In Which We Are Trying To Figure Out What It Is

A Time To Break Up

by LAUREN BANS

It's hard out there for a defender of romantic comedies. Over the last few years rom coms have ceaselessly lived up to their reputation for spoon-feeding the fairer sex and their reluctant male companions harmless, predictable drivel. Katherine Heigl falling into Jon Bon Jovi’s arms after one or two missed text messages? Mind-blowing. Like mild cheese on a Ritz cracker.

Which is why you should disregard the frequent categorization of Albert Brooks’ low-lying film 1981 Modern Romance as a romantic comedy. It is, but it’s not simply the mental equivalent of a basket of beribboned puppies.

Brooks directs himself as an utterly unlikeable film editor, the anthropomorphic intersection of narcissism and neurosis. Think Woody Allen meets Napoleon, but tall. The first 20 minutes of the film contains what is arguably the best break up in movie history: Brooks’ character Robert takes his long-suffering girlfriend, Mary (played by the great Kathryn Harrold) to a diner and begins to unweave their relationship like only a true crackpot can.

Mary orders a chef salad and Robert a “mushroom omelette, very little butter, with whole wheat toast, dry, and butter on the side.” (Which was later totally swagger-jacked by When Harry Met Sally.)

Robert begins before the food arrives: “I don't feel real good lately and I'm trying to figure out what it is and I think it's probably us." Then he backtracks and starts up again until Mary finally runs out yelling, “Don’t call me again like last time!”

In a conventional rom-com, the diner scene would be the narrative gunshot that starts Mary off to find her true soulmate.

But instead it cuts to a denial-rich Robert at home, two quaaludes downed, turning off the light only to proclaim ten seconds later “I can’t sleep!”, falling off the bed, turning on a terrible remix of Beethoven’s 5th and slurring “Music is the healer of the soul!” - like a preexisting spoof of the emo-puddle John Cusack plays in High Fidelity - before stumbling into the wall. He makes his way painfully to the couch and flips open his Rolodex, where he utters the simultaneously hilarious and devastating line: “Just look how many friends I have!”

The entire movie follows the pattern outlined in the very first scene - Robert and Mary break up. They get back together. They break up again. Robert swings like a pendulum, and Mary invariably takes it.

At some point it becomes clear this is the great romance of the movie. It doesn’t get better. It’s dark, undoubtedly abusive, and painfully funny. If you want easily swallowed, rent a Meg Ryan flick. But remember, in real life she’s divorced with lips the size of hot dog buns.

Lauren Bans is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Brooklyn. You can find her website here. You can find an archive of her writing on This Recording here. She twitters here. You can find an archive of her writing at GQ here.

"I'll Provide The Wine" - Tom Morgan (mp3)

"Mess With The Bull" - Tom Morgan (mp3)

In Which From Time To Time We Come Around

Thirteen Was A Very Bad Year

by LAUREN BANS

Oh man, do you remember the pre-Napster-nabbing days of youth, when buying music was still an active verb that entailed getting your family to drive you 15 minutes to the Sam Goody? I would say halcyon days of youth, but who am I kidding?

The financial constraints of your bimonthly babysitting income necessitated that Dad accompany you inside the store, wearing his Trust Me...I'm a [Real Estate] Lawyer t-shirt and joking with the teenage cashier, "Do you listen to this crap too?" This was only the humiliating foreplay to family dinner at the Ground Round where parents shoved kids up to the age of 13 onto a giant scale in the restaurant lobby — reminiscent of that terror-inspiring clock in Safety Last! — for the “Penny Per Pound” Sunday special.

I mean, THIRTEEN! Is there anything more inhumane to do to a thirteen year old? Okay, hmmm, after quick consideration, let me specify: to a thirteen year old overfed upper middle class suburban American?

Do you perhaps know what this felt like? It was 1994, I was 12, and I remember praying "Lord let me cost less than $1.45" and then emotionally scarfing down a grilled cheese. This is what I endured just to get my hands on a copy of Dookie. Thanks Dad, for buying me that.

Of course, I totally deserved Dookie. I never gave my parents anything to object to. I was a "big boned," paler-than-a-feta-crumble 7th grader who had nothing to do but finish all my homework on time and get a super duper headstart on my SAT prep. I spent most nights on my daybed head-banging along to middling mid-90s mall punk like Rancid and The Offspring, albums about the drugs and sex I wouldn’t actually experience for, like, ten years, save for some senior year dry humping.

Also, there was this boy! I had a crush on him. Once he told me that he was excited for high school because killing frogs would finally be sanctioned, at least in biology, a reveal that struck terror into my heart, but maybe also pubescent arousal. He had Dookie, and so I wanted it, nay, needed it like I wanted, nay, needed him to love me even as his little man hands were tearing apart a frog carcass. Because: teens, suffering, fantasy, oh, you know, if you've watched any My So-Called Life.

And God, Dookie was good. I don’t think I understood a large portion of it at first. In fact, I remember being very confused at the pronoun usage in "Basketcase": I went to a whore/he said my life’s a bore/ so quit my whining cuz it’s bringing her down.

Like did Billy Joe see a male whore? If so, WHO is this woman he’s bringing down? Is this or is this not a PSAT prep riddle like he: gay appropriation by eye-linered Cali darlings as Britney-Madonna lip on lip: performative heterolesbianism? I still do not know! But I could headbang on my daybed to the music and, more importantly, relate to the larger sense of insanity, the anthemic angst, permeating the entire album — "giving myself the creeps", for example, was a strong and present phenomenon for an overweight 12 year teacher's pet pursuing a frog murderer as a romantic interest. Because: love, suffering, murder, oh, you know, if you’ve watched any Dexter.

Incidentally, there was one thing I never got straight about Dookie. Somewhere along the line I came under the impression that Dookie was a totally cool code word for "joint." I listened to the CD with this in mind (that is, until I injured my neck head-banging right before my Bat Mitzvah and my parents replaced all my alt-punk with Indigo Girls). And I somehow missed the clear signifier of the monkey throwing "dookie" on the album cover. In college I said things such as, "Pass the dookie." "Anyone got a dookie?" and "DOOKIE!"

Sure, not often, because I'm not a total fucking retard, but, um, WHERE WERE MY FRIENDS? Why did no one correct me? I have lived 15 long years thinking Dookie to be something it is not, something known to the rest of the world as a DOOBIE, only discovering yesterday, by virtue of a conversation about Green Day, what Dookie really means. That's crazy, right?

I mean, yes, when you think about the fact that 20 years from now Heidi will probably be on a Cougar reality show, and that sexting is the new terrorism, or even that Bush was re-elected, it's not that crazy. But in my very small, self-centered world, which for the past 6 hours has been a quarantined mattress in front of a near-godlike A/C window unit, it seems like downright insanity. I mean, fuck, I think it's time I leave my house now.

Lauren Bans is the senior contributor to This Recording. She last wrote in these pages about Captain America. She is a writer living in Brooklyn. She twitters here. You can find an archive of her writing at GQ here. You can find an archive of her writing on This Recording here.

"Why Does It Always Rain On Me (Travis cover)" - Green Day (mp3)

"I Fought the Law (The Clash cover)" - Green Day (mp3)

"Boulevard of Broken Songs" - Green Day (mp3)

"I Don't Wanna Know If You Are Lonely" - Green Day (mp3)

In Which Our Clothes Pop Off When We Double In Size

Born Free

by LAUREN BANS

Captain America: The First Avenger
dir. Joe Johnston
125 minutes

Chris Evans is extremely attractive. Not in a sexual way, but in a glossy I wonder if I threw chewing gum at his chest it would bounce off? kind of way. Looking at him is like looking at a Chippendale calendar or one of the bright plastic desserts on the after dinner tray waitresses bring over to tempt you - incredibly appealing but infinitely replaceable.

with Hayley Atwell

Even his double first-name name, albeit totally fake (but whatever, postmodernism, blah blah blah), is a Zangwillian wet dream. I don’t care if this guy got his American visa yesterday, he is America incarnate.

Hence, Chris Evans is Captain America. We’re supposed to believe this is some sort of movie acting, when really it’s just analogous to The Switch. You know, Jason Bateman is Ryan Reynolds. Ryan Reynolds is Jason Bateman. Like my friend Devin says, "Why would anyone make a movie about them switching bodies when they’re already the same?"

Hugo Weaving as Red Skull

Luckily, that’s the goal in Captain America. For the good of the country, a small outcast allows himself to be injected with a military scientist’s crazy growth serum (think: steroids on steroids) and goes from an individual to an ideal. His body explodes in size. Basically America creates a Frankenstein of Aryan perfection to fight the Nazis. Because that is the way we roll. We will steal your fascist standards, and then have them literally punch you in the face.

Note: Whatever technology they used to render Chris Evans small in the beginning is brilliant and amazing and Peter Dinklage better warn his agent. Though I am still very upset that Captain America's pants did not explode off during the super-sizing scene. It’s not right. His thigh 2.0 has the circumference of one of the smaller Great Lakes.

If you can stomach the tongue-in-cheek-so-we-can-get-away-with-it jingoistic tone (like all post-9-11 comic book movies have), Captain America is actually really good.

There’s only one moment when the rhetoric goes over the top in a way that veers on obnoxious. Captain America is engaged in fisticuffs with Red Skull (the Nazi’s abominable mutant) who, employing the Darth Vader flattery techinique, tries to get Captain America to switch sides. Like: You're special! Join forces with me. We will control all, etc. Captain America responds, "I’m not special. I’m like any one of those other guys out there." I mean, fuck you dude. You're seven feet tall and your arm alone could feed a family of nine. There's nothing like false modesty to make you really happy for the current "Army of One" branded rampantly narcissistic patriotism.

Lauren Bans is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Brooklyn. She twitters here. She last wrote in these pages about Fast Five. You can find an archive of her writing at GQ here. You can find an archive of her writing on This Recording here.

"Rapture (live)" - Evaline (mp3)

"Hours (live)" - Evaline (mp3)

"There There (live)" - Evaline (mp3)