Groonkly Bits

It’s happened before.

It’ll happen again.

Gods help you if you’re not watching the final episodes of Battlestar Galactica. I hear random factions of The Internet may be unsatisfied with what they’re getting. I disagree with The Internet. With the exception of one episode, I’ve enjoyed the frak out of the final archival tapes.

If you’re more than a year behind, I can’t help you. If you, like me, wait with bated breath for the end of season four, the 21st century answer to missed shows has your backs. Hulu will beam BSG love into your personal computing devices.

But enough about that. Let’s talk splash pages. I won’t bore you with the back story on how long it took me to settle on an angle for this theme. I’ll only say that the minute the comics angle entered my brain, everything fell into place.

view The Bucket in full glory

This splash will have only a few days showing in it’s full HTML glory. A certain movie release has asked to temporarily bump any small screen admiration off its pedestal for a short time.

No Comments | In: Branding, Television | tags: battlestar galatica, Comics, frak, graphics, splash, tv inspired. | #

The Internet moves pretty fast. If I dare blink or put a find off until next week, the relevancy will be missed.

Shot during the writer’s strike last year, THE REMNANTS follows the lives of 5 strangers who’ve become friends in post-apocalypse LA. What I’ve gathered from this 11 minute pilot is:

• the world as we know it is done
• the means to this end is unknown
• there are critters out there that want to eat you
• bad things hide in post-apocalyptic refrigerators
• Ze Frank is a “White Devil” (but that’s only Winston Zeddmore‘s opinion)

John August wrote and directed this gem of a potential web series during the strike’s darkest hour. This may explain why everyone seems to click very nicely. It could also explain how he got so many fairly well known names to appear.

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No Comments | In: Television, The Internets | tags: crap sack post apocalypse world, ernie hudson, john august, vimeo, web series, ze frank. | #

The year’s nowhere near over but the best/worst lists are piling up like week old laundry. I don’t have anything against such year end reviews. I just never made the time to see/watch/read/do all the things discussed on said lists. Any reviews I make would be damn incomplete. So I’ll rely on others to do my dirty work.* Then judge them appropriately when I find their results wrong.

Heh.

Entertainment Weekly’s Best & Worst of 2008
It’s surprising how a crap magazine can get a few things right once in a while.

I’m tempted to pick up EW tomorrow for the HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER photoshoot. The entire cast acts out random moments in 2008. If the show were as cool as the cast seems to be, I’d still be watching HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER.

Pitchfork Media put forth two bits of bests so far. For those who don’t know, they’re the Indie Rock Pete of the online music media game. Bursting forth from the ashes of what Rolling Stone used to be, maybe 20 years ago, I look forward to running through their tracks to discover something new and majestic and not found easily on mainstream radio.

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No Comments | In: Animation, Books, Branding, Buy Me, Comics, Movies, Music, Pop Culture Love, Television, Too Many Thoughts | tags: 2008, closing of the year, listapalooza, magazines, oh no they didn't, the best worst things ever told. | #

As certain areas of finance wait for Daddy to cut a check and save them(and possibly us) from living lives of Common People*, I turn my eyes to that magic box of light and shadow. Dancing, drinking, and screwing are sure to come later. Perhaps only moments after House snarks, bitches, downs a few vicodin and saves another life through sheer orneriness. Until then…

Previously on my TV/DVR:

Heroes, season 3 has a long way to go before I care about it again. They’re well on the way to re-treading the first season which is silly since they already had a first season. Time to move on to the next level, please. Heroes will never be A-List superhero TV fiction for me. I’ve read my fair share of good(Rising Stars, Powers, X-Men, etc etc) and bad(thankfully, I’ve forgotten the names of those books) steps into the superpowers-are-real-and-we-must-find-a-way-to-deal-with-this trope. Heroes will never be as smart as Buffy or Angel. The one thing I could count on Heroes to be was a fun distraction. Lately, it’s managed to be an unfun bitch.

NCIS still finds a way to be a fun, character driven show. It even throws in mini-bits that turn into season long arcs. Then, of course, there’s lovable goth metal forensic scientist Abby Sciuto. Spinning an entire episode around her wouldn’t be a bad idea. (Looking at you CBS.) I didn’t forget about you, Ziva David. We’ll talk more on you later.

Fringe is going in the right direction. Denethor makes my night every time crazy falls out of his mouth. I’d like to get a better idea on the clandestine group running The Pattern. I get there are people out there making a lab experiment of the world, now show me pieces of why they’re doing it.

Knight Rider murdered 44 minutes of my time. It was a vengeful murder, too. I want my fucking time back but I can’t have it as it lays lifeless and cold in Ducky’s morgue. You can bet your ass Knight Rider won’t get a 2nd chance to kill again.

House without Wilson is gonna be tricky. I hope they’re up to it. They get bonus points for having the lovely Felicia Day(she’s answering House questions behind that link BTW) not have cancer this week.

True Blood I liked better when it was called Angel(and before that Forever Knight). I really dig Sookie’s(worst name in TV) telepathic nature and would rather follow that more. The vampire bit has been done to death. Not undeath. Just death. By the by, HBO, next time you set a series in The South, give at least half a thought to having actual southern actors play the leads. You can’t tell me Hollywood isn’t overflowing with actors running from their small backwater towns. Least that way the world gets the authentic southern twang that I hate so much.

No Heroics is airing across the pond. I’ve only seen one episode so far. After that one viewing I’m generating intense like for it. Sure it’s crass. Sure there’s gonna be sex and shooting and the neurotic/psychotic side of “capes” you normally wouldn’t see. Which is the reason I like the thing in the first place. (noted earlier here)

I’ve not made time to watch anything else.

Pushing Daisies starts next week. Never has death made me happier.

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No Comments | In: Pop Culture Love, Television | tags: 2008 fall tv season, boob tube, no heroics, pushing daisies, too much time wasted. | #

Warren Ellis reports seeing the first 3 episodes of a new superhero comedy show called No Heroics. The three and a half minute trailer (seen below) sold me.

This trope has been done with varying degrees of success. For a long while you couldn’t trip over a new comic that didn’t play up the ideas for laughs. I recall two movies via Hollywood that even attempted to pull off the “superheroes are ordinary” angle.

THE SPECIALS, a James Gunn creation that I’ve not had the pleasure of seeing.

MYSTERY MEN fell short in so many areas it can’t really be called good without sneering a little.

On TV we had/have:

The Tick. The animated version was a jewel of win. The live action version, that never got a chance to shine thank you very much Fox, had more than enough laughs inside to satisfy your average fanboy or mainstreamer.

HEROES had a decent stab at being intriguing the first season. After that second season, though, the less said about Heroes the better.

THE MIDDLEMAN does not deal with a world of superheroes but it does include a heavy dose of comic book evil that must be fought. How I kept from geeking-out all over this show on a daily basis is proof of my superhuman ability to horde all the good television and not share them with the world. I keep them in various trees around my backyard. From time to time, I lose track of some shows. They sit buried in cold earth forgotten and alone. Maybe they’ll sprout into marvelous Bushes of Serial TV and my entire complex will gather round them and watch the strange synergy of nature and technology unfold before them.

But that’s a silly idea. I don’t even have a back yard.

NO HEROICS (he says with trepidation) looks like they made all the right moves. You folks in Britain can watch it on ITV2 this Thursday at 10:30 PM. If it turns out to be as good as advertised, you(see british citizens) should watch it on the TV. It’d keep the ratings high and NO HEROICS on the air.

Elsewhere in the world, other means of non-heroic enjoyment will surely be available hours after each show airs.

Am I missing any other shows or movies where Superheroes roam the Earth in mass quantities? Drop a note and let me know.

2 Comments | In: Television | tags: british, comedy, it will be televised, no heroics, superheroes, trailer. | #

Hello, Space. This is Colbert

No Comments | In: Television | tags: astronaut, awesome, interview, space, Stephen Colbert. | #

Thanks to Will Pate, my Friday starts with charm.

No Comments | In: Mornings Go Boom, Television, The Friday Relax | | #

Completely improvised, Free Radio offers a fresh alternative to the typical sitcom, showing just how far real A-List celebrities will go to tolerate a complete moron. In season one, Hollywood luminaries from “24’s” Kiefer Sutherland to “Heroes'” Jack Coleman and comedy legend Ray Romano are subjected to the idiot storm that is Lance and “Moron in the Morning.”

I would not have believed it possible. FREE RADIO is a improvised comedy series on VH1. Yes, VH1 has comedy. No, they don’t play videoes anymore. We’re long past that stage of questioning.

The celebrity camoes are A-Listers. I’m unsure how they managed that but I am sure it makes all the difference. Watching Lance make random asshat comments is half the fun. Seeing which of those A-List folk have the chops for improv is the other half.

The Skinny in newly fashionable list form:

• FREE RADIO Blog
• What the series is about
• Lance Gets a Billboard: Full Act 1 featuring HEROES’ Jack Coleman aka HRG
• Jack Coleman – “Twist on a Twist”

Sidenote: You can be friends with All About Walken. Woah, that’s a whole lotta Walken.

No Comments | In: Television | | #

The new Knight Rider. I’ll be damned if I wasn’t ok with it. A straightforward, simple adventure with a supercar that talks. I’ll admit to geeking out a little. at the beginning inside the inventor’s workshop. Seeing bits of old KITT lying about and the Foundation’s old logo overloaded my nostalgia. The 11 year old me couldn’t help but to smile.

Back in the 80s, I only sent out two fan letters. KNIGHT RIDER was one of them. Getting a print out of KITT’s specs through the mail made my month. Lame, yes. You couldn’t tell Kid Groonk that. Not back then, in the me-some 80s.

There were sequences that can only be described as Car Porn. Long, lingering shots of KITT’s shiny Shelby form in high speed. Sultry glances of KITT’s metamorphing into random mustangs. Definite Car Porn.

But, yeah, the new Knight Rider was not a boatload of fail. It was, in fact, a case full of adequate.**

Although, Val Kilmer as KITT I couldn’t reconcile with that. His voice sounded incredibly forced. My ears were set to hear Gob* and through random corporate asshattery, they switch it out for the lame Batman.

Burn.

*If you watch the promo video on Shadowy Flight, you can hear how much awesome Will Arnett managed to cram into the few KITT-isms you hear in 29 seconds.

**Anyone who thought this Knight Rider was crap did not see Team Knight Rider, Knight Rider 2010, or the 80s show direct sequel Knight Rider 2000. If you did not see them, count yourself lucky.

UPDATE: I take it all back. That show was bad and I should feel bad for watching it. And…I do.

No Comments | In: Television | | #

After watching History Channel’s latest end of the world documentary, LIFE AFTER PEOPLE, my mind returned to an old thought, “How do we share our knowledge with the next generations?”

Paper, Compact Discs, and other digital technologies can’t survive the passage of time without us keeping a constant vigil over their well-being. Data degrades. Paper rots. Even if a hard drive managed to go the distance and remain intact 1,000 years from now, how the hell will it be read? We couldn’t figure out Egyptian hieroglyphics until we found the Rosetta Stone. I pity a future civilization that’s still under the thumb of Windows.

There’s no hope for them if they’re crunching data on future Macs.

Everything we know about our former selves has been written or fashioned from stone. The Romans left behind roads, buildings, and aqueducts. The Egyptians left writing, the pyramids, and sphinxes. Chichen itza is, arguably, the Mayans most famous relic. What are we going to leave behind? Because without constant maintenance, everything we currently use for archiving will “die” in 500 years time.

Our great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren won’t know a damn thing about the atrocities of our wars, the strange allures of Marilyn Munroe and, to infinite lesser degrees, Britney Spears or Anna Nicole. Things like Prime Time TV, the Internet, body modification, lying politicians, feats of engineering madness or that bear that fell out a tree and onto a trampoline. All of those things, even the mundane little crap, would be erased from human history. Face it people, these are the facts, even the stupid ones, that define our culture.

Sturdier technologies are what we need. Building things that last is something we should start doing again. If this post on Grinding.be is any indication, maybe we already have.

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No Comments | In: Television, Too Many Thoughts | | #