Flying tigers

Here is the logo of the "flying tigers" fromu World War II. According to the nice army veteran volunteer at the palm springs air museum, this logo was designed for the "flying tigers"from by Walt Disney. Cool stuff

Podcast Episode 39

Episode 39: Ben Sisko Does Not Have Time for Your Bullshit

Official site still hourofthunder.podomatic.com and still sexy as hell

We talk more star trek including our favorite captain, favorite villain, favorite alien race, and why Chief Petty Officer Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney) is the fuckin' man.

Since this is episode 39, and the Queen song '39 is about colonizing the stars, here are its lyrics in full for your enjoyment:

In the year of '39 assembled here the volunteers
In the days when the lands were few
Here the ship sailed out into the blue and sunny morn
Sweetest sign ever seen

And the night followed day
And the story tellers say
That the score brave souls inside
For many a lonely day sailed across the milky seas
Ne'er looked back, never feared, never cried

Don't you hear my call though you're many years away
Don't you hear me calling you
Write your letters in the sand
For the day I take your hand
In the land that our grandchildren knew

Aah, aah, aah, aah

In the year of '39 came a ship in from the blue
The volunteers came home that day
And they bring good news of a world so newly born
Though their hearts so heavily weigh
For the earth is old and grey, little darling we'll away
But my love this cannot be
Oh so many years have gone though I'm older but a year
Your mother's eyes from your eyes cry to me

Don't you hear my call though you're many years away
Don't you hear me calling you
Write your letters in the sand for the day I take your hand
In the land that our grandchildren knew

Don't you hear my call though you're many years away
Don't you hear me calling you
All your letters in the sand cannot heal me like your hand

For my life
Still ahead
Pity me

Some keywords for this episode: Chief Petty Officer Miles O'Brien, Colm Meaney,   Avery Brooks, Captain Sisko,  Rene Auberjonois , Cirroc Lofton, Jake Sisko, Alexander Siddig, Doctor Bashir,  Armin Shimerman, Quark, Nana Visitor, Major Kira, Terry Farrell, Lt. Commander Jadzia Dax, Michael Dorn, Lt. Commander Worf

The San Jose Sharks show the rest of the NHL how it is done.

It is no secret the NHL sucks hard when it comes to advertising. They have had very few good campaigns. Those that work are the ones which actually focus on how cool watching hockey is, such as the "history will be made" ads for the playoffs last year, which I discussed last spring.

But for the most part, the NHL marketers seem to forget that they are trying to get people interested in a sport that is naturally fast and action packed because it is played with ice skates and involves hitting the puck with sticks at a hundred miles an hour. Not to mention the major selling point that it is the only major sport in the US where the refs let the players punch each other.

So instead of making ads with footage of the many exciting elements of game play, or focusing on the players personalities like basketball does, they instead think of gimmicks not related to the players or even to hockey, like the imbecilic "NHL Guardians Project" which combined comic books, something that has been declining in popularity since the 1980's, with hockey, something which has never been popular in the US unless it involved Wayne Gretsky playing for the Kings. 

I can't name any players on the San Jose Sharks besides their captain, Joe Thorton, but that didn't stop me from loving this parody of "The Home Shopping Network" featuring Sharks players making fun of each other. Its over eight minutes long, so you probably won't want to watch the whole thing if you are not a hockey fan, but every second of it is really clever. And the text on the bottom and sides which goes along with each item is as funny as the dialogue.




Long form ads like this do a great job of making existing fans feel like they have more of a vested interest in the team. It really sells the players personalities and makes them seem like the kinda guys you would want to hang out with. This doesn't necessarily translate into wanting to watch them play hockey, but it definitely does a lot more to instill interest in the Sharks and hockey in general than a giant tree that uses sap as a weapon.


via the excellent hockey blog Puck Daddy

Why Isn't Kylie Minogue gyrating in Lingerie the basis for all ads?

Seriously. I can't think of an ad that wouldn't be improved by Kylie Minogue in lingerie. If that Chevy Sonic ad in the previous post had been a minute of Kylie Minogue in a bra and stockings writhing around on top of a Chevy Sonic instead of dropping it out of a plane it would have been the greatest car ad of the year. It still would have told us nothing about the car, but dudes would have bought the car just on the off chance that owning it would cause half naked women to roll around on top of it.

The above ad was also a very effective ad for mechanical bulls covered in couch fabric.


I'm not sure why the creepy old woman was in the ad. Based on the end its seemed like the ad was meant to be shown in movie theaters, so maybe the old woman was just there to make the whole thing slightly less sexy and prevent massive outbreaks of people masturbating openly in movie theaters.

Daily Show adds opening credits to their commercial breaks

I was too busy laughing at this to get a screen capture, but a Chevy Sonic car ad came up during the commercials on dailyshow.com and it showed the title card (with the 7 second count down in the corner and beeps at each second) which ad agencies put in front of their ads. Thanks to this, I momentarily knew the name of the ad agency with created that ad where the drop a Chevy Sonic out of a plane (assumedly the same guys behind the Danny Glover film "Operation Dumbo Drop"), as well as the director and the ad's official title. I don't actually remember any of these details, since It only appeared for seven seconds, and I was too busy laughing uncontrollably at the fact that this title card was playing as part of an ad on a website owned by Viacom, one of the largest media companies in the world,  who should in theory have figured out how to play ads properly by now. If you are watching the Daily Show and something like that comes up be sure to let me know.

This probably doesn't amuse anyone else as much as it amuses me, but that is probably true of most of the stuff I post here.


Here is the ad in question:



It clearly is a very effective ad for a car, since you can barely see the shape or styling of the car with it spinning and all the lens flares, and they never mention any features or its price or how it handles. But if you are planning on buying a car based on its ability to fall out of a plane, boy howdy does Chevy have a car for you.

Holy Shit The Old Spice Guy Mentions Thor!!!

To be fair, I don't think he meant the "Thor's Hour of Thunder Podcast" but any mention for Thor by winner of "Strictly Commercial's best product spokesman of the 21st Century Award"* is pretty cool.



Footnote(s):
* An award with a rich history which I just made up and and am giving out right now.  

Podcast Episode 38

Thor's 38: Commander Riker's sexy beard edition

go to the official website to download or subscribe via iTunes or the RSS feed

Star Trek special with Thor, Balder, Hiemdale, and new god Njord.

Special guest interview with Kerry Kastin about The Blowout Theatre Company at 50 minutes into the hour.

http://www.blowouttheatre.com/

We talk: Patrick Stewart, Deep Space Nine, Data, Sherlock Holmes, Star wars, Blowout Theatre, Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise, William Shatner, Bones McCoy, Gordie LeForge, Seven of Nine, Spock.

This is not the Batman footage playing in front of Mission Impossible 4

But its funny as fuck. And you don't have to pay 20 dollars to watch it, and when it finishes your not stuck in a movie theater watching an impish Scientologist smirk his way through CGIed action scenes.

Why isn't Steve Buscemi in Batman? Actually why isn't Steve Buscemi in every movie?

via Warming Glow

That's a nice quote

I've haven't been big into organized religion for a long while but this quote seems to have a good idea

I would probably be more effective at remembering actual important things if my brain didn't dedicate so much of its storage capacity to old ad jingles

Dave Barry once called this useless pop culture filling up one's brain, "Brian Sludge" and said he know longer can remember the names of any of he co-workers but knows every second of the brill cream ads from the 50's

This awesomness is self explanatory

This food truck's outfit is slick as hell

I don't know how well you can tell this from my shitty photo, but this food truck in Philadelphia has had the whole side decorated with a tile mosaic.

I don't know what this thing even sells but next time I see it I am buying some just to honor its awesome tile-vertising on the side. 

Actual government issued street sign in philly

Corrected accurately, and presumably by the actual Philly parking authority,  with stickers and duct tape.

I am switching to this bank

Savings advice from sesame street characters?

Holy shit that is awesome!

I write a twitter from the perspective of a llama now

I thought you would want to know this.

read it here:

 https://twitter.com/#!/aRealLlama

Podcast Episode 37

Thor's 37: Elmo and Beyond the Infinite

as always are swanky official site is over at  Hour of Thunder

We discuss more Muppets, Loki's meeting in person with the actual Elmo and his friend Kevin Clash.

This is an episode where we are all in the same room for a change. The folks sitting the room are: Frayja, Baldr, Loki, and of course your humble narrator, Thor.

Heil could not join us for this episode because she had to get down to business and defeat the huns.

NOTE: I, Thor said, "Bert" instead of "Bird" to talk about this Johnny Cash on muppet's sketch.

Its Big Bird that appears in the sketch, though you wouldn't know it from this podcast because I said "Bert" cause I'm bad at things. This causes much confusing at about 10 minutes into the podcasts.

Other than that this podcast makes sense. Well, as much sense as we normally make.

These words come out of our mouths: Valhalla, In person, getting punched in the face, The Muppets, Jason Segal, Kermit, Elmo, Kevin Clash, Jim Henson, 80's Robot, GPS, New Coke, Polar Bear Coke Cans, Crystal Pepsi, Coca-cola, Arctic, charity, polar bears, The eagles, Hotel California, Drinking Game, The Muppets Drinking Game, Everclear, Tequila, Sam Adams, Beer, Podcasters, Occupy Octopi, hourofthunder ( at ) gmail com, https://twitter.com/#!/aRealLlama, Siri, iPhone 4S, Well Tequila, Tabasco Sauce, Gnos Cold Praire Fire, The Philsophers stone. joan beaz, Judy Collins, Johnny Cash, Robert Deniro, Big Bird, Sesame Street, The Future, Fred Rogers, Mister Rodgers, Aloysius Snuffleupagus, Mr Snuffleupagus, The Baldr's Recommendations Song at 15 minutes into the podcast, porn, IFC, "Being Elmo", Clifford, Purple Jamaican Muppet, Captain Kangaroo, Take money out of your parent's wallet, Captain Kangaroo Scandal, Snopes.com, Snopes, Scotty, Star Trek, La petite mort, Tom Hardy, Dark Knight Rises, Bane, Thomas Hardy, La petite mort, raise your glass if you are wrong in all the right ways, Apple, macintosh, Doctor Who, david tennant, Orgy, Rene Russo, knitted panda hat, Old Spice Guy, Tickle Me Elmo, Grover, Grover as the old spice guy, the monster your man could smell like, Elmo's World, Mr. Noodle, isaiah mustafa, Nice Shoes, Wanna fuck?, Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, Silvio Berlusconi, hookers, General Grievous, "I'm the goddamned pope", roberto benigni, Jason Statham, Hogan, Episode 26 of podcast, Jason Statham fucking, The Stath, What muppet are you the most like, Favorite Muppet

You can follow Thor pretending to be a Llama on twitter if you are so inclined.

In conclusion:
Drink Everclear and LIVE FOREVER!!!!!

BONUS Strictly Commercials ONLY words and videos:

The Johnny Cash sketch we talked about isn't available for embed, so here are two other times Johnny Cash Showed up and kicked ass on Seasame Street because Johnny Cash is the man. I liked the movie Walk The Line, particularly for the part where they tour with Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis (whoever place Lewis has the best monologue of the 2000's when he talks about why they are all going to hell while he drives to the next gig.)

That said, I wish walk the line had focused a bit more on what made Johnny Cash awesome, instead of as many of the parts were he was being a dick and drugged out of his mind.

What I'm saying is, Like all movies, that movie needed more muppets.

Podcast Episode 36

Thor's 36: In person The Muppets movie special 

This week Thor, Baldr, Loki, and Frayja are all together in the same room discussing the new Muppet movie. We are joined by pantheon member Heil via skype. Heil was on Thor's Hour back in its college radio days, she makes her podcast debut in this episode.

This week we discuss: The Muppets, Fozzie, Rowlf, Gonzo, Kermit, Ms. Piggy, Disney Work, Muppets Take Manhattan, Muppet Treasure Island, Muppets from space, Muppet Christmas Carol, Great Muppet Caper, The Muppet Movie, The Muppet Show, Muppets 3-D, Muppets 4-D, Sweetums

Roger Corman is still the man

Producer/Director of the best american B-movies, Roger Corman produced a made for Sci Fi channel film called Sharktopus in 2010. I never saw the film, nor had really heard of it, despite my love of bad horror films till playing for an inner tube water polo team called Shartopus over the summer of 2011. I finally watched the trailer. And you really need to watch it too:

Replace the word "show" with "trailer" in this clip from "Community" for my reaction to Sharktopus:

Podcast Episode 34

Thor's 34: Doctor Who Special Part 2: Stetsons Are Cool

RSS Feed and iTunes subscription link available on the official site here.

The stirring conclusion to the round table discussion of Doctor Who. Thor, Baldr, Hiemdale, and Loki are all here for this one. Frayja unfortunately could not make it. (Oh and a digital shout out to our tech expert Hogan who is still part of the pantheon, but wasn't in either of these episodes.)

The episode of Hour of Thunder with the "Stetsons are cool" photo as the image for it is Episode 15: Leprechaun In Space. Download it to relive the magic of Thor and Baldr dicussing the 6th season of Doctor Who when it had first started airing episodes back in May.

Things we talk about:

Peter Davison, David Tennant, Billie Piper, Rose Tyler, people who look like horses, Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, Paul Kasey, Ood Sigma, Arthur Darvill, Rory, Nicholas Briggs, Dalek, daleks, Cybermen, Freema Agyeman, Martha Jones, Doctor Who, The Doctor, companion, companions, Tom Baker, sylvester mccoy, William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Susan, Susan Foreman, Time Lady, (Time Lady is a classy sounding term), Romana, Romanadvoratrelundar, Mary Tamm, Lalla Ward, Donna Noble, Catherine Tate, Carole Ann Ford , Jacqueline Hill, Barbara Wright and William Russell, Ian Chesterton, First Doctor, Second Doctor, Third Doctor, Fourth Doctor, Fifth Doctor, Seventh Doctor, (No love for sixth doctor in episode, but I think baldr has a soft spot for him), Eighth Doctor, Ninth Doctor, Tenth Doctor Eleventh Doctor, Twelfth Doctor, The Pandorica Opens, Melody Pond, River Song, Alex Kingston, Ian McNeice, Winston Churchill, Douglas Adams, Stephen Moffat, Steven Moffat, Russell T Davies, Russel T Davies, Police Call box, gallifrey, Kevin Clash, Seasame street, My little Ponies, Bronies, Brony, Pony, The Muppets, Fairly odd parents, Sponge bob square pants, phineas and ferb

Elijah Wood is still awesome

This* was apparently a promo for something called "Fantastic Fest" which took place in October in Austin Texas. I don't know anything about it, but if it involves Elijah Wood being awesome, it is just an other reason for me to ad to the many many why I clearly need to visit Austin.

There are more details about what actually happened between Wood and Dominic Monaghan at Fantastic Fest (it was apparently a debate about World of Warcraft) in this serious newspaper article. But I prefer this video completely out of context. Or perhaps as a trailer for The Hobbit.

Seriously, think about how awesome that would be. You are sitting in a theater and during the trailers this footage plays followed by the title card, "Peter Jackson's The Hobbit see it or Elijah is comin' for you."

Also: if any gym hires Elijah Wood as their spokesman, I will buy a life time membership to it, even if that gym is in another state**

Other things you can watch involving these two actors if you are in a  "watch things***" mood right now:

Wood was funny and charming on Colbert this week:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Elijah Wood
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

Dominic Monaghan was so good in the "Love The Way You Lie" video I didn't realize it was him tell I read an interview with him about it (I mean he acted like a prick instead of being cute and smiley):




Footnote(s):
* Thanks to Andrea for making me aware of this clip

**think of how much exercise I would get running to a gym several states away to excersize. It would be the Forest Gump workout.

*** As opposed to a "Runnin' Things" mood, as Creamed Corn is in this clip:

 (sorry its someone recording a video off the internet with their cell phone camera, but all other versions of this clip were removed from youtube for copyright, this one is so shitty it slipped by.) (besides audio was fine, and that is what is really important for this clip.)

Podcast Episode 33

Thor's 33: Doctor Who Full Pantheon Roundtable Special

Thor and Baldr are joined by Freyja, Heimdale, and new member Loki for a look at all things doctor who. From the first episode "An Unearthly Child" back in November 23, 1963 to last month's 2011 season finale "The Wedding of River Song." We look at all 11 doctors, with a focus though focus on 2005 series.


Stuff that comes up: Peter Davison, David Tennant, Billie Piper, Rose Tyler, people who look like horses, Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, Paul Kasey, Ood Sigma, Arthur Darvill, Rory, Nicholas Briggs, Dalek, daleks, Cybermen, Freema Agyeman, Martha Jones, Doctor Who, The Doctor, companion, companions, Tom Baker, sylvester mccoy, William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Susan, Susan Foreman, Time Lady, (Time Lady is a classy sounding term), Romana, Romanadvoratrelundar, Mary Tamm, Lalla Ward, Donna Noble, Catherine Tate, Carole Ann Ford , Jacqueline Hill, Barbara Wright and William Russell, Ian Chesterton, First Doctor, Second Doctor, Third Doctor, Fourth Doctor, Fifth Doctor, Seventh Doctor, (No love for sixth doctor in episode, but I think baldr has a soft spot for him), Eighth Doctor, Ninth Doctor, Tenth Doctor Eleventh Doctor, Twelfth Doctor, The Pandorica Opens, Melody Pond, River Song, Alex Kingston, Ian McNeice, Winston Churchill, Douglas Adams, Stephen Moffat, Steven Moffat, Russell T Davies, Russel T Davies, Police Call box, gallifrey

This movie has too many first names.

I read way to much about movies and TV, so I occasionally will go to an indie cinema when I have a few hours to kill and see the next movie playing that i have heard the least about.

Today, I got to have the rare privilege, of going into a movie knowing absolutely nothing about it. Having not even seen the poster. I had only about 3 hours to kill before a meeting, which happened to be taking place right near an independent film theater which I had been to before and really dug. So I walked in, and saw the only movie which was going to end before I had to leave the theater to go to my meeting. Consequently this meant i missed the first 15 minutes or so of the film, but i actaully dig this, since i love mystery films and it allows me to solve the mystery of "What the hell is going on." I think I enjoyed Godford park alot more by arriving in the theater when I saw it right as the last guest to arrive was being introduced instead of the first, since it meant I had to understand the characters through their interactions instead of the initial introductions.

The movie I saw today was the confusingly titled "Martha Marcy May Marlene." The only person I even vaguely recognized in the cast was This Guy who I guess I saw in the film Identity with John Cusack. Though I think he might just look familiar because he looks either like a really creepy really gaunt version of Lyle Lovett, or a thinner version, less "I look like i'm a cocky prick" looking version of Sean Penn.

It was really well done and held my interest, though I didn't think it had a lot to say other then "abusive sex cults are bad."

Since I now get to watch the trailer after seeing the film lets take a look as seen what I think of it having already consumed the film:



Good trailer. I forgot about them singing that song in the film, it was used to great effect in the trailer.

The last shot of the trailer (her looking around in the back of the car) is from near the end of the film, and I really admire how they are able to use it to generate suspense without giving away the plot point that happens round around the time of that shot.*

Oh and the main chick in the film is apparently related to the Olsen twins, and looks just like them in all the photos of her on imdb. I didn't recognize her face as looking "Olsen-ey" in the film. I thought the cast did a good job, including the Olsenette.


Footnote(s):

*message me if you want to know what it is that happens around that car back seat shot in the trailer, I don't way to give anything away, since folks should support independent film by seeing it in theaters.

Podcast episode either 35 or 0

Thor's 35 or 0: Banana Hammock: prequel to the hour of thunder (recorded for Halloween 2006)

In the tradition of the early 90's TV special "Disney's Halloween Treat" we have never before heard material for you in honor of Halloween, but it is actually very old material. You are about to be an audio witness to an old of "Thor's Hour of Thunder" from October 26th, 2006, back when Balder and I had a college radio show.

This episode is labeled 35 because we have 33 and 34 recorded which are both part of the epic two part, super sized, extra tasty crispy, Doctor Who Special, but those need to be edited and will be on uploaded for next week.

A bit of helpful background: We were axed from our college's tiny online radio station for "being too awesome" in 2005, so this episode from October 2006 is our triumphant return. Hense out talk at the beginning where I say "we are back!." In 2006 we were a talk and music formatted show, so we talk a bunch about the usual geeky shit we still talk about today, but also play lots of classic rock and early 2000's indie/alternative. Back then I also had even less of an idea of how to work a sound board, so sorry for any errors that occur.

One final disclaimer: the station at our college was online only, and would sometimes throw in random delays for a few seconds, since this is an unedited "off air" mp3, those gaps in the audio still exist. Sorry for them, but I promise you don't miss anything, the school's system just put these delays in because it sucks, but it goes right back to the same spot on the show.

All the disclaimers about the quality out of the way (and lets be honest here quality is not what your expect when you turn into the Hour of Thunder), you are about to hear 2 hours of me and Baldr from 5 years ago, so be prepared to marvel at how little we have matured in the intervening years.

Things that happen in this episode:

Raiders of the lost ark, making fun of public service annoucements, Mary Meyers, the decemberists, not the decemberists, the aquabats, Indiana Jones, Harrison Ford, Daniel Radcliffe, harry potter, Equus, Theater, Globe, Wand, Warner Brothers, penis, Horses, Richard Burton, Ben Lee, Ben Kweller, Dear Catastrophe Waitress, Belle & Sebastian, Raiders of the Lost Arch, John Williams

Podcast Episode 32

Thor's 32: The Marvel Swimsuit Issue

In this episode Hiemdale guest stars again and we talk about: Starfire (see above), Conan O'Brian, Michele Lee, Jason Todd, Arsenal, Kori, Roy Harper, Katie Couric, Omaha, Virginia, DMV, Driver's test, Driver's licence, teen titans, the red hood, the red hood and the outlaws, Spider-man, The Spider-man movie, Spider-man 2, Ultimate Spider-man, The Shadow, Doctor Who, The Doctor's Wife, The Secret Circle.

What the hell

This happens in the netflix provided closed captions at 40 minutes and 28 seconds into the 90 minute pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation on Netflix Streaming.

The actual line is "All Stations prepare for reconnection"

If anyone has any idea why or how this happens on the captions let me know. But please don't tell netflix because I am worried they will get rid of it if they know.

Babies!

This commercial is cute.




I dig the roller skates song in the background, and unlike 90 percent of the clever commercials out there currently, this actually explains what the product does in a clever way, and does a good job of causing you to remember the HP brand name.

And did i mention it has a cute smiling baby?

a much better version of the Avengers trailer

I thought the trailer for Joss Whedon's avengers was pretty bitchin'*, I have never disliked anything I've seen that Whedon's done, and I've liked all the Marvel in house produced comic book films so far. Even the Ed Norton Hulk that everyone on earth who was not me seemed indifferent to.

But this movie would have been 1000 times better if they let these guys build all the props and do all the special effects for it:




The guys who created this video described it as "sweded"in the title, and after trying to remember what this means for far to long, I remembered working at Hollywood Video when video stores existed and us playing "Be Kind Rewind" on the in store TVs for something like three weeks straight.

If you don't remember that movie, it starred the hilarious and talented Dante Terrell Smith, after he started going by Mos Def, but before he started going by Yasiin Bey**, and co-starred Jack Black after he was in  the disappointing Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny but before he was in the inexplicably existent big budget fart joke adaptation of Gulliver's Travels. Rewind a fun little film. Well made and light and sweet from what I remember.

The plot revolves around Jack Black and Yasiin Bey remaking all the movies in their video store using cheap hand made props after Black demagnetizes all the tapes in the store, they call this "sweding" in the film, which is why it is used to describe this Avengers parody. I may be the only person on the internet who didn't know that off the top of my head, so sorry for the long explanation if you already knew the term.

  Be Kind Rewind was directed by Michele Gondry, and while I think his Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a much "better" movie, this one seems to be the most true to Gondry's vision and aesthetic. Wow, that got all serious and analytical. I can't end the body of this post on something non-silly. So here is a video of a dude who like Gondry has an awesome and adorable french accent, and like Gondry is involved in making movies, but unlike Gondry he was only ever in one movie, but it was the greatest sports movie ever made:



Footnote(s):

I would link or embed the real trailer here but I'm pretty sure every human being on earth has already seen that trailer. Even if you don't own a computer or TV, I think Marvel sent Mark Ruffalo to your house to describe the whole thing to you while making this face:

I think the instructions from the camera man here were "Mark can you give me 'constipated rapist'"

** I just discovered Mos Def's legal name is Dante Terrell Smith which is a totally awesome name all by itself. I would complain about Mos Def being on his second stage name when Dante Terrell is so awesome it sounds like the name of a character in Die Hard, but I publish a podcast where I call myself "Thor The God of Thunder" so I'm really not one to talk.

Besides, Mos Def is awesome and can do whatever he wants. He is one of those guys who is so effortlessly cool like RZA or Steve McQueen. Most Def was the best part of the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy Movie, which had great performances from Sam Rockwell and Alan Rickman so you know I must have really dug him to put him above two of my favorite actors.

As long as I am going on about Mos Def? Did anyone see his film 16 Blocks? That film came on cable one night when I was home visiting my folks a few years back and me and my dad watched it. That is a startlingly well made movie, when we turned it on we figured it was just gonna be another one of Bruce Willis's many direct to video level cop films, but the script has some surprises and Mos Def, yet again is the best part.

I should probably stop having posts where the footnotes are not funny and nine times longer than the actual article.

Since I mentioned RZA and will use any excuse to post this awesome clip of him hanging out with Craig Ferguson's mom, here is said clip:

Colbert's steve jobs tribute.

So I was reading Regina Spektor's facebook posts, (which are super awesome and informed if you are looking for information on many things as described by an adorable Russian Musician), and she put up that fantastic Apple "Think Different" ad as a tribute to steve jobs back when he died two weeks ago.

I had kinda forgotten how fantastic those ads were and it reminded me of how excited I was as a kid when apple convinced Jobs to come back to Apple from pixar and save the company. I remember doing a report on him leaving the company in 4th grade. And also remember how amazing and cool I thought the tiny fast Power Mac G4 Cube was when it was first publicized in 1999, and that I had the fold out advertisement for it from Newsweek up on my wall for all of high school. The ad just had a photo of the computer with its flat monitor and sexy round speakers with the only text reading, "The Power Mac G4 Cube. Actual Size" followed by the Apple logo. And how I thought apple's minimalist advertising was the slickest shit ever. I am now also remembering that I have always been a huge dork.

And I only didn't have this picture as a poster on my bedroom while in grade
school because I didn't know it existed until nine seconds ago.

Jobs had been sick for so long his death didn't really impact me when I first heard about it. I mean, I obviously felt bad for the guy, but this had been eminent for almost three years now, so I guess my brain was somehow more prepared for the initial news that say, Hunter S. Thompson's suicide or Mitch Hedberg's "heart attack."*

I didn't really fully remember by childhood fondness for jobs and his genius and his awesome hair until I was catching up on Colbert episodes last week and saw the eulogy that Stephen Colbert did for Jobs. It starts out respectful but comic, and then the last 50 seconds slowly turn into something that would have made me cry if I was the kind of man who admitted that things make him cry.

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Footnote(s):
*The autopsy was never made public at the request of his family, but it has been assumed to be a heroin overdose. 

The Mother Fucking Medusa

If you listened to Episode number something* of Thor's Hour of Thunder, you will know I really like the weird/trippy/awesome/hardcore/romance film called "Bellflower" and the director/writer/star of it, Evan Glodell, appeared in a fun 5 second film from the website 5 Second Films:





Footnote(s):

*Like 26 or so, I will look it up later I promise

Podcast Episode 31

Thor's 31: Lois Lane punches a chick in the face!

On the menu today:

We have more insight from extended pantheon member Heimdale

The Shadow, Lamont Cranston, Superman, Superman: The movie, Chris Reeves, Christopher Reeves, Brandon Routh, Superman Returns, Kevin Spacey, Parker Posey, Lois Lane, Margot Kidder, swearing,

Thor forgetting other people's norse handles, the extended pantheon, Grant Morrison, Action Comics, Superman, Comic Books, george perez, Amanda Conner, Jimmy Palmiotti, RAGS MORALES, Rags is not a real name unless you are a puppy, Toyota Recall, Toyota Prius, Toyota Camry, toyota floor mats, old people, toyota accelerator recall, mini cooper, fiat 500, (Yes thor management to talk about cars for a while before Baldr got him back on topic), Auto geek, motorhead, thor's into cars, automobile magazine, flash point, the flash, thomas wayne as batman, the punisher, death wish, charles bronson, Karolis Dionyzas Bučinskis, Charles Dennis Buchinsky, Thor Fucking Scully, cursing, Masters of Science, Pennsylvania, Transylvania, Castlevania, Turning into a bat, Birds of Prey, Expiration Date, Duane Swierczynski, Red Robin, Batwoman, Dresden Files, Jim Butcher, The Waltons, John John, Goodnight John John, Martian Manhunter, J'onn J'onzz, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, green lantern/green arrow, green lantern-green arrow, Oliver "Ollie" Queen, Dark Knight Returns, Ronald Reagan, HawkEye, Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Adobe Photoshop, White Castel Hamburgers, Dick Grayson, Damien Wayne, Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake, Talia al Ghul, Ra's al Ghul, Jason Todd, jet skis, boating safety, Maryland boating safety, Power Girl, Black Lightning, Jefferson Pierce, Heroes for Hire, Luke Cage, Nick Cage, static shock, Static Shot, Teen Titans, Batman: the animated series, Batman Beyond,

Jaws, Robert Shaw, Quint, G.I. Joe, Sgt. Slaughter, sargent slaughter, Robert Remus, WCW, WWF, WWE

Fuck Yeah Muppets! (part 5) (or so)

New Muppets trailer.


God Bless Jason Segal for writing something awesome for the muppets to do again, and for making disney hire back all the original muppet puppet performers they had fired.

and for fart shoes.


As tiny tim said:
God Bless us. Everyone.





via filmdrunk.com

Podcast Episode 30

Thor's Hour of Thunder: Episode 30: DC's New 52

Now that all the first issues in the D.C. comic "new 52" full universe relaunch have been rolled out, Thor and Baldr welcome new contributing norse god Heimdall to discuss his opinions on all the major issues #1s. Heimdall will be back occasionally as our Comics Expert, the way Hogan is our Text Expect and Freyja is our Being a Female Expert/Harry Potter Expert.

Questions? Comments? Anger? Send it all to: hourofthunder(at symbol)gmail.com and we will read it on the air (unless you ask us not to). (at symbol not used above to prevent spam

This week we discuss: DC Comics, Superman, Batman, Doctor Who, Spider-Man,
Omaha, Nebraska, Witicha Kansas, The world tree, Yggdrasil, dinosaurs, 65 millions years ago, Richard Dryfuss, Close Encounters fo the Third Kind, Mashed Potatoes, Devil's Tower, Google Plus, Google +, I downloaded a ghost, Haunting, Steve Jobs, Death of Steve Jobs, Pulse, ghosts through instant messenger, Kelly Sandefur, Jeff Phillips, Ghost Dad, Leonard Part 6, Bill Cosby, Aquaman, Namor the submariner, Sept 28th, blackest night, brightest day, Veronica Mars, bloggers, gold doubloons, Richard Donner, Lethal Weapon 4, Lethal Weapon, Lethal Weapon 5, The Flash, Mark Wade, Chief Creative Officer of D.C. Comics, Green Lantern, Greg Lantern, Flashpoint, Flash point, Tony Daniel, Film Noir, Hard boiled, the joker, Detective Comics, Action Comics, Justice League, Jim Lee, Grant Morrison, Green Lantern issue 1, set five years in the past, Heroes, The NBC television show Heroes, Superman punching Hal Jordon Green Lantern, Geoff Johns, J'onn J'onzz, Dolphin, Aquaman issue 1, Aqualad, the death of Aqualad,

Thor, Thor's dog, (which doesn't exist, I was thinking of Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers. Which has a frog that is Thor, called Throg: the Frog of Thunder, which is actually somehow even stupider that which I thought, which was that Lockjaw was a norse god dog. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockjaw_and_the_Pet_Avengers This four issue mini series sounds to stupid that I may have to read it. )

Batman family, Alfred Dead, Alfred, Bruce Wayne's Butler, Ace the Bathound, Batman Beyond, Aunt Harriet, Burt Ward, Adam West, Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne, Bat Girl, Barbara Gordon, Kathy Kane, Peter David, Aquaman issue 28, A japanese bussiness man killed Aquaman's mother, Aquaman's mother is a dolphin, Godzilla, Gojira, The Mighty Morphing Power Rangers, Pink Ranger, Blue Ranger, Bulk and Skull, The Incredible Hulk, Edward Norton, lou ferrigno, Louis Leterrier, Zak Penn, Bruce Banner, David Banner, Bill Bixby, The Ultimates, Ultimate Scarlet Witch, Ultimate Quicksilver, Spider-man, House of M, Spiderman, goth, X-men: Evolution.

Theme song played by grimmolehill747 check out the full version of that song and him playing other songs over at: http://youtu.be/lk5djS6LA_M

I will never be done talking about GroupOn's Super Bowl Ad apparently.

The GroupOn SuperBowl ad starring Timothy Hutton, is something I have already addressed a before. Here is the original audio of my opinion which I posted the week after the Super Bowl: (sorry it is clippy as shit, I hadn't figured out how to use my computer's microphone yet.)


I just wanted to update it with a recent joke about the incident which someone made in the format of the "Helpful Tyler Durden" Meme:

While I still think GroupOn's ad was not an effective way to advertise GroupOn (and GroupOn agreed and dropped the agency). I like the Durden meme above's idea of it being some type of subversive way to get GroupOn to pay for an ad that was terrible for their own business but great for world peace.

Oh! And this version of that same meme is just downright charming:

I apparently have some pretty Norman Bates like ideas of what "charming behavior" is.

Via Uproxx

The two best things in visual music of the year.

I really love the Kia Soul ad which has their anamorphic hamster mascots dance to party rock anthem.

Char over at Because A Fire  first made me aware of this ad a few weeks ago. and if you have read this blog before, or listened to the Hour of Thunder Podcast you may be aware that I:
1. Love cars
2. have loved Kia since their ridiculous almost anarchic early 90's ads
3. Think the Kia soul is finally a car from Kia as cool as their ads.
4. Own hamsters because someone abandon them over night in the mailroom of my old apartment. (My friend Allison coined the term "Dumpster Hamsters" after the dumpster baby episode of Always Sunny.*
5. Think LMFAO is an awesome bad with music videos that are somehow even more fun than their music.

This video somehow combines everything in the above list into one minute of pure awesome:



File this one under "commercials which where clearly written to market a product specifically at me."




The other best thing to happen this year involving music being played over video footage, was They Might Be Giants music video for "Can't Keep Johnny Down" which was 3 minutes of Rip Torn bear knuckle boxing:




Rip Torn music video via Filmdrunk.com


Footnote(s):

*I named the largest of the hamster "Richard Hamster" in honor of Richard Hammond, the sexiest and shortest host of Top Gear.

Richard is the one on the left.
(Because A Fire also made me aware of this drawing. which was created by this lady, whose site has many other awesome drawings you should check out.)

Seth Green rocks the coolest hair of all time.

Apparently Seth Green was in a Nerf ad in the 90's. You may be not at all surprised to learn that it is a terrible ad. It is filled with bad effects, "edgy" camera work, and that particular brand of smugness that pervaded a lot of ads aimed at children and teenagers in the early 90's.

It does however have three redeeming features:
1. Seth Green.
2. Seth Green's ridiculous hair.
3. Seth Green's inexplicable new york accent.*

Enjoy:



Here is Seth Green's hair captured for posterity:

eat your heart out, Justin Bieber's hair flip

Feel free to make the above image the front of your Christmas Cards this year. Especially if you mail most of your Christmas Cards to Seth Green.




Footnote(s):

*Actually its not so much a New York accent, as specifically the accent of Tony Toponi, in the 1986 animated film An American Tail.  Wikipedia describes the character of Tony Toponi as, "a streetwise young mouse of Italian descent," which may be my new all-time favorite character description.

I just discovered via Wikipedia that Tony Toponi was actually voiced by a 30 year old woman. Which was an unexpected twist.

In other unexpected American Tail related developments, Phillip Glasser, the voice of lead mouse Fievel Mousekewitz, grew up to be one of the producers of the terrible Jamie Kennedy film Kickin' It Old School. Though looking on imbd, that film has 10 people credited as various types of producers. So it probably would have been more surprising if he wasn't one of the producers.

It also says that the film cost 25.7 million dollars to make, so I can see how it would take ten people to convince a studio that they should pony up almost 26 million dollars for a Jamie Kennedy film about break dancing. Though there is a happy ending, Kickin' It Old School made only 4 million dollars world wide and made the world a better place by being the last movie Jamie Kennedy was allowed to be in.

Qwikster!

So Netflix on Monday made their DVDs by mail service into a separate company, and for reasons that are between them and the lord, they decided to call it Qwikster.

All I have to say about this is that it is impossible to say the name "Qwikster" without sounding like Sylvester the Cat.

If you haven't seen this parody of the video the founder of Netflix released, you should watch it below. This parody video is about blockbuster trying the same thing, and does a dead on parody of the awkward fake conversation style of the Netflix video.




If you go to qwikster.com right now, all it currently says is "Launching soon. Start popping the popcorn" with a photoshop of a movie curtain and a bowl of popcorn. So apparently they are gonna try to get in on the plopydop market as well.

Video via Filmdrunk

This trailer is badly edited

Updated! Now with 100% more Warren Zevon!

I think cutting a trailer for a comedy may be the hardest genre to promote. A lot of really great comedy's out there don't have one liners that work out of context.

Remember the terrible trailer for office space? They showed them beating the fax machine and Diedrich Bader's classic line, "two girls at the same time." But both gags, which were hilarious in context, seemed truly dumb as 4 second beats in a trailer.


I am hoping this film "Goon" is the same way. It clearly aspires to be a good old fashioned dumb violent comedy about my favorite sport to watch* and I will see it because, Liev Schrieber is awesome and Hockey Goons are awesome.** 





That said. This trailer is crap. It shows too much of the girl who wants to have sex with Sean William Scott all the time. Which could be cute in the film but is just boring in the trailer.


They don't make it clear what the main conflict of the film is. Does Scott not want to fight? Does he want to fight but fails the team because he can't skate? Or is it really all just gonna boil down to one 2 minute fight scene between Scott and Schreiber like they hype in the trailer?


Why don't they let Liev Schreiber do anything in the trailer but glower and punch a wall?


In terms of what is actually wrong with the editing. Take a look at the seen at :35 seconds in. Scott punches an opponent into the glass and a little blond girl in the 2nd row of the stands gives him a thumbs up.


This is cute, and probably the best gag in the trailer. It is not done perfectly, they should have cut to a closer shot of her and she should have been even more enthusiastic with her thumb's up, since the whole point of the gag is the disparity between a cute little girl and her endorsing the bloody violence on the ice. But I will take it. It definitely contains all the elements of a joke.


Then for some reason we cut back to the guy bleeding on the glass, and then back to the girl. Except this time she has no expression whatsoever. This is not funny, there isn't even a joke here. If the guy had bled all over the glass and the girl had gotten even more jubilant. That would have been funny. Not a great gag but at least one that contained the elements of a joke. Instead it just looks like the editor assembled the trailer by finding scenes in the film he liked, and then using random lengths of footage from them.


Quick Bonus complaint: What is with the title cards in this trailer? They look like they are in the default font from 2003 edition of Final Cut Pro. 


San serif, white text on a black background,  centered. I think the only setting they bothered to adjust was the make the text bold, which somehow makes it look worse.


I'm starting to think they had an 11 year old who was just starting to learn how to use iMovie put this trailer together.




Footnote(s):
* Actually I will broaden that. Hockey is my favorite thing to watch that does not have muppets in it. 


**Those of you curious of my opinion of Kevin Smith's threat to make the great Warren Zevon song "Hit somebody" into a two part epic dramady. I think Vinnie Jones here sums up my opinion of Kevin Smith's dumb ass trying to ruin that song nicely:

It just occurred to me that everyone on earth is not a Warren Zevon fan (he is most famous for the song "Wherewolves of London") so here is the song embedded below. Also even if you do know the song you probably want to hear now that i reminded you of its awesomeness.