This time of year I always get into the Christmas spirit and put on some of my favorite holiday movies like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon as well as rewatch some very special Christmas episodes of my favorite TV shows.
Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire
The very first episode of The Simpsons was in fact a Christmas special that aired on December 17, 1989. If you want to see just how good The Simpsons was when it was an animated show about people rather than a cartoon
about broadly drawn characters as which it has become you should check
out this very first one.
Sherlock — “The Abominable Bride”
While most of the modern Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock episodes were set present day, the special 2015 Christmas episode “The
Abominable Bride” was set in a more appropriate Sherlocky year of
Christmastime, 1895.
Space: Above and Beyond — “The River of Stars”
Not too many hard-edged sci-fi shows have a Christmas episode, yet “The River of Stars” from Space: Above and Beyond was the exception.
Community — “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas”
Right at the height of the greatness that was Community came
the fully animated Christmas episode “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas”
that had lots of laughs along with lots of tears and would go onto
cement this series into the annals of history.
Batman: The Animated Series — “Christmas with the Joker”
In this episode that originally aired in 1992 Batman, in fact, did not smell nor does (spoiler alert) the Joker get away.
Black Mirror — “White Christmas”
It really isn’t the holidays without watching one of the most depressing episodes of Black Mirror ever in one entitled “White Christmas.” Divided into three chapters,
each starring Jon Hamm and each more downbeat than the last, “White
Christmas” begins with murder and ends with a man trapped in hellish
loop of December 25th where the song “I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every
Day” is on a constant, never-ending loop.
Happy holidays!
True Detective season 3 commercial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZP6t1FmVO8
Star Trek: Discovery season 2 commercial
Movies
Glass trailer
Godzilla: King of the Monsters trailer
What To Watch This Week
Bumblebee
Tuesday
Last fall’s thriller Bad Times and the El Royale is available on digital download today.
Wednesday
Mary Poppins Returns for a sequel more than 50 years after the original in theaters. Let’s put it this way, when the previous Mary Poppins movie was released The Beatles had only just arrived in the US.
Friday
The one movie I thought would never get made since the character was the butt of many a joke for years, DC’s Aquaman, hits theaters today.
The sixth film in the 11 year old Transformers franchise, this one taking place in the 1980s, Bumblebee is released to movie screens today.
The Netflix original movie Bird Box, about
people who kill themselves after seeing some paranormal thing and the
survivors having to wander the world blindfolded otherwise they’ll
suffer the same fate, is available today.
The second season of the HULU series Marvel’s Runaways is available today.
Cool Sites
Lost Media Wikia — We explore and hunt for lost media and we use teams, and our fellow community members to contribute.
Syfy has been heavily promoting their new series Nightflyers for months now and I think they have quite a bit riding on the show,
especially since there’s not too much real sci-fi on Syfy right now.
These days genre series like horror and sci-fi are king and Nightflyers,
based on the George R.R. Martin novel of the same name, is a way for
Syfy to capitalize on both since it’s a horror series that takes place
aboard a spaceship in the future. And if Nightflyers is a hit Syfy might have something akin to HBO’s Game of Thrones on their hands, another Martin creation, in a series that gets huge ratings as well as critical acclaim.
While I thought Nightflyers was good, I don’t think it’s going to be the next Game of Thrones.
Here’s what I could gather about the first episode of this ten
episode series Syfy is running every night until Thursday since the
first one is kind’a confusing. It’s the future and a deadly virus is
beginning to take its toll on mankind. There is a plan to escape the
disease by colonizing the galaxy, but it relies on us getting ahold of
advanced alien technology, the catch being that we haven’t been able to
communicate with them yet. Enter the ship the Nightflyer on a mission to
go out and say “hi” to ET before it’s too late. Aboard are several
scientists along with a powerful psychic who might be our one chance at
communication with the extra terrestrials. Except this psychic is
dangerous, he’s spent his life locked away in isolation since he can
hurt people with his mind. And when things start happening around the
ship like engines failing and one of the scientists almost drowning in a
recovery bath, naturally all suspicions point to him.
Gretchen Mol
And that’s pretty much the first episode. Like I said the first Nightflyers is good, if a bit confusing. Things aren’t quite spelled out and I
spent much of the first episode trying to keep up and follow the story.
Like they’re going to meet these aliens but we get nothing on the
history of mankind and the aliens other than they are out there in some
ship simply waiting, and also we have these huge ships like the
Nightflyer but apparently that’s not good enough to send out on a
colonizing mission. Though maybe this will be explained later? While I
usually like keeping up with stories like this in Nightflyers it bordered on confusion.
In many ways the series feels like a cross between Babylon 5 (psychics in space!), the busted Ronald D. Moore TV pilot that aired as a movie-of-the-week Virtuality (a colonizing trip to the stars presented somewhat realistically) and Event Horizon (evil things happen on a ship in deep space). But I’m not sure if it
feels that way because it was in fact those movies and TV series took
from the original Nightflyers novella Martin wrote 38 years ago
rather than the other way around? It doesn’t help matters that the
first episode is sloooooow. So much so that I kept wondering if perhaps
the series should’ve been a six episode series rather than a ten?
The first Nightflyers is interesting and watching the promo
that aired after the first episode about future ones has me intrigued. I
love sci-fi and horror so I should be loving Nightflyers to death, I just don’t think I’m there quite yet.
One critically acclaimed comic series that I’ve never read is Animal Man,
especially the Grant Morrison run from the late 1980s to the early
1990s. That’s why I’m planning on picking up this new 30th anniversary
edition of that material out this week.
Meet Buddy Baker: husband, father, animal rights activist and
superhero. In these classic stories from ANIMAL MAN #1–13 and SECRET
ORIGINS #39, Buddy is called by S.T.A.R. Labs to investigate a break-in
related to an AIDS vaccine, only to learn what inhumane acts are going
on. Then, Animal Man is invited to join the Justice League of
America…but does he have what it takes?
One comic series that I am familiar with are the nearly 30 year old Dark Horse Predator comics that are still running today. While the material in this new edition has been printed many, many times before, it’s always nice to see Dark Horse giving the Predator some love.
Before the film Predator 2, there were these comics–a four-color
sequel to one of the greatest action films of all time. Written by Mark
Verheiden and illustrated by comics mainstays Chris Warner and Ron
Randall. Collects Predator: Concrete Jungle TPB, Predator: Cold War TPB,
and Predator: Dark River TPB.
Movies
Brightburn trailer
Avengers Endgame trailer
Once Upon a Deadpool promo
Captain Marvel trailer
What To Watch This Week
Mortal Engines
Sunday
The second season of the Starz spies from alternate dimensions series Counterpart begins tonight.
Tuesday
The surprise superhero hit movie of the fall Venom is available on digital download this week.
Wednesday
A re-release of the hit of the summer Deadpool 2 entitled Once Upon a Deadpool, reconfigured from its original R-rating to PG–13 and including 20 minutes of new footage, hits theaters today.
Friday
The classic 1932 action-adventure flick The Most Dangerous Game airs on TCM today. This movie about a guy who lures people to his
private island to hunt them was filmed at night on the same stages that
were being used to film King Kong during the day.
Two new movies are released today, the first is the odd-looking Mortal Engines about a post-apocalyptic world where cities are mobile and eat each other, and the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse about all sorts of different version of Spider-Man being forced together after some inter dimensional shenanigans.
Saturday
Insomniac Theater: The exploitation classic Rappin’ from 1985 is set to air very early Saturday morning on TCM.
It’s not quite the end of the year and I’ve already been working on
material that will see the light of day in 2019. Actually, I wrote the
first thing that will be published in 2019 a few weeks ago. That’s
partly because I like to write an article, sit on it for a few weeks and
then come back and edit it with fresh eyes and partly because whenever
I’m at home and bored I tend to work on my site. And since we’ve, so
far, had an early winter where I live it means I’m inside a lot, bored
with nothing to do.
So far for 2019 I’ve written my annual “Best of the rest” column as well as one on the upcoming movie Glass. I’m planning on also writing columns on movies like Captain Marvel, Shazam! and Avengers 4 at some point too. And also 2019 will mark the 20th anniversary of such movies as The Matrix and Star Wars: Episode I which I’ll probably write about too since they were things I was
writing about here 20 years ago so I might as well keep writing about
them today. 😉
Generally, I map out all of the dates I have columns due over the
course of a year and as movie release dates are announced will “pencil”
in things I’m planning to write about. But over the last few years this
has become more and more difficult. Before if a big-budget movie was
scheduled to come out on a certain date that big-budget movie was going
to come out on that date. Period. But that isn’t necessarily the case
anymore. Lately, lots of movies have had their release dates pushed
around. I think the next X-Men movie has had three release dates so far,
and the upcoming New Mutants was pushed back nearly two years from when it was originally set to be released.
So there’s been quite a few times this year when I’ve scheduled
something to write about only to have to push it down the line when
release dates change.
That’s not a huge deal, what is a bigger deal is when release dates
change just a few months before the movie is set to hit theaters. That
happened a few times this year with movies like Alita: Battle Angel that was supposed to be out last summer before being pushed to the
winter and now isn’t due out until mid-February. I think with that one I
had actually started to write my summer movie preview column that
featured that movie last spring when that announcement was made.
And that’s not even including the TV series I write about.
Those are much harder to plan ahead for since TV series aren’t
announced as far in advance as movies. While I know there’ll be
interesting series to write about in 2019 I won’t know when they’ll be
out until well into next year.
While I can tell you that next September I’m looking forward to seeing and probably writing about IT: Chapter 2 on September 6, in many cases new TV series that will be airing that
same time period won’t even be filming their pilot episodes until early
next year, and it won’t be until next May that we learn about the new
series that will be airing in 2018–2019.
With returning series I know I’ll be writing about things like Better Call Saul I just don’t know when that will return — will it be the spring like
two years ago or fall like this year? Or maybe even next winter?
DC is set to release a new version of the seminal Frank Miller Batman story The Dark Knight Returns this week. Well, “new” as in this edition is hardcover and retails for
$50. If you’re looking to pick up a copy of this story, I’d recommend
purchasing the $20 softcover version instead of this $50 version, since
to me $30 seems a lot to pay for a hardcover.
DC introduces DC Modern Classics, collecting groundbreaking,
genre-defining works in new hardcover editions, presented in a
beautifully designed slipcase.
In these tales from THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS #1–4, it is 10 years
after an aging Batman retired, and Gotham City has sunk deeper into
decadence and lawlessness. Now, as his city needs him most, the Dark
Knight returns in a blaze of glory. Joined by the new Robin, Carrie
Kelly, Batman takes to the streets to face the mutant gangs that have
overrun his city.
What To Watch This Week
Nightflyers
Sunday
The ten episode Nightflyers mini-series is set to begin airing today on Syfy, and then every single night until Thursday, December 13.
I am very jaded and it takes a lot for a TV show of movie to
genuinely scare me. I’ve been watching scary movies since I was a little
kid so things like Freddy Kruger or Jason from Friday the 13th don’t frighten me in the least. Since I’ve been watching movies like
that since elementary school, to me most horror movies or TV series are
more boring that frightening — and don’t get me started on the total
yawnsville of most new horror. So when I heard about the latest Netflix
series The Haunting of Hill House I figured it would be yet another of the long line of horror “things” I’d find dull.
And after the first episode I figured I was right.
The series starts off kind’a slow following the Crain family over two
time periods, one in 1992 and the other present day. And because the
show jumps around a lot between time periods at first it’s a bit hard to
follow. In many ways, that first one felt like a typical modern horror
series with slick visuals but a shallow story. But there’s something
that happened at the end of that episode that genuinely gave me a fight,
it’s something that got my heart beating a little faster and left me
contemplating watching the next episode ASAP.
And later that night when I went to bed I was still thinking of the show. And even later on when I woke up at 3AM and was still thinking about The Haunting of Hill House,
and also thinking, “Wouldn’t it be scary if the thing at the end of the
episode reached out and grabbed my leg from under my bed,” that I knew
this series was something special.
Bad things are seen at Hill House
What starts off as a happy family in the 1990s turns into something more dark and fractured by 2018 in The Haunting of Hill House.
The stereotypical nuclear family with mom, dad, two brothers and three
sisters, don’t talk much anymore, and whatever communication they do
have is indirect. What drove them apart is something that happened to
them at Hill House, an estate the family was trying to flip back in
1992, that left the mother of the family (Carla Gugino) dead. The kids
all swear that they saw ghosts before what was left of the family
literally drove off with nothing more than the clothes on their backs
the last night they spent at the house.
When sister Nell (Victoria Pedretti) starts seeing ghosts again
present day and takes her own life, the family is forced back together
to confront their past which is spilling over into the present whether
they like it or not.
I think the ideas of The Haunting of Hill House are just as
scary as the visuals, and the visuals are pretty darn scary. Ideas like a
fractured family, siblings lost in their lives and looking for help but
finding none and a father so far removed from his kids he hasn’t spoken
to them in years is just as terrifying as the things the kids see in
the house. Be it a creature that lives in the basement, the “bent neck
lady” or the tall man that thumps along the halls at night are all
things that left a chill up my spine.
One thing that The Haunting of Hill House does that most
other horror movies and TV series don’t/are too afraid to do is that it
actually delves into the realm of sadness. Whether it’s the sadness over
the loss of Nell, which as the series progresses feels less and less
like a suicide from mental illness than something much darker, or even
the sadness of a once close family fractured and scattered to the winds
after what happened in 1992 The Haunting of Hill House is just as sad as it is scary.
And I shouldn’t forget those ghosts.
The Haunting of Hill House present day
They’re scary, there were a few times when I caught a glimpse of one
hiding in the background that I nearly jumped out of my seat. And there
are times when the characters of the show don’t see them, but the
viewers do which added a point or two to my blood pressure. It’s one
those things where there might be ghosts anywhere in the
house/background of scenes at any time, and because of that it adds a
layer of tension to scenes that generally would be tension-free.
There has been talk about how the ending of the first season of The Haunting of Hill House is a let-down, that it doesn’t fit with the rest of the show. Which I
think is total bunk. It fits perfectly well and if you’re paying
attention to everything that’s going on it’s really the only place
things could’ve ended up.
One thing is I’m not quite sure where The Haunting of Hill House is going to go from here? It’s one of those shows everyone was talking
about for a while and I can only imagine Netflix is going to want
another season of it. But the first season ended here so perfectly, and
there is an ending, there’s no cliffhanger that would easily lead to a
second season, I kind’a hope that The Haunting of Hill House is a one-and-done show, even if it means we might never get to spend time with the Crain’s again.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 ⭐⭐⭐
Mystery Science Theater 3000
It’s crazy to say, but I’m almost happy that the TV series MST3K was cancelled back in 1999. It’s only because the show went away nearly
20 years ago that it could have been brought back by Netflix in 2017
with the second season having debuted there last Friday. The revived MST3K still “feels” like genuine MST3K circa 1993 but with some smart updates for the 21st century. The basic
premise is the same with a guy (Jonah Ray) trapped on a satellite who,
along with his robot friends is forced to watch bad movie after bad
movie by an evil scientist (Felicia Day).
MST3K is basically an excuse for some really talented
comedians including Ray, Baron Vaughn and Hampton Yount who play the
robots to riff and make fun of these movies while they run.
It’s a smart idea that I’m surprised hasn’t been copied 1,000 times since MST3K went off the air but somehow hasn’t –– maybe getting ahold of those bad
movies is harder than it looks? Anyway, the simple fact that after one
of the most successful Kickstart campaigns in history reignited interest
in the show and Netflix went ahead and picked MST3K up and
began streaming it on their platform, means that since the series first
premiered 30 years ago we’re still getting new episodes of it and that’s
a good thing.
Movies
Once Upon a Deadpool trailer
They Shall Not Grow Old trailer
The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part trailer
Aquaman trailer
The Lion King
What To Watch This Week
Vikings
Tuesday
The latest Predator movie The Predator is available on digital download this week.
Wednesday
The sixth (!!!) season of Vikings begins Wednesday on History.
A collected work of Star Trek designer and concept artist John Eaves is due out this week.
Over the past few decades, John Eaves has had a major impact on the
look of the Star Trek Universe and played a pivotal role in shaping Gene
Roddenberry’s vision. Starting with his work on Star Trek V: The Final
Frontier, Eaves has worked as a production designer, illustrator, and
model maker across the franchise. He has been responsible for creating
many of the props and ships, and helped develop the Federation design,
from the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC–1701-E to the U.S.S. Discovery NCC–1031.
Star Trek: The Art of John Eaves represents the most extensive
collection of designs and illustrations created by Eaves across the Star
Trek Universe. Featuring fascinating pencil sketches and stunning
concept art, this visually dynamic book gives fans a unique in-depth
look into Eaves’ creative vision and the wealth of his remarkable work
at the center of this spectacular franchise.
Are superheroes boring? I only ask because it seems as if the most
interesting superhero movies and TV shows being made aren’t about
heroes, but anti-heroes these days.
Recently, Venom, who is the nemesis of Spider-Man, was a hit at the box office while bad-guy Thanos stole the show in Avengers: Infinity War. The biggest pain in the @ss to the X-Men, Deadpool, is the most successful movie film series FOX has going right now while Punisher, the antihero of the TV series Daredevil, was successful enough to be spun out into his own series.
Boy scouts are boring
I think part of this trend is that we’ve had ten years of superhero
movies and we know what the hero’s going to do. It’s no surprise that in Infinity War Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) fought to stop
Thanos in his evil quest. And the same goes for Captain America (Chris
Evans) who’s the world’s oldest Boy Scout who’s biggest change from his
last movie was that he grew a beard. But the bad guy of the piece Thanos
(Josh Brolin) is another story entirely. He’s a blank slate of sorts
and is unpredictable. And because of this his character is interesting
while the heroes have grown a bit stale and complacent.
Even if he’s trying to kill half the universe.
Bullseye disguised as Daredevil
The same goes for the latest season of Daredevil on Netflix.
Not to knock the regular cast, but the best part of the series this
season are the two villains with the return of Kingpin (Vincent
D’Onofrio) and new baddy Bullseye (Wilson Bethel). I think it’s because
we’ve “lived” with the heroes of Daredevil for three seasons
and we know what they’re going to do. Matt is going to be dour and Karen
is going to be intense and Foggy is going to be grouchy. But what will
Kingpin and Bullseye do next? Who knows, and that’s exciting.
Look no further than the Deadpool movies for more of this.
The most unpredictable character in cinema these days might be Wade
Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) who does things like chopping off limbs and
murdering people while making wise-cracks to the audience. These are all
things we could never see either Iron Man or Captain America doing and I
think that’s why those two characters feel old and stodgy while
Deadpool feels fresh and new, even with all the bloody, gruesome
killing.
I think the people behind the Marvel movies sensed this and created an anti-hero team of their own, Guardians of the Galaxy. Lead by Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), at the beginning of Avengers: Infinity War while both Iron Man and Captain America were lining up to do battle
with Thanos, the only reason the Guardians got involved in anything was
because they were answering a distress call but weren’t planning a
rescue but were planning on stealing the ship of the people who sent out
the call.
Actually, Guardians of the Galaxy are more good than bad. If
the Guardians aren’t anti-heroes, then they’re superhero adjacent which
is still pretty interesting.
In fact, the same goes for the most recent Venom movie. In
the comics the title character is a guy out to literally kill
Spider-Man, not minding if he has to “off” a few regular civilians to
get the job done. But in the movie version as played by Tom Hardy, he’s
crusading journalist who’s trying to stop the Venom symbiote from
hurting people, and eventually the two end up joining together (haha) in
order to do some good.
Harley Quinn
Crazy hot
One thing I do find fascinating is that while audiences have begun
turning towards movies with anti-heroes for their entertainment, I’ve
never seen an outright villain be the lead of a movie, with one
exception — Suicide Squad.
This DC movie that’s about jailed villains who are forced together to
go on a suicidal mission is the only superhero movie I can think of
where the leads are, as Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), puts it, “…the bad
guys.”
While they might be “bad guys” they’re doing good as they’re forced
to work with the government to go in and rescue someone from a
demon-infested city.
I can only imagine that more and more anti-heroes will be introduced
to the box office as the sheen begins to wear off on the outright
heroes. And that’s not a bad thing, change is good.
Movies
Alita: Battle Angel trailer
What To Watch This Week
Ralph Breaks the Internet
Monday
Based on the novel by John Le Carré, the mini-series The Little Drummer Girl is set to air over three nights starting tonight on AMC.
Tuesday
The theatrical hit of late summer Mission: Impossible – Fallout is available on digital download today.
Wednesday
Several movies are set to premiere on Wednesday this week, the day
before the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US. First up is a new
version of the well-worn story of Robin Hood and second is an animated sequel to Wreck it Ralph with Ralph Breaks the Internet.
Friday
The latest season of Mystery Science Theater is available on Netflix today.
Saturday
Insomniac Theater — very early Saturday morning TCM is airing two of
the craziest, and that’s saying a lot, movies from the 1980s with the E.T. rip-off Mac and Me from 1988 and the completely bizarre and rarely seen The Garbage Pail Kids Movie from 1987. Coincidently, Mac and Me will be the focus of one of the episodes of MST3K.
Saturday afternoon TCM is set to air the 1958 Steve McQueen classic The Blob.
