Another school year is winding down, so it's time to look back at the best and worst in arts and entertainment from late Sept. to early June. The worst is first.
Peacock Suckers: MSNBC's "American Beats Out Kwan" headline about Tara Lipinsky's defeat of Michelle Kwan in the Winter Olympics just goes to show Asians are still viewed as "the other." Props to the Asian American Journalists Association and the San Francisco Chronicle for speaking out publicly against this sorry-ass excuse for a news network.
You Make Me Wanna Leave the TV Off: Usher's insipid, tedious "Nice n' Slow" video was so awful I gave it the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment whenever I saw it on TV: "Yo, Usher, your kung-fu fighting makes David Carradine in Kung Fu: The Legend Continues look like Jet Li!"
"I'm the king of the world...and a pompous a--hole too!!": Have you heard this one: What's worse than a sinking ship? A James Cameron acceptance speech. The director's acceptance speeches for Titanic's Oscars struck new lows in blockheaded Hollywood egotism. In one especially lame speech, the self-serving filmmaker called for a moment of silence for the dead Titanic passengers and then told the audience to party until dawn. In the upcoming sequel to Titanic, the ship will collide with Cameron's swelled head.
Soy to the World: The Grammy party-crasher Soy Bomb — internationally televised proof that white guys can't dance.
Soul Drain: I'm glad I only have one year left at UCSC. I don't know how I can survive in a town where there's no more R&B radio stations after KISE-FM changed its soul format to classic rock. But thank God there's still KZSC-FM's Chunky Chocolate.
R.I.P.: Toshiro Mifune, Frank Sinatra, Phil Hartman, bilingual classrooms.
Let's Not Also Forget... Roy Lichtenstein, cartoon voice actor Don Messick, Michael Hutchence, Chris Farley, comic-book editor/writer Archie Goodwin, Sonny Bono (his music wasn't my cup of tea, but his bantering with Cher was always funny), character actor J.T. Walsh, Linda McCartney, Live 105.
Five Reasons Why I'm Quitting City on a Hill: Having to miss NewsRadio every Tuesday night sucked, the Student Center computers suck, our "Who the Hell Asked You?" questions often suck, hardly anybody on the paper can spell, and it's time to leave behind these amateurs and go on to something bigger and better! (And no, I don't mean the Fish Rap.)
And now the best.
Great Little Moments in Films Reviewers Never Really Mention: Greg Kinnear's dead-on Jack Nicholson impression in As Good as It Gets; Robert Duvall kicking the deputy away while trying to convert a dying car-crash victim in The Apostle; Kevin Kline giving Christina Ricci a piggy-back ride in The Ice Storm; documentarian Nick Broomfield getting the wrong address in Kurt & Courtney; the marriage of brilliant camerawork and the Emotions' infectious "Best of My Love" at the beginning of Boogie Nights; Denzel Washington hugging his wife's tombstone in He Got Game; news anchor Daniel Schorr insulting Michael Douglas from the TV in The Game; Sinead O'Connor's Virgin Mary dispensing foul-mouthed advice to Eamonn Owens in The Butcher Boy; Jim Carrey trying to piece together the face of his lost love with fashion-mag photo cutouts in The Truman Show; from The Boxer: Emily Watson smacks Daniel Day-Lewis and then blushes after giving him a bloody nose, and the haunting scene where Belfast parents at a boxing club remember the children they lost; from L.A. Confidential: the brief exchange between Bud White (Russell Crowe) and the client leaving the house of Kim Basinger's prostitute Lynn Bracken ("Officer." "Councilman."), and Jack Vincennes' (Kevin Spacey) priceless reaction to Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) mistaking Lana Turner for a doppleganger.
Best Movie Monologue: A tie between Matt Damon's anti-NSA diatribe in Good Will Hunting and Al Pacino's "God is an absentee landlord!" speech in The Devil's Advocate.
Forget "I'm the King of the World!": The best movie catchphrase was Dustin Hoffman's answer for everything in Wag the Dog — "This is nothing!"
Best Opening Credits: The Gingerbread Man, Tomorrow Never Dies, Jackie Brown, The Ice Storm, He Got Game, Fallen.
Best Local Movie Theater: The Nickelodeon — the only theater that gives a damn about Takeshi Kitano.
Favorite Teacher: Professor John Dizikes, for his witty lectures in UCSC's American Women Artists class.
The Best of the Tube: The Practice; the animated Batman's surprisingly intense and gripping "Over the Edge" episode, which got away with showing Batgirl graphically falling to her death; the Homicide episode directed by Steve Buscemi and guest-starring Charles Durning; South Park; the Hanson-as-middle-aged-rockers sketch and the Tommy Tune-as-Batman parody on Mad TV; the Simpsons' Navy episode; Will Ferrell as Neil Diamond in a VH1's Storytellers spoof on Saturday Night Live ("I killed a hiker to get an erection..."); Johnny Bravo; Talk Soup; the Superman cartoon's "Apoka-lips Now!" arc.
Other Highlights of the School Year: L.A. Confidential, the African American Theater Arts Troupe's production of Fences; the API (Asian Pacific Islander) and FSA (Filipino Student Association) theater troupes; DJ Q-Bert came to UCSC; the Propellerheads' Decksanddrumsandrockandroll; Steven Fonti's twisted Christmas cartoon "Yes, Timmy, There Is a Santa Claus;" the James Bond tribute album Shaken and Stirred; Ennio Morricone's score to U-Turn; the Pacific Rim Film Festival — especially its opening selection, Luther Kahekili Makekau: A One Kine Hawaiian Man; the brilliant set design for Tim Fitzmaurice and Aaron Seeman's really bizarre Opium: Diary of a Cure; Chris Rock's Roll with the New; Rex Navarrete, the only Pilipino American stand-up comic that I know of, put out a CD; Rakim returned to the hiphop limelight after a long hiatus; Los Amigos Invisibles' The New Sound of the Venezuelan Gozadera — funkier than a hippie in the back of a sweltering Metro bus.
This was my last regular High Street Blues column. Good night, and don't take any sh-- from anybody! Peace.