Category Archives: Watching

In Praise of Step Brothers

It goes with­out say­ing that this is the sec­ond com­ing of Office Space. It’s the kind of movie that does­n’t scream at you to see it in the the­ater, but once you give it a shot on the ol’ boob tube, you can’t help but be sucked in by its silli­ness. I have a great love of many seri­ous movies and direc­tors, but I may have seen this movie more in the past year and a half than any oth­er movie in my life.

I hat­ed Tal­lade­ga Nights. Thought it was stu­pid. Could­n’t fin­ish it. Put the same cast — minus Borat — in a dif­fer­ent set­ting: com­e­dy gold. You can watch my favorite scene above. (It con­tains some strong lan­guage, so, fair warn­ing.) I think I just love the bonkers premise that these two man-chil­dren might become step broth­ers and then real­ize that they’re soul mates. I think it’s so sim­ple that it cre­ates an oppor­tu­ni­ty for the actors to real­ly flesh out just how dement­ed their char­ac­ters are and the dys­func­tion is a delight.

You haven’t seen it? What are you doing!? It’s been on on-demand for, like, over a year!

I’m sad­dened that there will be no Step Broth­ers 2. I had a treat­ment for a sequel. I’m seri­ous! Adam McK­ay, if you ever Google your­self — and I’m sure you do — be in touch. I know Para­mount shot you down, but if that doc­u­men­tary Entourage is any indi­ca­tion, Hol­ly­wood’s just loaded with sec­ond chances. You’re total­ly bet­ter than Vin­nie Chase, man. Call me.

The Commodore Vic 20

Think your Win­dows-based PC takes a long time? This took for­ev­er. It boot­ed from a cas­sette! It was an amaz­ing expe­ri­ence to actu­al­ly inter­act with some­thing on the tele­vi­sion screen. I can’t believe how lucky my sis­ter and I were to have one. That $300 com­put­er in 1980 would cost $793 today!

Hard to believe that this was my first com­put­er. What was yours?

I Saw Get Low

Well, I sort of saw Get Low. There were a few spots where I closed my eyes just for a minute. Yeah, even the Ritzes get bad movies in August. It just did­n’t hang togeth­er very well. And I was sleepy after that deli­cious din­ner at Zahav.

I will say that Robert Duvall was great and it’s already evi­dent that Bill Mur­ray could be the most under­rat­ed star of my lifetime.

Some Musical Notes

Sim­ply amaz­ing. Still in heavy rotation. 

I’ve become the sort of crit­ic who likes spring releas­es. Give them time to mar­i­nate, I say. That new Liars album is still reveal­ing new things to me.

Ready for a stun­ning admis­sion? I still haven’t heard the new Arcade Fire album! I’m still aghast that Spoon opened for them.

What’s even cool any­more? I’m so old I remem­ber when an 8.1 on Pitch­fork meant you hit the big time.

In Praise of Two Guys on Beer

There’s some­thing amiss in the Philly beer blo­gos­phere, if you ask me. Lew’s been crazy busy with more impor­tant things, like send­ing his son to col­lege, not to men­tion fin­ish­ing up that book. (Con­grats on both, Dad!) Ram­blin’ Jack has been a lit­tle heavy on the press releas­es late­ly in anci­ti­pa­tion of launch­ing a new site, which has been post­poned, per his lat­est post. Beer­lass has been doing her thing, but her blog tends to make me more hun­gry than thirsty. Love Joe Six­pack, but hate philly.com too much to find his stuff.  Where do I turn for more beer insight?

I’ve been tweet­ing recent­ly with Dave Mar­torana, half of the Two Guys on Beer duo. They have a video pod­cast, which you can also view at their YouTube chan­nel. Nat­u­ral­ly, I’m eat­ing crow here as they haven’t record­ed since the World Cup end­ed, but I think that’s due to some shenani­gans at Indy Hall. Dav­e’s been great about rec­om­mend­ing oth­er video pod­casts to me, like Beer Tap TV and Two Beer Queers.

Thing that’s great about video pod­casts now? They look great on your iPhone 4. Seri­ous­ly. Amaz­ing. I was total­ly over pod­cast­ing. The word just turned me off and the prod­uct often was­n’t much bet­ter. You know what changed all that? HD tech­nol­o­gy. Every­thing looks and sounds awe­some, and you can watch while you ride the train to work! Per­fect, bite-sized morsels of beery goodness.

But you know what? I want more! Rec­om­mend your favorite beer writ­ers and pod­cast­ers. I love local folks, but I want to know who your favorites are. It always helps to refresh sources and I feel like I’m long over­due for some good­ies. Drop your rec­om­men­da­tions in the com­ments so I can check ’em out!