Snobbin: Beautiful Trash in the Pop Culture Gutter

Swimming through a sea of dross Conflicted by the tide of the autotuned Shattered and destroyed like Milo Wishing the sound would stop Because I would like to relax Give me a break, will ya, please The valley of the underwhelming Is slapped up against the sea of the banal I can only find surfeit in the cold comfort The embrace of the different, The difficult, the wordy,  the obtuse The uncommercial, the unredemptive The challenging, the posed What gets in? Top 40 pap? Billious rot? The challenge is to shut it out. Gimme a hand, will ya? Please.

Over the past few years, I feel like I have begun to slowly unravel. I feel like I lost part of myself that I might not be able to reclaim. I am far more tired than I feel I have the right to be. But I also have never learned how not to be hard on myself. A colleague told me recently that "you are always so hard on yourself. You have to learn your self worth." Nothing could be truer, but it is hard to rediscover my value because of my own negative thoughts and self-deprecation. All the stress from my PhD studies is finally catching up with me. When I was working on my dissertation, I never had that much time to worry because I was so busy trying to get it done. Now I feel even busier. I teach five classes and have five tutoring sessions on top of it. I am working on an article that does not seem to be gelling quite like I want it to, and I hope that I can eventually catch up on sleep. My stress management seems to be failing me. I get home after a busy day at work and pre...

359. Jamaica Inn (1939), Alfred Hitchcock, Mayflower 360. Attenberg (2010), Athina Rachel Tsangari 361. Stagecouch (1939), John Ford, United Artists 362. Eating Raoul (1982), Paul Bartel, 20th Century Fox 363. Charulata (1964), Satyajit Ray, R.D. Bansal & Company 364. Les Diaboliques (1955), Henri-Georges Clouzot, Cinedis 365. Sicario (2015), Denis Villeneuve, Lionsgate

Recently, my friend Joe and I were continuing our age-old battle concerning the merits of Ween, a band that is often labeled a joke band, who recently broke up after years of creating musically proficient, genre-bending "joke" songs. A quick search on the internet shows that Ween has battled this label for years, and they probably tend to even welcome it, given such song titles as "Poop Ship Destroyer" and "Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down)." Yet in later years, the boys in Ween proved excellent songwriters, who could assemble a killer band. Their various pastiches of different genres helped define the "Ween Sound," a far-reaching enterprise, indeed. Whether creating twisted country records with actual country session musicians on 1996's 12 Golden Country Greats , giving into their psychedelic tendencies completely on 1997's The Mollusk , or perfecting the pop song throughout their catalog, Ween always surprised. The Zappa comparisons wer...

I often feel the pull of the written word, encouraging me to read and write fiction far more than I have time for. Yet I have so many stressors in my life, pulling me in all directions, halting my efforts and sapping my strength. It is all I can do to put a few words down on paper for a book chapter I am working on or scribble a few notes for my movie list. I write this from the standpoint of finishing my doctoral dissertation in the spring, teaching the equivalent of six courses, and trying my best to seek tenure. During these rough spells, I have been trying to read fiction and slowly writing a little. Someday I hope to get back to my manuscript and at least finish one novel or a few short stories or pull a few more of my grey hairs out. I take comfort in the fact that many are late bloomers to this fiction game. However, I have been writing fiction for more than two decades and have never taken it all that seriously. It is a given, but there is something to be said for sitting dow...

349. Fearless (2006), Ronny Yu, Rogue 350. The Cat's-Paw (1934), Sam Taylor, Fox Film Corporation 351. The Plumber (1979), Peter Weir, CEL 352. Rollerball (1975), Norman Jewison, United Artists 353. A Film Unfinished (2010), Yael Hersonski, Oscilloscope 354. Fat Girl (2001), Catherine Breillat, Canal 355. The Apartment (1960), Billy Wilder, United Artists 356. Jules and Jim (1962),  François Truffaut, Cinedis 357. A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate (1923), Charlie Chaplin, United Artists 358. A King in New York (1957), Charlie Chaplin, Attica

The final three songs focus on the plane ride and subsequent crash of both bands: the fictional one and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Cooley's “Shut Up and Get on the Plane” is a premonition of what is to come, as well as an excoriation of those that fear life and do not want to live it to its fullest. He sings, “We've been this close to death before; we were just too drunk to know it / Guess the price of being sobers being scared out of your mind.” Cooley dares listeners to get on the plane because death is inevitable and there is no use in complaining. The adventure the band is on trumps all. Even though the narrator would like to go home and lay around, he is a working man and needs to keep on moving. This theme continues through Cooley's songs; they revolve around men of action who move through less specific worlds. They carry on because they have to, despite the odds, not concerned with the specifics of history, but moving through a more generalized world. He writes songs for...

339. Goon: The Last of the Enforcers (2017), Jay Baruchel, Entertainment One 340. The Stunt Man (1980), Richard Rush, 20th Century Fox 341. The Night Porter (1974), Liliana Cavani, Avco Embassy 342. Escort Girl (1941), Edward E. Kaye 343. Test Tube Babies (1948), W. Merle Connell, Screen Classics 344. The Curse of the Cat People (1944), Robert Wise and Gunther von Fritsch, RKO 345. The Witch (2015), Robert Eggers, A24 346. Shock (1977), Mario Bava, Titanus 347. Cronos (1993, Guillermo del Toro, Prime 348. Bigger Than Life (1956), Nicholas Ray, 20th Century Fox

329. Chafed Elbows (1966), Robert Downey Sr., Impact 330. Bed and Board (1970), Francois Truffaut, Columbia 331. I Married A Witch (1942), Rene Clair, Paramount 332. Monsieur Verdoux (1947), Charlie Chaplin, United Artists 333. Limelight (1952), Charlie Chaplin, United Artists 334. Dog Soldiers (2002), Neil Marshall, Pathe 335. Beetlejuice (1988), Tim Burton, Warner Bros. 336. The Spirit of the Beehive (1973), Victor Erice, Bocaccio 337. Repulsion (1965), Roman Polanski, Compton 338. The Skin I Live In (2011), Pedro Almodóvar, Warners Espana

 319. The Living Skeleton (1968), Hiroshi Matsuno, Shochiku 320. In the Realm of the Senses (1976), Nagisa Oshima, Argos 321. Withnail and I (1987), Bruce Robinson, Cineplex Odeon 322. The Horse's Mouth (1958), Ronald Neame, General Film 323. W.R.: The Mysteries of the Organism (1971), Dušan Makavejev 324. I am Curious (Yellow), Vilgot Sjöman, Grove Press 325. The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins (1970), Les Blank 326. Bulldog Drummond Comes Back (1937), Louis King, Paramount 327. The Naked City (1948), Jules Dassin, Universal 328. Born in Flames (1983), Lizzie Borden, First Run