Yay, Hollywood is political. (The shock of the century, no doubt.)

In an article that was written the day after the SAG Awards were given out and on the heels of the announcement that Golden Globe winner Mickey Rourke has decided to participate in Vince McMahon's sports entertainment spectacle Wrestlemania, pundits and the like think that Mickey Rourke's effort to be a case of life imitating art will cost him an Oscar. Now, there isn't much of an opinion on this to say that this is a legitimate issue. While the NY Mag article says that there's an implicit anti-Wrestlemania bias, they also have not had a major pro wrestling movie that has been solid enough to warrant even caring about such a thing. So basically, no one truly knows the truth in this situation.

However, if the issue of Sean Penn's performance and Mickey Rourke's performance is being decided because the latter actually wants to embrace the thing he portrayed, I see that as a non-issue. Of course, I'm viewing things through the scope of a perfect world where scripted sport is somehow shunned when scripted entertainment is seen as okay. But then again, that's another point for another time.

What is the point is the ridiculous possibility of something that's seen as "lower entertainment" being the cause of another's downfall and not say THE PERFORMANCE. Again, of course, politics is nothing new in Hollywood. Still, you kind of want some release from that perspective and that feeling that hey, maybe the BEST PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR can win for such an achievement. Will that future subjectively ever happen? Well, no. But maybe I'm a dreamer. Maybe I'm just idealizing things. Who knows? Maybe Rourke wins an Oscar, goes to the main event of Wrestlemania, beats that Chris Jericho in a match with the Ram Jam, and grins the biggest grin he can. See kids? Idealized futures are pretty cool.

Random subjects of fun interest.

When you have a boring Monday, you tend to pay attention to the ridiculous things going on around you in the world. And they make you laugh, a lot. Here is a mere sampling of these things.

VH1 reality shows are highly implausible, ridiculous, stupid, kind of funny and hard to not watch.

There was yet another sighting of Real Chance of Love today. For those who don't know, Real Chance of Love is a reality show based around the premise that two guys can give random nicknames to semi-attractive, semi-clothed women and choose who really loves them out of this. Mind you that proving their love involves wrestling, which I guess makes it as improbable as Randy Savage fighting in a match for the honor of the late Miss Elizabeth. And so reality television and fake sport meet in some comparison that isn't bringing up Celebrity Championship Wrestling.

More obscure music mentions!

This week, I'm reviewing Andrew Bird's new record Noble Beast. Since you'll get the idea of that record when you read the piece, I think I'll talk a little about Fever Ray. She is one part of the electronic group The Knife, which I realize that it's kind of hard to get name recognition out of that. Still, she has a pretty decent solo record out that's been released digitally, which is very strange but cool territory. This isn't going to be a favorite for album of the year at year's end or anything, but eh, "If I Had A Heart" is a nice January diversion.

Video for "If I Had A Heart"


Also, not as obscure, but I shall pimp the greatness of the Gaslight Anthem once again with some nice awesome videos.

Videos for "The '59 Sound" and "Old White Lincoln"



These guys have already had a big past two years of going from an unknown band from New Jersey to a band with a serious devoted cult following. It helps that The '59 Sound is a record that's really a great grass roots record. It's just an album that more and more people are finally getting their hands on and enjoying very much and passing on to their friends, which kind of fits the old school aesthetic of the band.

The Collective.

I had more elaborate thoughts on my review of Animal Collective's new record, but eh, I think the review itself pretty well covered it.

So I shall fill some space with this fine link: http://www.myanimalhome.net/

There is the fine, weird, and wonderful video for "My Girls." And it sums up the sound of the album pretty solidly, I'd say.

I shall elaborate on some Super Bowl-based things in the next week, so keep a definite look out for that. Other than that, I'm pretty well spent.

When A Bird Invades the Super Bowl.

I'm relaxing from the music discussion for a bit since the music industry itself is having its "relaxing period" through January. Next week, Animal Collective's new record Merriweather Post Pavilion is coming out in stores, and I plan to go in-depth on that. But for now, I shall be fixated on sports, since my favorite sport, uhm...football, is winding down its season.

I have to admit, the way the season has fallen has left me feeling a bit apathetic. None of the four teams seem worthy as a Super Bowl team to me, which has made me cheer the most for the one team who had the least chance of surviving. That team is the Arizona Cardinals, who have magically wandered into a major chance to make their first Super Bowl in history. Mind you, they have to beat the team that sportswriters have already crowned the NFC Champs, the Philadelphia Eagles. But what's the interest of the Eagles here? Most common fans would say Donovan McNabb, but I don't see why I should be so vested in McNabb. I don't know, being benched for a half doesn't seem like it suddenly turns the path of a quarterback around to him being amazing. Plus, it's a poorly built angle based on one mediocre game that led to a surprise hot streak to end the season. I don't get it.

Meanwhile, Arizona's more fascinating to me. They are statistically and logistically the weakest team out of the twelve teams that made the postseason, as even the San Diego Chargers weren't a totally weak team at 8-8. While they have a solid offense, they have roughly one defensive player that I remember by name -- this being Cardinals cornerback Adrian Wilson. They got beat by 40 points by a team not even in the playoffs (the 11-5 New England Patriots) and sucked for a majority of the season, only getting into the playoffs by virtue of being in the worst division in a major pro sports conference in the NFC West. So by all definitions, they should not be here at all and should get shellacked by the Eagles on Sunday.

Well, let's hope to god they don't. And here's why.

The Cardinals have the real comeback story of the year in Kurt Warner at quarterback. Kurt Warner is currently 37 years old. After becoming an NFL MVP twice, he got cast aside. He was considered too old to be a genuine starter, and was only hired in Arizona in the first place as a lead-in to big deal youngster Matt Leinart. It's weird how things work, because Warner has been the man who has almost exclusively taken the snaps over his run in Arizona, and it's his solid performance that has gotten Arizona to this point. And considering that quarterbacks in their late-30s are becoming more known for torpedoing their franchises, (*cough* the man who wears #4 for the Jets *cough*) Warner's all the more impressive. And he's not even doing anything that radically different than his quarterbacking style from the past few seasons, his team just happens to win slightly more than 50% of their games now, rather than slightly less than 50%.

I have no comment on the AFC title game, because I frankly don't care. Joe Flacco is a horrible name for a quarterback, and he seems like a pedestrian who does okay at quarterback and does his job while putting up mediocre pedestrian numbers. Did I say pedestrian enough? Pedestrian. Anyways, I don't really want to see him quarterbacking a Super Bowl, and I don't want to see the 2005 Joe Flacco -- or Big Ben or whatever -- do it, either. I guess I hate young kids at quarterback. Those ungrateful kids, thinking they can start with great defenses and ride by on that success. Why in my day, we had Troy Aikman...who did the same thing, but he was interesting. I just don't see why them kids would cheer that Flacco kid. Them Cowboys in the Super Bowl was so much simpler...

Thoughts I Thought During the Golden Globes.

- Kate Winslet deserved about two Golden Globes and six Oscars for that one scene they showed from The Reader.
Because wow. I didn't think I'd be amazed by a scene that roughly constitutes to a man getting out of a bath and a woman hugging him. That's good filmmaking. No wait, brilliant filmmaking. Stephen Daldry is my hero.

- Ricky Gervais: one of the few men to ever make the Holocaust funny.
And that's only because he mocked the fact that every other movie this year had to have a friggin' Nazi in it.

- Tracy Morgan makes something with Cate Blanchett funny.
"Deal with it, Cate Blanchett!"

- Tina Fey makes something with DianeFan funny.
"Suck it, DianeFan." Basically 30 Rock made the show amazing. Go Sarah Palin!

- Colin Farrell made me forget in roughly two minutes that this man was in Miami Vice, Alexander, Hart's War, The Recruit, Phone Booth, Daredevil, and American Outlaws. (The last two I had to look up.)
Plus he won for In Bruges. Which I hear is mindblowingly awesome, and probably made up for S.W.A.T. and Pride and Glory at least.

- What group of people thought that basically showing the ending to Slumdog Millionaire was a brilliant idea?
Really, what group? Especially when it winning Best Drama Picture or whatever, more people are by default interested. So you basically give them most of the final frames, and tell them to act surprised. Good work, Golden Globes.

- The last two awards. What greatness.
Mickey Rourke takes home Best Actor, and it's well deserved. Even if Penn's performance is more actorly, Rourke's is pure awesome. And then we got a great Globes moment when Darren Aronofsky gives the finger on live TV. And Mickey Rourke made looking really rubbery look cool (and tragic) in The Wrestler, followed now by looking like Johnny Depp circa 2003. Good man. Bring on Iron Man 2!

Slumdog Millionaire takes home Best Drama Picture and it's well deserved. Although, The Reader is probably more jarring, and Benjamin Button probably deserves its praise, Slumdog is the one that at least gives the most joy with its conclusion. (Which you can sum up by the fact that The Reader is about a Nazi war crime trial and Ben Button is about death or Brad Pitt or both.) Come on, it could be worse. Revolutionary Road could've won. Plus, the producer said the "f" word (even if it was blanked) on live TV. Which was pretty funny.

- Most of the funny people gave no crap, and most of the not funny people were friggin' hilarious.
Seth Rogen wasn't funny, which was stunning. Sacha Baron Cohen was painfully unfunny. And then Mickey Rourke thought that Downey should speak for him, and it was hilarious. Same with Colin Farrell talking about cocaine and getting into an almost literary tirade during his acceptance speech. Same with stoned Renee Zellweger. Okay, that was only funny because, wow, she fell off fast.

So yes, fun show that was cool to watch. The three hours went by pretty quickly, and there was a lot of entertainment to be had. The Oscars could learn to just remove that host formality and just get to the awards for once this year.

The One About Number 15.

Okay, let's get this out of the way. Tim Tebow won a national title. I can't stand Tebow as a person and I don't like the Florida Gators. Let's make this perfectly clear before I piss anyone off.

Now, I see a lot of response saying that the media loves Tim Tebow to death, especially FOX. Let's also remember that FOX televised the BCS title game. Ratings for the games of the Bowl Championship Series have encountered a steep drop this season, likely when people realized that one of them is actually the only one that matters to anyone other than university presidents and people way too fixated with win-loss records. Also, the "fifth" BCS bowl was between Cincinnati and Virginia Tech, one of them (the one not named Cincinnati) going into the game with an 8-4 record.

So, they needed somebody. And again, even though I don't like him, pushing Tebow as the star of the title game was exactly what was necessary for FOX. The hardcore fan probably hates this, but Fox doesn't want to draw in hardcore fans. Drawing in just the hardcore fans always never quite works. So you have to create a hype machine around him, which I find hilarious that people always allow themselves to get mad at rather than realize its intent. This is the same hype machine that made Vampire Weekend successful on the heels of an album with three good songs and made Juno a $150 million grossing movie in 2007 despite it being nowhere near the country's best movie. And Tebow's hype is exactly the element that will make this game huge in the ratings. (And since last year's "exciting" LSU title win drew 14.4 percent of households, this has to be a raise.)

Tebow is cocky, showy, and completely unnecessarily arrogant. (I.E. he was running on plays when the game was in the bag with two minutes to go.) But that's why he's a media darling. He knows the game of football is by nature, entertainment. So he'll go out and make his most ridiculous show of theater on a national stage. Is he as good as Bronko Nagurski? He's not even the best quarterback in the NCAA right now, but he's the most media friendly. He tells his team and himself to shape up after a loss to Ole Miss, even when in hindsight, almost all of their opponents from that point on were mostly mediocre. But this is seen as an act like something you'd see in a movie. Thus, it's entertainment. The hype is not meant to be taken seriously at all, because honestly, Mark May can't tell me anything about college football that I can't figure out with an ESPN Gameplan package.

Sometimes, you have to look at college football with a realization of what it is. If you put too much emotion into any one thing, you almost ignore its point entirely. College football is, for lack of a better term, entertainment. And though the story is unscripted and the scenarios are played out by unscripted actions. College football always has a story and always goes by a media process that is supposed to set up later developments. (I.E. Tebow's famed hooplah when recruited three years ago set the stage for his hype and then over hype tonight.) Because otherwise, we would be watching two teams pushing a ball 100 yards with no care of what goes on, and well, people wouldn't know who a Brett Favre even is. I wouldn't have cared about the Dallas Cowboys in the mid-90s (which their fame inherently was caused by their rags-to-riches success from crap team to amazing team, and their inevitable hype led me to figure out who they were when I was around six).

So yes, Fox is simply doing their job (which is to sell the game to the viewer by showing a "legendary player" do his job), and when hasn't ESPN piled on the hyperbole? These are the same guys that still think that a team losing one regular season football game (or a baseball or basketball game, for that matter) totally matters in the scope of a full season. Sure, a team can struggle, but if they get into the playoffs (like the "struggling" Indianapolis Colts this season), what's the problem? Because they're selling things as important to their viewer, or else they have no audience. It is the same reason that good but overrated movies and music get praised like crazy in the media. Because if they didn't, they'd be out of a job.

The "Greatest" Month in Film.

There's something about the month of January that is eerily fascinating to me. By all means, it's the most boring month of the year, even with the conclusion of college football's bowl season and the NFL playoffs. Nothing really happens in January except returning to school and usually frigid weather. Which is why it still staggers me that movies actually get released in January. I mean, yeah, awards season fare is going to go wide in January, typically, but for the most part, the movies in January are downright terrible. They're the type of fare that's only notable because it will be on TNT at noon on Saturdays in about three years.

And at the same time, January films fascinate me immensely.

Because if a movie comes out in January, it undoubtedly is because it's following some crappy trend that was a few years old, and surprise surprise, the movies end up being pretty horrible. Here is some nice examples:

The Unborn: This is another likely forgettable movie from director David Goyer. David Goyer is famous for basically being really good at writing with famous directors on famous comic book franchises (he co-wrote Batman Begins and has story credit for The Dark Knight). But as a director, he has incredibly poor taste in bad horror. His directing slate has been Blade: Trinity, the forgettable The Invisible, and now another crappy looking movie with a creepy kid. (And one that randomly has Dexter's dad and Vince Masuka in it. Yes, you kind of have to watch Dexter to understand.) And worse yet, the J-horror looking "creepy PG-13" horror film craze is really dead.

Not Easily Broken: This is the second writing effort from the surprisingly entertaining (for an agnostic who dislikes) preacher T.D. Jakes, as in 2004, he wrote the off-color but better than expected Woman Thou Art Loosed. But this is totally sold as Tyler Perry-lite, even down to the slick RnB soundtrack of the ads, so expectations are low.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop: Or, Kevin James is Fat and Wacky: The Movie.

To show how amazingly dull January really is, there are FOUR major horror releases out this month, two "The" generic horror romps (The other is The Uninvited, starring Elizabeth Banks as some weird mix of Rebecca DeMornay in The Hand That Rocks The Cradle and Miri from Zack and Miri.), and two generic resuscitation attempts of properties that weren't very good to begin with (Underworld 3 and My Bloody Valentine 3D).

That said, hope is not lost. Not when Liam Neeson is forced to kill a lot of people to get back his family. Even if Neeson's Taken is basically Death Wish VI (since Death Sentence was basically Death Wish V), Neeson's just too awesome to ignore. People forget until they see the commercial for Taken just how good Liam Neeson is at his job. And Taken could be the most preposterous movie in history, but Neeson will sell the movie like it is cold, hard reality.

So what I'm ultimately saying is that for a film geek that normally laughs at January, Hollywood might surprise me. They might make ONE January release that I remember for once. And that gives me a very warm feeling in a frigid month.

(And no, I didn't bring up Bride Wars because I love Anne Hathaway too much to get my Rachel Getting Married memories soiled by a forgettable rom-com that serves its purpose of giving her a paycheck that's nice.)

I copy good ideas.

So, the Something to Talk About blog on this very site (look to your right), posted their 25 most listened to songs of the year. So I got lazy, and decided to do the exact same thing. Only my iTunes got leveled around June, so I decided to go with the just as great Last.fm, which reminds me that the best song of all time is Kool and the Gang's "Summer Madness". Which they are still right.

Anyways, here's the list, complete with nice explanations as to why I loved such music in 2008. I'd also like to note that I'm not huge on repetition, I tend to get bored with most anything after a few listens. Also, this is overall, not taking into account the year of the music itself, which already explains #1. So that might explain a few of these.

1. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Cheated Hearts - 26
I find that around one month a year, for the past five years or so, I think Karen O is the best rock vocalist of her time. She tends to bring a lot of elements into one package: unabashed sex appeal (in that odd "she looks strange" sort of way), bravado, and a sense of her being in pure control. Though, I think I end up not knowing what I'm talking about, as the best songs from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are when they're their most vulnerable, like "Maps" and "Cheated Hearts".

2. Panda Bear - Take Pills - 23
This is the best anti-drug song Brian Wilson never recorded. Panda Bear IS 60s Brian Wilson, and he more or less said what Wilson probably should have done in his life, which is to not take pills because he didn't need them.

3. White Williams - New Violence - 22
This is really dancey. I don't think White Williams had any gargantuan ideas with "New Violence", except that he wanted to make a truly modern retro dance song. And it worked!

4. Metallica - All Nightmare Long - 21
I think I'm one of exactly sixteen metalheads who didn't get bored with Death Magnetic after early November, but this is probably the most well-built up of the album's monster tracks, and the one that is easily the most interesting, I find.

5. Radiohead - Bodysnatchers - 19
I'm not going to be one of those people who continues to extol the good virtues of In Rainbows, but it's a good record that really helps if you're in the "Radiohead mood." (I.E. If you feel in the mood for slightly dreary, slightly incomprehensible music.)

6. Metallica - The Unforgiven III - 17
This is the second best of the three "Unforgiven" tracks, and the third different definition Metallica gives of what makes someone "unforgiven", which is guess here means that you're going around in circles on a boat.

7. Beck - Chemtrails - 17
I think everyone slept on Modern Guilt, and there was a decent reason for it, as it was a bit too short and a good record that never touched great. Still "Chemtrails" is one of the more intriguing songs Beck's done in the last five years, probably matching up -- but not eclipsing -- "E-Pro" in its awesome simplicity.

8. Panda Bear - Bros - 17
This is 1960s Brian Wilson on an acid trip...well, more of an acid trip, which is funny because Panda Bear seems to really not like drugs.

9. Panda Bear - Comfy In Nautica - 16
This is the opener to Person Pitch, and it really gives you what you're in for on the onset. A lot of noise repeated over and over into something that manages to turn into a well-structured song, and proves that all of these electronic acts trying to pass on just doing sloppy noise and saying it's music should maybe look at Panda Bear's records.

10. Ladytron - I'm Not Scared - 16
I didn't realize the shift into dark gothic electronica until right now. Ladytron's got a little bit of a noise mix with NIN, oddly, and I think anyone that appreciates "Discipline" will notice the massive similarities between NIN and Ladytron's work, especially the one this track comes off of, the album Velocifero.

11. Nine Inch Nails - Discipline - 16
This year, Nine Inch Nails gave away a whole album for free, a 10-track record called The Slip. It subsequently was pretty throwaway for the most part, but "Discipline" was a pretty killer song, and the fact that this song is currently available for free means that you'd be silly to at least not take advantage of it.

12. Caribou - Sandy - 16
Caribou is one of the few acts in music that I perceive as making beautiful music, because they pretty well do. But this doesn't really explain why they're great, or why a Canadian electronic artist is a fine musician. Ah well. You'll just have to figure that out for yourself.

13. Beck - Profanity Prayers - 15
This was also a simple song on Modern Guilt that worked in spades. And any chorus that asks who will answer profanity prayers, which I guess is making fun of religion or Beck being goofy, is a thumbs up for me.

14. !!! - Sweet Life - 15
I listened to this song constantly last year. For some reason, I thought Nic Offer was on to some brilliance when he did a chorus that consists of exactly four letters. Which in fairness, it's still a brilliant idea. And this song totally talks about the vapidity of institutions like high school. Or something. I think I just like that the chorus feels like an explosion of sound.

15. Fujiya & Miyagi - Transparent Things - 15
I couldn't tell you much about why I enjoy this band, either. After all, their best two songs ("Ankle Injuries", "Collarbone") have almost nursery rhyme levels of rhyming. So it must be the guitars. Yeah, that will work as a reason for now.

16. The Bronx - False Alarm - 15
This year was the year that I realized that I secretly love punk rock. After being buried by crappy efforts from Green Day and a lot of other pop-punk acts that take their cues from Green Day (All-American Rejects, Taking Back Sunday, etc.), I managed to get a hold of Against Me's 2007 release New Wave. Despite the fact that it's their "sellout" record, it's exact what a "smart" punk record should be. And then there's The Bronx who, along with Tennessee's Jay Reatard, knows how to make a song that rocks but has pop sensibilities.

17. My Bloody Valentine - Only Shallow - 15
You wanna know why this is one of the greatest rock songs of all time? Pipe organ. And plus, they have cred. They made the label spend nearly a million dollars to record the album this track came from, the early 90s classic Loveless. And then I mention for kicks and jollies that this label, Britain's Creation Records, neared on bankruptcy when this album sold poorly, but were bailed out by this new group called Oasis.

18. Caribou - Desiree - 14
As with the previous Caribou song, this is so well composed, but here there's a wonderful buildup that sort of...well...it explodes midway through the song. And it's gorgeous.

19. TV on the Radio - Crying - 14
TV on the Radio managed to make a happier album with the same bleak subject matter. Or I guess it's bleak subject matter since everyone seems to think that Return to Cookie Mountain was the fear of the "Bush Years" in record form. Anyways, this song adds a lot of funk, as Dear Science as a whole adds a lot more nuances that really make songs better, like the 60s surfer pop chant that surrounds "Halfway Home".

20. White Williams - Violator - 14
Also really dancey. But in a more laid back and cool way. White Williams and his randomness and love of the 1980s is just lovely.

21. Caribou - Sundialing - 13
This runs at a nice click. It's one of the few six-minute songs I heard this year that didn't bore me to tears.

22. TV on the Radio - Dancing Choose - 13
This is again one of the inspired choices of TVOTR. They are amazingly successful at their experiments to the point that I almost forget how much I didn't really care for the second half of Return to Cookie Mountain and most of Desperate Youth... Here, Tunde's acting like Michael Stipe in 1987...which is that he's sort of rapping, but he's really just quickly talking. And it works to a tee.

23. Islands - Creeper - 13
While I think I grew cold on Arm's Way late in the year, this is still easily the best indie pop song related to a murderer in quite some time. (The last one was Sufjan Stevens' mega depressing "John Wayne Gacy, Jr.")

24. The New Pornographers - Use It - 12
Okay, this is my chance. The New Pornographers are the best of the two Canadian indie supergroups. (For those lost, it is them and Broken Social Scene. For those still lost, BSS spawned Feist and Kevin Drew. For those who are still lost, you probably didn't read most of this anyway.) "Use It" is the songwriting creation of Carl Newman, who writes amazing old school pop songs that just happen to be filtered out through about ten different people. Even weirder, I'm not partial to his stuff as A.C. Newman, as it's not like his stuff in New Pornographers.

25. Liars - Plaster Casts of Everything - 12
"Plaster" is easily the best metal song that no one will ever classify as metal, probably because 98% of Liars' fanbase hates metal.

Yes, this wasted way too much of my life.