In Mike Judge’s 1999 comedy Office Space, its protagonist Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) is described by the downsizing consultants as a “straight shooter with upper management written all over him.” It’s a gross misjudgment on the part of the consultants, as Peter’s casual demeanor charmed them much the way that George W. Bush was able to charm almost half the voters of the United States of America the following year. Peter’s boss, the endlessly imitated Bill Lumbergh (Gary Cole), is a lousy manager himself, but he’s driven by enough of a sense of self-preservation to disagree with them, explaining that Peter isn’t the caliber of person they want in upper management, and that “he’s also been having some problems with his TPS reports.”

Satire is Mike Judge’s strongest suit, and the disintegration of American society into various facets of stupidity is a topic he confronted more broadly in his following film, Idiocracy (2006). But the focus in Office Space was much sharper, where work life in general was the target, but the workplace managers came under the heaviest fire. Playing a cameo as the manager of Chotchkie’s, Mike Judge himself is willing to step in as the target of ridicule, repeatedly castigating Peter’s girlfriend Joanna (Jennifer Aniston) for her insistence on wearing the minimum number of pieces of flair. It’s meaningless minutiae such as this that are clearly a source of such exasperation for Judge; cover sheets on TPS reports and pieces of flair are not important to how a business functions, and are a waste of time for management to concern themselves with.

The Film: Office Space

The Song: “Shove this Jay-Oh-Bee”

The Artist: Canibus (feat. Biz Markie)

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Basketball owes its success as a spectator sport to the fact that a miraculous shot at the end of the game can change everything in a single instant. It’s a sense of drama that few sports can duplicate. It’s a safe bet that any basketball movie will feature a miracle shot at its climax, a desperation heave that is still in the air while the game clock crosses the threshold to absolute zero. But miraculous shots aren’t just limited to films like Hoosiers and Space Jam. In honor of the Redeem Team’s inevitable march to a gold medal, here are the top five miraculous shots in movies that aren’t primarily about basketball.

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A number of months ago, Darren Robbins posted a column discussing how brazen arrogance seemed to be the most valuable asset in a playboy’s pickup arsenal. If this is true, then how come neither Beavis nor Butt-Head has ever scored?

I don’t want to sound pretentious here, but the seduction approaches of this dramaturgical diad are actually diametrically opposed. Butt-Head takes the proactive approach of the alpha male, making demands under the expectation that his (imagined) status and audacity will ensure their fulfillment. Beavis, on the other hand, creates a totally outrageous paradigm by adopting the more relaxed stance of the beta, trusting that his good nature and casual self-deprecation will win sympathy, and thus boobs. Neither has ever worked, and in a magnificent outpouring of angst at the end of the film, after they had traveled “a hundred miles” across the country in a desperate attempt to score, Beavis insists that both of them are “just gonna get old,” but that “it’s just not gonna happen.”

Butt-Head epitomizes the arrogance envisioned by Darren, that severe narcissism bordering on the delusional. Of course, as is summarized brilliantly in Beavis’ final speech, neither of them is ever going to score, or else one of the major driving forces of the show would be destroyed. But how would things work out for Butt-Head if he existed within the real world? Would his supreme arrogance trump his braces, and lisp, and slouching posture? My own experience has taught me that absolutely nothing matters more than self-confidence. But self-confidence can’t be feigned - when it is, it becomes that which Butt-Head dispays - bravado. The difference between the two can sometimes boil down to a simple question: do you truly believe your own bullshit?

The Film: Beavis and Butt-Head Do America

The Song: “Two Cool Guys”

The Artist: Isaac Hayes

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For the least two years, the area in front of the Staples Center has been the site of a massive construction project, the behemoth “LA Live” complex. Costing approximately $2.5 billion, the complex is home to the Nokia Theatre, a venue that is described as “mid-size” (though it seats 7,100 people) and is scheduled to host the Emmy awards for at least the next ten years.

Although I’ve got nothing against the music of Joe Cocker, aside from his seeming lack of original material, I wouldn’t consider myself a fan. Even so, I leapt at the chance to see him play at the Nokia; it’s been open for less than a year and I was very curious to see what it was like. I was suitably impressed. The design of the entire theater is very slick and modern, with translucent lobby walls that change color and concession menus that are featured on LCD television screens. On one hand, everything feels a bit corporate and seems like it will be dated in just a few short years, but on the other hand, it’s hard to inhale that new-car smell that permeates the theater and not feel a little bit intoxicated.

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One of of the most overlooked films of 2006 (a terrible, terrible year for movies; with redemption only brought by the likes of The Departed, Borat, and Casino Royale) was the noir high school murder mystery Brick. The independently produced film took a story and characters that would normally belong in a Dashiell Hammett novel and deposited them in the setting of an Orange County high school. The movie features the familiar face of Joseph Gordon-Levitt filling the role of the hard-boiled detective unraveling the conspiracy that resulted in the murder of his dame, and he inhabits the role so brilliantly that his performance instantly erased all of the ill will I’d harbored towards him for all those years he spent on Third Rock from the Sun.

While occasional films will address the tense high-school relationships between children and their parents or other authority figures (Rebel Without a Cause, The Breakfast Club, Dead Poets Society) most teen films conveniently relegate adult characters to the periphery, only letting them occasionally affect the events of the film. A variety of techniques can be used to ensure that adults stay out of the picture; they can be on vacation (Risky Business), absent (Napoleon Dynamite), dead (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire*), or simply invisible (Lucas). In Brick, the only adult figure (aside from a brief glimpse of the Pin’s mom) who becomes involved in the narrative in any way is the Assistant Vice Principal Gary Trueman (Richard Roundtree). And even AVP Trueman doesn’t really affect how the story plays out; he inhabits the hard-boiled detective novel equivalent of the local police chief who reluctantly agrees to allow the private detective the freedom of movement he needs to solve his case. And despite a number of scenes taking place during the school day, the high school campus is virtually deserted.** It’s these aspects of Brick that are the most challenging to an audience in terms of willingly suspending their disbelief.

The Film: Brick

The Song: “Sister Ray”

The Artist: The Velvet Underground

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A sizable crowd was already waiting outside the Echo when I arrived at 8:30. One can often forecast how good a show’s going to be based on the enthusiasm of the audience, and having 50 or so fans arrive prior to the doors opening (in the vicinity of Silver Lake, no less) is a very good omen. I spent the first part of my evening as a wallflower, inhaling the secondhand reefer smoke from a group of kids who were impressed that Billy Walsh from Entourage was outside, and gratefully borrowing a cellphone from an older couple who had gotten their tickets via KCRW after mine refused to work (another casualty of the earthquake).

The Echo is a fairly nondescript venue. The walls are black, there’s a few minimalist chandeliers with blue and green-filamented incandescent bulbs, seating is limited to a bench along the wall and stools at the bar. Shows at the Echo tend to be casual affairs, the space on stage is limited and there’s plenty of room for the crowd to spill out to one side, which prevents the area directly in front of the performers from ever getting too crowded.

The opening act was Robert Francis, an artist local to LA whose music seems to be grounded far beyond the boundaries of this metropolis. During his show there was a football perched on the edge of the stage, and the red lights hit one of the unused acoustic guitars standing on stage in a way that was reminiscent of a tequila sunrise. At first he seemed to be the perfect opening act, melodic but not particularly memorable, but after he had meandered through a few lengthy songs, I found myself becoming increasingly attentive, particularly during a performance of “Little Girl” that was just a bit more hard-edged than the version you’ll find on the MySpace page.

Robert Francis - “One By One”

It’s pretty hard to come up with a description that does justice to the stage antics of Tim Fite. He plays with a single companion, the deejay Dr. Leisure, but the well-designed video projection that accompanies his show also includes a version of himself in triplicate singing together as accompaniment. When accompanied by magnificent crayon-drawn animations of sharp-toothed animals, Fite’s songs seem like children’s music — until a pair of cartoon animals named Jo-Jo and Bobby discuss their plans to “stab a motherfucker” while they share a sandwich. (more…)

I tend to make a lot of allowances for films that translate classic literature into high school settings. If nothing else, I respect the ambition of such an endeavor. And there are plenty of examples where this has been done successfully. Clueless (1995), based on Jane Austen’s Emma, was a delightful bit of fluff. I’m told that Cruel Intentions (1999), based on the French novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses, is quite entertaining (I’d seen the John Maklovich version shortly before Cruel Intensions came out, so I skipped the modern version). And Brick (2006), although not based on any specific piece of hard-boiled crime fiction, is one of the most memorable films I’ve seen in years. With a title as specific and intriguing as Crime and Punishment in Suburbia, I was prepared to like this film before I’d even started watching it.

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With another potential Hollywood strike looming (the SAG contract has expired and the actors have yet to reach acceptable terms with the studios), it’s possible that reality television will see a revival in the coming year. Personally, I think that reality television has run its course, and we’ll see fewer and fewer non-scripted dramas appearing on network television. And honestly, it couldn’t make me happier.

I remember enjoying the first season of The Real World, which took place in New York City while I was still in high school. I found most of the contestants sympathetic enough, but I think that (aside from the background soundtrack, which was phenomenal) the genuine appeal in the show lay in the fact that their lives in the city were so vastly different from my mundane suburban existence. As I grew older, and my own life experiences became more similar to those of the contestants on the show, it began to be less and less interesting to me. It seemed like a waste of time to watch other people engage in relatively ordinary activities, like rollerblading around Miami, when I could just as easily get stoned and rollerblade around Claremont myself.

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A couple weeks ago, I planned a weeknight getaway down to Anaheim to watch the Angels play against their closest rival for the division crown, the Oakland A’s. We took the Metrolink train down from Union Station and stayed at a hotel within walking distance of the ballpark (incidentally, being a pedestrian in Orange County is a thoroughly unpleasant experience. The hostility you feel from passing drivers is about what you’d expect were you to walk around town wearing a “Registered Sex Offender” t-shirt. I’m surprised they even bothered to put in sidewalks when they built the roads).

We were treated to a thoroughly entertaining game, which the home team won 5-3 after a 3-run rally in the bottom of the eighth, capped with a home run that flew over the right field wall and landed not more than a hundred feet away from our seats. The only detraction from the experience was the faithful A’s fan nearby who wasn’t the least bit shy about using his penetrating voice to hurl catcalls at the Angels venerable slugger Vladimir Guerrero. It’s bold to invade an opposing team’s stadium and throw insults at their star player, and I certainly wouldn’t do something like this at Dodger Stadium, but in Orange County, it’s pretty safe to say whatever you want. Out of a perpetual dread of civil litigation, you can rest assured that nobody’s going to do anything except maybe yell back at you. Honestly, the guy’s loudest challenger was actually a nine year old kid. Being an Orioles fan, I didn’t have a dog in the fight, so his heckling didn’t bother me except in the sense that it was completely lacking in originality.

Heckling is an art. And when it’s done well, it can bring about that which is every dedicated fan’s true dream — to affect the outcome of the game in his team’s favor.

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Nobody, and I mean nobody, has demonstrated an ability to manipulate popular culture better than Quentin Tarantino. The pop-culture reference is a staple of modern entertainment. Television shows like The Simpsons take delight in finding ways to work a dozen clever references into each episode, and lesser shows like Family Guy owe their existence to pop culture cutaways. Two of the writers of Scary Movie (2000) have even managed to build an entire franchise of execrable films that consist of nothing but references to other films and stories. Tarantino is no stranger to this technique; his films are full of references and homages, even though they are often too obscure to be recognized by the average viewer. What truly sets Tarantino apart from the hordes of hacks who appropriate images and stories from other sources in order to stimulate an audience’s collective memory is that he has an unparalleled ability to weave these references (quotes, songs, even biblical verses) together in unique ways so that they instantly emerge as new memes in popular culture.

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