is "I Want You to Want Me." They're actually a pretty awesome band - not that I doubted otherwise! But Robin Zander has a really good voice - singing AND speaking! SOMEONE RECOMMEND ME MORE CHEAP TRICK SONGS. NOW.
K.K. Slider: He's the adorable singing dog from Animal Crossing! That game is one of my favorites of all zee times. It's just so nice. I played the GameCube one for HOURS. Possibly over 100 hours in fact. I'll never know for sure. My favorite part of the game was being serenaded by K.K. on Saturday night and then getting a bootleg of the song to play in your house. My two favorite K.K. songs are "K.K. Rock" and "K.K. Parade." Unfortunately, the bootleg of "Parade" really sucks. Only K.K. himself does it justice. "Rock" is one of my favorite songs ever, no joke. It really is. It's been stuck in my head every single day of the last week. Here it is in video form (fast-forward a little to :30-ish):
 
Lisa Simpson: Lisa Simpson is my favorite Simpson, followed by Bart. This review of "Moaning Lisa" paints her, however, as a lovable but fun-killing kid. I agree that she is the most human of the family, but there are TONS of moments where you see her acting like a crazy kid like everyone else. She does like Itchy and Scratchy after all. Read the comments as people talk about how they can (or can't) relate to Lisa and why. It's interesting. And since it's the AV Club, it's also funny. 

I think it's pretty cool that I managed to avoid doing one of these for the first 2 weeks of this month. Last month I did two of these! But I enjoy my Relevant Things series since it gives me more to talk about. It's kind of redundant to say "in my life" though because I never think about anything else than pop culture-type stuff, anyway.

P.S. Still working on the Bieber story...you'll get to read it, eventually.

Daria: She's Like You, Except Actually Cool

Sometimes I wish I was born earlier. Like, at the end of the eighties. I really do like being [insert age here; I always forget], but I missed out on a lot of cool stuff. I feel like I should be older. Albeit with the same very low maturity level. Anyway.

One of the things I was too young for but totally would have dug had I been old enough was Daria, which just came out on DVD yesterday. I can appreciate it now, yes, but there's nothing like seeing something and liking it the first time it comes on. But I never got to experience that.

Copy pasta from Salon:

I've come to the same conclusion as many of the devotees who signed petitions and clamored on message boards for the series' DVD release: "Daria" could have only happened at that time, during that strange, transitional period after the grunge and gangsta rap of the early '90s and before the boy bands and teen queens stepped up to create a glittery pop landscape in the '00s. It spoke directly to those of us on the borderlands between generation X and Y, growing up with the shadows of Kurt Cobain, Tupac and Biggie looming large, who could relate to "The Truth About Cats and Dogs" and "Reality Bites" as well as "The Craft" and "10 Things I Hate About You," who could identify with the screaming discontentment of the 1990s but could also feel the lighter, more hopeful influence of the easygoing and revirginized 2000s.

On all of those things, I missed out. Not alive in the early 90s but barely able to spell at the beginning of the 00s. (Well, actually, that's a lie. I've always been a pretty awesome speller. Although in 2000 I thought that 2 plus 2 was 5, so.)

But enough about me! Let's talk about the show! This isn't supposed to be a borderline lamentation of being born in the wrong decade! Exclamation points!

Set in a mid-Atlantic suburb, the series revolves around Daria and her family, the Morgendorffers. The minutiae of modern life are filtered through Daria's caustic lens, providing moments of apt reflection about the nature of adulthood. At first glance, Daria Morgendorffer appears to be a strange icon to come from the same network that gleefully produced "The Hills," "Laguna Beach," "Jersey Shore" and "My Super Sweet 16." After all, Daria's deadpan delivery and constant cynicism don't exactly fit with the new programming, and her friends are far too multidimensional to be seen on the channel today. Between the eclectic artist Jane Lane and the archetypal high-achieving model minority Jodie Landon (and matching boyfriend Mack), Daria finds backup during the turbulent teen years -- especially while dealing with Beavis and Butt-head clones Kevin and Brittany -- and the machinations of the Lawndale's self-proclaimed fashion police and popular girl squad, the Fashion Club. The series' complex web of teen life is almost impossible to imagine in the demographic-obsessed media market that has emerged since, when so many personalities gracing MTV direct all their contemplative energy toward the nearest tanning bed.

Harsh! But true, really. It's hard for anyone who hasn't heard of the show before to really comprehend that it was on MTV. But MTV was actually a pretty cool place back in the day. Not that there wasn't still stuff on the channel to make fun of -- and Daria did just that.

Daria and Jane were the misanthropic voice of their generation. Their mumbles, grunts, rolled eyes, were all relatable to the average teen outcast. Am I being sarcastic? Slightly, but only because I think that as much as every kid who ever watched the show wanted to be Daria, they never could be; Daria was much cooler than the archetype she was supposed to be representing. In retrospect, it's slightly disheartening, but at the same time, it's fun to think that people like that really exist. She was the weirdo messiah, except not nearly as annoying as you might think she'd be.

So, for years after the show was cancelled, people who felt validated, reaffirmed, comforted by Daria petitioned for the show to be on DVD. And now, nearly ten years later, it finally is. And the nice thing is, Daria, despite its roots firmly planted in that aformentioned transition period, still is applicable today. Everyone goes through their Daria phase, whether or not they're actually anything like her at all. At some point or another, teenagers feel hateful towards the world, to each other, and that's where she comes in.

I think if the DVD was ever going to come out, now is a good time. The people who watched it in their teen years are old enough to watch it with a nostalgic twinkle in their eye but still young enough to be able to enjoy it without an air of pretension. And then there's people who are only now just coming into their "Daria years," people who are starting to feel like they're in the wrong place, people who resent everything, who can take something from the show.

This blog is getting particularly sappy, so let's end it here. Please buy Daria on DVD because it's well worth it. It's stinking hilarious but also nice and reflective towards the end.

And if you could buy me a copy, too, that would be nice. It's a little expensive. I'm young and jobless. I just took an AP exam. Thanks!

Buy it here. And read a nice little interview here.

Better Than Both the Bologna and the Salami Combined

Today I bought something from Hot Topic for the first time.

Generally, I can't stay in that joint for longer than two minutes. But today? Today, I was there for TEN MINUTES. The cashiers were surprisingly friendly. The dude let me go even though I was six cents short. He also made it so that they wouldn't send me emails (because they have a free "Friends with Benefits" card thing and he made me sign up for that. Well, he didn't make me. But he was so nice!)

So yes. And even though I was in there with the mission to get my friend a birthday present (or three, because we are both awesome), I actually found myself WANTING TO BUY STUFF FOR ME. It was shocking.

Those of you Hot Topic and/or Fonzie Was Six Four-savvy might think, "Oh, well, they sell Contra, so you probably wanted that." But no. I did not want that.

I wanted their Rocko's Modern Life stuff.

Unless you had or were a child in the mid-90s, you probably don't remember what that was. But you should, because Rocko's Modern Life is one of the best cartoons EVER. And I do not say this ironically, unlike most Hot Topic patrons. I sincerely love Rocko's. It might seem weird that I still like the same stuff that I liked when I was three, but you can't really get some of the best stuff in Rocko's until you're older.

For a show on Nickelodeon, it was actually really dirty. Despite it being about an amiable wallaby, his neurotic and/or idiotic friends, and his "modern life," they managed to make it fairly adult, including in tons of sexual jokes. Because we all know sex jokes are adult.

Observe!

That frog is Mrs. Bighead, Rocko's neighbor who often gets into some really weird situations with him. There's this one episode that got banned called "Leap Frogs" that was basically about Mrs. Bighead trying to seduce Rocko. Yeah, it was pretty awkward. Especially since Mr. Bighead absolutely HAAAAATES Rocko, and pretty much everything. Like me!

The show often found itself censored due to its age-inappropriate content. In the earlier seasons, the fast food chain that is referenced in tons of episodes is called the Chokey Chicken, which is a joke that I never got until I was 12 while watching this show again. But later on, Nick wised up and made them change it to Chewy Chicken, which just isn't the same. Here's a scene that was censored after its original airing:

Pretty self-explanatory. I personally don't think that's one of the worst jokes, but then again, I like all of the jokes in the show, inappropriate or not. The thing is, the show always tried to "skew older," as its creator, my boy Joe Murray, said. Well, it didn't really try, but that's just how it turned out. They were able to create a show that was appealing to kids AND to adults. Those shows are always the best, aren't they?

And it had the coolest style. What I really like about animation is that oftentimes it isn't realistic. It creates this cool world that you would never encounter in your real life, and it just feels very massive to be. I love facial expressions, I like crazy colors, I like all of that stuff. Some directors try to take that style and apply it to live-action film (think Baz Luhrman), but it never turns out well. It feels too forced. But in animation, it comes pretty effortlessly.

Listen to the awesome theme songs, of which there were three (the third version is probably the most popular. It was done by the B-52s!):

Awesome. And even though the show had some adult stuff in it (not just the "dirty" jokes, but also a lot of social commentary; it's called Modern Life for a reason, as it often exaggerates and criticizes the late 20th Century life), it was still really kid-friendly and hilarious. Here's a song that I always liked from one of my favorite episodes:

Yeah, that's going to be stuck in my head for the rest of my life. And it's the kind of song that's catchy and funny enough for kids and their parents. It doesn't pander to either. And it's educational! So there! I think any show that wants to make it into the highest echelons of time needs to have a song in it. We always remember the songs from shows that we liked when we were younger. Music brings people together, as do cartoons. That's why you often see them combined.

I think most kids didn't really get what this scene was about (I know I didn't), but it was still hilarious. Now that I get that they were implying that Rocko was gay, there's a new understanding of it, but it doesn't change it that much. I do quite like it when he says, "Did I say 'rainbows?' I meant to say 'dolls!'" Tee-hee. And I like how everyone just immediately turns against him. I love that kind of stuff, animation or live-action.

Here's some clips from another really good episode where Rocko and his BFFAEAE (ugh, my friend says that all the time, it's so stupid) Heffer (a steer - not a cow!! - raised by this really classic family of wolves) go to France. This employs a lot of that social commentary that the show is so good at. And the facial expressions! I love this show's style! And Tom Kenny is one of the best voice actors ever.

I think my favorite character, other than Rocko (I always love the main characters), is Filburt. Filburt was this Woody Allen-esque turtle: completely neurotic, things never go right for him, etc. His "catchphrase," which was one of the show's few such things in a time when catchphrases were practically pre-requisites for getting your show on TV, was "I'm nauseous, I'm nauseous." Kind of sums him up. Oh, and Filburt, like Woody Allen, had a thing for really weird girls. His wife was this...cat...thing with a claw who always said, "Kay?" and definitely belonged in an asylum of some sorts. Dr. Hutchinson. She was insane.

Here's a Filburt clip!

And finally, here is the best scene from the absolute best episode of the show. Find some way to watch it; it's called "Wacky Delly." It was THE BEST. It was about the son of the Bigheads, who was based on and I think voiced by Joe Murray, who was the animator of this insanely popular but insanely stupid show called The Fatheads. He hated it. It was this great story about the tragic artist that was kind of subverted, because he calls on Rocko, Filburt, and Heffer to make a new show for him so he can go and do...well, nothing, really. And this is what was turned out, Wacky Delly:

And guess what? Everyone loves it.  But who wouldn't? I would watch that show. And I would watch Rocko's everyday for the rest of my life if I could.

And what a nice life that would be.

P.S. Please read the Wikipedia page. It has a lot of really interesting stuff that even I didn't know on it! Like Joe Murray's wife killed herself, for instance! I wonder how that really influenced the show? MAYBE WE CAN FIGURE THAT OUT TOGETHER. :)

Here's Looking at You, Kids

Do you know where the title is from? If you said anything other than "Casablanca," then off to the chair for you!

But seriously, folks, it's from Casablanca, which, according to Yahoo's 100 Movies to See Before You Die list, is one of the 100 movies you have to watch before you meet your (hopefully neither untimely nor unpleasant) demise. Have you seen it?

I have! Seeing it for the first time stands out as one of those nice little bright spots in my short life. Too bad I didn't even know what it was at the time! (I, obviously, figured it out eventually.) Despite that, I wholeheartedly agree with its inclusion on movie "bests" list.

Looking through the list, I found that these were the movies I had seen:

1. 12 Angry Men
2. Annie Hall
3. Casablanca
4. Citizen Kane
5. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
6. Do the Right Thing
7. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
8. Goldfinger
9. The Graduate
10. A Hard Day's Night
11. It's a Wonderful Life
12. The Matrix
13. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
14. National Lampoon's Animal House
15. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
16. Princess Mononoke
17. Psycho
18. Raiders of the Lost Ark
19. Rebel Without a Cause
20. The Silence of the Lambs
21. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
22. The Sound of Music
23. Star Wars
24. This is Spinal Tap
25. Titanic
26. To Kill a Mockingbird
27. Toy Story
28. When Harry Met Sally...
29. The Wizard of Oz

Dang, I'm only 16 and I'm already more than a quarter of the way through that list. But at the same time, there are tons of movies on the list that I've wanted to see for awhile and still haven't. I should get on that. 

How many have YOU seen? ...Oh really? That's nice...Yes, yes...Okay. Okay! Stop talking now. This is my blog. You wanna talk, you go make your own.

Sorry about that! Yahoo also has a "Modern Classics" list, which has movies from the 90s on. You know what this means, right? Brace yourself for another list of which ones I've seen (not including the ones that overlap, though)!:

1. Beauty and the Beast
2. Dazed and Confused
3. Ed Wood
4. Forrest Gump
5. Four Weddings and a Funeral
6. Babe 
7. Clueless
8. Fargo
9. Being John Malkovich
10. Election
11. Fight Club
12. The Sixth Sense
13. Best in Show
14. Donnie Darko
15. The Royal Tennenbaums
16. Elephant
17. Finding Nemo
18. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
19. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
20. The 40-Year-Old Virgin
21. Brokeback Mountain
22. Borat: Cultural Learnings blah blah blah
23. Pan's Labyrinth
24. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
25. No Country for Old Men
26. The Dark Knight
27. Slumdog Millionaire
28. WALL-E

Hey! I've seen almost the exact same amount of "modern classics" as I have ones from the other list! Of course, this isn't including the ones that overlap, which means I've actually seen more modern classics than, well, classic classics. But can you blame me? I'm actually surprised that I saw that many of the classic classics, anyway, because I perhaps am not the most cinematically literate when it comes to movies made before...I don't know, the 60s or 70s? It's quite sad. That's why I recommend that we all keep this list as a little guideline of what we need to see.

I don't personally believe that this list is the most comprehensive, though; Yahoo is not what I'd call a reputable cinema source. However, it's not that hard to tell what a truly great movie is, especially if you're looking with nostalgia-tinted glasses, as most film critics are...Not that old movies are bad by any means, but I feel like a lot of reviewers/people in general are pretty elitist when it comes to them. People say, "Oh, well, I don't watch movies made after 1975 because they're all horrible!" Well, how would you know that? Based off their trailers? Based off hearsay? It's not very fair.

I will admit that I can be a film elitist, too. When I read through that modern classics list, I rolled my eyes several times. Even before I read it, the article from which I found it phrased it so that it sounded like having a list of modern classics was a negative thing. The list isn't the best, but not because it exists, but because it's missing several things and there are some movie choices that I completely disagree with. But having a list of modern classics in theory isn't bad. Oh, but I think it should be limited to everything before, say, 2008; the inclusion of things such as Avatar and The Hurt Locker read very strangely to me. I don't think a classic movie necessarily has to be an old one, but c'mon, Avatar's not even on DVD yet.

Although personally I don't think it should even be on the list at all. I'm kinda just an Avatar-hater. But what do they say about haters?

That's what!