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The Best of 00's Derby: Was It the Age of Quirk?
Ten Cartoons from Sean Delonas
The Weirdest Sports Illustrated Covers Of 1978

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barley*herb
11/25/09

In reply to The Best of 00's Derby: Was It the Age of Quirk?
Of course, judging the 2000's by their film and TV is a little bit like judging the 1960's by the improvements in household appliances: Missing The Point. It's hardly surprising the TV and film of the decade has been unfocussed and miserable considering those two industries have been busily self-destructing the whole time.

This may well be the last decade in which it's possible to talk about "mass culture" in a way that's at all meaningful; from now on, the film of the decade is whatever amusing cat video you're watching on youtube at that moment (or something).
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SpyMagician
11/25/09

In reply to The Best of 00's Derby: Was It the Age of Quirk?
You know what this all means, right? Come 2040, the meta layers of retro ironic quirk will smother us all!

Also, what will the 2010+ years be like? We're already in a dourly serious mindset where "re-imagined" films are all darker/deeper than the originals and fashion is quite Victorian or even militaristic; can guys buy shirts/jackets without epaulettes or some military tinge nowadays?

Blah...
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Botswana Meat Commission FC
11/25/09

In reply to The Best of 00's Derby: Was It the Age of Quirk?
The America of the aughts will not be remembered well. Started with a stolen election, then moved on through 9/11, anthrax, Iraq, Katrina, Afghanistan and the worst recession of the post-war age. The average worker has gone 10 years without a wage increase.

It's the ultimate age of malaise. At least the late 70s gave us disco, punk and hip-hop.
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barley*herb
11/25/09

@Botswana Meat Commission FC: You're massively correct. I remember in 2000 reading an article wondering what we'd refer to the decade as - the noughties or the oughties? Perhaps, the author proposed, it should depend on how the decade actually goes. Peace, prosperity and cultural flowering would earn the name "oughties," but if the decade were full of war, misery and recession, the more downbeat 'noughties' would seem more appropriate.

And I remember reading this and thinking, "war? Maybe a little bosnia-style liberation skirmish here and there, but nothing serious, surely? Recession? Nah."

It's really depressing thinking back to 1999 and realising just what a shit-storm the Noughties (which have surely earned that name) have been.
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Magister
11/24/09

In reply to The Best of 00's Derby: Was It the Age of Quirk?
The television list was just too trendy to take seriously. Year-end or decade-end lists are a natural post, but it's like the person from the Hollywood Reporter knocked it out in an afternoon without giving it any thought.
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Edited by Magister at 11/24/09 7:52 PM Magister was starred Magister was unstarred

PaisleyPajamas
11/24/09

@Magister: Some of the HR's descriptive blurbs are so egregiously ass-kissy it's impossible to read them without being squicked out.

Also, any TeeVee "best of list" that excludes Six Feet Under AND Arrested Development isn't a TeeVee "best of list."
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jerusalemcricket
11/25/09

@Magister: That list is impossible to take seriously because it doesn't include The Wire. You can debate a lot of shows, but I don't think there's any argument that The Wire is one of the best (if not the best) tv shows of the decade.

And, as noted below, Arrested Development's should be on there as well. The fact that they included a show that hasn't even run a full season (and one that owes a great deal to AD) is ludicrous.
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Magister promoted this comment Edited by jerusalemcricket at 11/25/09 2:22 PM jerusalemcricket was starred jerusalemcricket was unstarred

Magister
11/25/09

@jerusalemcricket:
Hey, but Modern Family is the bomb.
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Edited by Magister at 11/25/09 2:21 PM Magister was starred Magister was unstarred

Helio
11/24/09

In reply to The Best of 00's Derby: Was It the Age of Quirk?
"boy, that must've been a fun crowd to hang around with"

I think it must be indicative of the overwhelmingly bad shit that's have happened. Basically, this decade was awful, bookended with a domestic terrorist attack and a neo-great depression. So yeah, i'm not surprised at the rather morose cinema that's made the list. And if i had a nickel for every time I heard "post-911 cinema" in some random film class, i'd be a slightly less poor young person.

I always look forward to these lists (indeed, they happen every year too)cause even tho they depresses me, it will also push my netflix queue into the 250s.
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TroisFilles
11/24/09

In reply to The Best of 00's Derby: Was It the Age of Quirk?
Horrible decade for kids. Sexting is their legacy? Lady Gaga, Britney, Paris, Perex and Nicole Ritchie their icons? College is financially out of reach. Their parents are broke. They're all on psych drugs and can't sit for more than 3 seconds at a stretch. Peanut butter will suffocate them. And they carry asthma inhalers like kids in the 60s carried yo yo's.Damn, it's good to be old.
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Heneage promoted this comment Edited by TroisFilles at 11/24/09 7:29 PM TroisFilles was starred TroisFilles was unstarred

fatmonalisa
11/24/09

In reply to The Best of 00's Derby: Was It the Age of Quirk?
As a person who worked in the entertainment industry for the better part of this decade I would like to apologize on behalf of all of us. We knew it sucked but we liked the money.
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Charlotte Rae's Web
11/24/09

@fatmonalisa: I forgive you. I worked for bloated and eventually bankrupt dotcoms. We liked the money too.
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PaisleyPajamas promoted this comment

Mike Jahn
11/24/09

In reply to The Best of 00's Derby: Was It the Age of Quirk?
The decade began with hanging chads and ended with Lady Gaga. Next.
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seyswho
11/25/09

@Mike Jahn: Lady Gaga = hanging chode?
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Conchie Birdie
11/24/09

In reply to The Best of 00's Derby: Was It the Age of Quirk?
This decade was exhausting. Pop culture was a shitstorm of everything but the kitchen sink. A few twinkles here and there, but with the stench of Perez Hilton's farts everywhere.
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BenderingTimeV2
11/24/09

In reply to The Best of 00's Derby: Was It the Age of Quirk?
I wasn't liking the movie list until I got to #1. And then I totally agreed with everything.
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Helio promoted this comment BenderingTimeV2 was starred BenderingTimeV2 was unstarred

Helio
11/24/09

@BenderingTimeV2: I don't read time out much, but was impressed/pleased with the list. I'd prolly switch num 1 and 2, tho.
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snugbug
11/24/09

@Helio: I'd totes love to have a debate over this. As much as I'm a PTA fan, and greatly admired the gorgeous maturity he displayed in directing There Will Be Blood, I submit that Mulholland Drive was more significant in the big-picture scheme of things. It was the film that sort of converted a lot of "I don't fucking get David Lynch" people, most notably Roger Ebert. (He had up to that point been a very vocal critic of Lynch, accusing him of, among other sins, misogyny (!!!!)

The funny thing is, unlike PTA, who is still a pretty young director, hopscotching around and fumbling around for a signature style, David Lynch has always done his own.. Lynchian thing, which is very much a coherent aesthetic and world view expressed in the medium of film. I admit that I'm a demented David Lynch fan, so I can't pretend I'm objective, but I sincerely think he's massively important to the history of cinema. I mean, the moment your name becomes an adjective.. game over.

#Lynchian
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Helio
11/24/09

@snugbug: I can totally see where you are coming from especially given the fact that Lynch's work is considered inaccessible to the point where people consider you demented for being a hardcore fan of David Lynch (I mean that in best possible way). Mulholland Dr certainly turned that tide.

My desire to switch the two is mostly because I have an huge soft spot for Daniel Day Lewis. I don't think he's made a bad movie ever and and commands the screen not by scene-chewing but by being utterly convincing and consumed with his character. I simply can't get enough of the guy. PTA's style, which started to come through in "Punch Drunk," came to a head in "There Will Be Blood."
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badasscat
11/25/09

@Helio: Both of these films are movies that I cannot stop watching whenever they happen to be on one of my movie channels. I think they're both about as perfect as two films can be. I'd put Mulholland Dr. at #1 over There Will Be Blood because it did a lot of things structure-wise that are now being copied by other filmmakers. And not that it was the first to ever do any of these things - David Lynch's films are often non-linear, often told in reserve or with some other conceit - but it was so successful at it that it got regular people talking about it.

Also, while I think DDL's performance in Blood is probably the best I've ever seen, and I can watch that movie over and over just for him, the more times I see it the more I just want to skip over that entire section with his fake brother. It's just boring, and too long. There's no similar sequence in Mulholland Dr. - every part of that film feels necessary in some way.
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deepey
11/24/09

In reply to The Best of 00's Derby: Was It the Age of Quirk?
On January 1st I will begin compiling my list of the best "Best of the 00's" lists.
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savingRichardParker
11/24/09

@deepey: Do people actually say it that way aloud - as in the oh-oh's? I am not saying I have a better suggestion; it's just it's interesting to me that a satisfying way to phrase this decade has never caught on. I think I usually say "the 2000's", but that's really lame and awkward.
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PaisleyPajamas promoted this comment

Maryscary
11/24/09

@savingRichardParker: I am stumped about this, too. I've heard 2000s, double Os, but I think my favorite suggestion is the naughts (because naught means zero.) Or, naughties!
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PaisleyPajamas promoted this comment Maryscary was starred Maryscary was unstarred

savingRichardParker
11/24/09

@Maryscary: Naughts is okay, but doesn't seem to have caught on either. Really, nothing at all has caught on, and that's so weird! The Naughties? Too clever...or something. This decade has binged on and purged itself of cleverness...that's all behind us now.

#tips
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PaisleyPajamas promoted this comment

croush1211
11/25/09

@savingRichardParker: I typically say the 2000s, but my question is, doesn't the 2010s (and the 1910s, 1810s, etc.) sound just as awkward for some reason? It seems like there's nothing weird about the 1820s, 1930s, or the 2040s, but there's something about 2010s that doesn't roll off the tongue as easily.
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seyswho promoted this comment croush1211 was starred croush1211 was unstarred

seyswho
11/25/09

@croush1211: I think it doesn't work as well because it doesn't end with "ies".
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Werrick
02/19/09

In reply to Ten Cartoons from Sean Delonas
Whatever... I'm a white, straight, able-bodied, anglo-saxon, protestant male. If there's one thing I've learned it's how to laugh at myself.

So should everyone else. Get over it.

I'm very quickly running out of patience for this overblown sense of outrage whenever someone makes a joke about someone who's gay, or about women, or about some other minority.

Fuck it. You get to make fun of me, then I get to make fun of you. That's how it works, and if you don't like it then allow me to remind you that, regardless of what you might think, you do NOT have the right to not have your feelings hurt.

Suck it up, princess.
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Dogtanian
02/19/09

@Werrick: You've not unpacked your knapsack have you princess?

So you know nothing about othering and the dehumanising effect it has.
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The Stephen A. Smith Heckling Society of Gentlemen
02/18/09

In reply to Ten Cartoons from Sean Delonas
Is it bad that the Heather Mills one is hilarious?
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valet_of_the_dolls
02/18/09

In reply to Ten Cartoons from Sean Delonas
KarenUhOh was the canary, wasn't she...
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Helman
02/18/09

@valet_of_the_dolls: Yes.
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JacquesPaysan
02/18/09

In reply to Ten Cartoons from Sean Delonas
The only thing I take away from these cartoons is that Rosie and her partner don't need to remove their clothes before getting it on.
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