Mo' Vember

Note: I had no idea this was a real thing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movember. 

I mean it here as a further update of my media intake from the latter part of last month.

Music

Got the latest albums from these ladies: 

Florence + The Machine, Zola Jesus, St. Vincent, & the very spooky Chelsea Wolfe

Discovered a glammy, hard rock band from the early 80's — Storm 

New progressive metal from Machine Head, Opeth, and Mastodon

Found this full-length concert video of Van Halen in their prime. Amazing how dynamic a frontman Diamond Dave was, despite constantly forgetting lyrics (or not singing at all). 

Yeti O.S.T. - one of the funniest record covers I've ever seen.

Comedy, Podcasts

Bought the latest albums by Doug Benson, Patton Oswalt, and Eddie Pepitone, all of which are great.

My favorite podcaster Jimmy Pardo made an appearance on Conan's TBS program (where Jimmy does crowd warm-up) in part to promote his third annual 12-hour post-Thanksgiving Pardcastathon to benefit Smile Train. That was I how spent my Friday night/Saturday morning, watching the live stream of the event on my laptop, though I didn't make it through the entire thing — fell asleep @ 230AM so I missed the last third or so.

Some other great podcasts are starting to put out special live episodes like Walking the Room and Who Charted?

Devices

Bought an Iomega 3TB Mac Companion to make backups more efficient, but it wasn't so easy. Spent at least a week reconfiguring the connections between my MacBook, Time Capsule and various LaCie hard drives to get some kind of redundancy going. The problem is that the Apple Time Capsule does not backup any drives that are mounted after it, and while you can store files on the TC, you can't back them up on anything else. Am not fully satisfied with the current set-up, but the new drive is very cool, so it's now my main media server (music, movies). 

Etón Soulra - Bought this thing online from http://www.crutchfield.com cause it seemed like the greatest thing ever, and it was… for 20 minutes until it stopped working. Had them send me a new one and it worked very well… for a month and a half. With some hesitation I had them send me a third, which is fine so far, but I haven't brought it to work yet. I don't have high hopes. I imagine the electronics involving the battery and the solar panel are too sensitive for rugged use. We shall see. There are very few "boom boxes" that fully enclose your iPod/Phone, let alone can run on sunlight. 

Movies

11/16 J. Edgar (disappointing and grey)

11/18 Immortals 3D (pretty, dumb fun)

11/22 The Descendants / The Skin I Live In (both excellent - emotionally moving with clever twists)

11/24 Hugo 3D  (gorgeous but kind of hollow)

11/29 The Muppets / Arthur Xmas 3D (both light-hearted fun)

11/30 My Week With Marilyn (charming, pretty, and little bit sad - like the lady herself)

MST/RT/CT

Rifftrax

Warriors of the Wasteland (aka The New Barbarians), VOD

Buffalo Rider, VOD

The Boy In the Plastic Bubble, VOD from 2010 

Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon

Cinematic Titanic 

War of the Insects (aka Genocide), VOD & DVD for sale here 

Summah Sum-up (5 of 8): MST/RT/CT

I started watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 2002, a couple years after it was cancelled but when Comedy Central was still airing repeats. Since then I bought all the box sets, downloaded the entire series, and began posting at fan sites devoted to the show. These were the first internet forums and message boards I'd ever contributed to. As a grown man in his forties, I was seriously "late to the party" – both to the show and to the art of online discussions.

When I started this blog I figured I'd be posting a lot about MST and it's offshoots, but I stopped putting up posts here linking to the episode guide series going on at Satellite News because I got burnt out on the show (and that site). Analyzing the series for the meaning of every joke over the last couple of years finally took its toll on me. What I used to enjoy had become a chore, and no matter how much I immersed myself in the show's history, I would never be as much of a  fanatic as some other commenters there. As I got into listening to more current comedians and podcasts, I grew weary of those folks, often getting into arguments over what we find funny or not, which is always a useless conversation. 

But thankfully the veterans of MST have been active online and onstage, keeping movie-riffing alive and fresh for new audiences.

Cinematic Titanic

Samson and the 7 Miracles of the World / Rattlers @ The Castro - 5/6/11

(originally posted by me at Satellite News here)

Greatness…

Now I've seen five live shows from these folks and they just keep getting better. The intros bits by the cast and Gruber were all new from last time I saw them (thankfully Frank retired "Convoluted Man") and each presented different material between the 7 & 9:30 performances, keeping it fresh for us return customers. It seems the crew have embraced both their standup comedy pasts and their MST3K legacy as they constantly referred to it (for example, Josh introduced himself as the "Tom Servo no one likes"). Another difference from a year ago is they are dropping a lot more F & S bombs, making it more a PG-13 affair. They seem to enjoy being more crude with their language and I loved every expletive-laced moment of it.

Samson is very high energy and loud, and is likely the best CT effort yet, highly reminiscent of the Hercules flicks, but with even stronger  (and bluer) riffing than MST.  As happened the last time I saw them at the Castro Theater, some lines got lost in the large room (especially Mary Jo's), but I still giggled like an idiot throughout.

Rattlers is more of a sleeper, and filled with sequences so silly the crew hardly say a thing, knowing the crowd will find the funny in the film itself. It's a bit like Alien Factor in its low-budget ineptitude. Another winner, with more conversational and character-based humor. Frank calling the heroine "Buffy Sainte-Marie, Vampire Slayer" got a loud laugh from me.

No mention of any upcoming DVD's, but I can't fault them as long as I get to see them live on a regular basis. They clearly enjoy touring and for that I am grateful.

…

Rifftrax

Highlander

Crater Lake Monster

The Devil's Hand

X-Men 3: Last Stand

Rifftrax Live: Jack the Giant Killer (Fathom event) - 8/17

Rifftrax Presents - Night of the Shorts II: Electric Riffaloo - 8/20 (my review from the previous post)

Galaxy Invader

Abraxas

Setting Up A Room (short)

The Wicker Man

Karate Kid 3

Thor

…

MST3K

Just to prove how over the show I am right now, I have not even removed the shrink-wrap from the last two Shout Factory box sets XX (released in March) & XXI (Vs. Gamera - August, which came with this cool set of postcards from the original movies, shown below). Not that they don't contain great episodes, but I've seen them all multiple times before and am more concerned these days with catching up (and staying current) with other things.