Jeannie Marie – Page 6

Why I Think Jimmy Fallon Revolutionized Late Night Television, Part 1

February 12, 2015September 27, 2016 Jeannie Marie Leave a comment

When I was little, I obviously had a concrete bedtime that my mom and dad used to enforce fairly strictly (mostly my mom on this one). But as I got older, they loosened up, because honestly, their bedtime habits aren’t the best, and it was hard to make me go to bed when they weren’t going to bed themselves. So around the time I was in middle school, I discovered late night TV and all the wonders it held.

And by wonders, I mean…not wonders. Sure, I thought it was cool to stay up so late that I get to see David Letterman, and maybe sometimes I’d get some of the jokes, but most of them flew straight over my head. However, I did enjoy the guests they brought on the show, especially when I started exploring music on my own terms rather than just based on what my mom played in the car. As I got older, I watched more late night TV, maybe not religiously but often enough that I decided who my favorites were. I wasn’t a big fan of Letterman, so I often fluctuated between Leno and Kimmel – Kimmel was crass (I got the jokes now) but funny, and Leno was mean but funny, so they evened each other out. There was even a period of time when me and my mom would curl up most nights and watch Craig Ferguson together, because we found him to be hilarious for some odd reason.

Late night TV, for me, was always a kind of frivolity. Like, if it’s on, sure, I’ll watch it, but I never went out of my way to see something. But then I realized that this was actually kind of a problem. As I learned more about general pop culture and became invested in it, I realized that my generation, the teens/young adults, we were the audience that was hard to crack. Not only are we apathetic about the world, we also had weird, unpredictable taste (Backstreet Boys? Really?). According to them, that is. According to me, late night was just boring.

But then something happened. My mom told me that there was a new guy on the Late Show, some comedian named Jimmy Fallon. She would call me into her room every so often, because Emma Stone was on or they were playing some wacky game.

I don’t think I need to say anymore about how Jimmy’s popularity skyrocketed. Also being a casual watcher of SNL, I learned that Jimmy had been on SNL years before, and for some reason I was surprised. Jimmy as a sketch comedian? Really? He was perfect for late night. But then it made sense. Jimmy isn’t perfect for late night…he’s just a funny guy. Period.

Over the past few days I’ve found myself pulling up videos of him and showing my friends his hilarious videos, whether it be his “show” “Ew!” or the lip sync battles, and then asking them why they like Jimmy Fallon so much. It’s no surprise that I talk to my friends and they all agree that he is hilarious and we all love him.

At first I thought it was just because he cracked the code somehow. Like he “gets us,” and he gets the age of technology. Leno had Headlines, from newspapers, Fallon has Hashtags from Twitter. But then I thought that wasn’t exactly right. I mean sure, his YouTube videos have tons of hits, but it’s gotta be more than relatability.

And I think what I’ve come up with is a pretty solid explanation. Jimmy’s show is clearly different from other late night TV. I mean, where else can you see a host and his guest get up spontaneously and sing “It Takes Two?” But more than his structure, it’s Jimmy himself. He makes fun of other stars, to be sure. But it’s not like Letterman, where there was a hint of poison in his barbs. Jimmy is like your best friend making fun of you. They can make fun of you because you know so clearly that they’re joking. You can’t help but to laugh along instead of being offended. And when he’s not doing a monologue, he’s having his guests do crazy things that are starting to revolutionize late night TV (okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I repeat: lip sync battles). He’s making late night TV fun instead of following the usual monologue-guest-guest 2-music format. And my age group is responding to it, if 28 million views on #Hashtag says anything.

The Myth of Being Well-Read

February 5, 2015September 27, 2016 Jeannie Marie Leave a comment

Okay, hold up. If you haven’t heard the big news, I want to be the one to tell you.

Wait for it…

*drumroll*

Harper Lee is releasing her second novel ever.

*cue excited screams*

I know.

Frankly, when I first read the news somewhere on Facebook, I didn’t actually freak out on the spot. I mean, I was happy, but it took like a solid hour or two (or maybe three more posts on Facebook) to get me really, really pumped for this. Honestly, the weight of the news really didn’t hit me until then. This is huge.

And actually, it’s funny that this news has been released, because it coincides perfectly with a topic I’ve been meaning to write about lately.

Now, okay, maybe you’re reading this (or you read one of the various other news sources), and you’re thinking “Okay, so what?” To this, I would come up with two possible conclusions about you:

You aren’t a reader and thus don’t understand the gravity that is when your favorite author announces that they’re publishing another book (think Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows or The Winds of Winter, the forthcoming 6th book in the Game of Thrones series), or
You’ve never read To Kill a Mockingbird

These are both completely valid conclusions to come to if someone says “So what?” to this kind of news. The part that gets tricky is what comes after.

Maybe you are a reader, and that first conclusion isn’t true about you. You really really like sci-fi novels, and can’t wait for the next book in your series to come out, so you understand how it feels when this kind of announcement is made. But you still say “So what?” Maybe you don’t really like other types of fiction. Maybe you got into sci-fi because your mom really liked it growing up, and she got you reading, but because she doesn’t read much else neither do you. Maybe you tried to branch into mystery and got bored. For whatever reason, maybe you haven’t read To Kill a Mockingbird and the second conclusion does apply to you.

Like I said, the conclusion is valid, but the judgement that comes right after is not.

After being officially declared an English major for a year now (though in my heart I’ve been an English major since I got accepted to UM), I’ve noticed a trend within the English department, that I have to say also applies to me. And it’s not the English majors’ fault, because it’s not just English majors, but also any intellectual who studies/studied the humanities.

What I’m talking about people is the concept of being “well read.” If you go up to an English major and say “I haven’t read To Kill a Mockingbird” many will gasp loudly, protest vehemently, and automatically insist you pick it up right this minute, you know what, I’ll go buy it for you right now at The Dawn Treader. But what makes a book considered worth reading in the first place? It obviously isn’t popular opinion, because then Twilight and The Hunger Games would be included in the lexicon.

But more than that is the whole concept of it all, and the judgement that comes immediately after. Although comments such as these have never been directed at me, I’ve often felt uncomfortable in my classes when the topics of books comes up. This comes up most often at the beginning at the semester, when the favorite ice breaker seems to be “the last thing you read” or “the last thing you enjoyed reading.” For someone like me, who is seriously considering either going into creative nonfiction journalism (such as this blog) or into YA Lit, this question is always, without fail, a way to embarrass me, and I always have to have an acceptable back-up answer ready at hand. Last semester my back-up answer was the piece written by the Washington Post journalist that went to and was arrested in Ferguson. I don’t remember my back-up answer this semester, but I sure as heck wasn’t going to say that I finished The Moon and More by YA romance author Sarah Dessen. But that was my honest answer, it was in fact the last book that I finished. And the last piece I read was probably any sort of online article about music, movies, TV, you name it. In the stage of life I’m in right now, it’s honestly what I like to read. Sure, I have Water for Elephants and Life of Pi on my Kindle right now ready for me to read at a moments notice. But I’m also in the middle of reading Paper Towns by John Green, and I plan on finishing it sometime soon.

So why is it that when people talk about Dante’s Inferno or name drop Nietzsche (who I really didn’t know until last semester), I get really anxious and uncomfortable? I know enough about Inferno to get by when it’s mentioned, but I’ve never read it and I’m not planning on it any time soon. Why would I when there’s so many other books I’d enjoy much more?

And yes, okay, I am planning on reading “adult” books eventually. I finally read Frankenstein this past semester for class, and I do actually want to read Life of Pi, which is why it is actually on my Kindle right now. But if I don’t read them right now, does that make me less of a reader?

I’d like to argue that it doesn’t, and I’m sure this argument has been made many times, but I thought it was worth considering in the terms of a highly intellectual University. I’m not saying that every time a professor makes a connection between a novel and Paradise Lost they’re wrong and shouldn’t do it, because intertextuality is important when understanding the novel and its merits, but the judgement that comes when individuals have conversations about books and I just haven’t read one yet should not be happening.

But yeah. Harper Lee. Get excited. Or not. Whatever floats your boat.

Thoughts From Places: Passions, January Edition

January 28, 2015September 27, 2016 Jeannie Marie Leave a comment

So lately I’ve been thinking.

Now, I know as well as anyone how dangerous that can be, so just stay with me here.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about my future (like, with jetpacks), and what I want that to look like. Now, I haven’t come up with any definite conclusions, but I do have a few basic requirements:

I have a job. It sucks, but I can’t do anything in this world (like, say, live in an apartment) without money, so I have to have a job.
This job has to be something I enjoy. I can’t be waking up every day, hating my own guts because I have to drag myself to the same old crummy job every week.

That’s it. Since practically my kindergarten days, these two things are all I’ve wanted for my life. But the funny thing about life is that it changes…like, a lot.

I used to think that if I ended up working in an office it would be the death of me and all I consider fun and exciting, but now I’m (slowly) acclimating to the idea of working in an office…as long as it’s an office working on something I enjoy as well.

I also used to think that I’d become an actress, but that dream is almost all but gone. Would I go back to the stage if offered? In a heartbeat. But am I at college just waiting for my big break on Broadway? Not so much.

But recently, I’ve been coming to a different conclusion. I love to write, in case you haven’t noticed the weeks and weeks and weeks of columns I’ve written, and I decided to become an English major so that I can get a degree in something I love so I can get a job in something I love. That fulfills both of my above requirements. I thought becoming an author would make me just as happy as if I were acting on stage.

But I love writing for this blog too. I love writing about art, something that I’m really passionate about (see above potential jobs), and I love getting to have deep, meaningful conversations with other people who love art just as much as I do. And although they don’t make much, being a cultural/pop culture journalist is sounding really, really cool to me as a junior looking at a job market I’ll soon be entering.

I’m not exactly sure what I’m trying to get at, and I know this only loosely coincides with my task of writing about art once a week, but I guess I’d say that finding passions is not something that automatically happens. I didn’t wake up one day knowing I was going to get a job at arts, ink and love it more than any other job I’ve ever had. Passion is a process, which is something I think most people don’t understand. Art is a passion, but it’s also a process.

So I guess I’m saying find your passion. But don’t give up if it takes longer than you expect it to, because all passions are different. And don’t reject something when you haven’t tried it. Did I want this job when I applied for it? Yes. Did I think I was going to like it so much that I’d want to turn it into a career goal? Not a chance. But am I glad I did it?

I think you can answer that for yourself.

Selma and the Academy Awards

January 21, 2015September 27, 2016 Jeannie Marie Leave a comment

Almost exactly a year ago, I made a post that will end up being eerily similar to this one. Why, you may ask?

It is, once again, AWARDS SEASON.

*cue excited music*

Okay, okay, I have a confession. Yes, I love awards season, and yes, I’m still excited to see who will win. But something just isn’t right this year.

As you may have heard, Selma got majorly snubbed in the noms for the Academy Awards this year. And I’m not particularly happy about that.

First, before I say anything else, I want to reiterate that I am, in fact, a white female, and thus am speaking from a view of someone who is privileged, and I try to acknowledge that as much as possible. But all I ever want to be, both writing these columns and in my everyday life is honest. And honestly, this is not okay.

Last year, I watched the Academy Awards, and when they called the name of Lupita Nyong’o, I could literally see the joy and surprise she felt when they called her name. I beamed when she acknowledged what an amazing opportunity this was, how she instantly became a role model, just like actresses like Audrey Hepburn and Amy Adams became for me.

And yet now, are we really going to take a step backward from that? Frankly, I’m not surprised, but immensely disappointed at the Academy. I have yet to see Selma (though you can bet I’m planning on it), but even without seeing it I already know what a phenomenal movie it is.

All I can say is America, we can do better.

Okay, now that that’s over with, I present my picks and favorites for the Academy Awards 2015 in the major categories. Feel free to disagree in the comments…I’m actually really excited to do this publicly, because I’ve always made my picks, but usually just told my mom right before they announce the winner.

Also, disclaimer, if you didn’t read my post from last year, I also try and challenge myself to see every best picture/best actor/actress nominated movie, because they aren’t movies I typically see in my casual movie-going habits (that would be How to Train Your Dragon 2…I mean…what…who said that…). So, something to keep in mind, I probably haven’t seen the movies I pick. So…make of that what you will.

Best Picture:
Pick: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Favorite: Boyhood

Best Actor:
Pick: Michael Keaton, Birdman
Favorite: No particular favorite

Best Actress:
Pick: Julianne Moore, Still Alice
Favorite: No particular favorite

Best Supporting Actor:
Pick: Edward Norton, Birdman
Favorite: Ethan Hawke, Boyhood

Best Supporting Actress:
Pick: Laura Dern, Wild
Favorite: Patricia Arquette, Boyhood

Animated Feature Film:
Pick: The Tale of Princess Kaguya
Favorite(s): How to Train Your Dragon 2, Big Hero 6

Best Director:
Pick: Richard Linklater, Boyhood
Favorite: Richard Linklater, Boyhood

Sick Days and Movies

January 14, 2015September 27, 2016 Jeannie Marie Leave a comment

I’d like to propose a theory that has not been tested or proven in any way shape or form. To be honest, this theory hasn’t been around for very long because I may or may not have come up with it today while I was lying in agony trying to will my body to sleep. But it’s a theory nonetheless.

This theory? When there is an increase in sickness/illness/general suckiness, there is a direct correlation to the increase in enjoyment of any movie or TV show.

Note I said correlation not causation because if I hadn’t already had it drilled into my brain in high school AP Psych I had it again drilled into my brain in my (very easy) stats class last year.

Normally, today I would have one class in the morning, have an hour and a half for lunch, and have a 3 hour work shift after which I’d attend my last class of the day from 4-5:30. However my body was having none of that, so after waking up with a scratchy throat I went to my first class and in the course of an hour and half went from “ew gross throat” to “please help I’m dying.” To my chagrin, my poor attempt to use Panera Bread’s chicken noodle soup to nurse myself back to health did not work, and so I walked into my office a half hour earlier than I’m supposed to arrive and asked if please I could go back and rest, and she agreed heartily. (Side note: I literally have the best boss on campus. And I’m not saying that in case she reads this, because she probably won’t, but because it’s true, so you should all be jealous).

Only focused on how the wind was not lowering my pain tolerance at all, I shuffled slowly back to my dorm, took the elevator instead of the stairs, and crawled into bed. And even though I was completely exhausted from only getting six hours of sleep the night previous, I could not fall asleep.

Not only was I thinking of all the things I still need to do this week and how to accomplish them with the least amount of effort possible, I also was kept awake by the dull throbbing in my muscles.

And so, as I lay there, I thought of all of the times I had been sick when at home, and how yes, I felt horrible, but maybe it’d be okay because that meant I got to watch a new movie or finish a TV show.

One distinct time this happened was when I was in 4th, maybe 5th grade. My mom kept me home from school with just a normal (but brutal) cold, but she still had to go to the store and wouldn’t leave me home alone, so naturally I accompanied her to the WalMart five minutes down the road. As soon as we got there, there was a huge display in front of me, with at least three shelves all lined with one movie. This movie, which happens to be my favorite out of all Disney/Pixar movies, is Finding Nemo. I don’t know why my mom did it, maybe out of pity, or maybe she just saw the look on my face as I looked at the shiny blue cover of a movie I didn’t get to see in the movie theatre, but she turned to me and asked “Do you want me to buy this for you?”

Young and confused, I answered with my own question, “Why?”

“Because today is a special day.” I couldn’t see what was so special about it, but if it meant getting a new movie I was game, so I went and picked out one, a two disc special edition, and watched it when I got home.

Now, to be honest, I don’t remember how sick I was or how much I liked the movie the first time I saw it. But to this day, it’s one of my favorite movies, both to watch when I’m sick and when I’m fine. I can quote almost every line, and over break I bought myself a stuffed plush of Dory (I kid you not).

Okay, so I will acknowledge that this has less to do with “art” and more to do with psychology. Maybe it’s just this way for me, but when I get sick, cuddling up with a soft blanket and a movie works better than any medicine or home remedy. I can’t tell you why, but the connection still exists in my head to this day, because when I lay there in my dorm, miserable and desperately wishing for sleep, just sleep, all I really wanted was to watch Finding Nemo.

*Disclaimer* I am still very sick as I write this so if you see any typos or if some sentences just don’t sound the best, please forgive me, I’m about to take a shower and some Nyquil and sleep forever.

Happy Days During Finals

December 11, 2014December 11, 2014 Jeannie Marie Leave a comment

In the midst of finals taking and paper writing (and staying up till 4 am and crying), there is always been one thing I can count on.

Music.

I’ve talked a LOT about music over my time here as a blogger, and though I’m not proud of the fact that my interests are sometimes less diverse than I’d like them to be, it just goes to show that one thing you can always count on me for is that I love music.

But tonight, for some odd reason, an atypical song popped into my head.

Now, I say atypical because it’s just not the typical song I go to when I’m stressed or I have a 40 page portfolio due tomorrow. Usually I’d be playing some variation of Dustin O’Hallaran’s music, maybe if I’m in the mood for lyrics I’ll turn on Magnolia by Young & Sick (which, Spotify informed me today, was my most played song in 2014. Uh, yay?).

But instead, this song came up. I’m guessing it’s because it sounds kind of like a Christmas song, with its soaring, gentle, but major melodies (major, as in the music key, not as in major, like major grade).

And I’m glad it did. I will have to admit, I hold a fondness for musicals and the type of songs you find in them. I love a good rock opera (The Toxic Avenger anyone?), but nothing can beat me belting out SOMEBODY BEING IN LOOOOOOOOOVE WITH ME in the shower when I’m sure that no one’s around. I love a good show tune.

Which is why I’m embarrassed that I found this lovely duet through Glee. But hey, the journey doesn’t matter, right? Just the ending? Right? Yeah that’s what the Hobbit was about.

So, even though this is shorter than my typical post (and later…oops….shhhhhh it’s not midnight I don’t have a portfolio due tomorrow yeah I’m almost done), here it is – a fantastic duet with two amazing actresses and singers, two of the greatest of the 20th century, singing a song that will hopefully get you through your finals.

Forget your troubles
Happy days
Come on get happy
Are here again
You better chase all your cares away
The skies above are clear again
Shout hallelujah
So lets sing a song
Come on get happy
Of cheer again
Get ready for the judgement day
Happy days are here again