Is that what you're into?

Hey reader-- you know what I just realized? I've never done any music reviews on this blog (and by extension, ever). Let's fix that.

OK, so you remember when I talked about the first episode of the second season of Flight of the Conchords, featuring the eponymous duo, everyone's favourite 2-man New Zealand acoustic parody/ novelty group? If you did, that means you understood that last sentence, and deserve a prize*! Anyway, it turns out said band produced an record album, and additionally that I got the album for Christmas. So guess what I'm reviewing?

On its own, there's absolutely nothing problem with the disc. It's shiny and has a picture on one side, and if you stick it in a comupter, it plays music. The music is pretty good, 15 hilarious and catchy songs that are good and tasty.

The problem is that most (14) of the (15) snongs (or as they're called in America, "songs") come from the show. And even then, you don't even need HBO or the DVD to see them. Every one of them is available, in multiple forms, on Youtube. To wit:

1. Foux Du Fafa:


Funny, but it loses something without the Super-8 type video.

2. Inner City Pressure:


The album version is about two lines longer, but the two are otherwise identical.

3. Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenocerous




4. Think About It




Probably the only song that's better on the album then the show (though it lacks that spoken-word intro...). You can tell this was always supposed to sound like "What's Goin' On", and the album version comes the closest to that.

5. Ladies of the World




6. Mutha'uckas


See, it's musically interesting, but lyrically it's kind of a one-joke song. I'm not sure why they chose to include this one.

7. The Prince of Parties


Another song that doesn't work nearly as well without the video.

8. Leggy Blonde


This was another one where I'm not sure why they included it. For one thing, it's not technically an FotC song, an for andother, the office-supply percussion part only works if you can actually see it.

9. Robots




This is probably my favourite of the songs that made it onto the record, but my least favorite on the record. The version on the record is too overproduced-- part of the fun of "Robots" is that it's an acoustic song about, well, robots**. Also, all three have different lyrics, for whatever reason.

10. Boom




Also kind of one-jokey, but it's a better joke than "Mutha'uckas".

11. A Kiss Is Not A Contract


12. The Most Beautiful Girl (In the Room)




13. Business Time




14. Bowie




I couldn't find video of track 15, "Au Revoir", the only song on the CD to not feature on the show (at least, not yet). There's not much to it, anyway-- it's less than a minute long and song almost entirely in French.

But more depressing than nothing is what was left out (by the way, good job on scrolling this far. I bet your middle finger is tired. Mine is). Some were songs that only work in context, sure. A couple were probably left off because they weren't on the show. The rest are more confusing. I think "Sellotape" is probably their best song, better than "Bowie" or "Boom", definitely. Maybe that one's too long. But some of their funniest, most quotable songs were left off as well. Whatever, man. There's always next year.

*It's already in the mail. Expect a 3 to 5 week wait. Prizes ship to every country but New Zealand.

** For the record, I want to say that my own, as-yet-unreleased, song "Kill all Humans (Hey Sexy Mama)" was conciev independently of this song. I have witnesses that heard it performed before the show even started airing (though probably after the song was originally written).

I just watched The Shining...

...And instead of a review (it's good, what'd you expect?), I'm just going to post this (pretty old, by internet standards) video that you've probably already seen.

Since I didn't do anything today...

... I figured I'd just link to this. And this, if you don't get the joke.

[Insert Lame Star Wars Pun Here]

So I finally got around to watching The IIIrd and Final Episode of George Lucas' Star Wars hexology*, and it's... actually pretty good. Not mind-blowingly awesome good, or even Serenity good, or even Lego Star Wars good, but I completely forgot what I was saying.

Oh, right. The only real problem with the movie (the acting and dialogue are still weak, but forgiveable, since the movie's 94 percent CGI anyway) is that I know everything that's going to happen beforehand. We already know who wins every fight, who lives and dies and goes into exile on a swamp planet. The only people who wouldn't know what was going to happen are people who've neer seen the first three (let's call them "future generations").

But when those future generations see the whole six-part shebang of Star Wars for the first time, they can start at the beginning (by which I mean Episode I) and not have to worry about any of that, right? Nope. This one (and, to be fair, the two before it) pretty strongly and blatantly ruins the biggest surprises of the last movie. [If by some strange act of fate you managed to live this long without seeing Episode IV through six, and somehow care about avoiding spoilers, skip to the next paragraph. Luckily no one here has to worry about that, because I have no readers at all, let alone those who've never seen Star Wars]. I mean, they just up and call him Darth Vader halfway through the movie! You see him raised from the dead! You know they're twins! How hard would it be to write the damn movie and still leave some suprises for the unitiates! Or put in some real shockers, like maybe he's not their father at all! Maybe it's R2 or Jar-Jar or Samuel L. Jackson? Come on, man. [Spoilers endeth here]

So either way, no surprises. Not only were the blanks filled in, they were re-filled, in all-caps with a Sharpie, just to make sure nothing was left up to the imagination. Why? What's the point of making something so nonessential? Why can't what happened before A New Hope (once known as Star Wars) just be left up to the imagination? Seriously, what's wrong with that?



Still probably my favorite movie ending in III (suck it, Coppola!).

*Or sexology, if you prefer.

Since I must document everything I do...

...and apparently I only post on Thursdays now, here's a picture of my X-Mas haul:
...and of course...(I couldn't figure out how to rotate it).

Trying to keep things simple...

...and not make you have to read anything.



DOWNLOADABLE VERSION:
Rerelease Notes: Some mixing and EQ stuff.

Grant, You're Too Late

I just found out about this the second season premiere of Flight of the Conchords is on Funny or Die dot Com. Click here or (if you're not a loser) watch the embed version below. Oh, and I haven't watched the whole thing yet, so no spoilers. Also, I'm apparently a loser, because I actually didn't watch the embed version (it's a whole Firefox thing, and then there's because I wanted to watch it fullscreened, and you get the picture).

Season 2 Online Premiere - Flight of the Conchords (US Only) - watch more funny videos


I actually watched the whole thing right after posting that, but various things kept me from posting again. I don't have any critical comment about the episode, other than you should watch it right away because it's free and awesome.

Oh, and: this video only works in the U.S. of America. Sorry to disappoint my huge Japanese fanbase*.

*It's only the one guy, but he's huge. He's a sumo wrestler. Hey, Takeshi!

You know what's awesome about having a blog?

I can link to ridiculous shit like this.



[You know what's not so great? Gorram "k" key on my keyboard doesn't work in the title bar any more. I had to copy and paste it in for the title to make sense.]

Did you guys really think I'd forget Song of the Week?

[Song of the Week is a "weekly" feature which is supposed to update every Thursday, but almost never does. In it, Drew records a song, or attempts to record a song, or gives up and writes another movie review.]

"Effect & Cause"*:


*(I spell it with an "&", so you know it's not the original).

This one's pretty self-explanatory. It's just a straight cover of this song.

... and then I lost my entire post. Goddamned Blogger.

...what I tried to say was something like, don't tune your guitar B-E-A-D-G#-B, but I managed to sneak in the words "perfect fourth" to show my musical knowledge, because you fall out of tune before even finishing the song. This was going to be paired with another song, which is why the quality is kind of low (I wanted to keep things lo-fi and record in only a couple takes). Turns out that song is really hard to play, as was my third choice. I was worried this cover would technically be illegal. My last cover counted as a parody, and thus protected speech, this one maybe not. I don't think the White Stripes care too much about covers, though.

There. Imagine that but about twice as long, split into three separate paragraphs, and you have my original post.

DOWNLOADABLE VERSION:
Rerelease Notes: This is a wholly new recording, which was super hard & took like forever. It's much better though. You'll hear most of the differences yourself.

A Trickle Becomes a Flood...

I just had to point out this before doing anything else, at all.

Slowly catching up on TV reviews, Part I of a Ridiculous Number: [adult swim]

First of all, they changed the website! Still not sure if that's an excited "!" or an angry "!".I figured I'd split these up by show since otherwise they'd be 10 or so pages long. Also I figured I'd start here since the last Morel Orel is tonite tonight (sorry, I just learned how to do strikethroughs in HTML)*.

* It's "del". If you know HTML you know what to do with that.

Drinky Crow Show, "Whale Show" (and "God of Monkeys", sort of):
"Off with their heads! Off with their heads!"-TMBG
I actually watched the first three four of these, but this is the only one I cared enough to blog (wait, did I just use "blog" as a verb?) about it. Like a lot of [as] shows, there's not much I can say about it. I really like the theme song, an the art style, and the totally over-the-top violence-to-end-all-violence gags. But it's not really different than a Saturday morning cartoon, just more gross and violent.

The thing is, it might be shaping up to be something more. "Whale Show" is a pretty big "F You" to the [as] fanbase, and by "F You" I of course mean "Fuck U". "God of Monkeys" has the call to imply the whole show is a dream...in the fourth episode. Admittedly, meta-jokes aren't exactly new to the mininetwork, but this show does it with such a ferocity that it might actually have a point. Or not, I don't know.

Robot Chicken, "Help Me":
"Hang on to my coattails, my less-famous friend!"-Cartoon Oz
Another show I probably won't bring up again, bu I wanted to say how much I liked this one. I liked it a moderate amount, mainly because they managed to sneak a few notes of a certain theme song in when Joss Whedon showed up. Also most of the other sketches were funny, if a little too in-jokey (then again, remember waht show this is).

Hey, is applesauce supposed to be green?

Merry X-Mas, readers!

I'm giving all you guys a video game!

Just click here!

Or else?

Accidental Song of the Week (Plus Video)

[Song of the Week is a "weekly" feature which is supposed to update every Thursday, but almost never does. In it, Drew records a song, or attempts to record a song, or gives up and writes another movie review.]

I don't have an excuse for not posting, other than what I call "[long string of creative expletives] finals." And I haven't watched any movies in a while, so there's that. Let's all just pretend I was abducted by aliens.

So I find myself having to do a presentation, and I think-- hey, if'n I makes me a movie, I reckon I wouldn't have to stand up while presentatin'." At the time it didn't occur to me that the movie would be more work than a normal presentation. So then I thought, "well shoot, I's can make up a right purty song to go with'n my movie."

As they say in the business, EPIC FAIL.

I was going for something James Bond with the song, with a heavy bassline, surf guitar, and the kind of drumming that goes tsk-tsk-tika-tsk-tsk, but the bass sound was weak and messy and both my guitars are broken (I've taken to calling one "ol' five-stringy," because I'm too busy/lazy to buy new strings). I managed to get the drums working, and figured I'd try some of the other MIDI doodads Garageband offers.

Come to think of it, my recording process of trying to start the movie on one PC, the recording software on another, and playing an instrument at the same time so they'd all sync up? Really stupid for people with only two hands.

I tried to get a tight drumbeat on this song, but the other instruments are just keyboard-mashing. I tried an experiment with doubling the bassline, but I'm not entirely sure it worked. I really do like the ending, mainly because it's a lot louder than everything else.

Oh, and just ignore the movie. I'm just too lazy and pressed for time to make a whole other music video.


Drew's DIY Presentation: "Battle Theme"


[Update: Sorry about the weirdness. I was trying to upload the wrong file for the first 18 or so hours.]

DOWNLOADABLE VERSION:
Rerelease Notes: This one's the same.

So here's what happened

My original plan was to not post anything last long weekend. Then I thought, "you knows what? I wills put up some bloogings" (my inner monologue can't spell "blog"). That was... Friday?

Saturday morning I decided to bust out the old DVDs, so as to avoid being productive. The first thing I watch is this. I notice a quote about a certain character having a "funny aneurysm," and instinctually note the significance*. But I brush it off and watch the rest of the discs. I also watched this, and this, and this, and got started on this, which, to be fair, I just got Wednesday (and apparently paid too much for).

*If you don't know what I'm talking about, I won't tell you.

While I was looking for something, anything, to do, I stumbled across this. Which quickly led me to this (see above). I consider this a tremendous cosmic coincidence, like Jefferson and Adams dying on the same day, albiet more important.

From there, I was hooked. It's like Wikipedia was in the early days, where you think, "what's that? what's that?" and before you know it you have 224 tabs open. Though I did learn a lot, or so I keep telling myself.

So that's what I did this weekend. I was on vacation in a different part of the Internet. And I watched a lot of TV. We'll be back on schedule... um... now.

OK, this is getting out of hand.

My Name is Earl, "Earl and Joy's Anniversary":
"Of all your wives, I think Joy was my favorite"-Randy

Watched it on the internet and found out it has a theme song. The first time I tried to watch it, I got halfway through and my internet crashed. The second time I tried to watch it, my internet crashed again. The third time was on a different computer three days later. It was maybe worth the effort, but only if you're as obsessive/bored as me.

"Earl and Joy's Anniversary" has really only one notable characteristic: its ending, in which Earl realizes he really did care for Joy, something which nobody was really wondering. I kind of just assumed he did. If he had realized he didn't*, or maybe if there had been some raging debate about it, than yeah, I can see why they did this one. As it stands, meh. Just OK.

*Which would be kind of ballsy, you have to admit.

Robot Chicken, "Star Wars Episode II":
"I can't hold your hand anymore, Vader. A hand I gave you, by the way"-Emperor Palpatine

I have to confess something: I haven't seen the Star Wars movies in a long time. Like over ten years. And I wasn't very old then. So most of my memory of them is kind of fuzzy, and a lot of it's based on secondary sources (though I imagine a lot of people who've never seen the movies at least know the gist).

Now that that's out of the way, the TV show. You should probably know, it's not all that much like the first one. That one was your standard collection of Robot Chicken sketches, just with Star Wars-y themes and some bigger name guest stars. This one tries something different: an actual story. There are still the occasional breaks for Jar-Jar Binks Geico commercials (sadly, I was old enough to remember that cat turd, though not old enough to have realized how bad it was), but the majority of the halfhour (we need a shorter word for that) is taken up by a straight-up retelling of Empire Strikes Back (with some Return of the Jedi thrown in at the end). Overall it works, and does its thing better than when Family Guy tried it. Probably helps that it's not an hour long, and didn't feel the need to shoehorn in the entire movie.

The real reason to watch this, besides Seth McFarlane as Emperor Crazyface (his family changed it at Ellis Island), is the animation. I guess I shouldn't be that impressed-- after all, quite a bit of the original films was made using stop motion-- but they really pulled out all the stops here. (Full disclosure: I'm kind of animation geek in general; the kind of person who noticed they kept switching between widescreen and fullscreen depending on if the sketch was part of the main story or not).

Chuck, "Chuck Versus the Fat Lady":
[sings high pitched note]-John Casey

Wow! I just found out what Chekhov's Gun means, and then Chuck gives us a perfect example with the video game doodad. OK, maybe "Wow!" is a little strong. At least it's not "Woo!" (that'd be "foreshadowing"— or is it? (and that'd be "misdirection")). I'm tempted to hold off on this three-parter-doodad until next week (as I've done before). And you know what they say about temptations: give in to all of them as soon and as often as possible.

Heroes, "It's Coming":
"Please...kill me."-Multiple characters
We did it! Heroes, as I predicted, finally crossed the watchability threshold. Maybe "good" is too strong a word, but this one was definitely worth sitting through. Characters do smart things! There are actual good guys and bad guys! Why wasn't this episode two or three?

How I Met Your Mother, "Woooo":
"All you would hear would be silence. And 'Brown-Eyed Girl.'"-Barney
Lots of "the Gang being the Gang" stuff, though that was kind of the point. There was the Dr. Suess business, and the Conference Call... actually, that was pretty much it. Still one of my favoriter ones from this year, from the Godzilla Building to Barney ear condition keeping him from riding the tricycle. Absolutely zero forward motion, and that's not a bad thing.

PS: W...wait for it...

Friday Night Lights,"Keeping Up Appearances":
"I know a girl who...thinks of ghosts"-The Flaming Lips
I forgot what this one was about. It's been a long week. I need to not wait so long to post.
I remember liking it, a lot. Maybe I'll re-review it on the reair.

The Big Bang Theory, "The Lizard-Spock Expansion":
"Paper disproves Spock"- The Tall Nerd
"I'm a physicist, so you know, I though about stuff...I wrote some of it down."-The Nerd with Glasses
OK, so I finally tried this show. And you know what? It was OK. Not a must-see by any means, but I might catch it again. I like the idea of a show about scientists, but I was worried about the execution, and to some degree, I'm not sure they can pull it off every time as well as they did here. Still, this was good enough that I can't believe it's from the creator of the Worst Show on Television.

House, "Emancipation":
"I have Huntington's"-Taub
That's how I figured they would do it: she just tosses her name off at random, doesn't make a big deal out of it (either that, or we'd never learn it). Oh, and there was other stuff, too, but most of it was just standard PoWness to lull us into false sense of complacency, until they (literally) drew their big guns the next week.

Moral Orel, "Nesting":
"You're the mayor"-Orel
Oh, only one more. What will we do? I was kind of surprised by this one, because it shows that some of the characters actually might have a happy ending. We'll see tonight, when I watch the finale, and then write a real post about it.

OK, I wrote that last Friday. It's Monday now, over a week later, and I just yesterday figured out that the finale isn't airing until the 18th. Until then, then.

Pushing Daisies, "Oh Oh Oh... It's Magic":
"The killer knows how to make a sandwich!"-Olive
"Now where'd I put that rat's ass I could give?"-Emerson
So it goes. In case you didn't hear, this show that you weren't watching just got de facto cancellated. And of course, it happens after the show did one of its best episodes, of course. "Magic" did some high-level metaphoring, mysterying, and characterering, and I, for one, loved it. If the show did all episodes like this, instead of last week's just-okay effort, it...probably still would have been canceled. Still, excellent TV, effectively utilizating the various elements that make the show work.

South Park, "The Ungroundable":
"You got pwned, Bebe, you Jap bitch"-Cartman
"Oh my Gosh, are we in trouble?"-Head Vampire kid, per se
Two weeks in a row, we get South Park satirizing a sanitized, lame, ridiculous trend that affects the stupidest of our children. This one works mainly because it was Butters-- at this point, Stan and Kyle are too smart to fall for this crap.

It was clear that for all they mocked the Goth Kids in their first appearance, the SPGs (my coined-too-late abbreviation of "South Park Guys") were on their side. Let that sink in. Apparently this tomato-sparkle-vampire crap* is even worse than a bunch of "faggy goth kids".

Other things I liked: "Burn Down Hot Topic" and the other faux-Goth (Fauxth?) songs; Vamp-Butters looking like a circa-2001 pop-punker (another lame co-option of something originally scary and dangerous); everything with Butters' parents; the tall Goth kid (do they have names?) flipping everyone off at the end; all the vampire hair (at least they're colorful)

*PS: if it doesn't drink blood, it's not a vampire. If we could call whatever we want whatever we want, than bats would be birds, stars would be planets, and blogs would be worth reading.

Life, "Badge Bunnies":
"No, this is a kidnapping"-The Bad Guy
How 'bout that ending, huh? Things aren't looking so good for ol' Charlie, are they?
This was probably the best since the prison experiment one, because the case tied really well into the characters, without feeling forced (as is often the case on these kinds of shows). As is my usual policy on two-parters, I'll say more later.

My Name is Earl, "Nature's Game Show":
"People often ascribe heightened meaning to random acts of physics" [or something like that]-Multiple Characters
I get that there's a difference between clever writing and good writing, but damn, this one was clever. How each piece of the puzzle meant something different to everyone, how it all fit together at the end without fitting too neatly. But what struck me from my Buffy rewind (the one-episode one, not the whole season), is that on that show, this would have been the first episode (or the second), and set up where everyone would be going for the rest of the year. This episode will probably be forgotten by the next one.

The Office, "Frame Toby":
"Let's pretend we're talking while the cops are here."-Creed
If you go on the internet, you can (legally and for free) find the "Producer's Cut" version of this episode. And by that, I mean just click on this. It's a big improvement to an already-good episode that fills in a few plot holes as well as just being funnier (the Pam story has a resolution, for instance).

This one wasn't great great--nothing really happened-- but I suppose we needed to take a breather at some point, so I forgive it.

30 Rock, "Gavin Volure":
"Toronto's just like New York, but without all the stuff."-Gavin Volure
"Stop patriciding me!"-Tracy
Oh Steve Martin, you so crazy. You guest star on 30 Rock, and you is bring the funny. Who would have think your storylines would have intersect with Japanese sex doll.? Who would have think.?

Fringe, "The Equation":
"Not now! I'm sciencing!"-Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
OMG they killed Guest Star! With the blinky dinky and the hypnotyzing and the glaven! I'm not even sure I actually watched this episode, but it was better than most of them have been.
"A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All":
"I'm so high, you're hallucinating"-Wizzle Nizzle
...oooooooooooooooo! (Aren't you glad you waited?) Finally, a semi-ironic variety show/ musical extravaganza. As I predicted, a shark ate the Jonas Brothers (they will not be missed), Steven made out with a bear, and John Legend couldn't act.

Most of the songs were actually better than your standard X-mas fair (fare?), maybe because they were co-written by this guy (not Drew Carey, they guy who wrote the song). And as I somewhat suspected, they ended with something almost-serious:

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

A Colbert Christmas: Colbert/Costello Duet

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

OK, that's a good place to split this in half. Hang on...

"I'm like an ecosystem!": Psuedo-Liveblogging Fox Sunday Night, again

Same way as last time: Instathoughts before the "...", final thoughts after.

The Simpsons, "Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words":
"Compared to you, my life is one big half day!"-Skinner

Dug the Vesuvius couch gag. When did Skinner and Krabappel get back together?
"Um, I think it's...we don't have one"-- funniest line reading I can remember that's not by this person. "No...I'm not mad" and "...musn't it not!" came close later on.
"I don't care if it's 45 cents!"
That frame-thing on Lisa's crossword-- reference or cool original idea?
It looks like this title is one of the Simpsons' better puns.
"Another religion! [forgets rest of line]"
Lisa's crossword fantasy is another cool trick, a reference to Wordplay, right.
Snake and Gloria broke up! I'd never have guessed!
"Back then we called them Alphabet Hotels"
I think I'm going to have to watch this twice, with all the visual stuff in the background.
Homer's story ends at the halfway point-- figures.
ILSA--oops, LISA
Lisa does come in second place a lot.
Only five words have been removed? Yeah, right.
Gil sounds different-- or was that another Gunderson?
Homer's very, very bad with money.
"Jackie-O! Like Spaghetti-O! I thought that's where her money came from!"
Gratuitous guest stars! Well, not super-gratuitous.
Is that crossword real? Cause that'd be cool.
...
Maybe I'm just in a good mood, but I liked this one. The plot itself was a bit thin, but not Family Guy thin, and the jokes were almost universally good. The ending felt a little rushed, though.

King of the Hill, "A Bill Full of Dollars":
"But then the rash went away, and I coud wear pants again!"-Bill

That guy actually sounds better than the real Jim Cramer, though not as good as the fake one on Arrested Development. Is it weird that I think chocolate-covered chips sound good? Bill gets the racecar cart at the grocery store, despite not having kids. Another is it weird: I have no idea how to buy stocks. Do you go to a store or something? Because I like free money. Dale correctly explains the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, in an oddly Futurama-esque joke. Bobby and Hank don't have a lot to do here, but it's a good subplot, what with Bobby being afraid of his own TV and all. Dale keeps his earnings buried in his backyard. I thought everyone knew you just declared bankruptcy by shouting "I declare BANKRUPTCY!"
...
Bill is this show's version of a regular comedic type: the perpetually shit-upon character (or PSUC, a fairly gross acronym). On South Park, it's Butters; on Family Guy, it's Meg; on The Office, it was Pam, and then it was Andy (PSUC-hood is transferable). Of course, this being King of the Hill, his suffering is relatively mundane, and played more tragically than comically. Sometimes it works (what was the wheelchair episode? Was that one good?), sometimes it doesn't.
Not to mention, they wasted a pretty good chance at satire when Peggy, Dale, Mihn were observing Bill, but it didn't go as far as it could have.

Family Guy, "Tales of a Third Grade Nothing":
"Welcome to Executive Bathroom Island"-Some Guy
Sinatra Jr's back!
"What else are you doing that's terrible and stupid?"
"Obvious lesbian will bring great news"
"That sounds hilarious but it also might take awhile" -- too meta by half
They should have waited till the end of the episode with the piano, or just left it hanging for a while, until we all forgot about it. But I bet they do it again by the end of this one.
"Last-clap contest"
Can you say "Happy Gilmore" ripoff?
Boy, that Quagmire sure likes sex!
Reference to pop culture! (note: I didn't actually watch this. It may or may not be the right video.)
I just heard that Hertz Donut joke for the first time on the Daily Show.
Who the hell is Bruce Jenner? Is that a joke?
The pLace logo? Hi-larious
"Andy Dick happened"
Was Omar the kid from Weeds? IMdb doesn't say.
OK, so they didn't do the piano, but they did do another meta-joke ("you'll be out next Sunday at nine," a joke that's been done-to-death already).
...
OK, so this episode had the same problem as the Simpsons: almost no plot. And making fun of your plotholes is not the same as having a plot. Also, the jokes weren't as good as the Simpsons.
...
Wait, it's not over! There's singing! Which doesn't quite excuse anything else, though it was easily the episode's best joke. Also it was too short.

American Dad!, "Pulling Double Booty":
"I'm gonna buy some beads at the bead store and then open my own bead store!"-Jeff
"Your mother acted it out for me. It was riveting, she took some very rewarding chances."-Stan
"I'd go crazy...rape Roger..."-Haley
"Making out! What are we, two sixteen-year-old girls?"-Stan

Loved Stan's explanation of why he doesn't say "I love you".
Haley handling of rejection badly is a plot that actually fits the character, plus fits because neither does Stan. Then it looks like we get another rebellion/ overprotectiveness story, then it gets weird (a word I've mispelled three times today, and spelled right on the first try zero times). And hey, they brought back Stan's double! And then it gets really weird, and kind of heartbreaking, when Stan was all, "You used to watch Sesame Street". and then it all tied back to the beginning. It both does and doesn't end well.

And somehow cockfighting is involved, which also didn't end well, come to think of it.
Apparently it's summer. Hayley's "doin' it" song may be the funniest thing I've seen all week, and it's another joke that's all in the delivery (well, that and that arm thing). Stan's ringtone is "Yankee Doodle". Reminds me of Arrested Development (the "AD" without a "!")'s ringtone gags.
This whole episode become even more creepy when you remember that Seth McFarlane (Stan/ Bill) and Rachel McFarlane (Haley) are siblings.
...
Actually, that pretty much covers it.

"Is hateses grandpas guitars."

Song of the Week is a "weekly" feature which is supposed to update every Thursday, but almost never does. In it, Drew records a song, or attempts to record a song, or gives up and writes another movie review.

"Gold," Instrumental:


Here's the closest I've come to actual songwriting so far. In a past life, this was a real song, complete with words; I just, um, forgot them. Still, there's actual thought put into almost half this song (the rest is a pair of improvised solos in Halfassian Mode), which is pretty good for me. It's also, for some reason, incredibly long, at over four minutes, especially considering it's incomplete-- were the whole thing to play, it would run something like 6 or 7 (in case you're wondering, this is essentially the beginning and end; the part with words goes between them).

I came up with the main riffs here (the quiet one and the loud one) on accident, on two different occasions, sometime last year. Immediately after coming up with the second (the quiet one), I wrote words, fairly good ones, and forgot most of them an hour later. There's a lesson there, kids.

Other crap: this song was me attempting a one-instrument song after getting fed up with the other song I'm working on (not sure when I'll be finished-- no time soon). It's lo-fi, I think, except I used a computer. The word "gold" is in the version with lyrics, which is why I name it that. It's a slide guitar in open D, and the two main riffs are:

Quiet (played under the verses, which I didn't include):

D |1-1-1-1-0-0-0-0
A |1-1-1-1-0-0-0-0
Gb|1-1-1-1-0-0-0-0
D |---------------
A |---------------
D |---------------

Loud (sometimes it's slightly different at the end; I'm not terribly fond of "musicianship"):

D |---------|---------|-------------|
A |---------|---------|-------------|
Gb|---------|---------|-------------|
D |-222-5-7-|-222-5-8-|-222-3-5-8-12|
A |-222-5-7-|-222-5-8-|-222-3-5-8-12|
D |-222-5-7-|-222-5-8-|-222-3-5-8-12|

Both of which some better guitar player could probably make sound--what's the word?-- good. For the rest, I just make stuff up.

"Like any of that's enough to fight the Dark Master... bator.": In which I realize I can't stop writing about TV.

The Sarah Silverman Program, “Fetus Don’t Fail Me Now”:
"You ever feel like there’s just a whole bunch of water like kicking around in your stomach?"-Sarah
"They gave me a muffin basket...and that's a euphemism."-Sarah, again
Somehow I forgot this one during the earlier review, probably because I watched it really late Friday night. Weird, because this was probably my favorite of the whole season. About the only way it could have been better is if Sarah had been wearing the fat suit for half the season, like Peggy on Mad Men (retroactive spoiler alert), with no one saying anything. I don't like doing straight recaps, so I'll just note two nice touches: Sarah wants to name the MonsterpossibleJesusbaby "Seth," the same name Jay's turtle suggested a couple weeks ago; Sarah has a go-cart suit with her name on it.

Saturday Night Live, "Paul Rudd/ Beyonce":
"Step one: cut a hole in the turkey"-Something called Dustin Timbersnake, or something similar.
Is this bad? SNL added two new people and I didn't even notice. If I had a critic card, they'd have to take it away.
Other strangeness: why didn't they Let Paul Dance?
Other than that, pretty good. Kissing Family went on too long, Scared Straight was a repeat of an earlier sketch, Seth Meyers hasn't figured out how to do Update yet and Holy Shit Why is Justin Timberlake on This Show Whoa What is He Doing What's This About A Michael McDonald Impression Did He Just Jump On the Desk?



And that was that. All episodes of this show should be two minutes long.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Buffy vs. Dracula":
"I am Dracula"-Dracula
"Get out!"-Buffy
Who says I don't keep my promises (so long as those promises involve watching TV)? This episode confirmed my suspicion: that the awesome, hilarious, casually racist Dracula from the comics is only tangentially related to the one we first saw on the show. The TV Dracula is all Eurotrash hair and mumbo-jumbo about the darkness in Buffy's soul. The comics Dracula is more recognizably human, less a standin for philosophical musings and more an interesting charcter in his own right.

Of course, most Buffy episodes weren't about the villains; the most interesting parts of this episode was Dracula's effect on our main characters, especially Xander eating a spider for some reason (I get that he's under a spell, but why Spiders? Oh, right). Another highlight: Spike explaining that Dracula, the book, is what taught everyone about "the mirror thing", which I didn't catch the first time through. It wasn't a great episode, but it was still better than most of what I watched this week (and this week was a fairly good one).

Randomness: I forgot how bad CGI was in 2000 (ironic-- or perhaps just coincidental-- since Joss Whedon also wrote Toy Story). It's incredibly strange dropping into the middle of a story like this-- the last episode I watched was the end of season 3, and this was the season 5 opener, so it felt like I was skipping a whole year, even though I had already seen them all. Plus it's really really weird to see [spoiler] alive again, and to see [spoiler] before he [spoiler], but that's just par for the course.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, I suggest you start here:

Double movie review...

...neither of which is six words.

Dante's Inferno (2007): It hits you over the head with its politics, but it's an otherwise great adaptation and almost worth seeing for the inventive animation/ puppeteering style alone.

The TV Set (2006): Comes very close to being what it clearly wants to be (Office Space for TV), and for all I know is 100% accurate (I would not at all be surprised), but it doesn't quite make it to Office Space-level quotability or recognizability, nor does it have as good an ending.

...well, I kept them each to a sentence.

"You know, I really don't remember you being this racist..."

So, I just got this in the mail, but then I realized if I wrote a review, you guys would figure out what huge nerd I was. I flipped a coin (not really) and it came up yes, so, you know...

Wolves at the Gate is probably the best of the three, because there's actually something at stake (no pun intended). Part I spent a little too much time establishing everything, and Part 2 was kind of tangential to the main story; this, Part three, is where it starts to pick up. People die. We meet the Big Bad (though it still might be a bait-and-switch, as they've done before). Vampires are racist.

The "plot," involving a bunch of Magic Unkillable Japanese Vampires, was really just a flimsy excuse to bring back Dracula, who was so awesome here I wanted to rewatch his episode (I didn't, but I probably will later tonight). Seriously, I hope they get a chance to bring back Racist Dracula, since none of the other new characters are really sticking out yet-- most of the Slayers are pretty indistinguishable (the same problem Season 7 had, come to think of it).

Oh, and there was a giant robot Dawn, for some reason.

I give it a 64.378 out of 68.901 Racist Draculas, 1.5 out of 2 Lesbian Superheroes, and Zero out of Negative Four Vampire Panthers.

Seriously, You Guys...

Fuck research papers. I know I try and keep this blog PG (maybe PG-13), but seriously. I haven't even watched half of this crap, I have three movies sitting on my desk, screaming "watch us, please!", and I haven't even started on Song of the Week (should be up tomorrow-- fingers crossed).

Chuck, "Chuck vs. The Ex":
"We lost Big Mike to donuts a long time ago."-Morgan
So they can't all be as nerd-tastic as the last one. So what? This one was plenty awesome. I think I'll try and say more next episode, but for now, let's all just think about Casey's ridiculous wig.

Heroes, "Villains":
"An invisible man tackled me in an alleyway!"-Fire guy whose name I forget
So let me get this straight. The Heroes writers do remember what happened in past episodes? Then what's their excuse?
For whatever reason, this was probably the best we've gotten this year, because it actually focused on a few storylines and didn't feel the need to have ten different things going on at once. Of course, the characters were still completely inconsistent-- on a better show, I would wonder why Elle went from completely normal to insane in ten (?) months.
And I'm getting a little pissed off at this "everything's connected, everyone's related" idea. In the beginning, part of what was intriguing was that there were no connections between the characters. They were just random strangers who suddenly became special. Part of the fun was watching all the disparate threads come together. Apparently, everything started out together, meaning all those episodes you liked in originally have become completely meaningless.
I will add, the end was actually cool, even if it made no sense.

How I Met Your Mother, "Not A Father's Day":
"Dinner is a baby."-Lily "Lily, that's horrible!"-Robin
Comedy writers are often afraid to go too "broad" (for an example of a broad joke, read that quote again). I think this episode erred in going a bit too far the other way-- it was way too specific, to the degree where if you've never been in a situation like Lily and Marshall, you just kind of zone out. It didn't help that they sidelined the rest of the cast, either, especially because the titular subplot was a pretty damn good one. Plus, Barney sings, which means I have an excuse to once again post this link!

House, "The Itch":
"I totally hit that"- House
[I couldn't remember any quotes that weren't repeated in every commercial or at least three times during the episode.]
So, we appear to be caring about the cases again. It seems like since around the beginning of last season, the behind-the-scenes of House had overtaken the medicine (notice I never said that was a bad thing). On the other hand, or at least a different finger of the same hand, I don't really care about this romance thing. I like what it tells us about the characters, but the plotline itself could turn out a little too soapish. Of course, the way it played out in this episode wasn't at all soapy, but what I think could happen is always more important than what actually happens.

South Park, "Elementary School Musical":
"Where the hell have you guys been?" -Jimmy
"Peru." -Craig
South Park is back! After three weeks of Cloverfield and Ocean's Eleven parodies with suspiciously familiar characters, we get an episode that's actually about our main characters. Well, it's also about something called High School Musical, which as I understand it, is some kind of Communist plot to turn American children retarded (for real, the version on the show was actually preferable to the real thing).
Considering how much I like South Park, it's rare how often I agree with its politics. This one, I agreed with every word Cartman said (except the racist ones). Of the movies I hate without actually watching, I hate High School Musical more than any since Passion of the Christ. And let it be known that I actually like musical, at least in theory, and considering their previous works, I have a feeling that the South Park Guys do too. It's just we all hate this one.
Also, it was a one-joke idea, but I loved all the variations of slapping they did-- especially that impossible teleport-slap and the kid and mom realizing they could just punch the guy.

Life, "Black Friday":
"He fell. People fall sometimes."-Charlie
I'm wondering why they aired this one two weeks early (then again, this week's Simpsons was set on the Fourth of July). The beginning set us up for a pretty good "trapped in another crazy world/culture" plot that this show does so well (see: last week), but then they ruined it by leaving the mall, missing out a great chance to say something about malls, or shopping, or Christmas, or whatever. I liked what they did with the ending, with the kid ready to confess, and Charlie talking him out it (see quote). Overall, a lot of potential, mostly wasted.

The Office, "Business Trip":
"I hate Winnipeg"-The Weakerthans
Well. Well well. This had to be the least funny Office ever put on film--intentionally so. I loved it.
All three plots here did something that's unfortunately rare on TV, which is they showed a group of long-running characters in a different light. Before we laughed at Andy's obliviousness-- now we see how sad it really is. Before we might have guessed Pam wouldn't be some great artist-- but we didn't expect her to fail quite like this*. Before we thought of Michael as completely-- actually, we still see him the same, but as with Andy, his story is put in a both more tragic and somewhat more heroic light (I think seeing him grow out of this is going to be the major plotline from here on out, and his phone call to David Wallace was the first step toward that).
Other cool stuff: Oscar and Andy's phone call, which was both hilarious and strangely filmic (something about the lighting); the happy, just-out-of-frame couple walking past Pam at just the wrong time; and Michael somehow confusing concierge with concubine, but scoring anyway, in one of the most surreal interludes (is that the word?) this show has done.

*By the way, how great was Dwight's takedown of her painting? It worked because it's exactly the kind of stuff you'd notice if you had to stare at it every day.

30 Rock, "The One with the Cast of Night Court":
"See, if this were an episode of Night Court, there would be a joke right now!"-Tracy
Oh Tracy Jordan, you so crazy. As are you, 30 Rock. This one might not have been the best, but I liked the clever skewering of a recent movie phenomenon. Also:
"It's a reunion of Friends...from Night Court".

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, "The Gang Gets Extreme: Home Makeover Edition":
"I can't believe their name isn't Juarez. Anybody else surprised by that?"-Charlie
Did you see that preview? A "Day Man" Musical! I think I know what the next Song of the Week will be!
As for this one, it was OK, nothing great. The takeover sequence was great, but otherwise it never reached the ridiculous pacing and intensity of better episodes. I'll probably talk a little more about the show next week, after the season finale.

Moral Orel, "Sundays" and "Sacrifice":
Guys, I don't think this is going to end well. After a full season of detours and side-stories, we've finally started to move forward, and it's getting pretty dark. At this point I think we'll be lucky if anyone in Moralton is still happy when this show ends. As with Sunny, I expect I'll have a lot to say after the (Series!) finale.

Fringe, "In Which We Meet Mr. Jones":
"It's me, your father, Walter Bishop"-Guess
OK, maybe they are going somewhere with this. So far Fringe has proved it can gross us out, and come up with clever (if somewhat ridiculous) twists. Now they need to start moving forward. Know how I know? This was easily the best episode, and I didn't like it. It doesn't bode terribly well for the show if its most interesting character (NENMS) is never in the show for more than ten seconds at a time.
Still, Lt. Daniels told me there would be "1,000,000 answers and 1,000,001 questions" and that I need to "be patient" in the most best* example of making-the-subtext-text ever. And if Lt. Daniels tells you to do something, you do it.
I get that this probably is going somewhere, but on, say, Lost, the journey itself is as fun the destination. Plus, it's a lot less repetitive.

*I did that on accident and decided to leave it in.

Apropos of Nothing...

For some reason I really liked this...

"I'm Kookoo for Killing stuff!": Almost-Liveblogging Fox Sunday Night

I realized I was forgetting a lot of what happened in the shows I watched, and I didn't like that they were taking a week to get up, so I'm just typing whatever comes into my head. Every before the ellipsis (...) is during-the-show analysis, everything post-ellipsis written after everything aired.

The Simpsons, "Dangerous Curves":

"You're just as bad as me! And you used to be better, which makes you worse!"-Homer

Fourth of July?
I'm glad they remember Ned is like twenty years older than Homer and Marge. Reminds me of "Out of Gas", my second-favorite Firefly episode, with the three different timelines (or last season's weakest Lost, "Ji Yeon", which tried something similar). And then they paralleled it with Bart and Lisa at the end, which worked better than it had any right to. Also liked that it had no Homer getting a gratuitous new job and that cool ending shot (was that a reference to something?) Overall, one of the shows' better recent efforts.

...

It seems The Simpsons is really only trying to do one of these "outside the box" episodes a year, which is a shame, as they're usually among the show's best. Previous years have given us "The Seemingly Never-Ending Story", "22 Short Films About Springfield", "Behind the Laughter" (which I just rewatched before this one), the original "Treehouse of Horror" and last year's Emmy-Winning "Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind", and if you haven't seen any of those, illegally download it immediately (well, maybe not the first one). It's the most successful Simpsons formula, way more than, say, bringing back Sideshow Bob or doing those three-part anthologies, both of which went past the point of diminishing returns long ago. Obviously, every episode can't break the mold (for one thing, there probably aren't 425 molds to break), but they can and should definitely up the ante.

King of the Hill, "No Bobby Left Behind":

"Why can't we just go back to the gold-star/smiley-face system?" -Bobby

Have we ever seen Carl before? I want to say yes, but I can't remember when. It seem like every cartoon show has done some version of this plot already, at least the setup. It recovers in its second act a little, when it just lets everything play out, like Bobby's tinkle song or Khan vs. the Honors Program, or the special needs class actually doing something stupid. Missed the beginning of the third act (was it one of Hank's big speeches?), came back again when they started the "Kids in America" montage. Not super thrilled about the ending--J-Bone was funny, but it seemed kind of mean-spirited to have the guy actually fired, or suspended or whatever.

...

Rock Band 2 Update: "Kids in America" is hard to sing, harder than most of the songs that come after it, except "Spoonman," which I failed after the last phrase (in other words, I failed with 100% complete), and stupid "Living on A Prayer", which wasn't worth the effort. My theory that the game is too easy still stands, as I've been able to beat everything on either the first or second try (whereas I've still never beat some RB1 songs). "Aqualung" has the creepiest lyrics I've ever read. And I just found out today that Flea and Dave Navarro played on "You Oughtta Know", and that Alanis Morriseete started off as Robin Sparkles-type (thanks, Wikipedia!)
P.S. The version of "Kids in America" in this episode is yet another cover.

Also, when is King of the Hill ever going to quit with these straw-man villains? It's supposed to be "realistic", unlike, say South Park, so it can't get away with having outlandish enemies for Hank.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention earlier: for my huge school-age fanbase, it should be noted that you get fail as many standardized tests as you want and it has no effect on your grade. Also, shouldn't you be in class right now?

Family Guy, "The Man with Two Brians":

"My special power is being somehow memorable after a very short run on TV"-Peter

Jackass? What year is it? Is this a new episode or not?
I thought Brian was 7, not 8. Whatever.
Who voiced New Brian? Seemed strangely familiar.
Carol who? (Best cutaway in a while, by the way).
Puppy Brian: not nearly as cute as Baby Bart and Lisa were an hour ago.
"Long and Hard."
I just today heard someone say "whip" like Stewie does. I always assumed they made it up.
Did you catch Stewie reading this during the karaoke scene?
"What a croc!"

...

Overall, the plot of this one ripped off not one, but two Simpsons episodes (actually, there were elements of this one, too). One problem I have with Family guy is that it doesn't really care about plot or character, and instead cares about about trying to fit as many jokes as possible (notice how the entire liveblog section is just disassociated observations). This episode wasn't so bad about it, but it would have been nice to have seen something more original. I liked that Stewie's mainn problem was that New Brian was that he was boring, and they probably should have stuck with that.

American Dad, "Escape from Pearl Bailey":

"When will this city have a decent Edo period fair?"-Toshi
"This can't possibly go badly! You're my first girlfriend!"-Steve

Sorry, election over. Of course, that was just act one, which felt almost like a whole episode-in-miniature, complete with running joke about suspiciously-familiar animal groomer.
Then act two gives us surprisingly-effective Kill Bill parody and the family's only appearance. And it ended on a cliffhanger.
Then we got to the titular "Escape" section, complete with awesome voiceover. Steve and his ex-friends have to escape the various subcultures in a pretty good setpiece, and the goths dance (though not as good as on South Park), and everyone learns a lesson about caring for others, and the whole thing ends on a freeze frame.

...

One of the things I like about American Dad is that, when it wants to, it can have the fastest-moving plots an any comedy since Arrested Development. This was one of those episodes. I just happened upon my rather insightful criticism as I went along, and I liked the fact that this one had a lot going on without ever getting lost. When Family Guy or some of the weaker Simpsons episodes does it, it comes off as meandering, shallow shaggy-dog story, bereft of any real narrative intention (me like big words). This one just. Kept. Moving, and didn't waste any time, on, say, callbacks (notice the rest of the family really doesn't show up again, nor does animal stylist) or any unnecessary setup or Family Guy style how long-can-we-draw-this-joke-out.

Plus, I left out like ten other quotes I could have used at the beginning.

With apologies to all involved...

My Six Word Review

Of Bruno Bozzetto's anti-Fantasia, Allegro non Troppo:

This is why cartoons are important.

See, that review took all of thirty seconds. Wish they were all that easy.

"So It's Come to this-- A Dungeon and Dragons": Futurama: Bender's Game Review

I don't have anything to say about the election. To me yesterday was the day the new Futurama movie came out. Speaking of which...

Bender's Big Score, the first part of the the Futurama fifth season quadrilogy, premièred to mixed reviews. Well, not mixed, but not universally positive. It got a "lot" of flack for featuring too many characters and being too in-jokey.

Six months later, we got The Beast with a Billion Backs. It was criticized for not being as heartfelt as BBS, and for being too-- what's the word?-- gross.

And now, we've got Bender's Game. First of all, it is funny and it is worth watching, especially if you like the first two. But it's not great, and it leaves me a little worried for the next one.

Like the first two, the movie comes in an "eco-friendly" (that's a thing, right?) carboard box. Where BBS had a fancy hologram on its cover and BBB had a cool parody of B-Movie art, Game's box art rips on Sleeping Beauty, right down to the psuedo-metallic lettering and the color scheme of the villains. Right away, we know we're getting some kind of epic fantasy.

Thing is, that fantasy only takes up the film's second half. The first, better, half takes place in the present day (meaning the future). Like a lot of Futurama, that half has some great sci-fi concepts, like (spoilers) killbots that accidentally shoot each other, poop-harvesting farms, and an energy source rooted in actual particle physics. Like the others, there were some great action scenes in this one, though Leela's demolition derby felt like a less funny version of BBB's deathball. It set up a lot of great running gags (the shock collar, prune juice) and had great momentum. But halfway through, right when the story seems about to end, it takes a hard right into fantasyworld.

From there, it loses all of its momentum and has to start over. I think a big problem here is that they have to split up these movies to show them on TV. Bender's Big Score had a strong enough central plot that you didn't notice the chunking: on the second go-round you might notice where the breaks would be, but the story keeps moving forward, in a strange, flashbacky, way, and the ending is both exciting (big space battle!) and smart (clever plot twist that changes your opinion of a whole character!). Beast had its own pacing problems, namely that the titular character doesn't show up till the halfway point, and the ending just sort of fizzles out, but all the plot elements felt essential. This story feels like it's traveling in two different directions.

Let's tlk about that fantasyland. I jut saw it compared to Simpsons episodes like this one, and I think the comparison fits. But those segments each clock in under 1o minutes, not almost an hour. If they had found a better way to play the fantasy and sci-fi worlds off each other, it might have worked, and might have even been one of the better episodes the show had done. There are some hints of this, but it doesn't work nearly as well as the past-future interplay of Score, nor does it have as good a payoff (it has a payoff--Spoiler Alert--with Igner being the Professor's son, but it's too easy to see coming, and not worth all the effort). As it is, the fantasyland (the explanation for why it exists is one of the better parts of the movie) is just a hodgepodge of Lord of the Rings and Dungeons and Dragons, and occasionally goes too far into the reference-for-reference's sake type of joke we all get mad at Family Guy for. It doesn't have enough weight to sustain the whole movie, and the movie is almost complete without it anyway. That's a big problem.

This one has one of the same problems I had with Beast: the joke are good, but the big, heavy, emotional moments aren't well-thought out. BBB cleverly tied in some good character arcs, like Fry's need for validation, even after saving the world multiple times, and Bender's bizarre obsession with history and authority. At the same time, the ongoing Fry-Leela love story was completely ignored in a movie about love, the A- and B- plots had almost nothing to do with each other, and the central theme (love and jealosy) wasn't very well-developed, and was tossed out in a lame, ironic speech at the end. Similarly here, there are major emotional doodads like Leela's anger problem, Mom and the Professor, Nibbler's origin story and Bender trying to aquire an imagination, or that should have been good, but they either had no conclusion, or didn't get enough breathing room or weren't fully fleshed out, or resolved too early (respectively). If your characters are out of character for half an episode (most weren't, but some, most notably Fry, were), it's hard to do character development.

Plus, for an "epic," we didn't have that many characters beyond the main cast (especially compared to the last two movies). Doubleplus, this set doesn't have a bonus episode. It's not a deal-breaker, but it would have been nice.

I don't want to make it sound alll bad, though. Bender's Game is still one of the smartest comedy films around. The first half especially is incredibly funny. This movie continues Futurama's reputation as the best-looking animated show ever (a reputation I just made up, but try and think of a better-looking one-- only American shows count) , seamlessly blending CGI with 2D, incorporating great action scenes, and creating not one, but two distinct and visually stunning worlds (not to mention an opening that puts "Yellow Submarine" to shame). Thing is, I finished watching the last episode of Futurama, still my favorite of the whole series, knowing the movies were coming, and couldn't wait. I finished watching the first movie excited for what would come next. I finished watching the second thinking, "that wasn't great, but if the next is just as good, we'll be fine." I finished watching this one thinking, "don't let them mess the next one up, because that might be the last one we get".

Man, real criticism is hard.

(Fingers Crossed)

I don't think these really require or deserve an explanation. I'm just glad I figured out how to do it.

normal

slow

fast

completely different song

total waste of time

My Six-Word Review...

...of the original, not-in-any-way-starring-Daniel-Craig, 1967 psychedelic version of Casino Royale:

Depends on your tolerance for silliness.

Alternate:

James Bond for Monty Python fans.

My Six-Word Review...

of the intended-to-watch on Hallowe'en (that's pretentious douchebag for "Halloween") Ed Wood:

The first biopic I've actually liked.

Good Evening, Boys and Ghouls (Maniacal Laughter)

Are you ready for a Spooktacular Song of the Week?

Actually, screw the Crypt Keeper nonsense. The song isn't even scary.

I've wanted to do a cover song since week one, but have been thwarted by various factors. (Most notably my lack of talent). I knew I wanted to do something recognizable as the original but different enough to be interesting.

Problem is, I'm not used to hearing myself sing, and finding out just how slurred and off-key I actually sound was incredibly disorienting. For most of these I record one take of each intsrument. The least I did for any of this one was three.

I tried out a lot of songs, some for practice, some in a real attempt. One of the few that stuck was Pixies. When I first heard the song (like a lot of people, I first heard it in Rock Band Classic), I thought it had a distinctive vocal style. Immediately (by which I mean at least a month later) a thought struck me like a bolt of thought-shaped lightning: Barbershop! At least six months later, I've finally achieved that dream.

I figured you guys were tired of electronic and funk (using that term very loosely to refer to my slap-bass solo), so I was, originally, going to do an acoustic song (the first half of "Freebird," for the insanely curious).

So without further ado...





I guess "Mutilation" makes it Halloween-appropriate.