FRED Entertainment

April 14, 2009

Win SIN CITY on Blu-Ray!

Filed under: Contests — Tags: , , , , — UncaScroogeMcD @ 8:22 pm

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In conjunction with Miramax Home Video, we’re giving away three (3) copies of SIN CITY on Blu-Ray.

Contest ends at 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, May 6th.

CLOSED! THANKS FOR ENTERING!

Official Rules

No member of Quick Stop Entertainment or their immediate families may enter.

No Purchase necessary to win.

Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.

One entry per day, per person.

All submitted entries must be received by 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, May 6th.

The winner must allow 4-6 weeks after notification of win to receive the product.

Win FROST/NIXON on DVD!

Filed under: Contests — Tags: , , , , — UncaScroogeMcD @ 8:15 pm

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In conjunction with Universal Home Video, we’re giving away three (3) copies of FROST/NIXON on DVD.

Contest ends at 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, May 6th.

CLOSED! THANKS FOR ENTERING!

Official Rules

No member of Quick Stop Entertainment or their immediate families may enter.

No Purchase necessary to win.

Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.

One entry per day, per person.

All submitted entries must be received by 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, May 6th.

The winner must allow 4-6 weeks after notification of win to receive the product.

Win SKINS: SEASON 2 on DVD!

Filed under: Contests — Tags: , , , , , — UncaScroogeMcD @ 8:08 pm

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In conjunction with BBC Home Video, we’re giving away three (3) copies of SKINS: SEASON 2 on DVD.

Contest ends at 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, May 6th.

CLOSED! THANKS FOR ENTERING!

Official Rules

No member of Quick Stop Entertainment or their immediate families may enter.

No Purchase necessary to win.

Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.

One entry per day, per person.

All submitted entries must be received by 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, May 6th.

The winner must allow 4-6 weeks after notification of win to receive the product.

Win THE WRESTLER on DVD!

Filed under: Contests — Tags: , , , , — UncaScroogeMcD @ 8:01 pm

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In conjunction with Fox Home Video, we’re giving away three (3) copies of THE WRESTLER on DVD.

Contest ends at 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, May 6th.

CLOSED! THANKS FOR ENTERING!

Official Rules

No member of Quick Stop Entertainment or their immediate families may enter.

No Purchase necessary to win.

Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.

One entry per day, per person.

All submitted entries must be received by 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, May 6th.

The winner must allow 4-6 weeks after notification of win to receive the product.

Win TOP GEAR: THE COMPLETE 10th SEASON on DVD!

Filed under: Contests — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — UncaScroogeMcD @ 7:51 pm

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In conjunction with BBC Home Video, we’re giving away three (3) copies of TOP GEAR: THE COMPLETE 10th SEASON on DVD.

Contest ends at 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, May 6th.

CLOSED! THANKS FOR ENTERING!

Official Rules

No member of Quick Stop Entertainment or their immediate families may enter.

No Purchase necessary to win.

Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.

One entry per day, per person.

All submitted entries must be received by 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, May 6th.

The winner must allow 4-6 weeks after notification of win to receive the product.

MewesCast 2: Finding the Groove

Filed under: MewesCast — Tags: , , , , , , , , — UncaScroogeMcD @ 6:49 pm

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You know him as Jay, but now get to really know him as Jay. Jason Mewes brings you a podcast the likes of which you’ve never heard before. Excitement, adventure, enlightenment – All this and more as Jason (with additional noise by Matt Cohen) takes you on a weekly tour of all things Mewes. So tell your friends and warn your neighbors… Welcome to Mewescast – It’s a state of mind.

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MEWESCAST #2: Finding the Groove  – In which Jason and Matt get into the swing of things and delve a little bit further into the state of Mewes affairs. The evolution of the pod-cast continues. Ready your sea-legs, folks.

[CONTENT WARNING]: This podcast may contain some foul language and horribly off-color jokes. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

DOWNLOAD: (right click to save)
Episode #2 (MP3 format) ““ 42.10 MB

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SUBSCRIBE
Subscribe to this Podcast via iTunes

Got something to say? E-mail Jason at the MewesCast mailbag.

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CLICK HERE FOR THE MEWESCAST ARCHIVES

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Bagged & Boarded 21: Experts of Nothing and Everything

Filed under: Bagged & Boarded — Tags: , , , , — UncaScroogeMcD @ 1:50 pm

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What happens when two young men let their love of movies, comic books, and all things “geek” take over their lives? They run away from their families, bringing only the most essential DVDs and comics to their secret, highly fortified underground bunker in sunny Southern California, where they start recording podcasts that will change the world.

Are they heroes?

No.

Are they geniuses?

Far from it.

Are they the future of this planet?

I sure hope not.

Simply put… Matt Cohen and Jesse Rivers are “Bagged and Boarded”.

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BAGGED & BOARDED #21: Experts of Nothing and Everything  – In which Matt and Jesse are joined by guest host Brendoman and discuss a veritable cornucopia of geek related topics. It’s all here. It’s bonus sized. It’s got beat-boxed movie scores. It’s got dinosaurs holding guns… It’s got what you want… So come get some.

[CONTENT WARNING]: This podcast may contain some foul language and horribly off-color jokes. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

DOWNLOAD: (right click to save)
Episode #21 (MP3 format)

[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/baggedboarded/bagged_boarded-21.mp3]

SUBSCRIBE
Subscribe to this Podcast via iTunes

Got something to say? E-mail Matt & Jesse at the B & B mailbag.

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CLICK HERE FOR THE BAGGED & BOARDED ARCHIVES

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TV Or Not TV: 4/13 – 4/19

Filed under: TV Or Not TV — Tags: — admin @ 11:18 am

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Welcome to another TV or Not TV where I’m just confused as all get out.

If you didn’t see the finale of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (which judging from the ratings you probably didn’t) we were handed a bit of a twist to what we thought of might have been going on and a good ol’ steaming pile of confusion.

The show itself didn’t have the best balance this season as far as the pace went. Part of this, I believe, is due to the show having to pick up after being interrupted by last year’s writer’s strike. Upon it’s return this season T:TSCC never reached it’s original ratings numbers. People clearly felt abandoned and didn’t come back.

Those that did were handed a  season started out strong. We saw the negative repurcussions to the angst of a teenage John Connor who is in love with the Cameron, the Summer Glau Terminator. The show also gave itself a chance at a roadmap and new direction with the inclusion of scribblings on the wall from a soldier from the future to try to help guide the Connors on their way to prevent Judgement Day.

The mid-season confusion over Sarah’s obsession around three dots on the wall is where the show really started to lose me, and lead to the slowest part of the season. This, coincidentally, was around the time where the show actually was picked up for a full season after seeming to be cancelled after 13 episodes.

The two or three episodes following the return tried to finally get rid of that story line and move on to what turned out to be a decent wrap up to the season. We found out that the mysterious Catherine Weaver, who was a liquid metal T1000, was actually on the side of the Connor‘s and was trying to create the anti-SkyNet with the creation of John Henry. The Turk from season one conveniently became the real source of the three dots we were so bored to death watching Sarah track down, and we got to see Summer Glau do an impersonation of a real Terminator, complete with jailhouse invasion and massive damage showing her metal skeleton underneath.

The biggest twist, however, is the one that also confuses the heck out of me. For whatever reason Cameron gave her chip to the artificial intelligence John Henry, and Weaver eludes to the fact that he may have escaped to another time. Even more baffling is that John Connor decides to bail on humanity and time travel with Weaver to try to recover the cyborg’s chip. This lead to a very interesting moment where Connor finds himself in a future after Judgement Day where no one has heard of him. Is this because he travelled back in time to and hasn’t lived out the years between then and Judgement Day or is this how John Connor actually gets to where he needs to be to become the savior of humanity?

These questions, sadly, may not be answered as things are not looking good after this sophmore season. Fans of the show can take comfort in the fact that they were at least given some answers before Terminator: Salvation hits theatres and completely disregards anything the show has set up (just as it has ignored anything after Terminator 2). I’m sure there will be  mail campaign where people send in potato “chips” to represent the one that Connor is after. Will it make a difference? Probably not.

Let’s put the time travel stuff to bed now and take a look at the shows that are coming up this next week.

MONDAY

CBS – 8:30 PM: Now that Ted has been fired from his job he starts up his own architectural on How I Met Your Mother. Maybe the mother he’s meeting is a bankruptcy attorney?

FOX – 9:00 PM: Elisha Cuthbert is back tonight on 24. Creepy therapist C. Thomas Howell isn’t.

NBC – 9:00 PM: Tonight on Heroes they reveal the answers to what happened in 1961. What, you didn’t know there was an unanswered question about then either?

SUNDANCE – 9:00 PM: If you really want to know how much show business sucks when you are on the bottom rung of it’s food chain then check out Confessions of a Super Hero. This documentary looks at the people that dress up as costumed movie characters and super hero’s on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles.

TUESDAY

NBC – 8:00 PM: Biggest weight loss, biggest injury and normal make-overs are on tonight’s The Biggest Loser: Couples.

E! – 8:00 PM: An E! News special takes a look at The Final Hours of Natalee Halloway. You can use this as a primer for the upcoming TV movie. As a dad this story still breaks my heart.

CW – 9:00 PM: Donna turns up on 90210 while millions won’t even know she did.

WEDNESDAY

ABC – 8:00 PM: Will JD figure out how to set things right with Elliot while Janitor and Lady get married in the Bahamas? Tune in to Scrubs to find out.

BRAVO – 9:00 PM: I’m a sucker for the lashing Kathy Griffin always gives to Hollywood and her latest show She’ll Cut a Bitch delivers in droves.

ABC – 8:00 PM: It’s back to 1977 tonight on LOST and we might find out tonight what connection with the Island that Miles has.

TV LAND – 10:00 PM: A group of 20-something men vie for the hand of a 40-something woman on the new reality show The Cougar. Thankfully it is nothing like the horrible SNL skit.

THURSDAY

NBC – 8:00 PM: My Name is Earl is back tonight and Earl tries to make ammends to someone he used to torture in school. This almost makes me think I’m going to see Jason Lee on my doorstep.

FOX – 8:00 PM: A death metal band has been using an actual human skeleton as a stage prop tonight on Bones. At least they aren’t posers.

NBC – 9:30 PM: Liz has to fill time during her suspension after last week’s 30 Rock. I’m sensing lots of Internet surfing and deep fried pastries in her future.

FRIDAY

FOX – 8:00 PM: Prison Break is back and takes over the night of programming on FOX. I only hope they can wrap up this once great show in a really good way in these final episodes (I’m also so glad that FOX could mess up the momentum of Dollhouse by giving it a week off).

NICKELODEON – 8:30 PM: With the great Johnny Depp guest-voicing on tonight’s Spongebob vs. The Big One how could I help but not mention it (besides, with a five year old I’ll also be watching it)?

ABC – 9:00 PM: The Supernanny comes to the rescue of a couple that admit the live with three house demolishing little devils. Heads up folks, this just means they are kids… and you are whimps that let them walk all over you. Guess that wouldn’t help fill an hour of prime-time though, would it?

SATURDAY

NBC – 8:00 PM: What do you do with your lowest rated night of television? How about put all three of your Law & Order shows from earlier in the week on?

DISC – 8:00 PM: It appears to be Alaska night on Discovery Channel as MythBusters, Dirty Jobs and Arctic Roughnecks all are located in Palin country. Grab your mucklucks and settle in for viewing.

SUNDAY

NBC – 7:00 PM: Miss USA 2009 is here and ready to turn out the next Kelli McCarty. With her recent career change it’s too bad Miss USA didn’t have a talent competition.

LMN – 8:00 PM: Remember The Natalee Halloway Story movie I mentioned earlier? Here it is.

FOX – 8:30 PM: Animation Domination won’t be dominating much with the likes of Sit Down, Shut Up. It’s got a great pedigree of creators and voice talent, but the comedy/writing just isn’t up to snuff. Hopefully this academic comedy learns something quick.

Will Wilkins wrote this column in front of a live studio audience.

April 13, 2009

Masters Of Song Fu #3: Final Challenge Revealed!

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We here at Quick Stop Entertainment are true lovers of music, in all its forms. We’re also quite keen on the spirit of competition, and of spurring creativity through said competition.

To that end, we launched a brand new form of creative combat here at the Stop – Masters of Song Fu.

In this age of manufactured and painfully earnest talent contests, we’ve decided to instead shine a light on the quirky, quixotic underworld of musicians that don’t get nearly the attention they deserve.

Ah, but I did mention that there was a competition involved…

We invited 28 challengers to pick up the thrown-down gauntlet (You know, some spares as well). 26 Responded in time.

Like a songwriting version of Iron Chef, these 26 competitors are presented with a very specific songwriting challenge. They’ll be given one week to complete their songs – however they see fit, within the parameters set forth – after which time the entries will be uploaded to Quick Stop to be voted on by you, the readers.

In past editions of Song Fu, we’ve used these votes to eliminate Challengers as we’ve progressed from Challenge to Challenge. For this cycle, however, we’ve decided that all of the Challengers will be able to compete in every Challenge, and the Challenger with the most cumulative votes after the 3 Challenges will be the one that takes on the Master in the Final Round. So what was the first Challenge?

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ROUND 1 CHALLENGE

In light of all the doom and gloom of recent months, as financial markets crashed and winter closed in, we’re going to kick things off with a rather straightforward challenge. You can interpret this challenge however you’d like – how you do so will give people a sense of just what your songwriting personality and style is…

Your first challenge is to WRITE A HAPPY SONG.

That’s it. The only other directive is that your song must run no shorter than 1 minute 45 seconds.

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After voting on Round 1, our masters and Challengers were then given their second Challenge…

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ROUND 2 CHALLENGE

Write a song containing *exactly* 10 unique words (this includes words such as a, and, the, etc.). You can repeat the words you choose as few or as many times as you want, but the sum total of the unique words can not be less than or more than 10.. You can write on any topic and in any style. Your song must run no shorter than 1 minute 15 seconds.

Here’s a word cloud look at what everyone chose:

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After voting on Round 2, our masters and Challengers were then given their third Challenge…

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ROUND 3 CHALLENGE

For your third challenge, you have to write a song with the title “It All Makes Sense At The End”. You can interpret what song would be given that title in any way you see fit. Your song must run no shorter than 1 minute 45 seconds.

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And now, for archival purposes, you’ll find the Rounds 1, 2, & 3 songs from each of our Masters & Challengers below – even those who had to drop out along the away – as well as the results of the Rounds 1, 2, & 3 voting. At the very bottom of the page, you’ll find THE FINAL CHALLENGE! Oh, and who are the Challengers? Find out below!

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MASTERS OF SONG FU

For this edition of Song Fu, we’re brought in 3 (well, 5, if you’re being technical) very special Masters. Think of them as the iron chefs of Song Fu, and the ultimate challengers:

NEIL INNES

songfu-innes.jpgIf you’re a bit puzzled but there’s a little twinge of recognition niggling at your subconscious right now, it’s probably because you already know who Neil Innes is without even realizing it.

It was during the Jurassic period (the late 60s) that Neil was a member of the legendary Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. Madcap purveyors of esoteric music (Who else would revive music hall standards in the age of rock? They did it, and it worked!), their biggest hit was the deceptively poignant “I’m the Urban Spaceman.”

While firmly ensconced within the Bonzos, Neil first became acquainted (and vice-versa) with Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, and Terry Jones while working on DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SET, a children’s show whose viewers tended to skew a bit older than the intended audience. Eric, Mike, and the two Terrys went on to form MONTY PYTHON with Graham Chapman and John Cleese. The Pythons called on Neil’s musical skills numerous times over the years, particularly when producing their best-selling albums. When John Cleese decided to move on to greener pastures prior to PYTHON’s fourth series, Neil stepped into the void as a contributing writer and performer.

Not able to escape the Pythons so easily, Neil was also tapped for MONTY PYTHON & THE HOLY GRAIL, contributing music and a memorable performance as the annoyingly truthful minstrel of Eric Idle’s cowardly Sir Robin. Still not willing to let him get away just yet, Neil was brought in again for their follow-up film, THE LIFE OF BRIAN (wherein he outruns certain death during the colosseum debate scene).

Even while working with the Pythons, Neil continued his solo career, releasing numerous albums on his own as well as with the groups The Grimms and The World. His BBC program, INNES BOOK OF RECORDS, ran for 3 series and featured 90 original tunes. From torch song and ballad to rock and parody, the show featured an exceedingly wide range of styles.

It was during the latter-half of the 70s, however, that Neil produced his most enduring work. While collaborating with Eric Idle on the post-Python TV series RUTLAND WEEKEND TELEVISION, the two devised a brief HARD DAY’S NIGHT parody with Idle portraying a boring filmmaker (so boring the camera ran from him) and Innes providing the Beatles-esque “I Must Be in Love.” During his next hosting gig on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, Idle unleashed the short film on the American public. That led to SNL’s Lorne Michaels producing a mockumentary of the mock-band, named The Rutles, for NBC. ALL YOU NEED IS CASH aired on March 22, 1978, starring Eric and Neil as one half of the “Pre-Fab Four” and featuring songs by Innes. In 1996, Innes reunited with Rutles bandmates John Halsey and Ricki Fataar to release THE RUTLES: ARCHEOLOGY, which sported 16 brand new tracks “discovered in the vaults,” a la THE BEATLES ANTHOLOGY.

He recently released a new solo album, WORKS IN PROGRESS, and a brand new reunion album with the Bonzos, POUR L’AMOUR DES CHIENS. Neil continues to write and perform, and is in the process of recording his next solo album.

Official Website: www.innesbookofrecords.com
Twitter: twitter.com/NeilInnes
ROUND 1 SONG:Imitation Song (Ron Nasty’s Last Song)
ROUND 2 SONG: Unfortunately, Neil Innes had to pull out of this round due to professional commitments.

PAUL & STORM

songfu-02.jpgPaul and Storm are a comedy music duo, and they have been performing as a duo since 2004. Before that, they were one half of a cappella band Da Vinci’s Notebook for about 12 years. A Paul and Storm show is part music concert and part standup/improv comedy”“just enough of both to fit neatly in neither category. They like to engage the audience, and are known to award snack cakes and/or other prizes for good (and sometimes bad) behavior. Their show would be PERFECT as a cable special, and would make lots of money for whichever brave channel decides to air them first.

Official Website: www.paulandstorm.com
Twitter: twitter.com/paulandstorm
ROUND 1 SONG:Hippie with a Djembe
ROUND 2 SONG:Boolean Love Song” (WORDS USED: Amy, Bobby, Mary, if, then, equals, and, not, loves, happy)
ROUND 3 SONG: Sadly, Paul & Storm were eaten by dingoes in the night. They shall return for the Final.

GARFUNKEL & OATES

songfu-garfuneloates.jpgRiki “Garfunkel” Lindhome and Kate “Oates” Micucci make up this band, which is a mixture of acoustic folk, comedy and pure sugar. Riki has been seen in The Changeling, My Best Friend’s Girl, Pushing Daisies, Gilmore Girls and Million Dollar Baby. You can catch Kate in Scrubs, When in Rome, Four Kings, How I Met Your Mother, or in her one-woman show “Playing with Micucci” at the Steve Allen Theater.

Official Website: www.garfunkelandoates.com
Twitter: twitter.com/KateMicucci
ROUND 1 SONG:The Happy Song
ROUND 2 SONG: Unfortunately, Garfunkel & Oates had to drop out of this round for health reasons.

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In a moment, you’ll discover the details of the first challenge. First, though, here is the list of challengers:

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THE CHALLENGERS

JEFF MacDOUGALL

songfu-jeffmcdougall.jpgJeff’s stint of reigning challenger in MoSF#1 (yet ultimately losing to Master Jonathan Coulton) has won him critical acclaim from around the world. Or is it criticism from around his house? Either way, he’s back for more and hoping to balance bringing the Fu with taking out the trash.

Official Website: www.jeffmacdougall.com
Twitter: twitter.com/jeffmacdougall
ROUND 1 SONG:The Bop Bop Song
ROUND 2 SONG:Free Love” (WORDS USED: see, I, like, could, love, so, me, and, free, you)
ROUND 3 SONG:It All Makes Sense At The End

EDRIC HALEEN

songfu-edrichaleen.jpgEdric has been writing music (off and on) for the past fifteen years. He wrote and directed a musical, The Pushcart War, based on Jean Merrill’s wonderful novel. He has written and/or arranged a number of songs for various friends – some commissioned, some as surprises. He loves acting in community theatre, and is inspired by the music of Stephen Sondheim, Jason Robert Brown, Adam Guettel, Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty – and yes, Jonathan Coulton, who in addition to writing wonderful songs, also served as a portal to finding out about the Song Fu competition.

Official Website: www.youtube.com/watch?v=2arBC7f-6FY
ROUND 1 SONG:(Happiness)
ROUND 2 SONG:Extreme Mad-Libs (Song Fu Edition)” (WORDS USED: adjective, pronoun, name, verb, noun, article, adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection)
ROUND 3 SONG:It All Makes Sense At The End

“BUCKETHAT” BOBBY MATHESON

songfu-buckethatbobby.jpgI’m “BucketHat” Bobby Matheson. I used to make cartoons for the internet, and sometimes still do, but mostly focus on my music right now. Lately, I’ve been getting more into recording other singer/songwriters in my little, make-shift studio than I have been recording myself. I want Masters Of Song Fu to change that. I don’t really know what genre my music would fall under. Influences range from Klezmer to folk, to punk and back, which ends up sounding more like Zydeco than anything else (who’d have guessed?). I’ve been thinking of dropping the “BucketHat” from my stagename, but fear change.

Official Website: www.buckethatbobby.randomsociety.com
Twitter: twitter.com/BucketHatBobby
ROUND 1 SONG:You Gotta Smile
ROUND 2 SONG:My Romantic Interest In You Is Dwarfed By The Amount Of Money I Will Undoubtedly Be Making Off Of This Song (“Love Why You Love Me”)” (WORDS USED: who, me, you, I, are, am, why, love, do, too)
ROUND 3 SONG:It All Makes Sense At The End

INSANE IAN

songfu-ianbonds.jpgInsane Ian is a comedian and writer from Baltimore, Maryland who specializes in all things nerdy, both in parody and original compositions. From Sci-fi TV shows and films, to video games, to comic books – no nerdy topic escapes his sardonic (and satiric) wit. Among his peers – such as Sudden Death, the great Luke Ski, Jonathan Coulton and, of course, “Weird Al” Yankovic – he is the only artist to have written this bio, and remains at the top of that list. Currently, his song “Guitar Hero” (from his upcoming album n3rds0ngs) was the 11th most requested song on the Dr. Demento radio show in 2008. Usually for a song, I.I. surrounds himself with talented people to make himself look better… and now is no exception, as friend and producer Benjamin Stahl helps on instrumental duties.

Official Website: www.insaneian.com
ROUND 1 SONG:Happy
ROUND 2 SONG:Consortium Of Comprehension” (WORDS USED: I, did, not, quite, fully, understand, the, challenge, this, week)
ROUND 3 SONG:It All Makes Sense At The End

JOE “COVENANT” LAMB

My name is Joe Lamb, I’ve been known online as JoeCovenant, or JoeCov, Or just Cov for the last decade or so. I’m 45 and have been performing for 40 of those years. Up until 2005 I was solely a professional actor/singer, but I am now also a Civil Servant and work for Her Majesty. I’ve been playing guitar since I was 10, but still think Bar Chords are things played in pubs. (I can’t do ’em!) I’m not too bad on the Bhodran and can pick out a tune on a keyboard when pushed”¦ really hard. I’ve always been frustrated that my ideas outdistance my abilities, so my output is always rather simplistic… But I like to think that, occasionally, synergy does its job well! This contest will be my first use of my new recording equipment… hope it doesn’t throw my limitations to the fore!

Official Website: www.mikeoldfield.net/shadowland.html
ROUND 1 SONG:What Makes You Feel Happy
ROUND 2 SONG:I Wish I Could Tell You I Love You” (WORDS USED: could, I, wish, love, can’t, know, but, you, do, tell)
ROUND 3 SONG:It All Makes Sense At The End

MICK BORDET

songfu-mickbordet.jpgMick Bordet steadfastly insists on bouncing between and across genres at every opportunity like a hummingbird with ADD, using an eclectic collection of instruments for his sonic palette, from guitar and ukulele to theremin, yobstick and electric harmonium. Mick is a founder member of “The Lunacy Board”, Scotland’s premier progressive avant-garde skiffle duo, and cites influences as diverse as Edgard Varèse, Ivor Cutler, Conlon Nancarrow, and Roy Harper, to name but four. The duo have recently released three debut albums, including one written, recorded, and mixed within a single day. Mick’s latest project is a year-long weekly podcast set in an alternative universe as it diverges from our reality.

Official Website: mickbordet.blogspot.com
ROUND 1 SONG:Happy People
ROUND 2 SONG:What Is Wrong” (WORDS USED: doctor, what, is, wrong, with, me, you, need, some, methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylseryl-
leucylphenylalanylalanylglutaminylleucyllysylglutamylarginyl- lysylglutamylglycylalanylphenylalanylvalylprolylphenylalanyl- valylthreonylleucylglycylaspartylprolylglycylisoleucylglutamyl- glutaminylserylleucyllysylisoleucylaspartylthreonylleucyl- isoleucylglutamylalanylglycylalanylaspartylalanylleucylglutamyl- leucylglycylisoleucylprolylphenylalanylserylaspartylprolyl- leucylalanylaspartylglycylprolylthreonylisoleucylglutaminyl- asparaginylalanylthreonylleucylarginylalanylphenylalanyl- alanylalanylglycylvalylthreonylprolylalanylglutaminylcysteinyl- phenylalanylglutamylmethionylleucylalanylleucylisoleucylarginyl- glutaminyllysylhistidylprolylthreonylisoleucylprolylisoleucyl- glycylleucylleucylmethionyltyrosylalanylasparaginylleucylvalyl- phenylalanylasparaginyllysylglycylisoleucylaspartylglutamyl- phenylalanyltyrosylalanylglutaminylcysteinylglutamyllysylvalyl- glycylvalylaspartylserylvalylleucylvalylalanylaspartylvalyl- prolylvalylglutaminylglutamylserylalanylprolylphenylalanyl- arginylglutaminylalanylalanylleucylarginylhistidylasparaginyl- valylalanylprolylisoleucylphenylalanylisoleucylcysteinylprolyl- prolylaspartylalanylaspartylaspartylaspartylleucylleucylarginyl- glutaminylisoleucylalanylseryltyrosylglycylarginylglycyltyrosyl- threonyltyrosylleucylleucylserylarginylalanylglycylvalylthreonyl- glycylalanylglutamylasparaginylarginylalanylalanylleucylprolyl- leucylasparaginylhistidylleucylvalylalanyllysylleucyllysyl- glutamyltyrosylasparaginylalanylalanylprolylprolylleucyl- glutaminylglycylphenylalanylglycylisoleucylserylalanylprolyl- aspartylglutaminylvalyllysylalanylalanylisoleucylaspartylalanyl- glycylalanylalanylglycylalanylisoleucylserylglycylserylalanyl- isoleucylvalyllysylisoleucylisoleucylglutamylglutaminylhistidyl- asparaginylisoleucylglutamylprolylglutamyllysylmethionylleucyl- alanylalanylleucyllysylvalylphenylalanylvalylglutaminylprolyl- methionyllysylalanylalanylthreonylarginylserine)
ROUND 3 SONG:It All Makes Sense At The End

THE MASKED STRANGER

The Masked Stranger (a.k.a Neal John Mac Rae), is a self proclaimed noise/folk artist from Nova Scotia, Canada. Although his work has gone completely unnoticed on an official level, he has still managed to garner several fans from Australia and amoungst his close friends. The Masked Stranger project started in 2004 when Neal John recorded “The River Song”, a simple panflute tune he furiously augmented and destroyed on his computer. Since then he has created roughly 30 other distinctly more destroyed and demented tracks under the moniker of The Masked Stranger. His music has been described as “a total disregard for musical theory”, “aaaaaaaah!”, “raw and grating”, “annoying”, “Twisting is a word I want to use to describe it… Very natural and earthly”, and “disturbing and yet… strangely enjoyable”. His most well liked and most consistant piece “Rue The Red” was described by Cape Breton goregrind artist Devin Meaney as “a posessed man jigging out on the strings of his creator. Like a puppet, devouring the flesh of god. And this is exactly what it reminds me of, no joke.”. This awkward and soil laiden musician’s journeys into the abrassive and the tribal only threaten to continue.

Official Website: www.myspace.com/themaskedstranger777
ROUND 1 SONG:My Personal Eccentric Happiness
ROUND 2 SONG:The Mushroom Folk Devour The Tresspasser” (WORDS USED: mushroom, folk, oh, the, devour, tresspasser, dance, prance, punishment)
ROUND 3 SONG:It All Makes Sense At The End

TIMOTHY RUSH

On stage I am Timmy Vendetta. I’m 18 and I live with my mom and her wife. I hope to become famous and live vicariously through a hamster.

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Official Website: www.myspace.com/tweed234
ROUND 1 SONG:The Happy Song
ROUND 2 SONG:Chanhgrila” (WORDS USED: life, love, time, is, pure, strong, dead, gone, strange, wrong)
ROUND 3 SONG:It All Makes Sense At The End

CRABBYDAD

Crabbydad is a writer/sound designer/musician who, four years ago, was forced to leave all of his bands and musical compatriots behind in Chicago when his Old Lady got herself a proffesorin’ gig at a giant university in a tiny mid-Michigan town that’s devoid of any sort of culture, musical or otherwise. So he started recording songs with his kids and posting them on his blog for his four or five readers to hear. When he’s not recording songs about spiders and/or poop, he creates comedy, sound effects, and music for a company called Jellyvision, Inc.

Official Website: crabbydad.blogspot.com
ROUND 1 SONG:Happy (H.A.P.P.Y.)
ROUND 2 SONG:Machine” (WORDS USED: machine, serious, circuit, trouble, blood, courage, three, two, one, danger)
ROUND 3 SONG:It All Makes Sense At The End

HANK GREEN

Hank Green never wrote a song until his eternal passion for Helen Hunt (both as an actress and a woman) started off a multi-year YouTube project in which he writes a song every other Wednesday. The songs are part of a larger project in which he and his brother discuss their lives, their world, and the community of which they are a part. Their videos have now been watched more than 20 million times. Hank’s first album, SO JOKES, was just released and is available at DFTBA.com.

Official Website: www.nerdfighters.com
Twitter: twitter.com/ecogeek
ROUND 1 SONG:The Deep Sea Anglerfish
ROUND 2 SONG:I Know” (WORDS USED: I, don’t, think, know, you, what, that, but, baby, maybe)
ROUND 3 SONG:It All Makes Sense At The End

MIKE LOMBARDO

Mike Lombardo is a piano-playing pop-rock singer-songwriter who likes to use hyphens when describing his occupation. He has been known to write songs about just about anything, including rocks and SAW 4. When not banging on a piano, Mike spends most of his time  playing way too many video games and fighting with his roomate. Currently finishing up his degree in Songwriting from Berklee College of Music, he will be touring the country this summer with his band, the Mike Lombardo Trio. Feel free to go to his website and send him lots of money. Or cookies.

Official Website: www.mikelombardomusic.com
Twitter: twitter.com/mikelombardo
ROUND 1 SONG:Caroline
ROUND 2 SONG:Sandwich Girl (Lunchtime Lovestory)” (WORDS USED: lunch, cafe, sandwich, line, girl, be, mine, make, me, and)
ROUND 3 SONG:It All Makes Sense At The End

JALEPENO HABANEROS

In the far off land of Chandler, Arizona, where the rivers flow with sand and cacti, our leader and master, the Lord of Our Lady Gwynyth, guitar and microphone in hand, called for the greatest musicians in the land to assemble a rock and roll group like none other. Unfortunately, they were cut off on the road, and the Jalapeño Habañeros made it there first. With The Rogue Bohemian on saxophone and The Boxcar Bassist on bass and keyboards, the Lord was pleased. Now, they roam the streets of Chandler, playing epic songs and rocking faces, much like Bon Jovi. Unfortunately they are paid in change, and often get thrown into the street, also like Bon Jovi. Their lives have intertwined, and the era of the Jalapeño Habañeros has begun. Be prepared.

Official Website: None
ROUND 1 SONG:The Pompadour Song
ROUND 2 SONG:Let’s Not Tip It Over” (WORDS USED: we’re, gonna, rock, the, boat, let’s, not, tip, it, over)
ROUND 3 SONG:It All Makes Sense At The End

HAZEN NESTER

Hazen Nester is a multi-platinum-selling*, award-winning**, and incredibly gifted”  songwriter.  His works have been described as “heavenly”, “complex”, and “thought-provoking” by his critics and fans.” ” Â  He has, to date, three full albums”¡, two EPs”¡”¡, and is currently working on a new collection of work§. He holds a B.S. degree§§, an MFAâ•‘, and a PhDâ•‘â•‘ and currently lives in Michigan, where he spends his days writing songs and working in the fulfilling and worthwhile sector of public-access television.  Apart from songwriting, his hobbies include cinema, golf, and the occasional role in various stage and audio productions. 🙂 [* – Lie, ** – Another lie, ”  – Bold-faced lie, ” ”  – His mom. They’re one and the same, really., “¡ – More lies, “¡”¡ – Yet another lie, § – Another lie. No, wait, actually that one’s true., §§ – In film. How appropriate., ? – Lie. What a surprise there., ?? – Do I really have to put this here?, 🙂 – That’s probably the most truthful statement in this entire document.]

Official Website: www.hazennester.com
ROUND 1 SONG:Wide-Eyed Happy
ROUND 2 SONG:A Cliche Love Song” (WORDS USED: I, love, you, don’t, leave, me, won’t, forgive, baby, but)
ROUND 3 SONG:It All Makes Sense At The End

AUDIOMOHEL

Forged in the furnace of irony, molded with the hammer of satire, flattened on the anvil of righteousness, and cooled in the water of awesomeness, AudioMohel was thrust upon the world. Named from the lost audio transcripts of ’09, AudioMohel serves as a public-service backlash against the anti-circumcision trend sweeping the so-called “enlightened parents” crowd, AudioMohel urges their more devoted and impressionable fans to undergo the snip two or even three times. AudioMohel enjoys experimenting with new breakthrough genres like speed blues and death classical even though most of AudioMohel’s tunes reside firmly in the ethereal realm of vapor-ware. Some of AudioMohel’s members admitted to being a bit intimidated by the professed experience and actual musical talent apparently possessed by the Song Fu Masters, but finally it was decided that if the need arose, sabotage would not be out of the question. To be used as a last resort, naturally, but not out of the question.

Official Website: www.AudioMohel.com
Twitter: twitter.com/AudioMohel
ROUND 1 SONG:Parole Day
ROUND 2 SONG:Greasy Bacon” (WORDS USED: bacon, crispy, greasy, need, get, some, Canadian, making, tasty, kevin)
ROUND 3 SONG:It All Makes Sense At The End

MOLLY LEWIS

When she’s not bluffing her way through college courses or looking passably attractive from a distance, Molly Lewis enjoys playing ukulele, microwaving marshmallow Peeps, talking to cats, and Twittering. Early last year, she wrote two original songs, “MyHope” and “Road Trip”. “MyHope” is about the inevitable day when our children will learn how to navigate the interweb and how they will LOL at our old internet presences, namely MySpace; of “Road Trip”, Molly says it’s about “that astronaut lady who went crazy and wore the diapers, you remember that?”  She has not written any songs since.  Hopefully this competition will remedy that. When Molly was in middle school, she took up the guitar. That sank into the swamp. So she took up the mandolin. That sank into the swamp. So she took up the banjo. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the ukulele has stayed. And that’s what you’re going to get, Quick Stop Entertainment: the strongest ukulele in all of Tacoma, Washington.

Official Website: www.sweetafton23.com/primer/
Twitter: twitter.com/Molly23
ROUND 1 SONG:I Pity The (Song) Fu
ROUND 2 SONG:Peep Fight” (WORDS USED: marshmallow, Peeps, toothpicks, microwave, sword, fight, stomach, put, in, the)
ROUND 3 SONG:It All Makes Sense At The End

JUTZE SCHULT

songfu-jutzeschult.jpgJohannes “Jutze” Schult (from Germany) likes to make songs about weird stories and situations. It’s all about creating a musical scenario that is somewhat original, yet believable by some stretch of imagination. Jutze used to play drums in a heavy metal band, and then founded his own pop band where he played guitar. These days he’s mainly doing solo work for the fun of it.

Official Website: www.jutze.com
Twitter: twitter.com/schult
ROUND 1 SONG:A Mallful Of Brains
ROUND 2 SONG:God Of Bingo” (WORDS USED: bingo, Jimmi, Simpson, is, awesome, rocks, the, god, of, he)
ROUND 3 SONG:It All Makes Sense At The End

BRYCE JENSEN

Bryce Jensen has been writing songs off and on for well over twenty years, but he has rarely shared any of them beyond his friends and family. His styles range from a capella to heavy metal with a lot of wimpy finger picking stuff in between. Bryce took part in the recent Holiday Special edition of the Song Fu and found the constraints and deadline to be quite a rush. He also learned that sharing his work with the world can be very rewarding. Back for this competition because he is hooked and needs another fix, Bryce is looking forward to whatever crazy challenges lie ahead.

Official Website: www.brycejensen.com
Twitter: twitter.com/psychobman
ROUND 1 SONG:As Happy As Me
ROUND 2 SONG:You And I” (WORDS USED: like, away, need, I, run, you, me, see, love, follow)

JEFF FARDINK

Jeff began playing guitar in 2003. He wrote his first comedy song in early 2004, and later that year, he wrote a song that was actually funny and in key, unlike his earlier works. He began playing shows after accidentally opening for a local band while passing through a bar. He continues to play because nobody has told him to stop.

Official Website: www.JeffFardink.com
ROUND 1 SONG:Let The Happiness In
ROUND 2 SONG:I Forgot The Words Blues” (WORDS USED: I, forgot, the, words, to, this, song, got, blues, yeah)

HALLELUJAH APE

“Hallelujah Ape” is the working name for the personal musical projects of Paul Abbott. When he’s not playing bass guitar and shouting in such bands as Three Minute Margin, he’s usually fiddling with a ukulele or trying to write Manfred Mann inspired songs for films that don’t exist. Main influences are The Bonzo’s, The Beatles and Fugazi. He owns many comedy things and likes to rub his face up against them when no-one is looking. He also co-writes the British Foghorn Company blog.

Official Website: www.myspace.com/hallelujahape
Twitter: twitter.com/Pablovich
ROUND 1 SONG:Do What You Want
ROUND 2 SONG:Why” (WORDS USED: the, grim, inevitability, of, last, spoon, in, a, sink, why)

RUSTY’S ROCKING JAMBOREE

“Rusty’s Rocking Jamboree” is a one-man, music and comedy show for family audiences, starring Russ Rogers. While in college, twenty-some years ago, Russ Rogers was in a band called, “Buc Blaster and His Ukulele Rangers.” There are several noteworthy alumni of “The Ukulele Rangers,” including Song Fu Master Michael J. Nelson. Later, Rogers and Andy LaCasse (also a Ukulele Ranger) partnered to form the almost near famous, children’s music and comedy duo, “Kit and Kaboodle.” After ten years and three albums (still available on iTunes and CDBaby.com), “Kit and Kaboodle” broke up over musical differences. LaCasse was musical … an d Rogers was just different. Now, “Rusty’s Rocking Jamboree” has been entertaining family audiences around Minnesota for the past five years.

Official Website: www.rockingjamboree.com
Twitter: twitter.com/RockingJamboree
ROUND 1 SONG:Happy Walking Song

HEATHER HENDERSON

Heather Henderson has been entertaining America since she was seven years old. She got her start as a mini dancing superstar and co-host on Dance Party USA. Her career then made the natural progression towards Sesame Street and most recently a principal role in the Disney film Annapolis. Striving constantly to develop as an artist, The Big H sings with the bad-ass 60’s retro soul group SOULAMITE!, performs with the Revival Burlesque troupe in philadelphia, makes short films, writes funny songs, and is always looking for the next good audition. She hopes to have her own totally crappy and misquoted Wikipedia entry one day.

Official Website: www.HHenderson.com
Twitter: twitter.com/HeatherHenderso
ROUND 1 SONG:Happy Song

JARRETT HEATHER

Although he has no formal training, Jarrett is an accomplished pianist who has been composing music for nearly twenty years. A relative newcomer to the world of online amateur competitive songwriting, he burst onto the scene earlier this year when he filled out an entry form just before the deadline. While earning his living as a graphic artist and website developer, Jarrett secretly dreams of leaving behind the glamor and prestige of internet publishing so he can focus on composing music for songwriting contests full-time. With no fanbase, loyal followers, obedient minions or friends, Jarrett will rely on his music-crafting skills alone to win over converts and earn votes.

Official Website: www.spaceparanoids.net
Twitter: twitter.com/SpaceParanoids
ROUND 1 SONG:One Little Happy Thought

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THE FINAL CHALLENGE

All the votes have been tallied, and the Challenger with the most cumulative votes over the course of the last 3 Challenges is MOLLY LEWIS!  She’ll be going head-to-head against Masters PAUL & STORM… So what exactly is the Final Challenge?

I call this one FRANKENSONG. For this fourth and final challenge, you must craft a composition that contains AT LEAST THREE (3) distinctly different songs within your final song, but which fit together into a cohesive whole. By distinct, I mean both tempo and style. Your song must run no shorter than 1 minute 45 seconds. For examples of Frankensong, think of tunes like The Beatles’ “A Day In The Life” and Paul McCartney’s “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey”, or have a listen to the track below:

Harry Chapin – “There Only Was One Choice”

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Your song must be submitted in mp3 form (128-192kbps) either via e-mail (to songfu @ asitecalledfred.com – remember to remove the spaces) or a file upload service (like RapidShare or YouSendIt). Deadline for submission is 11:59pm EST on Tuesday, April 21st, 2009.

Voting on the Final Round will commence on Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009.

All former Challengers are encouraged to shadow this round – join in the fun! Anyone who sends in a shadow entry will be featured.

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ROUND 1 VOTING RESULTS – THE CHALLENGERS

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ROUND 1 VOTING RESULTS – THE MASTERS

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ROUND 2 VOTING RESULTS – THE CHALLENGERS

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ROUND 2 VOTING RESULTS – THE MASTERS

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ROUND 3 VOTING RESULTS – THE CHALLENGERS

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If you triumph, not only will you win remarkable (and potentially off-putting) bragging rights and a clutch of fantastic mystery prizes, you will also become the proud owner of the magnificent, one-of-a-kind MASTER OF SONG FU TROPHY.

Good luck, and bring on the Fu.

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Toy Box: The Kindle 2

Filed under: Toy Box — Tags: , , , — admin @ 5:14 pm

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Normally, I review toys. Technically, most of what I review aren’t true ‘toys’ (if you can find a way to play with a Professor McGonagall mini-bust that doesn’t involve your own weird sexual aberrations, please let me know), but that’s generally how folks think of it nonetheless. So today I thought I’d go for something a bit different, and look at the newly released Kindle 2 e-book reader from Amazon. Hey, it’s more of a ‘toy’ than a Premium Format statue of Slave Leia…and yes, I know exactly how you’re ‘playing’ with her, you sick bastard.

If you’re jonesing for the more traditional collectibles review, don’t forget to check out my site at Michael’s Review of the Week – Captain Toy, or follow me on Twitter for regular review updates.

As a card carrying geek in good standing with the association, I’m a huge fan of technology. I’m an engineer by education, and I was working with computers when they still took up entire rooms. I tend to be what the marketing types like to call an early adopter, especially when it comes to technology related to entertainment.

E-books and e-book readers were touted as the next great thing that would change the face of the world more than a decade ago. And as you might have noticed, books haven’t disappeared. I was one of those people who thought that e-books didn’t stand a chance, not because the technology sucked, but because of thousands of years of inherited instinct. We’ve been reading books an awfully long time, and there’s a special bond between a reader and the tome he reads. Early proponents of e-books seemed to dismiss that human instinct and desire for the printed page, right up to their failure in the market.

So years went by, and I didn’t own an e-book reader. Various models popped up and disappeared, as well as various technologies to make reading e-books easier on computers and portable devices. And I avoided them all. Until the Kindle.

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My sweet, adorable, loving wife bought me a Kindle 2 for my recent birthday. However, it was not a total surprise, as I’d been requesting such a gift since last summer. Maybe it was the cool look. Maybe it was the ability to get new reading material instantly, any where, any time. Maybe those marketing types had finally just wore me down. In any event, I was ready to give it a personal shot.

I’ve had my Kindle 2 for a couple weeks now, and have already bought 5 books for it. I even bought one newspaper, largely to see how it handled such a beast. I’ve read it in various lighting situations, and in various places, and I couldn’t be happier with it.

Let’s start with the design and ergonomics. The overall reader is about 8″ tall and just over 5″ wide, making it book-sized. However, it’s only about a third of an inch thick, making it Christian Bale in the Machinist skinny. To add to the impression of thinness, they’ve beveled and rounded the sides, tapering them down at the very edge. The Kindle weighs in at about 10 ounces, which is more heft than you’d think. Don’t get me wrong – it’s not heavy, but having the 10 ounces in such a thin device does give you the impression that you’re holding something sturdy and substantial, not something cheap and easily broken.

The screen is 6 inches on the diagonal, and is certainly large enough. As a fast reader, I find myself flipping pages quickly, but said flipping happens with great speed, so there’s no delay or interruption in the flow of the book.

There aren’t a lot of buttons on the front of the Kindle 2. There’s two large buttons on the left and right edges, both designed to move to the Next Page. Why two instead of just one on the right? Well, first you’re forgetting the lefties out there, and second, having the main button on both edges means you can hold the book in only one hand and still flip pages, and that hand can shift back and forth as you change physical positions. Hey, I shift around when I’m reading, and I found the two buttons very useful. Above the Next Page button on the left is a smaller Previous Page button (which does the obvious), and above the Next Page button on the right is a Home button.

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The Home button takes you to your home page, where there’s a listing of all the books, papers, magazines and blogs that you have on the reader, and allows you to archive content or delete it. Jumping away from a book at any time to the Home page or another book does not lose your place, by the way.

Also on the right, near the bottom, are two more buttons and a control ‘stick’. The top button is your method for accessing the Menu, where you can shop the Kindle store wirelessly, along with a ton of features like annotating, bookmarking, copying text, etc. These features vary based on where you are, and I’ll cover these additional features more in a minute. The bottom button is a simple Back function, and it functions anywhere just like you’d expect.

The Kindle 2 does not have a touch screen. I’m good with that – I really don’t need to smudge up the screen constantly, especially when I’m trying to read with it. But some of the menu functions I mentioned require a cursor to be on the text, so that you can highlight passages or add notes. The control stick can be used to move said cursor, or to move any cursor (for example, the cursor in a Search box in the Kindle Store) to the left, right, up and down. Likewise it can move you through various menus, and by pushing it, you can select particular options.

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Across the bottom of the Kindle is a keypad with the usual alphabetic characters as well as a couple of the most used symbol characters. There’s actually a ‘sym’ button mixed in there for the less used symbols, a delete key, a space bar…the usual suspects. This keyboard is useful for searches, notes, annotations, etc.

There’s one little key mixed in with the keyboard that’s very important, particularly if you’re an old fart who refuses to use bifocals, like me. It’s labeled “Aa”, and pressing it brings up a screen that you can use to alter the size of the typeface. The default font is right in the center, and you can up the size (as I did), or shrink it down, for you punk ass kids with your eagle eyes and complicated shoes.

The use of these various buttons, menus and functions is extremely clear and straight forward. In the first two weeks, I haven’t referred to the user manual for any thing – the interface is that intuitive. The manual is available right on the Kindle of course, but most folks won’t need it to get started.

Getting started means buying your first book, newspaper, or magazine, and to do that you have a couple options. There are two key features that I think separate the Kindle from all previous e-books, and the first and foremost of those is the ability to get content any time, any where, over a 3G wireless network. This network access is free, at least in the sense of no monthly bills or additional charges once you’ve bought your Kindle. If you are wondering about the network coverage, Amazon has a coverage map right here. Can you read me now?

I can attest to the speedy nature of the downloads. I bought Dan Simmons’ new book, Drood, and it’s a long book…and I had it within 30 seconds. The beauty is that you can order the books from the Kindle itself, or on your computer and they get downloaded instantly. When you ‘register’ your Kindle, you tell it what your Amazon account name is. This links your Kindle directly to your Amazon account, using the CC you have on file for the purchases. It’s one click buying on your computer too, and is a fast, simple process.

Being able to get content this way is a key feature that sets this e-book reader apart. Now I can be sitting at a restaurant for lunch, and grab today’s copy of USA Today to keep myself occupied. An unexpected delay at the airport, doctor’s office, or any other situation can be turned into a chance to start a new book, without having to have the forethought to have bought it in advance. How great is that? No longer will us bookworms be forced into uncomforable conversations with the strangers around us.

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There’s plenty of content to choose from too, and much of it is absolutely free. Amazon has over 260,000 books available right now, and like I said, I had no trouble finding Dan Simmons’ new book…or Michael J. Fox’s new book…or his old one, for that matter. New books are usually $9.99, up to 50% cheaper than what you’d pay for the hardcover. Older books are even less expensive, often just two or three dollars, and I picked up Wind in the Willows to read to my kids for just eighty cents. Many classics are absolutely free! And don’t worry about accidently deleting a book off your Kindle. Amazon keeps a backed up record of all the books you’ve downloaded, so you can always download them again for free.

The Kindle 2 can store up to 1500 books. That translates to a lifetime of reading, or about 1 book every two weeks for 70 years. You could read e-books your entire life, and never delete the old content. Of course, you know that’s not going to happen, which is part of the issue with an e-book reader. When you buy an actual paper book, you have something you can keep your whole life (short of fire, flood or your dog chewing it up). But as time has passed, I’ve figured out that there aren’t many books I actually WANT to keep. Oh, I’m a packrat, so I end up with more than I really need, stored in boxes in an attic, garage or basement, and finally ending up in a garage sale. It’s taken me awhile to get to this point, but I’m fine with the concept of electronic media being my only copy of a new bestseller.

However, most folks aren’t going to want to ditch their electronic copies of their books every few years when the next great reader comes out. Amazon has that covered, by providing the back up service I mentioned above. Since they’ll always let you re-download a book you’ve purchased, I can see them using that as a method of getting you to upgrade to the next Kindle. Buy the latest and greatest reader from them, and all your old Kindle content can be downloaded to it again!

Another big drawback is that you can’t share your copy with your friends. There’s no way to simply hook up a USB stick and drop the book on for your friends to read, and you know what…I can live with that too. If you’re in the habit of loaning out your books, you might not agree. But as far as I’m concerned, buy your own damn copy. And get the hell off my lawn, while you’re at it.

One area where I think e-book readers like the Kindle have real potential is college text books. The Kindle 2 allows you to highlight and annotate passages, cut sections of text out, make notes, and do all that sort of stuff the average poor college student is forced to do. But instead of being forced to pay $40 for some crappy used copy of a text book that was owned previously by some anal moron that highlighted every other paragraph and doodled love poems to their latest drunken conquest in the margins, they could have their own copy for just ten bucks, nice and clean and ready for their own virtual yellow highlighter. And the authors and publishers of college text books would be happy too, since they’d be getting a piece of ALL text book sales, instead of losing a huge hunk of the income to the used book market.

This ability to annotate, book mark and notate is something that only an e-copy allows. Another feature that can only exist in the electronic world is searching. Kindle’s search function will allow you to find a phrase, character, or word across your entire library of downloaded books. Lets say you’re a fan of Stephen King, and have all his books on your Kindle. You are reading his Kindle only novella, UR, and you know he’s used the term ‘low men’ before in describing the same type of characters…but in what other books? The search function will find them all for you instantly.

Amazon also has a free feature to convert your own documents to the Kindle. Let’s say Bob in Accounting has just sent you a huge Word document you need to read this weekend, but you don’t want to lug your laptop to your kid’s baseball game. You email the doc to a specific Amazon email address, and they convert it to a Kindle usable file. For a small fee (ten cents) they’ll also transfer it directly to your Kindle over the wireless network, or if you’re really a cheap bastard like me, for free they’ll send it to your regular email address, and you can hook up your Kindle through it’s USB port and download it yourself.

Another new feature with the Kindle 2 is the ability to read a book to you. You can choose between a male or female voice, and alter the speed a bit as well. However, don’t go thinking this feature will put any book-on-tape actors out work any time soon. While it’s not as robotic as WOPR, but it does have some trouble with inflection with longer words, and lacks any sort of emotion. The speakers are clear and well placed however, and their inclusion means that you can download audio books from Audible.com, and listen to them through your Kindle, either with the speakers or with headphones.

I mentioned early in the review that there were two features that make this e-book reader stand out. One is clearly the wireless connection. What’s the other? Why, the single most important feature of any e-book reader – the display.

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Most readers feature a backlit display. Yep, you can read a book on your iPhone with an iApp, and you get iStrain. One of the main reasons is the backlighting. Staring at a bright screen with black text is hard on the eyes, especially when you’re reading for long periods. A computer monitor can be tough enough on your eyes, but when you’re browsing web pages and playing games, your eyes are bouncing around, getting updated images quickly. When you’re reading, you’re simply staring at text – do that for an hour, and you’ll quickly start to feel that tell tale headache behind your forehead.

The Kindle 2 is NOT backlit. Of course, that means you can’t read it in the dark without a light, just like a regular book (and yes, I’ve heard some people complain about this), but it also means that the page not only looks much more like an actual piece of paper with black type on it, but it treats your poor eyes the same way too. I read for 3 1/2 hours last Sunday at my daughter’s gymnastics meet, and didn’t have any trouble. Because there is no backlighting, and holding the ink on the screen requires no real power, the only real power use is when you’re flipping pages or using various functions. That means the battery lasts an extremely long time, and the Kindle doesn’t heat up no matter how long you’re using it. The screen itself allows no glare, so you can read in any sort of direct light including sunlight without any of the usual problems. While all the other features of an electronic book are fantastic – downloads, searching, bookmarking, etc. etc. etc. – they wouldn’t have any appeal if they hadn’t solved the simple issue of making the screen simulate an actual page. I think that Amazon’s ‘electronic ink’ technology has solved that basic issue, allowing all the other features to become the focus.

There’s lots of other features here, including an experimental web browser, a pre-loaded dictionary that can instantly tell you the meaning of words in the text, wireless access to Wikipedia, the ability to zoom in and out on images (yes, it can handle images, although they are rendered in 16 shades of gray), the ability to sync with your iPhone, and much, much more. But the key purpose here is to read books, and that’s what you’ll be doing for hours with this reader.

So am I happy with it? Yea, if that isn’t obvious. Rememer, I’m one of those bookworms who never believed I’d be able to give up the feel of a novel in my hands. And now it’s going to be the mighty rare book that I buy that isn’t on my Kindle 2.

Because Amazon has solved the riddle of eye strain with their new electronic ink technology, you can get past that issue and focus on the pros and cons of electronic media versus print. With print, you can share the book, have it on your shelf, and throw it at the cat. You can treat it as poorly as you’d like, and not feel too bad about it. You can’t do those things with an electronic copy (at the price of a Kindle, I wouldn’t recommend throwing your own at anything or anyone…but if it’s you’re boyfriends, and you just caught him cheating with that tramp at the coffee shop, then chucking his Kindle at him will be far more satisfying than any paper book) but you can do oh so much more. So are e-books and readers like the Kindle going to change the face of the print world? Yes, yes they are. Oh, they won’t do it overnight, but I suspect that it’s going to seem that way once we hit the tipping point.

You can get your Kindle 2 from Amazon for $359. Yep, I said it wasn’t cheap, but considering the price of hardcover books these days, it’s not going to take too many downloads before the reader pays for itself. And besides…there’s a price to be paid for being an early adopter 🙂

Trailer Park: Amber Borycki

By Christopher Stipp

The Archives, Right Here

So, I was able to sit down for a couple of years and pump out a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

And now, you can follow me on Twitter under the name: Stipp. Some weeks you get lucky with the kind of information that people are talking about. This week a debate about whether video games are art and the new trailer for MOON created some waves.

sop_field_300x250Quick announcement for those readers living in Phoenix (surprisingly, there are a lot of you out there) there is a screening of Kevin MacDonald’s (ONE DAY IN SEPTEMBER, THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND) solidly casted film, STATE OF PLAY. The movie boasts the talents of Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams, Helen Mirren and Robin Wright Penn so at the very least it’ll be pretty to look at.

The sneak screening is this Tuesday night, April 14th at Tempe Marketplace. Those interested know the drill. E-mail me at Christopher_Stipp@Yahoo.com and I’ll make it happen.

The film’s synopsis:

Handsome, unflappable U.S. Congressman Stephen Collins is the future of his political party: an honorable appointee who serves as the chairman of a committee overseeing defense spending. All eyes are upon the rising star to be his party’s contender for the upcoming presidential race. Until his research assistant/mistress is brutally murdered and buried secrets come tumbling out.

D.C. reporter Cal McAffrey has the dubious fortune of both an old friendship with Collins and a ruthless editor, Cameron, who has assigned him to investigate. As he and partner Della try to uncover the killer’s identity, McCaffrey steps into a cover-up that threatens to shake the nation’s power structures. And in a town of spin-doctors and wealthy politicos, he will discover one truth: when billions are at stake, no one’s integrity, love or life is ever safe.

sin_nombre-posterfinAs well, I’ve got a screening for SIN NOMBRE this week for Arizona dwellers.

The film, which is just a phenomenal debut from filmmaker Cary Fukunaga, is testament to the brilliance of those who are just looking for a change to tell the stories they believe in.

SIN NOMBRE is playing this Thursday, April 16 at 7 pm at the Harkins Camelview in Scottsdale, Arizona. E-mail me to get on the list…

Sin Nombre is an epic dramatic thriller written and directed by Student Academy Award winner Cary Joji Fukunaga in his feature debut. The filmmaker’s firsthand experiences with Central American immigrants seeking the promise of the U.S. form the basis of the Spanish-language movie.

Sin Nombre tells the story of Sayra (Paulina Gaitan), a teenager living in Honduras, and hungering for a brighter future. A reunion with her long-estranged father gives Sayra her only real option ““ emigrating with her father and her uncle into Mexico and then the United States, where her father now has a new family.

Meanwhile, Casper, a.k.a. Willy (Edgar Flores), is a teenager living in Tapachula, Mexico, and facing an uncertain future. A member of the Mara Salvatrucha gang brotherhood, he has just brought to the Mara a new recruit, 12-year-old Smiley (Kristyan Ferrer), who undergoes a rough initiation.

While Smiley quickly takes to gang life, Casper tries to protect his relationship with girlfriend Martha Marlene (Diana García), keeping their love a secret from the Mara. But when Martha encounters Tapachula’s Mara leader Lil’ Mago (Tenoch Huerta Mejía), she is brutally taken from Casper forever.

Sayra and her relatives manage to cross over into Mexico. There, they join other immigrants waiting at the Tapachula train yards. When a States-bound freight train arrives one night, they successfully rush to board ““ riding atop it, rather than in the cars ““ as does Lil’ Mago, who has commandeered Casper and Smiley along to rob immigrants.

When day breaks, Lil’ Mago makes his move and Casper in turn makes a fateful decision. Casper must now navigate the psychological gauntlet of his violent existence and the physical one of the unforgiving Mara, but Sayra bravely allies herself with him as the train journeys through the Mexican countryside towards the hope of new lives.

I also have 2 DVD giveaways: THE MINDSCAPE OF ALAN MOORE and A GALAXY FAR FAR AWAY – 10TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL EDITION

alanAlan Moore writer, artist and performer is the world’s most critically acclaimed and widely admired creator of comic books and graphic novels. In The Mindscape of Alan Moore we see a portrait of the artist as contemporary shaman, someone with the power to transform consciousness by means of manipulating language, symbols and images. The film leads the audience through Moore’s world with the writer himself as guide, beginning with his childhood background, following the evolution of his career as he transformed the comics medium, through to his immersion in a magical worldview where science, spirituality and society are part of the same universe.

What I can tell you about watching this documentary is that is Alan Moore very much encapsulates independent thinking and raises it to an art form. Regardless of this stances on the metaphysical or the ephemeral Alan is able to distill some very complex thought patterns into cohesive narratives that at once entertain and mind bend.

The documentary frames this writer as the master of his own donat, his own language. He is no ordinary writer, to be sure, and this documentary wonderfully dovetails with the WATCHMEN film in that here is a film that at once explains the why’s and how’s and then goes on to wrap your brain around the mysticism of Alan’s thought patterns. There are some more than excellent interviews with those he’s collaborated with and this documentary will more than satiate anyone wanting to know more about the man who has, in popular media, only been known as the guy who didn’t want his name attached to the film adaptations of his work.

I have a few to give away and if you’re interested please stick the words “Alan Moore” in the subject line of an e-mail and shoot it over to me at Christopher_Stipp@Yahoo.com

star-warsFeaturing interviews with hundreds of fans, movie executives, and high profile celebrities, A GALAXY FAR FAR AWAY delves into the franchise that has made household names of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, R2-D2 and C3PO. As a new wave of Star Wars mania was being induced in “˜99, Jalal brought his cameras to Star Wars conventions, to boisterous nationwide premieres, into the homes of devoted fans showing off their treasures and collectibles and captured those who spent 42 days on line, just to be first to see The Phantom Menace.

Interviews and archival footage featured includes Samuel L. Jackson, Joe Pesci, genre filmmaker Roger Corman, Meat Loaf, Dennis Franz, Andy Garcia, Jimmy Kimmel and Star Wars alumnus David Proust (Darth Vader), Kenny Baker (R2-D2), Anthony Daniels (C3-PO) and Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca). Offering a complete, often hilarious, exploration of George Lucas’ crowning achievement that brings together a group of fascinating, passionate, hysterical — and often touching ““ fans, A GALAXY FAR FAR AWAY is not just a film about overzealous fanboys.

Instead, it plumbs the depths of a common, shared love that knows no boundaries and seeks answers to a stunning phenomenon that continues to live on like Yoda.

I love documentaries like this. There is something about the examination of any subculture where I’ve had a passing interest. To wit, TREKKIES has set the bar for me in regards of simplicity and its lo-fi sheen. In the middle of this average documentary I not only came to understand why some will dress up and descend on conventions simply to indulge their passion as fans of this science fiction program. The interviews always draw me in, I cannot start this film without going all the way through and I suspect the same will happen for this documentary. It hits the notes it has to with its exploitation of the crazies who are genuinely into this but it also has some solid interviews with those who have inside the sphere, first-hand knowledge of the universe that George Lucas has crafted. Say what you will about the man but he has parted a lot of people with their money. This documentary absolutely shows where a lot of that cash has gone.

I’ve got a few copies available to give away so if you’re interested please put “Galaxy” in the subject line and shoot me a note at Christopher_Stipp@Yahoo.com.

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HARPER’S ISLAND: AMBER BORYCKI

harpersSometimes it’s just good to sit on something.

I waited to release this interview with Amber Borycki of CBS’ Harper’s Island, now showing every Thursday night (and watch the show’s premiere online if you’ve missed it), as I’ve done this before. I’ve talked to a show’s talent and released the thing weeks before the show has even aired. Most of the time it’s a safe bet but if you’ve never heard of a program or watched it there is an inherent problem at times in making it meaningful to someone who hasn’t seen it.

With Harper’s Island, though, I hedged a bet that it was going to well in order to have a little more than a passing interest in the following interview. But the bet wasn’t that risky in my own estimation. You had an excellent time slot that was poised to help this little show that could, you had a cast full of unknowns that only increases the tension for a murder mystery program in that you can’t cherry pick who is going to make it to the end but, most of all, and what impresses me, is that this show has a finite lifespan. I am just as a fan of Lost’s twisted and arching story lines but there is something fascinating in a program’s development that says to itself, “There will be someone dead at the beginning and there will be a resolution of it all by the end of 13 episodes.” If all goes well, there could be a different set-up for each batch of shows. Yes, it’s gimmicky in a way. However, where the rubber meets the proverbial road is whether the story and writing can sustain itself for these episodes; you could have any number of wacky premises but if each one was written well enough I could care less about how nutty the idea is.

As it stands, and why I feel vindicated if only for a week, the debut of Harper’s Island last Thursday ranked first in viewers for its time slot (10.5 million) behind only stalwarts CSI and Survivor. Take it as you will in this fickle viewing pool of television viewers but I’ll strike while the iron is hot and introduce you to Amber Borycki, an actress who had her film debut in a breakout performance in 1984’s RUNAWAY by Michael Crichton starring Tom Selleck , Kirstie Alley and Gene Simmons of Kiss only to disappear for almost 20 years.

Read on to find out why…

HARPER’S ISLAND is on Thursday nights at 10 ET/PT

amber-borycki-79401-89CHRISTOPHER STIPP: Tell me, what is it about this show ““ it’s one of those shows that has been shrouded in mystery with only a vague idea of what it’s about. What can you tell me?

AMBER BORYCKI: Let’s see. There’s a lot I can’t tell you about the show. We are sworn to secrecy to our death actually. Do you want the premise of the show?

CS: Briefly. Lay it out for me.

BORYCKI: It is a one hour drama. They are calling it a horror-inspired drama or a 13 episode mystery event. Basically it’s about a group of friends and family and they travel to an island to celebrate a wedding and for Abby Mills who is the lead character played by Elaine Cassidy this is the first time she’s gone back to Harper’s Island since her mother was murdered there 7 years ago.

I guess at the beginning spirits are really high and it’s all a big party but as the show progresses people are gripped by fear and are murdered one by one and everybody is a suspect. By the end of 13 episodes, the murdered will be revealed.

CS: And this is one of the interesting things I found out about the show is that they are planning on spinning this into ““ if this season goes well, next season will be a completely different cast with a completely focus.

BORYCKI: Yeah, they have to. There’s nobody left.

(Laughs)

CS: But, yeah, they are planning on making this more than just a one time thing.

BORYCKI: Yes, that is the one thing we are allowed to say is that they are promoting it as everybody is going to go, one by one people are going to be picked off and by the end you will sort of find out who it is. I mean, pretty much everybody.

CS: This seem right for a couple reasons. Why I like this is that they know there is a finite, definite end to the series. Can you shed some light about what they had in mind? You can see how this could have been stretched into 3, 4 or 5 seasons. Why did they want to shoot it all in one season and get it done with?

BORYCKI: I think it’s just because it’s a new idea. The reason they are doing just 13 episodes is because they are calling this a mystery event. They are promoting it as kind of a mini-series. So, that way you are guaranteed, I think by July 13th, you are going to know who it is. That way, people who are watching the show ““ they have this anticipation every time. They know they are going to find something out.

I think that’s the difference between a series like Lost. You don’t know when you’re going to find out the end. This way, you know the exact day you are going to get that reward for watching the series. It’s really like a horror movie stretched out over 13 episodes on TV. Like a really long horror movie ““ which is pretty cool.

amberCS: Are they shooting this cinema-style or doing it kind of vérité like a documentary?

BORYCKI: It’s actually done cinema-style. Like any other one hour drama. There is no hand held camera. It’s great, shiny and colorful. That’s one cool thing about the show is that it starts off in the beginning in the summer and it’s the wedding, it’s the parties, the heels, bright colors and sun but as the show progresses, the whole tone starts to change when people start getting killed and obviously if your friend or family member gets murdered you are not going to be putting on your heels and dresses anymore. Dressing in darker colors and jeans and the whole tone starts to change. A very cool visual effect ““ the palate changes as well.

CS: Is that what brought you into this? Was it the premise that sold you, did someone have you in mind or is this one of those things you basically go in for and audition and see if you get it?

BORYCKI: I auditioned, yeah. I auditioned for a show here in Vancouver, Canada where the show is filmed and I actually only auditioned a week before the show went to camera. They were still doing casting and it all happened super fast. I went in and Jon Turtletaub, our executive producer, Dan and Karim were there in the room and, right away, I knew walking in that I wanted to be a part of the show because of the energy in the room. They were warm, inviting and such great guys and were excited and it was a cool experience auditioning because they were so welcoming. I left saying I really wanted to work with these guys because they were so great. So, I’m really happy to be a part of it.

CS: Speaking about Jon, I read some interviews with him. He’s an interesting guy to get on-board with something like this. Serial television isn’t something he gets a whole lot of involved in.

BORYCKI: True. National Treasure fame and all.

CS: Exactly. Can you share what brought him to do this thing? He said he was going to do National Treasure III.

BORYCKI: That maybe a question you would have to ask him. I don’t really know exactly how he got involved in the first place. I just know that it was a collaboration of people that really wanted to try something new. Something that has never been done this way before. Yeah, it was kind of different. We were all really excited to work with him. Him coming into a TV series. He directed the pilot as well, which was great because we all got to hang out. To have him there with his film background and history really just worked for the show because it feels like a movie on TV. Like a 13 part movie. But in terms of how he got involved initially, I’m not sure.

CS: Let me ask you a little bit about yourself. From 1984 until about 2003 you were basically absent from major productions but were doing a lot of theater. What brought you back in?

BORYCKI: You must have looked at my resume!

(Laughs)

CS: Yes, I did….

BORYCKI: The Runaway is on there and it makes me laugh because I did movie when I was a year old. It starred Tom Selleck and he actually rescued me from killer robots. It’s hilarious. Now we have all these cool I-Robot type movies and in this movie it looks like shoe boxes with guns sticking out.

(Laughs)

It’s all kind of funny. I’m in my crib and he comes in and rescues me. Magnum-style. I guess it was my parents. My dad is a writer and producer but I never did any child acting. I guess in high school started doing theater and musicals and came to acting that way and didn’t start doing TV and films until I was about 19. They left it up to me to find my own interest and it just sort of came back into my life and I realized that it was what I loved to do more than anything. That explain the “senior” hiatus?

(Laughs)

I took a little break. The Runaway took it all out of me!

CS: Did the writers know ““ obviously one of the things about Lost ““ some of the guys didn’t really know where it was going to go when they got started, we just had the idea.

BORYCKI: We asked them and yes, they knew. That was really funny because we would try to get it out of them all the time. There were people claiming that they were going to have mental breakdowns. I remember going out for dinner and one of our cast members was like, “Look, if you don’t tell me this… I can’t handle it anymore. I don’t know if I’m going to die. I don’t know if I’m the killer. I need to know this. I’m going nuts.” But it was like a game all the time. They did a really good job because nobody knew anything until the end. Top secret.

CS: Well, what about for you? What’s on the horizon? What are you looking forward to?

BORYCKI: I’m super excited right now because the show comes out in about a month and we have our billboards up, which is really cool. I’m in Vancouver right now but I’m heading down to LA tomorrow, actually, and the picture of our billboard has been circulating around and we’re sending it like on Facebook and emails. I love the websites where people are starting to talk about it. So, at this point I’m just super excited about the show and I’m going to head down to LA and be there for the pilot episode and we’re all going to get together and watch it. That’s the focus right now. I’m still auditioning for other things and thinking about what’s coming next but at this point, the focus is pretty much on that. There is some pretty cool press stuff coming up. They are doing a lot of extra stuff that goes along with the show. There’s the Harper’s Globe which is a website that CBS is doing which is kind of like a story of a girl, a local to Harper’s Island who writes for the paper and keeps a blog on what’s happening. Sort of an off-shoot of Harper’s Island. Things like that. Pretty cool stuff to watch out for.

CS: That’s the frustrating thing about doing an interview like this because you can’t say a whole lot.

BORYCKI: I know. I’m trying to be really careful. We had to sign our lives away to not say anything and it’s so hard. Even my best friends and family are asking me questions. My accountant the other day was asking. But I couldn’t say anything. I can only say what I can say. I don’t want to slip up.

April 12, 2009

SModcast 82

Filed under: SModcast — Tags: , , , , , , — UncaScroogeMcD @ 6:41 pm

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Your TextSModcast is the meandering palaver of a pair of dudes whose voices are so dull, they don’t deserve to be on the radio (and, hence, aren’t). Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier are SModcast.The best thing about SModcast? It don’t cost nothing.

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SModcast 82: Sacrilicious! –

In which our heroes go back in time to fight McCarthyism. (Please note – there was some confusion on the title/description on this episode – All is now correct)

[CONTENT WARNING] SModcast features harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Listener discretion is advised.

DOWNLOAD: (right click to save)
SModcast 82 (MP3 format) – 71.90 MB

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Wanna add your two cents? Spend it here, in the SModcast mailbag.

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CLICK HERE FOR THE SMODCAST ARCHIVES

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April 9, 2009

Masters Of Song Fu #3: Listening Party!

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On Monday, April 13th, we’ll be announcing the FINAL CHALLENGE for this edition of Masters Of Song Fu, during which one Challenger will square off against Masters Paul & Storm.

However, let’s have a bit of a party – a celebration, if you will – before that happens.

This evening – Friday, April 10th – we’ll be holding a special live, streaming listening party. Not only will we be playing every song submitted during the trio of Challenges that have comprised this edition of Song Fu, but we’ll also be giving away some pretty sweet prizes.

The event begins at 8pm EST, and you can access it by clicking HERE

Come on out, support all of the wonderful artists, and perhaps walk away with a prize. What more can you ask for?

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Weekend Shopping Guide 4/10/09: Of Geeks And Speeder Bikes

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The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the Quick Stop Weekend Shopping Guide – your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…

(Also, please support Quick Stop by using the links below to make any impulse purchases – it helps to keep us going…)

The year 1971 brought the still-developing sister of Charlie Brown – Sally – and made her a fully-realized character, which is why her face adorns the cover of The Complete Peanuts: 1971-1972 (Fantagraphics, $28.99). This volume also brings a young brother to Linus & Lucy Van Pelt (Rerun), Marcie, and even Snoopy as Joe Cool.. This series continues to be a wonderful exercise in still fresh comedy and childhood nostalgia.

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When just about every device you can think of requires some kind of battery – particularly those quickly devoured AAs – having a top-notch rechargeable battery system is an economic must. To that end, I present the La Crosse Battery Charger with LCD Display ($39.99), an all-in-one kit that not only charges your batteries, but can refresh rechargeable batteries that you may have thought were doomed to the bin. If that weren’t enough, the kit includes 4-AA, 4-AAA, and 4 “C” and 4″D” size adapters that allow you to use rechargeable AA batteries in devices using those sizes. How cool (and useful) is that?

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Graham Linehan – with Arthur Matthews – is one half of the creative team behind the legendary britcom Father Ted. With The IT Crowd (MPI, Not Rated, DVD-$24.98 SRP), he’s done for tech support nerds what Ted did for Catholic priests… In other words, he’s made a surreal, sublime, goofily funny show that only gets better as it goes along. The series focuses on the world of corporate IT drones Roy (Chris O’Dowd) & Moss (Richard Ayoade), whose male clubhouse deep in the basement is upset by new boss Jen (Katherine Parkinson)… And, well, just do yourself a favor and pick up the first season set, featuring all 6 episodes, plus deleted scenes, outtakes, a behind-the-scenes featurette, and a short film.

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We were given a tease of them a few years back in the big ol’ Superman box set that came out, but now the fully restored official release of Max Fleischer’s Superman cartoons (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$26.98 SRP) is here, containing all 17 theatrical shorts produced by the Fleischer Studios from 1941-1942. They look positively STUNNING, and were worth the wait compared to the inferior public domain releases over the years. The 2-disc set also features a pair of featurettes on the cartoons and the Superman myth.

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My absolute favorite iteration of the Justice League continues to get the nice, prestige treatment it deserves (even if the characters aren’t getting it in current DC continuity) with the snazzy hardcover release of Justice League International: Volume 4, which collects issues #23-#30 of the Giffen/Dematteis/Maguire/Templeton run. If you haven’t been picking these up, you’re missing a lot. A LOT! And you’re not my friend. Rectify that.

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Warner Bros. has an immense catalogue of titles. Thousands and thousands of them. And even with their aggressive DVD release schedule, there’s no way they can get to all of them – and, economically, some of the titles have such a small appeal that it’s just not viable to do a wide release on them. Those who thought their chances of picking up some of those obscure titles were nil can rejoice in the introduction of Warner’s new Archive Collection – www.warnerarchive.com. Essentially, it’s DVDs on demand, allowing you to purchase either a physical DVD-R copy (for a flat $19.95) or an instantly downloadable digital copy (for $14.95) of an ever-increasingly library of titles from the Warner vaults. Where else are you going to be able to get everything from Norma Shearer and Robert Montgomery in Private Lives to Paul Simon’s One Trick Pony?

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Warners and TCM turn their spotlight to another actor for a themed box set, this time delivering the Doris Day Collection (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$49.98 SRP). The set contains 5 features starring Day – It’s A Great Feeling, Tea For Two, Starlift, April In Paris, and The Tunnel Of Love, plus vintage shorts, cartoons, and the theatrical trailers.

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You’ve seen all of the wonderful production art behind their feature films, well now you can pick up a handsome volume looking at The Art of Pixar Short Films (Chronicle Books, $40.00 SRP). It’s put together similarly to all of the other wonderful Pixar Art Of books that have come out in the last few years, and the artwork featured is just as impressive (and the volume belongs on your shelf just as much).

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There’s something about seeing classic musicals in full high-def that brings the energy, music, and production design to the fore. For a good example, check out the new editions of An American In Paris and Gigi (Warner Bros., Not Rated/Rated G, Blu-Ray-$28.99 SRP each) and their stunning picture and sound. Bonus features are the same as those found on the special edition DVDs, including an audio commentary, featurettes, shorts, a cartoon, trailers, and – in the case of Gigi – the original 1949 version.

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I thought Click was amiable fun, so I found myself enjoying the latest in Adam Sandler’s family-friendly fare, Bedtime Stories (Walt Disney, Rated PG, Blu-Ray-$39.99 SRP), wherein Sandler plays an uncle whose grand stories for his niece and nephew start coming true in real life… But he’s not in control. My nephew loved it – of course, considering it rains gumballs at one point, that’s almost a given. Bonus features include a behind-the-scenes featurette, deleted scenes, and bloopers. As with most of the recent Disney releases, the Blu-Ray edition also comes with a standard DVD of the flick.

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It’s one of the most unique animated series ever made for TV – a collaboration between French writers and Japanese animators – and there’s some fun nostalgia in tripping through the complete run of The Mysterious Cities Of Gold (Fabulous, Not Rated, DVD-$79.95 SRP). The 6-disc set features all 39 episodes fully restored, deleted scenes, featurettes, documentaries, interviews, singalongs, biographies, and more.

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I’m reminded of the old days of videocassette (and my old videodiscs) when I see Disney deciding to get back into the habit of releasing themed collections of their animated shorts under the Walt Disney Animation Collection banner. The first trio are Mickey And The Beanstalk, Three Little Pigs, and The Prince & The Pauper (Walt Disney, Not Rated, DVD-$19.99 SRP each), and my nephews love the lot.

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Explore the life and death of the 16th president with a pair of fascinating documentaries – Looking For Lincoln and The Assassination Of Abraham Lincoln (PBS, Not Rated, DVD-$24.99 SRP each). The former looks at many of the controversies surrounding Lincoln’s views, while the latter examines the ramifications of Lincoln’s death.

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It’s no Pixar flick, but The Tale Of Despereaux (Universal, Rated G, DVD-$29.98 SRP) is still a charming, often lovely fairy tale about a mouse with oversize ears living in the kingdom of Dor who dreams of becoming a knight, who is banished for his goals and winds up – you guessed it – having quite an adventure. The sole bonus feature worth mentioning is a making-of featurette. A Blu-Ray edition ($39.98 SRP) is also available with identical bonus materials.

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You know those type of “prestige” pictures that have the word “PRESTIGE” attached to a club that they bludgeon the audience with, in order that we fully understand that we’re watching a “PRESTIGE” film? Doubt (Miramax, Rated PG-13, Blu-Ray-$34.99 SRP) is one of those – based on an award-winning play, an uber-serious subject matter (the titular doubt thrown up by a prim nun when the parish priest takes an interest in a troubled boy), and weighty stars (Meryl Streep, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Viola Davis). Bonus features include an audio commentary and a quartet of behind-the-scenes featurettes.

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And one Oscar nominee brings an Oscar winner out on Blu-Ray, with the release of the Coen Brothers’ No Country For Old Men (Miramax, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$34.98 SRP). Bonus features are identical to the standard release, with featurettes, interviews, and more.

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Blake & Krystle get married as – would you believe it? – Alexis schemes in the first half of Dynasty: The Fourth Season (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$36.98 SRP). The 3-disc set features the first 14 episodes of season 4.

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Elmo gets a new color scheme that Kermit would find familiar in the environment-centric Being Green (Genius, Not Rated, DVD-$14.95 SRP), where the hyper Muppet learns a thing or two from Abby and Mr. Earth (Paul Rudd).

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As much as I disagree with the loss of Christopher Robin, my nephews do like the CG My Friends Tigger & Pooh and the latest release, Tigger & Pooh And A Musical Too (Walt Disney, Not Rated, DVD-$26.99 SRP). As you can guess, it finds the denizens of the Hundred Acre Wood putting on a bit of a show.

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On the surface you could say that Jim Carrey covered much of the same ground in Liar Liar as he does in Yes Man (Warner Bros., Rated PG-13, DVD-$34.99 SRP) – about a man who decides to change his life by saying “yes” to everything and everyone that crosses his path – but while Liar was pure farce, this is actually a nice comedic look at how many things we say “no” to, sometimes with good reason. Bonus features include featurettes and music videos. A Blu-Ray edition ($35.99 SRP) adds an interview with British comedian (and author of the original book) Danny Wallace, and two additional featurettes.

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Rejoice, parents and recreational drug users! A new release of everyone’s favorite bizarre kiddie show comes to DVD with Yo Gabba Gabba!: New Friends! (Nickelodeon, Not Rated, DVD-$16.99 SRP), featuring a quartet of episodes but sadly no bonus features.

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After only seven years, it’s finally senior year on Beverly Hills 90210 (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$59.98 SRP), and there’s diplomas to be gained, virginity to be lost, mental illness, and even pregnancy. The 7-disc set features all 31 episodes, but nary a bonus feature.

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Wrap up the first season of Ben 10: Alien Force (Cartoon Network, Not Rated, DVD-$14.98 SRP) with the third single-disc volume, featuring episodes 10-13, plus a villains database.

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There are collectibles that you look at and are nonplussed. There are those you view with “ooohs” and “ahhhhs”. Lastly, there are those that, on laying eyes upon them, you are gobsmacked by sheer, unadulterated, geeky awe. Such was my reaction after taking in Sideshow Collectibles’ incredible Speeder Bike and Scout Trooper Premium Format Figure ($799). First of all, you’re struck by the scale – at almost 3 feet long, the Speeder Bike itself is MASSIVE. Almost intimidatingly so. Once you take in the size, the next “wow” factor is the level of detail and fidelity to the big screen source material (specifically the model work of ILM). In fact, you could have told me this piece came out of the ILM archives, and I wouldn’t have batted an eye. Hell, the 1/4-scale Biker Scout is pretty much icing on the cake – the figure is accurate, the pose is dynamic, and the display is incredible. I can’t stop gushing about this thing. I know the price may seem steep in this economy, but you absolutely are getting your full value for the money, and with an edition size of only 1,500 pieces, once this is gone, the aftermarket is going to be insane. Here – let the pictures below sell you on just what a big WOW this is (and for scale, I’ve placed the 3.75″ R2-D2 and C-3PO figures on the Speeder Bike’s dash in the final pics)…

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So there you have it… my humble suggestions for what to watch, listen to, play with, or waste money on this coming weekend. See ya next week…

-Ken Plume

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Ken P. D. Snyde-Cast #90: Where’s Your Nail?

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Adult Swim’s Dana Snyder and FRED’s Ken Plume set out to have a literate conversation between two pals, but inevitably devolve into a verbal, and funny, free-for-all full of bickering, infighting, and the special kind of male bonding that comes from conflict expressed through the podcast medium.

Actor/comedian/raconteur Dana Snyder, you’re certainly aware, is Aqua Teen Hunger Force’s Master Shake, Squidbillies‘ Granny, Minoriteam’s Dr. Wang, and The Venture Bros.‘ Alchemist. Available for weddings and bar mitzvahs (bat availability pending), you can keep tabs on him via his website, www.eyeofthesnyder.com.

Ken Plume is the editor-in-chief here at FRED. He is a friend of Dana’s, as well as his arch-nemesis.

VISIT THE SNYDECAST EXPERIENCE

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KEN P.D. SNYDECAST #90: Where’s Your Nail? – Ken returns sans a Down Under recovering Dana with another very special guest co-hosting appearance from Doc Hammer, of VENTURE BROS. fame, as the banter runs fast and witty, even if its sense of balance is compromised by an inner-ear disease (syndrome?).

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[CONTENT WARNING]: This podcast may contain some foul language and horribly off-color jokes. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

DOWNLOAD: (right click to save)
Episode #90 (MP3 format)

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Got something to say? E-mail Dana & Ken at the Snydecast mailbag.

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TV or Not TV: The Morning After for LOST 4/8

Filed under: TV Or Not TV — Tags: , — admin @ 7:16 pm

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Welcome to another edition of TV or Not TV where my head is once again left spinning from the night before.

Last night, just like every Wednesday night, I continued my romance with the television show LOST. I am still amazed at just how powerful this season is. I know I shouldn’t be surprised since this is in essence the act that immediately preceeds the final chapter in this story, however last season had some slow points so I keep expecting to hit one this season. It hasn’t happened yet. I’m not sure it is going to.

I will warn you now that I will be freely discussing what occured in last night’s episode of LOST, so if you haven’t yet watched the show than I would strongly encourage you to return once you have.

This episode, titled Dead is Dead, was another episode where we saw more into the past of Benjamin Linus. There was a whole lot else that went on in this episode, but it is these flashbacks that have given me the most food for thought because of what they revealed.

Back in The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham I was left wondering how much of the tale told to John Locke by former Islander Charles Widmore was true. Widmore claimed that he had a camera where John had appeared because it is the exit point, the same place that he himself had appeared years ago when Ben had tricked him into leaving the Island. At that time I had my doubts, mostly because in the episode The Shape of Things to Come there was no camera present when Ben appeared on this same spot. When I first saw the camera it was my suspicion that Widmore had some how back tracked Ben‘s steps to find the spot where Ben had appeared (which shouldn’t be too hard since Ben left two dead bodies there) and set up the camera so he could watch for another person to show up that might help him get back to the Island. After it was revealed last night that Widmore did, in fact, NOT leave the Island via trickery or deception as he had previously indicated I think my original speculation may be closer to the truth than what Locke was told by Widmore.

Last night it was also revealed to us exactly how Ben became so banged up prior to boarding Ajira flight 316. Many have speculated that this happened in pursuit of completing his promise to Widmore that he would kill Widmore‘s daughter in retaliation for the death of his own daughter Alex, which turned out to be right on the money. In this revelation a few more important facts, for me anyway, were revealed…. ones that got my mind working. While on the phone to gloat about his impending actions Ben tips his hand to Widmore that he would be returning to the Island that day. Widmore points out that the Island will not let him return if it doesn’t want him to, just as he has tried for nearly 20 years. Not a very thrilling conversation, and not something that really seems to reveal a lot, not when you look at the facts alone. If you couple these comments, however, with later actions in the episode I think we can get a bigger picture.

In The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham we see that Widmore has been keeping tabs on the Oceanic 6. I would think it is also a safe assumption that he may have been trying to keep tabs on Ben. We also know from the episode Jughead that he knows the whereabouts of Eloise Hawking. This may mean that Hawking could be sharing information with Widmore, or that simply by following all of these people and their activities Widmore could know that they booked travel on Ajira flight 316. Where am I going with this? Let me tell you.

I think there may be a possibility that the bounty hunter, Ilana, and maybe other people on the plane could have been on the Widmore payroll. Near the end of last night’s episode we see pilot Frank Lapidus return to the site of the Ajira 316 crash. There he finds Ilana and another crash survivor continuing the securing of the large metal canister that, earlier, she indicated was something they just “needed to move.” I’m sure a man of Widmore‘s wealth and resources could arrange for weaponry to be packed in the cargo hold of a plane, and what better way to try to find the Island without detection than to send in an undercover group in the hopes they survive getting there? The fact that Ilana seemed to have some type of pass-phrase that she asked to Lapidus (“What lies in the shadow of the statue?”) would really seemed to imply that she’s under orders/control of someone and was looking to verify that Lapidus was as well, making me think that maybe this is a code the Widmore people were given to use to identify each other once they got to where they were going.

This guess is nothing but a speculative guess. It could be that our good old friend the Smoke Monster took a trip over to the second island and worked the same mojo he did on the French Scientists that we saw back in This Place is Death and they are now all “infected” or doing the Island’s bidding. It could be that Ilana is also just taking charge of a group of people now that someone seemingly with them (Ben) killed someone else with them (Caesar) before fleeing to the main Island. That pass-phrase however makes me think the latter is not that likely.

Setting aside all of my crazy theories, it was very interesting to see in last night’s episode how the tables have really been turned on Ben. It was made very clear to him, by episodes end, that he is no longer the architect of the Island’s bidding and he darned well better get in line and follow John Locke. It was also interesting to see how the Smoke Monster made Ben reflect on the life of his daughter, and seemingly let him live because he truly had regret for his actions.  This regret, and admission of his own guilt, seems to be the redeeming quality. Back in season 3’s episode The Cost of Living we saw how Mr. Eko was not as fortunate when facing judgment by the Smoke Monster because when told to confess his sins he instead stated he had not choosen the life he was given, he was not sorry for the things he had done, and that he believed he did his best with what was given to him.  No regret, no guilt, no redemption.

One last observation: Did anyone else feel like Ben‘s statement that, “It let me live” almost seemed to be filled with regret?

There you have it folks, the meandering thoughts that come to me after watching last night’s episode of LOST. Now that I’ve gotten them out of my head I am going to explore the Internet to see what other people thought as well.

Tune in next week and we’ll do it all again.

Will Wilkins can’t wait for the 100th episode of LOST.

April 8, 2009

Cabin Fever #63: Deadpoole

Filed under: Cabin Fever — Tags: , , , , , — UncaScroogeMcD @ 10:11 pm

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cabin.jpgOh no! Just when you thought it was safe to hang out at the Quick Stop…

Cabin Fever (hosted by the twisted souls Brian Fitzpatrick and Aaron Poole) is the result of having too much time on your hands and access to your local community radio station.

Over the course of an hour, they manage to trawl the depths of good taste, plus throw some music in. How much more could you want from a podcast?… Quality? Oh… we didn’t think of that.

Enjoy! And we hope our cross Atlantic friends can understand the Irish accent 😉

Hugs and Kisses,
Aaron P. + Rev. Fitzy

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CABIN FEVER #63: Deadpoole – This week everyone’s favourite cabin dwellers eat lots of yummy Japanese treats, discuss the Wolverine workprint, and announce the next two films in the movie club. Music is provided by Fable And The World Flat.

[CONTENT WARNING]: Explicit contents! We say every naughty word you can think of. You have been warned!

DOWNLOAD: (right click to save)
Episode #63 (MP3 format)

[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/cabinfever/cabin_fever_63.mp3]

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Got something to say? E-mail Aaron & Brian at the Cabin Fever mailbag.

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Contest Round-Up: 2009-04-08

Filed under: Articles — Tags: , , , , , — UncaScroogeMcD @ 12:44 pm

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Welcome to our weekly round-up of featured giveaways here at Quick Stop. Every Wednesday, we’ll present a new clutch of DVDs, books, and other cool stuff you can take a shot at winning. All you have to do is click on the graphics below to be taken to their respective contest pages. And good luck!

In conjunction with Miramax Home Video, we’re giving away three (3) copies of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN on DVD.

Win NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN on DVD!

Filed under: Contests — Tags: , , , , , — UncaScroogeMcD @ 12:43 pm

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In conjunction with Miramax Home Video, we’re giving away three (3) copies of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN on DVD.

Contest ends at 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, April 29th.

On April 7th, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment & Miramax Films will release NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN: Collector’s Edition on Blu-ray and DVD! The 2007 Oscar® winner for Best Picture from acclaimed filmmakers Joel & Ethan Coen arrives with more than FIVE HOURS of bonus material.

CLOSED! THANKS FOR ENTERING!

Official Rules

No member of Quick Stop Entertainment or their immediate families may enter.

No Purchase necessary to win.

Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.

One entry per day, per person.

All submitted entries must be received by 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, April 29th.

The winner must allow 4-6 weeks after notification of win to receive the product.

April 7, 2009

Bagged & Boarded 20: Where the Wildly Rambling Things Are

Filed under: Bagged & Boarded — Tags: , , , , — UncaScroogeMcD @ 3:38 pm

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What happens when two young men let their love of movies, comic books, and all things “geek” take over their lives? They run away from their families, bringing only the most essential DVDs and comics to their secret, highly fortified underground bunker in sunny Southern California, where they start recording podcasts that will change the world.

Are they heroes?

No.

Are they geniuses?

Far from it.

Are they the future of this planet?

I sure hope not.

Simply put… Matt Cohen and Jesse Rivers are “Bagged and Boarded”.

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BAGGED & BOARDED #20: Where the Wildly Rambling Things Are  – In which Matt and Jesse get all topical again, as they wax on about all things “Geektacular”. Movies, comics, video games, cartoons, food-porn, and yes… one of those things is not like the other. Pull up a seat and learn you some…

[CONTENT WARNING]: This podcast may contain some foul language and horribly off-color jokes. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

DOWNLOAD: (right click to save)
Episode #20 (MP3 format)

[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/baggedboarded/bagged_boarded-20.mp3]

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Got something to say? E-mail Matt & Jesse at the B & B mailbag.

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April 6, 2009

TV Or Not TV: 4/6 – 4/12

Filed under: TV Or Not TV — Tags: — admin @ 9:03 pm

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Welcome to another edition of TV or Not TV where I’m finally all moved in.

I know that you don’t care about my moving woes, and I really don’t blame you.  Clearly they’ve had an impact on me and my ability to get things done and I’ve had to set this column aside not once but twice (not something that I like to do). It’s also distracted me from my ability to watch TV, which also makes writing this column a little tough.

That being said I hope that you can accept the fact that I actually have very little to talk about at the head of this column, accept for a few ramblings that sprang to mind between my last column and this one while I’ve been shuffling boxes from there to here.

I’m still blown away by LOST and I have no idea what direction that they are taking with this show, but I’m still thrilled to sit here and enjoy the ride.

I never actually watched Life on Mars but I understand that a lot of people were dissapointed in the way that the show closed the season (and series).  Sorry you guys got stung.

I’ve been watching Heroes and I have to say that the past few episodes have almost made me forget all of the bad that the show has been lately and I’ve actually been looking forward to viewing again (even though I admit that Hayden‘s hair in the last episode was a major distraction).

Battlestar Galactica‘s ending actually had a bit more heart that I was expecting it to have, and ended on far warmer a note that I ever would have imagined the show capable of. Our illustrous Ken Plume hit the nail on the end when he recently tweeted that an influence of Douglas Adams was present.

I’m both happy and sad to learn that the next season of Monk is going to be it’s last. The show has been a long-running staple in my house and even though there is more to come I’m already starting to miss the Defective Detective.

I still amazed at how good Smallville has been this season as it’s a show I’d all but written off after last year. If the quality were to keep up like this I’d be more than happy to see it return, and get paired with another season of Reaper. Both of these things are nothing but wishful thinking on my part.

I have to wonder if ABC really intends to air the final three unaired episodes of Pushing Daisies this summer since they will be on the second season DVD set, which is set to release July 21.

With these minor ramblings out of the way I present to you my take on the schedule this next week.

MONDAY

NBC – 8:oo PM: Tonight Chuck is special guest-tastic with Chevy Chase and Scott Bakula. This show is starting it’s season wrap-up so if you’ve been a fan in the past and you’ve not been watching recently then now would be a good time to get back in to it.

NGTV – 8:00 PM: The holiday of Easter is upon us and the National Geographic Channel is goin’ In Search of Jesus’ Tomb. Didn’t anyone learn from Geraldo Rivera and Al Capone’s Vaults?

ABC – 9:30 PM: Bob Saget is returning to the realm of the sitcom with Surviving Suburbia. This is no Full House but I hear really good things.

TUESDAY

ABC – 8:00 PM: It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown is another one of those specials that I just don’t remember but I’m sure I watched as a kid.

FOX – 9:00 PM: The odd cases and creepy bald guy are back with tonight’s return of Fringe.

FX – 10:00 PM: I’m trying to avoid the fire jokes with the return of the smokin’ hot FX original series Rescue Me, but I can’t help it.

WEDNESDAY

DISCOVERY – 9:00 PM: If you were already a fan of Mythbusters than I have three words that are going to make you squeel with glee: Demolition Derby Special.

ABC – 9:00 PM: So Ben broke the rules and now has to atone for his past discretions. How does one do that? Looks like you may have to go to the temple where the Smoke Monster lives and present yourself for judgement. I love LOST.

ABC – 10:00 PM: I don’t know what to think about The Unusuals just based on the previews that we’ve been given. Either this is going to be an incredibly quirky and entertaining ensemble cast set in the oddest police precinct in New York or it’s going to be a monumental mess.

THURSDAY

NBC – 8:00 PM & 9:00 PM: I was thrown for a loop on The Office when Michael quit. I was mystified when he decided to start his own paper company (was Dunder-Mifflin just a reseller?). I’m glued to watching tonight.

NBC – 8:30 PM: Can the people that brought us The Office make lightning in a bottle twice with Parks and Recreation? Amy Poehler sure hopes so.

COMEDY CENTRAL – 10:00 PM: If you were hoping for much from Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire you’re probably in for a let down. This is Comedy Central, not Adult Swim.

CBS – 10:00 PM: The murder-a-week mystery show Harper’s Island premieres tonight. Each week a wedding guest is offed, bringing us closer to the killer. Eh, it’s only 13 weeks, I’ll watch.

FRIDAY

FOX – 8:00 PM: Will tonight’s season finale of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles be the series finale? I don’t think they’ll be back.

NBC – 9:00 PM: Must be something in the air tonight, it’s also the season finale of Friday Night Lights.

FOX – 9:00 PM: Someone’s been spying on the Dollhouse so Echo and Sierra are imprinted to be spy-hunters. I love how this show has gone from giving us the creepy clients and gone internal with the story lines.

HIST – 10:00 PM: If you were wondering how to not do a Ponzi scheme than you may want to watch Ripped Off: Madoff and the Scamming of America.

SATURDAY

ABC – 7:00 PM: Will this year be the year that I finally watch The Ten Commandments?

FOOD – 8:00 PM: Get ready for the sugar induced little ones with the tempting Easter Unwrapped. Maybe it isn’t good to know how our favorite treats are made.

HBO – 10:00 PM: Thrilla in Manilla is a doc that looks back at the final Ali-Frazier fight, featuring Joe Frazier himself. This is from a time when boxing was more than something just on Saturday nights HBO, it was a national obsession and this competition was ugly.

SUNDAY

HISTORY – 8:00 PM: Scientests try to figure out if life started here or abroad as well as try to determine alien influence on mankind in Ancient Aliens.

TLC – 8:00 PM: A woman’s legs and feet grow to 210 pounds on The Woman with Giant Legs. Sometimes the title really does say it all.

SHO – 10:00 PM: Tracy Ullman is back on the tele again with Tracy Ulman’s State of the Union. She’ll be using a cast of self-played characters to make us laugh and take a look at the American condition.

A Bit Of A Chat with Ken Plume & Graham Linehan – IT Crowd Special

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I’m Ken Plume, and soon you’ll be listening to “A Bit Of A Chat” with me, Ken Plume.

In this episode, I’m having a another chat with writer/producer Graham Linehan. You can find our first chat HERE.

Anyone who has not seen the delightfully funny Father Ted deserves to have their comedy viewing privileges revoked, followed by a swift kick in the ass and a public shaming.

Ted was the co-creation of writer Graham Linehan, with Arthur Matthews ““ a writing partnership that had contributed to Alas Smith & Jones, The Day Today, The New Alexei Sayle Show and had previously had a go at the sitcom field with the short-lived Paris.

After Father Ted ended its three season run, Linehan went on to create the sketch comedy series Big Train – which starred a virtual who’s who of rising comedy stars ““ and co-write the first series of Black Books with Dylan Moran.

And, at a time when everyone was declaring traditional filmed-in-front-of-a-live-audience sitcoms dead with the arrival of single-camera shows like The Office, Linehan proved them wrong with the success of The IT Crowd, which takes place in the nerdy bowels of corporate giant Reynholm Industries and revolves around IT staff Roy, Moss, & Jen. Series 1 through 3 are available on DVD in the UK, the show is currently airing in the US on IFC, and the first series has just come out on DVD in the US. With that big release in mind, Graham and I decided to do another more  IT Crowd-centric chat…

So here’s my follow-up chat with Graham Linehan”¦ Hope you enjoy”¦

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Download “A Bit of a Chat with Ken Plume & Graham Linehan – IT CROWD Special“:

[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/bitofachat/bit_of_a_chat-graham_linehan-02.mp3]

SUBSCRIBE
Subscribe to this Podcast via iTunes

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Drop Ken a line HERE.

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You can also find more of my interviews by clicking HERE.

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April 3, 2009

Trailer Park: X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE – Reviewed

Filed under: Trailer Park — Tags: , , , , , — admin @ 4:36 pm

By Christopher Stipp

The Archives, Right Here

I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

And now, you can follow me on Twitter under the name: Stipp. Some weeks you get lucky with the kind of information that people are talking about. This week, though, was all about ShoWest and the plethora of crumbs that fell from Hollywood’s summer movie season table.

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE – Now Available in the iTunes store!

watch-x-men-origins-wolverine-movie-poster-1So, stop me if you’ve heard this: on April Fool’s Day eve the word went out that a leaked version of Fox’s X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE had made its way to the Internet. Those who have been around these parts for a while have come to expect a bit of juvenelia from those in the online community be it in the form of fake stories, fake rumors, fake DVD releases (I still remember the one that mentioned the existence of a PEARL HARBOR preview on copies of THE ROCK) and basically stupid shit that still surprises me that webmasters everywhere think is amusing to perpetuate. However, that said, and like Sally Forth’s daughter wondering whether her mom would bite the ears off of her chocolate Easter bunny in the Sunday funnies, it always amused me to see what would come up next however lame or uninspired.

This rumor, though, had a different tenor. Spread across Twitter, there was some urgency in the message that WOLVERINE had popped up on the Internet. First the screen shots appeared, the quality was incredible I have to admit, and then like a pack of people wondering if something was real or not “Has anyone heard whether this is legit?”, “This is a bad day for Fox”, “Someone is going to prison” the chatter was enough to make you wonder. Then, not succumbing to the peer pressure just yet, Ethan from Screen Geeks Radio took the plunge for all of us and gave a play by play of what he was seeing.

It was real and it was DVD quality.

For once the Internet got it right. It was a bad day for Fox and then the commentaries started from all the usual suspects across the film spectrum. Was it right to publicize this? Is this news? Is it a news story that, if someone ran, would just inspire people to download it more? How awful were the people who downloaded the film and did these people represent any considerable dent to the possible box office if it proliferated?

It was the latter question that got me thinking about who ARE the kind of people that download these kinds of things and whether they did represent any threat to the overhaul haul this film would eventually bring in? The easiest answer is no. It’s not. No matter how many people download it, the bell curve of the people who are, right now, rabidly consuming the bits and bytes off torrent sites everywhere to see this unfinished film represent a subset of users who not only don’t mind watching an unfinished film but users who roll up to these sites looking for cam copies of I LOVE YOU, MAN or blurry versions of KNOWING.

The difference between me and a lot of other movie site contributors is that I don’t have any animosity towards these people. Derision, hatred, abject disgust are just a few things those who are leaders of the bully pulpit of commentators are using to describe those downloading the film. Why? I can understand where they’re coming from, I understand their position but I don’t think I can empathize with their negativity. Now, keep in mind this is obviously my opinion, but when you are in a position of having it all, and many of those lucky enough to be writing about film for more than just yourself are enjoying this moment in their life when their comments and opinions matter, it’s easy to cast aspersions on those who would hazard to download this movie. I could list a few popular podcasts out there right now who are sometimes aided in their reviews of films that never quite made it to their part of the woods but using “special antennae” were able to get copies of LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, GOMORRAH, THE HURT LOCKER and countless others simply through a few mouse clicks. It doesn’t make the downloading better or right when someone is doing it for professional purposes but I can certainly understand where the temptation comes in to play.

It’s the tastemakers who have access, who can pick up a phone and verify a rumor, can shoot off an e-mail and get things done, can go to places like the Comic-Con and get treated like the royalty they are not by the publicists looking for some favorable buzz, a favor or two when and if they need it. (Anyone want to take a stab at how many sites were “asked” to take down images from X movie or risk any modicum of power being dimmed like a dying bulb) There are no true outlaws on the Internet; only those willing to play quid pro quo.

The issue here really has to come with why we seem to be a culture that is warp speeding towards free. Some people, not all, have an expectation of access to everything, at all times, without having to pay for it. Just ask how your local newspaper is doing with regard on how they’re doing on creating a fiscal model where the print paid product can be replaced with their online, free version. It’s not working well, I can you that. And it’s just this microcosm of anomie among media companies that illustrates why WOLVERINE being on the Internet not only represents the pain it’s causing the money men at Fox but it is also indicative of the issues surrounding of what happens when you have a current climate of those who can consume their media at no cost to themselves. This movie, if I were to go back to when I was 13 and screwing around with my man Brandon Murphy and we were dream casting the X-MEN if and when it would ever get made, would represent a temptation even greater than porn. Now think of what it represents to those who use the ‘net to get their music, their television shows (show of hands: who has used BitTorrent to download a show that has long since gone away or who wanted to use it to see an old episode of The Office?) and other uses that some would consider “awful”, “shameful” or any other word ending in “ful.”

So, seriously, save your sanctimonious bullshit, your disdain for those who are downloading this film at a rather healthy clip and your upturned nose at those who you were many years ago when you had no one to listen to your empty praise of how awesome SCOTT PILGRIM is going to be or how awful 12 ROUNDS is because, I get it. I understand where the viewers are coming from and it’s the reason why your business model will never allow you to charge one fucking cent for your own content. The money won’t come rolling in, it’ll slowly trickle like a torrent file.

Oh, yeah, almost forgot, the review. I have to admit it is hilarious to see Ryan Reynolds, in the middle of a great action sequence, polished , well choreographed and slick looking, doing a forward flip assisted by wires attached to his harness.

If you want to know the rest you know where to find it.

THE MIGHTY BOOSH

mighty-boosh-coverWith that out of the way I wanted to give a shout out to a most strange but entrancing series that hit television this week: The Mighty Boosh.

Now, the title may throw some people off but this show, honestly, is one of those unique visions of both creativity and complete insanity. I was falling ill with the flu earlier this week and I found it was just what my mind needed. I’ll allow the press release to put the program in context but do yourself a favor and schedule it in your TiVo and give it a chance. I’ve attached some sample clips to whet the proverbial appetite and to show you why it’s so hard to explain what this program is about without sounding like I’m on something.

Eels:

Trailer:

THE MIGHTY BOOSH ARRIVES TO ITUNES

Starting today, Season Three of the UK hit comedy series from award-winning creator-stars Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt, The Mighty Boosh, is now available on the iTunes Store in the U.S. (www.itunes.com), with the first episode offered at a discounted price of 99 cents.

The Mighty Boosh joined the Adult Swim Sunday line-up this week, with episodes airing weekly at 1 a.m. (ET/PT). New episodes will be available on the iTunes Store each week following broadcast at www.itunes.com/tv/themightyboosh.

The third season sees Vince Noir (Noel Fielding, IT Crowd) and Howard Moon (Julian Barratt, Nathan Barley) working in Naboo’s second hand shop in Dalston. Needless to say they don’t get much work done. This doesn’t bother Naboo too much, firstly as the shop is really only a cover for his shady interplanetary Shaman business and secondly, he’s usually quite chilled out from sampling his own magical herbs and remedies.

With a massive cult following in the UK, Barratt and Fielding launched their first nationwide tour The Mighty Boosh Live across the U.K in 2006. Their second tour Boosh Live sold out venues at 90 stops across the U.K. and Ireland and wrapped up earlier this year.

April 2, 2009

Weekend Shopping Guide 4/3/09: Out Of England

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The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the Quick Stop Weekend Shopping Guide – your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…

A fair share of the comedy is familiar to anyone who’s seen his three UK stand-up DVDs – Animals, Politics, & Fame – but Ricky Gervais: Out Of England (HBO, Not Rated, DVD-$19.98 SRP) is a very nice, very funny entry point for a US audience largely unfamiliar with extracurricular stand-up activities. Bottom line? Get it. The sole bonus feature is an interview with Ricky. Sadly, no editors are duct-taped.

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I’m a sucker for anything with the word “magic” in the product description, and I have to admit that the Magic Spinning Globe ($99.99) certainly lives up to the title. Through a combination of fluids, plastic, magnets, light, and the Earth’s magnetic field, this globe will actually rotate as the Earth does. It’ll even do it while you’re holding it. How freakin’ cool is that? I mean, seriously, that’s some scientific “magic” I can get behind.

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Since they started coming out on Blu-Ray last year, I’ve been patiently awaiting the high definition arrival of my favorite Bond flick, and it’s finally come with the James Bond Blu-Ray Collection: Volume Three (MGM, Rated PG, Blu-Ray-$89.98 SRP). Not only do you get Goldfinger, but also Moonraker and The World Is Not Enough. As with the previous releases, the bonus materials are essentially the same as the standard special editions, with a few new bells & whistles. A must get.

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Watching Slumdog Millionaire (Fox, Rated R, DVD-$29.98 SRP), it’s clear why it’s lodged itself firmly in so many viewer’s hearts – it’s a grand, ultimately feel good celebration of the power of film to get the audience excited. The tale isn’t all sunshine and roses, but the rise of “slumdog” Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) on India’s version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and the potential that he may actually secure his true love as well is… Well, see it if you haven’t already. Bonus features include an audio commentary, featurettes, deleted scenes, a short film, and a music video. A Blu-Ray edition ($39.99 SRP) is also available, with identical bonus materials.

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The second season of The Fugitive (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP) wraps up with the second volume of 15 episodes, fully restored, as – you guessed it – Dr. Richard Kimble is STILL on the run from the law and searching for the one-armed man.

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Although the laughs sometimes get a bit sparse, I always enjoy a comedian like Jim Gaffigan – who exists in a world all his own, and takes the audience down to his own speed. You can see what I mean in the document of his 2008 tour, Jim Gaffigan: King Baby (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$16.99 SRP). The disc features an extended cut of the Comedy Central special, plus 3 episodes of the online serial Pale Force (co-starring Conan O’Brien), 4 episodes of Our Massive Planet, and interviews.

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Ever since descending into a bizarre pit of arch-conservatism, it’s been difficult to remember that Dennis Miller was once quite a funny comedian. If you’re having trouble remembering, too, pick up a copy of Dennis Miller: The HBO Specials (SRO Entertainment, Not Rated, DVD-$29.99 SRP). The 3-disc set features 1988’s Mr. Miller Goes To Washington, 1990’s Black And White, 1994’s Live From Washington DC: They Shoot HBO Specials, Don’t They, 1996’s Citizen Arcane, 1999’s The Millennium Special: 1,000 Years, 100 Laughs, 10 Really Good Ones, 2003’s The Raw Feed, and 2006’s All In.

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Say what you will about the quality of the films themselves, eye candy like The Fast & The Furious Trilogy (Universal, Rated PG-13, Blu-Ray-$99.98 SRP) was made for people to show off their Blu-Ray players – and now you can do just that. The box set sports all 3 flicks, all of the bonus features available in the standard DVD releases, plus all-new featurettes exclusive to Blu-Ray. You’d never guess the 4th film was right around the corner, would ya?

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As rom coms though, Marley & Me (Fox, Rated PG, Blu-Ray-$39.99 SRP) is pretty inoffensive, often staying relatively enjoyable. I think most of that comes from leads Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson as a young couple who try to allay their fears of eventually being good parents by adopting a dog. That’s the spoiler-free short of it. The Blu-Ray edition contains a bonus standard DVD of the film, along with an audio commentary, featurettes, deleted scenes, and a gag reel.

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I don’t know if it’s all of the Scientology gobbledygook swishing around in his brain, but Will Smith has been off his game for a few movies now. A once-surefire sign of at least a good watch, Smith is now starring in middling, pretentious, often baffling fare like Seven Pounds (Sony, Rated PG-13, DVD-$28.96 SRP), about a lost man who finds he’s able to change the lives of seven people… Or something. I got bored. Bonus features include an audio commentary, deleted scenes, and featurettes. A Blu-Ray edition ($39.95 SRP) is also available, featuring identical bonus materials.

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It’s pithy and disposable, and now Hope & Faith: The Complete Season 1 (Lionsgate, Not Rated, DVD-$29.98 SRP) – starring Faith Ford and Kelly Ripa – is on DVD. The 4-disc set features all 25 episodes, plus audio commentaries, interviews, and a blooper reel.

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Disney has released a pair of new discs for kids, the first of which is School House Rock: Earth (Disney, Not Rated, DVD-$19.99 SRP) – containing 11 new songs from the original creators about the environment. Next is Handy Manny: Manny’s Green Team (Disney, Not Rated, DVD-$19.99 SRP), another environmentally themed outing. Last up – for the bigger kids – is Hannah Montana: Keeping It Real (Disney Not Rated, DVD-$19.99 SRP), which contains six episodes and a featurette.

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So there you have it… my humble suggestions for what to watch, listen to, play with, or waste money on this coming weekend. See ya next week…

-Ken Plume

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Ken P. D. Snyde-Cast #89: The Doc Is In

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Adult Swim’s Dana Snyder and FRED’s Ken Plume set out to have a literate conversation between two pals, but inevitably devolve into a verbal, and funny, free-for-all full of bickering, infighting, and the special kind of male bonding that comes from conflict expressed through the podcast medium.

Actor/comedian/raconteur Dana Snyder, you’re certainly aware, is Aqua Teen Hunger Force’s Master Shake, Squidbillies‘ Granny, Minoriteam’s Dr. Wang, and The Venture Bros.‘ Alchemist. Available for weddings and bar mitzvahs (bat availability pending), you can keep tabs on him via his website, www.eyeofthesnyder.com.

Ken Plume is the editor-in-chief here at FRED. He is a friend of Dana’s, as well as his arch-nemesis.

VISIT THE SNYDECAST EXPERIENCE

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KEN P.D. SNYDECAST #89: The Doc Is In – Ken returns sans Down Under Dana with very special guest co-host Doc Hammer, of VENTURE BROS. fame, as the conversation turns to things suitably mundane. Like alarms and weather.

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[CONTENT WARNING]: This podcast may contain some foul language and horribly off-color jokes. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

DOWNLOAD: (right click to save)
Episode #89 (MP3 format)

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SUBSCRIBE
Subscribe to this Podcast via iTunes

Got something to say? E-mail Dana & Ken at the Snydecast mailbag.

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CLICK HERE FOR THE SNYDECAST ARCHIVES

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