It may be February, but go grab your swimsuits because it’s time to hop back into that temporal displacement jacuzzi! That’s right, it’s the Highly Suspect Review of Hot Tub Time Machine 2! Now granted, the only thing more difficult than actually developing time travel is crafting a decent comedy sequel, but maybe HTTM2 will take a page from BTTF2‘s book and be able to break the unfortunate trend.
Wishful thinking? Perhaps. Brian, Chris, J.C., and Diva take a dip in this new Hot Tub and reveal what worked and what missteps made the experience a bit tepid.
Download and give a listen to this review. Come on in, the water is fine!
Martin Billany is a name not many have heard of, but he has had a profound effect on YouTube and the entire anime scene worldwide. While many may not know Billany by his birth name, almost everybody in anime fandom have heard of his other moniker, LittleKuriboh.
In 2006, Billany posted the first episode of Yu-Gi-Oh! The AbridgedSeries to YouTube. A gag-dub, Billany’s series focused on making fun of the over the top nature of the anime (and anime in general), the ridiculous edits made to anime to get it on the air for western audiences and pop culture, all while loosely following the main story presented in the original show. Martin used the the term abridged because of the condensing of the story, yet the main plot was still followed. A great deal of energy was spent mocking Yu-Gi-Oh in every capacity, but an important distinction is that this was never done to spite the series or the overall property, but was a loving celebration of the franchise.
“I’m just as surprised by my popularity as you are.”
These videos became extremely popular, and soon others were creating their own “abridged series” with other anime by following the basic formula and spirit of Billany’s work. Billany is the first to admit he really didn’t create the form, as parody and satire of popular media properties has existed since right after media itself was created, but his work gave rise to this modern movement of the abridged series within anime and animation overall.
Abridging has proved controversial, with many people and companies claiming their properties are being plagiarized or their copyrights infringed upon. Billany and others see it as protected by fair use, and even if they occasionally cross the line, abridged series’ keep properties in the public eye, sometimes bringing in new fans that otherwise never would have experienced the show to begin with. To avoid legal issues, abridgers do not make money directly from their work, but many like Billany do make paid convention appearances, and sell novelty items that relate to or reference what they have made in their videos.
Not content with just his own abridged series, LittleKuriboh has provided voice work for other abridged series, most notably for Team Four Star and their popular show, DBZ Abridged. He’s also done video game let’s plays as his versions of characters from Yu-Gi-Oh , as well voice work for wholly original properties such as TOME.
Recently, LittleKuriboh went almost completely dark for an extended period of time. Such periods of downtime were not unheard of with Billany, but never to this degree of inactivity. When Billany returned, we were treated to two new series, one entitled The Mark Remark where he provides a satirical recap of the two main weekly WWE shows as well as wrestling in general…
…and the second, and the more shocking of the two, a weekly vlog covering his battle with depression entitled We’re Still Here.
Billany hopes We’re Still Here will not only to aid in his own recovery, but help others and raise awareness about depression. Bilany has spoken candidly about his struggles, time in therapy, thoughts of suicide and his ever supportive wife, (and talented voice actress in her own right) Marianne Miller. She too has gotten on camera to talk about her own depression after being raped in 2009. Reception for We’re Still Here has been mostly positive, with the sad exception of the episode where his wife spoke about her rape and views on rating systems for content, which brought a hail of negative comments to the point where Billany disabled comments for the video. The author of this piece would like to take a moment to apologize to both Billany and Miller on behalf of every decent human being on the internet for the trollish comments they received on that video.
Martin Billany has been entertaining people on the internet for almost a decade and his wit, humor, skill and courage have made the internet a better place. He truly is one of the internet’s good guys. If you are interested in Billany, you can view his works at TeamFourStar.com as well his YouTube channel, LittleKuriboh.
Guess what. It doesn’t matter! Because you’ll be watching The Academy Awards with the OneOfUs crew!
Tune in live this Sunday night starting at 7pm CST as we make horrible jokes, heckle the host, and more than likely play another round of Cards Against Academy!
Tell your friends, and then simply head back to this post on Sunday!
I felt a strange disturbance in the force, as if millions of Digital Noise listeners cried out at once, afraid of change, but were suddenly silenced when they listened to the new episode and decided it was good. And to that effect, welcome to the new era of Digital Noise. In an effort to spread ourselves a little less thin while introducing lots of new content, the Digital Noise team has expanded!
Our first new reviewer is Sam Eidson. You might remember him from his previous appearance on a THEOG episode or maybe you saw him in the lead in the furiously funny film Zero Charisma? Sam and Chris are together this week to go through a GIGANTIC stack of titles for your amusement.
But that’s not all…we’ve also got a sweet giveaway of a title from a previous show that we loved enough to ask the distributor for an extra copy that we could reward one lucky listener with….
Be sure to use our Amazon links for all your online shopping needs, thanks so much!
HOW TO WIN THE Kingdom of Dreams and Madness GIVEAWAY:
Oh you guys. Sometimes I wish I were you. Then I wouldn’t know about some of the “AMAZING” on the fly stuff we occasionally pull, and I would go into listening to the show with even wider eyes (Cause face it, this show is like Jaws/Star Wars circa mid-70’s, albeit wrapped up in all the Beatles albums combined). We were just about out of that damn garage, and then Ryan showed up…let me back up a bit.
I picked the record this week, and it’s “The Kinks are The Village Green Preservation Society” by…wait for it…The Kinks (wouldn’t it have been wonderful if I dropped in C and C Music Factory right there?). I love the British Invasion, I think the Beatles were the most confounding and amazing band ever, most of my all time favorite bands and records hail from The British Isles…but somehow the Kinks had mostly fallen off of my radar. And that’s not for lack of people nudging me toward them (looking at you Darin Murphy). Long story short, I finally understood all of the comparisons to Blur- Parklife I’ve heard over the years.
Because of a 2am text I had received a few nights before taping, I knew Ryan was a fan of this one. Which is why when I walked into Mark’s garage and Ryan wasn’t there I was all sad-faced and shit. Turns out, if you are playing with your dog and accidentally scratch your cornea in 2 places, and you are in so much pain you have to move the recording of your podcast to the following day cause you have to go to the doctor…not everybody can make the re-schedule the next day. Ryan had to work that night, and nobody bothered to tell me-sad trombone-. Well lucky for us, our guest for the night, Infamous Music Journalist Chad Swiatecki, did a most admirable fill-in. Sadly, Ryan really liked the record and Chad did not, so I regret not having them in the same room. I’m not above throwing meat to the wolves.
For “A Few Minutes With”, we watched Kip Winger do some logic gymnastics and bass twirling while he struggling with his attraction for a 17 year old (Now a woman of 45 as we point out)…or actually, there’s no struggle, he straight up admits he’s an admirer of underage women in the song.
Oh, and then Ryan showed up right as we were all getting in our cars to go home, so we fired the whole thing back up, and did another show in fast forward as a postscript. I have yet to have heard it, but I’m cringing a little because by that time I might have had a few beers…
We’re loving all of the discussion with you guys, please keep the comments and messages and e-mails coming! We have yet to include a listener pick for one of our shows, but we will; we talk about it a lot…we’re just waiting for a few to pick from.
Is it fair to say I’ll be doing this again in a week. Yes. Hope to see you then,
This week, Kaycee and Chris are cracking open a few cold brews and chat about a variety of topics including their most anticipated films of 2015 and some of their recent film projects!
Be sure to tell us what films you excited for in the comments!
Take a refresher course with the Geeks before this year’s most anticipated movies are released!
Better Call Saul broke cable history with it’s two night debut on February 8th and 9th garnering a combined total of 15.6 million viewers, 9.7 million in adults 18-49 and 9.1 million in 25-54 demographic. Without a doubt, Vince Gilligan has created another runaway hit for AMC similar to the impact Boardwalk Empire had on HBO a few years ago. And this world of crime in Albuquerque isn’t going away anytime soon, as Season 2 was confirmed before the show premiered and is prepared to air early 2016. But has Vince and co-showrunner/writer Peter Gould repeated the same formula for quality?
Taking my role of the Animated Anarchist aside, Breaking Bad is my favorite television show of all time. The sheer level of craftsmanship, character development, and every aspect from technical to storytelling is impeccable and pure. Every season ratcheted up the tension wonderfully and somehow the near-impossible standards were surpassed with every new plot twist or unraveling scene. The tale of Walter White will live on as one of the best morality dramas ever and despite how horrible everything ended up, it was worth it every step of the way. I even pushed to publish an article about the show’s influence in my college newspaper because I was so passionate about the program coming to an end.
High standards, aren’t they? When I heard about Better Call Saul, I was pretty easily skeptical, but my concerned eased when I found out the show would be a prequel. This story of corruption and meth distribution in the Albuquerque desert has a surprising amount of scale that expands beyond what we watched in Breaking Bad. Saul was integral to making the show so incredible, by adding some much needed levity when moments got really heavy and providing clever, legal answers as Walt’s operation became bigger than just an RV. And when Vince Gilligan first introduced the character in Season 2, he mentions a very unique part of his back story and personality:
“My real name’s McGill. The Jew thing I just do for the homeboys. They all want a pipe-hitting member of the tribe, so to speak.”
“I am legally obligating my client to tell you the next paragraph has spoilers for the first episode.”
Better Call Saul has a interesting premise, focusing on the smart-talking, unlucky Jimmy McGill who is trying to balance his precarious lifestyle of taking care of his lawyer brother and work as a public defendant. As he’s adjusting to making a more honest living, he’s frustrated at the lack of money from working on hopeless cases and being belittled by competitor’s from his brother’s lawfirm: Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill. To get one huge case, he elaborates a large scam with two skateboarders to get money from a husband and wife who embezzled money from public office. But this attempt to create one big snafu leads him into a Hydrofloric Acid Barrel worth of trouble, by accidentally getting early Breaking Bad villain Tuco Salamanca involved.
I decided I would review the series after three episodes because most shows tend to break away from the pilot. For a dramatic, hour-long series, three episodes is a good litmus test to know what the show is aim for tonally and what the central plot is going to be. With Breaking Bad, I was floored from everything that happened in first episode, but I knew I couldn’t stop watching after seeing tense, dramatic bike lock scene from “…And the Bag’s in the River.” Yet with Better Call Saul, I’m not 100% sold yet on where the show’s going. Although it can’t compare to Breaking Bad for now, it still stands a good show to pay attention to.
What has stayed from the transition between the two series is the astounding sense of direction. Vince Gilligan along with the work of Breaking Bad directors such as Michelle MacLaren (“Abiquiu”/”Salud”) and Terry McDonough (“Better Call Saul”/”Bug”) make every moment in Better Call Saul compelling to watch. Scenes of Bob Odenkirk driving in his crappy car to covering the sterile nature of the courtroom always feel dynamic and they can capture so many moods no matter what’s happening. They still remain the kings of montages too, as the process of Jimmy taking court case after court case during episode 2 may be my favorite segment of the show so far, and it’s easily the best episode out of the three.
Unfortunately, Better Call Saul only has so much range by being a prequel. As much as I love Bob Odenkirk being charismatically slimy as Jimmy McGill, there appears to be a limit to how much great material you can write for him. I enjoy all of his scenes where he talks to character like Tuco and Mike Ehrmantraut that display Odenkirk’s range of linguistic gymnastics. Yet for a show that has all this great content and potential, the three episodes feel packed with filler when trying to develop a lot of the new side characters.
I don’t get exactly why they wrote this subplot in for Jimmy’s brother Chuck, who is currently staying home on sick leave because he believes he has developed “electromagnetic hypersensitivity” from a mental breakdown. Most of the conversations with this character feel repetitive and unnecessary as they keep conveying that he is sick and paranoid about the use of electronics. In feels like they wanted to create an unusual reason for Jimmy McGill to be bad off financially, but it does not have that same level of craftsmanship to make it compelling or interesting.
Although I enjoyed Jimmy (It’s getting really difficult to call him that instead of Saul, despite the name of the show) working with both the moral and shady aspects the law, there isn’t a lot of consistency to his character. We know he’s going to end up as his the lawyer king of the strip mall, but the journey there feels uncertain due to his inconsistent morals. The writers are trying to make him do everything at once including several sympathetic angles, but he’s ultimately motivated by money. As a viewer, all of his extenuating circumstances are just dropped onto our laps. There isn’t a slow descent into morally ambiguous territory; I’m just watching Bob Odenkirk spin plates on sticks trying to recapture the scientific genius of Breaking Bad.
“I just talked you down from a death sentence to six months probation, I’m the best lawyer ever!”
Thankfully, I believe Better Call Saul has shown all the footage we’ve recognized in the trailers amongst these three episodes so we should get some development back to a more concrete direction. You could even argue Breaking Bad’s first season can be slow or is filled with unlikable characters that don’t have much dimension at first like Skylar or Marie. But for Better Call Saul, the issues are unavoidable because it ends up being middling or banal when something super dramatic isn’t happening. We love the developments and the set up, but the execution is currently questionable.
Despite my issues, I still have plenty of faith in the show. These are all issues that can be solved over time or with better development later on. So far, there hasn’t been any major break in continuity and there’s still plenty of meat to chew on. Hell, I imagine we’re all in anticipation for the next familiar face to pop up. Hopefully it’ll be someone entertaining like Matt Jones as Badger, or the glorious, intense return of Giancarlo Esposito as Gus Fring. Everything technical to make the show incredible is there, but they just haven’t used the right catalyst yet.
My Arbitrary Rating for the First 3 Episodes of Better Call Saul: 7.5 out of 10 Reduced Sentences.
What are your thoughts on Better Call Saul? Think it’s just as amazing as Breaking Bad or do you lean more with the unimpressed crowd? Leave a comment below, as you’ll probably see a full review for the season later!
Roommate Mania! The Best of the Worst Music! Body Swapping! Drop a Snickers in the sink with Public Axis and guest Chuck Vans!
Recorded on February 12th, 2015 at the Public Axis F-Stop.
00:00 Welcome to the F-Stop! This week, we welcome San Antonio radio personality Chuck Vans! Tales of old school skateboarding and massive shoe collecting ensue! Plus, awesome gifts from listener Ryan Timothy Brace! Massive and infinite thanks!
27:41 Yeah, Imma Look Into Dat! Topic #1: Tell us about your best and/or worst times with roomates! (Inspired by the upcoming movie, What We Do in the Shadows.)
52:40 Dad’s Corner(ed)! Topic #2: Who is your favorite artist from your least favorite style of music?
1:09:59 Hey, That’s Not Funny! Topic #3: If you could swap bodies with one person, who would it be?
1:29:58 What Did We Come to Know? Public Axis is an educational program and at the end, we always ask our guests and listeners, “What did you come to know?” Enlighten yourself.
Let your friends know about Public Axis on Facebook and Twitter and keep those Facebook comments coming at our Happy Campers group!
