Jack and Law are back on track with their commentary for the first season of the Strain and the latest episode does not disappoint. Among the many issues we talk about are Jack’s disbelief that every swanky loft office in Manhattan has digital touchpad security, what the fuck is up with Vasiliy’s accent, why we wanted to see a dude’s dick, and Jack’s anger towards people with cancer. We’re loving the look of the monsters, LORD OF THE RINGS references and the fact that the kid is not Caaaaaarl from The Walking Dead. Press play. Hold on to your junk. Enjoy.
Tusk, Sons of Anarchy, Patriots Training Camp and the Batman V Superman Teaser
It’s Tuesday again. I can’t believe July is gone already. I work on a 6-day work/school week every week, and when a new month starts I can hardly believe it. Needless to say, this summer will most likely be considered a wash, but that’s not the worst thing since the schoolwork is paying off in spades. This week was relatively light on flicks and shows but in spite of that I did manage to carve a chunk out of the TV Homework Ammon gave me from our podcast last week, as well as a few other things. Kevin Smith remains one of the most interesting fanboys in pop culture. The guy changes his mind on a dime but he has a pretty direct connection to a lot of franchises and movie stars that are on the A-list, not to mention the great podcasting work he’s made his primary function these past few years. Smith was someone I used to love as a director, mainly for Clerks, Clerks II and Chasing Amy. Since he’s strayed from Jay and Silent Bob, his work has been spotty at best, but I absolutely love Red State. I think the film is a unique take on a genre, has a pretty solid cast for what it sets out to do and is entertaining in a darkly cynical way. Color me excited for Tusk, Smith’s next horror-thriller hybrid. In fact, if Smith only made horror from here on out, I think I would be alright with that. The story seems weird but the mere fact that Smith is giving Michael Parks some scenery to chew on is enough for me to be all in. September can’t come soon enough. As per the final season coming up, I decided to pick up where I left off on Sons. I had stopped somewhere at the beginning of Season 4 almost a year ago, but luckily Netflix saved my place and I started up again without any confusion. I’m two episodes from finishing Season 5, which by the time this posts I will have probably finished. Rather than give you a summation of my feelings in paragraph form, I’ll give you my bullet points:
Jax is a tool
The plot is way too complicated for a biker show. Seriously, this is a moody soap opera where guys sometimes go and beat people up for “turf”
Loyalties bounce back and forth so quickly I have no idea where a lot of the characters stand
Tig is way too ok with the shit that gets thrown at him in this season (so far)
Walton Goggins is a comedic demigod
I will be finishing this soon. I think I’m hate-watching this the same way Jim Law does, but you could do a lot worse on TV these days. This week marked the birthday of the guy I consider to be the greatest director of all time, Stanley Kubrick. If you aren’t familiar with his work (you don’t know Stanley Kubrick? WTF?!?!), just watch 2001: A Space Odyssey and get into it. Seriously, the guy made classic, challenging films with each outing. How many directors can even get one of those throughout their career? From the brutality of A Clockwork Orange to the innovation of Barry Lyndon, Kubrick was and, to me at least, always will be the most innovative filmmaker of the century. Here’s hoping Nolan rises to this level of greatness with Interstellar (something I see as a distinct possibility). Comic-Con came and went without too much fuss this year. The Marvel panel told us nothing we don’t already know and Star Wars didn’t even make their presence known. Warner Brothers, however, severely rocked my socks with the Batman V Superman teaser. I have made it known on this site in the past that Zack Snyder is a toolbag of epic proportions. He severely fucked up Man of Steel and, despite the visual greatness, shit all over Watchmen. That being said, Affleck looks incredible in the armored Batsuit. This teaser told me two things right away:
Affleck may pull this off
Snyder may be poised to give us the truest incarnation of Batman we’ve seen yet
I know this is a bold statement to make, but this 30-second teaser was very satisfying. I am still hesitant that this is going to work out well, but if it does it could be the most comic-bookey (is that a word?) flick we’ve seen yet. I love Nolan’s trilogy for it’s ability to take Batman and put him in the real world, but hopefully this gives us a different, more comic-centric approach to the character. I still don’t give a fuck about Superman though. The fact that August is already here means Patriots football is very close to being back. Pre-season, whatever, I’m in. There’s an energy with the reports coming out of camp this year that most of us fans can really feel. This time of year is always full of optimism for football fans, that’s true. Hell, social media lit up when Sammy Watkins made a smooth, one-handed catch after recovering from a trip at Bills training camp last week despite it being completely undefended. The fact that we’ve got Edelman coming off a career-high season, Darrelle Revis and Brandon Browner being added to the secondary along with the return of Patrick Chung and a healthy, hopefully non-buterfingered Steven Ridley, there’s a lot of hope this year. My fingers are firmly crossed we can contend with the Broncos on a more even playing field this time around.
Finally, I’m leaving you with the spectacular Mad Max Fury Road trailer that premiered at Comic-Con. This thing looks really great and very Road Warrior-esque. Check back this week for our next Strain commentary (sorry about last week, schedules didn’t quite permit), as well as a possible BingeMusic Cast and our daily blogs. Binge on! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akX3Is3qBpw
Law, Ammon, and Kupka are here to relieve you of your weekly stresses and dive head first into everything you’ve been wondering about the past week.
Google Voice messes with Kupka’s head for a bit. We also have thoughts on the BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN footage, MAD MAX: FURY ROAD trailer, GODZILLA, and KING KONG news from Comic Con.
TV Round-Up boasts talk of The Strain, The Leftovers, You’re the Worst, Married, Face Off, The Killing, and Orange is the New Black.
What Did You Watch is full of goodness from THE EXPENDABLES 3, LUCY, THE PURGE: ANARCHY, THE OTHER WOMAN and tons of other movies you’ve been secretly dreaming about.
All in all, another fine evening of Podcast from your favorite bunch of drunk idiots. Listen with caution.
THE PURGE had all the makings of a good film. It was all right there for them to knock this out of the park. And then everything sucked cock. Law and Moreno sit down and watch this disaster with a few beers and try to figure out where it all went wrong. We deal with things such as what celebrity we would visit if the Purge was real. What if the Purge was just tickling – this changes our celebrity answers drastically. Where the hell does the daughter go for 95% of this film? And then we just scream “WHY!!!!!!!!” at the screen over and over until we’re both crying. It was fun.
Be sure to enter our THE PURGE ANARCHY contest RIGHT HERE and go see the film this weekend. It has to be better than this. Right?
He is here. And so are Law and Jack, ready to walk you through the very first episode of The Strain. Let’s kick things off by getting sidetracked by the dad from JUMANJI, the weird use of the colors, blue and yellow, in every scene, damaging flashbacks to SALEM’S LOT, plot holes in LORD OF THE RINGS, and the difficult task of trying to remember what happened in the book while drunk. There’s a lot to cover so strap in and enjoy our stupidity for over an hour. Bring snacks.
Lots of stuff to talk about this week so strap your earbuds in and settle back as Moreno and Law get drunk and mostly giggle at each other for two hours.
TV Round-Up features Tyrant, The Last Ship, The Leftovers, and Drunk History.
What Did You watch overflows with talk of DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, SABOTAGE, NEED FOR SPEED, and TRANSCENDENCE.
Stay tuned later this week for our commentary of THE PURGE and the very first commentary for The Strain.
Do you Bingers (That’s what I declare the readers of our site shall be known as) believe it’s July F’n 9th already?! Where does the time go? Speaking of time, (nice segue huh?) I had a helluva one last week while visiting our Nation’s Capitol, Virginia, and North Carolina. So much so I decided to tell you about some cool stuff to do if you ever find yourself in the area.
Surf Reston
Surf Reston is a small little Stand Up Paddle Board Outfit that is based in the lovely town of Reston, VA. Surf Reston was founded in 2012 by husband and wife Chris and Colleen Higgins. They were the operators only a short time for in 2013 they decided to relocate to Colorado and turned the business over to Steve Gurney. Steve is still the current operator and instructor and seems to be an all around good guy. When we got to our lesson he introduced himself and gave a little history of the company. He then let our friends go out (this wasn’t their first time) and gave us a quick but thorough tutorial on the art. Then he took us out on the water to sink or swim. <– Pun intended We took to it pretty quick and after Steve felt we were all good let us go on our own for about 45min -1hr and a great time was had by all. After circling the lake for a short while we decided to get a little adventurous and attempt some pretty basic Yoga positions. Some of them were done with ease as the boards are typically long enough for you to lay on, but others quickly found us in the water. Unless you’re some grand master I don’t recommend Reverse Warrior your first time out. After we were finished we headed back to shore where we thanked Steve and found out a bit more about the water sport. The next time you’re in the area I highly recommend Surf Reston for an inexpensive way of learning something new and having a fun time doing it. You can find out more about Surf Reston here and follow them on Facebook here.
Patent Trolls
So for those of you who aren’t aware there is a group of fucktards out there who make a living off of trolling for every possible goddamn patent they can possibly obtain and then sue anyone who is using said patent(s). I’m not shitting you. Now while I was aware of these people I never expected them to be trolling in the podcast world. That’s right, they are suing podcasters and they are going after some of the biggest in the community, WTF w/Marc Maron, This American Life, and The Adam Carolla Show. So what are they suing for? Podcasting. It’s that simple. They are claiming that anyone who has ever created a podcast owes them money. I came across all this information while catching up on some missed The Joe Rogan Experience podcasts, particularly the one with Adam Carolla. Before wrapping up the show Adam got into specifics of what was going on, how much they would settle for and how much the legal fees for a case of this magnitude would be. You can read all about what he is doing to fight this battle and even find out how to contribute here. This is some serious shit folks, I don’t know about you but I couldn’t handle a Monday morning without a Bingecast, could you? Please, if you can’t or don’t want to contribute, at least share the information. Every little bit helps.
Barmini
I don’t know if you were aware of this but we here at Bingemedia.net LOOOOOOOVE to drink. Seriously, ask our livers. So one of the stops we made during our visit to good ol’ Washington D.C. was at Barmini. Barmini is not for the casual drinker. How so? Well first of all you have to make a reservation to get in. Secondly you may be asked to leave after 2 hrs to accommodate other reservations. The second part is fine because if you’re not feeling 2 1/2 sheets to the wind after two hours you’re not doing it right. There has been a recent resurgence of “Craft Cocktails” as of late and why not, they’re freaking delicious. Alcohol, alcohol, sometimes even more alcohol, citrus and usually bitters, they are what my Grandparents would have had during a cocktail hour, you ask for a Rum and Coke, they would ask for a Cuba Libre, trust me there’s a difference. Barmini is essentially the working lab of Spanish American Chef José Andrés where classic cocktails and their variations are mixed, shaken and stirred for your enjoyment. If you have the time and a little extra spending money it is definitely a spot to hit. You can read more about Barmini here.
That’ll do it for this week. Any comments, questions, or concerns? Leave ’em below. You can also follow me on twitter @jekupka Until next week I leave you with this…
Ammon is still celebrating the Fife of July but Moreno and I get the great Scott Ward, of AdventureAmigos.netto fill in and shit gets crazy.
Google Voice is up to her old tricks with a 3-part disaster and incomprehensible message to end the show. Scott does his best but ends up throwing in the towel by the end of it all.
TV Round-Up finds talk of Tyrant, The Leftovers, Rectify, Drunk History, and The Wil Wheaton Project.
What Did You Watch has Moreno checking out SNOWPIERCER and THE LEGO MOVIE, Scot watches ENEMY, PRISONERS, MALEFICENT, and HUSTLE & FLOW. Law makes time for THEY CAME TOGETHER and A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST.
This week finds Ammon on mystery vacation duty but Moreno is back and we have a lot to discuss.
First up is the huge news from the Game of Thrones camp that a certain character from the books will not be appearing in the TV show. Moreno and I disect what this means for both the show and the novels. Google Voice shows up to confuse everybody for 10 minutes then leaves. During TV Round-Up we catch up with the season finale of Louie, set eyes upon the pilot for Tyrant, stay in touch with Jack Bauer, shit on True Blood, and look forward to The Leftovers and The Strain.
During What Did We Watch we both check out THE RAID 2 while I also fit in UNDER THE SKIN and The Don Rickles Tribute on Spike TV.
Stay focused on BingeMedia.net this week as our daily blogs continue and we start our regular comic reviews from new addition, Nick Spears.