My Response to 6 AV Club Q & A Prompts

The pop-culture website AV Club has a fun Friday feature where they ask their writers a broad question and have them riff on pop culture with differing answers and writing styles. I noticed that I have some pretty detailed answers from the comments section, so I thought I'd elaborate a little and paste some of them over here. 

What Pop Culture Screams 1997 to You?

The summer of 1997 reflects a time when the Summer blockbuster was trying to transition into the tent pole (so called because they hold up the profit line from all the riskier projects) industry we know today. Natural disaster films like “Volcano” and “Anaconda” and the annual film starring Harrison Ford as a gruff hero of sorts (i.e. "Clear and Present Danger", "The Fugitive", "Patriot Games"), “Air Force One” took up their spaces on the calendar. Efforts to sequalize big hits were burning into the ground with epic failures like “Lost World” and “Batman and Robin.”

It was at this time when the formula was more of a prototype than a sure thing that Barry Sonnenfeld released "Men in Black" from a comic book that was not a well-known existing property. Carrying the biggest budget of the year on a movie this (for lack of a better word) weird might not make sense in retrospect, but it was on the heels of a time when visually idiosyncratic film makers Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton had their biggest commercial successes ("12 Monkeys" for the former;  Batman series and "Edward Scissorhands" for the latter). It was as good a time an effort in the vacuum of a working formula to try a blockbuster that was visually weird and stylistically unique. It also had Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones who always seem to epitomize the 90s for me. 

Which Pop Culture Party Would you Like to Attend?

I like to think of myself as a reluctant extrovert, although I am likely not the only person with a duality between getting energy from personal interactions and being exhausted by all the complications therein. As a human-interest journalist, I love the opportunity to dive into unique subcultures what's the luxury of not having to declare myself a part of any of them. That's why being a caterer on the "Party Down" crew seems like a perfect fit. Every gig I take will, at the very least, be eventful for starters. I will be at liberty to partake in the event (the show's in-universe rules will find a way to stretch my fifteen-minute break into full-on party mode) should I desire, but if I'm feeling reticent, my uniform will allow me to stay in wallflower/observer mode without fully committing to being part of the scene. I would also get a lot of enjoyment out of watching my slightly depressed coworkers alternate between flirting with each other and destroying one another's egos.

What Romantic Comedy Couple Shouldn’t Have Ended up Together?

Credit: Rogerebert.com

Romantic comedies are a viable genre when handled with care, but there is no narrative trope that is more sorely in need of reexamination than the penchant to romantically pair off any two characters who make googly eyes at each other as the standard happy ending. Aside from how it bears little  resemblance to real life and encourages unhealthy expectations, it really dilutes the magic of a romantic ever after if it’s already a foregone conclusion. Nowhere does this seem more of an egregious mistake than the 2012 indie film “Safety Not Guaranteed.” Aubrey Plaza plays emotionally detached young adult Darius (in other words, Aubrey Plaza in full snark mode), on a quest with two other journalists to uncover the truth behind a strange man (Mark Duplass as Kenneth) who thinks he can time travel. Darius’s casual cynicism gets put through the blender, as she makes her way into Kenneth's circle of trust only through empathizing with him. In and of itself, this should be enough to make a great story. Furthermore, because it’s an indie film, it would have been a great opportunity to buck the oldest trend in the book and not pair the characters up. After all, they have no chemistry, the age difference between the two characters borders on gross, and it’s quite possible that Kenneth is mentally ill. Instead, the predictable end result takes down the movie a couple pegs to forgettable.

Which Film do You Wish You’d Seen When it First Came Out?

The easiest way to answer this question is to scroll down my all-time list of favorite films, cross-reference with the proper time period, and voila! But watching a brilliant movie I know will be brilliant and that I also know (with a few exceptions) my fellow movie watchers will also appreciate, will be a foregone conclusion.

Therefore, my criteria has to be brilliant yet baffling: Trying to predict audiences’ conflicting reactions to something as full of raw anger and as adeptly staged as “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolff” would be a hoot. Films like “Five Easy Pieces” or “The Graduate” are great films I have trouble fully grasping the thematic context of because of my distance from the counter-culture movement and experiencing these films during their times could be enlightening.

The one that keeps sticking in my head is “Brazil." Terry Gilliam’s dedication to visual purity often overshadows his extremely inventive storylines and this is one where the balance between the two really shine. Opinions will vary, but this is his first film which could be considered a classic and I would enjoy seeing people discover the idiosyncratic storyteller ascending to a new level of coherence, appeal and complexity in his work. It’s also a film that takes a while to get so the post-film discussion would consist of a lot of “huh”s but it would be a lot of fun piecing the puzzles and symbolism of the film together.

What TV Series do You Love but will Never Revisit?

I get confronted with this question every time I desire some comfort TV and tune in to find “Seinfeld” and “The Simpsons” (who the Gods of syndication have been eternally kind to) are pretty much always on. While this wouldn’t be an unpleasant use of a half-hour,  I have some strange resistance to revisiting either of the series that came to culturally define the decade in which I came of age. Maybe, it’s an act of rebellion against the perceived quality of these shows: While I tend to rail against hipsterish attitudes of consciously defining your tastes against the mainstream, I can’t help admitting that the high placement of both these shows on best-of-all-time lists drives me to want to define my tastes from this decade differently.

Beyond that, there’s plenty of pedestrian reasons to resent these shows. How can I not resent The Simpsons like a privileged child for being cancellation-free when every other show (including superior sister show “Futurama”) has to contend with the axe? How can I not blame the show’s success for Jerry Seinfeld’s leverage to get away with passive-aggressive behavior or Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s frustrating lockhold on lead actress awards in the present day? There’s a myriad web of reasons not to like these shows and while I find it difficult to put my finger on exactly what keeps me from turning to channel five, I know that I’ve been able to resist the urge for a decade.

What Pop Culture Becomes More Meaningful as You Get Older?

 Credit: Readthespirit.com

I've gradually gone from liking "Dead Poets Society” but not understanding the ending, to thinking it is a perfectly realized film. As a child, Robin Williams’ character of John Keating was so right and the stuffy administration so wrong that I found the film’s “Oh Captain, My Captain” scene to not make up for all the tragedy that had been happening in the third act. As I’ve grown into adulthood and learned firsthand the myriad of ways in which an employer can screw you over (including some not particularly well-received stints in the education sector), I’ve come to appreciate the “Oh Captain My Captain” scene as a pretty solid outcome for an anti-establishment type in an employment landscape that discourages such free thinking and isn’t necessarily fair. Besides, what is the job of a teacher other than to impart a lesson onto his students? He might not have stayed until the end of the school year, but he can rightfully say "Mission Accomplished".

Looking for References in Futurama

Note: I did not expect this blog entry to come out looking like a lesson plan. It just worked out that way.

 

“Futurama” is (at least in my opinion) a highly intelligent TV comedy that makes use a lot of external cultural references for jokes as well as for other purposes. Its sister program, “The Simpsons”, also uses this too which is significant to me because I noticed it’s the only way I’d actually watch the show. The show’s characters and world in general have worn so thin for me over 20+ seasons that the only two episodes I’ve bothered to watch in the past ten years were because they were spoofs on The Departed and The Social Network. Thus, external references keep shows interesting in a way beyond the established world and its characters.

The exercise here when watching Futurama is to look for external cultural references as they relate to a previously created source (what I believe is called “intratextual”) or some other aspect of society and they need to be specifically attached to some source.

These are jokes that require significant cleverness of the writer and effort and discernment on the part of the viewer. When one gets the reference, there is a subsequent reward as if solving a mini-puzzle that enhances the joke. For example, the TV show Futurama has, by some coincidence, writers on staff who have pHd’s in mathematics and they occasionally throw in mathematical riddles. It’s highly rewarding to be subtly given a mathematical riddle in the plot and then solve it to gain a reinforcement of the plot. There are two such examples at 9:00 and 10:16 of the Futurama episode “Free Will Hunting”: I believe the joke at 9:00 is that he’s reading the digits of Pi after the 3 because Bender says “Delivery for ‘14757378927464148’ but I think Pi is 3.14159. The second, (n+1)^st national bank, is something I have NO IDEA about, but I’m sure it would be rewarding to know.

Some objectives in closely studying the references for an episode would be 1) Determining the degree to which cultural references comprise the overall humor of the episode 2) Identifying the purpose of each cultural reference: Does it provide a quick sight gag, does it contribute to a larger humorous motif or overall joke, does it help build the world, and/or does it help move the plot along? 3) Looking for patterns of the sources (as in external to culture or another source) 4) Analyzing the effectiveness of the joke

For example, I will take you through this watching process from 9:58 to 14:40 of the Futurama episode “Free Will Hunting” which comprises five scenes.

To give you a recap on the first 10 minutes of the episode:

Bender is acquitted of a series of crimes because his lawyer (who is, of course, a giant rooster) has argued that Bender can’t be held guilty of a crime because he has no free will. Bender is devastated to found out all of his actions are preordained and while making a delivery on the evil robot homeworld, he flees from his delivery duties to embark on a soul searching mission to resolve this internal conflict.

The inside scoop on my thought process during this exercise:

The first scene relies on the cute visual gag of the way that the robot rush hour is extremely synchronized. This is an internal reference. It relies on people having seen a season 1 episode in which people have seen the robot planet and provides the reward of people identifying the scene from before.

The second scene provides what will be my first external reference for analysis. The external reference is societal and not intratextual (based on another movie, tv show or other work of art). In this case, it is a Swiss cuckoo clock which often features an elaborate show of preprogrammed dancing figurines in the same pattern that the cop chases the bank robber. This external reference is used to advance forward the plot notion of Bender fearing that his actions are all preordained and highly predictable like Swiss cuckoo clock figurines.

In the third scene, Bender visits a simpleton farmer who advises him: “Son, philosophy is for them’s that don’t gotta work for a living, but me I got a sick child to feed so…..” Now let’s analyze the joke:

It works as a cute inversion on the typical scene of the rustic farm, because the robot has been needlessly given the human characteristics of a farmer (i.e. speaks in rural jargon, dressed up in the clothes of a farmer). We would imagine an agricultural futuristic robot to be purely functional and not needlessly given human characteristics. There is also a visual gag that Bender passes by: A scarecrow made up of vacuum tubes and robotic parts of some sort.

These might both be references to something more specific but I can’t pick them out. In this case, I might have failed to identify a reference or there might be no reference there to begin with. Either way, I don’t count either as a reference.

The fourth scene is an internal reference to a funny scene in the original episode where Bender visits the robotic homeworld and the elders begin each sentence by saying “Silence!”

I am almost sure that there’s an external reference in the robotic council of elders to a Socratic council, but I am not well-versed enough in Greek history to know for sure. The show’s writers have encoded the reference with Greek style togas and wigs to help me decipher the clue. Again, the fault might lie with myself. The nature of the building where the elders reside might also be a reference to something (perhaps Kafka?) that I can’t decipher.

In the fifth scene, Bender visits a monestary to get enlightenment. The entire premise of a robot monestary is highly enjoyable but the question in order to count it comes down to “Is it a play on a specific monestary?”

I count three or four specific references and the first intertextual reference here:

1. The first and only intratextual reference in this passage is coincidentally based on the most popular text in history: The bible. The bible is commonly referred to as the “Good Book.” Thus in a futuristic society made up of robots, it’s rechristened the “whole ebook.” The joke is very well thought-through. In an automatic robotic way of thinking where things are either 1 or 0 with no middle ground, would not “good” translate into complete or “whole”?

2. The second is a play on binary code which is what robots and chants are played out of.

3. The third is Quaker State Motor Oil, which is the source of food. It is entirely a visual gag. It’s another simple transference of a cultural reference translated into a robot world.

4. I think the concept of a stained glass window is close enough. It’s a culturally specific concept and relates to medieval times and a specific style of architecture. In this case, it’s a world-building tool and a visual gag. Because the robots were founded by mom, then naturally the robots’ form of worship would revolve around mom. The joke is framed in a specific cultural frame of reference.

What references did you identify and how effective did you feel they were?

Now, on your own, watch the episode Viva Mars Vegas (chosen because it’s the last episode to air when this blog entry was written) and tell me which references you spotted, what they were based off, the concreteness of the reference and the nature of the reward you felt for getting it; the effectiveness as jokes and how the humor were employed; and what specifically the reference was used for. You can check which ones you missed (and therefore, measure your pop savvy) at the www.theinfosphere.org and I will soon post the ones I caught in the form of a highly subjective answer key:

Really great TV: Fresh Prince of Bel Air

Just as people my age in relation to people ten years older than us, might be completely unaware that Pierce Brosnam was the TV star of a show called Remmington Steele and Tom Hanks was once best known for a TV show called Bossom Buddies, I wonder if today's younger generation primarily knows Will Smith through his status as one of the world's most bankable movie stars, as opposed to the star of "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air."

One would think that Will Smith has matured exponentially since he made Fresh Prince of Bel Air, but in truth, if you go back and watch Fresh Prince of Bel Air, you'll see that it's a pretty good show in fact. There are a couple moments where Will Smith tests himself as an actor, most notably the episode where his dad abandons him and he breaks down emotionally launching into a clearly forced tirade about how he doesn't need his father, before crying "how come he doesn't want me" and embracing his uncle. It's a tear-inducing moment. There's another episode where Will's carelessness in experimenting with speed leads to his cousin Carlton almost getting killed by the drugs. Will's speech where he confesses to his family what he's done is filled with the genuine tear-inducing emotion that TGIF shows like Full House and Step by Step tried and usually failed to induce in the last 2 minutes of every episode.

I also admire how Fresh Prince of Bel Air refuses to dumb down any of its characters to conform to sitcom stereotypes. Well, to be fair, it dumbs down Hillary and Geoffery rather significantly, but the show does a good job at debunking the stereotypes it pigeonholes Carlton in at first. There's the one episode, played for absurdity, where Carlton bets Will that he can't survive a day in the hood. Within a mere matter of hours, Carlton has transformed into someone straight out of a Spike Lee film. Within a more intermediate framework, Carlton is gradually made more likeable as the series progresses and a genuine respect and friendship develops between Will and Carlton that is somewhat at the core of the series.

Most importantly, the portly Uncle Phil, could easily have been portrayed as the stuffy and aloof parent-figure for a couple of laughs but he is virtually never portrayed in an undignified manner. Despite the fact that he's the butt of Will's jokes, there is nothing he does that makes one feel ashamed to have known him or to be his child or nephew. I can't overemphasize how big of a deal that is. Most dads are portrayed as the less competent and less dedicated parent in sitcoms. They are either:
-Obsessed with trying to have sex with mommy (Step by Step),
-They border on being legally retarded (Family Guy, The Simpsons)
-They are bigoted (All in the Family, Sanford and Son),
-They are hopelessly dorky (Full House, Dick Van Dyke Show)
-They are irresponsible monetarily and with everything else and need mommy around to keep her from destroying the house if she leaves for a weekend (Malcolm in the Middle, Home Improvement)
-They can barely remember their kids exist (Everybody Loves Raymond, Just Shoot Me)

Predicting Pirates will sweep the box office

I don't yet have a review of Pirates of Caribbean as I will see the movie tomorrow. Nevertheless, I am going to predict that Pirates of the Caribbean comes out on top this summer at the box office race and I just wanted to post it here before the box office report comes out.

My reasons:
1. It has more family appeal than Spiderman in my opinion, because Jack Sparrow might be more popular with kids. This is just my guess but Captain Jack Sparrow might be a little bit more appealing to kids at a slightly younger age, while Spiderman/Peter Parker is more of an adolescent hero. At the same time, Pirates might appeal to adults more because because many people in their 50s or 60s might have grown up on Pirate Movies as a kid and this is an effective homage to the genre. This is interesting because it's the first time the Pirates and Spiderman, the two biggest summer giants of the decade have squared off in the same season.

2. The release schedules. Spiderman 1's release at the beginning of the summer several weeks before any other movies came out was a strategy that paid off and shot the film northward of $300 million dollars. However, with two juggernauts being released within 2 and 3 weeks of Spiderman's opening in Shrek the Third and Pirates III, that is going to cut into its intake. Expect Spiderman to drop significantly this weekend. Pirates III has a wide open field that I doubt Ocean's 13 will do much to affect in a couple of weeks. The truth is that all three films will hurt their chances to realize their maximum profit by releasing their films so close to each other. And it's such a shame because it's all on memorial day, but Pirates will hurt itself the least. Pirates might not equal Spiderman's opening 3 day record, but it might gross higher in the long run. At least, I hope so because I am a pirate lover

3. Pirates has good reviews, whatever that's worth. It's even enough to get viewers on board who aren't familiar with the series, period.


So my predictions:
Spiderman III: $360 million
Shrek the third: $319 million (on the plus, there's no other kids' movies for competition, but May is a crowded month)
Pirates II:
Opening weekend: $124 million, total $387 million



Other summer films:
-Ocean's 13 will be an interesting choice. It's director Stephen Sodebergh won an oscar for his innovative film making in traffic and has since been nothing if not innovative and constantly experimenting with the medium (i.e. Full Frontal, Bubble, Good German). At the same time, a lot of these films are just plain awful. Unfortunately, Ocean's 12 fell under the same trap of a filmmaker so caught up in experimentation that he forgot to hold his story together with a coherent plot. Still, the greatness and potential of the director is evident and that might be enough for many to fill the seats. The film's gross is also hard to predict because the previous films were released during December and this one will be released in the Summer. Considering the first one made $183 million domestically, I'm gonna guess that this one can hit the $200 million mark if it gets decent to good reviews
Prediction: $49 mil opening $220 million

-Evan Almighty: the first film was a $200 mil+ hit. Evan Almighty has practically nothing to do with Bruce Allmighty in the sense that while Morgan Freeman still plays God, Jennifer Anniston and Jim Carrey are gone. This is just a cheap attempt to capitalize on Steve Carrell's rising stock and framing it as a sequel. So the question is how appealing is Steve Carrell? Well, the 40-Year Old Virgin did well but that was through good word-of-mouth, Steve Carrell as a break-out star, a catchy gimmick, and the revered reputation of writer/director Judd Apatow. I hear that if a guy is on a TV show, it's difficult to get anyone pay to see him in a movie when the TV show is free. I bet this one will be a little subpar on expectations
Prediction: $32 mil opening $121 mil

-Fantastic Four: The first one had bad reviews, a great opening weekend at $55.7 million, and a slightly above average total at $154 million total. In other words, this difference between great opening weekend and decent total means great hype but not-so-great word of mouth. I think the studio that funded this project underestimated the need for the sequel. Jessica Alba's growth as a star attraction will have to help move this film along. The film also needs to hope that comic book geeks will flock to the film for the added attraction of the Silver Surfer and unlike the first film, moviegoers might be more deterred by bad reviews if they occur a second time. This is what sunk Tomb Raider II and Charlie's Angels II.
Prediction: $44 mil opening, $152 mil

-Transformers: The transformers are a nostalgic trip for those raised in the 80s, but that's a small, small demographic, and I don't think live action will appeal as well. It's produced by Spielberg, which might sound like a sure thing, but remember: it's not directed or written by him. I predict this to be a bust, unfortunately. I am predicting this to be a humongous, humongous flop, by the way. This is the equivalent of predicting a 13 seed over a 4 seed in the NCAA tournament
Prediction: $19 mil opening, $100 mil

-Harry Potter V: The last Harry Potter movie to open in the summer was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azhkaban which had a respectable opening en route to $249 million dollars. I see no reason why this film will do better or worse than that one. If people are falling out of interest in the series, (which I don't think they are), I think the quality of the films is increasing anyway. It's getting a great release date, about 6 weeks after people will get tired of Pirates, so I predict slightly higher
Prediction: $66 mil opening, $258 mil

-Simpsons: Let's face it, the Simpsons are on the demise. They haven't had a remotely original episode in 5 years, at least, and while some people could successfully argue that Family Guy won't ever be as good as Simpsons was 10 years ago, in 2007, I can't see the Simpsons generating enough buzz for a decent season premiere this September, let alone show up in mass droves for a movie premiere. The Simpsons' success has always been that of casual viewership, in my opinion. It's just something decent to watch at 6 or 7 pm while preparing dinner and nothing more. It's just a generic answer you might have if someone asked you your favorite TV show and you didn't want to answer with something too wierd. Just like George Clooney when he was on E.R. and trying to become a bankable TV star, people often won't want to pay for something that's on TV.
Furthermore, I predict it will be the failure of this movie that will get people asking the long overdue question, "Is the Simpsons really that culturally relevant anymore?"
Prediction: $13 mil opening, $79 mil total

-Knocked Up: This is going to be the sleeper hit of the summer and raise Judd Apatow's profile even more. He's rumored to be launching Tom Cruise's comeback next. I've heard from everywhere it's very good, but I don't believe that'll translate into a strong weekend opening. Not with Pirates still around.
Prediction: $25 mil opening, $132 mil total

-Nancy Drew: Is the next tentpole for a series like Harry Potter? It might have that crossover appeal that parents might want to watch with their kids but it's just not being marketed heavily enough.
Prediction: $21 mil opening, $112 mil total

-Liscence to Wed: It looks like summer filler similar to RV. I'm not saying Robin Williams is by any means going downhill, but with RV, Man of the Year, and Liscence to Wed he's starting to get into too much of a comfortable zone
Predictions: $10 mil opening, $68 mil total