Inside Mimi's Mind

I love Mariah Carey. She was my introduction to true Pop music in the early 90s. I enjoyed her inevitable high notes that only dogs can hear at the end of her songs, her use of words she probably got from a thesaurus by her bedside for lyrics, and honestly just the way she lives in a world totally separate from reality filled with like, a lot of butterflies. How else can you explain album titles like Daydream, Rainbow, Charmbracelet and now, E=MC2? The chick is completely delusional. New evidence of this can be viewed below:



This is the music video for the first single off her new album called "Touch My Body." The song is not at all spectacular, but then again, neither was "It's Like That" and The Emancipation of Mimi is one of her best albums. So I still had hope for her. Until I saw this travesty of a video. Here is my brief running commentary:

:00 A VW Bug pulls up in front of a mansion. I wonder who lives there...
:15 Mariah opens the front door in her underwear. CompuNerd gets a little nervous, she's like, so HOT.
:27 ...And she still can't act.
:45 Obligatory ephemeral shots. Look at all that wind, it makes her hair so flow-y!
1:21 What is this video about exactly?
1:38 A wittle spanking for the bad wittle dorky boy
1:46 Hair touching!
1:50 Animal cruelty, anyone?
2:18 ...and cue Star Wars!
2:58 I'm starting to think she has lice.
3:05 Is anyone else hoping she gets hit in the face with that frisbee?
4:02 That Mariah, she's so tech savvy!

It was supposed to be a fun video. Look at all that fun she had! Wow, what a blast that set must have been. It's almost as if she was 12 again...oh wait.

It's official...

Justin Timberlake ROCKS MY SOCKS. This is a still from his upcoming film with Mike Myers and Jessica Alba titled The Love Guru. To be released Summer 2008. My life is now complete.

And the Oscar goes to...

Nobody. At least nobody you'll give a second thought to because this year's Academy Awards were probably one of the most boring and forgettable I've seen in my tradition of watching the event. And the ratings sucked. I believe there are three reasons why:

1. Jon Stewart. I have to confess that I'm not one of those hip youth who think Jon Stewart is "like, so cool, and like, I totally get my news from him because he's so funny and smart!" Call me an old fart but give me my elderly white men on network television (or my gay hottie Anderson Cooper on CNN). Give me Babwa. Even give me Regis and Kelly. But Jon Stewart...he just doesn't do it for me. Eh. And when he utilizes satire on The Daily Show that's just dandy. But don't host my Oscars and present the same thing, albeit remixed, for a completely different audience. The Oscars are about spectacle and excess. Feeding the narcissism of the Hollywood elite blindly and uncritically. That's why we have people like Billy Crystal, Steve Martin, Whoopi Goldberg--I would even take Robin Williams--to host the event. Entertain me with a performance and not a cynical stand up routine.

2. Too predictable. Power of elimination and the way most of the winners swept the rest of the Awards season makes for a snooze fest. Did anyone really think Daniel Day Lewis wasn't going to win Best Actor for There Will Be Blood? Besides Johnny Depp lovers (he will get his day in the Oscar glow, I promise people. Just not when he's an effeminate pirate or singing serial killer)

3. Who are those people again? As my roommate frequently prefaces certain statements in our household, "I'm not xenophobic but..." I love the Foreigners. I watch subtitled films. I bow down to Jean Luc Godard. But doesn't it just seem a tad odd that all of the acting awards went to people from outside of this country? Remember the last memorable time something like this happened with Roberto Benigni? Remember his exuberance as he balanced on chairs finally coming to the podium to receive his Best Actor nod? Remember how we never heard from again? Marion Cotillard...I hope I'm not talking to you now.

Ultimately the 80th Anniversary of the Academy Awards suckage has everything to do with Miley Cyrus. No really, I'm convinced. That creepy Disney product of a child star who will end up with multiple personalities in t-minus 10 years, either from switching to Hannah Montana blonde hair too much or hearing her dad singing Achy Breaky Heart...toss up. Why was she there again anyway?

Britney's parents release statement

Source: TMZ

The following statement was released to CNN's Anderson Cooper by Jamie and Lynne Spears, Britney's parents:

"As parents of an adult child in the throws of a mental health crisis, we were extremely disappointed this morning to learn that over the recommendation of her treating psychiatrist, our daughter Britney was released from the hospital that could best care for her and keep her safe. We are deeply concerned about our daughter's safety and vulnerability and we believe her life is presently at risk. There are conservatorship orders in place created to protect our daughter that are being blatantly disregarded. We ask only that the court's orders be enforced so that a tragedy may be averted."

So Heath Overdosed...

...on painkillers and sedatives. I wonder if somewhere out there on a planet and galaxy unknown to mankind, Tom Cruise is jumping on couches and saying "I told you so!"

"Accidental Overdose Killed Heath Ledger"

New Orleans: The Remix

*Credit to Jim Hill Media*

So I'm sure many have heard of the new Disney animated feature film (in all the glory of 2D animation), The Princess and the Frog, set to be released in 2009. Here is a description of the movie:

A musical set in the legendary birthplace of jazz — New Orleans — The Princess and the Frog will introduce the newest Disney princess, Tiana (voiced by Anika Noni Rose), a young African-American girl living amid the charming elegance and grandeur of the fabled French Quarter. From the heart of Louisiana's mystical bayous and the banks of the mighty Mississippi comes an unforgettable tale of love, enchantment and discovery with a soulful singing crocodile, voodoo spells and Cajun charm at every turn. http://www.firstshowing.net/2008/01/14/first-look-disneys-the-princess-and-the-frog/

Now I for one am glad young black girls can finally identify image-wise with a Disney princess. Not gonna lie, I was kinda sick of dressing up half-naked like minority royality Jasmine and Pocahontas (and throw in mermaid Ariel too with her seashell bra). I will be interested in Disney's marketing campaign for the film though. Disney Princess movies generally cater to a young white female audience. The reason why Jasmine, Pocahontas, and even the less discussed gypsy Esmerelda (because Hunchback was awful, let's just be honest about it) were able to be consumed so effectively was because of their exoticized nature.

Now little Tiana isn't African. She's black. Plain ol' black. And the place of the film isn't an amorphous far away fairy tale land. Nor is it located in the wilds or villages of a reductive vision of Africa. No--Tiana lives in New Orleans, an American city rich with history, culture...and current sociopolitical and economic issues that definitely cast a shadow on Disney's new venture. What are we to make of this constructed mythical city of the film in the face of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath?

I don't have any answers. But from the description it's hard not to cringe a little at the tropes that Disney is using to reconstruct and essentialize New Orleans into a magical space of voodoo folk culture. I'm not trying to negate this aspect of the city's heritage (films like Eve's Bayou have certainly re-envisioned this identity of New Orleans) but to showcase it as spectacle, because it will inevitably be seen as this and commodified as such, could be considered, dare I say it, problematic. It'll be interesting to see the finished product and the promotion surrounding it.

Day 26 + Danity Kane = WTH?

Season two of Making the Band 4 premiered to the show's highest amount of viewers in its history on MTV. So to bring you up to date, the new season of Diddy's eternally fruitless quest to create the next big thing in pop music follows newly anointed Bad Boy group Day 26 (huh?) on their journey in making their first studio album. The quintuplet reunite in NYC and are raring to burst into stardom (because those 11 or so fan sightings on the street just didn't quite cut the mustard) and find a surprise waiting for them:

It's Donnie! He didn't make the band, but Diddy thought he was special (read: A creepy Justin Timberlake clone...but so NOT) and a perfect addition to Bad Boy's solo artists (read: a marketable white guy to hand over in a platter to screaming girls who think he's street sexy). So all of the boys are back together again in their deluxe apartment in the sky, ready to take on the world. BUT Diddy still has tricks up his sleeve. And it's not making them run a marathon in freezing weather or pick up food in Brooklyn. No, it's even better than that ladies and gentleman. Prepare yourselves:


It's Danity Kane! Yes, DK5 will be recording their sophomore effort at the same time Day 26 and Donnie will be working on their first albums. Basically it's Diddy's version of a wet dream...a new line of Bad Boy artists that will create a musical family akin to the days of Puff Daddy, Biggie, 112, Faith Evans and Mase.

What Delusional Diddy doesn't seem to realize is that Bad Boy's heyday is long gone. Maybe it's because of his apparent ADD when signing artists (Da Band anyone? Danity Kane when they fell off the face of the earth even though their album went platinum with no promotion?). Who knows. But the Puffster is convinced that he can turn anything into gold and we're his captive audience.

So the premise of the new season is a battle of the sexes. The artists will pit themselves against each other to find out who records the best album. Basically the season is a huge advertisement for themselves and their upcoming releases. Fans will watch and then go out and feverishly buy the album(s) of the Bad Boy artist they like the most. Or something. Theoretically. Yet the season, or at least the premiere, just seemed flat. Day 26's naivety to the entertainment industry is supposed to be juxtaposed with Danity Kane's perceived savvy-ness. For example:

Donnie: These girls are so famous and pretty, how ever will we be like them?
Aundrea: You know, we've like, done this before a lot, and we're complete pros you know?! Like, we're gonna show them how it's done! Yeah!

Mhmm. Yep. Then there is the juxtaposition between what the viewer is supposed to understand as the contrived romance between Donnie and Aubrey and the authentic romance between Q and Dawn. And finally, the rumored relationship between Diddy and Aubrey that he half way addresses in the creepy talk he has with her alone in his office while simultaneously blasting her awful weave:

Clearly I chose a picture that makes her look ridiculous. But she really is.

Anyway, this season will continue to shock and awe us, I'm sure. I know I'll be watching!

To find out more info about the show, check out the website.