Top Five Lists of 2014 and the Rest of Human History

Another Old Year has ended while a New Year begins, and although 2014 saw Western Culture have a collective nervous breakdown, we might just survive it.

            In times of change, it’s important to hold on to the things we love, and stop being so negative. As such, I won’t be doing any worst of the year lists, and will instead take inspiration from the Chris Rock movie Top Five, where innocent people are sometimes cornered and asked to name their top five rappers. I’m also taking inspiration from the comments section to Outlaw Vern’s review of said movie, where innocent people gave a lot of top five lists of different things without being cornered and asked. They just wanted to do so.

            So here’s a bunch of Top Five Lists. Let us read them and become better humans.

Top Five Rappers

Ice Cube

The Notorious B.I.G.

Q-Tip

The Fresh Prince

Posdnuos

 

Bonus:

Killer Mike

The Artist Formerly Known as Mos Def

Things to Say at New Year’s Eve Parties

“This is the best party I’ve ever been to.”

“Yeah, man.”

“I rock the party that rocks the vibe.” (I said this once at a party in 1998, but I think it’s because I misheard a song lyric.)

“Happy New Year!”

“Jammin’ on the one.” (There’s really no better time to try this one out.)

           

Popular Catch Phrases From the Motion Picture Jerry Maguire

Help ME help YOU.

You had me at Hello.

Show me the money.

You complete me.

Don’t ever stop fucking me!

Lo-fi ‘oos American Indie Filmmakers

Wes Anderson

Michel Gondry

Spike Jonze

Sofia Coppola

David O. Russell

Canadian Cities

Halifax

Montreal

Toronto

Banff

I don’t really travel that much, but probably Vancouver

US Cities

New York City

San Francisco

The stretch of Hollywood where you can meet Spider-Man

Austin

Boston

TV Shows

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (at the height of my obsession, I wanted to live in Sunnydale)

The Simpsons (first ten years)

Twin Peaks

Seinfeld

Beavis and Butt-head

Projectile Vomit Scenes in Movies

Stand By Me (I’m kind of traumatized by this scene and don’t fully understand it, but it’s the grossest)

Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life

The Witches of Eastwick

The Exorcist

Problem Child 2

Songs of 2014

Charli XCX, “Breaking Up”

FKA twigs, “Two Weeks”

Ariel Pink, “Not Enough Violence”

Chance the Rapper, “No Better Blues”

Phantogram, “Fall in Love”

Movies of 2014

The Grand Budapest Hotel

We Are the Best!

The Duke of Burgundy

The Purge: Anarchy

Lucy

Filmmakers (English Language)

Steven Spielberg

Brain De Palma

David Lynch

Charlie Chaplin

Stanley Kubrick

Scenes of 2014

“When She Picks Up That Deformed Dude” from Under the Skin

“The Beach Scene” from Under the Skin

“Anyone for mush” from Grand Budapest Hotel

“Smaug Burnin’ Up Your Shit” from The Hobbit is Barely in This Movie

“Nocturnal Voyage to the Land of Eva Green” from 300: Rise of an Empire

Rock Bands

Funkadelic

Fishbone

Soundgarden

The Smiths

The Smashing Pumpkins

The Cinema of Chris Rock

AI Artificial Intelligence

Boomerang

Top Five

New Jack City

Pootie Tang

The Cinema of Gabrielle Union

Love and Basketball

Cradle 2 the Grave

10 Things I Hate About You

Bring It On

Uhhhhh, Bad Boys 2, I guess. Christ.

Fingers

Index

Thumb

Middle

Pinky

Ring

Soft drinks (also known as soda, pop, soda-pop, fizzies, or just Coke depending where you live… soft drink seems like the least offensive term in problematic times.)

Root Beer

Diet Coke

San Pellegrino Lemon

Coca-Cola

Sprite

And Happy New Year!

Are We Reaping Done Yet?!?

Bienvenue to the inaugural post celebration of Blip on the Radar. This is a place for discussing various things in pop culture of momentary, longterm, or permanent interest. We'll see where it goes.

As of now I'm a bit tired of talking about Grindhouse, and it will be the full column in tomorrow's The Coast anyway. Instead, I'm gonna break this blog in with reviews of movies of less interest among people who spend all day on the Internet.

The first is Are We Done Yet?, a sequel to the 2005 Ice Cube comedy Are We There Yet?. There are people I know who wouldn't fathom going to see this, but it wasn't an experience I was particularly dreading. For one thing, I'm among the 12% of Rotten Tomatoes-certified critics who liked the first movie. On top of that, I feel Ice Cube is unfairly judged as an actor--close to how some critics feign offense to Cuba Gooding, Jr. appearing in light comedies, except that in their eyes Ice Cube has the added demerit of an opportunistic rap star.



Cube’s family man persona in recent movies can be twisted into evidence of the once incendiary entertainer losing his relevance. What the mainstream media never acknowledges is that the success of Cube’s Friday, Barbershop and Are We There Yet? series means he has more recent popular comedy franchises to his name than any of his contemporaries. It’s a feat that would only be beaten if Scary Movie, Austin Powers and American Pie had a unifying star between them.

That Are We Done Yet? is a half-hearted sequel—a purported remake of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House that’s closer in tone to The Money Pit and Funny Farm—has little to do with Ice Cube’s efforts. Projecting humility and frustration as Nick, the husband to Nia Long and surrogate father of her unruly kids, Cube is a charismatic screen presence. The torment Nick endures is tamer than in the first film, and strangely empathetic.

Since Nick is the only character with whom it’s possible to identify (his wife basically only speaks up to complain that his unwillingness to get ripped off by a contractor is taking his attention away from the kids), the slapstick isn’t sadistic. But that doesn’t make this sequel’s propensity of scenes where animals attack Nick, and moments where he learns the difference between a house and a home, more than inoffensive.

There’s something curious about a movie where Ice Cube resolves tensions with his arch nemesis by drinking coffee with him. That’s a leap in anger management from a rapper who boasted, “I’m meaner than a motherfuckin hyena chasin antelope/Put my chrome to your dome, watch it bust like a cantaloupe.” Whether it’s an advance in his comedic taste is another debate.

The "you owe us more" attitude follows Hilary Swank, because unlike Ice Cube (who comforts the white elite by rarely making movies they want to see), she has two Oscars.



As Katherine Winter in The Reaping, she's the house calls version of Richard Dawkins. Proving to communities that believe they’re blessed and cursed by spiritual interference are really succumbing to scientific phenomenon, her lack of faith is tested in the southern town of Haven. Rivers of blood, raining toads, and locust storms make for interesting set pieces in Stephen Hopkins’ (Predator 2) otherwise routine plague thriller. But the question remains, if God’s presence comes through in a movie, is it acceptable that the movie have no personality?

Katherine takes up residence in the white rural mansion that’s in every movie about the southern US. A story of a spiritually broken woman’s awakening shouldn’t skimp on character detail to the point where everybody is taken care of with a couple of defining traits. The story overshadows human interest. Between effects-shots is a whole movie of people discussing how fascinating things are.