Category: Direct Beam Comms

Direct beam comms #8

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, TVPosted on

TV

The X-Files

I feel like the first episode of The X-Files mini-series got a bad rap last week. A lot of people complained that it just wasn’t very good. I think some of that was just series creator Chris Carter balancing a whole lot of things in the plot in a limited amount of time which made the show feel a bit rushed. In 45 minutes he needed to; reintroduce the characters that haven’t been on TV together in 13 years AND introduce these characters to a new audience who’s never seen them before, introduce a new story/conspiracy to hang the new series off of WHILE AT THE SAME TIME telling some kind of actual contained story in this episode.

Which is a whole lot to do. Which is why a lot of pilot/first TV series episodes aren’t very good and aren’t necessarily indicative of where the series and future episodes are headed.

And in fact without this baggage the second episode was a much improvement over the first and felt much more like a return to form for The X-Files.

Episode #1: “My Struggle” – B-
Episode #2: “Founder’s Mutation” – B+

The Expanse

The two hour first season finale of The Expanse is set to air on SyFy this Tuesday evening. From what I can gather this season ends about two-thirds of the way through the first book of the Leviathan Wakes series of which The Expanse is based on. Just last fall I was thinking that I couldn’t remember the last really good sci-fi with spaceships series on TV — it was probably Battlestar Galactica. And just weeks later The Expanse with its cool visuals and great story swooped in to fit that bill perfectly.

The Expanse is my new favorite series of the season and is an early contender to appear on my top TV shows list of 2016.

Fawlty Towers

The cast of Farty Towels
The cast of Farty Towels

Our local PBS station began airing episodes of the classic TV series Fawlty Towers at the start of the year. It’s probably been a decade since I originally saw the show — I came to the series after watching the British The Office and hearing about it in discussions on that show — and watching it again today Fawlty Towers is still a great show!

Movies

Mr. Holmes

In Mr. Holmes Sherlock Holmes (Ian McKellen), the world’s greatest detective, is 93, living in a post-World War II Great Britain and has one more case to solve yet is slowly losing his mind to age. Or is there really a last case and is it just as Holmes memory fades certain things get mixed up in his mind? Is it just a mix of ghosts from his past?

By presenting Holmes at the end of his life rather than at the beginning of his career as a detective, Mr. Holmes is an interesting counterpoint to other Sherlock Holmes related TV series like Sherlock and Elementary. – B

Batman vs Superman

With all the lead up to the upcoming Batman vs Superman movie, officially Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, it kind’a feels like Warner Bros has been promoting this movie forever. Batman vs Superman was announced ’13 with an early ’15 release date, then was pushed back to March of this year after it was decided that hitting that date wasn’t realistic. And since it was pushed back so far it seems like we’ve spent the last two and a half years getting a constant stream of marketing from the movie.

Is there anything new left to see by actually going to see Batman vs Superman? It’s been so long since that original San Diego announcement that in between then and now Marvel’s released FOUR movies to DC’s none.

Batman vs Superman might be the first movie in history to feel like a re-release on its initial release.

Direct beam comms #7

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

TV

Colony (USA)
The new sci-fi show on USA Colony by Carlton Cuse of Lost fame and writer Ryan Condal has an interesting concept. The country, if not the entire planet, has been invaded and all the governments overthrown and replaced by some black uniformed wearing human “collaborators” who seem to be working for a greater power. Los Angeles is walled off and travel between areas is strictly prohibited.

Suicide Squad poster
Suicide Squad poster

I think the first episode of Colony does a great job of setting up this post-invasion world very interestingly. Some things are the same; people still go to work and families still eat breakfast together. But a lot’s changed from the travel restrictions to the lack of cars, most everyone rides bikes, to a “resistance” against the invaders and these “collaborators” too.

I think where the series falters in a big way is that while all of the characters of the show know what’s been happening the last few years, who invaded and why there’s a giant wall around LA, the audience doesn’t. I suppose Cruise and Condal’s plan is to slowly dole out these facts as the show goes on. But as a viewer that’s really frustrating. It seems to me that the series creators should’ve either gone the way of Falling Skies where what happened in the past is presented at the beginning of the series to the audience or The Walking Dead where when the characters learn what happened to their world the audience does too.

By having the characters of Colony know things that the audience doesn’t puts us in a weird position. Are we watching the show because of the story, or because we want to learn about the mystery of what’s going on in the series? And if Colony doesn’t have a strong enough of a story, which seemed rather weak to me, is tuning in week after week for a few more tidbits about what’s actually going on a strong enough reason to keep watching the show?

Angie Tribeca (TBS)
TBS aired all ten episodes of the new Angie Tribeca TV series from late last Sunday night to all day on Monday during a “binge-a-thon” with regular airings of the series Monday nights. The comedy is a police procedural in the vein of an Naked Gun/Police Squad show. I wonder if this, airing everything at once, will become more popular now that more and more people get their entertainment in season-long “binge” chunks thanks to Hulu and Netflix?

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (The CW)
This series is Doctor Who meets Guardians of the Galaxy and isn’t bad after the first episode. As long as it doesn’t turn into the typical superhero vs super villain of the week — which gets really old really fast — I’ll stick with this one for a while. I think if I was 14 years old DC’s Legends of Tomorrow would be my new favorite show.

Captain Cold: “We go out for one lousy drink, and you guys somehow managed to pick a fight with Boba Fett?!”

Occupied (Okkupert) (Netflix)

Xenozoic
Xenozoic

This Norwegian series about that country being invaded by Russia after Norway stops producing fossil fuels in the near-future is quite interesting. The whole thing feels a bit like an updated 21st century version of the Tom Clancy novel Red Storm Rising (1986) except instead of tanks, artillery and jets battling it out on and over plains of Europe, Russia with the backing of the European Union, simply threatens Norway with annihilation and takes over the energy producing parts of the country unopposed.

My only complaint about the show is just how fast the Norwegians essentially give up much of their freedoms to the invaders. The Russians kidnap Norway’s Prime Minister, spend a few minutes threatening him and his country, let him go and the Prime Minister essentially capitulates to the Russians in order to try and save lives. And maybe this is how things would go down in Norway, I don’t know. But I do know if this same story were set here in the US there’s be a lot more shooting and bloodshed — see Red Dawn for an example of what I mean.

But that’s a minor quibble with, after watching the first episode, a series that looks to be quite interesting.

Comics

Xenozoic Tales
The 352 page Xenozoic features most, if not all, of artist/writer Mark Schultz’s Xenozoic Tales comic books in a collected format. Schultz has always been one of my favorite artists and Xenozoic Tales one of my favorite comics, even if there’s only 14 actual issues of that series.

I discovered Xenozoic Tales in a roundabout way. In the late ‘90s I picked up issue 14 and over the years would buy back issues of the comic too. However, at the time older Xenozoic Tales comics were quite pricy but I discovered that the series had been mostly reprinted under the Cadillacs and Dinosaurs title during the time the cartoon series of the same name airing on TV. And these Cadillacs and Dinosaurs issues could be bought much more cheaply than the original Xenozoic Tales ones.

In the collected Xenozoic Tales edition, you can see how Schulz’s style evolved from that of a pulpy EC comics inspired style to that of clean lines and gorgeous drawings that would become instant classics in later issues.

Movies

The trailer for the upcoming Suicide Squad was released last week and it’s a doozy. Before the trailer I debated whether or not I’d even see the movie, after I couldn’t wait to see it.

Toys

Mondo released a 1/6 scale Raphael figure from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles this week for pre-order. The figure has 25+ points of articulation and comes with things like multiple heads and hands and weapons and retails for around $150.

Direct beam comms #6

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

TV

The Man in the High Castle
I recently finished Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle series and I liked it a lot. After I watched the pilot last winter the first thing I did was to subscribe to Prime so that I’d be able to see all the episodes of High Castle when they were released, and the second thing I did was to read the Philip K. Dick book of the same name just to see where everything in the show was headed.

The thing I liked most about the book is that there was really no central story. Not to spoil anything, but the book’s a glimpse a very intense few weeks of life of the characters living in this world where Japan and Germany won the Second World War. That being said, the idea that no story is story could kind’a be frustrating at times.

The Americans Season 4 TV poster
The Americans Season 4 TV poster

So when the High Castle Amazon series was announced I wondered how the creators of the show would handle all this since I couldn’t imagine something like a TV series could embrace the “no story is story” mantra of the book. And they didn’t, which I think is a good thing. Instead what they did was to take many of the elements of the book — mainly that in this alternate world someone is producing works of fiction where the Allies won the second world war — and to build a story with these characters around this.

It also helps that my favorite part of the book, what happens to one of the Japanese characters at the end of the novel, is still present in the TV series. B+

The X-Files
I thought I’d written more about The X-Files over the years but I guess I really haven’t. Which is surprising since I originally started this blog in 1998 when that series was at its height. Then again when I started Dangerous Universe only really covered movies so that would explain things. Regardless, here’s a few pieces I’ve written on the show over the years:

The X-Files and the steamroller of pop-culture – 01/15/16

The X-Files, one of the greats, turns 20 – 09/20/13

I Want to Believe in The X-Files – 07/04/08

Movies

So, the movie Lifeforce (1985) is just an update of the Quatermass and the Pit (1958) story, yes? (I know I’m coming to this realization 31 years after the release of Lifeforce but no one ever said I was fast.)

Toys

Out in March the Lego set for the classic TV series of Batman is pretty amazing. It features Wayne Manor, the Batcave, the Batcopter, the Batcycle and the Batmobile along with a whopping NINE figures including Batman, Bruce Wayne, Robin, Dick Grayson, Alfred, Catwoman, Joker, Penguin and Riddler. Which is impressive, but this all comes at a very impressive price of nearly $270!

Hiya Toys is set to release a series of 3.75″ tall figures based on the movie Aliens, starting with Hicks and Hudson. These figures might be small but they have a big price at almost $25 per figure! Both are due out in March.

But if price is a factor, checkout the Aliens Vs. Colonial Marines Army Builder, a set of 35 “green army men” scale figures of Colonial Marines vs. Aliens out now.

On the Horizon

I’m working on columns about having watched most movies on VHS growing up and have started gathering content for my yearly summer movie preview column out this spring.

Direct beam comms #5

CategoriesComic Books, Direct Beam Comms, Feature, TVPosted on

TV

So there’s the Classic Doctor Who series that ran from 1963 to 1996 and a modern Doctor Who of ones from 2005 to present. Is there now a Classic The X-Files of shows that ran from 1993 to 2002 and a modern The X-Files of ones from now on? I suppose much of if the “classic” and “modern” labels will only have any meaning if the new Fox series is limited to just the six episodes or if there’s more than one season.

TNT is working on a TV series version of the film Animal Kingdom. That movie is one of my favorites, I thought it was one of the best of 2010, about a lives of a family of crooks that’s slowly unravelling after one is killed by the police and in retribution the family kills two cops. I think that’s why the movie is so interesting — it’s about something coming apart, destroying itself. It’s still too early to tell, but I don’t think that a (reportedly) series about a family of criminals that’s not coming apart but instead lasts season after season would be as interesting as the latter. Then again I’d be happy to eat my words since I didn’t think Hannibal or The Americans would be any good either and those two shows turned out to be two of my favorites.

Comics

Benedict Cumberbatch as Marvel's Doctor Strange
Benedict Cumberbatch as Marvel’s Doctor Strange

The comic series Aquila, which ran in the pages of 2000 AD, is available in a collected edition January 12. Aquila: Blood of the Iceni is a sort of mashup of Conan the Barbarian and the writings of H.P. Lovecraft with the title character living in Roman Empire times in the place that will one day be the UK who’s brought back from the dead with one catch; he must provide souls to the ancient hungry god Ammit the Devourer. A god that’s always hungry!

In finding these souls, Aquila must do battle with winged creatures, an insane Nero trying to become a god himself and the natives of England who are out to push all foreign invaders off their land.

Books

CUNNING PLANS: Talks By Warren Ellis is a book of talks collected as essays by Warren Ellis who’s best known for his work in comics. Ellis has a knack for describing the times we live in from almost a future historical perspective. He comments on are everyday mundane things from cell phones to Instagram to traveling. But it’s how he sees them that’s so unique.

“Our ghosts are our history. Their voices are what we learn from. Our rituals are our methods, and our castings and workings are our scientific experiments, magical practices to learn the true names of things that mane the world. Because, in magic, when you name something you can control it.” — Warren Ellis

Apps

For the last few months I’ve been writing most everything in Scrivener using Markdown. I like how Scrivener organizes everything — I have one document for these Direct Beam Comms articles, one for my 2016 columns, one for random stuff… — and how I can export the finished product in just about any format I want.

And Markdown, a “…text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers…” is a nice way for me to format copy without having to worry about future-proofing my work. I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few years trying to figure this out. If I save everything as a Word DOC and in 20 years there’s no easy way to open the files then I’m screwed. What I’ve been doing over the last five years is saving all my work as rich text format (RTF) figuring that while this might not be the best way to save things, it’s got to be better than the proprietary Word format. Then I thought about saving out everything as HTML files, since those are essentially easily readable text files that anyone at any time in the future will be able to open.

Scrivener solves all these problems for me. I write things once using Markdown and then can export into whatever file format fits my preference. I’ll usually export a RTF if the piece is being published somewhere else and HTML so I can copy and past this content into my website. But I can also save PDFs, ebooks or a host of other file formats too.

Direct beam comms #4

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, TVPosted on

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

Kylo Ren from Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Kylo Ren from Star Wars: The Force Awakens

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.