There are those who assume that the automobile — at least when working properly — is merely a utilitarian machine that facilitates transportation from Point A to Point B. For this particular demographic, the mere existence of a daily web show devoted to everything cool on wheels might be baffling. What could there possibly be to talk about on an ongoing basis? Sure, some cars look nicer and go faster than others, but besides that…?

Ah, irony. When Hollywood’s film and TV writers went “pencils down” in last year’s strike over issues like a fair rate for Internet distribution, who knew that one of the byproducts of their newfound downtime would be great online video? We got the Speechless series, we got StrikeTV, and we got musical phenom Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. But we only almost got The Remnants. And going by the just-released pilot episode, we missed out.

The Remnants from John August on Vimeo.

Screenwriter/director John August (Go, Charlie’s Angels, Big Fish, The Nines) teased a snippet of The Remnants back on his always-fantastic web site in October. The hope was that 60Frames and NBC Universal Digital Studio would pony up to shoot subsequent episodes. Now, with the economy uncertain and August’s post-strike schedule tight, more of The Remnants seems unlikely. So instead this week we get the pilot, and only the pilot, and more’s the pity, ’cause it’s pretty darn good. Read more of this story

When reviewing the work of the American sketch comedy duo Dave & Tom, there’s an elephant in the room that needs to be addressed. It’s nigh impossible to discuss Dave & Tom without invoking England’s mighty Monty Python.

It’s not simply that David Beeler and Tom Konkle are skilled at literate lampooning, and choose to deliver much of it in British accents. Or that Beeler studied drama for over a decade on the other side of the pond. Or that Konkle recently wrote and co-starred with John Cleese in a two-man sketch show. Beyond the more obvious connections, much of the material from this double act plays like vintage Flying Circus, comedy writ large with an almost swashbuckling sense of wordplay and whimsy. Read more of this story

In Gold, we witness an American team striving for top prize in the world championship of a fantasy role-playing game known as Goblins & Gold. The Yanks have one goal: to snatch victory from the jaws of their gold-hogging archrivals, the Brits.

Gold offers up an interesting pastiche of premises, including the scrappy-underdog-within-a-sports-competition theme, and the spectacle of nerd in-fighting within an already marginalized geekdom. Many stock sports movie characters are introduced, including cocky MVP Richard; straight-shooting Jonathan Drake, the former national team leader who has suffering a crushing “injury” and is attempting to rally in time for the big contest; and the requisite villain competitor, Oliver Crane, who can likely be relied upon to wield mad skills and impeccable British enunciation. (For those nerds who are culturally banned from possessing any previous knowledge of sports movie archetypes, it’s your typical Han Solo/Luke/Vader set-up.) It is the apparent incongruity of sports and nerds that provides some decidedly wry and ironic moments — one might say it’s Rocky, but with a game master in lieu of that Burgess Meredith guy. Read more of this story