Empty Bookshelf Reviews

Category: Reviews

  • Other People Stealing Your Ideas Without Ever Having Met You or Knowing that They Stole Something Part 2

    Mini-Review (no exclamation mark)

    Yet one more instance of the Bookshelf® being a step ahead of the mass media.

    Last week, the latest “internet phenomenon movie,” 300 released its first official trailer. Without judging the movie, of which I only know a marginal amount, it looks like someone decided to make a bluescreen movie, but this time, turn up the dynamic range.

    300
    Just imagine how mad he’d be if someone unknowingly stole his idea…Without asking!

    Anyway, take a look at the trailer here, and give it a nice listen. Yep, the music might sound a bit familiar for those of you that remember a semi-but-now-quickly-being-un-disowned movie trailer put together by your favorite group of (not so) local idiots. That’s “Just Like You Imagined” from Nine Inch Nails’ album, The Fragile. These “300” people stole my idea without even having met me or knowing that they stole something.

    *

    They get one star because they’re movie looks pretty darn cool, but they lose four because of the aforementioned idea-stealing, and the fact that they didn’t take advantage of the fact that the song already has the “quiet, loud, quiet” dynamic good for making movie trailers dramatic (or in our case, confusing) and just recycled the beginning of the song at the end. Bad form, Hollywood. Bad form.

    *to be fair, the song was used in a trailer before we used it, but it was a trailer for a Nine Inch Nails concert DVD, so I think it’s safe to say that that doesn’t count. I’d send a link to that video, but it’s buried within the Flash in the “clips and trailers” section of the DVD’s website.

  • The Current Gas Prices

    Lest The Bookshelf® return to its former rant-happy ways, here’s one with some general positivity.

    What with gas prices getting higher than friend of The Bookshelf® and noted ginger ale enthusiast J Calloway at a ginger ale festival, it looks like we’re back to more reasonable numbers on the boards. The $2.399 low price in the good old 19063 is enough for me say, “hey, gas prices aren’t awful anymore.”

    gas
    The last time the Oil Industry Puts 14 Year Old Girls in Charge of Anything.

    Um, there really isn’t much more to it than that. I’m just spreading the positive word. Well, actually, I guess that being that I’m able to remember the days (well, I think it was a couple of months) that gas actually less than $1 when I was 14 or so, but after dealing with it around $3, the current price seems A-ok. Me=Consumer Whore.

    ****

    The Current Gas Prices receive four stars due to the fact that people are quick to complain about how much it costs when the price is high but forget to appreciate the moments when its back to more sane levels.

    unniversary

  • Once Again Being One Up on the Mass Media Or The Critical Reception to Jackass: Number Two

    It’s well known that aside from some misinformed old-cootedness about video games, we hold Roger Ebert in pretty high esteem around these parts. His cancer-surgery-turned-surgical-complications has taken him out of the reviewing game since mid-summer, and though no announcements have been made, I’m guessing he won’t be back until “Oscar season” starts in mid-November. Regardless, I’ve taken issue with very few of his reviews, though his “thing” for Angelina Jolie’s lips awarded both of the Tomb Raider movies three undeserved stars, even looking at those movies in the “brainless action” genre. That tick of his aside (a soft spot for threatening-looking women), the only other time I’ve not taken his side was when he decided the original Jackass wasn’t worth reviewing. Unfortunately, I can’t find the actual article that includes the quote that I think I remember, but it went something like this (notice the single-quotes – journalistic integrity is listed as a category for this review) ‘I am a movie critic. I review movies. As funny as Jackass is, it’s not a movie.’ In short(er), just being a collection of skits, none of which tells any sort of traditional story, it’s more accurately a “video” as opposed to a movie. I couldn’t find that quote, but I could find him answering a reader’s question about why he didn’t review it. In an interview with Charlie Rose, Ebert said, “If I laugh, I have to tell you it’s funny. I went to see ‘Jackass,’ a shameful movie. I laughed all the way through it. I mean, I have to tell you that.” At the end of day, instead of giving Jackass a positive review (what with it being a successful movie, one where the audience is entertained) and being on the record as having condoned something like that, he chose to not review it at all.

    jackass
    I don’t get it.

    Now, speaking as a principled person myself, I perfectly recognize the need to occasionally throw all principles out the window if there are extenuating circumstances. Ebert simply didn’t want to be someone associated with a movie like Jackass. Luckily, his on-screen partner in reviewing all things cinematical, Richard Roeper gave probably the best critical quote about it: “Jackass: The Movie is a disgusting, repulsive, grotesque spectacle, but it’s also hilarious and provocative. God help me, thumbs up.” Hallelujah. That’s even more positive than my review would’ve been. (for the record, having seen both of the movies, I’d say that I could do without the poop and the pain for the sake of pain stunts)

    I’m not one to find profundity for the sake of profundity, but my stance on the movies is this: they’re not profound, but there’s something to be said about the sociological aspects of what a bunch of suburban-ish white guys found to entertain themselves and the business acumen it took to make what they were doing marketable outside of the skater community.

    The issue I do take with Ebert’s (lack of a) stance is that his book of “The Great Movies” (quotes because that’s the actual title of the book) includes the 1929 short film, Un Chien Andalou, notable for its lack of coherent structure and (more so) co-creation by one Salvador Dalí. I won’t compare work by Salvador Dalí to the content of Jackass, nor will I insinuate that Jackass somehow deserves to among “the great movies,” but I will say that for someone who is very quick to condemn the supposedly increasing closed-mindedness of the American movie going public, not giving a movie you liked the critical time of day because it was “different” isn’t the strongest philosophical ground to be standing upon. (I know, it’s sort of lazy of me to not include links to examples of “very quick to condemn…” but, in short, look up any of his Adam Sandler reviews other than Punch Drunk Love.)

    The loose thread between the “Once Again Being One Up on the Mass Media…” and the movie itself is the fact that in the AP review, the writer actually invokes a comparison between Jackass: Number 2 a scene from Un Chien Andalou. There’s not much more to it than the fact that I said the same thing in 2002. And, I was reasonable enough to give the comparison with a bunch of qualifiers instead of trying for some sort of faux-intellectual comment.

    ****½

    Once Again Being One Up on the Mass Media Or The Critical Reception to Jackass: Number Two receives four-and-a-half stars due to my thinkin’ brain and its whooping of the critics by four good years. In actuality, the whole mess with Ebert’s take on the first movie is sort of unrelated to this, but it does serve as backstory as to why I had done any thinking on the subject. If you’re thinking about seeing the movie, it’s as simple as this: if you think you’ll like it, you will. If you think you won’t like it, you won’t. If you’re not sure if you’ll like it, you’ll like it.

    Late-breaking, sort of related reviewing: Jim Emerson, the sort of backup on rogerebert.com has his own blog (aside from the corner he gets on the Ebert webpage). On his blog, he has a cute little entry entitled, “Aint-It-Cool-Times” (his emphasis) bemoaning the Los Angeles Times for including a script review section on their website. He’s so put off by it that he says the newspaper has “jumped the shark” (and I thought Emerson was a movie critic! buh-ZING!), becoming yet another head of the hydra that is the modern movie industry (my metaphor, thank you very much). There’s a bunch of resentment of the “traditional” journalists (print, TV, radio) towards the “new” “journalists” on the internet. Sure, any schmuck can run a website and spout off whatever nonsense he wants and claim to be a journalist (note: Nate and I don’t claim to be journalists. Adam? Maybe.) What with journalism degrees being real degrees, the “old guard” doesn’t like the instant credibility that the internet offers. Aintitcoolnews, the target of his sort-of pun of a title is one of the more successful “home made” websites, and in fact, in the years it’s existed, it’s sort of a “real” site, though it does seemingly serve as a mouthpiece for the studios marketing departments sometimes.

    He goes on: “No. It’s not. Fernandez [the writer of the script review section of the Los Angeles Times] isn’t a journalist and he isn’t a critic [and this just became a run-on sentence]; he’s a leech, on the level of those self-aggrandizing amateur web trolls who think their premature, uninformed opinions about an unfinished work are ‘news.’” Amateur web trolls? eh. Premature, uninformed opinions? meh. Self-aggrandizing? MR. EMERSON, YOU HAD ME AT ‘HELLO!’ We here at the Bookshelf® … wait, hold on, I like seeing that with the registered mark after it…. wait….yeah. We think you’re wrong and are probably just bitter that you had zero web recognizability until you became Roger Ebert’s second-in-command. Consider yourself called out by the Bookshelf® (you join such luminaries as the New York Times, Humanity, that horse, and Pitchfork Media).

  • The Death of WKAP


    WKAP failed in its bid to be the real version of WKRP. It was not based in Cincinatti.

    Call me lame. I like oldies music. Not like the sleepy old easy listening fifties stuff that you’re used to thinking about when you think of AM radio. I’m talking about the British Invasion of 1965, the California surf sound, a little bit of Motown, some Doo-Wop, and the Four Seasons. The origins of rock and roll. I don’t really listen to that stuff anymore. That was sort of what we listened to growing up, and since then, I’ve moved on to “Album Oriented Rock“, which on most “Classic Rock” stations consists of the same 200 songs over and over again. Granted I know that top 40 radio has about the same amount of songs, but theirs vary over a period of time, and two years later the list has been completely revamped. With classic rock and oldies there’s really no room for growth, which can get a bit repetitive and redundant. The good thing about that though is that they allow for both quick learning of the songs, and once you move on, when you do choose to eventually come back to it, it’ll be there, the exact way you left it.

    This was the case more than 2 years ago when I was driving back from California. On our way through Iowa, we hit what was probably the worst storm I’ve ever driven in. Huge hail and intense rain, and complete darkness, save for the tail-lights of the tractor-trailer I was following. Flipping through the radio furiously in an attempt to find something to ease my anxiety, I stopped at a radio show I hadn’t heard in years. “Rock and Roll’s Greatest Hits” with Dick Bartley. I had listened to his show on weekend nights growing up, when I was going to bed or whatever. The show was exactly the way I remember it, and I hadn’t forgotten the songs; they were just pushed all the way to the back of my mind, like the names of all those kids in my third grade class picture.

    A few months later I got a new cd player/radio for my car and to this day I still can’t figure out how to set the time or radio presets. I’ve worked around it by knowing that right now my clock is fifty-five minutes ahead, and having three FM channels saved and one AM. Unless you like talk radio, there’s no reason to have an AM station saved on there, but it’s a spot that needs to be filled, so I cycled through and to my surprise, one of the few stations was playing oldies. It was alright, but they played too much of a variety. I know that’s a weird thing to say, but I’m just not into all the really old easy-listening/a.m. gold-stuff. So being a station flipper, it’s good for an occasional song, but over an extended period of time, the songs are too erratic to keep listening. On the other hand, I found myself listening more and more as they broadcast Phillies games on the station, and started airing the Dick Bartley shows on the weekends as well.

    The station really didn’t have a lot going for it, other than those stand-bys. Maybe the older people who would typically be listening to it would like the radio personalities, but I found them grating” although not as grating as local “Superstar”, Ken Matthews who will be retiring from his role as the Lehigh Valley’s most obnoxious, over-inflated media personality after 15 years. They had what was billed as the largest Elvis radio library in the country, which I guess for them could be a good thing, and they had a built-in audience from the just sold (in 2001, by clearchannel, due to FCC rules, prompting both stations to change format), “highest rated oldies station in the country”, WODE. I’m not sure how they’d mess it up, because if there’s one place outside of Florida that an oldies station could thrive, it would be in the home of the most listened to oldies station in the country. I guess though, if you don’t advertise yourself, and you’re on a radio band that nobody listens to, even to scroll through, unless you’re looking for right-wing pundits, news, or sports games, you might be able to fail.

    But I’m assuming they did, because one day in August, I happened to hear a moderately saddening commercial. I’m going to paraphrase it, because I don’t remember the specifics (i.e. the names of the people). This is a dialogue. Keep in mind while reading it, that the people in the commercial were extremely energetic, and sounded like Jesus-camp counselors.

    Donny: Coming soon, to the new WYHM, the Donny and Marie morning show [not their actual names]. Filled with family-oriented fun.

    Marie: And our patented witty banter.

    Donny: Some of our topics include the whole “

  • Pirates Magazine Premier Issue – The Cover

    The first in what might be a series of reviews.

    I was at the bookstore the other day, more-or-less stocking up for what ended up being a fictional trip to China, and after picking out a selection of books, I wandered over to the magazine section of Borders. The goal of magazines at a newsstand-type setting is to catch customers’ eyes, so they completely overspend and make an impulse purchase instead of saving oodles of money with a subscription. My eyes wandered across the fast cars, the cleavage, and the heroic-looking sports poses, and I stumbled across the word “Pirates” in a large, offensive typeface. Next to it, in smaller type, “Magazine.” YES! Whether it was a magazine for pirates or pirate enthusiasts, I plopped down my $7.95 (minus 2 stars right there), and put on my ridiculin’ hat.

    Some communities should just stay on the internet. I’ve never been a fan of people taking things I don’t care about too seriously. I could make some sort of list here of examples, but at the end of the day, let’s just admit that the list would contain pretty much anything you could think of, and the real challenge would be in the taxonomy of it all (grouping Hershey’s Chocolate Enthusiasts with people who love Mike and Ike because of the whole candy thing). In the “hobbies I don’t respect” category, we’d find the Renaissance Fair fans, people that dress like comic book characters, movie characters, Star Wars characters, and so on. Though these people bother me in concept, for the most part, they’re off in their own corner of the internet, arguing about whether Qui-Gon Jinn could beat Saruman, then dressing up and living out the fight and getting out of breath, so hey to each his (or, rarely in this case, her) own. So, when “they” crossed over from internet phenomenon into a group seemingly legitimate interests, I did not like it one bit.

    pirates1

    Obviously this magazine was created to capitalize on summer 2006’s second biggest movie, X3.

    So, what exactly does one put in a what will (in theory) end up being a quarterly magazine? Well, judging by the cover alone, not buxom wenches, some pirate history (Blackbeard & the Queen Anne’s Revenge), pirates in pop culture (Pirates of the Caribbean), profiles of people bringing “pirate” back (Pat Croce), the details of the construction of the ill-advised Christmas gifts that people’s grandmother’s buy on QVC (The Artistry of Baltimore Knife & Sword), as well as treasure hunting (Jean-Michel Cousteau), and other piratey sounding things (Jamaica Rose, whatever that is). All-in-all a good mix for the overly enthusiastic, but at a rather full 88 pages, they’re going to struggling for content after, I don’t know, issue #1. The Bookshelf’s experience with the printed word proved two things 1) we can do anything we set our mind to do, and more seriously 2) one issue is easy – two, not so much.

    In all honesty, people that collect such things probably love to know the detailed process that goes into making collectable swords and knives, and again, there are probably people out there interested in doing something as close-to-pirate-like-as-possible such as a real-life treasure hunt, but really, you’d think that advertisers would realize that addressing the potential customer with “You be wantin’ to be a pirate?” or things like that might get old after, I don’t know, five pages.

    **

    Pirates Magazine Premier Issue – The Cover receives two stars due to the fact that even though I have no respect for their hobby, it seems to address things that I’d be interested in if I were a pirate enthusiast. The title isn’t so hot, though it doesn’t lead the customer guessing the contents of what he has in his hand. I’ve yet to really delve into the magazine, but so far, in terms of its art design, it’s somewhere between “professional” and “Look at all these buttons in InDesign!” There’s enough Times New Roman to kill a, um, giant sea-faring enemy of a pirate and some of the ads look like something from my high school year book, but there is something to be said about what might be called its “rustic” charm, and the authors do a reasonably good job avoiding easy pirate jokes. But, paging through, I can’t help but notice items in the magazine geared towards “re-enactors.” That’s really the bottom of the barrel in terms of “geekdom” — see the left side of this chart. A special note about this chart: It was made by that Lore guy who beat us to the whole “reviewing anything” schtick, and we’re still bitter about it, especially considering the quality and accuracy of the chart.
     Anyway, judging the magazine by its cover alone, it gets those two stars (two stars off for the only-for-enthusiasts pricing and one star for the whole ‘promoting things that really shouldn’t be promoted’ thing). It really reminds me of “Chew” magazine from Calvin & Hobbes, with Calvin enthusiastically reading the whole issue very seriously while Hobbes just didn’t get it. (Bill Watterson probably meant it as some not-too-subtle jab at crass consumerism, and that was even before the internet catered to even “nicher” interests).

    I’ll leave with this: I’m not particularly interested in anything, and I’d never pay $8 or even $10 for an imported British car magazine. Twice. I also live in a glass house.

  • Fancy-Schmancy Pet Food


    If they’re good enough for gourmet food, they’re good enough for Iraq. Photos courtesy of www.petsinuniform.com. Check out their “exotics” page TODAY!

    I’m curious to see what The Bookshelf’s current vet-in-training has to say about this, if anything.

    I don’t understand the appeal things like this. Yes, that’s right, “premium holistic gourmet dog and cat food”. I suppose there are some people out there who like to completely spoil their pets, but I just don’t get the idea of feeding them expensive gourmet, made-for-animals food. THEY. ARE. DOGS/CATS. They’re not going to complain about what food you give them. Heck, in some countries, they’re the gourmet food. I’d bet that cats might turn their nose and not eat certain cat food, but only if they’ve been exposed to better. If all they’ve ever known is dry pebbles of wheat and “meat”, they’re not going to have any clue of what they’re missing. My dog enjoys the same dry dog food every day and doesn’t write me notes complaining about it. Sure she’d rather have “people food”, but dogs will pretty much eat anything aside from vegetables, as shown by this dog who started munching on some meat that had been laced with pins. He ate over 30 of them. You’d think that after 10 pins (i’m giving him the benefit of the doubt, eh maybe 20), that he’d realize… “OWWW this hurts; Maybe if I stopped eating this meat it wouldn’t hurt.” A dog would probably bite its own ear if it smelled good enough. Yes, dog food doesn’t taste good to us, but does it need to? If the pets will eat it, and it’s healthy enough, that should be all that matters.
    And if you want to pamper your animal with something out of the ordinary, give them some “people food”. A little bit can’t hurt, can it?

    Gourmet Pet food gets no stars because it’s something that’s totally pointless, and yet people still buy it. Word of advice, get the cheap stuff, then you can upgrade to 85% lean ground beef for yourself. MMMMM 85%!! Another word of advice: Dog biscuits are not people food.

  • Putting Things on Notice


    I’m calling you out, Andy Dick!

    I read on a semi-well-known TV blog that this guy created an internet page that generated Stephen Colbet-style “On Notice” lists. All you have to do is type in whatever you want to put on notice, hit a button and a picture will be generated that you’ll be able to save. Not sure why you’d really want to save it; perhaps to post on your blog review site, or maybe just to show it to your friends.

    Now don’t get me wrong; I think the application created to do this with is pretty cool, and I like Colbert’s list and the general idea of it, but I’m not quite sold on people creating their own lists. Stephen Colbert has a national show where showing off this list of things he’s upset with will reach a wide audience. The only thing that making a list for yourself accomplishes is the sense that you now know where things stand, as in you have a concrete ranking of what you hate most, and in what order. Maybe your friends might appreciate it and you’ll all get a laugh out of it. But it won’t make a difference in the real world, and you’ll only be left with the comfort of knowing that you complained about something, even though you did it to no one in particular. Kind of like bloggers. In fact, if I had another spot, I’d throw bloggers on there as well.

    The whole “not being seen by anyone” thing is sort of worked around by being able to see on the site, the last 100 lists that were made. Of course, half the time, the people don’t fill in all the boxes and many of them are just the defaults, and a lot of the lists are just excuses to throw profanity out there, but sometimes there are some good ones, like “planes without snakes”, the WNBA, Billy Bush, Cut-off shorts, and strangely enough, Charlie Dent.


    Just for good measure. By the by, don’t you hate pants?

    ***
    Three stars for idea and execution. Minus 2 stars for a lack of real purpose, including the usual internet “busying yourself” excuse. I do invite readers to create their own lists and post them for my viewing pleasure, even if it’s not in picture form.

  • Thinking of What’s Probably the Best Possible Thing to Put in a Going Away Card Ever

    I don’t mean to pat myself on the back….well, okay….yes I do. Someone I know who is from Switzerland (the French-speaking part, for whatever that’s worth) and spent the last few years living in the US is moving back to Switzerland very shortly. A blank-on-the-inside going away card was passed around, and it was obvious that most people thought about what to write for about 30 seconds then decided on, “Good Luck! We’ll miss you!” No problem, it’s not like they didn’t mean it. But not this guy. I gave it 15 seconds of thought, and inscribed this gem of pure wit: “…and I thought it was a New Jersey accent!” This ranks right up there with Nate’s Christmas card message about people leaving their dogs outside to freeze during Christmas. Incredibly proud of myself, I thought to sign my name to my masterpiece and pass on the increasingly valuable card, except I realized that maybe I didn’t want the recipient thinking I was all funny and not enough serious, so I stamped a “Good Luck! We’ll miss you!” at the end.

    Best. Going-Away-Message. Ever.

    card
    I see your “BLANK” and raise it…hmm….awesome hundred dollars.

    *****

    (See, she’s from Switzerland and has a very obvious French accent …. eh, never mind.)

  • The Unfair Critical Treatment of Former Boy Band Members

    Let’s see if I can get out some reviews for once…

    I’m not being profound when I say that success is a great way to turn the less successful against you. In the burgeoning field of critical criticism, this fact is no more obvious than with music critics. Movie critics are relatively high profile (notably Roger Ebert), and there is a variety of widely known names in the field (Gene Shallit, Peter Travers, Leonard Maltin, etc.) and almost never write “I could make a better movie than this, I’m just choosing not to” types of reviews. If anything, for a really awful movie, they’ll just say, “Anyone can’t write (successful) music, but think that they can. This isn’t where every music critic comes from, but it’s a heckuva lot easier to say, “I’m going to tour the country, and sell my CDs to all the free-thinking Zydeco-Blues-Jamband-Trip Hop-New Wave-fans out there” and think you really have a chance than saying “I’m going to be a movie star,” and actually believing your own hype.

    But the weird thing is that with music (well, like movies, too), one doesn’t necessarily need to be particularly talented to get really far with a career in it, for some amount of time, at least. Obviously, the poppy-est of pop music is the ultimate example of this. We’re sort of in a dry spell for “bubblegum” pop at the moment, but it’ll come back…it always does. NSYNC sold (capital “M”) Millions of records, made lots of money, achieved a huge amount of fame, and those people with musical dreams in the previous paragraph? Not so much. See the part above about success and the unsuccessful.

    band
    In Soviet Russia, band boys you!

    See, I have nothing against NSYNC (or any of those groups). First (and what should be the most obvious), I’m not and I never was their target market. It’s not my money spent on their CDs, merchandise, etc. If I’m that offended by their existence, I can change the channel, the radio station, whatever implement of the mass media on which I’d see them. And second, in interviews, they seemed like perfectly friendly guys who had a lot of fun and realized they were really a product of the current time, and they’d be “done” when they needed to be “done.” (to be fair to the “haters,” the Backstreet Boys didn’t seem to have quite as much perspective/insight into their fleetingness). Second-and-a-half-ly, there’s something to be said for making somewhat listenable music that gets played on Top 40 radio: I can’t stand most of their catalog, but “Bye, bye, bye” is a darn good song, you’re just afraid to admit it.

    And third (where the music critic thing comes in), no matter how “unmusical” they might’ve been, it really doesn’t matter. Someone would laugh out loud if anyone in NSYNC said he was “living his dream of being a musician,” but if he said, “I’m living my dream of being famous,” well, you really can’t argue with that. Toward the end of their popularity, you could tell that their “handlers” thought they could gain more fans if they were involved (in some nebulous capacity) in the writing of their music (as opposed just the performance of it), but the writing was already on the wall for their genre of “pop” as “real” signer-songwriters like Avril Leveigne took the torch and were equally not the type of music someone like me would in the market for.

    But did these boy band members have any talent? Easy answer: of course not, they sold millions of records because of the people pulling their strings. Not-so-easy answer: they sold millions of more than one record, and no matter how smart the people behind the scenes were, there were five guys that needed to keep a rather limited “schtick” interesting.

    Justin Timberlake, undoubtedly the most musically successful of the former members, gets the worst rap. He was probably the most popular among the ladies during his days with NSYNC and let’s not forget his white-boy-fro: plenty of reasons to hate the guy. Basically, he managed to turn a boy band career into a “leading man in music” type of trajectory with one CD, and his upcoming CD will cement his role even further. Of course, he won’t be able to shake the “boy band” thing, but there’s something to be said for people always being interested in your next CD, if only so they can complain about it loudly, inadvertently helping to promote it.

    Which brings us to the actual center of this review, a seemingly innocuous review of one of the new singles on Justin Timberlake’s new CD. Once again, let me call out pitchfork media. Now, I’ve not heard the song in question, but the review of “My Love” is the issue. But wait, you say, “Dan, but the review got five out of five stars, and pitchfork media doesn’t like anything.” I say, “Look more closely.” Sure, it got five big stars, but look to see why. It certainly doesn’t have much to do with Justin Timberlake according to the writer. Timbaland produced the song, which as we know, in hip-hop means he did either a whole lot or a whole little. It would appear that Timbaland, for this song, did “a whole lot.” In fact, according to the review, it’d look like he did the whole darn thing. As if there’s no way that someone who was, *gasp* in a boy band (much less one of the most successful ever) could accomplish anything after that on his own merits after this. Stereotyping and generalizing all people bitter at boy bands’ success to be like pitchfork media, it’s weird that they’d be so invested in seeing him fail, and if no one heeds their (the holier-than-thou’s) warnings, then they need to explain away how the guy got successful (Timbaland supposedly writing the perfect song, etc. without any help from a former boy bander). I’m still not the target market for Justin Timberlake’s music, but that doesn’t mean he deserves to fail.

    **

    The Unfair Critical Treatment of Former Boy Band Members gets two stars due to the fact that it seems like some people just can’t get past the fact that someone who became successful doing something unfathomable to them (doing a good job lipsynching while dancing, mainly) could go on to something larger and somehow respectable outside of the realm of middle-school girls. Like I said, a lack of success breeds a bitterness towards the successful. The two stars come from the fact that there is plenty of insignificant music churned out by former boy band members that even I (who’s half taking the role of Devil’s Advocate in this) couldn’t defend.

  • “Rewriting History”, or “Pluto no longer a planet and Yogi stops smoking”

    048_PFD530~Society-Dog-Show-1939-Mickey-and-Pluto-Disney-Posters.jpg
    Just when you though I wouldn’t be able to find a picture to go with these two topics…. BAM!

    A few days ago I read that Turner is going back through their catalogue of old Hanna Barbara cartoons to remove all intimations of smoking. First of all, I’m not really sure how they’re going to do this. I understand that if they can take the cops’ guns away in ET and replace them with walkie talkies, they can pretty much do anything, and with 5 color animations they can do it easier I’d assume. But the question isn’t the technical ability. The question is the context of the situations and how they’re going to make them make sense to people. Granted there is a valid point with making sure that kids aren’t starting to smoke because they see Quickdraw McGraw or Snagglepuss doing it. After all, I’m sure the only reason that kids buy Fruity Pebbles is because Fred Flintstone does, right? But should the works of the past be censored because of semi-questionable content? Disney will NEVER let Song of the South see the light of day because of some supposed racial issues with the movie. But how are we supposed to remember what things were like when these cartoons were made, unless we’re able to see them. Being a gatekeeper is one thing, but erasing history is another. And who are all these kids who are watching Hanna Barbara cartoons anyway? It’s not like you can even watch these cartoons unless you have the Boomerang channel which may not even exist anymore. Kids today are more interested in watching fake anime and Pokeymans than anything else. Where are the robots that change into things? Or the magical cats from far off planets? I’m getting away from my point.

    Today they discovered that Pluto isn’t a planet. Once and for all. The thing is, these are planetarians saying this. I would expect these sort of mistakes from a cartographer (the study of uncharted lands), but these people are studying something more important, the whole solar system. What are we all supposed to do? Go back to the science books that we had during that brief period when Pluto wasn’t a planet last time? Actually, knowing my school district, they probably still use those books. Next thing you know, we’re going to be told we never had to wear those stupid glasses to look at an eclipse… like these “cool kids“. Seriously, I could understand the decision if it really meant something. But what’s the point of this change, except to make trouble for anyone who’s ever learned that Pluto is a planet. Whoever was pushing for this is on notice!

    People should really worry about changing things that matter to the masses, or will cause trouble if they’re not changed. In the case of the cartoons, censoring for kids is one thing, but not allowing people to ever see these cartoons the way they were originally made is a disservice to the people who made them in the first place. Kids should listen to their parents and not cartoons anyway.