"...As promised our crack team of match analysts have been slaving over the numbers day and night to bring you their best picks for the upcoming Oscar title matches.  Listen as they duke it out over whose pick is tops and wager dearly for rights as top dog of the Daily Monotony analyst ring.

Also, for your listening pleasure, we've broken up each section of commentary on each of the 24 matches into digestible tidbits which you can consume at your leisure in whichever order you please.  Check it out at on our full page devoted column to 'The Fray in L.A.' "

A lot is happening this week in anticipation for this Sunday's 82nd Annual Academy Awards, but before the site goes completely Oscar crazy, we managed to get together and discuss one of the few movies to come out in the past 10 weeks worth giving any attention, acclaimed director Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island.  We also dabled a bit into our other passion and threw in a review of the awe inspiring sci-fi role playing game Mass Effect 2.  Spoiler, we liked it...A LOT.

Don your fedora and power up your omni-tool, it's Weekly Monotony.

What better way to start the 2010 season of Weekly Monotony AND celebrate our 1 year anniversary than recapping all the great films of 2009.  I put myself to the task and asked my co-hosts to do same.  One simple goal: name your top 5 films of the year.  Of course after 2 weeks of fretting, watching, re-watching, making lists, crossing them out, and generally stressing out over my top 5, I realized the foolishness of my imposed 5-item constraint.  And whatever you feel about ranking films of disparate genres into some arbitrary order, in the end my struggle to yield only five proved to me that despite my initial concerns, 2009 was another great year for films.

You can see, by my collage of photoshoppery, which films ended being finalists, but to find out what we collectively dubbed Daily Montony's Best Film of 2009, you'll have to listen below.

Put down your Academy Awards Ballot, it's Weekly Monotony.

Sure, Roland Emmerich can blow up the world, the Boondock Saints can blow up mobsters, and New Moon and can blow up women's sense of reason, but despite November's filmic barage, nothing compares to the all-out assault on the young male population in the form of the fastest selling, most played, fifty megaton sequel to the best multiplayer first-person shooter ever made.  And with that in mind, we spent a marathon session dissecting, debating, and dolloping praise on Infinity Ward's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.  From multiplayer map design, to single player story pacing, to the controversial "No Russian" level, join us as we pick apart the biggest game of the year.

We're oscar mike, it's Weekly Monotony.

Halloween is special holiday for films, as despite the plethora of Christmas films, the smattering of Valentine's Day movies, and the one lone Easter picture (sorry Thanksgiving and...Presidents Day...?), no other holiday but All Hallow's Eve has spawned an entire genre of movies, the HORROR film.  However, despite being a very popular genre, the recent trend of scary movies released in theatres tend to be the worst things you ever Saw (see what I did there).  So rather than see Tired Franchise 6 this year, why not check out a frighting film from our list ten superb scarers from horror history.  That, or go see Paranormal Activity like everyone else...if you must...

LOOK BEHIND YOU!! It's Weekly Monotony.

Weekly Monotony Episode 31 - Little Girls Are Creepy

It's a been a week or two, but we're back and running with our double feature of reviews for Steven Soderberg's zany character comedy The Informant and Jonathan Mostow's adaptation of the indie-hit graphic novel Surrogates.  Discover the ironies of Matt Damon gaining forty pounds to look like an old man while Bruce Willis goes from meatbag to metalhead in the quest to younger facade and stay tuned past the reviews as we chat about the myth and realities of Surrogate robot bodies, and why piloting one around might just ruin your next cruise down the interstate.

Sit back in your stem chair and put your money on lysene, it's Weekly Monotony.

Weekly Monotony Episode 30 - Bandwidth Issues

The music for the intro and outro are both from The Informant soundtrack by legendary film composer and song writer Marvin Hamlisch (The Sting), and is just a sample of what I think is one of the best film scores this year.

Show Notes:

In case you are wondering, the strain of H1N1 that was spawned during the Penny Arcade Expo, now classified as "nerdflu," is capable of being transmitted not only to other PAX attendees, but to your computer as well!  That's right, our recording software caught a nasty case of PAX-POX and failed to record the first half of show.  Thankfully it cut out halfway through and we were able to get the movie reviews captured.  So I guess that makes it "half" of a show, but since we review two movies, maybe it all works out in end...maybe.

Call up your doctor and get a flu shot, It's Weekly Monotony.

Weeky Monotony Episode 29 - Nerdflu

There's a reason the first thing they teach you in computer science is how to sort a list: the internet LOVES lists.  And who are we to deny the internet our keenly honed sorting abilities?  This week we pick up the pieces from the aftermath of summer movie 'sploision cinema 2009 and report back on the good, the bad, and the Michael Bay.  Find out our Top 5's, and why sometimes you don't even have to watch a film to think it rocked...

Prime up your Netflix queue, it's Weekly Monotony.

Weekly Mononty Episode 28 - Arcane Asylum

Quentin Taratino is an inglorious bastard.  He doesn't deny it, his films don't deny it, it's simply the kind of person he is.  But damn, can he make a movie.  This week we review his most recent piece of pulp fiction, a Spaghetti Western that takes place once upon a time in Nazi occupied France, Inglourious Basterds.  But just because I said he can make a movie, that doesn't mean I'm saying I liked it.  Or did I? 

Ya vol! It's Weekly Monotony.

Weekly Monotony Episode 26 - Grazie

I've always said the best movies lead to the best conversations, and if how long we can talk about this film is any measure, District 9 must have been the best movie we've all seen in a long, long time. That, or we just don't know when to shut up. Either is likely. Check it out as we delve deep into the world of Neil Blomkamp's directorial debut, District 9,and learn whether his docu-drama alien action thriller is worthy of a solid hour and half of blathering, or whether the film, much like our podcast, is fit for non-humans only.

No non-humans beyond this point. It's Weekly Monotony.

Weekly Monotony Episode 26 - Sliced Bread: The Movie