The Mockingbirds

Words to Live By: The Boogeyman is Coming

"It's Halloween, everyone's entitled to one good scare."

 

Weekend Kiss Off: The Funk of Forty Thousand Years

Due to our strong personal convictions, we wish to stress that this film in no way endorses a belief in purple leopard print leggings.

Happy Halloween weekend,

The Mockingbirds


 

Mockingbird Movie Guide: The Dame Doth Protest Muchly

Good morrow, all you saucy plume-plucked varlots and codpieces! It has been a fortnight since I've brought you news of the thespian world, and lo, 'tis the fifth day of the calendar week on, this the final Friday of 2011 October, which means that it's time for I, Dame Derision, to stop talking like I'm from the Elizabethan era and to tell you what's in theaters to avoid and maybe even something decent in which you to spend some of your free time watching. Despite the fact that Halloween is Monday, all the scary movies were released last weekend, as I'm sure you already knew because you read Madame Haunts ' n' Taunts' post.

SEE: The Rum Diary

Oh, come on, you knew I'd pick Johnny Depp over Justin Timberlake any day of the week. I'll cut him some slack because it's...well, Johnny Fucking Depp! He looks good, it's a Hunter S. Thompson story and it'll be better than watching a mindless film about the bleak future where time is currency. Sorry, JT, but there's no sexy to bring in comparison to a rum-drinking Johnny Depp wandering around 1960's Puerto Rico. Ay, Papi, indeed. Or just read the book instead and go get some rum and sunshine yourself and cut out the hot middle-man. The choice is yours, my friends.

RENT: It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Pure classic. A personal favorite because Linus is actually our protagonist for most of the story and it is still makes us giggle to hear Charlie Brown say, "I got a rock" when the kids compare all of their trick-or-treating loot. Snoopy battles the Red Baron and Schroeder jams out some World War I classics on his piano. What's not to love? It still works, 45 years and one day later to the date. This clip is great because it truly captures what it's like to have an older sister. Get out your sharpest knife and enjoy a little pumpkin-murdering while you bask in the warm glow of the last happy holiday-induced childhood regression before the rest of the holidays show up to ruin it all. 

   

SKIP: Anonymous

Here's another post-modern piece of crap presented to us by the pribbling doghearted skainsmate that we call Hollywood. This wayward vehicle of literary tom-foolery is probably so full of historical inaccuracies some other scholar will write a book on how badly this film has failed to prove that Shakespeare didn't actually write his own stuff. Oh, Joseph Fiennes, can't you find anything decent to act in that is set in anything other than at least four centuries old? For shame, it seems you have proven yourself to be the lesser of the Fiennes brothers- halfway through the film I'm thinking about how great Ralph was in The English Patient and so the rest of the film went unnoticed- probably because you try to say that the 'Bard didn't pen his own genius. For that, thou impertinent spur-galled canker-blossoms, your film shall be banished to the film purgatory of basic cable reruns.

Eat, drink and be scary,

Dame Derision

Mockingbird PSA: We Heart Boobs!

'Birds and Friends of 'Birds--

Though Breast Cancer Awareness Month may almost be over we feel that you should be thinking about your breasts all three hundred and sixty five glorious days of the year. Even if you're not a heterosexual male.

It's never too late to schedule that mammogram that you've been putting off and since you're intelligent, self-aware females (and/or fans of females), you are already doing your monthly self-exam, so we need not remind you of that. Have you talked to your younger cousins and nieces to make sure they are too?  Be a good role model to them for more than just your smart fashion choices or excellent knowledge of The Beatles.

Sport your ribbons of pink, donate some of your self for a good cause, hug a Cancer Survivor, and remember to love your boobs.

The Stupidest Thing I Read Last Week: Sometimes a Cigar Is Just Someone Who Won't Sleep With You

I read a lot. It's part of my beliefs. Unfortunately, 95% of what I encounter is unreadable. As in, unreadable in its stupidity, meaninglessness and pointlessness. I attribute this directly to the fact that there is no place in this world for the woman with 105 IQ.

Because I complain a lot about what I have to read for this blog, and because I can never do enough for The Madame, I have been charged with writing a post about the stupidest thing I read in the last seven days. The hardest part will be picking only one winner every week.

I am fully aware that a lot of people find it unseemly and unChristian to judge. I am not one of those people. I judge. I judge big time. It happens to be how I got this job. (Well, that and nepotism. Of course, the joke ended up being on The Madame in that regard because I will never, ever meet a deadline.) It's my ability to judge that led me to stop reading this article, which reports on a survey conducted amongst legal secretaries (assistants?) questioning whether such secretaries would rather work for a male or female attorney, midstream and promptly ask The Madame for permission to judge everyone involved with both the article and the survey and write strongly written words about them. The Madame consented after reminding me that we really needed was more vodka. This reminder was accompanied by a swift kick to the shin, which I can only assume after years of such practice is her own personal form of operant conditioning. 

I digress. According to the article, something like 95% of those legal secretaries participating in the survey (virtually all of whom were females as far as I can tell) would rather work for a male attorney. The reasoning for such a preference was as simple as it was ridiculous: women are meaner and more difficult to work with- or rather, under (this may actually be my first double entendre for the 'Birds) -than men. As if the survey results and reasoning weren't offensive enough, the article goes to great lengths to analyze these responses and determine whether women are awful and unruly in the workplace because because women are expected to be nicer than men (so behaving like men is frowned upon by other women) or because women multitask a lot and take on too much responsibility and by nature freak out when they can't handle it. 

This is the sort of thing that inspires rants in someone as self-righteous and verbose as me. I refuse to believe that the origin of such a preference for being the underling of a male instead of the underling of a female arises solely out of the fact that either 1) women are horrible bosses by nature; or 2) society makes women horrible bosses (or to be perceived as such). The real truth of the matter is that women are not men, and this, at least in part, makes women not want to work for them. But who is going to openly admit that they prefer working for male attorneys because it ups her chances of marrying (or dating) well or simply that she prefers the male attention? Judging by the article I just partially read, no one.

And yet, these are very real reasons for a lady not wanting to be subordinate to another lady. If you don't believe me (which, by the way, you should- I'm very reliable!) both Darwin and Freud, for their own respective reasons (some less misogynistic than others, Mr. Freud) assert that competition amongst members of the same gender is both naturally occurring and to be expected in organized society. This wouldn't be such a big deal if it weren't for the fact that our patriarchical society has changed so little since the Renaissance that for the most part rivalry amongst females focuses on the need for a woman to find a suitable mate to care for her. If we had ever actually gotten away from the mentality that girls were made for marrying and birthing, then maybe more women would be inspired to become the boss instead of being angered that the one they work for is not a potential mate.

All that being said, I am not sure if it's true that a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, but I do know that America needs more lawyers like Metallica needs to do more projects with Lou Reed.

Baroness von Jeer

Mid-Week Musical Interlude: Sweet Long Lizard With a Silver Spoon

 

A Letter to JLo - Ay Papi!

Greetings Ms. Lopez,

I understand that you're in the middle of a not-so-pretty divorce from your not-so-pretty husband and that you both are business-minded. Trying to brand yourself is one thing, JLo, but attempting to hock a car that hasn't been in the States for over twenty-five years by including it in your video/commercial is pretty fucking lame. And compound that with the silly Kohl's ads that won't stop playing, I'd say your plan is backfiring. 

The girls who want to dress like you probably aren't shopping at Kohl's and none of them are going to go drop good greens for a glorified golf cart. And why in the hell would anyone this side of the Atlantic want to drive a silly little car like that when we have been inundated with plenty of silly little cars since the Mini-Cooper made its comeback and the Prius came on the scene. Know your audience, people!

We get it, you're Jenny From the Damn Block from somewhere in New York and you shan't let us forget it. Shouldn't you have at least shot your car commercial there? Don't dance around downtown L.A. and tell me it's the Bronx. And while we're on the subject, if you're so NY-legit, why the fuck don't you reside there? There's nothing I love more than a New Yorker who lives and works in Los Angeles and still acts like they'd rather be somewhere else. Priceless. 

The good news is that I won't even mention the ridiculously horrible "lyrics" of the song that I'm sure will make you an even more ridiculous sum of money, "lyrics" that even a fourth grader could probably write better. (That might be almost as embarrassing as being the ad agency that got fired for allowing said commercial to even exist.) The bad news is that there are at least two more JLo-Fiat commercials slated before we can begin to forget the first one.

Maybe you should spend less time "singing" and "acting" and just take some time off to be a mom, enjoy what's left of your family life and design some baby clothes or something a little less demanding on your "creativity". 

I wanted to be a Fly Girl on In Living Color,

Dame Derision

It's Kevin Kline's Birthday....Delicious!

I will not bore you with a dissertation on the brilliance and importance of Kevin Kline (although I could) but I will take this opportunity to post the clip below in all it's insane glory. Enjoy, and avoid the green ones.

Fish and Chips
A Fish Called Wanda at MOVIECLIPS.com

 

 

Words to Live By: Ray of Hope

"Life is a tragedy filled with suffering and despair and yet some people do manage to avoid jury duty."

                                                                               -Woody Allen

Weekend Kiss Off: Long Live the Princess

Happy Birthday to the erstwhile Princess Leia, a broad (in the truest and best sense of the word) whose wit and intelligence we admire and whose material we steal from liberally.

There is no lingerie in space,

The Mockingbirds