Film Junk Podcast Episode #248: Avatar

Posted by on December 21st, 2009   Filed under: Film Junk Podcast

podcast248

0:00 – Intro
2:50 – Singe’s Cop Story / Steven Seagal: Lawman
22:40 – Top 20 Films of the Decade: District 9, The Lord of the Rings, The Dark Knight, The Departed, Grizzly Man
39:40 – Review: Avatar
1:16:30 – Trailer Trash: Iron Man 2, Robin Hood, Hot Tub Time Machine
1:31:15 – Other Stuff We Watched: Superbad, Man v. Food, A Threevening with Kevin Smith, Sons of Anarchy, Up, Inglourious Basterds, In The Loop, The Limits of Control, The Messenger, The Lives of Others, Beautiful Losers, Santa with Muscles
2:07:40 – Junk Mail: Kill Bill Vol. 3 and James Cameron’s hometown, Commentaries Ruining the Magic, Worst Movies of the Year, Donnie Darko and Zombieland, The Girlfriend Experience, Bob Clark and Halloween, Martial Arts Eras
2:47:35 – This Week’s DVD Releases
2:49:14 – Outro

Note: Our additional spoiler discussion of Avatar is now available here.

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  • I thought I would follow up on the junk mail that was directed at me regarding “Duel to the Death.” It’s interesting that the movie’s director, Ching Siu-Tung, is the action director on “Hero” and other Zhang Yimou films that I really enjoy. The other day, I was actually watching the classic “A Chinese Ghost Story” also directed by Ching, 4 years later. I don’t really appreciate the Chinese films made during this period (’80s). One of the reasons is the poor sound mixing and effects. I am perhaps being overly critical, but there is a polish that directors like Zhang Yimou and Ang Lee have given to the wuxia genre. “Duel to the Death” does sound wacky, so I’ll have to check it out at some point. Thx for the question!

  • Napalm

    omg. Jay’s live toilet trip feed on the mic = best film junk moment!

  • Bas

    I laughed out loud in the bus to work at the “boys in blue” joke, can’t wait for the ride back! :)

  • Henrik

    “That’s okay I brought Mario”

    Wicked.

    Hilarious episode, Singe is great with Reed since he just goes for the jokes, kind of mean, which is awesome.

  • Alex RG

    Seriously Jay’s on mic urination made me laugh out loud at work. #1 moment on 09!

  • Goon

    Greg, I’m pretty sure the Step Brothers singing commentary is on the regular DVD too

  • Mrespony

    Jay’s hiccup at 2:40:54 – best of the year clip show material right there.

    Thanks for the follow-up on my question Reid, what the movie. You’ll probably hate it :-)

  • Duel To The Death is rad. Reed will probably hate it.

  • rjdelight

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Can Reed please be a permanent fourth chair of the podcast? He’s the best.

  • Guys, this is probably the best episode you’ve ever done…bravo!

  • rjdelight

    Do we really have to wait a whole day to hear the rest of the Avatar discussion?

  • Tyson

    Reed. I like you, but not everything ties to Star Trek. This tendency of yours is borderline infuriating. Not as infuriating as your need to waste time worrying about whether or not you are wasting time.

  • Miike

    Did Jay really say that we wouldn’t be hearing any more from his drive to the States with Reed, meaning there will actually be no Cantankerous Christmas episode?

  • I second what Tyson said, nice point Mike

  • From what Jay said, there were too many technical issues with the episode of Cantankerous that was recorded on the road. A few clips from it may show up on a future episode of Cantankerous.

  • Falsk

    What sort of technical issues?

  • Like Reed accidentally paused the recording device for the first half of the trip… among other things.

  • Burgus

    The Dakota Fanning Experience was funny. Dakota is 16.. or something like that.. haha. Reed!!

    Good episode

  • Jay thought that our conversation was mundane during the trip over. The border guard conversation was rather routine. The Best Buy cashier conversation was ordinary. We even recorded our supper at Appletree’s or whatever the restaurant was called. Waitresses and food servers constantly screw up Jay’s food orders. I ate Jay’s side order of coleslaw by mistake because the waitress screwed up. I guess us Canadians are too polite to create any Borat style wackiness.

    @Tyson and rus in chicago: OK, I’ll stop talking about Star Trek. And I’ll stop apologizing. Seriously.

    @rjdelight: Thx for the continued support! Please keep the praise coming. After each podcast I’m on, I always think I won’t be invited back.

  • @Tyson and rus in chicago: Oh, I just remembered that I have a pre-existing contractual obligation to do the Film Junk commentary on the latest Star Trek movie, so I’ll have to talk about Star Trek then. Note that this isn’t an apology, but rather a provision to my last comment to you.

  • rjdelight

    ^^^^^^^

    Yep, definitely the best. :)

  • Joey

    When is the spoiler cast going to be posted?

  • Tyson

    No Reed, you misunderstand. Talk about Star Trek when appropriate, but don’t try to tie everything back to Star Trek. Let Star Trek exist, and let other entertainment exist. Where they overlap elaborate.

    Appropriate: actor or director: Reed’s Response; “That guy was on Star Trek.”

    Inappropriate: plot as old as drama itself; Reed’s Response: “You know in Star Trek episode 309 they did this, so they’re just ripping off Star Trek.”

    As far as apologizing goes, if there is a story to be told chances are we want to hear it. So get to it. If we’ve listened to three years of you faking voices and names, and all of Greg’s HPV tales. I’m pretty sure we want to hear whatever you and the rest of the crew have to say. If not my software has fast forward, so I’m sure any other asshole’s does too.

    I’m pretty sure my best friend is the guy who asked the question about Duel to the Death, so I’ll let him know you followed up here.

  • Tyson, I guess I do misunderstand, because I would have switched your appropriate/inappropriate responses around. That is, I thought most people couldn’t care less if a director or actor was involved in Star Trek. The reason that I mentioned Star Trek was that I thought it would be interesting to talk about how a venerable science fiction franchise handled the similar story. I had said I wished the recent Star Trek movie had been set on Pandora, and I was trying to explain that it had used the story before, so it couldn’t have used Avatar’s plot. I wasn’t trying to say that Avatar ripped off Star Trek. I think Jay had a similar reaction to my mention of Star Trek as you did, but I thought Jay was just being his somewhat sardonic self. I was even praising Avatar for its use of Avatars, because it’s a perfect concept for Star Trek to use in handling first contact missions with non-humanoid species.

    I’m sorry I “infuriated” you. Ha ha. I guess you and rus were being defensive since you guys seem to have an “irrational” love of Avatar. Wait, don’t jump on my back. I gave Avatar 3.5/4, so I sort of love it, too.

    As for my apologizing, I think after three years of reading people’s comments about me, I feel I need to constantly apologize for my shortcomings. You should know that I told Sean and Jay right before the podcast that I wasn’t going to be concerned about dragging out the podcast. But then Singe arrived and this was my first time meeting Singe. And I felt bad having him have to sit through my inane babble. You guys have the convenience of a fast-forward, but he didn’t. So I began apologizing during the podcast for his benefit, but I guess he probably wished that I would just get on with it as well. Ha ha.

  • pcch7

    the song in the Clash of the Titans trailer is “The Used – The bird and the worm”.. I liked it

  • Rusty James

    This really is an amazing episode. It made me giddy.

    Jay’s ramblings about trying to get a dollar back for some DVD had me busting a gut. Like an old man at the penny saver with expired coupons. Classic!

  • Paul Andrews

    “It’s a taser, not a phaser” – nice one.

  • Tyson

    I see Mrespony already responded in the thread I just missed it.

    And Reed. You are off your rocker insane. It’s why I ordered the Reed Farrington shirt.

  • Tyson, I’m speechless with gratitude for your purchase of a Reed Farrington shirt. I hope to be as famous as Jackie Chan one day. Or at least Che Guevera. (I probably spelled his name wrong.)

  • Rob

    Avatar sounds like quite the spectacle. I look forward to seeing it for myself. I mean, it even got the Reed Farrington seal of approval, such as it is!

    Above all, I have to applaud Jay’s excellent stream. Very good to know he isn’t suffering from any sort of prostate issues just yet. Singe’s cop story rounded out the evening of bodily waste excretions rather nicely.

    Clusterfuck of an awesome episode, guys! Reminded me yet again why I’m addicted to this show. heh

  • Zoo

    Somehow, I overlooked this episode when I was browsing through the archives. I thought I had listened to it but when I saw Reed’s rating for Avatar, it alerted me that I hadn’t. The reason I say that is because Reed hates all movies so for him to give Avatar 3.5/4 stars, is high praise from him.

    Reed, now that some time has passed, have you ever reminded Sean, Jay and Greg that you predicted in this episode that Avatar would surpass Titanic at the box office? After all, they did scoff and ridicule you for it. No offense Reed but you’re usually wrong most of the time on your movie reviews so you might as well brag about being right on this one occasion.

    About the episode itself, I thought it was probably the most entertaining one I have ever listened to. I liked the dynamic among the group on this extra large edition. I think this is only the second time I’ve heard Singe. I kind of enjoy it when they expand the cast for holidays and special occasions.

    Oh, and my rating for Avatar is 2.5/5. Way overrated. Go see The Smurfs next year and you’ll get the same experience and probably a better story.

  • @Zoo: Twenty years from now, people will be listening to these Film Junk podcasts and realize that I was right about everything. When movie theaters start disappearing in two years (or whenever, I can’t remember my prediction), people will realize I was right about this as well. BTW, I don’t have to brag. My accomplishments speak for themselves. Ha ha. :-)

  • Zoo

    Seriously though Reed, were you feeling all right that day that you didn’t feel like crapping all over this movie like you do with all the others. Was there some obscure Star Trek actor that appeared in it that I don’t know about to deserve such high praise. Shatner’s toupee didn’t have a cameo as one of the creatures on Pandora did it? ;)

  • Well, Zoe Saldana who played Uhura in the latest Star Trek movie did have a major starring role in Avatar. But I did crap all over the latest Star Trek movie.

    I gave Avatar a higher than normal rating because it was visually interesting with an interesting core idea of using avatars to make contact with aliens. I admit that the dialog and story were kind of simple, and I did get bored at times, but it was different. Compared to everything else I had seen within the past few years, it deserves to be given notice.