Well it's Friday so let's take a little trip back with Father Tiresias to 1996.
I was in awe of this song and still am. It's so odd to see "hardness" and "thug life" expressed in melody and harmony. It's rare to hear lyrics sung this fast. It's utterly unique in the way that the melody is free to change every couple bars as if it's not 1 song but 20-in-1.
I still miss my uncle Charles, y'all.
I want to say I don't get this movie, and actually I don't get the cast. The competition between Harrison Ford and Greg Kinnear is no competition at all. I get Greg Kinnear as the comedic relief or the supporting cast but I don't get him as a heartthrob. Do women disagree?
There is certainly a certain amount of heartthrob star power that is socially constructed, especially with men. In "Lars and the Real Girl," a movie about a delusional man who falls in love with a doll, they needed a real loser type, a real creep so they cast Ryan Gosling. And then that's 2007 and then a few years later he's the most attractive leading man in Hollywood. Between the two, he didn't receive a brand new face, it's the same guy.
On the flip side of that you can look at Nick Nolte (People's Sexiest Man Alive 1992) and sex symbol Burt Reynolds (I'm not going to research his bonafides because my search history is getting weird, but, trust me, he was the sex symbol of his day) who each went from attractive to untouchable in a few years even with no objective change to their appearance.
So maybe I'm biased toward Harrison Ford because I've seen "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones." I wonder if you polled women who had never seen his movies, would they think he was an average middle-aged guy? But the funny thing is, Cassie from the above video, is one such data point for that question. When she started her channel, she hadn't seen Harrison Ford and now he's a favorite romantic lead.
Are you like me, did you think I already did Thailand months ago? Well, it turns out that was Taiwan. I was sure it was Thailand - must be one of those Mandela Effect things. There are more snacks this month than usual so I'll shorten the reviews. First a few random facts...
Thailand used to be known as Siam.
Thailand has a James Bond Island, so named because some scenes of "The Man with the Golden Gun" were filmed there.
Sriracha was invented in Thailand.
The Thai alphabet has 72 letters.
Leaving the house without underwear, driving without a shirt, stepping on Thai currency and insulting the king are all illegal there.
In Thailand you wear your lucky color for good luck and your lucky color is determined by the day of the week in which you were born.
Review:
Eating these at New Year's is a Thai tradition.
They're basically just vanilla-ish cookies with some chocolate flavoring and some caramel. They're very subtle and they're small and there's only two of them in a pack. They taste great. There's nothing crazy different from what you'd expect.
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So that's it. The Thailand collection almost rivals Israel in its consistent goodness - there were more snacks than usual and almost all of them were very good. However, like Israel, there also wasn't any one thing that you HAVE to try.
And that's all for this month.
This feels slightly obligatory - gotta complete the series, I suppose. It is very good though. I've heard that they're making a Creed III so this isn't even the end.
A really interesting discussion on "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" I think this is the best Re:View they've ever done.
I always thought of "Speed" as the prototypical Action movie. Watching it in this context, it seems like it could be considered a Horror.
The other thing is, when I think of the plot, it's 100% on the bus. I have to re-watch it to remember that there's action before the bus (pretty good) and then more stuff after (which is kind of a slog). Does anyone like the subway stuff? It really should end after the bus.
More thoughts. Me and my step-brother picked out "Have a good one, Bob!" as the ultimate in robotic Keanu acting. We used to repeat it constantly. Watching it again, after many years, it sounds pretty normal. The other Keanu line I liked was "Gigantor, help me save this man!" which was cut out of this edit. I liked the idea that he would say "Uh, actually my name is Derek" and Keanu would just keep calling him "Gigantor" dramatically.
This is just goofy fun.
I love that it's a full 16 minutes of set-up for 5 seconds of wrestling.
A while back a bunch of youtubers boxed each other for charity. I officially had 0 interest except that Arin from Game Grumps decided to do it and then, on the day of, I got hooked in and found it pretty compelling.
Arin's opponent was Harley from the channel "Epic Meal Time." I officially know nothing about that channel but he made a mini-series about his training and the experience of going into this "amateur boxing" event. I'm extremely surprised at the quality of the series, it's so well done and so compelling. Here are all 4 episodes:
PS - Apparently I'm not real people. I'm mutant people.
Pressure washing videos tick all the boxes of the previous two genres: both the "things going from disorder to order" and the "oddly satisfying" boxes as well as also claiming to be ASMR - I'll address that later. There are also a few channels that add "charity" to the list - they do work for free and then sometimes get the owner's reaction and thanks. Look at the above video for one example.
The dirt peeling off the concrete in a clean line is something I could watch for hours, like I said, it's potentially my favorite genre so far. But it's also not a mature genre and that's the major downside. When you look at Restoration videos, they've discovered a strict set of rules that they all adhere to in order to maximize the pleasure of the viewer (and therefore their own profit). Carpet Cleaning, as I addressed in that post, is less well defined but there's at least one good channel out there. Pressure Washing is the least defined and it is to the point that there isn't even a single great channel. The video lengths range from 4 minutes to 1 hour, there are different types of audio, different styles of editing and different goals.
The #1 thing no one agrees on is audio. What should the audio of a pressure washing video be? Some people label it ASMR and strictly give the sound of the Pressure Washer. The sound of the tools works for Restoration Videos but I don't think it works here; I find the sound of the machinery to be irritating. Some channels seem to agree with me because they mute it all, then just overlay some music - but then it depends on whether you like the music. I've seen one channel that talks over the whole thing, explaining his job and basically turning it into a podcast with pleasing visuals. That's fine, as long as you're looking for a podcast all about pressure washing.
There's also a great diversity in style. Some people (most people?) talk into the camera at the beginning and end to explain the job. Some people intermix the pressure washing footage with lawn care footage (fixing the lawn often goes hand-in-hand with cleaning the walkways). That's unacceptable dilution. One of the best channels I've found (just above) starts his videos with footage of him driving to the site. For me, that's one of the worst things a person could do to ruin the experience - British traffic at 5x speed is a nightmare while I'm trying to relax. And, as previously mentioned, some people end with an "owner's response" which are sometimes sweet but generally underwhelming. It also breaks the people/object separation I explained previously.
Here's my final analysis and my recommendation for a new standard. First, as a viewer, the audio doesn't really matter. Turn on a pressure washing video, mute it and listen to something else that you enjoy - music or a podcast or whatever... then lie down and go into a happy place like it's an Opium Den in the 1800s. Now, for creators, here's the formula that wins the day (except if you're doing charity; in that case, keep doing what you're doing). Minimize addressing the camera (or don't do it at all), minimize talking (or not at all), have before/after footage if you want but keep it short. In short, maximize the percentage of pressure washing footage at all costs and minimize anything else you want to add. Speed up the footage so that it's faster than real time. Compile several jobs together to make videos that are 40 minutes to an hour (or more). That's it. That's the game.
Throughout "Norm MacDonald Live" and "Norm MacDonald Has a Show" there is some progression but mostly there is consistency - Norm is Norm. But when you get to his interview with David Letterman on the latter, he suddenly seems to be playing a character. He's a goof, he's a gab, he's almost hyperactive - he's like a child who's had too much sugar.
That same character is back, it seems to me, in Norm's new stand-up special. Knowing he was very sick, but also knowing he couldn't do shows in the pandemic, he recorded a stand-up special in his house which was just released on Netflix. There is no crowd, there is no venue, it is just him and a camera (and a dog and a phone call). It may be because of the silence that he's so animated - he knows, perhaps, he needs to supply the energy that a live audience would normally supply. Or it may be some other reason. Far be it from me to claim to know Norm.
But it is strange and it is a style of stand-up comedy that I've never seen from him. He reminds me of a ventriloquist's dummy (in a good way) - he's all eyebrows, wide eyes and teeth. And, though unusual, it mostly works and there is some great material but there is some lull in there too. It may be that the material is as strong as ever but I'm one of those people who needs to hear audience affirmation, I don't know. And it may be that he just lacked the chance to hone the material on the road in the nightclubs. One thing's for sure, the knowledge that he was ill makes the amount of energy he's putting forth that much more heroic and admirable.
Following the stand-up, Netflix adds on a segment where a group of comedians react to the special and talk about it. Obviously it's impossible to talk about what they've just seen without also eulogizing the man and what he meant. This is, shockingly, my favorite part of the special and I didn't want it to end. Norm was so unique and so enigmatic, it seemed like it could have gone on forever. And I must note, though I don't know where to do it, that Conan addresses the earlier questions I had about Norm not being on Conan's show for many years. He says that Norm was invited but kept turning him down, probably because of his illness. That doesn't completely answer the question for me but there's no reason to re-hash that here.
I may be imagining things, I don't know how to judge my own perception, but it seems to me that at one part of the special Norm gets choked up and emotional. That emotion bleeds into the eulogy segment and I was left feeling sad all over again at the tremendous loss for us and the secret suffering that he went through. And this is the end because I don't know what else to say.
