In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Category: Popular Culture

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Yesterday’s highlight was taking Ethan to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We had bought the original recently, watched it and liked it, and I promised E we would go to the new one sometime this summer.

I’m usually loathe to go see movies in the theater. I saw the newest Batman this summer (hated it) when I had to choose between it and whatever zombie movie is out this summer (would have hated it). I just don’t like movies all that much.

That said, I loved Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was all about the Oompa Loompas — Deep Roy was awesome. All the original songs have been updated for a campy feel, and thankfully choreographed. What I didn’t like was Johnny Depp. Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka was a menacing, cynical fellow that easily swung from charitable to mean in a matter of seconds. Depp’s portrayal left him somewhere between Edward Scissorhands and Michael Jackson.

I now understand what other bloggers meant when they said they’d take up recreational drugs for a night just to watch this movie again. It’s straight psychadelic in parts, as it was in the original, but brighter, more colorful, and aimed at an older audience. Though it is perfectly suitable for children, people of all ages and ways can enjoy this movie. It is worth seeing in the theater, and that’s from someone who doesn’t like movies.

But my favorite thing was seeing Ethan’s mouth covered in a golden sheen, slick up to his elbows in popcorn butter. That kid can eat.

Mixmania Summer Edition

One of the strangest things about blogs is that it is not uncommon to see very serious posts about war and death juxtaposed with posts about cats and music. Excuse this regrettable oddness while I post my Mixmania CD playlist as I have been urged to (finally) do.

Read More…Read More…

Sex songs

Lauren recently blogged on sad songs, and the comments section adds a lot more to the list (for the record, I think Nina Simone’s “Ooh Child” is about the most heartbreaking song I’ve ever heard).

So now, a new question: What is the best sex song? (And please, please do not say “Crash” by Dave Matthews Band. Please). My vote is for Led Zeppelin, “Since I’ve Been Loving You.”

Sad Songs

Jeanne and Lynn have recently written about songs that make them cry.

Lynn and I are completely in agreement on this one: “Alone Again, Naturally,” a song that isn’t very compelling, cheesy if anything, but has a line that kills.

I remember I cried when my father died, never wishing to hide the tears.
At sixty-five years old, my mother, God rest her soul,
Couldn’t understand why the only man
She had ever loved had been taken.

Dismay is the worst emotion to witness.

The most recent song I have found that expresses this emotion is “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.” by Sufjan Stevens (right click, save as). I had just downloaded a prerelease of this new CD and listened to it as I was planting my garden this spring. Elbow deep in peppers, I found myself weeping openly. There are several parts of this song that could go wrong, but it doesn’t. Pay attention to the one-line chorus and the last verse.

The CD with this song, “Illinois,” isn’t yet on the market, preorder it for release on July 5th. It is beautiful, Sufjan’s best work, and has an appeal for all kinds of music lovers. In the meantime see it’s sister CD, Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lakes State.

If you don’t feel like listening to sad songs, watch this (via Amanda).

Gigapixl Project

Check out this project:

If you are reading this text on a 1280×1024 computer monitor, a one-gigapixel Gigapxl? image would be 35 of your screens wide and 22 screens tall. A four-gigapixel image is twice as wide and twice as high?that is, 70 screens wide and 44 screens tall. When printed at the highest resolution discernable by the human eye, these images range from 5×10 feet up to 10×20 feet in size. Compared to leading 6-megapixel digital cameras, a Gigapxl? image has between 160 and 666 times the number of pixels. It also resolves an independent color triplet at each pixel unlike Bayer-pattern digital cameras. These images are big and sharp beyond anything you are likely to have seen in your life.

Sez Alex at After School Snack,

A photo of the Bixby Bridge allows one to zoom in on the face of a person sitting on the bridge, too small to see in the full photograph.

I really like the zooms on the shuttle launch.

The Disneyfication of Feminism

Screenwriters may have internalized them, graduate schools may have assimilated them, but contemporary romantic comedy heroines are pure corporate product, a desperately pandering and clueless assemblage of received notions, sexual anxiety and recycled focus-group-think handed down over the years like Grandma’s cheesecake recipe.

and

Romantic comedy heroines aren’t characters anymore, they’re tranquilizers. They provide exactly what love does not, in a way it wouldn’t if it did. They’re designed to fan the fantasies, soothe the disappointment and calm the frayed nerves that come later. And to do that, they must be built to specifications.

via Ms. Musings

“As Fat As Monroe”

She fumes: “I’d ban anything that is too small or too tight, unless you’re slim and toned. I’m sick of seeing flab bulging all over the place…I’d kill myself if I was as fat as Marilyn Monroe.”

I have some choice words for Elizabeth Hurley, but I’ll let you guys take care of this one.

via Mac