Hey there.

To My Three (or so) Regular Readers,

I am not dead, merely out of a job. (Huzzah for unemployment.)
I'll be back shortly with a rundown of all the pop culture goodness that I've been ingesting lately. I leave you with bits from Armond White's latest valentine to Woody Allen:

Why doesn’t Woody Allen just quit? He craps out movies (six already this millennium) as if Vincent Canby were still at the Times dictating New York’s cultural taste. It’s hard to deny that Allen’s artistic stature owes less to skill or vision than to his cemented media caché—all the ineptitude that’s fit to praise. This hometown boy phenomenon is made clear by Allen’s recent fish-out-of-water relocation to England for Match Point, a vile drama, and his not-so-different, lamentable new comedy, Scoop. Outside Manhattan, Woody’s movies have no justification. [snip] To humiliate [Scarlett] Johansson any further, Allen would have to ... literally take a dump on her.

xo Ben

Thank you, Michaelangelo Matos.

Mr. Matos,

Not only do I enjoy reading your music criticism, I need to send you propers for sending me over to Rich Juzwiak's blog FourFour. His seventy minute New Jack Swing mix has made this day bearable. Bobby Brown and SWV and Tony! Toni! Toné! and ABC and "Mowtonphilly"? Please. It makes me want to dig out the Z. Cavariccis my Mom bought me at The Buckle and go make out with some girl at the RollerDome. (I hope I'm not alone here. I imagine if one was born between the years 1975 and 1983, it'll hold true for them too. I hope.)

Plus the accompanying commentary is brilliant. A sample:

• But what I hate the most is the whole "Everybody should be making love shit," because: FUCK YOU, SPINDERELLA. DO NOT TELL ME HOW TO FUCK.
  
• Tevin Campbell recites a limerick in "Round and Round." FACT.
  
• Can you believe Michael Jackson released a song called "In the Closet"?!?! So that "something" about you baby that makes him want to give it to you is a penis, right? Too easy, Mike!
  
• "I Like the Way" wasn't playing during my first French kiss (with a girl, of course), but it was popular around that time (late spring of '91) and it came on the radio soon after we dribbled all in each other. FACT.

It's rich, yo. Rich.
Remember when people unironically liked Bobby Brown? I seriously loved his theme song to Ghosbusters II* a lot. A lot, a lot.

Those were the days.

Your pal,

Ben


* Just in case you need your memory jogged:
Too hot to handle, too cold to hold
They're called the Ghostbusters and they're in control
Had 'em throwin' a party for a bunch of children
While all the while the slime was under the building
So they packed up their group, got a grip, came equipped
Grabbed they proton packs off their back and they split
Found about Vigo, the master of evil
Try to battle my boys? That's not legal
(Oh-we-oh) They're in control
(Oh-we-oh) Y-Y-Ya know it

Yup, it's an Armondism.

You might have noticed that my critic-crush on Armond White has waned lately. I can't help it, his reviews of late are beyond self-parody. If you need specifics, I present his reviews of Nacho Libre (loved it beyond words, compared it to a Biblical illustration, reitirates his hatred of Richard Linklater as well as Maria Full of Grace and the hipsters who love either of them) and The Road to Guantanamo (hated it, claimed it's "a Weapon of Crass misInstruction," seems to defend torture in the name of "American self-protection").

But before you get ahead of yourself and think I've forsaken the man entirely, he drops a line like this and all is forgiven I soften a little:
"Not since The Newton Boys—actually, not since Tape—has a feature film been as visually ugly as A Scanner Darkly."

For the record, I don't even hate Linklater (when he's responsible for Dazed and Confused, how could I?) but that invocation of The Newton Boys deserves propers.

Happy weekend.

I've been meaning to post this forever. I figure, hey, it's Superman weekend, what better timing? Here's Brett Ratner's 2002 Holiday Card.

I know it's a little blurry; in case you can't tell, that's Brett Ratner as Superman.

Happy Weekend, everyone.