Thursday, September 17, 2009

Best of the Bads

Today while on break with Kelli, I found the newest addition to my playing card collection: Disney Villain Cards. This led me to start thinking about who would be my favorite Disney villain of all-time.

But first, let's eliminate some obvious also-rans:

1. Prince John (Robin Hood): Not entirely fair to the Prince, since Robin Hood is more about the team of good guys v the team of bad guys. However, I think Rule 1 of villains should be that they are a fair match for the hero, and since Prince John's defining characteristics are greed and incompetence, I just don't think he measures up. Worse, Prince John gets upstaged by his henchmen, Sir Hiss and the Sheriff of Nottingham, who is so impressive of a henchman that he gets his own henchmen.

2. MAN (Bambi): MAN is scary and destructive enough, and certainly causes enough evil, what with the burning down the forest and killing Bambi's mom and all. However, MAN is portrayed in the movie by a 3-note motif, and I think I'm looking for something a little more corporeal. Oddly enough, MAN didn't make the playing cards. I guess "dun dunnn DUNNNN ::cymbal crash::" was a little too hard to illustrate.

3. The Queen/Witch (Snow White): Probably the most evil of the evil villains, so evil in fact that she has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I feel like the audience should kind of like the villain and sort of hope he prevails at some point. The Evil Queen hires an assassin to cut out Snow White's heart and bring it back in a golden box. It's just hard to get behind that sort of monster.


So, that leave me with this top five:

5. Cruella De Vil:

Pros: Has a catchy ditty written about her. Friends with the human protagonists. Has hilarious henchemn. Drives a cool car and smokes cigarettes with a holder. Dedicated.

Cons: Wants to kill puppies. You can never cheer for people who want to kill puppies, unless you are an Eagles fan.

4. Jafar:

Pros: Ridiculously powerful. High standing as Vizier, lots of wealth, magic powers, etc etc, making him perfect foil for penniless Aladdin. Friends with Gilbert Gottfried. Gets to say the awesome line, "There is a cave, boy; a cave of WONDERS!" The one villain to survive the movie.

Cons: Not particularly charismatic. No music number. Also, how did he lose? Really. He was already basically running the kingdom, because Lord knows that bumbling Sultan wasn't doing it. I mean, really, he can hypnotize people. Why didn't he just hypnotize Jasmine into marrying him? Or hypnotize whatever dolt she would eventually be forced to marry? Seems there were easier solutions to his problem than seeking out the cave of wonders.


3. Ursula the Sea Witch:

Pros: Runs a legitimate business that takes advantage of saps. Intelligent. Charming to the point of unctuousness. Also contains one of the creepier henchmen, Flotsam and Jetsam.

Cons: Do we ever know what she does with the poor unfortunate souls once she turns them into creepy green plant things? I'm a little bit confused by her tactics.

(Didn't know whether to include Pixar movies or not. If I would have, 3rd place would've been occupied by Syndrome from The Incredibles)

2. Scar:

Pros: Sarcastic, rude, funny, willing to break the rules. Would've been the best uncle ever if it weren't for the whole line-of-succession-based assassination plot.

Cons: Hopelessly overmatched and outnumbered once Simba returns. Plus, he's not...

1. Gaston:

Turns out this was an easy choice, because I decided that Gaston was pretty much right all the way through. Look at the facts:

A. Gaston is successful at everything. He is the best hunter, best fighter, best at everything. He's going to have an excellent life ahead of him. People don't usually get to be liked by EVERYONE by being a jerk. Just sayin.

B. Gaston could've had any woman in town, but he's a one woman man. Sure, he may be a bit superficial, but then, Belle is the heroine for a reason: she really IS the best girl in the village. Gaston merely recognizes this, and, being the best himself, he knows he deserves the best. Even Maurice recognizes this.

C. Belle chooses the Beast over him. I think it's important to remember that the Beast was turned into a Beast because he was the biggest asshole on the face of the planet. And let's not pretend like the Beast was all nice when they met either. She was willing to give the Beast a chance despite the whole imprisoning her forever, but wouldn't give Gaston a chance because he's a bit superficial and not interested in literature? Perhaps she's not so good at looking past the surface herself. In additon, the nice sweet gesture that made her see the good in him? He didn't let her get eaten by wolves. I wouldn't let my least favorite person on the planet get eaten by wolves if I could prevent it. It doesn't exactly take a big dose of empathy for one to stop wolf-maulings.

D. His one "malicious" act is trying to get Maurice committed. As a mental health professional, I'm thinking that if someone were building insane contraptions in their basement that has a tendency to blow up their house from time to time, and even when they work, still involve rickety parts swinging sharp axes at perilous speeds and flipping logs in random directions, they qualify as a danger to themselves and others. So he greased a few palms to get his point across. He at least isn't attempting to murder anyone.

E. As for trying to kill the Beast, I think the larger point that the Beast kidnapped two citizens of the town shouldn't be overlooked. Yes, he let her go, but only when he saw that her father was dying, and the Beast's behavior at best can be called "erratic." Gaston may have gone a bit overboard, but his basic stance, that the Beast could be considered a threat to the town, was valid.

F. And then there's this:



A song and dance number. In 6/8 time. Gaston is the best and the rest are the drips.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

One Song I Heard On the Radio and One Song I Heard on the Radio on a Videogame

Compare and contrast two songs with highly catchy music and lyrics of varying degrees of quality:

"Umbrella," Rihanna:

This song has the dumbest, worst conceived lyrics of any song, maybe ever. They aren't even Jim Steinman-esque Awesomely Bad. They are just terrible, and here is why: Every songwriter and lyricist has to resort to the occasional cliche, just like every songwriter eventually cribs from the Beatles. We understand this. We forgive it.

What we do not forgive is when you have insipid cliched lyric after insipid cliched lyric and don't even bother to make sure they rhyme. Or in some cases have anything to do with each other. Observe the amazing chorus of this masterpiece:

When the sun shines we'll shine together
Told you I'll be here forever
Said I'll always be your friend
Took an oath, I'ma stick it out to the end

Now that it's raining more than ever
Know that we'll still have each other
You can stand under my umbrella
You can stand under my umbrella.


I suppose technically "Forever" and "Ever" rhyme. And they did manage to get that highly imaginative "friend/end" combo in there, I'm assuming by accident. But ever/other/umbrella... that's just not even close. The whole thing is compounded by the fact that "umbrella" isn't exactly an easy word to sing, and therefore Rihanna has to add an extra syllable to it just to get it to fit. My favorite part, outside of the use of the word "I'ma", is that they flat out admit they've got nothing and just repeat the last line at the end.

The wonderful thing is it took 4 people to write this work of art. Good work, all.

"One Step Forward," Desert Rose Band:

You know that story about how Paul Simon wrote "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" to teach his kid how to rhyme? I'm thinking Desert Rose Band used this song to teach their kids opposites, because I'll be damned if they don't include every set of antonyms in the Songwriting For Dummies handbook. I would like to make fun of it, but I can't, because they fit them all in such perfect rhythm and rhyme over a catchy melody. I mean, you have to respect their dedication to the theme of the song. "We're using opposites, and we will keep using opposites until we have three and a half minutes worth of music." And just to keep us guessing, they alternate the position of the good and the bad one. They even dug deep and pulled out this combo:

You were my fever and my cure
Made me doubt and you made me sure


I mean, if you had me list about 20 opposites off the top of my head, those two sets wouldn't come up, and they fit so easily together.

So, see, Rihanna's gigantic songwriting committee? You can be cliched and not suck. You just have to do it with a bit of panache. That's all.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

And Another Thing!

My Fair Lady wasn't even the best MUSICAL of 1964! How does My Fair Lady beat out Mary Poppins?

Really. Are there any lines in My Fair Lady as awesome as "Feed the birds and what have you got? Fat birds!" I'm also fond of the insane naval commander who lives next door and inexplicably fires his cannon at random things. Plus, Julie Andrews did her own singing. Audrey Hepburn, not so much.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Clean Up

Let's see, where was I?

Oh right.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991): I watched this movie by myself, in the middle of the night, in my giant, cavernous apartment, with no lights on, and boy howdy was it creepy. It deserved every award it got. And then some, probably. I think this movie has no flaws whatsoever, but I still find it inferior to Rain Man. Moving on.

No Country For Old Men (2007): The Coen Brothers weren't shafted! 11 years later, they get their rightful due they were screwed out of when Fargo didn't win. I think I would've liked this one more if I didn't know the Coens made it. I kept waiting for the quirkiness to step in, but just found mountains of unrelenting evil and death. Oh well. I prefer a little comedic relief in my drama, like, for instance, an autistic man who only flies on Quantas. Moving on.

Slumdog Millionaire (2008): Somewhere, somebody must have said, "You know, Andy tries to watch all of the Best Pictures, so let's tailor a movie to his particular tastes and see if we can unseat Rain Man." "Good idea," says his partner, "but what does he like?" "Foreign cultures!" "Flashbacks!" "Organized crime!" "Elegantly intertwining storylines!" "Happy endings!" "Hilarious bits mixed in with serious, heart-rending bits." "Great. Anythin else?" "Game shows!" "Wait, how can we work game shows into this?" Thus, the challenge was laid down, and from this spitballing session came Slumdog Millionaire, complete with game shows, and yes, I did in fact love every second of this movie. If they had remembered "mental illnesses," it might have actually succeeded in unseating Rain Man. Maybe next time, movie producers.

It Happened One Night! (1934): So I was looking on Turner Classic Movies On Demand the other night, and It Happened One Night! was listed. At first I felt it was kind of cliched, but then I realized in 1934 there weren't cliches yet and that pretty much every romantic comedy since has copied its formula, and since I love Frank Capra, I let it go. Pretty enjoyable little flick. In other news, did Clark Gable always look that pissed? A quick Yahoo image search reveals, yeah. Pretty much. Also, one thing I did NOT expect to see was the ending from SpaceBalls sneakily cribbed from this movie, almost line for line. Seriously. And as far as I know, no one else realized that either. Kudos to Mr. Brooks.


Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Quit Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964): HOW IN THE NAME OF ALL THINGS HOLY DID THIS MASTERPIECE LOSE TO MY FAIR FUCKING LADY????? More to come in a following blog post dedicated entirely to why Dr. Strangelove is awesome and My Fair Lady is inawesome, which is a word I just made up. It shall feature lots of capital letters, multiple punctuation marks to end sentences, and possibly some bold print. Along with profanity. When some people think about what they would do if they could go back in time they think of preventing the Holocaust, or changing major mistakes they made in their lives. Me? I want to make Dr. Strangelove win in '64.

In other news, Rain Man is awesome.

So, let's look at the Big Board (don't let the Russian Ambassador in):

2008 Slumdog Millionaire*
2007 No Country For Old Men*
2006 The Departed*
2005 Crash*
2004 Million Dollar Baby*
2003 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2002 Chicago
2001 A Beautiful Mind*
2000 Gladiator
1999 American Beauty
1998 Shakespeare in Love
1997 Titanic

1996 The English Patient
1995 Braveheart
1994 Forrest Gump
1993 Schindler's List
1992 Unforgiven*
1991 Silence of the Lambs
1990 Dances with Wolves

1989 Driving Miss Daisy
1988 Rain Man*
1987 The Last Emperor
1986 Platoon*
1985 Out of Africa
1984 Amadeus
1983 Terms of Endearment
1982 Gandhi
1981 Chariots of Fire
1980 Ordinary People
1979 Kramer Vs. Kramer
1978 The Deer Hunter*
1977 Annie Hall
1976 Rocky
1975 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest*
1974 The Godfather Part II*
1973 The Sting*
1972 The Godfather*

1971 The French Connection
1970 Patton
1969 Midnight Cowboy
1968 Oliver!
1967 In the Heat of the Night*
1966 A Man for All Seasons
1965 The Sound of Music
1964 My Fair Lady

1963 Tom Jones
1962 Lawrence of Arabia*
1961 West Side Story

1960 The Apartment
1959 Ben-Hur
1958 Gigi
1957 The Bridge on the River Kwai*
1956 Around the World in 80 Days
1955 Marty
1954 On the Waterfront
1953 From Here to Eternity
1952 The Greatest Show on Earth
1951 An American in Paris
1950 All About Eve
1949 All the King's Men
1948 Hamlet
1947 Gentleman's Agreement
1946 The Best Years of Our Lives
1945 The Lost Weekend
1944 Going My Way
1943 Casablanca
1942 Mrs. Miniver
1941 How Green Was My Valley
1940 Rebecca
1939 Gone With the Wind
1938 You Can't Take It With You
1937 The Life of Emile Zola
1936 The Great Ziegfeld
1935 Mutiny on the Bounty
1934 It Happened One Night*
1933 Cavalcade
1932 Grand Hotel
1931 Cimarron
1930 All Quiet on the Western Front
1929 The Broadway Melody
1928 Sunrise
1927 Wings

Next up: Annie Hall (1977)

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Announcement

Kelli and I are getting married on Aug. 1. It will be a good time.

Monday, May 11, 2009

When Real Life Makes Me Surly...

...I bitch about unrelated things. With extra ellipses, apparently.

And today, despite the fact that I voted for him twice, I think I'm giving up on President Obama. I have stopped believing in the change. Perhaps I was blinded by the fact that Hillary was trying to court racist republican voters instead of me.

The deficit is still growing so we can throw extra money to investment bankers and encourage people to buy houses, despite the fact that shifty investing and an artificially inflated demand for houses was a major cause for this mess.

We're still kicking gays our of the military for being gay. Go progress.

We're still torturing people.

We're still paying for health care.

But on the plus side, I did get an extra $40 every paycheck. Whoop dee damn do.

Mr. President, Mr. Bush has retired. With the worst approval ratings ever. You do not, and probably should not, follow his example. Just a thought. But thanks for giving me a short break from my real life problems. I appreciate it.

Monday, May 4, 2009

Time to Play Catch-Up

I've got a lot of things to talk about here, so let's get to the bullets:

1. Dick Clark. I watched a rerun of $100,000 Pyramid on GSN the other night, during which Dick Clark took a good 90 seconds to try to figure out how the contestant and celebrity partner whose turn just finished could've gotten the word "Mango." He involved the judges and everything on what would be and would not be allowed to be said as clues. Sure, Dick Clark most assuredly enjoyed hosting the show, but you can tell just by watching it that he really, really wanted to be a celebrity contestant. He thus went through life cursed with seeing the thing he wanted most every day but couldn't get it. Quite sad, really.

2. Peanut butter crackers. You know those peanut butter on cheese crackers sandwiches? The bright orange kind? Who thought of those? How did he do it? Was he sitting around one day, eating a peanut butter sandwich and suddenly think, "You know what would taste good on this? A piece of cheese," at which point snack conventions as we knew them changed forever? Cheese and peanut butter. How? It boggles my feeble little mind.

3. Monopoly. I lost to Kelli. Badly. It was a rout. She was making trades with me out of pity. My mojo is gone. Notice how I bury this halfway down the post. Moving on.

4. Money. I have none. Lots of student loans came due, and so now I have to look at a career change or going to school again. It sorta sucks because I enjoy what I do and I am very good at it. Lucky I also have...

5. Cheap sources of entertainment! Such as 8 year old video game consoles, 6 year old games, board games found at Goodwill for $2, and blogging. Of course blogging. Lately we've even had a few friends to enjoy these things with us, so all in all, I'd say things will be ok.