Matthew Wrather hosts from the best coast as he, Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and John Perich overthink Shark Week, TRON, baseball, the relationsip betwen Pixar’s UP and Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino, and comparing things to Hitler.
Tell us what you think! Email us or call 20-EAT-LOG-01—that’s (203) 285-6401. And… spread the overthinking by forwarding this episode to a friend!
I watched both Gran Torino and Up and briefly discussed the similarities in my review of Up back in June. I even called it Up, “Gran Torino for kids.” So I was surprised to hear someone else thought the same since everyone I told at work brushed it off.
And it’s rumored that Jeff Bridges is trapped inside Windows 7. If not, I’m prepared to start that rumor.
couple of things…about diabetes awareness, during medical school, i’ve found that, while most people have a reasonable understanding of what diabetes is, they have little concept of why it’s a problem. i think this stems from how esoteric the disease process is. without a lot of really wonky explanation, it’s pretty hard to describe how extra sugar in your blood causes strokes and heart attacks. so in that sense, there is a role for a diabetes awareness program, but not as they are currently constituted.
as for david ortiz’ decline and the steroid correlation, there are some serious confounding variables in that assessment. there are many players in history, even those in eras that were presumably steriod-free, whose careers had short peaks and precipitous drop-offs. injuries, aging, and an unathletic physique (to put it generously) likely contributed a fair bit to his decline. i’d imagine that the time course for a post-steriod regression would be longer than a single season. if i bulk up using steroids, it would take longer than a few months to lose that muscle mass, especially if i was working out regularly, as i imagine ortiz (or really any of the steroid guys) are.
finally, in terms of ratings, profits, and general public interest, there is no question that football is now america’s passtime. perhaps you could overthink why that is.
I have a slight rant with regards to this supposed “Shark Week” on the Discovery Channel. I remember the days when it meant nothing but programs about sharks twenty-four hours every day for seven days in a row. Now it’s regular programming until seven, at which point the fins finally come out. What’s up with that? Did Discovery jump the… wait, never mind. ;)
You know what you need to do? Edit yourselves into a video of those Jonas Brothers fans and post it on YouTube/on this site. I don’t get the screaming, either, Perich. I’m sorry. I- and my uterus- fail.
“Blessed Be”- It is indeed a phrase I picked up from Wiccan tradition, although I am not a practicing Wiccan, myself. If it offends or bothers you, I can use a more generic way of ending my emails… :/
Fenzel, I loved your opening rant about baseball and everything else you said after you came back from your shark meal (;p). That’s exactly the kind of outrage and disgust I’m talking about, including swearing off baseball because of the disappointment. See, I’ve had this theory for the past few years that NFL-style football is taking over MLB’s place in American culture, and the scandals and disgust are feeding that transition. I could write pages worth about it, but yeah…
In defense of Kelly Clarkson and Taylor Swift: Kelly Clarkson’s control over her music has increased with her career’s length. She only wrote one song on her first album, then four on her second, and finally all of her third. But Wrather, you’d prefer mediocre UN-original “talent” like the Jonas Brothers over mediocre original “talent” like Swift? Are the professional songwriters for JB and the like all that much better than Taylor? Or is she just your scapegoat for your hatred for *all* of these young pop stars? Can’t you at least respect the fact that she’s singing her own music as opposed to someone else’s?
I’m sort of ashamed that no one on this podcast is a Tron fan. You say you wish Hollywood was more original, took more risks? Then you should admire the hell out of Tron. This is a film that relies heavily on computer graphics, a full 13 years before Toy Story. This is a big budget movie scored entirely by electronic music pioneer Wendy Carlos (who did A Clockwork Orange). This is a DISNEY movie that says some very disturbing things about God.
Is it a great film? Probably not. Its reach definitely exceeds its grasp. But it’s very entertaining, ambitious, and totally unique. I actually pulled out my DVD a month ago, and I was impressed with what they managed to accomplish in 1982. Tron sort of gets a bad rap as a commercial failure and a nerd fetish-object, but I wish that more Hollywood films had the guts to swing for the fences like that.
So yeah, if you haven’t watched Tron, check it out. It’s got a lot to overthink.
Also, 27 years between a movie and its first sequel has got to be some sort of record.
@gab — Bothers me? Not in the least! It’s just not a tagline you see every day.
I’ll concede the point that though Taylor Swift’s songs are crap, it is at least crap produced by her own colon, as opposed to crap produced by an Orlando, FL based mechanical colon crap machine.
@sean: I think baseball was America’s pastime for as long as it was because, for a while, it was the biggest professional sport. Baseball dates back to the 1860s, whereas football didn’t really have a professional league until 1922. So baseball ruled merely through inertia for generations.
And I think football’s genuinely a more exciting sport. Any sport in which David Wells can command a salary barely deserves the name.
http://www.geocities.com/brewer09/players/davidwells-yankees.JPG
I sometimes think it would be interesting if there was a separate league in some sports, where any and all Body Modifications, both physical and chemical, were allowed. Cyborgs vs. Steroids!
So NO ONE else is excited about Tron Legacy? Did you watch the trailer? Did you see that final shot, where the bad guy is revealed to be a young Jeff Bridges from 1982? C’mon, that’s cool stuff people! Look, I don’t know a damn thing about the new movie, but I can honestly say that’s one of my ten favorite trailers of all time.
@ Belinkie DUDE! I’m totally excited about Tron: Legacy. You are not alone.
@Perich Here’s what me, my lady bits and Intro to Anthropology came up with to explain the girls screaming/fainting phenomenon when it comes to pop culture icons.
Firstly, you see this in young prepubescent or adolescent girls. Rarely do you see women scream, holler or faint in the same fashion. If they do, it’s for different reasons ;)
I believe there are two anthropological theories for the shrieking display.
One: The girls are vocalizing their sexual maturity; often observed amongst female animals in the wild to catch the eye of the alpha male for mating.
Two: The girls are vocalizing their rebellion against the puritanical mores. They are protesting in unison (or in chorus as Wrather put it) the ‘nobody puts Baby in a corner’ ideal that as females they must not make their desires known, lest they be branded with a scarlet letter or at least a slut moniker on there facebook page.
I honestly believe there is more credence to the first theory. I am willing to bet there is a direct correlation between the fact young girls are reaching puberty earlier, and the obsession with all things the Jonas Brothers, Twilight and even Hannah Montana (we cannot forget the budding lesbians.)
Reaching puberty earlier results in increased hormones at an age at which they definitely do not understand the urges that accompany them. Teenagers have a hard time understanding this, imagine an eight-year-old having to deal with the same feelings. From birth, babies cry to bring attention to their needs. As children age, they continue to show their emotions with noises until they learn to vocalize their needs. The high pitched wailing, sobbing and hysterical reaction from these girls is the same thing. They cannot yet vocalize their desires and fantasies to be with these pseudo-celebrities, so they revert to a more primal expression of said feelings, thus the screaming.
Or… there’s something in the kool-aid and they’re all bat-S crazy. I’m willing to believe either.
is it possible for you to start putting footnotes on the podcast?
for instance links to the reviews mentioned and the tron: legacy trailer? i know the latter might be easy to find but those others (off the top of my head, new york post review of bruno) might require some digging.
just a suggestion
@whenclams: Typically we do! Oversight on our part this time.
TRON Legacy Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1IpPpB3iWI What bugged me, and what I couldn’t adequately express on the podcast, is the weird fluidity of the lightcycle walls. It looks less cartoonish which, in the context of TRON, bothers me.
The full Bruno review in the New Yorker someone else would have to point to. Here’s their capsule review: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/reviews/film/bruno_cohen