The Pop Culture Addict’s Blog

I admit I’m evaluating my reaction to Inglourious Basterds on a few levels: 1) as a movie in the context of all movies I’ve ever seen; 2) as a Quentin Tarantino movie; and 3) as a movie compared to what else is current. QT’s signatures are his dialogue being interesting, character-revealing and often humorous even in the light of horror AND cartoonish violence portrayed in a realistic manner. He’s very true to himself. He makes what he wants to see. Initially, I expected a lot of his signature over-the-top action sequences. Then despite avoiding reading reviews, I heard that the movie was light on action and heavy on dialogue. So I was already primed to sit and listen. The best things about the movie: Christoph Waltz is outstanding. He delivers his lines with creepy confidence. I couldn’t look away. Diane Kruger is more than a pretty face for once. I like those National Treasure movies but this is the first time I thought she was actually giving an interesting performance. Maybe it’s because she was speaking her native tongue. The Basterds are an intriguing idea. The most interesting one was Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz, the undercover anti-Nazi Nazi. I wished for more fleshed out details like that about the other Basterds. The character of Shosanna is the most compelling. QT said originally he had thought out all sorts of revenge fantasies fulfilled by her but then he made Kill Bill and had Uma Thurman’s character take on all of these actions of revenge. ***Slightly spoilery complaint coming up… So I really liked all of Shosanna’s scenes and her storyline in general. However, I expected a different conclusion for her given her strife and how bonded I felt to her plight. End of spoilery complaint. *** The European actors added interesting depth to the characters they played including the Nazi soldiers. I do give credit to QT for writing the dialogue and directing them. But I also give credit to the actors for creating memorable characters on-screen. What didn’t work for me… well, I think I said: I wanted to feel connected to more of the characters. I wanted more fulfilling storylines for the characters like Shosanna who had compelling reasons for her actions. Also, as a complete revenge fantasy movie, I think QT could’ve given us …okay, perhaps ***another slightly spoilery complaint… a more upbeat ending. Yes, the ending aims to give satisfaction to an extent. But personally, I’m okay with Hollywood endings sometimes. Everything doesn’t always have to be a downer. Life is tragic. We get it. That’s why we’re at the movies. Give us some hope even if it’s fictional. end of spoilery complaint*** But while at first I felt slightly let down at the end of the movie, I was really impressed by the strong performances in the movie. And that first chapter is impressive. I guess I’m on the fence on my grade. I gave it a B+ initially and then re-graded it to an A- but now I’m thinking it is more of a B+. But it’s a B+ I’d watch again.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
I’ve never had a strong desire to see It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, now starting its 5th Season. I think it just fell under my radar. But other Pop Culture Addicts have said it’s totally worth checking out. It’s one of those shows where you watch one episode and if you like it, you’ll love the show. Otherwise, if it doesn’t catch your fancy, the show is not for you. When I was looking for something entertaining yet economical to watch on my iPod during recent travels, I discovered that It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 1 was available. Perfect, I thought. It’s funny, irreverent, very adult yet adolescent. I’ve read a little bit about the show since then and how it’s considered a Seinfeld-ian show. It’s also reminiscent of 30 Rock. The characters are self-absorbed but appealing. The writing is sharp. The acting is natural. I’m looking forward to catching up with Seasons 2,3 and 4 (available on the site). I don’t know if I’ll have time to do so before the beginning of Season 5 on September 17th. But it’s a show that you can watch at any point. Each episode has a stand-alone quality to it along with the continuity of the relationships. Anyway, to everyone who recommended it to me, thanks. Good one.

Shrek the Musical
I forgot to mention I went to see Shrek on Broadway. I had loose plans with a fellow Pop Culture Addict to have a Broadway day in the city. We decided to just stand in the TKTS line and see what caught our fancy. My ulterior motive was to catch The Little Mermaid before it closes and without paying full price. But it wasn’t available. So we decided on Shrek as between the two of us, we had seen the other worthwhile shows already. The fun part was my fellow PCA had never seen the movie Shrek so everything was a pleasant surprise. My favorite part was Lord Farquaad. Ingeniously played by Christopher Sieber on his knees. Fiona had a cute tap-dancing number. The movie is cuter mostly because it’s all a surprise the first time around but the show is cute too. My only complaint is that even discounted 40%, the tickets were still exorbitant. I was reminded why I rarely go to Broadway shows. I have a big enough adjustment to every increase in movie prices, my favorite source of entertainment.

New Moon
I think I mentioned that a fellow Pop Culture Addict insisted I would be drawn into the world of Bella and Edward the second I gave them a chance. She even got me the first two books to get me started. I just ran through New Moon. I see the appeal. The story is very romantic in a youthful way. The appeal is the intensity of the relationships between Bella and Edward in the first book and Bella and Jacob in the second book. The supernatural element of course enhances the romanticism of the teenage love, lust and angst. Anyway, I admit I wasted little time getting Eclipse. People criticize Meyers’ writing as being unpolished. I think that is part of the magic formula. It’s colloquial in an accessible, inoffensive way. Clearly this series is not for everyone. It’s primarily for adolescent girls. But I can see the appeal for fantasy-oriented boys and for women who historically are more open to all genres and different POVs, both male and female. I think the 18-49 male demographic is still not a sure thing. But sales aren’t hurting.

Still Walking
This movie has been getting a lot of acclaim. I loved it. It’s a realistic portrayal of a modern Japanese family dealing with life 12 years after the accidental death of the eldest son. It’s sad at times but it’s often humorous. The focus on food made me strongly crave Japanese food ASAP. I never had corn tempura but the scenes showing the preparation, cooking and eating of it had me salivating. Plus, it’s so integral to the family history and dynamics between everyone. It reminded me of those Ozu slice-of-life movies as well as a recent French movie Summer Hours. It almost doesn’t do it justice to describe plot points. I would just say, it’s surprisingly fast-paced for a meditative look at someone else’s family. The director, Hirokazu Kore-eda, said he based the story on his family. He made the excellent and odd After Life which I highly recommend and the well-made but very sad Nobody Knows.

Other stuff
I guess I have a couple of movies I still want to see this summer. I can’t believe I missed Public Enemies in the theaters. I will have to see it the second it comes out on dvd/on demand. I really want to make it back to the Highline Park. I’m so bummed it was closed the last time I tried. I hear from fellow PCA’s who’ve spent time there that it’s as amazing as it sounds. Another win for NYC.

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As I’ve said before, no matter what the production, I always find something enjoyable about seeing Shakespeare in the Park. I find it satisfying to actually get tickets after putting in the time, i.e., devoting most of the day to it. Also, it’s so lovely in Central Park. I didn’t know what to expect from The Bacchae. Jonathan Groff as Dionysus worked for me. I think the appeal for me is he reminds me of Tom Chaplin from Keane. I actually saw him in Spring Awakening. I liked his energy and the enthusiasm of the cast but was underwhelmed by the show. It had too much hype by the time I saw it I think and I was expecting to have a life-altering experience. Yes, my expectations were much too high because I know the show was good, even great, but I thought it would be astounding. I will have to take another listen to the music. I enjoyed him in Hair last summer but didn’t really take notice until The Bacchae. The show is ambitious. It tries to modernize the setting but then wants to evoke the original time of Euripedes. The production is reminiscent of a Wooster Group undertaking and I commend The Public for taking a stab at trying to stage this. I think that Woody Allen was more successful in incorporating a Greek chorus in Mighty Aphrodite. It had comedy, drama and tragedy. That was what was missing from The Bacchae. It is a tragedy but it didn’t have to take itself so seriously. It wasn’t exactly inaccessible but it toed the line a little too closely. I think the beauty of Shakespeare in the Park is that it is free and open to everyone. It’s a chance to entertain. If I want to see a Wooster Group type production, I will pay to see the Wooster Group. Hey, I pay to see other more experimental Public Theater productions during the year at the Public Theater. So, I guess when I go see Shakespeare in the Park, while I don’t need to see a disco version of Two Gentlemen of Verona (sorry for not being more appreciative), I want something that feels organic and not too stage-y and distanced from the audience. Even though Brecht is not considered a pop playwright, the Public put on a good production of Mother Courage (starring the amazing Meryl Streep) for Shakespeare in the Park a few years back. I greatly enjoyed Twelfth Night just a couple of months ago. I guess since it’s a comedy, it had an edge already. Let me think of another example, Romeo and Juliet worked well. I don’t know. I guess there is a balance. Hair was accessible and enjoyable. I’m not sure if I’m making my point. I appreciated the idea of The Bacchae and some of the performances were standouts, some of the staging, some of the dancing, etc. also worked but it didn’t completely gel in the end FOR ME. This is a subjective review. But my (musical) theater crush on Jonathan Groff has grown.

EDIT: I suddenly realized I didn’t even comment on the Philip Glass music which he wrote specifically for this production of The Bacchae. It was okay. Not surprisingly, I liked it best when Dionysus/Jonathan Groff sang. It was signature Glass. Think of anything you’ve heard by him and you can hear the triplets start in your head. It wasn’t as distracting as I thought it might be. Apparently he and the director used to be married. END EDIT

District 9
By this point, most people who were interested in seeing District 9 have done so. Everyone else will probably take a pass. I thought it was a really interesting alien movie. Yes, the apartheid allegory is hardly an allegory; it’s completely on the surface, hitting us over the head. However, I really was able to watch the movie from a sci-fi point of view. I am keeping in mind that the genre of science fiction always has metaphors and allegories about humankind interacting with one another and with the environment. But it’s possible to think about aliens from outer space landing by accident in South Africa and being treated like dirt. From this point of view, I thought District 9 was fast-paced, had great effects, looked amazing for a low budget (though I can’t believe $30 million is considered low budget now) and hooked me right away. Neill Blomkamp made an impressive debut feature. To my highly undiscerning ear, Sharlto Copley/Wikus Van De Merwe kept reminding me of Jonah on Summer Heights High. I know Jonah’s accent is Tongan-as-raised-in-Australia. But I did keep thinking Wikus might say something Johah-esque. As for the whole hate-on-Armond-White campaign as documented at Rotten Tomatoes, I love Armond White’s presence in the film critic community. He keeps me entertained and on my toes. He says extreme things but he’s an intelligent viewer. Sure, he is disparaging to all who disagree with even one detail of his reviews, but he is a smart guy who is passionate about film. I always have time to read an Armond White review though I will most likely walk away feeling kind of insulted.

Ponyo
Ponyo or Ponyo on the Cliff is a classic Hayao Miyazaki movie. It’s beautiful animated, it’s weirdly populated by magical creatures and cute kids, adults with slightly goofy and irreverent idiosyncracies you would never see in an American movie (like a mother who pops open a beer in frustration when her sea-faring husband cancels on a family dinner) and has a strong “do unto the environment as you would have it do unto you” message. It’s unclear why a little fish falls for a little boy so strongly and with what understanding, that they will be siblings? That they will be a couple when they are older? But the fantasy is engaging and the oddness makes it interesting to watch.

Julie and Julia
I read Julie and Julia when it came out. I’m a sucker for non-fictional food-related books like all of the Ruth Reichl books. So I picked up Julie and Julia with interest. It was a decent read but I never imagined it would become a movie. I think it was inspired to rely on Julia Child’s memoir as a source in addition to Julie and Julia to make the book. The resulting movie is a charming, inspirational and intriguing depiction of Julia Child’s development as a master chef and a so-so depiction of Julie Powell’s blogging about her Julia Child’s inspired cooking endeavor. Meryl Streep is a star who actually makes you forget she is Meryl Streep.

Inglourious Basterds
I haven’t seen Inglourious Basterds yet but I am looking forward to it. A fellow Pop Culture Addict said it is very dialogue-oriented and that it feels like Quentin Tarantino might have outgrown the over-the-top action/explicit violence that has become his trademark. Actually, I think of his trademark as a combo of extreme violence and well-written dialogue. I heard Brad Pitt’s role is quite minor and that other non-American actors stand out.

Top Chef, Project Runway
As I write, I am behind on Top Chef Masters though I know Rick Bayless won. There is already well-deserved hype and wait for reservations at his restaurants in Chicago which will be serving the winning menu for a short time. I enjoyed reading his blog and the blogs on the Top Chef Masters site. There is a sneak preview of Top Chef Las Vegas on this afternoon I might watch. Also, I have not watched Project Runway diligently at all. I’ve only seen the last few episodes of the last season in fact. But it was enough to peak my interest for this season. I appreciate that the contestants are actually talented so it’s a matter of tapping into that talent and seeing how it melds with pressure and innovation for the challenges. I watched the Top 8 run off and the first ep of the new LA season. Tim Gunn is a reality fashion god. I love his style, his interpersonal skills and his role as mentor. Heidi Klum always looks fantastic. Michael Kors says the most insightful things I would never think of. I don’t consider myself stylish at all. I aim to look cute/presentable/nice/inoffensive enough and that’s about it. And I don’t always succeed. But I find it endlessly fascinating to see how creativity works in all artistic feats and facets so I’m looking forward to watching a season of Project Runway from start to finish.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Yes, sometimes I take forever to read one book (like A Fine Balance by R. Mistry). Sometimes I re-read a book for the umpteenth time (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling). Sometimes I find myself with just enough time and energy to re-read something like The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. This is what happened to me yesterday. I picked it up and could not put it down even though I knew where it was going. It’s interesting because it has the historical, WWII element to it but it also weaves personal stories of appealing characters who formed and form the most unexpected bonds. Now I’m reading the latest No 1 Ladies Detective Agency book entitled…I have to look it up…Tea Time for the Traditionally Built: The New No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Novel by Alexander McCall Smith. I really liked the HBO series and it re-sparked my interest in the books. I also have New Moon by Stephenie Meyer, aka the second in the Twilight series, ready at hand.

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A Perfect Getaway looked like it could be fun. The setting sure looked nice. It didn’t look as superficial as GI Joe so it won out for my weekend movie. I thought it was a lot of fun. It has twists and turns which made me think about Orphan which also has a lot of unexpected and shocking turn of events. Orphan has a really good final surprise. I mentioned I started to piece it together from the get-go, but I was thinking it was a supernatural movie. Even until the end, I was still looking for the magical elements. In a way, I’m glad I didn’t realize it was a reality-based, a wonky reality-based story. It made it that much more enjoyable. A Perfect Getaway starts off with a lot of gimmes. I saw the trailer. I knew the premise. I viewed everyone with suspicion. I knew it was set in Kauai. I was ready for breath-taking views. Like Orphan, the cast was more than decent. Something in the script must’ve caught someone’s eye. So, it started off a little slow, but the pace picked up mid-way. The final act was great fun!

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
I finally finished reading A Fine Balance. I received it as a present from a fellow Pop Culture Addict in 12/08. I can’t remember when I started reading it. I know I tweeted about it but I can’t locate that tweet. So I will estimate it was around late winter. It grabbed me immediately. The characters are portrayed with warmth and depth. I like to think I savored it. I especially enjoyed the time when I was attending movies at Walter Reade Theater during the Satyajit Ray film festival in April.

Rachel Getting Married
Also on my list of finallys, I finally watched Rachel Getting Married. I had wanted to see it in the theater but kept missing group outings and wouldn’t have minded it seeing it on my own but just never made it happen. I really enjoyed Anne Hathaway in Twelfth Night at Shakespeare in the Park earlier this summer. I expected her to be good in Rachel Getting Married but I didn’t realize she’d be great. I loved the movie. It reminded me how much I like Jonathan Demme movies. This movie actually reminded me of Something Wild. I love his musical sensibility. Rachel Getting Married has a very musical quality. I also appreciated how he employed Dogma 95 techniques. He only used sound in the environment, providing music by having it performed live. He seemed to rely primarily on handheld (little or no use of tripods). And he relied on natural (existing) light sources. He also used the Robert Altman signature of keeping his cast in character at all times, filming them interacting on background levels as well as main scenes. It gave the movie a flowing, lyrical feeling. Jonathan Demme, Anne Hathaway and everyone in Rachel Getting Married deserve all the acclaim given them. It’s not always the case. And I certainly don’t always see the reason for the hype. But this time, it was crystal clear all the way.

Bollywood Hero
I’m not the biggest Chris Kattan fan. I mean, I thought he did some funny skits on SNL but I never went out of my way to see his movies. Still, seeing him on Jimmy Fallon inspired me to dvr Bollywood Hero on IFC. I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a good 3 hours of commercial-free entertainment. The women were stunning and beautiful dancers. I guess it completes my India kick as the Satyajit Ray movies span from 1950s-70s and A Fine Balance picks up after that. Bollywood Hero takes place in current day.

Eagle Eye
I re-watched Eagle Eye recently. It is a really fun movie. If you liked Enemy of the State with Will Smith or The Conversation starring Gene Hackman and a very young Harrison Ford, you will enjoy Eagle Eye.

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist
I also recently re-watched Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. It’s cute. The actor who plays Dev,lead singer of the band, Rafi Gavron, is totally cute. I admit he caught my eye in Rome Season 2 as a desired and murderous servant. Also, I am a Michael Cera fan stemming from the Arrested Development days. I am also a fan of director Peter Sollett since I saw his famous short from his NYU days, “Five Feet High and Rising” which became the feature Raising Victor Vargas. All of these elements plus a fun look at NYC nightlife from the POV of NJ high schoolers, makes for a cute movie. I didn’t read the book, but I’m guessing it has autobiographical inspirations.

To Do List
I still have to see Public Enemies. I was out of town and kind of off the grid when it opened so I missed my usual opening night outing. I enjoy drifting off the energy of opening night/weekend anticipation. That has certainly passed but I will make an effort to catch this 2.5 hour movie in the theater. Yeah, 2.5 hours seems on the long side. But I’ll sneak it into my schedule somehow!

Addendum: Just wanted to point you towards this interesting article in the NY Times entitled Pop Culture in the Age of Obama. I will link and paste as well:

Pop Culture in the Age of Obama

August 9, 2009
Crossroads
Pop Culture in the Age of Obama
By KURT ANDERSEN

The term “pop culture” appeared around 1960, just as its meaning became confused. High-culture up-and-comers were embracing pop imagery and tropes with a vengeance, and the best and brightest creators of entertainment were suddenly producing work of thrilling sophistication and complexity. It was also the coming-of-age moment for the first baby boomers, a cohort defined by its television-saturated upbringing and unparalleled level of college education — a generation, in other words, unapologetic in its love of commercial pop even as it put on arty airs.

During the 1960s and ’70s, serious novelists could be both central cultural figures and potential mass-market celebrities. People who hadn’t read a word of a first-rate contemporary novel — no Cheever, no Bellow, no Salinger, Heller, Styron, Doctorow, Updike or Roth — nevertheless knew the novelists’ names. Back then, novels by each of those authors became No. 1 New York Times best sellers, and Updike, Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal were also Time magazine cover subjects — as were Alexandr Solzhenitsyn and Günter Grass.

And then everything changed. It has been almost a decade since Time put a living novelist (Stephen King) on its cover. Only a handful of literary novelists born since World War II have published a book that reached the top of the Times list, and two of those best sellers were the result of cult leaders’ shocking public pronouncements — the Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa against Salman Rushdie, and Oprah Winfrey’s 2001 endorsement of Jonathan Franzen.

But irony of ironies, after literature was evicted from mass culture, pop culture itself began to fragment and lose its heretofore defining quality as the ubiqui­tous stuff that everybody consumed. In a typical week nowadays, fewer than 6 percent of Americans see the most popular scripted series on television. So we have arrived at a strange new historical moment. Literature is just another (minor) sector of the culture industry, but now even the mandarins agree that certain pop artifacts — “The Sopranos,” “The Simpsons,” Radiohead — are cultural creations of the first rank. Meanwhile, popular culture and mass media are no longer very popular or mass. By and large, both entertainment and art appeal to niches, cultural tribes that range in size from tiny to smallish.

But our hunger for massively shared cultural moments has not disappeared. Thus the astonishing decade-long global frenzy for the Harry Potter novels, and our recent two-week obsession over Michael Jackson as a nostalgic artifact of the late super-pop era. And also the astonishing rise of Barack Obama. Obama’s presidency will undoubtedly influence the tone and substance of pop culture. But what’s most pop culturally interesting about him is not so much Obama as cause but Obama as effect. He strategically harnessed pop culture, he produced it with two best-selling books, he avidly consumes it. In our Balkanized era, Barack Obama simply is the pop cultural colossus.

Three big trends made his ascension possible. First there was the steady blackening of American popular culture. He was 4 when “I Spy,” co-starring Bill Cosby, first went on the air, and 6 when Sidney Poitierstarred in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” In the early ’80s, just as Obama entered adulthood, Jackson released the best-selling record ever, Bryant Gumbel was the new “Today” show anchor, Michael Jordan became the greatest American athlete, “The Cosby Show” was the most popular show on television, and Oprah went national. Then came Tiger Woods and white youth’s embrace of hip-hop. This transformation had been happening incrementally for more than a century, as Leon Wynter explained in his great book, “American Skin.” “The future,” Wynter wrote pres­ciently in 2002, “is not about black people leading black people,” but “about black people leading all Americans.”

Then there’s our turn-of-the-21st-century pop-intellectual zeitgeist. Although most of the seats for serious novelists at the mass-market table were removed, PowerPointable nonfiction books retained their ability to shape the popular discourse. Malcolm Gladwell’s and Thomas Friedman’s books starting with “The Tipping Point” (2000) and “The World Is Flat” (2005), Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner’s “Freakonomics” (2005) and Michael Pollan’s “In Defense of Food” (2008) have become phenomenally popular by embodying a cheerful, bracing, empiricist rigor without tilting too strongly left or right. They are lucid and accessible, carefully researched but not boring, pop but not too pop. And they have flourished in counterpoint to the harsh, predictably ideological manifestoes — from Rush Limbaugh’s “Way Things Ought to Be” (1992) to Michael Moore’s “Stupid White Men” (2001) — that dominated the pop political discourse during the preceding decade. In other words, the new species of pop-intellectual best seller is like Barack Obama himself.

The third big trend that helped usher in the Age of Obama was the morphing of news into entertainment. During the last decade, with the proliferation of Web news and 24/7 cable jabberfests, the old ratio of news supply to demand was upended. The vast new maw needed feeding, and a charismatic young black candidate and then president was a godsend. “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” finally dissolved the remaining membrane between news and pop culture. What’s more, the Comedy Central hybrids are (like Obama) fair-mindedly center-left, manifestly smarter (like Obama) than their conventional counterparts and hosted by men (like Obama) born in the early ’60s.

Previous national politicians leveraged their political fame into publishing success. But Obama became a best-selling author before he announced his candidacy. And why did he get a book deal? Because of an amazing prime-time television performance, his keynote speech as a little-known senatorial candidate at the 2004 Democratic convention. Thus his carefully platformed pop-cultural cred enabled his presidency. When the McCain campaign imagined last summer that it was dissing Obama by calling him “the biggest celebrity in the world,” it was clear who was clueless and who had the cultural winds at his back.

The Obama team harnessed digital social networks to organize rock-concert-like rallies. It used pop music and music videos better than any other presidential campaign. Shepard Fairey’s high-­contrast “Hope” poster was a perfect pop icon for the moment, both a quasi parody of old-school propaganda and the uncynical real thing.

And then there’s Obama the tasteful pop-culture-consuming American, redefining presidential regular-guyness. On his iPod, Obama says, are “probably 30 Dylan songs,” “African dance music,” “Javanese flute music,” Yo-Yo Ma, Howl­in’ Wolf, John Coltrane, Jay-Z, Frank Sinatra and Sheryl Crow. Having admitted getting high as a young man, as president he met with the Grateful Dead. The first movie he watched in the White House was “Slumdog Millionaire.” He doesn’t just name-check, but convincingly declaims — he prefers Spider-Man and Batman to Superman because “they have some inner turmoil.” And — crucially — he’s even acute and impolitic enough to discriminate between quality and crud: his favorite movies are the first two “Godfather” films, but he acknowledges the inferiority of “Godfather III” and says his wife “likes ‘American Idol,’ her and the girls, in a way that I don’t entirely get.” Yet the democratic spectacle of “American Idol” is of a piece with Obamaism, of course, given that the show is all about the excitement of watching a telegenic, talented nobody transformed by national referendum into a celebrity.

There’s a lesson here about how we think of consuming culture. Maybe we can once and for all stop defaulting to easy categorical boundaries between high and low, and discriminate instead between the well made and the shoddy. After all, didn’t Obama’s election prove that people will respond to vision and intelligence, that familiar binary (racial and ideological) pigeonholes no longer necessarily apply, and that the very good can occasionally become very, very popular?

Kurt Andersen is the author of the novels “Heyday” and “Turn of the Century.” His new book is “Reset: How This Crisis Can Restore Our Values and Renew America.”

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

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Let me say right off that I want to see G. I. Joe. It looks like action, action, action. So it could be lots of fun or really unfulfilling. I will let you know. Did you know that Joseph Gordon-Levitt is in it? That is a nice little surprise. He has to pay his bills like the rest of us. It’s also nice to think that he wants to have a wide range of experiences including over-the-top summer action movies. I recommend The Lookout to everyone. Not everyone listens to me but those who have reacted to the movie like I did. It starts off like your typical high school prom movie. Then it takes an unexpected turn. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is compelling in it from beginning to end. Did you see Mysterious Skin? That is an intense movie. JGL does not back away from a challenge. And I got a kick out of Brick, a noir high school movie, a genre that might not have existed previously. So, you could say I’m a fan. 500 Days of Summer is a familiar story with familiar characters made interesting by the lead actors, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. I enjoyed the jumping around in chronology too. It’s funny and cute. It’s sort of predictable at times but I didn’t care. Also, I thought it had a great look. I don’t think LA ever looked so pretty.

Dollhouse Season 1 DVD
Usually when I pre-order from Amazon, I get the item right on the day of release. I was amazed that I received Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ON the official release day. My mailperson kindly rang my bell to hand it to me directly. He was like, I didn’t want anything to happen to this! Anyway, this did not happen with my Dollhouse Season 1 dvd. However, I wasn’t awaiting it as anxiously as I was the last Harry Potter book as I had already seen most of Dollhouse when it aired. Still, it was exciting to receive it, even if it was a week after the release. The first thing I watched was the unaired episode recently shown at Comic-Con: Epitaph. It is a great episode. It does not match the show tonally but it pays off after the 6 minute Terminator Salvation/Road Warrior type opening. I found the puzzle of figuring out what happened intriguing and appreciate how concisely Whedon and Co. produced an amazing hour of television (okay, 46 minutes or so, but you know what I mean). It had all the power and allure of a feature-length Dollhouse movie. Then I watched the unaired original pilot. I loved it! It’s exactly what I was expecting from the master who created Buffy, Angel and Firefly. I’m remembering that he had the same issue with Firefly. Fox changed the order the eps were shown so we started in the middle instead of at the beginning. In the unaired Dollhouse pilot, it is much clearer what the premise of the show is and the foundation of the mythology the rest of the series might develop. There were dramatic changes in plot and character introduction in the new pilot. The last thing I watched was the Making of Dollhouse feature. Joss Whedon is chatty and frank about the process of coming up with the show, casting the show and the whole pilot issue. It’s an interesting feature. I am debating what I should watch next. I’m thinking of listening to the commentary for Epitaph before going through the rest of the special features. Of course I plan to re-watch the entire series. That might be the last thing I do.

Hamlet 2 & Knowing
Hamlet 2 ended up being a pretty sweet story in the vein of teacher-inspires-students movies mentioned directly in the movie. Steve Coogan’s character wants desperately to be an inspiration to his students even though he only has 2. Then through budget cuts and such, he ends up with a full class. He tells them he has watched Dangerous Minds and now understands them. Then the movie proceeds to be something of a satire of Dangerous Minds but in a sweet way. As the movie went along, I thoroughly wanted to see Hamlet 2 within the movie. It had a zany quality but it was also fairly tame. The film-makers definitely had fun writing the catchy songs.

Knowing was watchable. I had originally dl’d it to watch on my iPod during my travels but it didn’t upload. So I watched it on my computer. I had some streaming issues so it wasn’t the most ideal viewing situation. Yes, even watching it on my iPod might’ve been a better situation. But I got the gist of the movie. It was like a really long episode of Fringe, a show I greatly enjoy.

So You Think You Can Dance/America’s Next Best Crew
I was a SYTYCD skeptic. As a result, I missed out on the first 3 seasons. Then last year, I started watching it during the semi-finals. This year, I decided to make room for it on my tv schedule which I have pared down significantly. I have been watching it since the first ep. I admit I am not afraid to fast-forward through some of the talking (and sometimes dancing – solos don’t always do it for me). Anyway, I was rooting for the great Janette. But she is out. So now I’m rooting for Brandon. But 1) I don’t vote; and 2) I appreciate the talent of all involved, the dancers and choreographers.

I’ve been a fan of America’s Best Dance Crew from the beginning. I’m psyched for the new season which begins tonight! I hope they find ways to make it fresh.

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