Yeah Right

2009 Is Almost Over...

which is a shame, as it was a great year for pop culture (particularly music, imo).  As a recap, here are the Yeah Right staffer picks for the best moments of the year:

Batman's 2009 picks
Allison's 2009 picks
Larry's 2009 picks
Isangeles' 2009 picks
Whitney's 2009 picks

Let's hope 2010 gives us many more moments to appropriately rank at this time come next year.

That's What She Said

A look back on slang from the aughts.

Open Thread Thursday

It's the heart of Bowl season.  What game is everyone the most pumped for?

Other than the BCS matchups, I'm looking forward to Penn State/LSU and I hope Bobby Bowden goes out in style with a win over West Virginia tomorrow.

A Unique List

David Wain presents his list of the "Middle 10 Neither Best Nor Worst Movies of the Decade."

Lissy Trullie at DC9

Sorry I've been a bit slow to follow up on Whitney's review of Xylos at DC9 a few weeks ago.  It was the first time I'd been to DC9.  The space was decent, but I've got to say that I enjoy the layout of similarly sized venues on U street (read: Velvet Lounge) better.  But DC9 gets bonus points for carrying my favorite beer from Colorado: Breckenridge Brewery's Avalanche Ale.
 
I enjoyed the show, but as Whitney mentioned, I didn't enjoy Xylos nearly as much as she did.  My take: three hipsters with minimal talent figured that they should start a band -- because, hey!, we're hipsters! -- realized they had minimal talent, brought in a nerdy guitar player with talent, and the resulting mix was awkward and intensely mediocre. 
 
I'm still not sure if I enjoyed the second opening act, Mike Bones.  He was just one guy on electric guitar with no backing band.  He was a great song writer and most of the songs were really mellow.  Had it been a different environment, I think I would have really liked him.  But when frickin' Lissy Trullie is up next (with her high paced rockin' songs) a mellow singer songwriter doesn't quite fit.
 
On to Lissy.  As previously discussed on Yeah Right, Lissy is great live, has an awesome debut album, and has a badass haircut to boot.  Apparently the crowd didn't get that memo because when she took the stage it was dead silent except for me and two other dudes clapping.  Cue Lissy making a comment about the silence and it was downhill from there.  Needless to say, we did not get an encore.
 
But despite the lackluster crowd, Lissy was just as awesome as she was early this year at the Rock 'n Roll Hotel with the added bonuses that this time 1) she got to play a longer set and 2) her bass player did not wear a Lissy Trullie shirt.  In a reverse of the last time I saw her, Lissy played her fabulous cover of Hot Chips' "Ready for the Floor" early and saved my favorite "Boy Boy" for last.  In between she played nearly every song on the extended version of Self-taught Learner (with the notable exception of the one song that I don't like - her cover of "Just a Friend") plus a few new songs (which were decent, but not as good as the STL material).  One song was even much improved live from its album version was "You Bleed You."  A demo version of the song was a bonus track on the extended edition of STL.  It showed a lot of potential but was still a bit rough around the edges and needed more force from the backing band.  Lissy clearly cleaned it up a bit since then and says it will be on the next album.
 
Verdict: Lissy - 4 Stars, The Crowd - 1 Star

This Sums Things Up Nicely

Dave Barry's year in review is a must read.

Looks Like I'll Need to Find Something Else to Make Fun of

Tyra Banks is ending her talk show.  There have been so many unintentionally hilarious moments over the years.  Thank God for The Soup! which has highlighted all of them.  My personal favorites include the "So What!" rally, Tyra's "kiss my fat ass!" rant, her undercover reporting in a fat suit, any "investigative correspondence" done by Topenga from Boy Meets World (does it get more random than that?), and her many attempts to lift audience self esteem that probably did the exact opposite (example: making everyone in the audience wear a red tube top with their weight printed in big letters on it).
 
Any other favorite Tyra moments out there?

Another Worst of List

Here's one stab at the 50 worst songs of the decade.  I don't mind the Dynamite Hack cover, but overall it's a decent list.

United State of Pop

DJ Earworm is back with his annual mash up of the top 25 pop songs of the year.

Movie Monday: Brittany Murphy Edition

When a movie star dies, I'm always curious to see which films get listed in the news stories.  Clearly, they can't list all the movies the person was in, so they pick a few.  I assume they go for the highest grossing films, but that can lead to some unfortunate situations.  Take Brittany Murphy for example. Every news story I read about her death listed her as the actress from Clueless, Uptown Girls, and Just Married.  A few articles also throw in 8 Mile.  This is unfortunate, in my opinion, because Brittany Murphy had some great performances (both dramatic and comedic) in some great movies and needless to say Uptown Girls and a movie about getting married to Ashton Kutcher in Vegas are not among them.
 
So if I were writing an obituary for Murphy, I'd mention Clueless (duh), Girl, Interrupted (most of the focus was on Winona Rider and Angelina Jolie, but Murphy was excellent in her supporting role as the unstable Daisy) and Drop Dead Gorgeous.
 
That last pick takes a lot of people off guard, but it's one of my favorite movies.  Judging by the fact that I was able to purchase it in a $5 bin at Walmart, I'm guessing that it wasn't popular with the masses.  That's a shame.  So for Movie Monday, I'd like to give it the praise it deserves:
 
Drop Dead Gorgeous is a dark comedy about the Mount Rose American Teen Princess beauty pageant in rural Minnesota.  The protagonist is Amber Atkins (Kirsten Dunst -- in her best role, in my opinion), a nice girl who dreams about escaping her Mount Rose trailor park to become the next Diane Sawyer (who was also a beauty pageant winner).  Her rival is mean girl Becky Ann Leeman (Denise Richards) who, with the help of her mom Gladys Leeman (Kirstie Alley), will do anything to win.  That includes rigging lights to fall, explosions, trailer park arson, bribing judges, and countless other acts of pageant sabotage.  The supporting cast, including Murphy, Amy Adams, Allison Janney, and Elin Arkin, is fabulous.  The movie is highly quotable ("Are we on 'Cops' again?").  And, most importantly, the movie, shot as a faux documentary, does an amazing job of  good job of showing just how ridiculous pageants are.  Take this exchange with Alley on the theme of the pageant, for example:
 
Voice of Documentarian: So what was the theme of the pageant last year?
Gladys Leeman: Last year? It was, "Buy American."
Voice of Documentarian: And the year before that?
Gladys Leeman: "U.S.A. is A-okay."
Voice of Documentarian: Can you remember the theme of your favorite pageant?
Gladys Leeman: "Can I? I'm Amer-I-Can!" People ask me where I get this. I don't know, it's, maybe a gift from God or somethin'.
 
Or take Richards' answer to the question, "If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?":  "I'd have good strong roots in a town like Mt. Rose, a solid Christian trunk, and long, leafy branches to provide shade for handicapped kids on a hot summer day."
 
If you find beauty pageants even remotely funny, Drop Dead Gorgeous will have you laughing from beginning to end.
 
Verdict: Four Stars.