Episode 7 - 9 - 12

We've got a lot of deaths to catch up on: last week gender essentialist and shitty filmmaker Nora Ephron bit the dust, and this week mighty Ernest Borgnine, star of such films as Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders and Marty, ate his final double cheeseburger. We took the chance to reminisce on their adequate, forgettable, occasionally regrettable careers, before moving on to review this week's fare.

We both liked The Amazing Spider-Man, with severe caveats. It was almost like two films smashed together, one pretty decent, one lousy. The film certainly suffered under Raimi's shadow, and tried to emulate those films to its detriment. When the movie relied on its own ingenuous casting and high school angst, the results were better than expected. I was surprised and disappointed in equal measure. The other film reviewed (for some reason), Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, was silly and boring and involved horse-surfing. Like you do.

We heard music from:

The Return of the King, 1980 - Glenn Yarbrough
Escape from New York, 1981 - John Carpenter, Alan Howarth
"Airwolf", 1984-87 - Sylvester Levay
Gattaca, 1997 - Michael Nyman

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Episode 7 - 4 - 12

Well, today starting off in that typical cuntish fashion...seriously, what is it with our Mondays? I arrive late and without cell phone, knowing that this digital castration will cause no small amount of irritation, and lo and behold, there's no way to contact the Boom Operator in the studio even though I'm roughly twenty yards away. Violent apoplexy ensued. Then on the air the B.O. shared a story of yet another battle with the downstairs vending machine. That shit got epic. We talked therapeutically for a while, easing this bad day out of our metaphorical caecum like a long, unyielding turd.

Boom dissembled Soderbergh's newest weenie-shaking Magic Mike with greater detail given to the sociological surroundings of the deliciously forbidden spectacle that is male objectification. The movie itself? Fairly flaccid.


We heard music from the following:

Cowboys & Aliens, 2011 - Harry Gregson-Williams
Fitzcarraldo, 1982 - Popol Vuh
Fight Club, 1999 - Dust Brothers
Crumb, 1994 - Various Artists
Midnight Cowboy, 1969 - John Berry
Spider-Man, 2002 - Danny Elfman

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Episode 6 - 25 - 12

We both caught Pixar's Brave this weekend, and both proffered the same unimpressed "meh, cute" in response. I probably boosted my estimation due to geeky proclivity for the medieval setting, but otherwise thought the movie started well and fizzled due to no strong narrative drive, instead falling to a pat homily, which didn't fit with the whole fable thing. The animation was up to Pixar's standards, I guess. The whole shebang was bested by the 7-minute short film La Luna by Enrico Casarosa that preceded it.

On the show we got off on insane, random tangents, like pioneering a new young adult book series about teen frankenstein fishermen, the tyranny of tool booths, and trouble with gum machines.

We heard music from the following:

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 2009 - Mark Mothersbaugh
Mirror, Mirror, 1990 - Scott Campbell, Jimmy Lifton
Return of the Living Dead, 1985 - Various
Who Saw Her Die?, 1972 - Ennio Morricone
Brave, 2012 - Patrick Doyle

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Episode 6 - 18 - 12

Another weekend where that rancid pile of goatfuck Madagascar topped the box office. Fuck you if you've seen it or used it as a babysitter. That is all.

We heard music from:

Van Helsing, 2004 - Alan Silvestri
Triplets of Belleville, 2003 - Benoit Charest
The Dungeonmaster, 1985 - Richard Band
Rock 'n Rule, 1983 - Various
"Batman: The Animated Series," 1992-1995 - Various

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Episode 6 - 11 - 12

Howdy and how do, adoring public. I guess this week the big news is the ubiquitous deflation of Prometheus (called it). Most people were disappointed for reasons they couldn't quite put their fingers on. Personally, I put a gigantic finger on Damon Lindelof, the "Lost" co-tard, who has again shown his alacrity for creating a good idea and then sharting it down his leg with poor execution masquerading as existential ambiguity. As an Alien prequel, it's inconsistent; as a metaphor on myth and creation, it fails due to a lack of internal logic; as a postmodern pastiche of Stanley Kubrick and Scott's own oeuvre, it baffles; as a space-chiller, it occasionally succeeds; as a visual deployment of ideas, it works, but the parts do not make a compelling whole. Ridley Scott has entered a weird phase of his own postmodern cycle, couched within the existing cultural postmodernism, wherein he references and/or inadvertently parodies his own canon. Like a cocktail party guest who makes his greatest remark five minutes in, he can only stand around awkwardly, gesturing to his lauded moments with increasing desperation, unable or unwilling to move on.

The Boom Operator felt the film was serviceable, citing the use of non-digital effects and the admittedly great performance from Michael Fassbender.

We heard music from the following:

Predator, 1987 - Alan Silvestri
Project Metalbeast, 1995 - Conrad Pope
Poltergeist II: The Other Side, 1986 - Jerry Goldsmith
Prometheus, 2012 - Marc Streitenfeld

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Episode 6 - 4 - 12

We return after a brief vacation in which the Boom Operator sojourned to America's weenie (fine, fine...Florida) ready to bring in da noise/funk, report on films we had seen, and kick off Season 3 of Tavern Trivia. Last week I caught Piranha 3DD, which, unlike its predecessor, was a pile of shit. Well, I'll elaborate: Piranha 3D was B-movie fun, a delectable pile of garbage with just the right amount of boobage and gore. Piranha 3DD doesn't even try: a fat-guy jumps on a pile of puke; a piranha swims up some girl's woo (because apparently she didn't notice) and then bites her lover's weenie, which he proceeds to slice off; a guy decapitates himself on plastic rope, his head lands betwixt a pair of silicone sweater-puppies and he is motor-boated posthumously. There's an art to trash, and just giggling with your friends about tits and splatter is bad, not because it's low-brow, but because it's lazy. The Boom Operator saw Men in Black III and offered shrugs.

We heard music from the following:

Men in Black III, 2012 - Danny Elfman

"Fraggle Rock", 1983-1987 - Various

Batman, 1989 - Danny Elfman

Back to the Future, 1985 - Alan Silvestri

Legend, 1985 - Tangerine Dream

Jaws 3D, 1983 - Alan Parker

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Episode 5 - 21 - 12

So, we're back after an off week (for the Gaffer, at least), and it seems like literally nothing has come out, and certainly nothing but gnats on The Avengers' shit, money-wise. I mean, goddamn Battleship? I'm still in awe of that. Look for Candyland in 3D and Imax next Friday. Tim Burton also shat out his 28th Depp/Carter project; a friend of mine had this to say about it: "Dark Shadows might not have felt so godawful if it wasn't pretty good at first. Then it jumped off the rails, off a cliff, into a boat, that sunk. But nobody had a chance to drown because everything exploded." Well said. Oh, new Wes Anderson and Men in Black movies are upcoming, so that's happening. You should listen to the show this week, is basically what I'm saying, if only for the part where I am urged by the Boom Operator to google and recite the definition to "rusty trombone," a phrase that I dropped without knowing its meaning. Oh dear.

We heard music from the following:

Dark Shadows, 1966-1971 - Robert Costella
Buckaroo Bonzai, 1984 - Michael Boddicker
Cat People, 1982 - Giorgio Moroder & David Bowie
My Neighbor Totoro, 1988 - Joe Hisaishi
Men in Black, 1997 - Danny Elfman
Swamp Thing, 1982 - Harry Manfredini


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