Cereal Monogamist

Archives for the Month of March 2010 on Cereal Monogamist

The Madonna Paradox

Hey, do you like Madonna?

Wait--before you answer that question, think really hard about it.

I'll ask again: do you like Madonna?

My theory is that anybody who likes pop music at all likes Madonna; we don't necessarily know that we do because her personality can be so overwhelming we forget about all her awesome music. It doesn't need to be. Madonna, I don't care about your personal life or your scandal-rousing or your politics or that you will keep doing Pilates until you look like Skeletor. Thanks for "Lucky Star" and "Crazy for You" and "The Power of Goodbye" and "Like a Prayer."

Tonight's contribution to Madonna Appreciation is thanks to blogger Mark Blankenship, who this week devoted his blog The Critical Condition to ranking every top-100 single by Madonna.

Even if you don't read the whole thing, read the top ten. His story about "Ray of Light" is both touching and hilarious.

Presented Without Comment

Last night's Amazing Race

above: a Seychellesian tortoise enjoys his 15 minutes of fame

Things you only hear on The Amazing Race (tonight courtesy of Brent):

"The cowboys and the lesbians are back at the place. We had to go get our coconut."

(Does anybody else really want to visit the Seychelles now?)

No Use Lying in the Electronic Age

Oh, Chloe Sevigny! Caught red-handed!

Just a few days ago, the oddly fashionable actress did an interview with Sean O'Neal of the AV Club, where she made some dismissive comments about the TV show Big Love. That's the show she's on, incidentally, the show for which she won a Golden Globe this year.

Well, O'Neal commented about the show being "over the top" in its most recent season, and she agreed with it, but more than that--she ran with it. She riffed on the question, talking about how "awful" it was, comparing it to a telenovela, ultimately finishing on this statement:

Oh God, I know. Oh, God. It’s too much. It’s too much. But I hope the fans will stick with us and tune in next year. There’s a lot of people who really love this season, surprisingly. God, I’m going to get in so much trouble. [Laughs.]

Hey, she was right! She did get in trouble, and immediately announced that she had been quoted out of context, that she was exhausted, that she didn't know what she was saying, and (this is my favorite) that she hadn't even seen the whole season yet because she doesn't have a TV.

Well, that made everything all kittens and roses again--excepting for Sean O'Neal, who recorded the interview and posted a clip of it on the AV Club site. Was Sevigny exhausted? Well, maybe. She kind of always sounds exhausted. That's how she sounds. Was she confused about the question? No, she and O'Neal bantered about it, there was back-and-forth. Did he "provoke" her into saying it? He did deride the show first. But she hasn't confessed to being under some magic spell which makes it impossible for her to disagree with things.

Did she cross some professional boundary by making the comments? Well, that's less cut-and-dried. Don't bite the hand that feeds you and all that. There's a great rundown of the whole thing at The Fien Print. Fienberg asks,

why is it acceptable for an actress to throw a professional journalist under the bus (pretty clearly without cause), but it's unacceptable for an actress to have a clearly articulated and intelligent point of view? Why can't Sevigny just be proud to be smart and opinionated?

Good question. I agree that if an actress doesn't personally love and adore the show she happens to be on, it doesn't have to be a PR crisis. Do you think there's an actor anywhere who would declare, "I am in love with every project I ever took part in! Every movie I made is my favorite movie." Personal taste is variable. What does she really owe her show-runners other than turning in the best performance she can every week? She has to be the show's Number One Fan also?

In my opinion, the most insulting thing she said was actually this line: "There’s a lot of people who really love this season, surprisingly." That takes it out of the realm of "Chloe didn't like it," to "if you liked it you're stupid." But she hasn't apologized for that line. Interesting.

In Praise of...Ginger Rogers!

Ginger Rogers is Star of the Month on TCM right now, and last night I watched three of her movies back-to-back. She made them all in the same 2-3 year period when she and Fred Astaire were taking a little break from each other:

Vivacious Lady (1938)
In which a straight-laced professor marries a nightclub performer on a whim, then can't figure out how to break the news to his parents.

Bachelor Mother (1939)
In which shopgirl Ginger gets mistaken for the mother of an abandoned baby and is stuck keeping him (or else she loses her job--classic 1930s film logic).

Stage Door (1937)
In which a bunch of aspiring actresses live in a boarding house together and fight and cry and sing and persecute each other and jump out of windows and things.

What struck me, settling in at 8pm to watch Vivacious Lady (which I've seen many times and even written about here) and then being glued to the screen until Stage Door ended at ten to one, was how funny Ginger was. If you hear discussion of her today, it's all about dancing and Astaire, which really doesn't do justice to how multi-faceted a performer she was.

I mean, there's no denying that she was an incredibly talented dancer. She dances in all three of the above movies, too, I guess because the logic was, if you're hiring Ginger Rogers you might as well get 'a number' out of her. But it seems like most people, if they know her at all, know her as "and Ginger" and that's a shame. (But then I never really liked Astaire anyway, sorry! I'm more of a Gene Kelly girl.)

She had such great comedic chops, though. She's a goofball in Vivacious Lady, kind of hapless in Bachelor Mother, but she really owns Stage Door for me--opposite Katharine Hepburn!

(Also notice Lucille Ball, then a little-known brunette.) Rogers plays the seasoned veteran of the wannabe-actresses; she knows all the tricks, and she has no patience for idealists like Hepburn's character. She smirks, she snipes, she has an affair with a stage producer and then tells him off when he tries to trade her in for a new girl. Hepburn's character does something morally questionable, and Rogers gives her the coldest cut-you-down-to-size speech ever. Also, at one point, she has this exchange:

Jean (Rogers, commenting on a housemate's fur coat): Say, I think it's very unselfish of those little animals to give up their lives to keep other animals warm.

Linda (Gail Patrick): You know, they're very smart little animals. They never give up their lives for the wrong people.

Jean: Well, you understand the rodent family much better than I do.

While watching the mini-marathon, I was trying to think of a modern actress who exemplifies everything that Ginger could do. There are actresses out there today who can sing and dance competently, and there are actresses who are brilliant comedians, but I can't think of anybody who did both so well. I think Stage Door might be the perfect role for Ginger, actually--she gets to play comedy, drama and chorus line all in one movie, plus there's no man in there to steal the credit!

Also, searching Google for a Ginger Rogers pic, look what I found: a classic film blog! He does an "Audrey of the Month".

Exam Time is Over

I handed in two essays at 11:53 this morning. They are not the best essays ever written, but they both reached the minimum length and one of them even had time to get proof-read. If they are passable, I will have completed the longest Master's degree in the history of the universe.

For now, for a few hours at least, the "Currently reading / writing about" sidebar is empty, and I am going to bed! See you real soon, world.

(And see ya in hell, Faerie Queene!)

Movie Reviews: Listmania edition

So last summer, I decided to run through the AFI 100 Best Movies lists. There are several other AFI lists, among them 100 Best Thrillers, 100 Best Romances, 100 Best Comedies, 25 Best Musicals (the AFI was tiring at that point, I guess?) and so on. Here are some recent cross-offs.

It’s a Gift (1934)
AFI 100 Best Comedies # 58

Of all those lists, which I am always keeping track of, the Best Comedies is the one that appeals to me the least. Movies like It’s a Gift are why. Some old comedies are just not that funny anymore. Forgive me. W.C. Fields, in this movie, did not make me laugh, he made me bored. (The Marx brothers I also found atrociously unfunny, though as a peace offering, I present Chaplin and Keaton. Those dudes are still funny in 2010.) (Howard Lloyd, too. See below.)

There was also a certain tone to this movie—harried suburban dad type thing—which bugged me intensely. See the opening scene, where Fields is desperately trying to get to his bathroom mirror for a shave but his kids keep swooping in and getting in his way. The audience is supposed to be laughing at his frustration, but I’m like “JUST TELL THEM YOU WERE THERE FIRST. OR SAY ‘I’M THE DAD, THAT’S WHY.’ OR SOMETHING.” It’s kind of a common theme in movies, especially comedies: men who are so put-upon by their children and their harpy wives. I don’t like that theme when it happens today, but I especially can’t stomach it coming from the 1930s. I just have trouble feeling sorry for a guy whose mother couldn’t legally vote, whose wife could get arrested for buying birth control, and whose daughter can’t wear pants to school.

The Freshman (1925)
AFI 100 Best Comedies # 79

So this one, unlike the W.C. Fields movie, was hilarious. I sat there watching it really late one night, just giggling helplessly. It’s a silent film, starring Harold Lloyd, and he plays a guy going off to college who has a lot of weird ideas about how he’s going to make friends. For example, every time he introduces himself to somebody, he does a little dance. He thinks this works.

The intertitles (in silent films, those little cutaways to dialogue and necessary description) are clever and smirky. The college Lloyd attends is “Tate University, a large football stadium with a college attached,” and so, naturally, Lloyd decides that the thing to do to become popular is to join the football team. There’s a girl and a bully and this insane scene with a disintegrating tuxedo. At their best, silent comedies are the perfect combination of smart and silly, and (at least in my experience) this is one of the best.

Ball of Fire (1941)
AFI 100 Best Comedies # 92

Very funny love story with Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper. He’s a straight-arrow linguistics professor who’s studying American slang, and she’s a saucy nightclub performer with lots to teach him. He lives with seven other doddery old professors who gawk around Stanwyck like she’s some delightful new species they’ve discovered. There’s sort of a Snow White and the Seven Dwarves-thing going on, plus a mobster-related subplot.

Plus Barbara Stanwyck! She’s awesome.

Click ahead for many more.

Continue reading "Movie Reviews: Listmania edition"

Now we can make fun of vampires electronically!

Just a quick note to draw everyone's attention to the fact that my favorite blogger, the wonderful Linda Holmes of Monkey See (have I mentioned her enough times? Linda, visit my blog already!) has been guilted into reading Twilight and is tweeting about it.

Check out the Monkey See twitter here and other followers of the Twilight read-in here.

A sampling:

The first note I wrote in the margins of Twilight says "There is no subtext; only text." 5:39 AM Mar 15th via TweetDeck

MA exam starts tomorrow

Preparations taken for the MA exam tomorrow:

• 2 weeks' worth of laundry done


• kitchen clean (dishwasher currently running)


• ample leftovers in fridge (chicken casserole from last night; lasagna from tonight) (also cookies)


• stocked up on groceries / necessities


• all bills paid through end of month


• DVR cleared of movies (for once!) and favorite shows set to record (also: TV remotes hidden to discourage unnecessary viewing)


• backup blog entries pre-written and ready to post sometime through the week, so that you don't all think I've died

Basically, I have attempted to pre-arrange anything and everything that is not my academic work and which could possibly take time away from me over the next week. We will see how this works.

Within the next eight days, this nightmare era of The Faerie Queene will be over. I first started working on this reading list in May 2009, people. (Pssst: and it never did get done.) I really can't say how much of a weight off me it will be when it's done.

But first: the eight days.

The Best Actress Fallacy

One of the more controversial Oscar winners from this past weekend was Sandra Bullock. This past summer, her career was seemingly in the toilet thanks to that All About Steve fiasco, and then suddenly The Proposal made a buck or two (although if my sister didn’t like it, I do not see what it could possibly have to recommend itself as a romantic comedy). And then this The Blind Side thing happened, and somehow her career trajectory veered so crazily in the opposite direction that she—as predicted—won a Razzie and an Oscar in the same year.

So the question becomes: does Sandra Bullock, mistress of pratfalls and goofiness, big opening weekends and almost supernatural hotness in her mid-forties (YES, REALLY), fit the profile of the Academy Award-winning actress?

First, we need to establish what the profile is. There’s this tendency to think of Oscar winning actresses as grande dames of cinema.

Bette Davis in All About Eve, for example

Or Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard

Would it surprise you to discover that both of those women went up for Best Actress in the same year, 1951? And that both of them lost? Who swiped the award from these two women in the prime of life, tackling two of the meatiest roles in Hollywood history?

Judy Holliday (age 29) in Born Yesterday

Nothing against Judy--that's a great movie, and her performance is more nuanced than 'dim bulb with a heart of gold.' Although that's a lot of it.

Continue reading "The Best Actress Fallacy"

Osssssssscars!

I am reading all these bloggers who’ve pledged to see all the Best Picture nominees, or all the films with a non-technical nomination (that’s Sarah Bunting, and she almost did it). Some of them spent two Saturdays in a row parked in a movie theater seat watching five wannabe Best Pictures back-to-back. My major regret going into Oscar night is that I haven’t seen enough of the nominated movies. Living virtually across the street from a limited-release haven like the Cedar Lee, just about every one of these movies has crossed my path (not something I could say back when I was living in Lansing, Michigan--sorry Lansing). I went to an Oscar party in which the crowd was generally well-versed in movies—not just the big ones, but independents, foreigns, documentaries—and I wished I could have given more opinions instead of continually saying, “That looked really good. I heard that was good. I was going to see that. Everything I’ve read online says that was overrated, actually.”

The real problem is this whole being-in-grad-school thing, which will be over soon enough. I’ll be a cultural civilian again by May, and then it’s seeing movies all the time, reading books all the time, just because I damn well want to. And maybe next February I’ll plan my own Oscar film binge.

This year, I had to content myself watching the Oscars having seen only Inglourious Basterds, Up in the Air, Julie and Julia, and one-third of The Hurt Locker. I'm catching up on the other movies at my usual snail’s-pace rate. (Oscar-nominated or Oscar-winning movies I have seen in the past few months: Valmont, Mrs. Brown, Frozen River, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, Gangs of New York.)

Anyway, here are my totally uneducated thoughts on the proceedings.

Continue reading "Osssssssscars!"

Community Does Mad Men!

Community is getting awesomer and awesomer every week. I can understand why you might not like it--it really doesn't have a ton in common with its more understated Thursday night neighbors The Office and Parks and Recreation--it's more of a whip-fast smart-silly like 30 Rock.

I'm a Renaissance woman so I enjoy both of those types of shows. But of the three of them that aired last night (30 Rock was shuffled off so Jim and Pam could have a full hour to birth their baby) Community was easily the funniest. There was a good plotline about Jeff taking pool for his phys ed credit and objecting to required uniform of 80s-style short-shorts (I won't go into how that story wraps up because you've got to see it to believe it).

But the best moment was courtesy of oddball Abed. See, the gang thought that a pretty girl from Spanish class liked him and they were encouraging him to go talk to her. He didn't think he could as himself, so he tried out a variety of characters who might feel more comfortable hitting on her ("I think that one was a vampire") until he settled on the right one.

This wasn't it, but it was my favorite.

The impersonation was SO GOOD that I knew who he was doing before he said so. Right around, "Then you picked the wrong outfit."

The inside joke: Annie, played by Alison Brie, plays a secondary character (she's Mrs. Pete Campbell!) on Mad Men.

Revisit the 90s with The AV Club

The AV Club has just started running an incredibly fun feature based on those ubiquitous NOW! compilation CDs. As he explains in the introductory feature, Nathan Rabin, one of the site's writers, recently was subjected to the original NOW! from 1999 and marveled at how much of a snapshot of the times it was. He writes...

A strange spirit of musical democracy pervades the CD. It’s a curious world where one-hit wonders like Marcy Playground breathe the same rarified air as Janet Jackson and Radiohead. For a brief period, they were peers, at least where Billboard and NOW That’s What I Call Music! is concerned.

This week the second feature went live, revisiting the Britney Spears phenomenon in its nascent stage, discussing whether the New Radicals' "You Get What You Give" has enough layers of subversion to be cool, and vindicating my secret belief that Semisonic was cool.

Read it--especially if you were a teen in the 90s like I was--but skip the comments section lest you get too engaged in the debate about which ironic cover of "Baby One More Time" is the best.

Travis?
Fountains of Wayne?
Bowling for Soup?
Even Tori Amos has done it!

For the record, my music taste never having been particularly cool, I never bought a NOW! CD, though if there had been a Lilith Fair edition, you can be sure I would have been all over it. Here's who I spent the majority of the 90s listening to...

Oh, you mean you don't remember Lisa Loeb?

Here, maybe this will help.

Two Bittersweet Stories About Roger Ebert

Certainly my favorite film critic writing right now is Roger Ebert, who in less than 1000 words can cut a bad movie down to size, or build a pedestal on which a great movie will sit. His health problems of the last few years have had severe effects on his body (robbing him of his voice, notably), but that has only caused him to multiply his writing output. In addition to his reviews, he's blogging and philosophizing and even tweeting continually.

A few weeks ago, he authorized a cover story to be written about him for Esquire magazine, revealing very intimate details of his life as a partial invalid. It's a sad and lovely article, making you feel like you're hanging around in the viewing room with Ebert and his kickass wife, Chaz.

Roger Ebert: The Essential Man (Chris Jones, from Esquire)

Today, I read another tribute to Ebert, this one of a very different kind. A writer called Will Leitch describes how he idolized Ebert, hugely insulted him in print, and grew to regret it. It's a really compelling tale, with Leitch in full apology mode. Remember that time Ryan on The Office excused his past behavior by saying: "I was in my mid-twenties"? That basically sums up Leitch's explanation of his behavior, but he is wise enough as a writer now that the story he wrote here is really about what an unmissable writer Ebert has continued to be despite his ordeals.

My Roger Ebert Story (Will Leitch, from Deadspin)