Season 7:  Pokémon Advanced Challenge (This Dream)

A couple months ago, Ryan at The Matinee announced his “2012 Blind Spot Series,” a communal attempt to fill in some viewing gaps. I only recently found out about it, but I’m totally on board; any excuse to broaden your horizons, right? So I generated a list of 12 movies I’ve been meaning to see “forever,” but haven’t quite gotten around to watching. They are:

• Les Vampires (1915-16). I’ve seen the first couple chapters of Louis Feuillade’s groundbreaking 6 1/2 hour serial, but this time I’m going the whole way. If I can watch all of Sátántangó, then I can make it through this.
• Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1922). Again, the reason I haven’t seen this yet is simply “it’s really goddamn long.” But this is early Fritz Lang, so I’ll make the time commitment. (And like Les Vampires, this sounds like a really epic crime thriller. Should be fun.)
• Jezebel (1938). Bette Davis Henry Fonda William Wyler??! Why haven’t I seen this yet?
• Black Narcissus (1947). I haven’t seen this yet only because I really want to watch it on a big screen. With any luck, I’ll commandeer a theater and finally get my hysterical nun fix.
• Viaggio in Italia (1954). As with Jezebel, the answer here is extremely straightforward: Bergman Sanders Rossellini, let’s do this thing.
• Rocco and His Brothers (1960). I’ve slowly been getting into Visconti, so why not make this my next stop? Besides, Alain Delon is one of the most attractive men who has ever lived, and that’s enough of a draw for me.
• Dr. Zhivago (1965). To be honest, I’m a little nervous about this one. I’m a fan of Lawrence of Arabia and the cast looks excitingly eclectic, but plot-heavy literary adaptations were a dime a dozen in the ’60s (and often very bad). But who knows. I’ll give it a go.
• The Tin Drum (1979). I’ve been informed that I actually have seen this controversial movie… when I was 3-4 years old. However, I’d like to see it as a mature adult, specifically one who loves the New German Cinema.
• The Thin Blue Line (1988). I’ve heard praises like “best documentary ever” tossed at this before, so I’m game. I loved The Fog of War and Tabloid, so my expectations are pretty high.
• When Harry Met Sally (1989). OK, this isn’t really my kind of movie, but who knows? I might like it. I like a lot of stuff.
• Twelve Monkeys (1995). Terry Gilliam remade La Jetée as feature-length? Try and stop me.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). I saw the latter two, and I’m a completist when it comes to trilogies. (Which reminds me, The World of Apu and The Idiots should really be on this list, too.) I guess it can prepare me for the upcoming Hobbit fever, too.

Any recommendations about where to start?

Oscar nominations drop in less than a week. Yes, awards season is heavy upon us, with all its implicit fun and horror! I’ve already reviewed three big Oscar players—The Tree of Life (love), The Help (hate), and Midnight in Paris (eh)—but have yet to touch on the season’s other talked-about titles. The following is my attempt to rectify that:

The Artist. I was delighted by the cuteness and chemistry of Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo, who give a spry pair of performances attuned to the film’s silence. And writer/director Michel Hazanavicius has an eye for visual gags, which dot the film: the dancing legs, the take-after-take courtship, the ascension of Peppy’s name, etc., etc. But The Artist never really coheres, coming across more as a set-piece variety hour than a fleshed-out feature film. Its tragedies, when they arrive, don’t stick—Dujardin’s alcoholism and depression always seem to have a wry smile lurking beneath them, and a climactic suicide attempt is punctuated by a joke. The film’s story is all but an afterthought, schematically stitching Singin’ in the Rain onto A Star Is Born.

Guillaume Schiffman’s gleaming photography gorgeously invokes the memory of “classical Hollywood,” but to what end? The film never really gets beyond the shock of its own retro-novelty, preferring to be vaguely about the idea of “silent movies” rather than any historically real silent cinema.* (This meta-silence explains its “Dream Factory” Hollywood setting, which could’ve been constructed from issues of Photoplay.) When it does make concrete allusions (to Citizen Kane and, infamously, Vertigo), they’re hollow and don’t fit their contexts. The Artist suggests the gist of silent movies (i.e., “they didn’t talk”) but doesn’t follow through; it’s very limited in outlook and execution. Kudos, certainly, to Hazanavicius and company for merely making a functional latter-day silent movie. I just wish they’d made more than a broad pastiche that teeters toward “They don’t make ‘em like they used to!” pandering. Well, at least the dog’s cute.

*Hazanavicius himself seems strangely misinformed about 1920s filmmaking. In one interview, he claimed that under the Hays Code, “People don’t kiss, there isn’t any kissing in my movie, the dancing scenes are the love scenes.” I’m really curious where he got the impression that no kissing signifies “an American way to tell a story.”

Next: Hugo, The Descendants, War Horse, and Moneyball.

Hugo. Like The Artist, Scorsese’s latest is about retrieving a forgotten name from the cultural garbage bin. Hazanavicius did it via modest romance; Scorsese takes the opposite tack with his outsize kiddie adventure, turning 1930s Paris into a glimmering, blue-and-gold CGI panorama. Against this backdrop of storybook spectacle, encased in Dante Ferretti’s eye-popping production design, the story itself is initially a letdown. It’s fairly cookie-cutter Dickens-lite drama, complete with a dead dad MacGuffin, and rife with repetitions (of chases, deceptions, nightmares, and catastrophes). But then it metamorphoses into something totally sui generis: a film history lesson narrated by British child actors.

And with this twist, Hugo comes to life, fueled largely by Ben Kingsley’s performance. He pulls off some dazzling sleight-of-hand, starting off as a stock character in a quaint children’s story (i.e., the ice-hearted shopkeeper), but blossoming from Papa Georges into Georges Méliès, artistic innovator. It’s conventional character acting that forms the core of a secret biopic playing right under our noses, one that climaxes by restaging the past. Despite its forays into the garish and clumsy, Hugo is rendered powerful by Kingsley’s bitterness and Scorsese’s runaway cinephilia. (Also, it’s worth noting that the film is totally sexless and nonviolent, as if Scorsese were atoning for his otherwise R-rated oeuvre.)

The Descendants. Like The Help, it’s a surefire Best Adapted Screenplay nominee with some glaring adaptation problems. The first-act voiceover, for example, is so gratuitous it hurts. (“I’m the back-up dad, the understudy.” Thanks for that, Matt! Wouldn’t want to have to infer it from your onscreen behavior.) And the land sale subplot, clearly intended to serve as a thematic analogue to the family drama, is totally botched through underdevelopment, instead playing like a background buzz that culminates in a pointless false climax. And finally, there’s Sid, the Keanu-ish surfer dude whose tasteless jokes derail the film’s tone.

But in between these blemishes, the film whips up a few of the tragicomic moments Alexander Payne is renowned for: George Clooney running and running, his face wrenched by absurdity; his protracted wince after talking with Beau Bridges; and his hushed showdown with his wife’s lover. These, like the tender closing shot, suggest the masculinity-in-crisis tale that a tighter version of The Descendants could’ve been. As is, it’s self-defeating in its sloppiness and discomfiting in its treatment of Matt’s voiceless, dying wife. (I do, however, have to congratulate casting director John Jackson, who’s done casting work on the rest of Payne’s films. The film has an impressive array of faces from Hollywood and Hawaii.)

War Horse. I actually respect Steven Spielberg for being so overt with his intentions. Not for a second does his old-fashioned war epic shy away from its sentimentality, its outrageous coincidences, or its giant canvas. From the opening shots of the rolling English countryside and the title character’s birth, it’s totally honest about the strings it’s going to pull and the hoary clichés it’s going to deploy. (I.e., all of them.) Tempted as I was to snicker at the film’s utter earnestness, it was also kind of refreshing.

Every plot twist and character in War Horse felt familiar. Not stale, exactly; just cozily familiar, to the point that I could’ve watched it with a “1930s-’40s Hollywood” bingo card. The family about the lose their farm! The bright-eyed cavalryman who’s cut down by the huns while fighting for Old Blighty! The pre-Nazi “Good German” with a Peter Lorre accent! Spielberg plays them all deadly straight, right down to a tear-stained, blindfolded reunion that would make Douglas Sirk balk.

The recycled nature of the film’s stories does leech away some of their impact, and the actors—who all look like they could’ve stepped off the MGM lot circa 1944—tend to just draw within the lines of their roles. (Although Emily Watson and Niels Arestrup draw especially well.) But this collection of mini-narratives is fashioned into such a well-paced roundelay that it still packs a series of punches. It may lean a little too heavily on unsubtle mood lighting and typical John Williams leitmotifs… but hell, it also has horses whinnying in solidarity. I’m not made of stone.

Moneyball. If I take one lesson away from this assortment of movies, it’s this: subject matter does not determine quality. I couldn’t give less of a shit about baseball, yet this is still my hands-down favorite among these five. Granted, it has its weak moments when it becomes about baseball, descending into bat-swinging montages to tell its story. But as long as it stays in the back rooms, being about baseball purely in the abstract, then I love it. It’s an unusually thorny, exceptionally witty character study.

I love the film’s no-bullshit attitude and its tingly, sometimes icy atmosphere. (It’s so unpopulated.) I love how it gives Phillip Seymour Hoffman a solid, gruff role that’s a million miles away from Truman Capote. I especially love the comic duo formed by Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill, with all their deadpan banter. But most of all, I love Pitt’s performance: his seething mix of frustration, resentment, and regret that’s balanced out by a ferocious intelligence and Twinkie-derived energy. He may revolutionize the game and manage a record-breaking team, but by the end of the film, he’s still a failure. Moneyball is practically an anti-baseball movie.

Season 5:  Pokémon Master Quest (Believe in Me)

Lyrics: Written by David Rolfe and John Siegler. The rhyming in this intro is very nicely done. Consistent structure, and a couple slant rhymes, although nothing egregious. If dream/believe is the only not-quite-kosher rhyme in a Pokémon intro, then we’re doing very well. Nice going, Rolfe.

Delivery: This intro has almost the same melody as the second part of season 4’s intro. You can check for yourself; the “born to be a winner!” part from the season 4 intro would fit pretty seamlessly into this song. I consider that a nice touch, since it gives the intros some continuity. What’s more, there’s absolutely no shouting of the word “Pokémon” through megaphones, and no pseudo-hip hop, so that’s a good intro as far as I’m concerned. Simple tune, but very memorable. Nice generic guitar, too.  (Compliments for Pokémon songs tend to be the mildest of compliments.)

Other: That’s 2 for 2, Rolfe.  Let’s see how you do going into season 6.

Rank: 3/14

Season 6: Pokémon Advanced (I Wanna Be a Hero)

Lyrics: Rolfe and Siegler again. This is the first season that came out for the Gameboy Advance games, and the lyrics are pretty excited to remind you about it. Lots of obvious reference to the series at the end, but there’s a sneaky additional reminder when Rolfe sings, “I’ve ADVANCED so far / And still there’s always more to come.” Nice. Really great rhyming in this one; I didn’t see anything that bothered me.

Delivery: The return of the funky Pokémon intro! Rolfe uses the same technique that he did in season 4, with a fast opening that leads into a more repetitive, catchy segment. And did you catch that autotune? It’s a little out of place, but it’s much better than some dude shouting “POKÉMON!” in the background.

Other: I wouldn’t call this as good as the intros for seasons 4 and 5, but it’s still a solid intro. I feel like it loses a little steam when he has to start telling you what season it is again and again, but at least the concept of Pokémon Advanced is well-integrated into the song itself.

Rank: 6/14

This week’s kitty is from Cindy Sherman’s first (and only) feature film, Office Killer. The film itself was pretty disappointing—a half-baked story that wasted a bunch of great actresses—but hey, at least it had a cute kitty! And now, a smattering of links:

• Did you know that Randy Newman secretly wrote a theme song for We Need to Talk About Kevin?
• Or that it’s been mashed up with Home Alone, resulting in We Need to Talk About Kevin McAllister?
• Tim at Antagony & Ecstasy jaws about Jaws. In a very smart way.
• Kelli Marshall writes “Putting the Ass in Assets: The Objectification of Gene Kelly (and Other Men) on Social Media.” Ashley is quoted!
• Attack the Stable! It’s far too many ponies to explain in one text.

As for search terms: we had the rejected Jules Verne title “journey in the pussy,” the question-without-an-answer “what disney movie did they say vagina?”, and the excellent statement “writing things make me angry.” Writing things make me angry, too.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris as one of my “Most Disappointing Movies of 2011.” Then, as the year came to an end, I kept seeing it pop up on best-of-the-year lists, always praised as “witty” and “magical.” And now it’s right on course to Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Director, and Original Screenplay, with good odds of winning the latter. So, from the depths of my confusion and curiosity, I have to ask again: what is so great (or even good) about this movie?

Hell, I’ve been so earnestly curious that I rewatched it. Maybe I’d somehow missed the magic that first time around! But no, it actually got worse. I still love the wall-to-wall jazz soundtrack and the amber-tinted Parisian scenery; it’s certainly a pleasant movie to look at. (Although a tourist brochure does not a great movie make.) And it has a handful of supporting performances that make me smile: Marion Cotillard as “art groupie” Adriana, Adrien Brody’s rhinoceros-obsessed Dalí, and Corey Stoll as a hilarious, swaggering Hemingway.

But the whole movie’s premised on one long joke. It’s just Owen Wilson’s Gil being introduced to one Lost Generation luminary after another, then stammering in disbelief, “Hemingway? The Ernest Hemingway? Tom Eliot? You mean T.S. Eliot? Picasso? As in Pablo Picasso?” At first, it’s endearing; an hour later, it’s tiresome. The 1920s scenes are affable and sometimes funny, but they never go beyond facile wish fulfillment. They lie somewhere between a costume party and a wax museum, depicting their era as a time when everyone was a genius, went to parties, and fell in love with strangers from the future.

I keep reading claims that Midnight in Paris ends up criticizing nostalgia. If so, it’s the softest critique imaginable. Gil’s climactic revelation is, more or less, “The grass is always greener on the other side.” Profound, right? And then he goes back to the “unsatisfying” present so he can live in Paris with a beautiful antiques dealer. But setting aside the wish-fulfillment-upon-wish-fulfillment of the ending, let’s talk about that “critique.” Wouldn’t it have been a smidge more effective if the 1920s had been represented as, say, somehow imperfect? Like, oh, if we’d seen any trace of the alcoholism and depression that pervaded these authors’ lives, beyond a throwaway gag about Zelda Fitzgerald’s attempted suicide?

Obviously, Woody has no desire to seriously criticize nostalgia. And obviously, Gil has no regrets about having his ass kissed by half a dozen cornerstones of the modernist canon. It’s just a rushed “moral”—a lazy postscript to a movie spent wallowing in the idealized past. But Jesus, I wish Gil had stayed there so he wouldn’t keep returning to the poorly written present. He’s visiting Paris with his fiancée Inez, a woman who hates everything he loves and attacks every sentence he says. Her parents are in Paris, too, and they’re wealthy but spiritually dead Republicans. Every line they utter is basically a new way of saying, “We’re wealthy but spiritually dead Republicans.”

Granted, I’m in the same political demographic as Woody Allen. But it isn’t clever or satisfying to represent the people you hate as loathsome, one-dimensional dimwits; it’s just cheap. The closest Midnight in Paris comes to satirizing bourgeois shallowness is when a minor character grapples with the pronunciation of “Versailles.” It’s quick and well-observed. But by and large, Inez’s social circle feels like a gaggle of walking clichés, with Inez herself as the fucking Wicked Witch of the West: she turns down sex with Gil, cheats on him, and when she suspects a pair of earrings have been stolen, tries to get a maid fired. She might as well be whispering “You’re supposed to hate me!” between lines.

Compounding Inez’s behavior is Gil’s bizarre habit of praising her to Hemingway and Adriana. I can understand blindly loving someone, but she snarls insults at him every time she’s onscreen. It’s a terrible role, indicative of the film’s brand of misogyny: either women cater to Gil, or they’re raw evil. And, frankly, it’s a waste of Rachel McAdams. (Though she does deliver one line in full-on Regina George mode: “I hardly think he’d be lecturing at the Sorbonne if he’s a pseudointellectual!”) That just about sums up my major problems with Midnight in Paris, but for what it’s worth, here are a few scattered bits that annoyed me:

• That goddamn Exterminating Angel joke. Having Gil inspire Buñuel to make one of his masterpieces is funny in theory, like the Woody Allen equivalent of Marty McFly writing “Johnny B. Goode.” But as executed, it just makes Buñuel look like a clueless dumbass who’s totally baffled by his own future idea. (And isn’t Gil kind a tool for pitching Buñuel’s own movie to him?)
• The “lol Djuna Barnes was a lesbian” quasi-joke: “No wonder she wanted to lead!” Get it? ‘Cause lesbians are mannish!
• The whininess and presumption of the whole story. Wow, it sure must be nice to have enough disposable income to relocate to Paris on a whim, then pontificate to everyone about how beautiful it looks in the rain!

Where is the magic? Is Midnight in Paris just “magical” by virtue of being set in Paris? What does it have to say about art, beyond the names of the artists? And what’s so brilliant about this often hacky, intermittently funny screenplay? I honestly want to know.

[Author's note: This is the continuation of my series in which I carefully research and review the themes of every Pokémon season, in chronological order.  Read about Seasons 1 and 2 here!]

Season 3:  Pokémon Johto Journeys (Pokémon Johto)

Lyrics: Written again by the Johns (Loeffler and Siegler), the rhymes in this one are improved (although ‘better’ and ‘ladder’ do not rhyme in any universe), and the core message is back.  Essentially, “Wow, it’s a new season of Pokémon!  It’s not the same as the last two seasons! There are new Pokémon and everything! Even this theme song is completely different! BUT YOU STILL GOTTA CATCH ‘EM ALL!!! (And be the best that you can be, blah blah whatever, kid.)”

Delivery: Another one-intro wonder, PJ Lequercia performed this track. His funky, upbeat delivery is full of energy, and melodically unique from what came before, making this a pretty successful intro in my book. He doesn’t seem to have much of a YouTube presence, but here’s a video of his song, “Does He Know Why,” if you’re interested in some slow R&B by a Pokémon singer.

Other: I still knew the words to this one by heart, even after ten years. Fast, fun, funky, etc. It’s tight and, best of all, has no rapping.  There’s something about rapping in the context of Pokémon that makes music vomit, as you will see.

Rank: 2/14.

Season 4:  Pokémon Johto League Champions (Born to Be a Winner)

Lyrics: Written by the Johns once again. A return to the initial lyrics, with a modified second verse. Strong overall, but the line “I know that I just can’t miss / Gonna show the world” is pretty weak (and “skills” is rhymed with “world,” but the singer pronounces them in a way that almost makes it OK). Overall, the lyrics are not awful. The all-important “Gotta Catch ‘Em All” is out, in favor of the emphasis on predestination which will dominate the future intros. I appreciate that there was no attempt to rhyme the last part; the prose-like lyrics work fine given the delivery.

Delivery: Say hello to David Rolfe. Rolfe performed the Pokémon theme songs from season 4 to season 8, and had a massive impact on the style of the intros afterward. Taking a cue from the funky success of the Johto Journeys theme song, Johto League Champions begins with funk galore. Once the song gets past the rehashing of the original intro’s lyrics, though, it becomes a pretty competent almost-pop theme song. Rolfe’s style is generally to start with a frenetic opening that changes into a repetitive and driven chorus by the end of the song. Rolfe also is the first to stick the iconic three-note “PO-KÉ-MON!” at the end of his intro without even attempting to integrate it melodically. I looked David Rolfe up online, and found some interesting stuff; musically, all I can find is a song for that shitty Yu-Gi-Oh album and a song from The Ride. Professionally, though, he has moved up in the world and is now the head of integrated production at Crispin Porter and Bogusky. He’s even the subject of some banking intrigue. He is a bit of a looker as well.

Other: This intro is not too bad at all. Sets the stage for the next few, and actually has the potential to get stuck in your head. Nice transition from old to new.

Rank: 5/14

Sometimes perverse curiosity gets the better of me. Sometimes I revisit movies like Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. A long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away), it was the most-anticipated movie of 1999. But the intervening decade has turned it into a feature-length joke, a dartboard for cracks about podracing and midi-chlorians. So I was curious if it lived up to its negative reputation. Short answer? Yeah, pretty much. Long answer?

Let’s start with the writing. Episode I’s most fundamental flaw is tangled up with its role in the Star Wars franchise: whereas the original trilogy was all about telling an old-fashioned adventure story, the prequels are all about expanding the series. In Episode I, any detail added to the Star Wars universe is treated as inherently good, even if it impedes the storytelling. Thus, the film’s opening crawl begins with these words, ushering us into a bold new era:

Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic. The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute.

(Oh, no! Not the taxation of trade routes! But how will the economically marginalized denizens of Outer Rim planets transport their goods now?)

Yes, gone is the original trilogy’s quotable pulp poetry. Instead, we have reams of clunky exposition. Even top-drawer actors like Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor are hobbled by the jargon-strewn dialogue—not to mention their own distracting Jedi hairdos. Supporting characters are reduced to mere mouthpieces, onscreen only to deepen the franchise’s convoluted politics and mythology. While the original trilogy was streamlined and instantly iconic, Episode I putters about in a morass of details and misplaced priorities. Its establishing shots—all those crisp CGI vistas—stirred up pings of recognition in me. (“Ah, the old Star Wars magic…”) But then it’d cut away to actors muttering gravely, and the tedium would set in.

Granted, when Episode I focuses solely on exotic landscapes, it can be kind of engrossing: “Ooh, an underwater abyss. Ooh, a giant coliseum. Ooh, a planet-sized city.” And the film does contain a pair of solid performances: Ian McDiarmid as the Machiavellian Senator Palpatine, and Ray Park as his taciturn protégé Darth Maul. But when it’s bad, it’s very bad indeed. The score sounds like a parody of John Williams bombast, accentuating pretty much everything; the film is infamous for its racial caricatures (e.g., the Neimoidians and their “Me rikey!” accents, or Watto’s obvious Fagin/Shylock lineage); and it’s just littered with botched attempts at humor. Slapstick droids! NASCAR-style color commentary for the podracing! Even a pack animal fart joke.

Of course, I’ve saved the worst for last. Because it’s impossible to overstate how violently Jar Jar Binks derails this movie. If, as a perverse exercise, you tried to create a mood-killing, unlikeable character, you could never improve on Jar Jar. No matter what’s happening in a given scene, he becomes its focal point; everyone else is suddenly the Bud Abbott to his Lou Costello. Somehow, George Lucas must’ve thought he could leaven the film’s solemnity with Jar Jar’s manic bumbling. But wow was he wrong. Jar Jar even gets a failed catchphrase (“How wude!”) that he trots out again and again, as if it’ll become funnier with repetition. (Spoiler: it doesn’t!)

The end result is a tone-deaf movie that, scene after scene, smacks you with its awfulness. Early on, for example, we get a tête-à-tête between Neeson’s Qui-Gon Jinn and Anakin’s mother, played by Swedish actress Pernilla August. As they discuss her son’s destiny, you can sense real performances, even real emotion, broiling right beneath the surface. But then all the tragic potential of this mother/son relationship gets squashed beneath the tacky costuming, artless writing, and hydra-headed subplots. Hell, Episode I isn’t just bad. It’s insistently anti-good.

The first kitty of 2012 comes from the British horror movie Kill List. Look at it! It’s eating from the dinner table! The same table that’s poisoned by marital discord. But at least the kitty’s cute. Anyway, here’s a collection of links spread across the end of 2011 and the beginning of this beautiful new year:

• We Need to Talk About Kitten.
• Chuck Stephens and Criterion give us a tour through the 12 Angry Men.
• The Final Image collects the final images of films. (Spoiler alert!)
• Some gorgeous fan-made Gremlins posters.
• The NYT’s Manohla Dargis on the prelude of Melancholia.
• Michael at Serious Film has an impressively deep understanding of Bridesmaids.
• Armond White’s “Better-Than List” for 2011 is out, and it’s a doozy. Jack and Jill > The Descendants! Chaos reigns!
• “13 Myths and Misconceptions About Trans Women: Part One.”

Somebody actually searched for the phrase “butt secks.” I also like how blunt “lust and fucking” is. And what was the person who typed in “inosent sex toons” expecting to find?

On Christmas Eve, my girlfriend and I decided on a whim to listen to the theme songs, in order, of all 14 seasons of the lucrative Pokémon animated series. I only remembered the first four or five theme songs, and was morbidly curious to know how the series’ themes had developed through the 2000s after I stopped watching. A few minutes later I had my answer, and had suffered greatly for it. It’s only fair that I share this forbidden knowledge with the world, if for no other reason than to feel as if our sacrifice was worthwhile. This is the first of a seven part series detailing the results of my research, in chronological order.

NOTE: for the purposes of this article I am only reviewing the short version of each theme song, the part that played during the show’s opening. There’s very little point in reviewing the whole song, since the longer songs tend to add a minute of guitar solos, the refrain 2 or 3 more times, and a verse that was considered badly written even by Pokémon songwriting standards. It’s better for all of us if we just ignore the longer songs. Who listens to the full-length Pokémon theme songs anyway? (Well, I have, but I’m hoping I’m not representative of the general population in this instance.)