(#15) Whip it good!

So I saw Whip It with a couple of my friends tonight, and fell in love with it, for several reasons. (I'm pretty much spoiling this all over the place, so if you haven't seen it and plan to, beware.)



1. It made me want to move to Texas.



2. It also made me want to strap on some skates and beat the heck out of someone (by this I mean participate in roller derby, not just roll out there and start punching random passerby).



3. It had the always lovely Alia Shawkat (Maeby from Arrested Development) in a great supporting role.



4. Come to think of it, all roles, both supporting and main, were amazing.
Kristen Wiig in particular shocked me. I'm so used to watching her act ridiculous (albeit hilarious) on Saturday Night Live every week that her performance as a mom/derby doll/real-life-woman impressed me to no end.



5. Bliss didn't end up with the guy.
This was actually my favorite part about the whole movie. Yeah, there was a cute boyfriend-girlfriend part to the movie, but the boyfriend turned out to be a jerk (as all 19-year-old boys are capable of from time to time). And instead of going the teary forgiveness route and throwing herself upon him, Bliss kissed him, then slapped him a good one and that was that. I have so much respect for the screenwriter's decision to represent the part of the teenage girl population that doesn't feel the need to have a boyfriend to validate their self-worth. (Not that there is anything wrong with having a boyfriend; it's just nice to see a girl onscreen who's able to detect the worthy from the worthless. Also, he had gross hair.)



6. Girl power, baby. A hundred and eleven minutes of it.



7. The whole darn movie was great.
I liked the pageant-princess-turned-derby-darling twist on the coming-of-age tradition. Bliss and Pash were super-close best friends, and Ellen Page and Alia Shawkat really nailed that kind of relationship. The whole mother-daughter element to the story felt real and honest. Marcia Gay Harden can act, y'all. She's always compelling to watch, and just felt so believable in this frustrated but loving mother role. Daniel Stern was great too, as the slightly confused but supporting father Also, I will make sure to pay attention to any more Barrymore-directed films, because she's got a great style. The setting was perfect, the soundtrack was spot-on, and you know, I could go through every name involved in this production and talk about how much I loved them, but how about you get on down to the movie theater and support them yourselves?






7. I almost forgot -- it was truly hilarious. This is a must in my entertainment choices. If there's no humor and joy in something, what's the point of wasting my time? This film was funny, but intelligently so - the best kind.



This has nothing to do with the movie, but we were talking about rockabilly in my rock 'n' roll class on Monday, and the professor put up this picture of Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks and asked if anyone had ever heard of The Band.


Can you believe that I was the only person out of an auditorium at least 250 that raised their hand? He said, "well, then you know about The Hawks, right?" and I agreed and that was that. But that just made me sad for the kids I go to school with. Their loss.


ALSO:
I am going as a mod for Halloween and am in the process of perfecting that ridiculous amount of makeup that goes along with it. It's actually a lot of fun. What are you going to be this 31st?



I don't own any of these pictures, obviously.

(#10) The Song(s) Remain the Same

Five of my favorite songs, in no particular order. In interest of fairness, I'm only using one song per artist.

1. "Ain't No More Cane" by The Band
I don't think I can even pick a favorite Band song, but this is as good a place as any to start. It captures the spirit of the band perfectly, with its weird timelessness and the feeling of a ragged communion between all the members. The verses are divided between everyone but Garth, but the shared choruses are all-for-one. Besides the stellar vocals (Rick's "ooohs" are particularly great, with his soaring, quavery voice), my favorite part of the song has to be Richard's drumming. I don't know if all piano players have some kind of innate sense of funk or what, but I love songs where Richard drums ("Rag Mama Rag," "Jemima Surrender," "Don't Ya Tell Henry," "Evangeline," etc.). You can't separate The Band into individual parts, though. When one is missing, it's just not The Band. When they're all working together, it's pure magic.

2. "My Generation" by The Who
The Who, to me, means a lot of exclamation points. Explosive! Loud! Brilliant! Raw! The Who! Townshend's written a million great songs, and I don't even know if this one's my favorite Who song, but it's definitely up there. It sums the band up rather well to me. There's Moon beating the hell out of the drums, Roger singing his heart out, Pete doing his thing, and John's amazing bass solo (those are always a high point of Who songs for me). I feel like this mixture of defiance and talent is what's made the band so loved over three generations. If you haven't seen their performance on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, shown in The Kids Are Alright, you should do so as soon as possible.

3. "Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin
I dig a lot of Zeppelin, but this one stands out to me particularly. You've got the strings and horns, not to mention the four members at the center of it. Middle Eastern music always fascinates me, and "Kashmir"'s got this exotic vibe to it. Robert Plant is not always my favorite vocalist, but he nails it here (as he does on pretty much everything; just because he's not my fave doesn't mean boy can't sing).
"Like Shangri-La beneath the summer moon, I will return again." Sigh.

4. "He Can Only Hold Her" by Amy Winehouse
I love me some Amy. If you've heard Back to Black in its entirety, you can never again judge her solely on her (undeniably unwise) life choices. Her jazzy blues-soaked vocals are such a welcome relief from today's auto-tuned "singers" who are more parts plastic than actual flesh. All of the songs on this album convey genuine emotion, and her voice on this song in particular, about a girl unable to get over her former lover even though she's with another man (yes, it sounds soap opera-y written out like that, but trust me on this) is so beautiful to me.

5. "Blackbird" by The Beatles
The quiet simplicity of this is just so beautiful. Paul had the civil rights movement in mind when he wrote it, which makes it all the more meaningful. The intricacy of the guitar part and the birdsong at the end, and Paul's fabulous singing...ah. It's just perfect.

Obviously, I am no music writer. But I kind of like doing this and probably will include more posts along this line, as there is in no way this is a good representation of all the fantastic music out there, and really isn't even a good representation of my top hundred.

(#7) Who Do You Love?

There are not enough words to describe how much I love The Band. So I'll let these pictures do the talking.

R.I.P. Rick Danko and Richard Manuel.