Archive for 2008:

Review of pouringdown

Daniel Liss doesn’t explain why he decided to start his own video blog, but he does explore the culture of blogging and movie making in depth on his vlog. Since he launched pouringdown in November 2005, he’s developed a devoted following of members who are able to relate to his day-to-day existence, hopes, and beliefs.

His experimental videos toy with text, voiceover, music, and camera angles, using his life, family, and neighbors as storylines and the city of New York as his backdrop.

Liss posts sporadic videos using his skills as a poignant and thoughtful storyteller to create compelling personal video content that’s half art and half diary. One video, “decision machine”, helps viewers answer their most profound questions by flipping a coin – the video uses what seems like an easy solution decision-making, but ultimately leaves the choice up to the viewer. His posts are artistically inclined, more like films than documentary-style reality pieces, particularly in fan-favorite “paradiso.”  He almost never allows himself to be seen. Instead, he points the camera at life, using only his soothing, monotone voice and minimal text to provide additional narration when necessary.

If you aren’t sure where to start, Liss gives a few suggestions to help you get acquainted with his style. He also conceived the Seven Maps Project, an experiment where Liss made seven videos based on assignments given by viewers. The result was a brilliant string of videos shot over one week in Niagara Falls and Toronto.          

Liss’ most popular postings were his Seven Maps project, in which viewers conceived of various tasks for the filmmaker to complete. The videos were created in an assigned location with an assigned theme over the course of seven days in August 2006.

For example, the first map required Liss to travel to a new town, interact as though he were a local, and provide a personal narrative about his experience. All seven maps are worth viewing (though read the viewers’ assignments first), but the seventh is by far the most moving. He uses it to sum up the process and give behind-the-scenes information about his travels, including a revelation that only 5% of footage from his first day of filming was salvageable. He also spoke about his fears of misunderstanding and acceptance, although comments prove that he is highly respected by his viewers.

Review of Golf Channel

When Arnold Palmer, arguably the first household name in golf, and media wizard Joseph Gibbs formed the world’s first cable channel devoted entirely to golf in 1995, who knew they would also create one of the most comprehensive and informative websites devoted to golf? The site serves as a supplement to the television network with such detail that The Golf Channel UK’s website redirects most of its links back to its American counterpart.

It may look simplistic in style, but the website provides everything from daily golf headlines to point-by-point tournament information to a “What’s in the Bag?” section which highlights celebrity golfer equipment to a detailed history of the sport. Regular access to the video player requires a free subscription, but it includes a lengthy assortment of instructional videos (like a complex assessment of Lee Trevino’s swing), news and features (like Tiger’s outlook for 2007), and entertainment videos (like Natalie Gulbis relaxing by a pool in a bikini) that are searchable by date and popularity. Comprehensive scores and statistics are broken down by tournament. A paid subscription will let you gain access to the Video Vault, where previous segments are stored. Discussion is greatly encouraged on the site’s lively message boards. There are two online stores, one for the channel’s own products and one for affiliate site The Golf Warehouse, which sells gear at discount prices. The site even offers a variety of online instruction guides for the Sunday golfer. There are links to suggested golf travel excursions, lists of tee times, golf schools, college tours, a fantasy golf game, and everything else you could ever associate with the word golf.

If you’re a true golf fetishist, the “What’s in the Bag?” feature should be particularly fun for you. Over a hundred star players’ equipment bags are categorized by tournament and extensively itemized for trivia’s sake.

Review of Post Show

Almost no topic is too taboo for the Post Show. As stars of the episodes, Levin and Castrone are unafraid to extract comedy from unlikely topics ranging from terrorism and pedophilia to stalkers and suicides. The acerbically witty writing can be just as daring as their resolve for creating un-PC humor. In “WWJD,” for instance, Jewish and Christian dating services square off, leaving us with classic one-liners like, “Because being young, Jewish, and attractive is no longer an oxymoron.” These sketches work because they are produced in clever and savvy formats, often parodying familiar forms like reality television shows, trailers for romantic comedies, the horror/slasher movie genre, music anthology commercials, and VH1’s Best Week Ever (where Castrone worked as a blogger). The result is a surreal, absurdist world, with proudly dysfunctional characters, lots of crude humor, and laugh-out-loud moments when you’d least expect it.

Though the Post Show is known for tackling un-PC topics, it can be even funnier when it exploits the mundane. In “Small World,” the common awkwardness of meeting an ex gets magnified ten times over when a poor guy’s nymphomaniac ex-girlfriend moves in next door with her new boyfriend.

Review of Golden Media

Trekkies unite! If you’re hankering for more Captain Picard, Spock, and Geordi La Forge, welcome to yet another excuse to live long and prosper – Star Track, a futuristic, deep-space series created by Montreal-based writer and director Christian Fauteux. Started as a “complete joke” in November 2001, the Star Trek spoof has gotten serious enough over the years to create storylines, sets, and original CGI effects with increasing complexity. The folks over at  TrekCore.com took note in April 2007, awarding a Silver Warp Core Award to Golden Media Studios, the production company of Star Track and other projects like Space Astronauts…In Space! and Hiroshima Lightning. In the spring of 2007, Fauteux and his team reincarnated their long-running series, Star Track: The Next Hesitation, under a new name – Star Track Idomo Phase 1.

Star Track chronicles the adventures of Captain Tremblay and his crew as they travel through space on their ship, Idomo. The Star Trek connections are so blatant that even the most passive fans of the original will be able to point out and appreciate the various sendups.  Fauteux didn’t even bother to significantly alter the names of many of his characters, such as science officer “Smock,” “Geordie LaForge,” and “Analogue” (though he’s no Data). Crew members have their own weird accents and distinctive quirks. Tremblay, for instance, is deathly afraid of forks, a weakness that is amusingly exploited during his capture by the mysterious Cardassians in episode 20. Other examples of the show’s fantasy-humor edge include episodes 18 and 17, in which killed-off characters conveniently come back to life thanks to the cloning powers of the Insane Geneticist. Most episodes are 10-25 minutes in length, and recent seasons are laden with surprisingly decent homemade CGI effects. This ain’t Pixar or Lucas, but it’s no backyard production either.

For more Golden Media Studios productions, check out their side projects: Hiroshima Lightning, a kung-fu parody with characters who occasionally make cameos on Star Track, and Space Astronauts…In Space!, an “archival” series about astronauts who blow up asteroids.

Watch the original pilot episode of Star Track here. Yes, they’re actually using a beer bottle for a spaceship. Now compare with episode 19 here. They’ve sure come a long way…both in terms of production quality and sobriety while filming.

 

Review of 29fragiledays

Duncan Speakman is a sound artist from the United Kingdom who explores issues of “memory, geography, and fragility.” His works include installations, online activities, performances, sound walks, and video projections.

In Berlin in 2003, he launched 1,441 paper airplanes against international conflict in Peace Not Profit. In 2005, he was commissioned to design a courtyard for the Henbury School in Bristol, England that can be used as a performance space and a recreational space.

Another of his projects is 29fragiledays – a vlog containing a collection of his short documentaries that capture the simple beauty in small, fragile moments. Although in August of 2006 Duncan brought the site’s production to a halt, he still continues to produce other artistic projects and has left 29fragiledays up for all to enjoy.

The video blog contains over thirty different short pieces – rarely longer than 30 seconds – edited with simplicityand mostly filmed in the United Kingdom and Berlin with a digital still photography camera. The films are fairly high quality – especially when you take into account that they are not shot with a video camera – and exhibit a wide range of subjects.

In Friends, a woman helps a young girl onto the back of a mule. You Must Remember This… shows a couple approaching a kiss, intercut with other images that divulge the circumstances in which that kiss takes place. Shelter illustrates the safe haven an umbrella provides from the rain.

These succinct films portray slivers of life in fragile moments that will never happen in quite the same way again. The documentaries are not dramatically hard-hitting, life-changing or grandiose, but then again, they do not try to be. Like the films of Lynne Ramsay, they illuminate profoundness in the everyday and capture the delicate simplicities in life without forcing them.

My favorite piece is Shelter, with two people uniting underneath a bright umbrella in the rain. It has an emotional impact that many filmmakers strive for, but fail to achieve. Speakman successfully manages to keep it short, fresh, and intriguing, without a dull moment.

Shelter works as a great example of how Duncan Speakman sees and articulates subtle beauty through the lens of his digital camera that most people completely miss.

Review of 1UP Show

Produced by editors Kathleen Sanders and Demian Linn, the 1UP Show is 1UP Magazine’s online video podcast for gamers whose gaming habit is more than just a mere hobby.

Due to its youthful energy and personable reviewers, 1UP is one of the gaming world’s premiere magazines. Created by the promotional tech wizards at Ziff Davis Media, the site’s successful online network is a credit to the publication’s popularity in new media. The show itself has been streaming since August 2005 and has never missed a week in turning out new content during its seasons.

Once a week, the 1UP editors test drive, review, and feature exclusive footage of new games and systems. Their show has a sizeable budget and substantial industry access, but it also has the charm and tone of a homemade, low-budget, from-the-couch vlog about games, hosted by the people who love to play them.

The hosts range from snarky reviewers to informed reporters with specialties that give them an edge, all of whom clearly love the subject they’re being paid to extensively discuss and debate.  For example, one Japanese-speaking reporter scored a choice interview Tohru Takahashi and the Japanese makers of Bullet Witch.

With behind-the-scenes looks at some of the biggest production studios, print giants like Electronic Gaming Monthly and Computer Gaming World, and all the latest products that only an industry rag can obtain months in advance, 1UP is definitely worth checking out if you call yourself a gamer.

The best part about 1UP Show’s style is the combination of irreverent, knowledgeable commentators and inside access.

I mean, how often do you get to see editors from a major publication lament the fact that some Swedish magazine published leaked screenshots of Halo 3 days before an exclusive article was set to print? It’s just an overall fun show for serious gamers.

Review of GodTube

Before we go any further: the “God” in GodTube is a very specific god – Jesus Christ. GodTube is an evangelical Christian depository of video-sharing related to urgently communicating the word of the Son. Some of it is lighthearted, some of it is fiery, but it is all righteous. Founded by Chris Wyatt, former CBS News producer who later enrolled at Dallas Theological Seminary, GodTube launched in January 2007 with a simple goal: to connect millions of Christians in order to “exchange ideas and spread the Gospel worldwide.”

Depending on one’s personal beliefs, GodTube is either the Word made electronic or the latest in the intrusion of revivalism into all areas of American life.  Indeed, GodTube is strictly for the hardcore: its “about us” page consists mostly of quotes from the Bible, the “t” in its logo is enlarged and enhanced to more resemble a cross, and its video clips, posted by a variety of contributors, tend toward the fanatical. Christian rock? Check. Pulpit sermons against abortion? Check. Political tracts like “The Day They Kicked God Out of the Schools”? Check. What can be said in favor of a niche site so far removed from the interests of secular Net scourers is that the often controversial clips (submitted material is approved by a “bank of theologians”) have generated some healthy debate. There’s also a good amount of unintentional hilarity, as with a “Baby Got Back” parody gone horribly wrong to regular postings of Kirk Cameron’s resurgence as an evangelical spokesperson. That’s the thing about GodTube: you’ll watch it if you love it, or if you hate it.

Viewers of all religious persuasions will most likely come together to agree on the wit of the Community Christian Church of Naperville’s Mac/PC commercial parodies, which pit a humble “Christ-follower” against a more arrogant “Christian.” Thankfully, Christians aren’t compared in their holiness to Muslims or Jews.

 

Review of God, Inc.

If Heaven were a place that resembled your corporate office, where printer mishaps, stolen lunches and stilted ambitions were the norm, it would look a lot like God, Inc.

This sitdotcom, launched in December 2006 and resembles NBC’s The Office set in a cubicle-packed Heaven.  It is the concoction of Los Angeles-based filmmaker Francis Stokes, whose previous efforts include the independent film Harold Buttleman, Daredevil Stuntman, which is available in its entirety online.  Stokes is also the co-author of a self-proclaimed “eco-rant” Sludgie, which offers a humorous outlook on environmental issues.

After over a decade trying to break in to showbiz, Francis announced God, Inc. had been purchased by the Sci-Fi Channel for development as a TV show, which has given the series a good deal of press.

In God, Inc., Heaven isn’t run by the angels or even the titular character himself.  Things get done courtesy of poor working stiffs recently dispatched from Earth. And though no one has actually seen God, everyone keeps hustling for fear of the unemployment line.  

The workers are especially fearful of department head Piper, who is known for swiping chairs and avoiding eye contact with interns. Similar to some new sitcoms, the style is handheld camera with a documentary feel. But this is no mockumentary – despite obvious influences from the Christopher Guest and Ricky Gervais school. No talking heads comment on the comedy, which moves too fast for that. The humor derives from everyday awkward office situations interlaced with straight-faced mentions to things like the Porcupotamus, a foolish cross between the porcupine and hippopotamus that was a rejected animal design from production development.

Episode One finds a new intern in the product development department shown the ropes by her supervisor. In Episode Two the beleaguered Miracles department, which is being downsized, and cannot find the time or manpower to create worthwhile projects. (A war intervention form is over twenty pages and who has time for all that paperwork?)  Someone accidently swipes God’s lunch in Episode Three, raising hell throughout the office. The harried culprit must figure out how to return the cream cheese and walnut on raisin bread sandwich back to the office fridge in time.

Watch Episode Four for a prime example of the blend of religious, office and subversive humor that gives God, Inc. its following. When the Product Development Intern cannot find the right printer, she searches the entire office, finding each machine mysteriously named after a pornstar. The heavenly employees don’t seem to notice the blaspemy. After all, to them, it’s only a job.

Review of Girltrash!

For an alternative to straight- or male-oriented genres, check out Girltrash! Launched in June 2007, this series appears on OurChart, a website created by Ilene Chaiken and other people behind Showtime’s The L Word. This social networking and entertainment site provides “a central meeting place just for us — lesbians, dykes, queer girls, gay women, high femmes, butches, drag kings, bois, transwomen and transmen — however we define ourselves.”

The three-minute episodes are written, directed, edited, and produced by Angela Robinson, who also directed D.E.B.S. and Herbie Fully Loaded. Alexandra Kondracke is the director of photography and executive producer. Angela and Alex, along with most of the cast, have worked on The L Word and other lesbian-friendly projects.

What if Thelma and Louise were out of the closet, and they were tough young LA women looking to have sex with other women in the City of Angels’ underworld…or to at least not be killed by them? In this comedy-drama series Tyler (played by Michelle Lombardo) and Daisy (Lisa Rieffel) are small-time partners in crime looking for a good time while trying to stay alive. Enjoying traits previously reserved only for men on screen, they drink, smoke, cuss, call each other “dude,” get into bar fights, and chase women.

The series begins with Tyler and Daisy in a very dangerous situation, and goes back in time to show how they got there. Their problems began when blonde temptress LouAnne (Riki Lindhome) seduced Tyler and framed both her and Daisy for stealing $2 million from a local mob boss (whose sister is played briefly by Margaret Cho). The series takes on a more serious tone in Episode 7 as Tyler and Daisy try to save themselves and Daisy’s (also lesbian) sister from the murderous Monique (Rose Rollins), who looks and acts like she came out of a blaxploitation film.

Girltrash! is fun for how it depicts tough sexy women, for the coarse comical dialogue, and for the hip music. It’s slickly edited and filmed in a gritty b&w style with some occasional shots in eye-grabbing color. With its estimated $50,000 budget the series does a lot with relatively little, and could translate well onto the big screen or premium TV. 

The website provides Girltrash! merchandise, downloads, making-of info, and forums. On the forums, viewers often discuss their favorite characters or ask for longer and more frequent episodes.

The barroom sequence early in Episode 1 is fun for mocking traditional masculine dominance.

LouAnne’s husband threatens to shoot Tyler for sleeping with his wife, but he soon loses control of the situation. The scene becomes a comical quarrel between Tyler and Daisy, who’s “sick and tired of bailing you out of bad situations in dingy bars because you can’t keep your hands off the ladies.” The husband becomes confused (and beside the point) as the women argue over who the bigger slut is; then they punch him out. You go, girls!

Another fun scene is in Episode 6, where Monique goes off on a guy in a laundromat who dares to take her clothes out of a dryer and argues that “your cycle was over.” One viewer praised this scene as “my filmic revenge” against her own “irritating laundry guy.”

 

Review of Girls on Film

Thelma and Louise. Sonny and Cher. Lucy and Desi. Like all great duos, the two female hosts of the weekly movie-review video podcast Girls on Film share unfailing chemistry. Each brings an experienced entertainment background to the show.  Heather Stewart’s credits include film, TV, theater, and vocal performances. Suzanne Keilly writes and acts in various productions, including her sketch comedy show Keilly and Roeters and award-winning short film Not So Small Talk. Since October 2006, the two have shared their chatty film opinions via “Girls on Film,” produced by Stewart’s boyfriend Alex Albrecht, the co-host of the tech/web podcast Diggnation.  And if you want more Stewart and Albrecht, catch the couple creating delicacies and catastrophes in the kitchen on Revision3‘s cooking show for the novice gourmand, Ctrl-Alt-Chicken.

Two Girls.  Two movies.  Once a week.  Friends Keilly and Stewart give us 20-minute takes on two of the latest movies to hit theaters and rate them based on this spiffy system: “Run to the Theater,” “Walk to the Theater,” “Netflix it,” “Catch it on Cable,” and “We’d rather watch Congo again” (evidently their Platonic idea of the “worst movie ever”). Since April 2007, they have also begun each episode with a spoof of one of the featured movies, such as a Euro film noir scene to introduce their review of the French film Paris, Je T’aime. Stewart and Keilly feed off of each other with effortless charisma. This goofy, social vibe is what makes the show more than just movie reviews but a breeding ground for some great unscripted hilarity, like Stewart’s off-the-wall comment that she is “bed-sweating” in Episode 18 and when a plane unexpectedly drowns out the sound during outdoor filming in Episode 17. Interestingly, for a show hosted by two girls, there is surprisingly little chick flick representation, as the two often opt for heavier fare, such as action/thriller movies Disturbia (Episode 20), Breach (Episode 13) and Blood Diamond (Episode 6). If you haven’t seen the film they’re talking about, their chatty reviews may feel like you’re watching two teenage girls gabbing irrelevance on the phone.  Still, you’ll likely be entertained by just how much fun they’re having yakking about flicks.

Not every review goes into great analytical detail, but it isn’t uncommon for the girls to inject some insightful points on top of the comedy, like their discussion of emotions, stereotypes, and relationships in The Pursuit of the Happyness (Episode 7). …On an unrelated note, doesn’t Stewart look awfully like Monica from Friends? In Episode 8 (at 1:55 and 6:11), she even delivers that signature Monica line: “I Know!”

 

Review of Girl for Rent

Girl for Rent, a web-based weekly television series, is the story of a single woman who, after having been used and abused by lying and cheating men, has decided to interview single men before she dates them by tricking them into applying for a lease on her house.

The videos are written, produced and edited by Kenneth Wajda through his Colorado based video production company, Denver Boulder Video. Wajda studied film at New York University, worked as a staff photographer at The New Jersey Trenton Times for thirteen years, and contributed his photography to many well-known publications and newspapers. He is also the founder of the Professional Association of Artistic Nude Photographers. The first episode of Girl for Rent aired in October of 2006.

 Episodes can be accessed on the Girl for Rent site or blog, which also includes comments posted by other viewers and links to Wajda’s other production projects. The installments are between 3 and 4 minutes long, each one focusing on a different character who Geena (Kelly Whitaker) interacts with in her unusual search for a nice guy.

These are simply shot, one-on-one conversations with fairly conventional dialogue. The sound and production quality are both good, and although the writing is not overly edgy, the use of monologue allows the viewers to gain a deeper understanding of the characters. Geena converses with a variety of characters: her friends Kirsty (married for ten years) and Beth (single, outdoorsy Boulder-type), her unwanted potential renters Margie (a fast-talking North Easterner) and Joe (who is excessively enthusiastic about moving in…and is also gay), and her possible romance, Jim (a tall, attractive man that works in computers). By episode ten, when the focus is more on Jim, we have a good idea of the complexities of Geena’s personality, a kind of optimistic pessimist who is, above all, frustrated.

In light of the overabundance of dating services available today, I think many women, and perhaps men too, can relate to Geena: an attractive, self-sustaining woman in her mid-30’s who has trouble finding successful and attractive guys that are simply honest with her. She swings from one polarity to the next, telling her friend Beth, “maybe I should just decide to be single,” then going into detail as to how she could met men at church later on in the same episode.

It seems as though everyone around her (both her married and single friends) is satisfied with their lives, while Geena has come to the end of her rope, willing to do something desperate to fill the void her previous boyfriend left behind. It is no wonder then, that during the first “date” (“In most places on earth, a date would be in a bar over drinks…In Boulder, we have tea and granola.”) with Jim, he asks, “who are you?”

Geena is not only trying to find a man, she has embarked on a dating world odyssey, in which a girl has to meet a slew of unappealing men in order to discover the perfect match, and hopefully, find herself in the end.

Review of Getting Away With Murder

Getting Away With Murder is the first web series in the Independent Film Channel’s efforts to expand into original online programming.  The show is produced by IFC’s in-house user-generated video site Media Lab, digital media company VMIX, and young filmmakers Bennett Barbakow and Andrew Schwartz of tiny California production house Test Pattern. 

Beginning in May 2007 (Mother’s Day), a new episode was released every Monday morning for 14 consecutive weeks and stars Gilbert John, a young actor whose previous work went from making “weird movies” in college, to being a gofer in the porn industry, to acting in commercials and directing independent music videos. The show is promoted as being “finally an original web series worth dying for,” a line that evokes its violence, humor, and indie sensibility.

John plays Seth Silver, a bespectacled twentysomething who lives at home with his eccentric Jewish mother Rhonda, not out of his dependence but because “it would break her heart if I wasn’t around.”  Part of the series’ content and appeal involves Seth’s offbeat banter with Rhonda, his love interest Lily, and his longtime pal Rex, a slacker shoe salesman.  The other part of the series involves Seth’s professional life – not his fake job as an assistant veterinarian, but his real job as a hit man – and the tensions it creates with his domestic situation. 

Beginning with the opening credits sequence, the series depicts shots of Seth with his mom and friends intercut with scenes of underworld characters – like his redneck boss Kip or his rival assassin, the sadistic Pinkie – and various anonymous victims getting whacked. 

A lot of the series’ energy is in the action sequences, and Episode 13 has one of the most elaborate and dynamic of the season.  Seth is on his first date with Lily and has to leave the restaurant to kill several Japanese counterfeiters. Outnumbered, outgunned, and untrained in martial arts, he nonetheless quickly dispatches them and returns to an exasperated Lily, all before dinner is served.

The series website features behind-the-scenes photos, downloads, and other extras including Seth’s faux laundry tips, blog, and MySpace profile.  There are also message boards with responses from viewers, including one comment that the series “reminds me of Clerks + Grosse Pointe Blank.”  In fact, the series draws especially from Quentin Tarantino’s semi-comical ultraviolence, quirky characters, humor, and extended dialogue. Other Tarantino-isms include black-and-white intertitles, black suits and ties, car trunks, names beginning with the same letter (Seth Silver meet Vincent Vega), and the shots of Seth pointing his gun in a manner reminiscent of Reservoir Dogs.
John plays Seth Silver, a bespectacled twentysomething who lives at home with his eccentric Jewish mother Rhonda, not out of his dependence but because “it would break her heart if I wasn’t around.”  Part of the series’ content and appeal involves Seth’s offbeat banter with Rhonda, his love interest Lily, and his longtime pal Rex, a slacker shoe salesman.  The other part of the series involves Seth’s professional life – not his fake job as an assistant veterinarian, but his real job as a hit man – and the tensions it creates with his domestic situation. 

Beginning with the opening credits sequence, the series depicts shots of Seth with his mom and friends intercut with scenes of underworld characters – like his redneck boss Kip or his rival assassin, the sadistic Pinkie – and various anonymous victims getting whacked. 

A lot of the series’ energy is in the action sequences, and Episode 13 has one of the most elaborate and dynamic of the season.  Seth is on his first date with Lily and has to leave the restaurant to kill several Japanese counterfeiters. Outnumbered, outgunned, and untrained in martial arts, he nonetheless quickly dispatches them and returns to an exasperated Lily, all before dinner is served.

The series website features behind-the-scenes photos, downloads, and other extras including Seth’s faux laundry tips, blog, and MySpace profile.  There are also message boards with responses from viewers, including one comment that the series “reminds me of Clerks + Grosse Pointe Blank.”  In fact, the series draws especially from Quentin Tarantino’s semi-comical ultraviolence, quirky characters, humor, and extended dialogue. Other Tarantino-isms include black-and-white intertitles, black suits and ties, car trunks, names beginning with the same letter (Seth Silver meet Vincent Vega), and the shots of Seth pointing his gun in a manner reminiscent of Reservoir Dogs.

Tarantino fans may like the reworked torture sequence from Reservoir Dogs in Episode 5. On the lighter side, Episode 6 has some of the funniest dialogue in the series, with Rex describing how his on-the-job quickie led to being “temporarily suspended from the Pretty in Pumps payroll” (with John Hughes teen comedies thus becoming yet another allusion for the series).