It’s time once again for another installment of The Big Movie Mouth Off, starring Jeff Vice from MSN and Jimmy Martin from SLUG Magazine (and both are regular panelists on The Geek Show Podcast)

You can friend the show on Facebook here.

These are available exclusively on Comcast in Utah.  Soon they’ll be available On Demand.  For now, they’re available nightly on Comcast Channel 6 at 11pm.  After their exclusive run there, they will be appearing on Big Shiny Robot! and across the Internet. (iTunes/podcast versions coming soon by popular demand.) They are produced and directed by Bryan Young (myself) and Elias Pate both from Big Shiny Robot! and ShineBox Media Productions.

Without further delay, let’s get to the reviews:

First up is “Never Let Me Go”

Bruce Willis’ graphic novel based shoot ’em up “RED”:

“The Tillman Story”:

Another documentary, “Waiting for Superman”

Finally, we have the latest Woody Allen film “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger”

Many robots are drowning their sorrows in Romulan ale today, and others are celebrating with raised flagons of Slurm, but we had such a great response on RoboShinobi’s The 100 Best Signs At The Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear that we had to bring out the commercially obligated Hollywood sequel.

Blastr.com has compiled the two dozen geekiest images of all, which seemed to focus on the more obscure geek references (lots of Joss Whedon, and a not surprising resurgence of love for Back to the Future) So without further ado, here are some of the highlights:

Plus, a Grimmleigh’s sighting!

That’s right, according to the Facebook feed of our friends over at Grimmleigh’s Fiends (www.Grimmleighs.com/), who are also the makers of fine custom Big Yarny Robots available for you to purchase, this is one of their creations who was a big hit with the rally crowd.  This came from their friend Cali, whose husband/boyfriend/partner was the Zoidberg in question wearing the Grimmleigh’s custom wool cap.  She also provided the following picture to the Grimmleighs Blog– Zoidberg eating out of Columbus’s hand, err… elbow.

Congrats to our friends/fiends at Grimmleigh’s for playing their part in restoring sanity.  And what could do more to restore sanity than buying a unique, hand-crafted, personalized toy for a loved one these holidays instead of some mass-produced crap from China that may be using cadmium or mercury in the paint?  And don’t you know someone (maybe YOU?) who, come winter, will need a Cthulu to keep their noggin warm?

Buzzfeed.com featured a nice, non-convoluted gallery of all the funniest signs at John Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Keep Fear Alive“ Here are a couple of my favorites and a link to the entire gallery!

And don’t forget the video of Jon Stewart talking about Big Shiny Robot!

@thatkevinsmith submitted this comment today on twitter

Somewhere, a nerd cums hard: @BlakeStevenson draws me & the Buffy-Man, soaring on wings of swine! http://bit.ly/aZz9xv

Blake Stevenson illustrated the WTF picture of the day. See more of this awesome art HERE.

If you hate this maybe art hates you too! This is the reason the internet was invented!

Lego is kicking off the holiday season with a Lego Star Wars mini-movie called “The Bombad Bounty”.

Between the clip I was shown in advance and the title, my guess is Darth Vader is angry at Jar Jar for foiling his attempt to capture a ship he’s working as a janitor on and hijinks with Boba Fett ensue.

From what I was shown, it looks as though they’re in keeping with the cut scenes from the Lego games with a very tongue in cheek humour geared towards kids and adults alike (just like Jar Jar was in the prequels):

They gave me the code before the video went live, so I haven’t seen the entire piece yet, but I will update this with my thoughts later.

Enjoy:

I would place a warning label on this CD, that were it to be stored in the immediate vicinity of a lesser comedy cd, that there is a great chance of the two discs causing a matter/anti-matter explosion, opening a black hole and destroying the universe. So, please, do us all a favor and throw all that crap away off your shelf before you buy the new CD. Because you really want to.

Marcus’ new comedy album, “Hell Oh Well”, ranks right up there for me with the best of comedy albums of the past decade, right beside Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, David Cross, Jim Gaffigan, Dave Attell, and our dear recently departed Greg Giraldo.  High praise, but completely deserved.  It proves Marcus is at the top of the game of working comics today.

Wait, who the f#$% is Marcus?  And why have I never heard of him?

Good question.  Well, if you blended a perfect cocktail of those comics I just mentioned and it was somehow more than the sum of its parts, you’d have Marcus.

You might remember him as the best person to ever perform on NBC’s Last Comic Standing… EVER.  (and yes, I’m especially looking at you Jay Mohr and Bill Bellamy).  Marcus’ 2008 DVD “Second to None” gives us his reflections on having gone through the TV process… and he emerged a funnier, smarter, leaner comedian.

He’s been a staple of the national comedy club and college tour circuit since then (including an upcoming stint entertaining the troops on a USO Tour– what a patriot!), and making many notable appearances on media outlets we love, such as The Geek Show Podcast and Radio from Hell. But for those of us not lucky enough to catch a live show, we’ve been sadly missing…. well, a lot.

Enter 2010 and now, and his forthcoming DVD “The Hand that Feeds,” (due out Oct 29^th, same day as Hell Oh Well UPDATE: the CD is now available on iTunes!!) clips of which have been floating around on the internet (especially if you’re a friend of Marcus on Facebook– oh, and you really want to be his friend on Facebook).  And you know, Marcus is so talented that in between when he taped his DVD special and it was finished being edited, he wrote almost an entire album’s worth of new material, and decided to bring it to you, the public.  This is what became Hell, Oh Well.

This album should be called “Nothing’s off-limits” or “Roasting sacred cows”—Marcus goes after everyone. Mexicans, Polynesians, Whites. Teenage boys, teenage girls. Gays.  Homophobes. Weed.  (lots of stuff about weed) Movies, Music, Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus (who don’t count as music), and a special roast is reserved for Twilight (which also does not count as a movie).  In fact, for being such a young guy and despite his rockstar image, Marcus spends a lot of time sounding like an old man complaining about “kids these days and their rock’n’roll and why is every kid in school trying to have sex with my daughter….”  At the same time, he also pokes at  “classics,” making fun of lyrics from 70’s rockers like Thin Lizzy.

But the smart, hip vibe is what makes the jokes transcendent of age or generation as everyone understands that while even though the culture of the generation following yours is surely inferior to what YOU were watching/listening to in high school, we can all agree that Twilight really is a cultural abomination of which there is no comparison.  As someone who is personally also in my 30s and dealing with issues of adulthood, being married, kids, etc, the material for me hit on so many touchstones of what my life is all about.  And because Marcus truly does take on all people as an equal opportunity mocker, I don’t feel personally offended by anything he says as he spreads the love (read: hate) around.  Like, if Marcus made a joke about nerdy, obese, white, liberal Mormons who live in Texas (of which I might be the only one), I might get offended for a moment.

And then I’d remember I don’t really give a rat’s ass if he makes fun of me:  when it comes right down to it, Marcus makes fun of himself more than anyone.  In the same vein as one of my other favorites, Patton Oswalt, and his ability to open the window into his life, Marcus also takes several self-deprecating turns talking about the joys and perils of marriage, parenting, and life in general.

George Carlin isn’t around any more to talk about the inane things we spend our time on like cell phones, Twitter and Facebook.  Thank God we have Marcus to do it.

If you’re looking for Marcus doing funny voices and impressions, well, I have good news and bad news.  Marcus is surely the most gifted impressionist working in comedy today, but rather than a cavalcade of silly voices, he channels them into the more universal jokes we can all relate to.  Ok, well, maybe only some of us can relate to speaking to our genitals as if we were Leonidas in the movie 300, and maybe not everyone immediately knows who Richard Attenborough is, but the impressions are still spot on, and even better, serve the purpose of moving the comedy forward.

If you’re looking for a Jeff Dunnam puppet show and silly voices, or idiot catchphrases like “Git R Done”, you’re in the wrong, wrong place. In fact, I would place a warning label on this cd, that were it to be stored in the immediate vicinity of such a lesser comedy cd, that there is a great chance of the two discs causing a matter/anti-matter explosion, opening a black hole and destroying the universe.  I believe a similar reaction would happen on an ipod playlist, but we’d have to get the folks at the CERN super-collider involved to be sure. So, please, do us all a favor and throw all that crap away off your shelf, delete it from your ipod, before you buy Marcus’s new CD.  Because you really want to.

Signed copies of Hell, Oh Well will be available through the Big Shiny Robot store in the very near future, and are now available through iTunes.

PS-  for full disclosure’s sake, I receive not dime one from the sale of these goods.  I wish I did.   But regardless, I’m just trying to turn you onto something that might blow your mind with laughter.  And then you can txt, IM, Tweet, or FB your BFF about how you LOL’d.

Art and track listing below, bitches:

Here is another Dragon*Con report from Scarlett Ro’Botica:

I never thought I would hear the words “anal beads” in a Star Wars panel at Dragon*con, but now I have. I attended the Adult Themes panel last night, and the kinky side of Star Wars fandom made itself known. No one under 18 allowed, and drinking was encouraged.
Questions from the audience included “Do you think something was going on between Wilford Brimley and that furry think in the Ewoks: Battle for Endor movie?” Noa and Teek? What kind of person thinks such a thing? I remember that movie from childhood!
“Do you think Jabba raped Leia while she was chained to him?” The answer from the panelists? Hell yeah! The most notable panelist was author Aaron Allston. Timothy Zahn was supposed to have appeared, but we were told he was not feeling well. Mr. Allston’s great sense of humor and candor mixed nicely with the other panelists, none of
whom minced words when answering questions or sharing perverted ideas.
“Clone Troopers having sex with each other . . . is it considered incest or masturbation?” This question encouraged a lively debate and took into consideration whether or not they were from the same clone vat.

“Yoda . . . did he really go 900 years without getting laid? The Jedi aren’t supposed to have attachments.” The panelists surmised that Yoda and Yaddle likely had sexual relations and that Yoda was solely responsible for all life on Dagobah. This line of thinking, in my opinion, leads to the dark side. Move along, move along.

Back to humans. “Did Luke have sexual thoughts about Leia when he saw her in the metal bikini?” Of course he did. He didn’t know she was his sister at that time. He wasn’t blinded by hibernation sickness. It was only later that he shuddered to himself and tried to erase those carnal desires.

“Pick two women that you would like to see together.” The answers varied from Leia & Mara to Oola and Zam Wesell. Zam, they explained, can change her form at will to add a bit more fun to the bedroom.

Raffle prizes included vibrators and the aforementioned anal beads, and they asked the winners to remain at the front of the room for photos. They had the option of turning down the prizes, though no one in this room appeared to be modest or embarrassed by either the topics or the giveaways.

The audience and panelists had a great time, and we were able to explore a side of the Star Wars universe that normally exists only in the depths of our minds. Where else can you discuss Han Solo being a furry and Chewbacca’s pimp?

“I’d just as soon kiss a Wookiee!”

“I can arrange that!”

And what pimp, they explained, doesn’t sample the merchandise?

The audience roared with laughter, and I suspect most left the panel to go straight to their hotel rooms.

Jon Stewart is clearly a bigger Star Wars fan than he lets on, which made more than a couple of people scratch their heads, wondering why he was asked to interview George Lucas on stage at the official celebration of The Empire Strikes Back’s 30th anniversary at Star Wars Celebration V in Orlando, Florida. The convention has been going on for the last two days, but today’s discussion between Star Wars creator George Lucas and political comedian Jon Stewart was entertaining and hilarious, and needs to end up on a DVD somewhere.  Stewart was even honored by Lucas with a one-of-a-kind action figure from planet Stewjon.  It was a figure of Stewart (with interchangeable heads) dressed as a Stromtrooper in vintage packaging.

We’ll have another, more detailed recap of the panel with pictures from a much better camera, but I wanted to drop the major news highlights as quickly as I could.

The biggest news was that the complete Star Wars saga will be on Blu-ray next year.  No date was mentioned, but it is definitely 2011.  Lucas mentioned that he definitely wants to make it special, but not the stuff we’ve seen before.  It was at that point that Stewart brought Mark Hamil (Luke Skywalker) to the stage where he introduced a rare clip that Star Wars fans like myself weren’t even confident had been filmed.

“This is Luke’s original introduction in Return of the Jedi,” Hamil said.

The scene opened moments after Vader finished his conversation with Moff Jerjerrod on the first Death Star.  He gets into an elevator and goes to his hyperbaric chamber, the entire time calling out Luke’s name with the force, much like at the end of The Empire Strikes Back.  The scene then cuts to Luke in a black hooded cape, eyes closed in thought, resisting the Vader’s presence.  He’s lit darkly, much like Anakin in Revenge of the Sith after his turn.  The camera pans down to reveal that he’s constructing his green lightsaber.  After a few more modifications, he ignites the saber (to the applause of the audience), just as he’s sending R2 and 3P0 to Jabba’s palace.  This would have made a very, very different movie.  This certainly emphasizes that Luke was dangerously close to the dark side and could have turned by the end of the film.

For fans of the Clone Wars cartoon, more big news was made.  Aside from George Lucas making a cameo (as his Episode III alter-ego Baron Papanoida) on the series in a scene that showed him in a barroom shoot out with Greedo, was that Darth Maul’s brother would be on the show.  Count Dooku, eager to find an apprentice, goes to Maul’s homeworld, seeking an apprentice and finds a suitable candidate in Darth Maul’s brother.  The clip they showed of this scene was brief and was a very dramatic reveal.  There is another panel dedicated to just that and I’ll be back to report on it later (before I head to Disney World for the Last Tour to Endor.)

The thing I was struck most by was Stewart’s level of geek.  His follow-up questions to Lucas were just as sharp and knowledgeable as you would see on The Daily Show, but about Star Wars.  At one point, he stopped George and said, “One thing I never got, was it Palpatine that actually killed Darth Plagueis in his sleep?  It was insinuated, but was Palpatine making it up?”

It’s not a question that would hit the mainstream with much, but to this audience it was an incredibly pertinent question.  “Yes.  Palpatine killed Plagueis in his sleep.”

There will be more coverage and pictures from Stewart’s Press conference and a more detailed story of the event itself, but these were the highlights I figured everyone wanted to see immediately.

George Lucas, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Jon Stewart

Etnies has partnered with Kevin Smith to launch a line of incredibly comfortable foot wear that have his style, sensibilities, and name attached.  In honor of this launch, Etnies threw a very exclusive party at the Se Hotel in San Diego during the 2010 Comic-Con and invited selected press to come witness the taping of a live Smodcast and a very select few outlets were invited to interview Kevin Smith afterwards.

Coors passed out all  the free beer you could drink on the patio before the broadcast began and everyone mingled.  The picture above was Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes (Jay and Silent Bob) hanging out before hand.

Apparently, there was an incredibly complicated contest involving twitter, code-words, and a scavenger hunt of sorts for Kevin Smith superfans to attend the party and Smodcast, so as soon as Kevin Smith came out he was mobbed by people asking to take pictures.  He was incredibly gracious to each one, posing with them, talking with them.  He was a genuinely nice guy to everyone who approached him.

Then we were ushered into a neighboring room that overlooked the pool and were treated to a live Comic-Con version of the Smodcast.  Scott Mosier (producer of Smith’s movies) and Smith were brought out to a small table with three microphones and began to talk about their Comic-Con experiences going back to the premiere of Mallrats.  (“The audience reaction was great.  We thought we made E.T. and the studio was really happy, but this was the only audience who saw this movie in theatres, apparently.”)  You can listen to it on the Smodcast website as soon as it goes live.  In the meantime, you can watch a couple of brief tidbits we recorded from the front row:

Then Jason Mewes came out and things got dirty:

After the Smodcast, we were brought to a small private room and given the opportunity to interview Kevin Smith in a one-on-one setting.

You can watch the full interview here, the audio for iTunes will be up soon.  Highlights of the conversation are below.

First we talked about the Etnies collaboration.  “I thought I was getting punked.  One of the designs they showed me was for a pair of sneakers called The Walt Flannagan, which is my friend.  And that does it for me more than sneakers with my name on it.  If I can wear a pair of Walt Flannagan’s?  I mean, I’ve known that mother-fucker for twenty years and if I can wear a pair of sneakers with his name on it, I really feel like we would have accomplished something in this life.”

Then we talked about Red State, “We’ve been talking about Red State for three years and now we’re finally going to go and shoot it.  And the extremely limited information about it is people going, ‘It’s going to be like Fred Phelps and stuff like that.’ And it is and it isn’t.  I don’t think the Phelps are ever going to see the movie and say, ‘Yeah, that is us.’  The characters aren’t anything you’d want to take credit for.  For years people have been saying it’s the Fred Phelps movie and it’s really not.  In terms of it being political, it’s very political, but I don’t think the movie is…  It doesn’t bash Democrats or Republicans, it’s an equal opportunity basher.  It doesn’t single out one over the other.  Every once in a while someone in the hardcore right-wing, fucking websites will write something about it and you’ll think, ‘Is this fiction? This can’t be real.’ but somebody really thinks and talks about me going against conservatives and this film has nothing to do with it.  They’ll see and just go, ‘Oh.  Nevermind.’ It doesn’t take conservatives to task, it takes everybody to task and it’s a whole movie filled with deplorable characters.”

We also talked about his work in comics, “The last couple of years have been really fertile for me in comics.”  We talked about his reception in the Batman universe and what might be coming ahead from him.  If you haven’t read his Green Arrow or Daredevil, you’re missing out and need to click those links and buy them immediately.

This was perhaps one of my favorite interviews that I’ve ever done and I hope you enjoyed it.

As most of our faithful readers know, we have a weekly column in the Salt Lake City weekly paper IN Magazine.

In it, we generally work hard to attract those who wouldn’t ordinarilly read comics to give them a chance.  And other times, we let Dr. Cyborg write the column and… well… the results speak for themselves.

If you live in the Greater Salt Lake Area, you can pick up a copy on newsstands. You can read the online version of the article here, but for those of our bretheren who live outside that area, we’ve provided the laid out page below.

This is perhaps one of the best Dr. Cyborg columns I’ve read and I hope you enjoy it.