Spill
Spill were a group of animated internet movie critics based in Austin, Texas. Their shtick was that they're geeks who review films for geeks (and, you know, they're animated!). They're comprised of:
- Korey Coleman(middle) - The animator who is known for his goofy-ness, lover of zombie films, and nitpicking small logic problems. Also revealed through the video game podcast that he is a Resident Evil fan. His mancrushes are Channing Tatum and Ryan Gosling.
- Carlyle(last one on right) - The dude who was usually the defender of many films, and was known for his friendship with Ain't It Cool webmaster Harry Knowles and his love of Michael Bay and Quentin Tarantino films. Called Massawyrm on Ain't It Cool News and Twitter. Has since left the site to work as a screenwriter and an author.
- Leon(second from right, afro) - The old wise guy, known for his hatred of Adam Sandler and shares a love of Spider-Man 3 with Cyrus. Secretly into Disney Channel shows.
- Cyrus(first from left) - Most geeky, known for a love of the Coen Brothers and the most comic book-loving of the group. While Carlyle was the frequent Better Than Sex giver, this guy is the mercilessly frequent F**k You giver.
- Co Host 3000(second from left, robot head) -Their perverted robotic companion who loves crappy films, an unabashed fan of Adam Sandler.
The Spill ratings system is:
- F** k You!!! - An unofficial rating, the equivalent of the Better Than Sex rating for bad films. These films are so bad to the point of being offensive to the viewers and the Spill crew, often in more ways than one.
- Some Ole Bulls** t! - Films that are poorly made, or films that are simply bad but doesn't offend the viewers in any way.
- Rental - A subjective rating, usually it refers to a movie that is not good enough to see at a theater but is not terrible. Sometimes it just refers to a movie that can be viewed better at home (such as a horror movie or a comedy).
- Matinee! - Entertaining films with some jarring flaws that doesn't justify paying full price for, but still worth seeing at the theater.
- Full Price!! - Genuinely good films according to current standard, has little to no flaws.
- Better Than Sex! - The Broke the Rating Scale rating, given for films which are beyond the expectation for a good film and magnificently set a new cinematic standard.
The show has several podcasts they air throughout the week.
- A Couple of Cold Ones - A podcast that airs on Mondays hosted by Korey and Leon (and formerly Carlyle). They discuss the box office's top five, gossip, and read fan e-mails.
- Blu Tuesday - Another hour long podcast between Korey and Carlyle. It specialized in new DVD releases. It aired on Tuesdays. It was announced on the 8/30/2010 episode of A Couple of Cold Ones that Blu Tuesday was cancelled.
- Let's Do This! - A podcast between Korey and Co-Host 3000 and recently joined Billy (nicknamed "Uncle Popcorn"). It began as a spin-off of A Couple of Cold Ones when Co-Host temporarily filled in for Carlyle. It proved to be so popular they made it it's own entity. The show claims to specialize in "bullshit" and is mainly the two just hanging out. It is by far the longest podcast, usually clocking in around four hours. Because of this it is split into two parts with part one airing on Wednesday and Part two on Thursday.
- The League of Extremely Ordinary Gentlemen - A podcast between Leon and Cyrus that specializes in Nerd properties such as Comic books, science fiction, and general TV and movies. The podcast airs on Fridays and regularly features guest stars. It also includes some of Leon and Cyrus's real friends who make up the rest of the Leaque.
- The Spill Call-In Show - Korey takes calls from and talks to fans on the site. It has no set day but generally airs on Saturdays.
- The Loading Bar - Korey hanging out with his friends Kevin J. Baird from Video Game News, Nick Hodges, Jason Murphy, and Professor Jeff to talk about video games they just played, mostly Xbox 360 games. Currently a short and irregular podcast.
- Remote Viewing - The spiritual successor to Blu Tuesday, hosted by Cyrus and Film School Rejects, Brian Salisbury and Luke Mullen. The podcast debuted on 12/8/2011 and is aired bi-weekly, covering new home video releases in the last 2 weeks. An episode of the podcast usually clocks around 3 hours or more. The podcast regularly has special guests joining the discussion. The crew covers not only the movie itself, but also the extra contents on the package, video/audio transfer quality and even movie subtitles.
Now has its own group for tropers, the STU (Spill Tropers United) https://web.archive.org/web/20120102212936/http://my.spill.com/group/spilltropersunited
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Korey claims that Co-Host's creator abandoned him because he was "too much of a smartass to handle".
- And Now for Something Completely Different: Cyrus's review of Disaster Movie plays out like a found footage horror movie with PSA style narration by Carlyle. At the end, it turns into a Mindscrew when Cyrus goes to turn off the TV and is cut off by some ominous growling, snarling, a man screaming, a fart and a goofy laugh.
- Anything That Moves: Korey, when in character, is a self professed embodiment of this trope... even if it involves a vacuum cleaner.
- And... pie.
- Ascended Extra: Nick Hodges started out as a member of the Spill forums, occasionally appearing on episodes of ACOCO and the annual "Let's Have It!" podcast. Around two years later, he was invited to join The Loading Bar.
- Professor Jeff was initially hired as an animator, but Korey decided to make him the host of The Loading Bar's reviews after being exposed to Jeff's vast knowledge of video games.
- Fungus Monkey (also an animator) and Fish also joined Spill as members and were later hired as regulars on LEOG. Fish, however, was Demoted to Extra on at least two separate occasions.
- Awesome McCoolname: The Street Fighter the Legend of Chun Li review uses trope, combined with Fail O'Suckyname.
Korey: What's this girl's name I'm looking for right here?
Carlyle: I think her name was Breasty Mchotpants.
Korey: Breasty Mcsuckass was--Moon Bloodgood. Cool name, bad actress.
- Berserk Button: Everyone has their own, but for a while it was fans asking Who should be the villain in Batman 3 or Batman questions in general.
- Korey's is people interrupting him in the middle of his point.
- Korey and most of the others also hate non-specific questions like "What is your favorite _______?"
- Another one for Korey is people who use the bathroom without locking the door.
- Yet another one for Korey: Seltzer and Friedberg
Korey: I want these motherfuckers - Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer - [His eyes light on fire] I want their goddamn heads on my table TOMORROW MORNING!
- Cyrus and Christianity.
- Carlyle would occasionally go berserk when someone compared a bad movie to Bratz or Daddy Day Camp.
- Leon and "Disney dad stories"--movies that follow a father who works hard to support his family, but apparently is an asshole because he doesn't spend enough time with the children.
- Although it's rarely discussed, Leon has been quite vocal about his hatred for teenagers and whiny twenty-something's. (See Charlie Bartlett, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, and Post Grad.)
- Better Than Sex: This is the name of the highest reviewer rating a movie can receive. To date (March 2011), only three movies (with the fourth one for the Justin Bieber film being a joke) have ever received such a rating from a majority of the crew.
- Biting the Hand Humor: The review for Horrible Bosses has Leon and Cyrus talking about how much they can relate to premise because of their own boss. Cue reaction shots on Korey.
- Occasionally, the Spill crew (usually Korey and Co-Host in their podcasts) will do this at the expense of the company that owns them, Hollywood.com.
- Butt Monkey: For Korey and Co-Host, it's "Dem funny book boys" of LEOG. For the LEOG, it was ACOCO but that moved over onto The Loading Bar. For The Loading Bar (mostly Jason and Korey), it's Nick. Plus, you know, SHUT THE FUCK UP GRANT!
- Harris seems to be serving the role in LEOG, so much so that he got fed up with it and quit the show as an April fools day prank
- The one Butt Monkey everyone, including the forum members can all laugh at together, is "DJ" Kent. It didn't help matters either that his early review for X-Men Origins: Wolverine ended up on CNN.
- Catch Phrase: Korey: "Fuck yo thoughts!" Co-Host: "Don't tell me your problems!" Leon: "Tell some jokes!" Kevin: "Yes!/Right!"
- Prof. Jeff's "Yaaaaaay!" and "Wehhhhh!" during the Let's Plays. Might also count as Verbal Tic.
- Caustic Critic
- Characterization Marches On: Early on the guys went about portraying themselves as broad stereotypes (Korey was the womanizer, Cyrus was the virgin, etc.). However, once their podcasts became commonplace and they got to know their fans, the slowly dropped the pretense and are basically themselves now.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Edie, more or less. She has been mentioned on occasion in regard to her current life, and has briefly resurfaced in a 2010 podcast.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Too many instances to count. The most notable being the entire Meet the Spartans and Meek's Cutoff reviews.
Leon: Ok, you guys have said fuck 47 times now.
Co-Host: FUCK YOU!!!
- There's also District9...
Carlyle: Shut the fuck up, motherfucker, cause you're about to get FUCKED!
Co-Host: I fuckin' thought somebody had fuckin' put something in my fuckin' drink.
- Crosses the Line Twice: Let's Do This, well... does this almost every episode.
- John Rubio manages this on just about every episode of the LEOG.
- The Danza: Site creator, performer and animator Korey Coleman is the only person to share his name with his animated counterpart.
- Deadpan Snarker: During an episode of ACOCO, Carlyle was asked what actor he would like to see play him in a movie. His answer was Ryan Reynolds because "He's got that deadpan snarker attitude like I do".
- Demoted to Extra: Carlyle has stopped appearing in reviews, the last one with him being Clash of the Titans, only showing up to do ACOCO until eventually leaving that as well. This is actually because he has two other jobs reviewing movies and was burning out, so it was his own choice.
- A good chunk of the LEOG went from regulars to Support League status on their own volition.
- Driven to Suicide: Korey's reaction to Disaster Movie.
- Dude, Not Funny: Sometimes the crew is deeply divided in their opinions, and they don't hold back. After the Lockout audio review, a list was provided of some of the most memorable battles.
- "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Frequent.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Their pragmatic middle ratings. Genuinely intended to convey how much effort and money you should put into seeing the movie.
- Expy: Co-Host is a beer drinking, womanizing, foul mouthed Mexican robot. Sound familiar?
- Fan Nickname: Korey is Captain Matinee (though he prefers the moniker of The Black Wonder), Leon is The Spoiler, Cyrus is The PUNisher, Kevin is Captain Sassy, Nick is The Ass Crusher, and Brian Salisbury is Steak Plissken.
- Five-Man Band:
- The Hero: Korey
- The Lancer: Leon/Co-Host
- The Smart Guy: Carlyle
- The Big Guy: Cyrus
- The Chick: Edie (Arguably Metal Virgin).
- Team Pet: Co-Host 3000
- On the LEOG: (Current line-up)
- The Hero: Cyrus
- The Lancer: Leon
- The Smart Guy: Randy
- The Big Guy: Harris and John
- The Chick: Cat, Grant and Peter
- On the Loading Bar:
- The Hero: Korey
- The Lancer: Prof. Jeff
- The Smart Guy: Kevin
- Token Evil Teammate: Jason
- Tagalong Kid: Nick
- Five-Token Band
- F Minus Minus: The unofficial "F**K YOU!" rating.
- Four Point Scale: Most movies will go between Full Price and Some Ol' Bullshit. Very few movies have gotten an overall Better than Sex rating, and a movie has to be incredibly bad to get a Fuck You rating.
- Fun with Acronyms: The website's podcasts are usually known by their acronyms, but the one for A Couple of Cold Ones (ACOCO) is quite catchy.
- Gainaxing: Edie
- Heroes Want Redheads: Cyrus's well known love of redheads.
- Hollywood Atheist: Cyrus. The mere mention of God or religion causes him to either get super angry or bitterly sarcastic. Averted with Korey and Leon and most of the LEOG, almost all of them don't believe in God but are far from angry and attempt support opposing views.
- Also quite evident whenever he reviews a film with religious themes such as The Book of Eli.
- Hot Librarian: Cat
- I Have Boobs - You Must Obey!: The LEOG Geek Girls often use this.
- Incredibly Lame Pun: Cyrus uses these so often that it's become his main Running Gag.
- Ink Suit Actor
- Insistent Terminology: Cyrus is from Virginia, not West Virginia.
- Its Pronounced Tropay: Cyrus gets called out on this once for saying "Re-NAY-sance", instead of "Ren-ne-SANCE".
- He also used to pronounce Scarlet Johansson, Scarlet Yohansson.
- Ironic Episode Title: A Couple of Cold Ones is the podcast that features the hosts drinking the least.
- Large Ham: Cyrus, Grant, and Co-Host (occasionally).
- Lost Episode: Many audio reviews from late 2006-summer 2010 were never released until December 2010. Plenty of other reviews, such as Casino Royale, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Inglourious Basterds and Winter's Bone are still missing, though.
- Also, the infamous LEOG Halloween episodes.
- Magical Negro: Morgan Freeman is often referred to as the "magical, mystical negro".
- During one review, Cyrus fears that he and Carlyle are only kept on the site to be Korey and Leon's "magical, mystical white guys".
- Mind Screw: The Time Travel episode of LEOG starts with the last segment, Beau is back, and Harris is dating some woman named Kelly. it turns out it was the result of Leon tampering with Peters Time machine/web shooters
- Nature Abhors a Virgin: Early on, Cyrus was often mocked for being a virgin.
- No Pronunciation Guide: Used as Lampshade Hanging when dealing with names such as Saorise Ronan and Chiwetel Ejiofor.
- Nothing Exciting Ever Happened There: In their review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1:
Leon: This is for everybody who's been reading or watching the movies up till now.
Co-Host: What do I have to research? Because the movie I saw tonight, nothing goddamn happened. I mean, it was just kids hanging out in the woods. There was nothing going on...
- Official Couple: Currently within the LEOG: Harris and Cat
- Once an Episode: For the Podcasts: The top 5 and emails on ACOCO. Goatsie playing guitar and the "Fuck yo thoughts!" section on Let's Do This.
- Whenever Carlyle is on ACOCO: "Live from the Spill Studios located behind a liquor store on the I35 interchange, it's time once again for a A Couple of Cold Ones with Korey, Leon and Carlyle."
- Korey finding new ways to introduce the Top 5, bonus points if he manages to trick Leon.
- "Long Live the League!"
- Periphery Hatedom: Korey attempts to avert this by trying to review most things from the viewpoint of the intended audience. The others often ridicule him for this.
- The Pollyanna: Good lord, Randy. The man gets cancer and is immediately cracking jokes about it.
- Precision F-Strike: See also Crowning Moment of Awesome. Most of their reviews are no stranger to curses, but the more coarse ones get bleeped the f*** out. The Vampires Suck review, on the other hand, consists entirely of two uncensored words. "Fuck you."
- The beginning of the Hancock review:
Cyrus: Spill.com presents a family friendly review of Hancock.
Carlyle: Han, what?
Cyrus: Aw, FUCK, Carlyle!
- Product Placement: The site has been getting shit for this lately as they have been paid to advertise MacGruber and Jonah Hex, going so far to make animated videos for them...never mind the fact they mostly panned the actual films in their reviews.
- Pungeon Master: Cyrus aka The PUNisher
- Brian Salisbury is quickly becoming one, as well.
- Real Song Theme Tune: The Let's Do This theme song is the Austrian Death Machine song "Get To Da Choppa!"
- Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?: When Korey threw a chair (at a wall) back when they were on access television.
- Revolving Door Casting: LEOG
- Robot Buddy: Co-Host 3000
- Roger Rabbit Effect: In episodes where Korey and Grace Randolph (from Beyond the Trailer) team up to give their movie wish lists like for The Dark Knight Rises.
- Running Gag: Tons. In fact the Let's Do This! podcast is so deeply based in its running gags that it is often joked that it is borderline impossible for a new fan to listen to it.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Cyrus has walked out of movies the most out of the four reviewers, usually due to the movie being so terrible he can't stand it. Korey, and occasionally Leon, do it to a lesser extent by falling asleep.
- Harris pulls one after Rubio keeps making fun of his love of anime. turns out it was an April fools day joke between him and Rubio on the audience.
- Some of the members have alluded to having a "one walk out per season" policy leading to jokes about not giving a movie the satisfaction of making them use their one walkout.
- The Smurfette Principle: Early in the site's history they brought on Edie to be The Chick but she ended up leaving. Later they brought in actual Spill fan Tessa to review but she lived in New York and could only review when Korey was up there. Meanwhile, Cat is currently the Token Girl of the LEOG.
- Spin-Off: Lounge Geeks, which spun out of the LEOG podcast and is made up of mostly ex-League members.
- Dr. NerdLove, which spun off the Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World episode of the LEOG and is run by Harris.
- Spiritual Successor: Spill is technically one towards The Reel Deal, which started out as an public access television show which still used the critics' real names along with more people in the show's cast. After the show ended, The Reel Deal resurfaced with an internet animated review format until they were picked up by a company and evolved into Spill, creating aliases for everyone except Korey in the process.
- Stealth Pun: Cyrus, surprise, pulls off a nice one in the American Reunion review.
Korey: Well, I had to do some American Pie math here.
Cyrus: You have to multiply the first movie by 3.14.
- Token Girl: Edie, originally. Currently Cat is the only main girl on the LEOG, the rest have been Demoted to Extra.
- True Companions: The main critics, who have been friends for years and are as close as a family, The LEOG, and the Spill fan community.
- What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?: Korey would receive calls almost exclusively from 13-17 years old's during earlier episodes of The Secret Call-in Show. This would usually result in him expressing disappointment. His theory is that the kiddies are drawn in by the animated reviews.
- Leon, Co-Host, and Edie tried to subvert this for laughs.
- Where Da White Women At?- Billy from Let's Do This! Has a fondness for the white women.
See www.spill.com