Saturday Night Drive: 1979

“To the lights and towns below

Faster than the speed of sound

Faster than we thought we'd go

Beneath the sound of hope”

-“1979” by Smashing Pumpkins

     This past week I turned in a paper for my rock radio course. I wrote a dozen pages on morning DJs and shows. At one point, I had written about the demise of commercial radio and how there is no future for anyone who is interested in entering radio professionally. I even griped about doing my radio show. (I love being a DJ more than anything but there are times when I wonder if it’s even worth waking up at 6am to host a morning drive show that doesn’t even have more than five listeners.)

     But then I wrote about how utterly fascinating radio could still be—at least occasionally. While cruising down I-55 earlier tonight with Pat, we had Q101 on. We only use the radio as background noise while we engage in our always entertaining and often ADD-style conversations. Then the song “1979” by Smashing Pumpkins came on. As soon as I noticed the intro to the song, my mind went into another gear. “Wait a minute, is that what I think it is?” I asked. “Whoa, its ‘1979’,” replied Pat. I turned up the volume and we began to rock.

     Well, I think it’s tough to rock out to a song as melancholic as “1979.” My description of rocking out while driving consists of thumping my feet on the ground and my hands on the wheel. Sometimes I shake my head, roll the window down a bit, and sing along. But “1979” is different. We sang along in a low and soft tone but there was no thumping or head banging. The song still gave us a natural high that only music can create.

     While “1979” may not groundbreaking or life-altering, it’s still a damn good song from a remarkable album by a great band. (I have mixed feeling about lead singer/songwriter Billy Corgan but that’s another story for another time.) The song reeks with nostalgia. Of course, Corgan was probably nostalgic when writing the song, which was released in 1996. I always think about the car rides I was in with friends or all the aimless driving I partook when I had my beautiful yet lousy car. I used to love to fill my car with twenty bucks of gas then drive around town and outside of it. Once I drove all to Joliet before realizing I had to turn around and pick up someone I had promised a ride home from work.

     Summer drives (and road trips) are the best. Last July, Pat and I drove up to Wisconsin to visit KJ. We left his house with a quarter tank of gas left. I decided to risk it and drive up there, thinking we could fill up with cheap Wisconsin gas. As soon as we crossed the border, the gas tank light turned on. I got off the highway and searched for a gas station. There wasn’t anything for miles. “What the hell do people here use for fuel?” I wondered. We saw houses around with cars but not a single gas station.

     I had never felt freer than when I’m driving. Millions of teenagers and others can relate to that incredible feeling being behind the wheel. You have no restrictions. You’re not in a hurry to get somewhere like work or school. You get on the road and go where your heart desires, whether it’s driving around town or the country. Voltaire once said that “man is free to at the moment he wishes to be.” “1979” reminds me of that freedom I enjoy when I hit the open road. #

And the winner (or loser) of the most disappointing awards show goes to...

     Roger Ebert pretty much summed up most people’s opinions on last week’s 83^rd Academy Awards. “This was the worst Oscar (show) I’ve ever endured, and I go back awhile,” wrote the 68 year-old critic. Several critics and thousands upon thousands of live-bloggers and comments all over the Internet agree with Ebert. “It's really a miracle that hundreds of millions of people still watch this stately parade,” quipped TIME’s Richard Corliss. This mostly lifeless parade was watched by 37.6 million viewers stateside. That’s over 4 million less than last year’s ceremony and almost 20 million less than when Titanic swept the Oscars in 1998.

     Let’s start off with the hosts, for they have received the majority of the criticism and blame for this year’s show. For weeks, they were in many (mostly funny) Oscar promos that seemed to promise a great time at the Kodak for all. It was like the anticipation of an upcoming date with a really attractive and outgoing woman or man or a trip to a hyped-up and glitzy amusement park. You’re excited for days or weeks on end. You wear your best clothes and make sure you say the right things to say and pay plenty of compliments. When you reach the date/park, your hopes of having an outstanding time have been slashed. You set the bar too high or you were intentionally deceived by the date/park. You begin to settle. You compromise like you never have before. By the end of the date/trip, all you want to do is leave running and never turn back.

      If only Franco and Hathaway had been as great as the promos. I have to give Hathaway credit for trying her best. She did overdo it at times, like cheering for every single category and presenter. No one is that excited for Best Live Action Short Feature…well except for the guy who won. Franco was not there at all. I know he has a million other things going on and probably has a bunch of papers due but c’mon! At least pretend to care. You are an actor after all (an Oscar-nominated one too, as everyone kept beating that one to the ground). “He’s definitely stoned,” said one friend at the Oscars party I attended. “His eyes are glazy and he has that dumb smirk that stoners get.”

     Hathaway did get some criticism over her constant wardrobe changes. “I think she focused more on her wardrobe and hair changes than the actual show,” said Jenny Lopez, another friend from the party. “It’s the Oscars, not a fashion show. That’s what the red carpet pre-show is for.”

     When Billy Crystal appeared on-stage, I had hoped that he was the show's "Get Out of Jail Free" card. He would thank Franco and Hathaway for their time and he would take over with plenty of one-liners to get the audience to laugh, if not at least get them out of their coma. “Billy Crystal's 3 minutes on stage ultimately trumped Franco and Hathaway's crappy job hosting throughout the night,” said Matt Gentile, host of Radio DePaul’s Saturday Sports Beat.

     I’m not a fan of the (not-really) red carpet but oh my Lord, Jennifer Lawrence was drop dead gorgeous! My jaw dropped when I saw her on the carpet. I didn’t recognize her from Winter’s Bone. She’s set to appear as Mystique in the upcoming X-Men: First Class. I would buy my ticket now for the midnight opening if I could. When everyone wasn’t drooling over Lawrence, we were in a sea of Barbie jokes over Reese Witherspoon. (“It moves!” “Where’s Ken?” “She should be in a Barbie musical!”) “He still has that gross thing on his face?!” said someone over Christian Bale’s beard. “Maybe Bruce Wayne is in disguise in the next Batman movie,” I replied. I wondered when Cate Blanchett said “That’s gross” on-stage, it was because she saw Bale’s beard (which has a different color than his hair for some odd reason).

     The only major upset (awards-wise) was Tom Hooper winning over David Fincher for Best Director. Everyone’s jaws dropped when his name was called. There were some boos. It wasn’t pretty. I did notice that the camera wasn’t present on Fincher during his speech. Unlike the next category which was Best Actress. When Natalie Portman began to speak, the camera briefly captured Annette Bening’s defeated face in the crowd. I had never seen someone so sad at an awards ceremony. If it makes you feel better Annette, Deborah Kerr (From Here to Eternity and The King and I) was up for Best Actress six times and never won.

     “How pissed do you think the other 9 Best Picture nominees were that their clips were introduced by Spielberg with The King's Speech playing in the background?” commented a reader for the AV Club. When that montage began to air, I knew that The King’s Speech was going to win. Some of my friends were praying that The Social Network would win but I knew better. Oscar plays it safe most of the time. He gave the Best Picture Oscar to Crash over Brokeback Mountain and Good Night and Good Luck, Gladiator over Traffic and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Shakespeare in Love over Saving Private Ryan. There are times when he decides to take a risk (Midnight Cowboy is the only X-rated film to win) but it’s unlikely.

     Maybe it’s the fact that the majority of the Academy are older and most likely out of touch with what’s going in modern cinema. This trend isn’t new: in the 1960s a majority of the Best Picture winners were outdated and over-the-top musicals from the dying studio systems headed by Jack Warner and others. My Fair Lady won over Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick’s dark and brilliant satire on the Cold War. The Sound of Music won over Darling, a British satire on an ambitious woman (Julie Christie) climbing the ladder to success; In the Heat of the Night, a police drama, won over Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, and Bonnie and Clyde, the crime drama that is often credited for the renaissance of American filmmaking. Oliver! won over Rachel, Rachel, a drama on a spinster and her disastrous love affair; and The Lion in Winter, a character piece on the darkest hour of King Henry and his queen. The Academy honored modern, “progressive” and controversial films in the 1970s such as The Godfather (Parts I and II), The French Connection, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Network, All the President’s Men, The Deer Hunter, and Kramer vs. Kramer. They regressed in the 80s when they chose to honor (often forgettable) films like Ordinary People, Chariots of Fire and Out of Africa.

     The Academy needs to do what it does best (slightly bore audiences rather than alienate them) and shape up for 2012. They also need to finally realize that they should continue to take risks in what to award and nominate. Last year’s winner, the Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker, is a 180 degree turn from this year’s winner. And for the love of God, stay away from the Auto-Tune effects! #

CNN, Where's the Intergity? Failures of the Media, Case File #101

This afternoon when I went on the homepage of CNN, I noticed the top story headline was "Oscars: Where's the Diversity". I clicked on it and read about how there were no black actors nominated this year and how there was no female director amongst the five Best Director nominees.

To understand how ridiculous this story is, all you have to do is read some of the comments provided at the end of the article. Here are a few of them:

Wonderful! Another race-baiting story making headlines on CNN's website.

Another race baiting article from CNN. Shocking. Say, if we now have a quota for Oscars, can we also have one for the NBA All-Stars as well? Nobody's complaining about that one... 

I didn't know that a woman winning for Best Director last year meant that another woman had to be nominated this year. I guess we should be happy a one-armed Filipino with a speech impediment didn't win last year - where would we have come up with another one of those?

Shame on CNN and its author for writing this article. The movies nominated deserve to be nominated. And the races of the crew are more coincidence than a sign of bias. Shame of CNN for trying to fabricate and contentious story that's not even there.

Here's an idea: Maybe the best movies of the year weren't made by women/African Americans? Last year Kathryn Bigelow won best director for "The Hurt Locker", and rightfully so. Mo'Nique won for her role in "Precious", and rightfully so. They didn't win because of their gender or their skin color.

The line that pisses me off the most? "Javier Bardem, who is up for best actor for his role in "Biutiful,' is a Spaniard and therefore European".
So Bardem is denied his heritage because it's on a particular continent? If that's the case, why isn't CNN crapping their pants because "There's only one European nominated"? They aren't. Because there's no "story" to it.
Idiots.

So all Europeans are white? Now who's racist, Lisa (the writer of the CNN article)?

When are you going to get it that no one F*%#ing cares what color, race or gender the actors are. If they are the best, they deserve it and those 5 actors were the best of last year without a doubt. Should Denzel get nominated for his "stellar" performance in Unstoppable? Don't you realize that you are adding to the racism. When I saw those nominees. I didn't see color. I saw 5 great performances. When you saw it you saw 5 white males. Who's the bigot? I think it's you!

I'm a person of color and I feel really insulted that this writer is suggesting minorities should get special look or treatment. We do not need affirmative action on Oscar nominations, so if this year doesn't have too many films of diversity to consider so be it. There's NO special category for film made or starred by People of Color!! 

It's pretty intense stuff there, and those are the tamer comments from the site.

There's another article online (I think it's from moviefone) that blatantly asks "Why Are There No Black Actors Nominated?" or somewhere along those lines. I agree with the commenters and believe that the media is trying to enforce prejudice amongst its readers. I don't see anyone complaining about the lack of Latinos or Asians in the acting categories. The writer of the CNN article believed that last year's Oscars set a "high bar" on diversity that the Academy should force themselves to reach that bar.


It also pisses me off that "diversity" is only seen by this writer as racial diversity. Has seen even seem this fucking list of nominees?! You have a movie based on the founders of Facebook, something that wasn't a part of millions of people's lives 5 years ago going by against a historical drama about a King of England, a sci-fi blockbuster with an original story(an original story! Hollywood doesn't even bother doing that anyone. Look at the nominees and winners of the Best Original Screenplay Oscar over the past decade. Almost all of them are scripts from independent films, Pixar, or films made outside the United States) that made people think, and a comedy about a lesbian couple and their family.

I understand that opportunities for minorities in Hollywood are still slim but it's better than it was twenty, thirty years ago. Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey own their own TV studios. One of the most popular late-night hosts is of Mexican descent (George Lopez) and another one is a female (Chelsea Handler). That wasn't around five years ago.


I'm disappointed that CNN felt the need to feature a story that has a writer shouting that minorities are being neglected by the Academy. Don't they know that President Obama is in Wisconsin today or that the ousted dictator of Tunisia is a wanted criminal?

Broadcast song

Broadcast "Come On Let's Go"

R.I.P. Trish Keenan (1968-2011) of the electro indie group Broadcast.