Summer Jam Week 13: (Finger) Bang You Into My Life!

August! Nice to see you. We're entering the final month of Summer, folks, and it would appear that the Quest for the Greatest Summer Jam of 2014 is all but wrapped up in a fancy little package. But we're going to continue this masturbatory effort, anyway, because frankly, Summer Jams is why I wake up in the morning. I live and eat this stuff.

Hot Jam of the Week: "Bang Bang" by Jessie J ft. Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj



Here's one thing I really don't understand: this is a dream team of vocal artists right now, but why in a song that features both Ariana and Nicki is Jessie J the most featured voice? That's like a Destiny's Child song featuring Michelle Williams, or if "Moulin Rouge" focused on Maya instead of Christina Aguilera. I'm not trying to hate, but this it's kind of ridiculous that this track isn't able to ride Ariana's "Problem" stardom. This is nitpicky criticism - it's a damn catchy tune, if a little overproduced.

Noventa y Nueve: "Problem" by Ariana Grande ft. Iggy Azalea

Speaking of Ariana, this is duper low this week because I think this jam has really reached a low point. It's still ubiquitous as hell, but everyone has really stopped caring about it. It'll get to that point where it's really being milked, probably as a featured track in Fall Singing shows like The Voice or something (although can you imagine an amateur singing this? It'd be awful). But yeah, I'm over it.

Make Love to Me: "Come Get it Bae" by Pharrell ft. Miley Cyrus

This has been an underrated jam all summer that sort of blew its wad early then retreated to the background but it's still a pretty sick jam. Pharrell has to try really hard to make a faulty jam right now, but it's Miley's cooing that elevates this one this time around. That and that nippy guitar strum. It really makes me feel like making love, hence its title. It also landed a video this week, so here you go.

Spoof! I mean...POOF! "Rude" by MAGIC!

I was hesitant to include this because I think it really burned out after a couple weeks of being on the Top of the Hot 100, but it's still up there, so oh well. It was like a flash fire though, man - I didn't hear much of it this week, although it's still a good way to respond to anyone being rude "Why you gotta be so rude?!" is a common Summer 2014 phrase. But then the song is about bypassing a girl's father's approval for marriage. That's not rude, it's just forbidding or maybe pretty well founded. I wouldn't want my daughter marrying MAGIC!.

Bam Bam: "Disclosure" by Latch ft. Sam Smith

So this is basically background song week - I haven't really acknowledged this enough yet, but here's Sam Smith's companion jam to "Stay With Me" that's been a bit overshadowed. It's got the thumper beat courtesy of Latch which makes it a pretty rad chill jam. But it's absolutely a background song rather than anything that's going to change your life.

50s Housewife Drunk: "Wasted" by Tiesto ft. Matthew Koma

I can't really stand Tiesto and I have no idea at all what Koma contributes to this jam, but it's another fun song that's lurked more in the shadows this summer. It's pretty straightforward EDM but it's got enough conventional pop beats to cross over into Top 40 airplay, even though "I like us better when we're wasted" is a decently horrible message. I mean, I'm definitely one to get wasted, but I'm not going to be proud of that. damn, Tiesto. What a douchebag.

Be Vewy Quiet, I'm Hunting: "Habits" by Tove Lo

I really dig this jam and I'm going to express that as frequently as possible through this meager weekly rundown. It has a curious little rolling beat, a lonely lyrical quality, and a passionate batch of vocals out of the pipes of Tove Lo. What a wild thing. It's also more of a Sunday morning coming down song than a Saturday night get pumped jam, but Summer needs those, too, folks.

Prancy: "Fancy" by Iggy Azalea ft. Charlie XCX

There's almost no question that "Fancy" is outpacing its sister jam, "Problem" by now. This song has cray cray ubiquity and has proven its cultural influence to be pretty significant. The next few weeks are going to be critical though for its legacy - will it really be forever linked to Summer 2014 on its own or does "Problem" need to be part of that conversation? And is it making Iggy into a star or a novelty act? I'm curious how "Fancy" evolves, but it captures so much attitude that I'm still digging it hard now. Actually this week was the first time I really tried to understand the lyrics (I failed) so that will keep it interesting for a while.

Next week...

I was cautious about leaving out Charlie XCX's "Boom Clap" but I think it may have just had its time in the sun last week. Since we highlighted so many under-the-rug jams this week I also feel bad for leaving out Nicki's "Pills N Potions" which has also been a constant presence this summer but hasn't really made the waves something like "Super Bass" did. And that video is so insane! We'll see who can still fight to the top!

First Impressions: Guardians of the Galaxy

Needless to say when starting any review like this - but I never really thought I'd be here writing that Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) movie is probably one of the best films the studio has ever done as well as one of the better films of the Summer and probably the year. It's simultaneously hilarious, thrilling, and sexy with some of the best character work done in any blockbuster by any studio. I'd like to discuss the merits of this film to the fullest extent possible, so SPOILERS forever, folks.

AWWWW!!!!!!

That's what really pulls me in - strong character work. It would have been so easy with this property to just disregard every character as really silly and stupid, and that's true for every character, but the film also treats them like real people with real motivations and feelings while embracing the inherent silliness. Rocket Raccoon is a good example of a pure novelty character who is really really ridiculous but also expresses this pain, anguish, loneliness, and guilt through demonstrating real feelings inside of him. He also has a genuine arc. This goes for just about everyone and is just one of the ways that Guardians throws us the unexpected.

So much of this film spits in the face of blockbuster convention, which should be the case for a James Gunn film after Slither (2006) and Super (2010). I'm curious about this motif the film has concerning somewhat old-style stagnant characters and new relaxed characters colliding in ways where the new characters, the brash quirky Guardians, triumph every time.There's these really eye-rolling cliché moments where bad girl Nebula is making some grand villainous speech, then Drax just blows her up with a bazooka. There's no room for that lofty pontificating. Same deal a little later with Ronan, who is about to destroy the world and is bragging and going on like every "sophisticated" erudite villain ever, which Peter Quill interrupts with an impromptu dance-off to "Ooh Child." Full soundtrack here, btw. It's this blatant disregard for the kinds of space opera stock characters who are supposed to inhabit these films. Fuck you safe storytelling - climactic dance-off.

It's this battle of cinema. As if in the wake of Man of Steel (2013)'s wanton destruction without seeming regard for actually being heroic, Glenn Close delivers a line explicitly about evacuating the city on Xandar. There's these sudden shifts with the MacGuffin, an Infinity Stone (presumably, Power) and where it can and cannot go and how the goals of each team member shifts based on the escalation of the plot. It's fascinating. The team-up itself also isn't really contrived, and it's subverted as each member moves from selfish reasons for teaming up to realizing that they each don't have any friends because they're all assholes. Drax is probably the best example of this where he reaches his final goal about midway through the film, fails miserably at it, but then his character is strong enough to move on and have a moment of self-realization. It's fantastic.

The Cosmic mythos hits hard and fast but Guardians doesn't care about you catching up and doesn't bog itself down with exposition. You can understand fast enough that the Nova Corps on Xandar are good and the Kree (or mostly the Kree under Ronan) are bad, and that's all you really need to know. It doesn't worry about why Quill was abducted at such a crucial moment in his life or other extraneous plot elements that would slow down the story. It's crisply only concerned with character, which is highly unconventional. With that all said, Ronan isn't particularly interesting, save as a foil for the irreverent Guardians, because of his incredibly self-serious nature. This is again a feature of that battle between old and new cinema, particularly superhero cinema, which can easily be read as a potshot at DC, which has moreover self-regarded its movie properties as high art while Marvel tends to like to have fun in its sandbox.

It's a kind of insane movie where every character is comic relief but also able to play straight. Drax is one of the more intense presences, but his failure to understand metaphor and scenes like this make him the straight man that gets the most laughs. That's probably the best character-building scene of the movie, by the way, and probably all of summer. Everyone has this mix of comedy and pathos that's really rewarding to watch. Even Groot, the braindead tree gets a scene where he instantly kills a ton of dudes, seems overpowered, and then makes up for it with just a goofy grin to let you know he's more human under that bark than the majority of other blockbuster characters out there. Guardians nails this balance time and time again which makes it so damn watchable.

There's these other moments like when Quill saves Gamora from space (I don't know how this works, who cares), and then like, says something really meaningful about his feelings about her which then devolves into basic asshole hitting on her, which she immediately sees through. It's just that irreverence for the trashy typical romantic beats and overused dialogue that sets this film apart. They act like real human beings! From a feminist standpoint it also avoids the issue of its female characters lacking agency, instantly falling under men's magical wieners, and being totally subservient characters. They're real people! Everyone is a real person! The fucking talking raccoon has his own balanced needs and desires! I wouldn't be as excited if every movie pulled this off, but no one does! It makes me so happy.

This is also probably the most well-cast superhero film since Robert Downey, Jr donned a suit of iron. On some basic level that's really the fault with weaker flicks like Green Lantern (2011) or The Incredible Hulk (2008) - the film never recovers from that initial miscasting and no one can get on board. Bautista was born to play Drax even more than he was to play the Gold Man. Zoe Saldana has collected her fair share of heroine ass-kicker roles, but her turn as Gamora is equally tortured, cold, hopeful, and full of agency. It's somewhat disappointing to see that one trope of chicks fighting each other isn't subverted at all, but Karen Gillan's Nebula is a pretty decent jealous twisted foil for her.

The two big voice actors, Vin Diesel as Groot and Bradley Cooper as Rocket, though, tend to outshine everyone else in the cast. Diesel reminds us of what he did in The Iron Giant (1999) and what a talent he has for these specific kinds of characters. He needs to do more of this kind of work and less movies featuring cars or Riddick. Well, I really like those movies, but voice acting is at least a decent retirement plan.

Rocket is such a complex character and Cooper somehow nails him without ever really picturing him as the voice. It's not phoned in at all. He brings a good mix of talent both comedic and dramatic that he's showcased in films ranging from The Hangover series to yes, two Oscar-nominated performances. Who knew he also had voiceover talent?

There are plenty of really quick bits with some really decent actors that aren't really given time to develop (though that's only because we tend to think highly of John C. Reilly, Glenn Close, and Benecio del Toro - but their chracters don't need to be in this film more), but we should lastly be chatting about Chris Pratt, who, with the obligatory Marvel ab scene, cements himself as a live action action star in addition to his own voice work in this year's LEGO Movie (2014). How is the doofy Andy from Parks and Rec suddenly fast becoming one of the biggest stars in Hollywood? It's that mixture of loveability, refreshing well-received material, and actually distinctive interesting work. It's what separates him from the tremendous rabble of replaceable young white dudes in Hollywood trying to become the next big thing.

The film also large centers around Peter Quill's Walkman (see Soundtrack, above), which provides an incredible anachronistic beat that offers the film most of its charm as well as a symbol of Quill's complicated relationship with his mother and her death, which is something that he's really not able to accept until he grows as a person with real contact with other characters by film's end. Each of the Guardians is in some way the last of their kind, and the film demonstrates Peter's loss of Earth through this subtle but still achingly lonely expression of his devotion to his music. Blue Swede, "Hooked on a Feeling" - "That's MY song!" he exasperates to an unsympathetic blue guard: Peter for better or worse is trapped with 80s culture in addition to whatever the hell culture he's getting in Space, and his Awesome Mix Tape Vol. 1 is his only real connection to Earth, his mother, and a life back home he may or may not ever want to get back to. It's a pretty damn complex lead character.

Summer's greatest heroes...what the
 hell...how did this ever happen

Also re: the stinger: I love idiots like this that suggest either 1) a stand-alone Howard the Duck movie (there's no bloody chance of that happening or 2) a strong featuring role in Guardians of the Galaxy 2: Rocket's Dark Moon (2017). I don't understand why many people out there can't understand Marvel's shifting marketing tactics. Once upon a time in the far away world of 2008, Marvel used all of its stingers to set up the next installments of things to build anticipation and hype and to reward hushed whispers of "OMG AVENGERS!" and the like. They filled Hall H at Comic Con with full casts and announced crazy new projects like Guardians where we all went "what the hell are they thinking?" Marvel doesn't give a shit about that anymore. They are out of the business of proving themselves. They can just make ridiculous joke movies like this and cap it with ridiculous Howard the Duck jokes. It's just this giant "fuck you" to its audience that it's been favoring lately, even within mainstream projects like Iron Man 3 (2013) and most of Guardians, which as I said, tends to directly upend blockbuster cliches.

Should we even talk about the future of Guardians in relation to the Terrestrial Marvel Cinematic Universe? I'm going to tend not to care - when and if the Avengers meet the Guardians (possibly in Avengers 3: Give Us All Your Money [2018]), it'll be a shitshow of epic proportions. There's already a firm connection in comicdom of Tony Stark joining the Guardians, and with the numerous Infinity Stone drops and Drax's Thanos hatred, it does all seem like a long but inevitable collision course.

So yeah, I loved this flick. It's that rare kind of funny, good-feeling film that still contains a lot of heart and soul amid its goofiness that all Summer Blockbusters need to learn from. It is a very distinct and difficult style to pull off, though, and it's evident already that audiences have responded pretty well. I'm really curious about where this franchise can go and intersect with the rest of Marvel's cinematic baby, but for now I find a film without a great deal of flaws that strikes new and interesting ground where so many others have failed. Hail Xenu.

The Road to a Blockbuster: Guardians of the Galaxy

How did this happen?

Seriously.

Today we see the release of Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), which promises to be an absolutely insane trip through space with an obscure group of self-proclaimed A-hold comic characters that will somehow tie into a growing inter-connected series of films that's proving time and time again that they're the only studio who knows what they're doing. It's mind-boggling.

And Chris Pratt got abs! What the hell?! Did anyone see
 this coming after watching Parks and Rec in 2009?

I had heard of the Guardians before this, but I was always familiar with the 90s version that included Major Victory, Starhawk, Charlie-27, and other pretty shitty characters. It's tough to get into Cosmic comics of either DC or Marvel - they tend to be this weird mix of space opera, superhero stories, or more often space western motifs. They're sprawling, with hordes of advanced civilizations, heroes, and eternal cosmic gods that shake the foundations of the universe. It's a scale tremendously grander than say, Batman's confines of Gotham or Peter Parker's inner turmoil. What's fascinating is that as these stakes seemingly get grander, with entire universes at stake, the stories become tougher to relate to, and far less interesting. So, cosmic is tricky.

A few years back Marvel announced some exciting dates for sequels to well-received films like Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), Thor (2011), and The Avengers (2012) that would comprise their self-titled "Phase Two" of the progression of the semi-interconnected stories of their shared universe. In addition to these flicks (and the obvious Iron Man 3 [2013]), they subtly commented that Guardians of the Galaxy would be part of the ensemble. This contained numerous implications, most notably the fact that a mainstream comic movie series would be going Cosmic.

We've had doses of this before, to horrible, horrible results. We first glimpsed the Silver Surfer, perhaps Marvel's most notable Cosmic Hero, on screen in the terrible (but enjoyable in a hungover, Sunday-afternoon sort of way) Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007). We also saw DC try their hand with Green Lantern (2011), which is an abomination against all comic and cinema lovers alike. Like I said earlier, in a somewhat ironic note, extending the stakes of the story to universe-spanning proportions really takes audiences out of the picture.

But that's kind of stupid - I mean, the space opera generates some of the most culturally significant and highest grossing films and television shows of all time. Why doesn't it work with superheroes? It might be because it's just tough to sell audiences on an expanded world when they're more used to being grounded. You can't have multiple comics and films set within the confines of earth and then involve these crazy aliens that threaten earth, then go away to their own adventure. People tend not to care, if the characters aren't compelling. There was nothing compelling about the characterizations of the Silver Surfer or Green Lantern in either of their films.

That's a tough criticism because it's not like the characters are poorly drawn. And Marvel already proved that you can have crazy fantastical worlds in a flick like Thor, and you can have successful period films like Captain America and X-Men: First Class (2011). You can even combine period and sci-fi and time travel pretty well in Days of Future Past (2014). So it's not like the source material explicitly damns a film, but it's more how a director or screenwriter will handle things. In addition to that, audiences need to react to the film with enough hype to think it'll be a really cool hundred plus minutes to spend in a dark room staring at a screen.

Guardians has pulled this off. Its marketing has been so quick-witted, engaging, fun, and badass, with a demonstration of decent stakes as well. Maybe it's the demonstration of so many humans in space, which is also the foundation of former successful space operas like Star Trek, Star Wars (1977), and Battlestar Galactica. It's also a true testament that source material doesn't really matter at all. Those Guardians I listed earlier that I knew? Yeah, I hadn't realized that some time ago Marvel had taken a slew of random badass underused Cosmic heroes and anti-heroes and teamed them up to create a new team unrelated to the Space Avengers of yore. So they're basically starting from nothing. Start from nothing, nestle them under an established studio, and provide really really awesome previews and you've got a hit on your hands. It's just that simple.

This is what makes me even more frustrated as a Green Lantern fan. There are plenty of incredible Green Lantern stories to draw from, but that movie tended to get everything wrong, from its bland casting, its murky treatment of complex and moronic cosmic elements, to its rushed feel and hideously un-badass production design. Movies are such a visual medium that it really needs to look cool to be successful. Without any prior knowledge, who wins in a fight - him or them? And it's precisely how bizarre these characters seem (a tree who only says his name; a talking, gun-toting raccoon; a green space assassin; a big green badass with knives; and some dude with a walkman) that has somehow piqued audience interest rather than turned them off.

Oh shit!

In so many ways, Guardians will be a complete fluke. It makes no sense at all that it will be a huge, successful, cultural event. It assures that director James Gunn will be making movies forever with whatever budget he wants, which as the director of Slither (2006) and Super (2010), is fine by me. We always talk about what films will have huge cultural, commercial, and critical impacts throughout this country, and I'm telling you that Guardians will crush every possible aspect. And it has no competition anywhere around it. It will absolutely roll through Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) and The Expendables 3 (2014), which are both pretty tired and derided, even if the former is only on its first installment (recently). This whole summer has been full of tremendous hype that has all turned out kind of okay instead of great (Godzilla [2014], Days of Future Past, Maleficent [2014] - we could go on). Guardians could end up being the one great movie we got out of this summer.

Besides Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), that is. It's time to set a new standard for August releases - will you be there to witness this movie that has no reason being a success? It releases today.