superfluous and belated moview review of the month--rachel getting married

oh wow, that moment of excitement was a little much. back to our regularly scheduled programming. we at interweb detritus offer 1 channel: grumbling.

indeed, at our friend rachel's wedding, a bunch of us entered into a heated discussion over the movie rachel getting married. to no one's surprise, c4ts and i disagreed on this one. i think c4ts kind of wanted to agree with me since the movie seems so obviously annoying, but found himself actually liking it. you can't fight fate, c4ts!

anyway, so i'll vent. i don't think i've ever walked out of a movie. not even "shallow hal" or that second bridget jones movie where she goes to thailand or whatever. my usual thought is, i'm going to wait for that one redeeming moment. there were none in RGM. if i hadn't been sitting 5 deep in my row, i would've barged out. every one of the so-called poignant moments rang completely hollow to me. ok fine, i'll give you this. jonathan demme directed documentaries about the talking heads and neil young and the screenwriter is sidney lumet's daughter. perhaps spontaneous bohemian-ish band playing with robyn hitchcock and unattributable displays of ethnic clothing are the norm in their worlds, but certainly not in mine. this urgent desire to flaunt some semblance of authenticity, diversity and depth was so false on every single level. if i had rolled my eyes any more my contacts would've popped out.

ok, breathe. let's focus my annoyance:

1. connecticut? is there a yaddo in greenwich or fairfield that i'm unaware of? the closest thing connecticut has to minorities and/or artists is 50 cent (or 50 cents, if you're mike bloomberg).
2. saris? wtf with that?
3. yeah, ok, so nobody made a big deal about the groom's race. how come nobody made a big deal of the fact that he had negative personality? it only drew attention to his race. like, why couldn't they create a fully-drawn black character? the white people in this movie certainly had personality to spare.
4. and why did the groom ruin that neil young song for me?
5. i would pick on that dishwasher scene except that apparently it was taken directly from the screenwriter's life. it occurred between like sidney lumet and charlton heston or something equally implausible. (my badz, bob fosse--see? who has a life like this?)
6. don't forget: kYm. barf.

anyway, c4ts, the floor is yours. i'm sure you'll mount a lengthy defense of the movie. all's i gotta say is, someone should've told me that the director of philadelphia--my least favorite movie of all time bc it's the fakest--was involved. i would've saved my $12 or whatever.

oh yeah, this new yorker article: mind ~~blown~~. most disturbing article since that one about solitary confinement that still gives me goosebumps.

maybe someone's gonna save me

oh sweet nostalgia, please tell me this is true.

finally, the realization of my greatest fantasy...and c4ts' nightmare.

convenient stereotypes for the new year

i loathe (but maybe love to hate) modern love, the most insipid addition to sunday styles, of which my college idol once said, "what is the point of that section? seems like anyone with a prada bag can get in it nowadays".

anyway, i usually try to ignore modern love but the premise of this week's column was irresistible: a divorced 46-year-old woman decides to marry her friend's brother. sounds boring and predictable, right? joke's on you - the friend and brother are chinese, and the latter lives in china. having never met the brother, the intrepid divorcee flies to china, says yes to the man's halting proposal, "do you want to marry?" and brings him back to albany, new york.

this discomfiting column appears to be an exploration of the old cliche, "all chinese people are bad drivers". and guess what, it's true! not only that, they speak poor english, albeit in an adorable and semi-exotic fashion (His voice was balm to my nerves, and the monthly rice-paper letters were always from “the brootom” of his heart) and all white people who travel to asia feel like scarlett johansson in my least favorite movie ever (describing the beijing airport: This was unlike an American crowd, where you feel harried, even accosted. There, I sailed comfortably through a sea of introverts.).

ick. i just thought of my first new year's resolution: stop reading modern love.

what the fuck is david brooks yapping about - part 2

in this part 2 of what appears to be an infinite-part series, i again examine the latest and greatest david brooks column in the new york times and ask the question we've all been wondering: what the fuck is david brooks yapping about?

so...one of the innumerable unfortunate fallouts of sasha frere-jones's "miscegenation" article in the new yorker is that it encouraged david brooks to put his two cents in. typical david brooks, his two cents arrived about 6 weeks too late. but he'll have you know, he's hip, he's with it.

i can't even muster up the energy to write about his column. as usual, it boggles my mind that he has this incredible forum and he wastes it on nonsensical drivel like this:

But cultural history has pivot moments, and at some point toward the end of the 1970s or the early 1980s, the era of integration gave way to the era of fragmentation. There are now dozens of niche musical genres where there used to be this thing called rock. There are many bands that can fill 5,000-seat theaters, but there are almost no new groups with the broad following or longevity of the Rolling Stones, Springsteen or U2. (emphasis supplied)

It seems that whatever story I cover, people are anxious about fragmentation and longing for cohesion. This is the driving fear behind the inequality and immigration debates, behind worries of polarization and behind the entire Obama candidacy.

oh hey, look at me! i'm david brooks! i'm on pbs! look how nicely my scant knowledge in music and politics dovetails!

anyway, this gawker post does a better job than i could. besides, is there a better tag than "bozos in paradise"? hehe.