"First of the fall and then she goes back/Bye bye bye bye there/Them summer days, those summer days ..."

So I spent the better part of the last 3 weeks sans internet, which is why I haven't been around here at all. I never realized how much of my life was tied to my computer until I was basically without it for that long. Scary stuff. However, I'm back with a treat. This is a little video directed by Marc Webb starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel for the phenomenal She & Him song "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?". If you haven't caught this trio's work in (500) Days of Summer, I suggest you do so right away because it's fantastic. So, without further ado, enjoy...



(Video courtesy of USA Today)

Kicking Ass and Tallying Votes

Greetings from the land of continued unemployment. Since we last spoke I have been to Disney World. It really is the most magical place on Earth. I don't get how I, at 21, can be just as excited to go on Star Tours or The Haunted Mansion as when I was 6. Mind-blowing but true.

Speaking of getting your mind blown, I watched Street Fight last night. Now, if you're asking why I would blog about this, then a) you need reading glasses, and b) I'm not. Street Fight is a documentary about the 2002 mayoral campaign in Newark, New Jersey that pitted the 4-term incumbent Sharpe James against the young, vibrant city councilman Cory Booker. I love to watch documentaries, but it is rare that one of them amazes me like this one did. Street Fight is one of the most important films made in the past decade.

Although it follows what most people outside of NJ (heck, even outside of Newark) might deem an insignificant political race, the movie is about so much more. It is a look into the changing social, political, and racial lives of American people. By following around these two very different candidates, producer, director, cinematographer, and editor Marshall Curry has given this country the kind of gritty look in the mirror that it needs. It is not the glossy, airbrushed cover of a magazine. It is a portrait of this nation in all its grimy, underhanded nakedness. Everyone in America needs to see this movie now.

Because Explosions Are Awesome: Summer Movie Round-Up...So Far

So it's been a while and for that I apologize. I have been wasting a lot of time since graduation, sitting on my couch, playing video games, and watching ESPN. I have tried to find some kind of summer employment but that has proved fruitless and it's kind of pissing me off. But that's not what I'm here to talk about. No, in between all the sitting around I have found time to visit the movie theater and, I must say, I've yet to be disappointed.

Let me backtrack a minute here and say that I LOVE movies. I'll give just about anything a chance. As much as I love Casablanca, every time I hear John McClane say "Yippee ki yay, motherfucker." I get a chill down my spine. When the summer comes around, I'm not looking for classic cinema, I just want to see explosions. So let's take it from the top...

X Men Origins: Wolverine was pretty good. The storyline was ok, the acting was good (Liev Schreiber as Sabertooth was a great casting choice, but I'm baffled as to why they even paid Ryan Reynolds to be in the movie because he has such a small part), and the effects were standard. Definitely a good lead in to the summer blockbuster season, as I knew what to expect going in. After all, I did see the trailer where he jumps onto the helicopter.

My next stop brought me to Terminator Salvation. Now this was more like it. Everyone has got to catch this on the big screen, if just to hear it. I know that sounds odd, but this is definitely the kind of movie that needs to bee heard as much as seen in a theater (there is probably an Oscar on the horizon). I have always liked the Terminator series (save for Rise of the Machines, which was just a joke, although likable for its unintentional hilarity) and this was no different. The script was a good continuation of the storyline and was well-written enough to keep the audience interested between explosions, which is really all you can ask for when it comes to stuff like this.

Finally, there was Star Trek. This was one of my most anticipated movies of the summer and it absolutely delivered. I geek out about a lot of stuff, but I'm definitely not a Trekkie. It just never grabbed my attention, which might have something to do with this, but who knows. Either way, this is a movie for long-time Stark Trek fans and for people that do not know anything about the series or characters. The action sequences were great, the acting well done, and the story excellent. As a non-Trek fan I wholeheartedly approve and will say that this is absolutely in the running for movie of the summer.

The trailers attached to these have also been quite good: Inglorious Basterds, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and, probably the one I'm most excited for, Sherlock mother-f'in Holmes with Iron Man himself Robert Downey, Jr. in the title role and Rachel McAdams in a really sexy corset. On the horizon there's also Harry Potter 6, and Public Enemies. This probably means I'm going to spend all my graduation money on movie tickets, but whatever, because, at the end of the day, explosions are awesome.

Did you miss me?

The end of the semester kept me so busy I could barely think. Bah!! Thankfully I'm done now, though. I spent very little time focusing on stuff other than schoolwork but a few things did pique my interest.

I have loads of thoughts on this topic, but I'll spare you the details. To say the absolute least, I'm super excited about Obama's movement towards building a national high-speed passenger rail system. Listen to him talk about it here. This is going to be a great way to create skilled and unskilled jobs and could be the springboard for a great leap forward for domestic tourism possibilities, both of which are excellent stimuli for the economy. If you don't know what I'm talking about, dig it:



It's gonna be awesome!

Second, I have been listening to a TON of the Avett Brothers lately. Just listen to "Colorshow" and tell me it's not beautiful music. I dare you! They're playing at my favorite venue in NYC (Irving Plaza) in June and I want to go really, really badly. Yes, the South has totally rubbed off on me...

Lastly, I have really rediscovered my passion for a great movie lately. It had been a while since I watched any movie and just in the past few weeks I have watched some really good shit. It started when I was gearing up for my wine project and I watched Sideways. I had forgotten how much I really liked that film Then, I rewatched American Beauty. The first time I saw this it struck me so powerfully that I went out and bought it. I hadn't seen it since. I can understand why (because it's really, really, really messed up!), but I also wonder why not because it's such a great film in every aspect. However, this does not take the cake in my recent viewings.

After neglecting my Netflix for about two weeks while I was doing schoolwork I finally sat down and watched Chinatown. All I can say is: wow! That is one of the greatest scripts ever. Period. My mind was officially blown.*

So yea, that's basically what I've had on my mind lately, although thoughts of graduation and leaving Columbia have started to take over the last few days.

*Side note: I saw X-Men Origins: Wolverine today and it got me so amped for blockbuster season, because I also love to watch movies where shit just blows up.

White Castle Wedding is (G)Astronomically Depressing?

I love White Castle. I would say it's in the top 5 things I've missed most while living in the South. There's just nothing that compares to scarfing down those tasty, little burgers. I'm salivating just thinking about it. If you don't trust me, just ask these guys:

However, the buck has to stop somewhere, and I think I've found it. Click the link to see what I'm talking about. Also, if the guy was wittier, he would have come up with a better title for his post (see above).

White Castle Wedding is Unutterably Depressing

"This is concrete warfare we're talking about. If you're going to ride you gotta get on that shit."

Being a young lad at the turn of the 21st century, I was subject to some interesting pop culture trends (Furby, Tomagachi, Tickle Me Elmo, Britney Spears, etc.). As I grew up, most of these came in the form of TRL and its firm grip on my pre-teen mentality. However, one of these cultural phenomena that still holds my interest to this day was the explosion of extreme sports. I continue to enjoy most of them, but skateboarding is my hands down favorite. As I was doing some Internet-scouring before writing this, I think that I can trace the specific spot skating has in my heart to the year 1999.

This year sticks out for three reasons. One of them was most definitely this, the second was this, and the third was this. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater is still one of my favorite games. Sure, the graphics are comparatively terrible to what we've got now, but the gameplay is totally awesome. As an 11-year-old kid, these were the kinds of things I wanted to be able to do, which is why Tony Hawk's doing the first 900-degree spin was equally important to me. As for blink-182's Enema of the State, it led me deeper into a whole new type of music and culture of which I had only a vague prior knowledge (more on this in a later post, I'm sure). A large part of the "punk rock" culture of the late 90s/very early 2000s also happened to be skateboarding. So these three just happened to pass into my cultural radar at the right time to make me a skateboarding fan.

While my own foray into skating was (extremely) short-lived, the sport still has an effect on me, considering that I still listen to some of those same bands from when I was 12 or 13, and also because my closet is full of apparel from companies like Element, Globe, Volcom, and Quicksliver. Since I also love history, I recently Netflixed Stacy Peralta's Dogtown and Z Boys, a documentary about the Zephyr Skate Team of which he was a part.

I had previously seen Peralta's Riding Giants, a documentary about the history of surfing, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and had been meaning to catch Dogtown and Z Boys for a while. The Z Boys, who came together at the Zephyr surf shop in Los Angeles during the 1970s, are skateboarding legends, as they were the first to ride in pools, thereby inventing vert skating. The team also played host to some of the very first world-renowned skaters, many of whom are still prominent in these circles today (Peralta, Tony Alva, Jay Adams). So, for skateboard enthusiasts, this is a must-see.

However, even as a non-skater, I could appreciate Peralta's tale of friendship and sport. I actually think this is one of the best sports movies I have ever seen! Being such an active piece of this period of time helps Peralta tell the story about like very few others could. He is unafraid to touch on the more rocky subjects (commercialism, the break-up of the team) and you can tell that the interviewees, most of whom were his teammates and very close friends, were very comfortable letting the director know how they really felt. Peralta also makes sparse use of Sean Penn's excellent narration and lets these frank interviews really tell the story. The soundtrack is also top notch, making use of timely tunes by Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, and Jimi Hendrix just to name a few. I really suggest you check this out.

On a related note, I have been listening to Odd Nosdam's T.I.M.E. Soundtrack a lot lately. The hip-hop producer created the album to be used in the This Is My Element DVD for the Element skate team. The sweet thing is that he apparently created each song to coincide with the style of the individual skaters. While I have never seen the video, this album is great. The production is highlighted by the kind of fuzzy, washed-out tape loops that make me absolutely love a lot of the beats on the Beastie Boys' first four records. Amid these soundscapes there are also some really great samples and excellent detail to these songs that has kept them in heavy rotation in my iPod. For instance, my favorite track, "We Bad Apples," has an opening drum part that sounds like it came right off of a Kinks record. Or how about those sweet sitar-like lines drawing you into a trance throughout "Top Rank"? If only commercial hip-hop were more like this, I probably would really like 50 Cent.