It’s 8 in the morning. I’m trying to rack my brain for a topic that I can write about in a little under an hour, because I have a meeting I have to go to at 10. Then I realize, wait, we’ve already hit our five required posts for the week-
I’d like to apologize again as the founder of this blog for things being so shaky this week. Gordon had more or less a good excuse for posting late on Monday, but I didn’t really for not being online to write E> with him on Tuesday night.
Suffice to say, I’m sorry. Maybe I’ll put a post up later tonight, but the more likely [and probably wiser] option is that I’ll try to write ahead for next week and do some of the posts that take a little more research. Thanks, as usual, for tuning in. Maybe skim the archives for anything you find interesting?
EDIT: Actually, now that I’ve started reviewing 2 Broke Girls every week we put up six posts, but I still feel bad.
Imagine my joy when I found out that Hawkeye #7 is being released on January 30th, making this post both contemporary and relevant. Redundancies aside, Matt Fraction is a man who’s worthy of a fair amount of praise.
Fraction’s take on the character is through the lens of a man who, when not rubbing elbows with super soldiers and Norse gods, is just a guy. Take the following panels into account:
Okay, that about just sums up what I said. Check this one out, too:
So now, we’ve established that Matt Fraction’s writing is great. David Aja, who illustrates the title, is also great [at drawing]. Greatness all across the board, you guys [and girls], this is a comic that you should be rolling your eyeballs across.
That’s worth a Fame Day. But you know what’s even more worth that? The cover on the left. It’s for, and the title of this blog post is pretty self-explanatory, Issue #7 of Hawkeye. Why is this a big deal?
For one thing, Fraction is taking time off of his current storyline to explore what happens when Hurricane Sandy hits Clint Barton’s neighbourhood. The real world affects Marvel’s that’s pretty neat.
That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, this man will not be making a cent off of the issue. It’s the story about “a girl trapped at a function that she can’t get out of when the hurricane comes, and about a guy helping his buddy move his infirm dad to safe ground” [check the above link]. It’s a story that, for every issue it sells, will benefit those who lost their homes due to a tragic natural disaster.
If you are a person who thinks they might want to get into comics, this would be a great place to start. It’s a smart, funny title written by a talented man, and it’ll be $2.99, a fraction [pun not intended] of which will go towards people that genuinely need it. Think about it. And at the very least, give the man some credit.
GORDON: …AAAAND LIVE FROM LAS VEGAS, IT’S WEDNESDAY NIGHT! Welcome one and all to this delayed installment of Gordon and Evan Talk. Our subject for tonight: How can we fix SNL.
EVAN: [And Toronto! . . .] Because, well, let’s face it. Saturday Night Live is not as good as it could be.
GORDON: Which is a real shame, considering the talent it produced during it’s early years. Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Dan Akroyd, Andy Kaufman, Steve Martin- I could go on and on until I hit the early 90s.
EVAN: To be fair, I haven’t really watched a lot of the older SNL episodes, and certainly not that far back, but I’ve seen enough glimmers of goodness to know how good the show can be.
And yeah, now that you mention it, SNL used to be a factory that just cranked out the comedy talent. What happened?
GORDON: I really can’t say- I never watched the series religiously enough to be able to point to any specific point or change; I only know that unless you like Adam Sandler (I don’t), by the early 90s the show just wasn’t good anymore- barring the creation of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, for which we give thanks.
EVAN: And that we do. How about this: before we go forward to how it could be better, what do we like about it now? And there’s gotta be at least one thing.
GORDON: Like “What’s Up With That?” or “Celebrity Jeopardy.” The first time was hilarious. The fortieth time, not so much. I also like Steffan, just for the total surrealism, and the commercials can be pretty good. But those are few and far between.
EVAN: I personally love “What’s Up With That,” and it gets funnier each time for me. Kenan’s enthusiasm compounded by Sudeikis’ dancing and grinning gets me every time. I also, and I know there aren’t a lot who agree with me on this, really like Weekend Update.
And I feel like the Minnesota early morning hip-hop show has a lot of potential.
GORDON: I felt these things may have been funny the first time- heck, the first few times- but I really, really can’t stand ’em now. Minnesota early morning hip-hop radio is funny, but there are only so many times you can say the northern edge of the midwest is cold. I feel like they’re going to take it and run it into the ground, like all their other popular skits.
EVAN: So that seems to be a large problem, here. The skits that are funny don’t show up as much as we’d like to, and they continually run the risk of wringing all the life out of them when they are hits.
GORDON: Is that the fault of the writers?
EVAN: Probably a little, yeah.
GORDON: I also feel that it has the same problems The Simpsons do. Each episode becomes more about showcasing which celebrity and “we-want-to-be-Mumford-and-Sons-so-bad-it-hurts” musical guests.
GORDON: Fair enough. But the celebrities. Seems to me that when the show started back in the 70s, the “celebrity” guests were really just there to introduce the show and do a bit of stand-up. Everything else was dedicated to the cast performing skits.
EVAN: The hosts, you mean?
GORDON: Exactly. See- even I get confused about their intent.
EVAN: If you don’t mind me directing this conversation once again, how about comparing SNL to another skit-based show: Key & Peele.
GORDON: Go on…
EVAN: Key & Peele, and I think we can both agree on this, is hilarious.
Not only that, but it’s just two guys who, presumably, do quite a bit of their own writing as well.
GORDON: No doubt.
EVAN: So how could SNL learn from Key & Peele?
GORDON: Maintain a semblance of relevance to the modern world.
Key & Peele is satirical, sarcastic. I watch the show and laugh at it when they take shots at stuff that’s relevant- like fighters trash talking each other prior to a fight.
When’s the last time you watched a show that looked even remotely like “What’s Up With That?” How many of us even know what the Laurence Welk show was?
EVAN: See, I’d say that one of the problems with SNL is that they feel compelled to “stay relevant.” So many of their skits are based on the current news, whatever’s hot right now.
Ex. Lance Armstrong doping, that one guy who got scammed by the fake girlfriend, etc.
GORDON: I wouldn’t say those weren’t funny in and of themselves- I just thought they were lousy as a cold open, and got rehashed in the Weekend Update. Kinda proves the whole “If it’s funny we’ll do it until it isn’t and then for a while longer” strategy SNL employs these days.
EVAN: I think what I like about Key & Peele is that they’re okay with breaking away from current events a little more.
GORDON: Well, we could debate which the more current until the cows come home. Our topic was “how do we fix SNL?”
EVAN: Okay, Way to Fix SNL #1: Don’t drive jokes into the ground. If a skit is recurring, do it maybe four or fives times a year, max.
GORDON: #2: Not every celebrity is funny. Stick with ones who are, and keep their appearances down to the monologue and a few key skits.
EVAN: #3: Find a way to replace Andy Samberg’s Digital Shorts. I know that nothing will truly take their place, but they were what revitalized the show after so many years.
GORDON: #4: Instead of dragging in celebrities who are already popular, go back to giving new comedians a chance- become the talent producing machine that you were in the 70s and 80s.
EVAN: Ooh, I like that one a lot. There’s definitely a conflict between hot fresh names drawing in viewers [Joseph Gordon Levitt], and looking for lesser celebrities, maybe from TV instead of movies [Krysten Ritter from Don’t Trust The B—– In Apartment 23].
I’m not super impressed with the new guy they brought on, but I really like two of the newer girls [Kate McKinnon and Cecily Strong].
GORDON: I agree, for the most part. I simply wish they would actually take some people from the pool- nay, ocean- of raw talent the internet has created.
EVAN: THERE YOU GO. You, sir, are a genius.
GORDON: Imagine SNL written by the guys from Dead Kevin, BriTANick, WKUK, and other internet sketch shows. Imagine all the great new actors and comedians we could get.
EVAN: That’s what we really need.
GORDON: That it is.
EVAN: I mean, the fact that Donald Glover made it from Derrick Comedy, a YouTube comedy show, to being a star on Community and other shows says a lot-
GORDON: That it does.
EVAN: And SNL could be that way of getting this talent out there.
GORDON: Absolutely. Would you watch a show like that? I would. I would watch the crap out of that show.
EVAN: I would watch it all the time without stopping.
GORDON: People would die.
EVAN: Yes they would.
Now that you’ve wrapped up this conversation with that masterful suggestion, though, what are we talking about next week?
GORDON: I’d like to talk about guns and gun control.
EVAN: Heh. Heh heh heh. Okay.
My recommendation is . . . um . . . have you watched a lot of Christian movies?
GORDON: I’ve seen a couple. But it’s okay, I’m better now.
EVAN: I kind of want to talk about that. How Christian media is so substandard and it’s the fault of Christians themselves.
Yours is better, though. I am probably going to vote for it.
GORDON: And I like railing on things- I’ll probably vote for yours.
EVAN: Thanks for reading, you guys, and sorry again for how late this is in coming. As always, this has been Evan and Gordon Talk, be sure to vote below for what you’d like us to discuss next.
First and foremost, apologies about the state of the blog next week. E> was postponed ’till tomorrow due me forgetting about it completely and watching a movie/drinking with my cousins last night. This morning’s replacement was delayed due to my being sick all day today.
The following contains spoilers to films you should’ve seen by now.
The first and third films in the franchise concerned the Ark of the Convenant and the Holy Grail, respectively. Both are Judeo-Christian relics, and both are shown to have a great deal of power in the series; the former melts the face off of a bunch of Nazis and the latter brings Henry Jones Sr. [Sean Connery] back to full health from grievous wounds. Which is great.
Then take into account the second film, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The Hindu goddess Kali is introduced, who is pretty into human sacrifice. This movie’s relic is actually five relics, sacred Sankara stones that do . . . something. All I’m really sure of is that Indy says things and they get super hot and burn the guy who says “kali ma shakti de” and pulls out another dude’s heart.
The first three movies of the franchise make a lot of sense in context with the protagonist’s profession, that of archaeologist. The main issue here is that the Holy Grail and Ark of the Covenant are shown to draw their powers from the Judeo-Christian God, father of Jesus Christ, et cetera. High priest Mola Ram [Mr. Kali Ma] finds his supernatural abilities in Kali, I assume. This can be explained away with the following-
“Kali” and the source of her powers originate in the demonic. This resolves the idea of an actual healing Holy Grail existing in the same universe as magical burning stones. God and Kali are essentially just opposite sides of the same coin, the divine and the diabolic. Which is great. We’ve reconciled the two, fantastic.
Enter Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The relic: the skull of a genuineextraterrestrial. The source of its powers: genuine extraterrestrials. Which leaves us- where?
As an audience we’re left to believe that a divine Jesus Christ, death goddess Kali, and aliens all co-exist on some level. The addition of that last source of otherworldly power really throws a wrench into the works.
Sure, I guess we could say that the source of both the divine [for both Judeo-Christian and Hindu faiths] is in the extraterrestrial, that these aliens seeded the world with their technology or power or however else you want to say it, but really? There’s a definite stretch to suspend disbelief on the part of the audience. I mean, sure, we can accept face-melting Arks, but aliens?
And that’s the problem that, I personally, have with the fourth Indiana Jones movie.
This episode begins with Caroline reminding Max [and the rest of us] that “this isn’t the diner where everything comes with attitude and E. coli.” The fact that the cold open takes place in the cupcake shop doesn’t stop her from snarking at a drumming customer in overalls, though. Insert comment from me about how the show’s centre seems to be moving further away from the diner.
Soon enough Andy shows up, forcing Caroline into hiding [they broke up, remember?]. It also kicks off a fairly decent running joke about how Max doesn’t recall having slept with the guy at the record store. Kat Denning’s delivery of the following line actually made me chuckle out loud:
Andy: Oh, by the way, the guy at the record store says hi.
Max: Well, you tell him I said . . Who are you?
This conversation also reveals one of the big concepts in the episode: your friends keeping in contact with your ex. Max and Andy have bonded over texting each other pictures of unlikely animal couples, and you can rest assured that it’s going to cause some sort of trouble later on in the episode.
Ah, sorry, I forgot to mention that in this episode Max and Caroline are tired. Tired enough for Max to pull down her pants in the middle of the cupcake shop and for Caroline to doze off while taking orders. This creates complications, of course, when her sleep deprivation causes Caroline to remember that they have an order for 1000 cupcakes due the next day at 10 a.m.
So the girls race out, leaving Han hanging, only for Caroline to kick the shim out from under their oven, rendering it unusable. Fun fact: a shim is “a thin and often tapered or wedged piece of material,” and not a pronoun for transexuals like Caroline posits. Seconds later and the girls race back to the diner they abandoned to use the oven/kitchen there. Instead of being understandably upset, Han and the others are actually really cool about it, offering to stay up late and help finish their order. They’ve really tried to push the idea of them being a more-or-less happy, dysfunctional family, and this approach is more heavy-handed than most.
Also allow me to say that Matthew Moy, who plays Han, kills it this week with the material given to him. Max reaches around his body to show him how to properly ice cupcakes only to have him squirt the sugary glaze all over the place [haha, premature ejaculation joke, we get it]. Moy’s distressed cries of “Oh, oh, I’m humiliated!” really lands here. Check the “Stray Observations” below to check out the other one.
The girls are alone, and just about done with the order when it turns out that Max has lost an earring, presumably in the batter. This forces the two to start destroying the cupcakes to find them, and soon, with bits of baked goods underneath every fingernail, the two are throwing down over Max still talking to Andy and “girl code.”
The scene really stands out due to their argument, which holds a lot more emotional sincerity than most of the feel-good moments on the show. There’s screaming and cupcake throwing and on some level, in spite of the audience laughing and cheering, it feels strangely real, like the two actresses are actually upset at one another.
Anyway, Andy shows up to help and defuses the situation. Him and Caroline end up in the kitchen and talk about how they “glove” each other [why can’t we all use kitchen safety to properly express our feelings?] and while they don’t get back together they ultimately end up in a pretty good place. Another breakup takes place when Max and Andy talk, realizing that they should probably stop texting for Caroline’s sake.
Back at the apartment the girls realize that they had switched aprons, and that Max’s earring was in her apron [on Caroline] the entire time. This is really weird, because this discovery is caused by Max finding Caroline’s phone, which doesn’t jive with her texting with her own phone earlier. Anyway, it’s not really worth picking apart, just generally kind of clumsy on the writers’ parts.
The show ends with the usual ka-ching of the money counter, which I suppose now tallies up the profits from the cupcake shop, shooting up from $900 to $4900 due to their huge order. I’m not sure what they’re aiming for, or what their overheads are, but right now it doesn’t seem all that important to the show as a whole.
As a parting note, did anyone else feel like this episode had a lot of dated references? Sure, hipsters were also a topic sort of addressed in CBS’s other Monday sitcom, How I Met Your Mother, but Max also references James Cameron’s Avatar and the 2010 TLC series Sister Wives.
Tune in next week to read my reviews of a show The A.V. Club gave up on a long time ago!
Stray Observations:
Apparently Earl quit doing cocaine last year, at 75. Guy looks pretty good, all things considering.
Han’s response to Max telling him he’s 90% head: “It’s not a laughing matter, Max, I broke my mother’s pelvis coming out!”
The “whoos” at Sophie’s entrance were extremely subdued this week. (•‿•)
Unlikely animal couples mentioned: monkey tickling a parrot, a black dog spooning a brown dog, deer nursing a turtle, labradoodle high-fiving a koi fish, cat and dolphin kissing, Max and Caroline [awwww].
2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: Sophie’s boobs straining to break free from her dress. Oh, and Max pantsing herself in the cold open.
What it does is speak volumes for the game’s publisher, Deep Silver, and those it hired to advertise the game. There was an emphasis placed on the feelings of terror and loss and the need to protect one’s family; it sought to set itself apart from other zombie games [of which there are so many]. Unfortunately the game turned out to be your fairly standard run-of-the-mill zombie hack and slash, but that’s not the point here.
The point is that this trend was actually continued in the promotion of the game’s sequel, Dead Island: Riptide, the trailer of which can be viewed here. The tone is once again consistent with that of the first, highlighting the terrors of a vacation gone horribly, horribly wrong. Which is great. And which is why the following seems so shockingly out of place.
“We deeply apologize for any offense caused by the Dead Island Riptide “Zombie Bait Edition”, the collector’s edition announced for Europe and Australia. Like many gaming companies, Deep Silver has many offices in different countries, which is why sometimes different versions of Collector’s Editions come into being for North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia.
For the limited run of the Zombie Bait Edition for Europe and Australia, a decision was made to include a gruesome statue of a zombie torso, which was cut up like many of our fans had done to the undead enemies in the original Dead Island.
We sincerely regret this choice. We are collecting feedback continuously from the Dead Island community, as well as the international gaming community at large, for ongoing internal meetings with Deep Silver’s entire international team today. For now, we want to reiterate to the community, fans and industry how deeply sorry we are, and that we are committed to making sure this will never happen again.”
So no harm now foul, right? Dead Silver took back their horrible statuette and we can chalk another victory up for the internet! But why exactly were people upset? An article on Rock, Paper, Shotgun which I linked to but will link to again said this about it:
This is beyond disgusting. It’s as if someone were attempting to demonstrate the most misogynist idea that could possibly be conceived, in an attempt to satirise the ghastly trend. A text book example of the most extreme ends of misogynist fantasy, a woman reduced to nothing but her tits, her wounds hideously depicted in gore, jutting bones, and of course barely a mark covering her globular breasts.
It’s very prevalent in a lot of zombie imagery you can find nowadays, and it’s certainly present in this picture of a zombified Snow White on the left. Her body is mutilated [appropriately so, for a zombie] but her breasts remain completely untouched. There’s this sense of the grotesque from the image as a whole, but her chest remains an object of potential titillation.
I don’t think I have to say too much about how grossly sexist this is, and how prevalent it is in the society we live in. What I am going to say is thank God that on some level we can make enough of a public outcry to stop stuff like this before it happens. The bottom line is this: if we as a community [on the internet or otherwise] care enough about something, we really can do something about it. Even if it’s just stopping the production and sales of a tasteless statue.
That’s worth a Fame Day. But you know what’s even more worth that? The cover on the left. It’s for, and the title of this blog post is pretty self-explanatory, Issue #7 of Hawkeye. Why is this a big deal?
The first and third films in the franchise concerned the Ark of the Convenant and the Holy Grail, respectively. Both are Judeo-Christian relics, and both are shown to have a great deal of power in the series; the former melts the face off of a bunch of Nazis and the latter brings Henry Jones Sr. [Sean Connery] back to full health from grievous wounds. Which is great.
Culture War Reporters 