Author Archives: Evan

2 Broke Girls, S3E7 “And the Girlfriend Experience”: A TV Review

girlfriendexperience

First thing’s first, I had every expectation that this episode was going to be super duper racist. It was not, but I’ll get to that in a bit because of how much of a big deal my second point is: Dang, this one lady could not get a enough of the jokes this week. She had one of those high-pitched shrieky laughs, too; it was nearly impossible to block her out and concentrate on the actual episode itself.

Now, if you type “2 broke girls racist” into Google you get 4,310,000 results. That speaks for itself, really. My review of the third episode of this season even received a few comments from an honest-to-goodness Polish person who wanted to assert that they do not believe that cats are the reincarnated souls of people who die outside. To be perfectly fair things were far worse in the first season concerning Han in particular. That being said, racist jokes on this show used to be a problem. They still are, but they used to be, too. Continue reading

A Show By Any Other Name Would Be Just A Spin-off

“There is nothing new in art except talent,” words by Anton Chekhov that I was forced to look up because I’ve already cited Ecclesiastes in a prior post. They’re also words that I feel forced to grasp firmly on to as I’m faced with the deluge of television spin-offs soon to flood your televisions and my laptop with more and more of the same. With that being the worst case scenario, of course.

That being said, I’m going to try my best to take the stance I typically take on these sorts of things, which is that ultimately execution trumps everything else. Chances are that you wouldn’t have thought that a movie about a guy with his arm trapped under a rock would be able to hold your attention, but 127 Hours is great. The premise of a work of art does not damn it, though it certainly colours how audiences choose to approach and experience that work. Continue reading

Fame Day: 봉천동 귀신 [Bongcheon-Dong Ghost]

If you live anywhere in North America [and judging by the site stats that is more than likely] you are probably very, very aware that today is All Hallows’ Eve, which is what I prefer to call what is more popularly known as Halloween. To be very, very clear, I’m not a huge fan of the holiday. In fact, if yesterday’s post was any indication, easily my favourite part of the occasion is saying that things are “spoo-oo-ooky”; it’s a lot of fun, you should definitely try it out.

For real, though. I do not enjoy being scared, nor do I really get kick out of scaring others. I have seen maybe two horror movies in their entirety, and didn’t particularly like either of them. I mean, I appreciate that Paranormal Activity terrified me, but I’ve been informed by many that it is not scary in the least, which might lead you to believe that I am by no means a good judge of the genre.

Which brings me to Bongcheon-Dong Ghost. Continue reading

Ch-ch-changes…

Yes, this is essentially my fourth, if you count today’s Writers’ Roundtable, post for the week, and I still have two more to go. That’s a lot of writing, folks.

We have a few changes taking place hereabouts, with the first at the recommendation of power-reader Orion. You may know who he is, because he leaves comments on a good number of posts, and that makes him super great.

Evan and Gordon Talk has been changed to Culture War Correspondence due to the fact that it’s not just Gordon and yours truly jabbering on at each other anymore. When it’s all three of us a CWR Writers’ Roundtable will take place, a name I chose in part because its initials are the same as this blog.

Another change under features is that addition of Culture War Reports, which Gordon started with his respective posts on attending a midget wrestling match and a musical. This feature will focus on the experience of attending events, which separates it from Reviews [which admittedly is just 2 Broke Girls at the moment, though I’ve been meaning to throw up a book review soon].

And that is all. Thank you for reading and keeping up to date with the goings-on around here. If you were not hungry you will be now, because here is a gif of pizza to conclude this update:

CWR Writers’ Roundtable: Halloween Costumes

EVAN: Loyal readers, and those who don’t have any strong feelings about the blog whatsoever, welcome to an old feature with a fancier name where the three writers get into the holiday spirit.

That holiday is, of course, All Hallows’ Eve, and the topic we will be discussing is the broadest possible one, at least in my opinion: Halloween costumes.

There are a number of different directions we could go with this, so I’m going to start things off light and ask what our ideal Halloween costumes would be, if we were actually going to dress up. Gordon mentioned earlier this week that he tends not to celebrate holidays, so it’s definitely hypothetical. Continue reading

2 Broke Girls, S3E6 “And the Piece of Sheet”: A TV Review

pieceosheet
I had written this whole intro about how 2 Broke Girls is so slow to address trends while they’re still hot [see the Kickstarter and cronuts episodes] because I saw the above promo pic with Oleg twerking, but I’ve just finished the episode and didn’t see a single twerk. That’s all mildly disappointing, somehow.

Last week in the Stray Observations I promised that I’d share a “theory” with you about Max, and in thinking on how to write about it I realized that it’s not so much a theory as it is a strange realization about the character. To put it simply, we’re constantly regaled by the show about what a terrible childhood Max had and how promiscuous she is now, but none of that is ever backed up. In this episode she jokes about losing NuvaRing birth control in the lettuce, but when’s the last time she actually had sex on the show? Certainly not so far this season. As far as I can remember not at all last season . . . Continue reading