‘POV’, ‘Zombiez’, ‘Interviews 50 Cents’, ‘Condition:Human’ Try to Pass the Mustard

By 03/02/2010
‘POV’, ‘Zombiez’, ‘Interviews 50 Cents’, ‘Condition:Human’ Try to Pass the Mustard

pass the mustard - ned[Ed: This is the latest installment of our weekly web series critic column Pass The Mustard. No sugar coating, no doublespeak, no hand holding. Just brutally honest reactions from one guy: Ned Hepburn. We’ll throw a handful of web series at him each week. Agree, disagree, love him, hate him, but please don’t punch him. Got something clever to say in retort? Leave a comment below. He’ll probably read it and embarrass you later. His opinions are his own, so take them or leave them. See last week’s column here.]

POV
This College Humor series pretty aptly reminds me of college, high school and sort of every waking moment of every major meeting i’ve ever been in. Bravo, good sirs. Tada. College Humor is sort of the Scottie Pippen of bro humor. It’s might not pull Michael Jordan numbers but still deserves to be on the cover of the metaphorical box of Wheaties.

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Pass the Mustard - ZombiezZOMBIEZ!
This is remarkably well filmed – with huge overtones of Sin City and Natural Born Killers. It’s very well cast and clearly a lot of effort was put into this, and whoever worked on it should do more hopefully with a larger budget. It’s far from perfect – it’s very, very clearly a somewhat knowingly cheeseball B-movie homage which normally I wouldn’t have a problem with – it’s just that I’d really like to see them do something totally original or dare I say it a little more serious.

Interviews 50 Cents
When I first saw this I thought it was an interview of rapper 50 Cent. It’s totally not. Boy, was I mistaken. It’s a pretty interesting idea for a talk show, filmed just using a table and two chairs at (what appears to be) various county fairs. Basically, people sit down, get paid 50 cents, and tell a story. It’s a great concept and filmed really, really well. My problem with it is also what I think makes the show so interesting: that the episodes are a lot like having to sit through someone elses story, no matter how interesting. While some of the stories are truly captivating, others feel like the exact feeling of being stuck listening to someone talk on and on at a party. The Garrison Keiller lookalike guy that they’re talking to (who seems to also have Hannibal Lector as a fashion inspiration) doesn’t say much to interrupt them or, you know, interview them, and as a result you’re left with these sometimes transcendent, sometimes rambling personal stories. Regardless, I’ll have to admit this is quite a great series to watch. It’s interesting, and holds a lot of potential, if anything to document some every day life.

Condition:Human
… And then there’s something like this, which comes off as exactl something you’d see on the ScyFy (how do they spell it now?) Channel. It’s not bad, it’s just rather boring and feels like a video game that I can’t play, just watch. It’s very (very!) well shot and acted and at its best really does come off like Cowboy Bebop or Blade Runner, but at its worst comes off like generic anime or sometimes a futuristic Lifetime movie. Perhaps I’m just not a Sci-Fi person. Perhaps it’s just that I can’t get over the fact that the actor they picked as the creator of the robots looks astoundingly like the asian Guy Fieri. Perhaps I’m having a hard time believing any of it let alone the relationships between any of the characters which I think is a fault of the editing. Perhaps it’s the fact that I once saw a stripper in Chicago named Keoko (one of the characters names) and I kept wondering when 50 Cen’t “In Da Club” was going to start. Anyway, I tried to like this, I just found this a little too high on style and lot too less on substance.

THIS WEEKS MUSTARD:
I really, really enjoyed Zombiez, but I’m going to have to go with Interviews 50 Cents.

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