I met up with my friend McKenzie Davis, a fellow writer, recently at KGB Bar in New York. McKenzie is a voracious discusser of all things—most ridiculously, when we both lived in Boston, we once spent the better part of a half-hour hashing out the fundamental qualities that must be in place for food to be considered a “pie”—so it didn’t take much for a conversation about art and writing to begin. I know, I know, a story about two guys talking art and literature in a bar is a tired cliché akin to women shopping for shoes or the elderly driving too slow, but this is actually how it played out:
With a nod meant to indicate the folksy music coming from the speaker mounted in the corner, McKenzie said, “This reminds me of a thought I had the other day: Is the difference between art, like a symphony, and pedestrian entertainment, like pop music, as simple as the fact that pop adheres strictly to its formulas whereas great composers strive to create something that pushes beyond the boundaries of form?”
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Why is Robert Pattinson so loved and lusted after? With his new movie Remember Me being released soon, I have been seeing his face everywhere. Although the publicity for this movie is not as abundant and aggressive as that for his previous film, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, I still feel as though Robert Pattinson is being forced upon me at every turn.
Posters for Remember Me have covered the city where I live and the trailer has been playing before every PG-13 film since November. With this recent onslaught of Robert Pattinson media pollution, I have thought to myself, “Why has he become a leading man/sex symbol?” This description used to be reserved for only the most classically handsome. Now it is being bestowed upon a Brit who by Hollywood standards is unwashed and flabby.
I have not yet seen Remember Me, as it has not yet been widely released. The trailers seem to show most of the movie anyway, so I feel fairly comfortable making my judgments now. This film is about a rich, confused college student—played by Pattinson—who has good intentions but ends up getting into trouble. He’s a deep, poetic rebel. This immediately reminds me of my junior high crush, Dylan Mckay. As a resident of Beverley Hills (90210), Dylan came from a rich, privileged background but felt betrayed and abandoned by his family. To show his discontent with life, he drank heavily, rode dangerous motorcycles and pushed away those who loved him. And in doing all of this, he stole my heart.
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Another Friday, another zombie movie. The zombie genre was created was essentially created by George Romero’s 1968 film Night of the Living Dead. Since then, the zombie genre has come in and out of popularity, with the 2000s being a popular period. Everyone wants to make a zombie movie and everyone wants to watch a zombie movie.
The Crazies is a zombie movie, some may argue this, but it’s not a traditional zombie movie. In The Crazies, based on George Romero’s 1973 film of the same name, the infected citizen’s of the Iowa town of Ogden Marsh are not in search of flesh and blood for food but rather to destroy it. A zombie by any definition is simply a mindless person. That is exactly what happens to the people of the town. They become mindless people bent on killing everyone around. We can open the debate in the comments about whether this is a zombie film but I’m just going to say you’re wrong if you think it’s not.
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I’m afraid of YouTube. I never venture too far within its confines. The reason is inevitably I come upon something truly discomforting. Things that normal people living in a normal society would try to keep hidden. Like why does every obese person in the world think dancing on YouTube is a great idea? I shower in the dark because I don’t like to see my fat ass jiggle. So why would anyone want to put that online? Please someone help me with that one.
YouTube has created this environment where anyone can have their 15 minutes of fame. (Although I believe if Andy Warhol were alive he would update the time limit to five minutes or perhaps five seconds considering 20 hours of video is uploaded every minute.)
Now I’ve seen scary movies and read dark stories. I also lived in West Africa for two years and saw some terrible things. So I’m not a vagina but things on YouTube weird me out. The only explanation I have been able to come to is that YouTube is a sign of the apocalypse. Only the end of days would bring such imagery to our homes. Obviously YouTube is tame in comparison to videos on other sites but YouTube is the most popular. So it is the chosen target for today.
I know I have done a disservice to some YouTube freaks by only choosing five. I am also sure that I haven’t even scratched the surface of the debauchery that exists on YouTube, because I just can’t bring myself to watch some things. Below are the things that I’ve found recently that have disturbed me.
1. Chubby Cuppy Cake Boy
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Again I’m a little behind on my YouTube videos. Many of you have seen chubby kid before but this is my first time. By the way, the term chubby is being very kind to this kid.
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