Up from the 36 Chambers, it's your favorite Jamie Lannister fan-pod! Better late than never, am I right? Just as well that the Hollywood Prospectus podcast comes a couple days late this week. It allowed Andy and I to fully form some opinions about television shows that barely exist and that we haven't seen. That's right, it's upfronts season. Greenwald and I kicked the tires on all the prospective shows and imagine some that might have been.
We move on to regularly scheduled programming, tackling the rather bawdy television from Sunday night. We discussed the rising stock of Bob Benson, and the growing neurosis of Pete Campbell on Mad Men, and then chatted about how one might structure Game of Thrones differently, if one had 15 or 20 episodes to play with, rather than 10.
Look, here's this alternate ending from Silver Linings Playbook. Ideally, this scene would go on for another 15 minutes with De Niro straight-up murdering Ricky for wearing a Vikings shirt, then wiping the blood off his hands and digging into some braciole while Cooper and Lawrence suck on each other's tongues in the La-Z-Boy.
This past weekend, Grantland editors Robert Mays and Emily Yoshida went to the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. Because we couldn't just let them go and have a nice time among the rave kids and B-list celebrities in Indio, we decided to make them do a scavenger hunt. Who won the weekend (other than Daft Punk)? Join us and find out!
Friday
2:45 p.m.
Yoshida: We arrive at the box office to get braceleted up. Girl working the booth in the press line does not seem to be enjoying her job very much. I am starting to understand the exact level of mental and physical punishment I am about to endure, and am already worried about how to acclimate to it. This will be a complicated mental exercise.
3:48 p.m.
Mays: Eight minutes. That’s exactly how long it took from the start of my first set of the weekend until I spotted my first ownerless cowboy boot. You can imagine, then, how upset I was when I realized that points for loose cowboy boots weren’t included when the final list was pared down. This could’ve started better.
Vampire Weekend is almost like the indie-rock Coldplay: You get easy cred points just for dismissing them as soft or boring. Which is dumb because (a) dismissing anything without a full and true approximation of its worth is a terrible way to live your life (P.S. I have more wisdom, feel free to ask) and (b) Vampire Weekend actually slays pretty hard. But that's just the way it is for those dudes; life as a target is part of the fame/success/money/adoration package. That said: Usually dudes get salted about Vampire Weekend's boat shoes, not the fact that they torched a Saab.
Earl, still rapping like he'd take the time to jot notes on distinctive cornices, even if he were being chased down a suburban Maryland street by a rabid panther. Oh, and please go ahead and listen to new Mr. Sweatshirt material, but just know that your opinion doesn't really matter, because the kid from Third Rock From the Sun has already tweeted his support. (If you to click on that tweet, be aware, Looper spoilers might follow).
WhatsAnAvailableName: "Better then that stupid song about walking." fnormality : "'Take A Walk' was not stupid! It made me nod my head & dance."
By the way, I will now and forever more give my opinion on everything as being "Better than that stupid song about walking." How was The Dark Knight Rises? "Better than that stupid song about walking." How was the chorizo in your breakfast burrito? "Better than that stupid song about walking." How was your walk? "Better than that stupid song about walking." Etc.
1. Jay-Z and Kanye West, “Otis”
This, the first "single" from Kanye and Jay’s Watch The Throne (single in quotes because Hov claimed there would be no official single from the album), dropped Wednesday night on Funkmaster Flex’s New York radio show (you should do yourself a favor and listen to Flex’s accompanying rant). The last time Kanye West flipped an Otis Redding sample he made the greatest song of his career (Late Registration's "Gone"). So stakes were high on this one. "Otis" doesn’t quit flip the Stax legend’s "Try A Little Tenderness" as much as it fluffs its hair and puts it front and center. But where the beat is a little underwhelming, the interplay between Jay and Kanye is stellar, as the two trade bars, and use the end of each other’s rhymes as jumping off points for their own. Jay-Z: “I got five passports, I’m never going to jail.” Kanye: “I made Jesus walk, I’m never going to hell.” Don’t sweat the technique.
