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The Shock of Disappointment

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April 8, 2014
Music, Pop Culture
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Free tickets to some teenagers’ first lesson as cognizant media consumers.

“Y’all – it was three years ago that we saw Justin Bieber at the exact same place.”

She said it as a point of reference. It seemed like a declaration to all of her friends that they were getting older. Yet, the passing of time in this conversation was coming from a place of excitement, not one of dread. The passer-by and the friends to whom she said this to did not look a day over the age of sixteen. That seemed like a year or two below the average age of those waiting in line at Time Warner Cable Arena to say they experienced the spectacle that was the Miley Cyrus Bangerz Tour. My girlfriend and I were one of dozens of outliers. These outliers also included moms, college kids and other young adults dressed like background performers.

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How I Met Your Mother: A Legen-Wait 9 Years For It-Dary Ending

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April 1, 2014
Pop Culture, Television
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Last Forever: Part One

Few things have been a part of my life for nine years. Those formative years of high school only lasted four years, and college was only four more after that. Only a handful of my friendships have reached the decade mark, and after family, few things have been a part of my life as long as the silly sitcom that ended Monday night. But with the airing of its final episode, How I Met Your Mother wrapped, bringing an end my nearly decade-long romance with a television show.

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Oscar Picks from a Guy Who Didn’t Watch Any Oscar Movies

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February 28, 2014
Movies
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I exist in a perpetual state of catch-up when it comes to movies. I rarely see them in theaters and while friends are raving about today’s must see films, I’m still working through my queue of flicks from yesteryear.

You can trace this phenomenon back to my childhood, when I was convinced by friends to sit through an endless stream of raunchy comedies marketed for immature teens that recycled the same jokes about genitalia over and over again. After blowing through my weekly allowance on movies that left your feeling numb for all the wrong reasons, I resolved to no longer pay for bad movies. I vowed to only pay to see Hollywood’s very best on the silver screen and wait for the remainder to make their way to the HBO/Netflix circuit. So far, it’s been working. Here is a sample of movies I’ve seen in the past few years: Django Unchained (I’m a Quentin Tarantino fanboy), Inception (I’m a Christopher Nolan fanboy and didn’t want the ending spoiled), Hot Tub Time Machine (Hey, I never said I was perfect). It’s much like I stowed away in a bomb shelter from the movie-verse for a year, and since emerging I’ve been a year behind everyone else.

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And The Oscar Goes To…

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February 28, 2014
Movies, Pop Culture
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Finally, The Heroic Predictions of the 2014 Academy Awards

Well, we’ve just about made it. That Oscar talk that started back in August, when Lee Daniels made his Forrest Gump opus about a White House butler, and will finally conclude Sunday night. And Lee Daniels’ The Butler won’t even be part of the conversation. Instead, we’ll celebrate the movies it seems like we’ve been arguing about forever, or at least since last October. Read More

When Everyone Else is Off the Wall

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February 25, 2014
Movies, Pop Culture, Television
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Courtesy of IndieWire

Onscreen, Harold Ramis was best known as Dr. Egon Spengler, the Ghostbuster with all the animation of a brick wall. While the movie was filled with the most frightening ghouls on the New York side of the Hudson, Spengler barely raised an octave. This was left to Dan Aykyord, Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson. The character of Spengler, in many ways, defines Harold Ramis’ work. It was always surrounded by raucous and boisterous personalities but the protagonists were never quite one themselves.

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The Monuments Men: A Monumental Misfire

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February 13, 2014
America, Movies, Politics, Pop Culture
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George Clooney’s Lecturing, Sanitized Vision of WWII…and Art

Everyone looks good in The Monuments Men. I think that’s part of the perk and charm of being in a George Clooney movie. He’ll crop your crew cut just right, perfectly light your skin’s aging complexion. He’ll make you feel chummy and invincible on set. That would all be fine if his latest directorial effort weren’t a World War II film. Instead of peril and suspense, you get silly vignettes of middle-aged veterans motoring along to their own internal River Kwai March. There’s a dissonance between the movie Clooney has made and the one we expect to see. Even the bullet wounds shed little blood. Read More

On Death, Vulnerability And Its Limits

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February 3, 2014
Pop Culture
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PSH

On Sunday morning, or really Sunday afternoon, I awoke in a haze, courtesy of a red wine-fueled excursion to Chinatown. The night had turned to morning, and following an ill-begotten stop at White Castle, it had deposited me back in my Bronx apartment sometime after 4:30 a.m. I knew I would wake up hating my decision-making, or lack thereof, and sure enough, the most depressing moment of my recent existence came when I had to stare at myself in the mirror the following afternoon, barely able to keep my head up long enough without my illness manifesting itself in a particularly vile and violent fashion.

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The Grammys Stay True to Form

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January 27, 2014
Music, Pop Culture
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Courtesy of Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images

“Who gives a fuck about a goddamn Grammy?”

This was shouted by Public Enemy in 1988 on the track “Terminator X to the Edge of Panic.” Flash forward to 2014, and it turns out that a lot of people still care about the Grammys. Yet, the event in our world of numerous social media streams has become fodder for snark and reaction in 140 characters or less. The Grammys is the Sharknado of awards shows for some, but for others, it’s an actual indicator of the direction of popular music.

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The 11 Best Quotes From Noel Gallagher’s Oasis DVD Music Video Commentary

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January 24, 2014
Music, Pop Culture, Rock
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At the risk of sounding like a BuzzFeed article, here is a video from the internet, and I’m going to give you a list of things related to it which, I hope, will make you want to watch the video so that you can nod along with me.

Of all the byproducts of mid-90s Anglophilia, including the Spice Girls, Trainspotting and the worldwide coverage of Princess Diana’s death, perhaps the most notoriously raucous entity to emerge was the rock band Oasis. You remember, they of “Wonderwall,” the anthem of every college freshmen stairwell guitar player and 90s-themed parties? The Gallagher brothers fought relentlessly, against Blur, against the media and, most notably, against each other, eventually culminating in a breakup just prior to a 2009 concert in Paris.

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But I Was There: The Avett Brothers New Year’s Eve 2013

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January 4, 2014
Folk, Music, Pop Culture
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Courtesy of myself

Courtesy of myself

Each turn of the calendar at New Year’s brings tradition and hope. For the night itself, for the many opportunities which lie before us and for a carrying on of the memories we created in the previous twelve months. Amid the repeated choruses of “Auld Lang Syne” and Ryan Seacrest’s face invading your television live from Times Square, it can sometimes seem rote to imply that a new year means a fresh start with entirely different ideas to the ones in which we’ve become entrenched. Sometimes, however, retreating to what we know best, a place of comfort, allows us to freely move to a new stage of our lives and get better at whatever it is we’re striving to become, with the people most important to us there for support. Sometimes a combination of the two is the best way.

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