Amanda is amazing. Amanda is spectacular. Amanda is humble.
Amanda is also a full time college student so take pity on her and don't complain when her TV reviews aren't up immediately following an episode.
We’ve returned for another edition of “The Best Weekly Finds in the Pinterest Geek Category!!!!!”. There is a wide variety of pins in this one, everything from breast exams to USB thumb drives. Without further adieu, let’s get on with the show.
With all the news recently regarding Hostess and their connection to comics, it only seems appropriate to start off today with this one. I’m fairly certain that The Hulk would love the “real fruit filling”. I am curious as to where they acquired that massive fruit pie as it’s much larger than any I’ve ever seen. Then again, The Hulk looks rather diminutive so who knows what the hell is going on there.
Pinterest is a great place to find tattoo ideas. They actually have an entire category dedicated solely to tattoos but there are times where the body art bleeds over into the geek category. This is one of those times. I’m equally intrigued and appalled by this. On one hand, it’s cool. On the other hand, there is no way I would even consider getting one like this. I have no aversion to tattoos, have a few myself, but they are certainly not of the Steve Buscemi/Darth Vader mash-up variety.
This song is everywhere. Unfortunately my husband loves this song more than life itself so I’ve had the great pleasure of listening to this song ten thousand times in the last month. Now that I think about it, perhaps this might find its way into his stocking this year. A great gift for any YouTube viral hit fan in your life.
I think we all, unfortunately, know someone who has said something like this. For whatever reason, the general non-nerd/geeky public seems to think that all comic book characters exist in the same world. Even if they know the names Marvel and DC, they really don’t understand what those two things entail. It’s a sad, sad situation. Thankfully there are people like myself, and you dear reader, who find it within ourselves to attempt to shine a light on the ignorance. Fight on my friends, fight on.
I’m torn on this one. I really want to hate it just on principle, but honestly? It’s rather entertaining. I can’t say that I would have sought out an interpretation of The Lord of the Rings by My Little Pony but thanks to the wonder of the internet and Pinterest, this has come into my life. I’ve decided that it is better to just embrace it rather than fight it. If nothing else, maybe it will bring a new generation to Tolkein’s work. I have to tell myself that so I can get some sleep at night.
When I came across this one I damn near clapped because it is such a good idea and it something I never would have expected to see.
If you are of the womanly persuasion, you’ve no doubt seen the traditional self breast check diagram. I think we can all agree that this one is far superior. So now there’s no excuse ladies, check yourselves! If She-Hulk can do it, so can we.
That concludes this edition of “The Best Weekly Finds in the Pinterest Geek Category!!!!”. Perhaps next week I’ll kick off the Christmas holiday season with geeky Christmas related pins. If they exist, I’m do everything in my power to find them.
I was looking forward to this episode mainly because in the back of my mind I’d hoped there would be a Cobie Smulders sighting with an Avengers sketch. Sadly there was no Cobie Smulders but there was an Avengers sketch. Unfortunately the episode wasn’t all that funny. There were some bright spots however, not as many as last week, but a few nonetheless.
One of those bright spots was the cold open. Everyone in the world knew that General Patraeus and his side projects would be the subject for at least one sketch, but SNL thought he was good enough for two sketches and a Weekend Update sketch. The cold open was Cecily Strong as Paula Broadwell reading from her new book All In. This was one of those sketches that I can’t believe they were able to keep a straight face. The second time I uttered “dirty girl” I would have been a goner. Strong got through it without even cracking a smile, that’s impressive. All I could think of though, was Allison Janney in 10 Things I Hate About You as the smut writing guidance counselor. She would have loved Broadstone’s book. Well the SNL version at least.
The monologue was just bad. Yes there are fangirls who are absolutely beside themselves with excitement that Jeremy Renner sang for his monologue but when you are doing a musical monologue the week after Anne Hathaway killed it with her Les Mis monologue? It isn’t going to go well. It’s not that he doesn’t have a good singing voice, it just wasn’t that funny. I will give him this though, he played off the technical difficulty quite well and even though he was visibly nervous, he did perform well, I just didn’t find it entertaining.
Another thing I had really looked forward to in my “dream SNL episode” was another short type of piece with Adam Levine because “Iran” remains one of my favorite sketches to date. I get that song stuck in my head all the time. However, as disappointed as I was that there wasn’t an Adam Levine short, I have a feeling that the “Tourism ad: Your Hometown” piece might be a new favorite. If for no other reason than I can relate to that completely. Granted my mom doesn’t send us home with leftovers but I can not tell you the number of times I’ve had to hear about my “crap in the basement”. I’m not one that would ever return to my old high school but just the image of Taran Killam sitting in the parking lot and then changing his mind about going in makes me chuckle. That was the highlight of the night for me.
My feelings on “The Californians” were addressed the last time this awful sketch was rolled out.
“The Situation Room” returned to General Patreaus and frankly, wasn’t that funny. The highlights were playing the one bit of footage they have of Jill Kelley over and over and when they then decided to go with a “CNN Dramatization” I woke up my “sleeps like the dead” husband because I laughed so hard. How could I not laugh at Tim Robinson dressed in a pretty pink dress as he happily pranced to his car?
Tim has a nice rack.
“The Standoff” was actually a really good short. Much like the shorts have been this year, it wasn’t in your face funny but it definitely had its moments. When it was over I was left with more of a “you know I enjoyed that” feeling rather than “Oh that was hysterical!” one and even though I watch SNL to laugh, it’s hard to not appreciate when they put something together that is well done even if it’s not slapstick.
Bobby wearing suspenders in the shower though made my night.
Maroon 5 was good, there wasn’t really any doubt they would be. Thankfully they left their screensavers at home.
When Weekend Update has two guests, I usually love one and can’t stand the other. This week however, both guests were great. If you haven’t seen any video of Katt Williams then make your way over to YouTube immediately and watch some. You will then appreciate how spot on Jay Pharoah’s impression was. If he petted his hair one more time I was going to lose it.
When Seth Myers announced Chris Christie, I fully expected to see Bobby Moynihan again. Instead, we got the real thing. Whether you are a fan of Christie’s or not, I think we can all agree that he did a good job. He was quite the good sport and I appreciate that in people. Make fun of yourself a little bit and you’ll go far. Well done Gov. Christie, well done.
Not well done? The Avengers sketch. Lazy, lazy, lazy. The joke of Hawkeye not really doing anything was funny but the execution of the sketch just sucked. I was quite disappointed because I (like I’m sure many others) was looking forward to seeing what they would do. Thankfully Thor asked for a scrunchie otherwise the entire sketch would have been a loss.
“Thug #2” seemed like a throwaway sketch. Not much point to it beyond, Jason Sudekis is an ass and his name is Dick Fuel. That’s about it. Boring.
I thought I’d been transported back to the 90’s with the animated “Cool Drones” piece. So much so that I actually went to the internets and looked up to see if Robert Smigel was involved. Smigel being the man behind “TV Funhouse”. He actually was not a part of “Midnight Snack” as it was done by Augenblick Studios. Whoever had the idea to turn drones into a boy band needs a big kiss on the mouth because that was awesome. Here’s hoping there are more episodes of “Midnight Snack” in the future.
If “Tourism ad: Your Hometown” was my favorite part of the night, the final sketch of the night was my second favorite part. It was a simple sketch but they did a good job with it. I am somewhat amazed that Taran Killam did not absolutely lose it as Bill Hader was beating about the head and chest. I don’t think he even cracked a smile and that is impressive.
As a whole, the episode was weak. It felt like they wrote sketches that they then put Jeremy Renner into instead of writing sketches for him. I personally am not a fan of episodes like that. Then when they did write an episode for Renner (I’m assuming “The Avengers” was written with him in mind) it was just lame. Very disappointing.
I really wish they had included this “Thanksgiving Dinner” sketch that was put up on NBC’s site from the dress rehearsal.
It is no secret that I am a huge Tina Fey fan. If I had a patronus, it would be either Julie Andrews or Tina Fey without a doubt. I like to keep up with most former SNL cast members (Rob Schneider being the exception, sorry Rob), but Tina is at the top of my list.
So last week’s episode was good. I enjoyed the bits with Yao Fei (I have not yet found the Yao Fei fan club so I’m considering just starting my own, let me know if you want in), and of course Diggle as NotArrow, was sad about Walter’s departure, and chose to ignore the whole Laurel and Oliver thing completely.
This week? Well, I have mixed feelings about ‘Legacies’.
Firstly? Yay Royal Flush Gang!!! They are in Starling City to rob a bank but we already knew that. What we didn’t know is that Kyle/Ace was going to go all guns blazing and shoot a cop. Never a good idea. It did however set up nicely the father/son/gun theme that would run throughout the episode. I will say that the re-imagining of the Royal Flush Gang worked, for me at least. I wonder where I can get my hands on one of those masks.
For a moment however, let’s forget all plot line and story because wow.
Oliver Queen and John Diggle practicing what looks to be the Filipino martial art, eskrima.
Practice on fellows, practice on.
That scene wasn’t all shirtless sweaty hotness though, Oliver and John did have a meeting of the minds concerning Oliver’s path as the Vigilante. I really hope they come out and officially give a name to his alter-ego (they haven’t have they?) because I know it would help people who write about the show quite a bit as we never know how to refer to him whilst wearing the hood. I’ve done Arrow just because, duh The Green Arrow, but I’m fairly certain they’ve never actually called him Arrow so I’m torn.
Either way, Diggle thinks whatever they are calling him needs to be a hero and work on all types of crime in Starling City while Oliver thinks he should just focus on “The List”.
The flashbacks in this episode were all about Oliver’s dad and usually lined up with “King” of the Royal Flush Gang and his dealing with “Ace”. Even though this wasn’t a favorite episode, I really did like how they set this up. I really do wish though that they would set this show up less like a procedural. I don’t know that there’s any reason to have the bad guy be done at the end of the episode. It makes me want to weep when I think that a villain group as great as The Royal Flush Gang is just going to be one and done. Then again this is the same group that instead of moving on to a new city after being outed as bank robbers, they stick around until they are caught/killed. Can’t say these are the smartest cards in the deck. Of course they previously robbed banks in Keystone City and The Flash didn’t catch them so perhaps they felt they were safe.
I’m going to discuss Laurel now but she annoys me to the point that I can’t even see her face so I went instead with a nice gif showing off Stephen Amell’s form. He’s got a nice anchor point and appears to be solid in his stance.
Too bad he isn’t drawing back on Laurel’s ridiculousness. Apparently not only has she become a stellar lawyer in all forms of practicing law in the matter of 18 months, but she also is running the CNRI (which has to be a play on Canary) and because of that is understandably upset at Stagg Industries pulling their funding. SERIOUSLY PEOPLE?!?! Ugh, I just can’t even deal with that crap at all. I’m looking forward to the next episode when Laurel is appointed special counsel to the President of the United States after successfully suing Pol Pot posthumously for crimes against humanity. Not only does her completely ridiculous career path annoy me, but seriously she needs to look into something to treat her mood swings. In the span of 30 seconds she went from “Tommy I don’t need your money” to “My best friend and I play a game called “convince me in ten words or less” and she won so yes Tommy I’d love to throw a fund-raiser with you.” I can’t even bring myself to discuss how Tommy won Laurel over by saying she was more preferable to a repeat one night stand.Merlyn need to be bad and Laurel needs to don some fish nets before I write both of them off as boring and useless.
Much to my surprise, I’m liking Thea more. Granted the whole crush on big brother’s best friend thing was a little left fieldish but her interactions with Oliver have become much more pleasurable. I loved the scene with Oliver and Thea giving Moira crap about going on and on about Carter Bowen. It’s a long practiced pastime of siblings and it’s fun to watch them grow/fall back into it. I’m also coming around to the idea of Thea being Speedy if for no other reason than they keep making a point of calling her Speedy. At first it was a passing thing but now there’s been commentary on the name as well. I’d say it’s only a matter of time before we see her flinging arrows at Starling City’s derelict business leaders.
So are we to believe that Oliver Queen can break into the police department (complete with some amazing ceiling acrobatics), download entire databases full of evidence, take that evidence, and then glean the needed information from it but he doesn’t know how to work google?
I’m only half complaining because I want Felicity Smoak to be on the screen as much as humanly possible but still, maybe she needs to be challenged a bit more than inputting something into a search bar.
I said earlier that the running thread through the episode was fathers and sons but I change my mind. It was more of just family in general. As much as I loved the banter between Diggle and Oliver, and especially when Felicity was brought in, it was actually the final scene between Moira and Oliver that was tops in my book. So sweet. I really hope they show more of her story with the boat and the Barrowman and why she was so interested in figuring out what Oliver knew because I want to love her, but there’s this little niggle in my brain (actually it’s my husband sitting next to me going “Don’t trust her Oliver, you can’t trust that bitch.”) that is preventing me.
Seriously if that doesn’t tug at the ol’ heartstrings than you are a heartless bastard. The End.
No new episode next week due to the holiday, but Arrow will return on November 28th with an episode titled “Muse of Fire” featuring a character I’ve been looking forward to since there were first rumors of her… The Huntress!
Had you told me 20 years ago as I sat at a computer and played “Where in the World is Carmen SanDiego” that one day I would be able to talk to people face to face on that computer, I’d probably have laughed at you. The fact that I can video chat with one sister in Louisiana one minute and then video chat with my other sister in Israel moments later is just stunning. There are times I have to stop myself and think “holy shit, I can’t believe this is even possible”.
I get the same feeling when it comes to things like Google Hangout. I’m sure you’ve seen the commercial with the chick showing her friends she got engaged or (I think) the one with the baby walking for the first time. Basically it is a group video chat and while that sounds so simple, it’s amazing at the same time. I’ve had the opportunity to use Google Hangouts quite often with friends of mine and it’s somewhat awe-inspiring when I sit back and think how cool it is that people from New York and Washington (state) and California and Georgia are all able to see and talk to each other at the same time. Not to mention, Google has actually built a rather good program here.
I’ve used Skype and Tango quite a bit in the last few years and don’t get me wrong, they are great, but somehow Google takes what they have done and makes it that much better. I’ve found that the picture is clearer and the sound quality is light years better. Long story short, if you aren’t using Google Hangouts, you should be.
What does all this have to do with H+, The Digital Series?
Well, they decided to hold a Google Hangout themselves.
They aren’t the first to do this, as the cast and crew of The Guild have done quite a few as have variousother people and groups. It makes sense for a show like H+ to jump on board given their topic and premise of their series.
If you aren’t familiar with H+ The Digital Series, you can read this review from a couple of months ago to brush up. Quite a bit has happened since I wrote that initial review and I’m happy to say, it’s all been good. I’m not going to give any details because I really do hope people will go and watch the series.
If you watch the hangout yourself (which I would recommend because it’s rather interesting) you’ll see that they don’t really talk about the plot lines of the show that much which I found to be nice because I’m a few “episodes” behind and didn’t really want to be spoiled. They talk quite a bit about how the show came to be, the steps they took in taking it from concept to a television pitch to then ultimately a web series.
The parts that I found to be most interesting was when they talked about filming the series in its entirety in 29 days. There are going to be 48 episodes and they are all about 6-8 minutes long which ends up being about 5 hours of finished product. To get the amount of material to end up with 5 hours of finished product in only 29 days is remarkable. I don’t know about anyone else, but it makes me appreciate the series all the more. Also, I would have never guessed that they filmed solely in Santiago, Chile. That means they made Santiago look like California, Oregon, The Republic of Congo, Ireland, England, Finland, Italy, and India. That’s impressive.
It was quite cool to see a director/producer of Bryan Singer’s caliber just sitting in a living room chatting on the computer. He talked quite a bit about finding Steward Hendler as director of the series and how the project had originally been planned for TV. Really it seems like this is John Cabrera’s baby. When he talks about the show you can just see how much he cares for it and hopes for its success. He touched on something I had wondered watching the show, which were the subtitles. Given that it does take place in so many different places, there is quite a bit of subtitling. However, not everything is subtitled. While talking in the Hangout, Cabrera says that they did it on purpose. Their hope was that people who might speak that language would come to the aid of those who didn’t and it would just be one more way for the viewers to come together. That’s exactly what has happened. There’s been numerous times I’ve scrolled through YouTube comments and seen where someone has provided a translation.
Perhaps the best thing to come out of the conversation was the news that while WB had not yet ordered season/Chapter 2, the script is being worked on. With 6.6 million views on YouTube so far and 104K subscribers, I’m clearly not the only one wanting Chapter 2 to happen. If nothing else, it is exciting to be a part of a new medium come into its own. Here’s hoping that H+ The Digital Series is just another part of a massive wave of internet based content in the near future.
In the meantime, catch up on H+over on YouTube, and why not follow Grizzly Bomb on Google+ as well? [Ed.Note: I approve this shameful plug]
Oh, we are getting so close. So very, very close. The long-awaited and much-anticipated new film from Peter Jackson will open in theatres a month from today we’ve been treated to another little teaser.
Looks good! We’ve seen most of that before but as is customary with new spots, they added in a little bit more. This movie is nothing if not beautiful and given that the trailers and teasers just show a snippet, I can not wait to see it in its full scope. It was nice to see a bit of humor in this spot with Balin (Ken Stott) telling Bilbo (Martin Freeman) that what he is carrying around is not a sword, but rather a letter opener. Ha! Well done Balin.
If you are planning to head to the theatres opening weekend, it might not be a bad idea to go ahead and get tickets. They went on sale on the 7th and you can purchase them online or from your local theatre (obviously if they offer that, which they surely will because it would be foolish not to). If you order your tickets through Fandango, you receive a free download of the Howard Shore song, “The Adventure Begins”.
However, if you are like me and are a fan of film scores, you can head over to Empire Magazine where they have the entire film score available for streaming. There are some who won’t listen to it in order to experience the score for the first time with the movie, but I’m of the thought that you can never hear good scores enough. The score will be released on cd and digital formats on December 10th and can be purchased from both Amazon and iTunes.
So there you have it. All that’s left is to start the countdown until we join Bilbo Baggins on his adventure! The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens on December 14th.
This song is everywhere. Unfortunately my husband loves this song more than life itself so I’ve had the great pleasure of listening to this song ten thousand times in the last month. Now that I think about it, perhaps this might find its way into his stocking this year. A great gift for any YouTube viral hit fan in your life.
Grizzly Bomb 
