1. It's simply too late. At this point, the show has been off the air for longer than it was ever on the air. Even if they started production tomorrow, a movie wouldn't be hitting theaters for AT LEAST 18 months or so. What makes anybody think that something made so long after the end of the show would even be any good? At that point it's not a continuation, it's a reunion, the type of cheap, cynical stunt that I would think fans of Arrested Development would mock.
2. The series finale was a perfectly good ending. It not only wrapped up pretty much every loose thread (although it's been a while since I've seen it, so let me know if I'm forgetting anything), but it was explicitly designed as a mirror image of the pilot episode, or the completion of a circle. Anything else is going to be sort of a sideways tangent at best (like reissuing Thriller with bonus tracks) or an infuriating legacy-stainer at worst (like the fourth Indiana Jones movie).
3. Arrested Development's pace and tone won't translate to a movie. A feature-length film would be roughly the length of at least four sitcom-length TV episodes. I know as well as anybody that Arrested Development is one of the most endlessly re-watchable shows ever made (maybe second to The Simpsons), but have you ever watched four in a row, with no breaks? It's a tiring experience. The 21 minute sitcom is the perfect format for a show with such breakneck pacing. Stretch it out to an hour and a half, with no commercial breaks or breaks between episodes, and it's either going to have slow stretches in the middle just to break things up for the viewer and pad out the length (like the Simpsons movie) or it will be so frantically paced that by the end nobody will be able to pay attention and the plot will seem too nonsensical and convoluted (like the Futurama DVD movies).
So there's that. I promise that sooner or later I'm going to write about something I like, instead of whining about how everything sucks. So far the Tom Smash Blog rebirth has consisted of thoughts that wouldn't fit into facebook updates, so this is what we've got to work with.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Redefining the term "diminishing returns"
For a band that took a four year hiatus after its second album, Weezer has been hitting us with new jams at a pace that's almost distressing, at least to those of us who have since come to wish they'd broken up after their unbelievably brilliant second album, which looks more and more like ether Matt Sharp was secretly in charge of everything, or it was just a freak accident.
This week Weezer are dropping yet another shit bomb on an unsuspecting public, and yes, I'm dismissing it with the term "shit bomb" without having heard a single song. See, every time Weezer puts out a new album, I hear enough people say "it's not that bad" that I end up checking it out, even though I know it absolutely will be that bad, and thus far, each one has been even worse than the one before it.
When the post-Pinkerton comeback started with a second self-titled album (the so-called "green" album), Weezer were mired in a genre that I just made up called "safety rock," songs assembled from an interchangeable grab-bag of bland verses, bland choruses that were loud enough to be distinguished from the verses, and guitar solos that were simply the verse melody, except on a guitar. The next phase, represented by Maladroit and Make Believe, found Weezer trying on a couple of different but equally radio-friendly hats: faux-pop-metal, faux-new-wave, lazy approximations of "El Scorcho" with added studio polish.
These albums were terrible, but not completely beyond hope, as they occasionally yielded a dull but somewhat pleasing single ("Island in the Sun"), and in one case, a brilliant pop song that remains the sole post-90s beacon of hope ("Keep Fishin'").
Since then... well, I think comparing the third self-titled album (the so-called "red" album) and Raditude to the Jonas Brothers or Katy Perry would be charitable, in that those are acts that make music that is competently performed and recorded, designed to separate teenagers and tweens from their parents' money before they grow old enough to discover better music. And they've engaged in a myriad of promotional stunts that are so numerous and so embarrassing that I don't even want to list them.
Now comes Hurley, with its gimmick title and gimmick cover, the latter being a possible attempt to cover up a sponsorship from the Hurley clothing company (and yes, when you're as rich and famous as Weezer, it IS still possible to sell out). As for me, I've learned a lesson I would have learned years ago, had I not spent so many countless hours of my childhood with Weezer's first two albums: Hurley is a steaming pile of shit until proven otherwise. Unless ten different friends of mine come to me begging and pleading to give it a chance, because it really is that great, it's an F, a 1/5, a 0%.
And with this new album comes the news that Weezer are contemplating a tour in which they play each city two nights, once playing their self-titled debut (the so-called "blue" album) in its entirety, and once playing Pinkerton in its entirety. I'm going to make the same easy joke everybody else is: apparently even Weezer have no interest in hearing new Weezer material.
This week Weezer are dropping yet another shit bomb on an unsuspecting public, and yes, I'm dismissing it with the term "shit bomb" without having heard a single song. See, every time Weezer puts out a new album, I hear enough people say "it's not that bad" that I end up checking it out, even though I know it absolutely will be that bad, and thus far, each one has been even worse than the one before it.
When the post-Pinkerton comeback started with a second self-titled album (the so-called "green" album), Weezer were mired in a genre that I just made up called "safety rock," songs assembled from an interchangeable grab-bag of bland verses, bland choruses that were loud enough to be distinguished from the verses, and guitar solos that were simply the verse melody, except on a guitar. The next phase, represented by Maladroit and Make Believe, found Weezer trying on a couple of different but equally radio-friendly hats: faux-pop-metal, faux-new-wave, lazy approximations of "El Scorcho" with added studio polish.
These albums were terrible, but not completely beyond hope, as they occasionally yielded a dull but somewhat pleasing single ("Island in the Sun"), and in one case, a brilliant pop song that remains the sole post-90s beacon of hope ("Keep Fishin'").
Since then... well, I think comparing the third self-titled album (the so-called "red" album) and Raditude to the Jonas Brothers or Katy Perry would be charitable, in that those are acts that make music that is competently performed and recorded, designed to separate teenagers and tweens from their parents' money before they grow old enough to discover better music. And they've engaged in a myriad of promotional stunts that are so numerous and so embarrassing that I don't even want to list them.
Now comes Hurley, with its gimmick title and gimmick cover, the latter being a possible attempt to cover up a sponsorship from the Hurley clothing company (and yes, when you're as rich and famous as Weezer, it IS still possible to sell out). As for me, I've learned a lesson I would have learned years ago, had I not spent so many countless hours of my childhood with Weezer's first two albums: Hurley is a steaming pile of shit until proven otherwise. Unless ten different friends of mine come to me begging and pleading to give it a chance, because it really is that great, it's an F, a 1/5, a 0%.
And with this new album comes the news that Weezer are contemplating a tour in which they play each city two nights, once playing their self-titled debut (the so-called "blue" album) in its entirety, and once playing Pinkerton in its entirety. I'm going to make the same easy joke everybody else is: apparently even Weezer have no interest in hearing new Weezer material.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
The ethical conundrum of watching football
I've been a Philadelphia Eagles fan for as long as I can remember, but over the past four or five years, as the NFL season approaches, I feel more and more ambivalent, although I always end up watching anyway.
To start with, modern NFL football is damn near unwatchable. Between injury timeouts, penalties, replay challenges, and increasingly long commercial breaks (the latter made possible by the NFL's apparently limitless popularity), any sense of flow or momentum is thoroughly stifled. Add to this the fact that football, more than any other sport, is already inherently slight on action compared to the time it takes to play the game, and you end up with a game that takes over three hours to play, with as little as 11 minutes of actual football action.
To me, though, that's just the start of the problem, because I think there's a real ethical dilemma in being a fan of the NFL. I'm aware that the players are well-compensated, and that nobody is forcing them to play football, but I have doubts about how seriously many of them take the health risks.
It's certainly true that awareness of the reality of concussions has increased over the past couple years, but I don't see anything that suggests more than a token acknowledgement of the issue. The tough-guy warrior mentality that the NFL works so hard to foster has been ingrained for decades. A player who doesn't try to play through an injury is considered soft by coaches and fans alike, and it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that right at this very moment, there are players with concussion symptoms who aren't reporting them for fear that it might put their jobs in jeopardy. Worse, that fear might not be irrational.
Just today, the Eagles lost their defensive centerpiece (Stewart Bradley) and their offensive centerpiece (Kevin Kolb) to concussions. When Bradley took a hit, tried to get up, and then collapsed like a sack of potatoes, I literally felt sick to my stomach. Between Kolb and Bradley today, Brian Westbrook's troubles last year, and the lingering feelings over the suicide of Andre Waters, I'm starting to wonder how much more I can take. With every incident, I feel a little more like I'm personally responsible, along with everybody else who pays lip service to concern for the health of the players and goes back to demanding faster action and bigger hits.
I'm trying not to compare this to the Roman gladiators, but... well, I'm having trouble coming up with another comparison with the appropriate gravity.
To start with, modern NFL football is damn near unwatchable. Between injury timeouts, penalties, replay challenges, and increasingly long commercial breaks (the latter made possible by the NFL's apparently limitless popularity), any sense of flow or momentum is thoroughly stifled. Add to this the fact that football, more than any other sport, is already inherently slight on action compared to the time it takes to play the game, and you end up with a game that takes over three hours to play, with as little as 11 minutes of actual football action.
To me, though, that's just the start of the problem, because I think there's a real ethical dilemma in being a fan of the NFL. I'm aware that the players are well-compensated, and that nobody is forcing them to play football, but I have doubts about how seriously many of them take the health risks.
It's certainly true that awareness of the reality of concussions has increased over the past couple years, but I don't see anything that suggests more than a token acknowledgement of the issue. The tough-guy warrior mentality that the NFL works so hard to foster has been ingrained for decades. A player who doesn't try to play through an injury is considered soft by coaches and fans alike, and it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that right at this very moment, there are players with concussion symptoms who aren't reporting them for fear that it might put their jobs in jeopardy. Worse, that fear might not be irrational.
Just today, the Eagles lost their defensive centerpiece (Stewart Bradley) and their offensive centerpiece (Kevin Kolb) to concussions. When Bradley took a hit, tried to get up, and then collapsed like a sack of potatoes, I literally felt sick to my stomach. Between Kolb and Bradley today, Brian Westbrook's troubles last year, and the lingering feelings over the suicide of Andre Waters, I'm starting to wonder how much more I can take. With every incident, I feel a little more like I'm personally responsible, along with everybody else who pays lip service to concern for the health of the players and goes back to demanding faster action and bigger hits.
I'm trying not to compare this to the Roman gladiators, but... well, I'm having trouble coming up with another comparison with the appropriate gravity.
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
long time no blog
I kind of want to get the ol' blog started back up again.
I'm not entirely convinced that I have anything particularly interesting to say, but to be fair, I felt the same way back when I used to post on a regular basis. I guess the problem I'm having is that every time I feel a renewed energy toward writing, I come here, start a post, get about a paragraph and a half into a topic, then say to myself, "this is boring," and delete it. It's pretty similar to the way my songwriting process has been going for years now. However, I've gotten the songwriting process started up again to a modest degree, and if I can force myself to just plow through and finish things there, I can do it here, too.
With writing songs, I found the key was not to worry less about why I was writing, or what the point was, and more on the song itself. I've got a handful of completed songs now, some of them recorded in various stages of completion, but no real idea of what I'm going to do with them, and I'm ok with that. I'm not in a band right now (or at least nothing worth taking too seriously), and I don't see that changing soon, but even if few people will ever hear these songs, it feels good to have written them, and it is an important form of self-expression, a form of therapy. Even if I go out of my way to write impenetrable lyrics, they're still personal to me.
So maybe there's something comparable with this blog. I do like writing, when I have something to write about. Something about simply the feeling of my fingers flying rapidly across the keyboard is incredibly gratifying. Instead of worrying about whether or not I'm saying something "important," or how many people will read it, or if it will eventually lead to anything, I need to just get it, say my piece, and get out. I'll be happy I did.
I feel like there's something to be said for the blog format as well. I'm still not entirely comfortable with the word "blog" (although that issue was resolved for me by the general public years ago), but I still remain convinced that anything worth thinking about probably won't fit on Twitter or a Facebook status.
So, if you're reading this, you can hopefully look forward to seeing some things here soon. I still don't expect my blog to have a "theme" other than whatever I happen to be thinking about, even though these types of personal journals have mostly fallen by the wayside (I can't think of any that I check out on a regular basis). I'm thinking about dusting off and posting some journals that I wrote on a couple trips around the country. So maybe that first, I don't know.
I'm not entirely convinced that I have anything particularly interesting to say, but to be fair, I felt the same way back when I used to post on a regular basis. I guess the problem I'm having is that every time I feel a renewed energy toward writing, I come here, start a post, get about a paragraph and a half into a topic, then say to myself, "this is boring," and delete it. It's pretty similar to the way my songwriting process has been going for years now. However, I've gotten the songwriting process started up again to a modest degree, and if I can force myself to just plow through and finish things there, I can do it here, too.
With writing songs, I found the key was not to worry less about why I was writing, or what the point was, and more on the song itself. I've got a handful of completed songs now, some of them recorded in various stages of completion, but no real idea of what I'm going to do with them, and I'm ok with that. I'm not in a band right now (or at least nothing worth taking too seriously), and I don't see that changing soon, but even if few people will ever hear these songs, it feels good to have written them, and it is an important form of self-expression, a form of therapy. Even if I go out of my way to write impenetrable lyrics, they're still personal to me.
So maybe there's something comparable with this blog. I do like writing, when I have something to write about. Something about simply the feeling of my fingers flying rapidly across the keyboard is incredibly gratifying. Instead of worrying about whether or not I'm saying something "important," or how many people will read it, or if it will eventually lead to anything, I need to just get it, say my piece, and get out. I'll be happy I did.
I feel like there's something to be said for the blog format as well. I'm still not entirely comfortable with the word "blog" (although that issue was resolved for me by the general public years ago), but I still remain convinced that anything worth thinking about probably won't fit on Twitter or a Facebook status.
So, if you're reading this, you can hopefully look forward to seeing some things here soon. I still don't expect my blog to have a "theme" other than whatever I happen to be thinking about, even though these types of personal journals have mostly fallen by the wayside (I can't think of any that I check out on a regular basis). I'm thinking about dusting off and posting some journals that I wrote on a couple trips around the country. So maybe that first, I don't know.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
List With Unreasonably Specific Criteria, Grizzled Veterans Edition
Bands With at Least 10 Years Under Their Belts That Are as Awesome Now as They Were When They Debuted:
- Radiohead
- Do Make Say Think
- Super Furry Animals
- Flaming Lips
- Wilco
- Of Montreal
- Air
- Stereolab
- Yo la Tengo
- Deerhoof
- Portishead
Bands that I want to include but won't because their debut is so damned perfect and their recent work is only half-excellent: Mogwai
- Radiohead
- Do Make Say Think
- Super Furry Animals
- Flaming Lips
- Wilco
- Of Montreal
- Air
- Stereolab
- Yo la Tengo
- Deerhoof
- Portishead
Bands that I want to include but won't because their debut is so damned perfect and their recent work is only half-excellent: Mogwai
Friday, March 13, 2009
List With Unreasonably Specific Criteria, Leaving the Nest Edition
Solo albums by famous band members that everybody should own:
Dig it:
- Brian Wilson - Smile
- Dennis Wilson - Pacific Ocean Blue
- George Harrison - All Things Must Pass
- John Lennon - Plastic Ono Band
- Paul McCartney - Ram
- David Byrne - The Catherine Wheel
- Jonny Greenwood - There Will Be Blood OST
- Jeremy Enigk - Return of the Frog Queen
- Lou Reed - Coney Island Baby
- John Cale - Paris 1919
- Nico - Desertshore
- Syd Barrett - The Madcap Laughs
- Paul Simon - Graceland (that mostly counts, right?)
Artists not included on account of being far more famous as a solo act than as part of their former band: Bjork, Elliott Smith, Ryan Adams, Robyn Hitchcock
Dig it:
- Brian Wilson - Smile
- Dennis Wilson - Pacific Ocean Blue
- George Harrison - All Things Must Pass
- John Lennon - Plastic Ono Band
- Paul McCartney - Ram
- David Byrne - The Catherine Wheel
- Jonny Greenwood - There Will Be Blood OST
- Jeremy Enigk - Return of the Frog Queen
- Lou Reed - Coney Island Baby
- John Cale - Paris 1919
- Nico - Desertshore
- Syd Barrett - The Madcap Laughs
- Paul Simon - Graceland (that mostly counts, right?)
Artists not included on account of being far more famous as a solo act than as part of their former band: Bjork, Elliott Smith, Ryan Adams, Robyn Hitchcock
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Tom is
Tom isn't so sure Eric Bruntlett can play center field.
Tom would gladly pay a handsome sum for Van Morrison to follow him around singing about his activities. "Tom wakes up, he goes to work, he's WOOOOOOOOOOOOOORKIN' WORKIN' WORKIN' WOOOOOOOOOORKIN'."
Tom's money is on the Celtics to repeat.
Tom's cockatiel is laying eggs, which is cute but also weird and slightly stressful, and he wishes she would stop because he misses just hanging out with her on his shoulder, because she doesn't want to do that anymore.
Tom watched an episode of Family Guy last week, and he isn't sure if his sense of humor has changed drastically in the past eight or nine years, or if Family Guy has always been just God fucking awful all along.
Tom would much rather be texting than talking on the phone.
Tom is 25 years old and loses sleep at night worrying about how old he has become.
Tom thinks the Phillies and Mets both benefit from playing the Nationals and Braves 20 times each every year, but not the Marlins, they're a sticky bunch of bastards.
Tom will likely go the rest of his life without seeing a movie better than Vertigo.
Tom thinks that being a bird owner might be teaching him some bad lessons for parenthood, such as, "If I just stick their cage in the closet, they'll stop screaming."
Tom's personal picks for best album covers of all time are Nebraska, On the Corner, Standards, and Graceland.
Tom still doesn't understand why Twitter is anything that anybody would be interested in.
Tom would gladly pay a handsome sum for Van Morrison to follow him around singing about his activities. "Tom wakes up, he goes to work, he's WOOOOOOOOOOOOOORKIN' WORKIN' WORKIN' WOOOOOOOOOORKIN'."
Tom's money is on the Celtics to repeat.
Tom's cockatiel is laying eggs, which is cute but also weird and slightly stressful, and he wishes she would stop because he misses just hanging out with her on his shoulder, because she doesn't want to do that anymore.
Tom watched an episode of Family Guy last week, and he isn't sure if his sense of humor has changed drastically in the past eight or nine years, or if Family Guy has always been just God fucking awful all along.
Tom would much rather be texting than talking on the phone.
Tom is 25 years old and loses sleep at night worrying about how old he has become.
Tom thinks the Phillies and Mets both benefit from playing the Nationals and Braves 20 times each every year, but not the Marlins, they're a sticky bunch of bastards.
Tom will likely go the rest of his life without seeing a movie better than Vertigo.
Tom thinks that being a bird owner might be teaching him some bad lessons for parenthood, such as, "If I just stick their cage in the closet, they'll stop screaming."
Tom's personal picks for best album covers of all time are Nebraska, On the Corner, Standards, and Graceland.
Tom still doesn't understand why Twitter is anything that anybody would be interested in.
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