Fun Size

I didn't expect this to be a great movie. I figured it was just a fun chance to throw Victoria Justice some support and see her on the big screen, unfortunately it may be our only chance. To my gleeful surprise, it was a really good movie. It was less a kids movie than it was a zany teen comedy, full of naughty jokes and snarky humor, much more mature than I was expecting and I loved it for that.

Fun Size isn't a groundbreaking classic like Mean Girls or The Breakfast Club. But it is a solid, very funny and very watchable film, with an exciting story and some decent drama to boot. I enjoyed the Halloween setting (although they could have milked it more), and I love how almost every character's individual story sort of criss-crossed at the party. In that aspect it almost felt like a teen comedy version of Trick 'r Treat.

The fact that one of the main characters has two moms (i.e. gaaaaaay) who are featured prominently is reason enough alone for me to like this film. The fact that one of the boys raises his hand when the hot popular guy asks who wants to kiss him was icing on the cake.

This story was full of "adult children" so it was perfect for me. It almost seemed like there might be a deeper theme here, about growing up, although I couldn't really find an appropriate angle to equate Vic's crazy teenage adventure with the coming of age story all the adult characters went through (other than maybe her realization about what constitutes real romance). The mom's obsession with staying young was just depressing, but the convenience store clerk who had no friends was awesome. When he finds out that the hip girls at the party had been hanging out with Albert too, he delivers one of the films best lines: "See, it's not like I hang out with lame eight-year-olds!"

Victoria was, of course, very good. It was also a nice surprise to see Jane Levy (of ABC's Suburgatory) with such a key role. While Suburgatory isn't as good as MTV's Awkward, it's about as good as the 'network' sitcoms can get these days, and Levy's charisma is the show's best asset. She plays an obliteratingly different character in Fun Size, and thus gets a chance to prove her chops.

I had heard nothing but bad things about Fun Size. But I think the negative reception results from a cocktail of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with the actual film. Firstly, the film was promoted wrongly. It was billed as a kids film when the humor of the film is about 90% adult. Unambiguously raunchy jokes, deadpan sarcasm, self-deprecation and even a little politics makes up the majority of the film's jokes. This movie is more akin to Dude Where's My Car or Super Bad than it is to Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer. But there's also that 1/10th that consists of fart jokes and physical gags. And that's the second reason Fun Size had the cards stacked against it, the filmmakers don't seem quite sure whether they want this film to be Super Bad or Judy Moody. It could have been a great film by skewing in either direction, more family-friendly or as a "hard" PG-13. But instead they tow the middle line and as such the film has had a very hard time finding the right audience.

The final reason, live action children's movies are rarely ever given the fanfare they rightly deserve, while equally generic animated films get 100% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and are called universal, ageless, brilliant... I suspect the culprit here is that adults intuitively connect childhood with fantasy, so personified inanimate objects and pixelized characters effortlessly hit home, while anything depicting a flesh-and-blood vision of youth is seen as inherently juvenile. It's ironic, because animation's target audience skews younger, which means that live action kids films are often allowed to delve into deeper issues than their animated counterparts. Mind you, there are animated kids films which are indeed staggeringly brilliant. But there are, too, live action kids films which are equally brilliant, and half as praised. Fun Size is *not* one of those films, it's not brilliant, it's merely good. But suffice to say that if this were an animated film I assure you it would garner better critical reviews from the adults upstairs.

A Sad Day for Television: Victorious Cancelled

The good news? Victorious has 15 new episodes that have (apparently) been filmed recently. The bad news? Nickelodeon has given the axe to its best show. But not only its best current show, possibly its best sitcom ever, with iCarly being the only even remotely plausible competition.

This news came as an unprecedented surprise to all of us. With iCarly already being sent to the chopping block, could Nick truly be so brash as to kill off it's only other dependable sitcom at the same time? They're really going to throw the reigns to their mid-level B shows and brand new, yet-to-be-filmed pilots, and just cross their fingers that they'll flourish? When the network is already in such deep financial woes? 

Frankly, I'm devastated. Nick hasn't hurt me like this in.... well, probably never. When iCarly was cancelled, it was very sad, it was the end of an era, but it wasn't a massive loss. iCarly had already defied all comprehensible conventions, smashing Dan's previous sitcom record. It was time for the show to end, all of us in the iCarly fandom were expecting it to end two seasons earlier. But... Victorious? Victorious is young. Victorious has so much ahead of it, so much left to explore, so many untapped ideas. Or.... it did. But it's being cut down in its prime, long before we even have the luxury of watching it decline. Dan Schneider's best work isn't even being given the dignity of a fourth season. It's not just being cancelled, it's being cancelled earlier than previous Schneider shows that weren't 1/10th as good, like Drake & Josh and Zoey 101.

With both Victorious and iCarly finished filming forever.... Nickelodeon's golden age seems to be at a decisive end, save for The Legend of Korra. Can Nick resurrect itself from the brink of destruction? Only time will tell. But whatever Nick hopes to accomplish, they will have to fight their way uphill through the incompetent business decisions that have plagued the network for two years.

An event like this demands a more detailed analysis than this blog entry provides. What will become of the Victorious stars? What will this mean for the network's prospects in the short term? I haven't even mentioned the spin-off. But I'm short on time, on edge, and above all, at a loss for words. I was planning on writing a post about Disney Channel this evening, but then this news came up and torpedoed my intentions. What a sucky way to start a weekend.

The Epidemic of Teen Sitcoms About Pop Singers

In the not at all distant past, teen sitcoms were mostly about regular schmucks, from Clarissa Explains It All and Even Stevens to Unfabulous and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. You also had your share of relatively unique (often Sci-Fi) premises, like Phil of the Future or The Secret World of Alex Mack.

Teen idols making waves as temporary pop music stars was nothing new. But a few programs came around that changed the relationship between their music and their television fame. You can trace the concept back to earlier instances, such as Drake Bell's guitar-slinging persona in Drake & Josh. But the concept truly became formidable in 2006.

The TV film High School Musical became unfathomably successful upon its release in January of 2006. Shortly thereafter Hannah Montana premiered and took over the world, centering on a fictional pop singer posing as a regular kid. Next, a previously made mockumentary-style independent film was turned into a TV series by Nickelodeon, called the Naked Brothers Band. High School Musical proved beyond dispute that music from a kids-oriented program could garner A-list sales, while Hannah and the NBB showed how seamlessly the TV show and the pop music by the show's star could be integrated. It was a match made in synergy heaven, with the show and the music career effortlessly promoting each other to stunning new sales heights.

Somewhere around the time that the same concept stormed network TV in the form of likewise-ultra-successful Glee, the TV world began bubbling over with the same old idea from Hannah Montana & Victorious. It's just now reached a fever pitch where practically every sitcom on Nick and Disney follows this formula.

Current or recent shows based entirely around the premise of an aspiring young singer or singers, with ties to commercially released music:

Hannah Montana
The Naked Brothers Band
Jonas L.A.
Big Time Rush
Victorious
How to Rock
A.N.T. Farm
Austin & Ally


Current shows that have included a subplot about one of the characters attempting to become a professional musician or that have included a character singing an original song (in at least one episode):

iCarly
Good Luck Charlie
Shake It Up
Jessie
Bucket & Skinner's Epic Adventures


Together that comprises every single notable sitcom currently airing new episodes on Nick and Disney (granted, I don't consider Nick's B-List sitcoms notable, they are: Supah Ninjas and Fred: The Show).

Technically, is a bunch of shows about aspiring singers less original than a bunch of shows about regular kids? Not necessarily. But the 'regular kid' premise has a sort of universal appeal. Even as a diehard, rabid, foaming at the mouth lover of pop music, having every show be about singing is starting to drive me up the wall. And I say that even as a likewise rabid fan of the current stock of teen sitcoms!

I don't need to tell you that I consider iCarly and Victorious the greatest ever entries in the teen sitcom genre, nor that I watch and adore nearly all of Disney Channel's current live action programing. If you read this blog, you know this. But with the recent premieres of Austin & Ally, and How To Rock, I just can't handle this identical premise any longer. Throw us fans a bone and give us another show about regular kids, or super-powered kids, or fueding siblings ...or lobsters on the moon, I don't care as long as nobody sings any songs. Jennette McCurdy has her own show soon to be made. Jen happens to be one of the most technically proficient singers on Nick or Disney. But if you bastards stick her in the 15th Hannah Montana remake, I will fucking cut you.

The Case For Cam & Jori

I never even knew what shipping was before I got into the iCarly fandom. But Carly and Sam balanced each other's personalities out so perfectly, I had to ship them, once I found out I was supposed to choose sides. Then in Victorious came Jori, the spitfire couple with the classic antagonist chemistry and overflowing romantic tension. It's such a great pair that they've become the #1 most popular ship in Victorious. Plus, since I can be a bit of a misandrist and a heterophobe at times, I tend to ship almost exclusively gay and lesbian couples...

But of couse, we all know those will never happen on a kid's network like Nickelodeon. That's what we all say. And we're probably dead right. But to everyone who says that it specifically can't happen on Nickelodeon, I would contest that. It's a long shot, it's unlikely, it'll probably never happen and nobody in their right mind denies that. But it's not strictly unthinkable, and it's not beyond the realm of possibility, no matter how slim the astronomically small chance is.

The Dynamics of Television Evolution

After my recent trip down memory lane with Ren & Stimpy, I'm particularly well aware of the way TV boundaries evolve over time. As a matter of fact, TV boundaries have been habitually pushed back for a while now. The examples are numerous. Today words like "bitch" and "shit" are a-okay to say on TV, in the past this was not so, no matter what a show's demographic was. In the 90s the Xena girl/girl almost-kiss was considered groundbreaking, but today we've seen more than that even on Nickelodeon.

And the best example is with adult cartoons: in the 90s Butt-head became forbidden from saying the word "fire" after a kid burned his house down. But today Peter on Family Guy can blow up children's hospitals, kill people and things, an endless parade of gruesome things. Though, to be fair, the genre of adult cartoons has taken a specific amount of concentration on and delight in pushing boundaries, so they've evolved at an excellerated rate. The point is that the boundaries are being pushed and thereby lessened.

When it comes to gay civil rights, there may never come a day when everyone is accepting of homosexuality. But just like with interracial marriage, there will come a day when the open express of dissent will be socially and culturally shunned. Today there are interracial couples on both Nick and Disney. Some day there will be gay couples on Nick and Disney. There is no question of whether or not it will happen, the only question is when.

When we look at how much hatred and ignorance is still alive and well in our country, it's clear that we probably won't see a gay couple on Nickelodeon for quite some time. Braindead religious housemoms would be in an uproar over it, and it might hurt Nickelodeon's ratings. Nobody here is saying that Jori is going to happen on Victorious.

All I'm saying, is that it's not enitrely inconcievable. Because the fact is, this is a boundary that will eventually be struck down. Someday, somewhere down the line, a kids' TV writer will decide to put gay characters in their show, and network executives will decide to air it. It's easy to think that it can't happen just because it's not okay for it to be shown on a kid's network yet, but the way that it will eventually become okay to show is by it being shown. Could Dan Schneider and Nickelodeon be the ones to do it? Yes, potentially, if they make that choice.

Reasons why Nick could decide to break this boundary:

- A Nick companion network, called The N or Teen Nick, created and showed for three seasons an original drama called South of Nowhere. Groundbreaking not merely for a Nick affiliate but for TV in general, it was the first program to feature gay teens as the show's primary main characters. While Teen Nick shows a vast plethora of things that would not be okay on Nick, the existence of South of Nowhere proves two important points: (1) That the corporate powers behind Nick are not categorically apposed to showing this type of content, and (2) that those same forces are, in fact, interested in pushing those boundaries (as SoN did not just for Nick, but for TV in general).

- While the threat of boycott is troubling, controversy also makes for unending publicity and ratings. Breaking this boundary would unquestionably bring accolades to Nickelodeon from the LGBT community. I could envision Dan Schneider seeking a place in history with this move. Even in the most cold-hearted executive terms, homosexuality is becoming more "popular;" more palattable and more profitable in the entertainment sector, as well as in public opinion at large.

Examples in the past of Nickelodeon (the main network, not Teen Nick) taking controversial steps in the right direction:

- In the Drake & Josh episode 4-1 "Josh Runs Into Oprah," Drake and Josh kiss. It's for comedic rather than romantic reasons, but these are not only two men but also brothers!

- In the iCarly episode 3-18 "iPsycho" the recurring villian Nora grabs a girl at her party and kisses her on the mouth. This was also shown for comedic reasons, but Nora's motivation for the kiss is unexplained, it seems to be some level of romantic interest would be the logical conclusion.

- Dan Schneider's shows make frequent and often unambiguous allusions to same-sex relationships. They habitually feature cross-dressing, as well as often pair same-sex characters up in fantasy scenarios like plays and skits.

Again, I'm not saying Jori will happen. It almost definitely won't. But is it possible? Yes. And the longer Victorious continues, the stronger (however slightly) the chance gets, as society continues towards making homophobia a culture-wide taboo.

On our end, we've been trying to coax Dan Schneider to acknowledge the large gay fan constituency for his shows. So far he has unfortunately declined to comment, despite commenting on damn near every other trend iCarly or Victorious scores. But getting Jori to trend worldwide is still a victory for us Jori shippers. Here's the trend we got last night, we even got it pretty high.

Five Essential 'Deluxe Edition' Tracks

With the recent release of three simultaneous singles from Taylor Swift's deluxe edition of Speak Now, I  figured it was time to take a look at this inescapably widespread phenomenon.

These days, I'm convinced that the 'Deluxe Edition' may literally be obligatory. I can't even think of any full-lengths that don't get the deluxe edition treatment anymore, even if the deluxe setup only includes a lackluster prize like a 'Making Of' or a couple music videos.

Whether you get the deluxe edition or the regular edition just depends on how big of a fan you are. Can you live without hearing those extra 5 tracks? If you're a casual fan, the answer is clearly "yes." After all, those are just songs they didn't consider good enough for the actual album, right? They're outtakes, filler material that would have been junked in the age of 45 minute vinyl records, right?

But more and more, I'm becoming convinced that labels are hiding some highlights from the album's better half on the expensive version. Not that anyone would be foolhardy enough to cripple an album for the sake of the deluxe edition -- you won't find anyone slipping "Mine" or "Till The World Ends" onto Disc 2. But it's increasingly common to see deluxe edition tracks becoming the fourth or fifth singles in an album's bid for chart success, thus confirming that some of these tracks are ranked higher than the standard album's lesser works.

I'd personally estimate that when you have deluxe editions with new songs (not just remixes or extras), you're bound to find at least one song on the deluxe edition that's better than at least the worst few songs on the standard album. So here are a few of the true gems that casual fans have been missing out on.


#5 Broken Glass -- Matt Bennett (Victorious Soundtrack)

This preposterously devilish ode to the wonders of broken glass (written in-universe as Robbie's idea for a song to entertain children) is only available on the iTunes edition of the Victorious Soundtrack. Set to a jaunty piano tune and propelled by an uninhibited Matt Bennet, a variety of uncouth and highly dangerous activities are praised in succession, befitting the playfully grim and brutal comedy of Victorious which never fails to surprise me.


#4 Untouchable -- Taylor Swift (Fearless)

Taylor might be the master of the deluxe edition, consistently beefing up her extended albums with material that should really have been incorporated into the standard edition (at the expense of lesser tracks). Untouchable is especially a loss to casual fans, as its slow burning enthralling mystique conjurs the ghosts of some of rock and folk music's greatest moments. It's eerie and groovy and beautiful, and it's criminal that a lot of fans will never know it exists.



#3 Beautiful Mess -- Miranda Cosgrove (Sparks Fly)

Miranda's debut "full-length" only ran at 25 minutes to begin with, so it was obligatory that a beefier deluxe edition accompany it. All the bonus tracks are pretty good but only Beautiful Mess would rank among her top 5 accomplishments thus far. The always eclectic Miranda channels late-90s r&b gods Destiny's Child on this indelibly cool, slick icey ballad about unrequited love. Comparing the loss of love to a tear in a new dress seems a bit brash to me (maybe because I'm a guy??) but the jam is so gorgeously smooth that it less than matters.

 
#2 Forever & Always (Piano Version) -- Taylor Swift (Fearless)

The standard edition of Taylor's breakout hit record features a rockin' electric version of this sweet ballad, which falls into mediocrity next to more powerful jams like the fierce The Way I Loved You. But this tender, thankfully under-produced, Sarah McLachlan-channeling ballad drips with the embers of pure emotion and ranks unabashedly as one of Taylor's greatest songs. It's easily my favorite piano track Taylor's done and it makes me crave to see her do an all-piano album.


#1 Super Bass -- Nicki Minaj (Pink Friday)

How this ultimate jam missed out on the standard release will forever perplex pop music historians. It wasn't a hidden holdover -- this song had to be dragged kicking and screaming before the suits would release at as a whopping seventh single from Nicki Minaj's debut album. It wasn't until such formidable acts as Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez praised the song with the sincerest flattery -- by covering it -- that it was released to charts and it became Nicki's biggest hit. With an immaculate feel good delivery reminiscent of rap classics such as Nuthin' But a G Thang, and a joyously anthemic instrumentation, the song became an instant classic. Nicki's number one greatest song to date? Absolutely without question.