Comments on: Open Thread for January 1, 2010

By: Sillyweasel

Sillyweasel — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 05:44:46 +0000

@Gab Oh yeeah, I should relisten to Naveed I’m getting songs mixed up. Bad weasel. As for I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing, I cannot remember ever liking that song, I’d switch the channel every single time that video came on. I began to despise that song when it became so overplayed I literally heard it more than any other song in existence, ever. I can think of worse songs, I can think of worse bands and videos, but I can’t think of a single one of those that was so consistently SHOVED DOWN MY EARS, EYES AND SOUL OVER AND OVER AND OVER. It’s like that song raped me and there was nothing you could do about it. It WAS EVERYWHERE. I’ll stop abusing caps lock now.
But yeah, I think saturation rape is the only way I can describe why I hate that song so much.

By: stokes

stokes — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 05:27:15 +0000

Going out on a limb here, I’m going to say that the movie Paprika had an original plot. Which is kind of a weird thing to say, because Paprika is one of the most self-consciously allusive movies I’ve ever experienced (and is in any case based on a novel I haven’t read). But if you use the old theory that stories are either man vs. man, or man vs. nature, or man vs. society, and so on, Paprika strikes me as the first story that is fundamentally about man vs. internet.

By: Gab

Gab — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 04:17:09 +0000

@Sillyweasel: Fanboy and ChumChum bothers me, but for really overthinkingit-type reasons. The relationship between the two is disgusting, dehumanizing of BOTH characters. And Foster’s WAS an awesome show, I don’t know why it didn’t do better/last longer.

The song from the _Armageddon_ soundtrack was “Starseed.” I wonder, though, why does everybody hate on “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” so much? Is it *really* all that bad? Was it ever meant to be Good in the first place? Is dissing it sort of like how hating on Micheal Bay is cool now?

By: mlawski

mlawski — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 03:04:32 +0000

@Sean Fracture: Funny, I felt like a baby trying to walk when I was writing those posts. Seriously, though, I cannot wait until Lost comes back. What have you done to me, Lindelof and Cuse?!

By: Genevieve

Genevieve — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:31:52 +0000

@AsWicked: the idea of the powerful object corrupting indiscriminately is seen with another ring about a century earlier, in Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen… which of course drew from myriad ancient Norse and Germanic myths.

I think the more cogent point regarding Tolkien is that, whether or not he was original in plot or presentation, the fact remains that most of the authors who came after him were not influenced by his *sources,* but by HIM. Much of his inspiration would’ve remained obscure were it not for his success, and his successors model after him far more consciously than accidentally. He was a benchmark. It’s much like how, when speaking of a term or phrase being coined, it’s far more relevant to talk about the person who brought it into the vernacular than the person who literally came up with it, or literally spoke it first. People *really are* ripping off Tolkien, no matter who he ripped off.

By: SeanFracture

SeanFracture — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 09:36:29 +0000

I can’t think of pop culture in 2010 without Lost – it’s driving me half-mad with how awesome it is going to be. Mlawski, I cannot wait to start watching alongside your OTI piece, which was definitely my favourite (re)watch article, because watching someone experience Lost for the first time always feels to me like watching a baby learn to walk; feelings of joy, amazement and pride.

I love Lost by the way. It’s a (the!) sickness.

By: Sillyweasel

Sillyweasel — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 06:41:16 +0000

@Gab Yeah the moment that baby entered the storyline the entire show dynamic went out the window. Cartoonnetwork makes me very, very sad with it’s shows that ARE NOT FRIGGIN’ CARTOONS, and the fact they’re apparently not renewing Chowder or The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, as well as the death of Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends which was just such a excellent show.
Also, I can’t help but feel a little weirdly bad for Andrew W.K. I mean, I really don’t know how to feel about what he’s doing on CN,… I still can’t even listen to I Get Wet without wanting to drink myself into a monumentally fuzzed evening, but I just feel massively confused when he shows up on children’s TV.

Supersatellite is what was on that soundtrack right? I hate that movie so it’s hard to remember. I still have homicidal rage twitches when I’m for some reason forced to listen to I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing, I can’t even think of a song I hate more passionately than that song.

Back to Nick, I’m not hating Fanboy and Chum-Chum, and Making Feinds is cute,… but neither inspires me to run around with them on my chest in t-shirt form, which for me is a higher form of praise than ratings or dvd sales. I advertise stuff I like when I leave the house, for free even.

By: Gab

Gab — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 06:21:00 +0000

@Valatan: Well, I can’t quote directly, but the general vibe I got from articles and interviews was he wanted the film EXPERIENCE to be different, but that he never specified storytelling. And maybe I’m cynical, but I find it hard to believe he cared that much about story if he worked on it for ten frakkin’ years and gave us… that.

@AsWicked: If you could write a piece about Marxism in LotR, I’d totally grant you at least one whole internet. Not because I don’t think it can be done, but because it would be made of so much awesome.

By: AsWicked

AsWicked — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 04:41:48 +0000

It’s 2010! That means I can quit boycotting references to the 2000-2009 decade (aughties? naughties? all dumb) by pretending that Darcy and Iha are still a part of a hit-producing Smashing Pumpkins. Or I could use “contemporary” instead of “90s.” Last week, I still partied like it was 1999, so maybe it’s a personal thing. My apologies to any readers who were (as) confused (as I am) about what decade it currently is.

By: AsWicked

AsWicked — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 04:06:19 +0000

@Belinkie, Gab

I think the novel point of Tolkien’s plot was the idea that there is some artifact of extreme power that the good guys have to destroy in order to save the day. The most obvious (to me) forerunner of the idea is the Ring of Gyges in Glaucon, but even then the magic invisibility ring is only a sort of philosophical Macguffin to drive the commentary on the temptation of power. Isn’t the idea that something is so powerful as to corrupt indiscriminately kind of Marxist? What’s the mythological corollary to the One Ring? Those questions, my friends, are what is known as a non-sequiter. Or lazy writing.

I mostly enjoyed 500 Days of Summer for the somewhat seamless combination of a 60s aesthetic with 90s sensibilities. It’s like what Garden State would have looked like if shot in the days of Camelot (the, uh, Kennedy one). With cell phones.