Brian Saves Hollywood

I have not seen one movie that was nominated for Best Picture. This is not atypical since we don’t go out to the theater much and will just Netflix the movie whenever we get around to it. Among the list of nominees, I might see Moneyball or The Help. However, I have no desire to see something like The Artist or Hugo. From what I understand from the synopses, both movies capture “the joy of cinema” or “make you fall in love with movies all over again.”

I’ll pass, thanks. I just don’t have any interest in The Artist. I’m not seeing a silent movie. The 1920s ended. I don’t understand what Hugo is supposed to be and I’m confused by the very fact that Martin Scorsese made a half-animated movie or whatever it is. I’m sure both of these are well done and delightful and whimsical but I’m not always in the mood for delightful whimsy. Sometimes I just want something a little darker and more emotional. I don’t want to see another movie about movies. The idea is done. It’s dead.

These movies are precisely the problem with Hollywood and the Oscars: The fact that they honor movies about movies. It’s like being trapped in a room with someone who can’t stop talking about himself.

At the next Oscars, does anyone really need yet another montage of movie clips from the past 70 years with some presented saying, “Movies have the power to make us blah blah and yadda yadda” and oh God I’m already bored. If you’re watching the Oscars, you probably already enjoy film on some level so what’s the point of preaching to the choir about it? Are there really so many people who don’t care for film as an art form that we need to push the form? Will anyone watch The Artist and say, “Gee, I was dubious about this whole ‘movie’ thing but that was so delightful and whimsical that now I’m a movie fan”? If the previous 90 years of movies haven’t converted you to a film fan, why would one silent movie?

Hollywood fondles its collective worry beads about declining box office and it seems like they push movies like The Artist to get people back. I think I know the real reasons people are disenchanted: Netflix is much cheaper than going to a theater and the stories aren’t that great anymore. If filmmakers would just tell a decent story, maybe more people would show up.

I got it: Movies are magic. So just tell your story, stop talking about yourself and let the magic happen. Show; don’t tell.

What show is the successor to 'The Simpsons'?

A few years ago, I read an interview where the creators of 30 Rock said they wanted to make a live action show that’s as dense as The Simpsons. From what I’ve seen, 30 Rock is dense with allusions but is not on the level of The Simpsons. Another show has taken up that show’s brilliant legacy.

The real successor to The Simpsons is Parks and Recreation. I am a broken record about my fandom for the show and I must sound sometimes like I am a paid plant by NBC to talk up their show. But I just … I love Parks and Rec. I thought the third season was one of the best sustained seasons I’ve ever seen on TV. Episode after episode, the creative force behind the show knocked it out of the park. That season was, for me, close in quality to the glory years seasons of The Simpsons from about 1992 to 1996. (The Simpsons does still have an edge in my mind because it’s as brilliant a thing as you’ll ever see on TV but Parks and Rec is definitely up there.)

In contrast, I find 30 Rock to be closer to Family Guy, a show I do not care for. There are just too many cutaways and pop culture references in each show and a little of that stuff goes a long way for me. I think 30 Rock is horrifically overrated anyway. It can be clever but it seems mostly like, “Let’s see what wacky antics they’re up to this week!” Then the characters do the same damn thing over and over and I have no emotional investment in them. The show seems like all snark and no heart, like Family Guy and snark can be fun but it's not sustainable forever. I just never saw the appeal and a large part of that was that I was sick of having Tina Fey shoved down my throat. She’s OK. “Oh, but you both grew up in the same county! YOU HAVE TO CARE!” I’m all for Philadelphia area pride but knowing someone is from here doesn’t make me like her more. By the same token, I’m not bowled over when I hear Patti LaBelle bray the national anthem at some Philly event. It’s not much of a “get” for the organizers when she lives down the street.

But anyway. More than in terms of quality, Parks and Rec has carried on the flavor and comedic technique of The Simpsons. The writers have built an entire world with its own mythology. Pawnee has all kinds of local businesses, government figures, town characters, pioneer history and unpalatable secrets, just like Springfield. The show even has Eagleville, a parallel to the rival town of Shelbyville.

When it’s at its very best, the humor on The Simpsons derives from the characters, and that’s also true of Parks and Rec. As we get laughs out of the relationship between Homer and Marge, we are amused at the relationship between Leslie Knope and Ron Swanson. Neither show is just a bunch of jokes strung together; they’re both grounded in something real. Somebody wrote that Parks and Recreation has characters who are “weirdoes who care” and that seem also true of The Simpsons.

There are also some touching moments along with comedy on both shows. I still mist up a little at little moments on The Simpsons: When Marge and Homer lose custody and Bart and Lisa make a fake newspaper headline saying “Simpsons kids miss mom and dad” and when Homer hangs up pictures of Maggie at the nuclear power plant with a sign saying “Do it for her.” On Parks and Rec, I’ve been moved by some of the courtship between Leslie and Ben, like when she realized he was perfect for her when he liked the same wildflower mural she did.

Each show also has moments that are not just funny but stupid-funny; things that are totally absurd but make me howl. The Simpsons has “It’s the Curies! We must flee!” and Krusty the Clown singing “Send in the Clowns.” Parks and Rec had a scene during Leslie’s political rally when the entire staff was walking across a skating rink and kept falling repeatedly as the campaign song, Gloria Estefan’s “Get on Your Feet” kept stopping and starting. The scene was just so ridiculous and kept going and going and getting funnier and funnier, and I thought, “This is like when Sideshow Bob kept stepping on rakes.”

Although Community is coming back next month and that makes me happy, it's reportedly replacing Parks and Rec temporarily. Thanks, NBC. Those are my two favorite shows on your network and they're forced to time-share some sort of condo.

Wow. I think way too much about TV.

Michael, Madonna, Whitney, Prince

I used to see the ‘80s as having four major solo artists: Michael Jackson, Madonna, Whitney Houston and Prince. These were the four who had hits consistently throughout the decade. They were icons.

 

What does it say about me that I always gravitated more toward the Madonna-Prince end of the axis? I fell for the nasty ones. If ‘80s music had been a classroom, Whitney and Michael would have been sitting up front and paying attention to the teacher. Madonna and Prince would have been the bad kids, sitting in the back of the room and throwing spitballs. They had a hint of darkness to their music that always appealed to me.

 

This occurred to me last week as I wondered: Why did I never care that much for Whitney Houston’s music? It’s dance pop, which should have been right up my alley, but I never got into it. I think the answer was that her singles just seemed too immaculate. They were so polished that we never saw her sweat. She could belt out a ballad but a lot of them seemed the same to me. I liked Thriller but after that, Michael Jackson’s work also seemed sort of safe and polished, so I didn’t get into Bad or Dangerous.

 

I think of two songs by these artists that hit number 1 back-to-back in 1987: “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” and “Didn’t We Almost Have It All.” They sound kind of beige and safe to me. Technically, they were well done and tasteful but I didn’t feel a lot. With really sweeping ballads that have a lot of crescendos, I kind of shut down sometimes and don’t know why.

 

Contrast this with Prince, who was — and I mean this as a compliment — a nasty freak in the ‘80s. When I heard his ballads like “Purple Rain,” I could feel something that was missing from ballads by Jackson and Houston. There was real blood pumping through its veins. When Prince shrieks his throat raw in “The Beautiful Ones,” I still get the full body chills that I don’t get when I hear the vocals in songs like “I Will Always Love You.” Why does Prince’s song appeal to me more than Whitney’s?

 

For me, the difference in Prince’s material was the sense of musical adventure. If you listen to his ‘80s albums back to back, he was almost moving on to the next idea before listeners could digest the old one. Dirty Mind doesn’t sound anything like Purple Rain and that doesn’t sound anything like Under the Cherry Moon. As much talent as Michael and Whitney had, for awhile, it seemed like they were plugging away at the same formula. Meanwhile, so much of Prince was unorthodox. He was naked on the cover of Lovesexy and all nine of the album’s songs were one track. He recorded triple concept albums and then scrapped them. He took risks.

 

I never thought Madonna got much credit for her sense of musical adventure. The songs are basically pop but there are different shadings to a lot them. “True Blue” is a ‘60s girl group song while “Everybody” is a murky underground club hit and “Into the Groove” is like an exposed nerve of raw sex. The singles had to be safe enough to get airplay but Madonna took some risks within the formula. “Like a Prayer” is a song that uses a prayer as a double entendre for oral sex and features a gospel choir and electric guitar. On paper it’s bizarre but it works. “Live to Tell” was a risky choice for a first single: A six-minute ballad with an unconventional structure for an artist who had never recorded anything so heavy. But it worked. “Justify My Love” is a weird tone poem with a shuffling beat. These were all number 1 hits and showed some adventure and range.

 

I used to contrast “Justify My Love” with the contemporaneous “I’m Your Baby Tonight.” The latter seemed like Whitney Houston’s attempt to be more sexually aggressive but on the single cover, she’s on a motorcycle in a baggy sweater, white sneakers and white socks. Meanwhile, Madonna is on her single cover wearing a leather vest and smoking a cigarette. Madonna was dangerous and sexy and fun. She was the girl who would dance in a slip as crosses burned behind her. What does it say about me that I fell for her?

 

When Madonna and Prince collaborated in 1989, the results were the off-kilter but funky “Love Song.” If Michael and Whitney had collaborated in the ‘80s, I could see the results being a ballad that was smooth and sweeping and critically acclaimed but would not have done much for me.

 

The funny thing is that as much as Michael and Whitney seemed like the good kids musically, in their personal lives, things became sad and sordid, with drugs and all. As much as Madonna and Prince seemed like the bad kids in music, in their personal lives, they pretty much lived cleanly. They were never in rehab or bankrupt or anything. Maybe there’s a lesson there: If you’re going to be a rebel, you’re better off doing it in your art and after you get out of the recording studio, just go home and go to bed. You’ll last much longer.