Sam Downing

So last summer I was sleeping with the windows open and my next-door neighbour was watching Singin’ in the Rain turned up to full volume and I thought, “I should watch Singin’ in the Rain too!”, but then I thought “Sheez it’s so late turn down your TV!”

Anyway. I finally got around to watching the movie ¹. And… it’s kind of overrated. Greatest cinema musical of all time? Really?

Kinda ironic it’s about the making of a so-so Hollywood film that’s transformed into a great film with the addition of a few unrelated musical numbers, given that pretty much describes Singin’ in the Rain itself. Meta! Singin‘ isn’t as terrible as its film-within-a-film Dueling Cavalier, not by a long shot, but its best known numbers – ‘Good Morning’, ‘Make ‘Em Laugh’ and the iconic title track, which is pretty neat, I’ll admit – don’t have anything much to do with the plot, and a long, actually-pretty-snoozy chunk of the second act is given over to an extended fantasy sequence which has nothing to do with the plot.

(Wikipedia says “Singin’ in the Rain was originally conceived by MGM producer Arthur Freed, the head of the ‘Freed Unit’ responsible for turning out MGM’s lavish musicals, as a vehicle for his catalog of songs written with Nacio Herb Brown for previous MGM musical films of the 1929-39 period”. TL,DR: the songs really were just shoehorned into the plot.)

Singin’ in the Rain is plenty entertaining. It’s often hilarious (especially the disastrous “Yes! Yes! Yes” “No! No! No!” test screening of The Dueling Cavalier, and Jean Hagen as insufferable ingenue Lina Lamont). It’s not one of those “classic” films that bores the pants of everyone who isn’t a film critic. It’s a good movie. But I don’t believe it’s great.

Those aforementioned film critics aren’t much help revealing why, either. Roger Ebert and David Stratton and Margaret Pomeraz basically consider it great because it’s considered great? Yeah, okay, then.

1. To re-watching it, that is, but the first time I watched it was for uni film studies and I’ve decided that doesn’t count. [↩]

Is weird that several of a real actual adult’s favourite songs are internet ditties about cats? (Er, I’m talking about some other guy, not about me.)

Previously: Cat Friends

This:

Reminds me of this, and not just because they both have unicorns:

Coincidence?

This is probably the greatest scene to emerge from nine seasons of Seinfeld:

However, every time I watch this episode – and it airs on pay TV frequently – I get anxious. Because it’s never made clear whether Elaine has made copies of the Soup Nazi’s recipes; if he was to snatch the recipes back from her, her gloriously delivered revenge would collapse. And even though I’ve seen the ep enough times to know he doesn’t snatch the recipes back, the dread always lingers in the back of my mind.

Solution: travel in time to 1995, request that Jerry Seinfeld and  writing team insert awkward line into the scene along lines of, “Hello Soup Nazi: I, Elaine Benes, have already duplicated your recipes, thus rendering your attempts to snatch them back from me ineffective. Next!” Sparkling dialogue!

… is exemplified by the opening theme songs of the respective British and American adaptations of the children’s book series What-a-Mess, about a short and scruffy Afghan hound.

The British theme song is kind stylish and catchy (sadly you must visit YouTube to watch the clip, on account of some jerk disabling the embed function. HATE).

The American theme song does not compare:

It rings of “generic wackiness” rather than “delightful quirkiness”, which is pretty typical of lots of American cartoons. (Not that all American children’s animation of inferior quality – I have very fond memories of some US cartoons, while there was plenty of off-putting stuff that came out of the UK.)

Since climbing up on my gay high horse yesterday, I figure I might as well stay here for a bit longer.

In the last week or so a lot of my friends have shared the same-sex version of Taylor Swift’s ‘You Belong With Me’ clip. If you haven’t seen it, it’s pretty much what it says on the tin: recreation of the music video, but with two dudes instead of a girl and a dude. Check it:

The verdict generally seems to be that it’s the cutest little video ever. And it is cute. But it’s also totally overrated, because the guys don’t kiss at the end.

Taylor’s original incarnation of the clip ends with her pashing Lucas Till. The same-sex version just… fades to black. That’s kind of a boring finish, but it also robs the clip of any conviction to its message. It becomes merely “Boys have crushes on boys, and that’s fine, but eeeeew we don’t want to see them kissing!”. Which is a shame, because it started so well.

This isn’t about me wanting to see two cute guys locking lips – it’s about me getting peeved that the creators of the same-sex remake kinda pussed out on a great idea.

(Also, the wicked girlfriend should totally have been played by the cute nerd in drag, and not by an actual girl.)

(Also, my absolute favourite bit of ‘You Belong With Me’ is about 22 seconds into the song, when there’s this little snare bit that reminds me of ‘Kitty Cat Dance’, aka the internet’s greatest song about cats.)

Lost fans, you gotta watch this:

Is is February 2 yet?

A Photoshopped android stands in for Sarah Jessica Parker

If there’s a Sex and the City rerun on TV, I’ll usually watch it. I’m not an obsessive fan of the show, but I like it fine. (Even though after all these years, I still get mad at Carrie for breaking up with Aidan and later settling for that dick Big.)¹

So I find this sad:

Ugh.

Sex and the City, the TV series, was about four female friends who talked a lot about the guys they were sleeping with, and looked good doing so. Sex and the City, the movie, mostly overlooked the strongest part of the show – the friendship – and instead presented the foursome as glamazons who live expensive lives few actual women could actually afford. The film isn’t awful, but it’s wildly different in tone to the TV series: the pace is slower, the dialogue has lacks snap, and even the fashions seem out-of-place. (TV-Miranda would never wear the stuff movie-Miranda gets around in.)

The sequel looks even less promising. That last shot of the gals strutting through the desert? Full. Body. Cringe. When did the franchise become so… tacky? Does anyone still find Sex and the City empowering? And if the answer is yes: why?

1. I also blame the show for the apparent rash of weirdly picky, crazy-analytical single women out there, but that’s a whole ‘nother post. [↩]

Here’s a cheeseball-fabulous video I make a point of watching on the first day of summer each year, because I’m a huge lame-o. (But not as big a lame-o as you guys in the snowy, wintry, gloomy Northern hemisphere!):

December 1 marks the end of Nanorevismo for 2009. (Ditto Nanowrimo. Kudos to those who had a go – you have my respect, and my sympathy.) But just because the month has finished doesn’t mean my revisions have!

Last night, on the final evening in November, I pulled My Book’s word count back under 100,000 to a not-much-smaller-yet-somehow-more-manageable 99,919. Now I know how dieters feel when they manage to squeeze back into a pair of old jeans.

Let the wild rumpus countdown to 95k words start!

(Yeah, I saw Where the Wild Things Are last night.)

The internet has been switched on at my new house. Here is a video to celebrate!: