Frozen: A Disney “What if?”

I am an unabashed lover of fairytales. My fondest childhood memories are mostly about my siblings and me sacking out on our parents’ bed while Mom read to us from an illustrated version of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytales. It opened with the “Emperor’s New Clothes,” which was fine. My little sister preferred “The Little Mermaid” or “The Little Match Girl,” but my favorite was the “Snow Queen.”

Gerda & the Reindeer (Edmund Dulac, illustrator)

I have no hate for Disney. I’d consider myself an affectionate if critical observer. I don’t really go in for dressing as a princess, but the Disney Marathon is on my bucket list. I know and understand the problems with ‘Princess’ culture—the idea that women need to be rescued from isolation or the control of our parents, that we need marriage (and therefore sex) to become adults and understand the world—yep, that’s all troubling. There’s been a lot of criticism written about it — just Google “problems with Disney princesses” and you’ll get results from The Week, the Boston Globe, and a host of bloggers. That said, I will still sing along with every single Disney song written between 1989 and 2000.

Thus, I was tentatively delighted when I heard that Disney’s newest conquest was to be my favorite fairytale. [Read more…]

How Would You Touch Me?: Spike Jonze’s Her

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I used to have an OKCupid profile. It led to…well, nothing much, really. I’m not very good at dating. Most of my relationships to date have come about by my being in the right place at the right time. I tried online dating for a bit as a way to try and broaden my options. However, it just never felt right. Meeting people/talking online was weird. The lack of personal interaction was bizarre, to say the least. When the time came to finally meet people, there was an overt familiarity that lent itself towards social anxiety. This may be a case that many of you find familiar, or it may simply be me being socially awkward. Judging by my lack of OKCupid success, I’d lean towards the latter.

Anyway, one thing I continually noticed on the site was listed under a section titled “Things I couldn’t live without.” Around 90% of the time, people had their phone listed. The reasons varied, yet the unassailable uniting factor was that their phone had become such a large part of their life, whether through social communication, apps, or whatever the fuck Yelp is supposed to do, people found that their daily lives could no longer continue without them. It had become almost a part of them, a “significant other”, to use the term lightly (“other” meaning a strange object outside the realm of nature and “significant” meaning…well, significant). It’s only a matter of time before you see phrases everywhere like “I’m in love with my phone”.

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One Bad Thing and Three Great Things About “American Hustle”

Before I tell you why you need to see American Hustle, I need on my end to explain why it is not a great movie. A movie with great things in it, yes, but not a great movie all around.

After my own viewing of American Hustle, my brain began to ponder my love for David O. Russell’s body of work and came to this conclusion: there’s a theme that runs through his movies about how something, be it war (Three Kings), the search for the meaning of life (I Heart Huckabee’s), or life itself (The Silver Linings Playbook) is fundamentally absurd, does not deserve to be on a pedestal, and may ultimately be meaningless due to its random ability to completely shift your world on a dime with one act, one new piece of information, one ridiculous coincidence.  But, and here I borrow two definitive phrases from one of my new Twitter friends, David Roth of SB Nation (@david_j_roth…follow him), if one Lives Life Passionately and displays a Radical Compassionate Sentimentalism, appreciating the absurdity but never neglecting to care for others, one finds their own meaning and ultimately fulfillment, purpose…their silver lining as Pat Saliterno would call it, or their happy ending, their deserved happy ending, as I would call it.

The problem with American Hustle, a film that now allows Russell to revel in the absurdity of institutions, from government to law to organized crime, while filling it with passion, compassion, and a positive ending, is…

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Breaking Down the 2014 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot, Part 3: The Whole Truth

Who will join these men in Cooperstown?

Who will join these men in Cooperstown?

By now, I’m sure you can agree that this is a stacked Hall of Fame ballot. If you don’t, you should probably go back to watching whatever sports are popular in your tiny, remote-as-balls corner of the world. (Probably Beulah, Wyoming.) This year, the ballot was so deep that when filling out my own choices, I had to leave people off because you’re only allowed to vote for ten. The following players are whom I voted for on my official IBWAA ballot, results to be announced in January:

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Breaking Down the 2014 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot, Part 2: The Newcomers

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I want to talk here for a bit about memory, specifically as it pertains to sports.

It’s no lie to suggest that we grow up around sports, that they are imbued in our national consciousness from an early age. As we grow, we attend gym class, which at the time is something that we’re pretty sure is engineered to destroy the self-esteem of nerds and fat kids everywhere. Football becomes a religious experience on Saturdays and Sundays for many of us, and Opening Day and Spring Training hold equal power as we emerge from the bleak midwinter. Gentlemen on skates hoisting a giant, silver bucket over their heads becomes a sight worth crying over. Sometimes, the stars of a given sport leak over into our Bugs Bunny cartoons, saving the earth from alien monsters, yet dooming us to have to watch “Space Jam” every now and then.

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Breaking Down the 2014 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot, Part 1: The Holdovers

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It’s time for that annual holiday tradition (well, winter months-esque tradition, though I’m finding that this week is surprisingly suited towards writing a 3-part, 10,000 word diatribe on the Baseball Hall of Fame) wherein I take 36 famous baseball players and render them for your observing pleasure. This year’s ballot is, as was predicted, even more crammed full than last year’s ballot, and equally full of uncertainty regarding its outcome (except for one case, which I’ll get to in Part II). Nobody has any real clue of what’s about to happen, although I’m sure if Nate Silver were feeling bored, he could accurately predict who’s making it in and who will be left out in the cold. Then again, he’s got better things to do – like politics.

Last year’s Hall of Fame ballot was particularly notable for not electing a single person to the hallowed shrine of America’s pastime – except for three dead men, one of whom actively campaigned to keep blacks and other minorities from the game. This year will be different – if only because Joe Torre, Tony LaRussa, and Bobby Cox will be inducted following their unanimous election on the Veteran’s Committee ballot. (More on that in Part III) What remains a question, however, is which players will be standing up there with them when the summer rolls along.

For that, I present to you this guide to the 36 players who will be on the ballot this year. For the ease of reading – and to ease the suffering on my fingers – I’ll be alternately keeping this short and breaking this into 3 separate articles, to be published over the course of the week. Part 1 comes out today, with Part 2 coming on Tuesday, and Part 3 coming Friday afternoon (with a two day split for Christmas and Boxing Day – I’m sure the Recorder is big in Alberta, after all). Part 2 will deal with the ballot newcomers, whilst Part 3 will wrap up everything I’ve covered, reveal my IBWAA (Internet Baseball Writers Association of America) ballot – yes, I actually voted for the Hall of Fame this year, but not in any official capacity! – and talk about what I think will actually happen when the vote tally’s are released in January. For now, enjoy Part I – the Holdovers from Ballots Prior.

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Long Players – Rapping, Confessing, and Two Guys in Helmets

I once said some disparaging things about the Grammy Awards on this site, but while I still think the concept of pitting all forms of music against each other in competition is the most ridiculous of any merit ceremony, I also cannot deny that the Grammys have their place in capturing the diversity and the zeitgeist of American taste, no more so than in the Album of the Year category, in which rock and pop meet blues, country, jazz, classical, and soundtracks on equal terms, and after a somewhat reactionary first decade (three awards, two definitely deserved for Frank Sinatra, but also Vaughan “JFK” Meader and GLEN CAMPBELL (winning over RICHARD HARRIS) taking home honors), the category more or less hit its stride and may, more than the Oscars, give us a reflection of the country’s mood.

But SERIOUSLY this might be the best Album of the Year nomination ever. Not nominated record. Two different things.

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As My Whimsy Takes Me

If you haven’t noticed, we at the Addison Recorder, along with our best friends, have a strong and specific dose of Anglophilia, not for the monarchy and the “let’s boil everything for hours” cooking but for the culture. Doctor Who, Sherlock, Rowling and Tolkien and Gaiman, Hilary Mantel and the other Booker Prize winners, almost everything on the BBC at times, to say nothing of William Shakespeare and Jane Austen…the list goes on and on, and I have observed much as of late that this not a peculiar phenomenon but an ever-growing and ranging one. My coworkers carry TARDIS lunchboxes and local schoolteachers tell me how their students come to class in Premier League jerseys and gear. Americans keep developing a Britannic fix, and this piece offers a good suggestion readily available at any public library to boost your dose.

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