Movies I Came Up With the Idea for First

A common criticism of the cinema is that Hollywood is devoid of original ideas. Sequels, book adaptations, rip-offs, there doesn't seem to be any imagination in the system. I enjoy film quite a bit, and find myself reflecting on this accusation of a lack of creativity. I am only twenty year old at time of writing, but several movies have came out that I had the idea for first, thus, I wish to set the record straight on the couple of original ideas that have allegedly came out of the pictures.

Inception
The summer of 2010 was blessed with a masterfully directed, edited, acted, and scripted heist movie about people that can enter your dreams. When I was in eighth grade, I drew a 40 page comic book about two guys that are trapped in somebody else's imagination. When discussing this comic with a friend, it was mentioned, "Hey, what if you're trapped in somebody else's dream, and you had to keep them asleep so that you don't die?" This is years before Inception. And if you remember, there is a Spongebob Squarepants episodes where he jumps from one person's dream to another.

Click
Summer 2005, I film a skit inwhich I have a remote control that effects the flow of time. I don't think anybody was calling Adam Sandler's Click original, but serious, I thought of it first!

Death Bell
This is a 2008 South Korean horror film about teachers killing their students for being bad students. When I was 14, I made a sound recording of myself narrating a story and added keyboard music later. The story was "The Story of Bob," a disturbing story about a kid named Bob, whose teacher kills students for talking during class or not doing homework. Listening to it now, I am surprised that I wasn't commited considering how messed-up the subject matter.

Kick-Ass
In my freshman year of high school, I was a part of a high school screenwriting competition in the greater Milwaukee area (I didn't win.) We submitted an entry, and if one were selected, one moved on to the next round of submitting a fully-written short film screenplay. The winner had theirs produced. My final entry was about a high school student that was beat-up so many times that he decided to become a superhero. He designs a costume, wears it to school, and slowly seeks out the bad guys in day-to-day life. Basically, it was Kick-Ass in its "high-concept," except without its level of violence and young girls dropping the C-Bomb.

Borat
At the same time that I was writing a short screenplay, I also was producing a year-long documentary about my life, entitled, The Life of Brendan 2005 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5UZUCbTM9Q). I used primitive equipment, and even more primitive techniques as I films myself walking around, interviewing strangers, making people feel uncomfortable, and getting myself into strange situations. I was Borat, except Sasha Baron Cohan was acting, I was being myself, but I created the same effect without a mustache and an accent.

I am sure there are others. For example, I thought, what if video game imagery were used in a movie artistically? Then Scott Pilgrim came out. Maybe originality really is dead, but that does not stop me from enjoying the movies.

Brendan's Favorite Movies: Blue Velvet

I believe David Lynch's 1986 film Blue Velvet is one of the most perfect films ever made. This does not mean it's the best, but that everything in the film just works: There isn't one shot or one line of dialogue or one musical cue that need not be there.
     Blue Velvet is a mystery story, the main character being an amateur detective. As soon as he starts to investigate, a slew of strange characters in the otherwise generic town surface. The second Dennis Hopper appears, the tone abruptly changes. The viewer has entered the rabbit hole, where will it take you now? This is the definitive neo-noir film, managing to tell a simple story in such a beautiful, twisted, and utterly absorbing way. You will never think of velvet in the color of blue, oxygen masks, or Pabst Blue Ribbon the same way again.

Musical Artists that I Thought Would be One-Hit Wonders, But Weren't

I love pop music. That is not always a popular opinion to have these days when declaring one's disdain for mainstream culture is a quick way to prove one is intelligent or deep, but we can deal with that later. One of the facets of pop music is the one-hit wonder, the act that comes out of nowhere, strikes it big, and later is never heard of again. Sometimes I hear a song and think to myself, this act will fade off the face of the earth soon, but soon enough, they come back two years later as strong as ever.
     For this list, I use the notion of a "One-Hit Wonder" a bit looser than the literal definition. If an act has two hits that come out near each other from the same album, and then never heard of again, they are in my mind still a one-hit wonder. These are acts that came back with a second album or a set of songs that proved they would be remembered for more than just a blip,

Sara Bareilles (First Hit: Love Song)
About every year a "Piano Song" comes out (100 years, 1000 Miles, Bad Day, Kids, Ordinary People, Boston) this was the entry for 2008. Piano-based popular music is more of an exception than a rule, and Sara Bareilles doesn't have the distinction of Fiona Apple or Tori Amos. But what do you know, as of late her song "King of Anything," which is thematically similar to "Love Song" in that it is a tell-off anthem, has crept up the charts, and I feel it has had enough airplay to qualify as a second hit. Unlike Daniel Powder of "Bad Day," Sara Bareilles lives another day to tickle the ivories.

Paramore (First Hit: Misery Business)
Rock music (which I officially define as being any short-form music characterized by solo voice, electric guitar, and lessened focus on melody) is not necessarily in vogue on popular music stations, but Paramore, with a female singer, has a bit more of a chance. I remember their Misery Business song with its chorus that does not mention the words "misery" or "business," but I figured it was another indie-ish rock band of teenagers that got a little lucky by straddling the more commercially viable sector of rock music. Then they did the main song Twilight soundtrack, and I thought, oh, well, yeah, they seem like Twilightish music. Come this year their latter-day power ballad "The Only Exception" did very well, once again, added by the surprisingly good singing of the pink-haired girl.

Sean Kingston (First Hit: Beautiful Girls)
Just look at him. Music has so much to do with image, and selling a guy who is the re-incarnation of Fat Albert must be somewhat difficult. Regardless, he hit big with a song that not only sampled "Stand By Me," but also made references to suicide in the chorus. And it was the summer hit of 2007! While he did have a minor hit with "Take You There," his real comeback into the spotlight was with "Fireburning" in 2009. I get the feeling people remember that song now more for Stephen Colbert's riff on it (Cupcake Reach-around anybody?) Still, he dropped another single in early 2010, "Eenie Meeny" featuring everybody's favorite comedic punching bag, Justin Bieber. Sean really knows how to make autotune work for himself.

Natasha Beddingfield (First Hits: These Words/Unwritten)
Unwritten was one of those pop songs that was well-written, featured acoustic guitar, and did not involve going to the club, which alone gave it Adult Contemporary Radio credit (check out Jesse McCartney's Beautiful Soul for another prime example of this.) And while I thought (and still think) that Natasha B. is one of the pop divas that really deserved to be bigger than what she got, she did have another sizable hit a few years later with "Pocketful of Sunshine," a very unsunny sounding song.

Cee Lo Green/Gnares Barkley (First Hit: Crazy)
OK, OK, this is cheating a little bit, but since Cee Lo Green was the voice of Gnares Barkley, I count them as being the same act. "Crazy" was such a great song, and Gnarles Barkley, along with Outkast, stand as shining evidence that pop/rap crossover music can be, well, gnarley. If you had told me that the same soulful voice crooning about going crazy would infect my ears again with a song whose title cannot even be mentioned over the radiowaves (That's "F%^& You",) I don't think I would believe you. But even better, the song simply rocked, making me want to dance as much as I sympathize with the singer. Bring Motown back, goshdarnit!

Soulja Boy Tell'Em (First Hit: Crank That)
This one is, by far, the biggest surprise of the entire list. Seriously, "Soulja Boy Tell'Em?" That's a really goofy nick-name for a 17-year-old who wrote and recorded a repetitive rap song about a deviant sexual act that also involved a goofy-looking dance. I learned how to do the dance. I was there. Even at the time I knew that this would one day be remembered as nostalgic kitsch, but it didn't stop me from colliding into other people at school dances during the "Y-O-O-O-O-O-U-U-U-U!" part of the song when you hop side to side. He had every single making of a one-hit wonder, but Soulja" "Phone" actually has a good chorus, as sung by somebody that isn't Souljaally has a good chorus, as sung by somebody that isn't Soulja Boy. What makes it interesting is that they actually sing Soulja Boy's phone number, which I, regrettably, called. It just had a recorded message, but just think of the implications, I called Soulja Boy's phone number. This is one of those things not to mention in a job interview. This year he dropped another single, "Pretty Boy Swag," which wasn't a big hit per say, but I have heard it at parties and what not. Soulja Boy, he cranked it so far back, that when it let it rip, it went far.

Unanswered Questions from Arthur

Every time I hear the name "Arthur," I immediately think of the yellow-sweatered aardvark. While Arthur certainly made an impact on the children's literary world, I, along with many of my generation, remember him much more fondly for the long-running PBS animated show. While Arthur dealt with many issues relevant to children, it did not resolve one to my memory: interracial marriage.
     All of the characters in the show were anthropomorphic versions of vary mammals. It is implied that each sort of animal is a different ethnicity. Immediately, this begs a huge question of whether animals can crossbreed. Because all the anthropomorphic animals are self-aware, have free will, and fit into the society like anyone else, I couldn't imagine carnal relations between non-similar species would be counted as bestiality, or immoral in some way. However, can different species crossbreed? The character of Emily, DW's perfectionist friend, is (according to Arthur Wiki) three-quarters rabbit and one-quarter monkey, the only "mixed" animal on the show. Does this mean that different species' chromosomes line up? Or do only certain species line up with each other?
     In a cheap move at diversity, Arthur just creates a whole set of questions that they can't possible answer as long as they keep trying to make it a kids' show.

Movies/TV Shows Better than the Source Material

Every time a film adaptation of a popular book comes out, I hear the same conversation over and over again:
Person A: Um, yeah, they left out this part, and then they changed another part.
Person B: Well, you know that they can't fit everything in the book into the movie or else it would be way too long.
I have heard this conversation way too many times, and I realized the central flaw: A film is BASED on a book; a book is not a teleplay; a book is from whence inspiration is drawn. So to prove my point, I selected some movies that improved on whatever their source material was.

Fight Club
I disdain Chuck Palahniuk's books. Did you ever notice that every press release of his refers to him as "The Author of Fight Club, which was turned into a movie directed by David Fincher, starring Brad Pitt?" Do you know why? Because Fight Club the book is just terrible. Almost everything the Chuck writes is this awful, gory, disturbing nihilist schlock. This is the sort of book that high schoolers, undergraduates, stoners, and people that dislike reading real literature read to make themselves feel like they're deep intellectuals when they are really just annoying people that smoke too many cigarettes and act like jerks. You find them on every college campus.
     The book is written in a narrow first person style that seems to give away the "twist" ending (Dissociative Identity Disorder is a way overused plot device,) the writing consists of one sentence paragraphs, and it simply does not capture any of the social commentary or impact of the film. Also, the film changed the ending. It was better.

Jaws
Slow read, didn't capture the manliness or taunt horror of the movie. The shark's death in the book was lame, compared to the explosion from the film. Just watch the movie.

Garfield
Not Garfield the movie, (to which Bill Muary openly regretted in Zombieland,) but Garfield the animated cartoon. Making Garfield animated made Garfield more animated: he ran around, went on adventures, met different reoccurring, and made an overall very funny and well put-together show. The comic strip, however, has no excuse for still existing. Nobody actually reads it, the art is static, jokes repetitive, and characters are almost non-characters. In fact, removing Garfield from the comics makes the strip much funnier: 
http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/
The voice of Garfield, Lorenzo Music, completely owned the character, allowing him to be sarcastic without being cruel, dry without chaping my lips, and just plain funny. Every time I walk by a Chipotle or a Qdoba, I think of the episode when Garfield inherits the Klopman's Diamond and first thinks, "I wonder how many burritos I could trade this for." I, too, wonder sometimes the answer to your quandary.
[According to wikipedia, the Hope Diamond, which the Klopman Diamond is based on, is valued at about 200 Million dollars. At about 6 dollars a burrito at Chipotle, Garfield could buy about 33,333,333 burritos.]

Jurassic Park
Michael Critchton novels really know how to slog on the unnecessary exposition. It makes all the books sound scientific, but not really. He makes countless errors in all of his techno-thrillers, but nobody is out to question him because his readers are trying to get a good read, not a 450-page op-ed piece about the dangers of cloning. The chapters of exposition really are not necessary to even make a point. The original techno-thriller, Frankenstein doesn't even explain how Dr. Frankenstein brings the monster to life. We the readers didn't need to know how it happened, because we probably wouldn't understand anyway. Imagine if the film Inception included a 10 minute monologue explaining how synchronize their sleep cycles to stay on REM sleep, as well as all have the same dream. That would just drag the story down.
     The film not only streamlined so much of the exposition, but makes the characters characters. John Hammond ("Welcome to Jurassic Park!") in the book is a cold-hearted money grubber that dies a nasty death. John Hammond in the movie is a Walt-Disney-ish dreamer that wonderfully conflicts with the cynicism of Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum.) Ian Malcolm in the book is bald, annoying, and sounds like every other know-it-all Michael Crichton character. Ian Malcolm in the movie is eccentric, funny, and is first described as having "an excess of personality." Dr. Grant and Ellie are given a playful dynamic in the movie. Samuel L. Jackson is in the movie. Neumann is the movie. The movie was good. The book was good, but the movie told the story with more fun and less whine.

A History of Violence
Based on a comic book, the Viggo Mortensen film was a powerful meditation about the deep-seated origins of violent behavior and cyclical nature of violence itself. Two problems with the comic: first, it's drawn in a sketchy-pencil style that doesn't look that good. Second, the comic fails to carry the sort of kinetic energy and raw emotion of the film's depiction of violence.
     The film is difficult to watch because, well, it's realistically violent. Viggo does horrible things to people, but no matter what, he cannot escape his "history of violence." The film not only changes the storyline to make the ending and general trajectory more realistic, but also adds two absolutely fantastic sex scenes (from a dramatic point of view.) You can't escape your past, but you can escape the mediocre comic.

The Swiss Family Robinson
The movie was better for one simple reason: it took a largely episodic and non-plot driven story and added pirates. It did not matter that pirates do not fit into the time period. Pirates made the movie so much better.

Casino Royale
This goes not only for Casino Royale, but also for most of the original James Bond books. Casino Royale is a sort of dime store paperback novel that is among tens of thousands. It reeks of the era: Soviets, spies, sexism, cigarettes. The film did a superb job of modernizing a glorified stock character, throwing in great action sequences, swell acting, and changing the casino game in question from Baccarat to Texas Hold 'Em. Seriously, have you ever played Baccarat? And if you have, how many times have you played Texas Hold 'Em. Yeah, that's right, Texas Hold 'Em is better. And is the movie.

Just remember, don't be a fanboy/girl, evaluate the film on its own merits. But just please don't have the conversation detained in the opening paragraph. Please.

The Trouble with Casting

I would like to bring up an issue of film casting. People tell me that in theatre/film, appearance is almost everything. Oftentimes, one does not get the part because one does not "look the part." Given this, why does Tom Cruise continue to get film roles? He does not look like a lawyer (The Firm, A Few Good Men), a doctor (Eyes Wide Shut), a magazine CEO (Vanilla Sky), a warrior (The Last Samurai, Legend, Born on the Fourth of July), a covert ops agent (Mission Impossible I, II, and III, Knight and Day), an SS member (Valkyrie), a senator (Lions for Lambs), and most certainly not like an ordinary person with a menial labor job (War of the Worlds.)
     No, in fact, America's most beloved Scientologist and former Brat Pack member looks too much like himself, which is to say, a model. That's right, more so than any other actor or actress in the game, I cannot suspend my disbelief when I am watching Cruise alternate between mugging to the camera and yelling. He is too pretty-boy looking to be believable in any career he plays, because people just don't look like that, and if they do, they model. Additionally, he also is incapable of doing accents, so he sounds awfully strange as a French vampire in Interview with a Vampire, or a straight American-accented Nazi renegade. Imagine doing Shakespeare in Brooklyn accents. It just doesn't work. I tried:
Whad a piece ah woik is a man! haw Noobile in
Reesin? haw infinite in facullty? in fawm an' mawnin'
haw exprasshun an' admerrable? in Ahcshun, haw like n' Angel?
     Having said that, I find Thomas Cruise Mapother IV's most convincing role to be in Magnolia, where I swear he was playing himself. I get the feeling that every person on earth can act in at least one role, and at least Cruise was lucky enough to have been cast in a film where he got to play his.

The Sickest, Most Twisted Thing

Sometimes life feels like autopilot. One's motions are mechanical, responses automatic, and thoughts streamlined. When one lives completely in the moment, the moment can be meaningless because it's nothing out of the ordinary.
     From this position, it sometimes takes something great to knock an individual out of their living through the motions. This event can be something very positive, but this event can also be something very unsettling. An event that contradicts the order of things can make one realize why even the most basic procedures and events happen as they do.
     I had such an event happen to me. I was attending a high school basement party; I was 18 and the oldest person. As I descend the stairs to the basement, I notice the food set out on a ledge. The lights were dimmed, so I couldn't exactly make out what I was eating. It looked like M&M's. I took a handful and tossed them into my mouth. I masticated, and discovered instantly that the bowl contained M&M's mixed with Skittles.
     Was this some kind of sick joke? Nothing else about the party would suggest that. Additionally, nobody else mentioned anything about the two candies being mixed. It was an event that happened, but for no known reason or intent, and for all I know, I might have been the only person that was affected by it.
     The Irish have a concept that some places were not only holy, but also "thin," the distance between the said places and the spirit world was minimal. That's how I feel about this particular event. It was such an abstraction from reality that it made me question the actual foundations of existence and order in the universe. Maybe M&Ms and Skittles belong together.

Bad Movies with Good Acting

Have you ever made a video for a class before? It's kind of difficult, scripting, co-coordinating schedules, driving to locations, shooting, editing, and so many other factors. Making a professional film must be this times a number just below infinity in terms of involvement, cost, and effort. Given the number of tasks, roles, and processes involved in making a film, it seems interesting that viewers, including myself, seem rarely interested in anybody outside of the main actors, and occasionally the director. Sometimes, it isn't the actor's fault that the movie is terrible, and they put on a pretty good show anyway. This is my list, in no particular order, or good acting in not-so-good movies.

-Chloe Moretz and Nicolas Cage in Kick-Ass
     This was the only time I ever left a movie theatre completely unsure what I thought about what I just saw. Kick-Ass is a horribly violent adaptation of the primitive comics you drew in middle school. The film keeps flipping from a light teen-sex comedy to a gory superhero deconstruction, but can't decide which one it wants to be, and ends up resulting in a hastily scripted film. However, Nicolas Cage gives the dialogue a surprisingly funny reading, and Chloe Moretz as Hit Girl completely owns the movie as an 11-year-old prepubescent Jason Bourne with a foul mouth and a gun. She was 12 during filming. When I was twelve my voice hadn't changed yet.

-Daniel Day-Lewis in Nine
     I met the person that lives next to DDL in Ireland. He told me that the method actor extraordinaire could be seen singing and dancing around his house. Once Nine was announced, I was so excited, only to be disappointed. The movie failed at recreating the atmosphere of "Chicago," much less the classic 8 1/2! The songs were forgettable, the movie jarring, the plot underdeveloped, BUT DANIEL COULD SING! and Dance! Well! He gave it is all, and it made me feel good inside. Maybe next time.

-Tobin Bell in the Saw Series
     Saw is a guilty pleasure of mine, but I will open agree that it has some of the worst acting in any major release in the 2000's. While everybody is freaking out, the infamously voiced Tobin Bell completely dominates every scene he is in. In my mind, a good villain is not somebody you want to punch in the groin, it's somebody that you, to your dismay, find yourself fascinated by. The world is filled with real villains, and they are always people that can convince you that they are doing the right thing.

-Willem Dafoe in The Boondock Saints
     The Boondock Saints is probably the only movie that EVERYBODY loves except the critics. I like aspects of this movie, and it seems so appropriate around St. Patrick's Day, but I'm calling a spade a spade: it's an immature, over-the-top, self-indulgent, Quintin Tarentino knock-off that takes itself way too seriously. The whole movie reads like a smarmy Irish response to Italian gangster movies, and am I the only one that thinks it's a little weird that the brothers get a message from God to kill gangsters and nobody seems to question the theological implications? The action sequences are lazy, every single one of them in slow motion (although the cauterizing scene was a nice touch of realism.) If you want to see good action, watch "The Matrix," watch a John Woo film (Check out "Hardboiled.") In terms of acting, I can't tell the two brothers apart. But I know when Willem Dafoe enters the room. He is such a wonderful character, managing to be a self-aware over-the-top, while the rest of the movie is just ego-driven, over-the-top. It almost seems like he realized that this was going to bomb at the box office and live forever in the hands of teenage boys, and he just has fun with it. Way to go, Willem, best actor to come out of Wisconsin!

-Edward Norton in Leaves of Grass
     I don't understand why this film was made. Edward Norton was in Primal Urge, 25th Hour, Fight Club, American History X, The People vs. Larry Flint, The Illusionist and Red Dragon, why is he in this bland, inconsequential indie film? This is one of the few films I stopped watching because it wasn't really that funny and it wasn't really that dramatic either. It was just boring. Ed plays both a charming, successful, sexy Classical Philosophy professor and his drug dealing Oklahoma hick brother. Other movies have done the one-actor-playing-two-characters gig before, but the technical precision is insane, and the two characters are so different, I couldn't have guessed they were played by the same dude. Good acting, but a mediocre movie.

-Jackie Earle Haley in Little Children
     This is one of the few non-period pieces Kate Winslet starred in. She is a stay-at-home, thirty-something generation X-er mom trying to avoid turning into a gossipy, shallow housewife, but also married to an unemotional husband that watches too much porn. Patrick Wilson is a stay-at-home dad with a domineering, overly ambitious wife. They start an affair. These two are upstaged by Jackie Earle Haley as a registered sex offender. Sex offenders are the modern-day boogie men, but he manages to craft a remarkably complex character out of "To Catch a Predator" territory. This is not to say we should sympathize with him, but he is the only thing that leaves an impression after the movie's over. Now on the topic of the film itself, Little Children has a terrible ending, and the cinematography tries really hard to be "American Beauty II: The Revenge," but the most unforgivable thing is by far the weirdest, the narrator. This is a grown-up film with an unseen narrative voice. That's right, not a character narrating, but a movie-trailer quality, disembodied voice discribing the characters' backstories and thoughts while also hastening plot development. What kind of lazy screenwriting is this?

-Dakota Fanning in The Runaways/Twilight: New Moon/Twilight: Eclipse
     She is fifteen and plays a drug-addled, sexually-precocious, bi-curious rock star in The Runaways. The scene where she tries to openly buy a bottle of vodka with a couple of onions is amazing.
     I really don't have to talk about Twilight, but trust me, she's the best one.

Saint Nick vs. Santa Claus, a Battle of Globalism

If you are from Wisconsin, today means something special to you. Today is Saint Nicholas Day. You, as a child, would wake up, run by your fireplace, where you left your shoe, and see that it now is filled with candy by none other than St. Nick. However, you would understand that St. Nick is not Santa Claus, St. Nick is an actual canonized saint, while Santa Claus is the guy who lives in the North Pole.
This is Saint Nick: http://www.stnicholasfestival.org.uk/
This is Santa Claus: http://www.santa-claus-clipart.com/
Santa Claus is not Saint Nicholas. Saint Nicholas is not Santa Claus. One guy comes to kids in Wisconsin on December 6th to put candy in your shoe. The other guy has flying reindeer, elves, and an obesity problem. Yes, I understand that the American tradition of Santa Claus comes from St. Nicholas, but for our intends and purposes, it must be recognized that they are not the same person in Christmastime Mythology.
     The name "Santa Claus" comes as a corruption of "Sinterklaas" (Sint being the Dutch word for Saint.) In the Netherlands, Sinterklaas lives in Spain with his Moorish sidekick (portrayed by white guys in blackface) Zwart Piet (Black Pete), but right before St. Nicholas Day, the Jolly Old Bishop travels by steamship to a port in the Netherlands where kids wait at the docks cheering. If you have been a naughty child, Zwart Piet will take you back to Spain (Hide the children!). On the actual night of before the 6th, Sinterklaas rides from house to house on a horse and throws candy down the chimney in the shoes of children. Dutch candy, however, is not at all like American candy. If you are expecting sweetness, prepare to be disappointed, instead you get things like salty, rock-hard black licorice, gumdrops that taste like mouthwash, disks that look and taste like Play-Dough, and Gingerbread cookies that are filled with minty paste. I still have to acquire the taste.
     I digress, Sinterklaas all makes sense. There are no elves, no operation on the Northpole, no undiscovered species of caribou. One must assume that this is the same Saint Nicholas that comes to Wisconsin, as well as other European countries on December 6th. It still leaves the question of where the other guy, the secular Santa Claus comes into the picture. My high school civics teacher proposed the question of what Saint Nick and Santa Claus' relationship was. Do they know each other? Are they brothers? What's going on?
     My theory is this: Saint Nicholas is the actual saint. God gives him a free pass every year to leave Heaven and bring joy into the hearts of children. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Saint Nicholas manages to fill children's shoes just as how he dropped the dowry money into the stockings of those poor girls during his lifetime. Santa Claus, on the other hand, was an American man, probably one of German decent with the name of Klaus, that made a pact with Satan to live forever. Satan granted him eternal life and supernatural powers under the condition that 1. He place the title "Santa" in front of his name, innocent sounding, but actually an anagram for "Satan." 2. He must use his eternal life to rebel against God. Santa Klaus, decided to corrupt the Christian holiday of Christmas by usurping both St. Nicholas and the Jesus part of Christmas by giving kids cool toys to promote commercialism and cultural conformity. But he wouldn't give cool toys to everybody, no, he would give rich kids the good stuff and poor kids lame toys specifically to encourage class divisions. Santa Claus, as Calvin from "Calvin and Hobbes" correctly guessed, establishes his base on the North Pole to escape environmental and labor regulations, also because the UK's Father Christmas already set up shop in the Lapland region of Finland. Santa Claus funds his operation through corporate sponsors, including Coca-Cola and, for a time, Lucky Strike (http://www.seacoastnh.com/arts/santa.html), as well as numerous television and movie appearances.
      Most of America has forgotten about the real St. Nick, but in Wisconsin, we keep the hope alive. There is a Saint Nick, and he carries a crosier, not a sack of video games and Bratz dolls!

Biggest Movie Pet Peeves

If you are like me, you like movies. However, there are sometimes things that happen in movies that make you smack your head. Here, in no particular order, are my biggest movie pet peeves.

-Jurassic Park: When 12-year-old Lex manages to somehow hack a complicated computer system, Dr. Grant and Elle are holding the door back as raptors are trying to break in, while also reaching with their feet to secure a rifle on the floor. Little Timmy looks over Lex's shoulder the whole time. Why doesn't he walk over, pick up the rifle, and give it to Dr. Grant and Elle? He seriously just stands there as this all happens.

-The Road: In a post-apocalyptic America, Viggo Mortensen and son road the landscape. There are at least two times when they go swimming, but Viggo swims naked and his son swims with shorts on. Isn't that kind of weird? Why wouldn't they both swim naked if the father is going to? It's not like they have any reason to be modest. Have you, the reader, ever gone skinny dipping? Usually it's kind of weird when one person goes naked and the rest are clothed.

-Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian: Another water related pet peeve. After the kids are whisked away to Narnia, they appear on a beach. Keep in mind that they have no provisions or have any idea where they are exactly, but that doesn't stop them from running as fast as they can, fully clothed, into the water. They had no change of clothes, why on Earth (or Narnia) would you do something that stupid? Walking around in wet, clinging clothing would most certainly help introduce hypothermia, or at least horrible chaffing.

-Saw II: A girl gets her hand stuck in a trap. The trap allows the hand to enter, but pulling the hand back causes the blades to press in on one's skin. She easily could have used her other hand to press the blades to open up, giving enough space to pull her hand out, but no, she sticks her other hand into the trap, too. So dumb.

-Spring Awakening: This is a stage musical, but it deserves getting ripped on as an unfocused Rent knock-off with forgettable songs, unlikeable characters, and a horribly jarring concept that mutilated the source material. One of the worst crimes was the bizarre hair style of the Fat Kid. Imagine a shaved head with two Hostess Ding-Dongs on the top of his head. It makes no sense, and it draws the eye to such a minor character.

-Mission Impossible II: This movie has so many strange plot holes in it, but I could suspend my disbelief for almost all of them. I could not, however, do this for the issue of Tom Cruise's hair. Remember the first (, good) movie? Tom Cruise has short hair. This makes sense, as if he is in constant hand-to-hand combat, he would not want somebody the easy grab of his scalp. So for being a top-secret agent, is he just so vain the second time around he can't cut his hair? It makes no sense why he would have it that long.

The Road to Gaga: the Solo Careers of Fergie and Gwen Stefani

When the year 2008 ended, a number of articles, as well as conversations I had with other people, seemed to indicate that people really wanted the year to end. 2009 and 2010 have not been that much better, but a musical gift in the form of the wacky, whimsical Lady Gaga gave American pop music a much needed kick of originality and quality production. A question floated around my head "Was Lady Gaga with a precedent?" Of course, it is easy to see the Madonna in Gaga, but what about the 2000's? What came before to prime us to the sonicscapes of the woman with a new dress for every occasion? The reflection that followed made me think of the solo careers of Gwen Stefani and Fergie. I survived both at the time. Now I revisit the Naughties.
     I have to get this out of the way before I begin my analysis, Gwen Stefani is very much a pre-Lady Gaga, Fergie is not at all.
     Stefani, No Doubt's leading woman, released L.A.M.B. and The Sweet Escape in 2004 and 2006, respectively. They're not bad, standing up fairly well these years after release. Both albums have a glossy, 1980's inspired sound that sets it apart from most of the 2000's pop music. Stefani's voice is a creation in itself, capable of being strong, flirty, and goofy (in a good way), her unique sound makes even the most sexual song sound fairly innocent, unlike Britney Spears' robotic sex-tronic crooning in her most recent releases.
     While both Stefani and Lady Gaga share in a love of 80's influences, the real reason I chose the No Doubter is over a matter of image. Stefani looks like Lady Gaga, she also was a wearer different costumes, drawing inspiration from the Japanese Schoolgirls (Rich Girl), Alice in Wonderland (What are You Waiting for?) Cheerleaders (Hollaback Girl), to The Sound of Music (Wind it Up.) Watch these music videos. I will wait. Notice how none of those costumes look especially promiscuous? One of the biggest compliments I had for Lady Gaga was that she managed to be astoundingly sucessful without having to sell her body. GS proved it could be done as early 2004.
     Gwen Stefani is original sounding, Fergie is not. Her solo album is titled "The Dutchess." That's right, duTchess, don't they have a spellcheck? There is nothing Dutch about this album. There are no songs about tulips, windmills, Anne Frank, Rembrandt, the colonization of South Africa, or liberal drug tolerance laws, but there are a lot of songs about Fergie.
     When I was younger, I wondered by there were so many love songs. After listening to this album, I realized that love songs give a singer a chance to sing about somebody else, otherwise they can end up focusing on themselves. Having said that, the raw narcissism rampant in this album makes it horribly annoying. When the Music Gods make their judgements, I am confident that "Fergelicious" alone is enough to damn Fergie's solo career to an eternity of studying Baroque harpsichord.
     The reason why one must compare Fergie and Gwen Stefani when trying to account for the success of Lady Gaga is because Gwen Stefani showed that the public was interested in listening to new takes of pop music by singers that weren't sex robots. Fergie, on the other hand, IS the pop music establishment of the Naughties. If somebody ever were to ask me what the best example of 2000's era popular music, I would point this person to the Black Eyed Peas discography and especially this album. (That is, best as in the most clear example, not best as in of greatest quality. The BEST example of 2000's era popular music would probably be Outkast.)
     Please, don't listen to "The Dutchess," in fact, history has already gotten rid of both these solo acts by now. I as the curator expunge Fergie's solo career. Gwen Stefani's was pretty good. I recommend listening to Hollaback Girl. The production on that number is fun, and it has a deliberate sense of camp that Fergie will never understand.

Upcoming Posts, check it out!

Hello educated folk, thank you for reading. If you love it, pass it on! Let the knowledge flow into the world for all to behold!
Here are some of the upcoming posts, all from the mind of Brendan Jones O'Connor:
-Santa Claus vs. Saint Nick, a Battle over Globalism?
-Best Books with Main Characters' Genders Opposite of the Author
-Excerpts from Brendan's Diary
-Brotherly Love, Christian Love, Teenage Love? The Jonas Brothers vs. Hanson
-The Gifts of Hip-Hop
-The Marketing of the Teen Idol: Justin Bieber vs. Chris Brown
-Fun with Film: Good Acting in Bad Movies, Bad Acting in Good Movies
-Video Games as Art? A Dialogue Between Two Imaginary Characters