Pullout Pop Culture Quotes: Labor Day Weekend edition
It's about to be a long, three-day weekend (PRAISE BE), so let's do something low-key to ooze into the weekend, shall we? And nothing is simpler than reading the best quotes of the week. I mean, this is as low-impact-exercise as it gets.
So, without further ado because we need to start this damn weekend already, here are the five things I heard or read this week that I can't get out of my head. May they be stuck in yours, too.
+ "I'm like a performer" -- Britney Spears, "Circus"
Look, I am not going to pretend that Britney's performance of "Make Me" during the VMAs this past Sunday, Aug. 28, was particularly good, because it wasn't. Britney looked like she was counting off steps in her head; she barely even pretended to lip-sync; and holy crap, G-Eazy is gross. Coming off of Beyoncé's 16-minute homage to "Lemonade," it was inarguably NOT GREAT, BOB.
But this morning on the radio I heard Britney's 2008 single, "Circus," which has surprisingly aged not that badly! These lyrics, though, are as ludicrous as they are flirtatious. Really, Britney, you are "like a performer"? YOU ACTUALLY ARE A PERFORMER. There is no "like" necessary here! In fact, it's kind of depressing to hear this line now, because current Britney is more "like" a performer than actually being one.
... This got surprisingly existential. I'm sorry. Just watch the music video, scoff at the lyrics, and let's move on.
+ "Finish it by writing some rhymes from your brain and not your dick. You're 13 fucking years old!" -- Craig Robinson as Curtis Gentry, in Morris from America
Morris from America is a pretty-OK coming-of-age film (you can read my review here) focused on the relationship between teenage son Morris (Markees Christmas) and his father Curtis, played by Robinson, as they struggle to adapt to life in Germany after the death of Morris's mother and Curtis's wife. Hip-hop plays a central role in the film, with Curtis using music to connect with the increasingly distant Morris, but things come to a head when Curtis reads some raps that Morris wrote, which brag about having threesomes and other sexually explicit stuff -- which he of course hasn't had before.
Suffice to say that Curtis is not pleased, and his advice to Morris is to write from experience: "You don't know shit, and until you know shit, you need to rap about how you don't know shit." The suggestion is succinct and no-bullshit, and one of the best scenes of the film.
+ "She's someone I've been in love with since I was 22 years old" -- Drake re: Rihanna during the 2016 VMAs on Sun. Aug. 28
I'M SO HAPPY WE WERE ALL ABLE TO ATTEND THE PROM WITH DRAKE AND RIHANNA, YOU GUYS. THEY ARE ADORABLE. I CANNOT STOP THE LOVE GUSHING OUT OF MY PORES TOWARD THEIR BODIES.
+ "Through the window, the waves rise, sacrificing themselves in a blizzard of white, far out to sea. The ocean gives not the slightest hint that any time has passed, ever. The only sound is the buffeting of the August gales.
"Having placed the envelope in the camphor chest, Tom closes the lid reverently. Soon enough, the contents will lose all meaning, like the lost language of the trenches, so imprisoned in a time. Years bleach away the sense of things until all that's left is a bone-white past, stripped of feeling and significance." -- M. L. Stedman, The Light Between Oceans
I didn't want to see the movie adaptation of The Light Between Oceans before I finished the book by M. L. Stedman, so I skipped the screening Monday night, finished the book Wednesday night, and wept through the final chapter. So. Much. Weeping.
Those two paragraphs I excerpted above are from the final chapter, and they were what really pushed me over the edge -- the description of how time for us only moves forward vs. how it barely seems to matter to something as majestic as the ocean just gutted me. I absolutely want to re-read this book again, but first, the movie -- I'll need to check it out ASAP this weekend. Get at me, Derek Cianfrance, you depressing motherfucker!
Also, do I have enough in me to do a rewatch of Cianfrance's previous films, Blue Valentine (my review here) and The Place Beyond the Pines (my No. 4 movie of 2013), before seeing The Light Between Oceans? Or would that depress me so much that I wouldn't even leave my bed for a day? Possible!
+ "You know, my man Paul Reiser, he just doesn't get the credit he deserves. The man is spectacular." -- Joey Bada$$ as Leon, in Mr. Robot
Loved the cold open from Mr. Robot this week, S2E9 "init_5.fve," which revealed the reality of the past few months of Elliot's life and how his fantasy of staying at his mom's house syncs up with the truth of his incarceration. Elliot telling the prison guard to trash his E Corp credit card before he returned to the outside world was a great touch.
But I am SO UPSET that the wrap-up of the prison storyline also means the end of Joey Bada$$'s time as Leon on the show. You're right, Leon. Paul Reiser DOESN'T get the credit he deserves. SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER, YOU GLORIOUS WHITEROSE FOLLOWER.
