Odd Couples = BACK

Quick Update: Everyone's all over the place in journalism class, so catch-up on blog I shall. "O" for "Odd Couples", as in this post was supposed to happen Tuesday.

Song Stuck In My Head: None right now. Trying to keep it that way.

Since the beginning of time, there has been one dynamic that has almost meant comedy gold, even dramatic gold. The Odd Couple. It’s one we’ve seen less of, but suddenly they’re all over the place whether we like it or not.

Perhaps the best of the best? 21 Jump Street’s recent success (according to my school paper, it was also voted movie of the year, haha) has a lot to thank its two many characters. At first Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum play the classic geek and jock pair (respectively) until they return to high school as narcs.

Suddenly Jonah’s the popular kid, and Channing (okay, why does it feel weird saying just his first name?) is the nerdy one. Both play the dual parts well, and have their share of clashes and bonding.

Another blockbuster introduced a half-romantic odd couple. Of course you know who I’m talking about? Katniss and Peeta! It’s no wonder people freak out over the two, completely different characters who hover between . Katniss’s strategic and calculated way of thinking, and overall badassery, is the perfect balance to Peeta’s emotional vulnerability and brash personality.

Meanwhile, in TV Land (no, not the network) we have new shows springing up with the dynamic. Most infamously, the ABC show, “The B*tch in Apartment 23”, which I actually watched the first episode of and didn’t think was too shabby.

Though the B*tch herself, Krysten Ritter as Cloe, is so outrageously unashamed and free of rules that anybody could be her opposite, Dreama Walker’s June handles the dynamic pretty well. She’s naïve and a bit squeaky clean here and there. Cloe walks around her apartment naked and deals drugs.

Another new show, Best Friends Forever, takes on a odd trio, focusing on a situation where a geeky and happy boyfriend and girlfriend have their relationship tested by the emergence of a third wheel, the “best friend” Jessica and her melodramatic antics after a heavy break-up. The show isn’t horrible, but we do all know NBC is struggling to keep shows nowadays.

Even music has its share of mix-ups. Collaborations are always popular, but now it seems we can’t have a song without a “ft. (name of random artist” at the end. One song that has really gained from this? The song I’ve blogged about too much already - Gotye’s “Somebody that I Used to Know”.

The Australia native brought in a New Zealand Indie singer, smooth-voiced Kimbra. While they both sing with the air of broken hearts, their voices and style couldn’t be more different. Kimbra has the soft, delicateness and voice of a pop darling, and channels the voice of an early Katy Perry while singing like Paramore’s Hayley Williams and maybe Florence of Florence + the Machine mixed together. Meanwhile, Gotye is simple and even dark at times, and approaches his songs with a heavy, but catchy, level of emotion. The feather-soft Kimbra and somber, pained Gotye make the song, well, addicting.

Some pairings are just random though. One song that has garnered a lot of raised eyebrows? Coldplay and Rihanna, in the song, “Princess of China". At first, all you can think is “Whoa…wait…everyone’s favorite mainstream rock band and the beat-heavy Columbian pop singer who has songs called S&M?”

That goes away once you hear it though. It's not Coldplay that gives up their sound, not really. Instead, Rihanna, who's had an album called "Good Girl Gone Bad", seems to return to "Good Girl", if only for a little while. The song doesn't have the word 'princess' in the title for nothing. It has a fairy-tale, pop vibe to it but still sounds ethereal and rock, thanks to Coldplay. A random mix, sure, but a good one!

What are some of the odd couples you’ve been seeing lately that have your attention? Or…what is your favorite odd couple of all time? (And yes, if you want to, you can say THE Odd Couple.)

Later.

Fresh, Shiny Newness on How I Met Your Mother

Quick Update: Here's my last update of the day...Won my first journalism scholarship, guys! $1000 for college and I get to go to Washington D.C.! Oh, and “N” for “Newness”.

Song Stuck In My Head: Some people were singing "Live Your Life" by T.I and Rihanna. Not the whole song. Just the beginning. Still ringing in le ears.



At last, watching How I Met Your Mother is no longer like watching a turtle struggle on its back: discomforting, awkward, yet fascinating in its own way.

Until about a week ago, HIMYM’s pace had been…slow, at best. A never-ending love triangle between Ted, Robin, and Barney. Sleeper pregnancy sub-plots for Marshall and Lily. No clue where anything was going, even though the beginning of the season - a flash-forward of Ted at the wedding where he’ll meet the Mrs. - had been so promising.

When Ted declares his love for Robin, the girl/friend he dated in season two, and rebounded with once or twice as roommates, viewers groaned. When Barney was sort of forced into Lover’s Lane with stripper/yes-we-know-this-is-his-future-wife Quinn, viewers groaned. Marshall and Lily spending months on the simple plotline of “Moving”.



It was small details, as well as the show’s history and cult fans, that have kept the show going. The Ducky Tie. Ted heartbreakingly giving Marshall and Lilly the apartment back. Kal Penn’s short-lived, but awesome, arc as Robin’s boyfriend/ex-therapist, which gave him permission to point out the group’s flaws. Even Quinn hasn’t been that easy to hate.

And at last, over a week ago, HIMYM did something we never thought it could do: it gave itself a deadline. The show looked exactly three years into the future, 2015, where viewers cheered to see that Ted already had a baby girl (which works out, because his daughter is the oldest). And if we learned anything in elementary school, it was that first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage.


It’s math, really. Ted’s little bundle of joy looked at least a month or so old. Now add to the nine months of child-bearing to that. That’s about a year of Ted already with the mother by 2015, meaning Ted and the future Mrs. Mosby will definitely have met and be together by early 2014, or HIMYM’s hypothetical season 9. And knowing Ted, the chances of them having a shotgun-wedding-esque marriage (though wouldn’t that be hilarious, after all the waiting viewers have done?) are naught. So my guess is that season 9 will be the culmination of Ted’s relationship. Maybe even the wedding. And with season 7 coming to a close in about a month, that means….

Next season is THE season. In Season Eight, which will run 2012-2013, we will meet the mother, thus giving her and Ted time to become a happy couple. After all, we don’t want another Ted and Stella - only one or two episodes to get us to like Stella, then “Hey, Let‘s Get Married”. The last thing HIMYM should do is force Mrs. Mosby down our throats screaming “LOVE HER!!!”.



Even if we know who she is, and how long we’ve waited for her, the only way HIMYM’s audience will accept the Mother is if we get time to get to know her first, to take it slow. To have a beautiful first episode with her where WE get to fall in love with her before Ted does. Think the sweetness of Victoria in season one. She only had a few episodes, but she’s probably been the only Ted’s Girl to garner more fans than haters.

And even with the deadline giving it new life, HIMYM is doing well in its other departments considering Monday’s episode. Lilly and Marshall have a unique plotline involving Lilly’s sex dream about…er, Ranjit. Robin’s storyline of at last becoming a famous journalist, which has been hinted at so many times we can’t count, finally sets in motion. (Which is more than welcome, because Robin needs any non-romance storyline the writers can give her).



Even Barney is Barney again, and becoming less and less cheesy about his relationship with Quinn. (Now he mostly focuses on the fact she’s a stripper, something Barney would do.)

Hopefully when season seven concludes, it’ll be with a reassurance of bigger, better things. After all, we have Barney’s proposal to look forward to, and the birth of Lilly and Marshall’s first son!

Are any of you fans of HIMYM? If so, what do you think of the season so far? And what are you most looking forward to?


Later!

Give Music Videos a Chance, Music Teacher!

Quick Update: Blog catch-up day. They've been written, it's just that life has kept me far away from the World Wide Web.

Song Stuck In My Head: Gerudo Valley, a Legend of Zelda song. Pretty neat guitar.

For today’s post, we’re going to my high school strings orchestra class.



I haven’t been in band for long (okay, this is my first year) but it’s obvious that this year’s band teacher doesn’t have many fans. The hardcore band geeks dislike her. The newbies dislike her. It’s her first year as well, see. While I think she some moments, there is one thing that I’m starting to not understand.

She hates music videos.



When she first explained this, it made a little sense. “It distracts from the music,” she says. “It’s more about the video and not the song.”

Why has this been bothering me more, as of late? Well, the two contemporary songs we’re learning right now are Coldplay’s Viva La Vida and Katy Perry’s Firework. While Viva La Vida might not add too much more to the song, Firework is a different story.


As you would predict, band geeks hate Katy Perry. Actually, they hate the whole idea of pop music. The only people who are mega-fans of KP are me, one very afeminite and sassy male cellist, and one sassier and rambunctious violinist. But it’s an easy song, we’ve been doing it for a while, and the violist would go on a murdering rampage if we didn’t do it (it’s her favorite song) so no turning back now.

Except whenever Ms. Band Teacher tries to direct us on adding oomph to the song, it’s an epic fail. She has teacher-student communication problems as it is, so trying to get band geeks excited about a pop song is dang near impossible.

Which is why I really, really wish she would give the music video for “Firework” a chance.



Haven’t seen the video and/or don’t have time for it? Then let me fill you in. In Firework’s Music Video World, when you stand up for yourself or somebody else, be courageous or brave, and just take a risk or dare, fireworks basically shoot out your chest.


It’s not all corny though - the music video for the Grammy-nominated tune actually attacks some relevant issues.

First we have a young cancer patient, already bald and scrubbed, who wanders lost through a hospital, questioning life and death as she passes by the maternity ward and sees a baby being born. Then we switch back and forth between other troubled characters. An overweight, older girl seems miserable at a pool party, because she refuses to jump in. A lonely young man at a rave who seems to be watching someone, sadly.. A little boy who tries to protect his sister while their parents fight over who knows what.

Shells of people, all questioning different things and emanating fear.


How do the fireworks come in? Glad you ask. That little boy jumps up and splits his parents apart. That girl finally takes off her jacket and makes a mad cannonball. Even the lonely man wanders over to the other side of the party, and kisses the person he’s been looking at, without any fear - another man, of course. And that cancer patient goes out into the street, seeming to come to grips with…well, life. All the while, pretty Katy Perry sings from the rooftops.



The multiple stories of this video all take on similar moods. Sadness and confusion at first, until they explode into glistening but beautiful victory. Fireworks are in the air. Something that’s hard to translate to instrumentalists who’ve only heard the song on the radio, nothing more and nothing less.

Even when the bridge of the song kicks in, there’s so much oomph in the music video alone. That lyric “Make them go oh! Oh! Oh!”? Each little “oh” is punctuated with a high, daring jump by the backup dancers as they join Katy Perry around a water fountain. Fireworks sprout from all of them, a sort of metaphor for a world where no one is afraid and everyone stands up.


And yet, we won’t be watching this music video any day soon in class, let me assure you that.

Music videos, when done right, add to songs. Adding stories, like Firework or Paramour’s “The Only Exception” love story turned upside down. Maybe adding another dimension of emotion, like the angst in Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or fervid wildness to Brandon Boyd’s “Runaway Train”.

And sometimes, they just want to get us lost in the world of the song, such as with Filter’s “Take a Picture” (mentioned in another blog last week, but hey, beautiful video) and basically any Ting Tings video out there (but to start out with, “Shut Up and Let Me Go”, “Silence”, “We Walk”, “That’s Not My Name”, “Hang It Up”, ah must I go on?).



If only Ms. Music Teacher would realize that.



(There. I had a non-list blog. Are we happy? ARE WE NOT ENTERTAINED?)

Later.

L.A Complex…Least Publicized Show on CW

Quick Update: “L” for L.A Complex. Trying to keep up. According to the A-Z blogging challenge, this post was supposed to occur…er, last Friday.

Song Stuck In My Head: “Guggenheim” by the Ting Tings. Still can’t peel my ears away from Sounds From Nowheresville for the time being.

Despite it being one of my all-time favorite TV networks, the CW does have its share of “eh” programming. Or just decently okay shows that never gain an audience and stay past season one. Right now, “The Secret Circle” (hoping to cap on the popularity of another L.J Smith adapation, “The Vampire Diaries”) is struggling, "Remodeled" was already canceled/postponed, and new shows like “Ringer” and “Hart of Dixie” have cult audiences at best.



Next week, to fill a timeslot that will open up with the finale of One Tree Hill, the CW will be debuting a Canadian TV show: the “L.A. Complex”. Here is the trailer.



If the trailer didn’t make it obvious, this show has the vibe of a few shows, even movies. Think Fame mixed with “90210”, with a touch of “Glee”/“Smash” here and a pinch of “Gossip Girl” there.

Its premise: a few entertainers desperate to make it, holed up together in a L.A apartment building until their big break. Three actors, including one male who’s about to star in a TV series, and two girls, one who is a veteran and the other naïve and from the middle of nowhere. Two “hip hop artists”, who have their own share of secrets and, according to the trailer, copyright issues. There’s a comedian. There’s even a dancer.



Right now, with only a few episodes up from the show’s original owners, CTV and MuchMusic, the US’s CW network hopes to give the show an audience with its weird, reality-show-esque drama and big dreams plotline. Right now, it could go either way. The show seems unique enough, if bordering on ridiculous. For instance, the actress who vomits during an audition and then tries to convince one of her fellow L.A complex-ers to make a sex tape with her, purely for fame reasons.



On the other hand, the publicity for this show has been depressingly low. Not even that many commercials have aired yet on the CW, which tends to overpublize its shows two seasons ahead of their premieres. There’s not a host of beloved actors to hold up the show either, with a few slightly-known’s like Degrassi alum Cassie Steele. Not that it matters, if the show makes it. There’s nothing CW can’t do best than a cult favorite. (There’s also rumors that Alan Thicke has a guest star role, which makes sense, because the show is originally Canadian, right?)



What do you think of the show? Will the trailer be enough for you to try it out, or are you going to be too busy fretting over The Voice results (which I’ve stopped watching since Cee Lo got rid of Tony Vincent, but hey, let’s save that for another day) to watch anything else? Are you fan of Fame, 90210, Gossip Girl, Smash, etc.?

Later!

K for Kittens (Rock and ROLL Kittens)

Quick Update: As you can tell, I got a “F” for last week’s participation grade. My K post, my L post, annnnd my “M” post got jumbled up into nothingness. My blog will have to accept late work, I guess.

Song Stuck In My Head: Or I could just tell you what I'm listening to. Songs from very, very, very old videogame. Nintendo 64 old.

So as you can tell, my "K" post fell through. So I decided to make it up to everyone the old-fashioned, SSF way. And since one of my MIA posts was a "K" post, Lolcatz (er, kittens) it is! I had a theme going on though - rock and roll cats. If you haven't noticed, my new blog wallpaper has two of them haha! We got some Nirvana, Joan Jett, Beatles and then some guitars and drums!

Have fun. :)