Pop Culture Wrap Up (7/27-8/27)

It's been a big month for me, pop-culturally speaking. I've seen things. I've done things. I've seen some of the things I've done. Basically, I've had some experiences, and I want to talk about those experiences. But what do you do when your whole life is packed to the brim with pop culture but none of it is really deserving of its own blog post? Well, I'll tell you: you cram everything into one post and hope that your immediate family will account for less than 50% of the readership.

Who Wore It Best?

HAHAHA...Just Kidding.
There's no way Taylor Swift can match Beyonce's allergic-to-pants game.


(Beyonce image via HERE)

Doctor Who is BACK!

Let's hope Peter Capaldi doesn't muck it all up, shall we?

'Guardians of the Galaxy' Is The Space Epic We've Been Waiting For

"When we are in our infancy, we look to the stars. We look to the sky, stretched out above us, full of mysteries unexplored, dangers untold, and thirsts unquenched. Space is the future; space is hope; space is where all the cool people are hanging out without us." -  Helen Keller

It would be an astronomical understatement to say that I really love Guardians of the Galaxy, the most recent – and buoyant – film in the Marvel franchise. Following a ragtag group of underdogs as they fight against seemingly unbeatable foes, the film is a love letter to movies about space, movies about friendship, and movies about kick-ass soundtracks.

The ragtag group in question is led by Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), a Terran (film-speak for 'from Earth) who, after his mother dies of cancer, is abducted by a race of bluish, alien thugs and grows up as a thief,  with an awesome mix tape as his only keepsake of home. He's joined by a  sassy raccoon named Rocket (Bradley Cooper), a somewhat-sentient tree named Groot (Vin Diesel), the overly-literal and revenge-bent Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), and the genetically-modified assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldana, joining yet another space-film franchise). The plot is dense, and pretty MacGuffin-laden, but basically there's a super-bad dude named Ronan (Lee Pace, completely unrecognizable without his lustrous eyebrows) who's aided by Gamora's quasi-sister Nebula (Karen Gillan, a little out of her depth here) and an even badder dude named Thanos (who will feature heavily in many of the Marvel movies to come). Though their motivations are murky and full of backstabbing and frontstabbing, they all basically want to get their hands on a mysterious orb, which Quilly has just stolen, in order kill a bunch of people. Oh, yeah, and for a fun bit of back-story, Thanos killed Drax's family and happens to be Gamora's adoptive father. The 'Guardians' have to band together to stop Ronan, and save an entire planet of people, including a bunch of space cops holed up at the base of the Nova Corps, which is run by the stellar Glenn Close.

Now, I really liked this movie, but I'm afraid that, if I start to review it, I may never stop talking about it. So, instead, here is a list of  points worth talking about:

Birthdays Make Me Feel Like a Dying Eva Perón

Today is my birthday (and Neville Longbottom's...and Lisa Kudrow's), but it isn't a particularly important one. I'm not allowed to do or drink something that was previously, legally unattainable. There will be no celebration of a new half – or even quarter – century. Heck, I even woke up today in the same decade of my life that I was in yesterday. Still, birthdays have a way of feeling important, even if they're only important to one person. So, when someone wishes me a Happy Birthday, be it via Facebook post, text message, phone call, or even *gasp* an actual, in-person interaction, it's definitely some sweet icing on the cake of life. 

1999-era Tina Fey and Rachel Dratch Rock a Two-Woman Show

I'd like to take you back 15 years, to the year 1999. It was a simpler time. The Millenium was just around the corner. Y2K was a legitimate fear. Women were getting impregnated with children who are now freshman in high school. Cher's "Believe" was at the top of the charts. People still wore cargo jeans. Jennifer Lopez was just starting her singing career. And amazing, funny people Rachel Dratch and Tina Fey had a two-woman sketch show called Dratch & Fey. Until this week, I'd only heard rumors of this comedic collabo, happy to hear whispers of it on the wind and watch the few sketches I could find on YouTube. But now there's, like, a full night of Dratch & Fey, and it's in a convenient, 47-minute-long video!

Once you get past the poor video quality and bad haircuts, what you're left with is a super solid collection of sketches that weave in and out of one another with seamless panache. Plus, you get to hear Tina Fey sing a song about her vagina while operating a whale puppet, and you get to hear about the suicidal tendencies of Rachel Dratch's half of a pair of guitar-playing Siamese twins.

It's...pretty great.

RIP Elaine Stritch

Hail, Hail, The Gang's All Here [Harry Potter]

Everyone reunites for a fun game of Quidditch and fan service.

Just when the world was beginning to forget about Harry Potter (sort of), J.K. Rowling swings back into the fray with a brand new bit of writing to get everyone's attention. A 1,500 word 'news report' from Rita Skeeter made its way onto the Pottermore website yesterday, and it follows a quasi-reunion between members of Dumbledore's Army at the Quidditch World Cup. Like the much-discussed epilogue in the last book of her hit series, the article reads more like fan fiction than actual, canonical text –  Rowling loves long sentences of expository writing. Honestly, if this were a real article, the wizarding world would probably be confused as to why, when attending a live event, Skeeter decides to write a piece with as much life and energy as the Wikipedia page on Mulch.

Hit or Miss: Quick Movie Reviews 8: 4th of July Edition

You guys! Here in America, it's Independence Day, which means it's time to celebrate 'Merica the only way we know how: drinking too much, eating a variety of meats, prank-calling anyone named Tim Howard, and spending a long weekend watching movies. To help you make the decision on what movie to see, I have spent the last few days watching a crap-load of movies. Like, I don't know how I do it. It's staggering. And since you can't spend this whole weekend in a cinema, I'mma tell you which ones to HIT the theater to see, and which ones you can MISS:

'Weird Al' Yankovic as Adolf Hitler

Thank you, Drunk History, for this weirdness.

That is all.