I’m a pretty big tool. Not that I don’t have interesting things to say sometimes, but mostly I’m far off base about trends. Like three months behind. At least.
- Andrew Skidmore
But it’s spring, and there actually is a palpable sense of a new beginning. Or maybe just new albums and movies to complain about. The following is my attempt to separate the wheat from the chaff, the lambs from the lions. I mean, we’re all told to beware the ides of March and that April is the cruelest month. We need something entertaining.
TV
Lamb: Some of the smartest, most stunningly motivated women I know watch “Grey’s Anatomy.” But it’s stocked with starry-eyed girls in scrubs, squealing like some surreal combination of World War II housewives and Jessica Simpson while the superhuman guys figure everything out and direct traffic. Sometimes I think it’s setting feminism back decades. It’s like “The O.C.” with medical jargon.
Lion: “MTV2” actually plays videos. No asinine interviews with Fall Out Boy. No maddening little Real World-ers pouting in some chinzy resort. Just blocks of old-school Mary J. Blige, Bad Boy and LL Cool J videos followed by equally throwback skate-punk videos from Rancid. Shit, MTV.com even lets you listen to entire albums before they’re released.
Film
Lamb: Aside from the patchworked script, buzzkill editing and political “message” so blunt it beats you into silence, “V for Vendetta” is pretty decent. The world needs more films that stick out their chest and make a statement, but there’s got to be some dramatic meat on the body politic. Hugo Weaving’s lines make old episodes of “G.I. Joe” look deep, and Natalie Portman layers on the schlock. I do, in theory, agree with the film’s ideas, but even I’m sensible enough to know that presentation is seven eighths of the battle.
Lion: “Cach