Archive for Rants

Everything Old is New Again

July 23, 2009 · Filed under Rants, Trends · Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Happy Tuesday, dear reader(s)! As we promised you last week, we are going weekly starting today! Tuesday! Because a glorious Tuesday it is! What’s that? It’s Thursday? Well crap. 

Anyhoo, we at the ATM offices have been very busy keeping tabs on both the summer TV lineup and the soon-to-debut fall programming. As we pour over press releases for The Vampire Diaries (it’s not a Twilight knock-off, TYVM. Except for the acting. And the whole vampire thing…whatevs) and build up our second season 90210 stamina (that first season was Dulls-ville!), we’re noticing a trend in “new” TV shows. It’s a trend we like to call “everything old is new again.”

Case in point: On a dull Tuesday night (are you sure today isn’t Tuesday?), Co-Creator A flipped on ABC Family, one of the few channels to offer non-reality new programming during the hot summer months. Never one to let us down, ABC Fam was premiering a new episode of one show and debuting the pilot of another. Fantastic. However, those shows were 10 Things I Hate About You, which we all know was stolen from, er, inspired by the film, and Ruby and the Rockits, a sitcom about a girl who discovers her dad is an aging rockstar and goes to live with his family, including his brother who is also an aging rockstar. Said washed up rockstars are played by David Cassidy (aka Keith Partridge) and his real-life brother Patrick Cassidy. Where was other famous Cassidy brother Shaun, you ask? Producing and creating the damn show! Really? REALLY?! 

Laughing hysterically at the nonsense that was a blast from Nick at Nite past, A flipped the channel to the CW where 90210 was on a commercial break. The CW, clearly hoping to capitalize on the inexplicable popularity that is the new version of everyone’s 7th grade fave nighttime soap, ran an ad for the new Melrose Place. Now, we have to be honest with you, dear reader(s): Melrose Place looks freaking awesome! And yes, we said the same of 90210 and were nothing but underwhelmed with the results, but dude, how much does Ashlee Simpson look like a little mini-Sydney?? AND do you know who plays the blonde lesbian on the show?? Katie Cassidy! Do you know who her dad is?? DAVID CASSIDY! Talk about a primetime battle of the network stars past and present!! 

As if the new Melrose wasn’t enough Aaron Spelling deja vu, the CW is also rolling out The Beautiful Life. (PS, they gave it a nickname, TBL. Good luck with that. Giving yourself a nickname never works. A tried to give herself the nickname Tate for a while. Notice we don’t call her Co-Creator T.) This show may be produced by Ashton Kutcher (don’t EVEN get us started), but it’s CLEARLY a knock-off of the short lived (yet totally awesome) Models, Inc. And for that reason alone, we will watch. 

What’s our point here? Our point is that the kids these shows are marketed to (yes, we do actually realize we’re not the demographic) have no idea these shows or their stars existed long before they were singing Hilary Duff songs into their baby hairbrushes. Networks are passing off ideas stolen from our generation (and our parent’s generation, sheesh David Cassidy!) as new programming! It’s not cool.

And even less cool is the fact that it gives us more reason to watch these shows instead of the ones made for our demographic (you know, like Law and Order or CSI New Jersey). And for that we are eternally angry. And grateful.

Now if only they’d remake Clarissa Explains it All or Salute Your Shorts. We miss Budnick. And Ferg-face.

 

Melrose Place then...

Melrose Place then...

 

 

Melrose Place now.

Melrose Place now.

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Trash Talk

April 27, 2009 · Filed under Celebs, Rants · Tagged , , , ,

As Earth Month comes to a close we can’t help but be proud of ourselves for all the good we’ve done for the planet over the past few weeks.   Besides the obvious (we publish ATM online instead of printing it on paper), we’ve gone above and beyond to conserve energy, become environmental advocates for a myriad of green causes, and have logged many miles walking instead of driving.   We have turned off our computers (which explains the serious lack of posts this month), attended a lot of eco-chic soirees around town, and have ordered some adorable eco-friendly totes in which to carry our groceries (and we didn’t pick next day delivery because airplanes use way more fuel than UPS trucks!). Yes, dear reader(s), we have truly gone green.  But in all our efforts to reduce our environmental impact there is just one thing we can’t get behind: recycling.
 
For anyone who’s watched TV this month (hey, we gave up our computers…isn’t that enough?!) you’ve noticed that Hollywood is abuzz with the inevitable summer blockbuster, Star Trek (umm when did Chris Pine get so hot?! We almost didn’t recognize him as Nicholas from Princess Diaries 2!), heard that the spawn of Will Smith will be the new Karate Kid, and can’t believe that instead of making another Friday the 13th sequel they’re just going to remake the original.  Welcome to the year (make that the next few years) of the movie remake.  We would be fine with just one remake (Star Trek, please. We need some steamy Chris Pine big screen space thriller action), but we can’t handle a whole summer of movies we’ve already seen.  This is why, here at ATM, we are saying no to recycling: no to the recycling of great (and not so great) ideas past.
 
Sure Porky’s has its place in the Movies to Watch Hall of Fame (or at least on the Saturday morning TBS lineup), but does Howard Stern really need to remake it? We’ve never seen 1939’s Sherlock Holmes so why would we want to see it now (well, Jude Law as Watson might persuade us)?  Even that movie Last House on the Left is a remake.  And it doesn’t stop there. Some of our favorite TV shows are being recycled to the silver screen:  Land of the Lost, The Smurfs, I Dream of Jeannie, Knight Rider, and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.  Really?! Attack of the Killer Tomatoes?!
 
And speaking of TV, they, too, have paid homage to the three R’s: reduce, reuse, and recycle.  They reduce the amount of quality television, reuse the same actors, and recycle the same plot lines.  Did you hear that Kristin Cavallari is going to replace Lauren on The Hills (really, sloppy seconds AGAIN, Kristin?!)? And perhaps you saw Daisy De La Hoya on the premiere Daisy of Love last night, which you guessed it, is a blatant rip off of Rock of Love. (Plus, I Love New York and I Love Money contestant 12 Pack showed up to compete for the tart’s affections!)  Couldn’t they have at least come up with a better name? (We would have suggested Daisy Chain of Love.) When Flavor of Love threw down the spin-off card, at least they had the decency to change the title to I Love New York.  Totally different.
 
In a world so currently inspired by change, we here at ATM will stand tall and continue to just say no to entertainment recycling. Let black and white movies stay black and white and leave You Spin Me Right Round on the jukeboxes of 1985.  To rally the cause we’ve set up a picket to happen tomorrow in front of the 90210 zip’s Goodwill. We hear that Blake Lively just dropped off some of her old duds, so we thought we’d kill two birds and hit that up.

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Twitterpated

March 25, 2009 · Filed under Celebs, Love, Rants · Tagged , , , , , , ,

You may be surprised to hear, dear reader(s), that we have more on our minds than Twilight. (Though, between you and us, we played the board game last night and man, did it bite! Pun intended.) One thing we can’t get enough of: Twitter. We love, love, love it! It’s the best thing to happen to the Internet since, well, us!

Possibly the greatest thing about Twitter is the close proximity it keeps us in to the stars. We’re following a ton of them, and it’s so much fun to be in the know and ahead of everyone else when it comes to their daily goings on. For instance, Katy Perry’s in Chicago and saw someone jump out of a building and live: Report on THAT Life & Style. Ohhh wait, we already did!

But as with all favorite things, the newness starts to wear off and the cracks in the proverbial foundation begin to show (see: Twilight board game). And such is the case in our serious relationship with Twitter.

Keeping up with the stars is one thing, but being constantly reminded of their devotion to their significant others is another entirely. It’s bad enough reading our friends’ Facebook messages to their loved ones (baby, you’re the best! SWAK!=vomit), but now we have to read constant updates about how freaking perfect celebrity relationships are. Today alone, we almost lost our breakfast when Ashton Kutcher, who is in Germany or Australia or something (we can only assume he’s shooting “Dude, Where’s My Car 14″), organized a “love wave” for his beloved Demi Moore (Twitter name: mrskutcher—blech) to see when she got up “to take the kids to school.” (Aren’t those kids like Ashton’s age by now??)

Watching the two of them Tweet back and forth about how much they love each other and thank all their fans for helping them convey said love was sickening enough to make us sit through a marathon of “Just Married” and “Striptease” willingly!  And now that we’re friends with both Joel Madden and Nicole Ritchie, we can only imagine the disgusting, this-girl’s-carrying-another-one-of-my-children antics that are sure to ensue.  How are we supposed to compete with that on top of  Heidi Montag’s hourly affirmations about amazing life is (though, we wonder how great life can be when you have to make out with Spencer)? 

(BTW, all this love has inspired us to come up with a new phrase based on one uttered by that dashing star of Old Hollywood, Flower from Bambi. Those expressing love or falling in love on Twitter shall henceforth be referred to as “Twitterpated.” (aTM…that’s awesome Trademark)

We know that like with everything, we need to learn to take the good with the bad (those are, afterall, the facts of life) on Twitter, but we much prefer that other Demi’s constant musings about music (evidently she really like Motown) to this Demi’s comments (ie: “I am so stunned by this outpouring of love that I can barely move”).

On top of all that celeb cyber canoodling, we’ve discovered that Twitter is yet another way for us mortals to endure rejection! Case in point: one of our exes recently sent us two follow requests (one from a work account, one from a personal account). We hadn’t seen or spoken to him in years, so it seemed harmless enough to accept. After a few weeks, we noticed that our followers number had declined by two. We checked the list and, sure enough, he DE-FOLLOWED us!!! Who does that?? In the great words of a wise woman “how rude!!”

Obviously, such trivial things don’t really bother us. We briefly considered posting several embarrassing stories about him on our Twitter feed—he wouldn’t know since he doesn’t follow us anymore…BURN!—but we decided that was bitter and totally below us. We’re mature adults here at ATM (Twilight obsession not withstanding) and we prefer to behave as such.

So with Demi and Ashton’s love wave as an inspiration, we’ve decided to rise above our anger and carry on in the true spirit of the Kutchers. And as soon as we figure out how to Tweet someone who’s no longer a follower, we’ll be sending the exact opposite of a love wave his way.  Hmm…guess Heidi was right afterall.  Today IS going to be amazing!

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Keep The Change

March 24, 2009 · Filed under Rants · Tagged , , ,

Last November when we cast our vote for Obama, we cast a vote for change.  We expected this change to come about in the form of economic turn-around, removal of troops from the Middle East, and perhaps a few legalizations out in California. (We’re  talking about marriage—obvi.) Turns out we were very, very wrong.  Apparently, when we collectively rallied in support of change,  some other commanders in chief heard our cries and set out to rock our worlds…and not in the good way.
 
Sure, sure, the change has been gradual (it all started when the spicy mayo at Co-Creator A’s fav sushi place became too spicy. Oh, the mid-week horror!) and questionable (did Forever 21 change their sizing standards or have we gained weight?  Either way, we don’t like buying a bigger size!), but the further we delve into 2009, the more severe the changes and the angrier we become (your new return policy is BS, Target!).   In the past few months we’ve been thrown a late night talk show host shake up (including 12 weeks of Conan-less humor) and seen (or rather, not seen) celebrities choosing to elope rather than throw over-the-top, magazine-worthy nuptials. Though what might be worst of all: the Facebook redesign, which has rendered an old, familiar friend unrecognizable.
 
The new Facebook is apparently everything we’ve always wanted (but never knew we did), including real-time status updates like Twitter.  Sure it’s a cool concept to introduce to Facebook, but not if that means taking away the ease of knowing when our ex posted photos, when he accepted an event invite, or when someone else left a wall post. With the new Facebook we’re welcomed only by user supplied news, which comes from the same four people, who, coincidently, are the same four you’re already following on Twitter.  No longer does Facebook offer us a simple way stalk people—the reason we once fell in love with the social networking program.
 
The old Facebook was brilliant.  A quick refresh of the homepage gave you a full overview of the hour’s most important happenings:  your crush just became friends with the new girl in accounting, your aunt was busy celebrating a birthday, and your best friend just posted something on your ex’s wall.  You were up-to-date in just minutes, keeping you from being a delinquent employee or super-obsessed friend. Now when you sign on, you have to manually go through each friend to see what’s up, who’s doing who, and when it’s all doing down.  Birthday notifications are mixed up in advertisements or “groups you should join” postings, leaving you to miss birthdays you never even knew were coming up. Plus, your events calendar is nowhere to be found, which means it’s equally hard to find on your crush’s page.  You’re officially out of the loop. Again, going against Facebook’s founding principles.
 
Usually we here at ATM offer advice in these trying times, but like you, we have yet to become comfortable with these changes.  We’re certain only of one thing: Obama needs to pass a new bill that calls for the quick return to the Facebook of yesterday. (This bill has got to be easier than that stimulus deal. We follow seven senators on Twitter who agree with us about the new FB redesign.)   The new layout is making us bad employees, neurotic exes and jaded Internet users.  There’s bound to be bigger problems than a failing economy if Facebook doesn’t do something quick.

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It’s Hard Out Here for a Fan

March 23, 2009 · Filed under Rants, Trends · Tagged , , , , , ,

Editor’s Note: We want to thank you, dear ATM reader(s), for sticking by us through this recent Twilight obsession. We realize that not all of you are as hardcore about being Twi-hards as we are, and we appreciate your patience as we work through it and get our Edward-loving musings out of our collective systems. We promise, this will be the last Twilight post for a while (until we get the board game and we have to post the drinking rules…or until Co-Creator M gives A the password to the site back so she can keep writing). As our temporary Twilight farewell post, Co-Creator A (who, let’s face it, is more obsessed with the whole thing than even Stephenie Meyer ever was) would like to talk about how hard it can be to love the vampy series.

It truly is hard out here for a fan. First there’s the alienation. Friends who haven’t read the books don’t get it: it’s a teen romance novel, how lame. They don’t understand that it’s more than that! Plus, this makes it tough to include quippy Twilight references in everyday dialogue. When I say I am drinking my coffee Jacob, they don’t know that I am referring to Jacob Black (get it? I’m pretty proud of that one!). When I predict what’s going to happen in any given situation and get it right and call myself Alice, there’s no laughter. Only confused looks and eye rolling. Awkward.

And while my close friends do love the series, none of them share my extreme obsession with it. (If Twilight was Bella, they’re Mike Newton and I’m Edward. It’s a totally different level of devotion! BTW, if you laughed at that joke, you can be my BFF!) 

None of them understand why I am on my fourth (not kidding) round of reading the books. (To be fair, I have purchased other books in recent months, but none of them hold my interest and I always return to Forks to catch up with  my old friends. Plus, my Twilight bookmark just reminds me of what I’m missing!) None of them get why I spend every Sunday morning calling every Toys R Us, Wal-Mart and Target in a tri-county area to find the board game (though they are willing to play it if I throw in a drinking game or two).

And that’s another thing! I’m running out of products! Now that the DVD has been released (I currently own 4 copies of the movie. That’s too much even for me.) and I’ve read all the books, there’s nothing left for me! Sure sure, the board game is out there somewhere (though no one seems to have it in stock, nor be able to tell me when I can get it), but until Stephenie Meyer’s next book (The Twilight Saga: The Official Guide) comes out (there’s currently NO release date! WTF?!) or until the new movie releases on November 21, I’m out of Twi-lectibles and Twi-life experiences! (Well, there is the convention this summer, but they have yet to approve ATM for press passes…a fact that keeps me up nights. That and my re-reading hobby.)

And while I was hoping to meet new Twiabetic friends at the DVD release the other night, I have to admit, the crowd was a little more teen than 20-something. The only adult options were an overzealous soccer mom who was so fervent about her Twilight trivia responses that I thought she was going to pull a hammy, and a really creepy 40-something guy with a mullet who, if he hadn’t been so good at answering the trivia questions, I would have assumed would be starring in a future installment of To Catch a Predator.  The whole thing was enough to send me into a Twi-abetic coma (sorry if that was offensive, Bret Michaels and Nick Jonas. Have you two met, BTW?).

In closing, I’d just like to remind all of you non-fans and lukewarm fans that we Twi-hards have feelings too. And just because our (not-so) guilty pleasure comes in the form of a teen romance novel in which vampires sparkle in the sun and dote on their human paramours, doesn’t make us any less cool than those of you who love to play Rock Band or watch South Park. Now if  you’ll excuse me, I have some toy stores to call and some reading to do.

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