Category: Direct Beam Comms

Direct Beam Comms #18

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, TVPosted on

TV

Classic Doctor Who

All I wanted was a Pepsi
All I wanted was a Pepsi

My local PBS station began airing episode of classic Doctor Who a few weeks back starting with the very first Tom Baker episode entitled “Robot” and it looks like for the most part they’re airing them in order. I couldn’t be more happy. I’ve been dying to watch more episodes of the classic Doctor Who for years now, ever since the 50th anniversary a few years ago and when BBC America began airing a handful of Baker episodes last year.

American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson

The first season of American Crime Story on FX ended its run last week about the trial of O.J. Simpson. The sad thing is that I know a few people who didn’t watch the show because they “knew how it ended.” Except that American Crime Story was anything but just about the ending. It was about all the bits that were never broadcast on TV in the 1990s; what was going on behind the scenes with the lawyers, and jurors and family members we never got to see.

The neat thing about the story was that it wasn’t just one sided — for or against O.J. It’s mostly about the lawyers — the prosecution building a seemingly airtight case against Simpson and the defense finding ways to make their case a little a lot less airtight while at the same time trying to expose what they see as a corrupt system against African Americans in Los Angeles.

In a TV season with a lot of simply great dramas, American Crime Story was one of the best. A

Movies

Edge of Tomorrow: Live Die Repeat

Last week writer/director Christopher McQuarrie announced that there’s going to be a sequel to the wonderful movie Edge of Tomorrow with Doug Liman set to return as director and Tom Cruise as star. I didn’t think that Edge of Tomorrow did well enough at the box office to warrant a sequel, but luckily I was wrong. Edge of Tomorrow is one of the best sci-fi films of the modern age and along with movies like Mad Max: Fury Road is redefining the sci-fi genera.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story movie trailer

“What will you become?”

Officially titled Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, this eighth movie in the franchise is the first one to be told outside of the main Star Wars storyline. Here, a resistance fighter, Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) is tasked with stealing the plans for the Death Star. Or, Rogue One would be what was going on immediately before Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope where those plans are hidden inside R2-D2. What I like about the trailer is the design aesthetic seems to be taken straight from those gorgeous Dave Dorman Star Wars paintings that seemed to be on everything Star Wars related in the 1990s. What I don’t like about it is that the vibe in the Rogue One trailer comes off a bit too Katniss in Hunger Games at times for my taste.

That being said, the trailer’s much more good than bad.

The Reading List

Chris Hardwick, King of the Nerds, Is Expanding His Empire

This week in pop-culture history

  • 1979 The TV series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century premiers
  • 1983 The Evil Dead premiers in theaters

Direct Beam Comms #17

CategoriesArt, Direct Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, TVPosted on

TV

Star Wars Rebels

221-ep-gallery-45_4132c032The second season of the wonderful Star Wars Rebels animated series wrapped up last week on Disney XD. I’ve enjoyed this show since the first season and really appreciate how the creators of Star Wars Rebels have been using design elements that were created, but never used, for the original Star Wars trilogy. While this is a series seemingly directed towards children, see “animated” and “Disney,” non-the-less at times the stories of Star Wars Rebels have had a depth not present in most other series being produced these days.

Taking place before Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, Star Wars Rebels follows the crew of the ship the “Ghost” who are smugglers by day and proto-rebels by night. It’s sort’a equal parts Firefly and Star Wars in that respect. But Star Wars Rebels also deals with all sorts of interesting ideas like if droids served in the rebellion, would they see themselves as veterans? And most importantly, how does Jedi Knight Kanan Jarrus (Freddie Prinze Jr.) train his apprentice Ezra Bridger (Taylor Gray) without Bridger being lured to the dark side?

Plus there’s a young Darth Vader (no joke, voiced by Darth Vader himself James Earl Jones) who’s not quite as in-charge as he is in later years, called in almost like a relief pitcher in baseball when the lower “Inquisitors” can’t get the job done against the rebels.

In fact, I catch myself from time to time wondering why some episodes of Star Wars Rebels are more action oriented than story and plot oriented as so many episodes are. Then I have to remind myself; obvstentively Star Wars Rebels is a cartoon for kids. All the extra stuff that I love about the show is just an added benefit that most other animated series don’t bother with. A-

Art

Art of Euclase
Art of Euclase

The artist Euclase does some amazing Photoshop paintings featuring pop-culture figures like Tron, Furiosa and Riddick to name a very few. Her art is simply amazing and drool-worthy. Euclase’s work is, IMHO, in the same realm of that of the great James Bama.

Movies

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

So Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was released two weeks ago and did great at the box office. It received terrible reviews across the board but non-the-less the film broke all kinds of records and earned something like more than $460 million at the box office world-wide with $181 from the US alone on opening weekend. To put that number into perspective, Avengers: Age of Ultron earned $191 million its first weekend here in the US and went onto gross more than $1.4 billion worldwide.*

What does this mean for the comic book movies overall?

First, along with Deadpool which was R-rated and has made more than $600 million at the box office and will surly make loads more on home media, there’s no one way to make a superhero movie. Studios don’t have to follow the “Marvel Method;” or bright, shiny and poppy, in order to make a movie audiences are willing to see. If Marvel movies are going to be full of color and positivity, then DC seems to be taking the track of going dark and grim.

Which, with how much Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice had to contend with the movie taking years to be released and bad press and bad word-of-mouth, seems to have worked for DC. And with the upcoming Suicide Squad movie later this summer, a movie people are actually excited about, I can only imagine that the hits will keep coming for DC.

DC movie release schedule:

  • Suicide Squad: August 5
  • Wonder Woman: June 23, 2017
  • Justice League 1: November 17, 2017
  • The Flash: March 23, 2018
  • Aquaman: June 27, 2018
  • Batman: 2018
  • Shazam: 2019
  • Justice League 2: June 14, 2019
  • Cyborg: April 3, 2020
  • Green Lantern Corps: June 19, 2020

*Though Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice did have a massive drop in ticket sales from its first to second week in release. That being said the movie made a load of money its first week so I’m sure that it’ll be profitable, just not as profitable as other similar movies.

The Reading List

This week in pop-culture history

  • King Kong opens in 1933.
  • 2001: A Space Odyssey is released in 1968.
  • In 1978 The TV series The Amazing Spider-Man debuts on CBS.
  • The TV series Twin Peaks debuts in 1990 on ABC.

Direct Beam Comms #16

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, MoviesPosted on

Movies

All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records

Unpublished Maxx cover
Unpublished Maxx cover

The documentary All Things Must Pass… is an interesting look at the Tower Records phenomena that saw growth from the 1960s to the early 2000s, then because of the high priced CD market and file-sharing services like Napster crashed and burned and was defunct by 2006. The town I lived in never had a Tower Records, but even so I’d heard of the company even if I had to settle buying my CDs at Sam Goody, Best Buy or Musicland.

The story in All Things Must Pass… seems to be pretty standard documentary fare; from humble beginnings a mighty corporation is built that earns huge sums of dough. But the whole thing is brought down because of some bad management, new competition and bad luck.

If there’s one thing I thought needed some work here it’s that the documentary seemed a bit unfocused. It goes from a history of Tower Records to what Tower Records meant to people around the globe to why Tower Records fell. Which is a lot to cover in 90 minutes. B-

The Reading List

On the Horizon

I’ve got columns in the works for a summer movie preview, the Dark Horse Aliens comic books, the X-Men movie franchise and the Independence Day films.

Direct Beam Comms #15

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, Toys, TVPosted on

TV

The Carmichael Show

The Carmichael Show returned last week for a second season and is still pretty darn funny. The first preview episode that aired a few Wednesdays ago entitled “Everyone Cheats” was funny enough as were the two that aired last Sunday night; “Fallen Heroes” and “The Funeral.”

The Carmichael Show has a lot of controversial elements, from the characters debating on seeing Bill Cosby in concert even with his trial looming to the pros and cons of cheating on significant others. While it might have controversial elements, it never goes out of its way to simply be controversial, to try and stir up controversy for controversy’s sake. Instead the show tackles weighty subjects head on and doesn’t pull any punches. B

The Americans

Space-Ghost-Variant-Bill-Sienkiewicz
Bill Sienkiewicz Space Ghost comic cover

The Americans returned last week for a fourth season — which is amazing in of itself since the series has never been embraced by the masses so simply getting more than one season is a huge win for those of us who are fans of this show. This new season felt very much like a direct continuation from the last, with daughter Paige learning of her parent’s dual identities and exactly the wrong time in her life and falling into the abyss of depression.

Of course there’s loads of sexy spy stuff too!

The only other thing I the creators of The Americans could’ve done differently this season would have been to move the series ahead a few years in time. To pick up at some point in the future where the Jennings are a bit older and have passed Paige’s crisis where how they dealt with it could have been told via flashbacks. But sometimes handling story this way feels like gimmicky, so I’m not at all disappointed the creators of The Americans handled things like they did.

One prediction for this new season; some major characters won’t make it until the end — and I’m not talking about Pastor Tim whom I’m surprised has made it as long as he has. 😉 I mean it wouldn’t surprise me if a character like Martha or Stan aren’t around at to see the last episode this year. B+

Daredevil

The second season of The Punisher & Daredevil Show, err…, I mean the second season of Daredevil was released on Netflix Friday and so far I’ve watched the first episode. It was actually kind’a great. My big worry was that the Punisher would be “saved” for later episodes, but he had a big presence in the very first episode and from what I’ve heard seems to be a big part of the second season of the show overall so I’m very happy.

The New York City of Daredevil is an interesting place. It seems to take place in some dark reality where the “bad” New York of the 1970s and 1980s never ended and went right into the 21st century. New York City in Daredevil is a dark and dirty and dangerous place where someone like Daredevil really could exist to try and bring order to all this chaos.

Yet into Daredevil trying to bring order is injected a true agent of chaos; The Punisher. Someone who’s simply interested in destroying all crime in the city by any means necessary be it by gun or grenade or garrote. A

Malcolm-Jamal Warner & Max Casella

It’s great to see Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Max Casella on TV again. Warner* is best known for playing Theo in The Cosby Show and Casella* as Vinnie Delpino in Doogie Howser, M.D. Warner currently plays Al Cowlings in The People vs OJ Simpson on FX and Casella as Julie Silver in Vinyl on HBO.

Though that’s not quite fair, over the years Warner and Casella have been in many movies and films outside of those roles. For example, Casella did 28 episodes of The Sopranos* and Warner has appeared in Community, Sons of Anarchy and American Horror Story to name a few.

Movies

Star Trek

Other than budget, I think the main difference between the Star Trek TV series and the Star Trek movies are there are more people on the bridge of the Enterprise in the movies than the TV shows. 😉

X-Men: Apocalypse

Toys

Starship Troopers Roger Young 35″ Long Studio Scale Model Kit

The $650 model in question
The $650 model in question

I’m a huge fan of Starship Troopers and am always on the lookout for a good collectible from the film. And a few collectibles have been released for the film the last few years, but they’re always quite expensive. Take this $650 MODEL KIT, yes, this is a kit you put together yourself that costs $650!

The Reading List

This week in pop-culture history

  • William Shatner turns, and Leonard Nemoy would’ve turned, 85 this week.
  • The last episode of the modern Battlestar Galactica aired seven years ago this week.

Direct Beam Comms #14

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, Toys, TVPosted on

TV

The Carmichael Show

The Carmichael Show
The Carmichael Show

This first season of this hilarious comedy that’s a modern version of the classic series All in the Family aired last summer and now a second season begins tonight at 10PM(EST) on NBC after a preview last Wednesday. I liked the first season of The Carmichael Show a lot, but my only worry here is its timeslot; 10PM Sunday night?

It seems weird that NBC’s programming a comedy in a space almost always reserved for dramas and reality TV. So either NBC doesn’t really have faith in The Carmichael Show and is sticking it wherever they have a hole no matter if it fits or not, or they have A LOT of faith in the show and figure they can put it wherever and people will still watch it.

The Americans

One of the best series on TV, The Americans, returns for its fourth season this Wednesday on FX. Both a spy-drama and a family drama, The Americans focuses on the Jennings’ family with mom played by Keri Russell and dad Matthew Rhys who seem like normal yuppies but are really Soviet agents living and operating in early 1980s Washington DC which itself is interesting enough. But it’s when the added element of what the Jennings’ secrets are doing to their kids, more specifically their daughter played by Holly Taylor who learned of her parent’s double lives at the end of last season, is where The Amercians excels. Secrets and lies are a cancer for families. And while the Jennings might be brilliant agents, what they do for a living is slowly tearing their family to pieces.

What I find most interesting with The Americans is that with the benefit of knowing how history plays out between the USA and USSR, the Jennings are playing for the losing team. And no matter how brilliant they are in penetrating various governmental agencies and stealing secrets, at the end of the day nothing they do will have mattered. The CCCP won’t see the 1990s and all the the Jennings will have done is poisoned any hope that they or even their kids will have any happiness in the future.

Daredevil

All episodes of the second season of Daredevil on Netflix debut next Friday, March 18. How excited am I for the return of this show? Very! How excited am I with the Punisher being a character in this show? So frickin’ much my face is starting to hurt from all the smiling.

Movies

Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War – Trailer 2

“Underroos!”

10 Cloverfield Land

He is the law!
He is the law!

I wonder if the original Cloverfield had been more successful at the box office if the 10 Cloverfield Land sequel that’s not really a sequel would be more about giant monsters tearing apart major cities and less about people trapped in underground bunkers?

Toys

This Judge Dredd 1:4 Statue looks amazing. The design feels like it’s taken right from the 2012 Dredd movie. But it’s the price that’s not that amazing — a whopping $430!

The Reading List

This week in pop-culture history

  • Kurt Russell aka Snake Plissken aka R.J. MacReady turns 65 and officially becomes a senior citizen on St. Patrick’s Day.
  • Forbiddon Planet opened in theaters 60 years ago this week in 1956.
  • Evil Dead II premiered in theaters in 1987.