Pop Culture Happy Hour: The Comedians and Cameos

The new F/X series The Comedians, and the cameo appearance, are the topics of today's Pop Culture Happy Hour, which I was delighted as always to be a part of even though it means I don't get to do the Daredevil episode. 

On the cameo side, I came in prepared to sing the praises of Anchorman 2's crazypants climactic melee, a 12-way brawl wherein stars Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd, Steve Carrell, and Larry Miller throw down with Sasha Baron Cohen, Kanye West, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Jim Carrey, Marion Cotillard (!), Will Smith, Kirsten Dunst, Liam Neeson, Harrison Ford, and John C. Reilly as the Ghost of "Stonewall" Jackson.

If our discussion of cameos makes me a little nostalgic, maybe it's because the very first thing I had published on NPR's website was a dissection, which I co-wrote with my Pal-for-Life and full-time Pop Culture Happy Hour panelist Glen Weldon, of the cameo-rich 1978 comic book Superman Vs. Muhammad Ali.

Also, I wish I'd taken a moment during my encomium to Bengies Drive-In Theatre to explain what sorts of movies are best-served in its wonderfully anachronistic outdoors environs: Not the must-see pictures you're seeing for the first time, but the movies you kinda-sorta want to see but probably would not pay $14 for. At Bengies, you can see two or three movies for $10 a head, remember. It's 53 miles from my apartment in DC, so factoring in $10 for gas, and another Hamilton-spot for an Outside Food & Beverage Permit – $10 per car, on the honor system, but c'mon, we want this family-owned-and-operated independent cinema to stay afloat – you still get away for about the same amount you'd spend on a double-feature at a Regal Cinemas. And you see the movies in a more unique, welcoming, lightning bug-enhanced environment.

Last summer, I saw The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and 22 Jump Street on a double-bill there. The summer before that, I caught a triple-feature of Brave, Moonrise Kingdom (essential, but it was my second viewing), and Ted. Those are the kinds of movies that flourish in a setting where you may not catch every line or even every scene. Furious 7 is ideal for the drive-in.

FURTHER READING: My March 2014 Dissolve review of Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (Super-Sized, R-Rated Edition).

The Dissolve Podcast #32: The "Ecstatic Truth" Just Means "Lie" Edition

I haven't seen Alex Garland's Ex Machina yet, but I can't wait.

I was honored to be invited to join Tasha Robinson and Keith Phipps to discuss The State of Science Fiction in the movies on this week's episode of The Dissolve podcast. The also includes a discussion of documentaries and is thus named for a Werner Herzog phrase I love. A lot of ums from me, a lot of insight from Tasha and Keith. Listen here.

Pop Culture Happy Hour #230: Jupiter Ascending and Chemistry

Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis in Jupiter Ascending (Murray Close/Warner Bros.)

I was happy as always to join my buddies Linda Holmes, Stephen Thompson, and Glen Weldon on this week's Pop Culture Happy Hour, wherein we dissect Jupiter Ascending, the "original" sci-fi epic from auteur siblings Lana and Andy Wachowski from which audiences flocked away in droves last weekend. (I reviewed the film for The Dissolve.) We also try to figure out what people mean when they talk about "chemistry" among performers onscreen.

As always, I thought of more stuff I could've mentioned after we taped. I must disagree with my Pal-for-Life Glen we he praises Jupiter Ascending as being light on exposition, wherein stuff is "asserted, not explained," but I do believe in leaving some stuff on the table vis-a-vis world building.

One of the consequences of having sequels and prequels and reboots to almost everything now is that it's very difficult to sustain any sense of wonder or mystery. (We really didn't want to know about the Midichlorians, did we?) But the Matrix spinoff The Animatrix – shorts written and directed by animators handpicked by the Wachowskis – builds out the world of The Matrix much more satisfyingly than its own feature sequels do. These shorts are on DVD; they were released online for free in the run-up to the release of The Matrix Reloaded in May 2003, and you can still watch four of them gratis – including the best one, Mahiro Maeda's "The Second Renaissance."

For our chemistry experiment, I brought in a few more clips than we could use. This is an inexhaustible topic, but these are the ones I thought I might have something to say about on this particular day.

William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick & Nora Charles in 1934's The Thin Man and its five sequels. File under: Chemistry, romantic and spousal.

Patrick MacNee and Diana Rigg as Steed & Mrs. Peel, from The Avengers, circa 1965-7. The show ran from '61 to '69, giving MacNee a succession of partners during that span, but the Rigg Era seems to be the most fondly remembered. It's certainly my favorite. File under Chemistry, Professional and Sexual.

And of course, the Riggs & Murtaugh of film criticism, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. File under Chemistry, Professional and Adversarial.

Finally, I can't believe I misidentified my own Justified viewing club, The Justified League of America, as the Justified Society of America. We're Silver Age, not Golden Age. Chalk it up to nerves.

Pop Culture Happy Hour #203: Guardians of the Galaxy and So-Bad-It's-Good

Even this movie was good this summer. 2014 has been a great year for popcorn flicks.

I was thrilled as always to fill the fourth chair on this week's Pop Culture Happy Hour, wherein we discuss the latest -- and funniest, and unlikeliest -- Marvel Studios blockbuster, Guardians of the Galaxy. Even I had no idea who any of these characters were when I sat down to watch this thing.

We also discussed the curious, evergreen phenomenon of Things So Bad They Are Good, a complex topic that did not in this case stray too far from the TV movie that inspired this latest iteration of it, Sharknado 2. 

DISCLOSURE: I have not seen Sharknado 2. Nor, indeed, have I seen Sharknado. I have, however, seen the movie wherein Steven Seagal pledges to take the crooked U.S. Senator who killed his wife and put him in a coma for seven years... to the bank.

...to the U.S. Savings and Loan Bank.

Wait, I think I messed up the line. In any case, I'm sorry our discussion did not proceed in a direction that would've allowed me to play this clip from Seagal's 1990 hit Hard to Kill.

If we all sound unusually somber, it's because this episode was recorded on my birthday! Stream it or download it here.

NPR PCHH #203: Guardians of the Galaxy & Things So Bad They're Good

FURTHER READING: My NPR review of Lucy from two weeks earlier. And my Dissolve review of Jinn and my Village Voice review of Brick Mansions, both from back in April.

Logan Hill's great story about the new expectation that male film stars sport gym-buffed bodies is here, but it was published in Men's Journal, not Men's Health as I fear I said on the show; my apologies.

Tickets to What's Making Me Happy This Week --  the smart stage sex comedy The Campsite Rule, by Alexandra Petri and starring my best gal Rachel Manteuffel -- are available here for a mere $20. If you're in or near Washington, DC or will be before the show closes on Aug. 16, you'll be doing yourself a big favor if you go.

On the FringeCasting Couch with Live Action Theatre

And this episode of The FringeCasting Couch was recorded lst Tuesday afternoon, during a brief interval between a depressing visit to my doctor's office and the two fitness classes I had to teach that evening; one boxing and one boot camp. This were necessarily verbal-instruction-only editions of said classes for me; doctor's orders. Nothing feels worse.

Anyway, I'm a big fan of Live Action Theatre. Their show in the 2013 Capital Fringe Festival, The Continuing Adventures of John Blade, Super Spy, was my favorite last year. I liked their new one, The Tournament, so much that I'm leaving to see it for a second time right now. Here's the original Fringeworthy post.

I had them on the podcast last year, too.

On the FringeCasting Couch with Twanna A. Hines.

For the fifth consecutive year, I'm running the Washington City Paper's coverage of the Capital Fringe Festival here in DC, manifest mainly through a blog previously known as Fringe & Purge that we decided this year to rename Fringeworthy. In 2012, I started The Fringe & PurgeCast to accompany that blog; its rebranding this summer forced me to rethink the podcast's name, too. The Fringe & PurgeCast is dead; long live The FringeCasiting Couch.

I'm not cross-posting most of the stuff I'm doing for Fringeworthy, but I'm going to put up a couple of recent episodes of the podcast that I thought were particularly fun. This one, which I recorded last night with Twanna A. Hines, whose show is called I Füçkèð Your Country, is one of those. The original post is here.