Best of the Week vol. XXXVII

Quote of the Week: The only thing I hate more than hippies, neo-liberals fascists, and anarchists are the hypocrite fat-cat suits they eventually all grow up to be. (Casey, Chuck)

Song of the Week: Hero of the Day – Metallica (Trauma)

Big News of the Week: Cory Haim Died: I was a little too young (and way to male) to catch the two Corey’s phenomenon as he was washed up by the time I was getting into pop culture and managed to miss all of his films except for Lucas (which begs the question, whatever happened to Kerri Green). But in the end, Corey will just go down as another troubled child actor and a reminder why you should never do drugs.

Gratuitous Token Hot Chick Picture of the Week:



Free Download of the Week: Whiskey in the Jar – Irish Tenors (Borders): Here is a little something to get you ready for St. Patrick’s Day coming next week.

Deal of the Week: Save on Hundreds of Classic DVDs (The Time Machine, Casablanca [Blu-Ray], The Music Man)

Video of the Week: I hate you Canada. First you steal the gold medal from us thanks to some silly overtime rules and now you released a decent charity single for Wavin' Flag just weeks after our new embarrassingly bad version of We Are the World. What’s next Canada, are you going to start fleecing NFL players for the Canadian Football League?



Next Week Pick of the Week: The Pacific, Sunday (3/14) at 9:00 on HBO: Considering their track record with Band of Brothers, The Pacific should be epically good. But much like Band of Brothers, my lack of HBO will be keeping from actually watching it myself for a couple months. Those that do and what a warm up for the show, head over to the New York Times review which calls it “never less than spellbinding.”

Around the Tubes vol. XLII

I have gotten a plethora of cool press releases have been flooding my inbox recently that you may find interesting. This post will include blurbs on Nat Geo Wild, Trauma, Hitman, Caprica, Jimmy Fallon, and NBC’s Summer Schedule.

- It has to be good sign for humanity that they are changing the Fox Reality Channel to Nat Geo Wild Starting Monday March 9. Some of the series to look out for are Expedition Wild featuring Naturalist Casey Anderson who will be teaching a 900-pound grizzly bear to live in the wild after being raised in captivity. Mystery Gorilla will follow Mireya Mayor (a former Miami Dolphins cheerleader) observing the creature in northern Congo. Then there is Rebel Monkeys about a troop of more than 60 monkeys as the cause trouble in Jaipur, India.

- Trauma returned earlier this week and Executive Producer Dario Scardapane answered some fan question of which part one you can find below. Head over to NBC.com for part two.



- The latest FX series Justified premieres next Tuesday and on March 23, FX will air the world broadcast premiere of star Timothy Olyphant movie Hitman.

- If you missed any episodes of Caprica, or just want to watch them again, SyFy is having a mini-marathon of the show today starting at 2:00 beginning with the pilot going all the way up until 9:00 with a brand new episode.

- Chris Parnell dropped by Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last week and Andy Sandburg just happened to show up. So of course a Lazy Sunday was in order. And for any Old School hip-hop fan, test your knowledge to see if what beats you can name that The Roots play as the background track.



- NBC recently released their summer schedule and here it is for those that like to plan they television watching months in advance:

America's Got Talent will return with a two-hour premiere on Tuesday, June 1 (8-10 p.m. ET) with the Wednesday edition debuting June 2 (9-10 p.m. ET).

Last Comic Standing will return with a two-hour premiere on Monday, June 7 (8-10 p.m. ET) before moving to its regular time period the following week, Mondays (9-10 p.m. ET).

100 Questions Thursday, May 27, 8:30

Persons Unknown Monday, June 7, 10:00

Law & Order: Criminal Intent (which premieres on USA Network in March) will encore on NBC beginning Sunday, June 20 10:00

Friday Night Lights Friday, April 30 8:00

NBC will also broadcast special programming this summer including the two-hour original movie The Jensen Project on Friday, July 16 (8-10 p.m. ET) as well as The Making of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter on Sunday, June 6 (7-7:30 p.m. ET) and The Macy's 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular (Sunday, July 4, 9-10 p.m. ET).

Previewing Sizing up Sperm

Please note, as the title may suggest, this is for mature audiences and will be discussing some scientist terminology that deals with the reproductive organs in the human body so if you laughed like Beavis and Butt-Head during the episode where they were forbidden to laugh for a week as Coach Buzzcut ran down all the subjects they would be covering in Sex Ed, or not old enough for Health class, you may want to skip this post.



Every once in a while I get a DVD by the title alone keeps me from considering watching it. Sizing up Sperm is one such title. But then you are having a lazy Sunday where you just want to lounge on the couch and even something called Sizing up Sperm sound more entertaining than anything that would have to do with the three feet of snow outside. And despite the title that would make any eighth grade Health student chuckle, the program is actually quite entertaining.

The concept of Sizing up Sperm, airing this Sunday, March 14at 9:00 on the National Geographic Channel, is taking sperm and making them human size (as above), and represented by actors as they are put in scale situations from the testicles on their journey to find an egg to fertilize put in entertaining terms (like when they enter the vagina, it is called D-Day for sperm) with help from a sperm physiologist (seriously, there is such a thing). With all the sperm goes through it is amazing how anyone gets pregnant at all.

The program is really good for any parent who is unsure on how to initiate the Birds and the Bees talk and has plenty of helpful hints for those trying to get their little swimmers to get the job done. Here is a preview:

I Want My Music Television vol. LXXVI

There have been a couple of videos that have caught my eye lately so I thought I’d give them some love since the death of Musical Television left a void for a forum on the art form. If you are interested in buying the video through iTunes, click the title link (where available). If you are interested in buying the song, look for a link in the analysis.


Do Wah Doo – Kate Nash



Just days after Barney Stinson mentioned that stewardess was the hottest profession of the 50’s, here comes a video from Kate Nash where she starts as a 50’s stewardess. Flight Suit Up.


In the Sun – She and Him



From the first single it sounds like Volume 2 from She and Him is going to sound much like Volume 1: kind of bland. But at least the music video is fun with Zooey Deschanel looking her Winnie Cooperest.


Wavin’ Flag – K’Naan



For all the soccer fans out there (or football to all you foreigners) prepare yourself to be hearing this song from K’Naan a lot this summer at is the official song of the upcoming World Cup.


I Wish it Would Rain - Mayer Hawthorne



Pretty cool concept for a video for the latest from Mayer Hawthorne, too bad The Swell Season came up with pretty much the same idea last year.

The Dawn to End All Nights: That’s All We Hoped it Was

Brian Burton was the most entertaining person of the 00’s whose name no one would recognize. A few more people would now his stage name Danger Mouse. Yet everyone is familiar with his most famous work as one half of Gnarls Barkley who created the greatest experimental pop song since When Doves Cry.

It was an odd decade for Brian Burton. He started off by perfecting the mash-up with The Grey Album which took acappella from Jay-Z’s The Black Album and backed them with instrumentations taken from The Beatles The White Album. That actually led to producing jobs for acts ranging from Gorillaz to Beck to The Black Keys. But his most successful collaboration came with Cee-Lo Green.

Even though everything he has done has been ear candy, you still had to scratch your head when Burton’s latest collaboration was with James Mercer of The Shins (who are best known for not changing your life as Natalie Portman promised). Even though Mercer and Green have little in common other than working with Burton, Broken Bells is similar to Gnarls Barkley that just trades Green’s Deep South soul with Mercer’s acoustic guitar.

Both groups’ first singles were these big huge pop sounding songs with an undercurrent of moody and somber tones. While the rest of the respective album tried to reach the cultural high point to little avail. But unlike Gnarls Barkley where Danger Mouse provided the music for Cee Lo to sing his songs over, Broken Bells is a more collaborative effort with the duo putting their two cents each on the music and lyrics which reigns in Burton who went a little too out there with his beats with Gnarls Barkley. Here on Broken Bells, his eclectiveness only comes in small bursts like the opening moments like the opening bars of The High Road.

Though The High Road is the high point of the debut, there are some other gems to be found Vaporize starts out what could be a Shins song with just guitar before a half a minute in before Burton adds some fuzzy keyboards onto the track. While Your Head Is on Fire is a weird trippy Beach Boys type song heard through Danger Mouse’s usual psychedelic filter. Though Gnarls Barkley never reached the heighted of Crazy on the sophomore effort, The Odd Couple was a stronger album as a whole. Here’s hoping the next Broken Bells record follows the format.

Song to Download – The High Road

Broken Bells gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.

It's Like a World's Greatest Hits Collection of Nightmares

Vampires are lame. They just sleep all day, slick their back, and wear a wardrobe that Liberace would consider too over the top. I actually just described a cousin of mine who is a prime candidate for the next season of Tool Academy. And as lame as vampires are, they somehow managed to become even lamer last decade when they all decided to become annoyingly whiney, became impotent (seriously, a vampire that doesn’t kill?!) and then these two hundred year old dudes started hanging out in high school, picking up sixteen year old girls. Someone get Chris Hansen on the phone.

If you want a cool supernatural being, look no further than Zombies: George Romano, Evil Dead, Thriller, Shaun of the Dead, Resident Evil. There is a reason Robert Bartleh Cummings did not use for his pseudonym Rob Vampire. Now it is time to add another win for Zombies column in their battle vs. Vampires: Zombieland.

Zombieland is one of those movies you can pretty much tell is going to be great just by the title along. That thought was validated with first look at the trailer with a banjo swinging Woody Harrelson set to Van Halen’s Everybodt Want Some!! And Zombieland isn’t one of those comedies where the only funny two minutes are jammed into the trailer; in fact the high point of the film features the greatest cameo ever, yes even better than Bob Barker beating up Happy Gilmore.

The plot revolves around Jesse Eisenberg (Cursed) who manages to have as many friends after the zombies took out almost all of humanity as before that happened and has only stayed alive thanks to a list of rules (#31 Check the Backseat). He is picked up hitchhiking by Harrelson (Kingpin) who has made it this far because of his love for killing zombies. Along their way they run into sisters Emma Stone (Ghosts of Girlfriends Past), who does a decent impersonation of Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2, and Abigail Breslin (Ghost Whisperer), because what is more entertaining than watching a twelve year old unload a double barrel into a zombie?

If there one gripe to have about Zombieland it would be Eisenberg’s narration can get long in the tooth and his monotone maybe wasn’t the best idea, but whenever the drone started to start in, another entertaining zombie elimination happened. And the climatic amusement park scene is an edge of your seat rush that will make you fall off it when it throws in an unexpected joke. Word is a 3-D sequel is in the works, but considering the movie was originally developed for the small screen, hopefully they revisit that idea and bump off one of those lame vampire television shows to make room for Zombieland: The Series.

Zombieland gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.

57 Channels and Only This Is On vol. CXX

The Marriage Ref: My first thoughts when NBC cut into The Olympics Closing Ceremonies to air a special of The Marriage Ref was that it was the worst decision that NBC has made ever. Yes even dumber than the Jay Leno debacle. And then I only got madder when the show managed to be lamer than all the promos I had to sit through during the Olympics led me to believe. Really, three celebrities, many of which have no way to take the high ground on moral issues, making fun of the common folk. Sure there were some funny moments, but it was hard to get through a half hour special, I cannot image how anyone could watch the hour version. Certainly if it didn’t have Jerry Seinfeld’s name attached to it, there is no way The Marriage Ref ever makes it to air.

Granted I had to retract my Worst Decision Ever for NBC after I watched the rest of the Closing Ceremonies the next day which restarted up with a performance by Nickelback and didn’t get much better after that. Seriously Canada, please stop sending all your crappy music south of the border, we have plenty here already. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu.

Tool Academy: What a strange turn of events. One Tool storms of which for some reason leads to another fight between the Neander-Tool and The Toolette’s boyfriend. Than out of nowhere the Glow Stick Tool starts swinging on him. It is getting to the point where I have to start thinking that this all may be staged. You can stream recent episodes over at vh1.com. You can also download Tool Academy on iTunes.

Chuck: The writer are sure doing their best to make Chuck unlikeable. Really, is there really anything worse that dumping a girl the day after you first have sex with her in front of her parents? Poor Lana Lang, she sure deserved better than that. And let’s hope Sam doesn’t stick for Sarah, but that is a downgrade in a name. At the very least go for the full Samantha. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Chuck on iTunes.

How I Met Your Mother: Ouch. This episode really hurt. I too was on The Hook at one point in my life. Back in college I asked this chick to a basketball which she responded, “I have a boyfriend, but if you don’t mind we go as friends.” Needless to say that was the most awkward four hours of my life. Thankfully I got off the hook later that summer when I ran into her and she had gotten a nose ring and was starting to morph into a hippie. You can stream recent episodes over at cbs.com. You can also download How I Met Your Mother on iTunes.

The Big Bang Theory: Great callback to the best episode of the season so fall. Then throw Sheldon in jail and a Stan Lee cameo and this one is up there for this season. And more Raj musical shirt please. You can download The Big Bang Theory on iTunes.

Lost: I really need to start up an office pool of what random character from the main storyline runs into a main character during their flashsideways. This time around, Sayid’s brother (who inexplicable is now married to Nadia for no reason other than the writers saying, “look how we changed history!”) owes money to the dude who killed Ben’s daughter. Tune in next week when Ben has his plumbing fixed by Henry Gale! And now he is best friends with his father! And his daughter is now the sexy French nanny to his kids! Only ten more episodes? Thank goodness. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu.



Mercy: So the show goes away for the Olympics and when it comes back, Ronnie is Tommy Gavin all of the sudden. Alrighty. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Mercy on iTunes.

Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains: Finally, something interesting. And not just Coach’s absurdly funny monologues (seriously, I was waiting for Tyson to tell him, “Are you crying, there is no crying in Survivor,” but mocking his feather at tribal council will have to do). Finally a blindside. That is the problem with All Star editions; you are less likely to stab someone in the back you already know as opposed to someone you met just a month ago. Though I am not sure it is technically a blindside when the majority of the tribe didn’t vote for Cirie. And they are really being gratuitous with the challenges, last week it was mud, this week baby oil. Is Jello next week? You can stream recent episodes over at cbs.com.



Community: I have decided this week I am completely over Abed. Though it was announce the show will be back next season earlier this week, I hope he isn’t. You can stream current episodes on Hulu. You can also download Community on iTunes.