Little Bayar takes a stand on the Mongolian steppe in Babies

In this epsiode:

• That adorable Babies documentary (see photo)
• That (according to Cynara) objectionable sci-fi Timberlake vehicle In Time
• That unforgivable thing Seth Meyers did on Saturday Night Live wherein he dragged the blameless and pure Kermit the Frog into his mire of fatphobia
• Childhood anecdote about cows
• Metaphors involving breasts

Wait, Walt wasn't the one who lab-brewed the best coffee...

We didn’t really have a solid plan for this week’s episode, but we are so dedicated to consistency that we forged ahead anyway and ended up talking about Breaking Bad for half an hour. Timely! But seriously, it’s on Netflix Canada now and so Jenny’s watched the first three seasons and it turns out Cynara was up to date all along. If you haven’t watched the series yet and plan to, don’t worry — we keep it SPOILER-FREE (or very, very, very spoiler-lite), talking about the themes of the show rather than the plot points.

Also on this week’s show:

-TVtropolis, home of the Roseanne rerun. Has any other sitcom in the last 25 years so deeply explored topics of class and real-life money concerns?

-On the flip side, today we have Up All Night, which has an amazing cast (Will Arnett, Christina Applegate and Maya Rudolph) but puts its new-parent comedy in a highly-privileged, wealthy setting.

-The Talk is unsurprisingly disappointing. Sharon Osbourne says troubling things. Cynara resembles every fat woman you know. Guess what? there’s a double standard between the genders on aging for TV news anchors! BREAKING NEWS.

4:25 – Mindy Kaling’s first book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? Sadly, Jenny cannot offer a ringing endorsement of the book because it’s front loaded with a lot of body/weight talk that’s somewhere in the same zip code as the place known as Trigger Town, USA (at least for those of us who prefer not to hear their comediennes define obesity as “unhealthy overweight.”) Which isn’t to say the book isn’t worthwhile. Just that you might want to skip the first couple chapters.

14:30 – A detour to talk about the specific pressures faced by actresses who are not Hollywood-standard size 0. Christina Hendricks most recently, but also Buffy‘s Amber Benson back in the day.

18:30 – Sidetrack: the difference between being the 20s and 30s; how age affects the way you perceive yourself and how strangers interact with you. ~It gets personal~ Also, Jenny draws a parallel with the Dog Whisperer, LET HER FINISH. Plus: an hilarious Cynara blue hair anecdote.

40:20 – A nice show on Discovery called Oddities, about weird people bringing weird stuff to a weird shop in Manhattan. Books bound in human skin, anyone? How about a “horaffe”?

58:15 – Jimmy Kimmel’s YouTube challenge where he got parents to convince their kids that the parents had eaten the kids’ candy. The kids do not react well. We explain why (it has to do with the economics of childhood), and also explain why lying to kids is NOT COOL, OK?

PLUS: Why hasn’t Amy Poehler written a book? What is the name of Tina Fey’s baby? Why does Cynara tell weird iguana stories?

Links:

YouTube Challenge – I Told My Kids I Ate All Their Halloween Candy [YouTube]

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? And Other Concerns by Mindy Kaling [Random House]

Oddities [Discovery Channel]

Prancing Gosling

This episode is mostly about Ryan Gosling.

1:00 – Drive. The new Nicolas Winding Refn film starring Ryan “Hey Girl” Gosling. Jenny liked it, Cynara looooooooved it. Of course, that might be because she read Ryan Gosling’s character as a lesbian.

24:00 – The Ides of March. Cynara is not pleased with the film that shares a name with her birthday.

32:00 -TV Talk: Once Upon a Time and Grimm — two new network series mining the public domain. One is slightly better than the other.

37:00 – In brief: Jenny’s adventures in Netflix — Agora, Unstoppable, No Strings Attached.

50:00 – New Muppet movie! Jason Segel!

References:

End clip: “Pass It On,” from  A Muppet Family Christmas.

Feminist Ryan Gosling [Tumblr]

And we’re back! Sound quality is not so great on this episode. We apologize.

1:30 – Community! Rough start, strong third episode.

12:30 – Blink and you missed it (and not a moment too soon): The Playboy Club. But we talk more about how muscled arms are “in” for women these days, or at least “in” as long as you’re femme.

15:20 – Rosie O’Donnell has a new show. Cynara realizes she basically blocked out everything Rosie has said and done since the end of her ’90s-era daytime talk show. Also, Cynara is not really impressed with how Oprah now goes on TV and analyzes people who were on her old show in the past, but this time they’re not there to defend themselves!

25:05 – Zooey Deschanel. Jenny actually likes her new sitcom.

31:00 – The Eli Gold Show, um, we mean, The Good Wife. Jenny is bored of Will/Alicia. Also, did you know there is at least one person on this planet who thinks Hugh Laurie’s American accent is crap? There is!

40:00 – Jenny and Cynara need D/s lessons for friendship. This branches into a discussion of Don Cherry and Ron McLean and how Ron defended bullying as a practice on George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight. And how neither Cynara nor Jenny is a hockey fan, yet we speak conversational hockey-talk. This is Canada, for you.

Tina Fey in a promo shot for her May 2011 hosting appearance on Saturday Night Live

00:52 – Fabulous girl-driven action flick Hanna. We discuss all the reasons we loved it, while trying not to spoil it too much because you might not have seen it and we want you to!

16:00 – Tina Fey’s memoir Bossypants. Again, we give all the reasons we like it and also some advice as to whether you should pick up the hardcover, ebook or audiobook.

37:12 – Chaz Bono embracing the role of most famous transperson on the planet with a documentary, book and mainstream media experiences – specifically a two-segment one with David Letterman. Talk of how much we (surprise!) admire Chaz and also, via David Sedaris, talk about how scripted Letterman’s interviews really are.

53:20 – Nardwuar the Human Serviette, National Treasure. If you didn’t know  about him before, it’s probably because you’re American and it doesn’t matter anyway because now you DO know.

Links:

Chaz Bono appears on The Late Show David Letterman [YouTube]

Nardwuar’s talk at TEDxVancouver [YouTube]

Thee Official Nardwuar the Human Serviette Web Site [nardwuar.com]

End Audio Clip:

Nardwuar vs. Snoop Dogg 2002 [YouTube]

00:01:18 – Noting a few lulzy things from the leadup to the Royal Wedding

00:04:19 – The Big Love series finale. Do the showrunners think Bill Henrickson is a hero? Would, in fact, the show have been better without him?

00:41:00 – Miscellaneous TV talk including Drop Dead Diva, The Good Wife and some of our predictions for the forthcoming season of Mad Men

00:50:00 – Jenny makes a disrecommendation for the Gaspar Noé flick Enter the Void, and Cynara urges caution about watching Blue Valentine.

01:05:04 – In an attempt to end on a positive note, we recall the glorious moment that was the confluence of the viral hit “Friday,” Stephen Colbert and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

Unfortunately, something is wonky with the iTunes feed, so it won’t appear in your iTunes subscriptions just yet. SADFACE. Working now!

MP3 Version:

Clockwise from top left: Ellen Page in Inception; Mila Kunis in The Book of Eli; Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit; Natalie Portman in Black Swan

HELLO EVERBODY! We’re back after an extended absence! Cynara was back in Winnipeg for the holidays, so scant days before she returns to land of plenty known as Vancouver, we recorded a podcast — and we did it when we were in the same room, my kitchen!

NOTE: This episode has what they call in the business a “cold open.” Also, the humming sound that appears intermittently is my refrigerator.

Thank you for your patience.

DISCUSSED:

-We love Ellen Page, blah blah, what else is new?

-Weird rambling about sci-fi, Minnie Driver, Vancouver-made TV, The Ghost Whisperer‘s inexplicable storylines

-Shout outs and baby stories

-Black Swan: Cynara gives her thoughts on this psychological thriller, PLUS: Tales of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet

-The Book of Eli: Jenny liked it, though the Tomatometer didn’t. PLUS: Why Mila Kunis should play an alien on Star Trek.

-Celebrity-written novels and poetry (Specifically: Macaulay Culkin and Jewel), and why rap and pop lyrics might not be poetry on their own (sans performative aspect), no matter how hard Jay Z tries to convince us.

-Winter’s Bone: Jenny’s favourite flick of the year.

-True Grit: Cynara’s got nothing but praise for Hailee Steinfeld, PLUS: Snakes!

LINKS:

Showgirls/Black Swan Trailer MASHUP [Buzzfeed]

That super cool snake pic [Tumblr]

END MUSIC:

The Tragically Hip, “Ahead by a Century.”

**THERE ARE MAD MEN SPOILERS IN THIS PODCAST**

Our pal and Mad Men megafan Margarita joins us once again to hash out topics surrounding the fourth season of AMC’s Mad Men and its season finale, including:

-Was the finale a poor episode, or are fans just upset that it didn’t go the way they wanted?

-Lamenting Mad Men‘s continuing racefail

-The long-awaited onscreen emergence of “Poan” (pictured above)

-Is Joan’s a “bad” marriage?

-How about that abortion storyline?

-Fat suit flashback

-Our ~*^hopes and dreams^*~ for next year

Links:

“Chalky White: Boardwalk Empire’ puts ‘Mad Men’ to shame” [TheLoop21.com]

“No One’s Ever on Your Side: Betty Draper Francis Still Needs Your Love” [Tiger Beatdown]

“Do Multiple Abortions Actually Harm Your Ability to Conceive?” [Jezebel]

End music:

“Cato as a Pun” by Of Montreal

Jesse Eisenberg and Joseph Mazello in The Social Network

Nuit Blanche 2010 at the Winnipeg Art Gallery

Discussed:

Nuit Blanche — it’s sweeping the globe! And it came to Winnipeg before New York, apparently. A bit on some Winnipeg art stuff — Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan, Mark Saunders, Wanda Koop. Plus: cop talk.

The Social Network — Cynara gives her (favourable) thoughts on the Facebook movie. They’re favourable mostly vis a vis something called “The Peter Griffin Factor.”

Links:

Shawna Dempsey & Lorri Millan

Wanda Koop

Mark Saunders’ cop sculpture