Taylor Sheridan has had a good couple of years. Not only was he the writer of the Oscar nominated Hell or High Water film a few years back, he is also the creator of the Sicario film of which a sequel is due in theaters in a few weeks. And now comes Sheridan’s latest co-creation the TV series Yellowstone on the Paramount Network.
The cast of Yellowstone
Starring Kevin Costner in his first role in a TV series, Yellowstone is about the Dutton family living in Montana of which John (Coster) is the head of. The Dutton’s own the largest ranch in the US and that’s where the problem lies. It’s so big everything around it is closing in from Indian casinos to housing developments. And while Dutton might have the land to spare he doesn’t want to part with any of it making this powerful man a target for powerful enemies.
On his side are two of his kids Jamie (Wes Bentley) a lawyer, Lee (Dave Annable) head of the ranch and Beth (Kelly Reilly) a business executive. But youngest son Kayce (Luke Grimes) is estranged from his father from something that happened in the past.
Yellowstone isn’t bad but I didn’t think it was that great either. I wasn’t quite sure who to root for? Is it the Dutton family who are trying to stop progress, even as dad flies around his ranch in a helicopter and live in a nice house, or is it the people trying to build subdivisions and expand communities that cut into the wilderness. On the one hand I can see Dutton’s point that with every winner there must be a loser, and it’s usually those who aren’t too well off who lose. But on the other hand it’s tough to take that kind’a advice from a guy who’s the biggest winner in Montana.
If you dig shows like the classic Dallas but always thought there should be more modern-day cowboys in that series then you’ll probably also love Yellowstone.
In Search Of TV spot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXylT6_BMLI
Movies
Mission Impossible home media art
I noticed that the artwork being used for the digital download and Blu-ray versions of the Mission Impossible movies had been updated recently. Before, those covers used things like the movie posters for the previous films while the new ones feature a unified look that ties the movies together.
I’ve noticed other franchise movies like those from Marvel do this too. I suppose when the movie studios are trying to sell the franchise as a whole and not necessarily each individual film a unified marketing approach makes sense.
A new line of Robotech 3.75” ReAction figures are due out sometime this fall from Super7. Figures include four veritech fighters including Rick Hunter and Roy Fokker’s jets, the SDF–1 and a Zentraedi Battle Pod. The figures will retail for around $15 each.
If you are reading this, the reason why is because of the summer of 1998. Back then I was a punk college kid who finally had a job that would allow me to go to the movie theater on a regular basis. And getting this job coincided with the 1998 summer movie season.
I’ve been interested in movies all my life, but until 1998 going to them was a luxury. I’d go to the movies a few times a year before then, but that always felt like a special occasion and I didn’t always get to see what I would have chosen to. In the 1990s as the movie landscape began to shift I started to pay more and more attention to what was all coming out and began buying magazines like Cinescape and watching Entertainment Tonight in order to be able to see what movies were coming out. Back then, I only had a part time job and as a college student couldn’t really go see a lot of movies in the theater.
And because I was interested in movies, and interested in all things creative, I started this website that year specifically to do things like cover all the upcoming movies I was interested in.
There were a few early websites that were already doing this like Dark Horizons and Ain’t it Cool News that were very influential to me. Those sites were mostly about breaking news scoops for upcoming movies. Around that same time there were also proto-blogs that were becoming popular too. Myself, I was more interested in writing about things I’d already seen rather than just about upcoming movie news. So what Dangerous Universe would become was somewhere in between a movie news site and a blog. But rather than talking about my life as people do in blogs I’d talked about movies I’d seen, and as TV became more influential that too.
Over the decades I’ve quit Dangerous Universe many times and the site would sit fallow for long periods, and there were many other years that I’d only post things to the site once or twice a month, if that. But for whatever reason, be it my love of movies and TV shows or simply because I need a creative outlet to express my views or I’d go crazy, Dangerous Universe has endured. The last few years I’ve probably posted more to Dangerous Universe than I have in the last 10 years, and that’s saying a lot. Even 20 years later I still enjoy it.
And I’m not sure it would be here if the summer of 1998 had a bunch of movies that sucked rather than ones that rocked.
One of the last of the 2017–2018 TV series to premier is Cloak & Dagger based on the Marvel comic of the same name on Freeform.
Olivia Holt & Aubrey Joseph
I could be wrong but I think that the comic book Cloak and Dagger was one of the books where there was a lot of talk about turning it into a movie in the 1980s and 1990s. And I can see why, the story centers around two teens and at that time teen oriented movies and TV series were very popular. So Cloak and Dagger on the big screen was a no-brainer. But for whatever reason that also kept other comics making their way to the big screen like X-Men and Spider-Man kept Cloak and Dagger off the big screen too.
Honestly, I come at this series without a lot of knowledge of the source material. I know that the essence of the Cloak and Dagger story is that there’s one character who’s a girl “Dagger” who can create powerful daggers of light while guy “Cloak” can absorb the bad guys into a darkness that surrounds him. And that’s about it. I never collected a Cloak and Dagger comic nor did the characters ever pop up in comics I did collect. So it’s interesting to come at something comic book related that I’m not already familiar with.
This TV Cloak & Dagger — yes, it uses an ampersand while the comic went with an “and” — stars Olivia Holt (Kickin’ It) as Tandy Bowen aka “Dagger” and Aubrey Joseph (The Night Of) as Tyrone Johnson aka “Cloak.”
Olivia Holt
The TV version takes place in modern day New Orleans where, as young children, Tandy and Tyrone meet after an oil rig explodes causing an accident that sends the car Tandy’s riding in crashing into a bay while Tyrone’s brother is shot by police, falls into the same water with Tyrone diving in after him. This explosion causes a big “something” that somehow gives both Tandy and Tyrone their powers.
Honestly this whole sequence had my “coincidence meter” pegged at “unbelievable” since all the different things that had to happen to put both Tandy and Tyrone in the same place was a little much. But thankfully the rest of the episode doesn’t rely on coincidence to this extent.
The rest of the first episode takes place in modern day where Tandy has become a grifter, using her good looks to get into people’s houses and steal from them. Tyrone is a high school student and basketball player so when the two meet at a party and Tandy steals Tyrone’s wallet and he gives chase and grabs her their powers suddenly manifest. Later on Tandy stabs a would-be rapist while Tyrone uses his power to travel around and hunt the cop who got away with killing his brother.
I thought Cloak & Dagger was interesting, if it seemed to be directed towards teens and twenty-somethings. Which is fine. I was just surprised that the episode contained sex, an attempted rape, drug use and alcohol use on Freeform, which used to be the old ABC Family and still airs The 700 Club from when the channel used to be The Family Channel.
Condor
Based on the 1975 movie Three Days of the Condor which was based on the 1974 novel Six Days of the Condor — guess they didn’t have the budget to do all six days in the film or any days apparently in the TV series, the new ATT/DIRECTV series simply titled Condor premiered last week on Audience. Starring Max Irons as Joe Turner, Robert Redford in the film, this new version updates the story a bit. The film had CIA analyst Turner go on the run when everyone at the office he works with is murdered after they uncovered something of import — Turner’s not sure what, only that it was worth killing everyone in the office to keep it a secret.
Max Irons
In this new version, Turner’s employers are more a silicon valley tech group working in DC for the CIA when an algorithm he created is used to uncover a terrorist about to release a deadly bio-toxin in the US. But when the group begins looking at who funded the creation of this weapon Turner gets too close to the truth so someone sends in two assassins to kill everyone there. Turner only escapes because he was out on a fire escape sharing a smoke with a co-worker who was killed when she turned left instead of right so Turner’s forced to go on the run alone.
I thought Condor was good if it had a bit too many plot-holes for my taste. The smoking section on the fire escape of a building so protected it has layers of security in order to get in with armed guards has got to be the biggest. But there’s also one of the assassins sleeping with Turner the night before the hit that strains credulity since who wants to leave DNA evidence at the guy’s apartment you’re going to try and kill?
Still, the whole “who can you trust” angle of the Condor story is interesting, so I’ll probably end up sticking around to see where this one goes. Even if the movie version of this told the same story in much less time than the ten episode TV series is set to.
Recently, there’s been a spate of TV series to feature the super-rich. Be it ones that take place in modern day like Dynasty or in the recent past like Trust or even in the new HBO show Succession, apparently Hollywood thinks that the rest of the 99% of the people out there are dying to see just how the 1% live. Which I’m happy to report that my favorite series to focus on a 1% family, or at least they used to be a 1% family, Arrested Development has returned for a fifth season on Netflix.
David Cross and Jason Bateman
So far, Arrested Development has survived two administrations, one economic crash and two networks and is still going strong.
The path of Arrested Development is an interesting one. Always on the verge of being cancelled by FOX where it originally ran for three seasons from 2003–2006, the series was eventually axed but was brought back by Netflix in 2013 for a fourth season, with the fifth having premiered last week.
The Bluth family, the focus of Arrested Development, are the stereotypical rich family who think only of themselves. There’s not a good one in the bunch. Even elder son Michael (Jason Batemen) who seemed like the normal one in the early seasons of the show turned out to be just as selfish as the rest of the family in later ones. He wants to be the guy who does the hard work and comes in and saves things when past accounting practices and some “light treason” by father George (Jeffrey Tambor) threaten the family business. But he’s always looking out for himself. Michael wants to be the “good guy” but also wants everyone to know just how great he is.
Portia de Rossi
Ironically, what started out as an over-the-top take on a rich family back in 2003 quickly became not so over-the-top as the unbelievable things that happened in Arrested Development became reality. The most famous of which was of George and wife Lucille (Jessica Walter) sinking a fortune into land in order to build a wall between the US and Mexico. Which became a part of the 2016 election and is still something in the news today.
The selfishness continues in the fifth season of the series with Michael trying to dodge his neighbor for the $700,000 he owes her, son George Michael (Michael Cera) visiting Mexico for a cultural experience but finding it basically exactly like California, cousin Maeby (Alia Shwkat) taking after her grandmother when it comes to alcohol consumption and Maeby’s mom Lundsay (Portia de Rossi) running for office since she, “…wants to be part of the problem.”
I love Arrested Development and really like this latest Netflix season. I just wish we would have heeded the warnings present from the first episode of the show. 😉
The first season of the AMC series The Terror wrapped up Monday night, and it too like Barry was another series I greatly enjoyed. Though The Terror did start off slowly and takes a while to “get going,” none-the-less it’s the best limited-series in recent memory.
Jared Harris as Captain Francis Crozier
Based on a true story, here the ships HMS Erebus and Terror are trying to find the fabled Northwest Passage but become stuck in the ice and have to spend a winter in the Arctic waiting for the thaw in the mid–19th century. But one winter becomes two and as a third looms ahead Captain Francis Crozier (Jared Harris) must decide whether to spend another year on the ice as their supplies dwindle or set off on foot heading south hoping they can find open water and a friendly ship to take them home. But that’s not Crozier’s only problem as it quickly becomes apparent that the food they’re eating was made in a way that it’s slowly poisoning the crew and, even worse, there’s a weird thing that kind’a sort’a looks like a polar bear but is seemingly indestructible who has a taste for human flesh and is working it’s way through the crew a few men at a time.
No one’s quite sure what really happened to the men of the real Terror and Erebus, other than they never made it back home and were presumed either killed by the harsh Arctic elements or when they ran out of supplies, so the addition of this pseudo-supernatural element, it might be a supernatural bear or just a weird mutant one, is inspired. It’s also entirely possible that in The Terror what they men were witnessing wasn’t a super-bear, but a regular one, or even a few bears, but since they were being unknowingly poisoned by their food, maybe they didn’t have their best faculties about them to be aware either way?
Can we trust what the men of the Erebus and Terror are seeing since they can’t totally rely on their senses, or is there really something supernatural going on here?
Ciarán Hinds
The sense of approaching doom in The Terror is palpable as the last third of the season is of Crozier and the remaining men walking south away from their ships and the only safety they’ve ever known in hopes of stumbling across rescue. And even when they do reach an island on their journey it’s not a paradise. Instead, it’s a dead place, covered in rocks and completely devoid of anything the men can eat. Which quickly becomes an issue as the group splinters with one thinking the unthinkable towards the weaker crew members in order to stay alive even a few more days.
There’s really no escape from the Arctic for the men. They can either head further south into the unknown but are in no condition to get very far, or they can stay on their island and stave off death a few weeks until winter comes and does them in. Sometimes in these expeditions into the unknown no one in them comes home, and this expedition to find the Northwest Passage is one of them.
The last episode of The Terror ends up in a place I wasn’t expecting. Not to spoil things, but just because in the history books the fate of the crew of the Erebus and Terror may have played out one way doesn’t mean it plays out the same way in The Terror. Now this doesn’t quite pull an Inglourious Basterds here, but it does go to a place I hadn’t thought of.
I was greatly impressed with how The Terror ended up but have one question — if this is the “first season” of the show as AMC puts it where will a second go from here? Maybe The Terror will become an anthology series for AMC like American Horror Story has become for FX since the story of Captain Crozier and his crew at the end of the first season of The Terror is certainly complete.
The Expanse
A little more than a week after it was cancelled, the TV series The Expanse was “uncancelled” by Amazon and the fourth season of the series will officially premier there sometime in, I’m assuming, 2019.
In the late 1980s one of the most critically acclaimed comic books was Marvel’s The ‘Nam which realistically told the life of soldier Ed Marks during his tour of duty in Vietnam. The comic was very successful long while but as the years went on it became less so, so Marvel decided to try and boost sales by including a story that featured one of their most popular characters of that time who had just so happened to have served in Vietnam as a Marine, Frank Castle aka Punisher. Which was a bit odd since up until then The ‘Nam took place outside the Marvel comics universe where superheroes didn’t exist. So with the introduction of Punisher meant that in reality Ed Marks was living in the same universe as Spider-Man and Captain America.
Regardless, this new Punisher Invades the ’Nam edition collects all of Punishers appearances in The ‘Nam, some ‘Nam stories from other Punisher titles and, I believe, an issue of The ‘Nam that was set to be published but never was because of the title’s cancellation.
Years before he brought his personal war to the mean streets of the Marvel Universe, Marine Sgt. Frank Castle fought in Vietnam — and the man he would become took shape in those killing fields. Revisit the horrors of the ’Nam along with Frank as he battles side-by-side with comrade-in-arms Mike “Ice” Phillips and faces down a deadly jungle sniper, and fights alone in his final tour of duty to rescue a crew of downed airmen from a sadistic vivisectionist. Plus: Years later, “Ice” comes to the aid of his fellow veteran — but can the two of them take down the paramilitary group the Sons of Liberty and a Central American drug kingpin?
