The music in this commercial for Repatha, a drug used to treat high cholestrol, is a cover of the 1988 power ballad "Listen to Your Heart" by the Swedish rock duo Roxette. The song reached #1 on the U.S. pop chart in 1989.
December 10, 2024
September 7, 2024
Michigan Just Got Reminded How Hard it is to Win Football Games WIthout Cheating
I guess it's not so easy when you don't have spies on the other team's sideline. @CoachJim4UM @UMichFootball
Related Posts:
R.I.P. College Football: How Corporate Interests, Greed and Defiance Killed the Game We Loved -- Part II
August 12, 2024
Steph Curry and the Ugliness of a Long Distance Shooter
...Turning to news from the Olympic games, in heroic fashion, Stephen Curry hit five 3-pointers in the final eight minutes of play to secure a win in the gold medal basketball game against France.
Curry, as he often does during his NBA play, then proceeded to skip down the court, pop his jersey and scream at the crowd, all while posing, taunting, and otherwise embodying the stereotype of the "ugly American."
If that wasn’t enough, Steph also treated everyone to his signature (and rather corny) two-hands-on-the-side-of-his-face "Nite-Nite" gesture which was backed up post-game when he donned a t-shirt reading "Nuit Nuit" ("Nite-Nite" in French) and celebrated with cigars and champagne.
All of this underscores the sad truth about Steph Curry: the fact that since he entered the NBA in 2009, he's gone from being the elite-shooting skinny underdog that everyone was rooting for, to an obnoxious, unsportsmanlike, cocky little showboat who enjoys embarrassing his opponents...
#whatajerk
June 28, 2024
Why St. Elmo's Fire Still Matters
In discussing Andrew McCarthy's new documentary about the Brat Pack with a good friend, he began rather aggressively maligning the movie Saint Elmo’s Fire. Over a span of ten minutes, he ranted about how boring the plot was, how Mare Winningham was miscast, (rather randomly) why McCarthy's character in the film is such a "turd", and just how bad a movie St. Elmo's was to begin with when it was first released thirty-nine years ago.
Okay, I admit it; St. Elmo's Fire is not a great film. It wasn’t back in 1985 and it’s not today. But that’s not really the point. Few claim that Saint Elmo's is a masterpiece of filmmaking. In truth, it's not even above average or, by many measures, even particularly entertaining, But it’s by no means a "bad" film either. On the surface, St. Elmo's is a very average drama with no real highs or lows, featuring competent but not exceptional acting and a thin story that falls well short of captivating.
However, what St. Elmo's Fire is beneath the surface is an exploration of some very common themes -- friendship, coming of age, secret crushes, finding your place in this world, etc. Certainly all of these themes had been explored on film previously, so St. Elmo's broke no new ground in that way. But what the film undeniably does is offer perspectives on these themes through the unique lens of the 1980's -- ultimately presenting keen new examinations of 80's youth by reflecting their psychology, pressures, problems, and world view.
Because Saint Elmo’s Fire applies a unique, extraordinarily contemporary 80's filter, it stands out as one of the most emblematic movies of that decade. Think about it -- when you consider the most representative movies of the 1980's, you don’t think of Oscar winners like Platoon, Terms of Endearment, Amadeus or Rain Man. You think of ones that captured the zeitgeist of the time, whether that means films with Cold War overtones (Rocky IV, Top Gun, No Way Out, Rambo), 80's excess (Less Than Zero, Wall Street), a frivolous, fun-loving vibe (Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Footloose, Police Academy), a distinct but somewhat undefinable 80's aesthetic (Flashdance, Lost Boys, Fatal Attraction, American Gigolo, Risky Business) or a focus on youth culture (Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Valley Girl, The Breakfast Club -- and its sister movie released the same year, Saint Elmo's Fire.)
Indeed, if you examine the characters and plot of St. Elmo's Fire, you clearly see the social conventions, attitudes, mores and struggles common among 80's youth:
- Billy Hixx (Rob Lowe) is a portrait of hedonism and apathy as he's dragged unwillingly into adulthood.
- Coke sniffing, party girl Jules (Demi Moore) -- with her hot pink, neon apartment decor featuring a floor to ceiling mural of Billy Idol -- is a study in 80's glam and overindulgence.
- Alec Newberry (Judd Nelson) shamelessly pursues promotion in the political world and perfectly captures the Gordon Gekko-esque materialism and aspirations toward upward mobility of 80's yuppies.
- Kevin (Andrew McCarthy) is Alec's antithesis -- cynical, introspective and dismissive of conventional thinking.
- Kirbo (Emilio Estevez) is fancifully pursuing things he only thinks he wants (a law degree and Dale Biberman.)
- And finally, Leslie and Wendy (Ally Sheedy and Mare Winningham) both wonder how they became stuck in lives they never chose -- Leslie as a trophy girlfriend caught in boyfriend Alec's wake and fearing she'll never carve out her own identity, and conflicted Wendy yearning to choose her own path and break away from the life her parents want for her.
And that’s why it’s important -- not because it’s a great movie, but because it’s a snapshot of 80's young adulthood. So for me and so many other Gen X-ers, St. Elmo's Fire is an important film that still speaks to us today... because it spoke for us back then.
Related Posts:
June 16, 2024
Streaming Wars: Episode 6
In this latest episode of my ongoing audio blog on the Streaming Wars I examine:
- Dealing with churn
- A shift toward programmed content on streaming channels
- Streamers' plans to push into sports, gaming and betting
- The upfronts: WBD shines, NBCUniversal underwhelms
- Netflix's rationale for no longer reporting subscriber numbers
Listen to this episode on YouTube.
Related Posts:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)