Man vs Pop Culture Week 4/16-4/23

Better late than never, here goes...

I rewatched Christopher Guest's folk mockumentary A Mighty Wind.  I didn't realize that Guest, McKean, and Shearer actually performed as the Folksmen before the film by a couple of decades (and even had them perform as the opening act for their other alter egoes, Spinal Tap), but they fit right in here.  However, they take a back seat to Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara as the duo of Mitch and Mickey.  Levy especially sells his role as the perpetually shellshocked Mitch.   It doesn't hurt that the songs (all written for the film!) are catchy.  I had "Never Did No Wanderin'" stuck in my head for days after.

I also finished up the brief run of Hawkeye & Mockingbird.  I've been a Hawkeye fan since Kurt Busiek's run on Avengers, so I caught this series when it came out originally, but forgot most of it since, so it was nice to revisit this.  The two had something of a rocky relationship ever since their time on the West Coast Avengers, so it's good to see them back together, even though it doesn't last.  And, yes, it also ends with a teaser for the crossover with Black Widow that eventually just became the (sadly, unread by me) Widowmaker mini after both books were canceled.

I also re-acquainted myself with another avenging pair of super-spies: John Steed and Emma Peel.  I dug up the  DVDs of ITV's The Avengers.  These were some of the first DVDs I bought, back in 2000 (I got a DVD player for Christmas '99), thanks to some Barnes&Noble (or was it Borders?) gift cards.  These sets have gone out of print, I think, so I doubt I'll be able to continue the run.  (I only ended up with one and a half sets after all was said and done, thanks also to the newer-at-the-time Amazon.)  I watched a couple of episodes from the 1965 season, including a personal favorite, "A Surfeit of H2O." (Rain as a weapon!  A sinister winery!  Local eccentric builds an ark!  Young Geoffrey Palmer!)  Now, I don't even recall why I bought these, since I never actually watched the show before, but I'm glad I did.  The combination of wit and spy stuff reminds me of another ITV favorite that got a bit more airplay on one independent channel or another, The Saint.  Plus, 1960s vintage Diana Rigg?  More, please!