is gonna build a mountain
Cycle six!
1. Nerds (Friends of the People, S01E10)
Stray Observations
Looking forward (GULP):
A Lord and Miller sitcom! Triumph the Insult Comic Dog on Adult Swim! This Is England does rave culture!
ESPN owns 11 bowl games, and Disney owns ESPN. Why doesn't Disney sponsor some of its bowls?
The Age of Ultron Bowl. The Tomorrowland Bowl.
World premiere footage throughout the telecast. Pimp your studio's films while boosting your network's ratings.
Shame that Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens a week before Christmas, and not on Christmas Day, as I'm curious how a Star Wars Christmas Day release would affect attendance for Christmas Eve/Day church services.
Hundreds of devotees congregate at midnight on Christmas Day to celebrate the emergence of something otherworldly a long time ago – Force or Mass?
To recap:
1. Unhung Hero
2. Enlisted
3. WWE Raw
4. The Midnight Beast
5. Bob's Burgers
6. New Girl
7. True Detective
8. Looking
9. Hannibal
10. Hannibal
11. Review
12. Rick and Morty
13. Portlandia
14. Portlandia
15. WWE Raw
16. Game of Thrones
17. Fargo
18. Hannibal
19. Vice
20. Hannibal
21. Hannibal
22. Mad Men
23. Silicon Valley
24. Veep
25. Game of Thrones
26. 24
27. Nathan For You
28. Nathan For You
29. Conan
30. Utopia [UK]
31. The Leftovers
32. The Strain
33. Utopia [UK]
34. Nathan For You
35. Wizard Wars
36. You're the Worst
37. Wizard Wars
38. The Bridge
39. The Knick
40. The Simpsons
41. Late Show with David Letterman
42. The Amazing Race
43. Tim and Eric's Bedtime Stories
44. "Too Many Cooks"
45. South Park
46. Friends of the People
47. South Park
48. The Amazing Race
49. The Eric Andre Show
50. Black-ish
51. The Eric Andre Show
52. Perhaps the greatest college football play any of us have ever seen (Popeyes Bahamas Bowl, 12-24-14)
Stray Observations
(Mozart in the Jungle, S01E01)
Top Five Television Episodes of 2014
5. "The Endorsement" (Tim and Eric's Bedtime Stories, S01E06)
4. "Souvenir Shop / E.L.A.I.F.F." (Nathan For You, S02E02)
3. "Dumb Starbucks" (Nathan For You, S02E05)
2. "Looking for the Future" (Looking, S01E05)
1. "Mizumono" (Hannibal, S02E13)
Top Ten Television Programmes of 2014
10. Fargo
9. Game of Thrones
8. Looking
7. Utopia [UK]
6. Veep
5. Shameless
4. Rick and Morty
3. The Eric Andre Show
2. Nathan For You
1. Hannibal
2013-14 Season Grades
Note: I did not grade a number of programmes whose seasons I only watched some or most of.
Hannibal: A
Nathan For You: A-
Rick and Morty: A-
Shameless: A-
Veep: A-
Game of Thrones: B+
Looking: B+
Sleepy Hollow: B+
Utopia [UK]: B+
24: B
The Americans: B
Babylon: B
Boardwalk Empire: B
The Bridge: B
Brooklyn Nine-Nine: B
Fargo: B
House of Cards: B
King of the Nerds: B
The Knick: B
Restaurant Startup: B
Shark Tank: B
Tim and Eric's Bedtime Stories: B
American Horror Story: Coven: B-
Bob's Burgers: B-
Going Deep with David Rees: B-
Hello Ladies: The Movie: B-
Homeland: B-
The Leftovers: B-
Mad Men: B-
Orange Is the New Black: B-
Parks and Recreation: B-
Troy: B-
True Detective: B-
Banshee: C+
Black Mirror: White Christmas: C+
Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule: C+
Chozen: C+
Comedy Bang! Bang!: C+
Community: C+
Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey: C+
Enlisted: C+
Getting On: C+
Girls: C+
Halt and Catch Fire: C+
Happy Valley: C+
The Honourable Woman: C+
In the Flesh: C+
Justified: C+
Loiter Squad: C+
Louie: C+
Masters of Sex: C+
Matador: C+
Orphan Black: C+
Penny Dreadful: C+
Portlandia: C+
Prey: C+
Rectify: C+
Review: C+
Silicon Valley: C+
South Park: C+
The Strain: C+
Trailer Park Boys: C+
Transparent: C+
Vice: C+
Wizard Wars: C+
Workaholics: C+
The Amazing Race 25: C
Archer: C
Bates Motel: C
Black Jesus: C
Face Off 6: C
Face Off 7: C
MasterChef: C
MasterChef Canada: C
MasterChef Junior: C
Modern Family: C
Mozart in the Jungle: C
Mr. Pickles: C
Saturday Night Live: C
The Taste: C
The Taste UK: C
Top Chef: New Orleans: C
Top Chef Canada: C
The Walking Dead: C
Bad Education: C-
The Driver: C-
Friday Night Dinner: C-
The League: C-
Key and Peele: C-
New Girl: C-
Peaky Blinders: C-
Sons of Anarchy: C-
The Trip to Italy: C-
Wilfred: C-
Broad City: D+
From Dusk Till Dawn: D+
The Amazing Race 24: D
So 97 + Friends of the People, which ends on Tuesday.
'Tis some fights before Christmas to watch in your house.
10. Wallace vs. Howard Howe (Tusk)
Kevin Smith [director] — All right, so here's the third act. He then goes and puts on his suit, you know, made of human skins, and so you realize he's done this before. So he's in it, you're in yours, and you guys have to have one of them walrus fights, like on the beach, where you slam each other.
9. Edwards vs. Bar Patron (The Knick)
Shot in part with a rig on Andre Holland's back.
8. May vs. May (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)
Dat head smash!
7. Go Geon-soo vs. Park Chang-min (A Hard Day)
No one does visceral brutality like Koreans.
6. Schmidt vs. Mercedes (22 Jump Street)
Lord and Miller [directors] — The scene was supposed to be them having a big, knock-out fist fight. And then, it's like weird and scary in a movie to see a man hit a woman, and could a woman provoke a man enough to where it might not seem so weird. After a couple of takes, their chemistry was so strong, we just said, well, what if you tried to kiss him? What you see in the movie is basically what happened after we said that. They improvised this whole, crazy kiss fight.
5. The Mountain vs. The Viper (Game of Thrones)
The best fight ending of 2014.
4. K-29 vs. Crazy Monkey (The Wrath of Vajra)
Crazy Monkey is played by famed Korean street dancer Poppin' Hyun Joon. A lot of this fight looks like wire work, but most of it was done in camera – no tricks.
3. Jack Crawford vs. Hannibal Lecter (Hannibal)
Bryan Fuller [showrunner] — After we finished the fight sequence with Hannibal and Tobias Budge, Laurence Fishburne came up to me and said, "You know, I trained like crazy for all the fight sequences in the Matrix movies. I'm pretty good at those too." So we honoured that request.
2. Ha Hou-mou vs. Fung Yu-sau (Kung Fu Jungle)
Smash Bros. x Toad's Turnpike.
1. Rama vs. The Assassin (The Raid 2)
While the ending of Whiplash is the most thrilling bit of film I saw this year, the second half of this fight – after The Assassin busts out his karambits – is 1A.
see also:
What has two thumbs and was retweeted by Ryan Phillippe and Bow Wow this past weekend?
Juliette Lewis favourited the Phillippe tweet.
I tried playing New Super Mario Bros Wii with B's seven-year-old daughter, but she struggled to use a d-pad, and it hit me that she grew up with touchscreens and motion control.
Idea: Fitbit, but for cursing. Track your profanity usage.
Songs containing car horns (e.g. "i" by Kendrick Lamar) should be banned from radio play. It's discombobulating when you're driving.
My brother only drinks sparkling water now.
LOOK AT THIS FUCKING CAST:
From 2011: Quentin Tarantino reportedly signed on to play a bandit who dies from gold coins fired out of a shotgun.
51. Society's Lies (The Eric Andre Show, S03E07)
Stray Observations
(Black Mirror: White Christmas)
(The Eric Andre Show, S03E07)
I asked B's seven-year-old daughter what she wants for Christmas.
—Dinner at Gary Danko.
[spit-take]
—You're too young to eat there.
—Noo, I ate at Plumed Horse…
—You bring your children to Michelin-starred restaurants?
At supermarkets in my area, you can buy pre-packed bags of non-perishable goods to drop in donation bins. It's perverse altruism, like corporations buying carbon offsets.
[pause]
"California Lottery Scratchers make the perfect holiday gift."
But what if the scratchers you give don't yield any money?
Are there special holiday scratchers where everyone is a winner? And if so, most prizes can't possibly be very much – medium fries, maybe a breakfast sandwich.
Simply go to your nearest Lottery retailer, pick up a Golden Greeting envelope along with your Lottery gift purchase… [source]
Just regular scratchers. Trick or treat.
B: You're giving fun. The gift is fun. Winning money is a bonus.
Jon: Fun…
Jon: Would you rather receive scratchers, or a word search and some cash?
