The Podcasting Couch bristles with self-aware irony as they discuss the horror-comedy reboot Scream 4 and enjoys listing their Top 4 movie deaths... TOO much. Beware - the original review of Scream contains nothing that isn't in the trailer, so don't fear spoilers - but the Top 4 movie deaths list contains spoilers for very old movies that most people will be aware of and is followed (at 44 minutes) by a discussion of the ending to Scream 4 which completely spoils the film. Plenty of warning is given, don't worry. Also, submit your favourite movie death and why to thepodcastingcouch@gmail.com and you can pick next week's Top Four list!
Go to http://boxseattv.podbean.com/
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
The Interchange Bench - Round Three
The Interchange Bench (Steve Allen, Michael Genovese and Andrew Williams) review round three, tips the greatly inferior Round Four (only seven games), announces the Winner of our first Interchange Bench competition and the topic for this week's contest. To enter, e-mail theinterchangebench@gmail.com - the prize is living up to its promise so far!
Search 'The Interchange Bench' on iTunes or listen here - http://theinterchangebench.podbean.com/
Search 'The Interchange Bench' on iTunes or listen here - http://theinterchangebench.podbean.com/
Sunday, April 10, 2011
The Podcasting Couch - Sucker Punch
For the Podcasting Couch's thought on the new Zack Snyder film 'Sucker Punch' - search 'the podcasting couch' on itunes, go to http://boxseattv.podbean.com/ or simply listen below...
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
TOP 5 GUILTY PLEASURE TV SHOWS
Television viewing is something we generally do for ourselves. It’s an escapist thing, a pastime we can enjoy with friends just as much as we can on our own. No one watches TV for anyone else’s benefit – unless you are watching The Wire purely so you can hold conversations about it, or are stuck in a Gossip Girl Season Three marathon next to your spellbound girlfriend. Mostly, TV is for number one.
But we’re not perfect, us humans, and as a result we don’t always watch the TV we should, or even the TV we think we want to. How many times have you sat down with Season One of Mad Men only to make the last-minute switch to re-watch Season Two of Family Guy? Despite clamouring for more quality in my television viewing, I am as guilty as anyone when it comes to the idiot box sin. So here, at risk of losing all credibility, I put forth my top five guilty pleasure shows in the hope of salvation. It has been twenty-eight blog posts since my last confession.
5. GLEE
As an occasionally masculine, relatively tall, often unshaven heterosexual male, I really shouldn’t enjoy Glee at all - but I did, at least for the first season, and I would sing its praises to anyone who would listen, which was no-one. The funny thing about Glee is that by liking it, you find yourself between the devil, a rock, a hard place, an audition for an M. Night Shyamalan movie and the deep blue sea as it was derided by almost everyone. Sporty guys didn’t want a bar of it because it was too camp, musical theatre people hated in on the basis it watered down the medium for television, TV people didn’t like it because of its wild swings in quality, etc. What’s a guy got to do for a Lea Michele high note around here? Glee has mountainous highs and spectacular lows, and though I’ve lost interest mid-second season, for a while there, Glee was my guilty pleasure show of choice – but admitting to liking it in public was a very dangerous game indeed.
4. SUPERHERO CARTOONS
Or, to put it more bluntly, shows that are designed primarily for children under the age of fifteen. Ever had a date visit your house and tried to explain away your complete series of Beast Wars, Batman the Animated Series and X-Men? If you have, I bet you haven’t done it successfully. The thing about most kids’ shows nowadays (the good ones) is that they are subtly designed with an extra layer for the adults on top of the show itself. Spongebob Squarepants is an example of a show with a surprising amount of wacky, out-of-the-box humour that adults can get a kick out of as well. For me though, I love superhero cartoons. One of my favourite TV shows of all time (probably Top 5) is Batman: The Animated Series*. It’s artistic, dramatic, dark, funny and exciting with a vintage aesthetic that lends the whole thing a timeless feel, and has some expertly constructed and animated episodes.
But to anyone else, it’s just a Batman cartoon.
*Other great cartoons for kids? Beast Wars, X-Men, Spectacular Spider-man…
3. DANCING WITH THE STARS
This is the one show on this list that I enjoy purely for ironic reasons and get no genuine enjoyment out of whatsoever. For me it’s train wreck television, a gaudy parade of sequins, boobs, abs, hair extensions, terracotta fake tans, inane comments and awkward moments that makes the Mardi Gras look like The Man who Wasn’t There. This is a show in which someone removing a shirt, sleeves, dress or anything is cause for an entire audience of sober, presumably sane people to woo like sloshed party girls hanging out the top of a limousine. When Daniel Macpherson replaced Daryl Somers as host and added a completely unnecessary amount of class and panache to proceedings, I lost interest a little, but I always come back. Who can resist a patented Sonia Kruger awkward one-liner?
2. WIPEOUT
I think Wipeout is funny. I think people jumping from one big ball to another and falling off is funny and I don’t care what you think. Moreover, the commentary is far wittier than it has any right to be and the contestants are ready for anything. Note: this is the American version of Wipeout, not the British or Australian versions. Doesn’t anyone have an original idea anymore?
1. WWE
Yeah. You heard right. I like wrestling. Now before you put this blog on your ‘blocked pages’ list, never to frequent this godforsaken corner of the Internet again, let me explain myself. I only casually watch wrestling. I check out the big events – Wrestlemania, The Royal Rumble, Summerslam, etc. – and other than that I just follow along. But I can’t pretend that I don’t get incredibly excited when Wrestlemania comes along – and before you utter the time-honoured catchphrase of the professional wrestling Muggle – ‘you know it’s fake, right?’ – yes, I do. It’s fake, but so is Pulp Fiction, and people seem to like that. I like it because it is laugh-out loud ridiculous, hilarious and occasionally exciting in the way only a scripted sport could be. But if you catch me watching it, I’ll deny everything.
WWE was the inspiration of this list - Wrestlemania 27, which went to air Monday morning Australian time, was its usual ridiculous, patchy, highly entertaining self. There is just no way to adequately explain the excitement involved in seeing someone kick out of a finishing move, in watching The Rock or Stone Cold tear some poor wrestler a new one on the microphone, in understanding that the whole thing is a game and trying to predict how it’s been planned to end. It’s not sport. It’s sports entertainment, and I am entertained.
Please feel free to add your guilty pleasure show to the list in the comments section!
But we’re not perfect, us humans, and as a result we don’t always watch the TV we should, or even the TV we think we want to. How many times have you sat down with Season One of Mad Men only to make the last-minute switch to re-watch Season Two of Family Guy? Despite clamouring for more quality in my television viewing, I am as guilty as anyone when it comes to the idiot box sin. So here, at risk of losing all credibility, I put forth my top five guilty pleasure shows in the hope of salvation. It has been twenty-eight blog posts since my last confession.
5. GLEE
As an occasionally masculine, relatively tall, often unshaven heterosexual male, I really shouldn’t enjoy Glee at all - but I did, at least for the first season, and I would sing its praises to anyone who would listen, which was no-one. The funny thing about Glee is that by liking it, you find yourself between the devil, a rock, a hard place, an audition for an M. Night Shyamalan movie and the deep blue sea as it was derided by almost everyone. Sporty guys didn’t want a bar of it because it was too camp, musical theatre people hated in on the basis it watered down the medium for television, TV people didn’t like it because of its wild swings in quality, etc. What’s a guy got to do for a Lea Michele high note around here? Glee has mountainous highs and spectacular lows, and though I’ve lost interest mid-second season, for a while there, Glee was my guilty pleasure show of choice – but admitting to liking it in public was a very dangerous game indeed.
4. SUPERHERO CARTOONS
Or, to put it more bluntly, shows that are designed primarily for children under the age of fifteen. Ever had a date visit your house and tried to explain away your complete series of Beast Wars, Batman the Animated Series and X-Men? If you have, I bet you haven’t done it successfully. The thing about most kids’ shows nowadays (the good ones) is that they are subtly designed with an extra layer for the adults on top of the show itself. Spongebob Squarepants is an example of a show with a surprising amount of wacky, out-of-the-box humour that adults can get a kick out of as well. For me though, I love superhero cartoons. One of my favourite TV shows of all time (probably Top 5) is Batman: The Animated Series*. It’s artistic, dramatic, dark, funny and exciting with a vintage aesthetic that lends the whole thing a timeless feel, and has some expertly constructed and animated episodes.
But to anyone else, it’s just a Batman cartoon.
*Other great cartoons for kids? Beast Wars, X-Men, Spectacular Spider-man…
3. DANCING WITH THE STARS
This is the one show on this list that I enjoy purely for ironic reasons and get no genuine enjoyment out of whatsoever. For me it’s train wreck television, a gaudy parade of sequins, boobs, abs, hair extensions, terracotta fake tans, inane comments and awkward moments that makes the Mardi Gras look like The Man who Wasn’t There. This is a show in which someone removing a shirt, sleeves, dress or anything is cause for an entire audience of sober, presumably sane people to woo like sloshed party girls hanging out the top of a limousine. When Daniel Macpherson replaced Daryl Somers as host and added a completely unnecessary amount of class and panache to proceedings, I lost interest a little, but I always come back. Who can resist a patented Sonia Kruger awkward one-liner?
2. WIPEOUT
I think Wipeout is funny. I think people jumping from one big ball to another and falling off is funny and I don’t care what you think. Moreover, the commentary is far wittier than it has any right to be and the contestants are ready for anything. Note: this is the American version of Wipeout, not the British or Australian versions. Doesn’t anyone have an original idea anymore?
1. WWE
Yeah. You heard right. I like wrestling. Now before you put this blog on your ‘blocked pages’ list, never to frequent this godforsaken corner of the Internet again, let me explain myself. I only casually watch wrestling. I check out the big events – Wrestlemania, The Royal Rumble, Summerslam, etc. – and other than that I just follow along. But I can’t pretend that I don’t get incredibly excited when Wrestlemania comes along – and before you utter the time-honoured catchphrase of the professional wrestling Muggle – ‘you know it’s fake, right?’ – yes, I do. It’s fake, but so is Pulp Fiction, and people seem to like that. I like it because it is laugh-out loud ridiculous, hilarious and occasionally exciting in the way only a scripted sport could be. But if you catch me watching it, I’ll deny everything.
WWE was the inspiration of this list - Wrestlemania 27, which went to air Monday morning Australian time, was its usual ridiculous, patchy, highly entertaining self. There is just no way to adequately explain the excitement involved in seeing someone kick out of a finishing move, in watching The Rock or Stone Cold tear some poor wrestler a new one on the microphone, in understanding that the whole thing is a game and trying to predict how it’s been planned to end. It’s not sport. It’s sports entertainment, and I am entertained.
Please feel free to add your guilty pleasure show to the list in the comments section!
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
WINNERS AND LOSERS WEEK THREE REVIEW
No real time for a full review tonight – so just a hail of hastily assembled spoiler-related bullets on the fourth episode of Winners and Losers:
· Upbeat, funky pop song? Check? Women getting dressed in fancy clothes? Check? We’re off to the races!! This could be promising, despite the by-the-numbers intro. The races is a place where ritual humiliation could humanize these characters a bit more.
· Damien Bodie’s character still might as well have a neon sign saying ‘Homosexual Character’ around his neck, for all the subtlety in the dialogue. Nothing much happening there development wise.
· One of the things I like about ‘Packed to the Rafters’ doesn’t look too much like Home and Away – it elevates it a little bit. The scene early in the episode with Jenny and her brother (who is a bit funny) could have been inserted into a Home and Away episode without anyone really noticing.
· Yes – Michala Banas is back. About time, this show desperately needs a villain. Or just, you know, conflict. Unfortunately, that conflict is that Jenny is being sued for making a mean speech at a high school reunion. Good luck with that one.
· Zoe Tuckwell-Smith is very charming isn’t she? I am warming to the performances now, including Melissa Bergland, though the women are so much better-defined than the men I’m still finding it hard to enjoy any scene with a bloke in it. Sophie is still an incredibly unlikeable character. Can’t work out what the handsome doctor sees in her. He’s a doctor yes?
· The scene in the toilet was ridiculously sitcom-y. Humour is generally better when it comes out of believable situations. Then when Bec took the inevitable underwear-less tumble on the catwalk (telegraphed much?), that was soon followed with serious drama with her father’s gambling issues. How tonally all over the place.
· It’s been a while since I’ve watched Packed to the Rafters, but I don’t recall every episode wrapping up quite this neatly for the majority of characters. Feel free to correct me in the comments.
· Overall? Enjoying the lead performances, hating the writing, production and the storylines. The one saving grace was the last scene, with Michala Banas’ Tiffany crying in her living room. It gave her a bit of depth and I may have not paid enough attention, but I didn’t really know exactly WHY she was crying. Guilt or desperation? Both? It was a shades-of-grey moment, and there have been zero like it so far. I’ll stick with it for those that would like to read ep-by-ep thoughts and because I’m interested in the ratings and general popularity, but I’m struggling.
Monday, April 4, 2011
The (Pod) Casting Couch - Red Riding Hood
The (Pod) Casting Couch takes a look at the (awful, but it's fun talking about it) Red Riding Hood from 'Twilight' director Catherine Hardwicke and talk about our top 4 'Actresses on the Rise'. Send us an e-mail on thepodcastingcouch@gmail.com.
http://boxseattv.podbean.com/
http://boxseattv.podbean.com/
The Interchange Bench - Round Two
The Interchange Bench listened to Al Pacino's 'inches' speech from Any Given Sunday before the show this week and it shows as we attack the week's football with a newfound ferocity. This week, we debut the Interchange Bench competition - stay tuned until the last five minutes of the program to check out the details and the huge rewards on offer! (Rewards may not be that huge).
Check it out here-
http://theinterchangebench.podbean.com/
Or download and rate by searching 'The Interchange Bench' on the iTunes store and subscribe!
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