Favorite thing (10/26/14-11/1/14)

Two For Grace: Hey Noop. Anything tickle your fancy (or tickle anything else for that matter) on the television this week?

Noop Gingrich: Didn't see much tickling on TV this week, another disappointing seven days for borderline inappropriate physical contact. But I'll tell you what, it's a great time to be a slow motion aficionado.  (That's Spanish for "tornado of affection.") My favorite thing of this week is just that. There was a ton of great television the past few days but this week had copious amounts of slow-mo. 

Wentworth Miller: Only slightly less
absurd a name than Leonard Snart?

The Flash's fourth episode "Going Rogue" was easily the best yet and the only reason it's not the FTAW is because I'm connecting dots here!

For "Going Rogue," the hour was robust with slapstick humor ("wanna see how fast I can run backwards,"), launching subtle joke after subtle joke (The bit with Leonard Snart's name, "nobody goes through the tour twice," "really bad diarrhea."), there was splendid character development, a crossover, and more frames per second than Peter Jackson's butt hole! Slow Motion showed up right away in the initial heist, again in the first showdown with Captain Cold, and then tastefully one last time in the attack on the train. 

Quick shout out to Wentworth Miller as Captain Cold. He may barely have a forehead but man was he menacing, brutal, and made a lasting impact. I also like the goofy way they name the villains. The cherry on top was how Iris and her boyfriend are scolded at and made fun of the entire time. 

TFG Interjects Himself: Flash's rogue gallery is one of, if not the best. In the comics there is a very interesting comradery where these villains actually care for each other (as opposed to rogues in different titles who form only shaky alliances at best), with Captain Cold being a "mother hen" of sorts.

Noop: Then we had Agents of Shield. Another solid episode as their now compelling story rumbles on, but the moment that stood out was Adrienne Palicki's Mockingbird spin moving through the dust of a disintegrating Hydra agent to smack the crap out of another Hydra agent. 

There was also Broadchurch aka Tennant in America! A serious crime drama about a town falling apart. Serious but not enough for me to ignore the pointless slow motion they snuck into the episode this week. It was just a family kicking a soccer ball but damn was it slowed down. 

I may have cheated but I can't help but love overused slowmotion! Ok, Two For Grace, you're up. Where is your plus-one landing?

Rope Dart Knife: You might have better luck winning the
 lottery than not stabbing yourself with one of these.

TFG: Oh we haven't talked about Gracepoint yet (a.k.a. Broadchurch USA). The show that gets better as the characters get worse. Runners up for my favorite moment of the week are Walking Dead, which featured the "tainted meat" scene, one of my favorite moments in the comic and presented very nicely on television. SHIELD, continuing to be my favorite show of the season, didn't make my #1 this week, though it did include a knife-rope (also known as the "Rope Dart Knife", apparently). You know, a rope that has a knife at the end of it that no one in real life could actually use without instantly stabbing themselves. As ridiculous as it was, very fun to watch in action.

Noop: 100% agree with you on knife-ropes. They're the real life equivalent of lightsabers. Not only can they actually exist (a kindergartner with access to a kitchen could muster one up accidentally) but also that it will most definitely be landing in an eye socket.

TFG: My pick of the week, though, goes with this clip on the daily show in which Danny Trejo portrays (in traditional Danny Trejo fashion) the threat Latino immigrants present to our nation starting at the 4:20 mark in the following video:

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

Noop: That  Daily Show segment was fantastic. Madrigal might be the best correspondent they have at the moment. I'd also like to point out that there is a healthy load of slow motion in that hilarious clip as well. All in all, a truly spectacular week for television!

Favorite Thing of the Week! (10.18.14 - 10.25.14)

Two For Grace: What was your favorite thing on the TV this week?

Noop: I have yet to watch the full slate for the past few days but its turning out to be a tough choice this week. There was a stellar Key and Peele skit about a massage, Jensen Ackles in Supernatural's third episode was zoned in, and Flash had the line "It's been a while since I watched you sleep" delivered in possibly the only context where it's not creepy. 

Constantine also premiered and as I had hoped, it was visually like the movie but without Keanu. (We'll discuss the sames and unsames of the two in an upcoming post. Let's let the show get some more eps in.)

Out of all of those Ill anoint the look-both-ways-slam-dunk of a line from the Flash as my favorite thing of the week. 

TFG: It was a fine week. Flash is certainly turning out to be a good choice for favorite things. I love/hate this previous episode's wonderful portrayal of Dr. Snow's (Danielle Panabaker) tragic backstory with added relationship development between her and Barry. Love because it was so well done, hate because I realized how much I don't care for the show's actual love interest, Iris West.

(Noop: Barry should man up and realize that Iris is basically his sister. You can't call her dad your dad, Barry! Also, like the rest of the world, I've been in love with Danielle Panabaker since Sky High.)

TFG: But my favee thing from this past week was from Doctor Who- Flatline (not the episode that just aired due to late bloggeria). I just want to highlight a character who defeated the Doctor's classic psychic paper (blank paper that portrays what the viewer thinks they should be seeing) by simply being not creative enough. That's right, the Doctor experienced a slight defeat because someone was literally too boring. Oh that episode also featured the doctor sticking his regular sized hand out of a miniature TARDIS, causing Adams Family cousin Thing hilarity.

Noop: I'm only all Capaldi episodes behind in Doctor Who. So much shame I'm bringing unto my family that doesn't realize all the shame they've been untooed. 

TFG: Good stuff. To close this week: list some other contexts you might hear the line "It's been a while since I watched you sleep", good or bad.

Noop: Good - Telling it to your insomniac family member whose bed is in the living room.

Bad - Telling it to literally any nonrelative. For example, a librarian saying it to an avid but often tired homeless man who may have not come by the library in a while. Actually that might be good. 

DC Announces Butt-ton of Movies. Should We Care?

Two For Grace: DC just announced the titles of a bunch of movies I'm going to rent while I wait for Marvel movies to come out!

Noop Gingrich: Looks like somebody is forgetting the cookie cutter mediocrity of everything Marvel put out between Iron Man and The Avengers. Yeah I said it! 

Don't get me wrong, good movies, sure, but it was rushed and standardized. 

Say what you will about the botched story details of Man of Steel, the movie was gorgeous, more cinematic, and had a more memorable score than any Marvel film other than Guardians.

TFG: I'm not going to argue that any of the "Avengers Phase 1" films were the Citizen Kane of comic book films. Heck, if it weren't for the 5 seconds of post credit glory that defined Iron Man when it came out I probably would have left the theater only barely satisfied. But those movies were an important step in saving the comic book film world. I mean the years leading up to Iron Man we saw a pretty sad downward spiral in the industry. Fantastic Fours and Wolverine Origins and Ghostriders were being thrown at us while we clutched our copies of Spiderman 2, weeping for a world full of potential lost. Marvel Studios produced an entertaining, but more important, a sobering series of films that built up a mythology that is 6 years later still gaining steam rather than losing it. Don't get me wrong, DC movie adaptations could end up raising the bar and giving Marvel a run for their money, but they are really going to have to impress me if I'm going to be convinced that this is more than Warner Brothers desperately trying to grab onto any of Marvel's leftovers and shout "Hey! Our characters are relevant too!" And making statements like "No jokes in the DCU" isn't really sucking me in.

Noop: Yeah Marvel did save the mainstream comic genre but I like to believe that those smaller films like Scott Pilgrim and Kick A** would still have happened. 

And to your last point there, whatchu sayin is you want fart jokes in Dawn of Justice. Yeah, DC definitely needs more intelligent humor. 

It's all gonna come down to who DC hires other than Snyder to helm their cinematic onslaught. As far as the casting goes, there are few Chrises left to hire so DC needs to continue their crazy casting choices. We've already got Jason Momoa as Aquaman and the recent announcing of Ezra Miller as Flash. Those are huge risks but if the film's look Snyderesque, how can you not want to watch a Flash film that will probably have revolutionary slow motion prowess (now audiences may have gotten bored of slow mo because by then, the other Quicksilver will have already debuted and...who am kidding people will never tire of slow mo.)

TFG: Zack Snyder is like the pomegranate of directors. I really want to like it. A bunch of my cool friends like it, but I find myself getting sick of it really fast. I mean he piques so many of my interests in his movies, yet I can't ever quite seem to leave saying "I really liked that!" The Man of Steel was no exception. Would fart jokes have swayed my opinion in a more positive direction? Yes. Fart jokes are always a crowd-pleaser.

Noop: They've just announced the cast they're going after for Suicide Squad. Will Smith, Margot Robby, Bane, and Ryan Gosling. If they get that, hoo wee! The question then becomes do we have another The Losers on our hands or will it go Guardians of the Galaxy. Again, I doubt Snyder is going to do it so it's a wait and see deal. That said, I will easily concede that without the Marvel Universe triumph, there would be no shared universe anywhere else. DC would never have amped up their production to this level. My opinion, more comic book movies at a high production value, made by good film makers, that can only be a welcomed future. As much as I love Bring it On, Marvel still has to earn some forgiveness for the Edgar Wright debacle. Let's also keep in mind that at the moment, the directors on one side include Favreau, Branagh, the Russos, and, best of all James Gunn, while on the flip, DC just has Snyder. This is a game of patience. Let's give DC a fun size twizzler before we decide they hog up too many God damn Twizzlers and deserve no more twizzlers. (I'm actually not that big a fan of Twizzlers.)

TFG: I've always been more of a Red Vine kind of guy.

Noop: Red Vines can suck a butt!

Word Bubble Squared: Comic Book TV Shows 2014

You ever watched a TV show and think: "Hey, this a comic book?" Here we begin to unravel the mysteries of the ever expanding dweebanomically powered audible word bubbles that populate our eventually watched screens. This begins our weekly conversations on the topic of superpowers on tv as we shout hesitantly into an iPhone and vigorously yet minimally edit the conversation for your bipartisan viewing pleasure.

Two For Grace: Noop! Rank the following TV shows based on season premiere- Agents of SHIELD, Gotham, Arrow, The Flash.

Noop Gingrich: I'm gonna put SHIELD first, then The Flash, followed by Gotham, then Arrow. Arrow continues it streak of being a garbage show.

TFG: I can't defend the Arrow. I've never seen it.

Noop: Let's not forget we also have to add Constantine and Agent Carter when they come out.

TFG: Constantine. Is that about the 40 year old that's stuck in a teenage body?

Noop: What's the joke here aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand [TFG: constant teen]. Got it. This conversation would work better as a Google chat and less dictation and pausing for their further dictation and more pausing and editing and more pausing 

TFG: True but I hate my voice. My order is the same. Arrow last, but that's also because I haven't seen it and it looks like it's probably garbage. But it is CW.

Noop: CW as in good or bad? Because Supernatural is CW and that show is phenomenal, but then again that was WB.

TFG: Gilmore Girls was a WB show. Was there ever a Gilmore Girls/Supernatural crossover?

Noop: Actually Supernatual is basically a Gilmore Girls spinoff. Supernatual is the result of smashing Smallville and Gilmore Girls into one show.

TFG: CW has a target audience. I've never figured out what that target is.

Noop: Probably puberty. What CWness did you see from the Flash? Was it how there was a clear love quadrangle that they ever so obviously constructed?

TFG: That a CW thing?

Noop: Yup. It's what skunked up Arrow when I first watched it. Everyone has a secret relationship. That megacrap Supernatural spinoff was ripe with love affairs that we should "care" about. While I did enjoy a lot of what the Flash brought, they clearly had that love dependence flowing through the main characters. I'll say this about Arrow, it's generally well cast and the story has potential but the obnoxious flashbacks, the looking off into widows expressing all sorts of emotions and most importantly, the lack of an arrow cam are offensive and I hate it.

TFG: What the hell is an arrow cam?

Noop: You use it when you pull the arrow back and then you fire it but the camera follows the arrow either from the tail going to the target or from the head going away from the shooter into the target, kind a like how they do for Hawkeye in The Avengers and in Wimbledon, that movie about love and tennis with Paul Bettany. 

TFG: Maybe we should be making a podcast... I agree Avengers really grabbed everything that Wimbledon established and just took off with it.

Noop: I'm glad to see the trend continue with Avengers 2. And they'll finally get Paul Bettany on screen too. Now, they didn't have Arrow cam in the Arrow pilot and that's sad but it's season 3 now and those punks still haven't realized it should be the number one camera trick they use non stop in a freaking show called Arrow. With the Flash however, they did good. They had slow mo ready to go. If there was one thing the Flash had to have, it's that sweet sweet nonsensical slow mo. Now, what would you say that Gotham does that is not CW-like? Its on FOX and while they do cancel great shows, they still get them on air and they allow great stories to be written.

TFG: Well with any luck Gotham will be just not great enough to cancel. I don't even know how to describe it yet. I'm not quite sure what the mood was they were trying to capture. It's, like, dark and gritty but also goofy. It's like the Haunted Mansion of comic television adaptations.

Noop: I did get a Batman The Animated Series vibe coming from it.

TFG: Great point. I've always been a Harvey Bullock fan. He is probably my favorite part of the show so far.

Noop: I actually really dig the casting. Ben McKenzie [Det. Gordon] will be great. Lemme add one thing that irked me about the pilot and it was a holdover from the Nolan Movies. Gordon never put his coat around little Bruce's shoulders. I'm so pissed about that.

TFG: In the movie Gordon wasn't a detective yet, right? He also was already sportting the 'stache?

Noop: Yeah. Wonder if Gordon's 'stache will be treated like Clark Kent wearing the suit and flying in Smallville. Saving it for the last minute of the last episode.

TFG: I'm sure that is what everyone will be waiting for while watching the series.

Noop: Has to be, Bruce cant go Batmaning until, like, 20 years from now and it's just unfeasible for a genre show to last that long. Last up, we both agree that Agents of SHIELD was the top premiere, yes?

TFG: Yeah. It's still running off the glorious steam it gained by the end of Season 1,

Noop: -hot damn such steamy steam.

TFG:  ...and I will say, I am already liking the additions to the cast.

Noop: Good show.

TFG:  Great show.

Noop: Yeah. When do the second episodes come out for all these shows?

TFG: Like 2 weeks ago I think.

Noop: You're right. I've already seen them.