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Movie Minute: The Tale of the Bunny Picnic (1986)

Hoppy Easter! On this holy holiday, choose to give your little brother a break. He’s got an inferiority complex and is easily frightened.

Also, have a Cadbury egg. Those things are goddamned delicious.

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#18 Once (2007)

Sometimes you want to watch a low-tech vibes-based movie that serves as a backdrop for some truly fire musical performances.

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Just adding a few more of my favorites...

Abracadabra is so good I knew it had to be Parris.

Parris Goebel Appreciation Post

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Media I'm Obsessed With 2024!

Yes, it's technically February, but let's pretend this was posted on December 31st, 2024 like I originally intended and thus still relevant.

Looking for things that will bring you joy? Look no further than this magnum opus covering all the media I've buried myself in to disassociate this past year. There are television, video games, books, movies, comics, live shows, and, yes... YouTube video recommendations. I just can't quit them, it's a problem.

Happy New Year!

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Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas (1977)

Crawling out from under my seasonal depression to say Merry Christmas, quit your job and start a band. 

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Happy Turkey Day!  We're deviating from the list to talk about the one Thanksgiving-type movie I could think of (sans that one scene in Addams Family Values) Sidney Lumet's movie adaptation of The Wiz (1978).  Yes, Dorothy is a full adult, and yes, some of the costuming is nightmare fuel, but this is a creative and strangely emotional film that will have you humming, "Ease on down, ease on down the ro-oad..." for days, weeks, months... it still hasn't stopped since I've watched it, help me! 

Sit down on the couch, eat some mashed potatoes with gravy and just experience The Wiz - I promise it will not disappoint.

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no, halsey does not have "main character syndrome" 🤦

Boo! I didn't expect to post something this emo today, but we're living in scary times and this video had me sobbing in my hotel room this morning so here we are.

I preface this by saying I'm not a huge fan of Halsey's music, so I am approaching this topic similarly to how D'Angelo did by focusing on the concept of the album alone. That said, listening to The Great Impersonator has me feeling really, really raw.

I've been pretty open on tumblr about my medical issues throughout the years. In 2009 having a complete mental breakdown because I was being gaslit by my doctors. My thyroid cancer diagnosis back in 2016 that explained a lot of my erratic behavior several years before then. Getting my thyroid yanked out, being on and adjusting to the meds, having to go off the meds to get scans, the fatigue, conversely the hyperactive need to eat or not being able to sleep, the weight gain, the aches, the cold hands and feet, the inability to focus on anything for a long amount of time without getting exhausted... it's not fun.

'Cause I'm the spider in your bathroom I'm the shadow on the tile I came from shelter from the cold And I'd thought I'd stay a while I'm only small, I'm only weak And you jump at the sight of me You'll kill me when I least expect it God, how could I even think of daring to exist? Looking just like this, I'm hideous

And that's the "easy" cancer, the cancer everyone told me I was "lucky" to get. My mother and aunt battled breast cancer and that shit is barbaric. This summer my mom was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, and her prognosis isn't great. It's one of those things you don't cure, and even after several rounds of chemo and bone marrow transplants (yes, multiple), we're looking at extending her life by a few years, not a few decades. I can't imagine how Halsey feels dealing with lupus and cancer while raising a young kid alone... It's such a brutal assault against your body that causes collateral damage to everyone around you.

And I don't ever wanna leave him, but I don't think it's my choice

The reaction to Halsey's record is honestly pretty disgusting, cause how dare she decide to talk about something as vapid as her cancer diagnosis and subsequent breakup leading her to parent her young child alone? Anthony Fantano's reaction is pretty much why I don't talk about my cancer, because people are either incredibly uncharitable or your sickness unwillingly becomes your entire identity. It's hard not to have "main character syndrome" when, y'know, your problems are literally internal. You can't escape it and you can't do anything to change it. You are at the mercy of the fucked up US medical system and God. In those moments, after two surgeries, driving to a never ending series of medical appointments scared, alone, crying in my car, I would have desperately loved to focus on anything else.

'Cause my dog died last year He fell asleep in my embrace And the very last thing I told him was "See you soon and we can race" You know a mercy kill is what I seek I didn't ask to live, but dying's up to me

But I couldn't - I had to focus on it because if I didn't, I wouldn't get "better". Even now with the scans less frequent, every blood draw is another anxious moment where the other shoe could drop and I'd have to go through all that shit again. I still have active thyroid tissue in my body they haven't been able to locate on a scan, and while the meds are currently suppressing it from growing, that might not always be the case. I'm also more likely to get other types of cancers, and I've had a few scares on that front I've hidden because it's not worth the social baggage that comes with it. I don't ask for help, I don't talk about what I'm going through, and it's incredibly isolating.

It shouldn't kill me every day, the way it does I don't know what I did to have this fate I'm drenched in And I can't even run from what I know My special talent isn't writing, it's not singing It's feeling everything that everyone alive feels every day

Maybe I do have a "victim mentality", letting a cancer diagnosis change how I live my life and how I conduct relationships; but all I learned through the whole ordeal is that I can only rely on myself. Nobody is obligated to help me, and I don't want to exhaust the goodwill of the few that do lest it become too much and they leave you to live on a boat or something, hypothetically. Or they accuse you of not being excited enough for their wedding because you're a walking zombie filled with TSH fresh off a bad scan, again, hypothetically. Or they go on vacation while you're radioactive and you have to rely on your friend's parents to watch your dog because it's too dangerous for her to be around you, hypothetically, hypothetically, hypothetically...

When Halsey said she started impersonating herself, I felt that so fucking deep. It's a tactic I crafted in college when dealing with my high-functioning depression and been implementing every since - just smile, just giggle, just pretend. People don't really want to know what you're going through because they're going through their own shit. Don't be a burden or you'll truly be left with nobody.

The surgeon said, "She had a hole in her heart" But it wasn't her fault, it was there from the start Trying to love you through an open wound 'Cause everything I put inside there just fell right through

It's also why I don't date, because nobody wants to voluntarily commit to the kind of support I would need if something bad happens in the future, and I got sick of being constantly disappointed. God forbid I did happen to find someone who wanted to be with me, it'd be unfair to ask them to take all of this on. It did hurt in the beginning, and I was angry, so fucking angry, that people can live their lives unincumbered and make life-changing decisions without worrying about how to pay for health care. I stewed in that anger all through the pandemic, alone after Chloe passed away, in a shell of a house purchased under consideration of someone else's wants and needs. Eventually I had to decide to stop stewing and live my life because what was the alternative? Miss Havisham? Sounds lame.

Please, God, I don't wanna be sick And I don't wanna hurt, so get it over with quick Please, God, I wanna be loved Don't wanna be somebody that you're tryna get rid of

So new quest unlocked - I was going to have to get stronger. I've been more actively trying to be more comfortable doing scary things on my own, and it's had clear benefits. Even an act as simple as streaming on Twitch was something I was so entirely opposed to because opening myself up to strangers on the internet could lead to me getting hurt or harassed. Going to a movie, eating a meal, staying in a hotel - those were all things seemed impossible several years ago with my social anxiety, but here I am now. I don't know how much time I have left on this planet and cowering in my house isn't an option. I want to be the kind of person Kass can look up to and not pity. But it's hard, guys. With everything going on with my job and my family, every day is a general struggle. But it's a fight I think is worth it. It also didn't happen overnight - it took me several years to get here.

We've gone on a tangent, but it's so predictable that men will look at the struggle of a woman and try to minimize it. Halsey's in an incredibly vulnerable moment in her life, and I applaud her for sharing because it's the first time in a long time that I've felt seen. Halsey's journey is fresh and she's allowed to lament about it. In fact she's always allowed to complain, cry, to feel uncertain, bitter, scared, angry, all of the above. Sure, it might not be your cup of tea to listen to, and that's fine, but it takes a huge set of misguided balls to denounce it as meritless.

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Movie Minute: Cool World (1992)

Guys, uh, I found something bizarre on YouTube yesterday and I have to talk about it. I can't let myself focus on this for more than a few hours, so enjoy this new thing called Movie Minute where I word vomit out a bunch of stuff in an attempt to purge the subject from my mind.

Cool World is what would happen if Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Heavy Metal procreated. I'm 100% convinced its target audience was middle school-aged boys during a time period where porn was physically printed media and not a 2-second google search away. It tries so hard to be edgy and instead succeeds in being the most uncomfortable thing I've ever seen.

Do you want to know what it'd look like for a real life human to "make it" with a cartoon? No? What if the human was the nerdy German professor from Little Women and the cartoon was Kim Basinger? Well, the director of Cool World, Ralph Bakshi certainly did and now we're all worse off.

Nothing could have prepared me for the plot of this movie. Riffing on Bakshi's original concept, the writing pair that also gave us Starsky and Hutch and 2 Poltergeist movies posits "What if a separate animated world called Toontown Cool World existed? And in that world a down-on-his-luck human detective played by Bob Hoskins Brad Pitt and his cartoon sidekick called Roger Rabbit Nails investigated the extracurricular activities of a sultry singing bombshell named Jessica Rabbit Holli Would? And what if a toon Doodle tried to impersonate a human Noid for their own personal gain disregarding how it affected the citizens of their own town? Like, what if someone told that story?!"

Honestly, I don't want to focus too deeply on the similarities between this and Who Framed Roger Rabbit because that is an entertaining movie and Cool World is teenage spank bank slop. It tries to be more than that, but after the 30th scene of cartoon Kim Basinger doing this exact thing, I think it lost the plot.

See, Brad Pitt's character Frank Harris is a WW2 vet who returns to Las Vegas to be with his mother after the war. During a motorcycle ride they get hit by a drunk driver, and Frank's mom immediately dies. Simultaneously, some cartoon scientist opens a rift between Cool World and Real World using some "spike" he invented, witnesses Frank's emotional break that somehow interferes with the spike and facilitates his transportation into Cool World.

How did this cartoon scientist rip a hole into reality? How did Frank navigate between the real world and Cool World by being really, really upset? I dunno, fuck you for asking.

Instead of being like hm, clearly this is a psychotic break, I should try to get back to reality, Frank spends the next 47 years of his life in Cool World, somehow nagging a job as its only detective. What's he trying to prevent from happening? Holli, a Doodle played by Kim Basinger, fucking a Noid.

First of all, the slang they created in this movie in an attempt to build out Cool World is :chefs kiss: amount of cringe. The animated creatures are called "Doodles" and the humans are "Noids". The antagonist, aptly named Holli Would ("Holli would if she could... And she will" EYEROLL) wants to become a Noid and travel to the real world where powerful woman have agency because Marilyn Monroe seemed to have all her shit together. The only way Holli can do that, however, is to have sex with a real-life Noid because Noid sperm turns Doodles into Noids, I guess.

Since our chaste friend Frank won't give up the goods, Holli targets Jack Deebs, a cartoonist she inspired to write the "Cool World" comic series because of her frequent visits in his dreams. Jack is currently serving time in jail for murdering his wife's lover, but somehow has an entire art studio in his cell and Holli scribbled on his walls. He's going to be released in a few days, and he moans out a thanks to Holli for helping him through his time incarcerated. I don't for a second want to picture Gabriel Byrne jackin' it to a picture he drew of a blonde chick, but here we are.

How has Holli been communicating with Jack? Did she reach out to him first, or did he somehow slip into Cool World by accident? How did Holli pull him into Cool World? Is the "spike" facilitating this interaction somehow? I dunno, fuck you for asking.

Frank catches wind of this new development and hunts down Jack to have a little chat about The Rules. The sexual tension between the two factions is incredibly awkward, but my favorite line in the whole movie is the intimidating way Brad Pitt spits at Gabriel Byrne, "Noids do not have sex with Doodles".

"Keep your PENCIL in your POCKET if you know what I mean."

Someone had to write this. Someone had to print this in a script, give it to a director, have them sign off on it, deliver it to two well-known actors, block it, rehearse it, and then tell Brad Pitt, hot off of Thelma & Louise fame, to deliver this so fucking earnestly that we would believe if Gabriel Byrne stuck his dick in a cartoon the world would explode. And then Brad repeats the rule the same way Tyler reiterates to new members not to talk about Fight Club.

The missed opportunity of Frank not warning Jack with, "Don't diddle a Doodle" breaks my heart if I think about it more than 2 seconds.

So what does Jack do after this encounter? Fuck Holli.

This turns her into a Noid, cause again, magic Noid sperm will do that. Jack and Holli somehow travel back to the Real World and Holli immediately tries to stage fuck Frank Sinatra Jr. in an attempt to get famous. I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding about any of this.

Except the effect of the sperm starts to wear off, threatening to turn Holli back into a Doodle. Jack also starts morphing into a Doodle because cross contamination, I guess? This makes him nervous but he's generally inept and can't think of a way to fix it. Holli decides the best course of action is to hunt down the "spike" to give her power, which she thinks is at the top of the Union Plaza hotel in downtown Las Vegas because of a rumor about a Doodle named Vegas Vinnie who crossed over years before and guys, the last 30 minutes of this movie are come at you fast, please try to stay with me here.

See, Vegas Vinnie is based on the scientist from the beginning of the movie. He was afraid of someone exploiting the rift he created, so he used the "spike" to plug the tunnel between Cool World and Real World lest they bleed into each other. This rift just happens to be at the top of a massive casino, so Holli ditches Jack and attempts to climb up there herself to grab the spike. Frank figures out the plan, relieves the trauma of losing his mother to travel back to the real world, and goes to the site of the spike with intentions to arrest Holli. She Doodle shifts to shove Frank off the building, unsheathes the "spike" like it were Excalibur, and inadvertently triggers the merging of the two worlds.

I'm having Super Mario Bros. flashbacks and this movie came out a year before that.

Jack witnesses Holli murder Frank and only then decides to embrace his inner Doodle and stop this catastrophe from happening. He transforms into a super hero, smashes his way through the Doodle ghouls, bypasses Holli and returns the spike to its home.

The Doodles (including Doodle Jack and Frank's Noid corpse) are returned back to Cool World. I think we're supposed to feel bad Frank died from a 50 story fall, but actually it's fine because when a Doodle murders a Noid the Noid turns into a Doodle somehow. These rules are just... whatever, it doesn't matter, they are what they are.

Now Frank can fuck his Doodle girlfriend that I completely forgot to mention he has guilt-free. The end.

The marketing for this film was bananas. Paramount partnered with DC to release a prequel comic book series and set the stage for the story. They donated money to the parks department to promote the movie by plastering a cutout of Holli on the Hollywood sign, which outraged people exactly as much as you think it would. They also worked with David fucking Bowie to record a song for the soundtrack.

How, as a child of the 80s/90s and teenage fan of Brad Pitt, did I not once encounter Cool World before it randomly appeared as a free movie on YouTube?! Maybe because this had an estimated budget of 30 Million dollars and only grossed shy of half that. The plot is convoluted, the interactions between live action footage and animation never look natural, and the performance of every single one of these decent actors is terrible somehow. Kim Basinger is more of a cartoon character in the live action footage than she is animated, which is a shame because she's absolutely capable of being funny while being seductive. Cool World only solidified my #teamlaurie allegiance cause I can never look Gabriel Byrne in the eyes again. And how did Brad Pitt get cast as a detective in Se7en after his creative accent choices in this?!

So, what did we learn? Uhhhh... Don't fuck a toon, even if they look like Kim Basinger. It always ends bad.

Also, they made several Cool World video games and if I can find one I'm 100% going to play it on twitch.

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Joni, Frank, and Paul were the trio that supported my exiled loneliness. Driving around west Michigan with the trees bright in their orange, reds and yellows on a quiet Sunday morning, the ground still wet with matted leaves from the near constant rain, listening to "American Tune" in an attempt to fill my empty gut. When winter fell I was morbidly fantasizing walking out of a hot shower and burying my naked body in the snow, praying that hypothermia would be a peaceful, sleepy way to go. By spring I was awake, ecstatic to leave Allendale, plagued with anxiety and stress as I watched my grandparents die and my family implode around me.

"America" and "California" fueled my imagination of fleeing. This wonderful liberation I'd worked 4 years to achieve resulted in a dinky apartment, a job that didn't respect me, and a boy whose love was fleetingly conditional. Frank comforted me with "All the Way" while I cried on the way to work, until eventually the tears ceased and I stopped feeling. Numb silence was preferable to the music, but my brain rebelled, shattering into fragments that took years to reconnect.

But Paul was still there when I could press play again. "The Only Living Boy in New York" reminded me of when I started college with naïve optimism that my mental health would improve because I was becoming an adult. Years later, with larger hills and valleys behind me, I played "The Boxer" on my uke while the guy I was dating at the time broke up with me over text message. The soundtrack of grief and nostalgia. Of transformation.

In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade And he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down Or cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame I am leaving, I am leaving, but the fighter still remains, yes he still remains.

I've been playing it again because I feel myself on the precipice of a large change with all the paralyzing fear that knowledge entails. Just another struggle, accumulating scars.

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#74 Going My Way

The original Hot Priest is trying to save his church from a predatory loan provider by selling his soul to the recording industry. Featuring musical numbers from a real radio star, boys choir, and opera singer.

Wholesome entertainment that doesn't make my ears bleed? Don't mind if I do.

I had to learn how to make my own gifs in photoshop since y'all don't like this movie, so please clap read.

(sigh) I miss PaintShop Pro.

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I am Nostradamus. I am the musical whisperer.

#5 La La Land (2016)

I'm sorry. I can't. Don't hate me.

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#5 La La Land (2016)

I'm sorry. I can't. Don't hate me.

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#17 The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967)

Welcome to Rochefort! Instead of heartbreak and broken promises, this pastel-painted city is the breeding ground for new romances. Or rekindling old ones. Or murdering them, even... There's a lot going on, but at least the dancing will distract you from the ever-present dark underbelly in this military town.

The Young Girls of Rochefort is a recommended light-hearted chaser after experiencing the harsh reality of Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Check out my summary on Oaty McLoafy, or watch it on HBO Max to envelope yourself in its fluffy majesty. There's even a few American surprises in the cast list that will not let you down ;)