On tap this week: Green Street Hooligans, a Miley Cyrus discussion involving a sex tape, the Nicholas Sparks drinking contest and slightly much more!
After watching The Last Song last weekend, I noticed something. Miley Cyrus is right on path to be in the same career path as every other female singer of the last several decades. It got me thinking, which is usually a “fun” thing for some reason.
The one thing I’ve always found interesting about female singers is that they’re careers usually go along the same path. It’s always interesting because it keeps being repeated and yet never noticed. It’s like anything in life in that it goes in stages; I’d like to think of this as the Pop Singer’s Guide To The Bottom because really; once it begins, nothing’s ever the same or as good or as money-making as it was before. Let’s use Britney Spears for our example, as she’s kind of gone to hell (and back)
Stage 1: Success – Every female pop star rises to the top using a squeaky clean image. Being young, it’s easy to be the innocent.
Britney Spears Comparison: Every Album before 2000
Stage 2: Maturation – Once they’ve exhausted the “goody two shoes” routine to its limit, said female pop star will announce how she’s trying to be more “mature” with her sound. Basically it’s an excuse to dress a little sluttier while making the same crappy songs.
Britney Spears Comparison: The MTV dance number she did in a flesh colored body suit
Stage 3: Adulthood: The end of the innocence, usually involving a husband or a kid. Or both. This is when everyone realizes that they’re just another 20 something singer, as opposed to the 16 year old everyone was afraid to rub it out to (even though they probably did).
Stage 4: Whordeom: Trying to completely get rid of their squeaky clean image, they do something to show their, ahem, “sexuality.” Think Christina Aguilera discussing the artistic merits of her video where she’s in a thong, buttless chaps and talking about how she wanted to get ridden bareback as her expression as an “artist.”
Britney Spears Comparison: No Panty Flash
Stage 5: SEX TAPE: The ultimate in trying to maintain relevance, has not been attempted just yet (only by wannabe celebrities and has beens) but really, everyone wants to see Miley Cyrus in a sex tape with one of the Jonas Brothers. It’s killing two birds with the same stone or something.
I think we’re all waiting for visual evidence that Nick’s purity rang has a little bit of taint in it. But then again, that’s why I didn’t get into the good colleges.
Random Thoughts of the Week
Every year Nicholas Sparks puts out a book. And it seems like they all get made into the same god damn movie. And they all end up making enough money to justify Sparks’ existence, thus cursing cinemagoers with more crappy films like The Last Song and Dear John. Thus, I’ve decided to make it more fun. How?
The Film Adapted From a Nicholas Sparks Novel Drinking Game
How do you play? Easy. First, get a TON of alcohol. Like break the piggy bank, go to Binny’s Beverage Depot and load up on Jagermeister, foreign beer and other accoutrements de alcohol. Get a whole bunch of friends together, as well, because watching cinema and overindulging in alcohol is no fun unless you’re with friends. Otherwise, it’s just plain old pathetic alcoholism and I can’t endorse that. Now for the rules of the game:
1. Drink when any of the following happens.
Someone in a lousy relationship leaves to go “take some alone time”
Someone goes to a different part of the country to “take some time away from it all”
Everyone is shockingly photogenic, except for anyone who’s a “friend”
A female lead who mistakes “being a complete and total witch” for “hard to get”
Awkward teenage kind of stuff
Awkward moments with someone’s parents
Whining little kids that are meant to be endearing but are really just annoying
Someone says the word “cancer”
Be prepared, that one happens a lot so make sure you have like the really big bottle of hard liquor available. And maybe an available emergency room for a stomach pumping.
A faux breakup over a simple misunderstanding anyone with two brains could see
A woman screws a guy over in a completely heartless manner
Woman marries another guy despite professing love for guy she just completely screwed over
A funeral and/or a wedding
Guy forgives girl despite complete screwing over and they get back together
Someone cries
Someone dies completely unrelated to the plot allowing happy ending
Someone dies completely related to the plot, thus allowing a crappy ending that’s supposed to be “deep” and “meaningful”
2. Punch someone in the face when they suggest any of the following
“Let’s watch a Nicholas Sparks movie”
A Movie A Week – The Challenge
This Week’s DVD – Green Street Hooligans
Elijah Wood may be famous for playing Frodo in Lord of the Rings, but you have to admire his guts in career choices. Many actors would’ve parlayed that into more mainstream fare on a regular basis, and indeed many did. Wood, on the other hand, has decided that he’d rather make films on the independent circuit and be a star there as opposed to playing a handful of secondary characters and being a career character actor.
It’s certainly less rewarding on a monetary level, it would seem, but you can’t fault Wood for doing what he wants to: act in good roles in films he wants to make as opposed to being a rich man’s Justin Bartha (Riley Poole from National Treasure). I certainly can’t blame him, either, because a film like Green Street Hooligans seems like it would be right in his wheelhouse.
Wood stars as Harvard journalism student Matt, expelled two months before graduation. His roommate was hiding cocaine in his belongings and Matt took the blame and the expulsion. Taking $10,000 in hush money, Matt opts to stay with his sister (Claire Forlani) in England and is introduced into the violent world of football hooliganism via his newfound friend Pete (Charlie Hunnam) and West Ham United.
The film is an interesting, to say the least. It’s focus in on Matt as he learns about himself and gets an education in the same way Carey Mulligan did in An Education, except without the underage sex with Peter Sarsgaard. Getting into drunken brawls, and figuring out the meaning of friendship, Matt grows up and becomes a man amongst the drunken brawling and association football in a way he never could’ve as an Ivy Leaguer.
It’s an interesting character study, to say the least, and well worth hunting down. Strong recommendation.
What Looks Good This Weekend, and I Don’t Mean the $2 Pints of Bass Ale and community college co-eds with low standards at the Alumni Club
Kick-Ass – An ordinary teenager decides to become a superhero. And a little girl kills people will saying all sorts of vile things.
See It – All of the hype has been extraordinarily high and I don’t doubt it’s true. Plus it has a little girl saying all sorts of vile things and killing people. What’s not to love about that?
Death at a Funeral (2010) – The patriarch of a family dies. His family gets together to bury him. Secrets and shenanigans ensue.
Skip It – I liked this better when it was British and really hilarious, not this year’s “whacky comedy starring every black comedy actor who had two months to kill in their schedule” film.
Do you have questions about movies, life, love, or Branigan’s Law? Shoot me an e-mail at Kubryk@Insidepulse.com and you could be featured in the next “Monday Morning Critic.” Include your name and hometown to improve your odds.
