PokemonCreationist

I want to preface this post by saying: I love Jennifer Hudson. I love her voice. I love the passion and power of her presence. That being said: She was the wrong person to sing Memory for this abomination of a movie. This song is nostalgic and melancholy. Going through the lyrics, there are lines like "I can smile like the old days, I was beautiful then, "Withered leaves collect at my feet," and "Burnt out ends of smoky days, the stale cold smell of morning." Each of these lines suggest feelings of deep regret and sadness. Further, the time signature shifts from 12/8 to 10/8 within the chorus, which gives a rhythmically uneasy feeling to the song. These are not confident musical motions meant to communicate strength or resolve, quite the opposite. The slightly-off feeling time signatures accompanied by shifts between major and minor tonalities give the sense of complex emotions being weighed down by memories of a past glory. While Hudson did an adequate job with the early verses, when she let loose on the last verse it went from melancholy to pure generic emotion. Her voice pushed the words too strongly, to the point it would have communicated resilience had the lyrics sounded such. Even as June and Jason were discussing this in the episode, they didn't really discuss WHICH emotion Hudson was expressing, just using the term "emotive." This may have been from the confusion of the tone and the lyrics. They knew it was emotive, but didn't key into what exactly was being emoted. In the last verse, the key line is "Touch me, it's so easy to leave me, all alone with MY memory of my days in the sun." Imagine this being sung as type of Swan Song, the last breath of someone wrought with regret. There may be some anger, but it's not about what others did to this person. It's more of a lamentation about aging. Hudson's voice doesn't capture this type of song very well and it was just a bad match. I would love to hear Hudson sing some of the old school Ethel Merman or Bette Midler broadway tunes like "Everything's Coming Up Roses" (From Gypsy) or "As Long as He Needs Me" (From Oliver!). Her voice would be killer in songs like that.

I want to point out a simple thing: Budget was $35k and that Dino costume was definitely NOT more than a few grand of the budget. Here are a couple of mascot costumes for about a grand that look way less shitty than that half T-Rex/half Quasimodo (quartermodo?) costume. So, I don't know where Paul pulled that number from besides his ass. Maybe he's lost touch with us working stiffs bc he just buys sauna beds now.

A few things: 1. Kelsey Grammar's nickname was "The Rumble;" as in the sound of thunder. Why would he name himself after the sound your tummy makes when you're hungry? "Rumpel" is also wrong, but slightly more plausible because that's the German word for "Rumble." 2. Zero mentions of the best line of the movie: "It's Rumble Time!" "Rumble Time" should have been the new GEOSTOOOOOOOORM! RUMBLE TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIME!!!! 3. Rumble Theory: Grouch was actually a wannabe gangster looking to move up the criminal food chain. He spent years doing small-time gigs and figured he was a big fish in a small pond. So, his motivation to take down the Money Plane was to prove that he could run with the Big Dawgs. This is why The Rumble kept saying his own nickname and checking in on ManBun (and also why he didn't have an entire gallery of brain-spattered Jackson Pollocks). If he were a competent Crime Boss, he wouldn't need to hedge his bets by double crossing or getting multiple progress reports from ManBun. Unfortunately for The Rumble, the Crime Boss Peter Principle involves your ass getting murdered. 4. "Bald Pipe" is what Jason calls his penis after he manscapes.

I want to give a shout out to Isaac, the guy who sang the 2nd Opinions theme song. That was so subtle, I don't think Paul, June, or Jason caught what you were doing. That song was masterfully chosen. For those that didn't catch it, Isaac sang to the tune of "I Believe I can Fly" by R Kelly. Yes, the grammy-winning single was very apropos for parody in this episode bc the song was written for Space Jam. Its entry on the Billboard website even says so (see screen shot below). In light of recent revelations and less recent piss jokes, this was ripe for more ridicule. And it's a shame this connection was missing from the Podcast bc it would give so much more ammunition for Jason to rip on Chicago. Kelly was born/raised on the South Side and eventually moved out to the South 'burbs (aka, "Chicago" don't @ me). So, Jason, if you want more proof that Space Jam is just Chicago being obsessed with itself, despite obvious problems, there you go.