One way to combat the oppressive heat, I’ve found, is to will myself onto a hypothetical tundra and just sit there (a.k.a. here at my desk) for a while and pretend I am Sanka in the ice cream truck. My ultimate winter wonderland fantasy is the “Poor Leno” music video from Norwegian electropop duo Royksopp. But devoting an entire post to a Norwegian electropop duo would be almost as ridiculous as the current temperature. So I shan’t! After the jump, the first 10 Things That Are Freezing I could think of. Brrrrrrr! It’s so cold! Come on, you have to play along.
The Sopranos, “Pine Barrens.” There are only ketchup packets to eat, so you’ll probably lose some weight! Bikini bod here you come!
Die Another Day‘s Ice Palace. It would be especially chilling to be Zao, who had to tread in freezing water while waiting to be impaled by a chandelier.
Changes for Samantha: A Winter Story. Ooh, this sixth book in the American Girls series was soooo cold. Nellie and her sisters escaped the evil orphanage, but there weren’t enough blankets in Samantha Parkington’s NYC pad, and then Gertrude the maid thought Samantha was being a total pig eating all of the Valentine’s Day cookies herself. Wouldn’t you like to be hiding in Uncle Gard and Aunt Cornelia’s attic? The only thing that would make life more fun, brisk, and refreshing would be if you too could afford an elegant hat and muff!
A Christmas Story. You wish your tongue was stuck to this frozen pole.
OH GOD YES. The video for “Tony the Beat” by The Sounds
Madonna’s “Vogue” performance at the 1990 VMAs. Beauty’s where you fanned it.
Four-hour ice blocks of the Winter Olympics you still haven’t deleted from your DVR. Imagine how much better your life would be if you were any of these people. Sure you’d have wiped out and ended up with a possible concussion. But you’d be an Olympian.
Feel the rhythm! Feel the rhyme! Get on up, it’s bobsled time! COOL RUNNINGS!
Annie and the Wild Animals (my autobiography). Again, it would be so amazing to nearly freeze to death in the great outdoors. Mmm, corn cakes! Does this voice sound like Laura Silverman (it’s not), or am I really about to pass out right now?
Royksopp, “Poor Leno.” Seriously this is your best bet for cooling off, and Poor Leno’s experience of feeling trapped and stifled is so relatable even though he’s stuck in a museum and you are probably free but just hot. Wait for his exhilarating alpine body skiing joyride near the end!
You’re welcome for sparing you the trailer for 1993′s Alive. I have no idea how “Cold-Hearted” and “Cold As Ice” were left off, but it looks like Paula’s bound by so much stretch fabric and working up a serious sweat in the first one, and the second should really be heard and not seen.
Oh and obviously I forgot Lucille Bluth’s collection of fur coats that Luz the maid dragged onto the bus, but that is more of an all-seasons fantasy.
Name more pop culture things that are freezing: Go!
Annie on Twitter: @EWAnnieBarrett
The water in “Titanic”…I STILL say there was room for both of them on that table.
Totally agree….Rose was a selfish beyotch…but if you wanna think about something freezing how about J.Lo’s Career?
Heat Wave ain’t got no pancake mix!!
(Side Note):
EW, Stop deleting my pancake mix comments. They are epic! Everyone loves them. Don’t be a bunch of Nazis and start deleting people’s comments. Leave them alone!
please this delete this crap. Thank you EW
Don’t just delete them… ban Moe for good.
No, everyone thinks they’re lame.
Noted. Leaving this one up as Moe’s last hurrah.
Mr. Freeze?
Vanilla Ice?
Dick Cheney’s Heart?
Jack Nicholson slowly freezing to death in the hedge maze in The Shining!
Push Pops.
Grumpy Old Men. Ice Fishing and when Ann Margaret rolls around in the snow.
The ice planet Hoth. Duh.
They should’ve called it Coldth.
I laugh at this “heat wave.” Because it isn’t one. It’s been hot for about a week or so in NJ. You wanna see a heat wave? Try living in the South two or three years ago, when it was 100+ degrees and sunny every single day, and we had no rain for about a month or two, plus no rain even in the forecast. Then we can talk about a heat wave. lol
But for the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, this is a heat wave. 100 degrees for just a few days isn’t normal in the slightest. Can’t make a comparison to the southern states because it’s obviously hotter there, even year-round.
Okay, I have lived in NJ and live in Houston now, and let me tell you, 100 degrees here and 100 degrees there are very different. 1) Not all places in the Northeast have central a/c like we do here. 2) Many people in the northeast WALK, yes, WALK as a form of transportation or take this thing called a train, unlike Houstonians here who sit in their cars during their commute with the a/c going full blast. BIG difference!
Weirdly enough, different places have different weather. I know! Isn’t that crazy? So what’s a normal summer temperature for Dallas or Miami might, indeed, be part of a heat wave in Baltimore or Boston. A heat wave that’s already killed people.
Fargo.
I get cold just thinking about the scene after Steve Buscemi has been shot in the face and he’s sitting in his cold car trying patch his face up with tissues/napkins.
I get cold just thinking about the scene with William H. Macy alone in the parking lot, scraping the ice of his windshield.
diana-
Yep, that’s another great one.
The Abominable Snow Monster in the Rankin/Bass Rudolph special. He’s freezing… and adorable!!
And another Rankin/Bass moment, when Frosty the Snowman tried to kill Karen by convincing her to ride in a box car full of frozen Christmas cakes, up to the North Pole. She was f-f-f-freeezing. He knew what he was doing, she didn’t have a chance. She wasn’t even wearing pants.
ummm.. VANILLA ICE ICE BABY!
also.. Paula Abdul, cold hearted snake (uh oh – he’s as cold as ice!).
Poor Herman frozen to death with that smile on his face in “Scrooged”.
Ski Free?
Rocky training in the snow in russia. Rocky IV
To continue the Stallone thread: Cliffhanger, when he’s climbing in the snow with no outerwear
To continue the continuation of the Stallone thread: when he’s cryogenically frozen near the start of the underrated “Demolition Man.”
‘Smilla’s Sense of Snow’ is everything you need to take your mind off the heat. It’s equal parts thriller, mystery, romance and intrigue – all set in a frozen tundra. Of course it stars Gabriel Byrne, and let’s face it, he’s as hot as this wave.