Five.... Five Dollar.... Five Dollar **SHUT UP**

A fairly long time ago (blogger code for "there's no way in hell I'm looking up exact time measurements), Subway debuted the now-famous 'Five Dollar Footlong' song. If you've forgotten how the original sounds, here's your chance to catch up.



This commercial obviously had several things going for it.

1. It was hypnotic.
2. It was catchy.
3. It sort of reminded me of Viva Voce (never a bad thing).
4. It had cute Asian chicks and Godzilla in it (they must have gotten in trouble over that, because later versions of the commercial had Godzilla removed, but cute Asian chick remains. I guess if you have to remove one.....)

It ranked right up there with 'Gimme Back That Fillet-o-Fish' as one of the better jingles to come out in the past few years.

Fast forward a few months, and Subway has turned a simple jingle into a huge advertising campaign. Needless to say whatever qualities the original may have had have.... faded.

The newest commercial features Michael Strahan, Justin Tuck, and Jared Fogle fake singing the song in bizzare baritone voices. So, how far has it fallen?

1. It is in no way hypnotic. In fact, the only positive application the commercial could possibly be used for would be to snap people in comas back to waking life.

2. It is not catchy. It is the anti-thesis of catchy. It's as catchy in the same way Kidz Bop rendition of Mastodon would be - as in, not catchy.

3. It does not remind me of Viva Voce in any way.

4. It features a grand total of zero cute Asian chicks. It also features a conspicuous lack of Godzilla monsters.

Subway, you have destroyed what should have been a simple "one and done" jingle. Stop. For the love of all that is good in life, just stop.

The Search For the Worst Song Ever

I'm a fan of using hyperbole and exaggeration to comedic effect. The drawback of this, of course, is that you've actually found the best/worst/biggest thing ever, there's no good way to top yourself.

Very few places is this more aggravating than in the world of music. For example, I would posit that the song "My Humps" by the Black Eyed Peas is the single worst song to become popular on the radio in recent memory, but one listen to "When In Doubt" by Stentorian - a song that will surely be featured in this space in the near future - and it's extremely clear that there's a difference between "insipidly annoying song on the radio" and "worst song ever".

That's what this search is all about. I'm not trying to find the "annoying song that your coworker's 13-year old daughter insists on playing 12 times a day and if you hear it one more time you're totally going to freak out". I'm trying to find the worst song ever. The worst lyrics tied to the worst melody sung by the worst singer as the worst band ever plays the whole thing - poorly.

A few things I'm looking for in this search...

 

Vocals
Pitch perfection is not a requirement for good vocals. I don't believe anyone really thinks Isaac Brock (Modest Mouse) has a fantastic voice, but he makes it work. Many, many, many others.........don't.

Production
Likewise, production doesn't always need to be crisp and clean to fit in with a song. A lot of times, it actually sounds better when there's a little bit of an edge (or, possibly, a lot of edge). With very few exceptions, when things sound like they're being played underwater, in a concert hall a mile and a half away, through ears that have been packed full of mud... something's gone wrong.

WTF?
This category covers things which cannot easily be explained using things like reason, logic, and common sense. It's impossible to figure out why a certain element of a song is there, because it's impossible to understand the motive behind doing such a thing. Most truly awful songs have at least a little of this in them, but for our purposes, we'll only use this for the particularly eggregious examples.

Lyrics
My humps. My humps my humps my humps. My humps my humps my humps. My lovely lady lumps. Check it out!

Shoddy Play
Fairly self-explanitory. The drummer who can't keep time, the bass player who seems like he's playing a different song, the guitarist who really doesn't know more than one or two chords.

The Earbleeder
An earbleeder is a special kind of awful. Whereas most bad songs are content to simply offend your sensibilities, an earbleeder is a song that almost literally hurts the ears. Shrill voices, screeching feedback, and incredibly bad mixing can all contribute to this condition.

The Cover Song
Cover songs can, in their proper context, be good and can offer new perspectives on old songs. Unfortunately, while it might have seemed like a good idea for your past-its-prime new wave band to take on a politcally charged song by one of the most in your face rap groups ever; rest assured, it wasn't.

I'll be adding a new entrant every so often, along with a link so that the song in question can be heard in all of its awful glory.

Also, starting Monday of next week, I'll be chronicling my 50 favorite moments in music - ten a day. It should be good times.

Movie Review: The Happening

Dear M. Night Shyamalan,

Are you even trying anymore?

'The Happening' is one of the stupidest movies I've ever seen.

Anytime the main core of the advertising for a movie is "the first R-rated film from director x", it's basically admitting "man, we've got zero plot, so we're going to up the gore and hope no one notices". Well guess what, M - I noticed.

The best part about the entire movie is Zooey Deschanel's eyes. I am not making this up.

I probably could have given this a '2' if the phoned in "OMIGOD, WE DIDN'T LEARN UR LESSON AND IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN" ending hadn't been tacked on. That could be seen as a spoiler, but honestly, it's the ending we knew was coming from about 10 minutes into the movie. But, hell... you had to prove your point, and I respect that to the tune of one

Please stop making movies until you learn what is and what is not a good script. Also, for the love of all that is holy, please send your next script to no fewer than three 5th graders. If even they think it's a moronic waste of time, please rewrite until you have something that makes some damn sense.

Now, if you'll pardon me, I have to go find some lions and allow them to rip my arms from my body for no other reason than a bunch of trees told me that I don't want to live anymore. Sounds cool with me.

1/10 (This is one of the stupidest movies ever. I know I already said this but seriously, the Mummy Returns is like the Godfather compared to this pile of garbage.)

The Coming DRM Storm

When EA announced 'Spore' a few years ago, video game enthusiasts everywhere were pumped. Here was a game that promised what video games had only hinted at throughout their existence - a fully immersive and interactive world were the user literally created their own race and evolved them into whatever they wanted.

The game itself has failed to live up to it's massive hype, which isn't a large surprise. What's (unfortunately) even less surprising is EA's decision to use this particular title as the spearhead of its DRM campaign. EA is hardly the first to try to ensure that pirates don't siphon off any potential profits, but they (along with 2K and their infamous Bioshock DRM) are at the forefront of a disturbing new trend in removing any sense of ownership from the end user's hands.

First and foremost, the problem with DRM is that it doesn't have its intended effect. Those who are absolutely set on stealing any form of digital media will find a way to do so. There's no way to stop them, and in trying this hard to dissuade them, you punish legitimate customers.

The larger problem with this can be found in comments from EA's CEO:

"There is a longer-term transition from a disk-based model for retail sales to an “average revenue per user” model. Five to seven years from now, investors will look at EA as how we have 100 million customers where we have an ARPU relationship that amounts to so many dollars a month. It’s different from selling so many disks a month at wholesale prices. It’s a gradual evolution. But we need the tools to be able to do that. The ARPU model is a better margin business for us. It’s less cyclical. It’s a better business. Some of our businesses have characteristics like that: EA Mobile, Pogo.com, and The Sims. We want to move in that direction. People predicted the demise of the DVD rental model for Blockbuster a long time ago. I don’t want to be the guy with a retail store renting DVDs in a world that has moved to Netflix and pay-per-view. We want to innovate and drive along that front, whether it’s with FIFA Online or Pogo or The Sims. Nucleus is a positive step in that direction. Spore has a download model. We could wait for someone else to eat our lunch or we could do it ourselves."

http://venturebeat.com/2008/07/21/e3-perspective-an-interview-with-john-riccitiello-ceo-of-electronic-arts/

This would seem a sound business proposal, except for the fact that his examples are totally skewed. Netflix succeeds because there is a large contingent (myself included) who don't want to buy every single movie that we want to see. Quite often, one viewing is enough. Certainly there are games like this, but there are already services out there for this sort of thing (Gamefly, etc). He's not talking about game rental, he's talking about game leasing. It's akin to the idea of buying a DVD, and then having to pay x amount of dollars a month to continue to buy back the right to view something you already purchased. World of Warcraft gets brought up in these discussions, and I suppose that's fair, but they're charging for the right to connect to their servers. EA is hoping to charge you for the right to sit down and use your purchased product at your own computer (and, if they had their way, your console as well).

Reaction to this has been mixed. There are plenty of people who trot out the old "it don't apply to me since I'm not doing anything wrong" line. That, in my view, is a mistake. Most of us have already not been doing anything wrong, and we're being punished for it. The pirates are one thing, but they are simply being turned into an excuse to add this self-crippling software (which will require you to re-activate it if you do something so simple as change your video card). In effect, they hold your product - the one you spent your money on and purchased - hostage. Who's to say they won't start making you pay to activate it? Who's to say that this trend will stay limited to video games?

Meanwhile, there are a large number of people who have had understandable problems with this. Enough of them have flooded Amazon.com to the point where Spore's current customer rating is 1.5 stars (an unheard of low rating for a major release), and EA's forums are buzzing with questions as to why software - which not only cripples their product, but often causes sizable issues with the user's computer - is being installed on their system without warning. EA, of course, been deleting these questions as fast as they can. This is a not a matter they wish to discuss, and while they have relaxed their activation policy (from 3-4 activations to unlimited), they would very much prefer you to buy their game and shut up about it.

Sorry, I'll pass.

For more information, check out the following links:

"Wired" discusses the Amazon rating attack
Amazon deletes all customer reviews (predominantly negative) - Oops.
The Register talks about EA (sort of) easing up the restrictions
The Kicker: Talk about DRM, have EA threaten to deactivate your product

Thieves with Halos

Want to play a guitar simulation video game?
Don't want to damn your eternal soul to hell in the process?

Has 'Digital Praise' got a game for.......ah, to hell with it.

What in the hell is this?? I'll admit (reluctantly) that I used to be a big fan of all thigns Christian rock. That was, of course, before I heard all the bands that my former favorites were ripping off and sanitizing. I still enjoy some of the stuff from back in the day, but that's beside the point.

Digital Praise, the fine people that brought you those knock-off Dance Dance Revolution games, now bring you "Guitar Praise". In their own words:

"Grab the guitar and play along with top Christian bands! Shred those riffs or blast the bass…you add a unique sound to the solid Christian rock. But watch out: if you can't keep up, the artists will take a break and stop the music. Crank it up and try again ? you?ll soon be rockin' with the best while praising the Lord! Order the second guitar and jam with a friend!"

There just aren't any words in the English dictionary that describe that. Luckily, I just so happen to have one of my own.

Cockflickery.

Seriously, people. Do your own thing. Add in a tambourine, have the user wear little bracelets that can tell when you're raising your hands in praise, just don't rip off an established franchise and throw together some shitty tracklist on it and call it 'good'. By the way, out of 40-plus years of rock music (for today's purposes, we'll count the Larry Norman era as the beginings of C-Rock) you can't find anything better to put on a track list of "rockin' spiritual songs" than Stellar Cart, Superchick, and TWO Hawk Nelson songs? I could look through my (admittedly embarassing) Christian music collection and find 50 songs more apt for a collection such as this than TWO Hawk Nelson songs. Amy Frickin' Grant is more 'rock' than Hawk Nelson.

Cockflickery abounds...

Next thing they need is "Organ Hymnal Simulator 5000" for those not down with the C-Rock scene.

Movie Review: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

If I were a certain music reviewing site, I might not actually review this movie. I might instead post a picture of a chimp urinating on itself, or an "aww" inspiring apologetic picture of some pugs. I might even post a picture of a bunny with a pancake on its head.

That would, of course, be letting the movie off too easily. It's easily the worst movie I've watched this year (I've been fortunate enough to avoid certain 'gems' such as "The Hottie and the Nottie"), and I honestly think it's one of the more poorly made popcorn flicks I've ever seen.

(note: I will be adding spoilers into my review of this movie. I don't feel bad about this at all, since the movie is actually an abomination that deserves to make as little money as possible, in the hopes that no more braindead sequels will be tacked onto its lifeless corpse. If you honestly want to see this wretched excuse for a movie, you've been warned - in more ways than one.)

Jet Li 'stars' as some dude I really can't remember the name of, and within minutes, he proves that he's all big and bad by pointlessly executing a friend, and getting all stabby on some chick he was putting moves on not 60 seconds prior (neither of these make sense, and just seem tacked on to show how EVIL this guy is, because if he wasn't super evil, this movie would have even less point in existing). I say 'stars' because once he does these things, the crazy witch chick curses him. This curse supposedly turns him into terra cotta, but the obscenely bad special effects make it look like he's being turned into chocolate. He's understandably upset about this, and rightfully so... because at this point in the movie, he turns into a poorly rendered CGI creature, and he stays that way pretty much the rest of the movie. What on earth is the point of having Jet Li in your movie if you're going to instantly replace him with a cartoon? (on second thought... this series does have a certain precedent for that...). He does do some of his near patented martial arts in the VERY beginning, but it's basically for the filmmakers to say "Hey! Remember this guy!? He did all that crazy kung fu shit back in the day. Where are you going? Don't leave!".

Thousands of years later, the most inept archaeological team in recorded history stumbles upon the site; watching their team die by booby traps¹ while happily gallivanting on their merry way. People are literally having their faces melted off, and these morons can't be arsed to watch where they walk. Kindergartners on meth would have used more caution. The professor guy predictably betrays them, then is predictably killed mere moments after.

Which is where we pause a moment. It's not terribly uncommon to make a prediction in a movie and later be proven right. Simple probabilities, coupled with limited plot twists ensure that you'll be right about at least a few things before they happen. During this movie, however, my friend and I made no fewer than 15 predictions, and were right about every single one of them. From "ah, creepy assassin chick... that seems like good girlfriend material" to "so the creepy chick with the scar on her face? yeah, she'll be fighting the female lead before much longer". This movie makes no effort to throw any curveballs. It just goes on its merry way, broadcasting every single thing it's about to do. Not that an action movie usually tries to be mysterious about its intentions, but even Armageddon had the twist ending of Bruce Willis turning out to be George Herman Ruth in disguise.

A lot of convolution later, our intrepid team ends up in the mountains. It's at this point that I lost what little faith I had that it could turn itself around. Everyone is dressed in stuff that looks like it came straight out of the LL Bean catalog. Surely the first rule in filmmaking should be "if you're making an action movie, make sure the clothes aren't better actors than the actual actors". The lead actress is wearing a blaze red parka that made me wonder if Lindsey would like something like that, and how much said item would cost. It was literally more interesting than anything happening on screen at that point in time.

15 yak puke jokes later (wow, I wish I were joking), the movie pretty much is over. There's some sort of zombie mummy fight toward the end that is well featured in the previews, but it really doesn't matter, since apparently all of these mummies are tied to Jet Li's character. Brendan Fraser's char inexplicably shouts "fight like a man" at Jet Li, who inexplicably does. Even more inexplicably, Jet Li (martial arts master extraordinaire) gets the tar kicked out of him, before getting stabbed to death. Yay, rugged adventure types, I guess.

To this point, the Mummy series has stretched a bit while calling itself "horror/comedy" (being extremely light on horror, and fairly generous with comedy), this movie stretches that genre to the breaking point, and then well past, but miraculously does so by completely removing anything that any non-lobotomized person could possibly find amusing. Nearly every joke is an in-joke, and with one exception that I can't even remember at this time, EVERY ONE OF THEM FAILS. That's right, I laughed along with this movie ONCE. One time. I think it was more of a 'chuckle' than an outright laugh, but when you're pressing that hard for laughs in a comedy, I guess it'll count. One of the few enjoyable scenes in the movie (involving yetis and the ass they so love to kick) is instantly ruined when the yetis all make celebratory moves after kicking said ass it takes the scene from acceptably cool to... something resembling a pokemon episode. More than anything, this is a movie that begs you to laugh at it, sort of like an unfunny clown (sorry, redundant). Nothing here works as comedy, and since the action and plot have so much fail in them that they're bursting at the seams, the distinct lack of any intentional humor dooms the movie.

Respected film critic Roger Ebert gave this film a somewhat positive review, noting that it was "...plain dumb fun, is why" and "absurd and preposterous, and proud of it.". I'll give him "dumb", and I'll certainly agree that it's "absurd", but it's entirely possible that he was watching a different film than the one I ended up seeing; because I'm honestly not sure how a person who had to sit through Mummy 3 could possibly call it "fun". I like dumb action movies, and I (to this point) liked the Mummy series, and this was a bigger waste of money than Indiana Jones. This movie gets tossed on the list of movies where the third installment does everything in its power to actively destroy anything you enjoyed about the first two - to the point where you question whether you actually liked the first two all that much, in the first place.

F

¹ By the way, seriously... who set those up? ...and I thought the Jet Li guy froze in a completely different pose? I know it's a touch ridiculous to expect this to make any sense when nothing else even tries to, but these are the things that go from 'suspension of disbelief' to 'you're really just making shit up as you go along, aren't you?'