The Tastemakers Society

Attention, attention, Mr. West has an announcement he would like to introduce you to Kanye Travel. Yes, that’s right the rapper/producer aka the best grammy speacher (I’m taking all credit for that word) has teamed up with Travelocity to bring you cheaper travel options. I’m not sure how successful this venture is but I got to take my hat off to Ye for always making things down new avenues. He didn’t do the regular old restaurant, or club, or liquor/drink or the major fave among celebs a clothing line, well not yet, but in terms of his I’m actually looking forward to his clothing line he’s one of the few celebs I think actually possess some fashion forward thinking. Now all he has to do is put on the first concert in the air during a flight, and it’ll be all good.   

Marty McFly is my other name/alias so to speak, you can call me McFly for short. Once again with this throwback thursday stuff and this time I bring you Back to the Future which we all know put Michael J. Fox on the map and began a revolution in which many of us all wish some of the back to the future props could come to real life. Case in point the Nike’s Mcfly wore in the future along with the skateboard he was riding, and the whip, oh the whip! the back to the future car is a must.

We can just call today throwback thursday, featuring The Goonies. The 80’s, oh, what a splendid era that was crack and heroin flourished, LL Cool J went platinum, and The Goonies became a generation classic. Movies just aren’t made with the same storytelling and context as they used to, I mean of course we have Harry Potter but besides that many movies don’t have that staying power like a Goonies. Even when I’m old and grey The Goonies will still be one of my favorites, its just one of those timeless type things that never get old or out dated, kind of like Michael Jackson (yes, I’m still listening to him). Who wants to go on a treasure hunt with me?

Michael Jackson is the greatest of all time hence the G.O.A.T title, I’ve been listening to MJ non-stop for a week since I bought his 25th anniversary Thriller album and his number one hits album. MJ is instant dance music no matter where you’re at what you’re doing or who you are if you here an MJ song you’re gonna start grooving, its something that can’t even be helped. The moment you here MJ you automatically start thinking about doing some MJ-ish dance move, roll hip then a high kick and it’s official MJ has just taken you over.

It’s something about old people singing in harmony I find really rejoiceful. Young @ Heart is a movie documenting the efforts of a senior citizen group who travels around performing old hits in various places. In the trailer they show them performing in a prison yard with inmates around how perfect of an image is that and I think one of the inmates even cried when they were done. This is the type of movie that’ll give you that ear to ear smile for no reason at all.

The strike ended and the Oscars went on, good thing I loved watching the movie I thought was the best film of the year win best film of the year. No Country For Old Men grabbed a total of 4 Oscars and 3 of them went straight into the hands of the Coen brothers for directing, adapted screenplay and best picture (as producers). The 4th Oscar went to Javier Bardem for best supporting actor. It looks like the combo between Cormac McCarthy and the Coen brothers turned out to be a perfect fit. And congrats to Diablo Cody for getting best origianl screenplay and I still can’t believe Cate Blanchet didn’t win the Oscar for lead role by an actress.

It’s amazing how you change and grow the older you get, if you would have told me in high school I’d like a band like The Bravery, I would have laughed at you. But time has passed since then, I’ve changed since then, and now I find myself really liking The Bravery. I’m starting to love my new appreciation for new things I discover. So go check out The Bravery and for you Myspace hounds here you go.  

One of my favorite movies from the 90’s, The Mummy, is coming out with its third installment but without its main/big/lead star. Yea, yea they’re bringing back Brandon Fraser and the brother but they can’t carry the weight nor fill in for what Rachel Weisz brought to the table. I mean could you make Harry Potter without Daniel Radcliff, Lord of the rings without Eilijah Wood, Spider Man without Tobey Maguire, NO! So why even try, right? Well apparently the heads over at Universal Pictures and Alphaville Films don’t think like I do. Weisz was a key element in the two previous Mummy movies so why would you think replacing her would suffice as an ok thing to do. I think this is a bad move but we’ll just have to wait and see how the movie plays out, but in my opinion its just NOT WEISZ to do a movie without your lead.

Last night I was thinking about all the old cartoons I used to watch as a youngster, back when I’d wake up at the crack of dawn on saturday to watch hours upon hours of cartoons. Ahh, the good old days. And one of those shows I was reminiscing about was the rescue rangers, remember them, the official title of the show was, Chip-N-Dale Rescue Rangers. You had to love that silly dale, super serious ass chip, zipper the do everything fly, monterey jack who would go bonkers over the smell of cheese and of course gadget the cute genius of the group she was the macgyver of the rodent world. I love that show, I loved all the cartoons I grew up on in the late 80’s and 90’s. I prefer the cartoons of my heyday then those of today, too much digital work. I like that good old fashion hand drawn cartoon. Tom & Jerry are ageless.  

Reality TV is taking over the screen while the writers are out there fighting the good fight. But if you’re tired of all the scripted reality TV madness I’ve got an ACE in the hole bona fide great show for you to watch. AMC’s new series Breaking Bad which just premiered this past Sunday and I’m already calling for an award nominee for next year. Yesssir, I’m calling it early before the Oscars are even given out, Breaking Bad’s director/creator Vince Gilligan has created a truly great original concept show. Just the synopsis alone will gravitate you to watch it. The show is about a regular husband/father who just turned 50, is a high school chemistry teacher who finds out he has terminal lung cancer, and as the show puts it decides to break bad. The short of it is, he hooks up with an old student he failed and begins cooking Meth with the former student now turned drug dealer. And as of the first episode goes, he hasn’t even told his wife about his cancer yet. Oh, did I forget to mention that his brother-in-law is a DEA agent. You can thank me later for helping you through this tough strike filled time.

If you haven’t noticed by now I’m pretty obsessed with films the story telling capabilities are endless. I love getting lost in a film and I spend way to much time in front of a screen. The Fog City Mavericks is a documentary covering the magic that happened in San Francisco’s independent film making land and the men who helped makethat magic happen. The documentary goes all the way back covering Charlie Chaplan but the main focus of the documentary was the 60’s/70’s in San Francisco ushering in the eras of Clint Eastwood, Philip Kaufman, and the magicians of film George Lucs and Francis Ford Coppola. The documentary is a great timeline in history and seeing how these guys went out and did what they had and wanted to do too make the films they wanted. Who knew Coppola didn’t even want to direct Godfather glad he changed his mind about that. That era in filmmaking was magical and the people behind it I wish could make movies forever, lets not forget during the same time Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese were doing their thing as well, just not in San Fran.  

 

I like making predictions, it makes me seem that much smarter when they come true and if I make them far enough ahead of time I can always deny ever making the prediction if it doesn’t come true. Well, in this case I wont be able to do that being you’ll be able to look back to this post and see if I was right or not but this time around I’m not even going to make a definitive decision anyway. I would like to say the The Poughkeepsie Tapes will be the scariest movie in 2008, but I’m having a real problem questioning its authenticity. The film is shot documentary style using some of the footage found in the 800 video tapes Pouhkeepsie police found in September 2001 on the Water Street Butcher. A Poughkeepsie, NY serial killer for over 10 years who to my knowledge and little bit of research was never caught. My only problem with this movie is even though its shot in documentary style recounting the Butcher’s attacks, how authentic are the supposed real tapes that will be used for some parts of the movie. Did the families really sign off to allow their family members actual tortured deaths played out for the world to view and be entertained by, I can’t really imagine any family signing off to let that happen. So the question is are they trying to pull a blair witch hoax or is this film really 100% real deal legit? Because if it is then it will give grown men nightmares but if its not it’ll just be another elaborate bullshit of a marketing plan for a film.