Sunday, November 30, 2008

Strange Things are Reviewed - At The TERMINATOR Podcast!

We review an episode that starts with a great dream sequence and launches the questions into more of the lore that’s been both created and used as a template during the entire TERMINATOR Saga. Dreams, future history, traitors and more as TERMINATOR: The Sarah Connor Chronicles amps up in the home stretch to the holidays!

Click here to read more about the TERMINATOR Podcast!

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Caption Hunt Review: The EYE - Did YOU See It Like We Did?

Movie Viewing Date: 11-29-2008
Movie Title: The Eye
Reviewed By: Mike Wilkerson

Intro:

I’m not certain, but movies like this are probably doomed in my overall “vision” mostly because what are sometimes worthwhile and scary premises are reduced to skitter-reflexive drivel with dark, shadowy, twitch camera moves and deep thundering base emphasis as the movie goes on. The truth that unfolds inside of this 2GuysTalking Caption Hunt Report on “The Eye”, starring Jessia Alba is something to be seen. Are you ready to experience a sight to remember? We thought we were too.

Previews/Commercials Captioned: None of the features of this DVD are closed captioned, providing us with even more to be less satisfied with. The litany of companies, sponsors, movie studios and more that provided us with a movie about “a blind woman finding her sight and more” is ironically not accommodating the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community. I guess they “don’t see” the need to take the time.

Click here to read the rest of this Caption Hunt Review of "The EYE" on DVD...

Friday, November 28, 2008

A One-Stop "The Shield" Answer Shop

The Answers to The End of "The Shield" - What Happened, What We Felt and What It All Means

I have been anticipating the end of "The Shield" since the end of last season. While I was engaged for season 6's finale, I have to tell you I was ultimately disappointed last year when The Shield came to an end. That's all changed this year and I've just completed watching an outstanding end to what is one of the greatest television series in history. While researching time lines for another review I was writing I noticed that really, most of the reviews online on't really give any definitive answers on what happens as The Shield ends with this episode, "FAMILY MEETING." To that end, I have constructed a one-stop answer shop for what happens to the characters featured in the series finale of "The Shield." Enjoy your read and please provide your comments on this outstanding bookend to a series that will be long remembered.

THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO STOP READING - SPOILERS ABOUND BELOW! ---------

--------- Ellen Charmichael: The infamous, Billing's-slandered "Bitch/Dyke Lawyer" finally meets Dutch and asks him to alter his original semi-support statement for Billings so as to spare city turmoil and departmental embarrassment - she ends up giving Dutch her card which is gracefully accepted.

Click here to read more of this entry...

Monday, November 24, 2008

An Uncomplicated TERMINATOR Review of "Complications"

The TERMINATOR Podcast Reviews Season 2, Episode 9 of T:SCC!
The TERMINATOR Podcast Review of Complications

We review an episode that starts with a great dream sequence and launches the questions into more of the lore that's been both created and used as a template during the entire TERMINATOR Saga. Dreams, future history, traitors and more as TERMINATOR: The Sarah Connor Chronicles amps up in the home stretch to the holidays! Add in a contest that allows you to win 1 of 10 copies of the NEW TERMINATOR: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Soundtrack (thanks to our sponsors, RelayMO, Acoustica's Mixcraft Software and Ability Interpreting) All this and more is featured in this episode of The TERMINATOR Podcast only from The 2GuysTalking Podcast Network!


-- Listen Now
-- Visit The TERMINATOR Podcast Website
-- Subscribe to The 2GuysTalking TERMINATOR Podcast via iTunes

Win FREE TERMINATOR: Sarah Connor Chronicles Soundtracks!

It's your chance to win a soundtrack that continues to compliment but at the same time drive one of the great entertainment franchises. Simply listen to our review of Season 2, Episode 9 of TERMINATOR: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, "Complications" and tell us how many times you hear the specified tone during the show! Subscribe to our FREE 2GuysTalking Podcast Network Newsletter and you're done!

Click here to learn more about this great contest and win today!

Thursday, November 20, 2008

The Ultimate Fighter Review: Week 10 Team Nogueira V. Team Mir - Fire the Cannons

Show Viewing Date: 11-19-2008
Show Title: Ultimate Fighter: Week 10 Team Nogueira V. Team Mir - Fire the Cannons
Network: SpikeHD
Reviewed By: Mike Wilkerson

The tenth week of SpikeHD's The Ultimate Fighter provides us with what is one of the best match-ups to date, and it continues what we hops is a trend of upward progressing quality in a show that has inspired in past seasons. We've arrived to the final set of lightweight fights and it's time for these two 155ers to step up and throw down as we review The Ultimate Fighter's Season 8, episode 10, "Fire the Cannons".

As with many of my online reviews, I'll be reviewing this initial episode in a "stream of consciousness" format, giving you essentially what I'm thinking as the show airs. I encourage everyone to send feedback in regard to any of the points below and let's use this opportunity as a rallying and sounding-off point for our love, of the truly SAVAGE SCIENCE...

-- A Twist in the Pace: Wow - those of you that have anything to do with what is the format of the show that may be reading - KEEP THIS TREND UP. Out has gone much of the frathouse nuttiness that - while it has short legs, has long taken the show by the heels and drug it into worthlessness. The insert of the fight match up being announced almost immediately was a definitive step up and it makes you want to sit forward in your seat to see what's going to be showcased next.

-- Twister: While training Roop catches his thumb in the cage and - wow - his hand looks like a misshapen in-the-sun pork chop. As they show him training it's something that is clearly going to be a factor in the outcome of the fight. His best friend for the next several days will end up being a short bucket of icy hope and positive thinking. Will it be enough? Will he be able to take the odds stacked against his ability to and make something completely different to pound Polakowski with?

-- The Harley Davidson Power Lifting Ad: I have seen this ad probably 30 times now - yes - the one with the stumpy flesh-colored hulk-looking guy that comes in and bench-presses an entire custom motorcycle. Have you ever visited the URL that's provided to wards the end of the commercial? I didn't think so. Take a moment to check it out and see more of the motorcycles that are showcased there.

-- The Weigh-In: Ha! In a move that rivals any pre-football game or wrestling meet gooneyness I can remember, Polakowski dyes his hair pink. You know: it takes a special someone to pull off the pink hair but - it works. It fits his pop, it fits his outland attitude and I'm trying to remember someone else that pulled off a change like that.

Be sure to read the rest of the entry over at the venerable SavageScience.Com Website Now!

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Terminator Fan? Check Our a Great "TERMINATOR Podcast!"

Another great show is in the can and on it's way to our always-growing podcast audience as we review "Mr. Ferguson is Ill Today" - the 8th episode of season 2 of TERMINATOR: The Sarah Connor Chronicles on Fox!

It's all an outstandingly fun and entertaining review setting the stage for our upcoming interview of TERMINATOR: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Prop Master, Scott Buckwald. He joined us last week for as the first of many great and talented people for our most recent "Under the Hood" Series of interviews.

All this and more is ready for you to listen to in this episode of The TERMINATOR Podcast only from The 2GuysTalking Podcast Network!

-- Listen Now
-- Visit The TERMINATOR Podcast Website
-- Subscribe to The 2GuysTalking TERMINATOR Podcast via iTunes

Caption Hunt: Inside MMA - Third Week of November, 2008

Show Viewing Date: 11-14-2008
Show Title: Inside: MMA
Network: HDNet
Reviewed By: Mike Wilkerson - 2GuysTalking

Ahh - Friday arrives once again and is the showcase for one of the most satisfying fight-related programs to date, Inside: MMA, hosted by the one and only Bas Rutten and stellar Kennny Rice. This week offers a strange, pre-Christmas treat in that it will serve as the ramp for what is one of the largest fights of the year in the form of Randy Couture taking on the massive newcomer Brock Lesnar! It's something that's fueling a great deal of anticipation, guessing games and betting and it's the centerpiece inside this 2GuysTalking Caption Hunt Review of HDNet's Inside: MMA.

Click here to read more of this great Caption Hunt review...

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

The Antidote for The Blogger's Enemy - Writer's Block...

It is the wheel chock of your mind.

The mental wall, somehow instantly built, brick by devastating brick shutting out all input.

It is the hurdle you know you'll clear by inches, and suddenly - it ensnares your ankle like the worlds most flesh-magnetic house-arrest bracelet.

Bloggers understand writer's block all too well.

Bloggers are a special breed. For weeks, often months at a time, we will write about the seemingly obscure, life's twists and turns, and our family or workplace experiences that forge what is our blogger's mind's eye. And then it happens: The vibrant landscape that was the path your fast and furious fingers would follow each morning, afternoon or nite - find a white slate - the cold emptiness of "now what?"

The fall for me, since moving to Missouri from Wisconsin in 1993 has always been a strange time. This year ushered in a November that actually had the gorgeous cowl and temperature of what is Wisconsin's late summer. A cool breeze, the sun-burning power (at least on the pale Irish, Wilkerson veneer) of a mid-afternoon walk or rest at an outdoor cafe while blogging-away. It's almost as if there is a wolf in northern Wisconsin clothing waiting for you to fall into the lull of delicious, temperate bliss. Oh and it coaxes you - like a scrumptious Kenosha Bear Claw. Sweet and light, with the whips of cinnamon. And then it hits.

Monday morning at 6am arrived starkly for me. After suffering a long cold night because of my spouse's blanket-stealing addition, I awoke and sprang into the shower, hoping to warm the chill and unwelcome shrinkage of what has been one of November 2008's coldest nights. My shower allowed me to take in the morning talk radio show, my sink full of manly goodies and a clock that continued to tock too fast. My mornings are usually a great time of thought. A garden for blogging and podcasting ideas that almost instantly get collected by way of my handheld and Emailed to me for later review. But that morning - nothing. Not a thing. The bold yet quiet arrival of Writer's Block was HERE! The cold wind and strange sleep of last night had heralded what was a very strange but familiar sensation to me - the inability to put tabs on my thoughts, so as to blog about them later! (Gasp!) What is a man devoid of thought to do?

Instantly my eyes magically materialized outside of my head, and began circling me - as if in a twisted, black-leatherless scene from the Matrix.. I could see myself standing in the mud room, laptopped backpack over my right shoulder, hand extended to the doorknob. The gritty pounds of a nameless soundtrack pumping behind me, offering solace to all who would listen and watch. As the camera continued it's circle, light began to appear around and throb amid objects of interest:

1.) my shirt I was wearing while staining some custom cabinetry that lives under our queen-size bed, offering us new, redwood-stained atmosphere just inches underneath our backs as we dream...

2.) the yellow report receipt from the dude that cleaned our carpets the previous week, which now shine in the morning sun behind me to the left...

3.) the $14 sunglasses, that, along with 6 other pairs, have adorned the bridge of my nose at one point or another for the last 2 years, and then been stolen by the sunglasses daemon who mishandles everyone's sunglasses, but makes extra trips to the Wilkerson house...

4.) a new picture on a self-adhesive magnet, of my recently 5-year-old precocious princess, who was not only the cutest child at the recent Fall/Not-Called-Halloween-
Festival/Halloween Party at her kindergarten recently, but also the best child on the planet Earth spinning beneath my feet...

5.) a paper print-out of an article I wrote: "The Plight of the MMA Orphan?" for a Mixed Martial Arts magazine for my neighbor who had asked me about the thunderous bass and joyous screams and hollering in my basement theater last week, so that he could understand the passion and "what might have been" of a once competitive high-school wrestler, now 38-year old man past his prime...

And suddenly, I realized that I found the ammunition to stave off the Wolf. No more was my mind clouded by the pale, white blanket of nothingness that had previously stolen my vision. Better yet, I had just discovered another potential tool for my follow bloggers to put into their bloggers idea toolbox for the day they too would need to mount up, open the hinges of laptops around St. Louis, and engage the enemy of entertainment - Writer's Block.

Holster this new found weapon on the war against Unthought, true believers. You will need it in the future, just as I did last week Monday.

Sunday, November 09, 2008

Another Sunday - More Murderous Robot Story Details and a Special Interview...

Ahh, my Sunday evenings are filled not only with visions of murderous robots, storyline discussion of one of our favorite television shows, but something extra special that I wanted to be sure to tell my blog readers about.

My TERMINATOR Podcast co-host, Tony Lovosco and I will be welcoming the official Prop Master from TERMINATOR: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Scott Buckwald on our show this next week and we're looking for questions from -- YOU! That's right! It's your opportunity to ask yet another "under the hood" creator of a great television show questions about the show, his job, the history of this show and the movies!

It's another great addition to The 2GuysTalking Podcast Network series of "Under the Hood" series, that provides you with the chance to rub elbows with the people that really do make what you watch. While the interviews with "the stars" are always something to be interested in, I'll take 50 interviews with the workhorses that actually "make the show" first. Really a great opportunity for you to get real, substantive information that you simply will NOT find anywhere else.

Take a look at our most recent episode review at TerminatorPodcast.Com and let us know what you think!

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Saturday, November 08, 2008

Post-election Resolution...

I've never been a fan of resolutions. In New Year's past, I have made some, noted others opportunity for "change" and noted what is a remarkable failure rate in what is - even my own - plan at "change" that's been wrapped in the tortilla of "resolution."

This most recent election, which truly turned out to be remarkable in that it turned out to be amazingly one-sided in may realms, makes me want to return to my almost never-visited trait - resolutions. Regardless of your political persuasion, this last election was frustrating for anyone that might have been leaning in the direction of being conservative. While I've proclaimed to be in the middle with a conservative lean on the issues, Tuesday's culmination of tallies, checkboxes, and lack of viable options made for a strange watching television/participating in the blogosphere/electronic community - at best - entertaining. Thankfully, the litany of media coverage, the friends, and ability to laugh at what something almost completely unsatisfying from an election viewpoint from the McCain vein made the evening filled with grins, firsts and memories.

But it's time to consider what are conservative leaners going to do for the next 4 years as the government puts itself into a newfound place. After 8 years of general listing, perhaps it's time to make a resolution to see where "these new skippers can take us." Just like any traveling vessel, the fact is that while the road is familiar, there are no sure things in politics. We've seen the lack of direction and indecision in the last 4 years for sure and now it's time to see what this new soon-to-be-created team will offer. Will we see new venues with sights that we'll be able to marvel at? Will we see something similar to what we've seen previously, but be led by America's first perceived "black" president? Will we see nothing different, and wonder what happened at the end of four years?

With that being said - I resolve to jump in, participate, and see what the future holds. Are you ready to do the same or are you going to let the political noose throttle all chance at working forward?

Remember that participation doesn't mean capitulation, but imagine the benefit and fact-finding that can happen when being at least involved with what is the general political process rather than blindly railing against what are "factoids". Touch base with your thoughts here. Are you ready to make a political resolutions to be involved or not?

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Completely Entertaining Review of the Completely UNentertaining Ultimate Fighter: Splushi

Show Viewing Date: 11-05-2008
Show Title: Ultimate Fighter: Week 8 Team Nogueira V. Team Mir - Splushi
Network: SpikeHD
Reviewed By: Mike Wilkerson

Week number eight begins with a memorable fruity freshness - well - perhaps a less-memorable, more saline-doused, but still somehow fruity fresh beginning as the boys of the Ultimate Fighter Show launch into an apparently Jackass-inspired, completely un-inspiring Episode. If you thought the Savage Science Television Review of Ultimate Fighter's 8th week episode would be forgettable, you would be sadly mistaken. Prepare yourselves.

As with many of my online reviews, I'll be reviewing this initial episode in a "stream of consciousness" format, giving you essentially what I'm thinking as the show airs. I encourage everyone to send feedback in regard to any of the points below and let's use this opportunity as a rallying and sounding-off point for our love, of the truly SAVAGE SCIENCE...

-- Fruity Jokes a-Plenty: Hold on a second: Pissing in a fruit tray that your friends/potential opponents are going to eat later - umm, okay. Yes, I am professionally reviewing pissing-in-one's fruit tray and for the first time in a long time - I'm - speechless. But wait, now all four gentleman have urinal-cake-without-the-urinal-or-cake moment as they take a go at the fruit tray. What the hell are we watching here? Is this supposed to be entertainment?

-- Phillipe, and Dave - Come On Down: I know nothing about either of these fighters, and - having listened to the few people talking after the selections - it sounds like it'll be interesting to say the least. Are we going to follow the un-eventfuless of last week's fight characteristics or will we see something different?

-- The Follow Up to Pissing in the Fruit Cup - a "Bigger One Than Last Time": "Uhh, yeah, we did eat piss." Two of the saline connoisseurs liked it not so shockingly. I would provide more commentary, but frankly - it's not worth the piss it's sitting in.

-- Dave Review: A division one wrestler, who graduated and went to Holland to Tae box. He's apparently well-conditioned, throwing a variety of jabs and kicks that looks to be very devastating. "Super tough" and a sadly all-too short cut to commercial.

-- The Episode Vibe: I'm not sure if it's just because the MMA-themed Jackass episode-like beginning of this episode, but the "tone" of this episode just feels wonky. The best way I can showcase this is that usually, I am in "hold" mode while putting down and fleshing out items in the previous review entries, but this time I've reached the "live" point of the evening, where I am actually needing to watch live and cooling my heels waiting for commercials to be done. Let's hope that the episode takes the 22nd minute to show us some television program conditioning and move forward to something way more entertaining than the fighter contestants eating piss-drenched fruit.

-- Ah Ha - Something's Fishy: Philippe loves sushi - ok. Does this mean that we're going to have to deal with some other body-fluid reaching a container? "I'm gonna' set up my sushi..." "What if we get our spunk on it... I can't wait bro, this is gonna be fun." No, it's not and I, for the second time can't believe I'm actually reviewing an episode that includes this different flavor of the same style, infantile joke.

-- More Gooney Junie: After whining about not having enough training partners and berating his fellow fighters for not wanting to fight or train, Junie hits another infantile moment (par for the episode I suppose) and then tops it off with some trash talking. Waiter, may I have an order of clueless with a side of inflated ego? Perhaps some buttcheese on it to go for the childlike triad.

-- An Interesting Discussion for This Week: Hey Mike! What did you do while one of the contestants on the SpikeHD reality show, Ultimate Fighter, went gingerly into the group bathroom to masturbate, collect the ejaculate, and smear it on the Sushi Rolls as an infantile prank this week?" Answer: Fell into disbelief, realizing that I have real, legitimate show ideas that could make a network money that have nothing to do with masturbation, infantile jokes, or sushi. Yawn. The eventual banter offered post "semenal moment" from Dave Kaplan? "You will have my fecal matter, on your person within the next three days." Annnnd the Emmy goes to: SpikeHD's Ultimate Fighter... Frankly I am embarrassed to even share any of this with a show that I am reviewing for several different websites and apologize for the showcasing of what is less entertaining than even the worst joke I played on friends in high school. The uncomfortable moments following the discovery were equally as unsatisfying. What a literal and undeniable piss-poor job, Spike.

-- Phillipe Review: A nurse who works 12-hour tours in the emergency room (I wonder if they have a piece of the courses he took on the transfer of bodily fluids/material during his schooling), "a busy one" in New York, where he sees things that simply don't scare him. A believer in experiencing life to it's fullest, he's "now ready to die." He's made for the cage and ready to rumble. We can hope so, so as to provide us with something entertaining for this episode.

-- More Great Food Goodness: An almost born duck egg - can the episode get more entertaining? Answer: Nope. Let's eat the little hairy ducks with grey-not-quote-cooked-eyes on television. Ok. "It's just an abortion." Quality entertainment, folks. Check please.

-- 48 Minutes In: Finally with what is a reasonable series of what each fighter is going to do with the other in the ring, the episode begins to get back on the horse that is a television show for real people to watch, and then quickly goes to commercial. To quote Dr. Smith, "Oh... The pain."

-- This Week's Fight Begins: If there is an entertainment god "up there" then this fight will not suck. Dana introduces the fight and - if I'm gauging it right, he's seen the beginning of this episode and the expression and "let's get on with it" attitude so as to have something remotely entertaining in this episode. Boy. Josh Rosenthal steps to the center and asks if both fighters are ready. At this point, I could use a "ready?" too - no love for the reviewer, eh Josh? They tap in the center of the ring and quickly exchange a punch for a kick. The initial blow to Dave was clearly a measuring off point. Dave returns a couple of solid tae-style kicks, but on the trailing edge of those kicks are a peppering of hard, solid blows that rock Dave. Dave crumbles to the ground as if finally realizing that he ate semen-icing on top of sushi (yes, I typed it - don't get smart or I'll break out the ear wax or clipped toenail shavings, thank the boys and editors of The Ultimate Fighter) and holds on for dear life and consciousness. Philippe ends up in Dave's guard as his eyes wander back into his skull, and we see positioning on both fighter's parts begin. Phillipe begins to posture up and Dave tries to defend potential blows one-by-one, but it truly seems a matter of time. Philippe ends up taking Dave's back and in about as much time as it took the other fighter to ejaculate his "small collection", Dave is tapping out in a Filipino-flavored Rear Naked Choke. Phillipe stands with arms raised as I watch the gears of the fighters grind to think of what new and "funny" antics they can capture for the end of this episode. A second yawn befalls this episode review. Philippe falls to his knees as if to offer prayer for his win, and I do the same - praying to the lords of television in hopes to not have an offering this bad, ever - again.

Winner - Phillipe by way of Rear Naked Choke

The Savage Science Review Moral: Coach Frank Mir - at the trailing comments section of this fight actually says "I don't think I said a thing. I was in total shock." As am I, Frank. This had to be one of not only the worst television episode reviews in my history of writing, but of all time. I've had terrible movies, I've podcasted about what were terribly-written episodes of award-winning shows, and I've watched enough fights to know what I enjoy, and this episode makes for the bottom rung of the ladder to date. There is no sportsmanship, quality, sports knowledge or redeeming social value for this episode. The only salient educational moment comes with less than a minute left in the episode where Frank Mir and Dave review what was the gameplan, what happened and why did he fail, but you've got to be kidding me - it took an HOUR to get to THAT? Almost prophetically, Mir asks Dave, "What made you divert from the gameplan" to which Dave responds, "I don't know, pride probably." and I have to wonder if that's why this episode aired as it did. This is a colossally UNfunny, unentertaining episode that I believe will make people that chance upon it think that "Mixed Martial Arts" IS that joke that people once thought it was, and that we continue to fight hard to make it not be. There IS a tiny bit of redeemable social value in reviewing it because folks - were I to have written this and showed it to people that usually read my columns, they'd have SURELY thought it was April 1st. The sad reality of this episode of the reality show, "Ultimate Fighter", is that it's November 5th, 2008.

The bad reviews are always more fun to read and garner traffic. Watch the hit count to see my point, folks. It's a matter of time.

Quote of the Episode: "He's better than me at being Filipino. He's better at cooking and at having a lot of veins that I don't have." - Dave Kaplan

Overall Show Rating: It's tough to give this show what is only 1 Savage Science Skully, when in reality, I don't think it deserves any. I hope to never have something this unremarkably remarkable ever in my television review crosshairs.

Bottom Savage Science Line: I find it terribly ironic that this morning some coworkers of mine and I at my 9-5er were talking about the Jackass movies and television show. This was an HD, d-grade version of the outtakes of that show. Fart jokes, dick jokes, and naked butt-cheek-smacking cowboys BEWARE - there's a new playa' in town - one that I hope only steps up to the proverbial episode saloon once in my collective reviewer lifetime.