A Kenny Rogers' Roasters restaurant moves in across the street and beams red light into Kramer's apartment day and night, so he gets Jerry to switch apartments. Elaine buys George a sable hat on the Peterman account along with a load of other things for herself, then gets audited by their accountant. I take apart this classic eighth season episode scene by scene, praising all its loopy goodness and gently pointing out its mild gaps.

2008.03.10 — Entertainment | Movies | Movie Analysis | by Andrew Cole

Simon Pegg knocks one out of the... cricket pitch(?) as super cop Nicolas ~~Angle~~ Angel, who gets reassiged to sleepy little Sanford and discovers that there is an evil there that does not sleep. Nick Frost pulls duty as his comic sidekick and film professor. And a host of fantastic British actors support Pegg and director Edgar Wright's brilliant and hilarious screenplay. I focus on the failures in it, of course. But I do heap praise where praise heaps are due. I focus mostly on the themes and intricacies of the plot. I compare it to other films in various genres, including Cars, Doc Hollywood, Sharky's Machine, Halloween, Friday the 13th, Shaun of the Dead, Point Break, Bad Boys II, romantic comedies, and spaghetti westerns. But I'm nothing compared to Wright and Tarantino. Check out my voluminous list of films that Edgar Wright and Quentin Tarantino talk about in their own weird meta-commentary.

Introducing Zarban.com

One stop for audio commentaries

2008.02.19 — Entertainment | Movies | Internet | by Derek Jensen

We at Tysto have been doing audio commentaries for movies for more than a year now. There is a small cadre of regular fan commentators out there, including Renegade Commentaries, MMM Commentaries, Adudathuda DVD Podblast, Sofa Dogs, and the pay service Rifftrax, which is the new project from the guys who brought you Mystery Science Theater 3000. But how do you find a commentary for a movie or TV episode you want to watch? Go to Zarban.

Audio commentary: Cars

2007.02.08 — Entertainment | Movies | Movie Analysis | by Andrew Cole

Owen Wilson is the voice of Lightning McQueen, the superfast city boy race car who is on his way to California to win the Piston Cup, if only he can ever get out of little old Radiator Springs. Paul Newman is wise old Doc Hudson and Larry the Cable Guy is dumb old Larry the Cable Truck, or should have been. Bonnie Hunt is way sexier than an automobile has a right to be, which causes me to ponder car anatomy. I complain about the title of the film. I explain the concept of setup and payoff. And I explore the difference between American-style animation and Japanese-style animation. But I focus primarily on the two main stories that conflict and the two sub-plots that complicate things further and how the film manages to keep them all from tearing the film apart.

The Playstation 3 as Blu-Ray player

2008.02.05 — Business | Movies | Technology | by Andrew Cole

Having figured the high definition disk format war has come to an end, I got a Playstation 3 (40 GB) to play Blu-Ray disks. Not having owned a game console since the Sega Dreamcast back in 2000, what I found surprised me in several ways.

8 things film makers should stop doing

2008.02.02 — Entertainment | Movies | Movie Analysis | by Andrew Cole

In the last 10 years, Hollywood has gotten very good at making big franchise pictures. We've gotten fun and high-quality fantasies like The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, good superhero treatments like Spider-Man and Batman Returns. Even bad action movies are better than most good action movies of 10 or 20 years ago, like Sahara, National Treasure, and Live Free or Die Hard. At some point, most filmmakers seem to have woken up one morning and said, "Hey, the story is really the important thing...." and "I guess we could have actually comedy writers write the jokes instead of just using the first bad pun that comes to mind...."

Just... don't put any more of these things in motion pictures, please.

Every film mentioned by Edgar Wright and Quentin Tarantino in their Hot Fuzz commentary track

2008.01.14 — Entertainment | Movies | Movie Analysis | by Andrew Cole

Hot Fuzz is an amazing movie. It's easily one of the funniest films I've ever seen and also one of the cleverest. In the new 3-disk super edition, director Edgar Wright invites fellow director, friend, and fellow action movie buff Quentin Tarantino to do a commentary. What follows is a tour de force of movie and television geekery from both directors. In the course of their commentary—which almost never actually comments on the scenes they are watching—Wright and Tarantino mention close to 200 movies.

Here is the list, with links to the Internet Movie Database so you can decide for yourself if you want to delve into the overlooked gems and weird schlock that inspired these two filmmakers.

Recording audio books

2008.01.06 — Culture | Books | Audio | by Derek Jensen

I love listening to audio books. I've been a customer at Audible for years and have also found some great classic (that is: public domain) works to enjoy at LibriVox, where the books are free and contributed by users. On the forums, I've seen posts by long-haul truckers, students, housewives, and others who listen to the free audio books and want to participate. Some readers are very talented, and so, being creative, bored, and competitive myself, I decided to try my hand—or mouth. That is, to put my mouth where my... mouth is. Whatever.

Audio commentary: Vanishing Point

2007.12.16 — Entertainment | Movies | Movie Analysis | by Andrew Cole

Barry Newman is the mysterious man in the white Dodge Challenger, running away from the cops and his own screwed up life. I discuss the movie as a meditation on motivation, an allegory for the lost soul, and as a Caterpiller promotional film. I compare it (somewhat) with the 1997 version and with Smokey and the Bandit and American Westerns, but mostly with ancient mythology. I boldly suggest that beautiful women can represent both innocence and death, depending on whether they are nude or wearing a cloak and that "J. Hovah" is a little too on-the-nose for a character name. And I use my new CO3U microphone with very good results.

Off-beat holiday gift ideas

2007.11.28 — Culture | Technology | by BB Rodriguez