entertainment

Welcome to Macon, freshmen. You have no excuse to be bored.

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Published Aug 15, in Entertainment

Welcome to Mercer, new Mercerians! Hopefully you will come to love this university and this city—with all its ups and downs—as much as we do now after you’ve been here a few years. A word of advice: get to know this town. Macon has a tough reputation from the outside world, but it also has a rich tradition of history and music. Otis Redding, the Allman Brothers and the kazoo all started their musical journeys here, and the current residents continue that tradition with a wide array of musical and theatrical performances. Here’s a quick reference for all the ways you can stay entertained on campus and downtown.
Second Sunday – Every Sunday in Washington Park, just across from the library on Washington Avenue, the College Hill Alliance hosts a free concert at sunset. Downtown eateries set up booths for drinks and picnic food so that you can enjoy live music from local bands in one of Macon’s scenic historical parks. This month’s Second Sunday has already passed, but on September 9 The Vespers will be performing in the early afternoon (1:00-3:00). Get there early for a good seat!
Third Thursday –  Another project through the College Hill Alliance, Third Thursday takes place every month in the Mercer Village.  Live musicians come to play while patrons and poor college students enjoy discounts from Ingleside Village Pizza, Francar’s and other shops in the Village. For a few hours pedestrians can enjoy the run of Montpelier Avenue as the street is blocked off to accommodate the party.
The 567 – This downtown locale is a great venue space—just small enough to be considered intimate but not uncomfortably cramped—with a steady flow of affordable concerts on the calendar. For a $10 cover charge you can get a ticket to this week’s concert featuring Erra, Becoming the Archetype, Wanderer and All is Lost. The following day, Saturday, is the 567’s monthly concert in which artists tell the stories behind their music. Students with ID can get in for $5 to hear Megg Serrano, Baxter James and Lucas Woodgeard talk about what makes them sing.
Theatre performances – Because the Mercer Players can’t perform their excellent plays for us every week (though we wish they could), Macon has two local theatre venues: Theater Macon and The Macon Little Theatre. They may not be the Royal Shakespeare Company, but don’t count them out when you’re itching to see a theatrical performance between Mercer Players shows. The Macon Little Theatre opens with the farce “Boeing – Boeing” on August 24,  and on September 7 Theatre Macon will begin their run of “Becky’s New Car”. A little pricier than the 567 but much less so than the Grand, and a classy choice for a date night.
Midnight Movie – This event will probably become one of your favorites. Because college students keep ungodly hours anyway, the AmStar on Zebulon Road hosts this event twice each semester. For $2, Mercer students with a student ID can see one of several recently released movies at a midnight showing. Keep an eye on the QuadWorks announcements for this semester’s Midnight Movie dates, and watch the lobby in Connell—if you buy your ticket early in the day at the table in the lobby you can avoid a long line that night. All that extra time could be spent figuring out what to smuggle into the movie from the Kroger next door to the theater.
The Hummingbird – There’s a minimal cover charge, but the Bird (as it is affectionately known) offers plenty of local music and flavor, in addition to the occasional nationally known band. Weekends always see some kind of music playing at the Bird, and Wednesday nights combine music and team trivia. They can be picky about an age limit of 21, but occasionally they offer shows for the not-quite-legal-yet population. Just ask.
The Grand Opera House – Located downtown on Mulberry Street, the Grand is the place to go if you want to break the bank for some quality entertainment. Hosting everything from live music to comedy routines to Broadway musicals, the Grand is worth what you spend when you can afford it. For a quick glimpse of the lovely historic theater, take a trip downtown on August 30 for the free classical strings concert the Grand is hosting for the community.
The Golden Bough – In addition to the occasional live music performance or poetry reading, The Golden Bough is a great place to go for used and discount books (much, much cheaper than Mercer’s Barnes & Noble). Browse around or just cuddle up in a chair and read, and talk to the staff—they’re very friendly and love to talk books.
Townsend School of Music – For those of you who enjoy chamber or classical music, look no further than the edge of campus.  Mercer’s music school delivers fantastic performances on a weekly basis, and our school for strings attracts the best of the best from all across the country. And best of all, it’s free.  Check the music school Web site for a calendar of events and keep an eye out for flyers on the kiosk outside Connell and on the bulletin boards in the campus post office.

‘Fifty Shades’ is bad porn and worse literature

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Published Aug 15, in Entertainment

I am the first to admit that I am a literary bandwagon hopper. I read the Harry Potter series in elementary school because it was cool (a good decision), “Twilight” in high school (not such a good decision) and this summer I finally succumbed to “Fifty Shades of Grey”.
I heard bad things about the series from friends who had read it but still needed to see for myself. Forty million copies of the book have been sold, so how bad could this mommy porn be?
The answer: very bad. “Fifty Shades” is about a college graduate named Anastasia Steele who blushes way too much and has no real thoughts of her own, except the occasional “oh my”. She lives with an aspiring journalist named Kate, who apparently is Ana’s best friend, but you would never know by reading the book. It seems like the two girls hate each other. Kate gets sick and asks Ana to go interview Christian Grey, Portland’s rich playboy entrepreneur. She goes to his office and, to make a very long (1,625-page series) story short, the two fall in lust and then in love. They engage in a (tame) BDSM relationship which, apparently, is vastly appealing to older women who read the book.
E. L. James based her novel off of her Twilight fan fiction written under the pen name Snowqueens Icedragon (I can’t even go into that), so the resemblance to Stephanie Meyer’s characters is uncanny. Grey is overbearing and manipulative over Ana, and hates her friend Jose who once tried to hit on her in front of a bar. “Twilight”, however, was at least remotely readable.  Fifty Shades makes its mother series look like Dickens. James uses certain phrases over and over again to the point where I sat literally laughing at this book in the middle of a “hot” scene. If I read “I died a thousand deaths today,” “Stop biting your lip, you know what it does to me” or “Laters, baby” ever again, I may throw the book across the room.
Repetition is not James’ only problem. She also uses words and phrases that were popular two centuries ago and never again after that. She uses the word “gamine” on the second page of the book, which was the word of the year in 1899. On page eight, she uses the expression “If this guy is over thirty, then I’m a monkey’s uncle,” which was popular in the 1930s, which is one of her most modern sayings. My favorite is when Ana calls Grey “very high-handed,” which was basically a way of burning someone in the 1800s but also comes from a translation of the Bible.
I did not plan to read this whole series when I picked up “Fifty Shades of Grey” at Target. But by the end of the first book I knew I was going to be hooked into the other two, even though I was completely aware of how bad it was. The plot, though convoluted, is interesting enough with revenge and murder and betrayal—basically all of the elements that would enthrall a middle-aged stay-at-home mom. The whole story line just keeps getting interrupted by these weird kinky sex scenes that last for at least ten pages each. (And by kinky, I mean not that kinky. Bad would be a better word.) I would find myself reading over that aspect of the series as fast as I could, possibly skipping words along the way so that I could see whether Ana was about to get murdered like I hoped she would. That sounds heartless, but I just wanted her to die because none of the characters are relatable at all. At least dying would make her mortal. I can relate to that.
To sum it up, these books are bad. There are moments of intrigue, yes, but they aren’t worth wading through the rest of the muck. If you want a laugh at some British author’s expense or a mediocre—at best—erotic novel, then “Fifty Shades of Grey” is for you.

Olympics close with a Spice-y tribute to British music

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Published Aug 15, in Entertainment

Great Britain definitely did the entire world a huge favor by topping their confusing and outright weird opening ceremony performance with a more than entertaining closing ceremony. The night was filled with fireworks, strobe lights and—most importantly—a vast array of music.
The organizers of the event  paid homage to some of Britain’s musical legends, the most important of whom was Freddie Mercury, the outlandish, outrageous and influential front man of the rock sensation Queen.
The tribute to the late, great Freddie Mercury was a heart-wrenching one. It was almost as if he was actually there performing once more in front of a live audience. Queen guitarist Brian May took the stage and rocked out on his guitar with a solo before Jessie J joined him onstage for a rendition of one of Queen’s biggest hits, “We Will Rock You”.
What was shocking, though, was that the organizers did not find time for Queen’s musical staple, the song that defined a generation, the song that is still played at the final of every major sporting event: “We Are the Champions”. Maybe the line “No time for losers” hit a little too close to home for some of the competitors. Nonetheless, in a tribute to Queen it should have been included.
The moment that struck everyone as odd was definitely when comedian Russell Brand came out riding in a floral-decorated van singing tunes from Willy Wonka. After he finished butchering one of the best movies of my childhood, he continued to butcher a hit from one of the best musical groups of that country. He lip-synced to The Beatles’ “I Am the Walrus”.
British comedian Eric Idle took to the stage, singing the Monty Python hit “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”. The crowd whistled along to the familiar tune, and maybe some of the Olympians who did not do as well as they’d hoped left with an uplifting message.
The most anticipated performance of the night was that of the 90s pop sensation the Spice Girls. The Spice Girls obviously did not have the same spice that they used to have when it came to dance moves, but they still wowed the crowd singing a mash-up of their biggest hits, “Wannabe” and “Spice Up Your Life”. When cameras panned to the watching athletes you could see the crowd revert back to their childhoods, jumping up and down and singing along, probably very similar to what they used to do in their bathroom mirrors with hairbrush in hand. The girls definitely looked like their old selves. Maybe a tour is in the works? One can only dream.
The closing act was none other than The Who, who performed probably one of the most iconic songs of all time, “Teenage Wasteland”. Despite their age, The Who can still rock out like they were back in their heyday. They finished off the night with a performance of “My Generation”. It was a truly monumental and memorable performance.
The night ended and the crowd dispersed, but London 2012 will continue to live on in the hearts, minds and ears of many for years to come. Let’s see what Rio can give us in 2016.

Milo Greene on “Milo Greene”

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Published Aug 15, in Entertainment

When it comes to new music, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m the laziest connoisseur I know. Most of the time I absorb it through osmosis thanks to the radio or, more frequently, my musically inclined friends. I find their tastes to be nearly impeccable—that is, I’ve never really disliked anything they have exposed me to—so when my friend Kamie invited me to a concert with a band I’d never heard of before, I gave her the benefit of the doubt.
And I’m glad I did, because I’ve been playing the CD on repeat since the concert in Atlanta on July 21. Milo Greene’s self-titled first album blends haunting vocal harmonies with an almost otherworldly style to turn melancholy and raw emotion into some truly beautiful music. The band, made up of five people, came together through college friendships and music scene acquaintances and they have been playing live together since March of last year. In case you were wondering, Milo Greene is not the name of any member of the band; he’s actually the fictional booking agent contrived by band members Andrew Heringer and Robbie Arnett to help them book gigs early in their prior, independent careers. I took the chance to borrow Milo Greene for an interview before they became too famous to talk to me, and Arnett was gracious enough to take a break from the tour to call me from Denver, Co.

BH: How long have you been writing music?
RA: Probably since 2006, so about five or six years. I think I’ve always been interested in creating some kind of art. Growing up we would always go to the movies and the theater, and there was always music around in my family. We were avid music lovers. I was always kind of inspired by it, and when I got to college there were some guys in my dorm who played music. I started singing and taught myself to play guitar, so that’s where I got started.
BH: What were you studying at the time?
RA: Music and theatre.
BH: Oh, so then this was right in line with your passions.
RA: Yeah; I didn’t switch from being an economics major or anything like that.
BH: You guys definitely have a really unique sound. How would you describe your band’s style of music?
RA: I think at the core it’s pop music, but we’ve definitely tried to decorate it with stuff that’s influenced us and inspired us—dreamier and ethereal sounds. I’ve always been interested in scoring and movies. We’d talked about working with filmmakers and scoring, but we formed a band. Since there are four vocalists we’re centered around vocalists…it’s all kind of placed in more dreamy tones and stuff. We try to make it as unconventional as possible.
BH: There’s a really definitive tone to the album, too. What can you tell me about that?
RA: We recorded all of the music all over the west coast primarily in winter and autumn months, so I’d say the tone was inspired by a somber, nostalgic atmosphere.
BH: I noticed during the concert that you guys switch instruments around a lot. How did you all come to be so versatile?
RA: I think initially we were just trying to figure out what each song needed. We made the record without playing the record, and when we had to play it we had to figure out how to recreate it. We all primarily play guitar, but we switched around to kind of fill up the songs. I learned how to play piano a bit for certain songs and Marlana takes up the bass for certain songs…We learn as we go. Andrew’s pretty classically trained and an all-around great musician, so he can pick it up pretty quick. Since I wasn’t classically trained it takes me a little more time, but if we need the sound then we’re all about figuring it out.
BH: What is your creative process like? It sounds like you fly by the seat of your pants a lot.
RA: It happens in all sorts of different ways. Since the four of us are the song writers we’ve all brought songs to the table. It’s a big collaborative union. The initial start of the whole thing was that song “Autumn Tree.” I’d sent Andrew the lyrics and he wrote a melody for the lyrics I sent him, but sometimes we’ll all be sitting in a room and I’ll start playing the piano and start singing some words, and Marlana will jump in and then Andrew will jump in and we’ll try to figure it out. There are all kinds of ways to do it; there’s not one set formula.
BH: You guys were on Letterman recently. How was that?
RA: It was very exciting. I think we were all really nervous. We came from DC the night before and came to Lettermen at three a.m. We were all kind of zombies. It was really cool. He keeps his studio at, like, 40 degrees, so it was freezing. But we’d all grown up with that program, and our parents were excited. It was an all-around wonderful experience for us, and we can’t be more thankful to be on that program.
BH: What did it mean for you as a band, as far as exposure goes?
RA: It’s hard to say. I think it’s a nice accolade to add to our career, that experience and exposure about being on television, but we just went up there and did the best Milo Greene performance that we could and hope people will respond to it. But yeah, it’s hard to say how much that helps in the big picture.
BH: What has been your favorite part of the tour so far?
RA: The television experience was wonderful, but we played Lollapalooza as our first festival, and that was really cool. It was cool to be part of the evacuation—they evacuated for the first time because there was a crazy storm coming in. But really traveling to different cities, and people meeting people have all been an amazing experience, kind of a dream come true. Milo Greene is a recent project, but some of us have been working for this for the better part of a decade.
BH: Let’s talk about “Moddison” for a minute.
RA: We thought about doing a project that would score films. We had a month before we started our tour, so we ended up writing a screen play for a short film that would encompass our entire record. I had a friend of mine come up to silver lake, a place where we’d recorded a lot of the music, and we recorded a film that went along with the record.
BH: The music videos for “Silent Way,” “Perfectly Aligned,” and “1957” are now out. What’s coming next?
RA: I think “Don’t Give Up on Me” is coming next. I think we’ll be releasing a few [videos] over the next month or so. I guess the biggest hint would be that the videos correspond to the track numbers on the record, so people can figure it out that way.

Arnett said that “Moddison” should be released in its entirety sometime this winter, so those who want to piece together the story as it goes will want to get a jump on it now. The music videos for “1957,” “Silent Way” and “Perfectly Aligned” can be found on the band’s Web site. The curious and enthused can buy the album at http://store.warnermusic.com/milo-greene.

Reality television entertaining for adults, detrimental to children; parents watch out

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Published Nov 2, in Opinions, Uncategorized

Reality television shows do exactly what they were made to do: entertain viewers. But there seems to be some controversy over the issue of reality TV shows that question the affect they can and do have on American youth.
So the question is, are reality television shows detrimental to American children and teenagers? Or better yet, should they be stopped from airing on national TV because of these negative effects?
Television stations are chock full of reality TV shows like Teen Mom 1 and 2, 16 and Pregnant, I Used to be Fat, Extreme Couponing, Survivor and Jersey Shore just to name a few. While some of these shows have no questionable material in them, large portions have messages that can be detrimental to young children.
Teenagers and even pre-teens these days seems to have an affinity for shows that appeal to a younger audience, like Teen Mom and 16 and Pregnant, and while some teenagers can watch these shows and purely see the entertainment value in them, others may see these shows and think that teen pregnancy is glamorous and may lead to fame. This is a truly detrimental mindset for a 15-year-old girl.
Then there are shows like Jersey Shore. Entertaining? Heck yes, I love watching the show and getting a laugh off of Snooki or Pauly D. However, I am a 21-year-old college student and can see the humor in the situation and not a young teenager who may see the excessive alcohol intake and partying and think that it’s “the cool thing to do.”
So in my opinion the shows are extremely entertaining and I like to watch them, yes even Teen Mom.
However, I can see the point that some parents are making about the negative influences that these shows have on children. But what can be done about this?
Do reality television shows that can have a negative impact on American youth need to be removed from the airwaves? Some parents and activists would say so, but if this were to occur would that not be seen as a violation of free speech?
Television is not included under the provisions of the First Amendment, and while there have been laws passed that address the formation of television and some of the content of television shows, there are some Americans who would view a removal of reality television shows from the airwaves to be a violation of our free speech rights.
While this could be contested they do have a point. Television shows that are aired have passed ratings inspections and their time slots are handed out in order of their content.
Shows that are not suitable for young audiences are given air times of 10 p.m. or later.
So what is there to do? In my opinion, keep the reality shows.
While some of them do give a negative message to young children, to the intended target audience these shows do exactly what they are meant for: to entertain.
If parents or activists have a problem with the messages that television shows send to children there is a very simple answer: block those channels from your cable settings or prohibit your children from watching the shows.
There is a television rating system for a reason and that reason is to warn parents about the content of the show before it begins.
If you see that a show is rated MA for mature audiences or TV-14 for audiences over 14, listen to the ratings and stop your children from watching it.
The first step to keeping negative influences from affecting a child is the parent. If you refuse to stop your child from watching it then you are to blame, not the reality television shows or the companies that produce them.

Comments, questions or concerns about this column can be sent to opinions@mercercluster.com.

Want James Franco and Natalie Portman to come to Mercer? VOTE!

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Published Mar 5, in Blogs, Campus Kiosk, Entertainment, Features, Listen Up, Nerds

A promotional image for the upcoming film Your Highness

James Franco, Natalie Portman and Danny McBride all star in the new film Your Highness. Eventful is hosting a contest that college students can vote in to have the film’s premiere held at their campus. Franco, Portman and McBride will visit the winning school and attend the afterparty.

Second to sixth-place schools win an advanced screening.

SO VOTE! WE ALL LOVE JAMES FRANCO AND NATALIE PORTMAN AND FREE MOVIES!!

(Click through for link and put Georgia – Mercer University into the selection menus).

Macon’s newest club opens downtown

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Published Feb 23, in City, Entertainment, Features, News

Listen up, Mercer partiers: Macon’s downtown club scene is about to get a bit more wild and exciting as the city’s largest club first opens its doors at 9 PM on March 4th for Macon’s First Friday event.

Element Nightclub, located at 425 Cherry St., aims to be Macon’s newest nightlife hotspot, and with two DJs, a state of the art lighting, sound, and video system, and three separate rooms, each designed to offer a unique experience, it’s looking like the club will certainly live up to its aspirations.

“It’s a new element coming to Macon. We’re looking for a quality crowd, one that is looking for a quality place to go out,” said promoter Howie Handsel of 4 Godfathers Promotions, LLC.

The company, which was also behind Macon’s GRAB’n Go card, has been tasked with promoting the young club.

One of the biggest draws to Element Nightclub is its three-room setup. Each of its rooms is based on one of the four classical elements: water, fire, earth, and air. The front room represents water and features an inviting and relaxing lounge atmosphere, complete with a jukebox that patrons can select. For those that simply want to relax and chill with friends,

The club’s second room is themed around fire, and will feature a rotation of top 40’s hits as well as a state-of-the-art video system that promises to entrance patrons.

On the club’s opening night, VJ Rix, who some Mercer students may know from his work at the Powerstation, will be DJing the fire room.

As dancers move further into the building, they’ll discover the back room, themed around earth and featuring a high-energy dubstep.

Finally, the walkway between the individual rooms is themed around the fourth element, air.

Becasue both the fire and earth rooms are themed around different musical genres, Element Nightclub will staff two DJs every night, one for each room, in order to ensure that customers recieve a variety of quality entertainment no matter where their musical proclivities lie.

“There’s never been a club this size in Macon before. It’s hue, and it has an awesome level of entertainment,” said Handsel.

In addition to the three themed dance rooms, Element Nightclub includes a VIP section.

To promote the club, its owners have printed up one thousand passes granting free admission to the club for one night. I strongly recommend that anyone who manages to find one of these cards check out the club on its opening night.

In fact, everyone should check it out, regardless of whether or not they have a ticket.

Element Nightclub’s web presence can be found at Facebook.com/elementnightclub and twitter.com/elementofmacon. Expect both sites to offer the latest news and promotions for the new club.

Cover charge is $5 for patrons 21 and over, while entrance will cost $10 for those over 18. The club strictly excludes anyone under the age of 18.

The four best things of 2010

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Published Feb 2, in Entertainment

I know that best of lists are kind of a year-end tradition. Pitchfork, The AV Club, and virtually every other pop culture critic in the world likes to post a list at the end of the year, recapping their top choices for that particular 12 month period. They’re always in list form, and they’re always divided into various categories: best movies, best music, best TV. Sometimes they make an attempt to be objective, usually by polling various writers for that organization.

I will not be doing any of those things. This list isn’t in any particular order, it’s not divided up into different mediums or genres, and it’s certainly not objective. It’s just my list of things you should have experienced last year. I know I’m a bit late to that party, but it’s not my fault that The Cluster isn’t published until the end of January. Or that we don’t have a website for more timely articles. But I digress. These are the ten best things of 2010:

Parks and Recreation:

Is it the best show on TV?

While this TV Show debuted in 2009, it wasn’t until this past year that the sitcom began to really take off after its rough first season as a midseason replacement. Starring Amy Poehler, Rashida Jones, Aziz Ansari, and Nick Offerman, the show, shot in a faux-documentary style similar to The Office and Arrested Development, follows the titular parks and recreation department of the fictional Pawnee, Indiana. The parks department is home to the ultra masculine, über-Libertarian Ron Swanson (Offerman), the department’s spunky, career-oriented second-in-command Leslie Knope, fashion obsessed would-be playboy Tom Haverford (Ansari), and the disdainful, snarky intern April (Aubrey Plaza). The department exists in a fully-realized world with a growing cast of interesting side characters similar to what you’d find on The Simpsons or Futurama.

The thing that really sells the show to me, though, is its wide cast of genuinely likable characters. Over the past few years, there’s been a trend for TV shows to feature some pretty deplorable, if charming, main characters. The cringingly awkward humor of The Office and the absolute depravity of, well, every character on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia illustrate the trend perfectly. But Parks and Recreation doesn’t wallow in its characters’ misery or laugh at their failures. I’m as much a fan of misanthropic humor as anyone, but it’s a breath of fresh air when you can genuinely connect with a cast of characters and root for their success. As a result, I’m more invested in the drama of Parks than any other show on air (except for maybe The Venture Bros. — but I’ll get to that in a little bit).

The show recently added Rob Lowe and Adam Scott to the cast as a pair of state auditors, with Lowe playing an almost uncomfortably enthusiastic and ernest “good cop” and Scott backing him up as the dour, no-nonsense “bad cop,” setting up some amazing plot-threads for Season Three, which just debuted on NBC this past week. It’s amazing, and you need to watch it.

Kanye West:

Don't tell me you don't love this man.

I want to make it clear here that I’m not just honoring Kanye’s latest record My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which is, by all rights, an absolute masterpiece. I really can’t praise it enough, and I genuinely believe that it’s our generation’s Thriller, but I also want to praise Kanye West himself, because this has been a hell of a year for him.

Before Fantasy dropped, West released Runaway, a 35-minute short film that also doubles as a music video for the album’s first single “Runaway.” Before I actually watched it, I was pretty sure it’d be self-indulgent and more than a little insane. And I was right about that, but it was also something else: a fantastically directed short film. Up until that moment, I’d always viewed West as someone who, despite his monumental talent, always thinks a bit to highly of himself and reaches a bit too far with some of his efforts. But honestly, it looks like West really is as talented as he believes. The film is equally reminiscent of Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson, elegantly shot with interesting and bizarre subjects. I don’t want to claim that West is as talented as those particular directors, but I’ve seen Hollywood blockbusters with less luster than Runaway displays.

And then there’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which, in the short time it’s been out, has already begun to crawl into my list of all-time most played records. It’s an endlessly catchy record, with beautifully layered beats and darkly elegant lyrics both humorous and heartbreaking. West’s penchant for wordplay is at the top of its game here, with lines such as “How do you say broke in Spanish? Me no hablo.”

Far too many modern rappers are willing to spit out lazy rhymes overtop a bare-bones beat consisting of a drum machine and a single synth line, West creates gorgeous backing tracks, demonstrating his always masterful use of sampling. “Power” and “All the Lights” are particularly amazing examples of West’s talent.

In all honestly, Fantasy is my number one record of the year. It’s an amazingly complex, grandiose, and personal album, and I love it with all of my heart.

The Venture Bros.:

The Monarch confronts the Venture twins.

This Adult Swim original series, which debuted its fourth season in 2010, is one of the most breathtakingly entertaining shows to ever wind up on television. On its surface, it’s a parody of the old Johnny Quest cartoons from the ’60s, with the Johnny analogue, Dr. Venture, all grown up and trying to lead a super science team of his own. Except he’s terrible at his job. And addicted to pills. And his two twin sons Hank and Dean are idiots. And his bodyguard Brock Samson is a “Swedish murder machine.” It all takes place in a very strange world with an increasingly complex mythology behind it.

One of the main tenets of the Venture universe is that supervillians choose a life of costumed crime as a profession and must register with the Guild of Calamitous Intent, which is locked in a surprisingly calm perpetual battle with the government’s Office of Secret Intelligence, specializing in “protagonist relations.” The Venture family is right in the middle of this insane world of bureaucratic, pop-culture loving psychopaths. Of course there’s also the shadowy S.P.H.I.N.X. organization, Phantom Limb’s Revenge Society, The O.R.B, and … well, my main point here is start with season one.

Honestly, The Venture Bros. is a difficult show to write about, because it’s all based in a very specific pop-culture heavy, nerdy type of humor, and the show’s structures make it seem far more complicated than it really is. At its heart, it’s a character-based comedy, but all the characters are fundamentally broken failures of men living in a completely insane world. This year’s fourth season saw the titular Venture twins graduate from their creepy home schools and attempt to enter the real world after being both incredibly sheltered to the facts of life and exposed to more insane danger than any comic book super hero could hope for. It’s been an interesting progression for the boys, and now that the season’s over, I’m mourning the fact that it won’t be back on the air for another two years.

Scott Pilgrim:

Scott Pilgrim vs. A Volleyball

For the past couple of years, Byan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series has been one of my favorite comic series. It’s comprised of six graphic novels following the life of Canadian garage band bassist and slacker extraordinaire Scott Pilgrim as he competes for the heart of the mysterious Ramona Flowers by literally fighting her seven evil ex-boyfriends. It’s kind of an odd story, but its endlessly entertaining in its mix of humor, action, and genuine drama.

2010 saw the release of the final graphic novel Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour as well as a feature-length film, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, recapping the entire series in one 90-minute bout of mayhem.

I don’t have the space in this column to talk about how amazing I think Finest Hour is, because I could go on pretty much forever. There’s so much going on thematically, artistically, and emotionally in this genuinely ground-breaking comic, but in short, Scott grows up. We get to watch the selfish man-child of the past few volumes confront his past and grow into a fully-realized adult after some 800-odd pages of wondering when he’ll finally get his life together.

The series as a whole is amazing in that is starts out as a very humorous story that revolves entirely around Scott, because we’re seeing the whole thing through his eyes. It’s quirky, exciting, and plays out pretty much like a video game, full of over-the-top action. As it progresses though, we start to see the cracks in his self-image, and it becomes a far more dramatic.

One of the most interesting realizations is that the video game motifs show up in the work primarily because Scott is unable to deal with reality in any way outside of the type of fiction he grew up on. He can’t —or at least doesn’t —deal with the real world, and the real story isn’t whether or not he ends up with Ramona, but whether or not he ends up an adult.

Aaand I used up all my space talking about the comics. The movie deals pretty much with the same themes, but with the benefit of Edgar Wright (of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz fame)’s direction. It’s full of good music and flashing lights, and it is fantastic.