Shut Up, Dude: This Week’s Best Comments

All those who say your body starts to act up when you hit 40, curse you! I've been experiencing tinnitus in my right ear in recent months and it turns out I have mild to moderate hearing loss. I will monitor it but in the meantime I'd better crank the music up!

Reviews for Theater Camp, Bottoms and Dicks: The Musical, recent comedies with predominate LGBTQIA+ characters and themes:

Theater Camp struck a good balance between absurdity and sincerity.

It bears a strong resemblance to Waiting For Guffman, as a mockumentary about the pretensions of community theater that culminates in a musical performance. Major differences with Guffman are that it focuses on adults teaching and directing children; both films are over the top in tone, but Theater Camp was at less of a remove and more invested and grounded in emotional stakes and arcs; and Theater Camp was created with stars who have real Broadway experience, so the singing and dancing was at a higher level.

The rhythms of mockumentary work with the performances and humor, letting the jokes feel unforced. Without spoiling the plot, I was very impressed by the way the film set up and then paid off the musical number that was the finale: it was rooted in character and relationship; it had tension and development; it was surprising enough to feel like a twist, yet it tied all the themes of the film together; it was funny, and yet I also found it moving and well executed on a musical level. The end sealed it as a film that I would recommend to anyone who has been in the theater world, including children's theater.

Bottoms, had an intriguing premise and some great performances, and yet I feel like the script needed a few more rewrites before being filmed. The film sets out to be a Lesbian flip on "gotta get laid Senior year of high school" teen comedies like Superbad and American Pie, and its unique take is the main characters start a women's "Fight Club"/self-defense class on campus as pretext for trying to get laid. There's something transgressive about the premise where it's refreshing to lift up messy female-toward-female horniness on a stage that we have seen be so heteronormative. Ayo Edebiri was really compelling as one of the leads, and Ruby Cruz and Marshawn Lynch really shined in supporting roles. Yet, the movie was also written by the director and Rachel Sennot, the actor who played the other lead role; and it felt like a situation where more drafts, and more checks and balances were needed to fix the script. Some of the conflict around Sennot's character was overdone to the extent that I checked out of the journey with her. The biggest problem was the climax and the finale, in which previously established motivations and conflicts are thrown out the window, and characters become invested in objectives that felt inconsistent to me in a way that didn't fit the rest of the movie; and there's a radical tone shift even within what had been a exaggerated comic tone, revealing that the "reality" the movie is set in is way further from our reality than had been established. I left the theater with the nagging question, "How could they have done this better?"

Dicks: The Musical is based off a show that came out of the sketch comedy and improv world around the UCB theater in NYC. It has a few levels of concept: it's a parody of The Parent Trap, and also there's a layer of irony where we are told that the straight main characters will be "bravely" performed by gay actors. The original title was Fucking Identical Twins. Having been at UCB shows, I could appreciate the rhythms and cadences of the delivery and interplay, where I could tell it had been developed in front of a live audience. The sensibility here impishly provokes and disgusts like John Waters crossed with South Park. No spoilers, but things escalate dramatically after Nathan Lane is introduced. My lady started giggling uncontrollably, and it was contagious where we were both laughing until our faces hurt. With the twist ending, the filmmakers succeeded in offending my sensibilities, and it was like "OK, you got me, I'm uncomfortable." Consider this both a recommendation and a warning, you'll need a twisted sense of humor and even then the level of intentional bad taste is merciless.

Ratboys > Wednesday, despite the many rankings that say otherwise.

One of the more annoying things I've seen over the last few years is elder millennials and up sitting on some older form of social media, talking about TikTok like it's societal cancer and not just another slight evolution of the same shit they've been doing for nearly two decades. Like 40 year old dudes who have spent the last +10 years on Reddit updooting bacon memes mad there's a new updooter.

Sublime With Rome (Without Rome) (Taylor’s Version)

Lol, don’t make a competition deliberately designed to increase chart sales and then moan when they call you out on it.

1 vote per person except sandro who gets ½ vote

And Flying Up The Modern Rock Charts On Its Way To Peaking at a way too low No.28… it’s Nine Inch Nails and “Head Like A Hole”, the moment when angry, screamy industrial music found something of a mass audience. The moment the world discovered that synthesizers could ROCK!!!! And also drum machines have bad days too.

That’s the “Pretty Hate Machine” album anyway. For “Head Like A Hole” Trent smothered the synths with even angrier sounding guitars. I’m pretty sure the drums are still drum machines though, regardless of what the video might make you believe.

It was a sound that would ultimately define a great big chunk of the 90s, particularly the last half. From Garbage to Korn, and everyone in between, a whole generation was standing on the shoulders of this skinny little, sharp nosed giant.

But the sound of “Head Like A Hole” may not be its key influence on how the 90s would turn out. “Head Like A Hole” is the perfect manifestation of what I like to call the “advertising slogans for nihilistic existential dread” school of songwriting. Songs where almost every line would look great on a black t-shirt.

“Bow down before the one you serve, you’re going to get what you deserve.”

“Head like a hole. Black as your soul. I’d rather die. Than give you control.”

Come up with a slogan, catchy and misanthropic enough, then scream it like a chant. Repeatedly. That’s your chorus.

It’s only a small hop, skip and a mosh from that to “despite all my rage, I am still like a rat in a cage.”

The 90s have officially begun.

“Head Like A Hole” is a 9.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ao-Sahfy7Hg

Dashing to the brewery across from my gym to jump on the wi-fi and claim some prime commenting real estate when I see an early SUD drop. Because @Chazpod and I have been wracking our brains and our Excel sheets to make your Listmas bright! What's coming your way? Let's just say it was a big year for rats (stream RAT WARS if you want more rats, and I know you do, you rat freaks!)

UPDATE: Here we go! It's my birthday and I've already had a Red Bull (for the gym) and a beer (at the brewery). Time to unveil YOUR FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2023! Btw this is the TENTH UNOFFICIAL GUMMERS POLL NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH THE GUMMY AWARDS!! LFG!!

50. Strange Ranger – Pure Music (10, 3)

49. Sprain – The Lamb as Effigy (10, 3)

48. Liturgy – 93696 (10, 4)

47. jaimie branch – Fly or Die Fly or Fly or Die (10, 5)

46. Zulu – A New Tomorrow (11, 5)

45. Tomb Mold – The Enduring Spirit (11, 5)

44. yeule – Softscars (12, 5)

43. Sofia Kourtesis – Madres (12, 5)

42. Screaming Females – Desire Pathways (12, 5)

41. Peter Gabriel – i/o (12, 5)

40. Jess Williamson – Time Ain’t Accidental

39. PJ Harvey – I Inside the Old Year Dying (12, 6)

38. Nourished By Time – Erotic Probiotic 2 (12, 6)

37. Slowdive – Everything is Alive (12, 7)

36. The Tubs – Dead Meat (13 4)

35. Janelle Monae – The Age of Pleasure (13, 6)

34. Kelela – Raven (13, 7)

33. Parannoul – After The Magic (14, 6)

32. Youth Lagoon – Heaven is a Junkyard (14, 7)

31. Horrendous – Ontological Mysterium (15, 5)

30. ANOHNI and the Johnsons – My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross (15, 7)

29. Jeff Rosenstock – HELLMODE (15, 8)

28. Olivia Rodrigo – GUTS (15, 10)

27. Model/Actriz – Dogsbody (16, 6)

26. Hotline TNT – Cartwheel (16, 7)

25. Paramore – This Is Why (16, 9)

24. Roisin Murphy – Hit Parade (17, 7)

23. Militarie Gun – Life Under the Gun (17, 7)

22. Geese – 3D Country (19, 6)

21. Panopticon – The Rime of Memory (19, 7)

20. Yo La Tengo – This Stupid World (20, 8)

19. Mandy, Indiana – I’ve Seen A Way (20, 8)

18. Mitski – The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We (20, 9)

17. Fever Ray – Radical Romantics (20, 10)

16. Young Fathers – Heavy Heavy (21, 8)

15. Bully – Lucky For You (21, 11)

14. Lana Del Rey – Did you know there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd (24, 12)

13. 100 gecs – 10,000 gecs (27, 11)

12. MSPAINT – Post-American (28, 10)

11. Home is Where – The Whaler (29, 10)

10. Jessie Ware – That! Feels Good! (29, 11)

09. DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ – Destiny (34, 10)

08. Yves Tumor – … Hot Between Worlds (34, 13)

07. billy woods & Kenny Segal – Maps (37, 18)

06. boygenius – the record (39, 16)

05. JPEGMAFIA x Danny Brown – Scaring the Hoes (49, 18)

04. Wednesday – Rat Saw God (54, 17)

03. Sufjan Stevens – Javelin (56, 22)

02. Caroline Polacheck – Desire, I Want to Turn Into You (62, 21)

01. Ratboys – The Window (75, 27)  

There you have it! A commanding win for Ratboys. As it happens my parents live in the actual Black Earth, WI. It's a place one could choose to live! But do my parents like Ratboys? I sent my mom "Black Earth, WI" when it dropped and she said: "I really like their sound"! Congratulations, Ratboys!

Yes, there are so many more important issues they could be addressing. Would they be addressing those issues if they weren't doing this? probably not.