Stuff to watch on Netflix this summer

/ Katie Man / Leave a comment

Hot hot daySometimes it’s too darn hot to do stuff outside. On those occasions, there’s Netflix. Here are five of my recommendations if you find yourself ready and willing to plow through a season or two of TV this summer. All of these shows are available on Netflix Canada.

Justified

1. Justified
Availability: seasons 1 & 2 of 4
Type of show: Drama
Mood you should be in: Cheering for the good guy

Justified is a story about Federal Marshall Raylan Givens (played by Timothy Olyphant) and all the crooks and baddies that he has to chase and put away. It’s a fun, fast paced show with interesting characters, complex relationships and a lot (A LOT) of shooting. It is such fun summer watching because the plot is complicated enough to be interesting and light enough to not get to worked up about it. How does Raylan shoot so many people and get away with it? It’s all part of the fun of the show.

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God and Paper Hearts: Tom Noonan’s Eerily Accessible Small Screen Performances

/ Jane Walker / 2 Comments

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Tom Noonan does everything. From staring in, producing, writing, directing, scoring and editing award winning plays and screenplays to scene stealing performances in movies, short films and television. As a huge Noonan fan I could go on at length about the many brilliant aspects of his career but this being The Golden Age of Television I will focus on Noonan’s work on TV. My two favorite Tom Noonan roles are his guest starring spots on The X-Files and Louie. Although it is next to impossible to describe what is at work in Noonan’s nuanced and seemingly effortless performances I will give it a shot.  Continue reading →

I Haven’t Seen the Last Mad Men Yet, So There’s This…

/ GoldenAgeGuest / Leave a comment

A_small_cup_of_coffee

Always felt weird blogging and therefore sharing my TV tastes and passions. For me TV watching has always been something private, perhaps intimate. I really like TV that’s just for me. I loved staying up late on Friday nights for CKND to show an Australian 70’s cop show spoof called Funky Squad. I like watching American college football. Nobody I know watches it so I don’t have to get into the hulking morass of chit-chat.  I don’t think consciously, but it has worked out that I’ve missed a lot of “hit” TV. Never seen a full episode of The Big Bang Theory, or How I Met Your Mother. Don’t know the names of the broke girls.  I watch Full Throttle Saloon about a stressed bar owner trying to run a biker bar while, among other things, trying to find out who took Fajita Mike’s fajita meat. I’m ignorant of The Americans, Girls, and many other things that this blog touches on.

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Man Gobsmacked by GOB’s man

/ Katie Man / 2 Comments

This was originally going to be a blog entry declaring that the best episodes of Season 4 of Arrested Development were the ones that featured GOB Bluth, namely “Colony Collapse” and “A New Attitude.” While I still feel that these episodes are great and hilarious (and plan to tell you why I liked these episodes so much), I don’t feel confident in declaring them the best episodes of the season. Here’s why: upon re-watching these two episodes in preparation for writing this entry, I realized that I hadn’t really seen the season. Yes, I watched it (in a week-long binge) but I didn’t really remember which episodes were good and bad. In my memory, the whole season was all a long string of jokes and repetition, leaving me with the impression that the season wasn’t so great. I frequently smiled, but I didn’t laugh out loud. It was a slog. Or a bog. Or something else that kinda makes a pun with “GOB” as a I was trying to think of a witty title for this article. (ie. “GOB a jewel in the bog”)

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Stop Dragon My Heart Around: Why I think you might like Game of Thrones even if you don’t think you’ll like Game of Thrones (based entirely on why I like Game of Thrones)

/ kwoloszyn / Leave a comment

Nikolaj_Coster-Waldau_(March_2013)

On a recent episode of the amazing NPR podcast, Pop Culture Happy Hour, the crew (specifically Stephen Thompson and Linda Holmes) chatted and proceeded to dump on Game of Thrones as a show that lots of other people love that they can’t get into. They cited the non-stop political talk, the constant discussion of royal lineage, the rapey-ness of the show as well as all of the violence towards kids as reasons that they didn’t continue to watch past a couple of episodes. That got me thinking, “These people are smart and I hate those things too, so why do I like the show so much?”. Here are three reasons:

(A note about spoilers: I tried to write this post without many spoilers because I hate them. Still, any mention of a seemingly minute detail on Game of Thrones is spoiler-esque. I would caution you, if you haven’t seen any of the show, to read at your own peril – especially point #1. Please also note that this post is based solely on the TV version of Game of Thrones, as I haven’t read all of the books. If I’m wrong about something below that is probably why – or I just wasn’t paying close enough attention).

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I Might Have to Start to Work Out: A Dude’s Struggle in Watching Daytime TV

/ GoldenAgeGuest / Leave a comment

I work offensive hours so, ostensibly, daytime is my primetime. Homer put it best when he said primetime is where TV’s greatest stars come out to shine. I come home to an endless parade of doctors, lifestyle experts, pop culture gurus and Elizabeth Hasselbeck (blonde from the View) I’m a dude. I like meat, sport-matches, and an easy way for to get me to watch your programs is “..and guest staring Miss Carmen Electra.” But I’m not a cave man. I like Project Runway, New Girl, and the endless bitch cakes being served up between Joanna and Awndrea on Real Housewives of Miami. However one needs an actual uterus to enjoy daytime TV.

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I’ve been watching a lot of New Girl

/ Katie Man / Leave a comment

I am relatively new to the New Girl fan base. I started watching weekly in the early part of season two, on a whim. Week by week, New Girl became the show I looked forward to watching the most. And it was all because of a kiss.

But a bit of background on the show, if you haven’t seen it. New Girl is a half-hour sitcom that stars Zooey Deschanel as the one woman who lives in a loft with three dudes. Think Friends but without the hallway separating everyone.

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Email Roundtable #23 – Q&A

/ kwoloszyn / Leave a comment

In this edition of the Email Roundtable we each asked a TV related fantasy question. We also got some special guests to weigh in!

Jane asked: Which TV character would you pick to be your real life best friend and why?

Steph: I had a really hard time with this one…but i’m gonna go with Joan Harris from Mad Men. As snappy as she sometimes is with other women, I’ve seen some genuine lady bonding from her. I think she’s a good listener, blunt and fearless with advice giving, and an all around good time. She has a sense of humour and incredible style. Borrowing clothes and swapping juicy stories over Old Fashioned’s–sign me up! Mind you, I don’t think anyone else could ever wear a Joan Harris dress and not disappear into the bossom’s netherworld.

Graeme: I was going to pick someone cool like Raylan Givens from Justified but then I realized 1. he only cares about his job and 2. everyone close to him is targeted by the mob to be murdered. So I’ll go with ALF. Fuzzy, funny, sarcastic aliens are awesome.

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