Year: 2016
Direct beam comms #4
TV
Is it just me, or is the Netflix series Jessica Jones just a hard-drinking darker version of Veronica Mars (2004–2007)?
I was recently able to catch up on the Starz series Ash vs Evil Dead and am happy to say that it’s GREAT. Horror comedies like Ash vs Evil Dead must be hard to pull off since there sure aren’t many of them. Let’s see, there’s the Evil Dead series, What We Do in the Shadows and Shaun of the Dead movies, parts of Tucker and Dale vs Evil and … well, that’s about it.
And Ash vs Evil Dead isn’t JUST horror/comedy either, it’s got a lot of heart too which surprised me.
The one thing is that I’m not quite sure how Ash vs Evil Dead fits with the Evil Dead cannon as a whole? It’s almost like in the Ash vs Evil Dead universe The Evil Dead (1981) didn’t happen but Evil Dead II (1987) did. And either they’re ignoring Army of Darkness (1992) or they just haven’t gotten to the part where Ash is, “Trapped in time, surrounded by evil and low on gas,” yet.
Movies
Star Wars: The Force Awakens: I was really excited about this one when I saw the first trailer. It seemed that Disney and J.J. Abrams were taking what made the original trilogy great and and molding this into a new film series. After seeing The Force Awakens, I thought the movie was really good but my two complaints are that a lot happens in the film that’s pure coincidence and The Force Awakens is essentially a remake of Star Wars: A New Hope with a dash of The Empire Strikes Back but with everything being BIGGER and more bombastic than before. Most of the beats from A New Hope are present in The Force Awakens which is fine, but I just wish Abrams had gone and done more of his own thing than making a “greatest hits” movie like he did here. B+
Ex Machina: It took me a while to see this one even though several friends highly recommended it to me the last few months. Writer/director Alex Garland is one of the best voices in realistic sci-fi/horror like with 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Dredd and he continues his winning streak with Ex Machina, about the creation of the first artificially intelligent being that might be a little too intelligent for mankind to contain. B
Fantastic Four (2015): Do we really need any more superhero origin movies? Not that we don’t need origin stories for superheroes, just that is there really a need anymore to devote an entire movie to origin when there’s plenty of more interesting ways to do that? Like Iron Man is an origin story but is told in such a way that much of the origin is covered in the first half of the movie and the more recent Ant Man handles his origin by having it be something that’s slowly uncovered over the course of an adventure rather than devoting an entire film to it which Fantastic Four does.
In fact, the actual Four don’t get together until nearly the end of the movie. It’s the film that’s essentially an advertisement to the forthcoming sequel that looks kind’a interesting that’s never going to happen since the first movie didn’t do well enough at the box office.
Fantastic Four isn’t a bad movie, it’s just that in an era of great superhero movies it doesn’t stand out in any substantial way. C
Books
I got the books Sketching from the Imagination: An Insight into Creative Drawing and Art of He Man and the Masters of the Universe this year for Christmas. Sketching from the Imagination is a look at the sorts of techniques different artists use when sketching for fun or work while Art of He Man is a visual history of all the art generated behind the scenes when coming up with a toylike then maintaining it over the years with new toys and playsets.
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie 1996 poster
The best of the rest
My favorite movies about movies that never happened :The Death of “Superman Lives”: What Happened? & Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau.
Both these movies, one about a Tim Burton Superman movie that would’ve been released in the late ‘90s and a different version of the Island of Dr. Moreau than the one that came out in ’96, are a fascinating look inside the moviemaking process. The reason behind why Superman didn’t live with Burton is because of the nature of the moviemaking business, of a studio in trouble after a series of costly flops and of being scared to finance another risky looking film. While Lost Soul shows that while the writer/director of a film can have an amazing vision, that vision isn’t enough to keep them their job when the two stars of the movie want him off the set.
My favorite comic strip: Willie & Joe: The WWII Years
I’ve been aware of the Bill Mauldin’s Will & Joe comic strip for many years now but only when it was referenced in other works about how accurately Mauldin was able to portray the life of soldiers serving during WWII. It was only after I bought the book Willie & Joe: The WWII Years and was able to experience the cartoons for myself, there are 600+ in the book, that I was finally able to see Mauldin’s genius first hand.
My favorite hardest working actor on TV: Bob Odenkirk
I mean, c’mon. In the space of two years the guy’s co-starred in two series; The Birthday Boys and Fargo, had the lead role in another with Better Call Saul and created, co-wrote and co-starred in the W/ Bob and David series. I guess Odenkirk’s one of those guys who’ll sleep when he’s dead — which hopefully won’t be for many, many years.
My favorite book: Roadside Picnic (1972) by Arkady Strugatsky & Boris Strugatsky
I’m always on the lookout for old books that still resonate today. I heard of the book Roadside Picnic when I read about the ’79 film Stalker which was based on Roadside Picnic and decided to check it out myself. The book’s about the aftereffects of an alien visitation that only lasted a few hours but when the aliens departed they left all sorts of items behind. Is this “stuff” their garbage or something more? Some of it is extremely dangerous like a weird blue mist that turns bones of those who touch it to mush while others are beneficial like batteries that never run out of power.
Roadside Picnic mostly follows a new class of people dubbed “stalkers” who make a living and risk their lives venturing into these contaminated zones to take any of the alien leftovers and sell it to the highest bidder. But when the children of these stalkers begin displaying some weird birth defects, the question becomes are they only bringing out the artifacts or are they also bringing something else out with them?
My favorite post apocalyptic thing: Mad Max Fury Road
In an era when there are loads of post-apocalyptic TV series and movies, I think the best of the bunch was the fourth film of the Mad Max franchise. Fury Road plays like some extended fever dream; from characters speaking languages the viewer can’t understand, to the oversaturated psychedelic landscapes to a movie that’s made of almost constant action… But it’s these differences from all the other post-apocalyptic TV and movies that set Fury Road apart and made it one of the best films I’ve seen in quite some time.
My favorite collected comic: Hellblazer
I suppose the only reason I started reading the Hellblazer comic was because of the failed Constantine TV show. But if that’s what it took then I’m okay with Constantine being cancelled. John Constantine, lead of Hellblazer, is a self destructive demonologist who, when he’s not battling the occult, is someone who mostly just wants to be left alone. Hellblazer, stories deal with everything from yuppie demons to a bleak, early 1980s Thatcher-lead England and new age cults, both good and bad.
Hellblazer was released in ’88 and I didn’t start reading it until this year, so I guess a 27 year wait to read something as good as Hellblazer is okay.
Mutant Hunt VHS
