Wednesday, March 26, 2008

The problem with "Cool Corruption"

So a quick thought from the recent Vegas trip:
While standing at the Bellagio fountains to film a little parody for Divine Comedy, I thought about the film Ocean's 11. I mean it's cool that such nice, attractive guys like Brad Pitt, George Clooney and that cute Cockney guy swiped millions of dollars from the mean, unattractive casino owner, right? He stole George's wife, hires goons to beat people up, and puts enough oil in his hair to supply a fast-food chain, so we know he's awful. But the problem is, the movie never shows the after-math of this ingenious heist. I mean, sure these 11 peeps (well 12) got millions, but what about all the employees of the casino? The Casino's investors and investments and all the people they employ? Can you imagine how many lay-offs resulted from this theft?

The problem is, George and Brad are just so dang cute and charming that they probably could have robbed a safe full of babies and we would have cheered, though mostly because babies don't keep well in safes. However, my point is that the movie paints the corrupt heroes in such a positive light and the bad-guy in such a negative, dark light (but not a black light-that would make people associate him with coolness and the Blue Man Group) that anything they did was rooted-for by us. So this question I pose to my dear friends... If you could pick the title and subject for another totally different Ocean's installment, what would it be?

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

UT is addicted to 80's music

I'm sure I'm not the first to notice that BYU and UT Valley as a whole seems to have this nostalgia for the past-be it in hairstyles or building designs. In general I can enjoy hair inspired by late 70's beauty-queens, or buildings that must have been cutting-edge in 1965. However, the one thing I can't stand is the radio stations that seem to long for the 80's. When I'm in the car and feel like listening to the FM, this is what has often happens:

Hit 1-"Now you have a friend in the diamond.." Ugg.
Hit 2- Crappy techno song with an 80's-inspired beat. Blech
Hit 3- Random 80's song that was never popular but for some reason is playing. Why?
Hit 4-"University of Phoenix offers..." You send me enough spam, now you have to assault my radio waves?
Hit 5-An early 90's song that can't let go of it's 80's roots. One more station....
Hit 6- A current song that's being "retro" by sampling 80's beats/lyrics/re-doing the entire song. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Oh, and just to clarify, I don't have a problem with 80's music in general, it's just that I never hear any good 80's or 80's-sounding music on the radio. But I'm sure it's just all part of bringing back the "good old days" where we can remember a simpler time before we had heard of the "ozone layer," "video-games" or "outsourcing to 3rd-world countries." Aaaaaaaaahhh....I need to go watch the Breakfast Club.