Tommy Picks 20 Things to Get Over for 2014

It's a well-known fact that I am against self-improvement, major lifestyle changes, and starting anew. But this is mostly for myself. For the greater good, I believe that we should greet the New Year without the cumbersome baggage of 2013. Here is a list of 20 things we just really need to get the fuck over before the ball drops.

1. The Power of Beyoncé. I thought it died down after the Superbowl, but leave it to this bitch to release an album out of fucking nowhere. I couldn't avoid her if I hid under a pile of rocks for all of time.
2. "The Fox". You know what? I don't give a shit what the fox says. It can shut the fuck up, and so can you.
3. The Voice. Everybody watches it, but my question is WHY?! None of the winners go on to be successful, so clearly people don't care enough about the acts. And the Adam/Christina banter can only do so much...
4. Boba. That shit is nastaaay! Also cancerous (although, what isn't?).
5. Gluten-free health shit.
6. Hatin' on Kimye. They may be ridiculous, but Kim and Kayne just had a baby. True, she indulges in the limelight and he talks out of his ass, but let's aim our hatred at celebrities who actually deserve it!
7. Pixar. Two summers in a row now, Pixar has failed me. Brave was a pile of duck shit and Monsters University was a major letdown. Meanwhile, Disney has been turning out fantastic movies like Frozen and gets nowhere near as much credit. Disney > Pixar, always.
8. The Jonas Brothers. I'm not exactly sure why the JoBros suddenly got a rise in popularity, but this is not 2007. Yes, they broke up, Nick got hot, and Joe tattled on his fellow Disney stars in a tell-all article, but this is the era of One Direction. Get outta here, JoBros!
9. "Omg Tom Daley is gay?!" Bitch, please. Like you did not see this one coming. And he's not gay, he's bi. We know this because he said he still "fancies" women, which made him sound really gay.
10. Miley Cyrus. As a former Bitch of the Week, Miley should be celebrated. But this obsession over her, positive or negative, is out of all fucking control.
11. Twerking. While we're on the topic of Miley, let's put to rest the issue of the dance move she sensationalized. Now that it's officially in the dictionary, don't you think we should just accept it and move past it?
12. Superhero spin-offs. I don't need 15 fucking movies with Robery Downey, Jr. as Ironman in it this year, thanks.
13. Florida. Damn, the sheer amount of bullshit that comes from that state is reason enough to annex the shit out of it. #tootles
14. Duck Dynasty. I struggle to find the appeal of this hick shit, but the more we discuss Phil Robertson's offensive remarks against the LGBT community, the more attention we bring to that fucking franchise! I am sorry, but I will NOT live in a country that takes pride in being gross. I just won't.
15. Long-ass movies. Films these days are unapologetically long; even the good ones could stand to trim a couple scenes. What's worse, if you wanna be up to speed with dem Oscar contendors, you lose like 45 hours of your damn life. Once a movie hits the two-hour mark, I better see some fucking credits roll.
16. Jelena. Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez are OVER. They are hopefully never (ever ever) getting back together. Let's stop linking every misdeed the Biebs does to his heartache. He is not pissing in a bucket because he misses his ex. He's just an asshole. Similarly, Selena did not just recently cancel the last leg of her tour to deal with the grief from a relationship that ended a year ago.
17. Game of Thrones. Honestly, let's move it along, people.
18. Lady Gaga. It's nice to see that the general public is starting to turn against her, but her 2013 was still far too successful for my liking.
19. That double standard. Why is it that when Zac Efron checks into rehab, he's commended for taking responsibility for his health, but when Selena Gomez was rumored to be checking in, people went ape shit and called her a train wreck? Just sayin'. #feminism
20. The sun. It was just too damn hot this year. That needs to not happen again. Thanks

Cheers! Here's to a better and brighter new year!

2013: A Year in Review

As we close out another year, it's important to celebrate the past twelve months we've spent with Tommy Time. Without further ado, here are your Jam of the Year, Cunt of the Year, and Bitch of the Year for 2013, as voted by you faithful readers...

Jam of the Year

It's no surprise that One Direction takes home the title, but it's puzzling that their new singles "Best Song Ever" and "Story of My Life", which were both nominated, were beat out by this album cut. Still, "Rock Me" is an epic and timeless jam full of thinly-veiled sexual innuendos. Doing us dirty proud, boys!

Cunt of the Year

Lady Gaga is, without a doubt, the biggest cunt in the music industry. Thankfully, you all recognized it. Together, we saw through the elaborate makeup, meat dresses, and equality anthems and saw this mediocre song-stealer for what she truly is. May all of Artpop's commercial and critical shortcomings haunt Lady Gag-me for all eternity.

Bitch of the Year

It's with an almost prohibitive reluctance that I thrust this honorable title among Jennifer Lawrence. As the comments on her Bitch of the Week post indicate, many readers fail to understand that the title is a sacred and celebratory one. Thus, I have no idea how those who voted for JLaw actually feel about her. That issue aside, Jennifer's saucy attitude and legend-in-the-making status are more than enough to secure the title. Well done!

And now, just for the sake of nostalgia, here are the most-viewed Tommy Time posts from 2013.

1. Where Are They Now?: Christy Carlson Romano
2. 20 Things You Didn't Know About Beverly Hills, 90210
3. Cunt of the Week: Justin Bieber
4. Bitch of the Week: Jennifer Lawrence
5. 20 Things You Didn't Know About Friends
6. Where Are They Now?: Lalaine
7. Bitch of the Week: Daisy Duck
8. Demi Lovato: Not a Cunt, Not Yet a Bitch
9. This or That: Selena Gomez vs. Demi Lovato
10. Go Call the Po-Lice! Go Call the Guv-uh-nuh! BRITNEY IS BACK TO WORK, BITCH!!!

Things Tommy Loves and Hates #11

"I really wanna lose 3 pounds."

Thing I Love #11: Bitch Cliques

Not in real life, of course. That shit can get annoying. But there's nothing more delicious than watching a pack of manipulative, self-serving bitches light up the screen. Whether it be the Pink Ladies, the Heathers, or the Plastics, there's no shortage of inspiration.

Are you really surprised, though? This blog celebrates the bitchiest of the bitches.

Thing I Hate #11: Assigned Reading

In high school, assigned reading was all about boring-ass novels that nobody liked, and if someone said they did, they were lying. In college, assigned reading is all about text books and shit. I don't have time for either, so I would appreciate it if teachers adjusted their expectations based around my schedule and willingness to put in effort. Thanks!

Jam of the Week: "Human" by Christina Perri

If you can gleam anything from "Jar of Hearts" and that Twilight song, it's that Christina Perri has a musical formula that works and she sticks to it. Whether or not that's a good thing is for you to decide.

But the Jam of the Week? That's for me to decide. And this week, it goes to Christina's latest single "Human", a song about, well, being human. She sings about being capable of intense love but of the occasional mistake as well.

Jam of the Week: "Love Don't Die" by the Fray

Remember the Fray? Surely you do. "How to Save a Life" was basically the world's anthem back in the day. But you might not know that they're still making music. Well, they are! And their newest single, "Love Don't Die", is the Jam of the Week.

Lone gone are the band's signature piano ballads. "Love Don't Die" is a grimy, Southern rock-infused number that makes you feel like you've just stepped foot in a seedy dive bar. It's too fun and worth a listen! But then again, what Jam of the Week isn't?

Throwback Thursday: Scooby Doo

You wanna solve mysteries? You betta work, bitch!

While the Scooby Doo franchise has been reincarnated countless times for each generation, nothing quite beats the show that started it all: Scooby Doo, Where Are You?

From the instantly recognizable theme song to the five protagonists who would eventually become some of the most prolific cartoon characters of all time, this incredibly formulaic series was a staple in my childhood and continues to be a major part of my life.

The show focused on Mystery, Incorporated: leader and Rube Goldberg aficionado Fred Jones; chic and vain Daphne Blake; homely and intelligent Velma Dinkley; cowardly and hungry Shaggy Rogers; and, of course, Scooby, the dog with a speech impediment.

Each episode would begin with the gang arriving in a psychedelically renovated rapist van. Their destinations would range form abandoned amusement parks, abandoned airports, abandoned barnyards, and the like. Apparently, these kids never had school or any extracurricular activities and would just drive around the greater Coolsville area aimlessly until they happened upon an allegedly haunted facility.

They also didn't have other friends. Probably because they danced like this:

Once the gang decided that they wanted to get to the bottom of things, Fred would take charge with an aggressive leadership style I always thought compensated for his secret bisexual tendencies. He would suggest the gang "split up" into teams to collect clues. If he was lucky, he and Daphne would get to go off and fuck while Velma, Shaggy, and Scooby did all the heavy lifting.

But occasionally, Velma would worm her way into the "cool group" and Shaggy and Scooby would be left to their own devices.

Don't worry, V. I feel you!

Regardless of Velma's presence, Shaggy and Scooby would get deterred from the hunt for clues by their own hunger because (1) Shaggy was a massive stoner and (2) Scooby was a dog the size of a horse. Hijinks would ensue and they would fsu, but it would usually lead to the discovery of an important clue.

At that point, the gang would reconvene and probably come face to face with the ghost/miner/clown/whatever the hell is terrorizing the place and run in a montage against a looping background. And then Daphne would get captured and become the damsel in distress (and the bane of Velma's existence.) It's probably for the best, though; Daphne's contributions to solving the mystery were usually something along the lines of this:

God damn it, Daphne.

At this point, Fred would devise a plan to catch the villain with some asinine contraption. He had about a 30% success rate if I remember correctly. The other times, they would just accidentally knock the bag guy to the ground and unmask him then.

And who was under the mask? Nine times out of 10, it was the guy they met at the beginning of the episode and their motive is money. Ten times out of 10, they say something along the lines of "And I would've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those meddling kids and their dumb dog!"

Well suck a dick, bitch, because you done get caught by a group of newly-licensed teenagers. Have fun touting around that rep in prison.

Jam of the Week: "Cannonball" by Lea Michele

I've been waiting five years for Lea Michele to launch a solo career and that time has FINALLY come. Glee's leading lady has been working on her debut album for over a year now, and if its lead single and Jam of the Week, "Cannonball", is any indication, it's going to be amazing.

Lyrically, "Cannonball" is similar to "Roar", "Firework", and a slew of other Katy Perry songs in that it speaks about self-empowerment. But while Katy's songs are vague pick-me-ups, Leas "Cannonball" definitely seems to be about her overcoming her grief after Cory Monteith's death. It's spectacular, even if she does pronounce "cannon" a little oddly.

Have this ish on repeat.

20 Things You Didn't Know About Beauty and the Beast

1. Beauty and the Beast is the first animated Disney film to use a screenwriter, rather than using the traditional process of developing the story from storyboards. Linda Woolverton was selected to write the script. It was her first film, and her most prolific prior credits were writing episodes of Chip & Dale: Rescue Rangers.
2. Attempts to develop the famous fairy tale into a Disney movie date back to the 1930s after the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Additional efforts were made in the 1950s, but the story proved too challenging for Disney's writers.
3. Jodi Benson, who voices Ariel in The Little Mermaid, was strongly considered to play Belle, but Broadway actress Paige O'Hara was cast instead, as the filmmakers wanted their heroine to sound more like a woman than a girl.
4. Beauty and the Beast was the first animated film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, but it lost to Silence of the Lambs. Since then, only Up and Toy Story 3 have scored nominations in that category.
5. The film was also the first animated movie to gross more than $100 million at the box office.
6. Regis Philbin auditioned for the role of the Beast.
7. "Be Our Guest" was originally going to be sung to Maurice, not Belle, until producers decided it was too good to be wasted on a secondary character.
8. The monstrous sculptures that adorn the castle are actually inspired by early concept art for the Beast's character design.
9. The film's title song was originally written as a rock song. It was rewritten into the romantic ballad for Angela Lansbury, who voiced Mrs. Potts, but she was hesitant to record it because she felt like she was not suitable. Ultimately, she recorded it in one take.
10. Julie Andrews was the first choice to play Mrs. Potts, while Cogsworth was written specifically for John Cleese, who turned down the role.
11. Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, who have penned some of Disney's biggest songs, worried that their work on Beauty and the Beast would end their careers at Disney, as they opted to go against the successful pop formula of The Little Mermaid's soundtrack in favor of a more Broadway-style of songwriting.
12. Paige O'Hara and Robby Benson, who voiced the Beast, recorded their dialog together to enhance their performances, even though this is more costly in both time and money.
13. Originally, Chip had only one line in the entire film. Producers liked Bradley Pierce's voice so much that they expanded his role. (I don't know, I feel like one line would have been plenty.) A musical box character who could only communicate through music notes was cut as a result.
14. Belle and the Beast's Prince Adam's finale dance in the film uses recycled animated from Aurora and Phillip's finale dance in Sleeping Beauty. This was done because the filmmakers were running out of time.
15. Belle's character design was inspired by Julie Andrews' appearance in The Sound of Music and Judy Garland's appearance in The Wizard of Oz.
16. Many dark scenes, including one in which Gaston visits an asylum and the Beast drags the carcass of a dead animal behind him, were cut from the film.
17. Jackie Chan voices the Beast in the Chinese dubbed version of the film.
18. Paige O'Hara concerned producers when she actually began sobbing while recording her dialog during the Beast's "death" scene.
19. The Broadway musical version of the film is the eighth-longest running Broadway show of all time, racking up over 5,000 performances from its debut in 1994 to its closure in 2007.
20. In 2011, Disney replaced Paige O'Hara as the voice of Belle with Julie Nathanson. O'Hara was greatly upset by the news, but admitted that it had become increasingly difficult to perform the part because of the way her voice has changed over the 20 years.

Tommy Picks the Best Albums of 2013

As we barrel into 2014, it's important to look back on the previous year before we close the book on 2013 forever. In the last twelve months, we've gotten some tantalizing music (#jamsfordays) and I took the time to rank the 10 Best Albums of 2013. Avid Tommy Time readers shouldn't be surprised by the rankings at all.

Click through the slideshow to see if your favorite made the cut!

Jam of the Week: "Say Something" by A Great Big World & Christina Aguilera

 
The reigning Jam of the Week might seem mellow, but it's a jam no less. "Say Something" is the breakout hit of indie band A Great Big World. It's all about a reluctant break-up in which the singer begs his lover to "say something, I'm giving up on you."

The original version features just the band itself, but Christina Aguilera's presence on the re-release is what made the song such a big hit, and that's the version that wears the Jam of the Week crown.

One big question this song begs: is Christina's solo career over? Her last biggest hits, "Moves Like Jagger" and now this song, were with other bands, and neither Bionic or Lotus yielded any smashes. Just saying...

Bitch of the Week: The Girls Next Door

#BetterThanYou

Bitch of the Week is traditionally awarded to one individual, but this week, the title is shared amongst a group of fierce bitches, the Girls Next Door. No, not the "cool babysitty" who lived kitty corner from you. I'm talking about the blindingly blonde, big breasted, bimbo brained Playboy bunnies that starred on the reality show The Girls Next Door.

The show followed Hugh Hefner's three girlfriends and their exploits while living in the Playboy Mansion. They were basically sorority girls who refused to grow up, but while that kind of shit annoys me to end, it totally works here. Let's take a closer look at the girls, shall we?

She knows all the tricks.

Firstly there's Holly Madison, Hef's number one girl (or former number one, but we'll get into that later). She's blonde and enjoys being domestic. It was obvious she didn't like sharing her "Puffin" with the other girls, but hey, she's the one that "got" to sleep in his bed. After the show ended, Holly revealed that she and Hef had been broken up for someone and maintained a fake relationship for the cameras. She then moved to Las Vegas, headlines her own burlesque show on the strip as well as her own reality show, and is now a mother.

Pretty much my mantra.

Then there's Bridget Marquardt, who is also blonde. As the "smart" one (she went to college or something), she's pretty fucking stupid. But that's fine, because she is also hilarious, but definitely the least famous girlfriend. Once she got the opportunity to film Bridget's Sexiest Beaches around the world, she was out of that mansion faster than you can say "c'mon ta my house, to my house, I'm gonna give you ca-an-dy!" Maybe she was the smart one!

Werk!

Lastly but not leastly, there's Kenda Wilkinson, the youngest and blondest of the girls. She marches to the beat of her own drummer and often think she's black. It's quite entertaining, and once she ditched Hef for hubby Hank Baskett, she continued her cray antics on her own show. She's now a mother, too. In fact, she might have two children.

So what makes these girls so wonderfully bitchy? Well, they made a fortune off of being pretty. They can't act, they can't sing, and they can't even really call themselves credible reality stars, because they never seemed in on the joke. They were simply good looking enough to enter the intriguing world of the Playboy Mansion, which then made them celebrities.

And what could be more bitchy than that? If you can make hella coinage for doing close to nothing, you are everything Bitch of the Week stands for. So well done, Holly, Bridget, and Kenda. Bitch on, ladies!

Cunt of the Week: Merida

If you had the chance to be a cunt, wouldja?

The general public seems genuinely incapable of finding anything wrong with Pixar films, but let me assure you, the flaws are rampant. So in the summer of 2012, when I wasted 93 fucking minutes of my precious time watching the studio's "next hit" Brave, I was beyond pissed. The film, heralded as Pixar's first with a female lead, sucked some serious ass. There was hardly any plot, the antagonist was almost non-existent, and the main character was a cunt for the books.

Merida is a 16-year-old Scottish princess who prefers to run around in the dirt rather than live a life of luxury. So essentially, right off the bat, this bitch is on my bad side. When she's not busy playing bow and arrow, she likes defying her parents by refusing to get married. Considering this movie is practically set in the beginning of time, and pretty much every other Disney princess gets married at 16, I don't know what the fuck her problem is. Sure, maybe she's a free spirit. But she's also a fucking princess with an entire fucking kingdom to rule. She has certain responsibilities. Rebelling against those responsibilities and putting her own desires ahead of the good of the people doesn't make her a powerful woman, it makes her a selfish, raging cunt.

So then Merida decides, Fine, if I can't have my way, I'll just place a fucking curse on my mom. So she wanders around the woods, following some gross floating blobs of light, and stumbles upon a witch (an elderly Boo, if you're one of those Pixar conspiracy theorists). She asks the witch to change her mother's mind, but instead, the curse turns the Queen into a monstrous bear, which just so happens to resemble the creature that once attacked the family and ate off the King's leg. Awesome. Way to go, Merida!

The rest of the movie revolves around Merida's slapstick attempt to keep her mother's transformation a secret. In short, it's basically an elongated, bad episode of Wizards of Waverly Place, but at least the Disney sitcom had the always delightful Selena Gomez to keep me entertained. Merida is far from delightful.

Somehow the curse is broken. I forget how. Who cares? It culminates in a nude mother-daughter scene. And Merida is fucking celebrated for all the fuckery she caused. OKAY. Because that's fair.

I personally prefer the "After."

As if the movie wasn't bad enough, controversy arouse when Merida was redesigned upon her induction into the Disney Princess line-up. (You can see the comparison above.) Critics noted that she was made skinnier and just generally sexier. Feminists flipped their shit. Now I consider myself a feminist, but this is a fucking CARTOON CHARACTER people!! Jesus Christ. The amount of drama this animated redheaded shit managed to start just proves what a cunt she is.

Here's hoping there's never a fucking Brave 2 or I will flip my shit.

Jam of the Week: "Love Is Everything" by Ariana Grande

Ariana Grande is sitting pretty at the top of the world. Her hit song, "The Way" with Mac Miller, dominated the radio this summer, and now she's being groomed to be the next Mariah Carey. So it's no wonder she wasted no time releasing new music.

The Nickelodeon star just released two Christmas songs. One is a cover of "Last Christmas" that I'm still making my mind up about; the other is "Love Is Everything", a fun urban song full of holiday cheer. It's such a jingle jam. Listen for yourself!