Jack and StepChad get together to cover this week’s BingeCast. They talk We Own This City, Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Presidents podcast with Shane Gillis and Louis CK, and, of course, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Head over to Patreon.com/BingeMedia to sign up for the Full Binge! This week the boys play a rousing match of the Alyx/Law game. It’s like the GC game, but with Alyx and Law.
Want a bunch of new sounders, drops, and drunk segments? I’m pretty sure we do all of this at some point. We also review a bunch of movies, TV, and hand in our Movie Homework on time. Timestamp guy has all the details below. Timestamp guy also gets blasted for a good half hour during the show. Timestamp guy is the best.
0:01:27-Sup. New sounder by PeteMC!
0:01:27-Law, MorenoAlyx, and PeteMC are in the hizzy. Gross, I just typed hizzy. Is the name “Moreno” on the way out? Are you #TeamAlyx or #TeamMoreno? That’s a better fucking fight than that Captain America movie. What is everyone drinkin? Ammon? Probably? I don’t know. Maybe? I don’t know. Fuck you. Drunk Segments. Another sounder to be played later. Look at all this new shit!
0:08:36-DRUNK SEGMENT NUMERO UNO
0:16:19-TV ROUND UP. Moreno/Alyx up the first season of Legion. Check out the recent Small Screen Heroes for more discussion on Legion. Law is not itchin’ to watch Iron Fist. Podcast Round Up Sounder! Fast and Furious. STAY THE FUCKING COURSE. Moreno is catching up on Cheers and Rick and Morty. Law gives his thoughts on Big Little Lies, which concluded. PeteMC is grilled about how he asked Ammon what the ending was. Law talks Brockmire, and to a further extent, Hank Azaria and Amanda Peet. Better Call Saul is back this week. Season 2 is highlighted a bit. Fargo. Get Down Season 2 is up and running, bitches. Santa Clarita Diet, Training Day, Veep, Silicon (Smash?) Valley, Crashing, Girls.
1:01:37-Patreon Update
1:03:11-GC sounder. More drops. Temple of Doom Aftertaste gets mentioned.
1:14:05-WHAT DID YOU WATCH? PeteMC’s first ever sounder from the old show is played. Old shows are revisited. After what is probably six hours of bullshit (not exaggerating. But maybe I am), the segment begins with Pete who saw It for the first time. (It spoilers, btw). Face Swap round up. ANYWAY. Ok, so Pete also watched Desierto, Aftermath, Split, Louis C.K. Stand up. Tangents like a motherfucker. Back to Louis C.K., which was viewed across the board. AMMON. Alyx talks second Chappelle special, and Kong: Skull Island. Ammon checked out Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Law watched The Discovery. How much do you rely on movie reviews? Do you even give a shit?
2016 has been full of ups and downs. For a lot of people, the downs have seemed to be at their lowest, with celebrity deaths (wtf Leia too?!?!), corrupt elections and Justin Bieber still touring the world at the forefront of everyone’s attention. Much like some drunk Mexican before me, I’d like to take a look at some things that I dug this year. Keep in mind, my annual Year In Review will be dropping on New Year’s Day for you Bingers, so keep an eye out for that soon.
Making a Sassquatch
It would be easy to look back on that experience with some bitterness, but I can’t deny that I had a blast doing the show. From Moreno and PeteMC’s involvement to the insanity that ensued from the mystery of who Sass was, I thought it was a rousing success and also, like Moreno, appreciated how organic it was. Stuff like Making a Sass reminds me that the best ideas are sometimes also the dumbest ones, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Horace and Pete/Louis CK Live at Foxwoods
If there’s one singular experience that sums up 2016 I think it’s probably Horace and Pete. Likely now finding a new audience due to the fact it just premiered on Hulu, Horace and Pete was the story of Horace and Pete, owners and operators of Horace and Pete’s bar in New York City. Horace, played by CK, and Pete, played by Steve Buscemi, play the two cousins doomed to live out the lives their fathers pre-ordained for them. The series features show-stopping performances across the board and moments that come completely out of left field, but the resolution is where I think the story mirrors this year really well. Nothing is easy, and happiness is a commodity that comes with a price for many folks. I think that this series will stand as not only a great piece of art but a meaningful one, and it stands out as one of the great experiences I’ve had watching anything this year. Couple this with the fact that I got to see Louie a few months later, with Kurt Metzger opening for him as a kicker, makes this one of my highlights of the year.
Dark Souls III
I play a few games now and again, and one of the great ones this year was Dark Souls III. DSIII provides a level of challenge that most games shy away from, but anyone who has beaten their first boss after several frustrating failures can tell you that there is possibly no better feeling in all of gaming than what this series gives you. From the opening moments avoiding dormant dragons to finding an imposter wearing the sacred Havel armor, DSIII delivers the goods and then some. Absolutely one of the great games of 2016.
Completing my Associate’s Degree
Most of you know I’m still in school. While my Bachelor’s degree is finishing up at the end of March, it’s easy to forget that I also completed my Associate’s Degree this year. It was a big step, and something that I did not dwell on for too long as the Bachelor’s was always the ultimate goal, but it was a milestone in 2016 that I am quick to overlook.
Wake & Bake with Bob Ross
I was lucky enough to start up two pods this year, with both being equally rewarding and tons of fun. As a casual idea that I threw out one BingeCast, the concept of sitting around, chilling the FUCK out and letting Bob Ross paint a god-damned masterpiece seemed like a great morning activity. So, as one does, we recorded it, wrapped it up in a bow and made for you, the listeners, Wake & Bake. Supka, myself and the occasional guest host dish on all the Pthalo Blue and Permanent Red you can shake your medium-length knife at. This is another example of stupidity being the mother of invention, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the course of this year in Binge it’s got to be that no idea is useless, and this show is a good example of that.
Meeting Joe Fernandes & The Kicks
With the big meetup this past summer, some of you may recall my meeting with “Sass”. The Kicks, consisting of TM, KariTM and PeteMC, came to Boston and I was lucky enough to meet the crew. Add in Joe Fernandes, native of New Bedford, and we had ourselves a great time listening to some dulcet tones in a Jock-McFuckFace Sports Bar in Beantown. It’s great to have met all of them and I can’t wait until our reunion in March.
Meeting Bruce Springsteen/Seeing Bruce Live
Four years ago, I saw Springsteen live at Gillette Stadium. That night it ignited a passion and love for his music that has only strengthened over time. I remember seeing a show that cracked a three-hour runtime with no breaks. This year, he came back to Gillette and played for over four hours. The madman brought his A-Game and did not disappoint. That would have been enough, but a few short weeks later I was afforded the opportunity to meet the man. It was brief, maybe all of 40 seconds, but one blurry picture marks the occasion for all time. Autographs are nice, but I felt it was an honor to shake the man’s hand and say “Thank you”. I got to do that this year. It was pretty awesome.
New England Patriots
As I write this the Patriots are sitting at 13-2. Our Quarterback was unjustly and unfairly persecuted and despite his absence we found a way to go 3-1. We beat the Broncos. We beat the Ravens. The Seahawks…well they beat us, but we played a well fought game. Who knows, that may still be the Super Bowl preview when all is said and done. Each year the Pats are an absolute joy to watch and I am always looking forward to the next thing our dark overlord Coach Belichick and TB12 are cooking up next. See you in Houston.
Tracy Morgan Live at the Comedy Connection
One comedy show would have been big, but thanks to Meg’s keen eye we got to see Tracy Morgan this year too. In what must be his first tour since the accident, Morgan was on fire. They had us lock up our cell phones, so I imagine some iteration of this show will be available online at some point, but it was great to see Morgan not only on his feet and enjoying himself but finding the humor in the situation he’s been forced into. A great time and a great performance, Tracy Morgan, if he comes to your town, should be a priority.
Titanfall 2: Effect and Cause
Gaming has been good to us this year, no more so than this wonder of a mission from TItanfall 2’s brilliant single player campaign. The story at this point establishes that you are on a colony where something bad happened, and you’re looking for spare parts. As you’re traveling through, however, you begin to see people who look like they are halfway through a wall. Soon thereafter, you find an item with the ability to “jump” between two different times. This creates an interesting piece of strategy in an otherwise straightforward level, propelling this game into the must-play lists of 2016. Levels like this show you things that even at this stage in gaming you can’t believe you haven’t seen before. Here’s to more of this in 2017.
OJ Made in America
Easily the most powerful and fascinating documentary of the year, OJ Made in America aims to tell the story you know in a way that you don’t. By taking a few steps back and really examining the racial implications of the OJ Simpson murder trial you begin to see the flaws in not only the criminal justice system but also in ideas about racial prejudice and fairness. This five part documentary, totaling a little over seven hours, is essential viewing for anyone and everyone.
The Greasy Strangler/The Greasy Strangler Soundtrack
Thank you, thank you, thank you Jim Law. This was absolutely not on my radar in any way until Law brought it up during a BingeCast. This is the type of movie that you watch 5-10 minutes and decide whether or not you’ll be in for the long haul. This movie is hilarious, the soundtrack is batshit catchy-insane and it’s full of awkward dicks, smoothies and bullshit artists. You at least should give this a try if you’re at all curious. I don’t know what it says about me that I love this flick as much as I do. Probably nothing healthy.
That’s it for me. There was plenty of other good shite this year but I’ll let the others cover that stuff. As for myself, it’s an honor and a privilege being a part of Binge Media and I cannot wait to see what this year brings us. Binge On!
WARNING – THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR HORACE & PETE THROUGH THE FINALE
I’m writing this a day after the stunning finale of Horace and Pete, struggling to summarize my feelings on the series. On the one hand, this series, oftentimes, didn’t tell me what I wanted to hear. I didn’t get what I wanted out of several plot threads and I never really understood the point of everything. There were unlikable moments and some incredibly challenging pieces of storytelling that are still bothering me today.
That’s what makes this show a masterpiece.
My life couldn’t be more different from the ones lived by all the patrons of Horace and Pete’s bar. I don’t (yet) have any psychotic tendencies. I didn’t knock up my significant other and her sister at the same time. I haven’t had to personally deal with a debilitating disease, and I don’t drink my days away talking about what’s wrong with America in some ancient relic of New York. Yet, like any good piece of storytelling, I saw myself in almost every character in this series. Do I have strained familial relations? Check. Is the past constantly something that weighs on my mind? Yep. Would I ever consider drinking apple juice at the bar, just to fit in? Probably.
There is this gritty, bitter honesty at the heart of everything that we see in H&P that I just cannot shake. Louis, in a really bold move, wrote, shot and edited this thing on his own in secret, delivering to us, his fans, this really nice surprise “slice-of-life” sort of tale about two brothers who own a bar. It’s his baby, and as such there are no constraints. One episode may run for an hour and cost five dollars, while the next may run forty-five minutes and cost two dollars. Louis made the show as a free experiment to take us on an emotional journey. There are some laughs. There are some scares. There are some truly low, sad moments, but they somehow all work together in telling the story of this family and their history.
Much of the comedy in this story is on the cosmic scale. The whole tragedy of human existence is the joke Louis is after here, and that’s no clearer than in the finale where Reg E Cathey’s Harold sums up the story of the bar and Horace’s untimely end at the hands of Pete Ironically enough, that end came by the very knife Sylvia was using to cut limes and offer patrons “more modern drinks”. The symbolism of that knife as a tool into modern times//the future is truly incredible. In a series predicated upon the sins of the past coming back to haunt the characters, this is also the final affirmation that at Horace & Pete’s bar nothing will ever change. Despite Sylvia’s attempts to help her brother Horace grow, and his inclination to probably do so, the bar consumes the brothers/cousins. This whole idea of being trapped by the nature of what you are born into was the show’s point all along. I completely and wholeheartedly understand this sentiment, as I was born into a family business situation. As I get older, I see what that life is, and what it would be for me, and I had some influences who helped me understand that I should be walking a different path. I guess that’s at the heart of why H&P is hitting me so hard: I very easily could have been Horace.
The flipside of this is also the tragic story of Pete. Pete is unquestionably a broken person, something that gets reiterated by the episode ten flashback and abuse we see him subjected to. The dynamics of everything in this story, from top to bottom, are fascinating and disturbing, but never felt fake to me. H&P talks about the things none of us are willing to. I guess that is where the show feels most important and valid. For better or worse, richer or poorer, all of this happened, even though it didn’t.
So, at the end of this, what does this mean for us? What was the point? The point was…tough to discern. For me, this series is all about choices. You aren’t what happens to you, but what you choose to be. Horace and Pete are what happened to them. They are the curators of this stagnant, ugly snapshot of America, and that’s it for them. They are fine with that. For Pete, his own mind betrayed him, so the bar is his one lasting legacy in this world (possibly made worse by the clear abuse his uncle/father put him through). Similarly for Horace, a man who was so unloved in his childhood that he struggled in his marriage later in life, has no scope outside of the bar. His daughter can’t relate to him very well and his son hates him. There is only the bar, the patrons and Pete in Horace’s world. There is only Budweiser on tap. There are always the same barflies that will keep coming back no matter how many times they are thrown out. Horace and Pete, despite their attempts at being happy, are trapped individuals who could never step out and be their own men. Quite literally, the weight of simply being named Horace and Pete is what killed them both in the end (literally for one, figuratively for another).
Therein lies the rub. Pete killed Horace, and Sylvia, the one person whom we assumed would be dead, lives on with the hope of reclaiming her life. The unexpected was always the most intriguing aspect of the series, and to the end CK kept me in the dark at every turn. Up until that final climax, I simply had no clue how things would shake out, and to that end this is a brilliant and essential piece of…well…I don’t know how to categorize this. It’s not TV, it’s a web-series, but it’s also sort of a play, or a movie… Much like his show Louie, H&P is unique and rough, full of promise but also misery. I can’t think of a better way to describe life.
Jack Valley and Law join me this week in celebrating the 500th show of BingeMedia.net. It blows our collective mind holes to think that in just about 3 years we’ve done 500 shows. While they’re not all BingeCasts, it shows just how our little corner of the internet has expanded. Cheers and thanks for the follow and listens.
We then get deep into the Horace & Pete finale and the series as a whole. This is a completely spoiler filled review of the production, so just know that before you listen ok? Jesus.
Where the hell is Eva Mendes? This is the most important question of the year. Also, what is the best film since the year 2000? The boys try to answer all this nonsense while getting shitfaced and trying not to be obsessed with the iguana scene in BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL: NEW ORLEANS. We also review a bunch of television – Horace and Pete, Hunted, The X-Files, Billions, The Man in the High Castle – and watch a bunch of films, new and old – THE GODFATHER, KUNG FU PANDA 3, SPOTLIGHT, TED 2, GOOSEBUMPS.
Get it while it’s hot. Whatever that means. Yeah, totes.
If you’re a Louis CK fan, you’re currently living in his “golden age”. The man is, in my opinion, consistently delivering quality comedy without compromising his voice, evident on his most recent SNL hosting gig. It was no surprise to me that by the end of Season 5 that Louie has settled in as being one of my favorite shows on TV right now. Granted, a lot of what he does here doesn’t make sense, but the surreal edge he brings to the stories he tells is incredibly fascinating to me. I love his little quips, like naming one of his daughter’s sleepover friends “Afghanistan” like it’s completely normal. While it was a short season this year I have to say the quality hasn’t really dipped off for me. I heard some complaining about the content of some of this year’s episodes being a little softer than last year’s but I don’t think that’s the case at all. In fact, it’s almost as if this season is him working out bits for his next performance, in a sense, which I would assume is one of the main reasons he keeps making the show, and in that way Louie retains its title as the most unique program in comedy right now. I loved this season, as I’ve loved the last 4, and I look forward to whenever Louis decides to give us a little more.
It’s finally over. At a count of 145 hours in the bank, last night I completed The Witcher 3. How did it feel, getting all the way to the end of this long and arduous tale? Fantastic. I’ve read up online about some of the different endings you could have gotten and I have to say I’m very satisfied with mine. The way this game cultivated relationships, not only with love interests but also with acquaintances and fellow Witchers, was truly inspired writing, the likes of which I can honestly say was better than most movies. Part of me is sad to see the game is over but at the same time I’m happy that I’ve cleared the ledger in anticipation of Batman Arkham Knight next week. This is probably the last time I’ll write about Witcher 3 but as far as ratings go, it gets my highest marks: 10/10.
I’ve been craving a film like Ex Machina for years, I just hadn’t realized it. What a film. I know some were underwhelmed by the lack of action and others had issues with some of the character choices but to me this was a fantastic allegorical sci-fi masterpiece. I’ve always been a huge fan of films like 2001 A Space Odyssey and Blade Runner and have found that certain sci-fi movies grab me and give me tons of things to hypothesize and talk about. Ex Machina absolutely is one of those films. From the slow roll of the conversations with the AI to the film’s brilliantly deceptive structure this film goes the distance and then some. Oscar Isaac is great here, further proving with the choices he’s making that he is determined to be one of the greats, and honestly if he keeps taking roles like these it will come sooner rather than later. Domnhall Gleeson is also great in his role at the center of the experiment, questioning everything around him at every turn yet never fully understanding his role in the proceedings until the very final moments of the film. I was very honestly enthralled with the flick and gave it an 8/10 initially but I think I’ve got to bump it up to a 9/10. A small story, a small cast, an amazing soundtrack and some truly inspiring uses of special effects make Ex Machina one of the year’s best.
I just wanted to point out to you readers that not only was this the week in which I CONTINUED to stomp all y’all bitches in the Hottie League with my glorious Pitch Perfect 2/Jurassic World points (two films in which all three of my actresses star in) but it is also the week my New England Patriots were given their Super Bowl Rings, signifying the true end of celebrating that glorious accomplishment and moving on to next season. We’re only a few months away now from slinging that pig skin, and the countdown is on. Enjoy your week and, as always, Binge On!