Gobbledygeek episode 155, “Slott Bubbles and Pickled Ass,” is available for listening or download right here, and on iTunes here.
Comics! They’re good for you! But wait, no! They’re also bad! This is an accurate description of the emotional roller-coaster Paul and AJ strap themselves into this week. First up, there’s X-Men: Battle of the Atom, an event the boys are surprised to enjoy chiefly because it’s one of the Big Two’s dreaded “events”; then there’s The Superior Spider-Man, about which there is much rage and sadness and talk of poop. There’s a lot of poop talk. Plus, Jurassic Park and Harry Potter are both going back to the well, and the boys pimp themselves and friends. They’re just a coupla classy guys.
Gobbledygeek episode 105, “Take a Look, It’s in a Book,” is available for listening or download right here.
Do you remember what reading was like when you were a kid? That magical, transportive experience that took you to faraway lands and different time periods? Proving that, yes, they were once literate, Paul and AJ discuss their childhood reading experiences. The books that were important to them include The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Watership Down, and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, among others. They also discuss the differences they had growing up as readers and what it will be like for kids in the future. Plus, Paul rejoices in The Killing‘s cancellation, while AJ discusses watching The Walking Dead season 2 and the original Total Recall, both for the first time.
Next: it’s a Gobbledy-free-for-all! Anything and everything is fair game.
On the new episode of Gobbledygeek, Paul and AJ told you about all the things you should buy this Christmas season, and now here’s a comprehensive guide! (Including a few items that weren’t even mentioned on the show.)
Hands down one of the best science fiction books I’ve read in recent memory. It’s like my admittedly overdeveloped nostalgia gland were milked and distilled onto the page. This book is my geeky, pop-culture DNA printed in ink. ~ Paul
How come TV actors so rarely get a break on the big screen? The general consensus seems to be that we’ve moved beyond the age of the Movie Star–just look at how little anyone cared about Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts’ Larry Crowne–so why is it still so hard for TV actors to make great movies? Take a look at Peep World. You’ve got Michael C. Hall, who’s given stunning performances on Six Feet Under and Dexter; this man should be working with A-list directors, but instead he makes stuff like Gamer. You’ve got the trifecta of Rainn Wilson, Judy Greer, and Sarah Silverman, all of whom have done very funny work on television. The closest any of them get to cinematic greatness is Wilson’s bit part in Juno. TV’s time-consuming, I know. But when you look at a mess like Peep World, you wonder how so many talented TV people got thrown into such a bad movie. In a way, it reminds me of The Great New Wonderful, an awful movie that inexplicably starred Edie Falco, Will Arnett, Jim Gaffigan, Tony Shalhoub, and Stephen Colbert. Peep World isn’t nearly as bad, but its story of an oh so dysfunctional family feels like an unpleasant tenth-generation copy of The Royal Tenenbaums. It has no style, little wit, and the narrative is all a-shambles. With this many talented actors involved, there are bound to be some effective moments, and there are. But if a filmmaker with respect for and knowledge of the medium had been given the same budget and the same cast, something special could have happened. Extras include deleted scenes and a theatrical trailer.
Gobbledygeek episode 58, “The C-Word,” is available for listening or download right here.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen: the C-Word! We’re talking about canon, of course. (And its dirty little sister, continuity.) These two words, and fan reaction to them, have defined much of fandom. How do you react to the supposed reality of a fictional story? Is it fluid? Who has the right to decide where canon begins and ends? These questions and more are blathered on about by Paul and AJ this week. Plus: news, AJ’s review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, and Formspring questions.
Ready for some hot fun in the summertime? Well, we’ve got the next best thing! In this week’s episode, Paul and I discussed 44 movies coming out from May through August. Not all of these are sure to be good, and at least a couple are guaranteed to be rotten, but all of them have something interesting about them.
(FYI: The trailers for Bad Teacher and 30 Minutes or Less may be NSFW, as they are both red-band trailers.)
Two of the movies I’m most looking forward to this year are Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II and Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, and whaddaya know, they’ve both just unveiled terrific new posters. First up, we’ve got the Harry Potter poster:
Harry and Voldemort, bloodied and covered in grime, staring each other down while Voldemort holds the Elder Wand between them? Yeah, that’s enough to get me pumped. And of course, what better tagline than “It all ends 7.15”? I remember when the final book came out, it felt like a momentous moment in my life, having grown up with the books and its characters. The weight of the movies ending hasn’t hit me to the same degree, but I’m positive I’ll be misty-eyed come July 15.
Quentin Tarantino was born March 27, 1963, meaning he turns 48 today. In the almost two decades he’s been making films, he’s revolutionized independent film, inspired never-ending waves of talentless knock-offs, and made seven utterly fantastic films. Though the violence in Tarantino’s movies has generated a lot of press over the years, that is far from the only worthwhile thing about them; each one is a well-structured, stylish, and suspenseful work of art. No other filmmaker cuts straight to my pleasure center as immediately as Tarantino. Though they are different in many respects, Tarantino and Hitchcock share the knack for creating captivating, instantly iconic cinematic images.
Having said all that, certainly I wouldn’t want to bring it back to the violence…but yeah, I’m going to. Violence is a big part of Tarantino’s work, and just like characters in a musical break out into song when they get passionate, Tarantino’s characters often use violence to express themselves. So it being Tarantino’s birthday and whatnot, right after you watch the most recent episode of Community (granted, it’s more of a My Dinner with Andre spoof than a Pulp Fiction spoof, but still), check out my choices for the most shockingly violent moment in each of his films. And moreover, my thoughts on why they’re as shocking as they are.
Reservoir Dogs – “It’s amusing, to me, to torture a cop.”
If someone asked me to name those movie characters who most embody evil, the first three that would come to mind are Hannibal Lecter, Regan from The Exorcist, and…Mr. Blonde, the gangster psychopath from Reservoir Dogs, played with demented flair by Michael Madsen, a B-grade actor giving one hell of an A-performance. The scene where Mr. Blonde, alone except for a dying Mr. Orange, tortures a cop is one of the most iconic and infamous in Tarantino’s oeuvre. Around the 30-second mark in the video embedded above, “Stuck in the Middle with You” by Stealer’s Wheel starts playing on the radio, and it’s like some sort of clarion call for Mr. Blonde to murder. Kneeling over Mr. Orange’s frail figure, he turns to the cop, smiles, then rises and starts dancing to the song. It’s one of the most casually terrifying bits of acting I’ve ever seen. But in focusing on the scene’s sheer horror, what a lot of people fail to realize is that it’s also fucking hilarious. It’s possible that I’m just a highly disturbed individual, but Mr. Blonde dancing, singing, and smiling his way through ear-slicing and gasoline-pouring is the kind of funny that also just so happens to be pretty damned scary. I remember the first time I saw it, when I was 12 or 13, I couldn’t help but start laughing. Then I immediately began wondering if I was going to go to hell. That’s what Quentin Tarantino movies will do to you.
The graduating class of Sunnydale High School 1999.
Totally slipped my mind to make this post yesterday morning, so here we go: Friday’s Gobbledygeek, “Higher Education,” is available for listening right here. Fictional schools discussed are Sunnydale High, Greendale Community College, Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and many (seriously, many) others. No annoying tech problems this week, either! In the bonus hour, we talk about the DVD’s that will be out this Tuesday, the new direction the Batman comics are taking, and this season of True Blood so far (though largely spoiler-free, since Kevin hasn’t started the season yet, and we wanted to be all considerate-like). Enjoy!
The twenty-fourth episode of Gobbledygeek airs live tonight at 10:30 PM EST right here. Since the school year is in full swing, Paul and I turn our thoughts to fictional educational institutions, both the realistic and the fantastic (and yes, you can expect to hear about the one pictured above). And be sure to either call in to stay on the line, or download the bonus hour tomorrow, because now that we enter the post-Top 100 Characters era of the show, we’re attempting a new format with the bonus hour. And I’m using “format” in the loosest sense of the word. Hopefully it’ll pan out. We do plan on undertaking another larger-scale project in the bonus hour at some point–though none in the future will be as epic as Top 100 Characters, or I just might kill myself–but for now we’re just gonna roll with it.
Reminder: Calling into the show is potentially a toll call, but if you’ve got a free Skype account and a free BlogTalkRadio account, you can use the free “Click to Talk” button to call in…for free!
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