Hiya doin'.
So my sister made me listen to that "Hiya Doin'" song-thing when it came on the radio today. I hadn't heard it before, and it's pretty funny, but it's pretty much designed to get you to automatically add "Hiya doin'" to the end of anything you say after you hear it. All night I've been thinking "I want some more apple juicehiyadoin'," and "I'm almost done cleaning my room. Hiya doin', room."
I'm also inundated with reading material. This weekend I have: my old copy of The Week (new copy should arrive tomorrow, hiya doin'), the Spin with Franz Ferdinand on the cover, the new Magnet, Powers (#5, I think), and the chicklit book that someone in my office is letting me borrow. I'm embarrassed to say the title of the book, but I find it pretty entertaining because it's about how entry-level publishing sucks, and I can feel good that my job isn't at a fashion magazine (yes, it's that chicklit book). So what should I read first? The Week has the shortest time between issues, but it's the driest. Opposite for Magnet, since I think it only comes out four times a year, but is the best magazine. The only thing I have finished already is Powers. Man, am I pleased with it. It felt like he used four issues worth of material in this one. I feel like if it had been another issue, the whole thing would have been (spoiler alert) Walker looking for Deena and finding that video store boy instead. See last issue for evidence. This one had more going on, and I hope he keeps it up.
Also pleasing was Degrassi. Jesse and I are a week behind, so we watched the one with Marco running for president. I'd say between Liberty acting like a "rabid wolverine" (awesome) and Emma turning into a total bitch (super-awesome), it went about 87% of the way there. Oh, and it was Marco's fifth coming out episode. But there is still room for more, since he didn't come out to his dad (as Rob calls him, his Super Mario father) yet. That's a spicy meatball still uncooked.
For movies this weekend, there was Team America. Mehhhhhh! I remember thinking when the South Park movie came out that it would just be the SP kids cursing all over the place, just because they could. I was happy to find out that they made cursing the point of the movie, thus giving a reason for it, and took the time to actually have a point and satirize something. Team America reverses all that and goes back to cursing for the sake of cursing. It doesn't offend me, but that, in and of itself, isn't funny. I like how pitchfork said it in their review of The Fragile: "Ooh, wow, did he just say 'fuck?' Trent, Holden Caulfield rubbed that out 50 years ago." (And yet, The Fragile gets a two and Travistan gets a zero. But I digress.) I agree with Ebert that the tone of the movie is really obnoxious. In an effort to be stickin' it to both sides, they pretty much render the whole thing meaningless. It's all "You stupid celebrity/politician/other movie. You had and voiced an opinion. How dare you. Look at us! We have no opinions! And somehow that makes us better than you. Direction-less sarcasm is better than serious thought any day." Still, it was fun to watch a movie made entirely with puppets. And puppets blowing up slash smashing things was good for a laugh or two. I think it's a good movie for cable.
There was also Friday Night Lights, which turned out to be much better than I thought, and I'm no sports fan. Football more than other sports lends itself to movies, though, because you can recap two or three plays and get the gist of the whole game. Unlike something like soccer or hockey, which are so low-scoring that the game montages are just a bunch of back and forth until it's time for the final, dramatic one-on-one penalty shot. So even though I don't really like watching sports, this movie was really involving. Billy Bob Thornton was really good, but the performance is a bit overrated since he isn't really in the movie very much, except for a few pep talks. The kids in it also did really good jobs, only one had an "I don't want your life"-style melodramatic role, and the rest seemed really believable.
The last movie I saw was Shark Tale. You could tell that they put all their best efforts into few things: casting celebrity voices, the way the characters looked/moved, and puns involving fish. And those things were done really well. Most of the cast did, in fact, have celebrity voices. Why this is a priority, I don't know. Why spend all the money for two seconds of Angelina Jolie when you don't even see her? Martin Scorsese was really good, though, but he talks like a cartoon character naturally. He should be in more movies. The characters also looked like the celebrities, and even moved like them. I was impressed to see a fish do a Will Smith-style dance, I'll be honest. And I liked that everything was colorful and cartoony. Sometimes computer-animated movies try their best to look super-realistic, and what's the point of that? If you want it to look like reality, make a live action movie. And finally, yes, the movie was chock-full of fish puns (e.g. "let me check my shellphone"). Hilarious. Suspiciously absent from the movie in favor of fish puns and celebrity voices are: snappy dialogue, an efficient story, actual jokes. You know, the things that keep a movie from being boring (although it was not as boring as Ice Age).
Also this weekend I took Jesse out driving! He picks up on things like parallel parking and 3-point turns quickly. He just needs to practice them now. :) We also cooked dinner for ourselves and my sister on Saturday, and it was the first time I've had real food in forever. I need to get better habits about these sorts of things.
I also caught some of the end of "The Best of Jimmy Fallon" on SNL, and I must say it made me sad. Just from the last half hour or so, I could see the rise, peak, and decline of his ability to bring the funny*. Even though in the beginning his schtick was pretty much just Adam Sandler jokes and song parodies, they were a lot funnier than his later "characters," which all have the same voice (really nasal, like his Pat O'Brien). Also, later sketches have him doing "impressions" that involve him saying what the joke was ("Hi, I'm Pat O'Brien and I sound like I have pencils in my nose," or "I'm Larry King and I wear big glasses.") which pretty much defeats the purpose of doing an impression. He might as well just read off a list of celebrities and their quirks. And he always giggled throughout the show, but it definitely gets worse towards the end. But watching the show was frustrating because in the beginning he actually was really funny, and he did good impressions of people that actually involved copying their mannerisms and voice. I hope Will Forte looks at him as a cautionary tale. Oh, and I liked seeing all the Weekend Update jokes together, because it's fun to watch how his hair has changed through out the seasons.
*I'm just saying this because Jesse hates it when people call it "the funny." Hiya doin' Jesse.
I'm also inundated with reading material. This weekend I have: my old copy of The Week (new copy should arrive tomorrow, hiya doin'), the Spin with Franz Ferdinand on the cover, the new Magnet, Powers (#5, I think), and the chicklit book that someone in my office is letting me borrow. I'm embarrassed to say the title of the book, but I find it pretty entertaining because it's about how entry-level publishing sucks, and I can feel good that my job isn't at a fashion magazine (yes, it's that chicklit book). So what should I read first? The Week has the shortest time between issues, but it's the driest. Opposite for Magnet, since I think it only comes out four times a year, but is the best magazine. The only thing I have finished already is Powers. Man, am I pleased with it. It felt like he used four issues worth of material in this one. I feel like if it had been another issue, the whole thing would have been (spoiler alert) Walker looking for Deena and finding that video store boy instead. See last issue for evidence. This one had more going on, and I hope he keeps it up.
Also pleasing was Degrassi. Jesse and I are a week behind, so we watched the one with Marco running for president. I'd say between Liberty acting like a "rabid wolverine" (awesome) and Emma turning into a total bitch (super-awesome), it went about 87% of the way there. Oh, and it was Marco's fifth coming out episode. But there is still room for more, since he didn't come out to his dad (as Rob calls him, his Super Mario father) yet. That's a spicy meatball still uncooked.
For movies this weekend, there was Team America. Mehhhhhh! I remember thinking when the South Park movie came out that it would just be the SP kids cursing all over the place, just because they could. I was happy to find out that they made cursing the point of the movie, thus giving a reason for it, and took the time to actually have a point and satirize something. Team America reverses all that and goes back to cursing for the sake of cursing. It doesn't offend me, but that, in and of itself, isn't funny. I like how pitchfork said it in their review of The Fragile: "Ooh, wow, did he just say 'fuck?' Trent, Holden Caulfield rubbed that out 50 years ago." (And yet, The Fragile gets a two and Travistan gets a zero. But I digress.) I agree with Ebert that the tone of the movie is really obnoxious. In an effort to be stickin' it to both sides, they pretty much render the whole thing meaningless. It's all "You stupid celebrity/politician/other movie. You had and voiced an opinion. How dare you. Look at us! We have no opinions! And somehow that makes us better than you. Direction-less sarcasm is better than serious thought any day." Still, it was fun to watch a movie made entirely with puppets. And puppets blowing up slash smashing things was good for a laugh or two. I think it's a good movie for cable.
There was also Friday Night Lights, which turned out to be much better than I thought, and I'm no sports fan. Football more than other sports lends itself to movies, though, because you can recap two or three plays and get the gist of the whole game. Unlike something like soccer or hockey, which are so low-scoring that the game montages are just a bunch of back and forth until it's time for the final, dramatic one-on-one penalty shot. So even though I don't really like watching sports, this movie was really involving. Billy Bob Thornton was really good, but the performance is a bit overrated since he isn't really in the movie very much, except for a few pep talks. The kids in it also did really good jobs, only one had an "I don't want your life"-style melodramatic role, and the rest seemed really believable.
The last movie I saw was Shark Tale. You could tell that they put all their best efforts into few things: casting celebrity voices, the way the characters looked/moved, and puns involving fish. And those things were done really well. Most of the cast did, in fact, have celebrity voices. Why this is a priority, I don't know. Why spend all the money for two seconds of Angelina Jolie when you don't even see her? Martin Scorsese was really good, though, but he talks like a cartoon character naturally. He should be in more movies. The characters also looked like the celebrities, and even moved like them. I was impressed to see a fish do a Will Smith-style dance, I'll be honest. And I liked that everything was colorful and cartoony. Sometimes computer-animated movies try their best to look super-realistic, and what's the point of that? If you want it to look like reality, make a live action movie. And finally, yes, the movie was chock-full of fish puns (e.g. "let me check my shellphone"). Hilarious. Suspiciously absent from the movie in favor of fish puns and celebrity voices are: snappy dialogue, an efficient story, actual jokes. You know, the things that keep a movie from being boring (although it was not as boring as Ice Age).
Also this weekend I took Jesse out driving! He picks up on things like parallel parking and 3-point turns quickly. He just needs to practice them now. :) We also cooked dinner for ourselves and my sister on Saturday, and it was the first time I've had real food in forever. I need to get better habits about these sorts of things.
I also caught some of the end of "The Best of Jimmy Fallon" on SNL, and I must say it made me sad. Just from the last half hour or so, I could see the rise, peak, and decline of his ability to bring the funny*. Even though in the beginning his schtick was pretty much just Adam Sandler jokes and song parodies, they were a lot funnier than his later "characters," which all have the same voice (really nasal, like his Pat O'Brien). Also, later sketches have him doing "impressions" that involve him saying what the joke was ("Hi, I'm Pat O'Brien and I sound like I have pencils in my nose," or "I'm Larry King and I wear big glasses.") which pretty much defeats the purpose of doing an impression. He might as well just read off a list of celebrities and their quirks. And he always giggled throughout the show, but it definitely gets worse towards the end. But watching the show was frustrating because in the beginning he actually was really funny, and he did good impressions of people that actually involved copying their mannerisms and voice. I hope Will Forte looks at him as a cautionary tale. Oh, and I liked seeing all the Weekend Update jokes together, because it's fun to watch how his hair has changed through out the seasons.
*I'm just saying this because Jesse hates it when people call it "the funny." Hiya doin' Jesse.