Mood Music XXIII: 5 Songs that Are, Like, So Twilight

In honor of the week's big pop culture event (I'm going to a midnight show! I decorated a t-shirt! I'm so excited!) I thought I'd share 5 songs that don't appear on any of the soundtracks or Stephenie Meyer's playlists but have this excellently vibe that for some reason or another made me go, "This song is so Twilight."

"Dressed in Black," the Shangri-Las

The version of this song I'm familiar with, from the girl group box set One Kiss Can Lead to Another, is sung by a different group. It doesn't change the spectacularly over-the-top nature of this song, especially the spoken portions. I love "And no one...can hear me cry."

"Alone," Heart

The lyrics of this song, especially the chorus, are kind of like the first book if it were set to music.

"Romeo and Juliet," the Killers

I love Meyer's literary allusions, even when they're somewhat lacking in subtlety - as trite as New Moon's references to Romeo and Juliet, they somehow make Bella seem more real, as it's totally the kind of thing that idiot teenagers do in real life. (I like the Killers' version better than the Dire Straits - I feel like Brandon Flowers gives the vocals a bit of a desperate edge that serves the song well.)

"I'm Waiting for the Day," the Beach Boys

A song that feels appropriate for poor, sad Jacob. I can't remember whether I've said so here before or not, but listening to Pet Sounds made me think that there's a commonality between Stephenie Meyer and Brian Wilson - both have a knack for expressing a sort of teenage ethos. (I feel like some music lover/Twilight hater is going to pop up out of the Internet ether and ask how dare I compare the two.)

"Without You," Nilsson

The anthem of emotional overinvolvement and codependent fallout, which is truly the essence of Twilight. (And especially New Moon.)

Best of the 00s (Okay, Maybe Not): I Can't Believe I Watched...

I watch a lot of TV, that much is obvious. Looking back over the past decade has forced me to contend with the fact that not all of it has been good. Some of it was bad. And some was so terrible, boring, or bizarre that I still can't believe I watched it, yet somehow sufficiently compelling that I watched most or all of the episodes that aired.

October Road (2007-2008)

Once, a couple of years ago, I began writing a post about my issues with October Road, but it devolved into threadless rambling. I couldn't identify what it was that compelled me to keep watching the show - and I watched every episode - when at least once an episode I would think, "I hate that I can't stop watching this." Sometimes it was the dialogue that sounded like something no actual person would ever say. Sometimes it was the endless teasing of an unresolved-paternity storyline that was only wrapped up in the second-season DVD extras. Sometimes it was just shit like this:

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006-2007)

This is probably going to become a sort of a broken record script as various critics look back at the decade, but there really was a time when Studio 60 seemed like a stronger bet than 30 Rock. Aaron Sorkin's record was Sports Night and The West Wing, while Tina Fey's was a number of seasons of SNL that didn't seem to have a public consensus on overall funniness or quality. And, ultimately, that was what did Studio 60 in - the show within the show never quite seemed like it would be funny enough to sustain a run on television, and the difference between saying you're funny and being funny was just enough to doom the show. Fey, ultimately, could recognize that Tracy Morgan in a Thomas Jefferson biopic is a goldmine of comedy, where Sarah Paulson in an Anita Pallenberg biopic is dour and smacks of cultural over-literacy. Here, a clip from the show's infamous "animals beneath the floorboards" storyline, which really tells you all you need to know about why this one didn't last:

Watching this again reminded me of how many legit actors who've been delightful in other shows were in this, like Lucy Davis and Merritt Wever. Oh well. At least I got a good Christmas song out of it.

The Best Years (2007-2009)

A college show that seemed like the college experience was something its writers had only heard about in passing. The pilot started off on a truly strange note with a student falling off a dorm roof and dying, an event that never quite seemed to cast the kind of pall over student emotions one would think. The remainder of the first season was much of the same, with plot advancements that would have seemed over the top on most daytime dramas, a wholly unbelievable student-professor affair and a heroine so seldom depicted negatively that she became insufferable. It's my understanding that there was a largely revamped second season, but the first was just too much.

Big Shots (2007-2008)

In which Liz discovered that her love of Michael Vartan indeed had limits. Big Shots was presented as a sort of guys' Sex and the City, but played more like the back-patting dream of the kinds of dudes whose response to any assertion of feminism is "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MEN?!?"

Hidden Palms (2007)

In the run-up to the premiere of The Vampire Diaries, lots of reviews brought up Kevin Williamson's work on Dawson's Creek, but, shockingly, none mentioned Hidden Palms. A CW summer series so brief that it almost seems like it didn't happen, Hidden Palms wanted to be a dark mystery set among the idle rich, but featured a protagonist so inept at sleuthing that it never quite gelled.

American Juniors (2003)

An American Idol spinoff with children sounds like a bad SNL sketch, but I swear it actually happened. The show more or less immediately revealed itself to be a totally ridiculous failure, with stage parents and kids performing uneasy covers of songs way beyond their maturity range like this:

And this:

Britney and Kevin: Chaotic (2005)

I don't really feel I have sufficient adjectives for this slow-motion trainwreck. I'll only say that as a piece of reality television it embodies all of the reasons why celebrities might want to resist the impulse to share everything with the world. Sadly, YouTube won't let me embed the clips of this, so I'll just link here and you can decide whether or not you want to go down that particular rabbit hole.

Coming Attractions

It seems that this coming winter, the forecast is blizzards - OF CHEESE.

Someday, Matthew Goode (winner of the Most Woefully Miscast in Watchmen Award) will get a romantic comedy worthy of his talents. This looks like a good "rainy weekend when I'm avoiding my schoolwork" movie, but even those two-and-a-half minutes were so cliche-riddled that I have my doubts about going to see it in the theaters.

I'm of two minds about this one: On the one hand, when Garry Marshall is on, he's on, and as an Alias fan, I cannot entirely reject the opportunity to see Jennifer Garner and Bradley Cooper in the same place at the same time, even if they don't share scenes. On the other hand, everything about this screams "clusterfuck," right?

If there's such a thing as film meth for me, it is truly film adaptations of Nicholas Sparks' tales of young love beset by tragedy. Even if I could count the number of times I've seen A Walk to Remember, I wouldn't want to because it would surely be a sad total. Add that legacy to the all-around excellence of Amanda Seyfried, and I think we've got a winner.

All that plus When in Rome? It's going to be an...interesting...winter.

Best of the 00s (or So I Hear): 10 Shows I Assume I'll Watch Eventually

If you haven't gleaned as much so far, I watch a lot of television. Even so, there are a lot of critically acclaimed and cult-popular shows that I never quite got to this decade. Here are ten shows from the past ten years that I hope to watch sometime in the next ten:

1. The Wire (2002-2008)

Every bit of acclaim that The Wire gets for being one of television's greatest series makes me feel increasingly fraudulent as a television fan for not having watched it. It was going to be my next great Netflix undertaking this summer, after I finished Six Feet Under, but then my dad was all, "You know, to truly appreciate The Wire, you really should watch a few seasons of Homicide first." After gaping at him for a few minutes (Watch Homicide first ?!? Doesn't he know I have academic work I'm supposed to be doing?) I put The Wire on the backburner. It's probably the first show I'll tackle come 2010.

2. The Sopranos (1999-2007)

The Sopranos is sort of in the same category as The Wire, but the show permeated pop culture to such an extent that actually taking the step to watch it feels less vital. It comes up frequently enough in discussion of former Sopranos writer Matthew Weiner's Mad Men, though, that only sticking to what floated up in the zeitgeist feels insufficient.

3. Firefly (2002-2003)

I never felt compelled to be a Whedonite until I started watching Dollhouse last year. That show has been imperfect, but its highs have been insanely good - upon completion of the unbelievably good DVD-only Season One finale "Epitaph One," I said to myself, "You know, maybe I really should watch Firefly." The one-season run of Firefly is often cited as emblematic of Fox's mid-decade quick-cancellation fever, but even a few episodes made the people who love it total fanatics.

4. Deadwood (2004-2006)

My interest in Deadwood was piqued by two post-Deadwood shows featuring former stars of the Wild West revamp - Kings, which starred Ian McShane, and Swingtown, which starred Molly Parker. Plus, there's a lot of inventive cursing, which I can always get behind.

5. 24 (2001-present)

I don't really want to watch 24, but I feel like I should. The whole "he-man, America - Fuck, Yeah!" thing has never really appealed to me in a casual TV-watching sense, but as an American Studies student, I can't avoid the impact it's had as the post-9/11 show (at least on broadcast networks). It'll happen eventually, but Jack Bauer might have to drag me there kicking and screaming.

6. Breaking Bad (2008-present)

AMC's success with Mad Men has, by most accounts, been continued with Breaking Bad. The fact that Bryan Cranston has beat out Jon Hamm and the rest of the dramatic actor cohort twice at the Emmys, which are not exactly a bastion of forward thinking, convinced me that I will eventually give Breaking Bad a try.

7. Sons of Anarchy (2008-present)

I started watching SoA when it premiered last year, but it got lost in the shuffle of the new fall TV schedule and apparently I never quite got to the point where the show saw a dramatic uptick in quality. Also, Charlie Hunnam doing an American accent invariably reminds me of the one Undeclared episode where Lloyd does a hilariously bad James Van Der Beek in Varsity Blues impersonation (I wish I could find this clip on YouTube, but searches were sadly unsuccessful.) However, I can't ignore the crazy love the show's been getting during the second season this fall, and, I won't lie, I was thrilled when they beat Jay Leno in the ratings.

8. The Shield (2002-2008)

The Shield is sort of third behind The Wire and The Sopranos - if you read a lot of television criticism from the past decade, it's impossible to avoid. Like Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston, the acclaim around Michael Chiklis' performance in The Shield makes the show undeniably intriguing.

9. Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000-present)

Part of me wonders if Larry David isn't too misanthropic for me. Generally speaking, I'm a big fan of cynicism and dark humor, but watching a bunch of Woody Allen movies for a class a few years ago made me realize that there is some humor that is just too bleak for me. I'll probably give Curb a chance, but I might not watch more than a few seasons.

10. Carnivale (2003-2005)/Rome (2005-2007)

Okay, this is two shows. But they essentially represent the same thing: HBO shows that only aired for a few seasons, beloved by their audiences, that I missed due to non-access to their network.

Best of the 00s: The Game Plan

Like everyone and their brother, I can't quite resist the allure of the coming new year as an impetus for writing a whole bunch of lists. Specifically, detailing my pop-culture favorites of the past decade. Anything aired or released between January 1, 2000 and December 31 of this year is fair game. It'll probably end up being television-skewed, due to that being my personal favorite medium. With all that being said, let's see how much random crap from the past ten years I can drag up out of the ether, shall we?

Mood Music XXII

There's something undeniably charming about mainstream pop artists who still like to do something different with the music video as a medium. I love the group choreography accompanying the chorus. If I was 13, I'd totally be trying to learn it, almost certainly looking like an idiot in the process. (How lucky am I that YouTube didn't exist when I was 13? It would have been non-stop ridiculousness.)

Mood Music XXI

I was watching Wattstax the other day for a paper I'm working on about concert films, and I was struck by how beautiful this rendition of "Lift Ev'ry Voice" is.

I also love the crowd shot with the baby.

And While We're on the Topic of Glee...

Listening to the just-released soundtrack ("Alone" is so good!) only reinforces a feeling that I know is at odds with what the people behind Glee would have us believe. Namely, I think Kevin McHale (Artie) has a much better singing voice than Cory Monteith (Finn). Head-to-head:

I don't have a problem, per se, with the way the show's narrative is set up, but it does make the "Rachel and Finn Show" element in solo assignments just that much more tiresome.

Wish List: Five Popular Actors I'd Like to See on Glee

The buzz that has surged in the past few months around Glee prompted me to look back at executive producer/co-creator/writer Ryan Murphy's previous high school effort from a decade ago, Popular. Popular shares a lot with Glee, both thematically, in its focus on the social hierarchies that govern high school life, and tonally, in its aversion to total realism. It's easy to see the remnants of Popular's a-little-too-weird-for-the-WB vibe (one episode features both an extended riff on Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Erik Estrada appearing as himself) in Glee, which is never quite as wholesome as it seems like it's supposed to be. Accordingly, it would be great to see Murphy acknowledge Glee's antecedent by bringing in some Popular actors as teachers, or McKinley alums, or something. Here are my top five:

1. Leslie Grossman

Of all the Popular cast members, Grossman has shown the most facility with the kind of manic energy that has distinguished Glee in its few months on the air. Popular's Mary Cherry was a uniquely crazy character the likes of which one rarely sees, and Grossman never gave her less than 100% commitment.

If they hadn't already given Terri a totally insane sister, I'd nominate Grossman for the job.

2. Tammy Lynn Michaels

Michaels is perhaps the one actor whose Popular character could make it to Glee completely intact.

It would be amazing to see Nicole Julian bringing the Glamazons into competition against Sue's Cheerios on Glee.

3. Leslie Bibb

Admittedly, it's more Bibb's post-Popular work that makes me want to see her on Glee, particularly her role as bitch-on-wheels social climber Katrina Ghent in the little-seen but seriously good (seriously, if you've got half a day to devote to it, all the episodes are on Hulu) Kings.

Bibb is great at playing uptight characters without making them heartless or rigid, a quality that fits in well with Glee's rubric of softened-edge villains.

4. Wentworth Miller

Miller wasn't on Popular for very many episodes, but he made a mark with relatively little screen time. His turn as Adam Rothschild-Ryan, insane cheerleader underminer, skirts the funny/grating line of deliberate camp in its sheer over-the-top-ness.

Your mileage may vary as to what side of that line his performance ultimately lands on, but it is refreshingly different from the persona he's established over the past few years on Prison Break. It would be delightful to see Miller do it again on Glee.

5. Christopher Gorham

Okay, this is mostly because he's cute. Look at his face!

Also, the egregious narrative misuse of Henry was a major factor in my decision to stop watching Ugly Betty. A glance at Gorham's IMDb page shows the kinds of 20-ish episode runs in short-lived shows that get an actor branded a showkiller, and it would be nice to see him do some time on a show as well-received as Glee.

Dear Matthew Weiner,

You cannot leave all these plot threads dangling after next week. I will go mad (see what I did there?) if I have to wait until next summer to know whether we've seen the last of Sal or Joan. The strangled cry of frustration I let out after the preview for next week, which wasn't even the usual collection of cryptic sound bites but rather highlights from the season, will pale in comparison to the howl of rage brewing if we don't get some sort of indicator of whether this whole endeavor is ultimately character-driven or Sterling Cooper-driven. Have mercy.

P.S. Dear Janie Bryant, I am deeply in love with Trudy's blue dress for the wedding. Please try to make this a 2009 mass-market reality.

I'm Not Crazy...

Oh, how I wish I could go to New York and see this live:

We should all be so sanguine about our personal foibles.

Quoted VIII

"No one loves to talk about horror films more than somebody with a Ph.D. in cultural studies at a university. Every horror movie seems to be about penalizing people for values. There’s a certain iconography of the vampire, a certain iconography of the werewolf, the zombie. That seems to be the core audience for slasher films—metalheads and collegiate professors."

- Chuck Klosterman, A.V. Club interview

I knew it had been a long time since I last wrote here, but I was kind of shocked to see it had been over a month. I thought intermittently about writing some different posts, but they sort of faded into the ether as I got dragged into an exhausting fall schedule. My resolution for November is more writing (both academically and here) and I've got some Best of the Decade lists in the works.

It's the American Dream

Taking a class on the 1960s at the same time as the new season of Mad Men has resulted in a totally new viewership experience. The more we read and watch for class, the more curious I am to see which events Matt Weiner and his writing team deem worthy of direct or indirect inclusion in the show's narrative. Yesterday's show addressed, somewhat obliquely, the murder of Medgar Evers. The account of Evers' assassination in the civil rights documentary Eyes on the Prize struck me as uniquely harrowing:

Evers' assassination stands starkly in opposition to Pete's elevator conversation with Hollis. I found the silences in that conversation most compelling, the moments when it seemed that Hollis had neither the time or the energy to explain to Pete how narrow his worldview really was, progressive though it may be compared to the rest of Sterling Cooper. "The idea is that everyone's going to have a house, a car, a television - the American Dream," Pete explains in his defense. The Eyes on the Prize clip shows what Pete fundamentally missed, what Hollis could not, or would not, express to him. The fight is about something deeper, more fundamental than that - Evers had the house and the car, those markers of success, and he was still gunned down in his driveway.

I'm torn about the show's use of Evers' death. The characters on Mad Men are so ensconced in their rarefied world, the general absence of any discussion of civil rights has come to seem authentic. However, when an event like this receives such sudden focus, it creates a sense of preceding actions being unimportant or even nonexistent. I love that Mad Men is introducing the civil rights movement into its conversation, and especially that tertiary black characters are becoming more vocal actors in Sterling Cooper and the Draper home. I just wish it felt more organic.

Baking: Blondies

So this year I'm an office assistant for my program, and I plan to use our building's kitchen as a baked goods repository. It allows me to try new recipes and techniques, bake to my heart's desire and not feel obligated to eat all of the finished products. Everybody wins!

I also thought I'd chronicle my adventures (and surely, over the course of the year, misadventures) in baking here. This week I chose blondies (a.k.a. butterscotch brownies) using the recipe from Mark Bittman's 10th anniversary How to Cook Everything.

A few years ago, in the weeks leading up to the day I would leave for school I suddenly had this mad craving for blondies. They're so buttery and delicious, I thought, and leaving for school I felt secure in making a pan because whatever I didn't eat could be distributed among my friends. So I made a pan in the evening, covered it in foil and left it to be cut in the morning. When I went to do that, however, I found that the blondies had been visited by the chocolate-loving mystery rodent my sister and I dubbed "The Gnawer". It was so terribly demoralizing, having built them up in my mind as satisfying my weeks-long craving only to peel back the foil and regard the little nibbles along the edges of the baking pan. So I decided to right that wrong and start out with blondies again this time around.

Mmm...butter.

Whisking the butter and brown sugar together - it's always sort of fun to use the whisk to crush sugar lumps.

Unintentional action shot! (Otherwise, my hand wouldn't be so prominent.) My camera goes to sleep when it's not being used, and I ended up trying to wake it up and mix in the egg at the same time. There's a reason the pros have their own camera operators.

This batter was an appealing gooey caramel sludge - I probably would've eaten it with a spoon if not for the raw egg.

Adding the flour and salt - I like to use coarse kosher salt because it gives a little extra kick. Admittedly, I'm a chocolate-covered pretzel fan, so your mileage may vary regarding the interplay of salt and sugar.

Lighter color, thicker batter once the flour is mixed in.

I added toffee pieces to give them something a little extra - if I make them again I'll probably add chocolate chips, or toffee pieces that have chocolate in them. The toffee is good, but a little too close to the flavor of the blondies just in and of themselves.

Getting ready for the oven!

I watched Grease 2, one of my favorite campy so-bad-it's-good movies, while baking, stashing the laptop on top of the microwave. The start of classes brought the movie's opening song ("Back to School Again") to mind. It's hard to tell here, but Michelle Pfeiffer and Maxwell Caulfield have just launched into the uber-cheesy film-concluding "We'll Be Together."

Just out of the oven. I think they might have been a bit overcooked, but I'm not really sure whether the fudge/cake dichotomy still applies when you're talking about blondies.

And the finished product, ready for distribution!

Mood Music XX

The 40th-anniversary nostalgia around Woodstock compels me to post my favorite clip from the concert film:

I first saw this a few years ago (it may very well have been the 35th anniversary in 2004) when VH1 Classic observed the anniversary weekend by playing the film on an endless loop for a couple of days. (Incidentally, this is a film that is dramatically underserved by being edited for basic cable.) I was totally transfixed by Roger Daltrey's performance, and proceeded to fall madly in love with the Who.