Pop Culture Blog: Music, Movie and Humor

Leveraging low-hanging synergies outside the vertical fruit box since 1999.

Battle Of The Bad Movies.


in Movies

I stayed home and worked all weekend and I invariably get bored of being in my room at my desk and move the laptop on up to the couch. My roomate also opted for a TV-facing weekend, and we usually toss the remote back and forth to each other all day whenever a movie or program ends. It’s very diplomatic and mature, but yesterday it reached a tipping point that was kind of fun.

I suppose I fired the first salvo when I made her sit through Doctor Detroit. I used to love this movie as a kid, so it has a lot of sentimental value, but at the end of the day – it’s a stinker. Said roomie cringed as she was forced to sit through Aykroyd’s antics, and when I tossed her the remote after the big song and dance number at the end I had a feeling I was in for some retribution. I hate being right all the time.


James Brown wrote this song especially for the movie, and the hooker dance scene is hilarious.

Just my Luck was a breathtakingly stupid flick starring Miss Lindsay Lohan – I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen any of her movies, so I grinned and bared it. For the uninitiated, Lindsay loses and gains luck based on whom she kisses. I did enjoy the scene where she dropped her contact lens in the dookie-laden cat litter box and then put it right back in because it was her last one. She had a black eye for the rest of the movie which was just enjoyably weird.

Suddenly, the remote was back in my control, and I scanned through On Demand until I found another cinematic childhood atrocity, Howard the Duck. This is worth watching for the scene of Lea Thompson on all fours in yellow panties alone. Brandy rounded off the battle with The Family Stone, and then all was quiet on the North End front.

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Out Like Buster Douglas.


in Reminiscent

Spoke to me Mam today about plans for selling G-ma’s house and getting on with our respective lives. So there are no nasty surprises for any of my peeps, real or imagined, I will be among the faithful Boston departed as of May 1st. I’ve been living in the North End for a little over 7 years, and I will always have a soft spot for this neighborhood and this city. But baby, I gots to go.

It’s very bittersweet – not so much the fact that I am leaving Boston and moving to Toronto, but the reasons behind why I feel I have to. That having been said, I am tremendously excited to buy a car, buy my own place, spend time with my family – immediate and extended, and the fact remains that I have a tremendous group of friends up there from my very early high school (pre-1988) and University of Guelph days. It’s not like I’m shipping out to the Falklands.

While we’re sorta on the subject, the timing of Facebook’s very recent explosion into the Canadian market could not be better timed. Everyday I get friend requests from people I haven’t talked to in 10 years. We have a group for the house I lived in at Uni, one for my old dorm Mills Hall and the network keeps growing and growing. It’s all very, very serendipitous.

Before I lose consciousness from masturbating with maple syrup in anticipation, I should point out that my current employer, while allowing me to work remotely in the wilds of the North as much as I need too during this tricky time, also wants me back in Boston a few times a quarter – so I’ll still be seeing everyone in Beantown on the regular. No biggie, for the best.

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Wednesday Wadio: Joy Division’s ‘Decades’.


in Wednesday Wadio

It’s amazing how when you hear an older song out of context, you see it in a completely different light or find a new appreciation for it. For example, a tune you’ve ignored as part of an album you usually listen to in its entirety is featured on its own in a movie or something and you suddenly think – Wow. How did I miss that? And why am I watching Arachnophobia again?

I heard my favorite Joy Division song, Leaders of Men, on random ipodiness while walking around today and was taken back to my family’s house on Nashawtuc Hill where I used to sit on the hardwood floor and listen to it on cassette with enormous headphones covering my head. Because that’s where your ears are, generally. I wanted to feature it on Wadio today, but short of a short live clip there is nothing on YouTube which does it justice. Which is hardly surprising seeing as how it’s a lesser known song from the catalog of a band whose lead singer hung himself over 25 years ago.

I did find a good quality collage-clip of ‘Decades’ and was immediately reminded of an eerie story I read many moons ago, about a New Order recording session which took place a year or so after Ian Curtis cashed in his chips. You see kids, when Curtis died, JD became NO, and guitarist Bernard Sumner took over on lead vocals. After Bernard came out of the booth to twist the knobs on the vocals for one of the earliest New Order tracks, they realized it was unusable – because they could clearly hear someone whistling Decades in the otherwise empty sound booth. Whether that’s true or not… alright, it probably isn’t. But it’s a great yarn befitting a song that is already plenty spooky enough without the ghost story.

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Bobbing For Oscars.


in Movies

Frequently-cited famous over-actors include Nicholson and Robin Williams – but I have never seen a more shameless, award-fishing performance than Sharon Stone’s ridiculous fat suit episode at the end of Alpha Dog. Jeepers Crimminy, and I mean this when I say it: I sincerely hope that was not her idea. The jist is, a bad thing happens to a young kid and the movie is punctuated by a series of interview flashbacks. One of the last of which is Sharon Stone, the formerly sexy bereaved mother, giving her account of hearing about her son’s murder – a year later, in a grief-stricken alcohol and pill induced fat suit.

I see what they were trying to do. The last time I was really sad I’m sure I enjoyed having an actual excuse to drink and eat too much for a week. But Sharon Stone looks like a paler Cletus Klump with a bad blonde Cherry 2000 wig on. I couldn’t find it on YouTube or a still photograph, so just keep an eye out for it if you see the movie. A solid flick if you can stand all the half-naked teenage girls. I mean – a solid flick, and although I hated him in Six Feet Under Ben Foster is remarkable.

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