Meet The Parents (And Cats)

Yesterday I got in on the classic argument of cats vs. dogs and which one is better, smarter, faster stronger, etc. I am a cat person at heart (mainly due to being terrorized by the dalmatian next door for most of my childhood) and I do not understand why people prefer dogs. I mean you have to walk them, you can't ever leave them at home, and they drool all over the place. Most people I come across are ardent supporters of dogs and so it's nice to come across someone who is on my side of this issue.

And who better to have on your side of an argument than Robert De Niro? I don't know about you, but I would never want to disagree with that man. In my personal opinion he shares one of the best pro-feline arguments that I have ever heard in the 2000 comedy "Meet The Parents."

"So you need that assurance do you? You prefer an emotionally shallow animal? You see Greg, when you yell at a dog, his tail will go between his legs and cover his genitals, his ears will go down. A dog is very easy to break, but cats make you work for their affection, they don't sell out the way dogs do."

I cannot agree more with De Niro on this one. Since you have to work for the cat's affection it means that much more when you get it. The bond is stronger and it's something that you can't achieve with an animal that you can hit repeatedly and will keep coming back. The best relationships are those based on mutual respect, which is something a dog will never have, but something a cat needs.

"A Hard Day's Night"

Sorry for the absence of posts everyone! I'm just getting back into the swing of things here at college and it's hard to try and find time to keep up with the blog. Last night I watched The Beatles in "A Hard Day's Night" for my College Writing class and my professor told us to think about whether this movie was still relevant in 2011 or if it had become "dated" over the years. And it's been a while since I've reviewed a movie so below I've included my response to this prompt. Enjoy.

Despite being made in black and white over forty-five years ago, The Beatles shine in “A Hard Day’s Night” and the core of the movie is still understandable and true today. The film has hardly “dated” at all, there is little that we do not understand because we are living in such a different time period. There are several reasons for this. The first reason is the legend of The Beatles has lasted this long and this movie is part of the legend of The Beatles. If you ask people today, a large majority will praise The Beatles as the greatest band of all time. A band is only as good as its music and we still know and listen to The Beatles music all the time today (especially with their full catalogue now available on iTunes). Since this movie is first and foremost about the music of The Beatles and they are performing for most of the movie it is easy for us to understand and enjoy all the scenes of them performing their songs. Second, when The Beatles are not performing they are generally being chased around by their adoring fans, which are mostly comprised of screaming teenage girls. This phenomenon is familiar with us today, for a variety of acts ranging from rock (Coldplay) to rap (Kanye West) to pop (Jonas Brothers). In fact, the Jonas Brothers even stole the idea of being chased down the street by fans for the opening scene of their movie “Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience.” Finally, the goal of the movie when it was released (other than making tons of money) was to foster the idea that The Beatles were just four normal (very talented) guys from Liverpool. They want to have fun, go out at night, avoid work and in the end they are only human. This works just as well today as it did in 1964. We all grow up with the idea that The Beatles are some sort of music gods; even Lennon declared that The Beatles “are bigger than Jesus.” Coupled with his assassination in 1980 Lennon has become this mystical figure that generations after him hardly understand. “A Hard Day’s Night” shows us a little into the personality of Lennon that is never seen anymore. But overall, The Beatles are just regular guys, they crack jokes, they look for the fun in everything and they want to go out and meet girls. In 1964 this was the first time many had seen The Beatles (other than The Ed Sullivan Show) and it was their primary base of knowledge about the band. For people now in 2011 with biographies and YouTube and countless documentaries we know (or think we know) quite a bit about The Beatles. This movie has not dated at all and if anything improves our knowledge and appreciation of The Beatles more than it did for the people watching it in 1964.

Karaoke

This past weekend I went to a karaoke bar over in Chinatown. Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of fun, but it's surprising how few words people actually know to songs (and how fewer still they know when they aren't sober). After particularly bad versions of "Ice Ice Baby" and "Yellow Submarine" a thought struck me. People often talk about their "Go-to" karaoke songs but no one really ever has one. This needs to change. Everyone needs a song that they know all the words to and at least sort of know the melody. The song need not be indicative of your personality, but the song does have to fit you. My song of preference is "When You Were Young" by The Killers. It's not too long and I can easily get in the rock star mode with it, even if my version is terrible. It's serious, but not too serious and enough people know it to make it worth singing.

You should also try and keep in mind songs that work well for a group, last night for instance, "Hey Jude" and "Livin' On A Prayer" were the biggest hits, so it definitely wouldn't hurt to brush up on your classic rock anthems. Finally, we cannot forget the best karaoke song of all time "Don't Stop Believing." For some reason, the place I went did not have it, but there is literally no song better for karaoke than that. It works great either as an opener to get everybody warmed up or as a closer to bring the house down before everyone leaves.

In conclusion, karaoke is fun and bad singing is hilarious in this situation, but what isn't fun is when people just mumble the words on the screen because they don't know them or the tune. So pick your "Go-to" song and just rock out with it.

Comedy Night Done Right

Yesterday NBC pulled out all of the stops for their Thursday night comedy lineup, six shows across three hours. First thoughts, three hours is much too long to be watching television all in a row and NBC needs to realize that having all six of their major comedy programs in a row on the same night is just a bad idea. Anyways, I thought it would be fun to rank the shows from worst-to-best of the night. Here goes:

Dis-honourable mention: Outsourced

I've forced myself to watch this show a couple times so far but I just couldn't do it last night. So it might have been a good episode last night, but after seeing previews that featured a Ku Klux Klan joke about five times through the night I just couldn't do it. My only question is when is NBC going to cancel this awful show?

#5: Perfect Couples

Why? Because NBC wants another "Friends" and as Jack Donaghy put it they want to "make it 1997 again either through science or magic." Overall the show delivered a couple laughs but they were few and far between. The characters are supposed to be cute and we're supposed to sympathize with them, but it's not possible when they're this two-dimensional. There's still time to save this show but it does not look too good for the "Perfect Couples." Oh, and it also wins the award for "Worst House Wrecking Montage Of All Time."

#4: 30 Rock

Don't think of it as 4th place, it's more of a tie with The Office for third, but my biases go to The Office. As far as the episode goes, nothing too memorable and it doesn't help when I have to use Google to understand the best joke of the night. FYI it was when Kenneth asked if being a buffer was anything like a being a fluffer. To keep the integrity of this blog I'll let you look up what a "fluffer" really is on your own time.

#3: The Office

For some reason I just do not like Holly Flax this time around. She was great earlier in the show and for "Company Picnic" but now I'm just not getting it. Michael's Happy and Sad boxes were terrific and I loved the videos he recorded for himself. Unfortunately what kept this episode from being great was Kevin's cringe-worthy vegetable scene. I'm taking this moment to tell NBC something very important: STOP TREATING KEVIN LIKE HE'S RETARDED. IT'S NOT FUNNY. Please, please go back to the way Kevin acted in Seasons 1-3, it is so much better and believable. Although I do have to thank him for the best line of the show: "Not all of us are Michael Freaking Scott."

UPDATE: I want to thank my Dynamic Duo partner Connor Maher for his inspiration of the comment on the new version of Kevin Malone's character.

#2: Community

Most underrated show on TV. There I said it. I love Community and it manages to be consistent and hilarious every week without fail. Joel McHale is so funny and whenever he gets to do his lawyer-type speeches he shines. Also, can NBC replace the fourth hour of the Today show with "Troy And Abed In The Morning"?

#1: Parks and Recreation

The surprising winner for the night, the fall hiatus served the show well as it came back with the freshest material out of all the shows tonight. I forgot in the time off just how lovable all the characters are and two thumbs way up for Rob Lowe. He had me laughing the most out of all of the shows last night and I'm left wondering why NBC waited until January to put these guys back on the air.

So Right

Lately I've been really into the song "So Right" by Dave Matthews Band. There's no way you've ever heard it, and if you have then I'm very impressed. It's just this random album track from 2001's Everyday. In DMB circles, Everyday is second only to 2005's Stand Up for worst DMB album. I've never fully understood this because in my opinion, Everyday has some pretty catchy tunes on it and is a neat direction that Dave takes his songwriting.

The chorus especially on "So Right" has a strong melody and is almost 'poppy'. Maybe that's why people don't generally like it. Another reason is that, at least for the studio recording, the band are fully present and it doesn't capture the live feel of DMB like songs on Crash and Before These Crowded Streets. Then I found a live version of the song recorded at Folsom Field and I don't know about the whole band, but it sure looks like Dave and Stefan are having a pretty good time playing this song and Carter has a big smile on his face by the end. Plus, LeRoi's solo at the end is nothing to scoff at. I think it's arguable that "So Right" is one of DMB's most underrated songs and it's a shame that people don't like it or don't know about it. So, give it a listen and maybe pass it on and this song will gain a little popularity, who knows? Enjoy.

Top Gun and Quentin Tarantino

I was watching Top Gun a few weeks back and it's not a bad movie by any stretch. There are some really quotable lines and it has Tom Cruise before he got all crazy. But it struck me that between the slow motion sex scenes and the small love story between Goose and his wife, there's some pretty homoerotic stuff in this movie, which I found kind of ironic considering Top Gun being known and recognized as a macho, masculine, hunky film. So I hit the internet to see if anyone else had thoughts on the matter.

Turns out people did, there are a bunch of blog posts and articles all about this. But no one has an opinion stronger (or funnier) than Quentin Tarantino. I should probably mention at this point that I am a huge QT fan, just so you know. Anyways, in this random and otherwise forgettable movie Sleep With Me, QT has this small cameo that has nothing to do with the rest of the movie where he goes through Top Gun scene by scene and exposes it for what it really is. Instead of butchering this epic telling, I'll just stop here and so you can see it for yourself (check out the video below). Enjoy.

Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho

I just watched Psycho for the first time and while it is a pretty darn good movie it doesn't really live up to the hype that it's been getting all these years. That's the problem with these classic movies, I go in with these ridiculous expectations and there's no way I can truly enjoy the movie. Whenever there's a 'infamous' scene in the movie (such as the shower scene in this one) it always lets me down and I don't think it's actually all that great. The only exception to this that I've found is the torture scene in Reservoir Dogs. And don't get me wrong, Alfred Hitchcock is legendary, but he's still no Quentin Tarantino.

Anyways, about the movie. It's good. Anthony Perkins is amazing and Alfred Hitchcock is just a terrific director. Hitchcock is a master of suspense and this movie relys on the suspense and the surprises around every corner. And that's another problem with reviewing Psycho, I really can't give away anything or else I'll ruin the movie for you! I'll just end it here so I don't give away anything else, and you can just go watch it whenever you get the chance. Enjoy.