“She tried to put herself inside the head of a 6- or 7-year-old in such a hellish situation. She concluded she had to play parent, and told them she loved them.
“I wanted them to know that someone loved them and I wanted that to be one of the last things they heard, not the gunfire in the hallway,” Roig said.
Sometimes the mind wants what it wants.
Baby face 21 weeks
The Belchers in bed
This is just such a beautiful television show.
I’m putting a stake in the ground. This one is my favorite of all the Arrested Development jokes.
(via thebluthcompany)
“Girls” Season 2 Trailer
If the Germans have a word to describe the feeling of watching something so good that it makes you feel bad, that word is what I feel watching this trailer for this show. Can you help me figure out what it is that gives me this feeling? I watched it when I woke up, so maybe it was just off-the-shelf early morning existential dread. But I’m reading more into it.
Why, for instance, do I not feel this way when I watch a promo for “Louie”? Why does this feeling I’m feeling seem to be specific to “Girls”? “Louie” is damn good. Probably the best there is right now. Is the difference that “Louie” comes from a similar generation as me, where humor comes from misery and self-inflicted pain? Could it be that I relate to “Louie” because he’s the same self-effacing schlub that I see in myself? See, I think I’m accustomed to quality programming only coming from people who are not okay with themselves.
But here, “Girls” shows us a real genuine quality program populated with characters who are okay with themselves. They seem to be having a really good time at life, and it’s not at the expense of any depth of character or execution. I’ve just never seen anything like this, and it makes me uncomfortable.
Yet, I know that these characters don’t have it all that great. They’re making mistakes all over the place, they’re in debt and their relationships seem so easily broken and they live their lives in that cloud of irony everyone’s been talking about. But they seem to be pretty accepting of themselves, and that gives me what do you call it cognitive dissonance.
And this is a Judd Apatow production, which confuses me all the more. Judd Apatow is not okay with himself, but here he is, having harnessed these Lena Dunham characters who are basically the mirror opposites of his “Freaks and Geeks” gang.
Do yourself a favor. Go to Netflix, find the third episode of a series called American Primetime, titled “The Misfit”, add it to your queue and watch it tonight. Nearly everyone who’s making important TV right now is on there. (Not Louie or Lena, though.)
Now, here’s the big question: are we on the tail end of the era of Misfit comedy? Do we expect that our favorite things will from here on be made by bright, cute, well-adjusted people? Or are these simply Misfits of a new breed, raised without the affirmation of self-hatred? Are we, as audiences, bored of people who find themselves distasteful or repulsive? So many questions about “Girls”. I can’t wait for it to start.
“Skatetown, U.S.A.” (1979) trailer
Make no mistake, ironists. This is a piece of our history. Not in a “disco sucks” or “silly old white people” kind of way, but in a real, culturally significant, portrait of an era kind of way. This stupid little video clip for a terrible, shitty movie, with its depictions of the sexiest, the toughest, the most dangerous and modern values and tastes, represents who we were and what we wanted at that point in history. This is a cave painting, telling heroic tales of our elders.
And we go on painting the caves with all the throwaway garbage in every dance movie and every tweet and every Lincoln biopic. And all of it is meaningful—all of it will live on to represent us in history. And isn’t that just so beautiful?
I swear I’m not high right now—I’ve just been profoundly moved by the limitless access we have to our past, and always will. Moved by this stupid garbage movie trailer for the greatest story ever rolled.
Haverchuck watches TV with a grilled cheese, “Freaks and Geeks” (2000)
Good lord, this scene tugs the heartstrings.
There’s a great piece of trivia at the TV Tropes entry for Freaks and Geeks, under Enforced Method Acting: Martin Starr actually found Garry Shandling more annoying than funny, so Judd Apatow (who directed the episode) got him to laugh for the scene by telling him extremely dirty jokes.
“His default was to assume anyone nice was setting him up for some kind of fall. That lasted about three hours on set. “Everyone was either very warm and accepting,” he says, “or busy enough that I could see they had bigger things to worry about than how to treat me badly.
Stephen Lea Sheppard (Harris Trinsky from “Freaks and Geeks”, Dudley Heinsbergen from “The Royal Tenenbaums”)
I’m half-way through “Freaks and Geeks” for the first time (!) and am as fascinated by these characters as Raleigh St. Clair is by Dudley. And this quote from this wonderful Macleans portrait of Sheppard gets to the bottom of “Freaks and Geeks” for me. Thinking the world is one way, and then finding out it’s different, and then spending the rest of your life negotiating between the two.
I knew a few Harrises in school. They’re rich, rich characters, those Harrises. Possibly the richest.
