Hi.
My name is Alison. I live in Los Angeles.
I twitter.
I tumbl about music.
I am on a sketch team New Money at UCB.
I am a contributor to WITS Radio.
I perform, sometimes.
Here are some other things I have written, in varying degrees of importance.
I used to podcast and sometimes I'm a podcast guest.
I am well acquainted with the internet.
HeyYoAlison [at] gmail [dot] com
I’m starting to get old. Not in a way where I’m really ready to take a hard look at my life and really make some positive changes, but in the way that I’m unwilling to go see every garbage blockbuster at midnight. I get too sleepy and for the most part the ratio of inevitable disappointment to exhaustion isn’t worth it to me anymore.
I made an exception for Star Trek because I loved the last one so goddamn much. I left the theater thrilled and after rewatching it yesterday, I still think it’s the perfect formula of fun action blockbuster to heart. Plus it’s just fucking beautiful (Daniel Mindel is a genius).
The movie opens with Kirk and Bones running for their lives from natives on a red flower planet out of an old Desperate Housewives promo. Spock get stuck in a volcano but in a fun way and The Enterprise has a textbook archetypal rebirth. Opening credits and we’re off! Man, this is gonna be great. Kirk is gonna punch Lizard people and maybe have sex with a like a uh… like a bird lady who is also evil?
We are taken to Starfleet Academy and Kirk excitedly talking about how their probably about to get assigned a deep space mission, YES! Here we go! Space babes! Cool monsters! Banter! But no, it’s just a disciplinary meeting (real action movie sweet stuff) Kirk getting his ship taken away from him AGAIN. AGAIN! Stop taking the Enterprise away from New Kirk!
Don’t worry, he gets it back pretty quickly and is sent to kill our bad guy, Khan/Benedict Cumberbatch/Distracting Face Guy. Listen, I don’t know anything about acting, but I feel like Cumberbatch shouldn’t be squishing his handsome face into such crazy contortions. I don’t know how to explain it, but he’s channeling Mr. Bill in a very real way. He’s a great bad guy, don’t get me wrong. He’s got that voice where you’d be soothed even as he slides along your skin, not yet breaking it.
Anyway, he’s mad for some reason but does surrender to Kirk. They get him onboard and then some more stuff happens that is a little hazy as to why it happens.
I loved that they put the new movies into an alternate universe, where they would be free to do anything they wanted with the characters, as we see with Spock and Uhura being straight up BF and GF (although you can see her with the Captain if you want to use your imagination). So, with all of that freedom, I’m confused as to why they chose to basically remake Wrath of Khan in the second instalment.
It’s just so much plot and exposition and not enough rough Iowa fist fights or one-liners. It just wasn’t fun and there are a few plot points that I am confused on, but not interested enough to investigate further. I don’t mind a complicated story, but this felt more sloppy than involved. Without ruining anything, at the climax of the movie, the safety of all the souls aboard the Enterprise rely on Kirk kicking a thing back into place.
SIDE NOTE - If a ship that is dead in the air but can be saved if you kick a thing back into place, and that thing is hard to get to and dangerous; you have a design flaw.
Also? There is such blatant Spock favoritism in this franchise. As I was walking into the theater, I saw a poster for the new Superman movie where The Man Of Steel looks all moody and conflicted and dumb. I understand and appreciate the added depth of characters that may have been one-dimensional and I totally get that there is more to mine from Spock (half-vulcan, half-human; unsure what world to belong to? Come on, it could be a whole series of young adult novels) but goddamnit, it’s Captain Kirk. He is the driving force behind every action in the movie and YET for the second time, it’s been the Spock Show. Kirk saves the day and no one gives a shit because oh look at Spock, he’s Vulcan Death Gripping a guy and feeling a feeling. But Kirk is so great, you know? Big and clumsy and full of hubris but with a strong moral compass. Chris Pine is so beautiful and kind of funny and please god, just touch my face with the back of your hand and tell me that you love me.
SIDE NOTE - It takes away from Spock’s credibility when he calls up his future self for advice. Figure it out and let Leonard Nimoy be mind-numbingly old in peace.
I want to see a Kirk love interest. Hell, I want a Kirk sex scene. In Into The Darkness, we see him getting out of bed with two twin cat ladies, but no action. Give me Pine side butt at least. I would also like to aggressively make out with Chris Pine against a wall.
The movie is still much more than passable. I will rewatch and probably enjoy it more the second go-round with more appropriate expectations and I absolutely am looking forward to the next one. But let’s make with the fun popcorn parts. It’s Star Trek.
[Previous Quick and Useless Review - Avengers]
Good advice from someone who is terrible at dating
I swear I won’t link to this every week, but I am writing a new dating advice column for The Atlantic and I hope you read it and like it.
Send me weird sex questions, plz.
Hey, want a super late, ambling and unimportant review of Justin Timberlake’s 20/20 Experience? No? Okay!
I think most of us gave Justin Timberlake’s new album a listen when it came out, watched his sepia performance at the Grammys and accepted the B+ reviews he received from Pitchfork and Rolling Stone (because we culturally like Justin Timberlake a B+ amount, which is probably best).
And that was sort of it, you know? His first album in over five years sort of roared in and left quietly. Sure, we all liked that suit and tie song fine.
Surely promotions for the album are still in full effect, just not for my unimportant demographic, which is different from FutureSex/LoveSounds which was FOR ME. The first time I heard SexyBack I pulled my car over so that I could give it my complete undivided attention. It sounded like disco Black Keys and after it ended I flipped desperately through the stations, trying to catch it again. I raced home and pre-ordered it on iTunes (a sentence that sounds archaic to me now), which allowed me to download the single and I felt such a release listening to it again. And again. And again. Each play came with the deep and overwhelming need to fuck Justin Timberlake. Now? My only connection to JT is my agent pulling up the album art from 20/220 Experience and then pointing at his $300 haircut.
The point isn’t that Justin Timberlake isn’t marketed to me anymore because I am no longer part of a high buying age bracket (I am a staunch proponent of the Spotify model*, a company with Sean Parker on its board, who was portrayed by JT The Actor in The Social Network); Justin Timberlake knows that I like him just fine. The point isn’t that I’m older or that sometimes I feel like I’m not allowed to enjoy fluffy music, which an absurd restriction left over from college. The point is that I got stoned last week and relistened to the entire album.
I don’t know why.It’s not something that my brain was demanding to hear again. Although, to be fair, I would maybe listen to The Walkmen’s 2012 “Heaven,” and Neko Case’s live albums if I was comfortable with that. But needless to say, I listened to the whole thing. Loved it. Replayed the part of Pusher Love Girl where he says “My MDMA” at least fifteen times. Looooooooooved it. Even though every song is two minutes too long (not new) for seemingly no reason other than he’s taking your fumbling orgasim into consideration. The intro at the top of That Girl might make your eyes fall out of your head from rolling them so hard.
It certainly doesn’t speak well of any artistic venture that one has to be on drugs to enjoy it, but hey, there you go. Sometimes something comes along that you just have a visceral reaction to, caused by timing or need or whatever. Since then, it has been on repeat in my car, at the gym, walking around the city. I think in part because of this very specific nostalgia it gives me. Like it’s the album I should have been listening to as I got ready to lose my virginity: meaningful in a way that is a little empty and will ultimately unimportant, with a bunch of sex beats on top.
I care and appreciate about the fact that Justin Timberlake WANTS to be great. He WANTS to make a quality product and he absolutely succeeded. His music could easily devolve into a late night argument about the definition of good music if I still had the energy for that debate (and he hurts my case with the song Strawberry Bubblegum and the gross Target cross-promotion). He’s the kind of artist that it’s hard to dislike: he is not a good actor, I would argue that In Time may go down as a cult bad movie, although more likely than not it will just go down as a bad movie and I while I understand his SNL appeal enough is enough, dude. But fuck, what a little showman. Even when he is bad, he is going to entertain you.
While everyone should absolutely cut your teeth on Michael and Janet Jackson, Prince, Al Green, oh lord Marvin Gaye (put this on right now) and Elton John, I can’t help but think that JT is gonna get to those ranks. Eventually? Maybe? Objectivity may be shot; I will have to wonder if I’m just victim of loving him as a teen. But I love that Pusher Love Girl song, and the chorus of Mirrors is very real to me.
It’s important to love good things and I think it’s just as important to love the people who strive to make things that are good. Justin Timberlake could release a hot pile of garbage every year because he’s sexy and teenage girls don’t know anything, but he doesn’t. I appreciate that consideration for pop.
TOP SONGS:
- Pusher Love Girl [my MDMA ∞]
- That Girl
- Mirrors
FEELS LIKE:
*I do think online music is the future, although the need to tangibly own something will keep me spending exorbitant amounts on vinyl I will happily pay a higher monthly fee if it ensures artists quit being dicked over and I think Sean Parker is so gross.
In this week’s show, comedian and actor Patton Oswalt and host John Moe are John Oates and Daryl Hall: Animal Control Officers in our Maneater Pop Song Correspondence. Singer-songwriter Ben Lee squares off with Patton in our Wits Game Show, and we’ve got another Charlie Brown story. In this latest installment, featuring John Moe, Patton Oswalt and actress Ione Skye, Linus quits his blanket cold turkey and has a spiritual epiphany.
We’ve got a real fun one in this episode. Apocalypse! Lizard people! Nic Cage!
This week, comedian, actor and author Michael Ian Black joins Cop Squadron, indie-pop powerhouse singer/songwriter A.C. Newman writes a very catchy theme song for the canceled show
Lauren and I wrote the first sketch of the show about where babies really come from. No one laughs at our appeteasers jokes but we love them enough for an entire audience. Give it a listen, yeah?
