26 Oct

The All-Swearing Eye

We’ve posted our new episode, an overly long love letter to The Thick of It and The Venture Brothers, both of which started their new seasons last week. You should be aware of Venture, as it’s an American show made by red-blooded patriots who care about freedom (actually one of them might be Canadian, I’m not sure). The Thick of It, however, is British and made by people who drink tea and go to the shops. It’s on the BBC, but if you go and search YouTube you should at least find some clips (it looks like most of the actual episodes have been removed).

Here’s a trailer for Antichrist, the Lars Von Trier film that was my Worst Thing this week, despite being one of the more memorable filmgoing experiences I have had in a while. It’s not good, but it’s something. I really can’t explain it any further.

Tune in next week when we’ll discuss Battlestar Galactica: The Plan.

19 Oct

Keeping It Real

This is NOT the Green Lantern Costume

In talking on the show this week about the “Chris Pine IS (maybe) Jack Ryan” story, Doug brought up this photo of Ryan Reynolds that was used at Dark Horizons as accompanying art to a GL story. I’m not sure who would think that this is an actual picture of Reynolds in costume, because to me it looks like a pretty obvious Photoshop job. Though I’m probably not the best one to judge because the first time someone showed me this I told them that it had to be a fake because nobody would be that stupid to put someone in that outfit. And we all know what happened there…

I suppose in time we’ll sort out these kinds of problems on the internet as we draw the lines between professional (or at least attempting to be professional) and just fanboy service. Most of the Dark Horizon readers are probably lean towards the chess club anyways and would spot the fake in a moment, but I suppose there someone walking around thinking this is new Green Lantern uniform. The easy answer is to put a disclaimer, but what would be the fun in that. It seems to me that half the fun of the internet is to look at all the news out there and figure out what is true and what is fake.

12 Oct

SGU!

Thanks to Jay Holben for appearing as a guest in this week’s episode. I don’t really remember what we talked about for two hours, but I am certain I repeated myself at least three times.

My new Stargate segment started this week and I am wondering how long before I regret committing an hour of my week to a show that is being broadcast on SyFy. I reserve the right to call an audible and switch to Sanctuary if I feel the need. I’ve included a picture of the cast for reference. Doctor Starbuck is the blonde.

05 Oct

Reality Distortion Field

Feels like Doug and I argued about everything this week, when in reality it was really just about Day One (which I feel a little bad talking about before the final product comes out) and J.J.’ s new pilots for NBC and FOX.  Sometimes, I like to take a contrary position to Doug just so that we can have a conversation, after all it’s kind of a boring show if we just agree on everything. But I really do think that J.J. is the Steve Jobs of Television these days.

Jobs’ famed RDF is one of the great tech memes of the last 30 years and really just represents his ability to turn a crowd to his favor during a presentation. Check out any of his keynote addresses and you’ll see for yourself.  Doesn’t matter what short comings any Apple product has by the time he’s done talking you’re getting your credit card out. A big part of me feels that J.J. casts a similar spell, simply on his name and on the  success of Lost. Obviously, this is all my personal opinion. In the end I’ll never know just how much involvement he’s had in any one of his projects, but still I feel like the RDF is in full effect here. It’s a lot like his Star Trek movie. When you’re in it, you’re completely engaged. It’s fun and energetic, the cast is sexy and you want to be Chris Pine’s Captain Kirk, but the moment you start thinking about the story or the plot it all falls apart and you’re debating the convenience of Spock’s Ice Prison.

So in the end this is just a warning, don’t let Jobs and Abrams in the same room. Their combined ability to warp creation will erase us all.

The Zero Room Podcast