FiveCast Going Weekly

For the sake of my sanity, I’m scaling back the schedule for the Geek Force FiveCast. I just don’t have time to do five shows a week. Last week, I was home early from work every day and I still barely got them done. And I’ve been stressing out since Monday about how to find the time to get one organized and filmed for this week. They’re fun, and I feel like people are enjoying them (except for that one YouTube troll), but I just can’t allow myself to stress out about something like this. As those who know me know already, I stress out about far too many things as it is.

So, the FiveCast is going weekly. That’s the best I can do, and I hope that you’ll stick around to check it out.

Now, if I had the time to film an episode today, here’s what I’d cover:

• Burger King Ketchup and Fries Flavored Potato Snacks. Oh. my. Jesus. Seriously, when I spotted these things in a vending machine on the Lesley University campus this morning, I thought they’d be an amusingly bad snack and not much more. But these things were amazing! They tasted like french fries. With ketchup on them. But without the mess. Seriously, I don’t know how they did it, but they better keep doing it. This is one snack that simply must not go off the market.
• Syd Field’s Screenwriter’s Workbook. I teach a class on Writing and the Literary Arts, in case you didn’t know. This week, I’ve been having the kids watch Wonder Boys as part of my segment on drama. We’ve been discussing the structure of drama versus the structure of short and long fiction, and I’ve been referencing Syd Field. After class this morning, while one of my students made up the mid-term exam (she’d been very sick on the day of the test), I was paging through The Screenwriter’s Workbook when I got to thinking about how the structure paradigm that Field uses to help his students breakdown their screenplays into manageable chunks could also be used, with a bit of tweaking, to help people (me, for instance) write novels. It was a very exciting realization, something that I’ve totally been geeking out about all day.
• Human Mario. The image I’ve included above was among the pile of stories waiting for me in my RSS reader on Monday/Tuesday, after a long weekend away from the Interweb. And, my goodness, it’s disturbing. Dontchu think? Geekologie has more.
• Pix from Zack and Miri Make a Porno. News Askew has been posting some still photos from Kevin Smith’s next film, Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Check them out here and here.
• Bible Fight. Oh, and then there’s Bible Fight, a game I found out about through Geekologie. The gist of it: It’s a Bible-themed fighting game where you can pit Jesus against Mary as easily as you can pit Jesus against Satan. If I believed in hell, then I’m sure that’s where I’d be going for having such fun this.

So, yeah, that’s your text-based FiveCast for the day. A real, live video FiveCast should be coming at you later this week.

Comment on this article here.

Geek Force FiveCast 005 (Video)

Better late than never, here is the Geek Force FiveCast for Friday, March 14, brought to you by GeekForceFive.com. Today, we cover 1) 90210 - The New Class; 2) Zack and Miri - A Hard R; 3) 100 Best Last Lines in Novels; 4) “Meet Kevin Johnson” teasers; and 5) Conceiving of You - A Father’s Letters to His Unborn Daughter.

If you’d like, you can subscribe to the show as a podcast via PodShow.com.

Comment on this article here.

Geek Force FiveCast 003 (Video)

The third episode of a semi-regular show/podcast from GeekForceFive.com, this time complete with screaming toddler ambience! Today, we cover 1) Steve Jobs on the cover of Fortune; 2) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Parts A and B; 3) Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead dominating Last.fm; 4) A possible Widmore flashback on Lost; and 5) the wrapping of Zack and Miri Make a Porno.

You can watch the video here, and on a couple of other video sharing sites across the Interweb. And, if you’d like, you can subscribe to the show as a podcast via PodShow.com. I hope to get it listed in the iTunes Store soon, as well.

Comment on this article here.

Is The Word ‘Porno’ Dangerous?

USA Today has some early scoop on Kevin Smith’s next flick says FirstShowing.net. But, aside from the photo I’ve included above—which is quite amusing, I must admit—color me disappointed. Most of the article focuses on how calling the film Zack and Miri Make a Porno could be damaging at the box office.

Seriously? We’re worried about the American public staying away from a film with the word ‘porno’ in the title. It’d be one thing if it was Zack and Miri Shoot a Gangbang or Zack and Miri Film a Circle-Jerk. But Zack and Miri Make a Porno? We’re seriously worried about that? Didn’t the Academy Award for Best Screenplay just go to a former stripper. Do we not live in a world where a sex-tape actually increases the popularity of a somebody who should still be a nobody? Red light culture has been on the rise since at least 2003. Porno is not a naughty word. The word piques interest. It’s not going to drive people away, not any more. It’s going to bring them in. As that dude from the Men’s Wearhouse commercials says, “I guarantee it.”

On the other hand, USA Today’s Dispatches from the set feature is well worth checking out. Topic #1 is “Preparing for a sex scene,” and both Banks and Rogen offer some amusing thoughts on the subject.

Comment on this article here.

Full-Frontal Mewes

News Askew’s got the scoop that Jason Mewes does full-frontal in the new Kevin Smith film. If that tease of “little Jay” in Clerks II wasn’t enough for you, then it sounds like Zack and Miri Make A Porno may be the film for you later this year.

Comment on this article here.