Today’s show is RICH. Like the finest of frostings layered atop a moist, delicious cake of conversation. But is the cake NUTRITIOUS? What are the ingredients? Well, the internet coughed up an inordinate amount of awesome for you to watch today, including maybe the sweetest, cutest wedding proposal to ever come out of Portland, the best substitute for a Bill Murray autograph possible, and a couple stories about Star Wars on it’s 35th birthday that will not only leave you grinning, but have you saying “roaraorhghggg” – which will make sense once you listen. There’s a review of Men in Black 3 that teaches you how to talk like Tommy Lee Jones, a rundown of all the awesome that awaits you at Wonder Northwest, and Mike Russell’s issue of Dark Horse presents hit shelves this Wednesday. Even a discussion of the 5 worst films of Spielberg’s career ends up sunny and delicious. It’s a good show. Hopefully it complements your weekend perfectly.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Always bring a towel. One of the greatest rules ever brought to mankind in a work of wonderful fiction.
A sitcom starring not only Michael Rooker and Michael Ironside, but also Michael Wincott? License to print money.
What was the music used at the end of the show?
1: The crocodile guy from “Phantom Menace”
2: Mike Russell excitedly shouting, “YES!”
3: The theme tune for “Too Close for Comfort”, a TV comedy show from the ’80′s.
MIB3‘s script does explain how J is the only one who knows that K is dead. The Kevin Smith stand in dork tells J just before J leaps off the building.
Truly bad Spielberg:
5 War Horse
4 A. I.
3 Amistad
2 The Color Purple
1 Schindler’s List
Thumbs up for the Schindler’s List pick, when I was a teenager I made a comment how I felt that movie was manipulative and exploitative. I was told to “shut up because the Holocaust was a tragedy.” That seems to be the only defense I’ve ever really heard for that movie.
It’s common to attribute certain flaws in Spielberg’s later career to his trying to “grow up” and do mature or serious themes (otherwise known as Oscar whoring), but my theory is that you can trace a decline in Spielberg’s output to one thing, after which his work is wildly inconsistent: that addition of cinematographer Janusz Kaminski to his stable of collaborators. List was their first film together and it was downhill after that. I don’t know what goes on between them, but it is possible that J. encouraged SS to shoot more spontaneously, without storyboards who pre-thinking. Worse though is that JK has a colder look to his movies. Compare the warm yellows and blues of Bill Butler’s Jaws to the icy look of AI, and that film seemed to really need to be warmed up, even if that went against SS’s game plan.
Underrated Spielberg
5 Munich
4 1941
3 Empire of the Sun (though it does drag. The first 30 minutes are terrif)
2 Minority Report
1 The Sugarland Express
RRAAOURG
I hopped on the site after an empty headed and liquor-filled weekend expecting a bit of games and a bit of crazy only to remember that you Americans have the ‘oh shit, my bad, sorry guys’ holiday. Damn. It’s moments like this that you truly understand the extent of war.
Make podcasts, not war.