SFX Spurious Awards

Stars Wars gets blaxploited; Chuck sees red; Warehouse balls don’t move; Hurley the cover star; and loads more

BLAXPLOITATION MOVIE OF THE WEEK

Space ain’t black enough to hide from the likes of him. We NEED to see this film…

MOST STEADFAST BALLS OF THE WEEK
In this week’s Warehouse 13 – the show that Spurious Awards were made for – the artifact that agents Latimer and Bering are chasing after is a walking stick that creates minor earthquakes when the user hits the floor with it. Okay, we’ll ignore the obvious question: how come the person using the walking stick never seems to feel the effects of these quakes? (Let’s just accept that they’re at the eye of the storm, or something, and leave it at that.) But that still doesn’t explain why none of the balls on a snooker table budge an inch when the bad guy causes a quake powerful enough to make Bering, Latimer and an axe fall over. Has somebody nailed them to the table? (And yes, Bering does call it a billiard table – the equivalent of nails on a blackboard to British ears.)

SUBTLEST SET DRESSING OF THE WEEK
Gotta admit, we totally missed out on this when the episode was first aired in the States, but when “Chuck Versus The Final Exam” was finally shown in the UK this week, it suddenly became so, so obvious. Having been subjected to his “Red Test” (we won’t tell you what that is, in case you haven’t seen the episode yet) Chuck returns to his apartment… where various bits of furniture and houseware have been repainted red! Clearly the NSA has a pretty nifty makeover department with a sense of irony.

ALBUM COVER OF THE WEEK
Here’s one for Desert Island Discs. There’s a familiar face adorning the (wordless) cover of the latest CD from “Buddy Holly” alt-rockers Weezer. As frontman Rivers Cuomo explains:  “We struggled super hard trying to come up with an album title, trying to find some kind of phrase that summed up the whole aesthetic behind the album: ‘Heavy Mental’, ‘Smaller Than Life’. I was coming up with all kinds of stuff, but ultimately, we just went with some random word that doesn’t really have anything to do with anything. I just loved this photo of Jorge Garcia – it just had this amazing vibe. We didn’t want to do a fourth self-titled record and we knew people would refer to it as ‘the Hurley record’ even if left it without that title, so we just called it Hurley.” The band immediately blew their cool cred by announcing they’ve covered a Coldplay song as a bonus track.

FACT OF THE WEEK/PR HEADLINE OF THE WEEK
“Citizens for Undead Rights and Equality fielded candidates in four constituencies in May’s UK General Election. It didn’t come last in any of them.” This stunning revelation came at the end of a press release titled: “Zombies Sought For Houses Of Parliament Gathering.” Have we entered some kind of alternate reality? No, it’s all true it seems. “Following the success of its inaugural General Election campaign, the Citizens for Undead Rights and Equality (CURE) will be taking its cause to the heart of the Government, with a gathering at Old Palace Yard (opposite the House of Parliament) at 1pm on 30 August. This highly-visible, good-natured gathering will be the talk of Westminster as up to 100 zombies campaign for equal rights for the living dead opposite the Houses of Parliament.” (Surely there are enough of the living dead in Parliament already – mainly in the House of Lords ?) Everyone who attends will receive a limited edition T-shirt, and the best-dressed zombie will win a games console (insert Resident Evil gag here).  Interested? Due to licensing and security regulations, any zombie hoping to attend must pre-register by emailing votecure@googlemail.com. Further information will be sent by return.

POSTERS OF THE WEEK
Scott Pilgrim Versus The World just continues to be so effortlessly cool in every department. These frankly awesome posters were created by artist Martin Ansin for Mondo, the Alamo Drafthouse art boutique,  to commemorate a special screening of the film in Austin, Texas. Both are extremely limited edition and were only on sale at the screening and for a limited (random) time today only on Mondo website. We’re ready with our credit cards, and our finger on the refresh button… But with only 415 copies of the blue one available and 140 of the red one, we don’t hold out much hope.

MOST BIZARRE KIDNAPPING NEGOTIATIONS OF THE WEEK
Presumably in the Eureka production offices there’s a “YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE MAD TO WORK HERE…” sign. On the show’s writers’ website this week, there appeared a bizarre story involving a missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle, a teddy bear kidnap and a ransom note. It’s all far too bizarre to go into details here, but feel free to check it out for an insight into the kind of minds that can put together a show like Eureka.

SUPERHERO NUPTIALS OF THE WEEK
It was the wedding of the week. No not Chelsea Clinton’s or Robbie Williams’. Wonder Woman got hitched to Batman this week… in Devon. But did she use her truth lasso on him when he he was making his vows, that’s what we need to know? Neil and Sharon Vaughn wed in their superhero costumes, with a wedding party that included Robin, Captain America and Iron Man looking on, and Powerpuff Girls for bridesmaids. Shame there was never a superhero called Best-Man, though we assume there were many gags about “rings of power”.

SILVER LINING OF THE WEEK
There is a way to enjoy The Deep that doesn’t involve a lobotomy, the off switch, alcohol or unclean thoughts about Minnie Driver/that bloke who sounds like he won Wimbledon (those all are valid options). Instead, just log onto Twitter while it’s airing, and search for #thedeep and read all the comments as they pop up live. It’s like a live Mystery Science Theater 3000 with harsher critics.

MOST GLORIOUS POINTLESS THING OF THE WEEK
A giant Post-it note featuring all of Chewie’s dialogue from Star Wars, courtesy of artist Doug Savage. Enjoy…