Pay No Attention To That Man Behind The T-Rex

We do our best to protect our kid from the dangers of bad dreams.   When you try to explain something scary in a movie that they may have seen, it can go all wrong.    You don’t want to downplay the act as something that is acceptable in real life, say a fight between two people.  You explain, “Those are actors, and after the scene changes, they get up and go on being friends or coworkers.  It’s not real.  That’s not blood.  That’s like ketchup or something.”  Unfortunately, for me, I may have ruined my child for good when it comes to the magic of movies.

Growing up at the beginning of the Sci-Fi blockbuster genre, circa 1977, I was completely blown away by Star Wars and Indiana Jones and other fantastic sights on screen.  Even as an adult, the sight of a dinosaur in Jurassic Park was magical.

By today’s standards, it barely registers on a movie goers radar, but in 1993, when the best CGI effects were still yet to come, that sight was something that made the movie geek in me squeee nearly out loud.

At the age of two, noticing that my own kid had an affection for dinosaurs, I made the choice to let her watch it.    We talked about it, and I made her fully aware that it was not really a dinosaur.  Even went as far as to show her the behind the scenes stuff with the models, and green screen, and animatronic characters used in making the film.  She accepted it and loved it anyway.   We also happened upon Ghostbusters on cable and she ate that up like Slimer in a hot dog cart.  Again, I had to explain the ghosts, and the dogs, and Stay Puft.   She accepted it, and loved it.

At almost six, she is now quick to point out any scene in a television show or movie that is “not real”.   She happened upon me playing Dead Island of all things, and I let her watch me play it, with the subtitles on, so I could cough, clear my throat, or “Hablaedfhaefhah” over the bad language.   Now, I could be perceived as the worst parent in the world, here.  Dead Island is a far cry from House of the Dead II & III which she saw my father-in-law and I play on many occasions a couple years before.   I told her, this could be scary, and if you start to have issues with it, I’m quitting it.

“No, Daddy.  It’s not going to give me nightmares.“
“Why do you know that?”
“Because.  That’s not real blood.  It’s like ketchup or something.”
OK, she hasn’t made the distinction between video games and films being made in different ways, yet.  But, she has become quite the backseat gamer.
“Daddy, stop going through all that luggage.  The zombie will come get you.”
“Daddy, leave that zombie, over there, alone.  It’s not bothering you.”  I go and bother the zombie and fifteen more appear out of nowhere and kill me.  “See?  What did I tell you?”

Touche, kiddo.

But I worry.  I worry not for the chance that she’s going to grow up with a detached sense of right or wrong or even that she is going to be desensitized to the point of grabbing a high powered rifle and climbing into a clock tower.  I’m worried that, as she gets a little older and I can share more films with her that struck a chord in me at that age, she will not be impressed because, “I can see the wires” or “That’s ketchup.”  There are so many fantastical movies that are full immersion into a suspended disbelief from my generation.  Even today, the adaptations of The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit are beautiful in terms of CGI.  But, she will just see pick apart the process that created them, because I was worried she’d have nightmares.

She had to accept death at such an early age and we didn’t pull any punches with explaining what happened to her maternal grandmother.   They were great friends and she loved her Grammy so much.   To see her in a hospital, on life support, after having a brain hemorrhage.  To remember the image, and now always recall “Grammy’s Yellow Hair” from the surgery to try and relieve the pressure, kills me.  But, we didn’t want to say, “Grammy’s sleeping” and we didn’t want to deemphasize the importance of what has happened, so we gave it to her straight.  And now, the kid has more knowledge about life and death than most her age.

She may never develop that “suspension of disbelief” in films because she learned at such an early age to, pay attention to that man behind the curtain.

25 Best Musical Performances in Non-musical Films: 25-16

Musical Numbers.  There's a whole genre of movies built around singing and dancing.  They're iconic and memorable.  But what about films that aren't built around the idea of characters singing and dancing?  What about characters that break into song and dance because they just feel like it?  Maybe they're forced into it.  What about them? 

Well, this is my selection for the top 25 musical numbers, lip synched or actually sung in a movie by one or more characters.   You won't see Chicago or The Blues Brothers here.  This is strictly things that occurred either off the cuff or were not part of the normal progression of the movie.

UPDATE I screwed up the numbering and omitted one of the greatest moments so I had to remove Clueless since it was number 20 and sometimes, there are losers.  Like me!  So, here is the redux list.

Here we go...


25.  The Jerk "Picking Out a Thermos For You"


24.  Jerry Maguire "Free Falling"


23.  The Replacements "I Will Survive"


22.  Mr. Deeds "Space Oddity"


21.  Tommy Boy "Superstar", "Come On Eileen", and "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)"


20.  Sixteen Candles "Birthday"


19.   Elf "Baby, It's Cold Outside"


18.  Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me "Chili's Baby Back Ribs"


17.  Ghostbusters "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town"


16.  The Hangover "In the Air Tonight"

Goonies 25th Anniversary Soundtrack

Holy Crap! Look at that! It’s the actual score to The Goonies without all of the pop songs that were in the only version I had, growing up. Still, $46 is a bit much. When Napster first came out, I was all over downloading every bit of Dave Grusin’s soundtrack I could.

The Goonies is a HUGE part of my pop culture obsessed childhood. So were orchestral soundtracks. I was a John Williams junkie and Alan Silvestri, Michael Kamen, James Horner, Jerry Goldsmith all adorned my geek CD case.

I bought the DVD version back around 2000 and it was pretty sweet. Of course, that was back when DVD menu animation was a big deal. But the DVD had a great set of extras that I’m hoping are all on the Blu-Ray. I want the picture in picture commentary with the cast reunion. I want the dual Cyndi Lauper music videos (Part 1 and 2). And I want the deleted scenes.

I’ve been putting off on posting my take on what I would accept if they ever did a sequel. I’m kind of hoping they won’t. Dan Aykroyd finally gave up the ghost on GB3 since Bill Murray said no to the script. Hollywood is still looking to release a Top Gun sequel [headdesk] Let it go, folks.

So, I may just have to pick this up... or...  I'll just save the playlist from YouTube.

Print Is Dead

PRINT IS DEAD

That’s what Egon Spengler said to receptionist Janine Melnitz in Ghostbusters. This was 1984. It was almost a decade away from the age of the Internet. Yet, what Egon says is probably true. Print is dead.

It’s a bit sad, if you ask me. On one hand, I grew up despising the chore of reading. I read as little as possible. Whenever we would have to go to the library in grade school and check out a book, I would always check out a book about drawing or a Peanuts comic strip collection or I would continually check out the same juvenile books that involved anthropomorphic fruit or vegetables. I never read them. I was just going through the motions. Eventually, I was called on the carpet by the librarian, who asked why I continually checked out the same book. ‘What an invasion of privacy,’ I thought. From then on, I would pick random books to check out and then leave them in my book bag to be returned later. By junior high, I was dead set against reading and even made up a few book reports on what I thought the book should have been like. By high school, I had forgone reading unless I had to.

Sorry, but I was always a more visually inclined person. It’s kind of contradicting to my nature of wanting to be a writer, or even an actor, when I grew up. There’s plenty of reading to be done by actors and there is even more so to be done by writers, I imagine.

I ended up growing out of that aversion to reading and have done more reading in my 30s than I probably did during my school years. Still, I have to be in the mood to read. Meanwhile, my wife clips along through books, mostly paranormal romantic fiction, at a quickened pace.

The one thing I do remember fondly, as a child, was that there was always a morning paper in our house. Actually, there were at least two; The Daily Courier and The Herald Standard. My parents would sit at breakfast and read the paper every day. Hell, for seven years, I delivered The Daily Courier. When I started my first real job out of college, I read the paper, too. Granted, it was the USA Today that was left outside the doors of the guests at the hotel, where I worked. Mostly, I read the Life section and a few of the front page stories, ending my morning bagel on the Crossword Puzzle, which I always did in pen.

However, nowadays, I don’t read the paper. I don’t even get a paper at my house. Yet, I realized that every morning I perform the same ritual as my parents did all those years ago. I sit, with my breakfast and read. I drink my coffee while I scan through stories and other news items. It just so happens that those bits of information are just that, bits, or perhaps bytes would be a more relevant term. I read blogs and my emails and news stories while I wait for everything else to load on my computer. I dig through shirt designs on other sites and check out my Facebook news feed. I look at analytics for my sites and jot down a few ideas for stuff to work on when I get home. I probably read the equivalent amount of words online that most people would read in a newspaper.

Print IS Dead. It’s all electronic and accessible through the Internet in today’s reality. Newspapers are going belly up or hiding their articles behind pay walls. Everyone is downloading eBooks for their Nooks and Kindles and Tablet PCS. The only benefit to this is that the need to cut down trees to make paper will lessen. The downside to that is that printers and binders and other jobs associated with the construction of printed material will shrink from existence.

The demise of Print is still sad to me, though. For someone who is visually stimulated, I also like to have something tangible in my hands. A book has a texture that adds to its value. When you pick up a book, the weight felt in your hands is history. The sound of a page sliding across one and flipping over to the other side of the book adds resonance to the material. The feeling of the pages, that heavy weighted stock, tingles in your hands. There is nothing more immersive than reading a book that is three dimensional and in your hands. Scrolling a mouse or sliding your finger across a screen will never give you the same experience that holding a book will. In the future we may lose the need to use our limbs, instead relying on audio or mind

The Cave of Seclusion Has Poor Radio Reception

Every once in a while I have to come down out of my cave of seclusion to see what’s happening in the world. The Cave of Seclusion is much like Superman’s Fortress of Solitude, except it shields me from the crap that is out there on in mainstream Pop Culture, like Bristol Palin making it to the finals on Dancing with the Stars or yet another reality show like Bridal Plasty. But, I should embrace the malaise instead of shuddering myself from it. After all, I am in the business of making t-shirts based on such tripe.
It was one of these trips down from the mount that I discovered Cee-Lo Green’s new single, “F**k You!” I’m trying to keep it PG around here. I have limited exposure to Cee-Lo, other than the song Crazy from Gnarls Barkley. I still love that song and keep it on current play lists for my listening pleasure. However, I had heard that he had released the new song but since I don’t listen to Top 40 stations that only play the top four songs in a constant rotation of ear bleeding torture, I tend to miss a lot. I had to go to my wife’s niece and ask her to call up “F**k You!” On Demand. I guess that’s the way we get music videos nowadays. MTV no longer plays music videos and I didn’t exactly have access to YouTube when I made this request of the 14 year old who loves everything Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift related. I don’t blame her, I blame society.

I was blown away at the song. It was perfect. It had a great Motown feel to it while spouting obscenities, although it was censored. I had to call it up on YouTube to get the uncensored version, because even though I love it. I’m still too cheap to go out and buy the CD for one song. Afterwards, my wife’s niece called up Katy Perry’s “Fireworks.” From what I can pretty much gather, Katy Perry’s music career consists of things shooting of her breasts in the videos. Frankly, I could turn down the sound and watch "California Gurls" and be happy. My thoughts are that her first album was probably the best she’ll ever be. The whole “I Kissed a Girl” song was the pinnacle of her credibility and now she simply panders to girls who want to be like her and teenage boys who become piqued with the promise that she might actually fall out of her top. I don’t blame her. I’ve been there. I remember recording the video for Motely Crue’s “Take Me Home” and running it back in slow motion just to see how close I could come to seeing a hint of nipple when the female fan lifts her shirt in the concert footage during the chorus. Of course, you never do see anything but Tommy Lee’s expression of “WHOA!” You’d think he’d never seen a pair before.

I really need to start getting out of my bubble. I have a three year old who is quickly adapting to the world around her, even though I’ve tried to shield her from the crap that is out there.

I admit, my methods probably aren’t approved by child psychologists. One Saturday I happened to be flipping through channels and found Ghostbusters on one of the cable channels and, of course, had to watch a couple of minutes. Forgetting that there was a three year old present, I continued to watch as Slimer greased up Venkman and then became trapped inducing the pop culture nugget, “We came. We saw. We kicked its ass!” That got repeated, immediately by my child. I toyed with the prospect of putting Toy Story on for the umpteenth time, which don’t get me wrong, it’s a great movie, but I can only take so many repeated viewings. I weighed the fallout from this decision and decided to throw the DVD in and watch from the beginning. Ghostbusters, not Toy Story. She was hooked. I figured she’d be a little frightened but she kept asking me to rewind the parts with Slimer and The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. She doesn’t get frightened by things on television. Now, seeing a Halloween decoration, in the store come to life, has spooked her to the point of screaming until her eye sockets were flushed red, but seeing the skeleton cab driver in Ghostbusters simply caused her to say, “Hey, that skeleton isn’t a very good driver.”

Thankfully, I was able to locate her portable DVD player because Ghostbusters 1 & 2 has become her new favorite loop of movies. I can freely sit and play Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare free for all while she sits and dances to the "Ghostbusters" song.

Unfortunately, one day, the crap of the world reared its ugly head in my living room. While being fragged by 12 year olds over my Internet connection, this little voice began singing from across the room. She was playing with blocks and just muttering the lyrics to a pop song. At first, I had no problem with this behavior. That was until I heard what she was actually saying. She was singing Ke$ha’s “Take It Off.” After being blown up by a grenade, I called my wife into the room. “Guess what your daughter is singing?” I wasn’t appalled at the lyrics, but more the choice of artist. Where the hell did she hear this crap!?!?

I need to step up my daughter’s instruction on the finer artists of 20th century pop culture. I figure some heavy doses of RUSH and CCR followed by a nice application of some Johnny Cash and Cream. I’ll be damned if any kid of mine is going to start singing that crap that is on the radio.

Of course if she breaks into “F**k You” anytime soon, I might let her finish the song before I scold her for swearing. After that I’ll tell her to go watch Ghostbusters on her little DVD player while I get blown up another 15 times. Parent of the year award, here I come.