Category: Direct Beam Comms

Direct Beam Comms #144

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, TVPosted on

TV

Jack Ryan

I have this certain rule about movies. That rule, if I ever see that there’s a scene in a movie where a character is casually walking away from an explosion happening right behind them, I won’t see that movie. The first time someone walked away like that in a movie it was probably pretty cool, but over the years it’s become so lame it’s cliched and is an indication of the overall quality of said movie. I really haven’t had to worry about this with TV series since television budgets don’t really allow for effects like this, until recently. That was when I saw one of the posters for the Amazon Prime Jack Ryan TV series. There, the title character is walking away from an explosion that’s so immense it’s occurring over the horizon that would have to be so gigantic it would have been atomic in size.

And does Jack Ryan notice what’s happening behind him? Not at all.

Jack Ryan poster
Jack Ryan poster

Ultimately, I decided to give Jack Ryan a pass because, as Pee-Wee Herman so eloquently put it, “I’m a rule-breaker…”

The character of Jack Ryan was originally created by author Tom Clancy in his novel The Hunt for Red October (1984) and has been a feature of many books since. On screen Alec Baldwin appeared as Ryan in the movie version of that novel, then Harrison Ford in two films, Ben Affleck one and Chris Pine one too.

I’m a fan of the Jack Ryan character in general so I come at this new TV version as such, and as a fan I’m on the lookout for certain things. The history of the character is that he’s an analyst for the CIA who’s not a guy who goes out into the field to do things, he’s more comfortable tabulating statistics behind a desk. What happens is that Ryan’s thrust into situations he’s not prepared for — be it trying to find out if a Soviet submarine captain wants to nuke the US or defect or stop a terrorist attack his family is at the center to name a few.

With something like The Hunt for Red October, the only really Ryan’s even in the mix is because he’s one of the few people who knows of the special submarine in that movie and the background of its captain. And since he’s the only one with any knowledge whatsoever, he’s sent to try and figure things out. It’s not because he an expert marksman, has six-pack abs or knows eight silent ways to kill a man that he’s chosen to go, it’s because he has a little knowledge but still knows more than anyone else.

Wendell Pierce and John Krasinski in Jack Ryan
Wendell Pierce and John Krasinski in Jack Ryan

I don’t need much from the latest Jack Ryan TV series from Amazon, except the character should be somewhat true to this. Otherwise, if he’s going to be a Jason Bourne/James Bond/Captain America superhero, why make a Jack Ryan thing and not just make up a brand new character? I say let Jack Ryan be Jack Ryan.

Now comes the TV series version of the character in Jack Ryan, this time starring John Krasinski in the title role.

This version of of the character is more in-line with the Affleck one, they’re both young, single and brash. This Jack Ryan uncovers large sums of money moving through accounts overseas, and when it turns out Ryan is onto something he’s put onto a plane by the head of his department James Greer (Wendell Pierce) where the two end up at a CIA black site in order to interrogate suspects in moving the money. But there Ryan is thrust into being a man of action when the compound is attacked by terrorists in order to free these suspects.

I thought Jack Ryan was interesting, if it wasn’t quite strong enough to hook me just yet. The characters are thinly drawn — Ryan’s biggest characteristic is that he cares too much and Greer is one-note gruff. I also thought the plot was a sort of mish-mash of things that had come before like Zero Dark Thirty and 24.

I wish we could get a Jack Ryan TV series that was a little closer to the characters from the Baldwin/Ford films, but that doesn’t seem to be in the cards these days. It seems as if every character like that on TV or in the movies has to have almost superhuman abilities, they are a perfect physical specimen, never get tired and are never afraid. Which is how I felt about this latest Jack Ryan character. That character didn’t feel like a character, he felt like a real guy and I think the series would’ve been better if he did.

Can I also mention I couldn’t tell if the audio mix on the first episode was off or if it was something about my setup? I practically had to turn my TV speakers up to 11 to hear it when anyone was talking. This could’ve also been a stylistic choice to have everyone mumble and talk under their breath which was a bit maddening. It would be nice to hear what people are speaking now and then to catch what’s all going on.

True Detective season 3 commercial

Movies

First Man trailer

What To Watch This Week

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Tuesday

Mayans MC
The spin-off series of the super-successful FX series Sons of Anarchy about a group of terrorist motorcycle riders running guns, murdering people and selling drugs in small-town California debuts this week.

The Purge
A ten episode mini-series based on the The Purge film franchise begins Tuesday on USA. Since The Purge is now a TV series, does that mean there’ll be no more The Purge movies? We couldn’t be that lucky.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
One of the biggest hits of the summer is set to be released on digital download this week.

Friday

Iron Fist
A second season to the Marvel series begins this Friday on Netflix. The first one got ugly reviews so here’s hoping the second does a bit better.

The Reading & Watch List

Cool Movie & TV Posters of the Week

  • Mayans MC poster
    Mayans MC poster
  • Overlord poster
    Overlord poster

Direct Beam Comms #143

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, TVPosted on

Movies

While the summer movie season officially ends this week, unofficially it petered-out a few weeks back. Ever year when the season ends I’m surprised as to how fast it went by, even though way back in May I’m always thinking that it’ll be done before I know it.

I saw a few movies this summer; Avengers: Infinity War, Deadpool 2, Solo: A Star Wars Story and Mission: Impossible – Fallout and for the most part enjoyed them all. Though, honestly, I really don’t go to movies I don’t think I’m not going to enjoy, I tend to save those for home. It’s pretty rare that I get stuck inside a movie theater these days watching something I don’t like. It does happen, but not as much as it used to. At home I feel comfortable turning movies off if they’re going south but I don’t feel comfortable walking out of a theater. I think the closest I ever came to walking out was during the movie Drive.

Looking at the winners this summer, it’s no surprise that Avengers: Infinity War came out on top, but I was surprised to see that Incredibles 2 was right behind with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom in third. In fact, Incredibles 2 is now the highest grossing Pixar movie of all time, in second, Finding Dory. I would’ve never guessed that.

Mission: Impossible - Fallout
Mission: Impossible – Fallout

Most interesting was that while most Star Wars news articles I read this summer were how Solo: A Star Wars Story was a flop, it actually didn’t do too badly at the box office coming in right behind Deadpool 2 but ahead of Mission: Impossible – Fallout. That movie got a lot of stories written about it how it was the biggest M:I movie to date and a career rejuvenator for Tom Cruise. And Solo did better than M:I. I suppose, though, when expectations for a Star Wars movie are so high that only it earning a billion dollars at the box office are considered a success these days, that when a movie makes only $215 million it’s a flop.

What To Watch This Week

Them!
Them!

Swamp Thing – Tuesday
The answer to two trivia questions aires this week on Sony Movie Channel. Those questions? What is the second DC character to get his own film and, Wes Craven directed a movie based on a DC comic book, what was the name of that film?

Jack Ryan – Friday
 Amazon Prime debuts their series Jack Ryan based on the character from the novels of Tom Clancy like The Hunt for Red October and Sum of All Fears — though the TV series isn’t directly based on any of Clancy’s novels. John Krasinski becomes the fifth person to play the title role after Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck and Chris Pine did so on the big screen.

Them! & The Time Machine – Saturday
 This Saturday afternoon TCM airs a double sci-fi horror feature. First up is Them!, one of the earliest giant monster movies that, along with Godzilla, helped kick off a craze that’s still going well today. Then comes the 1960 movie adaptation of the H. G. Wells novel The Time Machine.

Books

Jack Ryan

Oddly enough, John Krasinski is now the face of Jack Ryan on the covers of the Tom Clancy novels that featured that character. If they were going to use Krasinski here, I just wish there were some variety since all these photos look like they were taken at the same boring old photo shoot.

Cool Sites

The Reading & Watch List

Rumor Control

Every year I write 24 articles for the Fort Wayne Reader, and every year it can be tough coming up with things to write. I’ve been doing that for 14 years now so I’ve covered a lot of subjects. But the last few years coming up with things to write have been, dare I say, easy. Or if not easy that easier. I think it’s because over those last few years there have been so many sci-fi and horror movies and TV series out there to write about. In fact, if I wrote about things I thought was crap as well as things I liked, coming up with things to write about would be a breeze.

I’ve got the rest of 2018 planned out with things to write about, and even some of 2019 planned too. This year I’ll be writing about things like The Orville and the 1988 movie The Blob. I’ll also be writing a piece about the 20th anniversary of my blog that’s happening this fall. For 2019 there are things like the delayed new X-Men movie, Pet Sematary and the new Top Gun movie too. I’m sure I’ll be writing about TV series as well but there’s really nothing next year that has a firm release dates yet.

What’s been taking up a lot of my time lately is my annual fall TV preview. It always starts off small but turns into a beast as more and more series are announced. The 2018–2019 one isn’t too bad so far, right now it’s just twice as long as one of my regular columns. What happens is that I write it, think I’m done, realize that I’ve forgotten some shows, add them in, then weeks later have to add a bunch more shows when even more release dates are announced.

And I’m sure I’ll still miss something.

I’m also contemplating writing a much-longer piece that I’m used to on the TV series The Orville since that show will debut later on this year. I usually have a bit of time on my hands come the winter months when it’s dark outside by the time I get off work and it might be nice to work on something with a little more length than I’m used to.

Cool Movie & TV Posters of the Week

  • Gifted poster
    Gifted poster
  • Justice League poster
    Justice League poster

Direct Beam Comms #141

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, TVPosted on

TV

Disenchantment

I was a huge fan of the Matt Groening created series The Simpsons from its debut until about the year 2000. Until then, I’d been nuts for the show, going as far in the pre-internet days to purchase books about it where I made notations and even wrote down scraps of witty dialog I liked between boughts of laughter while watching episodes. And, when Futurama premiered in 1999 I remember thinking as the credits for the first episode aired, “Welcome, my new favorite show.”

I was never as big a Futurama fan as I’d been a The Simpsons fan, I only ever lasted a few seasons with that one, but even so if I didn’t dig Futurama those early seasons of The Simpsons, especially the Conan O’Brien years, are gold to me.

Now comes the next Matt Groening created series Disenchantment on Netflix.

Disenchantment
Disenchantment

The setting here is a fantastical land where princess Bean (Abbi Jacobson), elf Elfo (Nat Faxon) and demon Luci (Eric Andre) all team together to destroy their boring lives. Bean is sick of being a princess and wants to live like normal people while Elfo comes from a place where everyone is happy all the time and he wants to experience some “real-life.” Bean is set to be married and is terrified of being locked into this life. She, along with Luci, decide to ruin the wedding, accidentally impaling the groom in the process and running off where they find Elfo. The three run from the brother of the groom and now new groom into the unknown and adventure.

I thought that Disenchantment was interesting, if it’s probably not something I’m going to keep watching. I think that I might not be the demographic for this show, it’s very much in the vein of risqué Adult Swim series, and this might be why it didn’t connect with me.

Then again I like lots of stuff, some of if mainstream and some of it weird and off-beat, so it’s odd that I found Disenchantment so lacking. Getting through the first episode was a bit of a slog and I don’t think I laughed once during it, though I did giggle when Elfo’s village is revealed where some of the residents have their names on their shirts ala Shirt Tales and some of their names describe their character traits.

I think what I liked so much about those early The Simpsons seasons was that it was a show with a big heart, of which is lacking in Disenchantment, though maybe that comes in later episodes? If you’re looking for a series that delivers joke after joke at the expense of characters, then Disenchantment might be for you.

I’ll probably give this one a few more episodes to see if things improve after the first one.

I really should look at Disenchantment more like a funny Dungeons and Dragons rather than a realistic cartoon but one thing I kept thinking while watching Disenchantment is how Bean is this princess, and all she wants is to have a “normal” life like the people she hangs with in taverns and sees while she’s being taken home from a night of drinking back to her castle. But the “normal” people she strives to be seem to have terrible lives, and the only reason she can go out drinking and not face any consequences for her actions is because she’s a princess. If she really was one of the “normal” people she’d be out toiling in the fields with the rest of them and would be dead by 25 from some random plague.

What To Watch This Week

Ocean's 8
Ocean’s 8

Ocean’s 8 – Tuesday
The sequel/reboot to the popular series of Ocean’s… movies is set to be released on digital download this week.

Deadpool 2 – Tuesday
The hilarious second Deadpool movie is out on Blu-ray and DVD this week too. This set includes the theatrical as well as a director’s cut of the movie, dubbed the “Super Duper Cut,” and contains material not seen in the theatrical release.

Ash vs Evil Dead – Tuesday
The final season of the underrated by everyone, myself included, Ash vs. Evil Dead series is also out this week on DVD and Blu-ray. This reportedly will mark the final appearances of Bruce Campbell as the title character since he “retired” form the role earlier this year.

The Terror – Tuesday
The first season of one of the best TV series of the 2017–2018 season, The Terror, gets its DVD and Blu-ray release this week.

Curse of the Demon – Wednesday
The terrifying British horror flick Curse of the Demon aka Night of the Demon airs this week on TCM. This is a slow-burn movie where it’s never clear whether or not what’s happening on-screen is natural, or super-natural and also was part of the inspiration behind the Drag Me To Hell movie.

The Reading & Watch List

Cool Movie & TV Posters of the Week

Godzilla King of the Monsters
Godzilla King of the Monsters

Direct Beam Comms #140

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, TVPosted on

TV

Better Call Saul season 4

The crux of the AMC TV series Better Call Saul is that its lead character Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) will one day become the titular Saul Goodman — a lawyer for drug dealers and other bad elements in the Albuquerque, New Mexico of Breaking Bad. Ever since the first season the creators of Better Call Saul have teased that one day chipper Jimmy McGill will cease to exist and be replaced by not so good Saul Goodman, and every season too there’s been more teases about characters from Breaking Bad also crossing over to Better Call Saul, in which a handful have. Now I can’t imagine we’ll ever see Aaron Paul or Bryan Cranston sharing the screen again with Odenkirk, though stranger things have happened, but that seems to be the focus of all the online chatter before each new season of the show.

Maybe it’s because I was never a fan of Breaking Bad but I’m perfectly okay with this. In fact, I think Better Call Saul is a better show because of this.

While there are some ties with Breaking Bad, for the most part Better Call Saul is its own show. Sure, there’s Jimmy and Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) who are the leads of Better Caul Saul and who were players in Breaking Bad, but I don’t think you need to have watched a single minute of that show to understand Better Call Saul. The characters are different here, less set in their criminal ways if at all.

But some of this is changing, it does seem as if both Jimmy and Mike are becoming more in-line with the criminal element than they have in the past with this latest fourth season of the show.

In fact, I’d go as far as saying that Mike’s “crossed over to the dark side.” Whereas Jimmy does have some criminal elements to him, Mike’s now taking a paycheck from bad people to do bad things. And if Mike’s “broke bad,” then how long will it be until Jimmy fully becomes Saul Goodman?

The first episode of the fourth season of Breaking Bad was a little slow, but I find that first episodes of established shows usually are. Much of the episode deals with a very big ramification from something that happened in the final episode of the third season which has left Jimmy a distraught, and nearly destroyed man.

That is until he isn’t distraught or destroyed anymore. There’s a scene at the end of this episode that left me wondering, was this the real debut of Saul Goodman, a man only interested in his self willing to do whatever’s necessary, to hurt anyone for his own gain?

Only time will tell.

Lodge 49
Lodge 49

Lodge 49

Another AMC series premiered last week, this time the brand new Lodge 49 — NOT another zombie show, shock! Starring Wyatt Russell (Black Mirror), AMC has been promoting this series as the TV version of The Big Lebowski. Heck, Russell’s character even goes by “Dud” which is a lot like the “Dude” from The Big Lebowski. Yet to me Lodge 49 was a lot more like the working-class movies and TV shows of the 1970s and 1980s than The Big Lebowski, though there was a little of that for flavor.

Here, Dud is twenty-something that’s drifting after his life came crashing down before him. He got bitten by a snake and the wound hasn’t yet healed, his dad drown while surfing and he and his sister Liz lost everything from their family home to their family business afterwards. Now, Dud metal detects on the beach for what he can and borrows what he must at high rates from a pawn shop. Until one day he finds a ring on the beach and finds that it’s from a fraternal lodge, of which he’s interested in joining if only to find a way out of his spiraling life.

Lodge 49 really isn’t what I thought it was going to be. It’s a lot more quirky and funny than I was expecting, though there is a dash of darkness to it too. I was intrigued by this show and really liked the characters within it.

The one thing that concerns me about Lodge 49 from promos I’ve seen online is that it seems like there’s quite a bit of mysticism in the series. There is a bit of that in the first episode, but what could be mystical could easily be something else. I could be totally wrong or this might make the show stronger than I think it is, but I hope Lodge 49 stays on the level and doesn’t go all John from Cincinnati or anything.

Disenchantment
Disenchantment

What To Watch This Week

Avengers: Infinity War – Tuesday
The biggest hit of the summer, and one of the biggest movies of all-time, Avengers: Infinity War is available on DVD and Blu-ray this week.

Patient Zero – Tuesday
This movie about a world overrun with zombies and the one guy who can speak zombie (Matt Smith) was originally due out two years ago but was shelved until now and is getting an on-demand release this week.

Disenchantment – Friday
The first season of the Matt Groening created animated fantasy series Disenchantment debuts this Friday on Netflix.

Red Dawn – Saturday
The commies invade Calumet, Colorado in this classic red-scare World War III movie that I’ve seen waaaaay too many times to count on HDNET MOVIES.

The Reading & Watch List

Cool TV Poster of the Week

Project Blue Book poster

Direct Beam Comms #139

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, TVPosted on

TV

GLOW second season

Have I mentioned how hard it is to write about the Netflix series GLOW? The show about a women’s wrestling series in the mid–1980s has an element that’s a show-within-a-show, where episodes of the show-within-a-show GLOW are produced to “air” on LA cable TV. There’s also the fact that GLOW is based on the real-life Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling program that really did air all over the country in syndication in the mid to late 1980s.

So when writing about GLOW I’ve had to remember to differentiate the Netflix GLOW from the show-within-a-show GLOW while also keeping in mind that the modern GLOW was based on the 1980s Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.

Things got even harder in this latest second season of GLOW on Netflix, which was brilliant by the way, when one of the episodes was presented as a “real-life” episode of the show-within-a-show GLOW that “aired” with commercials and everything. While that episode entitled “The Good Twin” may have been my favorite single episode of anything that’s aired in 2018 so far, it certainly was the funnest, it would be easier to describe the plot of The Matrix to someone who knows nothing about the movie rather than describe “The Good Twin” and keep everything straight.

The cast of GLOW

On one level “The Good Twin” is based on real episodes of the show Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.

THEN “The Good Twin” is also an episode of a Netflix show starring all sorts of great actors like Alison Bree, Kate Nash and Betty Gilpin.

BUT THEN these actors are playing characters in GLOW from Ruth Wilder, Rhonda Richardson and Debbie Eagan.

BUT THEN EVEN DEEPER these characters on GLOW are also playing characters in the show-with-a-show GLOW from “Zoya the Destroya,” “Britannica” and “Liberty Bell.”

BUT THEN NOT TO GET CRAZY the show-with-a-show that “airs” on LA cable TV in 1986 is also called GLOW just like the Netflix show.

BUT THEN TO BRING IT ALL BACK AROUND the characters of GLOW are also kind’a sort’a based on the real-life characters from Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling including “Colonel Ninotchka,” “Godiva” and “Americana.”

Except these “real life” Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling characters are no more real than the ones from the Netflix GLOW since in the end they’re all fiction.

AAAAGGH! Someone get Philip K. Dick on the line, I’m gonna need help rebuilding my psyche trying to keep this all straight!

Anyways, the second season of the Netflix GLOW was wonderful and is a lot easier to watch that it is to write about.

Movies

Venom trailer

The Reading & Watch List

Cool Movie & TV Posters of the Week