LAMBcast #56: Roll Your Own Top 5

It's time to Roll Your Own Top 5! That's what we did, anyway, as every participant brought their own unique lists to the show. On hand were Nick, James, Stevee, and Dylan.

Also on tap:

* Listener Feedback
* LAMB of the Week
* Trailer Talk: Elektra Luxx
* Last LAMB Standing

For the LAMB of the Week, we take a look at LAMB #244, Foolish Blatherings (http://foolishblatherings.wordpress.com/):


If you'd like your site to be a future LAMB of the Week, hit me up via email and I'll add you to the queue.

Music provided royalty-free by Kevin MacLeod's Incompetech website. Big thanks to Kevin for providing this service. The LAMBcast loves feedback, too. Either here in the comments section or to blogcabins@yahoo.com or to our Facebook page. Also, we're on iTunes, and would still love a review, even if it's a bad one.

Thanks for listening!

And then...

LAMBcast #28

The dog days, indeed.

This summer has, for the most part, stunk up the joint at the theater. Audiences globally just aren't buying what a couple of Killers and some mangled guy named Jonah Hex are selling them, and they've clearly had it with those SATC gals.

What went wrong? What's the main culprit for the lackluster summer? And is there a prescription for our ills? More bluntly, will Inception and/or Scott Pilgrim save the day?

Trying to get a grip on all this and more were Nick Jobe, Jason Soto, Sebastian Gutierrez, and another noob (yay!), Branden Renfro of Foolish Blatherings. And of course, we top off the feature discussion with a handful of LLS, and one of the most engaging Trailer Talks we've had yet, all over...The Green Hornet?

As usual, the music, as provided royalty-free by Kevin MacLeod's Incompetech website, is the bomb. Big thanks to Kevin for providing this service.

Also, we're still on iTunes, and would still love a review, even if it's a bad one. Thanks for listening!

FYI: I started a dedicated Facebook page for the LAMBcast. I'll still post something here when a new episode is released, but if you're looking for a central place for commentary, suggestions, complaints, etc., go here (and LIKE it!).

And then...

Tuesday's Things to Click On (4/6/10)

Programming note: the Dudes/Ladies tourneys are more or less going to kick my ass for the next 4 weeks or so, so there will likely continue to be no TGITDNMAR until they're over. I know this news is a bit late, but I wanted to make it official and throw that out there. Why that and not this weekly feature axed? I dunno. I guess I just like to spread the love, baby.

Movies watched for the first time (non-theatrically) since last week:
None. Ever since we got a DVR (sidenote: what's the deal with DVRs being called PVRs in Canada?), I've developed a terrible habit: starting movies and taking forever to finish them. I must have 12 movies (if not more) in some state of watch at present. This week I added two more to that list, The Hustler and Tapeheads. So pretty similar stuff. Thoughts on these (and maybe five others) to come if and when I finish the,

Music I'm currently obsessed with:
* The song "Sticks & Stones" by Sigur Rós frontman Jónsi Birgisson that plays over the end credits of How to Train Your Dragon. Listen to it here. I'm pretty sure that all of my favorite Sigur songs are their more uptempo ones, and this solo effort uptempoes them all (and it's in English to boot, though that makes less difference than you might think). My love of this song will undoubtedly spill over to his solo album, Go, which is out now. Speaking of now, I'm about to go listen to it for the first time...right now.

Book I'm currently reading:
Finished "The Year of Living Biblically" and I'd recommend it for the secular and religious alike. Though it's probably a bit slanted towards the secular, author A.J. Jacobs does a good job of keeping an open mind no matter how bizarre the ritual he's asked (commanded) to perform.

Now, after having finally seen the filmed version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I've received and begin The Girl Who Played with Fire. Always nice when you get a chance to spend more time with characters you came to know and love. Better yet - one more book to go after this one.

Finally, the Things to Click On:
* Anomalous Material is back with his second round of tips for bloggers old and young, movie or otherwise. Not groundbreaking, but solid info that some people need to be reminded of.

* The Mad Hatter took a fun (bad) joke and turned it into an even better April Fool's prank. If you don't understand this one, you clearly don't listen to the LAMBcast.

* The next time you're taking part in one of the various LAMB blog-a-thons (or the LAMMYs)m think of Branden. I'll do my best to as well.

* He spring it unwittingly on me and so many other innocents, and I think one good turn does another. That's right - it's He Shot Cyrus' list of Top Five Actors I Never Wanted to See Naked.

* I celebrated a milestone earlier this week, but at least I didn't have to post for 47 straight days to do it like Rachel did. All reviews, mind you - no filler like that lazy Fletch guy does every now and then.

* Finally, Tom's back from an unwelcome hiatus and wants to talk trailers.

And then...

Tuesday's Things to Click On (3/23/10)

Believe it or not, movie reviews will appear here again someday, though I've yet to decide if they'll be in the same format or not. I enjoy the discourse of writing and commenting back and forth on them, but something's....missing. To be continued, I suppose. It's certainly not for a lack of other content (I hope you agree with me there). Coming soon - the March 2 Box Office Madness game, and another long-delayed tournament of sorts that I'm anxious to get off the ground.

Movies watched for the first time (non-theatrically) since last week:
Um...none that come to mind. We sat down to watch A Streetcar Named Desire, but stopped about 45 minutes in and have yet to pick it back up yet (I currently have about 10 movies I need to watch the endings of...). Thought Brando was good (and damned if he didn't look younnnng), but that Vivien Leigh was laughably bad. Then I had the ending inadvertently spoiler for me - no big deal there, though. At least in doing so, it made her performance a few ticks better. Still, the acting style of ye olden days just turns me off faster than you can say "melodramatic." Please recommend old movies that contain what you might call a contemporary acting style...

Music I'm currently obsessed with:
* Not music - catching up on my podcast listening after a number of days without a commute (my prime podcast listening time).

Book I'm currently reading:
My trip to Washington left me with a lot of reading time, so I finished Chuck Palahniuk's "Snuff." A nice, short read (under 200 pages); not my favorite of his, though. There are very few characters and all of them speak a bit too much like a stereotypical Chuck character. The story is sparse, yet typically interesting/"shocking." If you're a diehard, check it out - it won't take long. Otherwise, don't worry about avoiding.

Having finished that on one plane trip, I was forced to head for the airport bookstore, where there were no copies of "The Girl That Played With Fire" (bummer), which left me perusing the store for something interesting. Came upon A.J. Jacobs "The Year of Living Biblically," a yearlong journal of a secular guy (born Jewish) attempting to live according to the rules of the Bible (all of them, no matter how minute) for 365 days. Jacobs is an editor/writer for Esquire, so I'm probably familiar with his work even if I'm unaware of it. It's not laugh out loud funny, but it's interesting, even if I don't buy some of his scenarios and/or how much commitment he made to the "transformation" (like many followers, he seems to randomly assign importance to certain rules according to the whims of the day).

Finally, the Things to Click On:
* First off, a salute and well wishes to Foolish Blatherings' Branden, who's headed off on a journey that's sure to be interesting (and who knows what else). Best of luck, Branden, and the blogosphere (particularly the movie portion of it) will miss you and await your return.

* I've had The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on the mind for some weeks now, but Fandango Groovers is ahead of the game (and not just because he's already seen the Swedish version, hitting U.S. cities any day now), putting out some casting suggestions for the U.S. remake, which is already in the works.

* Castor over at Anomalous Material takes an in-depth look at the recent theatrical market statistics released by the MPAA. Cool stuff.

* Jason finally sees Point Break. Will the B movie king give it his seal of approval or seal his fate in my doghouse?

* Finally...the answers are already in the comments, but The Cooler's 2nd annual Eyes of March post is the kind of movie quiz I can get behind (even if I would have scored pretty poorly overall).

And then...