I can't stand a lot of modern art. Sure, some of it is great and everything, but working as a security guard in an art museum for a couple years means I've stared at a lot of it. Once upon a time the museum featured a gallery with 40 or so scribbles or couple of weak watercolor strokes on torn pieces of looseleaf paper. Framed. Or the local artist that made a dome out of clay that beeped when people got close to it, and instead constantly beeped due to faulty electronics. Can't forget the guy that took photos of empty rooms with poor lighting. Or the other local person that put a streaming webcam in the window of a library and walked past dressed in drag. It's hard for me to not believe those behind pieces like that are hacks that make a living off of controversy and are supported by politics within museums, especially when so many of them turn out to be rude pricks when you meet them. Don't get me wrong... I do have genuine respect for talented artists and recognize that art is subjective, but there's some real pieces of shit out there.
Wes Anderson and The Cohen Brothers. Every film student and/or snob or someone trying to be a film snob I know worships these people. I'm hip. I like indie movies. But I just don't get them. I only really enjoyed two movies between the two/three of them, Oh Brother Where Art Thou and Fantastic Mr. Fox. I kind of liked Barton Fink and The Royal Tenenbaums. But I think the rest of their movies are the opposite of entertaining. And yes. That includes. The Big Lebowski. YEAH I FUCKING SAID IT. Oh, and Sophia Coppola too. Fuck her. Edited to include: Katokoch, what you're talking about is contemporary art, not modern art. I agree that the vast majority of contemporary art is totally pretentious and lame, but modern art is the best.
Inception. I saw it. It was enjoyable. Dream within a dream etc. Yeah yeah. But I was Not wowed and changed the way my peers were. Avatar. People were committing suicide because the planet wasn't real? Really? Because it was Good and all...but...really?
I remember there being many terms to describe it, often with prefixes. Postmodern or conceptual fits it better. My apologies if I offended any "just modern" artists.
While I don't share Ballsack's hatred for The Beatles I do think they are very overrated, slightly above average band with slightly above average music. They were probably great for their time since everything else was horseshit but in my opinion they were blown away by later bands. I'd wear a bulletproof vest to the NYC meetup if I were you.
You know I am a fan of the Cohen brothers, but they are really hit and miss sometimes. I tried twice to watch Burn After Reading and fell asleep both times. The Lady Killers is terrible as well. I watched Barton Fink just a few weeks ago for the first time and thought it was terrible. Of all their films it felt like they were trying to jerk off directly into the avant garde art house film makers mouths. The premise is alright and some of the characters could be fun but it just tries to be to fucking weird. Maybe I don't get all the meanings and allusions and all that shit people who watch only indie films love but I thought the movie was boring. Same shit goes with the movie Syndochych (what ever) N.Y. by Charlie Kauffman. His cleverness in writing did not translate into directing a whole movie himself. But since I've not actually known anyone else that has seen it I don't know if people ever considered it good. Just art house masturbation. As for James Lipton, I don't know anyone who considered that guy great. I know I liked him in Arrested Development and even David Cross back tracked on his James Lipton is douche bit after working with him on it. And tv divorce lawyers? Did you understand the focus? I am also getting a liiiiiiitle tired of hearing about "locally grown" "organic" food. I see the benefits, you aren't ingesting hormones and vegetable steroids that would make Jason Giambi blush, you help support the local band of annoying self righteous hippy farmers, etc. Still, they are annoying hippies, it is way over priced for a fucking basket of tomatoes, and they are annoying hippies. To be honest I couldn't tell that much of a difference between the tomatoes I got at a local farmers market and the genetic freak ones I picked up at Kroger. Here's some avante garde art that needs napalm dropped on it: Bitch is a fucking hack and John Lennon must have been retarded.
Don't apologize. There was a modern artist who signed a urinal to make it art. Just because you think it up doesn't make it art. Aaaaand let the debate on "what is art" begin...
I like Raising Arizona Although, I don't think it's high art. I just enjoy it because it's kind of stupid and I find it funny.
I hope I'm not the only person that thinks Fight Club, both the movie and the novel, is useless nonsense. It's pandering to the lowest common denominator bullshit.
I thought it was a slick movie and the twist kind of blew my mind the first time. The book was alright, but filled with a lot more blatant homo eroticism than the movie. I didn't have any earth shattering epiphanies about my life like Tucker did.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett This might contain spoilers. Spoiler It takes a helluva fine touch to adequately explore race relations in the Deep South and this lady just doesn't have it. The characters are 2D, the story is predictable at best, and she writes with about as much subtlety as a jackhammer. I'm horrified by the praise that this book has received. A reviewer for NPR titled her article:A Nuanced Novel Of Race In The Deep South. She then goes on to say that "this could be one of the most important pieces of fiction since To Kill A Mockingbird. It's bad when a reviewer decides to laud a work that is so obviously inferior. But Kathryn Sotckett takes it one step further.In her own fucking book she explicitly references some of the best fiction ever about race relations. Oh, let's just have main character 1 start reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockinbird, and Invisible Man. Also, let's make it explicitly clear that this main character is actually quite smart and literate and yet have her portions written in a heavy handed dialect that is totally unnecessary. And it appears that only black characters have accents. Wonderful. It appears it is nothing more than a maudlin novel that is more concerned with the feel good aspect of it all than revealing anything close to truth. And speaking of truth here is a little excerpt: Like I said, subtle as a jackhammer. Nicholas Sparks and Stephanie Meyer When people tell me their favorite author is Nicholas Sparks a piece of me dies. When people tell me their favorite author is Stephanie Meyer I just hope they die.
The Big Bang Theory. I get the jokes -- they're not that smart. They're just regular obvious sitcom jokes about nerdy topics. The jokes on Archer or It's Always Sunny are much smarter and more nuanced than The Big Bang Theory, and they do it without pandering.
I've enjoyed Tennyson quite a bit. Crossing the Bar, Ulysses and The Charge of the Light Brigade are of special note. In Memoriam of A.H.H. is, well, long to say the least but quite good at parts. And wouldn't you know, Tennyson was the one who said "Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all". But he wrote about his best (male!) friend who died very young. I've really enjoyed John Donne, but since you said the metaphysical poets did little for you chances are you either read it and hated it, or wouldn't enjoy even if you did. That being said the Holy Sonnets and some of his love poetry I thought was pretty great. I started reading some of A.E. Housman's poetry and enjoying it, particularly The Shropshire Lad cycle of poetry he wrote. You can find them all on wikipedia. Surprise, surprise. Particular favorites are When I was One and Twenty (XIII), Is my Team Ploughing? (XXVII) and To and Athlete Dying Young (XIX) Some opera is good. Like any art though, just as is the case with poetry, you may have to wade through some crap to get to the quality stuff. Quality opera can, after all, make every man in Shawshank feel free. Spoiler A good rule of thumb is to go by is Mozart. Put simply, if Mozart composed it, it's probably good - Magic Flute, Marriage of Figaro etc. Although Ring of the Nibelungs by Wagner is good as well, despite being depressing and hammy. Focus I'm sure I've made my dislike of Dave Matthews Band known before, but it's worth repeating. I don't get it. I mean, I love prog. I love the solos that go nowhere. I love twenty minute long songs. I'm a huge Yes, Rush, King Crimson, Camel, etc. fan. But with DMB it just seems like they try way too hard and have nowhere near the talent of the other bands I listed. Fans lionize them as if they invented the musical wheel when all they did was take the jam band formula, dumb it down, and sell it to college age morons. The Beatles I have mixed feelings about. Largely because I think one Beatle in particular, George, is vastly underrated. If John and Paul didn't have such massive egos and given George more freedom, I think the Beatles could have done a lot more interesting things. Since All Things Must Pass did better than any other members solo albums, I think he was vindicated somewhat. Plus, he was in the Wilburys. And he started a film production company just to finance Monty Python's Life of Brian. Underrated and then some. Alt focus The Blair Witch Project has always been a huge point of contention between myself and one particular group of friends. They think it redefined horror. I think it's one of the biggest pieces of shit ever to grace celluloid. I was reminded a lot of those arguments when I saw Paranormal Activity. Although, to be fair, I did think PA was better but not quite as groundbreaking as people seem to think.
Add to this list pretty much anything that has in the blurb "heartwarming," "strong women," "inspirational," or any other buzzword aimed at the modern-day emancipated housewife. The epitome of this is that rank piece of fairy-tale crap, The Secret Life of Bees. Any book described by these words will probably include a sequence as ridiculous as the one in TheSLOB where a 14-year-old white girl breaks a black maid out of a KKK prison. You know what's inspirational? Teddy fucking Roosevelt. Not your stupid fucking fairy tale where the white girl gets to save the magical negro and learn the beauty of life at her feet. (Yes, I had to read this book for high school lit. I'm still mad.) I'll also second the Big Bang Theory. It's That 70s Show with nerds instead of stoners. And real nerds don't all look like this:
Jason Bourne is the world's most generic action hero/spy. There is nothing interesting about him, he is completely lacking in charm or personality, and everything that happens plotwise is extremely genre-typical. The only noteworthy thing about those movies in the shaky cam, and that loses its appeal 10 minutes into the first one. They aren't bad, but they aren't exceptional either. The appeal of Pink Floyd is sometimes lost on me. There are some of their songs I really like...and some where they meander around in spacey bullshittery for 15 minutes without ever really getting anywhere. Some one needs to introduce Cormac McCarthy to some fucking punctuation. On The Road was rambling drivel desperately in need of a good editor. And Mark Twain only exagerrated slightly about Jane Austen: Chuck is watchable, but neither groundbreaking nor exceptionally funny. It's "there's nothing else on" TV, but yet is sometimes promoted as one of the best shows of recent years. Gravitas... maybe the issue is the state of Oklahoma, but who the fuck thinks Nicholas Sparks or Stephanie Meyer are "good"? Aren't they pretty much accepted to be trash by anyone over 15, those who like them included?
I will second the Beatles, Inception & Avatar and add U2. Just never caught on with me. I like some of their songs, but overall, I put them in the Overrated column.
I'm probably going to get a lot of shit for this, but I fucking hate Shakespeare. They start teaching this shit in 9th grade English and the kids have no fucking idea whats going on. I remember the first thing I did was go out and buy the Cliffs Notes for it because that was the slimmest chance I had of following anything he wrote. Part of me thinks that people love him so much because they think that if they are able to follow what he is saying, that somehow makes them better than people who don't. I notice this a lot with drama/theater people and hipsters. I started reading Edgar Allen Poe in the 7th grade. Now that's some shit. In my opinion, he can be just as difficult to follow, but a lot less pretentious. He only lived to be 40, but I think he is father of the modern murder/mystery.
Smoking weed. Yes there is something ritualistic and relaxing about rolling up a nice joint, and yes I've had experiences and deep thoughts that were a without a doubt a direct result of using marijuana. However, every time I smoke I don't need to pretend I'm "communing with the Earth mother" or some such nonsense. More importantly, I don't need to fake "communing" to enjoy a smoke or justify my actions. About a year ago I introduced a very close friend to my friend marijuana. He, believe it or not, had NEVER smoked in all his 26 years of life and held the substance in the lowest of opinions. Fast forward a year later and this motherfucker is a daily smoker who largely fakes the connection/ritualism I described above. I've experienced a greater appreciation for nature, friends, and life when I've punched out and enjoyed a smoke. But sometimes I get bored driving the tractor around my property to cut the grass and the time goes by much faster if I enjoy a joint while I'm doing it. He acts as if the ark of the covenant is popping open in our midst which is getting to be annoying especially because he's so preachy about using. I called him out on it last week when he fired up a bowl in the parking lot of a car show... I guess the Earth mother is into supercharged hemis.
The Stones, Pink Floyd, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, The Band, CCR, The Byrds, The Yardbirds, The Who, Roy Orbison, et al. Yeah, real horseshit. Focus: No one movie in particular, but just going to the movies. What happened to just going for the sake of being entertained? What deeper meaning will I find below the surface of "Shrek III"? I remember the "Inglorious Basterds" thread on the old board and how that movie was dissected like a med school cadaver. If Tarantino had put half as much "deep" thought into that movie as the posters in that thread did, they'd still be shooting it. Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.