AFOS Blog Rewind: Wolfpop has a pair of movie talk shows that are worth your time

The following is a repost of my November 20, 2014 discussion of Maltin on Movies and Denzel Washington Is the Greatest Actor of All Time Period.

Midroll Media's Wolfpop is a new sister network to the Earwolf podcast network, and its aim is to bring both plenty of production polish and big names (from the worlds of comedy, publishing and entertainment reporting) to a type of podcast format that's been around since podcasting's not-so-polished-sounding beginnings: pop culture talk. On November 4, Wolfpop--which is being curated by Paul Scheer, star of The League and co-host of his own movie talk podcast, Earwolf's How Did This Get Made?--launched 563,000 different pop culture podcasts. Even though I'm unemployed, I don't have time to listen to all 563,000 of them, but there are two Wolfpop shows that immediately caught my attention because of both the talent involved and the intriguing film-related subjects of their shows.

Maltin on Movies pairs up Leonard Maltin with comedian Baron Vaughn and gives the duo a different film-related topic to discuss each week (for example, episode 2 was about the unexpected rise of the McConaissance). Meanwhile, former Totally Biased host W. Kamau Bell and his fellow Totally Biased staff writer (and old Bay Area roommate) Kevin Avery make a case for why Denzel Washington is the illest on the succinctly titled Denzel Washington Is the Greatest Actor of All Time Period.

Vaughn, Bell and Avery are terrific choices for Wolfpop show hosts. Besides the conversational skills they've honed as hosts of previous podcasts (Vaughn hosted the All Things Comedy network's Deep Shit, while Bell did a podcast with Living Colour's Vernon Reid and had another movie talk podcast with Avery, Siskel & Negro, before they reteamed for the new Wolfpop show), it's also always wonderful to hear comedians of color hosting weekly podcasts. Sure, there's also Aisha Tyler (Girl on Guy), Margaret Cho (Monsters of Talk) and Kumail Nanjiani (The Indoor Kids, The X-Files Files), but, um, that's about it. The L.A. comedy podcast community is so lily-white it pours mayo into its tacos. It's so white it thinks Dilla was that lady who used to always tell jokes about her husband Fang on Carson. It's so white it has sex to Mumford & Sons. It's so white...

As an animation historian and an expert on older periods of film, Maltin is phenomenal. When I was a kid, I loved leafing through Of Mice and Magic, Maltin's thick tome about the history of American animation, so much that I would repeatedly renew it at the public library. But as a reviewer of live-action American films, the former Entertainment Tonight film critic isn't exactly one of my favorites. He gave only two (or two and a half) stars to Taxi Driver, The Long Goodbye, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid and Miller's Crossing, all movies I love. As long as Maltin doesn't talk about either Taxi Driver, The Long Goodbye, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid or Miller's Crossing on this new podcast, Maltin on Movies is worth a listen each week.

The Wolf of Pop Street: Paul Scheer's new pop culture-themed podcast network introduces a pair of movie talk shows that are worth your time

Midroll Media's Wolfpop is a new sister network to the Earwolf podcast network, and its aim is to bring both plenty of production polish and big names (from the worlds of comedy, publishing and entertainment reporting) to a type of podcast format that's been around since podcasting's not-so-polished-sounding beginnings: pop culture talk. On November 4, Wolfpop--which is being curated by Paul Scheer, star of The League and co-host of his own movie talk podcast, Earwolf's How Did This Get Made?--launched 563,000 different pop culture podcasts. Even though I'm unemployed, I don't have time to listen to all 563,000 of them, but there are two Wolfpop shows that immediately caught my attention because of both the talent involved and the intriguing film-related subjects of their shows.

Maltin on Movies pairs up Leonard Maltin with comedian Baron Vaughn and gives the duo a different film-related topic to discuss each week (for example, episode 2 was about the unexpected rise of the McConaissance). Meanwhile, former Totally Biased host W. Kamau Bell and his fellow Totally Biased staff writer (and old Bay Area roommate) Kevin Avery make a case for why Denzel Washington is the illest on the succinctly titled Denzel Washington Is the Greatest Actor of All Time Period.

Vaughn, Bell and Avery are terrific choices for Wolfpop show hosts. Besides the conversational skills they've honed as hosts of previous podcasts (Vaughn hosted the All Things Comedy network's Deep Shit, while Bell did a podcast with Living Colour's Vernon Reid and had another movie talk podcast with Avery, Siskel & Negro, before they reteamed for the new Wolfpop show), it's also always wonderful to hear comedians of color hosting weekly podcasts. Sure, there's also Aisha Tyler (Girl on Guy), Margaret Cho (Monsters of Talk) and Kumail Nanjiani (The Indoor Kids, The X-Files Files), but, um, that's about it. The L.A. comedy podcast community is so lily-white it pours mayo into its tacos. It's so white it thinks Dilla was that lady who used to always tell jokes about her husband Fang on Carson. It's so white it has sex to Mumford & Sons. It's so white...

As an animation historian and an expert on older periods of film, Maltin is phenomenal. When I was a kid, I loved leafing through Of Mice and Magic, Maltin's thick tome about the history of American animation, so much that I would repeatedly renew it at the public library. But as a reviewer of live-action American films, the former Entertainment Tonight film critic isn't exactly one of my favorites. He gave only two (or two and a half) stars to Taxi Driver, The Long Goodbye, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid and Miller's Crossing, all movies I love. As long as Maltin doesn't talk about either Taxi Driver, The Long Goodbye, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid or Miller's Crossing on this new podcast, Maltin on Movies is worth a listen each week.

Despite some of his tastes in live-action films, Maltin is--like he's always been during his appearances on other podcasts--likable and level-headed in many of the same ways that the late Roger Ebert was. He may not agree with you about an unconventional indie flick you might adore, but at least he's not going to be a dick about it. He's never going to say something racist about your Korean friend like Rex Reed would do, and he's never going to boo you off the stage like Armond White rudely does to actors and directors he incomprehensibly dislikes.

Maltin's friendliness and approachability ("The friendliest film critic I know," says DVD Savant author Glenn Erickson) must have been why Joe Dante let bygones be bygones after he was disappointed with Maltin's negative review of his first Gremlins movie, and he got Maltin to appear during Gremlins 2: The New Batch in a cameo as himself--delivering that same negative review of Gremlins. It's also why the L.A. comedy community likes to hang out with Maltin. Sarah Silverman memorably got him to pretend to be her date in the audience during her parody of award show acceptance speeches on Comedy Central's Night of Too Many Stars autism telethon ("Richard Roeper cannot hold a candle to you as a film critic or as an oral lover"), and Doug Benson frequently has Maltin on as a guest on Doug Loves Movies, which uses the Leonard Maltin Movie Guide app on Benson's phone to run the show's Leonard Maltin Game.

But does that same congeniality make for lively and entertaining discussions about film like the frequently contentious pairing of Siskel and Ebert did? Not very often. So this is where Baron Vaughn--who's actually as knowledgeable about modern-day cinema as Maltin but isn't quite as familiar with older periods of film like him--comes in. Vaughn's light banter with Maltin and his ability to keep their conversations engaging are why he's an ideal partner for Maltin. They're not contentious like the Sneak Previews and At the Movies hosts used to be, but fortunately, Vaughn and Maltin's congruent opinions about the three films they select for discussion each week (the first film is one they highly recommend, the second film is one they agree is an artistic failure and the third is a lesser-known title that they both wish had received more shine) haven't resulted in boring talk.

For the first time in his long career as a reviewer (and host of various film talk shows where, unlike in podcasts, the conversations have to be much shorter and snappier and completely edited down), Maltin is as interesting a conversationalist as either Siskel or Ebert, thanks to Vaughn. He's brought out some great stories from Maltin, like his recollection of the first time he taped a press-junket interview with the late Robin Williams, a famously energetic and laugh-inducing interviewee, for Entertainment Tonight.

Denzel Washington Is the Greatest is a less serious movie talk show than Maltin on Movies, but it's equally worthwhile. I was a fan of W. Kamau Bell's late, lamented Totally Biased and its progressive brand of humor about race (Totally Biased was as close as we got to a weekly TV version of one of my all-time favorite humor books, ego trip's Big Book of Racism!), so it's comforting to have a piece of that show back, even if it's just in the form of a podcast about Denzel movies starring two of its writers.

"Denzealots" Bell and Kevin Avery intend to analyze a different Denzel movie each week--I can't wait until they reach either Crimson Tide or Malcolm X, which are neck and neck as my favorite Denzel movie--and rate it in terms of "Denzelishness," like how often "Denzel does that thing with his lip." Because Washington has starred in so many movies since his big-screen debut in Carbon Copy, a 1981 comedy where George Segal co-starred as his newly discovered biological father, the size of his filmography is making me wonder if the run of Bell and Avery's new podcast will be as long as the decade-long run that's been estimated for Mission Log, the Roddenberry Entertainment podcast that's been reviewing every single episode of each screen incarnation of Star Trek in chronological order.

Whatever the case, I'm excited about where this Denzel podcast is going to go, especially because Bell says he wants to have guests on the show. I can't think of a more ideal guest than either Slate's Aisha Harris, who wrote a good piece about Washington's recent Liam Neeson-style career turns as a "geriaction" hero; stand-up comic Reggie Reg, who does the best Denzel impression anywhere; or Bronson Pinchot, who once said he hated working with Washington during the filming of Courage Under Fire--and due to Avery's current stint as a writer for the incredible Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, that has me crossing my fingers for Oliver himself to show up one day on Washington Is the Greatest. (That's mainly because Washington played a British military vet in 1988's For Queen & Country, and I want to hear Oliver evaluate Washington's accent in that film.)

Bell and Avery's entertaining podcast has also made me look back on the huge amount of terrific soundtracks or original scores in Washington's filmography, from Terence Blanchard's rousing Malcolm X score to Elmer Bernstein's work on Devil in a Blue Dress. Speaking of which, Bernstein's "Theme from Devil in a Blue Dress" and the Branford Marsalis Quartet's "Mo' Better Blues" can currently be enjoyed during "The Whitest Block Ever" on AFOS, while Hans Zimmer's "Roll Tide" from Crimson Tide and selections from Blanchard's Malcolm X score can be heard during "AFOS Prime." "Chaiyya Chaiyya," A.R. Rahman's classic tune from the 1998 Hindi film Dil Se, which is also part of "AFOS Prime" rotation, wasn't written for Inside Man, but that Spike Lee/Denzel collabo is the first place where most American moviegoers like myself vibed out to it (although in a slightly modified form with added trumpet riffs by Blanchard and newly recorded guest verses by Panjabi MC).

Best of all, Bell and Avery's discussions of why black people often leave movie screenings so early (Bell points out that it's most likely because they have to pick up their kids from school) or why Bell considers historical dramas like A Soldier's Story (Avery refers to the 1984 movie as "the thing that red-alerted a lot of black women to Denzel Washington") and Glory to be "black people homework" are imbued with the same insight and hilarious observations about life as a person of color that made Totally Biased such a keeper during its short life span. Here's hoping Wolfpop doesn't front on Washington Is the Greatest and abruptly put an end to it like FXX did to Totally Biased.

Tip-Top Quotables: Special Halloween Edition

(Photo source: DVD Beaver)

My favorite monthly section in old Source magazine issues was "Hip-Hop Quotables," in which the Source editors printed out their favorite new rap verse of the month, from the first bar to the last. "Tip-Top Quotables," which I've named after that Source section, is a collection of my favorite quotes of the week from anywhere, whether it's a recent TV show or a new rap verse. "TTQ" won't appear on this blog every week. It'll appear whenever the fuck I feel like it.

* "I worked harder on that probably than anything I'd done in my life, so I was really, really sad that it didn't find an audience when it came out. But then, over the course of 10 or 15 years, to see that it really did—it just was a slow-cooking thing—it was one of those really rare things that just took on a life of its own. It was incredibly gratifying. I've worked on many things that failed, and that, more than anything else at that point, was something that I really wanted people to find. But when it came out, nobody knew how to market it. Nobody knew what it was. It wasn't a marketable entity. But to Disney's credit, they saw that it was developing a following, and they sensed they could nurture that and make it have a second and third life. So really, kudos to them. To say, 'You know what? This thing has potential now, 10 years later. Let's feed it, let's nurture it, let's develop it more. Let's re-release it, let's do an 'inspired by' record.' They really did catch on after the fact. But at the time, it really was heartbreaking."--Danny Elfman on 1993's The Nightmare Before Christmas, the sixth of 842 feature films he scored for Tim Burton, A.V. Club

(AFOS programming note: "This Is Halloween" from The Nightmare Before Christmas can be heard during the annual AFOS Halloween night block "Buckets of Score," from 5pm to 11pm Pacific.)

* "Halloween is when every hack comedian's premises turn into costumes."--Hari Kondabolu

* "Do you know why we carve jack-o'-lanterns on Halloween? The origins of this curious tradition actually date back hundreds of years, to the early Puritan settlers in the American colonies. The Puritans believed that every Halloween, the Devil would enchant the pumpkins' faces so that they would come to life and say complimentary things about the legs of all the Puritan men, such as, 'Nice legs. Very muscular,' and 'Your legs are tremendous!' The man who got the most leg-based compliments from the jack-o'-lanterns would then be forced to spend Halloween in jail."--ClickHole, "Exploring The Origins Of 4 Halloween Traditions"

* "To increase blood pressure in the black community, we are adding sodium to sports clothing."--the Nixon Administration's '70s robot R.A.C.I.S.T. (Robotic Asynchronous Computerized Information System Two-Thousand), Black Dynamite, "Black Jaws! Or Finger Lickin' Chicken of the Sea"

* "Later, an interracial couple was attacked, but the shark did not eat the white girl. In fact, the shark even gave her a ride home."--R.A.C.I.S.T., updating President Nixon on the activities of a shark that attacks only black swimmers, Black Dynamite, "Black Jaws"

* "It's only a beach, Cream Corn. Just a big-ass bathtub with fish in it. And if you seen one big-ass bathtub with fish in it, you seen 'em all."--Black Dynamite (Michael Jai White), Black Dynamite, "Black Jaws" (true that, Dynamite; the beach is overrated as fuck)

* "I'm in love with chicken waings/Fuck them string beans/Gotta feel that hypertension/Tuggin' my heartstrings/And when I'm feelin' hungry/Start it off with ribs and fries/Ham hocks and bacon grease/Diabetic paradiiiiiiiiise!"--"Thick James" (Phonte), singing the "Mary Jane"-style "Chicken Waings" (composed by music supervisor Fatin "10" Horton) during Black Dynamite's "Black Jaws" end credits

Marry Me's Halloween episode

* Julie (Jessica St. Clair) to her son Mason (Jet Jurgensmeyer): "Well, you are in a lot of trouble, Mister, so you get inside and you start practicing that Mandarin."
Mason: "I wish Annie and Jake were my mom! [Proceeds to say to Julie a bit of Mandarin dialogue that's so shocking to her that she gasps]"
Jake (Ken Marino): "What does that mean?"
Julie: "'Die, white devil.' He's going through a phase."
--Marry Me, "Scary Me"

* "Wow, babe, you are just like Oprah. You don't have any kids of your own, but you tell everybody else what to do with theirs."--Jake (Marino), complimenting his fiancée Annie (Casey Wilson) on the advice she gave at the end of Halloween night to her arch-enemy Julie about kids, Marry Me, "Scary Me"

* "We have no idea how prevalent sugar is in almost everything that we eat. Look at Clamato juice, the original tomato cocktail with clam. One serving has 11 grams of sugar in it, so they clearly thought, 'Well, look, let's improve the taste by adding sugar,' instead of thinking, 'Let's improve the taste by removing the clam.'"--Last Week Tonight's John Oliver

Tip-Top Quotables: "Late-night talk is a Johnny Bravo suit if there ever was one," plus a few other great lines this week

(Photo source: Blu-ray.com)

My favorite monthly section in old Source magazine issues was "Hip-Hop Quotables," in which the Source editors printed out their favorite new rap verse of the month, from the first bar to the last. "Tip-Top Quotables," which I've named after that Source section, is a collection of my favorite quotes of the week from anywhere, whether it's a recent TV show or a new rap verse. "TTQ" won't appear on this blog every week. It'll appear whenever the fuck I feel like it.

* "If you're ever in a 90's thriller DO NOT GO TO THE FAIR"--comedian Karen Kilgariff, live-tweeting Sleeping with the Enemy

* "Julia's 90's eyebrows make me feel abusive"--Kilgariff

* "Trauma from years of abuse melted away when he brought her to his job and forced her into a Van Morrison montage so beautiful"--Kilgariff

(Photo source: Redefinition Records)

* "The horns on 'Moving With The Gang' for instance just about stretch through the mesh of distortion and crackling fuzz, but it provides a natural lo-fi authenticity that many try to emulate today. It sounds like an aged cassette you picked straight outta' the shoebox and click-clacked into the player."--my Word Is Bond homie Hardeep, describing one of the early '90s demo beats hip-hop producer K-Def recently unearthed from crates of his own beats

* "Oh, it's terrible. It's unbelievable. And the commercials are so loud. And the thing about the music in Hannibal, it is very trance-y, in a way. When it's working, you're in that reality, you're not even in your living room anymore. And then when the commercial comes on, it just jars you right back. It's a bummer, I hate it."--Hannibal composer Brian Reitzell, on his dislike of NBC's commercial breaks during Hannibal

* "Student debt has tripled in the past decade. It has surpassed Bob Marley's greatest hits album as the thing seemingly every college student has."--Last Week Tonight's John Oliver

* "In recent years, states have slashed funding for higher education by 23 percent. Public institutions have responded by raising tuition rates, forcing students to take out ever larger loans. Why else do you think that colleges have so many fucking a cappella groups? They know they sound stupid. They just can't afford instruments anymore."--Oliver

* "Let me speak right now to all current freshmen in college who have student loans: okay, you need to stop watching this show right now. You don't have time for this. Get out there and enjoy the fuck out of your college experience because you may be paying for it for the rest of your life. I'm serious. Drink beer from a funnel. Kidnap a mascot. Find out if you're gay or not, and even if you are not, have some gay experiences. Do it now. It doesn't count. Become that weird guy on campus who rides a unicycle from class to class. Find out whoever the Winklevoss twins of your school are and steal their idea for a website and shoot fireworks out of every bodily orifice you can fucking find."--Oliver



* "And us non-white-dudeish artists have to stop longing to be put in the box of mainstream late-night talk show hosts. Late-night talk is a Johnny Bravo suit if there ever was one. We diverse voices, as usual, have to create our own boxes and continue innovating America's pop culture... like always. And then we have to try to act not surprised when 'mainstream' (read: white and male) steal it... like always."--comedian and one-time late-night talk show host W. Kamau Bell, on late-night TV's frustrating lack of diversity (and here's another reason why I like Bell: he's the only comedian of color who would use the Johnny Bravo episode of The Brady Bunch as an analogy to describe the increasing irrelevance of late-night talk shows)

* "Most people don't realize this, but you can quietly remember September 11, 2001."--Jenny Johnson, rehashing a tweet from last year, but it's a terrific one

* "MEDIA: Stop calling Ray Rice beating Janay Rice 'a domestic dispute.' It was DOMESTIC VIOLENCE! They weren't just arguing about the dishes!"--Hari Kondabolu

* "But wouldn't it be productive if this collective outrage, as my colleagues have said, could be channeled to truly hear and address the long-suffering cries for help by so many women and, as they said, do something about it? Like an ongoing, comprehensive education of men about what healthy, respectful manhood is all about. And it starts with how we view women. Our language is important. For instance, when a guy says 'You throw the ball like a girl' or 'You're a little sissy,' it reflects an attitude that devalues women, and attitudes will eventually manifest in some fashion. Women have been at the forefront in the domestic violence awareness and prevention arena, and whether Janay Rice considers herself a victim or not, millions of women in this country are. Consider this: according to domestic violence experts, more than three women per day lose their lives at the hands of their partners. That means that since the night of February 15 in Atlantic City, more than 600 women have died. So this is yet another call to men to stand up and take responsibility for their thoughts, their words, their deeds and, as Deion says, to give help or to get help, because our silence is deafening and deadly."--CBS sportscaster James Brown

Tip-Top Quotables: "No one should ever be allowed to say there is no history of racial tension here," plus a few other great lines this week

My favorite monthly section in old Source magazine issues was "Hip-Hop Quotables," in which the Source editors printed out their favorite new rap verse of the month, from the first bar to the last. "Tip-Top Quotables," which I've named after that Source section, is a collection of my favorite quotes of the week from anywhere, whether it's a recent TV show or a new rap verse. "TTQ" won't appear on this blog every week. It'll appear whenever the fuck I feel like it.

* "Much as I scoffed at the very notion of a good MacGruber movie, I'd probably put it at the very top of SNL adaptations. At a minimum, it's the one SNL-to-screen adaptation to take a mostly one-joke sketch idea (e.g. 'It's Pat' or 'The Roxbury Guys') and successfully expand and reconfigure it for the screen. And while I'm here, I'll echo the praise for [Will] Forte's performance, which is committed and fearlessly self-deprecating. After all the things he does in this movie—the loud back-to-back sex scenes, the celery stick, the 'just tell me what you want me to fuck' scene—he can probably bid farewell to any Al Franken-like political aspirations he might have had."--Scott Tobias, The Dissolve, "The '80s ambience, jury-rigged gags, and dumb bravado of MacGruber"

* "Every good spoof needs a straight man. Airplane! had Leslie Nielsen's Dr. Rumack, who never cracked even as he pulled eggs out of a sick woman's mouth. Blazing Saddles had Gene Wilder's Waco Kid, who didn't bat an eye at outlaws punching horses in the face. [Powers] Boothe's unflappable Col. Faith is a sturdy presence throughout MacGruber, but the movie's true straight man is [Jorma] Taccone, who shoots MacGruber as if it were a legitimately badass balls-to-the-wall action spectacular. Most modern spoofs, shot on the cheap by hacks, look like garbage. MacGruber looks good enough to stand beside (or, in some cases, ahead of) its inspirations. No matter how broad Forte gets—and at one point, he's waddling through an action scene naked, with a celery stalk hanging out of his ass—Taccone never shoots him like he's in on the joke. There are many deadpan actors; Taccone is the rare deadpan director."--Matt Singer, The Dissolve, "From box-office bomb to cult favorite in the making: Classic MacGruber"

(NOTE: The Harold Faltermeyer-esque score cue from the "celery stalk hanging out of MacGruber's ass" scene starts at 2:00 of "MacGruber's Suite" by MacGruber score composer Matthew Compton. Don't miss the profane hidden track that starts at 5:30.)

* "There was no main title... and I didn't make a theme for [the end credits] either because I always wanted to leave on whatever tone the outgoing scene had. So there was a different end-title piece of music each time. It's one of the most important chunks of musical real estate because it's a chance to sum up your musical story, but there's no picture, there's no dialogue. It's not competing with any other sound. It's a great spot to showcase the music. So, the end titles became my favorite spot. But I also used it as a place to do something that was unexpected. One track is called 'Falling off a Bicycle,' and another one is called 'Goodnight Nurse Elkins.' Those started out as one-of-a-kind pieces. I hadn't written anything like that for the rest of the show. So, I threw my hardest musical curveballs for the end credits."--Cliff Martinez, discussing with TVGuide.com the electronic score music he wrote for the first season of The Knick



* "Composers were close, and often attended each other's recording sessions. One such day, Elmer and his friends were listening to one of their peers record a score with a strikingly memorable theme. They snuck a few musicians to a smaller studio, and recorded a jazz combo version of this composer's theme, arranging it from memory. That night, when they all got together socially, they played their tape, telling their mark it was the radio. Shocked to hear a small combo playing his own theme, the panicked composer turned white and asked what the music was. Elmer and his friends told him it was a hit song that had been on the radio for weeks. The poor composer thought he had accidentally ripped off a popular song, and momentarily contemplated the task of rewriting his entire score! Elmer and his fellow pranksters laughed, and poured him a drink."--Outlander composer Bear McCreary, recalling an elaborate prank that his mentor Elmer Bernstein told him he used to pull on other film composers

* "Even though that theme was used on The Next Generation, I associate it with Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which was like the coming of Jesus Christ to me. The score is super thematic, it's deep, it employs many modern sounds. Despite the fact that Goldsmith was traditional, he was always trying to find ways to be with the times that were, so he'd bring in the blaster beam, that thing that was the new thing and some of his efforts had dated themselves, like in the '80s we used some of those electronics, but Star Trek remains timeless. That Blaster Beam thing, a lot of the water phone sounds they use and so forth. you combine that beautiful sweeping version of that theme over the most beautiful thing ever created by man— the Enterprise— and it's just complete, absolute orgasm."--X-Men: Days of Future Past composer John Ottman on the one film score he'd take with him to a desert island



* "The heart of the film is that the Guardians are all adrift in their universes, emotionally and spatially lost. So, it's appropriate that the film starts on a song that croons, 'Nothin's a matter with your head, baby, find it/ Come on and find it/ Hell, with it, baby, 'cause you're fine and you're mine.' It's a mission statement as much as a stylistic choice, a ballad of inclusion in a cold universe. It's also Star-Lord's best way of seeking out maternal advice while lost in space; the song's inquiry of 'Don't you feel right, baby?' allows Star-Lord to converse with a woman that he's lost, one who he rejected right before her passing in a fit of childish sadness. The film is, among about 50 other things, the chronicle of Star-Lord's struggle to accept that he was just afraid and not a bad person."--Dominick Mayer, Consequence of Sound, "How Guardians of the Galaxy Topped the Charts"

* "I can't believe that the only name they got right was fucking Kumail Nanjiani."--Harmontown co-host Jeff B. Davis, mocking L.A. Times TV critic Robert Lloyd's typo-ridden positive review of Harmontown, which misidentified Davis as "Jim Davis" and misspelled "podcast" as "pocast" (in fact, Davis was wrong--not even the L.A. Times critic got Nanjiani's name right either)

* "It looks more like a colonoscopy than a costume. Plus, even if you have superpowers, it's impossible to crawl along the roof while keeping your back arched and your rear high. Too many covers like that, and Spider-Woman is going to need physical therapy."--Amanda Marcotte, mocking Spider-Woman's ass-up pose in the poorly received variant cover artwork drawn by erotic comic book artist Milo Manara for the first issue of Marvel's relaunch of Spider-Woman, as part of a Slate post called "This Week in Butts"

Tip-Top Quotables: "Attention aspiring George Zimmermans," plus a few other great lines this week

My favorite monthly section in old Source magazine issues was "Hip-Hop Quotables," in which the Source editors printed out their favorite new rap verse of the month, from the first bar to the last. "Tip-Top Quotables," which I've named after that Source section, is a collection of my favorite quotes of the week from anywhere, whether it's a recent TV show or a new rap verse. "TTQ" won't appear on this blog every week. It'll appear whenever the fuck I feel like it.

(Photo source: Hari Kondabolu)

* "The show needed him as much as he needed it. As scripted, Brisco's infallibility has the potential to read as smug and overbearing, and there are moments early in the run where even Campbell's charms can't quite overcome the 'oh thank God the white man is here to save us' vibe. But the clear pleasure the actor takes in everything he does on screen comes through, and keeps the hero from turning into a bland, square-jawed twerp. Typically Campbell plays lovable blowhards and larger-than-life buffoons, but here, he's called on to be a largely traditional leading man, and he delivers a mixture of steadfast decency, optimism, and perpetual bemusement that is just about perfect."--the A.V. Club's Zack Handlen, recalling the one-season wonder The Adventures of Brisco County Jr., which remains rewatchable despite its "oh thank God the white man is here to save us" vibe

* "That's right: some payday lenders are currently dressing themselves up as Native Americans. I thought only Johnny Depp was allowed to do that!"--Last Week Tonight's John Oliver



* "Perfectly placed in a set at a bar's dance night, it will just about burn the place down as sweaty drunk people go absolutely fucking nuts over the Purple One's coos and weird chatter about that 'Electric word, life.' And while Prince is certainly not perfect, though he might think he is, 'Let's Go Crazy,' well, it's as perfect as a song can be."--the A.V. Club's Marah Eakin on "Let's Go Crazy" from Purple Rain

(Photo source: David Roth)

(Photo source: Desus)

(Photo source: Desus)

* "And it is a hip-hop generation that is being stopped and harassed. They are being targeted and forced to carry the weight of assumptions heaped onto them. Just because the music they listen to carries violent themes doesn't mean that they do."--Stephen A. Crockett Jr., The Root, "Rage Is the Right Response to What Happened in Ferguson"

Comedian/performance artist Kristina Wong trolls the SketchFactor app, after racist SketchFactor users posted warnings about ethnic neighborhoods that they deem as "sketchy" (Photo source: Wong)

(Photo source: Wong)

(Photo source: Wong)

(Photo source: Wong)

* "When corporations refuse to protect their employees from harassment through cultural, bureaucratic, and technological failures, they not only enable this sort of specialized abuse but contribute to it. It would be easy—too easy—for people to dismiss this sexist-trolling of Jezebel as the same problems and roadblocks dealt with by any other Gawker site. But, no, the reality is that this abuse is not the same. If companies that publish the writing of authors who disproportionately experience hatred and harassment want to address those issues ethically and according to need, they cannot do so simply by addressing them 'equally'—by asking them, as Jezebel has tacitly been asked, to work within a technological framework that taxes and punishes them significantly more."--Laura Hudson, Wired, "How Indifferent Corporations Help Sexist Internet Trolls Thrive"

* "Bacall is terrified of her first movie role. She can barely hold a match to light her cigarette without trembling like a leaf. In take after take, she tilts her chin downward, burying it into her chest to steady her nerves, while lifting her eyes up—a pose that manages to convey both sexiness and street smarts. It will later be called 'The Look.' Watching the movie, you would never guess she is anything other than defiant and confident. She’s hypnotic."--EW film critic Chris Nashawaty, discussing the late Lauren Bacall's breakout performance in To Have and Have Not

* "We watched the show together every week. And for those thirty minutes, my grandmother and I communicated in a way we couldn't otherwise—through our shared laughter and understanding that what we were witnessing was a phenomenal talent who transcended things like language and culture."--playwright Philip W. Chung, recalling how the late Robin Williams' antics on Mork & Mindy broke the language barrier between his grandmother, who spoke no English, and himself (he spoke barely any Korean)

* "You know, Alan Menken wrote a beautiful score for Aladdin, and he wrote score for the Genie's bits, too. But here's what happened: When we got on the dubbing stage, Alan realized that the score fought Robin's comedy rhythms. It was like two sets of rhythms that you were trying to listen to. So in many cases, we diminished that score when Robin was going to town—or just didn't have it altogether—and instead let his voice provide the rhythm. Comedy is a very delicate thing a lot of the time, and a factor like that can make a huge difference as to whether or not you're laughing."--Aladdin animator Eric Goldberg, recalling the trickiness of finding the right kind of score music to accompany Williams' voice work

* "Comedians can be a sad bunch, you know. You know what's the saying? Ignorance is bliss. So if ignorance is bliss, what's the opposite of ignorance? Must not be bliss. And your job as a comedian, you know, is basically to notice everything. And the better the comedian, the more aware he or she is of the world around them. So you know, it can be not a happy place. Sometimes you can have too much information. Sometimes you can know too much. So no, I was not, I'm never shocked at a comedian dealing with depression."--Chris Rock, explaining to ABC News why he thinks so many comedians suffer from severe depression, which Williams struggled with

(Photo source: Daily Show staff writer Travon Free)

* "It's a role that showcases Williams' underappreciated capacity for nuance — the scene in which he's being comforted by a total stranger and can't stop himself from giggling at the absurdity, a reaction the woman he's talking to keeps mistaking for tears, passing him tissues. Or like this scene from the end (mild spoilers!), in which his face conveys such a quicksilver mix of sadness, regret, resignation, and the slightest touch of mischief. That clip doesn't include the lines that follow, in voiceover, as the soundtrack kicks off the perfect song and a callback to earlier in the film: 'I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It's not. The worse thing in life is ending up with people who make you feel all alone.' It's an observation to break your heart, but the sequence that it's a part of is filled with such complex but exhilarated joy and mourning all at once. It's the kind of role Williams could pull off so well. God, he'll be missed."--film writer Alison Willmore, explaining why the 2009 indie World's Greatest Dad contains her favorite Williams performance (it also happens to be my favorite non-genie performance of his)

* "There will be much celebration, in the coming weeks and months, of Robin Williams' life and career. But perhaps the best tribute to him would be if we all reached out to the troubled people in our lives and let them know that we are here for them. Because Robin Williams was there for us."--Paul F. Tompkins

Tip-Top Quotables: "Some couples have a song. Ours is the theme from Jaws," plus a few other great lines this week

My favorite monthly section in old Source magazine issues was "Hip-Hop Quotables," in which the Source editors printed out their favorite new rap verse of the month, from the first bar to the last. "Tip-Top Quotables," which I've named after that Source section, is a collection of my favorite quotes of the week from anywhere, whether it's a recent TV show or a new rap verse. "TTQ" won't appear on this blog every week. It'll appear whenever the fuck I feel like it.

* "Tell him that snoring is usually a sign of a condition called sleep apnea, which causes a lot of people to die in their sleep. Be like, 'Here, Google it.' And then he'll be so scared he'll never be able to sleep again."--Kumail Nanjiani, giving advice to an Esquire reader about how to deal with a roommate's boyfriend who snores too loud

* "We've got some very attractive rewards at every level. For instance, $10,000 lands you in a signature CNN mass-shooting coverage six-box. For $25,000, you get to take molly with Fareed Zakaria. What what! For $5 million, CNN will air a 24-hour, two-week hunt for your lost car keys."--Jon Stewart, announcing his Kickstarter to buy CNN

(Photo source: Wendy Liebman)

* "Tony played it like a failed Scientologist."--Sam Rockwell, recalling to MTV News his Galaxy Quest co-star Tony Shalhoub's hilarious performance as a constantly stoned, non-Asian TV actor playing an Asian character, which Shalhoub based on constantly stoned Kung Fu star David Carradine, '70s TV's most infamous example of a non-Asian playing an Asian

(Photo source: Pia Glenn, the writer behind the #TimeTitles hashtag, which is a mockery of this)

(Photo source: Hari Kondabolu)

* "That is not good. The only time when you are happy to hear the words 'Maggots were found' is when you are a maggot whose family was lost at sea."--Last Week Tonight's John Oliver, joking about a news report of maggots being found in prison food supplied by a shady subcontractor



* "Garner was an expert at pulling the viewer into the action and acknowledging the ridiculousness of most television storytelling without quite breaking the fourth wall. He was the guy who crawled out of the screen and sat beside you munching popcorn on the couch."--Todd VanDerWerff, Vox, "James Garner has died; these five roles will remind you of his greatness"

* "If Netanyahu is so bothered by how dead Palestinians look on television then he should stop killing so many of them."--Benjamin Wallace-Wells, New York, "'Telegenically Dead Palestinians': Why Israel Is Losing the American Media War"

"Rock Box" Track of the Day: Matt & Kim, "Good Ol' Fashion Nightmare"

Song: "Good Ol' Fashion Nightmare" by the Brooklyn duo Matt & Kim
Released: 2009
Why's it part of the "Rock Box" playlist?: It's featured in Community's pilot episode. I wonder if the choice of "Good Ol' Fashion Nightmare" is a swipe at the pants Joel McHale is wearing all through the pilot (see above). If so, that's awesome.
Which moment in the Community pilot does it appear?: The scene when Jeff (McHale) tries to ditch the study group--a rambunctious bunch of folks he'll grow to tolerate over the course of the season--and is caught by Britta (Gillian Jacobs) while she's having a smoke break. The song also turns up when Jeff takes the Spanish test answers out of the envelope Professor Duncan (John Oliver) gave him and discovers his friend tricked him and slipped him nothing but blank paper.

My favorite non-cable show Community is back tonight with its first new episode since the ambitious stop-motion-animated Christmas ep, so here's "Good Ol' Fashion Nightmare," which was also featured in the trailers and promos for the pilot before it premiered.

That ear-catching chune from the Community pilot and promos has a title

After catching the Community series premiere (a promising new show, by the way, with awesome Soup host Joel McHale, Danny Pudi, Mad Men's Alison Brie and recurring guest star John Oliver of The Daily Show as the standouts so far, and it's nice to see Chevy Chase make an effort to portray an actual character for a change instead of portraying Chevy Chase), I immediately Googled the unidentified ear-catching tune that's featured prominently in the episode and NBC's Community promos. It's "Good Ol' Fashion Nightmare" by the Brooklyn duo Matt and Kim. Drink up me hearties, yo ho.

Around the Internets: 04/18/08

- CNN's Richard Quest had meth in his pocket. Which explains a lot. Here's an amusing Daily Show spoof of the CNN "reporter" who looks like the love child of Harry Bentley from The Jeffersons and Matthew Lesko.

- Mike Jones, Shaq, Marky Mark, Fred Durst and my favorite rap group, the Chicago Bears, are among "the 25 Worst Rappers of All Time."

- Former Cheers writer and popular blogger Ken Levine recommends Brad Bird's The Iron Giant, which I think is a more entertaining movie about Superman than Superman Returns.

- I'll wait for Forgetting Sarah Marshall on DVD--that's the format where Judd Apatow-produced movies are best appreciated because of the awesome extras--even though I got a kick out of Billy Baldwin's spoof of David Caruso's acting in the clips on NBC's site for Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime, the CSI: Miami-style fake procedural featured in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

- After Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos bungled the Obama/Clinton debate in Philly, the first thing I thought was: "What would Jon say?"