Much like Buffy the Vampire Slayer before it, I was late getting into Angel. And much like I caught up to Buffy thanks to FX running two episodes a day, I got my daily dose of Angel on TNT going through whole seasons in less than a month before catching up with the new airings on the network. Angel started out as just an extension of Buffy, not really noteworthy in itself the first couple season, but finally came into its own and truly because better with each passing seasons and that is why it is this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame.
Please note this isn’t a post to try to capitalize on the annoying impotent vampire craze that is going on now (in fact it just shamelessly ties into a much bigger post being released this coming Tuesday, so be sure to come back then), because let’s face it; the title character was the least interesting on the show. The show was slow to start when it was just Angel, Cordelia and Doyle. But it finally hit its stride when Angel moved into the abandoned hotel and recruited what would end up being his core group by the end of the second season when Fred join Gunn, Wesley, Lorne in the cast.
And as good as that core group was in the beginning, the show went into overdrive in its fifth and final season. This is when Angel Investigations arch-nemesis Wolfram and Hart decided to give them the keys to their LA office for Angel to run and his buddies to get their own niche in the company. It probably wasn’t a coincidence that the season was the first in which creator Joss Whedon only had one show on the year and just came of a season that saw Buffy end and Firefly prematurely canceled.
The last season also saw the inclusion of comic relief courtesy of Harmony, a former classmate of Cordelia turned vampire as Angel’s receptionist at Wolfram and Hart. Not that the show needed more comic relief because even though Angel was routinely considered darker than Buffy, Buffy never had an episode as whimsical as when Angel got tuned into a puppet. And as tentative as I was as first as Spike joining the cast, it ending up a good thing if only for the astronaut vs. caveman debate. Not the mention the final season also saw a post-Firefly, pre-Chuck Adam Baldwin as the liaison to the Senior Partners.
But of course just when the show turned on its after burns in terms of creativity, the show got canceled. Yet somehow, the series finale with the gang opening up the gates of hell as repercussions of assassinate the Circle of the Black Crown was a satisfying ending in its ambiguity, and frustrating at the same time.
Twenty years ago this month saw the release of one of the truly classic movies in cinematic history. No I am not refereeing to Batman, Ghostbusters II, Lethal Weapon 2 or even Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, all of which landed in the top ten grossing movies of that year. I am talking about a movie that may not have even cracked the top one hundred that year, but still manages to be inducted into the Scooter Hall of Fame: UHF starting and written by “Weird Al” Yankovic.
For a decade, Al had been putting smiles on our faces with his witty parodies of songs, so UHF seemed like a natural progression for Al to lampoon movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark (The Last Crusade was the highest grossing film of 1989), television like The Beverly Hillbillies and even commercials like Spatula City. Sadly the film did so poorly; the movie remains the only one he has ever written.
UHF is also noteworthy as it featured a relatively unknown actor named Michael Richards who would later that year get cast as Cosmo Kramer in Seinfeld. No word if Jerry saw UHF and decided to add the simple minded janitor turned children show host to his cast, but I will just go on living my life thinking so.
Naturally being a “Weird Al” vehicle, there was an accompanying album which featured the previously mentioned Beverly Hillbillies which was put to the tune of Money for Nothing by Dire Straits. Tone Loc got his own television twist with the Gilligan’s Island themed Isle Thing. There were even some of the ads from the movies that made it into the soundtrack like the trailer for the action flick Gandhi II. There was also the token food song with R.E.M.’s Stand being converted to Spam and the prerequisite polka set to Rolling Stone tunes.
Tomorrow sees the release of the first Dave Matthews Band album in four years and Hulu is celebrating by bringing you a streaming concert starting at 8:00 tonight. I am on the other hand is celebrating by induction another one of their albums into the Scooter Hall of Fame, their third time in. This time around the album at the height of their popularity, Crash, gets the honor.
Most of that popularity culls from the smash single Crash into Me which has disturbing been the soundtrack first dance at a few weddings I have attended of my peers. Of course most of the public mistook the ode to a stalker as some sort of love letter. That is not to say there isn’t any truly romantic songs on Crash as the twelve plus minutes where #41 bleeds into Say Goodbye should help anyone get into the mood and even provides you with a good suggestion starter in, “tomorrow, let’s go back to being friends.”
#41 not only is the romantic high on the album, it is the musical high where each five members are given equal moments to shine on the track. The bridge between the two songs even shows that not only is LeRoi Moore is proficient on all four types of saxophones, but he can even bring out a flute when needed.
Crash showed that they could appeal equally to the pop crowd as well as those drawn into the jam band quality. Aside from Crash into Me, So Much to Say and Too Much were quicker and more accessible to the masses than most on the major label debut. On the other hand, songs Two Step and Lie in Our Graves were sprawling epics that even become grander at their live shows usually going well over ten minutes. The disk also featured crowd favorite Tripping Billies that dated back to their independent releases.
If it is 9:00 or later on the east coast, you can watch the previously mentioned Dave Matthews Band concert below.
When most people think of piano players they think of the Piano Man at the local lounge, but Folds isn’t one to stay seated and instead takes the Jerry Lee Lewis root to the instrument and goes even further sometimes making The Killer seem like Alicia Keys in comparison. Just take a listen to first track to hear that with the fuzzed out and frantic One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces. But Ben saves his angriest tirade for an-ex girlfriend A Song for the Dumped which remains to this days the greatest Kiss Off song ever in the history of music.
Even when Folds isn’t raging against anyone, there is a melody to these songs without getting to smaltzy (except for Brick, but the heavy handed topic adds much weight to the song). The band goes down to New Orleans for the jazzy Steven’s Last Night in Town which sounds like it was recorded in the French Quarter. And after hearing the song, I kind of want to be Kate also. One downside to the demise of the Five is his solo work lacks the detailed harmonies that can on songs like Fair or The Battle of Who Cares Less.
With all the basketball I watched last month got me thinking of the greatest basketball game of all time (and really the only one I’ve ever liked) NBA Jam, this month’s inductee into the Scooter Hall of Fame. I have owned three different copies in my life, for the Super Nintendo, and both Playsyation’s. Hopefully when I finally upgrade to a next generation console, there will be a new version of the game waiting for me (sadly there isn’t one yet).
What makes NBA Jam great, and sets it apart from other basketball titles, is that it is a simple two on two arcade style game that isn’t bound to the five on five rules that just don’t translate well to console games. And since it isn’t bound to any rules there are plenty of fun modes like if one of your player hit three straight shot he is “on fire.” And I mean that quite literally as he is engulfed in flames and his shots burn the nets off the rims and allows that player to score from pretty much anywhere on the court, from half court to the stands to even from behind the basket.
Oddly enough the most unstoppable player in the game was Gheorghe Mureşan of the Washington Bullets and if you went with Big Head Mureşan, your opponent would just quit knowing there was no way to beat them unless they broke out Big Head Shawn Bradley. Even then your chances were not good. In my dorm in college, there was a big screen television in our lobby and we would always talk about the elusive four way Big Head Mureşan on the big screen but sadly we never hooked up the Playstation to it for fear that the TV couldn’t handle all that Mureşan. Maybe when I upgrade to the HDTV, we can hold a reunion and finally hold our four way Big Head Mureşan game.
It is sometimes weird how a premature death alters history. In the late seventies The Beatles were just that band Paul McCartney was in before Wings then they became the biggest band ever with the murder of John Lennon, who himself went from the third most successful artist to its first. Yet had it been Brian Wilson who was gunned down we very may have considered The Beach Boys the most influential band of all time.
In my lifetime it is weird to see the hero worship around Kurt Cobain (how does he crack the top fifty in Rolling Stone's Greatest Singers of All Time?) when Pearl Jam completely overshadowed them in the early nineties. I was one of the million people that bought Vs. the week it came out (which I can prove as it lacks a name on the cover which the first shipment didn’t have) while Nirvana’s sophomore album was pretty much a flop. Then Cobain puts a shotgun in his mouth and he is a voice of a generation.
But it was Pearl Jam that was making the better music and later this month see the reissue of Ten on two CD’s (the original version on one and each song remixed by Brendon O’Brian on the second with bonus tracks) and a DVD (featuring the band’s Unplugged performance). And the album is this month’s Scooter Hall of Fame inductee.
The album starts off with a jolt in the arm, Once featuring Eddie Vedder’s controlled growl that is part scream but never loses its melody. The song even reduces into almost a jam band kind of groove before getting back to rocking. Maybe it was the moody teenager in me, but I cannot count the times I would let loose with the chorus of the second track letting anyone know, “Whoa, I’m still alive.”
The song that got the most play time thanks to an over abuse of the repeat button was Black, a heavy handed song that was a great soundtrack for almost any event for a teenager in the early nineties. But the true stars of Ten were the duel guitars of Stone Gossard and Mike McCready who really shined in that Unplugged setting highlighted by Porch. Yeah the camera focused on Vedder scribbling on his arms, but it is the solo in the song, with help from Jeff Ament, that got full attention from my ear and may be the worth double downing on the reissue when it comes out.
Last year during the run up to the Super Bowl it was laughable at all the Best Team Ever discussion with the New England Patriots (especially in hind sight considering they couldn’t even with the biggest game of the season). For my money, had they played an a neutral field and all things considered even (no cheating from Bill Belichicken, no HGH), the 1985 Chicago Bears would beat the 2007 Patriots by at least two touchdowns. This is why the 1985 Bears are the first ever sports team inducted into the Scooter Hall of Fame.
Just to remind you how dominate the Bears were, they started the playoffs with two straight shutouts before giving up 10 points in the Super Bowl for a combined 91-10 score for that playoffs. In comparison, the 2007 Patriots out scored their playoff opponents by just 66-49. And of course they lost the final game too.
And the Bears were just as entertaining off the field as they were on thanks to their punky QB and their massive rookie, Jim McMahon and William “the Refrigerator” Perry who also participated in the most memorial part of the game when The Fridge, at 400 pounds, scored a rushing touchdown. Both of which took part in the Super Bowl Shuffle (fun fact: the song was nominated for a Grammy), which didn’t turn out to be much of a distraction as they then went out and won by five touchdowns.
As someone who grew up with a heavy dose of Beavis and Butt-Head, I was a little weary of Mike Judge making a live action film. Granted Office Space was actually based on an animated short that was featured during Liquid Television but ended up turning into a first ballot Scooter Hall of Fame inductee.
Even though at the point I first seen the movie I had only worked part time in an office, I could see how brilliantly it portray the life sucking ability sitting in a cubicle for eight hours a day for extended periods of time where you only have mimesweeper to keep you sane (of course this was before the proliferation of the internet and time suckers like Facebook). But nothing stung worse than the passive aggressive bosses like Lumburgh or having six bosses who all point when you make a mistake.
And nothing cut too close more than Michael “why should I change my name, he’s the one that sucks” Bolton whose scenes I have lived out in my personal life multiple times like turning down my gangsta rap, which made up most of the soundtrack in the movie and my formative years, in the car whenever near an actual black dude. Also my freshman year in college I had a very old school printer, the kind that had the paper with the scrolls on both sides to feed into the printer. To keep the story short, finals week it wouldn’t print something and later turned into pieces similar to the scene in the movie.
The cast is pitch perfect from the dry humor of Ron Livingston (Band of Brothers), the previously mentioned Gary Cole (The Brady Bunch Movie) to the bumbling Stephan Root (Idiocracy) and even the smaller roles such as the guy that brought an “O Face” into the lexicon. Thank and many other lines from Office Space has had permanent place in my own personal lexicon over the past decade since it has been released.
There are countless number of A Christmas Carol remakes and reinvasionings, from The Muppets to Tori Spelling have all put their twist on the classic Charles Dickens tale. But for my money, the best of them is Bill Murray’s (Caddyshack) turn of a penny pinching miser in Scrooged. The tale takes into the corporate world with Murray playing a television executive also trying to make A Christmas Carol more modern.
The updated ghosts make the movie with The Ghost of Christmas Past played by Buster Poindexter (Hot Hot Hot) as a cabbie while Carol King (The Princess Bride) turns the Ghost of Christmas Present into a pixie who isn’t afraid to resort to physical violence to get her point across. But the most memorable character was a new one, a shotgun toting disgruntled fired Bobcat Goldthwait (Police Academy 2) bent on revenge.
The movie also featured one of my favorite holiday songs; Put a Little Love in Your Heart by Al Green and Annie Lennox, a song so good it is worth playing all year round. Christmas just doesn’t seem like Christmas when I don’t happen across this movie during the holiday making it this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame.
Last month Sarah McLachlan released a Greatest Hits album, but for me, it may be best just to pick up Surfacing and cherry pick a song or two like Possession off iTunes. The album was the pinnacle of her career that also coincided with the launch of the Lilith Fair and will also live on through history thanks to The Starr Report where it mentioned a note Monica Lewinski wrote to Bill Clinton mentioning one of the songs, Do What You Got to Do. I’m sure Sarah is proud of that accomplishment, although the song is conspicuously absent from the Greatest Hits package.
And why wouldn’t a chick have Surfacing on hand for any occasion during the late nineties. Surfacing was just one of those albums that just washes over you and somehow works for different occasions, relaxing, just hanging out, or hanging out with the special someone. And no one best encapsulates that then the simple piano ode of Angel, a heartbreaking song about loss but at the same time is very comforting. To a lesser extent, Adia also has that feel to it, albeit a little more upbeat.
The highlight of the album though starts off the album with Building a Mystery, a brilliantly crafted song there was nothing like it before or since. And I have absolutely no clue what the song or any of the lyrics actually mean (although I have been known to wear sandals in the snow), but I just love how Sarah delivers the line “You give us a tantrum.” But on the song and the rest of Surfacing, McLachlan’s voice somehow haunts and sooths at the same time making her one of the most uniquely beautiful voices in music history and is why the album is this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame.
Say will you want about the alien that currently is Michael Jackson and his inching closer to a confrontation with Chris Hansen, but the music still stand up and October shows exactly why because even with the circus surrounding Jackson, twenty-five years after the release of Thriller, you will still hear the title track at every Halloween party this season and lands itself into the Scooter Hall of Fame.
The reach could also be seen when iTunes first started selling videos on its service and Thriller remained a mainstay at the top of its chart for months and will most like make a return to as the holiday approaches. And the epic song surly produced an epic video which was an event when it premiere. Lasting thirteen minutes, Jackson reinvented the music video into mini movies with plots and stories and massive budgets. And don’t tell me the song comes on you don’t feel an urge to do the zombie dance.
Just when you think Thriller, the song or video, couldn’t get any more menacing, along comes Vincent Price in what could be considered the very first rap cameo in a pop song. To this day in the right context, Price’s words can send shivers up my spine. See for yourself:
Kids today may not remember, unless they saw Hal Sparks wax poetic about them on I Love the 90's, but in the middle of that decade, there were few bigger bands on the planet than Oasis. Please remember they were so huge that an argument of the brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher even charted on Billboard. (What’s the Story) Morning Glory managed to the pinnacle of their career (which why it is this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame) and the point where the band started their went in a tailspin.
But lets start with te good, and the good is really good as Wonderwall is easily one of the top twenty-five songs of all time. It is one of those songs that no matter who sings it or how it is preformed it will still be a great song. Where Wonderwall is a sit you’re your room alone in your room with just an acoustic guitar, Don’t Look Back in Anger is a sing a long be it in a stadium or along with the jukebox at your local bar. And on songs like the title track and the opener Hello, Oasis show they could still continue their rock swagger like on their debut album.
For a band that wears their influences on their sleeves (then completely tear them down) Champaign Supernova seems like a blatant attempt at The Beatles psychedelic era and even starts with the two untitled tracks on the album that just enhances the bloated album closer. That is not to say the song in all its overwrought glory isn’t great in its own right but its success let to more over reaching songs like the first single off the next album, D’You Know What I Mean just went too far and led to the downfall. But Oasis has show flashes of brilliants over the decade since Morning Glory which hint that the band could mount a comeback at any time.
Anyone under twenty-five may not know this, and those older may have forgotten, but Chevy Chase was once the funniest man on the planet. Look at his lineup of films from 1985: National Lampoon's European Vacation, Spies Like Us, and this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame, Fletch. That is a murder’s row of comedy if there ever was one.
The best of the three was Fletch where Chevy played Irwin M. Fletcher, a newspaper reporter who is either the dumbest smart guy ever or the smartest dumb guy ever. And it is Chase’s brilliance that he was able to walk that line like no one else could (and I am specifically talking to you Zach Braff and Joshua Jackson). While working undercover on a story about drugs being sold on the beach, which included one Norm Peterson, gets propositioned by Tim Matheson (Animal House), who is dieing of cancer, to kill him.
Naturally there is more to the story that includes some corrupt cops which includes one Uncle Phil. Also along for the ride is Geena Davis as Chevy’s buddy at the paper and the token hot chick just happen to play the mother to another token hot chick in her own right, one Miss Tyra Collette.
The legacy of the film is the absurdity of the dialogue as Fletch didn’t meet a wisecrack or horrible alias that he didn’t like. And whenever he got caught in a lie he would keep digging and digging until the other person would just give up trying to catch him in that lie.
Back in college there was plenty of Madden and pretty much all the sports games from EA, to the point I even entered into a tournament with a dorm mate on who could win the most of the EA games. Unfortunately we never finished because the other guy quite after I went up something like 5-2. But anyways. Even in the middle of all that superior Playstation days, we still had time to play Super Mario Kart.
For the most part we would play match race and tempers flared up just as they would in anything else with controllers being thrown as well as the occasional fist. Easily the most memorable game involved with the quitter mentioned above and may even rank high in most memorable college moments. While we were engaged in yet another marathon session (usually we play best of 10 or more since battle modes do not take that long) and a buddy of ours came in and told him to a sip of something in a cap which he did. The friend mentioned as the other guy bolted out of the room, down to the drinking fountain where he spent a good five minutes that it was moonshine. Needless to say I won that round.
My sister recently mentioned that she was going to buy herself a Wii. Please don’t spoil her, but she will be getting Mario Kart Wii for Christmas and I may be spending more time out her place when it happens. Someone else will have to bring the moonshine. But all in all, the one that started it all is this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame.
Like many dudes my age, my childhood toy box was filled with plenty of Transformers and Hot Wheels. But the favorite for me were the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame. Sure it is easy to look back now and without a shadow of a doubt that He-Man was a juicer, only Barry Bonds had a bigger transition than He-Man did when he transformed from Prince Adam, but the memories are still there.
That is mostly because Big Head He-Man really never ranked in my top five favorites in the series. Easily my favorite of the Masters of the Universe wasn’t even technically a Master as it was one of Skeletor’s minions, Kobra Khan. That was a must annoy the parents until they cave and buy it situation when he came out if only because he could spray water out of his mouth. I am sure I cried for weeks when one of my uncles broke the neck, making the spray function useless.
The toys have had an auspicious track record outside the action figure line and cartoons. The movie version, starring Courtney Cox, could be the worst film adaptation with only Super Mario Bros. able to jump in that argument. . Maybe not so ironically both fantasy movies had plotlines where the protagonists came to Earth. But anyways. Sadly it looks like they are going to try a new live action version in the new future. And the toys really only live on today in jokes about certain starlets of today and their resemblance to Skeletor.
Then a recent reboot of the franchise back in 2002 with a reinstruction of the action figure and a Cartoon Network show, the first volume of which my sister and all her infinite wisdom though I would enjoy and gave it to me as a gift. And darn if nostalgia made me give it a look. The new show is very reminiscent of the cartoon of my youth right down to the cheesy, in a good way, moral epilogues. although He-Man is a little more ambiguously gay this time around. Volume two was recently released with the third and final one later this year, which may just have to be added to my Christmas list.
No band better sums up the late nineties better for me than the Dave Matthews Band to the point that I wrote a thesis paper that there was no higher concentration of hot chick in a given place than the Dave Matthews Band concert. I did theorize that the Playboy mansion may have been the only place with a higher concentration but unfortunately I still have yet tested out that hypnosis. Hot chicks aside, it was mostly about the music and that is why the band is the first to have multiple inductions into the Scooter Hall of Fame.
Where Under the Table and Dreaming had better collection songs, Before These Crowded Streets was a better complete album. Before These Crowded Streets also saw the band goes in a darker direction. Dave had always written some dark lyrics, but this album is when the band’s music when in darker directions. It is appropriate then that they dusted off Halloween from the Recently EP to include on the album as it still remains their darkest song with Dave just going off the deep end at the conclusion shouting “burial” and “Love Is Hell” over and over again. (I think, Dave seemed to want to keep the song ambiguous as the song’s lyrics are the only ones missing from the insert and the lyrics seem to change every time they play it live.)
Halloween then transitions into my personal favorite track off the album, The Stone. From the haunting intro that then goes into Boyd Tinsey’s frantic violin and then changes once again when the chorus hit, it moves into a sweet ode, that goes back the frantic beginning seamlessly when they get to the next verse. And as great as the song is on the album, you really haven’t truly heard the song until you have experienced live (check out Listener Supported if you are unable to see the band or if they end up not playing the song on your stop as they tend to end with an off-putting wall of strings that just come to a complete halt that isn’t found on the album).
You could tell early on that the band was going dark thanks to the headless Dave featured video for Don’t Drink the Water. The song is a sarcastic look through the eyes of early settlers as they displace Indians from their land which really hits its stride at the end when Alanis Morissette, who also shows up on Spoon with some more backing vocals, joins the band with a creepy harmony to Dave’s bridge.
That’s not to say Before These Crowded Streets is all doom and gloom. The album actually starts off with the sweet bouncing ode Rapunzel (well after Pantala Naga Pampa sets the mood nicely). The there is the perfect summertime song Stay (Wasting Time) that is a prerequisite for any block or pool party even a decade later. What also makes the album unique is that there is a half dozen or so thirty second jams throughout the album that just brings everything together which I wish the band would have continued to do for the rest of their albums.
At the turn of every decade it seems like radio dumps anything associated with the previous one looking for something new to define the next one. Then the band has to sit out ten years and hope to join the greatest hits circuit when nostalgia starts to set in. Sadly Better Than Ezra got lost in the shuffle even though they continue to put out solid album after solid album. Their best of which is this month’s selection for the Scooter Hall of Fame.
The band made a name for themselves thanks to the Adam Sandler assisted Good, but the group perfected their sound on their second album, Friction, Baby. The album starts off with the bombast rock of King of New Orleans. But the hit was Desperately Wanting, the greatest rock song ever about complications from a pregnancy.
(Scooter’s Note: I wrote this a while ago and planned a couple more paragraphs but haven’t the time. I may come back and finish it later.)
There are many things that make March the greatest month of the year, St. Patrick’s Day, March Madness, the beginning of spring, the occasional Mardi Gras or Easter. But there is no greater March ritual than McDonald’s Shamrock Shakes, the minty goodness that the restaurant chain rolls out each year to celebrate the Irish’s special day and this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame. Unfortunately it seems I am not the only person enamored by the drink because it seems whenever I drive by my local establishment they say they are already out which leads me on a pilgrimage to all the McDonald’s in a twenty-five mile radius.
Hopefully you all are familiar with Shamrock Shakes because I’m not entirely sure if the whole nation gets the specialty shake this time of year as I was in San Diego a couple years ago in early March when I asked person at the counter in the airport if they had any Shamrock Shakes and he gave me this look as if I was speaking another language (okay, maybe that isn’t an unusual reaction I get from strangers). So for those unfamiliar with them and to show that I am, indeed, not insane, here is a commercial. God bless YouTube.
There is no more annoying holiday than Valentine’s Day. If you are coupled up, you have to fret with what you have to give them and if not you care constantly reminded foe a week how lonely you are. Whenever I fell in the latter category I would have a Valentines routine of playing Love Stinksby the J. Geils Band on a loop capped off with a showing of Swingers. Not so coincidentally Swingers is this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame.
Swinger completely sums up dudes in their twenties. Where most movies that try this end up being drug and sex romps with wild parties and unrealistic plot lines, Swingers hits every subtle nuance of the time. It is hard for any guy to watch the golf scene and think, “yeah, that’s exactly how I add up my strokes.” And the movie was the first film I remember that show guys sitting around playing video games that end up in blood both on and off the television.
The film is at its best when the guys are sitting around arguing about the most absurd things like how long you should wait to call a girl after getting her number (Industry Standard became an integral part of my vocabulary after the film). And they even nail the heartbreak of the end a long relationship and the buddies helping him get back on the horse again. Even the new dictions and the addiction to swing they invent for the film eventually doesn’t stand out while watching. Speaking of swing, I think this may be the last time a movie effectively shift pop music after its release, albeit for a short time.
Swinger also launched the careers of Jon Favreau, who also wrote the film, and Ron Livingston (Office Space). But the film really belonged to Vince Vaughn who, after trying to transition into a serious actor with range (seriously, the Psycho remake?) has finally embraced Trent and now only plays slight variations of him. C’mon, like you weren’t watching Wedding Crashers and thinking that was Trent a decade later. But the most astounding break out star of the film was Heather Graham who actual landed quality roles for a year after Swingers before people realized she couldn’t act.
Sometimes it is odd to see an artist destined for greatness just fall completely off the Earth. Lauryn Hill ruled the world with a streak from 1996 to 1998 from singing hook for Nas to The Score, the breakout Fugees album, to her one smash debut album. But ever since the landmark album, Hill sightings have been almost akin to far and few in-between from her Unplugged 2.0 album to a duet with Method Man to the disastrous Fugees reunion to a song on the penguin surfing movie Surf's Up of all things. The closest she has come to getting back into popular culture was when Kanye West used an interpolation from her song Mystery of Iniquity for his song All Falls Down (to which she refused permission for the sample leading to Syleena Johnson to sing the hook).
But being a two time one-album wonder with her group and on her own is a novelty in itself. Not that The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is a novelty in terms of the music making it this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame. Many artist before and Hill and after have tried to combine the hip-hop beats with R&B songs but no one has come close to doing it as good as Hill. This is best exemplified on Doo Wop (That Thing) where she brings the horns and piano heavy sound from the Stax era and harmonizes with herself with the raps going to town and guys and girls with alternative motives when it come to the other sex. This is only heightened by the brilliant seamless spit screen video.
The album starts off with Lauryn calling out someone on Lost One (Wyclef maybe, “I was on the humble, you was on every station”) with a hip-hop meets reggae vibe. She flips it on Everything Is Everything with the same bounce using an orchestra to fulfill a beat which also featured a then unknown John Legend on the piano. Ex-Factor is a heart wrenching balled that put her up their as one of the best vocalist of the era. And it is when Lauryn slows it down and goes into full R&B mode where she truly shines also her on the D’Angelo duet Nothing Even Matters as well as the Carlos Santana assisted tribute to her son, To Zion.
It is also a sign of a great album when the hidden tracks are better than most artists’ singles. Lauryn take on the old Frankie Valli hit, Can’t Take My Eyes off You from the otherwise forgettable movie Conspiracy Theory may be the best take on the song. Then there is Tell Him should be in the running as most romantic song of the nineties and should be required for any baby-making mix tape for a long time coming. Who know if we will ever get another record from Lauryn Hill, it look even less likely with Wyclef recently blaming the Fugee failed reunion on her calling her bipolar and begging her mother to get her mental help, but at least she had her act together to draw out her Miseducation.
before it, I was late getting into Angel. And much like I caught up to Buffy thanks to FX running two episodes a day, I got my daily dose of Angel on TNT going through whole seasons in less than a month before catching up with the new airings on the network. Angel started out as just an extension of Buffy, not really noteworthy in itself the first couple season, but finally came into its own and truly because better with each passing seasons and that is why it is this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame.
prematurely canceled.
, 
, 
or even 
, all of which landed in the top ten grossing movies of that year. I am talking about a movie that may not have even cracked the top one hundred that year, but still manages to be inducted into the 
(The Last Crusade was the highest grossing film of 1989), television like The Beverly Hillbillies and even commercials like Spatula City. Sadly the film did so poorly; the movie remains the only one he has ever written.
. No word if Jerry saw UHF and decided to add the simple minded janitor turned children show host to his cast, but I will just go on living my life thinking so.
, I was a little weary of Mike Judge making a live action film. Granted Office Space was actually based on an animated short that was featured during Liquid Television but ended up turning into a first ballot 
), the previously mentioned Gary Cole (
) to the bumbling Stephan Root (
) and even the smaller roles such as the guy that brought an “O Face” into the lexicon. Thank and many other lines from Office Space has had permanent place in my own personal lexicon over the past decade since it has been released. 
remakes and reinvasionings, from The Muppets to Tori Spelling have all put their twist on the classic Charles Dickens tale. But for my money, the best of them is Bill Murray’s (
) turn of a penny pinching miser in Scrooged. The tale takes into the corporate world with Murray playing a television executive also trying to make A Christmas Carol more modern.
) turns the Ghost of Christmas Present into a pixie who isn’t afraid to resort to physical violence to get her point across. But the most memorable character was a new one, a shotgun toting disgruntled fired Bobcat Goldthwait (
) bent on revenge.
, 
, and this month’s induction into the 
, gets propositioned by Tim Matheson (
), who is dieing of cancer, to kill him.
. Also along for the ride is Geena Davis as Chevy’s buddy at the paper and the token hot chick just happen to play the mother to another token hot chick in her own right, one Miss 
.
for Christmas and I may be spending more time out her place when it happens. Someone else will have to bring the moonshine. But all in all, the one that started it all is this month’s induction into the 
, could be the worst film adaptation with only 
able to jump in that argument. . Maybe not so ironically both fantasy movies had plotlines where the protagonists came to Earth. But anyways. Sadly it looks like they are going to try a new live action version in the new future. And the toys really only live on today in jokes about certain starlets of today and their resemblance to Skeletor.
). But the film really belonged to Vince Vaughn who, after trying to transition into a serious actor with range (seriously, the 
and thinking that was Trent a decade later. But the most astounding break out star of the film was Heather Graham who actual landed quality roles for a year after Swingers before people realized she couldn’t act.
of all things. The closest she has come to getting back into popular culture was when Kanye West used an interpolation from her song Mystery of Iniquity for his song 
may be the best take on the song. Then there is Tell Him should be in the running as most romantic song of the nineties and should be required for any baby-making mix tape for a long time coming. Who know if we will ever get another record from Lauryn Hill, it look even less likely with Wyclef recently blaming the Fugee failed reunion on her calling her bipolar and begging her mother to get her mental help, but at least she had her act together to draw out her Miseducation.