Month: August 2014

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Thor didn’t have to play a proverbial bridesmaid in other superhero films nor did Chris Hemsworth have to prove his box office might elsewhere before a Chris Hemsworth-starring Thor got the greenlight. The Guardians of the Galaxy didn’t have to pal around with Tony Stark in Iron Man 3 so that audiences could get used to them before they got their own movie, nor did Chris Pratt have to prove box office strength elsewhere before being handed a star-making role in a star-making franchise. Jason Momoa didn’t have to prove his box office pull (Conan the Barbarian from 2011) earned $48 million worldwide on a $90m budget) before getting a shot at apparently playing Aquaman in the Warner Bros. (Time Warner Inc.) DC Cinematic Universe, and Andrew Garfield did not get cast as Peter Parker in Sony’s Amazing Spider-Man because of all of those Lions for Lambs riches. Hollywood is filled with male-centric franchises based on characters both popular and niche played by little-known actors as a matter of course.

If the first major Marvel superhero movie with a female lead is Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, or if (related digression) Fox’s first female X-Men spin-off is a Jennifer Lawrence-led Mystique, then it will merely prove that female-centric superhero films have to jump through the kinds of hoops (uber-established character and super popular movie star in the lead) that male-centric ones do not.

From here.

On the very same day that this op-ed runs, this tweet appeared:

Yes, apparently Marvel has cold feet about introducing the character “cold” as a cameo. You know, like they did for Hawkeye in Thor. Seriously, this sort of comedy writes itself now.

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Celebrate The 40th Anniversary Of Little House On The Prairie When All Nine Seasons Arrive For The First Time Ever In High Definition Digital HD September 9th‏

Subject line for maybe the least enticing PR email I will receive this week.
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You Can Tell a Lot About Someone by the Type of Music They Listen to

You Can Tell a Lot About Someone by the Type of Music They Listen to

digital-femme:

Hit shuffle on your iPod, phone, iTunes, media player, etc. Write down the first twenty songs. Then pass this onto ten people. No skipping!

I was tagged by fyeahlilbit3point0:

I’m tagging everybody.

Okay, into this. So:

  1. Carry the Can – Super Furry Animals
  2. New York is Killing Me – Gil Scott Heron
  3. Devil’s Pie – Rhymefest
  4. Title of This Song – Portland Cello Project feat. Lizzy Ellison
  5. Darklands – Primal Scream
  6. Gospel with No Lord – Camille
  7. Yen on a Carousel – David Holmes
  8. Bird’s Lament – Moondog
  9. Rehab – Amy Winehouse
  10. Feeling Good – Nina Simone
  11. Old Brown Shoe – The Beatles
  12. Everyday Robots – Damon Albarn
  13. The Bridge I Burned – Elvis Costello
  14. Life is Just Beginning – The Creation
  15. Way Down in the Hole – The Blind Boys of Alabama
  16. Downs (Demo) – Big Star
  17. Gotta Get Up – Harry Nilsson
  18. Anger Management – Shawn Lee (feat. Princess Superstar)
  19. You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome – Mary Lou Lord
  20. Hot Knife – Fiona Apple

Like Cheryl, anyone who wants to respond, feel free.

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Redo: do you have any thoughts on the Jazz Butcher Conspiracy? They were a Creation band for a while there.

From what little I’ve heard – and it is very little, I confess – they’re kind of great in the way in which they perfectly encapsulate the Creation aesthetic of the time. There’s a bit of shoegaziness, a bit of the Smiths in terms of Johnny Marr guitar sound and Morrissey-esque phrasing, and a pleasant-but-utterly-undynamic quality. I really should investigate deeper, to be honest.

(Weirdly, they remind me of the contemporaneous That Petrol Emotion, even though they don’t really sound alike? I tend to run all those bands together in my mind. JBC, TPE, Kinky Machine. I suspect I heard them all on the radio at the same time or something and that’s why.)